The Sudeten War: History of the World after an Alternate 1938

Technically, it was the cruise missile that made BBs irrelevant, not the CV. Even once fleet carrier groups prove their worth, they're going to need some combination of big guns and staying power.

You don't need battleships for that, though. Anti-aircraft cruisers were more than adequate for carrier escort. Anti-ship missiles didn't really start becoming a thing until the late 50's, by which time all battleships were either long laid up on ordinary or had been sent off to the breaker's yards.

In this timeline, where there has been no Taranto, Pearl Harbor, sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, it may not be as obvous *quite* as quickly how obsolete battleships are; but they really would be a waste of money at this point.
 
You don't need battleships for that, though. Anti-aircraft cruisers were more than adequate for carrier escort. Anti-ship missiles didn't really start becoming a thing until the late 50's, by which time all battleships were either long laid up on ordinary or had been sent off to the breaker's yards.

In this timeline, where there has been no Taranto, Pearl Harbor, sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, it may not be as obvous *quite* as quickly how obsolete battleships are; but they really would be a waste of money at this point.
That's more of an argument (at least as far as TTL's admiralties are concerned) for more speed/less armour than for discontinuing big guns completely. Without the experience of a carrier war, even the most forward-thinking admirals are probably hoping to get the battlegroup past the bombers and into 16" range.

And then there's still the heavy escort/bombardment role that even Zumwalts don't quite fill. I'd expect a shift towards superheavy cruisers and battlecruisers instead of a flat-out retirement.
 

ferdi254

Banned
This is becoming a soviet wank. The part about the modernization of the red army was not only unbelievable but actually impossible (Russia simply did not have the ability to equip the tanks with wireless) and now you have all of Western Europe asleep.
 
That's more of an argument (at least as far as TTL's admiralties are concerned) for more speed/less armour than for discontinuing big guns completely. Without the experience of a carrier war, even the most forward-thinking admirals are probably hoping to get the battlegroup past the bombers and into 16" range.

And then there's still the heavy escort/bombardment role that even Zumwalts don't quite fill. I'd expect a shift towards superheavy cruisers and battlecruisers instead of a flat-out retirement.

I'm happy to - indeed, I really must - distinguish beween what we can say in hindsight and what could have more reasonably have been comprehended at the time.

Interesting coincidence that Drachinifel fielded this question this morning in his Drydock special. His answer was "1939," albeit, he notes, that's something in the way of hindsight, with regard to when any notional new construction would actually be deployable (i.e., 1942-43), and how useful those ships would really be at that point.

That's a fairly defensible answer from *my* metric, which is defined by when the three naval air powers (RN, USN, IJN) managed to deploy effective strike arms against major surface combatants...well, maybe I would say 1939-1940. Of course, that was only apparent in concrete terms because of major combat operations in that period, and those battles are not going to be taking place here.

That said, each naval power had different strategic interests, different force compositions and different geography to deal with which could tweak the timing of the answer. With qualified exception of France, the continental powers were poorly positioned to just start building carriers and carrier aircraft instead of battleships, since their major coastal positions could be defended with land-based airpower and (conversely) any carriers they deployed would be vulnerable to same; but also because none of them had anything like the operational experience with carriers that the RN, USN, and IJN did by that point, and even back then you couldn't just build an effective carrier arm overnight.

Even so, however, weapons technology by 1940 is rapidly eroding the utility of battleships almost by the month, even without WW2 breaking out. There are still possibilities where they could engage in surface combats - and in OTL, you even see that at Guadalcanal, Cape Matapan. Denmark Strait, North Cape, etc. - but the dominance of air and submarine power is making them less and less likely, enough so that the value of money being spent really is questionable vis-a-vis carriers, heavy cruisers, etc. That leaves the quasi front-line possibility - at least for fast battleships or battlecruisers - of serving as escorts for fast carriers, though it's hardly apparent that anti-aircraft cruisers wouldn't be more cost effective in that role. Whereas if we are talking about a second line duty like shore bombardment, in the European Theater that can be accomplished far more cheaply by monitors (as the RN went on to demonstrate), or just older second line (WW1 era) battleships you *already* have in the inventory.

