This is a timeline I thought up based on two ideas: what if the Japanese had invaded, and what if the Liberal Party, by its many names, had come to an end? Any feedback would be welcome; I know some of the details, particularly the invasion, are a tad implausible, but the death of Australian liberalism is an intriguing scenario. Footnotes are all at the bottom.
1939:
-The Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, of the UAP-ACP coalition, suffers a heart attack. Although his heart stops for almost a minute, he is soon revived and returns to duty. (1)
-War breaks out in Europe. Lyons declares ‘since Britain is at war, Australia is also at war’. He offers the formation of a National Government to Curtin, but Curtin is forced to decline after a Labor revolt at the prospect of supporting a ‘rat’ as Prime Minister, as Lyons had defected from the ALP 8 years earlier. (2)
1940:
-An election is held. Solid, dependable Lyons is seen as increasingly doddery compared to Labor leader John Curtin, but Curtin suffers under accusations of pacifism and lack of support for the troops. As a result, Lyons is re-elected, but with a much reduced majority. (3)
-Tensions break out in Coalition ranks over what they perceive to be mishandling over the war. These are further exacerbated by the lack of purpose and drive in the UAP ranks; intended to be a populist caretaker government and created out of a fusion between conservatives and dissident Laborites, the party has no clear ideology and thus cannot form clear policy. Lyons, as a former Labor minister, is at the heart of these tensions, with the conservative faction lead by Robert Menzies bringing increasing pressure upon him to resign.
1941:
-Lyons flies to London, where he meets Churchill and is forced to agree to higher troop commitments, in order to assuage the Anglophile Menzies and because of his natural lack of political skulduggery. He spends nearly seven months in Britain (4), during which time tensions between Menzies and Billy Hughes, the wizened political master who leads the UAP’s former Labor faction come to a head. Lyons, exhausted by the constraints of wartime leadership, is unable to constrain these factions, which eventually lead to open disputes in Parliament.
-On December 7, 1941, Japan declares war, and begins advancing towards Singapore. The UAP is split between those who wish to call upon Britain to evacuate the base and those who wish to reinforce it. As a result, no clear policy decision is made.
1942:
-On February 15th, Singapore surrenders. Australia is now a nation under siege. Lyons wishes to return Australian troops from the Middle East to defend Australia, but his earlier concessions to Churchill (caused by party strife) means that he can only return one division.
-On February 19th, Darwin is attacked by Japanese fighters, which cause much damage. Hundreds die. (5)
-The Japanese forces invade New Guinea. With the entire Australian forces off in the Middle East due to Lyons’ compromises, Rabaul quickly falls, and Japanese forces begin a rapid advance down the Kokoda Track.
-Hughes, attacking Lyons’ leadership, launches a leadership challenge. He is defeated, but the existence of the challenge marks an immediate battle for supremacy between Menzies and Hughes, both of whom see themselves as the next Prime Minister. (6)
-Lyons, now coming under attack from all sides, introduces conscription to fight off the Japanese attack to the north. However, without trained military aid, the Australian conscripts cannot hold off the Japanese for long.
-General Douglas Macarthur arrives in Australia to help fight off the Japanese. However, barely disguised hostility towards him from the Hughes faction of the UAP (7) hinders his job, and the feuding between Menzies and Hughes makes the introduction of any policy difficult. As a result, very little can be done to stop the Japanese advance.
-The Kokoda Track Campaign turns into a disaster for Australian forces; untrained, unequipped, and with conflicting orders as parliamentary forces shift, the conscripts are massacred.
-In September, the Japanese forces take Port Moresby. Bombing raids become a regular event in Darwin, and invasion fears become paramount. Australian forces in the Middle East are withdrawn to Australia. (8)
-Lyons, while taking a tour of solidarity in Darwin, is killed in an air raid. Immediate political warfare breaks out between Hughes and Menzies over the leadership, while Acting Prime Minister Arthur Fadden is widely seen as ineffectual. In a party ballot, Menzies wins narrowly over Hughes. As a result, Hughes splits his faction from the UAP and forms the Australia Party (9), and immediately calls a vote of no confidence. Curtin comes to power, with the support of Hughes.
