by Scott Palter
Horthy, Miklos (1868–1957): Austro-Hungarian admiral, WW1. With French help, formed “National Army” in 1919 to oppose Red regime in Budapest. Led two-year “White Terror” after Reds expelled by Romanian invasion. Although a reactionary, Horthy himself was never a radical right fanatic. Instead, he had an uneasy alliance with them, which ended in him reining in their pogroms. He became regent of the Hungarian Kingdom, whose “king” was barred by the Allies from returning. The radicals formed an ever-shifting grouping of small splinter oppositional parties divided mostly on personalities. Horthy had some sympathy for Fascist Italy, but none for Nazi Germany. He bowed to the inevitable after 1940, but was at best a halfhearted ally. When the war turned against Hitler, he tried (and failed) to change sides twice. A prisoner of the Nazis, he was sheltered by the Americans from extradition and execution postwar.
Hoover, John Edgar (1895-1972): created the FBI as we know it today out of a prior weak Federal police agency. A brilliant bureaucratic in-fighter. Also a slimy weasel even by DC standards. Compulsive collector of dirt on important people. Extreme publicity hound. Alleged to be transvestite, gay, and/or asexual. Which, if any, he was, really doesn’t matter in terms of this ATL.
Huntziger, Charles (1880-1941): World War I service in Middle East and Balkans. Commander French 2nd Army at Sedan 1940. His long list of errors lost France the war. This was hidden at the time by higher commanders who thought well of him. In this ATL the German after-action reports make reality clear to Weygand and France’s higher commanders.
Jinnah, Mohammed Ali (1876-1948): Attorney and labor leader. Was with Congress before opting for Muslim separatism. Played the politics of the run-up to independence/partition better than Nehru, although the British Viceroy Mountbatten was totally on Nehru’s side. Father of modern Pakistan. Skilled and smart but not as slick as he thought he was. Was not very good at accepting the inherent power disparities between the two communities.
Juin, Alphonse Pierre (1888-1967): Career officer. Family were rankers, not officers. Born in Algeria and always regarded it as part of France. Spoke Arabic. Did excellent service with 15th Motorized Division in the spring campaign. At Darlan’s orders, negotiated the armistice with US forces after the TORCH landings. Commanded French Corps in Italy where it essentially won 4th Casino. Never able to control mass rapes by his Moroccans in Italy or Southern France. Chief of Staff after liberation of Paris. Opposed conduct of Indochina War, refused command twice. Served as an early NATO commander. Loyal to de Gaulle despite Algerian betrayal. Excellent field commander, good administrator.
Kaltenbrunner, Ernst (1903–1946): Austrian. Law degree. Childhood friend of Eichmann. Joined Nazis in 1930, SS in 1931. Party leader by 1934. Headed security services in Austria after reunification with Germany. Succeeded Heydrich as head of RSHA. Convicted at Nürnberg and executed.
Keitel, Wilhelm [Nickname LaKeitel – pun on German Lakai, “Lackey”] (1882–1946): WW1 veteran. Artillery officer. Helped organize Freikorps postwar. Staff officer in Reichswehr. Ran OKW from beginning to end. Sentenced and hanged at Nürnberg. Total toady to Hitler, and a cypher in terms of the actual war.
Keller, Alfred (1882–1974): Kesselring’s number 2 in the 1940 Western Campaign. In this series, he is the hero of first Budapest and then Malta.
Kesselring, Albert (1885–1960): Artillery officer, WW1 (both fronts). General staff, 1917. Involuntary transfer to Air Force, 1933 (Air Force and Waffen SS both stole officers from the Army). Commanded air fleets in Poland, the West, Blitz, Barbarossa, and Mediterranean. Commanded army group in Italian campaign, 1943–1945. Successful with both service forces. VERY fond of luxury accommodations and food. Optimist, good people-person to equals and superiors, but often high-handed with subordinates. Art lover.
King, Martin Luther Jr. (1929-1968): Legendary African-American civil rights leader and martyr. In this series he will have his call to the ministry at age 11, which is quite young but far from unheard of in black church circles. He and his father are introduced briefly in book 2 but their further adventures in China will be a plot line in the books to come.
King, Martin Luther Sr. (1899-1984): African-American civil rights leader best known for his son’s legendary career. He actually was a major figure in his own right as both a churchman and part of the multi-decade crusade against Jim Crow.
