Red Sun Rising: The Reverse-Russo-Japanese War

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The situation at the start of 1938
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    • Forbiddenparadise64



    As the international situation deteriorated, the world had been nearing war for years before the French invasion of the Philippines. But with this invasion and the soon declaration of war from the Mitteleuropa pact, Germany found itself once again at war with France, though this France was far more hostile and fanatical than the one it had faced. For the first time since Napoleon, France was in a militaristic state, and this time it had an ally in the form of Wrangel's National Salvation Russia, with the Ottomans waiting at the sides for the right moment to strike the unstable situation of the Balkans. While it would be a year or so before the South American theatre of the war began, the end of 1937 was the start of the most deadly theatres in Europe and Africa, as the Entente and Alliance once again came for each other.

    In the meantime, Britain increasingly distanced itself from its now fascist allies, retreating toward "splendid isolationism" alongside the United States, while privately reconciling its differences with the German Empire, who dominated continental Europe, albeit with difficulty. The humiliation of the Fourth Balkan War was still fresh in German minds, and the rise of Russia in the east caused uncertainty among the ranks of its satellite nations. It had certainly been rumoured that Hungarian nationalists wished to betray Germany to the Russians once the time was right. With Russian funding, there is definitely substantial evidence that they had wished to betray their German overlords. With the Germany declaring war on France on the 22nd of October 1937, the Russians began to mobilise as Germany faced a dramatically reinforced Maginot Line. The Russians soon declared war themselves on the Germans on Halloween. The Germans, while hoping to quickly acquire victory as Schlieffen had tried in the First World War, once again found themselves disappointing in their military plans, as Russian forces advanced across the border into their satellite states in Poland, Ruthenia and Lithuania. At the same time, the Turkish mobilised their forces, not formally entering the European conflict, but preparing their own against the nation of Mesopotamia, centred around Baghdad, and consisting mainly of Shia Muslims. Independent, but under British protection, this nation remained vulnerable to the ambitions of Turkomen's fascist regime.

    As well as these main catalysts for the Second Great War, a number of other profound occurances took place in this time period in the five years leading up to the War.

    • The Portuguese military government is deposed in a military coup in February 1935, almost leading to a civil war, though the old regime is quickly disposed of, leading to a transition towards democracy.
    • The assassination of Republican presidential candidate Herbert Peters in December 1936 while attending a local counsel meeting in his home town of Colarado Springs is linked with his grandparents being of allegedly Jewish descent.
    • Mexico, now partitioned as of August 1937, forever altered the appearance of Central America. 'Father Rodriguez's' Holy State began to expand influence south into Guatemala, as client supporters living in that region also began to stir trouble, hoping to remove American influence from their country, while also remaining fervently religious and anti-communist. The more independent-minded Yucatan regime meanwhile established itself as a more stable power, despite the initial economic issues. US occupation of Baja California was also done on orders of the US miiltary, allegedly to prop up the rump Mexican regime.
    • The collapse of the Bolivian regime is almost in full swing, as Paraguay has secured its occupation and is gearing up with its allies of Peru and Colombia to settle other borders against Argentina, Chile and Brazil.
    • After a lengthy battle throughout December, the Chinese repel a Russian attack on Beijing, with the seige finishing around the 23rd of December. The Russians go on to focus other campaigns around the western interior.
    • Ethiopia goes to war with Italy in the Autumn by holding claims in Somalia and Eritea, hoping to gain a coastline and secure control in the region as a local power. This does not go as well as Addis Ababa hoped, and the Italians are grinding them to a hault by the end of 1937.
    Next time we will be looking at the status of the theatres of the Second Great War.
     
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    • Forbiddenparadise64

    1938: The Western Front:

    Anthony Johnson, The Second Great War, 1974, pp.13-15.

    The start of the war was fearsome by any standards. French forces marched through their own Maginot Line, taking the Germans by surprise. They did this not by attacking directly, but by going through the the former territories of Switzerland, with the permission of their Helvetic puppet state. Attacking into Tyrol and Bavaria, French soldiers rapidly gained control of land in these regions, quickly starting to win over local populations. One of the most significant elements of this early campaign was the Battle of Dachau, part of the greater campaign known by later historians as 'The Battle for Bavaria.'

