Standing On the Edge of the Abyss

Guest post by Thomas Diana.

What if Japan changes its strategy and tries to stop the war before it’s too late?

What if the 20 July plot succeeds?

What would the world look like during the Cold War or in the 2000s?

In June 1942, Japan suffers a major defeat during the battle of Midway losing four aircraft carriers. Most Japanese leaders will not admit it, but they lost the war that day. Few of them understand it and they will work to overthrown the Tojo military government, protect the Emperor and change the course of war in the Pacific.

From the Solomon Islands to the Mariana Trench, from Burma to China, the war will follow a different path, because Japan wants to win the peace. The only way is to push the US Navy to strike before she’s too strong to be beaten.

In Europe, the 20 July plot and Operation Valkyrie succeed in killing Hitler and his staff in the Wolfsschanze. The plotters will also convince most of the SS that the coup has been staged by Himmler, Goebbels and Goering. Once again, some politicians and military leaders will try to achieve peace in honor in the West so they can focus their forces in the East.

Unfortunately, after what happened in Asia only few month ago, Stalin wants a total victory against Germany and to avoid any conflict with the Man of Steel, the allied leaders will not change their mind either: unconditional surrender. This is the only way to not unleash the anger of Koba.

But even in this new Germany, some leaders can’t accept the humiliation of unconditional surrender.
The war will be long. The war will be bloody.

This is the story of the French alternate history book Au Bord de l’Abime, the first book in a trilogy.
It’s not a novel but a compilation of fake articles, book extracts and web pages (even a thread from a discussion forum) which details this alternate World War II and gives various points of view over 734 pages. Chapters alternate from political and technical stuff, to epic and bloody battles, or simple biography and OOB. You can expect new destinies for people like Isoroku Yamamoto, Kanji Ishiwara, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Claus Von Stauffenberg, Erwin Rommel and others. Even FDR will enjoy a different destiny.

The book also contains a hundred illustrations, maps, flags and insignias. The illustrations (portraits, battle scenes, vehicles) are made to looks like the real picture from this time.

On the technological side there is already two alternate vehicle design. The Japanese Navy has two anti-aircraft battleships and the German Luftwaffe has an additional variant of the Me-262 jet-fighter. But to know more about it you’ll have to read the book.

Au Bord de l’Abime is also an opportunity to show some details and historical figures from a different angle. The first volume ends with some hints on what will happen during the second and third volumes. You can also expect some Easter-eggs from other alternate history and science fiction books, plus some cryptozoology and nerd stuff.

The book is available on Kindle and there is also a collector's edition with some color illustrations and bonuses.

The bad news is the book is only available in French.

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Thomas Diana is a French self-taught writer and illustrator, who previously worked in the video game industry. Passionate about history and geopolitics, he found a cool way to understand and manipulate them thanks to alternate history. He also wrote a short alternate history called Platine, which is available on Kindle. You can follow his current project on Facebook and discover his illustrations on DeviantArt and Artstation. He’s also the founder of a French Alternate History forum.

Map Monday: The Great Entente by Lynn Davis

There were several good maps these last couple of weeks, but after reading the description for this one below, I was finally able to pick today's featured map.

This is "The Great Entente" by long-time Map Monday alum Lynn "ToixStory" Davis. Created for AlternateHistory.com's Random Bouts of Cartography contest, Lynn says she created the map after being given the color blue and the theme fascism. Reading more into the description and you learn this is actually an alternate history of Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 or Southern Victory series.

Although the CSA and the rest of the Entente still lose the Great War, overly pious Gordon McSweeney survives the war and goes into politics. He leads a fascist, extreme Christian political party to the White House and allies with the defeated Entente powers, due to his dislike of Germany. This isn't actually that much of a stretch, especially when you learn many fans of Timeline-191 suspected that Turtledove originally planned for the United States to lose the Great War and have McSweeney be the Hitler analog instead of Jake Featherston.

Anywho, the second Great War happens and the new Entente is victorious. As you can see from the map, France became the leading power of Western Europe and directs the region between the multi-polar Cold War with the United States, Russia and Japan. Of course, the map is great. Its minimalist, but there is definitely attention to detail. Another excellent map by one of our premier alternate cartographers.

