Command & Conquer History - Part 2

[First, allow me of course to say that I do not own Command & Conquer. Second, anyone that knows the regular C&C timeline will eventually see that this does not follow the canon timeline of any individual universe. This is my attempt to tie the various games into one consolidated universe, while also incorporating more historical events that may not have been altered due to the shifting nature of the timeline.]

1934 – 1939: Major Events and Differences by Nation.

Germany: With Rudolf Schultz at the helm as Chancellor of the Reich, Germany’s economy stabilizes during the Great Depression, and begins to make a comeback even while continuing to pay off its war debt to the Entente Powers. However, not content to simply rest on these laurels, Chancellor Schultz would send emissaries to neighboring Germanic nations, and the concept of a unified Reich was proposed.

There was initial hesitance with the idea, considering what had happened during the Great War, but after a fair amount of courting, Schultz managed to pull off what many had considered impossible. The “Unification of German States as One Reich” was completed in the Spring of 1937, adding the Federal State of Austria and the Czechoslovak Republic, as well as organizing the return of the Rhineland and the Territory of the Saar Basin.

All of this put together became the Reich, and with the rearrangement of powers and resources came a massive influx of wealth for the nation – which not only helped it pay the war debt faster, but by 1939, allowed Germany to begin repaying the United States. It was not easy, but Chancellor Schultz had a vision for his nation – one in which German prosperity would be a shining beacon of hope for all Europe. He opposed the Fascism as he saw it in Italy, and the scourge of Communism in USSR, that had threatened his beloved Republic in its cradle.

However, paying off all the debt had one massive drawback – one that would cause chills to run up and down Schultz’s spine by the end of 1939. Germany did not have a proper, much less prepared, military. The Treaty of Versailles, which the country had been following to the letter, had gutted the German military. Even after the unification of the ‘new’ Reich in 1937, most of the military came from new territories, and was still fairly small. When the Soviets stormed across Poland in September and October of 1939, it was said that Schultz nearly fainted.

United States of America & Empire of the Rising Sun: In 1934, the two nations came to an agreement. The Empire of the Rising Sun returned to the League of Nations, and for the first time, the United States of America joined it. Seeing the League’s weaknesses having played out first hand considering what had happened over Manchuria, the Japanese and Americans suggested some sweeping reforms that would apply to their members.

Japan surrendered Manchuria back to China, and despite the initial negative reactions by the populations, the same papers that had been so easily swayed to write pro-war pieces soon found themselves writing propaganda pieces in support of the surrender of Manchuria. Mostly they noted both the “treasonous and dishonorable” manner in which the territory had been acquired, and that returning it was the “honorable and just” thing to do. Among the military this also helped settle matters, as the Code of Bushido was still strong.

It was in 1936 that the League of Nations dealt with a true test of wills. Japan, by this time a member in good standing for two years, took an active role in matters concerning the Spanish Civil War – including blockades to prevent war materials from foreign countries, as well as peace-keeping efforts inside the country. Meanwhile, the United States took a leadership role in the League, helping to work through matters of course regarding what should be done about the country in the midst of revolution.

By 1939, the conflict was resolved, just in time for the Soviet Union to take Poland.

Spain: Much like our universe, the Spanish Civil War still happens. However, only Fascist Italy backs the Nationalists. The Soviet Union, at the behest of the Black Hand, strongly backs the Republic – mostly as a PR campaign, but also in preparation of things to come, hoping to get an ally in the western part of Europe, where they could possibly land military assets and push from. What they didn’t expect was the involvement of the Japanese, so far from their Eastern holdings.

Japan’s actions were decisive – a full naval and aerial blockade of Spain. In the League of Nations, this led to protests by both the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy, as well as other nations that wished to cash in on, or somehow manipulate, the outcome of the conflict. However, the Emperor would hear none of it, and with the Americans backing the play, most of the members were content not to meddle in the affair.

In mid-1938, with the conflict rapidly drawing to a stalemate, the Japanese Imperial Army began police actions, which lead to the two sides of the conflict meeting with other League members to settle the dispute. A bombing perpetrated by Soviet agents, and an assassination attempt by Italian agents, combined to let the Spaniards see reason. Neither the Fascists, nor the Communists, wanted peace. They wanted Spaniards killing Spaniards until one or the other had an ally to their west.

