The beat down coup and the Guangxu Reforms - A Sino wank TL

I'm curious-wouldn't an America without a Great Depression have elected somebody besides FDR after Hoover?

Also it seems America will be in a much better position against Japan in the Pacific in this TL.
 
I will post an update before the end of the week. It's a long chapter and I'm not finished yet.

I'm curious-wouldn't an America without a Great Depression have elected somebody besides FDR after Hoover?

Well, Hoover did serve a second term in my TL. Roosevelt didn't get elected until the 1936 election, mostly because the people wanted something new i.e. not Dewey. And unlike in OTL Roosevelt will serve only two terms (until 1944).

Also it seems America will be in a much better position against Japan in the Pacific in this TL.

Yep, but Japan will have free reign for the first six months or so. Then the combined weight of America, China and Britain will crush them.
 
I really see the US not getting involved in a war with Japan in this TL all the things that pitted the US and Japan in this TL don't exist no rape of China, etc. so their would be no need for the embargo as China is capable of handeling its own buisness with its own large army and navy. So the Japanese will have a constant and regular flow of American raw materials and the Chinese will have a constant flow of purchased American weapons and technology. The British would also be quite content with dealing arms and resources to both sides, and with that in mind I don't realy think the Japanese with a stong China still in the fight will risk sending resources needed to fight a strong China to an ultimate doom against those who are selling them arms and resources.
 
Here's another chapter.

WARNING: long post



The Second Great War 1942-1947



Causes


The causes can be found at the end of the First Great War. Germany stood triumphant and had set up a large sphere of influence in eastern Europe. Great Britain got away with an easy peace as Germany was unable to force terms upon her. France was not so lucky and was brutally gutted at with a dictated peace known as the Treaty of Frankfurt. The French military was shrunk to a token force and France was forced to pay huge war indemnities. France also lost a significant amount of territory in Africa to the Germans. France was then wracked by a communist uprising, economic crisis, rampant hyperinflation and poverty. This led to the rise of the Philippe Henriot’s National-Socialist PNSF. The French virulently hated the Germans and wanted to break the German Empire and voted for radical extremist parties such as the communists and fascists. In the end the fascists prevailed. This had led to a militarization of France. Tanks, planes, machine guns and such had been purchased or made in France which had made a miraculous economic recovery. This didn’t solve the numerical disparity between Germany and France but the French military was certainly better in terms of organization as the swift action of the French military in Spain had shown.

Another cause was certain personalities. The flamboyant Mussolini for example saw himself as a new Julius Caesar or Augustus. He would unite the Mediterranean sea under Italian hegemony and thereby create a new Roman Empire. The Mediterranean would become ‘Mare Nostrum’ again as it had been under the rule of the Caesars of Rome such as Augustus, Trajan and so. Mussolini had already annexed Abyssinia as part of his grand scheme to restore Rome to its rightful place under the sun. Italy had also become increasingly militarist. With the disappearance of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and the rise a friendly fascist France, Italy was left the dominant force in the Mediterranean sea. Mussolini had built four Littorio-class battleships and an aircraft carrier after French urging. The outcome of this war however would be determined on land. Henriot was quite a personality as well. He hated Germany. He had already remilitarized France and had rebuilt the economy but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to return to the Napoleonic era where France had dominated Europe. He attempted to do so by having Italy woo the various smaller Balkan states and Turkey who managed to get the Bulgarians to join and moderately awake Turkish interest. The Kingdom of Hungary was Habsburg and pro-German and was therefore not interested. The last and perhaps most mysterious dictator of Europe was Stalin, the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union, the Red Tsar. No one knew his intentions and many eastern European nations had militarized to a high degree with German aid in case he tried anything. His intentions wouldn’t be revealed until very late.

Other causes for this conflict were militarism, imperialism and nationalism in general. France for example wanted its colonies back and Italy wanted to expand at the expense of other colonial powers such as Germany and perhaps later Britain. Portugal joined the fascist allies to get back at Germany as well as it had annexed Angola. Japan also wanted to grow. In 1933 it had started the Second Sino-Japanese war to cut short the growth of Imperial China. It had already annexed Korea in 1910 and Taiwan in 1895. When America instituted an embargo, it sought to expand further, but not without allies. In 1938 France, Italy, Japan, Spain and Portugal created an alliance.





Opposing sides


The opposing sides were the German block on one side, also known as the Central Powers and the fascist block on the other side. The German block was of course dominated by Germany which had become the largest economic power in Europe, more so after annexing the Austrian and Czech lands of the Habsburg Empire. It was the second largest steel producer in the world, second only to the United States. Regions such as the Ruhr area, Silesia and Bohemia were economic hubs of the empire as they were rich in coal and iron ore. Heavy industry, coal mines and steel industry were important sectors but so were heavy machinery, electronics and a growing consumer industry. This was backed by the resources of a large colonial Empire in Africa. Germany also had a large army which heavily focused on storm trooper tactics and the large scale use of artillery. This army was the largest in Europe but was doctrinally inferior to the French army. Tanks and aircraft would be used in support roles and Germany adhered to the Douhet doctrine which favoured bombers. Germany actually had more tanks than France and of a well design too but used them in the wrong way. This would come to haunt them in the war. The German navy on the other hand was the second largest in the world and was among the strongest in the world. The French navy posed no threat to German naval power.

The Germans had their allies in eastern Europe as well although they were more of economic than military value as they provided the Germans with raw materials. During the war they would assist with valuable reinforcements. These countries also possessed large deposits of coal and iron ore which fuelled heavy industry and Germany’s war machine. The armies they possessed were based on the German army and were organized along Prussian lines. They were equipped with German equipment as German weapons manufacturers had a monopoly in eastern Europe. They were generally not big enough to challenge Germany but enough to deter Stalin so far. The states themselves were industrialized with German aid. Ukraine had a large industrial region around the Donetsk basin and around Odessa. These were regional powerhouses of heavy industry, coal mining, steel production, arms manufacturing and ship building. Poland had a similar industrial region around Warsaw. This along with Baltic, Polish and Ukrainian grain would keep the German block going.

The opposing side consisted of France and its mediocre Portuguese, Spanish and Italian allies and Japan. France had a top notch army with semi-automatic weapons for infantry instead of bolt action rifles, a unified tank arm and a strong modern air force to support the ground forces in blitzkrieg action. The French army was highly professional which compensated for the lack of numbers. France recruited Great War veterans who were in their early to mid forties and still the German army was larger. The Italian army was generally more conservative in its organization and still used tanks and airplanes as infantry support, like Germany did but with a generally incompetent and reactionary leadership which resented change. Spain at the end of the 30s and start of the 40s was still reeling from the civil war which had torn apart the country for over a year. Sporadic guerrilla resistance was still common. Italian and French shipments of coal, petroleum, steel and grain helped speed up recovery. The Spanish army was in a transitional phase between the Italian and French standards which wouldn’t be complete when the war started. Spanish leaders, though elitist and aristocratic, proved to be at least semi-competent, more so since they had very recent experience. This competence avoided Spanish entry into the war as they recognized Spain’s bad position and because they doubted whether Germany would fold as quickly as predicted. Portugal was a minor Axis country and generally copied the other three which resulted in a weird but surprisingly functional mishmash. Japan wouldn’t be involved in the early phases of the war but its navy was a potent challenger, especially when fuelled with oil bought from France. Its army lacked tanks but those weren’t of much use in the jungles of southeast Asia. The Japanese navy and air force were formidable and would cause a lot of trouble for the Dutch and British colonial fleets as the former would be invaded by France and the latter would look one warily at what was going on on the continent, sitting behind the Royal Navy and RAF.


