Falkenhayn stays on, a 20th Century POD

How powerful do you think a socialist axis of Germany, Italy and Russia (Jan 1919 borders) would be?

  • More powerful than OTL Axis

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Significantly more powerful than OTL Axis

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • About the same

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Probably weaker than OTL Axis

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • Definitely weaker than OTL Axis

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Could go either way

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No Idea, drastically different timeline

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Total voters
    5
POD: During the Battle of Verdun Falkenhayn sticks to attrition, rather than trying to take the salient's outlying fortresses. The French Army mutiny happens sooner, Falkenhayn's allies among the Empire's political class do not commit to unrestrained submarine warfare and when the Tzarist empire collapses the result lacks an offensive on the Western Front, rather a more active role in the Russian Civil War and other theaters, with the effects being seen on the Greek and Italian fronts.

Yet Attrition is transforming society, the defensive warfare with no prospect of overall victory spurs the development of international socialism on a far greater scale than in our timeline. The Spanish Flu of 1918, combined with socialist revolts in Italy and Hungary, prompt a localized truce which soon spreads to include all incumbents. The truces and agreements are sealed by the Treaty of Geneva (Also known as the treaty of Nations), in which the powers agree to a ten-year truce with a subsequent treaty. Across Europe, coalitions of Monarchists, Centrists, Liberals and moderate socialists are formed to resist the growing power of the Internationalist left, as the British Empire and United States seek to isolate themselves from the alarming rise of Socialism in their respective spheres of interest. The arrangement holds, for a time.

The Wall Street Crash reinvigorates the radical socialists, who capitalize on the widespread poverty and become the largest party in several prominent European countries. In Germany, the crumbling National Coalition seeks to tame the International Socialists by accepting them into power, yet within a year the mechanisms of government are at the whims of the untamed radicals. In Italy, Benito Mussolini blends Nationalism and Socialism and ties himself to the German and Russian socialist states: Together, they form the Axis, and commit themselves to promoting socialism worldwide, beginning with the Spanish Civil War and all three sending considerable expeditionary forces to the conflict, the French commitment and international volunteers falling short of winning the war. Within Britain Winston Churchill and Conservative grandees call for re-armament, yet while their calls are not heeded, Britain expands the RAF and Navy, Guaranteeing the nations of Europe opposed to the Axis.

Europe prepared for war. In a series of conferences the Axis were determined to wear down their opponents through asymmetrical means, then strike on all fronts and prevent a coordinated counter-attack. The Soviets signed a non-aggression pact with the Siberian Republic, setting several frontier issues after a significant victory in 1939, while stirring up socialist revolts in Ukraine, the Cossack State and Belarus. Socialist Germany slowly picked apart the successor states of its' old ally Austria-Hungary, annexing Austria, supporting a Socialist Hungary into the Axis and moving into the Sudetenland. When the French government backed its' guarantee of Bohemia and a column of Bohemian soldiers were ambushed en-route to a frontier fort, the Second World War was about to begin.


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The victors gathered at Yalta to determine their next course of action. They underlined their commitment to unconditional surrender, and despite their differences, rivalries and concerns for their position in final victory-they emerged united. The Yalta International Conference would be broadly publicized in the Socialist world, and at this point the leaders of Germany, Russia and Italy could allow themselves a division of the post-war world. Italy would hold the Mediterranean lake, with southern France, Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Epirus, Dalmatia, Turkey, Greece and Lebanon firmly in its' sphere of influence-along with France's ship-building yards and access to Gibraltar and the Suez Canal from which a fleet would emerge to dominate the world. Germany would become the arbiter of Northern Europe, taking Scandinavia, Benelux, Northern France, the British Isles, Bohemia, Poland and Austria-the Workshop of the world. Russia would expand east. The Finns, Estonians, Balts, Belorussians, Ukrainians and Cossacks would be bought to heel. Soviet power would expand into Turkestan, Arabia, Mongolia, China, India-the frontiersmen in this trio. In this project they undertook one which would surpass their own lifetimes, re-write history itself and set humanity on a course of their making. Britain had yet to be subdued, and resistance in mainland Europe had yet to be crushed-but they left assured that the world was already theirs.
 
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