With that in mind, the Spanish worked out an end to their conflict, declaring a Parliamentary Democracy, followed by a massive disarmament campaign. Many of the weapons that had been smuggled into the nation were recycled for resources, and the Imperial Army Corps of Engineers began aiding in rebuilding the nation’s damaged infrastructure with monetary and material donations from the United States and other League members.

Italy: Italian history through 1936 remains very much the same. The rise of Fascism still happened, Mussolini still becomes their leader, and expansionist policies remain. However, 1936 is also the year when things begin to change. In October of 1935, Italy began its invasion of Ethiopia. However, when Japanese naval forces mobilize to enforce the blockade of Spain during that nation’s civil war, an interesting idea came about.

Having to use the Suez Canal, thus passing very near to Ethiopia anyway, the Imperial Navy suggested to Emperor Hirohito that there may be another way to prove their commitment to the League of Nations, and without going out of their way to do so. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia, coupled with their governmental policies, and their attempted involvement in the Spanish Civil War, made the nation almost a pariah within the League of Nations. Thus, action against them in support of an injured party would be welcome.

To that end, in mid-1936 Emperor Hirohito approved support for the Ethiopians, and officially offered them aid. At first it was only naval fire support and small arms, but when it was seen that this enabled the Ethiopians to bring the invasion to a crawl, it soon became air support and armored vehicles.

In response, the Italian Army bolstered its forces, dedicating more men and equipment to the fight. The Fascists also threatened to unleash the Italian Navy against the Imperials, both in regard to their actions with Ethiopia, and Spain. However, the League – no longer the toothless entity that Mussolini had so often claimed – soon threatened mass embargos if the Italians followed through on that threat.

Of course, there were minor skirmishes that followed, mostly near-misses that resulted in little or no damage. The most famous incident, however, was when the IJN Kongo, an Imperial battleship, “accidentally” rammed and sank a surfaced Italian submarine near an Ethiopian port that Japan had been using to offload supplies.

In 1937, however, Italy made its greatest blunder. The use of Mustard Gas against Ethiopian personnel and civilians was enough to begin rounds of embargos and frozen assets among other League members. Japan, however, took a sterner route – they began landing troops and conducting joint operations with the Ethiopian Army.

By the first of February 1938, the Italian Army was in full retreat, and the naval actions that corresponded to the rising tension saw the Italian Navy bottled up at home. Half their submarine fleet found itself at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Italian flagship, the Littorio, was sunk by Kongo off the Somali coast while the Italian was escorting transport vessels. Her sister ship, the Vittorio Vento, was captured by Imperial special forces off the coast of Libya, with the help of Arab rebels.

1939 saw the beginning of the end for the Fascists in Italy. With the blockades, confirmed war crimes, embargoes, and a failed invasion under Mussolini’s belt, the final straw was the Libyan Arab Revolt that began in March of 1939. With the Italian Navy stuck in its home ports, the Italian Army all but whipped, and no manner of reinforcing those that were still in North Africa, Italy’s grip on her colonies was at its weakest.

It was then, with help from the Soviets – at the Black Hand’s urging – and an influx of fighters from other Arab States (Faisal being a major contributor), that the Libyans had their chance. The Italian Army units that had been stuck in North Africa were quickly wiped out, and a Libyan State was declared. Considering the common enemy, the Libyans went to the Japanese for recognition and sponsorship to join the League of Nations. They also contacted the Soviets through their channels and did the same. Both countries, despite their differences, agreed.

Libya joined the League of Nations on 30 August 1939. The next day, Mussolini was deposed, and Fascism in Italy was quickly dismantled for the ruinous thing it had ultimately been to the nation. Of course, as the cheers died down in the League of Nations at the end of the last Fascist state in Europe, Soviet tanks began rolling through the Polish countryside on 1 September 1939.

Soviet Union: Much of the same from the period of 1924 – 1933 continued in the Soviet Union during the later half of the 1930’s. Preparations with China and the Arab States were not slowed in the slightest, and the attempted destabilization of Europe continued with the intended meddling in the Spanish Civil War. Foiled there by the Japanese, Stalin was incredibly cross and swore that he would find a way to take his revenge. But that could wait, as the Black Hand insisted that the Empire’s time would come.

When the Japanese cut the Italians off from mainland Africa in 1938, the Soviets and the Black Hand saw their chance. Agents arrived in Libya in 1939 with weapons and equipment, including some – by that time – obsolete artillery pieces. Of course, any artillery was better than none at all, and with the Italians unable to reinforce their remaining troops in Africa, the Libyan Arab Revolt of 1939 succeeded in amazing fashion, with the Russians and Japanese both recognizing the nation’s sovereignty in rapid succession. Iraq, Ethiopia, and Spain followed in quick order, and then the rest of the League of Nations – before Libya officially became a member.

