EVERYONE: - Complete Red Eagle, Golden Bear: an Alternate History Piece

[Blah the Prussian]

So basically I began to write this story a while back on Serenes Forums and I thought I'd post it here. Questions, comments, and criticism are all welcome. There are a bunch of stuff near the beginning that are dumb and that I would definitely do differently, so please bear with me. Also, yes, it isn't complete. I'll post updates here at the same pace I'd post updates on Serenes.

 

[Blah the Prussian]

Part One

8 Years of Peace


Chapter One

State of the World, 1900, and Introduction


Of all the centuries in the history of the world, the 20th century was probably the most momentous, and the most exciting. The world suffered through two World Wars, one Cold one, and a myriad other smaller conflicts. Empires rose and fell, ideologies battled it out to see who was right, and whole social classes were wiped out. However, before we begin, it is important to do a general survey of the world at the dawn of what would come to be known as the “German Century”.


Europe


United Kingdom


Starting our list today is what was then recognized as the greatest power of the age: The British Empire. Ruled by the aging Queen Victoria, the sun would never set on its majesty for a little while longer. It was in decline, but it still had the largest navy on Earth, and ruled over vast swathes of Africa, maintained total dominance in India, and ruled its dominions, Canada and Australia, with a firm hand. It was engaged in a rather humiliating war against the Boer states in South Africa, but there was little doubt about its ultimate victory.

However, Britain faced many internal threats. In the British Raj, an Indian intelectual named Mohandes Gandhi was inciting revolt. Closer to home, Ireland was rebellious and rife with tensions between Catholics and Protestants. In Britain itself, the ideology preached by Karl Marx, Communism, was gaining strength. There were many threats from the outside, too. The royal navy was facing a new challenger to its might, the greatest threat since Napoleon. That brings us too…


Germany


The German Kaiserriech was most powerful nation on mainland Europe. It’s spike helmeted, disciplined troops had no equal. It’s former Kaiser, Friedrich III, was a reformer who introduced full democracy to the country. His son, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was an aggressive, expansionistic monarch, but formed an alliance with Russia and saw it through to rival the UK as a naval power. Despite the size of the Navy, Germany’s colonial empire remained rather small, limited to just a few pacific islands and some outposts in Africa.

Germany’s rivalry with France over the regions of Elsass- Lotheringen is one of the most important things to know of in order to understand the geopolitical climate of 1900. After Germany’s conquest of the region following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, France had built up an alliance with the empire of the Hapsburgs, the old enemies of Prussia. Fortunately for the Kaiserriech, German Chancellor Bismarck was a master of diplomacy, netting Germany several allies. Foremost among these was…


Russia


The Tsardom of Russia, in another world, may hav collapsed into anarchy and civil war, and be ruled by a psychotic dictator who killed millions of his own people. As it stood, this was not to be the case. This was largely due to the reforms of one man: Tsar Alexander II. Alexander ascended to the throne in the ashes of the disastrous Crimean War. Immediately, he passed sweeping reforms, such as the abolition of Serfdom, and even a constitution after a failed attempt on his life. Due to his reforms, Tsarist Russia entered the 20th century as a stable nation.

Russia’s foreign policy was very much influenced by the policy of Pan Slavism, or the belief that all Slavs should be united under one ruler- namely, current Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas was a man of only reasonable intellect, but he was sufficient to control the Empire. Russia’s other main interest sphere was the Far East. It had Korea in its sphere of Influence, and had largely brought resistance in Siberia down. However, Russia’s position in the East was being menaced by the Rising Sun of Imperial Japan. Japan was not Russia’s main rival, however. That honor went to…


Austro-Hungarian Empire


Of all the dynasties of Europe, the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria-Hungary was the oldest . It was also the one nearest to collapse. Their empires Slavic people were getting restless under the yoke of Vienna. Not only that, their military was in sorry shape. Ethnic differences, outdated equipment, and general incompetence all were symptoms of having a military that was practically the poster child for Paper Tigers everywhere.

The Hapsburgs had had a rough century. From having their armies smashed by Napoleon, to being humiliated by Italian nationalist Guiseppe Gabrialdi, to surrendering leadership of Germany to the Prussia of Otto von Bismarck, the Austrians needed allies if they were to get revenge on Germany and defend against Russia. Fortunately, they found one in the other country humiliated by Bismarck: their former enemy…


France


The French Third Republic was a nation born out of defeat. Their former Emperor, Napoleon III, had waged a foolish war of aggression against Prussia, and been disastrously defeated. Their government, while democratic, was militaristic and essentially devoted to revenge on Germany. They found fine bedfellows, then, with the Hapsburgs. Both shared a common enemy, and both were prepared to wage a war of aggression against the “Huns” to retake what they viewed as rightfully theirs.

The Republic had actually had many successes in the 29 years since it’s inception. The French Tricolor flew over most of Northwest Africa, and the colony of French Indochina continued to be a source of income for the Republic. The French army, humiliated by the Prussians, had taken steps to correct its mistakes, and now boasted one of the finest armies in Europe. They would need it, for tension was growing in the…


Balkans


“If war in Europe ever breaks out,” said German Chancellor Bismarck, “It will be over some damn silly thing in the Balkans.” This was an accurate assessment if there ever was one. Religiously divided due to centuries of control by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the Balkan States, largely funded and protected by the Russians, were at once threatened by and planning revenge against two empires: Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. The Serbs, motivated by a dream of a Greater Serbia, continued to antagonize the two giants, to the exasperation of Petrograd. Greece and Bulgaria, meanwhile, both wanted Macedonia from the Turks, but once one got it, the other was sure to reply with war. Bulgaria also had designs on territory from Romania, who themselves wanted Transylvania from Austria! Russia, meanwhile was allied, to varying degrees, with all of these squabbling principalities. Growing up in this climate was a young Serb named Gavrilio Princip, who will play a very important role in our journey through history later. In the meantime, we will journey from the Balkans to tie up loose ends.


Italy, Spain, Scandinavia


Scandinavia can essentially be summed up like this: It’s really cold and no one ever goes to war and everything is happy! Oh, and Norway will revolt from Sweden in a few years, but thats about it.

Italy, meanwhile, was on the rise. It was the last part of the Triple Alliance with Russia and Germany. It had recently suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Ethiopia, but it remained strong at home. It and its two allies caught Austria-Hungary in a vicegrip, surrounding it on all sides. Italy had claims to South Tyrol from Austria, and to Savoy from France.It also had its eyes on Libya from the Turks, and had many directions in which to expand.

Spain was once a Great Power. Dinosaurs were also once alive. Spain had lost its Mainland colonies to revolution, Cuba and the Philippines to the U.S., and Gibraltar to Britain. It was in a sorry state, and was now merely seeking to survive. Whether it could do even that remained to be seen.



The Americas


There is only one country in the Americas with any sort of influence worldwide: The United States of America. The U.S. defeat of Mexico in the Mexican-American war removed the only power that could hope to challenge their American sphere of influence. The American Civil War was another threat to the Union, but ultimately, the Confederacy was defeated, returning peace to the continent. Since then, nothing has really been able to stop the U.S. in her own backyard, as the policy of “Manifest Destiny” has lead to the assimilation of Native tribes, the annexation of Hawaii, and the in- progress Spanish-American war, which America seems poised to win, removing some of the last European presence from what has increasingly been the playground of the Bald Eagle.

As for the other American nations, they all essentially bent the knee to Washington. The U.S. has gone to great lengths to extort money from states such as Mexico, Honduras, and Columbia. South America is a little less Hegemonic. Both Britain and France maintain a sphere of influence on the continent, and they are joined by the Netherlands in having colonial holdings in Guyana. Britain also has Belize in Central America, and, of course, the Dominion of Canada. Canada is the only power really capable of challenging America, and that is mostly because of its alliance to Britain. Most of Europe maintains a presence in the Caribbean, but not enough to threaten the dominance of the White House.

The main threat to U.S. dominance comes from within: namely, the “Proletarian Revolution”. Communist and socialist leaders have been agitating for reform for years, while capitalist “Robber Barons” such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller maintain monopolies over their respective industries, and are able to treat their workers however they like. The working class, meanwhile, toils away in backbreaking conditions, with their safety at risk, and no insurance for their family if something were to happen to them. It is clear that some change must come to the United States, but whether that change will come through democracy or the Revolution remains to be seen.






Asia


Japan

Of all the nations to whom the Industrial Revolution brought change, in the Empire of Japan, one would observe the most dramatic alterations. Japan entered the 19th Century a feudal nation in a modernizing world, where the Emperor, theoretically the leader of the nation, held little sway over the courts of the feudal lords, or daimyos. The Samurai, meanwhile, were bands of warriors bound by the honor code of Bushido, and were largely responsible for keeping the nation in the grip of feudalism. Japan was isolationist, backwards, and reactionary, and refused to even trade with the gaijin, or westerners. This all changed when American admiral Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its ports to western trade. From there modernization was inevitable, and in 1869 Emperor Meiji fully modernized Japan, ending feudalism and even bringing limited democracy to the nation, in what became known as the Meiji Restoration. The Samurai, of course, were not pleased, but in general katanas do not function too well against Gatling Guns.

Japan truly had come a long way from its roots. It even defeated China, traditionally the most powerful Asian nation, in 1895, gaining control of the island of Formosa as a result. However, It would be a mistake to think that Japan’s imperial ambitions are sated. The Empire of The Rising Sun looks hungrily at the Russian protectorate of Korea, at the U.S. territories of Hawaii and the Philippines, and at the British Indian Empire. It is not a question of if Japan will strike, but at whom.


China


As Japan’s fortunes have as of late risen astronomically, so have China’s fortunes plummeted beyond the point of no return. The China of 1900 is a far cry from the glory of the Han dynasty. It is a feeble, backwards country, whose armies make the Austro-Hungarians seem like an unstoppable force of pure badassery by comparison. Suffering immense defeats at the hands of the United Kingdom in the Opium wars, China, with its immense population and massive potential for industrial expansion if it would modernize like it’s smaller, island neighbor has done. Unfortunatly, this does not seem likely to happen on the watch of the woman behind the throne, Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi has ruled China with an iron fist under the pretense that she was doing it in the name of her son, the Tongxi Emperor. She has resisted all notions of modernization. China’s Qing Dynasty is dying. The only question that remains is: what will replace it?



Ottoman Empire


China is not alone on the list of once great Asian Empires that have fallen on hard times. It shares this title with the Sick man of Europe itself, the Ottoman Empire. The influence of the Turks has dropped dramatically, losing control of Serbia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hedjaz, and parts of Persia. In addition, the Balkan States needed only one excuse to try to take back the portion of their territory still controlled by the Turks… and any conflict with the Balkan States was likely to bring the Russians to the defense of their allies. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Italy looks hungrily at Turkish Libya.

Ethnic and religious tensions still tear the Empire apart. Orthodox Christians in the Balkans and Armenia suffer from a tax levied against non-Muslims. Meanwhile, the Arab subjects of the Empire maintain resistance under the banner of the House of Saud. The Ottoman Empire would require a miracle from Allah himself to survive much longer. The Sick Man of Europe is about to get a tumor.


European Colonies


India. Australia. Indochina. Indonesia. These areas have all fallen under the control of the European colonial empires. They transfer massive amounts of capital to the capitols of Europe. States with less colonies, like Germany, are at a disadvantage. However, there is a massive amount of unrest brewing in the colonies, and one of the main platforms of the socialist movements is the abandonment of the colonies. Although it may not seem like it, the world is entering the twilight of Imperialism.



Chapter 1


The Rise of the Bald Eagle


The United States ended the 19th century a relatively weak at ion, but it had several factors in its favor. It boasted considerable military might once mobilized, and had a massive industrial base. The beginnings of the American Empire came with the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War.

The Spanish-American war (I really shouldn’t have to tell you who the belligerents here were) largely caused by the Monroe Doctrine (The doctrine that the U.S.A should limit European influence in the Americas as much as possible) that had been adopted by the U.S. government. The last European holding in the Americas (besides Canada, and even the most nationalist Americans were not prepared to pick a fight with the British Empire) was the Spanish colony of Cuba. When Cuba entered into revolution, tensions between America and Spain rose. All it would take is a spark to set the Caribbean aflame.

That spark came when the American ship the Maine sank on April 25, 1898. President William Mckinley was not actually prepared to go to war, but news magnates such as William Randolph Hearst blew the incident way out of proportion. They claimed the Spanish blew the ship up.(In reality, it was most likely a problem with the boiler). The American people would not accept anything less than total war after hearing that information.

The war would see Spain’s colonial empire destroyed. On Cuba, American troops landed and immediately set about occupying the island. Spain’s garrison tried to fight back, but they were simply outmatched by the American army. At the battle of San Juan hill, American troops under the command of one Theodore Roosevelt made a name for themselves with a charge up the hill. The Spanish were unable to in any way prevent the seizure of the island.

In the Pacific, meanwhile, the American objective was to capture the Spanish colony of the Philippines. The U.S. navy steamed out of port and crushed the Spanish fleet in a series of engagements. Following this, they landed on the archipelago. It was there that they faced their first difficulty in the war: Guerrilla warfare. The Filipinos, as it turned out, were not all that eager to exchange the mastery of Madrid for the mastery of Washington. Even as the Americans cleared the island of their Spanish foes, the natives of the island were preparing to fight for their freedom and independence. What happened next would stain the good name of the “Land of the free” forever.

American troops responded to the uprising brutally. Natives everywhere were rounded up and put in concentration camps. Rebellion was suppressed by U.S. troops using the time-honored “Massacre Method”. Cultural assimilation was attempted, but it never really worked. For all of the U.S. government’s rhetoric about “freedom” and “equality”, it was clear that the Philippines were nothing more that a labor colony.

3 months after it started, the war was over. It had been a total American victory. The Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the war, saw the final remnants of Spain’s empire destroyed. Cuba was granted independence, Puerto Rico was ceded to the U.S., and the Philippines were made an American client state. All that remained of the once mighty Spanish Empire were its colonies in Morocco.

The war at once showed that Europeans were not as dominant as they once were and fed the appetite for American Imperial expansion. Spain was humiliated, and the U.S. established itself as a great power. Washington had officially gained dominance in Latin America. Cuba was firmly in the American Sphere of Influence. The Americans, however, wanted more.

Enter Theodore Roosevelt. The hero of the Battle of San Juan Hill, Roosevelt looked to have a bright political career ahead of him. However, when he became William Mckinley’s Vice President, it was a leap even for him. When Mckinley was assassinated by an anarchist in 1901 leaving Roosevelt as President, it was an even bigger leap. Roosevelt was prepared to implement his expansionist doctrine.

His targets were the Central American states. Using the methods of “Gunboat Diplomacy”, Roosevelt used the United State’s considerable military might to extort various supplies, specifically bananas, from the Central American republics. Those that resisted were set upon by U.S. marines, who quickly set up glorified puppet governments in their capitols.

Roosevelt’s greatest coup, however, came in 1903. Connecting the continents of North and South America was a thin strip of land in Panama. This land meant that ships would have to sail around all of South America if they wanted to reach Asia. Teddy Roosevelt sought to change this, using a method that the British Empire had already employed in Egypt: a canal.

The Suez Canal was constructed by the British Empire in their colony of Egypt. It was constructed to provide easier access for the British to their colony in India. Before the construction of the canal, the British had to sail around Africa to get to India. Roosevelt intended to do the same thing with the Panama Canal.

There was one problem with this plan: Panama was under the control of Columbia. To remedy this, Roosevelt enlisted the help of France. He engineered uprisings in Panama, and essentially forced Columbia to allow Panama independence. There was no real reason for independence. Panama’s rights were not being trampled on. And yet, they broke away from Columbia at Roosevelt’s urging.

Panama was essentially America’s puppet. And so, it was rather easy to convince the young nation to allow American builders to build their canal. The Panama Canal was a long project. Ultimately, it firmly established American dominance in Latin America. It would not be completed until 1914. But it did not matter. America had proved to the world it was a nation to be feared.



Chapter 2

The Rise of the Triple Alliance and the Entente

Wilhelm II, by the Grace of God King of Prussia and Kaiser of Germany (and so many other titles that this book would double in length by mentioning them all) had what contemporaries call “Mommy Issues”. His mother, Victoria (daughter of the more famous queen) did not treat him very well. He was born with a shriveled arm, a disability that, while in any semi-normal mother would lead to increased care, in Victoria it lead to her treating him coldly throughout his childhood. What a bitch.

Anyway, Wilhelm, as Kaiser, was very hostile to Britain due to his abuse. This feeling was shared by Edward VII, Britain’s king. The British Empire had long been the dominant sea power, but Wilhelm managed to gather their ire by (the fiend!!!!!!!!!) having a navy! Wilhelm sought a colonial empire for Germany. Unfortunately, Germany only had a few corners of Africa and some pacific islands to its name. Wilhelm, seeking to beat the British at their own game, began to build up a massive naval armada to beat the British at their own game.

Russia was another country with a bone to pick with Perfidious Albion. They almost had a border with the British Indian Empire. The two great powers competed for influence in Persia and Afghanistan, the countries that separated their respective Empires. This diplomatic conflict, going on since the 1830’s, was called the “Great Game”.

Germany and Russia, in general, had no real quarrel with each other. They did, however, have a common enemy: Britain. As such, in 1903, the first bit of the alliance that would change the course of the century was signed: The alliance of the Eagles. This alliance, named after the Romanov and Hohenzollern crests, stated that, if Britain declared war on either of the powers, the other would come to the rescue.

Russia and Germany were already closely connected. They had many trade agreements, and their emperors were close friends. Wilhelm and Nicholas both harbored ambitions against Britain in their respective interest spheres. However, this alliance put Britain on the alert. The Royal navy was increased even more. Britain was now enemies with Germany and Russia.

Germany and Russia had another common enemy: the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Hapsburgs had suffered many humiliations at the Hands of the Hohenzollerns. They had lost Silesia to King Frederick the Great of Prussia, and been crushed by Prussia in the contest for leadership of Germany in the 7 Weeks War. In addition, Russia was opposed to the Dual Monarchy. Tzar Nicholas II envisioned a Pan-Slavic state, something that Austria-Hungary stood in the way of. One year after the initial alliance, the two empires expanded the terms of the alliance to include attacks on either nation by any power.

The alliance would face its first test sooner than expected. Japan had been eyeing the Kingdom of Korea, which was in Russia’s sphere of influence, hungrily. Russia also held the Sakhalin Islands, which Japan considered its territory. Japan’s Emperor Meiji, who had brought about the Empire’s modernization, felt the time was right to strike and obtain the first conquest in Japan’s path to dominate Asia.

On February 8, 1904, Japan struck. The Japanese Army landed in Korea, and quickly overcame the Kingdom’s army. Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyed the small Russian Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok. The Russian Army, while large, had a relatively weak presence in the Far East, and was unable to assist the Koreans. Meanwhile, parts of the Russian East European Army loaded up into trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway to reinforce the Far Eastern Army. However, the Japanese had control of the Pacific, and so had a huge advantage in supplying their beachhead on mainland Asia. Fortunately, the Russians had a huge ally on their side in the form of the German High Seas Fleet.

Kaiser Wilhelm jumped at the chance to help his ally against the “heathens”. He called the war “The climactic struggle between Christianity and Buddhism”. After the Far Eastern Fleet was destroyed, Russia sent its Baltic Fleet around Africa, in the hopes of setting up a blockade of the Home Islands of Japan. Wilhelm sent part of the Imperial German Navy- Including one of the new, powerful Dreadnought class Battleships, the SMS Bradenburg- under the command of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. The Tzar placed his fleet under Tirpitz’s command. Tirpitz had one job: destroy the IJN.

Tirpitz planned to set up a trap for the Japanese. Reaching the waters around Japan on May 27, 1905, he deliberately sent out hospital ships to lure the IJN out of hiding. Japanese admiral Togo took the bait. His fleet sortied, engaging the Russo-German fleet.

The Battle of Tsushima, as it came to be known, was a complete disaster for the Japanese. The allied navy surrounded the Japanese as they prepared to demand the surrender of the hospital ships. The Bradenburg was far more powerful than anything the Japanese had to offer. It commanded the waves, crushing all that opposed it. By the end of the day, Russo-German dominance of the sea had been achieved.

The Japanese stubbornly refused to surrender. Their now poorly supplied armies launched a desperate Banzai attack against the Russians. The Far Eastern Army was pushed back- until reinforcements from Europe came rolling in on the Trans Siberian Railway. Outnumbered, outgunned, and undersupplied, the Japanese fought to the last Man. However, the destruction of their army in June, combined with the German storming of Taiwan, forced the Emperor to the negotiating table in July of 1905.

In the peace deal, Japan would give half of its navy to Russia. In addition, it would pay reparations to both of its foes, and cede Taiwan to Germany. Japan’s imperial ambitions were crushed, its fleet lost, its honor tarnished. For the victors, however, life was never better. Wilhelm II and Nicholas II both called for national celebrations. Germany had proved the might of her navy. Russia had asserted its dominance in the Far East. And Britain, so sure of her navy’s ability to meet Germany head on, now felt a little less secure.

The Kingdom of Italy, meanwhile, viewed all of this with a mix of apprehension and opportunism. Italy had come into being in 1860, with the unification of Italy under the Kingdom of Piedmont due to Guiseppe Gabrialdi’s Expidition of the Thousand. Since then, their principal foe was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as Italy seized more and more of the land that they considered theirs from Austrian “occupation”. In 1905, Italy had one bit of land left to take: South Tyrol.

Italy, Germany, and Russia all had one thing in common: their rivalry with Austria. Germany wanted to annex Austria’s German speaking parts to form what they called “Greater Germany”. Russia desired Austria-Hungary’s Czech, Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Romanian, and Serbian citizens to be either under direct Russian rule or parts of states within the Russian sphere of influence. Italy wanted South Tyrol and the Dual Monarchy’s Mediterranean coast(This conflicted with Russia’s aims, which will be important later on when a certain Italian Duce named Benito Mussolini comes to power). Italy, in late 1905, would be the final signatory of an anti Austro-Hungarian alliance: if the Hapsburgs did anything against the interests of any of the three states, the other two would declare war. The Hapsburg Empire was surrounded on all sides by states that would be absolutely delighted to see the demise of the Empire. The seeds of the First World War were set.

Austria-Hungary’s very existence was threatened by the Triple Alliance. It was surrounded on all sides, and had little hope of successfully prosecuting a war against all three powers. Knowing this, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph turned to the only power who could give his enemies a real problem: France.

Of all the powers of Europe, France was without a doubt Germany’s biggest rival. Her politics were dominated by the concept of revanchinism, or the belief that a defeated country, in this case France, needed to restore her former glory. The object of that restoration was Elass-Lotheringen, a province of the German Empire that, until the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, had been part of France, as Alsace-Lorraine.

The Franco-Prussian War had seen France humbled and humiliated. Her army was shattered, her land conquered, and her Emperor banished. France and Germany had been, and to some extent still are, enemies since the concepts of France and Germany existed. They were, in the views of French President Armand Fallieres, destined to fight. Unfortunately for France, Germany had a great many friends as of late. Italy threatened the French southern frontier, and Russia could crush France under the weight of her massive army. Fallieres, as such, jumped at the chance to have an ally on Germany’s southern border. Germany and Italy were now themselves surrounded by enemies.

Fallieres and Franz Joseph met in the city of Vienna in March of 1906. It was there that they signed the pact that would cause the alliance in opposition to the Triple Alliance to come into existence: the Entente Cordiale. According to the terms of the alliance, Austria-Hungary would support France in a war against Germany and her allies, with the reward being the reclamation of Silesia, and France would support all Austro-Hungarian action in the Balkans. A new power block was born.

The British Empire was quick to align itself to the Entente, but it was a tenuous alignment. The British and the French had many grievances with each other, from tension in Africa to competing for control over Siam. The British were also involved in a naval arms race with the French as well as the Germans. For the moment, the British remained neutral.

The Triple Alliance, meanwhile, responded with paranoia. Now, any war that involved the Great Powers would plunge the whole continent into war. Europe was a tinderbox, and it would only take a spark to set the continent ablaze.










Chapter 3

China Rising


China had fallen far. What was once the cultural, economic, and scientific capitol of the world was now a backwards, corrupt, despotic state plunging into what seemed to be perpetual decline. China, ruled by the Qing Dynasty, had suffered defeats against the British in the Opium wars, lost control of Indochina to the French, and were beaten by Japan in the contest for Asian Hegemony. If China wished to survive, it would have to change.

The last straw was the Boxer Rebellion. In 1899, angry peasants took to the streets, slaughtering the westerners whose playground China was rapidly becoming. After some deliberation, China’s Empress Dowager Cixi supported the rebels, banishing the westerners from China.

The response of the Great Powers was immediate. A coalition consisting of France, Germany, Britain, Russia, the USA, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Japan all declared war on China. The Chinese Army never stood a chance, and China was forced to accept western domination. It was clear that modernization for China was the only option.

Unfortunately, Empress Dowager Cixi was not in the mood. She was the regent for her adopted son, who was weak willed and pathetic. Cixi violently resisted any attempts at modernization, and, with her absolute rule over China, the Middle Kingdom’s prospects looked bleak. However, there was a group of people looking for reform. The leader of this group was Chinese nobleman Kang Youwei.

Kang was a reformer who had watched the rise of Japan, combined with the humiliation of China, with a mix of admiration and envy. He had several progressive ideals, such as more rights for women, and democracy. Up until the Boxer Rebellion, Kang was willing to reform China from within, and without violence. However, after seeing Cixi’s callousness in regards to the Boxer Rebellion, he concluded that a coup was needed to save his beloved China. However, his faction did not have enough men to pull off a coup against Cixi. To get more manpower, he turned to another reformer, albeit one more radical: Sun Yat Sen.

