And so, just as the ink is drying on the Germans terms of surrender, the colonial unrest has already started. Oh dear
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
To that, I say freedom for the colonized peoples of the world! Let freedom ring, for the victory over fascism must be followed by giving the colonized peoples the self-determination they deserve.
To the Syrians and the Alewites what they want opposes each other. With France allowing these states to grow a lot longer than otl I would expect we'd see a bunch of wars in the Mid East soon enough, with the Syrians and Alewites calling each other Fascist.
So the European front is over, can't wait to see what changes will occur further
So the interesting part begins.
1 Greek gains from Turkey.
2 would love to see a realocation of the assyrians to Turkey attached to Greece under a population swap. Reduce further devastation to them.
3 Armenia.
4 constanaople?
1 Greek gains from Turkey.
2 would love to see a realocation of the assyrians to Turkey attached to Greece under a population swap. Reduce further devastation to them.
3 Armenia.
4 constanaople?
Finally the works war is over. Good job @Lascaris . Now the real fun starts. But you do deserve a break.
And so the war in Europe ends. For all the speculation on Austria, it landed in a relatively similar place then OTL as to who conquered what so its likely to be in the same place in the Washington-Moscow Axis when all is said and done as well. As many have speculated the WAllies have also wound up liberating the overwhelming majority of Yugoslavia, giving the Chetniks a fighting chance against Tito.
That leaves Denmark and Czechia. Overall I'd say Denmark has a pretty solid chance of landing in the same place then OTL. Both OTL and ITTL it didn't have a serious communist component in their resistance and according to the last update we got as to where the front lines were the Brits were also likely to pull off a ''make it to the Baltic first'' move to cut the Soviets from getting to Denmark like in OTL. Czechia is a different matter and a significant divergence. Depending on how chips fell in the waning days of the war the Soviet's hand in Czechoslovakia might wound up either similar to OTL or massively weakened.
Beyond Europe... I don't think there is anything more to be said at this stage beyond the speculation that has already been done, as what is happening in Syria in terms of the (probable) final push toward independence is mostly going along OTL lines at this stage, even if the circumstances are different. One possibility that hasn't been brought up is that Athens could potentially do some ''strategic'', for lack of a better term, resettlement of the Crimean Greeks refugees, since they need to find homes for them anyway, to alter the demography of some areas it would wish to annex from Turkey but where Greeks are not a majority yet, areas of Caria especially coming to mind. Obviously, that would be morally reprehensible but this a brutal era, both ITTL and OTL and even after the end of the war, and there are legions of states and groups who have done far worse so I could so even a government that is generally behaving ethically succumbing to the temptation here...
That leaves Denmark and Czechia. Overall I'd say Denmark has a pretty solid chance of landing in the same place then OTL. Both OTL and ITTL it didn't have a serious communist component in their resistance and according to the last update we got as to where the front lines were the Brits were also likely to pull off a ''make it to the Baltic first'' move to cut the Soviets from getting to Denmark like in OTL. Czechia is a different matter and a significant divergence. Depending on how chips fell in the waning days of the war the Soviet's hand in Czechoslovakia might wound up either similar to OTL or massively weakened.
Beyond Europe... I don't think there is anything more to be said at this stage beyond the speculation that has already been done, as what is happening in Syria in terms of the (probable) final push toward independence is mostly going along OTL lines at this stage, even if the circumstances are different. One possibility that hasn't been brought up is that Athens could potentially do some ''strategic'', for lack of a better term, resettlement of the Crimean Greeks refugees, since they need to find homes for them anyway, to alter the demography of some areas it would wish to annex from Turkey but where Greeks are not a majority yet, areas of Caria especially coming to mind. Obviously, that would be morally reprehensible but this a brutal era, both ITTL and OTL and even after the end of the war, and there are legions of states and groups who have done far worse so I could so even a government that is generally behaving ethically succumbing to the temptation here...
So the faces and dates are a little different but the war ends for Germany and Austria much as it did OTL from what I see. Killing or imprisoning the hardline Croatian nationalists is likely to help Yugoslavia going forward in whatever shape it takes. I expect Denmark will end up exactly the same as OTL, except possibly with Swedish help this time. I wonder if Scandinavism will see a resurgence in TTL, in Sweden at least. Czechia is still the big question mark. I don’t think the Wallies will change much there but I do hope that as many members of the Russian liberation army as possible can disappear into the French and Greek army rolls. They’re in Bavaria so they’re well placed for it at least
I’m assuming the actions in Syria are the beginning of TTL’s version of the Levant Crisis? Although this time noticeably without any Lebanese, Kurd or Alawite actions? I imagine that the British will still get involved in pursuit of their dreams of a Mega Hashemite client Kingdom in the Middle East, but still no actual conflict occurs between the Europeans. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lebanon and the Alawite state both have French military bases after the crisis though.