That doesn't make it implausible, of course, that battleship construction would continue into the early 1940's in a timeline like Willie's. It is certainly not implausible that he RN will go on to build out the King George V's and even the Lions, that France will finish all the Richelieus, that the USN will build out the Iowas and maybe even some Montanas (the Two Ocean Navy Act has not happened here, but some kind of follow-on to the Vinson-Trammell Act will happen before long), or even that Stalin will build his monsters. It's just that by this point, each power could be spending that new construction money more cost effectively for the intended missions of those battleships, even if lack of combat operation has helped obscure that reality.
 
Depends on your definition of cost-effectiveness; battleships are actually cheaper overall than carriers, so in a world where BBs and CVs are considered to be on an even footing, the Yamatos and Yamato-killers are probably still considered better value for money.

Sooner or later the various powers will realize any non-CV larger than 30-40kT is a waste of money, and so is armour, but then chances are the pro-battlewagon school will argue that smaller, faster cruiser-killers will be able to dodge the bombers and close in with a CV group; Repulse did evade 17 torps before going down. So I don't see a air-centric focus for at least another decade.
 
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Depends on your definition of cost-effectiveness; battleships are actually cheaper overall than carriers, so in a world where BBs and CVs are considered to be on an even footing, the Yamatos and Yamato-killers are probably still considered better value for money.

Sooner or later the various powers will realize any non-CV larger than 30-40kT is a waste of money, and so is armour, but then chances are the pro-battlewagon school will argue that smaller, faster cruiser-killers will be able to dodge the bombers and close in with a CV group; Repulse did evade 17 torps before going down. So I don't see a air-centric focus for at least another decade.

That chart is interesting, and it would be worthwhile to unpack, if the source material is to hand; it's not implausible given some costs we know easily offhand - an Essex ran about $70 million off the shelf, and an Iowa about $100 million, but then the Iowa has nearly twice the displacement. That said, the chart is clearly looking at Treaty class ships (sans Escalator Clause), and the growth in tonnage after that was not always equal in certain ways. The amount of ship grade steel a post Treaty battleship could absorb was enormous, and the supply was limited...

Which brings to mind Yamato, which not only sucked up steel that was even scarcer in late 1930's Japan than in America or Britain, but also one heck of a lot more petrol (also scarce in the Japanese economy), once it was in operation. That has to be a factor, too.

But the big difference cost does not capture is kill range. An Iowa could reliably kill ships 20 miles off; but a Yorktown or Essex could reach and touch someone anywhere from 200 to 500 miles away, depending on what its air group consisted of. That might not matter *quite* as much to the Regia Marina, fighting in Mare Nostrum, but to the IJN, RN, and USN, all expecting any major war to be fought in multiple theaters over big oceans, it sure will. The air group is what matters; and of course, an air group is easier to upgrade than a battleship's main armament is. A Yorktown could readily replace its Devastators with Avengers when they became available, but a SoDak is pretty much stuck with those 16"/45's.

I don't doubt that in this timeline, where wartime experience does not exist, more than one major navy is going to opt for "balanced" force structures in the early 1940's. It *will* be a much less effective use of money than they could do, but at the time, it might seem the cautious approach to take, especially with the fight between black shoe and brown shoe senior officers in each service now less obviously and definitively resolved.
 
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This is becoming a soviet wank. The part about the modernization of the red army was not only unbelievable but actually impossible (Russia simply did not have the ability to equip the tanks with wireless) and now you have all of Western Europe asleep.

It's teetering on the edge of implausibility (as was his resolution of the Spanish Civil War), but I get that this takes him to some places he wants to explore.

Labour anti-communist fears might be modestly lower dosed than Tory, but even Clement Attlee has the same British sensitivity about the Straits that every British statesman going back to the 18h century had baked into his genetics.
 
But the big difference cost does not capture is kill range. An Iowa could reliably kill ships 20 miles off; but a Yorktown or Essex could reach and touch someone anywhere from 200 to 500 miles away, depending on what its air group consisted of. That might not matter *quite* as much to the Regia Marina, fighting in Mare Nostrum, but to th IJN, RN, and USN, all expecting any major war to be fought in multiple theaters over big oceans, it sure will. The air group is what matters; and of course, an air group is easier to upgrade than a battleship's main armament is. A Yorktown could readily replace its Devastators with Avengers, but a SoDak is pretty much stuck with those 16"/45's.
Completely true. Again though, while we know that Furious was a one-off and that it's otherwise impossible for a big-gun ship to close the range, they do not.
 