    French forces, mainly consisting of armed infantry in the infamous 'Blue Thunder' uniforms came marching from the south with machine guns, aiming to grind the German garrisons in the region by surprise. In the 10th of February 1938, the first signs of battle began. Outside the town, over twenty thousand men stormed the region, heavily defended by local Germans eager to expel the fascists from their territory. Two days of vicious attack occured throughout the streets, with particular international focus pointing towards the infamous 'Valentine's Massacre', in which over 50 German civilians were mercilessly gunned down by Social Action soldiers. Eyewitness accounts say that the battle was a decisive French victory due to poor organisation of their own forces. One soldier, Ernst Rohm, is said to have stated "there has never been greater bloodshed in Dachau!" when asked about the status of the battle in history. Details are at this point not particularly well known, as the German government has been quite secretive regarding its military history over the last few decades to American press, but death tolls in the tens of thousands for both military and civilians are frequently estimated. Harrison (Harrison, 1964, pp.221) estimated roughly 16,000 German soldiers and 8,000 civilians perished in the fighting against the 5,000 French invaders dying in the assault, while Maverick (Maverick, 1971, pp.31) uses more conservative figures of 10,000 German deaths overall. The Germans on this front had expected men to come through the Maginot Line as their main defense, and were not expecting an assault from the south, explaining surprise as the main reason for such an intense loss. Others argue that the fanatical Helvetic army played a part, well disciplined and highly loyal, they were the strongmen of the French invasion of Bavaria. They were not allowed to use their full power however, due to the resistant Swiss army who continued to fight against French oppression in the Alps, refusing to recognize the puppet government. Once Dachau fell, the French were able to move towards Munich, where an even bloodier campaign would take place.

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    Prisoners of war being forced through to camps by the French occupiers following the slaughter at Dachau. This is part of the rare footage that has been released from outside of Germany in the years since the Second Great War. This was but a taste of French atrocities throughout the conflict.

    Furthermore, French conflicts in the region mainly consisted of skirmishes rather than large pitched battles between the bulk of the army. Dachau was the exception for this theatre of the conflict rather than the norm. Despite initial successes like Dachau, the French were soon forced to withdraw from this front by the end of 1938 due to waste of soldiers that could be used on the western front for the small degrees of territories they were recieving.

    The later battle of Vienna was a more successful one for two reasons. First of all, Austrian resentment for the German annexation was still high, partly in due to the Protestant centered and north-German orientation that the Hohenzollern dynasty pointed towards. The second was that the more militantly Catholic elements of Austrian society recognized that an independent Austria was within the war plans of the la Croix government. Uprisings sponsored by the French broke out among the locals, and thus people started to support their would be conquerors. Members of the far right such as Dolfuss and his lieutenant, a ruined former painter known as Adolf Hitler, rallied behind French support and rose up against the German governors in the region. The commander of the local air force, Herman Goering, heroically fought against these rebels by dropping bombs on their outposts, preventing the fascists from gaining further ground. While some historians criticize the brutal methods he took to prevent dissent, it is clear from my opinion that he was justified against this dangerous enemy. In any case, Hitler himself was killed in one such raid quite early on, though his second in command, Eernst Roum continued to fight on until French entered the area for a second time in May 1939, with Roum being put in charge of a collaberationist government, albeit an unstable one. Soon, a stalemate was built in the Rhineland, as the Germans attempts to push back at the French failed.

    As the western front grinded on, the front in the east was a much more dymamic one.
     

    Forbiddenparadise64

    Sorry it’s been such a long wait, I’ve been distracted with other stuff. But more on the Second Great War is coming! I’m happy to PM someone for ideas too if need be.
     
    The eastern front (1938)
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    • Forbiddenparadise64

    Donald Murphy, A Blink of an Eye; the history of the world in a nutshell, 2013, pp.234-237

    As France attacked positions in southern Germany and Belgium, it was the Russians under Wrangel who attacked Germany’s far eastern border, and those of its allies in Mitteleuropa. Now modernised and no longer suffering the various issues it has previously, the Russian military made up for its relatively lesser equipment with fanatical determination to restore the old lands of the Russian Empire, and to even go beyond, demanding vengeance and blood from Germany. This would be earned with the deaths of millions.

