The Footprint of Mussolini - TL

[Sorairo]

Getting Down to Business

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

By the time serious help was on the horizon, Chiang’s Republic of China had been reduced to a toehold at the far south of the Middle Kingdom. Chiang’s troops had no aid, little discipline and no hope. The Wallace Impeachment changed all this, with the dormant China Lobby now fully reawakened. An aid package was immediately rushed to Chiang’s forces (with help from Italy, who was at the early stage of the fighting the only European country directly helping the KMT). This was enough to stop the Communist advance in the Battle of Nanning in the far south of China, but everyone knew there was no way, robbed of so many resources, that Chiang had a chance of fighting the Communists in the long run. President Martin contacted De Gaulle, Mussolini and Churchill and attempted to direct the Western response to the Chinese situation. The Americans were by far the most animated about the project, wanting to get back against the Soviets for their infiltration of the government – indeed, a march of some 500,000 New Yorkers filled the streets soon after the expulsion of Soviet diplomats, saying that America hadn’t gone far enough. Virtually the only way of sating Americas rage without starting a war with the Soviets outright was to fight the Communists in China. This was an easy sell, as America was generally Pro-China (Chiang) even before Mao’s attacks. American troops were rushed from Japan to bolster Chiang, the Draft was reinstated and some of the wartime controls returned. Dwight D. Eisenhower was placed in command of the rapidly expanding American presence. This annoyed MacArthur, who wanted the role for himself, but it was believed that Eisenhower’s prior relationship with the Europeans would be helpful to America’s reputation in the Post-Wallace world. The once peace-loving American people roared with near unanimous approval of the new conflict.

A question arose as to how the Chinese War would be conducted. Some wanted it conducted much like World War Two, with an Allied High Command. However, it was argued – ultimately successfully – that the best thing to do would be to use the United Nations as a tool to send in the forces of the world to try and deal with the Communists. Under usual circumstances, this would have been impossible due to the veto power the Soviets possessed. However, Martin’s expulsion of the Soviet diplomatic team meant that there was no one sitting at the desk in New York. This absurd loophole, rammed through by sympathetic judges as legitimate, ensured that the Soviets could not veto the UN’s vote to send in ‘Peace-keepers’ to China to fight the Communists on June 4th 1948. Declaring the proceedings a farce, Stalin officially renounced all claim to the United Nations a week later. His Soviet slave states (with the exception of Poland, whose United Nations seat still had representatives of the Government in Exile) quickly pulled out as well, followed by several of the Arab states. On October 30th, the Comintern was re-established as the Soviet answer to the United Nations, with only Communist and Republican Arab states to count among her number. They publicly approved aid to the Communists (though they secretly provided men too, mostly in the Red Air Force). In addition, Korea and the newly declared People’s Republic of Ezo (formerly The People’s Republic of Hokkaido) sent in swathes of ‘volunteers’ – the UN deciding against sending in avowedly Japanese troops due to fears of revulsion from the Chinese populace. The vacant Soviet seat at the United Nations was the subject of much debate as to what would become of it. Ultimately, as a World War Two ally, loyally Anti-Communist partner and - while not being democratic - at least being significantly better than the Soviets, Turkey was gifted the seat. This was also done as a method to try and exert influence on the Islamic world and stop it falling into the Soviet sphere.

The United Nations forces were placed under Eisenhower, though they were already overwhelmingly American. The next largest detachments of men (naturally excluding the KMT) were Italy, Britain and France. At the same time, there were men from all corners of the world congregating in the South Pacific. Australian, Turk, Canadian, Israeli, Swedish, Brazilian and South African – no corner of the world was unrepresented in China. At the same time, despite this overwhelming coalition, the Allies had two severe constraints. Firstly, Chiang was adamant that no nuclear, chemical or biological weapon could be used in China as he feared this would turn the population against him, not to mention not wanting to deal with the carnage. Coincidentally, incoming President Patton was also against nuclear weapons being used, though for the bizarre belief that it would rob soldiers of valor. Regardless, nuclear weapons were not put front and centre by the Allied forces. The second was that Chiang now created the same situation that the White forces in the Russian Civil War had – they had allowed the Communists to play the nationalism card. Mao effortlessly whipped up resentment against Chiang by saying he was trying to reintroduce Colonialism to China by bringing in Western armies. Even to Anti-Communist Chinamen, the arrival of so many foreigners was not a cause for joy. Mao may have killed far more people than Chiang (and not due to the latter having a gentle complexion), but he was also significantly more popular, at least for now. By late 1948, the only locations the KMT still had control over were Taiwan, Hainan and portions of Guangxi and Guangdong. Eisenhower wracked his brains over how he was supposed to salvage the situation as hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Philippines to Philadelphia swarmed into China. What awaited them was one of the most diabolical wars of the Twentieth Century, with only World War Two in the same region of casualties.

'The Red and the Dead: How the Wallace Presidency Changed America' by Ben Rushmore​

Martin’s Presidency had already decidedly shifted the United States rightward, going as far as to outright expel all Soviet diplomats (a move not even the Roman Alliance entertained until it felt it had to catch up with the United States and do so too a few days later). Patton’s inauguration would promise only escalation. Against the advice of almost all of his staff, his inauguration was performed wearing his old military uniform – the crowds roared with delight, not recognizing the precedent that had been set, or rather broken. He promised what would become known as ‘The Patton Doctrine’: “The United States will not rest until there isn’t one rock on Earth under a Communist heel.” The moral simplicity of the statement would delight the American public, though there were private regrets in the Pentagon at the lack of freedom it granted them. The so-called ‘Rollback’ strategy was chosen over the more moderate proposal of George Kennan, who advocated ‘Containment’, which meant simply stopping Communist aggression where it arose. Patton had no such patience, angrily saying, “We’re supposed to just sit there and keep letting these Red sons of bitches give us a kick in the ass whenever they want?!” That settled the debate, at least as far as American planners were concerned. Thankfully, with the American economy roaring once again after the Post-War recession, a tax windfall ensured there was more than enough funding to pay for the military expansion that was about to ensue.

Patton’s primary diplomatic mission was to restore ties to Europe and regain trust with his old allies. This delighted the Roman Alliance especially, owing to the poor terms they had experiencd under Wallace. Mussolini and Balbo came to New York and Washington as part of their World Tour on July 26th. They had flown directly from Rome – by Balbo’s hand – and the greeting they received ‘was something akin to the arrival of Christ’ according to the New York Times. The streets were rapturous, as Italian and Jewish communities especially came out to show their love. Mussolini would deliver a speech in Madison Square Garden that night, declaring what would become ‘The Mussolini Doctrine’: ‘No Fascist state is an enemy of Democracy, no Fascist state is a friend of Communism.’ The essential meaning was that Mussolini publicly announced his total non-interference in the Democratic world, which put him in stark contrast to International Communism, or at least gave a good justification to diplomats in the West for a reason not to interfere in Italy’s domestic affairs. In English, he praised the United States, George Washington, the Italian-American (and Jewish-American) communities, leaving New York in such a wave of excitement that, so said Ernest Hemmingway (in New York at the time), “laws permitting, he would be voted President for life in this country.” He would travel to Washington to meet with Patton, the two respecting each other’s ego. The extent of Patton’s Anti-Communism even took Mussolini by surprise, especially when he learned that the Communist Party was imminently to be banned (even against the recommendations of Hoover) – which it soon was. The two hashed out an informal agreement that America would not diplomatically pressure the Roman Alliance for changes in their political policies, while favourable arrangements were made with American oil titans with respect to the growing Libyan supply.

Patton’s inauguration was praised in France and Britain as well, as they believed that the United States had returned to reason. Unfortunately, it had done anything but. Patton, with McCarthy overjoyed at the extent of his growing power, was determined to smash not just Communism, but any threat to the new Republican Congress. While McCarthy saw no threat either on the electoral or social level with the Freedom Party, he looked upon the Democrats and Progressive Democrats as bastions of Satanism. For the former, almost every notable figure was dragged before the House and Senate Investigations, relentlessly photographed by the press. Harry Truman’s was a particularly brutal session, which was so damaging that he temporarily went into hiding. The investigated were badgered about their connections to Wallace, the Soviets and so forth. Some outright broke into tears before the proceedings – the heart of the average American had been hardened by events, and there would be no remorse. While few cases were ultimately pursued, the events were so exhausting and damaging to the reputations of almost everyone in the Democrat Party that no donor would ever associate with them again. Starved of any institutional support, or opportunistic donors, the Democrats continued to decline. Unions flocked to the Republicans, pleading for partnership (when in reality it was a plea of mercy). In the South, the unions were ironically at their most powerful and Socialistic, though this was only due to their endorsement of segregation sparing them from law-enforcement (black unions were treated lower than any group in the Union).

The Progressive Democrats fared even worse – the League of Columbus in the north and Klan in the South, often in full view of law enforcement, regularly attacked the party. There was no infraction so small that a meeting wouldn’t be told to disassemble, no jaywalking that wouldn’t invite a pistol-whipping and no unkind word that wouldn’t be met with a fist. The party was bankrupted in 1951 – laws had been put in the books to illegalize the party and would have passed if it had somehow lived. Marcantonio and Taylor, along with Paul Robeson would all escape to asylum in the Soviet Union in 1950 by means of Canada. They would all live out the rest of their lives in the Soviet Union. Marcantonio would die in 1954 of natural causes (supposedly). Glen Taylor and Robeson would live long enough to regret their decision, being imprisoned in 1957 into the Gulag system. It was later confirmed in documents recovered in the 1970s that the pair had been killed almost immediately after their arrival at the camps.

Ironically, it was incredibly easy to evade detection with a quick political change. Former Democrat and head of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan, was saved from brutal questioning by having changed his political affiliation to Republican. Others, like Henry Fonda, were not so lucky and found themselves out of work in America. Soon Fonda, along with other big name stars like James Cagney, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Orson Welles would find themselves on boats to England to continue working. All would go on to have impressive careers, though none in their homeland. By contrast, ideologically ‘safe’ members of the Motion Picture Industry found themselves in high demand. This included but was not limited to: John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, James Stewart, Cecil B. DeMille, Gary Cooper, Walt Disney, Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra and Ayn Rand. All in all, Hollywood had become a top-to-bottom Right-wing institution, leading to a slew of Anti-Communist epics being released in the ensuing years. These included:

· We The Living (1949): Ayn Rand’s semi-autobiography, portraying her early life in Russia. The last film directed by Viktor Fleming (who died only days after filming concluded) and starring Barbara Stanwyck, the ending was changed to have it conform to the Hays Code (in that the protagonist had a happy ending). Rand would renounce the film for this reason, but it became one of the first major films to address the atrocities committed under Communism. It would prove quite popular in Italy, though it was banned when the authorities realised that people interpreted the story as equally applicable to Fascism as Communism.

· Right Hand Man (1949): Humphrey Bogart made a villainous turn as a common Russian thug recruited by the NKVD after they take a liking to his brutality. Bogart’s character quickly rises through the ranks and becomes a respected man in town, terrorizing his old enemies with his fellow NKVD bullies. He takes a liking for a certain religious, Jewish girl (Lauren Bacall) after she has been arrested for trying to save her Rabbi father from being rounded up and begins making overt moves upon her. At the moment he is about to violate her, he is arrested by his fellow NKVD members for ‘plotting against Comrade Stalin’ (in reality a cooked-up charge by an ambitious underling). He is soon treated as badly by his old comrades as the helpless victims they tortured. Broken by the torture, he ends up in the same labour camp as the girl and her father. Shocked that they forgive him, he ends up sacrificing his life that they can escape to Isreal.

· Know Your Enemy (1950-1953): Frank Capra would be re-comissioned to make a series of documentary films on the subject of Communism, much like his Why We Fight series during WW2 against the Pact. The films would detail various Communist crimes, from the Paris Commune to the nuclear destruction of Warsaw.

· A Tale of Two Cities (1951): Directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Cary Grant (with cutting edge split screen techniques), tells of the famous Dickens novel. For propagandistic reasons, the evils of the aristocrats in the novel are underplayed while the evils of the revolutionaries are shown in explicit, unyielding detail. Gloria Swanson would win an Oscar for her immortal portrayal of Madame DeFarge.

· The Other Great Dictator (1952): Charlie Chaplin’s sequel to The Great Dictator (1940) has all the emotional power of the original, mixed with a tragic horror of the acts man would commit upon his brothers. Made when news of the crimes against Jews had leaked, this film packed a poignant punch. It detailed the Barber being released from jail (once the party leaders realised he wasn’t Heinkel) as the Russians – under Joey Salami – liberate a Tomania that has fallen into chaos without the leader. Initially overjoyed, freedom is slowly and brutally eroded further still. Finally, the film ends with the Barber (and most of the cast from the first movie) escaping to Israel.

· Warsaw (1952): This would be the film that ensured John Wayne received his Oscar, as well as another for John Ford. Beginning with an old man searching through the ruins of Warsaw, he flashes back to his younger self (Wayne) in 1919 and the fight against the Soviets way back then. The film ends with the old man deciding that even though Warsaw has been destroyed for now, the spirit of the city lives on, and he decides to join the resistance. A critical and box office success, it made the Duke a figure of reverence in Poland – giving him a State tour just before his death when Poland became a free country.

Of course, the societal effects of the Wallace/Ware Group Trial deserve a chapter to themselves ...

The Rise, Fall and Rise of Japan by Mariya Takeuchi ​

Following the War, Japan’s military forces were almost entirely dissolved with little mind to rebuild them. The beginning of heavy Western involvement in the Chinese War changed everything. Suddenly, there were not nearly enough Western troops in the region. MacArthur would bluntly tell Patton there were enough troops to hold Japan and fight in China, but not both. As a result, the Treaty of Osaka was signed on July 4th 1949 between America and Japan. It called for the rebuilding of the Japanese Armed Forces (excluding the Navy) to serve as ‘an agent of Democracy’ as stated by MacArthur. Likewise, any notion of a WMD program was removed outright. Japan would be strong enough to defend itself with no issue, but it would have no means to attack anything without the support of the United States. That said, it would certainly have enough firepower to flatten Ezo. There is strong evidence that Ezo's Anti-Japanese streak would only be enlarged by Japan's newfound military power.

The mood in Japan was more than ready for the occasion. Nationalist sentiment had been stirring for a while, with the Japanese administration attempting to ensure all the bile fell on Ezo, rather than the Americans. This was accomplished rather well, with refugees coming across the sea at regular intervals to warn of the harsh treatment Japanese nationalists received on Hokkaido. The outrage was so intense that even relatively apolitical filmakers like Akira Kurosawa would make films detailing the more famous escape stories from the land that was once Japan's. By contrast, Yasujiro Ozu would create more moving films talking about the fate of refugees in Japan and their struggle to start over. But the most famous cultural artifact of the time is perhaps Yukio Mishima's 1953 classic 'Mizu no Oto' (The Sound of Water) - which details a young Japanese boy and his Bildungsroman. After trying and failing to find meaning in life, he finally finds it in dying for his country by refusing to surrender the Japanese resistance network in Hokkaido (even though they abused him). The book struck an emotional chord in Japan, making Mishima perhaps the most famous Asian writer of the Twentieth Century. Mishima's regular denunciation of Communism and the state of Ezo made him quite popular in Western circuits as well. No matter how tough Japan was at the time, the country never wavered in its public support of the Hokkaidan resistance. Regent Yasuhito even went as far as to publicly declare the Treaty of Osaka, ‘the first step to re-uniting Japan’. Such saber-rattling statements may have infuriated the Soviets but delighted the new mood in the White House. While Japanese troops would not be called into the hellfire that engulfed China during the War, they would certainly provide a useful base for the US Air Force.

Japan’s military would give the United States much needed breathing room. Indeed, it proved even more advantageous than originally expected. As 1949 went on, and America attempted with all its diplomatic might to ingratiate itself with the European powers, it was decided that there would be less pressure on the European powers to accept America into ETO if they were part of a group. Japan’s ascension to military strength would finally convince ETO of the wisdom of expanding its modus operandi. For that reason, on September 20th 1949, in the Treaty of Stockholm, ETO was officially expanded into ITO (pronounced ‘Ai-toe’), and given the same worldwide extension as the Stalingrad Pact already enjoyed. The same restrictions (the necessity of strong, democratic institutions) kept Chiang’s Republic of China out of the expansion, but America, Japan, Brazil, South Iran and the Philippines soon enjoyed full membership in the supreme alliance structure on Earth. Of course, having seen such an expansion, the Roman Alliance began to get ambitious too ...

 

[Sorairo]

Hey all, thus ends the Wallace plotline. I can assure you of more twists and turns to come in American politics, of course. As I'm always somewhat paranoid and want to know if I'm doing something right or wrong, if you feel my writing is slipping in quality, please tell me. Without further ado:

The Trial Of The Century

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long
​

UN forces may have been stretched during their first major confrontations with the Communist Chinese, but so were the Communist Chinese. Mao’s troops had totally consolidated power within the north, but their blitzkrieg in the south had left them without strong concentration of men. Fortunately for them, the KMT were so shattered from initial assaults that it was like a red-hot knife through butter. The UN forces, of course, were different. By now, Chiang and most of the KMT’s hierarchy (including prized possessions like Qing Dynasty treasures) had been successfully sent away to Hainan and Taiwan. In conjunction with Eisenhower and Rommel (whose success in Israel had raised profile to such an extent that Patton successfully nominated him for involvement in the campaign), the three planned to fight against the Communist onslaught. They knew what the target would be: Canton.

Canton was the biggest city left in China not painted red on a map. It was also a port city, which made it highly valuable for the United Nations to allow men in to the country. Men began pouring in by late Summer, conspicuous in their foreign appearance. Many of the Americans had imagined China as a wonderfully exotic country and had no idea of the realities of the location. Relations between Americans and Chinese civilians were decent, albeit not affectionate. American propaganda did its best to prop up Chiang as the Chinese George Washington, but it didn’t hold water to most of the populous, who generally preferred Mao. The KMT did little to help as well, with the combination of a total breakdown in the ROC and a sudden tidal wave of foreign supplies resulting in corruption that made the black markets of World War Two Britain look like a night with the choir. Tanks could be sold in open markets due to top-level material not reaching the front. Patton was mostly indifferent to this, believing that American troops alone were more than enough to do the job.

This theory would first be tested in September, when the first forces of the Communist Chinese arrived. There were two major attacks: one in the city itself and one to try and take Haizhu Bridge, which would allow the Communists to cut off Canton from the rest of the ROC and bypass it. In the former, street-battles raged through the ancient city of two and a half million people, while in the south, the American Air Force began to bombard General Lin Biao’s forces as they crawled ever southward towards their goal. It was also the first time the American army (even under UN aucpices) fought a major battle without segregation. Perhaps the most notable of this was Jackie Robinson, who would become infamous some years later in one of the most important events of the 1950s. Robinson had been considered for becoming the first black player to cross the colour barrier in American baseball, but the racial tensions that defined the Wallace Era forced the Brooklyn Dodgers to dump the idea “for the safety and wellbeing of the fans”. Frustrated, he had returned to the army. It was there that he would find his initial fame. At the Battle of Canton, Robinson and his battalion had been cut off behind enemy lines in the city. Trapped and desperate, Robinson managed to successfully lead the group (which included civilians) through the sewers and back to the safety of the American lines without further loss of life. This was despite being badly wounded himself – so much so that he collapsed the moment the company was discovered by an Italian regiment. It was for this service that he received the Medal of Honor, the first time the medal was awarded for service during the Chinese War, straight from the hands of President Patton on December 2nd 1949. It would be the first of nearly 400 such medals for the war, almost as much as World War Two.

Ultimately, the might of the US Air Force proved too much for such open field operations by Biao. After repeated attempts to reach the Pearl River, a counterattack led by Rommel succeeded in repulsing the attack. With that, despite half of the city by now having fallen into Mao’s hands, the retreat was sounded. The American media rejoiced, proclaiming it the first in an inevitable wave of victories that would surely send Americans to Peking, perhaps even Moscow itself. Unfortunately what they didn’t know (or indeed what Eisenhower didn’t know) was that Mao had already prepared to fight a new type of war. It would become known as the ‘Water Strategy’ based on how water would fill any object it was poured into. The idea was that no matter where the US sent their troops, they would be confronted. While the main campaign of millions of men and tanks would continue, Mao ordered the formation of a guerilla group to keep the Americans held in South China. They would become known as the Red Guards, and would soon gain a reputation almost as infamous as the PLA.

‘The Dark Decade: America in the 40s’ by Wendy Walters​

There were some people in the Republican establishment who wanted to leave Wallace alone and focus exclusively on the proven members of the Ware Group – President Patton was not one of those people. Perhaps incensed by personal reasons, he had looked at Wallace’s actions as exceeding Benedict Arnold’s in treachery. The very notion of letting Wallace off with what he was accused of doing, namely handing over American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union which had resulted directly in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, would never have been pushed under the carpet if the common man did it. Patton felt that the same would have to apply even to the highest in the land. Ultimately, despite all of Dewey’s pleading (who had already taken to be the main potential brake on Patton’s behaviour), the former general had made up his mind: Wallace and the Ware Group would go on trial together.

Wallace was pulled from hiding and placed in a secure prison cell on February 15th 1949, which many pointed out was the anniversary of the Warsaw Bombing. Adding to Wallace’s humiliation, he was placed in the same prison as the members of the Ware Group. According to several eyewitnesses, there were violent altercations between Wallace and former members of his administration in the prison courtyard (mostly John Abt, whom few of his fellows attempted to save). Wallace would write his memoirs in prison where he affirmed his innocence of being a Soviet spy and condemned Stalin explicitly and unreservedly. Ultimately, when the Trial started on June 5th, his strategy was to apologise for his follies, state that he was wrong and that Stalin was an evil tyrant. The remainder of the Ware Group swore off all wrong-doing and, under Soviet instruction, maintained their innocence to the end to unsettle global confidence in American democracy. The same American prosecutor at Nuremburg, Robert H. Jackson, was appointed the chief prosecutor of Wallace (a role he eagerly accepted following claims that his appointment by FDR had made him suspect). The move succeeded in turning the trial into a slugging match. Jacksons’s showdown with Hiss would prove particularly confrontational, with both ending up screaming at each other over the slams of the judge’s gavel. The media were quick to call it the ‘Trial of the Century’, only a few years after Nuremburg.

Ultimately, the conclusion was somewhat inevitable. By now, not only had Ethel Rosenberg and Whittaker’s testimony come down the line, but the words of dozens of other spies and collaborators identifying the Ware Group and confirming their sending nuclear secrets to the Soviets. One thing could not be confirmed, however: There was no one outright saying that Wallace was a Soviet agent, something the press had begun to note. The notion that Wallace had simply been duped the whole time began to gain credence from what was mostly believed beforehand, that Wallace had been an outright agent. John Abt, who had grown bitter in his isolation within the group, decided to put a stake through the whole concept. Abt, knowing he had no chance of escaping conviction, decided to take out his vengeance on the rest of the group. He suddenly announced in October, as the Trial was calming down, that he had flipped. He handed over real information about the Soviet spy program, but he added countless falsehoods that condemned his fellow prisoners. For example, he had invented conversations with Wallace where both discussed how the NKVD had recruited them. The authorities, pressured by the Patton White House to find evidence that Wallace was a spy, took the information to heart and barely checked it. The news was broadcast nationwide and soon worldwide that it had been ‘confirmed’ that Wallace was a Soviet agent. Wallace would sink further into Depression. The last words written in his memoirs were, “If I had tried with all my might to fight for the things I hated against the things I truly believed in, I could not have succeeded more perfectly than I have here and now.”

In the end, it was no surprise what happened. Wallace, Hiss, Abt, Kramer and Dexter-White were all found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. It was at this point that the extremely difficult part began – sentencing. Ultimately, for their involvement in transferring nuclear secrets that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, the four main members of the Ware Group faced prompt and utter destruction. All four were to be sentenced to death. However, it was the case of Wallace that excited the most passion. Patton was adamantly in favour of Wallace receiving the same penalty as anyone else in the same position while almost everyone else in the Republican Party recognised how dangerous it was to execute a former President. Extreme pressure fell upon the judges to make a decision that would keep all parties satisfied. Ultimately, they got it better than some had feared. The decision of the judges was that Wallace would be sentenced to life imprisonment, while arrangements would be made that he would be sentenced to the most notorious prison of all, Alcatraz. To add insult to injury, it was arranged that Wallace would take the same cell as notorious bootlegger Al Capone to associate his name with criminality. Patton laughed when he heard the plan, saying, “Jeez, I like that more than killing him!” According to Gallup, just 20% of the population found the sentence too harsh, 34% about right and about 40% stated they would have preferred the death penalty. It is often forgotten how radicalized the American public became in the aftermath of the Wallace case, but the polls provide the clear-cut reminder.