Kleber, Emilio [actually Manfred Stern] (1896-1954): Born in Austrian Ukraine to a Jewish family. POW in WW1. Becomes a Bolshevik while a prisoner. Red Partisan officer during Russian Civil War. Fought in the Far East. Military academy graduate post-civil war, after which he goes to work for GRU in the US and China. Sent to Spain for its Civil War. Is given credit as savior of Madrid in 1936 where he leads XI International Brigade. Promoted to lead 45th International Division. Sacked for its failures (which in fact were due to poor training, and near insane orders from higher commanders). Recalled to Moscow in 1939, tried as a traitor (as were most of the Spanish veterans) and sent to the GULAG where he dies in 1954. In this series he is recalled to duty as “Kleber” to head a new 45th International Division where he essentially commits suicide by enemy action. He was probably not suited for higher unit command (his entire prior career being as an intelligence operative), but a military genius on the order of Napoleon couldn’t have redeemed the FUBAR that was the Spanish Republic.
Klingenberg, Fritz (1912-1945): Waffen SS officer. Captured the city of Belgrade with five men. The ultimate lead-from-the-front combat hero .
Kluge (von), Günther (1882–1944): WW1 veteran, staff officer. Reichswehr. Very well-regarded among senior officer corps. Competent army and army group commander. Corrupt and a weasel. Toadied to Hitler while tolerating anti-Hitler plots by his staff. Avoided committing to Bomb Plot, but was compromised by his ties to major plotters. Committed suicide when recalled to Berlin.
Konev, Ivan Stepanovich (1897-1973): Soviet Marshal. Bolshevik from 1919. Survived the purges and the early years of WW2. Learned from his early mistakes. Better Front (Soviet army group equivalent) commander than Zhukov.
Laval, Pierre (1883-1945): Lower middle class origins. Attorney. Socialist. Married up, his wife being related by marriage to Alice Roosevelt among others. Pacifist, but honored draft notice. Discharged for bad veins. Brother KIA. Advocated peace but, although on arrest list, was spared for political reasons. Drifts to the right post-WW1. Stayed a friend of labor and of conciliation between the classes. Also got rich in this period. As Prime Minister kept the US Depression away from France for two years, then triggered a European collapse in a burst of nationalism over bailing out an Austrian bank. Driven from office for trying to appease Italy over Ethiopia. Against WW2. Drifts much further right, once out of office. Gets back in the Cabinet via Petain. Prime Minister for a time in Vichy. Supports the Nazis. Whether this is conviction, expediency, or spite within Vichy’s bottomless factional disputes is still debated. Sham trial postwar, executed. He started as a man of principle, and aged into a complete weasel on the Lloyd George or FDR level. Important in this series because he acquires Heydrich’s backing, and thus is immune to Petain’s constant changes of mood on his subordinates.
‘Leclerc’, Philippe Francois Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque (1902-1947): From the traditional military class. Rallied to de Gaulle, which socially estranged him from most of his class which stayed loyal to Vichy until the Americans landed in North Africa in late 1942. Made a legendary march across the Sahara with a small brigade to fight with the British in Egypt. Commanded the 2nd Armored Division in the West 1944-1945. Violated orders to liberate Paris. Tended to be disobedient to higher commanders, American and French alike. Liberated Strasbourg in Alsace. Often under US command, because he and the French First Army commander de Lattre de Tassigny (the one commanding the Sons of Oran in this series) disliked each other. Murdered captive French SS men from the Charlemagne Division at the end of WW2. Led the French back to Indochina postwar, but was reassigned when he argued for a political settlement. Died in an air crash in
1947. Good officer but a most difficult personality.
Lindbergh, Charles (1902-1974): Famous aviator and aviation expert. The accusations that he was pro-Nazi and an extreme anti-Semite were both false. He was, however, a Fortress America Isolationist and detested dual loyalties. The version of Lindbergh in this book compresses his public views in terms of time but in my opinion roughly describes them. He was a man on a mission.
Lloyd George, David (1863-1945): The last Liberal Prime Minister and one of Britain’s great social reformers. Laid the foundations of the modern British welfare state. Extremely effective executive (Minister of Munitions in WW1 as prime example). Also one of the worst two-faced weasels in Britain’s long political history. His betrayals and reversals caught up with him after he lost his post as Prime Minister in 1922. He spent the next two decades in the public eye but also the political wilderness. He reunited and then destroyed his Liberal Party. He was an ardent appeaser, but again there is the weasel problem. Most of Britain’s political class believed he would have advocated anything and promised anything to anyone just for another term in high office. They were probably right. Has often been tagged as one of the two most likely candidates to be Britain’s Petain had the Germans occupied the British Isles. That’s probably accurate. Extremely bright and verbal, but was not to be trusted with money or around women.
