For your perusal, criticism or possible enjoyment, here is my background for all future pulp games I ever run.
An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century
Point of departure
1914 The Christmas truces, informal as they were largely held the next day, and the next. And then the unwillingness to take up arms spread to other units. Once word got out to the people at home, the public support for the soldiers’ stand erupted. The citizens of France, Great Britain and Germany wanted their men home. “Home by Christmas” was the rallying cry, mocking the foolish optimism of the countries’ leader.
1915 Fighting on the Western front had all but ceased by mid-January. The threats of firing squads were found to be hollow, as were the promises of Bolshevik agitators. Few soldiers wanted to overthrow the social order, most just wanted to escape the mud and the blood and return home. Peace negotiations began and dragged on for months. Ultimately, each country returned to their pre-war borders; the demands for reparations rebuffed by the Germans allowing the return of territory to be the compensation they would bear.
October 11th, 1915, the Treaty of Ypres was signed. Troop withdrawals began by the end of the month, all troops had returned home by December.
Fighting against the Russians had continued but wound down as the year passed. Negotiations began, but lasted two years as intermittent fighting erupted. There would be no “return to pre-war borders” agreement here.
1917 September 29th, the Treaty of Warsaw was signed. The Germans had kept much of their territorial gains, conceding ground until they rested upon natural obstacles to create a defensive frontier against the Russians. [Roughly Libau to Kovno, along the Niemen to Grodno, down to Brest-Livotsk, up the Bug, east of Lemberg to the Dniester, skipping to the Pruth at Czernowitz, down the Pruth to the Black Sea.] Tsar Nicholas II agreed to this border to allow him to address internal struggles against a rising Bolshevik movement in Russia and a reactionary right wing movement in the military leadership.
1920 The Hungarian Diet votes to sever ties with the Austrian crown. Charles I, unwilling to start a civil war, accepts this decision and the Austro-Hungarian empire dissolves. Croatia-Slavonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Herzegovina break away as well, and engage in a series of wars against one another.
1921 Civil War breaks out in Russia. The Bolshevik “Reds” have nominal support from the majority of the population, the reactionary Whites, the officer corps of the army. Tsar Nicholas II and his family are taken into “protective custody” by the Whites. They effectively become a prize in the civil war. The Tsar’s daughter Anastasia and son Alexei are later smuggled to France.
1924 Tsar Nicholas and family are taken by the Reds on May 1st and murdered in August as a triumphal display as the last of the White forces are destroyed, captured or flee the country. In London (having relocated, along with her brother, to elude a number of communist plots against her in France), Anastasia is, optimistically, proclaimed Tsarina Anastasia the First.
The Bolsheviks establish the Supreme Soviet to govern the new Soviet Workers Republic.
1927 On his deathbed, Charles I agrees to unite Austria with Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm I. Charles’ son Otto, retains the title of Crown Prince of Austria. This amalgamation is referred to as The Teutonic Empire.
With an eye on future expansion, Wilhelm and his advisors set their eyes on “obtaining” colonies around the world to provide port and fueling stations for a fleet to rival that of Great Britain. A program of advancements in aviation and mechanization is to be adapted to military usage. Germany will not be stopped in its future expansion attempts.
May 16, 2010, 10:51:27 PM