Notable political or military events, 1942
January 2nd: Many more Silver Legion members are arrested throughout Cuba, including various representatives, Senators, and members of the Army and Navy. Meanwhile, isolationists and fascist sympathizers are also purged and fired from various government offices.
January 3rd: Taking advantage of the mountain summer, the Bolivian army invades Peru and Chile. Bolivian shock tactics take the defenders by surprise, and the offensive takes a considerable amount of ground, including the towns around Lake Titicaca and even threatening Cusco.
January 4th: Americuban Vice President Charles Coughlin resigns, just as MacArthur proclaims the Silver Legion and other pro-Nazi/pro-Fascist groups proscribed. Banker and former UK Ambassador Charles G. Dawes is appointed Coughlin's successor. Secretary of State Breckenridge Long resigns in favor of Senator Claire Booth.
January 5th: The WFRN conducts an air raid against the Brazilian fleet anchored at Natal. The Natal Raid is successful both tactically and strategically, sinking two cruisers and a battleship, and drawing naval forces away from the tightening cordon around Buenos Aires, which leads to the destruction of another battleship and its escorts, this time drawn into deep water from which they cannot be easily recovered.
January 6th: Two German saboteurs, who had elected to remain anonymous, turned themselves in and six others sent by the Nazis to bomb key targets, including those responsible for the attempted bombing of the Altoona Works. All save for the two that turned themselves in are sentenced to death.
January 8th: The National Socialist and Fascist League, led by William Joyce, attempts a march in London to oppose the looming declaration of war. The procession reaches Downing Street, but is defeated by counter-protestors, though not before news of a declaration of support by King Edward.
January 11th: The IJA General Staff issues orders to units deployed in China to hold current positions, simultaneous with similar orders from Jiang Jieshi to the Reorganized NRA. Believing that it will be possible to starve the United Front out after the last ports were taken in the last year, Yasuhito takes advantage of the operational pause to rotate units back to the Home Islands to rest, rearm, and prepare for the opening of a far wider war…
January 15th: IJN Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku uses the example of the American raid on Natal to successfully argue to the IJN General Staff that a similar air raid against the Lewis and Clark Aeronaval Base in the Aleutian Islands; built and expanded on by the new government to solidify a link with the USSR; should be Japan's opening move in the seemingly inevitable war against the Americans. He argues for this over Pearl Harbour to cut off American access to Kamchatka and to hopefully encourage the Fleet at Pearl Harbour to sally out and fight the IJN in a decisive battle. He had been planning such an attack for years, but now he has full approval and funding from the General Staff. The new 1st Air Fleet, or Kidō Butai (Mobile Force), under Yamamoto's command, begins to assemble at Truk.
January 28th: French Prime Minister Léon Blum makes a formal declaration of war against Germany.
February 2nd: Marshal Phillippe Pétain delivers his pronunciamiento against the French government.
February 5th: The British government announces that the United Kingdom will take no action on the behalf of the Third Republic beyond mediating peace talks. The King voices his support for the measure as uproar in Parliament coalesces into a move towards a possible vote of no confidence.
February 6th: Churchill leads a contingent of Conservative MPs across the aisle, securing a no confidence vote. King Edward VIII abdicates in favor of his brother, who is proclaimed George VI the same day.
February 7th: The Corps de Cavalerie, led by General René Prioux, advances on Paris but not without encountering defenses set up by its gendarmerie and citizenry. The French Civil War begins.
February 8th: Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, resigns the Premiership. He is replaced by Clement Attlee at the head of a caretaker coalition government pending elections.
February 9th: Two additional corps of the Green Guard are activated. Two more are on their way as the organization's increase in recruitment efforts earlier in the war start to pay off.
February 10th: Pétainist forces from Algeria occupy Morocco. Resident-General Charles Noguès and King Muhammad bin Yusef bend the knee to the French fascists.
February 11th: In the wake of the failure of Operation Valkyrie, Hitler proclaims a set of sweeping reforms to the Wehrmacht. Taken together, they further integrate the Waffen-SS into the command structure, and establish the new Oberkommando des Totalen Krieges (High Command of the Total War) within the NSDAP, superseding the OKW and the OKH. While nominally an all-Party organ, the OKTK is owned and operated by the SS.
February 12th: The Stahlpakt pledges support to Pétain's coup d'etat. Meanwhile, German troops of Army Group West, already mobilized at the borders, begin their invasion of the Low Countries.
February 13th: In response to a speech by independent pacifist candidate Ralph DiGia invoking Eugene Debs in opposing involvement in the war, a group of Debs' associates, including Debs' brother Theodore, Helen Keller, Lucy Parsons, and Ralph Chaplin, sign an open letter explaining Debs' pacifism as a product of the involvement of capital in the First World War, and their support for the war effort and the Reed government's handling of it.
