Von Schlieffen Goes East - a TL

Update time :D.



Chapter VII: The Third World War, 1950-1953



What would go down in history as the third world war had just begun. In response to the nuclear destruction that Germany had wrought upon British soil, crowds took to the streets, demanding revenge for this perceived act of German aggression. The population at large did not know yet about the first pre-emptive strike that Churchill had ordered against the German air force base at Calais and believed that this was in fact a German first strike. Many, including, or most prominently, ultranationalist and fascistic groups, demanded that Churchill retaliated in kind against German targets although he knew reality. Reality was that if nuclear exchanges would continue, both Britain and Germany would be annihilated. Germany possessed an arsenal of some 300 nuclear weapons against Britain 175 although the United States’ nuclear arsenal added another 200 weapons. At this point, Congress had declared war on Germany for its nuclear attack against British soil, declaring it a crime against humanity to use such weapons against civilians. The response was declarations of war from all EC members against Britain and the USA and the EC by now covered almost all of Europe with few exceptions. Sweden-Finland, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire all declared war on the USA and Great Britain in support of Germany who by now had notified them about Britain’s pre-emptive strike. Russia at this time maintained neutrality since its army was robbed of its offensive capabilities by the harsh peace and Russia was not finished rearming yet. Also, Japan was making threatening gestures in the border region, conducting nuclear tests in Inner Mongolia, recalling troops from leave and conducting large military and naval exercises in the region. Twelve Manchukuo divisions were mobilized along with two armoured brigades and two paratrooper battalions. Over 500.000 Japanese troops were already in Manchukuo as part of the Kwantung Army and Japan mobilized twenty-five more divisions for their “exercises”. Japan also readied troops in the vicinity of Hong Kong “just in case”. Russian intelligence could only watched as Yamato and Musashi left port. This was all Japan could do short of declaring war. Japan didn’t want this war to begin with. With the discovery of the Daqing oilfield in 1945, Japan had what it wanted and Tokyo wasn’t about to risk that.

The war started out as a shouting contest although action quickly followed even if it remained non-nuclear. An aerial war erupted over the British Channel and southern England while the Royal Navy clashed with the German Imperial Navy in the North Sea. Little followed in terms of land warfare except for the Ottoman offensives into Oman and Yemen which were both still British protectorates at the time. Both fell quite quickly. The Ottoman and Austrian navies clashed with the Royal Navy over control of the Mediterranean Sea. Italy was caught up in the middle of this but maintained staunch neutrality in spite of hectoring from both Berlin and London to join their side with vague promises of colonial gains after a victory over the other side. Italy was still reeling from the last war at this time with the economy in a slump and communist agitation and activity formed a serious threat to state security which the army had difficulty dealing with. France also remained neutral as there was no way they could wage a war with an army of a mere 85.000 men, barely enough of a police force to quell the internal problems of France. It didn’t possess tanks, aircraft, heavy artillery and so it utterly lacked offensive capabilities, even more so than the Russian army which could still rely on its massive numbers. It turned out that the Mediterranean region would see the most action during this opening phase of the war with an Ottoman invasion of Egypt. Egypt was a British protectorate at this time and quite a sizable amount of troops was stationed in the area around the Suez Canal which the Ottomans attempted to seize in order to shut off one entrance of the Mediterranean Sea to British ships, thus weakening the Royal Navy and forcing the British navy to go around the Cape of Good Hope to reach India. This offensive marked the beginning of the North African Campaign. Ottoman tanks rolled toward the Suez Canal in a remarkably fast “blitz”. General Auchinleck who commanded the eight army launched a swift counteroffensive in the hopes of containing the Ottomans until Commonwealth reinforcements arrived. It was a success and Ottoman troops were contained in the Sinai desert.

Conqueror_FV214_tank.jpg


Tank of the British eight army in Egypt, summer 1950

At this point many military theorists were surprised. The doctrine of “Mutually Assured Destruction” had come into play with the size of nuclear arsenals of that time which implied that in a nuclear war victory would be achieved through all-out nuclear offensives, destroying the enemy’s military infrastructure, industrial base and civilian centres and thus their capability to wage a sustained war. With early warning systems like radar in place, however, a surprise attack that would cripple the opponent before he could react had become impossible. Radar stations covered the English coastline and so Britain would know immediately if Germany’s nuclear armed bombers took off. Conversely, German radar networks covered the entirety of the European Atlantic coastline from the northern most tip of Norway to the Franco-Spanish border. Neither side was willing to risk total annihilation and so “Mutually Assured Destruction” remained in the fantasy world of apocalyptic, occult fantasts, religious nuts who prophesized the end of the world and armchair military analysts who maintained their opinion that it could happen, for the time being. Only time would tell if the tacit agreement to not use nuclear ordinance would hold and the world held its breath as both sides had itchy trigger fingers.