Technology


The technology with which the war would be waged differed radically from what had been used during the First Great War. Aeronautics was given much more importance as planes had made much progress. French dive bombers had proven deadly during the Spanish civil war. They were much faster than much more maneuverable than their wood and fabric biplane predecessors of 1914-1918. Speeds of half the speed of sound or more were common. Automatic and semi-automatic weaponry along with less cumbersome portable mortars, field telephones and field radios made infantry much more effective and independent. Tanks would also become prominent as they had gone a long way since the sluggish British monsters of 1917. They had turrets and much better engines which gave them the mobility needed for blitzkrieg. Tank design during this time period was similar in most countries. Tanks were generally lightly armoured when compared to late war models. Armour thickness often didn’t exceed 30 mm or so and the calibers of main guns were rarely over 50 mm. The most common tank for the French was the Char B3, a variant of the Char B1 which was faster and boasted thicker frontal armour, followed by the Somua S35. The Germans used the Panzer II and Panzer III which were generally inferior to French tanks but available in larger numbers. The Panzer IV would be more up to size to face the French although the Panzer V would really solve the problem and that tank wasn’t fielded in large numbers until 1944, after the end of the war. The Italians used the light tank M11/39 and several variants. The USSR mass produced the BT series and T-26 until the late 30s. They would be succeeded by the KV-1 and the T-34 which appeared in 1942. China used license produced Vickers 6-tons and FT-17s although they would produce their own tank designs soon.

Communication technology had also developed with leaps and bounds. In 1914 field radios and telephones were very new and were often unreliable and many units still used couriers to deliver messages. Morse code was also implemented in combat and would see even more use in this war. Several codes had been developed as well and huge computing devices would be used to crack them, most notably during the Battle of the Atlantic to track down French ships. Planes which were sent to bomb enemy targets were often guided with radio signals. Several countries were also independently researching radar which stands for radio detection and ranging. In Germany it was known as FunkMessGerät or FMG for short. It works by means of radio or micro waves which reflect from objects. Initially it was researched for military purposes but today it is used for air traffic control, meteorological purposes and measuring the height of waves. There was also one more piece of technology that would eventually determine victory, the atomic bomb.


The War


The war would start in 1942 after several years of rising tensions. France had remilitarized and had occupied all demilitarized zone. The microstate of Monaco had been pressed into forming a customs union with France and was forced to allow French forces on its soil. The Italians had done the same to San Marino under Mussolini’s leadership. In 1941 France outright annexed Monaco and the royal family of the little country went into exile in Switzerland. Some Germans looked on warily at the growing strength of the fascists but Germany did nothing as it felt secure. The Prussian militarist elite generally believed that they could defeat France and Italy in any war. In 1941 Emperor Wilhelm II died and was succeeded by his son Wilhelm III who could do nothing to stop the coming war in its tracks. He had favoured early intervention against France but no one heeded his warnings.

He decided that he would intervene the next time the French crossed the line. His strength of will was tested sooner than he had expected. As part of Henriot’s policy to unite all Francophone people under one banner, France attempted to bring Belgium into France’s sphere of influence with the ultimate goal of annexing the French speaking Wallonia and turning Flanders into a puppet state. The Belgians resisted any French attempts to curb Belgian sovereignty and self determination as they were very independent minded. Belgium didn’t like the fascist regime on its southern border and feared it. It resented Germany as well for what it had done during the Great War. Many had been executed as part of German attempts to suppress the resistance but this only strengthened it. Buildings were burnt down and pillaging had taken place. In 1918 the Belgian economy was in shambles. Yet Belgium looked to Germany for protection against the aggressive French regime. In December of 1941 Belgium signed the Mittel Europa charter and thus became part of the German block, enabling it to profit from military assistance and economic cooperation. Belgium had signed a pact with the devil to ward off an even worse evil. Belgium had also signed its own death warrant as this provoked immediate French action.

In April 1942 France staged a border incident and used this as a pretext to invade Belgium ‘and stop Belgian aggression and put an end to the artificial state that was Belgium’. Henriot and his gang of thugs mistakenly believed that Germany would not declare war to defend Belgium. They were wrong and Germany declared war as soon as the first French soldiers crossed the Belgian border. French commanders had fortunately prepared for this event and contingency plans were in place. French forces encountered unexpected resistance from the Belgians. They were very stubborn as the valiant defense of Namur showed. The fortresses only fell after being subjected to intense aerial bombardment, long after being surrounded. German forces at this time had mobilized and poured over Belgium’s eastern border to stop the advancing French. The highly mobile French army dashed through the Ardennes which were guarded by second rate Belgian and German units as this area was considered impassable for tanks. By now France had established air superiority over Belgium. They continued their advance into Holland to bypass heavy German border fortifications which extended along the Belgian border as well. The Dutch army was in no shape to combat the French and their blitzkrieg. They lacked artillery, had only one tank and about forty armoured cars and had less than two hundred planes for an air force. The Dutch army was crushed in a matter of days. German defenses did achieve the effect of channeling the French toward the north German plain, exactly where the Germans didn’t want them as this would expose the Ruhr area, Bremen and Hamburg. The Germans fortunately had sheer numbers and used them to stop the speedy French advance which had stunned some generals and had scared others witless. The rapid conquest of Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland was seen as a miracle. From now on Prussian military minds would listen to innovators such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian. The French were finally stopped at Wilhelmshaven were sheer numbers and the High Seas Fleet’s big guns smashed the French armoured spearheads. They also got awfully close to Bremen and its shipyards. The French fell back and dug in for what would be another war in the trenches, but this time in northern Germany.

In southern Europe Italy had declared war under heavy French pressure. The Italians made inroads into Austria, at the coveted Brenner pass among other places. Unlike the French, the incompetent Italian army quickly got bogged down in alpine trench warfare after only a few weeks. German alpine forces and decent border defenses caused heavy casualties for Italy. In a way this was similar to how the Great War had been fought between Austria-Hungary and Italy except for the fact that Italy was now facing a much more unified, disciplined and competent enemy. Italian offensives continued much like in the first Great War. They attempted to reach Vienna and Mussolini got the silly idea in his head of trying to reach the Danube river and restore the northern border of Roman Empire which was of course an unachievable goal and the Italian invaders were repulsed before they even got to Vienna. Spain at this time didn’t declare war as Franco stopped it. Portugal did the same as both countries were too weak at the time. An Iberian volunteer legion was formed which was about 130.000 men strong and French equipped. France in the end decided to leave it this way as it didn’t want even more weak, useless allies.

The British position was a difficult one. They could support the fascists and let Germany be defeated, but then France and Italy would dominate the continent. Stalin would probably gobble up Germany’s eastern European vassals and leave Europe dominated by three hostile powers. In the end they might destroy each other but who said they wouldn’t try to subjugate Britain first. If they supported Germany then German dominance in Europe would continue and might even extend. Japan in the meantime was becoming a growing power in Asia and was clearly up to no good and had designs on Dutch and British possessions in the southeast Asia and the surrounding region. Britain therefore decided to support both sides in the conflict with weapons and cash in the hope of turning it into a stalemate and a negotiated peace.

While the stalemate continued, Germany started to churn out more and more weaponry. German industrial areas such as the Ruhr area, Bohemia and Silesia were now safe and more and more tanks came off the production lines, coal mines and steel factories started to seriously ramp up their production and food was being rationed; in short Germany was going into full war production. France and Italy had failed to defeat Germany quickly and the patriotic fervour of millions of Germans had been awoken. They had tried to destroy Germany and they had failed and now Germany was very pissed off; they had awoken a sleeping giant and it was now flexing its muscles of coal, steel and tanks. Germany now didn’t underestimated the French anymore and would use their own blitzkrieg against them as German tacticians such as Rommel and Guderian wanted. France at this time continued to launch offensives at German lines with a renewed élan but they didn’t penetrate much further into Germany. The economically vital areas such as Bremen, Hamburg and the Ruhr area remained out of reach.

