|
|
Post by eurofed on Oct 6, 2016 13:01:58 GMT
This TL develops an idea that in my knowledge did not get much representation in AH: an Axis victory that does not include an armed clash between the Axis powers and the USSR. ITTL America stays neutral and the Soviets join the Axis powers during WWII to crush the British Empire, even if later fascists and communists get alienated again. So a multi-polar Cold War eventually develops between the Axis powers, the USSR, and the USA.
ITTL Roosevelt died by an early stroke in 1939, and after James Garner completed his term, one among James Farley, Cordell Hull, or Thomas Dewey was elected President in 1940. Although the new President followed an internationalist foreign policy broadly similar to FDR, he was more suspicious of Stalin and less willing to go out of his way to pick a fight with the totalitarian powers unless they directly threatened US security. The botched attempt of Britain and France to intervene in the Winter War and deny Germany access to Swedish iron supplies caused the German occupation of Sweden, the Anglo-French bombing of Baku, and a state of war between the USSR and the Entente powers.
Hitler reluctantly accepted Stalin as an ally - even if he planned to attack the Soviets once the British were defeated - and the Axis alliance was expanded to the USSR. The Soviets attacked and overrun Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, while Germany did the same to Western Europe and forced France to surrender. Because of the Soviet co-belligerence, Germany and Italy agreed to cooperate and pursue a Mediterranean strategy, while Spain and Vichy France joined the Axis. Charles de Gaulle died during the Fall of France, so no equivalent of Free France ever arose and France was deemed a genuine member of the Axis coalition by the democratic powers.
The Axis forces occupied Portugal, Gibraltar, and Malta, overrun North Africa, drove the British out of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, and made inroads into western India and East Africa. The British Empire got in dire straits, despite the generous Lend-Lease support of the USA. Its fate was sealed by two events: first Hitler died (by assassination, accident, or drug overdose) before he could unleash his planned attack on the USSR, and second the Germans and the Soviets were able to keep the Japanese from attacking the USA. Goering took over as Hitler’s designated successor with the support of party moderates and the Heer. He mostly marginalized or purged Himmler, the SS, and the extremist wing of the Nazi ruling circle, even if Heydrich was able to make himself too useful to be purged and stay in the good graces of the new leadership.
Goering decided an unprovoked war with the USSR would be too risky and exhausting, and the gains from hegemony in Europe and victory over the British Empire would be enough to satisfy Nazi Germany’s imperial ambitions. On his own part, Stalin showed a similar degree of caution and moderation: he realized a war with fascist Europe and Japan would be quite difficult and risky, and the gains from control of the Middle East and access to the warm seas would be enough to appease Soviet ambitions. The bad situation of the British stoked Japan’s imperialist appetites for southward expansion. Moreover the Japanese were eager to seize the European colonies in Southeast Asia to secure a steady supply of resources against the American embargo that was strangling their economy.
However Goering and Stalin were eager to prevent an American intervention in the war from Japan’s aggressive actions, which would make victory against the British much more costly and difficult. They persuaded the Japanese to join their alliance and pledge to leave the USA alone with offers of technological exchanges, peaceful expansion in Southeast Asia, and access to Soviet resources on favorable terms. The Japanese occupied French Indochina and Dutch East Asia with the acquiescence of the Axis powers and picked the excuse of a few naval incidents with the British fleet to attack the British Empire. However they reluctantly did so by establishing armed defense on their eastern flank against the potential threat of the Philippines and the US Pacific Fleet. The Japanese rampage swept British possessions in Asia up to New Guinea and eastern India, and made the already bad British situation turn worse.
The combination of German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Soviet power made the air-naval battle over the British Isles and in the Atlantic turn from bad to worse for the British, and Britain came to experience serious food and resource shortages for its population and industry. The war situation radicalized the Indian independence movement into a demand for immediate self-rule and a drive to expel the British by mass civil disobedience and insurrection. A widespread wave of strikes, riots, and armed uprisings swept India, just as the Axis armies were fighting their way to the border regions of the subcontinent on two sides.
