Not really, as the deindustrialization of Germany was the the heart of the plan. I suppose that you could implement the territorial adjustments without the deindustrialization, but pdf27 has already ruled out any partition. I brought up the Morgenthau Plan only to reference the annexations in the plan.
A Blunted Sickle - Thread II
- Thread starter pdf27
- Start date
The Entente has been effectively running as a single economic unit for the war, one that is drawing upon all the colonies of each member as well.It would be interesting to see the Morganthau plan implemented, at least the French Saar annexation and the impact on the formation (or not) of the future EU. Maybe instead of a French-German lead project, it could be a French-British one considering the war that has just been fought.
Resolutely pro-EU Britain would certainly be a change.
I imagine the arrangement will continue in some form via momentum, and because they'll find they are stronger together than apart. It will look very different from the EU though, and also depend a lot on how decolonisation goes. An EU/NATO hybrid that includes Francafrique and CANZUK?
With the USAians on the outside looking in. The question is whether Canada can be a place where things come together or if they will be forced to choose.
In short, would the OTL Autopact be looked at as a good thing or dystopic iTTL. And that may come down to whether or not the Americans and the Entente (or a significant part of it) end up fighting on the same side in a war, which probably boils down to which way that Japanese go iTTL. I'm having a hard time imagining the US getting into a war with the Soviets at a time prior to extensive use of Nuclear Weapons.
Caught up just now, took me about 18 months. Thank you so very much for the entertainment.
2 comments/statements/questions:
What are the what ifs of this new universe? What could the Germans have done after the cutoff of the Paris pocket to meaningfully alter the current story? Just a discussion point that has been rattling around in my head.
Secondly, and apologies in advance for being mostly off topic, can someone help me find the famous Frisian Islands thread? It's been a while since I have been a forum poster but I spent an inappropriate amount of time trying to find it. I am a close student of the unreasonable so it sounds like a rare treat to me.
2 comments/statements/questions:
What are the what ifs of this new universe? What could the Germans have done after the cutoff of the Paris pocket to meaningfully alter the current story? Just a discussion point that has been rattling around in my head.
Secondly, and apologies in advance for being mostly off topic, can someone help me find the famous Frisian Islands thread? It's been a while since I have been a forum poster but I spent an inappropriate amount of time trying to find it. I am a close student of the unreasonable so it sounds like a rare treat to me.
5th January 1942
In Copenhagen, the German Plenipotentiary Cécil von Renthe-Fink is invited to Christian VIII's Palace first thing in the morning for “urgent discussions on matters of mutual interest”. On arrival, he is met by both the King and the Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning. There, he is invited to surrender the German forces in Denmark to the Danish government and told that if he does not the Danish government will take “military action” to remove them from Danish soil. He is given until 6am tomorrow to reply.
Wavell warns I Corps (Cunningham) to prepare invest Berlin, while the remaining troops are to head for the Polish border as fast as possible. The Corps artillery will be left with Cunningham's men, partially because of the petrol situation and partially because he is by far the most likely to need it.
In early evening the Humber armoured cars belonging to Recce Platoon, 2 Royal Sussex make contact with elements if II Corps just outside Prötzel. This in theory completes the encirclement of Berlin, although in practice the forces to the east of Berlin are largely patrols rather than a continuous line.
The improving petrol situation allows Alexander's men to start moving again, albeit much more slowly than has been possible for First or Fourth Armies. They slowly start to push south and east into much more broken, wooded terrain against resistance which varies from desultory to non-existent.
Meanwhile, the French advance has picked up even more speed, thanks largely to their supply situation being far better than that of the British. Frankfurt and Stuttgart are both surrounded and entered by patrols, who find little but bed sheets hanging from windows and deserted streets to greet them.
Meanwhile, the rest of the forces are advancing as fast as they can towards their real objectives. The northern force surrounding Frankfurt splits in two, with Touchon's men wheeling left towards Fulda and the British 2nd Army. At the same time Giraud's men head eastwards towards Würzburg, following the valley of the river Main for the most part due to heavy snow on the higher ground. To the south, Requin's men head towards Göppingen, with the intention to reach the Danube at Ulm shortly afterwards. Going here is much slower, due to a combination of the heavily urbanised terrain and the French forces on the right flank having a much poorer allocation of motor transport than those on the left which have been carrying the main effort of fighting the war to date. This is planned to change, with four full armies slated to be transferred to the south to support the occupation of Bavaria, but already lots of bets are being placed as to whether this will ever happen before the end of the war.
Work begins on the Beauharnois plant to install 500MW of additional generation capacity to the existing dam (which was designed from the start in anticipation of additional turbines being fitted), and to reinforce the high voltage power lines to Montreal to take the increased power output. This work is expected to be finished by September.
This is officially needed for the new war industries being built around Montreal which will require a great deal of additional electricity in the near future, and an expected postwar economic boom. These will all be connected by a new high-voltage spine being built along the St Lawrence, and the expansion is in fact mainly intended to support the new uranium enrichment plant to be built there.
In Copenhagen, the German Plenipotentiary Cécil von Renthe-Fink is invited to Christian VIII's Palace first thing in the morning for “urgent discussions on matters of mutual interest”. On arrival, he is met by both the King and the Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning. There, he is invited to surrender the German forces in Denmark to the Danish government and told that if he does not the Danish government will take “military action” to remove them from Danish soil. He is given until 6am tomorrow to reply.