During this time two other powers started to prepare for conflict. One was Stalin’s USSR which had seen fourteen years of industrialization by now and armed to the teeth. Production of steel, coal, iron ore and pig iron had been ramped up and output in many sectors of industry had quadrupled and tanks, rifles, artillery, planes, trucks and locomotives were being built in large numbers. Recently the innovative T-34 tank had been introduced which made all other tank designs obsolete in one blow. Stalin’s time to strike would come soon and he would spread the revolution far, a little too far for comfort. Japan was the other power. It had seen a massive militarization and had colonial ambitions of its own as it saw itself as equal to western powers. It wanted hegemony in Asia to become a superpower, both economically and militarily, to become self sufficient. Roosevelt had attempted to force an embargo on Japan over Japanese war crimes in China which had shown how dependent resource poor Japan was on the west. Many Japanese were afraid but luckily for them Congress disapproved as it was still highly isolationist. Fortunately Roosevelt couldn’t go farther than that as America remained in its postwar isolationism. This was proven when Roosevelt lost the 1940 election to the Republican and highly isolationist Dewey who profited from the war by selling weapons to all sides. The Japanese would strike first and hard at the colonial powers as its position in China was becoming more and more untenable due to the simple fact they were outnumbered and needed more resources and also wanted to put an end to British support for China. Great Britain at this time was in Splendid Isolation but most likely wouldn’t tolerate an invasion of the Dutch East Indies which the Japanese wanted to conquer to avoid having to buy American oil. Their financial position was becoming very difficult. Without an invasion Japan would go bankrupt. Secondly, morale amongst the Japanese was dropping and some quick victories would do them good.
The Japanese had several plans to ‘defeat’ Britain and force it to come to terms. The most daring plan had been developed by admiral Yamamoto. The plan he devised featured an aerial attack on Singapore, the base of the British Eastern fleet. For both political and military reasons the attack plan was seen as too daring and impractical. Many felt that the loss of so many British sailors would enrage the British populace to the point that it wanted to fight a full scale war which Britain supported by its industrial might and the resources of its empire would win. Secondly, such an attack involving small, frail planes attacking capital warships had never been done before. Thirdly, Singapore was a very shallow harbour and torpedoes would strike the bottom before leveling out and resuming their run to the ships. Fourthly, Singapore was a very crowded area and difficult to fight in or so they fought. A new attack plan was devised which involved seizing Thailand, which would surely provoke a British response involving their proud battle line, and then Malaysia and Burma. Yamamoto did get his way this time as the navy’s carriers would be involved in a complex ambush. He was a major proponent of naval aviation as were several others and, as a result, Japan’s carrier arm was the best in the world.

The invasion commenced on March 7th 1942 and was followed by a British declaration of war. The unprepared and totally oblivious Thai were caught completely off guard. Japan used French bases in Indochina to get air superiority. As a result Thailand was overrun within twelve days. The Japanese seized the airfields and established air supremacy over Thailand. Within a month Malaysia was overrun by with a large Japanese troop force. The British were forced to send out their Pacific battleships from Singapore as a response and they steamed toward the Dutch East Indies, feeling confident of their victory. On the way Admiral Sir Tom Philips sunk three carriers; little did he know that they were cargo ships in disguise. This further boosted his confidence and his belief that his big guns would teach the Japanese a lesson. He was proven horribly wrong and he engaged the Japanese fleet in the South China Sea. He encountered a Japanese squadron of some five cruisers and twelve destroyers. It was a spring morning and it was slightly foggy. Through the dim fog the British battle fleet and the Japanese cruiser squadron exchanged fire and the Japanese fled. The British ran straight into a trap in what was known as the Battle of the Yellow Sea but would go down in British history as the Catastrophe in the South China Sea. The British battle line was damaged a lot by the Japanese carrier fleet consisting of Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku. HMS Repulse, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Royal Oak, HMS Valiant and HMS Howe, crippling the Eastern Fleet. Over 10.000 British sailors were dead. Ironically the aging battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth which had been decommissioned in 1942 but returned to service for the war had survived and would see much more action until the end of the Pacific War.

This united the British people although some argued that Britain should never have gotten involved in the region. Fervent patriots and nationalists wanted revenge as did many more British. Britain fully mobilized. Factories, shipyards, mines and millions people were geared to total war. Japan had now enraged the other sleeping giant of the world. Several aircraft carriers were being built or were nearing completion and the Illustrious-class carriers were already finished. Four Lion-class Battleships were also underway although only the lost ships would be replaced and no new battleships would be built. These ships would replace the five battleships that had been lost. The British admiralty had also learned a valuable lesson. A massive construction program was started to build more aircraft carriers which ended the domination of the battleship. For the first six months Japan wouldn’t notice much of this mobilization as fleet assets were being moved from the Atlantic to Southeast Asia. Another Japanese attack, a bombing raid, was aimed at Singapore and they destroyed the oil storage tanks, torpedo and ammunition storage and headquarters of the Eastern Fleet but failed to destroy the submarine base. This further crippled the British presence in the Pacific although over a hundred Japanese planes were shot down in the process. Japan then proceeded to invade Indonesia and what was left of the Siamese peninsula. All of it fell within six months. By then Britain was ready for war as sufficient fleet assets had been moved. Together with the Chinese the British would crush Japan and inflicted a defeat on the Japanese at the battle of the Java Sea. American isolationists prevented an American declaration of war on the European and Asian Axis forces which wisely remained out of America’s way as Germany, China and Britain were pummeling them. Congress didn’t see them as friendly allies but merely as co-belligerents in a European war. The election of Dewey in 1940 had further strengthened American isolation.

In the midst of the Pacific War several countries were developing nuclear weapons as well. Germany was at the forefront of nuclear physics with many brilliant scientists in that field originating from what was considered the academic and scientific capital of Europe or having moved there. Many brilliant minds such as Otto Hahn, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Enrico Fermi who had left Italy for Germany since his wife was Jewish and his country was becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. One notable name that is missing from this list is Albert Einstein who had emigrated to America were he had more research possibilities. He along with Oppenheimer and Seaborg would be a leading figure in the Manhattan project. The German atomic bomb program was a secret project funded by the German government and executed by the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Society centered in Berlin. It was known as project Ragnarok. The Soviet Union under Stalin had also started a program of its own after Stalin had become suspicious after western scientific magazines stopped publishing on the subject. Head of the project known as Obiekt 147 was Igor Kurchatov. People such as Ioffe, Andrei Sakharov and Georgii Flerov were also present. Stalin was practical and didn’t believe it would work but now that the west was building a bomb, he wanted one too. China, Japan and France at this time also had a project. Chinese nuclear physics however was in its infancy and China lacked the means to pursue a domestic effort during the war. The Japanese program completely lacked organization. There were two programs; one of the army and another one of the navy. The scientists of the Rikken institute were also being pulled away from their work every five minutes to work on something else. France wouldn’t get a chance to finish its program.

Germany in the meantime was gaining the upper hand in the war; this was in early 1943. A large scale French offensive had been launched into the Rhineland, hoping to imitate Napoleon’s successes there. Much like the northern front it had become a stalemate. The French had pushed through heavy German border defenses but with heavy casualties. They had then sped toward the Rhine but a German counteroffensive led by general Rommel caused to grind to a halt in the Black Forest. The German war machine started to move. Germany launched a general counteroffensive which pushed the French out of German territory and into Belgium and Holland. French border fortifications held. In the north however German forces reached the Afsluitdijk which separated the Flevo polder from the sea but were stopped there as the French blew the dike, causing massive floods in the surrounding areas. In Belgium the Germans were stopped when the French blew the bridges over the river Meuse. German artillery and aircraft then started the siege of Liege which would last for months. They pounded what was then the largest ammunition dump of the world for weeks, destroying the city in the process. The Belgians would resent the Germans for that. The French returned fire with the old fortresses’ guns.

