Decades of Darkness
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
Just bumping this with the hope of an update.
Coming soon. I've received two Tales posts, but unfortunately [*] due to time commitments, I haven't had a chance to finish reviewing either of them. One of them is almost done, and hopefully I'll have time to finish that one soon and then move on to the second.
* Well, unfortunately for people waiting for the next post. Due to the nature of my current distraction, I wouldn't use the word "unfortunate" for myself.
Ja, there's been two (2) sporadic Tales posts so far. Two more which I've received, and several more which I've been in touch with people about, but which I haven't received yet.
At some point soon, I will declare the Tales completely closed for new entrants, except for the Canadian ones I still have to write. But it hasn't happened yet.
Though I may have to borrow Nikky's crowbar to pry you away from her long enough to review...
Hurry up, I have maps to update...
o)That reminds me- Highlander may have something extra to do once my Tales post is publised...
Tales of the Decades of Darkness #3: Equal and Opposite Reactions
Credit for this post goes to tukk323, who wrote all of it apart from a few editorial additions.
* * *
“One man’s terrorist may be another’s freedom fighter, but a drug baron is always a drug baron, no matter where he is.”
- Michael Blunt, Australian Prime Minister, responding to the US ambassador, 1946
* * *
3 May 1942
Chapman [Tulagi], Solomon Islands Territory
Kingdom of Australia
Chapman: a decrepit, rundown slum of a city that had no business existing in Australia, a nation which prided itself as civilized. Arthur Rolton had his own thoughts about whether Australians could be considered civilized, even by non-American standards, but mostly he hated having to come to a place of teeming deprivation that should have belonged in Bharat or Africa.
Still, however much he hated the place, it suited his needs well. Very well.
As was his habit, Rolton had found out everything he could about Chapman before ever coming near the city. Knowledge could mean the difference between survival and capture, or even death.
The Kingslanders had moved into the Solomons during the middle of the previous century, acquiring them almost in spite of the wishes of the British crown. They had claimed these islands so that they could lure the natives to work on Kingsland sugar plantations in conditions that were only not slavery because they were given a different name.
While the Solomons were nominally part of the British Empire, in practice they had always been governed more locally, first by the Kingslanders and then Australia after the British united the continent. They had chosen Chapman as the centre of their administration, since it was largely free of the tropical diseases which plagued the rest of the islands.
Chapman had slowly grown into the major port of the Solomons. Most of the time, the Kingsland administrators and their Australian successors had governed from this town and been happy to leave the natives of the outlying islands to their own devices.
Eventually, British pressure had quashed the unofficial slave trade, leaving the Kingsland sugar planters to recruit East Indian labourers instead. Official interest in the islands waned, leaving the archipelago to be exploited by any native or white entrepreneurs who had the cojones to make use of them: fishing, coconuts, tropical timbers, palm oil, and more recently gold, copper and nickel. While the Solomons were not particularly wealthy, most of the resources they produced were traded through Chapman.
Chapman had become the preserve of palm planters, mining kings and timber barons, mostly white, some native, whose preferred form of government was benign neglect. Their wealth and influence saw to it that the government officials who were appointed here were not overly concerned with governing the islands, just making sure that laws were not being broken too openly. Most of the immigrants who came to Chapman were men of a similar bent to the planters, men who wanted wealth regardless of how it was acquired. The city earned a reputation as a port whose citizens were happy to conduct business and not ask inconvenient questions.
When the Solomons were made an official Australian territory after the war, not much changed in Chapman. A few more government officials were sent, but their main aims were to train the natives into government officials and police. They were given precious little funding, though, and most of what they received was spent on educating the natives in English, without the resources left over for much else. Which created a class of native administrators and police who had had their ambitions awakened, but were still trapped in poverty with an abundance of relatives clamouring for support. That made them easily bribed into looking the other way. The local planters had established the tradition, and Rolton would be happy to take advantage of it.
All of which made Chapmen perfect for his needs. Conveniently located for shipping, a relaxed approach to law enforcement, and sufficient poverty to allow him to subvert those few laws which were enforced. Personally Rolton thought that the Australians’ biggest mistake had been trying to put natives of lesser races into jobs which they were incapable of performing, all in pursuit of the lie of racial equality, but that was their problem, not his [1].
Of course, despite its unsavoury reputation, Chapman served as an important port for legitimate commerce, too. Rolton had arrived on a Nipponese vessel, the Shima. Several other Nipponese ships were docked here, too. Some used Chapman as a convenient stopping point before sailing on to Eden [Auckland] or Sydney. Some waited here until they could load cargoes of gold, nickel, palm oil or coconuts from within the Solomons.
Rolton had passed so many Nipponese sailors coming and going from their ships that it had seemed like an unofficial invasion; not that he could ever really imagine the Nipponese trying to invade Australia. Chapman was a popular liberty port for the Nipponese, with gambling establishments which were all but illegal at home, and alcohol which was much cheaper than Nippon or even mainland Australia, thanks to bar owners who found it cheaper to bribe local police than pay alcohol taxes.
He knew he cut an imposing figure, better than any of the wealthiest planters or other local ricos [2]. He wore an immaculately-tailored, double-breasted suit – made of light cotton, in this climate – and a broad-brimmed but equally elegant hat to keep the sun from his face. He doubted that anyone would try to interfere with him, even those who did not know his reputation. Though many of the locals openly went armed, few carried anything as large as an auto gun [submachine gun]. Street crime was rare in Chapman during daylight hours anyway; that was one of the few things which would make the native police bestir themselves from their stations. What happened after dark would be another story, but he knew better than to venture into the lawless parts of Chapman during night. Or not unescorted, at least.
Come to that, usually he would not venture out into the streets of Chapman at all, at least not for business. Face to face contact in this town was usually the responsibility of his lieutenants; theirs the risks, his the rewards.
Today, though, he needed to act on his own. Only one man in his organisation could be trusted with the job that Rolton had in mind. He had also made sure he was the only one in his organisation who had contact with the man. This man’s services were expensive, and one of the things which Rolton paid for was discretion.
Chapman made an ideal spot for both of them to meet; it meant less travel time, and freedom to meet without worrying about any eyes watching them. Even if the natives took any notice of them, they knew better than to attract the attention of any of the police.
Rolton’s course took him through one of the poorest slums in town, filled with ramshackle, run-down timber buildings that had started to crack or rot in the tropical heat and rain. He strode past groups of ill-dressed black children playing games with balls or chasing each other around the streets. He ignored them, and they ignored him. A well-dressed man was unusual here, but not unheard of, given what happened here, and in this town a question might be answered with a bullet.
He stopped at a sturdier building, made of concrete that stood out in this neighbourhood, but which otherwise had little to distinguish it. The door was painted metal, though, which conveyed its own meaning. He gave the door one loud knock, then waited.
A blurry-eyed man opened the door. His already troubled eyes went wide when he saw Rolton. “M... m... Mister, I mean... come in please, sir.” At least he had the wit not to say Rolton’s name aloud.
Rolton pushed past without bothering to respond. Only when he stood inside did he look a question at the blurry-eyed man.
“Through that door.”
Rolton walked through, but turned back to face the other man. “Leave a small line in yellow chalk outside the front door. Don’t come back for at least two hours.”
About twenty minutes later, the right man must have seen the chalk, since he entered the building. This man appeared, in almost all respects, the opposite of Rolton. His natural skin colour was perhaps lighter than Rolton’s, but his had turned bronze from unprotected exposure to the tropical sun. Where Rolton wore the finest of suits to announce his wealth, this man wore ragged pants and shirts which would not have looked out of place on any of the natives here. He did not look like one of the blacks, of course, but he did a very convincing imitation of a shiftless white man who had drifted here because he had no prospects elsewhere, and now lived a life little better than the blacks.
“You really do know how to dress like you live here, don’t you,” Rolton said, his face twisting.
The other man ignored that comment. “What do you need?”
“I need a message delivered,” Rolton said.
“Try the Royal Post,” the other man said.
“This one needs a more personal touch. I need to show people what happens if they interfere in my business.” He pulled an old newspaper article from his pocket and passed it across the table. “It needs to be a public lesson. Can you get it done?”
The man glanced at the article for a moment, then said, “Of course, provide that who I use and how it is done is at my discretion.”
“Yes. As long as it’s public and brutal. And you use someone good. This one must not be bungled.”
The other man shrugged.
“Also, I want to be informed of any other actions that may be in progress that threaten my interests.”
“That will take more effort,” the other man said, his voice carefully neutral.
Rolton opened his case and passed a wad of bills across the table. “Perhaps this will help motivate those efforts. The rest will be waiting when the job is done... and when I get some more information.”
The other man picked up the money, nodded, then quietly left.
Rolton lit a cigar – finest Nicaraguan – and finished it in silence, to give the other man time to leave the area. That man was purely professional, very accomplished... but he still made Rolton feel ill at ease whenever they met. No need for any unscheduled meetings.
* * *
17 June 1942
Exeter [Christchurch, New Zealand]
Kingdom of Australia
His eyes wanted to glaze over, but Royal Narcotics Bureau Agent Keith Cook forced himself to stay awake. He had been at the office far too long, he knew, but he did not like to leave things unfinished. Too much work to do and not enough people to do it, as always.
After about another twenty minutes, he finished the latest report. He put it on top of the rest of the stack of documents, clipped them into the file, then locked it into his desk drawer. He switched off the light at his desk, leaving the office nearly dark. The other desks were already empty, the reception long unmanned, but he knew this office well enough to find his way with minimal light.
He had to unlock the door, of course, with the receptionist and everyone else gone. He stepped out into the coolness of the winter air, and locked the door behind him.
As he turned around, he thought he heard a noise. He stood very still, straining his ears, but he heard only a faint whisper of night breeze and the low rumble of a few horsts on London St [Colombo St].
He shook his head. Maybe he was getting paranoid. He turned to start walking toward the horst park, but he caught a glimpse of a dark shape jumping out from the side of the building.
Keith’s reflexes had been honed in a country far deadlier than Australia. He quickly swung his leg through the air to kick his assailant. But it was too late. The attacker ducked past Keith’s leg, swinging an arm that slammed a blade into Keith’s stomach.
Keith kept some strength in his body, still, and he grabbed at the assailant’s neck. He did catch one hand around the other man’s throat, but he was pushed to the ground.
The knife came back again, and again, each thrust closer to his heart. His vision got darker and darker, until with one more stab of pain, it went completely black.
* * *
Excerpts from “Addicted: The Empire’s Drug War”
By Jeffrey Harris
Chapter 4: The First Shots
Despite the Asian origin of many drugs used in the late 1930s, the truth is that an American was largely responsible for escalating the situation from a relatively restrained organised organised crime problem to a full-blown war between the drug rings [3] and police and specialist anti-drug agencies.
The Anaconda Ring [4] was a newcomer to the superin trade in East Asia, but Arthur Rolton brought with him immense wealth and influence, and vast experience in smuggling drugs from the USA to Europe. When the RNB managed to intercept one of his early large shipments to Exeter, Rolton lost the respect of many organised crime elements. In particular, one of his major superin suppliers in Indochina cut off all ties with him [5] and sold his superin to the Giap Ring.
Arthur Rolton was not a man who had reached his station in life by meekly accepting defeat. Also, he was well aware that to preserve his reputation amongst the Indonesian and Chinese gangs who acted as suppliers, he would have to show that he could solve problems. Using his agents in Sydney to gather information on RNB operations, he had an Exeter agent killed in a high-profile stabbing outside the local branch building. He expanded his Richmond [Brisbane] operations, and had several police officers killed when they tried to apprehend some of his dealers. In another stunning coup, he had one of his top dealers (Louis Mercury) broken out of custody, with several of his men attacking a prison transport to free Mercury, then leaving everyone else for dead in the Australian desert.
His daring exploits rebuilt his reputation. By the year’s end, Rolton controlled the most powerful drug supply and smuggling operation in Asia. This led to a superin epidemic hitting the streets of Palmerston [Darwin], Stirling [Perth], Richmond, Sydney, Exeter and Poneke [Wellington, NZ] in 1943. Previously quiet neighbourhoods became havens for dealers and users alike, and city police were tested to their limits. New criminal gangs appeared in the cities, with drug profits giving them resources on a scale which would have been unattainable before. Crime levels soared as drug addicts turned to theft and robbery to support their habits [6], and gangs fought each other for control of territory and distribution networks.
The RNB needed to expand to combat the new inflow of drugs. Minister of Health David Heath, the original driving force behind the creation of the RNB, persuaded the government to increase funding for the Bureau, and new offices were slowly established throughout Australia. His other main initiative was to ensure that further pressure was put on other nations of the Empire to clamp down on drugs, especially superin.
Funding for expanding the RNB was easily arranged, due to the large degree of public support. Efforts to secure international cooperation were much more difficult. Not until 1949 would the first Indonesian nation make superin and other drugs illegal, and the other nations took longer. Diplomatic pressure on the United States to stop its citizens’ involvement in the drug trade achieved precisely nothing, and the tension created by these efforts would contribute to the events of 1947.
The struggle with the drug gangs meant that local police agencies made major changes to their operations. Many of them formed special units to target drug smuggling and gang activities. However, much more than the RNB, the local police were susceptible to being corrupted by the very things they were meant to stop...
* * *
1 March 1944
Stirling
Kingdom of Australia
“How many have been named?” asked Terry Holder, Active Agent.
“Four. All decorated officers of SPD Narcotics,” said CIO [7] Martin Sullivan.
“Bring them all here. Separately.”
“We agreed that this was my case,” Martin said.
A little coldly, Terry thought, given that they were in Stirling’s new Bureau building. This was his turf, not Martin’s. Still, safest to be polite. “Yes, but they have to be isolated. I know you’d like to arrest them at interrogate them at their own stations, so that you can show you’re cracking down on corruption. If you do that, though, you’ll tip off everyone else. Arrest them at their homes, bring them here, and when we’ve questioned them properly, I can put my men into action. Then you can take them all to Stirling Central and call the media, if you like.”
Martin considered that, then nodded slowly. “Fine. I’ll have them here within an hour.”