Sun and Kang agreed about only one thing: the need to modernize China. Sun was a republican, while Kang supported monarchy. This divide made it imperative that the two reformers could reach a common ground if either of them were to succeed in their goals. Kang travelled in secret to the United States in 1902 to meet Sun in the hopes that the two reformers could work out a common plan for China.

Both Sun and Kang had the same general plan for modernization: a slow but steady approach, using the army to keep the reactionaries in line. What they could not agree on, however, was the government of the new China. Sun favored a Republic similar to the United States, while Kang desired the Monarchy under the Qing to continue. Ultimately, after much deliberation, the two men decided on a compromise: constitutional monarchy. The constitution would be based on the German system, with the Emperor retaining significant powers, but power also being delegated to democratically elected ministers. However, for this plan to work, it needed the approval of one man: the Emperor.

The Guangxu Emperor was nothing more than a puppet for his adoptive mother, Cixi. He had come to the throne at the age of four, and had no real power. However, he was not blind. He saw what was happening to China. He wanted China to join the modernized world, but had no power to make it happen. And so, it was an easier task that Kang Youwei had expected to convince the Emperor to support his and Sun’s plans for modernization.

On January 1, 1903, two elite assassins, hired from the fortune of Kang, snuck into Cixi’s quarters and killed her as she slept. By morning, the coup had been completed, the Emperor had been restored to power, and Kang and Sun were made his chief advisors. Sun began to draft a constitution, Kang prepared the country for modernization, and China’s future looked bright. Unfortunately, it would not be that easy. Across the country, reactionary warlords rose in rebellion against the Government.

Against the Chinese Empire were the Warlord forces of Guangxi, Shanxi, and the Ma Clique. In addition, Mongolia and Tibet declared independence from the Empire. Kang mobilized the portion of the army that was still loyal to the Emperor, and moved to meet the rebels. His plan was to use the Imperial Guard to meet the only warlord who could threaten Beijing in battle, Shanxi, to buy time for the main army to be given modern weapons.

Kang met the Shanxi forces in battle near the city of Hohot. The Shanxi were advancing on Beijing to stop the process of modernization. Looking to the example of the American Civil war, Kang dug some very primitive trenches in the path of the Shanxi, and armed them with newly imported Gatling guns. The battle would be joined on March 3, 1903.

The Shanxi soldiers charged the trenches, many of them armed with melee weapons. They expected to triumph, as they outnumbered the Imperial Guard by around 3 to one. However, they proved unable to get past the Gatling Guns. Hundreds of thousands of rebels died on the field that day, and the rest were run down by cavalry. The superiority of modern weapons had been proven, and the Shanxi threat to the capitol had been eliminated.

For around a year, Kang continued to defend the capitol in this manner. Then, finally, the weapons imported from Germany arrived. Kaiser Wilhelm II recognized the potential of China, and allied with China in exchange for weapons. The troops, thanks to German advisors, were finally ready to go on the offensive. So was Kang.

Kang gathered his massive, modern army and marched against the Shanxi. The majority of their soldiers routed following the first volley of rifle fire. The Shanxi capitol was taken On February 20, 1904. The threat to the modernization was essentially over. However, there was still much work to be done.

To the south, the Guanxi and Ma Cliques had been wreaking havoc. They raided southern China, terrorized their citizens, and spread propaganda. The elite forces of Guanxi were a cabal of Kung-Fu masters, called the Shaolin Monks. Kang marched his army south to meet the Guanxi, who had launched an offensive north, in conjunction with the Ma, in a last ditch effort to take Beijing.

The Battle of Nanjing marked the last bit of organized resistance to the modernization of China. Many of the poorly armed, outnumbered, and poorly trained warlord forces simply gave up. The only ones who offered any real resistance were the Shaolin Monks, who were gunned down as they charged the Imperialist line. Their last stand was depicted in the film “The Last Shaolin Monk”, starring Tom Cruise.

After the annihilation at Nanjing, warlord residence melted away. The Guanxi were beaten by the end of 1904. The Ma followed shortly after. Tibet and Mongolia were reconquered by 1905. China now faced the task of industrialization. The main population centers of the country were connected by Railroad by 1907. China was building a modern fleet, forts lined its border, and it could call upon a massive army of modern soldiers. Soon, the government of Chancellor Sun Yat Sen turned their focus towards the West. Britain and France had humiliated China, but now China could fight back. It would soon get its chance, too, as a result of some damn silly thing in the Balkans.

















Chapter 4

Some Damn Silly Thing in the Balkans


The Ottoman Empire was falling. It was only able to maintain control over its Muslim territories, and even in those, sectarian violence was high. In the Balkans, it had slowly been losing holdings over the course of a century. Greece, Serbia, and Romania all had full independence. The Turks maintained a hold over the Principality of Bulgaria, which was a vassal state. In addition, it had control over the region of Bosnia. For the time being, the Turks looked able to survive. Then, on October 5, 1908, Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria declared the Tsardom of Bulgaria independent. Austria-Hungary, seizing its chance, annexed Bosnia the following day, which they had their eye on for quite some time.

The Germans and Russians immediately protested this move. Serbia also had claims on Bosnia, and Tzar Nicholas II had no intentions of allowing yet more Slavic land to fall into the hands of the Hapsburgs. On October 7, Serbia demanded Austria-Hungary hand over control of Bosnia to it. Russia supported it(no one actually asked the Bosnians what they wanted, of course). Germany joined Russia on October 10. All these powers began to mobilize, to be joined by Italy on October 11. Russia sent an ultimatum to Vienna: leave Bosnia by November, or else. Then, France declared unconditional support for Austria.

France mobilized its army and divided it into two parts: the Army of Alsace-Lorraine, with the objective to retake Alsace Lorraine, and the Army of the South, with the objective to quickly defeat Italy. It was by now obvious that Austria-Hungary would not surrender. Full mobilization was enacted in all countries.

Britain watched this all with trepidation. There were some, such as First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, who favored immediate action against Germany. Others wanted to do nothing. King Edward mobilized the army and ordered the Navy into action, for use against either side. Britain could not remain in splendid isolation for long.

As the nations of Europe prepared for war, their citizens were whipped up into a jingoistic fury. Signs that read jingoistic messages were everywhere. “On to Paris”, On to Berlin”, “On to Vienna”. No one seemed to realize the horrors that awaited them.

By October 28, most of the soldiers were deployed to where the fighting would be. Russia and Austria prepared to settle the issue of Pan-Slavism once and for all in Galicia. France sought revenge against Germany in Alsace-Lorraine. Austria prepared to defend what it had left against Italy, and to take revenge against Germany. Britain watched the whole crisis unfold with trepidation.

At precisely 12:00, on November 1, 1908, guns all across Europe opened fire. There were many names for the conflict that had just begun. The Great War. The War to End all Wars. The First World War. The Kaiser’s War (the identity of said Kaiser depended on what side you were on). Whatever anyone called it, one thing was sure: This war would change the world.


End of Part One





Part Two

To End All Wars

Chapter One

Opening Moves


Germany had known a war on two fronts was coming ever since it came into being. It had, quite naturally, planned for this eventuality. The General Staff considered France to be a greater threat that Austria-Hungary. As such, they planned to attack France in a quick, devastating strike that would capture Paris in 42 days. The problem was simple: the French had greatly fortified their border with Germany. It would take 42 days to get past the initial fortifications, never mind to reach Paris.

The solution to this problem was proposed by General Alfred von Shlieffen. Germany was to bypass the French fortifications completely by moving through neutral Belgium. It might anger the United Kingdom, who was obligated to protect Belgium under the terms of the 1839 treaty of London, but surely they would not go to war over a “Scrap of paper”, as Germany’s foreign minister put it. And so, at midnight of November 1, Germany launched a surprise attack on Belgium.

As it turned out, Britain cared very much about this “scrap of paper”. An ultimatum was sent to Berlin, demanding withdrawal from Belgium within 24 hours, or war would be declared. Germany ignored the message. On November 2, 1908, Britain joined the Great War on the side of the Entente. Her army, called the British Expeditionary Force, loaded up on ships bound for Belgium. They reached the coast by November 4.

Meanwhile, Germany mercilessly advanced across Belgium. Outnumbered and out powered, Belgian troops were unable to put up meaningful resistance. The real challenge, however, was yet to come. British and German troops met each other on November 7. The result was the rout of the BEF. Brussels fell on November 15. French soldiers moved up into Belgium from the south, but were pushed back. Germany reached the French border on November 20. Belgium fell that same day.

However, the Germans quickly ran into a problem: winter was coming. As it got colder, the advance became harder. On December 20, the Germans were finally within 50 kilometers of Paris. However, the British and French had dug in with trenches to better defend the city. Germany responded with trenches of her own. As 1908 turned to 1909, the two sides faced each other in trenches at the gates of Paris.

Meanwhile, the Russians marched into the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The Hapsburgs were using troops with terrible morale and led by absolutely stupid generals. The Russians faced only token resistance. They were, however, delayed until winter, where they faced the powerful Austro-Hungarian Carpathian line. The Russians had experienced what the Germans were feeling.

Austria-Hungary had an ambitious plan to march north through Saxony to threaten the German flank in France. Lead by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, the Austro-Hungarian First Army- the Austrian elite- marched towards Dresden. They were faced by German conscripts. The only thing between Franz Ferdinand and Berlin was German Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg.

Hindenburg had an audacious plan to save Germany. He would use a small amount of his conscripts to hold off the Austro-Hungarian advance, and demand troops from the Western Front be pulled back to reinforce his troops. Kaiser Wilhelm II didn’t like it, but he was forced to accept that he could not take Paris if he wanted to keep Dresden. It has been speculated by some that had the Austrians not launched their offensive, Paris may have been taken.

The Battle of Dresden has been recognized as one of the most heroic defenses in history. Through courage and determination, the Germans fought to defend their home. The battle, which started on November 10, lasted until January 5, 1909, when the battle hardened German reinforcements arrived. At risk of encirclement, Franz Ferdinand retreated. He wrote in his diary “No Austrian would ever stay and fight when the risk of encirclement was so great.” The units from the Western Front would join with the conscripts to form the Army of the South, under Hindenburg.

In the Balkans, Serbia launched an offensive against Austrian controlled Bosnia, the cause of the whole war. Austro-Hungarian soldiers, however, held their own. The Hapsburg troops in the Balkans were unable to advance against Serbia because they needed reinforcements from other fronts, but the Serbs were not able to advance against their enemy, because their army was too small. It was a stalemate.

Italy preformed extremely poorly in the first months of the war. It launched an offensive against both France and Austria-Hungary, but both offensives failed miserably. The Austrians dug in at the Isonzo River, repelling any and all attacks that year, and the French, while they were pushed back a few miles, dug trenches before the Italians could do any real damage. The real problem facing the Italians, though, was that the British controlled the Mediterranean, using the two chokepoints of Suez and Gibraltar to sink almost every ship headed for Italy. To remedy this, Italian troops launched an invasion of British Egypt.

The attack was a disaster. The Italians initially created a beachhead, but the British destroyed their fleet on November 25, 1908, causing the beachhead to become a pocket. The Italians surrendered a week later. All in all, 10,000 troops were lost.

As news of the German attack on Belgium reached Moscow and Delhi, the capitol of the British Raj, both Russia and Britain mobilized their armies in the region. The Russian Central Asian army relied greatly on native cavalry and infantry, an army suited to the open landscape of Central Asia. The British used Indian conscripts, or Sepoys, supported by a core force of mercenaries in the service of the East India Company. On November 3, 1908, both of these forces declared war on Afghanistan, with the intent of marching through the nation to face each other.

The two armies met at the city of Kabul on November 20, 1908. The British troops were more numerous (It took the Russians longer to mobilize) and the Russian Troops retreated across the border. The British, however, did not advance further, because winter was coming and they did not want to invade Russia under those conditions. The Russians dug defensive formations, and the British prepared to attack.

1908 had ended, and the war was by no means decided. Germany and Russia had had some success, but Italy had had nothing but failure. France and Austria were both far from collapse, and Britain was wreaking havoc in the German colonies. German and French troops prepared to go “over the top” in the west to be slaughtered by the thousands in the hopes of gaining a small amount of ground. Hindenburg prepared his offensive in Bohemia, the objective being the capture of Prague. The British Indian Army prepared to advance into Central Asia. Russia prepared for a massive advance into Hungary.

It would be a bloody spring.






Chapter 2

The Austro-Hungarian Front

As the Western front shifted to Trench Warfare, the German high command decided to shift their attention to the Austro-Hungarians. The commander of this front was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who, over the winter, had been shifting German troops and mobilized reserves to Saxony, to create a new army group of around 500,000 men. His ambitious offensive’s target was the province of Bohemia, in Austria-Hungary. Taking Bohemia would allow Germany to threaten Austria itself.

Facing Hindenburg was the elite Austrian army, under Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand. These men were the best the Austro-Hungarians had to offer. The rest of their army was a melting pot of Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croatians. They were poorly trained, often disloyal, and many spoke a different language from their officers. The Austrian Army was 300,000 strong, and consisted of only the best trained, most loyal Austrians. Hindenburg would not run into the same token resistance that the Russians had the previous year in Galicia.

Hindenburg, however, had a secret weapon. His name was T. G. Masaryk. Masaryk was a Czech politician who had been campaigning for independence. Upon the outbreak of war, Masaryk fled to Berlin, where Kaiser Wilhelm II promised him Czech independence should the Triple Alliance win the war. Masaryk rallied support in Bohemia for Czech nationalism. Riots broke out in Bohemia, disrupting Franz Ferdinand’s supply lines. He advised restraint in putting down the riots. Emperor Franz Josef was having none of it. He ordered the police to fire on the protesters. The riots developed into a revolt.

It was at this moment that Hindenburg chose to strike. German troops surged forwards along the line. Franz Ferdinand decided that it would be better to defend a solid line against the Germans, meet them in battle, and rout them. He chose a city north of Prague, Karoly Vary, to make his stand. Karoly Vary was built by Charles IV, one of the most famous kings of the Czech Kingdom. On March 10, 1909, its fields would become soaked with blood.

The Battle of Karoly Vary set the mood for the rest of the war. Soldiers charged against each other’s trenches constantly. Hindenburg needed someway to bypass the Austrian trenches. As such, he, instead of launching a massed assault against the whole front line, he focused all of his troops against a specific part of Franz Ferdinand’s line. The final assault of the battle began on April 1, 1909. It ended in success, with the Austro-Hungarian army being pushed from Karoly Vary.

The rest of the offensive went very well for the Germans. The Czech people, unwilling to see Prague destroyed by street fighting, pushed the Austrians out of the city. Hindenburg and his men received a hero’s welcome. The Austro-Hungarians were pushed out of Bohemia by July 14, 1909.

Meanwhile, the Russians prepared to push into Slovakia, the next on their “to take” list of Slavic provinces controlled by Austria-Hungary. However, they faced the Austro-Hungarian “Carpathian Line”, a system of fortresses on the Carpathian Mountains that were the last line of defense before reaching Hungary. They were defended by mostly Hungarian soldiers, so that the disloyal Slavic soldiers would have a minimal opportunity to mutiny. On March 5, 1909, the Russian offensive began.

Thousands of Russian troops surged towards the Carpathian line. They were stopped by one of the most deadly defenses in history. Russian numbers were almost useless against the mountainous forts. The Russians took terrible losses. They managed to take parts of Slovakia, but the offensive, which ended on August 12, 1909, was a dismal failure.

Both the Russian and German high commands agreed that the best course of action was to take out Austria-Hungary first, and then deal with France. However, Italy would not cooperate with this course of action. They wanted to take the Suez Canal, and deny the British supplies from Asia. However, as British troops gained total control of the Mediterranean, Italy prepared to comply with the wishes of the Kaiser and the Tzar.

Italy planned to land on Austria-Hungary’s Adriatic Coast and link up with Serbia. From there, they would drive north, to Vienna, hopefully in conjunction with the Germans. It was an ambitious plan. However, it was to be thwarted by what was becoming the bane of Italy’s existence: the Royal Navy.

Italy needed naval supremacy in order to pull off the invasion. The Regia Marina (Italy’s navy) steamed out of port towards Egypt, hoping to give the British Mediterranean Fleet a nasty surprise. However, Italy’s fleet was blown out of the water by Britain’s navy, which received reinforcements from the Indian Fleet. Half of the Italian Navy was sunk, with almost no British ships being sunk. Italy’s offensive had failed before it had even begun.

Serbia was being held off. Russia was concentrating its full might against Austria-Hungary. Italy was… Italy. It was obvious to Paul von Hindenburg that Germany could not continue to fight a two front war with Austria-Hungary. He also knew that any offensive would have the most effect if it was coordinated. To that end, he met with Russian High command, and the Italians, to organize a very ambitious offensive: the 3 nations Offensive. The Objective: The capture of Moravia and Tyrol, the cutting off of Austro-Hungarian troops in the Balkans, the capture of Slovakia, the encirclement of Vienna, and the invasion of Hungary. Each nation would have to do its part for the invasion to work, but if it did, it would mean the death of the Dual Monarchy. Hindenburg pulled even more troops from the Western Front to launch the offensive.

It was at that moment that Britain and France struck.



Chapter 3

The Western Front

The Western Front in the Great War was massive. It stretched from the English Channel at Calais, to the gates of Paris, to a small sliver of French controlled Alsace. All of this land was lined with trenches, massive formations designed to halt enemy assaults wherever they may occur. Between the trenches was No Man’s Land, an area lined with fortifications that soldiers would have to cross to reach the enemy trenches. Across No Man’s Land, the Entente and the Triple Alliance faced each other.

The Western Front was a stalemate. The utter military genius of the generals in charge of the front led them to see fit to launch massive charges against heavily fortified enemy positions over and over. In some cases, thousands of men would die just to secure one mile of ground. France and Britain, however, received the worst of it. After Germany decided to focus on Austria-Hungary, it in general only defended.

France and Britain would launch a series of offensives in 1909, but none of them would actually come to fruition. Generals John French and Philippe Petain, the two main generals for the Entente on the Western Front, favored direct assaults. The Germans were no better. Even though they didn’t actually launch any offensives, whenever they lost ground, they were willing to do whatever it took to take it back. Countless German soldiers were lost in counter attacks before the land was finally retaken. By 1910, the people of Britain and France were desperate for victory.

That victory was planned to be the 1910 Spring Offensive. As Germany shifted even more troops to fight the Hapsburgs, the Entente saw their chance. On March 10, 1910, the guns on the Western Front opened fire. British and French troops surged from their trenches. A miracle occurred: a breakthrough was achieved. Entente forces swept aside their badly outnumbered German Opponents. The Enemy was pushed past Calais by the end of March, and from Paris in Mid April. The pre-war optimism was returning to Britain and France.

Germany, meanwhile, was in a panic. More and more German soldiers were being shifted back to the Western Front, to hold back the advance. Helmuth von Moltke, the German chief of staff, resigned in shame. He was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn. Falkenhayn would appoint an up and coming general to the position of commander of the Western Front: Erich Ludendorrf.

Ludendorff and Hindenburg were notable for their ability to work together. They managed to convince Kaiser Wilhelm II that, despite the Entente’s offensive, the Triple Alliance retained the advantage. The only thing stopping Russia and Germany from bringing their full might to bear against Germany was Austria Hungary. As such, the two argued, the only realistic chance that the Entente had to win was to knock Germany out of the war. Germany’s strategy should be to destroy Austria-Hungary, while protecting Germany from France and Britain.

There was one problem with this plan. In order for it to work, the Entente actually had to be stopped. That task fell to General Ludendorff. Ludendorff first ordered a fighting retreat to the German and Belgian border. While this was going on, he constructed a massive line of fortifications along the entire front, called the Ludendorff Line. The Entente reached the line on May 1, 1910. Now was the moment of truth. The Battle of the Ludendorff Line had begun.

It was in this moment, it has been argued, that the German Army evolved into a modern force. It’s spiked Pickelhaubes became modern Stanhelms. The trenches employed by the Germans were far superior to their British and French counterparts. Above the battlefield, planes flew, scouting, bombing trenches, and even strafing enemy troops crossing No Man’s Land. The Germans, however, were about to introduce a new weapon to the battlefield, one that would help them win the Battle of the Ludendorff Line: poison gas.

As the Entente began their offensive, one that John French boasted would “Win the war against the Hun and the Bear”, the Germans readied the gas. As hundreds of thousands of Entente troops went “Over the top” into No Man’s Land, they suddenly found that they were unable to breath. The gas entered into their lungs, their eyes, every part of their body was dying. Many soldiers turned and ran the moment they saw the telltale cloud

of gas coming towards them. The offensive was a dismal failure.

The higher ups in the Entente were devastated by the defeat. Troop morale sunk to an all time low. The Franco-British High Command desperately scrambled for a defense against the gas. As they prepared to try to hold on to what they had gained in the offensive, Wilhelm II demanded a counter attack. Ludendorff and Hindenburg, however, advised against it. The German objectives remained unchanged.

Austria must fall.


Chapter 4

Hapsburgian Twilight and the Rise of Tanks

On June 1, 1910, German troops surged into the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Moravia and Tyrol. Meanwhile, in the Alps, the Italians launched their own assault on South Tyrol, an area of Austria-Hungary that was ethnically Italian. In the Carpathians, Russian artillery opened fire on Austro-Hungarian forts as their army launched a massive human wave assault. In the Balkans, a new nation entered the war: Romania desired to take Transylvania, which was ethnically Romanian, from the Hapsburgs. Finally, Serbia launched what its commanders hoped would be its final offensive into Bosnia. The June Offensive had begun.

Austro-Hungarian high command were unprepared for the ferocity of the assault, or to deal with pressure from all sides. In addition, her troops were badly spent after years of fighting, and many of the Dual Monarchy’s Slavic subjects were tired of fighting what they viewed as a pointless war. The offensive had a devastating effect on the morale of the Austro-Hungarian army. Moravia fell on July 1. The Russians crossed the Carpathians on July 15. Bosnia, the cause of the war in the first place, was liberated by Serbia on August 1. Even Italy wasn’t suffering too many disasters, so that was something.

The Western Allies knew that if Austria-Hungary fell, the war was lost. However, all of their offensive capabilities had been exhausted by the costly Spring offensive. In addition, their troops were almost unwilling to fight after the gas attack. However, the Entente did have one last card to play, one final gambit to save their ally, one which would become very popular in another global war years later: Tanks.

Tanks were first developed by the British in 1910. Their purpose was to break through trenches and leave the way open for Infantry to take and hold positions. Their tracks were designed to tear through barbed wire, clearing away that major annoyance. Around ten British and French tanks were initially produced, and deployed to the Western Front. They were to see use in yet another Entente offensive, aimed at dislodging Germany from Occupied Belgium.

Unfortunately for the Entente, the tanks were not used to great effect. They were not used in a single cohesive offensive, but rather assisted the foot soldiers in breaking through the German trenches in several key areas. However, this left the tanks vulnerable to artillery fire, which took it’s toll on the assaulting force as usual. In addition, they broke down frequently, and the soldiers that the tank supported were often not enough to hold what they had taken against the German counterattack without the aid of the tanks. Overall, the tank was a disappointing failure for Britain and France.

With yet another Entente offensive stalled, Germany could concentrate fully on the destruction of Austria-Hungary. On September 1, German troops in Moravia met up with Russian troops in Slovakia. By the fifth, German and Italian troops had secured Tyrol and were advancing on Vienna. Serbian troops took Croatia, and were fighting in Slovenia. Emperor Franz Josef considered suing for peace with the Triple Alliance, but when he did, the German and Russian diplomats put terms on the table that were unacceptable for the Hapsburgs.

Austria and Hungary would separate. Galicia would be annexed into Russia. Serbia would receive Bosnia and Croatia. Romania would receive Transylvania. Czechoslovakia would be granted independence, with Germany annexing the Sudetenland. Italy would receive South Tyrol. Finally, the part that was most unacceptable to the Hapsburgs: Germany would annex Austria as a province of Germany, with the Hapsburgs demoted to Archdukes. These terms were unacceptable to Emperor Franz Joseph, who refused to surrender his empire under any circumstances. As long as there was a fighting chance, the Austro-Hungarians would fight on.

From Moravia, the Germans advanced into Hungary, meeting the Serbians by the end of the year. As 1910 turned to 1911, the Austro-Hungarians were reduced to Austria itself. However, defending Austria was one of the most formidable defenses in history. Emperor Franz Josef refused to surrender, in his fanatism. Franz Ferdinand, however, was more willing to work with the Germans. Wilhelm II considered him the next duke of Austria. However, across the Atlantic, the United States of America was stirring. The election campaigns were beginning, and Woodrow Wilson, an erudite school teacher turned politician, had a platform based around an assault on Germany and Russia…


Chapter 5

America Joins the War and the War in Asia

Historians have long considered Woodrow Wilson one of the worst presidents in American history, and with good reason. Wilson made one of the most disastrous decisions that any president ever has made, and declared war on Germany and Russia. And yet, in 1911, as Wilson began his campaign for President of the United States against William Howard Taft, his platform seemed appealing to American jingoists. Wilson argued that the United States had a duty to “make the world safe for democracy” or some bullcrap like that. In reality, both Germany and Russia had constitutions and allowed the voices of their people be heard, but, as far as Wilson was concerned, having a king automatically made you a despotism. Unless, of course, you were Britain.