As no side was willing to use atomic weapons to enforce a decision, a stalemate ensued although that didn’t mean that no one tried to change that. The Royal Air Force started a bombing campaign against German cities, a decision partly fuelled by the British desire for revenge for the nuclear attack upon their country. This infuriated Wilhelm III as it did all of the German people and any chance of a negotiated settlement had just gone out the window with this second perceived act of unwarranted British aggression. Germany responded in kind by sending their own air force to bomb counter value targets, i.e. British cities. The result was that neutral countries condemned Britain for their bombing of innocent civilians, losing them support in neutral South America and Asia. The war continued throughout autumn and winter of 1950 would see no changes in this general situation while both sides try to force each other to their knees through terror tactics. The war would see one novelty in the shape of ballistic missiles. German scientists had been experimenting with them throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s with quite some success, resulting in the A-4 missile as the fourth in the Aggregate series as the name implies. This liquid-fuel rocket was the first in its kind and able to achieve semi-orbit and it could carry a one tonne warhead, not enough to carry nuclear weapons which were still far too primitive, large and bulky to be put in this new weapon system although that would change within a decade or so. These weapons had started out as a simple hobby which gained attention from some military minds and rocketry had advanced with leaps and bounds since then. The only provision for government support was that military applications were given priority. With a range of 320 kilometres they could easily strike at cities in the heart of Britain from mainland France, the north of which was still a German occupational zone, and with a an average flight altitude of 88 kilometres these weapons could not be touched, fulfilling the provision set by the government. These weapons were used as terror weapons and a retaliation for the bombing campaign against German cities. With a primitive gyroscope for a navigational system they were grossly inaccurate and would usually fall within a mile of their target. The problem was being worked on with more advanced radio-guided navigation systems and newer electronics. This weapon couldn’t be defended against which had a tremendous psychological effect. The weapon was fuelled by an ethanol-liquid oxygen mix which gave it a speed of 6000 km/h. In short, it was an unstoppable weapon.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_141-1880%2C_Peenem%C3%BCnde%2C_Start_einer_V2.jpg


Launch of an A-4 missile at a fixed site, early 1951

Another novelty were the so-called jet fighters. The German nuclear bomber which had been downed over southern England after it had released its payload, had experienced first-hand what these novel propeller-lacking aircraft could do with their incredible speed. The jet aircraft used in the world’s air forces today still function on the same basic principle. These engines are internal combustion duct engines which typically consist of an engine with a rotating air compressor powered by a turbine with the exhaust gasses being sent out the back through a small nozzle, propelling the craft forward. The British Gloster Meteors were among them. These had been developed simultaneously in several countries, most notably Germany and Britain. Perhaps the most advanced one was the German Messerschmitt Me 262 which was one of the fastest aircraft in the world, breaking many speed records. Initially, the design had suffered from engine problems and other design flaws. These engines had a very short service life with fan blades burning up due to the heat that was generated in the type of engine used in this plane. The chromed steel alloy that was used proved insufficient but the problem was solved by simply replacing the blades with new tungsten blades which didn’t melt as they had a melting point of 3422 degrees Celsius. Now the only question that remained was who could out produce his enemies, the European alliance or the Anglo-American one. The two sides would prove to be equals in most aspects. The US had a large industrial base and large population. Germany had a longstanding military tradition and the resources of an entire continent to feed their war machine and keep “Fortress Europe” safe.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_141-2497%2C_Flugzeug_Me_262A_auf_Flugplatz.jpg


German Messerschmitt “Swallow” Me 262 fighter jet, late 1940s

In spring 1951, the Ottomans launched another offensive aimed at crossing the Suez Canal, this time with more preparations. The Ottoman Air Force 101st fighter wing equipped with German bought Me 262s was sent to the Sinai along with the 102nd which was equipped with modified Messerschmitts which were dive bombers. They attacked British air forces all along the Suez Canal, destroying defensive positions and attacking the RAF in an attempt to destroy as many aircraft on the ground as possible. Mobile radar stations existed but by now radar’s weaknesses had been discovered. These installations could be fooled by flying low to the surface, delaying discovery by the enemy. This surprise spring offensive would lose the eight army a great deal of its tank force due to aerial attack. The overwhelmingly large Ottoman attack force breached British defences. Auchinleck counterattacked like a good general although he found out to his detriment that numbers did matter in battle. He was forced into a rout even though British troops resisted heavily against the invaders. This culminated in the Battle of Cairo in June 1951. In this battle 350.000 Ottomans surrounded some 100.000 British troops and were forced to fight a battle for every street and every house, losing them over a third of their entire force. Egyptian help for the Ottomans didn’t help. The British had the image of a colonial ruler while the Ottomans were fellow Muslims and liberators. State propaganda from the Sublime Porte only enhanced this view along with the order that soldiers should behave like “gentlemen” toward the Egyptians. With this month long battle, however, the advance petered out once again, this time on the river Nile.