The CIO was as good as his word. Almost exactly one hour later, Terry sat in an interrogation room, complete with the traditional two-way mirror. Across from him sat Senior Constable Edward Pierce, now under arrest for possession of superin, accepting bribes, and conspiracy to commit murder. Pierce had messed up dark hair, and his clothes looked as if they had been thrown on. Which was, after all, more or less the case, since Pierce had been woken up and arrested at one in the morning.
“Mr Pierce. You – and your colleagues – are in a great deal of trouble.”
Pierce stared blandly back. “I don’t know what you mean. And it’s senior constable, thank you.”
“Not for much longer, I’m afraid,” Terry said. “You have two choices: cooperate with me or go with CIO Sullivan to Stirling Central. Either way, you won’t be a senior constable.”
Terry sat back in his chair to let Pierce mull this over. When he judged that the corrupt officer had been left in silence for long enough, he said, “You’re just lucky I happened to be in town when you were arrested. Otherwise, you’d have no options at all. But unlike Sullivan, I’m not here to bring down dirty officers. What you’ve done is despicable, but I have a bigger target in mind.”
Pierce shrugged. “Is that right?”
“You’re the operational coordinator of your local anti-drug operations. I know that you’re behind most of the corrupt actions of your unit. And I also know that you’re on Rolton’s payroll.”
Terry held up his hand to forestall Pierce’s next protest.
“Don’t bother denying it. We both know it’s true, though I can’t use my evidence in this case [8]. Give me the time and location of his next incoming shipment, and I can have you off these charges and in a safehouse before morning.”
Pierce said, “Well, that sounds like a good deal, Agent Holder. “But I’ve got a better one. Take your deal and shove it up your ass! Sullivan can take me to Central; I’m sick of listening to you.”
“If you like,” Terry said, then stood and left to get Sullivan.
A few minutes later, the four arrested police officers left in two horsts, along with Sullivan. Terry stood at the window, watching them leave. When they were out of sight, he reached for the nearest phone and dialled a number. “In the blue horst. Pick up Pierce, and no-one else.”
* * *
2 March 1944
Stirling
Kingdom of Australia
“What the hell is this?” Pierce yelled. His voice had lost much of its power, though. He had been tied to a chair in this empty room for a night and a day, judging from the light that had filtered through the high windows. Some sort of warehouse, most likely.
His shouts went unanswered for far too long.
When the door finally opened, in walked Agent Holder, of all people. Pierce wanted to yell a few choice insults at Holder – or more than a few, really – but his throat was already sore. He settled for a long glare, which was unfortunately wasted. Holder refused to meet his gaze, dragging a small table and chair over next to him.
Only then did he deign to meet Pierce’s gaze.
“I gave you a generous offer yesterday, Mister Pierce. Since you turned me down, you’ve left me no choice but to take... alternative methods.”
“Well, aren’t you a good fucking policeman?” Pierce said. “Anything you find out from me will be thrown out of fucking court when you have to explain all of this bullshit.”
“I don’t plan on getting near a courtroom with this,” Holder said calmly. Too calmly.
“A lot of fucking use asking me for location and shipment time is going to be when you need to ask a judge for a bloody warrant, then,” Pierce said. “He’ll want to know how you got your fucking information.”
Holder shrugged. “I’ll lie.”
The calm way that was said made Pierce’s blood run cold. “You’re as corrupt as you accuse me of fucking being, then.”
“There’s all the difference in the world, Mister Pierce,” Holder said. “You break the law for your own gain. I do it because sometimes to serve the law, you have to break the law.”
“Oh, isn’t that just the perfect fucking excuse,” Pierce said.
“It’s one of the lessons of life,” Holder said. “Would you like to know the story of my life, Edward?”
Pierce laughed. “Sure. It’s not like I’m going anywhere at the moment.”
Holder said, “The Bureau has hardly been my life; I’ve only been here for a few years. I worked in intelligence before that.”
“A fucking coward’s career,” Pierce said. “Too bloody scared to join the police or the army. Too fucking frightened to serve in the front line.”
“Oh, I was a soldier in my time,” Holder said. “I still am, really. Our country may not be officially be at war, but the truth is that the Great War never really ended. Our enemies now are the same enemies we had then. All that happened was that we changed the theatre of war, and the weapons. Now, we fight in shadows, and our weapons are usually cunning and subterfuge instead of arlacs and artillery, but we are still at war.”
“Fancy justification for what you do, but why are you boring me with it?” Pierce said. “You’re a liar and a kidnapper, and you have the fucking gall to call me corrupt.”
Holder sighed. “You weren’t listening, Edward. Australia is at war. We have many enemies. Germany might be the most obvious, but it’s hardly our only foe. Rolton and the other drug lords have declared war on us, and now I am a soldier in this new war.”
“You’re no fucking soldier. Soldiers have laws of war, and they follow them,” Pierce said. “You’re breaking the law here, no matter how you try to spin it.”
“Laws only work if both sides play by them,” Holder said. “When one side spurns the law, well... Now I’m working by a different rulebook. One I learned in night and shadow.”
Pierce tried to keep his breathing quiet and even, but he knew he had failed when he saw Holder smile.
“Have you ever heard of the Pesadilla [9]?”
Pierce could only shake his head.
“It happened in Colombia, although it’s not widely-known. The Jackals kept it quiet, both to save face and to stop word of it encouraging rebels elsewhere. You see, the Jackals thought that their fire-squads had pacified Colombia. They didn’t realise that terror would only breed more terror.”
Holder chuckled, and the sound had ominous undertones. “The revolutionaries stopped forming into bands, but that didn’t stop individuals. It never does. Men – and one woman – with nothing to lose and full of hatred for the Jackals and everything they stand for. The survivors bided their time, waiting for the bigger war to come, and the Jackals to let their guard down. Then they struck.”
Holder shook his head. “This time, the Jackals were suffering terror, not inflicting it as they had done with the fire-squads. Jackals would get kidnapped at night. A few days later, their bodies would show up. Always mutilated, usually disembowelled, and left hanging from the top of one prominent building or another. No-one knew who was doing it, and burning farms wouldn’t stop them. After all, it was clearly a few individuals committing the murders. Ravaging the countryside wouldn’t deter them.”
Pierce said, “No matter what you think of me, you should know that I hate the Jackals as much as you do.”
“You hate them, no doubt, but only someone who’s lived there and seen what they’re capable of can hate them as much as I do. Especially when I had to pretend to be one of them.”
Pierce caught Holder’s gaze then, and gasped involuntarily.
“Pretending to be a Jackal was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I assumed the identity of a Jackal soldier rotated back into the country after, well, never mind how I managed it. I played the role of a garrison soldier, while feeding the pesadillos information on high-level targets and how to avoid capture. The Jackals lost over fifty officers and a hundred of their other citizens before they caught the last of the pesadillos. There were only five people behind it.”
Holder shook his head. “Five people, for all of that terror. Can you believe it? Well, I certainly could. You see, I happened to be one of the soldiers in the group that finally caught the first pesadillo. I had to interrogate him to keep up my cover. And I was ordered to use his own methods against him.”
Holder lifted up a paper bag and started pulling out items and placing them one by one on the table. A knife came first, then tongs, then a cigarette lighter, then a vial of something that looked clear, but surely wouldn’t be water.
“Anything you want to tell me, Edward?”
“You wouldn’t fucking use those,” Pierce said, as defiantly as he could manage.
“I’d prefer not to,” Holder said. “If I’ve done worse than this to someone I admired, though, you can bet your life that I’d do it to someone I hate. So, for the last time... anything you want to tell me, Edward?”
The words came out as fast as Pierce could speak. Everything he knew about Rolton’s operations in Stirling, and what he had heard about Rolton’s activities elsewhere.
When Pierce had finished, trying to recover his breath, Holder said, “Thank you, Edward.” He stood. “Good-bye.” He pulled a pistol from his side holster.
Pierce started to shout a begging protest, until the sound of twin gunshots stopped him from speaking ever again.
* * *
[1] Strictly speaking, the Australian actions in the Solomons are mostly due to lack of resources and other competing priorities, rather than any moral goals. Due to the many commitments, especially after the Great War, investment in the Solomons is limited, and government through the locals was seen as the easiest option. However, *Americans take a different view of this issue.
[2] Rico is a slang *American word for someone who is extremely rich, derived from a Spanish word for “wealthy.”
[3] “Drug ring” is used in TTL much as drug cartel is used in OTL, ie a large scale operation of drug-growers and runners (eg from China to Australia).
[4] The “Anaconda” name stuck after Rolton used a ruse where his men smuggled inside the bodies of several anacondas under the pretext of transporting them to an Australian museum. The drugs were successfully smuggled in; the police only found out about the trick after the snakes bodies were dumped and washed up on a beach near Richmond.
[5] In fact this supplier was the one whose superin was seized by the RNB in Exeter, and he made the decision out of fear of being caught or identified, rather than over the financial loss.
[6] This drug wave is similar to what happened in OTL when crack cocaine hit US cities in the mid-1980s, although the level of violent crime is generally lower.
[7] Corruption Investigation Officer. *Australia’s equivalent to an Internal Affairs officer.
[8] In other words, Terry is protecting a source in Rolton’s organisation. He doesn’t mind implying this to Pierce, because Pierce would be unlikely to reveal this information to anyone, for fear that rumours may get back to Rolton that he has talked.
[9] From the Spanish word for “nightmare.”
* * *
Thoughts?
Credit for this post goes to tukk323, who wrote all of it apart from a few editorial additions.
* * *
“One man’s terrorist may be another’s freedom fighter, but a drug baron is always a drug baron, no matter where he is.”
- Michael Blunt, Australian Prime Minister, responding to the US ambassador, 1946
* * *
3 May 1942
Chapman [Tulagi], Solomon Islands Territory
Kingdom of Australia
Chapman: a decrepit, rundown slum of a city that had no business existing in Australia, a nation which prided itself as civilized. Arthur Rolton had his own thoughts about whether Australians could be considered civilized, even by non-American standards, but mostly he hated having to come to a place of teeming deprivation that should have belonged in Bharat or Africa.
Still, however much he hated the place, it suited his needs well. Very well.
As was his habit, Rolton had found out everything he could about Chapman before ever coming near the city. Knowledge could mean the difference between survival and capture, or even death.
The Kingslanders had moved into the Solomons during the middle of the previous century, acquiring them almost in spite of the wishes of the British crown. They had claimed these islands so that they could lure the natives to work on Kingsland sugar plantations in conditions that were only not slavery because they were given a different name.
While the Solomons were nominally part of the British Empire, in practice they had always been governed more locally, first by the Kingslanders and then Australia after the British united the continent. They had chosen Chapman as the centre of their administration, since it was largely free of the tropical diseases which plagued the rest of the islands.
Chapman had slowly grown into the major port of the Solomons. Most of the time, the Kingsland administrators and their Australian successors had governed from this town and been happy to leave the natives of the outlying islands to their own devices.
Eventually, British pressure had quashed the unofficial slave trade, leaving the Kingsland sugar planters to recruit East Indian labourers instead. Official interest in the islands waned, leaving the archipelago to be exploited by any native or white entrepreneurs who had the cojones to make use of them: fishing, coconuts, tropical timbers, palm oil, and more recently gold, copper and nickel. While the Solomons were not particularly wealthy, most of the resources they produced were traded through Chapman.
Chapman had become the preserve of palm planters, mining kings and timber barons, mostly white, some native, whose preferred form of government was benign neglect. Their wealth and influence saw to it that the government officials who were appointed here were not overly concerned with governing the islands, just making sure that laws were not being broken too openly. Most of the immigrants who came to Chapman were men of a similar bent to the planters, men who wanted wealth regardless of how it was acquired. The city earned a reputation as a port whose citizens were happy to conduct business and not ask inconvenient questions.
When the Solomons were made an official Australian territory after the war, not much changed in Chapman. A few more government officials were sent, but their main aims were to train the natives into government officials and police. They were given precious little funding, though, and most of what they received was spent on educating the natives in English, without the resources left over for much else. Which created a class of native administrators and police who had had their ambitions awakened, but were still trapped in poverty with an abundance of relatives clamouring for support. That made them easily bribed into looking the other way. The local planters had established the tradition, and Rolton would be happy to take advantage of it.
All of which made Chapmen perfect for his needs. Conveniently located for shipping, a relaxed approach to law enforcement, and sufficient poverty to allow him to subvert those few laws which were enforced. Personally Rolton thought that the Australians’ biggest mistake had been trying to put natives of lesser races into jobs which they were incapable of performing, all in pursuit of the lie of racial equality, but that was their problem, not his [1].
Of course, despite its unsavoury reputation, Chapman served as an important port for legitimate commerce, too. Rolton had arrived on a Nipponese vessel, the Shima. Several other Nipponese ships were docked here, too. Some used Chapman as a convenient stopping point before sailing on to Eden [Auckland] or Sydney. Some waited here until they could load cargoes of gold, nickel, palm oil or coconuts from within the Solomons.
Rolton had passed so many Nipponese sailors coming and going from their ships that it had seemed like an unofficial invasion; not that he could ever really imagine the Nipponese trying to invade Australia. Chapman was a popular liberty port for the Nipponese, with gambling establishments which were all but illegal at home, and alcohol which was much cheaper than Nippon or even mainland Australia, thanks to bar owners who found it cheaper to bribe local police than pay alcohol taxes.
He knew he cut an imposing figure, better than any of the wealthiest planters or other local ricos [2]. He wore an immaculately-tailored, double-breasted suit – made of light cotton, in this climate – and a broad-brimmed but equally elegant hat to keep the sun from his face. He doubted that anyone would try to interfere with him, even those who did not know his reputation. Though many of the locals openly went armed, few carried anything as large as an auto gun [submachine gun]. Street crime was rare in Chapman during daylight hours anyway; that was one of the few things which would make the native police bestir themselves from their stations. What happened after dark would be another story, but he knew better than to venture into the lawless parts of Chapman during night. Or not unescorted, at least.
Come to that, usually he would not venture out into the streets of Chapman at all, at least not for business. Face to face contact in this town was usually the responsibility of his lieutenants; theirs the risks, his the rewards.
