Stars and Sickles - An Alternative Cold War

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For more information on American politics (1960-1970), see: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rnative-cold-war.280530/page-15#post-10759150
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Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, President of the United States, represented to many of his supporters the virtues of an America pushing forward into the future. A first-generation American, the son of Norwegian immigrants who had settled in Washington state (his father's surname had originally been "Gresseth" but had been changed to sound more 'typically American'), Jackson had climbed up the ranks of American society seemingly through merit, studying at Stanford and the University of Washington School of Law. Working as a prosecutor after passing the bar, Jackson eventually was elected to Congress in 1940 and would be undefeated in congressional elections until eventually being selected as the Democratic nominee and winning the 1968 presidential election. To many Americans, Jackson seemed like the perfect counterpoint to his Republican predecessor, "Chuck" Percy. Percy's doveish policies had concerned many Americans, who constantly read in newspapers and saw on television new crises and an anaemic response to the extension of Communist power throughout the world. Even non-Communist regimes such as the United Arab Republic were nevertheless threatening American interests. They saw many nations of Western Europe wavering as they lost faith in the willingness of the United States to defend their territories from Soviet Russia. At home, whilst there had been progress on civil rights issues, there still existed many reactionaries who sought to block or rollback further progress towards a more equitable American society. Scoop Jackson had been a career-long liberal but he nevertheless had the tough-on-crime bona fides from his past as a prosecutor and the hawkish foreign policy required to win over many conservative patriots. It was for these reasons that Jackson was nominated once again as the Democratic candidate in the 1972 presidential election, despite being probably the most liberal major figure left in the Democratic Party since the 1970 mid-terms solidified the drift of conservative Republicans to the party which had, in living memory, established the New Deal; and the concomitant defection of liberal Democrats to the G.O.P. Running against recent defector to the Republicans, George McGovern, and once again against Progressive Party candidate Wayne Morse. Between the three presidential candidates, this was arguably the most liberal presidential election in United States history to that point; however Jackson chose as his running mate conservative Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Thurmond had publicly moderated his stance on race, which in the past had been pro-segregation, but maintained a great deal of legitimacy amongst conservatives of the South. Whilst George McGovern did manage to do well in several Midwestern states (largely due to his pro-farmer policies), the Jackson-Thurmond ticket was able to prevail in the South and much of the Northeast. Notably, Morse was able to win Jackson's home state of Washington, but the Progressives were unable to win any state outside of the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless, their share of the popular vote in Republican-held states was slowly but surely increasing, reinforcing the belief that the third party was here to stay.

Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, US President 1968-1976​

In his second term as President, Jackson continued to promote environmental legislation (although this often excluded logging due to close contacts in the logging industry) with mixed success. Relative to his first term, where he had been able to pass through a number of initiatives such as an increase in the intake of educated immigrants and promoting the construction of air travel infrastructure nationwide (no doubt this would have been welcomed by his allies in the aerospace industry), as well as the promotion of the technical sciences in education, his second term gave him less room to maneuver regarding domestic policy. Whilst his party had supported him in order to secure the presidency, his views were increasingly out of step with the consensus among the more right-ward leaning Democratic Party. As such, many of his pet projects were unable to get effective support, as his own party would often reject them, and Republicans who would otherwise be supportive of the policies didn't want a Democrat taking credit for them. As such, and knowing that this would be his last term, Jackson looked to foreign policy to define his legacy. Looking to maintain a technologically-advanced and robust military force, Jackson continued to promote the aerospace industry. His tenure was noticeable for limiting the production of long-range bombers but developing a large and advanced nuclear missile strike capacity; whilst America had spent much of the 1960s moving away from long-range bombers after the Goldsboro and Thule Incidents, Jackson diversified the nuclear strike capabilities of the United States, promoting a large nuclear attack submarine fleet and the continued development of MIRVs. Jackson was also instrumental in repairing relations with the French military junta. Whilst he couldn't convince the French and their neighbours to rejoin NATO, he did arrange and agreement whereby both alliances would have a permanent attache to the other, and would cooperate on military exercises. A particularly welcome olive branch that Jackson extended to the French was a technology-exchange programme with the French, despite some trepidation amongst the American military brass that they couldn't protect against Communist infiltration of French intelligence; Jackson retorted by saying the Russians would probably have an easier time infiltrating the American military. According to him all the communists in France were in one place; jail. Jackson's liberalism left him with little love personally for the European juntas, but he rationalised it as all part of being a superpower... many allies are unsavoury but necessary. With the focus of the Cold War superpower contest having shifted from Europe to the so-called "Third World", Jackson promoted good relations with the Andean Community of Nations, decreasing the US strangehold on the economies of many South American nations. This earned him a number of enemies within the intelligence community, especially the CIA. Where Jackson and the CIA did not differ on policy was in the promotion of economic development for US allies in Africa. Whilst the French and Italians maintained a great deal of influence in Tunisia and Libya, the United States provided generous aid packages for US-aligned states such as Morocco, Ethiopia, Benin, Biafra and Yorubaland. Under Jackson's leadership, the United States also turned a blind eye to South African and Rhodesian activities in Southern Africa. In Asia, the focal point of Jackson's policy was the maintainance of the US partnerships with Japan and the Philippines, as well as the solidification of an American alliance with Bharatiya to provide a South Asian counterweight to China's power in East Asia.

1974 saw the passing of Progressive Party leader Wayne Morse. His successor would be Mark Hatfield, who had been Morse's running mate in the 1968 election. Hatfield's personal political beliefs were fairly eclectic. He was in many respects very socially liberal, opposing abortion and the death penalty. He also strongly believed in economic growth, particularly centred around community-focused investments. Mark Hatfield would select Minnesota governor Wendell R. Anderson as his running mate. The Progressive ticket was still unable to truly challenge the two major parties, but the Hatfield-Anderson campaign continued the Progressive Party's upward electoral trajectory. However, the split in the liberal electorate between the Progressives and Republicans would allow the Democrats to maintain control of the White House in 1976. The 1976 election saw the Progressives perform well in the Northwest and parts of the Midwest. The Republicans, who put forward McGovern once again, with Edmund Muskie as his running mate, successfully took much of the Northeast. The Democratic Party put forward as their champion Alabama governor George Wallace, with Barry Goldwater as his running mate[193]. Wallace had claimed that he no longer supported segregation (a cause that by 1976 had been long dead) and that he was not a racist but had a long record of racist campaign advertisements in his gubernatorial campaigns. Barry Goldwater had found Wallace's racism personally very off-putting, but as a recent defector from the Republican party lacked the institutional connections to directly contest Wallace as a presidential candidate[194]. With the liberal voting base split between Hatfield and McGovern, the Wallace-Goldwater ticket was able to narrowly win the election, winning in the Deep South, parts of the Midwest and the American Southwest, including California as well as Michigan. Alongside official campaigning, the Wallace-Goldwater ticket had also benefitted from widespread grassroots promotion of their ticket from white supremacist groups such as the White Citizen's Councils and hyper-conservative organisations, for instance the John Birch Society.

Future President of the United States George Wallace, 1970​

President Wallace would institute a number of populist policies, including increases in social security and Medicare. He also tried to reduce the influence of the federal government which did in the short term reduce infrastructural development. Decreases on tax for low and medium-income workers also boosted his popularity, albeit at the expense of reducing government coffers. Wallace also removed the price controls on oil that had been maintained by Jackson throughout the early 1970s. Under Wallace, the pace of the liberalisation of society largely halted. The strongly conservative Wallace also pushed against radical minority ethnic organisations such as the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers and Brown Berets. In later years, his active involvement in the suppression of radical groups has come under criticism, as personal communications to higher-ups in the FBI encourage the use of extrajudicial violence against activists. For the most part, Wallace had little interest in foreign policy. He sought to encourage the leaders of US allies to take greater responsibility for funding their own defence; in particular he praised the French junta for taking their continent's destiny into their own hands. Wallace maintained a good relationship with the South African and Rhodesian government. When criticised from this, he simply denounced "commie pinkos who refuse the peoples of South Africa and Rhodesia their right to keep free from Communist tyranny!". The major foreign policy shift of the Wallace administration was the rapprochement with the United Arab Republic. Influenced by a number of notable anti-Semites in his former gubernatorial campaign, Wallace reduced support for Jewish interests in the Middle East. He also took advantage of growing discord in the relationship between the UAR and USSR as a result of continued Soviet support for communist parties in the UAR, as well as differences of agreement over policy regarding South Yemen, the Gulf and Iran. Oil prices in the United States dropped with an increase in supply due to the UAR exporting large volumes to America.

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[193] IOTL, George Wallace was shot in an assassination attempt in 1972. He was shot four times, with one lodging in his spinal column and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. ITTL the bullet that lodged in his spine hits him elsewhere, leaving him injured but not paralyzed. He thus has a better chance campaigning (looking less fragile) and gains a reputation as "bulletproof Wallace" amongst supporters. I also believe that this butterflies away his supposed religious awakening which in later years curbed his racism (or so he claimed).
[194]IOTL, in 1964 Wallace offered to defect to the Goldwater campaign if named running mate. ITTL that is butterflied away, and theres a reversal of the situation. IOTL Goldwater rejected the offer due to Wallace's racism, but ITTL he's desperate for a political opportunity and takes the opportunity of being Wallace's running mate.

 

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Key:
Red: Marxist-Leninist states with independent leadership
Light Red: Marxist-Leninist puppet states of USSR
Fuchsia: Nominally Maoist states (China and it's clients)
Light Pink: Asian socialist state with some Chinese influence (Burma)
Light Orange: Bharatiya
Light Peach: Bharati client states
Dark Green: United States
Slightly Lighter Dark Green: Members of NATO (which also includes UK) and OTO.
Medium Blue: France (slightly lighter shade denotes other members of Paris Pact)
Light Blue: Other American allies
Dark Navy: Pro-Western Sub-Saharan African countries
Mint Green: Pro-US Arab states
Tan Brown: United Arab Republic
Olive Green: "African socialist" states
Pink: UK and its colonial possessions
Dark Orange: South Africa and its allies and clients
Grey: Neutral states OR states contested between pro-Soviet and pro-Western factions
Yellow: Andean Community
Hot Pink: Left-leaning Caribbean states
Dark Brown: 'Traditionalist' African states
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The Somali peoples of East Africa's horn lay claim to a long and illustrious history; the most likely location for the fabled land of Punt, the long coastline of Somalia welcomed many foreign traders since time immemorial. The spread of Islam gave rise to a number of sultanates whose names litter the history books: The theocratic engineers of Ajuuraan, the conquering armies of Adal and the sophisticated statecraft of Majerteen were gone, but not forgotten. Having been divided between Britain, France, Italy and their historic enemy the Empire of Ethiopia, the Somali people looked forward to a future of unity and prosperity. The former territory of Italian Somaliland had been under British occupation until 1st April 1950. British troops had also, in response to please from Somali notables, transferred the ethnic Somali regions of northeast Kenya to Somalia after the break-up of the former. On 1st April 1950, administration of the former Italian Somaliland and the newly incorporated southern regions fell under the jurisdiction of the UN Trust Territory of Somaliland. It was under this administration that the iconic flag of Somalia, a five-pointed star on a light blue field, was adopted. Each point of the star represented a territory inhabited by Somalis: British, Italian and French Somaliland, the lands which had been formerly part of Kenya, and the Ogaden region ruled by the Ethiopian negusa nagast.

The 1st of July 1960 saw the independence of the Trust Territory and of the British colony of Somaliland, which immediately merged into a unitary state. The newly established Somali Republic was a parliamentary democracy, with an elected head of state and a prime minister who would hold full executive powers and be beholden to the national assembly. The first president of the republic was Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, who on 22nd July appointed Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as prime minister. Whilst a pan-Somali ideology was still predominant amongst the population and the political elite, some divides between the former British and Italian territories remained, largely due to the different approaches by the Italians and British in the governance of their colonies. Whilst the clans of the the country still held political influence, they held greater sway in the formerly British territory, where the colonial governors had left traditional hierarchies and social organisation intact. By contrast the Italians had consistently undermined native political power in a push towards modernisation. These divides became apparent on 20th July 1961, when Somalia ratified a new constitution. Whilst it was opposed by the majority in the north, the constitution passed due to overwhelming support in the rest of the country. The prospects for democracy in Somalia appeared much better than in the majority of their African neighbours. The Somalian public had a high level of public engagement, with politics reaching a degree of popularity matched only by football in the nations of Europe and Latin America. Having gained their independence at long last, Somalis were living in accordance with one of their long held cultural principles: that each man has a right to be heard. French Somaliland however, remained under the rule of Paris. A referendum held in 1958 on independence or staying part of France resulted in a retention of French sovereignty over the small coastal territory. The referendum was marred by manipulation by the French however. The population of the colony was divided almost equally between the Somali Issa clan and the Afar people who also inhabit parts of northern Ethiopia. The Afars largely voted for the French, concerned that they could be incorporated into Somali where they would be a tiny minority with little political sway. By contrast, the Issas voted for independence and unification with Somalia. The French effectively rigged the referendum results by expelling thousands of Issas that lived near the porous border with British Somaliland, ensuring that the pro-independence party would fail.

Mogadishu, capital of the Somali Republic, sometime in the 1960s​

At independence, the north of Somalia had two functioning political parties: the SNL which represented the interests of the Isaaq clan; and the USP, supported by the Dir and Daarood clans. The union of former British Somaliland with former Italian Somaliland diluted the political influence of the Isaaq clan, leaving them a relatively small minority. whereas the Daarood people allied with kin of theirs in the south, merging the USP into the Somali Youth League. The Dir were pulled between their traditional ties to the Hawiye on one hand and their common regional interests with the Isaaq, with their position depending on the relevant topic. Where government investment was concerned, they allied with the Isaaq to ensure investment in their northern region, but in other political battles they aligned with the Hawiye. The Somali Youth League was the ruling party, having been the first political party in Somalia and the one which had campaigned most actively for independence. The SNL and USP increasingly began aligning with the major opposition party of the south, the Greater Somalia League (GSL) which sought to build stronger ties with the Arab world and was militantly pan-Somalist.

Signs of discord between the south and the north continued, with a mutiny by a group of northern junior army officers in December 1961. The rebellion was put down without bloodshed and the mutineers arrested. In the aftermath, Haaji Muhammad Husseen of the GSL formed an amalgamated party, the SDU to exploit northern dissatisfaction. In May 1962, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal resigned from the cabinet and took many SNL followers into a new party, the Somali National Congress (SNC), which won widespread support amongst the northerners, competing with the SDU. The SNC became a viable political force in the south too with the incorporation of a dissident SYL faction composed of Hawiye clansmen. March 1964 saw the first post-independence national legislative elections, which were won by the Somali Youth League who achieved a narrow majority. The rest of the seats were divided between 11 other parties. In 1967 Shermarke was elected president. The next legislative elections were held in March 1969. The high level of political engagement and the low barriers to entry into party politics meant that the election was contested between 64 parties. A highly contentious election that resulted in a larger SYL majority was marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging and political violence which claimed 25 lives. There was a general perception that the SYL was becoming increasingly assured of their power and abusing it. Prime Minister Egal, who had rejoined with the SYL blithely dismissed accusations of corruption.

Tensions between the nascent Somali Republic and the Ethiopian Empire were always tense; centuries of warfare are rarely easy to forget, and Ethiopia had acquired vast tracts of Somali-inhabited land. These lands were then incorporated into the feudal social system in Ethiopia, burdening the locals with heavy taxes and appropriating land that would then be given to Christian Amharas. These policies resulted in two separate rebellions in June 1963: there was a peasant revolt amongst Oromo in the newly created Bale province, initially led by Kahin Abdi, who openly defied Addis Ababa and sparked a revolt amongst his fellow Oromo. He was soon eclipsed by another Oromo freedom fighter, Waqo Gutu. By the end of 1966, three-fifths of the province was embroiled in conflict. Waqo Gutu himself surrendered to the government in March 1970, and would be relocated to a villa in Addis Ababa, treated well as not to further inflame the Oromo. The one quarter of the population or so who were Somali in Bale province lended their support to the rebellion, encouraged by SYL cells within the province. Concurrently with the Bale revolt, an uprising commenced in Ogaden province, led by Mukthal Dahir, who had founded the SYL branch in Harar in 1946 and had played a key role in the short-lived 1949 Jijiga Revolt. After the 1949 revolt, Dahir had spent 10 years in Ethiopian prison before being released. He would be appointed district commissioner of Degehabur. At the time of Dahir's appointment, the Ogaden region was brimming with discontent. Just one year earlier, Imperial troops had massacred 150 residents of Degehabur in response to a petition by the region's leaders asking to be granted independence. On the 16th of June 1963, Ethiopian authorities attempted to introduce taxation to the province. The residents of the province and their ancestors had not been taxed for centuries. Incensing them at an already tense time, the Ethiopian attempts to impose their tax system sparked a region-wide rebellion. At Hodayo, a watering place near Werder, 300 men of the Nasrallah resistance organisation selected Dahir as their leader and took up arms against the central government. Over several months the insurgent ranks swelled as ordinary locals, embittered by the loss of family members, herds and homes to Ethiopian reprisal raids, flocked to the banner of the rebels. The Nasrallah rebellion ended up controlling 70% of the Ogaden territory, and spilling over the boundary into the Somali-inhabited parts of Bale province. This wide expansion of territory under rebel control was aided by the Ethiopian response to the hit-and-run attacks of the Nasrallah insurgents, limiting their movements to administrative centres and the roads between them, effectively abandoning large swathes of the countryside. Occasionally Nasrallah militants would escape from Ethiopian counterattacks across the border to Somalia. Whilst the Somali government were allies of the rebels, they had no actual control over the insurgents. Nevertheless, Haile Selassie and his government considered the rebels to be taking direct orders from Mogadishu due to their connections with the SYL. By August, the Ethiopian forces had regrouped and the 3rd Division of the Imperial Ethiopian Army swept back into the Ogaden. The Ethiopians quickly regained much of the territory, but were unable to entirely stamp out the insurgency. An eight-week bombing campaign was commenced on both sides of the Somali border. Due to the decentralised nature of the rebellion, it was impossible for the Ethiopian military to end the rebellion through targeted decapitation of Nasrallah leaders. Instead, they attempted to sever the insurgents from local civilian support through reprisal attacks, slaughtering the cattle herds of the largely pastoral Somalis of the countryside. A notable atrocity committed by Imperial Ethiopian forces was the "Kanone Massacre" at Degehabur. The town was bombarded by artillery positioned on nearby high ground, and afterwards Ethiopian troops engaged in a killing spree. Relations between Somalia and Ethiopia continued to deteriorate as refugees crossed the border from the Ogaden and clashes became more frequent between Somalian and Ethiopian border garrisons. This fighting would escalate, and both nations would declare a state of emergency. An undeclared war ensued, with Ethiopian warplanes bombing several Somali towns and the Ethiopian ground forces winning several skirmishes with the smaller and less well-equipped Somalian army. In April 1964 an armistice was signed which established a demilitarised zone along the border.

On 15th October 1969, Somalian President Shermarke was murdered by one of his bodyguards with an AK-47 when visiting the northern town of Las Anod. On the 21st, a single day after Shermarke's funeral, a military coup was commenced. Major government officials were rounded up and many of them imprisoned, with Prime Minister Egal being put in solitary confinement. The bloodless takeover was led by Major General Siad Barre, who put in power the Supreme Revolutionary Council. Notable members of the council included Mohamed Ainanshe Guleid, Mohamed Ali Samatar, Abdullah Mohamed Fadil, police chief Jama Ali Korshel and Salaad Gabeyre Kediye, who was secretly an asset of the KGB, code-named "OPERATOR". The Supreme Revolutionary Council declared the establishment of the Somali Democratic Republic. The new government banned political parties, dissolved the parliament and supreme court, and suspended the 1961 constitution. Guleid was officially granted the title of "Father of the Revolution". The next year, Siad Barre declared Somalia to be a socialist state with Islamic aspects and set upon the "Somalisation" of the country, intending to erode Somalian clan loyalties in favour of a united Somalian national identity. A power struggle amongst members of the Supreme Revolutionary Council resulted in the arrest and execution of Kediye and high-ranking military figure Abdulkadir Dheel in 1971. Siad Barre and his allies had acted under the assumption that Kediye and Dheel were planning their own coup. The veracity of this claim is unknown. Dheel and Kediye's executions by firing squad were done publicly in order to spread the knowledge that challenging the regime would be met with death. Siad Barre would promote the use of Guulwade ("Victorious Leader") as a moniker for himself and started to promote a cult of personality.

Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, leader of the Somali Democratic Republic​

The new revolutionary government began a large-scale public works campaign, the most notable of which was a major north-south coastal highway constructed with Chinese financial and technical assistance. Probably the most significant project for the new revolutionary government was a nationwide push to promote literacy. In 1972, the literacy rate was 5.4%. One of the major impediments to mass education in Somalia was the lack of a unified standard orthography. Traditionally, the well-educated and powerful classes wrote in Arabic, with some lower clerics using a system known as "Wadaad's writing", which adapted Arabic script to the Somali language. Wadaad's writing was somewhat clumsy and can be compared to shorthand English, fulfilling a similar role. In 1954, a Somali linguist, Musa Haji Ismail Galaal attempted to introduce a more radical modification of Arabic script to render the Somali language. Whilst looking at Arabic as a source script in order to promote ties between Somalia and the Arab world, Galaal's script had been rejected by religiously conservative Somalis, who viewed the alterations to Arabic script as an affront to the script of the Qur'an. A script called Borama had been conceived around 1933 by Sheikh Abdurrahman Sheikh Nuur of the Gadabuursi clan, but was only used locally. The Osmanya alphabet was relatively popular and fairly accurate. The most phonetically-accurate script was produced in 1952 by Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare and was the most phonetically accurate script. Nevertheless, it was eventually the Latin script that won out. During the parliamentary period an international commission of linguists had recommended the use of an adapted Latin script, but the government had been unwilling to make it the standard due to concerns about angering conservatives who considered it a heathen script and associated it with colonial domination. A common slogan by opponents to the introduction of Latin script was "Latin waa laa diin!" ("Latin is irreligion!"). The Latin script had nevertheless been used unofficially in the military for decades, as it allowed the same typewriters to write in Italian, English and Somali. It was much easier of course to acquire typewriters with the Latin script than commissioning specialised ones for writing scripts such as Osmanya (although such machines did exist). The conservatives were forced to grumble their displeasure quietly at home as to avert the wrath of the security forces under the Supreme Revolutionary Council regime. The revolutionary government engaged in a nationalisation campaign, seizing land and the small number of industrial enterprises in Somalia. Despite being a socialist state, they did allow small-scale private enterprise and entrepeneurship. Diplomatically, Siad Barre's government sought close ties with both the Arab world and with China. Somalia had long maintained a good relationship with the Soviet Union, as they were more forthcoming with financial and technical assistance than the United States had been. During the whole parliamentary democracy period, the USSR and its Warsaw Pact proxies had provided virtually all of the Somalian military's equipment. The execution of Kediye had made the Soviets somewhat apprehensive about the new government for a short time, but the relationship quickly warmed back up and Moscow accelerated arms sales, scientific and medical assistance to Mogadishu. In July 1976, Barre's SRC disbanded and established the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP), announcing the creation of a one-party government based on "scientific socialism" (Marxist-Leninism) and Islamic moral tenets.

 

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The Somali loss in the 1963-64 border war had not snuffed out the dream of Soomaaliweyn, a Greater Somalia uniting the Horn of Africa in a single state. Ogaden Somali notables that had fled to Somalia after the suppression of the Nasrallah insurgency had consistently lobbied the parliamentary and revolutionary governments for continued support. These groups were particularly influential on Siad Barre, due to belonging to the same clan family as him, the Darod. Whilst the first few post-revolutionary years had the Guulwade focus on internal considerations, particularly the undermining of potential opposition forces, by the mid-1970s he was making preparations for a rematch with the Emperor[195]. Between 1974 and 1977, the Somali Democratic Republic would receive over $300 million of military aid from the USSR and its allies. The Somali National Army (Ciidanka Xooga Dalka Soomaaliyeed, C.X.D.S) was no longer the anemic militia force that had stared down the Imperial Army across the border a decade earlier. Equipped with modern weapons and boasting one of the numerically largest armies in sub-Saharan Africa, it had been shaped into a formidable fighting force. Unlike most armies of the continent, it wasn't merely designed to suppress dissent either; most of its leadership were graduates of the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, and the presence of Soviet advisors kept it doctrinally modern. The air force had also been modernised, with pilots sent abroad to the United Kingdom, Italy, the USSR and the United States to improve their skill. The Somalis also purchased four Ilyushin Il-28 bombers and 29 MiG-21s; a further fifty MiG-17s were donated by the Soviets. Across the border, two resistance groups sponsored by Mogadishu were making preparations: the Western Somali Liberation Front (Jabhadda Xoreynta Somali Galbeed, JXSG) had been slowly recruiting since the late 1960s and was formed around a core group of veteran Nasrallah fighters. 1976 saw another organisation, the Somali Abo Liberation Front (SALF) announce its formation. SALF was an Oromo liberation movement which sought independence from Ethiopia and union with Somalia, despite the distinct ethnic identity of the Oromo. Both groups rapidly increased their recruitment and propaganda activities in 1975 and 1976, something that didn't go unnoticed by Addis Ababa.

On June 1977, JXSG guerrillas cut the vital Ethiopian railroad link between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. A month later, on July 12th, a full-scale invasion began, with the vanguard of the invasion disguised as Ogaden Somali guerrillas. This ruse fooled nobody, for where could the JXSG guerrillas, comprised of local goat and camel herders, have acquired modern fighter jets and main battle tanks? The C.X.D.S made rapid advances into the Ogaden region, winning several spectacular battles against the Imperial Ethiopian Army (IEA). Whilst the army of the negusa nagast was one of the only ones in Africa who could numerically match (and in fact, exceeded) the C.X.D.S, it was massively outmatched in terms of artillery and armoured vehicles and, even more importantly, was structured more towards the suppression of internal rebellions such as those of a decade earlier, or the ongoing rebellion in Eritrea, unlike the C.X.D.S, which was designed to defeat the Ethiopians in open battle. The JXSG guerrillas provided a further tactical advantage for the Somalis, providing up to date reconnaissance and could assist in the governance of occupied areas. In the 1960s the Ethiopians had the upper hand against the Somalis due to a massive numerical and equipment advantage. Now, they were being crushed by an enemy force that was a completely different beast. The IEA was unable to gain its footing as Somali tanks encircled them and stationary positions were hammered with heavy artillery bombardment. The only area where the Ethiopians were having some success was in the air. Despite having a smaller air force than the Somalis, the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force (IEAF) were an elite group, trained extensively by US advisors. With the only possible exception of South Africa, the IEAF fighter pilots were the most well-trained combat pilots in sub-Saharan Africa. They were able to give the Somalian air force a bloody nose, but were unable to establish air superiority. Whilst the skies were heavily contested, on the ground the C.X.D.S meet little initial resistance. Within a month, 70% of the huge Ogaden region was occupied by the Somali National Army. There were some early setbacks, most notably in the north, where the Somali National Army attempted a surprise attack on Dire Dawa (Somali: Diridhaba) on July 16th. The city was a key strategic target for the C.X.D.S. Whilst it had historic importance for the Somalis (it's name translates to "where Dir [ancestor of the Dir Somali clan] struck his spear into the ground"), the ethnically mixed Oromo-Somali city was in a key position on the railroad between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. Taking Dire Dawa would isolate the Ethiopians from outside support and resupply. The city was also home to the second-largest airbase in Ethiopia. Without it, the Ethiopians would lose the ability to contest the air in the whole northern half of the front. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the Ethiopian garrison was able to valiantly hold out until the arrivement of reinforcements from Harar. In part this was made possible by the efforts of the combat pilots in the skies above, who managed to defeat their Somali air force opponents and even mount a counter-strike, bombing the Somali airbase at Hargeisa, destroying a number of MiGs on the ground. The IEAF now had a slight numerical advantage to complement their qualitative edge. Without this victory in the air, the Ethiopians would have been unable to repulse the encroachment of the Somali T-55 tanks, their army's antiquated recoilless rifles harmless to the Soviet-made main battle tanks. Despite a brief scare when the Somali tanks managed to temporarily take the airport, a vigorous (and desperate) Ethiopian counterattack had managed to expel the Somalis.

Dire Dawa one year after the end of the war, note the bullet holes on the building to the right.​

On the diplomatic front, contentious debate raged in the chambers of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. African states were divided between support for Addis Ababa and Mogadishu. Socialist African states celebrated the Somali Democratic Republic for committing to a "national liberation struggle" whereas the Western-aligned states rejected the claim that Haile Selassie of all people, was an "imperialist oppressor". In the Security Council, vetoes were traded, with the US, France and United Kingdom proposing an immediate ceasefire and total withdrawal of Somalian troops, whereas China and the USSR proposed a referendum for independence for the Ogaden region. Knowing that this would likely result in the secession of the region from Ethiopia, the Western powers rejected this proposal. Both Somalia and Ethiopia aggressively lobbied for military aid; the Soviets agreed to sell Mogadishu more MiGs, whilst the Chinese offered small arms and ammunition shipments to Somalia free of charge. The Americans offered only token support; East Africa was not a key area of strategic interest for the Wallace administration. The French were more forthcoming. Believing that a Somali victory in the Ogaden War would turn their attention next towards Djibouti, Paris offered artillery pieces and shells, small arms and ammunition, and ten AMX-30 main battle tanks. These would take time to arrive, however, and in the meantime the Somali National Army was making gains.

Undeterred by the initial rebuke at Dire Dawa, the C.X.D.S regrouped and assaulted the town of Jijiga. A large tank battle took place outside the city, where 124 Somali T-55s were met by 108 Ethiopian tanks, mostly M47 Patton medium tanks and M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks. Not only were the Ethiopian tanks outnumbered, but the more modern T-55s were superior in virtually every category. The result was a crushing defeat for the Ethiopian armoured force; nearly half of their total number was destroyed entirely, with the remainder forced to withdraw and leave Jijiga to its fate. Early in the battle, a Somali artillery barrage had managed to disable the radar array atop Mount Karamara, limiting the ability of the IEAF to provide close air support. By September 12th, Jijiga had fallen into Somali hands. A day later, the Somali National Army secured the strategic Marda Pass on Mount Karamara. The path was now open to Harar, the city which the Somali Youth League had claimed should be the capital of a united Soomaaliweyn. Meanwhile, in the south, the Somalis were advancing to the edge of the Ethiopian plateau, breaking into the Oromo region of Bale province. Here the SALF was having some success with rallying local Oromo to support the offensive. Whilst not as universally-supported as the JXSG guerrillas were in the Ogaden, SALF had nevertheless been able to gain recruits from nationalist Oromo who hoped to see their Somali allies establish an independent Oromia [196]. Driving into the region with support from the SALF, who harried Ethiopian militia forces in the area, the C.X.D.S was able to dislodge the Ethiopians on this part of the front too, seizing the provincial capital of Goba. In order to further cement their control over the region, the Somalis established from the leadership of SALF the "Provisional Government of Liberated Oromia" (Oromo: Mootummaa Yeroo Oromiyaa Bilisoomte). In order to shorten the front, the C.X.D.S also pushed into the southeastern part of Sidamo province, taking Filtu and Kusa, but halted their advance in that sector.

Female fighters of the Western Somali Liberation Front​

Back in the north, the Somali National Army regrouped and reorganised, having been stretched by its rapid advances. Turning its sights to the city of Harar. A vigorous Ethiopian defense eventually crumbled under sustained Somalian attacks, although it took seven weeks to breach the defensive lines around the town. Harar would finally fall in December, after four months of sustained attack by the Somalian forces. As they marched into the town, the local Hararis sung songs in celebration, for they had suffered brutally under the imperial regime. Somali forces were informed by the locals of a mass grave on the outskirts of the city; it was filled with the bodies of locals who had attempted a spontaneous uprising against the Ethiopian troops stationed in the city. In response, the Somalis and their local Harari allies slaughtered en masse the captured Ethiopian soldiers. As the war was getting more desperate and brutal, war crimes on both sides were starting to pile up. Even in the occupied regions, notably in Bale Province, local SALF and JXSG guerrillas were committing massacres against towns of settlers from other parts of Ethiopia. Most grisly were the scenes at the Amhara settlements: rape and mutilation were commonplace, along with the desecration of churches. No abuse of the imperial regime had been forgotten, and local militants were ensuring that every slight would be returned in kind. This was the way of war in East Africa. In the time that the Somalis had needed to take Harer, the Ethiopians had raised a number of militia units and began to dig in at Dire Dawa and the approaches to the central Ethiopian highlands. February 6th 1978 saw a Somali offensive whose objective was to finally seize Dire Dawa, the last major strategic target outside of Somalian occupation. Whilst the Ethiopians were now dug in, the Somali forces had a secret weapon that their command believed would ensure victory in the Second Battle of Dire Dawa: a battery of Soviet surface-to-air missiles[197]. The 2K11 "Krug" and 2K12 "Kub" tracked missile launchers were expected to ensure air supremacy, allowing the Somali air force to bombard the Ethiopian defensive positions outside the town and, when combined with a massive artillery bombardment and an armoured assault, would prove decisive. They were ultimately correct, even though the fighting still took longer than anticipated, with the town finally falling on April 18th. Siad Barre sent out offers of an armistice to Haile Selassie, which would force him to relinquish control over Oromia, Haraghe and Ogaden, leaving only a rump Ethiopia. Unsurprisingly the offer was rejected. It looked like the Somalis would be forced to march on Addis Ababa, leaving the Emperor with no choice in the matter. After regrouping again, the Somalis launched a powerful push along a single axis of attack: pushing along the railway line from Dire Dawa to Nazret, just outside Addis Ababa. Despite the long frontline, Siad Barre's generals advised against a wide advance. The local populations of the highlands were largely hostile to the Somalis and would tie up massive numbers of troops with guerrilla warfare, and the terrain was difficult to advance through. There was a reason Ethiopia's period under European rule lasted less than a lifetime; the country was a natural fortress. Instead, the Somalis reasoned, a single column of advance could force through to Addis Ababa, albeit with fairly significant losses. It was hoped though that Somali artillery superiority, and the ability of the Soviet-supplied SAMs to limit the efficacy of Ethiopian airstrikes, would prove enough to prevent ambush along the route.

