by Dale Cozort
***
They drove to the farm the next morning. Fido paced them as they pulled in. Lyle greeted Amelia and the pastor enthusiastically, but gave Greg a cold nod. He ignored Heather. He said, "I need to chat with you, pastor."
They walked off, talking quietly. Greg said. "Not feeling the love here."
"One day he offers me his bed. The next day he doesn't seem to see me," Heather said.
"I'm sure it wasn't the first time," Greg said. "And probably not the last."
"Thanks."
The pastor limped over as Lyle headed out to the fields. "Lyle asked me to take you to Wind Lady. Sugar Check weekend is coming and the hotels will fill up."
"He doesn't seem happy with us," Greg said.
"Heather and you? There's a reason for that. Hop in and I'll tell you about it on the way." He steered his bus down the driveway and on to the dirt ruts that passed as a road to Wind Lady. "He's not thrilled with Heather because she got drunk and came onto him the night she ended up in his bed."
"Talk about professional," Greg said. "We know which profession you’re in. I thought doing rich old guys was for bottom feeders."
"I don't remember it. I was in the chair and then I was in the bed, with my clothes on." Heather shook her head. "I don't remember anything else. And no, I don't do old guys."
Amelia said, "You're such a slut. I can't believe you came on to an eighty-year old, drunk or sober. That's disgusting. Professionals know when to keep their pants on, even when they’re drunk."
"I don’t need lectures from a twelve—“
“Sixteen year old. And maybe you do.”
“He's not your typical eighty year old," Heather said. "I have no idea what happened."
"And you have no idea what you said to him while you were drunk," Pastor Julius said. "You could have blown us out of the water."
"I'm twitchy. The quiet is getting to me."
"Get untwitchy or go home. We can write you out. A sick parent, an emergency at work--whatever it takes." The pastor slowed the bus as a herd of Sifakas bounded past. "I should send you home. The problem is that if you go away in a stink that stink sits on your husband. Here's the deal. Fix the stink."
"How am I going to do that?"
"I don't know. You're the con artist." The pastor turned to Greg. "He likes you enough not to sleep with your wife, so you've made an impression. He says the DNA will be back in three or four days."
"So we're headed to the airport, right?" Amelia asked.
"No."
"When that DNA sample comes back we'll be dangling at the end of a rope. Why no?"
"It's handled. I wouldn't have started this if it wasn't."
"How can it be handled?"
“Don’t worry about it."
Greg said, "He'll be suspicious of everybody now that he knows Kelly was murdered. And the possibility of us being involved has to have occurred to him."
"It has," the pastor said. "He doesn't think you're involved, but he isn't sure about Heather. The drunken pass didn't impress him much."
"Why did he have all of those Young Adult series books," Amelia asked. "And why did he push so hard to get me to read them?"
"I know, but it's a secret," the pastor said.
"It sounded like he’s read a lot of them recently."
"Honey, he didn't just read them, he wrote most of them."
"You're talking about Lyle Dunne, right? Rancher, farmer?"
"And author. Don't spread that around. He doesn't think writing goes with his image." The pastor turned onto a slightly more traveled road, still unpaved. "Don't think of Lyle as just a redneck. He is that, but he's also a very smart man, the smartest man around here other than maybe John Calvin Lewis."
"John Calvin Lewis, huh?" Greg stared at the pastor. "What does he do that makes him so smart?"
"Just took dry land the government figured couldn't be used as farmland and made it flower. He's kept peace with the rednecks around him and made most of them respect him even if they don't like him."
"The sheriff thinks he's doing something underhanded or getting ready to. What is he up to?"
"Old John thinks every black child is born with an island of genius, something that kid can do better than almost anyone else in the world. It's just a matter of someone figuring it out and feeding it."
"So he's trying to build a black Eureka," Amelia said.
