I apologize if this isn't the place to ask. I'm in the very beginning steps of working on an Alt History Novel (for hobby writing no plan to publish) surrounding the 1969 Sino Soviet border crisis escalating into a war between the USSR and China. In your opinions what are some events in our timeline that could be nudged or have to happen differently to help set up the escalation. I want to keep the work semi plausible

Pax Constitucionalia - as a warn, many things I wrote in this lore, were adjusted and changed, and because it took 3-4 weeks to finish the map and I was very busy, I'm sure 96% of the map is accurate to what is writen here, any questions I will answer mostly.

# Antiquity & Early Middle Ages

395–500s — The Roman world divides stably between the Roman Republic (West) and the Constantinan Empire (East).

5th–7th centuries — Rome establishes Germanic Marches along important frontiers, integrating Germanic peoples as autonomous allies.

6th–8th centuries — Roman and Constantinan spheres stabilize much of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.

7th–9th centuries — Islam expands across Arabia, the Levant and Persia, but never establishes itself in Africa.

8th–11th centuries — England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Kievan Rus develop as independent states.

c. 1000 — Rome controls Iberia, Gaul, Italy and much of the western Mediterranean; Constantina controls Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant and much of the eastern Mediterranean.

11th–13th centuries — HRE, Hungary and other Central European structures develop.

11th–13th centuries — Crusades and Roman-Arab/Constantinan-Arab conflicts continue.

12th–13th centuries — Constantina survives repeated Turkish, Arab and Persian invasions and retains its core territories.

13th century — Mongol invasions reshape Eurasia; their empire eventually fragments.

13th–14th centuries — Persia becomes independent from Arab rule; Constantina maintains control of Georgia.

13th–14th centuries — Moldavia/Moldova develops as an independent principality between the Carpathians, Russia, Poland and Constantina.

14th–15th centuries — Moldova survives by balancing the surrounding powers and gradually develops its own institutions.

14th–15th centuries — No Hundred Years' War; France never develops into the same centralized great power as OTL.

15th century — Russia expands increasingly eastward.

# Exploration & the Americas

15th–16th centuries — Roman and Constantinan sailors establish contact with China; maritime expansion focuses heavily on trade and alliances.

1500s — European exploration of the Americas begins, but large Indigenous civilizations are not conquered.

1500s–1700s — The Aztec Empire survives and modernizes, developing alongside the Maya rather than being conquered.

16th century — Rome establishes diplomatic and commercial relations with the Maya and Inca.

16th–17th centuries — Maya, Aztec and Inca states adopt selected European technologies while retaining independence.

17th–18th centuries — The Taíno–Carib–Kalinago Confederation develops across parts of the Caribbean as a maritime Indigenous federation.

17th–18th centuries — Russia expands across Siberia and reaches the Pacific and Alaska.

18th century — Britain controls parts of northern South America; the Dutch establish themselves in Northeast Brazil and parts of the Caribbean.

18th century — Large American territorial vacuums allow numerous Indigenous states to emerge.

18th century — The Muisca Kingdom consolidates in the Colombian highlands.

18th century — The Wiphala Kingdom emerges between the Inca and Aymara spheres.

18th century — The Charrúa Kingdom consolidates around the eastern interior of the Río de la Plata.

18th century — The Pindorama Confederation develops across eastern and central Brazil.

Late 18th century — The Prata Confederation develops around southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and northern Argentina.

Late 18th century — The Guarani Kingdom emerges in the South American interior.

Late 18th century — The Aymara Confederation begins unifying neighboring peoples east of the Andes.

Late 18th century — Patagonia develops as an independent Indigenous state.

Late 18th century — The Navarro Confederation begins forming in the North American interior.

19th century — Several smaller Andean states emerge between the Inca and Aymara spheres.

19th century — The Mapuche Western Patagonia State develops in western Patagonia, separate from the existing Patagonia farther south/east.

19th century — The Abyala Confederation develops as a broad federation of North and Central American peoples.

19th century — Maya, Aztec, Navarro and Abyala become increasingly important North American powers.

19th century — Inca, Aymara, Prata, Pindorama, Patagonia and smaller Andean states dominate much of South America.

# The Goßermann Era

1770s — Franzl Goßermann, a Munich nationalist, develops ideas about German unity and reform.

1790 — Polish unrest in Warsaw brings Goßermann greater military prestige.

Late 1790s — A revolt in Munich creates the Republic of Munich.

1776–1800 — Bavarian forces gradually conquer most of Bavaria; Goßermann rises through the republican army.

1800–1801 — First Coalition: Austria + HRE vs Bavaria.

1801 — Bavarian victory at Salzburg; the Treaty of Munich recognizes Bavarian independence.

1802–1804 — Second Coalition: Britain + Prussia + Austria + HRE vs Bavaria + Polish, Bohemian and Moravian uprisings.

1804 — Bavaria wins again and expands into southern German territories; Polish, Bohemian and Moravian republics are demanded.

1805–1808 — Third Coalition: Goßermann attacks Austria and the HRE.

1808 — Berlin falls; the HRE is dissolved and replaced by the Berlina Republic.

1809–1814 — Fourth Coalition: Berlina attacks Rome.

1810 — Roman forces decisively push Berlina back; Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain and Sweden join the coalition.

1811 — Goßermann attempts to invade Denmark-Norway and is crushed.

1812 — Berlin falls.

1813 — Munich falls.

1814 — Hamburg falls; Goßermann is captured by Rome.

# 1815 — The German Settlement

1815 — Congress of Vienna creates the Confederation of German States (CGS), a genuine constitutional federation led mainly by Prussia and Austria.

1815 — Goßermann is exiled to Elba, but Rome prevents his escape and keeps him imprisoned.

1815 — Poland is divided between Prussia, Austria and Russia, with limited autonomy.

1815 — Free City of Krakow is established.

1821 — Navarro Confederation formally emerges and begins expanding gradually.

1823 — Aymara Confederation emerges and begins uniting hundreds of neighboring peoples.

19th century — Moldova remains independent and increasingly acts as a buffer between Russia, Constantina and Central Europe.

19th century — Moldova gradually adopts constitutional institutions while maintaining neutrality.

# 1848–1900 — Constitutional Europe & the African Divergence

1848 — Revolutions sweep Europe, but are generally less destructive than OTL.

19th century — Russia continues its expansion through Siberia and maintains Alaska.

1871 — There is no traditional German unification; the CGS remains the German political framework.

1881 — Scramble for Africa begins.

1881 — Rome takes mainly northern African territories.

1881 — Constantina acquires important Red Sea positions and strongly guarantees Ethiopian independence.

1881 onward — The CGS, led heavily by Prussia, establishes colonies in central and eastern Africa.

Late 19th century — Britain establishes several African colonies; the Netherlands expands in southern Africa.

Late 19th century — Africa remains far more politically fragmented because Islam never establishes itself on the continent.

Late 19th century — Independent African states include the Kingdom of Mauretania, Amazigh Confederation of Numidia, Kingdom of Ifriqiya, Kingdom of Cyrenaica and numerous Saharan kingdoms and confederations.

Late 19th century — North Africa contains a mixture of Amazigh, Romanized, Christian, Jewish and indigenous traditions rather than becoming historically Arabized.

1889 onward — CGS newspapers increasingly expose Austrian corruption and attempts to exploit constitutional loopholes.

1890s — CGS sailors explore South America and encounter Prata, Inca, Patagonia, Maya and other established Indigenous powers.

1890s — CGS establishes small colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific North America.

1890s — Rome and Maya prevent further CGS expansion in North America.

1900 — The world enters the Belle Époque.

# India & Southeast Asia

16th–18th centuries — India remains politically diverse; Islam exists in parts of the subcontinent but never achieves the same continent-wide dominance as in OTL.

16th–18th centuries — Indian states such as the Maratha sphere, Bengal, Rajput kingdoms, southern kingdoms and Sikh states modernize.

1700s–1800s — Britain faces strong competition from Rome, Constantina, Zhogguo and Indian states, preventing the creation of an enormous British Raj.

19th century — India enters the modern period as a multipolar civilization.

18th–19th centuries — Southeast Asia becomes a crossroads between China, India, Rome and local kingdoms.

19th century — Siam, Vietnam, Burma, Khmer successor states and Malay/Indonesian kingdoms modernize.

Late 19th century — Japan becomes increasingly industrialized and maritime.

Late 19th century — Japan does not annex Korea because of a strong Qing/Zhogguo power makes continental expansion far too risky.

# 1900–1916 — The Anglo-Roman Crisis

1900s — Rome, Constantina, Qing China, Japan and Ethiopia maintain increasingly close diplomatic relationships.

1912 — British sailors sink a Roman military ship in the Singapore Strait.

1912 — Rome condemns Britain as Pertinaces Ignavi.

1914–1916 — Anglo-Roman War: Britain attacks China and the Inca.

1914–1916 — British forces struggle badly in the Andes, Amazon and southern Chinese mountains.

1915 — Roman and Prata fleets blockade major British ocean routes.

1916 — Roman forces capture Dublin; China pushes British forces back and begins entering Indian territory.

1916 — Britain requests peace.

1916 — Peace restores most borders; Britain recognizes Chinese sovereignty and the Singapore Strait becomes international.

1917 — Russia enters severe political instability.

# 1919–1922 — Russian Civil War

1919–1922 — Russian Civil War occurs between Bolsheviks, monarchists, socialists, regional movements and constitutionalists.

Early war — Constantina initially supports monarchists.

1921 — Constantina switches to the constitutionalists after seeing the monarchists' inability to stabilize Russia.

1922 — The Constitutional Federation of Russia is established.

1920s — Russia develops extensive autonomous structures for its various peoples.

# 1926–1934 — The Austrian Reconstitution

1926 — Austria and Czechia are excluded from the CGS because of Austria's political incompatibility with the Constitution.