I’m curious about an event you didn’t mention though. Do the Setif and Guelma massacres still occur ITTL? Guelma seems easy enough to avoid by just butterflying away the officer who ordered the peaceful protesters attacked. Setif is also seeinungly easy enough to avoid by having the protesters give up their banners peacefully or by having a more tolerant officer in charge who was less in favor of violence. I only ask because the Massacres are widely seen as a turning point in Franco-Algerian relations. A peaceful decoupling is much more likely without them. Possibles even one where the French keep Oran and possible Bône. A France that avoids the Algerian War of independence is a very different nation than one who suffers through it. To say nothing of the befits for Algeria avoiding the destruction of the conflict.
I’m assuming the actions in Syria are the beginning of TTL’s version of the Levant Crisis? Although this time noticeably without any Lebanese, Kurd or Alawite actions? I imagine that the British will still get involved in pursuit of their dreams of a Mega Hashemite client Kingdom in the Middle East, but still no actual conflict occurs between the Europeans. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lebanon and the Alawite state both have French military bases after the crisis though.
I’m curious about an event you didn’t mention though. Do the Setif and Guelma massacres still occur ITTL? Guelma seems easy enough to avoid by just butterflying away the officer who ordered the peaceful protesters attacked. Setif is also seeinungly easy enough to avoid by having the protesters give up their banners peacefully or by having a more tolerant officer in charge who was less in favor of violence. I only ask because the Massacres are widely seen as a turning point in Franco-Algerian relations. A peaceful decoupling is much more likely without them. Possibles even one where the French keep Oran and possible Bône. A France that avoids the Algerian War of independence is a very different nation than one who suffers through it. To say nothing of the befits for Algeria avoiding the destruction of the conflict.
I respectfully disagree on the bolded. Both the tensions between the Pieds Noirs and the Arabic Muslim majority of Algeria and the fact that many in France came to think of Algeria as part of France (parts of Algeria were actually turned into departments) rather than a colony make a peaceful decolonization of Algeria pretty unlikely.
Of course, Algeria was not, in fact, part of France but that belief was widespread and entrenched enough to be a formidable obstacle to Paris accepting Algerian independence.
It was a part of France according to the French government and military for quite a long time (though yeah annexed against the will of the Algerian people but technically....)
With the war ending, I do wonder quite a few things that would happen in the future. Firstly, is Renner still doing the same things as per otl? We haven't seen him do anything yet in the tl, and he was pretty important in the first years of the second Austrian republic, and the fact that Austria is a lot more occupied than otl should also mean that Austria would be one of the nations most changed by the tl too. Maybe we get a southern German state? That would be cool.
Also, with the Syrians seeming to be close to war once again, with the Syrians and Lebanese being the first to fight against each other, I wonder would we see Lebanon being a lot less pro-arab and be anti muslim. If the Alewites fight the Syrians too things would get very interesting very quickly.
And with Greece being part of the victors alongside the USSR I see Greece wanting to extract their pound of clay in Anatolia to prevent the Turks from ever attempting to go to war with Greece again. If Greece manages to get Caria and some of Bithynia I think it'll make things more interesting. How will the Turks react with losing two wars? Will they calm down and realise that they won't have the power to control geopolitics around them? Or will they fight when they think the time is right?
Oh I do agree with you to a large extent. It’s not like things were all sunshine and smiles between the French and Algerians before the massacres. The French perception that Algeria for the most part was part of the metropole and not a colony is a big stumbling block in any peaceful decoupling. But I don’t think it’s impossible if the massacres were actually avoided. The massacres seemed to cement the idea that violence was the inevitable solution into the heads of both sides. It’s probably naive of me to think a completely peaceful decoupling is possible, but a negotiated withdrawal with France keeping an area or two that that were heavily populated by the Pieds Noirs seems possible. Oran was something like 49% French at this point in time, so if you held a vote it’s probably easy enough to win the extra two percent to stay with France if you avoid the massacres.
With all due respect I think it is naive, yes. Even after all the violence, the reluctance to leave was so strong that the tug of war between it and people being tired of the war almost destroyed French democracy, and might very well have if it hadn't been for De Gaulle being the one guy who could find a way through it (and even then the way he came back to power was.... far from above suspicion to put it politely).
I am also highly skeptical that the Algerian nationalists would have been cool with a partition. Like, please don't misunderstand me here: their desire for independence and decolonization was 100% natural and justified but IMO it is still important to not whitewash them: the moto of the FLN in their message to the Pieds Noirs after the independence referendum was ''la valise ou le cercueil'', the suitcase or the coffin. They definitely do not strike me as people who, had it there just not been a bit less bad blood, been willing to accept regional referendums which France would have mostly won on Pieds Noires votes...
Basically, this was one of those situations that was always very unlikely to not end in massive bloodsheed.
On that note, the death toll in Turkey as well, especially with how Turkey IOTL was neutral in WW2.
Both ITTL and OTL the Soviets built an army of freed Polish prisoners (well, ''freed'' as anyone they wanted in and who didn't want to join probably had some chats with the NKVD) as a counterweight to the Polish Armed Forces in exile and it was part of the assault on Berlin.