Napoleon's Victory [LONG]
- Thread starter Zach
- Start date
The Best and Only Time Line I've Read On AH
I think it's a shame that there's not much about Canada,I bet if Zach new about some Canadian history..there could have been some regions annexed by the Unted States..like British Colombia for example. Or Quebec independence/Quebec back under French rule? I sort of hope,if Zach ever does a redo of this timeline..he includes some of those possible facts..speaking of that..when would this timeline end? When it reaches our present year? I wonder how a Third Great War would fit into this TL..
I think it's a shame that there's not much about Canada,I bet if Zach new about some Canadian history..there could have been some regions annexed by the Unted States..like British Colombia for example. Or Quebec independence/Quebec back under French rule? I sort of hope,if Zach ever does a redo of this timeline..he includes some of those possible facts..speaking of that..when would this timeline end? When it reaches our present year? I wonder how a Third Great War would fit into this TL..
So you're not actually disappointed in the lack of Canada, but in the lack of the US annexing Canada?
But as I recall, TTL's US has Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, so.
(also I apologise to everyone thinking this is an update)
Guess what?!
Some thoughts:
1. Yes, I haven't posted in update in close to a year. I didn't expect to, quite honestly, until I saw how much this timeline meant to many people and when I started writing this update I really enjoyed it.
2. Canada? I don't know much about Canada, to be honest. I blame my America-centric education in which Canada is an accessory. My apologies
3. This update may seem a little rushed but it is the official end of the war. The next update will deal with the postwar situation and the update after that will probably breeze through to the present day when we will end.
4. I am wondering if anyone would like to create a beautiful map for this timeline. I look at the Map Thread often and wish I had skills like some of you all. Any takers? Nothing big, I'm sure.
UPDATE! The End of the Second Great War!
1941: End of War
With the final theatre of the great conflagration that had engulfed the entire globe nearing its titanic end, that very ending seemed to be increasingly obvious to many observers. Japan would be unable to hold out against the mighty British and French empires, as well as China and the United States. With its navy a shambles and over 60% of its air force destroyed, Japan was severely weakened. It was still protected by hundreds of miles of oceans but the Allied navies all but reigned supreme, disturbed only by the increasingly bold Japanese submariners. However, the Allies were closing in on Japan itself, bypassing thousands of islands taken by the conquerors in their rapid march across the Pacific in 1937 and 1938. The Allies were poised to pounce on Japan simultaneously after they licked their wounds. They were ready to rid the Pacific of an aggressive and dangerous foe and ready to lose thousands of soldiers doing so.
The bombing campaign against Japan was to last a full month but in fact lasted much longer due to the unexpected defense put up by the remaining planes of the Imperial Japanese Air Force. In the “Battle of Japan” (later to be called the Air Battle over Japan once the actual land invasion of Japan commenced), Japanese pilots fanatically fought on despite the severe shortage of fuel. It was in late 1940 and early 1941 that kamikaze pilots became more common against naval targets and even against large, long-range bombers. Over seventy-five Allied bombers were destroyed due to Japanese kamikaze pilots, although the Japanese preferred their fanatical suicide pilots to hit more substantial targets. The Japanese put up such a strong air defense that the air war over Japan lasted twice as long as planned, from December to the end of January. However, Allied commanders noted that despite the huge effort in defending the air, there simply were fewer and fewer skilled Japanese pilots and factories producing planes. In September, 1939 at the relative height of Japanese production, 2,300 fighter planes had been created. Just fourteen months later in December 1940, due to Allied bombing and an increasing shortage of materials, that numbered had dropped to 742. In January 1941, that number was 580. While thousands of planes still existed, there was an overall lack of skilled pilots and especially fuel. Japan turned to creating suicidal weapons, with the aim of a one-way trip. There was no shortage of fanatical young men who would sacrifice their lives in the hopes of sinking an Allied ship and from November 1940 to February 1941 over 2,000 kamikaze flights set out, causing over a thousand Allied deaths and managing to sink a handful of ships including a British cruiser.
The final foray of the Imperial Japanese Navy, once the greatest naval force in the Pacific if not the world, occurred in January 1941 in a semi-suicide mission. The remaining ships, numbering five aircraft carriers, four battleships, seventeen cruisers and a number of smaller craft, sailed south to intercept and engage the massive multinational force assembled north of Formosa. It was an attempt to score a decisive victory against the Allies in the hope of creating a fair peace. The Allies never gave them the chance. The proud Japanese fleet had little regard for deception and as a result was sighted by Allied scouts. The resulting battle was a terrifying affair that ended in the near complete destruction of the Japanese fleet and in asinine losses that could have put to better use. It was a poor decision, one of many in the final months of the war, but none of them were nearly as damaging to the morale of an already demoralized nation. The Battle of Amami named for the Ryuku Island chain island it occurred nearest to, was the first of the final death knells for Japan.
All this while, Anton Morchenko, the victorious leader of Russia who had vanquished the Ottoman Empire before coming to the table with France, was looking with keen interest at the events in the Far East. His dealings with Japan stretched back many years; in fact it was the Japanese who made him who he was it due to their support of his Czarist army in the middle of the Russian Civil War. But now it was him who ignored their desperate appeals for aid. He was a man flushed with victory and delusional with ideas of a greater Russian empire. The traditional Turkish enemy was not enough for the ruler of Russia and he set his sights on his former ally and friend. The promise of more land for Russia, including the Siberian coast lost many years ago, and the opportunity to disrupt the French, Chinese, British and American invasion plans was too much for the Russian to ignore.