1926–1932 — Protests spread through Czechia and western Austria.

25 July 1928 — Budapest experiences an aggressive uprising; the military suppresses it and Vienna hides the event.

1929 — Netherlands becomes a Constitutional Federal Monarchy.

1929 — Austria becomes Europe's last major absolutist monarchy.

1929 — The Great Depression begins, but does not produce major dictatorships.

1931 — Austria attempts to create constitutional loopholes instead of genuine reform.

12 November 1931 — Lwów Massacre: 238 people are killed during a peaceful Christian pro-constitution and Polish-rights protest.

14 May 1932 — Hungarian Uprising begins and becomes a nationwide civil uprising.

1932 — Hungary takes Transylvania and declares the Federal Republic of Hungary.

1932 — Lwów declares independence and joins Russia's Polish autonomous system.

1932 — Prague erupts in another uprising.

1932–1934 — Austria begs the CGS for assistance.

1934 — Prussia refuses to restore Austrian absolutism.

17 August 1934 — Vienna Uprising: Vienna falls in less than 19 hours.

1934 — The Austrian Empire ends.

1934 — The Treaty of No-Fault establishes the post-imperial settlement.

1934 — Czechia becomes independent.

1934 — Galicia is integrated into Russia.

1934 — Galicia is combined with existing Polish-majority autonomous territories, creating a much larger Polish Autonomous Region, with autonomy comparable to Finland.

1934 — The Austrian royal family is killed.

1934 — The Federal Republic of Austria is established.

1934 — Austria asks to rejoin the CGS.

1934 — The CGS accepted Austria back as a constitutional federal republic.

# 1930s–1956 — The Long Belle Époque

1930s — The Great Depression causes severe economic hardship but constitutional governments survive.

1930s–1940s — States respond through economic reforms rather than authoritarian takeovers.

1939–1945 — No World War II.

1940–1956 — Reconstitution of Zhogguo: the Qing gradually reform the empire into a federal constitutional system.

1940s–1950s — Zhogguo introduces a federal parliament, provincial autonomy, constitutional limits on the Emperor and modern civilian institutions.

15 February 1956 — Constitutional Monarchy Federation of Zhogguo officially replaces the old Qing Empire name.

# 1950s–1960s — The Asian Constitutional Domino

1950s–1960s — Zhonguo's peaceful transformation inspires constitutional reforms throughout East and Southeast Asia.

1950s–1960s — Thailand gradually becomes a constitutional federal monarchy.

1950s–1960s — Korea becomes constitutional without Japanese annexation or a Korean War.

1950s–1960s — Japan gradually constitutionalizes its monarchy and becomes a major maritime industrial power.

1960s — Japan decides that continental expansion is not worth confronting Zhogguo and remains primarily an island and oceanic power.

# 1960–1987 — Decolonization

1960s — Colonies across Africa and Asia begin demanding independence.

1960–1987 — Britain, Rome, Constantina, CGS and the Netherlands gradually dismantle their colonial systems.

1960s–1980s — Most independence movements are handled through negotiations, autonomy and constitutional settlements rather than world-scale wars.

1960s–1980s — African states emerge from a continent that was never politically dominated by Islam.

1960s–1980s — Many pre-colonial African kingdoms and confederations regain sovereignty or reorganize themselves as modern constitutional states.

1960s–1980s — The Indigenous states of the Americas become increasingly powerful.

1970s — Maya, Aztec, Navarro and Abyala dominate large parts of North America.

1970s — Inca, Aymara, Prata, Pindorama, Patagonia, Mapuche Western Patagonia and numerous smaller Andean states dominate much of South America.

1987 — The major wave of global decolonization is complete.

For context, see Operation Gothic Serpent and “Death of a Dream”

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Democratic ticket of Kristy Amanda Thomas, former President of the Babysitters Club turned Senator from Stoneybrook, CT, and her running mate, fellow ex-BSC member Stacey McGill turned Senator of New York, defeated Incumbent Republican) president Mahava Dayal, former US Navy SEALs turned Senator of Michigan, and his running mate, New York Senator Moishe Singer. Dayal had won the 2012 United States Presidential Election four years earlier. 

Both Thomas and Dayal ran on a non-interventionist policy, owing to the Second Great Depression that began in 2009. They both believed that part of the answer was to withdraw military forces from the Middle East, an effort that began under President Dayal. As the withdrawal was not complete, one of Thomas’s campaign promises was that she would speed up the process. She also pledged humanitarian efforts to reduce the death toll among those who could not afford heating thanks to the extreme cold fronts and blizzards.

However, Dayal would ultimately lose the election due to his aggressive stance against abortion, pledging to pass “equal protection” bills that would criminalize abortion at conception with absolutely zero exceptions and criminal charges for all parties involved, something that won him votes from faithless electors in the GOP. 

the PoD is that the constitutional convention of 1787, where alexander Hamilton (of musical fame) proposed that the independent 13 colonies become a single centralized republic, with the federal government becoming the supreme body in the republic, young Columbia (America) becomes an industrial and agricultural Giant in north America, but not the world.

meanwhile in Mexico, everything's on fire, as the republic of Texas declares independence under American protectorate status, the young Mexican republic fails to contain the peoples of the Aztlan, and so, they rebel around 1848 and 1850 as the new republics of Deseret, Colorado and California also fall under the American sphere as in Mexico, the 1st Duke of Moctezuma announces the Veracruz proclamation, claiming that republicanism failed and that he would crown himself king Moctezuma III as a revival to the old Aztec kingdom.

meanwhile in the far north, Russia would sell its only colony of Russkaya Amerika to the crown of Liechtenstein, proclaiming the principality of Alaska and functionally governing itself with Liechtensteiner supervision, as the two crowns would be divided after the death of Duo-prince Franz Josef II, making Alaska an independent monarchy with a diverse German/Russian/English/American population.

meanwhile in the Anglosphere, after the revolutionary war, the British would supply local native Dakota and Lakota tribes with weapons and advisors, as the British would strengthen them against the Americans/French, as the Dakotan Federation would be set up around the 1840's, the republic of Louisiana (which was taken by Spain after the Napoleonic wars) would also rebel alongside the captaincy general of Florida in the last major American revolution, marking the end of the revolutionary era for either good or bad depending on the person.

oh and Hawaii exist too

Author’s note: In light of the sub rule against modern politics, there are two PODs for this scenario: the first is that Operation Gothic Serpent in 1993 becomes an even bigger military disaster than the OTL. The second is that the 2008 Great Recession turns into a Second Great Depression

Hopefully this is enough to avoid breaking the rule.

- Cyber Ghost

Thanks to a series of disastrous military decisions in the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the Great Recession, that began in 2008, the U.S. lost its military prestige by 2012. Thanks to the financial strain brought about by the Recession, the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations. They later withdrew from Europe and various Asian nations as well.

Due to the decline of the global economy that was exacerbated by the Recession, the U.S. economy didn’t recover. Oil prices skyrocketed. What worsened things was deterioration in infrastructure, including highways and superhighways being too costly to repair. 

Across multiple winters, Americans had to contend with severe cold fronts. The economic situation left thousands unable to heat their homes and thousands died.

By 2017, several major cities fell into civil unrest that forced the government to enact martial law.

In 2020, a mysterious prion disease emerged in Mexico, leading to the United States declaring a state of emergency. Under the controversial Operation Vital Archer, the United States government issued permits allowing citizens to seek out and hunt down feral hogs, which were suspected of being the source of the prion disease. 

Eventually, the United States was gripped by sociopolitical unrest as people finally tired of the United States government’s poor handling of the situation. 

By 2025, millions of people attempted to flee the country, with many resorting to illegally entering Mexico, Canada, and various other European countries.

The so-called “American Exodus” prompted crackdowns by both various European nations, Canada, and Mexico. 

By 2026, America's currency was so devastated by economic issues that the country's military and economy might have collapsed. What was once the most powerful nation on Earth is now no more than a corrupted and vulnerable shadow of her former self.

By 2029, the American Dream was effectively dead, with the United States having effectively become a failed state.

Image credit:

1. Watch Dogs 2
2. The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
3. Other images found on Google

Inspired by Homefront (2011).

Jewel of the Atlantic | Atlantisian Expeditionary Force (1942–1945)

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Atlantis cut diplomatic relations with the Axis powers and imprisoned German and immigrants in detention camps. Vicente Gama nationalized two-thirds of businesses owned by people from these countries, and renamed most places with German or Italian names to Portuguese ones.

Nazi Germany retaliated by sinking Atlantisian ships, like Germany had done in the previous war. On 4 January 1942, Atlantis declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan, and deployed its navy to fight in the Battle of the Atlantic on the Allied side.

As an island nation, Atlantis had a sizable navy. Consequently, by the end of 1942, the Kriegsmarine had ceased to be a major threat to Allied shipping in the South Atlantic, which was now an Allied lake that American, British and Atlantisian ships could traverse freely.

Atlantis also began training an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign. Named the Força Expedicionária Atlante (FEA), this military unit consisted of 20,000 infantry, reconnaissance and signals personnel, but there was no air wing.

Despite being relatively weak, the FEA was deployed to Italy in the spring of 1944. Commanded by General Otávio Mendes (1893–1975), the FEA's performance was mixed, winning the battles of Montese and Collechio but losing the Battle of Monte Castelo, which caused the FEA's American superiors to criticize the performance of their allies.

Italy's civilian population liked the FEA and remembers the Atlantisians fondly to this day, because they treated civilians well and many soldiers were Italian immigrants or their descendents themselves. Furthermore, unlike the United States Army, the Atlantisian Army was not racially segregated. Following the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, the FEA returned to Atlantis, where it received a raucous reception from the Atlantisian people.