However, that sentence never came about. On December 18th 1949, as Wallace was being transferred for final arrangements in his prison sentence, he was shot at close range by a mentally disturbed soldier by the name of George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell had been among the first to volunteer for the war in China, but had quickly been sent home due to being wounded in the Battle of Canton. Depressed that he had been sent home so quickly, as well as mentally breaking in combat, he came to the idea that his woes were all Wallace’s fault. Subsequent discoveries in his diary suggested that he was supportive to Fascism, even flirting with outright Nazism. Ultimately, whatever force compelled him, he managed to work his way through the crowd and unloaded three shots in Wallace’s chest before he could be restrained. He was subsequently arrested and placed in an insane asylum where he died in 1989. Rockwell was difficult for America to process, as his insanity and cruelty helped many people sober up from the more intense moments of the Red Panic in 1949 to the slow cooling of the popular imagination in the 1950s (though Communism would remain as unpopular as ever). Of course, Wallace and Rockwell’s case has led to many conspiracy theories on the subject, with theories ranging from second gunmen to Rockwell having superiors (everyone from a vengeful Patton to a vengeful Stalin) and even theories that Wallace’s death was faked altogether. No strong evidence for these ideas has been found.

Wallace was joined in his fate by the Ware Group on December 28th 1949, with Hiss, Abt, Kramer and Dexter-White all meeting the electric chair for their aiding the Nuclear Espionage Scandal. Rumours persist that the sponge (which is usually wetted to reduce the pain to the victim by aiding electric conduction) was dry during the executions, but there was no final confirmation on this. All four bodies were cremated and scattered in Chesapeake Bay. Wallace’s body too, after some debate, was also cremated and scattered in Chesapeake Bay. Wallace still divides America today. Though evidence has since emerged that he was not a Soviet agent, the most recent poll on the subject had roughly a third affirming that he was with another half saying that he was only criminally naïve. To this day, historians generally consider James Buchanan worse than Wallace, though Wallace remains the least popular President in popular opinion polls (which is somewhat impressive given some of the presidents who followed him). Thus ended the dark decade of the 1940s, a time of War, division and the most chaos that had befallen America since the Civil War. This wasn’t to say that the 1950s would be a happy one in American history, but it would be one without the relentless race to destruction that characterized the nation in the 40s.

‘Patton: The Man’ by George Wallaby​

Though most of the focus of the Chinese War is placed on the fighting in the namesake country, the fighting in Indo-China was just as important. In Vietnam, a conflict raged between French Colonial authorities and the Communist/Nationalist Independence Group of the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. Minh was an extremely popular figure in Vietnam and commanded a broad array of support. That said, he found few friends in France, and De Gaulle swore he would not allow Vietnam to slip out of his grasp, and certainly not to a Communist. The late forties had been particularly challenging to De Gaulle, with troops needed in France to calm the waves of strikes and terrorism that had defined the political exile of the Communist Party. The only advantage was that French troops were well positioned in Vietnam, having taken back the country from the Japanese almost simultaneously with the Viet Minh. They faced serious difficulties from, of all parties, the US. The OSS (under orders of the Wallace administration) had provided training to the Viet Minh, even after World War Two. Thankfully for De Gaulle, the new American President had no such ideas. In fact, Patton did something that pleasantly surprised him. Patton promised to send troops to Vietnam to back up the French. This represented a stark change in the traditional Anti-Colonial outlook Americans usually had, but the madness of the last half-decade had erased that tendency in the American public. They wanted dead Communists – period. If it meant squashing a few third world uprisings, that’s what they would do.

The first American troops landed in Hanoi that October in 1949, with the UN as a whole refusing to fight for French colonialism. Though American newsreels showed a cheery picture of local relationships, unlike in China, the mood was outright hostile. No one liked the French (apart from the educated Catholics), and no one liked anyone who fought for the French. One American soldier remembered to his surprise how, “They treated us better in Tokyo than they do here in Hanoi”. Nevertheless, they had one advantage: nothing was getting in to Vietnam that the Allies hadn’t approved of. The seas were totally dominated by the American and European navies, with the Chinese border guarded to within an inch of its life. Ho Chi Minh and General Giap soon found themselves starved of weaponry before the battle had even begun. Though they had popular support that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. The French did most of the fighting, with American troops doing more administrative work to keep the American population at home more comfortable with events. The French scored a series of open-field victories but the Viet Minh always seemed to survive in some form or another. In May 1950, De Gaulle asked Patton to deploy the might of the Air Force against the Viet Minh. The Virginian agreed, commencing Operation Charcoal under General Curtis LeMay, the bombing of Vietnam.

It was an utterly ruthless, unrestrained bombing campaign of the Indo-China jungle, but it was effective. Ho Chi Minh himself would be killed in one of the strikes, which brought the spirit of the Viet Minh to a new low. On July 10th, General Giap launched a failed attack at Dien Bien Phu, which resulted in almost thirty percent of the entire Viet Minh getting killed in the space of two weeks. Of course, with those losses, it was simply not sustainable. By the end of 1950, De Gaulle declared that Vietnam had been tamed. Of course, a new political settlement had to be constructed, but he had indeed succeeded in obliterating Communism out of Indo-China. Patton likewise praised the achievement. Yet despite the two general’s praise of the victory, and indeed a victory it was, the two did not realise the extent of the force they were building up throughout the Third World.

 

[RyuDrago]

Hello to all, here is the promised ATL rise of ENI, as usual with revisions and additions from Sorairo. Enjoy!

‘The Six-Legged Dog Will Roar: the Rise of the ENI’ by Ernesto Gandolfini​

Few know the definitive establishment of Italian Fascism was caused by a political incident over oil extraction – the Sinclair Scandal of 1924. In short, it was discovered that the government favoured an agreement with the American oil company Sinclair about extremely advantageous concessions in Italian soil, not only unfavourable to the Italian nation but violating the current laws too. Giacomo Matteotti was intended to denounce the scandal on the 12th June – he was assassinated two days before. Everyone knows how that story would eventually end.

When Fascism won in Italy, the regime saw fit to revise the entire Italian Energy policy, based essentially on total self-dependence of coal and oil. For this, in 1926 the AGIP (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli) was founded, de jure a private company, de facto a state owned one, with the ability to control production and trade of oil in Italian soil. AGIP was established by the will of Giuseppe Volpi, the Minister of Economy at the time, supported by car producer FIAT and growing interests in Romania, another European country rich in oil. The fellow nation therefore came of early interest to the company.

AGIP didn’t have a brilliant start – despite being aided by a 1927 law where the government took exclusive right in conceding concessions and excavation permits in Italian soil, they had still to face competition by far older and stronger foreign oil companies. Then in 1929 what little was gained was lost in the Great Depression.

But in the early 30’s, AGIP, through the more capable though brief leadership of Alessandro Martelli being also a former Economic Minister, started to grow for real. In 1933, the government decreed that AGIP had monopoly in oil processing of the first small (and not very deep oil) sources found in Italy. But where the company would focus more, was attempting to develop better and synthetic oil through a joint venture with chemical company Montecatini: the ANIC. It wasn’t mere autarchic policy – the AGIP, and through it the government – started to look for suitable oil depots in Italian soil. Even attempts to extract oil in Albania failed miserably.

But in those years AGIP would also start to invest over seismic reflection geysers, becoming the first oil company in Europe to get such advanced devices. Those new instruments worked greatly. As suspected since long ago, the Padan Plain was rich of energetic resources: not oil however, but natural gas. Finally, towards the end of the 30’s renown explorer Ardito Desio found track of the first, extensive, and huge oil fields in Libya. What was once called the “Italian empty sandbox” suddenly became a treasure chest just waiting to be brought to light. There was an issue however: such oilfields were quite deep and AGIP didn’t have the technology to extract it properly at the time. However in 1939 “Operation Petrolibia” began through financial support from FIAT, still present enough in AGIP’s life to make a second joint-venture (later incorporated into ANIC) focused on synthetic oil. Despite the harshest phase of autarchy ending with the reforming of the Stresa Front alongside Britain and France lifting the embargo against Italy, between the war in Ethiopia, invasion of Albania, and the gear up for a greater conflict, the AGIP saw its funds cut, hence halting serious plans in Libya.

The government would up AGIP funding in the early 40’s, as Operation Petrolibia benefitted as part of a set of investments in the colony during the Jewish Escape to Lybia. Also helped by improving infrastructure and new equipment was bought in America, the oil company hired many Jewish engineers and chemists in order to boost its efforts on the operation, which would finally start to pay dividends by 1945. But AGIP was definitely in business in Libya. It would soon face issues in Romania, acquiring Prahova, the third largest Romanian oil company, therefore giving solid access to the rich oilfields of the country. The Italian presence irked the Germans, salivating over the Romanian oil as well, but also the Americans, where they had control over half of the local oil industry.

In AGIP (but above all during the early ENI age) there was awareness about the consortium of seven Anglo-American oil companies (the so called “Seven Sisters”): five Americans (the future named Esso, Texaco, Mobil, Chevron and Gulf Oil), one British (Anglo-Persian oil company, future British Petroleum) and a British-Dutch joint venture (Royal Dutch Shell). Dominating the oil market since then, such consortium would soon start to see with growing hostility the rise of a potential eighth player; however, with the progression of the war and the growing divergences between Americans and Europeans towards the Soviet Union, this corporate alliance would break as Churchill agreed a detente between British companies and AGIP, which would soon grow to become the pipeline of the entire Roman Alliance (and Israel as well).

With respect to the Prahova issue, the Germans failed in ousting AGIP from Romania, a nation that despite aligning with the Nazis didn’t want a total rupture with the Italians. Besides, the Romanians were more than satisfied to seize the assets of the American oil companies when ending up at war with the US; there wasn’t a necessity from their point of view to nationalize Prahova as well.

However, when Germany declared war on Italy, one of the first orders from Berlin towards Bucharest was to seize all Prahova properties – but the Romanians hesitated as they found themselves at war with a belligerant Bulgaria with the Danube all exposed to an invasion while their army was struggling in the Soviet Union. Besides whatever action taken at the time would have been in vain – after a few weeks, the Bulgarians flooded the Ploesti oil fields and Dobrujia. An AGIP team was hastily sent to repair the damage done by German raids, and start soon as possible restarted the local production.

The issue of the Romanian oilfields was an issue in the Kiev Conference. The Italian delegation asked that Romania should pay part of compensation to the Roman Alliance in oil, hence AGIP, through Prahova, which would control the clear majority of the Romanian oil fields. They also stated that the German would pay for the damages during their retreat. The Soviets weren’t happy about the proposal and above all not the Americans, which saw in the Italian proposal a reduction of their oil companies power in Romania. But it was also noticed, with Bulgaria and Turkey being allies of Italy, access to Romania would have been more difficult for the Americans. The British were instead more supportive, considering the Italian proposal fair and also preferring that Romanian oil be controlled by AGIP rather than American companies which may sell to the Soviets.

In the end, also in lieu of the general agreements over Romania (neutrality, and loss of Bessarabia and Dobrujia) it was agreed that AGIP through Prahova could retain what they had and control half of the remnant oil resources of Romania for the 10 years from the end of the war to be then returned to Romania. The American companies regain their rightful other half. When the time expired, ENI bought the granted share, the American government instead to win favours from the Romanians would press its own companies to sell back rights and properties to Bucharest. With those, Romania established its own state oil company. It was nothing major, but enough for the Romanians to be self-reliant and make some profits (like selling their surplus during the oil crisis across Europe during the Second Arabian War).

In 1945, AGIP was becoming, between new discoveries of gas in Italy, control of Prahova, and above all the slow but constant extraction of Libyan oil, a major player in the oil market. It therefore needed to adjust and reform its administration. However, the position of president of the AGIP – which saw various changes in the last ten years – was one which started to become very appealing in the Italian administration dragging the interests of the main gerarchs, salivating around Mussolini to propose their own candidate. Also there was FIAT, which tried to meddle as well, giving the support given to AGIP so far.

The 28th April of 1945, it was decided to suggest a compromise candidate – a certain Enrico Mattei, owner of a chemical company which obtained a fair success before and during the war as major supplier of the armed forces, not tied with the major gerarchs (above all Ciano and Balbo), loyal enough to Fascist cause (though OVRA kept watch on him due to his sympathies to the Christian Democrats). Mattei was supposed to last for only few months, but his activity would soon prove to be so energetic and effective, he would stand in that position for decades –becoming one of the most powerful men of Italy.

Mattei would manage to establish the foundation of a full network (extraction and distribution) of Italian natural gas in the Padan valley in less than two years, creating a team motivated and capable, and expanding the operations in Libya. It came through patient work, negotiation and diplomacy with several Libyan tribes in the interior (many still barely accepting of Italian rule), offering jobs, basic school preparation paid by AGIP, houses, all in exchange to let the company to drill across their lands. Balbo would even venture to say; “I wish I did in all my years in Libya what Mattei could do in an afternoon. Without him, maybe we would have ended up like Algeria.” The ties Mattei established with those tribes was so strong and effective to the modern day that ENI’s armed guard core is exclusively formed by South-Eastern Libyans – not counting the number of Libyan engineers and chemists and even administrators in the company.

But Mattei went even further ahead by establishing a new (and also innovative) national network of AGIP oil pumps, in major national roads as in the blooming motorway network as well. Between 1951 and 1952, he was able to present the reform of the company as an effective state agency and Mega-Corporation ready to compete with the Americans. After a brief competition, he presented a new brand which Mussolini approved immediately: a black dog with six legs, of Roman inspiration, releasing a fire breath, on a yellow background. Only one detail was changed from the original design. Instead to look ahead, the dog’s head would be turned behind. Mattei managed to convince the Duce that the logo shouldn’t show an aggressive face but rather a more reassuring one, hence the turned head. The state oil company could win the competition with the Americans by offering honest cooperation with oil producer states, unlike the “Seven Sisters”. Mattei would prove right, as proven by Italy’s string of stunning geopolitical successes in the late fifties, in the realm of the energy market especially.

The 10th February 1952, the AGIP was incorporated into the ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi). With Mattei at the head, the Italian state oil company would take this market (and the gas one, as well) by storm. He didn’t have to wait long to encounter the opportunity that wouldn’t just elevate ENI to the top of food-chain, but make Italy the definitive Third Power on the planet.

 

[Sorairo]

Dolchstoss


‘The Making of Fascist Bloc’ by Jodie Rutkins​

The expansion of ITO had been met with public approval by the Roman Alliance, in keeping with the Mussolini Doctrine of support to the democracies of the world. Privately, the dictator was frustrated, believing that the expansion of ITO to encompass the United States and White Commonwealths (South Africa would join ITO in 1950) meant that the Roman Alliance was gradually losing relative power. In late 1949 and early 1950, Mussolini felt that it was his last best chance to expand the Alliance on easy terms. Patton and Churchill were both broadly sympathetic to the Roman Alliance, or at least certainly more so than the Democrats or Labour Party (the former assumed to make a comeback which never happened).

With confirmation from the Patton Administration that they would not oppose the move, in August 1949 the first non-European member of the Roman Alliance was added to the fold. It was President Peron’s Argentina, who had made a habit of standing out from the crowd in Latin America. As Argentina was unwilling to make the political reforms that would assure membership of ITO, Patton was more comfortable having Mussolini drag Peron into the Cold War on the side of the West by having Peron join the less public-relations focussed Roman Alliance. While some worried that this violated the Monroe Doctrine, Patton insisted that the most important mission America had in the post-Wallace era was to rebuild relations with Europe – “Allies are allies”, as he famously said to Eisenhower. The move was met with wide celebrations in Argentina, owing to the large amount of the population with Italian and Spanish ancestry. After the precedent had been made, the Roman Alliance had gone from an exclusive, core club in the Mediterranean to an international power broker. Eva Perón, wife of the President, would celebrate the newfound alliance by travelling to every European state in the Roman Alliance (leading to long-standing rumours she had an affairs with Mussolini, though it likely was just innuendo by political opponents). With newfound access to markets and expertise, Argentina exited isolation and entered the wider market again, regaining an economic credibility she had long since lost.

The Italians would continue their power-reach in Latin America. Months after Argentina’s ascension, Trujillo’s Dominican Republic would enter into the alliance. In 1951, Nicaragua would also join the Roman Alliance, and in 1952, shortly after a military coup, President Batista of Cuba announced his membership of the Roman Alliance in an attempt to combat charges he was an American puppet (though he had first confirmed through the American Ambassador that such a move would be okay as long as America’s economic position on the island remained intact). Though Batista failed to realise it at the time, his time presiding over the country (or more accurately failure to preside) would lead to one of the most important events of the Cold War. Patton outright encouraged the moves as a way to force Latin America to contribute troops and materials to the front-line of the Cold War. Indeed, American troops were often given free travel through the countries, with Mussolini explaining, “They (Nicaragua/Cuba/the Domincan Republic) are our friends, not our possessions – unlike what Poland, North Iran and Hokkaido are to Stalin.” Batista, Trujillo and Somoza would all receive ticker-tape parades through Rome – not all of them had such a glorious ending.

On January 3rd 1950, Thailand became the first Asian member of the Roman Alliance (assuming one counts Turkey as European, which it certainly would prefer). Surrounded by turmoil on all sides, the monarchical nation (though under firm control of Field Marhsall Phibun) was firmly Anti-Communist but had no interest in liberal ideas that seemed utterly unsuited to such dangerous terrain. While the Roman Alliance were often colonialists, they had no designs on the country and were glad to accept Thailand into the fold (who provided a convenient counter to charges to the bloc of White Supremacy during the latter half of the twentieth century). Thailand was already supplying men and material to the Chinese War, but it now became utterly enmeshed in the conflict, and not just due to events in China itself. That March, Thailand openly declared itself to be a Fascist state in the mold of Mussolini’s Italy.

Though South Africa and Rhodesia both maintained their current ties to the Commonwealth for the moment, both increased their under-the-table cooperation with the Roman Alliance. Both had accepted tens of thousands of Polish refugees from the war-torn country. Along with Portugal, they had brought the refugees to cheap, hastily constructed hovels that may have been unenviable, but were outside the reach of Communism. While outside the main cities of settlers, the ‘Poletowns’ soon provided a fantastic source of willing soldiers. Angry, bitter Polish men were told to vent their frustration on ‘Communist militias’ (often mere Anti-Colonial Liberationists), and willing did so. At the same time, they provided training and support to the Polish Liberation Army, continuing to provide training and support to the battered militia that still held out in the Carpathians. PLA Leader Witold Pilecki would go so far as to call Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa, ‘The Guardian Angels of Polish liberty’. With Italy mainly administering the transfer of Polish refugees from Czechia to Africa, the settler nations would owe Italy a debt they would fully repay during the sixties and seventies.

“Our Misguided Friends”: Fascism in Democratic Nations by Amy Long​

Churchill’s constant delays to Indian Independence had by now triggered a wave of protests throughout the region, made all the worse by its close proximity to the Chinese conflict. In January 8th 1950, the whole administrative region was grounded to a halt by peaceful strikes and protests organized by Gandhi and the National Congress. Though Patton offered to help Churchill maintain order in the region, Churchill assured him that everything was under control. What was not under control was Churchill’s situation in Parliament. Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour Party (Gaitskell having ascended the ranks due to Bevan’s combativeness and concerns among the higher-ups he was too far to the left), fresh after having removed Clause Four from the Labour Party Constitution, hammered Churchill for his handling of the Indian situation and warmness towards the Roman Alliance. Gaitskell would stand before Parliament and accuse Churchill of “recreating the Anglo-Irish War except in a country of nearly a billion people.”

Behind the scenes, however, there were fractures in the Indian Independence movement. The Islamic and Hindu factions had grown increasingly hostile over the former’s want of a separate Islamic state. The Islamic movement, alongside most of the Sunni world, had been radicalized by the fall of Jerusalem and considered Britain an agent in that act of sacrilegious monstrosity. While protests organised by Gandhi and other Hindu leaders were generally peaceful, the Islamic ones took on an increasing level of violence. Ironically, the inciting incident would be from among the Hindu population on February 27th. A Pro-Mao Communist protest had taken place in New Dehli, which was shut down by the police. Unfortunately many mistakenly believed that the police were shutting down a Pro-Independence drive and attempted to stop them. This led to a conflict between the police and protesters that ended up killing five policemen and forty Indian civilians. The news soon spread and riots began breaking out all across India in response to the news, with thousands killed in the explosion of violence despite Gandhi’s pleas. Finally, Churchill’s coalition partners had enough and pulled the plug on his government, with Churchill losing a vote of no confidence.

On April 27th 1950, the first majority Labour government came to power under Gaitskell in an astonishing landslide of nearly 380 seats. The population had grown weary from drab Post-War conditions, constant foreign entanglement and a sense that Churchill did not know how to manage peace. Once an obviously Anti-Communist but doubtless progressive leader of the Labour Party came along, it was no contest. Churchill would resign his leadership of the party and hand it over to Anthony Eden. Oswald Mosely’s Fascist Party stunned observers by gaining thirty seats, definitively replacing the motley collection of Liberals as the third political force in Britain. Gaitskell’s popularity soared as he invested strongly in health and education (though never going as far as to nationalize the health service as many on the left wanted), continued to support Chiang in China and more vocally opposed the actions of the Roman Alliance where it was obvious the group was behaving improperly. As was Labour policy, he supported Indian independence.

However, while Gaitskell and the Labour Party wanted Indian Independence, they wanted the country to be a whole and secular one. This was to minimize the fears that the Muslim Bloc would not only separate but join the Communists like the Arab states did (indeed, many Islamic leaders in India threatened to do just that in joining the Comintern). While Gaitskell won many friends in the Hindu leadership circles, the Muslim League under Jinnah were adamant: “Pakistan (a Muslim state) or resistance”. Once it was discovered that the Soviets were funding the Muslim League under the table, the resulting revelation tanked British support for a separation-styled solution to the crisis. Though the Congress were dominated by Socialistic elements with former sympathies to the Soviet Union, the revelations of Stalin’s behaviour both in Europe and now in India caused an increasing belief in India that the future lay with some form of accommodation with the West, even if not necessarily with Britain. Despite that, Gandhi continued to protest for a peaceful solution to what had become known worldwide as ‘The Indian Crisis’, which was watched with particular attention due to the nearby wars happening in China and Indo-China. Indeed, a significant amount of Indian troops were already fighting in China against the Communists (though friendly-fire incidents between Hindu and Muslim servicemen was growing increasingly common.)

Ultimately, Gandhi would never see his dream of an independent India. On June 6th 1950, an Islamic extremist assassinated him. The assassin would later be discovered through archives unearthed in Moscow to have been financed and instructed by Soviet spies. The plan was to spark a conflict in India that would distract and undermine the West by starting a Civil War in India between those that wanted a Hindu-majority state comprising all of the subcontinent and a separate Islamic Republic. In this, the Soviets succeeded completely. Gandhi’s death triggered sectarian riots across the country that spiraled totally out of control. Realising that it was now or never, Jinnah declared Pakistan an independent state on June 10th 1950, comprising the Muslim regions of the country both in the west and east. The Indian Civil War had begun to the joy of absolutely no one but the men in the Kremlin and Beijing.

‘The Arab Tragedy: 1944–1956’ by Abdul Nazim​

The entire Arab region was rife with discontent, even after the mass expulsion of Jews from non-Israeli territory. The years after the First Arabian War had brought no economic revival, no positive political reform nor even more hope. The Israelis were rapidly industrializing, the Roman Alliance had grown ever more powerful and the Colonial West had joined in the kicking. It was at this time that movements appealing specifically to the Arab people started to gain major traction. While Communism certainly got a boost in the arm, its more avowedly atheistic nature hurt it among the mainly socially conservative region. At this time, Islamism remained a relatively radical fringe movement outside of Saudi Arabia (a state of affairs which would not last forever, unfortunately). Most painfully was the belief in ‘The Stab in the Back Myth’, that the only reason the Arabs had failed in the First Arabian War was due to the weakness and decadence of their ruling elite commanders. The failures of the Arab leaders both political and military in the build-up to the war and during it are well established, but no serious historian doubts that the Arabs faced no chance against the qualitatively superior Western forces. Despite that, while Germany ultimately survived the disastrous consequences of mistakenly believing their own Dolchstoss, its debatable if the aftermath of the Second Arabian War can be counted as ‘survival’.