The most infamous geopolitical backstab occurred very quickly. On February 3rd, Russian diplomats rapidly withdrew from Japanese consulates and embassies on the Home Islands, making the harrowing journey home. Without warning, Japanese diplomats were evacuated from Russia, confused but soon seething with rage as Morchenko’s intentions were made clear. On February 5th, the Russian declaration of war was already sent to Japan and by the earliest morning hours of February 6th, Russian tanks were tearing through the paltry border defenses in Siberia. The overwhelming Russian force of over half a million soldiers took less than thirty-six hours to clear the Eurasian continent of Japanese forces, whose numbers were well below fifty-thousand anyway. Many of the Japanese forces in Siberia were third rate, older, or wounded veterans who were so surprised many took the uncommon step of surrendering to their former allies.
This invasion dashed any desperate hopes for a Japanese turn-around to the war as the conflict suddenly became Japan versus the world. The Allies were taken aback by Morchenko’s action, publicly welcomed the Russians into the war against the Japanese but privately grew concerned over the erratic behavior of the massive superpower. The Allies were wary of officially allow Russia into the alliance and kept their distance; the move was so unexpected, few world leaders knew what to say. Nevertheless, a Russian invasion of the Japanese Home Islands seemed imminent. As Morchenko expected, the Allied plans were thrown into chaos, especially the American invasion of the north.
From factories in eastern and central Russia, thousands of new landing craft made their way by rail east toward the captured ports on the Pacific. They were a standard make with little derivation, based roughly on Allied models used in the past years during their island hopping campaigns and tested only very briefly on the shores of the Black and Caspian Sea. They were cheap and after so many years of war, of a second-rate material. In essence, Russian engineers and military designers, under pressure from the upper echelons of government, valued mass production and cost over quality and design. Predictably, this had severe consequences for the imminent Russian invasion of Japan.
The storms of the Sea of Japan has once saved Japan from a horde of Mongols and in 1941 storms would again hinder an invasion from a horde of Mongols. The hasty invasion preparations, overconfidence and utter lack of training led to the most embarrassing action of the Second Great War. The invasion began on February 22nd. Because the Russians did not possess a Pacific port for quite some time, they of course lacked a Pacific Fleet. Hoping for a destroyed Japanese fleet (indeed, after the Battle of Amami the Japanese Navy was little more than a coast guard) the Russian invaders were comprised primarily of landing craft with a few small ships shipped from the East and quickly pieced together in the captured ports. For two weeks, Russian engineers and supply masters labored intensely to create an invasion force. It was a modern marvel, an unprecedented feat. In less than three weeks, a naval force was shipped across the largest country in the world by train and assembled on the water. Five trains an hour for twelve days, each freight train carrying two landing craft, plus hundreds of thousands of soldiers, munitions, ammunition and equipment. No one doubted the trains ran on time during that month. By the date of the invasion, there were over a thousand landing craft waiting to be filled with soldiers as well as over a hundred smaller patrol craft. All had been shipped on incredible cargo trains that continuously zipped across Siberia from the west bringing their invading cargo to the Pacific. The invasion force was not hidden and the whole operation was belied by a sense of urgency, a sense of now and a deferral that everything would work out in the end. After all, the effective propaganda machine of Morchenko stressed the total victory in the European theatres. The Japanese would pose little threat. And the quick collapse of Japanese Siberia only boosted Russian confidence to dangerously stratospheric levels. One could say February, 1941 was the height of Morchenko’s power. The Russian military would have followed him to the gates of hell.
But nature would have none of it. While the Russian Air Force pounded previously untouched prefectures of Japan to rubble and pulverized already bombed cities to smaller pieces of rubble, the invasion force quickly assembled itself. Anton Morchenko from his headquarters in distant Moscow used the favorable military conditions to push the invasion date forward, from February 25 to February 22. This mortal error may have changed the course of world history. The three days would have provided hundreds more landing craft and more importantly would have allowed a large storm to pass. Instead, on February 22nd, over a thousand landing craft carrying some quarter million left the major ports of Siberia to converge on invasion points on the island of Honshu, centered on the major city of Kanazawa and the Noto Peninsula. Packed onto the landing ships to maximum capacity, the soldiers lacked major amphibious landing and little knew what to expect. Some expected to be greeted as liberators, others expected to find a surrendering Japan and the veterans feared another tough fight after years of tough fights against the Turks, the French, the Poles.
