Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

Miss Teri · Jul 16, 2023

GUGB World Factbook, 2021-2022 edition

Franco-British Union/Union franco-britannique

Green: The metropolitan Franco-British Union (not showing Altavas-Aures and the Overseas Territories)
Light Green: Franco-British Dominions in Europe

Official Name: The Entente Cordiale of Great Britain and France/ L'Entente Cordiale de la France et de la Grand-Bretagne
Nicknames: The Franco-British Union, Anglo-French Union, Entente, Frangleterre
Capital: Paris (Legislative, Judicial), London (Executive)
Official Language(s): English, French

Recognized Languages: Scots, Ulster Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Breton, Catalan, Franconian, Basque, Darja, Maltese, Hindi, Urdu, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Assyrian, Entente Sign Language

Total Area: 3,521,158 sq km

Metropole: 887,411 sq km

Population: 204 million
Demographics:

Ethnicity: English, French, Scots, Irish, Welsh, Walloons, Italian, Algerian, Spanish, Moroccan, German, Dutch, Assyrian, Asian (Indian, Sri Lankan, Bhutanese, Nepalese), Basque, Catalan, Black-Caribbean (Jamaican, Cuban, Trinidadian), Black-African (Nigerian, East African, South African), East Asian (Chinese exile/Hong Kong Chinese, Japanese exile, Southern Filipino, Thai, Burmese etc)
Religion: Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Non-Anglican Protestantism), Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform), Islam (Shia, Sunni), Hinduism, Dianetics, Buddhism, Sikhism

Constituent Areas (In order of devolved status): France, Northern Ireland [1] (1948); Scotland, Wales, Wallonia (1967); England, Altava-Aures (1977)

Overseas Territories (Devolved 1982): Hong Kong, Singapore, Guangzhouwan, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Guyanas, Malta, Gibraltar, Entente Antilles, Aden, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Falkland Islands, Entente Atlantic Islands, Entente Southern Islands and Antarctic Territories

Government: Devolved parliamentary constitutional monarchy

Upper House: Senate
Lower House: National Assembly
Head of State: Marie (Sovereign of the State Council)
Head of Government: Dave Hodgson (Prime Minister)

Economic System: Corporatist social market capitalism

History:

Act of Union ratified: 1 March 1942
Union Treaty Signed: 7 March 1942
Entente Charter: 12 April 1948
Start of People's Alliance Government: 23 February 1950
Annexation of Wallonia and Government of Wales, Scotland, and Wallonia Act: 2 May 1967
New Entente Charter: 19 August 1978
Lee Premiership: 1981-1988
Overseas Territories Self-Government Act: 3 October 1982
Blair Premiership: 2009-2015

Currency: Union Pound
Internet TLD: .min/fbu

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Prelude to War: The Allies (Pt. II)

On New Years Day, 1942, after classifying them as a foreign front group, General Douglas MacArthur would formally expel the Silver Legion from the National Salvation Front for "espionage and treason against the United States", and the next morning, the NBI and US Marshals would storm the capitol to arrest every one of its representatives in Congress.

On January 4th, Charles Coughlin would resign from the Vice-Presidency, taking a deal to avoid prosecution and formally retiring from politics. After considering businessman Edsel Ford and one-time Presidential nominee Cordell Hull for VP, former British Ambassador Charles G. Dawes was chosen by MacArthur, for his internationalist bona fides. MacArthur would also purge the government of sympathizers or isolationists, especially Breckenridge Long (replaced by Clare Booth) and Joseph P. Kennedy (replaced by Averell Harriman). Ezra Pound was saved by switching his rhetoric to be more pro-government.
While MacArthur cleaned house, as tensions grew in Western Europe, William Joyce, leader of the National Socialists and Fascist League, took a gamble in reenacting Mussolini's "March on Rome." On January 8th, he would march with over 6000 supporters towards Westminister to prevent the United Kingdom from intervening in the war and "stopping the scourge of communism", hoping for a royal endorsement from sympathizer King Edward VIII.

King Edward had prepared a statement of endorsement towards granting Joyce's demands and being open towards negotiations (which would be an avenue to seize control), but thanks to some (intentional) mishaps from the Royal staff, it was never formally delivered as planned, though it was published after police managed to defeat the rioters and arrest Joyce.

Still, the controversy around intervention would remain, especially as Prime Minister Edward Wood attempted to maintain neutrality. All the while, Jean Monnet and Oswald Mosley continued refining the so-called "Union Treaty" to gain enough support within both the French government under Leon Blum and the British Parliament.

The opportunity would come when, after a month of mobilization, Leon Blum would formally declare war on Germany on January 28th. Five days later, Maréchal Phillipe Petain would declare a pronunciamiento against the Blum government, followed by an uprising by troops sympathetic to him. Despite the attempts by loyalists such as Rene Prioux to restore order, by February 7th, it was clear that France was in a state of civil war.

Prime Minister Wood declared, while he was open to mediating peace talks, Great Britain would not take any action to help the Third Republic. King Edward made a public statement the same day supporting this action. With such an open betrayal of an ally, Winston Churchill would have the leverage to bring a vote of no-confidence against Edward Wood, bringing together Conservative MPs opposed to non-intervention with Liberal, Labour, and Commonwealth Workers MPs to vote no-confidence on the government.

Fed up with the humiliation and concerned about the growing sentiment against the King, members of the Royal Family (including his own mother, the Queen Mother, who already disapproved of his marriage) forced Edward VIII to abdicate the same day as the no-confidence vote, instead being sent to serve as Governor General of New Zealand. His brother, the Duke of York, would ascend the throne to become King George VI.

Humiliated and realizing his defeat, Edward Wood, 1st Lord Halifax resigned from the Prime Ministership on February 8th. A caretaker government was assembled with the endorsement of the new King, with Clement Atlee as Prime Minister and Churchill as his deputy. With that, on February 14th, the United Kingdom would affirm its support for the Third Republic, its intention to restore them to power, and declare war against the Anti-Comintern Axis. On February 20th, they would welcome the exiled Leon Blum and several of his ministers as they exited France.

By then, Monnet and Mosley were finished with their finalized proposal for a union between Britain and the Third Republic. After gaining the approval of the government-in-exile, the Free France Forces, and the Atlee government, "The Act of Union" would be sent to Parliament.
The finalized "Act of Union" stated:

"At this most fateful moment in the history of the modern world the Governments of the United Kingdom and the French Republic make this declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom, against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves.

The two Governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial, and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.

Both countries will share responsibility for the repair of the devastation of war, wherever it occurs in their territories, and the resources of both shall be equally, and as one, applied to that purpose.

During the war there shall be a single war Cabinet, and all the forces of Britain and France, whether on land, sea, or in the air, will be placed under its direction. It will govern from wherever it best can. The two Parliaments will be formally associated.

The nations of the British Empire are already forming new armies. France will keep her available forces in the field, on the sea, and in the air."[2]

The "single war Cabinet" would comprise of Clement Atlee and Leon Blum as effectively co-Prime Ministers, with Churchill and SFIO head Guy Mollet as co-"Deputy Prime Ministers". King George would become the founding monarch.

While there was some resistance, by March 1st, the Act of Union was ratified, and the "Entente Cordiale of Great Britain and France '' would be declared by Atlee in front of Westminister.

After the dust settled around his government, Douglas MacArthur turned his attention to the South and the growing threat of Brazil. Hoping to build a new image for Cuba as a regional power, MacArthur saw an opportunity to both establish a presence in South America and appease the British, who were increasingly pro-intervention.

The formation of the Franco-British Union would be the tipping point, and on March 7th, MacArthur declared war on Integralist Brazil, stating "Salgado poses a threat to the American way of life. His mongrel armies may one day come to invade our own, subjugating us in his religion of death and destruction. We must not allow that to pass! We must fight the Integralist menace, wherever it may try to hide!"

[1] While Northern Ireland was devolved from London as early as 1920, its status was constitutionally "reset" and the area was devolved alongside France with the Charter of 1948
[2] Direct quote: FRENCH REPUBLIC (PROPOSED UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN). (Hansard, 16 October 1940)

Zolarian01 · Jul 18, 2023

[Done with some vital help from @vilani99 . Thank you, vilani! ]

**Excerpts from Adrien Guerland, Edges of Darkness: The Rise and Fall of The French State* (Paris: Fraternité, 2012)**

Edges of Darkness is a 2012 popular history book written by Adrien Guerland, detailing the rise of the French State, from the beginning of French right-wing movements and organizations and their role in it, to the atrocities committed by the National Collectivist regime, until its eventual capitulation to Franco-British forces. It was one of the many non-academic historical works to be written after the exposes of the French State's role in the Holocaust, and is a polarizing book in the Franco-British Union, in contrast to a unanimously positive reception in the ComIntern.

Clouds on the Horizon

The Second American Civil War was, by every means, one of the many events that had an impact on every corner of the world in some way or the other. In France, this impact would manifest itself in the emergence of a new ideological strain of right-wing politics in the French political scene in the 1930's, as well as two new political parties that adhered to it.

……..

After the Red May Revolution, the Third Republic experienced a Red Scare like never before. The shock produced by the fact that the nation which so far had been considered to be the beating heart of capitalism had succumbed to a communist revolution, had started to take root amidst the populace, leading to some uncomfortable questions being asked. If it could happen to them, it was argued, then there was no reason why it wouldn't happen in France, considering the history of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune.

The opposition to the ideals of the Revolution and the Commune, coupled with a nostalgia for the monarchy and a significant spike in anti-Semitism after the Dreyfus Affair was what led to the formation of the Action Française, a counter-revolutionary, anti-parliamentary movement that would stay at the fringes of the extreme far-right. They would be at the peak of their influence during the next twenty years after their formation in 1899.

Although the victory against the Deutsches Kaiserreich in the Great War led to an upsurge of jingoistic fervor, and the Russian Revolution had led to a fear of Bolshevism, the AF were not well placed to exploit the situation. The rise of fascism as a political ideology, especially in Germany and Italy, presented a threat to the regressive supporters of the House of Bourbon. Matters would be complicated further by Pope Pius XI condemning the Action Française on 29 December 1926; followed by many of Maurras' writings being placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum on 9 January 1927. This was in no small part due to Maurras' utilitarian approach towards Catholicism, which unsettled most of those who agreed with him on many issues. On 8 March, AF members were forbidden to receive the sacraments, thus rubbing salt in the movement's wounds and subjecting its cadres to social ostracism. This, along with the failure to gain any significant level of popular support in the face of the Fédération Républicaine, would prompt many to leave. Noteworthy among them was Eugène Deloncle, the founder of the notorious terrorist group, La Cagoule.

……..

As the first half of 1933 saw the success of the Second American Revolution, leading to the aforementioned Red Scare, the AF felt that they had a chance to rise out of the ashes. But unbeknownst to Maurras and the rest of the AF leadership, the seeds of a new right-wing movement had been sown the previous year. One that would eventually supersede and consolidate most of the disparate movements and organizations on the right in due time.

In 1931, Jacques Doriot, the SFIC mayor of Saint Denis proposed that the ComIntern follow a "Popular Front'' strategy of alliance between the Communists and other Socialist parties in order to contain the rising threat of fascism and prevent it from taking root wherever possible. While the Popular Front would indeed become official ComIntern policy later on and yield results, at the time he suggested it, there was still a year to go before the 1932 American presidential elections, the most prominent and successful example of this strategy, and the staunchly Stalinist SFIC would not countenance such an alliance with the "enablers of bourgeois capitalism". The Politburo quickly got wind of the matter and acted with alacrity, expelling him from the party in 1932 (1).

Disillusioned and infuriated at his expulsion, Doriot made a vow to himself that, from that moment onwards, he would work for the destruction of Communism however he could. His political views took a sharp turn towards the right, culminating in him founding the Parti Populaire Français in 1933 (1), widely considered to be the first fascist party in France. The PPF adopted a platform of nationalism, corporatism, class collaboration, anti-communism, anti-Semitism (after 1934), anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism and a vicious opposition to Freemasonry. It also declared in its manifesto that "France must look to the past to seek strength and inspiration, not to recreate it, as some deluded people would rather prefer to". This could only be interpreted as a slight directed at the Action Française, and dictated the state of relations between the two movements, with Doriot and Maurras regularly attacking the other in their party newspapers.

……..

In 1934, Pierre Clémenti, a young Corsican who was then a sports columnist for the press of the Radical-Socialist Party, took the decision to leave the party. Having already cut his teeth in the circles of militant French nationalism (in 1932, he was on the leadership board of the National League of French Youth, and in 1933, he helped Henry Coston in forming the Francistes party, as a splinter of the Mouvement Franciste), he no longer fit in with the center-left policies of the Radicals.

After an acrimonious fight with Coston, Clémenti would leave the movement, taking the bulk of the cadres with him and forming the Parti Français National-Collectiviste. The PFNC had a platform that was practically similar to the PPF; however, there were a few differences. Firstly, they believed in a theory of racial supremacy not dissimilar to the NSDAP's idea of Herrenvolk. Secondly, they were more nationalistic than the PPF, calling for the partition of Belgium on ethnic lines and the formation of la plus grande France (Greater France). Indeed, in 1934 itself, Clémenti had contacts in the right-wing of the Walloon Movement. This would put them on a collision course with the Belgian Rexist Party and its charismatic leader, Léon Degrelle. Like the PPF before them, they were also contemptuous of nostalgia for the French Empire, antagonizing the Action Française and inviting vitriolic attacks from them in the process.

The PFNC was, from its early days, funded by the Third Reich; indeed, Clémenti had befriended the chief propagandist of the NSDAP, Julius Streicher, after quite a few guest appearances at their rallies. On the other hand, the PPF had to compete for Italian funding with the Mouvement Franciste at first, but as time went by, Mussolini was convinced by his closest advisors that Doriot was the better bet over Bucard, leading to the Francists having their funds cut and diverted to the PPF, something that would cause bad blood to develop between Doriot and Bucard for a while.

……..

The 1936 legislative elections were marked by two major events: one, the SFIC, the SFIO, the PRRRS and various other Socialist parties fought the elections under the banner of the Popular Front, using the very strategy that Doriot had suggested back in 1931. The irony of it was not lost on the SFIC and Doriot, who would launch quite a few barbs at his former party during the campaign. Secondly, the PPF and the PFNC, participating in national level elections for the first time, were able to punch significantly above their weight for two new parties, with the former getting 54 deputies and the latter getting 30. A scrutiny of the results shows that the PPF and the PFNC had usurped the lion's share of the voter base of the FR and the PRAS (Parti républicain agraire et social), by effectively playing on the fears of the conservative and rightist sections of the French populace and at the same time, employed a populist rhetoric designed to attract the French working class, something that was new to the political scenario of the Third Republic. More than that, it marked the beginning of the decline of the Center as a viable political force in France, as the Left began to coalesce and come together, mirrored by similar developments on the Right.

As the newly elected Front Populaire government and the rightist opposition settled down to business, Doriot and Clémenti found themselves coordinating the actions of their parties in the Chambre des députés, with the PPF deputies supporting their PFNC counterparts in any debate, and vice versa. Joint marches were undertaken by both parties, seeking to drum up support for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. Indeed, this was mostly possible due to the strong ideological similarity both parties had, in addition to the cordial, friendly relationship between their respective founders (2). In December 1936, Clémenti suggested that their parties be merged, considering that their views and goals were practically the same, and that it would be better to stand united and work towards achieving them. Doriot replied that he would bring it up at the next Congress of his party.

Half a year later, in June 1937, the two of them declared the formation of the Parti Populaire National Collectiviste Français (French National Collectivist People's Party, PPNCF), the party that would not only go on to become the dominant face of fascism in France, but also the primary driving force of the regime that would join the Pact of Steel.

……..

By 1939, after the successful annexations of La Rocque's Parti Social Français and Bucard's Mouvement Franciste, the PPNCF stood tall like a Colossus in the French political stage. Very few noteworthy right-wing movements existed from that point onwards, with the exception of Déat's Rassemblement National Populaire, a grouping of Neosocialists who had been expelled from the SFIO for adopting a National Syndicalist stance, and the Action Française, which by this time, was eking out a miserable existence, sustained only by Maurras' painstaking efforts. The atmosphere in France was tense, with Germany having annexed Czechoslovakia the year before. The PRRRS and Daladier had, in all honesty, made an attempt to stand up to Berlin, even withstanding British pressure on the matter. But the Radicals' hand would be forced by the military and the government's center-right and right-wing allies in the Chambre, with Daladier forced to renege on agreements with the Czech. It was a bitter humiliation for him, and as Germany invaded Poland later in 1939, he would belatedly realize the poison chalice that was the offer of support provided by Doriot and Clémenti last year. Indeed, the decision to shake hands with the PPNCF had not gone down well with many in the party, as well as its voter base. This would have significant consequences in the legislative elections next year.

Darkening Skies

If the 1936 elections were a testimony to the extent of the divisions in French society and politics, the 1940 elections served to showcase the level to which the French populace had been polarized. With the first Popular Front government leading to significant activity on the part of the right, and a shameful foreign policy disaster of the succeeding Radical government leading to the left becoming increasingly bellicose, one could easily say that two Frances existed in the Métropole.

Due to the PRRRS's backroom deal with the PPNCF and the humiliation suffered to Germany, its voter base would abandon them en masse and shift to the left, boosting the numbers of the SFIO and the SFIC. On the other hand, the PPNCF benefitted largely from the lack of any notable challengers on the right, and thus was able to nearly triple their numbers in the Chamber of Deputies, reaching a total of 234 deputies. The elections threw up another surprise: the RNP entered the Chamber with 22 deputies. Observing the writing on the wall, Déat would quickly form a post-poll alliance with Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard - the Front de la Liberté (3) (Front of Liberty). The Popular Front had returned to power yet again, but the path in front of them was more difficult than ever.

The Stahlpakt would invade the Soviet Union barely five days after the election results came out, giving the newly elected government its first major challenge as the PPNCF paramilitaries, the Blueshirts and the Gardes Française began to march regularly through the streets of several cities as a show of force, chanting pro-German, pro-Italian, anti-Soviet and anti-American slogans, which provoked an inevitable response from the SFIC's own paramilitary cadres, leading to bloody clashes and brawls across the country. The PF government condemned the streetfights, though not before having to deal with an exceedingly acrimonious shouting match in the Palais Bourbon over the very same issue. Considering the numbers of the Front of Liberty, such incidents would recur rather often in the future, especially when the government made attempts to discuss the "relations of France with her eastern neighbours".

The Axis invasion of Norway on 10 October, 1941 would spur Blum and his government into action. A few days ago, he had sent Jean Monnet to London, intrigued by his idea of a "Union" with Britain in the event of war. Roughly ten days after Norway was attacked, France would sign a nonaggression pact with Liberia. The last action had led to some consternation in military circles, with the overall opinion being that it sent a negative message to Berlin and Rome. On 12 December, a general order of mobilization would be promulgated, in response to increased German presence in the Rhineland and the "inevitable breakout of hostilities with Germany". It would begin the chain of events that ended with the fall of the Popular Front and the Third Republic, the formation of the French State, and the United Kingdom declaring war on the Anti-ComIntern Axis.

……..

The order of mobilization only inflamed an already volatile domestic situation in the Métropole. While left-sympathetic citizens queued up at recruitment offices and centers, their rightist brethren arranged for elaborate and aggressive draft-dodging campaigns. Attempts to dissuade and intimidate potential military recruits often turned violent. The Cagoulards took to bombing recruitment offices, adding to the workload of the already exhausted police and Gendarmerie.

On December 15, Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard denounced the mobilization order in an energetic speech:

"People of France! The dupes and puppets who are governing our beloved nation would have you believe that by raising your arms against our eastern neighbours, you are fighting for the honour of France. Nothing could be further from the truth! In reality, you are being lied to, to fight a war for the Judeo-Bolshevik puppet masters in Russia and America, for their false, mongrelizing creed of class struggle and internationalism! They seek to destroy all we hold precious: our national identity, our unity, our society and our religion! We call upon you to resist this "call to arms" that will spell doom for France! Vive la France!"