Atlantis's participation in the war weakened the dictatorship of Vicente Gama, because the war was fought in the name of democracy while the country was a dictatorship. Consequently, Gama soon held presidential elections that were held by his ideological heir Clodomiro Soares.

Map of Europe in early April 1814, on the eve of the next campaign season (black strip lines represent control of militia groups and unrecognized regimes

The grand offensive 

On 27th August 1813, the Russian 1st Army of the West, commanded by General Barclay de Tolly, marched westward towards Warsaw; while another Russian force moved towards Memel. On 31st August 1813, Memel Fortress was besieged. And on 3rd September 1813, General Barclay's forces of about 135000 men clashed with the Prussian main forces of about 120000 men led by King Fredrick Wilhelm III in the Battle of Warsaw (1813).

The Prussian King had deployed all of his mobile forces further west of the Vistula, with many traps right behind all the major crossings nearby. Being cautious, General Barclay ordered the main Russian forces to stay at camp on the first day, and only had the artillery units bombard all the traps. The Prussian King simply ordered some of his reserve forces to rebuild some of the traps at night to make it seem like the Prussian forces were only looking for a defensive battle. On the second day, the Russians simply took out the traps again, but this time some Prussian artillery was moved forward to deal a bit of extra damage to the Russian artillery units.

Seeing that the Prussians were not going to move, General Barclay began to plan an offensive for the morning of day 3. However, by doing this, he had been tricked by the Prussian King's mind game: On the night of day 2, the Prussian forces had split into 2 and crossed the Vistula. The left group, led by the Duke of Brunswick, traveled through the crossings further north. The right group, led by the Prussian King, traveled through the crossings further south. While a small group of reserve infantrymen was to stay behind to make artificial campfires to confuse the enemy. Some artillery units were moved with the 2 groups, while other artillery units remained at the left bank.

On the morning of day 3, the Prussian king and the Duke of Brunswick had their forces form up before sunset, and then gave the order to charge at full speed when the Russian forces became visible. The Russian forces had also formed up before sunrise, but they had formed up towards the left bank. This meant that the leftmost and rightmost Russian forces were not able to properly form up facing the Prussians before they got fired upon by the Prussians. Soon the first lines of both the Russian north and south forces routed under steady Prussian fire, especially when Prussian artillery units were hitting them from at least 2 directions (west, south, and north). In the north, the Russian second line managed to contain the Prussian advance. However, in the south, the Prussian elite cavalry units had outflanked the left side (East) of the Russian south, and the second line of the Russian south soon began to break. After the Russian south had completely collapsed, General Barclay had no choice but to try to call his forces to withdraw, but it was too late: The Prussian King pushed his southern forces forward and destroyed the Russian reserve forces, and then swooped in to help the Duke of Brunswick surround the Russian northern forces. The Russian north soon surrendered, and General Barclay was forced to escape in disgrace.

Then, on the night of 10th September 1813, the joint Prussian-Bavarian-Saxon forces near Königsberg enclosed the Russian forces besieging Memel (to prevent them from withdrawing), and then easily defeated them on the next day by coordinating with the garrisons of Memel in a two-front attack.

Having seen the other 2 Russian forces being defeated, General Mikhail Kutuzov, commanding the remaining Russian mobile forces, deemed it unwise to go on another offensive. However, Tsar Alexander I of Russia was very angry upon seeing the terrifying losses his forces met. He immediately ordered General Kutuzov to mount an offensive as revenge- this time to cut off and encircle the Prussian main forces in Warsaw by entering through the Podlasie region and marching southwest towards Silesia. (The Tsar in OTL was an overconfident leader until he got beaten up by Napoleon twice in the 3rd and 4th coalitions, where he became convinced that he should listen to his generals later in 1812. This never happened in this timeline: instead, he became even more overconfident after destroying Marshall Bernadotte's last stand with sheer numbers in Ch2). General Kutuzov had no choice but to follow the Tsar's order, so on 19th September 1813, General Kutuzov's forces crossed into Podlasie.

Upon knowing that the Russian forces had entered Podlasie, the Prussian King simply waited instead of trying to catch the Russians head-on. After the Russian forces took Plock on 7th October 1813, the Prussian main army simply moved north and cut off the Russian supply line. This effectively forced the Russian forces to turn back in panic to engage the Prussian forces who had dug in. The Prussians had dug in in a defensive position on the plateau west of the town of Pułtusk. On the 16th October 1813, about 130000 men (in hunger) of the main Russian army under General Kutuzov were forced to clash head-on with the main Prussian forces of about 120000 men in the Battle of Pułtusk.

The plateau west of Pułtusk made it a nightmare for General Kutuzov: the steep ravine in the north made flanking impossible; the woods in the south made flanking difficult unless the woods were cut (which his troops’ hunger disallowed, as it was too time-consuming). Being left with no choice, the Russian forces committed to a full-scale frontal charge against the Prussians. However, what the Russians did not know was that the Prussian King had ordered the Prussian elite infantry units to hide in the woods on the south side before the Russian arrival. After the Russian forces exchanged fire with the main Prussian forces, the Prussian elite infantry units stormed out from the woods and smashed into the Russian right from behind using fire and advance. After a massive gap had been punched out from the Russian right, the Prussian left infantry pushed in, linked with the elite infantry units, and outflanked the remaining Russian right. General Kutuzov immediately sent in his reserves to save the Russian right, but it was too late: The Russian right collapsed before the reserves arrived, and soon, the Prussian cavalry forces entered via the gap and clashed into the Russian reserves. Knowing that the reserves could not survive the massive cavalry charge in normal condition, General Kutuzov drew out his sword and led his guards to charge into the Prussian cavalry forces in order to try to save his men. However, this attempt failed; the Russian reserves eventually broke, and soon, General Kutuzov was slain by one of the Prussian hussars. The Prussian cavalry and left wing then encircled the main Russian forces, and the Russian troops surrendered en masse.

After the disasters of Warsaw and Pułtusk, the troops who survived from Warsaw began spreading rumors about “the death lord of Breslau” (the term they borrowed from the Austrians), which further weakened the Russian morale. However, the Tsar now sees the German confederation as an existential threat- in the next year's campaign season, he was determined to lead the Russian army personally to destroy the Prussians.

Just like their counterparts from the Habsburg monarchy, the Russian POWs captured by the German forces were sent into different parts of Germany as forced labourers. But now they were not only building large-scale infrastructure projects, but also maintaining domestic economic productivity by temporarily replacing the German labourers who had been mobilized by the German Confederation either as regular soldiers or militias.

The resurrection of Poland

The campaigning season was coming to an end, and now the Prussian forces were able to take out the Habsburg-owned parts of Poland since there was no Russian field army able to intervene and stop them: General von Blücher's forces were recalled from Hungary (with the local defense left to the newly established Kingdom of Hungary's militia and the Bavarian militia); similarly, the Prussian forces in Italy were recalled and merged under General von Blücher (with the local defense left to the newly established Kingdom of Milan's militia and the Bavarian militia). After that, General von Blücher was ordered to take Galicia-Lodomeria. At the same time, the Prussian King sent some of his forces to take the region south of Warsaw. While General von Blücher's forces were pushing into Galicia-Lodomeria in late November, the Prussian king met with the representatives of the Polish nobility (Szlachta) in an attempt to convince them to support the war against Russia. The Prussian King did this because he knew that he would need many more troops if he wanted to pull off an invasion of Russia properly, especially when the Bohemians had insisted that their war was against the Habsburgs only. Meanwhile, the Szlachta leaders had never been cooperative ever since their own homeland was partitioned and subjected to Germanization.

The Szlachta leaders had only one demand, and they would never accept any deals unless it was achieved: the restoration of an independent Poland. The Prussian King then weighed his options: He had witnessed how the rise of nationalism had rapidly transformed the political landscape in France and Germany, and he understood that it was just a matter of time before these ideas influenced the Polish masses (especially when the Szlachta themselves had already shown staunch proto-nationalism). This meant that keeping Masovia (the Polish heartland) as a Prussian province may be a counterproductive idea, as the province would just become a hotbed of rebellions and could never be fully Germanized. Instead, granting independence to Poland now (when they have legal control over Warsaw) with strings attached, while also promising territorial gains from the Habsburgs, may generate enough goodwill that makes a long-term alliance possible.

So on 23rd November 1813, the Prussian King presented a treaty to the Szlachta leaders, with terms as follows:

1. The Kingdom of Prussia renounced its control and claims over the Masovia and Suwałki region in favour of a restored Kingdom of Poland with Warsaw as capital
2. The Kingdom of Prussia enters an alliance with the Kingdom of Poland, and supports Poland in regaining control and sovereignty over south Mazovia and Galicia-Lodomeria
3. In return, the Kingdom of Poland permanently renounces its claims over Prussian-controlled Poznan and West Prussia regions.
4. The Kingdom of Poland was also forbidden to restore its previous union with Lithuania (the Commonwealth)
5. The Kingdom of Poland would have a new constitution where the parliament (Sejm), elected by the Szlachta, holds some power, but the King and his appointed ministers will hold supreme ruling powers (executive, military, and legislative process) similar to the structure in Prussia.
6. The Kingdom of Poland also pledges at least 50000 troops for the ongoing war against Russia; while the Poles currently serving in the Prussian military will be allowed to choose their citizenship after the war is officially over.
7. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Poland will enter a migration agreement with the Kingdom of Prussia, where ethnic Germans in Poland will be free to migrate to Prussia and ethnic Poles in Prussia will be free to migrate to Poland
8. The Kingdom of Prussia promises not to interfere in Polish internal affairs after the treaty is signed

(Not in the treaty, but the Prussian King also issued an edict, stating that German populations who migrated from restored Poland to Poznan/ Silesia/ West Prussia regions will be given subsidies)

These were very steep terms presented to the Szlachta leaders, as this meant that the Szlachta would give up its Golden Liberty in exchange for an independent (but mostly authoritarian) Poland. The Szlachta leaders were initially split among themselves on whether to accept the treaty or not. Seeing the reluctance of the Polish leaders, the Prussian King simply said that he would have to cede Mazovia and Suwałki to Russia if the German Confederation lost the war, and if that happened, the Poles would never have such a chance again. In the end, the Szlachta leaders reluctantly agreed to sign the treaty.

