Jefferson's Anti-Slavery Crisis: Alternate History of the U.S.
- Thread starter sampleswift
- Start date
In case you're wondering where all the content went, next content patch will be huge. Almost 3,000 words!
And it will probably be the semifinal entry.
And it will probably be the semifinal entry.
Judgment War Semifinal
President Truman did not have a good New Year on January 1, 1939, as the US Navy was making little progress against the British Royal Navy, and the landings in Spain and Italy were not going as well as anticipated. At least, until the Italian admiral staff showed its inexperience in combat. US General Patton made a successful landing with a US Army Group in Sicily at “Point Liberation” after the Italians had somehow failed to guard the landing site adequately. (The US Navy ships assigned to help the Army group land had destroyed the coastal defenses, and lured the Italian submarines and ships supposed to guard the area out to sea where they were met by an ambush and destroyed). Much of the Italian army was also away, attacking Greece and the Balkans unsuccessfully, or trying to push north into Germany and Eastern Europe.
Much of this blame fell in the hands of the Italian junta, especially with Giulio Cesare Evola. He had risen to power primarily because of the promises of glory he had given the Italian people. The Italian junta that had used Vespasianist ideals of a military-dominated government had failed at making an effective military. One reason is because much of the populace did not like the junta, and as a result, had little reason to fight willingly. Much of the old Republic-era generalship had also fled the country, taking much of their effectiveness with them. The forces in Greece and in the Balkans received an urgent request to defend the homeland, but they had difficulty coming back. Once again, ineffective Italian generalship, often chosen less out of merit than for political reasons, ruined the day (or saved the day for the Americans). The Roman glories of the Italian junta ended up becoming mirages as much of their army was encircled in Greece and the Balkans.
Battles in this time period were extremely brutal. Mobile warfare was the order of the day, with increased combined arms warfare (to avoid overspecialization). Unlike in the “Dreadful War” where two sides built trenches and hardly moved, tanks and air power allowed for mass movement once again. No longer would there be hundreds of thousands of casualties for a few meters—now there would be hundreds of thousands of casualties for longer stretches of several kilometers at a time. The largest advantage the US had was its immense industrial capacity. While most other powers would be running short on war materials, the US would always be able to make more of them. In an attritional conventional war such as the “Judgment War” (non-insurgent), the side with more industrial capacity usually wins.
The securing of Sicily by February 27, 1939 turned the island into a beachhead for attacking mainland Italy. On March 12, 1939, US forces streamed into the “boot” area of Italy in several landing spots, overwhelming the Italian forces. Generals Patton and Eisenhower had won many great battles against the overwhelmed Italian forces, such as the Battle of Taranto, the largest battle in Italy at that point, with almost 100,000 on the US side alone. Evola and the rest of the Italian junta had enough of the chronic failure, and they were going to clear out the incompetent military staff. Evola tasked Benito Mussolini as the leader of a new institution supposed to solve the incompetence problem in the Italian military. Everyone expected some kind of disciplinary action, but no one expected the New Inquisition. This group of red-uniformed officers served partially as political officers similar to the Russian commissars (and perhaps similar examples in Germany), but they had a more nefarious purpose. The New Inquisition carried out a purge of officers supposedly for ineptitude. At least that was the intention. The real consequences of the New Inquisition was terrifying the Italian ranks, and it did not actually solve the incompetence problem. Simply put, there were not enough qualified candidates for the generalship positions. And even if there were, the Italian army was just too underequipped to survive a long war—having bought the promises of military glory much too easily. The US and allied forces had taken city after city, and hope was lost for the Italian junta. By November 1939, the US would demand an unconditional surrender from Italy, and then quickly receive it because Italy was done as a combatant. This would finally allow US soldiers to connect with their German allies, who really needed the support, as the Russians were almost at the eastern border of Germany.
The island of Corsica was also taken, and it would provide a useful stopping point in the eventual counterattack on France. Marseilles seemed like the most obvious point of invasion, but it was also heavily guarded. As such, feints and skirmishes occurred along the French southern coast, in an attempt to draw out the French. The US Navy pounded the living daylights out of some of the French Mediterranean defenses, but this alerted some of the French Navy. The French Navy, already damaged in the Atlantic Campaign, had fought with the US Navy in the Mediterranean, with mixed results. Both sides lost ships and submarines in the naval war, but France had difficulty replacing its losses due to damage to the shipyards. The French waited for an invasion on their southern coast, and rebuilt their defenses. This attack, however, never came. It turned out that the attacks on the French southern coast had the objective of distracting the French. This distraction would force redeployment of troops to defend the homeland, giving the German soldiers in the west some more breathing room. The German general Erwin Rommel was finally finding success in the west, at least stopping the French and British advances. While Belgium and the Netherlands were lost, at least the French and British armies were no longer advancing.
The Morocco Campaign (really a series of landings from Morocco into Portugal and Spain, to liberate the former and counterattack the latter) started in June 1939. The Rock of Gibraltar was so well-fortified that attacking it directly was never going to work. As a result, US Navy ships simply attacked coastal cities of occupied Portugal and moved in from there. The Americans planned to liberate Portugal, and as a result, were assisted by Portuguese resistance or partisan irregulars. The Battle of Lisbon was the largest battle in this campaign, and after almost one week of brutal urban combat, the occupying Spanish forces were either killed in action, or driven out. The liberation of Portugal took two months. One reason for this was that even though General MacArthur made some mistakes along the way, such as taking heavier-than-expected casualties, support among the local populace made it easier to drive out all the Spanish forces.
After freeing Portugal and restoring its government in exile, US Army groups had gone into Spain to overthrow its Vespasianist era government led by Francisco Franco. The Eighth and Ninth Army Groups had coursed west into Spain, who had gone into the “Judgment War” largely underequipped to fight a long war, would sue for peace by December 1939. Spain requested more armored corps from France, but due to France wanting to use all its tanks against Germany, very few reached Spain in time to fight the Americans. An important tactic used to get Spain to sue for peace was the usage of strategic bombing operations. The most important bombing attack was the Bombing of Madrid, where US bombers wreaked havoc on the Spanish capital. This attack ended up being even more destructive than the Americans had initially anticipated—even many of the American officers would consider this to be excessive brutality. Nevertheless, the attack had its intended purpose of getting the Spanish government to the surrender talks. The next nut to crack for the Americans, Germans, and their allies, was taking out Britain, France, and Russia.
