'A Liberal German Empire? Not While I'm King of Prussia!' - an 1848 TL.

[Nivek]

Onkel big fan of all your timelines including this but I have observed a couple things, you don't like France very much, Germany always wins

It would be intresting if you could come up with a timeline that sees France victorious or at least allied to All mighty Germany

Well because post Napoleonic France, that not was the belle france of the past(maybe you OW can make a Napoleon Victorious Scenario with any POD post his Coronation how Emperor)

well, start to read the semi last update, i always love your TL, at the end are a little utopic/distopic like but in general very pausable and enjoyable...

 

[imperialaquila]

Hey, OW, are you going to continue this TL to the modern day? Cause I'd really like to see some three-way Cold War stuff.

 

[Onkel Willie]

Onkel big fan of all your timelines including this but I have observed a couple things, you don't like France very much, Germany always wins

It would be intresting if you could come up with a timeline that sees France victorious or at least allied to All mighty Germany

You know, I would already have done so if my knowledge about French history wasn't so limited. If I ever did a Frenchwank (most likely involving Napoleon) my knowledge would most likely come directly from wikipedia .

Hey, OW, are you going to continue this TL to the modern day? Cause I'd really like to see some three-way Cold War stuff.

I'm working on the first post-war chapter as we speak. Btw, if you want three way Cold War, my TL called 'The Great Mistake' has that too albeit a little different. That TL has an American-Soviet/German Axis-China Cold War.

 

[Onkel Willie]

Update time.

Chapter IX: Peace, Cold War, the Race for the Skies and Saving Earth, 1945 – 1970. ​

The war was over and had ended with nuclear fire, the affirmation of the United States and the Chinese Empire as great powers and the reaffirmation of Central Powers dominance in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Britain and Russia lay prostrate before the Alliance while Asia and the Pacific had been conquered by China and the US, reducing Japan to a more distant third power in the region. China and America had to be recognised as the dominant powers in those areas while the cast down British and Russian Empires had to be handed a peace deal that would keep them quiet for good. The Alliance powers and the Entente elected Denmark to negotiate a peace deal since it was neutral ground and so the Copenhagen Conference began in May 1945. Negotiations would go on until December since several points of contention arose between the great powers, most notably about the loss of the colonies in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, but the Americans and Chinese considered their gains nonnegotiable. The Germans, Italians, Spanish and their allies first started with settling their affairs in Europe and bring it under their thumb permanently. Russia was forced to recognise the independence of Ukraine and cede the Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh oblasts as well as the Don and Kuban regions to the Ukrainians. Belarus was recognised as an independent republic which was strengthened with the Bryansk and Smolensk oblasts. The nascent Kingdom of Finland with its German prince was also recognised and was awarded with all of Karelia, including the eastern Russian Karelia. In the chaos of near civil war and anarchy in the Russian Empire after the collapse of the front and clash with pro-National-Solidarist elements, China seized a number of border regions as well and re-established the border as it had been set in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 and took the rest of Outer Manchuria shortly thereafter. China regained the left bank of the Amur river and opened up the Ussuri and Sungari rivers for shipping other than Chinese and Russian shipping. The Alliance recognised this annexation to weaken Russia even more and also recognised the independence of the Central Asian republics that had broken away from Russia. The Russian Tsar was forced to accept these losses with his country in disarray. The Japanese were awarded the Kamchatka peninsula as a consolation prize for their losses in the war. Due to Russia’s loss of the Central Asian regions, Persia also decisively ended up in the Ottoman sphere of influence. The Ottomans, considering the spark of the war, definitively revoked Bulgaria’s status as autonomous principality and reintegrated it into their empire over Russian protests.