Completely true. Again though, while we know that Furious was a one-off and that it's otherwise impossible for a big-gun ship to close the range, they do not.

It's a fair point.

Now, that said, the noisier naval aviators will be making this argument, in ever more noisy ways; but they will have to content themselves with fleet exercises as the limit of their proof. (My *sense* is that the US aviators will have a little easier time than the IJN's will, but still not the slam dunk they had in 1942 in OTL).

One penny counting possibility in their favor, however will be that whatever the per ton cost is, the total drive-it-off-the-parking-lot per unit cost of a fleet carrier will still be cheaper than for an Escalator Clause battleship, which may have a superficially less bit of sticker shock risk at budget time. This will be more of a factor in Britain, where the deadliest foe is still the Treasury Department, than in America, where the USN can afford to build lots of everything in a world where miliary tensions are growing and Mr. Vinson is still working on Capitol Hill.

Joseph Stalin, of course, doesn't have to wrangle with anybody.
 
In the meantime, Hitler was irate about the Soviet intervention as he was certain the puny democratic governments of Britain and France would’ve just given him what he wanted without Moscow’s meddling. On the other hand, however, he’d already been severely vexed by the initial Anglo-French attempts to mediate as he’d hoped to turn the affair into “a splendid little war.” This was the perfect excuse to unilaterally abandon the talks which, in Hitler’s words, were going to lead to “a preservation of the status quo under the League of Nations, with only minor changes to our advantage and more Soviet interference.” He knew perfectly well there were no atrocities being committed against Sudeten Germans, which meant the League of Nations wouldn’t legitimize an annexation.
I have some info, that Hitler did want to go to war with Czechoslovakia, but was convinced by his advisors and most of all Mussolini, to negotiate. He wasn't satisfied with mere Sudetenland and wanted the whole thing. It wouldn't change the outcome but Hitler would love that the soviet did that so he can go to "easy" war to boost his grip on power in military.
 
Chapter XV: The Turkish Straits Crisis, the Second Purge, Thailand and Iran, 1947-1951.
This is becoming a soviet wank. The part about the modernization of the red army was not only unbelievable but actually impossible (Russia simply did not have the ability to equip the tanks with wireless) and now you have all of Western Europe asleep.

I edited the part about the radios. As to Western Europe sleeping, there going to wake up soon because it's update time once again,.


Chapter XV: The Turkish Straits Crisis, the Second Purge, Thailand and Iran, 1947-1951.

Stalin’s next move took place in the summer of 1947 and the playbook used to cow Finland, Romania and Bulgaria into submission was put into action again. Soviet forces based in Bulgaria were mobilized, as were Red Army divisions stationed in the Caucasus near the Turkish border. Bulgaria and Greece carried out mobilizations of their own, intending to realize their respective territorial claims on East Thrace, the Turkish Straits, Istanbul and Smyrna, temporarily setting aside their differences. Italy half-heartedly sided with them on the matter, but didn’t want war at all and considered anything it would get from the crisis as a bonus. The battle group centred on battleship Sovetskaya Ukraina steamed south and carried out aggressive naval manoeuvres just outside Turkish national waters, less than one hundred kilometres north of Istanbul.

Ismet Inönü, the President of Turkey, realized there was a clear and present danger of a two-pronged attack from east and west by the Soviet Union, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece. He considered giving in if the demands weren’t outrageous to avoid a war he was likely to lose. He knew the Turkish army was mediocre and couldn’t hold off the Red Army. It quickly became clear, however, that Turkey’s enemies wanted much more than the Turks were willing to concede. That pushed them to stand their ground despite knowing that however valiantly they fought, they’d lose. Letting themselves be humiliated this much was unacceptable, and if Turkey caved even greater and more unacceptable concessions would probably be demanded anyway. Given the strategic importance of the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), there was more than a good chance that the other great powers would become involved.