The arrival of American soldiers, as well as volunteers from many other countries, to help the struggling Germans helped to change the tide of the war. Russia had already looked overstretched, with the Russian Army groups, though vast in size, having often overextended or outraced much of their supply lines. The corporatization process that led to Russia’s rapid industrialization showed its flaws—as the war went on, the quality of weapons produced in Russian factories decreased. The offensive would eventually slow down and grind to a halt while the Russian supply lines caught up. The Battle of Poland was a critical error for the Russian Armies. General (later Marshal) Zhukov could only watch in dismay as less experienced commanders allowed themselves to get overextended, then surrounded by the German, Eastern European, and US soldiers. The only other great Russian general around was Tukhachevsky, who was farther south at the time, to knock out some of Germany’s Eastern European allies.
One of the largest tank battles occurred near Warsaw, Poland. This was a true “Tank Bowl” (massive battle of two mechanized tank armies). Tank armies clashed as the forces of Rommel, Patton, Eisenhower, and Zhukov fired uncounted numbers of shells at each other. The battles across the plains of Poland were so intense that even two decades after the campaigns, the soil had not recovered. The Battle of Warsaw ended up lasting for almost a week before Zhukov retreated with much of his forces intact. The end result of this battle was the Russian forces largely leaving Poland, but then setting up a more defensible position to the east. Climate played a large part of the winter campaigns. Attacking Russia in the winter is extremely difficult, except for the original Rus and the Mongols. As such, all the war plans created by the Americans and Germans involved attacking right when spring started to maximize the amount of time available before the fatal winter began.
(There were naval battles near Alaska, but most were inconclusive, and any landing Russian soldiers usually were taken out quickly.)
The France campaign was also concurrent with the struggles against Russia. The German forces on the west had managed to push the French back across the Rhine, but the damage to German industry was still immense. The rebuilding process would take time, especially about repairing the factories and getting the assembly lines back to work. Bombing raids also devastated cities in France, Germany, and Britain. Various operations such as the “Lightning Raids” caused by British and French bombers, and their German and American counterparts wreaked havoc on enemy industrial sites.
One bombing campaign caused by Britain was called the “Cromwell Plan”. It targeted German cities in an attempt to cause Germany to give up the war. Cities like Hamburg and Dresden often ended up as the targets of massive bombing raids, with thousands of casualties. The operations, however, failed to dent the German resolve, especially once the US helped restock the German Luftwaffe (air force) with fresh planes to drive off the bombing raids.
A big turning point in the war was in the scientific front. The usage of gas masks made poison gas attacks far less effective than in the “Dreadful War” era. In addition, the wind-blown nature of many poison gases made them unreliable at times, further hampering their effectiveness. Some poison gases were used in emergency situations, but they were rarely used. The “Judgment War” was the last hurrah of gas weapons because they would be banned (with the exceptions of stun/tear gas) shortly after the “Judgment War” in various arms treaties. Biological weapons also saw limited testing and usage, such as some of the first weaponized diseases, but due to the fear that they could destroy both sides, never saw any action. Some of these weapons were tested in the infamous “Death Camps” of political dissidents in Site D, a black site in Britain; Russia also had its own attempts at making chemical and biological weapons that were tested in the Siberian top-secret laboratories, but again, few of these weapons actually saw use. Other important new weapons would have more of an impact than the chemical or biological weapons.
Many interesting weapons were tested in Britain, where some “wonder weapon” programs occurred. Most of these “wonder weapon” projects were too costly to be truly effective, such as the “Black Arrow” (A rocket-propelled bomb). This “Black Arrow” was pioneered by Frank Whittle as a faster method of carrying bombs that was almost impossible to intercept. Besides being very costly, the “Black Arrow” also had a small payload, making it less effective than Whittle originally anticipated. Some historians consider “Black Arrow” as the first ballistic missile, but the range was not very large—just enough to hit western Germany from launch sites in Britain. (Incidentally, “Black Arrow” and other parts of Whittle’s “wonder weapon” projects ended up saving his life—his prison sentence was commuted in exchange for all his blueprints and records, especially because rocket scientists were in demand in the 1950s when satellite rockets and ballistic missiles were in development).
Frank Whittle also had some more useful inventions. Perhaps his most useful one was the jet engine (invented 1939), the cornerstone of modern aviation. The British government quickly seized the opportunity and allowed him to gain more funding for this project. The first jet plane was the Gloster E.20, which was an experimental plane with no weapons. It first flew on July 15, 1940. It was a proof of concept that jet planes could outspeed and outperform propeller-powered airplanes. The first military jet aircraft was the Gloster Meteor, first produced in 1941. Jet aircraft also appeared in other countries as the German engineer Hans von Ohain had also discovered jet propulsion (independently, as Whittle’s work was kept secret). These jets included the Heinkel series of jet fighters in Germany, and the Bell series of jet aircraft in the United States of America.
Maybe the most frightening of these scientific discoveries occurred in the new field of nuclear physics. German atomic scientists had tested a nuclear weapon deep below the ground in German Kamerun (one of the few German colonies) in November 1942. The ensuing cataclysm annihilated the test site despite the bomb buried deep below the surface. One of the reasons why atomic research went by so quickly in Germany was due to the German government’s full-throated embrace of atomic energy and its usage, especially in war. (This did not go well with Albert Einstein, the chief scientist of the German Atomic division, but he allowed the German government to use his work due to the national crisis). By December 1942, the German government, pleased with the results, would start producing more of these doomsday devices as the ultimate weapon to force an unconditional surrender. American nuclear scientists were not far behind, having their own nuclear testing led by the scientists Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, who were hard at work making their own nuclear weapons in the Alamogordo Project. These terrifying weapons would herald in the upcoming atomic age. Besides nuclear weapons, the first nuclear reactors were also produced in this time period, and they contributed to the further study of nuclear physics and nuclear fission. The dangerous effects of nuclear radiation were also further documented.