The march southwest for the Somalis would be grueling: the Imperial Ethiopian Army maintained strongpoints along the roads, making the invaders pay in blood for every kilometre taken. Dragon's teeth emplacements, barbed wire obstacles and minefields slowed the Somalian advance to a crawl. Somalian combat engineers trying to clear minefields were shot at by concealed snipers. This type of warfare couldn't look more different from the triumphant, rapid advance of the C.X.D.S in the first month of the war. Nevertheless, slowly but surely the Somalis continued their advance. The distance specks in the sky, the Ethiopian jets, rarely approached too close in fear of the state-of-the-art Soviet SAMs. Certainly not close enough to see that they were actually manned by Soviet "advisors". The Somalian artillery also proved its worth, softening enemy defensive emplacements and providing cover for Somali infantry by cratering the ground. In a way it also allowed for a form of ad hoc, if not entirely reliable, mineclearing. It wasn't until September 1978 that the Somali National Army was approaching the outskirts of Nazret. It was at this point that the Somalis got word that Haile Selassie, their hated foe, had passed away in his sleep at the age of 86 [198]. Whilst the Ethiopian government had tried to keep it quiet, the truth nevertheless spread quickly through Addis Ababa, with the locals publicly mourning the death of their beloved Emperor. Upon hearing of the news, Siad Barre celebrated. One thing that would be sure to ensue would be palace intrigues; the nobility of Ethiopia would surely backstab each other to gain influence over Haile Selassie's successor. Selassie would be succeeded by his thirty-five year-old grandson Zera Yacob Amha Selassie. With Haile Selassie dead and a political crisis about to brew, the Ethiopian Army tried one last gambit against the approaching Somalian forces: spearheaded by the French-supplied AMX-30 main battle tanks, the Ethiopians mounted a desperate armour and infantry offensive against the Somalis outside of Nazret. Forced to attack along a narrow front due to the terrain, it was a slaughter. Most of the tanks were disabled in the first few hours as a result of artillery barrages, whilst the poorly-trained but numerous Ethiopian militias charged directly into Somalian gunfire. Some of them managed to get close enough to the Somali lines, and casualties were heavy on both sides as the Ethiopians desperately sought to defend their capital against the invader. Overhead, the Ethiopian air force massed all its forces in a single desperate assault on the Somali column. Practically ignoring the enemy MiGs, the Ethiopians beelined it for the Somali tanks, managing to destroy many of them with air-to-ground missile fire before being shot down by SAMs or Somali warplanes. The explosions of jetfuel that climbed into the sky as the frontline infantrymen engaging in close quarters combat gave the scene an apocalyptic tilt; it was if the whole world had finally gone mad. Shrieks and warcries climbed bounced off the mountainous hills, drowned out by the sounds of modern technological warfare. Was it here that the warrior traditions of East Africa would consume themselves, finally buried under the tracks of tanks and a rain of missiles? The air overhead was empty of Ethiopian planes just as the Somali lines began to break under the Ethiopian onslaught. Then suddenly, almost imperceptibly amongst the din of battle, the shells began to whistle down, and rockets with them. Somali and Ethiopian troops alike where being torn asunder by the most concentrated air and artillery bombardment yet. And it was at this moment that some of the Somalian troops, the ones whose magazines hadn't entirely emptied and who weren't engaged in hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye combat with the hated Ethiopian enemy, came to realise a shocking truth; that the air and artillery bombardment that was killing their comrades was from their own side. They would be remembered as selfless martyrs, but they wouldn't be given a choice.

Siad Barre had personally ordered the counter-bombardment from a field command post at Dire Dawa. He expected the Ethiopians to desperately try to attack in force at least once before his troops arrived at their capital. In order to prevent the breaking of the line, drastic action had been necessary. He had hesistated little. The Somali National Army had more infantry in reserve, and the front rows were packed with Isaaqs anyway. For all of his talk of pan-Somalism, Siad Barre hated the Isaaqs. He was only a boy of ten years old when he saw his father murdered in front of his eyes by Isaaq clansmen. In his view, it was only right that they bleed more than most to unite the Qeexitaanada, the homeland. Anyway, the bombardment had worked. The Ethiopian assault was halted. The enemy was spent. They sued for peace and negotiations began. Despite their position, they had refused total independence for the Oromo lands. The Jackson highway went south through the Rift Valley Republic and into the Great Lakes region, and they refused to cede it. They did relinquish the entirety of Bale Province, including the Oromo-inhabited areas, as well as the small southeast parts of Sidamo occupied by Somalia. Almost the whole of the Harerghe region was annexed by Somalia, excluding the small Afar-inhabited area around Gewane. Dire Dawa, Harar, and Jijiga would of course become Somalian territory. Of course the Ogaden would be taken in its entirety too. This war had been long and hard, but in the end, it was a total victory.

Poster representing Greater Somalia (all irredentist claims)​

===
[195] ITTL, the Derg don't topple Haile Selassie's regime. Whilst still fairly feudal and majorly-underdeveloping certain areas, the economic situation is better than OTL, particularly in the Amhara-inhabited areas, largely due to a greater degree of investment in Ethiopia by the Jackson administration. This prevents the Derg from getting enough support to take power. More will be revealed in detail in a future update.
[196] IOTL the SALF was unable to garner much support due to a lack of credibility amongst the Oromo. Also, the Oromo were actually overrepresented in the Derg regime, leading most Oromo to side with Addis Ababa. ITTL, with an imperial Ethiopian government still in power, the Oromo are more enthusiastic about supporting the Somali advance.
[197] IOTL, with the Soviets aligning themselves with the Derg, the Somalis were unable to get resupplied, making their supply lines stretch earlier and eliminating their ability to get new equipment. Furthermore there is obviously no Cuban-Soviet intervention ITTL; where Cuba is not part of the Soviet bloc, and the Soviets aren't allied with a still-Imperial Ethiopia.
[198] IOTL he was murdered by the Derg in 1975.

--

Edit note: I had to change the usual format for the C.X.D.S acronym, as having X and D together would be converted by the site into a laughing emoji. Does anyone know how to disable this?

Edit: You'll also note that my world map didn't show the territorial changes from this conflict. That was an oversight on my part (sorry)

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

For more information about British politics (in the 1940s), see: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-3#post-8524822
===

The 1950 General Election in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland saw Clement Attlee's Labour Party cling onto power with a much reduced majority of five seats. The primary cause of this decline in population was a continued austerity programme. Despite the Second World War being over for five years at this point, rationing of petrol, sugar, milk and meat was still in effect. Whilst Attlee had been effective in the past at dealing with differences of opinion in his party, the contradictions had become to great to reconcile. An austerity budget had been put forward by Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell, who introduced charges for spectacles and dentures under the NHS in order to free up funds for increased military spending, necessary to maintain the British contribution to the intervention in China, where British forces operated in the Pearl River sector. This erosion of NHS services prompted a revolt by the left wing of the party, led by Aneurin Bevan, a Welsh MP who had strong ties to the miners' unions. Bevan resigned from his position as Minister of Labour. President of the Board of Trade Harold Wilson followed Bevan, handing in his resignation also. Hoping to salvage the situation, Attlee called a snap election in 1951. This backfired, with the Conservative Party narrowly defeating Labour, and Winston Churchill returned to the post of Prime Minister.

The third Churchill government largely concerned itself with foreign policy. Whilst the Conservative cabinet begrudging let Kenya go (it had little real value for the empire at this point), they did effectively suppress the ethnically-Chinese communist rebellion in northern Malaya. British intelligence was also instrumental, with US assistance, in the overthrow of the Mossadegh regime in Iran and the transfer of power to the Shah. Domestically, the only major area of concern for Churchill was housing. He appointed Harold MacMillan as Minister of Housing and Local Government who was tasked with ensuring the construction of 300,000 new houses per annum. Churchill also expressed some trepidation about a rise in immigration from the Caribbean. Labour shortages as a result of the Second World War required a great deal of new workers, and the British Nationality Act of 1948 gave the unintended consequence of encouraging West Indian migration to Britain (the act had originally been drafted with white Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians in mind). There was some opposition to this, both on cultural/racial grounds, and in some instances on labour competition rationales, but it cannot be doubted that this influx of migrants had a positive effect on British economic growth and on the provision of services to all Britons. The arrival of West Indian migrants in the early 1950s is often looked back as the point where Britain itself, rather than just the empire it had ruled over, became truly multicultural.

Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the House of Windsor, 1952​

On 6th February 1952, King George VI passed away after a battle with cancer. He was succeeded by his daughter, the 25-year old Elizabeth II. In April 1955, due to ailing health, Churchill stepped down, replaced by Anthony Eden. The popular Eden immediately called a general election, which the Conservatives won a greater share of the vote in than they had in 1951, thus legitimising his position. The 1950s would see the Suez Crisis, which made it apparent that the United Kingdom was no longer a superpower, but also ushered in an economic golden age. Unemployment remained extremely low throughout the decade, rationing was finally ended in its entirety and new consumer products such as televisions and washing machines became accessible to most Britons. Even jobs which required little to no qualifications saw a noticeable increase in wages, and by the onset of the 1960s Britons were on average one of the most affluent peoples in the world. Economic growth had been largely driven by adherence to Keynesian economic policies, which had proved very effective in the context that Britain found itself in during the 1950s. Despite this economic growth, the political fallout from the Suez Crisis forced Eden's resignation. His replacement, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold MacMillan, nicknamed "Super-Mac", continued to emphasise high levels of employment as the most important macroeconomic priority. This was in opposition to many of his ministers who sought strict control of the money base to curb inflation. In January 1958, all of MacMillan's treasury ministers resigned. Unperturbed, 'Super-Mac' described these events as "a little local difficulty". MacMillan attempted to utilise the newly-created National Incomes Commission to institute controls on income in order to promote economic growth without inflation. This policy failed due to the steadfast opposition of the Trade Union Congress, the largest trade union confederation in the UK. MacMillan was successful in bringing an end to conscription. The withdrawal of Suez had made it clear that the scope of independent British international security commitments would be limited, and as such it would be preferable for Britain to maintain a smaller, highly professionalised force. In the event of a Third World War, the British militaries would be integrated into an American-led command structure anyway, and a small agile army (the navy of course would remain rather formidable, and would be modernised in order to limit Soviet break-out capabilities through the GIUK gap and the Mediterranean) would be more cost-effective and appropriate for Britain's needs. Unintentionally, the end of conscription helped set the stage for the counter-culture youth movements of the 1960s by not exposing young British men to the social and behavioural conditioning intrinsic to the conscription process. MacMillan took a proactive role in foreign policy, seeking to heal the rift with Eisenhower that had arisen over the the Anglo-French intervention in Egypt. MacMillan's wartime friendship with Eisenhower proved useful to this aim, a high degree of trust between the two men smoothing over any policy differences. Aside from reaffirming Britain's commitment to the 'Special Relationship' with their Transatlantic friends, MacMillan's government also sought to manage the United Kingdom's transition away from imperialism, overseeing the independence of several former colonies, such as Ghana and Malaya. It was also during this time that the United Kingdom tested its first nuclear weapons off of the coast of Australia. 'Super-Mac' proved popular with the British public, winning the 1959 general election and increasing the Conservatives' electoral majority. In his second term, MacMillan negotiated the acquisition of American-made Polaris ICBMs, as British scientists had failed to create a viable natively-produced ICBM to function as a delivery system for Britain's nuclear weapons. The latter half of Super-Mac's prime ministership was marred by a number of disappointments, including the imposition of a seven-month wage freeze as a damage-control measure regarding Britain's balance of payments issues in 1961, and notably the inability to prevent De Gaulle from vetoing British entry into the EEC. This unpopular policy resulted in a number of by-electoral defeats, chipping away at the Tories' electoral majority. MacMillan would resign in 1963 due to health complications, although the concurrent Profumo Affair and the criticism it attracted may have hastened his resignation.

Harold "Super-Mac" MacMillan, British Prime Minister, 1956-1963 (Conservative Party)​

MacMillan appointed the Earl of Home, Alec Douglas-Home, as a successor. This was a highly controversial decision within the party. Several notable Tories argued that the elite Etonian "magic circle" shouldn't be the visible head of the party, and that it was necessary to have a younger, more modern leadership. Furthermore, polls had shown an increase in Labour support throughout the British electorate, and a literal aristocrat would appear to confirm the stereotype of the Conservative Party as a mouthpiece of the stuffy, out-of-touch landed gentry. Eventually convinced by dissident MPs, notably Enoch Powell, Iain McLeod, Reginald Maudling and Lord Hailsham, Deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler, after some vacillating, refused to serve under Douglas-Home[199]. Whilst Butler would remain a powerful figure in the Conservative Party, he would not be selected as to lead the party in the upcoming 1964 general election. That privilege would instead fall to MacLeod. The 1964 election would prove to be tightly-contested. The Labour Party of Harold Wilson, who had been bolstered by public dissatisfaction with MacMillan's second term, mounted a serious challenge to Conservative political dominance. Labour's platform emphasised greater coordination between state-run enterprises and the renationalisation of the steel and road haulage industries, but declared no further nationalisations. They also promised expansion of social services, tax reform and control of inflation (although they were unable to suggest any mechanisms beyond unpopular pay and price controls). Education was another area of emphasis for Labour, who sought comprehensivisation of secondary education and a later leaving age. With regards to immigration policy, Labour promoted a strict quota system, but with full legal equality and NHS privileges for immigrants already residing in the United Kingdom, such as the Caribbean migrants and the "Kenyan Asians" (people of Indian descent who fled the violence in Kenya). Labour's foreign policy platform was based around so-called "socialist foreign policy", requiring high human-rights standards for aid recipient-countries and criticising the Conservatives for the Aden Emergency and sales of arms to apartheid South Africa and Francoist Spain. The Conservatives also promised taxation reform, such as a decrease in personal income tax, and emphasised a "new Conservative Party" which would take the experience of the last thirteen years or so of leadership and infuse it with a modern, forward-thinking outlook. McLeod and his peers pledged an even closer transatlantic relationship with the United States, a continued deep involvement with the British Commonwealth, development of domestic nuclear power infrastructure, increased capital investment in industry to promote retooling of the British manufacturing industry to keep up with competitors such as the German bundesrepublik, and emphasised diplomatic successes such as the Kingston Agreement [200] and the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This election was noticeable for being one dominated by theatrics on both sides. Television became key to campaigning for the first time in British history. Although much tighter than in previous elections, the Conservatives were once again able to claim victory [201] but with a majority of a mere two seats. This slim a majority made governance extremely difficult, and McLeod actively engaged in a number of behind-the-scenes deals in order to secure a decrease to personal income taxes before calling a snap election in 1966. This had some success, granting the Conservatives a forty-seat majority, enough to push through most policies, although some of the more controversial ones, such as the decriminalisation of homosexuality, had to be left at the wayside. The McLeod government overall maintained the Keynesian economic approach which the past decade had seen, but improved productivity to a degree by allowing industrial firms to gain financial assistance for the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment. In response to French and German policies limiting imports from the United Kingdom, the McLeod government introduced a subsidy scheme regarding purchase of domestically-produced automobiles, effectively pushing French, German and American cars (aside from Ford, as it operated manufacturing plants in the UK) out of the mass market, and preventing Japanese automobile companies from getting a foothold in the UK market.

James Callaghan, British Prime Minister, 1970-1979 (Labour Party)​

The 1970 election saw Labour finally break the Conservatives' monopoly on power that had been maintained since the end of the Attlee government. Increasing discord within NATO between the French-influenced and American-loyal factions made the Conservatives' insistence on the wisdom of reliance on NATO for British security come into question. The Conservative Party had also taken a relatively hands-off policy regarding increasing communal tensions in Northern Ireland, which bothered many in Britain. Economic growth had started to slow, and balance of trade and overvaluation of the pound as a result of the Bretton Woods system continued to plague the British economy. With Harold Wilson losing the Labour leadership after the poor results in the 1964 and 1966 election, McLeod instead found himself campaigning against James Callaghan, who represented the 'right' of the Labour Party. Despite misgivings about the commitments to NATO, Callaghan's government remained in the alliance, seeing the French-led LDO, ran as it was by essentially a fascist junta, as a worse alternative. Callaghan oversaw the introduction of a 15% surcharge on imports to tackle the balance of payments deficit. The sudden price shocks experienced by ordinary Britons and the outrage it caused with Britain's trade partners saw the government announce that it was merely a temporary measure. The new Labour government increased income taxes beyond pre-McLeod levels, which did cause some consternation, as well as introducing a petrol tax, but they also increased the state pension and the widow's pension. Furthermore, a capital gains tax was introduced, which was popular with much of Labour's electoral base. The Callaghan government also saw the introduction of a short-term mortgage scheme which enabled low-wage earners to maintain mortgage schemes in the face of economic difficulties. This did a great deal to counteract the reputational damage done by an increase in income tax. Labour began to adopt policies they saw as part of an overall "economic rationalisation". The increase in oil prices pushed by the United Arab Republic and Venezuela did prompt economic difficulties, but the Callaghan government subsidised development of deep-sea drilling techniques to exploit the North Sea oil fields to counteract this trend in the long-term. Under the Labour government, the voting age was lowered to 18 from 21, which was implemented in the 1974 election[202]. Labour would win a second term. Despite an economic dip in the mid-70s, the economy was largely recovering by 1978, inflation dropped under 10%, employment was high and GDP growth was steady. The policy of pay restraint had helped push economic growth by limiting wage costs for businesses, but the trade unions were staunch opponents of this policy, and had influenced a handful of leftist Labour MPs to support them. Growing Labour unrest and strikes, largely concentrated in Scotland and the north of England, convinced Callaghan to hold the next general election in 1979 instead of 1978 as per the British custom of quadrennial peacetime elections. November 1978 to February 1979 saw the "Winter of Discontent", a wave of industrial action taking place during the coldest winter in years. The nominal cause for the unrest was the cap on pay rises, but there were other underlying elements: within the Labour Party there was disagreement on the future direction of British socialism and the trade unions attempted to reassert their past influence over the Labour Party in order to pull it back towards the left after eight years of centrism under Callaghan towards a more dirigisme-influenced system. It was also somewhat of a grassroots revolt against the Trade Union Congress, whose older leadership didn't reflect the rank-and-file, which was composed of a greater number of women and ethnic minorities than ever before. Left-wing Labour MPs blocked initial government attempts at introducing sanctions on the striking workers. The widespread industrial action led to several strange scenes, including a 300-passenger train being stranded near Stirling, Scotland due to heavy snow, and some towns being entirely cut off, only able to be reached by helicopter as infrastructure was largely unstaffed and as such shut down. Anger with the inconveniences caused by the strikes also led to occasional counter-demonstrations by non-union citizens. Eventually the strikes were lifted after pay rises averaging around 15%. Nevertheless, the events turned much of the British public against the trade union movement and paved the way for the 1979 Conservative victory, where Edward Heath would take the mantle of Prime Minister [203].

===
[199] IOTL, they were unable to convince Butler to refuse to serve under Douglas-Home, despite Butler's dissatisfaction regarding MacMillan's selection of Douglas-Home as his successor.
[200] TTL's equivalent of the Nassau Agreement, where the UK was able to get Polaris missiles from the USA.
[201] IOTL Harold Wilson's Labour Party narrowly defeated the Conservatives under Douglas-Home in the closest-contested election in British history; IOTL 900 individual votes made the difference between a Labour victory and a Conservative one.
[202] IOTL it occurred in 1969.
[203] Thatcher was able to become Conservative leader IOTL because of Heath's failure in the 1974 elections, despite being incumbent. In this case, he wasn't ousted from party leadership due to not being an incumbent PM; the other Tories largely assume the failure to win is not entirely Heath's fault.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

For more information about Yugoslavia ITTL, see here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-5#post-8724771
===

Crisis had been averted in 1948; the Hungarian and Bulgarian armies hadn't crossed the border after all. Stalin had tested the resolve of Tito personally, but also his top lieutenants. No putsch had been forthcoming to oust the man who had led Yugoslavia's valiant resistance to fascist occupation. Unsurprisingly, given the political climate, Tito's proposal for a united Balkan federation failed. Whilst Albania had been incorporated into Yugoslavia, Dimitrov's Bulgaria was too submissive to Soviet domination. Any proposal Stalin would entertain would inevitably mean the loss of all autonomy and self-determination for Belgrade. The Tito-Stalin split would result in one of the darker periods in post-war Yugoslav history. The 'Informbiro period' was characterised by the imprisonment of political dissidents, motivated both by concerns over the possibility of a pro-Stalin coup and by remaining separatist sentiment. The Axis occupation of Yugoslavia during the Second World War had many collaborators: the hyper-violent fascist Ustaše of Croatia; the Slovene Home Guard; Muslim Bosniaks were recruited to SS divisions and to the pro-Ustaše Hadžiefendić Legion and a pro-Germany military government had been established in Germany, supported by groups such as the Black Chetniks. Aside from Axis collaborators, there were also Slovenes, Croats and Serbs who sought either independence from Yugoslavia, or the restoration of the old Serb monarchy. In 1949, the island of Goli Otok was converted into a prison camp. Literally meaning "barren island" in Serbo-Croatian, Goli Otok was also known as the "Croatian Alcatraz". Thousand of political prisoners would labour here, under the unforgiving hot sun on the shadeless rock as well as being lashed by the cold and violent bora wind coming south from the Alps. A neighbouring island, Sveti Grgur, held female prisoners. At a higher level, Josip Broz Tito and his interior minister, Aleksander Ranković moved against unreliable elements in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ). The first targets were Andrija Hebrang and Sreten Žujović. Hebrang had operated as Vice-President of ZAVNOH, the anti-fascist administration of Croatia during WWII. ZAVNOH had drawn the ire of Broz, having adopted a number of resolutions opposed by the central communist leadership. One of these was the acceptance of religious education as a mandatory subject in schools, whilst another was attempting to construct an independent Croatian telegraph agency. After the war, Hebrang was in charge of formulating the first Five Year Plan. Disagreeing with Kardelj, who wanted to focus on light industry, instead Hebrang oriented economic activity towards industry that specifically served agricultural needs. As relations with Moscow deteriorated, Ranković and Tito suspected Hebrang of being Stalin's prime candidate to replace Josip Broz. Hebrang was blacklisted from the party, arrested and accused of being a spy both for Moscow and for the Ustaše during the war. Hebrang would die in prison under suspicious circumstances, although the government claimed that the veteran revolutionary had killed himself in custody. Žujović, a Serb communist and Minister of Finance in the postwar government, openly supported Stalin and was passing on information to the USSR. In the same week as Hebrang's imprisonment, Žujović was arrested and forced to conduct self-criticism. He would be released from prison in 1950 and allowed back into the party, although he would never have a notable position again. In the Informbiro period, the epithet "Cominformist" was applied to real or perceived supporters of Stalin. Thousands were imprisoned, exiled or killed, many of whom were innocent. It wasn't uncommon for quarreling neighbours to report to their local party headquarters fabricated stories about espionage and wartime collaboration. Ranković established a specialised anti-Cominform unit in the State Security Administration (Uprava državne bezbednosti, UDBA). In 1948, over 55,000 members of the KPJ were also members of the Cominform, comprising one-fifth of total party leadership. Larger concentrations of cominformists were found in Montenegro and Serbia, the most traditionally Russophilic regions of Yugoslavia. Aside from just the party, a number of purges were also carried out on the military and within the UDBA itself to root out Soviet sympathisers.

Aleksandar Ranković, Yugoslav State Security Chief​

The new policies towards the USSR and suspected disloyalty in the population inevitably generated opposition. Col. Gen. Arsenije "Arso" Jovanović, chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army was killed attempting to escape to Romania with other Montenegrin dissidents after an abortive coup attempt. Around 5,000 Yugoslav émigrés lived outside of the country and were against the Titoist government. Notably, very few defected to the West. The majority weren't opponents of communism, but rather sought the "resatellitisation" of Yugoslavia. Initially the Yugoslav ambassador to Romania, Radonja Gabulović was the de facto leader of the Yugoslav émigrés, but by late 1949, Major General Pero Popivoda (who had been head of the Yugoslav air force operation service), who had flown from Yugoslavia to Romania, was the official head of an émigré organisation. This organisation, in typical Stalinist fashion, had a very long-winded name: the "League of Yugoslav Patriots for the Liberation of the Peoples of Yugoslavia from the Yoke of the Tito-Ranković Clique and Imperialist Slavery". The Soviet government supported efforts by this émigré Stalinist faction: in Prague and Moscow anti-Titoist newspapers were published in Serbo-Croatian (Nova borba, "New struggle" and Za socijalističku Jugoslaviju "For a Socialist Yugoslavia", respectively) and "Radio Free Yugoslavia" pumped out anti-Tito propaganda from stations in Bucharest. Military personnel among the émigrés were organised into "international brigades" and stationed on the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian borders with Yugoslavia, poised to invade if the opportunity arises. The Soviet allied states blockaded their borders with Yugoslavia, and around eight thousand border incidents occurred between 1948 and 1953. A cominformist uprising occurred in Montenegro in the summer and autumn of 1948. By 1950 these rebellions were defeated by a specialised UDBA taskforce under the command of Komnen Cerović. Two other notable rebellions occurred during this time: a rebellion by ethnic Serb former army officers and partisan veterans in the Krajina region of Croatia and a multiethnic peasant rebellion at Cazin in Bosanska Krajina, both of which were suppressed.

The diplomatic rift that emerged between Belgrade and Moscow posed a number of challenges for the Yugoslav economy. Already a largely agrarian country prior to the Second World War, the devastation wrought by the Axis occupation left Yugoslavia with little native industry. In the immediate post-war years, Yugoslavia had to provide raw materials, both agricultural and mineral, to the Soviets in exchange for machinery and processed goods. There was also a shortage of skilled labour. Restrictions on Soviet-Yugoslav trade imposed by Stalin forced Tito and his government to pursue greater self-sufficiency, but this would take time. Economic difficulties were exacerbated by market shortages due to the military's need to stockpile fuel and food in case of Soviet invasion, as well as by poor harvests in 1948, 1949 and 1950. June 1948 saw the Yugoslavs make a deal with the United States. Access to the Yugoslav gold reserves held in the United States would be granted to Belgrade, with the opening of trade relations. Yugoslavia would also export strategic mineral resources to America. The Americans provided a number of technical instruments allowing the construction of a blooming mill, as well as mobile repair stations and tractor tyres. In August 1949, when the Soviet blockade had come into full effect, the Export-Import Bank of the United States provided its first loan to Belgrade. The United States was determined to "keep Tito afloat" in order to undermine Stalin's dominance over the Eastern Bloc. Washington also provided large quantities of food aid to prevent famine in Yugoslavia. 1950 saw the introduction of an embryonic form of worker's self-management (radničko samoupravljanje) in Yugoslavia. As a result of these economic pressures, growth wouldn't actually occur in the Yugoslav economy until 1952.

Yugoslav worker contributes to reconstruction efforts in Belgrade (for the cameras anyway)​

Alongside economic and diplomatic challenges, a major point of consternation was the constitutional composition of the Yugoslav state. The introduction of worker's self-management would require constitutional changes to ensure political representation for these economic entities. Alongside debate over what exact form this representation would take was an issue that had divided Yugoslav politics since the royalist era, namely the question of centralisation. Proponents of centralisation sought a diminishment of national boundaries within the state in order to promote a shared Yugoslav identity over local nationality. It would also have the effect of creating smaller sub-national units, easier for the central government to dominate. Aleksandar Ranković put forward a proposal in 1949 to divide Yugoslavia into over thirty oblasts along the lines of the 1921 Vidovdan Constitution. This proposal was rejected after vociferous opposition from Slovene and Croat representatives. At the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1952, decentralisation would become official policy and the party was rebranded to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije, SKJ). Constitutional amendments adopted in January 1953 would establish the Federal People's Assembly, an entity with two houses: a Federal Chamber representing the regions, and a Chamber of Producers representing economic enterprises and worker organisations. The executive branch of government held direct control only over national-wide and foreign affairs concerns. Democratic centralism, a tenet foundational to most Marxist-Leninist states, was abandoned.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

As the noose drew tighter on the Nazi war machine, with the western Allies advancing into the Rhineland and massive Soviet armies pushing past Poland towards Berlin, a mass withdrawal of German troops from the Balkans was commenced to protect the German heartland. Alongside them were masses of collaborators from the myriad ethnicities of Yugoslavia. The largest of these groups was the Croatian ultranationalist Ustaša, whose barbarity had left even the likes of General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau and the Gestapo aghast. There were also representatives of other groups fleeing towards Austria, including the Slovenian domobranstvo ("Home Guard") and the remnants of the Serbian State Guard (Srpska državna straža), whose ranks had been thinned by the Ustaša during their retreat through Croatia. In hot pursuit were Tito's multinational Yugoslav partisans. Although elements of the Slovenian domobranstvo and the stragglers of the Serbian State Guard were able to surrender to British forces in Austria, the British refused to accept the surrender of Ustaša columns, directing them instead to surrender to the Yugoslav partisans. A deal was also struck with the Yugoslavs to a phased repatriation of Slovenes and Serbs in their custody. Elements of the Croatian Armed Forces surrendered, whilst other units refused to surrender to the multinational Yugoslav force, resulting in their complete destruction. Repatriations by the British ceased after reports of death marches and massacres of Ustaša and domobran troops that had been handed over. The majority of the Serb and Slovene captives as such were not handed over to Tito's forces.

Croatian propaganda poster encouraging Croats to join the battle against the Soviets, WWII vintage​

High-level members of the Ustaša regime, including the Poglavnik (leader, akin to führer) Ante Pavelić were not so naive as to expect negotiated clemency from Tito. These figures, often with assistance from the Vatican, were spirited away via so called "ratlines" to other Catholic countries, most notably Spain and Argentina, where they were welcomed by the Franco and Perón governments. The Croatian emigre population in Australia was also swelled by post-war arrivals. Notably, the American and New Zealand Croatian communities didn't experience the same influx of Ustaša-associated Croat migrants. Rather than keeping their heads down, the exiled Ustaša sympathisers immediately began political and communal organisation seeking to undermine the Titoist regime in Yugoslavia. After arriving in Argentina in November 1948, Pavelić, assuming the name "Pablo Aranjos", worked as a security advisor for Juan Perón. He also cultivated connections with the Croatian Argentine community and other non-Croat Axis exiles with the assistance of Vinko Nikolić and physician (and friend of Eva Perón) Branko Benzon, both former Ustaša. Pavelić's location became international knowledge with the 1950 amnesty granted by the Argentine government to various Axis exiles. Aside from Pavelić, an additional 34,000 Croat (and Bosniak) emigres were allowed to stay permanently. For security reasons, however, Pavelić changed his name again to another pseudonym, "Antonio Serdar". By the end of the 1940s, the geographically-dispersed Ustaša emigre movement was beginning to splinter. However, this phenomenon was slowed by the temporary appearance in Rome of Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburić, who had been residing in Spain under the name "Maximilian Soldo" after commander of the Spanish Blue Division Agustin Muñoz Grandes assisted him with building a new life. Luburić had been the key architect of the intensive Ustaša terror campaign during the Second World War. Not only had he been the architect of the death camp system in Croatia, including the infamous Jasenovac, but he had committed atrocities himself, murdering Serb villagers with his own hands on at least one occasion. The mere appearance of him in Rome was enough to intimidate the emigres who dared to challenge the Poglavnik's authority. On 10th April 1951, the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), Pavelić announced the creation of the Croatia State Government (Hrvatska Državna Vlada, HDV), which styled itself as a government-in-exile. By this point, another Croatian independence organisation, the Croatian National Committee (Hrvatski Narodni Odbor, HNO-J) had existed for a year, based in Munich and led by Branimir Jelić. Jelić's group would contribute to the production of Croatian nationalist literature, but would have less impact than other groups. A claim that has not yet been verified is a claim by Jelić that the Soviets provided him funding to undermine Tito. Jelić was known as an eccentric and had a tendency to spin tall tales, so this is unlikely. In any case, if Soviet funds were provided to the HNO-J, it was not money well-spent. A more significant challenge to Pavelić's primacy would come from his metaphorical and literal hatchet man Luburić. A 1954 meeting in Buenos Aires between Ante Pavelić and former royal Yugoslav (and therefore Serb) Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović aimed at coming to a mutual arrangement between Croat and Serb exiles for a partition plan of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a prerequisite for a kind of united front against Tito would outrage Luburić and many other Croatian nationalists. Their objective was, after all, the resurrection of the NDH with complete wartime borders, which included the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina and even parts of Serbia. Some amongst them also sought the annexation of the Sandzak region, which had a significant Muslim population. Ceding territory to the Serbs in order for their assistance would be seen as nothing less than national betrayal by Luburić and other extreme ethnonationalists. The attempted extermination of Serbs on the territory of the NDH during the war had been a central tenet of the Ustaša movement. In their minds Yugoslavia as a project was a mechanism for the domination of the Serbs over the other Yugoslav ethnic groups (no matter than Tito himself was of Slovenian and Croat heritage). Though the Pavelić-Stojadinović rendezvous failed to lead to any collaboration between the two anti-communist movements, even considering it was enough to disillusion the even-more-extreme wings of the Ustaša movement from Pavelić. Formalising his split from Pavelić, Luburić established his own emigre organisation, the Croatian National Resistance (Hrvatski Narodni Odpar, HNO-L). Interestingly, from 1957 Luburić would start to advocate for "national conciliation" between pro-Ustaša and pro-communist Croats. His motivations for such a policy is uncertain. Was he a more hardline ethnonationalist than even Pavelić, but less anti-communist? Was he just trying to appeal to a wider range of Croats? Was he seeking a way to ingratiate himself with socialist Croats still in Yugoslavia but dissatisfied with perceived Serbian primacy? No matter the motivation, it was a risky stance to take, as his championing of the idea that a revived NDH should become a neutral state and a buffer between the Soviet and Western blocs was poorly received by hardliners (as always with the Ustaša, this is a relative term as essentially the whole movement is extremist in nature), particularly the burgeoning Australian Croat militant movements.

