Sabot Cat
Banned
POINT OF DIVERGENCE (1939, November 8th)
On 8 November 1939, there was less fog over Berlin than in our timeline. This allowed Hitler to deliver his speech at the Beer Hall Putsch as scheduled because the Munich airport would still be open later. He is thus killed mid-sentence along with 23 other Nazis when a time bomb set by Georg Elser explodes at 9:20pm. On the 9th of November, Hermann Goering becomes Fuhrer as per the succession plans outlined by Hitler to the Reichstag on September 1st. [1]
EUROPE IN ALTERNATE 1940
Goering linked the assassination of Hitler to the United Kingdom after the capture of two SIS agents during the Venlo Incident on the day of his ascension. The Nazis were outraged, and many high-ranking officials called for the immediate invasion of western Europe. Goering wished to prove his loyalty to the party while demonstrating that he was an effective leader, so he yielded to their demands. Due to the butterfly effect the Mechelen Incident never occurred , and thus on January 15th 1940, the German military invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Luxembourg was quickly occupied, but the terrible winter weather slowed the German offensive in Belgium and the Netherlands. However, a complete Nazi occupation of the Low Countries was achieved by February 21st, as they closed in on France and began the Battle of Britain. Meanwhile, Denmark in just two days (February 22nd-February 23rd) was taken over.
The beginning of the bombing in Britain provoked an intense debate in Parliament that resulted in Chamberlain being ousted and Winston Churchill becoming the new Prime Minister on February 29th. Churchill called for the invasion of Norway to obstruct the shipment of iron ore from Sweden (Plan R 4) while securing a base in the Atlantic away from Germany in Iceland. The Allied land invasion of Norway was thus carried out on March 9th, simultaneously with the invasion of Iceland. The Norse and Icelandic governments were initially outraged, but Britain assuaged them by promising that the occupation would end after the Nazi German threat was quelled, that domestic affairs would not be interfered with , and that compensation for any damages would be provided if Norway or Iceland were to be invaded by Germany. Under these conditions, Norway and Iceland de facto consented to their occupation.
Meanwhile, the Battle of Britain was going poorly for the Luftwaffe, who had already sustained heavy causalities in the winter invasion of the Low Countries and France. However, after the decisive Battle of France on April 17th, the Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed between Germany and France, which created the nominally independent Vichy French state in the south and designated the north and western territory to be occupied by Germany. Italy never became a belligerent because their armies weren’t prepared when Germany launched its invasions, and King Victor Emmanuel III wasn’t reassured about Germany’s ability to win the war soon after the Battle of Britain.
ASIA IN ALTERNATE 1940
In light of the Anti-Comintern Pact being nullified by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Goering was able to reconsider Germany’s tentative alliance with Japan. Goering ultimately led the Nazi government to rekindle its alliance with Nationalist China instead of Imperialist Japan, because he believed that Japan was a “Far East Italy”- untrustworthy and liable to switch sides in the middle of the war. Goering held that China would be a mighty power, and that the German friendship with it was valuable. [2] The Nazis thus provided extensive training and equipment to the infantries of the Kuomintang (KMT), which the Japanese government, especially Yosuke Matsuoka Minister of Foreign Affairs, considered to be a massive betrayal.
To avoid geopolitical isolation, Mamoru Shigemitsu (the Japanese ambassador to the UK) began to hold talks with Robert Craigie (the British ambassador to Japan) with overtures of an alliance. Craigie expressed concern about the Tientsin Incident, where a war between the two empires seemed inevitable. Shigemitsu held that Japan had a common enemy with Britain in Nazi Germany, and that they would readily support the British war effort in lieu of the United States. Craigie promised mutual support in return, as the Nationalist Chinese government was disadvantageous to the UK because it could set its own tariffs without British influence among other things, but he was still concerned that Britain would be dragged into a war with the United States if it allied with Japan. Kichisaburo Nomura, Foreign Minister of Japan, wished to avoid a war with the United States as well, and opened negotiations with them through Joseph Grew (the U.S. ambassador to Japan).
Joseph Grew believed that the U.S. Senate wouldn’t approve a treaty with Japan due to the atrocities committed in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which was the cause of the “moral embargos” passed since 1938. Nomura then petitioned his native government to ratify the Geneva Convention to assuage the American public’s fear of further war crimes and to secure the alliance. This was accomplished on the part of the Diet, and by February 11th 1940, the Second Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty was ratified by Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Second Anglo-Japanese Alliance secured the support of the United Kingdom by Japan and Japan by the United Kingdom unless either power were engaged in a war of aggression against the United States. The immediate consequence of this alliance was the granting of many visas to Jews in occupied Nazi territory to Japan, foremost in Kobe and Shanghai.