Across the sea the flimsy landing craft sailed, accompanied by an equally flimsy protective ring of small patrol boats. The triumphantly named Pacific Fleet of the Empire of Russia was confident in their job despite being assembled from a train as early as hours prior to setting out. The total lack of preparation for resistance quickly led to a scare as a small number of Japanese naval vessels of the most fourth-rate and dismal quality opened fire in the middle of the Sea of Japan. Converted fishing boats, derelict craft and century-year old naval relics of Japan opposed the massive Russian fleet and the novice Pacific sailors initially panicked but then grew confident as their enemy revealed itself. The ease of the invasion began to be known and soldiers and sailors joked that they would be dining in the Emperor’s Palace soon enough, laughing that they had hoodwinked the Americans, Confederates, British and the reviled French. The banter slowly gave way to concern over the increased wind, the choppier waters, the decreased visibility, the sudden onslaught of rain and sleet, the cold day air suddenly turning dark gray as heavy clouds crushed the sun from the sky.
The rain erupted over large parts of the gargantuan fleet and the sea became a churning inferno of cold liquid. The flimsy ship’s cargo clung to the sides of the boats and to the unpainted handrails and the commanders of the landing craft tried to contact each other, first through radio and when that failed through flashing lamps. The crushing storm was an unprecedented experience for many of these men; many who came from deep in the center of a continent knew little about the ocean. Many men did not know how to swim. Predictably, the hastily assembled ships began to unravel, one screw at a time. The keels buckled under the weight of the crashing waves, the wartime glass shattered against the hurricane level winds. Whole boats were swallowed up in the typhoon’s wave and the survivors were tossed around as if nature itself were spitting on the arrogance of Anton Morchenko. In the calmer sectors of the invasion force, other ships managed to rescue the survivors of the sunken ships. In a sad twist of fate, this only led to more capsizing and the vicious cycle ran for hours until the surviving craft commanders unofficially adopted a “No Survivor” policy leaving the soldiers and sailors to freeze and churn in the freezing violence.
The storm relented eventually, leaving the harrowed and demoralized survivors to lick their wounds and press forward. The losses hadn’t been too bad, they thought. Reinforcements are right behind us, they figured. The sun came out, the waters calmed and the morning’s delaying mishap was forgotten in the nervousness of the pre-battle anxiety. Before long, the green of land of the Noto Peninsula was spotted and without so much of a bombardment the Russians landed. At first the landings went well, the dazed Russians encountering only a handful of local detachments. February 22 was a win-lose for Russia, when 20% of its invasion force was lost to nature but when the survivors crushed the defenses and gained a toehold in Japan, the first European to do so since the Portuguese almost four centuries prior.
But there was never any doubt that the Japanese were prepared for a land battle. Every man, woman and child had been mobilized to defeat the Western enemy and it was little difference to these indoctrinated people whether the Western enemy was commanded from Paris or St. Petersburg. The Japanese militias and then regular army poured into the Ishikawa Peninsula despite a damaged transportation system and waged a ferocious war against the Russians. Their losses at sea were terrifying but even more terrifying were the lack of immediate reinforcements. While the Russians again pulled an engineering marvel in establishing beachheads around the Noto Peninsula and landing almost 200,000 soldiers (but very little heavy equipment) in forty hours, they were doomed again by the lack of preparedness. Meanwhile, more landing ships had arrived on the Pacific ports and were assembled and sent across the sea. Without naval support beyond small ships, the remainders of the Japanese Navy picked apart the flimsy landing craft. Thousands of tons of Russian supplies were sent to the bottom of the sea or captured by the hungry Japanese sailors. The total capture of the Noto Peninsula by Morchenko’s soldiers by March was little compensation to the deflated invasion force of now about 150,000. Despite the march on the city of Kawazaga, it was clear the Japanese would not surrender. More storms on the sea had tossed away more reinforcements. For the few soldiers who made it to Japan, they were thrown into combat against a fanatical enemy. By mid March the Russians were stuck in a stalemate after three weeks of bitter, cold fighting and a rapidly dwindling supply base.
The politics of February and March in Japan and indeed the world were interesting. In the court of the hot-headed Emperor Mitsuhito, a faction led by Prince Tokugawa Atsumaro (of the ancient shogunal house) stressed that the invasion of the Russians provided an excellent opportunity to ally with the Western powers against the Russian threat. The “purist” faction that vowed to continue fighting all foreigners opposed him. Most silent, for fear of treason and serious reprisals, were those who wished to sue for peace with all combatants and spare the blood-shed. Mitsuhito was a purist who believed in a final Japanese victory and moved to strip the outspoken Tokugawa Atsumaro of his peerage and position in government. On February 28, he was arrested outside his home but during a bombing raid managed to escape from his guards and flee into the countryside. Later, during the invasions, he snuck back into Tokyo and eventually became a leader of the postwar Japanese government. For now, the Emperor still retained absolute control and he vowed to fight. Internationally, the relations between Russia and the Allies were more strained than ever over the “Japan Crisis.” As the Russian position in Japan grew more precarious (the trumpeting of Japanese news reports during these weeks was for once not hyperbole), the more motivated to invade Japan the Allies became. An attempt by Morchenko to formally sign an Anti-Japanese Alliance was summarily rejected by all the Allies, adding insult to his injury.
