Timeline 1934-1943 (One Day in Sarajevo)

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The following is the Timeline of events that happens in One Day in Sarajevo between 1934 and 1943.

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1930s

1934

• 3 March Tensions between Japan and the US over the Philippines, Guam and China results in cooling relations, with war hawks, lead by General Jinzaburō Masaki and his "Imperial Rebirth" faction of the Imperial Japanese Army, pushing to fight against the US. General Masaki gives a speech this day to officers basically outlining how Japan could defeat the US. The reaction in the US is rather muted when this news is broken a few days later, and few take notice, mostly due to the ongoing Great Depression.

• 9 September The Japanese sign the Treaty of Kyoto with representatives of the Republic of China. Manchuria is made independent as Manchukuo (and quickly becomes a Japanese puppet state), while cities like Shanghai and other cities along the coast are made Japanese protectorates. Reparations are demanded, but aren't as onerous or demanding. End of the Second Sino-Japanese War

• 10 December US President Al Smith is shot by a Communist agitator, angry at the slow pace of economic recovery. Within hours, Vice President Josiah Bailey is sworn in as President, though few in the country knew who he was, or what he was doing, having maintained a low profile and focusing on working with former colleagues to get bills passed in the House.

• 15 December Just days after the death of President Smith, the Federal Bureau of Investigation begins rounding up people they suspect in the attack in the first of the "Red Raids."

1935

• 2 January: President Josiah Bailey signed Executive Order 5983, declaring that the Communist Party, the Socialist-Labor Party and other "affiliated organizations" are a clear and present danger to the US. Within weeks, the Red Raids increase in size and scope, catching suspected and public members of the Communist and Socialist-Labor Party's, arresting state and federal Socialist-Labor congressmen and other major members of their parties. Some are caught trying to flee the US to Canada, Mexico, Cuba or to Europe. Norman Thomas, failed Socialist-Labor Presidential Candidate, is arrested in February, and sent to Alcatraz. By the end of June, 1935, over 6,000 people have been arrested, though many had then been released.

• 9-10 January: The humiliation of loosing the Second Sino-Japanese War while his troops and army had actually won more battles than they had lost, leads General Chiang Kai-Shek to overthrow the Kuomintang government in Nanking, claiming they had come under Communist influence. Chiang, forming the United Front of Chinese nationalists, conservatives, and capitalists that were looking for strong leadership, takes power. However, all over the country, riots, strikes and fighting between supporters of the old government and Chiang's followers lead to the death of hundreds. Communists, Imperial Restorationists, warlords and Kuomintang members not invited to the United Front form armed bands that soon plunge China into chaos. Start of the Chinese Civil War

• 18 January: In his first State of the Union Address eagerly anticipated around the nation and the world, President Josiah Bailey presents himself to the US for the first time. President Bailey announced his plans to end the Great Depression: fighting "Russian Bolsheviks," tax cuts, reducing the debt, and, in what would become the defining feature of his Presidency, increased States Rights to do as they see best to help their population. "The Federal Government has only three main goals," he announced; "Securing the nation from threats internal and external, assisting the many states in their duties, and maintain the powers as granted by the Constitution."

• 19 July: The first "Devolution Act of 1935" barely passes Congress, and is immediately signed by President Bailey. The act is, perhaps, the most sweeping states right bill passed since the Civil War. While the Federal Government can raise Income Tax, almost all of the money would be diverted back to the states as accorded by need, and only a fraction is retained, enough to cover the costs of Congress and the military. It also outlined that in certain areas, namely infrastructure, education, healthcare, and criminal law, the States would have preeminence over the Federal Government, and in certain cases could refuse to follow a federal law. Many liberals, lead by New York Governor and former US Presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were suddenly undercut in their demands that the Federal Government do something to help reverse the Great Depression. However, governors like Roosevelt and state legislatures were quick to use the new powers they were granted to set up massive government "back-to-work" plans, as they would be in the most part paid for by Washington, D.C.

• 8 December: The start of a soon to be bitter battle over the Federal Budget begins when President Bailey outlines his budget for the next year, and it's nothing short of shocking to Congress and the American people. Taxes are cut to record lows, as is spending in everything from the Navy to the National Park service. However, the biggest issue was over the money that was to be given to states, as per the Devolution Act. The proposed budget presented one that would have only funded, at the very least, a quarter of what certain states such as New York, California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania had planned in trying to relive the Great Depression. When asked about this discrepancy, President Bailey stated his personal maxim in finance: "You don't get out of a hole by digging yourself deeper." Governor Roosevelt berates the President, calling him "not much better than a penny-pinching Scrooge that wouldn't spend a dime even if it would save his soul."

• 19 December: The US Congress passes their own bipartisan budget, proposing more money to the States to fund their "back-to-work" programs, while maintaining the cuts to the military and other departments, as well as the low taxes. President Bailey vetoes the budget, due to the massive amount of debt that the bill would add to the US government. However Congress is just able to get enough votes to override the veto.