The U.S. had, since the start of the war, been drifting ever closer to the Entente. Britain and France were important American trade partners, and the war had not stopped the U.S. from trading. However, as the Germans began their submarine campaign against Britain, more and more American shipping was hit. This outraged many American hawks, with conservative elements of Congress calling for war. However, one incident would solidify Wilson’s election campaign.

On April 1, 1912, the British liner Titanic was launched with much fanfare as the largest ship that the world had ever seen. Despite the ongoing war, it was about to begin it’s maiden voyage to New York City. However, the Titanic in reality had a darker purpose: it was to carry weapons of war to the U.K. that it bought from America. The German government warned anyone who was going on the ship’s voyage that they were making themselves targets. Almost no one listened. As such, when the Titanic set sail from port, a German U-boat slipped out after it. On April 15, 1912, the Titanic was torpedoed and sunk.

Never mind that the ship was going to carry weapons to the British government. Never mind that Germany warned the world not to go on the ship. Never mind that the U-boat guided the ship’s lifeboats to the nearest land mass. In his speeches, Wilson denounced the Germans as barbarians, demanding that America declare war on them and “Their Mongoloid allies” (the Russians). In the elections of 1912, Woodrow Wilson emerged victorious, and his first act as president after being sworn in was to ask Congress for a declaration of War on the Germans and their allies. The motion passed. On February 1, 1913, the United States entered the war on the side of the Entente.

America’s new allies could certainly use the help. 1912 had been a year of failure. After 2 months of resistance, Austria-Hungary finally surrendered, Emperor Franz Joseph dying the day the treaty was signed, some say of a broken heart. Preliminary plans to set up an independent states from the wreckage of the Empire were already beginning. Meanwhile, Austria formally became a member state of Germany, with Franz Ferdinand becoming Archduke. He would play an important role in healing the wounds between Austria and the rest of Germany. The former Austrian army was absorbed into the German army, with one soldier, Adolf Hitler, distinguishing himself with great bravery, taking a tank shell for his squad. He was posthumously awarded the Iron Cross.

In Central Asia, the Russian Army, after defeating the British invasion in 1909, pushed into The British Raj. The Russians reached the Indus by 1910, but were stopped by the staunch defense of the British Indian Army. Countless Russian soldiers were lost attempting to cross the river. However, in 1911, a massive amount of Russian soldiers were transferred to India from Europe as a result of the Austro-Hungarian collapse. General Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, commander of Russian troops in India, launched a front wide offensive against Raj positions on the Indus, crossing the river and pushing deeper into the Subcontinent. Delhi fell by the beginning of 1912. Throughout the rest of that same year, the British Indian army fell into a state of collapse. Many Maharajas switched sides, seeing the way the wind was blowing. Many Indian soldiers simply deserted, seeing no reason to die for their colonial oppressors. The British Raj surrendered independently from the British Empire in August 1912.

Meanwhile, the newly westernized Chinese Empire was seeking to flex its muscles and prove to the world it could defeat a European power. German foreign minister Arthur Zimmerman would give them that chance. In the Zimmerman Telegram to Beijing on March 13, 1912, Germany promised China the German colony of Taiwan as well as the opportunity to do whatever it pleased with any Asian colonies it captured so long as it declared war on the Entente. Sun Yat Sen accepted.

Chinese troops stormed into the British colony of Hong Kong on March 15, 1912. The following month, they turned south, invading the colony of French Indochina with a stunning speed and ferocity. Chinese marines stormed the British colony of Malaya, and they invaded Burma in June, linking up with Russian troops in Bengal in August. In a few months, China had subdued the Entente’s far eastern colonies. Only Australia and New Zealand remained.

At the beginning of the year, it had seemed as though the war was winding down. Austria-Hungary was falling, and the other fronts were being closed one by one. The entry of America, however, gave Paris and London new hope. It would be in 1913 when the decisive battle would occur.


Chapter 6

The War against the Ottomans

The Ottoman Empire was a nation on the decline. In the 1870s it had suffered a disastrous defeat against Russia in the Russo-Turkish war, where they had lost territory in the Caucasian Mountains to Russia. In 1808, the Principality of Bulgaria declared independence. It was technologically backwards, and there were Arab and Slavic nationalists threatening the Empire’s integrity. In 1910, however, with its arch enemy Russia engaged in a war with Austria-Hungary, the Turks saw their chance to strike.

It was not merely opportunism that lead the Turks to go to war. They had had strong economic ties with the British ever since the Germans had joined with the Russians. A British soldier, T.E. Lawrence, was training Turkish soldiers to Fight with modern weapons. When Britain joined the war, they demanded that the Turks join them. The Turks proposed a bargain: The British would make for them two Dreadnoughts with which to fight the Russian Black Sea fleet. In 1910, these dreadnoughts were completed. As a result in August of 1910, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Russian Empire, the German Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy.

Ottoman troops advanced into the Caucasian mountains. However, the region was mountainous enough that the Ottoman offensive stalled, and the Russians were able to bring reinforcements in time to stop the assault. On September 1, the Russian counteroffensive started. It too, however, was stalled by the mountains. The Caucasian front was a stalemate. It’s only practical effect was to force the Russians to divert troops from the offensive against the Austrians, allowing the Hapsburgs to hold on.

Ottoman soldiers also pushed into Russian occupied Persia. This was the Turk’s most threatening offensive, as they could encircle the Russian forces fighting in India. The Russians were forced to dispatch soldiers to block the Turks. While successful, this operation forced the Russians to let up their offensive in India.

In the Balkans, the Russians had a trump card. At the urging of the Russians, Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria declared war on the Turks, and by extension the Entente. In Greece, King Constantine was all too eager to aid Kaiser Wilhelm, who was his brother in law. These two nations were in a position to threaten the Turkish capitol of Constantinople.

Their offensive, however, would be stalled by an individual who will become very important later: Ottoman general Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Kemal, using British equipment, was able to successfully defend most of Rumelia against the Greeks and Bulgarians. This defense continued well into 1912.

In Libya, the Italians launched an invasion with the aim of taking the region. This invasion, however, was complicated by T.E. Lawrence, who had taken command of Ottoman troops in Libya. Lawrence did an excellent job of rallying the people of Libya to the Ottoman cause. Though the Italians did take Tripoli, Lawrence’s troops kept them from taking Bengasi, Libya’s other major city, and the Libyan countryside was filled with Arab militias. Libya, like the rest of the war, was a stalemate.

In August 1911, the Russians transferred a huge amount of troops into Persia for an offensive against the Turks. The offensive was successful, and by October the Ottomans were pushed out of Persia entirely. The Russians then moved on to Mesopotamia. However, they were stopped at the Tigris River in November, before taking Baghdad. This offensive also allowed the Russians to go on the attack in the Caucasus, taking Armenia in late November. The Ottoman Empire was coming apart.

In 1912, after two years of trench warfare, a combined Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, Greek, Russian, and German offensive finally broke the stalemate in Thrace. On June 2, 1912 the offensive began, capturing Gallipoli and putting Constantinople at risk. Despite the best efforts of Mustafa Kemal, Constantinople fell, for only the second time in five centuries, on July 5, 1912. The Ottomans sued for a separate peace the following day.

The terms of the Treaty of Constantinople were harsh. Turkey would cede northern Thrace to Bulgaria, Southern Thrace to Greece, and Macedonia would be divided between the three. It would also cede Constantinople and the Greek parts of Anatolia to Greece. Armenia would go to Russia. Finally, a Russian administered protectorate would be established in the Holy Land, and the Kingdom of Iraq would be placed under Russian protection. Finally, and true to form, the Turks would pay reparations.

Like most of the treaties ending the Great War, the consequences of this one would be disastrous. The territorial disputes over Macedonia and Thrace, particularly between Bulgaria and Greece, were many. All across the world, though, Orthodox Christians took the moment to celebrate what was to become a new holiday: Reconquest Day. King Constantine was crowned Emperor of all the Greeks in the newly restored Haiga Sophia in Constantinople. Many Orthodox Christians moved to the new Russian protectorate in Palestine, to the chagrin of Palestinian Muslims. Tzar Nicholas II also allowed Jews to move to the Holy Land, perhaps in an attempt to make amends for centuries of Pogroms. In the defeated Ottoman Empire, dissatisfaction with the monarchy reached an all time high. Mustafa Kemal, meanwhile, had become enamored with the ideology of Communism. He began to advocate for a dictatorship of the Proletariat, with himself at the helm, of course.


Chapter 7

The Final Year

The entry of America into the war threw a wrench into Germany’s plans to end the war. They had intended to divert all of their troops to the Western Front, but there were several areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire that they had to pacify. In newly independent Hungary, for example, Communists under Bela Kun attempted to set up a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. Austrian nationalists also tried to restore an independent Austria, led by Karl Renner. These insurrections failed, but many German troops were tied up.

It was thus rather difficult for Germany to bring adequate force to bear against the Entente. Using their new “Storm Troops”, or elite soldiers trained to take and hold trenches, the Germans began the Ludendorff Offensive on March 29, 1913. By April, they had reached Rhiems, north of Paris, but the first American troops were arriving to bolster their faltering allies. The German army was the best in the world, but soon the American numbers began to show. Troops from the British dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand helped as well. By May, the Germans were being pushed back. By June, the Entente offensive had reached the German border.

The Entente commanders, John Pershing from America, Douglas Haig from Britain, and Philippe Petain from France, planned a massive offensive to capture the Rhineland and knock Germany out of the war. The Germans would be overwhelmed with numbers alone, and the war would come to an end. However, the Germans had their own allies. As the Indian front closed, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops, under Alexei Brusilov, arrived at the front. The stage was set for the decisive battle of the First World War.

In Asia, meanwhile, Chinese troops invaded Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. The Chinese fleet clashed with the American navy around Hawaii and Midway, and battled with the Royal Navy around Indonesia. In all of these engagements, the Chinese proved themselves the equal of the westerners. A new order was rising over Asia. Germany and Russia had unwittingly created a powerful enemy… one with its eyes set firmly on Siberia.

Asia, however, was a sideshow compared to the European Front. The Pershing Offensive,v the Entente’s last, best hope, began on July 4, America’s independence day. Entente troops crossed into the German province of Elsass-Lotheringen, gaining some ground as they did. However, the German and Russian commanders, Hindenburg and Brusilov, decided to cause as much casualties as possible to the attacking forces. After a week of fighting, the Entente had reached the city of Metz, but their divisions were badly mauled. Then, the Russian reserves arrived in force.

Millions of battle hardened Russian troops smashed into Entente lines. They were supported by highly trained German Storm Troops, who blew holes in the enemy lines for their allies to exploit. By the end of July, the Entente had been pushed out of Germany. The speed of their rout would only intensify as the year continued.

All through August, Entente forces fell back. To the north Belgium was reconquered by Russo-German troops on August 10. The German morale was returning, as the Entente morale reached an all time low, being forced to pull out of the land that they had fought so hard for. The French army began to mutiny, returning home from what they knew to be a losing war. The Anglo-American expeditionary force was strong, but it could not fight without the French to back them up.

On August 15, the German fleet felt confident enough to try to break the British blockade on their trade. They sallied out of port, engaging the enemy at Jutland. With the aid of the Russian Baltic Fleet, the Germans scored a decisive victory, destroying half of the British fleet. Britannia no longer ruled the waves. This defeat led to a large amount of anti war strikes in Britain itself, and the British government began to contemplate an armistice.

On the battlefields of France, the German technological expertise was proving itself. The German tank, the AMV, was proving superior to the British and French tanks. In the air, German fighters defeated their Entente counterparts at every turn. Spearheading the German war effort in the air was Manfred von Richtofen, whose red fighter earned him the name of the Red Baron. The twenty year old ace would go on to accomplish great things in German aviation.

In the south, the Italians, who had been fighting the French in Savoy since the beginning of the war, finally were winning victories. As August began, the Italians launched an offensive into Provence, capturing the city of Marsielles. By the end of August, the Italians were advancing almost unopposed across Aquitaine, as the French pulled troops for the desperate defense of Paris. Truly, the war was reaching its close.

By the end of August, the Russo-German forces had reached Paris. The British, Americans, and French dug in, prepared to fight. On August 25, the battle of Paris began. Fighting mostly occurred around Paris, with the final days of trench warfare taking place. On September 1, Paris was completely surrounded. Five day later, the fighting reached the outskirts of the city itself. On September 6, 1913, Paris fell. France surrendered that same day. On September 9, Britain surrendered. Finally, on September 11, 1913, The United States surrendered, followed by every other Entente nation. The war was over.


Chapter 8

The Treaty of Potsdam

The First World War had been the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. Millions died, and nations were devastated. An entire generation was lost. And so, as Tzar Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and King Victor Emmanuel I prepared for the peace conference at Potsdam Castle, just outside Berlin, they had one thing on their minds: vengeance for a war that they felt had been started by Britain, France, and Austria-Hungary.

The only other person at the conference who would have any effect on the proceedings was U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. The U.S. was the only Entente belligerent that still had a capacity for large scale war. Indeed, American and Chinese marines were still heavily contesting the Pacific, with heavy fighting in Guam and Midway in particular. The U.S. army, meanwhile, had many more soldiers that it could ship to Europe. Even though it wouldn’t do much good, with France devastated and the Royal Navy no longer able to protect the American transports, if America wished it, America would fight on.

Unfortunately for Wilson, America did not wish to fight on. Only he did. There were many protests in America for peace, and the army refused to fire on the protestors. Wilson’s presidency, and the United States itself, would be in danger if he did not push for peace.

At the conference, Wilson introduced his Fourteen Points, a hugely unrealistic proposal that called for non harsh terms to be imposed on the defeated powers, and for Russia and Germany to actually lose territory. This unrealistic proposal was laughed off the table by Kaiser Wilhelm II, who informed Wilson that the conference was for the defeated powers to be informed of the conditions under which they would surrender, and surrender. If not, Germany and Russia would be happy to occupy France for a while.

The Treaty of Potsdam has been heavily criticized by historians. They claim that Britain and France would never have imposed such harsh conditions on Germany! Nope, never. Not at all. Anyway, the following is a copy of the Treaty of Potsdam in paraphrased format, with my own analysis when appropriate.

Firstly, The Entente would be officially dissolved, with no alliance between the defeated powers permitted ever again. An interesting question is how exactly the victors intended to enforce these terms, but whatever. Secondly, France and Britain would have to pay out a total of 100,000 German Marks each to all of the victors, each. Finally, in terms of military: Britain would limit her navy to 100 ships of any kind except dreadnoughts. France could not have an army of over 100,000, and was forbidden from having a navy or Air Force. America was forbidden from moving its navy beyond Hawaii in the Pacific and Iceland in the Atlantic. These were the non territorial terms.

The peace terms imposed by Russia were mostly directed against Britain, specifically related to the “Great Game” between the two that had been going on for decades over dominance of Central Asia. Iran and Afghanistan were to accept sole Russian overlordship. Iran would cede a port to Russia, so it would have access to the Indian Ocean. The British Raj was to grant independence to Pakistan, which would become a Russian protectorate. Finally, The British Raj was forbidden from recruiting any native Indians into its army. Russia had triumphed. It had won the Great Game.

China’s demands were spearheaded by Kang Tongbi, the daughter of Kang Youwei and one of the first female diplomats. China desired to reestablish her sphere of influence over East Asia. To this end, Malaysia, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were all given independence from their colonial overlords, only to be made tributaries of China. The Philippines was also made a tributary. China received Hong Kong from Britain, and, as promised, German Formosa. Finally, all American Pacific possessions except Hawaii were ceded to China. The Middle Kingdom had reemerged on the world stage.

Italy probably did the least of any of the European power to win the war. All it did was tie up Austro-Hungarian and French troops. However, it was payed its due. Italy received several border regions from France, including the city of Nice. It also received Corsica and all French African colonies north of the Sahara. Italy, however, was not satisfied. In the breakup of Austria-Hungary, Serbia (now the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) received several Border regions that Italy felt rightfully belonged to it. This led to many Italian Irredentists forming the Fascist party, a party devoted to nationalism and dictatorship, under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini.

Austria-Hungary fell apart. Austria was annexed directly into Germany, along with the German speaking parts of Bohemia, the Sudetenland. The Kingdom of Czechoslovakia, under the German prince Waldemar, now Vladimir I of Czechoslovakia, was formed. Romania received Transylvania, and Serbia received all of the Empire’s South Slavic provinces. The “Kingdom” of Hungary, under the dictatorial regent Miklos Horthy, desired to reunite Austria-Hungary.

Finally, Germany. Germany lost the most troops in the war, and suffered more than any of the other victors. It was compensated with a number of French border regions, including Verdun, and occupation of a strip of French land stretching from Calais to the Swiss border, to be in an optimal position in the next war. From Belgium, Germany received some border regions, and put Prince Albrecht on the throne as Albert II, making Belgium a German puppet. In addition, Germany received all sub Saharan British and French African colonies, except the Dominion of South Africa, which gained full independence, and British and French East Africa, which went to Italy.

The Treaty of Potsdam was a disaster. It castrated the defeated powers, and gave rise to new, aggressive ideologies (which will be discussed later). However, the disaster would not end there. As he was leaving the castle after signing the treaty, Kaiser Wilhelm II was murdered by Gavrilio Princip, a Slavic nationalist, as revenge for the German “occupation” of the Sudetenland, on January 5, 1914. His son, Wilhelm III, was crowned the next day. Few people have been less suited for dealing with some of the most ruthless dictators ever to rule. The consequences of Princip’s actions would be terrible.

 

[Blah the Prussian]

Part 3

Interbellum

Chapter 1

An American Revolution

Many historians have said that the rise of Communism in America was inevitable. America, certainly, was very susceptible to it, certainly more so than Russia! It is certainly true that American democracy was what made it so vulnerable. The example of the United States proves that pure democracy, without the wise, just hand of a monarch to guide it, is bound to end as America’s did: bloodily.

American Democracy was in reality a fluke. The economy was controlled by “Robber Barons” who had a massive amount of control over the economy. The Robber Barons each controlled a business that had complete control over a market. This was called monopoly, and it meant that the owners of the business could charge however much they wanted for the service they provided, because there was no competition. This led to a few businessmen having complete control over the economy, which meant they also controlled the government. The last major attempt to block the Robber Baron’s stranglehold on power came from President Theodore Roosevelt, but all of his measures to stop the monopolies were stopped by the Congress for being “unconstitutional”. So it was that Republican Democracy went the way it always does: Oligarchy.

The Robber Barons were not unchallenged, however: the Socialist Party, led by Eugene V. Debs, sought to create a nation where the state controlled the means of production. They argued that only in this way could the rich be prevented from exploiting the poor. Socialism, however, did not seem like it could ever be elected to power-not with the Robber Barons controlling everything.

1913, however, would change all of that. That was the year when American soldiers would be cut down by the thousands in a pointless war started by President Woodrow Wilson. After the war, Wilson barely managed to avoid being impeached. However, the Democratic Party took a severe popularity hit because of the debacle. The Republicans were no better. Into this void stepped the Socialists. In the 1916 election, it looked as if the Socialists would finally win an election. It would not, however, be through democratic means that the Socialists would come to power. They would dominate politics through revolution.

In the 1916 campaign, Eugene Debs toured across the Northern industrial cities. He had the votes of the workers for the election. The South, meanwhile, would be the hotbed of the resistance to Socialism. However, it was divided between William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson. That meant that Debs had the advantage in terms of votes. Or at least he would, if he survived to the election. However, on a fateful day in February, the Ninth to be exact, Eugene Deb’s New York rally was fired upon by police, and Debs was killed. It would be the second shot heard round the world, and it would lead to the beginning of the Second American Revolution.

The response of the workers, as well as that of Deb’s former lieutenant Jack Reed, was immediate. All across the industrialized North, the workers rose up, seizing most of the cities. In the following weeks, they would spread out and seize the countryside around the cities, and many units in the US army would switch sides as well. By April, the communists controlled everything north of a line stretching from the Great Lakes to Baltimore, Maryland. Communist troops were also on the offensive in the Midwest. From April to July 15, 1916, heavy street fighting would take place between the Communist forces and Federal troops throughout Maryland. On July 15, after a week long battle, the bedraggled US army surrendered the city. From the steps of th White House, Jack Reed proclaimed the foundation of the United Socialist States of America, whose constitution would be determined at a later date.

Despite all of this the war was far from over. Woodrow Wilson had fled to California, where the US army had succeeded in stamping out Communist partisans. Once there, he, along with General John Pershing, formed a defensive line along the Rocky Mountains with the remnants of the US army. The “Pershing Line” would be a tough nut to crack for Communist forces.

It would be in the South, however, where the Communist’s greatest task lay. Civilian militias, consisting primarily of poor whites, had been mobilized by William Jennings Bryan. Now, they prepared for the onslaught to come, as the Communists prepared to pacify the South. They did not have long to wait.

On August 1, 1916, Communist troops crossed into Virginia. They were met with stiff, fanatical resistance from the militias. Long after Virginia had been pacified a month after the start of the campaign, the Red Army was facing a huge amount of guerrilla resistance from the “rednecks”. Reed ultimately decided to impose draconian measures on the occupied South, including nationalization of farms. The resistance, however, never ceased. Despite all of this, the Communist advance continued, however slowly.

After two years of long, bloody conflict, the South was finally subjugated. However, America’s neighbors were also eager to capitalize on her weakness. The Canadians sent troops to occupy New England, one of the more industrialized regions of America, as well as Alaska. In the Pacific, Japan, which had been quiet since the humiliating defeat by Russia and Germany in 1905, took control of America’s Pacific possessions, including Hawaii (where it installed a daughter of the last Queen as monarch) and the Philippines. The Japanese had democratized, but now looked once again towards China for expansion. Reed was forced to accept all of these losses.

In June of 1919, the Communists had secured the South, had the Northeast under their complete control, and were advancing in the Midwest. All that was left was to cross the Rocky Mountains and deal the remnants of the Federal Government one final blow. The Communists took many losses crossing the mountains, but by the end of June, they had crossed them, advancing into Oregon, Arizona, and Washington State.

As the Red advance rolled through New Mexico and Arizona, the Middle and Upper class of America finally saw the writing on the wall. A Communist takeover in America was inevitable. A mass exodus of the rich occurred, as many prominent Americans, such as William Randolph Hearst and Henry Ford, fled from an America that was becoming increasingly hostile. The former “Robber Barons” fled with them, taking with them their vast wealth and a good portion of the American economy. A large amount of refugees, however, particularly those who were not particularly rich, were turned back by the countries they fled to (particularly Australia, Canada, Russia, New Zealand, China, and Japan). Woodrow Wilson was among them, boarding a ship to Australia before the Communists had even entered California. His ship, however, crashed on Tazmania and he was eaten by Tazmanian Devils, a fitting end for such a terrible person.

On August 6, 1919, from Alcatraz Island, the last piece of land that the Red Army captured from the now defunct USA, Jack Reed proclaimed the formation of the USSA (United Socialist States of America) with himself as President. The USSA had mandatory Socialism in all of its states, with governors and Party Council, or Politburo, members being elected as well. However, the Politburo alone elected the Premier, who had absolute power. Free Speech was also greatly curtailed. Clarence Darrow, an American defense Attorney living in exile in Australia, commented that “Never has so good a cause led to such disastrous results.” Unfortunately, the situation in the USSA would not get any better. Reed was an aggressive, authoritarian ruler, and he was determined to spread Communism, whatever the cost.

Chapter 2

The Spread of Communism and Fascism

By 1920, Jack Reed, premier of the USSA, had fully consolidated the Communist Party’s rule over America. He followed a set of beliefs that said that Communism should be spread across the world covertly, using agitators to convince the population to rise up in rebellion. He called his ideology the “Reed Doctrine”, after the famous Monroe Doctrine, which essentially claimed the Americas as the US’s sphere of influence, and his first target was Mexico.

Mexico was an exceedingly corrupt dictatorship ruled by Victoriano Huerta. However, the country was in the middle of a violent civil war, with Communists and Republicans both fighting against Huerta’s regime. The Americans sent advisors and weapons to the Communists, led by guerrilla leader Doroteo Arango, better known as Pancho Villa. With American help, Villa was able to take control of all of Mexico in 1921. Mexico would be the first stepping stone to Communist domination of the Americas.

Throughout the 1920’s, Communism spread from Mexico, to Central America, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Not all American attempts to spread Communism were successful, however. In Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, the right wing dictatorships in power crushed all Communist sentiments, and formed a coalition against Communism in Latin America. Conflict seemed imminent. In addition, Canada continuously resisted all attempts to incite a revolution.

In some countries, America did not need to agitate for revolution. The British Raj was greatly weakened by its defeat in World War I, and advocates for Indian independence saw their time to strike. The Communist Party of India, however, were in the best position, as they reminded the common Indian people of their crushing poverty, and the fact that the Indian nobility actively collaborated with the British. In 1925, led by Shripad Amrit Dange, the Indians rose in revolt with the goal of installing a Communist state in India, led by Communist leader Shripad Amrit Dange.

At first, the revolt was only a guerrilla war, with rebels controlling the jungles and striking against the British whenever they had the chance. However, in 1926, British troops massacred peaceful Indian protestors, including intellectual Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi’s death convinced the British Sepoys, or native Indian soldiers, to join the rebels. At this point, the British Indian Army was badly outnumbered, and could not fight against so many rebellious subjects. In March 1927, the British withdrew from India, and the Indian Democratic Republic was declared by Dange in Delhi.