Hope in American aid had long sustained the British will to fight despite the long list of military defeats and the increasingly desperate character of the struggle. The US Administration and public opinion were sympathetic to the British cause and willing to help it by providing generous economic to Britain and putting the Axis countries under embargo. However they remained unshakably reluctant to pick a fight with the powerful Axis coalition if it didn’t directly threaten the USA. The Americans realized it would be a very difficult, costly, and bloody war with victory in Europe far from guaranteed even with full mobilization of the vast US economic and military potential. Even the recurrent naval incidents in the Atlantic that involved American shipping were not enough to motivate the USA into intervention. Many Americans were mindful of the 1917 precedent dragging the USA in a war that had proved futile and were reluctant to follow the same course. ‘All aid to Britain short of war’ proved to be the psychological threshold the American people was unwilling to cross short of being directly attacked by the Axis.
But American economic support proved wholly insufficient to make Britain withstand the military onslaught from the combined might of the Axis powers, with a never-ending string of defeats and territorial losses in three continents, round-the-clock bombings, increasingly tight blockade, food and industrial shortages, and India being swept by rebellion. Desperation made the British will to fight inevitably shatter, the war supporters were ousted from power, and a pro-peace coalition took over who petitioned the Axis powers for a beggar’s peace. In the following peace negotiations, Britain was able to avoid military occupation and keep its independence and political system, but had to recognize the conquests and continental hegemony of the Axis powers, and pledge to keep a foreign policy that would not challenge Axis interests in any way. The British Empire got entirely dismantled and Britain left WWII as a broken, exhausted, impoverished, humiliated pale shadow of its former power and glory.
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Oct 6, 2016 13:02:55 GMT
Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, the Flanders, northern-central Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, western-central Poland, Bohemia-Moravia, Slovakia, Carniola, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. The Nazi leaders gave up their plans for colonial expansion in the Soviet space as unfeasible, and instead turned Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia into their new version of Lebensraum. Under Goering, Nazi Germany adopted a racial policy that deemed most Slavs who accepted forced Germanization fit for assimilation into the Reich. It earmarked the ones who resisted Nazi rule or clung to their national identities for extermination or deportation. Germany also got a vast tract of Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Ubangi-Shari, Gabon, French and Belgian Congo, Angola, Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, and northern Mozambique) as its new colonial empire of Mittelafrika.
Italy annexed Nice, Savoy, southern Switzerland, Corsica, the Balearic Islands, coastal Dalmatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, northwestern Macedonia, Malta, Tunisia, Chad, South Sudan, British Somaliland, Uganda, and Kenya. Spain got Gibraltar, Portugal, and French Morocco. France annexed Wallonia, western Switzerland, and the British and Portuguese colonies in West Africa. Bulgaria annexed most of Macedonia, southern Dobruja, and the western portion of Eastern Thrace; Greece got Cyprus and swapped the Dodecanese for the Ionian Islands with Italy. Hungary annexed southern Slovakia, northern Transylvania, and Backa. Europe was bound into the European League, a fascist equivalent of the EU/NATO system with an economic and monetary union and an integrated military alliance. It included Germany as its undisputed leader, Italy as second-in-command, France and Spain as the other members important enough to have a say, and Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece as the minor member states.
The USSR annexed Finland, the Baltic states, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, Bukovina, the Turkish Straits, eastern Anatolia, northwestern Persia, Xinjiang (renamed East Turkestan), and Mongolia as several SSRs. Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the Arab United Republic (a union of Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states) were turned into various Communist client states. The Raj lands west of the Indus were partitioned between Afghanistan and Iran. Egypt with North Sudan, Mandatory Palestine, and the Hejaz became a client state of the European League. The resistance of the Chinese Nationalists was crushed by a combined Soviet-Japanese offensive; China proper was divided between a pro-Soviet western area ruled by the CCP, and a pro-Japanese eastern region controlled by a collaborationist faction of the KMT.
