The African Superpowers (a TL)
- Thread starter TheMann
- Start date
The French have made some efforts, but their work there and in Algeria is a fraction of what has been accomplished by the British territories. de Gaulle envies their success, though hell will freeze over before he ever admits it. sub-Saharan Africa is running on the efforts from the British colonies (whose prosperity is making sure the the Congo and the Portuguese colonies are humming right along), but West Africa is for now still a bit backwards. That's changing now, however.
1946-1950
As the world came away from WWII, the world's geopolitical situation began to shift, as well. It was clear that the massive costs of WWII had sapped the European powers - France was in ruins and Britain was nearly bankrupt, and financial problems were also gripping Portugal and Spain, though in their cases they had largely been spared the damage from WWII. Churchill in Britain found himself facing major calls for social reform as well, which while he did many of them, Churchill's work was not as wide-ranging as what his rivals, namely Labor Party leader Clement Attlee, proposed, it was still a substantial turnaround from Churchill's earlier opinions. Despite this, by 1950 Churchill's government was worn out, and he was swept in the 1950 elections by Attlee and the Labor Party.
The Commonwealth nuclear weapons project was coming good just as the war ended, and in 1948 Britain and South Africa tested their first nuclear weapons, and a year after that East Africa did the same. It was well known that the Soviets had a bomb project going, as did Mao in China, but it expected that in both cases their development of nuclear weapons would be a slow process. The Americans were keen on maintaining the Western supremacy in nuclear firepower for as long as possible, but that dark side grew to be a problem in the years after World War II, thanks to the actions of attention-seeking hardheads like Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose rabid anti-communist campaign in the 1940s and 1950s caused many people to lose face and in many cases their jobs, which ultimately made McCarthy a scapegoat for these excesses himself in a twist of irony.
The scientific research stations in the Belgian Congo were indeed an asset to many of the people of the world, as two of them were occupied by two geniuses of medicine, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Hilary Koprowski, both of whom were infectious disease specialists, and while both were working on the Polio vaccine, they had different ways of going about it. In February 1950, Koprowski succeeded in making a virus for the disease and one which could be taken orally. Jonas Salk came up with the injected variant in 1954. Both vaccines would be widely used worldwide, and would eventually all but eradicate the virus in the developed world. Malaria eradication work was also being done on a wide scale across the African continent.
Eskhol, after 15 years in office, retired with the May 1950 elections in East Africa, which his Labour Party lost to the Conservative Party of East Africa, which in the process gained its first government since Joseph Trumpledor. Trumpledor lived long enough to see this, but he died on July 25, 1950, at his home in Nairobi. He did live long enough to personally congratulate his successor, Daniel Raymond. Eskhol was succeeded as Labour Party leader by Jonas Kariuki, a mixed-race son of a Kikuyu tribesman and a English-born woman. Suspicion of him being born out of wedlock was proven false when it was found that his mother, Alisha Westfield, had been engaged to her husband, Makena Kariuki, when Jonas was born. A youthful 44, Kamau would lead the Labour Party for years to come.
Trumpledor's death was mourned across all of Africa and much of the British Empire - Trumpledor had given the Jewish homeland movement legs, built a force to protect it, and had served his nation with distinction in both war and peace. Laid to rest in a crypt at the Acre of Heroes in Nairobi, his funeral was attended by many thousands. Lettow-Vorbeck and Smuts gave eulogies, with Lettow-Vorbeck having a noticable difficult time keeping his voice level while doing so. Smuts looked frail, but his booming voice had little trouble addressing the crowd. But Smuts had mere months to live himself. He died on November 15, 1950, at his home near Pretoria. His funeral was much the same, a massive state funeral. In both cases, dignitaries from around the world attented, including Churchill in both cases, who gave a eulogy at Smuts' funeral in Pretoria, and many others. In both cases, statues were erected to their honor in their respective capital cities.
Churchill's final term in office as British Prime Minister had been eventful. He had fought hard to keep some semblance of the British Empire intact, but was quickly coming to realize that many of its crown jewels, India in particular, simply could not be kept. India gained its independence in August 1947 at the same time as sister state Pakistan. The two did not separate peacefully, though. The state of Hyderabad tried to join Pakistan, but their attempt was put down rather brutally by the Indian Army. Fifteen million people were displaced in the partition and thousands died in intercommunal violence. Churchill repeatedly ripped Lord Mountbatten's work during it, saying that his efforts were slow and that the country should not have been partitioned in the first place. That drew an angry response from Pakistan's first Governor-General, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who said that Muslims should have a nation of their own without being stuck in Hindu-dominated India. Gandhi denounced Jinnah's words and actions, and considering his decade-long fight to keep Muslim Indians in the Congress Party, but Jinnah ultimately won out and got his separate nation. Gandhi was not impressed by this and fought bitterly against it, but ultimately he lost out. The partition caused both sides to bitterly hate the other, which more than anything hurt Gandhi's hopes for a peaceful solution.
On January 30, 1948, he was shot by an Indian nationalist in New Delhi. He survived the shooting, but his treatment was too much for Indian hospitals to easily handle. Hearing this, Eskhol ordered the East African Air Force to transport Gandhi to East Africa for treatment, and the revered statesman was nursed back to health at New Akko's famed King David Hospital. Indian PM Nehru did not forget this deed, and called the African nations "our friends, our colleagues, our allies, our brothers."
After he recovered, Gandhi insisted on making the rounds of his Indian settlements and meeting many of the people there, including meeting the Rhodesian PM, Godfrey Huggins. Huggins and Gandhi were cordial but disagreed on many things, as did Smuts and Lettow-Vorbeck. Gandhi knew that all three had been military men, but despite that he commented that "their hearts and pure, they are men who truly do seek the better of their peoples." Vorbeck, who had never met Gandhi before, said that the Indian man, though he was frail, had immense dignity and "the kind of strength that few men are blessed with possession of. Physical strength is easy to achieve, moral and mental strength is much harder." After his tour was over, Gandhi returned to India in April 1948. But India's intercommunal violence convinced many of his supporters that the peaceful plains of Africa were a good option to avoid violence. Most of these immigrants landed in Natal in South Africa or in Northern and Northwestern Rhodesia.