February 14th: The United Kingdom issues a declaration of war against Germany. Within hours of the announcement, the Imperial Japanese Army begins mobilizing against French Loyalist and British territories in East Asia. Turkish mobilizations against Mandatory Kurdistan and the Assyrian Republic follow the next day.
February 15th: Elements of the IJA and SNLF garrisons secure the Mindanao SEZ, dividing the Philippines. On the same day, Japanese units flood across the Thai-Malayan border. They will be at the gates of Singapore within the month. IJA units based in China begin attacking the defenses of Hong Kong.
February 16th: Italian forces stationed in Libya march into Tunisia. The Loyalist Resident-General, Eirik Labonne, is evacuated to Malta by the Royal Navy. The Regio Esercito will go on to occupy all of Tunisia.
February 17th: The Brazilians launch Operation Canhão Gêmeo (Twin Cannon) in Argentina, aiming to take Buenos Aires and break Argentinian morale before the inevitable loss of British support can be felt. Salgado commits the entirety of the Green Guard and First and Third Armies. The Siege of Buenos Aires becomes the Battle of the Platine River Basin. The massive offensive is powerful but slow moving, as roads are choked with troops and supplies.
February 19th: French loyalist deputies and senators led by Léon Blum narrowly evade capture and reach Nantes. Arrangements are made for their evacuation to the United Kingdom in the event of the mainland's imminent capture by putschists.
February 22nd: Aleppo, capital of the Assyrian Republic, falls to the Turks. The territory is formally reorganized under the "Syrian Turanization Commission" (Suriye Turanlaştırma Komisyonu), based on the German Reichskommisariats. HTP functionaries charged with rooting out "Anti-Turan sentiment", along with SS Einsatzgruppen and MVSN units seconded by the NSDAP and the PNF respectively as goodwill gestures, are dispatched throughout the de facto colony.
February 23rd: In a joint statement during Red Army Day celebrations, Marshal Frunze and General of the Army (Gen.A) Haywood announce the reorganization of the Soviet and American in-theater militaries into a Unified Red Army and Navy, known collectively as the International Revolutionary Armed Forces, or INTREV, subordinate to the Comintern Joint Revolutionary Military Committee. Frunze is to be Commander-in-Chief of INTREV-Europe.
February 25th: Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador formally begin the process of integrating their militaries into INTREV. General Vicente Rodriguez is to be Commander-in-Chief, INTREV-South America.
February 28th: The battlecruiser HMS Hood and the carrier HMS Hermes are sunk by air attack. Singapore is besieged.
March 1st: The Act of Union is ratified by the British Parliament, establishing the Franco-British Union as a united state against the Axis.
March 2nd: INTREV forces beat back the Brazilian attempt at a "sickle-cut" against their forces in the Plata Basin.
March 4th: Paris falls. Marshal Pétain establishes the French State (État Français). With the Civil War already turning in his favor and eastern France all but secure, his forces are joined by bordering Axis troops.
March 5th: As Operation Twin Cannon enters its fifth week, Brazilian forces are perilously close to overrunning Buenos Aires. Salgado expects the blow to morale to force the Argentinians to sue for peace. The dreaded I Green Guard Corps spearheads the attack. The Soviet expeditionary division, American expeditionary force, and significant assets from the Chilean military and international volunteers move to support the Argentine counterattack as General Rodriguez hopes to drive the green tide back. Operation Rosette, the INTREV counteroffensive, begins.
March 7th: General MacArthur's Cuba declares war on the Axis after weeks of pressure from London. While much of the reconvened American Senate is livid at the idea of joining a war on the same side of the communists, the dictator counters that a South America dominated by Salgado would be one that would make a puppet out of America and be a menace to liberty and American values. Behind closed doors, MacArthur also emphasizes that a dominant Brazil would pose a racial threat.
March 9th: A commander under the moniker of "O Diabo Verde" (the Green Guard heavily uses noms de guerre to confuse and demoralize enemies) draws Comintern forces into attacking a secretly fortified section of Buenos Aires, baiting them with information about captured civilians in the process of being executed by the Guard. I Corps's trap is soon nicknamed the Iron Cage by the Soviet, American, and Argentine survivors of the trap.
March 10th: The 3rd Regiment of the Proletarian Guard, at the behest of StateSec Section 2, conducts a raid on a suspected Mafia hideout in Atlantic City. The raid breaks out into a shootout, and then a high speed chase heading towards Camden, ending in a fatal collision with a streetcar that kills all occupants of the car. Weapons, supplies, and leaflets smuggled in from Italy are discovered both in the hideout and in the wreckage.