France, under Napoleon VI, at this time remained neutral even though combat took place over their airspace and British bombers attacked targets on French soil. Germany at this time sought a victory against Britain and occupational duty was becoming an increasing sore and financial drain as the French resisted this tooth and nail in every way possible. Many Germans were growing sick and tired of this routine, not to mention the sporadic terrorist campaign. Germany was willing to hand France a deal in return for a French declaration of war and also to get some more goodwill from the French and bring the country into Germany’s continental hegemony as an ally instead of an unwilling puppet state. Germany agreed to end occupation, suspend the war reparations indefinitely and reconstitute the French Imperial Army to its pre-war size. The demilitarized zone on the border would be maintained and France would not be allowed to develop atomic weaponry. France was also offered the prospect of EC membership with all the economic benefits that it entailed and perhaps a seat in the directory alongside Austria and Germany in a few years time. The talking heads in Paris were sceptical about the German peace offering but Napoleon VI accepted the deal as it would relieve France’s misery. On August 9th 1951, France declared war on Britain and the United States of America. France still had its share of odd millions of experienced war veterans and it used them to recreate the glorious French army of old. Millions of French ex-soldiers were pressed into service again to quickly get an army and conscription was reintroduced. The French Empire was definitely back. This end of French neutrality was good for both France and Germany. Unemployment ended almost immediately as France’s armed industry now found itself short on labour. Germany in the meantime broke out into the Atlantic with the French and German imperial navies now cooperating.

The ever so opportunistic Italians viewed this with envious eyes. They had behaved as model puppets to the German European hegemony and yet they had received nothing. They were just an appendage of Germany’s European empire or so they thought. They were not about to anger Germany. Instead they would do something equally rash and idiotic. On August 27th, Italy declared war on Britain and America and its Greek puppet followed, tumbling an unprepared Italy into a war. This did have the positive effect of shifting the naval balance in the Mediterranean with the Regia Marina joining in to help the Austrian and Ottoman navies.

The immediate result would be Operation Achilles, the invasion of Malta. On September 23rd 1951, the invasion began. It had been preceded by extensive aerial bombardment by the Regia Aeronautica and the Austrian air force, reducing defences to rubble. It was followed by a naval bombardment from the combined German and Austrian navies which crippled the island’s defences even further. After battering the defenders, two airborne paratrooper divisions landed in the hilly territory behind the island capital of Valetta while a diversionary landing was staged at Marsaxlokk Bay to draw attention away from the main event which would be south of Valetta. Three divisions, one Austrian and two Italian divisions, landed while Italian and Austrian planes brought in heavier equipment as by now the paratroopers had successfully occupied the airfields there. The landings were a success, mainly due to the fact that the British had been battered beyond recognition. There was almost no one there to fight back anymore. It would be followed by Operation Ulysses, a masking campaign to make the British think an attack at Gibraltar was going to be attempted, drawing away troops from the eastern Mediterranean theatre where Operation Hector, the invasion of Cyprus was impending.
 
The British knew, however, that the war wouldn’t be decided in the Mediterranean and North African theatres. The war would be decided in the European theatre and no victory was at hand although the US and Britain would surely attempt to change that. A massive build-up in troops and equipment was taking place in southern England in preparation for an invasion although, little did they know, the Germans already knew about the build-up and the ever so impeccable German hegemony would not end. Germany would simply not allow that to come to pass.

Germany was busy working on a secret project, a super weapon that would make even the strongest nuclear weapons pale in comparison. These weapons were known as so-called fusion weapons, also known as hydrogen bombs. As the Mediterranean Campaign, North African Campaign and the air and sea war dragged on, Germany was very busy researching these weapons which they believed would win them the war. The Germans of course weren’t the only ones who were researching this type of weapon. The Americans and the British were very busy on their own projects although Germany had the lead for now which they would prove with their test on February 19th 1952, while Britain was preparing for the invasion and liberation of mainland Europe. The reason why Germany hadn’t used nuclear weapons against the build-up was twofold; they didn’t want to invoke massive British retaliation and they wanted to show the tremendous power of their new toy to scare the British into surrender. The device tested was not to be used as a thermonuclear weapon due to its sheer size and also its fuel which consisted of cryogenic liquid deuterium-tritium which required a lot of cooling. This device was simply meant as an extremely conservative test to validate the concepts used for multi-megaton detonations. The weapons was truly enormous with a weight of 80 tonnes and it was often remarked that it was more of a factory than a bomb; the Americans sometimes referred to it as a thermonuclear installation. The device consisted of a large thermos flask which contained the cryogenic fuel. A fission device was atop the device in a separate space to prevent it from freezing, rendering it inoperable. The flask with the fuel also contained a plutonium rod known as the “sparkplug” which would ignite the fusion reaction. Surrounding this assembly was a so-called “tamper” made out of natural uranium. Surrounding the plutonium sparkplug were sheets of lead and polyethylene foam which would conduct the X-rays which would hydrodynamically compress the deuterium-tritium fuel to a critical level, initiating nuclear fusion. Detonation took place in the desert of German South West Africa (Namibia) on the aforementioned date of February 19th 1952. It was detonated on 7:01 AM local time. The resulting fireball was seven kilometres wide and reached an altitude of 20.000 metres in 90 seconds and stabilized at an altitude of 48 kilometres. The mushroom cloud had a 40 kilometre wide stem and a total diameter of 175 kilometres, the largest blast in the history of man kind with a yield of 22 megatons. It was a success although two thirds of the blast’s power came from fast fission of the uranium tamper, leading to a lot of fall-out. Another immediate result was a deep crater.