    The first assault, led by general Andrey Anderyevich Vlaslov, took place in the Eastern half of Poland, as the vassal state of Germany was distracted by internal strife regarding its German overlords. The significant Russian minority in the region were cited as a justification for the invasion to take place. Around January 1938, a number of rebellions by Russian speaking Polish occured in the eastern part of the country, put down by the government. As the war with France in the west escalated, Russia took its chance to launch a simultaneous invasion of Poland, the Baltic States and Romania. Already bogged down in a costly invasion of China, the Russian military was not at an optimal state of being, but nevertheless made substantial gains within the first half of 1938. These gains slowed down once they reached the centre of the nation. Here, a Polish counter-offensive slowed down Vlaslov's forces and pushed them back from a frontal assault on Krakow. German reinforcements coming in from the west further impaired this attempt to take German satellite states in one fell swoop, though this wasn’t the case elsewhere.

    Further north, the Estonian resistance was fiercer but ultimately futile. The fanatical Russian soldiers, wanting to reclaim the rightful motherland’s territory and then more, wished to crush the Baltic people’s under their control once more, this time wishing to permanently settle the region with Russians. The small republic fell completely by March. Massive deportations of Estonians were made in occupied territory east to Siberia on their great train stations. Resistance continued though in terms of espionage of the supply lines. The other Baltic states faired little better, with Latvia lasting into May and Lithuania into July.

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    Romanian troops in Bessarabia marching to defend their homeland from the Social Action Russians. Facing the possibility of subjugation or even ethnicide, the Romanians fought fervently and valiantly against the fascists, regardless of their own political affiliations.

    Further to the south, general Zhukov had been called from the Chinese front to launch an artillery based invasion of Ruthenia and Romania. Using the newly Wrangel-30 tank, he developed a strong foothold as the small puppet state was quickly overrun and annexed by the Russian Empire. In order to ‘make Russia great again’, the acquiring of not just Bessarabia but also the Romanian oil fields was necessary to fuel further Russian advances. Desiring the liberation of the south-Slavic people’s of Serbia and Bulgaria, they hoped to bolster these fronts as well. Their ally in the Ottoman Empire also was dealing in this area though, so tensions between the nominal allies were inevitable.

    Moldavia was the first to fall to the Russians in the southern front. The fighting here was relentless as the terrain made it more difficult than just Bessarabia. The Russians did not intend to annex Romania as a whole, merely establish a friendly military regime that would fit their interests and give them oil to fuel their war against Germany. Relentlessly fighting on, the Romanian people did not wish to fall under the yoke of Russian tyranny, especially with regards to its pan-Slavic racism, which would no doubt disregard them as a boundary toward that goal. Walachia was better equipped to hold the line against the Russian advance, but not by much, and soon they would face another threat. The Hungarians has invaded!

    It was well known that the Kingdom of Hungary desired to retake Transylvania from the Romanians, and the Germans had punished them for previously trying to take the rest of the region. The old king’s young nephew had been put in power following the German intervention, but in the days following the start of the Russian invasion, the Budapest Coup put the Green Arrows in charge, a clerically fascist party desiring to ally with Russia, though adapted to the Hungarian context and appealing to their common asiatic heritage. Soon they too joined in on the invasion, in August 1938, much to Germany’s dismay. With a war on two fronts, Germany was put in a very precarious situation. The first war had been a close one precisely because of having to fight two enemies simultaneously, and these two were now more dangerous than ever.

    Bulgaria was sympathetic to the Croix regime in France and to Wrangel’s Russia, but they were wary of the Turkomen regime in the Ottoman Empire, so joining was not an option for them. Fearful for its survival, Bulgaria preemptively declared war on the Ottomans and on Russia, hoping to secure its borders and aid from Germany and Britain. It would come, though not immediately. The Serbians and other south-Slavic nations joined in, as did the Greeks. The eastern front became far more complicated in the space of September.