Britain did not receive a better peace deal as they lost the remainder of their empire since the Central Powers were determined to strip the country of any fighting capability and shackle it to the status of subdued middle power for the foreseeable future. Ireland was made an independent republic which also included Ulster and the Kingdom of Scotland was re-established as a sovereign state, revived from the dead for the first time since 1707 and with Britain’s economy spiralling downward due to the German naval blockade leading to rationing and then looting and chaos in the south, the Scots were easily enticed into breaking away in order to avoid death through starvation. The British would be blockaded until they accepted Alliance demands which led to food riots in several major cities. In May and June, the Home Guard shot 300 looters in cities like Leicester, Birmingham and Liverpool. The chaos in the cities that had seen nuclear attack was even worse since the transport net and thus the food supply had completely broken down in those cities. It coincidentally happened to be that the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach also held the Jacobite claim to the throne of Scotland and so King Rupprecht of Bavaria inherited the Scottish throne as King Rupert I, uniting Bavaria and Scotland in personal union thanks to German use of force. The rule of a German prince over the north of Britain was the ultimate humiliation and signified the end of British power to even the British themselves who were now known as English again. India was made an independent republic as a European client state initially although the Muslim parts known as Bengal and Pakistan broke away rather quickly due to repression from a nationalist Indian Hindu elite that had emerged from a more self-aware growing middle class over the last two decades. In Africa, the British lost Gambia which was awarded to Spain and Madagascar which was eventually awarded to the Spanish as well since they had the smallest colonial empire of the Central Powers, more so with their losses in the Pacific, and because it wasn’t really worth much. These gains for Spain included the Seychelles and the Comoros as well.

Lastly, the conference dealt with the Americas, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. China was allowed to keep Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaya and Burma as client states within its sphere of influence and its annexation of Formosa and Hong Kong (a Japanese possession since the Second Great War, 1912-1916) were honoured too. The US annexed New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, the Northern Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei as US territories and established Indonesia as a satellite republic while the Alliance offered them Australia and New Zealand on a platter to further dismantle the British Empire. The Australians and New Zealanders grudgingly accepted the same ‘American Dominion’ deal Canada had received since it preserved their cultural model much better than ending up in the Chinese sphere of influence did. America also took the opportunity to formally annex Nicaragua, Belize (formerly British Honduras before the Second Great War), Panama, Haiti, the Dominican Republic in addition to Cuba and Puerto Rico which they had gained from the Spanish and establish them all as US territories. In the meantime, the poverty stricken and corruption infested Mexico that had already seen its northern half lost 25 years before, had once again disintegrated into civil strife with multiple factions vying for power. Northern Mexico under US rule had seen a lot of investment into mining industry, heavy industry, textiles and oil production from the United States and was becoming economically stronger and was expected to reach first world status soon. The American Continental Investigation Agency, commonly abbreviated to ACIA, had managed to weed out corrupt officials and weaken the local Mexican elites in favour of the lower and middle classes in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people. Many Mexicans in the north reluctantly accepted American rule as it brought them affluence although some chose to move south, a movement that ended soon as independent Mexico was wracked with internal instability, corruption and a malfunctioning economical and political system. With a division into no less than five states that claimed to be Mexico after a number of coups and countercoups by the military, certain militant leftist factions and conservative-Catholic mercenary armies in 1944 and 1945, Mexico was all but gone. This was why the US decided to conquer the remainder of Mexico, known as the Territory of South Mexico as opposed to the Territory of North Mexico which included roughly everything above the 22nd parallel. The American Empire was complete although it differed somewhat from European colonial empires. The Americans offered the larger regions such as the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Cuba the prospect of ascension to Dominion status and eventually statehood if they behaved. The Americans had to do this, especially with the Hispanics, since they now constituted the second largest group in the US behind the Anglophone population.