The Germans crossed the river Meuse a few weeks later under withering fire. They quickly established a beachhead and engineers built pontoon bridges. Liege was then surrounded with over 180.000 French soldiers still in the city. They were surrounded by a force three times that size. They only surrendered after two months of intense combat which resulted in heavy casualties for both sides and the complete annihilation of the city. French forces were pushed back by the German blitz. Several minor successful counterattacks took place but it didn’t change the fact that German forces outnumbered the French, mostly thanks to their large industrial base but also due to a population of around 80 million which was twice as large as France’s population. Stubborn, fanatical French resistance however slowed the German advance down and the Germans resorted to their infamous ‘Kesselschlacht’. French lines in the Ardennes were penetrated and large troop concentrations were surrounded. French forces fought a fighting retreat from Holland to avoid being cut off by the Germans which were headed for the Belgian coast. By April German forces were marching through the streets of Brussels and Antwerp was liberated in that same month of that year.

In Asia the war was going well. British and Chinese ships were slowly but surely creeping their way towards Japan. A massive naval construction program had made sure that Chinese and British forces outgunned the Japanese by this time. The British had started an island hopping campaign in southeast Asia and were headed toward the Home Islands. British battleships destroyed coastal defenses and British and Chinese planes, who outnumbered their Japanese enemies by far, bombed the Japanese defenders and shot the Japanese air force out of the sky. On land the Chinese started to liberate the coastal cities. During the infamous Second battle of Nanjing over 600.000 Chinese were surrounded by 1.9 million Chinese soldiers. A small corridor to the sea was cut off after a month of fierce combat. In the meantime the Imperial Chinese Air Force fiercely contest the airspace above the city and shot down many Japanese transport planes attempting to come through. The battle dragged on throughout spring and summer of 1943 and Japanese forces surrendered in September 1943, one of the very few occasions that Japanese forces surrendered. This broke the might of the Japanese. They were pushed back and by February of 1944 the Chinese had retaken Beijing and were marching toward the Yalu river on the Sino-Korean border which they reached in May of that same year. In the Pacific the island hopping campaign was nearing its goal, Sumatra and Java were retaken in July and September 1944 respectively after a month of Japanese resistance. A counteroffensive into Burma was launched although sporadic Japanese resistance there would continue until the very end of the war.

The Germans were doing well too as the tide had definitively turned in favour of them. In spite of French resistance and counteroffensives, the German horde which outnumbered them by far didn’t stop. In another large Kesselschlacht the Germans attempted to surround the better part of France’s army in the Vosges but failed as French forces retreated to a defensive position further west. It is said by military historians that Paris would likely have fallen within a week or two if Germany had succeeded in its plan. Now these troops could be used to ward off German offensives and block their march to Paris. In the end Paris still fell in September 1943 after a short but fierce battle which would take the lives of many tens of thousands of Germans even though they had air superiority and much more men and tanks. German soldiers triumphantly marched through the streets of the French capital and the German tricolor was hoisted on several important buildings such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Troimf and the famous palace of king Louis XIV, Versailles, were the German Empire had been proclaimed so long ago. The battle hardened French, indoctrinated by years of French fascist propaganda however refused to surrender. Henriot moved his capital to Bordeaux and fought on from there, resorting to more desperate means every passing day. Henriot for instance authorized the use of mustard and chlorine gas against the Germans which French generals such as Gamelin and De Gaulle used as a last resort. There was a public outcry in Germany as this war crime had gone unprovoked; Germany had not used gas in combat so far. Emperor Wilhelm III promptly retaliated by using nerve gas against French cities. By now French resistance had crumbled and German forces arrived at Bordeaux by late October. The Italians were receiving relatively little punishment as German forces only got as far as Venice where prepared Italian defenses stopped them.

On November 11th 1943 the French surrendered after Henriot had attempted to flee France for Spain through enemy lines but had been captured. The Italians were still fighting in Yugoslavia which Mussolini had invaded to mimic French successes of the early days of the war in spite of pleas of his generals. It had taken Italy three months to defeat the Yugoslavs in spite of superior numbers and weapons. Guerrilla resistance continued liong after that. A military coup d’état took place, deposing Mussolini. Italy surrendered to Germany on November 14th as it couldn’t hope to defeat the German legions that were swarming over northern Italy on its own. Germany imposed harsh terms on both defeated countries. France and Italy were both completely demilitarized and yet to be determined war reparations would be imposed on them. Germany also stationed inspectors and occupational forces in the industrial regions in northern France and northern Italy. This left Germany to solve the quagmire that were the Balkans caused by the power vacuum after Italy’s withdrawal after its surrender. After the Italian withdrawal the Balkan countries had started what was known as the Third Balkan War. Bulgarian forces fought Yugoslavia for Macedonia. The Kingdom of Hungary, which was no longer bound by the war, got embroiled in the war as well and annexed Slavonia. Turkey under sultan Abdülmecid II who had succeeded Mehmet VII in 1926 also decided to get involved. After the death of Mustafa Kemal Abdülmecid had gained more influence even though he was a constitutional monarch de jure. He supported Bulgarian ambitions in Serbia with troops and got a free hand and even Bulgarian support in Greece.

With Europe in chaos, Stalin saw an opportunity. The major fascist powers had been rendered powerless by the Germans. Six million good soldiers had perished along with several hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and many north German, Dutch, Belgian, French and Italian capital cities and industrial centers were left in ruins. The German army at this time was spread thin as its forces occupied northern France, northern Italy and also possessed several military bases in its eastern European vassal states. This left nothing for a proper defense of the German block. The Balkan nations were in no way capable of defeating the USSR even if they were not infighting among themselves with Germany trying to a broker a peace with the implicit threat of direct German military intervention. While chancellor and diplomat Von Papen was in Geneva negotiating a peace treaty with the combatants of this latest Balkan war, the USSR ignited a diplomatic crisis in eastern Europe. Ukraine had several regions with large Russian minorities and Stalin demanded the retrocession of these areas to the Soviet Union and ‘an end to the oppression and brutality against the Russians’ as he put it. Stalin portrayed this as a liberation; it would be far from it. Stalin had no intent on reaching a compromise and wanted to restore the USSR to the 1914 borders of Imperial Russia. Stalin considered this a preemptive strike as he believed Germany would attack him at some point in the future. This was not his paranoia speaking. It has been revealed that plans for a Soviet-German war existed as early as 1930 but Germany was unable to pursue those grand schemes back then due to a recession and unrest on the home front.

Germany stood by its ally and warned Stalin that if he would attack, Germany would declare war. Stalin knew that the Germans weren’t bluffing about defending their allies as they had done the same for Belgium which had only very reluctantly joined the German sphere. On December 5th 1943 he launched Operation Suvorov, named after the fourth and last generalissimo of Russia and one of the few generals in history who never lost a battle. The Soviet Union had seen a massive industrialization and by now the Red Army had recovered from the purges and was armed to the teeth with T-34 and KV-1 tanks and MiG-3 and Yak-1 fighter planes which could match most contemporary western designs. The operation had been planned meticulously by STAVKA, the Soviet equivalent of a general staff which consisted of the Red Army’s top officers. Not only did Stalin invade Ukraine but the Baltic states and Belarus as well. It was the largest military operation of its kind ever to be carried out or even contemplated. Over 3.8 million men, 9.000 tanks and 13.000 aircraft had been mobilized for this operation. This was the better part of what forces the Soviet Union had in its western districts; the bulk of the rest of the Red Army was guarding the Sino-Soviet border. Also, the loss of the western territories had hurt the USSR’s manpower base. If Germany had lost the Great War, the Soviets could have mustered even more men.