The resulting riots would occupy the government's attention for some time, and in the meantime a malevolent plot was underfoot in the military; one that had been kick-started by the mobilization.

The French Army had a tradition of deep rooted conservatism, as was typical of most European militaries in the interwar period. However, it was not merely political, but also doctrinal - as can be attested to by the fact that the French military was modernizing at a highly lethargic pace, and by the early 1940's, was appreciably inferior in several regards to the Wehrmacht and the Italian military. The expectation of the generals after 1933 was that they would be fighting off a Soviet-American invasion of Europe - a strategic calculus in which Germany and Italy would be co-belligerents, if not allies. It was no surprise then that the order to mobilize was received poorly by the High Command.

For most of the generalship, already displeased with the Front Populaire for being "too soft on the Bolsheviks and the Maximalists", this was the last straw. Many of them would coalesce around Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the Marshal of France and the Lion of Verdun, and begin to weave the threads of the conspiracy that would "save France from falling into the dark abyss of Communism". The Old Marshal began by reaching out to as many generals and commanders as he could, while at the same time sending out feelers to the leaders of the PPNCF, the RNP and the AF. Telegrams were sent to the German and Italian embassies in Paris, informing them of the developments. The missives that Cécil von Renthe-Fink and Giacomo Acerbo would send to Berlin and Rome afterwards, would please the Führer and the Duce to no end. Germany and Italy had been looking for a way to get Türkiye into the war on their side since the Izmir Conference, and this opportunity could not have come at a better time; not to mention the possibility of bringing one of the foremost continental powers into the war in the east, thus killing two birds with one stone.

For the rest of December and much of January, levels of violence across the country would fall considerably, as the right-wing paramilitaries began to preserve their strength for what was to come. Even the excessively violent Cagoulards seemed to have gone quiet. An uneasy calm descended upon the Métropole - it was but the harbinger of the storm to come.

The Deluge Arrives

The dominoes would start to fall from 28 January, 1942, when Blum declared war on Germany. Just five days later, on 2 February, Pétain delivered his pronunciamiento, declaring the military's loss of faith in the civilian government. The leaders of the coup d'état gave an address to the "loyal patriots of France" to "arise, and take back the country from the clutches of the communist puppets in the Palais Bourbon". Statements of support for the Maréchal came in from the commanders of the troops stationed in Alsace-Lorraine and Provence, precipitating a tense standoff between the government and the military.

In London, the Conservative government of Edward Wood took a highly controversial and, according to his many critics, spineless stance regarding the developments in France. By declaring that "His Majesty's Government will take no action whatsoever on behalf of the government of France other than acting as a mediator for peace negotiations" between the civilian government and the rogue military high command, Prime Minister Wood had performed the ultimate act of appeasement, with the blessings and support of King Edward VIII. The outrage triggered by the declaration would culminate in half the Conservative delegation in the House of Commons crossing the aisle the next day, making a no-confidence vote all but inevitable. Feeling disgraced by the outcome, Edward abdicated that very day, in favor of his brother, George VI.

The standoff ended when the Corps de Cavalerie, under the command of Général René Prioux, marched on Paris. He hoped to seize the capital quickly with his three light mechanized divisions, and overthrow the government before a civil war broke out between the Pétainists and the Loyalists. Whether Prioux acted on his own, or on the orders of his army group commander, or on the personal orders of the Lion of Verdun is difficult to ascertain, as many of his fellow generals and co-conspirators, as well as his staff and subordinate officers, either did not survive the war or refused to divulge what they were aware of, eventually taking the secret to their graves. Additionally, a large amount of the documentation regarding the actions of the PPNCF regime was destroyed in the twilight years of the war, leaving us with little to work with.

Regardless of whose orders Général Prioux acted on, it is certain that the French Civil War began with Prioux's advance on Paris. Parisian citizens took to the barricades to block the advance of the Corps de Cavalerie. The Gendarmerie, along with the help of Communist paramilitaries, fought tenaciously enough to give the mobilized reserve divisions loyal to the Republic time to reinforce the capital. However, they would be stymied by the vicious, bloody fighting on the part of the Blueshirts and the Gardes Française, who made desperate efforts to break up the barricades.

The events of 10 February are enough to put an end to all excuseology and apologism for France's heroes of the First World War. That evening, Pétain, accompanied by Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard, met with Rudolf Hess, Hitler's favored lieutenant, and Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's foreign minister. They brokered an agreement in which Germany and Italy would support and recognize a new regime under Pétain's leadership and assist with the pacification of the country. In exchange, the French State would become a signatory of the Pact of Steel, join the Anti-ComIntern Axis, and enter the war in the Soviet Union.

On the next day, the German and Italian governments announced a police action in support of "the French people's valiant efforts to throw off the Judeo-Bolshevik yoke." The 1st and 2nd Army Groups, constituting the bulk of the French Army's modern mechanized forces and combat power turned towards the heartland, supported by the German Army Group West. Italian marines and paratroopers landed on Corsica, quickly overwhelming the meager opposition they encountered.

The Darkest Hour

The Pétainist forces stationed in Alsace-Lorraine made relatively good progress, only slowed down by the valiant efforts of Loyalist officers and soldiers, who put up a desperate, if unorganized defense, hoping to buy as much as time as possible for the FP government. But with the troops of Army Group West pouring in, this would prove to be nothing less than a Herculean endeavor. Still, the Loyalists made sure to hold ground at all costs, as the cry of "Ils ne passeront pas!" rang out and the blood of Frenchmen stained Northeastern France yet again.

In spite of their heroic, Thermopylaean sacrifices, they could only hope to delay the inevitable, as Calais would fall to the Pétainists after the local Gendarmerie were overwhelmed by the Blueshirts and the Garde Française, who managed to hold on to the city for long enough to be relieved by a motorized infantry division. In Provence, however, the Pétainists found themselves in a difficult situation as they were outnumbered by the Loyalists, and after a series of bloody skirmishes, they would be forced to retreat to Nice and Marseille. They prepared themselves for a siege, as the Loyalists made several offensive attempts against the two cities. The standoff would be broken only by the mutiny of the Flotte méditerranéenne. As the warships stationed in ports across southern France declared support for the Pétainists, the morale of the Loyalists shattered like glass, as they were forced off the eastern half of the southern coast. More army units defected, and by the beginning of March, Provence would be firmly in Pétainist hands.

On the heels of the loss of Provence came further disaster, as the units of the Corps de Cavalerie entered Paris on 4 March, to a joyous welcome by right-wing paramilitaries and citizens. The government was forced to retreat westwards, to Loire and eventually, Brittany. All Loyalist military units were ordered to preserve their strength and retreat. But in the midst of the chaos that engulfed the Métropole, with the morale situation being rather critical, it was effectively every man for himself. In spite of this, the Loyalists of the First Army would attempt to march westwards to Brittany, and their fellows in the Third Army would march south through the Pyrenees to the Spanish Free Soviet Republic, in what is now known as the Marche du chagrin (March of Sorrow).

Throughout April, the retreating Loyalists were harassed by Pétainist units of the Armée de l'Air, who had made their choice to defect once it became clear who was going to triumph. With turncoat forces on their heels, the fear of air raids, abysmally low morale and an undercurrent of suspicion among their ranks, the First Army's Loyalists somehow managed to reach Brittany, a broken and demoralized lot who were desperate for succor. With the help of the RAF and the Royal Navy, they would be evacuated to the Home Islands in one of the largest evacuations in military history - Operation Dynamo.

For the Loyalists of the Third Army, the march to Red Spain was nothing less than a march through hell, what with the defection of the Mediterranean Fleet forcing them to avoid the southern coast at all costs. This left the Third Army with two options: brave the interior passes of the Pyrenees, or make for the Atlantic coastal passage and risk falling into the jaws of the Pétainists. As the putschists traversed the Massif Centrale, a decision was made: they would make for the Pas de la Casa and the Col de Puymorens. A spirited rearguard action on the part of the 6th Corps bought the remaining two corps enough time to make it to their designated passes, forcing the Pétainists to cease their pursuit. In Paris, Pétain and his allies could do nothing but accept the escape of the Third Army as a fait accompli and focus on consolidating their new regime. It was just as well that the turncoats stopped their chase, considering the terrifying conditions in Southwestern France at that time of the year. Temperatures in April in the Col de Puymorens average at -0.5°C at the lowest, and the Pas de la Casa at -1.4°C, and April 1942 was a cold month. Fortunately for the Loyalists, the Pyrenees were a relatively short crossing, with the first exhausted soldiers arriving at the railhead in Sort on the other side just two weeks after the evacuation order was given. A week after that, on the 15th of April, the last remains of the 6th Corps arrived in Red Spain.

The Loyalists in the Spanish FSR had a feeling that they didn't have much time on their hands. By crossing the Pyrenees, they might have evaded the putschists for the time being, but it was only a matter of time before the Spanish State would be persuaded to "complete its unfinished business". Their concerns were shared by many in the Admiralty and the Imperial General Staff, who began to prepare for another evacuation after Dynamo. They would have at least a month in their hands before the Falangists would eventually pounce on Red Spain and, more worryingly, were racing against time, as on 4 April, Hitler had started pressuring Mussolini and Mola to declare war on the Franco-British Union.

1.IOTL, he was expelled in 1934 and formed his party in 1936.

2.A 180° swing going on here - IOTL Clémenti was deeply hostile towards Doriot, considering him still to be a communist, even after he was expelled from the SFIC/PCF.

3.An alliance that Doriot was trying to push with the PSF IOTL, which was rejected by La Rocque due to apprehensions that it was an attempt to annex his party.

Aelita · Jul 22, 2023

Excerpts from "Fighting the War that Never Was; or that time INTREV did professional alternate history," posted by RollingRoyce at net/global/http:co.na/uchronia/zine/

It's sometimes said that we take ourselves too seriously in this hobby. Well, eat your heart out, because none of us rivet counting grognards will ever hold a candle to the 1978 Military History Symposium conducted at the behest of the INTREV Joint-General Staff.

What had begun several years ago as a simple musing of the Military-Historical Institute of the Militärakademie "Friedrich Engels" became the subject of the hitherto largest joint military exercise in history, a subject near and dear to all our hearts: Operation Jupiter, the aborted Ukrainian strategic offensive.

Jupiter was to be the natural follow-up to Mars. After breaking the back of Army Group Centre, the Joint-Stavka's attention turned southwards to the liberation of Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Planning shifted here even as the tanks were still grinding forward west of Moscow. Capitalising on the surging number of mobilised American divisions that would be entering into the theatre in the first half of 1942, the Stavka began building up forces along the Rostov-Millerovo-Belgorod axis.

In the north, the Belgorod Front under Nikolai Vatutin would first take the vital rail junctions at Kursk and Kharkov before beginning the west-ward push to the Dnieper River. The Southwest Front under Maurice Rose would drive Southwest to Dnepropetrovsk, forcing a crossing before the Axis could dig in on the right bank of the river. The Rostov Front under Fyodor Kuznetsov would encircle the Italian First and German Sixth Armies in the city of Rostov itself, supported by marine attacks at Mariupol and the Separate Coastal Army driving north from Crimea.

It was an ambitious but well-measured plan. Scheduled to begin in late May to early June, after the spring swell of the rivers had ebbed, the plan was in its infancy, only known to the highest echelons of government and the military before events scuppered it.

A perfect storm of events occurred over the course of February 1942, placing Operation Jupiter on indefinite hiatus. The decisive Fascist coup de main in Western Europe brought the whole of the European subcontinent into Axis hands. The powerful French Army, a massive counterweight holding large German and Italian reserves down, instead struck against its own government.

With the French Métropole now in Axis hands, and Britain being chased out of the Mediterranean, it was clear that the non-aggression pact with Türkiye was not worth the paper it was written on, necessitating the shoring up of the Caucasus.

As if the prospect of thousands of additional German panzers and well-trained landsers, backed up by a French expeditionary force, heading East wasn't bad enough, Imperial Japan would soon plunge the entirety of the Pacific into the fires of war, effectively closing the Vladivostok convoy route from April to November.

The UASR could no longer fully supply forces in theatre, let alone surge additional forces into the country. While Soviet production of war materiel, particular munitions, grew considerably over the course of 1942, it could not make up for the massive deficit. Nor could the new revolution in intermodal, containerised shipping be adopted fast enough to make up for the disruption.

Consequently, Operation Jupiter nearly disappeared from memory, remaining full classified until the statute of limitations in 1952. Even when most materials relating to the operation were declassified without challenge by the All-Union government, the documents remained largely unexplored in the archives until its unlikely resurrection years later.

Fast forward to the fall of 1974. Mikhail Kessler, then a major and graduate student at the Militärakademie, was beginning his dissertation when he stumbled upon a reference to Operation Jupiter while reviewing the minutes of a GKO meeting. Intrigued, he began to delve deeper. Some of the details, as published in his memoir, are quite amusing. Initially, he was unable to get the Soviet Army's archives to ship documents to Dresden, as they had not yet been duplicated for preservation, nor were they willing to accommodate a Free German junior officer's request to move them ahead in the schedule.

So instead, Kessler and a comrade piled into a 1966 Trabant Beetle for a summer road trip to Moscow, returning with the car's suspension sagging under the weight of xeroxed copies. The effort was well worth it, because his 1975 dissertation on the operation was added to the academy commandant's recommended reading list.

Because nothing of Operation Jupiter was ever finalised before it was cancelled, the specifics of the operation are quite hazy. The last reliable source we have is a Stavka summary dated 1 March 1942, just after planning had been ordered halted. After outlining the operational objectives of the three fronts, it summarises a total expected Soviet Army commitment of "no less than forty rifle divisions, four of the 'brigade bucket' tank corps, plus at least as many independent tank brigades." The WFRA was expected to commit twelve motor rifle divisions, plus at least six tank or mechanised divisions.

Total strength was estimated at around 1.2 million when factoring in corps, army and front level assets, against an expected Axis strength between 700,000 to 900,000. Right off the bat, this tells us a lot; German force estimates are much lower than the actual offensive operations they waged in the summer and fall of the year. The total strength of Soviet forces committed at the outset of Operation Sonnenrad, the German offensive to the Don River, was also higher, though the divisions were equipped below the minimum level considered acceptable for offensive operations.

While the force multiplier from the freeing up of forces from OB West is obvious, the higher actual deployed Soviet forces in the desperate defence there gives us our first indication that Operation Jupiter was meant to be a single part of a comprehensive offensive strategy for 1942, the other components of which were in an even less developed state than Operation Jupiter. Forces that would have been utilised to lift the Siege of Leningrad were being diverted southward as early as April in response to the observed buildup of German forces.

In essence, Operation Jupiter would attempt to perform the same trick that the Second Battle of Stalingrad had: take permanent initiative in the course of the war on the Eastern Front. If this sounds familiar to my subs, it's because it is. Every major offensive operation undertaken, from Mercury to Icebreaker to Bagration to Mars, had been an attempt by INTREV to permanently wrest the initiative from the invading forces. If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again!

Leaving aside all the other factors, like the Western Front not opening up or Imperial Japan not getting involved, we're still left with a really important missing ingredient between June 1942 and June 1943: a whole year of continual refinement of the organisation, doctrine and training of their forces. Remember in 1942 the Soviets were only just reimplementing the corps level of organisation, reducing the huge strain on the army headquarters to separately direct between eight and twelve divisions as well as numerous other units. The average fielded strength of a Soviet rifle division was still only around half that of a German division.

We all want to see the Nazis fall on our face (well…most of us do. Some of you–let's just say I've got my eyes on you mate), but wishing and making it so are two different things. And it's good that we're seeing a lot of shifts in historical perception. Until the 90s or so, in the Entente uchronia scene our non-involvement in the war was a pretty standard feature of Nazi victory timelines.

And these stories, many of them classics of the genre, were not all right-wing! Fatherland by Robert Harris, one of the crossovers of uchronia into serious literature, is vehemently anti-Nazi, focusing its plot on a conspiracy to eliminate conspirators at the Wannsee conference within the Reich to protect relations between the Reich and the British Empire, is very intimately reflective on the policies of appeasement and collaboration with the Nazis and Britain's culpability for the cataclysm that followed. Nevertheless, the formation of the Franco-British Union and our involvement in the war was still taken as a sort of article of faith, by writer and reader alike, as a necessary component to defeating the Third Reich.

In recent years, there's been a revisiting of this trope, especially on Our Dear Board. And at times, I think we have overcorrected. We as amateur historians have taken to fighting the unfought battles of Operation Jupiter with great gusto, and many timelines, whether they prevent the Pétain putsch or just all together maintain longer neutrality in the West have come down on the war ending by Christmas 1943.

This is a positive trend, no doubt spurred on by the painful process of no longer feeling like the gentlemen across the Weser River are aliens in human clothing, and a trend to avoid the worst sorts of jingoism about their military competency. So while once we viewed the communists as a stumbling colossus being outfought on a man-to-man basis by the hard-fighting Germans only to overcorrect to one that lionised the heroics of our Eastern Allies, I think it's interesting that the largest, most comprehensive professional study of Operation Jupiter came to the opposite conclusion, that the operation would have failed well-short of its objective, that the danger of a crackback after the culmination point was far too high for comfort.

Hopping back in our TARDIS to the world of 1978, it's hard to overstate how much of a huge event the Jupiter war games were. It was not just a big deal for the officers and soldiers participating in them, they were a sort of cause celebre even in the broader public, and for more than just the usual fanfare of our Internationale is Struggling Together reasons. This was the first time that soldiers of the DBA (Deutsche Befreiungsarmee, German Liberation Army) were invited to participate in major exercises on Soviet soil. Armed Germans coming to Ukraine as guests was kind of a big thing for relations between the USSR and the FSRD.

This was the capstone for the rehabilitation of East Germans in the Comintern, a sign that they were fully trusted as part of the Internationale, and that their state did not exist as an imposed victor's peace over the country.

And while the Jupiter war games were the centrepiece of Solidarity 78, I should note that there was a lot more going on concurrently. For example, the Luftstreitkräfte der DBA sent its elite JG-1 fighter wing to Centre 1521 Maryy, the varsity fighter weapons school, to train on new fourth generation aircraft. And Sergei Bondarchuk shot principal photography for his long awaited epic Waterloo, using the surplus of soldiers and the official cooperation of multiple governments to film the action at full scale.

Digressing back to the subject, the Jupiter segment of the symposium began with a high level war game, conducted in May and hosted on the campus of the Kiev All-Arms Higher Command School. A delegation of officers from the Engels Military Academy presented the scenario, and a delegation from the Nanjing Army Command Academy would serve as umpires. The Axis team was selected from the cream of the crop of the INTREV Northeastern Group of Forces, predominantly colonels and brigadiers hungry for their first divisional command. While drawn heavily from the DBA, a few notable American officers took part, including Our Dear Board's favourite H.S. Thompson.

INTREV forces were played by the up and coming officers from the Alma-Ata, Kiev, and Ural military districts; administrations which played a central role in combined arms military training and development. Most notable of their ranks is Vadim Rogovin, future commander of the Azanian Expeditionary Force.

Details on the order of battle are fairly sparse in public domain literature presently. While I'm sure it would win a freedom of information request, as of yet no one has bothered to publish primary sources on the world wide web. But from what I've been able to gather from secondary sources, the exercise had a slightly modified order of battle from the last preliminary plans. Rifle corps return to the orders of battle, and the Soviet tank corps follow a late 1942 spec, with each tank brigade augmented with a motor rifle battalion.

The German order of battle was prepared by the Engels Academy's historical department, and represents a good estimate of German dispositions under the premise that INTREV maskirovka successfully obfuscated the operation's existence until two weeks before D-Day and tactical objectives until two days prior.