-The Japanese conquer Fiji, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, effectively isolating Australia. American aid can no longer reach Australia.
-Over a dispute over the extent of conscription (10), Hughes brings down the Curtin government. He agrees to support a coalition government, but on the condition that Menzies resigns. Arthur Fadden, the Country Party leader, becomes Prime Minister (11).
-The new UAP government is just as unstable as the old, with the added disadvantage that Fadden can secure support from neither the UAP nor the Australia Party.
-Darwin, which has been under near-continuous bombardment from Japanese forces since the fall of Port Moresby, is invaded by Japanese forces on Christmas Day. (12)
1943:
-The Fadden government falls in Parliament over its handling of the crisis. The Governor-General Alexander Hore-Ruthven, seeing that no group can command the support of Parliament, orders the creation of a national coalition government with him at its head, and the temporary dissolution of the office of Prime Minister. He takes on sweeping powers to resolve the crisis.
-Japanese troops advance throughout the Northern Territory, and begin bombing raids using the captured Darwin airport. In one particularly devastating raid, a hole is smashed in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Australian forces try to retake Darwin, but are forced back by overwhelming firepower.
-Japanese troops begin landing on the eastern coast, between Cairns and Townsville. They quickly advance towards Brisbane. (14)
-Hore-Ruthven invokes the Brisbane Line, and orders a general retreat to a thin strip of land between Brisbane and Melbourne. The rest of Australia is given up for lost. Furious, Western Australia announces its unilateral secession, and blows up the railway line to the east, as much to stop the Australians as to stop the Japanese. (15)
-American troops land on Fiji and New Caledonia, which have been exhausted of their occupying forces by the attack on Australia, and prepare to relieve Australia.
-Battle of Brisbane. The Japanese forces launch an intensive amphibious, air and land assault on Brisbane, killing thousands. The Australian forces retreat slowly, but in the end are forced to evacuate the city. Brisbane falls to the Japanese forces.
-The Japanese forces move along the Great Pacific Highway, steadily advancing on Sydney.
-Hore-Ruthven declares a complete state of national emergency, and conscripts everyone who can serve to the defence of Sydney.
-Canberra is bombed by the advancing Japanese. Although Parliament House is well-defended and managed to escape with only a few glancing blows, Yarralumla is not. Hore-Ruthven is killed in the assault, leaving the country with no effective leadership and no time to appoint a new Governor-General.
-Thomas Blamey, commander of Australian troops, launches a coup, to secure Canberra and provide leadership during the time of crisis. (16) The leaders of the four main parties bitterly oppose this, and Australian troops battle in Canberra. Eventually, Blamey is arrested. In the aftermath, Curtin becomes Prime Minister of a national unity government. (17)
-Battle of Sydney. Japanese troops take Newcastle, and advance down the coast, under fire all the way. Eventually, they reach the northern suburbs, and are stopped for days at the Hornsby Line by the desperate defenders. The Line lasts long enough for troops from Melbourne to arrive to defend Sydney. Finally, the Hornsby Line breaks, and the Japanese troops advance to the south, with the defenders destroying infrastructure as they go. Japanese troops are stopped for days in Lindfield, where the bulk of the fighting takes place, and where most of the suburbs are reduced to ruins. American forces arrive in Sydney during the siege of Lindfield en masse from their bases in Fiji and New Caledonia. They do not arrive in time to save the Lindfield line, however, and the Japanese troops come within sight of Sydney Harbour. The American troops, massing on the southern side of the harbour, destroy the Sydney Harbour Bridge to stop the Japanese advance. The American forces then launch an amphibious assault, across the harbour, and manage to drive the Japanese forces back.
-The exhausted Japanese army is forced into a full retreat, once its logistics are halted by an American blockade. At Port Macquarie, the exhausted, starving Japanese forces are surrounded by American and Australian forces, and forced into surrender.
-Darwin is still under Japanese control, and a long campaign begins to take it back.
-Western Australia, now that the crisis is over, rejoins Australia rather sheepishly, under the petition of its beloved native son John Curtin. (18)
-Elections are held. The result is a complete landslide for Curtin. More specifically, the fractious and disunited United Australia Party is completely wiped out, being reduced to a rump of 5 seats, including Menzies. The Australia Party is also wiped out, with Billy Hughes losing his seat for the first time in 42 years. The Labor Party gains a commanding mandate of 59 seats due to Curtin’s personal popularity, with the 10 seat Country Party becoming the main opposition.
