The Russian Century - a TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
french guyana is brazil problem while british guyana is venezuela problem
yes france in particular has a complicated relationship with brazil in particular due to this territory. France already supported separatist movements close to its territory and in the fall of the empire tried to conquer a fort to increase its territory in South America. there was no war at that time, because the French troops were expelled by the army and as the republic was not even a year old. This can be a form of bribery. Preferential sales to france and the uk exchange of french guyana?
Germany during the years 1930-1942 was close to becoming Brazil's biggest economic partner. that worried the uk.
Perhaps a coup attempt against the republic for the return of the empire supported by the Germans and Russians?
Pedro II has a great friend of Tsar Alexander III.
In the period immediately after the proclamation of the republic in Brazil, the relations between the latter and Russia have gone through difficult times. The old monarchy not only resisted ro recognized the new republic, even made it difficult to maintain the official reciprocal relationships. Russia was the last country to establish diplomatic relations with the new American republic.
(this could be the reason, the country enters into civil war between republicans and monarchists and monarchists lose. If you want argentina in the uk block, make the monarchists win. Argentina was seen at the time as almost a British domain. so we would have a dispute in south america, with an argentina supporting uk and brazil supporting russia.)
Last edited:
El_Fodedor
Banned
It would be very interesting to have a monarchist coup in Brazil that ends up aligning Rio de Janeiro with the Quadruple Alliance. You could maybe let Britain have Argentina on their side, for balance purposes.
At the end of the day, Brazil could annex both British and French Guyanna while creating a new buffer state in Corrientes and Entre Rios, after the pro-British Argentinians are crushed during the Second Great War.
At the end of the day, Brazil could annex both British and French Guyanna while creating a new buffer state in Corrientes and Entre Rios, after the pro-British Argentinians are crushed during the Second Great War.
I think the alignment should be based on stronger in-universe motives than by meta decree "the author felt he needed to balance things out".
In general, this idea of regional balances does not work in the way that is seen in fiction, in which one country makes the decision X and the neighbor automatically decides Y, with Y being the most diametrically opposed thing that exists.
Actually, aligning Brazil with the Quadruple Alliance through a coup is almost the worst idea the Quadruple Alliance can have. The population would remember very well who sponsored the bastards who took power by force and began to massacre people. I think this would only make sense if the long-term goal is for Brazil to be pro-British and a fierce enemy of the Quadruple Alliance.
And we still don't clarify what Brazil wins by doing this (apart from Guyana).
In general, this idea of regional balances does not work in the way that is seen in fiction, in which one country makes the decision X and the neighbor automatically decides Y, with Y being the most diametrically opposed thing that exists.
Actually, aligning Brazil with the Quadruple Alliance through a coup is almost the worst idea the Quadruple Alliance can have. The population would remember very well who sponsored the bastards who took power by force and began to massacre people. I think this would only make sense if the long-term goal is for Brazil to be pro-British and a fierce enemy of the Quadruple Alliance.
And we still don't clarify what Brazil wins by doing this (apart from Guyana).
The USA
The only time it would be a good idea for the Alliance to do that, would be if the USA is already joining the Entente for another reason (so then it might pin down the US Army in South America, assuming the USA don't go "Europe First").
Really, Brazil or any Latin American country joining the Alliance is (in 99% of cases) a stupid move for said country AND for Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan.
It doesn't mean it wouldn't be tried (look at Zimmermann Telegram, a very similar stupid IOTL event), as the world still grossly underestimates the USA, never having seen them in a world war... But if it happens, it only serves the Entente.
Plus, the Quadruple Alliance sponsoring a coup in Brazil = the USA instantly joining the Entente, while Brazil can't do much to threaten the Entente because no joint borders except in Guyana. So in this case,
The only time it would be a good idea for the Alliance to do that, would be if the USA is already joining the Entente for another reason (so then it might pin down the US Army in South America, assuming the USA don't go "Europe First").