The exercise was run on a modified version of the INTREV's ISO 4182:1975 wargaming system, a stripped down version of which is known commercially as the Operational Art map game. Computational assistance was provided by several PARC Alto MSAC computers, a then state of the art minicomputer with a megabyte of RAM and a megapixel display.

The exercise simulated a one month long offensive phase. At the conclusion of the time limit, which would take seven days, umpires would render a final judgement, scoring based on the feasibility of unmet objectives. Players worked over sixteen hours per day, sleeping a few hours here and there, simulating the stress of real operational environments.

The outcome was a disappointment for the good guys. By the official judgement of the umpires, the Wehrmacht team was judged to have won a narrow tactical victory. Their forces maintained cohesion, and were able to thwart outright the INTREV team's scoring objective to facilitate the encirclement and probable destruction of at least one of the field armies, with the German divisions weighted fifty percent higher than an Italian, and twice that of a Romanian or Hungarian.

While some commentators have objected to the lack of a "no-retreat" order hindering the German players, in real-life Hitler's Führer directives were not so absolute in 1942, with many officers finding ways of creative compliance when the situation on the ground. And while INTREV was able to reach the Dnieper, by the close of the operation the Wehrmacht held three of the four scoring bridgeheads. Taken together with the losses incurred, the umpires ruled that the possibility of counterattack remained high.

Probably the more fascinating part of the Jupiter war games is the field exercises and second round of war games that followed. Even as the tactics and weapons get revolutionised, the last war still prefigures expectations of the next war. Jupiter-78, as it was called, was one of the largest peacetime exercises conducted by INTREV, and differed from the usual trend by largely involving reserve troops and officers. While cadrist formations were involved, about two-thirds of the Soviet units that took part (the largest national contingent) were from the Class B or C manpower categories. That is to say, divisions that in peacetime are kept at either ~50 percent or ~25 percent manpower strength respectively.

In this way, Jupiter-78 served as a stress test for the whole mobilisation system, from the calling up of reservists to their depots, processing them into units for refresher training, and the movement of forces to the theatre of operations.

So imagine, if you will, a bunch of reservists being called up from across the USSR, all being funnelled into the bustling cities of Ukraine for several months of service, meeting new comrades from all over the world. I've been told from first-hand accounts that the subject notwithstanding, the general atmosphere was a bit more like the Olympics, particularly with regard to the amount of fornication going on.

Jupiter-78 would refight a never fought campaign from the Second World War with modern weapons and a simulated nuclear battlefield. An enemy attempting to dig-in themselves in Eastern Ukraine, the "Circle Trigonist" aggressors from INTREV's long-running parallel narrative world, would be counterattacked by a coalition of Soviet, Chosunese and Zhonghuan forces. American and East German units would stand-in for the aggressors.

In the sources I have read on the subject, I am left with a single, burning question: did they try doing the accent? Inquiring minds must know. If you were there, or know someone who was, I desperately need to know how into character the aggressor units were. I know some blokes get offended by it, but please, Yanks never stop. That fake RP you do, it's great, especially when it comes from characters branded with the mark of going to state schools.

With that digression out of the way, the other difficulty in studying Jupiter-78 is how thoroughly serious accounts are obfuscated by search engine chaff. Since it's the first large-scale use of the MILES training system, which uses the same operating principles of Lasertag to improve the fidelity of training engagements, one has to wade through a sea of computer science and engineering related hits unless one has access to academic databases, and unfortunately most relevant journal articles are not available in digital form yet.

This was no barrier for me, old enough to know how to do things the old-fashioned way, but I have noticed a creeping wikiception on more publicly available discussions. It did not reveal, as many pop history commenters have insisted, serious problems in the communist military establishment. No, it is not the reason why they didn't go for the Last Crusade when the Falklands Incident kicked off. What's remarkable about Jupiter-78 is how unremarkable it was in terms of findings.

The military mobilisation system was functioning as intended. Reservists were able to integrate in with cadrists, even in the training environment. Professional and reserve echelons fought together well because ongoing reservist training was effective. As with all things, there was room for improvement. But even neutral military attachés observing or researching the subject found the field exercise was umpired with great scrutiny. Some units did better than others; the Zhonghuan 42nd Mechanised Division (which carries the legacy of the famed 2nd Division of the New Fourth Army) did notably well in taking its objectives quickly and with minimal casualties.

What is notable about it, I think, is how we talk about generals always re-fighting the last war. And here I don't think that's a bad thing. The Second World War went poorly enough for the Communists that they remain very aware of how badly things can go. Seriously fighting an operation where the enemy had occupied core French territory would be unthinkable for us. We all knew before the 80s, from the Prime Minister on down, that if the war went hot and West Germany was overrun, we would exercise the Samson Option and pull the temple down around us, and that'd be all she wrote for human civilization.

By contrast, they seem much more aware that mutually assured destruction can fail, that counterforce strategies that all the major powers have taken could push us into the nightmare scenario of a broken-back war, that the ladder of escalation has many rungs before we find the will to end it all. It took the crises of the Long 80s for us to realise we weren't quite ready to end the world just yet, even as we fought an undeclared war with each other across the entirety of the Global South.

vilani99 · Jul 28, 2023

A short little prose teaser/prologue for Part Two of the ANZAC piece Hawktana and I are working on.

Brothers No More

Wuhan; 8:49pm, 20 September, 1939

The air in the dining room was heavy with emotion. Fear, anticipation, desperation. Nerves.

The NRA's 5th Army had been annihilated by the Japanese, and now they and their warlord puppets were screaming up the Yangtze. The United Front had already evacuated Nanjing in July, and now they had to decamp from Wuhan. The War Council estimated they would enter the city's outskirts within 72 hours.

Jiang Jieshi had invited Kung Hsiang-hsi and his wife to dinner despite the ongoing evacuation efforts. "One last dinner in Wuhan," he had said. Many considered it the birthplace of the New China, and many - Jieshi and Hsiang-hsi included - found a great deal of nostalgia in the city. For all they knew it would be the last night any of them would spend in their governments first proper capital. Might as well make some time for family. At least that's what he had said.

Jieshi put his spoon down, and took a gulp of wine to steel himself.

"Hsiang-hsi, I know you have no love for Wang, or the Communists."

"Jieshi, you're being abnormally delicate" he chuckled. "I hate the bastards."

"Hmm." Jieshi smiled. Perhaps this might go better than planned. "As do I, and the social-imperialist sons of bitches they call our fucking allies. So I think it would be appropriate for me to extend you this courtesy, brother."

Hsieng-hsi stopped eating and looked at Jieshi, head tilted.

"I will not be following you or the government to Chongqing in the morning. I will be heading north."

Hsieng-hsi laughed in disbelief. "But you'd be walking straight into the jaws of -."

Jieshi held up a hand. "The Japanese, I know. I've- we've an agreement. I will take what and who I can from the Party and form a new government with Zhang and Liang in Beijing. I would appreciate it if you would accompany us"

Kung was quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice was cold and hard as iron. "You damned traitor. You'd sell out to the bastards that have kept us from true unification?! Do you really think all their talk of 'pan asianism' and 'asiofuturism' means anything?" He never raised his voice, but there was rage there. Nothing was more dangerous than that controlled anger. "'Concordism' is just another cover for the same imperialism that has plagued us for the last century! One. Hundred. Years. We've spent the last decade and change fighting the likes of Zhang and Liang, and-"

'YOUR MOTHERS CUNT, DO YOU EVER STOP" Jiang thundered. "I have made my fucking choice. Wang is the traitor. He has sold our nation back to the Russians and the fucking Americans. Americans! I know you're fond of their missionaries and their schools. I don't fucking care. I don't care that they have a shiny new fucking flag or that they say that they're helping us. When your eyes are being plucked out, you can't tell if it's an Eagle or a Raven doing the deed. I don't really fucking care either way." He sighed, then put his head in his hands. "Better the devil we know. I have made my choice, you can follow me, or follow that fucking snake Wang and the social fucking imperialists. That is your decision."

Kung stood from his chair. "I will do you this last courtesy as your brother: Wang and the rest of the Committee will not not hear of this. But I tell you this: you are dead to me. After tonight, you are no brother to anyone in China, least of all me." He and his wife turned to leave. He had never raised his voice.

Jiang dismissed his wife, and sat in his chair for a moment. Then came the storm. Shouting curses, he threw his wine glass at the wall, stood, and straightened his uniform. He was expected in Beijing in a few days. If he wanted his "disappearance" to go smoothly, he would have to leave Wuhan within the next few hours.

Time to get to work, then.

vilani99 · Aug 2, 2023

The ANZAC spirit, the Second Fleet and the birth of modern Australasia - Part 2
Excerpts from "Year 9 Modern History Textbook" by the Australasian Department of Education (actually written by @Hawkatana and @vilani99 )

Red May and the Fall of Washington lit a fire under London, Canberra, and Wellington. A country that could be relied on to either remain neutral or friendly in international affairs and one of, if not the most powerful economy in the world, had gone over to the Bolsheviks and become intractably hostile to Britain and its world spanning empire effectively overnight. While agreements with the Japanese bought time for the Commonwealth, the British Empire had to build up military capacity in the southwestern part of the Pacific, and fast. The first of these measures was inducing the Australian and New Zealand governments to pass the National Defence Acts of 1933. The Acts created provisions for the reintroduction of conscription, and expanded the area within which conscripts from both countries could be deployed from their home territories to an area spanning from Hong Kong to New Zealand's Southern Island and from the Pitcairn Islands to Sri Lanka. In Australia, this transformed the part-time Militia and the small Permanent Military Force into the Australian Army, a military force planned to form up to 12 divisions in wartime, and an additional four brigades to the peacetime, five-division Army. New Zealand's army also expanded its wartime size from three brigades to five. In addition, the new de facto Dominion of the Commonwealth of the Philippines also transformed the Philippine Constabulary and Philippine Scouts into a more proper military force, the Philippine Commonwealth Defense Force (PCDF). Through these measures, Britain made it clear that it expected its Dominions to contribute to the utmost to the defence of the Commonwealth.

However, it became apparent by early 1934 that this military buildup, in addition to increased deployment of Indian and British troops, became too much for the already overstretched GHQ India to handle. It became clear to many military and civilian officials that if a war in the Pacific suddenly broke out, GHQ India's overstretched command structure may, at best, fray under the stress, and at worst, collapse entirely. In response, the Imperial General Staff created a new Command out of GHQ India, GHQ Pacific. Under the Commander-in-Chief Pacific based in Singapore, GHQ Pacific had operational authority over all Commonwealth army and air force activity east of Burma. Australasian, New Zealander and Philippine land forces were also organised under the Australia-New Zealand-Philippine Army Command (ANZPAC), with its headquarters in Manila, and was to provide the bulk of the soldiers in the region. Answering to ANZPAC was the I and II Australasian Army Corps (resurrected from the battlefields of the First World War) containing units from Australia and New Zealand. A notable part of this new Australasian Army Corps were the Australasian Divisions, built out of units taken from both countries. Additionally, the Philippines contributed the III Philippine Corps. The Pacific Dominions all gave considerable contributions to ANZPAC on paper but they also kept a considerable amount of their military strength at home. For example, the new Australian Army kept the prominent "First Five" of World War I's Australian Imperial Force and two of the "Expansion Divisions" at home as the I and II Australian Corps, answering directly to the Australian General Staff. New Zealand only contributed a few scant brigades to ANZPAC, with the New Zealand Division only transferred in 1941, with the stipulation that it remain at home until a declaration of war. The vast majority of the PCDF also remained at home, where it became riddled with Concordist sympathisers and infiltrators. Additionally, both the Australian and New Zealand armies did not reach their full paper strength until January 1942, a full six months after both Dominions began conscription and mobilisation after GHQ Pacific announced a state of emergency due to Japanese units beginning to take up positions on the border with Hong Kong.

Of the millions of Chinese that migrated to Australasia over the five years from 1937 to the Commonwealth's entry into the Second World War, none were more influential than HH Kung, TV Soong, and Liren Sun.

HH Kung was born in 1881 to a prominent family of bankers in Shanxi Province, where he attended a Mission School. After seeking an education at North China Union College, and navigating the complicated and dangerous world of North China in the lead up to and wake of the Boxer Rebellions, in 1901 he moved to the United States to attend Oberlin University, facing travails resulting from American anti-Asian racism (chiefly the Chinese Exclusion Act) on his journey to Ohio. While he continued his education after graduating from Oberlin, eventually attaining a M.A. in Economics from Yale, it was at Oberlin that he made the acquaintance that would forever alter his personal and political trajectory: Sun Yat-Sen.

Kung was broadly supportive of the 1911 Revolution, and served in an anti-government militia during the anti-Manchu uprisings in Shanxi. As the new Republic sputtered off into military dictatorship and warlordism, Kung emigrated to Japan. It was there that he once again met Sun Yat-Sen after he had been exiled after the Kuomintang's failed revolution against Yuan Shikai. It was also there that he met and married his second wife, Soong Ai-ling. After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, the KMT returned from their exile, and Kung returned to his home in Shanxi, then left for the the United States, Britain, and France in 1918, cultivating both business and political connections. After his return in 1919, he split time between the family business of banking and his educational efforts, until 1922, when Sun Yat-Sen enlisted his help to rebuild the Kuomintang and save China from warlordism.

Over the next few years, Kung served as an intermediary between Sun and the various local leaders and warlords in the north. He eventually joined the KMT in Guangdong in 1924, and accompanied Sun north to Beijing. In 1925, he was witness to Sun Yat-Sen's brush with illness, his testament on 10 October, and his death on 24 November. While disquieted by his insistence on a United Front with the Communists, he fully supported the ascendancy of Wang Jingwei and Jiang Jieshi to the KMTs Duumvirate; they were after all his client and his brother-in-law.

Kung, while serving on many cabinet positions in the Wuhan Government (mostly in economics and development portfolios), soon fell in line with Jiang Jieshi's right-wing faction within the KMT, sharing his wariness of their erstwhile Soviet (and later American) allies. There was a shared fear that an overreliance on both the Soviet Union and America would result in a China that remains under domination by foreign powers in the guise of "Social-Imperialism". Kung, with the rest of the faction, remained in good graces with the rest of the party during Jiang's heyday up to the end of the Northern Expedition, but the campaign's stalling removed a good deal of their political capital. Eventually, Kung's insistence on continuing a program of "hedging bets" by maintaining crucial financial and military ties with the British Commonwealth and France led to a dramatic falling out with Wang and he was soon stripped of his ministerial portfolio in January 1938, his only remaining position being a seat on the KMT's Central Committee.

The next year, after the disastrous Battle of Shanghai and the rout from Nanjing to Wuhan to Chongqing, Jiang - Kung's last remaining ally - disappeared, only to reemerge weeks later at the head of Japan's client Reorganised Government as "Protector of the Chinese Nation."

Suddenly left adrift in the morass of Chinese politics, Kung faced a tough choice; face the Japanese with his hated political enemies, join the Social Imperialists tearing the country apart, or leave China. No stranger to exile, Kung opted for the latter, using his connections with British and French politicians and financiers to secure a place for himself and his capital in the diasporal Chinese communities rapidly forming in Britain's Pacific Dominions. When Kung landed at Sydney in January 1940, it was via the invitation of his protege and brother-in-law, TV Soong.

Born in Shanghai and educated at St Johns in Shanghai, Harvard, and Columbia University, TV Soong sat at the centre of KMT politics by ties of blood and marriage. By virtue of his sisters' marriages, he was brother-in-law to HH Kung, Sun Yat-Sen, and Jiang Jieshi, the three most powerful men in the "New China". Eventually joining the Wuhan Government, he worked for several posts in the nascent republic's economic infrastructure, typically under his brother-in-law HH Kung. Soong, alongside Kung, soon developed ties within British, French, and pre-revolutionary American finance, industry, and politics. These ties, along with his reaction to the Red May Revolution in America, lead to Soong's anti-communism, despite America joining the Soviet Union in backing the United Front between the KMT and CCP.

As the KMT's factionalism became intractable in the 1930s, he found himself aligned with neither his sister Soong Ching-ling's left-wing faction nor his brother-in-law Jiang Jieshi's right-wing faction. By attempting to remain aloft of the increasingly vicious internal party struggles, Soong soon found himself alienated from almost every major player within the KMT except for HH Kung, who, along with being his brother-in-law, had become something of a mentor. Soong's small centre faction soon saw itself being increasingly marginalised as the feuds between Jiang, Soong Ching-ling, and Wang Jingwei increasingly polarised Nanjing political circles, splitting the KMT into irreconcilable camps. Furthermore, the realities of the United Front with the Communist Party of China had led to the KMT aligning with Moscow and Deleon-Debs. Soong's deep anti-communism eventually led to a disastrous falling out with his increasingly communist-sympathetic sister, and the two had not been on speaking terms for almost a year when he finally left Nanjing for Hong Kong in 1935.

When the brushfire wars against the northern warlords began to escalate, Soong saw the writing on the wall, and took advantage of his connections with British and Australian financiers and moved to Hong Kong in 1935. After renewing his ties with his European associates, he decided to move to Sydney in 1937. From there, he began an energetic effort in organising the Chinese population in Australia, ingratiating himself (and them by proxy) with the Australian and New Zealand governments. He even expended the last of his political capital back in China to create an agency to route internal refugees from the conflicts in the north through Shanghai and to Australia and New Zealand. This would lead to a near tripling of the flow of immigrants when the war against Japan and the warlords escalated in 1939, creating an internal refugee crisis in China. All the while, he built a network of financial and political machinery centred around a core of businesses he had founded and bought in Sydney and Brisbane. Soong invested heavily in growing his businesses in Australia, and he was able to use the income from these investments to build a mid-sized banking empire. This, and his political ties, is what led to his appointment to senior positions in the Bank of England's Australia Office in Canberra[1] in 1941. Using his political and economic position, he, along with Kung after 1939, was able to start exercising a great deal of political influence within Australian politics. The greatest example of this was when he was able to secure Liren Sun's commission into the Australian Defence Force.

Liren Sun, "Australasia's Rommel," was born to an unremarkable family in an unremarkable village in Anhwei Province. He would rise to become one of the most remarkable officers in Australasian history, and one of the most remarkable military figures of Chinese birth.

In 1923, he moved to the United States to attend his senior year at Purdue University, and received a degree in Civil Engineering before enrolling at the Virginia Military Institute in 1924, graduating in 1927. After touring Europe and Japan as a military observer and attache, he returned to China and enlisted in the National Revolutionary Army. By 1930, he was made a colonel, a meteoric rise that spoke to Sun's military capability. However, he was in murkier waters politically. Sun was deeply mistrustful of the KMT-Left and their allies in the Communist Party of China, the Comintern and the Soviet Union. This initial mistrust soured into hatred when he learned of his beloved Virginia Military Academy being overrun by the Revolutionary Army during Red May - many of his friends amongst the faculty had declared for MacArthur and perished defending the school against Navy mutineers. This was further exacerbated when the new UASR began furnishing the KMT with aid in what he saw as an attempt to buy the Wuhan Government out from its people.

However, despite shared political sympathies, Sun despised Jiang even more than the leftists. The actual reason for this mutual dislike is largely unknown. Most historians believe that it is likely due to Sun's links to America and thus perceived "foreignness," as well as his meteoric rise, which Jiang might have perceived as a threat. Sun also likely resented Jiang's somewhat dictatorial control over Whampoa and what he saw as missteps in the curriculum. Sun was also staunchly opposed to the Japanese and their puppet warlords, despite their shared anti-communism. Whatever their reasons, there was not much love lost between the two, so Sun was shunted off to politically unimportant attache roles, and was not brought into Jiang's conspiracy against the Wuhan Government.