On the Noto Peninsula, Russian soldiers – contrary to orders from Morchenko – began to defect to the Japanese. Many were executed and tortured and the surrendering ceased. For the army, it was reminiscent of the first Great War, stuck outside of Constantinople. In other words, it was a military disaster. The military leaders had little idea what to do but bunker down and depend on the powerful Russian Air Force to provide sufficient air cover to keep the large Japanese military away. By mid March, less than a month after the war with Japan began, the Russian military conceded to a stalemate and did not launch any more offensives. In fact, thousands of men escaped on those flimsy boats, back to Russia, often with their superior’s unofficial approval or accompaniment. Despite the tragic Russian defeat (or stalemate at best) there was a bright side to both the Japanese and the Allies. To the Japanese, the “divine wind” saved them again and their confidence soared. Many thought this was a turning of the tide and the most nationalist believed victory was all but certain. This latter category included the Emperor who rejected an offer of surrender from the Allies on April 5.
The bright side to the Allies lay in the distraction the Russians provided the Japanese military. Close to a three hundred thousand Japanese soldiers were tied down in Ishigawa Prefacture so when the Americans invaded from the north on April 6th and the Anglo-French-Sino forces invaded from the south three days later, they met slightly less resistance than expected. The Battle of Japan commenced and did not end until the formal surrender on August 6, 1941.
[I could go into detail about the bloody horrors of an invasion of Japan but I will leave this to your imagination. I could list a series of adjectives to list how much rubble was created, how much blood was spilled and all the other combat tragedies but this war has been going on so long, I think I have exhausted my personal thesaurus. In short: the Japanese population resists initially and the Allies suffer about 400,000 casualties between the four of them, less than expected but still hefty. The bulk were absorbed by the southern forces and the Americans got off pretty light. Russians just stay put on their peninsula and many withdraw as the Japanese facing them are pulled away. Morchenko disgraced internationally but he owns the propaganda machine in Russia so it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, there is some internal intrigue and Japanese pacifists launch a coup, force the surrender by making the Emperor speak on the radio (“Voice of the Crane”) and the government officially surrenders on August 6, 1941.]
And so ended the Second Great War after over six years of fighting. Beginning on July 5th, 1935 with the Russian invasion of Romania and ending with the final surrender of Japan on August 6th, 1941, the Second Great War truly spanned the globe. It was humanity at its worse and the individual at his and her finest. The conflagration cost the world tens of millions of lives, hundreds of millions physically and psychologically affected and billions of lives forever changed.
From the shattered pieces of the world, one could not make out a clear winner. The losers were obvious. Prussia, Japan and the Ottoman Empire were totally shattered but four opposing spheres, Russia, French-dominated Europe, the American republics and the rising Chinese Empire survived with gains. The world situation seemed little altered from the beginning of the war except a close bond of alliance kept the Chinese, Americans and French in close concert with each other. The natural opposition, Russia, had acted erratically and aggressively and the rest of the world was joined together in concern over the actions of the dictator Morchenko. Still, the interests of the three powers remained fundamentally different and as early as 1941, geopolitical strategists plotted the future with talk of a “Quadrilateral World” or worse, a “Cold War.” The defeat of Japan, an aggressive nation itself, did little to calm other nations who still had others to fear.
The game of alliances and enemies, of proxy wars and more violence, was only beginning, some claimed. The world did not learn its lessons from the First Great War or the Second Great War. A hundred million lives in half a century was not enough, said some critics. The violence would just continue. Would these critics be correct?
Some thoughts:
1. Yes, I haven't posted in update in close to a year. I didn't expect to, quite honestly, until I saw how much this timeline meant to many people and when I started writing this update I really enjoyed it.
2. Canada? I don't know much about Canada, to be honest. I blame my America-centric education in which Canada is an accessory. My apologies
3. This update may seem a little rushed but it is the official end of the war. The next update will deal with the postwar situation and the update after that will probably breeze through to the present day when we will end.
4. I am wondering if anyone would like to create a beautiful map for this timeline. I look at the Map Thread often and wish I had skills like some of you all. Any takers? Nothing big, I'm sure.
UPDATE! The End of the Second Great War!
1941: End of War
With the final theatre of the great conflagration that had engulfed the entire globe nearing its titanic end, that very ending seemed to be increasingly obvious to many observers. Japan would be unable to hold out against the mighty British and French empires, as well as China and the United States. With its navy a shambles and over 60% of its air force destroyed, Japan was severely weakened. It was still protected by hundreds of miles of oceans but the Allied navies all but reigned supreme, disturbed only by the increasingly bold Japanese submariners. However, the Allies were closing in on Japan itself, bypassing thousands of islands taken by the conquerors in their rapid march across the Pacific in 1937 and 1938. The Allies were poised to pounce on Japan simultaneously after they licked their wounds. They were ready to rid the Pacific of an aggressive and dangerous foe and ready to lose thousands of soldiers doing so.