Really, Brazil or any Latin American country joining the Alliance is (in 99% of cases) a stupid move for said country AND for Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan.
It doesn't mean it wouldn't be tried (look at Zimmermann Telegram, a very similar stupid IOTL event), as the world still grossly underestimates the USA, never having seen them in a world war... But if it happens, it only serves the Entente.
Do the us even have the capabilities to go south during this time, since even though i know that when the us trully release it industrial might, it could conquer the world, but even if brazil is only induztrial in a fraction and able to us submarine tactic they could bog down the us, not to mention how would it even play out in the us public, since war against a more sane germany and russia, wouldn't make sense for us public
Let us not forget either that adding any country from the Southern Cone to the Alliance does not make any strategic sense. The Entente will simply look at the military comparison between nations... and proceed to commit a few ships to blockade the enemy country in the Southern Cone, while focusing their attention on the real threat, namely Europe.
Unless the Southern Cone countries magically get a fleet capable of dealing with the RN/USN, that just isn't happening.
Unless the Southern Cone countries magically get a fleet capable of dealing with the RN/USN, that just isn't happening.
Didn't Venezuela abandon its claims on British Guyana for the time being in the 1890s?
No, they kept claiming it even though an agreement was reached in 1966 and they're still fucking around with it even now.
Chapter XIV: The Transylvanian Crisis, 1939-1940.
Update time!
In the aftermath of the Great War (1914-1916) the Ottoman Empire had re-annexed Eastern Rumelia, which it had de facto lost in 1885 when it united with the Principality of Bulgaria (and had lost de jure when Bulgaria declared its independence in 1908). Ethnic Bulgarians constituted 70% of the population and Turks only 20.6% (other minorities included Greeks, Roma, Jews and Armenians).
Upon the return of the Porte’s rule, the new Governor-General realized the hostility of the local predominantly Bulgarian population and ensured the region’s loyalty by removing them. Intellectuals were arrested and 750.000 people – men, women, children, elderly and the infirm – were forced to march across the border into Bulgaria and were subjected to forced Islamization, rape, robbery and massacres along the way. Their troubles weren’t over upon arriving in Bulgaria as it, having just lost a war, didn’t have the resources to deal with this influx of refugees. An estimated one third of them, a quarter of a million people, died in what has since become known as the Bulgarian Genocide.
A new alliance system replaced the old, defunct Balkans League. Needless to say, there was a visceral hatred of Turks in Bulgaria and its government and people were willing to make large concessions for Russian support so one day they could exact bloody revenge. During the late 30s, there were clear signs that that day would come sooner rather than later: in 1937 Varna became a base for a Russian cruiser squadron and fortifications to defend it were built, manned by 30.000 Russian soldiers, as agreed to in the 1936 “Russo-Bulgarian Treaty of Mutual Defence.” Ideally, Bulgaria would also have a go at Greece, but was pressured into leaving it alone: the Russian Tsarina used her position to have her husband Alexander III and her uncle German Emperor Wilhelm II support her brother King George II of Greece. They pressured Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria into backing off.
Pent up Bulgarian frustration focused elsewhere, namely on Serbia, and they found an ally in Hungary. Bulgaria wanted Vardar Macedonia, a region with a much closer cultural and linguistic affiliation to Bulgaria than Yugoslavia. Hungary wanted to annex Baranya and northern Vojvodina where significant Hungarian minorities resided. Hungary especially craved Northern Transylvania, where almost two fifths of the population was Hungarian (and 2.9% German and 5.8% Jewish). Bulgaria and Hungary established an alliance. Montenegro joined this little Balkan Triple Alliance because King Danilo I knew Yugoslavia, in reality a Greater Serbia, would annex his country into their South Slav Kingdom at the first opportunity.
