A Blunted Sickle - Thread II

[Eric S. Raymond]

You risk to make the french soldiers fall asleep or desert en masse.

Aha! Remember Monty Python's "Killer Joke"? Perhaps we now know what it was about...

 

[Jellico]

As an American, I am more or less required to believe that the Alliance should have broadcast cricket matches over Germany at high power in order to cripple the Nazi war effort by boring them all to death.

Well you defanged the Japanese with interminable baseball.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Well you defanged the Japanese with interminable baseball.

Which is a war crime

While Cricket would of course bring Germany back to civilisation

 

[El Pip]

While Cricket would of course bring Germany back to civilisation

Hitler being terrible in his one and only game of Cricket was definitely a warning sign. As was his catastrophic attempt at re-writing the rules of the game. :shudder:

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Hitler being terrible in his one and only game of Cricket was definitely a warning sign. As was his catastrophic attempt at re-writing the rules of the game. :shudder:

If it prevents him from writing Mein Kamp and instead penning Mein Unterarm werfen (translation: Bowling underarm) while I did throw up in my mouth just writing it - might actually be worth it for humanity.

 

[Xgentis]

Or he could have gone into architecture he suposedly had talent for it.

 

[Orry]

Or he could have gone into architecture he suposedly had talent for it.

Well he was the architect of the greatest german defeat on record......

 

[Eric S. Raymond]

Or he could have gone into architecture he suposedly had talent for it.

Many people know, or have read, that Hitler was a failed painter. What I found interesting when I did some research on this subject is that it's really not clear why he failed. His surviving works are neither inspired nor particularly individual, but are quite competent and he did work with enough visual appeal to have some regular patrons - including, ironically, several well-off Austrian Jews.

He was, in fact, particularly good at capturing interesting views of buildings. Having viewed a dozen or so of his works I think he was certainly capable enough to crank out the kind of middle-grade commercial art that, in his time and ours, gets hung up in the rooms of higher-end hotels. Whatever success he might have achieved was, however, interrupted by his military enlistment in 1914, and the abandoned any attempt to make a career of his art after the war.

 

[El Pip]

If it prevents him from writing Mein Kamp and instead penning Mein Unterarm werfen (translation: Bowling underarm) while I did throw up in my mouth just writing it - might actually be worth it for humanity.

He proposed banning pads, gloves and boxes and the ball was to be heavier and covered in spikes. I wouldn't want to play it, but if the German hard right ends up distracted from seizing power because they are throwing spiky balls at each other, who would object?

 

[Deaf Peregrine]

Remind me please how Finland and Sweden ended up merging in this timeline unlike our's.

 

[Atrophied]

finlands soviet fears is the main reason and swedish soviet fears aswell but abit less.

 

[Xgentis]

I don't think that union would last long but you never know.

 

[Jellico]

He proposed banning pads, gloves and boxes and the ball was to be heavier and covered in spikes. I wouldn't want to play it, but if the German hard right ends up distracted from seizing power because they are throwing spiky balls at each other, who would object?

Those of a certain age have seen this game.

 

[Eric S. Raymond]

Well you defanged the Japanese with interminable baseball.

Best we could do at the time. We didn't have a strategic curling capability yet.

 

[Tanc49]

La Rocque had already moved a lot to distanciate himself from fascism and antisemitism, and one can expect the TTL events will have produced a similar effect.

You might be seeing the same thing that happened after 1870 though. You might have some very right wing parties, but you don't wanna do anything that relates you to Germany. Indeed, one of the big opposition was the relationship to Germany with the right being way more aggressive. Might play out the same here, you can't advocate Fascism because it's clearly linked to Germany

This will be true. Syria and Lebanon to start with. A French govt flush with victory is not likely to countenance independence.

Or you could say the reverse. A French government that just suffered a humiliating defeat cannot afford to have colonies declaring independence, it's a sign of weakness. Here France isn't weak, and can afford to be generous. Of course you're probably creating a wider Francafrique but they'll be technically independent

Of course, there is also the possibility that confrontation could escalate and make Syria France's TTL Indochina. But in my humble opinion, Syria lacks some key elements which led to OTL escalation in Indochina: the communist threat, the absence of a local governement, a strident need for prestige reasons to reinstate direct rule, and a nationalist opposition which was actually ok with going to war, all elements which led to the breakdown in negociations in Indochina. Trust the French to fuck up whatever they can tho

Also, Syria isn't as bad terrain wise. Vietnam is basically a serie of jungle covered big hills. It's a nightmare to do counterinsurgency, unless you burn the whole forest, and even then...

They might be able to manage a tripwire, enough of a fleet that an aggressor power would have to use real force to deal with it and suffer considerable diplomatic and PR embarrassment as a result - enough that the prospect becomes a bit of a deterrent. Small nations have done this before; in some cases it's the only reason they have a navy at all.

If I'm France and I want Congo, I won't have to use my navy, I'll just invade Belgium or mass enough troups at the border that they get the message

 

[Icedaemon]

Speaking of the Finnish-Swedish union and sports, it does seem plausiable that in this timeline, Canada main sporting rival would be them.

 

[Eric S. Raymond]

If I'm France and I want Congo, I won't have to use my navy, I'll just invade Belgium or mass enough troups at the border that they get the message

And trigger a general European war? Oh, sure! Look how well that worked out for the last couple of Great Powers to try it!

Historically, scraps about the colonies have tended for very good reasons to stay in the colonies.

 

[Tanc49]

And trigger a general European war? Oh, sure! Look how well that worked out for the last couple of Great Powers to try it!

Historically, scraps about the colonies have tended for very good reasons to stay in the colonies.

Oh obviously. WAY easier to buy whatever from Congo. I was just saying, if they're getting a navy to protect a Congo takeover from the French, well, there's a big flaw in that plan

 

[Cryhavoc101]

He proposed banning pads, gloves and boxes and the ball was to be heavier and covered in spikes. I wouldn't want to play it, but if the German hard right ends up distracted from seizing power because they are throwing spiky balls at each other, who would object?

That would their peckers up - those filthy decadent nazi swine.

 

[Xgentis]

Question: Does the Italian monarchy survive up to the present-day in this TL?

Good question, it could go etheir way when the regime fall on it's own.