Paralyzed in Darkness: A Very Different Cold War (TL)

[TheReformer]

The Reichstag - Seat of German Government - and the Volkshall, Berlin (1988)

Paralyzed in Darkness: A Very Different Cold War

"The vision of our first Fuhrer guided our future, our second secured it, our third defined our place in the world. Now we must decide what as a people we wish to achieve with our newfound greatness. Should we cower in the face of adversity from those who wish to deny us our rightful future? No!"

"In this century it is the strong who shall prevail, the strong who will determine the fate of the world, the strong who will forge a new path for Germania and Europa. The strong who have defined our history; from Charlemagne and Frederick, to Bismark and Hitler."

"To that end, today as i assume this office - bestowed upon me by the greatest of Germans - i urge you to ask yourselves; have you earned the respect of your ancestors? Have you earned the honour of calling yourselves German? As our task as Germans is to measure one another based not on where in life you started - but where you are going, what legacy you will leave behind."

"While we have suffered for half a century, it is our will to do what we must to survive, to fight to keep our head above the water, that has placed us among the Valkryies. For only through struggle, hardship and diligence may we may we prosper - and only through prosperity, purity and determination may we create the thousand year Reich of our dreams."

"So go forth, define your future; cast out that which may defeat us, and together we shall build a legacy of the Gods on Earth."

- Der Führer des Großdeutschen Reiches Kurt Waldheim (1972) -

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Index

Prologue​

Chapter One: The Wars of the World
To Strike Down Remus
A Dark Shadow Descends
The Fall of the Free
Churchillians and Halifaxites
A Peace in the West
Die Interkriege
Drang Nach Osten
The Challenges of an Empire
The Sun Sets
To Make the World Anew Again

Chapter Two: The Face Off
Facing New Realities
Observing Siberia
L'heritage des Empires
Erich Schmitt
Thor Swings
Treaties and Tributaries
To Kill a King
An Arab League
1946
The 15th Year
From Our Perspective
Vercingetorix
The Ideologues
The Embers of April

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Disclaimer​

Hello, welcome to my first TL. I'm sure as soon as i post this i will get complaints from people about it being another "Axis Wins" TL - but i'd like to reassure you this one will be really rather different to the others. My focus really is on the creation of a realistic timeline under realistic premises, so while at the start i do intend to focus a tad on the Second World War, my main focus for this TL will be the cold war itself that follows and the result of the Axis victory on US, Soviet, Chinese, Indian and most importantly British politics. I have often seen ideas about how Germany 'could' win, but having just spent the last two years studying strategic studies i feel we can do better than relying on early nukes or assassinations as well as give an insight into how such a massive event in history would affect the future of the world and Germany economically, politically and domestically. So while there will be similarities to some other TL's here, they will almost certainly be merely coincidences rather than just copying - i will however try to cite people who's work is similar to decisions you see in here to avoid accusations of plagiarism. I plan to have this run up to roughly the 2000's so it could be a long one! I hope you enjoy and questions and pointers welcome.

 

[TheReformer]

Prologue​

The world in 1930 found itself facing a crisis of identity, of course the west had come out as the victors of the First World War, but even within the ranks of the victors came complete and utter division. The United States - merely an associated power in the great war - once again retreated into it’s isolationist shell, only pushed further deeper into it by the Great Depression that threatened to undo the American and world economy in 1929. The United Kingdom, still remarkably hostile to the United States and faced with continuing crises across the continent that many believed it should be trying to lead in Germany’s absence with eastern Europe becoming an endless battleground between emerging powers and nationstates fighting with tooth and nail for the scraps left in the wake of the loss of three great Empires. France found itself blighted by the remarkably serious threat of communism and the possibility of full scale revolution in response to the Wall Street Crash and many states on Russia’s border found themselves fearful that the spectre of communism could spread naturally westwards from the newly founded USSR - or be pushed. People forget now simply how divided the world found itself - with little in the way of a moral leader for the world the superpowers often feared or suspected one another, a harsh reality that would push the weakest of our leaders to cower back from conflict in fear of another great war, rather than stand up for what is right.

It is this fear and suspicion that drove two of the greatest nations in the world to hate rather than respect one another, because of small blunders and big theories - it is amazing just how quickly a nation can be overcome with paranoia. The first of many blunders came in 1930; the United States up to this point had been a long time enemy of the United Kingdom and in the new modern age it remembered that fact, that is why the United States Military commissioned a series of War Plans, coded as the ‘rainbow’ plans, with one notable plan that stood out from the rest; War Plan Red. The creation of this plan for many is seen as what got the ball rolling to conflict, with the plan outlining how the US would tackle a war with the UK and acting accordingly to prepare for one. The problem with it being of course, that it didn’t account for it’s unnecessary. Britain in 1930 was the greatest naval power in history, yet it knew that the way forward was not to rely on the old empires of Japan, Germany, France or Russia for support - instead it turned to a new foreign policy objective; eventual alignment with the emergent power of the 20th century, the United States. This is what drove Britain to abandon the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1921, favour with the west - not the east. In hindsight many therefore saw the US’ decision to create the hypothetical plan as a mistake, especially when the first of many events that drove a wedge between the two nations emerged in August of 1931.

Charles Lindbergh, renowned pilot who was the first man to fly the Atlantic, was also a Colonel in the United States Military - and he was on many occasions tasked with espionage missions; one of which was commissioned to support the creation of War Plan Red. In July 1931 he was ordered to fly across Canada to the Hudson Bay, and when there assess the possibility of use of the bay as a seaplane base for the US Air Force. He stayed until August, largely coming to the conclusion that the bay would be useless as a base due to it’s distance from any major population centre and the logistical difficulties required to supply it, and with that he departed back to the United States. It was when he was only a matter of miles north of Toronto that he began to experience serious engine troubles. He was forced to make the decision to land on the St Lawrence river, destroy the documents he was carrying and then return to the US empty handed - the plan was flawless. As if by an act of fate however, upon coming into land Lindbergh’s engine coughed out entirely causing him to glide his seaplane just south of Toronto into a field in what might be described as a hard landing that knocked him out immediately on impact. He later awoke in a Canadian hospital under arrest by British Military Police on espionage charges. He would later be released and returned back to the United States in the name of good faith, but this would mark one of several stains on the reputation of the US in the eyes of the British throughout the early 30’s.

In February 1935 hearings were given on the proposed construction of three new air force bases on the Canadian border, two designed to act as the home of the US Air forces should war with Canada and the UK break one, one to be kept as a closely guarded secret by the US Government and “camouflaged for the purposes of surprise attacks on Canada”. The hearings however failed to be properly redacted allowing journalists to get hold of the details of the proposed constructions, a fact that left the newly elected President Frank D. Roosevelt in an awkward spot when the proposed spending was published in full on the front page of the New York Times from the 1st through to the 2nd of May 1935. Highly embarrassed and furious at the media FDR would withdraw the proposed constructions, but Britain would not forget. The UK-US Relations would only further spiral downwards when the US Army commissioned new troop training drills in August of 1935 at Fort Drum, just south of the Canadian Border; the very same location that had been leaked as the main logistical point in War Plan Red to the Canadian Government only a year before. The tension these drills caused reached a head when USS Reuben James, while patrolling the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and Cuba in November of that year clashed with HMS Beagle, a British B-Class Destroyer. With tensions high between the two nations the vessels very nearly entered into a minor skirmish after Reuben James mistook Beagle’s manoeuvres as it preparing to engage when the vessels came across one another. The misunderstanding led Reuben James to fire warning shots at Beagle only further threatening the vessel that then backed off to avoid a conflict.

Britain at the time was further faced with hostility and tension in every part of the Empire, from the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935 to the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1932, the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the increasing power of their former ally in the Empire of Japan throughout the 20’s and 30’s - these foreign policy tensions combining with the lasting and damaging effects of the Great Depression in Britain causing massive political instability and confusion. The final blow to Britain’s plan to improve relations with the US came however in March of 1936 when a small group of American men drunkenly tried to cross the border between Detroit and Windsor by using a dinghy to cross from Belle Isle Park after being sent away at the border by Canadian soldiers. They were spotted by a Canadian squad of troops who fired on them, injuring several and killing two, after believing they must be US spies trying to cross the border in secret and mistakenly believing they were carrying weapons. The paranoia had set in, and now neither side trusted the other. The incident caused outrage from the US Government and the State Government of Michigan who were granted reparations by the Canadian Government for the killed men’s families, but the greatest cost was that to the relationship between the US and Canada - as well as respectively the United Kingdom. The generally anti-British midwest lapped up media stories by well known papers such as the Chicago Tribune calling for harsh action against the British, labelling the country as a suspicious, interfering and outdated imperial institution that the US must challenge. The goals of British Foreign policy for the last decade and a half had met their match.

The British Government was rocked by the sharp and marked increase in hostility from the US and abandoned their Commonwealth Foreign Policy goal altogether immediately. Since establishing a common foreign policy throughout the empire in 1921 Canada had pushed repeatedly to make friendship with the US top priority, this now changed. Australia was the first to demand changes, having favoured continued alliance with Japan in 1921 due to fears about security, or lack of, from a pact with the US. They were quickly backed up by the various Governors of the British Raj, Malaya and Hong Kong leading to the sending of a British delegation to meet the Japanese Government only a matter of months later in May of 1936. Since the dissolution of their alliance in 1921 Japan and Britain had remained on good terms, largely respecting one another’s aims as nations and keeping strong relations as they had done for over half a century. Britain had even sent warships to participate in a remembrance ceremony for the late Admiral Togo Heihachiro, the ‘Nelson of the East’ in 1933. Japan was willing to discuss some form of new agreement, after all in the eyes of the military ruling class of the Empire it was easier to achieve their aims along the lines of the 21 demands without potentially facing the largest navy in the world.

In the United States, this decision by the UK was taken with massive hostility. Of all of the gravest threats to the US that the Rainbow plans had prepared for, “Orange-Red” was one of the worst. The premise that the Empire of Japan and United Kingdom allied against the US was a nightmare in the eyes of most US military planners, and the prospect of it had gone from virtually non-existent in 1930, to being a genuine threat in 1937. This concern was only further escalated when the British Government decided to deploy an additional three British Army divisions to the Canadian border. While in London this was seen as an entirely defensive move, in Washington it was perceived as aggressive, the US too further increasing their military presence on the border in response. US-UK trade talks collapsed months later after the UK, previously willing to concede a better deal to the Americans to improve relations, instead retreated back into their own corner causing international embarrassment to the US by arguing they were demanding more than they deserved; the two sides abandoned the talks altogether. It was this game of blind stabbing in the dark that made the UK look past what was happening so close to their homeland in Europe only the next year - and the rush by Germany to take advantage of what was quickly devolving into a clash of the emergent and sitting contenders for global hegemony.

Germany's Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party, or NSDAP, Government had themselves risen to power during chaos; the death of President of the German Republic Paul von Hindenburg in January of 1932 as a result of rapidly advancing lung cancer had shaken the nation - especially it's moderate establishment parties the Zentrum, the DVP, DDP and SPD. All parties involved had agreed to back the incumbent President Hindenburg who had decided to run to stop Hitler being elected, but with his death this threw the coalition into chaos. The election was just over two months away and with the two major groups in the coalition, the Zentrum and SPD on the centre and left and the DVP, DVNP and DDP on the right, unable to agree on the appropriate candidate that would receive the backing of enough Germans to keep Hitler out of power a stop-gap agreement was established. The SDP and Ventrum would run Otto Braun as their candidate to win voters from the communists and use his experience over Hitler's, the DVP and DDP would run moderate centre-right candidate Heinrich Sahm to try and pander to the moderate conservative right while the DVNP would run their leader Hugenburg as a hard-right candidate to take from Hitler's vote. The moderate coalition also hoped Theodor Dusterberg would split Hitler's vote due to his running on the Stahlhelm ticket and an agreement was made between all parties minus Stahlhelm that which ever candidate received the most support in Round 1 would be the candidate of all parties. This candidate would become Otto Braun in March when he won 24% of the vote to Sahm's 14.5%, both candidates finishing well behind the now invigorated Hitler who finished on 32.5% in the first round due to the right of Hindenburg's coalition collapsing.

German Presidential Election 1932 (Round 1)
Adolf Hitler (NSDAP) - 32.5%
Otto Braun (SPD + Zentrum) - 24%
Heinrich Sahm (DVP + DDP) - 14.5%
Ernst Thalmann (KPD) - 13%
Alfred Hugenburg (DVNP) - 9%
Theodor Dusterberg (Stahlhelm) - 7%

The unfortunate reality of this plan however was that the right wing in Germany now had no candidate in the second round, and Hitler now was facing a candidate from the party that many blamed for the 'stab in the back' legend Hitler raved against throughout most of his campaign rallies. All candidates bar Thalmann of the Communists, Hitler and Braun withdrew and endorsed Braun with the exception of Dusterberg who refused to endorse any candidate. The shocking result from the second round however would see Hitler not only increase his vote share by 50%, but also see the man whom the coalition had rallied together against defeat them and narrowly steal the Presidency of the German Republic - it's most powerful position. Braun may have been the more experienced candidate, but in an election filled with extremists the SDP found their vote share held back by communists who refused to vote in the national interest and found no backing from the right wing in the country who looked past what the parties they normally voted for suggested and instead voted for a radical change in Hitler. The coalition had gambled, and by putting a candidate unacceptable to the right as their frontrunner they had lost the right, they had encouraged the centre right to not show up to vote as demonstrated by vastly reduced turnout rates, and in doing so they had lost their last chance to stop Hitler - and it would be their last chance for sure.

Now as President and only a German citizen for a few months, Adolf Hitler set about making use of such a powerful position he had won on effectively a fluke to establish an iron grip on Germany. Within a month Nazi authority over security positions across the country, especially in the army and police, had been enforced leading to the last free and open German election becoming a sham of rigged votes and ballot stuffing. This meant that by July 1932 the Nazis had control of Parliament too following a brief premiership of collaborator with Hitler Von Papen who took the position of Chancellor under the belief that he could moderate the Nazi Leader to no avail. By running on a platform of unifying the positions of Reichschancellor and President too Hitler consolidated even more power under his position, declaring himself as 'the Fuhrer' following the rigged election and moving to a single party state in September of 1932 after a fire was started in the Reichstaag by a dutch communist that the international press largely labelled as a scapegoat operation. Events such as the night of the long knives following the Nazi victory in the election of July 1932 too meant political opposition rapidly vanished in Germany as the apparatus of the state took over the media, armed forces and police. Germany was well and truly in Hitler's hands.

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Points of Divergence - Lindbergh crash lands in Canada and Paul von Hindenburg dies in 1932.

 

[TheReformer]

So either the US and Germany end up battling Britain in two separate wars while not allies directly, with Germany and Japan's alliance falling apart as the Japanese attack the US w/Britain, or the US simply doesn't send lend lease to Britain, they fall, and eventually the Cold War between Germany and the US causes a thaw in Japanese-US relations. What exactly is the POD? Is it Charles Lindbergh crashing in Toronto?

Yep, Lindbergh's flight was a real thing and the POD was simply his engine coughing out. In fact several of the events i've used were real life events - including the publication about the airbases in the NYT and the views of the other commonwealth states minus Canada towards an alliance with the US. As for the predictions i guess you'll have to see! Cheers for reading!

To Strike Down Remus​

In Zweites Buch Hitler argued that a war between the United States and United Kingdom was inevitable, having studied British History he noted that throughout the nation's ascendance to global dominance the United Kingdom has been challenged by an emerging power and each time struck them down, be it the French under Napoleon, the Russians under the Tsars or even his own Germany under the Kaiser. Like Romulus, Britain understood that the prize of holding the world in it's palm is too great to risk losing that right to an emergent power - and thus destroying those who seek to take from you what is rightfully yours is a necessity in global geopolitics. In his eyes this made war a certainty, and yet against common logic - Hitler wanted the British to win. So when the United States announced that it defined Britain's newfound alliance with the Japanese Empire to be a threat to their national security and that of the Philippines, thereby deciding to withdraw from the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921 the German Fuhrer saw his chance, as did a host of nations.

Within months Spain, divided by the collapse of their Government, had fallen into Civil War. On the one hand Republicans and Communists fighting for the continuation of the republic with support of the Soviet Union, and on the other Nationalists under a military Government led by Francisco Franco supported by the Government of the German Reich and Italy. This would become effectively the first proxy war between communist and fascist forces of the two new ideological fields to enter global geopolitics, and while the democratic west remained out of the conflict militarily (minus blockading both sides in the conflict) individuals in the UK drew their own conclusions. One such individual was the new King of the United Kingdom, Edward VIII of House Windsor. He would later claim he was "one of the few Monarchs who thought for himself" - and yet at the time he was one of the most controversial, even prior to his coronation it became common policy for the British Government to exclude various pieces of sensitive information from his 'red box' to ensure they were not compromised. Edward had surrounded himself with German and often very pro-Nazi courtiers, individuals like Prince Carl of Saxe Coberg Gotha - and as a result questions began to come up about where his true loyalties lay. He too was having an affair with an American Catholic divorcee, Wallace Simpson, who was claimed to be also sleeping with the later German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. While the couple wished to be married the British Government had forbidden the matter, forcing Edward to back down or lose the throne and renege on his duties to the British People.

The King's views would only become all the more vocal when the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg was assassinated on October 12th 1937 unleashing chaos in Austria. Hitler proclaimed that Germany must enter the country to restore order after months of negotiations, arguments and discussion between the two nations about possible unification. The leader of the Austrian Nazi Party Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a different party entirely to the 'Fatherland Party' (also Fascist) that Governed the country, with the support of undercover SS Officers and elements of the Austrian Military overthrowing the Government at the dead of night was the last moment for Austrian Independence. The new 'Chancellor' of Austria that evening invited somewhat disorganized German forces to restore order in the country, leading to German forces invading the country the next day on October 15th 1937.

With the Bundesheer standing down at the orders of the 'Chancellor' German forces easily swept the country largely to the celebration of Austrian citizens who welcomed them with Swastika laden flags, Roman Salutes and rapturous applause. While it is thought the Bundesheer did not actually listen to the new Chancellor, the commanders of the military at this point had virtually given in and accepted the new reality, handing themselves over to Hitler's command later that day. The news was taken tepidly internationally, this was the greatest defiance of Versailles yet, and yet only France seemed to care. The statement of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stated Britain's ambivalence noting; "The hard fact is that nothing could have arrested what has actually happened [in Austria] unless this country and other countries had been prepared to use force". The King too expressed his opinion that Hitler was merely "Seeking to Unite the German People as we did the British" and that he and his Government ought to be essentially left to get on with it. Open comments like this would become commonplace in the future.

While Britain's relationship with Germany however seemed to be improving on the account of the new King's views and Chamberlain's weakness, the nation's relationship with it's newfound ally in Japan was under strain. In July relations between Japan and the Republic of China had collapsed after the Chinese Government refused to permit Japanese forces from entering the town of Wanping to search for a missing soldier. The rifleman later returned to his unit but by then the damage had been done and both sides had mobilized - fighting soon began. While only 100 or so Chinese soldiers held off over five thousand Japanese troops, the incident sparked a conflict almost immediately with Japan committing to a full scale invasion of the country immediately after. Britain therefore found itself in a peculiar position, the Government felt threatened by the US who Britain was protected from in Asia by Japan, but equally recognized that Japan's invasion in the eyes of many western nations was a breach of international law, to condone such action being very much out of the interest of the United Kingdom. Distancing himself from the conflict Prime Minister Chamberlain released a statement stating the UK's desire to see a ceasefire in China at the next possible opportunity and that the UK considered their pact with Japan to be defensive in nature alone. This effective neutrality and silent opposition to the war however was tested soon after when the city of Nanking fell to Japanese forces in December of 1937 sparking mass rape and executions of the Chinese populace there. It was at this point that the United Kingdom announced their intention to cease their short lived alliance with the Japanese, instead choosing to sit alone and surrounded by foes on the world stage.

Finding itself alone with France on the international stage, Britain could do little when Germany's Fuhrer Adolf Hitler began demanding concessions from the Czech Government for the status of Sudetenland Germans in their country. Fearing Germany could do something similar to their effective, but welcomed, invasion of Austria in Czechoslovakia Prime Minister Chamberlain flew to Berlin to meet Adolf Hitler in February 1938 to discuss the matter of the Sudetenland with him. Much like the French Prime Minister Camille Chautemps had also discussed with the Fuhrer it was agreed by Chamberlain and Hitler that Germany ought to be allowed to achieve sovereignty over the Sudetenland as a means of ensuring peace in Europe while Britain focused on matters abroad - especially in the wake of increasing demands from the Sudeten-German citizens for more autonomy from the Czech Government. Following the meeting Hitler immediately demanded the transition of the territory, along with immediate military occupation of the territory. This threatened to undermine Czech military defences by giving them little time to adapt to the new borders causing an international incident which Italy demanded a meeting of the great powers to address. The Italian proposal was simple - largely because it had actually been written by Hermann Goering; Germany be permitted to occupy the region immediately to guarantee the local populace's security, however in exchange for guarantees on Czech security. After discussion between the powers present France and Britain agreed to the deal, fearing not doing so may cause a conflict right when Britain and France were weakest - leading to the Czech Government dropping their protests and compliance with the agreement. Chamberlain returned to Britain triumphant declaring 'peace in our time' and stating that Hitler merely sought to unite the German people under one nation... he was mistaken.

Within a month a new political crisis in Europe erupted when Germany launched a false flag operation against one of their own radio facilities on the German-Polish border at Gleiwitz, German forces camouflaged as Polish soldiers attacked the facility before being pushed back. This had followed weeks of Germany demanding the right to access and build on the Gdansk region to establish rail links between German East Prussia and Pomerania as well as return the German citizens there to German sovereignty. Poland had flat out refused, and as German jackboots crossed into the Sudetenland, so too did they cross into Poland. Hitler claimed Germany was attacked by Poland - who he suggested feared German dominance in Europe and thus attempted to surprise attack the Reich, and thus Germany was forced to intervene. In doing so Europe panicked; in France the political instability and the collapse of Chautemps' Government rendered the state paralyzed and unable to create a coordinated response to the shocking change of events when just over 50 German divisions invaded Poland in the first week of April 1938. Britain, still under the belief that Germany had been brought to rest had offered no security guarantees to the Polish, rendering the Government helpless to combat the sudden marked act of German aggression. Even Poland was caught somewhat unaware with barely a day's notice before Germany entered the country leaving a number of divisions on the Soviet border unable to support their comrades in the west of the country. Britain and France immediately denounced the actions of the German Government accusing them of warmongering and purposely inciting conflict before approaching the various other Governments in the region to seek security agreements. What was left of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia signed up to the new Alliance immediately, guaranteeing one another's security with British and French support. Within a month and a half however Poland had surrendered, with German forces occupying the whole country by the 18th June 1938. Germany had acted decisively, and while the west scrambled to respond - they held many of the cards in their hands.

 

[TheReformer]

Sorry for the short break; the combination of exams, alcohol dependency (#Pray4Liver) and the end of the university term takes up significant time

Anyway, i give you...

A Dark Shadow Descends​

It is rather embarrassing in politics when you come home proclaiming victory... only to be revealed to have accidentally opened the door for another major war in Europe and yet another major conquest by an emergent power on the world stage that you did nothing to stop when given the opportunity. Welcome to the life of Neville Chamberlain.

A Statement from the Prime Minister:
This Morning i speak to you not as your Prime Minister, but as a Citizen of our United Kingdom. As of only an hour ago, i can inform you, i handed by resignation to the King as the leader of Britain's Government.

I have come to this decision following action by my Government to attempt to bridge the divide between the growing threat of National Socialist Germany and their leader Adolf Hitler, and our United Kingdom.

The agreement we came to in Munich to resolve the growing dispute between the German Government and the Government of the Czechoslovak Republic was intended to ensure that we as Europeans do not descend into another era of blood, toil and tears. I trusted Hitler - and i regret that decision.

In Germany we have a state defiant of the rule of law, and the international intention to promote and defend peace. Their actions against the Polish Republic - a nation yet to reach it's prime - has proven them unworthy of the compromise that we as Britons were willing to concede to them to allow them to achieve unity for their people as we have achieved.

As Prime Minister i have led us down a path that has allowed this country and this Government to be played for fools - We sought out peace and compromise at every opportunity, but Hitler will not have it.

That is why i can tell you today that while it is too late to save the noble Republic of Poland who's people will now bear the burden of our mistakes, we must take action to ensure the security of all free peoples in Europe against a new era of German aggression.

Throughout German forces' campaign against Poland we have guaranteed the security of Germany's neighbours in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Czechoslovakia - we will continue to do so. Should Hitler challenge their right to exist as nation states we will consider this a challenge against ourselves.

It is this duty that i now leave you to pursue, and my successor to achieve.

Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we
must stand up against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and
persecution - and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.

Faced with a choice of whom best to summon to succeed Chamberlain, King Edward calls upon Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, to act as his Prime Minister. Halifax, an ardent opponent of the Nazi Regime and the King may have not seen eye to eye, but with his influence diminishing in light of poorly placed statements about the British position on Germany's aggression the King faced little choice. Halifax went on to form a Conservative Government and prepared to face down the German Menace - and his choice of War Minister would only prove controversial. Winston Churchill's record of failure in military strategy in the Great War still to this day haunted him, it was only his correct assumption of Hitler's aims that earned his place back at the table. Nonetheless, Churchill moved swiftly to prepare his country for what was to come.