1942 saw more fighting, including the end of the French campaign and the final preparations for the invasions of Britain and Russia. Invading Britain would be a nightmare regardless of which angle of attack—Iceland or mainland Europe—was chosen. (One of the earliest ideas of using Ireland as the attack springboard, failed when the Irish government was subverted by British agents in a gradual process. This process had started in the late 1930s, but it was only completed by 1940.) The slow chipping away of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and the devastation of British industry to prevent more from being produced would need to occur prior to any serious invasion attempt. Naval bombers and submarines were integral to the slow erosion of the Royal Navy. US and German intelligence agencies also considered plans to infiltrate and liberate Ireland, but these were largely unsuccessful until 1943.
One of the largest air battles of all time was the Battle of the Channel. This battle could only take place after France was largely defeated in the French campaign, which had started to gain ground by March 1942. The advances of Tanks into the Ardennes surprised the French leadership, who did not expect them there. The French Maginot line was about as useful as the German Siegfried line—not very useful, as the more mobile warfare made static defenses less effective than in the “Dreadful War”. The Siege of Paris would occur on July 1942 and last 2 months. Sieging the area was very difficult, as all the French relief forces that could reinforce it had to be defeated first. General de Gaulle was known for his tenacity, and so taking down these relief forces was much harder than it sounded. The German general Heinz Guderian was tasked with the destruction of these forces. Clever usage of tank warfare combined with US and Brazilian support (which had finally arrived) would lead to the defeat in detail of the numerous relief forces.
The Normandy escape was an attempt for French soldiers that were stuck on the beaches of Normandy, and about to be obliterated by a German tank force, to evacuate using ships. Ships of all shapes and sizes were gathered in an attempt to escape in the cover of night, on August 2, 1942. At least that was the plan. A rearguard would hold off the German tanks long enough for everyone else to escape. This would have been a heroic feat had it succeeded. In reality, a German spy tipped off the German Navy, which sent destroyers to intercept the fleeing French soldiers. Most of them perished in the attempted escape. By the time ships of the British Royal Navy arrived to either pick up the French soldiers, or to drive off the German destroyers, it was too late. The escaping French soldiers had been slaughtered in the water. Admiral Karl Donitz was the architect behind this plan of using the destroyers to prevent the French from escaping (He had already foreseen the fact that the French would try a sea escape, and then set up a trap with the destroyers. The French Army seemed doomed to collapse.
Important locations in France all fell in August, September, and October. August 21st, 1942 saw the fall of Marseilles—hardly defended now that most of the soldiers were rushed to defend Paris and drive off the German and US forces, allowing a US Naval invasion to take the city. Lyons fell on September 19th, 1942. Paris would finally fall on December 2, 1942, after US and German armies had occupied almost all the other major French cities. The French government was forced to surrender unconditionally less than a week afterwards.
Much of this blame fell in the hands of the Italian junta, especially with Giulio Cesare Evola. He had risen to power primarily because of the promises of glory he had given the Italian people. The Italian junta that had used Vespasianist ideals of a military-dominated government had failed at making an effective military. One reason is because much of the populace did not like the junta, and as a result, had little reason to fight willingly. Much of the old Republic-era generalship had also fled the country, taking much of their effectiveness with them. The forces in Greece and in the Balkans received an urgent request to defend the homeland, but they had difficulty coming back. Once again, ineffective Italian generalship, often chosen less out of merit than for political reasons, ruined the day (or saved the day for the Americans). The Roman glories of the Italian junta ended up becoming mirages as much of their army was encircled in Greece and the Balkans.
Battles in this time period were extremely brutal. Mobile warfare was the order of the day, with increased combined arms warfare (to avoid overspecialization). Unlike in the “Dreadful War” where two sides built trenches and hardly moved, tanks and air power allowed for mass movement once again. No longer would there be hundreds of thousands of casualties for a few meters—now there would be hundreds of thousands of casualties for longer stretches of several kilometers at a time. The largest advantage the US had was its immense industrial capacity. While most other powers would be running short on war materials, the US would always be able to make more of them. In an attritional conventional war such as the “Judgment War” (non-insurgent), the side with more industrial capacity usually wins.
The securing of Sicily by February 27, 1939 turned the island into a beachhead for attacking mainland Italy. On March 12, 1939, US forces streamed into the “boot” area of Italy in several landing spots, overwhelming the Italian forces. Generals Patton and Eisenhower had won many great battles against the overwhelmed Italian forces, such as the Battle of Taranto, the largest battle in Italy at that point, with almost 100,000 on the US side alone. Evola and the rest of the Italian junta had enough of the chronic failure, and they were going to clear out the incompetent military staff. Evola tasked Benito Mussolini as the leader of a new institution supposed to solve the incompetence problem in the Italian military. Everyone expected some kind of disciplinary action, but no one expected the New Inquisition. This group of red-uniformed officers served partially as political officers similar to the Russian commissars (and perhaps similar examples in Germany), but they had a more nefarious purpose. The New Inquisition carried out a purge of officers supposedly for ineptitude. At least that was the intention. The real consequences of the New Inquisition was terrifying the Italian ranks, and it did not actually solve the incompetence problem. Simply put, there were not enough qualified candidates for the generalship positions. And even if there were, the Italian army was just too underequipped to survive a long war—having bought the promises of military glory much too easily. The US and allied forces had taken city after city, and hope was lost for the Italian junta. By November 1939, the US would demand an unconditional surrender from Italy, and then quickly receive it because Italy was done as a combatant. This would finally allow US soldiers to connect with their German allies, who really needed the support, as the Russians were almost at the eastern border of Germany.
The island of Corsica was also taken, and it would provide a useful stopping point in the eventual counterattack on France. Marseilles seemed like the most obvious point of invasion, but it was also heavily guarded. As such, feints and skirmishes occurred along the French southern coast, in an attempt to draw out the French. The US Navy pounded the living daylights out of some of the French Mediterranean defenses, but this alerted some of the French Navy. The French Navy, already damaged in the Atlantic Campaign, had fought with the US Navy in the Mediterranean, with mixed results. Both sides lost ships and submarines in the naval war, but France had difficulty replacing its losses due to damage to the shipyards. The French waited for an invasion on their southern coast, and rebuilt their defenses. This attack, however, never came. It turned out that the attacks on the French southern coast had the objective of distracting the French. This distraction would force redeployment of troops to defend the homeland, giving the German soldiers in the west some more breathing room. The German general Erwin Rommel was finally finding success in the west, at least stopping the French and British advances. While Belgium and the Netherlands were lost, at least the French and British armies were no longer advancing.
