Man, Mao is literally off his rocker. I am surprised that Lin Biao and the others have not yet offed him. He has done more damage to his own country than the UN forces ever could. As they say, nothing is more dangerous in this world than a politician's ego and pride exacerbated at its worst.
The Footprint of Mussolini - TL
Jesus, between Hitler, Stalin and Mao, these past 20 years are going to play hell on global demographics for a generation or more.
King Yemma's going to be a very busy soul...
Doesn't Greece still hold a part of Macedonia that Bulgaria wants though?
So I just realised something.
Mussolini likes Jews, he's also a colonialist dictator. We can expect Ethiopia not being a paradise on Earth.
What's happening to the Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Eritrea? Are they being well treated? Ignored? Hated by non-Jewish Ethiopians due to be seen as "collaborators" or "Protegées"?
Mussolini likes Jews, he's also a colonialist dictator. We can expect Ethiopia not being a paradise on Earth.
What's happening to the Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Eritrea? Are they being well treated? Ignored? Hated by non-Jewish Ethiopians due to be seen as "collaborators" or "Protegées"?
No. Bulgaria controls whole Macedonia. Greece has very much same border than it had before First Balkans War.
This world is demographically very bad for many nations and ethnic/religious groups. Jews had suffered terrible damage. Nazis killed bit lesser Jews ITTL but Stalin's Holocaust make things worse for them. Might last couple three or four generations before global Jewish population has reached level of 1930's. Slovenes are lmost extinct. I guess that in 2019 almost no one young Slovene descent person doesn't speak language of his/her ancestors. Chinese have already suffered much perhaps even wrosely than during OTL Great Leap and Culture Revolution.
And there is yet Second Arab War coming. And I have feeling that this TL not be friendly for Afro-Americans. And hardly for Blacks in some areas of Africa too. And many ethnic groups in Soviet Union might suffer greatly, perhaps worsely than in OTL. And this hardly is nice place to Poles and Slovaks.
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Yes, the Soviet Holocaust was kick in the teeth. We can hope it is stopped by Stalin's successor, but damage done eh?
For the Chinese Mao is likely gone soon after the war. Too many people in the PRC and the new USSR leadership will find his erratic nature dangerous.
And with no Korean War and a weaker Soviet union backing him Kim il Sung may not kick his dictatorship up to OTL crazy.
I am unsure how the Second Arab War will stack up compared too the others in death. There will be Kurdistan which apparently will have a restless Arab group into the 70s that Balbo lists to justify the Slovene genocide. Other than that all we seem to know is it will destroy the UAR order.
I actually have some hope for Africa. With The British trying to be more responsible in decolonizing after the fiasco in India we might see more invested in establishing stable/fair government in the shrinking British Empire in Africa. As for France I see them following the British model or trying to replicate their ITTL Indochina model where they want to hold on. If those two alone do a better job vast populations in Africa could be spared many of the 20th centuries woes.
Hmm, I wonder if the Congo can avoid the OTL disasters?
But the only RA colonizer who might do better overall sounds like Portugal and it seems benefits to local populace will be divided on religious grounds.
An earlier end to the Cold War might also see Apartheid fall quicker.
Jews are still better off than OTL. More than a million Jews were saved from Nazi Holocaust, while only around half a million have died so far in the Gulags. It’s not pleasant by any means, but the net number (if that’s what you can reduce people to) is slightly better than OTL.
Not to mention less people dying in WW2.
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The only major casualty of TTL would be the Slovenes, whom its likely by 2019 OTL will see their language (and possibly their culture) erased. While the Second Arab War will decimate the Arab peoples, how bad it becomes will probably not be known until we get there I'm afraid...
I don’t believe anyone’s said this yet but here it goes:
While I imagine the Second Arab War will be devastating, I doubt that’ll be so devastating that Arabs become a minority in the region.
While I imagine the Second Arab War will be devastating, I doubt that’ll be so devastating that Arabs become a minority in the region.
However, I could see Egypt go Pharaonist and Lebanon go Phoenicianist (or have these ideologies imposed on them by the Roman Alliance), for starters.