Hitler too knew Britain and France's time of talking had come to a close, his nation was under prepared for war with the Allied powers, and the threat facing his east in the Soviet Union who had promised the French would come to the aid of the Czechoslovakian Government should Germany invade left the Reich paralysed. The only choice was to stare down the true foe on the east to blight the old foe in the west - and Reich foreign minister von Ribbentrop would do precisely that. During the rapid invasion of Poland Hitler had dispatched von Ribbentrop to discuss terms of an agreement with the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin for a treaty of non aggression, Foreign Minister Litvinov - a virulent anti-fascist and Jew would be left out of discussions. This was a necessary step in defeating the allies in the west - and the Soviets, far less prepared for a major conflict, were willing to listen. Litvinov would resign out of refusal to support such a treaty and was instead replaced by the more willing Molotov who would sign the treaty on behalf of the USSR. What would follow would be known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a treaty that would carve Europe apart into spheres of influence between the Reich and the USSR guaranteeing the security of Hitler's eastern front. In the east the USSR would be permitted to seize the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania despite German claims to the region. This would be joined by an acceptance of Soviet claims to the Romanian region of Bessarabia and the pushing back of the Finnish border with Russia away from Leningrad. Hitler too conceded that eastern Poland would be ceded back to the USSR after it's loss of the territory to the new state of Poland in the Great War. With the treaty officially signed July 20th, Soviet armies moved west into Eastern Poland the next day, occupying the territory without resistance as German forces withdraw back to the agreed boundaries.

Britain had been warned of the agreement in advance; Carl Freidrich Goerdeler - a prominent German nationalist, but importantly not Nazi - had advised the new Government under Lord Halifax that talks between the Soviet and German Government were under way, a fact that forced the Polish to keep minimal forces stationed on the eastern border in case of attack. The confirmation of the talks and new pact with Soviet occupation in Poland came as a devastating blow to the Allied powers however. Lord Halifax himself suggested that "all could be lost" in cabinet, only to be encouraged by Churchill who reminded him of the power of the French Army. But while Britain and France tried to catch up Germany made it's move.

​

Hitler had used his time wisely, stationing enough divisions on the western front to hold any French attack on the Siegfried Line, while transitioning his armed forces away from Poland and onto the Czech and Yugoslavian borders. The time to strike came on October 1st 1938 when German forces in massive numbers stormed across the border in the face of disorganized, demoralized and unprepared Czechs without their defences they had lost to the annexation of the Sudetenland. Only worse for the Czechoslovakian Government was the invasion from the south by Hungarian forces - Hitler, Mussolini and Horthy having signed a "pact of steel" a month before with Hitler agreeing that Hungary would be permitted to seize control of Slovakia in exchange for their cooperation in the conflict.

The very same day Britain, France and Yugoslavia declared war on the German Reich - the war in the west had begun.

In the United States, having fallen out with the British only a year before, news of the new conflict was met with deaf ears. The American public cared little for the squabbles of European powers, and the US President - while concerned about the consequences of another major conflict in Europe for the US Geopolitically, faced greater challenges from the now weakened Japanese Empire, having lost their ally in Britain. President Roosevelt proclaimed that America must seek to find solutions to it's own troubles before speaking up about the affairs of foreign powers.

All the whole the Czechs, much to their own credit, fought well - but faced overwhelming odds. While an alliance can save you sometimes, when you are a landlocked nation trapped between enemies there is only one result in a conflict; defeat - it came on October 20th. With skirmishes erupting along the Yugoslavian border Hitler chose not to focus on the Slavs - instead turning his focus on the true threat; France. This would be the beginning of what would later be labelled by the British as the "Phoney War". While the battle on land largely came to a close, excluding on the German-Yugoslav border where skirmishes continued, the battle at sea began. On October 5th 1938 a German U-Boat, U-47, attacked and sank the Royal Navy Battleship HMS Royal Oak while still in port at Scapa Flow at the cost of over 800 lives. The loss was a huge embarrassment to the British Government, a major victory for the German Government and deeply demoralising for the British public before any real ground fighting had even begun - or the naval campaign against Britain's shipping.

The French public by contrast were suffering extreme levels of demoralisation, the only difference being for France the fight had not even begun. On November 30th 1938 the French Communist party pushed for strike action against new working regulations - but more importantly against the war that the Communists deemed would once again mean the death of millions of young Frenchmen. The protests were popular, and forced the Government to take radical action against the Communists - banning the party for subverting the struggle against Germany, dividing the country even further. What Britain and their Government had not accounted for in France was that while they may be thankful for the French Army, they should not have been thankful for the French soldiers. But of course, in hind sight these things are always obvious - as the Allies would soon find out.

Unable to be questioned by western Governments, Hitler advanced his plans for the removal of all Jews of both ethnic descent and personal belief, along with millions of other German citizens he considered to be the "problem" against normal human sense from Germany. During the era, the ideas of so called 'eugenics' - the questionable genetic 'perfection' of mankind - had been popular in the United States, Germany, France, Italy and even somewhat the United Kingdom. These views were abhorrent, but nontheless Hitler pursued them with ruthless aggression. On November 9th 1938 Hitler called on his rabble to destroy Jewish businesses, urged violence against Jewish civilians and encouraged arrests of Jews convicted or accused of no crime other than their faith and birth. The result was a mark on history; over 30,000 Jews arrested and sent to Hitler's concentration camps - excluded from the eyes of the world who might judge. Over 7,000 Jewish owned or supported businesses were destroyed with their shop fronts smashed, their interiors wrecked or burned and in many cases their occupants attacked violently and robbed. At least 91 Jewish civilians were murdered for their faith in a crime against humanity. Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, would be the first of one of the worst crimes of the Nazi regime and would be followed by many more, and while Hitler took time to persecute his own people he looked next at other nations that might follow suit.*

With Hitler's eyes set firmly on the conquest of France, he first turned first to the north; proposals to seize Norway to secure the vital steel supply that would be needed for the war effort however were highly risky with the North Sea impassable by many vessels due to the winter cold and highly unfavorable conditions to fight in on the land. Germany instead recognized that while it may be strategically weaker than it would need to be for a drawn out conflict, if it were capable of breaking France and even Britain fast enough it would not necessarily need the steel. After invading and seizing Denmark on December 5th 1938 to ensure Norway could be invaded in Spring or Summer, Germany began perpetration for the invasion of France.

Germany had several options, the first being an effective repeat of the Great War strategy of sacrificing significant numbers of men by advancing through enemy defences along the entire line pushing back the allies behind the Somme and seizing the low countries. This was abandoned and instead evolved into a more maneuver based proposal of punching through the front line in Northern Belgium and focusing the 'Schwerpunkt' or focus of the attack on driving a wedge into the allies front line. This would divide allied forces and may deliver a decisive blow - however this too was eventually abandoned following the loss of the plans in the so called Mechelen Incident on January 10th 1939 when a German aircraft crashed near the Belgian town of Mechelen, handing the plans to the allies whom King Edward VIII would then inform his German courtiers about - only for them to give away that Britain had the plans. The Wehrmacht therefore shifted the Schwerpunkt instead to being an attack directly into the Ardennes Forest in Southern Belgium, pushing armoured units ahead together to break out of the Ardennes and punch a hole through the allied front like 20km wide allowing them to encircle allied forces in Northern France easily as per the 'Manstein Plan'.

With the plan decided upon Germany poised it's forces for invasion, preparing for a series of strategic landings by Fallschirmjagers in the Netherlands and Belgium to lock down vital infrastructure along with the highly risky plan to force forward the Panzer divisions through a supposedly impassable forest and into the heart of France without infantry protection - a proposal hated by a significant number of German officers. It would all begin on February 1st 1939 when the battle for the control of the European Continent would begin in the Netherlands.

-----------------------​

*Obviously discussing the disgusting crimes against humanity that the Nazi Regime perpetrated is necessary and will have to happen in this TL so as to explain what the likely implications of such a crime against specific groups of people who committed no crime other than to be born, live or pray a certain way. I will always when discussing this subject be respectful, avoid it when possible and take the only legitimate approach to it - of opposition - but i want you guys to know if you ever feel offended or that something insensitive has been said i am always open to speak to you about it or remove the content if admins deem that necessary. No views however expressed in this content should be considered my own, and i hope nobody perceives the commentary of possible events that could have occurred in response to these policies of the criminal Nazi regime to be anything more than a discussion of the darker side of Alternate History and the tragic result of it. Kind Regards, EC.

 

[TheReformer]

Christmas break is over! Now back to the Fuhrerreich...

The Fall of the Free​

Germany's invasion of the Netherlands worked as if it were clockwork. In the early hours of the morning on February 1st 1939 German aircraft purposely violated Dutch neutrality by crossing their airspace before flying into the North sea. Believing this to be an accident due to the direction of the aircraft towards Britain the Dutch were unprepared for attacks shortly after on their western most airfields by German fighter and bomber sorties shortly after - the German aircraft having turned around over the North Sea.

Significant numbers of Dutch aircraft were destroyed immediately, with the Dutch Government being forced to spread their aircraft out to avoid further destruction. Next followed German land forces and Paratroopers who would land just after 6:00AM around Den Haag (or the Hague), before seizing various airfields in the area. They attempted to launch an assault on the city, being the home of the Dutch Government and Queen, but failed following stiff resistance by the Dutch Army and Artillery who vastly outnumbered the somewhat unprepared Fallschirmjagers. Instead the paratroopers turned to their secondary objectives, seizing various airfields across the region, bridges and crossroads - effectively decapitating the entire Dutch war effort from day one and protecting vital positions to allow German advances later in the campaign. The German invasion then officially began, for the last few days prior various German Brandenburger commandos had been working with the Dutch Nazi party to attempt to stop the destruction of various bridges along the line advance - this had been marginally successful with some bridges saved and several others destroyed, along with the Brandenburgers twice. The most notable success by the units however; the Gennep railway bridge that was immediately crossed by an armored train followed by a second troop train, allowing troops and tanks to cross directly past the dutch-german border. German forces flooded through the breach established by the bridge capture along with a breach formed perfectly between the Dutch 254th and 256th Infantry divisions on the border - the dutch line had broken. Faced by a collapsing front, the six border Battalions in the southern province of Limburg collapsed under pressure from the advancing German Sixth Army allowing German forces to rush for the city of Maastricht - seizing the vital bridge in the city and opening the floodgates for the sixth army to flood into central Belgium.

While the Battle of the Netherlands had begun, soon to follow would be the Battle of Belgium and Luxembourg. On the same day German forces too launched Arial attack and invasion of Belgium, successfully launching bombing raids on many of the Belgian airfields - as well as the most vital attack which took place directly on the Fort at Eben-Emael. This fort was the greatest obstacle to a German advance, and was equally the holding pin for the entire Belgian border defence, so when it fell after over 24 hours of fighting to German Fallschirmjagers landing in a glider attack directly into the centre of the fort the Belgian Government rightfully panicked. The German Sixth Army began a faint attack into the Belgian heartland from the north, just as the main German column pushed directly across the German-Belgian border towards the ardennes forest. By the 2nd of February British forces part of the British Expeditionary Force had entered Belgium while German advances continued advancing, by this point German forces had successfully reached the river Dyle in central Belgium, barely an hour from the capital Belgium. Dire too in the Netherlands, by the 2nd Dutch forces had begun attempting to sweep out German forces from the region around Rotterdam and Den Haag with limited success. Dutch forces in northern Brabant collapsed, leaving the southern sector of 'fortress Holland' open to attack - something the Germans pursued relentlessly.

In Belgium too the frontline began to fold under German pressure, battles on the Belgian plain had proven harder than expected for the allies to control with Belgian troops being thrown back from their defences repeatedly by overwhelming German pressure from better trained and equipped forces - who had significantly better air cover. Disappointed by the inability for the Belgians to hold back the German advance, the allies effectively sought delaying actions while beginning withdrawals after four days of conflict as German forces advanced swiftly on Brussels. King Leopold of Belgium, himself remained on the front line supporting and often leading troops against German advances but too recognised the overwhelming odds the Belgians faced; declaring on the second day of the conflict;

Soldiers

The Belgian Army, brutally assailed by an unparalleled surprise attack, grappling with forces that are better equipped and have the advantage of a formidable air force, has for three days carried out difficult operations, the success of which is of the utmost importance to the general conduct of the battle and to the result of war.
These operations require from all of us – officers and men – exceptional efforts, sustained day and night, despite a moral tension tested to its limits by the sight of the devastation wrought by a pitiless invader. However severe the trial may be, you will come through it gallantly.
Our position improves with every hour; our ranks are closing up. In the critical days that are ahead of us, you will summon up all your energies, you will make every sacrifice, to stem the invasion.
Just as they did in 1914 on the Yser, so now the French and British troops are counting on you: the safety and honour of the country are in your hands.

Leopold.

By the 4th of February however while the Belgians stood firm, the Dutch were all but beaten. The Dutch Queen and Royal Family fled aboard a British destroyer to the United Kingdom while the city of Rotterdam was reduced to rubble in an attempt to remove the Dutch forces in the city holding back the German Advance. Fearing for his Fallschirmjagers Goering ordered the total annihilation of the city, leading the Dutch Government to surrender in the face of mass civilian casualties not hours later. But while the Dutch accepted defeat, the French only now experienced the true might of German military planning. Sweeping through eastern Belgium, German forces sent forward engineers into the Ardennes forest, constructing a series of river crossings and securing various vital positions to allow a German armoured column to pass through the region. Under the belief that the Ardennes was effectively implementable for armour, the French had virtually abandoned the position, leaving only two underequipped brigades with little artillery support to secure it in case of German infantry advances - they were therefore taken by surprise when a full German armoured column punched through with full areal cover seizing Sedan, Revin and Mezieres by February 5th while the French armoured divisions were distracted up to the Belgian town of Hannut suffering them massive tactical losses - along with the loss of a significant number of French tanks.

The German Gamble from there was to throw their entire armoured force into the breach created through the Ardennes, a plan dubbed the Manstein plan that Hitler had been forced to adopt following the Melenchen Incident months before. The plan was a massive gamble - many military experts believing Manstein would be the coffin bearer of the armoured divisions - and one that was amended significantly by the German commander in the west, Halder. Manstein and other Panzer division commanders however chose to ignore Halders amended plans and upon successfully breaking the French line at Sedan they broke their orders and began advancing relentlessly toward the channel. Rommel even lost contact with his commander Hoth for a significant period of time due to the speed of his advance; capturing 30 miles in 24 hours eventually capturing the town of Abbeville on the channel coast. The gamble paid off, French forces chose not to counterattack believing that the armour was simply a forward element of the German army body that was to follow and believing they could capture more German forces by waiting, giving the Germans time to dig in and secure their encirclement of the entire British Expeditionary force and an entire allied army group containing five different allied armies from Belgium, France and Britain - a military disaster.

The reaction to the conflict back in Britain had been taken with a tepid response - the country's leadership was hardly enthusiastic about the war, let alone continuing it under the dire circumstances that the allied powers now faced in France. By February 9th Belgium was nearing collapse, the Dutch had surrendered and their country put under military occupation by Germany, forces under Rommel and Guderian had cut off just under a million men of the French and British allied forces from the body of the allied forces in France and on every front the Allies were experiencing defeat. The mood of the nation was one of loss - not a valiant stand against tyranny. The King only worsened things, constantly encouraging the idea of surrender to Germany and being purposely disruptive towards the war effort claiming he 'did not want to see British lives lost and the empire sacrificed in the name of the French'. Britain's own Prime Minister faced a vast moral dilemma, Halifax favoured peace with Germany, but equally recognised that any peace should Germany successfully defeat the entire allied army group now trapped in the Calais-Dunkirk pocket would be a surrender in which the allies faced little to no prospect of being able to set conditions. Furthermore, to surrender would be an acceptance that hundreds of years of British Strategic thinking would be abandoned - by allowing a sole nation to control the fate of the entirety of continental Europe. War Minister Churchill by contrast shared no doubts - he was determined to see through the conflict, naming the entire Dunkirk crisis as merely a step in the road towards victory. The rivalry between the two men soon flourished - only more so when German forces pressed the advantage on the morning of February 10th 1939 and began the Weygand plan, crushing the allies into the cities of Calais and Dunkirk entirely by May 13th - the entire Northern front now hinged on an unwinnable battle.

Faced with little to no other option, the allies began a massive withdrawal in what would become known as Operation Dynamo on February 16th. Small civilian vessels - under the cover of various elements of the British fleet and the remains of the RAF - along with troop transports sailed from the British mainland under the control of retired Naval officers, private civilians and the most unlikely of saviours began the arduous process of retrieving over 300,000 British soldiers from the city of Dunkirk. The plan by any account was a resounding success, over 278,000 British and French troops were saved from certain capture by Germany. Had it not been for the paranoia of German Generals Kleist and Halder that the allies would break out to the east of Arras, Germany would have almost certainly captured the vast bulk of these forces.

While Prime Minister Halifax praised the effort by the British Navy and RAF - Churchill would be the true star of the moment proclaiming to the Commons that Britain must never surrender to the applause of many of his fellow Parliamentarians. The Prime Minister however shared different views. This was unquestionably a vast defeat in the eyes of Lord Halifax, and the battle between Halifax and Churchill would soon begin quietly in the back rooms of Whitehall. Two effective groupings of the Conservative Party would be formed - Churchillians seeking to avoid surrender at all cost inspired by Churchills leadership, and Halifaxites who to them recognised the clear reality that there was no way they could win this war while protecting the Empire from attacks or financial ruin. But the first battle of the Churchill-Halifax 'war' would be won decisively only days after it's conception with the beginning of the renewed German offensive to be named Fall Rot.

 

[TheReformer]

Churchillians and Halifaxites​

Churchill really didn't like being War Minister - but more so than that, he really did not like Halifax's attitude. Despite what could in his eyes be seen only as a miracle being achieved i Dunkirk, Churchill felt Halifax was turning away from his country's interests. Halifax had contacted the Italian Ambassador already requesting Italian and Swedish mediation in the talks between the Allied and Axis powers and was keen to press forward - Churchill Vehemently opposed this at every cabinet meeting. For the last week a war cabinet meeting had developed into a typical cycle; some kind of report on the enemy's advances is read, Halifax speaks once again of the desire for peace, Churchill equates it to a crime against history. Churchill however was merely a voice - not a Prime Minister. He had no ability to physically force the Prime Minister to do anything, but equally he could not stand while the Prime Minister did nothing but give in. It was only upon taking the bus to Westminster for the first time in a moment of solitude and loss hoping for some kind of guidance that Churchill decided his best course of action. He was often known later as a leader who would speak among the people to take a measurement of the mood of the nation - this was no poor example. He asked the men and women travelling to work that day if they felt hopeful, if they felt peace should be the solution, if they felt that even if it were to endanger Britain's future if they'd still fight on - and the answer was resoundingly that Britain must fight to the end, and so it was brought to Halifax. Churchill had expressed his doubts many a time before in cabinet as aforementioned, but never with such vigour as on February 18th.

Churchill argued that peace would mean the end of Britain, that it would mean centuries of proud Britons would be forgotten and Britain's place as a second rate power in the world would be assured. Halifax was having none of it, to him peace was the only hope of survival of the empire, Britain's way of life and it's independence. Churchill was then faced with a dilemma, either stay and face the collective responsibility of remaining in Cabinet, or go and fight his agenda with other means. He chose to go - and on February 21st 1939 - Churchill resigned as War Minister to Prime Minister Halifax. He stepped out to the steps of the war ministry and decried his argument for going on with the struggle with the passion and emotion of a true statesman, and then set forth for Westminster. There he was greeted by cheering supporters from both aisles of the chamber as he addressed the house on the reasons for his resignation and called upon the nation to take up arms against the threat he had called out from the beginning. He too was joined by Anthony Eden - now rather known for his hawkish views - who would resign from cabinet as Foreign Secretary triggering an internal crisis in Government. Seeking to restore calm in Government, Sir John Anderson would be appointed Secretary of State for War - a promotion from Air Minister that would be taken by Harold Macmillan, shortly after along with Kingsley Wood who would become Foreign Secretary, a promotion from First Lord of the Admiralty.

It was only now that Halifax really became unsure of his position as Prime Minister and his position on the war. Public support fell behind Churchill in the days following his resignation with calls for Halifax to be challenged or even for him to form his own party as he had done after the last great war under the "Constitutionalist" banner. He could not stand down as Prime Minister however; the King refused to permit it, so he remained to lead a war he could not win backed up by a party who didnt like him. He did have one advantage though; a majority in Parliament and broad enough support to lead without being questioned too much, something that would come in handy a month later. On February 28th, having stopped their advance to secure the northern pocket, German began Fall Rot - or Case Red - by advancing towards Paris. For over a week now the French had been in contact with Prime Minister Halifax calling for peace talks immediately which he had accepted, but Germany - when contacted through Italy and Sweden - declined to discuss talks immediately. They would have been stupid to do so when they faced little real resistance now in France and by pushing forward and taking Paris they would be in a much more sensible position to negotiate - especially now the allies had given away their hand by requesting talks at all. The Germans advanced; however to a much better prepared French army, costing time and resources that could have been better used against the Soviets, but Hitler was willing to look past immediate costs in favour of a more secure peace in the west.

France, having had time to dig in and secure it's position, gave Germany a significantly harder fight for the next few days, but by March 5th Paris was declared an open city by the French Government who at this point had accepted the inevitable defeat by Germany. Hitler had defeated the French, and Britain's leaders too now feared the worst. It was only on the 10th of March when German jackboots marched down the Champs Elysees that Hitler, through the Italian Government, indicated he would be willing to discuss peace. The French - broken without their capital and now accepting of their total defeat - were willing to discuss terms and brokered negotiations with Germany immediately, Halifax now faced the final decision on peace. With Churchill now finding newfound enthusiasm and forming a new alliance with Anthony Eden and a select group of more hawkish Conservatives and members of the Opposition, Halifax found himself in a position where he had to choose between his own conscience about the future of the country and his political interests. By suing for peace he faced the possibility of massive electoral consequences or even being ousted as PM - but equally in his own eyes he saw it as the only way to save his country. Were he to continue the war, reports suggested Germany could invade within a year while Britain barely even had enough guns to arm it's infantry and too few bunkers to stop German tanks if they got onto land. He sought advice of the King and of Chamberlain, who himself was very unwell and distraught at the state of the nation, both of whom advised him to lead with his conscience and to be decisive - even if it means being unpopular - and so Britain and France collectively sued for peace with Germany.

Yugoslavia, having been drawn into the war by the Allies, too faced the choice over it's future. With many of the country's ports under occupation by Italian forces and it's army dug in but woefully unprepared to fight the over a million German forces soon to transfer from France Prince Paul chose to go to a peace with Honour. Little Yugoslavian land had been captured, his army had fought stoically and he was in a position of strength while in a few months he could be in a set of German Handcuffs - his choice was made. The Allied forces of Britain, France and Yugoslavia (along with the exiled Czech Government) announced their intention to seek a ceasefire to decide terms for Halifax's so called 'peace with honour' on March 12th 1939 with the aim for a cessession of hostilities at midnight of March 13th 1939. Hitler accepted the proposal on the same day and German forces officially stopped advancing that evening with the ceasefire being introduced officially at midnight of the 13th as planned. The decision, as expected, among Britons was deeply unpopular - Churchill himself labelled it "a surrender from dark rooms". So unpopular in fact was the decision that even Labour labelled the Prime Minister a coward, accusing him of refusing to form a unity Grand Coalition Government in the name of weakness and inability to act; something that made some Conservative MPs wonder whether the decision was the right one.

Hitler initially demanded that the Allied surrender be negotiated in the exact spot it had been in the last great war, the Palace of Versailles. The Allies however refused, suggesting that the position while under German control was too unstable a place to reach an agreement for both sides and instead agreeing to meet in the city of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, due to German desire to get on with the peace and move on to the USSR. With representatives of both sides, including Prime Minsters Halifax and Edouard Daladier, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (representing King Peter), German Army Chief Wilhelm Keitel and briefly the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself they began on March 18th 1939, accompanied by Swedish and Italian observers. A peace in the west was to be struck.

 

[TheReformer]

one question will the nazis collapse in 92 or will they last on.

Well i guess the best way to answer that is with a question - the USSR 'collapsed' because it was a coalition of nationstates bound together by one central body that lost authority; whereas Germany definitively will have some minority nationalities (czechs etc) but that doesn't mean they'll hold any power - let alone even necessarily even want to divide the country. So if there is no 'group' of nations to collapse, could it ever truly collapse? Furthermore there is no strategic or geopolitical reason for Germany to collapse then in that year specifically, but i shan't spoil what will happen as who knows - it may collapse sooner or later than then. I will say ive modelled this Cold War off strategic theory, not copying events that happened historically in a Nazi context, so dont expect it really to be anything similar except some notable events.

A Peace in the West​

Hitler had very little interest in the details of how peace happened, but he had goals and a vision for how he could dismantle the west's power for good. So after hearing all the preamble he stood up in total silence and left the room, instead going back to the special German quarters in the Drottningholms Palace where the peace was to be discussed after being kindly offered the space by the King of Sweden. Negotiations were left instead to Wilhelm Keitel and Joachim von Ribbentrop - the most senior Nazis in Germany at the time representing the military and political interests of the German side. What Hitler was did do however was set forward a series of vital areas that Germany must secure in order to "secure the peace". Germany had to first ensure that France would not be in a position to challenge the Reich for a significant amount of time, if not forever - to do that Germany would annex former the former German region of Elsaß-Lothringen from France along with a vast strip of territory that was culturally and historically French stretching from Calais to the Italian border. These regions were to be established as a puppet Government as part of Himmler's pet project for a so called Burgundian State that was to include Flanders and parts of Wallonia. Furthermore Luxembourg and most of Wallonia would be annexed by Germany and the Netherlands be placed under Military occupation by Germany led by a Military Government for a period of five years.