• 22 December: In an ill advised press-conference before he left Washington for North Carolina for Christmas, President Bailey unleashes a blistering attack on Congress, both Republican and Democrat, and on Governor Roosevelt of New York, who he claimed that with his "socialist" policies and spendthrift ways, was trying to make the US "not much more than a Russian dictatorship." Congress' reaction to the President's attacks ranges from muted to outrage. Approval for the President, at 39% before the Budget Crisis, drops to 31%.

1936

• 18 May: After years of bitter tensions, economic embargoes, and an increasingly bellicose attitude in both Tokyo and Washington, D.C. that has lead to a freeze in relations, Japan declares war on the United States. A couple hours after the Japanese Ambassador tells President Josiah Bailey, Japanese warships fire on the American Asiatic Fleet stationed in Manila. Two Japanese aircraft carriers, along with a force of battleships and cruisers closer to the harbor, launch a three hour attack that destroyed the fleet. However, no invasion was conducted. Start of the First Pacific War

• 19 May: Within hours of the news of the surprise attack on Manila, Japanese residents and natural born citizens in Hawaii, California, and other western states are being rounded up and physically and verbally abused by overzealous police, sheriffs, and ordinary citizens, afraid that those of Japanese descent are possibly spies, saboteurs, or even an entire hidden army waiting to attack. When told of these attacks, President Bailey wrote in his diary that "...they had it coming," and that "it's a shame we couldn't have done something sooner."

• 20 May: President Bailey asks Congress for a Declaration of War, vowing to "...bring to an end to a hostile race that seeks nothing less than the destruction of the American people." The declaration passes 68-4 in the Senate and 279-19 in the House. Most notably, Jeannette Rankin, Republican and Pacifist, was one of the few "nay's" in the House.

• 9 June: Elections are held for the position of President of France. Jacques Doriot, candidate of the Parti pour la Renaissance Française (PRF), wins in a huge landslide. Outgoing President Albert Lebrun mounts a very lacklustre campaign, while the Communist Party, with Maurice Thorez as it's candidate, was hampered by rightist efforts to suppress Communist and left-wing votes, and placed a distant third.

• 1 June: US President Josiah Bailey signs Executive Order 6211, which leads to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans from a "Exclusion Zone" that covers California, Oregon, and Washington State, as well as the confiscation and impoundment of homes, businesses, vehicles, weapons, and other objects by local authorities. All three states, by virtue of the Devolution Act of 1935, had already passed hurried laws to this same effect, and in some cases already set up prison camps to hold the thousands of Japanese residents and Japanese-Americans. The Executive Order went one step further and banned anyone of Japanese descent from serving in the military as well, and those already in the military would be arrested, and prepared to be discharged from the military.

• 8 July: The US Atlantic Fleet arrives in Pearl Harbor, and soon sets sail for Manila. Over the next few months, the US Navy tries to pick a fight with the Japanese Navy in the waters around the Philippines, but the Japanese continue to refuse to fight. This is seen in the US as an act of cowardice on the part of the Japanese, but is part of the strategy of the Japanese Navy as they continue to prepare their fleet for battle.

• August-December: American submarines and small ships sail on patrols around the Philippines and into the South China Sea and northward near Taiwan, trying to scout out Japanese naval positions and lure them into a battle with the American battle fleet. Although the first "radar" sets are given to the fleet, Admiral Husband Kimmel, the commander of the US Fleet, doesn't completely trust it, so is relying on old fashioned scouting. Submarines are able to sink ships sailing between China and Japan, which indirectly helps the Republic of China in the Sino-Japanese War, but it's rather limited in scope. In a few minor skirmishes the US Navy seems to have the upper hand, which usually result in the Japanese pulling back, and back home these small battles are trumped up as proof of Japanese inferiority and cowardliness.

• 15 August: An explosion destroys the Paris office of the PRF, killing 15 members of the victorious party in the recent Presidential election, as well as eight civilians on the street. Within hours, the Paris Gendarme, with Pierre Laval's orders as Minister of the Interior, arrest dozens of communists assumed to be part of the plot.

• 18-23 August: President Jacques Doriot of France has the National Assembly pass the "National Defence Laws" that gives all legislative and executive powers to the President and his cabinet ministers. This point is considered the end of the short lived Forth French Republic and the start of the Third Empire.

• 3 November: Democratic US President Josiah Bailey, with his running mate Henry Skillman Breckinridge from New Jersey, is elected president in his own right. The wide margin of the election was due to the current support and build up for the Pacific War, as the few successes and with the anger of Japanese attacks on American ships, the Philippines, and Guam that had been inflated by the newspapers and radio held the a majority of the American people who believed that President Bailey was doing the right thing. Republicans nominated Senator John J. Blaine of Wisconsin and Senator Joseph I. France of Maryland for President. The Socialist-Labor Party, with most of it's leaders still in legal limbo, is barely able to present a token list of candidates.

