New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Reading Eugen Weber's The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s it occurs to me that, if you could have gotten a charismatic leader like FDR, France might have seemed to though to beat. Given how hard a fight French soliders put up, and the fundamentals of both economies, Germany was dammed lucky (and the French generals dammed slack).

But give France its own Roosevelt and Germany would have needed to look eastward. Given how many French people hated the very idea of a second world war, if Hitler played his cards close to his vest (not really his long suit) World War II could have been a mainly Russo-German war.

Without a war in the West, Hitler's supply problems would be much less brutal. I still don't see Hitler crushing Russia, but both nations could be broken. I could see either Centrum or the Cabal wanting that outcome. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia committing mutual suicide would certainly slow down decolonization.

The USA would be likely to be even more strongly influenced by Roosevelt's New Deal. Britain would be more likely to stay in a Tory holding pattern. Japan, without the hope of a distracted America likely follows a more restrained policy overseas. But if Russia is seriously weakened, the Army might try to take Siberia.

What do you guys think?