The IDR followed an aggressive foreign and internal policy, threatening the Russian protectorate of Pakistan, and prosecuting any “enemies of the people”. In India, a state campaign to abolish Hinduism was mostly successful, with many of India’s poor subscribing to Dange’s cult of personality. In addition, many of the old Maharajas who were unlucky enough to fail to escape India were murdered along with their families after show trials, with their property being redistributed by the state.

In the Ottoman Empire, Communism was strong as well. In the past century, the House of Osman had failed in every way to reverse the decline of the Turkish nation. Practically every aspect of society at this point called for the deposition of the Sultan. In 1921, Communist aligned soldiers, led by Mustafa Kemal, stormed the Imperial Palace in Ankara, the new Ottoman capitol, and butchered the Sultan and his family. They then proclaimed the Middle Eastern Worker’s Republic, a Communist State with claims to the entirety of the Middle East.

The response from the European Right Wing was to be expected. Across Europe, the right rallied behind demagogues who railed about the “Red Hordes” and the need to “Defend Western Civilization”. Chief among these demagogues was the Italian Benito Mussolini. Mussolini, angered by the fact that a good portion of the land tally had been promised from Austria-Hungary had gone to Yugoslavia instead, at Nicholas II’s insisting, claimed that the Triple Alliance had stabbed Italy in the back, and urged it to leave. This, combined with Communist unrest in Italy as well, encouraged King Victor Emanuele III to appoint Mussolini as Italy’s Prime Minister in 1919. Mussolini immediately cracked down on leftist movements, and slowly centered the state around himself. By 1925, he was the undisputed dictator of Italy. Mussolini called his new ideology “Fascism”.

Fascism quickly became a catch all term for far right ideologies in Europe. In Britain, the public psyche was shocked by the loss of the war, as well as India and Ireland, which, after a bloody rebellion, declared independence in 1917, taking the whole of the Island. British firebrand and politician Oswald Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists, a group desiring to restore the British Empire’s former glory and get revenge on Germany and Russia. Mosley’s party, however, did not get far until 1930, when King George V died. His son, Edward VIII, had fascist leanings, and appointed Mosley as Prime Minister. Mosley was quick to reign in the autonomy of the British Dominions, and they soon became Fascist leaning, too. Not all Britons supported Fascism. Some of the more notable were Winston Churchill, former first Lord of the Admiralty, and Prince Albert, Edward’s brother. They would go into exile in Germany.

In China, the young intellectual Wang Jingwei coined the ideology of “Sinocentrism”, an ideology similar to Fascism but was different i n that it called back to China’s glory days instead of looking to the future. China, Jingwei argued, was rightfully the Middle Kingdom, the center of the world. All of Asia should be reorganized into Chinese tributaries. Jingwei viewed it as a disgrace that Korea, rightfully a Chinese tributary, was in the Russian Sphere of Influence. He also wished that Japan, closely aligned with Germany, should be brought into the fold. Finally, Jingwei wished for an end to all European control of Asia. This meant the conquest of Russian Siberia and Central Asia, as well as the Dutch East Indies. Indochina and Malaysia were already Chinese tributaries. Jingwei became Prime Minister of China in 1930.

Fascism did not triumph everywhere. On June 5, 1930, Tzar Nicholas II of Russia died due to Lung Cancer, caused by excessive smoking. His heir used to be Tsarevitch Alexei, but Alexei had died years before due to Haemophilia, a disease common in European royal families whereby it was extremely difficult to stop blood flow. This meant that Nicholas’s eldest daughter, Olga, would be crown princess. Since her brother’s death, she had been groomed for the position, but she was known for being a liberal. This, along with her gender, did not sit well with the more right wing elements of the Russian Army, who supported Grand Duke Mikhail, Nicholas’s brother. At Olga’s coronation ceremony, the day after her father’s death, Russian troops led by Denkin stormed the cathedral where the coronation was taking place, declaring Mikhail Tsar and the constitution abolished.

Fortunately, the majority of the Russian Army remained loyal to the legitimate government. Within an hour, liberal general Pyotr Nicholaevitch Wrangel gathered together a tank regiment and stormed into the cathedral. Denkin ordered his men to take Olga hostage to stop the tanks, but the Russian rebel soldiers surrendered after being promised amnesty. Denkin and Mikhail were arrested, and the constitution restored. The incident had two effects: one, it made Russia firmly opposed to Fascism, and two, it led to Wrangel being promoted to Field Marshal and later chief of the Imperial Russian Army.

Finally, the most infamous example of Fascism was France. France was devastated by the First World War. It’s army was destroyed, its industry was devastated, and its colonial empire was reduced to a rump. France had a certain tradition that comes with losing a major war. That tradition is based around a certain dynasty: the Bonapartes. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte had seized power from the French Republic, declaring himself Consul and later Emperor. In 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became President of the Second French Republic, later crowning himself Emperor Napoleon III. In both of these cases, the French would lose a major war, leading to the Emperor’s dethronement. Charles Napoleon Bonaparte hoped that the third time’s the charm when he ran for President of the French Third Republic in 1926.

The election was a landslide victory for Bonaparte, whose talk of restoring France’s glory and his family’s prestige resonated with the defeated French populace. Bonaparte’s power was further compounded when right wing politician Charles Maurass became Prime Minister in that same election, leading to a parliament dominated by the right. In 1927, Bonaparte announced a referendum to decide if he was to be crowned Emperor of France. The motion passed. On October 24, 1927, Charles Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor Napoleon V of the French. Later that month, he invited Oswald Mosley and Benito Mussolini to Paris to discuss a potential alliance. On November 5, 1927, the Paris-London-Rome Axis was signed. The road to the Second World War had begun.

Chapter 3

Culture and Politics in the 1920s and 30s

The 1920s was, by all accounts, an age of extremes. The victors of the Great War basked in their triumph, enjoying unheard of prosperity. The losers, on the other hand, fell into poverty and despotism. In the 1920s, culture would enter a new renaissance. Cultural aspects that we now are extremely familiar with, such as the comic book, the major motion picture, and the mass-produced automobile all originated in the 1920s. This cultural development would continue into the 1930s, only ending with the outbreak of the Great Depression.

The first superhero ever originated in Germany. Called Ultimate Man, he was created by comic legend Joseph Geobbells (AN: not a Nazi in this TL; don't worry). Ultimate Man was square jawed, noble, and could do no wrong. Though in later years his character would be criticized for this, audiences in the 1920s were fine with him. Ultimate Man fought against many enemies, particularly Captain America, an evil genius in the employ of the USSA. The First issue of Ultimate Comics came out in 1931. They continue to run to this day.

Russian superheroes were mostly displaced by their German counterparts, but one comic series would end up being possibly more celebrated than Ultimate Man: Batman. Created by Walt Disney, a cartoonist who fled the USSA during the Revolution, Batman’s true identity was Bruce Wayne, a rich boy whose parents were murdered by the Communists. Following their death, he took on the identity of Batman, a rebel leader whose teammates included Bane, a wrestler with super strength, and the Riddler, who confounded his foes with puzzles. They fought Commissioner Gordon, a ruthless PBI (People’s Bereau of Investigation) agent. Batman first appeared in 1933.

The film industry flourished as well. Directors such as Fritz Lang and Leni Riefenstahl in Germany created films that are considered classics even today. Of particular note was Friedrich, a biopic of the Prussian king Freidrich the Great, particularly about the Seven Years War. There were also many films dealing with the First World War, such as Unser Kampf, about Adolf Hitler’s service in the war. These films would all go on to become classics of cinematography.

The German Empire was greatly expanded by the war. It grew to include vast tracts of Africa, as well as a new state in the form of Austria. The new government, under Chancellor Gustav Stressmann, focused on maintaining the state of the German economy, and on colonial development. German Africa was reorganized into the Dominion of Mittelafrika, with a governor appointed by the Kaiser. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, a war hero who served in Africa, was the governor. The German army, meanwhile, grew complacent. Despite new Panzer Tanks being introduced, they were merely incorporated into existing divisions, as opposed to forming their own divisions.

In America, culture was firmly under the control of the State. Jack Reed died in 1929. He was succeeded by southern demagogue Huey Long. Long was far more dictatorial than Reed, and rejected the Reed Doctrine. Instead, Long steered the USSA towards a more militarist path, expanding the army to the end of “Liberating the oppressed workers of the world from reactionary despotism”. Long also cracked down on dissent in his own country. J. Edgar Hoover, Long’s associate and leader of the PBI, used his secret police to find opponents of the regime and imprison them in labor camps, located in the Great Plains. Long also carried out purges of the army, killing Generals such as George S. Patton and Douglas Macarthur due to suspected disloyalty.

The Third French Empire, and the rest of the Axis, experienced an extreme military buildup. The French army was led by Marshal Charles de Gualle, who revolutionized tank warfare forever. de Gualle recommended that war be carried out with a series of forward thrusts led by tank regiments; the French Renault tank was the best in the world. The French tanks were supported by the Imperial Guard, elite divisions loyal only to Napoleon V. In 1933, the French Prime Minister became Eugene Deloncle; Deloncle would continue his predecessor’s policy of being a yes man for the Emperor. On the world stage, the French and Italians supported Fascist coups against the governments of Spain and Portugal, both of whom were accepted into the Axis. In addition, all of the fascist countries maintained an embargo against all communist nations. While this harmed them economically at first, they had adjusted by 1933.

Japan had been hit hard by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and as such the militarists seemed to be decisively proven wrong about Japan’s course. As such it turned towards democracy after the war, with the Emperor having a more figurehead role. Japan did, however, greatly strengthen and modernize its navy, and build up its army. Under Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Japan became the premier naval power of the far east. In light of Chinese aggression, Emperor Hirohito in 1930 signed an anti Chinese defensive pact with the Russian Empire.

Russia under Empress Olga placed an emphasis on building up its strength in the Far East and Central Asia. A great many divisions were deployed there to counter the threat from China and Wang Jingwei’s rhetoric, and war seemed more and more likely. Russia was also threatened by India and Turkey in the Middle East. Russia was led by moderate liberal Prime Minister Vladimir Ulaynov (OTL Lenin. Historically he was radicalized because his brother was executed for trying to kill the Tsar. Here that didn't happen, so he's just liberal.) Russia also granted autonomy to Poland and Finland, as a kingdom and Grand Duchy, respectively. The Empress would be the head of state, but both nations would have their own elected parliaments. For Russia, the interwar period was one of consolidation and liberalization.

As the 1920s came to an end, the world had good reason to be optimistic. The democratic nations of the world had extremely strong economies, and had banded together against Fascism and Communism. The Eurasia Pact was signed in 1932 by Germany, Russia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Korea, Greece, Persia, Iraq, Pakistan, Thailand, and Burma. Against them was the Axis. Along with France, Italy, China, and Britain, the Axis by 1932 had expanded its membership to include Portugal, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia (who joined to recover the Sudetenland). These power blocks seemed destined to clash. However, the wild card was the Comintern. It was clearly led by Huey Long’s USSA, but Long was a mystery. While Reed had been fine with cooperating with the West, Long seemed firmly against it. Everyone was watching the USSA apprehensively. Then, on June 3, 1933, it happened. The USSA cut all economic interaction with the non-Communist world.

The result, at least in the democratic nations, was catastrophic. All American investments in their economies had disappeared overnight. Countless factories closed down, and as a result unemployment rose. By contrast, the nations of the Axis were relatively unaffected. This was because they had been embargoing the Comintern from the beginning. They relied on it for their economy much less, and what damage that was done was repaired more easily due to the State controlled economies enjoyed by the Fascist nations. The Great Depression had begun.

In Russia, Ulaynov’s liberals fell out of favor due to the economic collapse. In the elections of 1934, they were beaten by none other than Marshal Pyotr Nicholaevich Wrangel. Prime Minister Wrangel began enacting more economically authoritarian measures. He began to move the economy away from reliance on foreign investments, and towards reliance on Russia’s Middle Eastern sphere of influence. The Russian economy somewhat recovered on oil.

Germany was less lucky. Their Chancellor Franz von Papen was not all that competent in terms of economics. Germany’s production went down by significant margins. By 1935, they had fewer tanks than France. The German Luftwaffe was also in a state of disrepair. Germany’s colonial empire suffered as well. In German Mittelafrika, the companies that controlled the region began to exploit the natives more and more to make more money. This prompted many rebellions, as well as von Lettow-Vorbeck resigning because he was not given permission to put a stop to the actions of the corporations.

In Paris, Emperor Napoleon V watched. Watching with him was Oswald Mosley, Benito Mussolini, and Wang Jingwei. They saw the weakness of Germany, the empire that used to stand astride Europe. It was under these circumstances that the Axis made the first move on their path to world domination.

Chapter Four

Appeasement

By 1934 the French under Napoleon V had rebuilt their economy and their military. French Renault tanks were some of the most fearsome in the world. As such, Napoleon V felt confidant enough to move a French infantry division into the Calais region, which had been demilitarized by the Treaty of Potsdam, on March 20, 1934. The Germans did nothing about these developments. The French had won an important diplomatic victory, one that would set a precedent for the next few years. This precedent was not a positive one.

Meanwhile, Benito Mussolini looked on the Empire of Ethiopia, the last independent African state, hungrily. On April 2 Italy forged an incident where Ethiopian and Italian troops fired on each other. Ethiopian Empress Zewditu claimed that the exchange was on Ethiopian territory. Mussolini announced that the battle took place in Italian Eritrea. Ethiopia had the unfortunate situation of not being protected by any colonial power. As such, Italian troops, without any negotiation whatsoever, moved in to Ethiopia.

Neither of these developments were opposed by Germany because Germany’s chancellor, Franz von Papen, believed in the policy of Appeasement. This meant giving the Axis nations what they wanted, in the rather vain hope that they would eventually stop. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Many historians speculate that f Wlhelm II had not been assassinated, he would have overruled von Papen and stopped France. It is unlikely that France could have beaten Germany in 1934, despite the Great Depression. Such speculation, of course, is useless, as it did not happen, while the history discussed here did. Moving on.

Ethiopia was ridiculously outmatched by Italy. Ethiopian troops used rifles from the Victorian Era against Italian tanks and planes. Some regiments were armed with spears and bows. Despite this, the Ethiopians resisted the Italians heroically, and the Italians took around a year to conquer the country. The Ethiopian Imperial Family fled to Switzerland, where Zewditu died. Her last wish was to see her country free from Fascism.

Meanwhile, in Britain, Lord Protector Oswald Mosley looked resentfully towards Ireland, which had gained full independence after the Great War. The northern part of Ireland was inhabited by a Protestant majority. A fair amount of the citizens there were even ethnically British. In 1935, Mosley sent an ultimatum to Irish President Micheal Collins demanding that Northern Ireland be given to Britain to “protect the oppressed Protestants in the area.” To be perfectly fair to the British, this was true. Britons and Protestants faced heavy repression under the Collins regime. Of course, everyone faced repression under Mosley.

So it was that on April 5, 1935, Mosley met with von Papen, Wrangel, and Napoleon V in Norwich, England to negotiate about the fate of Northern Ireland. Wrangel and von Papen were there as Irish allies, Mosley was there as the claimant to Northern Ireland, and Napoleon was there to represent Catholic Ireland (This was, of course, complete bull; Napoleon agreed with everything Mosley put forward). So it was that, 5 days later, on April 10, the Treaty of Norwich was signed, ceding Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom. In exchange, the Axis would not ask for anything more than they had (Spoiler Alert: This was a lie).

It was at this juncture that Franz von Papen finally realized that to beat the Axis, he would actually require an army! As such, he began to prepare Germany for war. The problem was that the German economy was not able to produce enough planes, tanks, and artillery to stand up to the French army. Even with their Siegfried Line covering the German and Belgian border with fortifications, the Germans would be unprepared to face the French Renault tanks in open combat. This would prove to cost the German Empire more than it’s leaders could have possibly imagined.

France looks hungrily at a weakened Germany, eager to reclaim what it sees as it’s. Italy announces its intentions to rebuild the Roman Empire. China looks to the north, towards Russia, seeking revenge for a century of humiliation. The USSA prepares to spread the world revolution north, to Canada. Communism and Capitalism face off in South America. All of these tensions will come to a head in the Second World War.

Interlude

Just in Case You Forgot a Bunch of Shit

So! In this section, I will go through the circumstances of every major nation in the world on January 1, 1936. To start with, here are the alliances:

Eurasia Pact:

Ideology: Constitutional Monarchy and Capitalism

Members: German Empire, Mittelafrika, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russian Empire, Poland, Finland, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Holy Land Protectorate, Pakistan

Status: The Eurasia Pact is essentially Germany, Russia, and their spheres of influence. While Germany and Russia are reasonably strong, their smaller allies are all weak points, with small armies and suspect loyalty. Poland and Finland are practically autonomous regions of Russia. Belgium is the same for Germany. The Eurasia Pact’s greatest strength and weakness both come from Germany and Russia.

Axis:

Ideology: Fascism

Members: Third French Empire, Italy, Chinese Empire, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia

Status: The Axis is held together by two things: hatred of the Eurasia Pact, and hatred against the Comintern. All the member nations desire territory, are threatened by Communism, or both. If Communism and Democracy fail, it is quite clear that the Axis will fall apart. For now, however, they are a unified block. With France’s armored divisions, Italy’s Bersagliare shock troops, China’s manpower, and Britain’s navy, the Axis is a formidable fighting force, arguably the most powerful in the world.

Comintern:

Ideology: Communism (duh)

Members: USSA, Mexico, Cuba, India, Middle Eastern Democratic Republic (aka Turkey), Centroamerica, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti, Chile

Status: The Comintern is held together by the USSA. The other states of the Comintern depend upon it and only it for protection. The only other Communist states capable of standing on their own are Turkey and India, and they are surrounded by enemies that outmatch them. The USSA, however, more than makes up for this with it’s staggering industrial base and massive military. The Comintern is a force to be reckoned with.


Well, wasn't that educational? Moving on, here we have all the people who are important to this timeline or will be important in the near future:


Huey Long: Premier of the USSA. Long is a very aggressive leader, wanting to spread the revolution to the world. He is also very dictatorial, abolishing the last vestiges of democracy since the Second American Revolution.

Franz von Papen: Chancellor of Germany. He is incompetent, favoring appeasement. He also has handled the Great Depression poorly. Overall, a weak and reviled leader.

Oswald Mosley: “Lord Protector” and dictator of the United Kingdom. A revanchanistic imperialist. A shrewd leader, but not too skilled militarily.

Kaiser Wilhelm III: Emperor of Germany. After constitutional reforms, has much less power than his father Wilhelm II. Is unable to stop von Papen’s appeasement. Not pleased with this and hopes for a resurgence in monarchial power.

Wang Jingwei: Leader of China. While nominal power rests with the Emperor, Jingwei is the one truly in charge. Believes that it is China’s duty to make all of Asia tributaries. Calls this ideology Sinocentrism.

J. Edgar Hoover: American minister of security. Has a lot of blood on his hands. Extremely feared and reviled.

Prince Saionji: PM of Japan. A supporter of democracy, he has so far been able to prevent the Japanese militarists from seizing power. However, it remains to be seen if he will keep this up if war breaks out.

Pyotr Wrangel: PM of Russia. He is a moderate conservative, and has mostly focused his time in control on military buildup against China, as well as on repairing Russia’s economy. An effective ruler.

Tsarina Olga I: Empress of Russia. Has moderate power, but not as powerful as Wrangel. Is well loved by the population for her works of charity and kindness. Also boosts morale of the army.

Emperor Napoleon V: French Emperor of the Bonaparte dynasty. Shrewd in political and military matters, his real strength comes from the fanatical support of his people. In a few more years, he may begin fulfilling his ambition of restoring France to her former glory.

Gerd von Rundstedt: Chief of the German army. Conservative, but with a sense of noblesse oblige, he believes Germany should be arming itself more than it is for the coming conflict. May be willing to take matters into his own hands.

Charles de Gualle: French Chief of the Army. A proponent of the Lightning War tank doctrine. A brilliant commander, but known to be overly stubborn.

King Edward VIII: King-Emperor of the United Kingdom. A Fascist, but has little real power compared to Oswald Mosley. Despite this, he supports his PM.

Benito Mussolini: Leader of Fascist Italy. Bravado and a cult of personality mask the fact that he is in reality an incompetent fool who ruins everything he touches. He also looks rather ridiculous at times.

And those are the people you need to know in order to understand this Timeline! Don't you feel smarter? Finally, we will look at each major power based on three scores: Army, Navy, and economy. Each will be rated on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 as bad and 3 as good. 2 is medium. Well, lets get started!

Germany

Army: 3 Navy: 2 Industry: 2

France

Army: 3 Navy: 1 Industry: 3

Russia

Army: 3 Navy: 1 Industry: 2

USSA

Army: 2 Navy: 2 Industry: 3

Italy

Army: 1 Navy: 2 Industry: 1

Japan

Army: 1 Navy: 3 Industry: 1

British Commonwealth

Army: 1 Navy: 3 Industry: 2

China

Army: 3 Navy: 1 Industry: 2


Well, that about wraps it up! With this as your guide, you can refer back to it at any point! Isn't that useful? You can thank me later.

 

[Blah the Prussian]

Part 4

Okay, We Really Mean It, This is the War to End All Wars

Chapter 1

Germany is Having Trouble, Such a Sad Sad Story

1936, against all expectations, would pass peacefully. During this year, the Allies, Axis, and Comintern deployed their forces across each other’s borders. It was obvious now that war would come. The only question was when.

It is one of the great historical ironies that the Second World War would start on March 5, 1937, around the same country war was avoided for in 1935: Ireland. Oswald Mosley on that day sent an ultimatum to the Irish government: They were to accept King Edward as their head of state and become a dominion of the British Commonwealth within 24 hours, or face war.

The Irish government, of course, rejected. However, they knew they could not fight Britain alone. As such, Ireland turned to Germany, where, to everyone’s surprise, Chancellor von Papen announced his wholehearted support for Ireland. Germany was soon followed by Belgium and the Netherlands. Napoleon V and Mussolini quickly declared that a foe of Britain’s was their foe as well. Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, and Romania all, predictably, declared their support for the Axis. At these declarations, Russia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Finland declared for the Allies.

At the declaration of support by Russia, Napoleon V knew he had to be quick. Germany had to be damaged before Russia could project power to the front. As such, French High Command sent messages to all the major Axis countries that Operation Charlemagne was set to begin.

Operation Charlemagne was a rather ambitious plan that called for the cooperation of all the Axis Powers. On March 6, it was put into action. The plan stipulated that Germany would need to be defeated fast. To do this, the heart of German industrial capacity was targeted: The Rheinland. First, Britain would do an amphibious invasion of the Netherlands, using marines and paratroopers to capture key cities before the enemy could react. This phase went off without a hitch. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and Antwerp in Belgium were all captured.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the British launched Operation Cromwell, storming towards Dublin from Ulster. The newly rebuilt Royal Navy prevented Germany from coming to Ireland’s aid. Dublin fell on March 10, the Irish unable to stop the British. Ireland surrendered soon after. However, elements of the Irish army went underground as the IRA (Irish Republican Army), a group dedicated to liberating the island once again.

Meanwhile in Europe, Germany shifted some of its troops in Belgium north towards the British, who were quickly expanding their beachheads in the Netherlands. This proved to be a mistake when the French launched their end of Operation Charlemagne. French forces, spearheaded by their tanks, launched an offensive into Southern Belgium on March 12. There German army was too small to oppose the ferocity of their assault. By arch 13, the Germans were in retreat. To the north, the British launched a new attack south, both linking up with French troops and encircling the German army in northern Belgium by March 20. So far, Operation Charlemagne had gone quite well.

This would change when the Italians entered the picture. In their phase of Operation Charlemagne, the Italians were to use their alpine troops to seize the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, threatening German positions in Elsas-Lotheringen. The Italian troops were crushed by their German counterparts, ensuring that the Germans would not be threatened from behind. As such, the French had to move to the next phase of the plan alone.

After the encirclement of the Germans in Belgium, a section of the Rheinland lay borderline undefended. As such, the Germans shifted troops from Elsas-Lothringen to the border with Belgium. This was exactly what De Gaulle had wanted. On March 25, the French launched a new attack against German positions in Elsas-Lothringen. The attach was successful. Metz fell on March 28. The entire region fell on March 29. That same day, however, the German army launched a counterattack that stopped the French advance. The lack of the Italians had meant that the third phase of Operation Charlemagne failed.

This is not to say that things were going well for the Allies. The Netherlands and Belgium surrendered on March 28. British and French troops then pushed into Hannover, but were stopped by severe German resistance on March 31. From April 1 to April 10, the French army tried to advance further into the Rheinland, but were stopped at every turn.

Meanwhile, in the Balkans, the war was quite chaotic. As the Polish army invaded Czechoslovakia, the Czechs attacked the Sudetenland, but failed miserably. They would surrender on April 2, after both Prague and Bratislava were taken by Germany and Poland, respectively. Yugoslavia was assaulted by Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania from all sides. The Italians were able to overrun Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, but the Yugoslav army, with help from Greece, was able to hold the one in Serbia. The Greeks, meanwhile, attacked into Bulgaria, with limited success. In the Middle East, the Italian army in Egypt attacked the Russian Holy Land Protectorate, but were repulsed.

None of these bright spots, however, changed the fact that the Allies were losing, badly. This was clear to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, supreme commander of the Imperial German Army. It was also clear to Kaiser Wilhelm III. The two of them met to organize a coup against the obviously incompetent von Papen. On May 1, 1937, von Rundstedt and a cabal of army officers led a coup against Papen, declaring the new Chancellor to be the former. The Kaiser ordered the German army to recognize von Rundstedt as Chancellor for as long as the war continued. Von Papen went into retirement.