Japan annexed northern Sakhalin (ceded by the Soviets for concessions elsewhere), most of Manchukuo (Jehol was returned to East China), Hainan, and New Guinea. The Han inhabitants of Manchuria and Hainan were largely expelled and replaced with Japanese and Korean settlers. The Japanese established East China, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaya, and Indonesia as client states of theirs bound in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The Axis states invariably established a fairly uniform policy of colonization, forced assimilation, and ruthless suppression of dissent for their annexed territories. In the conquered territories that were not planned for ultimate ethno-linguistic assimilation imposition of client-state status, brutal repression of dissent, and economic exploitation were the standard. Political opponents, members of the resistance, and hostile nationalists got killed, sent to the concentration camp system and often worked to death, or deported to distant and inhospitable corners of the Axis empires. In several cases the victorious powers did not bother to try and absorb the subject populations deemed too difficult or troublesome to assimilate or undesirable for racial reasons. They were subject to summary mass deportation and replacement by the conquerors’ settlers. This policy was deployed with some more leniency and flexibility in Western Europe, with rather more brutality in Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, with varying degrees between these two extremes in East Asia, but was the standard across Axis Eurasia and Africa.
Germany got involved into an extensive effort to absorb the West and South Slav lands through a mix of nativist policies, settler immigration, forced cultural assimilation, mass deportation, and genocide. The other European powers established a very similar policy for their North African colonies – Spain for Morocco, France for Algeria, and Italy for Tunisia and Libya. As a matter of fact, the demographic effort to find enough settlers for the colonized lands got serious enough that the EL established a common policy of opening the Eastern European and North African colonies to immigrants from Europe at large, provided the settlers were subject to political and cultural assimilation from the nation that owned the area.
The European powers drew grandiose plans to eventually extend this colonization policy to Sub-Saharan Africa and eventually turn vast tracts of it into a settler colony. In practice the colonization of Eastern Europe and North Africa absorbed enough of the demographic resources of Europe that such plans were earmarked for the distant future. In the meanwhile, fascist Europe imposed an extremely harsh regime of serfdom and economic exploitation on its African colonies. In practice it established slavery in all but name and made the infamous conditions of the old Congo Free State the standard across the continent. In South Africa a pro-Axis far right faction took over, established a racist police state, and aligned the country with the EL in foreign policy. South Africa annexed the rest of Southern Africa (South West Africa, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland, Southern Rhodesia, southern Mozambique), and strived to imitate brutal Axis colonial policies for its own Black population.
Decisive defeat utterly discredited the cause of the British Empire for the White Dominions and drove them to sever all political bonds with Britain. They got frantic to find protection from renewed totalitarian aggression, so they picked political union with America as the only safe course to bind the USA to their defense. Even a close alliance of republics was deemed too risky and uncertain a course in the dramatic period following WWII. The outcome of the war at last awakened America from its isolationist spell, but by then it could do little more than rearm, accept the petitions for union of the Dominions, and pursue a policy of armed defense of the Western Hemisphere and Australasia.
Alaska, Hawaii, the Australian states, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and almost all Canadian provinces became US states. Prince Edward Island got merged with Nova Scotia for reasons of insufficient population for statehood. Yukon merged with Alaska. The Canadian Northwest Territories and Australian Northern Territory initially became US territories, but eventually the former fused with Alaska, and the latter got enough population from immigration to qualify for statehood. Quebec and Iceland negotiated a status of associated states with the USA, with self-rule in most domestic issues and Washington managing foreign policy, defense, and the economy. They got their non-voting representatives in the Congress.
America annexed the European possessions in the Western Hemisphere and Oceania with the acquiescence of local authorities; it kept Greenland, the Caribbean islands, and the Pacific islands as territories, but it ceded the rest to various Latin American states. Argentina got the Falkland Islands, Guatemala took British Honduras, and the Guyanas were partitioned between Venezuela and Brazil. Out of its wish to secure undisputed strategic control of the Caribbean region, the US government bribed the ruling elites of several states in the region (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama) to accept political union with America with offers of economic and monetary compensations. They became associated states of the USA and Puerto Rico got the same status. Japanese supremacy in Southeast Asia drove the American and Filipino leaders to abandon all plans for independence of the Philippines. The two sides negotiated an extension of the Commonwealth of the Philippines associated-state bond with the USA to indefinite duration with a few adjustments. The union of the USA with its associated states became commonly known as the American Commonwealth. Over time the US island territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific got self-rule as associated states of the USA and joined the AC system.