On June 25, 1950, one of the bitter aftermaths of the Second World War began again, this time breaking out in Korea. The entire African Federation, disgusted with Stalin and Mao, joined the United Nations force to assist the South Koreans. Maurice Rose and Thomas Ngovu were called up to lead the forces, and many veterans joined them. Some would go on to call Korea the last battle of World War II, and indeed, there may have been some truth to that statement......
As the world came away from WWII, the world's geopolitical situation began to shift, as well. It was clear that the massive costs of WWII had sapped the European powers - France was in ruins and Britain was nearly bankrupt, and financial problems were also gripping Portugal and Spain, though in their cases they had largely been spared the damage from WWII. Churchill in Britain found himself facing major calls for social reform as well, which while he did many of them, Churchill's work was not as wide-ranging as what his rivals, namely Labor Party leader Clement Attlee, proposed, it was still a substantial turnaround from Churchill's earlier opinions. Despite this, by 1950 Churchill's government was worn out, and he was swept in the 1950 elections by Attlee and the Labor Party.
The Commonwealth nuclear weapons project was coming good just as the war ended, and in 1948 Britain and South Africa tested their first nuclear weapons, and a year after that East Africa did the same. It was well known that the Soviets had a bomb project going, as did Mao in China, but it expected that in both cases their development of nuclear weapons would be a slow process. The Americans were keen on maintaining the Western supremacy in nuclear firepower for as long as possible, but that dark side grew to be a problem in the years after World War II, thanks to the actions of attention-seeking hardheads like Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose rabid anti-communist campaign in the 1940s and 1950s caused many people to lose face and in many cases their jobs, which ultimately made McCarthy a scapegoat for these excesses himself in a twist of irony.
The scientific research stations in the Belgian Congo were indeed an asset to many of the people of the world, as two of them were occupied by two geniuses of medicine, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Hilary Koprowski, both of whom were infectious disease specialists, and while both were working on the Polio vaccine, they had different ways of going about it. In February 1950, Koprowski succeeded in making a virus for the disease and one which could be taken orally. Jonas Salk came up with the injected variant in 1954. Both vaccines would be widely used worldwide, and would eventually all but eradicate the virus in the developed world. Malaria eradication work was also being done on a wide scale across the African continent.
Eskhol, after 15 years in office, retired with the May 1950 elections in East Africa, which his Labour Party lost to the Conservative Party of East Africa, which in the process gained its first government since Joseph Trumpledor. Trumpledor lived long enough to see this, but he died on July 25, 1950, at his home in Nairobi. He did live long enough to personally congratulate his successor, Daniel Raymond. Eskhol was succeeded as Labour Party leader by Jonas Kariuki, a mixed-race son of a Kikuyu tribesman and a English-born woman. Suspicion of him being born out of wedlock was proven false when it was found that his mother, Alisha Westfield, had been engaged to her husband, Makena Kariuki, when Jonas was born. A youthful 44, Kamau would lead the Labour Party for years to come.
Trumpledor's death was mourned across all of Africa and much of the British Empire - Trumpledor had given the Jewish homeland movement legs, built a force to protect it, and had served his nation with distinction in both war and peace. Laid to rest in a crypt at the Acre of Heroes in Nairobi, his funeral was attended by many thousands. Lettow-Vorbeck and Smuts gave eulogies, with Lettow-Vorbeck having a noticable difficult time keeping his voice level while doing so. Smuts looked frail, but his booming voice had little trouble addressing the crowd. But Smuts had mere months to live himself. He died on November 15, 1950, at his home near Pretoria. His funeral was much the same, a massive state funeral. In both cases, dignitaries from around the world attented, including Churchill in both cases, who gave a eulogy at Smuts' funeral in Pretoria, and many others. In both cases, statues were erected to their honor in their respective capital cities.
Churchill's final term in office as British Prime Minister had been eventful. He had fought hard to keep some semblance of the British Empire intact, but was quickly coming to realize that many of its crown jewels, India in particular, simply could not be kept. India gained its independence in August 1947 at the same time as sister state Pakistan. The two did not separate peacefully, though. The state of Hyderabad tried to join Pakistan, but their attempt was put down rather brutally by the Indian Army. Fifteen million people were displaced in the partition and thousands died in intercommunal violence. Churchill repeatedly ripped Lord Mountbatten's work during it, saying that his efforts were slow and that the country should not have been partitioned in the first place. That drew an angry response from Pakistan's first Governor-General, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who said that Muslims should have a nation of their own without being stuck in Hindu-dominated India. Gandhi denounced Jinnah's words and actions, and considering his decade-long fight to keep Muslim Indians in the Congress Party, but Jinnah ultimately won out and got his separate nation. Gandhi was not impressed by this and fought bitterly against it, but ultimately he lost out. The partition caused both sides to bitterly hate the other, which more than anything hurt Gandhi's hopes for a peaceful solution.
On January 30, 1948, he was shot by an Indian nationalist in New Delhi. He survived the shooting, but his treatment was too much for Indian hospitals to easily handle. Hearing this, Eskhol ordered the East African Air Force to transport Gandhi to East Africa for treatment, and the revered statesman was nursed back to health at New Akko's famed King David Hospital. Indian PM Nehru did not forget this deed, and called the African nations "our friends, our colleagues, our allies, our brothers."