This was not a deployable weapon and it was kept a secret so as not to alarm the British and Americans too soon although the tremor was registered in South Africa and even as far away as Kenya by seismometers. Germany wanted to have several of these weapons ready before making this public It was dismissed as an earthquake by British intelligence, a grave mistake. This was also partly caused by the fact that MI6 knew that Germany’s test sites were in the Libyan desert and not German South West Africa. Ignorance is bliss they say but Britain’s bliss wouldn’t last for long. Germany managed to make the design into a deployable thermonuclear weapon and took these weapons into production although they would be replaced by non-cryogenic solid fuel bombs as they didn’t require the complicated cooling systems of the original “Teller-Ulam” design. The war continued with an Ottoman victory at El Alamein at around the same time as the so-called “Thor” test as the Germans called it. ANZAC and British forces would subsequently retreat south, out of Egypt and into Sudan. In November of that year a 4.4 megaton device was tested as the first true thermonuclear bomb.

castle-bravo-atomic-nuclear-bomb-test.JPG


German “Thor” test. The first thermonuclear device. It remains to this day the largest blast ever with a yield of 22 megatons, February 19th 1952.

The Americans followed the Germans with their Ivy Mike shot in November 1952 but that device too wasn’t meant as a weapon. The first American deployable fusion weapon would have to wait until 1954. This gave Germany a tremendous advantage, an advantage which they planned on capitalizing on when the opportune moment present itself, ideally in the shape of the expected Anglo-American invasion of France. They however underestimated British resolve. They expected a surrender as soon as this new massive power was unleashed.

Preparations for this enormous undertaking were finished by the winter of ’52/’53 and was scheduled to start in spring of 1953 on May 13th to be exact, almost three years after the start of the war. It would not come to pass. On the morning of May 1st 1953, a single heavily loaded German bomber lifted off with its lethal five tonne package with Churchill’s name on it and headed for southern England where last preparations for Operation Colossus were nearing their final stages with thousands of landing vehicles, 130.000 soldiers, hundreds of field guns, hundreds of tanks, many armoured cars and thousands of aircraft were awaiting X-day. This would be the first land combat since the Americans seized any and all European holdings in the Caribbean region although their general staffs understood that this would be a lot tougher. German and French forces held the beaches and the German army was by no means weak as the Brits had experienced in the last war. The reason for this invasion was that belief was that the war would be decided in Europe. The Mediterranean was a heavy loss but a bearable one with the full might of the US supporting Britain. Oil kept flowing to the British as did weapons, ammunition and resources for their war machine and so the war continued. The American and Commonwealth troops would never know what hit them as a 3.3 megaton nuclear weapon exploded at roughly 3 kilometres above them. Portsmouth and everything around it was annihilated, including the thousands of ships gathered there to transport the troops, crippling the Royal Navy which had contributed the most. Not only the military losses were enormous but there was also massive loss of civilian lives; nearly 80.000 people had lost their lives in the firestorm that engulfed the port city which was levelled totally (in addition to the 130.000 men strong invasion force that was good to go at the time). Fires would rage for days and towering smoke columns were visible for miles away while thousands more perished between the ruins due to radiation disease or simply due to the chaos and carnage. For the first time the terrible truth of nuclear warfare had become clear to world leaders and the world at large which quietly prayed that no more bombs would fall, a prayer that would not be answered.

China_H-bomb_1967.jpg


Mushroom cloud above Portsmouth after the nuclear attack, May 1st 1953.

The world response differed wherever one went. Russia expressed its utter horror and also its sympathy for the British people which suffered under German barbarity. Instead of cowering before German might, the opposite happened. The British people were incensed with hatred and anger. Churchill at this time had gone into some sort of shock and it took him several days to snap out of it. He pulled himself together and addressed the nation, declaring that a state of total war existed between the German and British Empires. It was in this famous May Speech, also known under the name of Total War Speech, that he spoke these famous words:

“An unspeakable act of terror has been committed against the innocent people of this country. This barbarous act against innocent, civilized peoples shall not go unpunished. Those who strike terror into our hearts will soon be on the receiving end of the divine wrath of the 210.000 men, women and children who perished in Portsmouth. Remember them as the Germans soon will! We shall not go down without a fight and we will never surrender if we wish to preserve what we stand for. Our freedom is at stake and surrender will leave us at the mercy of the Huns. Surrender? Never! The Empire strikes back!”