In a few years after victory in WWII, relations between the fascist and communist powers again degenerated from allies of convenience to rivals and potential enemies. The main causes were a mix of insufficiently threatening common enemies, resurgent imperialist competition and ideological tension, and mutual suspicion. Nonetheless the leaders of two sides remained cautious and practical enough to shun escalation into an armed conflict. They deemed their wartime gains extensive enough and the effort of assimilating and managing their empires complex enough to avoid the risk of further expansionist adventures. They resorted to watchful containment, armed defense, and the usual Cold War means of competition to preserve their interests from external threats. More or less the same conditions settled in place between the USA and the totalitarian powers.
In a few years, near-simultaneous development of nuclear weapons, extensive WMD arsenals, and intercontinental bombers by all the great powers (USA, German-led Europe, USSR, and Japan) cemented MAD into place. India picked a course of opportunist neutrality that wavered between drifting closer to the USA, Europe/Japan, or the USSR depending on which political faction got in power and what seemed more convenient at the time. The Japanese at times drifted between a more autonomous foreign policy when tensions with the Soviets and the Americans toned down, and closing ranks with fascist Europe when antagonism with their powerful neighbors flared up. ‘Britization’ became a word to define the policy of a weaker country that strived not to challenge its more powerful neighbors in foreign policy while maintaining independence and its own political system.
|
|
|
|
Post by warsie on Oct 24, 2016 16:04:29 GMT
Why wouldn't Britain align with the US? The Germans knew Britain would still be pro US
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Oct 31, 2016 1:59:15 GMT
Does Pakistan exist in this timeline or is the lack of partition one of the few positive things in this world?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Nov 2, 2016 18:37:16 GMT
Does Pakistan exist in this timeline or is the lack of partition one of the few positive things in this world? One way or another, the partition does not occur and Pakistan does not exist in this world. By default I've assumed the outcome that the Soviets are able to seize control of the Raj lands west of the Indus in the final phase of the war and/or win them at the peace table, so they forcibly join the Communist empire. Broadly speaking, Red Afghanistan annexes the northern portion ('Pashtunistan') of western Pakistan, and Red Iran gets the southern portion (Baluchistan). India keeps Sindh, West Punjab, East Bengal, and Kashmir. The looming Soviet threat is more than enough to persuade the Muslim League leaders to bury all plans for a separate homeland in the Muslim-majority areas and make themselves content with special autonomy rights within the Indian federation - more or less the same way the Japanese threat persuades the Filipino leaders to shun independence and cling to their associated-state relationship with the USA. Alternatively, you might assume India keeps all the OTL Pakistani lands and the partition is averted for the same reasons. This latter outcome however seems rather less likely to me since it would require rather more bargaining power at the peace table than Britain and India would have ITTL. |
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Nov 2, 2016 19:22:42 GMT
Why wouldn't Britain align with the US? The Germans knew Britain would still be pro US If you ask my reasoned opinion, ITTL the game was stacked enough against Britain and its defeat decisive enough (the RN and the RAF overwhelmed, on the receiving end of a severe bombing and blockade offensive that was causing serious food and industrial shortages, India in widespread rebellion, all other colonies in the Northern Hemisphere lost, no realistic hope of getting a timely American intervention or withstanding the German-Soviet-Japanese-Italian-French-Spanish coalition on their own that was gearing up for full-scale invasion of the British Isles and the Indian subcontinent) that forced adoption of a Finlandization foreign policy was the realistic best outcome for them. Even surrender, military occupation, and Nazification would have been far from unreasonable an outcome to expect given the circumstances. They got to keep national sovereignty and a democratic political system, but they had to accept Axis hegemony across the Old World, loss of their empire, and a neutral foreign policy that