It’s no coincidence that Syria was the location where the first rumbles of what was to come would originate. Syria had been particularly bruised in the war, having not only lost the Golan Heights to Israel, but the entirety of her rich, cosmopolitan coast to Turkey. Cut off from the sea, and forced by political necessity not to trade with either the hated Turks or Jews, the Syrian state fell into total disrepair. There could be as many as three political coups in a week in some cases. Poverty and violence were universal and everyday experiences. Here, much like Germany, a strange nationalist group was gaining traction. They were called the Ba’ath Party, under the command of Syrian Christian Michel Aflaq and Muslim Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Though separated by religion, they were united in their love of the Arab mythos. They forsaw a great Arab revival in a solitary, united and Socialist Arab state to fight against ‘Judeo-Colonialism’ as would be used in state propaganda. Though they started small, they rapidly became a serious political presence in Damascus. Their Anti-Turk, Anti-Semitic, Anti-West rhetoric found great support among the population. By mid 1950, the Ba’ath Party could attract six figure crowds in Damascus in a week’s notice. On August 19th 1950, Colonel Adib al-Shishakli, the latest military leader of Syria, decided that things had gone far enough and ordered the military to arrest the Ba’ath Party leaders. Instead, the soldiers turned their guns on al-Shishakli, killing him and most of his cabinet. Aflaq and his fellow comrades were delivered a letter from the soldier who had performed al-Shishakli’s killing, saying he was invited into the President’s office at any time. By nightfall, the Ba’ath Party had set-up shop in the halls of power in Damascus. In a radio broadcast that night, Aflaq would infamously declare, “Give us but ten years, and no one will recognise the Arab World.” It would certainly be true, though absolutely not in the way he intended.

In Syria, most people gladly went along with the change – no one loved the juntas, but many loved the Ba’ath Party. It united all Arab religious groups, all Arab class groups and all Arab geographical groups. There was relatively little blood spilled outside of the ruling elite upon the ascension of the Ba’ath Party. Again, it should be noted that this is quite in common with the Nazis, as was the ultimate conclusion. At the same time, the initial reaction to the ascent of the Ba’ath Party was muted in the West and Israel. They considered it just one of another in an endless string of purges in a miserable part of the world. The notion of the Arab world teaming up seemed laughable at this point. The Soviets were no longer bankrolling them to any serious degree, most Arab nations blamed each other for the loss and the West remained overwhelmingly superior in men and weapons. In fact, Iraq was the most concerned by the change in stewardship. King Faisal would infamously pen a letter to Prime Minister Gaitskell to say, “That man (Aflaq) will be the death of us all. I just know it.” Suspecting that it was a ploy to strengthen his own position and undermine Western support of Israel, Gaitskell would dismiss the letter. Gaitskell would rue that ignoring the letter 'was the single worst mistake of my time in office'.

 

[Kotka]

A map of Europe in 1950

 

[Lalli]

There is world map. Note that this is not quiet accurate and surely there is some mistakes. And some things are just pure guesses when there is not all information what should be. But I attempted make that so closely that what it should be in 01/01/1950.

EDIT: Some fixings there.

 

[Sorairo]

God Have Mercy On Us

'Patton: The Man’ by George Wallaby​

Outside of foreign policy, life assumed surprising normalcy in Washington. With Republican super-majorities in both houses of Congress, the Republican Party platform was implemented with little but token resistance from the Freedom Party and nihilistic few Democrat senators who knew their time was up in 1950 at the end of their six year cycle. At the same time, nothing was particularly radical. The top rate of tax was reduced from 90% under Wallace to about 60% by the end of Patton’s term – still high by today’s standards but considered a giveaway by business leaders at the time. Military spending spiked, but the country still went on as normal. After the chaos of the Wallace years and the gigantic crackdown on strikers not just from law and management but desperate Unions themselves trying to keep the eyes of Uncle Sam off them, people got back to work. Unemployment tumbled and economic growth soared. The fifties began brightly in America, leading to many Baby Boomers to associate their early lives with progress and growth. America once again seemed to be the land of opportunity.

Of course, the President paid little attention to such things. Patton had little interest in domestic affairs and left them to Dewey and the Republican Establishment. One thing Patton did strongly support was the creation of the Interstate highway network, which he had heard about during his time in Germany. After hearing the potential military use he was quite excited and demanded it be done. The highway network in America owes its existence to Patton, though he cared little for the civilian purposes that it would primarily be used for. Moves from more radical Republicans to end the New Deal got crushed by the Party Establishment (with the support of multiple Democrat refugees, notably Joseph Kennedy Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson). Dewey would privately denounce, “Those arsonists,” as he called the right of the Republican Party - not for the effect it may have had on the country, but for threatening the Republican’s dominance in Washington. Social Security would go relatively unmolested through the Patton years for electoral reasons. The primary agenda of the leadership was to thoroughly trample the Democrats into the ground so they could not come back – the assumption being that the Freedom Party would never pull enough support to control the country. It seemed a safe bet, especially when the 1950 Midterms came along. The Wallace Wave of 1944 had now been completely reversed in the senate, with the Democrats down to a sole five senators nationwide between Republican and Freedom Party onslaught. On election night, Patton joked owing to the seemingly even division between a Republican-dominated North and Freedom Party-dominated South that it seemed the country’s politics ‘hadn’t changed a luck in a hundred years!’ These words would become eerily prophetic given the events of the next few years.

At the same time, the Republicans prepared for the long run by using their enormous majorities to enshrine multiple amendments to the US Constitution. The 22nd Amendment, a direct slap to Roosevelt, was to limit the President to a mere two terms in office – though this was tradition, FDR’s break from the practice led to the catastrophe of the Wallace era. For that reason, few objected. The 23rd Amendment was more controversial, as it was the ‘Balanced Budget Amendment’. A staple of Republican wishlists (in a not-so-subtle attempt to appease Anti-New Deal forces), it forbade budgets being passed by the government where a deficit was created unless a two-thirds majority could be reached. Some had theorized the heavy deficits that characterized the Wallace era (as much due to a flat-lining economy as any political spending increase) were part of Wallace’s plot to undermine America by indebting it, and thus the new amendment would restore American frugality. In reality, enough creative accounting and political cooperation were employed on almost all occasions to get the material through to the President’s desk. The 24th Amendment illegalized flag-burning following the arrest of some Pro-Wallace groups for committing the act, who had later been cleared in court (indeed, the Freedom Party had introduced the bill originally). Proposed culls on Presidential power were always met with anger from Patton, and so Republicans hoped he wouldn’t go too rogue.

Early in Patton’s term, Civil Rights was not on his mind. He was much too focussed on the state of international Communism than anything entirely domestic. This was ironically to the relief of major Civil Rights organisations. Their hope at the ascension of President Wallace had turned to utter desolation at the word of his allegiance to the Soviets. William DuBois of the NAACP said, “If I lived a hundred lifetimes more, I shall never see the liberation of my race.” They were relieved Patton had taken over, fearing an even fiercer reactionary backlash. Indeed, the Klan had been revived from its membership crash in the twenties and was as strong among WASPS as it had ever been. Patton, despite being a WASP Southerner, had allowed impromptu desegregation on the frontlines during the race to Berlin. The experience would lead him to conclude that segregation in the military was a terrible idea, hence his rejection of calls from Freedom Party Senators to reintroduce it to the military. Senator James Eastland called it ‘part of Wallace’s Commie plot to weaken our armed forces, which our so-called ‘Patriot’ President refuses to undo’. Patton would angrily write a letter to Eastland demanding he ‘do half as much work as the Negroes in China who’re busting their asses so you can be free to say that crap.’ Of course, a significant amount of effort in Washington was in repairing the hurt feelings the President regularly caused. It had grown so bruising that by 1950 it was finally agreed to reintroduce Jefferson’s tradition of the State of the Union Address being a carefully written letter to stop Patton’s off-script, off-colour remarks, most infamously joking about how remarkable the ROC snipers were in China “even though their eyes are so slit I’m amazed sometimes they can see three feet in front of themselves!” The comments were used by Mao to back up his nationalist position. These positions don’t so much show that Patton had any strong feelings on race, more so his indifference and insensitivity to it. Of course, this would make the events he was caught up in all the more extraordinary …

“Our Misguided Friends”: Fascism in Democratic Nations by Amy Long​

Though it was mutually agreed that British soldiers would not serve in India, much to the relief of both the National Congress and British leadership, it was agreed that the British would fling resources (typically just American as Patton wrote a blank check) and train the Indian army as best they could. While they called themselves ‘Indian’, it de facto typically just meant ‘Hindu’ – with many non-Hindus who fought for the national government calling themselves ‘Unionists’. With pacifism against the Islamists discredited with the murder of Gandhi, the ‘Hindutva’ idea became popular among Hindu leaders, who felt that Islam was a threat to Indian identity. The head of this new ideology was a man by the name of Veer Savarkar, who opposed partition, praised Fascism and was an avowed Zionist. His Hindu Mahasabha Party suddenly grew remarkably powerful and influential (with unearthed documents now proving he received significant support from Rome). The ideology was also remarkably tolerant to certain faiths like Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism, which it considered kin of the Hindu religion (which Islam did not fall under). Though Western newspapers tried to downplay the phenomenon, it was unmistakably a sectarian war fought primarily between Islamic and Hindu groups pursuing government policies favoring their respective religions. The West supported the Hindus against the Muslims and tried to stop the radicals in the Hindu leadership from getting out of control and implementing policies that would tank support for the war among domestic audiences. It should be seen in that context, therefore, that one of the more controversial aspects of the Indian Civil War should be viewed.

The sudden start of the war meant that roughly seven million Hindus and seven million Muslims were trapped in territories led by the opposing religious authorities. As arranging a population transfer was impossible given the circumstance, many Hindu and Sikh rabble-rousers demanded the Muslim population be treated as enemy combatants. Fearing total disaster, Gaitskell convinced the Indian authorities to ‘relocate’ most of the Muslim population into internment camps that the British would help administer. They would be based on the camp system used on Japanese Americans during World War 2. Though it was seen as a necessary evil to avoid even more bloodshed within India, Gaitskell would say that, “I was almost sick after giving my approval”. It didn’t help that Eden’s Conservatives and Mosley’s BUF hammered the Labour government over ‘their failed decolonization policies which have led to the loss of British prestige and the loss of countless Indian lives that this was supposed to improve,” as stated by Winston Churchill, whose own sins in India had long since found their apologists. With Anglo-American money, the Hindu government created a string of concentration camps throughout the sub-continent. While they were relatively decent in terms of accommodation and generally free of violence (so much so that there were protests from Hindu groups that the camps weren’t harsh enough), the soul-crushing effects of the imprisonment were etched on the face of any Western observer who came to glance at what was going on. One journalist would famously describe it as, “Stone-age brutality in a Nuclear-age world”. Almost one third of Dehli’s population were herded into camps – an unheard of proposition. The treatment of its Muslim population, as well as the involvement of Western powers, has ensured that the events of the Indian Civil War are controversial topics in modern India. The act only served to further Anti-West resentment in the Islamic world (outside of Turkey and Iran who considered themselves apart from the Pakistanis for ethnic and doctrinal reasons respectively).

For Hindus trapped behind Muslim or ‘Separatist’ lines, their fate resembled the worst days of pogroms in Russia, only on an hourly basis. Hindu communities were ransacked at will, pushed into the wildness and suffered countless trials and tribulations. Thankfully, Gaitskell and Lord Mountbatten had focussed most British resources on ensuring that these communities were preserved. Thus, with ample material help from the Americans and ample planning help from the Israelis, who were well used to these operations given their recent airlifts of the Iraqi and Yemeni Jewish populations, Operation Atman (the rescue of the trapped non-Muslim populace in the Separatist regions) went full steam ahead, with Field Marshall Orde Wingate commanding. Thailand and South Iran would prove important players as well in providing Britain bases to intervene. As the separatists had no air-force to speak of, Wingate used helicopters to secure the perimeters and flew in gigantic gliders that took off thousands at a time. The good international press the operation got did much to quell lingering resentment in Hindu India against the British. Indeed, multiple ITO, Roman Alliance and even neutral states agreed to help with what could easily have been an economically ruinous undertaking. It’s estimated that almost five million men, women and children were rescued between 1950-1952 by the help of the British Air Force and others. Indeed, Wingate is the sole British man to have a prominent statue of himself in India, right in the heart of New Dehli for his actions (thus making him a hero in two post-colonial states). Unfortunately, it’s estimated that perhaps one million Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jainists and Christians were killed in the sectarian slaughter that enveloped the Islamist regions (excluding those who died in the war by itself). By contrast, some 400,000 Muslims were murdered in the Hindu regions, which would undoubtedly have been higher if not for Western intervention.

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

Many Americans had grown impatient with the Chinese War. It was 1950, a year after Patton’s inauguration, but there had hardly been any movement outside the narrow holdout in the south that Chiang desperately hung to. Mao still controlled the vast majority of China and was relatively popular. The reason was that China had, simply put, a lot of people in it, and Eisenhower did not want to begin offensive operations until he had a lot of people of his own. Throughout the Winter of 1949/50, Mao sent countless charges against the UN lines, though with increasing failure being the only return. Countless times, he was pushed back, so Mao too had grown impatient with his returns. Though his 'Water Strategy' had successfully held down the West in South China by keeping them distracted, he felt like the stagnation in progress was making people jittery.

The UN had suffered setbacks in 1949 and 1950 even before the battles began. Both Britain and France grew distracted in the neighbouring regions of India (even before the fighting began) and Vietnam, with America forced to send resources there as well. Patton didn’t mind, seeing almost any colonial battle through the lens of good democrats against bad would-be tyrants, even when he was fighting for those who would deny democratic power to those very people in some cases. While this caused little friction in the UN, it caused shortages at the front, which was increasing dominated by the Americans and Italians. Balbo, who had been flown in help arrange matters with Eisenhower, was much more aggressive than the American general, who urged caution. Rommel seconded Balbo’s opinion, with Patton giving not to subtle hints to Eisenhower that Americans were growing restless. Ultimately, the chance would come sooner than anyone thought.

Mao had left Hong Kong alone, feeling that its return was inevitable under treaties and that taking them would anger Western opinion too much for anyone’s good. Finally, Mao decided that it was time to take the city and excite the withering faith of the Chinese masses. On January 23rd 1950, the shelling of Hong Kong began. The commanders of Hong Kong feared something like this would happen, and were thus well prepared. The US, Royal and every other kind of Navy provided all the back-up that could be fired and all the aid that could be sent. The attack had united the House of Commons, with Churchill proclaiming, “Mao’s serpent shall find itself torn to shreds not just by the Chinese Dragon or the American Eagle, but the British Lion.” With that, Eisenhower had no choice. The relief party, led by Rommel, cut off the Chinese while they were halfway through the city. Hong Kong had turned into a warzone once again, with British soldiers and local policemen fighting side by side for every street corner. Mao was shocked that the local population seemed to resist him, which led to further attempts to commit troops. All it meant was that he had created a bigger catch for the UN forces. Rommel closed off the peninsula on February 13th, trapping almost 100,000 Communists. They would finally surrender on February 28th. The success would start Eisenhower’s ‘Sea Strategy’, to work up the shoreline with the aid of Western navies to take the populated cities and arable land while leaving the wild interior to whither. In theory, it sounded promising. Of course, in practice, it would be anything but.

In May 1950, the advancing UN began the Battle of Xiamen, which would last for a month. Nearly ten thousand Americans would die in this sole battle alone, with more than a hundred thousand dead Red Chinese soldiers (though some think civilians were counted for purposes of propaganda). The casualty rates mortified high command, but there was nothing else they could do. Patton and the American public were totally committed to the war, Chiang was still trying to get his own army off the ground and Mao was still saying he would never stop until all of China was Red. Eisenhower would privately relay in his diary: “I never thought anything could make a dent in China’s population. God have mercy on us that we seem to be giving it a try.” But to Mao, that was fine. Mao was convinvced that the sheer scale of China's population would ensure his victory, laughingly writing to Stalin one time to say, "By the time they get halfway through China's population, there won't be a GI left in the world!" Unfortunately, Patton was more than willing to meet the challenge.

 

[Sorairo]

… They First Make Mad

The Still Sun: The British Empire after WW2 by Cecil Moore​

On June 6th 1950, a bright flash lit the Libyan Desert, leaving scorched glass as its feet. All of a sudden, the nuclear duopoly that the Americans and Soviets held had been broken. What was interesting about this was that it wasn’t merely the Italians who had entered the Nuclear Club. At the test site, British and French scientists freely mixed with Italians, under the command of Enrico Fermi, who is considered the father of Nuclear Weaponry in Europe. After the panic-attack that swept Europe upon news of the Soviet nuking of Warsaw, the Mussolini, DeGaulle and Churchill immediately agreed to combine their nuclear programs under one roof to speed up the process. The Italians were the most advanced scientifically on the project (mostly due to the amount of resources that Mussolini could shovel into the project that a Democracy could not), though the British Empire was the primary supplier of the required resources, especially uranium. It culminated in the explosion of a test device, full agreements between the three parties to trade all resources required to construct the weapons, while full disclosure of the process of making one was spread to all the military elites of all three countries. Quite literally in a flash, there were five members of the Nuclear Club instead of just two.

Behind the scenes of glory after the successful use of a Nuclear Bomb, the colder reality of decolonization began to bite. All across the world, the colonial peoples of Africa, Asia and elsewhere were growing increasingly impatient with political reform. While Gaitskell and others desperately wanted to push decolonization, two major factors stood in the way. Firstly, due to the fate of India, the withdrawal option from the colonies was looked upon as both weak and immoral by the Right, who argued that colonization was necessary to preserve Britain’s place in an uncertain world, defeat Communism and ensure the wellbeing of the native populations. The second was a more recent trend. Many colonial groups were now actually contacting the British to state how much they didn’t want them to leave, in light of the new threat from the Roman Alliance. British Somaliland in particular was terrified of the thought of being left to fend for itself on the borders of the Italian Empire. A petition of ten thousand prominent members of the territory said they would ‘never accept a day the British flag doesn’t fly when hostile flags fly so close’. Tunisia had likewise maintained close ties with France as it became independent, due to the fear of Libyan invasion. Even in South-East Asia, the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians were much more comfortable with accepting French rule when Thailand joined the Roman Alliance – resulting in the formal creation of the Francophonie in 1952 as a French version of the Commonwealth. Head of State for Vietnam, Bao Dai, tried to sell it as a successful devolution of power to Dominion status, which it was for the most part – though the majority of the population wanted independence. Gaitskell was sympathetic to this argument, and thus decolonization was slower than it may otherwise have been, especially due to the drop in Soviet aid to fighters to finance the Chinese War and Patton’s outright support of colonialism (sending advisers from everywhere to Kenya to Vietnam to support the host regimes).

In terms of European politics itself, the rebirth of German Conservatism had met mixed reaction in France. De Gaulle was concerned about what a revived German militarism could mean, especially with Rommel having gained such international credibility. For that reason, De Gaulle decided that it was best to find a way to work around German armament. This led to the creation of the EDC in 1951, or European Defence Community. It was a way of integrating the small German army, alongside the Low Countries, Czech Republic and Scandinavia into a single cohesive unit with the French military. Of course, France would dominate the arrangement, not in the least due to her Nuclear advantage. Though De Gaulle was not thrilled with the perceived loss of French sovereignty, he considered it a necessary price to pay to nip German nationalism in the bud. Likewise, the creation of the European Economic Community in 1951 created a gigantic free trade bloc stretching along the ITO nations of Europe. Britain, focusing on the Commonwealth and feeling in the words of Churchill ‘of Europe but not in it’, decided not to join. The actions of France in forging a Europe where she remained the premier was noticed by Mussolini, who sought even laxer trade restriction with the Roman Alliance. As she was by far the most powerful member of the Alliance, Italy continued to economically dominate the region – a role that would only increase when Libya’s oil became a gigantic source of wealth and the Second Arabian War would forge a new global order.

‘The Arab Tragedy: 1944–1956’ by Abdul Nazim​

While the Ba’ath Party had secured dominion over Syria, neighboring Iraq was plagued with internal issues. Though the country was totally hostile towards Israel, it maintained relatively friendly relations with the West. The last bastion of Hashemite rule was loathed in all quarters – from the Kurds in the north who wanted independence to the religious who decried Royal decadence to the Pan-Arabian supporters who wanted to merge with Syria into a single state. Aflaq was convinced that this party was strong enough to take power in the neighboring kingdom. For that reason, he suggested something extraordinary to his commanders: an invasion of Iraq. Iraq was larger, had a more developed economy, stronger army and would have international support. Most Syrian commanders considered it suicide. But Aflaq was convinced that the country was ripe for revolution. He also believed that with the world distracted in China and India, now was his only chance to seize glory. Organising his army along the Euphrates, far enough away from Israel and Turkey for the two parties not to care, on February 2nd 1951, the Syrian army marched into Iraq. Aflaq’s prediction about Western non-involvement proved correct. So correct, in fact, Israeli Prime Minister Begin took to the radio to gloat about the division that ran rampant in Arab ranks. He was soon silenced.

The Iraqi army was sent to repulse the invasion at Tall ‘Afar. The Iraqis were surprised that no bombing or shelling had been launched – only leaflets demanding national revolution against the unpopular Hashemite Regime. That was when a startling piece of news was announced – the Ba’ath forces wished to meet under a white flag in the city. However, what was vastly more surprising was when Aflaq himself, having been inspired by Napoleon, showed up in the city, defying fears of assassination. He gave a speech to startled Iraqi troop, saying, “You do not serve a King but a servant of a King – a European one. You do not serve an enemy of Zionism – but a supporter of it. You do not serve a man – but a boy. Soldiers of Iraq! If you shoot your Arab brothers then who will rejoice but the Zionists and Colonialists? Join us to end the oppression of Arabia, that she may stand above the world!” Aflaq stated he had fully accepted the probability of death while concealing a cyanide capsule in case he would be captured – he wanted to be a martyr to the Arab World, and was resolved to have his moment of truth at Tall ‘Afar. He believed that whatever happened would be God’s will. Having violated the terms of the armistice, Iraqi commanders demanded their troops arrest Aflaq, who quickly ordered his bodyguards to stand-down. Instead, much to the commanders’ horror, the Iraqi troops dropped their weapons and rushed towards Aflaq to raise him on their shoulders like a conquering hero. When news of the defection of the Iraqi Army reached Baghdad, senior commanders told King Faisal (who was only 16 years old) to get out while he still could. Faisal fled to London as quickly as he could with his family on February 7th, narrowly escaping the wave of revolutionaries attempting to storm the airfield.

With almost no opposition to speak of and Aflaq leading the march, the Syrian leader walked into Baghdad on February 10th 1951 to waves of public celebration. Iraqi commanders, many of whom were likewise disgusted by their regime’s alliance with Britain, pledged the allegiance of the Iraqi armed forces to the new Republic. Speaking from the ransacked Palace, he proclaimed the birth of the United Arab Republic, which he said would unite the Arab world under one roof. The capital would be established in Baghdad, owing to its greater significance in the Islamic world than Damascus. Most Syrians didn’t care owing to many believing their country was a false colonial construction, and that they were all Arabs at heart. The connection to the Gulf also allowed Syria access to the sea again, albeit in a very roundabout way.

While the world still reeled at the news, another shock soon awaited. On March 3rd, with unrest sweeping the Arab world in reaction to the startling events unfolding on all sides, King Farouk ordered Ba’athist marches in Tahrir Square to be stamped out. Instead, the group of officers that had been entrusted with quelling the crowds went up to the marchers and offered to lead them to the Palace. The man who led the officers lead a group known as the Free Officers Association, by the name of Gamal Nasser. He had little distinct ideological affinities before the ‘Velvet Invasion’ of Iraq (as ‘no blood’ was supposedly spilled, though that was not entirely true due to riots and reprisal), but Aflaq’s movement inspired him. He thus declared himself and his movement to be Ba’athist in nature, and decided to strike while the iron was hot. He knew the Israelis were never going to lift a finger for Farouk after his pogroms and that he was safe in his conduct. The crowds cheered and marched on the centre of Egyptian power. Soldiers broke ranks and gladly joined the crowd against the hated Farouk. Farouk would be lynched attempting to escape the Palace before order could be restored, thus beginning the Ba’athist era of Egypt.

The distance and division between Egypt and the UAR created issues of administration. For that reason, Egypt would officially join the UAR, although for all intents and purposes it was an independent state outside of foreign policy and the military. Nasser wasted no time in developing his own cult of personality within Egypt, much to Aflaq’s outrage, who wanted to take the sole credit for the Arab revival. Their first meeting in Baghdad was so awkward, it was described by one observer as, “like boys talking out of necessity when their mother had scolded them for fighting”. Nasser also felt that Egypt had its own identity that it had to protect. After all, he was not a through-and-through Ba’athist – it was merely an opportunity to seize power and restore Egyptian dignity. In reality, he had no interest in surrendering Egyptian identity to an Arab super state, or at the very least he wanted Egypt to be the heart of any such state, which was not going to be any time soon.