Ante Pavelić in hospital, 1957​

As a reaction to Luburić's establishment of the HNO-L, Pavelić and his followers founded the Croatian Liberation Movement (Hrvatski Oslobodilački Pokret, HOP) in order to have their own mass diaspora movement to complement the HDV. In July 1957, Pavelić was badly wounded after being shot by Blagoje Jovović, a hotel owner and former officer in the royal Yugoslav army[204]. During the war, Jovović had fought as a member of the Montenegrin Četniki, and had been recruited as an asset by UDBA and provided with knowledge about the true identity of Antonio Serdar[205]. Jovović himself was shot in the assassination attempt by unseen persons, but was able to temporarily escape, although he was later apprehended by police. When Pavelić was taken to the hospital, his true identity became apparent to police investigators and was leaked to the press. The presence of yet another fascist exile in Buenos Aires reflected poorly on Argentina, and the new Arumburu government agreed to extradite Pavelić back to Yugoslavia. Pavelić attempted to flee but his diminished mobility left him unsuccessful. Back in Yugoslavia, Pavelić was interned in solitary confinement on Goli Otok before being transferred to Belgrade and executed. The execution of Ante Pavelić was broadcast as news throughout Yugoslavia, and a long-winded list of the crimes of Pavelić himself and of the Ustaša regime were read out. Whilst the execution of Pavelić was seen as a triumph by Tito and his government, it did prompt a few unfortunate incidents: a pro-Ustaša rally in the Western Herzegovina town of Lištica prompted a violent police response which saw hundreds arrested and week-long rioting; in the Croatian Krajina town of Knin (famously the medieval capital of Croatia) which was predominantly Serb-inhabited, outrage at the crimes of the Ustaša led to attacks by nationalist Serbs on Croat inhabitants. The police, who were primarily composed of ethnic Serbs, largely turned a blind eye as Croat businesses were vandalised and Croat men beaten in the streets by roving gangs of Serb youths. The authorities finally responded after Croat vigilante groups started forming and engaging in reprisal actions. After weeks of low-level communal violence in Knin, the Yugoslav military was deployed. Belgrade had determined that the military officers be of neither Serb nor Croat ethnic origin, and the largely Slovenian force was able to quickly restore order. On the request of Tito himself, ringleaders on both sides were rounded up and imprisoned. An uneasy peace returned to Knin.

With the death of Pavelić, Luburić attempted to establish himself as the undisputed primus inter pares of the Croatian nationalist movement. He attempted unsuccessfully to gain control of the HOP in order to fold it into the HNO-L, but Pavelić had named Stjepan Hefer as his successor. Hefer was killed by a carbomb in Buenos Aires in 1959 [206]. The assassination of Hefer was assumed at the time to have been committed by the UDBA, but Luburić had in fact ordered the killing in order to strengthen his seniority amongst the Croatian separatist exiles. Luburić wrote long-winded pleas in the various Croatian emigre newspapers and magazines for unity amongst the Croat diaspora and courage against the ever-present threat of "Titoist criminality and gangsterism". Having increased his influence over the Croat diaspora on both sides of the Atlantic, Luburić began to establish contacts with military and political figures throughout Europe. Already having close contacts with Spanish military figures, Luburić also cultivated relationships with the French military junta as well as eliciting clandestine funding from the Bonn government in the FRG. HNO-L training camps were established in Algeria under the auspices of French Foreign Legion training (some Croats would stay in the Legion), and thee HNO-L also engaged in organised crime in Munich. A bombing campaign in Munich against anti-Ustaša Croat community centres and businesses in the city went on with little interference from police. It was only decades later that an investigative journalist would discover that high levels of the government and police forces had been complicit in this bombing campaign, believed that it would root out UDBA spies and Titoist sympathisers among the gastarbeiter Croats in Germany. In 1963 Luburić established a newspaper called Obrana ("Defense") where he published articles relating to guerrilla warfare and military training.

In far-away Australia, similar militant organisations sprung up amongst the recent Croat and Bosniak immigrants. Whilst Croatian immigration to Australasia had been ongoing since the late 19th century, the sudden influx of a large and politically-motivated group of immigrants changed the face of the Croatian diaspora community in Australia forever. The post-war economic boom experienced in Australia had created a sudden demand for unskilled labour, and unable to receive sufficient numbers from the preferred Anglo-Saxon world, the Australian government allowed a large influx of southern Europeans, predominantly Greeks and Italians, but also Yugoslavs and Maltese. The Croats and Greeks began establishing community organisations, largely built around their churches and football clubs, which actively criticised the communist governments in their homelands[207]. The most notable Croat organisation emerging at this time was the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (Hrvatsko Revolucionarno Bratstvo, HRB) established in 1961 by Miroslav Varos and former Ustaša officer Geza Pašti, who splintered off of HOP due to dissatisfaction with their lack of extreme action. The HRB was the most extremist of the Croatian emigre organisations. Whilst less well-financed and equipped than the HNO-L, the HRB was extremely active. Like the HNO-L, the HRB engaged in violence within the Yugoslav community in Australia, supported by ASIO, the Australian military intelligence organisation, who even allowed them to operate training camps on Australian territory. Like the government of the FRG, the Australian government was suspicious of the Yugoslav diaspora that weren't Ustaša sympathisers. Even before the post-war influx, Croat and Serb Australians had been notable members of militant labour organisations in key industries such as mining, and many of these figures were wrongly assumed to be communists and/or Titoist spies and agitators. ASIO therefore supported HRB as a means of suppressing left-of-centre Yugoslavs in the diaspora. The HRB also engaged in a number of assassinations of diplomatic officials and several armed infiltrations into Croatia itself, attacking security forces in unsuccessful attempts to spark a widespread nationalist uprising. UDBA engaged in counter-assassinations when they could track down HRB notables in Europe, killing Pašti in Nice in 1965 and Marijan Šimundić in Stuttgart in 1967. Croatian extremist activity in Australia accelerated after 1969. Youth organisations were established to cultivate recruitment, and bombings were expanded to target Yugoslav and Soviet embassies, Yugoslav trade and tourism agencies, cinemas showing Yugoslav films and especially Serbian Orthodox churches. October 1970 saw a bomb attack on the Yugoslav consulate in Melbourne. On 16th September 1972, two coordinated blasts on a busy afternoon Sydney's George St. injured 16 passersby. The George St. bombings marked a shift in the attitude of the Australian government to the Croatian radical movement. Instead of targeting just other Yugoslav immigrants, these bombings impacted other ordinary Australians. It also prompted tension between New South Wales police and the federal government, with the ruling Liberal party denying the existence of a Croatian ultranationalist underground in Australia. Notably, at this point Ustaša notable Fabijan Lovoković was an influential Liberal party member. Community football clubs were also involved in nationalist violence. Ethnic-based football clubs were and remain a significant focal point for Southern European migrants and their descendants in Australia. 1972 saw a lifetime ban (later commuted to a couple of years) of Melbourne Croatia, a football club managed by Enver Begović, a former soldier in the SS-Handschar Division, due to attacks on pan-Yugoslav team Footscray JUST and a pitch invasion during another game against a Jewish team.

Aftermath of George St. bombings in Sydney, 1972​

A lesser known but still significant Ustaša exile formation was established by Džafer Kulenović. Known as Džafer-Beg by his supporters, Kulenović was a Muslim from the small village of Kulen Vakuf, a small settlement in the shadow of the Ostrovica castle on the border between Croatia and Bosnia. Kulen Vakuf had a history of producing notables from the Bosnian Muslim community, including Mehmed-Beg Kulenović, a Bosnian folk hero who was killed assisting the Ottoman suppression of the First Serbian Uprising in the 1806 Battle of Mišar. Džafer-Beg himself had been Vice President of the NDH, and had escaped to Italy as the Second World War drew to its close. Living there until 1948, Kulenović relocated with his family to Damascus, Syria, where he would continue to write, promoting the interests of "Croatian Moslems" to the rest of the Muslim world. Like other Muslim Ustaša, Kulenović rejected the idea of a separate Bosniak nationality, seeing his people are simply Muslim Croats. Kulenović was a founding signatory to the HOP, although his distance from Buenos Aires limited his influence on the movement. Nevertheless his writings would see wide publication amongst the various Croat independence organisations. Passing in 1956, Džafer-Beg's work would be continued by his son Nahid, who would end up forming connections amongst elite circles in the United Arab Republic, a source of tension between Josip Broz and Gamel Adbel Nasser[208].

It was time. The old man needed to die today. Ilija Stanić sat across the table from his godfather, Vjekoslav Luburić. A seemingly normal man of fifty-five years, few would suspect that this man was a butcher. That he had overseen the slaughter of countless men, women and children. That all of the horrors of Jasenovac and the other hellish killing grounds were due to him. The pervert priest Fra Satana, the srbosjek competitions where Ustaša sadists would see who could slit the most Serbian and Jewish throats with agricultural knives. The burning villages and the orgiastic whirlwinds of sexual and physical violence meted out on innocent civilians. The black uniformed animals masquerading as men. Stanić's father had been complicit in all this. After all, he named Luburić his godfather. The UDBA had told him about these things. He didn't believe them at first, but the files were full of evidence. Photographs of mutilated bodies; children's throats cut and sat up against walls like dolls, women covered in cigarette burns and knife wounds on their breasts and elsewhere. The images flashing in his mind's eye made Ilija's blood boil. But despite all this, Stanić wasn't sure that he had the courage to cross the Rubicon and kill him. Not only the stress of attacking him, but what about reprisals? The UDBA had told him to put some of their poison in his coffee. He would appear to have died from a sudden sickness and no-one would be the wiser. As the minutes dragged on, Luburić complained of feeling unwell, and wandered over to the sink vomiting. Stanić expected him to collapse. What to do now? He's vomiting it up! Stanić looked down at his right hand, quivering with panic. He stood up and went to the utility closet and grabbed a clawhammer. His hands still shook as he gripped the handle tightly. Walking back into the kitchen, Luburić turned to him. His eyes widened as he saw the hammer in Stanić's hand. He stumbled towards the knife stand, one hand on his abdomen as his organs coiled in pain. Ilija rushed forward, his hip pushing the kitchen table to the side. He raised his hammer to strike the killing blow, but as the hammer came down Luburić shifted to the side. The hammer landed on the hard cap of Luburić's shoulder, and Stanić felt the neurons in his brain exploding with a sudden pain. He tried to scream and couldn't, blood choking him. And then he realised. His godfather had driven a knife in his throat. His legs collapsing under him, Stanić gasped desperately and pulled the knife out of his throat, and then immediately realising his mistake. He looked up at his godfather's grim face, and Luburić sat down on a chair still gripping his gut. Stanić's blood gushed out onto the kitchen floor, and the darkness at the edge of his vision enveloped his eyes. [209]

On April 20th 1969, Luburić survived an assassination attempt by his godson Ilija Stanić. The HNO-L and HRB saw the Croatian Spring of the early 1970s as an opportunity to take advantage of an upswing in open nationalistic displays in Croatia but were unsuccessful in prompting an insurrection. HNO-L and HRB infiltrations engaging in sabotage and attempting to provoke an uprising failed. Nevertheless there were two major events of Croatian ultranationalist terrorism within the Yugoslav borders during this period. The first, Operation Morski Dvor, was a two-pronged raid by French-trained HNO-L on the naval base at Vis, which failed and the commandoes were captured or killed. The second, Operation Tomislav, was an attack by HRB militants on the 1979 Mediterranean Games, hosted in Split. 26 athletes and officials were taken hostage by the Australian Croat militants. An initial attack by Yugoslav special forces had to be aborted and two officials were killed in reprisal. Eventually an Austrian mediator was flown in who negotiated a settlement with the HRB, allowing the militants to leave for Italy and compelling the Yugoslav government to release a small number of Croat prisoners from Goli Otok, also to be sent to Italy. None of the athletes were killed but the humiliation of the Yugoslav police and government saw them redouble their assassination efforts amongst militant notables in the Croat diaspora.

===
[204] IOTL, Pavelić was shot by Jovović on April 10th 1957. This is significant in that it allowed two months of healing by Pavelić before Perón was ousted. The post-Perón Argentine government agreed to extradite Pavelić to Yugoslavia, but Pavelić was able to flee the hospital and make it to Santiago, Chile, and then to Spain.
[205] IOTL Jovović claimed that he was operating of his own volition, seeking revenge for Serbs killed by the Ustaša regime. However there are persistent rumours amongst the Yugoslav diaspora that he was working for, or at least assisted by, the Yugoslav UDBA. I'm assuming that there is truth to these rumours, but I'm noting this uncertainty to be historiographically-responsible.
[206] IOTL Hefer died of natural causes in 1973. And Luburić was limited to a major role in the Croat diaspora in Europe, with little influence over the Argentine Croats.
[207] Of course, IOTL Greece didn't go communist, so this isn't so much the case, although there have historically been some flare-ups between Australian Greeks and Turks, particularly over the Cyprus conflict in the 1970s. Nevertheless the militant Croat organisations did exist IOTL.
[208] IOTL, Nahid was assassinated by UDBA in Munich in 1969.
[209] IOTL, Luburić was still leaning over the sink when he was struck by the hammer in the back of the head, and Stanić's assassination attempt was successful. Stanić fled to Yugoslavia and Luburić's body was found the next day by his teenage son.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The 1953 constitutional amendments did not mark the end of the reformist movement in Yugoslavia. Milovan Đilas, President of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia (for a brief 21 day period) emerged as a major critic of Stalinism, with Tito's encouragement. Eighteen articles by Đilas were published in the LCY party newspaper Borba which denounced the bureaucratic state planning of the USSR in favour of worker's self-management and economic autonomy. Đilas didn't reserve his criticism for the USSR however. Eventually turning his sights on the party apparatus of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and what he saw as an emerging self-interested apparatchik class . Đilas was expelled from the Central Committee and he thereafter left the LCY. On December 25th 1954, Đilas referred to the government of Yugoslavia as "totalitarian" in a New York Times interview. Đilas was brought to trial for "hostile propaganda" and given a 18-month suspended sentence. In 1957 he wrote The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System, which was published in the United States. Đilas would spend the rest of the 1950s in prison, despite being seen as Tito's likely successor a mere half a decade earlier.

Milovan Đilas, 1950​

In the early 1960s, a faction within the LCY formed to promote further decentralisation of Yugoslavia. This autonomist faction believed that putting more economic control in the hands of the individual republics would help to rationalise the economy, limit inflation and put a halt to the construction of economically-irrational but politically-expedient factories in poorer regions of the federation. Notable autonomists included Edvard Kardelj of Slovenia, Vladimir Bakarić of Croatia, Petar Stambolić of Serbia and Mehmet Shehu of Albania [210]. The autonomist wing of the LCY was steadfastly opposed by the centralist faction centred around Aleksandar Ranković, which was supported by the majority of ethnic Serb politicians in Serbia, Montenegro and the ethnically-Serb regions of other republics. Ranković had long been in charge of state security, with complete control of the secret police apparatus in Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Nationalist tensions lessened the loyalty of secret police in Croatia, Slovenia, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Ranković though. Ranković was seen by the autonomists as seeking Serb domination in Yugoslavia, whilst he saw the autonomists as promoting centrifugal policies that he believed would one day tear Yugoslavia asunder. As was often the case in political disputes, Marshal Tito would be the final arbiter. Whilst Ranković had remained loyal thus far to Tito, the wily old Marshal was aware that Ranković had strongly opposed the transfer of Kosovo from Serbia to Albania, and his influence and power amongst Serbs and the security services. He would end up siding with the autonomists, and at a party meeting on the islands of Brijuni, off the coast of Istria, Ranković was expelled from the party after being presented with a dossier full of accusations accusing him of attempting to form a clique with the goal of seizing power for himself, and of bugging the Marshal's own residence [211].

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, despite some issues, most notably with inflation and unemployment, Yugoslavia's overall economic health was good. Extensive trading ties were maintained with both major Cold War blocs and with countries of the Non-Aligned Movement. The introduction of workers' self-management gave a degree of flexibility to economic enterprises unique amongst Communist regimes in Europe. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of political influence on these enterprises and efficiency often suffered. The mid-60s saw a number of key changes to the Yugoslav economy. For instance, foreign enterprises were allowed to become partners in joint enterprises with up to 49% shares (the idea of this being exploitation was circumvented by the need for foreign capital and the remaining controlling stake of the Yugoslav half of the enterprise). A number of West German companies were interested in investment and in return a larger number of Yugoslavs were allowed to travel to the FRG as guest workers. Investing foreign companies were often disillusioned at the perceived lack of efficiency of the Yugoslav enterprises they invested in. This is somewhat predictable given that the investing parties sought maximisation of profit, whereas the Yugoslav system sought to balance worker satisfaction with economic productivity. Whilst the initial influx of foreign capital slowed, the guest worker system would prove greatly beneficial for Yugoslavia, which took in large sums each year of remittances. A new dinar was also introduced in 1965. Tourism in Croatia's Dalmatian coast (and to a lesser extent the skifields of Slovenia) were revived with significant federal investment, and would prove highly profitable, as well as increasing Yugoslavia's prestige in the West. Other achievements included reaching a literacy rate of 91% and providing universal free healthcare.

A new generation of politicians in the LCY began to reshape politics in the 1970s, with Tito's tacit approval. This "second generation", most of whom had come to prominence during WWII (unlike the interwar underground activists who formed the first generation) was supposed to continue the path of reform and change to meet the new and emergent challenges of an ever-changing world. However, like all change, this caused some destabilisation. In the late 1960s, two members of this generation, Mike Tripalo, Pero Pirker and Savka Dabčević-Kučar rose to the top of the League of Communists of Croatia (Savez Komunista Hrvatska, SKH), the Croatian branch of the LCY. These reformers were aligned with the Croatian cultural society Matica hrvatska. The initial criticisms of the late 1960s were based in economic nationalism: dissatisfaction that funds from Croatian economic output (especially tourism) were being redistributed to poorer republics such as Serbia and Macedonia. By 1971 they had begun to also make calls for further increased autonomy and opposition to perceived overrepresentation of Serbs in the security forces in particular, but also in federal politics. Matica hrvatska also pushed for recognition of Croatian as a separate language, rather than comprising dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Despite some economic devolution, banks based in Belgrade still dominated the loan market. These banks had largely pushed Croatian banks out of the lucrative Dalmatia market and hotels were gradually acquired by companies based in the federal capital. Linguistic debate between Serbs and Croats unnecessarily inflamed interethnic tensions, and the Serbs of Croatia were bothered by Croatian calls for increased authority and less Serbian presence in major Croatian political institutions. The so-called 'Croatian Spring' had commenced. The reformists were opposed by a conservative faction of the SKH led by Miloš Žanko, Stipe Šuvar, Jure Bilić and Croatian Serb politician Dušan Dragosavac, who sought support from the Praxis School of Marxist humanist philosophers. The reformists in response sought to ally with a variety of Croat social and political forces, including many who were non-communists. A notable ally of the reformists was economics professor Marko Veselica. Žanko even openly accused Vladimir Bakarić of nationalism, despite the latter's relative lack of commitment on the issues being debated. In December 1969 Tito criticised Žanko, and Dabčević-Kučar would follow up the next month, accusing Žanko of "unitarism". Žanko was ousted from the SKH, marking the reformist ascendancy over the Croatian communists. Croatian calls for economic autonomy became a federal issue, with the SKH courting the political elites of Macedonia, Albania and Slovenia. Despite support for other reforms by Marko Nikezić, who had replaced Stambolić as head of the League of Communists of Croatia (Savez Komunista Srbija, SKS), the SKS' push to retain the redistributionist economic policies led the SKH to denounce them for "hegemonism".

Savka Dabčević-Kučar, head of the SKH reformists, first female head of government in Europe​

As a wave of student elections at the University of Zagreb went the way of non-communist candidates, Tito requested that Dabčević-Kučar order the arrest of a number of these figures. Her refusal caused a major upsurge in popularity amongst the reformists, seen as standing up for ordinary Croats against the central government. A set of reformist amendments to the Yugoslav constitution were made in 1971, limiting the federal governments areas of interest to foreign affairs (including foreign trade), defence, maintenance of a common currency, and the tariff regime. Inter-republic committees were established to make decisions and advise the federal government before ratification. A number of more radical demands came from outside of the SKH, including the establishment of a separate Croatian military and even complete independence. Over the course of a number of meetings with the SKH, Tito determined that accusations by opponents of SKH about "national chauvinism" were exaggerated, helping to protect the reformist SKH leadership from opponents within their party. Seeking both to connect with ordinary Croats and to justify their views to the central government, SKH both emphasised the importance of the Catholic church in Croat society as well as claiming to be a continuation of ZAVNOH, the WWII era liberation government in Croatia. The SKH's agenda was opposed by many amongst the Croatian Serb community, who saw the increased visibility and promotion of Croat culture as a means to mitigate their own community. The cultural society Prosvjeta came to dominate the Croatian Serb nationalist discourse. They demanded the co-official use of Serbian cyrillic alongside the Croatian latin script and one of their activists, Rade Bulat, promoted the idea of an autonomous province for Croatian Serbs, as well as a separate Dalmatian autonomous region. The SKH vociferously opposed any division of Croatia in this manner. In some areas of northern Dalmatia which were largely cohabited, some civilians started stockpiling arms, concerned by the possibility of conflict between the two communities. Outside of Croatia, Ustaša emigre groups spread disinformation claiming that the SKH was working with them and that the Soviet Union was preparing to intervene to force Croatian independence. The UDBA initially fell for these falsehoods, but a further investigation disproved them. It had clearly been an attempt to provoke armed conflict between Croatia and the Yugoslav central government, which they sought to exploit. Some Croatian nationalists in Croatia also advocated the annexation of parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, increasing tensions with the government of that republic too.

At the 5th November plenary session of the SKH, Dabčević-Kučar stated that the national movement should not be sacrificed in the interests of revolutionary purity, and she rejected several recommendations by Bakarić to adjust the SKH's policies. In the aftermath, concerned that Dabčević-Kučar and her allies would put Croatian nationalism before adherence to Titoist communism, Bakarić urged Marshal Tito to intervene in support of the conservative faction of the SKH. Opportunistically, heads of the Yugoslav army showed Tito recordings of nationalist rallies in Croatia, where anti-Tito chants could be heard. On 1st December, Tito held a joint meeting of LCY and SKH leadership at Karađorđevo, Serbia. The SKH leadership was pressured to control the situation in Croatia, and Tito's speech, which denounced Matica hrvatska and accused it of seeking a resurrection of the NDH, was broadcast nationwide. The student strikes which had been ongoing over the prior month halted, marking the SKH backing down from a challenge against the central government, but didn't take any action to punish those involved. Bakarić and Tito forced the resignations of Pirker, Tripalo and Dabčević-Kučar. Student protest leaders were arrested. Tens of thousands were expelled from the SKH. Around 300 were convicted for political crimes, but thousands were help without trial for 2-3 months. Purges of journalists, academics and writers were ongoing until late 1972. Pirker passed away (not from government action) in August 1972 and 100,000 attended his funeral. The reformist SKH leadership, despite being ousted from power, were still very popular in Croatia. In order to quell nationalist feeling, Tito granted many demands that had been made by the ousted SKH leaders. The lack of rollback from the reinstated SKH conservatives bothered the Croatian Serbs.

The new 1974 Federal Constitution was the product of Johann Koplenig [212], although he passed away in 1973 unable to see his proposal implemented. The proposal created a number of autonomous republics representing regional and local ethnic interests, but within the frameworks of existing republics. Unlike the prior situation, where Albania and Serbia had autonomous republics (Kosovo and Vojvodina respectively) which had a full vote at the national level, now all full republics were given two votes, with each autonomous republic having one vote. The republics had a great deal of economic influence over their autonomous republics, but the latter would have their own police forces, which would therefore be predominantly their own ethnic group. In total, they would collectively add up to twenty votes. This system was intended to balance both ethnic and local economic interests and minimise the likelihood of large centrifugal blocs forming. It was an unpopular idea in Croatia, but the humbling of the SKH left them with little choice. Yugoslavia was now structured as follows: Slovenia (autonomous republic: Carinthia [Slovene majority; large German minority]); Croatia (autonomous republics: Dalmatia [Croat majority]; Krajina [Serb majority; large Croat minority]); Bosnia-Herzegovina (autonomous republic: Herzegovina [Croat majority; Bosniak minority]); Serbia (autonomous republics: Montenegro [Montenegrin Serb majority; Albanian minority], Sandžak [split between Serbs and Bosniaks] and Vojvodina [very diverse]); Albania (autonomous republic: Kosovo) and Macedonia. The new constitution also defined the Bosniak nationality, and included all Slavic-speaking muslims in this group (including those in Sandžak).

Yugoslav Flags​

In 1977, Tito began a widespread tour of friendly nations in Europe and Asia, and 1980 saw the construction of Yugoslavia's first nuclear reactor, at Krško.

===
[210] ITTL, Mehmet Shehu was ousted by Koçi Xoxe in 1948, but is later rehabilitated into the Albanian communists.
[211] Very interesting stuff because we aren't really sure whether these accusations were true (they may well be), and if they were false, whether they were fabrications by Tito or by autonomists. Lots of AH potential here for someone else if they wrote a TL on it.
[212] Johann Koplenig died in 1968, but ITTL lives a few years longer. Historically he was chairman of the Austrian Communist Party, as he was ITTL, but ITTL he moves back to his hometown in Carinthia out of homesickness and joins the Slovenian communists during the 1950s. As such, this constitution is very different from the historical 1974 federal constitution.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

I initially wrote a post about Congo here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rnative-cold-war.280530/page-12#post-10199422

I've decided to write a more detailed post about Congo's immediate independence period before writing more about the 1970s and so on. Where this post contradicts the former (there is quite a lot of this), this post's information is to be considered canon to the TL. Hope you all enjoy it.
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The dissolution of Belgium resulted in a transfer of power in the Belgian Congo to a UN Trust Territory in May 1953 in order to ensure that the fledgling nation would be ready for independence in 1960. The roadmap to independence outlined by the UN would involve gradual (but limited, as the UN largely had to pay it out of its own Congolese Development Budget, which was funded entirely by international aid donations and very modest dues on mining companies) infrastructural development and the maintenance of law and order whilst native political forces emerged and organised that could take over the reigns of government. The colonial gendarmerie was still the only armed force in the nation, but was now under the command of the UN Governor. Like the Trust Territory of Somaliland, the Trust Territory of the Congo and Ruanda-Urundi was administered by a national of the former colonial overlord; Léo Pétillon. Born in Liege, Wallonia, Pétillon was a technocratic type who did little to deal with the social and ethnic divisions which built tension in Congolese society. He would govern until 1957, when he was replaced by former Governor-General of the Belgian Congo, the Fleming Pierre Rickmans[213]. Ill-health would leave Rickmans somewhat of a lame-duck Governor, which suited the emergent Congolese political class just fine. He passed away in February 1959, and would not formally be replaced; instead a Transitional Council was formed.

The emergent native political class in the Congo was primarily composed of évolués (literally "evolved", which should tell you enough about Belgian and French colonial attitudes to their subjects). The évolués were the small emergent middle-class educated along Western lines. They were deemed to be assimilated, unlike the so-called sauvages that still followed customary law and whose primary loyalty was to traditional chieftains and kings. The évolués almost always lived in the cities, utilising their education and knowledge of European customs to access the low-level white collar jobs which were available to them. The largest of the emergent political organisations was the Mouvement National Congolais (Congolese National Movement, MNC) led by Patrice Lumumba. The MNC was a 'popular front' party, seeking to incorporate many different ethnic groups and political interests. The largest opponent of the MNC was the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), a Bakongo ethno-nationalist party lead by Joseph Kasa-Vubu. ABAKO sought immediate independence, unlike the MNC, which was satisfied with independence according to the UN roadmap. ABAKO sought primacy of the Bakongo people, seeing the future independent state as the successor of the early modern Kingdom of Kongo. The third significant political force was the Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga (Confederation of Associated Tribes of Katanga, CONAKAT), organised around Moïse Tshombe. CONAKAT sought a highly-decentralised federal Congo and represented the native peoples of southern Katanga. A number of other small parties were formed around either small ethnic groups or other political ideologies, notably the Parti Solidaire Africain (African Solidarity Party, PSA).

Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo​

The inclusive nature of the MNC inevitably led to disagreements between various interest groups within it. Albert Kalonji and Joseph Iléo defected, forming their own faction, known as the MNC-Kalonji (MNC-K), as opposed to the majority MNC-Lumumba (MNC-L), but it failed to trigger the mass defections expected. Whilst it did have followers throughout the Congo, the MNC-L's support was most highly-concentrated in the east, around Stanleyville. The MNC-K's support base only really existed around Élisabethville among the Luba ethnic group. In the Congolese capital of Léopoldville, a number of riots broke out in January 1959. An ABAKO rally had been interrupted and not allowed to go ahead by the UN administration, which required all political parties to receive consent for public demonstrations. Unruly ABAKO demonstrators were then dispersed by the gendarmerie, whose officers ordered more violent action than had been requested by the UN administration. Anger at this rough treatment exploded into widespread rioting throughout the city, including indiscriminate attacks on the European population. News of the ruthless suppression of the demonstration engendered greater involvement in the independence movement amongst rural Congolese, whilst in the cities panicked European colonists formed Corps de Voluntaires Européens to police their neighbourhoods. Seeing the potential for vigilante violence and reprisals to get out of hand,the Trust Territory government banned the volunteer militias in March. The French government, who had inherited a great deal of economic interests from Belgium, accused Lumumba of being a communist and provided financial support to CONAKAT.

The various Congolese political leaders convened with UN representatives at the 1959 Congo Conference [214]. Kasa-Vubu's fiery and haughty manner resulted in a split between him and ABAKO vice president Daniel Kanza. Kasa-Vubu ended up walking out of the conference. The discussions did result in a guarantee for Congolese self-governance in July, and Lumumba, and general elections were to be held before then. The leader of the party with the greatest number of seats would be tasked by the United Nations with forming a government. The Loi Fondamentale (Fundamental Law) was also confirmed, which would serve as the first constitution of the Congolese state. It would establish a bicameral parliamentary republic, led by a Prime Minister, and with a President who would be a separate institution with the power to ratify laws and dismiss governments if they were unable to function correctly. This constitution was poorly-suited to the Congolese political situation, but was relatively less-controversial amongst Congolese delegates than any alternatives. The 1960 general election campaigning began on the 11th May. Voting was compulsory for all males at least 21 years of age. A confused and chaotic campaign season, as to be expected in a country with no democratic tradition and a myriad of political parties, resulted in a victory of sorts for the MNC-L. The only major party to campaign nationwide, the MNC-L received 23.5% of the vote, the largest of any party. The socialist PSA of Antoine Gizenga won 12.5% and ABAKO received 9.5% of the vote. CONAKAT won 4.7%. The distribution of Senate seats (the upper house) did not reflect the popular vote, however. Out of 84 total seats, the MNC-L received 21, CONAKAT won 7, ABAKO won 5, PSA 5 also, and MNC-K took 4 seats. Nor did the distribution of seats in the Chamber of Deputies (137 total seats; MNC 33, PSA 13, ABAKO 12, MNC-K 7, CONAKAT 8). Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu both began to engage in attempts to form governments, and were in constant competition and dispute with one another. After many backdoor deals and political shenanigans, where Kasa-Vubu initially insisted on the presidency, was denied by Lumumba, sought a separate province for the Bakongo, which was also denied, and finally acceded to Lumumba's government with some ABAKO representation, a government was formed. Kasa-Vubu faced Jean Bolikango, a conservative Bangala from Équateur Province. Despite Lumumba saying he would stay out of the selection, he in fact had his deputies put their support behind Bolikango [215]. Kasa-Vubu was frustrated and angered, but unable to do much about it. ABAKO was, after all, represented in government. The Minister of Finance, Pascal Nkayi, was an ABAKO representative. Another ABAKO, Charles Kisolokele, was named one of the four ministers of state. CONAKAT was also frustrated at the composition of the new government. Their representative Joseph Yav had been made Minister of Economic Affairs, however a separate Minister of Mines and Power position had been created, outside of the hands of CONAKAT. This led Tshombe to declare his support for the government "null and void". A general strike by Bakongo ABAKO supporters in Léopoldville was defeated in its infancy when the UN administration ordered gendarmes to start running basic functions. Seeing it would be pointless, and with some ABAKO representation in the new government, the strikers promptly returned to work. On June 23rd, the Chamber of Deputies convened in the Palais de la Nation to vote on Lumumba's new government. Despite representation from almost every major party, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the MNC-led coalition. Many of the parties themselves were divided, for example the PSA. Cléophas Kamitatu's moderate wing of the PSA didn't support the new government, whereas Antoine Gizenga's leftist faction threw their support behind Lumumba. Kalonji stated that he would encourage the people of Kasaï to "run their own affairs", keeping it vague whether he meant outright secession or mere autonomy. At the vote, there were 57 absences. Of the remaining 80 deputies, 74 voted in favour of the government. Whilst this would still have been enough to form a government even without the absences, it boded poorly for the stability of the first Congolese government. On the 30th of June, independence was finally granted to the fledgling Republic of the Congo.

The Congolese Independence Ceremony​

The 5th of July saw several army mutinies as black soldiers rebelled against their white officers in the new Armée National Congolais (Congolese National Army, ANC) which was constructed out of the pre-independence gendarmerie. This rebellion was provoked both by dissatisfaction with the continued presence of European officers in the post-colonial armed forces, and wasn't helped by Lieutenant-General Émile Janssens meeting with the Léopoldville garrison, where he wrote on a blackboard the message "Before Independence = After independence". Lumumba dismissed Janssens and had all Congolese troops promoted by one rank. The new commander-in-chief would be Major-General Victor Lundula, with Joseph-Désiré Mobutu as his chief of staff and second to Lundula. Whilst this quelled the revolt, it was not before spurts of violence against Europeans throughout the country began to hurt Congo's reputation amongst the international community. A large number of Europeans fled, resettling either in Katanga where the European population was its largest, or even across the border in northern Rhodesia. Taking advantage of the West's horror at the news of attacks on European settlers in Congo, Tshombe declared the independence of Congo's southeastern Katanga Province. At his capital of Élisabethville, Tshombe announced that he was the first President of Katanga. Tshombe, an ethnic Lunda, was the son of a successful businessman who were Lunda royalty. Several Tshombe family members throughout history had served as the Mwaant Yav, the traditional Lunda kings. In the 1950s, he had managed several of his family's businesses, but they consistently failed, and was able to afford to do so as the scion of a rich family. Tshombe had close ties to the settler elite in Katanga, who exploited the rich mineral resources of the province, most notably copper, tin and uranium. Like many of the Lunda upper class, Tshombe was concerned at the influx of Luba people from the neighbouring region of Kasaï. The Luba had come in droves seeking economic opportunity, as many were experienced miners, as Kasaï was a centre of diamond mining. Tshombe forged a political alliance between the Lunda, Batabwa, Tshokwe and Bayeke peoples of southern Katanga on a platform of preventing Luba immigration and keeping Katanga's wealth in-province. In the 1960 General Election, his party CONAKAT had successfully taken control of the provincial legislature. Upon Congolese independence, Tshombe claimed that they were "seceding from chaos" and accused Lumumba of dictatorship and communist leanings. Tshombe was supported by CONAKAT's largest donor, the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, which operated almost all mining interests in the province and was owned by the Société Générale de Wallonie [216]. The Société Générale encouraged the French junta to provide support for the Katangan separatists, and whilst the French didn't give Katanga formal recognition, they did provide funding for white mercenary groups operating in the area, which predominantly hailed from South Africa and the Central African Federation. Less than a month later, a small segment of Kasaï province around Bakwanga declared independence as "L'état du Sud-Kasaï" (The State of South Kasaï) , led by Albert Kalonji. South Kasaï was funded by another Wallonian mining interest, Forminière. Concerned about the threat of a Kongo revolt led by Kasa-Vubu, Lumumba and Lundula ordered the ANC to occupy various points around Léopoldville. With the secession of Katanga and South Kasaï, Congo was cut off from 40% of its revenue.