The first full set of German demands were;*
- The annexation of Luxembourg, Eastern Belgium (Wallonie) and Slovenia.
- The recognition of the German occupations of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Denmark.
- That Germany be allowed to annex the region of Elsaß-Lothringen from France
- The establishment of a German Dependency in a state of Burgundy to be guided towards independence by Germany and established solely by Germany
- The right of expulsion of any (formerly) citizen of France from the new state of Burgundy and seizure of their property and lands
- That a ten year ‘friendship treaty’ be signed between the belligerents.
- That the German fleet be allowed to use British and French ports in the Mediterranean.
- That France should limit her military to 250,000 men and that her Navy, Armoured forces and Air Force should be cut accordingly.
- That France cede the island of Madagascar to the Germans.
- That Yugoslavia cedes Medimurje, Prejmurje, Backa and Baranaja to the Kingdom of Hungary.
- That Yugoslavia cedes Macedonia to the Kingdom of Bulgaria
- That Yugoslavia releases the nation of Montenegro to be established as a protectorate of Italy and cedes regions surrounding Ablania to the Italian protectorate of Albania.
- That Yugoslavia cedes the cities of Sibenik and Zadar to Italy
- That German vessels are guarenteed use of the Suez Canal

To the allies these terms were a disaster, but unfortunately many of the terms were not easily rejectable - they were the defeated power, but they could stop some of the major terms. The advantage of negotiating as a bloc rather than as individual nations was that one nation could not be subjected to vast and damaging terms without another protesting. Unfortunately when one power is entirely defeated however, as France was, there is little an alliance can do in terms of protecting them alone except stop their total destruction as a nation. But nontheless the allies set out clear terms for peace should they reach an agreement.

The Allied powers red lines for negotiations were simple;**
- That Germany respect the neutrality of Norway
- That Yugoslavia's independence and broad territorial independence be secured
- That the Governments of the Netherlands and Belgium be restored
- That Germany agrees to a naval treaty limiting it's fleet size to avoid threat to the UK
- That under no circumstances will the Western Powers accept war guilt or will pay indemnities towards the German State.
- That under no circumstances will Germany demand the transfer of French Fleet vessels to German Control

The Germans were far keener on the idea of dismantling France as a threat than they were towards securing control of the Netherlands and as such after several days of discussions the two sides would eventually agree that the Government would leave the country after a phased withdrawal and the pre-existing Government would be invited to return. Germany too would agree to the request that the west pay no indemnities or accept any war guilt and to respect the independence and neutrality of Norway despite concerns from some of the German Delegation over access to Steel. However in return for these demands being met, they expected the full concession of the territories demanded from France and Belgium to ensure German security. This was a very bizzare request in the eyes of the British and French; the idea of creating a country from scratch to the western Governments seemed ludicrous and somewhat of a pet dream by a senior Nazi - something that was not an unfair assessment. Their main confusion was the fact that this new state had no real historical basis for existing, when questioned on the matter the German delegation barely even knew what it's purpose was other than to provide a buffer between France and Germany. The nation was to be named as the Order-State of Burgundy (or Ordensstaat Burgund) after the ancient Kingdom of Burgundy that collapsed over 450 years before in it's last attempted revival. It's capital would be the city of Nancy which was to be brutally expelled of all French citizens then renamed Nanzig and the country's language was to become German with phased transition away from French. The Germans however were beset on the idea, and despite the best efforts of the British to guarentee the future of Belgium, eventually it became clear that Germany would not accept anything but their full demands in that area. Despite the matter being discussed for over a week - virtually the duration of the talks - France eventually agreed to concede the territory in the name of peace and their independence, as well as the fact in backrooms Britain remained loyal to the idea of taking it all back at a later date once the Allies were ready.

For such a massive concession Germany was required to guarantee French security for a decade - a joint German demand anyway - and would become legally bound to treat formerly French citizens in the territory with respect to their property and rights. Germany lost the right to seize the land of and expel French citizens from the newfound 'country' unless the holders of the land had fled the country and while France would be required to recognize the new state no other state was bound to do so. Furthermore a French civilian mission would be invited by the new 'Burgundian Government' to observe the establishment of the country in the interest of protecting French citizens from abuse of power - however this mission would act on a purely advisory and observational basis and held no power to change or affect policy of the Burgundian Government. Finally, and by far the most important victory on the matter from the British Government, France would also be permitted to maintain a standing army of 400,000 men - nearly doubling the initial proposal but still forcing the country to remove 500,000 men from it's standing military. These terms were incredibly difficult for France to accept, and incredibly difficult for the French cabinet to accept, but ultimately for the sake of ensuring the continuity of their nation at all after threats by Germany to continue the war and abuse the French people they agreed to the decision, but not without broad and notable opposition. If it was not for the fall of Paris, it is likely Germany would have been unable to demand so much of France - but this was now their Versailles.

While watching in shock and sadness as their new different borders were drawn onto a map France was however willing to part with Madagascar. An irrelevance of an island, Germany's interest in it was of no interest to the French Government, though Britain did question the decision only to be refused any information by the German delegation. But France was not the only state that was to lose territory, Yugoslavia too suffered serious losses to various neighbours with Hungary seizing small parts of the north east of the country due to historical claims, Germany taking much of Slovenia and Italy occupying areas surrounding Albania. The British did however manage to secure the Yugoslavian coast by rejecting the demand that Italy take the cities of Zadar and Sibenik, arguing this would overly conflict interests due to lack of Italian claim on the region and their observation of the new treaty. This was a small win for Prince Paul's Government who were grief stricken by the loss of so much land with so little real fighting on their side during the war. Paul however was not an unrealistic man and accepted that to refuse to concede now would see his whole nation destroyed - it was better to protect Yugoslavia independence than to lose it all. As such Yugoslavia accepted the transfer of territory to Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary and Germany on the condition that they be permitted to arm themselves as they saw fit and that Hungary and Italy relinquish any and all claims on Yugoslavian territories, along with assurances from the German Government that it would not interfere with the various Croat self determination movements in the north of the country.

Britain would effectively lose nothing from the Treaty of Stockholm, which was signed officially by the included parties on March 29th 1939. Strategically the British had secured their eastern flank by ensuring the security of Norway, then to the best of their ability secured the independence of the Netherlands thereby protecting Britain from that angle of possible invasion and limiting German port access. Furthermore they had secured their own independence by refusing the so called "friendship treaty" while protecting themselves from German naval advances through the continuation of Britain;s initial naval treaty with Germany. The loss of Calais and Dunkirk to Germany was however taken as a serious blow to the British Government - so much so that it threatened to undermine the treaty entirely due to it's proximity to Britain. Germany however then changed their policy the following day; the story having been that upon hearing of the vocal British opposition to the annexation of Northern France Hitler had agreed to permit the British - and the British alone - to effectively annex the city of Calais. Believing this to be a concession by the Reich in order to ensure British trust in the German wish for peace Hitler hoped that this would belay any direct fears that Germany could invade Britain from the region at any time - a massive strategic problem for the United Kingdom. The British Government first sought that the French be permitted to hold Calais of course, however it became clear soon after that Hitler had no interest in the French benefiting at all from the peace - but as he had been claimed to have many times before he even became Chancellor he apparently had a subtle admiration for Britain and hoped that they might even support Germany. This led to Britain seeking French approval to administer and run the city under British control which was accepted with a handshake agreement that the French would de-facto run the administration of the city while the British military protected it. Prime Minister Daladier took the decision as the best opportunity to secure peace while protecting French citizens in Calais from subjection from Germany and the French cabinet agreed the deal shortly there after.

~ THE TREATY OF STOCKHOLM ~

1) Germany shall annex to their control the nation of Luxembourg, the region of Wallonia and the region of Alsace-Lorraine.
2) Germany shall retain and the Allied Powers shall recognize a continued occupation of the nation of Denmark, along with the nations of Czechoslovakia and Poland for a period to be determined by the German Government. Furthermore the allied powers will recognize the annexation of the region of Slovakia by the Kingdom of Hungary.
3) The nation of the Ordensstaat Burgund will be established from the city of Nanzig out of territories determined and agreed upon by the German Government and the Government of France.
4) The Government of France shall agree to limit the size of their armed forces to 400,000 men with their air force, armoured units and naval vessels limited accordingly - no naval vessel shall be permitted to be transferred to the control of the German Reich.
5) The Independence of Norway and the Netherlands will be guarenteed by the German Government for a period of ten years.
6) The Island of Madagascar will be annexed by the German Reich.
7) Upon the establishment of the Ordensstaat Burgund France will be invited to dispatch a civillian mission to the country to observe the transition towards Burgundian rule there from French and Belgian Governance.
8) The port city of Calais shall be granted on a 50 year lease to the United Kingdom to govern and administer the city as it sees fit.
9) The Kingdom of Yugoslavia will transfer the historically claimed region of Macedonia to the Kingdom of Bulgaria, along with historically claimed regions of Northern Yugoslavia to German and Hungarian control.
10) The nation of Montenegro shall be released by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy and territories surrounding and claimed by the nation of Albania too shall be transferred to Italian control.
11) Germany, France, Yugoslavia and the United Kingdom will agree to a pact of non-aggression for a period of five years during which the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the United Kingdom will be permitted to rearm should they determine it best to do so.
12) Italy and Hungary shall relinquish any and all historical claims on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and guarantee the independence of the nation for a period of ten years.
13) Germany and the United Kingdom will renew the Anglo-German Naval Treaty 1935.
14) The German Reich shall guarentee the Republic of Turkey for a period of ten years in order to secure British and French interests in the Middle East.
​

​

Britain had protected her allies from annihilation, even despite the losses sustained in territory, national morale, and strategic protections from invasion that Britain had held for the last few centuries. Halifax, at least in his eyes, had protected the empire from destruction, and more importantly ensured that Britain now could go on to focus on preparing to hopefully liberate Europe once Hitler's back was turned. After all, really in geopolitics even agreements are on paper are worth no more than the other player's word. The international response to the agreement was dramatic and mixed, the British Empire had been defeated at what they supposedly did best, the French had been pushed back to borders from over five hundred years prior and Germany had established itself as the effective dominant power in Europe - though one hated by many of it's neighbours and regarded on the international stage as the cause of the conflict. In the US President Roosevelt expressed his 'regret that the Relatively free and democratic nations of Britain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Poland and Czechoslovakia were defeated at the hands of a regime of self slaughter and annihilation of free rights'. But Many in the American public simply didn't feel the same level of sympathy as relatively anglophile Roosevelt did - especially among the Mid Western States where formerly German migrants now marvelled at the successes of Hitler.

In France the response to the peace was a cocktail outpouring of grief, loss and rage - the French Communists staged vast rallies against the Government and while the Government descended into panic at how next to act elements of the French military began to wonder if the Government could go on - or even if they should accept the peace. Daladier would resign only a matter of days after Stockholm was agreed with the French Government being led instead by Prime Minister Paul Reynaud who decided to press the agenda of secret rearmament and alliance with the UK. In Britain Lord Halifax took to the radio to address the nation and sell his peace with Honour, but recieved only grief by the public in whom's eyes this was an irrational defeat before the war had even started. Vicious rumours about the involvement of the King, Halifax's sympathies with the Nazis and attacks on German-British citizens along with members of the British Union of Fascists erupted overnight as the country accepted the new found arrangement. Churchill, along with a significant portion of the Conservative Party immediately resigned the party whip after refusing the vote for the treaty in the house - instead expressing their intentions to form their own grouping and leaving the Prime Minister with a razor thin Majority in the house, barely enough to pass the new treaty. While In Japan the Emperor congratulated Hitler on his victory in Europe and himself eyed up potential prizes in Asia - but in Moscow the response was a mix of concern and surprise, Peace meant Stalin's position had become far less tenable and now he turned to ensuring the Red Army was prepared for what leading Germans had talked about constantly under Hitler; Drang Nach Osten - the drive to the east.

----------------​

*Some of these points were kindly borrowed from Fletch in their excellent TL on Halifax found here that i'd suggest reading if you have not
**Further points on the British negotiating position also borrowed from Fletch's perspective on the whole thing

 

[TheReformer]

Die Interkriege​

With the west dealt with, for the moment at least, Hitler turned his eyes to the one true enemy - the Soviet Union. While the Litvinov-Ribbentrop pact agreed that both sides would follow a pact of non aggression for a period of ten years - despite German suggestions that it should last 100 - neither side seriously expected the other to maintain it. Hitler knew from the beginning his focus would turn to the soviets as soon as the west had been dealt with - the war in the west simply ended faster than he had expected. Stalin too knew German talk of peace was never intended to last, Hitler's book itself suggested that Germany's new leadership cared little for claims over the east of Europe by Russia and the Soviet Union that now took it's place. Furthermore Nazism and Fascism was created as a reaction to communism and it opposed the ideological belief to the core - war was to come in the east, for Stalin it was merely a matter of when. Stalin - arguably in a rather delusional manner - believed that were the Germans to invade the Red army would be capable of opposing and even defeating the Wehrmacht and as such continued on with his policy of purging supposedly anti-stalin members of the armed forces. Hitler knew however the German Army was not prepared for the invasion of the USSR yet, but also knew that soviet policy of officer purges and general lack of preparation made the USSR weak and as such following the Treaty of Stockholm directed his military command towards what he labelled "The real task: the showdown with Bolshevism".

Germany however did now face significant advantages in it's preparation to defeat the USSR - without the Royal Navy to stand in it's way it was now free to trade with the world without interference, at least with those nations that sought to trade with them anyway. This vastly improved the German war effort, allowing for imports of steel from Norway - who chose to trade with Germany rather than risk angering them or justifying invasion - and Oil from countries such as Venezuela and Persia. This meant Germany was not forced to rely on their connected nations for trade, nations like Romania and even the USSR who had it not been for the lack of blockade would have been Germany's only option to fuel their war effort. Thus, while the Germans were no longer reliant on Soviet economic support, the two sides did however now clash foe the first time diplomatically. Under the Litvinov-Ribbentrop agreement the Soviet Union had been granted domain over the Baltic states, along with regions such as Bessarabia in Romania and Karelia in Finland - the USSR began pressing these claims almost immediately after the agreement. The Baltic states were the first to go, being the first to be invaded only a month after the invasion of France by the German Reich in March 1939. Wanting to avoid involvement of the west in their affairs the Soviets invaded during the conclusion of the war in the west, giving many of the Baltic states little choice but to surrender with only Lithuania seriously considering opposing soviet demands. Many of these states were forced to accept Soviet 'peacekeeping' deployments of troops, then had their Governments disbanded with fake elections in which 99.6% of the votes were faked - only for the elected officials then to propose and vote for joining the Soviet Union. Bessarabia in Romania too soon found itself under soviet occupation after the German Government - now dominant in continental Europe - 'suggested' to the Romanian Government that they negotiate the matter with the Soviets in order to receive territorial guarantees.

Germany too would later demand territorial concessions from the Romanians in order to retain their protection in August of 1939, demanding the return of Northern Transylvania to Hungary to return ethnic Hungarians to Hungarian protection along with the return of small Bulgarian claimed territories in southern Romania to Bulgaria. Once again Romania was forced to accept the demands, changing the borders of eastern Europe for good. Italy too sought to get it's piece of the 'pie' so to speak from the peace, having been granted Yugoslavian land due to standing claims from the first world war Mussolini felt slightly cheated by being denied any French land - despite not having taken part in the conflict. Greco-Italian relations had been declining for months, but by August of 1939 they reached breaking point with naval skirmishes and the decision by Greece to mobilise it's armed forces. Mussolini ordered the declaration of war only days later following a rejected ultimatum on Greece for the transfer of Albanian claimed territories in Epirus, launching an invasion from the Italian protectorate into the heart of Greece. Italy would be surprised however when Greek forces not only held their advance, but then launched a successful counter attack into Albania within a month of the conflict beginning, driving back Italian forces back into Albania to the towns of Himara, Kilsura and Pogradec. This was not only a military nightmare for Mussolini - who was trying to demonstrate Italy's newfound strength - but also a political nightmare when he was forced to turn to Hitler for help.

With little real interest in committing to a conflict in Greece, Hitler was infuriated by the incompetence of the Italian army causing such grave distractions during preparations for Operation Barbarossa as well as Operation Tannenbaum which Hitler had authorized preparations for while Germany prepared for invading the USSR. Germany agreed to back up Italy's invasion however to close their southern front and ensure Italy was not entirely thrown out of the Balkans, beginning with their invasion through Bulgaria - who aligned with the Axis following the defeat of Yugoslavia - in 1940. Greece, having surprised the world and the allies by their ability to defeat the Italians now became subject to a rapid blitzkrieg campaign by experienced and better equipped German forces that effectively cut off the vast majority of the Greek army in Albania after their advances. With virtually no forces standing in their way, German forces reached and took Athens by the end of January 1940 where the Greek Government surrendered and subsequently fled to the UK. Italy then occupied most of historical Greece, with Bulgaria being granted all of their historical claims along the coast of the Aegean Sea including the city of Thessaolniki. This campaign would prove to the Germans that their Schwerpunkt and Blitzkrieg strategies worked successfully even in different environments and geographical regions, but equally it demonstrated Italy's lack of preparation for a conflict and uselessness of their armed forces - something Hitler would not quickly forget.

Germany would next turn it's eyes on Switzerland, aiming to invade and defeat the small and neutral nation within the first few months of 1940. Hitler passionately hated the Swiss with German officers claiming that after the fall of France destroying the country was often a subject of lengthy ranting by the Fuhrer. The country however had the advantage of massive and significant geographical defences that were not easily overcome. Any invasion from the direction of Burgundy would almost certainly fail due to the river Doubs and vast forests in the region and as such German planning instead turned to a feint attack on the river by infantry supported by engineering units followed by a mechanized push through the north of the country to surround any drawn out Swiss troops. The invasion officially commenced on February 12th 1940 when the German 12th Army under List began feint attacks against Swiss border positions. Having justified the war on the pretext that throughout the battle for France the Swiss air force had forcibly pushed German aircraft out of their airspace Germany claimed it had been attacked by the Swiss Government justifying military action. While Swiss forces initially fought delaying actions, they were largely unable to hold German advances as 21 Divisions pressed into the country. The advance would be slow and hard due to the mountain passes that the Swiss violently denied German access to, but within a week of the conflict much of the main Swiss plateau had fallen to German control while Italian mountaineer divisions advanced from the south against Swiss bunker positions. But while the majority of the country would be occupied within a matter of weeks, several Swiss fortified positions would end up holding out for up to three months with the final positions giving in due to food shortages on May 29th 1940.

Switzerland from there would be divided between the Axis powers, with Burgundy taking a significant section of French speaking Switzerland, Italy taking the southern Italian speaking Cantons such as Ticino and Germany annexing the remaining German speaking segments of the country. The Swiss had fought bravely and while never expecting victory had secured the moral defence of their nation for the future to come by holding back the Nazis for as long as they could. The west perceived this action as a violent breach of international law with Britain's new Government condemning the conflict and refusing to recognise the illegal occupation. France too responded with criticism, but aware of their current instability and effectively at the mercy of Germany they felt incapable of responding to the crisis or supporting the Swiss in any meaningful manner.

France and Britain themselves had their own internal issues to deal with anyway, faced with defeat at the hands of the Germans France's Government had almost immediately collapsed after the resignation of Edouard Daladier with Paul Reynaud being forced to pick up the already shattered pieces. Riots erupted across the north of the country due to shortages of even basic provisions like bread as what was roughly calculated to be around three and a half million Frenchmen and women fled now German controlled territories to the east of the country, often pushed by German soldiers, while French communists began taking advantage of the chaos. By late April two whole cities had fallen under the control of Communist militias in Nantes and Marseilles with insurgent groups propping up all over Paris taking over neighborhoods and creating effective no-go zones for French Government forces and police. The now battered and demoralised French Army was forced to deploy against their own countrymen to seize control of the cities back which led to mass desertions and looting in population centres near the conflict. The situation deteriorated to such a degree that Britain had to offer sending their own dilapidated and poorly equipped armed forces to France in mid June 1939 to help secure the peace and retain stability in a peacekeeping role which the French Government accepted to an extent, though only a small number of lightly armed troops were dispatched in a policing role. The city of Calais however remained relatively stable with several British divisions being deployed to the city and the establishment of a provisional Calais Government by April headed up by french elected local officials supported by the British Government.

By July of 1939 Marseilles and Nantes had largely been brought back under control with the French Government banning communism and communist parties from operating altogether in order to maintain security. The United States, somewhat horrified by the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in France, had begun shipping food and medical supplies to France with the support of other western nations to support the crisis stricken Government there. Britain by contrast - untainted by conflict or harsh Stockholm treaty terms - had continued the process of rearmament, however this was marginally put on hold to respond to the crisis in France and due to the resignation of the Government of Lord Halifax for new elections. Churchill's decision to split from the Conservatives following their agreement of peace terms with Germany had decimated any authority left behind the Prime Minister's position, forcing him to call a new general election. The King was reluctant to accept the proposal, but did so after pressure from the Prime Minister and Government leading to a General election being called for June 1939. From the beginning of the election it was clear the Government was headed for a catastrophic defeat; while peace may have been the right thing to do in the eyes of many in power in Britain, the fact is Britain didn't take to being - at least how they saw it - defeated before they even got the chance to personally use a pitchfork on a German well. Labour under Attlee came into the election with a defiant message, vowing not to bow down to Germany, to invest billions into a renewed war economy and public works programs along with the creation of greater public services and state support. Not only was their policy better than that of the Conservatives; who effectively promised stability and continuation, but their argument that the Government could have formed a Grand Coalition and fought on was too. Furthermore attacks from the now aptly named "Patriots Party" under Churchill were relentless, accusing Halifax of selling out to the Nazis, of abandoning Britain's position in the world and abandoning Britain's long standing position on the stability of Europe. Founded by a sizable group of 25 or defectors from the Conservatives including Anthony Eden, Churchill, Duncan Sandys and Brendan Bracken the young party experienced an influx of members and supporters allowing them to overcome Churchill's questionable personality and past experience in favour of opposition to the war.

The result of the election in the end was not surprising, Attlee's Labour obliterated the sitting Government taking a sizable majority from what was one of the biggest electoral swings in British electoral history. Facing a split vote between the Conservatives and Patriots Labour gained a massive number of seats, even when accounting for the losses for the Conservatives to the Patriots, Liberals and various other parties. Attlee was subsequently invited to form a Government in the name of the King on June 23rd 1939.

Attlee's Government would be the first Labour Majority Government in history, but it would enter office during a time of grave global instability. Their first action however was to begin expanding the British Armed Forces, transforming national service into a policy not only designed to support the military, but also to support civilian industry. Attlee took a significant amount of inspiration from US President Roosevelt and his 'new deal' policy, vastly increasing deficit spending in favour of massive infrastructural works projects and refocusing the economy on reequipping Britain's outdated Armed Forces. Within months the RAF would be doubled in size, filling it's ranks with fresh recruits, new Aircraft including the Spitfire and Hurricane designed only a year and two years respectively prior. New 'RADAR' Installations were constructed across the country with the technology given to France too in order to better prepare the country's air defences with new agreements between the French Republic and United Kingdom in regards to security arrangements. British forces would, while already being deployed on policing missions across the country, also be deployed on the front line against the supposed state of Burgandy - but while Britain prepared for a possible future conflict, Germany was almost ready to begin a new one.

 

[TheReformer]

Tad late due to unforseen circumstances... enjoy!

Drang Nach Osten​

With the guns on the Western front now having fallen silent, Tannenbaum completed, France in a state of Chaos and Greece under Italian and Bulgarian occupation (Much to the anger of the British), Hitler now turned his eye to the east. The target had always been Russia, not only were the only major 'western' bastion of communism that Nazism and Fascism were essentially created to destroy, but furthermore they were a nation populated with that the Nazis saw as Untermenchen - sub human Slavs - who in the eyes of German leadership were no more owed the land to the east than the Native Americans were to the western United States. Germans, Hitler believed, had the right to their own "Manifest Destiny" and they would seek it through the policy of the Drang Nach Osten, 'the drive to the east'.

Germany had been preparing for the conflict that would essentially define it's future for some time, developing new tactics learned from the French Campaign, expanding their already powerful air force and due to their now free reign to use international trade they too focused on expanding their existing industrial capacity and war machine. Having defeated France by mid 1939 Germany had significant time to prepare - all the while Stalin continued on with his officers purges and lackluster reconstruction of the Soviet army from the ramshackle mob that it had been after the Soviet-Polish war. Paranoid to the core about threats to his power, Stalin treated the USSR as essentially his own personal fiefdom - murdering or imprisoning anyone who dared even think to question his authority and position. He did however begin to start asserting the Soviet position in the east by the end of 1939, having annexed the Baltic states earlier that year he turned his armed forces instead on the Finns to the North. The USSR demanded Karelia among other small island territories from the Finnish Government by November 1939 - a demand that was swiftly refused by the Finnish President Kyösti Kallio. The Soviet armies invaded shortly after, but to incredibly limited success - the use of the Mannerheim line by Finnish forces effectively halted Soviet advances and delivered massive casualties on Soviet forces throughout December of 1939. While initially faced with confusion over how to react to Soviet tank attacks, the Finns soon were demonstrated the sheer incompetence of Soviet military leadership and experience when Soviet tank forces repeatedly attempted to head on charge Finnish positions allowing them to disable the tanks entirely through simple low-tech weaponry like shoving a crow bar or a log into their tracks. Divisions of the Soviet army, even when properly equipped, would throw themselves at the Finnish lines only to panic and retreat in dissaray when they came under heavy and accurate artillery fire from Finnish positions that would often lead thousands dead or wounded in merely a matter of hours. Finns too would deploy incredibly damaging guerrilla tactics against the much more numerous Soviet forces, using poor weather to launch surprise skiing attacks on the enemy and hampering their supply routes.