March 13th: INTREV armor threatens to reach the Paraná and encircle the Brazilian forces besieging Buenos Aires, only stopped by supporting fires from Brazilian river monitors. The I Corps and O Diablo Verde leave the city by river boat as the offensive comes to an end.
March 14th: The Andean offensive stalls as the Chileans and Peruvians are by now well adjusted to Bolivian shock tactics and become accustomed to mountain warfare. Heavy fighting in northern Chile and Southern Peru stalls as the chill begins to set in and tempo starts to slow down as the brief mountain summer ends.
March 15th: Multilateral talks between the Entente, the Soviet Union, and the UASR: Leon Blum and Clement Attlee agree to pre-emptively enter the war against Salgado, along with their allied coalition.
March 19th: The Japanese initiate a coup against the remnants of the Dutch administration in their condominium in the Dutch East Indies. Dutch colonial officials are arrested or executed en masse by the IJA and local auxiliaries. The Republic of Insulindia, a Japanese client state dominated by the Concordist-aligned National Renewal Party (Partai Pembaruan Nasional), will be proclaimed within the week. Japanese-Insulindian army units begin moving on the Entente's holdings in Borneo the next day.
March 20th: A trainload of coal cars derails at a grade crossing in Pineville, NC, bisecting the entire town. The crash starts a massive week-long jam on the ARL's Southern Trunk Line, going as far north as Williamsburg, and as far south as Charleston.
March 22nd: Japanese-cultivated right-wing or otherwise pro-Concordist elements on Mindanao announce the establishment of the Kapisanan ng Paglilingkod sa Bagong Pilipinas (Association for Service to the New Philippines), or KALIBAPI.
March 23rd: The garrison of Hong Kong surrenders to the IJA.
March 25th: The 5th Sasebo SNLF and the 3rd Yokosuka SNLF spearhead the assault on Saigon. The garrison is quickly overwhelmed, and the city falls the next day. IJA troops moving south towards Hanoi from China are held off for the moment. Thailand invades Cambodia and Laos.
March 27th: Liberia declares war on the Axis. The meager Liberian military begins integrating into INTREV.
March 28th: The IJN lands troops on the northern coast of Luzon in support of the KALIBAPI. The Commonwealth government will evacuate to Australia in a matter of days, and the KALIBAPI will establish the Sovereign Philippine State in Manilla shortly afterwards. It is yet another Japanese client state in the vein of Daehan and Insulindia.
March 30th: The Entente, the Netherlands, and Belgium issue a joint declaration of war against Salgado and the integralist bloc. Enraged, Salgado has the Entente ambassadors and embassy staff imprisoned, and orders the embassy building burnt to the ground. This is taken as a sign of Salgado's insanity by many conservative and liberal officials in Brazil. Brazilian troops cross the Oyapok as colonial troops retreat to prepared defensive positions in Suriname.
April 1st: The March of Sorrow begins. Loyalist French troops of the northern First Army receive the order to retreat to Brittany. Over the next month, they will mount a desperate defense while evacuating with British assistance. Meanwhile, Loyalists in the southern Third Army will cross the Pyrenees into the Spanish Free Soviet Republic, the beginning of joint VOSCOM-Entente cooperation as co-belligerents. Breakaway Loyalist units from the eastern Second Army haphazardly attempt to retreat and reinforce both flanks.
April 4th: Enraged by the Franco-British rebuffing of his diplomatic overtures, Adolf Hitler begins putting diplomatic pressure on Italy and the Nationalist Spanish government to join the war against the FBU.
April 5th: The Kidō Butai leaves Truk, steaming for Alaska.
April 6th: As the Guyanas prove to be unexpectedly stubborn as local colonial troops decide to fight to the bitter end, the Integralist attempt to conquer the colonial triplets is further stymied by the arrival of Cuban troops and Entente logistical support.
April 7th: Surrounded by the IJA, Governor-General Brevie surrenders after ordering the remaining garrisons to retreat into Burma. Japanese control over Indochina is secure within the week.
April 9th: Members of the Proletarian Guard observe the Japanese embassy in DeLeon-Debs destroying cryptographic equipment. Stavka receives this information within the hour, and puts WFRA and WFRN forces in the Pacific on high alert.
April 10th: Japan declares war on the UASR, citing American involvement in China as creating a de facto state of war between the two nations. Submarine and raider attacks start to fall on Pacific transportation. Simultaneously, the Kidō Butai launches a surprise attack on Alaska. Three American carrier groups initially heading south to return to Pearl Harbour are ordered to turn course and intercept to engage the Japanese fleet. The resulting battle ends in an American defeat, with CV Hornet sinking off the coast of Unimak Island while Japanese Rikusentai forces manage to seize the island chain.
