Thousand Week Reich: Empire in Decay [HOI4]

Prologue

People wonder what could've been changed if Britain had been able to evacuate the majority of her forces at Dunkirk. If High Command hadn't been so stubborn as to have the encircled army dig in to await a French counterattack that never came, if sufficient resupply missions had been made, maybe even if Britain had been given a small enough window to withdraw most of the expeditionary force.

Instead, 338,000 British soldiers were taken prisoner in an absolutely morale-crushing defeat, an unprecedented disaster in British military history. Not since the defeat at Isandlwana, nor the devastating endurance at the Somme.

Not long after, France was thoroughly defeated and exhausted. The signed armistice completely crippled the nation and reduced it to a mere collaborationist state, independent only in name. In service to Germany and her interests. Namely, the 'importing' of Jews.

Such a devastating loss pushed the government to follow in France's footsteps after an excruciating and devastating air battle over Britain, thoroughly closing the Western front for good. After such a tremendous loss in both men and material, there was no way that the war could be continued at that point.

You know how the rest of the story goes, Germany opens the Eastern Front with Operation Barbarossa. Along with allied Hungary, Romania, Finland and Italy, the Soviets were eventually ground down in a brutal and long war of attrition. The mysterious disappearance of General Secretary Stalin during the disastrous retreat from the Volga only prompted a wider collapse of the unity of the USSR.

The Axis forces finally reached the Astrakhan-Arkhangelsk Line in the winter of 1947, where the Interim Government under Lavrentiy Beria promptly buckled and brokered an armistice under absolutely harsh conditions.

Soviet territory all the way to the A-A Line was ceded to Germany to be turned into Reichkommisariats, little else than monikers for subjugated territory with which Germany could exercise its darkest desires. Lebensraum for incoming German settlers, which would at last complete the grand plan that their Fuhrer held so dearly to his heart.

What was left of the Soviet Union soon began to collapse into warring states vying for control under the pretence of legitimacy. With figures such as Andrey Vlasov, Georgy Zhukov, and Lavrentiy Beria internally fighting for control and restoration of the USSR.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific and Asia, the Japanese Empire would engage with and be thoroughly defeated by the Joint US-British-Chinese forces. In the aftermath, lacking the vital Soviet aid for the cause, the Chinese Communist Party would endure harsh crackdowns by the central government, leaving Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek in near total control of China.

Never before in the books of history had such a drastic change of power occurred on the world stage, and the question was up in the air as to what would happen next.