-In the aftermath of the election, Menzies begins a campaign for a ‘Liberal Democratic Party’, to revive the forces of liberal-conservatism. Unfortunately, the United Australia Party has become so diminished that no one listens.
1944:
-Darwin is retaken in January, with the final Japanese forces retreating from Australian soil. The rest of the war passes much as in OTL. (19)
-Arthur Fadden, leader of the Country Party and of the conservative forces in general, begins a campaign to expand into urban seats, which following the demise of the United Australia Party have become the sole providence of Labor. His message of ‘populist agrarian socialism’ is somewhat similar to Labor’s version of democratic socialism.
-Australia begins the process of rebuilding. Tens of thousands, from Darwin to Sydney, have died in the Japanese assault, and millions of pounds of land have been razed to the ground, by both sides. In order to come up with the necessary funds, Curtin begins a program of centralisation, taking away many of the states’ functions in order to fund massive state infrastructure programs, such as bridge-building. His proposals pass in a referendum, more due to Curtin’s popularity than by the merit of the proposals themselves. (20)
-The UAP, deserted by its followers and by big business, dissolves after a battle for the leadership. Menzies forms a Liberal Democratic Party built largely around himself, but gains little support amongst the populace.
-A massive program of state socialism begins, in order to rebuild Australia. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is rebuilt as the Hore-RuthvenBridge, in honour of the deceased Governor-General. In a controversial measure, the banks are nationalised, in order to provide sufficient funds. In the absence of an effective conservative opposition, however, the measure is passed. (21)
1945:
-John Curtin dies of a heart attack. Widespread national mourning follows. After a brief caretaker administration by Frank Forde, Ben Chifley becomes Prime Minister.
-Japan surrenders after the first atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1946:
-An election year in Australia. Responding to the unpopularity of the bank reforms, the Country Party gain 10 seats, to a total of 20. The most notable event, however, is the defeat of the former UAP members, even Menzies, who loses his seat to a Country Party candidate. Menzies, the last inheritor of the Deakinite Liberal tradition, locks the door of the UAP caucus room for the last time. (22)
(1): In OTL, Lyons died and Menzies became Prime Minister, after a brief caretaker government under Earle Page. This is the POD.
(2): The ALP doesn’t like rats. When you consider that they wouldn’t even form a government with Robert Menzies, imagine how they must feel about Lyons!
(3): In OTL, Menzies was forced into minority, which eventually gave Labor power. Lyons was a far more charismatic figure than Menzies (at least in his first term), and thus would probably be able to get the UAP over the line.
(4): This is not meant as an insult to Lyons; he was a genuinely nice and charismatic man, but his lack of skills as a politician and, shall we say, ‘moderate’ intelligence have been well documented. However, it must be noted that Menzies fared little better in his meetings with Churchill. The elderly and embattled Lyons meeting the Bulldog…he could never have done any better.
(5): In OTL, Darwin was already undefended and unequipped, so this is just the same.
(6): This is a recurring feature of Billy Hughes’ personality; even though he was a fascinating man who achieved some great things, his actions in 1929, 1939 and 1943 in OTL showed that he could never quite grasp the notion that he would never be Prime Minister again. Even though he was, in 1942, an 80 year old man, that doesn’t seem to have stopped him in our timeline either.
(7): Hughes feuded bitterly with Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, and the notion of an American arriving in town to take over the shots would have riled him most fiercely. Besides, opposition to Macarthur would have made a good battleground with Menzies.
(8): The difference in this timeline is that forces were withdrawn far later, because of Lyons’ early concessions to Churchill to avoid a factional brawl. This may make all the difference.
(9): Hughes actually did form an Australia Party when he split off from the Nationalists 13 years before; it would make sense to recycle an old name.
(10): Hughes split his party over supporting conscription, whilst Curtin was sent to jail for opposing it. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in THAT meeting…
(11): As he did in OTL. I think that in TTL, as in OTL, it’s not so much a matter that he’s the best candidate so much that every other candidate has a faction crying for their hide.
