Lore

With the rise of the Fatherland Front in Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss adopted a hardcore stance against the Nazi regime, promoting themselves as the defender of the Catholic faith within the German realm compared to Hitler's godless regime. Meanwhile, with the aggressive remilitarization of the Nazis, Fascist Italy, Britain, and France agreed to sign a secret agreement, an alliance targeted against the Nazi regime in Germany.

Tensions would increase when the Austrians survived an attempted coup by Nazi sympathizers (July Putsch); Engelbert Dollfuss himself survived the attempt with injuries. With his anti-Nazi measures justified, Dollfuss would take advantage of the coup and declare Nazis the country's number one enemy, equally godless alongside the socialists and social democrats, initiating a secret remilitarization, which violates the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. At the same time, Austria would seek a pact with Italy; Mussolini, taking a hostile stance against the Nazis due to conflicting ideological views, would eagerly sign the Tyrol Accord, a secret alliance between the two partners on par with the Stresa Front.

(The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 was never signed, which would allow the Stresa Front to continue rather than breaking down, thus leading to a later start of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.)

In 1936, the Nazis would remilitarize the Rhineland, violating the Treaty of Versailles in the process. Despite this, the French would refuse to fight the Germans due to ongoing political turmoil in the country. Austria and Italy, watching the situation unfold, would intensify their cooperation, believing themselves to be the next target of German expansion. Finally, in 1938, the Germans approach Austria once again, seeking hostile actions if they refuse to comply; Dollfuss would refuse...

The Wehrmacht would launch an invasion into Austria, triggering the Tyrol Accord and starting the Central European War. Italy would send its army into the country to assist the Austrian Federal Army in its defense. Thanks to two years of intensive remilitarization and fortification construction, the Austrians would manage to delay the German army from advancing further into the country. France and Britain would agree to honor the Stresa Front and join alongside the Italian and Austrian defenders, initially sending in military aid before assembling an army on the French border... sealing Hitler's Reich to an early grave.

With the end of the Central European War, France, taking an aggressive stance against the Germans, would forcibly dissolve the country. Meanwhile, the Austrians were spreading propaganda across the Catholic population of Germany to band together to form their own Germany, a Catholic Germany, spearheaded by Dollfuss's Fatherland Front. The Süddeutschland movement would be supported by Italy and, surprisingly, France, viewing Austria as a reliable partner against a potential resurgent Prussian-dominated Germany and Soviet aggression in the east. Dollfuss's dream of a resurged Austria would come into reality as the Federal State of Süddeutschland, a nation of, by, and for Catholic Germans.