April 11th: Disgraced by the Pineville Wreck and its aftermath, and the glaring issues in American Rail Link it exposed, Rail Secretary Robert Taft publicly resigns in a meeting of the Central Executive Committee. He is replaced by James P. Cannon, who will hold a double-portfolio as People's Secretary for Railways and Labor until the next election.
April 12th: The "Mesopotamian Turanization Commission" (Mezopotamya Turanlaştırma Komisyonu) is established concurrent with the Turkish invasion of Mandatory Kurdistan.
April 13th: The Stavkas of the USSR and UASR agree that between the WFRN's current focus on the Atlantic and the need to ensure Soviet neutrality in the growing war with Japan, American and other Comintern-aligned forces active in the Pacific Theater will not be integrated into a hypothetical INTREV-Pacific. Any such action will have to wait until the Soviets are ready to go to war with Japan.
April 14th: The front in Guyana comes to a stalemate after the inconclusive Battle of Paramaribo
April 15th: The chief of the OKL General Staff, Generalfeldmarschall Walther Wever begins an investigation into "potential corruption and malpractice" in the Luftwaffe and the Reichsluftfahrtministerium after meeting with a delegation of aircraft designers led by Ernst Heinkel and Willy Messerschmitt.
April 16th: Fighting in South America settles into a stalemate.
April 17th: Insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is approved for use in contested tropical regions, including South America and Southeast Asia, by INTREV.
April 19th: The two portions of the final line of the Sun Yat Sen Western Railway meet in the Tibetan highlands. Started in 1934, and with the first lines complete in 1939, this rail line is the first direct connection between Urumqi in Xinjiang, the towns of Tibet and Yunnan, and the preexisting rail system in southeastern China. .
April 22nd: Several garrisons in French Equatorial Africa declare for Pétain, seizing crossings on the border with Italian Cameroon. The reinforced Italian garrison crosses the border, taking much of Gabon and French Congo within the month. This is the first of many rightist uprisings across French colonies in Subsaharan Africa, though the mutiny in Djibouti is the only other effort to succeed.
April 23rd: Savitri Devi and AK Mukherjee are sent to Devi's native Greece to help form a SS legion from Indian prisoners-of-war. The legion would become the 950th Infantry Regiment or "Indische Legion".
April 24th: South African prime minister Jan Smuts formally declares war on Germany, as part of the Commonwealth war effort.
April 26th: Colombia declares war against Brazil and the Axis as a whole. Units of the Colombian Army begin taking up positions in Guiana.
April 28th: In South Africa, a group of pro-Axis Afrikaaner insurgents known as the "South African National Socialist Movement" or "Greyshirts" start a rebellion in the territory of the former Orange Free State, attempting to secede and form a Afrikaans supremacist state, in response to the imprisonment of Hendrik Verwoerd, the formation of the Franco-British Union and the declaration of war on Germany by the Smuts administration.
April 30th: The Foster-Churchill agreement is ratified, leasing a number of coastal African islands to the UASR to establish naval depots.
May 1st: The French State officially joins the Axis. The Marine Nationale puts to sea in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to begin convoy raiding.
May 4th: The United Republics General Election: The Revolutionary Unity Government is re-elected, with only a small pacifist opposition.
May 7th: The "Second Orange Free State" is thoroughly defeated by the Union Defense Force, with the last holdouts killed. In the aftermath, the Smuts government enacts several security measures, including banning the National Party (whose members had supported the Second Orange Free State), and arresting anti-war National Party leader DF Malan.
May 12th: Enigma intercepts tip off the Main Reconnaissance Directorate to joint Pétainist-Falangist invasion plans against Red Spain. Gibraltar is believed to follow.
May 13th: U-110 manages to successfully return to Brazillian port, with an additional cargo of a disassembled Ta 190 and its schematics; with Salgado personally congratulating its skipper Rodriguez Santos for his "service to our fatherland" and awarding him Brazil's highest honor.
May 18th: Turkey declares war on the USSR. Supported by German war materiel and the Luftwaffe's expeditionary force "Legion Kondor", the Turkish Army invades the Armenian SSR.
May 30th: Pétainist troops begin attacks at the Pyrenees border passes in the early morning, pinning the Free Republic's forces to their defense. The Spanish State begins its attack the next day. To their surprise, the militias are already mobilized and ready for combat. Progress is slow going, and many VIPs such as General Secretary Dolores Ibárruri, Premier Santiago Carillo, and Defense Minister Manuel Azaña begin evacuation to the Canaries assisted by joint Royal Navy/WFRN task forces.