(12): It’s a logical progression; seeing as Australia couldn’t hold New Guinea due to Australian forces being in the Middle East, so fall the PacificIslands, and so falls Darwin. And at the worst possible time, of course.
(13): Controversial, maybe, but possible. The Prime Minister isn’t actually mentioned in the constitution. If no party can garner sufficient support to govern on its own, then a coalition government is the only possibility. The Governor-General, as 1975 showed us, has sweeping powers to appoint and dismiss ministers; he could, potentially, do this. Of course, in any other circumstance this would be unheard of, but after all, there are Japanese troops in Darwin. Essentially, Hore-Ruthven would act as the American President does.
(14): Well, most Australian troops would have been engaged in attacking Darwin. Also, there have been heavy losses due to the extensive bombing by the Japanese, and most of all it’s very hard to defend a coastline like the Queensland coast.
(15): There was a lot of secessionist sentiment around in Western Australia at the time, and the Brisbane Line would have been viewed as the ultimate betrayal. Once you blow up the railway line and barricade the main roads, it’s extraordinarily difficult to conquer WA by land, and the Japanese resources are too stretched to launch an amphibious invasion.
(16): This may sound far-fetched, but remember, Hore-Ruthven was the only one leading the country. With Japanese troops in Tamworth and a bickering four-party parliament, Blamey could have thought that a military dictatorship would be the only way to save Sydney. Of course, many of his troops would not have thought the same.
(17): Well, he’s the only one all the parties can respect. And with Australia in such dire straits, party politics takes a back seat.
(18): Also, the fact that Western Australia is now vulnerable to the Japanese forces and important strategically is an important factor, but they like to think of it as out of love for Curtin.
(19): That is to say, even though the Americans didn’t have Australia as a base, the Japanese forces were so exhausted that any effect is negligible.
(20): In OTL, the referendum failed, but then again, in OTL we didn’t have a massive Japanese invasion.
(21): Without a Liberal Party to spearhead resistance and considering Curtin’s popularity, I don’t see any way this could have been opposed.
(22): In Australia, there has always been a united Liberal Party since 1909, with only the occasional name-change. With the fall of the UAP, that tradition ends.
For Want Of A Ming
1939:
-The Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, of the UAP-ACP coalition, suffers a heart attack. Although his heart stops for almost a minute, he is soon revived and returns to duty. (1)
-War breaks out in Europe. Lyons declares ‘since Britain is at war, Australia is also at war’. He offers the formation of a National Government to Curtin, but Curtin is forced to decline after a Labor revolt at the prospect of supporting a ‘rat’ as Prime Minister, as Lyons had defected from the ALP 8 years earlier. (2)
1940:
-An election is held. Solid, dependable Lyons is seen as increasingly doddery compared to Labor leader John Curtin, but Curtin suffers under accusations of pacifism and lack of support for the troops. As a result, Lyons is re-elected, but with a much reduced majority. (3)
-Tensions break out in Coalition ranks over what they perceive to be mishandling over the war. These are further exacerbated by the lack of purpose and drive in the UAP ranks; intended to be a populist caretaker government and created out of a fusion between conservatives and dissident Laborites, the party has no clear ideology and thus cannot form clear policy. Lyons, as a former Labor minister, is at the heart of these tensions, with the conservative faction lead by Robert Menzies bringing increasing pressure upon him to resign.
1941:
-Lyons flies to London, where he meets Churchill and is forced to agree to higher troop commitments, in order to assuage the Anglophile Menzies and because of his natural lack of political skulduggery. He spends nearly seven months in Britain (4), during which time tensions between Menzies and Billy Hughes, the wizened political master who leads the UAP’s former Labor faction come to a head. Lyons, exhausted by the constraints of wartime leadership, is unable to constrain these factions, which eventually lead to open disputes in Parliament.
-On December 7, 1941, Japan declares war, and begins advancing towards Singapore. The UAP is split between those who wish to call upon Britain to evacuate the base and those who wish to reinforce it. As a result, no clear policy decision is made.
