To Shep and the Drakafic guys: After the Domination Falls

[Androsphinx]

No, not the 1934 map, that's the 1943 map, in the middle of the war, showing areas of occupation v. original borders.

Is Sri Lanka Drakan?

[Norseman]

No, not the 1934 map, that's the 1943 map, in the middle of the war, showing areas of occupation v. original borders.

Is Sri Lanka Drakan?

No, but Ceylon was in the original timeline

[Androsphinx]

No, but Ceylon was in the original timeline

Ah. Yes. How did that happen? Both the original colonisation, and the fact that it hasn't been taken over by the British by 1943?

[KlavoHunter]

What happens to post-war Japan? I see the U.S. and the German Reich get most of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Indeed, Shep, Skimmer, and I (with various help from others) hashed it out a while back, and came to the conclusion that there's absolutely no reason for Japan to go to war with the United States - the strategic opportunity that existed in OTL is completely nonexistent in the DFicverse. And nobody else has the casus belli or resources to declare war on Japan that's not already involved. It's really just a blood feast between the Taipings and Japan...

[Big Orange]

Hurm? Several of the African states didn't gain independence before well into the 1960s.

That makes sense within the timeframe with a war ruined Italy incorporating a slice of North Africa for a few decades with little military effort, even though the Drakans would undoubtly render old school colonialism into a more negative light in the public consciousness like the Nazis did, but did Britain manage to keep hold of it's pre-war imperial territory much longer than in OTL, alongside the territory it seized from the Drakians during WWII?

The only way it would turn to post-Saddam Iraq is if the Draka are left in place at the same time as the serfs are freed, at that point the Serfs will start hunting them down to kill them.

I mean look at what happened to the Sudeten Germans? Or Konigsburg!

Simply deporting the Draka and then taking over the existing infra-structure would work fine; the population is disarmed, unfamiliar with violence, and there is in the main no remaining tribal allegiances.

That would according to the nature of certain serf populations - the most dangerous serfs to the Drakans would be in the recently conquered territories, with many of them POWs, but maybe the more tamed serfs deeper within the Police Zone would be docile after being freed and the ex-Drakans would be intergrated into the ex-serf population more easily - I am certain that slavery would be declared totally illegal and all the Directorates would be declared criminal organizations.

Post WWII Empire of Japan seems to be isolated with all of it's imperial territory taken by the Taipans, Soviets and British, with America not turing the Home Islands into a parking lot.

[Zor]

Personally, i am suprised the Soviets did not occupy a big chunk of Africa.

Zor

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Personally, i am suprised the Soviets did not occupy a big chunk of Africa.

Zor

The Soviets are intelligent. They got to create the Soviet Republic of Bulgaria, the Soviet Republic of Kurdistan, the Soviet Republic of Turkey, and the Soviet Republic of Arabia. All integral parts of the USSR. The other powers just got mandates. In addition they were able to arrange treaties of friendship and cooperation with the nominally independent Dutch Gold Coast (which was only occupied by the Draka in 1942 and may never be occupied by the Draka in the revisions--we're debating if they'd do it or not), and the two small states down in what would be South Africa created for Jews and Gypsies by Goering and Antonescu, promptly failed, and ended up heavily inhabited by Indian immigrants and aligned with the USSR. So the USSR has four new component states and three puppet states, not a bad deal at all. Within the remaining Drakian republic they also have an awesome amount of power, owning most of the industry and controlling six Sovereign Base Zones equivalent to those Britain has in Cyprus today. They also have five Sovereign Base Ports, one in Somalia, one in southern Tanzania, one in west Africa, one on the central African coast, and what would be Walvis Bay in our timeline, which extend considerable worldwide operational abilities to the Soviet Navy when combined with their permanent possession of the Syrian coastline as a fundamental part of their State. They also get total control of all the northern Iranian oil fields and all the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea, and ownership and total control of the Mosul oil fields in Iraq (the northern two-thirds of which are part of the Kurdistan SSR and Arabia SSR, and the southern third, part of the reconstituted Iranian state).

[Pablo Sanchez]

Indeed, Shep, Skimmer, and I (with various help from others) hashed it out a while back, and came to the conclusion that there's absolutely no reason for Japan to go to war with the United States - the strategic opportunity that existed in OTL is completely nonexistent in the DFicverse.

In that case you need to work out whether or not the USA will be have the same ideological bent toward Christian-Socialist Taiping China as they historically had towards Warlord-Guomindang China. That is, will the USA in DF timeline take a hard line against Japanese expansionism in China to the point of economic embargo, and how will Taiping-Soviet ties affect the military and diplomatic situation in general?

In OTL the USA issued an embargo against Japan as a result of Japanese occupation of French Indochina, which isn't going to obtain in this timeline. However, this was more in the way of an immediate justification for something Roosevelt already wanted to do, than a sudden reversal of policy. The USA in DF, possessing the Philippines as a direct American possession, will be more interested and involved in Asian affairs, possibly to the point of issuing a general embargo. This embargo will be sufficient to cripple the Japanese military-industrial complex and force an end to the war, probably including government collapse.

Alternatively, the Taiping are doing better in their war than the Guomindang and their United Front did, and are also counting on some limited support from the Soviets. It's possible that they will look strong enough that Roosevelt will instead choose to maintain a cautious neutrality leaning to China, and issue no embargo. In this case, the war will be a more drawn out and bloody affair, ending in much the same way but after still greater suffering.

Japan simply can't win this war, and that's the long and short of it. A vague outline would go something like this--
Japanese forces on the mainland typically win victories but suffer from overextension and attrition in the face of an enemy with seemingly unlimited resources. This goes on for some years, with large coastal enclaves and stretches of northern China held by the Japanese, until at some point the Taipings assemble a huge reserve force and has developed command and control and tactics of infiltration assault to a sufficient degree to achieve a limited breakthrough. This doesn't lead to a really significant strategic movement because of logistical problems and the dearth of motor transport in the theater, and costs both sides severe losses, which the Taipings are able to replace but the Japanese cannot.

