The Rhine War (My First TL)

Originally posted by Rule Britannia
I do not think Poland would want it all. Poles already had enough trouble with their minorities, so additional milions of very bitter and very hostile Germans and Lithuanians are simply too much. In such a scenario Poles are not a majority in Poland anymore - they are only a plurality. Only other choice would be a mass expulsion of milions of Germans and the western allies would never agree to that.
I think Polish demands would be: Danzig, East Prussia, Upper Silesia, some minor territorial changes in the Corridor (which is not a corridor anymore). Even that is giving Poland a vast, unhappy and troublesome German minority. Lithuania might be made Polish puppet, but that is all.

I still think that Germany should be reunited in order to help bolster the west against the Soviets. The French should give back the land they took from Germany. Good to see the Poles getting something out of this, a renewed Polish-Lithuanian commenwealth.

Britain has an extremely resentful and anti-British leader in Persia by the name of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

If Japan continues as OTL she will devastate British and French colonies, along with their prestige with their subjects. Possibility of Anglo-Soviet cooperation in East Asia? Even if it only amounts to Britain looking the other way on anti-Japanese policies of Stalin.

World economy (and especially the United States) will be recovering nicely at this point, not as fast as it would've with the war.

What happens with Italy now that Germany is gone? The US having a warm in relations with Austria is going to make Italy very interested in a possible Italo-American relationship, with the Nazis dead and gone Benny is the head of the fascist world so to speak, he either plays it safe and throws himself and his second-tier wannabe Roman Empire at the feet of the victorious Western Aloies with the hopes that they let him keep Libya and Abyssinia.

Thanks for all the suggestions and construtive ;) criticism, I will take this into account for the next parts.
 
PART IX: What do you do with a problem like Japan?
June 31, 1936

Japan was now a clear and present danger to the allies, they were invading China and approaching Hong Kong and this was not the first time Japan had demanded French Indochina. Churchill and Petain decided something had to be done.
So, Anthony Eden was sent off to Japan to meet the Emperor, but there was something menacing about the place. There was no-one there although the walls seemed to be staring at you, the whole place seemed to be smoke and mirrors.

Eden finally made it to the meeting room but- thud!
Eden hit the floor like a stack of bricks.

'We have your Foreign Minister, release claims on China, Hong Kong and Indochina or he dies'
Chinese Telegram addressed to Winston Churchill

At this point Churchill new he could easily invade Japan with the help of France. He even dared to think the US might get involved due to the Japanese threats on the Philippines and the atrociousness of Japanese activities in China. But, he new the public would not be very happy about the death of Eden and another war.

Even though they were still healing from the wounds of the Great Depression, Churchill called President Roosevelt to have a discussion...
 
PART X: Access Denied.
July 2, 1936

'Eden has been taken hostage by the Japanese, could you enforce and oil embargo or something of the kind?'
'Out of the question, that would damage our economy even further anyway I need to concentrate on the New Deal.
'Fine. But if the Japanese come-a-knocking don't expect the British Empire to help!'
Telephone call between F. D. Roosevelt and W. L. S. Churchill

Churchill was infuriated how dare the United States not help us, after WWI. We also gave them half of Columbia Territory [1].

Churchill knew what he had to do to protect British and French Sovereignty.

Stalin was pleased, he had just received a phone call from Winston Churchill saying that if he helped against Japan then Churchill would look the other way to all of their disputes. This was an opportunity he could not refuse....

1) Oregon County to the yanks.
 
This is before the Japanese even invaded China, I doubt Churchill or anyone else would be that eager to attack them without reason.
 
If you read PART X it say ANTHONY EDEN was being held HOSTAGE. I think that constitutes a war.

Why would the Japanese take him hostage when they know it would only make Britain angry, something they definately don't want to happen after they saw how the Brits and friends slapped down Germany.
 
Poland is not getting, nor would it want, a border which would include millions of hostile Germans and leave the Poles a minority in their own country.

Great Britain would never make territorial demands on Germany in the first place.

Japan taking the British Foreign Minister hostage and presenting openly such demands as the British surrendering claims on China, which did not exist, or on a French colony takes this into pure ASB territory. For that matter with Germany out of the picture the likelihood of the Japanese wanting to risk a war with Great Britain, France and possibly the USSR is much lower. IJN carrier strength is far below what it would be in 1941 and the battleships outclassed by the British and French fleets.
 
Poland is not getting, nor would it want, a border which would include millions of hostile Germans and leave the Poles a minority in their own country.

Great Britain would never make territorial demands on Germany in the first place.

Japan taking the British Foreign Minister hostage and presenting openly such demands as the British surrendering claims on China, which did not exist, or on a French colony takes this into pure ASB territory. For that matter with Germany out of the picture the likelihood of the Japanese wanting to risk a war with Great Britain, France and possibly the USSR is much lower. IJN carrier strength is far below what it would be in 1941 and the battleships outclassed by the British and French fleets.

In this TL since the Germans stopped supporting KMT, the Japanese thought that with China under their belt they could do anything
 
Poland is not getting, nor would it want, a border which would include millions of hostile Germans and leave the Poles a minority in their own country.

Great Britain would never make territorial demands on Germany in the first place.

Japan taking the British Foreign Minister hostage and presenting openly such demands as the British surrendering claims on China, which did not exist, or on a French colony takes this into pure ASB territory. For that matter with Germany out of the picture the likelihood of the Japanese wanting to risk a war with Great Britain, France and possibly the USSR is much lower. IJN carrier strength is far below what it would be in 1941 and the battleships outclassed by the British and French fleets.

