I don't think I'll ever be able to not think about KR when a timeline has Mosley still a left-winger.
So, when does Canada crown George VI to lead the liberation of the homeland?
10 Downing Street Kantei!
- Thread starter Reydan
- Start date
So, when does Canada crown George VI to lead the liberation of the homeland?
I don't think I'll ever be able to not think about KR when a timeline has Mosley still a left-winger.
So, when does Canada crown George VI to lead the liberation of the homeland?
I absolutely adore Kaiserreich. I've followed it ever since it emerged from All the Russias as a mod and through its different incarnations (although I don't own HOI4 yet). I'd love to do a timeline based on it, at some point, although I don't know how exactly.
Really, though, we're not going to see anything like the Canadian Invasion in this timeline. Britain has to suffer its own problems through and through.
You're making me feel nostalgic now. I first played it back when it was for HoI2 Doomsday. It feels like the lore was so undevelopped back then. It's also really nice that the KR4 devs are taking the time to improve the lore as well.
Anyways, yeah, I was kidding about the Canadian invasion obviously. Curious to see what's the next serious domestic problem for the British.
The Nightwatchman
Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere,
Wartime Government, 1944-1945
The Nightwatchman
Wartime Government, 1944-1945
The Nightwatchman
Few would have expected the 2nd Viscount Rothermere to become leader of the nation in the final years of the Second World War, but the increasing strain of leadership proved too much for the Duke of Gloucester to handle. After the failed attempt of the Home Army Rebellion that had left parts of urban England burning and Wales and Scotland half-controlled by anti-Government partisans, the King decided he needed to distance the throne from the reigns of power and reached back into the rump of former parliamentarians for a new candidate. Yet Harmsworth, whose father until his death in 1940 had been a major press magnate and supporter of the Royalist regime, is not considered a civilian Prime Minister by most historians for a number of reasons; he had no Parliament to call upon, a background in the military himself, and very little power or inclination to pull the military back.
The situation overseas went from bad to worse in this period. The surrender of Australia and New Zealand in April 1945, after little more than token opposition to an encroaching US fleet, was a major blow to Britain's Imperial image as a grand overseas family. Canberra had considered holding out longer, but the incoming Labor Government elected in a snap election in January, took the advice of senior military figures to heart. Chief among them was Sir Thomas Blamey who argued, to the shock of many, that he was having a hard enough time motivating his own regular troops to fight a potential American landing for a war "they had no part in starting, had no desire to fight, and seemed to have no prospect in ending on anything like favourable terms". The shock of severe naval losses in the Hawaii campaign, along with the bold American assault to relieve General Eisenhower on the Philippines, had already threatened to knock Japan out of the war even before the Bolsheviks launched Operation Comrade, an enormous commitment of men and aid to the KMT resistance throughout China. The collapse of British authority in India, as the INC and other groups became increasingly radical in their assaults on the rule of the Raj, also boiled over into open rebellion as British Officers struggled to ensure the loyalty of their native commands.
Back in Europe the rout of the French Northern Army in September had, by February 1945, become a general collapse. The French war effort gave way after several years of grinding combat and the coalition of Communist forces poured over the border, the manufacturing might of the Soviets and the German State poured into their large tank columns and cheap-yet-effective fighters and bombers. Unable to sustain souring losses of men and material, France's armies suffered defeat after stinging defeat. By June 1945 it was all over on the continent, with British soldiers captured in large numbers or evacuated by a beleaguered Royal Navy.
Back in Britain Harmsworth became increasingly worried by the radical defensive positions occupied by the Army. The redeployment of Black-and-Tan auxiliary units, first used in Ireland, to the troubled areas of the home nation caused massive dissent which itself was then crushed by the army. Under the guise of national security military courts, little more than kangaroo affairs, proliferated, and suspected "traitors" were strung up in the streets as examples. Unable to countenance the continued bloodshed, Harmsworth used the excuse of the US seizure of Iceland (disclosed in 1961 as actually a secret peaceful agreement with the Danish Government in exile) as the opportunity to press the King for peace. Edward, though, at the advice of military figures dismissed Harmsworth to replace him with a military man.
Still in control of much of the middle-east, hosting a French government in exile and some of the evacuated French forces, and shielded by the RAF and Royal Navy on their island, High Command argued that Britain remained unassailable.
Now, now there are other options. Britain was a net importer of food so a starvation blockade is possible; a sustained bombardment by aircraft based in Europe, Iceland or Ireland to flatten/burn British cities; additional support for anti-government elements to create a proper uncivil war; use of chemical or biological agents.
Chemical or biological weapons wouldbe likely to recieve a response in kind so that might be too far.
The Manhatton project did recieve some time saving help from the Tizard mission OTL. Potentially this could be replaced with similar scientific input from Germany or Russia ITTL. Worst case I suspect is a year's delay in instant sunshine unless the British continued with Tube Alloys which could be ready if enough fissile material was collected before the war effort went south? A nuclear depth charge in the channel could be interesting given how shallow it is in places.
The Manhatton project did recieve some time saving help from the Tizard mission OTL. Potentially this could be replaced with similar scientific input from Germany or Russia ITTL. Worst case I suspect is a year's delay in instant sunshine unless the British continued with Tube Alloys which could be ready if enough fissile material was collected before the war effort went south? A nuclear depth charge in the channel could be interesting given how shallow it is in places.
