My first ever map! Sorry for the overly long entry, but I'm not great at writing concisely
. I give credit to RvBOMally, as his style heavily influences my own. Warning: Not very realistic, and minor butterfly deaths, as I'm playing it fast and loose with the storytelling
The Eagle and the Sun
When Woodrow Wilson pledged that the United States would remain neutral in the Great War, he did so hoping that he could spare America from the horrors of “The War to End All Wars”. While he succeeded in sparing the lives of thousands of Americans, little did he know that American neutrality would perhaps be responsible for costing countless more across the world in the bloodiest war in world history, decades later…
By 1918, it was unsure whether the Entente or the Central Powers would emerge victorious. Morale was at an all-time low for both sides, troops grew restless as they lost faith in their governments to end the war, and both sides were edging towards bankruptcy. In the end, it was the Central Powers who lost first. With Austria-Hungary tearing itself apart in civil war, and Germany starving due to British blockade, Germany had no other choice but to agree to the Entente’s peace terms. Even after the official end of the war in 1920, fighting still raged on both sides, as many returning soldiers who were given little financial compensation revolted across France, Britain, and Germany in communist revolutions. While these revolutions were put down quickly, the subsequent crackdowns against communism led to the decaying of democracy in Western Europe.
Out of anyone involved, it was perhaps Russia who won the First World War. While Russia was defeated decisively by Germany in 1918, the red wave across Europe led to the rise of the Soviet Union. As Germany’s short-lived Eastern European empire fell into chaos, the Soviets filled the void left behind. By 1922, the Soviet Union controlled Russia, the Baltics, Poland, Galicia, and Finland. Communism later expanded as Ireland successfully revolted against Britain and became a socialist state, and a coup against the Spanish king led to Communists taking power.
When the dust settled, it was clear that the status quo was unsustainable. Britain was in the midst of depression, India grew restless and was demanding independence, and communist Ireland existed only miles away from Great Britain. The French and German economies were even worse off, and violence was common on both sides of the political spectrum.
Meanwhile, a new ideology that promised long-desired stability was beginning to emerge: fascism. In 1922, Italy was the first country to become dominated by fascists under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Not long after that, Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists ascended in Britain, followed by Adolf Hitler under a variant of fascism, National Socialism. Finally, reactionaries in France under Action Française took control. While none of these nations were especially fond of each other, they all shared the same goals: to crush communism, and maintain the existence of their empires, or, in the case of Germany and Italy, gain new ones. In order to realize these goals, they created the European Union, an alliance of fascist and national socialist nations.
Across the Atlantic, the United States watched the rise of fascism with concern. Unlike Europe, America was better able to weather the postwar depression, and under a rather left-leaning Democratic Party, recovered by the 1930s. Alarmed at the jingoism arising in Europe (much of it aimed at the United States due to their neutrality in the Great War), the United States created the Monroe Pact, an alliance of North American states opposed to European influence and fascism. The United States also sent out feelers to sympathetic states, and found friends in the USSR, and later the Japanese Empire, which had grown anti-European after feeling cheated in the Great War. Additionally, as Britain’s grip on India tightened, Japan gained an ally in Subhas Chandra Bose in the Free India movement.
The Second World War began in 1941, as the German Reich and the British Empire launched an invasion of Soviet Poland, and France declared war against the Spanish Worker’s Republic. Spain quickly folded, and was annexed by France, but the Soviet Union was a much tougher challenge, being economically aided by the United States and Japan. Still, after fighting for three grueling years against combined Anglo-German forces, and the assassination of Soviet Premier Nikolai Bukharin, the Soviet Union sued for peace, and was forced beyond the Urals, humiliated.
It has now been two years since the Treaty of Omsk, and the second stage of World War 2 is underway. The European Union, seeking to prevent the Japanese from dominating Asia, threw their weight behind the Republic of China, who declared war against Japan hoping to reconquer Taiwan and Manchukuo. The United States, fully aware that they could not stand aside any longer, quickly declared war against the European Union after an American ship was accidentally torpedoed in the Atlantic. As the Atlantic was thoroughly infested with Union ships, the Americans have employed an “Asia First” strategy, hoping to relieve the Japanese and close the easier of the two fronts, rather than try both at the same time. Additionally, they hope that by liberating India alongside Bose, they can trigger a chain reaction that would result in the collapse of the Union’s colonial empires.
However, by 1946, the Atlantic front is clear for American invasion, and preparations are underway. Knowing they’ll face heavy resistance, the Americans have been producing chemical weapons en masse, fearing the worst. But the Union has a trick up their own sleeve: In the Libyan desert, a joint-Anglo-German team of scientists has detonated the world’s first atomic bomb. World War 2 is far from an end…