did not challenge the strategic interests of German-dominated Europe or the USSR in any significant way. Later when the three superpowers developed a WMD arsenal and MAD locked in, the neutral status of Britain became part of the global status quo and neither the Americans nor the British dared openly challenge fascist Europe and risk a Cuban Missile Crisis-style confrontation to get Britain in the Western military alliance. Britain remained free to trade with the Western bloc but it was not allowed to become an American strategic platform or rearm to threaten Europe. Perhaps TTL Cold War Britain could navigate skillfully enough to achieve a status broadly similar to OTL Sweden in most regards (economically and politically aligned with the West, militarily neutral with a non-threatening to their powerful totalitarian neighbors foreign and security policy in peacetime, expected by everyone to side with the West in wartime) without the element of subservience that characterized OTL Finland. However I very much doubt they would be able to join the American Commonwealth or TTL Pan-American equivalent of NATO/EU, provide basing rights to the Americans, or rearm to pre-war levels (likely unfeasible economically anyway for their greatly diminished resources w/o massive US subsidies) until the totalitarian empires collapse and the Cold War ends.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Jan 21, 2017 6:56:25 GMT
Has anyone in South Africa been impaling rebellious blacks similar to a certain bunch of world-conquering Afrikaners (you know what I'm talking about) or is that too extreme even for South Africa's fascist rulers? Also, maybe the French restored their monarchy to buy the support of old-school reactionaries (I'm looking at you Action Francaise)?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Jan 22, 2017 11:34:18 GMT
Has anyone in South Africa been impaling rebellious blacks similar to a certain bunch of world-conquering Afrikaners (you know what I'm talking about) or is that too extreme even for South Africa's fascist rulers? Also, maybe the French restored their monarchy to buy the support of old-school reactionaries (I'm looking at you Action Francaise)? Dunno if they would resort to impaling as a means of executing rebels, but the South African fascists eagerly imitate their European allies by imposing a discrimination and exploitation regime on Blacks that is slavery in all but name and makes Jim Crow or Apartheid look like bleeding-heart liberalism, as well as using genocidal means of repression for anyone who rebels. ITTL Africa turns into a funhouse of horrors as long as fascism lasts, the Congo Free State writ large across a continent. Ultimately the fascists plan to exterminate the Blacks and replace them with European settlers at least in all the valuable areas of Africa. But the task looks daunting enough, and the demographic resources of fascist Europe are already largely tied down colonizing Eastern Europe and North Africa, that this part of their plans has been mostly postponed to the very long term.
In the meanwhile the fascist bloc has essentially defaulted to the option of keeping the Blacks alive as slaves, at least unless they try to rebel, and exploiting them to squeeze out as much wealth as possible from Africa. A few genocidal exceptions to this pattern may or may not be already underway in a few areas, or be planned for the near future; it depends on how many demographic resources fascist Europe may spare for the settlement effort. ITTL the Nazifascists are smart enough not to exterminate their captive workforce until they are ready replace it with ther own settlers, and to be practical about their racism with White-looking guys. Greater South Africa might well be one of the places where a place where the fascist master plan had already at least partially switched to deportation and genocide, because there is already a sizable White settler community in place.
ITTL the Russian lands have been spared Nazi fury, although living under triumphant Stalinism is no great bargain, and the West Slav, South Slav, Arab, and Berber inhabitants of Eastern Europe and North Africa may often get the option of being absorbed into fascist Europe if they are deemed racially suitable (but ITTL the fascists tend to be fairly pragmatic about suitability criteria; if you collaborate it is usually taken as a sign you have enough German or Roman genes; if you resist it is an hallmark you don't or are a 'race traitor') and submit to forced cultural and political assimilation. The Blacks, for obvious reasons, do not even get this potential respite.