The UAR was supported strongly by the Trans-Jordanian Arab refugee populations in all three countries, as well as the secularist, militarist and nationalist segments of society, all of whom felt they had something to gain. Sectarianism was highly frowned upon by the government (with the obvious exceptions of Anti-Semitism and increasingly Anti-Hinduism). The long-suffering Kurdish population suffered yet further under the virulent Arab nationalism of the UAR, as well as the small Persian population in the east and Turkish in the north. Ironically, though the Roman Alliance were identified as near-Satanic, the UAR took a lot of inspiration from Fascism. The state was Totalitarian with Aflaq identified as a savior figure for the nation (and Nasser added to the posters in Egypt). Such was the level of personality cult in the UAR, that one man in a coffee shop who accidentally spilled his cup over a newspaper with Aflaq’s face on it was beaten to death while still in the shop by a squad of Ba’athists. Every school classroom had Aflaq’s picture on it, listening to Western radio and records was punishable by shooting and even the newly composed national anthem ‘An Arab Heart’ made explicit reference to ‘Our Noble President, sent to save us’. It was a level of megalomania few people could fathom, which went hand in hand with the expansion of state power. Most industries were nationalized, though some private property was allowed, not that the state couldn’t grab it whenever it wanted. Islamists were given minor sops to try and incorporate their Anti-Israeli/Turkish/Western attitudes.

The UAR joined the Comintern and became the sole representative of the Arab world. Stalin was impressed by the revolutionary character of the movement and guaranteed his support – even when Communists were detained and even executed in the new regime. Economic support would only increase after Stalin’s death. Naturally, relations with the Roman Alliance were abysmal, with Mussolini declaring Aflaq, “Another Hitler”. President Orbay of Turkey went even further, calling the UAR and Ba’athism, “A greater threat to the world than the Communists. If they are able to gain nuclear weapons, it will be the end of mankind.” While these declarations may seem premature in light of the Second Arabian War, they were especially scary thoughts to Europeans in the 1950s. When word came out that Algerian independence groups had tied their movements to Ba’athism as well, France started to pay attention. When Kuwait started to be paralyzed by strikes organized by Bat’athists, the British reluctantly increased their stretched military presence in the region, despite Gaiskell’s instinctive Anti-Colonialism. Many historians believe that his rejection of King Faisal’s letter forced his hand on the matter. At the same time, he desperately attempted to rally the Gulf Monarchies to oppose the Republic, fearing what would happen if the UAR was allowed to continue growing. Then, on November 22nd 1951, he would get the horrifying answer.

That day, Aflaq met King Ibn Saud in Ridyah. They formed the ‘Treaty of Arab Friendship’, which promised that Saudi Arabia would merge with the United Arab Republic 100 years in the future. There were many reasons for the treaty. From Aflaq’s side, he did not want to start a war with a respected Arab leader like Ibn Saud (who was no Farouk or Faisal) – he also worried about the religious implication of a Christian leader invading the country that at that point in time had both Mecca and Medina. Lastly, he also feared that if he launched an invasion, then the Roman Alliance would leap on top of him and defeat him while he was distracted in the south. From Ibn Saud’s perspective, he knew Aflaq was popular in the Middle East, much more popular than him, and he was still popular. But he knew that his links with the West were under increasing scrutiny. Anti-Israeli hatred had grown at such a rate that any attempt to side with the West (seen as an extension of Israel by many) against Aflaq was doomed to failure. Thus, an alliance was in both sides’ interest against far more hated foes. At the same time, neither party was sure how to normalise relations, as the stated goal of the UAR was the total control of the Arab world. That was when a brilliant stop-gap emerged. It was agreed that the Saudis would join in a hundred years, which would allow more than enough time for an effective alliance. Once that was up and the Saudis apparently had to join, it could even be extended from then. Of course, neither side had any intention of respecting the treaty. Aflaq would tell his second in command, al-Bitar, that ‘Once Israel is gone, the Saudis are next’. Ibn likewise told his son Saud that Aflaq and Nasser were a conflict waiting to happen, and when that came around, ‘the whole Republican insanity will fall apart’. Many in the West compared it to the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, and many wondered whether it spoke of an imminent march to war.

 

[RyuDrago]

Hello to all, tonight here is a side view over certain states of the Roman Alliance, Bulgaria and Turkey to be more specific. With as usual revised and approved by Sorairo. Enjoy!

‘The Lion of the Balkans: A History of a Resurgent Bulgaria, by Georgi Milev
​

At the end of World War Two, Bulgaria would emerge as a regional power on the rise. The humiliations of Versailles were all cancelled; all its rivals in the Balkans were destroyed (Yugoslavia), reduced (Greece), or neutered (Romania, Hungary); the economy and the industrialization of the nation proceeded steadily and the war forged a new generation of valiant officers and soldiers. Bulgaria was regaining the name of “Prussia of the Balkans”.

An important share of the merit of a resurgent Bulgaria went to the Tsar Boris III. A unique case in Europe and in the world at the time, he was the only monarchic ruler who was able to impose his own autocratic power all over Bulgaria, being what certain Western historians would call “the last European, Absolute Monarch of the 20th century”. Boris however wouldn’t see the end of the conflict, dying in the May of 1944 after a long illness. For decades and even today speculations over him being poisoned by German or Soviet agents ran periodically in Bulgaria, even today.

The funerals were an event, Mussolini, Franco, President of Turkey Fevzi Cakmac, Crown Prince Umberto and his wife Maria José and the other daughters of King Vittorio Emanuele III, along with several Allied delegations (minus the Soviets) to give homage to the Tsar as their condolences to his wife Giovanna di Savoia and their son Simeon, now new ruler of Bulgaria. Simeon II, however, was a small boy, so a council of regency was established. Three regents were appointed: Kyril of Preslav, younger brother of Boris, and acting head of state; Bogdan Filov, first minister since 1940; and general Nikola Mikhov, who commanded the forces invading Yugoslavia and Greece in the last Balkan wars. It was a triumvirate that balanced the relations between the three major internal powers of Bulgaria – the court (with the Bulgarian orthodox church behind it), the bureaucracy and the army. A necessary compromise, as from the moment Tsar was dead, internal factions started to emerge. Considering that the regency would have lasted ten years, every major player wanted to imprint his own mark on it.

Each regent had his own strong points and weakness. Kyril was the public face of the crown, the caretaker of the new Tsar, and in case Simeon would prematurely die, he could even claim the throne eventually. But he lacked the charisma of his brother, he played a marginal role during Boris’s reign, and his Catholic faith was an obstacle. Sure he could have converted, but he hesitated because he didn’t want to lose precious connections with the Vatican, especially after the religious controversy his brother caused with the Holy See about the faith of his two children and the marriage with Giovanna.

Filov was by now first minister by five years, and one of the longest in service during Boris’s reign, his additional role as regent enforced his grip on the government and had the near certainty he could keep his positions at least till the end of the regency. Also as head of government he had the opportunity to deal directly with Mussolini and other foreign governments. But he lacked a party structure (Boris III abolished them) which could have enforced loyalties in the administration and the Parliament. Filov was really tempted to create a one party system with him at its helm. Fascism in Italian proved to be a viable form of government and there wasn’t reason it couldn’t work in Bulgaria. Also, what was Mussolini initially if not a modest teacher while Filov was a brilliant academic and professor? Inspired by the Duce’s example, the Bulgarian first minister was determined to consolidate his power and build his own dictatorship.

Mikhov was the war hero, the conqueror of Macedonia, leading the Bulgarians in the invasion of Romania. He had the prestige and the authority to coalesce part of the armed forces around him. Part, because not all the officers would follow him if he planned a coup to seize power and other being happy of the current status quo. Besides it didn’t seem Mikhov aimed to reach the top at all costs; but he was certainly interested to get the leadership of the Bulgarian Army – a position that was vacant and there was an internal debate over who could fill this role.

At the same time, Giovanna di Savoia seemed interested to play as Queen Mother an important role as well – she was apparently incensed over the fact to have just a ceremonial role and at the same time intentioned to fight to preserve his son’s prerogatives when would reach adulthood. In this effort she would find allies within the nobility and the Bulgarian Orthodox church, as for the growing Pro-Italian faction.

The war forged a deeper bond between Bulgaria and Italy. The Bulgarians were surely grateful over the fact Italian expansionism favoured them greatly, gaining all of Macedonia and all of Dobrujia and other border lands from Serbia. Bulgaria after 1945 surpassed the boundaries of the treaty of Saint Stephen, gaining territories never controlled since her independence, like the Chalcedonian peninsula, and above all the coastal city of Thessalonika/Saloniki, Solun in Bulgarian. Also the Bulgarians accepted at that point their Italian born Queen Mother and the fact their new Tsar was half Italian. There was also the growing idea Italy did more for Bulgaria in a few years than Germany or Russia in the past decades, a similar thought developing in Turkey as well.

And certainly it helped in keeping the alliance with Italy against the Soviet threat strong. Bulgaria had a shared border with the USSR on the Danube Delta, from the moment Stalin managed to regain control of Bessarabia and between the choice to border them or return Dobrudja to Romania, the Bulgarians choose the former option without hesitation. But, more than the Soviets, the primary concern of the three regents was Serbia, where Tito imposed a communist regime. While certainly weakened by the Serbian-Croatian war, it was still a hostile nation on the Bulgarian border. It didn’t help the fact, in order to search an external enemy to keep the internal front strong, the Serbian propaganda looked towards Bulgaria. The Italian Fascists for Belgrade were the main threat, but Bulgaria was the nation which stabbed Yugoslavia in the back during a conflict Italy wasn’t winning so easily, and took lands that were Serbian before Yugoslavian; not counting the fact Bulgaria stole the sceptre of prominent Balkan power from Yugoslavia. It wasn’t difficult to plant the seeds of a hostile rivalry between Serbia and Bulgaria that would last beyond the cold war.

Besides the Bulgarians benefited much from Italy during the Serbian-Croatian war. Maybe underestimating the Bulgarian loyalty, Rome gave subsides and money in form of investments, and above all gave the decisive input in building the Bulgarian navy of the Mediterranean, based in Solun, through the cession of old warships or discounts in the construction of new ships in Italian arsenals. Solun, through Italian investments, would become the Bulgarian door to the Mediterranean, an important harbour where local goods could transit in and out without passing through Istanbul. It was also a multicultural centre, where several minorities of the Balkans could find solace and opportunity, like Jewish refugees joining the already strong community present, contributing to the development of the city in successive years and making it the second centre of Bulgaria for size and importance after Sofia.

All this generosity from Rome, granted in the moment the Italians feared the Roman Alliance would collapse due to the insane actions of Pavelić, was well placed because the Bulgarians had no intention at all to leave the alliance. It was a very convenient set-up for them: against the Serbians, the Soviets, but also a resurgent Turkey…

Restored Pride: the Return of Turkey in the International Scene by Atabey Inagoglu​

When Italian envoys contacted Ismet Inonu for an alliance against Greece, the President of Turkey declined. He was adamant in keeping Turkey out of major lesser wars. Besides not being confident in the actual Turkish military, he also feared a British reaction or a Soviet one over Greece. Inonu was part of a generation of Turks still burned by the defeat in WW1 and feared the total destruction of Turkey if he picked the wrong side.

But the Turkish military wasn’t of the same thought. The Italians came to the officers, arguing that as the British didn’t intervene to save Yugoslavia they likely wouldn’t over Greece, which wouldn’t be destroyed but put down a peg which many in Ankara wanted to settle the score with the Aegean nation for good. Therefore it didn’t take much for the military to stage a velvet coup in 1942 and “convince” Inonu, put into house arrest, to stand down. The Republican Party was forced to comply and the military put in place of the Presidency Fevzi Cakmak, who was the leading officer in charge of the defence of Gallipoli during the famous battle and was one of the viable successors of Ataturk, but was beaten by Inonu back then.

The negotiations between Italians and Bulgarians, involved in the invasion as well, would prove fruitful for the Turks. Agreeing over establishing a Bulgaria on the boundaries of the Saint Stephen treaties, Turkey would get all of West Thrace, with Sofia renouncing to its former claims over the region lost after WWI, with Bulgaria getting the remainder of Macedonia in Greek hands, included the city of Thessaloniki. But, there were issues over the Aegean Sea, because the Turks wanted safe access to the Mediterranean. But claiming the Cyclades and the Sporades wasn’t enough – the Turks wanted a solid outpost in the sea and therefore aiming for Crete – also on the ground the events leading to the loss of the island were considered unfair and forced on the Ottoman Empire.

The Bulgarians and the Italians weren’t much happy over those requests. The Bulgarians didn’t have much interest in owning Aegean islands, but a Turk presence would have continued to influence and control Bulgarian shipping in the Mediterranean even if they would get a southern port; the Italians looked to Crete for themselves. Also there were doubts over the effective Turk capacity to hold the island: there was a reason why the Ottomans fatigued to control it 50 years ago and there were high chances the same issue will appear again. The stall over Crete brought the negotiation near to collapse and only a Turk concession in not imposing tariffs on Bulgarian and Italian ships navigating the Aegean and above all the Straits saved the alliance. Also Bulgaria would receive assistance from Italy and Turkey to build a real fleet. The Bulgarians in that way felt covered from potential Soviet threats from the Black Sea, and the Italians were satisfied over the fact the Regia Marina had access in said sea. Over those agreements, the three countries planted the seed of the Roman Alliance.

Standing together, it wasn’t difficult for the three nations to defeat Greece, taking what they wanted. In Istanbul and Ankara, the celebrations ran high, the victory considered superior to the one in the 1919-22 War. But now the Turks had to build the peace over those new territories. West Thrace, its ownership passed between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey in the last three decades and not being highly populated, wasn’t much of a trouble. Hundred of thousands Greeks emigrated of their own accord towards Greece proper, near Bulgarian occupied Macedonia, or overseas, generally in the US. The Aegean Islands weren’t much of an issue as well – Ankara even thought to implement a system similar to the Italian one in the Dodecanese, which worked well.

However, Crete would prove to be a thorn for Turkey, as the Italians and the Bulgarians predicted. The Greeks took the loss of Macedonia, the smaller islands of the Aegean and the Ionians, Northern Epirus as well, but Crete was a huge stab in the Hellenic pride. Besides in the early 40’s, the island was predominantly Greek populated and the local population so anchored, they refused to emigrate elsewhere or accept Turk domination. Worse, a local guerrilla rebellion against the hated invaders would start shortly after the Greek surrender, funded by ultranationalist insurgents and propped by Greek-American fundraising.

It would take some years for the military government in Ankara to adopt a different approach over Crete. The traditional Turkish strategy of repression – deportations, massacres and such – wasn’t an option for several reasons, first of all avoiding a new wave of criticism from the West. Also, the bloodbath in Europe, and the anger over the German extermination of the Jews of Europe made the Turks reconsider such a strategy. Also, Crete, once the Greek surrendered, wasn’t a warzone like Slovenia (one of the reasons the Italians went away so easily over the massacre of Lubiana). For those reasons, precaution was taken.

It was necessary that the war between Croatia and Serbia, and the Roman Alliance intervention in Greece against communist insurgency brought Greeks and Turks back to the table again. While the risk of a Red Greece was avoided, the government in Ankara wanted to avoid the risk to drift the Hellenic country towards the USSR in a way or another or going into the embrace of the ETO, or worse entering into the American sphere of influence (in the US the Armenian and Greek communities had a strong anti-Turk lobby). With Italian mediation, Turkey and Greece agreed to revert Crete to a joint condominium, the former controlling military administration and the latter have a saying in civilian matters. It wasn’t a second Enosis, at least not at the time, but Greece now could hope to recover the island fully through diplomatic ways and patience and above all distension towards the Roman Alliance. The Turks even promised to not promote internal migration towards Crete, not a great sacrifice for them because they noticed their own populace wasn’t interested at all to move in the island, as unsafe forty years ago as it was now. In truth, Turkey was oriented to a gradual but conditioned disengagement from Crete, barring the right to keep military bases and retaining economical concessions, in exchange for Greece to eventually support a future Turkish claim over Cyprus, an island with a more consistent national community but with a strong Greek presence as well. Naturally, Greek affiliation with the RA or neutrality at least was asked for. The Greeks, unable to make proper counter offers, at the time agreed on the Turk requests. At the same time, for the establishment of the condominium, Greece would have to pay yearly subsides to Ankara to see such partial rights restored, hence contributing in increase its debts especially with the Roman Alliance.

Turkish interests on Cyprus, aside for ethnic reasons, were part of a growing interest to reassert power and influence in the Middle East, as the military government felt confident the time to get back at the Arab populations of the region was come. With the end of the world war, French and British were intentioned to gradually pull out, though hoping to keep some form of influence. But the division of Persia in two states and the consequent growing Soviet meddling there weakened the Anglo-French positions.

It was the growing movement for a creation of a Jewish state in Palestine that was the catalyst for the new Turkish course in Middle East. Historically, the Ottoman Empire was tolerant towards the Jews and open over Jewish immigration from Europe. Towards the end of the 19th century until WWI, the Sublime Port kept an ambivalent stance towards Zionist promoted migration in the region (the so called first Aliyah), not being happy of it because seen as a British plot to weaken the Imperial position in Palestine, but closing an eye through a compromise solution (limited emigration, equality of rights between Jewish settlers and Arab natives). With the rise of the Republic, Ataturk enforced a regime of tolerance.

At the end of the Second World War, when the British wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine, supported by Italy as well as most of the Allies, the newly independent Arab nations grew restless about it. But Turkey saw the benefit of a wedge between the Arabs in the form of the Israeli nation, and was widely supportive of it. Over this decision there was a basic distrust of Arabs from the Turks, for their rebellion and secession from the Ottoman Empire. Of course, the Arabs paid the price of such betrayal because the Anglo-French became their new masters, but the general hatred remained. So, for Ankara, intervening in the First Arabian War in favour of Israel was a way to rebuild Turkish power in the Middle East, mostly at the expense of Syria.

Well armed, trained, experienced, the Turks steamrolled the Syrians, and extracted a high price from their foe. The coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus were annexed, as well as fixing the border on the west bank of the Orontes, thus robbing from the Syrians any access on the Mediterranean. Also some border areas north of Aleppo were taken, where Turk speaking minorities were present. At the same time, Turkey wouldn’t shed a tear for the obliteration of Transjordan, annexed into Israel, and indifferent over the start of the diaspora of Palestinians and Jordanians towards Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Arabia.

To put a seal over what was a triumph for Turkey, the concession from Israeli authorities of the guardianship and administration of the major Muslim sites of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock and of the Mosque of Al-Aqsa was welcomed in Ankara and Istanbul with celebrations. Strong from this success and popularity, the Turkish junta agreed to normalize its positions through an agreement with the Republican Party, calling elections where Fevzi Cakmak won in a landslide, though he would die soon after and was replaced by Kâzim Orbay. Meanwhile, Inonu was released from house arrests, deciding to retire from active political life. Even better for the credibility of the Junta, victory saw improving an economic status for the country accompanied by growing general living standards.

While Turkey entered into what certain historians called the “Neo Ottoman period”, a deeper divide in the Muslim world, between Arabs and Turks, would take place. The Republic would pay this string of victories and expansion later with new internal issues, the Kurd question being surely the most troublesome one. The most ironic part of the Kurdish issue was that it was all started by their own supposed ally …

 

[Sorairo]

A Continent of Tigers


‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

The Battle of Xiamen demonstrated to UN commanders the impossibility of a long grind to Beijing. Too many men had been lost in what was ultimately a single, even somewhat small holdout. For that reason, Patton ordered Curtis LeMay to implement the bombing campaign he had masterminded in Vietnam to the vast landscape of China. LeMay was given an extraordinary level of area and resources with which to work and wasted none of it. No corner of China was safe from bombing runs, from Nanking to Manchuria. Owing to the relatively minimal nature of air defence and the poor building quality of Chinese housing (certainly compared to the hard stone and concrete of Europe), civilian casualties escalated at an alarming rate. At the same time, the bombing run had accomplished what it set out to do, obliterating almost anything close to heavy industry throughout the Middle Kingdom. Shanghai and Beijing were bombed almost daily with only the occasional help of the Soviet Air Force, whose primitive designs were left in the dust by modern American, Italian and British jets. The Italians in particular had very little concern for civilian casualties, with Balbo rumored to have joked with Graziani about how ‘It’s not like we’ll ever run out of them [Chinamen]”. Italian troops would also be at the centre of the Letian massacre, where almost 1000 Chinese civilians were killed, in an overwhelming show of power after a member of the Red Guard assassinated an Italian officer. The incident was covered up in American media. Italy increasingly became the second partner in the UN forces behind America, mostly due to French and British distraction in the surrounding regions. Moves to step up the ROC’s role in the conflict continued, but they remained mired with the reputation of being foreign puppets, even as their own military prowess grew.

In response to the material devastation of his country, Mao started a ‘Metal-drive’ campaign in the fall of 1950 to make the rural population produce the metal that was lost in the same explosions that took their factories. The effects were calamitous, as peasants were ordered to stop farming and thus the harvests were not completed. Famine was the result, and the war had made it exponentially worse. To add insult to injury, the metal was too poor a quality to be any use. From the end of 1950 to mid-1953, China would experience one of the worst famines in human history. More Chinese would die in the war due to hunger than any military campaign, with some forty million estimated to have starved to death between the beginning of Mao’s invasion and the final peace. In an astonishing act of callousness, Stalin not only didn’t attempt to alleviate the situation but actively reduced the amount of food given to China, nominally on the basis of tightening belts at home, but actually, according to one aide’s diary, because “We need to know if Mao is loyal.” It was the first real chance for the UN forces to make a good impression, which they did successfully. No matter how abysmal the situation was in the north, the areas controlled by the UN and ROC were relatively free of starvation. Ironically, this made the security situation worse in some ways, with refugees from the inner-country fleeing to the coasts to escape the worst effects of the famine, with many Red Guards slipping inside in the confusion.

The Red Guards would slip into UN controlled zones through the gigantic, every expanding border the UN made for themselves. They would launch assassination campaigns, poison wells and generally raise hell behind Allied lines. They were lionized in Communist propaganda, though their daily existence was often hellish. Patton had no interest in guerilla campaigns and wanted American troops at the front line against the main bulk of Mao’s forces. This left the business of guerillas to the ROC and Italian troops (who were already experienced in counter-insurgency warfare from their wars of conquest in the Balkans and Africa). As Red Guards wore no uniform in defiance of the Geneva Convention, it was considered fair game to shoot them on sight (of course, it was awfully difficult to tell them apart from citizens). If you were captured as a Red Guard, unless you were lucky enough to meet a UN soldier who wasn’t in the Roman Alliance or some similarly dictatorial country, you often wished that you were simply killed immediately – especially if you were a woman. Torture was routine and outright encouraged by superior officers as a way to keep morale up in the face of the invisible enemy. Public executions of Communists were also commonplace in rural areas. Nevertheless, the Red Guards proved resilient in the number of attacks they launched throughout 1950 and into 1951. Of course, this was when Mao had his next big idea, which would prove to be one of the most important actions of the whole war, though not in the way the dictator would have wanted it to be.

'Cowboys and Indians: A History of American-Indian Relations' by Mitrra Rahul​

Ultimately, the Islamists knew they had no chance of winning an outright war with the Hindus. What they wanted was simply to bleed the Unionist forces out long enough to make them relent. What they underestimated was the extent of Hindu nationalists managed to capture the popular imagination, leaving Nehru and more leftist figures in the dust. Savarkar would publicly declare in Mumbai that India would sooner surrender it’s existence entirely than surrender an inch of land to a Muslim state. With regular atrocities against the Non-Muslim populations in Pakistan proving easy recruiting materials, the Indian government was hardened against negotiating. Though in Karachi (the De Facto capital of the new Pakistani state) was always ready to offer peace, their offers were repeatedly rebuffed. The Indian Communist Party was the only major party to support partition (under Moscow’s orders), and found themselves banned as fifth columnists. When Nehru opposed the move (seeing the Communists as potential allies in the Indian Parliament), he was deposed by his cabinet, thus letting Indian statesman Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (or Rajaji) step in as Prime Minister. Rajaji was far more comfortable with negotiating with the West and was deathly afraid of Communism. Thankfully he was somewhat of a moderate when it came to the Muslim population and steps were put in place to ensure that the worst excesses of sectarianism on the Unionist side were not tolerated.

As Rajaji came from Bengal, he prioritized subjugating the Eastern segment of ‘Pakistan’ first with a general offensive in early 1951. This proved easier than most expected, as Bengal’s Islamists had divided between those who wanted to be part of a whole Pakistan and those who wanted an independent Bengali state. The Unionists marched along the Ganges, encountering dogged but useless resistance. The Islamists had almost no infrastructure to help them whatsoever, leaving them exposed to a qualitatively and quantitatively superior force. By the time the Unionist forces had arrived in Dhakka, a full fledged Civil War had already begun in the city between the two forces, making the event a rare three-way affair (and a favourite of Indian storytellers in the coming decades for its take on the confusion of war). Of course, with Anglo-American aid and airpower, not to mention the better-regimented and motivated attitude of Indian troops, Dhakka fell on August 29th 1951, which was seen as the end of the East Pakistani element of the rebellion. That left West Pakistan, which everyone knew would be an appalling struggle. This forced Rajaji to make moves he wouldn’t have in normal circumstances.

