Germany
The strongest power on Earth, with the mainland on three continents (Europe, North and South Atlantis) and vast areas of colonies, protectorates and satellites (most important: India, Eastern/SE Europe and sub-Saharan Africa). In practice, however, Germany's power is heavily strained, and especially the defeat in the (Civil) War against the Socialists has shown the world that the biggest beast can still bleed. The relations to its neighbors in Europe (Russia, Italy and the Socialist Block) are as bad, and the Nassauer people (refugees from Socialist Germany, mostly from Westphalia which belonged to Nassau, loudly wishing for revenge) don't make it easier. Instead of having satellites to the north and the west, as was envisioned before and during the war, the powerful Socialist Block looms over remaining Germany, and Italy and Russia stay vengeful too. Still, the German government hopes that Old Germany is guarded enough by its eastern and SE European allies and satellites.
On the inside, German politicians don't really seem ready governing a superpower; in fact, they seem to spend most of their time just to hold the government together. This may be caused by the political system, which is a compromise between the three pre-war Germanies: Old Germany had a proportional representation, German Atlantis had first-past-the-post, leading to a two-party system (Freedom Party and Equality Party, as mentioned earlier), and relatively newly settled Argentinien was just developing a party system. The united Germany has two parliamentary houses, the Vereinigter Reichstag (each land - there are 12 in Europe, 60 in Atlantis and 17 in Argentinien - gets one representative for 250,000 people [578 in the election of 1920]; seats are distributed proportionally in every land) and the Länderkammer (each continent votes with the majority of its lands; decisions concerning the whole empire have to be made in unison between the three groups). Now in the 1920s, the traditional parties have often split and reformed. Multi-party coalition governments are standard, and often don't survive longer than a few months. People have the impression that after more than 100 years of democracy, the real power is in the hands of the parties' organisations instead of the people, special interest parties have a lot of influence, and corruption even within the cabinet is at high levels.
Elections of 1920
- 223 seats in Europe
- 296 seats in Atlantis
- 59 seats in Argentinien
- Nationalist Imperial Party (Europe, conservative-expansionist) - 29 seats
- German State Party (Europe, centrist) - 57 seats
- Christian Republican Party (Europe) - 28 seats
- Farmer parties (Europe, regional) - 34 seats
- Liberal Party (Europe; liberal in both ways) - 65 seats
- Socialist Party (forbidden in Europe) - 0 seats
- Freedom Party (Atlantis, center-right; economically liberal, socially moderate conservative) - 114 seats
- Expansionist Party (Atlantis, populist-right) - 36 seats
- Equality Party (Atlantis, populist-left) - 102 seats
- Small Farmers Party (Atlantis, special interest party, split off from Equality Party) - 33 seats
- Argentinian Freedom Party (equivalent right there, more technocratic) - 9 seats
- Argentinian Rancher Party (special interest party) - 14 seats
- Argentinian Farmer Party (special interest party) - 17 seats
- Smaller parties and Independents - 41 seats
A new center-right government is formed after the election.
1921: The old Equality Party is forbidden (for fear of Socialism) after strikes in the industrial area around the Great Lakes. In its place, the Justice Party forms.
1922: Parts of the right spectrum parties in Europe form the radical anti-Socialist Economy Party, which demands an immediate strike against the Socialist Block. The government falls, a coalition is impossible, new elections are held. Again, a center-right government is formed.
1923: At the electronics firm Werstand, developers presents their new idea: Computers with an outside connection, so it's possible to a) operate them from somewhere else or b) send the results immediately to where they're needed. (This system doesn't work like e-mail, you can only send something to hardwired machines.)
(If anyone thinks a computer network comes way too early: Remember that the Chinese ITTL used electricity centuries ago, that the Russians invented the telegraph in the 18th century, and that cryptography is more advanced too. We also aren't talking about modern computers here, but about computers based on relays.)
1924: Imperial Chancellor Bohn falls over a sex scandal; the New Christian Party splits off his Freedom Party. Again, the empire is paralyzed for months until a new government is made.
1925: The Progress Party is founded in Martinsburg. They advocate a radical reorganization of the German Empire.
1926: Stock Crash and subsequent fall of government. After the new elections, a more centrist government (including the Christian parties) is formed.
1927: The Christian parties manage to push through the prohibition of tobacco and hard liquor, although beer and wine stay legal.
