[RecruitMonty]

~~##Time for the Plot:##~~

The Germany I present to you here is a culturally very different one than the one of the real post war era. It retains its militarism although it is decidedly less Anti-Semitic and more oldy worldy imperial than before.

The real Germany as we know in the 30s and 40s was run by Adolf Hitler etc and lost the war. The USA and the USSR then initiated the Cold War yadda yadda yadda. Well here is the change. Replace Hitler and the nazis with an Emperor (Kaiser if you will), his various cronies (Barons and so forth) and the Ultra-Conservative (Nationalistic) party that keeps the Reichstag etc functioning.

That is the only change. Pretty much. The Germans still lost WWI, they still had years of strife etc and the Weimar Republic still colapses. The only difference is that the Germany that all this is taking place in is a little different to the historical one.

The roots of this lie far back in the disjointed Holy Roman Empire at the time of the reformation. As we all know a sizeable chunk of the German nobility, the French and the Danes (I think it was them) got embroiled in a nasty war (30 years war) which, at its end saw the demise of a large part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Well, in order for this whole plot to work the results need to be a little different. Germany still falls to bits etc but crucially the lower bit and a hefty bit of what would later become Prussia stay loyal to the Emperor and Pope. Much like the West Prussians and Bavarians and Austrians.

By the time Bismarck etc decide Germany needs tobe one country again both Austria-Hungary and its territories and Prussia are similar and cordial enough to join together. This was the other model touted by German nationalists in the 1840s. So we hve a Grossdeutschland instead of Deutschland.

WWI happens, it drags on a little bit longer (1919 or 1920) and the result is the same. Commies in Russia, no colonies for Germany and bye-bye most of the Eastern German territories (including those of what was Austria-Hungary).

Fast forward again to the 30s and the Germans are doing the Nazi thing only this time they are led by a "1st Reich revivalist" who wants to restore the territories of the Holy Roman Empire (at its zenith) to Germany. Appeasement etc function the same way except in this case the anschluss is not with Austria but with a portion of Hungary. The Jews are left by and large to their own devices as they were in the Kaiserreich. WWII starts the same way too with an invasion of Poland.

In 1941 the Germans invade Russia and by late August/september the Soviet capital is under German control (laregely because the Germans don't muck about as much as they did in reality). 1942 sees German movement towards the Urals and the Caucuses. Stalingrad, although a bloody battle ends without the envelopment of he 6th Army. In this timeline the Soviets lack the forces to mount a winter offensive there as last year's in the centre fell hard on dug in and reinforced (Army Group North was no longer engaged in Leningrad as Moscow's fall left the city without much needed logisitcs). No declaration of war on the USA leaves Japan quite busy and the USA out of Europe and Africa (well they are there in spirit and are bank rolling Britain's war effort). 1943 sees the defeat of the British in Egypt and the establishment of a defendable border, near the Urals, with the Soviets. A bloody battle in the Atlantic picks up the pace as the USA and Germany declare war on one another because of the German penchant for sinking US esscorts (vice versa). The comonwealth nations are still largely involved in protecting British colonies from the Japanese (by now they are being captured back) and the Germans (The Afrika Korps and the Southern forces in Russia are quite a problem). In 1944 the Germans begin preperations for the seizure of the UK. Blah Blah...

By 1950 the Germans and the USA have signed a truce and the Soviet's new border is in Siberia. Not too far in though as they were able to rally and push the Germans back marginally. The Allied remnant retains control over its Colonial territory in the Far East and Southern Africa. The USA is the dominant partner in this coalition. French colonies are reapropriated to the Germans.
Including those in Southeast Asia. These are quickly given away in much the same way as they were in reality.

A Tsarist "puppet" State exists on the small sliver of ground between the Soviets and the Germans. From the 50s to the 70s this State is slowly eroded by the Russians and Germans, the Russians through conquest, the Germans, through the ruse of extending security for the regions closest to hand. The Soviets and Chinese gain strength, the USA gets embroiled in Vietnam along with the British and comonwealth nations (the comonwealth is more like the Empire in this scenario) and the Germans spend most of their time jumping on Arabs and other unruly colonial subjects.

Across North Africa and the German Middle Eastern frontier small and large colonial wars rage. By the mid 60s all is well in Africa (by well I mean the rebels are no longer in the Capital) but in the Middle East the Empire, due to its misguided restructuring of the regional map, is facing a doozy of a war in an area that encompases bits of north-eastern Syria, some of southen Turkey, some of northern Iraq and some of north-western Iran. This province and everything south of it are a big problem for the Germans.

Both Israeli and Arab history has also remained largely unchanged, although this time there are more Israelis as a lot of them were shipped to Israel or headed there after the war had ended. (Israel was created a little later).

Germany was just getting involved in the Middle East by the late 50s so the Israelis and Arabs still had numerous cracks at one another in the mean time. Israel receives aid from the USA and increasingly from Germany too. The Arabs get aid from the Allies (this aide is not meant for the war against Israel but the one against the Germans) and the Communists.

The world is divided along these lines: The USA and the "Allied Remnant" control North America, southern Africa, Southeast Asia and a large chunk of the Pacific (including Australia, New Zealand etc).

South America is contested between German sympathisers (Fascists and Catholics), Communists and other revolutionaries and the USA.

The German Empire eventually controls all of Europe, Western Russia, the eastern coast of Greenland, parts of Eastern Russia, nominally the whole Med. and its coastlines, Turkey, all the former French colonies in Africa as well as the Italian ones, the Suez Canal (partially), most of Syria, Lebanon etc etc. It holds sway over bits of the Congo, its former colonial holdings (Pre 1914-18), bits of South America and later Israel.

The Muslims, who only really come into their own later on, control, well everything they control now except the bits that the Germans pinched.

Finally, the Communists hold sway over all of China, eventually the whole of French Indo-China and of course what remains of Russia. Wherever German troops are under attack you can be sure the Communists have despatched arms or advisors.