Honorable mentions this week go out to "The Ukraine War" by JoeyB2198, "Map of the Submarine Telegraph Between America & Europe" by CourageousLife and "Romania Mare" by Nanwe.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Book Review: Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace

The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace is one of those books I enjoyed and can recommend to lovers of alternate history...but I can't help thinking there is an even better book hiding within its pages.

In this timeline the Allies invade Europe in the Fall of 1942 instead of in the summer of 1944. This is similar to the proposed Operation Roundup and Operation Sledgehammer, except instead of attacking across northern France, the Allied invasion force would land in southern, Vichy-controlled France. Thanks to high-level negotiations with the French government, France reenters the war just as the Allies begin off-loading in Marseilles and other ports along the French Mediterranean coast. The Germans, still thinking that the invasion will happen in the north and distracted by the battle around Stalingrad, are slow to act and when they do finally confront the reality of the invasion, Supreme Commander George Marshall and General George Patton are driving their forces north. Field Commander Erwin Rommel is sent to stop the allied advance, but even his armored first of German tanks may not be enough and as Axis losses mount in both the Western and Eastern theaters, German commanders begin thinking of way to get rid of Hitler and his cronies before it is too late to save Germany.

The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 is a well-researched and believable scenario of how the Allies might have invaded Europe earlier and brought the war to a different conclusion. Grace certainly has a strong grasp of military strategy and tactics, plus he didn't just fall into the trap of everything going right for the Allies and allowed for mistakes and accidents to be made. There were little touches as well that brought a smile to my face, such as characters imagining what it would have been like to transport troops and supplies on a beachhead under enemy fire instead of through a friendly port or the "Eisenhower Plan" to provide economic support to a war-torn Europe.

The book wasn't without its flaws and there were two big issues that I had with The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43. First was how it was written. Most of the story was told by info dumps in a "tell, don't show" fashion. There were characters who occasionally had dialogue, but they were just there to give context to the information Grace was throwing at us. To be honest they weren't even needed and at times detracted from the book since the characters tended to be bland and indistinguishable from each other, although thankfully the dialogue wasn't as bad as the dialogue in Germanica. I'm not sure why Grace just didn't take the guise of a historian from this timeline and just write a fake history book of that era, like For Want of a Nail or When Angels Wept. It would have been a much better book in my humble opinion.

The second issue is the short epilogue at the end and if you don't want anything spoiled, I would skip to the last paragraph. Still here? Okay, lets begin: Grace paints a post-war Europe where Germany is still intact, Poland and the Czech Republic are democratic (and presumably armed by the Allies) and Tito leads a quasi-democratic Yugoslavia that is also pro-West...and Stalin is just fine with this. Grace makes several references to Stalin's paranoia and distrust of the West and yet despite the western allies being a lot closer to the Russian border, relations are surprisingly good between the two sides. Even more surprising is the fact that when China falls to communism, the West just shrugs it off like it was no big deal. This was a major issue in the United States in our timeline, but it does nothing to effect the good feelings all around.

I think what Grace is trying to say is that an earlier Allied invasion of Europe would have convinced Stalin that the Allies weren't just waiting for the Soviets and the Nazis to destroy each other. Thus mollified and with less Russian lives lost, the Soviet Union would be more willing to work with the West. That being said, the incompatibility of the two economic systems, the personalities of the people in charge, the desire to control the resources of the Third World and the arrival of nuclear weapons on the scene (which aren't actually used by the end of book) would have eventually brought upon the Cold War. So Grace's epilogue is just a little too optimistic to me, but I welcome any arguments to the contrary.

Despite my issues with the writing style and the epilogue, I nevertheless can recommend The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace, especially if you are a fan of alternate history. Casual fans of the genre may not enjoy his style of storytelling, but alternate historians will appreciate a detailed WWII scenario that doesn't end in a cliche Axis victory.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Multiverse Profile: France

The recent Paris terror attacks was a horrific reminder that religious fanatics are still a threat to civilization. It is something that has awakened the wider world to this fact that similar recent attacks in Lebanon and Iraq have not. Nevertheless, with everyone flying the French tricolor on their profiles, I felt now may be the right time to resurrect an old segment that I like to call "Multiverse Profile". This is where I breakdown how a nation, state/province or region is portrayed in alternate history and today I would like to look at France.