"I have no idea what a Eureka is," the pastor said. "But he wants to build a society of black people who defy every racial slur that has ever been said against a black man. He wants them smart, disciplined, hard-working, and good fathers."
"How is that working out for him?" Greg asked.
"That you’d have to ask him," Pastor Julius said. "I believe he's right about every black kid having some kind of genius. Every white kid has one too. I'm not from your black and white world, so I just see people where you see black people and white people."
“We were getting there in 2011,” Greg said. “The hungry time right after the snapshot didn’t help, but we’ll get there.”
“I hope so. That’s one part of you people, both 53s and 2011s, I can’t understand. Of course I grew up in a little group; you wouldn’t even call it tribe, in 1518 and all of you are so different from what I knew that the differences between you seem small.”
“If the gap’s that huge, how did you cross it?” Greg asked.
“My bit of genius is figuring out people, how they think. And what is your area of genius?”
“Greg Dunne was an intelligence analyst, so he’d be good at pulling facts together and making them mean something.”
“That’s Greg Dunne. What about the guy sitting next to me?”
“The guy sitting next to you is Greg Dunne. It says so on my passport.”
“I wonder what the DNA will really show.”
“That would be interesting. And you’re not telling us how you’ll take care of the DNA?”
“It’s handled. That’s all you need to know.”
ALTERNATE HISTORY SNIPPETS
Some brief Alternate History thoughts, most of them initially posted on AlternateHistory.com
The US Develops Skipbombing before Pearl Harbor
Historically US airforce bombers were very close to useless against enemy shipping in the early months of the Pacific War. Their doctrine was designed for strategic bombing, and it didn't translate well to attacking enemy ships.
By 1943, various parts of the airforce developed more effective tactics, coming in low and skipping bombs off the water into enemy ships. General Kenny, the guy arguably behind the development of skip-bombing, had actually experimented with the technique in the 1920s, but the strategic bombing orientation of the airforce apparently kept the technique from going beyond experiments. The British and Australians experimented with the technique early in the war, with some success, but the US had lagged behind.
So, what if sometime in late 1940, with Japan becoming more belligerent and the US trying to figure out how to defend the Philippines, General Kenny manages to convince the right people that using bombers in skip-bombing raids is a key to holding off the Japanese. A group of B17 pilots are trained in the tactics. Maybe their planes are modified so that they have more forward-facing 50 cals to suppress anti-aircraft fire from the ships. The group is then sent to the Philippines as part of the buildup of the US airpower there.
So, what happens then? Historically, much of the B17 force in the Philippines got caught on the ground the day after Pearl Harbor. That might still happen, though given a different mission that's not a given. The planes involved would undoubtedly be flying in an environment of Japanese air superiority, which would make attacks where Japanese fighters were around costly. On the other hand, B17s that could actually sink enemy ships could dominate a large area around the Philippines.
How does this play out, both in the Philippines and in subsequent battles through the first year of
the war?
The US army air corp general who eventually implemented skip-bombing had experimented successfully with the technique in the twenties. The air corp didn't need to find the technique from somewhere else. They had already experimented with it in-house.
The technique just needed to get into the right position in terms of interservice rivalry to be adopted earlier. As somebody pointed out on AH.com, the army air corp could use the technique to screw the navy out of money.
The main problem with this technique is that you had to come in low and pretty slow. That gave anti-aircraft a good shot at bringing you down. The B25 was better in this role partly because it had a lot of forward-firing firepower to suppress the anti-aircraft, especially after field modifications to add a bunch more 50 cals.
Australian Megafauna survives in Tasmania
What actually happened: There is some indication that a subset of the extinct Australian megafauna survived on Tasmania for about 4000 years after they died out in Australia, probably because at that time Tasmania was an island, so humans didn't get there for about 4000 years after they colonized Australia.
As the last ice age intensified and locked up more water in glaciers, around 43,000 years ago Tasmania became a peninsula of Australia, which it has been off and on through most of its existence. Humans flooded in and the surviving megafauna died out, though Tasmanian Wolves and devils survived there (as they did in Australia until a few thousand years ago). Tasmania became an island again around 10,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial.