The bombing campaign against Japan was to last a full month but in fact lasted much longer due to the unexpected defense put up by the remaining planes of the Imperial Japanese Air Force. In the “Battle of Japan” (later to be called the Air Battle over Japan once the actual land invasion of Japan commenced), Japanese pilots fanatically fought on despite the severe shortage of fuel. It was in late 1940 and early 1941 that kamikaze pilots became more common against naval targets and even against large, long-range bombers. Over seventy-five Allied bombers were destroyed due to Japanese kamikaze pilots, although the Japanese preferred their fanatical suicide pilots to hit more substantial targets. The Japanese put up such a strong air defense that the air war over Japan lasted twice as long as planned, from December to the end of January. However, Allied commanders noted that despite the huge effort in defending the air, there simply were fewer and fewer skilled Japanese pilots and factories producing planes. In September, 1939 at the relative height of Japanese production, 2,300 fighter planes had been created. Just fourteen months later in December 1940, due to Allied bombing and an increasing shortage of materials, that numbered had dropped to 742. In January 1941, that number was 580. While thousands of planes still existed, there was an overall lack of skilled pilots and especially fuel. Japan turned to creating suicidal weapons, with the aim of a one-way trip. There was no shortage of fanatical young men who would sacrifice their lives in the hopes of sinking an Allied ship and from November 1940 to February 1941 over 2,000 kamikaze flights set out, causing over a thousand Allied deaths and managing to sink a handful of ships including a British cruiser.
The final foray of the Imperial Japanese Navy, once the greatest naval force in the Pacific if not the world, occurred in January 1941 in a semi-suicide mission. The remaining ships, numbering five aircraft carriers, four battleships, seventeen cruisers and a number of smaller craft, sailed south to intercept and engage the massive multinational force assembled north of Formosa. It was an attempt to score a decisive victory against the Allies in the hope of creating a fair peace. The Allies never gave them the chance. The proud Japanese fleet had little regard for deception and as a result was sighted by Allied scouts. The resulting battle was a terrifying affair that ended in the near complete destruction of the Japanese fleet and in asinine losses that could have put to better use. It was a poor decision, one of many in the final months of the war, but none of them were nearly as damaging to the morale of an already demoralized nation. The Battle of Amami named for the Ryuku Island chain island it occurred nearest to, was the first of the final death knells for Japan.
All this while, Anton Morchenko, the victorious leader of Russia who had vanquished the Ottoman Empire before coming to the table with France, was looking with keen interest at the events in the Far East. His dealings with Japan stretched back many years; in fact it was the Japanese who made him who he was it due to their support of his Czarist army in the middle of the Russian Civil War. But now it was him who ignored their desperate appeals for aid. He was a man flushed with victory and delusional with ideas of a greater Russian empire. The traditional Turkish enemy was not enough for the ruler of Russia and he set his sights on his former ally and friend. The promise of more land for Russia, including the Siberian coast lost many years ago, and the opportunity to disrupt the French, Chinese, British and American invasion plans was too much for the Russian to ignore.
The most infamous geopolitical backstab occurred very quickly. On February 3rd, Russian diplomats rapidly withdrew from Japanese consulates and embassies on the Home Islands, making the harrowing journey home. Without warning, Japanese diplomats were evacuated from Russia, confused but soon seething with rage as Morchenko’s intentions were made clear. On February 5th, the Russian declaration of war was already sent to Japan and by the earliest morning hours of February 6th, Russian tanks were tearing through the paltry border defenses in Siberia. The overwhelming Russian force of over half a million soldiers took less than thirty-six hours to clear the Eurasian continent of Japanese forces, whose numbers were well below fifty-thousand anyway. Many of the Japanese forces in Siberia were third rate, older, or wounded veterans who were so surprised many took the uncommon step of surrendering to their former allies.
This invasion dashed any desperate hopes for a Japanese turn-around to the war as the conflict suddenly became Japan versus the world. The Allies were taken aback by Morchenko’s action, publicly welcomed the Russians into the war against the Japanese but privately grew concerned over the erratic behavior of the massive superpower. The Allies were wary of officially allow Russia into the alliance and kept their distance; the move was so unexpected, few world leaders knew what to say. Nevertheless, a Russian invasion of the Japanese Home Islands seemed imminent. As Morchenko expected, the Allied plans were thrown into chaos, especially the American invasion of the north.
From factories in eastern and central Russia, thousands of new landing craft made their way by rail east toward the captured ports on the Pacific. They were a standard make with little derivation, based roughly on Allied models used in the past years during their island hopping campaigns and tested only very briefly on the shores of the Black and Caspian Sea. They were cheap and after so many years of war, of a second-rate material. In essence, Russian engineers and military designers, under pressure from the upper echelons of government, valued mass production and cost over quality and design. Predictably, this had severe consequences for the imminent Russian invasion of Japan.
The storms of the Sea of Japan has once saved Japan from a horde of Mongols and in 1941 storms would again hinder an invasion from a horde of Mongols. The hasty invasion preparations, overconfidence and utter lack of training led to the most embarrassing action of the Second Great War. The invasion began on February 22nd. Because the Russians did not possess a Pacific port for quite some time, they of course lacked a Pacific Fleet. Hoping for a destroyed Japanese fleet (indeed, after the Battle of Amami the Japanese Navy was little more than a coast guard) the Russian invaders were comprised primarily of landing craft with a few small ships shipped from the East and quickly pieced together in the captured ports. For two weeks, Russian engineers and supply masters labored intensely to create an invasion force. It was a modern marvel, an unprecedented feat. In less than three weeks, a naval force was shipped across the largest country in the world by train and assembled on the water. Five trains an hour for twelve days, each freight train carrying two landing craft, plus hundreds of thousands of soldiers, munitions, ammunition and equipment. No one doubted the trains ran on time during that month. By the date of the invasion, there were over a thousand landing craft waiting to be filled with soldiers as well as over a hundred smaller patrol craft. All had been shipped on incredible cargo trains that continuously zipped across Siberia from the west bringing their invading cargo to the Pacific. The invasion force was not hidden and the whole operation was belied by a sense of urgency, a sense of now and a deferral that everything would work out in the end. After all, the effective propaganda machine of Morchenko stressed the total victory in the European theatres. The Japanese would pose little threat. And the quick collapse of Japanese Siberia only boosted Russian confidence to dangerously stratospheric levels. One could say February, 1941 was the height of Morchenko’s power. The Russian military would have followed him to the gates of hell.