Today, though, he needed to act on his own. Only one man in his organisation could be trusted with the job that Rolton had in mind. He had also made sure he was the only one in his organisation who had contact with the man. This man’s services were expensive, and one of the things which Rolton paid for was discretion.
Chapman made an ideal spot for both of them to meet; it meant less travel time, and freedom to meet without worrying about any eyes watching them. Even if the natives took any notice of them, they knew better than to attract the attention of any of the police.
Rolton’s course took him through one of the poorest slums in town, filled with ramshackle, run-down timber buildings that had started to crack or rot in the tropical heat and rain. He strode past groups of ill-dressed black children playing games with balls or chasing each other around the streets. He ignored them, and they ignored him. A well-dressed man was unusual here, but not unheard of, given what happened here, and in this town a question might be answered with a bullet.
He stopped at a sturdier building, made of concrete that stood out in this neighbourhood, but which otherwise had little to distinguish it. The door was painted metal, though, which conveyed its own meaning. He gave the door one loud knock, then waited.
A blurry-eyed man opened the door. His already troubled eyes went wide when he saw Rolton. “M... m... Mister, I mean... come in please, sir.” At least he had the wit not to say Rolton’s name aloud.
Rolton pushed past without bothering to respond. Only when he stood inside did he look a question at the blurry-eyed man.
“Through that door.”
Rolton walked through, but turned back to face the other man. “Leave a small line in yellow chalk outside the front door. Don’t come back for at least two hours.”
About twenty minutes later, the right man must have seen the chalk, since he entered the building. This man appeared, in almost all respects, the opposite of Rolton. His natural skin colour was perhaps lighter than Rolton’s, but his had turned bronze from unprotected exposure to the tropical sun. Where Rolton wore the finest of suits to announce his wealth, this man wore ragged pants and shirts which would not have looked out of place on any of the natives here. He did not look like one of the blacks, of course, but he did a very convincing imitation of a shiftless white man who had drifted here because he had no prospects elsewhere, and now lived a life little better than the blacks.
“You really do know how to dress like you live here, don’t you,” Rolton said, his face twisting.
The other man ignored that comment. “What do you need?”
“I need a message delivered,” Rolton said.
“Try the Royal Post,” the other man said.
“This one needs a more personal touch. I need to show people what happens if they interfere in my business.” He pulled an old newspaper article from his pocket and passed it across the table. “It needs to be a public lesson. Can you get it done?”
The man glanced at the article for a moment, then said, “Of course, provide that who I use and how it is done is at my discretion.”
“Yes. As long as it’s public and brutal. And you use someone good. This one must not be bungled.”
The other man shrugged.
“Also, I want to be informed of any other actions that may be in progress that threaten my interests.”
“That will take more effort,” the other man said, his voice carefully neutral.
Rolton opened his case and passed a wad of bills across the table. “Perhaps this will help motivate those efforts. The rest will be waiting when the job is done... and when I get some more information.”
The other man picked up the money, nodded, then quietly left.
Rolton lit a cigar – finest Nicaraguan – and finished it in silence, to give the other man time to leave the area. That man was purely professional, very accomplished... but he still made Rolton feel ill at ease whenever they met. No need for any unscheduled meetings.
* * *
17 June 1942
Exeter [Christchurch, New Zealand]
Kingdom of Australia
His eyes wanted to glaze over, but Royal Narcotics Bureau Agent Keith Cook forced himself to stay awake. He had been at the office far too long, he knew, but he did not like to leave things unfinished. Too much work to do and not enough people to do it, as always.
After about another twenty minutes, he finished the latest report. He put it on top of the rest of the stack of documents, clipped them into the file, then locked it into his desk drawer. He switched off the light at his desk, leaving the office nearly dark. The other desks were already empty, the reception long unmanned, but he knew this office well enough to find his way with minimal light.
He had to unlock the door, of course, with the receptionist and everyone else gone. He stepped out into the coolness of the winter air, and locked the door behind him.
As he turned around, he thought he heard a noise. He stood very still, straining his ears, but he heard only a faint whisper of night breeze and the low rumble of a few horsts on London St [Colombo St].
He shook his head. Maybe he was getting paranoid. He turned to start walking toward the horst park, but he caught a glimpse of a dark shape jumping out from the side of the building.
Keith’s reflexes had been honed in a country far deadlier than Australia. He quickly swung his leg through the air to kick his assailant. But it was too late. The attacker ducked past Keith’s leg, swinging an arm that slammed a blade into Keith’s stomach.
Keith kept some strength in his body, still, and he grabbed at the assailant’s neck. He did catch one hand around the other man’s throat, but he was pushed to the ground.
The knife came back again, and again, each thrust closer to his heart. His vision got darker and darker, until with one more stab of pain, it went completely black.
* * *
Excerpts from “Addicted: The Empire’s Drug War”
By Jeffrey Harris
Chapter 4: The First Shots
Despite the Asian origin of many drugs used in the late 1930s, the truth is that an American was largely responsible for escalating the situation from a relatively restrained organised organised crime problem to a full-blown war between the drug rings [3] and police and specialist anti-drug agencies.
The Anaconda Ring [4] was a newcomer to the superin trade in East Asia, but Arthur Rolton brought with him immense wealth and influence, and vast experience in smuggling drugs from the USA to Europe. When the RNB managed to intercept one of his early large shipments to Exeter, Rolton lost the respect of many organised crime elements. In particular, one of his major superin suppliers in Indochina cut off all ties with him [5] and sold his superin to the Giap Ring.
Arthur Rolton was not a man who had reached his station in life by meekly accepting defeat. Also, he was well aware that to preserve his reputation amongst the Indonesian and Chinese gangs who acted as suppliers, he would have to show that he could solve problems. Using his agents in Sydney to gather information on RNB operations, he had an Exeter agent killed in a high-profile stabbing outside the local branch building. He expanded his Richmond [Brisbane] operations, and had several police officers killed when they tried to apprehend some of his dealers. In another stunning coup, he had one of his top dealers (Louis Mercury) broken out of custody, with several of his men attacking a prison transport to free Mercury, then leaving everyone else for dead in the Australian desert.
His daring exploits rebuilt his reputation. By the year’s end, Rolton controlled the most powerful drug supply and smuggling operation in Asia. This led to a superin epidemic hitting the streets of Palmerston [Darwin], Stirling [Perth], Richmond, Sydney, Exeter and Poneke [Wellington, NZ] in 1943. Previously quiet neighbourhoods became havens for dealers and users alike, and city police were tested to their limits. New criminal gangs appeared in the cities, with drug profits giving them resources on a scale which would have been unattainable before. Crime levels soared as drug addicts turned to theft and robbery to support their habits [6], and gangs fought each other for control of territory and distribution networks.
The RNB needed to expand to combat the new inflow of drugs. Minister of Health David Heath, the original driving force behind the creation of the RNB, persuaded the government to increase funding for the Bureau, and new offices were slowly established throughout Australia. His other main initiative was to ensure that further pressure was put on other nations of the Empire to clamp down on drugs, especially superin.
Funding for expanding the RNB was easily arranged, due to the large degree of public support. Efforts to secure international cooperation were much more difficult. Not until 1949 would the first Indonesian nation make superin and other drugs illegal, and the other nations took longer. Diplomatic pressure on the United States to stop its citizens’ involvement in the drug trade achieved precisely nothing, and the tension created by these efforts would contribute to the events of 1947.
The struggle with the drug gangs meant that local police agencies made major changes to their operations. Many of them formed special units to target drug smuggling and gang activities. However, much more than the RNB, the local police were susceptible to being corrupted by the very things they were meant to stop...
* * *
1 March 1944
Stirling
Kingdom of Australia
“How many have been named?” asked Terry Holder, Active Agent.
“Four. All decorated officers of SPD Narcotics,” said CIO [7] Martin Sullivan.
“Bring them all here. Separately.”
“We agreed that this was my case,” Martin said.
A little coldly, Terry thought, given that they were in Stirling’s new Bureau building. This was his turf, not Martin’s. Still, safest to be polite. “Yes, but they have to be isolated. I know you’d like to arrest them at interrogate them at their own stations, so that you can show you’re cracking down on corruption. If you do that, though, you’ll tip off everyone else. Arrest them at their homes, bring them here, and when we’ve questioned them properly, I can put my men into action. Then you can take them all to Stirling Central and call the media, if you like.”
Martin considered that, then nodded slowly. “Fine. I’ll have them here within an hour.”
The CIO was as good as his word. Almost exactly one hour later, Terry sat in an interrogation room, complete with the traditional two-way mirror. Across from him sat Senior Constable Edward Pierce, now under arrest for possession of superin, accepting bribes, and conspiracy to commit murder. Pierce had messed up dark hair, and his clothes looked as if they had been thrown on. Which was, after all, more or less the case, since Pierce had been woken up and arrested at one in the morning.
“Mr Pierce. You – and your colleagues – are in a great deal of trouble.”
Pierce stared blandly back. “I don’t know what you mean. And it’s senior constable, thank you.”
“Not for much longer, I’m afraid,” Terry said. “You have two choices: cooperate with me or go with CIO Sullivan to Stirling Central. Either way, you won’t be a senior constable.”
Terry sat back in his chair to let Pierce mull this over. When he judged that the corrupt officer had been left in silence for long enough, he said, “You’re just lucky I happened to be in town when you were arrested. Otherwise, you’d have no options at all. But unlike Sullivan, I’m not here to bring down dirty officers. What you’ve done is despicable, but I have a bigger target in mind.”
Pierce shrugged. “Is that right?”
“You’re the operational coordinator of your local anti-drug operations. I know that you’re behind most of the corrupt actions of your unit. And I also know that you’re on Rolton’s payroll.”
Terry held up his hand to forestall Pierce’s next protest.
“Don’t bother denying it. We both know it’s true, though I can’t use my evidence in this case [8]. Give me the time and location of his next incoming shipment, and I can have you off these charges and in a safehouse before morning.”
Pierce said, “Well, that sounds like a good deal, Agent Holder. “But I’ve got a better one. Take your deal and shove it up your ass! Sullivan can take me to Central; I’m sick of listening to you.”
“If you like,” Terry said, then stood and left to get Sullivan.
A few minutes later, the four arrested police officers left in two horsts, along with Sullivan. Terry stood at the window, watching them leave. When they were out of sight, he reached for the nearest phone and dialled a number. “In the blue horst. Pick up Pierce, and no-one else.”
* * *
2 March 1944
Stirling
Kingdom of Australia
“What the hell is this?” Pierce yelled. His voice had lost much of its power, though. He had been tied to a chair in this empty room for a night and a day, judging from the light that had filtered through the high windows. Some sort of warehouse, most likely.
His shouts went unanswered for far too long.
When the door finally opened, in walked Agent Holder, of all people. Pierce wanted to yell a few choice insults at Holder – or more than a few, really – but his throat was already sore. He settled for a long glare, which was unfortunately wasted. Holder refused to meet his gaze, dragging a small table and chair over next to him.
Only then did he deign to meet Pierce’s gaze.
“I gave you a generous offer yesterday, Mister Pierce. Since you turned me down, you’ve left me no choice but to take... alternative methods.”
“Well, aren’t you a good fucking policeman?” Pierce said. “Anything you find out from me will be thrown out of fucking court when you have to explain all of this bullshit.”
“I don’t plan on getting near a courtroom with this,” Holder said calmly. Too calmly.
“A lot of fucking use asking me for location and shipment time is going to be when you need to ask a judge for a bloody warrant, then,” Pierce said. “He’ll want to know how you got your fucking information.”
Holder shrugged. “I’ll lie.”
The calm way that was said made Pierce’s blood run cold. “You’re as corrupt as you accuse me of fucking being, then.”
“There’s all the difference in the world, Mister Pierce,” Holder said. “You break the law for your own gain. I do it because sometimes to serve the law, you have to break the law.”
“Oh, isn’t that just the perfect fucking excuse,” Pierce said.
“It’s one of the lessons of life,” Holder said. “Would you like to know the story of my life, Edward?”
Pierce laughed. “Sure. It’s not like I’m going anywhere at the moment.”
Holder said, “The Bureau has hardly been my life; I’ve only been here for a few years. I worked in intelligence before that.”
“A fucking coward’s career,” Pierce said. “Too bloody scared to join the police or the army. Too fucking frightened to serve in the front line.”
“Oh, I was a soldier in my time,” Holder said. “I still am, really. Our country may not be officially be at war, but the truth is that the Great War never really ended. Our enemies now are the same enemies we had then. All that happened was that we changed the theatre of war, and the weapons. Now, we fight in shadows, and our weapons are usually cunning and subterfuge instead of arlacs and artillery, but we are still at war.”
“Fancy justification for what you do, but why are you boring me with it?” Pierce said. “You’re a liar and a kidnapper, and you have the fucking gall to call me corrupt.”
Holder sighed. “You weren’t listening, Edward. Australia is at war. We have many enemies. Germany might be the most obvious, but it’s hardly our only foe. Rolton and the other drug lords have declared war on us, and now I am a soldier in this new war.”
“You’re no fucking soldier. Soldiers have laws of war, and they follow them,” Pierce said. “You’re breaking the law here, no matter how you try to spin it.”
“Laws only work if both sides play by them,” Holder said. “When one side spurns the law, well... Now I’m working by a different rulebook. One I learned in night and shadow.”
Pierce tried to keep his breathing quiet and even, but he knew he had failed when he saw Holder smile.
“Have you ever heard of the Pesadilla [9]?”
Pierce could only shake his head.
“It happened in Colombia, although it’s not widely-known. The Jackals kept it quiet, both to save face and to stop word of it encouraging rebels elsewhere. You see, the Jackals thought that their fire-squads had pacified Colombia. They didn’t realise that terror would only breed more terror.”
Holder chuckled, and the sound had ominous undertones. “The revolutionaries stopped forming into bands, but that didn’t stop individuals. It never does. Men – and one woman – with nothing to lose and full of hatred for the Jackals and everything they stand for. The survivors bided their time, waiting for the bigger war to come, and the Jackals to let their guard down. Then they struck.”