• 8 November; The French National Assembly passes the first national conscription act in France since the end of the Great War. This was technically illegal under the Treaties of London, but President Doriot was able to get around this by saying it was for a "national service" and not defence, though physical activity and military drills are a major component of the training for these new conscripts.

1937

• 19-20 January The US Navy in the Pacific, with two aircraft carriers, ten battleships, 17 cruisers and other ships, comes into contact with a Japanese fleet with four aircraft carriers, seven battleships, 23 cruisers and other ships, 300 kilometres east of Taiwan. The Battle of Taiwan is a huge defeat to the US, losing both aircraft carriers, five battleships (a sixth, the USS Tennessee is severely damaged and sinks three days later near the Philippines), and 10 cruisers, over 3,000 sailors, with only one Japanese Battleship and a few smaller craft being sunk. This is the last battle where battleships managed to fight each other, and only due to a desperate American attack to try to find and sink the carriers on the 20th after both the American carriers were sunk. News of the disaster reaches America, and is a huge shock to the American people. Support for the war in the US plummets, as public opinion quickly turns against President Josiah Bailey and his war that he had been not so subtly pushing for for a year or more. Admiral Richardson goes down with his flagship the Arizona.

• 8 March: Japanese troops begin the invasion of the Philippines, easily brushing aside the raw recruits, ill prepared garrison troops and local militias. The US Navy, after their defeat in the Battle of Taiwan, is in no shape to fight, but the few ships that are left try to defend Manila for as long as they can, but in two weeks, the Rising Sun is flying over Manila, and the few surviving ships of the US Navy is forced to retreat across the Pacific.

• 1-20 June: Under immense pressure from President Bailey and the War Department, and with information that a Japanese Fleet was sailing east, the newly appointed Admiral of the Pacific Fleet, Husband E. Kimmel, he gathers as many ships as he can from his command all over the Pacific to consolidate them at Pearl Harbor to try to fight off the Japanese.

• 20 June: US code breakers manage to get wind that Japanese ships are near Midway Island. with this news, Admiral Kimmel is ordered by President Bailey to set out and find the Japanese and engage in battle. Kimmel, with his attention to detail, is uncomfortable with sailing out before training his forces, but he does what he is told.

• 28 June: The US Fleet under Husband Kimmel comes into contact with the Japanese Imperial Fleet under Admiral Yamamoto, the victor of the Battle of Taiwan, and fighting breaks out. Japanese aircraft carriers and the fighters and bombers on them once again prove their superiority, and quickly cripple the last two aircraft carriers the US has, the venerable Ranger and Yorktown, and proceeds to decimate the rest of the US fleet. Admiral Kimmel is killed when a bomb lands on the bridge of the Missouri, which sinks the ship. The few surviving American ships flee that afternoon under Rear Admiral Halsey, on the severely damaged Yorktown and limps back to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese, content with their victory and low on fuel, returns back to Japan as heroes. Only minor damage is reported on Japanese ships.

• 23 August: Facing increasing resistance at home, and the failure of the Battle of Taiwan, the loss of the Philippines, and the disaster of the Battle of Midway, President Josiah Bailey of the US secretly asks for terms with the Japanese, through representatives in Germany.

• 1 September: Representatives of the US and Japanese governments in German sign a cease-fire in the Pacific War, much to the surprise of both the Japanese and American fighters.

• 29 September: After three weeks of negotiations in Berlin aided by Chancellor Ludendorff, the Treaty of Berlin is finally negotiated between Japan and the US. The terms that Japan asked for were rather mild, namely the immediate independence of the Philippines, taking over Guam, and not allowing American ships to be based in the islands. In return, Japan would pay $45,000,000 in gold in indemnity's for the damage caused. Secret clauses of the treaty also firmly divide the sphere of influence of both Japan and the US in the Pacific: a general line stretching from the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, past Midway, west of the Marshall Islands, to the Palau Islands. Everything east of this line is American, and everything west would be Japanese.

• 2 October: US President Bailey presents the Treaty of Berlin to the Senate. Rumors of a peace treaty, including a leak by the New York Times, has lead to increasing anger at the President's handling the war. "He got us into this war, then when things turned south, he chickened out," as an unidentified officer in the US War Department was reported to have said. However, the war is increasingly unpopular, and had caused immense backlash to President Bailey due to his handling of the war, the Great Depression, and basically everything else.

• 18 October: The US Senate votes on the Treaty of Berlin, and by a vote of 64-20, agrees to the treaty. The First Pacific War officially ends

1938

• 7 September The Battle of Cigouwan, where the last remnants of the Fourth Red Army was defeated by the United Seventh Army, is the last battle of the Chinese Civil War. General Chiang Kai-Shek announces the end of the war on radio, and declares that "the mighty dragon is wounded, but alive." End of the Chinese Civil War

1939

• 2 July Emperor Ferdinand II, last emperor of Austria-Hungary and first Monarch of the Danubian Confederation, dies after a short illness. His last words, while he was in a medically induced stupor are to his deceased wife: "Sophie, live for our children."

1940s

1943

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