On September 22nd 1951, Rajaji flew to America to meet President Patton, which would lay the foundation for the ‘New Indian Century’ program. Though Rajaji would pander to the reporters with talks about America and India’s solidarity as post-Colonial nations and rallying crowds with Anti-Communist sentiments, he remained a lifelong Socialist and was suspicious of the American development model; of course, he made little mention of that to reporters. At the same time, he knew India was in a bad way economically. The country had been torn to pieces in the major cities by riots, forced to suffer shortages and poverty due to the war and it was soon to inherit a bitter, angry Muslim population. This needed economic aid, for whom the only possible partner was America. Yet the Americans had little interest in investing in a country so punishing to businesses that the bureaucracy had been labeled the ‘License Raj’. For that reason, Rajaji made an offer to liberalize India’s markets as part of a trade deal with the United States in return for guaranteeing the aid that would finish off the Pakistani rebellion once and for all. With Patton seeing an opportunity to solidify the country as an Anti-Communist asset and the Republican Party seeing dollar signs as big as the moon, the American-Indian Free Trade Agreement was passed in February 1952. Restrictions on business and investment were lifted, privatizations of industry began and foreign media and pop culture started their march into the Indian market. It would be a seminal moment in Indian history, and would foretell the astonishing changes to come on the subcontinent and the wider Asia region.

‘The Asian Century’ by Yuki Souma​

Though one could argue that the early 1950s was the dark era for Asia, even worse than the Second World War, it’s hard to deny that the real seeds of growth that would radiate all across the continent were forged in that time period. In terms of economics, the realities of the Cold War and the firm but retreating presence of Western ideas pushed developing nations away from Communism. This was compounded by the news of what was going on in the Soviet Union. With Communism and the Far-Left by extension either discredited or suppressed through most of the continent, a more market-friendly approach was taken. The most ardent practitioners were Hong Kong and Singapore, but those had always been port cities and thus open to merchant idealism. India had begun it’s Capitalist revolution even in the midst of the Indian Civil War. But the biggest gainers from the boom, per capita, were the populations of Japan and the Philippines, both of whom were considered First World Countries (in terms of living standards) by the late 1960s. Great economic booms would happen all across Asia, leading to then Senator Nixon in 1962 to declare Asia, ‘A Continent of Tigers’.

Thankfully, political rights were generally upheld as well. As if perhaps embarrassed at the thought of being expelled from ITO (as was the fate of those Democracies who turned their back on their institutions), no East-Asian country would ever leave the alliance, unlike other parts of the world. Even locations where despotism had been normal resisted the urge to fall into prior evils. Japan certainly became more nationalistic in the face of Ezo’s persecution of their fellow countrymen in Hokkaido, but Japanese Democracy prevailed. Tibet may have been a cruel theocracy in the past, but after some stern warnings from the British and Indians that they would abandon them to Mao should they not reform, a much lighter arrangement was created with the Dalai Lama as a mostly ceremonial role like the King of England. Though the French had crushed Vietnamese hopes of independence under Communist Ho Chi Minh, they knew that they had to give some sops to the East Asian colonies. For that reason, they gave Self-Government to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as French Protectorates. Vietnam became an Empire again under former Emperor Bảo Đại, Cambodia was a Kingdom under Norodom Sihanouk and Laos as a Kingdom under Sisavang Vong. All three countries had a small level of Parliamentary independence, though their royal families remained the rulers. That said, none of them were considered especially cruel and all naturally hated the Communists. France guaranteed their internal liberty and guaranteed them not only against aggression from Communists, but from South China. With the specter of Chiang hanging over their heads, the three states reluctantly agreed to the new set up. While it wasn’t independence, it was certainly much better than before – and all felt that it was suicide to challenge the French again, now that America had become an agent of colonialism and not an enemy. Nevertheless, the political stability would enable the Indo-China region to become yet another jewel in the new Asia.

[…]

Of course, this is not to make total apologism for Colonialism. Though, for example, the Malay Emergency that the Anglo-Americans worked together in was mostly benign (not that all would agree) and did indeed result in the defeat of Communist forces and preservation of Malaysian democracy … not all Colonial regimes were as sensible. The Portuguese in particular were harsh about preserving their foreign domains. In East Timor, it was joked that the Portuguese would surrender Portugal herself just to keep the tiny region. Independence demonstrations were met with bullets in the streets and silence in the UN (the Comintern loudly decried but most independence protestors wouldn’t be caught dead beside a Communist). Then, of course, was Indonesia, which was mostly controlled by the Dutch. The Dutch wanted to preserve control, but everyone, even Patton, knew it was utterly hopeless. In normal circumstances, keeping the islands restrained would have been impossible in the long run, but it was somehow made even more impossible when most of the population was Muslim and was utterly outraged at what was going on in the Middle East. The actions of the Roman Alliance and Colonial Powers, resulting in the loss of Jerusalem, had sparked outrage across the Muslim world (outside of more secular regions like the Caucasus and traditionally Anti-Arab parties like the Turks and Iranians). For that reason, the resistance to Dutch occupation was intense. Though Patton reluctantly gave scraps of aid to try and stay on Europe’s good side, everyone knew it was a lost cause. It was perhaps for this reason that Indonesia would go alongside North China, Korea and Ezo as one of the few failures of the continent.

 

[Sorairo]

The Satanic Empire

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

As the terrible Chinese War continued its brutal existence as 1951 lingered on, UN forces may have been winning, but they were also hurting. Though they had advanced deep into China, taking Kunming and most of Yunnan province in the Fall of 1950 alongside all of Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou with the majority of Hunan and Jianxi, the Red Guard networks were as active as ever. The bulk of UN forces made the slow march up the Chinese coast, by now decimated by American aerial and naval supremacy. Brutal battles continued in Zhejiang province for almost all of the remainder of 1950 and early 1951, which was the period when American dead had surpassed the 100,000 mark. The plan was to take Shanghai and Nanking, completely reestablish Chiang’s old government, and then send him off to deal with the devastated remainder of the Communists without getting too close to the Soviets. Mao had given up on winning by traditional attacks of massed armies, seeing that his forces would simply be bombed. He decided that the best plan was to rally the Red Guards and have them attempt to launch a general insurrection in the ROC territories, overwhelming Chiang and the UN’s forces. To add to the potential for success, it was decided to hold the attack on April 4th, the Qingming Festival, where Chinese mourn their ancestors. Knowing that many considered it a holy day in China, it was hoped that an armistice would be assumed by UN forces and then the Communists would rally their forces and overwhelm them before they knew what was going on. The Qingming Offensive was hotly debated in the circles of power in Beijing. If it weren’t for Mao, it would almost certainly have been defeated, as Lin Bao decidedly opposed it. One wonders what may have happened had Lin Bao been listened to.

The preparations were immense, with all the best Soviet weapons sent down to the regions through the jungles in preparation for the great offensive. Once flagging Red Guard moral shot back to old highs, as it seemed that the moment of final victory was about to be reached, regardless of the old setbacks. Terror cells in the major cities as far as Taiwan were put on standby. As expected, the Americans and their fellow UN allies had an unofficial ceasefire on the morning of April 4th 1951, as their Kuomintang allies celebrated the holiday. Then in an almighty screech that morning, from the Laotian border to the fields of Fujian, the Red Guards began the Qingming Offensive, hoping to inspire a general revolt and defeat the Western powers.

Unfortunately for the Communists, almost everything went wrong. They decidedly underestimated how much the ROC had improved their reputation in recent times and how badly the Communists had tarnished their own due to the famines and how the ROC was a relatively safe place from hunger. Beijing had underestimated the strategic mobility of the UN, which allowed them to redeploy at will to threatened areas with vehicles like helicopters. The Communist battle plan was too complex and difficult to coordinate; attacking everywhere instead of concentrating their forces on a few targets allowed their forces to be picked off at will. According to Molotov in his memoirs: "Mao did not correctly evaluate the balance of forces between himself and the Capitalists, did not fully realize that Chiang was more popular than he was, that his capabilities were limited and that he was too proud to get the help he needed.” The Communists’ best victory was their brief taking of Fuzhou back from the UN – which wasn’t anywhere near as effective as they expected because so many ports had been captured north of the city that supplies were coming in easily. In the Second Battle of Fuzhou, fought through until June, some 50,000 Red Guards perished in the city, alongside 15,000 ROC/UN troops and 100,000 civilians. It would be the bloodiest individual battle of the Qingming offensive, but the bloodshed was universal, stretching from Kunming – half burned down by the Italians in their wrath – to Hong Kong, where the Red Guard infrastructure in the city would be reduced to 50 members hiding in terror from the police. By the end of September, all the gains of the Qingming Offensive for the Red Guards had been removed. Seeing the advantage presented to them, Patton and Eisenhower cancelled the march northward until the next year and focussed on smashing the scattered remnants of the Red Guards so they would never rise again.

They certainly succeeded in their goal. The Communist leadership was shocked by what had happened. It was estimated that almost one million Red Guards had participated in the Qingming Offensive. Of those, the ruthless suppression campaigns of the ROC and Italians with American indifference proving especially effective, some 510,000 Red Guards had been killed in action, all for not a millimeter of land. The Chinese countryside, which many Americans had taken to calling “Injun Country” due to the chance of ambush from Communists, was emptied of enemy forces. The Red Guards controlled almost no territory worth description inside the boundaries of Chiang’s domain. Due to the many atrocities the Red Guards inflicted when they made their temporary gains (notably the Fuzhou Massacre where it was estimated that 30,000 ‘counter-revolutionists’ were executed), they were more hated now than they had ever been. Recruitment fell to a dead halt as both the support base and the chance of glory vanished. There were some in Beijing who hoped that the scale of death would force the Americans to back down and consider the whole thing a quagmire. Unfortunately, they underestimated the Americans. Still lit with burning rage from the Wallace fiasco, with the media and citizens more eager than ever to prove their loyalty, news was filtered to near unrecognizable depths by the time it reached stateside. The Qingming Offensive was compared to Operation Ragnarok in WW2 to show that these were the simply the last moves of a dying enemy. The Red Guards would survive in one form or another until the early 1970s, but could barely reach the level of nuisance after the Qingming disaster.

It seemed to work. Gallup showed that 70% of Americans supported the Chinese War and General Patton’s conduct in it in a poll from November 1951. This ensured Patton would gain the Republican nomination, a role he was reluctant to take but he wanted to ensure that at the very least China was brought to a satisfactory close. However, this would be his first election with a somewhat serious opponent, not that his reelection wasn’t essentially guaranteed. Though Patton didn’t know it, he was about to finish one war, only to begin one altogether different.

‘The New Roman Empire’ by David Lassinger​

On December 5th 1951, the Macau Conference was convened, involving Chiang, Patton, Mussolini, De Gaulle, Gaitskell, Turkish President Orbay, Brazilian President Vargas, Portuguese President Salazar, Israeli Prime Minister Begin, Eisenhower and Rommel. It was the first and only major meeting of the UN leaders during the Chinese War, but much was done to solidify the mutual strategies between all sides. All parties agreed that no side would sign a separate peace accord with the Communists unless all members of the UN Security Council agreed. Though there was much pressure to do so, no agreement was reached that Unconditional Surrender would be the sole terms open to Mao. Patton and Mussolini lobbied for it, while Gaitskell, De Gaulle and ironically Chiang argued that it would be counterproductive. The reason Chiang was so uncomfortable with the idea of fighting Mao to the death was the reality that all Western powers agreed the slaughter in China, having reached Biblical proportions in surpassing World War 1’s military death toll by a significant amount even before the Qingming Offensive, was proving costlier than thought. It was agreed by Chiang, reluctantly, that the Western powers would assist him up to the Yangtze and provide him with supplies and bombing support from then on, but no men. The plan was to pull out all UN troops by 1953, assuming the war lasted until then. The policy of ‘Sinocization’ was met with much relief by Western mothers and fathers, who were happy that their sons needn’t face death in the jungles of China forever. Chiang would also have to accept that Tibet would be an independent state, something that revolted him as a nationalist, but something he couldn’t refuse as Tibet had sworn to defy Communism and no one in the West was going to give supplies to crush the harmless state.

One of the other major agreements of the conference was that Korea, which had become an important player in the war, could no longer be allowed the free reign it had been given before, as a member of the Stalingrad Pact. With this, Japan joined the war, though only in letting the American air force base itself there and mercilessly bomb the railways and bridges connecting China to Korea. Though Korea would be spared the carpet-bombing that had turned parts of China to ashes, they soon suffered from shortages as nothing could get into the country, especially following strict sanctions that cut Korea off from the world. The more troops Kim Il-Sung sent, the more the bombing increased. The campaign started in February 1952 and was masterminded by Curtis LeMay. LeMay would soon end up halving the amount of contributions Korea could provide the brittle PRC. A similar campaign against Ezo was considered too incendiary and was never implemented. Nevertheless, the pressure on Mao was increasing at the worst possible time.

Despite the positive pictures displayed for the cameras, like at Kiev and Potsdam, there were divisions starting to boil beneath the surface. Gaitskell and DeGaulle had grown suspicious of Mussolini, who was acting more arrogant than ever in the face of Italy’s newfound role as a major player in geopolitics. Despite their common enemies in Mao and Aflaq, Gaitskell and Mussolini had totally opposing views on colonization, with Gaitskell arguing that it was a wicked practice to be stopped as quickly and humanely as possible and Mussolini rebuffing on the basis of the order in Italy’s colonies compared to the slaughter in India. DeGaulle was more likely to agree with Mussolini, but he found the Italian system a threat to France itself. Patton tried to keep the sides on one page, as his policy of eternal deference to the will of the Europeans found issue when the Europeans themselves couldn’t agree. One unlikely friend Mussolini did find, however, was Chiang. The two had a cordial relationship before, but their cooperation during the Chinese War had brought the pair close together, with Chiang opining that ‘If all UN leaders were like you, we’d be in Beijing by now.” Mussolini could only respond by thanking Chiang for ensuring, “Italy’s armies will be well-trained for the final battle against the Red Huns and Saracens.” Of course, Chiang was also grateful for the Roman Alliance being the only major members of the UN not to talk about ‘Democratic Reform’ and other things Chiang felt were not in Chinese nature. One thing Chiang had accomplished, and with relish, was the Anti-Corruption campaign. With most of his old warlord allies killed by the Communists, he had removed much of the competing power structure within the ROC, allowing his newly reclaimed lands to be ruled with an iron fist. Chiang would later joke that the Chinese War was the best Anti-Corruption measure that ever happened to the ROC. With that, the seeds of Asia’s divisions in the second half of the Twentieth Century were well sown.

One thing everyone could agree on was the need to continue the fight. Everyone knew that the war was only going to get bloodier. It was expected that the first troops would reach Shanghai in March, where the real fighting would begin. Of course, at the time, no one could comprehend the sheer level of carnage that would be wrought on the Asian continent in the brief year the war had left. For that reason, it was debated how to drum up support for the war in case civilians at home began to turn against the war – Mussolini would audibly snort as Gaitskell asked the question. Nevertheless, just weeks after the conference, word would come out from the Soviet Union of something so horrible, so monstrous, that all Western leaders knew they would never negotiate with Stalin until their dying breath.

The Death Spiral: Stalin 1941-1953 by Alexi Ivanovitch​

As the 1950s dawned, the Soviet Union was in its most rancid state yet. Simultaneously dealing with guerilla campaigns in Poland and North Iran, they were stuck with having to fund the vast majority of Mao’s campaign, lest they have a Pro-West enemy along almost their entire Eastern and Southern border. Yet the country was in a terrible shape, suffering from extreme economic deprivation and the ever-escalating insanity of Stalin’s last and most dreadful purge. When Kaganovich was executed in 1947 for being part of a ‘Zionist spy network’, despite having personally ordered the destruction of multiple synagogues, it should have tipped off most of the world that something more serious than expected was happening against the Jewish communities within the Red Dagger. Yet no one could believe that something so abominable as the total imprisonment of an entire major ethnic group in the heartless depths of Siberia, having whole villages massacred and what any reasonable person could only describe as ‘genocide’. Yet owing to the heightened tension and increasing isolation of the Soviet Union, no one understood just how bad it had actually gotten. That was when something incredible happened.

Władysław Szpilman was a Jewish-Polish conductor, who had already gone through abominable treatment in World War 2, surviving the Holocaust and the Ghetto Uprising. He would participate in the Warsaw Uprising and would be the first person to play on Polish radio as it resumed following liberation (he was also the last person to play before the war began). Yet not even all this suffering could keep him safe from what was to come. He was in Warsaw when the nuclear bomb was dropped, miraculously surviving by being in the basement at the time. When he emerged, he was under the heel yet more Anti-Semitic Tyranny. Initially blacklisted as a ‘Zionist’ he was barred from any public performances. When the news came in that Israeli forces had seized the Temple in Jerusalem, Stalin ordered the Jewish population seized under the belief that Israeli victories would embolden them. Szpilman was put on a train and taken to Vorkuta. On the way, he encountered atrocities he described as equal in evil to the Nazis, of women and children being murdered, public humiliations and even the loyalist Communists finding themselves on the same train to doom. Vorkuta was notorious for the cruelty of her guards, the gigantic ethnic tensions among inmates (Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Poles and Germans), and its utter desolation and barrenness. At the same time, he learned from fellow inmates about how this wasn’t happening just in Poland, but over the whole Eastern Bloc. It seemed certain that Szpilman had finally met the end of the road, but once more luck stepped in to save him. As it turned out, one of the camp commanders had heard about the inmate’s piano prowess and invited him to play. In lonely Vorkuta, Szpilman’s performances touched the commander’s heart. Overwhelmed by grief about what was happening to Szpilman, the commander – in total violation of every order from the top – gave Szpilman papers for leaving and helped direct him to the British embassy in Moscow (Britain being one of the few major Western powers who had direct diplomatic links to the Kremlin). Time doesn’t record the fate of the commander, but we do know what became of Szpilman. He managed to reach the British embassy in the freezing cold of January 8th 1952. The British staff were baffled by the languages Szpilman was speaking and were astonished to realise it was Polish and Yiddish. Szpilman was let in and offered to give the full story of what had befallen the Jews of the Eastern Bloc. After brief fact-checking, the British realised that Szpilman was telling the truth. [1]

On January 15th, Szpilman landed in Britain and three days later was invited to the House Of Commons to tell the world what he saw. Szpilman’s testimony was more shocking than anyone could have imagined; even the most committed Anti-Communist could not have imagined that a near repeat of the Holocaust had been launched by Stalin. Orde Wingate stormed out of the Commons and broke his hand punching through a wall. Gaitskell would tell the House, “If there was any doubt amongst the members of the house that the Cold War is not a struggle between Right and Left but right and wrong, let it die here today.” Churchill would blast the Soviet Union as a ‘Satanic Empire’, while Oswald Mosley demanded the expulsion of all Soviet diplomats from Britain, which was narrowly defeated after consultation with MI6 showed it would be counterproductive. In Israel, President Einstein and Prime Minister Begin were so enraged that they banned the Communist Party, with the former not only finally reversing his opposition to Israel having Nuclear weapons but going so far as to tell the UN in New York to “point every gun at the monster threatening to consume the world.” Mussolini, the famously Semitophilic leader, reportedly considered a nuclear strike in his fury. Patton, who had personally seen the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, burned with a smaller but more intense flame, ordering that the bombing runs over Mao’s China increase until it would be nothing but ‘rubble on top of rubble’. Naturally, the Eastern slave states condemned Szpilman as a fabricator. Aflaq, the leader of the UAR, called the story a 'laughable fable from the brood of liars', but it was clear that he was the only Non-Communist power to excuse the Soviets as even the Saudis kept quiet. What little support the Communists had in the democratic world had vanished overnight. Yet this didn’t bother Stalin one bit, as he began his final, bloody year.

[1] - Szpilman would move to Israel and lead the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. His magnum Opus, 'Warsaw: Ode to a City', would become his most famous and celebrated work, which he made after a triumphant return to the old city in the 1970s.

 

[Sorairo]

Worse than Hell


‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

The very word ‘Shanghai’ still haunts America today. Though it was planned to take the city in 1951, the sudden, overwhelming attack of the Red Guards put things on hold. Eisenhower spent the interim fortifying and improving his position … but the Chinese did as well. There were roughly six million people in the city when the war started, but bombing and famine had already taken a toll when the first UN and ROC soldiers reached the outskirts of the city on February 25th 1952. They were shocked at what they found. It seemed as if the whole of the PLA had camped in the city, with every brick in the metropolis seeming to have its own defender specifically for the task. The response was to flatten the city with more and more naval and aerial attack, but this just made the city even more of a nightmare to traverse. Mao, having been stung by the failure of the Qingming Offensive, had resorted to his new plan: fighting to the last Chinese. The jokes he made in the past about China’s population now became a terrifying reality. He ordered that Shanghai become ‘The Graveyard of the West’. Many of his subordinates were getting worried by his increasingly erratic behavior, which seemed much more motivated by revenge and holding onto his position than any sort of informed military strategy. Shanghai was a meat-grinder, the generals argued, at a time when the home front was growing restless from famine and bombing. Mao overruled their concerns, sending literally millions of Chinese men and boys across the Yellow River, into the depths of Hell that had once been the greatest city of China. “We don’t need to win,” Mao boasted, “all we need to do is bleed more.”

Even Eisenhower was baffled as to what Mao was doing. He knew that countless streams of men were flowing into the battle; but men did not simply materialize out of nothing. Mao was taking troops out of other areas of the map, leaving the west of China in particular exposed to further advances. As if to illustrate this, on March 7th, the first crossing of the Yangtze began, with Chungking taken on May 1st. This represented a serious strategic failure by the Communists, but Mao continued to pour more and more men pointlessly into the depths of Shanghai, sending human wave attack upon human wave attack over the last wave of corpses before them. While the battle still haunts Americans to this day, it’s the Chinese who remain most traumatised by it. The sufferings and heroism of the Red Chinese in this battle were even lauded in the darkest nights of Chiang’s dictatorship in plays, novels and films (though with the inevitable condemnation of their sociopathic superiors, which was hardly an invention of Fascist propaganda). But just like Stalingrad, Mao would not let the city fall, holding onto his Verdun strategy, even as the city was obliterated street by street. Rommel, who well knew the lessons of Stalingrad, held the flanks and made sure no one could break in and surround the UN forces, which were roughly 50% Kuomintang, 25% American, 10% Italian and 15% from other countries sworn to Chiang’s defence. On August 3rd, Rommel crossed the Yangtze and made his way to the coast to cut off any further arrival of Red Chinese. Rommel thought that the troops would pull back in face of the onslaught and try to retreat. Instead, Rommel, Eisenhower and even Patton were appalled by what they saw: as Rommel approached the Sea, Mao sent more troops into the incoming encirclement. It wasn’t even to fight back Rommel, as they were sent south into the destroyed metropolis. The plan was, as Mao explained, to have a force that would bleed the West out, and the best way to ensure the army would fight like that was to “have the Sea at their backs”. The political commissars were ordered to shoot anyone who tried to surrender or retreat, so most units fought to near destruction. Finally on September 10th, after appalling carnage had been wrought on the world, Shanghai was declared secure.

Though the word of the Soviet Holocaust had raised a gigantic outcry, Shanghai had been a brutal snap to sobriety. The UN forces had suffered 250,000 casualties, mostly from the Kuomintang. However, in this one battle, 40,000 GIs would perish, far more than any other battle in the history of the American armed forces – Patton reportedly had to have the numbers repeated to him he was so shocked. But perhaps they would have felt better if they knew the full scope of deaths on the Communist side. Though there were wildly different reports at the time, most historians now agree that the casualties on Mao’s side were close to one and a half million. Including civilian deaths, the total number of casualties from the battle is usually estimated at two million people, making it the bloodiest battle in all of human history. Shortly after the battle, Eisenhower would have a heart attack from the amount of stress he faced in the field – though he would recover. That would finally give Douglas MacArthur his opportunity to come into the conflict, though he would ultimately only be involved in a few operations until the armistice, notably securing Nanking the day before the fighting ceased. Meanwhile, the loss of Shanghai further eroded Mao’s reputation, although it was obviously compounded by events elsewhere in the country.