The Germans responded by declaring war immediately and were followed by all members of the German block except for the Kingdom of Hungary which was still embroiled in Yugoslavia. The Hungarians instead formed a volunteer legion which ironically mostly consisted of Poles and Slovakians and to a lesser extent Ukrainians and Ruthenians, minorities which for a long time had been demanding greater autonomy from Budapest. This was an easy way to get rid of the more militant ones among them. Perhaps one out of every four volunteers was an ethnic Hungarian.

Germany used this act of blatant Soviet aggression in its propaganda and summoned every able bodied man to fight for freedom. Many responded to the call and enlisted and the nations of Europe united and flocked to the German banner. They rallied to defend themselves and fight for freedom. Stalin had not expected this kind of response to his action from a defeated war torn Europe. In spite of this the initial Soviet advance went speedily and Stalin couldn’t stop now anyway. In spite of near fanatical Ukrainian resistance the Red Army reached the Dnjepr and the capital of Kiev by Christmas. The Ukrainian president issued a ‘no retreat’ order which resulted in many hundreds of thousands of surrounded and dead or captured Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainian National Army could immediately mobilize over 1.1 million men in case of war, excluding strategic reserves. They were well trained and motivated to fight Stalin after the horror stories they had heard about purges, gulags and the deaths of so many ‘kulaks’ and the repossession of their lands. They were however equipped with old German equipment while the Red Army had the best of the best. German Panzer IIs and IIIs were decent designs but obsolete by 1943 and T-34s turned them into minced meat. Only the long 75 mm AT-gun and the 88 mm AA gun. The Byelorussians at this time were fighting for their very existence and Minsk was completely surrounded with the remnants of the small but professional Byelorussian National Army holding out in the west. The Baltic states were all but overrun in under ten days. The Poles were the first to be able to send reinforcements, commanded by king Karol II himself. The king himself was an artillery man an the Polish army had a lot of artillery which still effective in spite of age. Polish forces provided relief at Kiev and prevent a river crossing by the Soviets for five days, allowing Ukrainian forces to retreat in good order and the government to evacuate to Odessa.

The Germans panicked about the rapid Soviet advance and sent forces to stem the tide. The only country that really held its own was Finland. The Finnish navy had even shelled Leningrad as a propaganda stunt. The army used guerrilla tactics against Soviet forces and their supply lines. The Germans managed to inflict a defeat on the Soviets at Lviv in another large Kesselschlacht conducted by general Rommel who was becoming quite infamous by now. The Soviets by now were awfully close to achieving their goal, restoration to Russia’s 1914 borders. Germany was in desperate need of reinforcements. It had just come out of a war which had lasted for almost two years and which had drained Germany. The peace conference for the Balkans in Geneva was settled quickly with Germany deciding in favour of the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Turks. The Bulgarians gained Macedonia. The Turks and Bulgarians divided Greek Macedonia, realizing the dream of a Greater Bulgaria. The Turks also annexed most of the Aegean islands. The Hungarians were awarded Slavonia. What was left of Yugoslavia was divided between a Serbian state which encompassed only Serb majority regions and a Croatian state which also included Bosnia and Istria and Dalmatia which Italy had given back, ending the ethnic powder keg that Yugoslavia was and the possibility of another war starting there.

As Germany had difficulty fighting the Soviet juggernaut, Emperor Wilhelm III ordered the renegotiation of the peace with France and Italy. The Italians were allowed to keep Fiume where they still had troops to secure the sizable Italian minority. Both France and Italy were allowed to remilitarize up to 550.000 men and war reparations were scratched in return for Italian and French declarations of war on the USSR. German forces left their territory for the eastern front. Germany also renounced any claims to Italian and French colonies didn’t have the power to enforce these claims nor occupy what they wanted. The French and Italians readily agreed to this revision and mobilized many hundreds of thousands of war veterans to fight Stalin’s armies. Germany had its flaws and was disliked but as much as it was disliked, the USSR was utterly revolting to many.

Germany needed these reinforcements even though Francophobe nationalists protested. The irony of the situation was inescapably clear. Two countries who had hated each other’s guts since 1871 were now fighting together. The Soviet armies at this point reached the eastern most point of the Soviet advance, the East Prussian city of Königsberg which was a shock to many Germans as that was German territory. Rumours were spreading about Soviets headed for Berlin. It fortunately never came to that. At Königsberg a combination of German, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Italian and Hungarian forces decisively defeated the Red Army and prevented the fall of the city in one of the largest battles of the war in early May 1944. Stalin’s nightmare scenario had come true; in spite of Europe’s apparent division of weakness it had united against a common enemy, him. A general counteroffensive under German leadership started although the German general staff collaborated heavily with the French leadership in developing the plan. This plan was known as Operation Friedrich der Grosse and would involve many thousands of tanks planes and millions of men of all European countries. This also raised the hopes of many who had fled Russia after the October Revolution in 1917. Many tens of thousands of Russians returned and formed a volunteer legion of about 60.000 strong initially. The Germans also approached Grand Duke Vladimir to ascend the Russian throne in time and become Tsar Vladimir III of Russia in time. Vladimir Cyrillovich was the eldest son of Grand Duke Cyril who had assumed headship of the Romanov family after the death of Grand Duke Michael in 1919. He himself was a son of Grand Duke Vladimir who was a son of Tsar Alexander III. This made Vladimir Cyrillovich the cousin of Nicholas II and the most legitimate claimant to the throne. Germany was intent on overthrowing Stalin and establishing the Romanovs as puppet rulers.

In the Pacific the tide had turned in favour of Britain and China. By January 1945 Korea had been liberated after a bloody seven month campaign in the mountainous peninsula which China had won due to sheer force of numbers. The Chinese uprooted Japanese resistance and collaborators and established a puppet regime with Prince Uimin as Emperor Yeong of Korea. The Korean Empire had been restored. Borneo was liberated in July 1945 after a vicious four month campaign with Japanese forces resisting until the bitter end, forcing the British to fight for every inch of jungle. They however lacked air superiority and supplies from the Japanese Navy were cut off after a decisive crippling defeat at the Battle of the Makassar Strait which involved a few Dutch vessels. An insurgency would arise though. The Japanese were becoming increasingly divided in their priorities. They were losing on all fronts and were shifting forces from one crisis zone to another and back. The fact that the combined British and Chinese navies outnumbered and outgunned the Japanese didn’t help. Yamato had been lost when HMS Lion and HMS Conqueror engaged and sent her to the deep ocean floor of the Pacific Ocean in August while she attempted to beach herself at Taiwan to support Japanese forces there who were fighting an Anglo-Chinese invasion. Yamato’s sister ship Musashi succeeded were Yamato had failed and shelled Anglo-Chinese forces, significantly delaying them. By this time France had long since surrendered and had seized the airfields that they had lent the Japanese Air Force which explains the quickness of the British campaign in Siam in ’44. The campaign lasted about three months as Britain had air superiority. The fact that both Britain and China decided to focus on Japan and not help Germany against the Soviets didn’t help either. By October 1945 Japan had been reduced to just the Home Islands. An invasion was in the works.

