The United States: 'Prophets of a New Order'

[Nathan Madien]

Personally, I probably would have nuked Essen.

And now you get the fun of trying to reorganise Europe in a way that doesn't lead to everyone trying to kill each other and won't blow up spectacularly in your face in 20 years time. The Americans are going to have fun figuring out what to do, they won't want to keep the boundaries the Syndicalists set up but at the same time no one's going to want to restore the Kaiserreich.

Given their tendency to do so, I think the Europeans will find a way to kill each other regardless of how careful Truman is.

Besides, it makes things more fun that way.

[J.J.Jameson]

hi this is my first post. i'd like to congragulate you on a well fought campaign. i've followed this for quite a while before joining. My two cents-for what it's worth-(probably two cents) isthat you should release as many small countries as possible. Two reasons for that:
1. Self determination and freedom to the people of europe.
2. You keep the former syndies from becoming to powerful again. (as long as you keep an eye on 'em!)
Whatever your choice, good luck!

[Zeldar155]

Splendid job on europe, Now for total occupation of Europe

[TC Pilot]

talt: Quite a bit has changed, hasn't it? Still, 1948 is still two years away. A lot can happen in the meantime.

yourworstnightm: Sorta an anti-everyone crusade? Interesting.

Zhuge Liang: Interesting. Are you proposing a general, pan-Syndicalist "stab in the back" myth?

Nathan Madien/yourworstnightm: Dropping the bomb was tempting...

J.J.Jameson: Well, however things turn out, welcome aboard.

-----

Prophets of a New Order - Part III

For months, the Syndicalist coalition had been reeling from the hammer blows inflicted by the advancing American armies. The fall of Essen to the United States was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Already, protests, riots, and general civil unrest had been steadily mounting in those territories not already overrun. Now, anti-war and anti-syndicalist sentiment exploded all across Central and Eastern Europe, rocking the countries of Europe to their very core. Mobs of angry civilians flooded the streets of Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, Budapest, Naples, and countless other urban centers almost simultaneously. The sound of revolution was in the air once more.

Such an eruption of popular indignation and dissent threatened to undercut the very basis of European Syndicalism. With the exception of Italy, all of the original Syndicalist nations were now under complete American military occupation. Certainly, there were elements within all the countries in which Syndicalist governments had been imposed from above that had welcomed the advent of Syndicalist rule, but for many, the transition had not been welcome. At the very worst, as was the case in some circles in Germany and the Balkans, Syndicalist rule was regarded as little more than a flimsy veneer to being reduced to French puppet states. As a consequence, in many instances these uprising were nationalist in nature as well as anti-war. In Berlin, where police and militia units had already fired on protestors, rang out rage-filled cries of 'Down with Syndicalism!' and 'Death to the Butcher [Liebknecht]!' In Prague, which was still under French occupation but had long-since been evacuated of troops, crowds demanded 'Freedom from the Jacobins!' While in Milan and Naples, the call was simply 'Peace!'

Regardless of exactly what motivated the various uprisings, they nevertheless severely taxed the limits of the respective governments’ ability to even function. Carrying out any suppression was bound to turn bloody and likely, given the example of Berlin, now in a state of anarchy, disastrous. On October 15, with the sound of American artillery just barely audible over the din of the crowd, party chairman Antonio Gramsci of Italy took the first step, appearing suddenly in Naples, boldly outmaneuvering the intransigent Palmiro Togliatti, and announcing the immediate cessation of any further resistance to American forces. Though he did not say it outright, instead emphasizing that he was attempting to halt the 'killing spree' on the front and save the party from utter annihilation, Gramsci was nevertheless offering the United States an unconditional surrender.

In the following days, the dominoes fall rapidly one after another. On the 16th, Chairman Bernhard Bastlein announced that the North German Federation was suing for peace. On the same day, the remnants of Syndicalist rule were thrown aside in Prussia, and a provisional government established under the aegis of Kurt Schumacher and the former Chief of Staff Xaver Sattler. On October 18, King Christian X reappeared in Copenhagen, almost immediately toppling the Syndicalist puppet government but failing to establish any coherent replacement. In Poland, where French-led 'liberation' and Syndicalist rule had been welcomed enthusiastically, the 'Syndicalist' government of Madame President Wanda Wasilewska was able to co-opt much of the growing dissent by promising to end the war immediately. But the Polish government's success in at least salvaging something from the wreckage of the Syndicalist coalition's defeat was the exception. In the Balkans, anarchy and chaos reigned, as isolated French garrisons found themselves besieged by vengeful nationalist mobs.

