XXIV. After the Great War (2)
In Western and Northern Europe everything was almost as in OTL (2 years later though).
Because Soviet Russia was weaker:
- Finland was bigger
- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have avoided war on their territories.
- Poland conquered the whole Byelorussia and Volhynia.
- Romania has conquered the rest of Ukraine.
- Georgia and Armenia were independent.
All of them plus various Russian groups, elements from the German Army and expeditionary forces sent by some Entente Powers were fighting the Soviets.
Turkey has still won its War of Independence, conquering Smirna, much of Western Armenia, Kurdistan and getting Constantinopole back.
The population exchanges were greater both in scope and in numbers than OTL. All the muslims from Romania and Greece were sent to Turkey and all the Greeks from Turkey were sent to Greece. To make room for them, Romania received the Romanian population from Greece en masse and settled them throughout Romania.
The Autonomy of Thessaly was no longer necessary and was abolished.
Thus, Greece solved both its national problems at once and remained a small, ethnically compact, Greek State.
Romania and Poland agreed on their common border in Galicia.
Romania and Italy partitioned Dalmatia in a mutually advantageous way: Italy got all the important ports (Zara, Catarro, Spalato, Ragusa etc), leaving all the hinterland to Romania.
Later, with Italian support, Romania anexxed the little Albanian Protectorate (excepting Valona, which was Italian). The League of Nations issued a protest, but nobody really cared.
German Austria united with the German Realm after a clear plebiscite.
After the international recognition of the German Unification, in November 1923, a similar plebiscite was organized in Hungary. The Unification with Romania passed with 82% Yes.
The League of Nations protested again and called the plebiscite "rigged".
After a diplomatic uproar, a new plebiscite was called, this time with international observers present. Somehow it passed again, but this time with only 51,1% Yes votes.
On 10 May 1924, Hungary united with Romania. The Slovak and Croatian autonomies were mantained and a Hungarian autonomy was also created in Pannonia.
With Britain and France less and less friendly and accomodating, Romania started to look around for new possible aliances, Poland, Greece and Italy being the only real variants. Or maybe even Germany?!
After a while, two defensive alliances were signed: with Poland against Russia (but not Germany) and with Greece against Turkey (but not Italy).
