Ask Me About My Alternate Universe...

(since this is inevitable) Was there a man of any historical significance named Adolf Hitler in your universe? He was from an area near Salzburg and was born around 1890.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
(since this is inevitable) Was there a man of any historical significance named Adolf Hitler in your universe? He was from an area near Salzburg and was born around 1890.
While you're at it, can you tell us if any of the following names ring a bell:
  • Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili a.k.a. Josef Stalin, born in Gori, Georgia
  • Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, born near Forli, Italy
  • Mao Zedong, born in Hunan, China
 
Where were you born, when, and to whom?

Interesting story, that: I was born in Rangoon, Burma twenty-five years ago, although I'm actually British. My da was an officer in the British Army, and he had enough pull to take his family with him to Burma. I spent the bulk of my life until he retired in various colonies, then we moved back to London.

What form of government do you live under?

Parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarch.

What is the state of the Commonwealth of PA?

It's a state of the United States. It's quite the industrial powerhouse, I hear; its thriving steel mills are famous across the globe.

Give us an overview of the geopolitical situation in your world.

Short answer: It's definitely a multi-polar world, for better or worse! The major powers are the British Empire, the German Reich, the United States, and the Soviet Union, pretty much in that order. The Japanese Empire was up there until the Pacific War but defeat there basically knocked them down to second-rate at best; they’re barely holding Korea at this point. The Soviet Union is holding on to first-class status rather tenuously too; their interventions in Manchuria and Sinkiang went awfully wrong and didn’t do much for the status of the Communist Party’s leadership. But the Soviet people will probably stay pretty content as long as the Left Faction of the CPSU doesn’t get in power and try to roll back the market reforms that’ve improved the standard of living so much since the late sixties.

The biggest geopolitical rivalry is between Britain and Germany. Thing is, the whole keeping-Germany-down idea after the Great War didn't really work, especially once people got worried about the Soviet Union and we (meaning the British) started courting the Reich. It seemed like a harmless-enough notion: Germany was a constitutional democracy after all, and plenty of people (non-French people, anyway) thought they'd gotten less than a fair shake at Versailles. So we looked the other way when they worked out the Anschluss with Austria in '41, and we even looked the other way when they fought the Adjustment War against Poland in '43. So then we can hardly object when they try to annex the Sudetenland in '49, right? Well we might not have but the French did, not that it did them much good with only Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia for allies, and so Germany ends up dominating Europe after all. But at least we still have our Empire!

(since this is inevitable) Was there a man of any historical significance named Adolf Hitler in your universe? He was from an area near Salzburg and was born around 1890.

I’m afraid I’ve never heard of any such fellow.



While you're at it, can you tell us if any of the following names ring a bell:
  • Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili a.k.a. Josef Stalin, born in Gori, Georgia
  • Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, born near Forli, Italy
  • Mao Zedong, born in Hunan, China

Stalin: Definitely, he’s widely considered the most evil dictator in modern history. He ruled the Soviet Union until he was poisoned in 1947. The stuff he apparently did is rather horrifying—deliberately causing famine, purging the army—but then again, it’s hard to know how much of it is really true since most of it was published by his enemies and the current Soviet government isn’t keen to discuss that period at all.

Mussolini: Not a good chap by any means, basically ruined the country. He wisely kept Italy out of the Sudeten War in ’49-’51 and after that was basically our only ally of consequence against Germany on the continent. However, he also brutalized the natives in Abyssinia and Libya and he left Italy totally unprepared for his death in 1965, which caused the civil war that caused the country to split into the Kingdom in the south and the Republic in the north, a situation that persists to this day and isn’t really good for anyone.

Mao:Less sure about this bloke. I think he was a minor Chinese warlord in the ‘30s?

Has man walked on the moon yet in your TL?

Is Poland a world power (hope so)?

Yes, a British man no less: Sir Iain Campbell was the first man to walk on the moon in 1991; it’s one of my first memories.

As to Poland, I’m afraid they’re far from a world power and doing well to survive considering they’re stuck between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Was Venice a colonial superpower in your TL?

That’s the only thing that seems the same about this place so far; as far as I can tell, Venice has the same history here as in my world.

Name the three largest countries in the world.

The British Empire is the largest IF you count the entire Empire as one country (we most commonly do). The Soviet Union is next, and then I think the United States or possibly China.
 
  • British Empire - 33.7 million km2 (1922) - Is it bigger or smaller?
  • United Scandinavia?
  • Global Language?
  • Most influential country?
  • Any independent nations in Africa?
 
What is Azerbaijan like in your world?
How advanced are computers?
What's the smallest country in the world?
What does the US include?
Is there a unified Australia?
[I'm glad my idea inspired you.]
 