The Morocco Campaign (really a series of landings from Morocco into Portugal and Spain, to liberate the former and counterattack the latter) started in June 1939. The Rock of Gibraltar was so well-fortified that attacking it directly was never going to work. As a result, US Navy ships simply attacked coastal cities of occupied Portugal and moved in from there. The Americans planned to liberate Portugal, and as a result, were assisted by Portuguese resistance or partisan irregulars. The Battle of Lisbon was the largest battle in this campaign, and after almost one week of brutal urban combat, the occupying Spanish forces were either killed in action, or driven out. The liberation of Portugal took two months. One reason for this was that even though General MacArthur made some mistakes along the way, such as taking heavier-than-expected casualties, support among the local populace made it easier to drive out all the Spanish forces.
After freeing Portugal and restoring its government in exile, US Army groups had gone into Spain to overthrow its Vespasianist era government led by Francisco Franco. The Eighth and Ninth Army Groups had coursed west into Spain, who had gone into the “Judgment War” largely underequipped to fight a long war, would sue for peace by December 1939. Spain requested more armored corps from France, but due to France wanting to use all its tanks against Germany, very few reached Spain in time to fight the Americans. An important tactic used to get Spain to sue for peace was the usage of strategic bombing operations. The most important bombing attack was the Bombing of Madrid, where US bombers wreaked havoc on the Spanish capital. This attack ended up being even more destructive than the Americans had initially anticipated—even many of the American officers would consider this to be excessive brutality. Nevertheless, the attack had its intended purpose of getting the Spanish government to the surrender talks. The next nut to crack for the Americans, Germans, and their allies, was taking out Britain, France, and Russia.
The arrival of American soldiers, as well as volunteers from many other countries, to help the struggling Germans helped to change the tide of the war. Russia had already looked overstretched, with the Russian Army groups, though vast in size, having often overextended or outraced much of their supply lines. The corporatization process that led to Russia’s rapid industrialization showed its flaws—as the war went on, the quality of weapons produced in Russian factories decreased. The offensive would eventually slow down and grind to a halt while the Russian supply lines caught up. The Battle of Poland was a critical error for the Russian Armies. General (later Marshal) Zhukov could only watch in dismay as less experienced commanders allowed themselves to get overextended, then surrounded by the German, Eastern European, and US soldiers. The only other great Russian general around was Tukhachevsky, who was farther south at the time, to knock out some of Germany’s Eastern European allies.
One of the largest tank battles occurred near Warsaw, Poland. This was a true “Tank Bowl” (massive battle of two mechanized tank armies). Tank armies clashed as the forces of Rommel, Patton, Eisenhower, and Zhukov fired uncounted numbers of shells at each other. The battles across the plains of Poland were so intense that even two decades after the campaigns, the soil had not recovered. The Battle of Warsaw ended up lasting for almost a week before Zhukov retreated with much of his forces intact. The end result of this battle was the Russian forces largely leaving Poland, but then setting up a more defensible position to the east. Climate played a large part of the winter campaigns. Attacking Russia in the winter is extremely difficult, except for the original Rus and the Mongols. As such, all the war plans created by the Americans and Germans involved attacking right when spring started to maximize the amount of time available before the fatal winter began.
(There were naval battles near Alaska, but most were inconclusive, and any landing Russian soldiers usually were taken out quickly.)
The France campaign was also concurrent with the struggles against Russia. The German forces on the west had managed to push the French back across the Rhine, but the damage to German industry was still immense. The rebuilding process would take time, especially about repairing the factories and getting the assembly lines back to work. Bombing raids also devastated cities in France, Germany, and Britain. Various operations such as the “Lightning Raids” caused by British and French bombers, and their German and American counterparts wreaked havoc on enemy industrial sites.
One bombing campaign caused by Britain was called the “Cromwell Plan”. It targeted German cities in an attempt to cause Germany to give up the war. Cities like Hamburg and Dresden often ended up as the targets of massive bombing raids, with thousands of casualties. The operations, however, failed to dent the German resolve, especially once the US helped restock the German Luftwaffe (air force) with fresh planes to drive off the bombing raids.
A big turning point in the war was in the scientific front. The usage of gas masks made poison gas attacks far less effective than in the “Dreadful War” era. In addition, the wind-blown nature of many poison gases made them unreliable at times, further hampering their effectiveness. Some poison gases were used in emergency situations, but they were rarely used. The “Judgment War” was the last hurrah of gas weapons because they would be banned (with the exceptions of stun/tear gas) shortly after the “Judgment War” in various arms treaties. Biological weapons also saw limited testing and usage, such as some of the first weaponized diseases, but due to the fear that they could destroy both sides, never saw any action. Some of these weapons were tested in the infamous “Death Camps” of political dissidents in Site D, a black site in Britain; Russia also had its own attempts at making chemical and biological weapons that were tested in the Siberian top-secret laboratories, but again, few of these weapons actually saw use. Other important new weapons would have more of an impact than the chemical or biological weapons.
Many interesting weapons were tested in Britain, where some “wonder weapon” programs occurred. Most of these “wonder weapon” projects were too costly to be truly effective, such as the “Black Arrow” (A rocket-propelled bomb). This “Black Arrow” was pioneered by Frank Whittle as a faster method of carrying bombs that was almost impossible to intercept. Besides being very costly, the “Black Arrow” also had a small payload, making it less effective than Whittle originally anticipated. Some historians consider “Black Arrow” as the first ballistic missile, but the range was not very large—just enough to hit western Germany from launch sites in Britain. (Incidentally, “Black Arrow” and other parts of Whittle’s “wonder weapon” projects ended up saving his life—his prison sentence was commuted in exchange for all his blueprints and records, especially because rocket scientists were in demand in the 1950s when satellite rockets and ballistic missiles were in development).
Frank Whittle also had some more useful inventions. Perhaps his most useful one was the jet engine (invented 1939), the cornerstone of modern aviation. The British government quickly seized the opportunity and allowed him to gain more funding for this project. The first jet plane was the Gloster E.20, which was an experimental plane with no weapons. It first flew on July 15, 1940. It was a proof of concept that jet planes could outspeed and outperform propeller-powered airplanes. The first military jet aircraft was the Gloster Meteor, first produced in 1941. Jet aircraft also appeared in other countries as the German engineer Hans von Ohain had also discovered jet propulsion (independently, as Whittle’s work was kept secret). These jets included the Heinkel series of jet fighters in Germany, and the Bell series of jet aircraft in the United States of America.