Slovenes can indeed count as extinct nation by 2019 in all possible ways. Italians already destroyed all signs about Slovene language and culture in Slovenia. And they hardly were much friendlier to Austrian Slovenes. And there is already stated that all street signs are in Italian, all places got Italian names and spelling of any Slovene word was punishable act. So in 2019 in Slovenia is not anyone under 80 years old who could speak Slovene. So good bye when last speaker dies from old age. And even if things are relaxed some decades after WW2 it is already too late.
And if some Slovenes managed escape to other countries they hardly are very liked due their cooperation with Nazis no matter did some of them actually cooperate with Nazis or not. They are assimiliated to their new homecountries either enforcelly or not so enforcelly. So even there mostly only old people speak Slovene. And in 2019 anywhere hardly is any young person/child who would speak language of their grandparents/great-grandparents. And their culture is totally gone too.
So bye bye any Slovene language and culture in couple decades. Mussolini and his blackshirts commited one of most succesful cultural genocides of the world history.
Arabs hardly become minority in Middle East. It would require genocide of millions of people. That would be too horrible even for Italians. So my assumption is that there is very large Kurdistan which practise quiet apartheidist politics against Arabs. Syria becomes independent nation but much smaller or annexed by Turkey. Iraq might be divided to Shia and Sunni states.
Lebanon hardly returns to Phoinician culture but it might see massive growing Aramaic speaking people. This might cause serious conflict between Christians and Muslims. Perhaps Lebanon becomes Christian dominate apartheidist nation whom has close relationships with Israel.
Egypt is harder thing. I don't see any return of Pharaonism. There is too strong Muslim culture. But perhaps Israel takes Sinai and possibility Suez too.
Considering the Greek royal family fled to Britain AFAIK, I take it Greece is a fascist republic ATM, right?
I actually think that things will be better off for both African-Americans and Africans ITTL - Patton has already desegregated the military and federal service, watching black troops fight in WWII killed his racist views toward black Americans, and the GOP, where Civil Rights was a fundamental part of the party platform, has national politics on lock for the near future, quite likely with a Congressional supermajority big enough to pass legislation without the Segregationists able to do much of anything.
Toss in a massive war in China with black and white soldiers fighting side by side ala Korea warming relations with the general public, and things are looking pretty rosy. Hell, toss in a few black war heroes for good measure - isn't Jackie Robinson still in the Army ITTL? Have him become the Audie Murphy of China, that will do wonders for PR.
As for Africa, having a weaker Communist movement helps, so fewer proxy wars. Britain and France seem to be slowly decolonizing with enough time to set up properly independent republics, absorbing what they can, or in the case of Italy and Portugal, integrating all they can into the metropole. Sucks for the Libyans and Algerians, but sub-Saharan Africa is possibly going to be one or two generations ahead of OTL.
Toss in a massive war in China with black and white soldiers fighting side by side ala Korea warming relations with the general public, and things are looking pretty rosy. Hell, toss in a few black war heroes for good measure - isn't Jackie Robinson still in the Army ITTL? Have him become the Audie Murphy of China, that will do wonders for PR.
As for Africa, having a weaker Communist movement helps, so fewer proxy wars. Britain and France seem to be slowly decolonizing with enough time to set up properly independent republics, absorbing what they can, or in the case of Italy and Portugal, integrating all they can into the metropole. Sucks for the Libyans and Algerians, but sub-Saharan Africa is possibly going to be one or two generations ahead of OTL.
For the Slovenes, as the Fascist One Party State will fail, perhaps in the 80s, I could see an attempt at cultural revival in the region afterwards. After all thats' happened it won't rewind the clock or see Slovenian become dominant again even in Slovenia, but it may arrest the decline some and at least help some descendants discover and appreciate their heritage. And such a movement could be a chronic thorn for the democratic era Fascist Party., being a living reminder just how low their precious Mussolini was willing to sink.