By 1945 the Soviets were also losing their war with the west. The combined European powers proved to be too strong even for Stalin’s war machine and after the Soviets reached their western most point of advance they were pushed back. This started with the battle of East Prussia were the thin Soviet salient was cut off and as many as 500.000 Soviet soldiers were surrounded. They were cut off from resupply and a relief attempt only created a small hole for a few days which was sealed after German-Polish counteroffensives. This was in 1943; by mid-1945 German forces were approaching the Dnjepr and the first shells started to rain down on Kiev. The short lived Ukrainian SSR was disestablished and turned over to Red Army jurisdiction. In the end it wouldn’t matter much.

This Great War, although it is arguable whether it should be called that, also spurred weapons development. The Germans quickly figured out that the Panzer IV was totally inadequate to face off against the T-34 and the KV-1, not to mention the IS-series that followed in 1944 and the T-54 which entered serial production in early 1947. The Germans responded by building a new powerful tank design of their own which was known as the Panzer V, nicknamed Panther by some. Several companies had designs for a new German medium tank. The prime contenders were Daimler-Benz, MAN and Henschel among others. MAN and Henschel both presented more or less direct copies of the T-34. The general staff, recognizing the reality they could never produce it in Soviet numbers, disapproved. They lacked the industrial base to build as many as the Soviets had so quantity was chosen over quality. Daimler-Benz presented a 70 ton behemoth with an 88 mm gun. It carried sloped armour much like the T-34 but thicker; its frontal armour was impenetrable for any know Soviet tank design or anti-tank gun of ’43/’44. This tank was considered invincible. This was the other extreme. One of these would take as many man hours to build as five Panzer IVs. Both went back to the drawing board which resulted in the Panzer V we all know which entered production in early 1944. It was a compromise between firepower, armour and speed and could be produced in significant numbers. It was equipped with the long 75 mm KwK 42 L/70 gun and weighed a solid 45 tons. Later versions would carry the 88 mm gun to counter newer Soviet designs. It would ultimately replace the Panzer IV as there were limits to how much it could be upgraded. The Panzer V would be the most produced and the most successful German design of the war after the kinks with engine and suspension were worked out. 11.000 of them would be made during the war; 8500 produced in Germany and another 2500 in allied nations. In late 1945, early 1946 the Panzer VI Leopard was introduced which carried a 105 mm gun. It was far more powerful than the Panzer V but was of a complicated design and restricted to elite battalions. Only 1700 of them were built during the war.

Aerial warfare also saw a boost in development. Speed was considered more and more important. It dawned on German officers and politicians alike that the Soviets could produce more planes and that perhaps a technological leap ahead of whatever the Soviets fielded was a good thing. Germany was one of the countries developing jet engines in the early forties but German officers didn’t pay much attention to this as they believed that conventional planes should do fine in any future conflict. The two greatest competitors to design and supply the Imperial German Air Force with jets were Heinkel and Messerschmitt. Both came up with several versions and in the end the Germans chose Heinkel’s design, the Heinkel He 280. It was slightly slower than the Me 262 but was considered more economical after its engine problems were worked out with the fifth version, the He 280 V5. In April 1944 the first squadrons of the Luftwaffe equipped with He 280s appeared over the battlefield. They swept the skies clean. The Me 262 wasn’t built by Germany. The French adopted the design instead and ordered a first batch of 180 planes to be delivered by June. Germany also started work on a long range bomber to hit Stalin’s industrial areas in Central Asia and Siberia which would carry Germany’s atomic bomb.

The atomic bomb was perhaps the strongest weapon and it would influence politics very much. Politicians became very careful in threatening to go to war as it could result in nuclear warfare. At the time four countries had programs of any significance. These were the United States, Germany, Britain and the Soviet Union. The United States were furthest ahead thanks to their huge industrial complex. They pursued both the implosion-type design and the gunshot-type design as it was easy for them. They tested their first bomb, nicknamed Trinity, on August 17th 1945. It was a bomb of the former design and had a yield of 20 kilotons. This made America the world’s first nuclear power. Germany was also doing well thanks to its good team of scientists although Germany could devote less resources to the project because of the war. The British used the resources of their empire for their bomb.

The war continued as it had for most of 1945, with German forces and their allies slowly but surely pushing the Red Army back. The Soviets resisted fanatically as they believed they were fighting a liberation war. The war was known to them as the Soviet Liberation War or alternatively the Soviet War of Vengeance, vengeance for trying to kill communism all those years before. The war continued and by 1946 the Soviets and Germans were fighting the Battle for Moscow which lasted for six months and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It ended with the Germans and Ukrainians symbolically hoisting their national flags on the famous Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin which was a major propaganda stunt. This was devastating to Soviet logistics as Moscow was a vital railway hub which explains Soviet attempts to get it back. Stalin responded to this defeat by fully occupying Finland which had annoyed him by attempting to attack Leningrad and Murmansk. Stalin moved his capital to Omsk, well out of German bomber range, and called upon all Russian people to resist the western imperialists. Many millions were mobilized and the Soviet industrial complex attempted to surpass maximum capacity with murderous production rates, totally disregarding workers’ safety. A large counteroffensive was launched immediately on Stalin’s orders but even the brilliant Zhukov could not retake Moscow in what was known as the Second Battle of Moscow although he made a valiant effort and Soviet tanks got within half a mile of the Kremlin but in the end the Germans had numbers. The Soviets did have one lucky streak; the Germans were becoming overstretched. The Germans and their allies were fighting from Leningrad to Stalingrad. An offensive to take Stalingrad and cross the Volga failed, leaving the Volga industrial region in Soviet hands.

To give the German occupation some legitimacy, a pro-German capitalist government was formed with Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich who accepted the German offer to become Tsar of Russia. Many hundreds of thousands of Russians who had fled the country after the events of 1917 and 1918 returned from exile to help rebuild their country and they quickly set up an efficient government apparatus even though they lacked experience. The Russians therefore enlisted the help of collaborators, among them many low ranking communists who would be granted amnesty provided that they helped the new regime deal with the people. On September 1st 1946 Vladimir was crowned Tsar Vladimir III, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, enraging Stalin who considered Moscow his capital. This was a major propaganda stunt for the Germans and their allies and a shock to the communist regime, now based in Omsk and caused a drop in Soviet morale. Vladimir pulled all the stops to make this a grand spectacle in an attempt to restore the glory of the old days of the Russian Empire. He was quite successful. Before the grand ceremony the Imperial eagles were restored to many old Imperial buildings, replacing Stalin’s red stars. The ceremony was grand and all of Europe’s crowned heads were present; Emperor Wilhelm III, King Otto I of Hungary, Victor Emannuel III of Italy, George VI and many other European monarchs. The ceremony was covered by western press and the world witnessed how the Tsar and his Tsarina were driven to their palace in a golden coach with an escort of veteran Imperial Guard members. The Russian Empire with all its grandeur and symbolism had been restored after an interregnum of almost three decades. Attempts by other claimants to mar the event couldn’t ruin this. They considered Vladimir’s marriage to be morganatic since his wife’s line hadn’t ruled Georgia, where she originated from, in the male line since 1505. As such she was merely of nobility. Vladimir waved it away; nothing would ruin this day.

