Challenge: A Grasshopper Lies Heavy TL

In The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history novel read by the characters has as its premise a world in which the Axis is defeated, only to have a Cold War develop afterwards between a progressive USA (which solves its racial problems by the 1950s) allied with a Republic of China, and a surviving British Empire (which, in addition to its OTL territory, dominates Europe), which ends with Britain overtaking the USA to become the world's hyperpower.

Now, recognizing the implausible aspects of TGLH world (a senile Churchill lording over a racist Empire into the '60s, ect.) how could we get a situation that, by the 1950s, has the USA and China facing off against the British Empire in a cold war? Which bloc would ultimately prevail in such a situation?

The POD can be anytime from 1900 onwards.
 
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I've always had the idea of a Euro-American Cold War in a world without both Communism and Nazism.

The basic POD is that the Nazis never come to power in Germany and an expansionistic USSR (whether under Stalin or Trotsky or whoever) fills in the vacum and sometime in the 40's, the Soviets invade Europe. After a few years, the invasion is repulsed and the Europeans win the war (an atomic bomb is dropped over Moscow so as to avoid having to invade and occupy Russia) without any help from the Americans, who around the same time, have defeated the Japanese, consequently without any involvement from the Europeans. Essentialy, the European and Pacific Wars ITTL happen independently of each other.

The postwar situation sees the emergence of two power blocs, the European bloc whose foremost power is Britain and the "Pacific Bloc" whose foremost powers are America and an increasingly resurgent China. The two blocs get into a Cold War over the issue of colonialism. America beings to actively pursue global decolonization through supporting armed colonial liberation movements, while the old European empires, still in control of Africa, India and parts of Asia, struggle to hold on to their Empires while in turn supporting rebel movements in American-allied countries esp. in South America. The two blocs are also engaged in a Nuclear Arms and Space Race.
 
1915-Gallipolli Landings are much more sucessfull,troops move inland much faster.The Turks can only mount a weakly built defense,in 2 months allied troops are at Constantinople.The Turks mount a weak counter attack hoping to retake the city but are repelled by stronger allied forces.2 Months later and Turkey has surrendered.

1916-The allies ,from Turkey,advance in the Balkans,Russia is much better supplied and manages to hold the German advance.Son the Eastern front has also turned into static trench warfare.Churchill is massively popular due to the successful Gallipolli.


Austria-Hungary soon faces a second front and begins to retreat in the East and the South.


Bulgaria also suffers a two front war and faces a large string of defeats,they surrender in December.


1917- By March Austria-Hungary has surrendered because of fighting a two front war.

Allied troops advance into Bavaria but soon find,they need to substitute their speedy Balkan advance for more Trench warfare.


After the sinking of more American ships the USA joins the war on the allied side.


The Russian revolution begins,less understrength due to a more successfull war but it still throws Russia into chaos.Still ,due to German troops being stretched to the limit the Germans dont capitalise on this.


1918-By 1918 Germany is facing collapse,teyre fighting a three front war,being completely blockaded and fighting alone against numerous enemies.In febuary the Kaiser abdicates and Germany asks for an amistice.


1919-In March the Treaty of Versaille is signed(Same as OTL)


Russia is still in chaos even though they won the Tsar is still hated for dragging Russia into the War.

Churchill is viewed as a War Hero whos daring strategies in Turkey won the War.




1920-Communists capture Moscow


The Russian civil War Begins because of a stronger Army and stronger Tsarist support it will drag on.

1927-Due to the chaotic civil war Japn seizes a large part of Siberia along with Vladivostock

1929-The Russian Civil War finally ends but the Soviet Union is in an even worse state with Poland, Romania and Japan taking large amounts of land.Stalin is dead from a brutal battle at Tsaritsin.Trotsky takes over the very weak union.


The Stock Market crashes


1933-Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany.

Franklin Roosevelt is injured in an assasination attempt.