The war would drag on for months, with Soviet forces unable to break the various lines of defence put up by Finnish forces. The sheer cost in casualties for this conflict for the Soviets was devastating, hundreds if thousands would go missing, be killed or injured, and all the while Germany sat ominously silent on their borders silently observing and preparing. Hitler recieved constant reports on the now aptly dubbed 'winter war' and was impressed at the skill of the Finnish soldiers in defending their homeland - and equally impressed at how much worse the Soviet military seemed to be performing compared to expectations. The Finns however would surrender to the soviets by March as their front line began to collapse - the result being that while the Soviets took Karelia and other territories they were not able to take Finnish independence. The two countries would be at war once more shortly after however, having successfully made enemies with virtually all of their neighbours, decapitated their armed forces and allowed Germany and it's allies to prepare the soviets found themselves inexplicably unprepared when Germany renaged on their treaty of non-aggression with the USSR on May 15th 1941. German forces, having been preparing for the conflict for well over a year, absolutely overwhelmed the surprised Soviet forces on the border - demonstrating the effectiveness of their Blitzkrieg tactics in the east by surrounding hundreds of thousands of soviet troops in the south of the country with armoured spearheads directly into the Ukraine and the Baltic states where in many cases - notably in Lithuania and Ukraine - they were welcomed as liberators. Around four million Axis forces, over three quarters of which being German, had amassed on the Soviet border in secret totally overwhelming the divided soviet armies and causing mass retreat across the entire border.

The soviet high command and forward air forces were totally destroyed by the Luftwaffe within hours of the conflict beginning. Stalin, shocked with Hitler's decision and German speed at perparing for the invasion, did not honestly believe the strength of German forces in the east was the level that it was and ordered a general counter offensive by 9:15 in the morning on the day of the invasion. German forces however easily brushed off any attempts to fight back by Soviet forces and pressed on with their advance. Many soviet divisions were simply incapable of counter attacking anyway, having been so shattered that their organisation essentially had collapsed in the face of the advance. Finland too commenced hostilities with the Soviets, launching a campaign to return their lost territories to their control on the same day as Germany. Within a month German forces had advanced at a shocking pace into the Soviet Union, every single former Baltic state had fallen to German occupation, as had half of the Ukraine with German forces advancing up to the Dnieper river. German Fallschirmjagers ensured the German advance could press on further by successfully seizing bridgeheads from Soviet control in advance of German armoured and infantry columns along various strategic rivers, allowing armour to cross immediately without even stopping to secure the area and speeding up the advance by potentially days. In the north, Finnish forces disloged the vast majority of the soviet army from their positions, pushing them back to their pre-winter war borders before pushing further into Karelia and Murmansk while Soviet leadership panicked, declaring a "Great Patriotic War" the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov urged his people to a patriotic victory in a speech that inspired many Russians - however faced against the odds inspiration can only do so much.

The German advance scared many western Governments, the speed at which the Germans had occupied much of western Russia left Attlee's Government fearing that the war may be over before winter even began - Britain's best hope at seeing stagnation on the eastern front for Germany that would allow them to later open up a new front in France. The United States too was stunned by German advances, leading many experts in strategic theory and geopolitics wondering if they were witnessing the birth of a new global superpower and the essential end of Russia. In the German army however an opposite view began to become apparent - despite initial success it soon became clear that the Germans had underestimated Soviet strength, especially in regards to their industrial capacity which essentially became a cottage industry for tanks. Nonetheless Germany plowed on into the heartland of Russia with Field Marshal von Bock famously stating "the vastness of Russia devours us" in his personal diary - both nations were now locked into a battle of ideologies, for supremacy and frankly for survival.

Hitler's faith in the encirclement strategies deployed earlier in the war began to wane as the German advance slowed due to inevitable logistical struggles, instead his main strategy for defeating the Soviets turned to defeating them through economic starvation. This would change however after the Battle of Kiev. Determined to hold the city Stalin urged the deployment of additional forces to the city to ensure it's security against the German advance in late July 1941, by now German forces had once again begun their advance and soon threatened to capture the city which they finally did after a brutal fight with red army forces - the cost to the Soviets however was horrific. A huge number of Soviet divisions became trapped in and around the city after a successful German encirclement operation led by General Guderian that ultimately would lead to the death or capture of over 600,000 Soviet soldiers. The defeat was a crushing blow to soviet high command who now faced the very real possibility of a German advance on Moscow. The Germans wasted no time in Pursuing that goal with a surprise attack form the German 2nd Panzer group that threw several soviet divisions on the centre front into dissaray and surrounded over 500,000 Soviet soldiers on the front line. Another devastating blow that left the Soviets with a mere 90,000 soldiers to face off against hundreds of thousands of motivated and well equipped Germans in summer.

The battle for Moscow would be bloody and far more anticlimactic than many western observers expected. The battle began on September 14th 1941 with German tanks under the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies surging across the Moscow Canal and enveloping the city from the north facing stiff but not difficult resistance. Street to street fighting began days later as infantry divisions surged into the city from all angles while Stalin himself had initially intended to remain in the city but would evacuate silently before the encirclement. Many of the cities inhabitants put up a stiff resistance to occupation, German propaganda noted the use of children as young as 11 and women by Soviet forces to defend the city, but within two weeks of intensive fighting morale to defend the city essentially collapsed as German propaganda about Stalin's decision to flee the city soon set in and resistance cracked. German casualties were reported to be lower than even the battle of Kiev at around 38,400 though unofficial estimates guessed more like 43,000 German soldiers were killed. Thus by October 1941 Moscow had fallen to the German Reich, all the while in the North Leningrad remained surrounded and cut off from supply for it's civillian and military population and in the South Hitler began the next military offensive; Fall Blau - an operation to secure Stalingrad and the Caucuses.

It was only in November that the cold would start to set in over the Russian front - but by then it was long too late. Soviet morale had essentially collapsed with the fall of Moscow and with Stalin himself having been killed during his hasty withdrawal from Moscow in October. Stalin having initially vowed to remain in the city, he decided to escape on advice of his supporters as German forces began to surround it when the truck he tried to smuggle himself out of the city was hit by a German mortar shell. His body was never recovered from the blast. The German advance itself had pressed on, launching armoured columns along the road to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan in late March of 1942 after a winter in Moscow due to the onset of Soviet winter and extreme overextension in supply by December 1941. German forces had effectively stopped their advance at the Volga river following the capture of Kazan, Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan - or the so called 'A-A line'. Their advance in the south however continued through late 1941 and the early months of 1942. Forces pressed on Stalingrad which fell after bloody fighting due to massive German commitment to the city in February of 1942 - cutting off vital fuel supply routes and ending Russian mechanical resistance in the north. German forces then further pushed south, pressing into the Caucuses where Lavrentiy Beria had taken up refuge among the Caucus mountains though this front would drag on for another eight months of fighting as German forces pressed slowly into the south and Soviet forces used guerrilla tactics to oppose their advance, this was costly to the German war machine but justified as Beria was captured by German forces and hung with barbed wire and communist forces in the south were eradicated.

Leningrad itself would fall after months of starvation in May of 1942, and with that despite any sensible military leader in the west proclaiming German victory following the defeat of the Soviets at Stalingrad, now any question of a 'comeback' or at least stalling the German army were dashed. Germany had done the unthinkable, and conquered the east. With the soviet Government unwilling to ever discuss the terms of surrender, favoring jumping back behind the Urals and continuing the war forever, the Germans instead just divided their territories among their allies. Romania would be ceded back Bessarabia along with areas of 'greater Moldova' in Ukraine. Finland took the entirity of Karelia and regained control over it's old borders and Hungary would annex a small area of Carpatho-Ukraine the Soviets had taken in the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Germany however would seize the entirity of the rest, annexing the country into six seperate regions of varying military and civillian administrations; Reichskomissariat Gottengau in Crimea, Reichskomissariat Ukraine, Reichskomissariat Ostland, Reichskomissariat Kaukuses, Reichskomissariat Moscowien and finally Reichskomissariat Ingermanland. Each being headed from various renamed cities including Theodorichafn, Rowno, Riga, Tiblisi, Moskau and Hindenburg respectively.

Fighting would continue in the east for months, but largely at a standstill. German forces would largely focus on on securing their position and carry out atrocities aimed at finding and capturing Slavic Jews for deportation while executing millions of Russian, Ukranian, Baltic and Caucus civillians or pushing them into essential slavery at the hands of German soldiers. The final offensive in the conflict recognised by western and German military observers came in October of 1942 when German forces in Kazan and Astrakhan advanced further east to the Ural mountains on the insistence of Hitler who believed the mountains to be a more defensible barrier against post-Soviet aggression This would actually be incredibly costly for the German forces in Russia due to the guerrilla tactics used in the mountains but eventually succeeded in dislodging the Russian forces by late 1942 with two vast military camps being established on the border known as Das Bassenheim and Das Balk after the commanders of the Teutonic Knights. This was all in line with Generalplan Ost that would be further introduced throughout 1941 and 1942, during which German forces first were forced to deal with significant numbers of Soviet partisans throughout their newly conquered territories. Germany now faced a vast number of internal problems and political objectives it was hoping to achieve, and now it had the means to achieve them.

 

[TheReformer]

The Challenges of an Empire​

The German Reich in 1942 faced a series of key challenges that to an extent Hitler himself was painfully unaware of. The first challenge was economic; the problem with building an economy based solely on the idea of going to war is that when you run out of conflict or use for those weapons you essentially cease to have a reason for your economy existing. Businesses like Volkswagen for example were established as massive sources of income for the German people that were essentially conjured up by the German state using state funds for one sole purpose; to build tanks. There were hundreds of examples of businesses of the same nature and to make matters worse as Germany expanded into neighboring territories it began to use the exact same methods on the Czech, Polish and Soviet economies - destroying their internal industry and amalgamating everything under a 'corporatist' model that in real terms translated directly into the state informing business exactly what is expected of them. Without war this would be utterly unsustainable, if the German army stops expanding it no longer needs so many guns as the attrition rates for equipment for example will become nil. This means factories have no point of existing, and as such jobs are lost which becomes a spiral of decline that would lead to inflation and economic ruin as the economy is essentially starved of that state provided cash it relied on. This left Germany with an economic mountain to cross after the fall of the Soviet Union. What makes matters worse for Germany is that while Germany had legally defeated the allies in the west, it's neighbors, submitted eastern Europe under it's domain and defeated the Soviets - it never actually legally 'defeated' the Soviet Union for good. As such Germany's response to the collapse of Soviet resistance to their advance was just to effectively keep pushing out any resistance across the Urals and divide up the land conquered between the conquering powers. This meant that there was no 'peace' as such and fighting would continue under guerrilla tactics across the newly conquered lands for years to come - effectively creating a demand for weapons, but not the weapons Germany had or was producing.

Effectively Germany now faced a massive question; what should it do with all this land it had just taken and how best would it go about perusing that agenda? Hitler's answer was ironically inspired by Stalin's own policies. Under Stalin there had been introduced a policy of collectivization in agriculture; the policy was astonishingly unsuccessful - leading to the one of the largest famines in European history and causing the death of millions of mainly Ukrainian civilians. Hitler's problem now, in the darkest possible sense, now centered around the fact that Nazi policy had long established that much like the Native Americans were expelled from the United States as the nation expanded westwards - the Slavic peoples too had to be expelled from European Russia. Generalplan Ost therefore encouraged the idea of the 'Hunger Plan' - the transferring of rationed food supplies away from Slavic populations to Germanic ones. This would inadvertently solve a major economic crisis within the German economic model that was likely to develop in the future; Germany's economy as aforementioned was built for a war economy and as such food production had become secondary to the primary goal of military equipment construction, to keep availability of general necessity products Germany now instead would simply force the peasants of the Slavic Steppe to farm and produce produce for them by establishing giant collectivised 'slave farms' and then transfer the vast majority of that produced food to the German Fatherland - keeping the bare minimum to keep enough of the workers going. The policy meant that millions of Russians were rounded up throughout 1942 and 1943 and forced under gunpoint into giant farmlands of up to 200 Hectares to work until they either starved, their bodies gave out or they accepted their position of slavery.

Germany's economic position on necessity goods therefore became considerably more comfortable - this was vital as now the far greater task emerged; converting the vast majority of German industry into a post-war model. Hitler's problem was that under his rule the German economy had experienced it's 'miracle' solely on the basis of military expansion and massive infrastructural investment, remove the need for that and it all comes crashing down. Reich Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk therefore proposed a solution; that the vast majority of Germany's internal base industry be refocused away from the military effort and instead on the effort of colonizing and building on the new lands in eastern Europe. The argument was simple; such a vast task for the German people would require colossal amounts of investment to make the land that the Russian people had occupied for millennia be essentially habitable by the German people. Massive infrastructural projects would be needed to expand and connect the resources in the Caucuses, Urals, Ukraine and other areas of former Russia to Germany's heartland. These could stem from a massive defensive 'wall' of forts being constructed along the Urals, vast oil pipeline networks being built from Russian oil wells to German industrial centers and vast railroad and autobahn connections being built to encourage access to the new cities that were to be established under German rule across the continent. This would however be costly to Germany's economic machine, effectively re-directing what hundreds of factories - all of which having been essentially built and run by the German Government - were producing would mean the purchase of hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks in new equipment that could take years to revamp. Germany did have one advantage to countries like the United States however which had pulled itself from the brink economically by mobilizing the state to rebuild it's industry; Germany had around 200 million "untermenchen" who were essentially designated for expulsion, slavery or execution throughout the east of Europe. These people would be forced into enormous public works programs, execution or expulsion - however with such a vast number available Hitler's Government first would have to undergo a long plan to ensure these innocent people would never present a threat to the Reich. This would be further expanded by destroying moral bases for Soviet support - including the flooding of Moscow to create an artificial lake through the destruction of the Moscow-Volga Canal after the total dismantlement of the city and murder of it's inhabitants.

Throughout the war Germany had actively sought to sterilize "untermenchen" so as to ensure they would not be able to continue their line of genetics. 350,000 or so women in Germany proper had been sterilized between 1933 and 1942 under German law - this would therefore be replicated among the Slavic peoples on a far more significant scale. The German military therefore established a chain of camps across the Russian Steppe where men and women would be put to work constructing a vast rail based highway to connect Germany with it's new frontier in the Urals. The network would become known as the "Östliche Straße" and would stretch from Berlin to Das Bassenheim (The German central fortress on the Ural Line) while connecting with Warschau (German Warsaw), the German settlements in Minsk, Tula and Hermannsberg (German Kazan). These camps would become manual labour camps to expand the newly conquered territories infrastructure - while also using available medical facilities to proceed with mass sterilization, resistance to being forced into these giant camps - some up to 750,000 in capacity - would result in mass extermination of local civilian populations as reprisals.

The Östliche Straße would have a secondary purpose other than reequipping the German forces on the front line and shipping in resources to construct defences - it would become an effective means of transporting those who were to be expelled from Europe. This would include 15% of Russians, 50% of Estonians, Latvians and Czechs, 65% of Ukrainians, 75% of Belorussians and Ruthenians, 80% of Poles and Lithuanians and all Latgalians - just over 100 million people. Of the people chosen from the population mainly sterilized women, disruptive men, the elderly, disabled and children too young to work would be sent past the Urals first. Hitler's Government requisitioned 16 Locomotives for this sole purpose, aiming to transport 80,000 people per day from across eastern Europe. This would be done at a reduced rate due to the absence of rail routes to sustain such high expulsion rates before the construction of new rail roads. Many of them would die from starvation, injuries or exhaustion even just on the train journey before being forced at gunpoint out into the Siberian steppe past German defences on the border. Equally millions of those who would be worked to death would be executed by firing squad or through more industrial methods - though these features would be added prior to von Krosigk's design of the plan. The remainder of the populace would be exterminated directly or put to work taking apart their own cities brick by brick to be forgotten by history or constructing new Germanic cities designed in Hitler's own image - while also building the roads, rail lines and airports designed to connect the entire massive project.

All the while, as per the economic model established by von Krosigk, German colonists began to be dispatched to the new colonies in bulk by 1944 - encouraged by vast Government handouts, free land, free workers and the Government propaganda designed by Goebbels envisioning a bright new future for the German Reich. While small numbers of colonists had been sent not long after the military occupation of Russia, this kind of colonisation would be on a much greater scale. Soldiers of the Third Reich would be offered deals to take their families to the east ad establish a new life as farmers, engineers, administrators and skilled industrial workers. SS officers would be invited to new Lebensborn facilities in the east where young German women from the Fatherland would have bee dispatched or volentarily decided to move to the new settlements where they would be housed and given state support to bear and raise children of SS officers and soldiers to expand the birth rate in the country dramatically and populate the east. This was especially notable in the southern areas of the country in Gottengau, ran by Curt von Gottberg, that was one of the main areas of focus for German colonisation alongside the Baltic states and Poland. Von Krosigk's aim was to establish the southern regions in Gottengau and Reichskommissariat Ukraine as agricultural powerhouses to feed the Reich and thus investment and vast amounts of slave labour were poured into the area. Hitler's bold eastern project however would face challenges - the sheer amount of slave labour (which exceeded 25 million workers by 1944) meant that security for those workers was constantly overstretched - especially as the German army began to be reorganised and refocused to counter tactics used by Russia partisan fighters, terrorism, defence of the Urals boundary and containment of slave laborers. This meant that infrastructural projects such as the Östliche Straße was delayed often due to targetted attacks by Russian partisans and rebels, slave camps would occasionally break free with the most notable taking place in the Lyscovo rebellion of August 1943 that was eventually forcibly put down by the Luftwaffe through fire bombing attacks on the largely wooden camp. This would all however roll into the second major problem facing the Reich; Security.

While the east was largely 'secure' due to the nature of the opposition the Reich faced in the region; ragtag and sporadic, Germany's west was far from secure, verging on unstable. The plans for the state of Burgundy were proceeding as prepared. Millions of Frenchmen and women had left Burgundy in the months following the Treaty of Stockholm, creating a significant amount of free space for a million German peasants to be effectively deported from Germany and into Burgundy. The administration of the region was a logistical nightmare that required the German Army and SS to spend just under a year completing a modern version of the 'Doomsday Book' compiled following the invasion of England by William the conqueror - assessing people's property, lands, incomes, investments etc. This was all carried out by the German Government on behalf of the new Burgundian Government being established in the city of Nanzig (formerly Nancy) under SS member and leader of the Rexist party in Belgium Leon Degrelle. Degrelle, with support of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, quickly began the establishment of a new Burgundian Government by proclaiming himself Hochmeister of the Order State of Burgundy. A new 'SS' was established among the Flemish, Walloon, French and German people now populating the country wherein the spoken German language was mandatory, along with a series of racial identity checks. A Burgundian army was also established along with conscription requirements for all young men aged 16 and over, the equipping of which financed by the German Reich. This was to be enforced on all Burgundian citizens registered as residents on the "Große Umfrage" or 'Great Survey', with further requirements imposed on lower income Burgundians who were pushed into public works programs if they were not in employment.

Racial regulations too were imposed with all people considered to fall into the racial band as 'untermenchen' with many of the group including Jews, Roma and the Disabled being rounded up by the SS to be transported to German camps in Poland and Russia. A 'Council of Masters' was also elected in a rigged election organized by the Government in which 100 members of the Rexist party were elected - one for every seat. Despite how it sounded however Burgundy faced a series of major problems; it's new administration was hopelessly disorganized and had no basis to work from - including no structured civil service - it's 'SS' was forced to do virtually all security operations as the Army was overwhelmingly against the existence of their own country with significant numbers of their membership being made up of conscripted former Frenchmen, Belgians and Germans - the former two being unable to get along with the latter. Furthermore the country had no shared identity or culture, something that German propaganda experts constantly attempted to overcome with great difficulty by paying artists and writers to produce cultural material. The biggest problem however was the nation's internal instability, there were constant attacks on SS troops, the German Army often had to put down insurgencies and without a clear police force the institution of justice in a codified manner was virtually impossible.

The Netherlands too held new elections following the return of their Government under the Queen in April 1939, the result being surprisingly less dramatic than the subsequent elections in the United Kingdom and France. The Roman-Catholic State Party held onto power with 32 seats to the Dutch Labour Party's 29, allowing the Catholic party to form a Government in coalition with other parties. France by contrast was a very different case. With the collapse of the French Government following the internal conflict in the nation France turned to one of their most hotly contested elections in decades in September of 1939; the result being a clear victory for the Parti Communiste Français. The victory for Maurice Thorez's party however came as short lived, for months the French Armed Forces had prepared for the possibility of a Communist Victory with a faction emerging among military circles led by Philippe Petain. This faction, indirectly allied with French Nationalists in the Action Française, soon reacted to the election result on September 20th 1939 when Petain allied himself with a series of French military commanders and successfully executed a coup d'etat against the new Government. Instead installing a military regime that largely received the support of the french elite and Armed Forces. Petain knew of Hitler's hatred of communism, and was aware that turning to the ideology would only threaten to damage France's vital relationship with the United Kingdom, therefore after months of chaos having reigned proclaimed himself protector of France. The public mood about the coup was largely mixed, Petain proved popular among middle class circles and the aristocracy having earned the respect of many frenchmen during the first Great War, the working classes by contrast however were less supportive - having just days before voted in desperation for the new Communist regime.

Despite large scale public opposition, with the military behind him and the vast majority of other security forces from across the country including many local police forces sick of dealing with pubic disorder Petain's new Government for the national interest quickly took control of all aspects of power. Communism was banned and a socially democratic Government introduced, including several elected members of the Parti Communiste Français who were convinced to 'shift' their positions in the national interest and to keep their jobs. With support from Attlee's Government - despite opposition to Petain's methods - Britain and France begun the process of rebuilding the shattered French state while making amends with the alienated United States who themselves were dealing with their own problems...

 

[TheReformer]

The Sun Sets​

The Empire of Japan had been a key ally to Germany since before the war - not necessarily because they could provide any clear military support for Germany, but instead because they provided an ample distraction for the world while the Reich reclaimed it's territories. Furthermore, Japan was much like Italy in that it was a former Entente power that felt cheated by their former allies - and a far more capable military power than Italy. Japan equally had the same strategic enemies as Germany; Britain, France, the Soviet Union and even the United States. Japan also like Germany however faced a serious set of challenges to achieve their goals of creating their so called 'co-prosperity sphere'; Japan was a nation with little real resources needed to fight a continued war. That is why for centuries they had been picking away at China, attempting to gain territory to ensure Japanese self-sustainability. To do this military planners in Japan had identified the need to seize Malaya, Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies; all of which being under Dutch, British and French rule. The peace between Germany and the Allied powers therefore significantly complicated matters for Japan who, fighting a major war in China, had barely a year of oil remaining in it's stores and now found itself under a global oil embargo from the UK, USA, France, Netherlands and virtually all major western powers. This too was a problem for Germany - however to Germany's advantage they had found friends in the Atlantic in Venezuela to supply them, along with their effective puppets in Romania and their currently limited production capacities from the USSR. Japan's military Government under Hideki Tojo did have a small stroke of luck when the Soviet Union collapsed under German attacks in 1941 however - with their military effort on the verge of collapse in China the Japanese Army finally had reason to pursue Hokushin-Ron, the Northern Road, and invade the Soviet Union.

On September 12th 1941 therefore the Japanese Emperor therefore officially sanctioned a military mission to invade the rump-USSR, declaring war on the fragmented 'Soviet Government' who had overthrown Stalin only a month before, executing him in a military coup and replacing him with Vyacheslav Molotov to deal with the nightmare scenario as the nation unraveled. The Japanese had fought the Soviets before, and in every occasion had lost. This conflict would prove to be little different. Japan's army poured across the Soviet border in September only to be confronted by surprisingly strong Soviet resistance who held the advantage of having a significant tank force compared to Japan's largely infantry based armed forces. Japan did have the advantage of a significant air force however, which helped Japan's advance to get going rather than being halted barely past the border. The capture of Vladivostok on October 30th would prove an important victory for Japan however by successfully cutting off a key supply port from Soviet forces and removing a hub of resistance to Japanese advances before winter set in. The weather however would soon render the Japanese advance almost entirely pointless by December, faced with mounting casualties, little real access to many formerly Soviet resources and nightmarish conditions on the vital infrastructure needed to transport that Infrastructure the Hokushin-Ron plan effectively failed within months of it beginning - all the while leaving Japan with even less oil to fight a drawn out war in China. Meanwhile the Allies had been allowed to prepare for any Japanese advances on their territories, the United Kingdom had guaranteed the security of the Netherlands following the war in the west from any attacks, German or otherwise, and France had by now begun the process of reconstruction. Britain too was significantly better prepared for any conflict, having mobilized it's armed forces and economy under Attlee's Government and dispatched additional naval forces to the east to combat the threat of aggression from Japan's increasingly bold military offensives. Japan was therefore left with two choices; either accept that it's war in China had been relatively unsuccessful and withdraw to defensible positions and seek a conditional peace with the Chinese Bloc, or use the last of it's oil and resources - that to an extent had been propped up by minor expansion of their resource base with the limited Soviet conquests - to fight a short and targeted war with the west for Malaysian and East Indies resources.