It was on the heels of this great political success for the Union that the Soviets soon took a hard turn. On 1 September 1939, the Soviet Union declared its intention to “restore the borders of the Motherland to their rightful place” – that is, to take back the territory that was lost in the Great War. That same day, the Soviet Union declared war on Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland. Before the official political channels could even realize the full implications of the declarations, the Red Army was already on the move, supported by air and naval units.

The League of Nations was stunned by the move, and while the main body – now stacked with Soviet-allied nations – tried to come to some kind of compromise on the issue (or at least an idea of what to do), a few nations took the initiative. Britain, France, Germany, and the United States sent aid where they could. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were written off. Estonia fell within two weeks. Latvia took three. Lithuania lasted a month before finally surrendering.

Poland received much of its support from Britain and Germany, in the form of materials, money, and weapons. They sent some equipment, but hoping to de-escalate the situation, they found themselves deliberating on if they should send armored vehicles. Not wanting a war, themselves, they fully eliminated the possibility of sending troops. Germany was ill prepared for any kind of conflict; though it was in marvelous shape considering where it had been, its military forces were pitiful thanks to keeping with the Treaty of Versailles.

Finland’s aid came mostly from France and the United States. Neither country had been particularly close to Finland, but both thought it was a better bet than Poland, due to climate and terrain. In the end, they were proven correct. Poland fell on 31 October 1939, and the Red Army units pushed right up to the German border. It is little wonder that Schultz nearly fainted. However, with the fall of Poland, all four nations put their all into backing Finland.

To that point, the Red Army had advanced no farther than thirty miles in any theater. Part of this was due to the weather preventing the full force of the Soviet Navy from being brought to bear. The Soviet Baltic Fleet had enough vessels to smash the Finnish naval forces, but ice kept them stuck at home, and unable to fight. However, they did lose a considerable number of ships. Initially blamed on the Finnish (who had denied it), documents released from Japanese military archives in 2042 proved that the Japanese had taken the most direct decisive action of any League member at the time.

Japanese submarines, basing themselves out of Germany, France, and England – though using only the Empire’s fuel and armaments – had undertaken a covert naval campaign on behalf of the Finnish. Unable to send supplies in anything resembling a timely manner, they had opted instead to buy fuel from their western friends, and give them the schematics for their torpedoes and deck gun ammunition in exchange for those same friends producing and selling such to them. They also rented harbor space to base their submarines out of, via the Finns footing the bill – which made it appear that Finland itself was using the harbor space.

Imperial records indicate that the use of “wolf pack tactics” and night raids were highly effective. During the later-dubbed “Winter War”, the Japanese submarine taskforce sank one Battleship, one Heavy Cruiser, ten Destroyers, seven Submarines and twelve Motor Torpedo Boats. They destroyed a further thirty-two Submarines and twenty-nine Motor Torpedo Boats while they were in port, under cover of night.

Early on, believing the Finnish incapable of striking their naval bases, the Soviets would leave the lights on at night – which perfectly backlit the vessels in port. The greatest loss of Soviet naval vessels happened on the night of 30 November 1939, when the entire Japanese submarine taskforce – consisting of thirty-three vessels – launched a coordinated attack against five Soviet naval bases, resulting in the above “destroyed” rather than “sunk” vessels.

Other Soviet losses included most of their ice breakers in the Baltic Sea, and a battleship that was damaged by Japanese submarines, though not sunk by them. On the way back to port, the wounded battleship’s engines seized due to an oil leak near the stern, and she became trapped in ice. With no ice breaker available, tugs could not reach her. The crew was forced to abandon ship and walk back to port on the very ice that had entombed their stricken vessel.

Two weeks later, her hull already weakened from damage, the ice caused bulkheads to buckle and water rushed in. Ice that had collected atop the ship increased her weight an incredible amount, and as she flooded, with nobody aboard to seal her watertight compartments, the battleship sank like a stone. Though, interestingly, she never rolled over. The ice that had collected and forced her down also provided enough buoyancy that she came to rest on the bottom almost perfectly upright. However, due to depth, cost, and inexperience with the task, the Soviets never decided to try raising the ship, even for scrap.