Maybe the most frightening of these scientific discoveries occurred in the new field of nuclear physics. German atomic scientists had tested a nuclear weapon deep below the ground in German Kamerun (one of the few German colonies) in November 1942. The ensuing cataclysm annihilated the test site despite the bomb buried deep below the surface. One of the reasons why atomic research went by so quickly in Germany was due to the German government’s full-throated embrace of atomic energy and its usage, especially in war. (This did not go well with Albert Einstein, the chief scientist of the German Atomic division, but he allowed the German government to use his work due to the national crisis). By December 1942, the German government, pleased with the results, would start producing more of these doomsday devices as the ultimate weapon to force an unconditional surrender. American nuclear scientists were not far behind, having their own nuclear testing led by the scientists Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, who were hard at work making their own nuclear weapons in the Alamogordo Project. These terrifying weapons would herald in the upcoming atomic age. Besides nuclear weapons, the first nuclear reactors were also produced in this time period, and they contributed to the further study of nuclear physics and nuclear fission. The dangerous effects of nuclear radiation were also further documented.
1942 saw more fighting, including the end of the French campaign and the final preparations for the invasions of Britain and Russia. Invading Britain would be a nightmare regardless of which angle of attack—Iceland or mainland Europe—was chosen. (One of the earliest ideas of using Ireland as the attack springboard, failed when the Irish government was subverted by British agents in a gradual process. This process had started in the late 1930s, but it was only completed by 1940.) The slow chipping away of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and the devastation of British industry to prevent more from being produced would need to occur prior to any serious invasion attempt. Naval bombers and submarines were integral to the slow erosion of the Royal Navy. US and German intelligence agencies also considered plans to infiltrate and liberate Ireland, but these were largely unsuccessful until 1943.
One of the largest air battles of all time was the Battle of the Channel. This battle could only take place after France was largely defeated in the French campaign, which had started to gain ground by March 1942. The advances of Tanks into the Ardennes surprised the French leadership, who did not expect them there. The French Maginot line was about as useful as the German Siegfried line—not very useful, as the more mobile warfare made static defenses less effective than in the “Dreadful War”. The Siege of Paris would occur on July 1942 and last 2 months. Sieging the area was very difficult, as all the French relief forces that could reinforce it had to be defeated first. General de Gaulle was known for his tenacity, and so taking down these relief forces was much harder than it sounded. The German general Heinz Guderian was tasked with the destruction of these forces. Clever usage of tank warfare combined with US and Brazilian support (which had finally arrived) would lead to the defeat in detail of the numerous relief forces.
The Normandy escape was an attempt for French soldiers that were stuck on the beaches of Normandy, and about to be obliterated by a German tank force, to evacuate using ships. Ships of all shapes and sizes were gathered in an attempt to escape in the cover of night, on August 2, 1942. At least that was the plan. A rearguard would hold off the German tanks long enough for everyone else to escape. This would have been a heroic feat had it succeeded. In reality, a German spy tipped off the German Navy, which sent destroyers to intercept the fleeing French soldiers. Most of them perished in the attempted escape. By the time ships of the British Royal Navy arrived to either pick up the French soldiers, or to drive off the German destroyers, it was too late. The escaping French soldiers had been slaughtered in the water. Admiral Karl Donitz was the architect behind this plan of using the destroyers to prevent the French from escaping (He had already foreseen the fact that the French would try a sea escape, and then set up a trap with the destroyers. The French Army seemed doomed to collapse.
Important locations in France all fell in August, September, and October. August 21st, 1942 saw the fall of Marseilles—hardly defended now that most of the soldiers were rushed to defend Paris and drive off the German and US forces, allowing a US Naval invasion to take the city. Lyons fell on September 19th, 1942. Paris would finally fall on December 2, 1942, after US and German armies had occupied almost all the other major French cities. The French government was forced to surrender unconditionally less than a week afterwards.
Final Update... For now
Judgment War Final
One of the big meetings that occurred as the war was coming to the close was the Berlin Conference. This conference was met by Chancellor Hugo Eckener of Germany, President Floyd Olson of the United States of America, and many other world leaders. They would discuss about the future of the world after the “Judgment War”. One important idea called for a “Concert of Nations” to avoid another worldwide war such as the “Dreadful” and “Judgment” Wars.
1943 would see the end of the war. The invasion of Britain would be a daunting task. US and German high command (most of the other countries in the “Allied Powers” were spending most of their armies fighting the Russian armies) coordinated joint strikes against Britain. The US was staging an attack from Iceland, and US bombers attacked British industrial sites to sabotage the British war effort. Prior to the German invasion across the Channel, the US and German forces had sent secret agents as saboteurs to facilitate any eventual attack. Even with the RAF and Royal Navy severely damaged, any invasion would be very difficult. Secret agents would also be in contact with Irish and Scottish nationalists, promising them new nations in exchange for their help. Due to all the internal problems facing Britain at this time, the British armed forces were stretched even thinner.
At last, on March 7, 1943, after several months of further chipping away at the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the invasion could begin in earnest. The German Navy bombarded the coastal defenses all along the southern British coast, while the US Navy and US Air Force did the same to the northern areas of Britain. Irish nationalists, now equipped with weapons by the Germans and the Americans, ended up waging bloody war against their government that had been co-opted by the British. This tied down some of the British Army. Eventually something had to give, and that was the British forces in Ireland. Another contingent of US Navy ships and the soldiers on them streamed into Ireland to reinforce the Irish nationalists. Within six weeks (due to the fantastic leadership of General Eisenhower), the US Armed Forces and the Irish nationalists (now called the Irish Liberation Force), had removed the British soldiers from Ireland.
The slow slog through Britain saw many massive battles, such as the Battle of Birmingham, and a massive firebombing campaign. The worst of these attacks was the Firebombing of London, ordered by the German High Command. The firebombing was supposed to target government installations, but it ended up scorching large sections of London, and killing much of the civilian populace. After months of grueling warfare, on September 14th 1943, the British Armies would finally give up. Their morale had completely collapsed, most of their large cities were taken or destroyed, and even the British population started to hate them.