Actually when I began doing research for this article I almost forgot how influential France and its people have been to the genre, which they call uchronie. In fact, the alternate history bibliography, Uchronia, got its name from the French word for alternate history. Furthermore, next to the English-language community, French speaking alternate historians have the most alternate history sites on the Internet and when it comes to this blog, France is the #5 destination for where I get the most visitors from. That is more traffic then what I get from other predominantly English-speaking countries like Australia and Canada.

Of course, that is just the present day state of alternate history in France. The French have been creating alternate history since the beginning. Some of the earliest alternate histories ever published in French include Alain-René Lesage's Les Aventures de Monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France (1732), Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales' Ma République (1791) and Louis-Napoléon Geoffroy-Château's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812-1823: histoire de la monarchie universelle (1836). Louis Geoffroy's novel is not only one of the earliest works of alternate history published in large quantities, it was also probably the first example of a "wank" since the novel had Napoleon unify the entire world of beating Russia and Britain. Now in hindsight creating the first wankfest probably shouldn't be celebrated, but we won't blame all of France for one guy's implausible timeline.

Now France has a long history that covers centuries of time, which means that it is rife with potential points of divergence. That being said, France often takes a secondary role in a lot of alternate histories, at least in the works published by the English-speaking community. While the number of scenarios involving Napoleon/Waterloo do rank very high according to Evelyn Leeper (especially in France itself), other parts of French history remain rather obscure. The AlternateHistory.com Wiki, however, does mention that there are still plenty of timelines where France is doing well...as long as Germany doesn't win World War I and World War II.

Still if you are curious to learn more about France in alternate history, there are plenty of portals for where you can start your journey. The aforementioned AlternateHistory.com Wiki has a list of timelines that are either France-centric or else has the country make a major appearance. The AltHistory Wiki also has a long list of nation profiles for Frances that appear on their timelines, along with two featured timelines where France takes center stage: "Napoleon's World" and "French Trafalgar, British Waterloo" (which confirms the fact that timelines where Napoleon is more successful are very popular). Finally lets not forget the hard-working editors over at Harry Turtledove Wiki who have compiled all the references to France in the works of the master of alternate history.

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to France's impact on our favorite genre. I am sure I missed a lot of important points and, if so, please let me know if the comments. I recommend you check out some of the links I shared and open your mind to new points of divergence that you may have avoided in the past. Also, if you liked this article, let me know. I may do more profiles on nation's and their impact on alternate history, especially on those nations that are often ignored by alternate historians.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Map Monday: Premier Empire by Lynn Davis

Sorry again for the aborted Map Monday last week. I hope today's offering appeases the Alternate History Gods so they protect me from my evil computer demons. Lets take a look at "Premier Empire" by Lynn Davis (a.k.a. PlatoonSgt, ToixStory):

In this universe Napoleon treats his allies better and eventually forces Britain and Russia to a final negotiated peace. Things go well for France until Napoleon dies and his son makes a mess of things. This requires another Napoleon to rise up and subdue Europe, but by diplomacy not conquest. By 1930, France is still the most power nation in Europe, but its power is waning against the Russian-led Holy Alliance and Anglo-American pact. Its an interesting take on a popular subject (especially in French language alternate histories). Its certainly a French wank, but Lynn allows for the ups and down associated with empires and the France in this scenario is certainly in a decline.

The map itself is well done. The borders aren't just copy and pasted from other maps and the colors differentiate the different blocs without making it too busy. An excellent map from one of my favorite alternate cartographers.

Honorable mentions this week go out to Justin Avey for his "United Provinces of the Netherlands" (you can also see it over at his blog). I also recommend you check out Cool Maps of Fictional Literary Places by Rachel Cordasco at Book Riot. If you want to submit a map for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Map Monday: Some North America Or Other, 2014 by Bruce Munro

Bruce Munro makes his return to Map Monday (the last time was in July with "Mumby's Broken America") with his map "Some North America Or Other, 2014" (or "Canada Wankery"):

This map is set in a world where France holds onto Quebec and thus a French Canada covers the Great White North. The reason I picked this map, however, was because I was thinking of a similar scenario just the other day about whether France could have won the Seven Years' War/French and Indian War. Looking at some of the comments to my question does bring up some plausibility issues for Bruce's scenario, but it still is an interesting look at a more French North America. I won't say too much about the art style, since "Munroist" style maps are recognizable at AlternateHistory.com.