The Americans, taken off-guard by events, did little to intervene in the chaos spreading through much of Europe. President Truman was alarmed that the Continent was falling to pieces, but was more interested in maintaining order in the occupied territories. Indeed, there was simply more ground to police than the Army could possibly cope with. Nevertheless, the upheavals wracking Europe offered the president several opportunities. As the flood of armistice offers flooded in from all sides, it seemed that the war would be over in a matter of days. As governments began to topple, Truman realized that the United States, backed by a flourishing economy and the most powerful military force on Earth, was in a prime position to fundamentally reshape the European continent in America's image; it seemed Roosevelt's vision of peace was well within grasp.

Fully aware that American actions in the following weeks and months would have a great and dramatic impact on the course of developments, on October 22 the President ordered the army to accept the Syndicalist surrender appeals and begin disarming those enemy forces still in the field. Meanwhile, strict discipline had to be maintained across the board, because many in Europe feared the consequences of defeat, expecting a bloody White Terror reminiscent of the failed Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; there were to be no mass arrests, only limited censorship of only the most radical and inflammatory newspapers and radio stations, and all but the most notorious or anti-American officials were to be removed from office. In many ways, this policy was little more than a continuation of the occupation system already in place in France and Spain, wherein the local populations were generally left to themselves and American interference kept at a minimum. Truman hoped that this policy would lay any fears to rest and make the Europeans more amendable to the peace the United States must ultimately impose upon them.

But even as American forces marched unopposed through the heart of Europe, the governments of the three remaining Syndicalist powers - France, Britain, and Spain - remained unaccounted for on the other side of the Mediterranean. In contrast to the European theater, the Syndicalist African campaigns were proceeding with almost embarrassing success. The broken remnants of Marshal Petain's 'Nationalist' France was trapped in Dakar, while British forces were poised to launch the final drive on Dar es Salaam, and a combined Anglo-Spanish expedition had just begun its push to drive the Ottomans from the Libyan desert. For months, Thorez and Duclos had continued to hold out in the vain hope of some miraculous change of fortunes. With no such windfall forthcoming, and one European government surrendering after another, dissident elements finally stirred within the ranks of the exiled Syndicalist contingents. With no appreciable forces of his own to call upon, and his reputation ruined by the disastrous course of the war, the leader of the Jacobins was quickly sidelined on October 25. Thomas Mann and Joes Ramos, accepting the inevitable, made contact with the American government; they, representing the last major bastion of armed resistance, would agree to a surrender on the single condition that Petain, Edward VIII, and the children of Alfonso XIII would be barred from the post-war settlement. Truman, possessing the natural American antipathy toward monarchy, was all too happy to accept. The final armistice agreements with the remaining Syndicalist powers were signed onboard the battleship USS South Dakota, which had been struck by two British torpedoes in the surprise attack that had started the war in '43, in the port of Tangiers on October 26, 1946.

The following day, President Truman took to the radio waves to address the nation announcing the end of hostilities. The President began citing the work of his predecessor: 'This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day.' But though Truman fully recognized that the United States had, by force of arms, emerged triumphant from war, he took the greatest of pains to underscore that another, equally important battle lay ahead:

We must work to bind up the wounds of a suffering world--to build an abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law. We can build such a peace only by hard, toilsome, painstaking work--alongside all those who would be our allies in seeking a world free from the mistakes of the past.

The job ahead is no less important, no less urgent, no less difficult than the task which now happily is done. The burdens we shoulder and the responsibilities we assume from this moment onward are great. It will be a test, not of martial power but of moral strength, of character. The peoples of Europe stand now at the edge of a great drop, the very same we as a nation ourselves faced with not so long ago. By our example, they too might step back from the brink of disaster.

[Zhuge Liang]

Post-war Europe is going to be an interesting place, Syndicalism's been discredited and there's no apparatus readily in place to take over, except possibly in countiries such as Denmark which were more democratic pre-war. This is obviously a huge opportunty for the US provided you can somehow get everything right.

I could see a Syndicalist "stab in the back"-style myth developing, I doubt the remaining Syndicalists would want to accept that they've been so comprhensively rejected by the people they were supposedly working for. Of course if a stable European order is created no one's going to listen to them and they're going to be a marginalised fringe, the circumstances here are very different from post-WW1 Germany.

[Viden]

Waiting Wrangel's response to this.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Wondering about what kind of Pax Americana is going to result from this...

[Enewald]

Soon United States of Europe?

[talt]

Waiting Wrangel's response to this.

Bah! Why should we care about a general who probably has been given a free holiday to Siberia (sorry if this breaks the rules) sometime since 1936. It's Bukharin we should be worried about.