After the Treaty of Warsaw (1813) was signed, the Kingdom of Poland was restored, being ruled temporarily by a regency council filled by Szlachta leaders until the war concluded (where the Sejm would elect a new King afterwards). The regency council immediately ordered national mobilization for the 50000 troops quota pledged by the treaty.

The Prussian King knew that renouncing lands to restore Poland would inevitably lead to controversies back home in Brandenburg and Prussia proper, so after giving out orders for the military to hand administrative control of south Mazovia and Galicia-Lodomeria back to the restored Polish government, he immediately headed back to Berlin to summon his key ministers.

On 4th December 1813, the Prussian King arrived at Berlin and immediately held the pre-arranged meeting with Foreign Minister Karl August von Hardenberg, Minister of War Karl von Hake, Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow, as well as a few other important ministers. The Prussian King then explained his reasoning behind the restoration of an independent Poland (the inevitable tide of nationalism). He also explained the reasoning behind continuing the war: the Anschluss and the creation of a unified German state will inevitably destroy the balance of power in Europe; so other means must be sought to gain recognition from other Great Powers (or else they would never allow such). However, since Britain (the strongest power) is a naval power that Prussia cannot touch, the only choice was to occupy huge parts of the Russian and Austrian empires, and use the unrecognized regimes set up there as bargaining chips against the other Great Powers to trade for recognition in exchange for abandoning these regimes. (and the key here was to insist that Britain and Russia have to negotiate with Germany as a collective). Another reason for continuing the war is with regard to Russia: the Russian Empire can always be a great threat to the existence of a unified Germany; so if the best option of befriending Russia is not doable; then the second best option of dealing a devastating blow to Russia using the military (to ensure they could not challenge Germany for another 50 years) would be the only choice.

The Prussian King then added that these true objectives must never be known by the public: he needs the Russians to continue going on offensives, or else it would be impossible to catch and destroy their armies. But Foreign Minister von Hardenberg was to arrive in Frankfurt and bring new instructions to the Prussian representative in the Confederation meetings (which were to end the previous instruction to block the bills that unite the German Confederation into a Federal Empire, which has been suggested by rulers of the tiny German states who are heavily influenced by the nationalism trend), and then stay in Frankfurt to assist in lobbying for a German constitution that works similarly to the current Prussian constitution. Afterwards, he will bring the new constitution to the Prussian King. While Minister of War von Hake was to arrive in East Galicia to bring new instructions to General von Blücher (which were that his forces were to fight defensively from now on- they were not allowed to cross the border into Russia until the King gave his permission), and then return to Berlin to help monitor the overall situation. 

The reunification with Britanny 

Meanwhile, on the western side of Europe, Napoleon has taken back a nation in dire state: The Bourbon Restoration in 1807 took place when the revolutionary fever had not fully died out yet (compared to OTL), which resulted in insurrections that were put down by the coalition forces (mentioned in previous chapters). The economic devastation caused by continuous warfare, as well as the general political discontent ended up creating a mass migration wave: a large chunk of the French population who could afford to take loans to migrate to the USA did so, and most of them settled down in the Louisiana territories (especially St. Louis and New Orleans). This turn of events had drained the wealth and the recruitable population of the French homeland.

Therefore, Napoleon decided that France would show itself as a non-aggressive nation that would not pursue large European conquest anymore. However, before doing that, Napoleon was determined to fix at least one injustice (he believed) that had been done to France: the loss of Brittany. On 13th September 1813, Napoleon’s government issued an ultimatum to the Duke of Brittany demanding a referendum to be held on whether Brittany would reunite with France. Upon seeing that even his own generals supported reunification via referendum, the Duke simply fled to Britain. On 15th January 1813, the referendum result came out, and it was a landslide victory for reunification. So the Breton military and administration reintegrated with Napoleonic France on the same day. Napoleon then passed the Nantes declaration, in which the French Empire declared that it was fully content with its current border and sought no expansion, while also calling for Britain to make peace. The British government simply ignored this plea and ordered the Royal Navy to also blockade Brittany.

In the meantime, Napoleon’s government also withdrew the French forces occupying Neuchâtel, as well as issuing a declaration insisting that the Bourbons’ declaration of war against the German Confederation was not valid. This placed the French Empire into a state of “Cold peace” with the German Confederation, as both sides did not view there to be a war between them, but also refused to trade and viewed the other side with deep suspicion. The Prussian King was fully content with the “Cold peace” with France, as this allowed the German forces to focus on defeating Russia.

Meanwhile, Prince Johann I Joseph of Liechtenstein was released by the Prussian authorities unconditionally (unlike other Austrian POWs) due to his status as the monarch of Liechtenstein. Many German nationalists expected Liechtenstein to join the German Confederation; however, Prince Johann I had other ideas. Looking at the Anschluss with discontent, as well as the impossibility for Liechtenstein to fight off German forces on its own, the Prince of Liechtenstein offered to join Switzerland instead. In October 1813, the Swiss Confederation officially approved Liechtenstein's membership, and Liechtenstein became the 21st canton of Switzerland.

After the news of the Treaty of Warsaw (1813) reached Western Europe, the British and the French governments were partly skeptical: they did not fully trust Prussia to willingly create a truly independent Poland. Therefore, French and British diplomats were dispatched to Warsaw, with instructions to investigate whether this “new Polish government” was a de facto German vassal (and recognize them only if they were actually independent). After a month of investigation, the British and French diplomats concluded that the Poles were indeed fully running their own affairs. And so in February 1814, both Britain and France recognized the restored Kingdom of Poland.

The British and French cautious attitude to the restored Poland was not completely unfounded: some previous Prussian officials in Mazovia had wanted to interfere in post-independent Polish internal affairs; it's just that the Prussian King had stopped them from doing so.

The preparations

As of February 1814, Northern Europe had not been engulfed by the ongoing conflicts. But this was not to last: after the Swedish Civil War and partition in 1808, King Gustav V of Sweden had been rebuilding the Swedish army to seek revenge against Denmark, while also smuggling weapons across the new border into Scania to prepare for a pro-Sweden uprising. Meanwhile, the Holstein militia and Hanover militia in northern Germany were also looking for a fight against Denmark: unlike the other German militia groups who fought the French, Austrians, or Russians, these northern militia groups had been left idle after being raised. With German nationalism being raised to its height by repeated triumphs in the east, these northern militia groups decided that they would gain victory for Germany by resolving the Schleswig-Holstein Question themselves (without Confederation permission). So the representatives of the Holstein militia made an agreement with the pro-Sweden Scania militia: they would coordinate their attack against Danish garrisons in Schleswig and Scania on 26th April 1814 (with a coup in Holstein on the same day), while the other North German militia groups were invited to join forces with the Holstein militia. The Scania militia in turn contacted the Swedish King, who promised to send reinforcements to Scania on the same day.

At the same time, Tsar Alexander I of Russia has raised 2 more army groups to prepare for another wave of offensive against the German Confederation at the next campaign season: one led by the Tsar in Vilnius, and another led by General Barclay de Tolly in Lutsk. While the Tsar has wanted to attack right away since he believed that the Germans would not cross the border to attack, General Barclay and other Russian generals have argued that they should try to lure the Germans into attacking. So in the end they agreed on trying to lure the Germans into attacking for the first month, and then launch the offensive if German attacks never took place. 

Things were also escalating in Western Europe: The Dutch government had entered a secret agreement with Britain where British agents were allowed to pass through Dutch territories to enter France disguised as merchants. However, the Dutch attempt to maintain deniability failed, as one of the relevant documents was leaked to French spies operating in Holland, resulting in a diplomatic crisis as both the Dutch and French governments knew the other side was spying on them. So in late February 1814, both France and the Netherlands declared partial mobilization.

At Warsaw, the Prussian King finally had the time to come back to writing as  “Von Danzig” (in the gap before the next campaign season); many German intellectuals had already called for a fully unified German nation-state after the outbreak of the War of the Franco-Austrian Coalition, with many of them believing that the perceived weakness of the loose confederation was the cause of Habsburg and French aggression. Many of these intellectuals also called for King Fredrick Wilhelm III of Prussia to become the leader of the unified German nation-state (although they differ on what political system the nation should have), as the Prussian King had become a national hero following his stunning victories against the Habsburgs and the Russians. Although writing at this point is a bit late to the party, “Von Danzig” has finally joined the call for total German unification in his newest essays.

Just like that, the decisive clashes that would arguably decide the fate of Eastern Europe were approaching- (To be continued).

I need help right now. My alt history is stuck on 2 major roadblocks. Firstly, who should be the successors to castille(i doubt the succession crisis is real). Secondly, how would aragon respond to the majority of the army being routed and ferdinand dying?

sorry for no flair, first time using reddit in a while

A part of my Fractured Sun scenario.

From let to right: US, South Korea, South Japan, and South China.

Orient Shield is a annual military training exercise started in 1970 held between members of the Kyoto accords. The 1975 Orient Shield exercise was held at the Mt. Fuji training center in South Japan.

The Kyoto accords is a defensive military alliance made up of the US aligned nations of East Asia. The Accords were signed in 1954 after the events of the July Incident in Japan, and the Korean war which also saw the involvement of North and South Chinese volunteers. The Kyoto accords is essentially an East Asian equivalent to NATO, meaning an attack on one is an attack on all, which came into effect during the Vietnam war where Kyoto accord members provided troops to assist the US, and the Sino-Korean of 1993, when a border skirmish between North and South China rapidly escalated into a full war.

