alternatehistory.com

Here's something a little experimental from me...

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt...

The war that ended many lives were thankfully over. For Germany it was a day of celebration as they won decisively. France and Britain was now at its mercy. A division into two puppet monarchies seemed fit for France, but what about Britain? What should Germany do with it? A letter from Éamon de Valera of the Irish organisation Sinn Féin provided an idea. But Ireland alone? Surely that would be too weak against the English lion in the future?

And then the Kaiser had a masterstroke: Secede all of the "Celtic" nations into one big country and then divide England into two, same as with France. Surely the "Celts" would be grateful and be a strong ally of Germany!

Well...

Is bean-taighe 'n luchag air a taigh fhèin...

Of course, one of the problems with such an "Celtic Federation" was that only Ireland [not even all of it!] really desired independence from the United Kingdom. Scotland and Wales might have had serious grievances with the UK government due to the way The War was handled, but they were relatively Unionist. And Brittany, thrown in at the last minute, mostly spoke French, not English. Could there really be a federation of all Celts when they couldn't even agree on independence and easily communicate with one another? And what even is a "Celt" anyway? Is it just "not English and not French"? Is it a language group? Is it even really anything?

Upon on being told that Germany wouldn't accept an independent Ireland, but would a federated Celtic nation, Sinn Féin split into "independent Ireland only" and "we can make it work". The Ireland-only side lost in the subsequent civil war and vowed to keep on fighting for an independent Ireland.

Germany offered to provide a King to unite the Celtic peoples, but received a polite turning-down from the proto-government. The convention held in 1924 to agree on a system of government was filled with such figures as those in the Labour parties or the SFIO who wanted to craft a socialist republic, nationalists seeking to get the best deal for their nation and unionists only there because their homes were lumped in and mostly tried to undermine the entire thing. It's a miracle something came out of it.

Deuparth gwaith yw ei ddechrau...

Yes, something came out of it. The resulting Constitution of the United Federation of Celtic Nations was a mess, but somehow it worked. It at least allowed a proper election to the Assembly [each nation has their own special language-word for it, but the US Ambassador decided to just call it "Assembly" and that stuck in global discourse] and the Council of Presidents [a four-person council, what a genius idea that will definitely work].

Election of 1925
Presidents
Ireland: W. T. Cosgrave (Cumann na nGaedheal)
Scotland: Ramsay MacDonald (Labour)
Wales: David Lloyd George (Independent Liberal)
Brittany: Théodore Botrel (Strollad Breizh)

Assembly: Cumann na nGaedheal-Scottish-Independent Liberal-Strollad Breizh coalition

As the resulting government formed, it became clear that it was a right-wing one and very much primarily-Irish, even though it did include parties from all of the main four nations [Cornwall and the Isle of Mann was seen as too "small" to justify being called main]. Labour's disorganisation [they ran as four separate parties this election] was blamed for their poor performance and so the work of building a real Celtic labour party began.

Of course, the divided nations of England and France wished to reassert authority on their lost lands, so the shadow was looming...

The 1925 election had a quite good success for the Welsh Unionists, performing better than expected and showing people that Wales was not just Liberal [OK, Independent Liberal] or Labour or Saunders Lewis' peculiar little group. In comparison with the other nations, Wales was one of the most unionist and when the Kingdom of South England started pressuring on it, this was a deep concern with the rest of the Celtic Union. If Wales could fall, what would the fate of the others be? This proved one of the dominating concerns of the late 1920s.

This affected the formation of the Celtic Labour Party, as it was immediately asked to stand on a prickly question. A few of its AMs were once members of the UK Parliament and tacked unionist when the Celtic Federation was still up in the air, but now it was becoming somewhat difficult to stand for unionism when most people were becoming accustomed to living under the slightly-odd UFCN flag. In the end, the party shifted tack and argued for strengthening the Celtic Federation's international links to guarantee its independence.

Of course, this led to a split forming an unionist left-wing party [the Patriotic Socialists], but in retrospect this shift ensured Labour would remain a strong force. This could clearly be seen at the next election.

Election of 1929
Presidents
Ireland: W. T. Cosgrave (Cumann na nGaedheal)
Scotland: Ramsay MacDonald (Labour)
Wales: Robert Richards (Labour)
Brittany: Théodore Botrel (Strollad Breizh)

Assembly: Labour-Scottish Prohibition-Christian Pacifist-Independent Labour coalition

Labour performed exceptionally well in Scotland, kicking the Scottish Party down a peg and managed to defeat Lloyd George in his bid for re-election. And in the Assembly, they came close to a majority, but had to make deals with various independent Labour AMs and two Christian-leftist parties [Edwin Scrymgeour's Scottish Prohibition party in Scotland and George Davies' Christian Pacifist party in Wales] to achieve a majority.

Finally, Celtic Socialism was here!

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley...

Black Friday in February 1930 hit the world economy badly, creating the Great Depression. President Jardine of the USA was heavily criticised by Democrats for the Depression and thus they made big gains and won the Presidency in 1932 with a canny newspaper publisher. But we're not talking about them here, we're talking about the UFCN.

Labour was caught somewhat flat-footed by Black Friday, truth be said. Their fragile majority, once seen as an achievement, was now a liability as Labour itself couldn't come to an agreement on what to do. President MacDonald advocated reaching out to CnaG, the Scottish Party and Ind Libs to form a government of national unity, but others strongly disagreed with that notion. In the end, an early election was called when Labour couldn't carry the confidence of the Assembly. Labour went into the election hoping that their losses wouldn't be too severe.