With the conclusion of the Treaty of Copenhagen, the Cold War erupted almost immediately, especially in Southeast Asia between the US and China whose spheres of influence now clashed. The Indonesian regime slowly but surely drifted into the arms of the economic giant that was China which offered them the prospect of Chinese investment and protection which was compounded by the fact that Indonesia was much closer culturally to the Asian superpower than to the US. Furthermore, Beijing also supported the claims of Malaya to Sabah and Sarawak which further alienated the former allies. The alienation between the two was a foregone conclusion since growing Chinese business interests had clashed increasingly, even before the war, with American economic interests in Southeast Asia, leading to fierce competition for markets. The Americans also remained bitterly opposed to the European powers for their support of their former main enemy, Japan, which had encroached on what America saw as belonging rightfully to its sphere of influence while Japan itself had been viewed as an upstart pipsqueak by the mighty American government in Washington that interfered and had been in need of a beating. Chinese feelings toward Japan due to past humiliations also were not yet very warm and feelings toward Tokyo’s European sponsors wasn’t either, more so since they were supporting a new client, India, which competed for dominance over Asia with China. This set the stage for a three way Cold War between the United States, China and the European conservative monarchies. The result was the formation of the Alliance blocs and a chill between the three of them as they entertained a military build-up, including a nuclear arms race, as well as fierce economic competition and a desire to be the dominant of the three blocs.

In Europe, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary-Croatia-Romania and the Ottoman Empire solidified their bilateral agreements into a single multilateral power bloc known as the European Alliance or EA. Besides the big five, the EA included Sweden-Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, the Ukraine, Serbia, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and, surprisingly, France. France had settled into sidekick status for the big five and accepted the fact that France’s days as a great power were long gone and weren’t coming back and was further convinced by the promise that France could some day get a seat in the all powerful directory. The EA, founded in 1950, had its own European Parliament although it was powerless really and merely symbolic. The day-to-day affairs of the EA were under the control of a directory consisting of the big five and a single rotating seat that changed biannually. Really big decisions for the EA, too big for even the directorate, were left to biannual meetings of the heads of state and their various prime ministers and foreign ministers. The Alliance was as much an economical one as a military one and included free traffic of capital, goods and services within the EA while installing stiff import duties to ward off foreign products. This economic cooperation and investment ensured that some capital flowed to eastern Europe which was generally more backward, ensuring they would become on par with western Europe. Notably absent were both Russia and Britain who were not included and were still too bitter over their defeat although economic realities would force them to either join the EA or one of the other two alliances. Russia would eventually join the EA in 1965 and Britain in 1970 since joining any other alliance would put them too much on the frontlines. Neither received a directory seat though although France did.

The other two alliances were the American & Pacific Pact and the East Asian Alliance. The APP had the US with its various dominions as founding members as well as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela who by now were economically pretty much dependent on the US. The APP was founded almost immediately after the EA to enable unified economic and military opposition to Europe by South America and prevent European encroachments. America was now truly the dominant military, political and economical power in the western hemisphere and had largely replaced European countries such as Britain as the main investors in South America and Latin America. America’s economy was probably the largest in the world at this point and easily covered the range all the way from heavy industry, mining and petroleum to consumer products. America had an enormous consumer industry which was partially employed to keep the minorities within the American Empire too affluent and satisfied to generally care about independence any more than threatened their newfound luxury and affluence. In total, with the annexation of Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico and Puerto Rico, the segment of the populace with Spanish as its first language stood at a third of the US’s total population. More Hispanics immigrated to the US from South America due to the wealth and affluence of that country because internally the APP had the same free traffic of capital, goods, services and most importantly people that the EA had. One of the consequences of this was a much more culturally diverse US and also a ‘Hispanicisation’ in the south western states such as California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas where the Hispanics would achieve an ethnic plurality, making large regions in the southwest of the US Spanish speaking and Catholic. This large group became more politically vociferous as time went by and a second generation born in America rose to claim its constitutional rights which included the recognition of its language, forcing Washington to do something about the issue. The Catholic Latinos were generally quite conservative religiously and supported the more conservative Republican Party as opposed to the more progressive Democrats who had firm support in the more northern states as well as the Dominion of Canada which was slowly coming apart. 1960 would see Ontario admitted to the Union as a state; by now a new generation that had been born under American rule was rising and their numbers would only swell as the pre-American generations slowly died off to completely disappear by the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s with only a few exceptions. The Americans made English the official language of the entire United States while recognising Spanish as the second official language while French became an official regional language, giving the US two official languages and a recognised major regional language. English would remain the primary language, but Spanish was widely used in common use as well as the main administrative language in the south western states (including Mexico), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Panama and the Philippines. In addition to this, Spanish and French were both taught in school next to English. This emancipation of the Hispanics would eventually lead to the first Cuban-American president in 2004.