I wonder if and how many of them start to claim they are actually Croatians - after all, many Slovene dialects are closer to Croatian than to standard Slovene. Probably depends on the fascist treatment of the Croatian minority in Italy, but I guess it still beats being ostracized as Nazi collaborators. Though, the second generation being already fluent in Italian and the third generation communicating with their parents in Italian will likely self-identify as Italians anyway. The fate of OTL Sorbians in Germany or Russyns in Slovakia and elsewhere, just accelerated...
Honor
Honor
Cowboys and Indians: A History of American-Indian Relations by Mitrra Rahul
In Karachi, when East Pakistan fell, almost everyone amongst the senior leadership knew that the war was destined to come to a close. It came especially hard to Pakistani Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, as he originally came from Bengal and was trapped in the western region only due to a badly timed travel schedule. With the Unionists now able to transfer countless resources out west, the fate of the remainder of Pakistan was written in the stars – not even counting the aid the Unionist government was receiving from abroad. Nevertheless, there was no mood to surrender anywhere within the country. The Muslim population knew that their future in this newly sectarianized India was going to be a harsh one, and gladly fought against the seemingly inevitable, even in the face of death. After the Unionists cleared Kashmir of Pakistani forces (and for that matter, a significant amount of the Muslim population), the final plans for reaching the Iranian borders was set up. They had more men, better trained men and the money from the West to make it happen. Savarkar boasted that the Unionist forces would ‘Do what the Christians in all their Crusades could not – destroy the armies of Islam’. After getting an intense reprimand from Rajaji for his comments, he somewhat retracted the remarks, but his Sectarian pronouncements were certainly popular among the broader population. It made the final months of the war particularly brutal.
Pakistan’s major cities would be bombed day and night without any air force to defend them. The final march for Indian forces was beset by a myriad of improvised tactics by desperate defenders, including the first large scale use of suicide bombers. Added to that, Pakistanis would regularly fight to the death rather than be captured, fearing that they and their families would be sent to camps. All these served to make surrenders by Pakistani troops increasingly rare as the Indian troops marched onwards to Karachi and had reached the outskirts on July 17th 1952. By then, Indian troops had been hardened by the fighting and had little mood to accept prisoners. In the end its estimated that the numbers of surrendering Pakistanis in the battle didn’t break into five figures. Indeed, word of Indians simply shooting Pakistanis trying to surrender so troubled Rajaji that he begged the British to step up bombing runs on the Pakistanis, in hope that they would be finished off before Indians could reach them. Unfortunately, Wingate told Rajaji that forces were needed for the Airlift and the Chinese front. Historians generally agree that this was the case, though accusations of Anti-Muslim feeling seem vindicated by reading his diaries – the feelings having been developed due to his time with the Israelis and his time saving religious minorities in Pakistan. Finally, on September 4th 1952, Karachi fell.
Mysteriously, Nazimuddin’s body was never found, and he has become a figure of legend among Indian Muslims. Even to this day, long after he would have passed away naturally, people still claim to have seem him doing everything from begging in the street to being a taxi driver. Interestingly, similar stories seem to happen among Arabs with Aflaq, though this likely was a by-product of the Nazimuddin Myth, and more unbelievable given that it required body doubles to explain Aflaq’s death. Of course, both had a common source in what had befallen their respective worlds and the dream that somewhere out there, they could reemerge. But for Pakistan, it would never come. There was no official surrender, especially given that most of the Pakistani leadership perished in the conflict. Instead, the long march continued to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan. For once, both Irans were in agreement. The South did not want an Anti-Western force inside their borders and the North did not want more Islamists continuing to raise Hell inside their boundaries. Afghanistan, being a somewhat weaker state, would become an Islamist outpost despite the wishes of their government. The Pakistani Continuity Army (PCA) would continue to make incursions into India for years. Unfortunately, the Soviets announced that they would consider the invasion of Afghanistan to be a diplomatically inexcusable offence in that it would put war right to the Soviet border, for which they would have to secure the frontier with their own invasion. Not wanting to risk a war with the Soviets (though certainly enjoying the newfound outrage against the Soviets among the Indian people), Rajaji limited his attacks on the PCA to the occasional shelling. When it came to the internal border, Pakistani forces were declared to have been vanquished on January 3rd 1953, which is generally considered to be the end of the Indian Civil War. It was a war that killed five million people, mostly Pakistanis, and left India bitter, bleeding … but united. With Separatist activity reduced to occasional terrorist attacks, which only served to maintain the Hindutva ideal, India was free to focus on its newfound role in the world as an economic (and Capitalist) powerhouse. With India now securely in the Western camp, the question remained: Would they align with the Democracies or the Fascists?