This was why Sun was abroad, working with ANZPAC in Manila when he learned of Wang Jingwei's ultimatum to the Japanese and the war's escalation into an all-consuming conflict that led to the fall of Shanghai, Nanjing, and Wuhan. As part of the last dregs of HH Kung's "hedging" program, the NRA had been continuing a pre-Red May exchange program with the Commonwealth. In this capacity, Sun had been seconded as an observer for the annual ANZPAC wargames in the jungles of Luzon. It was during these wargames when the young Colonel heard of his homeland falling into open war between what he considered to be two unacceptable governments. To Sun, both were backed by foreign powers with nothing like China's best interests at heart. The China that he knew and loved, it seemed, was already lost. That is, except for the diasporal lifeboat of refugees, supported by an exile splinter of the KMT that had lodged in Australasia and nurtured by TV Soong.

After extensive talks with ANZPAC HQ and a series of letters and telegrams between Singapore, Manila, Sydney, and Canberra, Sun came to a decision; he would leave the NRA behind - Jiang's and the Left's - and sign up with the Australian Defence Forces. The expanding military was in desperate need of field officers, and Sun was more than qualified. Sun accepted a commission as a brigadier in the Australian Defence Force in September of 1939, and moved to Sydney early the next year. This decision would take him to a brigade command in the 3rd Australasian Division "Meat Grinder," and as far afield as Malaya, Iran, the Levant, and eventually to Rome.

All three, by and large, represented the trend of the politically active Chinese who had emigrated to Australia and New Zealand in the 1930s: former KMT members or sympathisers who were firmly part of the party's anti-communist Right, while not having much love lost for either Japan's puppet warlords or Jiang Jieshi, politically or personally. This "centrist" segment of ex-KMT cadres would form the core of the grassroots support for what would be known as the "Kung-Soong Network".

The Network, which was started by TV Soong and was supercharged by HH Kung's political and monetary capital in 1939, would quickly make its imprint on the fabric of life across Australasia. Kung had made a name for himself in governing China, and quickly became a notable in Sydney, Canberra, and Wellington society and politics. Kung and Soong had initially discussed the possibility of creating a KMT-in-exile and a "Third Government" for the Republic of China in Australia but this was ultimately scrapped due to most of the potential membership in the Chinese community in Australia and New Zealand intending to remain as immigrants. The final nail in the proposal's coffin came in 1942 with the entry of the Commonwealth into the war against Japan. Being co-belligerents with the Wuhan Government made hosting, let alone recognizing, a pretender government politically infeasible for the Commonwealth.

Without that possibility, the Kung-Soong Network concentrated into building a powerful political lobbying organisation to represent the interests of the rapidly growing East Asian community in Australia and New Zealand. This political machinery was put into great use by furnishing Kung and Soong's political allies with donations and personnel. The Network would be brought to bear against racist local officials and business owners, communist agitators, anti-war activists, and anyone else Kung and Soong saw as enemies or even potential enemies. After arriving in Sydney in 1940, Brigadier Liren Sun would become the Network's man in the military, lending them credence when lobbying on military issues. The activities of dignitaries like Kung, Soong, and Sun would spread the influence of Tridemism [2] within the halls of Australian and New Zealander power, and it was the Kung-Soong Network that would form the core of the National Solidarity Party after the war and unification.

When the war came to the southwest Pacific in 1942, it was not this war that was expected. Rather than a war against Communist America, the enemy was Concordist Japan. In Insulindia and Mindanao, the Japanese exploited their agreements with the Dutch and the British to foster fifth columns, enabling a lightning campaign across the region when the war began. Manila fell within days of Japanese landings due to KALIBAPI uprisings. The Dutch were expelled from their holdings and were replaced by local collaborators in a single day in a breathtaking coup. However, the most fighting that the Japanese saw in those first few months was not in these campaigns but in Malaya and in Indochina, with Malaya considered to be the most strategically important. Yasuhito knew that taking or isolating Singapore and thus securing the Straits of Malacca would effectively shut the Entente out of the theatre, giving the Japanese a free hand to consolidate their new holdings and press the advantage. The task of making this a reality was given to Yamashita Tomoyuki and the 25th Army.

After landing at ports on the Thai side of the border, and establishing beachheads at Alor Setar and Kota Bharu, the 25th Army began its march down the Malayan Peninsula and towards Singapore. Facing them was the 11th Indian Division, the 51st British Infantry Brigade, and three divisions of the I Australasian Army Corps. While the Commonwealth Forces were, on paper, numerically superior, they had a few disadvantages. While the troops stationed in Malaya had trained for jungle fighting, their training had been a rough coverage of the basics. The Japanese had been extensively drilled on Formosa since 1941, creating probably the best jungle fighters on Earth. Additionally, the three divisions of the 25th Army had been in China until they began their jungle training, creating a core of hardened veterans compared to the relatively green Commonwealth troops. This, combined with the use of bicycles to increase march speeds, allowed for the Japanese to punch well above their weight in the Malayan Campaign. Finally, Pacific GHQ found itself far from the top of the Imperial General Staff's priority list after 1940, as the Imperial General Staff began to prepare to fight a war in Europe. As such, the local air forces were considerably depleted and out of date, and while the Japanese only had enough tanks in Malaya to form a single brigade, the Commonwealth had none. This resulted in the Japanese attaining air superiority within the first two weeks of the campaign. Within a month, the bulk of I AAC had been isolated in Malacca as the Japanese corralled the rest of the Commonwealth forces into Singapore and began to set up siege works. While two of I AAC's divisions managed to evacuate back to Australia and be replaced by fresh Indian troops - thanks to a bloody but successful days-long rearguard action on the part of the 3rd Australasian Division. Outside of Malacca, the Commonwealth forces in Malaya were dead, captured, or isolated in Singapore. Only the destruction of the bridges and some ingenious fortification of the city prevented it from falling. The most notable of this was the concreting of the battlecruiser HMS Repulse into HMNB Singapore's dry dock - where she remains to this day - to act as an impromptu bunker and shore battery. Despite years of brutal siege, Singapore remained steadfast throughout the war.

The military disasters that befell the Commonwealth in 1942 made the existing theatre command system untenable. Singapore, and GHQ Pacific, was cut off from in-theatre Commonwealth forces by IJA siegeworks and an IJN blockade. The Philippines and most of the rest of the new Entente's Pacific holdings were now in the hands of Concordist Japan and its client regimes. ANZPAC had been effectively made ineffective within a few months of fighting. As such, a total reorganisation of the command structure was undertaken by the New Zealand and Australian governments, with London's approval. Australian, New Zealand, and the few remaining Indian, British, and Philippine army units in the theatre would be placed under Australia-New Zealand Army Command, with General Sir Thomas Blamey as CinC. Taking its name from the old colloquial term for the Australasian Army Corps of the last war, ANZAC would be a joint command with responsibility shared between the two sister Dominion governments and the Philippine Government-in-Exile. While naval operations remained in the hands of the Entente Admiralty, all Commonwealth land forces in the Southwest Pacific would fall under ANZAC's operational purview. Along with the Australasian General Staff Committee and the Joint War Production Committee, it would be among the first true shared organisations between the two nations, and would form the genesis of the modern Australasian Defence Forces. Most notably, and unlike Pacific GHQ, ANZAC was, by and large, led and staffed by Australians and New Zealanders. While British officers held positions in ANZAC's staff (and the Entente representative to the AGSC was its Chairman), it was clear that London was placing the war in the southwest Pacific in the hands of its farthest flung Dominions.

The tenacity, skill, and zeal of ANZAC, and the soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces, during both the First and Second World Wars, has been colloquially referred to as the "Anzac Spirit." Both Australia and New Zealand would quietly take pride in this to this day, and it serves as the bedrock of Australasian national identity. Even to this day, the men and women of the Australasian Defense Forces are unofficially known as "the Anzacs".

On the homefront, the declaration of war was neither unwelcome nor unexpected. Australia and New Zealand were quick to begin full-scale mobilisation efforts; with factories in Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland, as well as new factories in Newcastle, Geelong, and other countless new hives of industry burning bright with the smelting and assembly of weapons, tanks and other equipment, and their armies received many new volunteers at recruitment offices. On the other hand, the declaration of the Franco-British Union on the 1st of March brought a question to the forefront of the minds of people and politicians alike on both sides of the Tasman: what should the pace of unification be? The 1938 Treaty of Wellington had already made Australasian unification an inevitability, but it had been four years since its ratification, with the pace of integration becoming excruciatingly slow. The realities of the Commonwealth entering a second global war in thirty years likely meant that the timeline for unification would slow down even further. Further discussions of the topic, however, would be quietly shelved for the foreseeable future so the war effort could be focused on.

While opinion in Canberra and Wellington was mixed - many wanted to contribute to as many fronts as possible to show their countries' dedication to the new Entente and the Commonwealth - the leadership of both Dominions and the Entente Chiefs of Staff Committee saw the Empire of Japan and its new client states as the greater threat and best use for the troops at ANZAC's disposal. The exception was a single token division: the 3rd Australasian Division "Meatgrinder '' - having earned a divisional sobriquet in Malaya - left Australia for West Asia and the fighting in the Levant in October 1942. With them was Brigadier Liren Sun and his 2nd Brigade, consisting mostly of Chinese and Daehanese immigrant volunteers from the cities of Australia, eager to show their loyalty to their new homes. They would not return for nearly three years, when the war had taken them all the way to Rome.

While the Pacific Dominions spent the first year of the war on the defensive, they would begin counter-offensives in early 1943. They would begin pushing into the Co-Prosperity Sphere at New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and eventually throughout insular Southeast Asia, with help from Royal Navy ships from across the Commonwealth and American Red Navy submariners. The Pacific War had begun, and it would not end until either the Co-Prosperity Sphere or the United Nations saw the other broken and defeated.

[1] With the monetary policy of the Dominions remaining with London after TTL's Balmoral Declaration, it follows that the Bank of England would maintain local offices in the Dominions to coordinate policy.

[2] Referring to the ideology based on Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People.

Miss Teri · Aug 18, 2023

"Certainly it seems now that nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible. And as certainly they did not see it. They did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands."

The World Set Free, HG Wells, 1913

Excerpt from "The PBS 5 O'Clock Newshour, June 20th, 1986", aired on PBS-5, June 20th, 1986.

RONALD REAGAN (host): Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the atomic bomb in the Korean Straits, which not only helped bring an end to the World Revolutionary War, but with the Moruroa test only two months before, the beginning of the Cold War. The anniversary comes as a growing global movement is protesting the increasing number of nuclear weapons that the superpowers have amassed, the recent nuclear attacks undertaken by them, and the resulting environmental and humanitarian disasters. However, in the Dinétah Federation1, this Atomic Age anniversary is bittersweet for some. From KOB in Albuquerque, Dilyéhé Martinez has more.

(CUT TO: the sculpting workshop of PAUL GONZALEZ in the Dinétah Federation. 69 year old, bald, thin Navajo man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, chiseling a horse statue.)

DILYÉHÉ MARTINEZ: Paul Gonzalez is a sculptor.

(Paul shows off a clay hand)

PAUL GONZALEZ: This is my hand, I just modeled it on my hand. (laughs)

(Paul walks around the workshop, with other sculptors working in the background)

DM: He is a popular local artist. In fact, he had served 15 years as a delegate in the Congress of Soviets for the Apache and Navajo Artists Federation and as a councilman on the Sculptor's Soviet.

(Paul sits in front of a sculpture of a sheep)

PG: I'm not really someone hit with some divine power of art. I'm just a guy who likes to work with his hands. And with some clay. I just found I was good at it and kept doing it.

DM: Which he has kept doing since 1953. However, Paul is worried that he may not have much more time with his hands.

(Paul visits a doctors office, before a cut back to Paul sitting)

PG: 'Bout three years ago, I received a diagnosis of lung cancer.

(Back to Paul sitting while the doctor talks to him)

PG (VO): It's been hard. I can't (coughs) do a lot of things now. I get tired often. I don't even spend time in the workshop anymore. Hell, at home, I can't even get down the stairs without coughing.

(CUT TO: Paul's home, where he sits on a couch, watching TV.)

DM: Paul's case is not unusual in the Dinétah.

(CUT TO: Chart showing the cancer rates for several Republics. The Dinétah is highest)

DM: In fact, cancer rates in the Dinétah are 20% higher than the rest of the country.

(Paul pulls out a photo album from his shelf and begins looking through it.)

DM: For Paul, he can pinpoint when exactly his life was endangered.

(Paul pulls out a black and white photo, showing him, with long wavy hair. at age 26, smiling with a canyon in the background. A date at the bottom says "18.5.43")

PG: This is me, back when I was a uranium miner for the Daisy Bell Project.

(Close-up of the photo around Paul's face)

DM: During the World Revolutionary War, Paul was one of many young Navajo, Apache, and Hopi, who, in lieu of serving overseas, instead signed up with a government program that was advertised as providing "an indispensable service for the war effort". That being to extract the uranium that was plentiful in the region.

(CUT TO: Archive footage of the Southwest, flowing grass with a backdrop of great rock structures)

DM: While the Union government had gotten some uranium from the USSR and had purchased some more from the Belgian Congo for Project Daisy Bell, it was not enough to get the new project off the ground. However, then came a great discovery. Kele Johnson is a professor of history at Santa Fe State University.

(Historian KELE JOHNSON sits at her desk, a few Kachina dolls in the background)

KELE JOHNSON (Historian, Santa Fe State University): The Union government found uranium deposits in and around the Great Apache Federation, as it was known then. This would be enough to get the project really going. So, the Union government made a deal with the local Soviets of all three tribes in the Federation2 to open mines and "co-manage" them.

DM: And subsequently, a call was made out for miners. With many young men and women out fighting in the war, most recruits were either conscientious objectors funneled into the program via the "Alternative Service" program or those who were rejected by the draft. People like Paul.

(Cut back to Paul sitting)

PG: I had some breathing problems that prevented me from being drafted, but when I left the office, there was someone there recruiting for the mines to those rejected to "serve the workers." So, I took the chance.

(Archive footage of Indigenous miners working in the Southwest mines. Inside the mineshafts and outside carrying it back)

DM: The local miners unions were partially involved, but to avoid any strikes during wartime, they were kept in the dark about the purpose of the project- and some of the effects of it.

KJ: They had classified any knowledge of the health effects of uranium, and kept most local officials out of the loop. They told the workers it was like lead, and issued protective equipment that proved wholly inadequate, particularly due to the radioactive nature of uranium. They were exposed to dangerous materials without much prior warnings.

DM: While the contract did briefly invoke the idea of "health risks", the specifics were kept out, and many didn't read the entire contract.

KJ: Many miners went in without knowing the risks. They were exposed to this dangerous element without being warned or much protection. Miners were told that this ore would be used for armor inserts on heavy tanks, a disinformation campaign that was only half-way taken seriously by the Axis.

DM: And this didn't just affect the miners or during their work. After the war ended, some mines were closed without being properly monitored and cleansed. Further mines closed following the Congo Wars and more open trade with the newly-communist Congo.

(Archive footage of doctors examining patients)

DM: In the 60's, studies were conducted by the Labor Health Secretariat in Dinétah to determine the cause of higher cancer rates and the mysterious sickness for local sheep.

KJ: And what they found was that the radioactive waste had just been dumped into local rivers, and people had been using material from the mines in building new housing.

DM: While there were clean-ups and reforms to address these concerns, they were mostly localized. Still, the studies and their results would spark a larger movement.

(Photo of various Indigenous students c. late 1960's, holding a banner "Reparations Now!")

DM: In 1968, a group of Native students from Arizona, New Mexico, and Dinétah formed the "Union for Reparations for the Uranium Miners in the Southwest". Kele Johnson was one of those students.

KJ: We felt that we were owed an apology, and some reparations for our exposure to this kind of health risk, and we wanted more responsibility from the government in how they handled this.

DM: The movement would gain slow traction through the early 1970's. Then, in 1978, deputies from the newly formed Social Ecology Union would create a Congressional sub-committee to investigate the uranium mining and the lack of transparency in the government. The resulting report would bring attention to the issue. James Carter, a former nuclear engineer himself, was one of the deputies involved in the sub-committee.

(CUT TO: JAMES E. CARTER, Deputy, at his desk in the Congress of Soviets.)

JAMES CARTER (Deputy, Peanut Farmers Union/Georgia Delegate (Labor, 1972-)): What we found was that there was a plausible cause for reparations and a formal apology by the union for the treatment of these workers. Documents, hidden well beyond the statutory limits, revealed that the Defense Secretariat not only knew of the health risks from radioactivity, had worked with native leaders to conceal this through extraordinary appropriations.

OFF CAMERA: Extraordinary appropriations?

JC: There is substantial documentary proof of financial and in-kind developmental programs, at the behest of Dinétah leaders, as quid pro quo for concealing the awareness of the public health crisis in the Federation.

(Montage of meetings, protests, and votes centering on the issue)

DM: Since the release of the report, the movement has received wider attention, and has become a key cause of the Social Ecology Union. Philip Morrison, former Daisy Bell scientist and later the first General Secretary of the SEU, currently a deputy representing the physicists at the University of America, Cornell.

(PHILIP MORRISON in the rotunda of the Congress of Soviets)

PHILIP MORRISON (Deputy, Physics Union, University of America, Cornell (Social Ecology Union, 1980-)): To address the larger issue of nuclear disarmament, there is serious concern about the health effects that uranium mining has, and the case of the Navajo miners is probably the biggest, and the one that requires attention.

DM: Morrison has been part of efforts to get reparations and a formal apology from the government for their treatment. However, such efforts were stymied under the previous Liberation and Labor administrations, including the most recent Liberation government and its supporters. Jesse Helms, Deputy Chief Whip for the Congress of Soviets, expresses his concerns.

(JESSE HELMS at the Rotunda)

JESSE HELMS (Deputy Chief Whip of the Congress of Soviets, (Liberation, 1980-)): I don't see the particular need for reparations for these miners, anymore than what veterans receive. They have healthcare, they have support. There's no real need for such reparations. I don't think an apology is needed, either. I will say that there should be an acknowledgment of their contributions to the war effort. It should be a point of pride for them.

(Cut back to Paul at his studio)

DM: For his part, Paul Gonzalez actually agrees with Helms' last point.

PG: I may be sick now because of it, but I'm proud of what I did in the fight against fascism. My small contribution to ending the scourge. But, I feel an apology and reparations is the best way to acknowledge that. To show that I fought for the right cause, for people who can understand and learn from their mistakes. My hope is that this never happens again, anywhere. And I feel more than ever that goal is achievable.

DM: Dilyéhé Martinez, KOB, Albuquerque.

(Back to RONALD REAGAN at his desk, shuffling papers.)

RR: A declassification council and Congressional subcommittee are both currently in the process of compiling reports to show the full extent of uranium contamination, which is expected in the next month. The Hampton government has declined comment on the matter.

-------------------------------

Excerpts from The Race for the Atom: Daisy Bell, Tube Alloys, and the Coming of the Atomic Age by Gregory Benford, 2001

Project Daisy Bell went from a relatively minor research project to the highest importance to the war effort over the course of the spring of 1942. With the Axis yoke extending across the entirety of continental Europe, the Battle of the Atlantic seriously imperiled by surface and u-boat convoy raiding, and the opening of the Pacific War against Imperial Japan closing the Vladivostok convoy route, the whole of the war effort against fascism was seriously imperiled.

With renewed German offensives, and now being unable to support existing forces adequately in Eurasia, the danger of a Soviet capitulation loomed heavily over the meetings of the Revolutionary Military Council. Faced with the prospect of continuing the war effort alone, the Red Army needed a trump card. The hushed whisperings of an atomic bomb from the Daisy Bell researchers promised something too good to be true: a true superweapon, capable of not only winning the war unto itself, but perhaps all war itself.

