POD: Operation Weserubung is expanded to included the preemptive occupation of the Netherlands. Holland is invaded by troops guarding the border with France that weren't doing much anyway, so it doesn't take resources from the invasion of Norway. Holland falls in just a few days (like OTL), and the government is captured. Norway proceeds more or less as OTL. Prime Minister Dirk Jan De Geer, an advocate for collaboration OTL is put in charge of a puppet government. In a parallel with the agreement signed by Vichy France, De Geer is soon forced by Hitler to allow the Japanese to occupy the DEI. This is found by the Allies to be completely unacceptable and issue an ultimatum to the Japanese to leave the DEI or face war. (This is the same time period Britain and France were thinking about bombing the Soviet Union, I think it's reasonably plausible for them to pick a fight with Japan)
Japan refuses to back down and war breaks out in the Far East just before Fall Gelb and the Allies realize how far in over their heads they are. The United States strongly condemns Japan but stops short of a DOW, issuing similar embargoes to the ones it issued IOTL, but with less effect because Japan now safely occupies the DEI. The United States begins rearmament, passing the Two-Ocean Navy Act (or something similar) a couple months early. Japan soon takes Vietnam, then Malaysia and Singapore. The Royal Navy dispatches a fleet to try to prevent loss of the colonies, but the squadron is devestated by superior naval aviation, and the remnants fall back to the Indian Ocean as France collapses.
Ironically, doing worse in the war actually encourages France to fight on from overseas. Hitler's promises to allow France to keep her colonies ring hollow after the DEI are signed away. The France government relocates to Algeria to regroup, and the campaign on the continent is prolonged by another couple weeks. This doesn't prevent Italy from entering the war right on schedule. In a curious reversal of roles IOTL, and with the help of Italo Balbo (his death being butterflied away), Italy overruns Egypt and captures the Suez canal, defenses being stripped away for the Pacific theater. (Rather than the Pacific's defenses being stripped and sent to the Middle East like IOTL)
With France still in the war, Hitler never gets the bright idea of trying to invade Britain and puts the invasion of Russia on hold as well. He commits the Luftwaffe to the Mediterranean, and puts more diplomatic pressure on Spain to enter the war. With Suez safely in Axis hands, Franco decides the time is right for a quick victorious war and lets gives German divisions passage to take Gibralter at the end of 1940, trapping most of the Free French fleet and a good slice of the Royal Navy as well.
1941 sees Mussolini's offensives into the rest of the Middle East fail miserably due to over extended supply lines. This does not dissuade him from attempting to invade Greece, another disaster which Hitler must bail him out from. Operation Barbarossa is postponed indefinitely, as the Wehrmacht mounts a two-pronged offensive from Spanish Morocco and Libya into Tunis and Algeria. The Free French fight desperately, but they are disorganized after their defeats of the previous year, and cut off from resupply as the Mediterranean is at this point an Axis lake. Algiers falls after a lengthy siege, and the remnants of the Marine Nationale are scuttled. The French government escapes via aircraft early in the campaign to London.
Meanwhile, the entrance of Spain into the war forces Portugal to choose a side. Salazar throws in with the Allies and flees to London as Portugal is occupied. The most strategically important result of this is the Azores are not usable as an air base. Bombers are soon flying patrols from them, hunting down U-boats, and the Mid-Atlantic gap is closed. U-boat losses mount, and the Battle of the Atlantic is conceded by a frustrated Hitler, who supports the surface fleet instead. This is unfortunately not entirely a blessing for the Allies. The United States is no longer in direct conflict with Nazi Germany, and the public become less concerned about the Nazi menace. FDR's ability to manufacture an incident at a later date is very much decreased, because American warships are not needed to escort British convoys. The Nazi surface fleet sees some limited success. The Bismark's sortie is similarly ill-fated. The Hood, one of Britain's few fast warships on hand after the disasters in the Pacific and Mediterranean is sunk, but scouts from the Azores pinpoint the location of the wounded Bismark, brought to battle and sunk by the HMS Barham and HMS Resolution, two ships that would usually not been able to catch the Bismark without such help.
Despite nominally suffering strategic setbacks much worse than OTL, British moral is no worse off. The Battle of Britain never happened, and shortages of goods are not as bad with the U-boat menace largely defeated. 1941 ends with Europe and North Africa under fascist domination, boxed in any farther than Suez or Morocco. The Japanese have largely gotten what they've wanted from the Southern Resource Area, and have the resources to continue the war in China. The Allies have stalled them in Burma, and India and Australia, though uneasy, are under no imminent threat of invasion.