On August 14th, buoyed by support from Chiang, rebellion sprang up in Xinjiang. The Muslim populace was secular and distant enough not to resolutely hate anything Western due to Israel’s victory in the First Arabian War, and they also resented Mao’s rule. The famine from Mao’s failed agricultural policies had left bitterness in all directions, but in the vast emptiness of Xinjiang, the hatred was allowed to foster. With enemy troops taken from administering the region to be sent to certain death in Shanghai and their own men armed with guns routed through Tibet, the Xinjiang populace rose in rebellion, and a successful one at that, quickly seizing Ürümqi by August 17th. By now, panic had begun to set in among Mao’s generals, who pleaded for men to be retrieved from Shanghai so that they could help with the conflict in Xinjiang. Mao said it could be resolved later – but of course it never was. Mao was convinced that whatever else, Stalin would not allow him to perish. Of course, he didn’t realise what was around the corner.

‘Patton: The Man’ by George Wallaby​

Coming into the 1952 election, who was going to win wasn’t a question: everyone knew it was going to be Patton. It was so obvious that Patton joked that even if he died he’d still get at least 300 electoral votes. What observers were most interested in was: who would come in second? The main contenders for the honour were the Democrats and the Freedom Party. Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, who had wisely decided against running for Senate in 1948 and thus avoided the obliteration that befell most of his colleagues, represented the former. It was also fortunate as he was low-profile enough that McCarthy hadn’t dragged him before a committee to publicly humiliate him. The Democrats by now had been reduced mostly to a regional party in the Rust-Belt, only without the ironclad control of their home-region that the Freedom Party boasted. They were by now mostly made up of Union loyalists and African-Americans. It had been crippled by the loss of funding, party division and a sense that it was finished as a political movement. The goal of the Democrats was to try and reassert their national position.

The Freedom Party, equally as determined to get second place in the Presidential election to solidify themselves as the main opposition to the Republicans, would nominate the Governor of Alabama, Bull Connor. A former baseball announcer, Connor would quickly rise through the ranks of politics following the expulsion of the Democrats from the South and became a leading figure in the party. He had passed publicity grabbing measures as governor, infamously banning ‘Communism’ until being informed by the Supreme Court that his ruling had no Constitutional backing – a ruling he was sure to demand a court overhaul for. The Freedom Party stood in every state, but Connor and leading figures only campaigned in the states claimed by the Confederacy during the Civil War. This wasn’t even enough to win the election, but that wasn’t the point. The goal was to ensure that the Freedom Party became a self-standing movement. Virginia, Patton’s birth state, would become a particularly contentious area owing to its sympathies with Connor’s pro-segregation message.

With the only two major opposing parties either considered a den of traitors or a nest of bigots, Patton was considered the only choice for moderate Americans. A Gallup poll in August 1952 recorded Patton as being on 60%, with Connor and Humphrey on 20% each (though in terms of the electoral college, Connor was crushing Humphrey). Patton paid little time to his opponents, focusing his campaign on the rebounding economy and progress in China. Connor condemned Patton for ‘not being aggressive enough’ in China and for ‘leaving the working class behind’ in the current economic growth (by which he naturally exclusively referred to the White population). Humphrey condemned the erosion of Civil Liberties under Patton and proposed a ‘New New Deal’, which observers were apt to point out was likely to fall afoul of the new Balanced Budget amendment. Nevertheless, it was a mostly quiet campaign with very little serious disruptions. That was until a pair of October surprises grabbed the attention of the world: one in the darkest halls of the Kremlin, the other in the darkest regions of the South.

The Death Spiral: Stalin 1941-1953 by Alexi Ivanovitch​

Upon the revelations of Stalin’s treatment of the Jewish population, the dictator’s mental health deteriorated further. He ordered another round of purges, murdering yet more members of the Poliburo, including but not limited to: Alexi Kosygin, Nikolay Shvernik, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrey Andreyev and Nikolai Bulganin. In the regional SSRs, sometimes as many as 70% of the members who existed before the revelations were dead before Stalin’s time had come. Upon the arrest of Leonid Brezhnev, just weeks before he was appointed to the central committee, he reportedly sighed in relief despite the obvious punishment that awaited because, “now I don’t have to worry about whether or not it will happen anymore”. Observers reported that he was indifferent at his trial, taking his execution with as much fear and apprehension as if he was waiting for a bus to arrive. That was what Stalinism had created by 1952 – it had created a culture where fear and murder were so common that people looked forward to their deaths as a means to escape the hell that Stalin had created.

The harvest had likewise been poor, and with resources tight and being sent to China to be destroyed by American bombs, everyone knew it would be a hard winter, and one without foreign trade. With 10% of the Eastern Bloc’s population in some form of work camp by the end of the year, productivity was as low as it had been during the worst days of the war. Stalin had met all of this with cold indifference, which is what makes the events of September 28th all the more interesting. That was the day Mao had sent a letter to Stalin, saying that the situation in Xinjiang was troubling. Mao asked if it could be possible Stalin could send some fifty thousand “volunteers” to aid in the subjugation of the Xinjiang Rebellion. Then Stalin lost his temper. In full view of Molotov, Khrushchev and Malenkov (in which the foremost former recalled that he was sure they were all dead as Stalin would kill them in a fit of rage), Stalin cursed Mao for his military failures. He even went as far as to suggest that Mao had been a Western agent sent to suck out his resources and leave the USSR weak. Stalin got more animated with every second, getting redder and redder, until …

Molotov was the first to react, rushing to Stalin just after he fell to the floor. Khrushchev called a doctor. Medics arrived instantaneously, as Stalin had needed a lot of medical attention in recent months and years due to stress. They quickly took him to a hospital, despite the bad signs. Finally, on the morning of September 29th, they had their report: Stalin’s condition had stabilized, but he had entered a coma and they were unsure how long he would be in that condition, or if he’d even wake up. As Molotov recalled, “I thought it had been dangerous to deal with Stalin before … now I realised we were in the middle of something far more dangerous than we could ever have imagined. If we had been in hell, now we were somewhere even worse.”

 

[Sorairo]

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.

 

[Sorairo]

Hello all, this will be my last update until about the middle to end of September (Actuarial tests are not nice). Nevertheless, I thought I would do my best to leave you for a while by wrapping up the Chinese War and giving the result of the 1952 election. You may have a few posts come in from other authors which I've approved but that's about it for a while. I hope you understand and hope you'll still be here when I get back

The Enemy of the World

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long​

Mao’s mental state had deteriorated greatly after the Qingming and Shanghai disasters, which destroyed the fighting capacity of both the Red Guards and PLA together. His failure to suppress the rebellion in Xinjiang was the final straw that convinced General Lin Biao that Mao was out of control and that he had to be stopped before every Communist in China was lined up against a wall by Chiang. He had little trouble finding allies. After all, Mao’s once overwhelming popularity had evaporated after the failed agricultural and industrial policies had created famine in China, not to mention his inane handling of the tactical situation. Added to this, his erratic behavior had grown increasingly bizarre, such as sleeping with young (often underage) virgins to ‘restore his youth and mental processes’. Rumours of these acts had already begun spreading around Beijing and were impossible to suppress. By now, his enemy list had grown to gigantic proportions – and closer to home than he thought. Mao’s own wife, Jiang Qing, had decided that Mao was ‘only going to degrade his legacy by living on’. The two communicated together, with Jiang being an important party secretary who knew who was where and at what time – this information would soon prove valuable.

What they did not expect was to be contacted by Soviet agents on October 7th 1952. They were informed by the Soviet agents that ‘Stalin’ (actually the Troika) had come to believe that continuing the war was suicidal for both Russia and Communist China. Unfortunately, as Mao had repeatedly sworn that he would never stop fighting ‘until either every reactionary or every Communist in China is dead’, the Soviets knew Mao would never consent to any peace settlement – especially not in his deteriorating mental state. For that reason, the Troika had concluded that Mao ‘would be neutralized and removed from power’. Mao had planned a trip on October 14th in preparation of spending time there during the celebration of the October Revolution. The Soviets asked when the earliest time was the Biao could launch a coup – Biao replied that the soldiers were so desperate to kill Mao for his stupidity that ‘I could launch one yesterday’. Indeed, Biao had little trouble convincing the rest of the PLA leadership to back him – they had grown so frustrated with Mao’s commands that they were certain that in one more year Chiang’s troops would be at the Korean border. Having Mao’s own wife at hand to convince people to turn against their leader was notable encouragement. To add to the imminent carnage, Soviet agents were placed around the city close to where major members of the Communist Party were.

On October 14th, Mao landed in Moscow, famously looking glum and angry for the cameras the moment he saw that Stalin personally was not greeting him on the runway and that it was ‘only’ Molotov. Molotov would say that he considered calling the coup early because he couldn’t stand to be in the room with Mao. When Mao arrived at the Kremlin, he did little to amuse his hosts. He angrily demanded more men and supplies as if he was the superior power, and not a dependent, bombed and starved vassal. He accused the Soviets of undermining Communism, being the cause of his failures in the Qingming and Shanghai debacles and even started to bring up the border disputes in the Ussuri River region. Khrushchev joked to Molotov “is it too late to support Chiang?” All the while, of course, Mao demanded to see Stalin but was informed that he was away on ‘highly sensitive business’, which made Mao even angrier as he demanded to know who or what was more important than ‘the leader of China’. With remarkable patience, the Troika waited until October 16th.

On the night of October 16th, NKVD agents grabbed Mao from his bed. They then put a bag on his head and put him into a car to an undisclosed location. Mao was certain that he was about to die … but it didn’t happen. He was simply thrown into an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere, minded day and night by an entire NKVD squad to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere. It was a better fate than what befell Mao’s compatriots in China. Zhou Enali was shot to death in broad daylight in the streets of Beijing. Liu Shaoqi was mauled to death by excited crowds when trying to escape the PLA troops coming after him – the crowd was excited that people were getting rid of the old regime, so hated had it become. Finance Minister Deng Xiaoping had predicted what was coming and was found dead in his room by gunshot with a suicide note by the time the PLA troops had broken in. All across Beijing, the leadership of the Communist Party was mercilessly purged and the PLA (and Soviets) took their places. On the night of October 17th, Jiang would deliver a radio broadcast to explain that Mao had failed in his duties ‘as a leader, and indeed as a husband’. She announced that she would ‘bring peace to China’ and ‘not bring her to national ruin and humiliation’. In her most biting denunciation, she would declare Mao ‘The Enemy of the World’. She triumphantly announced that the Soviets had recognised her as the legitimate ruler of China, and that they had gone so far as to arrest Mao. Mao’s popularity had fallen so astronomically low that on some parts of the front, Communist and KMT troops made temporary truces just to celebrate together. The results of the first few days of the Eastern Bloc's only female dictator's rule were looking strong.

It had been decided that Mao’s wife would make the best choice of leader, the Chinese being historically well-adjusted to female leaders in the past. The reasons were that the military brass was likewise hated for their role in the war, while Jiang was considered clean in that respect. At the same time, many sympathized with her given the multiple rumours about Mao, and many believed she would be a fair ruler if given the chance. Of course, the new North China would be even more subservient to the Soviets than before, but most were desperate for any change that could mean the coming of peace and rice. Mao himself was brought to the fires of hell in fury, denouncing his wife, Chiang, the Soviets, Americans, Jews, Europeans, Capitalists and various other parties in no clear order. He still had the gall to laugh at his captors and demand to know why he hadn’t been killed yet - saying the reason they didn’t was because ‘every man in China would march northward in fury at knowing the Soviets killed the great Mao Zedong!’ Of course, that wasn’t the reason. When he did learn the reason, it finally sobered his pride. He was informed that to sweeten the deal with the West, which the Soviets were unsure could be made, he would be handed over to Chiang for trial in the South.

On October 19th, Jiang contacted the Swiss Embassy through Seoul, stating that she wanted a ceasefire. Word was sent to the West quickly. As most Westerners were surprised by the coup and suspected something may have been happening, they agreed to relent for a few days so they could work out what was going on. Many hoped and prayed that it meant the war was finally coming to an end. On October 20th, the guns across China fell silent for what seemed to be the first time in a country that had been beset with Civil War, Japanese invasion and now a proxy battle between the greatest forces on Earth. In the ‘Chinese War’ phase, it is estimated that some seventy million died due to the war from when Mao invaded south until the Pro-Soviet coup brought the war to an end. Three hundred thousand of those were Americans. Those numbers do not include the Indochina War or the Indian-Civil War.

‘Patton: The Man’ by George Wallaby​

Robinson’s murder was met with outrage and disgust across the entirety of America, and indeed the world. “He fought for us in China,” said one New York Times extract, “only for the very Americans he fought for to murder him like a dog.” Protests and vigils for Robinson occurred among all sides in America – even the nascent black community in Britain organised a protest at the American embassy demanding an end to the system Robinson had fought to end. Even Mussolini went as far to hold a moment’s silence for Robinson in Rome, “in memory of a great warrior.” The attention of the world was being swung back constantly with events in China, but this was an act that would not soon be forgotten. By now, unprecedented scrutiny had fallen upon the Jim Crow system which Robinson had fought. Political campaigning from all major parties had stopped in respect of Robinson. Freedom Party officials raced to condemn the Klan, but their reputational damage had already been inflicted. Attempts by the Freedom Party to campaign anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line were met with eggs and scorn. This was not helped by Bull Connor’s infamous botched condemnation of the event, saying “It’s common sense among all good Southerners: You don’t lynch the wrong negro.” The seeming trivialization of lynching and Robinson’s murder led to Joseph McCarthy to launch an infamously scathing attack on the Freedom Party members of Congress, accusing them of being ‘the political arm of the Ku Klux Klan, for whom the blood of that great American is on all their hands.’ McCarthy had began to fall into irrelevance as the Democrats had been bludgeoned to death beneath his assaults, and his use of bashing the Freedom Party in the same way became a ticket to a revival of his political fortunes, which would pay dividends in the next Congress.

But perhaps the most telling condemnation came straight from the White House itself. To the shock of the entire political establishment, President Patton would attend the service, as well as multiple leading military officials. Robinson’s funeral would be held in Cairo, Georgia where he was born and died, and would be held on October 18th. Even word of the goings on in China did not shake Patton from attending. Some Blacks from as far as California had travelled by (often in the back of) train to attend the funeral, whose numbers began sprawling to totally unexpected size. It is estimated that some eighty thousand people comprised the crowds, which made security a nightmare for the President but he demanded the service continue on time. When the eulogies were read, Robinson’s wife and fellow servicemen he saved (who were often white and subsequently shunned by Southern society for attending a black funeral) gave their telling. But it was when General turned President Patton took the podium that history was made. Patton talked about how he had gotten to know Robinson and the time they had spent together. Then he delivered the words that electrified the nation:

“I’ve fought Nazis, and I’ve fought Communists. Now it’s time to fight the elephant in the room. The monster lurking right in America. The monster of racial hatred and oppression. I’m ashamed of how little I’ve done about it before … and as part of my apology to Jackie Robinson, to his family, for not doing as much as I could … I make this solemn oath, and I apologise to the Preacher if it’s not suitably Christ-like enough: By the time I leave office, the only place you’ll see people with a burning cross and white hood is in Hell.”

Patton’s announcement was met with wild ovation from the congregation, which grew to a roar when word of what he said reached outside. Patton’s eulogy was sent with all the enthusiasm of the Emancipation Proclamation among Black America, read excitedly everywhere from Harlem to Atlanta. William DuBois would describe Patton as, “the unlikeliest deliverer we’ve ever had.” One Southern Black Preacher by the name of Martin L. King would call Patton “a messenger of God.” Patton had gone from at best a fiure of indifference in black communities in America to the next Lincoln almost overnight. While the strangness of cheering an elderly, Conservative, white, Southern man with a history of cringeworthy racial jokes was not lost on anyone, here finally stood a man who would not only take on the Klan, but perhaps the whole of Jim Crow itself.

When it came to the investigation, the FBI flooded the area with so many troops that some Klan divisions outright fled town for fear of the numbers for a mass roundup. Though Hoover was unenthusiastic about Patton’s zeal to defeat racist politics in the South, even he was outraged that the Klan could murder a Medal of Honor winner. For that reason, he was just as enthusiastic about finding and bringing Robinson’s murderers to justice. Finally, all four were discovered lying low in Atlanta, sharing an apartment and waiting for the event to blow over. The information had been found by the FBI, working together with local law enforcement. On the night of October 24th, FBI agents knocked on the door of the apartment, only to find that the four had bailed. A city-wide manhunt began, finally culminating in the four being intercepted on a train to Florida. Another chase and shootout began, culminating in all four members being shot dead, as well as two FBI members. The nation alternatively rejoiced at the deaths of the murderers and mourned the agents … but questions were quickly raised about how the four men knew to run. When the answers were revealed in the coming months, it would not paint a positive picture of Southern law enforcement.

Amidst the bedlam across the nation and feeling that the War in China had been ‘won’, Patton was ensured of winning a blowout election result. Patton won 64% of the vote, including big downticket wins in Virginia, Florida and Texas and other areas in the south that had a growing level of cosmopolitanism (or weren’t as deeply embedded in Confederate mythology). Many political observers were convinced that Connor had blown his chance of second place by his comments on lynching and the vibe crossing the nation. They were sorely mistaken. Connor scored an impressive (for the time and circumstance) 22% of the vote, leaving Humphrey to flop on 14% (and only Minnesota in terms of the electoral college). Political observers were stumped as to what happened. That was when the awful truth became clear. Patton’s turn to a more actively anti-Jim Crow stance had devoured the Democrat vote as most social liberals now felt their votes were more effective in lending support to Patton’s crusade. Meanwhile, Patton’s words had terrified white moderates in the South of a quick and chaotic end to segregation. Thus, even the clumsy Bull Connor was a better choice than the President. With that, the battle-lines of the new America had been drawn up. The next four years would be just as contentious as Wallace’s final four.

 

[RyuDrago]

Hello to all, today we will see what fate will have post-war Germany, with the usual seal of approval of Sorairo and his own revision and addition work, enjoy!

A Reforged Iron Cross: the Fourth German Empire, by Klaus Mann​

By the end of 1945, Germany was a broken nation - broken by the will of the same Allied powers that defeated her in 1918. In truth, there was great indecision over her fate, starting by the division in areas of occupation. The British and the Italians wanted to keep the USSR east of the Oder, which was the line the Soviets effectively reached at the time of German capitulation. The Soviets wanted jurisdiction over an extended area as compensation for the range of destruction the Germans inflicted to the Union, receiving sympathy from the Wallace administration. The French were in between but closer to Soviet positions than the British-Italian ones, if else to mark a wider division of Germany. Because Stalin in the end was bought by Wallace’s promises in the Far East, in the end the Soviets agreed to accept the line of the Elbe till Mecklenburg included as limit of their occupation, with the German Eastern border moved to the Oder.

At the same time, Berlin was divided into four zones – planned to be five for each great power, but reduced due to the American cession of its zone to the Soviets. But, at the same time Wallace decided to keep a light presence in Germany, essentially turning the honour and the fatigue of the occupation to the French and the British. This American disengagement however would offer Churchill the possibility to reorganize the territories west of the Elbe in a more congenial way to British interests. In this effort, he received support from Mussolini, who would soon agree on the necessity to rebuild a strong Germany allied of the West as bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

At Potsdam was decided that Germany would have passed through a process of De-Nazification, democratization, and demilitarization controlled by the occupying forces – but there wasn’t a clear timetable of such a process nor how the defeated nation should implement it. Because it was decided the Nazi republican structure wasn’t viable at all, nor the failed Weimar one to be restored, it was agreed that the best solution would be create a new constitutional structure for Germany overseen by the Allied powers – albeit the ways and the methods would be discussed in successive meetings.

But, at Potsdam it was soon clear two different visions of Germany would emerge, a British and a Soviet one, or more accurately of Churchill and Stalin. In short, the Soviet leader wanted a Germany as humbled and weak as possible while the British first minister believed – with the right guidance, and not exclusively from London but with some from the German nation – some form of lenience and path of recovery should have been allowed. Left unsaid, it was to let Germany become a shield against the USSR. Churchill started to draft his own plans, his cabinet convening the best way to rebuild a strong as possible Germany within the boundaries of the treaty of Potsdam. It had to be a strong democracy, barring the chance to falling again into Nazi temptations, while friendly to the Western powers and hostile to the USSR, imposing a strong, moral leadership on the top of the country soon as possible.

At the end of 1945 and the start of 1946, the major political forces of the Weimar Republic started to reconstruct themselves: the Social Democrats, the Christian Conservatives, the Liberals and the Communists would soon emerge as the four major political forces able to gather consensus among a people desirous to restart. But Churchill had some reservations in supporting the German Conservatives, even if Catholics and Protestants managed to create an unified party, the CDU, under the leadership of Conrad Adenauer, with the exception of the Bavarians which pretended their own party, the CSU, albeit forming a federation. Those reservations were originated by a certain distrust of the Weimar conservatives in allowing the rise of Nazism; and Churchill wondered if they would be able to lead the new Germany. At the same time, the British government couldn’t support the Social Democrats as they doubted they had the stomach to stand up the Soviets; and the Liberals appeared politically weak as well.

Churchill considered the rise of a person ruling above the parties, a strong and reliable head of state convinced of democratic ideals and not able to be easily tossed aside in case of crisis nor put in a role so easily abolished. Rommel, as commander of the Free German army, couldn’t be useful, at least for a certain period of time, because he would have to face a trial as member of the Wehrmacht (despite not being tied with the Nuremberg trials and even with a sure absolution, it wouldn’t bode well for him leading Germany being such a divisive figure). He considered restoring a Presidency over Germany though Hindenburg’s example proved that route’s inefficiency. Therefore, Churchill would go for a more radical option and for a revisionist one: the reconstruction of the Imperial authority.

One of the major historical and philosophical debates during the war within the Great Alliance was “if the terms of Versailles would have been more lenient, that would have led to a new conflict?” One of those terms was the Allied enforcement to not let Hungary or Austria restore the Haspburg monarchy, though Italy was more permissive on the matter. With the new war, the Italian take on the matter seemed to be vindicated; if Otto of Haspburg was ruler of Austria or Hungary, those countries may have resisted Hitler’s siren call. At the same time, if Hindenburg started a path to Imperial restoration, Hitler may not have risen into power. When Hungary resisted to the Communist political assault and Otto was elected King of Hungary, Churchill saw Democratic Monarchism as a successful way to resist Communism.

There was also the fact Churchill started to take a like for the current leader of House Hohenzollern, Louis Ferdinand, who was the host of the Allied delegations in Potsdam, opening the family palace to them. Despite Hitler being without intention to restore the Imperial power, at the start of the war he allowed the two oldest grand nephews of Wilhelm II, Wilhelm and Louis Ferdinand, to be part of the German armed force, the former in the army and the second in the air. Wilhelm was injured during the war in France and died shortly after, gaining consensus among the German public opinion; forcing Hitler to remove Louis Ferdinand from any active duty and at the same time, being even more wary of the Hohenzollern.

When Wilhelm II died in 1941, his son Wilhelm and Louis Ferdinand resisted Hitler’s intention to let the former Emperor be buried in German soil, but failed to bar the presence of swastikas at the funerals. Tensions between the Fuhrer and the Hohenzollern continued to progressively boil up, until in 1943 it would reach a point of no return. The German fortunes in the war were declining at the point, and in his growing lunacy Hitler started to believe the Imperial family was plotting to remove him with the support of the other German nobles and generals of the Wehrmacht, eventually with Italian assistance through Philip of Hesse. The SS invasion of Italy and its consequent failure provoked in Berlin a series of purges across the German nobility – through Philip, the Nazi would arrive to accuse openly and arrest Wilhelm “the third”, as Goebbels’s propaganda called him. Wilhelm would defend himself vigorously denying any account of plot against Hitler, but his fate was already decided with a condemnation and an execution. If Louis Ferdinand didn’t face similar accusations or being arrested, it was due of the fact he was in occupied France under the supervision of Rommel and also the Nazi government decided Wilhelm’s execution was enough to keep the remnant German nobles in line.

Naturally, Louis Ferdinand was fed of Hitler and above all of Goebbels – while he would always denied it, there were murmurs he helped consistently the Nuremberg judges with information to use against him, one of them being the revelation of his affair with a Czech actress Lída Baarová, which ruined his reputation. Louis Ferdinand willingly agreed to help Rommel in his coup against Hitler when he was contacted by him, and while not being a major participant, his second fiddle role helped convince certain officers and generals to side with them. When the coup failed and Germany fell into chaos, the Hohenzollern prince became an important contact and diplomatic aid for Rommel and the Free German armies towards the Allies.

Churchill would start to move his pawns at the start of 1946, discussing of the option with Mussolini and De Gaulle. Now, the Duce saw Germany moving into the Anglo-French sphere so he was somewhat favourable to whatever decision London and Paris would take. Despite his inner anti-monarchism he saw the virtue of strong, restored monarchies against Communist interference – in Hungary it would work well, while feeling Serbia fell to the Communists and Greece was near to fall due to the dethronement of their respective dynasties. He felt however an Imperial German restoration could have lead to the rise of a “Prussian militarism/revanchism” no less dangerous than the Nazi regime if left unchecked. The Duce would soon go fully along with Churchill after the Togliatti trial, because he realized the Soviets started to build a propaganda campaign that was not only anti-Fascist, but even anti-Italian. Fearful of a Soviet invasion despite the bravado, Mussolini would totally align with Churchill on German matters, obtaining reinsurances on keeping Austria in the Italian sphere even beyond the period of occupation.