The Bulgarian-Hungarian-Montenegrin alliance had an international component that was anything but negligible and with every potential to kick off another global war. Bulgaria had evolved into Russia’s most significant ally due to its proximity to the Turkish Straits, the region St. Petersburg coveted for the establishment of an ideal warm water port on the Mediterranean. After the breakup of Austria-Hungary, independent Hungary had maintained a defensive alliance with Germany. Meanwhile, Montenegro had ties with two major powers. King Danilo’s elder sister was Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna of Russia, the mother of the current ambitious Tsar; King Victor Emmanuel III was his brother-in-law as Italy’s Queen Consort Elena was his sister.
In the meantime, based on the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” Serbia, Romania and the Ottoman Empire became allies to each other and to Britain and France as well. Serbia feared Hungary and Bulgaria and so did Romania. The Ottomans were worried about Russia the most and Bulgaria second. They were wrong: the Second Great War erupted in Transylvania.
The Peace of Paris had awarded the entirety of Transylvania to Romania in 1916 even though almost one third of the population of this region was ethnically Hungarian. Knowing full well how they’d oppressed their own minorities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary expected retaliation by the Romanians now that they had a Hungarian minority to bull around. Indeed, a policy of “Romanianization” was implemented that saw the confiscation of a number of Hungarian estates and an agricultural reform openly favouring the Romanians, formerly the victims of unjust land allocation systems under Hungarian rule. Tensions lingered: Hungarian irredentism led to a rise in Romanian nationalism and historical revisionism, sometimes resulting in violent protests in Romanian cities.
Policies were enacted in the late 1930s to increase the Romanian population in originally Hungarian areas and encouraging the latter to immigrate. Hungarian separatists, who were supported by Budapest according to accusations from Bucharest, started committing terrorist attacks and engaging in guerrilla warfare. The Romanian Army occupied the region and issued stay-at-home orders and curfews that only affected the Hungarians, forbade the speaking of Hungarian in public and led to the establishment of detention camps for “protective custody”. Hungary accused Romania of preparing for a genocide, which the latter of course categorically denied.
By the autumn of 1939, the two Balkan powers were on the verge of war, but the great powers tried to get them to the negotiating table. Hungary wanted Transylvania back, but Germany got them to limit their demands to just Northern Transylvania. Romania, however, was in no mood to cede any land and its counterproposal consisted of an autonomous status for Northern Transylvania. Meanwhile, troops on both sides of the border manoeuvred aggressively and tensions reached a fever pitch, resulting in a skirmish. Unclear exactly is who fired first, with both sides accusing each other of unprovoked aggression, but by spring 1940 there was clearly a border war going on between the two. Hungary merely formalized it by declaring war in May 1940.
The result was a chain reaction that dragged the entire world into another global war. Bulgaria and Montenegro declared war on Romania to support their ally and Romania’s allies Serbia and the Ottoman Empire did the same against Hungary. Any hopes that the war could remain localized ended when Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, Serbia and Romania. The war even expanded to the Middle East as the Shah declared war on the Ottomans and on Britain, hoping to replace the Porte as the dominant power in the Middle East and remove British influence. Germany, Japan and Italy had no choice but to follow suit, and after that Great Britain and France declared war on all the Quadruple Alliance powers. By the summer of 1940, the world was at war again.
Chapter XIV: The Transylvanian Crisis, 1939-1940.
In the aftermath of the Great War (1914-1916) the Ottoman Empire had re-annexed Eastern Rumelia, which it had de facto lost in 1885 when it united with the Principality of Bulgaria (and had lost de jure when Bulgaria declared its independence in 1908). Ethnic Bulgarians constituted 70% of the population and Turks only 20.6% (other minorities included Greeks, Roma, Jews and Armenians).
Upon the return of the Porte’s rule, the new Governor-General realized the hostility of the local predominantly Bulgarian population and ensured the region’s loyalty by removing them. Intellectuals were arrested and 750.000 people – men, women, children, elderly and the infirm – were forced to march across the border into Bulgaria and were subjected to forced Islamization, rape, robbery and massacres along the way. Their troubles weren’t over upon arriving in Bulgaria as it, having just lost a war, didn’t have the resources to deal with this influx of refugees. An estimated one third of them, a quarter of a million people, died in what has since become known as the Bulgarian Genocide.
