alternatehistory.com
The Southwest Frontier and the Italian Nightmare
Russia had always been hyper-sensitive to the idea of their southern frontier being destabilized. This had been the reasoning behind the 'Great Game'; the idea had only seem to be further born out by the chaotic years of the 1920s and 1930s, when the Emirate of Turkmenistan had sponsored insurgent activity across Central Asia. Turkmen "advisors" had fought alongside the Afghan government during their ill-fated 1936 invasion of the Dominion of India, for instance. Even after the Wars of Pacification, which had seen the Emirate's forces scattered to the four winds and Central Asia fully subdued, insurgent activity continued from over the border in Afghanistan, where the Emir had taken refuge. For years the situation remained at a low simmer.
Then came the Chardzhuy raid.
With India being in the German camp after the Third Weltkreig(a Russian invasion of Baluchistan had only gained some miles of desert before bogging down within sight of Quetta and Karachi, where the frontline had remained for the rest of the war) the decision had been made in the summer of 1952 to move some additional strike assets into central Asia. These, as it turned out, included a wing of the new Tu-16 jet strategic bombers....and three nuclear weapons.
Its unclear if the sixty or seventy Afghan raiders who slipped over the border and headed for the Chardzhuy air force base knew what was being held there; even if they had nuclear technology at the time was still in its infancy, and the Afghan government had no way to really deploy such a weapon. The troops on guard duty were largely Persian auxiliary troops, whose guard had been ket down after several months without any sign of trouble. The commanding officer had grown lax in sending out patrols and the troops were complacent. The first sign they got of the impending danger was when, in the words of one of the survivors, "half the damn population of Afghanistan came roaring down from the hills, whooping and firing leftover British Autocarbines at anything that moved".
The Persians, to their credit, didn't panic even as their comrades began falling all around them. The Russian ground crews hastily armed themselves and joined the fight as Afghan raiders made it over the base's outer fence and into the compound proper. What followed was a hectic twenty five minutes of hand-to hand combat before the surviving Afghans broke contact and withdrew back into the desert.
When Savinkov heard that the Chardzhuy base had been attacked, he reportedly "went through the roof and quite possibly into his own personal orbit". He demanded that the Afghans seal the border, or the Russian Army would do it for them. The Afghans' response was a mixture of an attempt to placate the bear and an effort to do absolutely nothing; the government in Kabul was still heavily influenced by the former Emir of Turkmenistan, and conflict with the Russians had solidified their support amongst the more hardline factions of the Afghan populace, many of whom had fled over the border as the Russians had conquered Central Asia. In Moscow, the orders were drafted up to prepare to launch Operation ALEXANDER......
The Kingdom of Two Sicilies had not been a particularly stable place even before the Black Monday Crash of 1936. The largely agrarian country had serious issues with a syndicalist insurgency sponsored by the northern Social Republic of Italy, one which had been fed into by the fact that much of the population still lived at the mercy of large landlords who were notorious for abusing those they considered "beneath them" socially. The government's inability to properly respond to the Black Monday crisis and a struggling attempt at industrializing and urbanizing had led to the country teetering on the edge, and in the summer of 1937 the syndicalists made their move.
Arming and equipped by bases in the Roman Marches, long a home for bandits and insurgents, a column of agiators slipped over the border into the Kingdom and began, well, agitating. They found a receptive audience and soon massive protests began to rock the kingdom. A march on Naples was planned; the army, unwilling to fire on their own people for an increasingly unpopular government, seemed helpless; it seemed the Red Tide would sweep over the south of Italy after all.
Then came the Martius Bridge.
The Bridge dated back to Roman times; it was a sturdily constructed route over a small river on the outskirts of Palermo. The marchers approached it at evening one August day, full of pride and conviction in their cause. The only thing in their way seemed to be a handful of men in odd black uniforms standing on the bridge, seemingly totally unconcerned about the approaching crowd. A what seemed to be their officer stepped forward a lull fell over the crowd. They'd encountered paramilitary officers like this before; usually after giving a speech about how vile and treacherous the rally was they more or less turned tail and let the crowd on through. The officer adjusted his spectacles, fiddling with them as he gazed at the crowd. He raised his arm high in the air, and then, suddenly.....swung it down.
"FIRE!"
And the three machine guns, which several days ago had "disappeared" from a Sicilian Army warehouse in Naples and had been carefully concealed in the woods, began their work.
