alternatehistory.com

Happy March 11th!
The fear of a war beginning in Asia and potentially engulfing the entire world was so massive that some unexpected third parties began to attempt to prevent it - for example, Innocent XII, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual figurehead of the Italian Confederation. In March of 1956, when tensions between India and China entered a new high, he invited the leaders of the two Asian superpowers, as well as Germania and France, to Rome in order to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Ayutthaya Crisis. The elected Prime Minister of the Italian Confederation at the time, Amerigo Togliatti - also, interestingly enough, the first commoner to be elected to this position, not a duke or prince or noble from one of the many statelets composing the Confederation - was thinking even further. In his eyes, once the crisis is resolved, it would be a good idea to prevent similar tension by forming a "forum of negotiations" between all the nations of the planet, which could also serve as a platform for cooperation on various international events, be it sporting events or disaster relief. However, these plans did not come into fruition, as even though the Chinese proposed very generous terms - a referendum in Bamar-dominated regions and pulling out Chinese troops from Ayutthaya - they were declined. India not only wanted all of that, but also the removal of the current government of Ayutthaya in exchange for one less likely to threaten Indian interests - so, controlled revolution. Xiao Xuegang and his government could not possibly accept this.

Tensions rose not only through failed diplomacy, but also standoffs between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Indochina. By April of 1956, over one and a half million Indian soldiers, 3000 landships (outfitted for mountainous warfare, which as expected with Yunnan, Guangxi and Burma in the way), a staggering 11 000 aeroplanes and the Indian blue-water fleet stationed in Sanjay were ready for military operations. China could match that, in theory, but it would have necessitated a far higher level of economic mobilization, and as such, the general staff of the Shun military were worried that a war with India could result in a loss of Indochina and end in an attrition heavy standstill in Southern China. Initial estimations, considering the best possible outcome for both sides, put the line at which the Unitarian advance could be stopped somewhere close to Guangdong. What was not known was that India had no plans for such a prolonged war, but that is for later.

While both sides were preparing for war and considering their chances, border clashes were taking place in Indochina. Hoping to incite the Chinese into striking first and thus giving them a chance to declare war, Indian soldiers made constant illegal border crossings, opened fire with empty artillery shells (brushed off as "training") and tried to use Aankhein agents to brew trouble behind the enemy lines.

The public opinion in Lithuania on the eastern crisis was more or less the same as in the rest of the Western world - sure, it's a bad thing that India and China will go to war soon, and it would be a shame if the war reaches here, but at least it's a war somewhere far in Asia rather than here.

The Democrat of Lithuania during the Ayutthaya Crisis was Telesforas Gelažius - a person one might remember as a junior officer of the Lithuanian Army who wrote down and released information about the last few months of Revivalist Lithuania, including Stankevičius's mental breakdown, in his memoirs. Because of the cooperation between Antanas Garšva and the Lithuanian military, all army officers were acquitted of the crimes they could have made during the Russo-Lithuanian War, and thus could continue to serve, but Gelažius decided to distance himself from the military and turned to civilian life, first starting a breadmaking business in Kaunas, then moving to politics, where he eventually ended up as the Democrat. For all intents and purposes, Gelažius was a continuation of the postwar democratic Lithuanian consensus, centered around Garšva's persona, and even though the neurasthenic politician no longer participated in the government directly, he still held a respectable amount of influence over it. Gelažius's primary role in the Ayutthaya Crisis was one - to give assurances to the German government that should war reach the European Defense Commission, Lithuania will not back down and fully commit to the war effort. It was obvious why Germania's Volker Braun would seek such an assurance - although Germania was by far the powerhouse of the Defense Commission, Lithuania was the second strongest military power in the alliance thanks to the fact that unlike the Central European states, it did not have to rebuild its army from scratch.

The rising tensions also saw a resurgence of the Party of Lithuanian Revenge, colloquially called the "Avengers" (Keršytojai) and now led by successful businessman Taunius Storkus. Storkus's political strategy was an abandonment of the movement's neo-Revivalist past in exchange for more run-on-the-mill nationalism and isolationism. With war seeming imminent, the Avengers would become the primary anti-war political force, wishing to see Lithuania abandon the "doomed alliance with Germany" and instead establish normal relations with the Commonwealth.