The APP states generally were less controlled by America than the European states were by the EA directorate since the US allowed the APP Parliament to control their bloc in most affairs, thus leaving the member states more sovereignty and also nipping antipathy toward American political, economical and cultural dominance and any accusations of an American power monopoly in the APP in the bud. Washington also invested a lot into the South American economies who had been limping on for most of the twentieth century or more. Brazil’s economy had collapsed with the end of slavery and then ‘contract labour’ after the fall of the CSA while the economies on the cone of South America were still recovering from the shock of the demise of their main trade partner, the British Empire. Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the other South American countries would all join between 1950 and 1970. Brazil, with its large labour pool and resources, would rise to junior partner to the US in the APP, mainly thanks to American economic assistance, making it the second economy in the APP and seventh in the world. Exports of Brazil would boom in the 60s with new major exports being steel, iron ore, aircraft, cars, electronics, textiles and oil from offshore platforms. Argentina followed behind the Brazilians and would soon become one of the stronger members as well, if still a little weaker than Brazil. In 1960, America also started its largest construction project yet, even more so than the Twin Canals in Nicaragua and Panama. To improve the traffic flow from north to south, America planned on building a massive ten lane highway from north to south. It started in Anchorage, Alaska, and went south through Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and then on to Buenos Aires with smaller highways branching off to the US eastern seaboard and to Brazil. A double track railroad was to be constructed beside it as well, although this route would be more for transportation of goods and raw resources than act as a passenger service. Construction started in Anchorage and Buenos Aires in summer 1960. It was the most massive construction project in human history, involving hundreds of thousands of people, millions of tonnes of asphalt, concrete and steel and the iron will of the united Americas. It would take until 2000 to complete, but it would prove to be durable and worthwhile testimony to human endurance and engineering skill. Many obstacles had to be overcome such as high mountains and hot jungles, but it was completed nonetheless.

Lastly, the East Asian Alliance or EEA was formed in 1955 with China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaya, Burma and Thailand as member states as per the Treaty of Bangkok, making a powerful third bloc which had an enormous population and an immense industrial base with enormous resources and a lot of consumer based industries. Furthermore, China had tested its first atomic bomb in 1949 and with American and European success in testing fusion weapons, commonly referred to as hydrogen bombs, China had tested on too in 1955 although they claimed they had done so already in 1952 with what was probably a boosted fission bomb because with a 500 kiloton yield it was rather weak for a fusion weapon, more so compared to the multi megaton yields of European and American weapons. The real hydrogen bomb test, however, was the strongest detonation ever in human history with a yield of 22 megatons, a display of Chinese power and strength. Another competition that China was in was the Space Race, started by the Germans and their missile technology although China and America caught up quickly. The US and China both had very highly educated populaces which included more than enough rocket scientists, aeronautical engineers and chemists with which to build rockets to go to space. By the mid 50s, the Germans followed in rapid succession by the Americans and Chinese had put satellites and even men into space. The first probes to explore the moon and the rest of the solar system had been deployed and all three planned manned mission to the moon for the early 60s while building space stations and orbital (weapons) platforms. This time the Americans beat their competitors to the punch and landed on the moon in 1961 although the Germans and Chinese quite easily demonstrated their ability to repeat the feat, especially the Germans who had the most advanced missiles. More missions and even permanently manned bases were on the drawing board although more urgent issues were dawning as well.

