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ATL: The War in Europe

1933 - Hitler is hoisted as Reichskanzler, and consolidates his hold on German life very soon thereafter.

1934 - The Rhineland is remilitarized, the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine receive a much-needed boost in armaments upgrades and troop training. Germany is placed under a "War Economy" status, leaving Krupp, IG Farben, etc. the free hand to develop ultra-high tech arms, rockets, tanks and "jet" planes.

1936 - Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo sign the Anti-comintern Pact.

1938 - Hitler annexes Austria in the bloodless "Anschluss". Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Lloyd George and Clemenceau meet in Munich. The Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia is occupied. Czechoslovakia is split up, leaving Slovakia as a rump "protectorate" state of Germany.

1939 - Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco sign the Axis Quartet Pact, Japan is excluded and promptly protests (but a secret protocol is signed between Germany and Japan anyway). Hitler signs a Non-Aggression Pact with... POLAND... and then takes a whirlwind tour of the Baltic countries (i.e. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland), offering military assistance and sending off "military attaches" and "consultants" to the four capitals. The USSR looks on warily. Lloyd George wins another round for the PM post on the strength of his "Peace in Our Time" slogan!

1940 - Hitler's engineers finally unwrap their latest coups: the Tiger tank, the Hindenburg-class Battleship, the V-5 rocket, advanced radar arrays, Messerschmitt Me-262 "jet" planes, and "artificial" oil and rubber. Hitler then embarks on a "Friendship Tour" of the USSR, passing through Minsk and Kiev before arriving to sign a "Free Trade Pact" with Stalin at the Kremlin in Moscow. On the sidelines, Ribbentropp finalize plans with Molotov, for the Polish operations in the following year. Military hardware are likewise dispatched to Turkey, along with military consultants.

1941- Hitler and Stalin attack Poland in May. Warsaw surrenders early June. Poland is split into Western and Eastern halves, occupied by German and Soviet armies respectively. Britain and France declare war on Germany. Russia occupies the Baltic States and attacks Finland. Germany mildly "protests" the "unscheduled invasion" while Britain and France declares war on Russia. Italy lodges a protest because it doesn't have any country to invade!:D Come winter, Germany invades Denmark and Norway in quick succession. Russia is bogged down by fierce Finnish resistance.

1942 - Blitzkrieg is unleashed on the Western Front, June. The Netherlands, Belgium and France fall one after the other. Paris is occupied by August, and the capitulation of France is signed at Compiegne. Italy finally gets to attack France's backside, the fascisti reach as far as Nice and Cannes, and then decide to party on the beach. She is joined by Franco's Spain who spill over the Pyrenees and occupy the Spanish March. Charles de Gaulle escapes to Algiers and puts up his own "French Republic of North Africa". Italy attempts to land on Tunis but is thrown back to the sea by a spirited French defense. Spain sends in troops to occupy Marrakech and Casablanca. Italy likewise throws troops into Egypt's western border, and meets yets another defeat in El Alamein. With twin disasters on his hands, Mussolini suffers a heart attack and dies, and King Victor Emmanuel II takes over full control of the country's fascist apparatus. German columns pour into the Italian peninsula in a "peace-keeping" capacity as anti-fascist factions appear to undermine the Italian monarch.

1943 - With Me-262 production at full swing, Hermann Goering sends off his 5,000-plane Adler formations into jolly old England, targeting coastal defenses, radar arrays and airfields. The RAF put up a valiant effort, but British Spitfires prove to be duds in the face of Me-262s, and the RAF is completely obliterated by Christmas. The gritty British refuse to sue for peace, however, even replacing the vacillating Lloyd George with the more hawkish Winston Churchill. Having won the skies, Goering commences carpet bombing of British population centers unchallenged. In the meantime, Italy's lackluster desert campaigns receive a much-needed shot in the arm as Panzer divisions freed from the successful invasion of France finally land on Tripoli. In a concerted pincer attack, Spanish troops move in on De Gaulle's position from the west as Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel trucks across the desert up to Tunis, and then to Algiers. The short-lived "French Republic of North Africa" is occupied, and a "Republic of North Africa" is promptly inaugurated, as a protectorate of Germany and Spain, of course. Albania, Corsica and Tunisia are annexed by Italy.