Von Rundstedt’s first act as Chancellor was to declare that the state controlled all industries. Said industries were immediately repurposed to the military. The new Chancellor now had emergency and absolute authority as well. He instituted a draft for all men aged 18 to 30. Women replaced the men in the factories. The first month of war had been hard on Germany, but now it had a new leader to restore its former glory.

Then Napoleon V played his trump card.

Chapter 2

Operation Huangdi

As Oswald Mosley sent his ultimatum to Ireland, the Chinese government announced its neutrality. This was a great relief to the Russians, who moved a sizable portion of their armies in the Far East, Siberia, and Central Asia to the European theatre. This was a mistake.

There was a great many things that should have risen alarm bells in the Russian high command. Firstly, the French did not issue any protest at the Chinese apparently dishonoring their alliance. Secondly, the Chinese kept a huge amount of troops on the border with Russian Siberia. Despite all this, Russian High Command remained in wishful thinking, transferring more and more troops to Europe.

On May 15, 1937, The Empire of China declared war on the Russian Empire and all of its allies. In Manchuria, Chinese forces launched an immediate offensive towards the Russian city of Vladivostok. Meanwhile, Chinese cavalry launched raids into Siberia and Central Asia. The only thing opposing them was Russian militia. The cavalry raided oil supplies in Central Asia, and did damage to the Trans Siberian railway, harming the flow of supplies to the troops in the Russian Far East. These were the first stages of Operation Huangdi, the full scale Chinese invasion of Russia, named after the great Chinese emperor who unified ancient China.

The reaction of the Russian high command was chaotic and panicked. Aside from a few border garrisons against Romania, the Polish and Finnish armies would do the fighting for the Russians in Europe. Fortunately for Russia, it was not lacking in competent generals. Pyotr Wrangel was the Prime Minister as well as chief of the army. Serving under him were Marshals Zhukov, Smirnov, Vlassov, and Tukhachevsky. Unfortunately, these Marshals made one key error: assuming that the Russian Far East could be held.

The Russian battle plan involved sending cavalry to retake the Trans-Siberian railway. Once this was accomplished, more troops would be sent to the Far East to relieve the embattled garrison of Vladivostok. What this plan ignored was that the Chinese simply had far more troops in the area. However, Chinese general Prince Aisen Goro Pujie did not press the attack on Manchuria, in anticipation of this Russian strategy. He planned to make the Russian Far East a deathtrap, but only after a sufficient number of Russian troops took the bait.

Meanwhile, Russia’s ally Japan had not been idle. When news of the Chinese declaration reached Tokyo, the Imperial Japanese navy launched raids against Chinese ports all across the country. At the battle of the Formosa strait (June 5, 1937) the Chinese navy was obliterated by the IJN, the Japanese Aircraft Carriers being used in conjunction with the Zero fighter to great effect by Grand Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

Meanwhile, a Chinese army under the command of general Chaing Kai Shek invaded the Russian protectorate of Korea on May 20, 1937. While they met initial success, crossing the Yalu River on May 22, the Koreans provided staunch resistance, especially in the mountains in the north. This problem was compounded by the arrival of the Japanese Expeditionary Force, 500,000 strong, under General Hideki Tojo on May 25.

Meanwhile, Chinese land in the Pacific was coming under Japanese attack as well. A Japanese army of 100,000 attacked Formosa under General Hayashi Senjuro, while 200,000 more attacked the Philippines under General Tomoyoki Yamashita, both on May 25, 1937. The IJA managed to dislodge the Chinese defenders of Formosa on April 2. The Philippines fell on April 5, the puppet government surrendering to the Japanese. With the fall of the Philippines, the IJN ruled the Pacific. All that was left was to take the Chinese “tributaries” in the Pacific.

In Siberia, things were not going as well for the Allies. The Russians had rushed 400,000 men to the defense of Vladivostok alone, facing a Chinese force of 600,000. However, Pujie did not launch his assault on Vladivostok, much to the surprise of the Russians. Instead, the Chinese launched an offensive towards the Pacific Ocean from Northern Manchuria, beginning on June 6. The Pacific was reached by June 15. With that, the entire Russian Army of the Far East (500,000 men, all told) was cut off from the rest of Siberia. Vladivostok was besieged by 600,000 troops, while Chinese cavalry moved North to secure the rest of the Far East. For Russia, it was a disaster.

Following this debacle, the Russian High Command had an emergency meeting. Marshal Vlassov was of the opinion that an immediate counter offensive had to be launched to relieve the Vladivostok garrison. Marshals Zhukov and Tukhachevsky, however, argued that Russia did not have sufficient troops to relieve Vladivostok. Zhukov argued for a complete abandonment of Eastern Siberia, using the delay that the Far Eastern Army would cause the Chinese forces to reorganize outside the city of Novosibirsk. Tukhachevsky concurred, pointing out that Russia had ample territory to trade for time. If the Russians met the Chinese outside of Novosibirsk, the Chinese would be at the ends of their supply lines, and the superior Russian organization, morale, and technology would show. Army chief Wrangel and Empress Olga agreed with Zhukov and Tukhachevsky. The Russian armies in Siberia would execute a fighting retreat to Novosibirsk, where they would meet up with the Russian Forces from Europe.

The Russian Army of Siberia, under the command of Marshal Anton Denikin, did just that. Whenever the Chinese launched an assault, Denikin would have one division counter that assault. As the Chinese advanced, Russian Cossak cavalry charged their lines whenever they were weakest, further delaying the offensive. This continued until the month of November, when the Russian Siberian Army met up with the East European Army, under Marshal Zhukov, at Novosibirsk. Altogether, the Russian forces numbered 2,000,000 men. Facing them was a Chinese army of 2,400,000 men. The Russians were at the end of the line. The Vladivostok garrison had surrendered in October. If the Russians lost Novosibirsk, the Chinese would have a base from which they could attack into Central Asia, and maybe reach even European Russia. Novosibirsk was the decisive battle of the Siberian Front.

The Chinese November Offensive was launched on November 15, 1937. Chinese troops struck to the north and south of Novosibirsk, hoping to encircle the 1,000,000 Russian troops in the city itself. However, Marshal Zhukov had learned from the Vladivostok campaign. His troops used an elastic defense strategy, retreating in the face of Chinese offensives, only to move out of their way and attacking their flanks. The Chinese would then be forced to retreat.

By December 1, Pujie could plainly see that his offensive had failed. However, Wang Jingwei demanded that the city be taken before 1938, making Operation Huangdi a complete success. Pujie was forced to go on the attack. On December 2, against his better judgement, Pujie ordered a complete attack into Novosibirsk. However, the winter weather greatly benefitted the defenders. On December 10, Zhukov ordered a counterattack, pushing the Chinese from the city suburbs by December 25. However, Chinese reinforcements brought the Chinese army up to 3,000,000 troops, forcing Zhukov to stop an offensive that would now surely be overwhelmed, digging in in the Novosibirsk suburbs on December 27. The next 4 days passed without incident.

And so, Novosibirsk had not proved to be the decisive battle that either the Russians or the Chinese had expected it to be. The Chinese assault into Siberia had been stopped, that much was true. However, the Chinese still remained incredibly strong outside of Novosibirsk, outnumbering the Russians, who were still bringing reinforcements to the region. Winter also proved an insurmountable obstacle for the offensive prospects of both armies. Both China and Russia resolved to suspend all offensive operations until Spring. As 1938 dawned over Siberia, the war was a stalemate. However, the eyes of the world were not focused on Siberia anymore. With Britain embroiled in continental war, Huey Long made his move.

Chapter 3

War Plan Red

Ever since the Communist victory in the Second American Civil War, North America had been a divided continent. The USSA and its Communist allies sought to establish dominion of the continent, before spreading the Revolution to “Bourgeoisie” Germany and “Feudal” Russia. However, in both North America and South America, the Communists faced severe opposition. In South America, the alliance between Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia stood strong against Long’s puppets. In North America, the Dominion of Canada, also controlling Alaska and New England, stood against the Americans, along with the rest of the British Empire.

Long and his inner circle had long planned to take over Canada and establish hegemony over North America. The plan that they developed was called War Plan Red. The American army would launch a full frontal assault on Canada. Meanwhile, the American navy would make sure that the rest of the British Empire could not reinforce their dominion. Meanwhile, Long trusted his allies in the South to handle Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. Of course, as American author and later exile in Germany John Stienbeck taught us, the best laid plans of Mice and Men go awry.

British Imperial General Staff was not stupid. They knew full well that Long was planning something. As such, they had passed the Canadian Defense Act, whereby every Canadian male citizen had to be trained in combat in school, and, in turn, every male Canadian citizen between 18 and 35 were required to be in the army at all times. Thus, the Canadians had an extreme well trained standing army, as well as one that was large for a nation of its size. In addition, the USS navy was actually pretty terrible. It was large, but outdated, and had no aircraft carriers, which American Grand Admiral Ernest King had called “a cowardly gimmick”. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy was about the size of the USSN, but was more advanced. On the other hand, it also had to concentrate on the German High Seas Fleet. Finally, the British had kept a large force in reserve on the Home Islands, ready for deployment in Canada should Long declare war. Over all, the operation would not be the walk in the park that the Americans expected it to be.

On March 15, 1938, Long declared war on Canada to “liberate the oppressed Canadian proletariat from the yoke of the British Empire”. The US army outnumbered the Canadian army two to one. Immediately, an American army moved into New England. However, they faced severe Canadian resistance around New York City, and were bogged down in the forests of Upstate New York. This problem was compounded by New Englander “Collaborators” who would rather live in Canada that America. They were led by Charles Lindberg, an American fascist and an excellent fighter pilot. Meanwhile, Canadian guerrilla militias around the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest stalled the American advance in those areas as well. Over all, the Americans are unable to break through against the better trained Canadian soldiers.

Meanwhile, the war at sea was not going America’s way either. The British Caribbean Fleet defeated the USSN decisively in the Battle of Bermuda, where the USSN was outmaneuvered by the British Corsair bombers. American Puerto Rico was stormed the following day.

In South America, the war was a stalemate. In the North, the Brazilians were holding the line at the Amazon rainforest which was proving to be an insurmountable barrier for the Latin American Communists. Meanwhile, Argentina was pushing in to Chile, winning easily, but the Peruvian army was routing the Bolivians. Whoever won on their front first could reinforce their collapsing ally. It was a mixed bag.

By June, it was clear to American high command that the strategy of attacking into heavily fortified New England had failed. Long, however, knew that Canada could not risk a counteroffensive into America from New England. As such, Long could afford to redeploy troops from the New England front to elsewhere. As long as a stalemate in New England could be maintained, other fronts could be advanced.

That front would be the Pacific Northwest. On June 15, Long ordered the redeployment of the American Fifth army, under the command of George Marshal. They arrived on the Pacific Northwest front on July 30. I really shouldn't have to tell you when the Fourth of July offensive began. It did, however, bog down initially, with the American troops taking heavy casualties agains heroic Canadian resistance. On July 15, however, superior American numbers ld to a breakthrough, and they reached the gates of Vancouver by July 16. The American army then spread out, surrounding the city. More American troops were rushed into the gap in Canadian lines. It looked like the decisive battle for North America had been fought.

Fortunately for Canada, they had a commander who they thought could save them in their darkest hour, and who, even today, is counted amongst the greatest generals ever: Georges Vanier, the Arctic Fox. Born in Quebec, Vanier had served with distinction in the First World War and the Canadian intervention in the Second American Civil War. He was placed in command of the Canadian army of the Northwest on July 20.

Immediately, Vanier recognized that the current front line could not be held. He rushed troops to Winnipeg, in Central Canada, as he split his army in half. Half joined the defense of Winnipeg. The other half, under the personal command of Vanier, retreated north, to the Canadian tundra. On July 25, Marshal moved East, towards Winnipeg. Vanier’s men in the North, however, outflanked the Americans, and launched a reckless counter attack, coordinating it with their comrades in Winnipeg as a pincer movement. The Americans were pushed back on August 1, and Marshal was humiliated.

In August, it was clear to American high command that they had to deal the decisive blow to the Canadians, and fast. One more failed offensive, and winter would come, bogging down the Americans and ensuring that the war would drag on for at least one more year. Marshal decided to launch an offensive towards Vanier’s men in the north. The offensive was launched on August 9. However, the Canadian army in Winnipeg came to the rescue of Vanier’s men this time. By September 1, the Americans had been pushed back and humiliated yet again. The USSA would have to settle down and wait for winter to end.

Throughout the Canadian winter, lasting from October to March, more and more British troops were moved to Canada. It appeared that the Canadians would very easily be able to resist the American invasion. Unfortunately, it was not to be. It would not be the Americans that ultimately led to the fall of Canada. No, it would be Canada’s own high command. For on March 28, 1939, Canada launched a counter offensive. That was a rather stupid idea.

Operation Brock was the name of the planned Canadian offensive to push the Americans out of Canada. It was named after General Isaac Brock, the commander who defended Canada from America in the War of 1812. It is hard to say where exactly the plan went wrong. Vanier certainly objected to it. Perhaps the biggest problem with Operation Brock was that it should never have been attempted. The Canadians had an undoubtedly superior defensive position. They could very well have continued to bleed the Americans white. However, the Canadian high command became overeager and attacked too quickly, squandering any defensive advantage that they may have had.

On March 28, the Canadian army under Vanier in the north moved around the American army outside of Winnipeg, attacking its rear. At the same time, the Canadian army in Winnipeg, reinforced by a sizable British army, launched a full scale assault on the American positions. Meanwhile, Vanier’s men moved even further south, attempting to completely encircle the American army before they could escape. Marshal, however, noticed what was going on and had an armored division launch an all out assault on Vanier’s lines. This operation delayed the Canadian attack long enough for most of the American troops to escape.

Marshal’s army retreated south back into the USSA. The Canadian high command could have declared the offensive over and won a great victory. However, despite Vanier’s protests, they demanded that the attack continue. So it was that the Canadian army attacked fortified American positions on April 15. And, so it was that the Canadian offensive failed miserably. The Canadians were left bloodied and disorganized against the spirited American defense. On April 29, Marshal ordered a counter offensive against the Canadian positions that smashed their army, driving them back across the border. By July 1, the offensive had reached the Great Lakes.

Canada was by now clearly defeated, and yet the Canadian people were determined to resist with all they had left. The USS army pushed forward more throughout the year. Even at this stage, they still were taking unfavorable casualties in comparison to the Canadians. It didn't matter. By August, it was clear that Canada could not win, as American troops stood outside Ottowa, Canada’s capitol. The British Imperial General Staff evacuated the British army, and the remnants of the Canadian army, from Canada. On September 2, Canada surrendered to the USSA. The predominantly English speaking provinces of the country were annexed into Long’s growing empire, while Quebec was given “independence” as a de facto American satellite. But, as the war in America ended, the war in Europe was heating up again.

Chapter 4

The Turn of the Tide

On the Western front, 1938 had been a year of stalemate. The German army was besieged on most fronts; in the Rhineland, it was faced with the French Army, in Northern Germany it was faced with the British, and in the South, it was faced with the combined armies of Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Southern Front was in actuality rapidly shifting to become the newest epicenter of the war.

1938 had played our, on paper, like something of a repeat of the stalemate of the First World War. The French were no longer advancing along the Lotharingian fields, they were now fighting in the urban heartland of Germany. Each city became a fortress as the Germans, having evacuated all civilians, garrisoned every room in every house in every front line city. The streets of Western Germany became deathtraps. In the gaps between cities, the Germans had adapted well to the logistics of Tank warfare; if the French committed any large amount of soldiers to battle, the Germans would merely use their tanks to strike at the enemy’s flanks, leading to the risk of encirclement and forcing a withdrawal. At the same time, Germany lacked the manpower to launch any offensives of its own. So it was that the stalemate continued.

In the beginning of 1939, German high command decided to focus on the weakest link in the Axis: Italy. The Italian army had proven itself to be poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led. Further, they lacked something that had proven to be crucial to the success of any army in the war so far: their tanks were some of the worst in the world. This was a weakness the newly promoted German Field Marshal Hienz Guderian was determined to exploit.

Guderian planned a massive three pronged German offensive to encircle and destroy two full Italian armies, an offensive that was launched on May 3, 1939. Prong one would reach the Mediterranean coast around the city of Udine. Prong two would take Trieste, and prong three would take Dubrovnik.The Italian army had nothing that could really compete with the German tanks. Their Bersagliare light infantry were lethal in the mountains. The northern Balkans, however, were not the mountains. The Italians were crushed by the Panzer offensive. By July, the encirclement was complete. A large portion of the Italian army was destroyed. The Italians rushed to garrison the new front line at the Alps. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians, Romanians, and Hungarians rushed to guard the Balkans. The Southern Front was divided in half.

Meanwhile, the British, smarting from the defeats in Canada, were preparing a new victory in Europe to placate the public. German factories in the Rhineland were operating at a reduced capacity, due to the heavy fighting going on in the region. As such, the Germans had transferred much of their industry to the province of Saxony, which had become the new industrial heartland of the German Empire. Mosley planned a massive air offensive against Saxony. The idea was to threaten the German industrial heartland with bombing, luring the German Luftwaffe out of hiding. The decisive air battle would be fought, and, it was hoped, the Royal Air Force would achieve air superiority once and for all. From there, they could devastate the German industrial heartland, hopefully breaking the stalemate in the Rhineland. Mosley was convinced that the war would be won or lost in the air.

What would be known to future generations as the Battle of Saxony began on June 13, 1939. A massive armada of British aircraft took off from airfields in the occupied Netherlands and northern Germany. As they moved towards Saxony, they met the Luftwaffe in the air. At first, the Royal Air Force slowly moved to control the skies. However, Luftwaffe airfields were closer to Saxony than the British airfields, meaning that more German planes could be brought to bear in a given engagement. On July 20, the British prepared what they hoped would be the decisive strike. However, the Germans sent several squadrons of fighters and bombers to London, as a diversion. It worked; 25% of the British planes moved to defend London. The Luftwaffe then proceeded to decisively beat the RAF over Saxony, even taking out some of their airfields. For the Germans, it was an important triumph. German air superiority had been established.

By winter, Guderian prepared for yet another offensive, this time to tidy up a front that had been regarded as a sideshow before, but now had been elevated to an extremely important theatre. The Balkans now threatened the flank of the German front against Italy, and had to be cleaned up before any push against Italy could be made. So it was that, beginning in August, Guderian launched one of the most rapid conquests in history.

German air superiority over the Balkans had long been a fact of life, but Guderian took advantage of it like no one had before. Launching the largest airborne assault in history, the Luftwaffe dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines all across the front. Meanwhile, The German Panzer crews started their engines, blasting through enemy lines. They were assisted in this assault by partisans in occupied Yugoslavia. Belgrade, capitol of Yugoslavia, fell in early September. The Bulgarian army was crumbling.

Meanwhile, against Hungary, the German blitzkrieg was even more successful. Two German pincers closed around roughly half of the Hungarian army. Meanwhile, a large German force too Budapest. The capitulation of Hungary took roughly a month. The Germans then moved against Romania. Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu vowed to fight to the end. Romanian King Micheal I, however, had other plans. Micheal staged a coup against Antonescu, taking control of the government and capitulating to Germany before Romania was invaded. Bulgaria capitulated soon after. Thanks to Guderian’s brilliance, the Balkan Front was closed in two months.

Meanwhile, on the Western Front, General De Gualle once again saw opportunity. Guderian had withdrawn a great deal of soldiers to the Balkans to aid in his offensive. De Gualle planned a new strategy to counteract the German fortifications. On September 1, 1939, the French tanks, with their new Louis XIV heavy tanks, launched a full frontal assault on the German positions. The Louis XIV was superior to any tank the Germans had, and they managed to make quite a bit of headway by the end of the first week, threatening to encircle German positions in the cities of the Rhineland. The German commander, General Franz von Epp, feared encirclement, and panicked, withdrawing from the Rhineland completely. The French had taken the Rhineland relatively bloodlessly. Despite all of this, 1940 began with yet another stalemate. German and French troops stared each other down across the River Rhine.

So it was that, from the River Rhine to the mountains of Northern Italy, the stalemate had returned. And yet, in the Asian front, the action was very real.

Chapter 5

The Bear, the Dragon, and the Rising Sun

Of all the nations who participated in the Second World War, only one would benefit greatly from it at relatively little cost. That nation was the Empire of Japan. At the start of 1938, Japan had taken all of the Chinese Empire’s pacific islands, as well as the Chinese tributary of the Philippines. Now, as Japanese bombers were bombing Chinese cities almost with impunity, Japan prepared to move into Southeast Asia.

In February of 1938, Japan attacked the Chinese tributary of Malaysia. The army of Malaysia itself was quite weak, as well as outdated. They were, however, safeguarded by a substantial Chinese force. Japanese Field Marshal Yamashita, however, utilized every advantage Japan had. He made use of Japan’s elite, well trained infantry to secure beachheads around the north of the country, in the jungle. In this way, they were able to cut the Chinese army off from supplies. The Japanese assault against the cut off Chnese divisions and the Malaysian army began on February 24. It was hugely successful, forcing Malaysia to surrender by March 15.

The surrender of Malaysia was only one of the woes China suffered in March. In accordance with Huey Long’s declaration of war against Britain, the Democratic Republic of India, led by Shripad Dange, declared war on the Axis, including China. The massive Indian army moved into the Chinese tributary Burma, sweeping aside token Burmese resistance. Burma fell by April 2. For China, the Southeast Asian heater had become extremely important.

The Chinese high command reacted to these developments with panic. Their response was to shift a great deal of men from the Siberian front and to the Southeast Asian front. This amounted to an entire field army, under Chinese general Zhu De. This army, creatively titled the Southeast Asian army, took up defensive positions in Siam, repelling the Japanese army under Hayashi Senjuro on May 1. Zhu then shifted west, repelling the Indians from Rangoon on June 14, 1938. The Japanese and Indians regrouped in Malaya and northern Burma respectively, setting up defensive positions. Zhu, recognizing that he could not advance any further, set up defenses of his own. By June, the Southeast Asian front was beginning to resemble the Western Front of the First World War. It would remain so for quite some time.

Meanwhile, in Siberia, the Chinese armies moved against Novosibirsk once again in March of 1938. At the second battle of Novosibirsk, Russian armor showed its superiority. Chinese troops attacked in human wave attacks against the entrenched Russians, but the T-34 tank was used to great effect by Marshal Zhukov. The Chinese exhausted themselves after a week of fighting, and Zhukov counterattacked in April. Although the offensive did succeed in destroying a large amount of Chinese divisions, the Russian tanks had to withdraw back to Novosibirsk after a few weeks due to lack of supply. Zhukov waited until summer for the big offensive to recapture territory.

In Korea, Korean and Japanese troops continued to feed Chiang Kai Shek’s forces into a meat grinder. The Chinese attempted to strike south towards Pyongyang in March, but they were again stopped by the mountains in northern Korea and by spirited Japanese counterattacks. The Chinese were pushed back across the Yalu river by May, but dug in so as to repulse attacks against their positions.

By July, Zhukov had prepared the offensive designed to decisively break Chinese power in Siberia, called Operation Mars. On July 15 of 1938, a massive Soviet Tank assault started, smashing into the lines of the Chinese armies. As the Chinese were sent reeling, the Russian infantry was sent in to finish the job. Russian forces turned south, reaching Ulaanbataar, capitol of Mongolia, by November, despite a great sea of strain on Russian supply lines. The Chinese army was in full retreat on the Siberian Front.

If the year of 1938 had proven one thing, it was that the Chinese war doctrine of massed infantry assaults was woefully outdated. Their troops had been unable to break the defenses of Imperial Japan, manned by the elite Japanese infantry. Meanwhile, Tsarist Russia skillfully combined infantry assaults with tank warfare, and made mincemeat of the Chinese soldiers. Since then, China was firmly on the defensive. However, a dragon is at its most dangerous when cornered in its nest, especially when said dragon boasts seemingly endless manpower.


Chapter 6

Into Italy

As 1940 began, German Imperial high command began measures to deal a knockout blow to the junior partner of the Axis alliance: the Kingdom of Italy. The Italian performance in the war so far had been utterly laughable. With the sole exception of the Yugoslavia campaign, the Italian army had met with no success whatsoever against their enemies. Thus, it was deemed to be the weakest link of the enemies of the German Empire, and the place upon which the hammer of Teutonic fury would next fall.

Unfortunately, while the Italian military had proved to be utterly pathetic thus far, the geography of the Italian peninsula provided a unique challenge to the mostly tank orientated German military. The north of Italy was highly mountainous, and mountains were notoriously poor tank territory. Thus, Hienz Guderian’s panzers were redeployed to defend the Western Front, and the task of bringing il Duce to his knees was given to the one officer in the German army with widespread experience in mountainous warfare: Erwin Rommel.

Rommel had served on the Alpine front against Austria-Hungary in Tyrol. He had risen to the rank of Colonel with his heroism on the field, and had a great deal of experience with fighting in the mountains. As such, German high command gave Rommel command of an elite infantry corps, the Alpine Corps, which had the objective of breaking through Italian defenses in the Alps and opening the way for the main German army.