The starting gun had already been fired in the race for the bomb. The German and Japanese programs had been moving in fits and starts, and work was beginning in Britain and Australasia on the secretive "Tube Alloys" project as well. On 12 May 1942, a select delegation of physicists connected with Daisy Bell briefed a secret closed session of the RevMil Council's presidium. Two facts were emphasized: an atomic bomb was feasible, and the enemy had a head start.

Chairman Browder seemed receptive, but wanted more than just vague estimates. Reed, though nominally the vice-chair, was more directly involved in the operations of the war effort, and proved more sanguine. It was enough that the Nazis devoted resources to studying chain fission reactions, even while deriding the underlying quantum science as Judenphysik. "Hitler called it Jewish physics, communist physics. Well, I for one would like to prove him right."

[...]

Project Daisy Bell soon be rehomed under the Joint Army/Navy Corps of Engineers, and given the nominative camouflage of "Substitute Materials Project". Commodore Chaim Rykower3, a respected naval engineer and early proponent of the development of nuclear power, was placed in command of the project, with the Army's Colonel Leslie Groves as his deputy commander.

The immediate task of the project was construction. Immense facilities for the processing and refinement of radioisotopes into weapons-grade materiel was fully uncharted territory, and in this respect the close cooperation of scientist recruits was actively sought by Rykower. To streamline this process and the chain of command, scientists directly working on the project were commissioned into the reserves of the Army or Navy, and rated as restricted line officers in accordance with their station in the project.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose brief military service in the revolution was wholly uninspired and was regarded by fellow California Workers' Party cadrists as something of a dilettante, would helm the development of the device itself as a lieutenant colonel. While something of a surprise choice and initially disfavored by Rykower despite Groves' lobbying, Oppenheimer's commanding respect as the man who brought quantum mechanics to America, as well as his multidisciplinary (or unfocused, as his critics would say) genius proved vital into helming the complicated process of turning theory into a practical weapon.

[...]

The acquisition of the raw materials for the atomic bomb would bring strange bedfellows together. Early geologic surveys had identified uranium ore deposits in the southwest, concentrated in the territory in and around the then Greater Apachean Autonomous Socialist Republic.

Enter Sam Akheah, then chairman of the Navajo Tribal Republic4 and deputy premier of the Apachean Federation. Akheah would serve as the main representative in secret conferences about the project, and baffled the military by initially giving a flat refusal to mining development programs for the project.

Before war powers could be invoked, Akheah offered a counterproposal. Having met with Oppenheimer, Akheah took the physicist's words to heart that they were not building merely a new weapon, but one that would remake the world itself. Akheah's proposal was simple: the Navajo Nation and the Apache Federation as a whole would share in that new world. The autonomous republic had been formed on a compromised basis, with significant portions of their populations residing outside its borders. Akheah wished to press maximum territorial claims, transferring lands from the bordering republics.

Furthermore, the development of this new technology would last far beyond the first bomb and the present war. The natives of the republic would not merely dig the uranium. Their children would be sent to modern schools and universities built in their territory, and they would learn the science that their fathers dug for. This would be a generations-long commitment, and in exchange, they would lend their lands to the development of this terrible new weapon.

[...]

Following the formation of the Franco-British Union, the burgeoning "Tube Alloys" program (which had largely been a preemptive low priority measure by the British military, which hadn't gotten much support) was reorganized into a joint British-French atomic weapons program, with much more funding and more resources. The program was bolstered by the inclusion of numerous Continental exile scientists, notably Otto Robert Frisch, Niels Bohr, and Edward Teller.

Leading Tube Alloys would be a committee, with William Penney (representing the British) and Francis Perrin (representing the French) serving as joint secretaries. Research for the project would be carried out at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge (where committee member James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932, setting the chain of events that led to the two separate programs).

[...]

There were discussions to make a joint American-Franco-British program in the spirit of wartime cooperation (especially advocated by Rudolph Peierls, who had been involved with the preliminary work of Tube Alloys before his recruitment by the Americans), but security concerns ultimately disallowed any direct collaboration. Both sides entered into negotiations in bad faith, carefully concealing the extent of their programs. Instead, diplomats couched research cooperation in terms of threat assessment of the known German and Japanese nuclear programs: whether the weapons were considered feasible, materials and industrial installations needed for its construction, and means by which to attack their programs.

However, Tube Alloys would get another partner in addition to Britain and France: With the concerns raised by the possibility of a Luftwaffe attack and with much of the scientific power of the FBU focused on more immediate ventures like radar, and despite continuing security concerns, it was decided that the Cavendish heavy water group was to be moved across the Atlantic to Canada.

In September of 1942, the Entente High Commissioner to Canada, Malcolm McDonald, met with Canadian Prime Minister RB Bennett and Minister of Munitions and Supply CD Howe to discuss the program. Extremely impressed with the possibility of atomic energy, and wanting to build closer ties with the newly formed Franco-British Union, Bennett and Howe agreed to direct the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC) to form a new laboratory at McGill University in Montreal to continue the work of the Cavendish group as well as access to uranium from the Eldorado mine in the Northwest Territories (which had also supplied some of the uranium for the American program).

By the end of 1942, Tube Alloys was effectively a Franco-British-Canadian program. George Laurence, the main radium and X-ray scientist for the NRCC, was appointed as a third secretary representing the Canadian contributions to the program.

[...]

American intelligence had already known that Britain had a nuclear weapons program since 1938, since both Leo Szilard and Rudolph Peierls, who had urged the British government to build the weapon, immigrated to the United Republics when they failed to convince them to make it a high priority. However, close monitoring of Tube Alloys wasn't initiated until Daisy Bell became a high priority.

Public Safety Secretary J. Edgar Hoover, while shut out of the inner workings of the program, knew the proposed power of the bomb, and was paranoid about the potential for the capitalists to catch up. He also sought to "check" the work of the physicists by comparing it with their counterparts and "correcting" it.

When Kim Philby (a GUGB mole within MI6) informed Hoover that the program was moving to Montreal, Hoover saw an opportunity with some high level GRU spies already in the program. Most notable amongst them were Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who worked in the reactor division. The daughter and son-in-law of famed scientists and Nobel Prize winners Marie and Pierre Curie, they themselves won the Nobel Prize in Physics together in 1935, much like Marie and Pierre themselves had in 1903.

The two had become increasingly sympathetic to anti-fascism, and for Frédéric, this would eventually lead him to join the French Communist Party in 1941. Subsequently, following the formation of the FBU, they were both approached to join Tube Alloys. While declining at first because of their staunch pacifism, OMS agents within the Party convinced Frédéric to join the program to help "the Americans and Soviets break a potential nuclear monopoly", by supplying information to the American program. Frédéric convinced an extremely reluctant Irène to follow along.

Once the two were in Canada, they were transferred from the GRU to the American MRD. Frédéric would copy schematics of enrichment technology (particularly the gas centrifuge) and even some preliminary designs for the explosive lens of the plutonium implosion design. These materials would then be delivered via dead drop and courier to Edward Cecil-Smith, a former Canadian member of the International Brigades turned mole within the Canadian Army, who would convey the plans to Harry Gold, a scientific attaché at the American consulate in Toronto, using official intelligence exchanges as cover. Gold, in his capacity as one of Hoover's Section 1 legals5, would transmit them via CANT cipher machine to agents in Buffalo, who would send them to DeLeon-Debs.

[...]

Ironically, Rykower and Oppenheimer declined to use most of the materials procured by atomic spies. Partially because both mistrusted Hoover as a bureaucrat attempting to exert his own influence over the program, but mostly because they were already moving along at a decent pace without very much need for revisions.

[...]

While having been convinced to start a nuclear weapons program thanks to [Georgy] Flyorov's letter, it was considered a low priority by Stalin until he was informed by John Reed of an American program shortly before the Battle of Moscow. Stalin had made the program a higher priority shortly before his death.

Molotov decided to send the nuclear scientists (along with other technicians and important scientists) to America to keep them and their knowledge from the frontlines. The so-called "Vavilov Mission" (named for geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, who was sent to help relocate his seed bank from Leningrad to Alaska) landed in Juneau in early 1942, bringing a number of Soviet scientists and technicians. Among them were the leaders of the Soviet nuclear program, led by Flyorov and Igor Kurchatov. In July of 1942, an agreement was struck to effectively merge the Soviet nuclear program into Project Daisy Bell, with the remainder of Soviet nuclear scientists still in the country being reassigned to Los Alamos.

Soon, Los Alamos would grow from an obscure ranch region into a small town of sorts with accommodations, like houses, restaurants, cafeterias, movie theaters, and parks for the scientists living there. However, there were also strict rules, including authorizations to enter or leave and censorship of outgoing letters, phone calls and telegrams.

Andrei Sakharov (who came to Los Alamos in 1948) recalled:

"We were closely monitored. Any letters were checked, any phone calls were bugged. We couldn't talk about the project except to other scientists. Worst yet, there was nothing for miles. It was… isolating."

Los Alamos would later provide the template for the larger, mostly closed American-Soviet Naukograds, or science cities that would emerge in the post-war period, including Akademgorodok, Siberia; Cañon City, Colorado; Epcot, Florida; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

[....]

Former Daisy Bell scientist and later two time Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman6 would recount a peculiar incident when I spoke to him at a conference in 1981, confirming another story I had heard from author Morris Hilquit Rubenstein in the mid-1970's:

The May, 1943 issue of Speculative Worlds featured the story "Destruction Imminent" by Morrie Rubenstein, then a writer living in New York after getting rejected for the draft. The story centered on the distant future, where a world socialist government was battling against a sinister alien empire that emphasized "destruction, death, and conformity". To scare them into submission, a secret government project is undertaken to build a "superweapon as powerful as a thousand suns". The weapon uses the splitting of an atom to create a chain reaction resulting in a massive burst of energy. However, the story ends with so many bombs being used, the universe itself is destroyed by them.

Morrie had mostly relied on publicly available, pre-war material to craft the story, but the accuracy with which he noted the production of the weapon and the parallels between it and the ongoing effort caused discussions at the Los Alamos lunch tables, and more urgently, an investigation.

Public Safety agents detained Morrie for several days, while interviewing associates like Robert Heinlein and SpecWorld's temporary editor Don Woldheim. After ascertaining that he had gotten the information from public sources, they released Morrie, and got assurances from Woldheim that no stories involving nuclear technology would be published for the remainder of the war.

Woldheim suspected that a big scientific project had been underway in New Mexico, given there was a sudden rise in subscription changes to that particular state and location.

Feynman related the story with a laugh. Morrie blamed it for his later troubles.
---------------------
1 Formerly known as the Greater Apache Federation, renamed after the demonym of the Navajo people.
2 The Hopi, Navajo, and Apache tribes
3 Known OTL as Hyman Rickover
4 A constituent republic of the GAF, alongside the Apache and Hopi republics, constituted on the principle of national personal autonomy.
5 A "legal" is an intelligence officer who operates under an official diplomatic cover, as opposed to "illegals" such as double-agents and moles, whose true allegiance is concealed and who have no legal protections.
6 The 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in Quantum Electrodynamics, as OTL, and the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with Andrei Sakharov for nuclear disarmament

WaltzinBrunhilda · Sep 25, 2023

/net/global/http:co.na/uchronia/forum/high-modernity-1848-to-1946/world-war-2/

Thread: "WI: Franco leads the Spanish Falange"

(OP) OswaldMosley: I've been getting into the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Four Siblings", and I learned recently it was based on the 1963 film "Raza", which was written by a former Falangist general named Francisco Franco (a remake of his 1942 propaganda film).

I dug into Franco's background. He was considered a top general of Falangist leader Sanjurjo, and a brilliant commander, but largely saw himself apolitical. Post-war, he went into writing, both his memoirs describing Sanjurjo's and eventually many novels that would be adapted by him into Spanish and Italian films. He traveled and was a key advisor to the formation of the European Continental Federation.

So, if Sanjurjo had died and Franco took over, what might've happened? Might Spain have joined the Allies?

SkaelingQueen: Alright, judging by your reverent, awestruck tone and having to explain all these historical personage in a forum which has a separate section for World War II, I'm going to assume you're new, so here's a brief rundown:

The "Franco Myth" is exactly that. He was never "apolitical" nor a particularly good strategist. He was an early supporter of the coup and an extremely staunch anti-communist. He was only moderate in the sense that he opposed invading the Free Soviet Republic and getting involved in the war. He stood back and let Mola take over during Dia de Reyes, was very aware of atrocities committed against Catalan and Basque people, and he only got away with his involvement due to a deal with the British to help rebuild Spain. The only reason he's seen as a "moderate badass dude" was his writings, which greatly exaggerated his own reputation and whitewashed himself as a patriot who didn't follow Sanjurjo's extreme politics and only sought participation in the coup to push back on "radical communism" (again showing he was never "apolitical").

All that said, it is an interesting question. Franco probably wouldn't have participated in the war, or at least waited until the French State/Axis could win and provide proper support for a joint invasion of the SFSR. Even then, he wouldn't have supported the Axis the way Sanjurjo did.

OswaldMosley: What exactly do you mean by that?

SkaelingQueen: A more opportunistic and/or cautious approach towards the Free Soviet Republic would probably mean a Franco-run Spain would likely remain a pro-Axis neutral power rather than signing onto the Stahlpakt. Other than that I can't really see much changing in how the Spanish State is governed. Maybe he's able to angle into the proto-AFS the way Salazar did, but that would need him to not end up at war with the UN, which would further require him not invading the FSR.

SolomaniCommissar: Half of Spain staying red longer and giving the ComIntern a foothold in the Mediterranean when the western front opens up totally alters the course of the war and the postwar. Lots to chew on, there.

RitterStahl: It's a small thing, but there's probably a big shift in the IVAs culture compared to OTL. The participation of the 1st Brigade in the defense of Bilbao and the evacuation to Tenerife are both major parts of the IVAs culture and "legend", so preventing or delaying the fall of the Republic probably hugely changes things there. Fort Zalka[1] or its equivalent probably isn't in the Canaries, and almost certainly has a different name. Hell, the Canaries might not even end up an AUR.

VientosDelPueblo: One thing that is often forgotten about Sanjurjo is that he actually wasn't that radical or even that much of a Falangist. That's another part of the Franco Myth and a particularly common one amongst pop-history. The guy himself was basically an average Alfonsite. The main radicals in the government were people like Mola and Serrano Suñer who ironically was Franco's brother in law.

Furthermore after Sanjurjo's stroke in '41, he became a puppet figure for those same radicals. Though ironically de Rivera actually called for peace with the Republic before his assassination, in fact he supported the PSOE and Falange merging. So for all their claims about saving the legacy of de Rivera they ignored what he actually wanted.

Addressing the scenario if Sanjurjo had died and somehow Franco took over he most likely would have joined the war anyway. His brother-in-law was a major figure pushing to side with Italy. All that would have resulted in another guilty sentence at the end of the war.

And good bloody riddance too.

PankartaGorria: If you have the same brain disease I do, the whole Christmas Struggle after Sanjuros stroke is actually really interesting. Every single faction that aligned with the coup, from the Carlists to the Falange to what was left of the Alfonsites all backstabbing and engaging in a political quadrille. Three goddamn months of snakepit politics leading up to the Falange and Mola winning out in January '42. That's what sealed the fate of the Free Soviet Republic, IMHO.

SolomaniCommissar: Can't help but wonder what postwar Spain and the ECF looks like without Franco in the wings. Probably wouldn't be all that different considering all the structural forces going into the ECF, not to mention the 600 pound gorilla of Mosley.

On the notes of Catalonia and the Basque country, would a change in leadership even change things? From what I've read the Scouring was mostly regional commanders acting on their own initiative, with Sanjuro et al signing off on it after-the-fact. I seriously doubt Franco or any of the other "moderates" in the Spanish State's government would reign them in any more than OTL.

VientosDelPueblo: Unless you somehow manage to kill Mola before even the Civil War, the Scouring is still going to happen. Paul Preston's book The Spanish Holocaust pretty explicitly details how the Scouring came about from Mola's terror during the Civil War, and his work in the Basque Country during the War itself was the main baseline for what happened in the FSR. So unless you kill Mola no matter who leads Spain there's going to be the Scouring.

NetherwalkingAssassin: Well, there wasn't exactly a dearth of such people in the Falange. I mean, even if Mola is somehow removed from the scenes, there's Queipo de Llano and his ilk, who would probably carry a far more deadly and brutal version of the Scouring.

PankartaGorria: Bastards. Thank god for the Canarias, they were legitimately a lifeboat for Basque and Catalan language and culture until the Restoration Program started in the 50s. For all of modern Spain's faults the government has really been consistent in wanting to turn over a new leaf and make things right about that.

[1] The IVA's primary training camp and base-of-operations. Basically Red Mother Base.

Zolarian01 · Sep 26, 2023

Excerpts from Giulio Marinetti*, Aquila Reborn: Italy in the Second World War (Rome, 2011)

A 2011 history book by Giulio Marinetti, Aquila Reborn is an analytical account of the history of Italy during WW2, with somewhat detailed descriptions of the economic, social, political and military aspects of the Kingdom of Italy from the interwar period to the surrender of the Italian Social Republic to the United Nations. Due to the mostly unbiased nature of the work, it is read widely across both the Communist International and the Alliance of Free States.

High Ambitions

The Kingdom of Italy had deeply desired to be a great power after its formation. But due to the unfortunately late unification of Italy, this was not to be, with Eritrea and Somaliland being the only gains from the Scramble for Africa. Attempts to expand on this by invading Ethiopia had proved to be a colossal humiliation, with the armies of Menelik II inflicting a crushing defeat on the Regio Esercito at Adwa. At the end of the 19th century, they would gain the city of Tianjin as a concession from the Qing after participating in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, but it was hardly a consolation prize considering how the Chinese had rejected prior demands by Italy to cede Sanmen Bay.

……..

Italy's victory against the Ottoman Empire in 1912 had put the country in a difficult position. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary were displeased, due to both of them viewing the Ottomans as a potential ally. France still viewed Italy negatively, and the United Kingdom's patience with them was running out. The occupation of the Dodecanese Islands did little to improve the situation.

When war broke out, Italy dithered for a while, eventually deciding to negotiate with the Triple Entente after the nationalists declared, "Enough of Libya, and on to Trento and Trieste!". The Treaty of London was the bait used to convince the Italians to switch sides. It was but the start of a series of deceptions to cut down Italy's colonial ambitions.

As is well known, the Great War did not go well for Italy, not the least because of Cadorna's disastrous and incompetent handling of the war effort, but also due to the Entente being indifferent to the Italian front. The heavy defeats and pyrrhic victories would all be for nothing, as Woodrow Wilson's insistence on the right to national self-determination rendered the Treaty of London null and void, with Britain and France choosing to divide the spoils of war amongst themselves, having little intention of giving any of it to Italy. The anger at this "mutilated victory" was immense, as the nationalists viciously denounced Britain, France and America.

……..

The acquiescence of Orlando to the Treaty of Versailles provoked a nationwide uproar, and Giolitti was by no means capable of defusing the situation, as by 1921, he was already begging the PNF for help in taking on the strong socialist opposition to the government. By doing so, he had sounded the death knell of liberalism in Italy, as the Fascists marched on Rome the very next year and Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister by King Vittorio Emanuele III.

The first signs that the new regime would be troublesome came after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Sèvres was the last hope of Italy getting compensation for its efforts in World War I, but the Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent renegotiations had wrecked those hopes. A livid Mussolini responded by ordering a bombardment and occupation of Corfu, in response to the mysterious death of Generale Enrico Tellini. The Corfu Incident was the first success of Fascist Italy's foreign policy, and helped boost Mussolini's reputation in Italy, while dealing a blow to the League of Nations, and forcing Britain to resolve the Jubaland question in 1924.