Come 1942, the Soviets have finished rearmament. Stalin has watched with apprehension as the fascist machine conquered Europe, but now decides to act. On June 22, 1942, a massive invasion of Eastern Europe by the Red Army starts. The Soviet military has seen its command structure revamped, been equipped with T-34 tanks, and not had the most destructive war in history fought on its soil for the past year. The Red Army of Alt-1942 is just as formidable, perhaps more formidable, as the Red Army of OTL-1945. The Nazis suffer devastating setbacks early in the campaign, but rally when they call their scattered forces back to the Eastern Front. The Soviets reach dangerously close to the borders of Germany proper as winter approaches. A furious and desperate Hitler orders the entire army leadership sacked. This does not go over well with the army leadership, who stage a coup and replace Hitler with Goring. Into 1943, the two armies engage in the most massive tank battles of history, larger even than OTL, and the Axis pushes the Soviets back at a great cost after they reorganize after their terrible defeats (and without the incompetence of Hitler directing the campaign).
The Allies watch eagerly as two of their foes tear each other apart. Stalin had been no friend of them in their time of need, and he entered the war as the aggressor. They are also battered after enduring years of defeat after defeat. When the new Nazi regime approaches them to make a peace deal, they have no qualms about stringing Stalin out to dry. The Axis withdraws from Metropolitan France and most of its colonies. Egypt is declared neutral Italy and Britain are each allowed small garrisons along the Suez Canal. Gibraltar and Malta are conceded to Spain and Italy respectively by the British, and there are various minor colonial readjustments as well. Belgium is released from occupation, but Denmark, Norway and Holland remain occupied under German puppet governments.
France and Britain continue to build up their combined military as if the peace had never happened. They fully expect another round with Germany and/or Russia, and are still at war with Japan. They begin grinding back into Malaysia and the DEI, but public opinion is not appreciative of costly colonial wars while the continent is still so unstable. The Allies reluctantly come to the peace table with Japan. Indonesia and Malaysia are given independence as a buffer states, and the Allies acknowledge Japanese holdings in the rest of the Pacific and China.
Germany and the Soviet Union continue to fight a furious and bloody war. By 1944, a stalemate is reached. Neither country wishes to continue fighting as an unconditional victory seems prohibitively costly to both sides at this point. Though the war was brutal, neither side hold grudges as badly as OTL WWII. Russia did not have the unpleasant experience of fighting a war of extermination on its own territory and Germany is run by relative moderates. They are satisfied to once again divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, lick their wounds and bide their time.
Japan's war in China continues to be a horrible disaster for both sides. Much as OTL, Japanese troops control little more than the ground they stand on, but a lack of an organized millitary is crippling to China. The U.S.A. and Japan are soon bound to come to blows as Japan has an even worse case of victory disease. When the Philippines are granted independence, Japan moves to invade. The U.S.A promptly declares war and nukes most of the Japanese fleet at harbor via B-36. (the development of which was accelerated with the uncertain fate of Britain) Japan surrenders unconditionally, and withdraws its soldiers from its conquests of the past ten years and is occupied by the Americans who begin to set it up as a proxy against the Soviet Union. Jockeying for power in China between the Nationalists and Communists begin. All the former European colonies are given independence, much to chagrin of Britain and France who were hoping to regain them.
The use of nuclear weapons lets the cat out of the bag and all major powers launch crash programs to get the bomb before everyone else does. The world enters the 1950s in a perilous multi-polar Cold War...
That's what I've got. It very much needs refinement (obviously) but I tried to remain as non-ASB as possible. The Allies force a war with Japan too soon, before the United States takes a really hard line against Japan and they come across as the aggressors to some extent. Spain enters the war when things go worse for the Allies, causing the loss of the Mediterranean, but the lost Atlantic isles of the Canaries and Azores mean the Allies win the Battle of the Atlantic thus causing the U.S. to stay out of the European war. Stalin isn't stupid and invades in 1942 like he was planning, and Hitler gets thrown under a bus like he almost was some many times OTL. France and Britain don't feel bad about screwing Stalin because he acted as an aggressor and never helped them when they really needed him. I think that's mostly plausible. If you can help me in any way you can, it would be greatly appreciated.
I think it's pretty much an everyone-wank WWII simply because Nazi Germany actually survives (about as wanked as they're going to get


), Japan gets through the war maintaining Korea and Manchuria, the Soviet Union doesn't get its industry torn apart by years of war on its soil, Britain doesn't get its industry bombed to bits by the Luftwaffe because the Battle of Britain never becomes a priority, Italy and Spain get a few nice concessions, and the United States wins the Pacific war in record speed. China's probably the biggest looser. This timeline isn't too nice to France either, but at least they're a sovereign nation at the end of it all.
EDIT: France doesn't loose Alsace-Lorianne, Portugal throws in with the Allies, and Japan surrenders unconditionally.