June 1st: For his staunch internationalism, South African prime minister Jan Smuts is appointed the first Secretary of State for the Colonies, Dominions, and Protectorates, a new position in the Franco-British cabinet.
June 3rd: Fall Blau begins: Army Group Volga presses towards Stalingrad, Army Group Caucasus advances southward.
June 4th: Mere minutes after the Italian embassy in London delivers the declaration of war against the FBU, the Regia Aeronautica begins bombing raids on the island citadel of Malta. The Regia Marina sails to support a planned Italo-German paradrop attack. Simultaneously, Italian North African and East African forces begin invading Egypt and Somaliland respectively.
June 12th: British Malaya and its neighboring protectorates are formally partitioned between Thailand and Insulindia, with the exception of a Japanese-held perimeter around Singapore.
June 15th: The Regio Esercito crosses the border into Kenya and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
June 17th: RAF Bomber Command launches the first of many raids from airfields in the Caribbean and the secured portions of the Guianas.
June 18th: The Regia Marina wins a decisive victory against the Mediterranean Fleet of the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Ionian Sea. Paradrops and marine landings begin on Malta. The island falls, at great cost, after two weeks of fighting. Two British battleships are heavily damaged, and another sunk outright, along with a fleet carrier and three support ships.
June 19th: Brazilian ships capture the cargo ship Seas of Dreams to be utilized in a plan concocted by Brazilian intelligence based on a reading of the Halifax disaster. The ship is packed with explosives and ammonium nitrate, and aimed at Liverpool as a modern fire ship.
June 26th: Governor Shuckburgh, Colonies and Dominions Secretary Jan Smuts, and Nigerian National Council Chairman Nnamdi Azikiwe sign the Lagos Declaration. Conscription in Nigeria will be enacted without protest, in exchange for the commissioning of several Nigerian army officers and an expedited path towards home rule based on the Indian model, in the form of a federation comprising Nigeria and neighboring colonies. This West African Federation is to be the right arm of the Entente in Africa.
June 28th: Arson in Havana leads to the deaths of hundreds in Havana's crowded Barrio Yanqui, the deadliest loss of life caused by a foreign enemy. The subsequent manhunt identifies a cell of the Brazilian Green Guard as responsible.
June 30th: With Luftwaffe support, the Falangist Army breaks through the Red lines and begins advancing on Barcelona.
July 2nd: MI5 raids the residence and the office of William Forbes-Sempill after a request from the Foreign Office.
July 4th: The Battle of Voronezh. The Voronezh Front collapses against Army Group Centre.
July 6th: Army Group Volga reaches the Chir River. Stavka orders evacuation to the east bank of the Don.
July 8th: Barcelona falls. The White Terror begins across occupied Red Spain, as occupying Nationalist and supporting French troops are given free rein to "pacify" the area. Summary executions of communists, anarchists and trade unionists are carried out, alongside a campaign of targeted destruction against Catalan and Basque culture.
July 9th: William Forbes-Sempill, the 19th Lord Sempill, is arrested by MI5 on charges of espionage. Preliminary findings reveal that he had been in contact with the top brass of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Regia Marina, as well as the erstwhile Japanese, Italian and German ambassadors to London, Matsudaira Tsuneo, Dino Grandi and Leopold von Hoesch since 1934. His connections to organizations like the Right Club, the Anglo-German Fellowship and its sister organization, the Deutsche-Englische Gesellschaft, the Anglo-Japanese Fellowship¹ and its sister organization, the Nichiei yūkō kyōkai¹ (Anglo-Japanese Friendship Society) as well as the Link, are also scrutinized.
July 10th: The Japanese invade Wake Island. The WFRN, still largely focused on the war in the Atlantic, is unable to contest the invasion, and the defenders are forced to retreat to Hawai'i.
July 11th: Battle of the Levantine Sea: The British Mediterranean Fleet engages the Regia Marina and the Marine Nationale as it evacuates Cyprus, already under intense German/Turkish bombardment. Despite the odds, the squadron flagship HMS Invincible escapes, protecting the evacuating transports.
July 12th: The Seas of Dreams arrives in Liverpool. The ship detonates just outside of the docking zone, blasting the area with the force of roughly four kilotons of TNT, resulting in the death of over four and a half thousand people from the blast wave, the shrapnel and a tidal wave that swamps the docks.
July 15th: With winter setting in, and desperate to break the stalemate in Argentina, Salgado approves a plan to invade Uruguay to improve the Army's logistics in-country.