After he recovered, Gandhi insisted on making the rounds of his Indian settlements and meeting many of the people there, including meeting the Rhodesian PM, Godfrey Huggins. Huggins and Gandhi were cordial but disagreed on many things, as did Smuts and Lettow-Vorbeck. Gandhi knew that all three had been military men, but despite that he commented that "their hearts and pure, they are men who truly do seek the better of their peoples." Vorbeck, who had never met Gandhi before, said that the Indian man, though he was frail, had immense dignity and "the kind of strength that few men are blessed with possession of. Physical strength is easy to achieve, moral and mental strength is much harder." After his tour was over, Gandhi returned to India in April 1948. But India's intercommunal violence convinced many of his supporters that the peaceful plains of Africa were a good option to avoid violence. Most of these immigrants landed in Natal in South Africa or in Northern and Northwestern Rhodesia.
On June 25, 1950, one of the bitter aftermaths of the Second World War began again, this time breaking out in Korea. The entire African Federation, disgusted with Stalin and Mao, joined the United Nations force to assist the South Koreans. Maurice Rose and Thomas Ngovu were called up to lead the forces, and many veterans joined them. Some would go on to call Korea the last battle of World War II, and indeed, there may have been some truth to that statement......
Hmm, but shouldn't we now start to see Communism spread n Africa too, perhaps the African nations soon won't be able to support the US side in the Cold War too openly.
Not to speak for TheMann, but I'm assuming that in some areas, that would be implied without having to write it down. There would, however, be exceptions - especially since southern and eastern Africa is now the dominant force in sub-Saharan Africa, economically, politically, and culturally - more so than the US, for which Africa is at least separated from North America by geography - which could mean that some (such as neighbouring countries like Mozambique, or countries like Liberia or Ghana/Gold Coast) could see southern and eastern Africa as some sort of a "Third Way" option. So maybe there won't be as many areas as in OTL for Communism to spread - maybe a few of the more committed ones from OTL, like Egypt and Guinea-Bissau (but not Cape Verde, which could buck the trend and decide to remain part of Portugal), but other than that - I'm not too sure once South African/East African economic dominance overtakes US economic dominance, which some African leaders might praise.
Yes, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are all part of the Commonwealth.
Communism does exist and is spreading in some parts of Africa, but it should be pointed out that Africa here is considerably better off than it was IOTL. The African economies are dominated by the four African powers (East Africa, South Africa, Rhodesia and SWA), and their hunger for resources is fueling growth in Ethiopia, Congo, Angola and Nigeria as well. Their efforts are also forcing the Europeans to make greater efforts in order to avoid civil unrest. The overall result is that most of the continent is much better off, and while communism has some appeal, it is not a widespread ideology, and the Soviets are too busy rebuilding and helping Mao to be of much help as of yet. And as Dan pointed out, as the four powers dominate the continent, many other Africans are looking to them as to how to build their nations.
1950 Populations
Union of South Africa
Overall: 15,799,200
White: 4,565,400
Black: 8,134,100
Colored: 1,917,300
Indian: 825,800
Other: 356,600
Commonwealth of East Africa
Overall: 19,845,100
White: 7,723,900 (5,810,000 Jewish)
Black: 8,960,100
Colored: 1,024,800
Indian/Arab: 1,916,300
Other: 220,000
Commonwealth of Rhodesia
Overall: 6,123,700
White: 1,252,000
Black: 3,621,200
Colored: 460,500
Indian: 735,000
Other: 55,000
Republic of South West Africa
Overall: 2,531,100
White: 1,335,800
Black: 1,012,000
Colored: 121,800
Indian: 26,500
Other: 35,000
Union of South Africa
Overall: 15,799,200
White: 4,565,400
Black: 8,134,100
Colored: 1,917,300
Indian: 825,800
Other: 356,600
Commonwealth of East Africa
Overall: 19,845,100
White: 7,723,900 (5,810,000 Jewish)
Black: 8,960,100
Colored: 1,024,800
Indian/Arab: 1,916,300
Other: 220,000
Commonwealth of Rhodesia
Overall: 6,123,700
White: 1,252,000
Black: 3,621,200
Colored: 460,500
Indian: 735,000
Other: 55,000
Republic of South West Africa
Overall: 2,531,100
White: 1,335,800
Black: 1,012,000
Colored: 121,800
Indian: 26,500
Other: 35,000
Sure looks like one heck of an interesting 1950s coming up.
You betcha. New leaders, new policies, new technologies, new events. It's gonna be a show, alright.
1950s (Part 1)
The 1950s kicked off in large part with the Korean War, caused when Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950. The African Powers quickly joined the UN assistance sent to assist the South Koreans in driving the Communists from their country.
Among the first leaders on the scene was Thomas Ngovu, who had been for four years in charge of Japan's war industries being destroyed and had built up a great rapport with the Japanese. He led part of the UN forces while his famed 2nd and 3rd East African Armored Divisions were being reformed in East Africa, and while the American units moved from Japan found themselves being swallowed by the North Koreans, the African and Australian forces on the scene, moved mostly from Japan and Taiwan, fought with much more strength - but they, too, found themselves failing due to superior North Korean numbers. Other top African generals were also called up, including South African William Neilson and East Africans Mordechai Anielewitz and Maurice Rose. One of the newer generals, South Africa's Brigadier Joshua Mksoi, would go on to be one of the famed leaders of the war.
Korea had been divided by the war and had a population which either wholeheartedly supported communism or outright hated it. In addition, hatred of Japanese and the very proud Korean psyche had contributed to the tension. The early was very bitter, to say the least. The Koreans fought with a tenacity that genuinely scared many of the Allied armies. By September, the North Koreans had forced the South Koreans to a line around the city of Pusan. But by now, the naval forces of the West had arrived, and made life difficult for the North Koreans. This gave the first VC of the War, to SAAF Captain Hennie Kruger, who fought against seven North Korean MiG-15s in his de Havilland Sea Vampire, knocking down three of them before being shot down himself, but allowing the gunners on HMEAS Mwamumzenti to load up and open up on the jet fighters. The American and UN forces soon began blasting KPA logistical trains, which made their advance unsupportable.