By 31 December 1939, the Baltic Fleet was left with only one operational ice breaker, ten destroyers, thirteen submarines, and nine torpedo boats. Seeing this as a resounding victory, the Japanese recalled all but twelve of their subs, and those that remained began running patrols in groups of three for the remainder of the conflict, mostly on the lookout for troop ships, which never materialized thanks to a lack of available escorts, and “Russian stubbornness” with frontal attacks in Karelia requiring the redirection of more men. With mounting losses in Finland itself, and the Baltic Fleet crippled, the conflict that the Soviets had thought would take mere weeks began to drag on, at the expense of lives, equipment, supplies, and morale.

As well, for the first time ever, the League of Nations expelled a member. The Soviet Union, for its “illegal” invasion of Finland, was expelled from the League on 14 December 1939. The votes of its allies were mixed on the subject, most verbally trying to find some method of supporting the Soviet Union, but ultimately voting to expel them. No matter how they tried to twist things around, as they did with the invasions of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland, they could not justify the invasion of Finland. Finland had gained its independence from Russia with the support of the Bolsheviks, and to go back on this seemed hypocritical.

1940 – 1945: Major Events and Differences by Nation / Alliance.

Finland vs Soviet Union: With the Expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League in December of ’39, the League of Nations had begun to show that, even with a dedication to anti-war efforts, it did have teeth. While none of the members would commit military forces directly to the Finnish cause, many of them began embargos against the Soviets, and began sending war materials to the Finnish.

Coupled with this, roughly around 13 March 1940, volunteer combatants – many of whom were former military (though some were very recently discharged, even before their duration of service should have been up) – began streaming into Finland, to take up arms for the Finnish cause. Volunteers came from many nations – Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the United States of America, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, India and more. The number of volunteers swelled Finnish ranks by 140,000; double the amount that the Finnish had lost up to that point.

With the massive influx of support, the Finnish not only held their ground, but began to retake it. By mid-May they had retaken all their territory, aside from what the Soviets held in Karelia. By July, they had pushed the Soviet Union out entirely, and taken the initiative from them. Determined to teach the Soviets a lesson, the Finnish military decided to go on the offensive with a two-pronged attack consisting of a massive feint in the south, and their actual goal in the north.

Stalin had used Finland’s border proximity to Leningrad as an excuse for the conflict. Whether he had initially believed his own words or not was hard to say, but the Finnish decided to make the Russian “Man of Steel” eat them. On the morning of 1 September 1940, the Finnish made a massive push against Russian defenses south of Karelia. 100,000 men, backed by 2,500 tanks, 3,000 pieces of artillery, and 700 aircraft slammed against the Russian lines. The Soviets held for a week before their line finally broke, and the Fins surged toward Leningrad.

With Leningrad under threat, Soviet forces were redirected there from the other four nations that the Union had invaded. Three quarters were pulled away and sent to Leningrad (allowing for increased Polish partisan activity), and half the forces to the north of Leningrad were directed south. Believing that if they could stop the advance, and perhaps encircle it, they could regain the initiative and resume their invasion, the Soviets put their all into the defense of Leningrad, with a roughly equal number of tanks and aircraft, half as much artillery, and five times the number of infantry.

However, the Finish forces never actually launched a direct attack against the city. They got just to within range of the city with 300 of their biggest guns, roughly fifteen miles out, and entrenched themselves. Once entrenched, they opened up with the big guns and began shelling the city 24 hours a day, at an average rate of 1 round every two minutes – per gun. A week later, over 1.5 million shells had been dropped on Leningrad.

The Soviets attempted air attacks, which largely failed. The Finnish had mostly brought fighters (400), fighter-bombers (200), and dive-bombers (100) for their campaign in the south. The Soviets, intending to smash them with a counter-offensive, had only 250 fighters, 200 dive-bombers, 150 fighter-bombers, and 100 bombers. Finish airmen were kept on nearly constant alert, and combat air patrols were constant near their line, at very high altitude.

After three days of intense air attacks, the Soviets called off the air campaign. They’d lost over 500 aircraft, including four-fifths of their fighters. Meanwhile, the Finnish had lost merely 100, all of which were dedicated fighter aircraft. Better, because the fighting happened so close to their own lines, the Finnish were able to recover any of their pilots that made it to the ground alive, and even some aircraft that could be repaired. In addition, they were able to recover a few Soviet aircraft, and captured a large number of downed Soviet airmen.