The Russian Campaign
The German and US armies had also made gains into Eastern Europe in the spring and summer of 1942. They had retaken all the ground they had lost to Russia, and were streaming into Russian territory. Long preparations were made in order to winterproof the tanks and vehicles when the extremely harsh Russian winter would arrive, and that there would be no shortage of winter uniforms and other such equipment to survive the brutal winter conditions. The situation in Russia was deteriorating, and the US and German armies were trying to break the morale of the Russian armies.
Some of the Russian strategies involved trading space for time, and waiting for the harsh Russian winter to do much of the work. This could have worked, except that there was significant political strife in Russia by the winter of 1942. The bombing campaigns on Russian factories west of the Urals had started to take their toll. While factories were often disassembled and moved eastward, this process would take time. The Russian forces did gain some ground during the fierce Russian winter since they were more adapted to it than the invaders, but this did not reverse all of their losses. Unluckily for the Russian armed forces, they had very little air support.
The winter of 1942 and early 1943 saw little movement as the US, German, and Allied forces hunkered down and adopted a more defensive mindset. April 1943 saw the disastrous Battle of Volgograd, where a large Russian army in the hundreds of thousands was trapped inside the city by an American force of a similar size. Attacking the city directly would not work due to the difficulties of urban combat, so the Americans just surrounded the city and held off Russian attempts to break out of Volgograd or break in and rescue the trapped soldiers. The Americans did take very heavy losses in this battle, despite taking down the imprisoned Russian army. If this style of combat had to be replicated in every major Russian city, the war might become very unpopular. Thankfully, it was not to be so.
By September 1943, the Russian morale had collapsed completely—a coup by Leon Trotsky where his followers stormed into the Duma demanding peace and bread had occurred. Due to the food shortages and crippling defeats due to this war, many Russians agreed with him. Trotsky would lose in his coup d’etat, but this strain coupled with the battlefield defeats forced the Russian government to surrender unconditionally on October 2nd, 1943.
The “Judgment War” ended with the unconditional surrender of France, Britain, and Russia. This war felt like God’s judgment, hence the name. Much rebuilding needed to be done in all the countries scourged by war. The US came up with the “Eisenhower Plan”, which was a massive rebuilding plan done so that none of the countries on the Vespasianist side could cause problems again. Economic aid was poured in to rebuild all the countries devastated by the “Judgment War” to help them get back up and reduce feelings of resentment against the Americans. Nation-building needed to be done, not just economically, but governmentally.
The Petrograd Trials, along with similar trials of British and French war criminals in the Birmingham and Lyon trials respectively, were a big part of the “Judgment” in the “Judgment War”. Crimes against humanity and their committers were widespread, and the US and German authorities wanted to seek justice for these horrible actions. Almost everyone associated with the infamous “gulags” or prison camps in Siberia ended up facing justice in some form. The infamous Beria, who started the idea, was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death via firing squad. Many other important “gulag” figures ended up with life imprisonment. Most of the Russian armed forces command ended up being arrested for crimes against humanity, along with the heads of the important corporations for abetting these crimes against humanity. There was also a restriction that “Old Government/Military” figures were prohibited from running for office to prevent “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” syndrome. Similar occurrences occurred in Britain and France. Much of the government members there were arrested and brought to trial. Sadly, the biggest offender, Oswald Mosley, had committed suicide to avoid capture.
Nuclear weapons
The US, Germany, Brazil, Sweden, and the rest of the “Allied Powers”, as they were called in the “Judgment War”, decided that they needed to stop the proliferation of atomic weapons, especially after an emergency declaration from atomic scientists such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer warned that a nuclear war would easily destroy human civilization. The threat to humanity was a dire one, and most of the powerful nations of Earth would heed the call. This operation to reduce nuclear proliferation was partly successful. The only other countries that gained nuclear weapons were the titans of Asia: China, India, and Japan. (The defeated Vespasianist Powers were forbidden to have any weapons of mass destruction, and nuclear inspectors made it very difficult for other nations with fewer resources to obtain nuclear weapons.) This didn’t mean the end of the nuclear age, though.
Nuclear technology would later help in the development of space probes (see the Aviation and Rocketry section), and nuclear submarines (see “The Nuclear Submarine”). More effective nuclear power generation would also see relevance in the Climate Change era due to the lack of CO_2 emissions in nuclear power generation.
The Nuclear Submarine
Chester Nimitz invented the nuclear submarine in 1950. Nuclear submarines could dive deeper than diesel-electric ones, and nuclear submarines did not need to surface for air. This made submarine warfare even harder to deal with. Two types of nuclear submarines would surface… the hunter-killer submarine, and the larger ballistic missile submarine. The latter type had the capacity to launch nuclear missiles. This method of launching nuclear payloads would be even harder to intercept than bombers, leading to a “Mutually assured destruction” scenario in case of war.
The nuclear submarine was not just a weapon of war. This invention also had scientific developments. Submarine research opened up new discoveries of the oceans. Nuclear submarines mapped new undersea mining deposits, which helped with the shortages of certain metals. Oil rigs also appeared near oceanic petroleum deposits. Submersibles (special submarines made to survive the crushing pressures of the deep ocean) explored the ocean depths, and scientists found dozens of new animal species. Polar exploration also saw new discoveries, as it was possible to travel under the Arctic ice with a nuclear-powered submarine. In fact, this would occur in 1958 under the name “Project Polar Ice”.
Aviation and Rocketry
As submersibles plumbed the depths of the oceans, other scientists explored the skies above. Civil aviation became an increasingly large business, especially with the development of air travel and airliners. Now the general public could fly in an airplane at a much more affordable price, making travel much faster. Tourism received a business boom due to the rise of civil aviation. Cargo-carrying aircraft were not far behind, which helped speed up commerce, especially between the oceans.
Aviation developments also occurred in military and experimental fields. The German scientist Werner von Braun hypothesized on the nature of flight at speeds higher than the speed of sound, and aviation companies attempted to build an aircraft that could travel faster than the speed of sound. Eventually, the Bell company in America was able to build such an aircraft, the Bell X-1. The X-1 was the first X-plane (a series of US experimental aircraft). The first supersonic flight occurred on October 15th, 1947 by test pilot Chuck Yeager. The 1950s saw faster speeds available on more advanced aircraft, almost all of them either military or experimental. Mach 2, for instance (twice the speed of sound) arrived in 1957.