Flag of the breakaway Katanga State​

Concern about Paris' interference in the affairs of the Congo led to widespread denunciation in the United Nations, especially amongst newly independent post-colonial states who feared such meddling in their own countries. UN Secretary General Kamal Al Din Salah (of Egypt) [217] demanded the immediate removal of mercenary forces from the Congo. Political pressure from the United States forced France to abstain on the resolution allowing deployment of a UN mission to the Congo, but they worked to try and limit its mandate. The Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC). Lumumba's government welcome the UN force, believing that it would engage the separatists to protect the Congo's territorial integrity. Lumumba also sought the support of US President Eisenhower, who rebuffed him. Lumumba then turned instead to the Soviet Union, which provided weapons, logistical support and a thousand military advisors. With this support, the ANC mounted an invasion of South Kasai, defeating the rebellion and reincorporating the territory into the state. The operations of Forminière were nationalised, angering the French. During the invasion, violence meted out on Luba civilians and favouritism of the Bena Lulua people led to an exodus of several thousand Luba civilians. The American CIA and French SDECE became increasingly active in the Congo, trying to prevent what they believed was an impending communist takeover. Getting in touch with Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu, they encouraged an ABAKO revolt, now that ANC forces were being redeployed east. They also tried to convince President Bolikango to dismiss the Lumumba government [218], and whilst he strongly considered it, he was concerned at the outcome, which would likely be an ABAKO-led government.

An uprising amongst the Bakongo against Lumumba's government flared up at Luozi, and began to march east towards the capital. It's armed wing was led by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who had under his command rogue ANC forces loyal to himself. Mobutu and Kasa-Vubu hoped that by seizing the capital, they would be able to arrest Lumumba and Bolikango, dissolve the MNC-led government, and institute a loose federal state conducive to their interests.
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[213] IOTL, Pétillon was replaced by Hendrik Cornelis as Governor of Belgian Congo.
[214] IOTL, there was a Round Table Conference in Brussels between the Congolese delegation and the Belgian government.
[215] IOTL, Lumumba did the opposite, shafting Bolikango in favor of Kasa-Vubu. It seems that he was vacillating between the two at this time, and I have him going with Bolikango, as ITTL, with a UN administration, he is less concerned about Bolikango's tie to Belgian interests.
[216] a renamed Société Générale de Belgique.
[217] IOTL, Dag Hammarskjöld was only able to become secretary-general in 1953 due to the British and Americans convincing the Republic of China not to veto over Sweden's recognition of the PRC. ITTL, the ROC doesn't abstain, and as such the deadlock continues, and eventually Kamal Al Din Salah is selected as a compromise candidate.
[218] ITTL, without being double-crossed by Lumumba during the presidential selection, Bolikango doesn't become a CIA asset.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Prospects for the unity of the survival of the Lumumba government looked grim. The loyalties of the Armée National Congolais were divided between the Mobutu-Kasa-Vubu rebellion and the central government. If the loyalists forces were able to defeat the Bakongo rebels, they would be too depleted to fight the Katangan gendarmerie, reinforced as it was with foreign mercenaries. It was also possible that an extended campaign in Katanga could invite intervention from the Rhodesians and French. The ANC would be no match for either of these forces, let alone if they were to work in tandem. Sending the ANC east to deal with Tshombe's secessionist government would also expose the capital of Léopoldville to Mobutu's forces, who would no doubt seize power and proclaim a new national government. Lumumba's only hope lay in the United Nations mission, and convincing them that their mandate encompassed the protection of the Congolese state's territorial unity.

Privately, Secretary-General Salah had no issue with this. He saw a future where UN missions were unable to decisively intervene to solve crises as undesirable; it would merely prolong existing conflicts rather than helping to bring an end to conflict. But, he was limited, as many men have been, by politics. The ONUC mission was under the purview of the UN Security Council. The French, seeking to undermine Lumumba and keep their commercial interests in Katanga operational, refused to give the mission a mandate to proactively suppress rebel activity. Instead, their mission would be primarily to protect civilians (especially white civilians) and to block offensives between the hostile forces where possible. In Salah's estimation, to convince the international community that suppression of rebels was necessary, the UN mission themselves would have to be attacked by the rebel groups. Strategic placement of forces would force the rebels to either halt their advance, buying Léopoldville time to build up their forces with Soviet assistance, or to engage UN forces. If the UN troops came under fire, even the French would be unable to defend a passive ONUC stance in Congo. Initially ONUC had under its command 3,500 soldiers: 460 Ethiopians, 770 Ghanaians, 1,250 Moroccans and 1,020 Tunisians. By August this force was 11,000: More Ethiopians had arrived, as well as Swedish, Norwegian and Irish contingents. A 3,000 strong ONUC contingent was stationed at Kisantu, just east of Mobutu's rebel headquarters at Thysville, with an additional 2,000 in reserve in Léopoldville. Seeking to march on the capital, the rebels demanded that the UNOC forces let them pass, but this was refused. Mobutu ordered a frontal assault on the ONUC forces on September 14th, assuming that the foreign forces, which he assumed were unmotivated due to their lack of national interest in the conflict, would break and run at the first sign of danger. They were mistaken; a stiff defence from the Irish-Ghanaian central sector forced the rebels to retreat and regroup. A renewed offensive on September 18th against the northern flank was also repulsed by the Ethiopian and Tunisian troops there. A final desperate attempt aimed at the southern sector, manned by a poorly-equipped Moroccan force and a small Norwegian element pressed the UN forces in the sector to the limit. It was likely that the front would have collapsed here if not for the timely arrival of the central sector Ghanaians on the rebel flank. The remainder of Mobutu's forces retreated back to Thysville and the military base at Kitona, where they sound found themselves encircled by the ONUC troops. After some negotiations, the rebel forces here would surrender on November 3rd. Under the conditions of the surrender, all rebel troops would be held in custody by UN forces and not transferred over to the custody of the Congolese government. ONUC would also ensure the personal safety of Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu. Furthermore, they received a commitment from Salah that Kasa-Vubu would be the representative of the Bakongo people in a conference on the future composition of Congo when the crisis ended. The military base at Kitona itself was converted into a POW camp, manned by Norwegian and Irish soldiers.

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, military leader of the Bakongo rebellion​

The attack on ONUC forces provoked outrage from the United Nations General Assembly. The French were blamed for manipulating the situation inside the Congo in order to promote their own interests, and Lumumba upheld as a hero of the African struggle against colonialism. The criticism forced France to abstain from a security council resolution mandating an expansion of the ONUC force in Congo. The USSR and PRC voted for, the United States, United Kingdom and France abstained, and all the non-permanent members voted for, except for Italy, which also abstained. ONUC was thereafter reinforced by another 6,000 troops, including 2,000 from Yugoslavia, 1,200 from Ceylon, 800 Colombians, 1,600 Mexicans and 400 Philippine soldiers. This multinational force started to build up on the borders of the separatist Katanga state. With an invasion by ONUC forces imminent, Tshombe scrambled for outside support. Whilst the Rhodesians and South Africans were willing to give modest cash sums in order to fund mercenaries, the Rhodesians perceived the potential diplomatic costs of open combat against UN forces to be too high; Pretoria was unwilling to intervene without Salisbury. The French also considered the cost of direct intervention too high, but Jacques Foccart, the so-called Mr. Africa, used his connections to contact mercenary Bob Denard, whose forces were sent to reinforce Katanga. From March 1961, the ONUC forces started going on the offensive. They initially focused on targeted operations against mercenary detachments and bases, without which they believed the Katangan gendarmerie would crumble. The first offensive ONUC action against Katanga was Operation Sokol, an offensive by the Yugoslav contingent which lead to the killing and capture of 200 mercenaries, around 40% of the active mercenaries in Katanga. After Operation Sokol, the mercenary forces would thereafter travel only with a supporting Katangan gendarme force. Whilst this did make them more dangerous in combat, it also made tracking them easier. Attacks by the small Katangan airforce were quickly thwarted by the British trained Ceylonese pilots. Their De Havilland Vampires clashed with their Katangan counterparts in the air, the ONUC forces' superior training making the difference. Having established air supremacy, on June 8th, UN forces mounted Operation Stampede. Stampede was a two-pronged attack, consisting of Operation White Rhino and Operation Black Rhino. White Rhino was an attack by Mexican, Colombian, Ceylonese and Philippine forces from Kivu province towards the south, targeting Albertville. Black Rhino would be a Yugoslav-Swedish offensive mounted from Kasaï province, aiming to capture the key military base at Kamina. From here it would be possible in the next phase of action to drive east towards Lake Tanganyika, cutting off northern and southern Katanga from each other. Given that Kamina would be a tougher nut to crack, the UNOC air squadron would give close air support to the Yugoslavs and Swedes.

Mercenaries employed by Katanga in combat with ONUC forces​

Operation White Rhino started auspiciously enough. Driving south from the Kivu town of Kasongo, the Mexican-Colombian-Philippine-Ceylonese force crossed into Katanga and captured the towns of Kongolo and Kabalo along the Congo River without resistance. They then turned east, capturing Nyunzu with only minimal resistance from a suspiciously small mercenary detachment that lacked Katangan gendarme support. The mercenaries retreated in good order to Albertville. The Mexicans and Colombians lay siege to Albertville, leaving the 800-man Filipino-Ceylonese force in Nyunzu. Soon thereafter, Nyunzu came under attack from a force of 100 mercenaries supported by 8,000 Katangan gendarmes, the bulk of the Katangan military. Their mercenary commanders sought to capture as many ONUC personnel as they can to ransom them in exchange for political concessions, or if that went nowhere, to use them as human shields or bait in future battles. A lack of respect for the fighting ability of the Filipinos and Ceylonese derived from the racist attitudes of many of the white mercenaries, as well as their overwhelming numerical advantage, led the Katangan force to engage in a head-on assault on the UNOC positions. A stalwart defence by the United Nations troops managed to hold the village overnight, by which time the Mexicans and Colombians, who had lifted the siege of Albertville, were able to arrive as reinforcements. Threatened with encirclement by the arriving Mexicans and Colombians, the Katangan force retreated. In their wake they left 9 dead mercenaries and 1,600 Katangan native troops dead or incapacitated. The 800-strong force of defenders had been whittled down to a mere 140. None of their number had allowed themselves to be captured. The heroic sacrifice of the Filipinos and Ceylonese defenders of Nyunzu made them icons internationally and especially in their home countries, where monuments were erected to the "African martyrs". By this point Black Rhino was still bogged down in the assault on Kamina but air and artillery support allowed the Yugoslavs and Swedes to take Kamina a few days later. Hearing of the events at Nyunzu, the Swedish-Yugoslav force immediately drove east without proper authorisation from ONUC command, hoping to cut off the Katangan retreat and break the back of the rebel forces. Yugoslav advance units came into contact with the Katangan rearguard just southeast of Lake Upemba. An indecisive skirmish occurred, and the Katangans were able to break through the net and regroup in CONAKAT's traditional base of southern Katanga. Swedish units turned north, occupying the town of Manono. The White Rhino forces had turned their attention once again to Albertville, which fell on May 19th 1961. Despite stiff opposition, Operation Stampede was a strategic success, driving the Katangan gendarmerie out of the northern part of the province. Whilst the opportunity to defeat in detail half of the Katangan force was unsuccessful, they had managed to inflict humiliating battlefield defeats on Katanga and the defense of Nyunzu left opposition to the ONUC mission in Congo politically indefensible.

In Élisabethville, the stress of the situation was making Tshombe increasingly neurotic, and as such the day-to-day functions of state were de facto fully in the hands of French-aligned interest groups. Denard was at this point practically in control of the Katanga armed forces, and he began preparing for the defense of Élisabethville. With the Katangan treasury running very low, he had started trading copper and tin in kind for Rhodesian weapons and ammunition, particularly artillery shells. He also began making arrangements for a hasty escape from Katanga in the increasingly likely event of a total ONUC victory. The treasury of Katanga was emptied, mined uranium was stockpiled to be transported overland to northern Rhodesia, whose border lay very close to Élisabethville. On September 22nd, the awaited offensive came. 11,000 of the 17,000 ONUC forces in-country were committed to what was intended to be the final defeat of Katanga. After breaking the Katangan defense at Jadotville, they then advanced on Élisabethville. An aggressive artillery barrage by the defenders damaged the attacking forces, but after heavy fighting the ONUC forces prevailed on October 11th. Several thousand Katangan troops crossed the border into northern Rhodesian with CAF consent, along with the remaining mercenaries, Denard and Tshombe. Tshombe sent a message to Secretary-General Salah stating that Katangan secession was over. With the separatists crushed, it was now left to Lumumba to build a new government and construct a unified Congolese republic.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The defeat of the secession forces enabled Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to aggregate a centralist government. Like before independence, he sought to ensure representation of multiple parties in the cabinet, but the marginalisation of ABAKO and CONAKAT due to their leaders' antics severely limited the federalist presence in the new government. The core of the 1962 government was an alliance between the MNC-L and Antoine Gizenga's PSA. Gizenga would be Lumumba's Deputy Prime Minister. Other left-wingers with significant portfolios included Christophe Gbenye (Interior Minister), Pierre Mulele (Minister of Education) and Laurent-Désiré Kabila (Minister of Information). In order to balance the cabinet and maintain legitimacy, Bolikango was retained as President, and the pro-Western centrist Cyrille Adoula was made Minister of Finance. Kasa-Vubu's involvement in the Bakongo rebellion would have been grounds for harsh punishment, but his standing amongst his people necessitated a softer touch by the government. Kasa-Vubu was tried and sentenced to two years house arrest, but was barred from holding political office at a national level for life. The hammer came down much harder on Mobutu. A high-level military officer rising against the central government and splitting the army was completely unacceptable. Mobutu was sentenced to fifteen years of imprisonment. He would be kept in Équateur Province, far from his powerbase. Clemency would be provided for the majority of soldiers that participated in the Bakongo rebellion, but it was henceforth official policy to ensure that all military units would be mixed ethnicity.

Patrice Lumumba amongst supporters​

Given that almost all offensive action against the Bakongo and Katangan separatists was carried out by ONUC forces, the Armée National Congolais had been left largely intact. Nevertheless, significant security challenges did remain. Whilst Tshombe had completely been cowed, reports were reaching Léopoldville of training camps in Northern Rhodesia preparing CONAKAT-aligned separatists for a resumption of hostilities. Instability on the eastern border was also concern, with large numbers of Rwandan Tutsis seeking asylum in Kivu Province. The Armée National Congolais sought to incorporate many of these Rwandan refugees into their ranks, as it would provide a relatively loyal force that was not involved in inter-Congolese ethnic politics. Predominantly Rwandan brigades would be stationed along the Katangan-Rhodesian border and along the northeastern border with Equatoria. Recruitment into the ANC was made more enticing by the creation of a citizenship pathway for Rwandan recruits and their families[219]. This pathway was enshrined in the Stanleyville Constitution of 1964 [220]. The Stanleyville Constitution was intended to remedy the failures of the Loi Fondamentale. It would reverse the positions of Prime Minister and President, allowing Lumumba to become President and empowering the office with strong executive powers. It also established a number of federal offices with wide-ranging powers, and limited the scope of the provinces to block action by the central government. The two notable federalists in the government, Bolikango and Adoula, were politically marginalised by the ratification of the Stanleyville Constitution. A criticism of the Stanleyville Constitution by international observers was that it didn't institute term limits, allowing Lumumba to retain power much longer than expected for a leader in a supposedly democratic country.

The centralist-left Lumumba-Gizenga government pursued rapid and widespread expansion of infrastructure throughout the nation. Utilising generous Soviet technical and financial aid, railroads were constructed to connect the far-flung provinces with each other and the capital. Construction commenced on the 'Inga Dam' on the Congo river, conceived to be the first of a number of future hydroelectric dams on the river. These large-scale projects did promote economic growth and had a positive effect on employment, although occasional embezzlement issues continued to push the costs higher and higher. The Soviets would not take all the cost, but the Congolese government was able to pay for these constructions with profits from La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), a state-operated company which had been built out of the assets of Forminière and Union Minière. One of the most visible achievements of the Lumumba-Gizenga government was the establishment of a national carrier, Aéro-Congo[221]. Initially limited to regional flights using Soviet-donated YAK-40s, by the early 1970s Aéro-Congo would obtain two Il-62s and begin international air travel between Congo, friendly African nations, and monthly flights to France. Another major propaganda coup was the presence of Congolese astronaut Jean-Jacques Ntumba on an Interkosmos mission organised by the Soviet Union in 1979. Ntumba was the first African in space. Inspiration from this event, along with the exposure of Congolese students in the USSR to the writings of Eastern European science fiction writers such as Alexander Bogdanov led to an explosion of science fiction novels in Congo, giving rise to the "Afro-Cosmism" literary movement, most famous in the English-speaking world for the masterpiece Céleste Noir. Over the 1960s and 1970s, the investment in infrastructure would give rise to a rapidly urbanising Congo Republic. Mass movements of young rural Congolese to the cities would assist in the weakening of old ethnic and tribal bonds as well as a disintegration of the authority of tribal chieftains. A rapid increase in literacy and the construction of tertiary education facilities in the regional capitals enabled increasingly sophisticated economic activity during the 1970s, as the Congolese economy shifted from a focus on resource extraction to the processing of raw materials into manufactured goods.

An increasingly confident Congo also flexed its muscles regionally. A coup in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville resulted in the incorporation of that state into the Republic of Congo as the Occidentale Province. The same year, Nguema came to power in Equatorial Guinea and entered into a security agreement with Congo where the latter would assist in the maintenance of security in exchange for cheap petroleum. 1971 saw the 'March on Yaounde' by UPC marquisards who had fled repression in Cameroon, putting a pro-Congo government into power in that country. In 1975, Léopoldville would intervene in the Angolan Civil War in order to prevent a collapse of the MPLA government, which was caught between an FNLA and South African advance on Luanda. The Congo was the primary supporter of majority-rule organisations in south and central Africa, providing support and training for membership of the African National Congress of South Africa, the Zambian, Zimbabwe and Malawi independence organisations, and the rebellions against the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique. As a result, the Congo was seen by the United States and its sub-Saharan allies as the main threat to stability and anti-communism in the region. Lumumba was suspected of being a secret communist, and had aligned himself with several communists and fellow travellers inside and outside of his government. Aside from the white supremacist bloc in southern Africa, the biggest rivals of the Congo was the pro-US states of the Bight of Benin, who used their wealth to constantly bankroll opposition to Lumumba. On several occasions, they even mounted clandestine attempts to disrupt Equatorial Guinean oil production in order to retard Congolese economic activity.
===
[219] The OTL Luluabourg Constitution denied Congolese nationality to the Rwandan refugees, which had the effect of worsening and prolonging the conflict in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo.
[220] IOTL, 1964 saw the introduction of the Luluabourg Constitution. ITTL, a new constitution is still introduced, but it is very different in content and purpose than the Luluabourg Constitution.
[221] IOTL, Congo wouldn't get a national carrier until 2015.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The small but densely populated nations of Rwanda and Burundi have long been intertwined in their history. A long and murky precolonial history was defined by the relationship between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples. The Twa People (in the past referred to as pygmies) were also present; a small ethnic group believed to have inhabited the region far longer than the Hutu and Tutsis. All three of these peoples speak Bantu languages, but seem to have represented waves of migration into the region over the centuries. Prior to the arrival of European colonists, the peoples of Rwanda-Burundi were organised under native kingdoms, where the agrarian Hutu were largely beneath the pastoralist Tutsis. Whilst some Hutus were able to achieve high office by merit, and certain particular sub-groups of Tutsi were very low in the social hierarchy, generally the caste system in Rwanda-Burundi favoured the Tutsis over the Hutu. The arrival of European colonisers, rather than upending this social hierarchy, actually ossified it. The Germans, who annexed the region into their colony of German East Africa, allowed the Rwandan and Burundian monarchies to maintain their authority, albeit at the cost of their sovereignty. The transfer of control over the colony from Berlin to Brussels saw a significant change in the relationship between the European rulers and their colonial subjects. The Belgians were far more involved in the territory than the Germans; the road network was significantly extended, as was the cultivation of cash crops, predominantly coffee and cotton in the rich volcanic soils of the region. This policy of course radically increased the profitability of the territory, but at a significant human cost; four famines ravaged the native population between 1916 and 1944 due to failures of the smaller food crops. Without being compelled to produce the more valuable commodities, it is likely that these famines could have been avoided. The Belgians also bureaucratised the ethnic caste system; formalising the hierarchy of tribal chiefs and sub-chiefs under the two Mwami (kings) in a manner that heavily favoured Tutsis. This hierarchy was based on the pseudoscientific "Hamitic hypothesis", which claimed that the Tutsis were of East African origin and were racially superior to the Hutus, a holdover of the "racial science" of the nineteenth century constructed to favour colonialism and white supremacy. By utilising the Tutsis as intermediaries, the Belgians ensured that most of the Hutu anger at their exploitation was directed at the Tutsi elite, rather than the European colonialists. Identity cards were handed out to subjects which specified their ethnicity (Hutu/Tutsi/Twa). In doing so, the Belgians eliminated the ability to shift between the different castes for their local subjects, something that did occur in the pre-colonial and German colonial periods from time to time. Another major impact the Belgians had was the proselytisation of Catholicism. Protestant missions were also allowed to operate but their influence was limited by a lack of subsidies; whereas the Catholic missions were funded by the government. An elite Catholic secondary school was established in Rwanda, but by the time of independence, there were barely 100 Africans educated beyond the secondary level in Rwanda and Burundi. The dissolution of Belgium and the transfer of Ruanda-Urundi from a UN Trust Territory under Belgian governance to a direct UN administration was largely a formality; the same governing structures remained intact. Unlike in Congo, the UN didn't set a date for independence. The more anachronistic governing structures in Ruanda-Urundi was believed to necessitate a longer presence than in Congo.

Mwami Mutara III Rudahigwa, the six foot-nine monarch of Rwanda​

Nevertheless the growth of anti-colonial settlement in the Congo strongly influenced politics in Ruanda-Urundi. A cash economy had been developed since the end of the war, largely to facilitate movement of Rwandan and Burundian labour to the mines of Katanga province and the sugar plantations of Uganda. There was also a shift in the attitude of the local Catholic church authorities; an old, conservative Walloon generation was largely replaced with a younger Flemish clergy which saw in the Hutus' plights parallels with their own position relative to Walloons prior to Belgium's dissolution. A small group of Hutu notables had been educated by the Catholic Church and sought to push against Tutsi political control. The Church, which had once supported the pre-existing Tutsi hegemony, had now turned against it. Tension between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples began to intensify in the mid-1950s. July 1956 saw the publication in Congolese newspaper La Presse Africaine supposedly written by an anonymous Rwandan priest detailing historic wrongdoings by the Tutsi elite against the Hutu. This was followed up with many other articles about interethnic relations and history in Rwanda and Burundi. In Rwanda, King Mutara III Rudahigwa and the Tutsi elite denied a history of abuse and inequality. In September, a parliamentary election was held, with universal male suffrage. The population were permitted to vote for sub-chiefs, of whom 66% of those elected were Hutu. Higher positions, however, were still appointed and all of these positions were filled by the Tutsi. The results of these elections concerned the Tutsi elite, who feared that their power was slipping. King Mutara and his supporters began to agitate for immediate independence, hoping to solidify their political position. Seeing this, the Hutu counter-elite started to prepare to challenge the Tutsi elite head-on. Notable figures in this Hutu counter-elite were Grégoire Kayibanda and Joseph Gitera. Kayibanda had been active as an editor in at least two Catholic magazines (L'Ami and Kinyamateka) and had also been a board member for the TRAFIPRO food cooperative. Kayibanda founded the Mouvement Social Muhutu (Social Movement for Hutu People, MSM) political party. Gitera was more of a firebrand than Kayibanda. Gitera called for the abolition of the monarchy as early as 1957, but his rhetoric focused on class concerns over ethnic conflict. Gitera founded the Association Pour la Promotion Sociale de la Masse (Association for Social Promotion of the Masses, APROSOMA).

In 1958, Gitera visited King Mutara III at his palace at Nyanza. Mutara III treated Gitera with contempt, seeing him as an unruly subject acting above his station. The king even went so far as to throttle Gitera, and called him and his APROSOMA followers "inyangarwanda" ("haters of Rwanda"). Whilst some in the Hutu counter-elite had maintained hope that the monarchy could be used as a symbol of national unification in a future, equitable Rwanda, the king's abuse of Gitera shattered any such hopes. MSM, APROSOMA and Catholic publications took a harsher stance against monarchical power. The exposure of Mutara III's behaviour caused a rift between the king and the UN authorities, but attempts by the UN to limit his power were met with large demonstrations by Tutsis and regional chiefs (both Hutu and Tutsi). Early 1959 saw the UN establish a commission tasked with preparing Rwanda for independence. Elections were scheduled for the end of that year. Gitera began a campaign seeking the destruction of the kalinga, the royal drum which was a key symbol of monarchical power (akin to the crown jewels for the Queen of England). A paranoid Mutara III fled with the drum to Burundi, where he would die from a brain hemorrhage brought on by alcohol abuse. Persistent rumours that the king was murdered by the French or the Catholic Church further inflamed tensions back in Rwanda. Mutara III's brother was installed by the Tutsi elite, without input from the United Nations authority, as King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa. After Kigeli V's coronation, the Union Nationale Rwandaise (Rwandan National Union, UNAR) party was established under the leadership of François Rukeba. UNAR was a pro-monarchy party, but was not controlled by the king. Instead it was founded by François Rukeba, a Hutu (but of mixed parentage). UNAR was an ethnically-mixed party, but was predominantly Tutsi and aligned itself more with the Tutsi and traditional elites than with the Hutu counter-elite. UNAR promoted a policy of Africanisation, replacing European history with Rwandan history in the education programme, and seeking to limit the power of the Catholic Church and French influence in the economic activity of the kingdom. Gitera falsely claimed that the Catholic Church's anti-UNAR stance represented support for his party, and Kayibanda had the MSM rebranded as the Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu (Party of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Hutu, PARMEHUTU).

Grégoire Kayibanda, founder of PARMEHUTU​

As inter-ethnic rivalry began to heat up, the UN administration attempted to prevent nationwide violence from breaking out. A trio of Tutsi chiefs was arrested by the UN authorities who were calling for violence against PARMEHUTU leaders. The UNAR submitted a protest letter to the UN Trust Territory authority, signed by many sub-chiefs. On 1st Novermber 1959, Dominique Mbonyumutwa, one of the few Hutu subchiefs and a known supporter of PARMEHUTU, was attacked by a gang of Tutsi youths, motivated by his refusal to sign the protest letter. Mbonyumutwa managed to escape with his wife without being seriously harmed, but a rumour swept the nation that Mbonyumutwa was killed. The latter's failure to appear publicly in the aftermath of the attack suggests that he was willing to take advantage of the situation to politically mobilise Hutus. The next two days saw a Hutu protest in Ndiza outside the home of Athanase Gashagaza, a Tutsi chief who was Mbonyumutwa's direct superior in the traditional aristocratic hierarchy. On the second day, violence sparked. Hutu vigilantes, yelling the slogan "for God, the Church, and Rwanda" killed two Tutsi officials and drove Gashagaza into hiding. A Hutu, Mbonyumutwa, was named as Gashagaza's replacement in the hopes of preventing violence. But the spark had already been struck. A wave of arson attacks throughout the country targeting Tutsi dwellings spread throughout the country, and protests turned to riots. The pitiful UN garrison, which was really just a rebranded Belgian colonial force, numbered only 300, and couldn't ensure the safety of Tutsis. A large-scale migration of Tutsis into Congo, Uganda and Tanganyika commenced whilst reinforcements were sent from the UN garrison in Congo. Kigeli V requested permission from the Trust authority to mobilise his own armed force to maintain law and order, but this was refused, as the UN administrators assumed it would lead to civil war. Ignoring the refusal, Kigeli V mobilised a militia (although "mob" might be a more accurate descriptor). On 7th November, Kigeli put his army on the move, and ordered the arrest and killing of a number of prominent Hutu leaders. Gitera's brother was among those killed. Many of the PARMEHUTU leaders who were arrested would be tortured by UNAR officials at the royal palace. Kayibanda had gone into hiding, and could not be found by the royal militia, so they focused instead on the capture of Gitera. An APROSOMA-led militia was quickly scrabbled together, which took a stand at a hill near Save, at the approaches to Gitera's home town of Astrida. The royal militia didn't attempt to storm the APROSOMA position at the top of the hill, lacking the military expertise to attack a prepared enemy on high ground. UN forces arrived on 10th November, preventing bloodshed and allowing Gitera's escape. Whilst UNAR remained more powerful than the Hutu parties, they now saw the UN as no different to the colonial authorities, and believed (falsely) that they had thrown their lot in with the Hutu side[222]. The UN also forced the King to release captured PARMEHUTU leaders or face deposition. PARMEHUTU got a major boost from the Tutsi coup. APROSOMA's ethnically-inclusive policy became much less popular after the violent attempts to suppress opposition by the Tutsi elite, regardless of what had actually sparked the situation. PARMEHUTU leaders, believing that the longer the UN was present in Rwanda, the better they could consolidate their influence, lobbied the Trust authorities to postpone elections scheduled for January 1960 to July. In March a high-level UN delegation arrived in Rwanda. Wanting to give the image of having widespread popular support, all three major parties held demonstrations. This devolved into violence however and the sight of Tutsis homes on fire left a lasting impression on the UN delegation. The United Nations declared the election plans unworkable and cancelled them, instead organising a round-table discussion with representatives from APROSOMA, PARMEHUTU, and UNAR [223]. The Nyanza Conference, held in April, was largely unsuccessful. PARMEHUTU and UNAR in particular were unwilling to work with each other or to share power in a national unity government. The UN representatives argued that if necessary, APROSOMA would be installed in order to maintain ethnic parity. PARMEHUTU and UNAR officials argued that an APROSOMA government would be unpopular and have no mandate. The insurmountability of the different parties' interests forced the UN to set a date for elections in January 1961. They also stated that they would be free elections with UN forces at voting stations to prevent electoral violence or vote-rigging. All parties agreed: APROSOMA believed they could successfully campaign on the promise of peace; PARMEHUTU considered their win a foregone conclusion, and UNAR believed that the Tutsi sub-chiefs could pressure their subjects effectively enough to become the ruling party.

Neighbouring Burundi was also inhabited by Hutu, Tutsi and Great Lakes Twa people, but their monarchy was less committed to ethnic rivalry than in Rwanda. Whilst Burundi also had a disproportionately Tutsi aristocracy, the king and his closest councillors were of the Ganwa people; a distinct social group that regardless of its (uncertain) ancestral origins, was perceived as an ethnic group apart from the Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. This "royal line" was dominated by two clans which often competed for control over the state; the Bezi and the Tare. The most important politician of the independence period in Burundi was Louis Rwagasore. Rwagasore was a son of Mwami Mwambutsa IV, King of Burundi. Rwagasore saw the dissolution of Belgium and the transfer of Burundi to United Nations authority as presenting an opportunity for native control over commercial activity in the kingdom. In June 1957 Rwagasore founded a federation of cooperatives, the Coopératives des Commerçants du Burundi (Traders' Cooperatives of Burundi, CCB) in order to empower native commerce. Whilst the remnants of Belgian colonial interests, now under France's control, opposed the CCB, it proved extremely popular with the Swahili traders of the capital Usumbura. In its first public meeting, the CCB drew a crowd of 200 merchants and managed to secure several favourable contracts with exporters. The CCB would eventually run into financial trouble, the causes of which are uncertain in the historical record. Opponents of Rwagasore claimed that he was embezzling significant sums from the CCB, whilst his supporters claim that French commercial interests were operating to clandestinely undermine the CCB. In any case, the financial trouble necessitated an international campaign seeking investment. This campaign was unsuccessful, although it did allow him to forge a good personal relationship with Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika. Rwagasore would end up acquiring credit for the CCB from the Supreme Land Council, an advisory body with royal oversight which had some influence on the national budget.

Louis Rwagasore, Prince of Burundi, head of UPRONA and Burundi's first Prime Minister​

Shortly after the CCB fiasco, Rwagasore became involved with the nascent Union pour le Progrès national (Union for National Progress, UPRONA) political party. UPRONA was quickly able to secure the early financial support of the Swahili population in Bujumbura, particularly the traders. Rwagasore had sought replication of the concerning inter-ethnic situation in neighbouring Rwanda; rallying Tutsis and Hutus alike to his cause. Nevertheless, UPRONA couldn't avoid being drawn into the competition between the Ganwa clans. The French mercantile interests in Burundi had encouraged the creation of the Parti Démocratique Chrétien (Christian Democratic Party, PDC) affiliated with the Tare clan in order to counteract Rwagasore's appeals to economic nationalism. The PDC was founded by Jean-Baptiste Ntidendereza, whose brother Joseph Biroli would be party president. Both were Tare. The Bezi, of which Rwagasore was a member, were closely associated with UPRONA. Rwagasore also fell out with his father, Mwambutsa IV, with whom he was never particularly close. The Mwami had encouraged prospective political opposition to Rwagasore, as to ensure that his power remained unchallenged. Having benefitted from relationships with the Belgian/French colonial interests in Burundi, Mwambutsa also disliked the manner with which Rwagasore targeted colonialism in his appeals to the Burundian masses. Rwagasore's political programme promised modernisation, and sought to establish a constitutional monarchy. UPRONA sought to be a broad-based coalition that would rule through consensus, and would be non-aligned in the international competition between the Soviet and US-led blocs. Trying to ensure that Burundi wouldn't encounter the pitfalls of the ethnic party system in Rwanda, both Hutus and Tutsis were put into high-level positions in UPRONA, which was intentionally structured to split important positions equitably between the two major ethnic groups. Despite Rwagasore's best efforts, UPRONA hadn't truly cultivated a mass political base. This may have actually helped it maintain its cohesion, however, as a mass political movement would likely skew towards Hutu interests, considering the country's demography. Rwagasore's populist tendencies and dominance of the party did lead many of the chiefs who had initially formed UPRONA to leave, including founding member Léopold Biha, a close confidany of King Mwambutsa IV.