Convincing De Gaulle was harder, and the French President’s obstruction was the major obstacle to Churchill’s plans. In fact, to even consider an Imperial restoration, the British government needed a revision of the treaty of Versailles on the matter from its major proponents – hence Great Britain, Italy, France and the United States. But De Gaulle wasn’t in a strong position at the time to budge on the matter, especially after the French elections of 1946 while promoting his own political supporters, saw also a strong leftist surge, especially of Communist nature. In truth the General was more for a further division of Germany into several entities. This decision would paradoxically help Churchill in the long term, because it prolonged any potential decision to enact political elections in Germany sooner as possible, buying him time.


The United States’s approval would came out easily than expected when the Republicans got their majority in the Senate in the midterm elections of 1946, contacts between Downing Street and the GOP to promote a bill “for revisions of clauses of the treaty of Versailles against Germany” allowing a referendum of the constitutional asset of such country on the grounds of the one in Hungary (monarchy or republic) were made. The Republicans, seeing how it worked well for the Hungarians, and believing by supporting this move, they would start mending the division with the British, would start to discuss the bill in the early spring of 1947. The Wallace administration threatened to put a veto, but several Democrats would let him know they would back such bill, which passed with over the two third necessary to overcome the presidential veto. Wallace was livid especially over the fact his own party became so divided against him, creating an ulterior estrangement between the Presidency and the Democratic Party that would only hasten his fall.

The British would launch a Parliamentary Commission at the start of 1946, conveniently ending after the Wehrmacht trials, declaring “an Imperial restoration may adequately prevent risks of internal degeneration, destabilization and Nazi resurgence (and implied communist insurrection)”. The Italians simply reneged the Versailles clauses with a single Great Council summon during 1946 as well. While France would remain on intransigent positions, Churchill would commence negotiations and send diplomats with Louis Ferdinand. The Hohenzollern heir was conflicted – could he be the one to restore the honour of his family and of Germany? He wouldn’t appear like a puppet in the hands of the British and the French? Above all, would the German people accept him as Kaiser? Would going through a democratic election to restore his rights be reductive of his role? Taking some time to decide, he arrived to consult with Otto of Hungary and, in the end, with Erwin Rommel. The general’s reported words would be “You can do it, your Imperial Highness”. Rommel felt himself rather neutral towards an Imperial restoration, but he also knew it might have been a new change for Germany, to return to be a real Empire. So, after a last telephonic conversation with Churchill, Louis Ferdinand decided to throw the hat on the challenge: He would run the campaign to become Emperor of Germany as legitimate heir to the throne.

When word of that decision ran across the country, the public opinion was obviously divided and confused about the restoration. In the major parties, the Social Democrats would immediately demand a Republican Germany, the Liberals were rather open on the possibility, and the CDU was divided – Adenauer would have been for the Republic, but the CSU declared itself willing to restore the Monarchy, so in the end the two federal parties would agree on staying neutral on the matter. At the same time, a consultation on the constitutional asset of Germany would have unlocked the possibility of finally established government and a Parliament, so regardless of their positions, the political forces of the country would be in the end favourable to a constitutional referendum.

The French would still attempt to stall any form of free elections in Germany for all of 1947 as well, but the nuclear bombing of Warsaw forced De Gaulle to revise his own plans. In an emergency meeting between Churchill, Mussolini and De Gaulle in Orleans the 21th February of 1948, the French General would give his consensus for constitutional elections and successive ones in Germany, on certain reassurance – such as, Germany won’t being allowed, eventually by constitutional enforcement, to possess WMDs. The French National Assembly would agree to revise the debated Versailles clause in the summer of 1948.

However, at this point the relations between the USSR and the West went so abysmal, not only Stalin won’t agree to allow elections in the Soviet occupied part of Germany, but also gave the mandate to make East Germany a proper Communist state satellite to Moscow. France and Britain then would declare constitutional elections in West Germany for the August of 1949, accepting the division of the country in two parts. Churchill was unhappy – De Gaulle wasn’t displeased.

West Germany found itself embroiled in two electoral campaigns – one among parties, and another between Monarchists and Republicans, the latter being essentially Social Democrats. The SPD however would soon find itself disadvantaged in covering two campaigns, focusing too much on the defence of republican ideals to neglect the needs of the German people. Many remembered the failure of the last Republican government before the Nazis, looking to the humiliation of their country now divided and thought of older times when Germany was young, respected, united and Imperial. Louis Ferdinand would be convinced by his advisors to a constant travel across the country, promising to avoid the mistakes of his grandfather while respecting the new democratic Germany in formation, agreeing to work with everyone – Social Democrats included. The official support of Rommel behind Louis Ferdinand, however, was perceived by many as the trump card of the Hohenzollern heir.

The 14th of August 1949, the Monarchists won with almost the 53% of the votes; whereas the CDU-CSU gained 36% of the votes against the 31% of the SPD. Interestingly enough, Saxony was the German region that voted more for the monarchy, even more than Bayern. Signing an agreement with the Liberals, Konrad Adenauer will become the first “Reichkanzler” of the restored German Empire, recognized immediately by Britain and Italy (France will follow its recognition few weeks later) and the rest of free Europe, then the USA in the fall of the same year.

To mend ties with the SPD, Louis Ferdinand would agree to be officially recognized by the constitutional assembly gathered in Frankfurt on Main – where over a century ago the German revolutionaries offered the German crown to the King of Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm IV rejected the proposal; Louis Ferdinand gladly accepted. The ceremony happened the 1st September in a cheerful enough Frankfurt, which would be proclaimed capital of the Empire also due to the obvious inability to move to Berlin.

In the successive months, the crown, the government and the constitutional assembly would agree on a certain number of reforms – such as Germany becoming a federate nation (on the basis of certain preliminary decisions at Potsdam, which included the abolition of the state of Prussia – hence Louis Ferdinand with certain reluctance renouncing to the title of King of Prussia) with two chambers, the adoption of the 1848 flag with the iron cross on its middle, the definition of the roles of the Kaiser and the Reichkanzler, and the status of the nobility, one of the most debated and controversial issues.

Because of the claimed equality between federal regions, the ones that until 1918 had royal status (Bayern, Saxony, and Wurttemberg) would not be acknowledged as Kingdoms. But the heirs of such royal houses would see their title restored, and so for the lesser ranks, albeit of course not being anymore the rulers of their own regions. At the same time the Kaiser could have the right through parliamentary approval to appoint new nobles or demote others or even strip their titles. The nation would compensate the noble families victim of acknowledged Nazi purges (one of the most renown cases being Maurice of Hesse, son of Philip, restored in all his dignity despite being at the time more a Prince of Italy than of Germany). But the discussion between returned private properties and ones retained by the German state would cause certain legal contentions – one of the most famous being the property of the castles built by Ludwig II of Bayern, with the Wittelsbach determined to get their palaces back versus the federal state of Bayern. The legal cause lasted for decades and ended in a compromise where the Wittlesbach would obtain a limited property and use and a percentage of the profits coming from touristic visits.

While the “Bundesreich Deutschland“ would start to move its first steps, the new Kaiser would start to adapt himself to his newfound duties, accompanied by his wife, Kira Kirillova of Russia. While the Emperor would constantly have positive favour during all his reign, the Kaiserin would have to face for years the diffidence of her subjects, because she was merely Russian. Calm and pragmatic, Kira would contribute greatly to rebuild a court around the Imperial family, while venomous attacks from the Soviet Union (seeing the Hohenzollern restoration, along with the Haspburg one in Hungary, as a mere attempt of the West to plant the seed of a new White, Tsarist counter-revolution) and Democratic Republic of Germany (DDR) would contribute gradually to her gaining popularity among the Germans. For any good measure, Louis and Kira would officially renounce to whatever claim on the Russian throne for their children.

The rise of Louis Ferdinand would also mark as the rise of Konrad Adenauer as German leader of the Reich. Adjusting to this new reality, the Reichkanzler would proceed over the reconstruction of his nation, waiting for 1955 – the expected date for the end of foreign occupation – to make his first concrete steps in internal and foreign policy. It came at a time when German people all across the Kingdom were in an uproar. This was due to the ‘Miracle of Bern’, where the West German team miraculously (or some would say ‘cheatingly’) defeated the seemingly invincible Italian and Hungarian teams at the 1954 World Cup in the semi-final and final respectively. This would start a long-standing rivalry between Germany and Hungary, especially when the Hungarians triumphed in their semi-final rematch in 1958, which Hungary would win before going on to beat Brazil in the final (leading to Brazilian fears their team was ‘cursed’ until they won the 1962 event). The triumph in the World Cup brought a belief in rejuvenation back to the German psyche. It would bring pride back to a people, but it would bring mistrust back to the continent.

 

[Sorairo]

An Evil Miracle​

‘The War of Dragons: China 1948-1953’ by Wu Long
​

With the fighting in the Chinese War now reaching its merciful conclusion, it was agreed to hold peace negotiations in Budapest owing to the location’s supposed neutrality. The current border was roughly around the Yangtze, while the Xinjiang Rebellion complicated matters. Though there were representatives of the new Jiang government at the meeting, everyone knew that in all matters the Soviets would have the final say. The Soviets, led by none other than Molotov himself, arrived in Budapest on December 5th as the negotiations began. He recalled, ‘we were pretending to negotiate when we were actually begging for our lives’ and called it his most brutal assignment in all his days. The Soviets merely wanted to get a peace that would ensure they could restructure their economy away from war and hold off incoming famine. If that meant trampling on the PRC’s toes, no one cared - and if Jiang cared, she would be informed she could share the same fate as her husband. By contrast, Chiang wanted to increase his hold over China and become the sole ‘legitimate’ ruler of the Middle Kingdom, which meant reducing the PRC to a small, dependent inferior. Patton was constrained by past statements that he wouldn’t end the war until Communism was ended too. He knew he had to get a good deal to maintain credibility.

On the subject of the border, though the Soviets attempted to create one on the Yangtze, UN negotiators would accept nothing of the sort. They knew that Red China’s forces were in shambles and that they could probably reach Beijing in six months. Ultimately, the final borders would be at the Yellow River and Wei River (the latter to stop an unnatural protrusion into the PRC and keep the border relatively stable). Thus, everything up to Xian and Jinan fell under Chiang’s heel, reducing the PRC to a rump state. Furthermore, much like Berlin, Chiang insisted on having half of Beijing. This too was finally accepted, and South Beijing would escape the poverty that enveloped the PRC for the Cold War. The trickier questions would fall on the fate of Xinjiang and Tibet. While Tibet’s independence (in both allegiance in the Cold War as well as its self-government) was quickly accepted, Xinjiang was where the Soviets refused to yield. They did not want gigantic border exposure to a ‘Fascist’ state like Chiang’s, and threatened to pull out of the Conference. Much to Chiang’s reluctance, Xinjiang would become an independent state, likewise unaligned. However, behind closed doors, the rebel leaders of Xinjiang would silently swear themselves to defend the ROC if the Stalingrad Pact attacked it. Chiang had agreed to the terms for one reason: the greatest prize he could imagine.

While swearing he would never accept the loss of Xinjiang, Molotov showed his ace. Molotov offered to hand over Mao for trial. Many were shocked, thinking he’d already been killed. Others were shocked they could potentially be handing over an extreme asset when it came to information on the Stalingrad Pact. Indeed, this was the suggestion of the British, who thought Mao could be a supreme source of information, as well as a great propaganda coup if he turned on Stalin. However, Chiang would have none of it. As he would later tell Emperor Akihito of Japan, “I would have sold my soul to the Devil to send that man to Hell myself”. With that done, Mao’s transfer to the ROC for trial was arranged. Chiang insisted that unlike Nuremburg, only Chinese officials would administer the trial. It would be an explicitly Chinese rebuke to Mao, all the way to the grave. When asked if it would be acceptable to the Soviets if the death penalty were on the table for the trial, Molotov smiled and replied, “Either you’re going to do it or we will”.

It was agreed that neither side would pay reparations to the other, prisoners would be transferred and that no side would take guilt. These were fairly standard clauses, but the Soviets wanted one in particular: they wanted to re-enter diplomatic relations with the West. This meant a re-opening of the Washington embassy. Patton replied, “I’d sooner let Jack the Goddamned Ripper into this country than a Soviet Diplomat”. Ultimately, the Soviets knew that this was coming. Discussing over the phone with Khrushchev, Molotov asked what carrot he could dangle to get the Americans to accept such a pledge. Khrushchev, however, had a plan. On December 23rd 1952, Molotov told UN negotiators, explicitly making sure there were Israeli, Polish and German representatives in the room, that not only would the Soviets return all World War 2 prisoners of war, but that they would offer unrestricted right of emigration to the Jewish population, as well as ending martial law in Poland. The reason this policy was chosen was that while all three of the Troika agreed the persecution of Jews had to end, no one was sure how they could be re-integrated into society. Their homes had been given to others, their jobs to others and society had been taught to harbor an intense hatred of them. Fearing social unrest if the Jews returned to the general population, it was reluctantly agreed that the best course of option would be to try and barter the population off in return for a desirable political end, in this case the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with America. The other clauses further excited interest. President Einstein of Israel would plead with Patton to accept the deal, offering political cover by loudly proclaiming the merit of the proposal. Gaitskell, De Gaulle and Adenauer would accept, but Patton and Mussolini were still reluctant. It would ultimately take a telephone conversation with Władysław Szpilman to convince Patton to accept the offer, at which Mussolini also relented.

The Treaty of Budapest would be signed on January 1st 1953. In the West, the massively favourable change of border northward convinced the populations that the war had been ‘won’. The capture of Mao also soothed much of the blood lust that had been whipped up against Communism, with everyone looking forward to the imminent justice the West’s greatest hate figure short of Stalin would receive. Most people, though it was controversial to extreme Anti-Communists like the John Birch Society, ultimately ignored the Soviet delegation clause. The new Soviet delegation was confined to a small cottage far away from Washington, under constant American military guard – both to protect the diplomats from attack and scare them into submission. As one Soviet diplomat recalled about his time at the new embassy, “It was once a statement of your capability to get a diplomatic assignment to America – now it was a punishment’. The Soviets did not push their luck and ask to take their UN seat back, thus ensuring the UN would remain a pristinely Anti-Communist organisation. Mussolini would crow about Italy’s role in the successful operation, while silently realising how much it had cost. Mussolini would further liberalize the economy in the coming years while cutting military spending – this would give Aflaq the time he needed to build up his army. In China, Chiang proclaimed from the ROC’s new capital of Nanking (South Beijing being too exposed) that he was the only ‘relevant’ voice in China. He was left with a country that, though in tatters, not only was resolutely in his hands following the destruction of the warlords, but saw him as by far the lesser evil compared to the Soviet sock-puppet up north. Jiang was hurt by the extent of the concessions she had been forced to make and would find the role of administering ‘this godforsaken state’ to be a tiring and depressing one. It would lead to her many ‘eccentricities’ that would make her infamous across the world.

On February 27th, symbolically five years to the day when Mao began his ill-fated adventure, the first day of the Dictator’s trial began. Free of any constraints imposed by the Western democracies, Chiang structured the trial more for his own gratification than any sense of finding the truth of Mao’s misdeeds, which were indeed many and unforgivable. Mao was torn to shreds by the endless line of witnesses from Chinese society, from mothers who had lost their sons on both sides of the conflict, to farmers who had lost their whole family in the agony of famine after collectivization, to those who lost everyone they ever loved due to Red Guard massacres. Witnesses and victims likewise listed Mao’s sexual misdeeds. The victims were often forced to pause when members of the court interrupted in their fury to demand Mao’s immediate execution. The prison guards, who had lost loved ones in the war, regularly abused Mao, and his spirit slowly faded as the trial continued. Ultimately, of course, there was no doubt. On August 12th, the verdict came in: guilty, with sentence of death. On September 11th 1953, Mao was publicly hanged in Nanking to a crowd of 500,000 gathering to attempt to get a look. Chiang himself was the most prominent spectator. While many in the West felt the display was somewhat primitive, the Roman Alliance applauded Chiang’s ‘superb rebuke of the Red Bandit, brought to justice before the millions whom he dreamed of enslaving’, to quote Ciano’s press-release on behalf of the bloc. Mao’s last confirmed words were spoken three days before, his spirit having been so thoroughly worn out that he was effectively mute thereafter. His last words were, “I should have invaded Russia”.

‘Miracle: The History of Israel’ by Joel Hagee​

“One week we were slaves, the next we were free, the next we were off to the Promised Land.” So recalled acclaimed Israeli writer Boris Pasternak upon arrival in Israel shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Budapest. Fellow Israeli writer Vasily Grossman would call the news ‘Our Rapture’. The news of their deliverance was met more with shock and bewilderment than any wild outpourings of joy, but one thing was for sure: few wished to stay in the brutal confines of the Communist Bloc. The Israeli government and Zionist organisations across the world contributed everything they could get to help fund the transfer of Jews out of the Soviet Union. A period of harsh austerity would define the Israel of the 1950s, as the government was forced to spend inordinate amounts of funds on not only the transfer of the Jewish population but their accommodation in Israel, where some 1.5 million Soviet Jewish refugees would settle, almost doubling Israel’s population in the space of two years (America would be the next highest at 300,000). The refugees, though sometimes given resources barely more than what they endured in Siberia, were more than content with their escape from the Soviet jailhouse, a fate millions of their fellow citizens remained condemned to. Israel’s incredible victories in what was then simply called ‘The Arabian War’, culminating in the total recapture of the Holy Land down to the Temple Mount after nearly 2000 years of Jewish helplessness, had inspired Jews to believe anything was possible in the new Jewish state. They wanted to be part of the Israeli project, and gladly did what they could to help. Foreign journalists would note that while these ‘DIY Ghettoes’ as some Jewish comedians called them were almost invariably poor and struggling to get by, the mood was never glum. Crime was near non-existent and, ironically, a form of Socialism seemed to exist among the inhabitants, with everyone looking after their neighbor. Children with holes in their shoes would play in traditional Yiddish theatre; musicians with instruments literally kept together with tape and strings would give free orchestral performances to keep the morale of the settlements up. Some would last until 1958, but they would remain indelibly steeped into the Jewish collective memory.

The refugee camps (which eventually grew into their own metropolis-like settlements) were primarily located in and around major Jordanian cities, like Amman. Amman would quickly develop a reputation as a distinctly Russian city, in comparison to the more Western European Tel Aviv and Mizrahi-dominated Jerusalem (this division was usually encouraged by Israeli leaders to give each group ‘their own space’). Amman had been semi-abandoned following the flight and expulsions that accompanied the war, and the more urban Soviet diaspora quickly took advantage of the opportunity to construct their own society from the ground up. Even today, Amman’s streets often seem to have more Russian signage than Hebrew. Nevertheless, the Soviet refugee population would quickly occupy an important part of Israeli society in general. By 1970, the Soviet Jewish population would make up some 70% of Israeli University students. Russian was given the same legal prominence as Arabic and Hebrew, ahead of English. Thankfully for stability’s sake, the new influx proved diverse in their political leanings, as the Israeli Left had long since shed any sympathy for Communism. Though times were unquestionably tough in Israel, there was little organised resistance to the influx Thus, by the time of the Second Arab War, some 90% of Israel was Jewish, even with their expansion into Jordan. The Russian influx would prove to be of immense economic, military and demographic advantage to the fledgling Jewish state.

This miracle has one unlikely person to thank: Michel Alfaq. During the Budapest negotiations, the question of what to do with the Jewish population had arisen. Khrushchev’s policy of encouraging Jewish emigration, which he called ‘the Friendly Kick Policy’, was interesting to Molotov and Malenkov, but all agreed Aflaq would have to be consulted given that it could radically affect his security situation. Molotov called Aflaq and told him the plan. Molotov recalled, ‘When I said what we were considering, I couldn’t see it, but I could feel a grin on the other side of the phone’. Aflaq informed Molotov that he would have no objection to the policy, the Soviet Foreign Minister was relieved but confused. Eventually, upon a state visit by Aflaq to Moscow in 1955, the UAR’s Dictator was asked why he had agreed to millions of Jews pouring into Israel when it would swell the army of his chief enemy. Aflaq smiled and replied, ‘It’ll be much easier to wipe them out if they’re all in one place, right?’

However, if Khrushchev thought that the liberation of so many Jews would result in good PR for the Soviets, he was dead wrong. Now millions of witnesses stood ready to testify to the dark days of their confinement in the Russian gulag system, a system that everyone knew still existed. No one attributed their freedom to the benevolence of the Soviets, since it was blatantly obvious that the country was already falling to pieces and needed a way to climb out of the hole. After winning the 1954 World Chess Championship for Israel after he had originally won the title for the USSR, Mikhail Botvinik would call the Soviet Union, ‘A monster in human clothes, only it’s so poor and ragged now few can fail to spot the monster anymore’. Though both ITO and the Roman Alliance would gradually readmit Soviet diplomats into their country following the Chinese War, the Soviets refused to recognise Israel right to exist right until the former’s abolition.

‘The Death Spiral: Stalin 1941-1953’ by Alexi Ivanovitch​

The mood in the Kremlin on January 3rd 1953 was not a pleasant one, not that it had been anything else in recent months. The Troika was exhausted after they had desperately clawed the Soviet Union back from the brink. Stalin’s foolish waste of money and lives in the pointless struggles of Asia were brought to a merciful end. North China was dealing with the fact their former Demigod leader was being handed over on a silver-platter to their eternal enemy while every other Stalingrad Pact was now terrified the same fate would befall them. The relaxation of martial law in Poland and release of the German and Jewish population from their prison camps meant that the labour camp population would fall down to 3% from a height of 10% - still terrible but certainly an improvement. Their only non-Communist ally was Aflaq and they knew that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. The Soviet Union was despised like no other nation in peacetime had ever been. There was only one thing that seemed to be a source of pride: the West had not discovered Stalin’s comatose condition, at least as far as they knew. And yet soon, even that calm tranquility was about to change. It was a cold morning, cold even for winter.

The Troika was discussing what the Soviet’s official response to the Mao Trial would be. At that moment, they were startled when an adjutant burst through the door. Molotov recalled, “His face was in bliss but his eyes were in terror”. Though the Troika was not as cruel as their predecessor, they were angry at the young man’s entrance and demanded to know why he had burst in like that.

The young man stuttered. “C-comrades! I give you the greatest news possible! A miracle! Our brave leader, Comrade Stalin, he … he’s woken up!”

 

[Kotka]

@Sorairo dude this is how divided China looks like after the war?

 

[Kotka]

Cool, in that case here's a map of the world after the Great Chinese War.

 

[Sorairo]

Hey all, as an apology for the long wait, I quickly wrote another update.

The New Administration

False Hope: The USSR 1953-1957
​

Doctors (and the Troika) were astonished that Stalin had recovered from his coma, but his condition could barely be described as ‘recovery’. He was racked with pain and in too much agony to attend to issues of state. This gave the Troika brief breathing space to plan what to do, as they sealed themselves shut in the Kremlin. None of them held any illusion about what would happen if Stalin fully recovered. After a humiliating peace, total reversal of some of his most recently enacted policies and outright dealing with the Western powers, they would be labeled traitors who attempted to seize power for themselves. They would be lucky to even survive the first night. In Molotov’s account of the proceedings, both he and Malenkov tried to come up with ways to explain to Stalin the necessity of their actions, until it was finally Khrushchev who stood up.

“Comrades,” he said in a grave voice, “we’re more likely to convince Patton to spy for us than get our General Secretary to see the wisdom of our actions. No, if we stay, we die. Run? Where? Stalin will find us if we’re in the USSR. If we go to an ally, we’ll be handed over. If we go to the West, they’ll kill us themselves. No comrades, we have to face facts … Our General Secretary is currently suffering in extreme pain. He’s worked extremely hard to ensure that the Soviet Union became a great power, and it has. He worked to defend us from the German invader, and he did. He has accomplished more than any leader in the history of Russia … and it would be such a shame if he were continue to harm his great legacy …”

Supposedly, Malenkov and Molotov were startled before being cowed by Khrushchev’s deadly seriousness.

“It will be an act of love. An act of loyalty. An act of ensuring that Comrade Stalin will be praised until the end of time, before he could do anything that would permanently harm his name. Do you want to be known as the men who allowed our suffering, honorable leader to perish so painfully at the cost of the lives of so many of the citizens he loved dearly?”