(OOC: The thing that amuses me the most about this new thread idea is that the ATL visitor is not the slightest bit interested in the new world he's landed in, and answers other people's questions instead of having a thousand of his own.)

A question about Germany: Is it a monarchy? In our world, it abolished monarchism in 1918 and became a republic instead. This Hitler fellow which the other poster asked about became the German dictator in 1933, so that's why I'm a little surprised that there was still a revanchist Germany without a dictator. Also, why did Germany take it's new annexations so slow? In our world, it was much quicker.

Maybe we can find the divergence between our worlds if you answer these questions.
 
A few questions:

You say about the British Empire being considered a single nation, does this mean it has some form of an 'Imperial Parliament'? If so does this include the Indian Raj? If it does then how do you stop India from dominating the Empire, unless if you don't?

Do the United States include Alaska and Hawaii as territories/states? Also what's the status of Cuba in your timeline, American or independent?

Do the French have an Empire? If not does it have any remnant bits of an Empire? If so what are these? In our timeline they still have some islands dotted around the world and French Guiana.

Lastly, who's the current Prime Minister of Britain? And who's the current Monarch?
 
  • British Empire - 33.7 million km2 (1922) - Is it bigger or smaller?
  • United Scandinavia?
  • Global Language?
  • Most influential country?
  • Any independent nations in Africa?

It's somewhat smaller. We don't have Egypt now, and I suppose one really shouldn't count the Dominions as directly part of British territory. We also no longer have Iraq and Palestine.

No united Scandinavia, it consists of the independent countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark (which includes the autonomous province of Iceland). And Finland, but I don't know if you consider that part of Scandinavia or not; we typically don't.

I've heard there was a movement to create a global language at the end of the nineteenth century, but it didn't go anywhere. English is the most widely-spoken language, although German is essential if you work in the sciences.

On the same note, the most influential country really depends on what part of the world and what field of endeavour you're talking about. British culture is influential worldwide, of course; there's not many places in the world people don't watch British cinema, listen to football matches on BBC Radio, or drink copious amounts of tea. But the United States isn't much influenced by British culture: they have their own cinema industry, never much took to football, and drink coffee. What's more, American culture is the most influential in the New World except in the British West Indies. German culture is the most influential in Europe, especially the east. German also has somewhat disproportionate influence globally because for most of the twentieth century all the most brilliant scientists were German and published in that language; so if you're interested in psychology, atomic physics, aeronautics, or medicine, you won't get too far unless you at least learn to read German.

There's several independent countries in Africa: South Africa is one, Egypt is one (our ally) and there's also Abyssinia, Somalia, and Libya that broke away from Italy during the Italian Civil War. Liberia, though no one pays much attention to it. Several countries broke away from colonial rule in the 80's with covert Soviet help: Angola and Mozambique from Portugal, Congo from Belgium, and Guinea, Madagascar, and Cameroon from France. None of them are in very good shape right now.

The British colonies and the rest of the French colonies are now self-governing to various degrees. For example, Rhodesia, Nigeria, and the East African Federation are all Dominions with internal self-government but they accept the King as head of state. The smaller ones like Gold Coast are under more direct British rule on the theory they're too small to survive as independent countries.

What is Azerbaijan like in your world?
How advanced are computers?
What's the smallest country in the world?
What does the US include?
Is there a unified Australia?
[I'm glad my idea inspired you.]

Azerbaijan is a Republic of the Soviet Union, and their major oil producer.

Computers are the biggest surprise to me here: they're SO advanced it's like being in a science-fiction cinema production! Not even the richest person in my world owns their own computer, they all belong to governments or big corporations.

Smallest country...I think that's Liechtenstein, which for some reason has never been annexed to the German Reich. I think they forgot it's there.

The United States is a big country, it currently has 51 states with Hawaii and Puerto Rico being the most recently added. It also basically runs Cuba, but it will probably never become a state since the Southern Senators aren't keen on another state with such a big coloured population. Plus, the mafia likes the tax shelter.

Yes, Australia is unified. It's a British Dominion

OOC: Thanks, this was a great idea!

(OOC: The thing that amuses me the most about this new thread idea is that the ATL visitor is not the slightest bit interested in the new world he's landed in, and answers other people's questions instead of having a thousand of his own.)
A question about Germany: Is it a monarchy? In our world, it abolished monarchism in 1918 and became a republic instead. This Hitler fellow which the other poster asked about became the German dictator in 1933, so that's why I'm a little surprised that there was still a revanchist Germany without a dictator. Also, why did Germany take it's new annexations so slow? In our world, it was much quicker.

Maybe we can find the divergence between our worlds if you answer these questions.

OOC: People love to talk about themselves!