Holder shook his head. “This time, the Jackals were suffering terror, not inflicting it as they had done with the fire-squads. Jackals would get kidnapped at night. A few days later, their bodies would show up. Always mutilated, usually disembowelled, and left hanging from the top of one prominent building or another. No-one knew who was doing it, and burning farms wouldn’t stop them. After all, it was clearly a few individuals committing the murders. Ravaging the countryside wouldn’t deter them.”
Pierce said, “No matter what you think of me, you should know that I hate the Jackals as much as you do.”
“You hate them, no doubt, but only someone who’s lived there and seen what they’re capable of can hate them as much as I do. Especially when I had to pretend to be one of them.”
Pierce caught Holder’s gaze then, and gasped involuntarily.
“Pretending to be a Jackal was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I assumed the identity of a Jackal soldier rotated back into the country after, well, never mind how I managed it. I played the role of a garrison soldier, while feeding the pesadillos information on high-level targets and how to avoid capture. The Jackals lost over fifty officers and a hundred of their other citizens before they caught the last of the pesadillos. There were only five people behind it.”
Holder shook his head. “Five people, for all of that terror. Can you believe it? Well, I certainly could. You see, I happened to be one of the soldiers in the group that finally caught the first pesadillo. I had to interrogate him to keep up my cover. And I was ordered to use his own methods against him.”
Holder lifted up a paper bag and started pulling out items and placing them one by one on the table. A knife came first, then tongs, then a cigarette lighter, then a vial of something that looked clear, but surely wouldn’t be water.
“Anything you want to tell me, Edward?”
“You wouldn’t fucking use those,” Pierce said, as defiantly as he could manage.
“I’d prefer not to,” Holder said. “If I’ve done worse than this to someone I admired, though, you can bet your life that I’d do it to someone I hate. So, for the last time... anything you want to tell me, Edward?”
The words came out as fast as Pierce could speak. Everything he knew about Rolton’s operations in Stirling, and what he had heard about Rolton’s activities elsewhere.
When Pierce had finished, trying to recover his breath, Holder said, “Thank you, Edward.” He stood. “Good-bye.” He pulled a pistol from his side holster.
Pierce started to shout a begging protest, until the sound of twin gunshots stopped him from speaking ever again.
* * *
[1] Strictly speaking, the Australian actions in the Solomons are mostly due to lack of resources and other competing priorities, rather than any moral goals. Due to the many commitments, especially after the Great War, investment in the Solomons is limited, and government through the locals was seen as the easiest option. However, *Americans take a different view of this issue.
[2] Rico is a slang *American word for someone who is extremely rich, derived from a Spanish word for “wealthy.”
[3] “Drug ring” is used in TTL much as drug cartel is used in OTL, ie a large scale operation of drug-growers and runners (eg from China to Australia).
[4] The “Anaconda” name stuck after Rolton used a ruse where his men smuggled inside the bodies of several anacondas under the pretext of transporting them to an Australian museum. The drugs were successfully smuggled in; the police only found out about the trick after the snakes bodies were dumped and washed up on a beach near Richmond.
[5] In fact this supplier was the one whose superin was seized by the RNB in Exeter, and he made the decision out of fear of being caught or identified, rather than over the financial loss.
[6] This drug wave is similar to what happened in OTL when crack cocaine hit US cities in the mid-1980s, although the level of violent crime is generally lower.
[7] Corruption Investigation Officer. *Australia’s equivalent to an Internal Affairs officer.
[8] In other words, Terry is protecting a source in Rolton’s organisation. He doesn’t mind implying this to Pierce, because Pierce would be unlikely to reveal this information to anyone, for fear that rumours may get back to Rolton that he has talked.
[9] From the Spanish word for “nightmare.”
* * *
Thoughts?
Highlander
Banned
I can see here the *War on Drugs in the rest of the world to be framed in a nationalist sense - something like, "By shooting superin, you are supporting the Jackal vermin!".
By the way, Jared, if it's not too late, would you be interested in a Tales post about *martial arts, specifically an alternate Judo?
By the way, Jared, if it's not too late, would you be interested in a Tales post about *martial arts, specifically an alternate Judo?
hey jared, I noticed that the map for Germany in 1910 has different borders for Alsace-Lorraine, Italian Savory and Nice, and Lombardy-Venetia then the Europe 1910 map. So I altered the Europe 1910 map a bit but I was wondering if this one is accurate or if the one you have posted on the website is more accurate.
Nice work, Jared and tukk323!
Insurgency, even if in a low scale, continues to be a problem in TTL Colombia. As long as there is repression there, there will be attacks on the Jackals, and potential recruits from the local population to spy for othwer nations.
TTL drug war are very serious, this might escalate into war later.
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That's some magnificent bastardry, making Vo Nguyen Giap's ATL brother a heroin kingpin.
Delicious as always.
Indeed. When police start slipping into the sort of activities which Holder is doing, you know things aren't likely to end well.
At first, not much. The *USA, for various reasons which have been described in previous posts, is not a country which is inclined to prohibit drugs. They find the idea pointless at best, and a violation of individual rights at worst.
With no local prohibition, and as a natural supplier of some drugs (especially cocaine), the *USA was producing drugs even when they were legal around the world. They kept right on producing them even when most of the world started to turn to prohibition, and indeed found it quite profitable to do so. They got their first example of that when New England prohibited alcohol, and a lot of *Americans got very rich smuggling alcohol into NE as a result.
So for a long time individual *Americans have been making money off selling drugs to other countries which prohibit them. The *US government didn't actively encourage it, but it certainly didn't interfere with it either. Any foreign country which complained about it was effectively told "get stuffed". Albeit in more diplomatic language.
Since the Great War, with the *USA becoming increasingly isolated diplomatically, and with foreign condemnation mounting, the *US government has take some more active steps to sanction the drug trade. It's becoming a major source of revenue - drug exports are legal as far as the *USA is concerned. Often taxable, too; and even when not, it still brings money into the country. Not to mention the quiet satisfaction at frustrating the rest of the world.
It often is framed that way, although there's also other philosophies on drugs. "Free choice" is a popular slogan; the *USA throws it around a lot, but it has adherents elsewhere.
Sure, if you like. Drop me a PM if you want to discuss the details.
It's been so long since I've worked much on DoD that I can't remember all of the details of the borders. I'll go back over my notes when I have some time and then let you know (in the thread or by PM) and update maps if necessary.
Nice work, Jared and tukk323!
Merci.
Insurgency does still exist, but don't overestimate it, either. It's at a very low level - good for grabbing headlines, but not something which is likely to push the Jackals out. Especially since insurgency is more or less a global problem - South America is bad, but much of Europe, Africa and parts of Asia also have ongoing insurgencies, terror campaigns, and related fun.
That's entirely possible. And even it not that far, it's going to cause all sorts of diplomatic strain and perhaps international incidents.
tukk323 gets full credit for that one.
I was wondering if you'd be willing to let me write up culture tests for the important nations of DoD, like the ones found here: http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html
Max Sinister
Banned
Just wanted to tell you guys: Put up a wiki page for the rulers of DoD. (As far as I could, some dates and names are unclear.)
If Jared is banned then no more Lands of Red and Gold.
There's still the official website. https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
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Tales of the Decades of Darkness #4: Beneath The Three Trees
Credit for this post goes to Analytical Engine, who wrote most of it apart from the Alvar O’Brien and Indian sections and a few other editorial additions.
* * *
Extracts from: “A History of the Modern World, Volume 2: After the Great War”
By Mark J. Epworth
The period following the end of the Great War in 1933 [1] is often described as beginning of the Superpower Period. It is marked by the dissolution of the British Empire and the creation of vast, sometimes overlapping spheres of influence in the Old World and American territorial hegemony in the New World.
As is so often the case with popular perceptions of history, much more underlies the beginning of this period. The boundary between the Age of Empires and the Age of Superpowers is blurred; it was in essence a gradual transition rather than an abrupt change from one era to another.
While it is true that the empires that exemplified the nineteenth and early twentieth century gave way to the tripolar world of spheres of influence, there is no singular definition of a superpower. Each is different, and each should be considered individually, not as a collective.
Many people, particularly from those same Superpowers, think of the world as divided between the three great states of Russia, Germany and the United States. Yet the bloc comprising the Restored Empire, Nippon and, to some extent, the Republic of China can also be thought of as a half-superpower. Indeed, if this bloc had a shared sovereignty, it could almost be considered as a fourth Superpower.
Chapter 2: The Russian Federation
As the largest country in the world, Russia is the epitome of the modern idea of a Superpower. Formed in the aftermath of the Great War, the Russian Federation is the final product of the evolution of the Russian Empire and its Asian sphere of influence.
Begun as a federation between Russia, Finland, and Thrace & Marmara – all of which have the Tsar as head of state – and the states of Courland, Bulgaria, Bokhara, Khiva, Tuva and Tibet, it has since evolved into a more complex union of states that covers much of Asia and large parts of Europe.
The 1930s were a period of cautious experimentation in Russia, to determine whether the idea of federation would work, and if so how best to implement it. As it transpired, the transition to federation worked very effectively; Russia proper became more ethnically and religiously homogenous, and the other regions gained whichever level of autonomy and internal border controls [2] suited both their inhabitants’ and the federal government’s interests.
Those new member states admitted during the 1940s were all carved from Russia proper. The external states dominated by the Bear were, during this period, considered ill-suited for inclusion within the Federation, though each of them had close economic (and sometimes military) ties with Saint Petersburg.
The first new member admitted to the Federation was Mongolia, in March 1940. The mostly Buddhist region had been an integrated tributary state under the Khan in Urga [3], and had been expanded into Inner Mongolia following the Great War. Mongolia was granted an equivalent level of autonomy as the Emirate of Bokhara and the Khanate of Khiva. It was joined by the Khanate of Kokand [4] in June 1943.
Persistent agitation from the Turkmen peoples of Transcapia, who had long suffered from exploitation by corrupt local administrators, saw Transcapia admitted as a federated state in September 1945, with the then-unique provision that all revenues earned in Transcapia had to be spent in that state.
The region of Ice Jecen [5] had been acquired from Qing China well before the Great War, but then been largely neglected by Russia during that time. Few would-be Russian settlers found Ice Jecen an attractive destination, and the native Uighur peoples were largely left to rule themselves. Ice Jecen was declared a federated state in November 1948 largely to formalise its already separate status, and to allow it to restrict Han immigration.
Plans to establish Manchuria [6] as a federated state were discussed several times, particularly during the late 1930s, but were ultimately discarded. The region had become plurality Russian by that period, and those inhabitants were willing to remain part of Russia proper. The native Manchu, Han and Chosen [Korean] peoples were less enthusiastic about this decision, but they had only a limited political voice.
Dealing with the various minority peoples in Europe became a more difficult proposition. Most of these regions had been part of the Russian Empire for centuries, not decades, formal separation at the level of Finland was considered anathema to traditionalists within Russia.
However, nationalist concerns had been awakened in Europe by the experiment of Federation and the example of Courland. Of particular concern to many of the inhabitants was the spread of the Russian language and the perceived influx of wealthy Great Russians displacing local businessmen. As a means of appeasement, the Duma created “special regions” in the provinces of Estonia, Livonia, and the areas inhabited by Georgians and Armenians.
The special regions were granted local political assemblies with authority to set immigration quotas and related laws. In the case of Estonia and Livonia, this sufficed to calm local agitation. In Georgia and Armenia, the assemblies instead sought additional powers. These were progressively granted, and eventually Armenia [in July 1946] and Georgia [in February 1947] were created as federated states, although the Tsar remained the head of state.
Although formally annexed a century before, the Danube Principalities had a long tradition of de facto autonomy. So the shift to federated states was a straightforward extension of that tradition; Moldavia and Wallachia were recognised in June 1941, with the Tsar as their head of state.
Externally, Serbia, while still a joint Russo-German sphere of influence, entered into a bilateral economic treaty with Russia in 1944. Hellas [Greece] signed a similar treaty a year later. More out of concern over Germany rather than fondness for her eastern neighbour, Sweden entered a similar agreement in 1946.
Chapter 3: The United States of America
Much like Russia, the United States of America is a territorial behemoth, spanning from Alaska in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, even discounting its claims to the Antarctic. In its nature, though, the USA is almost the inverse of the Great Bear. Russia is a federation of states which are theoretically subject to the ultimate rule of Saint Petersburg but in practice are often allowed to rule themselves. The United States is a republic which is formally comprised of sovereign states, but which in practice lost all of their meaningful power to the central government many years ago.
The extension of American hegemony over the entirety of the Americas is a desire which has existed for as long as the United States. The US gains of the Great War simply marked the greatest phase of this expansion. By 1934, the United States had already integrated all of its older acquisitions as states, except for the lightly-populated Lesser Antilles and Suriname. They still faced the challenges of integrating some of their newer acquisitions; their gains from the North American War had still not been completely settled, and now they had the much greater task of subduing the vastness of South America.
Quelling the formerly independent states of Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela had been a labour of decades. They had determinedly fought the initial invasion, and maintained a dedicated campaign of resistance [7] thereafter. Successive US presidents tried to use both compromise and retribution to end the resistance.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great War, with the resistance largely quelled, it appeared that these territories would soon be admitted as full states. This admission was blocked by the staunch opposition of President O’Brien, who believed that it would destabilise his response to the broader labour shifts that were overtaking the United States during this period. The introduction of the mechanised cotton-picker had slashed demand for slave labour, with flow-on declines in slave and peon prices, and this meant that for almost the first time in its history, the United States had a surplus of indentured labour [8].
In this uncertain climate, the admission of new states would have meant an end to all occupation laws and any restrictions on the movement of indentured labour northward. O’Brien vetoed the proposed admission of Costa Rica in 1936, the first time an American president had prevented the admission of a new state. The only states which would be admitted during his tenure would be Suriname in 1937, the Antilles [9] in 1938 and Alaska in 1939.
During the O’Brien years, American actions in South America were much more focused on establishing administrative stability. In particular, the United States developed a new citizenship system which would preserve her social control and racial hierarchy without allowing a flood of peon and slave labour northward.