1944 - The German "consultants" in Kemal Ataturk's army, reaching critical mass, and flush with bravado after back-to-back victories in Europe, convince the Turks to "regain" their Empire at the expense of the British and French mandates in the Middle East. A second grand pincer attack is launched in January, with Turkish troops rolling into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia from the North. Rommel, finally freed to face the British in Egypt with full force, enters Egypt with a composite of German and Italian forces, reaching Cairo and crossing the Suez Canal in two weeks. The British flee south to Sudan where they are met by advancing Italo-Eritrean forces from Ethiopia. Rommel veers northward into Palestine, finally meeting the Turks in the vicinity of Haifa. The Turks annex Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Arabia. Egypt, Palestine and Transjordan on the other hand are consolidated and inaugurated as the "United Arab Federation", also a protectorate of Germany and Turkey. Jerusalem's Wailing Wall is torn down and replaced by a shrine to Nazi Aryan supremacy! By then, London is reduced to rubble. Manchester, Liverpool, Southampton, Glasgow and other British cities are pulverized beyond recognition. Working closely with the Irish Republicans, the Axis Quartet then issues unilateral declarations recognizing the establishment of the Republic of Ireland, with a provisional declaration supporting the creation of a Republic of Scotland, "should the Scots choose to regain their - FREEDOOOOOMMM!!!":eek:. Similar recognitions are issued for the Republics of India, Australia, Canada and Quebec, and the Federations of South Africa, East Africa, West Africa and Central Africa. Rump governments are set up by German-equipped "revolutionary forces" in these former British and French dominions and colonies (except in Canada and Australia). The Russians invade Afghanistan and were about to pour into the Indo-Pakistan areas when word from London finally reached Hitler of the British surrender. Finally, the British buckled under the sheer weight of their losses (Axis advances elsewhere in the Commonwealth have likewise taken its toll), and sues for an Anglo-German Armistice.

1945 - With Germany's by-now voracious consumption of oil fairly secured by Krupp's acquisition of Arabian oil fields, Hitler announces a convocation of Axis powers to be held in his spanking-new capital, Germania (formerly Berlin). In attendance are the principal Axis countries of Germany, Italy, USSR, Spain and Turkey, joined by representatives from Vichy France, the Union of Scandinavia (former Norway and Denmark), Ireland, South-, East-, West-, and North Africa, the Arab Federation, Quebec and India. The British are given an armistice which converts England into a Republic (the Royals flee to Canada), and an English recognition of both Ireland and Scotland as sovereign nations. Also in attendance are newly-installed American President Harry Truman (invited against Japanese protestations, as Japan, an original member of the Hitler gang was, curiously, left uninvited), as well as the Balkan Heads of Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Bulgaria. The Latin Americans were represented by Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. The protectorate of Slovakia is likewise present. The assembled Heads of State and Governments agree to form the World Union of Nations, or the WU, headquartered in Rome, Italy.

1946 - Wary of Hitler's seemingly unchallenged position as the world's number one power-broker, Stalin enters into separate Pacts with Yugoslavia and Rumania, now under Communist rule, inaugurating the Slavic Communist League. Greece is invited but declines, sticking to its "neutral" position from the start of the war. Border disputes between Rumania and Bulgaria flare up, Yugoslavia joins the fracass (egged on by the Russians of course), and Bulgaria brings its case to Hitler doorstep. At last, after waiting for the right opportunity to strike at his "real" rival in Europe, Hitler issues ultimatums against both Rumania and Yugoslavia to cease its aggression against Bulgaria. Russia protests, and assures its Balkan allies of its full support in the event of a shooting war with the German superpower. A small "incident" on the Greco-Bulgarian-Yugoslavian border, however, brings the situation to a head, as Bulgarian troops raid a Greek village in search of dissidents, Greek border guards shoot back, and they are joined by Yugoslavian "Macedonian" guards in repelling the Bulgars. Bulgaria declares a "commencement of hostilities" against Greece and Yugoslavia, Rumania promptly declares war on Bulgaria, and, itching to get some Balkan action once again, Turkey expels the Greek ambassador and occupies the Aegean. Greece declares war on Bulgaria and Turkey. Germany joins Bulgaria and Turkey, while the Soviets throw their hat in with Yugoslavia and Rumania. Hitler's rubber-stamp allies in the WU quickly expel the Soviets, Yugoslavia, and Rumania (Greece never joined the WU).

1947 - The Wehrmacht pour into Yugoslavia, and dislodges the government of Marshall Tito at Belgrade. The WU partitions Yugoslavia recognizing the Republics of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. Hungary invades Rumania from the North and annexes Transylvania. The Germans punch its way through the Balkans, finally reaching Athens and the Greek Peloponnessus by October. Finally, Bulgaria occupies the Rumanian port of Constanta, and then annexes Kosovo and the northernmost Thracian provinces of Greece. All Aegean islands are now brought under Turkish "protection". Farther north, the Soviet and German armies finally meet under less than friendly circumstances. The WU issues declarations formally recognizing the creation of the Republics of the Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the nullification of previous recognitions of the annexation of the Baltic states and Finland, all instant allies against the "brutal" Soviet regime. Unhampered by the need to secure oil supplies from the Caucasus, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa concentrated its forces on Kiev, Minsk and Leningrad, reaching the outskirts of all three major Soviet satellite cities way before the onset of winter. Stalin's forces retreated further inland, reaching the Muscovite suburbs where they hunkered down as the infamous "Russian Winter" finally set in.