McArthur's landing an Incheon stunned the KPA forces, who fought hard but were fairly easily overwhelmed. Ngovu, who MacArthur had immense respect for, was given command of all of the forces breaking out of Pusan, despite the fact he technically was junior to Anielewitz and Rose. That didn't matter to them, however - they had fought with Ngovu, and had immense respect for him, and Ngovu considered the two Jewish generals his closest confidants. He took the forces at Pusan north in a daring raid, but one which could have easily have trapped much of the KPA inside South Korea. Fearing this, Kim Il-sung ordered them to retreat - but only roughly 30,000 of them made it back, between vicious fighting and the efforts of the ROK Army, which fought just as tough as the KPA did.
In October, the UN gave the go-ahead to go north of the 38th parallel, and MacArthur and Ngovu did just that. The Eighth US Army, ROK Army and the Commonwealth forces - which included nine countries at that point - stormed up the Korean Peninsula, taking the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and racing up the Western coast of Korea, reaching the Yalu River by the end of October and by that point having overwhelming momentum. MacArthur wanted to keep going into Communist China, and Ngovu agreed with him - but Truman, and Rose, Anielewitz and Neilson, said that crossing the Yalu would likely bring the PRC and USSR into it, which the Commonwealth very much wanted to avoid. Raymond ordered Ngovu to hold at the Yalu, and he did so, but only grudgingly. Ngovu and Neilson, aided by Mksoi, had a trick up their sleeves, however. US intelligence had fought Kim Il-Sung at the city of Wonsan, but the Americans couldn't do anything with this.
But the Africans could, and did.
The East African 2nd Special Forces Regiment - the now-legendary Maccabees - South Africa's 44th Parachute Brigade and the British 22nd Special Air Service set up a daring operation to kill or capture Kim Il-Sung and then use the other forces to haul back to UN lines. The operation, named Operation Optimus, wound up with Kim being killed by members of the 44th, and the operation was deemed a success, despite over a third of their number being killed or captured in the raid. Few of those captured lived very long at the hands of the vengeful Koreans. US Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft covered them on the way out, but that didn't make things all that much easier for the men on the ground, and the MiGs of the Communists didn't make it easy for the UN aircraft, either. Wing Commander Ian Smith, who had so distinguished himself in WWII, made a name for himself again at the control of a Rhodesian AF P-51H Mustang, managing to shoot down two MiG-15s trying to attack the raiders on the way out. The Koreans came to call Commander Smith "Scarface" after a WWII crash that had paralyzed part of his face.
By the end of October, the Chinese were mobilizing along the Yalu. MacArthur was notified of this by Neilson, who order the South African 7 Division to be ready to face them, led by Brigadier Mksoi. The ROK forces on the scene were backed up by South African, East African, Canadian and Australian forces. The Chinese stormed over the border on October 25, figuring they'd run over the ROK forces and attack the American Eighth Army. They instead ran head on into 7 Division and East Africa's 12th and 15th Armored Brigades, as well as the Australian 1st Division and several Canadian Brigades in addition to the ROK Army. Though outnumbered nearly 3-1, the UN line held in a battle that raged for nearly 80 hours non-stop. Mksoi led his Division to round the city of Sinuiju and kick the Chinese forces in the back, though his division was bloodied in the process and Mksoi himself took fragments from a Chinese artillery shell and suffered a week in the hospital recovering.
Fresh reinforcements were raced in to help the forces stationed at Unsan, and when the Chinese tried again in November, MacArthur's 8th Army was ready for them. Again seriously outnumbered and briefly overrun by the sheer numbers, the American line held - and the East African 3rd Armored Division, the famed force of North Africa, raced from Incheon to Unsan to support MacArthur's beleaguered forces. The UN line held again, and one of the casualties in this war was Mao Zedong's own son - a fact not known for years afterward.
With Sung dead and over 250,000 UN troops in Korea, the chances of a communist victory were almost non-existent, and by the end of November China and the Russians had had enough and backed off. Mao was enraged at his defeat, but he swallowed his pride and focused his efforts from there on rebuilding his country. The cease-fire was signed on January 18, 1951, and while Korea and China would remain enemies until after the Cold War, the country was free, and would become a staunch ally of the African nations, as well as America and Western Europe. By the 1950s, the stories of the tenacious Korean fighting had engendered a strong sense of respect for the Koreans in Japan, and after the June 1960 apology by Japan for its crimes committed against Koreans up to 1945, the two countries would become major allies, and by the 1970s and 1980s, major business partners and outright friends.
The African forces arrived home in 1951 to a proud populace, and with the majority of the new arrivals in the African nations being black Africans, a major sense of racism being dumb was growing in the nations of Africa.
The 1953 elections in South Africa were a watershed, being the first contested actively by the African National Congress. They finished in third behind the United Party and the South African Party, gaining 26 seats in the 185-seat South African Parliament. Their party leaders, Albert Lutuli and Nelson Mandela, were widely considered to be future leaders of South Africa. Smuts had originally succeeded by Jacobus Strauss, but his ill health by 1952 had resulted in him being replaced by famed Johannesburg mixed-race lawyer Renaldo Vaurren, who led the party to victory in the 1953 elections. The 1953 elections increased the number of non-white parliamentarians from four in 1948 to thirty-five. Vaurren had a strong rapport with Hertzog, who by now had seen the race-based Afrikaner nationalism espoused by the likes of Daniel Malan sink away. Malan was re-elected in the 1953 elections, and steadfastly refused to work with the tree primary parties, and was censured in March 1954 after he called ANC leader Lutuli a "kaffir who has grown too big for his britches." South African politics would be dominated in the 1950s by the growing number of Indian, mixed-race and black parliamentarians, and the realignment of political parties that resulted from this. By-elections in 1954 saw three other names who would go on to be big ones enter parliament, those being Govan Mbeki, Jan Steytler and Helen Suzman.