The American gains in the Great War were thus organised into administrative forms which suited these new needs. In 1936, Peru was partitioned into the territories of Trujillo, Lima and Arequipa [10]. The Brazilian military districts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo [11] were converted into territories in 1937, while in 1938 Chile was divided into the territories of Santiago and Concepcion [12]. Charcas was for much longer administered as a semi-sovereign protectorate, and would not be formally annexed as a territory until 1943.
Within this greater territorial hegemony, the United States set about imposing its usual racial hierarchy, but in a new form to suit its changed conditions. During the previous era of the informal American empire, new acquisitions had been administered in forms which allowed the creation of slaves, peons, and other forms of indentured labour.
In their post-Great War gains, the United States created the familiar racial hierarchy, but with a different emphasis than in their older acquisitions. Where before Americans would often be more generous in considering whether to deem new inhabitants as white and grant them citizenship, now the classification of being white was much harder to obtain.
At the bottom of the American racial classification were, as always, those deemed to be black. They had no legal rights, and in theory could be turned into slaves by anyone willing to do so, but with a United States facing an oversupply of slaves, this was rarely thought an attractive proposition. Instead, the blacks in the new territories were marginalised, relegated to the lowest echelons of society and the most menial forms of labour, and strongly encouraged to emigrate to [Republican] Brazil or Argentina.
This left a great many inhabitants in an awkward middle, either of Amerindian or mixed heritage, or sometimes with white ancestry but deemed too disloyal for full citizenship. For this class of people, President O’Brien is reported to have said “Let them have their Latin rights”, and introduced a new form of citizenship: Territorial citizenship.
Territorial citizenship meant that its holders – soon colloquially shortened to tets – had recognised but restricted legal rights. In particular, they were able to hold property and were not subject to indenture except in specific legal circumstances, although they had no voting rights.
The crucial limitation of Territorial citizenship was that it was restricted to a given U.S. Territory; tets who voluntarily moved outside of those borders lost those rights, unless they moved to another US territory which had mutual recognition of Territorial citizenship. Territorial citizenship was applied across the post-Great War gains, and most of those Territories gave mutual recognition to tets, except for Concepcion.
Tets thus were, and still are, effectively prevented from moving into actual American states, for there they will be subject to the older forms of American citizenship, where they were be likely to find themselves treated as peons, with rights which are virtually non-existent. This restriction caused (and still causes) ongoing debate within the United States, but it remains in place to the present day as a means of keeping their territorial hegemony while still sustaining their established social order.
In the 1940s, the economic situation stabilised, with the rise of the new American industrialism. Labour prices were now lower, allowing cheap indentured labour to be used in low-cost manufacturing in conditions which would be considered unacceptable in the more humane societies of the other superpowers [13].
In this climate, and with new political leadership, the expansion of the labour pool with more peons and slaves was no longer considered a problem. So the other long-ruled territories were admitted as states during this decade. Costa Rica was first in 1941, and when this proved to cause no major problems, Antioquía and Panama followed in 1943, Caracas in 1944, Maracaibo and Quito in 1945, Buenaventura in 1946, Orinoco in 1947, and finally Amazonia in 1948.
Chapter 4: Germany and the Greater European Economic Union
Germany is by far the smallest – and, by nearly seventy years, the youngest [14] – of the three traditional Superpowers. It is also in many ways the most distinct. Unlike the titanic Russian Federation and the monolithic United States, both of which fit the view of a superpower as a unified state, Germany instead relies on a sphere of influence to exert its dominance over Europe and North Africa.
Like so many other institutions, the Greater European Economic Union was created in the aftermath of the Great War. The struggle against the bonds of its predecessor, the European Union, had been the trigger for the war, and the new GEEU was meant to be a more stable replacement. Yet despite its name, the GEEU is not just a trading bloc, but even more a political creation...
Formed in 1934 from the core of the old European Union members of Germany, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, the GEEU also included Denmark, England, Scotland, Cymru and the Italies as full founding members. The status of associate membership includes most of the economic benefits but fewer of the political liabilities, and Montenegro, Albania and Aragon become associate members at the founding.
Since its founding, the GEEU has gradually spread to encompass almost all of Europe outside of the Federation. Montenegro became a full member in 1940, with Albania following in 1942. Castile joined as an associate member in 1941, followed by Norway in 1946. Sweden and Hellas have never formally joined the GEEU, although both nations have trade agreements. Ireland became an associate member in 1949 for similar economic reasons, although it continued to maintain a stubborn political separation.
Despite both blandishments and veiled threats, Portugal maintained its separation from the GEEU. Relations improved to the point where Portugal accepted (in principle) the transfer of the Aragonese Congo to Germany in 1943 [15], but Portugal continued to rely on its own colonial possessions and its ties to the United States.
The states comprising the former France have long been the most troublesome part of the German sphere of influence. Notionally France had been separated into new separate states in 1936, but in practice these new states remained under military rule. Insurgencies and resistance campaigns by French nationalist and reunification groups continue to the present in some regions, although they reached their peak during the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Brittany possessed the most distinct sense of separation of any of the former French states. Civilian rule was established in 1941, with associate member status following in 1943, and full membership in 1950.
Inspired in part by an Occitan revival, and in part by a lingering sense of betrayal from the former central French government, the southern states of Languedoc and Gascony were next to stabilise. German occupation troops were progressively withdrawn save from a couple of military bases, and full civilian rule was restored to both states in 1945. The two states became associate members in 1946, and full members in 1952.
By 1948, Burgundy and Auvergne were also considered stable enough that German troops were withdrawn to their bases, and those states returned to effective civilian rule. Associate membership followed in 1951. Pro-reunification and nationalistic elements in the remaining states of former France continued to resist any bids to join the GEEU...
Although usually referred to as first among the Superpowers, Germany would be more accurately described as one of the last of the imperial powers (along with Portugal). The Great War saw all of its old imperial dominions stripped away, except for Libya, but a new colonial empire was created in that war. As well as expansion within Europe, Germany acquired a new colonial sphere in North Africa.
Administration of these new acquisitions as full colonies quickly proved to be more troublesome than it was worth for a Germany still preoccupied with mainland Europe. Morocco, which had previously been an established kingdom, was admitted into the now-misnamed Greater European Economic Union as an associate member in 1942, and Egypt was first granted limited self-rule and established as an associate member in 1950.
Within Germany itself, its Great War gains provided their own challenges of administration. The Italian gains were governed as two military districts until 1939, when the process began to convert them into new provinces.
As an intended aid to stability, Frankfurt looked to the old dynastic houses which had been deprived of their traditional states during the wars of Italian unification. The leading members of those families, now residing in the Swiss states, had a keen interest in seeing their family restored to their old dominions. After some cursory diplomacy and some polite acceptances from the Italies, Germany decided to restore the old families.
The House of Austria-Este, now rulers of Aargau, nominated a cousin of the then-Duke to become the new Duke of Modena. Similarly, the Duke of Lucerne, from the house of Bourbon-Parma, chose his elder son to become Duke of Parma, while his second son became the heir to the Swiss Duchy.
The remainder of Germany’s Italian acquisitions offered more problems. The traditional rulers of this region were the House of Savoy, who were now the rulers of South Italy. Since that dynasty was unacceptable to German interests, other German noble families were invited to offer candidates. The Swiss branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine provided a nephew of the current ruler of the Three Duchies [16], who became King of Piedmont, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Nice. The Swiss branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg provided the second son of the Grand Duke of Zurich, who became the Duke of Genoa, mirroring the title of Doge used there before the First Napoleonic War.
Germany’s new acquisitions from France were far more difficult to govern. French nationalistic and reunification sentiment still ran high, and German occupation forces and their local supporters were prime assassination targets. Moreover, while some German states had traditional claims over small parts of the former France [17], the local sentiments in the former France were as much more anti-monarchical than they were anti-German. The German government in Frankfurt drew the inevitable conclusion that installing new monarchs would make the task of assimilation more difficult, not less.
The new German acquisitions had originally been divided into three military districts, a state of affairs which Frankfurt wanted to end quickly. Given the strong republican sentiment, the Blucher [18] government divided these districts into several republican states whose borders closely resembled the former medieval states that had been used to divide the rest of France.
The southern district was divided into the states of Provence and Lyonnais. The central district was divided into the states of Lower Burgundy, Lorraine and Champagne. The northern district was divided into the states of Picardy, Soissons and Upper Normandy [19].
Chapter 5: The Restored Empire
Forged from the shards of the British Empire, the Restored Empire was created in 1934, with the King of Australia assuming the nominal title of Emperor. Due to the circumstances of its birth, the Empire has always been forced to steer a careful path between the twin dangers of too much centralisation – which would alienate its diverse constituents – and too much separation – which would eliminate its utility as a common economic, cultural and military bloc.
At its inception, the founding states of the Empire – Australia, South Africa, and Ceylon – agreed that all of the territories of the former British Empire, including its Great War acquisitions, should be granted independence. The planned timetable established 1939 as the independence date for the former British colonies, and 1943 for the formerly German ones.
Until independence, the regions of the Empire were divided between the three founding members. Each sphere of the Empire would be shaped by its initial relationship to these states.
Long before the transition period was over, the Empire gained its first new member and faced its first great crisis. Ireland joined the Empire in June 1935, gaining a notional protection from German threats, and just in time for the great crisis.
India, populous and diverse, had been on its own path to independence since before the Great War. It had never been considered as a candidate to join the Restored Empire, both because of its own independent-mindedness, and since its population would dwarf every other member state.
Crisis arose all the same, however, because of the contentious question of the princely states. Colonial India had been divided into directly ruled territories, and over five hundred princely states, with varying degrees of actual sovereignty. Along with independence, the Bharati National Congress wanted “One Bharat”, meaning one language, one national identity, and, according to some of the whispers, one religion, too.
The princely states did not fit into the BNC’s vision of a new Bharat, where the former colonial divisions would be abolished and a new federal republic created. Out of necessity in some cases, and in apparently genuine egalitarianism in other cases, most of the princely states were prepared to join the new Bharat.
In southern India, the Nizam of Hyderabad wanted no part of what he saw as over-zealous nationalists who wanted to purify India according to their own wishes. Privately, he is said to have described them as “India’s answer to vitalism”. Popular among his subjects, and with a strong local base of manufacturing to support him, the Nizam was prepared to fight rather than be forced to join the new Bharat.
In the independence negotiations at New Delhi, Hyderabad’s delegation made their ruler’s position clear, albeit couched in more diplomatic phrase. The delegations from the other southern princely states of Mysore, Travancore and Cochin were prepared to follow Hyderabad’s lead. In July 1935, the negotiations broke down, with the delegations from the four princely states returning home. Angered by the violent rhetoric which followed from some of the more extreme members of the BNC, most of the delegation of the Madras Presidency followed them.
The crisis dragged on for months, with what appeared to be genuine potential for war. As still the notional rulers of India, the three founding states sent diplomats to India to try to act as mediators. Their efforts were treated with suspicion by some elements within the BNC, out of well-reasoned fear that the southern states would seek to join the Empire, or at least seek alliance.
Fortunately for both sides, the moderates within the Congress prevailed, thanks also to some more effective mediation by a delegation from the Emperor of Nippon. Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Cochin and the newly-formed Commonwealth of Madras became independent states in July 1936, at the same time as the Republic of Bharat. Within its now-restricted borders, the Congress set about building their new Bharat, while the southern states followed a separate path which in time would bring them into close friendship with the Empire...
In 1939, the first round of long-promised plebiscites were held. East Africa, Burma, Malaya, Sarawak, the Philippines, Maguindanao & Sulu, Central Africa, British Somaliland, the Maldives, Aden, the islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Arabian protectorates voted on their futures.
As expected, the Philippines opted to become a kingdom within the Empire. Prince Robert, cousin of George I of Australia, converted to Catholicism, renounced claims on the Australian succession, and became King Roberto I of the Philippines.
The plebiscite in East Africa resulted in narrow approval for the carefully-crafted negotiations which had been conducted over the previous five years. The second son of King Jonathan I of South Africa was chosen as King Andrew I, of a nation which was renamed as Kenya. As part of the same vote, the Kenyans approved a constitution which restricted several key government offices to people from particular races, including a black prime minister.
The people of the Maldives voted to join a personal union with Ceylon. In practice, this meant that a popularly-elected local assembly at Male managed most domestic affairs, with Colombo directing its defence policy.
In the rest of the Indian Ocean, the Comoros, Seychelles and Mascarenes [Réunion & Mauritius] opted to become autonomous dependences of South Africa, with more restricted sovereignty than the Maldives had from Ceylon. In the Pacific, Fiji, Samoa [including Tokelau], Tonga, the Cook Islands and the Society Islands voted to become similarly autonomous dependencies. The Ellice Islands [Tuvalu], Pleasant Island [Nauru], the Tuamotos and Pitcairn Island opted for more limited self-rule, while remaining dependencies of Australia.
Pre-plebiscite negotiations in Burma had been heated, and sometimes violent, with the divided ethnicities mistrusting each other. The plebiscite had offered the option of full independence as a republic, or the creation of a people’s kingdom [20] within the Empire. Most outside expectations had been for the Burmese to choose a republic and independence, yet more than two-thirds of the vote was for a people’s kingdom within the Empire.
Public explanations of this vote usually ascribed it to a Burmese belief that a neutral monarch as a head of state (much like Ceylon and Palestine) would be more beneficial than having several ethnicities competing against each other. Most private explanations, and a few less tactful public explanations, added that the security of Imperial membership would be welcome for a nation next to increasingly hyper-nationalistic Bharat. Whatever the reasons, Frederick, third son of King Edward I of Ceylon, agreed to become the monarch of Burma after renouncing his and his heirs’ places in the Ceylonese succession.
The plebiscites which attracted most international interest at the time where those in British Somaliland and Aden. These two regions were important for controlling access to and from the Red Sea; without control of them, it was remarked, Germany would gain nothing from having taken the Suez Canal during the Great War.