1948 - But Hitler had one more surprise on his former buddy and pal. On New Year's Day, Hitler's scientists unleashed its latest secret weapon - the Atomic Bomb - on Moscow. In a blinding flash of light and extreme heat, the Kremlin was completely leveled and Red Square blackened beyond recognition. Stalin's remains could not be found, presumably blown up into a thousand pieces, or instantaneously incinerated from the thousand-degree-celsius blast. Either way, headless, Russian communists retreat to the Urals and further on into Siberia in the dead of winter. A second bomb was detonated over Ekaterinburg, and a third one over Stalingrad. Left in utter confusion, the bureaucrats still living in Moscow plead for peace. The Russian Federation is inaugurated in the gutted halls of Leningrad's Winter Palace, as Germans and Finns toast their vodka under the dreary winter sun.

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ATL: The War in the Pacific

1931 - Japanese Imperial troops enter Manchuria from the Korean peninsula and annex the area.

1934 - Sino-Japanese hostilities come to a head. Japan occupies Beijing and the Shantung peninsula, "securing" the numerous "foreign concessions" from the Chinese. The ineffective Chinese Nationalist government retreats southwards to Nanking, where the Japanese eventually catch up with them, exterminating much of the city's population.

1936 - Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.

1939 - Japan protests its non-inclusion in the Axis Quartet (explained by Hitler as a "European" fraternity, and therefore excludes Japan). A secret protocol is signed with Germany, however, ensuring Germany's continued exchange with Japan, especially vis-a-vis its interests in Asia (or more specifically Soviet Siberia).

1940 - Emperor Hirohito and his militarist retinue visits Washington DC in a lavish State Visit, where proposals for a Pacific Alliance are offered to a rightfully cynical President Roosevelt. The US reminds Japan of its intent to engage with the Empire if any of its British allies' possessions in the Far East are attacked. The Japanese and Americans toast the renewal of their "strong ties" over sake and rhum.

1941 - The Japanese Imperial Army "invited" by the Thais to benevolently occupy the Kingdom of Siam. Japan inaugurates the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with itself, its conquered territories and Siam as de facto members.

1942 - To coincide with the attack on France, the Japanese attack and occupy French Indochina. Vichy France condemns the invasion and Britain declares war on Japan. Japanese diplomats decry British intrusion in "...matters that do not concern British possessions in the Far East..." The Americans are held at bay by the skillful Japanese diplomatic posturing, as well as by the growing voice of "isolationists" in the public debate. Since no British possession was attacked, and since Vichy France, a government the US did not recognize just yet, was the one lodging a complaint against Japanese aggression, the Americans issued a token "protest". However, with a "state of war" having been declared between Britain and Japan by the Parliament in London, hostilities soon broke out between British citizens trapped in British concessions in Shanghai and the Japanese army that surrounded them by now. Japan soon occupies Guang Dong, further aggravating the already tense atmosphere in British Hong Kong. By November, Japanese envoys are once again received at the White House, where they vehemently protest the painting of Japanese war aims as being a threat to the long-lasting American-Japanese "Cooperation & Amity". Two days after the diplomats plane off for Tokyo, the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is attacked. The next day, the Philippines, British Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Borneo and the Dutch East Indies are simultaneously attacked and just as easily occupied by the Japanese. The American Congress finally declares war on Japan. Curiously, Germany "loudly" protests Japan's actions against the United States, urging the Japanese to step back and make reparations to the Americans! Hitler then gives a "Solidarity Speech with our fellow German-Americans" on German National Radio, decrying the massacre of German-Americans in the Pearl Harbor attack, and blaming the British for "pushing" the Japanese to strike at "our friends across the Atlantic Ocean." He then admonishes Japan for the "mistake" of harming Americans, while at the same time, surreptitiously supplying the Japanese with much-needed Arabian oil and war materiel for its "campaign against the British in the Far East".

1943 - German-Americans in America's heartland states organize pro-Germany marches and parades as they burn caricatures and effigies of the "Japanese Mongrels" down US Main Streets. Japanese-Americans are rounded up and placed in "concentration camps". In the meantime, Japanese armies easily occupy Papua New Guinea and Burma, and are poised to invade Northern Australia and Eastern India by March. Maddened by the "backstabbing Japs", Americans quickly launch a mass mobilization of its entire industrial and military might against the Japanese. Its valiant defense in the Philippines's Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island finally buckles, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur ignominiously escapes to the relative safety of Australia.