1942:
-On February 15th, Singapore surrenders. Australia is now a nation under siege. Lyons wishes to return Australian troops from the Middle East to defend Australia, but his earlier concessions to Churchill (caused by party strife) means that he can only return one division.
-On February 19th, Darwin is attacked by Japanese fighters, which cause much damage. Hundreds die. (5)
-The Japanese forces invade New Guinea. With the entire Australian forces off in the Middle East due to Lyons’ compromises, Rabaul quickly falls, and Japanese forces begin a rapid advance down the Kokoda Track.
-Hughes, attacking Lyons’ leadership, launches a leadership challenge. He is defeated, but the existence of the challenge marks an immediate battle for supremacy between Menzies and Hughes, both of whom see themselves as the next Prime Minister. (6)
-Lyons, now coming under attack from all sides, introduces conscription to fight off the Japanese attack to the north. However, without trained military aid, the Australian conscripts cannot hold off the Japanese for long.
-General Douglas Macarthur arrives in Australia to help fight off the Japanese. However, barely disguised hostility towards him from the Hughes faction of the UAP (7) hinders his job, and the feuding between Menzies and Hughes makes the introduction of any policy difficult. As a result, very little can be done to stop the Japanese advance.
-The Kokoda Track Campaign turns into a disaster for Australian forces; untrained, unequipped, and with conflicting orders as parliamentary forces shift, the conscripts are massacred.
-In September, the Japanese forces take Port Moresby. Bombing raids become a regular event in Darwin, and invasion fears become paramount. Australian forces in the Middle East are withdrawn to Australia. (8)
-Lyons, while taking a tour of solidarity in Darwin, is killed in an air raid. Immediate political warfare breaks out between Hughes and Menzies over the leadership, while Acting Prime Minister Arthur Fadden is widely seen as ineffectual. In a party ballot, Menzies wins narrowly over Hughes. As a result, Hughes splits his faction from the UAP and forms the Australia Party (9), and immediately calls a vote of no confidence. Curtin comes to power, with the support of Hughes.
-The Japanese conquer Fiji, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, effectively isolating Australia. American aid can no longer reach Australia.
-Over a dispute over the extent of conscription (10), Hughes brings down the Curtin government. He agrees to support a coalition government, but on the condition that Menzies resigns. Arthur Fadden, the Country Party leader, becomes Prime Minister (11).
-The new UAP government is just as unstable as the old, with the added disadvantage that Fadden can secure support from neither the UAP nor the Australia Party.
-Darwin, which has been under near-continuous bombardment from Japanese forces since the fall of Port Moresby, is invaded by Japanese forces on Christmas Day. (12)
1943:
-The Fadden government falls in Parliament over its handling of the crisis. The Governor-General Alexander Hore-Ruthven, seeing that no group can command the support of Parliament, orders the creation of a national coalition government with him at its head, and the temporary dissolution of the office of Prime Minister. He takes on sweeping powers to resolve the crisis.
-Japanese troops advance throughout the Northern Territory, and begin bombing raids using the captured Darwin airport. In one particularly devastating raid, a hole is smashed in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Australian forces try to retake Darwin, but are forced back by overwhelming firepower.
-Japanese troops begin landing on the eastern coast, between Cairns and Townsville. They quickly advance towards Brisbane. (14)
-Hore-Ruthven invokes the Brisbane Line, and orders a general retreat to a thin strip of land between Brisbane and Melbourne. The rest of Australia is given up for lost. Furious, Western Australia announces its unilateral secession, and blows up the railway line to the east, as much to stop the Australians as to stop the Japanese. (15)
-American troops land on Fiji and New Caledonia, which have been exhausted of their occupying forces by the attack on Australia, and prepare to relieve Australia.
-Battle of Brisbane. The Japanese forces launch an intensive amphibious, air and land assault on Brisbane, killing thousands. The Australian forces retreat slowly, but in the end are forced to evacuate the city. Brisbane falls to the Japanese forces.
-The Japanese forces move along the Great Pacific Highway, steadily advancing on Sydney.
-Hore-Ruthven declares a complete state of national emergency, and conscripts everyone who can serve to the defence of Sydney.
-Canberra is bombed by the advancing Japanese. Although Parliament House is well-defended and managed to escape with only a few glancing blows, Yarralumla is not. Hore-Ruthven is killed in the assault, leaving the country with no effective leadership and no time to appoint a new Governor-General.