    As bloody as the eastern front was, however, it paled compared to the front in China. As the most intense front, the predominant part of the Russian military was raging through central China, making it difficult to focus power elsewhere. This was perhaps their biggest mistake, for the warlords were gone and now the full night of the Chinese republic was up against them. We shall investigate their situation in the next chapter.
     
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    • Alpha-King98760

    Alpha-King98760

    Forbiddenparadise64 said:
    Indeed it is. Next time, we’ll see China’s way of dealing with the situation.
    Click to expand...
    Great! Also how have the communist regime in Tokyo dealt with class in Japanese society? Do honorifics such as sama, kun, chan, san, etc. still exist and are considered acceptable by the government or have they come up with their “comrade” & “citizen”?
     

    Forbiddenparadise64

    Alpha-King98760 said:
    Great! Also how have the communist regime in Tokyo dealt with class in Japanese society? Do honorifics such as sama, kun, chan, san, etc. still exist and are considered acceptable by the government or have they come up with their “comrade” & “citizen”?
    Click to expand...
    The Japanese communists were less authoritarian overall than their soviet counterparts from our own time, but they tend to find different ways of addressing people to the old semi-feudal language. It was indeed a debate among Japanese communists historically whether or not japan had gone through the feudal-capital transition yet.
     
    Alpha-King98760

    Alpha-King98760

    Forbiddenparadise64 said:
    The Japanese communists were less authoritarian overall than their soviet counterparts from our own time, but they tend to find different ways of addressing people to the old semi-feudal language. It was indeed a debate among Japanese communists historically whether or not japan had gone through the feudal-capital transition yet.
    Click to expand...
    Oh okay. So are Japanese honourifics permitted?
     
    Chinese Front (October 1938-May 1939)
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    • Forbiddenparadise64

    Sergei Ivanov, The Fall of a Dynasty

    As Russian forces pushed further into Chinese territory, it was clear even among the army that Wrangel’s great army for Russian restoration was overreaching itself. Even while larger in landmass than China and with a great population, Russia still didn’t have the military capacity that a properly mobilised China did, especially as the latter did not fall into the predicted warlordism that many in Russia had hoped. My own grandfather, Alexandr Ivanov, was one of the officers fighting this war, and he knew that it was a lost cause. Wrangel and his administration however had no such caution, and both nations suffered greatly for it.

    It was now the year 1939. As Russian forces advanced into Ningxia and Gansu, resistance grew ever more bitter and determined from local forces, desperate to avoid subjugation. It is now known from NA archives that the plan Wrangel had in mind to subdue China was to promote local cultures and subcultures to divide China into local groups, all subservient to Russian interests. The spirit of unity that the republic had created, however, made this a near impossibility in practise. On the frontier, general Chiang Shek, for all his issues, excelled in the defence of Sichuan from the Russians attacking, making them bleed for every inch they took. Scorched earth policies were also put into practise by some other generals, ensuring that their resources didn’t fall into Russian hands. This led plans by the NA army for another path.

    340px-Anton_Denikin_1918-1919.jpg

    General Anton Denikin had been deprived of a chance to fight communists in Japan or Russia itself, and was a known former rival of Vohd Wrangel, but was happy to provide for the motherland by gathering the vast resources of China under Saint Petersburg’s wings.

    It was now March. General Anton Denikin led a path from the north to encircle Chiang’s force to prevent them from reinforcing the main coastal cities. Denikin went through the mountains, desiring the western corridor to be secured as it once had by the Mongols, securing the downfall of China as a whole. The offensive would encircle much of the Chinese army and force the republican government into some sort of armistice. Or at least that is what Denikin hoped.

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    Jingwei, now seen as a hero among the Chinese left, managed to break the Russian advance into southern China, starting the downfall of the Russian advance in the East.

    In reality, General Jingwei, who leaned further left than many of the other members of the Chinese government, rallied the local Chinese against Denikin forces, waiting in the mountains for the Russian forces. According to my grandfather’s account, the Russian army marched through the mountains, with little air support as the majority of the Empire’s planes were focussed on the western front. As a result, they were easily ambushed by China’s own airforce, dropping bombs on the Russians from above, killing thousands even initially. This was a part of Jingwei’s plan to throw the Russians into chaos and then ambush them from the forests on the mountains. Casualties were thus heavy on the Russian side, though the battle was changed when the forces of general Pyotr Krasnov showed up to assist Denikin. A proud supporter of the tsarist system, Krasnov was not as enthusiastic about the fascist ideals of racial supremacism, but was wishing to promote Russia’s interests on the gloval sphere. The Russians won another battle in the end. The fifth till the twenty-third of March 1939 will forever be remembered as one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war.

