Recent content by sloreck

There is no way any significant force from Prince Rupert can get to Anyox to prevent the Germans from taking the coal they want, burning the rest and trashing the smelter. To be safe, all the Germans need to get is get aboard ship and sail away as any Canadian force won't have artillery.

Even when oil prices took a dip, the Saudi government had enough reserves to keep the gravy train going with few reductions. Not enough to cause large numbers to become upset enough to face rifles. The revolutionary theory of rising expectations does posit that if things are getting better and...

The only way Britain squeezes in to neutrality is if France asks for a narrow transit corridor and Belgium says yes. Since France did not "invade" Belgium and is not fighting Belgians, Britain can say that Belgium has put the treaty aside and "we wash our hands of the whole mess". TYhe Uk might...

step on the tripwire of one of those and you might get to think "oops" before bad things happen.

With the cruiser(s) actually off the Pacific coast much longer, and doing more actual damage, including a raid ON CANADIAN SOIL at Anyox, the pucker factor is going to be much higher and forces will need to be augmented more than OTL - whether more RN ships or more coastal batteries or both. The...

@ gurgu: The British are not going to go to war against France over Belgium.

I bow to your research here. It actually does not matter which company sold the critical gear to the Soviets, the point is that they could not have even begun to go through the design and testing process and the learning curve for making the props until they had the machines that could make...

Generally, the longer a war goes on the more each side advances its demands to be presented to the loser upon victory. As the sacrifices increase so do the demands for spoils to "pay" for the sacrifices. This was true on both sides in WWI. What the Germans would have demanded or did demand (see...

If the French get permission to go through Belgium, than Belgium is really no longer neutral. If they go through without permission or asking, then they have violated the treaty. In either case the ability of those in Britain who wanted to join in against Germany is markedly reduced. IMHO the...

The USSR had gifted and competent scientists and engineers, albeit they worked in a basically dysfunctional system. Following WWII the USSR demonstrated that it could produce generally competitive and sometimes innovative military systems, of course this meant that an overly large percentage of...

Hitler, Mussolini, Horthy, Ataturk are all seminal figures in the development of the interwar world. de Gaulle, Truman, and Zhukov come in to the picture much later and by then huge butterflies have been flapping. Absent Hitler, I don't see the NSDAP rising to power, as he was the glue that...

@Ephraim Ben Raphael : I totally agree that most European colonization had a layer of natives between the whites on top and the masses below who were enslaved or some form of bondage, whatever it was called. I would only suggest that it is important to distinguish between the bulk of the...

This fascism is unlikely to spread, as it is not the standard "nationalism". In Europe nationalism and cultural (and linguistic) identity were tightly bound. An immigrant to France might become a citizen, but it would be a long time before they or their descendants were "French". While American...

My point was that in the 19th century, and with the ideology of the Draka society as presented as of ~1870, my opinion is that the 3 part society would most likely end up with the middle squeezed out. The nationals would be an educated (literate) lower middle class with no political say, a hard...

Either way it was a gamble for the Germans. Go through Belgium and bring Britain in, but hope you can knock out France for quick victory, or avoid Belgium and bet Britain stays out. With Britain neutral, even leaning French, if they do get in a long war there is no blockade and the population...