The Europeans faced the call of their colonies for independence more and more, a call fuelled with arms from an India that was rapidly rising to claim the status of fourth great power, successfully testing an atomic bomb in 1962 and a hydrogen bomb in 1963 in which American aid is suspected since they wanted to use India as a ploy to stick it to China and Europe. Black nationalism was growing since the Africans realized a sense of national self awareness. The Europeans responded with half hearted promises of autonomy on one hand and ruthless repression, including efficient but lethal stratagems such as massed air power, scorched earth tactics, chemical weapons and mass deportations to concentration camps in the most inhospitable places imaginable on the other. The resistance quickly initiated a full scale guerrilla war which the Europeans combated fiercely to keep their empires. Another urgent problem was that the world was experiencing global warming caused by the enormous industrialization of large parts of the world over the preceding few decades. Greenhouse gasses were emitted by all the major industrialized power and a two degree temperature rise was predicted for 2025 which would have detrimental effects on the environment as well as agriculture. Climate analysts predicted that Spain, southern Italy, Greece and Anatolia would be deserts by then. The deserts in the states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas were expected to expand into Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas in the best case scenario. The Sahara would expand to encompass northern Africa completely. The remainder of the world would become more wet and tropical. This predicted disappearance of large tracts of farming ground (including the famous Italian vineyards), fishing grounds and the fact that fossil fuels were not unlimited in supply scared and shocked many. No true global conference was ever held due to enmity between the great powers, but the three blocs did enough themselves. China and the US both resorted to use of hydroelectric power and nuclear energy. The Europeans also utilized nuclear power, but also wind power and solar energy, mostly popular in southern Europe. These countries failed to break the monopoly of the oil industry on the car market and so gasoline and diesel powered cars remained commonplace although this would end as the oil supplies weren’t expected to last far beyond 2030 or 2040 at best. The Cold War with its many problems continued.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Spacing and paragraphs are your friend.

Also, the first parts of this are British anti-wank. Forcing the Ulstermen into a united Ireland? Breaking up the UK?

JACOBITES?

Too much.

 

[Onkel Willie]

Spacing and paragraphs are your friend.

Also, the first parts of this are British anti-wank. Forcing the Ulstermen into a united Ireland? Breaking up the UK?

JACOBITES?

Too much.

Probably, although I don't see why the CPs should show them mercy. Also, the British Empire was already wanked IOTL so I'm not going to cut them any slack ITTL . An anti-wank is more than justified considering what the British had IOTL. Oh, and I really, really liked Braveheart, I will never forgive the bloody English!

EDIT: I did put in paragraphs, but the board ate the spaces between them. I had to put them back in manually (which I did as you can see).

 

[Nivek]

Probably, although I don't see why the CPs should show them mercy. Also, the British Empire was already wanked IOTL so I'm not going to cut them any slack ITTL . An anti-wank is more than justified considering what the British had IOTL. Oh, and I really, really liked Braveheart, I will never forgive the bloody English!

EDIT: I did put in paragraphs, but the board ate the spaces between them. I had to put them back in manually (which I did as you can see).

And TTL, they was defeated in 3 very hard wars(if deutchland was destroyed in only 2, with not both Britain and France???)

 

[Eurofed]

Spacing and paragraphs are your friend.

Also, the first parts of this are British anti-wank. Forcing the Ulstermen into a united Ireland? Breaking up the UK?

JACOBITES?

Too much.

They fought, and lost, three World Wars in a row. A Yalta-style harsh peace is justified. Also, they were allowed to keep Wales.

 

[Eurofed]

Map time folks.

Here comes post-1945 Europe. Nations are indicated as individuals even if they are all tighly bound in the EA (and going to be shown as such in a world map).

 

[Eurofed]

Here comes post-1945 North America (the other Latin American nations here indicated as independent for clarity are actually tightly bound to the USA in the AAP).

 

[Eurofed]

Here comes post-1945 Africa (not that much changed, apart from the sorry demise of the rump British Empire). Again the various European colonial empires are colored as separate entities, although they are tightly bound in the EA.

 

[Eurofed]

And here comes post-1945 East Asia. Since the mapmaker lacks the ability to represent vassal nations the UCS way, the vassal nations of China have been represented with the same color (they are all tighly bound to China in the EEA anyway).