PDC functionaries began a smear campaign against Rwagasore. They claimed (because of rumours that Mwambutsa IV had decided that Rwagasore's younger brother Charles would succeed him instead of the elder brother Rwagasore) that UPRONA was merely a vehicle Rwagasore intended to use to become king; Rwagasore responded with a promise that, king or not, he would fight for the people of Burundi. In 1959, Tare leader Pierre Baranyanka questioned whether Mwambutsa's marriage to Rwagasore's mother Kanyonga was legitimate according to Burundian custom; implying that he was a bastard with no claim to the throne. Antipathy grew, especially as UPRONA made inroads into Baranyanka's district of Ndora-Kayanza, which the Belgians had appointed him chief of in 1929. Baranyanka, enraged, threatened to have Rwagasore's in-laws living in nearby Rukecu raped by Twas. As the political competition between Baranyanka and Rwagasore grew, the latter began to carry a gun on him at all times, fearing assassination. Some hope remained for a peaceful transition to independence, however. On July 15th 1960, as neighbouring Congo began to descend into the chaos of its immediate post-independence, Rwagasore released a joint communique with Joseph Biroli appealing for calm, and stating that Burundi had "the unique chance... to create in the heart of Africa an island of peace, tranquility and prosperity". As parties made preparations for the 1961 legislative elections, the PDC allied with other parties to create an anti-UPRONA coalition, the Front Commun (Common Front, FC). UPRONA won the elections, which had 80% turnout, with 58 of 64 seats in the legislative assembly won by Rwagasore's party. Angered by their loss, PFC supporters in Mukenke, Kirundo Province, rioted and attacked UPRONA members. Rwagasore appealed to his supporters not to be provoked by this violence, and the UN authorities quickly restored order. With a clear mandate as formateur, Rwagasore brought the defeated parties into government. Pierre Ngendandumwe, a well-educated Hutu from the PDC, was named deputy prime minister. Rwagasore's brother-in-law, André Muhirwa, became Minister of the Interior, significantly decreasing the likelihood of a coup. Despite the strong democratic mandate of Rwagasore's national unity government, the Tare were still angered, perceiving Rwagasore's victory as a Bezi takeover, even though the formateur sought to appease them by appointing a Tare as Director of Tourism.
===
[222] IOTL, this was kinda the case. The UN Trust Territory under Belgian administration essentially lead to multiple layers of power in Rwanda and Burundi: Hutu / Tutsi / Belgian / UN (ascending order); but in effect the UN had very little influence over the mechanisms of power. ITTL, with the dissolution of the Belgian state, you have an administrative apparatus largely staffed by Belgians (now French and Dutchmen officially) but where they are overseen by UN superiors. This helps keep things from being too set up to "screw" non-compliant leadership. IOTL the Belgians had decided to side with the Hutus. Many of them, in the church and without, saw this as a good thing, toppling an unfair aristocracy. Others simply saw resurgent monarchical and Tutsi power as a threat to their economic interests. They really opened Pandora's Box though. ITTL however without the direct Belgian administration you don't get figures like Guy Logiest, who stacked things in the Hutus' favour in preparation for independence.
[223] IOTL, the Belgians ignored the UN's recommendations to postpone elections and instead pressed ahead with them.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Burundi's post-independence stability relative to its Rwandan neighbour can largely be traced to Louis Rwagasore's ability to maintain an inclusive, broad-based government. Whilst there was still tension between elements of the Tare clan and Rwagasore's government, the assassination attempt that Rwagasore feared never came to pass [224]. To appease Tare opponents, he appointed several of them as ambassadors to various friendly nations, providing those individuals with a prestigous position in the new government (and the perks of international travel). Rwagasore maintained cordial, if somewhat distant relations with Lumumba's Congo, but his close personal friendship with Tanganyikan President Julius Nyerere faciliated ties not only with Dar es Salaam but with Peking as well. Chinese aid was instrumental in the economic modernisation of Burundi, which saw the construction of two hydroelectric dams [225], the expansion of infrastructure providing drinking water, and the construction of a port on Lake Tanganyika to encourage regional trade. The largely agrarian economy of Burundi also benefitted from Chinese provision of tractors and other agricultural equipment, allowing Burundi to increase production of coffee, tea and sugar. Economic integration between the Burundi-Rwanda economic union (which had been retained from the colonial and UN administration) and Tanganyika was encouraged as steps towards a confederal East African Union. Despite an increase in overall economic prosperity, anxieties about a potential spillover of conflict from Rwanda to Burundi haunted Burundian politics. Rwagasore could not step down from office due to internal divisions in the party between Paul Mirerekano, a Hutu and an old friend of Rwagasore's who had been an important composer of UPRONA's political programme (who had nevertheless not been a member of the first UPRONA government) and André Muhirwa. Rwagasore was still the arbiter of UPRONA's policy, but he would need to see more consensus between his party members before relinquishing his hold on power. Determined not to get directly involved in the events in Rwanda, Rwagasore refused entry of UNAR Tutsi rebels into Burundi in 1963, forcing them instead to operate out of bases in Uganda and Congo[226]. In 1977, Mwami Mwambutsa passed away[227]. Irritated by Rwagasore's move to reduce the monarchy's political influence through the adoption of a new constitution in 1964 which turned Burundi into a constitutional monarchy, Mwambutsa had named his younger son, Charles Ndizege, as monarch. Whilst some supporters of Rwagasore were irritated with this, claiming that Rwagasore was the rightful claimant, in the interests of political stability and separation of powers Rwagasore renounced his claim and congratulated his younger brother on his coronation. Ndizege took the regnal name Ntare V.

In Rwanda, the January 1961 elections resulted in a clear victory for PARMEHUTU. A referendum in July on the issue of whether or not to retain the monarchy gave the government an unambiguous mandate to abolish the monarchy. Kigeli V went into exile, moving between various East African cities. The first government of independent Rwanda was lead by Prime Minister Grégoire Kayibanda, who appointed Dominique Mbonyumutwa as President. The Kayibanda government promoted a policy of international non-alignment, focusing instead on the establishment of ties with various countries around the globe. Kayibanda's government did little to face issues of corruption and economic inefficiency, however. They also instituted a number of 'democratisation' measures that were used in order to dilute the influence of the Rwandan Tutsis. Quotas were established in secondary schools and the civil service which limited Tutsis to a mere 9% of spots, proportionate to their total population. Whilst it is understandable that Tutsis couldn't retain as large a role as they had in administration prior to independence, this pushed a number of experienced civil servants out of work, and exacerbated ethnic tensions due to high unemployment rates. Many of the now jobless Tutsis were unable to find alternative employment. Rather than emphasising a united Rwandan identity regardless of ethnicity, Kayibanda maintained the pre-independence ID system, which still specified ethnic affiliation.

PARMEHUTU policies continued to encourage Tutsi emigration from Rwanda. Some of these Tutsi were allowed into Burundi, although the Rwagasore government limited the influx in order to not upset too much the ethnic balance in their kingdom, and some also fled to Tanganyika, but the majority resettled in the border regions of Uganda and Congo (in the latter these Tutsi refugees were referred to as "Banyamalenge"). Burundi's refusal to let in UNAR rebels, along with Rwagasore's constant efforts to maintain good relations with Kayibanda, convinced the latter to retain the economic union with Burundi[228]. 1963 saw a major incursion by UNAR rebels that crossed the border from Congolese South Kivu into Rwanda. This attack was repelled by the Rwandan gendarmerie, but cross-border night raids from Congo continued to be a problem for Kayibanda and his government. The recruitment of not-insignificant numbers of Banyamalenge into the Congolese military, and the cross-border raids convinced Kayibanda that Lumumba was seeking to overthrow his government and put in place a pliant regime. In reality, Lumumba cared little for the going-ons on in Rwanda, focusing instead on competition with the Rhodesians and South Africans. The vast size of Congo simply allowed UNAR rebels to operate in remote areas of South Kivu without Congolese government support. The language used in anti-Tutsi rhetoric by PARMEHUTU officials became ever graver; the UNAR rebels who infiltrated at night were referred to as inyenzi ("cockroaches") due to their disappearance in the daylight. This dehumanising language was soon extended to the Tutsi population that still lived in Rwanda. The threat of the UNAR rebels to the Rwandan state was also exaggerated in the minds of the PARMEHUTU leadership and their supporters; rather than a multinational conspiracy, the raiding rebels were fractured and largely operated independently. Whilst their raids were a serious threat to the lives of civilians living in the border areas, as well as to security forces personnel, a Tutsi march on Kigali wasn't likely, at least without significant foreign support.

Juvénal Habyarimana​

In July 1973, the Kayibanda government was toppled by a coup d'état headed by his defense minister, Major General Juvénal Habyarimana. Despite some initial overtures to the Tutsi population, Habyarimana soon reversed course to perpetuate the anti-Tutsi policies of his predecessor. In 1975, Habyarimana established his own political party, the Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement (National Revolutionary Movement for Development, MRND) and outlawed all others. A 1978 constitution implemented by the MRND defined Rwanda as a presidential republic with no term limits. Habyarimana, the only name on the ballot, was also elected to a five-year term as President.

===
[224] IOTL Rwagasore was assassinated by a Greek national in the employ of the PDC. Details are uncertain, but it appears that the factor that pushed the PDC to go through with the assassination was encouragement by the Belgian resident. ITTL no Belgian resident, the PDC don't dare to kill Rwagasore without Western support.
[225] IOTL such economic modernisation wouldn't occur until the late 1970s and early 1980s under the purview of Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, a military dictator of Burundi.
[226] IOTL, the pro-Tutsi governments that came about in the aftermath of Rwagasore's assassination allowed these rebels to operate out of Burundi, which further inflamed ethnic tensions in Burundi itself.
[227] IOTL, a Hutu coup in 1965 toppled the Burundian monarchy, which went into exile and Mwambutsa himself ended up living out the rest of his life in Switzerland. ITTL, the monarchy isn't topped.
[228] IOTL this union was dissolved due to the post-Rwagasore Burundian government's harbouring of UNAR rebels.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The British protectorate of Uganda, in contrast to many of London's other African colonies, was unique in that it was organised into a system of sub-imperialism. After the imposition of British imperial sovereignty, the kingdom of Buganda had largely collaborated with the British against rival kingdoms such as the Bunyoro who had opposed the British. In the post-WWII environment, the native kingdoms jockeyed with the British around local authority. Other significant players in Uganda were the Ugandan Asians, immigrants and their descendants from Britain's South Asian holdings. These Ugandan Asians were given a monopoly over cotton-ginning, a major contributor to the Ugandan economy, due to a British belief that the racist assumption that the Asians were intrinsically more efficient and entrepeneurial. In 1949, disgruntled Baganda (the demonym of Buganda) rioted and burnt down the houses of pro-British chiefs. The rioters put forward three demands to the colonial authorities: the right to bypass government-instituted price controls on export sales of cotton; the removal of the Asian monopoly over cotton ginning; and the right to have their own representatives in local government replace British-appointed chiefs. They were also critical of the Buganda Kabaka (king), Frederick Walumgembe Mutesa II for his inattentiveness to the needs of his people. British governor, Sir John Hall, regarded the riots as the work of communist agitators and rejected the recommended reforms.

Kabaka Frederick Walumgembe Mutesa II, King of Buganda and first President of Uganda​

Post-war British retreat from India, the rise of pan-Africanism and a more liberal British Colonial Office set Uganda on a path to self-rule. In 1952 Hall was replaced by the reformist Sir Andrew Cohen, former Undersecretary for African Affairs in the Colonial Office. The new government removed obstacles to African cotton ginning, rescinded price discrimination against African-grown coffee, encouraged cooperatives, and established the Uganda Development Corporation. He reorganised the legislative council to include native representatives from throughout Uganda. Political reform caused a sudden proliferation of political parties, alarming the old guard centred around the traditional kingdoms. A 1953 speech in London by Cohen referring to the possibility of an East African Federation in the vein of Rhodesia-Nyasaland worried Ugandans, who saw the Central African Federation (rightfully) as a vehicle for settler interests. Fearing dominance by the white Kenyan minority (as it turned out, this group would flee Kenya in the aftermath of Kenya's break-up), the political class amongst the Ugandan natives started to view Cohen's reforms with suspicious. Kabaka Mutesa II demanded that Buganda be separated from the protectorate and transferred to Foreign Office jurisdiction, effectively denying Cohen's authority over his kingdom. In response, Cohen had the Kabaka deported to London. This backfired spectacularly, as the once-unpopular Kabaka became a symbol of resistance amongst his people. The Baganda chiefs and administrative apparatuses of the kingdom mounted a two year campaign of obstructionism until Cohen relented and allowed the Kabaka to return to his homeland. Cohen managed to secure Mutesa's agreement to partipate in a future federal Ugandan state, but was forced to concede powers to Mutesa that the Baganda Kabaka hadn't held since 1889, namely the power to appoint and dismiss chiefs in his kingdom, who had prior been appointed by the British governor, effectively making the Kabaka an absolute monarch in his territories.

A new grouping of Baganda referring to themselves as "The King's Friends" rallied around the newly-empowered king. The King's Friends were conservatives who insisted on a primary position for the Buganda kingdom amongst the Ugandans, entertaining participation in a united Uganda only if the Buganda Kabaka was head of state. Another political force in Baganda was the Democratic Party (DP) which emerged from Catholics in Baganda. The Catholic Church had educated a small group of Baganda, including the DP leader Benedicto Kiwanuka. These Catholics felt excluded by the Protestant Baganda establishment (the Kabaka and other high-level positions had to be Anglicans by law). Elsewhere in Uganda, despite often divergent interests between the regions, political unity was prompted by opposition to Bugandan domination. Buganda, after all, composed 2 million of the 6 million total Ugandans. In 1960, Milton Obote, a leader amongst the Nilotic Langi people of northern Uganda, formed a broad-based party, the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), to represent the non-Baganda. That same year, the London Conference was held to outline the future contours of an independent Ugandan state. It quickly became clear that Bugandan autonomy and a strong unitary state were fundamentally incompatible, and no compromise was made. The British announced that they would hold elections in March 1961 for "responsible government", the penultimate step before independence.

Milton Obote, first Prime Minister and Second President of Uganda and head of the Uganda People's Congress​

In Buganda, the "King's Friends" urged a total boycott of the election because their attempts to secure provision of future autonomy had been rebuffed by the British. Buganda was allotted 21 out of 82 seats in the National Assembly. Braving public pressure, DP supporters went out to the polls, and as such the Democratic Party won 20 out of 21 Buganda seats. They also won a number of seats outside of Buganda, and despite the UPC winning slightly more of the popular vote, the DP ended up with an artificial majority in the Ugandan legislature. Benedicto Kiwanuka became the first Chief Minister of Uganda, a post equivalent to the Prime Minister but in a not-yet-independent state. Immediately regretting their boycott of the elections, the King's Friends established a political party, the Kabaka Yekka (King Only, KY) and began voicing support for a federated Uganda. In order to take power from the DP, the UPC and KY entered into a marriage of convenience. They reached a compromise that in a coalition government, the Kabaka could appoint Buganda's representatives to the National Assembly, as well as Mutesa taking the position of ceremonial Head of State. This coalition defeated the DP government in the April 1962 election. The coalition took 67 seats (43 UPC, 24 KY) to the DP's 24. The UPC-KY coalition led Uganda into independence in October 1962, with Obote as Uganda's Prime Minister and Mutesa II as President. Whilst on paper the UPC was in a powerful position, in reality it was a full-time job for Obote. Notable regional party bosses in the UPC included Obote himself, George Magezi (who represented the Bunyoro), Grace Ibingira (of the Anhole Bantu people of Uganda's southwest), and the reactionary representative of the neglected West Nile district, Felix Onama. All of these figures expected the government to deliver material benefits for their people, as well as allowing them to exercise patronage and being granted a ministerial position. Furthermore, Obote's politically-motivated acknowledgement of Buganda's special status emboldened other groups to demand such status; the Busoga chiefdoms banded together to demand official recognition of their newly-defined monarch, the Kyabasinga. The Iteso people, who had never recognised a precolonial king, claimed the title "Kingoo" for their political boss, Cuthbert Joseph Obwangor.

In January 1964, Obote's authority was challenged by a mutiny of army officers. Like many other newly independent states in Africa, their armed forces demanded an increase in pay and promotions in exchange for stability. Onama, the Minister of Defense, went to speak with the mutineers face-to-face, but was promptly taken hostage. Obote acceded to the mutineers' demands, and he selected a popular junior officer, Idi Amin, to be his protégé. Amin would be frequently promoted over the next couple of years. Later that year, Ibingira mounted an intra-UPC challenge to Obote's leadership. Conspiring with Ibingira, Mutesa instructed KY MPs to join the UPC, planning to take over the party from the inside by forming an Ibingira-KY alliance. They were unable to pull off this hostile takeover, however, as before all the KY MPs could join the UPC, enough DP and other figures in the National Assembly had drifted over to UPC patronage networks, and Obote was able to dissolve the KY-UPC coalition whilst still maintaining a majority in the National Assembly. Obote finally felt strong enough to push against Buganda and limit their disproportionate power. The vehicle to do so was addressing the issues of the "lost counties" of Bunyoro. These counties had been transferred from Bunyoro to Buganda during the imposition of British authority in the region as a punishment for Bunyoro resistance and a reward for Bugandan collaboration with the imperial power. A plebiscite was held in the lost counties, which overwhelmingly came out in favour of reunification with Bunyoro. During the plebiscite, the Kabaka had mobilised 300 Baganda veterans to intimidate voters, but these were counteracted by the massing of 2,000 Bunyoro veterans on the frontier between the two kingdoms, an implicit threat of civil war in the event of the Kabaka interfering with the plebiscite. This also of course shifted the National Assembly seats from the lost counties outside of KY control. Ironically, the weakening of the perceived threat from Buganda caused some fraying inside the UPC. Dissatisfaction with the plebiscite outcome caused the KY to started agitating for Bugandan independence. Seeking to cow the centrifugal forces in the UPC and finally get the Kabaka in line, Obote ordered Idi Amin to arrest Mutesa II. The Baganda monarch was able to escape from his palace into exile, whilst many of his close advisors were killed as the government troops assaulted his palace. Outraged by this unilateral use of military force against a domestic political figure, DP, KY and many of the UPC representatives pushed through a no confidence vote in the National Assembly. Only the radical John Kakonge didn't vote against Obote. Opposition to the Prime Minister was greatest amongst the southern Bantu representatives. With Amin's assistance, Obote mounted a coup against his own government, and arrested opposition leaders. A new republican constitution was forced through and Buganda was divided into four geographically-defined districts and was placed under direct martial law. Mutesa II would die three years later in London under suspicious circumstances. The official story is that he died from self-inflicted alcohol poisoning, but individuals who saw him earlier that day noted his sobriety and good spirits. Many believe he was assassinated by being force-fed vodka by intruders.

Awon'go Idi Amin Dada, Third President (and Dictator) of Uganda​

The UPC became the only legal party. Obote issued the "common man's charter", echoing Nyerere's call for African socialism. However the corrupt Obote placed economic nationalisation plans in the hands of an Asian millionaire who financed the UPC. Obote established a feared secret police, the innocuously-named General Service Unit (GSU). In December 1969 Obote was assassinated with a grenade detonation[229]. Amin immediately moved to take control of the country, claiming that he would punish the murderers, even though its highly likely that Amin himself was behind the assassination. Brigadier Pierino Okoya, one of Amin's only rivals amongst the senior officers, escaped with some loyal troops to neighbouring Tangyanika[230]. Amin quickly went to work arresting political opponents, falsely accusing them of a grand conspiracy against the late President, and having them executed.

===
[229] IOTL, the grenade didn't detonate. Amin would instead coup Obote in 1971 preemptively, as Obote realised that he was planning to take power.
[230] IOTL, Okoya would be assassinated, most likely on Amin's orders in 1970.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The rule of Idi Amin would coincide with the darkest period in Ugandan history. The brutality of the illiterate dictator of Uganda would lead to his acquisition of a number of unflattering epithets amongst opponents: "The Butcher of Africa" and "Black Hitler" amongst them. Amin's mercurial and erratic governance would lead to widespread economic hardship, corruption and human rights abuses.

Despite his promises to institute "democracy" in Uganda, Amin quickly turned post-Obote Uganda into a military dictatorship. Despite Obote's death, Amin nevertheless sought to marginalise the Langi and Acholi peoples who Obote had drawn his strongest support from. In July 1971, Amin had soldiers from these ethnic groups slaughtered in the Jinga and Mbarara barracks. By early 1972, over 5,000 soldiers of Langi and Acholi extraction (and around 2,000 civilians from these groups) had disappeared. A more well-known racist policy of Amin's, ostensibly pursued in the interests of economic nationalism, was the expulsion of the Ugandan Asians. Indophobia was not uncommon in Uganda amongst the indigenous populations due to the South Asian population's relative prosperity and economic influence. Obote's administration had tried to restrict economic activity of Asians, particularly those born outside of Uganda, but Amin's junta intensified the abuse of this population. The 40,000 or so Ugandan Asians (23,000 of whom were citizens of Uganda) were ousted and their assets redistributed to officers loyal to Amin. This immediately had a deleterious effect on the economy of Uganda. The Asian population owned 90% of the businesses in the country and as such provided 90% of the tax revenue. Without this population, there were few people left in the country with the skills to manage commerce. The manufacturing sector shrunk, as did GDP. Real wages would drop throughout Amin's rule in Uganda, and the country's economic woes were compounded by British and American bans on the import of Ugandan coffee in reaction to Amin's human rights abuses. 500 Ugandan-based Hadrahmi Arab merchants were also killed by Amin's security forces. The seizure of Ugandan Asian assets was followed up shortly after by a seizure of British-owned businesses as well.

Amin mounted a diplomatic campaign in order to secure foreign aid. His seizure of British businesses was well-received by the Congolese and Soviets, the latter of whom became the primary provider of military materiel. Funds provided by Léopoldville to Kampala were utilised in a large expansion of the military, which was largely recruited by groups deemed loyal to Amin: the Kakwa and Lugbara ethnic groups (Amin's parents' peoples), Equatorians (South Sudanese), Nubians and Congolese mercenaries, as well as Muslims from the West Nile province. The first significant challenge to Amin's leadership was the Arube mutiny of March 1974 [231], named for its ringleader, Brigadier Charles Arube. The primary structural cause for the mutiny was dissatisfaction amongst Christian Lugbara officers over Amin's increasing recruitment of foreigners and Muslims. Tensions within the internal military structure led to often violent disputes between different military factions, and the torture of Amin's detractors by the State Research Bureau (SRB), which was the Amin-era replacement of the GSU. A campaign of assassination against high-ranking Lugbara officers ordered by Amin provoked the Arube mutiny. After returning from training in the Soviet Union, Arube and his supporters attempted a coup, and were successful in taking Kampala. The coup itself was a close-run thing. An attack on the Presidential Palace by the putschists eventually resulted in the deaths of the 30-strong presidential bodyguard, but Arube's insistence that the capture of Amin wait until he had arrived, and Amin's murder of Arube upon the latter's entrance to the palace, halted the assault. The putschists, now leaderless, surrendered to the loyalist Marine Regiment which arrived shortly thereafter. Surviving by the skin of his teeth, Amin redoubled his efforts to take complete control of the military, recruiting almost exclusively amongst foreigners and Muslims. Muslims (mostly Kakwas and Nubians) came to occupy 80% of the top military positions and 87.5% of cabinet positions, despite comprising only 5% of the total Ugandan population. A ramping up of both military expansion and political suppression led to a wave of defections amongst senior ministers to foreign countries, notably the UK.

Idi Amin posing with a WWII-vintage Panzerschreck​

Over the border in Tanganyika, Ugandan opposition movements, supported by the Nyerere government, continued to build their strength. Two separate organisations, one comprised largely of Acholi and Langi exiles under the command of Brigadier Okoya, the other comprised of Banyankole and Banyarwanda leftists under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni. Under Nyerere's direction, these two groups formed a "Popular Front" in opposition to the Amin government. Nyerere's support of the anti-Amin leftists is often portrayed in histories as one of the last Soviet-Chinese proxy conflicts before the Sino-Soviet rapproachement, with Tanganyika supported by Peking and Uganda by Moscow. But in reality, Soviet interest in the region was always limited. It is more accurate to define the contest as a Tanganyikan-Congolese rivalry. Although both anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist in outlook, Lumumba and Nyerere had vastly different visions of the future for a liberated Africa. Nyerere's Ujamaa ideology was far more rooted in African tradition and equitability whilst less developmentalist than the Congo. Nyerere saw Lumumba as attempting to ape the development of Eurasian nations, whereas Lumumba saw Nyerere as naive, and as someone whose policies would keep Africans poor and ignorant. The Congolese sought to install friendly regimes in all of their many borders in order to ensure stability, whereas Nyerere hoped to construct an East African Federation to bring peace to the region. Whilst Museveni was a real ideological fellow-traveller to Nyerere, Okoya simply sought the support of an opponent to the Congolese-backed Amin regime. In early 1973, Museveni announced the formation of the "Front for National Salvation" (FRONASA) and published a manifesto targeting Amin, titled "an indictment of a primitive fascist". Although FRONASA was initially very small, it would have an outsized impact on Ugandan politics in the future.

As Amin built up his military power, he sought to gain a reputation as a successful conqueror. In February 1976 he started to make announcements that he would be investigating the relationship of the Ugandan kingdoms to Kavirondo, which he (falsely) stated may have belonged to pre-colonial Ugandan kingdoms. This provoked panic in the Kavirondese capital of Kisumu, with ker Oginga Odinga scrambling to find foreign allies. Kirinyaga-Kenyaland to the east was too much of a threat; the militarily-weak Rift Valley Republic to the north sought to keep out of any conflict with Amin, and the Equatorian government was on decent terms with Kampala, making good money out of the provision of mercenaries to Uganda. The invasion would finally come in February 1977. 15,000 troops of Amin's 25,000-strong military machine crossed into Kavirondo. The Kavirondese armed forces were more akin to a gendarmerie than a real army, and were quickly pushed back to the capital. Odinga fled to Tanganyika. He had maintained a terse relationship with Nyerere in the past, but now he had nowhere left to go. Ugandan troops in Kavirondo embarked on an ad hoc terror campaign of rape, looting and mutiliation. Particularly disturbing was Muslim troops' atrocities committed against churches associated with the Legio Maria church, whose leader Simeo Ondetto had fled to the Rift Valley Republic's capital of Lodwar. The Legio Maria had been told not to oppose the invaders, and many were massacred en masse. This martyrdom of the Legio Maria followers would be a major catalyst for the religion's expansion in the post-Amin era. Amin's aggression was denounced by many African leaders, but he was also rhetorically defended by the Congolese and their client states, as well as by the King of Morocco. Nyerere began to seriously plan for military action against Amin, even considering offers from Rhodesia-Nyasaland to provide well-trained and equipped mercenary forces in exchange for cutting off support to anti-Rhodesian black African movements sheltered in Tanganyika. In the end a wider East African war was averted by the mediation of Somalian president Siad Barre, resulting in the Mogadishu Accords. Despite rhetorical support from some African nations, Amin's aggression in Kavirondo left him with little real support internationally. The Congolese were more concerned with events in Angola, seeing the Great Lakes region as a secondary consideration. The British, who had initially welcomed Amin's coup and further distanced themselves over the course of the 1970s, finally broke diplomatic relations off in 1977. The Soviets had cooled on their support for Amin, with more important priorities elsewhere and starting to see Amin as too much of a proverbial live wire. The Somalians were focused on their issues with Ethiopia, and simply wanted peace and stability to their south. Nevertheless, Amin was able to complete his conquest of Kavirondo, and the calls for withdrawal from the United Nations General Assembly were ignored.

The Mogadishu Accords couldn't restrain Amin's megalomania for long. On October 25th, 1978, Ugandan forces crossed the border with Tanganyika and attacked the Kagera Salient, a disputed territory which Amin claimed was rightfully part of Uganda. They were repulsed by Tanganyikan artillery, but returned in force five days later, driving the defenders out of the salient. Amin announced the annexation of Kagera and had the only bridge along the Kagera river (which divided the salient from the rest of Tanganyika) destroyed. His forces in Kavirondo also started making probing attacks to their south, but couldn't engage in any large-scale offensives due to the need to garrison occupied Kavirondo. Nevertheless Amin started considering an offensive campaign to take Bukoba, Mwanza and Musoma, thus encircling the entirety of Lake Victoria. He would never get the opportunity to pursue these ambitions, however. After engaging in an orgy of violence and looting in Kagera ($108 million worth of Tanganyikan economic assets were lost) as well as forcible kidnapping of young women and girls into sexual slavery in Uganda, the invaders were ousted by a Tanganyikan counterattack. Although initially offering anaemic resistance to the Ugandan military, proper mobilisation of the Tanganyikan People's Defense Force (TPDF) made a Tanganyikan victory inevitable. Within a few months, Dar es Salaam had mobilised 150,000 members of the people's militias. Despite the Ugandan military numbering around 20,000 at this time, only 3,000 were ever in Kagera at once. Infighting and a focus on crime instead of the maintenance of defensive positions left the Ugandan military unprepared for a Tanganyikan counteroffensive, which the Ugandans foolishly thought impossible due to the destruction of the bridge over the Kagera river. In mid-November, Tanganyikan forces crossed a pontoon bridge and drove the Ugandan soldiers out of Kagera, many of whom were drunk. A bailey bridge was then built on the ruined Kagera bridge, and BM-21 Grads were driven across the river. The TPDF considered another Ugandan incursion a possibility as long as the high ground at Mutukula on the Ugandan side of the border stayed out of Tanganyikan hands. Whilst training their new conscript militias for an offensive, the TPDF settled into defensive positions. Christmas Day 1978 saw a major artillery bombardment by the TPDF BM-21s. The Ugandan forces were shaken by the destructive capabilities of the rocket batteries, which they called "Saba-Saba". After weeks of heavy shelling, the TPDF would cross the border and take Mutukula the very next day. In reprisal for the killing of civilians in Kagera, the town was destroyed and many civilian killings carried out. This was not done on Nyerere's orders, and he was horrified to find out about these indiscriminate attacks. He decreed that no further targeting of civilians would be tolerated.
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[231] The 1972 attempt by Ugandan exiles in Tanzania to topple Amin is butterflied away by Obote's death.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Tanganyikan aims in the Kagera war were initially defensive, but when Idi Amin refused to acknowledge Tanganyikan sovereignty over the region and sue for peace, Nyerere and the TPDF leadership were forced to consider their next moves now that the initiative was theirs. Ugandan exile leaders convinced Nyerere that capture of the southern towns of Mbarara and Masaka would cause a disintegration of the Ugandan Armed Forces (UAF) and spark a popular uprising that would topple the Amin regime. The TPDF began its advance in mid-February 1979. After taking the border town of Katera, the Tanganyikans began their advance to the Simba Hills, which overlooks the Lukoma air strip and is en route to Masaka. The night before the attack, the TPDF brigadiers began planning the assault and ended up drinking, coming up with the idea (after some beers) that they would broadcast over the radio that various foreign forces ("Americans", "Chinese", "South Africans"[232]) were in position, tricking the Ugandan military into believing that they were the target of an international coalition. Incredibly, the ruse worked. Ugandan units had begun withdrawing en masse, and the TPDF was able to rout the remaining forces. Sorties by Ugandan air wings did scatter some troops on the initial advance, but TPDF deployment of SA-7 portable SAMs thinned out the Ugandan planes. The Tanganyikans claimed to have downed 19 Ugandan aircraft in the Battle of Simba Hills. The remaining Ugandan units were annihilated by volleys of rockets fired from the BM-21s. On 13th February, the Hills and the Lukoma air strip were secured. The parallel thrust towards Mbarara was slower than the advance towards Masaka due to hillier terrain and poorer infrastructure. On 21st February the TPDF's 206th Brigade attacked the Gayaza Hills to the south of Mbarara. Fierce fighting ensued, and the TPDF 20th Battalion, pursuing retreating Ugandan forces, was drawn into an ambush by the Ugandan 2nd Paratrooper Battalion. Intense fighting forced the Tanganyikans to reinforce and eventually flank the Ugandan positions. 24 Tanganyikans were killed in the ambush, and the Tanganyikan soldiers who survived the ambush were dubbed the "Red Army" by their comrades due to their combat experience. On 25th February the TPDF began shelling of Mbarara, forcing a Ugandan retreat. Mbarara was then taken without resistance.

Ugandan Armed Forces troops (APCs supplied by Czechoslovakia)​

Back in the east, the TPDF dislodged the garrison at Kalisizo, 28 kilometres to the south of Masaka. As the demoralised Ugandan troops retreated to Masaka, a column of civilians fled the city. They were actually fleeing their own troops, not the Tanganyikans, due to the Ugandan army's reputation for harassment of civilians. The TPDF encircled Masaka on three sides. The Ugandan garrison commander, Brigadier Isaac Maliyamungu, ordered forces under his control to probe the TPDF positions to find an opportunity for a counterattack, but these efforts were rebuffed. On 23rd February, a massive nighttime bombardment was commenced by the Tanganyikan "Saba-Saba" launchers. In the meanwhile, divisions began to emerge between the defenders. Sudanese, Congolese and West Nile officers showed a lack of desire to risk their forces against the Tanganyikan army, seeing the war as irrelevant to their home regions. Some of the units under their command ended up withdrawing to Lukaya. On the morning of the 24th, the TPDF attacked. Several units of the Ugandan Army mutinied (including the supposedly elite "Suicide Battalion") and fled. The lack of coherent resistance by the Ugandan army once again allowed the Tanganyikan military to achieve their objectives easily. Masaka was taken in a matter of hours. With Masaka and Mbarara taken and the Ugandans in disarray, Nyerere ordered his army to halt their advance. Believing that a Tanganyikan occupation of Kampala would be bad for his nation's image and make them look expansionist, Nyerere instead left it to the Ugandan rebels to march on the capital [233].

This wasn't the case in occupied Kavirondo, however. TPDF and Kavirondo exile forces marched north into the small Ugandan-occupied country. The cowed Ugandan military retreated ahead of the TPDF, allowing the latter to liberate the small nation without any notable resistance. Wherever the army of liberation marched however, they found burnt-out houses and traumatised survivors. The small pro-business nation that had the highest standard of living in the interlacustrine region had, in the short space of two years, been practically razed to the ground. The vaults of the Imperial Solomonic Bank in Kehancha, Kisumu and Lodwar had been entirely emptied. The looting and destruction of practically all held wealth in the country would lead post-Amin Kavirondo to complete dependence on Tanganyikan and Chinese economic aid.