In 1955, West Germany entered the NATO alliance, which meant that the country would have to start being re-armed. The Japanese were also starting to do this by this time as well. This resulted in the need for somebody competent to tun things, and Erwin Rommel was asked to return to Germany to lead the rearmament of the West German military. Fully aware of this opportunity, he took it with the full blessing, returning to Germany in July 1955. Rommel would be the first commander of the new Bundeswehr taking command on the organization's founding on November 12, 1955. He would retire in 1965 because of health issues, but by then, he had gone on to be a genuine German hero, for both his military skills and his willingness to tell right from wrong. Rommel would return to South West Africa, living much of the remainder of his life in Swakopmund though commuting regularly back and forth to Germany until his death in 1981. Rommel's organization of the small but powerful South West African defense forces had been excellent, and the Germans would consider South West Africa one of its closest friends and allies, and not just because over a third of the territory's population had been born in Germany.
The 1950s were full steam ahead in economic terms. The establishment of Reynard Automobiles in the 1920s had established an African automaker, but in 1953 South Africa saw the same with the establishment of the Westwood Automobile company. By now, numerous foreign automakers were also active in Africa, and General Motors by the late 1950s was almost entirely focusing its Buick lines on the African market - a decision that would have major impacts in the years to come. The explosive growth of private automobiles in Africa in the 1950s, a similar story to what was happening in Australia, Canada and America, was leading to major crowding problems.
The solution to that was the same as in North America - a system of major highways, first proposed by Vaurren in 1955 and based on the Interstate Highway System proposed by President Eisenhower in the United States, stretching the length of breadth of South Africa. But the idea also made sense to Raymond, Huggins and Lettow-Vorbeck, and by the time the program was formally approved in South Africa in March 1956, the system would spread across the African powers, as well as Ethiopia and Congo. The plan was centered around Africa Route 1, which would run from Cape Town, South Africa, to Kampala, East Africa - following agreements with Sudan and Egypt in 1958, this would be extended to Alexandria, Egypt. Africa Route 2 would run straight north from Cape Town to Ondangwa, South West Africa, though later agreements with the Portuguese would allow this to run through Angola, and as the African territories became independent, Africa Route 2 would be extended to Lagos, Nigeria - now a prosperous city because of the country's vast oil wealth. Africa Route 3 would run from Matadi, Congo, to Mogadishu, East Africa, running through Nairobi and Kampala, among others. Other Africa Routes would grow as the African nations gained their independence and development progressed. Other highways, named National Routes, would cross the various countries. In many cases, these got names of their own, such as East Africa's National Route 2, running from Nairobi to Mombasa, being named the Joseph Trumpledor highway. By the mid 1960s, the four powers' highways were mostly completed.
But the highways did not make the railways neglected for investment. Diesel locomotives began arriving on these lines in 1950s, allowing for more easy crossings of desert areas like the Sudanese Sahara and the South African Great Karroo. The entire Cape to Cairo railways had gained centralized traffic control by the early 1960s, a new four-track bridge over the Zambezi river was inaugurated in 1961. The Jam Smuts Rail Route from Durban to Johannesburg, with its spectactular bridges and tunnels through the rugged Drakensberg Mountains and the 878-foot-high Taimasa Bridge, was completed in 1966, and would go on to be a major tourist attraction in the decades to come.
But the biggest infrastructure project of all was proposed in the Congo in 1955. Noting the vast hydroelectric power of the Congo River, the Belgian, Congolese and African authorities agreed to develop this river, but the plan proposed by South African architect David Mashlan in June 1956 involved a massive series of dams, providing an immense amount of hydroelectric power, estimated to be as much as 50,000 megawatts - as much as all of South Africa at the time. The Congolese pushed hard for the huge project, and the Portuguese, who wanted Angola and Mozambique to become more prosperous as well, in the 1957 agreement that also allowed African Route 2 to go ahead, allowed for power to be transmitted across Angola, allowing power from this dam to fuel much of Southwestern Africa, as far away as Cape Town.
On April 10, 1958, the South African and Rhodesian governments agreed to help build the huge project, named the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project. Construction began that year, and despite Congo's independence in 1964, the Grand Inga project kept on going. Completed in 1974, the huge dam remains to this day the largest hydroelectric project in the world, producing an immense 58,000 megawatts of electric power after upgrades to the turbines at Inga 2, 3 and 4 in 1980.
Even with the prospect of Grand Inga dam and its awesome output, ESKOM and EAENC, the two largest electrical utility providers in Africa, began looking into the idea of nuclear energy. After the British Calder Hall and American Shippingport power stations proved to be successful, ESKOM ordered the first nuclear power stations for Africa in July 1958, ordering five Magnox reactors from the UK, though the reactors would be built with African turbines, pumps and many mechanical components, and in a forward-thinking decision that would prove to be adopted worldwide, a reinforced containment structure that could withstand natural disasters. The first plant was built near Mossel Bay in the Cape Province, and went online in December 1960.
The 1950s kicked off in large part with the Korean War, caused when Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950. The African Powers quickly joined the UN assistance sent to assist the South Koreans in driving the Communists from their country.
Among the first leaders on the scene was Thomas Ngovu, who had been for four years in charge of Japan's war industries being destroyed and had built up a great rapport with the Japanese. He led part of the UN forces while his famed 2nd and 3rd East African Armored Divisions were being reformed in East Africa, and while the American units moved from Japan found themselves being swallowed by the North Koreans, the African and Australian forces on the scene, moved mostly from Japan and Taiwan, fought with much more strength - but they, too, found themselves failing due to superior North Korean numbers. Other top African generals were also called up, including South African William Neilson and East Africans Mordechai Anielewitz and Maurice Rose. One of the newer generals, South Africa's Brigadier Joshua Mksoi, would go on to be one of the famed leaders of the war.
