La Triplice - Or Italy in the Central Powers

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Europa of "La Triplice"
Local time: 1950
If you have follow my TL, "La Triplice", you know that Germany won the WWI allied with Italy.

In this TL there is nothing comparable to WWII
The first years after the war were dominated by local wars(Dalmatian war between Italy and Hungary, the Polish uprising and Sovie revolution) , but by early '30s Europe find an unstable peace, shattered in forties by Algerian uprising, war of Somali indipendence, German intervention in far east and, more important, Mexican and Russian wars.

Germany: Is the greatest power in Europe and one of the greater of the world.
Germany is a conservative federal empire, ruled by Berlin by Wilhelm III.
The empire provides a good welfare system. Politically it is not a dictatorship, but Keiser(and other kings) have a lot of power and civil rights, although formally respected, are less important than state security.
Said that there are no political police, and parties are free to compete in elections.
German army and fleet are ones between the most powerful and large, not only in Europe, but around the world and the atomic bomb give Berlin a fair advantage against many enemies.
Defeated Fascit Russia in 1948 and quelled the last Polish revolt in 1949 Germany seems suopreme in Europe.
The main problem of Germany is its colonial empire, that doesen't age well.
The brutaly which allowed its stability in Africa is becoming more and more a problem, Poland is always on the edge of revolt and reicharmee is spread in too many fronts.
Africa, probaly shall be lost before the '60s and Iraq shall follow soon.

Keiser Wilhem III Von Hoenzollern(1941)

Italy: Italy is the european junior power.
A conservative monarchy under Umberto II di Savoia.
Differently from Germany, Italy is not only ruled by a militocracy but under D'Annunzio become close to a dictature.
When D'Annunzio died in 1938, the new italian PM(predidente del consiglio dei Ministri), Nitti was embroiled in a revolt against french colonists in Alegeria and by 1939 in a full war against France and United States with Britain.
When the war ended, Italy is not in good shape.
Economy, devasted by the war, struggles to recover, damages are extensive and Italy has not an extended welfare as Germany has.
Socially, the kingdom, is a mess of liberal democracy, prussian constitutionalism and ultra-catholic conservatorism.
Italian Army defeated the Algerianian rebels(with help of Tunisinian and Lybian irregulars), but Algeri is still a non-go zone.
Lebanon is the only secure colonial possession, Palestine and Syria are starting to agitate, comoplicated by jewish migrants around Jerusalem.
Costal cities of Lybia are secured, but desert is out of control.
Rome feels African Horn territories as lost in a war against Etjiopia that become more and more probable.

King Umberto II Di Savoia-Carignano

Republic of Great Turkey:
Turkey is a new player in the European arena.
Given dead after WWI, under the ironfist rule of Kemal Pasha resurrected in a new (for now) regional power.
Kemal left go away the provinces with an arab majority and strenghtened the ties with turkophone and kurs one.
He(differently from HL) didn't spoil the Ottoman Sultan of his religiouse role and put christian minorities under the protection of the Caliph.
The millet system was partially manteined and greeks remained(mostly) faithful to Great Turkey.
Armenians were another matter.
If greeks were, rightly or wrongly, to be a part of this state as heirs of byzantine empire(which gave ottomans a lot), Armenians feel to be only a persecuted and oppressed minority(Armenian genocide worked in a lessere extent in this TL, because germany performed better aiding the ottomans in Caucasus).
Diring the Second Russian War, when Turkey entered in war against Russia on german side, Armenian arose in revolt and were punished(badly).
Now Turkey is decisely the third player of Central alliance with a good economy, a strong army and big allies.
The main problems were armenians(for them is not yet decided what to do, but probably shall not end well) and Caucasus where turkish military presence is a heavy burden, both for occupieds and occupators.

Ismet Pasha: President of Greater Turkish Repubblic

Kingdom of Hungary:
The kingdom of Hungary is the last of the central power, both for economy and military power.
Hungary is a country with a lot of problems and in the chancelleries of Rome, Berlin and Istanbul its end is belived a matter of time.
Hungarian army was not so bad during the Second Russian War, but at the end gained only some Rumanian counties.
Hungary big problem are its minorities, Differently from Turkey, Budapest promoted a forced magyarization and it didn't work well.
If Croatians stay leal because of italian army in Dalmatia; Galitia and Transylvania, without foreign menace, didn't the same.
Tension are rising now, and only the young King Otto is the reason why monarchy is not fallen...yet.
Hungary is confessional semi-dictatorship, where the Landowners party and the army rule with an iron fist.
The king is young Otto Von Habsburg, he is more or less a prisoner of Admiral Miklos Horty wich is, technically, only the First Minister but rules as a dictator.