What might have happened: Let's tweak the land level a bit and have Tasmania remain an island throughout the last 50,000 years. We can put the water gap that stays even during ice ages anywhere between the coast of Australia and Tasmania. For the purposes of this scenario it would be good to have it close to Australia, because the larger Tasmania is during the ice ages the more of the megafauna are likely to survive. Small islands and big animal don't mix well long-term.
So, humans colonize Australia, but can't get to Tasmania without crossing an arm of the ocean. They had to cross a water gap to get to Australia in the first place, but tropical oceans are considerably more hospitable to primitive boat tech than cold temperate ones. Apparently humans didn't cross the historic water gap, so there is a reasonable chance they wouldn't cross this one.
So, some of the big Australian animals survive in Tasmania. Diprotodon itself didn't reach Tasmania, but a couple of horse/Tapir-sized Diprotodon relatives did, along with short-faced kangaroos, marsupial lions, and few other oddities.
How long would they survive? There are no signs I'm aware of that the Polynesians ever got to Tasmania, though they might have visited but not stayed due to the incumbent Tasmanians. I don't know if Portugal ever reached Tasmania, though my understanding is that they found parts of Australia. The Dutch definitely discovered Tasmania, so they might be the first to disrupt this marsupial utopia.
Standard disclaimer: Yes, I know that creating a sea channel off of Australia would create butterflies that would probably prevent there being a Portugal or Holland in their historical forms, but messing around with geography is way too much fun to avoid because of butterflies. We could make this less ASB by having humans reach Australia too to make it to Tasmania before the channel opened. Of course then you probably wouldn't have Aborigines as such in Australia.
Soviet-Romanian War-June 1940
In late June 1940, the Soviets demanded that Romania hand over several areas along the Soviet/Romanian border and gave the Romanians four days to vacate. When the Romanians asked for more time, the Soviets invaded. The Romanians pulled out without major fighting.
What if they had fought? Maybe after the Soviet performance in the Winter War, the Romanians aren't impressed and decide to fight it out. Now my first inclination is to say 'curb stomp', but I suspect that the situation would get more complicated than that.
Why curb stomp? The Romanians were probably no match for the Soviets alone, though given the performance of the Soviet Army in Finland and at the beginning of Barbarossa that's not completely a given. To add to Romanian problems, Hungary wanted Hungarian-majority areas in Romania back.
However, Romania had a kind of negative power. If it got into a war with the Soviets and started losing badly, that threatens the only major source of oil available to either the Germans or the Italians. The Germans (and the Italians though they wouldn't matter much) would essentially have to respond in some way.
Most likely result: The Soviets kick Romanian butt. The Germans mass forces in the east, impose a settlement on the Romanians and guarantee the new borders. However, doing that would require that they bring troops, aircraft, etc from France to the eastern front at a time they are trying to gear up for Battle of Britain/Sealion.
Were the Soviets of June 1940 capable of trashing the Romanians? If they do, and that seems the most likely outcome, how does the rest of this play out? Nothing significant changes? Major ripples?
I'm agnostic on how long the Romanians could hold off the Soviets. I suspect that a week or two for the Soviets to overrun much of Romania is a major overestimation of Soviet capabilities for offensive action in June 1940.
My skepticism is based partly on the abysmal performance of the Soviets against the Finns, but mainly on their lack of anything equivalent to the Panzer divisions at this point. Essentially, large numbers of machine guns, rapid-fire rifle and artillery slowed the tempo of war, leading to the stalemates of World War I. Until the problem of firepower on the defensive was solved, it stayed slowed down. The Germans solved the slowdown with their Panzers, but that was because they perfected a combined arms team, not because they had a lot of tanks.