A new alliance system replaced the old, defunct Balkans League. Needless to say, there was a visceral hatred of Turks in Bulgaria and its government and people were willing to make large concessions for Russian support so one day they could exact bloody revenge. During the late 30s, there were clear signs that that day would come sooner rather than later: in 1937 Varna became a base for a Russian cruiser squadron and fortifications to defend it were built, manned by 30.000 Russian soldiers, as agreed to in the 1936 “Russo-Bulgarian Treaty of Mutual Defence.” Ideally, Bulgaria would also have a go at Greece, but was pressured into leaving it alone: the Russian Tsarina used her position to have her husband Alexander III and her uncle German Emperor Wilhelm II support her brother King George II of Greece. They pressured Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria into backing off.
Pent up Bulgarian frustration focused elsewhere, namely on Serbia, and they found an ally in Hungary. Bulgaria wanted Vardar Macedonia, a region with a much closer cultural and linguistic affiliation to Bulgaria than Yugoslavia. Hungary wanted to annex Baranya and northern Vojvodina where significant Hungarian minorities resided. Hungary especially craved Northern Transylvania, where almost two fifths of the population was Hungarian (and 2.9% German and 5.8% Jewish). Bulgaria and Hungary established an alliance. Montenegro joined this little Balkan Triple Alliance because King Danilo I knew Yugoslavia, in reality a Greater Serbia, would annex his country into their South Slav Kingdom at the first opportunity.
The Bulgarian-Hungarian-Montenegrin alliance had an international component that was anything but negligible and with every potential to kick off another global war. Bulgaria had evolved into Russia’s most significant ally due to its proximity to the Turkish Straits, the region St. Petersburg coveted for the establishment of an ideal warm water port on the Mediterranean. After the breakup of Austria-Hungary, independent Hungary had maintained a defensive alliance with Germany. Meanwhile, Montenegro had ties with two major powers. King Danilo’s elder sister was Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna of Russia, the mother of the current ambitious Tsar; King Victor Emmanuel III was his brother-in-law as Italy’s Queen Consort Elena was his sister.
In the meantime, based on the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” Serbia, Romania and the Ottoman Empire became allies to each other and to Britain and France as well. Serbia feared Hungary and Bulgaria and so did Romania. The Ottomans were worried about Russia the most and Bulgaria second. They were wrong: the Second Great War erupted in Transylvania.
The Peace of Paris had awarded the entirety of Transylvania to Romania in 1916 even though almost one third of the population of this region was ethnically Hungarian. Knowing full well how they’d oppressed their own minorities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary expected retaliation by the Romanians now that they had a Hungarian minority to bull around. Indeed, a policy of “Romanianization” was implemented that saw the confiscation of a number of Hungarian estates and an agricultural reform openly favouring the Romanians, formerly the victims of unjust land allocation systems under Hungarian rule. Tensions lingered: Hungarian irredentism led to a rise in Romanian nationalism and historical revisionism, sometimes resulting in violent protests in Romanian cities.
Policies were enacted in the late 1930s to increase the Romanian population in originally Hungarian areas and encouraging the latter to immigrate. Hungarian separatists, who were supported by Budapest according to accusations from Bucharest, started committing terrorist attacks and engaging in guerrilla warfare. The Romanian Army occupied the region and issued stay-at-home orders and curfews that only affected the Hungarians, forbade the speaking of Hungarian in public and led to the establishment of detention camps for “protective custody”. Hungary accused Romania of preparing for a genocide, which the latter of course categorically denied.
By the autumn of 1939, the two Balkan powers were on the verge of war, but the great powers tried to get them to the negotiating table. Hungary wanted Transylvania back, but Germany got them to limit their demands to just Northern Transylvania. Romania, however, was in no mood to cede any land and its counterproposal consisted of an autonomous status for Northern Transylvania. Meanwhile, troops on both sides of the border manoeuvred aggressively and tensions reached a fever pitch, resulting in a skirmish. Unclear exactly is who fired first, with both sides accusing each other of unprovoked aggression, but by spring 1940 there was clearly a border war going on between the two. Hungary merely formalized it by declaring war in May 1940.
