Starfish Over Star-fire: An Australian Timeline

Starfish over Star-fire details an alternate universe in which Australia, of all places, becomes nuclear capable, fascist governed, and a truly independent superpower. Let us begin.


Starfish Over Star-fire: An Australian Timeline


Spring/Summer 1915-
The Gallipoli Campaign is widely seen as the worst military blunder by the British Empire in World War One. It began with massive success, yet ended in total failure. The Allies initiated the campaign in order to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople, as well as distract Germany and Austria-Hungary from other offensives in the East and West. A major success would, possibly, draw in Greece or Bulgaria on the Allied side and sever the Ottomans from the Germans. British forces began clearing the Dardanelles of mines using soldier-run minesweepers, following serious questions of the integrity of civilian-run ships clearing mines [1]. This allowed an Allied fleet to run the gauntlet of the Dardanelles and enter the Sea of Marmara. In the subsequent Battle of the Sea of Marmara on March 15th, the Allied fleet was decisively beaten through a combination of shore battery fire, the timely arrival of virtually all of the remaining Ottoman fleet, as well as many mines the minesweepers missed [2]. Thus, the landings at Gallipoli began much sooner than anyone could anticipate, in order for the shore batteries to be disabled in preparation for another attack on Constantinople. As the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was still incomplete, more pressure was on the men of the ANZAC.

Without a large naval force active in the Aegean after Marmara, the ANZAC troops were thus relying on surprise to carry the day. In the First Battle of ANZAC Cove on April 12th, the ANZAC force was gutted and forced to withdraw from the beaches after Ottoman defenses were just too strong to overcome without sufficient preluding bombardment. British commanders received much criticism for this battle, as they refused to sacrifice the more veteran British divisions in support of the Australian and New Zealand ones when withdrawal began. The Second Battle of ANZAC Cove began on April 30th, following a 6-hour naval bombardment. However, thanks to the support of recently arrived German engineers, virtually all of the Ottoman defenses managed to remain in somewhat good condition. As the New Zealand troops had been withdrawn from the ANZAC awaiting reinforcements, Australian troops were the ones tasked with claiming the beach once again. By the time the Australian troops were rescued from the beaches by veteran French forces, the Australians could barely muster a half strength brigade. The horrific casualties the Australian forces had suffered caused the Australian government to order the return of whoever remained, if anyone at all. However, the British government, instead of consenting, appropriated the Australian soldiers and ships at Gallipoli into the British military and petitioned the Australians to send seven more divisions of soldiers to the West. Combined with residual German resistance in Oceania as well as the prospect of seeing seven divisions worth of Australians sacrificed in vain, the Australian people petitioned the government to get out of World War One.

The German government, happy to see at least one enemy fall, gave Australia, via the neutral United States, a very lucrative peace offer. In exchange for a cession of hostilities, Australia would receive all German colonies in the Pacific, comprised of territory on New Guinea as well as the Bismarck Archipelago, German Samoa, the Marshall Islands, the Marianas, the Carolines, the Palau Islands and Nauru. The Germans even promised not to send U-Boats to the Indian or Pacific Oceans. When the British government intercepted the message, they completely overreacted by immediately denouncing the offer, expelling Australia from the British Commonwealth, and enacting an embargo on Australia. This then led to a souring of US-British relations, as it was revealed that Britain was spying on the transatlantic cables from Germany to the US. Asquith’s government soon fell over backlash for those actions, to be replaced by David Lloyd George. George soon offered Australia to rejoin the Commonwealth and quickly ended the embargo, but the damage had been done [3]. Prime Minister Fisher declared the Federal Republic of Australia, replacing the Commonwealth of Australia, and he became its first Premier. Japan was secretly very annoyed with the turn of events, having seen territory they conquered nearly without bloodshed turned over to the Australians, without so much as a second thought.

[1]- This is the Point of Divergence. Apparently, civilians actually ran the minesweepers in reality.
[2]- Most Allied losses are due to mines. The minesweepers were some of the first ships targeted.
[3]- Britain is seen after this as a much more overtly imperial power, leading some to question their real motives...
 
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Welcome and good to see an Aussie TL. How would the people petition the Government to pull out of the war? They certainly didn't do it when massive casualities were suffered in 1916-17. In any case Australia wasn't really independant until WW2 so is limited in what can and can't be done.
 
Nice to see something from Australia, but this fails the tests of realism extremely rapidly. There wasn't a British Commonwealth at the time, nor the capacity to expel nations, nor did Australia enjoy foreign policy independence.

Pushing the fleet into the Sea of Marmara puts it past the Ottoman defences; the Turkish fleet was not sufficient to damage the Anglo-French force once it was in relatively open water.

There were the equivalent to one and a half Australian divisions involved with the initial landings in Gallipoli and no RAN vessels. The issue of manpower was not completely alien to the British Government or the Imperial General Staff and the notion of 'appropriating' troops and 'petitioning' for seven further divisions in May 1915 does cross the event horizon of what is realistic decision making and behaviour.