I don't see anything in the Soviet order of battle in June 1940 that would allow quick panzer-like offensives. They had a lot of tanks, but those tanks weren't organized into combined arms divisions, and they didn't have the number of trucks or radios to make deep offensives work at this point. Soviet tank formations at this point were like a heavy club, compared to the German Panzers' rapier. The Soviets were quite capable of offensives that broke through a line. They were probably not capable of then exploiting those breakthroughs to win quick strategic victories.
The timing doesn't work for the Anglo-French to have their resistance stiffened. French armistice = June 22,1940. Soviet ultimatum = June 26, 1940. Soviet/Romanian fighting would have started roughly a week after the French surrender, at a point where the British had been driven off the continent and were obviously in no condition to come back. Italy had already entered the war against the British and French (on June 10, 1940). Romania was also Italy's only remaining source of oil, so Italy standing by while the Soviets overran the oilfields would not be in the cards.
Those oilfields would also be an issue if the Soviets made large-scale use of their air force. The Germans would not stand by while the Soviets bombed anywhere close to their main source of oil.
Some other aspects of this:
1) The Red Army is going to be losing planes over Romania, especially once the Luftwaffe arrives in force. The 'over Romania' part is significant because those pilots are dead or POWs. Pilots take longer to train than planes do to build.
2) While Churchill would undoubtedly want to prosecute the war with Germany vigorously, if the Luftwaffe pulls out for the most part to head to Romania I'm not sure the British people do. They won't have experienced the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, so there is some possibility that British political opinion would go toward letting the Soviets and Germans fight it out while Britain recovered militarily and economically. Britain was in no shape to fight, and getting ready to fight would (and historically did) bankrupt them in six to nine months. Of course historically the US bailed them out with Lend Lease. However Lend Lease wasn’t inevitable: In less desperate circumstances I’m not sure the US would have offered it. And I’m not sure the British would have automatically accepted. I don't see the Brits agreeing to give up their
export markets and key bases. Lend Lease said essentially "The US saves Britain. Britain gives up any possibility of being a great power at the end of the war." That's only something a proud great power would accept if it had no other choice. When I say, "Let them fight it out while Britain recovers militarily and economically" I’m not saying that Britain would accept German hegemony over Europe. The Brits would rebuild their forces at a more rational and sustainable pace rather than a panic-driven and wasteful "throw money at it to get capability now!" approach. In late June/July 1940 the Brits were incapable of offensive action anyway, even against the Italians, so why not take advantage of the situation to be more rational in their buildup?
3) Without a blitz/Battle of Britain, the US probably wouldn't feel anywhere near as threatened, which might make US weapons and eventually money much less forthcoming for the Brits. Fall of France did scare the US. But why did it scare the US? If you look at what US leaders were saying privately and to some extent publicly, the concern was that the Fall of France would be quickly followed by the fall of Britain, with the possibility of the British fleet falling into German hands. The fall of France was shocking and unwelcome, but not in and of itself a national crisis. The US perception that it was likely to be followed by the fall of Britain was what made it a national crisis.
4) If Germany intervenes in Romania, the Soviets cut off economic ties. That has a huge impact on the German economy. It doesn't help the Soviet economy much either. The Soviets got stuff from the Germans in return for those raw materials that the Germans regretted during Barbarossa.
5) No blitz means that the Luftwaffe isn't losing planes and pilots over Britain. It also isn't running down fuel stocks in the Battle of Britain.
The Soviets would learn a lot from that war. If they manage to wind it down without an all-out war with the Germans in summer of 1940, which I think is likely, then they are probably in much better shape in summer of 1941.
The Soviets would not be immediately accepted as Britain's new allies. Why not? Let’s see how it works: Step One: The Soviets invade Romania, a country whose security the British (and French, though that doesn't matter at this point) have guaranteed. At this point the Germans and Italians have NOT yet intervened. The British government can't actually do anything about the attack, but they can and will ramp up the rhetoric against the Soviet, making comparisons to the Soviet invasion of Finland, etc. British (and US) public opinion puts the Soviets even more firmly in the aggressor camp.