1928: Josef F. Krause (high-ranking member of the Justice Party) suggests a new strategy: Since the depression has cost many people their savings, but the common anti-left propaganda keeps them from voting for the Justice Party, he proclaims the founding of a new party, to catch their votes. "Walk separately, strike together." In the same year, said founding will happen.
Olympic Games in Neu-Hamburg (OTL Buenos Aires).
1920-30: The population of Argentinien grows from 15 to over 20 million.
New Rome / Greater Italy
As said in the last post, the government stepped back, and since there was no emperor to appoint a new one and no elections were held, so people continued without government - people worked, priests preached and gave sacraments, bureaucrats administrated and judges convicted following the old laws. Behind the curtains, the famiglia run things necessary to run - which included holding down the Socialists and liberated slaves (many of whom preferred to flee), integrating Italian-descended refugees into society, and reminding people to take venganza on the Germans, once the time was right. They even received parts of the taxes collected, or told the bureaucrats what to do. For outsiders, this system was completely incomprehensible. (For OTLers: The famiglia is a mixture of Mafia, KKK and fascists, but the latter without the organized party thing. Their leaders are mostly former lower nobles and ranchers, they command gangs of thugs - the fascisti - , and they have the backing of the old Imperial-Catholic church.) Although their outlook on things was similar throughout the four parts of the country (Italy, North Africa, Italia Nuova in North Atlantis, and the Italian Andes), at the beginning they had only local power. But when the years pass, they expand by using a combination of negotiations, "diplomatic" pressure, assassinations and small wars.
1920: Giuseppe Puccio becomes padrone of Tripoli (OTL Libya).
1921: For several months, the padrones of Roma Nuova fight for dominance of the city. The victor is a Salvatore Marchese.
1922: Giuseppe Puccio brings Bengasi province under his control, starts "business" in New Rome's former province Egypt.
1923: After long struggles, Santino Neri becomes padrone of Rome.
Fights in the North Italian plain after the Germans retreat. Padrone Vito Badalamenti takes over in the area.
1924-27: Salvatore Marchese brings the Tenesi area (Italia Nuova between Mississippi and Appalachians) under his control.
1925: The padrones of Cuzco (Gaetano Riccobono) and Potosi (Nicola Greco) make a "peace treaty", dividing the Italian Andes between them; the line goes from OTL's Peruvian-Chilean border further inwards.
Santino Neri has control over all of Central Italy.
1926: Giuseppe Puccio brings OTL Tunisia under his control.
1927: Starting with the prohibition of tobacco in Germany, Italian gangs smuggle lots of cigars and cigarettes to Germany and sell them for a good price.
1928: Giuseppe Puccio extends his influence on Sicily.
1929: By working together with the Montana Men (refugees from German-occupied Montana, which is roughly OTL East Colorado and West Kansas), Salvatore Marchese can attack his opponent in central Italia Nuova, Bernardo Buscetta, from both sides, and defeats him. Now he has the full control over the Atlantean part of the country.
Tensions between Giuseppe Puccio and Santino Neri.
Russia
The country is in trouble, to say the least. Germany has occupied the most valuable areas (OTL Ukraine) and isn't willing to let them go, for fear that Russia might rise its head again. Despite of the Southern Russians smuggling lots of wheat back to Russia, when the Germans aren't looking, everyone knows that this can't take forever.
All Russian parties - the Russian Workers' Party, the Conservative "House Russia" party, the new Reconstruction Party and the liberal Democratic People's Party - are in unison that revenge is the primary goal of the nation, and a new war isn't an "if", but a "when". Theoretically, the peace treaty of Warsaw forbids them bigger rearmament, but in practice, the country is too big to be controlled completely. Only the Russian navy can be restricted. And smaller South Russia, of course. But in the vast taigas of the north, millions of soldiers get trained; even tanks and airplanes are built, and if German controllers manage to visit a place, everything suspicious can be removed in advantage, thanks to the sheer size of the country.
But the revenge won't be as easy as envisioned: After the defeat, the first rage turned against the Jews of the country. Many of them were killed (estimates go as high as six figures), and those who weren't left for Judea. This drain of people doesn't make reconstruction easier for Russia. People feel everything goes too slow and too disorganized.
1920: War veteran Gridenkov founds the "Unionist Party" in Voronezh, aiming at a unification of the two Russias, which the Germans have forbidden, but everyone in Russia sees as unavoidable, since dismembered South Russia alone isn't strong enough to survive alone.
1921: Unionist Party gets 30 % in the province elections.