Tensions in Southeast Asia would reach a breaking point in May of 1956, as, after a long period of more and more intense standoffs and shootouts, the Indian government, blaming Thai and Chinese soldiers for attacking stationed Indian soldiers and even kidnapping some of them for information, presented the Fourteen Demands to the government of Ayutthaya. These included a demilitarization of the border between the Kingdom and Commonwealth territories, a no-questions-asked return of Bamar majority areas to Burma, and the removal of Prime Minister Kit Kongsangchai of Ayutthaya in exchange for a head of government "more amiable to Indian wishes and peace between the two countries". 48 hours were given to present an answer, and a lack of answer would be interpreted as a declination. Although both the King of Ayutthaya and the legislature of the Kingdom toyed with giving in to preserve the peace (Kongsangchai is even said to have prepared a resignation speech), in the end, recognizing that accepting the demands would result in Indian domination (and possibly because the Thais did not imagine India actually going through with a war against EASA), Ayutthaya declined. This was the last straw. On May 15th, 1956, India began an undeclared invasion of Ayutthaya, initiating the conflict now known as the Great Asian War, or the Second Great War in Urdu and Chinese languages.

Within a matter of hours, the prepared and overwhelmingly greater Indian Army began a three-way invasion of Ayutthaya - from Burma, Cochin and the Malay Peninsula, with over 800 thousand personnel counted among the invading forces. Unitarian aircraft dotted the skies, taking air superiority over the region and supporting the rapidly moving ground forces with close air support and tactical bombardment over the enemy cities. To many citizens of Ayutthaya, waking up to bomb sirens and explosions dotting their neighborhood was the first taste of the conflict. Although the kingdom had begun general mobilization a week prior to the war breaking out, the Royal military was not yet ready for such a large scale conflict - in the first few days, much of the fighting was done by Chinese garrisons, even though their country wasn't even at war yet. Much of the airforce was destroyed in hangars, while the small and underfunded navy was ripped to shred by Indian carrier planes. In this period of chaos, it took the Indians two days to advance across Cambodia and the Malay Peninsula to encroach on the outskirts of Ayutthaya, the capital.

This was when the Chinese legislature gathered to discuss these urgent matters. News were reaching the assembly almost every hour - town after town falling to Unitarian hands, the King of Ayutthaya ordering the evacuation of all people from the capital along the Chao Phraya before the city is encircled, and the establishment of a government-in-exile in China. The absolute majority of the legislature, including all major political parties, voted to support the Thai state and declare war on the Commonwealth - and this act was followed by one of the most memorable events in all of the conflict. To strengthen the morale of the Chinese people in face of what might be the largest war in their history, Empress Chunhua made a televised speech in the legislature, now known as the "Darkest Hour" speech, declaring the current war with India as the Empire's greatest test, one which will require the effort and unity of all of its inhabitants, and requesting said effort and unity from the listeners. To set aside their political and cultural differences and fight against the world consuming behemoth which threatens the very existence of the Middle Kingdom. The speech was the most viewed event in television at the time, with millions of Chinese watching it. And the Chinese certainly needed that unity for what happened only a week later.

Within the week after the Chinese declaration of war against India, followed by the rest of EASA, the war slowed down. All of Ayutthaya was occuped by Indian forces, and the Unitarians advanced into Dai Viet and Laos - however, without the same sudden surge which they had before. Sure, the less favorable terrain in those countries played a part, but it was still a bit confusing for the EASA general staff to see the Indians try to achieve exactly what they should fear the most, a prolonged war. Naval action began to take place in the Nusantara archipelago, too - Nusantaran, Lusang and Chinese fleets faced off against their Indian and Oceanic counterparts, with little immediate results. The one field of war where the Indians were definitely superior, however, was the air - the Indian Air Force was over two times larger than their Chinese counterpart and was composed of technologically superior aircraft. Even with the Shun mobilizing their air forces, the Indians maintained superiority not just over Southeast Asia, but also Southern China. It wasn't completely hard to figure it out, but India's war plan began to turn obvious - they were not planning to have a long war at all.

Instead, they relied on a superweapon.

Bomber raids over China began since the very first day of the war - before the war was even declared, Indian Nehru-51 long-range tactical bombers littered bombs on the ports of Guangdong and the ammunition factories in Kunming, causing widespread panic. With Ayutthaya's fall, they only intensified, though so did the Chinese response - hundreds of anti-aircraft guns were ordered to be produced until the end of the year, while more industrial effort was committed to interceptor production. The May 24 raid over the city of Changsha, a major manufacturing center in Hunan, appeared to be a yet another one of these daily aerial raids.

Instead, however, the entire heart of the city was consumed by a massive mushroom-shaped cloud.

In a single flash, the world advanced into a new era.

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Map will be up soon.