Japanese leadership weighed up their options, but in their mindset they had no reason to question their own ability to defeat the west. They had one of the world's biggest navies, a reasonable amount of fuel to fight a quick and decisive war, an experienced armed forces and they were in their own proximate waters whereas the west was fighting far from home. Furthermore the United States was still only just recovering from their economic crisis and had suffered a change of leadership in the 1940 Presidential election when President Roosevelt - facing no immediate military or economic crisis requiring him to stay on - had bowed out as per tradition and instead allowed his chosen successor Corden Hull to take the mantle of the Democratic Party nomination with Scott Lucas. Facing a charismatic and prepared Republican party however the United States Presidency had been won by businessman and dark horse candidate Wendell Willkie who ran alongside Charles McNary and successfully swept the mood of the nation, defeating Hull in a very close campaign. Willkie's Presidency as it turned out would be dominated not by the social issues he had campaigned on, but instead by the war that would soon come to head half war through his presidency when on February 7th 1942 Japan - after long consideration - launched a massive war effort against the perceived allies against it in the United Kingdom, United States, France and the Netherlands. The attack was brilliantly executed, becoming known as 'the day of infamy' by President Willkie following a massive air based attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbour that resulted in the death of over two thousand US Servicemen, the destruction of nearly 200 aircraft and the Sinking of four battleships and numerous other US Naval vessels. Failing to sink any US aircraft carierrs however Japan failed to achieve a vital strategic goal of putting one of the US' most vital Pacific assets out of use after American Military Intelligence cracked Japanese codes allowing them some warning that an attack was going to happen within the time frame of several days - just not telling them where. The attack was followed by attacks across the Asian colonies of the west including Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies landing decisive blows to the allied forces across the region. Not expecting such decisive and violent attacks so early into the conflict the allies reeled over how best to respond to the attacks with only Britain being fully prepared to fight back while countries like the Netherlands and France had little to no means of halting Japanese advances.

Japan's campaign was effective at the beginning, launching sea based invasions across the coast of French Indo-China, Naval invasions of the Dutch East Indies - successfully capturing significant amounts of vital resources including Oil - both of which fell within a month of the conflict, along with a significant attack on the Philippines which themselves fell in their entirity to Japanese occupation in July of 1942. The campaign in fact went so successfully that by July 1942 Singapore had even fallen to Japanese occupation after a bloody battle between British forces in the area and the Japanese, the British however successfully evacuating the city's garrison due to an increased Royal Navy presence in the area which ow re-based to India. Britain however, no longer distracted by Germany who had decided to decisively rule themselves out of any involvement in the conflict between Britain and Japan, quickly responded to the Military campaign leading to a decisive victory over the Japanese at the battle of Java Sea on April 27th 1942 when the Royal Navy, in conjunction with the Dutch and elements of the French and Australian fleets, successfully defeated the Japanese through greater combined firepower leading to the death of Japanese Admiral Takeo Takagi. The defeat was crushing for Japanese forces who until now had successfully defeated the allies in every battle and skirmish they had fought causing them somewhat of a dip in morale, but furthermore it was a disaster for the Japanese Government who were hoping to sue for a conditional peace with the Allies much like Germany had after they had dug into the vital positions in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies so as to be in the best possible position to call for a ceasefire. The defeat however encouraged instead a spirit of optimism in the UK and United States who despite the loss of Singapore and much of South East Asia now felt optimistic they would be capable of recapturing the territory.

The conflict entered it's second stage now as the United States mobilized it's economy, meanwhile Japan found itself in control of a vast area of the Pacific with little real resources to defend or maintain it. Japanese Naval planners found themselves incapable of even following their own strategic goals through the 'barrier defence' they hoped to use to achieve eventual peace as their naval doctrine meant their forces operated in large task forces as opposed to smaller groupings capable of fighting over a wide area - essentially they had created a plan but had no idea how to actually execute it when it mattered. This was only more evident when the tide turned against them at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the subsequent Battle of Midway during July and August of 1942, both of which resulting in decisive American victories in the United States' first major involvement in the lasting global conflicts - and inflicting damage on the Japanese fleet from which they could not recover. This then began the fight back by the United States and United Kingdom as the two enemies turned allies in the face of a mutual foe in the east began to slowly dismantle Japan's sprawling and poorly equipped empire.

Faced with a Japanese advance into Burma after the fall of the Kingdom of Thailand, Britain's focus throughout the eastern conflict was defending India and attempting to push back the Japanese from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. This would be a challenging task as it forced Attlee's Government to divert a significant number of divisions and resources towards the east despite the possible threat of German aggression, however with Barbarossa having ended and reports of constant German military struggles in the east of their new sprawling empire Attlee felt confident that he could gamble by sending forces to combat Japan. Hitler's Government by contrast did have designs on attacking France for a second time, however with the alignment of the United States into the sphere of the Allies German military command encouraged the Fuhrer to focus instead on the development of the German sphere of influence in Europe and expanding German influence in Scandinavia as well as the middle east where Germany had been relentlessly pursuing better relations with the Turks in exchange for territorial concession from formerly Turkic parts of the USSR. Britain therefore was in a strong position in the east to launch bold military operations, launching an invasion of Sumatra following the Battle of Midway in January of 1943, landing south of Palembang and fighting an aggressive campaign to capture the vital oil city with little supply other than that shipped into minor southern ports on Sumatra and what could be air-dropped into the Island. The United States by contrast unlike Britain had only just awoken it's military industry and as such spent much of 1943 doing little in terms of aggressive actions otheer than to occasionally challenge Japanese advances and invade islands that the Japanese were suggested to be using for aggressive purposes. This included launching their own marine landings on Guadalcanal to halt the construction of Japanese air assets on the island as the first of many 'island hopping' operations throughout 1942 to 1944.

The United States' first major aggressive actions began in mid 1944 with the battle of Saipan which would be invaded following the battle of the Philippine Sea in June of 1944. The American victory in such a vital battle was the beginning of the end for Japan's hopes of a conditional victory in Asia allowing the US to recapture Guam and Tinian, instead meaning that their operations in China such as Ichi-Go yielding success merely meant wasting resources needed to oppose the Americans where the war would be won or lost; at sea. The Combination of the now sizable US Naval apparatus which had been bolstered in the Pacific by the Atlantic fleet due to a lack of combatants in the Atlantic, along with the expansion of US military capacity over 1943, with the fleet of the United Kingdom which had now almost solely focused on the destruction of Japanese forces in the east had proven too much. Britain alone had begun a process of "elimination and extraction" as they began an aggressive campaign using Indian and British forces to push Japanese forces from India, all the while learning from the Invasion of Sumatra in 1943 to launch further naval based invasions of Borneo, Java and Malaya throughout 1943 and 1944. Each invasion proving more and more successful as time progressed and the Royal Marines became more experienced in their new found role in the east - while cutting Japan off from vital resources it needed to maintain a combat ready fleet. The Japanese Government, fearing defeat even by mid 1943, reached out to the German Government to attempt to open a second front against the allies to distract Britain and the US from the Pacific Theater, but to the dismay of the Japanese Hitler refused - focusing instead on the fact that Germany had succeeded in it's goals and now intended to dig into and secure their new lands, while also secretly being aware that Germany;s ability to fight in France may by 1944 be limited due to ongoing conflict in Russia and occupied European territories that the Wehrmacht had to devote significant resources to maintain control over.

The end for the Empire of the Rising Sun seemed near for many observing nations, the US Government after a string of victories now prepared for the eventual invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, while Nazi Germany actively sought to disassociate themselves with the Honorary Aryans in the Pacific and the United Kingdom began to work out what it wanted for it's ever increasing role in the eastern conflict. Even in China things began to look bleak with the Japanese unable to advance and their Southern front beginning to collapse following the British invasion of Kuala Lumpur - cutting off Singapore and the Japanese forces in Malaya and soon after threatening to open Indo-China up to British naval invasion following the liberation of Singapore in July of 1944. The battle of Leyte Gulf would be the final killing blow for Japan's imperial empire in South East Asia; with the largest naval battle in history resulting in an American victory that opened up the Philippines to invasion by the United States in October of 1944. The capture of Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa in June 1945 marked the final isolation of Japanese forces on their home islands too, launching desperate Kamikaze attacks against American and British forces in a bid to dissuade American forces from landing on the Japanese home islands instead in a bid for peace.

The United States President Thomas Dewey was however determined that peace would be nothing but unconditional, Dewey having been elected to the position to succeed sitting President Allen Dulles who himself had 'inherited' the position after the death of President Willkie in April of 1944 from a heart attack - the Vice President Charles McNary having also died several months before Willkie due to a brain tumour and never been replaced putting Secretary of State Dulles next in the line of succession. Dewey, who had defeated Richard Russell Jnr - the moderate progressive Democrat from Georgia, had run on a campaign of bringing Japan to Democracy, establishing the US as a major player in global geopolitics out of isolation and winning the war whatever the cost. He was in luck therefore when the Manhattan project was completed on July 16th 1945, creating a method to defeat the Japanese that did not require landing on the home islands. Dewey immediately authorized the use of the weapon, with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima following a month later on August 6th and 9th respectively after the Japanese Government refused to unconditionally surrender to the Allies. It was at this point that the sun officially set and Japan after a thousand years of development and expansion from a nation of fragmented warlords to a global superpower in the east officially gave in, surrendering to the United States and United Kingdom and submitting themselves to joint occupation by the two nations. The UK having contributed a vast amount to the war effort in Asia, including the bulk of the Royal Navy and several successful invasions of Japanese held territories, would become the administrator of Shikoku and Kyushu while the United States would administer the larger island of Honshu and Hokkaido.

The surrender of Japan to the Allies would mark the effective end of the period of separate conflicts that would come to be identified as the Second world war. While many of the conflicts failed to overlap, the sheer proximity and ferocity of the conflict involved justified the identification of the war and would be how the war was referred to by all western powers excluding the German Reich who would denote their own wars as the "Great War of Unification". The United States and United Kingdom would emerge from the conflict as two of the world's most powerful nations, the UK having barely been touched by the damage caused by either conflict with Germany or Japan and having used the threat of war to revitalize their economy and Military. The United States having established themselves as a dominant world power - overtaking even the United Kingdom - and building a vast economy of scale that even industrialized Germany could not compete against. It was now down to the Western Allies who now labelled themselves as the "United Nations", who only a few years before had nearly come to war, to define the fate of Japan, Asia and to an extent the geopolitical nature of the world for the rest of the 20th Century...

 

[TheReformer]

To Make The World Anew Again​

The world had changed dramatically since 1938; the ancient state of Russia had been pushed out of it's own homelands, the Empire of the Rising Sun in Asia had been destroyed, China had been largely unified by conflict and the map of western Europe defiled by the re-establishment of the ancient state of Burgundy. The world map itself was unrecognizable, and yet still in 1945 following the surrender of Japan the United Nations had a chance to change and define it even further by deciding the fate of the east. The immediate question the allies faced was this; what should the fates of the colonies Japan had taken be and how should they deal with the future of Japan?

For the Allies the answer for both was becoming increasingly clearer; all nations that had been under Japanese occupation would see their territory returned to them; this included French, British and Dutch colonial possessions in Asia and South East Asia. Furthermore the Republic of China would reclaim all the lost territories the Japanese had occupied from it - including the lands of the puppet Government under Puyi in Manchuria and Mengjiang previously ruled by various warlords. Furthermore, the island of Formosa would be annexed by the Republic of China to reduce Japanese influence in the South China sea. The nation of Korea would be liberated under the protection of the United States as a Presidential Republic, and the United States would furthermore annex all the island territories occupied by the Japanese throughout the pacific, excluding Okinawa where the US would keep a permanent military presence on the Island but not annex it. The real question for the United States however was what to do with the formerly soviet territory occupied by Japanese forces. While on the one hand the US could return the territory to the rump Government of the Soviet Union now based in Novosibirsk, that Government had next to no influence in the former Soviet Territories and much of the nation was essentially falling apart. Rebellions had erupted nationwide with ethnic groupings such as the Kazakhs, Uzbeks and even tiny groups like the Siberian Chuckchul and Yakut establishing their own 'de facto' states governed by tribal rule or local militias able to establish local rule due to the inability of Soviet forces to maintain order after mass desertion and an effective civil war erupting across ethnically Russian Siberia between various warring factions. President Dewey therefore came to the conclusion that if the Russian Government - a communist one to add - could no longer maintain order over the Russian Eastern Seaboard then the United States would have to establish a Government that could. Thankfully there was precedent to do so; the United States and Japanese having established the 'Far Eastern Republic' in April of 1920 during the last civil war - something that the United States would now repeat.

The new Republic was therefore established as the Transbaikal Republic in 1945 - translating directly as "Republic beyond Baikal" - and adopting a constitution wherein a President would be elected as the head of state and Government by Parliament - or the Duma - which would itself be elected directly by the people in General elections every four years. This model of Government the US and Russian authorities working alongside the US felt would be the best model to ensure stability in the new country through a relatively centralized leadership, but equally would slowly act as a means of reintroducing the Russian people to democracy. The country would hold it's first elections in June 1946 where several parties would be formed to campaign for the 100 seats semi-proportionally assigned in the State Duma; the Trudoviks under Ivan Yumashev - the former Admiral of the Soviet Pacific Fleet that had now been largely taken over by Transbaikal - winning a landslide victory over the new 'Svoboda' (Freedom) and 'Cadet' (Constitutional Democratic) parties headed by Ivan Ilyin and Vladimir Nabokov respectively; both former Emigres. The Republic of China too began restoring order in it's war torn country through the military leadership of Chiang Kai-shek who - after the United States ordered all Japanese forces in China to surrender to the Kuomintang and not the Communists - ordered all Japanese forces in Manchuria to remain in their posts rather than surrender to communist forces closer to the region. This caused a crisis of confidence among the Japanese Kwantung army in Manchuria who were attacked relentlessly by Communist militias attempting to take advantage of the absence of any Kuomintang forces or were in many cases convinced to surrender to Communists pretending to be members of the Kuomintang. The result was a level of organised chaos in the north of Manchuria which now became divided between the Communists and Kuomintang, both of whom quickly descended back into the civil war they had put on hold following the Japanese invasion of the country in 1937. Most of the major industrial centres and military equipment held by the Japanese in Manchuria however was captured by Kuomintang forces, forcing the conflict to quickly drag into a stalemate in the north with the Communists unable to gain much ground and the Kuomintang unable to push them out of it.

The establishment of the Republic of Korea however was somewhat more complex than the Transbaikal Republic which had a constitutional base to work with from the old Far Eastern Republic - Korea had never constitutionally governed itself in the region's entire history and as such required significant stabilization and the establishment of many Government agencies. Korea would remain under the governance of the United States as a result for three years while a civil service and various basic infrastructures of the state were established before the United Nations permitted free and democratic elections. The first Korean elections would take place in May of 1948 for a Constitutional assembly to decide the new Constitution of the nation which were won heavily by the National Association for the Rapid Realization of Korean Independence. These would be followed a month after by the indirect election of the first Korean President Syngman Rhee by the assembly, establishing the country as largely independent officially. Japan too was undergoing a transformation towards a democratic state, General Douglas MacArthur having commanded forces in the Pacific and now managing the occupation of the Islands alongside the British. While many in the United States urged for the removal of the Emperor from power the British, with their longer standing and deeper relationship with the Japanese, and a segment of the US Military rejected the notion; urging MacArthur instead to focus on empowering the Japanese Parliament and reforming the Emperor's role into one of a ceremonial head of state much like many Scandinavian and European Monarchies. MacArthur, who was focusing just as much on his career as the future of Japan, accepted the idea - demanding that he meet the Emperor to judge his character which led to the legendary photograph of the General towering over the Emperor, diminishing his authority and helping the transition away from the Emperor's 'God' Status in Japan. Elections too were held later in 1946 leading to the victory of the Liberal Party under Ichiro Hatoyama in a very hung Parliament that resulted in the appointment of Shigeru Yoshida as Prime Minister and elections barely a year later in 1947 that would be won by Tetsu Katayama's Socialist Party.

In Russia however, unlike the increasingly more stable east, the situation began to rapidly unravel. Facing a vast humanitarian crisis on their western border as millions of malnourished, exhausted and injured ethnic Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs, Estonians and Latvians poured across the border at gunpoint as Generalplan Ost began to be implemented in full. The Soviet Government - already facing revolts within their diminished Military and the emergence of numerous ethnic states such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - had effectively collapsed with Soviet Premier Molotov facing unsolvable challenges he could not even begin to start to fix. The result - as with many times of questioning national survival - was the Military stepping in, or at least trying to. Georgy Zhukov, one of the most renowned and popular Generals in the Soviet Union for his various valiant defences against the Germans, staged a military uprising based from the city of Irkutsk against the Soviet Government and sought to ally his faction with the United States. Zhukov's plan however was one of desperation and if anything personal survival, himself having too few troops to actually overthrow the Government, instead leading to a long battle over the wastes of Siberia down the Trans-Siberian Railway. This would be the beginning of what the New York Times would famously label the "Balkanization of Russia" as various Military units began to take control of various areas of the country much akin to that of China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Furthermore, with no support from the crumbling Soviet Government many of the millions of refugees began to take matters into their own hands, many of them simply using their numbers to forcibly take over weapons caches in Soviet towns and villages and then occupying territories that they could then call home. The first of these rebellions taking place outside 'Das Balk' - the southern German border fortress where tens of thousands were expelled each day - when Polish and Baltic civilians seized various Soviet villages and towns, establishing a 'safe haven' state ruled by a council of various ethnic 'tribes' of peoples expelled from their homelands. Much of the world however had no real knowledge of the crisis being faced on the western Russian border - and no means of helping those who were suffering.

Europe by contrast was beginning to settle into the new realities of German domination on the continent. Three years after the war had come to a close conflict had not erupted again and the Germans had focused mainly on their own problems rather than interfering in the affairs of other states - with the exception of the Balkans and Scandinavia where they continued to control and manipulate the Governments of various states. This was especially notable in Yugoslavia which remained the sole Balkan country to resist German authority following the treaty of Stockholm. With Romania having quickly fallen into line with economic incentives and the assumption of power by Ion Antonescu's 'Iron Guard' Government under the new King Michael - who took power in a bloodless coup against King Carol who's popularity had heavily waned in September of 1940 - and Bulgaria having joined with the Axis following the fall of Greece. Yugoslavia by contrast had refused to fall in line with the Axis and remained a strong ally of the United Nations of the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Hitler - still in the mindset of conquering Europe - set his sights on how best to break the Yugoslavian state in order to legitimize a military intervention in the region by Italy, and turned to Mussolini's Croat ally to see through the process. Ante Pavelic - leader of the Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement - had long retained good relations with the Italian Duce, a fact that encouraged Germany to finance and arm the Ustaše forces that had been trained by Italy for the past few years to begin an insurgency in Northern Yugoslavia. While the Ustaše was actually very small, once their rebellion began in full with the occupation of Zagreb in May of 1944 by only a few thousand militiamen support soon began to build. This would only be further helped when during a visit to Germany to meet the Fuhrer, Vladko Maček - leader of the Croatian Peasants Party - was forced into making a public radio broadcast in support of the rebellion under Pavelic, calling Pavelic the "liberator of the croats". The rebellion soon occupied significant sections of Northern ethnic Croatia and briefly the city of Split where intense fighting rose up between the Ustaše and Yugoslavian forces. Several border crossings with the third Reich were soon established by Ustaše forces however allowing Germany to pour in equipment to support the movement without western observation or knowledge - along with small numbers of soldiers and advisors for the rebel forces which soon occupied the entire northern border of the country despite the often brutal fighting between the Ustaše and Yugoslav forces in the region. Yugoslavian King Peter II decried the conflict as an illegal pretext to invasion by Germany and Italy - correctly assessing the situation - to the UN, arguing that such an invasion would be a breach of the treaty of Stockholm and a pretext for war with Germany. This came to the United States and United Kingdom at the worst possible time - both being focused on the defeat of Japan - and thus was largely ignored, instead the allies opting to provide security guarentees to the Yugoslav Government and provide weapons and training instead; thus establshing the first real proxy conflict between the Reich and the Allies.

While Yugoslavia erupted into organised chaos, Britain too had to deal with the aftermath of the effective destruction of the homelands of Belgium and Denmark, and more importantly the consequences for their colonies and possessions. Iceland would be the first to gain total independence, being established as a nationstate in mid 1943 after holding their first elections - the Danish Government in exile having given the authority of the future of the country to the British following their nation's annexation by Germany. Greenland would however be occupied by British forces as a protected region of the British Commonwealth, as would the Congo which King Leopold of Belgium had surrendered to British control following Belgium's partition in the Treaty of Stockholm to be protected as the French were incapable of doing so with the future of the colony being either french control after a five year period or eventual independence. King Leopold III of the Belgians himself would become a King in exile in the United Kingdom, remaining in the country for as long as deemed neccessary before the liberation of his people should that day come with a pension provided for him on the behalf of the British crown. King Christian X of Denmark by contrast would become the honorary head of state of the new Icelandic nation in line with the nation's already existing monarchy as part of Denmark, and would reign from the island for the rest of his life.

France too by 1946 had adapted to it's new found situation through the proclamation of the Fourth Republic by now President Petain who through the backing of the Armed Forces and the political right established himself as the head of state by decree. This new 'fourth Republic' would be considerably more authoritarian than the last, electing a President every seven years with the power to effectively run the country via the executive in consultation with a Prime Minister that the President would appoint at his or her choosing - Petain choosing Georges Bidault. A President too could serve as many terms as they wished, allowing the theoretical possibility of a 14 or even 21 year or more administration. This gave Petain the powers he needed to restore stability to France after the turmultuous events of the early 1940's, which he deployed quickly by establishing a vast national works program to expand housing construction and industrial development to create jobs and provide basic conditions for the four and a half million Frenchmen and women who fled from the new Fascist state of Burgundy on France's eastern border. This program, labelled the 'Projet de Salut', would become a pivotal driver to Frabce's economic recovery and national awakening to their new weakened position in the face of the significantly more powerful German Reich. Even Hitler - despite disliking Petain and the French in general - was surprised and taken aback by the success of Petain's reforms and centralisation of authority behind the state, labelling the French as "Surprisingly resilient cowards". Their development too was outshining that of the Order State of Burgundy which remained a problem for German leaders throughout the war on the eastern front due to insurgent actions and administrative problems. It's economy, built on a pre-war French and Belgian industry not designed to face such a vast geopolitical change as the nation had seen, forced Germany spent significant amounts of money purchasing Burgundian goods and produce in order to prop up the local economy in the region. However despite significant problems the nation was on the track to eventual stability with the employmet of propaganda tatics and erection of monuments towards the historical rulers of Burgundy, along with various programs to encourage French-German and German-Belgian cultural mixing. The military too was re-organised into segregated division structures to maintain order by establishing seperate French, Belgian and German battalions within each division to lessen cultural and ethnic strain with language courses in German becoming mandatory with the aim to make it the sole language of the Burgundian military and eventually state as a whole.

The world had been rocked by changes of a vast magnitude, the political regimes of whole continents affected and changed forever with the rise of European Fascism, the fall of Asian Absolutism, the emergence of American Geopolitical dominance through the Manhattan project and the reform and recovery of the French State. The questions the world now faced were simple though; where would be the next battleground? what would be the future of the ideological divide facing Europe? What was the future of a now divided Russia and China? But most importantly, how would the German Reich and it's allies build it's relationship with the rest of the world in an age of conflict, neo-imperialism and most importantly; the atom. As Winston Churchill would remark; "an Iron Curtain has been drawn around Europe" and an uncertain world emerged from six years of global conflict once more.

Breakdown of Russian States
- 'The Sanctuary' headed by a council of refugees
- The Rump RSFSR headed by Vyacheslav Molotov
- The Kazakh Republic led by Osman Batyr
- The Buryatia Military District occupied by Georgy Zhukov's forces
- The Transbaikal Republic headed by President Ivan Yumashev
- The Yakut Oblast or Yakutia led by various local elders
- Various tribes that became de-facto independent after the USSR became incapable of controlling or supporting the land
- Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - all Governed by their formerly soviet leaders
- Turkmenistan which was occupied by Iran in 1943 following fears of a massive influx of refugees on their northern border.
- Mongolia which remained under Communist Governance and the Tuvan People's Republic that for now remained aligned with Mongolia and the Communists.

 

[TheReformer]

The New Reality​

The changes in Geopolitics that the 'second world war' caused were incredibly significant for how the world viewed itself ideologically, the balance of power it felt shared between nations and how the nations of the world 'aligned' themselves as such. If you imagine being the leader of a country like Siam or Sweden for example, suddenly the nations which you recognized as the world's most powerful states, those who you traded with and formed your foreign policy goals around accordingly, had been replaced by two effective secondary powers with vastly different ideological views and world outlooks to not only the last world order - but so to each other. In Europe; politicians and the general population alike trembled at the magnitude of the German behemoth, one that since the end of its wars of aggression had sat in almost perpetual silence focusing on internal security both economically, militarily and socially. In Asia; Empires of old had now all but gone with China a 'Republic', Japan an effective vassal of the west and the rest of Asia too weak to really decide what they wanted to do with themselves. In Africa; minor and growing independence movements flourished against the dismembered and weakened French state - with many of them looking across the globe to potential supporters - while they too grew in British territories, albeit at a slower pace. The Americas became suddenly all the more aware of the presence of their more powerful northern neighbor in the United States which now seemed far more keen and capable of directing countries on decisions they should take for 'mutual interest'. Overall the world order had been collapsed, and suddenly there were two relatively unknown players on the board instead.