-Thomas Blamey, commander of Australian troops, launches a coup, to secure Canberra and provide leadership during the time of crisis. (16) The leaders of the four main parties bitterly oppose this, and Australian troops battle in Canberra. Eventually, Blamey is arrested. In the aftermath, Curtin becomes Prime Minister of a national unity government. (17)
-Battle of Sydney. Japanese troops take Newcastle, and advance down the coast, under fire all the way. Eventually, they reach the northern suburbs, and are stopped for days at the Hornsby Line by the desperate defenders. The Line lasts long enough for troops from Melbourne to arrive to defend Sydney. Finally, the Hornsby Line breaks, and the Japanese troops advance to the south, with the defenders destroying infrastructure as they go. Japanese troops are stopped for days in Lindfield, where the bulk of the fighting takes place, and where most of the suburbs are reduced to ruins. American forces arrive in Sydney during the siege of Lindfield en masse from their bases in Fiji and New Caledonia. They do not arrive in time to save the Lindfield line, however, and the Japanese troops come within sight of Sydney Harbour. The American troops, massing on the southern side of the harbour, destroy the Sydney Harbour Bridge to stop the Japanese advance. The American forces then launch an amphibious assault, across the harbour, and manage to drive the Japanese forces back.
-The exhausted Japanese army is forced into a full retreat, once its logistics are halted by an American blockade. At Port Macquarie, the exhausted, starving Japanese forces are surrounded by American and Australian forces, and forced into surrender.
-Darwin is still under Japanese control, and a long campaign begins to take it back.
-Western Australia, now that the crisis is over, rejoins Australia rather sheepishly, under the petition of its beloved native son John Curtin. (18)
-Elections are held. The result is a complete landslide for Curtin. More specifically, the fractious and disunited United Australia Party is completely wiped out, being reduced to a rump of 5 seats, including Menzies. The Australia Party is also wiped out, with Billy Hughes losing his seat for the first time in 42 years. The Labor Party gains a commanding mandate of 59 seats due to Curtin’s personal popularity, with the 10 seat Country Party becoming the main opposition.
-In the aftermath of the election, Menzies begins a campaign for a ‘Liberal Democratic Party’, to revive the forces of liberal-conservatism. Unfortunately, the United Australia Party has become so diminished that no one listens.
1944:
-Darwin is retaken in January, with the final Japanese forces retreating from Australian soil. The rest of the war passes much as in OTL. (19)
-Arthur Fadden, leader of the Country Party and of the conservative forces in general, begins a campaign to expand into urban seats, which following the demise of the United Australia Party have become the sole providence of Labor. His message of ‘populist agrarian socialism’ is somewhat similar to Labor’s version of democratic socialism.
-Australia begins the process of rebuilding. Tens of thousands, from Darwin to Sydney, have died in the Japanese assault, and millions of pounds of land have been razed to the ground, by both sides. In order to come up with the necessary funds, Curtin begins a program of centralisation, taking away many of the states’ functions in order to fund massive state infrastructure programs, such as bridge-building. His proposals pass in a referendum, more due to Curtin’s popularity than by the merit of the proposals themselves. (20)
-The UAP, deserted by its followers and by big business, dissolves after a battle for the leadership. Menzies forms a Liberal Democratic Party built largely around himself, but gains little support amongst the populace.
-A massive program of state socialism begins, in order to rebuild Australia. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is rebuilt as the Hore-RuthvenBridge, in honour of the deceased Governor-General. In a controversial measure, the banks are nationalised, in order to provide sufficient funds. In the absence of an effective conservative opposition, however, the measure is passed. (21)
1945:
-John Curtin dies of a heart attack. Widespread national mourning follows. After a brief caretaker administration by Frank Forde, Ben Chifley becomes Prime Minister.
-Japan surrenders after the first atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1946:
-An election year in Australia. Responding to the unpopularity of the bank reforms, the Country Party gain 10 seats, to a total of 20. The most notable event, however, is the defeat of the former UAP members, even Menzies, who loses his seat to a Country Party candidate. Menzies, the last inheritor of the Deakinite Liberal tradition, locks the door of the UAP caucus room for the last time. (22)
(1): In OTL, Lyons died and Menzies became Prime Minister, after a brief caretaker government under Earle Page. This is the POD.