July 17th: The New Delhi Conference: The leaders of the UASR, the USSR and the FBU meet in Delhi, India. Based on previous agreements, the "United Nations" is formed, headquartered in New Delhi to serve as a world forum and definer of policy among the powers allied against the Axis.
July 18th:The Uruguayan Army halts the Brazilian advance at Treinta y Tres and the Rio Negro.
July 20th: Rostov falls to Army Group Caucasus.
July 25th: Soviet-Japanese Border Incident: Troops of the Kwantung Army demand access to the city of Khabarovsk to inspect for contraband believed to be destined for the Republic of China in violation of Soviet neutrality. When this is refused, troops of the 10th Infantry Division overwhelm the Soviet border guards.
July 27th: Turkish forces lay siege to the city of Karin (formerly Erzurum). Elsewhere in occupied Armenia, "Security Units" of the Turkish Army begin the nightmarish process of genocide against the Armenians that did not flee before the Armys advance.
August 1st: The Stalingrad Front fails to stop the crossing of the Don River. Elsewhere, an Axis task force begins assembling in southern Spain to begin the assault on Gibraltar.
August 5th – August 21st: The Southwestern Front is nearly destroyed in a pincer between Army Group Volga and Army Group Caucasus at the Battle of the Kalmyk Steppe. It is reorganized as the Astrakhan Front after a retreat to the Volga defense line.
August 7th: The first South African divisions, including veterans from the fighting in Africa, arrive in Montevideo.
August 9th: After renewed negotiations following the entry of Britain into the war and the formation of the Franco-British Union, an agreement is reached between the Indian National Congress, the All-India Muslim League and the Franco-British Union, establishing a concrete timetable for self-government and the removal of the 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow as the Governor-General and Viceroy of India (replaced by Attlee ally The 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma), as well as assurances for Muslims concessions in exchange for Congress and League support for the war effort. Indian Workers' Party General Secretary Subhas Chandra Bose also announces support for the British war effort against Japan. However, Gandhi denounces the deal, and, alongside many loyalists, resigns from Congress following the agreement.
August 7th: The Soviet-Japanese conflict escalates. The 1st Red Banner Army mobilizes against increasing Japanese escalation.
August 8th: The IJA First Area Army begins seizing bridgeheads on the Amur River along a front from Khabarovsk to Khanka Lake. Without orders from the Imperial General Headquarters, Japanese military officers have provoked yet another war. All convoy traffic to Vladivostok is halted.
August 9th: Mohandas Gandhi announces the "Quit India" campaign to oppose Indian involvement in the war. To avoid jeopardizing the precarious Cripps agreement, the British avoid persecuting Gandhi for the time being.
August 11th: With the German Eleventh Army bearing down on Krasnodar and renewed attacks on the Isthmus of Perekop, Stavka orders the evacuation of forces from Crimea.
August 14th: With the fall of Gibraltar imminent, the Royal Navy begins evacuating what forces it can to the Canaries. By the end of the month, the Pillars of Hercules are sealed shut.
August 20th-September 2nd: The Beijing-aligned Ma Clique launches raids into Tibet and Xinjiang. While initially only terror attacks on hinterland villages, they begin to creep into the seizure of territory in Tibet. This is the final straw for the Kashag, and United Front military forces are invited into the country.
August 30th: Battle is joined in Stalingrad itself. Elsewhere, the "Border Incident" has spread as far west as Mongolia, with sustained fighting between the IJA plus Mongukuo auxiliaries and the Mongol People's Army.
September 2nd: A pair of Gloster Meteors and three spare jet engines, as well as mechanics experienced with jet engines maintenance, are shipped to Philadelphia as part of UN technology exchanges.
September 5th: Italian North African forces win a costly victory at El Alamein. The British Eighth Army and the Egyptian government begins evacuating across the Suez Canal into the Levant. The damaged HMS Invincible, hurriedly made seaworthy by valiant dock crews, and her escort begin a mad dash to safe harbor in Arabia, braving land based air attack in the Red Sea. The crippled battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth are scuttled to block the harbor at Alexandria and the Suez Canal respectively.
September 8th: Newly-raised divisions from Nigeria enter Italian Cameroon as Belgian and South African troops move against Pétainist-held Gabon and Spanish Guinea. No fascists other than corpses and prisoners of war will remain in West Africa by the end of the year.
September 10th: After much deliberation, the Japanese government decides to approve the formation of a new set of client states in occupied Indochina. The declarations of independence cause outrage in Paris, with Hitler only barely assuaging Pétain with a formal complaint and promises of inquiries once the Bolsheviks have been defeated. Hitler is lambasted in the foreign press as a hypocrite and a fool, many noting the irony of such a brazen violator of sovereignty disavowing such actions.