Wavell warns I Corps (Cunningham) to prepare invest Berlin, while the remaining troops are to head for the Polish border as fast as possible. The Corps artillery will be left with Cunningham's men, partially because of the petrol situation and partially because he is by far the most likely to need it.
In early evening the Humber armoured cars belonging to Recce Platoon, 2 Royal Sussex make contact with elements if II Corps just outside Prötzel. This in theory completes the encirclement of Berlin, although in practice the forces to the east of Berlin are largely patrols rather than a continuous line.
The improving petrol situation allows Alexander's men to start moving again, albeit much more slowly than has been possible for First or Fourth Armies. They slowly start to push south and east into much more broken, wooded terrain against resistance which varies from desultory to non-existent.
Meanwhile, the French advance has picked up even more speed, thanks largely to their supply situation being far better than that of the British. Frankfurt and Stuttgart are both surrounded and entered by patrols, who find little but bed sheets hanging from windows and deserted streets to greet them.
Meanwhile, the rest of the forces are advancing as fast as they can towards their real objectives. The northern force surrounding Frankfurt splits in two, with Touchon's men wheeling left towards Fulda and the British 2nd Army. At the same time Giraud's men head eastwards towards Würzburg, following the valley of the river Main for the most part due to heavy snow on the higher ground. To the south, Requin's men head towards Göppingen, with the intention to reach the Danube at Ulm shortly afterwards. Going here is much slower, due to a combination of the heavily urbanised terrain and the French forces on the right flank having a much poorer allocation of motor transport than those on the left which have been carrying the main effort of fighting the war to date. This is planned to change, with four full armies slated to be transferred to the south to support the occupation of Bavaria, but already lots of bets are being placed as to whether this will ever happen before the end of the war.
Work begins on the Beauharnois plant to install 500MW of additional generation capacity to the existing dam (which was designed from the start in anticipation of additional turbines being fitted), and to reinforce the high voltage power lines to Montreal to take the increased power output. This work is expected to be finished by September.
This is officially needed for the new war industries being built around Montreal which will require a great deal of additional electricity in the near future, and an expected postwar economic boom. These will all be connected by a new high-voltage spine being built along the St Lawrence, and the expansion is in fact mainly intended to support the new uranium enrichment plant to be built there.
Let's hope this does not give the Germans time for any kind of Nero-like order.
When occupied Denmark can issue you an ultimatum, you know you've lost. Perusing the barebones wikipedia article on Renthe-Fink, he doesn't seem like a particularly ardent nazi, and therefore not very liable to try and burn down Copenhagen in service to a clearly doomed regime back in Germany.
Cécil von Renthe-Fink
Heck, you could end up with him as Foreign Minister in whatever level of government the Entente puts together in Germany.
The issue really isn't Renthe-Fink, it is whether he can *command* the German military to surrender. Renthe-Fink was a German Diplomat *long* before he was a Nazi, both chronologically and in his personal priorities. IOTL, he spent 3 years in the position that he has now and the Danes didn't even ask for him to be put on trial. He made no efforts in regards to the Danish Jews that weren't directly commanded to him by Berlin and even those were not strong efforts.
Heck, you could end up with him as Foreign Minister in whatever level of government the Entente puts together in Germany.
Eric S. Raymond
Banned
The appropriate Britishism for his situation is, I am given to understand, "proper fucked".
I'm a bit surprised he doesn't replay before lunch by the end of the day.
Though I'm not sure the Germans are in a state to resist that so I think it counts for military purposes.
Good for them.
I believe those betting not before the end of the war are about to win.
I am not familiar with construction times, but it seems to me like it might be around a year before they have the reactor to generate the nuclear material needed. I'm also curious when the other dominions will be informed of the bomb.
They are are going straight for an uranium enrichment plant, no reactor. Can't remember if the French program is separate, I short of expect they'll be the ones to go down the plutonium route.
I'm not really familer with the tecnical destials of the process so I just assumed all enrichment required a reactor. On french involvement from what I recall its a joint Anglo-French project as French sceients have been mentioned as working on it.
No, this is merely "a bit sticky".
A reactor wouldn't even need a fraction of this power. They're going for straight gaseous diffusion, none of the work with thermal diffusion or Calutrons that the Manhattan project went for, and significantly reduced nominal output from the gaseous diffusion plant. The British are still thinking of the Atomic Bomb as a single bomb being capable of winning a war in an afternoon, so having a handful of bombs is an earth-shakingly powerful capability.
The Dominion Prime Ministers will find out before any foreign leaders, including the US. It's likely to be a little while before the New Zealanders and South Africans find out however.
The public across the dominions will find out about it when they decide to put the tests on the newsreels, i.e. when they want to publicly announce it. That will be some considerable time.
The French programme is combined with the British one (absolutely everything is shared). For practical reasons, however, the French are working on different things - in this case the TTL version of ZEEP. They aren't going all-out for a Plutonium bomb, mostly based on their estimates of cost and risk/technical maturity: gaseous diffusion works on a bench top experiment, but Plutonium as only just been isolated in incredibly tiny quantities by Glenn Seaborg. It is likely that this will be reconsidered when they realise they will need more than a tiny number of weapons.
Nope, reactors may require enrichment (not all types do - graphite moderated and Heavy Water reactors generally don't) but no enrichment process requires a reactor. See the Wiki article for a very simplified explanation.