A delegation composed of the Soviet, Italian, Greek and Bulgarian ambassadors presented their demands to President Inönü on Wednesday June 18th 1947. The Soviet Union demanded the right to establish a naval base in the proximity of the Bosporus. Additionally, the Soviets asserted that a territory stretching southwest from Georgia to Giresun (including Lazistan) had been stolen from Georgia by the Turks under the Ottoman Empire. Based on their “historical” legitimization the Soviets claimed this Turkish land, hoping to expand their influence in the Black Sea and the Middle East. Italy wanted a concession for a naval base in Antalya province, Greece wanted Smyrna and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, and Bulgaria wanted East Thrace. Since nobody could agree who ought to control the Bosporus, the Dardanelles and Istanbul (or Constantinople, as the Greeks insisted with their Byzantine revival ambitions), the four powers demanded the area be put under international control with a League of Nations appointed “High Commissioner”.

Turkey’s rejection of these demands, its subsequent mobilization and the threat posed to the balance of power raised the interest of the Anglo-French-German Triple Alliance powers. It was the first test of this alliance, established in 1945, and it seemed to pass its baptism of fire by acting determined and in unison with Britain taking the lead. In line with its historical opposition to a Russian warm water port on the Bosporus, Great Britain was the first to react to the Soviet move firmly. This was a threat to British dominance in the eastern Mediterranean and this would decidedly not be met with appeasement as the foreign office had learned the hard away that that didn’t work on dictators. Attlee’s government declared Britain would respond militarily in the event that anyone attempted to seize control of the Turkish Straits unilaterally through force of arms. France and Germany supported Britain, carrying out partial mobilizations of their armies. France deployed capital ships to the Aegean Sea in support of Royal Navy battle groups and carrier groups while the Imperial German Navy deployed in strength in the Baltic.

Stalin backed down and agreed to negotiate a diplomatic compromise as he was cautious in nature, refusing to risk a war at this time. He didn’t act on his threats toward Turkey when it became clear that doing so would probably lead to a confrontation with the Western great powers he still wasn’t completely sure the USSR was ready for. The negotiations were hosted by Czechoslovakia in Prague. The Triple Alliance was represented by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, German Chancellor Carl Goerdeler and Prime Minister Léon Blum. They sent a strong signal as all three heads of government of the Triple Alliance powers were present. Mussolini was also present, but the paranoid Stalin would rather not leave his country and sent Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov instead (he had replaced Litvinov, who had been made ambassador to China in 1940). Delegations from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria were also present.

At the opening day of the conference Molotov addressed the grievances the Soviet Union had concerning the “Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits.” The convention dating back to 1936 regulated the passage of warships of non-Black Sea states, but also imposed some limitations on the Black Sea powers themselves. One regulation forbade aircraft carriers from passing through the Bosporus. Another regulation was that only Black Sea powers could transit capital ships (other than aircraft carriers) of any tonnage, but with no more than two destroyer escorts. Molotov said that Moscow wanted these two unfair regulations to go and the Soviets saw a naval base on the Bosporus as the guarantee that Turkey wouldn’t frustrate the free transit of Soviet naval ships. Besides that it reiterated the historicity of its claims on Turkish territory, both the Turkish Straits and their claims on the territories bordering Georgia.

Though their historical claims were shoddy at best, Soviet frustrations about being bottled up and desiring unrestricted access to the world seas were at least somewhat understandable to public opinion, even though the Bolsheviks weren’t well liked by the West. Greece and Bulgaria’s claims only really had historical arguments for them, but the territories they wanted were predominantly inhabited by Turks by 1947. Smyrna, called Izmir by Turkey, was predominantly Turkish and so was the region of East Thrace (Bulgaria later moderated its claims to just Edirne, but it didn’t help that there were more ethnic Greeks and even more Turks in the city than ethnic Bulgarians).