Honorable mention this week also goes to Bruce Munro's cover of Miserism's map of a steampunk world featuring a surviving Cordova. With so much steampunk being set in Victorian England, its a nice change of pace to get a different culture emphasized. If you want to submit a map for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Map Monday: The Partition of France by Xibalba

For all of those who get tired of seeing Poland partitioned again and again in every timeline, here is this week's map titled "The Partition of France" by Xibalba of AlternateHistory.com:

This is one of those situations where you have a really nice looking map, but a poor scenario. If you click on the link above you will see that this map comes from a timeline where the Commonwealth of England survived and allied itself with Germany against a France still ruled by a monarchy. A war later erupted after Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo.

Considering that we are dealing with a point of divergence in the 17th century, truly a lot of things still had to happen to not only get a man named Franz to take a trip to Bosnia that ends in a major war, but also to have Belgium exist, which was an invention of the 19th century and could have easily been butterflied away. Still I can sort of forgive the poorly thought out scenario based one just the nice-looking map above. Perhaps someone else out there can come up with a better scenario?

No honorable mentions this week.  If you want to submit a map for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Travaillis Republique Democratique Never Existed by Sean Sherman

Entry for the DBWI Writing Contest.

Thread Archive: iip.alternate-history.usa/trd_never_existed

October 6, 2012 12:34pm AmazingBill

The sixtieth anniversary of the fall of the Travaillis Republique Democratique is apparoaching.  Given the vast destruction across western/central Europe because of them, I want to create an ALT where the TRD never exisited.

What would be some good deviation points that would keep the French from turning to communism?

October 6, 2012 1:08pm TsarYuri

The French could have allied with the Russians instead of the Austrians in the 1926.  Russia would have been a better ally for the French and they could have split Europe between them.  The Russians could have fought the Turks and Habsburgs and the French could have conquered Italy and the Germanic states.

October 6, 2012 2:15pm Z-Bert

TsarYuri, there is no way the Russians could have fought both the Turkish and Habsburg Empires.  They had almost a dozen wars with just the Ottomans and couldn't take Constantinople.  They couldn't get any real help from France because the French would be two busy fighting everyone else.

A better divergence point would be for the French to win the Battle of the Ruhr in 1925.  That would have kept the Anglo-German army out of France and then they could have negotiated some sort of peace treaty where everyone went back to their original borders to stop the war.  That peace treaty would not destory France and would not have made them go into revolution.

A stronger German Confederation with British allies would then exist to keep the peace in Europe.

October 6, 2012 2:28pm TsarYuri

The Russians could have beat both of them.  They were modernizing their army after the war with Japan.  The Ottoman Empire was collapsing and the Austrian Emprie had lots of Slavs that would rise up against their oppressors if Russia came to their aid.  Besides the French couldn't win the Battle of the Ruhr they were outnumbered and the new German tanks gave them an edge, especially with von Richtofen in command of the Stahl Brigade.

October 6, 2012 3:11pm Mr_01011000

How about going further back.  If the French had given more assistance to the Confederates in the American Civil War they might have allowed for a Confederate victory and allowed France to keep the Mexican Empire.  France would have been so busy managing their overseas territory that they would not have had the resources to even think about conquering Europe.

France could have done all sorts of things to help the south win the war and destabilize North American politics to their advantage.  But I guess the British might have gotten upset with French intervention and would have started to give support to the US.

October 6, 2012 3:13pm Z-Bert

If the Russians were so tough why didn't they do better in the REAL war?  Their army of half-a-million men got bogged down for months by 80,000 Austrians at Przemy?l then instead of waiting until spring Dimitriev tried to cross the Carpathians during the winter!

Then Admiral Kolchak didn't coordinate his naval attacks on the Turks with the Bulgarian army.  A coordinated attack might have had some chance of breaking the Turkish defenses but that didn't happen in the real General War.  Changing some of the allies around won't make the Russian leaders any smarter.

And don't even get me started on how overrated  Richtofen is.

October 6, 2012 4:30pm TsarYuri

Play nice Bert.  There ware a lot of ways could have worked out differently – different armies faceing off against each other in differnet battlefields.  Some good French officers advising the Russians.