I think it's pretty obvious by now that the poster of this TL doesn't care in the slightest how implausible his TL is - beginning with the starting premise to... pretty much everything else - as long as he can go around and wank the British Empire to his heart's content.
Which is fine and all - wish fulfilment figures almost always into TLs in some way - but doesn't change the fact that this TL pretty much belongs into the ASB section.

- Kelenas
 
1) There isn't any chance of Japan getting China under control as many nations, starting with the US, will gladly sell arms to China.

2) Without the post-WWI arms control agreement the RN outclasses the IJN so badly that nothing short of LSD in the Tokyo water supply could convince anyone in Japan that a war with the UK(and France and the USSR!) could be won.

3) The part where Japan takes a foreign diplomat of high rank hostage and starts posting demands before the world remains utter ASB.
 
1) There isn't any chance of Japan getting China under control as many nations, starting with the US, will gladly sell arms to China.

2) Without the post-WWI arms control agreement the RN outclasses the IJN so badly that nothing short of LSD in the Tokyo water supply could convince anyone in Japan that a war with the UK(and France and the USSR!) could be won.

3) The part where Japan takes a foreign diplomat of high rank hostage and starts posting demands before the world remains utter ASB.

They are desperate.
 
I think it's pretty obvious by now that the poster of this TL doesn't care in the slightest how implausible his TL is - beginning with the starting premise to... pretty much everything else - as long as he can go around and wank the British Empire to his heart's content.
Which is fine and all - wish fulfilment figures almost always into TLs in some way - but doesn't change the fact that this TL pretty much belongs into the ASB section.

- Kelenas

For a start I'm not giving the British Empire more power and a war over the Rhine is pretty plausible to me.
 
I think it's pretty obvious by now that the poster of this TL doesn't care in the slightest how implausible his TL is - beginning with the starting premise to... pretty much everything else - as long as he can go around and wank the British Empire to his heart's content.
Which is fine and all - wish fulfilment figures almost always into TLs in some way - but doesn't change the fact that this TL pretty much belongs into the ASB section.

- Kelenas
I agree completely. This timeline look like there wasn't any research in it.
 
This TL has move into ASB terriorty. To many hand waves and I want to believes to even coming close to be believeable. The lack of research is glaring. Churchill would never cut a deal like that to begin with. No country would ever take another's countries Foreign Secruity as a hostiges. To I have to go on. This is an ASB TL NOW!

Look it could be good but more thought and planning needs to go into it, than what is going into as it stands.
 
For a start I'm not giving the British Empire more power and a war over the Rhine is pretty plausible to me.

It's more Britain's "opponents" I'm concerned about. To be precise, their glaring and downright unbelievable stupidity and lack of basic self-preservation.

For example; all of Germany going to war with Britain and France over the Rhine militarization. While it is perfectly possible that, with a different government in charge, the Allies might have moved to counter Germany's militarization of the Rhineland, the German generals wouldn't risk war over it. They were perfectly aware there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell for Germany to win against the Allies with - maybe - 300.000 trained soldiers lacking virtually all artillery and armour support it had available at the time. Instead, they would have backed down almost immediately, and if Hitler had insisted, thrown him to the wolves.

Then there's Germany using gas against the British and French. Germany didn't use gas OTL, despite having advanced nerve gasses (sarin and tabun) available in sizeable quantities, because they were afraid of the escalation. In '36 I seriously doubt they even have] any chemical weapons available at all. - The Versailles treaty specifically forbade them, together with a long list of other items, and the German military's priorities were focused on different matters (such as tanks, artillery and aircraft).

And the Japanese taking foreign dignitaries hostage? Even leaving aside the question of how this might or might not go completely against the Japanese mentality and beliefs, OTL they were very reluctant to provoke the other main powers active in Asia/the Pacific - Britain and France, mostly - until they were already heavily distracted (or beaten, in France's case) by the conflict in Europe and North Africa.

Now, you're saying this is your very first TL, so this might merely be a lack of information on your part. In this case I suggest you maybe start a new thread where, rather than writing a TL, you start a discussion where you state your intended PoD (war breaks out over the re-militarization of the Rhineland), and then ask for suggestions from other members how this might come to be. There's plenty of posters who are quite knowledgeable about this stretch of history from both sides of the fence and should be able to offer knowledgeable input about the changes needed both within the Allies and Germany to make this PoD come to pass, and how it might play out from there. It certainly sounds interesting and original enough.

- Kelenas
 
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The British don't have a field army with which they can support the French in 1936. The best they could do is blockade the German coast and send a number of RAF squadrons.

On the other hand, the Belgians would support the French in a punitive operation against Germany in 1936, as a part to the Locarno treaty. This would mean at least allowing for passage of French troops through Belgium, but also probably participation of the Belgian army to the operations. The Belgian Prime Minister at the time, Paul Van Zeeland, actually did propose this to the French. Belgium declared neutrality only afterwards, disappointed by the lack of reliability of the French and British during the Rhineland crisis.
 
yes the German senior leadership in the military was better than UK/France...however:
1. The Germans have no Kriegsmarine so the RN & the French navy have pretty much free rein and no U-boat threat to commerce
2. The Luftwaffe is minimal, and what they have is not as good as what the UK & France have.
3. Don't forget that France has a military alliance with Czechoslovakia & the Sudentenland Germans are not well organized yet so the Czechs mobiliz behind formidable defense and are a secure base for ground raids and air attacks on Germany.
4. Don't forget Poland...if the Germans strip their eastern border, bad things can happen there - in 1936 no way Stalin signs with Hitler to attack & carve up Poland...the Red Army is in the middle of the purges..and a mess
 
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