At this point
A) Hardline elements in Japan refuse to withdraw even a step, resulting in total overextension leading to a general collapse at the next major Taiping offensive
B) The Japanese General Staff forces a "rationalization" of the mainland defense lines, leading to a withdrawal nearer to Manchuria and the abandonment of some of the coastal bridgeheads to consolidate others.

Either way, at around the point that the Drakan war is winding down you can have a few Japanese bridgeheads under siege on the Chinese coasts and Taiping troops pushing their bloody way towards Mukden and other Manchurian centers. I can see the Japanese holding out against most any threat along the Yalu River and the north Korean mountains, which would be very difficult to make any progress against with the kind of force the Taiping are able to bring to bear.

After the end of the Drakan war, you can see interested third parties like the USSR and USA pushing for a peace settlement, which would give Manchuria back to the Taipings but allow continued Japanese control of Korea.

The Japanese military government might try to resist the inevitable, but this would be an opportunity for us to have something like a palace coup, where Hirohito and the navy faction (led by Yamamoto) come out and denounce Army rule, maybe Yamashita (who I am very fond of) comes back as the great hero of the mainland campaign and convinces the Army government to step down, allowing Japan to seek a compromise peace as outlined above and a resumption of, if not democratic government, then at least something more rational.

Japan would then experience serious economic problems for a while, but would come out of them still the most advanced industrial power in Asia, a serious naval power, and might sort of be regarded by the USA as a viable balance against Taiping or Soviet power in the Far East, to the point that they become economic partners and military allies.

This is just a thought.

[Pelranius]

Would the Japanese be foolhardy enough to try to mount air raids on Soviet transportation infrastructure in Siberia? It certainly wouldn't accomplish anything other than possibly drawing in latter Soviet retaliation, but the Japanese generals might be delusional enough to think that bombing the Trans Siberian Railways while the Soviets are busy elsewhere can somehow stop the flow of war materials to the Taipings. They certainly that crazy in OTL.

[KlavoHunter]

Would the Japanese be foolhardy enough to try to mount air raids on Soviet transportation infrastructure in Siberia? It certainly wouldn't accomplish anything other than possibly drawing in latter Soviet retaliation, but the Japanese generals might be delusional enough to think that bombing the Trans Siberian Railways while the Soviets are busy elsewhere can somehow stop the flow of war materials to the Taipings. They certainly that crazy in OTL.

They don't need to cut the TSR to stop the flow of material to the Taipings. They cut the Taipings' railway at Lanzhou, which was the primary route which all Soviet heavy equipment was coming through from. The only route which the USSR can send material assistance from after that was via air shipment.

[AbyssalDaemon]

Question, in the timeline you have the Draka waiting until they decided to enslave the Christians in their territory to make the Jewish population also into slaves as well but why? The Christian one made since the Pope intervened but given how strong anti-Jewish sentiment was back then in Europe I don't see that many protesting the enslavement of the Jews.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Question, in the timeline you have the Draka waiting until they decided to enslave the Christians in their territory to make the Jewish population also into slaves as well but why? The Christian one made since the Pope intervened but given how strong anti-Jewish sentiment was back then in Europe I don't see that many protesting the enslavement of the Jews.

Jews were given privileged positions in French Algeria, on the basis that they were more westernized and civilized than the locals, even if Jews.

[Sea Skimmer]

They don't need to cut the TSR to stop the flow of material to the Taipings. They cut the Taipings' railway at Lanzhou, which was the primary route which all Soviet heavy equipment was coming through from. The only route which the USSR can send material assistance from after that was via air shipment.

Lanzhou is too far inland to be overrun on land. The tracks and marshalling yards will no doubt be bombed heavily by the Japanese, but the only way to totally close down a railway for any length of time is knocking out major bridges and tunnels, not an easy thing to do. Even then the Chinese have such tremendous manpower on hand that they could institute ferries and road portages around any breaks while they are repaired, keeping at least vital supplies moving. Heavy equipment would be much harder to move that way, but the Chinese need machine gun ammo more then they do tanks overall.

A big problem (besides absurd levels of rear area corruption) is going to be distributing supplies once they reach the railhead, north south lines of communication are still pretty poor today in inland China.

The Japanese most certainly will not attack Soviet railways, and they’d probably refrain even from bombing too deeply into Mongolia, if only because Soviet fighters are likely to oppose such raids and the losses aren’t worth it.

[KlavoHunter]

Lanzhou is too far inland to be overrun on land. <snip>

I'm just reading what I read from Marina's story.

The Japanese most certainly will not attack Soviet railways, and they’d probably refrain even from bombing too deeply into Mongolia, if only because Soviet fighters are likely to oppose such raids and the losses aren’t worth it.

Just to be certain, I thought Mongolia sided with Japan in this TL?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Manchuria has never actually been a part of Taiping China in this timeline. Instead it remains under the Manchus, who were subsumed as Japanese puppets. Mongolia is indeed Japanese aligned, as a vassal of the Empire of Manchuria. Effectively, Manchuria is just an extension of the Japanese Empire at this point, but is nominally (sort of like Egypt historically with Britain) still an independent state. There is however an army of Chinese traditionalists who oppose Taiping Christianity and Manchurian nationalists, along with the Mongols, who are reliable to the Japanese cause, unlike historically. The population of Taiwan is larger and is also a strong source of Japanese recruits, as it remained part of the Qing dynasty when the rest of the mainlaind south of the Great Wall became part of Taiping China, attracting more traditionalist refugees from the Taiping Christians.