Because of that German interest, and to a lesser degree the growing alignment between Abyssinia and Russia, both British Somaliland and Aden voted to remain within the Empire. The rapid expansion of monarchies at this time had produced a surfeit of nations seeking suitable rulers and a concomitant shortage of available monarchs. After further negotiations, Matthew Windsor [21], cousin of George I of Australia, become the ruler of both the newly-formed People’s Kingdom of Somalia, and the People’s Kingdom of Aden. The two states were established as sovereign entities in all respects; Matthew I divided his time between the respective capitals of Berbera and Aden, but the two nations had no other political connections.
Most other 1939 plebiscites saw votes for independence, but not Kingdom status or its equivalent. These nations opted to become states “in association” with the Empire, which involved preferential but not full trade access, and admission to the military coordination arrangements of the empire, although not yet the full alliance offered to member states. They drew this inspiration from Siam, which in 1938 had opted for a similar form of association with the Empire, while retaining its own sovereignty.
Malaya voted to become a federated monarchy, incorporating the nine royal states of Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor, together with the free ports of Penang and Singapore, and the non-royal state of Malacca. Malaya was jointly governed by the Nine Sultans in Council, although their roles were largely ceremonial, with governance conducted by an elected legislature.
Oman likewise voted to become a federal monarchy, with the Sultan of Oman as overall suzerain. Maguindanao & Sulu became a monarchy under the Sultan of Sulu, with both regions having notional autonomy, although common institutions would be developed in time, and in international parlance the nation is called Sulu.
Sarawak, so long a preserve of the Borneo Company and exemplar of the corporate state [22], had been transformed before the Great War by the bankruptcy of the Company and subsequent direct colonial rule. After the war, it had been courted both by Malaya and Sulu for various forms of political association, but eventually opted for full independence.
Central Africa represented the most ambiguous of all of the regions of the Empire. As a region, it had been hurriedly created during the dying days of the Great War out of portions of former British colonies which had survived the transfer of other parts of those colonies to Portugal or been defended from German invasion. It had limited political cohesion and few common institutions, save a general reluctance on the part of most of its inhabitants to succumb to German rule. It existed, in effect, to fill a space on the map of Africa which the Empire did not want to yield to German influence [23].
With such inchoate status, Central Africa represented the one region where the local delegations asked for the plebiscite to include the option for continued imperial administration. When the votes were tallied in 1939, the plurality of voters had chosen to remain under Imperial rule for another five years, when a second plebiscite would follow...
In 1942, the second round of plebiscites was conducted in the formerly German colonies of Indochina, Madagascar, the East Indies, Timor and Mozambique.
Indochina opted to become a federal republic in association with the Empire. At the national level it was governed by a popularly elected president, with the seat of federal government in Hanoi. Three royal states in Annam, Laos and Cambodia, and two non-royal states of Tonkin and Cochinchina, were governed by local assemblies.
Madagascar’s own royal family had been deposed decades before, and were not remembered fondly. Distant from any potential German or Russian threat, Madagascar also did not have any significant fears for its own security. So its voters took the option of becoming an independent republic outside of the Empire, with friendly relations but no formal association.
The East Indies posed a complex problem. Strictly speaking they had always been a Dutch rather than a German colony. Some parts of the East Indies had been under colonial rule for centuries, but most parts had only come under formal colonial control during the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. These disparate regions often had little to unite them, other than a common mistrust of their old colonial legacy. Vociferous negotiations during the transitional period had been conducted to resolve the question of whether the planned plebiscite should simply offer independence to the whole of the East Indies, or whether some regions should be offered the choice of separating entirely from the proposed new nation.
Ultimately, the bulk of the East Indies voted for independence as the new Republic of Indonesia, with its capital at newly-renamed Jakarta. Distant from potential rivals, Indonesia declined to join the Empire even as an associated state, although it quickly developed close economic ties. However, the regions of Aceh, Minahasa [North Sulawesi] and the Moluccas [24] voted to remain separate from Indonesia, becoming new states in association with the Empire.
Timor, long a Portuguese dominion, had been forcibly sold to Germany in 1920, and its people felt neglected. It had been purchased by Germany simply as an appendage of the more lucrative regions of the East Indies, and been largely ignored since apart from a few coffee plantations. Resistance to Australian invasion during the war was negligible. During the post-war transitional period, Timor benefitted from unrestricted trade access to the Australian market, which made its coffee exports much more valuable. In the plebiscite, the majority of Timorese voted to become a territory of Australia.
Mozambique was a region even more divided than Indonesia, and with the same history of Portuguese domination then forcible sale to Germany. Voting in the plebiscite was split along largely regional lines. The north of the country opted to join Kenya, the centre and south voted for union with South Africa, while lingering pro-Portuguese sentiment saw western Mozambique vote for union with Portuguese Angola [25]...
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[1] The date of the end of the Great War varies among sources. Some set it in 1932, when the fighting stopped in Europe. Most set it in 1933, when the fighting stopped (except for the US) and the Dublin Conference marked the main peace that ended the war. Some set in 1935, when the war between the US and Chile officially ended.
[2] Internal border controls and associated migration controls are in many cases the most important concerns of individual regions. Smaller regions often fear Russification from large numbers of Russian-speaking immigrants (particularly wealthy Russians moving in and taking economic control). Many regions, including Russia proper, fear a flood of Chinese migration westward, and so restrict that.
[3] The name Russia gave Ulan Bator prior to the OTL Russian Revolution.
[4] Kokand was not formally annexed ITTL, instead being left in a vassal status similar to that of Bokhara and Khiva.
[5] Ice Jecen roughly corresponds to the OTL Chinese province of Xinjiang, and which has also been historically known as East Turkestan.
[6] TTL’s Manchuria includes both Outer Manchuria and most of Inner Manchuria, since Russia obtained control of most of Inner Manchuria as one of the concessions it demanded from the Qing during the Great War.
[7] Or, as *Americans call it, ongoing terrorism.
[8] Or, more precisely, a surplus of labour for the sorts of industries and occupations which would provide a rate of return which would be acceptable to the owners. There is still productive work which could be performed by indentured labour, but in industries where the rate of return would be much lower than would be preferred given the slave and peon prices.
[9] The Antilles essentially comprises all of the OTL islands of the Lesser Antilles which stretch in an arc between the US/British Virgin Islands and Aruba and Curacao. These were islands which had been gradually acquired by the *USA but which were not considered to have a high enough population to justify statehood. The *US state of the Antilles does not include the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos, which are administered separately.
[10] Trujillo is composed of the OTL Peruvian provinces of Amazonas, Ancash, Cajamarca, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Loreto, Piura and San Martín. Lima is Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Huánuco, Ica, Junín, Lima, Pasco, and Ucayali. Arequipa is Apurímac, Arequipa, Callao Province, Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Moquegua, Puno, Tacna, and Tumbes.
[11] Rio de Janeiro is composed of the *American segments of the OTL Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, while Sao Paulo is composed of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo.
[12] Santiago is composed of the OTL Chilean provinces of Antofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo, Tarapacá, Metropolitana de Santiago and Valparaíso, while Concepcion is composed of Biobío, Ibáñez del Campo, La Araucanía, Los Lagos, Magellan and Antarctic Region, Maule and O’Higgins, as well as the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego e Islas del Atlántico Sur, and the Falkland Islands.
[13] Not to mention the lower value of the *US dollar, which collapsed along with cotton and slave prices. This makes *US manufacturing exports much more cost-competitive.
[14] This views the Treaty of Paris (1783) as the formation of the United States of America as an independent state, rather than the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
[15] This is a legacy of the Treaty of Madrid (1932), which ended the war between Germany and Aragon, Portugal and the USA. As part of that treaty, Germany acquired the right to take the Aragonese Congo. After the war, though, the hostility of the Restored Empire meant that this option was not exercised for over a decade.
[16] The Three Duchies are Uri (actually a principality), Wallis and Tessin.
[17] There are a few areas where German states still had some claims. For instance, the Habsburgs coveted Lorraine and the Franche-Comté, while the House of Orange-Nassau looked desirously at the remainder of Picardy and their traditional home in the French town of Orange.
[18] Karl-Heinz Blucher, head of a mostly left-wing coalition and Chancellor of Germany from 1936 to 1941.
[19] Provence is the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. Lyonnais is the Rhône-Alpes region east of the Rhône River (the border just barely goes around the city of Lyon). Lower Burgundy is the Franche-Comté and Bourgogne regions east of the Saône River. Lorraine is the Lorraine region minus the Mossele department, which is part of Alsace-Lorraine. Champagne is the Champagne-Ardenne region north of the Seine, as well as the remaining part of the Bourgogne region that is within Germany. Picardy is the historical County of Picardy that is not within the Netherlands ITTL. Soissons is the rest of the Picardy region plus the Île-de-France region north of the Seine, except for Paris itself. Upper Normandy is more or less the former Duchy of Normandy north of the Seine.
[20] People’s kingdom is an ATL institution which was originally created in Ceylon, and which has now been adopted elsewhere. Ceylon is a de jure elective monarchy, with each successor being confirmed by a majority of a popular vote, and can be required to be reconfirmed should 10% of the people call for it. To date, this provision has been notional rather than meaningful, no would-be Ceylonese monarch has failed to win election, and a recall election has never been called.
[21] The royal families in the British Empire are still technically descended from the House of Hanover (itself a branch of the House of Welf). This is because instead of Victoria, *Edward VII was born and preserved descent in the male line. The family name was changed to Windsor during the Great War to distance themselves from Germany.
[22] In OTL, Sarawak was created as a private fiefdom of the “White Rajahs” of the Brooke dynasty, while neighbouring Sabah was dominated by the North Borneo Company. ATL, Sabah was administratively incorporated with the OTL southern Phillipines, while the region of Sarawak was exploited by the Borneo Company as a source of tropical timber, and rubber plantations.
[23] -1 points for anyone who doesn’t get that reference.
[24] Although called the Moluccas, this state consists of what in OTL is called the South Moluccas; Ambon, Ceram, Buru and nearby islands. The OTL North Moluccas are part of Indonesia.
[25] The geographical divisions are the lands east of Lake Nyassa [Lake Malawi] and north of the River Lurio joined Kenya, the lands roughly south of the Lurio and east of the River Lupalua joined South Africa, while the remaining lands west of the Lupalua joined Angola.
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Thoughts?
Credit for this post goes to Analytical Engine, who wrote most of it apart from the Alvar O’Brien and Indian sections and a few other editorial additions.
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Extracts from: “A History of the Modern World, Volume 2: After the Great War”
By Mark J. Epworth
The period following the end of the Great War in 1933 [1] is often described as beginning of the Superpower Period. It is marked by the dissolution of the British Empire and the creation of vast, sometimes overlapping spheres of influence in the Old World and American territorial hegemony in the New World.
As is so often the case with popular perceptions of history, much more underlies the beginning of this period. The boundary between the Age of Empires and the Age of Superpowers is blurred; it was in essence a gradual transition rather than an abrupt change from one era to another.
While it is true that the empires that exemplified the nineteenth and early twentieth century gave way to the tripolar world of spheres of influence, there is no singular definition of a superpower. Each is different, and each should be considered individually, not as a collective.
Many people, particularly from those same Superpowers, think of the world as divided between the three great states of Russia, Germany and the United States. Yet the bloc comprising the Restored Empire, Nippon and, to some extent, the Republic of China can also be thought of as a half-superpower. Indeed, if this bloc had a shared sovereignty, it could almost be considered as a fourth Superpower.
Chapter 2: The Russian Federation
As the largest country in the world, Russia is the epitome of the modern idea of a Superpower. Formed in the aftermath of the Great War, the Russian Federation is the final product of the evolution of the Russian Empire and its Asian sphere of influence.
Begun as a federation between Russia, Finland, and Thrace & Marmara – all of which have the Tsar as head of state – and the states of Courland, Bulgaria, Bokhara, Khiva, Tuva and Tibet, it has since evolved into a more complex union of states that covers much of Asia and large parts of Europe.
The 1930s were a period of cautious experimentation in Russia, to determine whether the idea of federation would work, and if so how best to implement it. As it transpired, the transition to federation worked very effectively; Russia proper became more ethnically and religiously homogenous, and the other regions gained whichever level of autonomy and internal border controls [2] suited both their inhabitants’ and the federal government’s interests.
Those new member states admitted during the 1940s were all carved from Russia proper. The external states dominated by the Bear were, during this period, considered ill-suited for inclusion within the Federation, though each of them had close economic (and sometimes military) ties with Saint Petersburg.
The first new member admitted to the Federation was Mongolia, in March 1940. The mostly Buddhist region had been an integrated tributary state under the Khan in Urga [3], and had been expanded into Inner Mongolia following the Great War. Mongolia was granted an equivalent level of autonomy as the Emirate of Bokhara and the Khanate of Khiva. It was joined by the Khanate of Kokand [4] in June 1943.
Persistent agitation from the Turkmen peoples of Transcapia, who had long suffered from exploitation by corrupt local administrators, saw Transcapia admitted as a federated state in September 1945, with the then-unique provision that all revenues earned in Transcapia had to be spent in that state.
The region of Ice Jecen [5] had been acquired from Qing China well before the Great War, but then been largely neglected by Russia during that time. Few would-be Russian settlers found Ice Jecen an attractive destination, and the native Uighur peoples were largely left to rule themselves. Ice Jecen was declared a federated state in November 1948 largely to formalise its already separate status, and to allow it to restrict Han immigration.
Plans to establish Manchuria [6] as a federated state were discussed several times, particularly during the late 1930s, but were ultimately discarded. The region had become plurality Russian by that period, and those inhabitants were willing to remain part of Russia proper. The native Manchu, Han and Chosen [Korean] peoples were less enthusiastic about this decision, but they had only a limited political voice.
Dealing with the various minority peoples in Europe became a more difficult proposition. Most of these regions had been part of the Russian Empire for centuries, not decades, formal separation at the level of Finland was considered anathema to traditionalists within Russia.
However, nationalist concerns had been awakened in Europe by the experiment of Federation and the example of Courland. Of particular concern to many of the inhabitants was the spread of the Russian language and the perceived influx of wealthy Great Russians displacing local businessmen. As a means of appeasement, the Duma created “special regions” in the provinces of Estonia, Livonia, and the areas inhabited by Georgians and Armenians.