Embargoes? Offers of German Pacific Islands that had already been captured and were occupied by Australia, New Zealand and Japan? Once again, unrealistic to the point of impossibility.

You can get a fascist Australia with a bit of jumping through hoops. You can get a nuclear Australia much easier. You can't get an Australian superpower due to population, finance, industry and a host of interrelated factors. The end goal isn't viable, nor are the initial events.

Refine your focus to Australia being a fascist/right wing authoritarian, nuclear armed regional/intermediate power and don't try and rush developments into the space of a few months in mid-1915.
 
Though this timeline borders on impossible in actually occurring, the point is that a series of rapid unfortunate events occur that leads to a rapid escalation and overreaction by everyone involved. Yes, Australia is closely connected to Britain even to this day, and it would take something extremely serious to totally split them. In this timeline, cooler heads never prevail and Australia becomes thrust into the world with no clear idea on what to do and how to do it. I will definitely go back and revise how Australia gets independent, but the outcome will remain the same, that sometime in World War One Australia gets independent. Australia's eventual superpower status will not come through absolute domination of half the world, more their ability to project their power throughout Oceania and the surrounding regions, and also out compete other superpowers in that area, namely the US and the USSR. Thanks for the comments and (hopefully) this timeline can get much better.
 
Nice to see something from Australia, but this fails the tests of realism extremely rapidly. There wasn't a British Commonwealth at the time, nor the capacity to expel nations, nor did Australia enjoy foreign policy independence.

Pushing the fleet into the Sea of Marmara puts it past the Ottoman defences; the Turkish fleet was not sufficient to damage the Anglo-French force once it was in relatively open water.

There were the equivalent to one and a half Australian divisions involved with the initial landings in Gallipoli and no RAN vessels. The issue of manpower was not completely alien to the British Government or the Imperial General Staff and the notion of 'appropriating' troops and 'petitioning' for seven further divisions in May 1915 does cross the event horizon of what is realistic decision making and behaviour.

Embargoes? Offers of German Pacific Islands that had already been captured and were occupied by Australia, New Zealand and Japan? Once again, unrealistic to the point of impossibility.

You can get a fascist Australia with a bit of jumping through hoops. You can get a nuclear Australia much easier. You can't get an Australian superpower due to population, finance, industry and a host of interrelated factors. The end goal isn't viable, nor are the initial events.

Refine your focus to Australia being a fascist/right wing authoritarian, nuclear armed regional/intermediate power and don't try and rush developments into the space of a few months in mid-1915.

Harsh , but fair unfortunately for the new bloke .
 
Though this timeline borders on impossible in actually occurring, the point is that a series of rapid unfortunate events occur that leads to a rapid escalation and overreaction by everyone involved. Yes, Australia is closely connected to Britain even to this day, and it would take something extremely serious to totally split them. In this timeline, cooler heads never prevail and Australia becomes thrust into the world with no clear idea on what to do and how to do it.

I will definitely go back and revise how Australia gets independent, but the outcome will remain the same, that sometime in World War One Australia gets independent.

Australia's eventual superpower status will not come through absolute domination of half the world, more their ability to project their power throughout Oceania and the surrounding regions, and also out compete other superpowers in that area, namely the US and the USSR. Thanks for the comments and (hopefully) this timeline can get much better.

In that case, I'd recommend you shift it to the AH Writer's Forum, as it would better meet those requirements than those of a timeline.

Even if the entire Australian and British body politic shifted to a diet of lead based paint, it doesn't follow that they would descend into self-defeating behaviour at a time of global war.

Australia doesn't have the industry to survive independently in 1915, nor the capital, nor markets other than Britain. There wasn't an established 'independence' movement beyond the far, far fringes of the Labor Party. It doesn't have the political will nor the popular support to take such a step and it certainly wouldn't do it over fewer losses than Pozieres or Fromelles. To argue that it would requires changing historical figures and historical attitudes, which can't quite be done with a point of departure in March 1915.

The US and USSR/Russia were not superpowers in 1915, but the British Empire was. Australia lacks the population base, exploitable resources, capital, military strength, industry, commerce, markets and a host of other necessary factors to be anything but a regional player. Oceania is next to worthless in power terms and the oil and resources of the DEI would only be available until such time as Britain or Japan wanted them.

I am being a little blunt, as Riain rightly points out, but it would save you time if you went back to the drawing board before going much further. This point of departure won't work. To get an independent Australia in the Great War era, you'd need to go back to the 1850s or 1860s and start to completely change the world.
 
Interesting, but I think you underestimate the loyalty broad sections of the population still had towards King and Empire. The conscription debate was vicious enough; imagine independence being unilaterally declared! And it would be unconstitutional, I am sure. The only State that may have supported independence would be Melbourne, but even there I think the rural sections and the Protestants would be able to carry the vote. This was before the Great War depopulated all those charming little National towns. I can definitely see Mannix and the Catholic Church playing a prominent role in the new Republics government, what with all their Labor ties. Oh, I do hope Santamaria makes a cameo at some point.
 
I'm taking a step back to rework this timeline to make it more plausible. A rebooted version will eventually make its way back onto this site.
 
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