One particular theme that stood out in Mussolini's speeches during the late 1920's was the old Roman concept of Mare Nostrum, "our sea" in Latin. To challenge France and Britain, Italy had to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean and consequently gain access to the Atlantic and Indian oceans, thus securing its national sovereignty. This would be elaborated in depth in a document drawn up in 1929, "The March to the Oceans", which asserted that maritime position determined a nation's independence: countries with free access to the high seas were independent; while those who lacked this, were not. Italy, which only had access to an inland sea without French and British acquiescence, was only a "semi-independent nation" at best, and allegedly a "prisoner in the Mediterranean''. In the text, Mussolini noted,

"The bars of this prison are Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, and Cyprus. The guards of this prison are Gibraltar and Suez. Corsica is a pistol pointed at the heart of Italy; Tunisia at Sicily. Malta and Cyprus constitute a threat to all our positions in the eastern and western Mediterranean. Greece, and Egypt have been ready to form a chain with Great Britain, with our alliance with Turkey preventing the completion of the politico-military encirclement of Italy. Thus Greece and Egypt must be considered vital enemies of Italy's expansion ... The aim of Italian policy, which cannot have, and does not have continental objectives of a European territorial nature except Albania, is first of all to break the bars of this prison ... Once the bars are broken, Italian policy can only have one motto – to march to the oceans."

It is good to be ambitious, but one also must be aware of their strength and capability to act on it as well. After all, Italy was the runt of the global powers. With significant shortcomings as to manpower and industry, one could very reasonably question Italy's ambitions. Indeed, this was simply bluster and bluff, as the PNF settled down and consolidated their regime. The Fascist regime would remain restricted to the Apennine Peninsula for the time being.

……..

The 1930's were like a period of near-limitless fortune for Italy, starting with the discovery of oil in Libya. Hitherto considered to be little more than a sandbox, the rich oil reserves cemented its place as the crown jewel of the Italian Empire. The Italian government left no stone unturned in order to tap this vital resource, encouraging settlers with lucrative incentives. Additionally, in the aftermath of the Second American Revolution, many White American expatriates fled the newly formed United Republics, bringing with them their assets and experience in various fields. Along with the United Kingdom - being fearful of Communist encirclement - loosening its purse strings, the Fascists suddenly found themselves with a torrential influx of funds and resources. Finally, the Italians found themselves in negotiations with the French, something that was considered unlikely in the last decade. The result was a period of unprecedented economic prosperity for Italy, as the lot of the average Italian improved considerably, with even the Mezzogiorno reaping the benefits.

After 1933, a new pattern began to emerge in the speeches given by Mussolini. He began to speak regularly of a "Third Rome", one of the Fascists, that would succeed the Rome of the Caesars and the Rome of the Popes. It would seem bewildering at first to most, but once one managed to get past the layers of verbose oratory, it was clearly evident that Il Duce was attempting to assert the cultural superiority of Italy over the rest of Europe. After all, had not the Roman Empire civilized Europe when much of the continent was still in darkness, and in the process, built one of the largest empires the world had seen? And, had not the Renaissance originated in Italy, bringing a new lease of life to Europe? Thus, did not Italy deserve to lead the fascist bloc, seeing that it was the first truly fascist state as well? Even if the Führer established his Großgermanisches Reich, even if the Kampaku established his Co-Prosperity Sphere and even if the Caudillos of South America built up their own little hegemonies, they would have to look to Italy for guidance, for after all, the 20th century would be an Italian one.

……..

The doctrine of Mediterraneanism and the "Mediterranean race" grew to dominate the PNF during the mid and late 1930's, primarily as a reaction to the Nordicist policies of the NSDAP and Germany and also to set themselves apart from "the barbaric descendants of Alaric, who burned and sacked one of the greatest cities on earth".(1) Based primarily on Giuseppe Sergi's highly-debated work, the Mediterraneanists saw themselves to be the superior race, not from a bioracist perspective unlike the Nazis, but a cultural one. Similarly to the Concordists and Turanists, the Fascists considered race to be a cultural and political construct, and felt that physical race could be overcome by cultural assimilation. This proved to be deeply unpalatable to the Nazi leadership, with Goebbels commenting in private that "the Italians are rather too fond of mongrelization". Similarly, Acerbo said that "the ancestors of our political allies to the north were but mere barbarians when the Romans were busy spreading civilization to Europe". This sentiment held firm, and by 1939, most of the PNF followed in the example of Acerbo, Balbo and Ciano and became staunch Mediterraneanists (1), with a handful of exceptions, like Giulio Evola and Roberto Farinacci.

Preparing for War

The three branches of the Italian military saw a massive opportunity to benefit from the economic boom that the country was undergoing, and thus, with their budgets significantly expanded, the Supermarina, the Superaereo and the Superesercito embarked upon a crash modernization program to improve the armed forces. Among them, the conflict in the Regia Marina over this issue was indicative of the new direction the armed forces was taking, as well as a further consolidation of the PNF's power over the military.

After 1922, it had been widely assumed that France and Great Britain would be the most likely adversaries in any potential conflict, not the least because of the Fascist regime's hostility to them. As a result, the Royal Italian Navy received considerable funding and developed warships with long-range guns and high speeds, to be able to engage and disengage at will. Attention was given to submarines and submersibles as well. The Royal Italian Air Force also benefited from an appreciable funds infusion, due to it being a vital cog of the PNF's propaganda machine. The Royal Italian Army was thus forced to make do with whatever remained after the first two services had gotten their funding.

The Second American Civil War tore up this strategic calculus and forced a re-evaluation of the geopolitical situation. The United Kingdom and France were more concerned with the possibility of communist revolution in their own lands, and thus, were ready to do anything to stop the red tide. But Italy would have to make very significant progress in modernizing her military, if she was to make any meaningful contribution to the great anti-communist crusade that was imminent. The Regia Marina had to contend with the WFRN and the RKKF, most probably with the help of the Kriegsmarine, the Royal Navy and the Marine Nationale, and was not exactly up to date. The Regia Aeronautica was full of biplanes at a time when monoplane development was picking up the pace among the great powers. The Regio Esercito was no better.

The Supermarina began by sending naval delegations to Britain and Japan to get a better idea of modern naval construction and technology. These visits played a big role in determining the new strategic direction of the navy, with Ammiraglio Bernotti pushing for the construction of aircraft carriers, which he and his proteges, Giuseppe Fioravanzo and Francesco Maugeri saw as the future of naval warfare and likely to supplant the battleship in its role in due time. However, this idea was too radical for the then Chief of Staff of the Regia Marina, Ammiraglio Cavagnari.

Known to be notoriously conservative and suspicious regarding new naval theories and technologies, Cavagnari left no stone unturned to prevent the designing of an aircraft carrier class, but his hopes were dashed by the Prime Minister himself, who after listening to both sides, asked for "four to five aircraft carriers that will be the envy of our neighbors and the fear of the Bolsheviks". This led to the development of what would be known as the Imperatore Romano-class aircraft carrier, the backbone of La Manos, the Rengō Kantai of the West to many. The four vessels of this class, Augusto Cesare, Domiziano, Claudio and Traiano, along with the converted passenger liner Aquila, were the fingers of the hand that would help chase the Royal Navy out of the Mediterranean in 1942.

……..

Feeling disgraced over what he perceived as a snub to him, Cavagnari launched an unprecedented attack on Bernotti at the next meeting of the Supermarina, decrying the "nefarious attempt to weaken our mighty fleet by playing around with unproven ideas". Bernotti shot back, saying that "we cannot win the war that will inevitably come in the future by relying on methods and weapons that served us well in the past". From there, the quarrel worsened, with barbs being traded back and forth. It would culminate in Fioravanzo and Maugeri writing a letter to Mussolini, asking for Cavagnari's dismissal. The missive had the desired effect, with Cavagnari being replaced by Bernotti as the new Chief of Naval Staff on April 19, 1936. Angelo Iachino would take his place as commandant of the Livorno Naval Academy. As a warning to the rest of the old guard and their followers, Cavagnari was put under house arrest by the OVRA.

The Cavagnari Affair sent shockwaves through the conservative elements of the Italian military brass, and very nearly put the Fascist regime on the verge of a military coup d'etat. The former Maggior Generale, Emilio de Bono, was infuriated at what he felt to be a "hijacking of the military command structure by a group of young upstarts, who were no more than theoretical warriors and understood little of actual combat". Concerned and convinced that the Italian military was going in a dangerous direction, de Bono put to use his influence as a Quadrumvir and reached out to the senior officers and commanders across the three services, intending to execute a Pronunciamiento against Mussolini. The idea was to take the PNF's leadership into custody, and declare martial law. The Royal Family would be coerced into aiding them in the takeover of power. However, the coup was nipped in the bud due to Graziani passing on a telegram on April 29, 1936 to the OVRA and the Grand Council of Fascism. On learning of the plot, an incensed Mussolini ordered the conspirators arrested and executed after a drumhead court-martial determined their guilt. Badoglio had been non-committal after de Bono had talked to him, and had at no point made any promises, which ensured his safety, but put him under increased scrutiny until the end of the Second World War. As a reward for his loyalty, Graziani would be appointed as the next Chief of Army Staff.

In the aftermath of the abortive de Bono Putsch, Mussolini wanted better control over the military. He gave carte blanche to the heads of the three services, Graziani, Bernotti and Balbo to root out "politically untrustworthy and potentially treasonous elements" from the armed forces. What followed afterwards was not so much a purge as it was a deweeding, as younger officers, who were more sympathetic to the plans for modernization and more politically reliable came to the forefront, sidelining the old guard. This process of deweeding continued throughout the year, and by mid-1937, Bernotti, Balbo and Graziani had effectively cleansed the Regia Marina, Regia Aeronautica and the Regio Esercito of their rivals as well as the old guard's supporters.

……..

The Spanish Civil War, which has been considered to be the laboratory of military technologies and theories of the 1930's, went a long way in shaping the Regio Esercito and the Regia Aeronautica. The Corpo Truppe Volontarie and the Aviazione Legionaria entered Spain armed with light tankettes and biplanes that would not stay up to date for long. The Fiat CR.32 was a very good aircraft and frequently outclassed its opposition in the I-15 biplanes and I-16 monoplanes flown by the Republican Air Force. But the Superaereo, having observed the test flights of the newly developed WC.200 Grifone (2), an advanced monoplane that would go on to become the Regia Aeronautica's workhorse, was starting to reconsider the utility of the biplane, even after the glowing after-action reports submitted by the Aviazione Legionaria's pilots.

The L3/35 tankettes of the CTV were grossly outclassed by the Soviet-origin T-26 and BT-5 tanks of the Republicans. The T-26 and the BT-5 tended to destroy any L3's they encountered fairly easily with their 45 mm guns. This shock was what prompted the development of the P26/38 (3) and P24/38 (4) medium tank designs that went on to serve the Regio Esercito well in the future. The L3/35 would be phased out for good, its role taken up by the M15/37 light tank.

Meanwhile, the Regia Marina was seeking powerful new vessels to accompany its force of carriers. The formidable Littorio-class battleship, which gave the Royal Navy a lot of grief during the first few months of the war against the FBU, was redesigned completely after the Second American Civil War, with the Supermarina stressing the need for a primary armament of 16-inch guns as compared to the 15-inch gun configuration in the earlier design. Disregarding the concerns of the engineers at OTO and Ansaldo, Iachino is regarded to have said, "I don't care if you have to beg, borrow, cheat, steal, rob or kill, the battleships must have 16-inch guns!" Fortunately, they did not need to go that far, as the Japanese agreed to a request to produce their 41 cm/45 3rd Year Type naval gun under a license, after a similar request to the British to license-produce their BL 16-inch Mark I naval gun was turned down.

……..

In spite of the grandiose shows of solidarity, the military cooperation between Italy and Germany was not as warm as the propaganda would have one believe, with submarines, tanks and (to some extent) aircraft being the main areas where Rome sought Berlin's advice. This has led to some speculation, but the simple explanation is that an anti-German sentiment was slowly taking root in the higher echelons of the Italian military. The Superaereo, in particular, was a hotbed for such opinions, in no small part due to Balbo's personal influence. The Supermarina followed suit, due mostly to Bernotti having a poor opinion of the German admiralty, and Raeder leaving a most disagreeable impression on him when they met. The Superesercito was amenable to the OKH, but Graziani's abrasive manners meant that few German generals were willing to work or talk with him.

The Trident Offensive

By early 1942, the Second World War had considerably slowed down for the Axis. Progress in invading the Soviet Union was facing high levels of attrition, in no small part due to INTREV defenses stiffening up and a semblance of order spreading through their forces. A not-insignificant part of the Soviet industry had been relocated to the Urals, ensuring that the soldiers of the Comintern would still be receiving arms and munitions and be able to continue the fight. In South America, Brazil's initial successes had gotten bogged down, as the Latin American members of the Vladivostok Compact put up a tenacious, unflinching defense, determined to bleed the Integralists and their minions dry for each inch of ground they took. However, the news that Pétain intended to overthrow the Popular Front government in a coup d'etat gave the Pact of Steel renewed hope, allowing them to bring France into the war and open a new front against the Comintern. But in considering the benefits of this gambit, the Stahlpakt also had to take into account the elephant in the room.

The British Empire, a hegemonic colonial power spanning the globe, had been the biggest guarantor and indirect supporter of the Anti-ComIntern Axis ever since the Red May Revolution had driven them into a frenzy. They had bankrolled, either directly or indirectly, the German rearmament programme and the Italian and Japanese armament programmes. Trade with them had risen to unprecedented levels, giving the enemies of Communism a fresh lease of life. Now, with a stroke of the pen, this profitable arrangement would be sunk. The entirety of the Commonwealth would be up in arms against them. To stymie them, complete Axis control of the Mediterranean was vital. Thus, after Pétain's telegram was forwarded to Rome, the Comando Supremo began to formulate a plan to secure control of "Mare Nostrum". Three targets of importance were marked, which had to be captured to guarantee success: Malta, the erstwhile headquarters of the Mediterranean Fleet and now a British observation post; Egypt, which was home to the Suez Canal, the eastern accessway to the Mediterranean, and Alexandria, the new headquarters of the Mediterranean Fleet; and finally, British Somaliland, which overlooked the Red Sea and posed a threat to Italian East Africa.

The Watcher's Post

A tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Malta had a level of importance that was not commensurate with its size, having been the headquarters of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet up to the early 1930's. Its position between Sicily and Libya allowed the Royal Navy a vantage point from where they could easily keep an eye on the Regia Marina. However, after 1933, more assets of the Royal Navy would be redeployed to the Home Islands, and the Mediterranean Fleet would shift their HQ to Alexandria, diminishing the island chain's importance in one fell swoop. Over the second half of the 1930's, the stationed garrison was progressively trimmed down and put on a low priority for reinforcements and resupplying. The Admiralty felt that due to the excellent relations with the Italians, they could get away with leaving a skeleton force on Malta. They could not have been more mistaken than that.

As the situation stood, in 1942, the garrison was down to 15 infantry battalions (11 Commonwealth, 4 Maltese) organized into four brigades totalling 26,000 men. Tank support was provided by the 1st Independent Troop of the Royal Tank Regiment, disembarked in November 1941, which was initially equipped with four Matilda II infantry tanks and two Hussar I light tanks, armed with 2-pounder guns (part of detachments from the 7th Royal Tank Regiment and the 3rd The King's Own Hussars). These were reinforced in January 1942 by four Cruiser Mk I and three Cruiser Mk IV tanks and a Hussar I light tank - all of them armed with 2-pounder guns (part of a detachment from the 6th Royal Tank Regiment).

For artillery support, the defenders could count on the 12th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery with twenty-four 25-pounder (3.45 in (87.6 mm)) field guns, capable of providing fire support out to a range of 6.8 mi (11 km) and covering most of the island while remaining in protected static positions. Malta's fixed defenses included nineteen heavy coastal guns (varying in size from 12-inch to 16-inch, although these Victorian era weapons were all decommissioned), 130 smaller coastal guns (6-pounder to 9.2-inch) and 112 heavy and 144 light anti-aircraft guns.

The plan of invasion called for naval landings and paradrops on the main island of Malta, supported by a secondary naval landing on the smaller islands of Gozo and Comino. The paradrops would be executed by the Italian 185th Paratrooper Division "Folgore" and the 186th Paratrooper Division "Tifone" (5) (each having 7,500 men) and the German Fliegerdivision 7 (11,000 men). The first wave of the naval invasion force was comprised of the 20th Infantry Division "Friuli" (10,000 men) and the 4th Infantry Division " Livorno" (9,850 men) , along with two battalions drawn from the Regia Aeronautica, two battalions of Nuotatori marine commandos of the San Marco regiment and three Blackshirt battalions.

The follow-up convoy would be mainly made up of troops from the Italian XVI Corps: the 26th Infantry Division "Assietta" (9,000 men), the 54th Infantry Division "Napoli" (8,900 men), artillery units (3,200 men) and the remainder of the 10th Armored Regiment (3,800 men). The 1st Infantry Division "Superga" (9,200 men) plus a battalion of Blackshirts and 1,000 Nuotatori were to be in position to land on the smaller island of Gozo in the early hours of the second day.

The Regia Marina would provide gunfire support and hold off the Royal Navy while the invasion took fire, with the older Andrea Doria-class battleships being designated for shore bombardment, and the newer Littorio-class battleships keeping a watch for the Mediterranean Fleet, while remaining close enough to provide gunfire support, if needed. Due to their ships being outfitted with radars of very good quality, and having trained in night-time carrier operations with the IJN, the Supermarina were confident of victory, especially with the Regia Aeronautica to provide support from Sicily.

The Gateway to the East

Egypt was one of the British Empire's most important Mediterranean possessions, in no small part due to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Fleet's headquarters being at Alexandria. The Suez Canal's importance to global trade and commerce could simply not be underestimated and definitely needs no explanation. It was for this very reason that the Comando Supremo sought to seize Egypt, and kill two birds with one stone: with the Isthmus of Suez under their control, Britain would have little choice but to ship in troops and supplies via the long road, passing South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, after the Mediterranean Fleet was beaten up and chased out.

The British Eighth Army, which was stationed in Egypt at the time, was appreciably understrength and on a low priority for reinforcements and resupplying, being equipped mostly with the Matilda II infantry tank. The newer Chimera and Daphne tanks were also present, albeit in small numbers. The RAF squadrons in the area were equipped with Spitfire Mk Vb and Hurricane Mk IIB fighters - rather capable aircraft in their own right.

Facing them was the Italian 10th Army, deployed in Libya since 1939 as a security measure to solidify control of Libya. Naturally, they were well-equipped, with fresh M15/37 and P24/38 tanks. The Regia Aeronautica squadrons in Libya were mostly equipped with the WC.200 Grifone, a formidable fighter that could go toe to toe with the Spitfire. However, a new aircraft had started to make its way to the airfields in Cyrenaica, one which the British were unaware of.

The plan was for a rapid strike through the Matruh Governorate, overrunning the inadequate defenses at Sidi Barrani and quickly seizing Mersa Matruh, eventually engaging the bulk of the enemy at El Alamein and Al-Iskandariya, which would open up the way to the Isthmus of Suez and the Sinai, allowing for an offensive into Mandatory Palestine.

The Neglected Sentry

A minor protectorate with no resources worth speaking of, it was no surprise that British Somaliland was always among the last to receive the Empire's favors. Its primary purpose was to provide meat for the Crown Colony of Aden, and the lack of interest whatsoever in developing the region meant the "butcher shop of Aden" was not exactly worth the trouble holding on to, especially considering the opposition of the local populace to taxation, which could have helped with supporting the local colonial administration, and also aided the colony to become economically self-sufficient.

By the beginning of May, the colony was on high alert due to a successful Pétainist uprising in French Somaliland. The hegemonic presence of Italian East Africa to the south only served to heighten the feeling of nervousness in Berbera. To make matters even worse, the Servizio Informazioni Militare had cracked high level ciphers of the Middle East Command, giving the Italians an intelligence advantage.