Members of the Legione del Risveglio stand at attention, Palermo, October 1937
This was the first of the "Red Summer Massacres"; but it would not be the last. Across southern Italy similar incidents took place, as the protests were brutally crushed. Firefights erupted as members of the crowds shot back at several locations, but this merely gave the "Legion" an excuse to crack down even harder, declaring the protestors to all be syndicalist terrorists. Under Legion "encouragement" the government of the Two Sicilies became increasingly intertwined with their own leadership, personified by Baron Julius Evola.
The stage was set for Italy's nightmare to begin.
Then came the Chardzhuy raid.
With India being in the German camp after the Third Weltkreig(a Russian invasion of Baluchistan had only gained some miles of desert before bogging down within sight of Quetta and Karachi, where the frontline had remained for the rest of the war) the decision had been made in the summer of 1952 to move some additional strike assets into central Asia. These, as it turned out, included a wing of the new Tu-16 jet strategic bombers....and three nuclear weapons.
Its unclear if the sixty or seventy Afghan raiders who slipped over the border and headed for the Chardzhuy air force base knew what was being held there; even if they had nuclear technology at the time was still in its infancy, and the Afghan government had no way to really deploy such a weapon. The troops on guard duty were largely Persian auxiliary troops, whose guard had been ket down after several months without any sign of trouble. The commanding officer had grown lax in sending out patrols and the troops were complacent. The first sign they got of the impending danger was when, in the words of one of the survivors, "half the damn population of Afghanistan came roaring down from the hills, whooping and firing leftover British Autocarbines at anything that moved".
The Persians, to their credit, didn't panic even as their comrades began falling all around them. The Russian ground crews hastily armed themselves and joined the fight as Afghan raiders made it over the base's outer fence and into the compound proper. What followed was a hectic twenty five minutes of hand-to hand combat before the surviving Afghans broke contact and withdrew back into the desert.
When Savinkov heard that the Chardzhuy base had been attacked, he reportedly "went through the roof and quite possibly into his own personal orbit". He demanded that the Afghans seal the border, or the Russian Army would do it for them. The Afghans' response was a mixture of an attempt to placate the bear and an effort to do absolutely nothing; the government in Kabul was still heavily influenced by the former Emir of Turkmenistan, and conflict with the Russians had solidified their support amongst the more hardline factions of the Afghan populace, many of whom had fled over the border as the Russians had conquered Central Asia. In Moscow, the orders were drafted up to prepare to launch Operation ALEXANDER......
The Kingdom of Two Sicilies had not been a particularly stable place even before the Black Monday Crash of 1936. The largely agrarian country had serious issues with a syndicalist insurgency sponsored by the northern Social Republic of Italy, one which had been fed into by the fact that much of the population still lived at the mercy of large landlords who were notorious for abusing those they considered "beneath them" socially. The government's inability to properly respond to the Black Monday crisis and a struggling attempt at industrializing and urbanizing had led to the country teetering on the edge, and in the summer of 1937 the syndicalists made their move.
Arming and equipped by bases in the Roman Marches, long a home for bandits and insurgents, a column of agiators slipped over the border into the Kingdom and began, well, agitating. They found a receptive audience and soon massive protests began to rock the kingdom. A march on Naples was planned; the army, unwilling to fire on their own people for an increasingly unpopular government, seemed helpless; it seemed the Red Tide would sweep over the south of Italy after all.
Then came the Martius Bridge.
The Bridge dated back to Roman times; it was a sturdily constructed route over a small river on the outskirts of Palermo. The marchers approached it at evening one August day, full of pride and conviction in their cause. The only thing in their way seemed to be a handful of men in odd black uniforms standing on the bridge, seemingly totally unconcerned about the approaching crowd. A what seemed to be their officer stepped forward a lull fell over the crowd. They'd encountered paramilitary officers like this before; usually after giving a speech about how vile and treacherous the rally was they more or less turned tail and let the crowd on through. The officer adjusted his spectacles, fiddling with them as he gazed at the crowd. He raised his arm high in the air, and then, suddenly.....swung it down.
"FIRE!"
And the three machine guns, which several days ago had "disappeared" from a Sicilian Army warehouse in Naples and had been carefully concealed in the woods, began their work.
Members of the Legione del Risveglio stand at attention, Palermo, October 1937
This was the first of the "Red Summer Massacres"; but it would not be the last. Across southern Italy similar incidents took place, as the protests were brutally crushed. Firefights erupted as members of the crowds shot back at several locations, but this merely gave the "Legion" an excuse to crack down even harder, declaring the protestors to all be syndicalist terrorists. Under Legion "encouragement" the government of the Two Sicilies became increasingly intertwined with their own leadership, personified by Baron Julius Evola.
The stage was set for Italy's nightmare to begin.
- Tiburon
- Word Count: 1k