Step Two: There is a period of a week or two, maybe up to a month, where the Germans and Italians are putting pressure on the Romanians to just give up the provinces. British and US governments and public opinion sees this as the dictators ganging up on another victim. Step Three: When the Romanians don't back down and the Soviets threaten their oil sources, the Germans move airplanes and troops east, which the British and US perceive as the prelude to an attack on Romania, thus again putting the Soviets in the perceived role of part of the aggressor team. Step Four: If Stalin doesn't back down, the Germans intervene. Fighting starts. In this scenario you might end up with the US retargeting some supplies that were headed for France toward Romania in the first week or so after the attack, before it became apparent that Germany and Italy were going to jump in on Romania's side.
The amounts would be limited because (a) The munitions would be needed by the Brits, and (b) The Romanians were in a hopeless position in the long term if the Germans decided to sit it out or impose a solution, but you might have the absurd situation of US arms going to an army fighting on the same side as the Germans, at least until US politicians manged to figure out some way of cutting them off without looking too hypocritical.
The Brit and US public has been hearing for several weeks to a month about Soviet aggression and the Brits have been making ineffectual noises about helping the Romanians. When fighting breaks out, there is no guarantee that it is more than a minor skirmish over spoils of war. Given that political background, the rational course would be to wait a while for the public to forget the Soviets as aggressors meme, and wait for developments. From a British and US perspective, the fighting over Romania may well fizzle out, and the two sides come to another agreement.
That's actually the most likely result of this scenario. The Soviets don't want war with Germany in the summer of 1940, and will want it a lot less after they get a taste of it. The Germans want war with the Soviets, but not starting in mid-July 1940 with no preparations. Likely outcome: A couple of weeks to a month of fighting that leads to the Germans taking back the disputed provinces, plus a few dozen miles of Soviet territory along the border, followed by a ceasefire and pullback to the original Romanian border, with fighting restricted to Romania.
A few wild cards in this:
1) How long would it take for the Germans to move enough forces to Romania to deter or defeat the Soviets?
2) How would the rush of German troops away from France affect the willingness of France to honor the terms of the recently signed armistice? I wouldn't expect a renewal of the fighting, but it's possible that the French might be more aggressive at hiding weapons and local authorities in the colonies might even be tempted to stall on implementing the terms.
3) How would the Germans stand in terms of logistics in the immediate aftermath of the Battle for France? In terms of munitions they would be in pretty good shape because they produced much more in the way of munitions than they need to in order to conquer France. Captured French oil stocks would give them ample oil supplies for a few months--more than they had in June 1941. One major problem: Wear and tear on the tanks and planes used in France. The German army would need time for maintenance before they could be up to full power.
4) How would Ukrainian nationalists and other border people react? If the Germans hand the Soviets an initial defeat, do the Soviets face revolts in what had been eastern Poland and the Baltics? They did to some extent historically in Barbarossa. In June/July 1940 the Soviets wouldn't have had a chance to round up and kill as many nationalists, but also wouldn't have had as much chance to hack off the locals. If there are revolts, how do the Germans react?
Challenge: Keep As Many Border States As Possible In the Union
Lincoln's response to Sumter had a great deal of influence on the state reactions. He had to do a careful balancing act. On the one hand, South Carolina had fired on their fellow Americans and killed some. That put the North and west reasonably solidly in favor of ending this whole secession nonsense. If he was going to force the seceding states back in the Union, Lincoln needed to act quickly, while outrage over Sumter was strong. On the other hand, the more aggressively Lincoln goes after seceded states, the more he forces border states to make a choice, and forcing the likes of Virginia and North Carolina to secede turned the Confederacy from obviously non-viable long-term to almost viable. Could you have done better than Lincoln did historically?