But nature would have none of it. While the Russian Air Force pounded previously untouched prefectures of Japan to rubble and pulverized already bombed cities to smaller pieces of rubble, the invasion force quickly assembled itself. Anton Morchenko from his headquarters in distant Moscow used the favorable military conditions to push the invasion date forward, from February 25 to February 22. This mortal error may have changed the course of world history. The three days would have provided hundreds more landing craft and more importantly would have allowed a large storm to pass. Instead, on February 22nd, over a thousand landing craft carrying some quarter million left the major ports of Siberia to converge on invasion points on the island of Honshu, centered on the major city of Kanazawa and the Noto Peninsula. Packed onto the landing ships to maximum capacity, the soldiers lacked major amphibious landing and little knew what to expect. Some expected to be greeted as liberators, others expected to find a surrendering Japan and the veterans feared another tough fight after years of tough fights against the Turks, the French, the Poles.
Across the sea the flimsy landing craft sailed, accompanied by an equally flimsy protective ring of small patrol boats. The triumphantly named Pacific Fleet of the Empire of Russia was confident in their job despite being assembled from a train as early as hours prior to setting out. The total lack of preparation for resistance quickly led to a scare as a small number of Japanese naval vessels of the most fourth-rate and dismal quality opened fire in the middle of the Sea of Japan. Converted fishing boats, derelict craft and century-year old naval relics of Japan opposed the massive Russian fleet and the novice Pacific sailors initially panicked but then grew confident as their enemy revealed itself. The ease of the invasion began to be known and soldiers and sailors joked that they would be dining in the Emperor’s Palace soon enough, laughing that they had hoodwinked the Americans, Confederates, British and the reviled French. The banter slowly gave way to concern over the increased wind, the choppier waters, the decreased visibility, the sudden onslaught of rain and sleet, the cold day air suddenly turning dark gray as heavy clouds crushed the sun from the sky.
The rain erupted over large parts of the gargantuan fleet and the sea became a churning inferno of cold liquid. The flimsy ship’s cargo clung to the sides of the boats and to the unpainted handrails and the commanders of the landing craft tried to contact each other, first through radio and when that failed through flashing lamps. The crushing storm was an unprecedented experience for many of these men; many who came from deep in the center of a continent knew little about the ocean. Many men did not know how to swim. Predictably, the hastily assembled ships began to unravel, one screw at a time. The keels buckled under the weight of the crashing waves, the wartime glass shattered against the hurricane level winds. Whole boats were swallowed up in the typhoon’s wave and the survivors were tossed around as if nature itself were spitting on the arrogance of Anton Morchenko. In the calmer sectors of the invasion force, other ships managed to rescue the survivors of the sunken ships. In a sad twist of fate, this only led to more capsizing and the vicious cycle ran for hours until the surviving craft commanders unofficially adopted a “No Survivor” policy leaving the soldiers and sailors to freeze and churn in the freezing violence.
The storm relented eventually, leaving the harrowed and demoralized survivors to lick their wounds and press forward. The losses hadn’t been too bad, they thought. Reinforcements are right behind us, they figured. The sun came out, the waters calmed and the morning’s delaying mishap was forgotten in the nervousness of the pre-battle anxiety. Before long, the green of land of the Noto Peninsula was spotted and without so much of a bombardment the Russians landed. At first the landings went well, the dazed Russians encountering only a handful of local detachments. February 22 was a win-lose for Russia, when 20% of its invasion force was lost to nature but when the survivors crushed the defenses and gained a toehold in Japan, the first European to do so since the Portuguese almost four centuries prior.
But there was never any doubt that the Japanese were prepared for a land battle. Every man, woman and child had been mobilized to defeat the Western enemy and it was little difference to these indoctrinated people whether the Western enemy was commanded from Paris or St. Petersburg. The Japanese militias and then regular army poured into the Ishikawa Peninsula despite a damaged transportation system and waged a ferocious war against the Russians. Their losses at sea were terrifying but even more terrifying were the lack of immediate reinforcements. While the Russians again pulled an engineering marvel in establishing beachheads around the Noto Peninsula and landing almost 200,000 soldiers (but very little heavy equipment) in forty hours, they were doomed again by the lack of preparedness. Meanwhile, more landing ships had arrived on the Pacific ports and were assembled and sent across the sea. Without naval support beyond small ships, the remainders of the Japanese Navy picked apart the flimsy landing craft. Thousands of tons of Russian supplies were sent to the bottom of the sea or captured by the hungry Japanese sailors. The total capture of the Noto Peninsula by Morchenko’s soldiers by March was little compensation to the deflated invasion force of now about 150,000. Despite the march on the city of Kawazaga, it was clear the Japanese would not surrender. More storms on the sea had tossed away more reinforcements. For the few soldiers who made it to Japan, they were thrown into combat against a fanatical enemy. By mid March the Russians were stuck in a stalemate after three weeks of bitter, cold fighting and a rapidly dwindling supply base.