Germany is a constitutional monarchy, though it was a republic for a little over a decade following the Great War. The republic had lots of problems, and in 1930 there was an army coup that brought about the restoration of the monarchy a year later. New elections brought a right-wing nationalist majority led by von Schleicher (one of the coup leaders when he was in the army) with Wilhelm III as monarch.

Schleicher and Wilhelm wanted to regain the territories lost at Versailles from the beginning, but they had to take it slow because Britain and France were suspicious of them. It took about ten years for German diplomacy to drive a wedge between us, mostly by playing on our fears of the Soviet Union and by exploiting the idea of “national self-determination” that was rather carelessly tossed around back then. Eventually Germany was able to annex Austria based on “national self-determination”; then they fought a brief war against Poland to regain the Corridor (though not Danzig yet); then, after Stalin was poisoned and the Soviet Union was too preoccupied with domestic power struggles they moved against Czechoslovakia. At this point France went to war with them, and so did Poland; Yugoslavia got in later because Hungary took Germany's side in order to regain Slovakia, and the Yugoslavs were against Hungarian expansion knowing they might be its next target. We had this Lord Halifax fellow as our PM, and he didn't want to get involved in another war. Most of the British public felt the same, so we stayed out.

The Czechs and Poles held out pretty well for about six months, but then collapsed. The French actually did much better--they fought most of the war on German territory--but once their allies fell and Germany turned its full power on them it was only a matter of time until they had to quit too and had to give up Alsace-Lorraine. At this point Halifax got tossed out since everyone realised he'd just let Germany restore its 1914 borders and more without lifting a finger against it. Ever since we've been...enemies is probably too strong, but there's definitely a lot of tension between us and the Germans. The ironic thing is we originally started courting them to check the Soviet Union, and now we've spent the last fifty years trying to court the Soviet Union (with variable success) to put a check on Germany.

A few questions:
You say about the British Empire being considered a single nation, does this mean it has some form of an 'Imperial Parliament'? If so does this include the Indian Raj? If it does then how do you stop India from dominating the Empire, unless if you don't?

Do the United States include Alaska and Hawaii as territories/states? Also what's the status of Cuba in your timeline, American or independent?

Do the French have an Empire? If not does it have any remnant bits of an Empire? If so what are these? In our timeline they still have some islands dotted around the world and French Guiana.

Lastly, who's the current Prime Minister of Britain? And who's the current Monarch?

Well, the situation with the British Empire is…complicated to say the least. It doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense to us, to be perfectly honest. There is no “Imperial Parliament” although that idea has been floated fairly often since about 1940, and the reason more or less openly given is to prevent India from dominating, along with the other “coloured races.” Today, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, Rhodesia, Nigeria, and East Africa all have their own Parliaments and have full responsibility for internal affairs. However, they recognize the King as head of state (in India his title is Emperor) and they follow British defence and foreign policy; most of them still host significant numbers of British soldiers and naval and air bases. The other territories of the British Empire are under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office and don’t have full control over internal affairs, although most of them have elected legislatures that are permitted to exercise a lot of control as long as the colony isn’t in open rebellion. And of course in places like the Trucial States and Malaya where native monarchs still exist, we run the countries through the traditional rulers.

For the outlying US states and Cuba, see my reply to Hominid.

The French have a bit of a colonial empire yet, though it’s something of a mixed blessing for them. They still have most of West Africa except for Guinea, but there are active rebellions in Cote d’Ivoire and the Tuareg country right now. They’ve had to give away a lot of self-government to keep the rest of Africa from revolting, so a lot of French Africa is de facto independent but still pays lip service to Paris. The situation in Algeria, the only part of Africa still under direct rule, is extremely unpleasant. White settlers live in fortified compounds in cities like Algiers, Oran, and Constantine which they almost never leave. The countryside is completely under the control of native rebels whatever the government says. It’s been like this for fifty years now, but suggesting the French withdraw is considered career suicide for anyone who wants to succeed in French politics.

The Prime Minister of the UK is Arthur Robinson of the Conservative Party. He’s been in office since 2003, when he replaced Thomas Deane of the Labour Party. Our head of state is King Charles III, the great-nephew of the childless Edward VIII. He’s been King since 1972 and plays no role whatsoever in politics.

If it exists, who won the last (association football) World Cup?

In 2006 Germany defeated Argentina 3:1 in the Reichsstadion in Berlin. England didn’t do so well, I’m sorry to say, going out 1:0 to Hungary in the quarters. But I’m sure we’ll do much better this summer in Australia (just hope I’m back in time to see it!)

What was the outcome of the US Presidential Election of 1912?
How is the Catholic Church doing?

Woodrow Wilson won a three-way race. He’s mostly known for being the only American president ever to send soldiers to fight in a European war.

The Catholic Church is the largest religious organization in the world, with nearly a billion members. The current Pope is Gregory XVII; he is Italian and I can’t remember his name before his election.
 
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