The only man standing really was the British Empire, united in their affirmation that they must remain strong and independent and being led by a Labour Government using their minor economic boom to revitalize Britain's industry and vastly expand public services, including a free at the point of use National Health Service. Britain's position however, while not so tenuous to the people when asked, was the geopolitical equivalent of a house cat sitting patiently next to a sleeping tiger in the eyes of many of the country's leaders - though few would admit that publicly. Attlee recognized the German threat, but was safe in the knowledge however that Germany was yet to develop atomic weapons as the United States had, and now the British were doing. Britain did however have the luxury of security from their American allies with Britain and the United States remaining in an agreement to defend one another from aggression, especially German aggression, and with the States' atomic weaponry Germany would be opening pandora's box if they sought conflict. France too had an element of security by remaining under the support of the United States and UK, but equally was in a far worse military position to the UK with no sea border to protect it from aggression and a sizable but equally militarily weakened armed forces from a geographical standpoint. Germany for example being quite capable of bombing Paris with artillery shells if they wished to due to the proximity of the Burgundian border to the French capital.

Ideologically the world too was at the precipice of a political re-alignment with the forces of Communism very very much on the back foot and the ideas of Nationalism, Totalitarianism and Revanarchism on the march. On a global scale people admired the success of Hitler, he had taken control of nightmare Germany and turned it into one of the world's three dominant powers in the space of a decade, and defeated every major power bar the United States while doing so. His Influence was not limited to minor nations either, even in the United States there was a broad sentiment in favour of Germany's successful policies, especially among German Americans in the northern and rust belt states who proudly displayed themselves as ethnic Germans after many abandoned their heritage following the last great war where Germany lost. The absence of an actual war between the United States and the German Reich removing at least part of any barrier of fear, hatred or suspicion of the German Reich and it's successes. This was not however mirrored in Europe where western Europe had turned staunchly against Nazism in response to Hitler's conquests, especially in countries where his soldiers had marched their high streets. This was especially notable in the Netherlands, France and Yugoslavia - the latter still embroiled in an effective civil war between the Government and Ante Pavelic's Croat independence movement that Germany was very openly involved in. Only in Portugal, Scandinavia and parts of the Balkans was the Fuhrer admired rather than despised with Fascist movements admiring his work getting gradual but notable expansions of support over time. The Balkans however as expected was somewhat of a mixed bag on Germany's new power. Politically every state in the region was pro-German, but the people were very much not represented by their leaders. This being especially notable in Romania mainly that saw itself having gained little from Germany's new found glory other than effective subjugation and the removal of the threat of communism - a threat that seemed rather idle following the rise of Germany. Bulgaria's people however were thankful for their returned lands as they had fought for only decades before and lost, Hungary too gaining significant territories much to the applause of their people and to the gain of their own dictator Miklos Horthy. Italian Greece however remained a cesspool of revolt for Italy, facing insurgent action often and general public disobedience against the new Italian rule, the Italians being very poor at actually enforcing their governance upon their occupied territories and peoples due to general lack of military organisation or the kind of ruthlessness Germany employed in occupied territories - a matter that frustrated Hitler who was becoming increasingly impatient with his Italian 'friends'.

New realities however were not just limited to public perception and geopolitical changes, so too were they obvious to the German leadership. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US forces in 1945 launching Hitler himself into a blind rage and panic, accusing his generals and officers of having threatened the existence of the Reich and ordering the immediate expansion of the Uranprojekt through the issue of Fuhrer Directive 65 - an order directing the Reich Research Council and the Heerswaffenamt to direct all resources of the Reich towards the pursuit of atomic weaponry. Within hours the project, having previously been shelved due to the belief that atomic technology would not be important to win the war, brought together hundreds of the brightest chemists, physicists and engineers the Reich could offer to a compound in East Prussia that would become known as "Sindris Schmiede" or 'Sindri's forge' after the character of Norse mythology who forged Thor's Hammer Mjölnir. The new reality for German leadership being that they now faced a nation in the United States who, while not a direct enemy, was ideologically and politically aligned with all of the Reich's remaining foes and who had just defeated an ally to the German Reich and annihilated their empire. The Germans should not have worried to the extent that they did however as the Americans, focused on rebuilding Asia and France through the so called 'Marshall Plan', had little interest in provoking Germany despite their President's increasing distrust of the Reich. This of course had been a subject of great debate among US, French and British leaders; do we strike Germany now, hit them with our atomic weapons and ensure dominion over Europe? or does that risk too much and force us to wait? But despite the debate, the nation's leaders had chosen to avoid conflict, mainly on the basis that Germany still retained vast stockpiles of poison gas from the first world war that US and British intelligence feared would be unleashed on French towns and cities, as well as Allied troops, should a conflict erupt - not to mention Germany's still several million strong Armed Forces and advanced Jet aircraft technology. Germany did however maintain concerns, and set about trying to avoid a conflict while they sought nuclear weapons through diplomatic means. Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop was soon dispatched to Washington to attempt to woo Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, President Dewey not meeting the Nazi Minister after lobbying from the British and French Governments, to limited success. Both sides agreed to the concept of modern peace after such a bloody set of wars and expressed their concerns to one another in a reasonable and respectful manner. This being said though, little more than discussion was achieved.

The United States' main concerns that they did freely express to Von Ribbentrop were based on reports of tens of millions of Russian and Ethnically European civilians pouring into the Central Russian Steppe and Siberia, over a million of them descending southwards and flooding into Persia. The Persian Government itself having been forced to mobilize it's armed forces in response to the humanitarian crisis and set up vast refugee camps on their northern border to take in the survivors of what International observers labelled 'the March of Bones'. Germany expressed no concern over the matter, arguing that the individuals expelled from German territory were enemies of the Reich, and criminals for that matter, convicted of a host of charges from petty theft through to terrorism. This of course did not stand up well to Secretary of State Dulles who was photographed looking visibly uncomfortable and irritated during the discussions, however following Ribbentrop's response Dulles decided not to go further on the issue. Holding back information that the State Department had received from intelligence obtained by the Polish Government in Exile that millions of people were being rounded up, expelled from their homes and divided among ethnic and racial lines for expulsion, slavery and execution. Especially notable were the claims that millions of Jews had effectively disappeared from many northern European countries with reports citing them having been 'deported' from Germany via ship to the island of Madagascar which Germany had bizarrely requested during the treaty of Stockholm. Ribbentrop would leave the US in a wake of divisive headlines, newspapers claiming him to be 'the voice of tyranny' with the New York Times going further to suggest him to be the 'Messenger of Death', many of them claiming that a regime accused of committing such abhorrent acts against human beings should be an enemy of the United States and especially should run geopolitically in contrast to the ideological leanings of the GOP and President Dewey.

President Dewey, being a relentless observer of polls and the media's opinion, listened to the criticism which he found only further felt in Foster Dulles, his main policy advocate, who argued that the role of the United States in the 20th Century must be to lead the cause of freedom and protect from oppression. Foster Dulles despite his meeting with Von Ribbentrop was becoming well known among US elite circles as a vehement anti-Fascist after establishing proposals to reform the United Nations into a more military based alliance, citing the failure of the League of Nations to enforce it's will as one of the main justifications for failure of the organisation. Dulles proposals suggested the formation of a United Nations Security force, led by the UN Security Council who's permanent members included the United States, United Kingdom, French Republic and Republic of China. These proposals had come with mixed responses, mainly due to concern from the British that such a force would challenge their own ability to self-determine the use of their armed forces, a matter that was paramount to Attlee's Government due to the strength and threat of Germany. Ernest Bevan, the British Foreign Secretary, instead suggested a counter-proposal to establish a separate organisation to the United Nations itself which would remain a diplomatic organisation, as a military alliance between the western powers of the United States, France and United Kingdom with the aim of expanding the group. This would become the basis for the organisation that would be known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO. France was especially keen to get into the grouping, unlike the Republic of China who would lead to the organisation being solely focused around the Atlantic due to their refusal to commit to the alliance.

France was of course the weakest of the nations in the western allies, facing significant social and economic challenges that were being slowly addressed by the new radically right wing Government led by Petain as President. The Government had held their first national elections since the war in June of 1946 leading to the election of a majority Government under Georges Bidualt's "Union Nationale" - Petain's Governing coalition party. The party itself however, having essentially not existed prior to the war, was becoming increasingly nationalistic and somewhat totalitarian in it's outlook. American Ambassador to France Jefferson Cafferty exclaiming in a letter to the President in early 1946 that "France appears to be treading the same footsteps as Pre-War Germany in it's political re-alignment" with the Union Nationale all but banning Communism in France, banning the use of the German language except for diplomatic purposes and advocating increasingly clerical french Irredentism over the lost territories of Burgundy and Alsace. Furthermore, the economic model being established to rebuild France's broken economic system was increasingly a model of corporatism, with the state establishing a series of state industries supplied with Labour through Public Works programs and national service policies to build millions of houses, factories - of which many were to produce military goods, and other Infrastructure. This concerned the increasingly more liberal obsessed American Government and to an extent the British Government who currently governed Calais indirectly after the Treaty of Stockholm to ensure British ability to oppose any potential German invasion of Britain. Britain itself was too beginning to see the emergence of some Fascist sympathies, though on a different scale and to a different degree. Fascism itself being an ideology born out of Nationalistic obsession with the state - allowing it to become individual to every single nation it was founded in. As such British Fascism began to emerge not as 'Fascism' but as 'Beckettism' after the formation and financing of the 'British People's Party' under John Beckett after the British Union of Fascists was banned by the British Government in 1938. The BPP had campaigned on a platform in 1944 of seeking to maintain the peace with Germany and focusing on protecting the Empire from internal threats, as well as more totalitarian and nationalistic Governance of the UK aiming to expand public works programs and support King Edward VIII who had come under significant criticism during 1944 for allegations that he was continuing a long standing affair with American Divorcee Wallace Simpson. The result being that the BPP successfully broke into Parliament, along with various other minor parties taking a more nationalistic tone such as the Anti-Partition League, winning five seats. The Conservatives meanwhile regained a significant number of lost seats after the Patriot's Party essentially failed to hold the momentum against the war and the Tories they had in the last election.

The legacy of Fascism in Europe was beginning to rise rapidly from the failures of the west to defeat it, but while Fascism rose, Communism began to fall. Within months of the collapse of the Soviet Union communist movements across the globe began to lose popularity rapidly due to lacking the finances the USSR provided before the war, though this really was just an excuse, the reality being they collapsed for just the same reason the Soviets had - their ideology had been morally defeated. The loss of the only real bastion of Communism of any real importance in the world was a smashing blow to the morale of Communist advocates and supporters worldwide - how could they justify their ideology as being the most ideal for any nation to follow when the one nation demonstrating it could work was eradicated from the face of the earth in a very bloody and now costly war that would mean the suffering of millions of Russians for decades to come. Trotsky was one of the few remaining popular advocates of change, being one of the last survivors of Lenin's disciples he argued the fall of the USSR was the fault of Stalin and his cronies alone - putting forward the idea that his totalitarian and isolationist views ensured the failure of the USSR. He declared the creation of a Fourth International, this became the short term ideological buffer of the communists as they decided how to react worldwide to the loss of their only supporting state, but ultimately many just abandoned the dream altogether. Mao and the People's Republic of China continued the fight in the Chinese Republic, but starved of resources and finances even they too found themselves struggling to fight the increasingly better armed and organised Chinese Republican forces.

Overall this left the political, economic and diplomatic nature of the world changed entirely - and the new realities of this world in which Germany and the US seemed to lead, and yet oppose one another, began to become clearer to the public. It would be the actions of the leaders of each nation that would from then decide the fate of Europe, of Asia, and of the world.

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And one extra little pic for you all with credit to @Gonzo

 

[TheReformer]

Observing Siberia​

President Thomas E. Dewey
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
United States​

REPORT: State of the Siberian Migration Crisis (1946)
International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent
President Carl Jacob Burckhardt

Your Excellency,
Following repeated requests from the Persian Government and reports of the developing crisis in Central Asia the Red Cross and Crescent has obtained permission from the Soviet and Iranian Governments to support and observe humanitarian efforts in the developing crisis in the region. Following the requests of the United States Government the Red Cross and Crescent has collected and documented reports on the ongoing crisis which it seeks to outline in this report.

The crisis in Central Asia and the Russian Steppe comes as a result of a concerted effort by the Government of the German Reich to expel 'dissidents' and 'criminals' of the German state. These individuals are solely of Russian, Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, Ukrainian, Georgian, Polish and Slovakian descent. The overwhelming majority of refugees are aged between their 30's and 50's, a majority of whom are male. It is roughly estimated that around 25-30 million individuals have been expelled from the German Reich and it's occupied territories across eastern Europe since 1943 at a rate of up to 100,000 a day, this number excludes the estimated 20 million individuals thought to have perished over the last three years as a result of starvation, disease or other human factors as a result of forced migration imposed upon communities by the German Governmen. The number of deceased, while estimated based on individual accounts from refugees during transportation, does not include the estimated loss of life experienced following the exit of formerly soviet citizens from Germany.

It is estimated that once past the new German border over five million refugees have perished as a result of starvation, an additional five to seven million are believed to have perished as a result of environmental factors such as the notably harsh soviet winter and an additional several hundred thousand refugees have been killed due to rioting, attacks on Russian soldiers and forces of former-soviet entities such as the Kazakh Republic. The remaining 20 million or so refugees have largely fled unopposed east and south, leading to the well reported phenomenon known as the 'march of bones' along the coast of the Caspian sea towards the Persian state. The distance between the German Border and the Iranian border is over 600 miles - requiring around a month to traverse across harsh terrain.

The sheer influx of people into the former Soviet Union has meant that food sources have been stretched long beyond capacity in the west of the country, causing attacks upon the local populace and in many cases the deaths of desperate refugees attempting to take food from the local populace of the region. This has only been further hampered by the use of German jet aircraft to attack fleeing civilians, thus ensuring any kind of camp or settlement established in order to provide aid for the refugees has been rendered impossible. The Soviet Government however has been vaguely successful in dropping supplies and very limited aid to civillians fleeing to the east of the country as a result of US food supplies delivered via the Far Eastern Republic to the Soviet Government - this however simply encouraging refugees to flee eastwards which has led to mass influxes of refugees into towns and cities at an almost uncontrollable rate.

The few million who have successfully traversed the journey have done so largely by living off the land and occasionally receiving aid from local civilians. This has been more notably successful along the southward path towards Persia where thus far Iranian officials have received 8 million refugees, most of whom are from non-Russian descent. United States support for the Iranian Government during this time has been vital in providing some kind of future for the fleeing peoples of eastern Europe and vital in supporting the work of the IRCC in the region in a task that can only be described as humanity's largest known humanitarian disaster recorded. Persian military forces are now pushing further north into Turkmenistan to establish a buffer region between the Persian state and the fleeing masses to allow for proper registration and support services.

The result of the influx of peoples from the Greater German Reich has however not been at all peaceful with younger and more able refugees storming armories and in some cases whole military camps along the German border and arming themselves in order to obtain support from the overwhelmed and now resistant natives to the region. This has rendered the whole southern border region between the Soviet rump and the German Reich in an effective state of anarchy - a reality that has forced the IRCC to cease any operations in that region. The deployment of trains by the Soviet Government to transport refugees eastward has been paramount however in hastening the speed of the response to the crisis, the main problem now being provision of accommodation for the homeless which is slowly now being responded to through public works programs devised by the Soviet Government. The now calming civil war in the east of the country between Nationalist forces loyal to Zhukov and the Soviet rump however threatens to worsen this situation.

When approached for information about the nature of the expulsions from the German Reich the vast majority of refugees described German atrocities against the Russian people throughout occupied territories in the east. Stories of German soldiers rounding up entire villages of civilians, picking some at random and marching them off to woods or fields to be executed and then herding the remaining civilians onto trains or trucks to be put to work or expelled are common place. The psychological impact of such a crisis weighing heavily on the minds of many volunteers and employees in the field on the evacuation lines. The only available comparison to such a crisis being equivalent to the genocide and forced migration of the Armenian people from Turkey during and following the first world war. Many of the refugees speak of vast labour camps and works projects being established by the German Government designed to physically dismantle entire towns and cities brick by brick and re-purpose the materials for the construction of new infrastructure; be them roads, rail lines or basic industry. Refugees claim anyone who is 'broken' as they claim German forces describe the injured or sick in this process are 'decommissioned' through execution. Further claims also suggest German forces purposely divide up refugees based on racial and religious lines, with a significant number of reports noting that the first group to be separated from the rest are Jews who are never seen again, including in the work camps and works projects; many of them are reported to be put on trains heading south and west.

There is a noted resistance to German rule throughout the formerly Russian territories however with several refugees claiming to have heard stories of vast encampments being established in northern Russian forests and wastelands to hide from German forces - as well as of course partisan activity across the country, though it is noted that many of the claims of partisan activity are in most cases years old and due to lack of supply it is at best doubtful that such resistance remains on a significant level. German authorities regardless of the crisis either refuse to cooperate with the IRCC, with IRCC staff having been banned from the former soviet territories, or when pressed claim that individuals expelled by the German Reich are criminals. This however does not explain the occasional refugees interviewed who claim to have been sterilized by German authorities without justification or explanation, many of whom are expected to have perished following any operations or procedures and the transportation to the east that followed.

The IRCC wishes to remain, as declared throughout the several global conflicts in the last decade, an independent and impartial body on all political and diplomatic matters. However we recommend as a result of the reports filed by IRCC employees on the ongoing crisis in Central Asia that due to the German Government's unwillingness to cooperate with the IRCC during this crisis that the United States continue to provide and further expand their aid to the Soviet, Iranian and Central Asian Governments during this time. We recommend a resolution of the United Nations in support of the efforts by the IRCC and various Governments to preserve life in this crisis and urge cooperation between the Persian Government and the United States Government in responding to the influx of refugees into northern Persia - none of whom share common language or culture with the Iranian people. If the peoples of now annexed or occupied states such as the Czechoslovakian Republic, Polish Republic and Soviet Union cannot be found refuge in the United States or one of it's allies, we urge the international community to act in response to this crisis and find a homeland for these displaced peoples. The most vital request however being simple; that the world look kindly upon a people expelled from their homelands of thousands of years and give where needed.

With Kind Regards and Hope of a Brighter Future

Carl Jacob Burckhardt

 

[TheReformer]

L'héritage des Empires​

The Empires of old may today have been forgotten, but in 1946 much of the world remained under Colonial Rule of the powers of Britain and France - Empires in entirely differing circumstances but equally difficult positions. For years many nations under their control had sought independence, be it India under the British or the various nations of Indochina under the French, none however really had the capacity to get the freedom they yearned for - most occasionally protesting or rebelling and being put down by their colonial masters. Following the fall of France however this changed rapidly, French authority in the colonies momentarily collapsed and for a brief window the French lost control - but this was merely brief. The treaty of Stockholm ensured that France could not collapse entirely, even if they faced immediate challenges at home that distracted them from abroad, their grip on the empire loosened but remained firm enough to keep hold - something that Britain too experienced with the lack of any real effect on the home islands. France and Britain would further experience rapid growth of their economies following the treaty and the official peace with Germany, wealth Britain had forgotten years before the war began to return as armaments industries kicked the economy into life once again and Labour's new Nationalization policy took effect, introducing a popular new National Health Service in 1942 and nationalizing various other industries rapidly under Government control. Petain's Government too focused on turning tragedy of mass displacement of French Citizens by the Germans in the new State of Burgundy into a means of creating a land army to build roads, houses, hospitals and expand communities to accommodate for the millions of refugees flooding in from the east. More importantly however both states focused significantly on the creation of vast, expensive and powerful armies for each empire. Britain had been on the back foot militarily throughout much of the conflict with Germany and thus began a rapid military modernization and expansion, learning lessons about armed mobility from their German foes and moving on from the Great War style of conflict they had found refuge in while France, previously having had one of the largest and powerful armies in the world, learned from their failure by conscripting hundreds of thousands of young men into their own 'new model army' built in many ways directly by President Petain.

The problem for the colonies seeking freedom therefore came from the fact that these two Empires, so focused on their foe in Germany, became far stronger than one would have assumed much faster than these freedom seeking peoples would have hoped. Economic ruin could no longer break the British Empire, nor could military and political collapse the French. This was the case everywhere bar two regions, Indochina and India.

Indochina had been under the dominion of France since the late 19th Century, but the region fell for the first time into Japanese hands following the invasion of the region in July of 1942. Under Japanese rule the region turned to insurrection with a new organisation established to oppose Japanese rule and fight colonial states seeking to return French control of maintain Japan's grip on the region - this group becoming known as the Viet Minh under the leadership of Nationalist and Leninist Ho Chi Minh. The group was more of a coalition than just a communist force, containing Trotskyites, Leninists and Stalinists - all focused on the goal of independence for Vietnam and the other Indochinese nations of Laos and Cambodia. With the support of the Chinese and United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and entry of the United States into the war in the east they fought a long and hard campaign against their occupiers ending in 1945 with the total Japanese surrender following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The French however had other ideas for Vietnam, favouring a restoration of order and dispatching forces to support the British effort in the region and in Burma to re-assert control of the region from the Japanese. Japanese forces in the meantime focused on arming the Viet Minh and providing training to the force after their acceptance of impending defeat at the hands of the advancing British and French through Thailand and in South East Asia. Over 600 Japanese soldiers would be employed by the Viet Minh to train their rapidly growing army and the Japanese would further support their efforts by holding French Officials under arrest for significantly longer than Vietnamese rebels until the liberation of the region and imposition of martial law by French General Roger Blaizot who arrived in the region in September 1945. Chinese Forces of Chiang Kai Shek had initially planned to move into the region themselves and therefore take a bargaining chip against Petain's Government to retain the formerly French colonies in China, but due to the speed of French forces failed to take the initiative and instead just occupied Tianjin and Guangzhou among other French regions and refused to leave sparking a short but in the end unexciting political confrontation between the two states.

The Viet Minh however rejected any notion of French return to power and declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on August 14th 1945 in Hanoi in what would become known as the August Revolution. This revolution would be short lived however with British and French forces quickly moving to control Vietnam following their arrival in September and the Viet Minh being expelled from major settlements across the country despite their best efforts to oppose the French. Initial attempts to negotiate with the French to establish a semi-independent state and avoid conflict failed rapidly due to French unwillingness to participate and Petain's belief that French could restore order to all of it's colonies without the need for change or reform. By 1946 however the situation had collapsed further, the Viet Minh began a series of Guerrilla campaigns across the north of the country where their political control was stronger with the aim of dislodging French forces, but with a lack of Soviet support due to their national implosion the campaign was slow and ineffective for now.

India by contrast was experiencing far more success in their drive for freedom, despite the economic stability of the British Empire following 1940 the Labour Government of Attlee took a pro-independence attitude towards India following their election in 1939, especially following 1942 and Gandhi's Indian National Congress' demand for independence following the conflict with Germany. While independence was not granted to India following the demand Gandhi was not imprisoned as many Conservative observers argued he should be, instead the British Government beginning negotiations with Indian authorities for independence while the war with Japan continued. British and Indian forces bravely defended the country in Burma for years following 1941, pushing the Japanese out quickly following a sustained campaign and liberating the small occupied elements of the country allowing the debate to return to the forefront once more. Prime Minister Attlee had sent several cabinet missions to India during this time seeking to establish a consensus on how Indian Independence should be achieved, but no mission could successfully establish the best manner in which to split India for all the relevant sides of the debate. In 1946 however the INC's successful victory in 8 of the 11 districts marked a turning point, forcing Attlee to prioritize the independence of India at the top of his agenda for the first time despite his long pro-independence attitude. The Earl Mountbatten of Burma himself was appointed as Viceroy and Governor-General of India in 1946 following the elections after Attlee came to the conclusion that Viscount Wavell was no longer suited for the job, having failed to bring together the various pro-independence factions under his Viceroyalty. Mountbatten would take a much more pragmatic and direct approach, setting a clear deadline of January 1948 for the partition of the country - approved by the Cabinet much to Gandhi's disapproval - and the transfer of power. Some would argue such a deadline would be too long, however with the many studies and assessments needed Attlee was keen that Mountbatten deliver partition sensibly and without risk of violence following various eruptions of religious and ethnic violence under British rule during his term of office.

The terms of partition would eventually be decided in mid 1947 after extensive analysis of the Raj's ethnic geography and it was agreed that a new Dominion of Pakistan would be established, alongside a new Dominion of Kashmir which would be established as an independent entity to India and Pakistan in order to precede any violence over lad claims in the region by either religious grouping and protect the interests of the Sikh minority in the region. The princely states of India too were strongly encouraged to join either new dominion once established as from Mountbatten's perspective independence for such regions would be untenable, Sikkim however would become independent once independence for the various dominions was achieved. The French Government too was approached by the British and Indian authorities to seek the transfer of the various Puducherry coastal settlements to a new independent Indian state upon independence, however the nationalist French Government refused this - seeking instead to maintain control over the region post-independence along the same lines as their desire to hold onto Indochina much to the irritation of the British and United States. So too would this aggression and authoritarianism be felt in Algeria where only in 1945 thousands were massacred by French forces acting with Government permission in response to a local rebellion against their rule. Further massacres would follow between 1945 and 1948 as Petain's forces sought to crack down on any threat to the future of the French Union.