The next attempt to relieve the pressure on Leningrad was concentrated counter-battery fire, which had more success, but resulted in a Finnish air campaign, which saw the destruction of most of the Soviet Union’s large-caliber artillery pieces. Stalin, irate at losing such valuable equipment, demanded that his commanders take to the offensive. If aircraft and artillery couldn’t do it, he was willing to drown the Fins in blood – even if it had to be Russian blood. As a massive storm rolled in, the Soviets began to plan their offensive.

Little did they know, the Finnish had decided to play a dirty trick of their own. Knowing that the Soviets would have little option but to attack them directly on the ground, they used the storm as cover and drew back from their lines. They left their trenches and all their positions behind, moving their lines five miles to the rear. As they did, sapper teams booby-trapped the old positions by planting explosives in the trenches, both anti-personnel and anti-tank mines to the rear of the old entrenchments and worked with sniper and artillery teams to sight their guns in for distance. Then, they waited.

Meanwhile, to the north, the Finnish decided that enough time had passed that they would launch their actual offensive. While more men and equipment had been dedicated to the Karelia Corridor and the feint against Leningrad, the Northern Force was designed for mobility and rapid movement.

Using the Germanic military concept of “blitzkrieg”, the Finnish put together large numbers of transportation vehicles, backed by rapid-moving light tanks, self-propelled guns, and bomber aircraft. 50,000 men in all were thrust from the closest point in Finland to the Kandalaksha Gulf, and then up and through the Kola Peninsula, capturing Murmansk and other important regional Soviet locations. By the time the storm let up in the south, Murmansk had been captured, communications with the rest of Russia had been severed, and Soviet forces on the Kola Peninsula were in full retreat, desperately trying to regroup.

Soviet High Command, unaware of the northern offensive, pushed their southern commanders into committing to an offensive as soon as the storm let up. They believed that the Finnish had found themselves unwilling to attack a vastly larger force and had been trying to whittle their numbers. While this had not been the goal, it had happened. Unknown to the Finish at the time, the bombardment of Leningrad had lead to 1 in 10 of the Soviet soldiers that had been stationed there dying – though this was related to a shortage of rations and medical supplies as much as it was to Finnish artillery fire. More had starved and died of disease than had been killed by shells.

Seven days after the storm started, it cleared enough that the Soviets began their advance. Artillery was moved up so that it would be in range of where they thought the Finnish lines were, and air assaults began – though the Finnish aircraft that responded tore the Soviet aircraft apart. Their fighters were outnumbered 6:1 and their total aircraft were outnumbered 3:1. That first day of the Leningrad counter-offensive would hold the permanent record for the number of Soviet aircraft lost in a single day: 178; leaving 22 Soviet aircraft surviving, and merely 7 operational.

Finnish artillery fire started when the Soviets were ten miles from the old lines, the largest guns opening up on them, and making it seem that the Fins were intent on holding their lines. The closer the Russians got, the more guns joined in – until roughly three miles out, where Finnish artillery fell silent. The rest of the advance was completely unhindered, and the Soviets – understandably confused, began to advance slowly. Upon reaching the abandoned entrenchments, the men on the ground began to assume that the Finnish had been running the entire time, and that the positions had been abandoned during the Soviet advance.

Capturing the entrenchments, they felt like they’d scared the Fins off, despite the losses they had taken, and were just about to celebrate… when the first men walked out into the minefield. The celebrations halted immediately, and Russian officers ordered to hold position in the trenches until the mines could be cleared – or at least a path through them could be found. It was then, as Soviet troops began to pack into the trenches that the Finnish sappers started blowing charges.

At the same time, the other boot was dropped, as pre-ranged artillery began walking shells up from the rear of the Soviet line. With the trenches blown out and artillery shells walking up from behind, the Russian units panicked and ran through the minefields. Many made it through, but only after the minefield were cleared by Russian boots and treads.

Hundreds of Russian tanks were rendered derelict by the minefield and subsequently destroyed by aircraft and artillery. Thousands of infantrymen died. Once they were past the minefield, however, the Russian advance turned into a rage-fueled charge toward the new Finnish line. Finnish fighter bombers and dive bombers were directed to focus on destroying artillery pieces. Artillery was directed to focus on enemy armor. Infantry, tanks, and fighter aircraft were to engage infantry and soft targets, such as transport vehicles.

Three weeks went by before the Soviets finally stopped beating their heads against the Finnish line, and by then, they had lost about eighty percent of the combat effectiveness. Their aircraft and artillery were practically non-existent. Their armor corps had been smashed, and their infantry corps was down to a mere quarter of what they’d started with. Meanwhile, the Finnish had lost merely a quarter of their forces, retained air superiority, and gained armor and artillery dominance as well.

