New Reality Seeds

[adm]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The Bigsby
Bigsby-3: By now you know what sort of nonsense you're getting into. Bigsby-3 saw the safe receipt of the Zimmerman telegram. In any sane world, Mexico would have declined the invitation to suicide. However, Bigsby-3 saw a somewhat different (and itself very strange) itebellium period in Mexico, leading to an ambitious and united military staff in Mexico, rather than the midst of a civil war. Though the political leadership declined, a quiet coup in the following days lead to a response telegram accepting the terms and, further, coordinating with Japan.

Mexico's new military government realized its hold was tenuous. They built a careful casus belli, helped by some useful allies in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. This allowed Mexico to build forces on the border while claiming they were to protect against American attack. Skillful handling of the inevitable conflict allowed Mexico to launch a full-scale invasion of the USA not long after Japan began their attack.

The two coordinated, with Mexico proceeding eastward along the gulf while Japan claimed the west coast. Due to (this part of the historical record is damaged) signed the surrender of the USA to Mexico, with the world's longest and most heavily armed border now being drawn along the Sierra Nevada mountains. In Europe, the iron curtain fell along the french border. This left Japan standing to fight the USSR into the ground in China.

A technical win for Mexico, who exited the war dramatically expanded and with a continental fortress. At the present date of 1970, California through to Washington are restless occupied states, while Mexico administers what else is left of the USA. Most of the rest of the planet (except, of course, for South America) is still fighting the insane and chaotic war that somehow lead to Carranza accepting FDR's surrender.

The Zimmerman telegram was WWI not WWII. In WWI Japan was a member of the UK, France, and Russian Alliance, that the US later joined. If Mexico, and Japan attacked the US at this time, the UK, primarily using Canada would have taken part of the US as well. Heck, if this starts before the Russian Revolution, Russia might have moved on Alaska. The President to surrender here would have been Woodrow Wilson.

[dcarson]

I remember reading tha tone of Italy's problems was they were the first nation to realize that technology advances made WW I equipment badly obsolete. So they rearmed. Which meant they had WW I.5 equipment and couldn't afford to replace everything again.

So if they bet a war won't break out for a while and keep doing R&D and then rearm just before WW II so they are ahead of the rest they would do better.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by dcarson

I remember reading tha tone of Italy's problems was they were the first nation to realize that technology advances made WW I equipment badly obsolete. So they rearmed. Which meant they had WW I.5 equipment and couldn't afford to replace everything again.

So if they bet a war won't break out for a while and keep doing R&D and then rearm just before WW II so they are ahead of the rest they would do better.

They could still suffer from cowardly and incompetent officers, though - one of the British errors during the war was in building up a successful deception about where they were going to attack Italy's East-African colonies. They were expecting the Italian Army to build up forces in the region that they didn't want to hit first, so they could just roll over the forces that were left; instead, the Italians mostly left the area that they thought was going to be hit, and the British had 'some slight resistance' in the area that they had planned to hit (since that was where the Italian Army fled to), but won anyway (because the Italian officers in the region were really that bad, on top of having obsolete equipment).

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

They could still suffer from cowardly and incompetent officers, though - one of the British errors during the war was in building up a successful deception about where they were going to attack Italy's East-African colonies. They were expecting the Italian Army to build up forces in the region that they didn't want to hit first, so they could just roll over the forces that were left; instead, the Italians mostly left the area that they thought was going to be hit, and the British had 'some slight resistance' in the area that they had planned to hit (since that was where the Italian Army fled to), but won anyway (because the Italian officers in the region were really that bad, on top of having obsolete equipment).

Yes. but if you want to explain Bigsby-1 you need to make Italy better. So you also then need some divergence where a couple of senior officers reform the culture of officer selection to get better ones. Did Italy have military academies back then? The right person in charge of that could make a big difference. Or maybe introduce a academy 20-30 years pre WW I.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by adm

The Zimmerman telegram was WWI not WWII. In WWI Japan was a member of the UK, France, and Russian Alliance, that the US later joined. If Mexico, and Japan attacked the US at this time, the UK, primarily using Canada would have taken part of the US as well. Heck, if this starts before the Russian Revolution, Russia might have moved on Alaska. The President to surrender here would have been Woodrow Wilson.

This is what I get for writing prompts after I take my melatonin.

But reconsidering this, I think that we still want to start the PoD with an accepted Zimmerman telegram. Mexico gets its desired land, and the USA is humiliated and forced to address the possibility of further Mexican expansion. This leads to an eastward contraction and weakening of the US economy, compounding the dust bowl. The USA sees a stronger socialist tilt, while Mexico's already alternate strong military power group embraces cartelism and invites foreign capital.

An already weakened USA is unable to stem the tide of fleeing industrialists heading for warmer southern shores, further advancing the technological might of Mexico...

Japan still takes the pacific northwest all the way up to Canada. Russia solidifies its hold on Alaska. Yeah, this is starting to become still insane but less factually incorrect (I hope).

[adm]

Originally Posted by PTTG

This is what I get for writing prompts after I take my melatonin.

No worries these things happen.

Originally Posted by PTTG

Japan still takes the pacific northwest all the way up to Canada. Russia solidifies its hold on Alaska. Yeah, this is starting to become still insane but less factually incorrect (I hope).

It is worth noting how small the US military was at this point in time, while they were producing a lot of material for the war in Europe, once our men got their, the US had to borrow a lot of equipment, like machine guns and aircraft from France.

If the US was being invaded by Mexico and Japan, the UK could very well take part of New England "to protect needed war material production."

[Astromancer]

Another possibility from a US Mexican conflict would be a defeat of Mexico. The bad blood that a 1917 smackdown of Mexico would leave would have serious knock on effects through the 20th century. Especially in warping the "Good Neighbor Policy" and complicating the Cold War.

[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?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by 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 too tough to beat.

It would have been necessary to completely reform the French Army. As in, fire all the officers, forbid re-recruiting them, and start a new army from scratch. They had set up a system of defence that was designed to make them unbeatable in a repeat of WWI, but was so ill-suited to WWII that deliberate and systemic sabotage could hardly have done better. The Seeds of Disaster by Robert A Doughty explains this, and I reviewed it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

It would have been necessary to completely reform the French Army. As in, fire all the officers, forbid re-recruiting them, and start a new army from scratch. They had set up a system of defence that was designed to make them unbeatable in a repeat of WWI, but was so ill-suited to WWII that deliberate and systemic sabotage could hardly have done better. The Seeds of Disaster by Robert A Doughty explains this, and I reviewed it.

There is a difference between "would be to tough to beat," and what I said "would seem to tough to beat." Weber and Doughty have similar views of the French military. Weber makes the hidebound reactionary nature of the French generals perfectly clear. I simply suggest a situation where France might seem less like a helpless easily taken prize and more like a threat. Seeming isn't being, but it can help.