With massive financial and military aid from the United Kingdom, Japan was able to defeat the National Revolutionary Army in the Battle of Zayoi by June 14th 1940, and from there they attacked the provisional capital of the Republic of China in the Battle of Chongqin (August 3rd 1940), and it continued onto the Battle of Changsha (September-November 1940) as well as the Battle of South Guangxi (October 29th 1940). This all cumulated in the surrender of the National Revolutionary Army and the dissolution of the KMT.
The Hundred Regimes Offensive was similarly curtailed, with the Eight Route Army and the New Fourth Army being wiped out in the fighting while communist strongholds in Shaanxi were systematically eliminated along with its military leadership (although this took years of battling against guerrillas). During this conflict the Franco-Thai War broke out in August 1940 shortly after the Nazi occupation of France between Thailand and the Vichy French colonial government of Indochina.
EUROPE IN ALTERNATE 1941
Meanwhile, Goering had allowed Rudolf Hess to join the Luftwaffe as a pilot at the latter’s behest so that Hess would be unable to undermine his leadership in the Nazi Party. As indirectly planned, Hess died during the Battle of Britain on March 2nd 1940. There was thus no attempted peace mission to Britain on his part, and therefore Stalin had no lingering doubts of an Anglo-German reconciliation to hinder his designs for an invasion. As well, Goering wished to conquer the United Kingdom before opening up the Eastern Theater, and didn’t divert any divisions there. On the 10th of June on 1941, the Soviet military seized the opportunity and launched a massive surprise attack on the Eastern front through a bombing campaign carried out by the Soviet Air Force on Eastern Prussia, Poland and Romania followed by two major Red Army deployments in the east and in the south. Simple logistical superiority was the biggest factor in the USSR’s successful opening of the Eastern Theater. [3]
The Red Army was soon making headway in eastern Poland, as Goering was facing a chilly reception by the public and his own party members. The Nazi leadership believed that Goering was an incompetent fool who had fumbled the gains of Hitler, the genius whose insight would’ve saved the day according to them. Heinrich Himmler thus had Goering secretly assassinated by Josef Dietrich from the SS-Verfügungstruppe on July 16th 1941. Himmler used forged documents of Goering’s to ascend to power, and claimed that Goering was actually a Communist that was actively subverting the war effort by engaging Germany in a ruinous total war. The German public applauded the removal of Goering , as well as Himmler’s opening of peace talks with the Soviet Union. However, Joseph Stalin was uninterested in negotiating with Himmler because he wanted to make Germany a Soviet satellite state. Thus the fighting wore on in the borders of Germany in Austria, Poland and East Prussia.
ASIA IN ALTERNATE 1941
[Above: The flag of the Chinese Empire as of December 13th 1941.]
[Above: The flag of the Chinese Empire as of December 13th 1941.]
By January 8th 1941, the Reorganized National Government of China ruled the mainland with de facto control of the western interior. Although the Second Sino-Japanese War was over, there was still problems afoot for the Japanese Empire. Mao Zedong and other Chinese Communist Party members taking refuge in the Mongolian People’s Republic, a nation decisively protected by the Soviet Union during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol against the Japanese military. Worse for the Japanese Empire was the formation of the Korean Liberation Army on the anniversary of the March 1st movement in 1941 and the increased support from the Soviet Union for the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army to continue to wage guerrilla warfare in Manchuria. Taiwan lacked similar widespread resistance, but other independence agitators hoped it would be subsumed by one, as Comintern dispatched agents there to foster a rebellion (which never came to bear any fruit).
On May 1941, Japan mediated a treaty between Thailand and the newly liberated France’s colonial government in Indochina that resulted in the ceding of several territories from French Inodchina to the Thai government, concluding the Franco-Thai War. This coincided with the founding of the Viet Minh, an Indochinese communist independence movement targeted at the French Empire, although lacking the military element at its founding. The Korean Liberation Army had some minor victories, such as the assassination of the Governor-General Jiro Minami in August 7th, while clandestine Maoists were able to carry out an elaborate conspiracy to assassinate a few of the Reorganized Republic of China’s Yuan members, but for the most part the resistance groups had very little way of establishing communications with each other while remaining hidden. Hoping to assuage the restless public, the Greater East Asia Conference was held on September 21st to the 23rd in Tokyo, wherein the presiding heads of states of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere met to furnish a propaganda showpiece of harmonious relations between the countries.
