This.
America may be a bit uneasy with having a socialist neighbor but as long as Mexico doesn't act hostile they'll be content with ignoring them. If Mexico joins the Leningrad Pact, however, that'll raise alarm bells.
The German Century
- Thread starter Joriz Castillo
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This.
America may be a bit uneasy with having a socialist neighbor but as long as Mexico doesn't act hostile they'll be content with ignoring them. If Mexico joins the Leningrad Pact, however, that'll raise alarm bells.
In a way, this is sort of an original take on Hitler as the ordinary boring career politician, who dots his i's, checks his t's and is mainly remembered for the kanzler under which he served. Frightening as it indirectly takes the position that any unremarkable cabinet member could become OTL Hitler.
The Calm Before the Storm
The Calm Before the Storm
In late 1939, tensions were flaring up between Germany and France. In Alsace-Lorraine, the French minority were becoming restless. Having lived under the iron rule of the Germans, they demanded language rights and even home rule, which the politicians in Berlin regarded it as nothing more than agitations of Communard agents sent from across the border. One major reason for the unrest in the region dated all the way back to the end of the Great War.
Back in 1919, the Germans ruled the area of Nancy as an occupation zone for 20 years according to the peace treaty, which would lapse in November when it would’ve been handed over back to France. The trouble is, the government under von Papen refused to hand it over. This outraged the French government, where they began conducting military exercises in the Grand Est region.
As the unrest continued into 1940, the threat of war kept on rising. To stop this, German and French diplomats met in The Hague to find a way to dissolve the crisis that was still going bright in Alsace-Lorraine. There were signs of progress until one day when it all happened.
On June 25th, a tense standoff would take place in the square of the Place Stanislas in Nancy. As German military police stared down an angry crowd of French-speaking workers, a gunshot rang out. A pistol had been fired from the crowd and the captain commanding the German soldiers had been shot dead. The response would be a cacophony of gunshots as the military police fired their rifles and submachine guns into the massed crowd. At the end of the fifteen-second burst of gunfire, twelve in the crowd would lay dead, and twenty-six others were wounded. This massacre would be too much for the French diplomats in the Hague, who broke off negotiations immediately. It was also too much for the French military, which began planning a military operation that would set the continent on fire again.
How much finger pointing on both side going to happen and who might get blame for it? I'm sure neither Berlin nor Paris want a shooting war in this situation.
Is this going to provide the first mass media mud-slinging on national scale ITTL?
Is this going to provide the first mass media mud-slinging on national scale ITTL?
Very good idea and probably Germany is already making some preparations. But problem is that them have not too much of time. Left-wing government has probably damaged too much German military power. Hopefully Eastern European nations have give more attention to their armies.
Given the current sh*tshow in the rest of France, A-L might even be thinking they dodged a bullet by getting annexed.
I remember reading a Progress Report for a HOI IV mod named Kalterkrieg which is kind of a sequel to Kaiserreich, and they offered a very similar start of the Second World War/Weltrkieg.
That start to the 2WK is canon, the war starts on the same date that WW2 did OTL as it is coded to do that, and the French focus that triggers it is called Alsace Ultimatum, so I imagine every Kaiserreich Cold War mod has the start of the war like that.
I meant those stuff about a conference in the Hague, violence in Nancy... those aren't in regular Kaiserreich.
The State of the Empire - WW1 and the Interwar Years
The State of the Empire – WW1 and the Interwar Years
At the outbreak of the First World War, Germany’s colonies had a population of roughly 15 million people spread out over an area of 2.6 million km2 (1 million sq mi). They have spread out far apart from each other and lightly defended, making them easy pickings for the Entente. Despite having little to no influence on the war’s outcome, the military exploits of the commanders and admirals in Africa and the Pacific were enough to justify the reason for an empire to the German people. This became necessary due to the British blockade had cut off Germany
The only colony where fighting continued on was in Tanganyika, where colonial Askaris under the command of Paul Lettow von Vorbeck fought on in a guerrilla war against the Belgians, British and Portuguese until the bitter end. In the Pacific, the stories of the East Asia Squadron’s mad dash across half of the world and the men of the SMS Emden that reached all the way to Arabia became the stuff of legends as the military needed heroes to dampen the feelings of people have lost a lot of their men in the battlefields of Europe.
At the end of the war, all the colonies were restored back to Germany in 1919 while it gained more from the defeated and battered France and Belgium. In an essence, Germany’s victory brought new riches but exposed a vulnerable empire.
***
Morocco – A Paternal Friendship
From 1912 to 1919, Morocco was a protectorate of both France and Spain. During the Great War, the Zaian Confederation of Berbers rebelled against France and received ample Central Power support, but failed to score major victories until the fall of France. While there were negotiations with pretenders by Germany, they were inconclusive, and in the end, Mohammed V was placed in the throne after his father abdicated. A new treaty was put in place by Germany, and its influence on internal Moroccan matters is greatly diminished when in relation to the French Protectorate, and the treaty is carefully worded as to present it as amicably as possible. However, tensions still flare up occasionally, and that's when the German-backed Royal Guard has to intervene.