Tanganyikan T-55 and infantry escort
​

As the TPDF was settling into their position on the Masaka-Mbarara axis, the Ugandan exiles were organised into a government-in-exile, the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) governed by a 30-man National Consultative Committee (NCC). The armed rebel militias were organised into the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), around 2,000-strong. The UNLA advanced along the only road from Masaka to Kampala. This road passed through Lukaya, a town 39km to the north of Masaka. After that, the route continued on a 25km causeway that went through a swamp until it reached Nabusanke. Amin rejected a plan to destroy the causeway, on the basis that it would impede a future counterattack. An initial attempt to catch the rebels on the causeway by the UAF was repulsed by a barrage of BM-21s (who the rebels had requested be brought along with them on the march to Kampala, despite some misgivings from elements of the TPDF command). This then resulted in an attempt by the UAF to flank the causeway around the swamp and cut off the UNLA forces. The UNLA forces drove across the causeway and pushed west, cutting off the UAF from supply. The rebels convinced the TPDF to drive forward from Masaka to pin the UAF forces between them and the UNLA. The UAF forces surrendered and were held in captivity by the Tanganyikans. UNLA troops continued their advance towards Kampala, clearing the road and captured Mpigi. The UNLA continued on to Entebbe, taking the airport and thus eliminating the Ugandan Army Air Force as a threat, before taking Kampala with minimal resistance. The UNLA rebels were celebrated upon their entry to the capital as "bakombozi" (liberators). Amin himself fled to Morocco[234]. Soon thereafter, Jinja was taken, along with the key Owen Falls hydroelectric dam, which was captured fully intact. Some Ugandan units offered stiff resistance in the West Nile region, where many of Amin's close followers were from. Nevertheless, they were defeated. The conflict came to a dark end with FRONASA-aligned militias engaging in civilian killings throughout the province. The Uganda National Liberation Front established itself as the new government, with Yusuf Lule, a former DP politicians with a reputation as a political moderate, as the fourth President of Uganda.

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[232] IOTL it was "Americans", "Israelis" and "Cubans".
[233] Historically, Muammar Gaddafi sent an expeditionary force to assist Amin, which the Ugandan rebels were unable to defeat without Tanzanian assistance. ITTL, no Gaddafi regime in Libya means Uganda is on its own, and Nyerere isn't forced to commit his forces to a full conquest of Uganda.
[234] IOTL, Amin fled to Saudi Arabia.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Competition between the superpowers extended beyond the undermining of their rivals' terrestrial interests; in fact, both Washington and Moscow sought to utilise the conquest of spaceflight as a means of proving the superiority of their economic, political and social systems. It was believed by leaders of both the USA and USSR that not only would mastery of outer space provide tangible military strategic advantage through the construction of orbital weapons platforms, but also that there were major soft power gains by capturing the imaginations of the idealistic amongst humanity, who dreamt that our species would one day spread throughout our universe, to "leave the cradle" of our homeworld.

The emergent Atomic Age bolstered public interest in new scientific possibilities. Excitement amongst enthusiasts about the possibility of manned spaceflight was aroused with the October 1951 publication of Mikhail Tikranravov's article "Flight to the Moon" in Soviet youth newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda. Prophetically, one passage in the article read "We do not have long to wait. We can assume that the bold dream of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky will be realised within the next 10 to 15 years". The reference to astronautics pioneer Tsiolkovsky is also of note; Wernher von Braun, Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko had all been inspired in their earlier days by Tsiolkovsky's vision of humanity's extraterrestrial future. Not long after the publication of Tikranravov's article, Collier's Magazine in the United States published a seven-article series titled "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" detailing plans for crewed spaceflight authored by von Braun.

For all these lofty, high-minded goals, the Space Race emerged out of military competition, namely the development of rocketry. In the final days of the Second World War, both the Soviets and Americans captured a number of key rocket production facilities and secured the services of German rocket scientists and engineers who had worked on the famed Vergeltungswaffe ("Vengeance Weapons"). Both superpowers had an interest in the V-2, the world's first long-range ballistic missile. A greater number of these scientists fell into the hands of the Americans rather than the Soviets, as many notable Nazis fled West once the war was lost, fearing vicious retribution from the awakened and enraged colossus that was the late-war Red Army. Most notable amongst these scientists was Wernher von Braun, a former SS member who was brought to America as a part of Operation Paperclip, the policy that brought former Nazi scientists, engineers and technicians to American employ en masse. von Braun would be the most notable figure on the American side of the Space Race with the Soviets. He had helped design the V-2 rockets, and had been Technical Director at the Wehrmacht's Army Rocket Centre at Peenemünde.

Wernher von Braun, former Nazi rocket scientist and American spaceflight pioneer​

Virtually as soon as the Reichstag fell to their troops, the Soviets began to reverse engineer the V-2 with the assistance of captive Nazi scientists. The Soviet copy of the V-2 was designated the R-1, and it's production was put under the oversight of design bureau NII-88's chief designer, Sergei Korolev. The R-1 would enter military service late in 1950, but by this time Korolev and his design bureau was pursuing much greater ambitions. Korolev had little need for the further assistance of the captured Germans, most of whom were sent home. His new R-2 rocket was designed with the assistance of visionary rocket engineer Valentin Glushko, who had made significant advances in liquid fuel propellant technology for rockets. The new R-2 had double the range of the R-1. Further development of ballistic missile technology by NII-88 saw the creation of the R-5 Pobeda in 1951, the USSR's first real strategic missile, with a 1200 kilometre range and capable of carrying a one-megaton thermonuclear warhead, which entered service in 1955. 1953 had seen commencement of the development of the R-7 Semyorka, to fulfil military demand for a missile with a launch mass of 170-200 tons, a range of 8,500km and capable of carrying a 3-ton warhead. In other words, for an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Design parameters would soon be changed to increase the warhead's mass to 6 tons to accomodate a new thermonuclear payload. On the 21st August 1957, the R-7 flew a successful test flight of 6,000km, and would a mere two months later, spark the Space Race.

Despite being the home of the inspired Robert H. Goddard, American underinvestment in the field of rocketry meant that they were the only major power without a state-sanctioned rocketry programme at the end of WWII. Goddard had created the first liquid-fueled rocket back in 1926, and made a number of other revolutionary advances in the field, but his theories were publicly ridiculed and deemed too outlandish. Goddard would pass away in 1945, and the "what-if" of greater support for his projects has lingered in the mind of allohistory enthusiasts and space historians ever since. It is this lack of cultivation for domestic talent which forced the American space programme to rely so heavily on the scientists acquired in Operation Paperclip. Development of military rocket technology was also far less well-coordinated in the United States than in the Soviet Union. Upon arrival in America, von Braun's team languished in a camp at the US Army's White Sands Proving Ground in a desolate corner of New Mexico, tasked with assembling captured V-2s. von Braun's team would be relocated to the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1950. Here they were put to work, under the purview of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, headed by General Medaris, working on the Redstone rocket. The Redstone would become the US Army's first operational medium-range missile, and would become the basis for both the Jupiter and Saturn rocket families. At this time, all three branches of the US military were pursuing independent rocketry programmes. Rather than collaborating on their findings, inter-services politics led them to jealously guard their progress and undermine each others' searches for funding and support from civilian leadership. In parallel with the Redstone programme, the USAF had begun a ballistic missile programme in 1945 with the MX-774. The US Navy developed a V-2-inspired designed, the Regulus I, for use on submarines. The first launch of the Regulus I was in 1953. Surfacing prior to firing was still necessary, although submerged-fire capacity would eventually be successfully developed. Applications of American rocketry beyond ballistic missile development became apparent with the announcement by Eisenhower's press secretary, James C. Hagerty on July 29th 1955 that the US intended to launch satellites into orbit between July 1st 1957 and December 31st 1958 in celebration of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Behind the scenes, Eisenhower and his advisors were of the opinion that a nation's territorial airspace sovereignty did not extend beyond the Kármán Line (the official line delineating the boundary between outer space and the edge of Earth's atmosphere) and sought to use the IGY launches to establish this principle in international law. Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of the International Astronautical Federation in Copenhagen, Leonid I. Sidov informed reporters taht the Soviet Union too sought to launch a satellite during the IGY. With both superpowers having thrown their hat in the ring to be the first nation to launch an artificial satellite, Korolev managed to convince the Soviet Academy of Sciences to create a commission whose sole purpose was to outcompete the Americans in aerospace technology. The Soviet military would maintain control over the space programme, which was kept top secret and under constant military and KGB surveillance. Korolev's newly-assigned design bureau, OKB-1, would be subordinate to the unassumingly-named Ministry of General Machine Building and the identities of all personnel involved kept secret.

Apprehensive about the possibility of being seen internationally as a warmonger with the use of a military rocket to launch an artificial satellite, Eisenhower elected to use the untested Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard rocket, which was designed with research, not military, objectives in mind. This meant that von Braun's team, languishing whilst ABMA assets were being divided between the Navy and Air Force in accordance with a directive from Eisenhower, was unable to launch their Jupiter-C. von Braun was able to eventually get the Jupiter-C launched on 20th September 1956. The launch was merely a suborbital test of reentry vehicle technology, but Soviet intelligence incorrectly believed it to be a failed satellite launch, aware of the Jupiter-C's capacity to reach orbit. In response to the perceived attempt to launch a satellite by the United States, Korolev expedited plans to get his own satellite into orbit. The R-7 was selected as the launch rocket due to it's very large lift capacity relative to its US contemporaries. Korolev designed a 1400kg satellite, "Object D", which contained 300kg of scientific instruments. Complications with the manufacture of Object D and the perceived need to hurry resulted in Korolev receiving permission from the Council of Ministers to build a simple satellite, PS-1 (Prosteishy Sputnik-1), postponing Object D until April 1958. PS-1 was minimalist, weighing only 83kg with a 58cm diameter. The PS-1 was launched with an R-7 from the missile base at Tyura-Tam (later Baikonur) in Kazakhstan on October 4th, 1957. This wouldn't be the last legacy of the R-7; it would form the basis for a family of Soviet rockets including the Luna, Molniya, Vostok and Voshkod space launchers, as well as later variants of the Soyuz. The Sputnik satellite was successfully put into orbit. As it made its way across the globe, the small satellite emitted radio waves that could be picked up on any short wave receiver. Thousands worldwide tuned in with amazement to the pinging beep made by the satellite. Those who didn't tune in were informed by newspapers, magazines and radio programmes.

Later artist's rendition of PS-1 ("Sputnik") in orbit​

The Soviet Union's successful launch of an artificial satellite was met in the rest of the world with a mixture of awe and fear. In the so-called Third World, Soviet technological advancements seemed to provide proof of the capacity for socialism to transform 'backwards' countries and bring them into parity, if not superiority, with the West. In the West itself, many ordinary people were swept up with enthusiasm for the seemingly limitless frontiers of the future. Amongst the political and media establishments, however, a so-called "Sputnik panic" ensued. Whilst there were some in the American scientific community aware of the Soviets' ambitions in space; there was still a wider perception that the USSR was nothing but a giant country full of backwards peasants, making an achievement such as Sputnik unimaginable. It is not unlikely that these views were at least in part inspired by a long history of Anglosphere chauvinism regarding Russians, as well as the intense Russophobia of many of the former Nazi scientists acquired in Operation Paperclip. Scientific organisations and universities in the United States used the opportunity presented by Sputnik to decry inadequate federal spending for both theoretical and applied sciences, particularly physics. British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke was more alarmist, stating that "the day that Sputnik orbited around the Earth, the US became a second-rate power". National security advisors (perhaps knowingly) overestimated Soviet rocket power, alarming Congress and securing an increase in military spending. Eisenhower would make an address to the nation, declaring three "stark facts" the United States needed to confront: that the USSR surpassed the USA and "Free World" in scientific advancement; that a Soviet maintenance of their lead in space technology undermines US prestige; and that if the Soviets could weaponise space, it could pose an existential threat to the United States.

Increased emphasis was placed on the US Navy's Project Vanguard to launch an American satellite into orbit. There was also a renewed interest in the lapsed Project Orbiter which had been started by ABMA. 1957 saw the production of the Atlas-A, the first successful American ICBM. In February 1958, President Eisenhower authorised formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense to develop emerging technologies. There was some conversation about the shift to a civilian-based agency, but concerns over secrecy and viability led this idea to be thrown by the wayside [235]. Another benefit to come out of the Sputnik panic was the passing of the National Defense Education Act. It was a four-year (1958-1962) programme that poured billions of dollars into the US education system, hoping to bring forth a new generation of scientists and technical experts to stay on par with the Soviets. Ignominy for the Americans continued to be a problem at the beginning phase of the Space Race; the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik 2, whilst the US' attempt to put their own satellite in orbit, Vanguard TV-3, on 6th December 1957, failed completely, with its rocket exploding on the launchpad. Dubbed "kaputnik" by the press, this was a major humiliation for the United States. The Americans would eventually, nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, launched its first satellite on a four-stage Juno I rocket (derived from the Redstone) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The satellite in question, Explorer I, was 13.91kg, with an 8.32kg cargo, comprised of a micrometeorite gauge and a Geiger-Müller tube. Explorer I's flight path passed through the earth-encompassing radiation belt above the magnetic equator, proving correct the theory of University of Iowa scientist Dr. James Van Allen, after whom the radiation belt was named. Van Allen had also been key in the Explorer I mission itself, having designed and built the satellite's instrumentation. The Pioneer programme, running from 1958 to 1960, had mixed success. The space probes of this programme achieved a flyby of the Moon but was unsuccessful in achieving lunar orbit.

Meanwhile, OKB-1 upgraded the R-7 to be able to launch a 400kg payload to the Moon. The Luna programme began with 3 failed attempts in 1958 to launch Luna E-1 class impactor probes. As with all failures of the Soviet space programme, this was kept secret from the world at large, including Soviet domestic audiences. The fourth launch attempt, codenamed Luna 1, left Earth without a hitch, but missed the Moon itself. Luna 2 successfully impacted the Moon on September 14th, 1959. The Luna 3 successfully flew by the Moon and sent back photographs of its far side on October 7th, 1959. Whilst the concept of placing a man (or woman) on the Earth's natural satellite was being floated by both American and Soviet rocket scientists, the immediate priority for both space programmes was getting humans beyond the Kármán Line. Moscow took an early lead in this process, sending the first living organism into space on Sputnik 2 (November 3rd 1957), Laika the dog. August 19th 1960 saw two more dogs, Belka and Strelka (as well as a grey rabbit, forty-two mice, two rats, flies and several plants and fungi) sent into space aboard Sputnik 5. Unlike Laika, Belka and Strelka survived their missions. These missions had proved that it was possible to maintain mammalian life within spacecraft. Another mission with canine cargo commenced on December 1st 1960 aboard Sputnik 6. Unfortunately the two dogs onboard, Pchyolka and Mushka were killed. A reentry error caused the capsule to veer off course. Soviet scientists attached to the mission believed that when it landed it may be inspected by foreign powers, so detonated a remote control explosive charge in the capsule, killing both dogs as they travelled into Earth's atmosphere. Whilst the Soviets were throwing dogs into space, the Americans were sending up closer relatives: chimpanzees. The first primate in space was Ham, who was sent on a suborbital flight of the Mercury capsule on Mercury-Redstone 2 and recovered him safely on January 31st, 1961. Another chimp, Enos, was launched on Mercury-Atlas 5 on November 19th, 1961, into what was supposed to be a three-orbit flight. The mission was aborted after two orbits due to capsule overheating and a malfunctioning test shocking the ape with electricity 76 times.

On April 12th, 1961, the USSR surprised the world once again by launching the first man into space. The man in question, Yuri Gagarin, was put into a single, 108-minute orbit around the Earth in Vostok-1, the first of a series of "Vostok" manned spaceflight missions. Gagarin was dubbed the first "cosmonaut" ("sailor of the cosmos"), a term which came to be adopted for all Eastern Bloc spaceflight pioneers. The American answer to the Vostok Programme, Project Mercury, put Alan Shepard in space on May 5th in a spacecraft designed by Maxime Faget and launched on a Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket named Freedom 7. Shepard became a celebrity in the United States, which refused to adopt the Soviet terminology and instead designated Shepard an "astronaut" ("sailor of the stars"). He didn't receive the worldwide recognition that Gagarin did, however, and unlike the Vostok-1 mission, the Americans didn't put a man in orbit. Shepard was, however, the first to exercise manual control over attitude and retrorocket firing. Another astronaut, Virgil "Gus" Grisson repeated Shepard's suborbital flight in Liberty Bell 7 on July 21st. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962. The USSR demonstrated 24-hour turnaround capability on 11th and 12th of August 1962, launching Vostok 3 and 4 respectively. Vostok 4 would spend four days in space. The Soviets would put the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 on June 16th 1963.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space​

President Gore saw the Space Race as an expensive and wasteful boondoggle, and as such von Braun's civilian spaceflight programmes suffered from less funding between 1960 and 1964. The money saved by a slowdown on the civilian space programme was instead spent on improvement of America's ballistic missile arsenal. Political fallout from the Goldsboro Incident prompted a degree of divestment in the strategic bomber fleet which had been LeMay's pride and joy. Instead, focus was put on the development of hunter-killer fighter squadrons alongside a missile-based nuclear deterrent, both land-based and submarine-based. The parallel Jupiter and Polaris programmes were both given a full green-light, as well as investment in mobile SRBM and MRBM mobile launchers and embryonic MIRV technology. The Ranger programme, which had aimed to obtain close-range images of the Moon's surface and commenced in 1959, was halted indefinitely in 1961 [236]. Project Gemini, a programme proposed by Von Braun to develop a two-person spacecraft that could allow for space rendezvous, two-craft docking and extra-vehicular activity was rejected [237]. Work was accelerated on space projects with a military application, the most internationally-controversial of which was Project West Ford, a programme pursued by the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT. Project West Ford sought to remedy a key communications weakness; that all communications were sent via either underseas cables or bouncing radio communications off the natural ionosphere. The planned solution was to insert a ring of 350,000,000 copper dipole antennae into orbit to facilitate radio communications in adverse weather conditions. The small needles, specialised to an 8 GHz signal were placed in medium Earth orbit. The first attempt in 1961 failed, but the second attempt, in 1963, was successful. Project West Ford was heavily criticised by friend and foe alike. The British Royal Astronomical Society protested the experiment. The International Academy of Astronautics denounced the deliberate release of what they characterised as "space debris". Pravda released an article criticising the project under the headline "USA dirties space". The issue was raised at the United Nations, forcing Adlai Stevenson to defend the project. He noted that sun pressure would drive the dipoles into the atmosphere where they would burn up. This did occur for most of them, but some would failed to separate on launch, and as such small clumps of copper continue to float in orbit to this day.

A year prior, the first privately-sponsored space launch had occurred in July 1962, putting the Telstar 1 communications satellite into non-geosynchronous orbit. Telstar belonged to AT&T, but was part of a multinational agreement with Bell Telephone Laboratories, ARPA, GPO (UK), and direction générale des Télécommunications (FRA). With the criticism mounted against Project West Ford, American research focused on the advancement of communications satellites. Syncom 2, launched by the Hughes Aircraft Company was the first communications satellite to enter a geosynchronous orbit. Its successor, Syncom 3, maintained a geostationary orbit. After the political fallout from Project West Ford, the Lincoln Laboratory began working towards improvement of communications satellite technology. A major problem with communications satellites was limited downlink capabilities as a result of the limited size of the satellites. The MIT scientists worked on solutions to the downlink problem such as improved antennae, stabilisation techniques and improved transmission modulation. These experimental solutions were deployed aboard spacecraft called the Lincoln Experimental Satellites (LES). Concurrently, ground stations equipped with interference-resistant signalling techniques, the Lincoln Experimental Terminals, were also created. Four LES launches were made in 1965, with a number of others launches throughout the late '60s and early 1970s. In the private sphere, 1962 saw the establishment of the Communications Satellite Corporation by an act of Congress. The act in question established non-discriminatory access to the satellites for all companies registered by the Federal Communications Commission to prevent an effective AT&T monopoly over global communications. International agreements with governments allied to the United States resulted in the Intelsat satellite programme, which by 1970 had established a fully global satellite-based wireless communication network. The Soviet Union launched its first communications satellite on 23rd April 1965 as part of its Molniya Programme. The Molniya ("Lightning") series satellites utilised a then-unique highly-elliptical orbit, with two apogees daily over the northern hemisphere. This provided a long dwell time over Soviet territory at higher latitudes than typical geostationary orbits over the equator.

Whilst the United States was developing a lead in communication satellite technology and refocusing attention onto expansion of its ballistic missile programmes, Korolev was designing a replacement for the Vostok spacecraft, the Soyuz (Russian: "Union"). In the meanwhile, though, there was increasing political pressure, especially from Khrushchev, to achieve more firsts. In late 1963, four Vostoks were in various stages of construction at OKB-1's facilities. They would be altered and would have to prove sufficient until the Soyuz could enter production, although a few more were cobbled together after the initial four were used. The new improvised design was designated Voshkod ("Ascent"/"Dawn"). The Voshkod was essentially a Vostok with a solid-fueled retrorocket attached atop the descent module. Unlike the Vostok, the Voshkod had no launch abort system, virtually dooming any cosmonauts inside in the event of a malfunctioning launch vehicle. Voshkod-1 was launched on 12th October 1964, putting the first multi-man crew in orbit (comprised of cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov). With three crewmen, the capsule was so cramped that the cosmonauts had to fulfil the mission without wearing spacesuits. Voshkod-2, launched on 18th March 1965, was equipped with an airlock, and achieved the first spacewalk, with Alexei Leonov spending twelve minutes outside the spacecraft whilst mission commander Pavel Belyayev stayed inside. Whilst outside, Leonov's suit ballooned and he was forced to bleed some of the pressure out of the suit, with it going below safe levels. Nevertheless, Leonov was able to get inside the spacecraft. The two crewmen had difficulty sealing the hatch properly due to thermal distortion, and during reentry, the automatic landing system malfunctioned, forcing them to take manual control. The cramped conditions within the spacecraft also prevented them from sitting down to reestablish the centre of mass for which reentry trajectories were calculated. The orbital module also failed to disconnect as planned. These complications greatly altered the trajectory of reentry, with the capsule landing 386km away from the intended crash site in Perm Krai. Landing in the inhospitable taiga somewhere west of Solikamsk. Military aircraft quickly established the location of the cosmonauts, but it was too heavily forested for helicopters to land nearby. As such, the cosmonauts were forced to spend two freezing nights huddled in the capsule, worried about being discovered by bears or wolves numerous in the area, and made hyper-aggressive by the onset of the mating season. The cosmonauts were armed only with a pistol and a knife. Wolves may be able to be scared off, but they would be virtually helpless if discovered by a hungry brown bear. To make matters worse, the electrical system had malfunctioned in a way where the heater would not work but the fan would not cease whilst on full blast. The hatch had been blown open by explosive bolts, exposing the cosmonauts to the elements. The temperature would drop as low as -30 degrees celsius. Fortunately, after the first night an advance party arrived on skis and helped build a small shelter and a fire. After a more comfortable second night, the cosmonauts skied to a waiting helicopter which spirited them back to safety. Between 1965 and 1966 an additional four Voshkod missions were performed [238], including the first female spacewalk on Voshkod-5 by Irina Solovyova. Whilst Korolev hadn't wanted a female-only mission (largely due to personal frustrations he experienced working with Tereshkova back on the Vostok-6 mission), General Nikolai Kaminin of the Soviet Air Force and programme manager of the cosmonaut training programme insisted. Preparations for Voshkod-6 were a cause for major consternation between Korolev and Kaminin and Marshal Sergei Rudenko, Air Force chief of staff. Voshkod-6 involved complicated artificial gravity experiments which occupied significant technical resources. Meanwhile the Air Force was getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of military applications for Korolev's aerospace activities. Korolev managed to get in touch with Kosygin, who settled the matter by stating that Voshkod-6 would go forward, but also encouraging Korolev to consider military of propagandistic applications for further missions.

Decree 655-268, "On Work on the Exploration of the Moon and Mastery of Space" was issued in August 1964. It redefined roles in the Soviet space programme between Korolev and his rival Vladimir Chelomey. Korolev was to be responsible for the development of the N1 super-heavy lift rocket, which was to be utilised for a crewed lunar landing, whilst Chelomey would be assigned to create the UR-500, which would perform a crewed circumlunar flight. In September 1965, Chelomey's lunar flyby programme was reassigned to Korolev, who redesigned the cislunar mission to use his own Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft and Chelomey's UR-500 rocket, after further production issues with the Soyuz rocket. Chelomey's OKB-52 bureau was focused instead of the development of anti-satellite weaponry, the Istrebitel Sputnikov ("Destroyer of Satellites") programme. The IS system would be deemed operational in 1973. In October 1965 development began on the N1-L3 rocket. The N1-L3 was intended to launch a crewed lunar mission and even to be able to travel beyond the Moon. The N1-L3 programme was plagued with issues, discovered by static test firings on the engine clusters early in the development process [239]. Interpersonal tensions between Korolev and Glushko had also delayed work on the N1-L3, as they bickered over which fuel to use. Glushko ended up refusing to work with Korolev, defecting to Chelomey. In Glushko's place, Korolev enlisted instead the aid of Nikolai Kuznetsov. In any event the N1-L3 programme wouldn't be completed until the mid-1970s, after Korolev's death. Korolev had a number of health problems which had arised from his stint in a labour camp in Kolyma and the intensive stress of managing the Soviet space programme. Multiple organs were failing him; between 1960 and 1965, he experienced a heart attack, intestinal bleeding, been diagnosed with a cardiac arrythmia, and suffered inflammation of the gallbladder. In December 1965, he was diagnosed with a bleeding polyp in his large intestine. He entered a hospital on 5th January 1966 for a somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later while being operated on. The exact circumstances of his death are still unknown; the most likely story, supported both by the government and Korolev's family, was that the surgeons found a cancerous tumour in his abdomen that they were unable to safely excise. Soviet policy had been to not name the scientists and engineers in the space programme until their deaths, to protect them from foreign agents. His obituary was published in Pravda on January 16th 1966 and his ashes were interred with state honours in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Finally, the Chief Designer would receive the fame and adulation he deserved after death.

Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer​

Korolev was succeeded as head of the Soviet space programme by Vasily Mishin, his deputy. Mishin was an accomplished engineer, but a poor administrator, as well as a man that struggled with alcoholism. The 23rd April 1967 saw the first launch of the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft on board the now completed Soyuz rocket. In was the first manned spaceflight since Korolev's death. Technical issues plagued the mission, and on reentry the descent module's parachutes failed to deploy. The module crashed into the ground in Orenburg Oblast at 140 km/hr, killing the onboard cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, who had commanded the Voshkod-1 mission. The Soyuz programme had become oriented towards achieving docking in space, and Soyuz 2 and 3 were launched, the former uncrewed and the latter flown by Georgy Beregovoy. This mission achieved the first space rendezvous, but was unable to dock as planned. Soyuz 4 and 5 were both sent up with crews, with the mission to dock and to achieve crew transfer. Soyuz 5 had onboard three first-time cosmonauts: Boris Volynov, Aleksei Yaliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov. Soyuz 4 was piloted by Vladimir Shatalov. As the spacecraft had no docking tunnel, Khrunov and Yaliseyev made the Soviet Union's second spacewalk, this time transferring into the Soyuz 4. Volynov would bring Soyuz 5 back to Earth. It's service module failed to separate until late into the descent, and the spacecraft's parachute lines tangled. The soft landing rockets also failed. Volynov did survive a rough landing, although some of his teeth were knocked out. His spacecraft has also veered far offcourse into a rural region near the Ural mountains. Volynov followed a plume of smoke and found shelter with a peasant until he was picked up. Soyuz 4 had no such issues and would land at Karaganda in Kazakhstan as planned. Soyuz 6, 7 and 8 were all placed into orbit simultaneously. The objective was that Soyuz 6 was to film Soyuz 7 and 8 docking together. All three craft however experienced rendezvous system failures, and as such the primary mission was a failure. Nevertheless, Soyuz 6 did manage to develop knowledge around welding in space; of three different methods (low pressure compressed arc, electron beam and consumable electrode arc), electron beam welding was found to be the most effective in outer space conditions. Soyuz 9 would break the space endurance record, lasting a total of 17 days and 16 hours in space. The Soyuz programme, despite some successes, was politically disastrous for Mishin. Gagarin and Leonov both blamed Mishin for the death of their comrade Komarov, and complained vocally to Kamarin about him. In April 1970, not long before Soyuz 9, Mishin would be replaced by order of Kosygin, who had increasingly bet the Soviet Union's prestige on the success of engineering megaprojects [240]. The Soviet space programme was now entrusted in the hands of Valentin Glushko.

Valentin Glushko​

With Gore succeeded by President Percy, the American space programmes continued to lag behind. Whilst investment was also wound down on communications satellite funding technology in order to pay for Percy's trademark "Urban Resurrection" programmes, the existence of private interest in that sphere meant that it had a more limited impact than on the manned space programmes slated by ARPA. By late 1965, however, with the midterms approaching and an increasingly loud dissatisfaction with the United States' less noticeable successes in the space race against the Soviets, Percy had to invest in space technology. Unenthused about the funding going to military projects, however, Percy's administration created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to oversee civilian space missions. A number of projects which had been suspended during the ARPA period were resurrected, notably Project Gemini and the Ranger programme. The Ranger programme, aiming to obtain close-up images of the moon's surface, experienced a number of failures, but Ranger 7 impacted the Moon successfully in June 1967 [241]. Two more successful Ranger missions were made until the programme was closed. Project Gemini were crewed missions which sought to develop extended spaceflight capability, achieve docking and rendezvous between two spacecraft, perform extra-vehicular activity (EVA, otherwise known as "spacewalks") and perfect techniques of atmospheric reentry and touchdown at a pre-selected terrestrial location. Gemini would be under the supervision of Dr. George E. Mueller, whilst the Gemini capsule itself would be designed by Canadian engineer Jim Chamberlin. Gus Grissom was involved heavily in design consultation on the capsule, which proved to be somewhat of an issue when most of the astronauts were unable to fit into the capsule designed for the 5"6' Grissom, forcing a redesign of the interior. The Gemini missions were flown between April 1967 and February 1968. Gemini 3 was the first crewed Gemini mission (Gemini 1 and 2 were uncrewed test flights), with Grissom and John W. Young successfully launching into orbit. A notable advance was the use of thrusters to alter the spacecraft's orbit. On Gemini 4, Ed White became the first American to perform EVA on May 14th 1967. Gemini 5 demonstrated 8-day endurance (necessary for a lunar mission) and the first use of fuel cells to generate on-board electrical power. Gemini 6A and 7 achieved rendezvous, and Gemini 8 managed to dock in space with the Agena target vehicle. Gemini 9A was intended to test the Astronaut Maneuveuring Unit (AMU), a backpack which would expel hydrogen peroxide gas as a propellant. Due to complications during the EVA, Gemini 9A was forced to abort the mission, although fortunately Eugene Cernan, the astronaut performing the EVA, survived. Gemini 10 achieved rendezvous with a passive object (the Agena from Gemini 8, whose batteries had gone out). Gemini 11 managed the first direct-ascent rendezvous with an Agena target vehicle, as well as setting a crewed Earth orbit altitude record of 1,369km. The final Gemini mission, Gemini 12, built on the knowledge gained from Gemini 9A, with astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin proving that useful EVA work could be done without life-threatening exhaustion (as had afflicted Cernan) due to newly implemented features on the craft such as hand and footholds, and alloted rest periods.

Ed White performing the first American spacewalk​

The conclusion of the Gemini programme coincided with the election of Henry "Scoop" Jackson to the American presidency. Labelled by his detractors in his pre-presidency career as "the senator from Boeing", Jackson immediately pushed for the rapid development of both military and civilian aerospace technologies to match the Soviets and freeing up funding to both ARPA and NASA. Civilian contracting for Project Apollo, the stated purpose of which was to achieve a crewed lunar landing, was granted to North American Aviation, which outbid McDonnell Aircraft, which had been the primary contractor for the Mercury and Gemini programmes. The Apollo programme was however abandoned after disaster struck on the launch of Apollo 1. The 12th October 1969 low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module mission never occurred as a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test killed all three crew members, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee. Political pressure from the White House and exploited by McDonnell Aircraft lobbyists and USAF representatives resulted in the abandonment of the Apollo project in favour of a programme known as "Advanced Gemini". McDonnell Aircraft would be the civilian contractor for the Advanced Gemini programme. Advanced Gemini was to put a man on the Moon, but would also have more direct military application, as the USAF intended to use the Gemini spacecraft to transport astronauts to its proposed space stations, the Manned Orbital Development System and the later Manned Orbital Laboratory. The stations were to be launched into Earth orbit by the Titan IIIM rockets. Several modifications were made to the Gemini capsules including the installation of a hatch in the heat shield to allow access to the space station without requiring EVA. In order to give its astronauts experience, the Blue Gemini project was pursued, which would have joint USAF/NASA missions, which were largely replications of past successful Gemini experiments such as rendezvous, docking and so-on. Blue Gemini 5 and 6 however broke new ground, with successful tests of the AMU and flying a radar imaging system into orbit. The Advanced Gemini programme also saw the development of a number of ferry spacecraft designed to interact with space stations, most notably Big Gemini, colloquially referred to as "Big G". Big G was an enlarged Gemini spacecraft designed with docking capability to take advantage of the increased capacity offered by the Saturn 1B and Titan IIIM rockets. It was designed to transport between 9 and 12 astronauts into space. The most famous aspect of Advanced Gemini however was, of course, the manned lunar flyby and landing sections. The lunar flyby was to be achieved in line with the Gemini-Centaur proposal. This plan utilised a double-launch architecture, with the Gemini spacecraft rendezvousing with a stacked Centaur-Agena upper stages in low Earth orbit. The Gemini-Centaur lunar flyby aimed to achieved a 72-hour circumlunar flight. The Centaur would perform translunar injection, before separating from the Gemini spacecraft. Concerns were raised that the Gemini's heat shield would not have been able to protect it during a higher speed ballistic reentry on the way back to Earth. NASA scientists recommended the construction of a thicker heat shield and more insulation to protect the spacecraft. This would prove too heavy to be launched by the Titan II rocket which had been used for the original Gemini missions, but The Atlas-Centaur would prove sufficient.