Korea had been divided by the war and had a population which either wholeheartedly supported communism or outright hated it. In addition, hatred of Japanese and the very proud Korean psyche had contributed to the tension. The early was very bitter, to say the least. The Koreans fought with a tenacity that genuinely scared many of the Allied armies. By September, the North Koreans had forced the South Koreans to a line around the city of Pusan. But by now, the naval forces of the West had arrived, and made life difficult for the North Koreans. This gave the first VC of the War, to SAAF Captain Hennie Kruger, who fought against seven North Korean MiG-15s in his de Havilland Sea Vampire, knocking down three of them before being shot down himself, but allowing the gunners on HMEAS Mwamumzenti to load up and open up on the jet fighters. The American and UN forces soon began blasting KPA logistical trains, which made their advance unsupportable.
McArthur's landing an Incheon stunned the KPA forces, who fought hard but were fairly easily overwhelmed. Ngovu, who MacArthur had immense respect for, was given command of all of the forces breaking out of Pusan, despite the fact he technically was junior to Anielewitz and Rose. That didn't matter to them, however - they had fought with Ngovu, and had immense respect for him, and Ngovu considered the two Jewish generals his closest confidants. He took the forces at Pusan north in a daring raid, but one which could have easily have trapped much of the KPA inside South Korea. Fearing this, Kim Il-sung ordered them to retreat - but only roughly 30,000 of them made it back, between vicious fighting and the efforts of the ROK Army, which fought just as tough as the KPA did.
In October, the UN gave the go-ahead to go north of the 38th parallel, and MacArthur and Ngovu did just that. The Eighth US Army, ROK Army and the Commonwealth forces - which included nine countries at that point - stormed up the Korean Peninsula, taking the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and racing up the Western coast of Korea, reaching the Yalu River by the end of October and by that point having overwhelming momentum. MacArthur wanted to keep going into Communist China, and Ngovu agreed with him - but Truman, and Rose, Anielewitz and Neilson, said that crossing the Yalu would likely bring the PRC and USSR into it, which the Commonwealth very much wanted to avoid. Raymond ordered Ngovu to hold at the Yalu, and he did so, but only grudgingly. Ngovu and Neilson, aided by Mksoi, had a trick up their sleeves, however. US intelligence had fought Kim Il-Sung at the city of Wonsan, but the Americans couldn't do anything with this.
But the Africans could, and did.
The East African 2nd Special Forces Regiment - the now-legendary Maccabees - South Africa's 44th Parachute Brigade and the British 22nd Special Air Service set up a daring operation to kill or capture Kim Il-Sung and then use the other forces to haul back to UN lines. The operation, named Operation Optimus, wound up with Kim being killed by members of the 44th, and the operation was deemed a success, despite over a third of their number being killed or captured in the raid. Few of those captured lived very long at the hands of the vengeful Koreans. US Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft covered them on the way out, but that didn't make things all that much easier for the men on the ground, and the MiGs of the Communists didn't make it easy for the UN aircraft, either. Wing Commander Ian Smith, who had so distinguished himself in WWII, made a name for himself again at the control of a Rhodesian AF P-51H Mustang, managing to shoot down two MiG-15s trying to attack the raiders on the way out. The Koreans came to call Commander Smith "Scarface" after a WWII crash that had paralyzed part of his face.
By the end of October, the Chinese were mobilizing along the Yalu. MacArthur was notified of this by Neilson, who order the South African 7 Division to be ready to face them, led by Brigadier Mksoi. The ROK forces on the scene were backed up by South African, East African, Canadian and Australian forces. The Chinese stormed over the border on October 25, figuring they'd run over the ROK forces and attack the American Eighth Army. They instead ran head on into 7 Division and East Africa's 12th and 15th Armored Brigades, as well as the Australian 1st Division and several Canadian Brigades in addition to the ROK Army. Though outnumbered nearly 3-1, the UN line held in a battle that raged for nearly 80 hours non-stop. Mksoi led his Division to round the city of Sinuiju and kick the Chinese forces in the back, though his division was bloodied in the process and Mksoi himself took fragments from a Chinese artillery shell and suffered a week in the hospital recovering.
Fresh reinforcements were raced in to help the forces stationed at Unsan, and when the Chinese tried again in November, MacArthur's 8th Army was ready for them. Again seriously outnumbered and briefly overrun by the sheer numbers, the American line held - and the East African 3rd Armored Division, the famed force of North Africa, raced from Incheon to Unsan to support MacArthur's beleaguered forces. The UN line held again, and one of the casualties in this war was Mao Zedong's own son - a fact not known for years afterward.
With Sung dead and over 250,000 UN troops in Korea, the chances of a communist victory were almost non-existent, and by the end of November China and the Russians had had enough and backed off. Mao was enraged at his defeat, but he swallowed his pride and focused his efforts from there on rebuilding his country. The cease-fire was signed on January 18, 1951, and while Korea and China would remain enemies until after the Cold War, the country was free, and would become a staunch ally of the African nations, as well as America and Western Europe. By the 1950s, the stories of the tenacious Korean fighting had engendered a strong sense of respect for the Koreans in Japan, and after the June 1960 apology by Japan for its crimes committed against Koreans up to 1945, the two countries would become major allies, and by the 1970s and 1980s, major business partners and outright friends.
The African forces arrived home in 1951 to a proud populace, and with the majority of the new arrivals in the African nations being black Africans, a major sense of racism being dumb was growing in the nations of Africa.