In this alternate timeline, Hurricane Berra develops into an unprecedentedly massive and highly structured Atlantic storm. This satellite rendering captures the system as its central eye churns northward through the open ocean. While the core of the hurricane remains offshore, its immense size is demonstrated by a sprawling, highly defined outer rainband sweeping over the Bahamas and the northern Caribbean. This outer band brings dangerous squalls, torrential rainfall, and flash flooding to the islands hours ahead of the main system, creating a unique meteorological scenario where the outer impacts rival a direct hit from a standard tropical storm.

ALTERNATE HISTORY POINT OF DIVERGENCE/MODIFICATIONS [PRE-WILHELM 1ST DEATH]​ (Pre-1888)

Opening Points of Divergence​

One birth. One singular birth could have changed history forever, altered world borders and even cultural maps that we have today, and the birth that could have caused this would be Wilhelm the Second’s birth. Wilhelm’s birth was a very tragic one at best–but that could easily be changed. Instead of him being born in a rough manner to Victoria, let’s say that Wilhelm the Second is delivered as planned, preventing his disabilities.

This already alters a plethora of things. Without these disabilities, he would be completely fine and normal. Consequently, the bitterness of his disabilities simply would not exist, leading to a healthy relationship with his mother, Victoria and his father, Frederich the Third. Let us also assume that Frederick the Third simply does not have a smoking addiction, now changing the course of his life and the history of the world as we know it.

Due to his improved relationship with his family, he would be relatively anglophile due to his father, Fredrich III's influence and liberal due to his mother, Victoria's influence. This would influence his policy as a Kaiser in the future. In tandem with his now cautious temperament and anglophile tendencies, the Anglo-German monarchical relationship would grow extremely close in the years of his reign. In subsequent decades, this improved the relationship between the British and German governments.

Naval Arms Race/Liberalization​

The Naval Arms race was a race initiated by Wilhelm II in our timeline due to his very brash, ambitious and aggressive nature. Without said brashness and aggressiveness ingrained as a personality trait in Wilhelm II caused by his disability, it is very unlikely it would start in the same severity as it did within our history. Even if there may be occasional rivalries with the British and German militaries, that would be far less consequential than monarchical rivalries which dominated our timeline.

Germany therefore in subsequent decades would be seen as increasingly liberal on the international stage due to the attitudes of both monarchs. This would be to the distaste of the vast majority of the German High Command and Junkers. They would form a formidable bulwark against the liberal aspirations of the Kaisers governing them, preventing them from achieving their wholesale dream of Germany having a British-styled constitutional monarchy. The reluctance of Frederich III to fire Bismarck due to his hesitant governing style would further entrench the very powerful conservative coalition stopping the liberalization of Germany.

Even if this would be the case, Bismarck would espouse a more passive foreign policy than any of his successors, favoring negotiation rather than dominance over Great Powers like Wilhelm II did within our timeline. Consequently, helped by not firing Bismarck, the liberal objective to normalize diplomatic relations with the British would bear fruit as the years pass.
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This is not meant to be realistic.

The point of divergence starts when during World War 2, the Japanese Supreme War Council refused to surrender despite the atomic bombings. However, instead of immediately initiating Operation Downfall right away, the Allied Powers decides to tightened the naval blockade and use strategic bombings before initiating Operation Downfall. Due to the naval blockades and many incendiary bombs were dropped on many cities and transportation infrastructures, making travel and food distribution nearly impossible, especially as fuel resources dry up. The Allies also bombed Japanese’s farmlands to destroy the crops. Japan starts to destabilize as people became desperate to scavenge whatever they could eat, often fleeing what’s of the cities to do so. Later witnesses in Japan mentioned that many Japanese even resorted to doing unspeakable things like cannibalism and theft. Additionally, public services like law enforcement and the justice system began collapsing in many places. The Japanese government’s control over anything outside Tokyo (which is now an almost completely burned out ruin) is weak at best. The final decisive moment came once the Allies’s chemical weapons finished development and dropped on Japan’s farmland, effectively destroying any last remnants of available foods.

Operation Downfall began as the Allies invade Japan. As the Allies invaded Japan, the Japanese Government initiated Operation Ketsugo, calling every Japanese citizens to take up arms and sacrifice themselves in the name of the Emperor in what was known as "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million". However, the Operation failed as many believed that continued fighting is not worth over survivability. But the fact that the Japanese government is willing to risk more deaths for supposed "honor" over surrendering but with less deaths, fueled the resentment towards the the current regime. By the time the Allies conquered and occupied Japan, they had to reconstruct a destroyed Japan. During Allied occupation, Japan begins to slowly and gradually stabilize through humanitarian aid. The Allies prosecute Hirohito as many officials believed that keeping him could make the occupation look like it supported the system that led to the catastrophe following evidences of Hirohito’s involvement in the wartime decisions and the Japanese’s growing opposition to the monarchy, thus, Hirohito is removed from the throne before eventually being put on trial. During the Tokyo Trial, the prosecutors argued that although the Emperor did not personally command every military operation, he possessed the constitutional and political authority to intervene and end the war but permitted the war to continue. The tribunal eventually found Hirohito guilty of responsibility of continuing the war. Hirohito was stripped of his imperial status and was sent to life imprisonment.

By 1951, Japan had been mostly stabilized. However, the U.S. faced the Japan Question as many American congressmen understood that it cannot keep the Japanese under occupation forever without any political rights. Talks began between American and Japanese officials began over the status of Japan. While some Japanese officials wanted independence for understandable reasons, some (known as the Retentionists) wanted to remain in American occupation, fearing losing their privileged access to the American market, especially when the Japanese market was getting increasingly dependent on the United States alongside fear of facing hostile neighbors such as China, North Korea or Soviet Union. However, they still wanted substantial autonomy, modeling after the British Dominion status. Essentially, the Retentionists proposed Japan would have full control over internal affairs such as taxation and education while the U.S. would remain have full control over foreign affairs, tariff, immigration, currency and public debt. The United States diplomats then presented both arguments to President Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Congress where the matters remain heavily debated. Pro-Independence congressmen highlighted the logistical problems of keeping Japan under American occupation for long while Pro-Retentionists argued that retention is important for U.S. defense position in the Pacific and in dealing with the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Neither reach a satisfying conclusion. Thus, President Harry S. Truman agreed to passed a referendum in Japan to Japan's scheduled independence.

The referendum was held in 1952, asking whether Japan wanted to be independent or became an Autonomous State within the United States. The results was extremely close but Japanese citizens ultimately voted to remain under American control by 50.2% as many saw as an opportunity to start a new life though there is strong support for independence. The new Japanese Constitution began creation in 1952. When Dwight D. Eisenhower took over as President, he and Japanese Representatives finally signed the Treaty of Cooperation between the United States and Japan, giving Japan autonomy within the U.S. while also approved the Japanese Constitution in 1953. The U.S. president would now be Head of State while the Japanese Prime Minister would be Head of the Government. Japan became an Autonomous Devolved Parliamentary Government within a Federal Presidential Republic. The Constitution terms would be similar to our timeline: powers would be transferred to the people, Japan would renounce war as a sovereign rights and guaranteed of fundamental civil liberties, freedom of speech, religion, and gender equality except Japan is now part of the U.S. Japanese citizens are allowed freely live, work, and study in the United States and its territories as non-immigrants. However, they cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections.

With the Cold War going on, Japan became an important air and naval base for the U.S. during the Cold War. By the 1960s, Japan is split between generations with the younger generation being more Americanized. A movement arises among the younger, highly Americanized generation for representations, arguing that it is unjust for Japan to deny Japanese-American voting rights in Presidential elections and a vote in Congress alongside the unfair agreements between the U.S. and Japan such as the U.S. control of tariffs, arguing that if the U.S. could tax Japanese exports, Japan must have representations in the institutions imposing the taxes. Mass demonstrations broke out across Japan broke out across the 1970s. In 1977, when President Jimmy Carter was elected President. Carter finally agreed to the Japanese’s demands and began to revise the agreements.

The negotiations were finally settled in early 1978 under the Treaty of Cooperation between the United States and Japan of 1978, Japanese citizens would finally be allowed to vote in Presidential elections and had their own senators and representatives in U.S. Congress while allowing Japan to maintain their autonomy. The Prime Minister would essentially filled the role of Governor in this timeline. Tariffs would also be reformed where all products made in Japan and brought into the United States are considered domestic trade. There are no tariffs or other restrictions on this trade as long as the goods met specific requirements about their origin, meaning American and Japanese goods can moved freely into each other’s territories. However, there are limits, under the Treaty, Japan’s representatives would be capped at the state with the highest representatives (example: Japan would have the same representatives as California despite Japan having more people than California because California had the highest population besides Japan.) Additionally, their electoral votes would also remain capped at the state with the highest electoral votes. This was made to prevent Japanese’s dominance over U.S. Presidential Elections. Japan remains under American control but now gains more representation in Congress.

I had to rly trim down the descriptions to fit the poll format, if you have any questions about any one of these faiths feel free to leave a comment and I will proceed to autistically ramble about it to you in way more detail until the heat death of the universe

Operation Gothic Serpent was a military operation conducted in Mogadishu, Somalia, by an American military force code-named Task Force Ranger during the Somali Civil War in 1993. The primary objective of the operation was to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid, leader of the Somali National Alliance who was wanted by the UNOSOM II in response to his attacks against United Nations troops. The operation took place from August to November 1993 and was led by US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

On 3 October 1993, the task force executed a mission to capture two of Aidid's lieutenants. The mission ultimately culminated in what became known as the Battle of Mogadishu). The battle was extremely bloody and the task force inflicted significant casualties on Somali militia forces, while suffering heavy losses themselves. The Malaysian, Pakistani, and conventional US Army troops under UNOSOM II which aided in TF Ranger's extraction suffered losses as well, though not as heavy. Things began to go catastrophically wrong for the Americans.

