alternatehistory.com
Fair Australasia
An Australasian "Reaper" heavy fighter prowls the skies over Canberra, 1940. The Australasian government had always been unsteady, despite a great deal of success in helping the nation recover from Black Monday and repairing the damage done during the First Weltkrieg, and in 1939 General Thomas Blamey and Eric Campbell lead a march on Canberra to try and secure power. Blamey and Campbell's movement was composed of many veterans of the First Weltkrieg--including many who had fought at Gallipoli--and the police and military police units which had been deployed to try and stop the march balked at the orders to use force to stop men who had been heroes to many in Australasia. The Guard swept to power as a result, and promptly set about creating a secret police force--the Imperial Australasian Security Bureau---to crack down on "syndicalist activism and subversion". The Guard would send a substantial number of forces to the European theater of the Second Weltkrieg, as well as masterminding the rise of the Hong Kong Business Club to control over the Legation Cities.
Australasia was outraged when the Third Weltkrieg broke out. It had taken a great deal of coaxing to get any level of conscription passed even to fight to reclaim the Home Islands, and people had been ecstatic when the Second Weltkrieg ended, feeling that it would certainly allow them a return to normalcy. The news that they would have to fight another global war so soon after fighting the last one caused riots in many of the major Australasian cities, which the Guard suppressed with incredible brutality. For several years Australasian troops duked it out with the troops of German East Asia in the jungles, capturing a number of islands and even landing troops on Borneo, which was a brutal, bloody slog. Losses mounted quickly and morale was, quite frankly, in the toilet.
Then came the summer of 1945. Reichspakt forces had retaken all of the France and had even managed to subdue the North African territories which had stood against the Communards for so long. The Russians had formally entered the war against the Entente, rumbling over the border from North Norway into Entente aligned South Norway and pushing through the endless Baluchi deserts into the Dominion of India. Canada was threatened by the looming armies of the American totalist behemoth. The war, simply put, looked unwinnable, and the Australasian Guard's endless efforts at calling up more and more men for the war effort was increasingly wearing thin on people's nerves.
Even today, no one really knows if the protests had been planned or not. We do know that there was a bar fight in the city of Adelaide--a stronghold of anti-Guard sentiment--between local residents and a group of off duty IASB goons. The fight rapidly spiraled out of control and into the street, where local dockworkers and Australasian Guard hired thugs arrived and waded into the fray. The local Home Defense Militia troops arrived on the scene but struggled to try and contain the rapidly escalating situation--without any luck. Then things got serious as a platoon of heavily armed IASB troops arrived at the scene. Ordering the locals to disperse "or else" the major in charge of the IASB troops handled the situation rather poorly, something which was made abundantly clear when a local tossed a flowerpot, which shattered at his feet. Startled, way out of his depth---a surviving IASB trooper would admit at his trial that the man had only arrived at their unit three days earlier and was blatantly obviously the product of nepotism, as he had shown no real leadership ability from his arrival onwards--and panicked, the major ordered his troops to open fire on the locals. As rifle shots and bursts of automatic fire from Owen Guns ripped through the night air, the local Home Defense Militia troops went from surprised to shocked to enraged all in a matter of seconds. The IASB troops hadn't bothered to worry about hitting the militiamen, and many of them had had to dive to the ground to try to avoid being hit. Then they started shooting back at the IASB troops, and things began to hit the fan.
View attachment 518370
Two Australasian soldiers stand guard with Owen Guns, Borneo, 1944. The Owen Gun was introduced in early 1939 to give the Australasian Army some additional firepower and soon became beloved by the ANZACs, who used it from Italy to New Guinea fighting a wide variety of enemies. It would also be used extensively at home....
An Australasian "Reaper" heavy fighter prowls the skies over Canberra, 1940. The Australasian government had always been unsteady, despite a great deal of success in helping the nation recover from Black Monday and repairing the damage done during the First Weltkrieg, and in 1939 General Thomas Blamey and Eric Campbell lead a march on Canberra to try and secure power. Blamey and Campbell's movement was composed of many veterans of the First Weltkrieg--including many who had fought at Gallipoli--and the police and military police units which had been deployed to try and stop the march balked at the orders to use force to stop men who had been heroes to many in Australasia. The Guard swept to power as a result, and promptly set about creating a secret police force--the Imperial Australasian Security Bureau---to crack down on "syndicalist activism and subversion". The Guard would send a substantial number of forces to the European theater of the Second Weltkrieg, as well as masterminding the rise of the Hong Kong Business Club to control over the Legation Cities.
Australasia was outraged when the Third Weltkrieg broke out. It had taken a great deal of coaxing to get any level of conscription passed even to fight to reclaim the Home Islands, and people had been ecstatic when the Second Weltkrieg ended, feeling that it would certainly allow them a return to normalcy. The news that they would have to fight another global war so soon after fighting the last one caused riots in many of the major Australasian cities, which the Guard suppressed with incredible brutality. For several years Australasian troops duked it out with the troops of German East Asia in the jungles, capturing a number of islands and even landing troops on Borneo, which was a brutal, bloody slog. Losses mounted quickly and morale was, quite frankly, in the toilet.
Then came the summer of 1945. Reichspakt forces had retaken all of the France and had even managed to subdue the North African territories which had stood against the Communards for so long. The Russians had formally entered the war against the Entente, rumbling over the border from North Norway into Entente aligned South Norway and pushing through the endless Baluchi deserts into the Dominion of India. Canada was threatened by the looming armies of the American totalist behemoth. The war, simply put, looked unwinnable, and the Australasian Guard's endless efforts at calling up more and more men for the war effort was increasingly wearing thin on people's nerves.
Even today, no one really knows if the protests had been planned or not. We do know that there was a bar fight in the city of Adelaide--a stronghold of anti-Guard sentiment--between local residents and a group of off duty IASB goons. The fight rapidly spiraled out of control and into the street, where local dockworkers and Australasian Guard hired thugs arrived and waded into the fray. The local Home Defense Militia troops arrived on the scene but struggled to try and contain the rapidly escalating situation--without any luck. Then things got serious as a platoon of heavily armed IASB troops arrived at the scene. Ordering the locals to disperse "or else" the major in charge of the IASB troops handled the situation rather poorly, something which was made abundantly clear when a local tossed a flowerpot, which shattered at his feet. Startled, way out of his depth---a surviving IASB trooper would admit at his trial that the man had only arrived at their unit three days earlier and was blatantly obviously the product of nepotism, as he had shown no real leadership ability from his arrival onwards--and panicked, the major ordered his troops to open fire on the locals. As rifle shots and bursts of automatic fire from Owen Guns ripped through the night air, the local Home Defense Militia troops went from surprised to shocked to enraged all in a matter of seconds. The IASB troops hadn't bothered to worry about hitting the militiamen, and many of them had had to dive to the ground to try to avoid being hit. Then they started shooting back at the IASB troops, and things began to hit the fan.
View attachment 518370
Two Australasian soldiers stand guard with Owen Guns, Borneo, 1944. The Owen Gun was introduced in early 1939 to give the Australasian Army some additional firepower and soon became beloved by the ANZACs, who used it from Italy to New Guinea fighting a wide variety of enemies. It would also be used extensively at home....
- Tiburon
- Word Count: 760