1923: Unionist Party gets 15 % in national elections, Gridenkov becomes their speaker in the Duma.
1924: German diplomats warn their government about Gridenkov and the Unionists. Germany decides to interfere, forces the South Russian government to forbid the Unionist Party and Gridenkov to leave politics.
1926: Gridenkov goes into "exile" in Novorossiya. Many of his unionists follow him (as many Southern Russians already have done in the years before). He decides to join the Reconstruction Party, starts to make propaganda especially among his fellow South Russians.
1928: "The coup of Tobolsk": Gridenkov and his followers manage a take-over of the Reconstruction Party committee.
1929: Russian spies in German Kalifornien bring the idea of a computer network to Russia.
Socialist Block
1920: Breton farmers and fishermen rise up against some of the new decisions made by the French government. The uprising is suppressed, and it doesn't even help that the Bretons protest in Brussels, although the Irish take their side. This is a definite sign that the Socialist (French!) government wants to centralize France.
1921: At the conference of Versailles, the French Socialist parties (Christian Socialist Party, Socialist Party and Radical Socialist Party) unite to form the United Socialist Party, which becomes France's "eternal" government party. Tightly organized, they run the economy (other than in Britain, where the workers have more direct control) and also manage to take disproportional influence in Brussels.
1926: The Socialist armies cross the Pyrenees, to support the Catalans and Basques against the tyranny of Juan III. The little republic of Andorra is annexed on the march. Germany sends financial support and arms to Castille, but Juan III declines, hating the Germans.
1927: After Catalonia and the Basque country are conquered, volunteers from Germany and Britain join the Socialist armies. They successfully conquer areas in the north and south (Murcia).
1928: After the Socialists advance further, Portugal decides to enter the war, to conquer Galicia back. Now Castille has to fight an unwinnable two-front war.
1929: Socialists conquer Toledo, the resistance breaks together, the royal family flees to Morocco. Now however, the Socialists clash with Portugal. War begins again, and a few months later Portugal is also conquered. Except for Andalusia which has German support, the Iberian peninsula is reorganized by the Socialists.
China
The adoptive Empire is still going through the process of industrialization. The northern half of it suffered much under the war and the former Russian occupation and has to be rebuilt.
1920: Gansu earthquake in China. More than 200,000 dead people.
1921: China and Nippon clash over Corea; war breaks out again.
1922: Typhoon in China kills 75,000 people.
1923: China has lost a lot of its new pilots. The emperor is unhappy about this. So he decides to command his scientists invent something new, to prevent such losses. Chinese scientists start to work, and thanks to their number and the money thrown on them, they will make two important inventions: The cruise missile, and the modern rocket.
On September 1st, the Kanto plain earthquake strikes Nippon, making the war much harder for them.
1924: The Chinese manage to reconquer all of Corea from the Nipponese. The Orthodox Coreans actually prefer the Confucianist Chinese to the Catholic Nipponese. The Nipponese however, who managed to evacuate almost their whole army to the islands, swear to continue the war - with naval strikes against China's coasts, and bombing raids on Chinese cities.
1927: First rocket strikes on Nipponese cities. Since the houses are still built mostly from wood, bamboo and paper, the result is horrible, and much worse than in OTL World War II Europe.
Date 1927: Xining earthquake in China. More than 200,000 dead people.
1928: The emperor dies, not without having appointed the third adoptive emperor (the second one actually adopted, but the former general who re-united China is counted as the first one). The war with Nippon goes on.
Date 1929: Great Yellow River flood in China. Almost one million of dead.
Canada and Pacifics
1920: Canadians introduce prohibition - not only alcohol, but cigarettes are forbidden, and coffee, tea and chocolate are heavily taxed.
1921: Canada reforms its colonial empire into the Commonwealth, with the capital at Honolulu. By this way, the Indies and SE Asia are still close to Canada, while at the same time having more independence (at least internal).
1922: Italian prospectors discover the iron ore reserves of Pilbara in western Tir Tairngire. By claiming it and making sure that they can exploit it, they give the Italian lands a great source of iron (which until then was a problem for their industry).
1924: Olympic Games in Kingsburgh (OTL Montreal).
1929: Tir na nOg (OTL Western Australia) becomes independent with Italian help. Of course, the Irish-Catholic pope Patricius VII and the taoiseach (minister president) condemn the Imperial-Catholic schismatics for this deed.