The 1953 elections in South Africa were a watershed, being the first contested actively by the African National Congress. They finished in third behind the United Party and the South African Party, gaining 26 seats in the 185-seat South African Parliament. Their party leaders, Albert Lutuli and Nelson Mandela, were widely considered to be future leaders of South Africa. Smuts had originally succeeded by Jacobus Strauss, but his ill health by 1952 had resulted in him being replaced by famed Johannesburg mixed-race lawyer Renaldo Vaurren, who led the party to victory in the 1953 elections. The 1953 elections increased the number of non-white parliamentarians from four in 1948 to thirty-five. Vaurren had a strong rapport with Hertzog, who by now had seen the race-based Afrikaner nationalism espoused by the likes of Daniel Malan sink away. Malan was re-elected in the 1953 elections, and steadfastly refused to work with the tree primary parties, and was censured in March 1954 after he called ANC leader Lutuli a "kaffir who has grown too big for his britches." South African politics would be dominated in the 1950s by the growing number of Indian, mixed-race and black parliamentarians, and the realignment of political parties that resulted from this. By-elections in 1954 saw three other names who would go on to be big ones enter parliament, those being Govan Mbeki, Jan Steytler and Helen Suzman.
In 1955, West Germany entered the NATO alliance, which meant that the country would have to start being re-armed. The Japanese were also starting to do this by this time as well. This resulted in the need for somebody competent to tun things, and Erwin Rommel was asked to return to Germany to lead the rearmament of the West German military. Fully aware of this opportunity, he took it with the full blessing, returning to Germany in July 1955. Rommel would be the first commander of the new Bundeswehr taking command on the organization's founding on November 12, 1955. He would retire in 1965 because of health issues, but by then, he had gone on to be a genuine German hero, for both his military skills and his willingness to tell right from wrong. Rommel would return to South West Africa, living much of the remainder of his life in Swakopmund though commuting regularly back and forth to Germany until his death in 1981. Rommel's organization of the small but powerful South West African defense forces had been excellent, and the Germans would consider South West Africa one of its closest friends and allies, and not just because over a third of the territory's population had been born in Germany.
The 1950s were full steam ahead in economic terms. The establishment of Reynard Automobiles in the 1920s had established an African automaker, but in 1953 South Africa saw the same with the establishment of the Westwood Automobile company. By now, numerous foreign automakers were also active in Africa, and General Motors by the late 1950s was almost entirely focusing its Buick lines on the African market - a decision that would have major impacts in the years to come. The explosive growth of private automobiles in Africa in the 1950s, a similar story to what was happening in Australia, Canada and America, was leading to major crowding problems.
The solution to that was the same as in North America - a system of major highways, first proposed by Vaurren in 1955 and based on the Interstate Highway System proposed by President Eisenhower in the United States, stretching the length of breadth of South Africa. But the idea also made sense to Raymond, Huggins and Lettow-Vorbeck, and by the time the program was formally approved in South Africa in March 1956, the system would spread across the African powers, as well as Ethiopia and Congo. The plan was centered around Africa Route 1, which would run from Cape Town, South Africa, to Kampala, East Africa - following agreements with Sudan and Egypt in 1958, this would be extended to Alexandria, Egypt. Africa Route 2 would run straight north from Cape Town to Ondangwa, South West Africa, though later agreements with the Portuguese would allow this to run through Angola, and as the African territories became independent, Africa Route 2 would be extended to Lagos, Nigeria - now a prosperous city because of the country's vast oil wealth. Africa Route 3 would run from Matadi, Congo, to Mogadishu, East Africa, running through Nairobi and Kampala, among others. Other Africa Routes would grow as the African nations gained their independence and development progressed. Other highways, named National Routes, would cross the various countries. In many cases, these got names of their own, such as East Africa's National Route 2, running from Nairobi to Mombasa, being named the Joseph Trumpledor highway. By the mid 1960s, the four powers' highways were mostly completed.
But the highways did not make the railways neglected for investment. Diesel locomotives began arriving on these lines in 1950s, allowing for more easy crossings of desert areas like the Sudanese Sahara and the South African Great Karroo. The entire Cape to Cairo railways had gained centralized traffic control by the early 1960s, a new four-track bridge over the Zambezi river was inaugurated in 1961. The Jam Smuts Rail Route from Durban to Johannesburg, with its spectactular bridges and tunnels through the rugged Drakensberg Mountains and the 878-foot-high Taimasa Bridge, was completed in 1966, and would go on to be a major tourist attraction in the decades to come.
But the biggest infrastructure project of all was proposed in the Congo in 1955. Noting the vast hydroelectric power of the Congo River, the Belgian, Congolese and African authorities agreed to develop this river, but the plan proposed by South African architect David Mashlan in June 1956 involved a massive series of dams, providing an immense amount of hydroelectric power, estimated to be as much as 50,000 megawatts - as much as all of South Africa at the time. The Congolese pushed hard for the huge project, and the Portuguese, who wanted Angola and Mozambique to become more prosperous as well, in the 1957 agreement that also allowed African Route 2 to go ahead, allowed for power to be transmitted across Angola, allowing power from this dam to fuel much of Southwestern Africa, as far away as Cape Town.
On April 10, 1958, the South African and Rhodesian governments agreed to help build the huge project, named the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project. Construction began that year, and despite Congo's independence in 1964, the Grand Inga project kept on going. Completed in 1974, the huge dam remains to this day the largest hydroelectric project in the world, producing an immense 58,000 megawatts of electric power after upgrades to the turbines at Inga 2, 3 and 4 in 1980.
Even with the prospect of Grand Inga dam and its awesome output, ESKOM and EAENC, the two largest electrical utility providers in Africa, began looking into the idea of nuclear energy. After the British Calder Hall and American Shippingport power stations proved to be successful, ESKOM ordered the first nuclear power stations for Africa in July 1958, ordering five Magnox reactors from the UK, though the reactors would be built with African turbines, pumps and many mechanical components, and in a forward-thinking decision that would prove to be adopted worldwide, a reinforced containment structure that could withstand natural disasters. The first plant was built near Mossel Bay in the Cape Province, and went online in December 1960.