(2): The ALP doesn’t like rats. When you consider that they wouldn’t even form a government with Robert Menzies, imagine how they must feel about Lyons!
(3): In OTL, Menzies was forced into minority, which eventually gave Labor power. Lyons was a far more charismatic figure than Menzies (at least in his first term), and thus would probably be able to get the UAP over the line.
(4): This is not meant as an insult to Lyons; he was a genuinely nice and charismatic man, but his lack of skills as a politician and, shall we say, ‘moderate’ intelligence have been well documented. However, it must be noted that Menzies fared little better in his meetings with Churchill. The elderly and embattled Lyons meeting the Bulldog…he could never have done any better.
(5): In OTL, Darwin was already undefended and unequipped, so this is just the same.
(6): This is a recurring feature of Billy Hughes’ personality; even though he was a fascinating man who achieved some great things, his actions in 1929, 1939 and 1943 in OTL showed that he could never quite grasp the notion that he would never be Prime Minister again. Even though he was, in 1942, an 80 year old man, that doesn’t seem to have stopped him in our timeline either.
(7): Hughes feuded bitterly with Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, and the notion of an American arriving in town to take over the shots would have riled him most fiercely. Besides, opposition to Macarthur would have made a good battleground with Menzies.
(8): The difference in this timeline is that forces were withdrawn far later, because of Lyons’ early concessions to Churchill to avoid a factional brawl. This may make all the difference.
(9): Hughes actually did form an Australia Party when he split off from the Nationalists 13 years before; it would make sense to recycle an old name.
(10): Hughes split his party over supporting conscription, whilst Curtin was sent to jail for opposing it. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in THAT meeting…
(11): As he did in OTL. I think that in TTL, as in OTL, it’s not so much a matter that he’s the best candidate so much that every other candidate has a faction crying for their hide.
(12): It’s a logical progression; seeing as Australia couldn’t hold New Guinea due to Australian forces being in the Middle East, so fall the PacificIslands, and so falls Darwin. And at the worst possible time, of course.
(13): Controversial, maybe, but possible. The Prime Minister isn’t actually mentioned in the constitution. If no party can garner sufficient support to govern on its own, then a coalition government is the only possibility. The Governor-General, as 1975 showed us, has sweeping powers to appoint and dismiss ministers; he could, potentially, do this. Of course, in any other circumstance this would be unheard of, but after all, there are Japanese troops in Darwin. Essentially, Hore-Ruthven would act as the American President does.
(14): Well, most Australian troops would have been engaged in attacking Darwin. Also, there have been heavy losses due to the extensive bombing by the Japanese, and most of all it’s very hard to defend a coastline like the Queensland coast.
(15): There was a lot of secessionist sentiment around in Western Australia at the time, and the Brisbane Line would have been viewed as the ultimate betrayal. Once you blow up the railway line and barricade the main roads, it’s extraordinarily difficult to conquer WA by land, and the Japanese resources are too stretched to launch an amphibious invasion.
(16): This may sound far-fetched, but remember, Hore-Ruthven was the only one leading the country. With Japanese troops in Tamworth and a bickering four-party parliament, Blamey could have thought that a military dictatorship would be the only way to save Sydney. Of course, many of his troops would not have thought the same.
(17): Well, he’s the only one all the parties can respect. And with Australia in such dire straits, party politics takes a back seat.
(18): Also, the fact that Western Australia is now vulnerable to the Japanese forces and important strategically is an important factor, but they like to think of it as out of love for Curtin.
(19): That is to say, even though the Americans didn’t have Australia as a base, the Japanese forces were so exhausted that any effect is negligible.
(20): In OTL, the referendum failed, but then again, in OTL we didn’t have a massive Japanese invasion.
(21): Without a Liberal Party to spearhead resistance and considering Curtin’s popularity, I don’t see any way this could have been opposed.
(22): In Australia, there has always been a united Liberal Party since 1909, with only the occasional name-change. With the fall of the UAP, that tradition ends.