King Otto Von Hasburg

People's repubblic of France:
France is a communist state, the revolution happened in 1924 when the party, on platform of social justice, partition of land and revenge from Germany won the election by a slight margin.
France is not, however, comparable with HL soviet Russia; and its first days were bloody, now its more calm and after the war againt Britain and Italy is more a socialdemocracy that a communist state. However only the Partie de travalleirs is allowed to run for elections and the Guetteurs(the whatchmen) the secret police is everywhere.
France is been always able to avoid a war aginst Germany and also to ignite a revolution in India and Italian ME, but is now under attack from Japan in Viet-Nam and Indocina(Tokyo send "volunteers" to start a national insurrection against the godless and western ruler), and the country is still ravaged by war, with a not so good economy despite american aids.

President de conseils Eduard Daladier

United Kingdom of Great Britain
Great Britain is in bad shape.
They fought americans in Mexico and Canada, defend from France along the channel and fought a war against a genocidal fascio-communist dictatorship in India.
However they manage to survive.
Allied with Italy, U.K saves Portugal(if not spain) from communism and defends Africa.
The loss of a great part of India, however hits very hard, First Minister, Wiston Churchill had to resign also if he was able to save Cylon, Pakistan, Bangladesh and mostly Burma(that was looking to Japan more than to London).
Despite the economic crisis, GB is still a democracy and has a good welfare.
The new premier, Clement Attlee, must defend Africa, maybe with the institute of Dominion-

King George VI Windsor

 

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Some days after the death of the Hungarian king Otto, in many cities of the Slovakian autonomous province started massive manifestations in favor of indipedence.
Much of them shouting "In name of the Sixth Brigade"
Slovakia was one of the most complex points of Hungarian Kingdom.
A fist try of secession happened when Horthy died in 1957. I
The years goin thought 1958-1969, years of great international turmoil for the so called "Young Revolution" or "The Red Wave" that interested Europa, Asia and America and left a lot of rubbles. Germany itself was shoked, Hungary was quite destroyed, but saved by Otto.

In 1958, some months after Horthy death, the sixth brigade of Hungarian army marched on Bratislava (hung. Pozsony) and tryed to assault the governor palace and proclaim the indipendence of their country.

The Sixth Brigade in front of the governo palace of Bratislava while reading a list of requests to the governor, the premier and the king.

Mainly composed by jews, the Sixth brigade was one of the rbigades that suffered in the Russian war. Often send to attack without information or support(sometimes also rising questions in the Great German Reich). When Horthy died, and his political and ultra-religiouse dictatorchip ended, not having confidence in the new King Otto, still realatively young at the time(35years old, but no one ruled directly, he was only a figurehead for Horthy and his regime).
This event sparkle a full fledged civil war in Hungary, nearly costing the collapse to the monarchy.

 

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The first Donnar class aviojet built in Peenemünde in late '40s.
Between the many programs of aereo-war superiority, Donnar was not only one of the first, but one of the most effective.
If the one-man jet bomber resulted, practically, ineffective for the progress of German-Russian war; however it become the cornerstone of a new range of jet aircraft in the next years.

 

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The Jews of Warsaw were seclued in a special area of the city, a Ghetto. The immage is taken some days before the city exploded in revolt against the russian in 1944

Warsaw was occupied by Russian 4th Army in late 1940, after the Imperial Russian Supreme Commad took the german east armies off guards.
The War, lasting from 1940 to 1948 was bitter and cruel(also if not as OTL one) the ruling Russian "party", in truthness a coalition of interests between the army, land class and Church high echelons, the so-called All-Russia Party, had no clear idea to do about the large jewish population of the occupied areas. In many cases the answer was "limited" to creation of ghettos, but in others the Russian Death Troopers and Black Cossacks used violence and fired true pogroms.
(We must noted that abslutley nothing compared to OTL WWII and Nazi madness and cruelty...)

Konstantin Rodzaevsk: Supreme Marshall of Russian Empire.
Technically Rodzaevsk was ruling on behalf of the young Tsar Vladimir(the boy was only 2yo when war started), but the fact transformed Russia in a military dictatorship trying to cut the power of the Diet.
Altrought Russian never become totatlitarian dictaorship(like Urss or Nazi Germany, the power and prestige of the tsar was too high), the ARP powers was very great.