1950s (Part 2)
The 1950s saw awesome economic growth reach Africa, with several countries, even big ones like Nigeria and the Congo, post double-digit economic growth for years on end, and would also see a vast growth in living standards across virtually the entire continent. And despite Europe's financial problems, with Britain and France in particular having to keep these in mind. The decade also saw some big discoveries - Bauxite in French Guinea, Gold in the Congo, diamonds in several places, oil in Nigeria and iron ore in Cameroon. The bauxite discoveries in French Guinea gave France a convenient excuse to begin funneling more manpower and money into its colonies, which was beneficial from a development point of view but problematic in many cases from social ones. France's heavy-handed actions in Madagascar, Algeria and French Indochina were not helping relations between France and its colonies. Once knowledge of the vast deposits of bauxite in Guinea became known, France began working on ways of fully integrating these territories into France, thus giving them a vast foothold on the world's aluminum markets. This, however, did not go down well with the local inhabitants. The bitter battles with the Malagasy, who well remembered the South African leadership and its being much more beneficial and benevolent, led to increasing calls for independence, and the French abandoned the island after Malagasy forces defeated the French Army at Antanifotsy in February 1957. The newly-independent nation of Madagascar joined the AF in January 1958. Algeria and the closer colonies would be held on by France for longer, though.
Libya and Tunisia became independent in 1952, joining a trend that would see most of the African continent become independent by 1970. Both countries quickly became members of the African Federation, which by now was growing influential on a global scale, its prestige massively boosted by the African support for the UN mission in Korea. Libya had only been independent a few months when South African engineers drilling for water instead found a vast petroleum reserve. Between this and the reserves in Nigeria, the African petroleum reserves soon began powering the African economies, and to some extent began fueling Europe as well. By now, heavy industry was well established in the four powers, but by now additional heavy industry was sprouting across the AF, and soon the new arrivals were no exceptions. The oil reserves led to planes for pipelines to the African powers being set up.
1955 saw long-time Rhodesian PM Godfrey Huggins leave the position after being elevated to the British peerage. The 1955 elections in Rhodesia that followed saw several new parties participate, representing both black Africans and Indian interests, both of which had been largely ignored by Huggins. The largest of the new parties was the Rhodesian African Party, led by Kenneth Kaunda and Dr. Joshua Nkomo, and the lead Indian Party, the Indian African Congress, was led by pediatrician Dr. Kumara Sadhwani.
The 1950s saw awesome economic growth reach Africa, with several countries, even big ones like Nigeria and the Congo, post double-digit economic growth for years on end, and would also see a vast growth in living standards across virtually the entire continent. And despite Europe's financial problems, with Britain and France in particular having to keep these in mind. The decade also saw some big discoveries - Bauxite in French Guinea, Gold in the Congo, diamonds in several places, oil in Nigeria and iron ore in Cameroon. The bauxite discoveries in French Guinea gave France a convenient excuse to begin funneling more manpower and money into its colonies, which was beneficial from a development point of view but problematic in many cases from social ones. France's heavy-handed actions in Madagascar, Algeria and French Indochina were not helping relations between France and its colonies. Once knowledge of the vast deposits of bauxite in Guinea became known, France began working on ways of fully integrating these territories into France, thus giving them a vast foothold on the world's aluminum markets. This, however, did not go down well with the local inhabitants. The bitter battles with the Malagasy, who well remembered the South African leadership and its being much more beneficial and benevolent, led to increasing calls for independence, and the French abandoned the island after Malagasy forces defeated the French Army at Antanifotsy in February 1957. The newly-independent nation of Madagascar joined the AF in January 1958. Algeria and the closer colonies would be held on by France for longer, though.
Libya and Tunisia became independent in 1952, joining a trend that would see most of the African continent become independent by 1970. Both countries quickly became members of the African Federation, which by now was growing influential on a global scale, its prestige massively boosted by the African support for the UN mission in Korea. Libya had only been independent a few months when South African engineers drilling for water instead found a vast petroleum reserve. Between this and the reserves in Nigeria, the African petroleum reserves soon began powering the African economies, and to some extent began fueling Europe as well. By now, heavy industry was well established in the four powers, but by now additional heavy industry was sprouting across the AF, and soon the new arrivals were no exceptions. The oil reserves led to planes for pipelines to the African powers being set up.
1955 saw long-time Rhodesian PM Godfrey Huggins leave the position after being elevated to the British peerage. The 1955 elections in Rhodesia that followed saw several new parties participate, representing both black Africans and Indian interests, both of which had been largely ignored by Huggins. The largest of the new parties was the Rhodesian African Party, led by Kenneth Kaunda and Dr. Joshua Nkomo, and the lead Indian Party, the Indian African Congress, was led by pediatrician Dr. Kumara Sadhwani.
Looking good, TheMann.
The United Party is the center party in South African politics, conservative on social issues (though not nearly as much so as the National Party of Malan) but economically more liberal. The South African Party is socially and economically quite liberal (they and the ANC both openly advocate universal suffrage) and befitting its name, loathes any and all forms of using racial and tribal divisions for the gain of any groups. They are, however, staunch supporters of free enterprise and loathe communism. (Canada's NDP is a fairly good comparison.) The ANC is far more socialist in nature, wanting economic reform and moving many more blacks into the economy. The ANC stands for the rights of Africans first, as opposed to the whites, but when pressed does admit that the Afrikaners are Africans as well. The National Party is on the right, and they are trying to get back some of their prestige and support, but their primary problem is that they believe wholeheartedly in white supremacy, which means a major portion of the electorate will not vote for them under any circumstances.
I see. so maybe the Nats would have to move towards the centre in order to be viable, mainly by dumping the "white supremacy" plank?
Yeah, pretty much. They, however, see themselves as the sole defenders of Afrikanerdom, and the party would have to change much of its high leadership.
Hmm, do I see a split between a more moderate New National Party and the hard-line Nats coming up?