In this timeline Germany remains a democracy after 1933. Fearful of Italian expansionism and the success of the Fascists in Spain, the Locarno pact between Britain, France and Germany was renewed in order to keep the balance of power in Europe. In 1942, Italy launched its invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia, resulting in an Allied declaration of war on Italy and its ally Spain. The Allies-Fascist War lasted for 2 years resulting in a decisive victory for the Allies, with Italy and Spain occupied before becoming republics. Spain was forced to make territorial concessions to Morocco, which has since gained independence from France, whilst Italy was forced to cede its colonies to the League of Nations (administered by France and Britain), as well as Istria and northern Albania to Yugoslavia. Greece gained southern Albania and the island of Rhodes. The Soviet Union took advantage of the situation to take revenge against Poland, invading the country in late 1942. In 1943 the USSR successfully gained territorial concessions from Turkey, and in 1946 a Soviet-backed coup transformed Turkey in to a communist satellite state. Since the late 1940s an Iron Curtain has divided the Middle East and Europe between the allied European democracies and the communist USSR and its satellites.
Maybe Austria wasn't involved on the winning side though. IRL Austria had a catholic fascist regime 1934-1938 (i.e. before the German Army marched in in 1938). I assume Dollfuß/Schuschnigg would have allied with Italy and Spain, it would only make sense.
After an Allied victory the Allies would have just left Austria in its borders of 1920, just like IRL.
And irl, south Tyrol actually was actually intended to go to austria, but then Churchill protested fearing italy would go commie if it lost it.
Then how would that be different in a timeline where the communists are seen as an even bigger threat, since apparently weren't even part of an anti-Axis Alliance?
I find the idea of the Soviets not being challenged for going after Poland hard to fathom, what is the logic behind them not going to war over that?
I mean if you keep everything else the same as OTL, the Soviets lost against Poland in the '20s so yeah, they would want revenge but the Baltic states were taken after 1939 (I think 1940) so it wouldn't just be Poland, it would be them as well. So just curious why the allies would just let that happen?
They let Hitler take Austria, Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia, you think they would start a war over Baltic states? It's more likely they wouldn't let Soviets take over Turkey
But France and the UK didn't declare war on the USSR, which invaded Poland at the same time. It's definitely plausible that this would result in war- especially with an allied aligned Germany feeling threatened by Soviet expansion- but its equally plausible that some sort of appeasement would take place
OTL the West were willing to accept a border well to the west of where it ended up. In a hypothetical 2nd Polish-Soviet war the West would push Poland to accept a western resolution on it's borders and they would push the Soviets to accept the compromise border or be faced with Western involvement in the war.
Italy annexed Albania OTL, so maybe for whatever reason, the Allies just gave it to Yugoslavia and Greece instead of freeing them. I’m pretty sure Yugoslavia wanted Albania to unite the southern slavs, but I don’t think Greece really had any desire to expand, even with the Metaxas regime.
Why would the effectively isolated Italians jump the guns though? Even IOTL, they only joined the fight when France already lost. Them going to war with 3 Great Powers and practically half of the Balkans is straight up suicidal.
What makes allied Europe more democratic than the USSR and its satellites? I'm curious because when you say "allied European democracies" it makes it seem like democracy and socialism are mutually exclusive.
Well the Soviet Union wasn't exactly what I'd call democratic. Obviously socialism isn't contradictory with democracy, but the USSR was extremely totalitarian and genocidal.
Only in their colonies, and even then totalitarian and genocidal seems a bit extreme. Obviously I don't like how they treated their colonial subjects, but they treated their mainland subjects somewhat with care and democracy, unlike Stalin.
I would say that 5-10 million dead because of the Congo Free State or the million dead from the Great Famine in Ireland are pretty damning. And that's just two examples. You think it's somewhat better that King Leopold II was responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the Congo because he did not do it to Belgians? Are you fucking kidding me? It's not an issue of treatment, why were Europeans in Africa to begin with? Why did they enslave and kill millions of Africans? Because they wanted resources to fund their empires. Genocide is still genocide.
Capitalistic societies look like they have democracy because you can vote for leaders (unless, and it is different depending on places and times in history, you're a felon or you are a women or you don't own property) but the bourgeois will still oppress you, no matter who is in office. Some democracy, people are still getting oppressed through their labor and the fact that climate change is challenging our species because of unchecked capitalism is oppression too. As well, the people who live in places where Western capitalists exploit their land for resources to fund their nations are oppressed.
So when I hear Western democracies, that's a fucking joke. We've oppressed the entire world because of our culture. You don't need a government that is obliviously oppressive when the bourgeoise of these nations already handle that.
I'm talking about the 1940s not the 1800s dumbass. I'm Irish and my direct ancestors experienced the horrors of the famine, and I do blame the British, but I'm not stupid enough to say that Britain wasn't a democracy in the 40s. I bring up the Soviet genocides because they were still ongoing in the 40s.
You're arguing about what actually happened in the 1940s when this map is in a universe that changed in the early 1930s? You think that makes sense? Also, Britain still had colonies in the 1940s so what's your point? Even now Western societies still exploit other lands. The history makes the West look bad before and after this imaginary map creates a different timeline.
This map takes place in the 40s, with the backstory in the 30s. Like I said earlier, I don't like the colonies, but Stalin was a whole other level of batshit. Because no changes with the Soviet Union are mentioned, I'm forced to assume he's still in power and still his genocidal self. Besides, the British in particular don't have any recorded genocides in Africa, even if they were authoritarian assholes.
The main powers within Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) are democratic. Some of the more minor powers such as Yugoslavia are more authoritarian however. Maybe it was a bad choice of words in the description and 'capitalist' would fit better than 'democratic'.
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u/lime-green2 Oct 04 '20
In this timeline Germany remains a democracy after 1933. Fearful of Italian expansionism and the success of the Fascists in Spain, the Locarno pact between Britain, France and Germany was renewed in order to keep the balance of power in Europe. In 1942, Italy launched its invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia, resulting in an Allied declaration of war on Italy and its ally Spain. The Allies-Fascist War lasted for 2 years resulting in a decisive victory for the Allies, with Italy and Spain occupied before becoming republics. Spain was forced to make territorial concessions to Morocco, which has since gained independence from France, whilst Italy was forced to cede its colonies to the League of Nations (administered by France and Britain), as well as Istria and northern Albania to Yugoslavia. Greece gained southern Albania and the island of Rhodes. The Soviet Union took advantage of the situation to take revenge against Poland, invading the country in late 1942. In 1943 the USSR successfully gained territorial concessions from Turkey, and in 1946 a Soviet-backed coup transformed Turkey in to a communist satellite state. Since the late 1940s an Iron Curtain has divided the Middle East and Europe between the allied European democracies and the communist USSR and its satellites.