Slovakia

Republic of Slovakia
Country
Continent:	Europe
Capital:	Bratislava
National Language:	Slovak
Government:	Unitary parliamentary republic
Status in OTL:	Active

Slovakia (Slovak: Slovensko, officially the Slovak Republic, Slovenská republika), is a small landlocked country in central Europe. It had at various times been part of Great Moravia, Hungary, Austria-Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

In March 1939 Germany split Czechoslovakia, creating the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a puppet Slovak State (that had been deprived of its southern borderland by Hungary in two phases). Its regime was sometimes called "clero-fascism", as it relied on the populace's traditional Catholicism and the president Jozef Tiso was a priest. Slovakia enthusiastically joined the Axis in the World War II and sent a token division to the Eastern front in June 1941; it was also infamous for its participation in the Holocaust, paying Germany for each deported Jew. The Slovak National Uprising in summer 1944, intended to switch sides like Bulgaria and Romania managed, was defeated by the Wehrmacht.

After the war, Czechoslovakia was reconstituted and came under Soviet influence for the duration of the Cold War, although Slovaks had less sympathies to Communism than Czechs. Slovak nationalism reemerged after the "tender revolution" (as it is known in Slovak) of November 1989 and Czechoslovakia split after negotiations on 1 Jan 1993.

Slovakia in Joe Steele

Six months after Germany annexed the Sudetenland, it also annexed Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia and set up an "independent" Slovakia under a puppet ruler in the western part.

In 1944, with the war going against Germany, Slovakia attempted to rebel, but Germany squashed the rebellion before the Red Army could intervene.

Slovakia in The War That Came Early

Slovakia had seen agitation by the fascist Hlinka Guard for some time before war between Czechoslovakia and Germany broke out in 1938. Because of this, many Czech officers and squad leaders like Vaclav Jezek were wary of their Slovak soldiers, believing them more likely to desert than to put up a real fight for a country many Slovaks believed to be run by and for the Czechs only.

These fears were confirmed as soon as the fighting started, and about a month later a full-fledged rebellion broke out in Slovakia, shortly after German troops had completed the conquest of Bohemia and Moravia. Those parts that weren't occupied by Germany's informal ally Hungary were made into a puppet republic presided over by Jozef Tiso.

As Germany was in many ways responsible for Slovakian independence, Father Tiso provided Slovakian troops for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during 1940 and 1941.

When the Committee for the Salvation of the German Nation overthrew the Nazis in April 1944, they insisted on keeping Bohemia and Moravia under German rule, and that Slovakia remain an independent country. The Allies, in no position to force the reconstitution of Czechoslovakia, agreed to the demand.

Slovakia in Worldwar

Slovakia was dominated by Germany after it conquered Czechoslovakia and was forced to join the Axis. Slovakia was not conquered by the Race when the Conquest Fleet arrived on Earth in 1942.

Though it did not have diplomatic relations with the Race and had not been invited to attend the peace conference convened in Cairo by Fleetlord Atvar, the independence of Slovakia was ensured when Joachim von Ribbentrop made it clear that Slovakia was under German protection. Slovakia did not have diplomatic relations with the United States in the 1960s, unlike Germany's other vassals Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Slovakia contributed troops to the Polish Front in the Race-German War of 1965. Any hope it may have had of doing otherwise ended abruptly when the Germans destroyed Bucharest to punish Romania for attempting to make a separate peace with the Race.