    With news of the French occupation of the Netherlands came French bases in newly conquered Cambodia to send out expeditions into Indonesia, though these were generally failures, and caused the Dutch colonial government to crack down on dissent. This would sow the seeds for further conflict, for the iconic political philosopher, revolutionary and leader Kompyang Bijiuan, first became active in antigovernment activity, while still opposing the French fascists. In Java, this three-way conflict between the groups further complicated the situation.

    As April 1939 arrived, Bijuan was now openly preaching Marxist ideals of liberation rather than the more general nationalistic ideas that were common among local resistance movements. In particular, Bijuan referenced Yamakawa’s more centralised and agrarian interpretation of communism as an inspiration, forming Marxist-Kotoism. He formed the Pembebasan Revolusioner Rakyat to organise his militia as a resistance group. Money began to flow in from Japan, for it while it did not support the capitalist Dutch, resentment was strong in Tokyo for the Kamakawi-Déat Non-Aggression Pact (named after French foreign minister Marcel Déat, and Japan’s own foreign minister Kamakawi), and the People’s Shogun, the newly appointed Fukumoto Kazuo, who had deposed the corrupt Kanson Arahata in December’s ‘Second Revolution’, where Arahata, who had signed the Pact, was exiled. This is all relevant, because as Russia’s main ally, the French were already preparing for conflict with Japan. Which meant that sooner or later, Russia too would be drawn in.

    Yet another assault would be attempted on Beijing in the Spring of 1939, this one using aerial bombardment and artillery to weaken the city’s defenders, instead of purely infantry. The use of Russian Wrangel tanks was also of note here, though the Chinese’s own tanks, the Yao-Guai, proved its equal in every way except firepower, where it excelled. China’s capital continued to resort in whatever way it could. As the empire was overextending itself, the Republic’s ability to resist became easier. China did have a numbers advantage over Russia even with Manchuria and the northern territories away. I can only imagine how powerful a United China would be in manpower and economically. The Great Wall was once again damaged in the conflict, but the Chinese army did not care at this point, and merely used it for more cover from fire and to launch counterattacks and guerrilla warfare. With the fate of a United China at stake, it was not a luxury the people could afford. Leader Duan of the Unity Party had mobilised the retreat of many of the civilian population, but he continued to remain in the capital, personally commanding soldiers into action against the advancing Russians, until eventually dying in battle against the invaders. The aging Duan may have wanted to become a martyr for the Chinese cause in doing this, and such a risk proved successful. By the middle of the year, the seige was lifted.

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    An aging politician of the Republic, Duan knew that his rivalries with Yin Bao (of the New Republicans) and Jingwei were irrelevant compared to the fate of China. Opting to personally lead an assault on a Russian caravan, Duan was one of the last Chinese to go down in such a blaze of glory.

    In the Russian protectorate of Manchuria, uprisings commenced against the colonial government, even before the latter siege on Beijing. Starting in October 1938, operations funded by both Jingwei and the Japanese were launched, hoping to remove supply lines used in the protectorate that sent resources back to Saint Petersburg and Moscow. One of the rebel leaders, a man named Xi, became a popular bandit undermining Russian influence around Harbin. Whereas many wanted Manchuria to reunite with China as a whole, Xi argued for maintaining Manchuria’s independence from both them and Russia, desiring a nation of their own. Undermining supply lines proved useful in the grand schemes of things as it was likely the reason the Russians didn’t manage to take Beijing.

    As we have seen, the Russian army’s performance in late 1938 and early 1939 put them at the peak of the Chinese invasion. From this point onwards, it would be a slow and steady decline.
     
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    • Forbiddenparadise64

    Hmm, after a certain someone who i won't name has been liking stuff on here, I might consider giving this project of mine a good old fashioned revival ;). Pick things up where htey were, or reboot altogether?
     
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