 

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Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek delivering his famous speech in Nanjing, announching the victory over Japan in Korean War.

Germany was not able to sustain the Ottoman Empire after the Great War, the crumbling of the leave the place to a republic with Kemal Pasha as its chief.
Those events in Middleast mirrored those in China, where the Manchese Qing dynasty was overturned by the republicans. Differently from Ottoman Empire, China didn't benefit(?) european intevention, leaving the task to Japanese forces.

Japanese Army Enter in Harbin, early '20s

The Japanese intevention sparkled a civil war between the agrarian party lead by Mao Tzetung and the Kuomitang lead my Chang Kai Shek .

Mao Testung was the leader of the Agrarian Party(in Full: Federation of Agrarian Syndacates Party).

Altough aided by american volunteers(the famouse Flying Tigers), the German military support to Chang was too great and strong. In the end Mao was forced to leave Mainland China and create a republic in far east and then, beaten again in the '40s, leaving the country for United States in what was called "The Long March to the sea".

The Fling tigers: a squadron send by the United States Syndacalist Party to aid Mao in the war. They are regarded as heroes, but in the end couldn't match the power of Reich Luftflotte

Japan tried to stop the growing of China, but German military aid and mass of chinese(some veterans of the long civil war) and Manchuria and Korea were lost to Chang in 1948. For that date Manchukuo has been occupied and only the Imperial Fleet stopped the Germans to assoult directly the japanese fatherland islands.

Japan lost Manchuria and Korea, but Germany failed to save monarchy in China and Manchuria, also because Japanese goverment offeder Taiwan to exiled last Qing Emperor Puyi

Emperor Puyi in an official pic from his new throne room in Taiwan, capital of the Second Qing Empire.

 

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The Flag of United Korea, a state formed after China defeated Japan in Manchurian war during the '40s.
China won also thanks with the help of Germany and the war was costly, but eventually they won.
Korea is a modern state. A strongly conservative state between the two most powerfull states of Asia: The Empire of Japan and the Republic of China.
Korea is strongly conservative, and staunchly allied with Germany to counterbalance Japan, allied with U.K and a strong growing China.

After the Asian War (Asiatischer Krieg) and victory over Japan, while China was fighting its own little civil war, Korea was at least, after nearly 50 years theb Joseon Dynasty returned to the throne of the Empire of Korea they were forced to leave in early '900.
Unfortunately Prince Kang, also know with roayl name of Prince Uihwa, didn't be able to sit on the htone of his father because he died in August before the complete definition of peace treaty.

Prince Kang at the start of Japanese invasion of China. He fought in Nanjing Conference army forces. Died before to return on the hrone in august 1955.

So, the new Emperor of Korea would become his son become Emperor. Unfortunately Korean Imperial Family was riped with divion and because Geon, the first in line served with Japanese Empire, the throne's burden passed to his brother Yi Un that become Emperor with the name of Uimin.

Emperor Uimin become the fist emperor of Korea after liberation from Japan.

 

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Altought more famous for his Anei adaptation of classical european works; Director Kim Jong Un sometimes directed also comedies.
In This pic He, and his fetish actor, Park Jae-sang play a couple of womanizer secret agents with little success with girls.
The comedy, called "The Saurus Brothers", gained great success in Germany, Italy and other European countries.

 

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Emperor Hiro Hito receives Emperor of China Pu-Yi at Tokio Central Station.

Pu-Yi, Emperor of the rump China empire in Taiwan (and before that of Machukuo state in Manchuria) is a strange figure.
He wished not to rule, but history forced him to take two thrones.
In this pic he went in Tokyo to discuss the formation of Asia Co-prosperity Area. A great free trade across Pacific.

Pu-Yi was respected both in Taiwan and Japan, and with the end of Asia War, and the demise of worst militarist cadre of Japanese army, he was more free to good to his own country.

 

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When Pu-Yi fled to Taiwan, he was installed as emperor of China in exile.
The new imperial flag was desined to unify the japanese and qing flag.
The flag was inaugurate september 1952 and in use still now in late 2000s.

 

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Taipei Imperial Palace: Seat of the heavens
Taipei was naturally selected as capital of the third empire being the capital of japanese administration on Taiwan Island.
Here, Puyi went to settle his new court when fled from Manchuria. Altought not very differentrly from Manchuria, where Puyi was surrounded by japanese "advisers", in Taipei the situation become worse than ever. Infact, if the in Manchiura japaneses let him some manouver margins, in Taiwan(that Japan considered as its private property) Puyi was pratically simply a placeholder for japanese governor. Ofen he had to ask permission of military governor not only to rewiew the Imperial Chinese Army(Called Imperial Banner Army), but sometimes also to leave the palace.