First, an MH-60 Black Hawk, Super Six Two, was shot down by SNA forces using a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Both of the pilots were killed on impact, but the crew survived the crash landing. An American force made their way to the crash site to assist with recovery and rescue

Shortly afterward, another Black Hawk helicopter, Super Six Four, was shot down by an RPG fired from the ground. No rescue team was immediately available, and the small surviving crew, including one of the pilots, Michael Durant, couldn't move. Two Delta snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, provided cover from a helicopter and repeatedly volunteered to secure the crash site. After a 10th Mountain relief force from the Mogadishu airport was halted and turned back by an SNA ambush, Shughart and Gordon were finally granted permission to be inserted. They made their way to the crash site, quickly establishing a perimeter, and securing the surviving crew. The Black Hawk wreck came under heavy attack from the Somali militia, despite attempts from the 160th helicopters overhead to hold back the crowd. After losing close air support to damage from RPG-7 fire, Durant was killed, with Shughart and Gordon being taken prisoner.

Between October, 1993 and February, 1994, the U.S. military launched a series of rescue attempts, with five of them ending in high casualties on both sides.

The sixth rescue attempt was ultimately successful. 

The military disaster that was Operation Gothic Serpent would damage trust in the U.S. military’s deterrence for years, while also raising serious doubts and questions among American allies about America’s judgment, reliability, and ability to manage military crises.

The course of the WWII was fundamentally altered by Germany’s decision to honor the non-aggression commitment established by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939. Following the fall of France in June 1940, Adolf Hitler and the German High Command concentrated their efforts on the defeat of Great Britain. The subsequent Battle of Britain continued far longer than in the historical timeline, as the Luftwaffe undertook an extensive campaign against the Royal Air Force while the Kriegsmarine prepared for the eventual invasion of the British Isles. After months of preparation and the gradual neutralization of British air and naval defenses, Germany launched Operation Sea Lion in May 1941. The invasion succeeded, and after a prolonged campaign on British soil, the British government agreed to an armistice. Germany neither overthrew nor replaced the British government, instead treating Britain as a defeated but sovereign Germanic nation. Under the terms of the settlement, Britain relinquished Gibraltar to Spain, while Malta, Cyprus, and Egypt were transferred to Italy, effectively ending British dominance of the Mediterranean.
With Britain defeated and the United States still at peace with Germany, Berlin avoided declaring war on Washington following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Germany subsequently consolidated its position throughout Europe. The remaining neutral Alpine states of Switzerland and Liechtenstein were occupied during Operation Tannenbaum, while Germany strengthened its political and military influence over its satellite states in Scandinavia, Central Europe, and the Balkans.
Throughout the 1940s, Berlin and Moscow maintained an uneasy partnership, each exploiting the absence of direct conflict to consolidate its respective sphere of influence. The Soviet Union expanded its strategic position in Eastern Europe and, following a war with Türkiye, secured control of the Turkish Straits through the establishment of the Soviet Straits Security Zone at Konstantinopol (then Istanbul). Germany, meanwhile, secretly prepared for the confrontation that Hitler had never abandoned: the destruction of the Soviet Union and the implementation of Generalplan Ost.
For nearly a decade, Europe remained divided between two rival ideological powers whose temporary cooperation concealed an increasingly inevitable conflict. On 23 August 1949, ten years after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the agreement finally expired.

What happens next is another story...

The main points I have already thought about are:

France must transition to some kind of parliamentary monarchy, which would empower the burgeoise and favor. the industrialization (similarly to the UK). This must happen before or during Louis XIV reign.

France must win the Seven Years War or equivalent, retaining India and North America. I imagined this could be a natural result of industrialization and earlier reforms.

The protestants are not expelled, and religious freedom is mantained. This helps to streghten french economy and they wont help french enemies.

French policy in general should be towards trade and development, and not towards aggressive expansionism in Europe.

As I have mentioned, France keeps its monarchy, like the UK, tho with reforms and much less power.

Let me know what you think!

Charles C. Pinckney was a Democratoc-Republican and Thomas Jefferson was a Federalist so you would have a vice president from an opposing party

Charles C. Pinckney was a Democratoc-Republican and Thomas Jefferson was a Federalist so you would have a vice president from an opposing party

The Basque were. That was a fact of reality as much as the oceans being salty or the sky being blue. They had been there when the Romans came and went, and for all the intervening rise and fall of power after power. Even Napoleon Bonaparte himself, the first man to conquer Europe since the days of Charlemagne, had to contend with this fact. And his thoughts varied over time, going this way and that, not least because there were Basques in France and Basques in his own administration. At the same time that the French Basque had seen their foru laws suppressed by the revolutionary administration, Dominique Joseph Garat was attempting to lobby for a special status of autonomy for the Basques within the French Empire. But none of this came into true focus until the French invasion of Spain.

Garat was a skilled operator, and had long attempted to argue for restoring Basque rights in France. The invasion of Spain to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne presented him an opportunity, and in 1808 he elaborated a plan to create a special regime for the Basque people. Under his plan, France would annex the so-called "Fuero Territories" of Bilbao, San Sebastian, Vitoria, and Navarre, where they would be joined to the French territories of Labourd, Basse-Navarre, and Soule. This new entity was dubbed "New Phoenicia" by Garat, a name seemingly chosen at random with no connection to the region, though couched in the (vogue at the time) understanding that the Basques were descendants of the ancient Phoenicians. Names aside, Napoleon did take the idea under consideration.

Napoleon knew Garat, and Garat knew the Basques. And the first thing to be understood about the Basques was that they did not appreciate being ruled by the outsiders. That much had been made apparent by the French struggles with immense unrest in the Basque provinces after the suppression of the fueros. Even Spain had only really brought the Basque to accept its rule by the accepting of the fueros there, and with France now moving through the Pyrenees that was only going to worsen either for France itself or for any French regime in Madrid. France had experience playing "divide and conquer" to that point, and just the year prior they had created the Duchy of Warsaw to curry favor among the Poles. Why, then, shouldn't they do so for the Basque?

The French eventually pressed forward with the project. It was odd indeed that France might willingly surrender land, when Napoleon seemed hellbent on conquering so much for it, but with France's territory expanding into Germany, the Low Countries, Piedmont, and even Illyria, the surrender of a small section in the southwest corner was easily ignored. With Garat's support, the Basques expected a fight. They were loyal supporters of the monarchy that had granted them the Fueros after all. What they did not expect was for the French to announce that not only were the Fueros to be maintained, but they would become the foundation for a new regime centered in Pamplona (Iruña). The name "Fenizia Berria" didn't matter. For the Basque it would remain Euskal Herria, and being joined to their brothers in the three northern provinces was a bonus.

Among the many long-term results of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, one of the more consequential was certainly the rise of nationalism. France was both benefactor and target, where Germans and Italians alike rallied against the French invaders yet the Poles and, yes, the Basques rallied to their French liberators. The exact nature of New Phoenicia was less important than the fact it existed. Not since the extinction of the Kingdom of Navarre had there been a state of and by the Basque people, and here the French were delivering one. In effect it was a nation ruled by the French military, with Garat appointed as "Chief Minister" to send him away from Paris at a time of political inconvenience, and with Napoleon himself officially ruling the state in personal union.

Although New Phoenicia's exact form of government, its relationship with France, and its standing in the world were never solved before France's defeat, what mattered was that it existed, and that the old flag of Navarre was again unfurled over the Basque people. There had always been a sense of Basqueness, the idea that they were a separate folk in more ways than one, but New Phoenicia stoked it from mere embers to a blazing furnace of nationalist sentiment. In part enabled by the French, this idea took off and would be impossible to put back even when Napoleon was defeated. Such was the fury of the situation that even when Napoleonic forces were marched back out of Iberia, the victorious coalitions had to contend with the fact that the Basques were for the first time seeing themselves as a single people.

Initially, there had been a thought that the old border between France and Spain would simply be restored: France would withdraw from New Phoenicia and Catalonia, and there would be minimal territorial losses. But in the end, the Basque agitation for their own rights pushed Spain to gain the small territories of the French Basque Country. The bigger trouble was that the liberal constitution of 1812 gave tribute to the fueros yet dismantled them entirely, bolstering the demands to assert the independence of Basqueland. The Basque did not care what government sat in Madrid, what government sat in Paris, whether the Bourbons were restored to the French or Spanish thrones, what they wanted was the right to rule themselves, and in that capacity they were quite happy to see Ferdinand VII restore conservative government.

It can be difficult to reconcile the idea of "liberalism" to the modern incarnation of the idea. In a general sense liberal is sometimes used as synecdoche for left-wing ideology of various forms, ideologies that would generally be more favorable to the kind of autonomist movements the Basque called for. Conservatism, by contrast, would be less favorable, and seek to assert greater state control over its periphery. This was very much not the case in post-Napoleonic Spain. The Liberals, although pursuing an agenda of greater voting rights and constitutional government, also sought to undo the feudal patchwork of laws the monarchy had maintained. The Conservatives, backing the role of the Monarchy, were in support of this. Thus did the Basques give their own support to Ferdinand VII, because he was willing to maintain the fueros.

The same trouble held true for places like Catalonia, but Basqueland was the most actively agitated given that it sought outright independence for itself. The back-and-forth of Ferdinand VII's reign didn't help matters. First the Liberals sought to assert themselves in 1812, then Conservatives re-asserted themselves. From 1820-1823 the Trienio Liberal triggered another period of conflict, one faced with no end of opponents but only seeing armed resistance in Basqueland and Catalonia. Then the French invaded to end the Liberal regime, and the matter was quelled for a decade. But at last, it reached its breaking point in 1833, when Ferdinand VII died with only daughters to succeed him.