 

[Eurofed]

Here is a 1945-1970 world map, depicting the three EA, AAP, and EEA blocs led by the American, German-Italian, and Chinese superpowers and the Indian and Japanese independent great powers.

ITTL Indian partition left all of Kashmir to Pakistan (except the bit that China got as IOTL). For simplicity, it is assumed in the map that Central Asian republics got the same OTL post-Soviet borders.

 

[Aranfan]

Partitioned India makes Aranfan a sad panda. Especially since there's no real reason for it with a pre-1905 PoD.

 

[Eurofed]

Partitioned India makes Aranfan a sad panda. Especially since there's no real reason for it with a pre-1905 PoD.

I'm mostly neutral on the issue, so I defer on OW's judgement on this. I would expect that ITTL the growing Hindu-Muslim polarization which results in the partition is fueled by the hereditary enimity between the British Empire and a successful CP Ottoman Empire. IIRC, this caused some loyalty problems among Indian Muslims in OTL WWI, too. Now, multiply that for an antagonism lasting 75 years and three Great Wars, with a much more successful Ottoman Empire.

The relevant part of the TL tells:

India was made an independent republic as a European client state initially although the Muslim parts known as Bengal and Pakistan broke away rather quickly due to repression from a nationalist Indian Hindu elite that had emerged from a more self-aware growing middle class over the last two decades.

 

[Aranfan]

I'm mostly neutral on the issue, so I defer on OW's judgement on this. I would expect that ITTL the growing Hindu-Muslim polarization which results in the partition is fueled by the hereditary enimity between the British Empire and a successful CP Ottoman Empire. IIRC, this caused some loyalty problems among Indian Muslims in OTL WWI, too. Now, multiply that for an antagonism lasting 75 years and three Great Wars, with a much more successful Ottoman Empire.

The relevant part of the TL tells:

While I haven't read the TL, IOTL, Hindu-Muslim polarization mostly started because the 1905 act that started Indian Democracy reserved certain seats for Muslims, making it so only Muslims could vote for those seats and only non-muslims could vote for the other seats. Get rid of that "protection" for the Muslim minority and you're very, very unlikely to see a partition.

Edit: Because in most other respects they were united against the British.

 

[Eurofed]

While I haven't read the TL, IOTL, Hindu-Muslim polarization mostly started because the 1905 act that started Indian Democracy reserved certain seats for Muslims, making it so only Muslims could vote for those seats and only non-muslims could vote for the other seats. Get rid of that "protection" for the Muslim minority and you're very, very unlikely to see a partition.

Edit: Because in most other respects they were united against the British.

While there is no special reason for the OTL 1905 Indian electoral system to happen ITTL, there is also no special reason for it not to happen, so as butterflies go, it is a coin's toss (and I already enacted a divergent butterfly for India by letting Kashmir choose Pakistan).

Moreover, ITTL the CPs and the British Empire have fought three World Wars, in the 1870s, 1910s, and 1940s, so antagonism runs most deep. Even IOTL, there was a pro-Ottoman political movement among Muslim Indians. ITTL we can expect such polarization to be bigger. Now, ITTL Indian nationalism quite possibly might develop a strong Hindu nationalist component (i.e. it is strongly influenced by the forerunners of the BJP), rather than being wholly dominated by the all-inclusive Indian National Congress (it is quite possible that Gandhi is butterflied away ITTL). A growing polarization between Hindu nationalists and the Indian Muslims, seen as "non-Indian" for their pro-Ottoman sympathies, could occur, eventually resulting in the partition.

 

[Aranfan]

Fair enough.

Also, I was misremembering the date. I should have said 1909.

 

[Korporal Nooij]

As for all of your TLs, Eurofed, i love this TL! Subscribed!

Keep it up!!

 

[Onkel Willie]

As for all of your TLs, Eurofed, i love this TL! Subscribed!

Keep it up!!

Uh, dude, I'm the writer. Eurofed only makes the maps.