September 14th: The Kriegsmarine begins Operation Hanseatic (Unternehmen Hanseatische). With the Franco-British Home Fleet now struggling against the Pétainist Marine Nationale in the Eastern Atlantic, a task force consisting of the battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Friedrich der Große, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the carriers Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser under the command of Vice Admiral Kurt Fricke put to sea. Their targets are the port facilities of Iceland and the arctic convoys.
September 18th: The German task force is spotted by Royal Air Force recon flight. Too strong for the rump force stationed at Scapa Flow to challenge, the sighting is forwarded to the WFRN attaché. Already aware of German ambitions, the prepared WFRN Task Force 17—the battleships Monitor, Haiti, and Felix Dzerzhinsky, the battlecruiser Toledo, and the carriers Shiloh, and Paris Commune—under Rear Admiral Itzhak Levin* sets sail from Halifax to intercept.
September 20th: After two weeks of heavy fighting, Army Group Caucasus's Eleventh Army forces a breakout from the Kuban River bridgeheads.
September 21st: Incensed by growing ties between the "Red Monks" in the Kashag and the United Front, a coalition of landowners and reactionary clergy in Tibet attempt to abduct the Dalai Lama and remove the current government. Street fighting erupts in Lhasa, and while the coup attempt fails, the leaders of the revolt establish a "new, divine government" in Nagqu with Japanese and Beijing Government backing. The Tibetan Civil War begins.
September 22nd: The Battle of the Westfjords: TF 17 meets the Hanseatic Squadron off the Westfjords of Iceland. After inconclusive aerial attacks in the rough weather, the battleships engage. The engagement ends at dusk after the sinking of the Bismarck, and the Tirpitz being scuttled after receiving severe damage.
September 27th: The Sixth Panzer Army, on the flank of Army Group Volga drives towards Saratov to sever main rail communications to the Caucasus. Already under heavy attack by Luftwaffe bombers, the beleaguered city and the Saratov Front are hastily reinforced as Gen. Eisenhower assumes command.
September 29th: The Turks take Homs as the Iraqi army enters Deir Ez Zor.
October 1st: The Japanese attack begins to falter against the prepared defenses of the Far Eastern Front. Frontal reserve units begin to move into action. 4 American divisions, originally slated to move to the Central Theater, are retained in the Far East.
October 2nd: The Regio Esercito begins pushing into Sinai; the Kingdom of Iraq makes good its pact with Turkey, mobilizing against Free French Syria and British Kurdistan.
October 3rd: The Gestapo's investigation of the Luftwaffe and the RLM concludes, unearthing a significant corruption scandal behind the rejection of several aircraft designs. The Inspector General of the Luftwaffe, Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch and his deputy, Generaloberst Ernst Udet, are arrested and accused of accepting bribes to the order of several thousands of Reichsmarks.
October 5th: The Franco-British government extends diplomatic recognition to the Democratic Republic of Iran. The Iranian National Liberation Army begins mobilizing for war against Iraq.
October 7th: As part of the announcement of the establishment of the Generalgouvernement Niederlande in the occupied Netherlands, Hitler puts Himmler in charge of the newly created SS-Kommissariat Salfrank in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the southern Netherlands as a birthday gift. It will be the personal fiefdom of the Reichsführer-SS.
October 9th: The Aggregat-4, a liquid propellant rocket developed by the Peenemünde Army Research Center under Walter Dornberger, makes its first successful launch at Test Stand VII.
October 10th: The New Union Treaty is ratified by the governments of Australia, Canada, India, Southern Ireland, Newfoundland and New Zealand. Direct representation in the Franco-British Cabinet is guaranteed, and the armed forces of the dominions and mother countries are united into a combined Entente military.
October 11th: The Iraqi Army enters Erbil, the capital of Mandatory Kurdistan.
October 12th: While working to oppose recruitment efforts and protesting British rule, Gandhi is shot by a Hindu nationalist and supporter of the Japanese-backed Azad Bharat.
October 14th: Pyatigorsk falls as the Autumn rasputitsa hits. Urban fighting continues in Stalingrad, block by block.
October 18th: Entente forces in Kuwait hold firm against Iraqi pressure. Damascus falls to Turkish forces. The Syrian Republic is partitioned between Iraq and TK Suriye.
October 30th: After lengthy negotiations, the Turks and Iraqis decide on a partition line for Mandatory Kurdistan. Iraq directly annexes its portion.