Muslim World
Divided between the medium powers of the Seljuk jumhuriya and the shahdoms of Persia and Choresm. Plus, there are some smaller lands at the Arabian peninsula, and some new created states (Kurdistan, Azerbaijan). And some non-Muslim states (Greater Judea, Georgia, Armenia, Trapezunt) which future is unclear.
1920: Cyprus (which became Seljuk after the war again) wins its independence with the help of Greek and Italian volunteers (everyone in Italy knows that the Germans have supported the Rum-Seljuks, so they side with the Greeks).
1923: Oil fields of the gulf discovered. Mostly under Persian control.
1924: Sarkis Nakkashian, an Armenian millionaire, buys his government and that of Georgia to make a war against Azerbaijan, for the oil there. The war (1924/25) is successful.
1927/28: Kurdistan fights off a Seljuk attack.
Balcans
Once the backyard of Russia and New Rome, the area now became the sphere of influence of Germany and its ally Hungary (since the war, they enjoy more independence from Germany, concerning internal politics). Since the Socialist Block cuts off Germany's access to the oceans, the German government has the Balcan infrastructure (railroads, harbors) improved.
1920: German firms start to invest in oil fields in Vlachia and Moldavia.
1922: Balcan states forced to agree to treaties that bind their currencies on the German thaler, removes custom barriers against German, Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian products, and many more one-sided conditions.
1924: Railway Vienna-Varna finished.
1925: Railway Vienna-Saloniki finished. As Varna, it's become an important "indirect harbor" for Germany.
Mediterranean
Formerly united under the New Roman Empire, the new states emerged here suffer under "childhood diseases", like the tensions between republicans and monarchists (some of the states are still monarchies), or socialists and monetarists (capitalists). In North Africa, there are in addition tensions between Muslims and Christians.
1920: Castille approaches Morocco for a unification. The German government isn't sure whether to allow it (to make Castille a counterweight against Italy and the Socialists) or not, but since the Moroccan cortes republic doesn't want the king back, the problem solves itself.
1920-22: King Juan III of Castille invades the Basque country. Many atrocities are committed to defeat them.
1921: Socialist party in Greater Judea wins in a landslide, thanks to the millions of new immigrants from Europe. War hero Ariel Ben-David is elected new minister president of Judea.
1923: After the death of Andalusian king, Juan III thinks this is an opportunity to retake this land. However, the new king Benedicto II is able to make Germany take his side again, and the invasion has to be cancelled.
1926: Castille invades Catalonia. Soon, the whole country south of Ebro is in their hands.
Sub-saharan Africa
1920: Uprisings against Germans in former Songhay start. Former soldiers of New Rome who became mercenaries support them.
1921: Uprisings in Ethiopia start.
1922: Herero rise - not only against the Germans, but all whites (which has to do with nearby Australia - OTL South Africa - with its many Scandinavian-descended settlers, the Söderlinger).
1925: At the university of Zanzibar, a manifesto for the independence of the African East Coast is produced.
1927: Germany officially gives Ethiopia independence.
India
1920: Olympic Games in Delhi.
1921: The Germans start to become suspicious about Chandramoorthy and his circle of followers. Chandramoorthy leaves the city to teach as a guru in the wilderness, leaving his followers claiming him to be dead. Until his death, he stays the "grey eminence" for the growing network of his students, who start to make careers in economy, politics, military and science.
1922: Various Indian factions demand independence from Germany. The government declines.
1923: The great discussion about how to achieve independence among his followers. The guru tells his students to slowly collect power over the years until they're strong enough, and otherwise stay peaceful if possible.
1925: First great-scale uprisings against the Germans, mostly in Kashmir and the Sikh-settled areas (yes, there are Sikhs. The word just means "disciple" in Panjabi, and the idea of an egalitarian religion, which breaks with the caste system, could've happened in any TL).
1929: Unable to cope with the "Indian Chaos", the German government decides to contain the situation: The Sikhs are surrounded by German troops in their region, cut off from the rest of India.
Rest of Atlantis
1923: Socialist pirates contact the little country Aymaria at the south tip of Atlantis. The poor country agrees to help them, as a hideout during their raids.
1924-26: Mexico and California make war. The area around OTL Arizona is devastated and depopulated.
1927: Mari Isabel of Braseal dies, leaving the crown to her son Filip.
1928: Caroline, until now pro-German, suffers because they can't export tobacco to Germany anymore. The pro-Italian factions in the country become stronger again.
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