‘The Death Spiral: Stalin 1941-1953’ by Alexi Ivanovitch
For the next week after Stalin’s coma, an eerie stillness gripped the Kremlin. Stalin’s work continued to pile onto his desk to the point that that some papers were so stacked they reached halfway to the ceiling. As it had been the custom to run most of the Soviet bureaucracy through Stalin, the daily operation of the country seemed to have gone with him. Supplies were not being sent off to the front, rations were not being provided at home and all the while the trio of Molotov, Malenkov and Khrushchev (who became known as the Triumvirate or Troika) knew it couldn’t last, but it seemed impossible to break it. Their hope was that Stalin would awake from his coma and all would be fine; unfortunately he did not awaken. Their fear was that if they took up the operations of state and Stalin woke up, he could think a coup had happened and order their executions. Finally, the Triumvirate met almost exactly a week after Stalin’s episode and agreed to collectively share the responsibility of running the country. They hoped that if all the major Politburo figures did it, Stalin would relent on mass executions (which was a pretty rich bet). The three looked at the documents and got a sense of where the Soviet Union was and were astonished. In the words of Molotov, ‘The country was in as bad a condition as Stalin.’
The reports indicated that grain harvests for the year were brutally low, and had been falling for a while now. One report warned that if the fall were to continue next year, ‘It would be like the Ukrainian situation [the Holodomor] on a national scale’. Military spending had strangled all other areas of the economy with foreign trade almost non-existent. Though Stalin’s death had successfully been kept a secret (to the tragic-comic effect of having body doubles represent Stalin at the annual celebration of the October Revolution), they knew it couldn’t be covered up forever. Thankfully for the Soviets, Patton’s undermining of intelligence in the USSR by getting American diplomats pulled out likely gave the Politburo sufficient breathing room. Once that was out, it was expected it would embolden Anti-Soviet forces not just in North Iran, Poland and China, but in the remainder of the occupied Eastern European states, or even the SSRs. Then there was the Jewish situation, which all parties knew to be abominable. The Triumvirate had never truly realised how bad the situation was. They concluded that the Soviet Union would not last another three years unless the Chinese War was ended immediately. Then they could ramp down spending on the military, hold the West at bay with their nuclear arsenal and rebuild. There were two major problems though.
The first was that it was almost diplomatically impossible for the West to sit down with the Soviet Union in any capacity. The revelations of what was happening to the Soviet Jewish population had made Anti-Communism in the West as tense and unrelenting as it was in 1948. Not to mention the horrific death tolls in China forced the UN to demand a high price of the Red Chinese forces. They certainly weren’t going to accept a status-quo arrangement. Ironically, the Soviets found much the same problem in their own camp. The second problem was that due to his repeated failures, Mao had burned almost every bridge he ever had. He had infuriated his commanders and fellow Communists with his inane orders and meddling which resulted in the near obliteration of the Red Guards and now most of the PLA following the loss of Shanghai, had infuriated the Chinese people who originally supported him over Chiang with his disastrous agricultural and industrial policies and perhaps most importantly infuriated the Soviet leadership for wasting precious resources that were so desperately needed elsewhere. Mao was by now, as Patton joked, “As popular as a Prohibitionist in a Speakeasy.” Even still, the ultimate fate of Mao was something few could have expected, and was certainly not chosen lightly. No, a simple assassination wouldn’t do. This was going to be a gamble …
‘Amazing Grace: The Story of Civil Rights in America’ by Judith Moore
Jackie Robinson was the first American to receive the Medal of Honour during the fighting in China. It had made him a cause of celebration among many in Black America, though others just did it for appearance’s sake. Patton was resented by certain segments of African Americans at the time for having so brutally taken Wallace to pasture – Black Americans were the only ethnic group with any form of sympathy for Wallace in his moves to alleviate their plight. This had led to accusations among many in the Freedom Party that the black populace was too sympathetic to Communism and Fifth Columnist beliefs to be allowed to vote. Robinson’s story did much to relieve those accusations, and he found much support from Patton when he asked to help advertise the army to Black Americans as a way to achieve (not that he could easily get a cab back home). Robinson became a great admirer of Patton, and the two met somewhat regularly, with Patton looking for more manpower for the Chinese chaos. Robinson wanted to repay the favour, but felt constrained by his situation. He endorsed Patton for President in early 1952, but knew that most blacks in America lived under the Hegemony of people like Thurmond and Connor and so could not vote. Then Jackie Robinson decided he would do something extra-ordinary. He’d helped the cause of freedom on one side of the world, and was determined to help in another.