Rommel would have a rather monumental task ahead of him. The now general was facing an Italian army that outnumbered his Alpine Corps 2 to 1, led by Italian Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, a known stooge of Mussolini. Rommel’s advantage stemmed from the fact that he was facing Italians, and poorly led Italians at that. Graziani had only got his position due to his friendship with Mussolini, and by extension Mussolini’s desire to have the Italian army firmly in his camp. The price he payed for a loyal military was a woefully inadequate one, as Rommel’s offensive would soon make clear.

As April of 1940 began, Rommel launched his assault into the Italian peninsula. His first major worry was the main powerbase of Graziani’s army, based in Udine. It would soon become apparent that Rommel’s brilliance would come not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. The Alpine Corps cut like a scythe around Udine, pushing first west and then turning south to under defended Venice. As a result, Udine was encircled. Graziani tried to break out, but Rommel’s men now held the mountains.

The German army funneled more men, this time under Guderian, through the path opened by Rommel. The Italians under Graziani held firm in Udine for three months, but ultimately starvation and mutiny forced Graziani to surrender his command. The German army now turned further west, towards Milan, where they hoped they would be able to secure the entirety of the Alps and push south, along the open Italian coastline. It was at Milan, however, that the remans first learned that the Italian peninsula was not going to be delivered to them so easily.

The French Army of Italy, under Marshal Maurice Gamelin, had been sent to relieve their beleaguered Italian allies. Napoleon V, it seemed, had also recognized the weak link Mussolini represented in the Fascist chain. As such, he had reinforced that weak link with 500,000 Frenchmen, ordered to defend the Alps to the last. At Milan, the Germans, outnumbered and overextended, were forced to retreat in the face of determined French resistance. Napoleon hoped that with this victory, the Italians could turn things around. What could he have possibly been thinking?

The Italian offensive against German positions from Ferrara was, you guessed it, a failure. Rommel’s mountaineers utterly crushed the renewed Italian offensive, this time led by General Giovanni Messe. This latest defeat led to a massive festering of popular dissent in Italy against the Mussolini regime. This dissent was supported by King Victor Emmanuele III, who had always distrusted Mussolini but now had moved on to open opposition. Thus, in November of 1940, with dissent in Italy already on the rise, the King ordered the arrest of Mussolini and the replacement of his government with a monarchist regime. A royal guard loyal to Mussolini, however, got word to the dictator as the coup was being planned. Mussolini fled Rome, raising his Fascists in rebellion against the monarchists, led by Marshal Pietro Bagdolio, and, of course, the King. The Italian Civil War had broken out.

For Germany, this news could not have come at a better time. They quickly signed a ceasefire with both the Monarchists and the Fascists, turning over their occupied territory to the Monarchists. The Fascists, of course, received the territory occupied by the French. Rommel and Guderian, elated by their victory, resolved a new offensive to take Milan in the spring of 1941. Truly, nothing could possibly prevent a German victory now!

Algerian Desert, First French Empire

February 15, 1941

Jules Gueron climbed down into the bunker, putting his protective goggles on. He was incredibly young for a nuclear scientist, but was considered pone of the most brilliant in his field. This moment was the most important in his life. He looked down at his watch. It would happen in five, four, three, two, one. A blinding flash erupted in the distance. A massive mushroom cloud burst from the earth, engulfing everything above ground. Gueron felt tears streaming down his face. He had done it.

France had the bomb.

Chapter 7

Operation Napoleon

On March 15, 1941, at 8:00, a massive air fleet took off from a French airport in Cologne, occupied Germany, escorting one bomber. That bomber was carrying one of the most important cargoes in world history: the first ever atomic bomb. Their target was the fortress city of Dusseldorf, where a massive portion of the German army was concentrated. At around 8:30, they reached their target. Hordes of German planes rose to meet them, but one plane slipped through the onslaught: unfortunately for the Germans, it was the one carrying the Bomb. At 8:45, the bomb exploded over Dusseldorf. The entire German army defending the city was wiped out.

Just 15 minutes after the explosion, the French army of the north, ready for combat since 6 a.m., launched a massive offensive through the Dusseldorf gap. The German army around what was left of Dusseldorf was in a state of shock, and retreated in the face of the merciless French advance. The French army was advancing at a rate unseen since the beginning of the war. Napoleon V, triumphant, declared the war to be won. To do so, however, was to severely underestimate the spirit of the people of Germany.

As the French advanced through northwestern Germany, the German army suffered defeat after defeat. In the end, though, none of these defeats meant anything. This was because, for every battle, the Germans were able to extract themselves in good order. Field Marshal von Manstien, the supreme commander of German forces in the west, would garrison each city, make the French bleed for it a little, and then withdraw before the French were able to threaten his army in any meaningful way. However, he had to take a stand against the French somewhere. That somewhere would be in the city of Hannover. It was in Hannover that the decisive battle of the European theatre would be fought.

The strategic significance of Hannover was clear. It commanded a central position in wester Germany. If the French were to take the city, they would be able to cut off the German army defending the border with the Netherlands. Furthermore, if the French were to secure Hannover, they would have established a clear supply depot, through which they would be able to make a drive on Berlin itself. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Battle of Hannover would be a fight that von Manstien could not lose, for the sake of Germany and for the sake of democracy everywhere. It was with this in mind that von Manstien did what no one expected him to do. He attacked.

On the surface of it, this plan was madness. The French were the ones supposed to be attacking! The French, however, were badly overextended. Their soldiers were exhausted, and had low morale. Furthermore, the supply lines to Hannover were constantly being harassed by German partisans, who were understandably displeased by the destruction of Dusseldorf. These partisans also had an effect on the French morale. Finally, von Manstien had two new toys to play with. The first was the iconic Panther IV medium tank, which combined speed with firepower in a way no other tank of the era could match. This would prove crucial for the strategic implications of the coming offensive. The second advantage was one that the French were already abundantly familiar with. Dr. Albert Einstien and his think tank, working in the utmost secrecy, had been able to develop an atomic bomb just a few weeks after the French. However, the German scientist Werner von Braun had also developed the first working rocket a few months earlier. Von Manstien saw the potential of these two weapons combined. So it was that on June 4, 1941, a V1 rocket with an atomic bomb attached to it was launched from the city of Munich. Its target was one that would make the name Erich von Manstien one of the most controversial ones in military and political history: Paris.

Paris was the center of the French high command. On the morning of June 4, that high command went up in flames. Napoleon V was dead. His son and heir was dead. His two daughters were dead. His wife was dead. His entire high command was dead. The Arc d’ Triomphe was dead. The Mona Lisa was dead. Countless civilians were dead. Paris was dead.

Also dead was a full 1/3 of the French Army of Germany. The instant the bomb hit Paris, von Manstien ordered his army to advance. The French army was in chaos. Their commanders demanded orders from Paris that never came. The fast moving German Panzers surrounded and annihilated whole French divisions. To the north, aided by a Dutch revolt, the French and British were pushed out of the Netherlands. Within a month, the French had been pushed back to the Rhine, their armies shattered, their economy ruined, their leaders dead, their homeland in chaos. Any sane leader would have surrendered. Unfortunately, France did not have a sane leader.

The only one of the French General staff outside of Paris at the time of the explosion was the most zealously nationalistic of the French Generals: Charles de Gualle. De Gualle moved quickly once he had taken stock of what had happened. He declared himself to be regent for life of France, and, as the only Marshal left in the French army, he was obeyed. He used the army to suppress any dissent to his rule. By the end of July, de Gualle’s rule was unquestioned. And France would not go down without a fight.

Chapter 8

Birth of the Postwar Peace

Following the defeat of Canada in 1939, the USSA faced no real opposition. Their only remaining enemies on the continent were the Anti Communist South American nations, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia. Although Huey Long’s South American allies were struggling against this coalition, by 1940 500,000 American troops had taken up the majority of fighting duties in the South American front. The Axis advance was first halted, then outright pushed back. To aid the Communist advance, partisans in the anti Communist countries, particularly Native American peasants, rose up, making life extremely difficult for the Axis. By 1941, the South American Front had been completely closed, and Communist puppet governments were set up in the defeated nations, Thus, Long was free to prepare to expand his influence past America’s “backyard” and into the wider world.

The first step on Long’s planned conquest train was Africa. The French and German colonial forces had been engaged in heavy fighting around equatorial Africa, but French North Africa, the main prize, had been thus far untouched. An American expeditionary force launched in mid 1941 intended to change that. On March 17, 1941, just two days after the destruction of Dusseldorf, the expeditionary army landed in Casablanca. By that point, superior American industry had lead to the USSN being superior to the Royal Navy by 1940. Thus, in combination with the fact that virtually the entirety of the French army was fighting in Europe, the landings were unopposed. The landings were commemorated in the American propaganda film “Casablanca”, which was popular in America but no where else. Napoleon V considered sending troops to stop the American attack, given that the French nuclear program was located in North Africa, but decided against it. France already had a nuclear device, he reasoned, and according to Operation Napoleon, only one nuclear bomb was needed to assure victory. Once the Germans had been knocked out, the French could wheel around and face the Americans. Thus, the Americans took French North Africa unopposed.

By June, The German counteroffensive was in full swing, and it was clear that France was going to lose the war. Huey Long was determined to convert at least some of Europe to Communism. It was with this in mind that he ordered the American army to launch Operation Roosevelt, the American invasion of Spain and Portugal. Anyone pointing out the irony of a Communist nation naming an operation after a rich, capitalist, imperialist President were, of course, given a free date with the Secret Police. The invasion was launched on July 1.

To begin the invasion, American forces landed at the port of Cadiz. The outnumbered and under equipped Spanish forces gave little resistance before retreating. In addition to that, Communist partisans, long repressed by the regimes of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar, rose up all across the peninsula. It seemed as though the back door to France had been kicked open.

It was with this in mind that Huey Long invited Acting Chancellor von Rundstedt of Germany and Prime Minister Wrangel of Russia to Ankara, Turkey, to discuss the European order following the conclusion of the war. At the start of the conference, Long demanded and got Spain and Portugal as new Communist Republics and de facto satellites of the USSA. The two main points of contention in the conference were France and Italy.

In Italy, the Italian Civil War was mostly winding down, with monarchist forces holding Rome against Mussolini’s Fascists and mopping up resistance to King Umberto in the north. In the South, however, Italian communist partisans had proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Italy (ironically similar sounding to Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic), and Long wanted that Republic recognized. After much haggling, it was agreed upon by the three leaders that the Socialist Republic would be recognized by all three powers as long as it could win. It also had to promise that it would not attack the Monarchists, only the Fascists, and that the two Italies would coexist. The Socialist Republic and the Kingdom agreed to these terms. The next issue on the table was France.

At the time of the rise of Napoleon V, French Communist and demagogue Maurice Thorez had fled to the USSA to escape persecution. Ever since then, Long had been loudly proclaiming Thorez as the rightful leader of France. As such, he demanded that at least part of France be given to Thorez. Germany and Russia, however, protested against this loudly. This was because they were supporting Henri, Duke of Guise, the scion of the former French Royal Family, for the throne of France. In the end, it was decided that each party could set up their own regime in whatever (if any) portion of France they occupied.

That left Britain. Britain, uniquely among the European Axis powers, had a mostly intact military and command structure even in 1941. Germany supported the establishment of a Kingdom under the brother of Edward VIII, Albert. Long, of course, desired a Communist state. With no power occupying any of the core British land, that issue was tabled for the moment.

Overall, both sides in the Conference of Ankara went home disappointed. Long desired a guaranteed sphere of influence for America, given that the American position in Iberia was tenuous at best. The Capitalist/Monarchist powers, meanwhile, essentially had to deal with the prospect of Communist powers holding territory in Europe, which could threaten their hold on France and possibly northern Italy. The Cold War could be said to have started with the congress of Ankara.

By October, the armies of Spain and Portugal had, for the most part, disintegrated in the face of the American advance. However, much like Napoleon before him, Long would find out that to conquer Iberia was not that simple. Catholic guerrillas rose up against the new Communist puppet governments across the nation, responding violently to the persecution of the Catholic Church. Long, however, didn't care. With Iberia as a staging ground he funneled more and more American troops to Europe for the commencement of his assault on Gualist France: Operation Franklin. Long would have his piece of France, and no matter what his generals said.



Chapter 9

Le Chute

France at the beginning of 1942 was in a very, very bad way. Its army was essentially destroyed after the Manstien offensive in 1941, and it was faced with a two front war against Germany and America. However, De Gualle knew that if France fell here it would forever lose its status as a great power. He was determined to make sure that the enemy would not find taking out France easy. On January 1, he gave a fiery speech over the radio from the new French capitol of Orleans, declaring his intention to “make the Huns and the godless reds bleed for every inch of our sacred soil.” He called on the people of France to rise to the occasion.

Rise they did. Old men and children, even women, rushed to join the new “Guard Nationale” units. De Gualle drew parallels to the Coalition’s invasion of Napoleonic France, and how France was returned to the Bourbons afterwords. “Bourbons” might have been the devil himself to the French people, infused with Napoleonic revolutionary propaganda as they were. German troops advancing through France often found themselves forced to kill children as young as ten who were shooting at them. None of this was enough, however. By February 3, the inexorable German advance had reached the prewar borders of France. A final recruitment drive of child soldiers began, as De Gualle stepped up his rhetoric. France was entering its twilight.

Meanwhile, on March 1, the Americans began their own offensive into France. American People’s army divisions crossed the Pyrenees, encountering resistance only from scattered militia divisions. However, a major Catholic uprising in Spain and Portugal mandated that half of the American forces were pulled back to deal with the rising. Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, De Gualle had sent the entire professional French Army, not including the Guard Nationale, to launch a counterattack.

Under veteran general Phillipe Petain, the French launched their offensive against American positions. Operation Charles Martel, the last victorious French offensive of the war, was the last hurrah for mobile warfare. It was aptly named after the French General who saved France from Islam in the 700s. French heavy Renault tanks faced American Shermans, in one of the most lopsided battles in the history of tanks. The American forces were also disorganized from the rapidness of their initial advance, and supply over the Pyrenean mountains was extremely problematic. By April 20, the Americans had been pushed over the Pyrenees. Southern France, against the odds, had been saved from Communism.

As France won one of its greatest victories in the south, its swan song was playing out in the north. German forces took what was left of Paris in mid March, causing a Cancer problem from radiation in the army. The British Expeditionary force under Sir Edmund Ironside surrendered to the Germans in Normandy on April 21. To the South, de Gualle rallied the Guard National at Lyon, the new capitol of France. Elsewhere, German forces advanced across France unopposed except for the odd town/city militia. They reached the French army in the south by May, and that army surrendered to the Germans and allowed them to fully occupy France. When de Gualle heard about the surrender, he flew into a rage, in a moment that has been immortalize din thousands of internet parodies of varying quality.

De Gualle was not the only one unhappy in the final days of the war. Huey Long was furious about the defeat of his armies in France. Declaring Omar Bradley, the American general in charge of the offensive, a traitor, he ordered the general executed. Long then set about establishing his new order in Iberia, establishing the People’s Republic of Iberia on April 25. Iberia’s dictator, Juan Negrin, immediately launched a ruthless program to liquidate the Catholic Church, which only served to further alienate his people. It didn't help when J. Edgar Hoover, the famous chief of the American secret police, was seen in Madrid with Carranza, or when Carranza travelled with American bodyguards. Still, Long consoled himself, a puppet was a puppet.

German troops surrounded Lyon completely on May 4. De Gualle, holed up with his most fanatic soldiers, vowed to fight to the end, after executing anyone who showed any sign of defeatism. The battle lasted for a week, with German troops slowly but surely taking the now ruined city.

On May 11, Charles de Gualle stepped out of his bunker to come face to face with a German Tiger tank. Its turret swiveled around towards him, and a voice yelled in French, “surrender peacefully or we shoot!” De Gualle, according to the soldiers in the tank, merely replied, “shoot, cowards, you are only going to kill a man!” before drawing his personal pistol, and firing all six shots at the tank. It was the last thing he ever did. The tank fired its main gun at the dictator, and he was vaporized. With him died France as a great power.

The next day, the final French holdouts surrendered. On the orders of acting Chancellor von Rundstedt, Germany set up an occupation authority for France under the authority of Erwin Rommel. Meanwhile, Henri, Duke of Guise and Bourbon pretender to the French throne, was married to Princess Cecile, daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm III. He arrived in France as its restored king the following month. For the people of France, the signs were clear: they only existed by Germany’s good graces, and when Germany said jump, France was to say how high. The semi public dominance of Queen Cecile over her husband did not enamor the monarchy to the people, either. Almost before the ashes from the body of Charles de Gualle settled, the infamous French Liberation Army was formed. Their exploits, however, will be the subject of another chapter.

Britain reacted to the defeat of France with a mixture of anger and panic. King Edward VIII, most likely in an attempt to save his throne, demanded the dismissal of Fascist Prime Minister Oswald Mosley. Mosley, however, refused, declaring that “We shall fight on the beaches, on the seas, and…”

Mosley never finished, because he was shot dead where he stood by British soldiers under the command of General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery. Montgomery, upon taking power, immediately sued for peace with both the Allies and the Comintern. Long and von Rundstedt accepted. The latter, upon hearing the news, immediately travelled to the Imperial Palace and handed his letter of resignation to Kaiser Wilhelm III. Thus, the war for Germany was over.

If Edward VIII thought he could keep his throne he was sorely mistaken. Montgomery ordered the king to abdicate, and invited his brother Albert, in exile, to take the throne as George VI. George reigned over what had gone from being the worlds policeman to a nation in economic ruin, strictly neutral. Edward VIII, meanwhile, disembarked in the only country in the world that still recognized him as King: South Africa. Hendrik Voerward, South Africa’s dictator, had use for the exiled king.

And so the most devastating European war in history came to an end. It ended with France reduced to a third world country, with Germany devastated, with Italy divided, and with the USSA looking hungrily across the Pyrenees mountains. And, for the third major power of the big three, Russia, it wasn't over yet. China still stood.

Chapter 10

Beijing, Nanjing, and the end of the war

China entered 1939 firmly on the back foot. It had failed to break the joint Japanese-Korean defense of the Korean peninsula had repelled every attempt the Chinese made to break it, and the front was tying up more and more Chinese soldiers. Meanwhile, Zhukov had put the Chinese into full retreat in Siberia, and they were being beaten in Southeast Asia by India and Japan. It was with this in mind that Wang Jingwei ordered for the first time a draft to take place in China. Standing before a massive delegation of the Sinocentric Party, Wang demanded “Do you want total war?” to thunderous applause.

China would certainly need total war. On the Siberian Front, January, February, and March would be referred to as “The Long March.” It was an apt name. The Chinese army, defeated at Novosibirsk, marched forlornly across Siberia. The length of the Chinese supply lines meant that there was no city for hundreds of miles that the Chinese army could have resupplied in, so they were forced to march for hundreds of miles. Along the way, they were repeatedly attacked from the air by Russian dive bombers, which took a massive toll on their numbers. Of the 3,000,000 Chinese forces originally assaulting Novosibirsk, only 500,000 limped back into Chinese Mongolia. China had been dealt a terrible blow.

Unfortunately, Wang Jingwei was both able and willing to trade territory for time. He still occupied large portions of Siberia, and it would take Russian troops 6 months to fully reassert control of occupied Siberia. That would be more than enough time for Wang to raise a new, conscripted, Chinese army. He planned to withdraw from East Turkestan, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Vietnam, fortifying only the core territories of China. By the time the Allies had fully occupied those areas, in February of 1940, Wang had at his disposal a force of 15,000,000 men. He was ready for China’s total war. “Not since the invasion of Genghis Khan,” Jingwei declared, “has China been in such danger. The mongrel Russians are merely the inferior Europeans and the vile Tatar’s bastard child! They are the most barbarous of Europeans, and that is saying something! The Japanese and Koreans have been led astray by the Europeans. Their rightful status is that of tributaries of the Master Race. They shall pay dearly for their treason! Finally, the Indians! They are the only Asians who are inferior to Europeans! They were colonized twice: first by the British, and then by the Americans, who gave them the disease of Marxism! They are worse than Europeans, they are traitors to their fellow Asians! They will be dealt with accordingly!” Yes, Jingwei was that batshit insane.

The Allies, namely Russia, India, and Japan, had not been idle. Facing Jingwei’s force of 15,000,000 was an Allied force of 20,000,000 (10,000,000 Indians, 7,000,000 Russians, and 3,000,000 Japanese) had prepared a joint invasion of China. Following the Chinese withdrawal from Manchuria, Korea had been fully liberated by Japan, and the Japanese army in Korea had been freed up. The Allied strategy against China was a simple envelopment plan, with the Russians and Japanese advancing from Manchuria to the Yalu River, the Indians pushing into Yunnan and Guangxi, and the Japanese forces in Vietnam launching an offensive north to take Nanjing. This was to take place in the space of a year. These expectations would quickly prove to be unrealistic. The Allied invasion of China, Operation Overthrow, would be the bloodiest campaign in the history of the world.

The Allies had also drawn up plans for the postwar in Asia. The Indian leader, Subhas Bose, demanded an Indian sphere of influence in Southeast Asia. The Japanese also demanded their sphere of influence, largely to satisfy the pet project of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, that being the East Asian Trade And Mutual Defense Organization (EATAMDO). Korea had already eagerly signed on to the treaty, and Yoshida wanted Japan’s conquest from the Chinese sphere of influence to be included. Thus, the signatories of EATAMDO were the Empire of Japan, thee Kingdom of Korea, the Republic of the Philippines, the Kingdom of Malaysia, the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Empire of Vietnam. At the urging of Yoshida, Gerd von Rundstedt convinced the Dutch Queen WIlhelmina, in exile in Berlin at the time, to agree to grant the Dutch East Indies independence as the Indonesian Royal Federation, which was also included in the pact.

This left Bose with Burma, Thailand, and Laos. He also wanted a cut of China. The Allies, however, could not justify arbitrarily carving up China based on purely ideological lines, so it was agreed that China would be a fully neutral power. In practice, this arrangement was not to last more than a 2 years.

In March of 1940, Operation Overthrow commenced. Immediatly, it did not go as planned. Baron Wrangel himself travelled to the front to take command of the assault on Beijing, but the Chinese had turned it into a fortress city. Chinese soldiers, some of them as young as twelve, fought for each and every room of every floor of every building. After a month, the Russians had only made slight inroads into the city proper. Wrangel’s brutal tactics of firebombing seemed to confirm Wang’s rhetoric that the Russians were barbarians.

Meanwhile, in the South, the Indians were not having much more luck. General Mohan Singh, commander of the Indian end of Operation Overthrow, was finding out that supplying an army of 10,000,000 in Yunnan was something of a chore. Progress was extremely slow, and the Chinese guerrilla war in the area was met with great success. The Indians were firmly bogged down in Yunnan.

After six months of the Battle of Beijing, with very little progress being made, the Japanese Field Marshal Tomoyuki Yamashita suggested a new strategy. The Japanese army would land at the city of Tianjin, just to the southeast of Beijing, and encircle the city. Yamashita was very much successful in this endeavor. On September 13, 1940, the landings began, and by October 21 Beijing was fully encircled. It was then that the event that would change the course of the Chinese campaign and enable victory took place.

Wang Jingwei and his Sinocentric Party henchmen had long since fled the city to Nanjing, which had been the de facto Chinese capitol ever since the beginning of Operation Overthrow. The Xuantong Emperor, however, despite being nothing more than a puppet for most of his reign, had elected to stay in the city. After the encirclement of Beijing, however, the Emperor decided to finally rule, not just reign. He ordered the city and its defenders to surrender to the Russians.

Unfortunately for Xuantong, it would be one of the last things he ever did. Wang, when he found out, was furious. He ordered his most oral men in the city to murder the Xuantong Emperor and his family. As Wrangel’s men marched through the city, the entirety of the Qing Dynasty was murdered to a man. Wang immediately claimed that it had been the Russians and Japanese who had committed the deed. Unfortunately, the people of Chine believed him.

Despite these setbacks, by February of 1941 the Russians had advanced to the Yellow River, just south of Beijing. Wang ordered the next phase of his defensive plan to begin. He had kept half of his troops in reserve, to keep them fresh. Now, he planned on using them to destroy the Russian army, negotiate a peace with Russia, and turn south to face the Indians. It was a plan conceived by a delusional mind, but it had the potential to inflict serious damage on the Russian army. The attack began on March 29.

The Battle of the Bulge was and is the largest engagement in human history. On one side was 1/4 of what remained of the Chinese army, three million men. Facing them was a combined Russo-Japanese force of 2 million men. They were commanded by Georgi Zhukov, the hero of Siberia. Wang had not pulled any punches with his commander selection, either. He had placed the brilliant Li Zongren in command. Zongren was also a celebrated commander, and had every intention of doing whatever he could to save China. The Battle of the Bulge was a clash of the titans.

Zongren began his attack with a simple human wave. Hundreds of thousands of elite Chinese troops forded the Yellow River, all along its mouth. The Chinese navy, meanwhile, sailed into the river, and bombarded Russian positions on the other side. The Russians held out as best as they could, but but the Chinese had captured several key points on the other side of the river by the end of the day. After a week of fighting, a pair of strong bridgeheads had been established. Zhukov knew that he had to do something fast.

Zhukov made a furious phone call to the office of a Marshal Konstantin Rossokovsky. Rossokovsky was until then relatively unknown. That, however, would soon change when he executed one of the most daring operations of the war. Rossokovsky commanded the other half of the Russian army, the one that was advancing through the Chinese Western Steppes. He had the bulk of Russia’s tanks, and Zhukov knew that this would be great asset. He asked Rossokovsky to come to his aid. Wrangel confirmed these orders. And so, Konstantin Rossokovsky did the action that would lead to dozens of films (all of which, except for the awesome Malkovitch one, are grossly inaccurate) and would also get him Badass of the Week a few weeks ago.

