Darkest Hour ISOT

[Anchises]

After people where not happy with the lack of dystopia in my previous thread:

How does an ASB manage to create a "Man in the High Castle" scenario?

Easy:

Its Europe's Darkest Hour, after the Fall of France but before the Battle of Britain. Suddenly the whole globe is bathed in a bright light for a few seconds....

scenario: All of Europe sans the Soviet Union and Japan (+occupied territories) are ISOTed to 2500 BC.

Britain is suddenly alone, without its Empire and without the USA.

Hitler probably gets a stroke from sheer joy because all of his idiotic autarky-policies are paying off now.

The Empire of Japan is in trouble, they have to find a way to get resources ASAP.

How does history unfold in this new world?

 

[ExNihilo]

Well for one, tanks basically can't work anymore. Oil income everywhere drops, due to the only significant active sources of oil being Romania and possibly wherever Japan occupied.

Romania becomes a centerpoint if conflict, due to its native industry.

How much of the British navy was ISOTd? If enough, they can probably get the Texas oil fields up and running relatively quickly, to contest the German's rush to the caucuses.

As I understand it, all major powers left relied heavily on captured Labour forces. There simply aren't enough humans alive for that.

Overall, so long as the Royal Navy is intact, I don't think Germany can overly threaten Britain, though everyone's economy is complete garbage now.

 

[Anchises]

@ExNihilo

Well Germany is pretty well off in this scenario tbqh. Oil production in Germany peaked in 1940, the exploitation of the Austrian oil fields just started and peaked in 1940 IOTL.

Germany basically has dibs on any Romanian oil and no one who could seriously threaten that. I don't see who would start a conflict there.

Axis tanks, planes and ships could function just like IOTL. So there isn't an abundance of oil but enough to keep going for the near future. Especially with further investments in synthetic fuel production.

Labor: What stops Germany from "acquiring" all the labor they need from occupied (or unoccupied for that matter) European nations. France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland etc. Its doubtful that they would require much forced labour, ITTL Hitler could and would probably demobilize a significant part of the Wehrmacht.

Britain's situation is much darker than you see it imho. Getting a substantial oil production going in Texas takes times and a substantial build up of infrastructure. Both things that Britain couldn't afford.

And we haven't talked about food security or how such a ressource starved GB is supposed to win against German submarines....

GB would imho sue for peace fairly quick.


Some of my ideas:

I don't think that Great Britain could continue the war very long. The sudden collapse of the world market and the complete absence of support from the Commonwealth would quickly cause starvation. Reduced production capabilities and a really unfavorable geopolitical situation would quickly render them a second rate power, heavily dependent on imports from continental Europe.

I don't think there would be serious attempts to conduct Sea Lion, the Third Reich would probably slowly extract political and economic concessions by threatening to withhold food imports.

Britain is probably going to experience a slow slide into Fascism. The government would be forced to comply more and more with Nazi demands, outlawing the labour party, releasing Fascists from prison, close cooperation with German intelligence services and stuff like that.

Britain would be one of the best places to live in Europe but would slowly assimilate into the "New European Order".
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Italy is another interesting case.

Their status as allied nation and the birthplace of Fascism might give them some leeway for a while. Their weakness relative to Germany and their rival brand of Fascism might make them a tempting target for a German intervention/invasion though.

Italian "not-as-racist" (at least compared to Nazism) Fascism has the potential to be an ideological counterweight to Nazism.

The absolutely fucked political spectrum in Europe would probably be:

Paternal Autocrats----Fascism-----NatSoc

For Italy it all depends on how well they can defend their independence. They could get their desired "New Roman Empire" or they could quickly become a satellite state of Germany.

 

[Anchises]

Contrary to what I believed Japan actually had a rather large stockpile of oil and some domestic production.

This would probably more than suffice to keep control over the occupied parts of China and to start the process of exploiting new oil fields.

Food would be a problem but without a large scale war effort and with the occupied areas in China to plunder, Japan could probably sustain an adequate diet on the home isles. The oceans would be super full of fish and agrarian colonies could be quickly established by exploiting the downtimers.

 

[Virian]

Romania becomes a centerpoint if conflict, due to its native industry.

Click to shrink...

Nothing new there. Romanian territory has constantly been that for similar reason all the way since the Roman invasions in Dacia.

Also I'm just wondering how well will the Nazi government hold when the population learns wtf happened. I'm also wondering what all the other governments will do.

Also you severely nerfed the allies as the Italians/germans still have their colonies while the English don't.

I think it would be much fairer if nobody had their colonies anymore and the strip of land ISOT'ed just stretched from Ireland to the Japanese islands Eurasian Lands including Turkey(Basically everything in Eurasia between the 36°N and 71°N Parallels of the Ecuator) . That would certainly be a more interesting scenario than just a fascist's gift from god.

 

[Anchises]

Nothing new there. Romanian territory has constantly been that for similar reason all the way since the Roman invasions in Dacia.

Also I'm just wondering how well will the Nazi government hold when the population learns wtf happened. I'm also wondering what all the other governments will do.

Also you severely nerfed the allies as the Italians/germans still have their colonies while the English don't.

I think it would be much fairer if nobody had their colonies anymore and the strip of land ISOT'ed just stretched from Ireland to the Japanese islands Eurasian Lands including Turkey(Basically everything in Eurasia between the 36°N and 71°N Parallels of the Ecuator) . That would certainly be a more interesting scenario than just a fascist's gift from god.

Click to shrink...

I really wouldn't underestimate the public goodwill the Nazis had in 1940. Hitler was at the peak of his personal power in 1940 as the "Avenger of Versailles". After the Fall of France most of the population would probably blindly trust the Nazis to manage the situation. There would certainly be cults and subversive movements as a reaction to the obviously supernatural ISOT but Nazi Germany was well equipped to violently suppress these kind of movements.

Italy would probably experience significantly more unrest than Germany. Mussolini doesn't have the same kind of prestige that Hitler has and there is less fanatic loyalty for the Fascists. The same would be essentially true for the other Fascist/Authoritarian regimes of the Axis.

Great Britain as a democratic society would probably experience the greatest plurality of reactions. And I could see a lot of panic because what is left of the world is very hostile and dangerous... Most remaining neutrals would probably react similar.
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Fair enough. I mean a dystopian ISOT isn't strictly about fairness but I see your point

Taking the colonies away from everbody might be better. I would agree there. Taking Turkey in also is a cool idea.

I can't look at a map currently but your ISOTed strip of land includes the Soviets right? I wouldn't want to include them for practical reasons.

As soon as the USA are out the Allies have basically lost the war. I know people would disagree here but I think we can all agree that Britain would be decisively crippled without its colonies.

Crippled Britain and the Soviets simply don't stand a chance against Axis Europe + Japan. No Lend and Lease, Finnland would probably fully commit to Barbarossa, Turkey is not that unlikely to join in etc.

 

[Virian]

Perhaps but you just stacked everything in their favor to look like divine providence. in the original scenario the Axis is basically handed a I win button but In my proposal they still have a massive advantage like you said but it looks natural if you squint the right way while drunk and not as if someone just gave the fascists the opportunity to enact all their plans with impunity.

 

[Anchises]

Perhaps but you just stacked everything in their favor to look like divine providence. in the original scenario the Axis is basically handed a I win button but In my proposal they still have a massive advantage like you said but it looks natural if you squint the right way while drunk and not as if someone just gave the fascists the opportunity to enact all their plans with impunity.

Click to shrink...

Ahhh. Okay, I get where you are coming from. Your scenario would allow better explanations than "god loves Fascists". Ideologically this would be better.

Hmmmm. Okay, lets roll with your scenario.