The special regions were granted local political assemblies with authority to set immigration quotas and related laws. In the case of Estonia and Livonia, this sufficed to calm local agitation. In Georgia and Armenia, the assemblies instead sought additional powers. These were progressively granted, and eventually Armenia [in July 1946] and Georgia [in February 1947] were created as federated states, although the Tsar remained the head of state.
Although formally annexed a century before, the Danube Principalities had a long tradition of de facto autonomy. So the shift to federated states was a straightforward extension of that tradition; Moldavia and Wallachia were recognised in June 1941, with the Tsar as their head of state.
Externally, Serbia, while still a joint Russo-German sphere of influence, entered into a bilateral economic treaty with Russia in 1944. Hellas [Greece] signed a similar treaty a year later. More out of concern over Germany rather than fondness for her eastern neighbour, Sweden entered a similar agreement in 1946.
Chapter 3: The United States of America
Much like Russia, the United States of America is a territorial behemoth, spanning from Alaska in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, even discounting its claims to the Antarctic. In its nature, though, the USA is almost the inverse of the Great Bear. Russia is a federation of states which are theoretically subject to the ultimate rule of Saint Petersburg but in practice are often allowed to rule themselves. The United States is a republic which is formally comprised of sovereign states, but which in practice lost all of their meaningful power to the central government many years ago.
The extension of American hegemony over the entirety of the Americas is a desire which has existed for as long as the United States. The US gains of the Great War simply marked the greatest phase of this expansion. By 1934, the United States had already integrated all of its older acquisitions as states, except for the lightly-populated Lesser Antilles and Suriname. They still faced the challenges of integrating some of their newer acquisitions; their gains from the North American War had still not been completely settled, and now they had the much greater task of subduing the vastness of South America.
Quelling the formerly independent states of Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela had been a labour of decades. They had determinedly fought the initial invasion, and maintained a dedicated campaign of resistance [7] thereafter. Successive US presidents tried to use both compromise and retribution to end the resistance.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great War, with the resistance largely quelled, it appeared that these territories would soon be admitted as full states. This admission was blocked by the staunch opposition of President O’Brien, who believed that it would destabilise his response to the broader labour shifts that were overtaking the United States during this period. The introduction of the mechanised cotton-picker had slashed demand for slave labour, with flow-on declines in slave and peon prices, and this meant that for almost the first time in its history, the United States had a surplus of indentured labour [8].
In this uncertain climate, the admission of new states would have meant an end to all occupation laws and any restrictions on the movement of indentured labour northward. O’Brien vetoed the proposed admission of Costa Rica in 1936, the first time an American president had prevented the admission of a new state. The only states which would be admitted during his tenure would be Suriname in 1937, the Antilles [9] in 1938 and Alaska in 1939.
During the O’Brien years, American actions in South America were much more focused on establishing administrative stability. In particular, the United States developed a new citizenship system which would preserve her social control and racial hierarchy without allowing a flood of peon and slave labour northward.
The American gains in the Great War were thus organised into administrative forms which suited these new needs. In 1936, Peru was partitioned into the territories of Trujillo, Lima and Arequipa [10]. The Brazilian military districts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo [11] were converted into territories in 1937, while in 1938 Chile was divided into the territories of Santiago and Concepcion [12]. Charcas was for much longer administered as a semi-sovereign protectorate, and would not be formally annexed as a territory until 1943.
Within this greater territorial hegemony, the United States set about imposing its usual racial hierarchy, but in a new form to suit its changed conditions. During the previous era of the informal American empire, new acquisitions had been administered in forms which allowed the creation of slaves, peons, and other forms of indentured labour.
In their post-Great War gains, the United States created the familiar racial hierarchy, but with a different emphasis than in their older acquisitions. Where before Americans would often be more generous in considering whether to deem new inhabitants as white and grant them citizenship, now the classification of being white was much harder to obtain.
At the bottom of the American racial classification were, as always, those deemed to be black. They had no legal rights, and in theory could be turned into slaves by anyone willing to do so, but with a United States facing an oversupply of slaves, this was rarely thought an attractive proposition. Instead, the blacks in the new territories were marginalised, relegated to the lowest echelons of society and the most menial forms of labour, and strongly encouraged to emigrate to [Republican] Brazil or Argentina.
This left a great many inhabitants in an awkward middle, either of Amerindian or mixed heritage, or sometimes with white ancestry but deemed too disloyal for full citizenship. For this class of people, President O’Brien is reported to have said “Let them have their Latin rights”, and introduced a new form of citizenship: Territorial citizenship.
Territorial citizenship meant that its holders – soon colloquially shortened to tets – had recognised but restricted legal rights. In particular, they were able to hold property and were not subject to indenture except in specific legal circumstances, although they had no voting rights.
The crucial limitation of Territorial citizenship was that it was restricted to a given U.S. Territory; tets who voluntarily moved outside of those borders lost those rights, unless they moved to another US territory which had mutual recognition of Territorial citizenship. Territorial citizenship was applied across the post-Great War gains, and most of those Territories gave mutual recognition to tets, except for Concepcion.
Tets thus were, and still are, effectively prevented from moving into actual American states, for there they will be subject to the older forms of American citizenship, where they were be likely to find themselves treated as peons, with rights which are virtually non-existent. This restriction caused (and still causes) ongoing debate within the United States, but it remains in place to the present day as a means of keeping their territorial hegemony while still sustaining their established social order.
In the 1940s, the economic situation stabilised, with the rise of the new American industrialism. Labour prices were now lower, allowing cheap indentured labour to be used in low-cost manufacturing in conditions which would be considered unacceptable in the more humane societies of the other superpowers [13].
In this climate, and with new political leadership, the expansion of the labour pool with more peons and slaves was no longer considered a problem. So the other long-ruled territories were admitted as states during this decade. Costa Rica was first in 1941, and when this proved to cause no major problems, Antioquía and Panama followed in 1943, Caracas in 1944, Maracaibo and Quito in 1945, Buenaventura in 1946, Orinoco in 1947, and finally Amazonia in 1948.
Chapter 4: Germany and the Greater European Economic Union
Germany is by far the smallest – and, by nearly seventy years, the youngest [14] – of the three traditional Superpowers. It is also in many ways the most distinct. Unlike the titanic Russian Federation and the monolithic United States, both of which fit the view of a superpower as a unified state, Germany instead relies on a sphere of influence to exert its dominance over Europe and North Africa.
Like so many other institutions, the Greater European Economic Union was created in the aftermath of the Great War. The struggle against the bonds of its predecessor, the European Union, had been the trigger for the war, and the new GEEU was meant to be a more stable replacement. Yet despite its name, the GEEU is not just a trading bloc, but even more a political creation...
Formed in 1934 from the core of the old European Union members of Germany, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, the GEEU also included Denmark, England, Scotland, Cymru and the Italies as full founding members. The status of associate membership includes most of the economic benefits but fewer of the political liabilities, and Montenegro, Albania and Aragon become associate members at the founding.
Since its founding, the GEEU has gradually spread to encompass almost all of Europe outside of the Federation. Montenegro became a full member in 1940, with Albania following in 1942. Castile joined as an associate member in 1941, followed by Norway in 1946. Sweden and Hellas have never formally joined the GEEU, although both nations have trade agreements. Ireland became an associate member in 1949 for similar economic reasons, although it continued to maintain a stubborn political separation.
Despite both blandishments and veiled threats, Portugal maintained its separation from the GEEU. Relations improved to the point where Portugal accepted (in principle) the transfer of the Aragonese Congo to Germany in 1943 [15], but Portugal continued to rely on its own colonial possessions and its ties to the United States.
The states comprising the former France have long been the most troublesome part of the German sphere of influence. Notionally France had been separated into new separate states in 1936, but in practice these new states remained under military rule. Insurgencies and resistance campaigns by French nationalist and reunification groups continue to the present in some regions, although they reached their peak during the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Brittany possessed the most distinct sense of separation of any of the former French states. Civilian rule was established in 1941, with associate member status following in 1943, and full membership in 1950.
Inspired in part by an Occitan revival, and in part by a lingering sense of betrayal from the former central French government, the southern states of Languedoc and Gascony were next to stabilise. German occupation troops were progressively withdrawn save from a couple of military bases, and full civilian rule was restored to both states in 1945. The two states became associate members in 1946, and full members in 1952.
By 1948, Burgundy and Auvergne were also considered stable enough that German troops were withdrawn to their bases, and those states returned to effective civilian rule. Associate membership followed in 1951. Pro-reunification and nationalistic elements in the remaining states of former France continued to resist any bids to join the GEEU...
Although usually referred to as first among the Superpowers, Germany would be more accurately described as one of the last of the imperial powers (along with Portugal). The Great War saw all of its old imperial dominions stripped away, except for Libya, but a new colonial empire was created in that war. As well as expansion within Europe, Germany acquired a new colonial sphere in North Africa.
Administration of these new acquisitions as full colonies quickly proved to be more troublesome than it was worth for a Germany still preoccupied with mainland Europe. Morocco, which had previously been an established kingdom, was admitted into the now-misnamed Greater European Economic Union as an associate member in 1942, and Egypt was first granted limited self-rule and established as an associate member in 1950.
Within Germany itself, its Great War gains provided their own challenges of administration. The Italian gains were governed as two military districts until 1939, when the process began to convert them into new provinces.
As an intended aid to stability, Frankfurt looked to the old dynastic houses which had been deprived of their traditional states during the wars of Italian unification. The leading members of those families, now residing in the Swiss states, had a keen interest in seeing their family restored to their old dominions. After some cursory diplomacy and some polite acceptances from the Italies, Germany decided to restore the old families.
The House of Austria-Este, now rulers of Aargau, nominated a cousin of the then-Duke to become the new Duke of Modena. Similarly, the Duke of Lucerne, from the house of Bourbon-Parma, chose his elder son to become Duke of Parma, while his second son became the heir to the Swiss Duchy.
The remainder of Germany’s Italian acquisitions offered more problems. The traditional rulers of this region were the House of Savoy, who were now the rulers of South Italy. Since that dynasty was unacceptable to German interests, other German noble families were invited to offer candidates. The Swiss branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine provided a nephew of the current ruler of the Three Duchies [16], who became King of Piedmont, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Nice. The Swiss branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg provided the second son of the Grand Duke of Zurich, who became the Duke of Genoa, mirroring the title of Doge used there before the First Napoleonic War.
Germany’s new acquisitions from France were far more difficult to govern. French nationalistic and reunification sentiment still ran high, and German occupation forces and their local supporters were prime assassination targets. Moreover, while some German states had traditional claims over small parts of the former France [17], the local sentiments in the former France were as much more anti-monarchical than they were anti-German. The German government in Frankfurt drew the inevitable conclusion that installing new monarchs would make the task of assimilation more difficult, not less.
The new German acquisitions had originally been divided into three military districts, a state of affairs which Frankfurt wanted to end quickly. Given the strong republican sentiment, the Blucher [18] government divided these districts into several republican states whose borders closely resembled the former medieval states that had been used to divide the rest of France.
The southern district was divided into the states of Provence and Lyonnais. The central district was divided into the states of Lower Burgundy, Lorraine and Champagne. The northern district was divided into the states of Picardy, Soissons and Upper Normandy [19].
Chapter 5: The Restored Empire
Forged from the shards of the British Empire, the Restored Empire was created in 1934, with the King of Australia assuming the nominal title of Emperor. Due to the circumstances of its birth, the Empire has always been forced to steer a careful path between the twin dangers of too much centralisation – which would alienate its diverse constituents – and too much separation – which would eliminate its utility as a common economic, cultural and military bloc.
At its inception, the founding states of the Empire – Australia, South Africa, and Ceylon – agreed that all of the territories of the former British Empire, including its Great War acquisitions, should be granted independence. The planned timetable established 1939 as the independence date for the former British colonies, and 1943 for the formerly German ones.
Until independence, the regions of the Empire were divided between the three founding members. Each sphere of the Empire would be shaped by its initial relationship to these states.
Long before the transition period was over, the Empire gained its first new member and faced its first great crisis. Ireland joined the Empire in June 1935, gaining a notional protection from German threats, and just in time for the great crisis.
India, populous and diverse, had been on its own path to independence since before the Great War. It had never been considered as a candidate to join the Restored Empire, both because of its own independent-mindedness, and since its population would dwarf every other member state.
Crisis arose all the same, however, because of the contentious question of the princely states. Colonial India had been divided into directly ruled territories, and over five hundred princely states, with varying degrees of actual sovereignty. Along with independence, the Bharati National Congress wanted “One Bharat”, meaning one language, one national identity, and, according to some of the whispers, one religion, too.
The princely states did not fit into the BNC’s vision of a new Bharat, where the former colonial divisions would be abolished and a new federal republic created. Out of necessity in some cases, and in apparently genuine egalitarianism in other cases, most of the princely states were prepared to join the new Bharat.
In southern India, the Nizam of Hyderabad wanted no part of what he saw as over-zealous nationalists who wanted to purify India according to their own wishes. Privately, he is said to have described them as “India’s answer to vitalism”. Popular among his subjects, and with a strong local base of manufacturing to support him, the Nizam was prepared to fight rather than be forced to join the new Bharat.
In the independence negotiations at New Delhi, Hyderabad’s delegation made their ruler’s position clear, albeit couched in more diplomatic phrase. The delegations from the other southern princely states of Mysore, Travancore and Cochin were prepared to follow Hyderabad’s lead. In July 1935, the negotiations broke down, with the delegations from the four princely states returning home. Angered by the violent rhetoric which followed from some of the more extreme members of the BNC, most of the delegation of the Madras Presidency followed them.
The crisis dragged on for months, with what appeared to be genuine potential for war. As still the notional rulers of India, the three founding states sent diplomats to India to try to act as mediators. Their efforts were treated with suspicion by some elements within the BNC, out of well-reasoned fear that the southern states would seek to join the Empire, or at least seek alliance.
Fortunately for both sides, the moderates within the Congress prevailed, thanks also to some more effective mediation by a delegation from the Emperor of Nippon. Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Cochin and the newly-formed Commonwealth of Madras became independent states in July 1936, at the same time as the Republic of Bharat. Within its now-restricted borders, the Congress set about building their new Bharat, while the southern states followed a separate path which in time would bring them into close friendship with the Empire...