[Van5]

Now make a democratic greater Germany to piss off the french!

with no colonies and the kings gone a Democratic greater Germany can Form the basis for European integration

Please!

[Nathan Madien]

Soon United States of Europe?

I love the sound of that.

[Viden]

Bah! Why should we care about a general who probably has been given a free holiday to Siberia (sorry if this breaks the rules) sometime since 1936. It's Bukharin we should be worried about.

Wasn't Wrangel in power in this AAR?

[trekaddict]

In any case, methinks that some sort of United Germany is a given, if only to keep the French in check. Perhaps pre-1914 borders, with a Republican Government?

[Eams]

I love the sound of that.

Yes, the United States of Europe, it being an artificial state imposed on people with no sense of unity and with weak democratic traditions, is bound to either push ethnic violence to exciting new levels which will result in there being a few million less Europeans around to be told about how great America is, or in the transformation to a more authoritarian society which will resent the US and use its combined and expansive industrial might to isolate the US to a degree that will be worse even than that of its pre-war years, until the difference is such that the Eastern seaboard can be invaded and the Lincoln Memorial be molested by Franco-German storm-troopers before it's blown into tiny little pieces and is mixed in with the rubble of the White House and the light of democracy is finally extinguished forever and the American people is left to suffer under the tyranny of the PSA (Pot-smokers Of America).

Or, the US can set up separate European states and promote democratic institutions, free and fair elections and use more subtle means to advance the gradual economic and political integration of the European nations into a single state, which could be done in as little as fifty years (though the Norwegians and the Swiss will still not want to be a part of it), while never being too open about that being what it wants. Because a united European state is only going to work if it's the result of a broad European effort to make it happen.
That, and executing any and all dumb schmucks who wishes to cross the Atlantic to tell the Europeans that "Uh, we like totally saved you, so now you're going to do exactly what we tell you to do, mmkay?"

[Sectorknight21]

How about just keeping Europe

Just kidding (or am I *shifty eyes*), but I agree with Eams, go with free and democratic elections in all occupied nations.

[talt]

How the other powers react to the US nuclear monopoly is going to be interesting. I doubt Britain or France will have the technical ability or the resources to pursue a nuclear program, but Russia, Romania, Shang China, Japan, Canada and even Delhi could well be frantically rushing to develop atomic weapons. Another World War could be a very real possibility (BTW, is the 1940-42 German war considered seperate from the US-Syndicalist War or are they lumped together as 'World War II'), the remains of the Entente, Russia and Japan might decide to gang up on the USA before it's technological advantage grows too wide for them to challenge at all. Alternatively, the doctrine of MAD may develop and the sides will settle into a cold war...

BTW, I think Edward VIII could be seriously thinking about abdication in order to keep the Windsors as a single entity but that wouldn't strictly break the conditions of the Syndicalist surrender.

[J.J.Jameson]

I agree on the issue of germany. I think it should be reconstituted as a single nation tocounter the french. Also, a democratic Germany could also keep the russians from steamrolling through europe.

[trekaddict]

Mind you, TTL the Brits wont any world cups.

[Eams]

Mind you, TTL the Brits wont any world cups.

Good observation, and Germany should remain disunited for a similar reason. F@$£ it, let the US keep splitting up the bigger European countries until Belgium wins the Euros.

And while we are it, why not a German referendum to decide whether or not the country should become a republic?

[TC Pilot]

I'll withold any comment on the speculation on the nature of the post-war settlement for the time being. I've been kicking ideas around in my head for a bit, but things are still very much in a state of flux. I haven't even settled on the casualty figures yet.

Zhuge Liang: As far as the 'stab in the back,' consider that the Jacobins and, to a lesser extent, the Sorelians were the ones who overthrew the French government, the French government that had, until that point, conquered nearly all of Europe.

Viden: Talt's more right than he realizes. Wrangel never took power after Kerensky's assassination. A coalition of Social Democrats and old Mensheviks headed by Viktor Chernov took power under a liberal regime until Chernov was overthrown by a Menshevik power-play in October '42. Currently, Wrangel's sitting in his headquarters on the Amur River.

talt: Interesting speculation on the course of post-war nuclear policy. I doubt India has the industrial strength (in game terms, a single reactor would take up two thirds of its IC), let alone the technical expertise. Of course, the world may actually be spared the development of a massive arms race, since the U.S. hasn't seen fit to actually use them yet. Certainly, America has a huge lead over everyone else. Given that Bohr had greater success with Roosevelt in this timeline, the U.S. might even decide to share its secrets...