One of the major projects outside of NASA's purview which was enthusiastically pursued by the USAF with the encouragement of President Gore was the spaceplane initiative. The spaceplane concept was to create a vehicle that would operate around the border of the Earth's atmosphere and would be used for a variety of military missions, such as aerial reconnaissance, space rescue, satellite maintenance, orbital bombing and, in the event of Soviet production of spaceplanes, even potentially engaging in combat with enemy forces. The first serious conceptualisation of a spaceplane was the 1941 Silbervogel (Silver Bird) proposal, the brainchild of Nazi scientists Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt. The Silbervogel was a rocket-propelled suborbital bomber design that was considered for the Amerikabomber project, but wasn't pursued as it was completely impractical with the technology of the time. American aeronautics companies and the US government was intrigued by the information about Silbervogel brought to them by Nazi scientists acquired in Operation Paperclip. Two of these scientists, Walter Dornberger and Krafft Ehricke moved to Bell Aircraft where, in 1952, they proposed a vertical launch version of Silbervogel known as the "Bomber Missile" or "BoMi". By 1956, BoMi had turned into three separate programmes: "RoBo" ("Rocket Bomber", an updated version of BoMi), Brass Bell (a long-range reconnaissance craft) and Hywards ("Hypersonic Weapons Research and Development Supporting System", a small prototype system used to develop technology for the former two). All of these concepts would use a "glide-skip" method after being inserted above the atmosphere by rockets, effectively travelling above the atmosphere like a stone skipping across a pond's surface. After the launch of Sputnik-1, these three programmes were consolidated into the Dyna-Soar project. Dyna-Soar was to be developed in stages, the first creating a research vehicle, the second a reconnaissance vehicle, and the third adding strategic bombing capability. Despite Bell holding six years worth of design research, Boeing ended up being awarded the contract to develop Dyna-Soar in 1959. The specialist needs of the Dyna-Soar, also known as the Boeing X-20, required cutting-edge engineering solutions; it had a low-wing delta shape with winglets for control, and its framework was made of the René 41 super alloy. The bottom surface was made from Molybdenum sheets, while the nose-cone was to be made from graphite with zirconia rods. Whilst the expensive project came under some criticism for its massive costs and relatively unclear utility, the Soviet lead in crewed civilian space missions encouraged aggressive research into military aerospace research, an area where the Americans seemed to have a lead. The X-20 made its maiden voyage on January 1st, 1966, piloted by Neil Armstrong. During penetration through the atmosphere, the craft shook so heavily that Armstrong lost consciousness for a few minutes, but the glide-skip locomotion of the craft prevented disaster until Armstrong came to. A rough reentry also took its toll, but the X-20 was able to be landed safely. Severe stress load on the frame of the craft did make it only suitable for one-time use before needing significant replacement of parts, but the mission was deemed a success, albeit a very expensive one. There would only be two more flights of the X-20 until it was discontinued, although the knowledge acquired would have significant utility in future spaceplane projects pioneered by the United States.

Artist's rendition of Boeing X-20 'Dyna-Soar' in flight. Note attached rocket​

With Mishin out of the way, Valentin Glushko collected all of the various space-oriented design bureaus and consolidated them into a single design bureau, NPO Energia. He initially sought to cancel the N1-L3 project, but under orders from the Central Committee and the Soviet Academy of Sciences he continued to develop it. Glushko instead favoured Chelomey's UR-700 booster, powered by dinitrogen tetroxide and UDMH. Korolev had opposed the UR series boosters due to their fuel source, which he saw as too dangerous due to their toxicity. Very similar propellants were used in the American Titan II rockets. Glushko also encouraged development of the UR-900, a yet more powerful superbooster that would incorporate a nuclear-powered upper stage, which he conceived could one day be used in crewed missions to Mars. In February 1971, the USSR successfully completed a cislunar orbit mission. A UR-500K ("Proton") rocket was used with a LK-1 spacecraft carrying cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich. The Americans wouldn't follow suit until March 1972 with the first of the two famed Gemini-Centaur missions, Gemini-Pholus.

Cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Yuri Gagarin let out a sigh of relief as the rocket's feet settled into the lunar surface. Leonov was first out of the capsule, with Feoktistov coming soon after. Gagarin chuckled to himself. "I suppose it wouldn't be the socialist way if I had all the firsts" he thought to himself. The usually composed Leonov let out an "ura!" that sounded like little more than a garbled grunt through their in-suit radios. Nevertheless, it had that rising tone that all mankind would recognise as adulation. In the moment, the three cosmonauts almost forgot the political nature of this mission, caught up instead in the mammoth scientific achievement. They knew that there was a reason each of the three of them had been selected, beyond just their experience. The 37-year old Leonov had been the first man to walk in space, but he also was a passionate artist in his spare time. The embodiment of the kind of man that the visionaries expected to one day be commonplace throughout the cosmos, a socialist pioneer and one who saw self-actualisation through the expression of his soul, not simply through the accumulation of wealth or power. Feoktistov was 45-years of age; as a mere teenager he fought and bled for his country against the scourge of fascism. As a child of 16, he crawled away from German captivity with a bullet wound in his neck. He represented the indomitable spirit of the Russian people, as well as the progress made since the Great Patriotic War. Gagarin, sitting in the spacecraft patiently, was of course the first man in space, a global celebrity. Perhaps one day an intergalactic one, he thought to himself grinning. It hadn't even been 10 years since he past the veil of Earth's atmosphere and entered orbit. He wondered where we would be in another ten years. At Mars or all ashes, he considered, vivid memories of terrestrial news reports about endless wars and crises flickering through his brain. The relative elder Feoktistov had similar thoughts, as he beheld before him the grey, cratered surface of the Moon. A montage of boyhood fancies ran through his mind, taking him back to his youth, where he amused himself thinking of great artillery duels between antediluvian Martians and Venusians leaving the face of our Moon grey and pockmarked. They had seemed thrilling back then. That particular folly of childhood would be wiped away for good by the Wehrmacht. Leonov was much more exuberant than Gagarin and Feoktistov. Bouncing about the Moon's surface in low-gravity, he grinned as he looked up at the blue and green orb that was the Earth, streaked with white clouds over segments of its surface. Facing back at his was North America, which he felt was looking at the three Russians with shame and defeat on its face. Its funny how no matter how far mankind travels, no matter how alien the situation, we see in even the dust around us meaning and life. A radio transmission came in from Baikonur. "Alexei Arkhipovich, the relay will be starting in 5...4...3...2...1...Go!". Leonov cleared his throat as the ground-control operator counted down. "Earth, I, Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov, am speaking to you from Luna, our nearest neighbour in the cosmos. We come here as the first of mankind, for all of mankind. This achievement could never have been done without the work of socialist pioneers, of Lenin and Marx, of the proletariat of our Soviet Union and its fraternal states, without scientific socialism! We enter into a new age, one where humanity may, in years soon to come, go forth and spread throughout the cosmos, facing the darkness of space and discovering our destiny through the guiding light of cooperation and with the assistance of a pioneering spirit." He gripped the crimson and gold flag in his hands that he had taken out of a compartment in the spacecraft. "We plant this flag here not as a claim of sovereignty over Luna, but as a way to honour the men and women who our great union have produced, to acknowledge the scientific achievements made under the direction of our great leaders, and to express our love for our eternal homeland. We bring too a bust of the great Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, whose genius has set forth a thousands ripples in time, and whose liberation of our minds and bodies have made possible this great achievement today. For all mankind, you are all our brothers and sisters, you are all our comrades. You are all our future, and whatever awaits, let us go together in all directions and fulfil our destiny!" Leonov stuck the flagpole into the grey lunar ground, and Feoktistov placed next to it a two-sided bust of Lenin and Marx. Feoktistov wondered for a second which one should face the Earth. In the end, he decided on Lenin.

On November 7th, the anniversary of the October Revolution, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had become the first nation to plant men onto the Moon. Millions worldwide had listened to radio broadcasts, and in the next few days video was sent around the world showing Leonov and Feoktistov with the Soviet flag and the bust of Marx and Lenin. The Americans watched in dismay. Once again they had been humiliated by the Russians. It mattered little that Gemini-Chiron placed Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on a single-man craft. Moscow had come first again. President Jackson was fuming. It was all Gore and Percy's fault! They had allowed the US to fall so far behind that despite the rapid leaps made by the United States in the aerospace sphere, despite the enormous sums of money spent, much of it wasted, they had still been beaten to the Moon. The Space Race could not end here. There were still many projects on the table, and the United States needed to hit a major milestone first. There could be no throwing in the towel. The spaceplanes were all well and good but they didn't have nearly as much public relations value as the Moon programme. He would have to have a briefing with NASA tomorrow, to find a new target.

Art by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, depicting the view of Earth from the Moon​

===

[235] IOTL, NASA was established and many of the military branches' research assets were shifted to NASA purview. ITTL that is not the case due to interagency rivalry and tension between von Braun's former ABMA group and other rocket scientists.
[236] IOTL, JFK's support for a Moon-landing programme and the creation of NASA as a civilian space agency meant that this programme was maintained.
[237] IOTL, Project Gemini was announced in January 1962. The programme would also support design of the later 3-person Apollo craft.
[238] IOTL, the Voshkod programme was abandoned after Voshkod-2, although these other missions had been planned.
[239] IOTL, these static test firings were never done, likely due to perceived time pressure to beat the Americans. The N1-L3 programme would eventually be scrapped by Glushko.
[240] IOTL, Mishin wouldn't be replaced until 1974.
[241] IOTL, Ranger 7 succeeded on July 31st, 1964.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

The Soviet victory in the Moon Race and American determination to achieve their own historic milestone in space exploration ensured that the Space Race would continue into the 1970s unabated, despite its significant financial cost to both sides. The 1970s would be notable for major advances in the mapping of our nearest celestial neighbours Mars and Venus, as well as the construction of space stations, advancement of spaceplane technology and the first fledgling colonisation of Luna.

As they had become accustomed to, the Soviets maintained an initial lead in the development of space station technology. The Salyut ("Salute" or "Fireworks" depending on context) Programme in which the first space stations deployed by the USSR were conceived had a twofold purpose: the first being to engage in scientific research and the second, covert reason, to engage in militarily-useful reconnaissance. The Salyut Programme was designed to also make gradual refinements to the design and use of space stations with the aim of, sometime in the future, creating fully-habitable and modular space stations. The Salyut Programme was overseen by Kerim Kerimov, an Azeri (Soviet Azerbaijan, not the APG) engineer and general who had been graduated from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute during the Great Patriotic War, and had continued his education at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, where he had developed an interest in rocketry. Kerimov had been a consistent presence in the development of Soviet rocket technology from its humble beginnings (the Katyusha) to the ICBM programme. Construction of Salyut 1 began in 1970 and within a year was being finally assembled at Baikonur Cosmodrome. Salyut 1 was launched on April 19th, 1971. The first crew, launched aboard Soyuz 10 ran into docking issues and their mission was aborted; they returned to Earth safely. A replacement crew on Soyuz 11, consisting of cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev reached Salyut 1 and remained onboard for 23 days. This set a new record for time spent in space. Onboard Salyut 1, Patsayev became the first person to operate a telescope outside of Earth's atmosphere, using the onboard Orion 1 Space Observatory designed by Armenian astronomer Grigor Gurzadyan. Tragically, the incorrect firing of explosive bolts during reentry loosened a seal that maintained cabin pressure. The sudden depressurisation of the reentry module resulted in the asphyxiation of all three cosmonauts, who became the first men to die in space. The three cosmonauts hadn't been wearing pressure suits due to limited space in the Soyuz capsule, which resulted in a complete redesign of the capsule in order to ensure that during all future missions cosmonauts could wear the Sokol suits during reentry. The new Soyuz 7K-T capsule would only house two cosmonauts, however. Salyut 2 was the first Almaz ("Diamond") station, which were Salyut stations with a military application, although that purpose was kept concealed from public knowledge. Salyut 2 lost altitude within two weeks of its launch and it reentered the atmosphere on 28th May 1973 without any crew having ever visited the station. The third Salyut station was launched on 11th May 1973, three days before the launch of the American Skylab. Errors in its flight control system caused it to fire its attitude thruster until all fuel to the thruster was emptied, and it became uncontrollable. Aware that the spacecraft was already in orbit and as such would have been picked up on Western radar systems, the Soviets designated the launch as "Kosmos 557" to save face by disguising the fact that one of their Salyut stations had utterly failed. It would quietly reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up a week later.

Artist's representation of Salyut 1​

The American Skylab endeavour had its origins in the Manned Orbital Laboratory project of the 1960s, which had been delayed and eventually cancelled as a result of budget cuts and reallocation of resources to other projects. After Aldrin's Moon landing, elements of the MOL project were resurrected as part of the Gemini Applications Programme (GAP) [242]. AGAP would involve several different projects, most of which would be folded into the Skylab programme. This included a manned survey mission, a specialised space telescope mission and the construction of a relatively low-budget space station. The McDonnell-Douglas Corporation would received a contract to convert two Saturn IV-B stages to the so-called "Orbital Workshop" configuration. The Orbital Workshop was renamed Skylab as the result of a contest held by NASA. Skylab was launched on 14th May 1973 onboard a modified Saturn V rocket. Severe damaged was sustained, with the loss of Skylab's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels. To make matters worse, debris from the lost shield became tangled in the remaining solar panel, leaving Skylab with a major power deficit as well as exposing it to more sunlight than intended. Skylab 2, also known as SLM-1 ("Skylab Manned-1") was a mission launched on a Big Gemini command and service module (CSM) carrying astronauts Pete Conrad, Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz to the station. The mission was initially supposed to launch on May 15th, the very day after the launch of the station, but the extensive repairs necessary forced a delay as the astronauts were trained in methods to repair the damage to Skylab. On May 25th, the three astronauts launched. After multiple failed docking attempts, the astronauts eventually were able to access Skylab; however not before ground control purged the space station multiple times with nitrogen four times before filling it with a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere for the crew. This brought down temperatures in the station, which with the destruction of the shade had reached high temperatures which were melting insulation and releasing toxic fumes into the air. The astronauts then deployed an ingenious parasol-like device designed by Jack Kinzler, who was nicknamed Mr. Fix-It. Kinzler would be awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his effort. The collapsible parasol was deployed through a small airlock onboard, solving the shade problem without necessitating a dangerous spacewalk. Two weeks later, Conrad and Kerwin performed an EVA, freeing the stuck solar panel and thereby increasing the power supply to the workshop. A nerve-wracking moment occurred when the sudden deployment of the solar panels flung both astronauts away from the hull. Without their safety tethers, or if the tethers snapped, they would have been doomed. However they regained their composure and were able to pull themselves back to the station. The three astronauts would continue to make repairs to the station and engage in scientific experiments before returning to Earth on June 22nd, when their return capsule splashed into the Pacific Ocean less than 10km away from the rescue ship USS Ticonderoga. They had been in space a total of 28 days, surpassing the record set by the perished cosmonaut troika.

SLM-2 would go on for even longer, just shy of two months, and would focus on collecting medical information about the human body's response to prolonged time in space. The last Skylab mission, SLM-3, placed three rookie astronauts onboard the station: Gerald Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William Pogue. The trio of SLM-3 astronauts were surprised to find on arrival three figures in the station, dummies left as a joke by the SLM-2 crew. The mission was marred from the beginning by tensions between the astronauts and the ground control crew: first they were admonished by Astronaut Office chief Alan Shepard for attempting to hide Pogue's early space sickness (a phenomenon somewhat similar to sea sickness experienced by around half of astronauts/cosmonauts in space) from flight surgeons, which ground control had discovered from downloaded flight recording data; then they struggled to match the workload of their predecessors, irritating ground control to no end. To be fair to the crew of SLM-3, however, their mission involved a particularly heavy initial workload in unloading and stowing thousands of items required for experiments, and a number of extra tasks had been added on near launch with little time for pre-mission adaptation. A radio conference to air frustrations resulted in a reduction of mission workload, and by the end of the mission the crew had in fact surpassed the adjusted workload expectation. SLM-3 took a number of high quality photographs of the Earth's surface (including unintentionally photographing Area 51, causing a minor interagency dispute regarding publication of the pictures), took the first film of a solar flare's birth, and took 75,000 images of the sun on various spectrums (X-Ray, ultraviolet, etc.). They also took images of the comet Kohoutek. The mission was notable for an unintentional communications failure between the fatigued crew and ground control. This was inaccurately spun by media back in the United States of a "space mutiny". The SLM-3 mission would return to Earth on February 8th, 1974, having spent 84 days in space.

The second Almaz station, designated Salyut 3, was launched on June 25th 1974, and was the first Soviet military space station to be launched successfully. Launched from Soyuz 14, Cosmonauts Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin spent 15 days on the space station, testing Almaz station systems, effects of space station occupation on the human body, and using a high-resolution camera to take photographs of Earth. Popovich and Artyukhin returned to Earth on July 19th. A follow up mission on Salyut 3 was supposed to be sent on Soyuz 15, but failure of the notoriously unreliable Igla docking system forced a mission abort. Cosmonauts Gennady Sarafanov and Lev Dyomin returned to Earth safely. Salyut 3 was instead abandoned to a fate of natural orbital reentry and disintegration, although before falling to the atmosphere its onboard armament, a Richter R-23 aircraft autocannon. Salyut 4, a copy of Kosmos 557, was a complete success and gathered a great deal of information about X-Rays emanating from distance celestial bodies. Salyut 5 was the last Almaz station, and was equipped with the Agat Earth observation camera, as well as an experimental crystal furnace produced in the German Democratic Republic which was used to perform artificial crystal growth experiments. The first of the four planned missions to Salyut 5, sent on Soyuz 21 on 6th July 1976, engaged in scientific research alongside their reconnaissance duties; this included studying aquarium fish in microgravity and observing the Sun. The cosmonauts Boris Volynov and Vitali Zholobov even conducted a televised conference with school pupils in order to promote science and technology amongst Soviet youths. This duo was forced to return to Earth a little earlier than expected due to a fuel leak contaminating the artificial atmosphere on the station. Another mission to Salyut 5, aboard Soyuz 23, was forced to abort due to yet another issue with the Igla system. The most dramatic part of the Soyuz 23 mission was actually the return to Earth, as the capsule carrying Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky plunged into the partially-frozen Lake Tengiz, a saline lake in north-central Kazakhstan. Situated in boggy marshland, it necessitated a complex rescue operation which took nine hours. Soyuz 23 was the first Soviet splashdown, and it was completely unintentional. Soyuz 24 saw the transport of cosmonauts Viktor Gorbatko and Yury Glazkov to Salyut 5. Gorbatko and Glazkov managed to vent the contaminated air, and they engaged in a few more experiments before returning back to Earth. A planned fourth mission to Salyut 5 was cancelled due to a lack of fuel on the Salyut 5 as a result of the leak.

The Salyut 6 was the first of the so-called "second generation" orbital space stations. A massive improvement on the first five of the Salyut series, Salyut 6 boasted two docking ports, allowing two spacecraft to dock at the station at once, a BST-1M multispectral telescope and a brand-new propulsion system. The station also was equipped with far improved habitation facilities, including soundproofed machinery, designated sleeping cots, a shower, and a gymnasium. Salyut 6 was a key part of the Interkosmos programme, where cosmonauts from fraternal nations accompanied Soviet space missions. Interkosmos missions were diplomatically valuable, including Warsaw Pact and other allied nations in the technological advancements of the socialist primus inter pares, and capturing the imaginations of the publics of those countries. Whilst the Americans had, at least temporarily, abandoned the development of orbital space stations, the Salyut programme was not only a major success, but would continue into the 1980s.

Russian postage stamp commemorating Soviet-Indochinese Interkosmos mission, circa 1980​

Despite largely conceding primacy in the development of orbital space stations to the USSR, the Americans continued to lead the way in spaceplane technology. The major spaceplane project pursued through the 1970s was the Space Shuttle programme. Announced in 1968 by George Mueller of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight, the working concept was for a reusable shuttle that could operate in orbit, and would be able to be outfitted for a variety of purposes, including space station resupply, satellite repair and potentially even more exotic missions such as space rescue, anti-satellite warfare or use as a space tug to a lunar base. Given the scope and complexity to the project, as well as the security necessary around it, the contracting and development schedule was adjusted from the norm; instead of the typical process, where one of the large aerospace companies would acquire the contract for the whole programme, instead development was divided into four phases, most of which would have their own contractor attached. In December of 1968, NASA established the Space Shuttle Task Group (SSTG), tasked with determining the optimal design for the reusable spacecraft and issued study contracts to General Dynamics, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas and North American Rockwell. The aggregated study by the SSTG after consideration of contractors' proposals created three classes with which to categorise future reusable shuttles. Class I was simply a reusable orbiter mounted on expendable boosters. Class II incorporated multiple expendable boosters and a single propellant tank. Class III would boast both a reorbital orbiter and a reusable booster. Most aerospace engineers favoured the Class III, and development went ahead looking to produce a Class III space shuttle. Max Faget patented a design for a fully-recoverable straight-winged orbiter mounted on a straight-winged booster. This design was rejected, however, as the USAF Flight Dynamics Laboratory argued that such a design would not be able to withstand the high thermal and aerodynamic stresses during reentry, and as such would not provide the cross-range capability necessary for a spaceplane. USAF also required a larger payload than Faget's design could achieve. In January 1971, USAF and NASA finally decided on a reusable delta-wing orbiter mounted on an expendable propellant tank.

USAF expected the Space Shuttle to launch large satellites, and required it to be capable of lifting 29,000kg to an eastward LEO or 18,000 kg into a polar orbit. The satellite designs also required the Space Shuttle have a 4.6m x 18m payload bay. NASA evaluated the F-1 and J-2 engines from the Saturn rockets but determined that they were insufficient for the Space Shuttle. In July 1971 it issued a contract to Rocketdyne to begin development on a new engine for the shuttle, the RS-25. After review of 29 potential designs for the Space Shuttle, it was determined that a two-booster design should be used. Solid-propellant boosters were selected, primarily for costing reasons but also due to ease of refurbishment after splashdown return of the boosters. The final Space Shuttle design was approved in January 1972 by President Jackson [243]. Development of the Space Shuttle Main Engine was assigned to Rocketdyne, whilst the contract for the orbiter was given to North American Rockwell, the external tank contract to Martin Marietta and the solid-propellant booster contract to Morton Thiokol. Beginning of the development of the RS-25 Engine units was delayed for nine months while Pratt & Whitney unsuccessfully challenged the contract issued to Rocketdyne. One of the challenging elements of the development process for NASA was the creation of the Space Shuttle's thermal protection system. A sophisticated means of cladding the Space Shuttle was necessary to tolerate the extreme temperature change between outer space and the atmosphere, not to mention the massive heat generated as a result of friction whilst pushing out of and back into the atmosphere. Previous NASA spacecraft had used ablative ("fall away") heat shields, but those could not be reused. It was decided that ceramic tiles would be used for thermal protection, as the Shuttle could then be constructed out of relatively lightweight aluminium, with tiles replaced individually as needed. On June 4th, 1974, Rockwell began construction on a test orbiter, OV-101, dubbed Constitution (later renamed to Enterprise, both references to science fiction show Star Trek). Construction began on an actual orbiter, Columbia, on March 27th, 1975 and would be ready for deployment from April 1979. Throughout 1979, NASA commissioned a number of other Space Shuttle units. In the meanwhile, the Enterprise went through a number of flight tests with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a Boeing 747 that had been modified to carry the orbiter. No Space Shuttle would actually be launched into space until the 1980s.

The initial Soviet response to the Space Shuttle programme was to resurrect in 1974 the Spiral Programme, which had commenced in 1965 and been halted in 1969. Based on limited initial intelligence about the Space Shuttle, the Soviets believed that the Americans were constructing another "normal" spaceplane along the lines of the X-20. The Spiral Programme would end up producing the MiG-105 spaceplane. The test vehicle made its first subsonic freeflight test in 1976, taking off under its own power from an old airstrip near Moscow. Eight flight tests would be made sporadically until 1978. Soviet engineers opted for the MiG-105 to utilise a mid-air launch scheme. This would involve the spaceplane and a liquid-fuel booster being launched at high altitude from a custom-built hypersonic jet mothership. The mothership would be constructed by the Tupolev Design Bureau and incorporate technologies developed for the Tu-144 supersonic transport and the Sukhoi T-4 Mach 3 bomber. The MiG-105's overall silhouette was that of a conventional delta-wing design, but featured innovative dihydral wings. During launch and reentry, these were folded upward at 60 degrees. After dropping to subsonic speeds after reentry, the pilot lowers the wings into the horizontal position, giving the spaceplane better re-entry and flight characteristics. The MiG-105 was built to allow for a powered landing and go-around maneuver in case of a missed landing. The MiG-105 featured an air intake for a single Kolerov turbojet which was mounted beneath the central vertical stabiliser. The air intake was protected during launch and reentry by a 'clamshell' door which would automatically open at subsonic speed. Like the Space Shuttle programme, Spiral needed to utilise advanced materials technology to make their spaceplane operational. The MiG-105 was protected by what its engineers referred to as "scale-plate armour", comprised of Niobium alloy VN5AP and molybdenum disilicate-covered steel plates mounted on articulated ceramic bearings to allow for thermal expansion whilst maintaining structural integrity. The MiG-105 was much smaller than the American Space Shuttle, and resembled an exotic version of a fighter jet. As such, it was designed for only one crew member.

Mikoyan-Gurevich 105 spaceplane test model; nicknamed "Lapot" due to its upcurved nose, resembling a traditional bast shoe​

Having both placed men on the Moon, the superpowers sought to continue their contest on the Earth's natural satellite. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, both the USSR and the USA had harboured designs on the establishment of semi-permanent bases on Luna. The Americans had considered the feasibility of a lunar base back in 1959, under the codename Project Horizon. Project Horizon was rejected by President Eisenhower, and if pursued would almost certainly have failed due to technical limitations: it was estimated to require 147 Saturn A-1 rocket launches to send spacecraft components which would have to be assembled in Low Earth Orbit. By the 1970s, the production of superboosters improved the feasibility of a moonbase. In the post-lunar expeditionary phase, President Jackson insisted on the pursuit of this new challenge. Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a Danziger who had been in von Braun's Peenemünde team was appointed to head the Saturn Development Programme that would ensure the booster rockets were prepared for travel to the Moon and transport of lunar base components. The actual moonbase design and manufacture would be overseen by the Gemini Applications Programme, which had been established in 1966 to formulate spaceflight missions with scientific purpose using hardware developed for the Advanced Gemini programmes. The GAP would end up being extremely expensive endeavours, with its first year (1967) of operation eating up around only $80 million dollars due to Percy's focus on urban resurrection programmes, but a sudden increase to over a billion dollars the following year as Jackson entered office[244]. The outline of the proposed Moonbase mission was to see an uncrewed Saturn V ferry a shelter modelled after the Gemini CSM on the Moon. A 3-person team would have a surface stay time of nearly 200 days, and would have access to a lunar rover, as well as logistics vehicles to construct a large shelter. This would be preceded by a couple of Moon landings, similar to Aldrin's expedition except with 3-man teams in order to develop experience for the astronauts in question. By 1973 this phase would be effectively complete, the Americans having made four lunar landings. On September 15th, 1974, a year behind schedule, the "Lunar Exploration Phase" would be commenced. Astronauts Ronald Evans, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt flew to the Moon onboard the Extended Lunar Module, which was a modification of the standard Gemini hardware and they stayed 3 days. On June 3rd 1975, a single Lunar Orbital Survey mission was completed, and would be the last flight of a Gemini spacecraft. It achieved a 28-day lunar polar orbit mission surveying wide swatches of the northern half of the Moon. A location for the American lunar base was decided, and was actually one of the sites mentioned in the original Project Horizon documentation: an area on the southwest of the Mare Imbrium, just to the north of the Montes Apenninus mountains. The Mare Imbrium is a massive crater formed by the collision of a proto-planet into the Moon around four billion years ago. It takes a form of a flat volcanic plain as a result of later flooding of basaltic lava into the crater. As such, it is relatively flat compared to the rest of Luna's pockmarked face. In 1978, the United States launched multiple Saturn V rockets to the site, alongside remote controllable lunar rovers. This was followed up with Saturn-Romulus, the transport of a six-man team of astronauts headed by Stuart Roosa. The lunar expeditionary team would spend 14 days on the Moon, assembling the base, which was named Outpost Republic (in reference to both the United States and Rome, in allusion to the camp's proximity to the Montes Apenninus formation) and collecting regolith samples. Logistically, preparations hadn't yet been made to ensure constant habitation due to a political need to rapidly see results for the massive investment of the lunar base programme. As such the astronauts left after 14 days rather than having a permanent rotational presence at the base as had been the plan in the late 1960s. Periodic visitation to the site would continue for years to come.

Not to be outdone, the Soviets had also harboured their own designs on the colonisation of Luna. From 1962 to 1974 Project Zvezda ("Star") was being worked on with the objective of establishing a permanent moonbase. Korolev had assigned Zvezda to the Spetcmash bureau, headed by Vladimir Barmin. As such, the project was nicknamed "Barmingrad" by the engineers who actually worked on it. The broad plan was for a main habitation module to be delivered to the Moon. In keeping with Soviet space doctrine, which emphasised automation wherever possible, a Lunakhod robotic rover would be delivered, followed by a human crew and more modules that would make up the rest of the camp. In order to allow for exploration or repositioning of the base, the habitation modules would be installed on wheels and would be able to be docked together to form a train. Energy would be provided by a nuclear reactor, and atomic batteries would also be carried to allow for energy use in transit. There would be nine modules in total, each with dimensions of 8.6m x 3.3m. Every individual module would have its own specialised purpose (control, laboratories, medical, dining, relaxation etc.). These modules would all have 3 layers of protection, from micrometeorites, heat and ultraviolet rays. The "train" would also be equipped with a manipulator arm to enable soil collection samples without having to leave the train. Potable water would be made through artificial chemical reactions. The Zvezda mission was designed to have a crew of 9-12 cosmonauts. Whilst the Zvezda programme would never come to fruition, many elements of it were folded into Glushko's 1974 proposal for a moonbase, the LEK Lunar Expeditionary Complex. LEK was intended by Glushko to be transported to the Moon by a new super-heavy launcher design of his, the Vulkan. With development of the Vulkan still ongoing, the LEK base was expected to be operational in 1980. But political intervention pushed this timetable forward, with the Central Committee insisting, on the recommendation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, that the LEK utilise the N1-L3 super-heavy launcher that Korolev had designed. As much as Glushko disliked Korolev, and as much as he tried to avoid use of the N1-L3 wherever possible, he in the end did as he told. The N1-L3 would be used to ferry the components to the moonbase. There were some delays, notably due to the unexplained failure of the first Lunakhod shortly after its arrival, but in the end the LEK proposal would be achieved in 1978. Several of the more ambitious elements of Zvezda couldn't be done, however. Concerned at the levels of solar radiation hitting the surface of the Moon, the Soviets opted to build their moonbase under a layer of regolith. In order to achieve this, a specialised vehicle, the Lunar Engineering Machine (LIM) travelled to the Moon with the 10-man cosmonaut team headed by Oleg Makarov. The LIM utilised an innovative four-cylinder internal combustion engine with self-igniting rocket propellant that could operate despite lunar conditions. The LIM dug into the regolith near the landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, and piled up the displaced ground into a wall around the camp. The Americans had actually beaten the Russians to the establishment of a moonbase, but as the Soviets pointed out, their's actually was permanent, with a nuclear power source and a rotating crew. The moonbase, named Zvezda, although jokingly referred to by the cosmonauts as Yezhikovo (from Yezhik - "Hedgehog") due to the burrowed modules. Into the 1980s, Moonbase Zvezda would gradually be modestly expanded, mostly with storage tanks for food and water and a few improvements on recreation for the sake of the cosmonauts' mental health.

Moonbase concept from magazine for Soviet youth. Whilst the actual moonbase Zvezda would look very different, note several ideas utilised, such as subterranean (sublunarean?) living and automated rovers.​

With competition between Moscow and Washington still neck and neck on the Moon, both superpowers looked to our next closest celestial neighbours for a new frontier of exploration. The distances involved made unmanned space probes the only practical method for early exploration beyond Earth's magnetoshere. The first American space probes were tasked with travel to the Moon in the 1958-1960 Pioneer programme. The Pioneer programme was restarted in 1965, this time tasked with collecting data about conditions in space. Pioneers 6,7,8 and 9 were a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilised satellites designed for the study of interplanetary phenomena such as solar wind, solar magnetic fields and cosmis rays. These vehicles also acted as the world's first space-based solar weather network, providing data on solar storms which could interfere with communcations on Earth. The Pioneer programme also collected valuable information regarding ionic charges and other energy fields in space. Despite being expected to have only a six-month lifespan, the Pioneer probes would continue to be active to this day, and has been one of the best-value programmes NASA ever engaged in, having cost a very small sum relative to other space exploration programmes.

The Mariner programme ran from 1962 to 1973, and were tasked with exploration of Mars and Venus. Mariner 1, 3 and 8 all experienced launch failures. Mariner 2 successfully achieved a Venus flyby and Mariner 4 completed a Mars flyby. Mariner 5 would also be sent to Venus, this time with equipement designed to measure magnetic fields and the Venusian atmospheric composition. Mariners 6 and 7 were launched in a dual mission to flyby Mars, and both achieved their missions. Mariner 9 was a Mars orbiter mission (as had been the ill-fated Mariner 8) and managed to enter Martian orbit on 14th November 1971. The last of the Mariner spacecraft, Mariner 10, achieved a historic double flyby, both passing Venus and becoming the first space probe to achieve a flyby of Mercury.

Building on the knowledge developed through pursuit of the Mariner programme, the Viking programme sought to land American probes on the Martian surface. The mission effort began in 1968, but both Viking probes would land in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters would also serve the purpose of a communications relay between the lander and Earth. Both Viking missions were launched on Titan IIIE rockets equipped with a Centaur upper stage. Viking 1 launched on 20th August 1975, entered areocentric (Martian) orbit on 19th June 1976, and the lander touched down on 20th July 1976. Viking 2 launched on September 9th 1975, entered areocentric orbit on 7th August 1976 and the lander touched down on 3rd September 1976. The Viking programme made a number of discoveries that justified its $1 billion budget. One of the most significant was the uncovering of so-called "chaos terrain" found on Mars, a type of environment that had no parallels on Earth. These were believed to have been formed by the thaw of subterranean ice, flooding the land from below. The thaw is theorised to have been caused by subterranean volcanism. Other features of the Martian surface, including huge river valleys made it undeniable that Mars had once held significant bodies of surface water.