In 1939, the first round of long-promised plebiscites were held. East Africa, Burma, Malaya, Sarawak, the Philippines, Maguindanao & Sulu, Central Africa, British Somaliland, the Maldives, Aden, the islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Arabian protectorates voted on their futures.
As expected, the Philippines opted to become a kingdom within the Empire. Prince Robert, cousin of George I of Australia, converted to Catholicism, renounced claims on the Australian succession, and became King Roberto I of the Philippines.
The plebiscite in East Africa resulted in narrow approval for the carefully-crafted negotiations which had been conducted over the previous five years. The second son of King Jonathan I of South Africa was chosen as King Andrew I, of a nation which was renamed as Kenya. As part of the same vote, the Kenyans approved a constitution which restricted several key government offices to people from particular races, including a black prime minister.
The people of the Maldives voted to join a personal union with Ceylon. In practice, this meant that a popularly-elected local assembly at Male managed most domestic affairs, with Colombo directing its defence policy.
In the rest of the Indian Ocean, the Comoros, Seychelles and Mascarenes [Réunion & Mauritius] opted to become autonomous dependences of South Africa, with more restricted sovereignty than the Maldives had from Ceylon. In the Pacific, Fiji, Samoa [including Tokelau], Tonga, the Cook Islands and the Society Islands voted to become similarly autonomous dependencies. The Ellice Islands [Tuvalu], Pleasant Island [Nauru], the Tuamotos and Pitcairn Island opted for more limited self-rule, while remaining dependencies of Australia.
Pre-plebiscite negotiations in Burma had been heated, and sometimes violent, with the divided ethnicities mistrusting each other. The plebiscite had offered the option of full independence as a republic, or the creation of a people’s kingdom [20] within the Empire. Most outside expectations had been for the Burmese to choose a republic and independence, yet more than two-thirds of the vote was for a people’s kingdom within the Empire.
Public explanations of this vote usually ascribed it to a Burmese belief that a neutral monarch as a head of state (much like Ceylon and Palestine) would be more beneficial than having several ethnicities competing against each other. Most private explanations, and a few less tactful public explanations, added that the security of Imperial membership would be welcome for a nation next to increasingly hyper-nationalistic Bharat. Whatever the reasons, Frederick, third son of King Edward I of Ceylon, agreed to become the monarch of Burma after renouncing his and his heirs’ places in the Ceylonese succession.
The plebiscites which attracted most international interest at the time where those in British Somaliland and Aden. These two regions were important for controlling access to and from the Red Sea; without control of them, it was remarked, Germany would gain nothing from having taken the Suez Canal during the Great War.
Because of that German interest, and to a lesser degree the growing alignment between Abyssinia and Russia, both British Somaliland and Aden voted to remain within the Empire. The rapid expansion of monarchies at this time had produced a surfeit of nations seeking suitable rulers and a concomitant shortage of available monarchs. After further negotiations, Matthew Windsor [21], cousin of George I of Australia, become the ruler of both the newly-formed People’s Kingdom of Somalia, and the People’s Kingdom of Aden. The two states were established as sovereign entities in all respects; Matthew I divided his time between the respective capitals of Berbera and Aden, but the two nations had no other political connections.
Most other 1939 plebiscites saw votes for independence, but not Kingdom status or its equivalent. These nations opted to become states “in association” with the Empire, which involved preferential but not full trade access, and admission to the military coordination arrangements of the empire, although not yet the full alliance offered to member states. They drew this inspiration from Siam, which in 1938 had opted for a similar form of association with the Empire, while retaining its own sovereignty.
Malaya voted to become a federated monarchy, incorporating the nine royal states of Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor, together with the free ports of Penang and Singapore, and the non-royal state of Malacca. Malaya was jointly governed by the Nine Sultans in Council, although their roles were largely ceremonial, with governance conducted by an elected legislature.
Oman likewise voted to become a federal monarchy, with the Sultan of Oman as overall suzerain. Maguindanao & Sulu became a monarchy under the Sultan of Sulu, with both regions having notional autonomy, although common institutions would be developed in time, and in international parlance the nation is called Sulu.
Sarawak, so long a preserve of the Borneo Company and exemplar of the corporate state [22], had been transformed before the Great War by the bankruptcy of the Company and subsequent direct colonial rule. After the war, it had been courted both by Malaya and Sulu for various forms of political association, but eventually opted for full independence.
Central Africa represented the most ambiguous of all of the regions of the Empire. As a region, it had been hurriedly created during the dying days of the Great War out of portions of former British colonies which had survived the transfer of other parts of those colonies to Portugal or been defended from German invasion. It had limited political cohesion and few common institutions, save a general reluctance on the part of most of its inhabitants to succumb to German rule. It existed, in effect, to fill a space on the map of Africa which the Empire did not want to yield to German influence [23].
With such inchoate status, Central Africa represented the one region where the local delegations asked for the plebiscite to include the option for continued imperial administration. When the votes were tallied in 1939, the plurality of voters had chosen to remain under Imperial rule for another five years, when a second plebiscite would follow...
In 1942, the second round of plebiscites was conducted in the formerly German colonies of Indochina, Madagascar, the East Indies, Timor and Mozambique.
Indochina opted to become a federal republic in association with the Empire. At the national level it was governed by a popularly elected president, with the seat of federal government in Hanoi. Three royal states in Annam, Laos and Cambodia, and two non-royal states of Tonkin and Cochinchina, were governed by local assemblies.
Madagascar’s own royal family had been deposed decades before, and were not remembered fondly. Distant from any potential German or Russian threat, Madagascar also did not have any significant fears for its own security. So its voters took the option of becoming an independent republic outside of the Empire, with friendly relations but no formal association.
The East Indies posed a complex problem. Strictly speaking they had always been a Dutch rather than a German colony. Some parts of the East Indies had been under colonial rule for centuries, but most parts had only come under formal colonial control during the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. These disparate regions often had little to unite them, other than a common mistrust of their old colonial legacy. Vociferous negotiations during the transitional period had been conducted to resolve the question of whether the planned plebiscite should simply offer independence to the whole of the East Indies, or whether some regions should be offered the choice of separating entirely from the proposed new nation.
Ultimately, the bulk of the East Indies voted for independence as the new Republic of Indonesia, with its capital at newly-renamed Jakarta. Distant from potential rivals, Indonesia declined to join the Empire even as an associated state, although it quickly developed close economic ties. However, the regions of Aceh, Minahasa [North Sulawesi] and the Moluccas [24] voted to remain separate from Indonesia, becoming new states in association with the Empire.
Timor, long a Portuguese dominion, had been forcibly sold to Germany in 1920, and its people felt neglected. It had been purchased by Germany simply as an appendage of the more lucrative regions of the East Indies, and been largely ignored since apart from a few coffee plantations. Resistance to Australian invasion during the war was negligible. During the post-war transitional period, Timor benefitted from unrestricted trade access to the Australian market, which made its coffee exports much more valuable. In the plebiscite, the majority of Timorese voted to become a territory of Australia.
Mozambique was a region even more divided than Indonesia, and with the same history of Portuguese domination then forcible sale to Germany. Voting in the plebiscite was split along largely regional lines. The north of the country opted to join Kenya, the centre and south voted for union with South Africa, while lingering pro-Portuguese sentiment saw western Mozambique vote for union with Portuguese Angola [25]...
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[1] The date of the end of the Great War varies among sources. Some set it in 1932, when the fighting stopped in Europe. Most set it in 1933, when the fighting stopped (except for the US) and the Dublin Conference marked the main peace that ended the war. Some set in 1935, when the war between the US and Chile officially ended.
[2] Internal border controls and associated migration controls are in many cases the most important concerns of individual regions. Smaller regions often fear Russification from large numbers of Russian-speaking immigrants (particularly wealthy Russians moving in and taking economic control). Many regions, including Russia proper, fear a flood of Chinese migration westward, and so restrict that.
[3] The name Russia gave Ulan Bator prior to the OTL Russian Revolution.
[4] Kokand was not formally annexed ITTL, instead being left in a vassal status similar to that of Bokhara and Khiva.
[5] Ice Jecen roughly corresponds to the OTL Chinese province of Xinjiang, and which has also been historically known as East Turkestan.
[6] TTL’s Manchuria includes both Outer Manchuria and most of Inner Manchuria, since Russia obtained control of most of Inner Manchuria as one of the concessions it demanded from the Qing during the Great War.
[7] Or, as *Americans call it, ongoing terrorism.
[8] Or, more precisely, a surplus of labour for the sorts of industries and occupations which would provide a rate of return which would be acceptable to the owners. There is still productive work which could be performed by indentured labour, but in industries where the rate of return would be much lower than would be preferred given the slave and peon prices.
[9] The Antilles essentially comprises all of the OTL islands of the Lesser Antilles which stretch in an arc between the US/British Virgin Islands and Aruba and Curacao. These were islands which had been gradually acquired by the *USA but which were not considered to have a high enough population to justify statehood. The *US state of the Antilles does not include the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos, which are administered separately.
[10] Trujillo is composed of the OTL Peruvian provinces of Amazonas, Ancash, Cajamarca, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Loreto, Piura and San Martín. Lima is Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Huánuco, Ica, Junín, Lima, Pasco, and Ucayali. Arequipa is Apurímac, Arequipa, Callao Province, Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Moquegua, Puno, Tacna, and Tumbes.
[11] Rio de Janeiro is composed of the *American segments of the OTL Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, while Sao Paulo is composed of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo.
[12] Santiago is composed of the OTL Chilean provinces of Antofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo, Tarapacá, Metropolitana de Santiago and Valparaíso, while Concepcion is composed of Biobío, Ibáñez del Campo, La Araucanía, Los Lagos, Magellan and Antarctic Region, Maule and O’Higgins, as well as the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego e Islas del Atlántico Sur, and the Falkland Islands.
[13] Not to mention the lower value of the *US dollar, which collapsed along with cotton and slave prices. This makes *US manufacturing exports much more cost-competitive.
[14] This views the Treaty of Paris (1783) as the formation of the United States of America as an independent state, rather than the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
[15] This is a legacy of the Treaty of Madrid (1932), which ended the war between Germany and Aragon, Portugal and the USA. As part of that treaty, Germany acquired the right to take the Aragonese Congo. After the war, though, the hostility of the Restored Empire meant that this option was not exercised for over a decade.
[16] The Three Duchies are Uri (actually a principality), Wallis and Tessin.
[17] There are a few areas where German states still had some claims. For instance, the Habsburgs coveted Lorraine and the Franche-Comté, while the House of Orange-Nassau looked desirously at the remainder of Picardy and their traditional home in the French town of Orange.
[18] Karl-Heinz Blucher, head of a mostly left-wing coalition and Chancellor of Germany from 1936 to 1941.
[19] Provence is the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. Lyonnais is the Rhône-Alpes region east of the Rhône River (the border just barely goes around the city of Lyon). Lower Burgundy is the Franche-Comté and Bourgogne regions east of the Saône River. Lorraine is the Lorraine region minus the Mossele department, which is part of Alsace-Lorraine. Champagne is the Champagne-Ardenne region north of the Seine, as well as the remaining part of the Bourgogne region that is within Germany. Picardy is the historical County of Picardy that is not within the Netherlands ITTL. Soissons is the rest of the Picardy region plus the Île-de-France region north of the Seine, except for Paris itself. Upper Normandy is more or less the former Duchy of Normandy north of the Seine.
[20] People’s kingdom is an ATL institution which was originally created in Ceylon, and which has now been adopted elsewhere. Ceylon is a de jure elective monarchy, with each successor being confirmed by a majority of a popular vote, and can be required to be reconfirmed should 10% of the people call for it. To date, this provision has been notional rather than meaningful, no would-be Ceylonese monarch has failed to win election, and a recall election has never been called.
[21] The royal families in the British Empire are still technically descended from the House of Hanover (itself a branch of the House of Welf). This is because instead of Victoria, *Edward VII was born and preserved descent in the male line. The family name was changed to Windsor during the Great War to distance themselves from Germany.
[22] In OTL, Sarawak was created as a private fiefdom of the “White Rajahs” of the Brooke dynasty, while neighbouring Sabah was dominated by the North Borneo Company. ATL, Sabah was administratively incorporated with the OTL southern Phillipines, while the region of Sarawak was exploited by the Borneo Company as a source of tropical timber, and rubber plantations.
[23] -1 points for anyone who doesn’t get that reference.
[24] Although called the Moluccas, this state consists of what in OTL is called the South Moluccas; Ambon, Ceram, Buru and nearby islands. The OTL North Moluccas are part of Indonesia.
[25] The geographical divisions are the lands east of Lake Nyassa [Lake Malawi] and north of the River Lurio joined Kenya, the lands roughly south of the Lurio and east of the River Lupalua joined South Africa, while the remaining lands west of the Lupalua joined Angola.
* * *
Thoughts?
The cartographers are going to have fun !
Is the Madras presidency its own single state with all its OTL lands? If so its going to be very much the dominant south indian polity and control Mysores access to the sea/everything. Also what of the very minor Princy states that form enclaves within Madras - Pudukottai, Banganapalle etc.
!Is the Madras presidency its own single state with all its OTL lands? If so its going to be very much the dominant south indian polity and control Mysores access to the sea/everything. Also what of the very minor Princy states that form enclaves within Madras - Pudukottai, Banganapalle etc.
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Hrm. Do I really have to be that guy whining for a map? I think I do.
Oh dang it I want to see that (those) map(s).
Oh dang it I want to see that (those) map(s).
I've got to say, as an OTL Indonesian I find it rather weird that Minahasans don't opt to join Indonesia. Of course I'm aware the over-than-a-century difference this TL has with OTL so that's perfectly possible. But if you do this out of the conception that Minahasans were separatists back then IOTL '50s, then you've just done a pretty negligible slip (Because they were not, just Federalists and rightist)
Still, I actually didn't expect the independence of colonies to be this soon ITTL.....
(Because they were not, just Federalists and rightist)Still, I actually didn't expect the independence of colonies to be this soon ITTL.....