But for many scientists, extremely high speeds in the air remained the tip of the iceberg. They wanted to fulfill the primal dream of mankind to reach for the stars. The first real attempts at this came in from the American scientists operating at the US Air Force base in Cape Canaveral. The development of rockets was proceeding at a rapid pace, for US President Eisenhower claimed, “We chose to go to space not because it is easy, but because it is difficult.”
The space program got off to a bad start. The Vanguard series, supposed to test the capability of rockets in carrying small payloads, led to a catastrophic failure on the test bay for the first attempt, with the rocket exploding and the payload vaporized. The
The first successful satellite ever was the Explorer 1, launched on August 15, 1958. Astronauts would come later. Germany was not far behind on its space program, and would launch its own satellite shortly afterwards.
One of the most interesting movements in the late 1940s and 1950s, and would not end until 1960, was the further expansion of civil rights in the US. At this point, the US had made great strides in its search for racial and gender equality, and the long-fabled “equal opportunity” that many reformers throughout American history had given their lives for. The 1950s would end with a bright light on the horizon: equal rights in the LGBTQ field.
(I might do more on this, but I feel like it’s a good time to end this timeline.)
One of the big meetings that occurred as the war was coming to the close was the Berlin Conference. This conference was met by Chancellor Hugo Eckener of Germany, President Floyd Olson of the United States of America, and many other world leaders. They would discuss about the future of the world after the “Judgment War”. One important idea called for a “Concert of Nations” to avoid another worldwide war such as the “Dreadful” and “Judgment” Wars.
1943 would see the end of the war. The invasion of Britain would be a daunting task. US and German high command (most of the other countries in the “Allied Powers” were spending most of their armies fighting the Russian armies) coordinated joint strikes against Britain. The US was staging an attack from Iceland, and US bombers attacked British industrial sites to sabotage the British war effort. Prior to the German invasion across the Channel, the US and German forces had sent secret agents as saboteurs to facilitate any eventual attack. Even with the RAF and Royal Navy severely damaged, any invasion would be very difficult. Secret agents would also be in contact with Irish and Scottish nationalists, promising them new nations in exchange for their help. Due to all the internal problems facing Britain at this time, the British armed forces were stretched even thinner.
At last, on March 7, 1943, after several months of further chipping away at the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the invasion could begin in earnest. The German Navy bombarded the coastal defenses all along the southern British coast, while the US Navy and US Air Force did the same to the northern areas of Britain. Irish nationalists, now equipped with weapons by the Germans and the Americans, ended up waging bloody war against their government that had been co-opted by the British. This tied down some of the British Army. Eventually something had to give, and that was the British forces in Ireland. Another contingent of US Navy ships and the soldiers on them streamed into Ireland to reinforce the Irish nationalists. Within six weeks (due to the fantastic leadership of General Eisenhower), the US Armed Forces and the Irish nationalists (now called the Irish Liberation Force), had removed the British soldiers from Ireland.
The slow slog through Britain saw many massive battles, such as the Battle of Birmingham, and a massive firebombing campaign. The worst of these attacks was the Firebombing of London, ordered by the German High Command. The firebombing was supposed to target government installations, but it ended up scorching large sections of London, and killing much of the civilian populace. After months of grueling warfare, on September 14th 1943, the British Armies would finally give up. Their morale had completely collapsed, most of their large cities were taken or destroyed, and even the British population started to hate them.
The Russian Campaign
The German and US armies had also made gains into Eastern Europe in the spring and summer of 1942. They had retaken all the ground they had lost to Russia, and were streaming into Russian territory. Long preparations were made in order to winterproof the tanks and vehicles when the extremely harsh Russian winter would arrive, and that there would be no shortage of winter uniforms and other such equipment to survive the brutal winter conditions. The situation in Russia was deteriorating, and the US and German armies were trying to break the morale of the Russian armies.
Some of the Russian strategies involved trading space for time, and waiting for the harsh Russian winter to do much of the work. This could have worked, except that there was significant political strife in Russia by the winter of 1942. The bombing campaigns on Russian factories west of the Urals had started to take their toll. While factories were often disassembled and moved eastward, this process would take time. The Russian forces did gain some ground during the fierce Russian winter since they were more adapted to it than the invaders, but this did not reverse all of their losses. Unluckily for the Russian armed forces, they had very little air support.
The winter of 1942 and early 1943 saw little movement as the US, German, and Allied forces hunkered down and adopted a more defensive mindset. April 1943 saw the disastrous Battle of Volgograd, where a large Russian army in the hundreds of thousands was trapped inside the city by an American force of a similar size. Attacking the city directly would not work due to the difficulties of urban combat, so the Americans just surrounded the city and held off Russian attempts to break out of Volgograd or break in and rescue the trapped soldiers. The Americans did take very heavy losses in this battle, despite taking down the imprisoned Russian army. If this style of combat had to be replicated in every major Russian city, the war might become very unpopular. Thankfully, it was not to be so.
By September 1943, the Russian morale had collapsed completely—a coup by Leon Trotsky where his followers stormed into the Duma demanding peace and bread had occurred. Due to the food shortages and crippling defeats due to this war, many Russians agreed with him. Trotsky would lose in his coup d’etat, but this strain coupled with the battlefield defeats forced the Russian government to surrender unconditionally on October 2nd, 1943.
The “Judgment War” ended with the unconditional surrender of France, Britain, and Russia. This war felt like God’s judgment, hence the name. Much rebuilding needed to be done in all the countries scourged by war. The US came up with the “Eisenhower Plan”, which was a massive rebuilding plan done so that none of the countries on the Vespasianist side could cause problems again. Economic aid was poured in to rebuild all the countries devastated by the “Judgment War” to help them get back up and reduce feelings of resentment against the Americans. Nation-building needed to be done, not just economically, but governmentally.