After months of negotiations, the Montreux Convention was replaced by the “Prague Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits.” It allowed the Soviet Navy to transit capital ships of any size, including aircraft carriers, without any limit to the size of their escort. The Western powers backed Turkey in opposing a Soviet naval base on the Bosporus and rejected international control of the region. Instead they proposed international supervision by a commission in which representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania would take place and which would have little actual power. Furthermore, Turkey would be allowed to fortify the Turkish Straits to defend against aggression by third parties as they saw fit, de facto allowing them to unilaterally close the Straits by force of arms. The Soviets agreed as their diplomatic efforts to get the much desired Bosporus naval base were met with resolute Western opposition. It was a pyrrhic victory for Moscow: the Straits were now open to anyone, as long as the Turks let them pass.

As to Bulgaria, none of its territorial claims were granted and this cemented the alliance with Soviet Russia that it first saw as forced upon it, but came to regard as necessary if it ever wanted to realize a Greater Bulgaria. Sofia accepted the Soviet presence and expected its support in a future conflict against either the Turks or the Greeks, or maybe both. Thusly the country became a loyal partner in the Balkans for Moscow.

As far as Greece was concerned, its neo-Byzantine claims to Smyrna (Izmir) and Constantinople (Istanbul) were dismissed as they’d end up controlling a large, resentful Turkish minority if they were indeed granted these territories. Nobody really felt like backing Greece up against uprisings and wars against Turkey to defend their regained territories. Athens did regain the majority Greek islands of Imbros and Tenedos thanks to Italian pressure while Italy also promised its military backing in the event of Bulgarian or Turkish aggression.

Italy came out as a winner too, making gains in Greece. To Greece the drawback of Mussolini’s support was that it was conditional as he was an opportunist. In return for Italy’s backing to gain just two islands in the Aegean Sea and a guarantee against either Bulgarian or Turkish aggression, Rome wanted basing rights and got them after enough pressure. Italy was able to push Greece into a corner on account of the fact that it was on the “wrong side” in the Turkish Straits Crisis as far as the Big Three Western powers (Britain, France and Germany) were concerned. Given their dim view of the Greeks, they weren’t planning to act if Mussolini didn’t demand anything that would shift the balance of power significantly in the eastern Mediterranean. Besides that, to the British and the French the move ostensibly seemed to be a part of an apparent Italo-Greek alliance directed against Turkey and Bulgaria rather than something that was forced on the Greeks. Athens had unintentionally alienated its traditional Anglo-French allies for short term gains, who in response to this affront didn’t help. Moreover, they weren’t too worried as they knew Italy wanted to keep the Soviets out of the Mediterranean just as much as they did, so an Italian naval presence in the Aegean wasn’t that bad. It certainly beat the alternative.

Only now did Metaxas realize how Italy and the Soviet Union had secretly and cleverly manoeuvred to isolate his country. This forced his country to agree to what seemed minor concessions, which in reality forced Greece to defer to Rome in its foreign policy as the rest of the world didn’t see the need to do something about it. Italy outright annexed the Ionian Islands to increase Italian control over the access to the Adriatic Sea. Mussolini referred to it as a purchase since Italy paid Greek the equivalent of $10 million for them (roughly $120 million in 2020), but it was not a real sale as Greece had no choice in the matter and accepted to save face. Secondly, Greece had to accept the establishment of an Italian naval base on Salamis Island and a second one at Souda Bay on Crete.

The Western powers were brimming with confidence after the Turkish Straits Crisis had been resolved. After all, they had managed to force Stalin to back down and give up demands for Soviet control of the Bosporus, thereby avoiding the mistakes of the 1930s by confronting a dictator threatening war instead of appeasing him (the nuance was that Stalin had never intended to go to war with the West over the Turkish Straits, while Hitler in 1938 was hell bent on war no matter what they did). With this matter dealt with, Britain, Germany and France continued with their plans to intensify European economic cooperation. In a summit in October 1947, the Frankfurt Union was renamed the European Economic Union and free travel between member states was agreed upon. The Netherlands, Luxembourg as well as Denmark had joined in 1946 and Sweden and Belgium, both observer states, now became full members to be able to export to its neighbours, all of them member states, without facing tariffs. Norway joined in 1948 while Poland and Portugal followed one year later. The European Economic Union was on the verge of becoming the world’s leading economic bloc.