In 'Aryan' Europe, the apparent triumph of fascism, common interest in defence from the USA and the USSR, the profits to be gained from continental cooperation and integration, and the wealth to be squeezed out of the African colonies have dwindled resistance to fascist rule and German hegemony to a fringe of idealists busy dodging the secret police. In the colonized areas, the usual choice is between giving up your identity and becoming a loyal citizen of the fascist power that conquered your land, or resist and be exterminated or deported. Pretty much the same conditions apply in the Soviet empire, apart from the purges Stalin's paranoia in his twilight might unleash. The pattern is not really going to change until the totalitarian system starts to show enough flaws that it begins to crack and implode. The French and Spanish regimes may well pick the option of restoring their monarchies to appease the most reactionary wings of their power base. In any case, these kings would be ceremonial figureheads, much like in Italy, Romania, and the Japanese Empire, with all real power being concentrated in the hands of the local fascist strongman or oligarchic clique.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Jan 26, 2017 10:35:40 GMT
Maybe the French retain some trappings of democracy like faux-opposition parties (basically a mixture of the East German "National Front" and the eight non-communist parties in China) and sham elections?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Jan 28, 2017 13:25:56 GMT
Maybe the French retain some trappings of democracy like faux-opposition parties (basically a mixture of the East German "National Front" and the eight non-communist parties in China) and sham elections? Well, it might theoretically happen. As you point out there was some precedent in the Communist bloc, although all of it was post-WWII; I'm not sure if there was some meaningful precedent in the interwar period and in the fascist bloc. However the prevailing interwar trend for fascist countries was the adoption of one-party systems and sham elections with plebiscite approval of a single list, or even appointed legislatures. I assume most likely this would be the system adopted in TTL fascist France, too. It might go both ways, depending on the political dynamics within the ruling elite, but as the examples you quote make it clear, it won't make any real difference. One thing, however, is for sure: in no meaningful way TTL France is going to be any more democratic, less totalitarian, or 'nicer' than the rest of fascist Europe, or the 'odd guy' in the Axis bloc. OTL Vichy regime made clear this would be the trend, and TTL circumstances only magnify it considerably.
TTL French regime tries hard to revive the perception of Britain, and by extension the USA, as the traditional enemy of France (while Communism is the emergent existential threat, although Axis propaganda also taps the meme of the 'Asiatic hordes' to a good degree). It glorifies and emphasizes the precedents of authoritarianism and Pan-European solidarity in French history, while the 1871-1940 international alignment and the legacy of the 1789 Revolution and the Third Republic are treated as aberrations. Given the circumstances (global success of fascism, France's comfortable place within the fascist bloc) such a policy is quite effective, and the democratic legacy is undermined as thoroughly in France as in Germany, Italy, or Spain.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Feb 25, 2017 5:34:17 GMT
Maybe TTL's analogue to the counter-culture movement is right-leaning and has some similarities to the alt-right? Also, maybe we could have the UK have a rightward swing in it's politics with Labour being harassed by the authorities and the BUF winning a few seats here and there?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Mar 2, 2017 8:22:57 GMT
Maybe TTL's analogue to the counter-culture movement is right-leaning and has some similarities to the alt-right? Also, maybe we could have the UK have a rightward swing in it's politics with Labour being harassed by the authorities and the BUF winning a few seats here and there? This is quite possible. After all, nothing sells like success, and fascism has been hugely successful ITTL - at least until the system starts to rot and implode. But since ITTL the fascists are somewhat more practical in their evil than usual, they have all of 'Aryan' Europe on their side as willing partners, and they can exploit all of Africa for resources, I expect their bloc to last as much as the OTL Soviet one, if not a bit longer. Also because ITTL the Nazifascists do the worst of their evil in a place (Africa) the developed world is accustomed to see as remote and an hellhole of chaos, backwardness, and atrocities anyway. And Britain suffered a decisive KO at their hands that landed them in a Finlandized role, so I expect the fascists to be influent in postwar British politics at least as much as the Soviets were influent in Finnish politics during the Cold War. If not necessarily government harassment of the Labour, certainly at least a lot of censorship of anti-fascist attitudes.