One of Tsar Vladimir III’s first acts was to officially declare war on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for its numerous crimes thus entering the war on the German side. The many anti-Soviet volunteer legions formed one army although certain republicans refused joining a Tsarist army; they wanted Kerensky but had little support as the formerly exiled Russians wanted a strong leader. Kerensky was remembered as a weak bumbling idiot. Stalin responded by not recognizing the Empire and declaring that he would kill the bastard state in its cradle. He would be proven very wrong as Germany tested its first nuclear weapon on June 18th 1947. It had been nicknamed Ragnarok, the Norse word for the end of times. The bomb was of the implosion-type design as it was considered more economic; the gunshot-type assembly needed more fissile material for the same result. With 22 kilotons its yield was slightly higher than that of Trinity. About one month later, on July 14th 1947, one Junkers Ju 390 bomber took off from its base in East Prussia headed for the Soviet industrial centre Chelyabinsk. The city centre was completely devastated in the immense fireball. Tens of thousands died while sleeping. The few who were awake at the very earlier hour witnessed the blast as the last thing they saw before dying. Many tens of thousands more died of radiation sickness and others were maimed for life or blinded by the flash. Stalin stoically listened to the news and shrugged. He refused to surrender as he believed that the Germans had only a few of such weapons and wouldn’t waste them on him. When the Soviets didn’t respond to the German ultimatum, the city of Kirov was incinerated. Stalin still refused to surrender and killed everyone who he suspected of secretly negotiating with the west. That ended when the Soviet capital city of Omsk was destroyed in a 19 kiloton explosion, killing Stalin in the process. With the government decapitated, the USSR started to fold. No more orders came through and the Red Army was in chaos. Beria was one of the few high ranking Soviet politicians still alive as he was in Kazakhstan as he was supervising the atomic bomb project. He accepted an unconditional surrender and turned over all nuclear knowledge of the Soviet Union to the Russian Empire before the Germans could get their hands on it. The Germans as a response destroyed the former USSR’s nuclear facilities.

Japan at this time had already surrendered. In the spring of 1946 the Chinese and their British allies launched Operation Argo, the invasion of Japan. They occupied the southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku in a massive joint Anglo-Chinese operation. The Japanese army and populace resisted to their utmost capability but the overwhelming number of invaders repelled counteroffensives and Chinese reprisals for guerrilla attacks were terrible so resistance stopped quickly. When the Chinese and British threatened to invade Honshu as well, Emperor Hirohito ordered his forces to stand down and he announced the unconditional surrender of Japan. It is arguable whether all of these conflicts should be regarded as one war. Many see the Pacific War and the European war as two separate ones. Some even go so far as to divide the European war in two pieces. Although not allied, the USSR and the fascist did work in tandem to destroy Germany. Whatever the case, for the first time since 1933, after 75 million deaths there was an end to war. Peace reigned over the world.
 
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Last two chapters



The Pax Germania and the decline of the colonial empires 1947-1975


Germany, Britain and China now stood victorious over the fascists and communists and were Eurasia’s top economic powers. When Britain tested its first atomic bomb in October 1946, two out of three great powers were nuclear armed. Now it was time to dictate peace terms. The Soviet Union had surrendered unconditionally to Germany and its allies. Emperor Wilhelm III ordered the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to be disbanded. Its entire military and industrial complex would be turned over to Imperial Russia and Soviet political and military leaders would be tried for war crimes. The communist experiment was over after thirty years. On January 3rd 1948 the USSR was officially disestablished and incorporated into the Russian Empire. Tsar Vladimir I started to reorganize his wartime government. He didn’t want make the same mistakes that his predecessors had made and modeled his country on Wilhelmine Germany and Imperial Japan. He had lived in Germany, Britain and France and quite admired the machinations of democracy. After public unrest was subdued by the new Imperial Russian Army, a liberal constitution was drafted and elections were organized in 1949. The system of promotion by merit instead of social class remained in the army and the aristocracy didn’t get its old rights back much to their disappointment. Russia would be modern.

Japan was now left to the mercy of China and Great Britain. Britain and China imposed a harsh peace treaty on the Japanese so they would never be threat again; the Chinese Xuantong Emperor was largely behind that. Japan was to be completely demilitarized except for a 10.000 men strong gendarmerie and divided into occupational zones with China controlling the north and Britain the south until war reparations had been payed. A zone around Tokyo was left under Japanese jurisdiction. Japan lost Taiwan and its Eastern Siberian holdings to China. Elections were to be organized and Japan would from now on honour the model of constitutional monarchy as it was practiced in Britain; the Emperor would hold a solely ceremonial position. Japan was also forced to recognize Korean independence and pay large war indemnities to China and Korea and would not be allowed to posses weapons of mass destruction. In addition Japanese military and naval officers and high ranking politicians were to be tried for war crimes. Many high ranking Japanese politicians considered fighting on to force better peace terms but a Sino-British naval blockade and the testing of Britain’s first atomic bomb rendered them mute. The Japanese grudgingly accepted the peace terms.

This left China the dominant power in Asia. It had the largest army in the world and the fourth largest navy in the world with only the British, German and American navies able to match its power. Economically China was devastated; an area three times the size of France was left in ruins after China had retaken it inch by inch. Under the strong leadership of the Xuantong Emperor who had succeeded his father in 1940, China started to rebuild its shattered industrial base; the people of China did so with great diligence. The end of the war also sparked wars for independence in much of southeast Asia. Sukarno declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia. The Dutch immediately sent in the army to put down the rebellion. The Chinese called upon the Dutch to give the Indonesians their freedom. The Dutch ignored them and would fight the Chinese backed Indonesians until 1955. The same happened in French Indochina but with an army of only 550.000 men, France couldn’t hold on to its vast colonial empire. Britain, too war weary to fight, granted India, Burma and Malaysia independence in 1948.

Germany at this time dominated the European continent and founded the so-called European Economic Community or EEC for short. Its founding members were Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Holland, Belgium, Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland. German companies had monopolies in many economic sectors in Europe, making Germany the foremost European power economically. Despite their hatred for Germany, France and Italy would join eventually. The German Reich Mark became the dominant currency although member states kept using their own currency. In 1985 the Reich Mark would be adopted by the EEC monetary council as Europe’s currency. The EEC was a customs union with trade tariffs to protect the economies of member states. Trade and free traffic of goods, services and people was encouraged. This was done to protect mainly medium and small businesses as they had suffered the most from the war. British investment was blocked out this way. Germany also possessed nuclear weapons and the largest army in Europe. In 1955 Germany tested its first hydrogen bomb as America had done three years earlier. Britain did the same in 1957 but couldn’t release Europe from Germany’s stranglehold. Germany dominated Europe, prevented war and brought economic prosperity. Europe was now under the Pax Germania. Germany was now one of the strongest countries in the world. A cold war and subsequent nuclear stand off took place between Britain and Germany. Their navies remained in top strength despite the financial strain and nuclear weapons were aimed at each other’s capital cities. In the end Germany achieved supremacy through economic power. It had more money for a cold war. During the 80s and 90s Britain accepted that Germany was the dominant European power even though the Tory’s resisted this. Britain gave up the arms race which had caused the rise of huge navies and militaries and powerful nuclear arsenals which could lay waste to entire continents. This freed up cash for a huge socialist welfare state in Britain. This détente led to a demilitarization and agreements were made on the size of nuclear arsenals between Germany and Britain and later on the world’s other nuclear powers.

In space Germany dominated as well. During the war the rocket program had seen little attention. The government favoured the atomic bomb program. The rocket program was limited to some geeks with little funding. After the war the military became interested and by 1947 one A4 missile was ready for testing. They funded it provided that military applications were given priority. Ballistic missiles with increasingly longer ranges were tested. The A4 could reach suborbital altitudes. In 1955 already the Germans launched the first satellite and in 1960 the first man was brought into space. The German space program was separated from the military ballistic missile program and was dubbed German Space Initiative. During the mid fifties the Germans had the best Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, abbreviated ICBM. The British launched a satellite in 1957 and the Americans in 1958 although the isolationist American government only started it as a propaganda boost. Germany was thus given the lead in the space race. China at this time did not start a space program as it had other priorities.