1944 - Speedily regrouping from their massive losses, American forces launch attacks on outlying Japanese islands in the Western Pacific. The humungous war effort churns out the biggest and most advanced naval fleet in no time. A second Japanese attempt at Midway is roundly defeated, and Japanese carrier task forces are permanently crippled even as long range American bombers commence daily bombing raids on the Japanese home islands. From Australia, joint Anglo-American forces retake Papua New Guinea and the Moluccas with heavy losses on both sides. Reinforced by a fleet of spanking new war vessels, the American Naval Fleet engages the remains of the still significant Japanese Imperial fleet in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, finally making landfall and retaking the Philippines in a month. Australia becomes a Republic upon the dissolution of the British Commonwealth. The Australians, however, continue the war against Japan.

1945 - Projecting its newfound strategic strength from its base in the Philippines, American forces land on Southern China, taking Hong Kong and Guang Dong and establish a vital beachhead into which Nationalist Forces of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek have likewise regrouped, cutting the Japanese sphere in two, and effectively blocking any further shipments of oil from the Dutch East Indies, Malaya and the Middle East to Japan. American landings on Formosa and Okinawa are staged, even as combined Australian and American forces attack the beleaguered Japanese forces cut off from communication and supplies coming from the home islands. Java, Sumatra and Borneo fall to the Australo-American Allies. From the North, the Soviets finally smell Japanese blood. Worried that the Americans and their Nationalist Allies might completely run over China (to the detriment of its Maoist cadres), Stalin opens a second front for the Japanese as the Red Army swamps Manchukuo, displacing the Japanese in wave after wave of attacks that soon found Beijing and Shanghai under Communist hands in no time. Racing from the South, the Americans and the Chinese Nationalists reach as far as north as the Yangtze, finding the Russians and their Chinese Communist clients on the opposite banks. The Soviets then proclaim the People's Republic of China from Beijing. Tit for tat, the Americans prop up the Republic of China, with Guang Dong as its capital. Formosa is annexed by the US and becomes an American protectorate. Hong Kong is annexed by ROC. The Philippines is likewise proclaimed as a Republic, annexing British North Borneo.

1946 - Australia annexes Papua New Guinea and much of the former British and French island dependencies of the South Pacific. The Republic of Indonesia is inaugurated, it in turn annexes Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, Sarawak, Brunei and the southern Siamese province of Pattani. American forces land on southern Honshu. 7,000,000 Japanese military and civilians die in the first few days as they futilely stage suicide attacks on American columns. 600,000 Allied men likewise perish in the assault on the Japanese home islands. The Red Army invades the Korean Peninsula, and from Vladivostok, occupies Sakhalin and Hokkaido up north. Another 3,000,000 Japanese willingly fling themselves into battles aganst the Russians in defense of their home islands' northern frontiers. No records of Soviet casualties are available. Fearful that the Soviets might finally get a foothold on northern Honshu, though, Emperor Hirohito finally accedes to surrendering to the Americans. The Official surrender is signed on September on the deck of USS Missouri off Yokohama Bay:p. US forces occupy the rest of Honshu. For this, the Americans reward Hirohito by retaining him as a titular Emperor, drawing up a Constitution which relegates Japan to being a client state of the USA for years to come. Soviets, however, retain their hold on Hokkaido and Sakhalin.

1947 - On the cessation of hostilities, Japanese troops in Southeast Asia are shipped back home. The Republic of Indochina, with its capital at Saigon, is inaugurated. Siam becomes the Republic of Siam after the forced abdication of its monarchy. Burma, too, becomes a Republic. In the meantime India is wracked by internal conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, causing violence to break out between the two groups. When the Germans opened the Russian front, Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan to bolster the war effort against the invading Germans.

1948 - Hindu-Muslim violence finally results in the partitioning of the Republic of India into India and Pakistan. Filling in on the vacuum left by the Soviets, Pakistan annexes Afghanistan. After a brief shooting war between India and Pakistan, India annexes Bengal (East Pakistan). In the meantime, with Japan secured under the strong-armed rule of Gen. MacArthur, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower is posted to the Supreme Allied Command at Hong Kong. And the Chinese Communists are suddenly left alone as the Soviets hurry back to their devastated homes. Proclaiming his solidarity with "a fellow Nationalist", Hitler invites Chiang Kai Shek's China to join the WU. The WU then issues a resolution declaring all "Communist States" as "unwelcome developments in human history"... and proclaiming the intent of ridding the world of all communists by decade's end. A joint Germano-American-Nationalist Chinese force, under the auspices of WU opens hostilities against Red China. Mao Ze Dong and his communist cadres retreat to the mountains once again, relentlessly pursued by the nationalists. MacArthur invades the Korean peninsula, and establishes the Republic of Korea at Pyongyang. Likewise, American-Japanese forces reoccupy Hokkaido and Sakhalin.
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