Luciano, Charles ‘Charlie’ or ‘Lucky’ (1897-1962): Born Salvatore Lucania in Sicily. Family came to Manhattan when he was a young boy. Turned to crime early and worked his way up the ladder during Prohibition to Boss of all the Bosses by 1931. He created the structure of the Five Families and the National Commission, all of this enforced by the Brownsville Boys/Murder Incorporated. Framed by Dewey on a prostitution conspiracy which was absurd on its face. (A boss simply didn’t do collections on his own, or any of the things Dewey manufactured evidence of. There were multiple levels of cutouts for that.) Released as part of a wartime deal for labor peace on the New York docks, and Sicilian Mafia aid for the 1943 US invasion. Deported to Havana, Cuba. Under US pressure Cuba deported him to Italy. Extremely smart and ruthless; but loyal to a small cadre of associates, some of whom were not Italian. Charlie understood that in the US, it’s about money, not bloodlines.
Lusena, Umberto (1904–1944): Of Jewish descent. Father was a general. Umberto was a legionnaire with D’Annunzio. Trained paratrooper. Fought the Germans in 1943 with Royal Army and afterward with partisans. Captured, tortured, and executed.
Lutze, Victor (1890-1943): Early Hitler loyalist. Turned on Röhm. Rewarded with SA top job, and kept it as a sinecure until his death in an auto accident.
Maletti, Pietro (1880-1940): Some WW1 service but from 1917 onwards most of his career was in Libya except for good service in the Ethiopian War. OTL he was killed in the O’Connor offensive leading a mechanized force. Here he is commanding Libyans - at whose military quirks he is expert.
Manstein (von), Erich (1887–1973): From old Prussian military family, born Erich von Lewinski. Adopted by a childless relative from same class so had four parents. WW1 veteran. General Staff. Was the author of the Ardennes campaign concept in 1940, which he pushed through outside official channels. Probably best operational field commander in WW2, especially at the army group level. A military technocrat, willing to overlook the regime’s crimes and be complicit in them.
Manstein (von), Ernst (1869-1944): Relative of the field marshal. Run out of the Kaiser’s Army when he converted to Judaism. Active in the arts world and his city’s Jewish community. Hounded by the Nazis in OTL. In this series, his relative chooses to revive his career.
Marshall, George Catlett (1880-1959): On Pershing’s operations staff at AEF. Planned Meuse-Argonne offensive. VMI graduate Marshall was that rarity, a non-West Pointer who achieved high rank in the American army. Excellent military planner, especially in terms of relations with industry and Congress. His protégés were often less than stellar, starting with Leslie McNair and John C.H. Lee. He created an army on the model of Petain’s 1917 French. The US won on massed artillery firepower.
Meir, Golda (1898-1978): American-born Labor Zionist apparatchik. Her US passport allowed her to be useful in diplomatic missions. Excellent at fund-raising in the US. Eventually became PM. Intelligent, diligent, but not especially effectual except at US fund-raising.
Messe, Giovanni (1883–1968): Helped create Arditi in WW1. Commanded motorized brigade in Ethiopian War. Corps commander in Greek War and Eastern Front. Took over the Italo-German Panzer Army command from Rommel in Tunisia. Served Royalist Italy after the side-switch in 1943. Nickname: The Italian Rommel (quite deserved).
Mohnke, Wilhelm (1911-2001): Joined the Party and the SS young, and shot up through the ranks. Seems to have been a True Believer but not the foaming maniac variety. Excellent combat record Poland, the West, Normandy, Ardennes, Alsace, Berlin. Massive combat wound from Yugoslav air attack in 1941 kept him out of the Ost Front. Helped form the 12th SS HJ Division in 1943. Mohnke was one of the type that gave the Waffen SS its reputation. Excellent combat commander / leader of men, but heedless of casualties to his own unit. The mission was everything. Also kept being associated with massacres of prisoners. Managed to avoid war crimes prosecution mostly by luck. Highest formal rank was division commander. Highest posting was commander of the defense of Hitler’s Bunker during the Siege of Berlin. Captured by the Soviets, and treated poorly but somehow survived the NKVD’s abuse. Kept his head down after release, working various private sector jobs. In this series his 1940 massacre of British POW’s in the runup to Dunkirk comes back to bite him, getting him shuttled off to Libya with a warning that the next report of dead POW’s will result in summary execution.