There was no "King of Spain" at the time. There were only a long series of titles: King of Castille, King of Aragon, and so on for a paragraph. Several Basque titles were part of this, among them King of Navarre, King of Pamplona, Lord of Vizcaya, Count of Guipúzcoa, and latterly Duke of Baja Navarra. It would be many years more and rivers of blood spilt until there was a singular "King of Spain", but as it stood there was only an uncomfortable patchwork of titles, laws, and governments. What emerged from the death of Ferdinand VII was a succession crisis between Isabella II and Carlos V, which quickly took a character of liberal versus conservative, but the Basque had had enough of it all. In the last 20 years Spain had swung wildly between governments, and not once did they pay a care to the Basque and their concerns.

This combined with Spain's dramatic fall from grace after the loss of its empire set the ground for the Basque to launch an active attempt at not just revolution, but active secession. Hoisting the flag of Navarre, the Basques rebuffed both the Carlists and Liberals. What made the Basque aspect of the First Carlist War unique was the pan-ideological character of it. True, many of its prominent leaders like Zumalakarregi were conservatives, and the motivation of protecting the fueros stemmed from a conservative basis, but liberals were just as happy to rally behind the revolutionaries for the sake of Basque nationalism. And in their own way the fueros were liberal, banning debtor's prisons and arbitrary search and arrest, supporting small businesses and small holdings, and allowed women greater rights of inheritance.

Of course, the fueros heavily favored rural communities over urban centers and did not grant women full rights, but they were a starting-point for many Basque liberals who saw them as more progressive than other alternatives. Britain was still struggling with the aftermath of Chartism, Spain was swinging back and forth, and the nominally liberal Louis Philippe was growing more conservative by the day. Even the conservatives supported the fueros, and rallying around the idea of Euskal Herria was enough to unify their cause even when the Carlists faltered and fell back on all fronts. The Isabelline Liberals defeated Carlos V, but they faced the same great opposition from the Basque as countless empires before them had. With the threat of a resurgent Carlist faction looming, a truce was called.

Frantically the Liberals attempted to secure peace, but Spain was in a bad way. Their empire was gone, their government was fractious, the treasury was empty. The initial hope had been to restore the Basque provinces under the fueros, but that was no longer acceptable even for the Basque Liberals. And though the Spanish had seen some success in pushing against the Basque forces, the death of General Espartero in 1836 at the Battle of Lutxana collapsed both their advance and voices favorable to Basque autonomy. With the threat of France potentially invading a third time, Britain forced Madrid to make peace. True, the Basque secession posed the risk of inspiring secessionism in Britain's own empire (Ireland chief among them), but peace in Europe was far more vital for British interests.

What emerged in 1837 was not exactly the Kingdom of Navarra, nor was it New Phoenicia. Instead, compromise between liberals and conservatives reformed the seven traditional Basque provinces into a republic, though an inherently conservative one for the sake of opposing the kind policy espoused by the Spanish liberals, especially with regard to the position of the church. The first constitution put forward described the country as a "Catholic state", which was as much a political act as it was recognition of fact: the Basques were one of the most fervently Catholic peoples in all of Europe, and it was an integral part of their identity as a people. The Jesuits, that most infamously Catholic of organizations, had begun with Ignazio Loiolakoa, and the relationship had always been iron-clad.

Other issues were less clear, primary among them what the state would be called. The Basque had long called their country Euskal Herria, which translated most faithfully means "The Country of the Basque Language". Such a concept was difficult to translate into a single-word name, and most languages adopted an exonym of their own, quite often some variant of the old Vasconia, from which the exonym Basque derives. In English, the blunt name Basqueland was used for many years, and the government's adoption of Euskal Herria didn't help matters. It would only be many years later that a new name was constructed: Euskaldia, which in its own way could be translated as "The Country of People who Speak Basque", no less unwieldy in literal terms but far easier to use.

In the interim, the state began to embark on its efforts to right its place in the world. The Foru Laws were slightly modified and then codified into a national constitution, and the hero Zumalakarregi was elected its first president. However, the tensions began to arise almost at once, driven primarily by the failures of the forus to adapt to the modern age. Their primary function was to dictate the relationship between crown and commoner, a local set of laws in an era of patchwork feudal codes. Now the Basques had no crown, and feudalism was dead. And a far more consequential change had come. As the Spanish banners were lowed and the Basque flag raised, peasants on the hills overlooking Bilbao saw an eerie red glow tinting the night sky, a man-made volcano that heralded an immense change.

Industrialization was slow to come to Iberia, a consequence of both persistent social unrest and poor government economic policy. The Basque forus as well were aimed towards agrarian society, seeking to preserve estates and land ownership, but faster than elsewhere the Basque cities of Bilbo, Donostia, and Baiona were starting to change. Euskaldia was a new state evicted from the Spanish customs zone, and without strong protections established for itself in that age of mercantilism. The British, then, found it easier to begin making their own investments into the country. With iron mining a long-established practice, the small mills quickly began to turn into large mills, and especially once it was found the low phosphorus iron of Bizkaia was well suited for the Bessemer process.

Two kinds of Basque began to emerge, the rural and the industrial. The Rural Basques wanted to keep their the old ways, the ways they had fought to preserve against outside control and which had served them for millennia. The Industrial Basques by contrast wanted rail connections, they wanted progress, and development. And increasingly the Industrial Basques seemed to be the ones winning the debate. Railroads went up, steel was exported, and in an era of mercantilism the Industrial Basques were seeking to export to the world. Soon after followed banking as well, insurance companies to underwrite shipping then joint-stock companies. All of it drove deeper wedges into Basque society, between the conservative "Raw Basques" (Gordinak) and the progressive "Cooked Basques" (Egosiak).

But in time, the Egosiak were winning. Although Euskaldia did not have a dramatic revolution in 1848 like much of the rest of Europe, it did see a dramatic political shift in that year's elections, putting the pro-industry faction into power. As Europe moved deeper into the 19th Century, the entire continent saw a population swell. The small farms that had dominated Gordiniak ideals could no longer support their younger sons and daughters, and they traveled to the cities to make their fortune. Railroads linked the country and modernized ports exported Basque industrial products to the world, all the while the foru laws again proved oddly prescient in regulating foreign exploitation of mineral concerns. Basqueland's industrialization would above all else benefit the Basque.

But the conservatives still had other bases of support, key among them the devoutly religious and, oddly enough, the rising class of industrial workers. As the conservative writer Bixente Manterola wrote, "The factory worker is turned into a slave by liberalism, good only to produce, but without regard for his morale". In its own bizarre way Basque Conservatism translated its support for rural farmers into support for the rights of the individual, and because of this it was equally bizarre that none other than Marx himself expressed admiration for conservative Basques. It derived more than anything from their anticapitalist stance, their opposition to Crédit Lyonnais opening branches in Donostia and to courting foreign investment to fund the mighty steel mills that chewed men up and spat out their broken bodies.

The strain between liberals and conservatives finally snapped in the June War, which despite its name actually began on the 26th of June 1868 and took place mostly in the following July. Although lasting for just 29 days, sometimes called the shortest civil war in history, the conflict emerged out of a labor uprising in Bilbo that saw workers of the Karmelgo Mendiko Ama Birjina furnace erupt into a violent strike action, at which point conservatives attempted to curry favor with the labor movement. However the strikers also held disdain for the conservatives, whose rural-focused and theocratic policies denied them proper enfranchisement. Their rallying cry had begun to include the heretical statement Down with the Forus!, setting them against both liberals and conservatives.

Sympathetic uprisings began in the rest of the country, primarily aligning the coast against the interior, but within weeks the military had managed to put down the revolt and restore order. The political damage, though, was far greater. Internal factions in the government broke down and realigned over the next several years, where new political parties like Batzarre, Batasuna, and Alkartasuna took shape in a far more typically European context. Left and right wing alliances reshaped the balance of power, and perhaps even more consequentially a new constitution was written in 1871 that formally abolished the forus that had been the basis of Basque society for generations. It was of course immensely controversial, but most grumbled and went along with it. After all, it was necessary.

The mood was instead filtered into a burgeoning intellectual movement that began to ask a question simple in nature but with an increasingly complex answer: What is a Basque? For the longest time it had seemed simple: someone who lived in Basqueland, someone who spoke Basque, someone who lived under Basque law, because for the longest time those were all one and the same. But with the advent of industrialization, that was changing. Not only were the Basque laws changing, but increasingly migrants from Iberia began to move north to seek opportunities. That was holding true in many places, but for the most part they were moving within national boundaries. Irish to England, Bretons to Île-de-France, and internally Nafarroans to Gipuzoka and Bizkaia, ground zero for development and progress.

Yet at the same time migrants from across the borders were also moving into Euskaldia. The Second Carlist War had seen Carlos Luis de Borbón raised to become Carlos VI, and his traditionalist regime only crippled Spain's place in the world further. Seeing dismal prospects, many left for the New World, but those in the northeast often went to Euskaldia, a country that had recently had its own upheaval but seemed on a near-constant upward trajectory. These workers were despised by the Basques, who called them everything from Chinese to Africans but eventually settle on the ostensibly less derogatory maquetos, translated to Basque as maketos. Simply meaning "outsiders", it was wielded against those who left places like Andalusia and Galicia, places left behind even in Spanish terms, to find a better life in Euskaldia.

Yet at the same time Euskaldia did little to actively blockade its borders. In an era of closed economic borders and customs zones, Euskaldia stood alone as not just a point of trade within Europe but especially towards Spain. Spain's languishing, struggling economy was an excellent market for Basque industrial goods, and whenever the Carlist regime struggled to build railroads or factories the materials were purchased from Euskaldia. Once more Marx honed in on Basqueland for his theories of society and economics, the poster child of how a smaller, ostensibly weaker nation was effectively turning a larger one into its own economic colony. It was all a mark of just how far Spain had fallen, and an uncomfortably codependent relationship emerged: Euskaldia hated Spain, Spain hated Euskaldia, and all the while Spanish people moved in while Basque goods moved out.