As it concerns the counter-culture movement, strong far-right influences on its ideology are very likely as well: after all, IOTL the rebellious youth could romanticize Maoism at its worst as a model for liberation, I'm sure they can just as well romanticize successful Nazism in different circumstances - there are aspects they can find attractive, such as the relative sexual liberation or the appreciation for the environment. However, ITTL you get an unholy combo of successful European Nazism and Russian Communism in Eurasia, so it is quite possible both get to exercise their ideological influence on the counter-culture movement, generating rival factions thereof.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Mar 3, 2017 10:54:22 GMT
Maybe we could have the Liberal Party stage some sort of "comeback" by pulling in the right-wing of Labour and a few moderate and/or anti-German Tories into some sort of proto-Liberal Democrats? Also, maybe we could have India's alignment depend on the ideology of it's government with Hindu nationalists led by Subhas Chandra Bose leaning towards Berlin or Tokyo and the Fabian socialists led by Jawaharlal Nehru align with Washington?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Mar 5, 2017 16:09:30 GMT
Yes, I do expect postwar political spectrum of India to be split between the pro-Western Fabian socialists of the Indian Congress party and the pro-Axis Hindu nationalists of Azad Hind. This might cause India's international alignment to periodically drift closer to the Western bloc or the Axis depending on which party gets in power at the time, or to average to opportunist neutrality most of the time as a compromise. Decisive defeat in WWII and abrupt loss of the Empire is going to deal a massive blow to the prestige of the Tories, so if the Liberals play their cards well, they might easily exploit it to stage a major comeback.
Anti-German guys are going to be politically marginalized and radioactive in these circumstances, however. I cannot see any mainstream party being willing to shelter them; in all likelihood they just retire in utter disgrace, or go in exile to America. Churchill, Eden, etc. are going to be universally reviled as the warlike idiots that picked a fight they couldn't win, ruined Britain, and lost the Empire in the process. On the contrary, Chamberlain and the other appeasement folks are going to be seen much more positively, as the wise statesmen that tried to forestall the storm and save the Empire by diplomatic compromise. As a matter of fact, surviving members of that faction, in some combination with the most respectable members of the BUF, are almost surely going to lead postwar Britain. This would also easily involve George VI abdicating or dying early because of the stress, and pro-Axis Edward VIII being called back to the throne by the Parliament revoking his abdication. Basically speaking, the whole British political spectrum is going to be turned on its head from OTL after the war, as it concerns attitudes towards the Axis. |
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Mar 6, 2017 9:48:40 GMT
As for US politics, maybe we could have the Dixiecrats become their own party as opposed to pushing the GOP to the right? Said Dixiecrat party could have quasi-fascist and pro-German tendencies as well.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Mar 9, 2017 11:46:38 GMT
Also, maybe we could have Germany's Latin American ally (or two) be the result of Pinochet or Dirty War-esque stuff being carried out being to much to tolerate for Washington and said military dictatorship turning to Germany afterwards as opposed to a case of local fascists who use anti-US sentiment to propel themselves into power?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Mar 9, 2017 12:23:31 GMT
As for US politics, maybe we could have the Dixiecrats become their own party as opposed to pushing the GOP to the right? Said Dixiecrat party could have quasi-fascist and pro-German tendencies as well. I think this kind of three-party split might well happen if a Cold War with the Axis causes the USA to go more progressive on race issues than OTL (i.e. the Dems embrace desegregation but the GOP doesn't adopt the Southern Strategy) but a Dixiecrat regional party should have to be somewhat cautious in expressing too overt pro-Axis sympathies, to avoid being accused of disloyalty to America, since the USA is in a Cold War with the Axis. Then again, the Dixiecrats would easily be the most pro-detente with Europe party in the US political spectrum, especially since ITTL Nazi Europe would do the bulk of their racist evil against Africans. |
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Mar 9, 2017 12:53:02 GMT
Also, maybe we could have Germany's Latin American ally (or two) be the result of Pinochet or Dirty War-esque stuff being carried out being to much to tolerate for Washington and said military dictatorship turning to Germany afterwards as opposed to a case of local fascists who use anti-US sentiment to propel themselves into power? Well, obviously ITTL right-wing South American dictatorships would have the option of aligning with the Axis out of ideological affinity, and this would prompt the USA to make more of an effort to prop up local democratic forces. Then again, the USA is in a Cold War with the USSR too, so they may still be interested in using right-wingers as a proxy to crush far-left would-be revolutionaries, as usual. It might go both ways, and it might be different in various times and places. Or things might simply go the three-way split, with the Axis backing the far-rightists, the USSR supporting the far-leftists, and America backing centrists. This three-way Cold War is going to be a merry, complex dance. |
|
|
|
Post by whiteshore on Mar 10, 2017 10:19:14 GMT
So, what happens to Ireland? Maybe it becomes TTL's "Switzerland" (in the sense of the world's banker and neutral meeting spot) with Switzerland being partitioned between Germany, Italy, and France IIRC? Also, maybe you should retcon the US annexation of Australia into Australia (now with New Zealand) becoming some sort of pro-American republic with a vocal minority calling for union with the US? Finally, maybe the "Dixiecrat" party manages to move out of the South by courting evangelicals and the proto-alt right counter-culture which develops among rebellious teenagers along with the white working class (which might be alienated by both parties via free trade policies), essentially making an analogue to the coalition which powered Trump to victory as it's political base?