The Field Marshal
Field Marshal Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside
British Army, 1945
The Field Marshal
Ironside's months in office were beset entirely by the growing urgency of Home Island Defense. Relying on his close ally and friend General JFC Fuller, Ironside broadened the powers of the auxiliary forces needed to put down the insurrections and partisans, ultimately giving Fuller broad command of the Northern District from his base in York including, fatally, the detention centres on the Isle of Mann. Fuller's "Reign of Terror" in the North, which he likened to William the Conqueror's 'Harrying of the North', remains deeply controversial to this day in Britain. Restructuring was the name of the game for the Field Marshal, as local defense units and even secondary school children were drilled in resistance techniques for a suspected Bolshevik naval landing in the south. Ironside, under pressure from the Crown, caused friction with the "Free French" forces in Britain by putting them under direct British military command, but this was only one aspect of the continuing anxiety about subversion in the country at the time.
Resources were scarce. Ironside burned through three heads of Fighter Command, one after the other, as the resources needed to fend off the increasing waves of aerial assault from the United States Air Force grew more and more. Although Dowding's "Train and Retrain" programme did put some new recruits into action with a semblance of effective training, the years of war had ground down the trained core of the RAF. The night-bombing raids carried out from Iceland and, latterly, parts of Highland Scotland where US paratrooped advisers helped local partisans set up airfields and supply chains, took a heavy toll on Britain's cities. The fire-bombing of Preston, which destroyed near 90% of the town and killed upwards of 19,000 people, was one of a series of actions by the US Government designed to force Britain to the table. "Unconditional Surrender" was FDR's official line, although the US regime was hoping, behind the scenes, that Britain would surrender to them rather than risk Communist invasion. Already the US was, as it began to choke Japan with an intense naval blockade, looking forward to the post-war stand-off with Moscow.
Ironside's response, the failed sortie against Iceland in September 1945 was a debacle. Poor weather and positioning by the British Fleet saw them practically stumble into the prepared Americans, and Admiral King's force, supported by naval bombers from Iceland itself, took a terrible toll on the battleships and carriers of the fleet. Besides losing large numbers of troop transports, with the invasion force onboard, the British also lost two much needed carriers in Unicorn and Illustrious, leaving home isles defense in still more dire straights. But it was Ironside's insistence on a second sortie that was to prove fatal. Following the landing of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions around Aberdeen and the easy surrender of Highland Command by Bernard Montgomery without even token resistance, a stinging revelation of how low British morale was and how support for the regime had sunk, Ironside ordered a second outing of the fleet against the US Naval Flotilla that was steaming towards Belfast with a landing force. Desperate to keep their men and vessels intact, the Admiralty protested and the King's heavy-handed response in ordering them to engage 'regardless of risk' pushed tensions over the edge.
Well, something tells me the King is going to be discredited, given his support of the regime.
Does the UK have any remaining capacity to strike at core areas of the US with CBW?
Given that the UK represents Japan did they engage in chemical and biological warfare already?
It'd depend on the outflow of scientists from alt-Germany without the anti-Jewish purges. Maybe they went to the US, maybe they stayed home. Perhaps the US, USSR and Germany cooperated.
Well there was a lot of scope in the Manhattan Project for additional delays, but also scope for a faster project (by about 6-12 months) if the delays after Pearl Harbour didn't occur.
Historically there was a delay of about a year in the US nuclear research atomic program, mainly down to preoccupation with events in the Pacific. The Army failed to appoint an over all coordination for the Manhattan Project with enough power, and drive, to get things done. Further there was the blind-alley preference for Urey’s centrifugal technique for uranium isotope separation (rather than gaseous diffusion) and a general lack of study of the plutonium bomb option. It wasn't until 1942 that Leslie Groves was appointed.
It rather like the idea of a nuclear strike at Scapa Flow myself.
Someplace that would convince the US that an actual invasion would be too bloody to contemplate?
Gibraltar?
Perhaps, but why go there? Their fight is with Britain, Gibraltar locks down the Med yes, but isn't affecting the war effort any, I imagine.
I know, but Britain isn't well-stocked with "random holdings of the nation that are likely to be fanatically defended", that I could think of.
The Heart of Oak
Admiral Percy Lockhart Harnam Noble
Royal Navy Insurgency, 1945
The Heart of Oak
In his memoirs after the war Noble recalled the moment of truth being the arrival of new recruits for his fleet in the south - 'pasty fifteen and sixteen year old boys dragged from the inner city who had never even seen the sea, let alone a boat' was how he recorded it. In truth, the rumblings of the Navy had been going on for months by this point, with the serious potential for a mutiny among the rank and file if the order to launch another disastrous assault on Iceland was sent ahead. Many old enough to remember the Kiel Mutiny, and how it had spawned Spartacist Germany, were deeply concerned about what the increasingly frantic and desperate Royalist Command might unleash.
The Insurgency, when it happened in the first week of December 1945, was quick and relatively bloodless. Noble had trained with Royal Marines and Commando Units in the 1920s and 1930s, always keen to know what conditions men under his command faced, and now the plan sprung from the London Docks and other key naval spaces around the country, was seamless. There were some brief fire-fights, as naval ratings and marines overwhelmed the black-uniformed supporters of the Patriotic League that had been set up in 1942 to back the Government, but many soldiers and police men, themselves conscripts, simply surrendered. Within the first twenty four hours the Royal Family were secured, the major telephone exchanges and offices of Government taken, and by the end of the five day insurgency the country was firmly under Naval Control. From their command centre in Dover, the triumvirate arranged the surrender, unconditional and immediate, of the United Kingdom to the government of the United States. In the coming weeks Noble, Cunningham and Horton, like many of their insurgent ratings, were held in prison camps along with the thousands of other military personnel who surrendered along with them. It would be a civilian government that would pick up the pieces to come as, for the first time since 1938, the guns of Britain fell silent.