The Germans Don't Take Crete
The German invasion of Crete was a close-run thing. More than almost any other major battle of World War II it could have gone either way. Let's say it goes against the Germans. They land airborne forces, but never hold an airport long enough to fly in additional troops and equipment. As a result, they eventually are mopped up by the Allies.
What are the consequences? A minor one: As Allied air power in Crete builds up, it looks to me as though the Axis position in Rhodes would become untenable.
There would be some downsides to the Allies initially:
1) Supplying Crete would require some additional shipping
2) The forces evacuated from there would, obviously, not be available elsewhere.
Upsides would probably outweigh those. A big, very public win over actual Germans (as opposed to the Italians) would be a major boost to British morale. It might also have some impact on the Germans. An unbroken string of German victories seemed to confirm the Nazi racial theories. A very public defeat might slow that train down.
Some very sp
eculative possible impacts (not likely but worth considering). Would a very public German defeat cause the Japanese to think harder about attacking Britain in the Far East? Would the Soviets be less abject in their attempts to appease Hitler? Again, I don't think either of those are the most likely outcomes, but maybe worth considering.
Another issue: the attitude of Turkey. This would be a German defeat right at their front door. If it leads eventually to the fall of Rhodes and other Italian islands near Turkey, which it would once the Allies built up air power on Crete, then how does that affect the Turkish attitudes toward the war? I doubt if they would join the war before late 1944 in any case, but it might be possible for the Allies to exert more pressure on them to cut off German supplies of certain natural resources.
What If: Portugal Conquers The Incas
If you want multiple European powers involved in the Aztec/Inca area, Spain for the Aztecs and Portugal for the Incas is the most likely.
Having Portugal conquer the Incas does make some differences, not in terms of intent, but as a practical matter. If Spain holds Panama, which it would be likely to long before the Portuguese got there, then Portugal has to either go across a goodly hunk of South America to get to Peru, or it has to take the long route around the southern tip of South America. That makes Portuguese Peru much more isolated from Europe than Spanish Peru was, which has a lot of implications: (1) Slower disease spread, (2) Less control from the home government, (3) Less reliable supplies, both of European goods to Peru and of Peruvian gold and silver to the Portuguese. Portuguese Peru would probably be much more self-sufficient and somewhat more based on traditional Indian crafts and syncretic mixes of Indian and European crafts, (4) The Portuguese hold on Peru would probably be less solid than the Spanish one was, because (a) the logistics of reinforcement and settlement would be tougher, and (b) the Spanish would be nosing around from their bases in Panama and trying to stir up trouble.
If the Portuguese are moving gold and silver down the Amazon, figure that there will be pirates and adventurers preying on their canoe convoys. (Kind of a cool setting for a story, actually) If they go around the southern tip of South America, then expect pirates to lodge along the coast of Argentina and Chile. In both cases, the pirates could be a mix of Europeans, Indians and mixed race people.
Figure also that France and eventually Holland would make more determined efforts to hold onto parts of Brazil and interdict Portuguese commerce down the Amazon. Of course Portugal would also put more resources into South America.
Then of course, we have the influence of all of that gold in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Portugal has far more resources to fight wars, maintain fleets, etc, but they still have their small population base. Spain has considerably less resources to fight European wars, but also is less thoroughly ruined as a budding manufacturing power by the influx of gold.
Challenge: You're In Charge of the Soviet Union In World War II
It's October 1940. Italy has just invaded Greece. Stalin shuffles off the mortal coil, leaving in charge: you. Your goal is to get the Soviet Union through the rest of World War II in the best shape you can.
1) You have all your historic knowledge, however if you reveal it you will probably get deposed and put in a rubber room at best. The top echelons of Soviet leadership were shark-infested waters.
2) As soon as you take action that differs from what Stalin did historically, you risk creating butterflies that alter events in the time-line. That means your ability to foretell the future becomes less and less useful as you make decisions.