Britain and France however were now the only states threatened by their colonial subjects, the Netherlands too faced a significant rebellion in the Dutch East Indies by the nativist and separatist rebellion of Sukarno and his Indonesian Independence movement. The Dutch, not having faced any occupation at home since the German withdrawal following the Treaty of Stockholm, had been able to respond to Sukarno's rebellion relatively quickly, but nonetheless following the Japanese occupation the Dutch found themselves lacking in any forces in the local area to stop Sukarno - allowing him to seize much of Java and Sumatra, along with sections of Sulaweisi. Dutch operations quickly restored some level of order with support from the British who were hesitant to allow colonial rebellions to erupt in south east Asia during such a fragile moment. The major coastal cities were restored to order first, isolating the rebellion to in-land areas and restricting the Indonesian Government's access to trading facilities from which to gain support elsewhere or sell resources to fund the war effort. This isolated the rebellion largely to in-land areas on Sumatra with some smaller pockets across the other various islands of the Dutch East Indies and Java - it was clear at this point that the rebels were very much on the back foot.

Not so far to the North the British too were beginning the process of re-organising their only very briefly occupied Malayan provinces, beginning with the return of the White Rajas of Sarawak of the Brooke family. The Rajas, returning to Sarawak quickly following it's fall back to the British only two years after it was seized by the Japanese, returned with a force of hired men and quickly restored order - regaining authority under the British name with support of the Government under Attlee who were keen to pacify the region after the Dutch East Indies crisis. Britain further too expanded the Kingdom of Sarawak's control to govern the British Territory of North Borneo too, creating a stable administration in the region capable of opposing any nationalist movements that may occur, this further helped stabilise the situation due to the general popularity of the Rajas in Sarawak among the general populace. The world was undergoing a grand change, and those countries willing to adapt would survive - Britain would be willing to do so under Attlee.

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Hullo all, i wrote a lot of this some time ago and ngl i sense i've probably forgotten something, but hopefully i'll remember for next time! Looking forward to getting rolling again, and i apologize about the wait, busy life etc

 

[TheReformer]

An Autobiography of a Soldier of the Reich
Erich Schmitt ~ 1962​

...Chapter Four: The Horrors of Madagaskar
Aged only 21 i began my tour of duty in the first wave of the Madagaskar project in 1943, having served my country in France, and in the Russian campaign i was seen as an appropriately dutiful soldier and loyalist to the party to be chosen. I remember arriving on the island only months after the Stockholm Treaty having been employed by the rapidly thrown together 'Kolonialgruppen' made up largely of conscripts and former German African colonists from before the Great War that would be sent to Germany's new Colonial possession the French had abandoned to us. Their forces had left the island within weeks of the treaty being signed, many of them being transferred to France's other various colonies, or so we were told. The weather when we arrived was excellent on the one hand, but the wildlife a nightmare by contrast. Our Germanic attitudes were not prepared for the many geological climates of the island, the flies were a nightmare, the jungle an impossible obstacle only helped by French built roads and facilities. Our attempts to control the native islanders, all 400,000 of them, bore less fruit than initially hoped for upon arrival. Our first forces landed in the northern port of Diego-Suarez (Soareshaven) primarily along with Majunga (Majunhaven) on the northern half of the island. Our new Kolonialgruppen force arrived first, myself included, locking down control of the various major settlements across the island and restoring order along with German law by taking authority over the local native Genderamie and imposing new travel and entry restrictions to the island. Each village and town across the island was assigned squads of soldiers to enforce German rule, execute conspirators and put down criminal sentiments - the result being a lot of shootings within the first few weeks. So too were we tasked with 'locking down' the island to prevent anyone getting in or out other than through the approved lanes, those being Diego-Suarez and Majunga. Many southern and eastern ports therefore were blocked by scuppering vessels in the mouths of their harbors or had their docks literally destroyed - nobody would leave or enter the island without permission. This of course didn't stop people trying; especially British, French and American journalists who would find ways onto the island through boats or stowawaying on various German vessels to see what we were doing, more often than not getting themselves arrested and deported or in a couple of cases... 'lost'.

The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen followed a month or so later, arriving alongside several hundred German engineers, construction workers and military policemen - they would remain until 1946 when a specially formed SS Garrison under Reichsstatthalter Philipp Bouhler would replace the division. Initial tasks were to expand the various air facilities abandoned by the French after they seceded the island to the Reich, primarily the airport at Majunhaven which would be used to base a small Luftwaffe detachment of primarily scouting aircraft, some fighters and ground attack aircraft. These quickly became vital as the other workers began to rapidly expand the port-capacity of Soareshaven and the 7th SS began the process of 'evacuating' the native population on the northern half of the island south. While some would go willingly it soon became clear that many of the natives for one didn't understand why they were being moved, a problem primarily stemming from the lack of translators for their various tongues, and thus the SS simply resorted to their tactics used throughout the war in Europe - expelling them forcefully. While i was part of the initial landing force and didn't participate in the maneuver of the natives the stories i heard often that the bodies began to pile quite high after a short period of time. Reichsstatthalter of Madagascar and SS commander Artur Phelps chose instead therefore to take a more aggressive occupation approach, establishing large holding camps on the central plains of the island in which natives who did not comply with the German commands would be held, and many executed. This quickly led to several towns, especially in the less occupied and controlled south, expelling their German administrators and police force - an act that pushed Phelps to use his small air fleet to bomb the towns and villages and launch armed assaults upon them, in most cases wiping out all occupants of the smaller villages and interning the rest. The SS completed the process with brutal efficiency - it should be noted that by the time i left the island those camps were empty and being dismantled, but the natives had long passed.

That was the first year and a half or so, by 1943 much of the island was quelled - resistance remaining in the jungles of the eastern coast mainly with most of the north, west and south totally under SS control. Many thousands had been killed while the SS fought the natives with a few hundred Germans also being killed in the cause, however by November 1943 Soareshaven had succeeded in developing the naval capacity to hold significant numbers of war vessels and more importantly transport vessels in port. This was when the real project began - the task directed upon us by the Fuhrer himself, though through Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler of course so as to not tie the Fuhrer to the operation. A series of outposts were established around the central, western and northern sectors of the island in each native village and town, these facilities would act as policing hubs for the SS forces that would remain on the island while the several million Jewish settlers would be transported to the island. The Government planned on removing all Jews from Germany, the occupied territories, and the territories of Germany's various vassal states. Only Italian held territories would not be required to deliver their Jewish citizens as Mussolini refused to be pushed around by the Government of the Reich and thus rejected the idea out of spite.

By the end of 1945 vessels had been bringing in Jewish settlers for nearly two years. This had been harder than initially expected due to Germany's aggression against Yugoslavia through the Croatian War of Independence being largely financed, led and equipped by the Reich. This had meant the western Allies had abandoned the terms of the Treaty of Stockholm in 1944, thus no longer forcing the British to allow the Germans unmitigated access to the Suez Canal, meaning German transports were forced to depart from France rather than Gottengau (formerly Crimea) and sail around the cape here. This extended our stay significantly as the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht didn't want to return the now homesick but experienced German forces on the island, like me, before the mission was completed. At this point though there were already three million German, Danish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Belgian and Baltic Jews on the island. A series of major 'commune style' farms had been established from the now 'abandoned' villages across the island roughly focused around each village and the land surrounding it. This was a strategy stolen from the reds of all people in their collectivization plan that failed spectacularly and led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians from starvation - it is not shocking why the SS borrowed it.

Each farm was administered by Jews who the inhabitants usually elected and held several hundred or sometimes even several thousand Jewish families dependent on the facility and the size of it, these largely included people who had no idea how to farm with many being doctors, businessmen, artists and more. The SS operated as a policing force, using fear and intimidation tactics - standard operating procedure in the occupied territories of the Reich - to keep order on the island, stop any Jews attempting to leave and generally resolve disputes among the islanders. Initial estimates for how many families the island could hold suggested only a few thousand, yet now by virtually eradicating the natives of the island with only several thousand thought to be remaining in the Jungles of the east the capacity significantly increased. This failed however to stop many Jews dying on the journey, or not long after arrival due to a general lack of food, slave-ship like conditions while being transported and disease spreading rapidly among the communes. The SS always without question guarded and garrisoned this process, as they were thought to be the only force capable of condoning such an awful act being committed against a race. There too were many times when journalists would attempt to see what was happening on the journey - much easier than getting onto the Island that was now continuously patrolled by light attack vessels manned by SS soldiers to stop any vessels landing and the secrets held on the island coming to light - but while some journalists were able to see the conditions on the boats few worked out what was happening and none managed to get any photographs. The Reich made it clear throughout the process whenever someone accused them of such atrocities that such suggestions were merely Communist propaganda and many Germans - and Europeans too - simply did not believe such accusations could be true due to the brutality of them.

At the time i thought this to be merely an unfortunate reality in the struggle for Germany, only after leaving the island did i see that the deaths, the starvation, the shootings and incredibly poor administration and planing for these people were not an unfortunate reality of a necessary mission, but the intention of the SS. They aimed to allow hundreds of thousands, even millions, of European Jews to die on the island and while travelling there, their contempt for the race being so pertinent that they overlooked their humanity. It made for a more controllable populace on the island, and as one SS officer veteran of Madagaskar would put it in a bar in Berlin after my tour of duty on the island "the more die[on the island], the less we have to worry about later". As now has become clear, within a decade of the relocation beginning approx over 2 million Jews would die on or on the way to Madagaskar - and to this day there are no known Jews east of the German border with France and the Netherlands in Europe, It may never become clear how many died on the island itself either. Instead an entire race of what is thought to have been eight million people have been expelled from their homes of centuries to an island on the other side of the globe - an island on which many still remain to this day. I left Madagaskar in early 1947 for the last time, returning home to my family after a five year tour of duty and never really spoke of my actions or what happened there again on the pain of being dragged away in the night by the Gestapo. I am glad that now i am here, in the United States, i can document all that happened there, and hope that the island now may have a better future - my only consolation to those harmed due to my participation is that i wish i had never gone...

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Disclaimer: As with my previous disclaimer on a past post - i aimed to write this in a critical manner as frankly the plans used by the Nazis for the final solution AND the Madagascar were disgusting and would have been a disaster for the Jewish people in a manner unworthy of celebrating. This therefore is another post designed to display what horrors these people may have had to go through if this plan had been implemented. This is one of the last Holocaust related posts you will find in this TL. As with the previous disclaimer - i wholeheartedly and utterly abhor antisemitism and holocaust denial and this is a work of fiction aimed at exposing the horrors of such plans.

 

[TheReformer]

Thor Swings​

The scientists in Sindris Schmiede deep in the forests of East Prussia had a significant advantage in their vast resources committed to the Uranprojekt - while the United States had built the bomb first it was actually Germany that began looking into how they could build one long before the US. Thus while the German Reich was behind the US in atomic technology, they were not absurdly far behind - catching up would be easy. Following Fuhrer Directive 65 instructing all available resources to be thrown at nuclear technology the Reich Research Council had been able to take data gathered from intelligence missions to the United States, along with what they already knew from years of tests on an individual but collaborative level by hundreds of German professors, engineers and academics and put it all together. The result would be that after only just over a year of development the German Reich was ready to test their first ever nuclear weapon - a bomb that the scientists in Sindris Schmiede affectionately named "Garmr" after the guard dog for the gates of Hell who once released would begin Ragnarok. The United States by contrast had a much less intriguing name for the weapon "A-1" or "Adolf-1" as their designation named of course after the Fuhrer. While US forces had not been able to observe or measure the development of the Nazi weapon they had been able to use small pieces of information gathered from local spies or very reluctant informants in the program personally opposed to such a weapon. It did however come as a surprise to them quite how fast the Germans developed their own nuclear weapon in 1946 when on October 19th sources from the Finnish Government informed the United States that what was assumed to be a large explosion had been felt by soldiers on the Finnish-German southern border. The US quickly began to follow radiation debris through a small team of social forces experts armed with radiation detectors inserted into northern Germanic Russia in secret, one advantage of Russia being largely anarchy excluding the Germans and with no RADAR equipment to detect aircraft. It was quickly established that Germany had in fact carried out a nuclear test successfully, leading to President Thomas E. Dewey delivering his famous address to the American people stating "We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the German Reich - and with it our world enters a new period of it's history".

The weapon was the brain child of Werner Heisenberg, Paul Harteck and Kurt Diebner who were the leading proponents in the Nazi search for atomic weaponry. The Bomb itself was remarkably similar in nature to the US 'Little Boy' bomb using the 'Gun' Assembly method with a yield of around 15 Kilotons of TNT, and upon it's successful testing several were put into immediate production. What nobody expected however was what would happen next.

The rump USSR had for some time now been embroiled in a state of civil war as factions broke away, states declared independence and in one case a General, Georgy Zhukov, decided the country was doomed and began a military rebellion against the leadership of the country. They had been subjected to aerial attack by German jet aircraft and bombers for years following the end of the conquest of western Russia to such a degree that while many Russian forces could still operate on and defend the border with Germany, fixed assets and facilities remained constantly under threat from attack. Villages and Towns in Russian Siberia and the Steppe experienced often weekly or even daily attacks as the Luftwaffe attempted to break the Russian spirit and resolve for good and execute as many stragglers expelled from or escaping the Reich. The Russian spirit however was largely already broken, Molotov led a Government that had barely any legitimacy, money or backing on the world stage. The Kazakh had broken free years ago and now ran their own steppe republic, the many minor Turkmen and Central Asian republics had drifted away as a result of Soviet inability to help or direct them and the Far Eastern Republic of Transbaikal established by the United States after the fall of Japan presented a block to the USSR for receiving aid from the east due to American disinterest in getting involved in such a chaotic theatre. The result of course was Zhokov gaining a lot of traction, his forces having based themselves in Irkutsk before marching west to Novosibirsk - the new capital of the RSFSR. Zhukov and Molotov's forces battled constantly in a conflict reminiscent of the Chinese Civil War or some kind of Middle Eastern conflict - both sides would throw a lot of armed men at one another with some light armour, often with little ammunition, and try to take towns and villages off one another. The result being that after now several years of conflict the forces of Zhukov's Military Regime in the east was slowly but surely approaching Novosibirsk due to agreements signed with President Admiral Yumashev of Transbaikal supporting Zhukov with equipment - much to the irritation of President Dewey of the US.

Penned between Zhukov in the East, Germany in the West and the hostile Kazakhs in the south Molotov's position was very untenable, but such a position would not matter for long. On October 30th 1946 Hitler signed Fuhrer Directive 82 and within a day one of the world's largest ranged bombers was launching from Das Bassenheim towards Novosibirsk. The aircraft was a jet powered bomber the Germans had designed to cross the Atlantic in the case of a war with the United States named the Heinkel 227. Today it would be used for a separate purpose, after receiving escort for a significant distance past the Russian border and their limited air defences the aircraft appeared over the city of Novosibirsk when it dropped the first German nuclear weapon used in anger against an enemy. Needless to say the Russians, with little air defences - none of which capable of catching the bomber - and almost no warning about such an attack were caught by surprise and within minutes the city of Novosibirsk at the heart of the former Soviet Union was reduced to glass, dust and fire.

​

The bombing took the world by surprise, especially among US leadership who did not expect the Germans to actually use nuclear capability against such a defeated foe. The capital had been home to around 2mn inhabitants, the vast majority of them refugees from the west living in rapidly thrown up cinder block style homes that were pushed over in the nuclear wind stage of the explosion as if they were sandcastles. The official Russian Government report would suggest around 500,000 were killed in the initial blast and the following days with hundreds of thousands injured as a result of the bombing, the death count including Premier Molotov who was said to be working in the Opera and Ballet Theatre that the Government had commandeered for ministerial purposes in 1944. In an instant the Soviet Government, already on the verge of chaos, was decapitated with few alternative leaders. On the horizon though Zhukov was waiting, the fighting stopped almost in an instant as soldiers on both sides looked at the bright star in the distance burning and while neither side advanced within a day the Soviet forces knew what had happened. In an instant the broken Soviet militia gave in to Zhukov as he personally advanced under the banner of truce, the forces of the two sides unified and marched on the capital now in ashes and began treating and receiving survivors. A new chapter in Russian history had been opened.

In Washington the President and his cabinet knew of the attack within a day, such an act of violence driving him to once again address the American People. Some wished to label the attack an act of war criminality or a crime against humanity, Dewey however knew better. The US had themselves used nuclear force only a year before, though in much more morally justifiable circumstances. No, this would require a more tactical approach. The US Government had for some time now considered Germany a foe that must be opposed, this would be Dewey’s justification...

“My fellow Americans, for over a year now the world has known a new age - the atomic age. An age where we cannot be sure of our future, our security or even the survival of our civilisation. But while we as a people may face these concerns as merely uncertainties, there are others no different to us who face a very real and very harsh reality. The reality of being unable to return to your home. The reality of living in a nation where you are not human. The reality of facing death not for your actions but for your race, your heritage or your faith.

Not three hundred years ago many came to what became our nation out of the same fear of persecution. Persecution that in many cases, as with the Russians, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Czechs forced from their homes by German guns, could mean death if they chose to remain. Last night the German Reich demonstrated their will to use those guns even when those people have already been pushed from their homes when the German Reich authorised the use of an atomic weapon on the city of Novosibirsk - the capital of the Soviet Union.

There was no military gain here, the Soviet Union no longer poses any threat to the German Reich - this was an unjustified and unmitigated act of violence against a defenceless people taken out of hatred by a regime built on that hatred. By coming to America our ancestors sought the freedom to live as they wish, they sought to protect one another's right to do so by working together to create the nation they deserved to live in. It is our duty in this generation to use the legacy of their success to create the world that everyone deserves to live in, a world free of the persecution that states such as the German Reich feel obliged to project.

That is why this evening the United States Government shall abide by a new code, a new conduct, a new doctrine. One that aims to follow the footsteps of our forefathers and restrict the reach of tyranny wherever we see it.

We see a tyranny here, and we shall restrict it.

It was from this point that the Dewey Doctrine would be adopted - or as it would become known as unofficially; containment. From this moment on it would become a strategic imperative of the US Government to contain the German Reich from it's aggressive and militaristic actions, as well as undermine pro-German sympathies among the nations of the world. This importantly though however does not entirely focus on suppressing Fascist movements, Fascism of course primarily focusing on the strength of individual nations and not linking multiple states together ideologically as Communism would. For this reason some Fascist states could even come to support the United States in order to ensure the survival or strength of their own state over the Nazi German Reich.

Until today the United States had offered Marshall Aid support for only the Asian states involved in the Japanese American War 1941, now that policy would change. In order to contain German Aggression the State Department changed their tack, instead seeking to get on side all European states by essentially buying them off. Within months Spain, France, Turkey, Portugal, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden were all receiving Marshall Aid. Spain was the especially pivotal figure within the process as excluding Italy the Spanish Regime of Franco was the closest friend Germany had in Europe. So too was Turkey who was constantly being approached and negotiated with by the German Reich to take some of the Caucasian lands off German hands in exchange for Bosporus straight access and military cooperation with Germany. By closing the straights the United States sought to restrict German access to the Mediterranean - a German strategic goal they would not quickly abandon. Many of these states would also begin the process of signing up in principle to the North Atlantic Treaty which Secretary of State Dulles was keenly establishing with the aim of launching in 1947. Turkey, along with Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain were all however hesitant to register interest for such a proposal due to how clear their German ambassadors made it with their Governments that this would not be acceptable.

France by contrast was all too keen to sign up. In fact Petain and his increasingly nationalistic Government were prepared to gamble their position with Germany on it by announcing their intention to ratify the treaty along with a new doctrine of Foreign Policy. What would become known as the Darlan Doctrine, after the French Foreign Minister Francois Darlan, totally amended France's stance towards Germany from hesitant and neutral to openly hostile. The doctrine outlined French claims on Burgundian territories, the intention of the French Government to one day retake such territories and the intention of the French Government not to host German representation through a national embassy or permit trade with the German Reich. This dramatic shift was not approved by President Dewey or Secretary of State Dulles, and single-handedly linked the United States to this same doctrine. This immediately forced the State Dept to row back on their position, advocating that they did not recognise France's claims due to the legally enforced and signed treaty between France, the UK and Germany at Stockholm. It would be this kind of poor coordination that the US would be determined to iron out in the future as they began to for the first time take global leadership while Germany, powerful but not influential, sat in the corner unaware of their rapidly worsening position on the geopolitical stage.

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US House and Senate Elections 1946

 

[TheReformer]

Treaties and Tributaries​

President Dewey's words about a new era were not meaningless, the US did genuinely see a strategic threat in the German Reich. The nation was not a threat due to some kind of global ideological struggle, Fascism was almost entirely defined by the nation in question and as such even fascist groups in neighbouring countries could often find themselves mortally opposed to one another due to past irredentism or just a disliking of the other state. Fascism ideologically was therefore pretty ideologically malleable for the United States, after all they had worked quite willingly with dictators before, it was merely very unstable and unpredictable. The threat however was more one of geopolitics and even morality, after all for a very long time the US had been a highly isolationist and inward looking state that stuck to it's views. The US wanted to take a hold of it's new position, it wanted to lead and create the kind of world that it viewed as desirable; one based on freedom, liberal trade and democracy - if anything the ideologically driven power in this contest was the US. Germany by contrast represented a platform of pretty much everything the US was actively trying to remove from the world; a nationalist, authoritarian, autarkic state that actively sought to break international law or at least subvert it whenever possible. The US furthermore disliked Germany on a moral level, while it's people initially were entirely oblivious to or even uninterested in the realities many the persecuted peoples of the Reich faced daily they had seen the harrowing images recorded by journalists and photographers of the consequences of German racial policy and were disgusted by it. The US therefore found itself seeking two strategic goals towards Germany;

1. Weakening it's military capabilities so it could not subject itself upon any further nations of Europe or anywhere else for that matter.
2. Demonstrating it's ideological failure compared to Democratic or Liberal systems by exposing it's collectivist and hateful nature.

Hitler himself had a very different - if slightly unrealistic - world view. Hitler had long argued that throughout history there had been a series of world powers and challengers, all vying for control and authority either on a regional or a global level and leading to winners and losers who would come and go due to the consequences of their actions or other often racial effects. He saw Britain as one of these powers, strangely under the belief that the country had become 're-germanified' over and over again through the viking invasions that led to it's conquest of the sea. He saw the US as a challenger that he had long believed the UK would put in it's place, almost thinking it was about to happen in the 30's during the Anglo-American tensions started from Lindbergh's crash in Canada. He now however believed Britain's day had come and gone, sure they were still a power but their time on top had ended and the only way from there was down. He saw Germany as the next worthy heir to Britain, and America it's competitor for the role of world superpower - but he failed to recognise why countries fell behind these world powers. He believed in geopolitical darwinism, the idea that the stronger a nation the less it can be ignored - and thus he saw Germany with it's slowly growing fleet, undefiable Army and battle hardened Luftwaffe as an unstoppable force that would put nations of Europe in their place, with make them kneel. He had seen this happen with Britain and France's surrender in 1940, he had seen it happen in Russia where his armies swept the soviets aside, but all these events were merely luck and happenstance that did not actually lead to a certain German global resergence. He failed to see that Britain attracted power throughout the 18th and even 17th centuries not because it conquered all, though some conquest did help, but because of a combination of factors. It was a major economic power for one - a state that could support any nation it chose to and as such became a great friend to many nations across the world. Germany by contrast could trade in pretty much weapons, steel and some other resources and manufactured goods that were not either being used by the internal markets or seen as a strategic resource Germany needed to build the thousand year Reich. They had no real capital to provide to other states, but by contrast the United States had capital aplenty.

Germany too was weak on a strategic level economically. It was still, despite attempts to become self-reliant, dependent on it's tributary states in Romania and the Baltics for many of it's resources, and furthermore it was dependent on nations such as Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Iran and Sweden for other vital imports that kept it's economic war machine running. Furthermore militarily the Reich was threatened on all sides, from the irredentist French to the west and the British in the North Sea to the livid and vengeful Russians to the east it was faced by enemies that didnt just wish their nation's weakening or submission - but their destruction. The United States recognised this and sought actively to exploit it; Marshall aid would empower the French on Germany's border by stabilising their fragile economy, along with bring in neutral states like Portugal to the side of the US in exchange for limiting exports to the Germans. The US's real interest though was cutting off Germany's oil and limiting their state run economy that way. Sure they had the Caucus oil fields but exploiting them had become increasingly more difficult - a vast set of oil pipelines were nearing completion through slave labour from the region to Germany's heartlands but this came under constant attack or threat by russian partisans led by Laverntiy Beria in the mountains and thus Germany relied on the Romanians and more importantly the cordially friendly Iranian Government.

Iran of course had their own major problems; and many of them the consequence of Germany's actions, the primary one being the refugee crisis. Representatives of Iran and their new Shah, the US, UK, Republic of China, Russia and other British dominions therefore met in Tehran in October of 1946 to discuss the future of the now nearing 9mn displaced peoples in Iran. So far they had survived on western aid to Iran and vast food imports, but a permanent solution was needed and the Iranian Government was getting anxious as social upheaval and the indirect consequences of such mass migration became clearer to their population.

Several of the issues would be simple to solve, the Russian people displaced in Persia were asked to go home with the US diverting Marshall aid away from the Transbaikal Republic to Russia to begin rebuilding there. Furthermore it was agreed that the US and UK would begin training and lightly arming Russian forces due to the unanimous agreement by representatives that German interference in Russia had gone too far. Behind the scenes of course though the real reason was that by pressuring Germany in the east it alleviated threats to the British in the west, and by giving Russia some hope of retaking land in Europe it meant they invested against Germany rather than turning elsewhere for land - a primary concern of the Chinese who feared the Russians may give up on Europe and help themselves to Manchuria instead. Russia did however in exchange for such support essentially give up Mongolia to the Kuomintang who would send a cavalry division to establish a puppet regime there in early 1947. Furthermore an easy agreement was to continue funding and supporting the Iranians and continue the Central Asian corridor from the German border to support the flight of these expelled peoples.