Qing Emperor Puyi, who was sent along with Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui as representatives of the Manchukuo government, suggested that he should be restored to his throne in China. Fumimaro Konoe was partially receptive of this plan (as Japan had tried to install Kung Te-cheng, heir of the Confucius lineage, as the puppet emperor of China in 1937) [4], but he realized that there was still a large anti-Qing sentiment in China. However, Konoe was inspired by the conversation to install a descendant of the Ming Dynasty as ruler, which he believe would be received well or at least better. The Ming Dynasty Genealogical Commission was thus created to find the last living descendant of the Ming Emperors, utilizing a network of pre-existing data on the topic. In November, they found a poor orphan in Changsha named Zhu Rongji who seemed to fit the bill for lineage, but was only thirteen years old with no older siblings or immediate relatives. This was not completely unprecedented (e.g. Qing Emperor Puyi ascended the throne at two years old; Emperor Shang of the Han Dynasty was crowned before he was even one, etc.), but the age issue still frustrated the Japanese officials who wanted to project the image of an independent Chinese government.
Nonetheless, on November 24th 1941 the legislatures of the Reorganized Republic of China and Manchukuo met to adopt the Constitution of the Empire of China, modeled off of the Meiji constitution. Then, in a meticulously crafted ceremony held in the Forbidden City, Zhu Rongji ascended the long vacant Ming Dynastic throne of China, with the state-controlled media reporting an end to the Qing’s legacy in Chinese government, who were blamed for China’s troubles in the previous centuries along with “anarchy” (republicanism). Beijing was also made the new capital by the constitution, with a historical flag of the Ming Dynasty flown in Chinese governmental buildings by December 13th 1941.
Emperor Zhu Rongji’s age was deliberately misreported as “sixteen” by the Japanese controlled media. However, this didn’t become a very strong point of contention because Emperor Zhu Rongji’s simple yet sincere speeches about living in poverty before being found as the last Ming descendant were well received by the Chinese public, and helped to foster a sense of legitimacy and respectability not present for the preceding heads of state. To complicate the on-going assassination of collaborationist officials by the resistance movement, murdering a “sixteen” year old child who represented the last of the Ming Dynasty was something that even the CCP didn’t think would go over well.
The privy council (and functional national Diet) of the Emperor Zhu Rongji was the Grand Council, whose ten members were appointed based on test scores from imperial examinations, which any citizen in the Chinese Empire could take. Of course, the exam guidelines were prepared by Japanese officials in Beijing from the Imperial Examination Bureau, and scores were determined by their degree of adherence to a political philosophy favorable to the Japanese government, but the sense of political liberation was still present for the Chinese people. Indeed, the Grand Council was the real locus of power in the Chinese Empire, because any proposed imperial decrees had to be passed with the consent of a majority of the Grand Council.
The first major actions of the Chinese Emperor Zhu Rongji was the formation of the Imperial Chinese Armed Forces, formed from collaborationist armed groups throughout China and divided into an Imperial Chinese Army and an Imperial Chinese Navy. On January 27th 1942, Emperor Zhu Rongji led a march of 125,000 Chinese military officers through the streets of Beijing to demonstrate the solidity and independence of the Chinese Empire. This was further cemented when the Treaty of the Grand Canal, between the ten Grand Councilors, the Prime Minister of Japan, and the Prime Minister of Manchukuo, formally ended the Second Sino-Japanese War with the Japanese Empire ceding the Matsu Islands, Kinmen, etc. to the Chinese Empire.
SOURCES
[1] Page 599 of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer [2] Volume 13 of Tien-Fong Cheng’s memoir.
[3] Most of the Soviet Union's strategy and outcomes are based on the thesis of "Stalin's Missed Chance" by Mikhail Meltyukhov.
[4] http://books.google.com/books?id=O...ok_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA
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I hope you all enjoy the beginning of my first alternate history timeline, and I'm looking forward to any feedback. I wasn't sure if these images were considered 'large' enough to bog down servers, and I'll happily edit my post to accommodate to guidelines.
Thanks in advance!
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