Stalin wanted to prevent an encirclement began orchestrating tensions in Asia in early 1949, two years after the Turkish Straits Crisis, to keep China on his side and because what he had planned was low risk and unlikely to draw as much as attention as his failed Turkish gambit. He pressed ahead in Asia in close cooperation with the President of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who had no love for either the Japanese or the Western colonial powers. Ridding the country completely of colonial influence could only be done with Soviet support. The first step was to send the super dreadnought battleships Sovetskaya Rossiya and Sovetskaya Belorussiya – escorted by two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and a dozen destroyers – on a global tour to make “friendly courtesy visits.” After visits to Cartagena, Naples and Salamis, the Soviet ships went through the Suez Canal and only stopped for fuel until they reached Bangkok.

The Soviet flotilla arrived at a moment that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs T.V. Soong was in the Thai capital to talk to its Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram, also colloquially known as Marshal P. He led the country as a nationalist military dictatorship. Thailand, also known as Siam, had lost significant territories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to the colonial empires of Britain and France surrounding them to the west, south and east. With an impressive symbol of Soviet power floating in the Bay of Bangkok, knowing the USSR backed China, the Thai regime was interested in Chinese proposals. In May 1949, the Sino-Thai Treaty of Friendship was signed that mainly concerned itself with greater economic cooperation, issues of territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as coordination in foreign policies.

A secret protocol dictated that if China removed colonial rule from Southeast Asia, then Thailand would support it and regain Laos and Cambodia in return. Thailand would also allow Chinese forces to pass through its territory to Burma and Malaya and provide reinforcements. In order for Thailand to deliver a credible military performance, if the time ever came, the Royal Thai Army was beefed up as part of the deal. The obsolete T-26 and BT series tanks had been donated to China to form tank divisions, but after a few years they began license produced version of the T-34 (the older T-26s, BT-5s and BT-7s were mothballed). China sold 300 of them to Thailand to form two tank divisions while license produced Yak-3 fighters and Il-10 ground attack aircraft were sold to replace the obsolete aircraft Thai pilots were flying with. Chinese trainers improved the quality of the Royal Thai Army.

After the deal was done, Stalin’s ships moved to the Formosa Straits and ruffled feathers in Tokyo, though they worried more about long term implications than short term ones as they had five Yamato-class battleships, each one superior to the Sovetsky Soyuz-class (besides that, they had a class in development that would have even bigger guns, 51 cm/20.1 inch guns, but that was still a carefully guarded secret). What became known as the “Great Red Fleet” visited Qingdao in China and then went on the long trip home, rounding Cape Horn and making a few brief stops for fuel before returning to Arkhangelsk.

The Great Red Fleet returned to a country once again gripped by a purge as Stalin felt the need to get rid of people who had, in his view, become too comfortable in their positions as they’d held them for too long, which might in turn encourage them to conspire against him. Longstanding comrades, or rather henchmen, who had loyally carried out his bloody will for years as willing executioners and were knee-deep in blood, suddenly saw themselves falling out of favour with their fervour in the Great Purge being used against them.

In the summer of 1950, the NKVD fabricated a plot called the “Anti-Revolutionary Reactionary Fascist Monarchist all-Russian Restoration League”. The trials dominated the headlines for much of the autumn and winter of 1950 while the purge itself continued until 1952. The goals of this fictional opposition was to assassinate Stalin, overthrow the communist party and restore the monarchy and capitalism under a nationalist Russian fascist regime. Exactly as had happened in the Moscow Trials of the late 30s, the accused confessed to a litany of crimes and begged for the death penalty after psychological pressure and torture. Formerly prominent figures like Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Mikoyan, Budyonny, Voroshilov and slightly lesser figures like Khrushchev, Bulganin, Andreyev, Voznesensky and dozens of others were sentenced to death and shot. Budyonny faced his execution with courage as he refused a blindfold and insisted the men of the firing squad looked him in the eyes as they took aim. He recanted his earlier confession, professing his loyalty to Stalin with his last words. Beria, on the other hand, begged and pleaded for his life and resisted so much that taking him out into the courtyard of Lubyanka was too much trouble. He was shot in his cell instead by an officer putting two 7.62x25 mm rounds in his head with his Tokarev pistol. As a sadist Stalin found Beria’s behaviour before death funny and sometimes mockingly mimicked him, illustrating his sometimes macabre sense of humour.