As the 30s roared in, Morocco recovered from the Protectorate era, but still remain icy relations with Spain, as the nationalists had focused on recovering the Rif and other Spanish territories to the south. Not to mention, the Comintern eyes Morocco as a gateway for the revolution into Africa and the Islamic World all the while destroying their enemy..
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Mittelafrika – The Crown Jewel
In September 1914, while Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg was drawing up war aims in case of a victory, the then Secretary of the Colonies Wilhelm Solf decided to add the demand for the Belgian Congo in the Septemberprogramm. In this way, he hoped to realize what had been then a colonial concept championed by Weltpolitik strategists. With the acquisition of the Congo, rich in natural resources, Germany would have total control of the region, forcing the British to leave.
In 1919, that idea became a reality. Germany got all that it wanted at Potsdam and the visualized mega-colonial federation was created. At first, Mittelafrika consisted of just the German, Belgian, and some dozen French colonies. Its borders expanded again in 1925 when it gobbled up the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, North Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. The last one was contentious as Portugal had claimed the areas as part of its Pink Map. To put pressure on the Portuguese to back away, the German government delivered an ultimatum to the Portuguese that would force them to withdraw from Nyasaland.
In the end, they acquiesced for the 2nd time. Outrage and anger followed in Lisbon while the German Colonial Office was delighted at having another colony in their collection. The big question now was what to do with them?
Because the British colonies were not formally annexed as by a treaty, they were instead turned into Anglo-German condominiums. This meant that the British colonial administration would stay afloat, but would be garrisoned by German troops and be responsible to the central government in Dar es Salaam.
A Crown fit for a Konig
As a colonial unit that spans almost half a continent, Mittelafrika was divided into five colonial governments, each one ruled by a governor appointed by a Statthalter: Congo (Kongo), East Africa (Ostafrika), Equatorial Africa (Äquatorialafrika), Southern Africa (Südafrika) and West Africa (Westafrika). Each of those units is in turn divided into several individual colonies or provinces, and these, in turn, are divided into thousands of districts, colonial protectorates, and municipalities in each of these colonies. This decentralized leadership structure was a consequence of how fast and disorganized the formation and early consolidation of Mittelafrika was.
To keep the whole thing from falling apart, a position was created that would be responsible for administering this colonial federation which was equal in rank to that of an Indian Viceroy; the Statthalter (Viceroy). It would function as the chief administrator in Mittelafrika and as the representative of the Emperor. At the creation of this position, in 1925, the first man appointed was none other than the Lion of Africa himself, Paul von Lettow Vorbeck.
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Statthalter (1925-1934)
During his time as Statthalter, he allowed Flemish companies to continue operating within its former colony as they attracted foreign investment and allowed the British settlers in Kenya and Northern Rhodesia to establish their own militias for both protection and to enforce the colonial rule.
Lettow Vorbeck also continued building new railway tracks across the colonies. One project which he prioritized was finishing the Cape to Cairo railway. Originally envisioned by Cecil Rhodes, the project ground to a halt when British rule over most of Africa evaporated. Now it was time to get it back to work.
The first tracks were laid in Tanganyika. A year later, another set was laid down connecting to Uganda. Soon enough, more tracks were laid connecting Kampala to Khartoum. By 1931, the Cape to Cairo railway was officially complete. In a speech, Lettow Vorbeck said that Germany had completed what Britain had tried to do.
In 1934, von Lettow Vorbeck ended stepped down from office after having served 9 years. He was replaced by former flying ace Hermann von Goring. Making use of the completed railway, he expanded Mittelafrika’s nascent industry and build up its infrastructure as he had the foresight that war was soon going to come. Throughout the 30s, Goering upgraded the ports in Dar es Salaam to fit bigger ships and introduced the secular German education system into the local schools.
Hermann Goering, Statthalter (1934-)
At the same time, Goering sought to introduce a system of racial segregation inspired by policies enacted in South Africa and the United States. Thus, there were schools built separately for black and white children, and attempts were made to outlaw interracial marriage. In 1936, Goering congratulated Italy after conquering Abyssinia. This became embarrassing to the SPD government in Berlin though Goering didn’t resign.
By 1940, Mittelafrika was transforming itself as nascent industries began growing with factories propping up. Preparing for an eventual war with the Leningrad Pact, Goering reviewed plans to reform the Askaris into a modern fighting force.
***
The Indian Ocean
Ever since 1925, Germany has maintained complete control of the Indian Ocean. It controls the vital Suez Canal to the ire of Egypt, possessing a stranglehold on international trade. A naval station was established in Djibouti which allowed the flow of goods from Abyssinia to the wider world until 1936.
The Germans control all the former French and British island possessions off the coast of Mozambique. In one particular instance to symbolize their control, the Germans renamed the former Reunion Island to New Heligoland.