 

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The defeat against China(and Germany) was the first true defeat Japan suffered from one century. Altrought not disastrous as the one suffered in the HL(OTL) still left a mark in Japanese militarist culture
The faith in the army was shoked and also the emperor suffered in popularty and prestige. This situation exploded in late '50s and early '60s in a very tense political and civil conflittuality.

Japanese Communist Party supporters, hoping to dethrone the emperor and to proclamate a socialist repubòic like in Usa or in France riotted in many Japanese towns.

Right-wing groups reciprocated, a manifestation of soldiers and esxponents of the right in front of Imperial palce, Tokyo, to protest the surrender of Korea and Manchuria and asking to continue the war.

The situation was so tense, and a risk of true civil war was so real that Emperor Showa ordered the instution of a new military command lead by gen. Haishy Keizo.
He forced a new constituion, very rigid and somewhat anti-democratic. This semi-dicattorship(reminescent of the Tojos one) endured ultil the Cherry Blossom Revolution of late '70s

 

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Kim Jon Un motivational poster, based on one of his must successuful commedies.
Kim Jon Un's "Live, Love, Laught" is one of the most beloved movies of the korean director. Distant from his common rowdy action-commedies, this one is centered about a young man living with depression. With enormous and exagerated, but coherent, stream of caualities and double-senses, he meets persons with situations worse than him. At the end of the movie, the protagonist, still struggling with depression, sees another way to live his life.
Kim's work is also full of magic and supernatural involvement, remaining always in the background, but being able to instillate in the viewers the suspect that supernatual entities saw in the movie may, or may not, be real.

Yeo Jin Goo - Main protagonist of the movie.
Thanks to this movies he won some notable prizes of Korean Cinema Industries and recived a nomination to Gold Bear to Berlin Film Festival

 

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Protesters in Corso Kossuth to ask for the abolition of the dictatorship to the death of Horthy
The news of Horthy's death, despite an attempt to keep it hidden by the military and political apparatus of the Kingdom of Hungary, leaked to the people.

The students of the University of Budapest, also led by elements of the radical left, took control of the university and, via radio, broke the news of the Admiral Regent's death to the entire nation.
Together with the news they gave the government a list of 16 points including liberalisation of the university, free elections and freedom of the press.

As soon as the radio announcement was broadcast, riots and protests broke out in every corner of the great kingdom. In the capital itself, a spontaneous demonstration erupted through the avenues of the centre. The military did not know what to do. Whether to repress the rebels or

Ferenc Szálasi enters the government palace in Budapest

Ferenc Szálasi the new regent according to the wishes of Horthy and the military took up residence in the Prime Minister's Palace three days after Horthy's death, and although he was determined to punish the rioters with violence, he received a telegram from Berlin, the famous 'Abwarten und sehen', in which the German imperial chancellery ordered Hungary to wait to use force.

Otto of Habsburg in uniform of the Hungarian army. The sovereign became the reference point of opposition to the military regime of Horthy and successors

Meanwhile, numerous supporters of the rightful monarch gathered around Otto. Son of King Charles and designated successor to the throne of Hungary (and technically of the archduchy of Austria, although under German pressure Charles had renounced it in 1920, to cede it to his cousins Lorraine).
A strong parliamentary group, formed by the socialist left and centre, opposed the military and called on the sovereign to take power himself and initiate reforms.

For the streets of Alba Iulia the Romanian subjects of the crown of Santo Stefano protest in favor of the independence of Transylvania and its union with Romania.

But if the situation was tense in Budapest, in the rest of the country it was about to erupt completely.
In Transylvania many people poured into the squares of the major cities, shouting 'Long Live Free Transylvania, Long Live United Romania', and in some cases the Hungarian armed forces opened fire on the demonstrators.

Croatian soldiers in Slavonia. The order given by Ante Pavelic is to defend national borders, if the royal army decides to cross the Drava river.

The biggest act of defiance came from the Ban of Croatia, Ante Palevic, who had practically turned Croatia into a personal fiefdom during the Horthy years.
Through the radio, he announced that Croatia not only did not recognise the students' appeal, but proclaimed Croatia's independence as a sovereign state under a national ruler. Palevic had identified the sovereign with Aimon of Aosta, but the latter was prevented from assuming the crown either by the national government, which had yet to recover from the War of the Alps, and from the German imperial government and did not want further chaos in Europe.