Montgomery, Bernard Law ‘Monty’ (1887-1976): WW1 veteran, line and staff. Father was Bishop of Tasmania. Division commander Dunkirk Campaign. Performed well. Tasked for never-carried-out operations to invade Azores, Cape Verde Islands and Eire (which is how we get him available as a replacement for Dakar). Was a good training officer in the UK at Corps level. Clearly over his head at army and army group command. He was good at training, troop morale, and personal PR. He was ponderous in positional battles (Second Alamein, Normandy), and purely inept in mobile operations (pursuit of Rommel, Race Across France, Market Garden). His lies, evasions, and failures in clearing the Scheldt probably added months to WW2 in Europe. His rudeness and refusal to obey orders brought Ike to the brink of sacking him multiple times. The latest theory for his lack of social skills is Asperger’s Syndrome. The London Press was in love with him, and this saved his job several times such as the idiot Battle of the Bulge speech where he essentially claimed he won the battle despite Ike and the Americans.
Müller, Gestapo (1900–1945?): Given name was actually Heinrich, but there were two Heinrich Müllers who were SS generals. WW1 service as spotter pilot. Bavarian political policeman until the Nazi takeover in 1933. Turned his coat and became a protégé of Heydrich’s. Does not join the Nazi Party itself until 1939. Careerist and not especially brilliant, but hard working. Probable Soviet agent. Alleged to have died during the breakout from the Bunker. Also alleged to have retired to Moscow. Complete weasel.
Nasser, Gamal (1918-1970): One of the Free Officers plotters who overthrew the Egyptian monarchy 1952. Nasser was a charismatic orator, but a complete clod as a national leader. Had no judgment on policy or personnel. His mistakes and vanities made Egypt the bureaucratic basket case it still is today.
Nebe, Arthur (1894-1945): WW1 veteran. Career policeman who opportunistically joined the Nazi Party and SS in the early 30’s. Headed the Kripo/Criminal Police. Involved with prewar euthanizing of “unfit” citizens. Headed Einsatzgruppe B in Belarus and Smolensk. Succeeds Heydrich as head of Interpol on Heydrich’s death in 1942. Associated with the 1944 Bomb Plot against Hitler. Went into hiding after its failure. Betrayed by a mistress, he was arrested and executed in early 1945. He was competent, but a total weasel.
Nehru, Jawaharlal (1889-1964): Attorney,
socialist, and the organization man who held Congress together and advanced it to power. Bright, somewhat charismatic, but always in Gandhi’s shadow until the assassination. Nehru’s socialist fixations and bureaucratic mindset made independent India into the shambling rubber-stamp mild kleptocracy it became. The nation is still digging out from his initial mistakes. They are also saddled with an intractable problem in Kashmir because he clung to that state despite its Muslim majority.
Nicolussi-Leck, Karl: (1917-1980) – From South Tyrol (Austrian land given to Italy at Versailles). Nazi propagandist. Joins Waffen SS 1940. In OTL ends war as Hauptmann and tank ace. Successful career in agricultural machinery post-war, first in Peron’s Argentina and then back in South Tyrol. Fluent in Italian.
O’Connor, Richard (1889-1981): Born in India to a military family, but by service British Army rather than Indian Army. Good WW1 record, mostly as a signals officer. Rises steadily during interwar period to divisional command in Jerusalem just before outbreak of war. Command moved to Mersa Matruh in Egypt as core of what would become Western Desert Force. Even considering all the Italians’ mistakes, ran a brilliant campaign in eastern Libya netting terrain and huge numbers of prisoners. Advance short-circuited by Churchill’s Greek adventure. Captured during Rommel’s counterattack, and spent two years as POW in Italy. Given corps command for D-Day. Performs decently, but sidelined and then sacked by Monty, who had no use for officers outside his clique from 8th Army and Alamein. Promoted to full general thereafter while doing garrison service in India.
Patton, George Smith Jr. (1885-1945): Professional officer, scion of an aristocratic, rich California family with Dixie roots. Cavalry, but led first US motorized force in Mexico 1916 and first tank brigade in France 1918. Good Army politician but always regarded as ‘difficult’/prima donna. Different reasons than Rommel, but similar effects on superiors who had to deal with him. No strategic sense but a fine operational and tactical commander. Utterly fearless under fire. Never able to subordinate his chasing of personal glory/his destiny to wider command and national goals. Bit of a flake on reincarnation and similar. Ignored supply and administration by picking good subordinates and letting them do their jobs. In OTL almost selfdestructed his career over slapping incidents where he struck soldiers in hospital. Was sidelined at the tail end of the Tunisian Campaign over press complaints about his obsessions with Mickey Mouse regular army discipline (wearing neckties with the uniform, etc.). He was simply a 19th century mind who was never going to fit into New Deal populism. Press loved him for good copy but hated him personally as a spoiled rich kid. In this series, sending him to China gets him out of a lot of this negative feedback – everyone in the ranks volunteered for China service, and many are foreigners serving under the US flag.