Having exchanged telegrams with Général Gaëtan Germain, the governor of French Somaliland, the Duke of Aosta was confident of rapidly overrunning the meager defenses in British Somaliland. Indeed, after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the War Office had been contemplating not offering any resistance in the event that the colony was invaded. There had been an attempt to reinforce the territory, but it had been shot down. Thus, the British found themselves trying to hold on the passes at Jirreh, Dobo, Hargeisa and Burao with minimal troops, while the Italians were preparing to push with the local colonial troops, a few Regio Esercito divisions and the locally present Regia Aeronautica squadrons.

The Predator and the Prey

Excerpts from Mark Campbell*, Shifting Dunes: The Second World War in the Deserts (Oxford University Press, 2013)

The early months of 1942 had brought dire tidings for the forces opposed to the Anti-ComIntern Axis, as the nefarious conspiracy hatched by Pétain and his allies, along with his backers in Germany and Italy had come to fruition. The Popular Front government and the forces loyal to it had been pushed off the Métropole, and the French State lost no time in mobilizing its troops for the sanguinary campaign in the Soviet Union.

The United Kingdom, after a change of government and heart, declared war on Germany. And only Germany. At first sight, it would seem highly strange that the main ringleader of the Pact of Steel was being targeted and its primary partner in crime was being left out. The reason for it is rather shocking and a brutal indictment of the British intelligence agencies.

Other authors have written more comprehensive, dedicated and exhaustive works on the intelligence failures of the British Empire in the 1930's. But for this author, there is a pressing necessity to discuss the repercussions of the aforementioned intelligence failures without going into too much detail about the Sempill Affair, so there is a necessity to make a diversion.

……..

Throughout the 1930's, the Italians had built up an excellent intelligence network in the United Kingdom, in no small part due to the painstaking efforts of the arch-traitor, William Forbes-Sempill. The network managed to create such a veil of smoke that MI5 would remain occupied for the second half of the 30's, preoccupied as they were with rooting out communist subversives. And MI6 was not exactly much different, with SIM operatives feeding them information on Abwehr informants in order to divert their attention. Similarly, on diplomatic levels, Italy had made every effort to keep Britain appeased. In spite of the suspicions and apprehensions of a part of British officials, the decision was taken not to declare war on Italy, showing exactly how well they had swallowed the bait prepared for them, along with the hook, line and sinker. This was a decision that would be regretted deeply later on.

……..

Even though Germany and the newly formed Franco-British Union were in a state of war with each other, surprisingly enough, Italy had stayed aloof. On 4 April, the Führer had expressed his anger at London rebuffing his overtures and demanded that the Duce and the Caudillo join him in his war against the FBU. While Mola was eager to join the Stahlpakt - however, he was reluctant to join the broader war effort before dealing with the Free Soviet Republic - Mussolini had maintained an alarming radio silence over the matter, leading to consternation, frustration and suspicion in Berlin as to his motives. The truth of the matter was that ever since Acerbo had sent the telegram informing Rome about Pétain's intentions, the SIM and the Comando Supremo had been hard at work. The Comando Supremo had been busy sketching out a plan to conquer Britain's Mediterranean possessions, and the SIM were working hard to ensure nobody other than the CS got to know of the aforementioned plan. As it turned out, that ironically included the Germans as well. The Italian military brass wished for the plan to be foolproof, and did not trust the Germans with the minutiae of this grand operation, only dropping a few vague, obscure hints which neither the Abwehr nor the new Oberkommando des Totalen Krieges could decipher.

The rest of the Regio Esercito and the Regia Aeronautica in Italy and the Regia Marina began to mobilize rapidly and as secretly as possible after the Führer had made his demand. The SIM made it clear that they would be able to provide a cover of two to three months at the most. It would only be a matter of time until MI5 and MI6 eventually caught on to the fact that they had been chasing wild geese all this while, and the actions of France would end up forcing their hand. Their concerns were not unfounded, as by the end of May, the French State and the Spanish State attacked the Spanish Free Soviet Republic. As it turned out, Comando Supremo was nearly done with mobilizing the troops by then and was practically ready to give the order to attack.

The codeword, "Aquila", was radioed across the troops awaiting orders on the three separate fronts. Incidentally, the Z.1007's dropped the first bombs barely a handful of minutes after the Italian embassy in London delivered the declaration of war, leading to several conspiracy theories. But that is not the concern of this work.

……..

The garrison on Malta was facing very dire odds and were severely outnumbered and outgunned. Even so, they gave a good account of themselves, all things considered, as they grappled with the invasion force for a week. However, it was all they could do to survive as the landing force and the paratroopers steadily mowed down all opposition in their way like grass, with overpowering aerial and naval supremacy, achieved due to the local RAF airfield being aggressively bombed and strafed by the Regia Aeronautica and the Mediterranean Fleet falling into the trap prepared for it by the Regia Marina.

As two grueling, nightmarish weeks passed, Malta eventually fell, and right on its heels, disaster struck the Royal Navy. The waters of the Ionian Sea bore witness to a vicious trade of naval munitions that in the end, resulted in two British battleships taking very heavy damage, and a third being sunk outright, along with a carrier. This was to have telling consequences in the subsequent Battle of the Levantine Sea, where the Mediterranean Fleet would receive yet another thrashing at the hands of the Regia Marina, now fully supported by the turncoat vessels of the Marine Nationale.

……..

In Egypt, the advance initially fared well, with a rapid thrust through the Halfaya Pass, aimed at throwing the defenders off balance and seizing operational initiative. Sollum and Sidi Barrani fell quickly enough, as the Eighth Army struggled to get an understanding of the situation. However, after Mersa Matruh, the offensive stalled. The 10th Army ran into a British tank they were not ready to face in this front. The small numbers of Daphne infantry tanks, working in tandem with the Chimeras and the Matildas, caused considerable grief for the Italian armored divisions and their P24/38 tanks, which simply did not possess the firepower needed to penetrate the Matilda's frontal armor, nevermind the Chimera and even less so the Daphne. Only the 90 mm Cannone da 90/53 anti-aircraft guns could pose a threat to the Commonwealth armored units, but they were not present in sufficiently large numbers in the 10th Army, with the bulk of them being earmarked for the Italian forces in the USSR. Still, the Italians wisened up and managed to inflict devastating losses on the Eighth Army, leaving (General) Ritchie with fewer Chimeras and Daphnes than he would have preferred to have had for the imminent battle at El Alamein. It was not made any better by the squadrons of Grifones and the newly introduced Temporales (6) swatting away the Spitfires and Hurricanes from the skies, leaving the armor and the infantry open to strafing attacks and bombing runs. But the losses to British tankers hung heavy on the minds of the generals in charge of the 10th Army.

Berti contemplated pausing the offensive, considering how many tanks they had lost in action. But Tellera was against the idea. "The British may have broken our tanks, but they are not exactly in a position of strength themselves. Have not they lost their heavy tanks to us? Have not our pilots shot their planes out of the sky? If we delay any longer, we will only be handing over victory to the enemy when we could be dictating terms to their commanders in Cairo. No, I say, we must seize the opportunity and act, before it is gone for good.", he said forcefully to the others in the command tent. Bergonzoli managed to talk some sense into him, pointing out that their losses would not allow for an immediate assault, and it would take at least 30 to 40 days to replenish the casualties suffered earlier. An attack on El Alamein, thus, was not in the cards until the end of August.

……..

The Battle of El Alamein, or the Miracle of El Alamein as it is known to some, was a turning point in the War in the Desert. In spite of a vicious attack by the 10th Army, the Eighth Army held firm. The intent was to make the Regio Esercito bleed as much as possible at Alamein and afterwards, as the Egyptian government prepared to evacuate post-haste, in order to avoid the fate of their French counterparts. In this regard, they were successful, considering that the Tenth Army limped their way to the Sinai by the beginning of October, barely four weeks after the gruesome action at Alamein. A month and a half later, they would be advancing through Palestine; however, the advance would be glacial, due to the severe attrition and fatigue suffered in the forced march to the Suez Canal and also the ferocious resistance of the Haganah. Barely a month later, Palestine would be free of any Entente presence, but this victory actually did Mussolini more harm than good, as only a month later, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would be formed, and prove to be a consistent thorn in the side of the Italian occupation in Palestine in the future. Italy thus entered 1943 in a state of war with a Commonwealth that had deeper manpower reserves, albeit not fully mobilised, and having chased the Royal Navy gloriously out of the Mediterranean and entered the Levant, they could well nigh afford to be consumed by their hubris and belief that London would surrender after the brutal shock of the Trident Offensive, as well as the Japanese running riot in the Far East. But they had not anticipated that the newly formed Franco-British Union would keep fighting, in spite of the daunting odds.

1.IOTL, in an attempt to curry favor with Germany, Mussolini adopted a weird Nordic-Mediterranean racial theory. This doesn't happen ITTL, primarily due to the fact that Germany isn't their only ally and backer this time around, so the Fascists feel less obligated to indulge the failed artist with a toothbrush mustache.

2.A joint project between Boeing and Macchi. Equivalent to and reminiscent of the OTL Supermarine Spitfire.

3.Basically the P26/40 of OTL, minus the sloped armor, initially meant for anti-personnel purposes, equipped with a torsion bar suspension. Equivalent to the OTL Panzer IV.

4.A tank designed by Fiat intended to destroy enemy tanks, equipped with a leaf-spring suspension. Equivalent to the OTL Panzer III.

5.This division did not exist IOTL.

6.The Boeing W.204 Temporale, an advanced fighter aircraft designed solo by Boeing Aeronautica S.p.A.. Roughly equivalent to the Focke-Wulf Ta-190 Würger.

vilani99 · Sep 28, 2023

Excerpts from Michel Graves*, The Ides of December: The Christmas Struggle and the War for Spain (Paris, 2015) (by @vilani99)
By the end of 1941, Sanjurjo's position was unideal but stable and improving. The 1938 ceasefire with the Republic had given him time to rebuild from the damage incurred by the short but brutal civil war. Over the next few years, the army built around the Army of Africa and assorted militia was reformed into a disciplined, well armed, and - most importantly - politically reliable and loyal fighting force. Sanjurjo and his coalition were assisted by arms shipments and advisors from Nazi Deutschland and Fascist Italy, oftentimes rerouted subsidy and industrial aid from the British and French in the wake of Red May. All this meant that by December 1941, with half of Europe locked in a titanic war of annihilation on the fields of Russia with the ComIntern, and talks of restarting the civil war floating around Madrid, Sanjurjo thought he was poised to crush the communists and weld the two Spains back into one.

Then an artery in his brain exploded.

When it became clear that Sanjurjo would never fully recover from his debilitating aneurysm, the knives came out. Each faction of the hastily constructed anti-communist coalition that was the Movimiento Nacional fell upon each other in what would become a winter of political maneuvering, street fighting, and even attempted assassinations. It would only end with Emilio Mola's Dia de Reyes Purge, and the ascendancy of the worst of the worst of the Falange in the Spanish State.

[...]

The Movimiento Nacional was an extremely haphazard assembly of Alfonsites, Carlists, and Falangists. This was not a stable or happy alliance, and was in fact only really preserved by the de facto partition of Spain in 1938. The possibility of the civil war resuming, and the ongoing cross-border insurgency sponsored by the Free Soviet Republic, kept Sanjurjo on top of the Spanish State, and kept the anti-communist coalition together. His aneurysm and debilitation on December 15 put all that into a tailspin.

Going into the chaotic months of the Christmas Struggle, Antonio Aranda and the Alfonsites seemed to be in the best position. Aranda had made a name for himself in the first battles of the Civil War, and was a favorite of the French and British. A lifelong anglophile, Aranda was strongly in favor of neutrality when the World Revolutionary War began in 1940, and as it became clear that the United Kingdom and France were beginning to align against Nazi Deutschland in late 1941 and early 1942, he was pushing for joining them in that alignment. Aranda believed that while the Free Soviet Republic was a clear and persistent threat to Spanish Unity and Sovereignty, it was in Madrid's best interest to keep the fragile 1938 ceasefire for as long as possible. The Spanish State would have to prioritize securing itself a place in a network of global diplomacy and trade, and while the Axis seemed to dominate Europe east of the Rhine, globally they were in a much more marginal position. If the French and British were to join the war on the side of the ComIntern, the Axis would be facing a majority of the planet's population, resources, and industrial might. It would be best, Aranda argued, to pick the winning team in such a case. This made him many enemies in the form of the Carlists and Falange, and only his position in the Spanish Military Union (Unión Militar Española, UME), his performance in the Civil War, and his staunch opposition to the government in Barcelona kept him from being purged. His luck would not last much longer.

On the opposite end of Nationalist politics was a tendency deeply rooted in the history of Spanish reactionary politics: the Carlists. Led by Jefe Manuel Fal Conde, the Carlists were staunchly opposed to both the Alfonsite monarchy and the Spanish Republic. Instead, they favored a form of absolutist, ultra-catholic monarchy, headed by the Carlist pretender to the Spanish Throne. As tensions within the Republic began to come to a head, the Carlists prepared for a possible uprising. So, when Sanjurjo approached the Jefe for assistance in his military coup, Conde saw an opportunity for an uprising with military support. However, as the planning and secret negotiations around the coup continued, Conde and the Carlists found themselves pushed to the periphery. Nevertheless, Sanjurjo was a firm ally of Conde, and when the Civil War began in 1936, the Carlists joined the UME and Falange against the Popular Front. After the ceasefire in 1938, the Carlists were the most rabid in pushing for a resumption of the war, heedless of the Spanish State's preparedness, or lack thereof, for resuming the war. This continued to alienate Conde and the Carlists from Sanjurjo, and the two were likely on the verge of a falling out when the Caudillo had his stroke.

Opposed to both was Mola and the Spanish Falange (Falange Española, FE). The FE were more or less a collection of fascists, primarily in the vein of Mussolini and Yasuhito. The ideological foundation of the Falange was derived from D'Annunzio and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, consisting of a racialized Spanish ultranationalism, economic proposals built around "national syndicalism," and - especially after de Rivera's death - virulent anti-communism. de Rivera, the founder of the Spanish Falange, had imported National Syndicalism from French and Brazilian Integralist theorists, and synthesized it with exemplary Italian economic policies. The result was essentially a rebranding of Italian corporatism suitable for the Spanish political environment. Despite his key role in the foundation of the Falange, de Rivera's attempts to bring more overtly socialist elements into National Syndicalism to appeal to elements of the Spanish left resulted in him alienating himself from his own movement. Just after Madrid fell in 1937, Rivera was assassinated in his home. While the post-ceasefire government in Madrid laid the blame on a CNT militant, it is much more likely he was killed by members of his own party. Despite the death of their founder and leader, Falangist paramilitaries and officers proved themselves extremely capable during the Civil War, and over the years since the ceasefire, the Falange had become Sanjurjo's favorite. Falangists secured positions within his cabinet, culminating with the elevation of Emilio Mola, the de facto leader of the Falange, to Army Chief of Staff and Minister of War in 1940.

[...]

Emilio Mola was born in Spanish Cuba on July 9, 1887, to a career army officer. After returning to Spain after the Spanish-American War, Mola enrolled in the Infantry School in Toldo in 1907, and went on to serve in Spain's colonial wars in North Africa. He would prove to be an exceptional officer, making Captain in 1912 and Brigadier-General in 1925. While he was made Director-General of Security in 1930, his right-wing politics proved unpopular with opposition politicians, and when the Popular Front government came into power, he was dismissed to a backwater military governorship. This led to Mola becoming deeply involved with Sanjurjo's UME and the FE. With Sanjurjo exiled in Portugal, he became the UME's primary in-country planner and delegate, becoming known as "el Director." Over the course of the coup attempt, the march on and siege of Madrid, and the broader civil war, Mola found himself gravitating towards the Falange. During the war, he was a chief architect of the White Terror that swept across territory captured by the Nationalists, massacring anyone even suspected of Communist or Anarchist sympathies or activity. In enacting this nightmare, Mola became close with a number of Falangist militias as they implemented his nightmarish policies across Spain. After the ceasefire and formally joining the Falange, el Director quickly ascended the ranks of the Falange, taking command in the power vacuum left by de Rivera's untimely death. This has made Mola a popular candidate for the mastermind behind Rivera's death, but no conclusive evidence either way has been uncovered at time of writing.

Now at the head of the FE, Mola found himself at loggerheads with factions within his party. Chief among these were the Futurists led by Ramiro Ledesma Ramos. Influenced by Marinetti, Shigoi, Yasuhito, and Togan, the futurist faction of the Falange pushed for a Spanish national revival by means of extreme and unyielding industrialization and technological progression. They envisioned Spain as a nation of trains, automobiles, and airplanes. Ramos' narrow escape from Popular Front Militia during the start of the Civil War had hardened his politics into severe anti-communism, and he was one of the loudest voices calling for a renewed war with the Free Soviet Republic, and even for an expeditionary force to join the Axis in the Soviet Union. Ramos and his acolytes believed that burning away the "impurities" within the Spanish Nation in the furnace of World War was key to the national revivalism the whole of the Falange desired. While Mola agreed with them that the destruction of the Free Soviet Republic was vital to the Falangist project, he disagreed with the totality of transformation the Ramosites desired. Mola was, along with a strong majority of the Falange, a catholic traditionalist, his most radical political position being a preference for a Republic. The solidification of republicanism in the FE's party line was just about the only real change Mola could exert in the Falange until Dia de Reyes.

After becoming Army Chief of Staff and Minister of War, Mola had essentially become the second-most powerful man in Spain, second only to the Caudillo himself. This ascendancy would be short-lived, however. After the Ruiz Affair - a political scandal involving the last dregs of the Falange's "left" faction, lead by Mateo Ruiz*, entering negotiations with the PSOE in the Free Soviet Republic - Mola would be dismissed from the cabinet and as Chief of Staff in August 1941. While he maintained his military rank and salary, he was given no assignments, made persona non grata in Madrid society, and Sanjurjo notably refused to even take his calls. His rise had been meteoric, and it seemed his fall from grace would be as well.

[...]

The immediate removal of Sanjurjo from Madrid politics immediately triggered a storm of political maneuver as a thousand schemes and contingencies went into action. For the first week or so, things remained quiet as the rival camps of Movimiento Nacional politics gathered themselves for what would become a winter of chaotic political intrigue. Mola's ouster from the cabinet had dealt a blow to the FE, and el Director's focus on consolidation of power within the Falange meant that for the first few weeks, most of the action was between Aranda's Alfonistes and Fal Conde's Carlists. The Alfonsites were an early favorite, with a majority in the (largely rubber-stamp) Cortes and Cabinet, and the tacit backing of the British and French. Their position seemed secure when Aranda managed to secure for himself the all-important (and previously empty) post of Prime Minister. However, the Carlists were more than making trouble. Street fighting between the two factions in Madrid became endemic, and the quiet of Mola and the Falange was quickly becoming unnerving. Things quickly deteriorated for the Alfonsites, however. Sanjurjo woke from his coma on December 22nd, and while clearly no longer fit for governing, immediately began to undermine Aranda and the Alfonsites with contradictory appointments, vetoes, and declarations. Additionally, the street war in Madrid escalated with a series of assassinations of prominent Alfonsite officers and politicians. Aranda countered with his own assassinations, and soon Madrid seemed to be falling into chaos. Many, including Mola's replacement Francisco Franco, began to quietly despair at the situation, fearing that the nationalist project would soon collapse around their ears. So when Mola and Queipo de Llano approached Franco and other military officers on New Years Eve 1941 with a solution that would simply require the army to sit back and do nothing, they accepted his offer.

