1936 Opened with bang, when German military units conspired to remove Hitler. Although the dictator was assassinated successfully, the Nazis were able to get reorganized and secured much of the country. The Wehrmacht tore itself apart in the ensuing civil war. Over one and half million Germans died in but a few months of heavy fighting. Lacking outside help, the Heer putschists were defeated by the Nazis. The Wehrmacht was disbanded, and as the country had lost the appetite for war, all military and defense roles were taken up by the SS. The German armed forces would remain relatively small, and German leadership would focus on internal reconstruction, abandoning expansionism.
The war had far reaching effects. In Spain, Franco was able to make a deal with the government and peacefully took over power through elections. Not wanting to repeat the disaster in German, the coup was prevented.
In France, the militarization of Germany during the war and subsequent takeover of the SS convinced France that Versailles was dead. Fearing German resurgence, French nationalists followed Mussolini into making France fascists, ultimately resulting in a Latin Alliance between France, Italy, and Spain.
Stalin made claims on Eastern European lands, to reintegrate the Baltics and secure a buffer around Leningrad. The Winter War with Finland was a great success and the Finns gave in to Soviet demands quickly, allowing them to retain their independence. Frightened by the display of might, Lithuania and Latvia were occupied without a fight. Stalin was convinced that he could push his claims on eastern Poland and Romanian Bessarabia without Western Intervention. Indeed, the French supported Italian claims on Yugoslavia, so Soviet and Italian foreign ministers came up with a plan to divide the Balkans.
However, Romania did offer resistance, and together with Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland the Cordon Sanitaire formed an Anti-Soviet and Anti-Fascist defense pact. Also, Mussolini had miscalculated in the the British promised to guarantee the Yugoslavs, this was ignored, and Britain declared war. The Eastern European and Balkan countries fought bravely, but were eventually ground down by superior enemy numbers and industrial capacity.
Meanwhile in Asia, Japan and China came to an agreement and signed non-aggression pacts, as the Japanese had managed to subdue the reckless army factions that pushed for war, leading to better relations with neighbors excluding the Soviets. The Showa Emperor was convinced that the Soviet invasion of the Balkans proved that if they triumphed in Europe, Japan would be next. A preemptive strike was approved, and Japan joined the Anti-Soviet Cordon, but did not join against the fascist Latins. Japan quickly captured Vladivostok, but had trouble advancing along the desolate and unsuppliable Siberian and Mongolian wilderness.
The distraction in Asia did not deter the Soviets, and eventually Romania, Poland, and Yugoslavia did collapse, but their governments went to London in exile, and partisans continued to resist. The Czechs held out only a little longer against the Soviet tide, and the Italians quickly added Greece and Bulgaria to their conquests. The Czech, Greek and Bulgarian governments in exile followed the others to London.
Next came to most dramatic event of the War. France, leader of the Latin Alliance, delcared war on Britain. Joint French and Italian navies wrecked havoc on the British in the Mediterranean, and the Suez was quickly lost. Next, the Spanish joined the war, allowing allied units to capture Gibraltar. In a stroke of brilliance, Italian and French navies flooded into the Channel, and created a safe corridor where French troops were launched into England. The Battle of Britain had begun.
Poor little New Zealand had at that point mobilized six small motorized divisions. They fought fiercely in the Siege of London, but those brave soldiers were eventually surrounded and destroyed when the cowardly English gave up their own country.
The British capitulation created a lull in the war as the French and Italians set about solidifying their new colonies and client republics. England, Scotland, and Wales joined the Latin Alliance as members.
This turn of events was extremely alarming, and the Americans were forced to wake up from isolationism to come to the rescue of the democratic and Anglophone world. The Americans would help the remnants of the British commonwealth administer Britain's far-flung territories, preventing them from swearing allegiance to the new English republic.
The war would drag on for years as hundreds of thousands of men fought in the jungles, hills, and bush of Africa. In the Sweltering deserts of Syria and Iraq. In the mountains and Ricefields of China.
Eventually, the Soviets were thrown on the backfoot when America liberated Scandinavia from the Swedish communist regime, threatening Leningrad from the Baltic. The Latin Alliance's fleets were overcame by ascendant American naval power.
After years of keeping out of the war, the Germans opportunistically invaded Soviet-held Poland and Czechoslovakia, quickly driving through the flat lands of Europe to Moscow. Having been defeated on all fronts, the Soviets surrendered. German and American units redeployed, and while the Germans and their Hungarian allies secured the Balkans, the Americans forced their way ashore in the Netherlands and drove to Paris. Although the French still had strength enough to repel the Allied forces, the war had gone on too long, and the next battles on home territory would be too costly to endure. France, and with it the rest of the Latin Alliance, finally surrendered in late 1946.
New Zealand notably participated in the Battle of Britain, the Invasions of Africa, the Battle of Iraq, the Turkish War, the Capture of Baku, and other smaller operations. Just about 50% of the entire male population was killed in the cataclysmic war.
The United States inherited the British position of Global superpower, and supplanted the Commonwealth, which had been decapitated by the loss of England. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the people of Great Britain rejected the possible return of British monarchy in favor of keeping their local republics.