By contrast agreement on the future of these peoples currently in Iran who were not Russian was much harder. There were millions of largely male, incredibly traumatised and angry Poles, Balts and Czechs in the country, along with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians with even more Ukrainians in Russia proper. The problem was this kind of geopolitical situation had never really been experienced on such a vast scale, sure the Armenians had been supported during the genocide by the Turks during the Turkish War of Independence, but that was only a few hundred thousand people that needed re-homing. This was millions of people who now had lost their country, a normal event in global politics by historic standards, but furthermore had no been totally expelled from their continent altogether. These people essentially had no homeland, nor a state - even if Governments in exile in Stockholm and London insisted otherwise.

The Ukrainian problem was solved first - US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had long been aware that Russia had always remained a threat to US supremacy in the Pacific, now with the demise of Japan the US had effectively removed any threat to it's dominance in the region bar the Republic of China who currently had basically no naval capacity or any fleet that could threaten the US to speak of. Dulles, who's brother had been president for a year only a few years ago due to the deaths of both President Willkie and the Vice President, wished to retain this status quo. The US had established the state of Transbaikal for this purpose, however the need for such a state and more importantly the justification for it was rapidly slipping away from the US's hands as increasingly protests against the democratic Government of the state demanded rejoining their motherland - a decision that Transbaikal Premier Ivan Yumashev was in favour of anyway. So instead Dulles proposed merging the two states back together again, but with a catch. For a long time during the Russian Civil war it was thought a new state would emerge in the east based in Vladivostok; the state of 'Ukraine in the Far East'. The basis for this was the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who had migrated to Outer Manchuria following Russia's seizure of the land in the 1800's. In some areas Ukrainians had at the time represented a majority of the population, this of course had adjusted over time but Dulles wished to take advantage of this context to America's advantage. He proposed establishing a state of Ukraine to span along the eastern side of the Amur River - a new homeland for the millions of Ukrainians in Russia and Iran to call their own, and one that would ensure Russian dependence on this new state for easy access to the Pacific for all of it's trade, as well as a convenient blocker to Russian expansion in the Pacific.

The British and Chinese were pro this measure, China thought it a good way to block Russia from expanding in the region and contain them should they give up on the west. Britain thought it a good solution to ensure no social infighting among the Russian and Ukrainian populations now amalgamated in Russia. The Russian provisional Government under Zhukov was vehemently against it, but not really in any position to make demands. They for one didn't own the land, secondly could not take it due to the presence of a small American garrison in Transbaikal and lastly were more in need of financial support to shore up Zhukov's new regime than a bit of land in the Pacific. They eventually conceded, agreeing to the measure on the terms that they got the Pacific Fleet back, or at least most of it minus some destroyers for Ukraine, along with guarantees of trade access through the country, rights for their citizens there and all the land outside Transamur back for their 'new' Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with the rest of the USSR out of the fold. With that Dulles had redrawn the map of Asia once again and moved millions of displaced Ukrainians to the far east.

The Poles, Balts and Czechs were far harder to deal with however. Nobody had a clue where to put them. Some kind of mass refugee acceptance quota would be way too much for most western nations to handle, only really the US could accept such a vast migration of people - and even then it would stretch their social security net and require a pretty big expansion to the housing program. Britain could too accept some, Poland for example had a lot of nationals already in the United Kingdom - and the country's economy was riding pretty high due to the post-war rearmament, even if it's growth was slowly reducing. Other British dominions too could be pushed or even were rather keen to accept some of the burden, two major candidates being Canada and South Africa - the former wanting to fill up their vast territories with some economically productive citizens and the latter wanting to re balance the racial divide in the country. The reality though was that while these countries could take some of the burden many of these people needed somewhere else to go, be that a new state of their own or some other system that accommodated for such a mass migration. Britain had initially suggested some kind of Balfour style proposal of relocating most of these people to new refuge states built out of Colonial East Africa in places like Kenya and Uganda. This however was not a very sustainable solution, nor would it do much good for the people of the region, many of whom would have to be expelled from their native lands with the possibility of inciting later sectarian and racial violence - many feared this may well just instead incite some kind of rebellion. The resulting agreement however took a pragmatic approach to the problem, the US would agree to take one million of the nine million refugees to be selected based on a lottery of interested members of the community. The UK would further take half a million mainly poles selected in a similar manner with a weighting for individuals with family ties already in the UK, with a further half a million going to South Africa and another three hundred thousand going to Australia. Britain too agreed to home a further two hundred thousand in the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong with Iran agreeing to keep some of the more skilled citizens within their borders if anyone expressed interest - few did. The several million remaining however would be transported to new colonial style city states along the East African coast; cities such as Dar es Salam and Mombassa. These cities would be substantially expanded with the aim of establishing them as trading hubs of East Africa through vast investment into port facilities to export goods from the British colonies in the region that later were expected to gain independence within a few decades.

The Cities would be dubbed by the western press as the 'United Nations Protectorates' due to the UN commitment to the new mini states, all of which would be considered independent entities within a greater federation of East African city states managed and administered by the UN. Each city would establish it's own constitution, with the current native inhabitants having the choice of financial reimbursement for their property or the right to remain in these cities as citizens. They would then elect representatives according to their constitutions which were expected to make accommodations for a representative leader of each city state to sit on an overall council of the federation headed by the UN Secretary General until 1956, after which the UN made no clear commitments towards the future constitutional arrangements of the federation. This was seen as a good balance by the allied powers as it meant that while the west would accept some refugees it would not be an overwhelming flood, and the rest could still be established in a safe and secure environment in which they could be allowed to manage themselves from a distance with western support militarily and financially. Really though it was just seen as the only sensible solution to a problem that had been inconceivable only a few years before.

Germany's reaction could be summed up largely with a shrug, while the west - especially the US - furiously condemned them for causing such a disruption to the global order they did not actually care. Their people for the most part did not know or did not care about what their state had done and thus nobody in Germany held their Government's actions to account, especially as the various foreign representatives of Germany would just come out and label these accusations as exaggerations or merely the state disposing of criminals who threatened Germany's future. Germany was more concerned about the hidden stipulations of the convention however, those that essentially embargoed Germany in all but name. The US did not really want to be seen as warmongering, so instead they simply went into the background to get countries like Iran to just stop trading with Germany altogether, slowly but surely strangling the country's access to the vital resources it desperately needed to maintain it's recovering but still ailing economy. This was potentially nightmarish for German foreign policy advocates such as von Ribbentrop who held furious discussions with Hitler about where Germany could go from here. As far as he was concerned, being one of the more 'moderate' old guard Prussians within the German Government, the state was alienating a world which it still relied on - and becoming isolated despite Germany's sole strategic aim for the last eighty years being one of breaking out of it's European shell. Hitler recognised this, but still believed that given time the world would come to accept Germany's newfound strength, and thus largely ignored Ribbentrop's concerns. He did however decide that Germany's strategic goal of taking authority over the Balkans needed rapid advancement so it could gain full access to the Mediterranean and threaten British and French holdings there. He therefore issued a new Fuhrer directive on November 1st 1946...

 

[TheReformer]

*Just as a side note in case anyone's interested, Russia under Zhukov is still the RSFSR - thus if i refer to it as Russia thats because it's literally just that - Russia. The USSR has dissolved, but Zhukov's Government simply claims to be the rightful heirs of the Soviet system.
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To Kill a King​

Yugoslavia had firmly ignored the Axis throughout Germany's rise to power. It's armed forces had always been inherently anti-German, and this over time had become only more accentuated as Germany brought Yugoslavia into the war in 1939 and then demanded massive territorial concessions at the Treaty of Stockholm despite the Yugoslavs largely holding their lands from German advances. The country however as a result of this geopolitical view found itself in a very difficult and dangerous position. It had a rebellion in it's north of Croats who had long despised their membership of the state, a rebellion propped up and in their view probably started by the Germans anyway. They had a young King who had taken power during a time of increasing Republican sentiment, of a nation who was surrounded by enemies on literally every side of them, be that the Romanians, Italians, Germans or Bulgarians - many vying for another 'piece of the pie'. They did however have the advantage of their friend in the west; Britain after all was in a pretty good place; their economy was strong, their armed forces small but technologically advanced and fully equipped with excellent standards of training - more importantly though their navy was unquestionably better than any German ally. The French were recovering fast now that their displaced population from German areas had re-settled in new areas of France or even Algeria as some 300,000 Frenchmen did of the several million displaced. France's economy had responded well to Petain's National Recovery program with public works programs producing over two million new homes across the country, many in the south, between 1941 and 1945 - roughly 600,000 a year. A series of new Highways had been constructed following ironically enough the German model, the army had been recovered with new blood being injected into the higher ranks and new tactics adopted, along with new and more advanced equipment that put France in contention with Germany - at least as a threat. Yugoslavia by contrast had been given no real time to react, they had been allowed just over three years of peace before Hitler turned on them again, unleashing the Ustashe upon the country and establishing strong links with various terror groups across the country that Germany took to use often and in damaging events - the most notable taking place on November 14th 1946.

King Peter II had removed his uncle years before due to his leniency with Hitler, and so far he had been a relatively good King, garnering much support among the population. It was a shock to the country then when a man stepped out in front of the King's moving vehicle in Belgrade on his way to the local airport and detonated a high explosive in front of the King's car in one of the first major suicide bombing attempts. Peter survived the initial explosion, the car did not however - nor did the driver and a bodyguard in the front. He suffered severe injuries to his chest and left arm however and was rushed to hospital quickly following the attack where he died of his wounds four days later. His family had not been with him at the time and thus succession went to his son Alexander, aged one, plunging the country into chaos and uncertainty. Hitler's Fuhrer directive issued only days before had resulted in Yugoslavia losing it's symbolic figurehead, at the hands of what was believed to be a Croatian nationalist bereaved during the war. The Germans now acted swiftly.

Within hours the Ustashe were on the offensive for the first time in months, pushing hard against Yugoslav troops who counter attacked in the early hours of the morning along the Hungarian border. They had gotten used to the Ustashe tactics and had regained the upper hand in the war months before, pushing back the rebels in many areas and recovering lost towns and villages rapidly during the summer of 1946 before the conflict bogged down again due to the Germans flowing in volunteers and arms. The Yugoslav commanders in the region however were surprised when the Hungarian Government emerged the next morning furious at the Yugoslavian Government and claiming that artillery shelling had landed in the small Hungarian village of Doroslovo, killing several families. Hungary demanded apology and compensation for the attack, but was faced with accusations of a fabrication of the attack instead and insults from the paranoid and disorganised Yugoslav Government. Hungary therefore announced that it would take a police action along the Hungarian-Yugoslav border into the northern regions of Croatia to quell violence and establish a buffer between the conflict and their borders - importantly noting that they would intervene in both Croat and Yugoslavian Government occupied areas. The Yugoslavian Government however refused to recognise the Hungarian actions and ignored attempts by Hungary to begin dialogue, so when Hungarian forces crossed the border in the late evening of November 20th they fought back hard. Several hundred Hungarians were killed in the fighting with artillery damaging the border area of Hungary significantly. Yugoslavia however had inadvertently played into Germany's hands in their moment of political crisis as the Hungarian Government withdrew and instead requested German support to stabilise the region. Germany invaded only hours later.

The hardened veterans of the eastern front easily overran the Yugoslavians who had no counter to German ME-262's and German jet bombers in the skies, nor their overwhelming numbers and military experience. Within six days Belgrade and much of the country had fallen to the German onslaught, Ustashe militiamen marching into Bosniac towns and cities and northern Serbia alongside the German forces before committing atrocities on a massive scale against the Serbs. The invasion had been swift, and decisive. Germany now had total control of the Balkans.

The only downside for the Reich was Italy's response. Having laid claim to the Dalmatian coast decades before Mussolini was furious when Germany flat out refused to discuss any kind of territorial concessions to Italy, and was more irritated that he was not even told of this plan. Instead Germany established the new Croatian Government in Zagreb, headed by Ante Pavelic of the Ustashe, and redrew the boundaries of Yugoslavia to expand Bulgarian control in the south and Romanian control in the north in Banat. Yugoslavia itself was put under a military administration which Germany justified as being a temporary peacekeeping measure - something they also claimed to do in Croatia despite Pavelic clearly being given the reigns on the ground. The Ustache were busy rounding up Bosnians and Serbs, deporting or executing them and committing heinous war crimes against the local population of Bosnia as they attempted to carve out a solely Croat state in the region and expel the Serbs inland - in some cases even shocking the SS and Himmler with their brutality.

Initial reaction in the west to the invasion was not really shock, this had been expected for some time - though Germany had delivered it with more finesse than expected. The fact that the British Cabinet took the news with so little surprise actually was more surprising to them - only a few years before a nation acting in a comparable manner would have been shocking beyond all comprehension. The US Government though was quite new to Germany's belligerent actions and how to respond to them and arguably got ahead of themselves. They first accused Hungary of inciting violence by carrying out an illegal invasion of Yugoslavia - a matter that did not come across well when the Germans then proceeded to produce vast and very compelling propaganda footage from the village of Doroslovo that had been shelled days later and filtered it out to their global friends in the media. The US then accused, quite rightly, Germany of invading Yugoslavia illegally, as they did, but was shouted down by the while of course biased allies of Germany who while allies of the Reich did still have a say on the world stage. Every neighbour of Yugoslavia backed the German decision, the voice with the most weight being the King of Romania, Michael, who had become King in 1940 following the abdication of his elder brother Carol II. As the head of a globally respected Government with relatively significant independence from Germany his nation's backing for the German decision did make some at least consider slightly that Germany may have taken the right action - but the US Government was having none of that. President Dewey and Secretary of State Dulles immediately called for admittance of US Observers into the country and a bi-lateral discussion with Germany, Yugoslav and Croat authorities with the US over the future of the country. Germany refused, instead labelling the Americans as being bigheaded and interfering in areas that do not concern them - a line that struck a chord with the Spanish and Italians who were becoming increasingly irritated by American interference in Africa and, in Spain's case, in Portugal. Thus while the US could have further divided the Italians and Spanish from German influence, instead they drove the bloc closer together.

The British instead took a more cautious tone, they condemned the invasion but accepted that the conflict in Yugoslavia had gotten out of hand. They argued that Germany's rapid invasion was evidently prepared in advance or else they would not have been able to execute a police action so quickly, but they were willing to level criticism against the Yugoslav Government for not accepting Hungarian intervention in the conflict - or at least discussing the matter with the Hungarians. Of course Hungary knew that the entire bombing of the village had been fabricated, as did Germany, but they went to every effort to ensure the world press believed otherwise - so far as to invite American journalists to the scene where they were presented with clear evidence by Hungarian soldiers showing the remnants of Yugoslavian army shells and the damage to the settlement. As far as the rest of the world, and even the public of these nations knew the Axis had done no wrong.

What was important though was that despite the criticism of Germany's actions in the world press and the condemnation of them by many Governments Hitler now had control of Yugoslavia - and thus the entire Balkans through direct or indirect means. The gateway to the Mediterranean was open, and Germany spared no time in exploiting it.

 

[TheReformer]

An Arab League​

Syria had been a 'mandate' of France for some time following the first world war, this was the consequence of the Sykes-Picot under which Britain and France divided up the middle east and carved out new empires within the borders of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. This was never how the peace process should have gone - in fact when President Wilson had imagined a world after the war in which nations were able to Govern themselves he never knew the League of Nations would simply manipulate this to allow greater control over them. These 'mandates' essentially worked on the premise that in some places countries should exist, but they were not ready to Govern themselves yet - the British and French therefore kindly looked after them until they were 'ready' despite providing little to no support for those people in terms of education or administrative training. Regardless though, the Arabs really did not like it. The British had somewhat come to terms with the idea that they were withdrawing from the region and had long planned at least roughly for it; they would establish a Jewish state in Palestine alongside a Palestinian state, grant independence to the Kingdom of Jordan and slowly grant more powers and independence to the Iraqis before their eventual break from the Empire entirely. This was largely the consequence of past commitments in the Balfour Agreement, but also a new found attitude against the existence of a vast sprawling empire held by Socialists in the Labour Party who were now Governing for the first time ever alone. France by contrast had the polar opposite policy.

Petain had taken office during a period in French history that many Frenchmen would still name their worst one hundred years later. France had not just been militarily defeated, its very character and national morale had been broken by Germany - and then shattered further with peace terms that pushed them further back territorially than they had been for centuries. Millions had been expelled or left the occupied zone and now found themselves only five years later with jobs and homes elsewhere in France or Algeria due to Petain's radical response. The character of the French people had changed, and thus demands for 'independence; to the French just felt like another loss. Why should they lose their prize possessions in Indochina, North Africa and the Middle East? Other Empires had retained theirs!

France so far had already sold away their Puducherry settlements in India, they had lost their territories in China after the Republic just walked in and refused to leave, and now there were fears of possible rebellion in Indochina after the Indonesian people rebelled against the Dutch. France felt confident however that after five years of military restoration and return to stability they were in a good position to put down the growing nationalist sentiment across the empire that they had witnessed in those five years. They had seen the Dutch response to the Indonesian rebellion and it had made them more confident, the Dutch had initially lost swathes of land, but having too been at peace with Germany for years by this point their regular forces soon arrived in the region following Japanese surrender and began throwing back the rebels. Following Operation Product in late 1946 the rebels now held barely any of Indonesia's territorial claims, and the Dutch still planned further offensives.

The French however would be surprised when it was not the various Indochinese peoples who attempted rebellion - it was the Syrians. France had negotiated a treaty of independence for the country in 1936 with the local authorities but had only agreed to independence in principal, and importantly insisted on French military and economic dominance which eventually led to the French refusing to ratify the treaty. The country once again had demanded independence at the end of the war in the west, only to be largely ignored by the French Government who were at the time quite rightfully distracted with other matters. By 1944 many Syrians had been ignored for long enough and protests erupted nation-wide leading to a French crackdown on Syrian independence activists and movements, as well as the killing of a lot of protesters. Damascus was cut off from the electricity grid and the Syrian Parliament occupied by French troops. At the time the Americans and British had reacted with anger toward the French for their actions, but over time the issue had become forgotten as the war in the Pacific wound down to a close as no nation could really do anything about the French decision - they had after all moved several additional divisions to the country to guard its northern border due to fears the Turks may flip sides to the Axis following the fall of the USSR.

By 1946 things in Syria had relaxed a bit, Damascus was firmly in the hands of the French Army but civilian life and administration had been restored. For many Syrians this was not enough though and an underground campaign had existed for several years now leading to various bombings of French military positions and the occasional gunfight in the streets of some of Syria's smaller eastern towns. Lebanon was much of the same, France had never recognised the Lebanese right to independence and so the country too was under occupation, this time of an even greater number of troops with the French using it as the main coastal hub of their middle eastern empire. Here too there were independence movements, though no individual force had any notable success and all were essentially isolated to the mountains. There were several main ideological fronts for Syrian and Lebanese independence however. In Lebanon there was an ongoing contest between the Kataeb Party - a Falangist Phoenician nationalist party led by Pierre Gemayel - and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party led by Antoun Saadeh. Their primary differences being the belief in the SSNP that Syria included Lebanon compared to the Kataeb Party's belief that Lebanon was its own state. The SSNP too was secular, nationalist and populist with firm near-socialist economic policy compared to the Kataeb Ultraconservatism, strong religious leanings and more standardised economic policy. The SSNP of course also operated with much success in Syria where their party had met much success both among the populace and on the battlefield where their armed branch often harassed or openly attacked French troops.

Germany had often taken a special interest in the middle east, especially since the end of the war. They had tirelessly worked to get the Turks on their side before operation Barbarossa and had failed, only to then re-start discussions once the USSR fell. Hitler was often cited as having believed that the Arab people were racially pure too, largely due to his belief that their devotion to Islam and the values it espoused made them strong. This of course was all incredibly hypocritical seeing as Hitler was not a religious man, nor did much of the Nazi Party like religion - but more importantly the Nazis were obsessively anti-semitic, and Arabs are Semites. Many western observers generally considered these hypocrisies to therefore be purely of circumstance, Hitler of course hoping to divide and splinter the British and French Empires wherever possible with Arab nationalism being a convenient tool to do so. In 1946 However the Reich returned to this policy with an especially keen interest. Having just stabilised and taken full control of the Balkans Germany now had direct access to the various ports of Croatia in the Adriatic, having only had access previously by going through the Italians who had become increasingly distant in recent years largely due to personal disliking and ideological clashes between Hitler and Mussolini. This new access meant Germany had the opportunity to reach out beyond its confines in northern Europe and start expanding its reach elsewhere, and the middle east looked to be a perfect location to begin to do so. The area was resource rich, it was the hub of the British empire due to the Suez Canal and rife with internal divisions and nationalistic sentiments due to French hesitancy to withdraw and the slow speed at which the British were planning to do so.

Germany after all had in the last few months or so become concerned about its geopolitical position and needed to branch out or risk becoming isolated in Europe by America's ever growing list of allies. Conventional states seemed less and less keen to side with them, with the exception of Spain and Turkey who were slowly moving towards the German Column due to irritation with the Americans or in Turkey's case being surrounded on all sides. Therefore Germany decided the only logical solution was to use what it had to make friends, and what it had was a lot of weapons - unlike the US who had a lot of money. Hitler assigned Franz Rademacher, the architect of the Madagaskar plan and an up-and-coming nazi foreign affairs official, to explore the possibility of establishing or supporting an armed insurgency against the western allies in Arabia. It did not take long for Antoun Saadeh to take a keen interest.

Saadeh was not a national socialist, nor was his party aligned directly with the Nazis despite some publications produced during his time in exile in Brazil that suggested otherwise. He himself had quite plainly said in 1935 "The system of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is not a Hitlerite or a Fascist system, but that it is purely a Syrian system which does not stand on unprofitable imitation, but on basic originality which is one of the characteristics of our people". He was however an anti-communist, and anti-imperialist and a secular nationalist - as well as a very well educated man. He did not like Nazism's racial tenets, personally believing in a romanticist nationalist or civic nationalist approach that defied the false and arbitrary borders drawn on a map by the British and French. He was however a realist, and he could see that after having lived for now four years in hiding in Syria and Lebanon that his side was losing, and France was not getting any weaker. He therefore quietly left the country in September 1946 through Turkey and arrived at the German border a few weeks later with a small delegation of Syrians. Rademacher met with him shortly after, though Saadeh was definitely not the first person he had planned to meet - by the end of the meeting however Germany had found its new friend in Syria, all that was needed now was for Turkey to look the other way.

İsmet İnönü was not keen on the Germans, nor did he feel any kind of obligation to side with them now they had defeated Russia - he too though recognised that Germany was in total control west of his country and had a strong and strengthening presence east of it. Turkey had long considered the caucuses one of their most important strategic obstacles, in the first world war they had wanted to establish a buffer state there between Russia and their homelands and failed, not to mention that there were many Muslim and often nationalistic communities in the area that had been under Christian rule for a long time. İnönü had initially considered falling in with the Axis after the fall of Stalingrad, but hesitated and eventually bowed out of the idea due to British and French pressure. Germany of course was not going to give up the caucuses, it had far too great military and economic value, but they were however willing to discuss some territorial concessions and devolved administrations for the region to create an effective buffer between Turkey and the Reich. These discussions had been ongoing for several years now led by Ambassador to Turkey von Papen and finally were nearing a conclusion, with Germany now especially keen to finish a deal due to their new Syrian arrangements and also a desire to gain access to the Bosporus as Turkey had blocked them from doing for several years now without guarantees of Turkish security. So far Germany had committed to a new Georgian devolved administration in the Caucuses using the same borders defined by the USSR's Soviet Republic of Georgia, along with the establishment of a new devolved Government in Baku for the Azerbaijanis that would be led in a similar manner to that of the nation of Andorra. The German Fuhrer and Turkish President would act as joint heads of state while the Government would be administered by the leader of the Azerbaijani National Center in Exile, based in Istanbul, Muhammad Amin Rasulzadeh while Germany handled all foreign and defence policy matters. Germany too reserved the right to control and monopolise the oil fields of Baku and any other oil fields in Azerbaijan.

Turkey too demanded territorial concessions not just in the Caucuses but also from Bulgaria in exchange for their cooperation, starting with a return of the Muslim majority districts in eastern Thrace to Turkish control, along with small border changes on the Turkish-Georgian border to return some Muslim majority or Turkic areas. Armenia was also offered to Turkey as a means of connecting the country directly with the mutually administered area of Azerbaijan and because it had little to no strategic value to Germany except for the fact it had a Christian population that Germany cared little really for and if necessary would just move elsewhere. These terms, along with recognition of some limited Turkish claims in northern Syria and Iraq, finally turned Turkish opinion in December of 1946 leading to the Treaty of Baku being signed later that month between German, Turkish and Bulgarian signatories - officially amending the 1941 Treaty of Friendship between Germany and Turkey. Turkey had re-unified much of its lost Turkish majority or Muslim majority territories, and in exchange had signed a new access agreement with the Germans permitting the transport of limited military forces through Turkey and the use of the Bosporus straights. Germany had achieved a huge strategic breakthrough, and renewed its position on the world stage by gaining access to the middle east directly. By January weapons and training units would be flooding through Turkey on a direct path to northern Syria, and Syrian Social Nationalist forces were already attacking border checkpoints to make way for them.