While the International Red Cross and other charitable organizations were tending to the needs of thousands of sick, displaced and homeless in the countryside north of the scarred landmark that was formerly Portsmouth, Churchill was struggling to find an appropriate response against this monstrously destructive new weapon of the Germans, much to the disappointment and fear of the latter. They had expected a surrender after this but were now facing nuclear retaliation instead. Britain and the USA didn’t have any fusion bombs of their own even if the US had detonated their first one known as Ivy Mike in 1952 as well. The American research team was having trouble miniaturizing their design which is now known as the Teller-Ulam design as it was their idea; they led the hydrogen bomb project in Germany with a team of renowned scientists with people like Enrico Fermi, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr involved as well. Their first test of a deployable thermonuclear device was a fizzle as fusion did not fully occur, giving the Americans a mere “boosted fission weapon” with a yield of some 200 kilotons which could also be achieved with a large normal fission bomb even if that was a large yield. In the end, Churchill decided on a large strike with conventional nuclear weapons which the British and Americans had plenty of, in fact more than the Germans and they were equally powerful or in some cases actually stronger than some of the bomb designs that Germany had in the early 1950s. Several experimental boosted fission devices would also be used as some kind of answer against German annihilation. No less than five 20 kiloton devices had already been readied for use against German coastal defences in France so it was decided to employ them anyway to hit some counter-value targets that were of similar value as Portsmouth. In total a similar number of soldiers died on the French coast, leading to Napoleon VI demanding retaliation and denouncing his former allies vigorously. This also led to Britain being the focus of French anger once more. In addition to this, the cities of Hannover, Mannheim and Düsseldorf were targeted with each scheduled to have five 20 kiloton warheads for breakfast. Several decoy bombers were sent to cities all over Europe to confuse the Germans in Operation Enigma. Nonetheless, four out of fifteen bombers were shot down.

The war escalated as Germany retaliated with another two more hydrogen bombs, this time against Brighton and Southampton with Britain responding against Essen, Cologne and Dortmund with Germany retaliating disproportionally against Coventry, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Germany claimed to have many more weapons and now held British cities for ransom. Emperor Wilhelm IV, who had succeeded his father in 1951, threatened to raise London to the ground. At this point a call for peace was emerging in parliament but not only in Britain, in Germany as well. The war was becoming a nightmare and no one wanted this nuclear war to escalate further. Millions had already perished and in July the peace faction in the UK government issued a vote of no confidence in Churchill who was forced to resign for dragging Britain into a nuclear war and all the death and carnage that had followed. On July 7th 1953, the new prime minister, Clement Attlee, sent an uncoded wire to Berlin in which he requested a ceasefire. The Americans did the same a few days later as many were sick and tired of a European war that was not considered America’s business in the first place. It’s a bitter comfort that many more bombers never reached their targets and that many people had fled before their cities were hit. Now only a few scarred ruins and some monuments remain to remind everyone of the horrors of nuclear war. The third and last World War was finally over. Peace would reign forever in Europe.
 
Last edited:
holy fuck, that was epic.

Though i couldn't understand why Germany and the EC would just be content to let the US-UK launch its analog D-day and instead defend France through conventional warfare. I mean c'mon, as opposed to OTL where primarily only Germans were defending Normandy, this timeline's Germany got the whole weight of Europe behind it plus the Ottomans and the Japanese (should they eventually join the war). In addition, all of the EC's troops -- which virtually spells all of "United Europe's" troops -- would be concentrated solely on these landings, as opposed to OTL where multiple fronts such as the Russian and Italian fronts kept Germany from concentrating its troops.

but shit, that was really something.
 
I figured that the staging zones for the landing would be a valid military target to use Germany's H-bomb on and it would spare many soldiers' lives (of course Germany didn't know about the five 20 Kt. devices that were lined up to hit the beaches). I know I'd target such an an enormous military build-up if I had the power. And think of it as D-day on steroids. This is way bigger, justifying the attack.

Also, Germany though of H-bombs as a way to end it quickly as a opposed to a slugging match in France and perhaps the Low Countries if they can't contain the beachhead. And the Russians were waiting for that of course to stab Germany in the back.
 
The Nukes. Worked.
No nuclear holocaust. No end of the world. They successfully obliterated objectives and ended a war (pretty much singlehandedly).

You, Sir Onkel, deserve a medal for badassery. In fact, we should probably toss in an award for creativity as well. Hell, let's give you a purple heart too.

In all seriousness, this was creative and original, and I very much enjoyed reading it. Thanks for the TL!
 
You read the entire thing in one go? OMG, that's like 70 pages.

Anyway, thank you very much for the compliment. A writer is always pleased to hear his work his appreciated. It is not finished by the way. Still have to write down another half a century ;).
 