The politics of February and March in Japan and indeed the world were interesting. In the court of the hot-headed Emperor Mitsuhito, a faction led by Prince Tokugawa Atsumaro (of the ancient shogunal house) stressed that the invasion of the Russians provided an excellent opportunity to ally with the Western powers against the Russian threat. The “purist” faction that vowed to continue fighting all foreigners opposed him. Most silent, for fear of treason and serious reprisals, were those who wished to sue for peace with all combatants and spare the blood-shed. Mitsuhito was a purist who believed in a final Japanese victory and moved to strip the outspoken Tokugawa Atsumaro of his peerage and position in government. On February 28, he was arrested outside his home but during a bombing raid managed to escape from his guards and flee into the countryside. Later, during the invasions, he snuck back into Tokyo and eventually became a leader of the postwar Japanese government. For now, the Emperor still retained absolute control and he vowed to fight. Internationally, the relations between Russia and the Allies were more strained than ever over the “Japan Crisis.” As the Russian position in Japan grew more precarious (the trumpeting of Japanese news reports during these weeks was for once not hyperbole), the more motivated to invade Japan the Allies became. An attempt by Morchenko to formally sign an Anti-Japanese Alliance was summarily rejected by all the Allies, adding insult to his injury.
On the Noto Peninsula, Russian soldiers – contrary to orders from Morchenko – began to defect to the Japanese. Many were executed and tortured and the surrendering ceased. For the army, it was reminiscent of the first Great War, stuck outside of Constantinople. In other words, it was a military disaster. The military leaders had little idea what to do but bunker down and depend on the powerful Russian Air Force to provide sufficient air cover to keep the large Japanese military away. By mid March, less than a month after the war with Japan began, the Russian military conceded to a stalemate and did not launch any more offensives. In fact, thousands of men escaped on those flimsy boats, back to Russia, often with their superior’s unofficial approval or accompaniment. Despite the tragic Russian defeat (or stalemate at best) there was a bright side to both the Japanese and the Allies. To the Japanese, the “divine wind” saved them again and their confidence soared. Many thought this was a turning of the tide and the most nationalist believed victory was all but certain. This latter category included the Emperor who rejected an offer of surrender from the Allies on April 5.
The bright side to the Allies lay in the distraction the Russians provided the Japanese military. Close to a three hundred thousand Japanese soldiers were tied down in Ishigawa Prefacture so when the Americans invaded from the north on April 6th and the Anglo-French-Sino forces invaded from the south three days later, they met slightly less resistance than expected. The Battle of Japan commenced and did not end until the formal surrender on August 6, 1941.
[I could go into detail about the bloody horrors of an invasion of Japan but I will leave this to your imagination. I could list a series of adjectives to list how much rubble was created, how much blood was spilled and all the other combat tragedies but this war has been going on so long, I think I have exhausted my personal thesaurus. In short: the Japanese population resists initially and the Allies suffer about 400,000 casualties between the four of them, less than expected but still hefty. The bulk were absorbed by the southern forces and the Americans got off pretty light. Russians just stay put on their peninsula and many withdraw as the Japanese facing them are pulled away. Morchenko disgraced internationally but he owns the propaganda machine in Russia so it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, there is some internal intrigue and Japanese pacifists launch a coup, force the surrender by making the Emperor speak on the radio (“Voice of the Crane”) and the government officially surrenders on August 6, 1941.]
And so ended the Second Great War after over six years of fighting. Beginning on July 5th, 1935 with the Russian invasion of Romania and ending with the final surrender of Japan on August 6th, 1941, the Second Great War truly spanned the globe. It was humanity at its worse and the individual at his and her finest. The conflagration cost the world tens of millions of lives, hundreds of millions physically and psychologically affected and billions of lives forever changed.
From the shattered pieces of the world, one could not make out a clear winner. The losers were obvious. Prussia, Japan and the Ottoman Empire were totally shattered but four opposing spheres, Russia, French-dominated Europe, the American republics and the rising Chinese Empire survived with gains. The world situation seemed little altered from the beginning of the war except a close bond of alliance kept the Chinese, Americans and French in close concert with each other. The natural opposition, Russia, had acted erratically and aggressively and the rest of the world was joined together in concern over the actions of the dictator Morchenko. Still, the interests of the three powers remained fundamentally different and as early as 1941, geopolitical strategists plotted the future with talk of a “Quadrilateral World” or worse, a “Cold War.” The defeat of Japan, an aggressive nation itself, did little to calm other nations who still had others to fear.
The game of alliances and enemies, of proxy wars and more violence, was only beginning, some claimed. The world did not learn its lessons from the First Great War or the Second Great War. A hundred million lives in half a century was not enough, said some critics. The violence would just continue. Would these critics be correct?
IT LIVES !!!!!!!!!!!!