3) Realistically, you don't have Stalin's absolute power. You're leading a world class den of snakes in people like Beria. Your army is cluttered with people with no military ability but who were non-threatening to Stalin.
4) You can't count on a particular date for Barbarossa, if it happens.
5) Barbarossa is not inevitable, but it is extremely likely.
6) British and US support is extremely likely, but not inevitable if you screw up badly enough on the PR front. If you do extremely well early on, you may find Allied aid becoming scarce and token. The Brits especially won't be thrilled about the possibility of the Soviets ending up on the English Channel in early 1942, for example.
7) You can't count on the Soviet population reacting the same way to your leadership that it did to Stalin's. That's the default, but fear of Stalin was pervasive, along with hatred in some circles. Fear of you is not as automatic. Hatred may or may not be there.
So, what do you think? Can hindsight that may or may not be reliable help you do better? What do you change? How does it work out for you?
Here is one hint: Militarily, forward deploying the Red Army into what had been eastern Poland was a bad idea. They were going to lose most of what they put in the forward areas because they didn't have the logistics structure for them to fight there or to get them out in a hurry.
The Soviets were going to have to put some forces into those areas though, just to keep Polish and Ukrainian nationalists from causing trouble there. The Soviets also needed to hold onto those areas long enough to sabotage the numerous scattered oil fields in the southern part of the area. Historically they were able to do that. They would need to slow the Germans down enough to do it in this scenario, which means some forces in the area.
With a start date of October 1940, and with the Germans probably unable to attack until the middle of next May, here are some possible "out of the box" strategies for a Soviet leader. I'm not sure how they would play out:
Declare an end to all of the economic provisions of the pact the Soviets and Germans reached in August 1939. No more Soviet natural resources going to the Germans, including oil. No transshipment of natural rubber obtained by the Japanese or Soviets to Germany. Of course that also means no German machine tools or warships going to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's tooling up for war is substantially slowed down. On the other hand, six months of embargo of goods from the Soviet Union equals a significantly weakened Germany. The question is, who is weakened more? It might even be possible for the Soviets to reach a covert agreement with the Brits: "We'll embargo the Germans if you supply us with machine tools, etc." That would be hard to pull off given the animosity between Britain and the Soviets at this point, but the Brits are in a situation where they really need Allies.
Put the Soviet resources behind preparing Communist revolts in the Balkans for after the German invasion and Communist resistance in France. Maybe even go so far as selling the Greeks artillery and some obsolete warplanes so they can screw the Italians over more than they did historically. That would be tough to swallow given that the Greeks were a right-wing dictatorship, but the longer the Greeks hold off the Germans, the later Barbarossa is.
Another option: Military aid/cheap sales to Yugoslavia. Definitely provocative, but a relatively cheap way of asserting some influence in the Balkans. Sell some airplanes approaching obsolescence and maybe some artillery. If it stalls the Germans a few days, that's a help.
Possibility: Try to keep the Finns from entering the war on the German side. That might be accomplished by promising to give back some of the annexed territories in exchange for (a) the Finns promising not to allow any foreign troops in Finland, and (b) the territories being demilitarized. I suppose you could even have them turn the annexations into a five year lease on the territory involved.
Another possibility: Release the remaining Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union to the Brits. That's risky because the NKVD had already killed over 20,000 Poles and the question of where those people were would be bound to eventually come up. There is also the issue of what happens post-war. On the other hand, putting several tens of thousands of additional troops onto the Allied side in the winter of 1940/41 helps keep the Germans distracted.
I don't understand Hitler's psychology well enough to know how he would take all of this. Obviously appeasement didn't work for either the western allied or Stalin. Hitler read it as weakness. In-yo
ur-face defiance probably wouldn't cause him to back off. It might cause him to come after the Soviets sooner, but before the middle of May 1941 the weather doesn't allow him to do much, so I think the Soviets can be as provocative as they want to be without much in the way of consequences.
