Greetings.
Firstly, the term World War only really got popular after WWII. With all the parallels between Napoleonic wars and this war, might this period be seen not as 'World war II' but as 'the Third Great War?'.
I should also note that a couple of story posts' formatting has gone wonky:
here and
here (On pages 75 and 78 respectively).
Thirdly, would Japan really even get within range of Singapore in the current political climate? With Britain free to divert forces from across the Empire to Southwest Asia, the courageous but almost instantly overstretched and badly equipped Japanese would run into the much more well equipped British troops. Can the
standard Japanese AT gun even do anything to a
Matilda, especially since the British have probably had the time to work out the kinks and make them less likely to break down, if not replace them with the even tougher Churchhills? Given how Australia had fairly successfully developed
their own tank design in OTL, they can certainly either produce some home-grown armor or copy a (jungle-combat-optimised) British design ITTL at a much better rate than Japan's native tank industry. Forget about worrying about Singapore falling, can really Japan even push through Malaysia under these circumstances? Them taking Kuala Lumpur is already further than I'd expect. If anything I'd say that British Empire/Dominion reinforcements retaking Kuala Lumpur could be this timeline's Stalingrad-equivalent.
Finally, my main point. Regarding the Baltics, what loyalty to any form of German state post-antebellum would entail.
Lithuania has already been touched on: Vilnius was not seen simply as an important city but the historic capitol, unfairly annexed by Poland. Kaunas, throughout the period between the
1920 Polish-Lithuanian war and the soviet invasion in 1940, was called the 'temporary capitol' until the end of the 'Polish occupation of Vilnius' can be removed. With this in mind, Weber handing Lithuania sufficiently large chunks of the land they had lost would go a long way towards earning respect and loyalty from the Lithuanians.
Estonia and Latvia is simultaneously easier and a lot more difficult. During the Estonian war of independence, the state apparatus had no way of actually enforcing a draft and needed a way to make the average Estonian peasant actually feel that an independent nation was something more than yet another regime change (Historically, all empires which held Livonia except Sweden had more-or-less left the status quo alone, which meant that we essentially had a medieval system even going into WW I). The solution the provisional government (the most direct translation of the name would be 'Organizing collective or somesuch) came up with was a radical agrarian reform. The land that had up until then mostly been owned by nobility was nationalized and divided, with the farmers who had up until then rented their ancestral homes actually owning the land their houses and fields stood on and the remainder given out as plots to independence war veterans and their widows. This gave the people sufficient incentive to volunteer and fight for their liberty.
However, despite the land being under the czarist crown, the majority of the nobility who had thus been deprived of their land were Baltic Germans - while the various regime changes throughout the centuries had seen the high-level nobles change, the barony- and landed knight-level estates were largely held by the same families who had become feudal overlords during the era of the Livonian order. Now, nobles who had only one estate and remained in it after the war still obviously kept their homes and some of the nearby land (typically only 50 hectares). Nobles who actually fought in the Estonian War of Independence kept large parts of their estates, including 7 estates that were kept completely whole for large-scale cattle farming. as a further softening factor, in 1925 a lot of other manses (with attendant parks and support buildings) were returned to returning nobles and heirs/claimants of deceased barons, but a number of estates had already been re-purposed as municipal centers. Nobles who had claims to those buildings were still offered unclaimed estates or 50 ha of untouched land.
As a further olive branch, noble families were offered reimbursement for the seized land, but due to the Great Depression the bonds that were supposed to represent said reimbursement quickly dropped in value as Baltic German families who often did not have a lot of wealth in Germany tried to cash in the bonds very quickly while the Mark was dropping like a rock. As a result, only a few percent of the actual cost was paid before the war. However, many Baltic Germans who had obtained German citizenship claimed the money owned via official channels and a roughly 3 million
kroon payout was made to them by 1935. Even so, this was not the full amount owed to all the nobles who had lost land.
Latvia carried out a similar land reform, though I am unsure if they carried out the same softening amendments later on down the line. I am fairly sure they offered no reinbursement, for instance.
If the Germans upon puppeting the Baltics would merely insist on the recommencement of the payout, perhaps on a stricter schedule (the original plan had been to pay out over 60 years since 1926 - maybe 25-30 from 1941 would be considered acceptable?), then most Estonians would likely consider it a very fair deal and happily try their best to match the Finns in any future war against the soviets. If however the land reform is repealed in its entirety, that would breed a lot of resentment as it would clearly be seen as a return to serfdom. I don't really know anything about the Lativan reaction(s) or mindset, but I doubt they would happily or willingly go along with a return to a feudal order either.