Africa also didn’t escape from struggles for independence. As the European powers were weakened by war, movements for independence sprang up all over the continent throughout the 60s and 70s. Portugal fought a vicious colonial war in Mozambique for over a decade which drained the Portuguese economy. Spain only had Spanish Guinea, Spanish West Africa and Spanish Morocco to worry about. These weren’t densely populated and thus easy to control. After the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1980, the fascist regime in Spain was disestablished and the colonies were given a large measure of autonomy. The Portuguese Estado Novo regime had already fallen and Portugal had lost its colonial empire. The French, Italians and Germans also fought vicious and prolonged colonial wars for several years. German forces fought in the Congo basin for over a decade until Emperor Wilhelm IV withdrew them in 1978. In Tanganyika and Togoland protests of a different kind manifested. Massive peaceful demonstrations took place. In Germany protest started to take place as well with the youth unwilling to fight for the colonies. This was part of a social revolution which engulfed the world; youth culture. This involved a sexual revolutions and resistance against the ruling elite. Known authorities were now longer the sole source of power and knowledge and the political and social climate loosened up. Paradoxically it seemed as though prosperity and peace caused this. Especially Europe was hit by this phenomenon. Isolationist America and the generally more disciplined Asian nations such as China and Japan weren’t affected very much or at least less than Europe. Both colonies were granted autonomy and representation in the Reichstag although Germany maintained power in defense and foreign politics. Today these colonies are all that’s left of Germany’s huge Mittelafrikan colonial empire. In the meantime an Asian power was striving to overtake the west.


The Pax Siniensis 1975-2009


During the fifties China spent a lot of its time rebuilding but by the end of the decade their economy was growing slowly but surely. As the authoritarian regime viewed the Chinese Empire as a great power, a nuclear program was started with what little knowledge and results the Japanese program had led to. China had seized all of this information when it conquered Korea on the Japanese. The retreating Japanese left it behind as they considered their atomic bomb program a dead end. Much of that was because of the lack of resources and a very disorganized and incoherent research effort. Japanese scientists were by no means incompetent. What little work had actually been done was now used by the Chinese. Unlike Japan, China had one program which was under direct supervision of the government in Beijing instead of the military and navy. It is suspected that China and Russia shared information regarding their nuclear programs as they tested their first nuclear weapons within months of each other. This caused quite a stir in Berlin but Tsar Vladimir I assured Wilhelm IV that Germany and Russia were friends. A trade partnership between the EEC and Russia was established along with the formation of a Russia-EEC council. In 1966 China tested a 27 kiloton nuclear warhead which made it the world’s most powerful first nuclear test. China was now the dominant power in Asia.

China also started its own space program which yielded good results. In 1971 the first Chinese was sent into space using a missile based on a German design. This was the start of the Imperial Chinese Space Agency. The Chinese first tried to emulate the Germans who were on the forefront of space technology and, as was proven later, a bridge too far for China at the time. Later China would learn to establish goals for itself. A Chinese moon mission was planned for 1979 and was a success largely due to a Chinese effort of will to make it so. In Chinese propaganda it was portrayed as a grand accomplishment of China and Asia. This was one of only three Chinese moon missions which is a surprisingly low number considering that America and Germany launched at least a dozen moon missions in the sixties and seventies. China instead started to focus on building space stations for researching the effects of long term exposure to conditions in space on various organisms ranging from humans to lab rats and even vegetables. Several satellites were launched during this period for collecting data but also to establish a satellite network. Today China as a comprehensive network of satellites. In 1980 the ICSA announced that it would build an extensive space station which would be manned year round.

China started to dominate Asia economically in addition to its military dominance. With the damage from the war rebuilt and foreign investments from both America and Europe flowing in, the Chinese economy experienced a boom in the sixties and seventies with a peak growth of 7.2% in 1974. During the forties and fifties China covertly started to sponsor movements for independence in much of Asia. Indochina was granted independence by France in 1950 as France was weakened both economically and military and the ongoing guerrilla war overstretched French means. Britain was in even worse shape economically by 1947 and India, Burma and Malaysia were all independent by 1950. Perhaps the last colony to became independent was Indonesia were the Dutch attempted to control at least the main islands such as Java. These were important economically and only Chinese supplies kept the resistance going. The Dutch knew this but dared not to invoke Chinese anger. These colonies had little means and Chinese aid made them indebted to the Emperor who presented himself as a benevolent aide. China however did not extort these countries as it didn’t want to cause antipathy against China. China purposefully established the capital of the East Asian Co-Prosperity Zone in Pyongyang and not in Beijing to make it seem as though all members were equal. In practice China dominated the alliance militarily and economically. China made sure that friendly regimes remain in power. In 1977 China had founded the East Asian Co-Prosperity Zone with the Treaty of Pyongyang. Signatories were: the Korean Empire, the Empire of Indochina, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Japan at this time was excluded from membership. Its war crimes were cited as the reason for this. The Philippines gained independence in 1947 and joined in 1979 after reassuring American-Philippine friendship. The isolationist military regime in Indonesia also remained out of the EACPZ. After its fall in 1988, Indonesia joined as well to profit from an influx of Chinese, Korean and Malaysian investment which boosted the weak Indonesian economy and helped combat poverty. Japan was finally admitted to the EACPZ in 1999. After an official Japanese apology and a state visit by Emperor Akihito in 1997, Sino-Japanese relations thawed. The creation of the EACPZ boosted the local economies of many Asian countries as tariffs were instituted. This protected local businesses. This also meant that Chinese companies got an important share in big sectors of the rising Asian economies. This block surpassed both Germany and the United Stated between 1975 and 1980.

China was now the dominant power in Asia although India’s economic growth has been rivaling with Chinese economic dominance for the past few years with India attempting to gain markets in East Asia. India and China were friends in the political field as China had supported India politically but were enemies in terms of markets. They were also rivals militarily as they had the largest and second largest army respectively and India tested an atomic bomb in 1970. As of today India is still weaker than China and is still dealing with poverty but a space program has been started and India has strengthened ties with America and Germany who see China as a major competitor. The only country not allied with or against China was Russia. Tsar Vladimir III approached all powers with a friendly attitude while he was transforming his country into an economic powerhouse. Stalin had already done much industrializing which is perhaps the only good part of his legacy. After the establishment of a partnership with the EEC, Russia formed the Shanghai-Moscow Cooperation Organization and aided India economically. A few years before his death he changed the succession laws, abolishing primogeniture and legitimizing his daughter. He did this to ensure his line would continue to rule. She was crowned Tsarina Maria I, Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias and was the first woman to rule since Catharina the Great. This angered prince Nicholas who had been successor to the throne and would have been Nicholas III. He argued that Tsar Paul never wished for his laws to be changed but Vladimir ignored him. Tsarina Maria Vladimirovna would lead Russia into a century of prosperity. Russia had been restored.

As it is, China dominated the world economically and Asia militarily with the fourth largest nuclear arsenal, after the US, Germany and Britain, and over 2.5 million men in active service with advanced weapons such as tanks, jet aircraft and electronic warfare. In 2001 the Asian Space Agency was founded with the merger of the Chinese, Korean and in 2008 the Japanese space agencies. An Asian Space Stations was finished in 2006 and all members of the EACPZ contributed to the massive undertaking. It was the largest in its kind and was a stop for the newly designed X-31. The X-31 is the western designation for this craft which is a highly advanced space shuttle. A lunar base is due to be finished by 2015 and a manned mission to Mars is planned for 2020, leading to heavy competition with Germany and US. Both NASA and the German Space Initiative have mentioned similar dates. By 1980 it was already ascertained that China had surpassed the west economically. Within a decade China had surpassed them militarily and in space as well. The last two decades of the 20th century and the entire 21st century are China’s.
 
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Very, very good my friend...but less mention of US than I had hoped for. What happens to the Phillipines?
 
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