AHC: Make a World World with at least four factions

ben0628

Banned
The goal is to try to alter history post 1900 to get a world war that has at least four factions fighting each other.

The closest thing I can get so far (got this from another thread) is Great Britain/France/Japan/Finland vs Germany/Italy vs The Soviet Union. This is only three though so a fourth faction is going to be difficult

Pod for the hypothetical conflict I got from another thread is France and Great Britain helping Finland followed by persuading Japan to join in in return for oil/natural resources, and a blank check in China followed by Germany back stabbing the Soviet Union (because Hitler's stupid).

Maybe getting Allied colonies to revolt against their European overlords is a way to get a fourth faction in there or maybe get the US to fight Japan but not other allies (idk how that would happen)

If you guys want to build on what Ive posted that's fine, but feel free to come up with your own stuff. Bonus points if you can get a fifth faction to join in.
 
POD is no US entry into WW1 for whatever reason; an earlier stroke for Woodrow Wilson, Hughes wins the presidential election in 1916 or the Germans don't resume submarine warfare, whichever produces the least butterflies. Then the Entente goes on to win WW1 narrowly, which without the US is unlikely but still possible. Post War British-US relations sour, perhaps no Washington Naval treaty, and the British keep their alliance with the Japanese, while the US just forts up in their isolation.

In Russia/the Soviet Union the Reds win but Stalin is killed because of butterflies. When Lenin dies, Trotsky takes over. Trotsky being Trotsky attempts to foment Communist uprisings around the world. The Communist efforts in South America particularly annoy the United States. The governments of Japan, Britain and France are similarly not amused by the increased unrest amongst their labor forces.

Fascism rises in Germany and Italy approximately the same way it did historically. Trotsky, being not a moron, sees the opportunity to pit his arch-enemies the fascists against the bourgeois Entente and does basically what Stalin did historically in regards to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the general Soviet-Nazi frenemy thing they had going.

Come the late '30s Japan, with the tacit approval of Britain and France attempts to invade China, which everyone involved thinks will be a walk-over. There the Japanese do battle with the Soviet backed Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalists, backed as they were historically by the Germans. The US mostly just wants to sell things to all the people in China so again very much dislikes all the unrest caused by all the other factions messing around.

Europe continues to play out mostly OTL-ish, the Nazis and Soviets reach some compromise over Poland and the Nazis get super lucky invading France, but still haven't knocked Britain out of the war, so the war in North Africa proceeds again close-ish to OTL. A couple years later the Nazis invade the Soviet Union to wipe out the Communist menace once and for all, or perhaps Trotsky pre-empts the Nazis instead. Either way it doesn't really matter. The Fascists - Germany/Italy - fight against the Entente - Britain/Japan - in North Africa. The Fascists also fight the Soviets in Europe. The Entente fights the Soviets by proxy in China.

The US clearly isn't going to support either the Communists or the Fascists for political reasons, but as the Nationalists lose German support thanks to the British blockade of Europe and the Japanese blockade of China, certain elements of the US government step up to fill in the gap. So the U.S. joins the proxy war in China against the Soviet-proxy CCP and the Japanese. The US might avoid getting into a hot war, since Japan probably imports much more from Britain, and thus it won't have the resource weaknesses it did historically. However, until one side is defeated (probably the Fascists or the Soviets depending on who got the jump on who) there will be four distinct "poles" in the world.
 
WI Ottoman Turks join the fight with the goal of regaining lands lost during WW1: Syria, Palestine, etc.
WI Turks use the war as a distraction to push north and west into areas that they used to control (e.g. gates of Vienna?
WI Turks repulse German efforts to extract oil from Chechnia?
 
This is inherently difficult in the modern era because, simply put, people in charge of large industrial states tend not to be this stupid: they chose an enemy at a time and make their choices accordingly, in most cases. Convoluted multiple-faction wars are not uncommon (a particularly nasty one is ongoing right now - at the relevant time, Spain provides another brutal example) but in large interstate conflicts, factions tend to coalesce into two camps (however fractious and/or unstable) because it generally increases your chances to win.
 
I think while it may start off as a 3-4 way War, the sides will make temporary bargains/ceasefires so that they can focus on one enemy. After that they can decide to finish off their other foes.
 

Wallet

Banned
Germany focuses on Britain, and the war stalemates until 1944 when the Soviets invade Nazi occupied Poland and British Iraq.

Japan seizes the European colonies and attacks the Russian Far East. After they accidentally sink a German ship, Hitler (who has grown crazy and senile) declares war on Japan.

So it's the WAllies, Axis, Soviets, and Japan.
 
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