Election of 1931
Assembly: Cumann na nGaedheal-Scottish-National Centre-Independent Liberal-Strollad Breizh-National Labour coalition

The outcome was inevitable, the people punished Labour for the Depression and for its incoherency on what to do with it. In fact Ireland, Prime Minister Johnson's own nation, pushed them down to third behind the rising Irish-republican Fianna Fáil led by Éamon de Valera, which created concern amongst Cumann na nGaedheal's members on the coming 1933 presidential election's outcome.

Kevin O'Higgins, the new Prime Minister of the UFCN, strick a more right-wing direction. Seen as a strong man, he forced through policies that he saw as necessary for "Celtica" to survive and thrive. This, along with the fact that all the Prime Ministers so far were Irish and the rise of the radical-republican Fianna Fáil created national tensions between Ireland and the other three Big Nations.

The NCP set itself up as a conservative agrarian party mainly based in Ireland, but with some success in Scotland and was often seen as the most right-wing party in the Celtic government. The early election meant that for the first time, presidential and parliamentary elections would be on different years.

Election of 1933
Presidents
Ireland: Éamon de Valera (Fianna Fáil)
Scotland: John McDowall (Scottish)
Wales: Gwilym Lloyd George (Independent Liberal)
Brittany: Roparz Hemon (Strollad Breizh)

For the first time, the UFCN had a totally-right-wing Presidency, as Labour was totally shut out with the defeat of Presidents MacDonald and Richards. But even more concerning was the success of De Valera's Fianna Fáil at electing him to the Presidency [defeating two-term President Cosgrave] on a tide of dissent on how slow the recovery from the Depression was under Cumann na nGaedheal and an "anti-establishment" sentiment overall. This created alarm as people feared that Ireland would withdraw and leave the others [bordering the now reuniting England and the increasingly-belligerent North France] to their enemies.

Gortosit an nos ewid lavared eo bet kàer an deiz...

The invasion was clearly coming. The English and North French were now allied and a referendum for re-unification was going on in South France. And where was the UFCN's protector, Germany? Seemingly uninterested, or just bored of keeping France and England down. As the election approached in 1935, this fear grew and grew. National Centre shifted from just a rural conservative party to a hardline defensist party, and this led to success.

Election of 1935
Assembly: National Centre-National Liberal-Strollad Breizh coalition

National Centre surged, tapping in an atmosphere of fear and dread to upset the cabbage cart of Celtic politics. James Dillon, charismatic demagogue, became the first PM not from Labour or Cumann na nGaedheal [indeed, both were in Opposition for the first time]. O'Higgins' Cumann na nGaedheal, De Valera's Fianna Fáil and Graham's Scottish Party took a hit as the NCP surged in Ireland and Scotland.

The coalition too, was unusual. Not for its participants for the Nat Libs [formerly Ind Libs] and Strollad Breizh participated in previous right-wing coalitions, but for its simplicity, being only three parties. Seemingly gone was the era of unstable many-party coalitions, replaced by simple, stable coalitions between two or three parties.

Election of 1937
Presidents
Ireland: Éamon de Valera (Fianna Fáil)
Scotland: John Buchan (National Centre)
Wales: Gwilym Lloyd George (National Liberal)
Brittany: Roparz Hemon (Strollad Breizh)

The Dillon government would be the last government of the first UFCN as despite all his preparations, everything but Ireland fell to the English and French troops which overwhelmed prepared defenses with their storming tactics. "The Celtic people's natural position is under the English heel" - Director John Beckett of the Kingdom of England.

And Ireland itself would see Dillon backstabbed by President De Valera who announced a Republic of Ireland and successfully took control of the island.

Cha d'dhùin doras nach d'fhosgail doras...

Of course, that's not the end of the story. Not by any stretch. England and France was eventually defeated by Germany and America. But the main question was "Should the Celtic Federation be revived?". With De Valera in jail and the Irish Republic forcibly dismantled, the survivors of totalitarianism could now look at what went wrong and how they could redo it, make it better, make it less unstable.

One of the problems with the first Celtic Federation was that parties were explicitly national-based apart from Labour and National Centre. Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil were Irish, the Scottish Party was Scottish, etcetera. There was no federal demos, no real understanding between the nations, just a hodge-podge fudge-up between nations forced to be together.

As Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, the Isle of Mann and Cornwall returned to the table to hash out a more coherent deal, one of the first things agreed was no more Presidential Council. That allowed De Valera to backstab Dillon and kill off the first Federation. There must be one head of state. That created controversy, but the final agreement was a rotation system [Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany] and a sub-"council" of vice-presidents, so to speak. The Assembly was granted more powers than in the first agreement, centralising the country more than in the 1924 Constitution. "Federation-building" was the watch-word for the new writers.

The 1946 Constitution, in comparison with the 1924 one, centralised the country and decreased the power allocated to the national governments, did away with the presidential council and decreased the power of the now-unitary head of state in favour of the Assembly. And there was an informal agreement to create "federation parties" so to move beyond the national-based parties of the past.

Calling the election for President and Parliament for a nice day in May 1947, interim President John Buchan hoped it all would go well.

Election of 1947
President: William Norton (Labour)
Assembly: Labour majority

Buchan, albeit disappointed his Federalist Party didn't win, congratulated Norton and Labour on their victory and stepped down.

President Norton's first speech promised "a modern Celtic Federation, one for the future." Time will tell if his vision is realised.

Adfyd a ddwg wybodaeth, a gwybodaeth ddoethineb...