I figured that the staging zones for the landing would be a valid military target to use Germany's H-bomb on and it would spare many soldiers' lives (of course Germany didn't know about the five 20 Kt. devices that were lined up to hit the beaches). I know I'd target such an an enormous military build-up if I had the power. And think of it as D-day on steroids. This is way bigger, justifying the attack.

Also, Germany though of H-bombs as a way to end it quickly as a opposed to a slugging match in France and perhaps the Low Countries if they can't contain the beachhead. And the Russians were waiting for that of course to stab Germany in the back.


But it just seems to me that if ever Operation Colossus is successful (which I doubt given the odds), the "slugging match" wouldn't ever be in any doubt. I mean, they'd have to conquer practically the whole of Europe to end the war through the mentioned conventional means, which is quite the task. I wouldn't even be surprised if Europe defeated the Anglo-American camp immediately at the beaches (though I may be overestimating Europe's resources and manpower).

Still, this is such a good read. I do hope the next update is just around the corner :)
 
nine words: tactical nukes used on the beaches by the Anglo-Americans.

EDIT: also, without nukes the war would have dragged on for another decade considering that a German invasion of Britain had equal chances of success.
 
The Nukes. Worked.
No nuclear holocaust. No end of the world. They successfully obliterated objectives and ended a war (pretty much singlehandedly).

I'm thinking though that the first year post-war may be a Year of Hell for Great Britain and Germany and France. Not a Germanwank afterall, the winner of WW3 may in the end be Russia!

The Only Winning Move is Not to Play
 
Last chapter ;).



Chapter VIII: Cold War, Rebuilding, Peace in Asia and the Asian tigers, 1953-2009



The third and last world war was finally over and the task of creating an acceptable peace treaty was now left in the hands of a legion of European diplomats as was the reorganization of the Balkans which were becoming restless once more. Germany was not in an exactly benevolent mood and if it weren’t for US support, Britain would be in for tough times. Great Britain and its Empire would remain strong and would come through this thanks to the to be created Anglo-American economic block. First of all, certain countries had territorial claims to settle with the British such as the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had occupied Egypt and Sudan and in the peace treaty they were to be annexed into the Ottoman realm along with Yemen and Oman, effectively rounding up Ottoman dominance over the Arabian peninsula. Egypt was granted the status of autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire although state supervision from Constantinople remained and it was rigid so as to ensure that Egypt would remain under their control. Sudan, in the meantime, was granted the status of protectorate and was put under a colonial administration under the direct jurisdiction of the Porte although that would change in due time as movements for more autonomy, freedom of speech, equality, religious freedom and some even advocating independence arose all over Africa and not just Sudan. The Ottomans also seized British shares in the Suez Canal and they were reapportioned to the three largest victors, Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. This was an immense boost for the Ottoman economy as Sudan was rich in resources such as oil, natural gas, gold, silver, uranium, zinc, copper, manganese, cobalt, nickel and tin. It was a loss for Britain but at least they were rid of a large independence movement and a smattering of restive ethnicities. Germany settled for relatively minor claims. Germany wanted Britain’s colonies of Nigeria and Gold Coast to round up their possession in the Bight of Benin. Germany was also interested in obtaining northern Rhodesia but this met with British protests and instead settled for buying the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, dividing the latter between a northern German part and a southern British part. German South East Africa was occupied by South African troops and was incorporated into that country as Germany considered it a useless, partially radioactive stretch of desert anyway (oil hadn't been discovered at the time). This greatly angered Portugal but Britain always looked after British interests first of course. Malta was awarded to Italy as a consolation prize.

Anglo-American troops had seized European possessions in the Caribbean and in accordance with the Monroe doctrine they were not returned. Suriname was annexed by the British and was incorporated into British Guiana. French Guiana was awarded to the US which gave it the status of a territory. The Dutch Antilles and French possessions in the region were divided between Great Britain and the US as well. Australian and New Zealand forces had conquered the island of New Guinea which came under Australian jurisdiction although the rest of the Dutch East Indies remained Dutch for the time being, seeing how the mighty German Empire sponsored them in opposition to the Anglo-American compact. Since, the European powers had no way of enforcing their claim in this region, the new status quo in the Caribbean was accepted by the former colonial rulers here, more so since America had tested its own deployable fusion weapon. With this the Treaty of Munich was concluded.

This led to the question of the Balkans. With the end of the war, old tensions resurfaced between the various Balkan nations and Serbia, Greece and Romania were teaming up against the Bulgarians who sought Montenegro and Albania as allies. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were not about to let a Third Balkan War happen on their watch and organized the Conference of Sarajevo. Dobrudja was divided equally between Romania and Bulgaria along ethnic lines, settling that longstanding dispute. The ethnically Bulgarian areas of Vardar Macedonia was awarded to Bulgaria while the rest remained Serbian with a guarantee from Vienna and Constantinople. Austria-Hungary acquiesced at some points too by granting ethnic Serb and Bosnian regions to Serbia which was its puppet kingdom anyway since the end of the First World War in 1916 when the little state had been forced to reorient its foreign policy toward Vienna. Ethnically Croat regions of Bosnia remained part of the Kingdom of Croatia which was tied in personal union to the Habsburg crown. Skadar was awarded to the little Kingdom of Montenegro and Macedonia was divided along ethnic lines between Greece and Bulgaria. Epirus was divided along ethnic lines as well between Greece and Albania, settling that dispute once and for all. As part of the “Sarajevo doctrine” the announcement was made that further conflict to settle irredentist claims wouldn’t be tolerated and would meet with terrible retribution although population exchanges were welcomed. This was concluded in the Treaty of Sarajevo in 1954.