|
|
|
|
Post by eurofed on Mar 12, 2017 16:33:59 GMT
So, what happens to Ireland? Maybe it becomes TTL's "Switzerland" (in the sense of the world's banker and neutral meeting spot) with Switzerland being partitioned between Germany, Italy, and France IIRC? This is an excellent idea, and very fitting with TTL circumstances. Consider it adopted. Yep, Switzerland gets partitioned between Germany, Italy, and France, so Ireland takes its place as the world's main neutral meeting spot and banker hub. Sorry, no. It would seriously frustrate my own anti-Balkanization and pro-US preferences, so I won't do it without a compelling scenario reason. If you ask my opinion, certain OTL states (e.g. Canada, Austria, Belgium, Portugal) are sorry debris of partially-failed and incomplete national unification processes that look rather annoying on a map, and I much prefer to bend butterflies and wipe them out in a TL of mine if I get a choice. Given TTL circumstances, I see no really good reason why I should leave the White Dominions as independent states instead of making them parts of the USA where they best belong after a successful American Revolution, so I won't do it. Well, to a degree something like this might happen, since the Dixiecrats are going to recruit hardcore conservatives and right-wingers outside the Bible/Black Belt, although I expect that is always going to be their main power base. However I would try and avoid too close analogies with the Trump coalition, since they might be misleading. ITTL the global trade patterns may well leave the USA not exactly as prosperous as OTL, since they won't be in a position to dominate the Old World markets. But for the same reason there won't be much reckless globalization to cause serious deindustrialization of North America and Europe. We may expect the world being split in a few big and relatively closed trading blocs: the USA, dominating Latin America and grooming it to become TTL replacement of the Western bloc; fascist Europe, brutally exploiting Africa as a slave empire; the USSR with its Middle Eastern sphere of influence; the Japanese Empire controlling East Asia; and India as a wild card. Despite this overall pattern I expect there shall still be some important degree of trade between the blocs because business is business and trade is profitable for everyone. In these circumstances, the developed world albeit divided is still going to run the show and profit from it for a long time, even more than OTL. Moreover, even if ideology and circumstances are going to be rather different, most of the 1960s social changes (sexual liberation; rise of the youth as a separate class; women's equality) are still going to happen the same broad way across the developed world, since the social forces driving them still exist. The restive youth is going to be a serious challenge for the totalitarian regimes, and things might go in various ways for them. And one way or another, women shall join the job force en masse and achieve socio-economic equality in developed countries thanks to unavoidable long-term effects of industrialization. In America, even if the youth counter-culture adopts a different ideological lens, they are still going to stand for many of the usual things, adapting the ideology to support them (it is fairly easy to see how certain streams of the far right could be bent to embrace things like rebellious non-conformism, sexual liberation, and environmentalism). So I'm not so sure the evangelicals and the youth counter-culture shall be able to get in the same bed, politically speaking. |
|
