1939, February 14th:
- Argentina rejoins the Axis (automatic event).
1939, February 29th:
- The British are waxing highly enthusiastic about the powers of a thing called "Radar", which we understand is a sort of invisible energy that can, properly emitted and received, detect objects at long range. This seems useful; Brazilian scientists begin conducting their own field experiments.
1939, March 15th:
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Hitler breaks the Munich pact! German troops march into Prague, triggering land claims from greedy Poland and Hungary and the independence of industry-rich Slovakia. The Czech lands themselves fall under German domination. Appeasement has been bravely and earnestly tried -- and found wanting. It is now clear that Hitler cannot be appeased by any reasonable measures, and no treaty can be had which limits him for a moment longer than serves his purpose. Now, Great Britain and France have to rearm
as quickly as possible. Brazil is already mobilizing, albeit not with any great haste.
1939, March 26th:
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Italy declares war on Albania! It seems that conquering your small neighbors has become quite the fashion nowadays. Italian marines and
Alpini make short work of King Zog's tatterdemalion army.
1939, March 30th:
- Poland, fearful of German designs on her territory and that of Danzig, accepts Chamberlain's guarantee of independence.
Itamaraty representatives throw themselves into the first flight to Warsaw, packing the entire plane with blueprints. The regular passengers are left at the tarmac (they are
so miffed). Profits are nothing like as much as we had hoped, and our strangely disappointed envoys return home to face President Vargas' sarcastic questions about why we had let relations with Poland drop to -47 anyway. Well, who was to know?
1939, April:
- In utmost secrecy, the shadier associates of
Itamaraty have been getting chummy with Japanese oil-buyers, and now hemi-demi-semi-official funds are supporting their efforts to make friends in government and military circles. The Empire of the Rising Sun is becoming an important profit center; already, we estimate that our national economy benefits to the tune of +3 IC. Hopefully, President Roosevelt won't cotton on to what we are doing.
1939, April 26th:
- The Brazilian Navy unveils a new kind of assault ship. Unlike ordinary transports, it is capable of carrying units, not merely from friendly port to friendly port, but to enemy coasts no further then 450 KM from the nearest friendly port. Brazil can mount amphibious operations! Of course, with one flotilla we can't land any great force, but we can't imagine why we'd want to. The only realistic enemies are Argentina (right next to us) and Germany (Britain and France's problem).
1939, Spring:
- Hard-fighting Japanese infantry have conquered about three-fourths of China. What remains, however, are some of the most rugged, fortified, and well-defended areas on Earth. China is on the ropes, but still a long way from surrender. Good luck to her!
1939, Late May - early June:
- We complete another round of factory builds and devote the entire freed production to Army expansion. Until we are ready to at least defend ourselves, industrial growth will have to wait. This snapshot shows the situation as of June 3rd, just after the new factories come on stream, we finish cutting down on some more dissent (the stuff's like a bad penny -- it keeps coming back), and suffer another American shut-off of our supplies, this time of oil. Guess Roosevelt
did find out. When we find out who snitched...
1939, July:
- Brazilian engineers carry on with the second phase of the Curitiba Fortified Line. They report that gearing bonuses have reduced the estimated time to build to just under six months.
1939, August 4th:
- Six divisions of 1936-model infantry assemble in Curitiba. President Vargas, Defence Minister Gaspar Dutra, and Army Chief of Staff Joao Neves da Fontoura meet to decide whether Brazil has enough divisions to hold off Argentina, should a war come. We are strongly motivated to get back to industrial growth, but, with Argentina's 29 field divisions (including two HQs, which means they can mass force), facing our 12 (no HQs), we have to continue to spend resources on the Army. Fontoura proposes six divisions of 1939-model infantry (which
CCNC has just developed). He is opposed by Dutra.
- Nine divisions of garrison troops will mobilize late next month.
1939, August 24th:
- Stalin makes a fateful choice: to befriend Hitler and abandon the dithering western Allies. Just as the Russian and Prussian vultures gathered around Poland in the 1770s, so do the latter-day hyaenas, Soviet and Nazi, prepare themselves to lunge once more at that which divides them. Truly, there is no new thing under the sun.
- With long preparation and sudden onset, war threatens Europe. Great Powers are committed against each other. With the Republic of France and the United Kingdom stands Brazil, weak in present force but abundant in possibility. This war is not entered into gladly. The people of Warsaw naked by the river Wisla, the citizens of France and England and Canada and Australia, and those who look on anxiously in the small nations, the small nations that so often have been ground between upper and nether millstones; all long for peace, would give much for peace. But not everything. And it is everything that Hitler wants.
- After more than half a decade of slowly gathering force and rising roiling madness, the storm of racial conquest and the lightning of ideological war is about to envelop Europe and the world. China, Ethiopia, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Albania -- all have been consumed, kindling for the conflagration. Now, we who did not help China, or Ethiopia, or Austria, or Spain, or Czechoslovakia, or Uruguay, or tiny Albania, we, who devised endless sweet-sounding shifts to avoid aiding anyone but our own precious selves, are about to find out what it is to fight against the Red, the Brown, the Bushido, and the Black.