The result was a chain reaction that dragged the entire world into another global war. Bulgaria and Montenegro declared war on Romania to support their ally and Romania’s allies Serbia and the Ottoman Empire did the same against Hungary. Any hopes that the war could remain localized ended when Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, Serbia and Romania. The war even expanded to the Middle East as the Shah declared war on the Ottomans and on Britain, hoping to replace the Porte as the dominant power in the Middle East and remove British influence. Germany, Japan and Italy had no choice but to follow suit, and after that Great Britain and France declared war on all the Quadruple Alliance powers. By the summer of 1940, the world was at war again.
So now the Entente is defending Serbia against Russia and Germany. How the tables have turned...
I'm glad you chose to have WW2 start via a diplomatic crisis and not try to force in some Hitler analogue (or possibly Der Führer himself) in circumstances where it's not applicable. Germany got crushed ITTL's WW1, and thus there was no stab-in-the-back myth, since Germany never could've won in the first place. Not every timeline needs a villain as comically evil as Hitler.
So, what I gather the sides are for TTL's WW2:
Entente:
Entente:
- Britain
- France
- Romania
- Serbia
- Ottomans
- Russia
- Germany
- Italy
- Japan
- Bulgaria
- Hungary
- Persia
It would be interesting if this war released some of the radical forces that WWI released OTL- could we see a red Britain?
And another thing what I like is that there is totally different alliance compared to First Great War. Often we just see losing side deciding to take another match against winners. But there some former allies are now enemies and former enemies are allies.
Japan is quite competent in the second world war in otl, so i don’t really see them being that different in this Tl, they would be able to easily role up britain colony in south east asia and could make Australia and NZ folded early, then again there is the dominion of india in the region so a lot of thing could happen
Japan wasn't exactly incompetent, but the Japanese military had major, deep structural flaws (the culture of "never surrender, never retreat", the shaming / pushing-to-suicide / murdering of officers who were perceived as "cowardly", the obsession with "decisive battle" in the navy, the IJA/IJN rivalry...), as well as a flawed understanding of Western cultures (such as thinking that the USA would agree to peace out after a few bloody noses). That said, those problems were linked to the military junta that ruled Japan in the 30s and 40s OTL, and there's no guarantee that they appear ITTL... And despite those problems, the Japanese indeed had a stunning success at the beginning (in the first six months of war).
In addition, Japan would have an easier task here : instead of fighting the Chinese, Americans and British while watching their Soviet border, they're fighting the British and French alone, with the direct support of Russia. Which also means they won't face resource shortages in the war, as Russia can provide oil, food and strategic materials (for a reasonable price).
Likewise, Italy might actually do well ITTL.
While there were several structural flaws within the Fascist military and state, the primary problem that Italy faced was the lack of food, oil, iron ore, as well as modern military equipment. A problem that Nazi Germany couldn't help with much, since the Nazis were facing shortages of their own and their total war in the east. ITTL, both Italy and Germany can buy resources from Russia, and Italy can also buy/lease modern military equipment from Germany.
So, I think Italy and Japan can do reasonably well ITTL (it's not a given, but it's plausible).
And speaking of underdog countries, on the Entente side, I don't think we should discount the Ottomans either.
IOTL, the Ottomans did actually quite well (given their economical level) fighting the British in Levant and Iraq, the Russians in Caucasus, and the Balkan fronts. Yes, they eventually lost, but they gave a good showing.
ITTL, the Ottomans have benefited from Kemal's reforms, with Franco-British support.
God having Japan as an ally is the worst, their military is beyond the most vile of all in ww2. Quite frankly, It would be better if imperial Japan was crushed earlier.