At this, Molotov and Malenkov supposedly meekly agreed to the suggestion that ‘if we didn’t go along with it, Khrushchev would kill us just as quickly’. However, many historians doubt this version of events and believe Molotov invented this story to minimize his role in the seedier aspects of the Soviet state. Notably, he had received word on December 27th that his Jewish wife had been killed in the Gulag under explicit order of Stalin as a test of his loyalty. Stalin’s medical episode had ensured Molotov didn’t get the message until much later when investigations were begun by Molotov as the Troika assumed power. For this reason, many historians suspect that the blame would be passed off on Khrushchev exclusively. Regardless, it’s doubtless that Khrushchev was supportive of the move. He still held resentment to Stalin over the Holodomor in Ukraine and was considered the most bull-headed and determined of the Troika. It’s unlikely anything could have been passed without his approval. If Malenkov didn’t agree, he certainly didn’t stop what happened.

On the night of January 3rd 1953, Stalin had somewhat recovered from his initial pains from his hospital bed (located inside the Kremlin to minimize the risk of discovery). He couldn’t breathe by himself and was on life-support, but had a sense of his surroundings. According to one of the medical staff present, Stalin asked for a newspaper to see what was going on in the world. The moment the staffer left to get one, three armed guards and Khrushchev walked into the room. Khrushchev thanked the doctors for their service before quietly but threateningly demanding that all medical staff leave the room immediately. At that, the doors were sealed from within. History does not record what precisely happened in the room, whether Stalin and Khrushchev talked, whether Stalin realised what was going on or whether any of the four intruders hesitated. All that is known for sure is that when the four exited the room, Stalin was dead. Historians believe the dictator was disconnected from his life support apparatus and slowly suffocated. The medical staff were soon gathered and told that if there were any ‘malicious rumours spread about Khrushchev’s ‘coincidental visit’ then they could expect reprisal.

On January 4th 1953, Stalin’s death was announced to the world with no mention of the dictator’s condition other than he had ‘a long battle with illness’. In truth, Western leaders had long suspected something was wrong in the Soviet Union and with Stalin specifically. It’s likely that the deception would have been announced soon, making it a serendipitous event for the Troika. Of course, Stalin got glowing adulation and a state funeral (while Israel declared a state holiday). Khrushchev gave a well-acclaimed speech at Stalin’s funeral, ensuring that while he never became the new Totalitarian figure of the 1950s, he would become the first among equals in the Troika, whose word was final. Stalin’s death met little outpouring of grief around the globe, his name (and Communism itself) having long since been cursed by millions.

‘The Home of the Holy: The Miraculous Story of Lebanon’ by Jerry Robertson​

The 1953 Lebanese elections would confirm the worst fears of Western leaders. The Baath Party won in a landslide, their electorate buoyed by the astonishing economic revival across the border in Syria and the electrifying speeches Aflaq regularly broadcasted over the border. He made no secret of his desire to incorporate Lebanon into his new UAR, and it seemed like the Lebanese people were fine with that. The West was too exhausted to fight the Baathists after having spent so much blood and treasure in China. Furthermore, Gaitskell and DeGaulle refused to let Aflaq be a ‘Democratic Martyr’ in a war to stop the sovereign will of the Lebanese people being realised. Thus, the world could only watch in revulsion as the Lebanese Parliament on September 4th 1953 announced a snap referendum on September 30th to allow the electorate to vote on whether to join the UAR or not. Though it would likely have won even without voter intimidation, Baath attacks on the Pro-Independence campaign ensured it was never a fair contest. The result was a conclusive 82% voting for union with the UAR. On October 1st, a procession of tanks crossed the former Lebanese border with Aflaq standing on the foremost vehicle in a display of astonishing ostentatiousness. It was announced that he would give a speech in the Lebanese Parliament building on October 10th. Most thought it was going to be a normal speech; they were very wrong.

After the enthusiastic clapping of the Baath representatives died down (along with the more muted but still decent applause from Non-Baathists), Aflaq smiled and waved them to rest. He began with a glowing endorsement of Lebanon as a state where religious differences had been put aside in the name of the Arab race. He extolled Christian and Muslim relations in the country and said that all Arabs had to unite to face the Zionist threat. Then his expression turned sour. With film crews recording the scene, he announced that there was urgent news that needed to be announced. At that, Lebanon’s President until the annexation, Camille Chamoun, was ushered in and he shuffled to the podium with Aflaq taking a step back and watching with razor-sharp intensity at the man before him. Troops filled the chamber and sealed all but the main door. Chamoun stuttered, obviously under extreme duress and having received torture. He announced that he was a member of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Mossad to assassinate Aflaq and pave the way for total annexation of Arabia up to the Euphrates for Israel. Of course, no such thing had happened and it could easily have been a fictitious Italian, French or British conspiracy, but Chamoun’s Pro-West and Anti-Pan-Arabism beliefs had made him an unacceptable figure in the new Lebanon. After announcing his fictitious allegiance, he pulled out a paper from his pocket, saying “My conspirators are in the room with me right now, and these are their names …” The names of several prominent opponents of the Baathists were read out. With each name, Baath guards grabbed the doomed man from their seats and dragged them out the door. Then members of the Baath Party themselves were dragged out (ones identified by Aflaq as ‘unreliable’). After the seventh name was called out, blind panic filled the room. No one knew if they were next. Some MPs leaped out of their chairs, screaming countless praises. “GLORY TO MICHEL AFLAQ! SAVIOUR OF THE ARABS! CHOSEN BY GOD! SON OF HEAVEN! BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN AND MOON! WE SWEAR ON THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN TO DIE FOR YOU! DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE YOU!” It made no difference. The list continued to be read, names pulled seemingly at random. Aflaq coldly watched the proceedings from behind the podium. Finally, after nearly thirty names had been called, Chamoun announced he had completed his reading. The remaining MPs collapsed back into their chairs, some crying, some vomiting and some ultimately needing medical attention. Aflaq ended his speech by praising the loyalty and determination of the remaining parliamentarians. At his conclusion, parliamentarians gave an hour-long standing ovation reminiscent of Stalin. That evening, the arrested ministers were divided into two groups. The first, including Chamoun, were lined up against a wall. The second group were given guns and ordered to gun down their colleagues, after being told that if even one of the ministers failed to shoot, all their families would be considered targets. With no choice, the entire second group fired every bullet into the first, often into their own best friends. Now accomplices to the Baath Party’s monstrosities, many would stay with the Party until the bitter end while others would commit suicide after failing to get over what they had been forced to do. [1]

What would become known in modern Lebanon as ‘Black Saturday’ may have started in Parliament, but would include the whole country. That night, Baathists attacked any and all supporters of Lebanese Independence, leading to rioting fully encouraged and tolerated by the army. Many former ministers made a desperate escape to one of the foreign embassies. Indeed, the situation was so bad that some made an outright break for the Israeli and Turkish borders, since even the ‘Zionists’ and Fascists seemed a friendlier group. Other officials weren’t so lucky and were outright strung up on lampposts in Centre Ville for days in what was once called the ‘Paris of the East’. It is estimated that some 1400 people were killed in the cull. Foreign observers were mortified and began leaving in droves, feeling that whatever life and vibrancy Lebanon once enjoyed were destined to be extinguished under the Baath’s Totalitarian insanity. However, the Baath had made a crucial mistake. Their leadership had grown increasingly arrogant and felt they could get away with anything. In Iraq, they had been somewhat conciliatory to the old regime, but no such kindness was allowed here. This created what could be described as the only significant ‘Arab’ resistance to the UAR (the Kurds being their own group). They became known as the ‘Cedarists’, after the cedar tree on Lebanon’s flag. They were a group of Maronite Christians who did not identify as Arabs and felt closer union to the ancient Pheocenians than to Iraqis. They may have been a small and mercilessly persecuted group whose ultimate goal of freeing Lebanon single-handedly never came close to achievement, but their efforts would be more profound than they could imagine. Indeed, it’s likely their efforts were what spared Beirut from what befell so much of the Middle East in 1956.

‘The Arab Tragedy: 1944–1956’ by Abdul Nazim​

The annexation of Lebanon was a watershed moment for Aflaq. While having managed to regain access to the Mediterranean for his native Syrians (going as far as to allow the Soviet Navy to dock in Beirut), he was by now convinced the time for the final conflict with Israel, Fascism and Colonialism was rapidly approaching. With the death of Ibn Saud in 1953 and the rise to power of the less respected King Saud, Saudi Arabia too became increasingly influenced by the UAR, even though it kept its nominal independence. Aflaq was not ready to start an outright conflict with the West, but believed that he could begin using proxies to combat Western influence in the Middle East, particularly Britain. Aflaq was particularly unconcerned with Britain, believing that Gaitskell’s Anti-Colonialist stance restrained their involvement. In 1954, war returned to the Middle East in the quiet backwater of Oman.

The Jebel Akhdar War began when Omanis in the nation’s interior, under command of elected Imam Ghalib Alhianai, fought against Sultan Said bin Taimur, who was backed by the British. Taimur wanted to access Oman’s internal oil fields and received payment from BP, Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil to bring the interior under his control and allow drilling. Inspired with greed, the Sultan quickly accepted. In December 1954, the Sultan’s forces marched to Adam in an attempt to occupy the city. They were shocked to discover that their adversaries were well armed with Soviet weapons that the UAR had sent. Almost as quickly as this news reached the Sultan, word was received that Pro-UAR riots were breaking out in Muscat The Sultan was totally unprepared for the level of conflict that was about to break out, with his mercenary army soon abandoning him at the first hint of trouble. British oil companies pleaded with Gaitskell to intervene to save the Sultan. Gaitskell dithered, disgusted by the actions of the oil companies and of their neo-colonial enterprise, but also deeply concerned about Aflaq. Before anything could be done, it was announced on March 5th 1955 that Muscat had fallen to Alhianai’s army. To stop foreign intervention, Alhianai petitioned to join the UAR, which was gratefully accepted by Aflaq. Like Nasser, Alhianai would become the de facto dictator of Oman while Aflaq remained the De jure sovereign leader.

Word of the fall of Oman led to Gaitskell being savaged by both the British press and Tory Party (not to mention Mosley’s Fascists). Anthony Eden blasted Gaitskell as ‘the new Chamberlain’ (“I would ask the Right Honorable Gentleman what Party did Mister Chamberlain lead?” retorted Gaitskell). Nevertheless, the resulting political turmoil led to an election on May 26th 1955. Gaitskell was popular for his social reforms while many felt his Anti-Colonial beliefs had been discredited and emboldened the dark forces of the world. At the same time, while the Tories were more trusted on foreign policy, many feared they would hurt the welfare state. Ultimately, the result of the election was that Labour was the largest party, but it did not have a majority. Oswald Mosley cheered over reaching 50 seats on being economically interventionist while being tough in foreign policy. The only way Gaitskell could get a majority was for Mosley to give ‘supply and confidence’, which wouldn’t be a full coalition. Gaitskell replied to Mosley’s offer by saying, “Churchill may have willing to speak highly of the Devil, but I wouldn’t so much breathe the same air you desecrate with your presence.” Outraged, Mosley turned to the Conservatives. Eden, though not liking Mosley, accepted the BUF’s proposal of Supply and Confidence in return for not reversing Gaitskell’s social reforms. Outside of Downing Street, as the new Prime Minister took his office, he smiled and said, “The era of retreat is over. Britain will never back down again!” He wouldn’t have to wait long to put that claim to the test.


[1] This event is almost exactly how Saddam’s own purge of the Baath Party went down. Yes, it was also recorded.

 

[RyuDrago]

Hello to all, today we will have an insight over Pius XII's pontificate, and my first attempt of a biography. All with the review and approval of Sorairo. Enjoy!

Princeps Ecclesia: the Pontificate of Pius XII of Orazio Maffei​

When Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope the 2nd March of 1939, nobody was surprised – his proven diplomatic skills and administrative actions in the Holy See made him the most suitable candidate for the throne of Saint Peter, in such a delicate moment when Europe was falling towards the precipice of war.

The reactions from Italy and Germany were lukewarm to say the least – messages of congratulations were sent from the Berlin Chancellory and the east side of the Tiber, but both Hitler and Mussolini had reasons to question the new Pope. The Fuhrer was suspicious of the influence Pius XII would exercise on the German Catholic Church, considering that the Pope had great knowledge of German affairs – he was Nuncius for Bavaria, Prussia, and then Weimar Germany for several years. He managed to get a concordat with Hitler, which soon would be repeatedly violated by the Nazi government. Over such violations, Pius XI was so close to breaking relations with Germany – Pius XII was not. The new Pope believed a denunciation of the violation of the concordat would have put Hitler on a more intransigent position against the Catholic Church, while he still wanted to keep open a diplomatic channel with Berlin in a hopeless attempt to prevent war in Europe. This decision, among with other apparent controversial ones during the conflict, would lead later to certain criticism especially in the US, France, and Central Europe against him, being accused to have been pro-Nazi or at least pro-German.

Mussolini was wary as well of Pius XII. Despite the facade of cordiality in the various encounters they would have in several years, the Duce didn’t approve of certain diplomatic activism of the Pope which could have forestalled his projects of a parallel war during the main European conflict, or the influence he would exercise in certain Roman palaces and among the Italians in general, due to his anti-clerical views. At the same time, even if the Pope would acknowledge Franco’s regime when the Nationalists won in Spain, the Fascist regime had reasons to think deep inside, Pius XII intimately supported or at least was aligning more towards democratic feelings. So, despite the Lateran pacts, Mussolini would be suspicious of the intentions of the Holy See and only his pragmatism allowed Church and Italian State to cooperate during the years of the war and beyond.

These relationships would prove to change with the times: Pius XII appreciated the declaration of Italian neutrality and the decision to not take advantage of the French defeat, while being against the invasion of Yugoslavia, a nation which the Holy See just signed a concordat with a few years before. But he acknowledged the creation of the Catholic kingdom of Croatia, and while not sold on Pavelic’s regime, he supported the coronation of Amedeo Aimone of Savoia-Aosta as king of Croatia to potential counterweight against the dictator. The coronation of “Tomislav II” was by the archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Viktor Stepinac. Stepinac was one of the youngest archbishops of the time and would prove to be one of the most energetic and charismatic high prelates during the war and the Cold War as well, in Croatia and beyond; assuming the title of Primate of Croatia, he would become the natural leader of his national Church. The Archbishop, while supporting Croatian independence and the union with Bosnia, he would progressively contest Pavelić’s pogroms in Bosnia, despite the same Catholic Church of Croatia being divided on the matter. Stepinac, who was previously active in giving asylum and protection to political refugees from the Nazi occupied territories, made sure to safeguard hundred of Serbian and Muslim Bosnians where possible (actions which later contributed to accelerate his beatification process); he would later support the Brutus conspiracy against Pavelic and therefore Kvaternik’s more pro Italian, Fascist aligned, government.

Pius XII also didn’t appreciate the invasion and the slicing up of Greece, albeit its aftermath which led to the creation of the Roman Alliance brought the Holy See to gradually normalize relations with Bulgaria, after the past tensions with Tsar Boris III (when he agreed to marry Giovanna di Savoia with a Catholic marriage in Assisi through a Papal dispensation, he then performed a new Orthodox wedding in Sofia and claim the latter to be the official one hence disregarding the dispensation; he even backpedalled over the promise to baptize his children in the Catholic faith). Relations with Turkey would slowly and progressive improve as well, in the early 1940’s due to the diplomatic effort of Angelo Roncalli. Roncalli, who in the 30’s was nuncius in Bulgaria, being burned by Boris’s treachery towards the Holy See, in Turkey was able to organize a relief organization over war refugees from Central and Oriental Europe. Turk-Vatican cooperation would increase in the wake of the Arab-Israeli wars and the rise of the Arab Federation, when Ankara would start to see the Christian minorities in Syria as potential allies against Aflaq’s regime, thinking only the Catholic Church had enough leverage to coalesce them into a united front.

When the Roman Alliance was established, Pius XII was supportive of it – believing the phase of Italian expansionism was ended and the same alliance to be a valid counterweight against Nazi Germany and above all, the Soviet Union. The fact the alliance was religiously diverse didn’t bother him much despite certain isolated murmurs in the curia. In the meanwhile, with the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Pope would attempt to barter a peace deal between Germany and the Allies – but Hitler scoffed away those attempts. Pius XII was also concerned of the growing grip of the Nazi regime against the Catholic Church, where isolated voices started to attempt a feeble opposition. Also concerning voices over the persecutions of Jewish communities and their potential, tragic fate as for other minorities (Jehovah’s witnesses, Roma, homosexuals and more) started to leak south of the Alps. Even converted Hebrews weren’t considered safe. The Holy See allowed, whenever possible, escape or hiding plans so that later several courageous prelates, being alive or died, would receive the title of “Just among the nations” from the Israelis. But the people saved was still too few; this would later lead to the controversy about Pius XII knowing or not of the holocaust and making few or nothing to denounce it during the war.

When Italy was invaded by Germany, Pius XII had no other choice than breaking all relations with the Reich and officially condemn Hitler, but still hesitating to excommunicate him (the Fuhrer was Catholic baptized after all) to not cause a definitive persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany and the other occupied nations. It was reason of a debate between the Holy See and several Allied delegations to discuss of how the same Church could contribute in putting further pressure against the Nazi regime. But it was decided in the end the Vatican effort would be, aside than publicly endorsing the effort of the Allies, more based on an underground level. There was also the fact Pius XII didn’t want to commend the efforts of the Soviets, considering they partitioned Poland and invaded Lithuania; the Pope was pretty rigid towards Stalin for this. It was a compromise that left many unhappy at the time, probably mostly Churchill and Mussolini for propaganda reasons, but in the end all went for it.

Still the Vatican made its own plans and projects during the last phase of the war. Pius XII for example was highly supportive of the Italian plans to put Otto of Haspburg on the throne of Hungary – one of the few things the Pope and the Duce really agreed over would have been the revival or the defence of European monarchism in Central Europe, as bulwark against potential Nazi threats, and above all Communism. At the same time, he would have been highly supportive of the Hohenzollern restoration in Germany, a nation that later would sign a new and fairer concordat. But Pius XII and Mussolini diverged over the fate of Austria and Hungary – the Pope even arrived to support a reconstruction of the Austrian-Hungarian union through Otto, Mussolini wasn’t interested. When the fate of Austria and Hungary was delineated for good at Potsdam, the Pope invited the Austrian Church to work with the restored Schuschnigg government and the Hungarian Church to support the monarchists, while funds arrived from Rome. The Vatican would support the democratic Czech government as well.

Towards the end of the war, with the discovery of the Holocaust, Pius XII felt compelled to revise the historic bias of the Church against the Jews, arriving to declare Ex Cathedra in 1947 - the abolition of the accusation of “deicide” against them. With a generally favourable Catholic and in particular Italian public mood, the Pope would eventually commence a phase of distension and discussion with the Jewish communities across the world and in private with the Zionist movement. Pius XII would agree to acknowledge Israel after its declaration of independence, not before, believing it would have irked the newly independent Arab nations and bring them to act against the Christian and Catholic minorities in the Middle East and believed through the United Nation, a compromise would have been found. But the Arabs would prove intransigent since the start. After the Israeli-RA victory in the First Arabian war, the Catholic Church obtained moral leadership of the guardianship of the Christian sites in Jerusalem and Israel, albeit it was agreed such sites would be shared with other Christian Churches. Through the years, the Vatican would contribute to the development of Israel through IOR investments in infrastructures in order to develop religious tourism in the country, albeit with the growing reason of pride for the Church. Those moves lead to the consolidation and preservation of a vital Catholic community in Israel. This would provide the springboard for the momentous events that would shape Lebanon and Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s.

But more than the Arab-Israeli conflict, in the immediate post war the Pope was more concerned with the Soviet campaign in Poland. The Polish Catholic Church sided mostly with the Polish insurgency since the start, the Vatican sending financial assistance along with supplies of all possible sort. But the nuclear bombing of Warsaw was a red line for the Pope as well – three days after the tragic event, Pius XII excommunicated the Soviet Union and whoever was actively communist, even in the democratic countries. At the same time, he upheld “the fate of Russia to be offered over the immaculate heart of Mary. “ As later was revealed, that particular declaration was done in reference to the prophecies of Fatima, of which Pius XII was devoted.

At the same time, the Pope cried “blessed be those in the time of persecution and martyrdom arrived for the Polish and the Polish Catholic Church, for their suffering will open unto them the gates of Heaven”, attempting to reorganize the remnants of said clergy. The attack on Warsaw’s victims included the archbishop of the city and Primate August Hlond, who was one of the strongest voices of protest of the Polish resistance. Therefore Pius XII would elevate as new archbishop Stephan Wyszynski, the second of Hlond. Wyszynski wasn’t in Warsaw at that time, as Hlond sent him in the countryside to overlook the needs of the population and also as a liaison with the rebel forces.

After managing to contact him, the Holy See informed him of the Pope’s decision to make him new archbishop of Warsaw and Primate of Poland – a decision that he accepted with a heavy heart. Due to the inability to reach the Polish city, Wyszynski agreed to reach Krakow, receiving his consecration there few hours before the official surrender of the city to the Soviets. The new leader of the Polish Catholic Church managed to release a message of hope to his battered nation, to be later arrested and put in isolation – he was spared only because Stalin was satisfied enough of the supposed end of the Polish resistance and didn’t mind at all of “an archbishop without a city”. But in the hearts and the minds of the Poles, Wyszynski would be another symbol of their endless struggle against the Russian (be they Soviet or else) ogre…

Shepherd of my Own People, by Karol Wojtyla​

“…Rome, I admit myself, was truly an oasis of peace compared to my battered Poland, defeated but also ready to stand again. I was so proud when I heard of the liberation of Warsaw; all believing our nation would become free and independent soon. But, as the Soviets betrayed us in 1939, they were ready to betray us in 1945 as well (…)

I never experienced first hand the conflict between the Soviet occupiers and my nation’s patriots, as my superiors sent me in Rome to complete my studies at the Angelicum. But, how I wanted to abandon them and return to Poland a hundred times! I wrote several letters to Krakow, which always took some time because they had to be rerouted through Czechia, asking to be reassigned back home, eventually completing my studies later. But they wrote them back “we need people like you for the future of Poland and the Polish Church, not right now. “ It seemed unfair to me back then, but today I recognize the wisdom of that order to stay. (…)

In the summer of 1948 I would have completed my studies. I was happy, because I would have finally returned to Poland though my nation was in grim times. I was already preparing for my return… then the nuclear holocaust of Warsaw happened. The Jews will forgive me for using this term, but for me there aren’t other words to express the horror – no, the total loss of innocent lives in the city, included Soviet soldiers as well, over such an act of diabolic sadism. Today, I am totally indifferent against who claims to be Communist, but I need to be sincere, that in those days of despair, I really hated with all my heart the Communist doctrine and whoever was part of it, God forgive me for those youthful, vengeful thoughts.

My voyage to Poland was immediately stopped – there was nowhere to safely return to in my country. They said, “It would be a waste sending such a brilliant mind here to die,” and “You will be more useful to Poland in the future and at the moment here in Rome”. I heard they were planning for me some role in the Vatican administration back then, though in truth I was filled by darkness and despair. I was in a crisis of faith. How could God allow such devastation and further sufferance over his people – my people? Back then I failed to see his design (…)

I was so near to renounce the Church itself in those two terrible months, I just wanted to return to Poland, to join the remnants of the rebel army. We wouldn’t stand a chance – it would be fitting punishment of my neglect. I didn’t realize back then I was so close to damning my own soul to wrath eternal. Then a companion of mine suggested a trip to Puglia, in San Giovanni Rotondo, to see a mass of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. I heard of the mystic friar during my Italian period, of his visions and the miracle of the stigmata on him. After facing a period of reclusion and isolation Pius XI lifted any investigation and accusation on him.

Commoners and noble people started to visit him, the then princess Maria José, Mafalda and Giovanna di Savoia, and other royals, especially during the war, though the Italian secret services kept an eye on him. The Duce, I heard later, didn’t approve of such popular manifestations of religious fervour, he was convinced Padre Pio was a sort of imposter. About me, I was so numb in my anger I decided to go anyway during the Easter celebration, away from Rome just to go somewhere. (…)

The manners and the words of Padre Pio were so surprising, so direct, even irreverent in form during the mass, my doubts and anger started to dissipate, and after the confession I had with him, I was healed from the rage which was destroying me those days. I found myself crying on bended knee. (…)

Now, those voices that say Padre Pio told some prophecy about me, or Poland, are totally false, but I can tell he told me he would pray God and the Virgin for the wellcare of my people, as for me as well.

Returning to Rome, refreshed in my spirit, restored my soul, I put my life in the hands of the Almighty and the Virgin. I was ready to take any position my superiors wanted me to offer. But, my mind and my heart were still in Poland and I would pray each day for the moment I would finally return in my motherland… “