The politburo was almost completely wiped out and staffed with completely new cronies. This purge wasn’t of the same scale as the Great Purge with a quarter of a million executed (rather than 700.000) and a total of half a million deaths resulting from incarceration in the gulag. The officers corps was spared as Stalin remembered the disastrous effect this had had on the Red Army’s performance, but all the Generals and Marshals were tightly monitored by their political officers to make sure none of them had any “Bonapartist tendencies.”

In 1951, Stalin also made his first serious move in the Middle East by cultivating relations with Iran, led by a young, ambitious and progressive Shah. The young Mohammad Reza Shah had no love for communists at all, but he had reasons to resent the British because they exerted so much control over his country’s oil production. After the latest renegotiation in 1933 during the reign of his father Reza Shah, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company still held 260.000 square kilometres and their new concession was to last sixty years. It required AIOC to make payments in lieu of income tax with a minimum of £750.000. These provisions, while appearing favourable, are widely agreed to have represented an unfair deal for the Iranian government. The agreement extended the life of the D'Arcy concession by an additional 32 years, negligently allowed AIOC to select the best 260.000 square kilometres, the minimum guaranteed royalty was far too modest, and in a fit of carelessness the company’s operations were exempted from import or customs duties. Finally, Iran surrendered its right to annul the agreement, and settled on a complex and tediously elaborate arbitration process to settle any disagreements that would arise. Under the 1933 agreement with Reza Shah, AIOC had promised to give labourers better pay and more chance for advancement, and build schools, hospitals, roads and telephone lines. AIOC did not fulfil these promises and this caused discontent. After his father died in 1947, aged 69, the angered 28 year-old Shah resolved to undo these mistakes at the earliest opportunity. He appointed a Prime Minister who agreed with him in the shape of Mohammad Mossadegh.

The fairly young Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, 42 years old at the time, went to Iran on his first real mission in his new role in November 1951 after rising through the ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat (first serving as ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Moscow’s principal European ally, from 1941 to 1949). During his visit to Teheran, Gromyko signed the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of Friendship, which concerned economic cooperation and mutual assurances of each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, reaffirming the 1921 friendship treaty. A secret protocol dictated that Moscow would support Iran’s intention to nationalize its oil. In reality, Iran waited for a major Soviet move to distract the West so it could finally take the oil and drive the British out once and for all. It was unclear if and when that would happen, but Mohammad Reza Shah would take the opportunity if it did.

The young Shah believed he would get his chance very soon, but the British were confident of their dominion over their informal empire in the Middle East. During an arbitration procedure started by the Iranians to demand a higher minimum royalty, the Royal Navy’s Lion-class battleship HMS Conqueror made courtesy visit to Bushehr before continuing its journey toward Singapore. It was a clear message to everyone that the British Empire was more alive than ever and was not to be trifled with, a message that was received with frustration by the Shah and others who wanted to throw off the British yoke. Like it or not, Britain saw Iran as part of a cordon to contain the Soviets. Soon, however, the Empire was to be in peril as the world faced its greatest humanitarian disaster yet.
 
With most of prominent officals buried under ground, who is going to lead USSR after Stalin is gone?

Literally, not one of these guys live to see Stalin's funeral in *this* timeline.

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ferdi254

Banned
That is going to hurt the USSR BIG time. For the second time in a generation every one with even modest intellectual skills is getting killed. Meaning not again has the intelligenzia been culled in a dramatic way, directly slowing organizational and scientific progress but the lesson to stay down and dumb will stop anybody from taking any initiative. In this Sovietwank the GDP of Russia is magically above that of Germany

it will not stay there.
 
With most of prominent officals buried under ground, who is going to lead USSR after Stalin is gone?
Considering the officer corps wasn't affected by the Second Great Purge (outside of people like Voroshilov and Budyonny), I could see the Red Army playing a major role in the post-Stalin order, even if the commissars are watching them. Alternatively, the USSR might be a regime run by young radicals ITTL.
 
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Can E.E.C. citizens invest into &/or migrate to the colonies of it's member states? Would British Dominions be considered de facto members economically?
 
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