1936-Because of his massive popularity Churchill becomes conservative leader and wins the general election.
Britain begins to re arm with more modern tanks,planes and ships.

Tanks are fitted with radios and and commanders are trained in Deep Battle (Blitzkreig)


Churchill protests against the occupation of the Rhineland,but France does nothing so Hitler gets away with this.


Spanish Civil War begins,the weak Soiet Union can offer no help to Spain but britain heavily supplies the Republicans.


1938-The Republicans win the Spanish Civi War ,Franco is executed.

The anchluss between Germany and Austria takes place,Britain opposes this but realises it can do nothing.


Hitler demands the Sudetenland,France continues to appease but Britain back up the Czechs along with a somewhat recovered Soviet Union.


Hitler,believing Churchill is bluffing,declares war on Czechoslovakia quickly Churchill declares war on Germany.

France remains neutral,as does the USSR as it is nowhere near ready for a war.


Britain begins to bomb German cities with a much more powerful RAF.

After a letter from Albert Einsten Churchill give the go ahead for Project Cair the British Atom Bomb project.
1939-In June after bitter fighting and heavy caualties on both sides,Czechoslovakia surrenders and is occupied by Germany.

A fortnight later , Hitler invades Poland from the West and South,stunning the Poles.France now declares war.


By July Germany has occupied Poland ,France sits 'safe' behind its Maginot line.

In september Hitler invades Norway,Britain and Germany lock heads against each other for the first time.Britain along with Norwegian forces easily defeats Germany and after 2 weeks all Germans are either dead , imprisoned or evacuated.

Britain with a much more powerful navy begins to claim victories in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Britain occupies Norway.


1940-In June,Germany invades France with no british troops there , they surrender even quicker.

Italy joins the war on Germanys side and attempts to invade Egypt however there are over 100,000 Britsh troops there and they soon crush the Italians.


Germany sends an Afrika Korp to aid the Italians but they are soon pushed back as well.


Britain mounts an amphibious invasion of Tripoli.

After 2 months more fighting in Libya German and Italian troops surrender.


FDR does not run in 1940du to health reasons,he sufered a minor stroke from the bullet from the attempt on his life.




TO BE CONTINUED
 
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1941-
Wendell Wilkie is inaugeratd as US president he vows to keep America out of the war

Britain invades and occupies Italian east Africa and French North Africa.

They also succeed in pushing Vichy out of the middle east,occupying Syria.

Italy along with Bulgaria invades Yugoslavia , Germany refuses to help as it is begining plans for Operation Barbarossa.


After 4 Months of heavy fighting Yugoslavia surrenders and is dismembered.


Italy and Bulgaria invade Greece in May,Churchill offers them help which they accept a BEF of 150,000 men are sent to Greece.

On June 22 Hitler commences Operation Barbarossa,the Soviets are prepared for the invasion and has much better commnders than OTL but because of the much longer civil war its army is more backward and is worse.For the first couple of months it goes the same with rapid advances,this time not because of bad strategy but because of a poorer soviet army.


By December although there are massive casualties on both sides,Moscow has been surrounded and Leningrad captured,Britain manages to strong arm Finland into joining the war,Britsh and Finnish troops join up with Soviet ones and by the end of the year have managed to retake Leningrad.

On December 7th Japan attacks Pearl Harbour which leads to the US declaring war on Japan.

Hitler is convinced declare war on America as Britain is a major threat.


1942 -A better prepared Britain in pacific manages to repulse the Japanese from Singapore,Siam and Hong Kong and crush the IJN at the batle of the South China sea,however the phillipines fall.


Britain brings large amounts of troops up from the middle east into the Caucauses which along with the Red Army fanatically defends Rostov and Volgograd then in November,along with forces in the Balkans launch a massive offensive ino Bulgaria form the West and Volgograd from the east trappin alll Axis forces in the South by December,Hitler refuses to let them retreat leading to the loss of the 6th army and the 4th Panzer army.