The Petrograd Trials, along with similar trials of British and French war criminals in the Birmingham and Lyon trials respectively, were a big part of the “Judgment” in the “Judgment War”. Crimes against humanity and their committers were widespread, and the US and German authorities wanted to seek justice for these horrible actions. Almost everyone associated with the infamous “gulags” or prison camps in Siberia ended up facing justice in some form. The infamous Beria, who started the idea, was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death via firing squad. Many other important “gulag” figures ended up with life imprisonment. Most of the Russian armed forces command ended up being arrested for crimes against humanity, along with the heads of the important corporations for abetting these crimes against humanity. There was also a restriction that “Old Government/Military” figures were prohibited from running for office to prevent “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” syndrome. Similar occurrences occurred in Britain and France. Much of the government members there were arrested and brought to trial. Sadly, the biggest offender, Oswald Mosley, had committed suicide to avoid capture.
Nuclear weapons
The US, Germany, Brazil, Sweden, and the rest of the “Allied Powers”, as they were called in the “Judgment War”, decided that they needed to stop the proliferation of atomic weapons, especially after an emergency declaration from atomic scientists such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer warned that a nuclear war would easily destroy human civilization. The threat to humanity was a dire one, and most of the powerful nations of Earth would heed the call. This operation to reduce nuclear proliferation was partly successful. The only other countries that gained nuclear weapons were the titans of Asia: China, India, and Japan. (The defeated Vespasianist Powers were forbidden to have any weapons of mass destruction, and nuclear inspectors made it very difficult for other nations with fewer resources to obtain nuclear weapons.) This didn’t mean the end of the nuclear age, though.
Nuclear technology would later help in the development of space probes (see the Aviation and Rocketry section), and nuclear submarines (see “The Nuclear Submarine”). More effective nuclear power generation would also see relevance in the Climate Change era due to the lack of CO_2 emissions in nuclear power generation.
The Nuclear Submarine
Chester Nimitz invented the nuclear submarine in 1950. Nuclear submarines could dive deeper than diesel-electric ones, and nuclear submarines did not need to surface for air. This made submarine warfare even harder to deal with. Two types of nuclear submarines would surface… the hunter-killer submarine, and the larger ballistic missile submarine. The latter type had the capacity to launch nuclear missiles. This method of launching nuclear payloads would be even harder to intercept than bombers, leading to a “Mutually assured destruction” scenario in case of war.
The nuclear submarine was not just a weapon of war. This invention also had scientific developments. Submarine research opened up new discoveries of the oceans. Nuclear submarines mapped new undersea mining deposits, which helped with the shortages of certain metals. Oil rigs also appeared near oceanic petroleum deposits. Submersibles (special submarines made to survive the crushing pressures of the deep ocean) explored the ocean depths, and scientists found dozens of new animal species. Polar exploration also saw new discoveries, as it was possible to travel under the Arctic ice with a nuclear-powered submarine. In fact, this would occur in 1958 under the name “Project Polar Ice”.
Aviation and Rocketry
As submersibles plumbed the depths of the oceans, other scientists explored the skies above. Civil aviation became an increasingly large business, especially with the development of air travel and airliners. Now the general public could fly in an airplane at a much more affordable price, making travel much faster. Tourism received a business boom due to the rise of civil aviation. Cargo-carrying aircraft were not far behind, which helped speed up commerce, especially between the oceans.
Aviation developments also occurred in military and experimental fields. The German scientist Werner von Braun hypothesized on the nature of flight at speeds higher than the speed of sound, and aviation companies attempted to build an aircraft that could travel faster than the speed of sound. Eventually, the Bell company in America was able to build such an aircraft, the Bell X-1. The X-1 was the first X-plane (a series of US experimental aircraft). The first supersonic flight occurred on October 15th, 1947 by test pilot Chuck Yeager. The 1950s saw faster speeds available on more advanced aircraft, almost all of them either military or experimental. Mach 2, for instance (twice the speed of sound) arrived in 1957.
But for many scientists, extremely high speeds in the air remained the tip of the iceberg. They wanted to fulfill the primal dream of mankind to reach for the stars. The first real attempts at this came in from the American scientists operating at the US Air Force base in Cape Canaveral. The development of rockets was proceeding at a rapid pace, for US President Eisenhower claimed, “We chose to go to space not because it is easy, but because it is difficult.”
The space program got off to a bad start. The Vanguard series, supposed to test the capability of rockets in carrying small payloads, led to a catastrophic failure on the test bay for the first attempt, with the rocket exploding and the payload vaporized. The
The first successful satellite ever was the Explorer 1, launched on August 15, 1958. Astronauts would come later. Germany was not far behind on its space program, and would launch its own satellite shortly afterwards.
One of the most interesting movements in the late 1940s and 1950s, and would not end until 1960, was the further expansion of civil rights in the US. At this point, the US had made great strides in its search for racial and gender equality, and the long-fabled “equal opportunity” that many reformers throughout American history had given their lives for. The 1950s would end with a bright light on the horizon: equal rights in the LGBTQ field.
(I might do more on this, but I feel like it’s a good time to end this timeline.)
Nice way to wrap up your timeline. Good work and I'm glad I was able to read it and enjoy it.
Japan ate up huge swathes of territory in the "Dreadful War". An attempted military coup failed which led to a reorganization of the armed forces (this occurs in the 1920s and 1930s). Japan also spent most of its time in the 1920s and 1930s digesting all the territorial gains. Where is Japan by 1950? It sat out the "Judgment War" because it had already consumed everything it wanted. By 1950, Japan is the strongest country in Asia, but China and India are attempting to catch up.
I'm assuming they own Korea and Taiwan then? What exactly did they get?
Thanks for asking. I might do a final view of this timeline before it closes down. So far Japan has Korea and Taiwan. It also set up protectorates in large parts of Southeast Asia.
Next content would probably be the future of the US or what major countries look like in 1970 and 2000.
Update alert: Ouch. This week is going to be a pain. I might have a collection of scenes, but even that is going to be difficult. This would probably also be the last update tbh.
Thank you so much!
I will return the favor, and nominate your Timeline 1828 for a Turtledove very soon. Thank you so much!
Actually, I request that you don't nominate it. I don't think that highly of it tbh. It certainly doesn't help I've abandoned it.
Note: This timeline is probably over.
I might do a re-write or something else, but probably not anytime soon.
I might do a re-write or something else, but probably not anytime soon.
Always sad to see a good TL end, but honestly the end of WW2 is a fairly good departure point. By definition, it wraps a lot of things up. (That said, I would definitely not protest a return). Also, I like the idea of "Judgement War". That was creative and logical.