Japanese_Occupation_-_Map.jpg


Maximum extent of occupation, 1950

In Asia, Japan both regretted and enjoyed not having joined the war in certain ways. Japan failed to seize an opportunity to take European colonies such as Malaysia and Singapore. The Japanese Empire, however, was already at quite a large extent as it occupied Formosa, Korea, Indochina, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands and large swaths of China and Japan also now possessed a nuclear deterrent of its own. Perhaps it was better that Japan hadn’t joined since that would have meant nuclear war in the Pacific between the US and Japan. The conflict in Asia was born out of the Second World War in which the Chinese front had been just another theatre of the war where the Japanese fought but the war continued until well after 1941 and was henceforth known as the Third Sino-Japanese War. By 1954, Japan was growing war weary from almost two decades of continuous warfare and the war was about to draw to an end as the military junta that had ruled Japan for so long was losing in support rapidly even though the population generally remained loyal to the Emperor and was also still very nationalistic in its worldview. Enough was enough, however. Both sides made reproaches and Chiang and the Japanese leadership commenced negotiations although those were overshadowed by Japan’s nuclear arsenal. By 1953, Russia had tested its own nuclear weapons successfully and Petrograd was applying pressure on Tokyo for a moderate peace although no one in Petrograd was considering war. No one in his right mind would attack Japan as that country enjoyed the support of Germany which had powerful, new hydrogen bombs which could easily annihilate Russia which only had a small nuclear arsenal. In May of 1954, Japan tested a 500 kiloton device in Manchuria, clearly to impress the Chinese and cow Chiang into submission. This device was the strongest boosted fission device ever and three years later Japan would test its first fusion device, a 1.1 megaton device tested in the Gobi desert. In the final peace treaty, that was known as the Treaty of Pyongyang, China ceded the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, the eastern half of Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi which were collectively known as the Empire Manchukuo which had been founded during the Second World War. China also recognised Japan’s suzerainty over Hainan island. With the conclusion of the war in Asia, Manchukuo received immediate recognition from the major European powers of Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, France and Italy and the smaller states soon followed.

Puyi-Manchukuo.jpg


Puyi, Emperor of Manchukuo from 1937 to 1967.

Russia didn’t miss out on the action while a weakened Germany was still busy rebuilding its shattered cities. Russian troops moved into Xinjiang and a protectorate was declared over the region. Russia troops also annexed Mongolia into the Russian Empire while Indian troops moved into Tibet which it set up as a buffer state between the Republic of China, which was still torn by internal unrest and communist subversion, and India although Indian troops left again a year later. With foreign, mostly American, aid Chiang squashed the communists under Mao Zedong. It is not said that the end of the war made things easier for Japan. The authority of the collaborating Manchukuo regime was constantly being challenged by Chinese resistance groups supplied with weapons, ammunition, training and supplies by Chiang Kai-Shek. Guerrilla warfare simmered on for several more years until the US told Chiang to cease support for the rebels as Japan was too strong and it caused unnecessary made visual by once again rising troop concentrations on the Sino-Manchukuo border. The rebels were virtually gone by 1960 but it had taken Japan 23 years of war to get there. China, for all intents and purposes, was divided with a heavily militarized border separating the two Chinas. Chiang turned inward and solidified his hold on south China and established a pseudo-fascist, totalitarian regime with himself as dictator and began implementing rebuilding programmes with US support in the shape of money but also building experts, engineers, architects and supplies such as steel and concrete. This was part of Washington’s geo-political strategy to set up South China as counter to Japanese influence through Manchukuo, generally referred to as North China.

Chiang_Kai-shek_in_full_uniform.jpeg


Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek in full uniform, picture taken in 1940

Europe in the meantime was in for a world of hurt as the economies of Germany and Britain were in ruin. Both Germany and Britain were the scene of apocalyptic damage, disease and death and the outlook of many people was very, very grim and many thousands would end up in poverty. With the collapse of the German economy after the war and increasing unemployment because of millions of demobilized soldiers, the European economy also spiralled downward. In the past three decades Germany had built up a position as the dominant European power and had invested in Europe. Because of this monopolization of European markets, all of Europe was affected. The first year was the worst with six German and seven British cities destroyed. The Germans and British began to diligently rebuild the cities and many soldiers now found jobs as construction workers to rebuild the cataclysmic war damage, Many of these cities now looked like scenes from a disaster movie as no building was left intact and fires raged. Over 5 million people had died in the nuclear fire and many more would die of radiation induced cancer in the next few decades. Rebuilding continued undeterred and by 1960 the economies of Europe were showing growth again, mostly thanks to strong European cooperation and integration. The last few neutral countries would also join the EC. Liechtenstein and the thus far ignored Kingdom of Montenegro joined in 1959 and Spain and Portugal a year later.