October 6, 2012 5:17pm guest_0013504

I LIKE CUPCAKES!  CHOCOLATE ARE THE BEST!

October 6, 2012 5:33pm AmazingBill

Wow!  Haven't been able to check the forum since my lunch break.   Thanks for all the responses!  (most of the responseses anyway...  I wish they would require registration to post to forums)

Mr_01011000, I do like the idea of France getting involved in North American politics and shaking things up.  Not sure if that is exactly what I want – but I'll have to use it for something else at some point.

What I want to do is to creat a time-line with a strong Europe; economically and militarily.  Somthing more powerful than the United States.  But I'd like to do it without directly interfering with the events in the western hemisphere.  I don't want Europe to be more powerful because it took something away from America, but becuase they built something better.

I want to explore what would have happened the last sixty years if Europe became a stronger, more peaceful place.  Saving millions of lives, and their millions of offspring, and reducing the threat of a global nuclear war.  Not really a utopia, but a world that has a better chance for humanity to continue on its journey.

October 7, 2012 1:44am GeneralAdmission

One way to give the French side a victory in the General War would be to keep the British and Russians from being willing to work together.  If the Russians got involved in the Third Anglo-Afghan war, trying to give the Russians a base of operations on India's frontier, the British would not be happy.

When the General War breaks out the long-term dislike the English have for the French would not be as strong as the active fear they would have of the Russians gaining more power and even seizing the straights.  The British would have to accept that either France or Russia would dominate the continent no matter what they did.  Given the relatively peaceful coexistance the British and French colonies had during the 19th century compared to the more stressful British-Russian borderslands, the British could easily have picked a different side.

October 7, 2012 7:09am Napoleon2001

How about this if you don't want communism ---- kill off Marx before he publishes Das Kapital.  The First International would still continue but would possibly be dominated by Bakunin's faction.  There are a number of other threads discusisng variations on communisim, anarcho-syndicalism, and other forms of socialism – iip.alternate-history.usa/alternate_socialism

Even if the government of France collapsed and fell to socialism after the General War a less severe form of socialim may not have led to the terrors of the purges and the Red War.

October 7, 2012 9:26am Z-Bert

“...a less severe form of socialism...”

Ha!  No such thing.

October 7, 2012 12:13pm AmazingBill

Thanks for the great ideas Napoleon and General.  The no-Marx idea could be interesting.  A lot more subtle than a change in the outcome of a war or major battle.   I'll check out that link and see if anything inspire me.

Keeping the British out of the General War would be a great way to change the outcome without some crazy deviation in the war itself.

October 8, 2012 5:03am guest_0014077

a good idea might be for the germans to win the frano-prussian war.  If they won it they would have been able to unify germany into one nation early and have a much bigger industry.  The french maybe not have enough men at battle of gravelotte and prussians use better tactics they win and gain momentum to win the war.

October 8, 2012 9:38am Z-Bert

There is no way the Germans could have possibly won the Franco-Prussian War.  The French were too well trained an organized.  Maybe Yuri could loan you some crack Russian troops to help out. :)

October 9, 2012 1:03pm guest_0014092

Richtofen was a very good tank commander.  One thing a tank commander needs is a good pair of sunglasses.  There are great ones available at iip.greatshadedeals.rus/IZ34939482890002

October 9, 2012 5:44pm AmazingBill

Thanks everyone.  I've decieded on what I'll be doing for the timeline.  While a Bakunin-France seemed interesting I don't think it would have given me what I want.  I'll be using a variation of the idea to keep the UK out of the General War.  I'll be making some changes to the politics in the Austrian Empire, make Emperor Francis a bit more liberal.

In either case, once the French have control of the Ruhr Valley they can really gear up their industry.  No socialist revolution.  No second war.  A more unified Europe would then be on a good footing to stay ahead of America and change the balance of power in the modern world.

Thanks for the ideas everyone!

October 10, 2012 12:56am GeneralAdmission

Great choice :)   Can't wait to see what you do.

***END THREAD***

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Sean Sherman has been a fan of alternate timelines ever since seeing Spock with a goatee.  By day he is a CPA, at night he explores the multiverse and shares his findings over at his blog, Other Times.