The Soviets could actually organize Polish nationals in their prison camps to go into the German-occupied part of Poland and do acts of sabotage during the winter of 1940/41, though the German policy of killing lots of hostages might have deterred the Poles, even if it didn't bother the Soviets at all. On the other hand, training Poles in sabotage might not be a long-term good thing.
The Soviets would obviously be better off staying out of the war as long as possible. Historically they tried appeasement and it didn't work. Hitler read appeasement as weakness. What if they tried a hard line in the winter of 1940/41? The Germans were sending reconnaissance planes over Soviet-held territory in an increasingly blatant manner. What if the Soviets shot several of them down in the fall of 1940, put any surviving pilots on trial and cut off the supply of Soviet oil and other raw materials to the Germans?
What do the Soviets have to lose? Machine tools and weapons that the Germans promised but delivered as few of as they could? Yeah.
The Germans attack? They're going to do that anyway. If they attack in the winter of 1940/41 or before the spring mud hardens, then bonus. Things that make Barbarosa more likely are freebies since you're almost certain it will happen anyway.
Another option: Play on the German fears. On about June 1, 1941 invite a German delegation to view a demonstration of massed T34s and KV1s, manned by picked crews. Point out that these tanks are not deployed near the frontiers because that's NOT where the Soviets would make their main defensive effort if invaded. Yeah, the Germans have an extra three weeks to prepare for the new tanks, but there is a chance they'll decide to wait and try to come up with a counter,
Releasing most survivors among the purged Soviet officers would help, especially by making training of the much expanded Soviet army more effective. Not continuing the purge would help. Stalin was still purging a trickle of officers throughout the fall and winter of 1940/41.
One of the little-known aspects of the lead-up to war: The Soviets had a large bomber force, theoretically for strategic bombing. The Germans were actually afraid of it--fearing that the Soviets would bomb the Romanian oil fields. The Soviets thought they had a world-class bomber force too. They didn't and that became obvious when they tried to use it at the beginning of the war. Whether due to poor aircraft or poor training, the Soviet bombers lost a lot of pilots on futile and costly raids.
Some possibilities: (1) See if there was anything that could be done to make the Soviet bomber force viable. If the Soviets can bomb the Romanian oil fields effectively early in the war, then the Germans have a real problem. (2) Have preps in hand to allow the Brits to use Soviet airbases to attack the Romanian oil fields early on. Losing Romanian production would be devastating to the Germans early on, less so as more synthetic oil production came online.
COMMENTS SECTION
Tom Cron: Thanks for the recommendation on Doorways. I’ll try to remember to check it out. I like your ideas on ISOTing the Woodstock generation. I would be interested in how the sudden disappearance of all of the ‘cool kids’ would impact US life and politics in the subsequent years. What kind of impact did those 500,000 people have on the US after Woodstock. How would people react to their sudden disappearance? I’m sure some people would invoke God’s wrath. In the absence of any alternate explanation that would probably lurk in the back of a lot of peoples’ minds, even among non-Christians.
Anthony Docimo: Your reading is eclectic as usual. On the Philippines as an American state: I’m guessing that one of the biggest obstacles would have been the racial attitudes of the time. Would the US of the early 20th century have wanted to bring in a state with a large majority of “those kind of people”? My guess is that would have weighed heavily on the decision. Allowing a theoretically independent Philippine state like the one we set up in Cuba would probably be more likely, or something like the setup with Puerto Rico.
Robert Gill: Lucy sounds interesting. Maybe a little too close to Char for me to be totally comfortable with it, but I’ll have to check it out.
Interesting bits about the ties between New York City and the slave trade. As to what would have happened if the Confederate plot against New York had succeeded, good question. I’m guessing that reconstruction would have been more harsh, but there were limits to how harsh it could be and not stir up an ongoing guerilla resistance, or even solidifying a separate southern nationalism.