November 1st: The Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia signs a new treaty with the Franco-British Union. With increased aid and the sale of modern arms and military advisors, the Arabians enter the war on the side of the United Nations.
November 2nd: The Japanese take Rabaul as Insulindian troops cross into Northeast New Guinea. The SNLF will take and hold the remainder of the Solomon Islands over the next month.
November 3rd: The beginning of the Alexandria Conference in Italian-occupied Egypt. Attendants from Germany, Italy, Turkey, Iraq, and a rubber stamp contingent of Pétainist French convene on the port city to come to a consensus on the New Order in North Africa and West Asia.
November 5th: The Entente Army begins evacuating Burma for a prepared defensive line at the Indian border. The call to arms and conscription is met with enthusiasm, for it is their Commonwealth too.
November 6th: As MI5 conducts its investigation into the Sempill Affair, the first inklings of the true scale of the clandestine operations carried out by the now disgraced lord come to light. It is found out that Sempill had not only provided the Japanese and the Italians with blueprints and specifications for military aircraft designs by taking advantage of his position as a senior official in the Air Ministry, but also, he had supplied vital intel regarding the British spheres of influence in the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia to the enemy. Investigations into the Sempill ring will continue throughout the rest of 1942 and much of 1943.
November 7th: The Sixth Panzer Army's attacks on Saratov reach their culminating point even as the autumn mud begins to freeze. The stubborn defense has cost both sides dearly in men and materiel.
November 8th: The Turkish Army enters Beirut. Lebanon is to be occupied until a settlement can be reached with the Italians.
November 9th: The Alexandria Conference ends. France transfers its protectorate in Tunisia to Italy, and returns the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. In exchange, France is receive choice British holdings in Africa. Most of the territorial disputes between Italy and Turkey are resolved, with the exception of Lebanon. Before this can be resolved, the conference dissolves into shouting matches and acrimony over the issue of Azerbaijan.
November 11th: Facing difficulties with keeping his army in the field as well as providing food at home, Salgado authorizes a series of orders that give the military unlimited leave to take whatever supplies they can from their occupied territories, abolishing virtually all restrictions on looting. The war is to feed itself.
November 12th: The Far Eastern Counter Offensive begins. INTREV troops are strictly ordered not to cross the border into Manchuria; General Secretary Molotov begins opening diplomatic channels to terminate the undeclared war quickly while allowing the Empire of Japan to save face.
November 14th: MS Golwalkar, Sarsanghchalak of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), makes a secret trip to Japanese occupied Shanghai, meeting with associate VD Shavakar, current Head of Government for the Azad Bharat, about the possibility of an alliance once the Azad Bharat reaches India itself.
November 17th: The Italians take Aqaba, and begin advancing into Eretz Yisrael. Fierce resistance by the Haganah militants, cooperating with the Entente Army, slows the advance to a crawl.
November 18th: The Battle of Grozny begins, a desperate struggle by isolated Red Army forces and local militia levies.
November 22nd: The Spanish occupy and annex Tangiers.
December 4th: The Saratov salient nearly reaches the Don River. The offensive is halted. Stalingrad still holds.
December 5th: Turkish forces cross into Iranian Azerbaijan. The unexpectedly rapid advance and the growth of collaborator organizations among Iranian Azeris destabilizes military preparations by the young republic. The Iranian NLA begins integration into INTREV.
December 7th: In the bitter winter cold, after suffering heavy losses, the IJA retreats back into Manchuria. The undeclared war has caused almost 400,000 casualties on both sides, and the loss of hundreds of tanks, armored fighting vehicles and aircraft. The Soviet-Japanese neutrality treaty is reaffirmed in a meeting between Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Christian Rakovsky, ambassador Yakov Malik, and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru and ambassador Satō Naotake.
December 10th: Entente forces evacuate Palestine. Mussolini will visit Jerusalem by the years' end.
December 11th: The Palestine Communist Party founds the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headquartered in Amman in the Emirate of Transjordan, recruiting from refugees across ethnic lines.
December 15th: WFRN SeaBees arrive on Masirah Island and Socotra to complete the chain of support stations and air bases to secure the Iranian convoy route.
December 17th: Salgado begins the final major offensive of the South American Theater; Operation Providence, with the Colorado River as its objective. The Green Guard's I Corps and the Green Devil, along with another five Corps, drive south in what is intended as a Sledgehammer blow against INTREV.
December 18th: The American 41st Mountain Rifle Division, supplemented by a battalion of the 2nd Ranger Brigade, arrives in Iranian Azerbaijan to support the fight against Turkey.
December 26th: The Green Guards offensive stalls as their increasingly deprived troops slam into a wall of INTREV guns.
