In The Midst Of Desolation, There Is A Glory That Shines Upon Our Tears.

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IN THE MIDST OF DESOLATION, THERE IS A GLORY THAT SHINES UPON OUR TEARS.
THE SECOND GREAT WAR

This Second Great War differs a lot from our world’s World War II. The war starts already in 1935 after a German invasion of Sudetenland and Austria, simultaneously, on 16 June 1935. The mobilisation of the allied forces – an alliance unofficially established after the Treaty of Versailles during the interbellum, of Great Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia and China – was very slow, and thanks to this, Germany was able to capture Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Sudetenland and it achieved unification with Austria, as well as the German speaking Swiss lands. This was much more territory conquered than the initial intention was. Germany, therefore, found it difficult to control its now largely expanded empire. The war in the mountainous regions of Switzerland had cost lots of lives and this made the German army weak. When the German forces were recovering, Britain attacked the north of Germany by boat. Marines tried to captured trade cities like Hamburg, Bremen and Rostock along the coast of the Baltic Sea. They managed to reach this goal on 7 December 1935.
 
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On 9 January, Hungary secretly joined the allied forces. It had been betrayed by Germany, or so its leaders argued; they had been promised land of Romania and Slovakia when they would not join the allied forces. However, the Germans did not even attack Romania at all and they kept Slovakia for themselves, including the areas with Hungarian majority.
 
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth, on 2 May 1936, the Imperial air force of the Japanese Empire attacks Russia and China by invading Manchuria. This quickly annexed area full of resources made Japan significantly stronger. However, this attack, named “Operation Hakai”, or “Operation Destruction”, was not that successful after all. Only half a month later, the allied forces, together with the new members Mongolia and Poland, launched their counteroffensive. This response included the bombing of three major Japanese cities—Kobe, Nagasaki and Nagoya. Yet, the Japanese would never surrender—that is beyond their pride and patriotism. “We shall not fear to die for our nation”, is the navy’s motto…
 
Fights remained until much later that year, on 29 July. Only then, the Japanese army withdrew from Manchuria. This had cost dozens of millions of lives. A little less than two million US marines had lost their lives and among the casualties were also over three and a half million Russians, roughly one million Chinese soldiers—including Outer Mongolians and Tibetans—and more than twenty-eight thousand Mongolians, and a lot more nationalities having send troops to the destructing war in the Far East. On the other side of the battle, the Japanese army had lost about ten million soldiers. Japan also used foreign colonised nations in the war. For instance, Kurilians and Ryukyuans were forced to commit so-called kamikaze attacks, for the Emperor and nation of Japan, which they in fact abhorred and from which they wished to secede, longing for eternal independence.
 
The Second Great War changed all of a sudden precisely two years after its start. Japan turned out to have secretly recovered, while the allied forces expected it to surrender soon. The imperial army attacked the northern part of the island of Sakhalin; Russian territory. This pulled Russia even more into the war. Having ended the battles with Japan in Manchuria, it was now focused on Germany, which planned to invade Poland. This was known at the allied side, since a telegram had secretly been intercepted. In the middle of fights with German troops over north Germany, which the Germans wanted to recapture, Russia came to know that they now fought in a two front war.
 
The mobilisation of Russian troops was difficult, all the way to the far eastern island. Mainly due to this problem, Japan was able to gain the island without major oppression. The Russian army arrived too late, and an infernal bloody battle would start. Thanks to American help, Russian forces were able to reconquer the very northern cape of the island. From here, the Russians succeeded in wiping out the Japanese army, though it cost several thousands of Russian lives.
 
The Japanese leaders—the leaders of the imperium which now comprised the islands of Japan, islands in Melanesia and Micronesia, the Kuril and Ryukyu Islands, northern parts of the Dutch Indies, and the Philippines—were now desperate. According to their ideology, it was their task to expand the empire in order to create space for the people. They had failed against the Russians, but now came up with a new idea. The southern lands of desert and sea, the country that had been colonised by the British and the Dutch, named after its eastern situation: Australia. All aristocratic Japanese were now focused southwards. And in less than sixty days, a whole operation was set up for the annexation.
 
This was not known among the allies, and the western front fights continued as Germany kept on advancing eastwards. Poland fought back bravely, but needed the support of other allies, which came almost too late. Merely thirty kilometres ahead of the suburbs of Warsaw, an immense battle took place. The allies won, on 19 September 1937, with huge losses nevertheless.
 
Still, as already mentioned, the war had changed. The focus was on the Pacific theatre of the war. Whilst the fights in eastern Europe continued, whilst England, the Netherlands, Belgium and France fought heavily to protect western Europe, Japan was the main fear, rather than Germany, with its allies Austria—now incorporated in the Empire, but with a separate army—the Ottoman Empire, Sweden and Finland.
 
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