Mussolini seeing defeat as immenent makes peace with the allies and pulls out of Yugoslavia and other theatres.
 
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Hendryk

Banned
If you make such drastic alterations to WW1, it's rather a stretch to have Hitler take over exactly on schedule, not to mention developments such as the Depression and the German lightning invasion of France.

For one thing, with a Communist takeover in Russia delayed until 1929, and Trotsky in charge instead of Stalin, would there even be Communist parties in Europe? And would they be considered threatening enough to have fascism or its lesser variants considered the lesser evil?

For another, why wouldn't Japan take advantage of the protracted anarchy in Russia to satellize Siberia, thus altering their ulterior expansion into the Pacific and Indian Oceans?
 
For one thing, with a Communist takeover in Russia delayed until 1929, and Trotsky in charge instead of Stalin, would there even be Communist parties in Europe? And would they be considered threatening enough to have fascism or its lesser variants considered the lesser evil?
I wouldn't be too surprised if there were Communist parties of a sort- but I would expect these 'Communist' parties to often be quite dissimilar to their OTL counterparts, and the word Communist probably wouldn't be used so much.
 
If you make such drastic alterations to WW1, it's rather a stretch to have Hitler take over exactly on schedule, not to mention developments such as the Depression and the German lightning invasion of France.

For one thing, with a Communist takeover in Russia delayed until 1929, and Trotsky in charge instead of Stalin, would there even be Communist parties in Europe? And would they be considered threatening enough to have fascism or its lesser variants considered the lesser evil?

For another, why wouldn't Japan take advantage of the protracted anarchy in Russia to satellize Siberia, thus altering their ulterior expansion into the Pacific and Indian Oceans?

Yes,the soviets are considered the lesser evil Trotsky can arely defend himself let alone try to expand.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Because of the Stock market crash.
C'est un peu court, jeune homme. Hitler's takeover was only indirectly related to the stock market crash. The electoral successes of the Nazi Party were caused by the Communists' suicidal strategy of refusing any alliance with the Social-Democrats, which in turn was dictated by Stalin, who isn't around in TTL. That and the fact that a weak, exhausted USSR won't be able to influence far-left politics in Europe to nearly the same extent as OTL. Which brings us to the decision of the German conservatives to endorse Hitler, which wouldn't have been seen necessary if the far left had seemed less menacing.
 
I've always had the idea of a Euro-American Cold War in a world without both Communism and Nazism.

The basic POD is that the Nazis never come to power in Germany and an expansionistic USSR (whether under Stalin or Trotsky or whoever) fills in the vacum and sometime in the 40's, the Soviets invade Europe. After a few years, the invasion is repulsed and the Europeans win the war (an atomic bomb is dropped over Moscow so as to avoid having to invade and occupy Russia) without any help from the Americans, who around the same time, have defeated the Japanese, consequently without any involvement from the Europeans. Essentialy, the European and Pacific Wars ITTL happen independently of each other.

The postwar situation sees the emergence of two power blocs, the European bloc whose foremost power is Britain and the "Pacific Bloc" whose foremost powers are America and an increasingly resurgent China. The two blocs get into a Cold War over the issue of colonialism. America beings to actively pursue global decolonization through supporting armed colonial liberation movements, while the old European empires, still in control of Africa, India and parts of Asia, struggle to hold on to their Empires while in turn supporting rebel movements in American-allied countries esp. in South America. The two blocs are also engaged in a Nuclear Arms and Space Race.

Sounds like Red Alert abit. Like an AH RA2.
 
1943-


The Project Cairo reactor is successfully brought online,scientists expect to have a few bombs by early 1944.


In the Soviet Union the allies launch the bigest offensive ever (dwarfing Barbarossa) from the North ,British and Finish forces push south.In the east the Red Army powers west liberating Moscow after one and a half years of desperate struggle,while in the south Soviet and British forces push north into Romania.This offensive delivers a devastating blow to the Germans,they lose almost 2 million men and are pushed out of the Soviet Union entirely and into Hungary ,Poland and the remainder of Romania.