Nevertheless, the damage had been done. With this moment of weakness, the many colonial subjects under colonial rule chose to revolt and demand self-rule. Germany was unwilling to grant them this and fought vicious colonial wars all over Africa. Europe’s image was hurt, however. The world wars had shown that Europeans were not superior to the Africans who had less casualties in all their wars combined. 2.5 million had perished in the First World War, 40 million in the Second World War and 18 million in the third. By 1970 all these colonies would have some sort of self-rule or autonomy even if it was as part of a Commonwealth-style organization. Only Libya would remain under full German rule. The same applied to a much weakened Britain which lost its hold on the Empire and was forced into more equal relations with its colonial subjects in both Asia and Africa. British Guiana was the only one to remain under control of the once mighty British Empire. The old order was now crumbling and new powers were rising to (re-)establish or maintain their position as great powers.

Russia was in a good position by remaining neutral. Tsar Vladimir III kept on modernizing the economy and by 1955 Russia had surpassed the German Empire as an economic power even if the combined European compact was still more powerful than Russia. Japan by the 1960s was liberalizing under pressure from the younger generation which did not see the need for a totalitarian government as Japan was at peace and was a generally stabile country. They were also sick of being forced into military service to put down Korean and Taiwanese insurrections. In elections the militarists were very much marginalized even if they maintained a strong influence on the imperial court in Tokyo (they wouldn’t give up power without a fight). As a result of well educated population, a strong economy and rebellious youth, Japan would be a full democracy again soon and the last vestiges of military dictatorship would be gone by 1975. With a more consumer based economy and pretty much equal relations with the Koreans and Taiwanese, Japan was growing into one of the dominant world economies. With control over coal, iron ore and oil supplies Japan was a base for heavy industry and arms industry but Japan would grow into a strong consumer based economy and cars and electronics would become main export products while companies like Mitsubishi, Toyota and Honda would allow Japan to conquer the world with a new weapon: commerce.

Another one of the Asian tigers was China. With the influx of American investment and capital, the Chinese economy was growing as well with the rebuilding of China. The Republic of China had a labour force of hundreds of millions which they put to good use. American engineers drew, designed and educated while the Chinese proletarians toiled in making cement, concrete and asphalt for new roads and laying tracks to link up the cities of China and send goods made in the factories. Like in Japan, a youth movement was beginning to arise although Chiang ordered it brutally oppressed. He decided to ignore Xinjiang where the Uyghurs had never contented themselves with rule from Beijing anyway. Instead he left it to the Russians in return for their support which made him feel a lot stronger. This allowed him to quickly seize control over a rather weak and backward Tibet in 1957 over heavy protests from a very unhappy New Delhi. With the test of a Chinese atomic bomb in 1962, with American and Russian support for their nuclear program, and a hydrogen bomb in 1965, China ascended to the status of great power too, a status that Chiang Kai-Shek had coveted for a long time. With his death in 1975, he was succeeded by his son Chiang Ching-Kuo who would lead China down a more liberal path although he maintained his father’s policy of an uncompromising attitude toward Japan, an attitude strengthened with the creation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of which Manchukuo and Japan and its now autonomous dominions of Korea, Formosa and Indochina which was further subdivided into the autonomous regions of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (where the monarchy was restored, albeit under Japanese supervision). The response from Petrograd and Nanking was a combined Sino-Russian block. Washington and London (which ha America to thank for its quick recovery) formed a joint Anglo-American block which included much of Latin America too.

With this, the world was now divided into four power blocks: the still powerful EC, the Anglo-American alliance, the Sino-Russian compact and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with newly independent countries like Indonesia (1954)*, Thailand, Burma (1948) and India (1949) as members. Thanks to Japan, India would become one of the nuclear powers in 1968 and a strong economic power thanks to Japanese investment. And with the death of old leaders such as Emperor Hirohito in 1989, Tsar Vladimir III and Wilhelm IV in 1993, a new age known as the 21st century could begin with leaders like Emperor Akihito, Wilhelm V, Cyril I and President John F. Kennedy.

*date of independence
 
Good Deal. I like the four blocs you have set up and the last little bit about JFK (junior) as President in the 21st Century. One very interesting thing is how WW3 had only half the fatalities of WW2 because the nuclear weapons ironically prevented bloodshed through their terror.
 
Could we see a map please, good effort on the TL; allthough towards the end you started to lack detail and it became less realistic but overall well thought out and executed TL.
 
Top