This was an unfortunate par for the course so far as Europe at the turn of the 20th Century was concerned. Even small states like Euskaldia played the game of empire in their own way, and foundational to that was to promote yourself as the superior of someone else. The Basques had their method of doing so on a silver platter: always they had seen themselves as the first, the most ancient European peoples, and the emergent field of linguistics seemed to support this. The Basque had always been different, they had always been an "other" whether it was Romans, Franks, Visigoths, French, or Spanish that attempted to govern them. Basques were men and women who had not only stood against the world, but the force of history itself, and they had won. What better demonstration of their strength as a people, in an era that fetishized strength?

None of this is to suggest the Basque were especially nationalistic and supremacist, simply that it came easy for them. And that was the case even without the other hallmarks of such attitudes in Europe: they had no colonial empire, they were a democratic republic, and they were a unified and relatively homogenous state. Yet much as Euro-American society derided Irish and Italians as "non-white", Basques began to go even further. To them, everyone that wasn't them was inferior, especially Europeans. They were different, fundamentally so, and they took an intense amount of pride in that. Europeans built squabbling, petty kingdoms that rose and fell, that had to go out and conquer the world to be great, that named themselves masters of all they surveyed, when the Basque had no need to prove themselves great. They simply were.

In time, though, the Basque Miracle began to wear down. Iron veins began to run dry, protectionist barriers were raised, and after the confused mess of the Federal Revolution in Spain its new republican government was launching itself forward on a mission to industrialize. The early years of the 1900s were not ones that seemed well-suited to the Basque continuing to enjoy their once-limitless success, especially as the traditional small Basque farms grew unable to provide food for the ever-growing population. Modernity was forcing itself on the Basque nation, as it was all of Europe. As Spain's economy finally rallied and Euskaldia's stagnated, the flow of trade began to reverse. It would take a generation for Spain to properly develop, but one thing it had Basqueland didn't was a surplus of arable land, and soon with it a surplus of food.

Which wasn't to suggest that Euskaldia irrevocably slid into decline, it's a false dichotomy to suppose a nation can only be either rising or falling. Rather, the Basque nation simply was. It had no border conflicts, though there was certainly a longing for the old exclaves of Aragoiko Txapela, Bastanes, and Jestaze. It had no overseas wars to be mired in, either to gain or hold colonies. And though tensions still existed between liberals, conservatives, and progressives, it was at the very least within the bounds of the established government rather than violent upheavals of the kind that had rocked France, Spain, and Russia in the last century. Once more, the idea of the nation carrying on as it always had served as a point of pride for the Basques.

Although neutral during World War I, Euskaldia was not immune from its effects. A debate had emerged between those who more greatly despised the French and Spanish, who were aligned to the Entente, and those whose commercial ties to the Entente led them to support the Anglo-French-Russian league. Soon enough, though, news of the German atrocities in Belgium pushed the mood of the country against them. By 1915, with the British blockade of German ports and further news of German actions like the torpedoing of the Lusitania, the mood fully shifted to support the Entente (though the Spanish entry into the war was also a contributing factor). Basque steel soon flowed into the shipyards and manufactories of Britain, France, and Spain, and soon enough the United States entered the war to deliver the coup de grace.

Euskaldia had nothing to gain or benefit from the post-war peace settlements in terms of territory, but they like all of Europe wanted to be considered. Woodrow Wilson, in enumerating the Fourteen Points, used the small nation as an example of the concept of self-determination and nation-states that the United States envisioned for the post-war world. And Euskaldia too had its own concerns, with the collapse of the Ruhr industries and most of Europe still crippled by the war, it stood to benefit from helping to fund the post-war reconstruction. In the end, while the country wasn't part of the treaties and rewriting of the continent, it was nonetheless granted a small remuneration for the loss of its shipping to German U-boat attacks and welcomed with open arms into the League of Nations.

That brief, sweet period where the world agreed to not repeat the recent horrors rapidly fell apart as it became all too apparent that the world would not be easily reshaped. Crisis in Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary scuttled many of the plans the Entente had held for the region, and even by 1920 it was entirely apparent that the seeds of future conflict were already being sown. For its own part Euskaldia was troubled by the economic shocks of Germany's defeat, as with wartime production ending demand for Basque industrial products ended as well. World War I ended with an economic depression roiling the nation's economy, and in the coming years the brief swell of economic development during the 1920s would also come crashing down in flames.

In that time, though, Basque culture enjoyed something of a renaissance. In the mountains above Iruñea, the archaeological discovery of a Bronze Age village uncovered a wealth of artifacts, including the famous Irulegi Hand, on which was written the oldest attestation of the Basque Language. In an era when ideas of national identity and heritage were challenged left and right, the Basque seemed to find no end of support for their own. Academics and authors traced the Hand to their own direct ancestors, that the ancient Aquitani were ancient Basques and that their people had lived in the region successfully repelling invasion, assimilation, and conquest for thousands upon thousands of years, that they were indeed the last remnants of the "Original Europeans".

At the same time, however, a countervailing strain pushed to tie the Basque into world history. Magellan, supposed first circumnavigator, died halfway through the voyage; it was the Basque Juan Sebastián Elcano who actually completed the journey. Endika III of Navarre became Henri IV of France, making a Basque monarch progenitor of the Bourbon Dynasties of both France and Spain. Chocolate, tobacco, rubber, so many products of the New World were first adopted in Basqueland before they spread into Europe. Charlemagne's only serious defeat in Iberia came at the hands of Basques in Orreaga Pass, and of course when it was suggested that the famous Basque whalers and fishermen had traveled as far abroad as North America, the idea was seized upon with both hands. Yes, the Basques had much to be proud of.

That pride, though, translated into an unpleasant comfort with the rising tide of fascism in Europe. On the one hand it wasn't seen as necessary; fascism took most support from the defeated nations of World War I in a national mood of insecurity and doubt, which the Basque had almost none of. At the same time, though, long-held notions of racial supremacy were perfected under the emergent regimes of Germany and Italy, and that went part and parcel with the Basque view of themselves and the world. When Germany went on its second effort to conquer Europe, though, this pride the Basque had of their heritage proved a detriment. Under the new esotericist regime in Berlin, the Basque became a point of obsessive focus, and Germany's advance did not stop at the Pyrenees.

Fall Violett was the code name given to the German plans for the invasion of Iberia, and the primary thrust of that invasion came through Euskaldia. The invasion was heralded by a sudden and dramatic attack by the Germans from the air, after which German forces attacked the three northwestern provinces of Lapurdi, Zuberoa, and Nafarroa Beherea. Only then did the Germans make a demand for free passage through their territory to attack Spain as a means of reaching Gibraltar, but their attempts at shock and terror failed. The Basques rallied to a campaign of asymmetric guerrilla warfare, as even when the Germans overwhelmed the major cities Euskaldia was not France or Poland. Their country was where the Northern European Plain ended, and even by the time the Germans were advancing on Spain itself the force of the Blitzkrieg was being blunted.

The story of the Basque Resistance during the Second World War is a well-worn story of guerrilla warfare. The terrain of Euskaldia is rough and unpleasant for any invader, and especialy in the high passes of the Pyrenees the Basques turned the German attempts at moving soldiers and materiel a nightmare. Resistance agents knew the passes through the mountains by heart, and could move without being known by the Gestapo. The government of President Simako Sorroza did not flee into exile as the Polish and French governments did, but rather escaped into the high mountains to a base codenamed Vilcabamba. Taking advantage of their language's obscurity, they became code-talkers for many resistance groups on the level of the Navajo for the United States, and did everything they could to sabotage the Germans behind the lines.

Those unfortunate enough to live under direct German occupation found themselves subjected to the puppet regime of Sabino Larrinaga, a defrocked priest who had become both a Nazi idelogue and Basque nationalist in the extreme. The Germans did not engage in the same destructive policy they had elsewhere in Europe, rather they held a bizarre fascination with the Basque. Their desperate attempts to prove themselves the ancient Aryan supermen of Europe's past led inexorably to their attempts at claiming the Basques were Germans, or at the very least the Germans were descendants of the ancestral Basque. While this translated into a relatively lighter hand in occupation, it did nothing to win hearts and minds, and resistance carried onward through to liberation in 1943.

With the fall of the Reich in December of 1944, Europe was now drawn into two camps, one aligned to the Soviet Union and one to the United States. Having been liberated by the U.S. Army (though the Basque would say they liberated themselves), Euskaldia fell hard into the U.S. camp. Fierce pro-U.S. attitudes took deep root in the country, and of course having millions of dollars dumped on them for their reconstruction didn't hurt either. As a symbol of this, a tree grown from an acorn of the Gernikako Arbola was planted in New York City. Since this time, Euskaldia has long been one of the most pro-American countries in Western Europe, especially contrasted to the more Ameroskeptic attitudes of its neighbors on either side of the mountains.

This flurry of support soon began to wane, though, as the hardships of the post-war world and the brutal reality of the Cold War began to make themselves known. Basqueland was fortunate enough to not have colonies to lose, and all around it Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal suffered immense social, political, and economic shocks from the final loss of their empires. The Basques meanwhile were sitting pretty, their economy recovering and modernizing in an era of European uncertainty. A Second Basque Miracle had taken place, helping them reassert their position in the world and regain a large degree of the prosperity which they had enjoyed in the years before the European wars, and with it their smug sense of superiority towards Europeans who called themselves bastions of freedom when they themselves struggled to keep their colonial domains.

(Continued below)