Mussolini,trying to secure his power,declares war on the Germans and pushes in to Bavaria and South France although Italy is soon bought to a stalemate by German forces in the area.


Spain also declares war in August planning to get revenge on Germany for helping Franco and advance into vichy France.



In the pacific the Britshforces succeed in pushing the Japanses out of Burma while the US lands in the Phillipines quickly advancing.


The poles rise up in Warsaw due to the allied advance,causing chaos for the German defence.On Christmas Eve Allied forces march through the city.
 
In The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history novel read by the characters has as its premise a world in which the Axis is defeated, only to have a Cold War develop afterwards between a progressive USA (which solves its racial problems by the 1950s) allied with a Republic of China, and a surviving British Empire (which, in addition to its OTL territory, dominates Europe), which ends with Britain overtaking the USA to become the world's hyperpower.

Now, recognizing the implausible aspects of TGLH world (a senile Churchill lording over a racist Empire into the '60s, ect.) how could we get a situation that, by the 1950s, has the USA and China facing off against the British Empire in a cold war? Which bloc would ultimately prevail in such a situation?

The POD can be anytime from 1900 onwards.


David

Long time since I read the book. Wasn't a lot of detail about the nature of both states. Why are you saying the renewed British empire is racist, which could quite well tear it apart, and the US controlled bloc isn't? Don't remember anything about that in the book?

Steve
 
David

Long time since I read the book. Wasn't a lot of detail about the nature of both states. Why are you saying the renewed British empire is racist, which could quite well tear it apart, and the US controlled bloc isn't? Don't remember anything about that in the book?

Steve

In The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, IIRC, the British Empire is stated to be quite racist.

However, for this challenge, that doesn't have to be the case at all. The only real parameters are a US/China alliance facing off against a British dominated bloc.
 
1944-In Febuary Britain detonates its first Atomic bomb in the Egyptian desert,Britain has produced another bomb bt does not use it immediately,Churchill doesnt want to risk irradiating the speedy allied advance in Germany.

The world is horrified by footage of the Concentration camps.

In March allied troops cross the Vistula and after heavy fighting manage to encircle Berlin.The British storm the city with armour coupled with air attacks the battle is just as bloody as OTL but by April,Berlin has surrendered.

The British make landings in Denmark from Norway and quickly take much of the country with little resistance.

In June Hitler is found by Britsh troops hiding in Berlin also Italian troops along with french resistance take Paris.

By July Germany unconditionally surrenders.
 
I can't see how the US/China alliance gets into a Cold War with the British empire unless it's like TL 191 with Britain supporting the South in the Civil War or something.
 
I've always had the idea of a Euro-American Cold War in a world without both Communism and Nazism.

The basic POD is that the Nazis never come to power in Germany and an expansionistic USSR (whether under Stalin or Trotsky or whoever) fills in the vacum and sometime in the 40's, the Soviets invade Europe. After a few years, the invasion is repulsed and the Europeans win the war (an atomic bomb is dropped over Moscow so as to avoid having to invade and occupy Russia) without any help from the Americans, who around the same time, have defeated the Japanese, consequently without any involvement from the Europeans. Essentialy, the European and Pacific Wars ITTL happen independently of each other.

The postwar situation sees the emergence of two power blocs, the European bloc whose foremost power is Britain and the "Pacific Bloc" whose foremost powers are America and an increasingly resurgent China. The two blocs get into a Cold War over the issue of colonialism. America beings to actively pursue global decolonization through supporting armed colonial liberation movements, while the old European empires, still in control of Africa, India and parts of Asia, struggle to hold on to their Empires while in turn supporting rebel movements in American-allied countries esp. in South America. The two blocs are also engaged in a Nuclear Arms and Space Race.

That would make for a good timeline. I'd love to see it expanded upon.

Are there any other thoughts about how this kind of a world could emerge?
 
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