Rossokovsky took a total of ten tank divisions and drove across the Chinese steppes. Deep behind enemy lines, he consistently evaded capture and plowed through any opposition he encountered. He finally reached the battle on May 4. By that time, about half of Zongren’s army had crossed the river. Rossokovsky launched an all out assault on the other half of the Chinese army, while Zhukov launched his own counterattack. The Chinese were caught between a hammer and an anvil. On July 16, Zongren finally surrendered. The Russians turned around, and rested. They had to resupply their exhausted troops, after all.

Meanwhile, in the south, the Indians had finally succeeded in pacifying Yunnan. They advanced into Guanxi, where they met up with the Japanese army in the south. Wang’s army was gathering to the north to defend Nanjing. Within the Chinese cabinet, there was quite a large amount of panic. It had been confirmed by the bombing of Paris that the Germans had the bomb. The question was whether or not Russia had the bomb.

In truth, the Russians did not. However, Wang told his people that they did. “If the mongrel Slavic barbarians are not driven back,” he screamed at a rally in Hong Kong, “they will destroy the Chinese Race with their nuclear weapons!” This had the effect of whipping more and more Chinese into a patriotic frenzy. Every village now became full of soldiers. The Allied advance was slow, almost reminding of the advances during the First World War. They had not reached the final cluster of important Chinese cities in the south (Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and of course Nanjing) until the winter. However, at this point, it was clear to essentially everyone that Wang had lost. Everyone, that is, but Wang himself.

By February of 1942, the Chinese were broken. Indian forces took Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the Japanese took Hong Kong. In all of these cases, the Allies were faced with a lot of resistance, but not resistance of a high quality. In many cases, the Chinese would have no ammunition, and so would charge tanks with bayonets.

Finally, on April 5, 1942 the Russians began their assault on Nanjing. Wang had his highest quality troops (the ones who were not children or old men and who had guns) to defend the city, but the Russians pushed forwards through it all. Finally, the Russians reached Wang’s bunker in the center of the city. He had shot himself dead, along with almost all of his cabinet. The only one left alive in the bunker was his terrified secretary, making her by default the leader of China. Russian troops marched her to the Russian headquarters, where she was compelled to sign the Chinese instrument of surrender before Wrangel. She was then released from captivity.

Wrangel was said to have put his fountain pen down, looked up at Zhukov and said “Well, George, it was a terrible chore, but it appears that we have won.”

WWII was over.

 

[Blah the Prussian]

Part 5

The First Cold War

Chapter 1

Buildup to the First Cold War

Author’s note: This is being retconned: Turkey is no longer Communist. It is a secular military dictatorship with a figurehead Sultan. Also, Kurdistan and Armenia are independent, Russia controls the Holy Land and Lebanon, and Germany rules Iraq, Syria, and Jordan as protectorates. On with the show!

It has commonly been said that, after Pyotr Wrangel signed the Chinese instrument of surrender, he immediately called Tsarina Olga on the phone to inform his liege himself. Olga would then inform the Kaiser, who would then burst into the Reichstag’s first session since the beginning of the war to tell them. Huey Long, much to his chagrin, would only find out after the American ambassador to India told him, after being told himself by Subhas Bose.

For the first time in years, life was normal. That was not to say that everything was good. For example, a British Fascist devoted to Mosley, Colonel Andrew Cornelius, would, with his unit, take a nuclear device to the Isle of Mann and essentially hold it hostage, declaring that the Isle of Mann was the last holdout of the true Britain, while the usurper King George VI whored Britain out to the Kaiser. Cornelius thus proclaimed himself God-Emperor Andrew I of the Imperium of Mann, with the intention to one day dominate the world. He was laughed off at first, but the knowledge that he had a nuclear weapon caused great concern among the international community. For the moment, a standoff ensued.

Long was far too busy to be concerned with the Imperium. Under him, the forces of Communism had conquered all of the Americas, the Iberian peninsula, and North Africa. Long thus consolidated America’s conquests into the Communist International Alliance (CIA) with the stated goal of protecting Communist countries from the counter revolution. Already, the ruling classes in Germany, Russia, and Japan were nervous.

In Germany, the elections brought a victory for the Center Party, led by Heinrich Bruning. Bruning firmly believed that it was crucial to have an international body in place to stave off future conflicts. He called this pet project the International League, and offered every nation the chance to join. The World Assembly would vote on resolutions that would solve conflicts. In practice, the IL would have little to no effect on anything.

The first problem that the IL had to deal with was the problem of Italy. As you remember from the Italy chapter, following the collapse of the Mussolini government a civil war had erupted, with the Royal Army and the Communists in an unholy alliance against Mussolini’s blackshirts. The Royalists at the end of the war controlled the north of the country while the Communists controlled the South; the border was at Rome. Now, the two governments were opposed about who was the rightful government of Italy.

At first, the delegate of the Kingdom of Italy was emphatic that the South should be brought back into the fold. The delegates of Germany and Russia quickly informed him that that was likely not going to be possible as long as the USSA backed the Socialist Republic of Italy. Likewise, the delegate of the USSA told the delegate of South Italy to (paraphrased) shut up and let me do the talking. Eventually, the IL passed Resolution 1, which stated that North and South Italy would have to coexist. Thus, 1942 ended.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Germany was finally starting to release its mandates. The Kingdoms of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq were important German allies against the rising threat of Saudi Arabia. United in the aftermath of the fall of the Ottomans by King Abdulaziz, the Saudis followed a violent, fundamentalist form of Islam. Abdulaziz harbored dreams of uniting all Arabs, and to Germany and Russia, this was unacceptable. That was THEIR oil!

To compound the threat of Abdulaziz, Russia chose NOT to release their protectorate in the Holy Land and the Levant. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, with Tsarina Olga as the ceremonial head of state, was nominally to be shared between the Jews, Christians, and Muslims who inhabited the area, in practice the Russians gave preferential treatment to the Christians, especially after they began settling more and more Christians from Europe there. This created an environment where the Holy Land was a land of divisions between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, which Abdulaziz was only too happy to exploit.

In this endeavor he was joined by an unlikely ally for the fundamentalist king: Huey Long. Long was very much eager to gain a foothold in the Middle East, and saw the resentment of the Jews and Muslims as a golden opportunity to wipe Russian influence on the map. Thus, while Abdulaziz began arming Muslim terrorists, the USSA began arming Jewisbh terrorists, particularly the Judean People’s Front. They were opposed not just by the Russians, but also by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the organization backed by Saudi Arabia. Thus began what history records as the Levantine War, an ugly, brutal conflict that had no clear good side. For now, though, Abdulaziz and Long decided to work together against their mutual enemy, Russia.

The Imperium of Mann was not the only Fascist state to survive the Second World War. South Africa was already a society explicitly based on racism, with a White elite ruling over the Black majority. However, with the end of WWII a massive amount of Fascist refugees from Britain, France, and Italy came in. This gave the Afrikaners of South Africa a new sense of purpose. They were now, argued the leader of the National Party, Hendrik Voerward, faced with a threat to civilization both politically, from the twin degeneracies of Communism and Democracy, and racially, from the “uncivilized” Africans. The influx of Fascists into South Africa not only brought up the ratio of Whites to Blacks to around 35-65, it meant that Voerward’s Nationalists swept the 1944 South African elections. With the population gap being apparently closed, Voerward felt no need to show any mercy to the Blacks. He passed a series of laws called the Apartheid laws, which not only separated the Blacks from the Whites, they also essentially enslaved them, forcing them to work in the diamond mines in the north of the country. Voerward also passed a series of laws making him President for life, and meaning that the National Party was now the only legal party in South Africa. It was clear to anyone that the threat of Fascism had not ended.

To counter this, Germany released its Southwest African colony of Namibia as an independent Kingdom. Namibia had by far the best economy in Africa due to the relatively light German colonization of the area. Immediately, Namibia’s King Hans I (the Namibians were partially Germanised) began arming the opposition to the South Africans. He found this opposition when Voerward tried to fully incorporate the formerly autonomous tribes of South Africa into his country, thus reducing them to the de facto slavery already suffered by the rest of the Black South Africans. The leader of this opposition was a man that would go down in history as the liberator of South Africa: King Rolihlahla Mandela of the Thembu.

Meanwhile, Long found his horse to back in the South African race amongst the Communists, but, in a detail that would mean much for the future of the country, the Communists were mostly White. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, the Whites were generally more educated than the Blacks, and so had better access to the theories of Marx. Secondly, the anti religious rhetoric of Communism did not appeal to a good deal of Africans. These lopsided demographics amongst the Communists had the practical effect of alienating the natives from the Communist cause, as they viewed it as just another kind of Western Colonialism.

In Asia, meanwhile, the battle lines were drawn between the Japanese and their allies and the Indians and their allies. The two primary battlegrounds for this were in Southeast Asia and China. In Southeast Asia, Cambodia and Laos were both beset by Communist revolutionaries funded by the Indians. Vietnam, however, was relatively unaffected, as they had an economic infrastructure in place before ether alliance with Japan. In Laos and Cambodia, meanwhile, the Japanese built the economy in exchange for a cut of the profits, which did not endear them to the people, who were kept in extreme poverty as a result.

In China, meanwhile, the Russians had directly annexed Manchuria Mongolia, and Xinjiang, and the rest of China was split between Japanese and Indian occupation zones. It went without saying that the Indians armed the Chinese Communists, while the Japanese armed the soldiers of their new Ming Dynasty (they had found a pretender named Zhu Rongji to crown). In the end, however, it was not either of these factions that won out, but something much darker.

No one really knows when the I-Kuan Tao faith first rose. It was inspired by the Taiping Rebellion, a Christian revolt in China that is beyond the scope of this book, but the I-Kuan Tao went beyond that. What is certain is that their leader, Zhang Zhulang, began preaching in earnest in 1945. The I-Kuan Tao combined elements of Christianity and Islam, and combined it with the cruelty of the Old Testament and the fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia. They preached that the apocalypse would come, and that China would lead the way after they ruled it. When the Chinese Civil War between the Communists and Imperialists broke out, inevitably, in January of 1946, then the I-Kuan Tao rose in rebellion. The details of that rebellion will be covered in a future chapter, but it started in 1946.

Although the Allies and Communists had not necessarily initially intended for something like the Cold War to happen, it was inevitable, really. They were backing different factions in South Africa, in Italy, in China, and in the Holy Land. When in March of 1946 Long expanded the goals of the CIA to explicitly be to spread Communist revolution as well, the Capitalist world acted. Germany, Russia, and their allies signed the Eurasian Mutual Defense Organization (EMDO) an alliance created explicitly to rival the CIA. The Cold War had begun.

I could end it here. I really could. I won’t, however, because 1946 is also the year that someone very important will be born. He was the man who would take on the world, the man who would earn the name the “American Caesar”. The man who was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, in the USSA was the man who would either destroy the USSA or save it, depending on who you ask. His name was Donald Trump.

Chapter 2

Europe to 1950

The Second World War left all of Europe west of Poland a mess. The war had devastated both Germany and France, though France absolutely got the worst of it. Meanwhile, Italy was divided, Iberia was under Communism, Britain was reduced to being neutral, Ireland was liberated but internally divided, and the Imperium of Mann existed as a pariah state.

Fortunately for Western Europe, the newly elected Russian Prime Minister, Count Mikhail Tolstoy, had a plan to fix this. The Russian economy had survived the war relatively stable. Although Russia’s far eastern territories were devastated, the Russian economic heartland in Europe had been untouched by violence from the land, sea, or air. Thus, the new Russian Cadet government resolved to pump money into the European economy, revitalizing it for the future to act as a bulwark against Communism. By 1950, the economies of Germany and North Italy had recovered. France, however, was not so lucky.

If Germany’s economy was harmed by the war, France’s was devastated. King Henri moved out of the destroyed Paris and chose the city of Lyon as the permanent French capitol. It was no coincidence that Lyon was within striking distance of the German Panzers on the border. Germany was not taking any chances.

The infrastructure, industry, and agriculture of France had all been annihilated by the war. With no industry, virtually all of France’s working class were unemployed. Furthermore, the lack of agriculture lead to a famine breaking out across France. The king, ultimately, could do nothing, as he was still trying to establish his government. The new French Prime Minister, Andre Dessault, could do nothing either. German liberal politicians proposed an aid bill for France in 1947, but it was easily defeated in the Reichstag. The Germans, understandably, were not keen to help their old enemy that had just destroyed one of their cities, especially not when they still had to rebuild themselves.

Thus, in 1948, the situation in France finally spiraled out of control. While a low level insurgency had been raging on since the French surrender, more and more unemployed Frenchmen and women flocked to the banner of the French Liberation Front, an organization dedicated to kicking out the German puppet king (no air quotes, because he kind of was). Terror attacks by the FLF got more and more frequent.

Adding to this problem, the CIA began influencing the FLF to become more and more leftist in nature. This influence came from across the Pyrenees mountains, where the Socialist Federation of Iberia, led by Juan Negrin, was cementing its own power. The Negrin government, controlling both Spain and Portugal, were faced with a stridently anticommunist population. Negrin reacted brutally, waging three successive campaigns against his enemies. The first, the “War against Oppression”, initiated in 1945, made every person with a noble title subject to imprisonment, as well as anyone who owned a business. Any noble or businessperson over the age of fifteen was executed. The rest of them were sent to Negrin’s infamous “tolerance camps”, where the children were brainwashed to reject their pasts. Those who did before the age of fifteen were permitted to return to society. Those who did not were promptly sent to the second division of the tolerance camps, where they were used for slave labor. In fact, any political dissident or criminal was used as a slave for life. Negrin considered it to be a massive waste of resources to execute anyone. People who were opposed to the proletariat were enslaved by them.

Negrin’s second campaign, the “War on Superstition”, beginning in 1946, outlawed religion. The clergy of Iberia were sent to the tolerance camps, once again to be worked as slaves. Negrin then unleashed his secret police on anyone who was a member of a church or a synagogue. Members who renounced their faith by burning a Bible or a Torah were allowed to keep their children. If they did not, they were sent to the Tolerance Camps, and their children were sent to Iberia’s infamous orphanages, where they were brainwashed, once again, to be “good Communists”. The conditions in these orphanages were horrific, and pedophilia was rampant. This of course sparked a massive amount of resistance to the Negrin regime, but the brutal Iberian People’s Army was only too happy to retaliate, sometimes going as far as destroying entire villages to discourage rebellion.

The worst, however, was yet to come. By 1950, Negrin has cemented his position as leader of Iberia, had crushed all dissent within and without the party, had committed class genocide against the bourgeoisie and nobility, and had broken the church. His final, most infamous campaign, the “War on Memory”, then began. Negrin believed that the idea of a culture was outdated. Culture, he argued, was an obstacle to Proletarian solidarity. The reason why the USSA had been so successful, he argued, was that it had a homogenous culture. With this in mind, Negrin decided to embark on a campaign of cultural genocide against Iberia’s minorities.

Catalans, Portuguese, Galicians, and Basques were all targeted by the Negrin government. Once again, children were taken from their parents, but this time, never returned. Negrin reasoned that if future generations were never taught culture, that it would disappear on its own. While the Portuguese culture survived the War, the Catalan culture is now, unfortunately, a thing of the past.

Iberia was internationally reviled for these atrocities, even by the USSA, who still grudgingly supported them. At first, Negrin tried to cover this up, but it was quickly revealed to the public by the British reporter Eric Blair. Blair snuck in to Iberia, and visited a tolerance camp and an orphanage. After returning to the UK, he published a report on what he saw, titled “1948”. Its publication led to the entire Capitalist world embargoing Iberia, and led to public opinion in the USSA turning against Iberia. It was nothing, however, that J. Edgar Hoover couldn't handle.

The other Communist state in Europe, South Italy, was a different kind of nightmarish. When the Communist revolts of 1940 broke out, the Italian Communists in the south were greatly aided by the Sicilian Mafia, who had suffered repression under the Mussolini government. This led to the South Italian government being dominated by the Mafia. In addition, the rampant unemployment in South Italy drove many into the mob.

By 1949, the unquestioned leader of the Italian Mafia was Don Vito Corleone. In mid 1949, the remnants of the rival gangs attempted to defeat the Corleones by assassinating Vito, but his son Micheal took over. By 1950, Micheal Corleone had utterly destroyed all opposition to his family in the criminal underground. Corleone, now the de facto leader of South Italy, looked for ways to expand his position further. To do so, he turned to piracy.

South Italy was ideally situated in the Mediterranean for piracy. Any and all shipments coming from Asia were subject to frequent raids by Corleone’s ships. The South Italian government didn't do much to stop the piracy, since Corleone’s gangs would most likely have been able to overthrow the South Italian government if they had to. Eventually, two entire battle fleets, one from the Kaiserliche Marine and one from the Imperial Russian Navy, were deployed to fight Corleone, who the German press began to refer to as the “Pirate King”. Corleone, however, won support for his actions from the USSA. They would pay him to deliver their weapon shipments to the Jewish rebels, and they would advocate for him in the International League. The “Mafia Dictatorship” of Micheal Corleone was obviously here to stay.

This was the state of affairs which Europe found itself in as it entered the 1950s. A great amount of tension was beginning to erupt between the two power blocks, and the First Cold War had well and truly begun. However, the attention of both sides would soon be drawn to China. The Chinese Civil War was entering one of the most tragic phases in human history.

Chapter 3

Back in the USSA

Huey Long was probably never more loved in the USSA as he was immediately after the Second World War. He had brought his country to the position of a superpower, unquestioned in the New World. He had expanded his influence to Africa, creating the Maghreb Socialist Republic (controlling Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, primarily) and even had a European puppet. His ally (albeit a grudging one) Micheal Corleone gave him an advantage in the Mediterranean. Despite all this, the USSA was still faced with a number of problems that would plague Long as his country entered the Cold War.

Firstly, guerrilla resistance to Long continued throughout Latin America, and Quebec. In South America, opponents of Communism used the Jungle to fight an effective guerrilla war that American forces had a tremendous amount of trouble quelling (more on this in later chapters). In Quebec, meanwhile, the fiercely Catholic population approved of the atheist Communist puppet government no more than they approved of the Protestant Canadians. While the main industrial areas of Quebec were rather easy to secure for the Communists, the government in Montreal never had solid control over the northern regions.

This situation would be mirrored in the USSA itself, in the former provinces of Canada. Guerrilla resistance to the Yankee occupier was fierce. Canada’s provinces were now reduced to mere administrative districts. Even the facade of autonomy Long allowed the other states was denied to the Canadians. By 1948, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Long deployed an entire American army group to Canada. More importantly, he deployed J. Edgar Hoover.

The director of the PBI had by no means lost the brutality that had made him infamous in the 1930s. He now set about completely destroying dissent in Canada. Using the American treasury, Hoover bribed more and more Canadians to spy on their friends and family. While few liked it, many found themselves forced to work as informers for Hoover, especially after the secret police chief convinced Long to artificially create poverty in Canada, to make more and more people willing to throw away their honor for money. By 1950, Canada could easily be mistaken for a massive prison camp.

In the foreign sphere, Long found the USSA beginning more and more to rival the Empire of Japan. Japan, during the Second American Civil War, had liberated Hawaii from the Americans, restoring the independent monarchy. Although America had ruled Hawaii for less than two decades, Long considered Hawaii to be rightfully part of America. Hawaii itself, of course, denied this claim, and Japan backed them up. Faced by another nuclear power (Japan, along with Russia, had started their nuclear arsenals in 1945) Long backed down.

This did not mean he did not harm Japan in other ways. The Australasian People’s Republic had been “liberated” by American troops during WWII, and Long now used it as a base to harass members of Japan’s EATAMDO alliance, specifically Indonesia and the Philippines. Japan would deploy thousands of troops there in the coming years, and the series of conflicts between Communism and Capitalism in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific would later come to be known as the Jungle Wars.

In 1952, though, Long was faced with what he saw as a horrible betrayal. Ever since the American Socialist Party had been established, African-Americans had been one of the demographics most supportive of the Party. The Party had made a great show of liberating Blacks from the Jim Crow laws in place in the old South, which had restricted the freedoms of Black citizens in what many historians consider to be a precursor to Voerward’s Apartheid. Now, though, Long found his most vocal opponent to be a 23 year old Black lawyer: Martin Luther King, Jr.

King was born in 1929, ironically the same year that Long came to power. His father was a preacher, who had initially welcomed the moderate Socialist government of Jack Reed. When Long came to power, however, he passed the rationalization act, which, among other things, banned organized religion. Martin Luther King, Sr.’s congregation was driven underground, and one of his son’s most vivid childhood memories was of hiding from the secret police.

In 1935, when Martin was six, someone betrayed his father’s congregation, and his father was sent to a labor camp in the Midwest, never to be heard from again. Martin was sent from foster family to foster family, eventually becoming a prosecutor at the age of only 23. The government had thought they had made him forget his father’s rebellious sentiment. Then, a single incident would prove them wrong.

In King’s first case, he had to prosecute a man whose only crime was teaching his children that George Washington owned slaves. Washington had been associated with Long in the state propaganda, and was viewed as the original revolutionary hero. To point out his flaws, and indeed that he was in actual fact an aristocrat, was simply unacceptable. And so, he was sent to his show trial, without a defense attorney, without a jury, to spend the rest of his life in a labor camp. There was one problem: the Prosecution had a conscience.

King refused to prosecute a man who had no legal counsel. He was quickly taken off the case, and was placed on the PBI’s watch list. That week, King drafted up an anonymous pamphlet and distributed 1,000 copies around Charleston. In the pamphlet, titled “I have a Dream”, King denounced the totalitarian policies of the Long regime. “I have a dream,” he wrote, “that one day a person will be able to speak their mind without fear of punishment. I have a dream that one day we will be able to have our own opinions, not the opinions that the state wants us to have. I have a dream that one day we will be free!”

In the morning, King had already fled, but the pamphlet galvanized the populace. It would quickly spread across the country, to the shame of J. Edgar Hoover. He couldn't handle both Canada and King. Meanwhile, a boy named Lee Harvey Oswald read the pamphlet, and was inspired to do something that would shake the world. That, of course, was in the future.

King continued his travels, inspiring more and more to question the Communist regime. At first, he advocated for non violence against the authorities. In early 1953, though, a mass strike by workers in Atlanta, Georgia, by both whites and blacks, led to a brutal response by the government. Thousands were shot where they stood, and the rest returned to work. After that, King decided that non violence could not possibly work, not unless it was sufficiently mobilized. With that, he founded the New Sons of Liberty, an organization dedicated to opposing the Longists. While it was mostly active in the South, it extended across the entirety of the USSA. King made it a collaboration between Blacks and Whites. The opposition to their mutual enemy in the form of Long was important in helping the people of the South move beyond the racism that had plagued them since Jamestown. By 1955, the New Sons of Liberty were a well established and quite successful organization.

1955 was also the year that Long and the world were faced with a new threat. The Monarchists and Communists in China, it turned out, were not the only options for who would control the country. This third option, it turned out, was worse than both sides. The Shanqing Tianguo in China would redefine the concept of evil, and they were about to win the Chinese Civil War.

Chapter 4

Big Trouble in Equally Big China

China ended WWII essentially devastated. The Chinese had been comprehensively defeated, their population had been devastated by Wang’s conscription of them in the last days of the war, and, finally, China was divided. Worst of all, the Qing Imperial Family had been completely wiped out by Wang, leaving a power vacuum. Although Japan and India would jointly occupy China for a few years, by 1950 it was clear that the occupation was unsustainable, and both parties withdrew. Meanwhile, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Sinkiang had been annexed by the Russian Empire. For China, the Warlord Era had begun.

Before getting into the war itself, the factions that fought the war are worth examining. Firstly, there was the Second Ming Dynasty, centered around Nanjing. When the Japanese had defeated the Wang regime, they had dragged up some sheltered aristocrat who was apparently descended from the Ming Dynasty named Zhu Rongji, and crowned him Emperor. Zhu was in practice dominated completely by General Chiang Kai Shek, who was one of the few generals of the Sinocentric regime to switch sides. The Second Ming Dynasty was deeply unpopular, and only controlled all of China in practice for about a day. Whatever the case, it was the shortest lived dynasty in Chinese history.

In the mountains of Southwestern China, meanwhile, were holdouts of the Wang regime who were still loyal to Chinese Fascism. They were a relatively minor faction, but their official revolt against the Second Ming was what would start the Warlord Era in the first place, so I am obligated to mention them. Moving on.

Speaking of warlords, they were essentially leaders of men, be they former generals, crime bosses, or bandits, who found themselves with the most guns in a given area, and then took over that area. Some of them genuinely aspired to rule all of China, while some just wanted money, but the significant ones were the Guangxi Clique in the south, the Shaanxi Clique in the north, and the Ma Clique in the west. The Guangxi and the Shaanxi were both Republican in nature, but neither of them could agree on who was MORE Republican. The Ma wanted an independent Islamic Chinese state.

And now we get to the main event. The I Kuan Tao. Zhang Zhulang. The unwanted fourth Abrahamic religion.

Zhang Zhulang was (hopefully)the kast prophet in history. He claimed one day in 1945 that Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed had come to him one day in a dream and told him that none of their faiths were the answer, and that the time was now to bring the light of Heaven to China. Zhang woke up the next day and launched into a fiery speech declaring that the Lord was punishing China with their hardships because they had lost the way. For millennia, they had worshipped heathen Emperors. Now, he, Zhang Zhulang, would bring the light of the Lord to them.