The Soviet General in command of the offensive, knowing that, at this point, his men had no hope of a breakthrough, called off the offensive. Stalin, enraged at this, and more so by the fact that he finally got word that his commanders had somehow managed to lose the entire Kola Peninsula in the span of a month, had the General and the head of the NKVD at that time executed for their failure “of the Soviet people.”

The war would continue to drag on until June of 1942, at which point the Red Army’s morale had waned. Stalin, furious over the failure to conquer Finland, but knowing that there were those in the military – and especially the Black Hand – who were growing tired of throwing troops away, decided to come to the table. A demilitarized zone was established along the border of the countries, and Finland kept the Kola Peninsula.

Meanwhile in Poland, thanks to the withdrawal of large numbers of Soviet troops, Polish partisans had been causing a great deal of trouble for those forces that had stayed behind. This culminated, eventually, in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Unfortunately, the Uprising was an overall failure, with roughly even casualties on both sides, and the eventual surrender of the Polish Home Army to the Soviet Union two months later. By the end, most of Warsaw lay in ash and ruins, and the Soviets carried out mass killings in reprisal.

What the League of Nations did not know, could not know, was that all the while the Soviet Union was waging war, it was doing so using its obsolete weaponry. Newer, more powerful, better armored, and more advanced units for every branch of the Soviet Armed Forces had been developed over the last decade, thanks to scientific information provided by the Black Hand, and Stalin’s “mysterious” chief advisor.

One of Stalin’s endless frustrations was holding these units back and moving them in secret to the future front lines in Europe. He hated having to use weaponry that was ten years out of date, when he had technology that was thirty or more years ahead of its time in his back pocket. However, he knew that he needed to have an edge in the coming conflict, and that if he showed his hand too early, it might be enough of an advanced warning that the League could counter.

Soviet Union, Arab States, & China: By December of 1945, the Soviet Union was prepared for an all-out invasion of Europe, and deals had been arranged with its allies. The Arab States would aid in conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, with Iraq and Saudi Arabia positioned to aid in an invasion of Turkey, Egypt to host another Arab Revolt with Saudi support – this time against British Rule in Egypt, thereby denying use of the Suez Canal, or any military bases in Egypt – and once the Mediterranean and Black Seas were no longer cut off for the Russian Navy, Libya was willing to commit forces to an invasion of Italy, if the Russians would provide transport.

Of course, this all came with a caveat – Russia had to at least take and hold Germany for three months. Failing to defeat Finland and losing nearly a million and a half troops in the process, had given the Arab States pause. They were unsure if the Soviet Union could directly defeat the nations that had merely been giving support to the nation that they’d been forced to cease hostilities with. Could they really pull off a direct invasion? The test would be taking and holding one of the nations. The Soviets chose Germany.

But of course, if the Egyptian Arab Revolt succeeded, and Turkey was conquered, there was hope that a great Arab-controlled Caliphate could be formed – from Iran to Morocco. Such had not been seen in many generations, and the hope of the leadership in the Arab States was that the Soviets could pull off their invasion. At the very least, it was hoped that they could keep the Europeans busy long enough to allow the birthing pains of a new Caliphate to end. Without meddling from Europe, it was possible that they might finally restore their greatness.

China, meanwhile, was being shipped Soviet armaments – both obsolete and advanced. Obsolete just to give them something to fight with that was effectively cannon-fodder, and advanced so that they could win. China had been spoiling for a fight with the Empire of the Rising Sun ever since the invasion of Manchuria – though the bad blood went back significantly farther than that. Now they had a plan for how to do it – by invading French Indochina and Japanese-controlled Korea. Taking one of the Empire’s holdings, as well as that of another League member, would almost force the “reformed” Empire into an engagement.

For the Chinese, this would be about revenge, pure and simple. Meanwhile, for the Soviet Union, this was about keeping the Empire out of their war.

Germany: The major difference during this time period for Germany was that, due in part to the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Versailles restrictions on the German military were lifted, and Germany’s remaining war debt was considered settled. Suddenly finding themselves with a large surplus of funding, they were not only able to support Finland, but were also able to build up their own military. Still, over the course of six years, this took time, and while they had more men and equipment by the end of 1945, they had prepared to fight the Soviet Armed Forces as they saw them, but unfortunately, not as they were.