You'd think the Russians would've been better prepared to fight the Japanese after they turned on them. Then again they just curb stomped the Ottoman Empire , so I could see them being arrogant. Is Morchenko's aura of invincibility starting to fade because of the failed invasion of Japan ?
You'd think the Russians would've been better prepared to fight the Japanese after they turned on them. Then again they just curb stomped the Ottoman Empire , so I could see them being arrogant. Is Morchenko's aura of invincibility starting to fade because of the failed invasion of Japan ?
Why was Honshu, the main Japanese Home Island and not the closer and less defended Hokkaido the destination of the new Russian fleet?
It's really not clear why Sakhalin seemed to be ignored by everyone.
Invading it would be an useful practise for the Russian forces and it could serve as a valuable forward base for the invasion of the home islands.
It's really not clear why Sakhalin seemed to be ignored by everyone.
Invading it would be an useful practise for the Russian forces and it could serve as a valuable forward base for the invasion of the home islands.
It does not bother me if Canada is annexed in TTL,but with so much detail put toward various regions of the world..it seems a bit odd that Canada is left out..even with some regions being annexed by the USA.
Canada? I don't know much about Canada, to be honest. I blame my America-centric education in which Canada is an accessory. My apologies
In a way,I don't either. I was just curious as to what your take could have been on a Canadian annexation.
wow...amazing
first off i would like to say its taken me a whole week to read this from start to finish and though i am a noob whose oppinion means little, that this TL is one of the very best.
If I may ask, though, a few things about the recent updates.
What is Persia doing this whole time? a war in the caucasus isnt exactly far and the Arabian rebelion might have some support from Persia who would like to see there long time competitors, namely trhe Ottomans, get whats coming to them.
It may be because i over read a few things for the sake of getting through them but is there a suez canal? i dont recall it being mentioned though its most likely french shouldn't the French use it too cutoff the greeks from there African horn holdings? And since the Greeks have gotten so aggresive lately shouldn't they have attempted to capture it?
finally what was Brazil doing during this whole war? or before then for that matter? It was relitively liberal and may have sided with the French morally but then again the French were there old foe since the invasion of portuegal, not to mention stripped them of their well deserved gains in guyanna and took from them Mozambique.
Great update Zach and great TL in general i hope you make another one soon.
first off i would like to say its taken me a whole week to read this from start to finish and though i am a noob whose oppinion means little, that this TL is one of the very best.
If I may ask, though, a few things about the recent updates.
What is Persia doing this whole time? a war in the caucasus isnt exactly far and the Arabian rebelion might have some support from Persia who would like to see there long time competitors, namely trhe Ottomans, get whats coming to them.
It may be because i over read a few things for the sake of getting through them but is there a suez canal? i dont recall it being mentioned though its most likely french shouldn't the French use it too cutoff the greeks from there African horn holdings? And since the Greeks have gotten so aggresive lately shouldn't they have attempted to capture it?
finally what was Brazil doing during this whole war? or before then for that matter? It was relitively liberal and may have sided with the French morally but then again the French were there old foe since the invasion of portuegal, not to mention stripped them of their well deserved gains in guyanna and took from them Mozambique.
Great update Zach and great TL in general i hope you make another one soon.
FINALLY! AN UPDATE!
I'm glad to see this timeline back as it is probably the first one I have ever read on the board. Needless to say, it is Awesome
I didn't expect the Second Great War to end this way... I'm also quite surprised none of the Great Powers (Zavtra Russia, Napoleonic France, the USA, the British or even China) has developped Nuclear Weapons by this point. Then again, we are not in OTL...
I'm wondering about what is to come.
Things are going to get harder for Morchenko now that he has been humiliated with the failed invasion of Japan. Russian Public opinion may not know because of the Propanganda, but the Russian Military (and maybe the Czar) knows the truth. Not to mention is Foreign politics are going to isolate him more and more...
If I consider his ambitions of a "Greater Russian Empire", I'm expecting Morchenko to launch another war, probably in Asia as Europe is led by the powerful French Empire. I'm also expecting this war to end in a failure and a coup happening in Russia against Morchenko, although I prefer the idea of an assassination or a suicide of the guy.
I'm also dying to see how the four-way "Cold War" between the French, Russians, Chinese and Americans is going to be...
I'm glad to see this timeline back as it is probably the first one I have ever read on the board. Needless to say, it is Awesome
I didn't expect the Second Great War to end this way... I'm also quite surprised none of the Great Powers (Zavtra Russia, Napoleonic France, the USA, the British or even China) has developped Nuclear Weapons by this point. Then again, we are not in OTL...
I'm wondering about what is to come.
Things are going to get harder for Morchenko now that he has been humiliated with the failed invasion of Japan. Russian Public opinion may not know because of the Propanganda, but the Russian Military (and maybe the Czar) knows the truth. Not to mention is Foreign politics are going to isolate him more and more...
If I consider his ambitions of a "Greater Russian Empire", I'm expecting Morchenko to launch another war, probably in Asia as Europe is led by the powerful French Empire. I'm also expecting this war to end in a failure and a coup happening in Russia against Morchenko, although I prefer the idea of an assassination or a suicide of the guy
.I'm also dying to see how the four-way "Cold War" between the French, Russians, Chinese and Americans is going to be...