Definitions and Explanations

The Liberty Law

The Liberty Law was a proposed law in Germany that would renounce all German war debt payments (see Young Plan below) and prosecute as a criminal offense any cooperation by a German official in making the war debt payments. 

The Chinese Eastern Railway

The Chinese Eastern Railway is an east-west railroad corridor that runs through Manchuria, but connects two points in Russia – the town of Chita in the west, and the port city of Vladivostok in the east.  Russia's territory wraps around the northern half of Manchuria, such that the shortest distance between the two Russian points is a straight line through Manchuria.  The railroad was constructed by Russia in 1902.  Part of the treaty allowing its construction also granted Russia a “concession” to the railroad -- a territory within a country, (in this case, the narrow strip of land through the whole width of Manchuria, on which the railroad was built) that is administered by another country, which holds sovereignty over it.  Many Western powers also hold concessions in China, mostly in and around port cities. 

The Kellogg-Briand Pact

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an international agreement in which countries renounced war to resolve disputes and as “an instrument of national policy.”  It was signed initially in 1928 by the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, France and much of the rest of Europe, and by much of the rest of the world by July 1929, including Russia, Japan and Italy.  It was named after its authors: U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and (then) French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand. 

The Young Plan

The Young Plan was a program for renegotiating the war debt payments Germany was required to make in the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty that formally ended the World War).  Actually, the Young Plan was the third attempt to find a workable payment plan for Germany.  The first, arising from the Treaty itself, called for Germany to pay a total of 269 billion gold marks – alleged to be equivalent to more than half the gold then in existence on earth.  The second, the Dawes Plan, reduced the payments, but Germany still couldn't meet the terms.  The Young Plan, named after American industrialist Owen Young, who developed it, would restructure Germany’s war debt payments still more favorably for Germany, and call for withdrawing Allied forces -- which still occupied Germany’s Rhineland after the World War -- in 1930, five years earlier than called for in the Treaty of Versailles.  

Owen D. Young   Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-00260 / CC-BY-SA  Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Manchurian/Chinese Forces

It’s difficult to describe neatly the forces fighting against the Russians during Russia's incursion into Manchuria.  Warlord Zhang Xueliang holds de facto control over much of Manchuria.  But other lesser warlords may control pockets of territory, especially in the western fringes of Manchuria.  Additionally, forces under some reporting structure, nominal or real, to the nationalist government of China may be involved.  Finally, some outright bandits and criminals, as well as a smattering of ethnic Mongol fighters, may be involved.  The governmental situation in Manchuria (and therefore the military situation too) may better be described as “unclear” rather than anything representing a modern, well-organized and healthy state.  


Russia/Soviet Union
The terms are used interchangeably throughout the blog.  The country was known as Russia prior to the events in this timeline (and was still called "Russia" by many commentators at the time), and is known by Russia again now.


About the start date
Tracing the causes of WWII to tips of their roots would require going back into the 19th century.  Most historians say the roots reach into WWI, a thesis with which I certainly agree.  However for this timeline I've chosen October 1929 as the start date, based on a thesis that Europe at least might have avoided another total war if not for the pressure the Great Depression exerted on the forces already there.  Russia would have kept on exporting revolution, which might eventually have led to a global conflict, but it wouldn't have been WWII as we know it.  Germany had gotten through the worst of its post-WWI upheaval.  Italy would undoubtedly have continued its expansionism, as would Japan, but again, neither of these would have led to WWII as we know it.