In 1977 the Voyager programme was commenced, seeking to take advantage of a favourable alignment of our solar system's gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) with it's ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). The programme involved the launch of two probes. Voyager 2, despite its name, was the first to be launched. Voyager 2's trajectory was designed to allow flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The reason it was designated Voyager 2 is that it was launched on a wider trajectory, meaning Voyager 1 would inevitably overtake it. Voyager 1 was sent on a shorter trajectory to provide an optimal flyby of Saturn's moon Titan. A number of fascinating observations were made, with charting of Jupiter's complex cloud forms, winds and storm systems and the discovery of volcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter. Saturn's rings were found to have a number of complex patterns in its composition. At Uranus, Voyager 2 would discover a substantial magnetic field around the planet and discover ten more moons that were previously unknown to man. A flyby of Neptune would uncover three rings and six new moons, a planetary magnetic field and complex, widely distributed auroras.

Trajectories of Voyager spacecraft​

1978 would see the Pioneer Venus project, consisting of two spacecraft, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. It would be to Venus what the Viking project was to Mars. The large orbiter (total mass of 517kg) was launched on May 20th 1978 on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. The multiprobe was also launched on an Atlas-Centaur, on August 8th, 1978. The multiprobe constisted of one large (315kg) probe and three small atmospheric probes. All four probes would enter the Venusian atmosphere on December 9th. The multiprobe would stop functioning soon after, but did discover that argon concentrations were very high in Venus' atmosphere compared to Earth's. The orbiter would remain active until the early 1990s.

The Soviet space probe programme was focused solely on Venus and Mars, and struggled with ongoing reliability issues. The early "Marsnik" (as they were dubbed by the Western press) probes were small and launched on Molniya rockets. Starting with two failures in 1969, the heavier Proton-K rocket was used to launch larger, 5 tonne spacecraft, consisting of orbiter and lander. Missions Mars 2 and 3 (in line with Soviet practice, only successful launch attempts were given numeric designation to give the impression of an inflated success rate) became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the red planet. The Mars 2 orbiter's primary objectives was to image Martian surface and clouds, determine the temperature on Mars, study the topography, composition and physical properties of the surface, measure properties of the atmosphere, monitor the solar wind and the interplanetary and Martian magnetic fields. A massive Martian dust storm adversely affected the mission, obscuring the surface. Both Mars 2 and 3 would end up dispatching landers almost immediately. The lander descent system malfunctioned and it crashed into Mars, becoming the first man-made object to impact the Martian surface. Mars 3 managed to transmit more useful images than Mars 2, revealing mountains as high as 22km, also detected atomic hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere and detecting surface temperatures ranging from -110 degrees celsius to 13 degrees C. Unlike the Mars 2 lander, which crashed, Mars 3's lander achieved a soft landing, but failed after only 110 seconds on the Martian surface. Mars 4 intended to enter orbit around Mars in 1974, but computer problems prevented orbital insertion from occurring and turning the mission into an improvised flyby. 12 photographs were taken and transmitted back to Earth. Mars 5 successfully entered areocentric orbit, but damage caused by micrometeoroid impacts limited its lifespan. Mars 6 lost contact with Earth after 224 seconds in the Martian atmosphere and Mars 7 missed Mars due to a malfunction.

Alongside the Mars programme, the Soviets also pursued the Venera Project ("Venera" meaning Venus in Russian). The first Soviet attempt at a flyby probe to Venus was launched on 4th February 1961, but failed to leavt Earth orbit. This attempt was designated Venera 1VA. Venera 1 was launched on 12th February 1961. Telemetry on the probe failed seven days after launch. Venera 2 launched on 12th November 1965, but also suffered a telemetry failure after leaving Earth orbit. Several other failed attempts at Venus flyby probes were launched by the USSR in the early 1960s, but didn't receive the "Venera" designation. Venera 3 became the first human-made object to impact another planet's surface when it crash-landed on 1st March 1966. However, as the data probes failed upon atmospheric penetration, no data from within the Venusian atmosphere was retrieved from the mission. On 18th October 1967, Venera 4 became the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet. This revealed the major gas of Venus' atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Surface pressure was much too high for the probe to survive long. Adapting to the challenge of high surface pressure on Venus, the Soviets launched Veneras 5 & 6 as atmospheric probes. Designed to jettison nearly half their payload prior to entering the atmosphere and were able to transmit for almost an hour. Venera 7 was launched in August 1970, the first to survive Venus' surface conditions and make a soft landing. Massively overbuilt to ensure survivability, it had few experiments and scientific output was further limited by a switchboard error keeping it stuck in the "transmit temperature" position. Control scientists were able to extrapolate the pressure on the Venusian surface from the temperature data from the first surface measurements (465 degrees celsius). Venera 8, launched in 1972, was equipped with an extended set of scientific instruments for studying the surface. Transmitted data for an hour prior to failing. The 1975 Venera 9 and 10 and 1978 Venera 11 and 12 were designed to take images of Venus' surface. The lens caps on Venera 11 and 12 failed to release.

Venera probe on Venus​

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[242] Historically, the Apollo Applications Programme. As noted in the last update, the Apollo programme is not pursued and the American Moon landing is achieved through the Advanced Gemini programme.
[243] IOTL, President Nixon
[244] IOTL, the relative underfunding was due to President Johnson's decisions to focus spending on his "Great Society" policies instead of on these aerospace programmes. ITTL, with Jackson rising to the presidency in 1968, he opens the floodgates spending-wise.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

For information about the history of Indonesia, 1950-1970, see: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rnative-cold-war.280530/page-21#post-11164323

Despite Western media representations of the rise of communism in Indonesia/Nusantara as a sudden takeover, it in fact was the result of the gradual breakdown of the tripartite Nasakom (Nationalism, Religion, Communism) balance that President Sukarno had tried to establish. A major contributing factor to the collapse of Nasakom was that the three pillars of the state were themselves unstable; the generals that comprised the "nationalist" base were often self-serving, scheming and focused on their own enrichment through management of state enterprises than on the wellbeing of their country, their junior officers split by different loyalties and visions of Indonesia's future; the Islamists concerned communists as well as non-Muslim regions like Bali; and the communists, whilst able to find large bases of support, were riven by factionalism. The 30 September Movement finally pushed Nasakom over the edge; The 30 September Movement was spearheaded by military officers sympathetic to the PKI, and as the fruit of the labours of Kamaruzaman Sjam. Hailing from the northeastern Javan town of Tuban and descended from Arab traders, Sjam had been a member of the pathuk group of youths which opposed Japanese occupation in Yogyakarta during the Second World War. After the war, he had joined the PKI and maintained a number of contacts from former pathuk members who were now officers in the Indonesian army. In 1964, Sjam had been appointed head of the top-secret PKI Special Bureau. The Special Bureau's existence was hidden even from PKI Central Committee members and took orders from Aidit himself. Sjam and his small group of subordinates in the Special Bureau infiltrated several military bases (to which they were provided access by old friends of Sjam) and established a degree of trust with certain notable officers by passing on intelligence regarding Islamist rebellions throughout the country. This arrangement of course benefitted the PKI by pitting their two greatest threats, the military and the Islamists, against each other, whilst slowly but surely turning elements of the military onside. In the meanwhile, the PKI also grew increasingly close with Sukarno and the leftist wing of the PNI, with the right wing PNI regional party bosses actually often defying the will of Sukarno whilst local PKI elements supported the unitary policies of the president. By 1968, Sukarno's reliance on the PKI and affiliated groups such as the SOBSI (Sentral Organisasi Buruh Selurah Indonesia - Central All-Indonesian Workers Organisation) trade union confederation and the merah milisi was practically complete. Opposition army officers had been crushed by the red militias, loyalist army elements and the air force, whilst the Indonesian Navy (TNI-AL) supported the PKI-PNI government due to their increasing ties with Eastern bloc suppliers and their interests regarding Maluku and West Papua. Isolated on the various islands, the rebellious army officers were forced to surrender piecemeal.

Ceremony held by the Sidang Presidium of SOBRI. Note the portrait of Friedrich Engels​

In 1968 Aidit was appointed Vice President, a post that had been vacant since the resignation of Mohammad Hatta in December 1956. Despite this, he was by now the most powerful man in Indonesia. It is a matter of historical controversy to which degree Sukarno fully supported the policies that would be implemented under Aidit's direction; even if he did not, he surely felt he had no other allies left; the Islamists and conservatives opposed him, the United States had sought to overthrow him. The communists were at least willing to keep him alive and nominally in charge of the country. 1969 saw the establishment of a new cabinet, stacked almost entirely with communist leaders. Aside from Aidit, of course, it also included figures such as Siauw Giok Tjhan/Shao Yu'tsan [245], who was made a minister without portfolio but would spend a great deal of time maintaining good relations with Peking; Muhammad Hatta Lukman; Oloan Hutapea as Minister of Culture; Subandrio as Foreign Minister (one of the few non-communists, he had nevertheless been the architect of the konfrontasi with Malaya and the West); and Sjam as Interior Minister. Sudisman maintained his position as General Secretary of the PKI. Shortly thereafter, Sukarno announced the renaming of Indonesia, which would from then on be known as Revolutionary Nusantara. In virtually all organisations (except those openly opposed to the new government), the name Nusantara replaced Indonesia. The newly-rebranded Partai Komunis Nusantara (PKN) and their merah milisi turned their eyes onto their opposition within the left. The smaller internal purge of the PKN included amongst its notable victims Njoto. Njoto had once been a notable figure in the PKI, regularly travelling to the Soviet Union to promote ties between the CPSU and the PKI. Njoto had caused controversy by travelling in the Soviet Union with Rita, an Indonesian student living in Moscow and studying Russian literature. Rita was supposed to translate between Russian and Indonesian for Njoto, but the two ended up having an affair whilst Njoto's wife Soetarni was back in Indonesia, pregnant with their sixth child. A rift had already been growing between Njoto and Aidit, particularly regarding different views on the Sino-Soviet split. The affair was a scandal that the PKI could ill-afford, and it gave Aidit an excuse to oust Njoto from the leadership of the PKI. Sukarno would maintain a good relationship with Njoto however, even unsuccessfully trying to convince him to establish a "People's Party" based on "Sukarnoism". With Sukarno no longer positioned to protect Njoto, he was arrested on espionage charges and was executed on September 16th, 1969.

Murba Party member being harassed by local PKI activists and police​

The most viciously-suppressed target of the security forces of Revolutionary Nusantara was the Murba Party. The Murba Party had emerged out of the political vacuum of the late 1940s as the PKI reeled from the aftermath of the Madiun Affair. It was an amalgamation of four main groups: the Revolutionary People's Movement, People's Party, Poor People's Party and the Independent Labour Party of Indonesia and led by their leaders, Tan Malaka, Chairul Saleh, Sukarni and Adam Malik. Guerrilla units loyal to Murba were active against the Dutch in West and Central Java in the 1950s. The Murba Party has been characterised as extremely nationalistic, secular and "messianic" in its social radicalism. The group was particularly popular with workers and ex-guerrillas. The leadership of the party were sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Adam Malik himself had been ambassador to the USSR and Poland until his return to Indonesia in 1963 and was appointed trade minister. As the PKI sided with China in their disputes with the Soviets, Murba intensified their courting of Moscow, hoping to replace the PKI in international socialist organisations, which didn't come to pass. In 1965, at the suggestion of the PKI, Sukarno ordered a number of arrests on Murba activists, despite appointing Malik as Foreign Minister and even briefly as Deputy Prime Minister. The PKI denounced Murba as a "Trotskyite" organisation, and as "puppets of imperialists". In 1969-1970, Offices of the Murba Party were raided by merah milisi and burnt to the ground. In the progress of arrests, many of these supporters were beaten to death. Others were thrown into prisons throughout Nusantara. Murba was outlawed, along with the Acoma Party, which had emerged out of the Young Communist Force, led by Ibnu Parna and affiliated with Murba.

A later image taken in one of the Unity Villages established during the Social Revolutionary period​

The Central Committee of the PKN engaged in a rapid programme of social and economic transformation. The immediate effects of these policies was dislocation; a number of localised famines forced the central government to engage in forced requisitioning of rice from farmers. The owners of farming estates were often subjected to violence and collectivisation of their farms, whilst small peasant smallholders also had their rice taken, but were usually left unmolested except in the case of withholding of produce or destruction of surplus; in these instances summary execution was not uncommon. Inherited high levels of inflation were gradually controlled by a major devaluation of the rupiah, although this also wiped out the savings of many Nusantarans. PKI leadership's savings were largely converted and stored in Switzerland, of course. Oil and natural gas production and mining were fully nationalised and quickly became the primary source of income for the state. Despite still suffering from similar issues of corruption and embezzlement as pre-revolutionary Indonesia, high oil prices in the 1970s would allow Nusantara to eventually achieve economic stability and allow investment in large infrastructure projects. In order to deal with the issues of regional smallholder opposition to Nusantaran land reform policies and overpopulation of Java in one policy: transmigration. So-called Persatuan Desa (Unity Villages) were established throughout Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi. These villages were defined by collective ownership and the integration of the PKN into daily life, although they lacked the "struggle sessions" of their Chinese equivalents. Another difference to the Chinese collective villages was the establishment of red militias in every village, comprised of young men and women, and designed to defend the settlements against interference from neighbours, such as indigenous Dayaks on Borneo or followers of imams in Sumatra. The biggest flare-up in opposition to the transmigration policy was the 1973 Aceh Uprising. The uprising began as a regionwide protest against the Unity Villages, demanding the dissolution of those villages and the departure of their inhabitants from the province. During these protests, effigies of local PKN boss Muhamad Samikidin were burnt and in response, the military was sent in to restore order. An insurgency of Islamist rebels supported by local imams and supplied clandestinely by Malaya would be crushed by November 1974. Nusantara would retaliate against Malaya for support of Acehnese rebels by increasing clandestine support for communist insurgents on the Malaya peninsula. In order to link the Unity Villages to major townships, rail links throughout the country were expanded significantly. A few years before Aidit's dominance was established in Indonesia, the SOBSI trade union confederation had started to drift away from the party line, much to the PKI leadership's chagrin. This was largely caused by SOBSI encouraging industrial action at nationalised industrial sites, putting the interests of their membership above the national interest as a whole, or at least that was how it was seen by Aidit. A short burst of purges ousted SOBSI leaders who maintained an independent streak or who had been affiliated with the PNI.

Revolutionary Nusantara President Sukarno dining with Mao Tse-Tung​

Internationally, Aidit and Sukarno threw their lot in with the the Chinese in their dispute with the Soviet Union. Whilst not openly hostile to Moscow, the PKN leadership saw the Chinese path to socialism as more relevant to the Nusantaran situation; like China, the number of industrial workers in Nusantara were far exceeded by the rural peasantry. Elements of feudalism still lingered in the form of the Islamic clergy and the Yogyakarta Sultanate, the latter of which was quickly toppled and Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX placed in house arrest, albeit in a relatively luxurious gilded cage in his palace. The particular situation of Nusantara led to an interesting duality in national economic development. The Unity Villages aped the rural communes of China, but the nationalised resource extraction industries allowed Nusantara to engage more heavily in a degree of state involvement in international markets and localised industrial development in processes such as oil refining. Nusantara also remained an OPEC member. The Nusantaran government sought especially close ties not only with China, but also with Vietnam and Korea. Like China and Korea, throughout the 1970s, Jakarta engaged in a significant expansion of naval capacity, although unlike the PLAN, the Tentara Nasional Nusantara Angkatan Laut (Nusantara National Military-Naval Force; TNNAL) would remain a largely brown-water force, albeit with a couple of missile cruisers attached. The naval buildup was intended to aid in force projection and protect from intrusions from Malaya, the Philippines and the Oceanian Treaty Organisation. Multiple skirmishes between Nusantara and South Maluku and West Papuan ships occurred throughout this period, and as such Royal Australian Naval units were based at Ambon. The presence of the Australians in South Maluku was rabidly denounced by the government of Revolutionary Nusantara, which claimed both South Maluku and West Papua as territories of Nusantara occupied by "imperialists and their running dogs". These confrontations intensified the rift between Moscow and Jakarta, as in various international socialist forums the CPSU leadership denounced "adventurism in Asia" that "exacerbate existing tensions" and "threaten the existing successes of socialism in the Pacific region". Between 1974 and 1976, Jakarta cut off diplomatic relations with Moscow, forcing Indochina to act as a go-between. During the Tibetan campaign, Jakarta made accusations in the United Nations of "wannabe Great Power chauvinism" by Delhi. In response, the Bharati diplomats denounced "the robbery and abuse of Hindus and Buddhists in the Indonesian archipelago", being sure to not acknowledge the new name of Nusantara. In the late 1970s, with the healing of the Sino-Soviet split, Jakarta reestablished relations with Moscow and began to solicit technology transfer from the Soviets, especially interested in the development of nuclear power grids.

Despite the best efforts of Chinese doctors, Sukarno passed away from kidney failure in February 1972. Aidit became the new President, formalising his leadership of Nusantara. As President, Aidit took a personal interest in several areas, most notably the promotion of Nusantaran cinema. Entertainers such as Nun Zairina, Gordon Tobing and Bing Slamet were featured in films promoting values deemed desirable to the government. Zairina's portrayal as a beautiful and ambitious young woman limited by the feudal regime in Yogyakarta made her a star throughout the communist world. The film, Yogyakarta Merah, was set against the backdrop of the 1969 deposition of the local sultan. More popular with local audiences was Rakyat Tersenyum Menantang, a musical comedy starring Gordon Tobing about the inhabitants of a Unity Village and their humiliations of a dour old imam who tries to undermine them.

On 7th December, 1975, Nusantara became involved in East Timor. Preoccupied with war in Africa and revolution at home, the Portuguese had largely abandoned East Timor to its fate. In the small nation, a civil war was fought between the two predominant factions, the left-wing Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente also known as "Fretilin" and the conservative União Democrática Timorense (Timorese Democratic Union, UDT). Fretilin had resisted a UDT coup attempt and unilaterally declared independence from Portugal on 28th November 1975. Australian denunciations of Fretilin's anti-Lisbon coup spooked Fretilin, who requested that Nusantara troops be stationed in the country to protect from a potential Australian-backed UDT counter-coup. Whilst Portugal seemed to legitimately not care about the status of East Timor (perhaps even relieved that an economic liability had been snapped up by someone else), Australia immediately began posturing. Not only were they trying to limit Nusantaran expansion, but they also sought exploitation of potential future natural gas and oil reserves located in the Timor Gap between the island of Timor and Darwin. Upon entry into East Timor, Nusantara troops immediately began to assist Fretilin forces with the capture and forceful disarmament of UDT members. Of the three Carrascalão brothers who led the UDT, João and Mário were able to escape to Australia, whilst Manuel was captured, tortured and murdered by Nusantara troops. One of the founding members of Fretilin, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, was named the first President of East Timor. However, he soon fell out with the Nusantara military leadership in his country. He sought a withdrawal of Nusantaran troops and the establishment of a collective security agreement with Jakarta to protect against a return of the UDT. The Nusantara military refused, saying that the risk of Australian adventurism was too great. Relations between locals and the Nusantara military were also getting increasingly tense. Even putting aside misunderstandings as a result of language barriers, some of the army men would pass the time getting drunk and harassing locals, with little to no discipline upheld by their commanders. Seeing themselves as liberators, the Nusantara troops developed a fairly entitled attitude, helping themselves to food, drinks and the occasional local woman, regardless of the consternation this caused with the locals. Amaral would be ousted by Nicolau dos Reis Lobato, who would accept to negotiate with Jakarta around the potential issue of incorporation into Nusantara. It was in the end decided, largely by Aidit, that the Democratic Republic of East Timor would be integrated into Nusantara as the autonomous province of Timor Timur. Fretilin would be allowed to continue existence as a political formation governing Timor Timur. Falintil, the armed wing of Fretilin, would be the only ground forces permanently stationed in the area, but would be subject to the authority of the Nusantara Interior Ministry. Portuguese would be allowed to be used in a co-official capacity. This annexation would cause a split in the party, with many of the non-Marxists in Fretilin fleeing to Australia and banding together with the UDT exiles.

Falintil militia harassing political opponents​

===
[245] His Chinese name in pinyin was Xiāo Yùcàn. Long-time readers may recall that we're using Wade-Giles orthography here for reasons outlined in the China updates.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Flag of the Republic of South Maluku. Blue represents the bounty of the sea, white denotes peace and purity, green symbolises the fertility of the land, and invokes the ancestors and the blood spilled in defense of the islands.​

In the aftermath of the South Moluccan expulsion of an Indonesian expeditionary force in 1951, the Republic of South Maluku (RMS) became a key link in the chain of Australian military bases that were developed to limit Indonesian expansionism in the region. A major point of contention between the RMS and the Indonesian government was the kidnap of Johanis Manuhutu, who had been appointed as President of the RMS, but had been kidnapped and imprisoned during an Indonesia raid, held in Java on charges of treason. Chris Somoukil would take over the mantle of President until resigning in 1972. From 1972 Johan Manusama would govern. As the government of Indonesia considered South Maluku merely a rogue province under occupation of imperialists and their collaborators, Jakarta claimed justification in holding Manuhutu on charges of treason. He would be held in captivity for decades and was used as a symbol within South Maluku of the cruelty of the Indonesian state. For the most part, over the next couple of decades things changed relatively little in the day-to-day life of South Moluccans. Seram island, the largest in the country, and known by locals as Nusa Ina (Mother Island) as a legendary homeland of the Moluccan people, continued to produce copra, sago, resin and fish. Some oil deposits were being explored in the northeast during the late 1960s, although these wouldn't attract significant investment in development for decades. The westernmost major island of Buru also produced agricultural goods, with the traditionalist locals refusing even to take up use of tractors or other modern equipment and techniques. Instead they were content with growing by hand maize, sweet potato, rice [246], beans, coconuts, coffee, cloves and nutmeg on the local plantations. Despite the wide variety of crops grown on Buru, the relatively low yields meant that little was left over for export. The locals supplemented their diet with proteins from fish and hunting of the local babirusa wild-pig, notable for its tusks which curve backwards and, if left long enough, penetrate their own skulls. It is on the main island of Ambon where modernity has made inroads into South Maluku. Plantation agriculture is also the primary economic activity here, producing breadfruit, sugarcane, coffee, cocoa, pepper and cotton, with the chief food crops being cassava and sago. Modest amounts of copra were also exported. It is on Ambon that mechanisation was gradually introduced into farming, largely due to the efforts of locals trained in basic mechanics by the Australian navy. Pearl diving and the harvesting of lobsters and shellfish are a significant industry in all of the islands, along with logging. Ambon Island is home to the nation's capital, Ambon Manise ("Beautiful Ambon", often referred to simply as Ambon City).

From 1955, having become a founding member of the Oceanian Treaty Organisation, the Republic of South Maluku hosted a permanent Australian naval presence at a base at Ambon Manise. The Australian military also operated several training grounds throughout the country to ensure that local recruits were trained to the standard necessary in any future conflict with Indonesia. Ambonese recruits became well-known as durable and reliable light infantry with great endurance in tropical conditions. They were equipped with Australian and British small arms which had become standardised throughout the OTO, including the Owen submachinegun and the "Jungle Carbine" (a derivative of the Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk I with improved mobility for tropical conditions), which would later be replaced by the F1 submachinegun and the L1A1 (locally-licensed semi-automatic variant of the FN FAL) and trained in their use at Australia's expense. Whilst the expansion of the naval base at Ambon and the establishment of a permanent RAN presence did a great deal to secure South Maluku's independence and discourage attacks from Indonesia (not to mention an influx of Australian dollars), there were some negative consequences to the Australian presence. The lack of a major city with Western-style amenities meant that onshore leave was taken in Ambon Manise itself, and there were several incidents over the first couple years provoked largely by binge-drinking Australian servicemen. This included a number of brawls between servicemen and locals, which resulted in a number of deaths on both sides, and the stimulus of a black market for navy rum, much of which entered the local economy as payment for prostitution. Furthermore, a number of social issues arose from the proximity of Moluccan servicemen to their Australians comrades. Drinking at bars built to service Australian sailors, it wasn't uncommon for Moluccan servicemen to find their way home drunk, and engage in violence both to passersby and to family members at home. In order to curb these problems, the RAN and RMS established a set of strict rules around the conduct of both Australian and Moluccan military personnel. An area around the Australian naval base was designated as a so-called "special military zone" (SMZ). Within this zone, order would be kept not by the South Moluccan government, but by Australian military police. Australian personnel below the rank of Warrant Officer would not be allowed outside of the SMZ past 5pm, and any alcohol consumption beyond was strictly prohibited, as was the sale of rum to locals outside the zone. Moluccan military personnel were allowed to enter and leave the zone mostly without limitation, although the Australian military police were given a mandate by the RMS government to prevent drunk Moluccans from leaving. They would instead sleep overnight in designated "sober-up shelters" before leaving in the morning. The military presence in Ambon Manise did have a number of positive impacts though, teaching locals a number of important skills which encouraged the uptake of modern technology in spheres such as farming and fisheries. The Australian dollar was the sole currency used in the RMS, and the rotation of Australian servicemen in and out of the country provided a good source of foreign money. Some of the older former Moluccan military personnel (mostly in their late 30s and 40s) would also provide for their families through mercenary and private security work throughout the South Pacific.

Moluccan soldier armed with WWII-vintage Thompson submachinegun
​

The status of West Papua was an oddity of the postwar period. After withdrawing from the main islands of Indonesia, the Dutch maintained a presence in West Papua, seeking to prepare it for self-rule independent from Jakarta. Local political leaders had been split on what should be the fate of the territory after the eventual departure of the Dutch, with some seeking full sovereignty and others seeking union with Nusantara. In 1946 the Indonesian Irian Independence Party (Partai Kemerdekaan Indonesia Irian, PKII) was founded by Silas Papare. During the Second World War, Papare had assisted the anti-Japanese war effort, acting as a liaison between Allied authorities and Papuans. Papare had been instrumental in the organisation of indigenous resistance to Imperial Japanese forces around the Cenderawasih Bay area. Papare's influences during the war initially made him pro-Dutch and anti-Indonesian, resenting instances where he saw Indonesians submit to Japanese forces and participate in abuse of Papuans. With the end of the war, his views would change as a result of disillusionment with the Dutch colonial authorities. The turning point in this was the Harapan Incident. Harapan village was a hotbed of pro-Indonesian, anti-Dutch activity in West Papua. As preparations were being made for an uprising against Dutch rule (in tandem with similar uprisings throughout the Indonesian archipelago), the local colonial authorities spread a false rumour that the Muslims of Harapan village were preparing to attack not only the Dutch, but also neighbouring Christian villages. In doing so, the Netherlands New Guinea authorities provoked intercommunity violence on West Papua. Turning against the Dutch himself, Papare would be imprisoned on Serui but was eventually released due to pressure from locals. Papare would again be arrested, but managed to manipulate the Dutch authorities by feigning amnesia. He managed to end up on Java in 1949. Despite his absence, the PKII would continue to agitate against Dutch rule. Whilst on Java, Papare founded the Irian Revolutionary Body (Badan Perjuangan Irian, BPI) and in 1953 began working directly for the Indonesian government, as the Commissioner of the Irian Bureau. Papare's supporters in Hollandia, the capital of Netherlands New Guinea, were largely directed by Marthen Indey in Papare's absence.

The Dutch presence in West Papua was faced with resistance from within the territory as well. The town of Enarotali and the nearby Wissel Lakes were the site of fierce fighting between Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine, KM) marines and the followers of a messianic movement called Wege. The Wege believed that they were to prepare for the arrival of their folk hero Situgumina, who they believed would travel from Java to West Papua to establish a "kingdom of happiness". The Wege movement syncretised local folklore with the Javanese legends of Ratu Adil ("Just Ruler"). The leader of the movement, a former priest by the name of Zacheus Pakage, was arrested in 1954 and would not be released until 1962. In 1956, a group of Papuan youths from Fakfak revolted and engaged in arson attacks on police stations, from which some firearms were also stolen. This was committed in reaction to the Dutch arrest of a number of pro-Indonesian figures in Soren [247]. This group's plan to blow up an oil tank in Soren was thwarted by Dutch police. Another messianic movement would engage in multiple revolts in the late 1950s, which were put down by the Dutch, who engaged in brutal reprisals. 1960 saw a number of successive rebellions throughout the territory, including in the capital, Hollandia. The brutality of KM personnel in the suppression of these uprisings drew increasing negative scrutiny from the Dutch public and media at home. After the defeat of multiple resolutions brought to the UN by Indonesia demanding the transfer of Netherlands New Guinea to their sovereignty, from November 1957 the Indonesian government initiated a wave of economic nationalisations with a total value of around $1.5 billion. By January 1958, ten thousand Dutch nationals had left Indonesia. Given the events in New Guinea, few of the Dutch and Eurasians of Indonesia resettled in New Guinea, instead opted to start new lives in Australia or in the Netherlands. With the expulsion of not only political control over Indonesia, but also the seizure of their economic interests, the Dutch finally accepted that their presence in the East Indies was limited. The Republic of South Maluku had already been recognised by the Netherlands, but they would not be able to hold New Guinea indefinitely. The Dutch colonial administration intensified efforts to prepare the Papuans for self-governance. The Dutch built a new hospital in Hollandia, a shipyard in Manokwari (and a naval academy), plantations, a gendarmerie known as the Papuan Volunteer Corps (Papoea Vrijwilligers Korps, PVK) and the New Guinea Council (Raad), a legislative body for the fledgling nation. 1961 even saw an election to determine the composition of the West Papuan Raad. In Hollandia and Manokwari the representatives would be directly elected, whilst in the other fourteen constituencies, a two-stage process was employed, where locals would vote for representatives that then elected the council members (this was to get around the issue of widespread illiteracy and low education levels in many less-developed regions of the country). Alongside the sixteen elected members, another twelve were appointed by governor PieterJohannes Platteel. The New Guinea Council would adopt an anthem and flag for the country, which was supposed to gain its total independence in 1970.

The "Morning Star" Flag of West Papua, determined as the national flag by the New Guinea Council
​

The declarations made by the New Guinea Council were met with outrage in Jakarta. On 19th December 1961, during a speech at Yogyakarta, Indonesian president Sukarno announced the formation of the Trikora (Tri Komando Rakyat - People's Triple Command), which was supposed to ensure a conquest of "Irian" by 1963. The Trikora plan was intended to use naval and airborne infiltration to commence a guerrilla war that would draw away Dutch forces into remote areas before commencing a full-scale invasion. The Trikora invasion was extremely unsuccessful. The majority of infiltrators were intercepted before they could do much damage, and the Battle of the Arafura Sea at the commencement of the invasion saw three destroyers of the KM annihilate a trio of Indonesian torpedo boats and the landing ships they were protecting. Small-scale fighting went on throughout most of 1962, with the Dutch taking minimal casualties. Nevertheless, Dutch resolve was waning, as the Indonesians seeming to be continuing a gradual mobilisation, and it would only become ever more difficult to defend West Papua without the military support of neighbouring states. After passing on intelligence to the United States about the clandestine presence of Soviet submarines and pilots amongst the Indonesian forces, the Dutch found the support they were looking for. President Gore denounced the Soviet interference in "the pursuit of self-determination for the native peoples of Dutch New Guinea", whilst Khrushchev denied the presence of Soviet forces and instead demanded that the Netherlands accept the immediate decolonisation of West Papua [248]. With the United States threatening to send the Seventh Fleet to the Arafura Sea, Jakarta was forced to back down. Operation Trikora was a complete failure, but Jakarta would nevertheless continue to claim West Papua (and South Maluku) as integral parts of Indonesia under foreign occupation.

In 1970 the Republic of West Papua was granted its independence[249] with Nicolaas Jouwe as President. It immediately became a member of the OTO, a process that had been initiated even prior to independence. Hollandia would remain the capital, albeit renamed its local name, Numbay [250]. Numbay is also the site of a major naval base, one of the key links in the Oceanian Treaty Organisation's "first phase defense region". Other major towns include Manokwari and Soren, the latter of which is home to a container port and has become the site of oil exploration. A key foreign interest in West Papua is the Grasberg mine, which holds one of the largest reserves of gold and copper in the world. The site was surveyed in 1960 by the Dutch and opened in 1973 by American mining corporation Freeport-McMoRan. The site is nestled in the Orange range in the central highlands of New Guinea, 4,100 metres above sea level. The major capital and technological input was well-beyond the capabilities of the West Papuan government, with the total project cost mounting to $175 million. This project included not only the mine itself, but the construction of a 116km road and slurry pipeline, a port, an airstrip, a power plant and a new town called Koperstad [251]. The mine is highly lucrative, but little benefit stays in the country, whilst it does major ecological harm and has interfered with the traditional lives of the local Amung people. Ethnic tensions flare up from time to time due to interactions between the Amung and other groups migrating into the area for work (mostly the Dani people). The Amung consider the mine to be a desecration of a sacred site. The West Papuan government nevertheless allows this to happen, both due to corruption and as a means to keep a vested American interest in the continued independence of West Papua [252].

Grasberg mine​

===
[246] Whilst Buru both IOTL and ITTL produces rice, ITTL the quantity is far less, as Buru isn't subject to the transmigration policies OTL, and as such there isn't an influx of settlers from the western islands for whom rice is the key staple.
[247] ITTL Sorong is renamed Soren after independence, as a result of indigenisation of town names.
[248] IOTL, President Kennedy encouraged the Dutch to accept an Indonesian occupation, with a promise for a future plebiscite on the issue of self-determination. This plebiscite is widely believed to have been rigged. Kennedy did this in order to prevent Indonesia from being pushed into the Soviet orbit, believing he could get Sukarno onside. Of course historically this wasn't successful, but the CIA ended up encouraging a military takeover that established a quasi-fascist "New Order" regime under Suharto, which did align with the United States.
[249] Things I'm retconning in this chapter (changed from Chapter 66a): West Papua is not a constitutional monarchy under the Dutch Queen; mass resettlement of Eurasians to West Papua does not occur; de facto racial segregation between Papuans and other East Indies groups is not a major factor in West Papua.
[250] Of course, IOTL this city was renamed Jayapura by the Indonesians.
[251] IOTL, this town is called Tembagapura (also meaning copper town). The name is Dutch because ITTL West Papua uses Dutch as a neutral lingua franca between the diverse groups of West Papua.
[252] IOTL, with Indonesia being pro-Western after Suharto's seizure of power, American mining companies were allowed to operate in West Papua/Irian Jaya without inference from the government.