Robinson became increasingly vocal in his support for Civil Rights, which brought condemnation from the Freedom Party that he should “mind his owned damn business” in Connor’s words. Even Patton wrote to Robinson, stating that while he totally understood what he was doing and that he was ‘probably right’, the cause of the country dictated keeping peace on the home front. In response, Robinson quit his advertising position in the army and devoted himself entirely to the cause of ending Jim Crow. Robinson sent a respectful letter explaining his departure and Patton sent a respectful letter back; it was the last time the two would ever converse Having been on the frontline in China, he wanted a frontline position in the South. Understanding that this meant nothing could be done publicly, from late July onwards Robinson and a few White Civil Rights activists would drive into the South. Sometimes sleeping in their car to avoid detection, Robinson and co would help sign up people on voting registers, which was not an easy thing to do under the Separate and (supposedly) equal laws. The White activists were used to gain the compliance of white authority figures and Robinson was used to gain confidence with Blacks. Though it was rumored that Robinson was helping with underground voting registration in the night, many members of the Freedom Party thought it was just a myth blacks were talking about to sustain hope. Unfortunately, not all groups did.
On the night of October 13th 1952, just outside of Cairo, Georgia (Robinson’s birthplace), the car was stopped by a posse of four men. All were drunk, all were members of the Klan and none of them had served in China (two had applied, with one turned down due to bad eyesight and the other due to intoxication issues). After a brief round of questions confirming their targets, Robinson’s three fellow white passengers were shot and killed. Robinson was taken from the car, tied up, beaten and hanged as per traditional lynching style. His last words, in response to how he was feeling in the midst of his torture were reportedly, “You can’t degrade me. You’re only degrading yourselves”. To add insult to injury, Robinsons’s corpse was dumped inside his birthplace, so unrecognizable that even those who grew up with him couldn’t recognise him. He still had his Medal of Honor in his pocket. The news spread fast though, and before it was even afternoon, word had reached the White House. As Vice-President Dewey recalled, when Patton received the news, “It looked like he’d heard a close member of his family died. George looked at me and said, ‘Get Hoover on the phone. Tell him to find the bastards who did this and tell them to give to them what they did to Jack twice over’.” For having stopped a small voter registration effort, those four Klansmen had awakened the unceasing wrath of the most powerful man on Earth. You don’t just kill a US serviceman. You don’t just kill a Medal of Honor winner. And you sure as Hell don’t kill a friend of the US President. They had doomed not only themselves and their organisation, but their whole world.
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Why do I have a feeling there might be the possibility that "symbols of Muslim invaders" like the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal might be blown up or at least subjected to government neglect? I could see secularist forces in India be emboldened by failed attempts to destroy monuments to Muslim rulers which many non-Muslims also respect.
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They're too popular to destroy, but there's a lot of chest-beating over how they've 'taken' Muslim property. Many Hindu extremists now literally believe they are the one true religion because they've successfully 'beaten back Islam'. Though the Congress is still basically secular, the extremists are far more powerful than they were OTL.
So, the government would simply neglect the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal and essentially leave them to proverbially rot?