In virtually any other country, Zhang would have been dismissed as crazy. However, his rhetoric appealed greatly to the group in China that had always gotten the short end of the stick: the peasants. Zhang told them that their troubles were the cause of the immorality of their masters, and that to strike their masters down was their heavenly duty, and that everyone who helped him in his holy mission to conquer the world would surely go to heaven. Uniquely among the Abrahamic religions, and China, the I Kuan Tao faith did not discriminate against women. This gave Zhang an edge over his opponents, having, essentially, twice the (wo)manpower. By 1950, the I Kuan Tao was still relegated to the underground, but it was beginning to get more and more popular. When Guanxi forces essentially crushed the Fascists in 1952, those Fascists mostly converted to the I Kuan Tao. Zhang was growing in power and influence by the day.

So why didn't anyone stop Zhang before it was too late? Well, they were all fighting each other. Nanjing was devastated in a three way battle between the Ming, the Shaanxi, and the Guangxi in 1954, and the Ma had fallen into anarchy as more and more Chinese Muslims converted to the I Kuan Tao. Still, though, only 40% of Chinese subscribed to the faith. However, they were the ones with the guns. In the middle of the Battle of Nanjing, Zhang gave the order. The Night of Fire had begun.

Maybe the Emperor and the Warlords should have payed closer attention to their people. If they had, they would have noticed where all their deserters were going. They would have noticed armed bands readying for the day of reckoning. The problem is, though, that they didn’t, so when, at Zhang’s command, all the peoples of China rose up at once, well, it caught them off guard. When their soldiers refused to fight the I Kuan Tao, they must have known they were, in a word, fucked. We can’t know for sure because the Emperor, his family, and the warlords were all dead when the Night of Fire ended. Another thing: Zhang Zhulang was the new leader of China.

Styling himself the “Great Teacher”, Zhang began to bring his faith to the rest of China. His first act was to order the peasants to leave their fields, and hunt down the heretics. The famous British comedy sketch “No one expects the Chinese Inquisition!” parodies the events, but it is actually quite true to life: armed bands of fanatics roaming around the countryside, slaughtering anyone they felt like. Most dictators embrace order. Zhang Zhulang embraced anarchy. And his rule had just begun.

Chapter 5

Decolonization and Revolution in the Middle East

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the German Empire had received a good deal of the Empire’s land as “mandates”. To the leaders of the German Empire at the time, a mandate (technically a protectorate that would eventually get independence) was a colony. Now, though, with Germany hobbled from the Second World War, the time had come to finally grant these countries independence. Thus, the stage for the modern history of the Middle East was set.

Germany, in its confrontations with the Turks, had strongly backed the Hashemite Dynasty, which claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Hashemite monarchs had been installed by the Germans in their mandates of Iraq and Transjordan. Following WWII, the Italian mandate of Syria was handed over to German control. Following a referendum in 1945, the mandates of Syria and Jordan were united under one monarch, Abdullah I. Iraq, meanwhile, was ruled by Faisal II, after his father, Ghazi I, died. Germany granted independence both to the Kingdom of Iraq and the Kingdom of Jordan-Syria in 1948, along with the Kingdom of Egypt, which had also been taken from Mussolini’s Italy. Almost immediately, it was clear that these new nations were badly unstable. The consequences of this would soon become apparent.

Firstly, Iraq. Iraq was badly unstable for several reasons. Firstly, Iraqi nationalists desired territory held by the Kingdom of Kurdistan to the north. Secondly, the monarchy had become deeply unpopular with the people of Iraq, due firstly to its life of luxury and secondly to its perception as a puppet of Germany. This made Iraq fertile ground for the cause of Pan Arabic Nationalism, or Baathism. Baathism as an idea would come to define Middle Eastern history for the next several decades.

Syria-Jordan faced these problems to a much lesser degree. The Kingdom was far richer than Iraq, and in Syria at least the Germans were viewed far more positively. Syria-Jordan had a modern army supplied primarily by Germany. King Tigers, Mausers, and Stukas were common sights in the Syrian-Jordanian army. It was no coincidence that this nation was the nation from whence the modern Arabian Empire would spring. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Lastly, Egypt. Egypt’s King, Abbas, was a nationalist through and through. He was viewed by many as a strong leader, earning the nickname “The new Pharaoh”. He had military credentials to back this up, leading the Egyptian Resistance Movement against his brother, Farouk, a puppet of Mussolini. Now, though, Farouk faced a new challenge from the West in the form of the North African Socialist Republic, a Federation established from the North African nations the Americans had “Liberated”. Because of this, Abbas would be another staunch German ally, though more active in Africa than in the Middle East.

So with that, the stage is set for what would become the Great Middle Eastern War. This war would determine the politics of the Middle East, period. It cannot be overstated how decisive this war was. Three main events, though, would lead to the beginning of this war. It would be centered around the ongoing conflict in the Levant, the Kingdom of Kurdistan, and, finally, the struggle between Iraq and Syria-Jordan, between Fascism and Monarchism for control of the Middle East. So, how did the region get there?

The first event that led to war was the Turkish Revolution. Since WWI, the Sultanate of Turkey had been a very unstable Constitutional Monarchy. With the Caliphate abolished and Constantinople lost to the Greeks, the legitimacy of the House of Osman plummeted, a situation not helped by corrupt politicians. Turkish Nationalists centered around the Turanian Party, who dreamed of a new Turkish Empire stretching through the Caucasus and into Central Asia, were growing in popularity by the day. Their ire was focused mainly on Greece, who held the all important city of Constantinople, and Kurdistan, who they viewed as traitors to Islam who had sold out both Turkey and Islam to Russia(led by a woman, at that!).

The Sultanate had remained neutral in WWII, which only further inflamed nationalist tendencies. In the Turkish elections of 1948, the Turanian Party, led by the firebrand Nihal Atziz, won 40% of seats in the Turkish Parliament, a majority, but Sultan Osman Faud refused to name Atziz as Grand Vizier, nominating another. This led to Turanian Party supporters rioting across the nation. The Sultan ordered the army in to quell the riots, but General Ismet Inonu, who had Turanian sympathies, declared his loyalty to Atziz. On May 3, 1950, Sultan Osman fled into exile, and Atziz and Inonu marched into Ankara. The State of Turania was declared, and Turkey entered into a rearmament program.

Atziz turned to every anti-European dictator’s favorite sponsor, Huey Long. Long was very interested in Atziz’s designs on Constantinople; a power friendly to America in possession of the Bosphorus Straits would be a massive boon to American foreign policy. Of course, Long disapproved of Fascism, but then, anything to cripple the Capitalists. Thus, Communism and Fascism formed an unlikely alliance in the Middle East.

Another unlikely alliance the Turanians would form was with the Baathists. One might expect that Turkish and Arab nationalists would oppose each other, but Atziz had no real interest in reconquering the Ottoman Empire’s Arab lands, arguing that his state would be for Turks and Turks only. The Baathists, meanwhile, had no interest in Turkish lands, but merely wanted to unify Arabia. Both, meanwhile, had a common enemy in the form of the Kingdom of Kurdistan, which held lands both parties saw as rightfully theirs. Thus, when the second event happened- the Baathist coup against King Faisal II- Nihal Atziz and Iraqi leader General Abdul Qasim signed an alliance, with the clear goal of the partition of Kurdistan.

To get into the 1953 coup itself, it was essentially sparked by King Faisal II refusing to sent aid to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which, as mentioned before, was supported by Saudi Arabia. The King did not wish to support a terror organization, but the Baathists used this event (or lack of event) as proof that the King was a puppet of Europe. Thus, a military coup swept the Baathists to power. Iraq was now a military dictatorship with the goal of unifying all Arab lands.

One might wonder why Syria-Jordan was not effected by this unrest; King Abdullah I also did not send aid to the PLO. Abdullah, however, was already far more popular than Faisal amongst his subjects, and the military, being heavily supplied by Germany, was more pro-German. In addition, while King Faisal rejected Pan Arab nationalism, King Abdullah embraced it, especially after the Baathist takeover.

The third and final event that would lead to the Great Middle Eastern War was the death of King Abdullah in 1960. With his death, Abdullah’s 24 year old son Hussein ascended to the throne as an even more pan nationalist leader than his father. Hussein also recognized the danger posed to his country by both Turania and Iraq, and so signed a defensive pact with the Kingdom of Kurdistan. The stage was officially set for the war. All that was really needed was a catalyst for the shooting to begin.

That catalyst came as rioting broke out across Kurdistan during 1960 in response to foreign companies dominating Kurdish oil. Kurdish nationalist leaders protested the state of the Kurdish economy, demanding the wealth be used to benefit the people of Kurdistan more. A noble cause, to be sure, but it perhaps was not argued for at the best time, with the sharks of Turania and Iraq circling the Kurds. On October 20, 1962, Atziz and Qasim, seeing their chance, declared war on Kurdistan, to “reclaim the ancestral lands of the Iraqi and Turkish peoples”. Hussein immediately declared war on Iraq and Turania, as the forces of those two countries crossed into Kurdistan, still in a state of unrest. The Great Middle Eastern War had begun.

Chapter 6

Here Comes the Sun

Japan emerged from the Second World War as by far the strongest nation in Asia, commanding a new alliance that fought against both European Imperialism and Communism. During the 50s and 60s, East Asia would truly enter the modern age, as skyscrapers were erected in Korea, insurgents hid in the jungles of Laos and Cambodia, and the anime of Japan fascinated the world.

Japan’s rival as a superpower in Southeast Asia was unquestionably the People’s Republic of India. India had gained its own sphere of influence in Burma and Thailand following the defeat of Sinocentric China, and was eager to expand it into Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The monarchies of Laos and Cambodia, at least at the time, were unpopular, being viewed (not entirely unfairly) as puppets of Tokyo. Thus, the Indian funded insurgents were able to control large parts of the jungles of Laos and Cambodia. This crisis came to a head when Indian backed insurgents were able to assault Ankor Wat the capital of Cambodia, in 1957. This led to King Norodorom Sianouk begging Japanese Prime Minister Hiroshi Yamauchi to intervene. As such, on September 13, 1957, the first Japanese troops landed in Cambodia and Laos, pushing the Communist insurgents back to the jungle. It was the start of what would be known as the Wars of Decolonization in Southeast Asia.

Now is as good a time as any to bring up the man who dominated these wars, and the period in general: Japanese Prime Minister Hiroshi Yamauchi. Yamauchi was born in 1927, to the owner and CEO of an obscure Japanese trading card company, established during the Meiji Restoration, called Nintendo. (Author’s notes: this is actually true. Nintendo is that old. Look it up.) Unfortunately for Yamauchi, Nintendo was forced to declare bankruptcy in1929, when it lost its biggest market, the USSA, after Long cut off trade to Capitalist countries. The Yamauchi family was driven into poverty. This incident left Yamauchi with a great hatred of Communism, which, lets say, he would act upon during the Wars of Decolonization.

Yamauchi joined the Imperial Army in 1943, the earliest time he was of age, and served with distinction in Operation Overthrow, famously saving the life of Emperor Hirohito himself from a Chinese sniper when the Emperor was visiting the front. Rising to the rank of Captain, he became the youngest person ever to be elected to the Imperial Diet in 1950, at the age of only 23. Using his popularity as a soldier to his advantage, he became Prime Minister of Japan in 1955 on a radically anti Communist platform. Thus, two years later, when the Cambodians begged for help against the Red Menace, Yamauchi was outright thrilled to accept.

The General in charge of operations against the Communists was Prince Nobuhito, the brother of the Emperor. Nobuhito had had experience with guerrilla war before when serving in Korea. Seeing the Korean tactics against the Chinese, he discerned that the way to win the guerrilla war was to win the hearts and minds of the people of Laos and Cambodia. But how to achieve that goal?

Nobuhito’s plan was quite simple. When the spring of 1958 hit, the Japanese and Cambidian/Lao armies swept out of the cities, identifying the farmlands of the areas as key targets. Time and time again, his armies would meet the insurgents, and time and time again, the insurgents would be forced to retreat, eventually retreating into the jungles of Laos and Cambodia. This was accomplished in its entirety by 1960.

What Nobuhito did next was simple: he essentially turned to the Kings of Laos and Cambodia and informed them that they had to get their shit together. With Japanese aid, Laos and Cambodia began to modernize. The peasants were being fed again. By targeting the power base of the Communists, Nobuhito had destroyed the effectiveness of their guerrilla war. He then stepped back and allowed the governments of Cambodia and Laos to finish the insurgents. In this way, the insurgencies were effectively defeated by 1965. Cambodia and Laos had entered the modern age. Meanwhile, some obscure rebel leader named Pol Pot died a death only significant for its flamboyance: as the Cambodian royal army converged on the positions of his soldiers, he retreated into a cave, only for the inside of that cave to be hit full force by a missile, and then collapse on top of him. His body was never found, and has likely been reduced to an atomic level.

Unfortunately for Japan, and the world, they were not so lucky in Malaysia and Indonesia. These two countries would become the birthplace of a new ideology: Islamic Fundamentalism, or Islamism. Islamism was a response both to Communism and secular Capitalism; it was the new reaction. Many credit the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the humiliation of the Caliphs, the House of Osman, that had a “Potsdam” like effect on Muslims. Indeed, Islamist rhetoric declared that the House of Osman had sold out to the West, and thus was no longer in the favor of Allah. A new Caliphate was needed, they argued, one that would not kowtow to the Infidel. Islamism would see its rise in Indonesia.

As mentioned previously, the Indonesian Federation had been granted independence by the Dutch after Japan had liberated it from Chinese occupation in WWII. Following this, the island was firmly in the Japanese sphere of influence, and was a vital supplier of oil to Japan. That all changed, though, when a Communist coup led by Achmed Sukarno and backed by Long seized control of Jakarta in 1958. Yamauchi was in a panic; losing Indonesia would be a huge blow to Japan. So he did the only thing he really could: give arms to any and all opposition groups: in this case, the Islamic Brotherhood of Indonesia, led by a charismatic Imam known only as Suharto.

The Islamist Insurgency was renowned for its brutality, with Communist forces persecuting Muslims, Islamist forces publicly beheading Communists, and both sides committing genocide against Indonesia’s Protestant, Hindu, and Buddhist minorities. After ten years of war, though, Suharto finally marched triumphantly into Jakarta, declaring the Islamic State of Indonesia.

Unfortunately for Yamauchi, he had just helped fill the Pandora’s Box of Islamic Fundamentalism. This sowed the seeds for the Wars of Religion of the 1970s and 80s. But as they say, that is a story for another day, because the world’s attention was about to be captured by another crisis, from South Africa. The city of Soweto had been captured by insurgents, and Hendrik Voerward had done something that hadn’t been done since 1941.

Pretoria was destroyed by an Atomic Bomb.

Chapter 7

Decolonization in Africa, or the Adventures of Young Donald Trump

Since the rise of Hendrik Voerward in South Africa and the passing of the Apartheid laws, South Africa had been in a state of civil war. The war had started in 1948 when Voerward attempted to forcibly integrate South Africa’s autonomous African Kingdoms into the nation. This led to said Kingdoms rising against the Apartheid regime in revolt. They were led by the charismatic King Rolihlahla Mandela, who vowed that the war would continue until Apartheid fell.

Voerward used this rebellion very much to his advantage. He would launch into furious tirades at Nationalist rallies declaring that South Africa was the last bastion of the White Race (the Germans, Russians, and Americans, of course, were all race traitors). Africans, he declared, were made by God to be nothing more than slaves to the White Race. Thus, the rebels were quite literally Satanists.

South Africa, as the only Fascist state left in the world (openly Fascist, anyway; it could be argue that the Baathists and Turanians were as well) was a pariah. Neither the Monarchists nor the Communists had anything to do with them. The South Africans, however, had leverage in the form of a nuclear bomb that had been brought in by a French exile. Neither power bloc was willing to risk one of their cities to take down South Africa. As such, South Africa continued without foreign intervention for a little while longer.

The rebellion, meanwhile, remained essentially a guerrilla war. The native rebels knew the layout of the land and outnumbered government forces, but they also were outgunned; whenever government forces showed up in force, the rebels were beaten easily. The war quickly turned ugly as the South African army began wiping villages off the map to cleanse regions of guerrilla activity. In response, Mandela’s forces began massacring Boer settlers in the savannah. By 1955, essentially all Boer settlers had fled into the cities.

The rebels also got a major boost to their power in 1955. By 1954, the greater European economy, especially the German economy, had finally recovered completely from the Second World War. In 1955, the outspokenly anti racist war hero Erwin Rommel was elected as Chancellor of Germany. Rommel had developed an affinity for Africa after serving there, and one of the platforms he ran on was the destruction of the Apartheid regime. As such, in early 1955, Rommel authorized modern weapons and vehicles being shipped to the rebels.

Rolihlahla would put these supplies to excellent use throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. South African armies were actually occasionally meeting with defeat now. In the summer 1965, rebel forces assaulted Soweto, a majority black city. With their modern equipment, they took it after weeks of intense street fighting. The war in South Africa appeared to have reached a turning point.

Then Voerward panicked. He used South Africa’s only atomic bomb on June 3, 1965 to destroy Soweto and everyone in it. A massive amount of rebel soldiers and civilians, both Black and White, died in the blast. In the short term, Voerward had won a decisive victory. In the long term, he had doomed Apartheid.

The UN convened later that week to discuss the crisis. There was very little doubt as to what to do. The new German Chancellor Konrad von Richtofen was in complete agreement with Russian PM Bronislav and Premier Long. For the first time since WWII, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, and the USSA entered a war as allies.

At around this time, Donald Trump, a 20 year old resident of New York, was in the army. Trump, like any good American kid, spent every day filled with gratitude that Comrade Long was looking out for America. Trump, though, actively admired Long, using the dictator as his role model. He absolutely despised those traitorous Sons of Liberty led by that snake Martin Luther King, Jr., and he wanted to fight them, dammit! First, though, he was going to fight some South Africans. That suited Trump just fine.

The Royal Namibian Army launched its initial assault into South Africa on August 1 of that year. The South African army was sent reeling by the assault, and the north of the country fell by the end of the month. August 16 saw the American Red Army, with Trump in tow, land in the south of the country. By October 4, Voerward was dead, and all major cities had been taken by the Allies, the northern territories under the rule of Mandela’s forces and the southern area under Communist control.

Thus, Capitalists and Communists decided to do to South Africa what they did best: divide it. The North was made into the Federal Kingdom of South Africa, with each tribe being represented by a King, and with King Rohilahla being the “first among equals”. The South, meanwhile, was the People’s Republic of South Africa. As mentioned before, though, Communism was increasingly unpopular with South Africans, especially with their “hero king” so against it. Thus, a large American occupation force in the area was needed. This occupation force included Trump, now a Sergeant. We’ll return to him in a little while.

Communism, though, had significantly more attraction with Germany’s colonial subjects. The German colonial administration in Africa was already essentially dead and buried after WWII, and it was hanging on by a thread. Opposition to German rule quickly took the form of Communism. Although in some areas where Germany ruled through native Kings Communism met with little success, in others, such as German Cameroon, and especially in the German Congo, Communism triumphed. This triumph followed a guerrilla war lasting from 1950 to 1966, which ended in Germany’s full withdrawal from West Africa, the Congo, and Cameroon. These new Communist nations quickly received the blessing of Long.

In response to this, Germany granted full independence to its protectorate Kingdoms in Africa. South Africa, Namibia, and East Africa, then, became independent Kingdoms acting as counterweights to Communism. They were joined by the Empire of Ethiopia. Liberated from Italian occupation in the first months of WWII, Ethiopia was a staunch ally of Germany and Russia, although, being Orthodox, it tended to lean more towards Russia.

Thus, by the mid 60s European rule over Africa had effectively ended. Europe, though, now looked inwards, as a new movement was taking the continent by storm: the Jewish Rights Movement.

Chapter 8

The Levantine War



War. War never changes.

Well, maybe that isn't entirely true. Over the course of human history, ideologies, nation-states, and people have evolved. Reasons for war are perhaps most emblematic of this change. In the age of Alexander the Great and the Romans, conquest was seen as a justifiable reason in and of itself. As the Roman Empire fell and new feudal Kingdoms rose, land claims became the reason for war. With the rise of Islam and the Protestant Reformation, wars increasingly became about religion, as Catholics and Protestants warred many times over for dominance of Europe, and they both lived in fear of the Turk. The coming of the French Revolution brought about a new age of war, as nations marched to war in the name of ideology; first Monarchism vs Republicanism, then Capitalism vs Communism, then Fascism vs Communism vs Monarchism, and finally Monarchism vs Communism.

Some things, though, never change. One of those things is that a primary reason for war is the Holy Land.

This may have been in Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s mind as he stepped off his private jet in Jerusalem, ready to begin a new wave of major Russian involvement in the war. We may never know. What we do know is that in mid 1945 Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was ordered by the Russian government to take over the Russian pacification campaign in the Holy Land. The Holy Land had been the dream of every Russian Tsar since Nicholas I. Zhukov would be damned if he lost what Nicholas II had won.

Opposing the Russians were the other two major groups in the Holy Land: Jews and Muslims. Representing the Jews was the Judean People’s Front, who were, as their name somewhat implied, Communist. Led by General Moshe Dayan, they were a massive headache for the Russian army, using guerrilla tactics to great effect. They were joined by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which was the first real instance of a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group. Led by Yasser Arafat and supplied by Saudi Arabia, their goal as simple: drive out the Russians, and exterminate the Jews.

All of this was a recipe for one of the ugliest wars in the history of the world. The PLO had an explicitly genocidal goal against both the Christians and the Jews, the Judean People’s Front was de facto genocidal, and the Russians, while by no means genocidal, would resort to atrocities to combat a hostile population.

This was also a war Russia intended to win. Possession of the Holy Land had been the crux of Russia’s foreign policy since Alexander I, and they would use the need to protect oppressed Christian Arabs from Ottoman oppression as a frequent casus belli against the Turks. Being responsible for the loss of the Holy Land was not something that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Nobokov wanted to do; it would be political suicide. Thus, Zhukov went to the Levant.

The First Levantine War would last from 1945 to 1960. As you can probably tell from it being the FIRST Levantine War, it was by no means an end to said conflict. Russia would deploy a total of 1,000,000 troops to the region over the course of the conflict. At the beginning of the war, the Russians hoped to hold all major cities in the region with 200,000 troops. It quickly became clear, though, that this was an unrealistic goal, as the Russians, spread far too thin, were unable to prevent vast swathes of the countryside from falling into enemy hands.

To combat this problem Zhukov encouraged the training of Christian militias in 1946. This would bring with it its own host of problems, however; the Christian Arabs were difficult for the Russians to control, and often would carry out their own atrocities against Jews and Muslims. This divided the populace of the region in the long term, which was disastrous for Russia’s pacification efforts.

Zhukov was a great general; that can not be called into dispute. He had, after all, utterly crushed the largest army the world had ever known at Novosibirsk. However, he was simply not suited to guerrilla warfare. He was used to a kind of warfare where it was not clear who controlled what land; this was why the Russian effort in the Levant utterly failed. Zhukov’s strategy was to hold the major cities and supply routes, while launching glorified raids against rebel holdouts, killing every enemy soldier in the area, and leaving. This did nothing, though, to win the war: the Russians could not kill every single enemy soldier, they had to hold the territory. This, they were simply unable to accomplish.

The war continued like this for ten years, until 1955. Hundreds of thousands of Arab and Jewish soldiers died to Russian attacks, but the Russians hardly benefitted from any of these victories. Zhukov retired in 1950, and was replaced with Marshal Oleg Konstantinovich. Konstantinovich would essentially continue the tactics of his predecessor.

The two rebel groups, though, did not keep their tactics the same. In 1955 Dayan and Arafat met in secret in the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights agreement would put the Judean People’s Front and the PLO in a formal alliance of cooperation. Before, they had very rarely fought, but they were now officially cooperating.

The effects for Russia were disastrous. Russian forces were now losing battles for the first time. JPF forces managed to capture the town of Eilat in November of 1957. Although it was retaken, the morale blow was immense. Russia was losing the war on the home front, that much was certain. The civilian population was increasingly turning against the war, led by new Kadet firebrand politician Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn would win the 1960 elections to become Prime Minister, and immediately initiated peace negotiations with the JPF and PLO.

The Treaty of Jerusalem, perhaps more than anything else, confirms the immortal words of American dissident Bill Waterson: “A good compromise always makes everyone mad.” The only areas Russia still had firm control over by 1960 was Lebanon. Lebanon, coincidentally, had the highest population of Arab Christians. Almost immediately, Dayan and Arafat both agreed that Russia could keep Lebanon. They also agreed to expel all Christian Arabs to Lebanon, although Russia allowed all Jews and Muslims to stay if they wished (most did not wish). Russia would liberate Lebanon as the Christian Kingdom of Lebanon, with its capitol in Beirut, and ruled by one of Olga’s sisters, Anastasia. Queen Anastasia would go on to be a popular ruler, leading Lebanon through its nation building phase.

The rest of the Levant would not be so lucky, unfortunately. Almost as soon as Russia withdrew from negotiations, Arafat and Dayan were at each other’s throats. They and their men both knew full well that the fight with Russia was only the beginning. Now, the true battle, between Judaism and Islam, Communism and Wahhabism, had begun. It was this battle that would shape the future of the Levant.

That battle, though, will have to wait. As attentive readers might remember, 1960 was also the year that the Great Middle Eastern War began. Lets get to that, shall we?