Mola had spent most of the Christmas struggle consolidating the FE and preparing to seize power. The Falange Espaniola was no longer the fractious, unruly mess it had been when Mola had taken the helm of the party. Since the Ruiz Affair, Mola had brutally imposed discipline upon the dissident factions, purging, killing, and brutalizing any who would not bend the knee to Mola and his National Syndicalist faction. What resulted was a unified, disciplined party and paramilitary firmly under Mola's control, with ample funding and political backing from the NSDAP and Italian Fascists. Mola still had contacts in the military from his stint as Chief of Staff, and used them to his advantage, securing the deal with Franco that would allow the Dia de Reyes Purge to go forwards.

January 6th, 1942 began with FE members and paramilitaries taking police stations and radio towers in the predawn dark. Simultaneously, they began to kidnap and murder the prominents of the Carlists and Alfonisites. Fal Conte was killed at 4:42 AM when twenty Falangists stormed his compound and murdered him and his family. Aranda only barely escaped by virtue of spending a late night in the government offices, and was able to flee into France over the next few days. By noon that day, the Alfonsites and Carlists had been essentially decapitated, and what was left of the rank-and-file bent the knee and joined the Falange's coalition. El Director and the Falange Espaniola marched on the Palace of El Pardo at 1pm to make the situation clear to the Caudillo. Mola made himself very clear: he would be made Prime Minister, the FE would be made the only legal party in Spain, and he would have effectively overwhelming control over policy until "the Caudillo has made his recovery." Sanjurjo accepted, and Mola became the de facto ruler of Spain. The Spanish Falange was ascendant.

Mola was by far the most pro-war and pro-Axis of any of the contenders in the Christmas Struggle, and this quickly bore out in his foreign policy following Dia de Reyes. Mola made repeated visits to Rome and Berlin, and took measures to move Spain onto wartime footing. Conscription was increased, and divisions were moved to the border with the Free Soviet Republic. Mola changed the timezone of Spain by decree to Central European Time to aid coordination with Berlin and Rome. Sabre-rattling and border skirmishes between the two Spains became a nearly weekly occasion. It was clear that by the time the year was over, the fragile peace that had prevailed on the Iberian peninsula for the last four years would end. Few knew how disastrous that end would be.

[...]

The Pétainists crossing the Pyrenees as May turned to June was ultimately what allowed the Nationalist Army to defeat the Spanish Red Army. The overwhelming bulk of the Free Spanish forces were oriented towards the Nationalists, and so the Petainist French were able to rapidly move across the Free Soviet Republic and link up with the Nationalists at Zaragoza, cutting Red Spain in half in the process. What remained of the Spanish Red Army was concentrated in two cauldrons on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts; the Catalonian and Basque Pockets. As the Petainists and Falangists moved to annihilate the pockets the Royal Navy, now co-belligerent with the Free Soviet Republic, aided in the attempted evacuation of the Free Republic's Government, Red Army units, and the civilian population to the Canaries through the Balearics and Gibraltar. However, the Marine National and Regia Marina were able to repeatedly interdict the evacuation convoys, and the Italian landings on the Balearics in April effectively cut the evacuation route from Catalonia. While enough of the leadership survived to form a Government In Exile in Tenerife, much of the Spanish Red Army in Catalonia remained in-country and were forced underground as partisans, or lay at the bottom of the western Mediterranean.

In the Basque pocket, however, evacuation was far more successful. In part this was due to the increased presence of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic compared to the Mediterranean, but it was also a matter of cold priority. The Basque Pocket contained the elements of the Loyalist French Third Army that had not yet been evacuated from Spain, so the new Franco-British Union prioritized their evacuation. Additionally, the Basque Pocket contained more of the Red Army's units, including the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the International Volunteer Army. While the vast majority of the IVA was fighting in the Soviet Union, the IVA had been born in the Spanish Civil War, and the Brigades remained in Spain as a symbol of the ComInterns commitment to the Free Soviet Republic. They, as part of two corps of the Spanish Red Army, helped fight a brutal rearguard that allowed for a near total evacuation of the Basque Pocket to the Canaries. Notably, the 1st Brigade was the last United Nations unit to leave the country, fighting from the suburbs of Bilbao all the way to the evacuation ships at the docks, taking up to 50% casualties.

The evacuation of the Basque Pocket was not uncontested. The Marine Nationale repeatedly attempted to sink the transport convoys during the month-long evacuation using flotillas of cruisers and submarines. However, a combination of Royal Navy and WFRN escorts and regular flights of land-based aircraft from the British Isles and the Canaries allowed for a relatively low casualty rate for the transport convoys. The anti-raiding actions of the Royal Navy and WFRN during the evacuation of the Basque Pocket would become known as the Battle of the Bay of Biscay, a sub-campaign of the Battle of the Atlantic and a much needed victory for the Royal Navy and WFRN amidst the disasters of that year.

[...]

August 1942 would prove to be the apogee of the Spanish State. Spain had been reunified, the protectorate zones in Morocco had been returned to the Spanish, and Mola's government had joined what seemed to be a unified European crusade against the ComIntern and Commonwealth. But the next few weeks would lead to a fatal victory for Sanjurjo, Mola, and the Spanish State as a whole. Gibraltar had been a thorn in the side of the Mediterranean Axis since the Western Front opened in February, and while the Battle of the Ionian Sea had pushed the Royal Navy out of the Eastern Mediterranean, as long as Gibraltar held the possibility of the United Nations breaking into the Mediterranean remained. Over late July and early August, a task force assembled in southern Spain under the command of Agustín Muñoz Grandes, with the objective of taking Gibraltar and closing the Pillars of Hercules. Its core consisted of the Spanish Second Army, augmented with the Pétainist IV Corps, the German 7th Panzer Division, and a massive contingent of German artillery. They faced comprehensive defenses on the narrow isthmus connecting Gibraltar to the mainland, manned by the thirty thousand men of the Gibraltar Defense Force, led by Geoffrey Birley. The order to attack the Rock of Gibraltar was given on the morning of August 10th, opening the Siege of Gibraltar with a four-hour artillery barrage. The Spanish contingent would spend the next fortnight attacking the defenses as Commonwealth and Axis guns fought the greatest artillery duel on the Iberian Peninsula since the Napoleonic Wars. While the defenses would be penetrated and the warren of tunnels dug into the Rock itself cleared by the end of the month, it came at a ruinous cost. The Spanish took up to 70% losses, with entire regiments and divisions existing in name only by the end of the Siege. By contrast, the Gibraltar Defense Forces had managed orderly evacuations from each layer of defenses, and by the time they were evacuated by the Royal Navy, had sustained only 10% losses to the Axis. The Siege of Gibraltar was the first of many pyrrhic victories for the Axis, ripping the guts out of the once-formidable Spanish Army and leaving them utterly unprepared for the coming campaigns.

[...]

On Sanjurjo and Mola's left flank, Salazar was beginning to end his endless dithering. Caught between long-running British patronage and a government and sensibilities closer to the Axis powers, the Estado Novo had maintained a scrupulous neutrality since the war started in 1940, and would continue this after the Franco-British Union and it's Commonwealth joined the war alongside the Dutch and Belgians in 1942. With the formation of the United Nations later in that year, it was becoming increasingly clear that neutrality in Europe was not viable. Portugal would enter the war, and Mola's army was nowhere near ready for what that would bring.

Excerpts from Paul Preston, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in 20th Century Spain (London, 2012) (By @WaltzinBrunhilda)

Section Two:
The Scouring

The occupation of the border regions of the Spanish Free Soviet Republic saw an immediate return to the Civil War policy set forth by Mola of unyielding terror. Mola's guidelines during the initial securing of Castile and León returned in full form. Recently unearthed documents show that orders from Madrid written directly by Mola and with the increasingly weakened Sanjurjo's singing along stated:

"It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do. There can be no cowardice. If we vacillate one moment and fail to proceed with the greatest determination, we will not win. Anyone who helps or hides a communist will be shot."

Whereas similar orders from Mola during the Civil War represented the insecurity of their ability to secure Spain, these orders showed that the Spanish State had begun an unabashed genocidal approach to the Free Republic. In the minds of Nationalist military commanders and Madrid itself, the Basque and Catalan nations as a whole were helping the Communists.

Terror was the chosen method to annihilate the very memory of the Free Republic, and everything it represented, most notable to the West a mutli-national approach to the Spanish question, the end of the power of landowners, industrialists, the clerics and soldiers, and worse of all the general rejection of subservience by rural and urban workers and, most irksome for the right, women. Within the Spanish state every strain of thought was unified on the matter that the Free Republic needed to be destroyed. From the small remains of the liberal wing of the CEDA, to the ultimately triumphant Falange, every member of the National Defence Junta planned on crushing the Free Republic. Even Antonio Aranda, despite his position as the leading Spanish Anglophile, supported resuming the civil war right up until his exile after Mola's putsch. Even after fleeing to France and then Britain, his main objection - a notably common one amongst post-putsch exiles - was that Spain had joined the Stahlpakt.

[...]

The intervention of the Stahlpakt into the Spanish front served as a decisive blow to the Free Republic. With the combined strength of the Pétainist Army, the Heer and the Luftwaffe, along with a small contingent from the Regio Esercito and the Regia Aeronautica's Aviazione Legionaria attacking from the north, the already overstretched Ejército Rojo was crushed. Yet the terror had only just begun.

With the successful conquest of the Free Republic, the infamous Einsatzgruppen and Squadristi were set to work teaching the already brutal Nationalist Army on how to deal with the Basque and Catalan Nations. Otto Ohlendorf, the commanding officer of the Spanish Einsatzgruppen, noted that the Spanish attacked the population of the Free Republic without mercy. In numerous occupied towns, the women lucky enough to not be raped or executed were forced to drink castor oil and left in public squares.

In majority Basque towns, a common tactic was to ask the locals to recite the Lord's Prayer in Castilian Spanish. Those who were unable to were executed. The subsequent birth of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna organization represented the popular Basque resistance to the brutality of the Spanish state. While remaining Catalan people had the ratline to the safe haven of neighboring Andorra, the Basques that had not escaped during the evacuation of the pocket were surrounded by the Stahlpakt due to being situated in the Bay of Biscay. As Entente military intelligence observed, a major consequence of the Basque population's encirclement and suppression was the series of ETA terror attacks across Spain, most notably the Assumption 1942 Madrid Bombing. While insignificant compared to the damage of the First Battle of Madrid, or subsequent battles during the Second Peninsular War, the attack allowed the Falangist coalition under Mola to successfully purge the last remaining Carlists with a series of accusations that the terrorists had entered Madrid disguised as Requetés.

The ETA was not the first partisan movement to form after the Fascist occupation of the Free Republic, yet it would become one of the most well known ones. Many survivors of the Ejército Rojo would go underground much as their compatriots in the Soviet Union, forming two major partisan movements. The bulk would comprise the explicitly communist Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota, while some would join the more liberal Maquis. Mola's already worsening bipolarity would see him order increasingly vicious reprisals against the national liberation movements, the liberal Marquis, and the communist FRAP alike; all of which were claimed by Falangist propaganda to be branches of the same rotting Bolshevik-Maximalist-Masonic tree. While Barcelona is the most well known example of this policy within the Entente thanks to the work of the prominent Catalan-Andoran exile Salvador Espriu, a more important example of this policy in practice can be found in the Irun Massacre.

Originally occupied by Pétainist forces, the Basque town of Irun was to be transferred to Spanish occupation forces as they arrived in the beginning of May. By the time this had occurred, the obvious progressive and leftist 'deviants' had already fled. However, this town in particular was tainted in the eyes of Mola, as the local church had voluntarily supported the defending Free Republican forces prior to their rout, reflecting the broader trend within Basque society, be they workers or clergy, of siding with the Free Republic over the Spanish State. Inquiries made by scholars into recently unearthed documents have found orders countersigned by both Chief of the General Staff Mola and Generals Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and Francisco Franco which commanded the complete obliteration of 'Communist presence' in the town. What would follow would be a calculated act of brutality against the population as a whole.

All local men were ordered into the church while any priests still remaining in the town were taken away by Blueshirts. Officially they were being interrogated on suspicion of 'collaboration' with the Free Republic. In actuality, The entirety of the group was executed by the roadside. Their 'heretical' willingness to remain loyal to the Free Republic was damning enough evidence for the increasingly erratic Mola. Following the execution of the priests, the Einsatzgruppen and Squadristi who arrived in the town were given command of the interrogation. Officially the aim was to scour out any partisans remaining. In practice it was to send a message, to both the Basque people in particular and the Republican resistance as a whole. Roughly three hours into the 'interrogation', a stash of rifles was found in a nearby house giving enough evidence for the local command to sign off on the order. Roughly 500 women were chained around the town publicly and forced to drink Castor Oil, with the surviving men and children forced to watch.

The exact number of men killed during the massacre is up to debate. Oldenhorf wrote "Irun has been purged of the Communist threat" in a report to Himmler. The Entente investigation following liberation found at least six mass graves and placed the number at around 700 men killed. More modern estimates place the number between 1,000 and 1,500 executed. Nevertheless, Irun represented the final descent of the Falange-dominated Spanish State into the arms of the Stahlpakt.

Miss Teri · Feb 20, 2024

Vladivostok AFB

Vladivostok AFB is an American sitcom that aired on PBS-5 from 1978-1983, developed by Joe Goldberg* at Melrose Television.[1]

The show, set from 1942 in season one up until 1947 in season 4. centers on a group of employees at the WFRA's "Armed Forces Broadcasting" in Vladivostok, sending commercial radio broadcasts like news, sports, entertainment to comfort the troops while serving on the harsh Eastern front. Naturally, mishaps occur as they deal with harsh weather, confusing orders from their WFRA superiors AND local RKKA regulators, and drama between the staff, not to mention having to maintain live broadcasts during a harsh war, as they try to help the troop morale and in a way, the entire war effort the best way they can.

The program was noted as being a distinctly ensemble cast-driven show, much in the vein of other popular comedies of the era like Taxi Drivers[2] and MASH. MASH was a particular influence on Goldberg, who based the show on his experiences running the Santo Domingo AFB station during the Congo War, broadcasting across the Atlantic.

While there had been WW2 based sitcoms like McHale's Navy and Camp Cherokee[3], the tone of the show leaned more towards the more transgressive comedy of the late 70's, which caused some trepidation, as some felt the subject of WW2 was not suited for that sort of comedy.

The ensemble cast would include:

Harold J. "Doug" Douglas (Ted Danson)- a former station manager from Cleveland, recruited after enlisting to use his skills to organize the station best he can. Responsible for choosing programming for the station (including having to organize music as up to date as possible). Relaxed and sardonic, often skirting the line with Army higher-ups over choices like bawdy music and comedy routines

Maria Berman (Gilda Radner)- Commissar at Vladivostok AFB, and former executive at the International Broadcasting Federation. Stern and serious, but only because she cares deeply for the staff and the cause. Initially has a frosty relationship with the calmer, younger Midwestern Douglas, but eventually, through the seasons, the two would get into a relationship.

Spartacus Lincoln (Cleavon Little)- A Revolution vet, jazz musician and DJ from Charleston. Both runs the AFB music program and conducts the in-house orchestra. Also provides the technical support for much of the station.

John Roberts (Ed O'Neill)- A Hollywood actor who, instead of being sent to the front as he had hoped, instead does the male lead scripts for the dramas and reads out the news. Embittered initially as he had wanted to shoot Germans, but slowly sees the effects of his work when soldiers praise his work, and he drowns out German propaganda on the front.

Doris Plank (Lesley Ann Warren)- A glamorous former actress who provides the female lead for the in-house dramas, sings occasionally with the live orchestra. Vain, snobby, but secretly kind hearted.

Fu Wu Ying (James Hong, recurring Seasons 1-2, main cast season 3-4)- Chinese language Radio Moscow broadcaster, broadcasts from AFB. Formerly a broadcaster for the frenemy Radio Moscow station. As part of his new deal with AFB, does various other character voices for the Roberts-Plank dramas. Cantankerous, dislikes the Americans, but grows more accustomed to them as the series goes on.

Yakov Chekov (Yakov Naumovich Pokhis[4], main cast season 3-4)- Eccentric Russian language broadcaster for Radio Moscow, brought in for more Russian language content. Sort of the Russian John Roberts, as someone who does the male drama leads, and becomes Roberts' rival.

Katarina Maximovna (Alla Pugacheva, main cast 3-4)- A Soviet actress turned radio star, does the Russian language female leads, and even sings with the orchestra. Briefly has a relationship with Roberts, but decides to leave him for her ex, a soldier on the front.

Seasons 1-2 were largely focused on the difficulties of running a station at that time, especially with the difficulties of wartime transportation and providing quality entertainment (several episodes deal with trying to get music or dramas that weren't already broadcast or trying to deal with crises that could result in dead air), the constant fears of Nazi invasion and the tension between the staff and the local Soviets who occasionally get upset at American broadcasting. Leading the charge is exiled Chinese broadcaster Fu Wu Ying, a bigwig at the local Radio Moscow station.

In part because of the controversy over the content, the stations merge in season three, with Fu Wu Ying now broadcasting from the station.

Historical events are integrated throughout, from Season 1, episode 4 "Man O'Steel" discussing how to properly discuss Stalin's death, to Season 3, Episode 12 "Drill" showing how emergency broadcasts were done during a drill involving potential Japanese bombings.

The first series theme song would be "Sing, Sing, Sing", by Benny Goodman. However, in a strange move by PBS management, an original contemporary soft rock song would become the theme, causing confusion over its own period setting.

While much of the series is set during the war, Season 4, the final season was set at the end of the war and its aftermath, including the bombing at the Korean Straits and Operation Damocles, where the station becomes more focused on military and emergency broadcasting, with several episodes about the employees essentially pushed out except for Doug, who has to deal with more direct military action.

After the end of the war, the final few episodes deal with the conversion of Vladivostok AFB to a civilian station. Because of their popularity, Roberts and Plank are offered the chance to star in a Hollywood production. Fu Wu Ying is recruited by the newly formed Mandarin language Radio Beijing (an anachronism, as Radio Beijing was not founded until 1949) to be their main announcer. Yakov and Kat remain as the new stars. Doug is offered a job running a new television station in Metropolis, while the new Soviet management wants him to stay due to his success. Berman, remaining as an American liaison, encourages Doug to go to Metropolis. The final scene of the series is their goodbye, their relationship ending. For now.

The series received mixed reviews during its run, and relatively little attention. However, over time, the show has garnered a cult following, especially with the series becoming a hit on syndication. Two spin-offs would be created: 1988-1991's I Left My Heart in San Francisco, featuring Danson reprising his role as Doug, this time running a TV station during the Horn War, and 1990-1998's Good Morning Beijing, starring James Hong reprising his role, now in 1960 Beijing, running the station he had been assigned to in the finale, and having to deal with a younger, more aggressive generation that was quick becoming a counterculture in socialist China, dealing with the various events of the 1960's in China, such as their participation in the Comintern space program and the anarchist occupation of the Forbidden City. The show would also come to inspire a revival in more "ensemble" sitcoms, which became common in the aftermath of the Second Cultural Revolution and lower-stage communism.

[1] Established in 1970 as the television division of Melrose, established by Mary Tyler Moore, Grant Tinker, and Fred Silverman.
[2] Taxi
[3] 1963-1968 TV sitcom, centered on the titular POW camp in Oklahoma, centering on the local Proletarian Guardsmen in charge of running the camp. A mix of Hogan's Heroes and Dad's Army
[4] Known OTL as Yakov Smirnoff.

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Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

The Queen

Deputy Premier, UISR

Excerpts from Adrien Guerland*, Edges of Darkness: The Rise and Fall of The French State (Paris: Fraternité, 2012)

Clouds on the Horizon

The Deluge Arrives

Solving the riddle of history

POSTING HAGUE INMATE

POSTING HAGUE INMATE

The Queen

She who remembers

Deputy Premier, UISR

POSTING HAGUE INMATE

The Queen

**Excerpts from Adrien Guerland, Edges of Darkness: The Rise and Fall of The French State* (Paris: Fraternité, 2012)**