***
German India
German India was established in 1919 after the Peace Conference of Potsdam when Germany gained access to the former French concessions on the Indian East Coast. This included the cities of Pondicherry, Karikal, Yanam, Mahe, and Chandernagor. During the Indian Revolution, many refugees fled to the German enclaves for safety. For a while, it was feared that the Indians would soon demand the enclaves but that never materialized as India would be plunged into civil war facing with its own internal problems. The Germans also incorporated the colony of Ceylon, along with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The concession of Chandernagor in Bengal was later yielded to the Free Indian government during the later stages of the Indian Civil War due to its low value and long distance from the rest of Germany's colonial holdings.
***
The Pearls of the Orient
After the victory in Europe over France in 1918, Germany demanded the transfer of the colonies of French Pondicherry, Indochina, and the Pacific colonies. On June 1919, representatives of the two sides met in Potsdam to sign a peace treaty, allowing the German re-entry into East Asia. At the same time, French Indochina was experiencing an unprecedented tumult. During the war, Siam had invaded the French colony. Resenting the French wartime policy and inspired by the Siamese, insurgent activities began to spread in Vietnam and mutinies took place among Vietnamese troops. The French colonial regime was more confused and stunned by the situation in the metropole. After a major defeat in Cambodia, the French offered a ceasefire arrangement, allowing Siamese to occupy Laos, Cambodia, and a part of Cochinchina.
The French-Siamese collaboration lasted until 1920 when Germany was finally able to dispatch enough fleet and troops to Indochina. The Thais were sure that they could keep Laos, Cambodia, and even parts of Cochinchina if the Germans negotiated. However, Germany decided that the whole pre-war boundary would be maintained. A war broke soon followed between the two sides until the Germans were victorious.
In 1921, following the formal end of the German-Siamese conflict and the return of Tsingtao, the new German chancellor, Friedrich Ebert, ordered the reorganization of the German East Asian Station (Ostasiatische Station). Considering Japan as a major enemy in East Asia, Tsingtao was regarded as too vulnerable to a Japanese invasion.
The revolution in Britain allowed Germany to further expand in the Far East. They managed to secure most of the British Asian territories as well as the strategic colonies of Suez, Ceylon, Malaya, Brunei, and Sarawak. Singapore was taken as an ideal naval base for the East Asia Station. All the newly-acquired colonies were now under the responsibility of the colonial office rather than the Naval Office as Tirpitz had hoped for.
***
An Informal Empire
While German rule on the coastal areas of China is rarely to be seen, its influence can be felt everywhere in its concessions. This is more apparent in Tsingtao when one sees the office of the AOG, the German administration charged with governing Germany’s concessions along the eastern and southern coast of China.
The AOG’s involvement began all the way back with the acquisition of Tsingtao in 1898, permitting it the sole exercise of full sovereign rights over (but not actual ownership of) Kiatschou Bay, as well as a 30m wide neutral zone. Moreover, the treaty included rights for the construction of railway lines and the mining of local coal deposits. Over the next several decades, Tsingtao grew at a rapid pace.
The former fishing village was laid out with wide streets, housing areas, and government buildings, with electrification throughout, a sewer system, and a safe drinking water supply. With the expansion of economic activity and public works, German banks opened branch offices, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank being the most prominent. The completion of the Shantung Railroad in 1910 provided a connection to the Trans-Siberian Railway and thus allowed travel by train from Tsingtao to Berlin.
During the Great War, the concession came under Japanese occupation, which would end only with the signing of the Treaty of Potsdam. More importantly, however, it also granted Germany possession of France's former Indochinese colonies, and with them its Chinese concessions. These acquisitions, paired with the substantial pre-war investments in and around Tsingtao, placed Germany on a similar footing to the other powers in China and set the physical foundations for the future AOG.
German investment in China during the early 1920s continued to grow, but slowly, hampered by the war’s enormous costs and the region's relative instability. Attitudes changed following the 1925 Shanghai Scramble, when Germany seized substantial portions of former British possessions in China, and the 1927 Northern Expedition.
Germany's commitment to ensuring a stable Chinese market was in question, while its possessions had grown greater than ever, paving the way for a new era of prosperity.
In an act of Realpolitik, the Germans decided to back the KMT in exchange for them purging its left-leaning faction and expelling Soviet advisers. This was done as Chancellor Stresemann saw the Japanese as the bigger enemy than the Chinese in the struggle for regional dominance in Asia. Once Chiang Kai Shek began purging his ranks of left-leaning members, the Germans begin supporting and training the National Revolutionary Army.
An illustration symbolizing the Sino-German Cooperation
Conclusion
Germany's new empire was vast but overstretching, putting a strain on the nation's finances. Despite that, the government sees these as necessary to check Japanese and Communist advances.
The German Colonial Empire on the eve of WW2, 1940
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I'm back from doing my college work! For now, I'll do some revision on the earlier updates after having read some new information.
Is Goering the same opium addict who's salting away valuables, or is he saner here?
Having not been shot, Goering isn't addicted to opium and is therefore sane as any man.
Nevertheless, I'd check his homes to make sure he hasn't salted away any priceless African artifacts
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