...to be continued.

 

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Giovanni Gronchi nell'Aula di Montecitorio:
Italy, after the Franco-Italian war of the 1940s, although it managed to keep intact the empire it had acquired in 1918 at the San Remo conference, had not recovered very well from the conflict.
Despite German aid, quantified in billions of Marks, Italian industry was struggling to recover, partly due to anti-industrial rhetoric of D'Annunzian origin and reproposed by successive PNF prime ministers.
Giovanni Gronchi, although elected in the ranks of the PNF, tried to bring about a sort of compromise between the nationalist rhetoric of the PNF, which threatened to take up arms again against Hungary or Croatia (which was getting rid of the Magyar Yoke in those years) and that of the Christian Socialist Party led by Fanfani who was more interested in laying the foundations for an economic recovery of the country and the conclusion of post-war reconstruction.

The poor conditions of a peasant family in 1950s Calabria.
It was above all the agrarian south that was in serious economic difficulty, far worse than Syria-Palestine (a perfect example of the economic backwardness of the south was the so-called, in derogatory terms, 'Calabia Saudita').

Milovan Đilas the new premier of Montenegro signs the request for autonomy to be sent to the Italian government as requested by the country's parliament.

Scratch also gave the Italian Balkan empire. If Albania was so loyalist that it was integrated among the Italian regions, Dalmatia and Montenegro were no longer in tune with Rome. The crisis in Budapest was also putting Italy in trouble, as the Slavic peoples of the Adriatic coast were beginning to clamour for independence.
Milovan đilas had been elected Montenegro Prime Minister in 1954. The small Balkan town was formally independent, even if totally linked to Rome by a series of treaties that made it a protectorate.
Đilas had been elected to a large majority with the aim of terminating at least the most hateful treaties. That is, the quartering of Italian troops, the occupation of Cattaro and Antibari as the bases of the Italian Navy, and above all the possibility for the police to act in Montenegro as on Italian soil.

The military police clashes with students of the University of Split.

In Dalmatia the situation was even more explosive. In large cities, such as Zara or Split, the population was Italian or Italian enough that it was not impressed by the nationalist rhetoric of the new Ban of Croatia, but in the countryside the situation was decidedly worse and in many parts of the province of Dalmatia had passed through the passive resistance to direct attacks on the police and military authorities.

 

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A mass-manifestation of the Italian Workers' Communist Party (PCIL) in Bologna.
Emilia-Romagna, along with Tuscany and Lombardy was the central political hub of the italian communism.

Alcide de Gasperi, here in his seat of leader of Cristian-Socialist party (PSC), was the only Italian politician to foresee the explosive situation of the proletarians and the farmers in Italy.
Crushed by D'Annunziana's repression and the subsequent policy of control during the war against France, the Italian Communist Party seemed destined to disappear.
However, the severe economic and infrastructural crisis of the Italian state quickly brought it back to life.

The National Fascist Party without D'Annunzio was too busy fighting and dividing the spoils to lead the country, while the Liberals were incapable of taking Italian politics seriously.

The only exception was Alcide De Gasperi who had been a member of the Reichstag in Vienna and had become an Italian subject after the war in the 1920s.
He was the only politician capable of seeing a little further than his nose.
He was the only one who realised that the situation in Italy was untenable and that the Communist Party was not only not dead, but that the policy of economic restrictions to conduct police operations in Dalmatia and the Balkans was strengthening it.

Wreckage of a train along the Jerusalem-Anthioch railways.

Adib al-Shishakli, first non italian governor General of Syria in 1952.

Jewish protesters in Rome after the arrest of Raffaele Cantoni, one of the most visible jews in Italy.
If the Balkans were in flames, the Middle East was not at peace either.
The Arabs, all things considered, had accepted Italian rule. Both the Bedouins of the desert and the city elites of Jerusalem and Damascus had fitted in quite well with the Italian administration, which, although brutal in its repression of rebellion, left some room for manoeuvre to enrich themselves and exploit the country's resources even to the natives.
Not of the same opinion was the Jewish community. Not only the small but very active Palestinian one, but also the Italian one.
During the Great War, the British government had issued the so-called Balfour Declaration, in which the British suggested that Palestine could become a land of Jewish immigration and possibly an independent state.
After the peace of San Remo, the Italians had turned a deaf ear to the demands of the Italian Jews to apply the declaration in the territories gained by Italy in the conference.
This had unleashed first the wrath, and then after the arrest of some prominent Italian Israelites, including Raffaele Cantoni, real violence.