Peace of Cairo
From Turtledove
The Peace of Cairo was a historic peace conference called in Cairo, Egypt in 1944 by Fleetlord Atvar of the Race's Conquest Fleet. It represented the first time a representative of the Ssumaz dynasty had dealt with a foreign government as an equal since the unification of Home more than fifty thousand Earth years earlier.
After various human not-empires had stalemated his conventional military forces all over Europe and North America, and after the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union had developed atomic bombs that rendered them effectively colonization-proof, Atvar realized that only two options remained to the Conquest Fleet: either atomic war which would leave much of Earth uninhabitable for the Colonization Fleet or a negotiated ceasefire.
Atvar chose the latter. Each of the Big Five were invited to send representatives (George Marshall of the United States, Joachim von Ribbentrop of Germany, Vyacheslav Molotov of the Soviet Union, Anthony Eden of Britain, and Shigenori Togo of Japan) to meet with Atvar (and his human advisor, Moishe Russie) in Cairo. Under the terms of the peace that was brokered, the five nations represented and the various nations in their spheres of influence were recognized as sovereign nations by the Race. Only those possessing nuclear weapons were granted full diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, a number of nations which the Race had conquered were recognized as Race colonies by the countries present at the conference. The British and Japanese empires were greatly reduced and all British colonies except for Northern Ireland were annexed to the Race's Empire. The Race annexed Japan's mainland empire in China and Korea, which it had already conquered, but allowed the Japanese to keep their Pacific and Southeast Asian Empire, most of which Japan had recently occupied during World War II. A number of smaller countries were allowed to continue existing as sovereign not-empires, usually due to a combination of undesirable climate for Race colonists and the protection of a great human power.
The peace was nearly derailed when Atvar, who had agreed to withdraw from most of his forces' European holdings, insisted on remaining in Poland, demanding that both Germany and the Soviet Union withdraw their claims to that country. The Soviet government acquiesced to this demand, secretly relieved that a flashpoint for potential conflict with its World War II German enemy had been removed. The German government, however, insisted that Poland be annexed to the Greater German Reich and threatened to withdraw from the negotiations when Atvar refused. Though the human powers had generally negotiated in solidarity with one another, seeking as much territory for all human governments as possible to provide as many counterbalances as possible against the Race's hegemony, the German position was opposed by the other human powers, who found Atvar's demand reasonable and were fearful that an unreasonable human party would force Atvar to reconsider the relatively generous terms he had offered to other human powers. The Soviets were especially antipathetic to Germany's demand, and Vyacheslav Molotov informed Joachim von Ribbentrop that, while Joseph Stalin was willing to give up his claim on Poland to the Race, he would not yield it to Germany.
Human fears seemed to be realized when Atvar announced a new policy of bringing all his devastating military power to bear on any human power that refused to treat with the Race in good faith, concerns over the suitability of its territory for colonization be damned. In the face of this policy as well as the lack of support among other nations, the German Foreign Ministry withdrew its demand and recognized Poland as a Race colony. However, the SS attempted to smuggle an atomic bomb into Poland and detonate it, a plot which was very narrowly stopped by a number of human agents.
With the Polish question resolved, the agreement was finalized and a new geopolitical map of Earth was drawn up, with the Race claiming all of Africa and South America, much of South Asia and East Asia, Australia, Mexico, and several small European nations. Both the Race and most of the human signators saw the agreement as a temporary setback in their quest for global domination and remained confident that "history was on their side" and that eventually the situation would change in their favor, allowing them to disregard the agreement and press new advantages.
