AHC: Make Ireland a heavily militarized country
- Thread starter Armored Diplomacy
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amphibulous
Banned
It's not stupid to take out an Axis submarine base. If Ireland militarises at a time when the UK feels threatened by Germany, it has to make it very clear that it isn't a threat.
Not without changing the nation virtually beyond nonASB in my view. The big figures of Labour were lost in the Rising, from memory Labour stepped out of the 1918 election to make it a straight vote on Ireland's position in the Union. The Church was against Communism. All these factors would make it hard to see a strong Communism threat, today we have less than 5 I think socialist TD's all from Dublin, (which brings up the other point, Labour/Socialists heart is in Dublin I don't see them going that way)
It just doesn't seem possible to me for Ireland to go that way or to sustain it for the period of time that you are thinking about.
amphibulous
Banned
Ireland has no meaningful industrial base and is too small to change this. Anything it buys it has to pay for in this period with potatoes (later it can help German companies cheat on their taxes and use this to create a disasterous property bubble...) And it takes one hell of a lot of potatoes to buy a tank. Ireland was poor enough without trying to fund even a moderate military.
amphibulous
Banned
This was when being a militarized state required only a large number of people who had been trained to march, rather than industrial killing machinery.
There was never that fear from the UK. Despite the popular stories of WW2 declassified documents have shown how Pro-Allied Ireland was during the war.
I'd say the UK would be happy that Ireland was going to be in a position to defend itself rather than have to go with the OTL plan of calling in the British Forces the moment a landing happened.
Ireland sourced the overwhelming level of equipment from the UK, they were never considered a threat because of that, hell if handled properly Ireland could have been used as cost sink for some additonal expenditure from the UK, ie have the Admiralty (who had connections to the Irish forces) sell FAA variants to increase the order book of them or to set up a Coastal patrol capability
amphibulous
Banned
That's feasible - but is Switzerland "heavily militarized"? I wouldn't have said so. And the Irish budget will be much smaller. They can buy a lot of rifles and people can practice with them, but so what?
The other problem: Ireland is an island! Militarizing without a navy is pretty pointless - you'll just get blockaded unless you have a strong ally. And if you have, why bother with the other stuff?
amphibulous
Banned
Yes, but people raised the possibility of Ireland joining the Axis. This really would have been a Bad Idea.
Probably but what are you suggesting?
Avoiding the attack on the Four Courts perhaps reducing the Civil War?
Or British Forces attacking Dublin to attack the Four Courts (recent documents suggest the Provisional Government had the British involved in the shelling) thus destabilising the Provisional Government, most likely collapsing the Treaty and certainly creating the potential for renew war.
My issue with that is that I don't see it going well for Ireland, it would lead to increased anti UK feeling and most likely military backing but ti would also lead most likely to significant more damage to Ireland reducing it's ability to function as a state (if the British choose to let it remain the Free State)
Switzerland has jets and MBT's what more military forces do you want, ICBM's?
Of course Ireland won't be able to match everything, we've already pointed out that MBT's aren't close to the best option for Irish service. But certainly Ireland could if needs be and if the personal costs were reduced by using conscript afford a fair size and level of equipment.
I have a mental picture of a new ideology peculiar to Ireland: Ju O Shea
And the eternal leader Ea Mon Dev
who passed on power to his son Viv Yon Dev
and Finally 0n to his great nephew Ea Mon Cuiv
For Ireland to join the Axis would have ended only 1 way and every sensible Irish politician knew that then. Despite the Crash and the previous Government, we don't actually elected only idiots to the Daíl, a simple look at the map would show that any war between the UK and the Axis would leave Ireland first to fall to the "old enemy".
Even if you had a Facist Coup (highly doubtful in my mind) it would have been non involved like Spain.
OH DEAR GOD
That is not funny Jams not funny.
Permanent Dev, the nation would be crazy, though we also wouldn't be a threat because we'd be dirt poor dancing at the crossroads and permanently isolated by choice.
I'm going to go think about something else now to get rid of the thoughts of the Glorious Leader Cuiv.
OH DEAR GOD
That is not funny Jams not funny.
Permanent Dev, the nation would be crazy, though we also wouldn't be a threat because we'd be dirt poor dancing at the crossroads and permanently isolated by choice.
I'm going to go think about something else now to get rid of the thoughts of the Glorious Leader Cuiv.
I must admit that the thought of The Dev bloodline made me want to inject bleach into my brain and my my mum and dad haven't lived in Ireland since 1948 and 1941 respectively!
One would hoe that the Anarcho Syndicalist Lan-Ger ideology of Cork would lead to a thriving People's Republic stretching from near Rathmore to beyond Youghal
This.
If there's one thing to bring two warring parties together then it's the threat of outside interference. I suspect even some Westies would have been tempted back into the fold in that respect.
Instead of an Irish Civil war, I think you could have seen an Irish "Continuation" war. The main question I would wonder about is would the Irish Free State attempt to present this question to the League of Nations? It would be interesting to see the "Rights" used to create Poland used to create an Independent Ireland.
In that situation I think the fear that the British Over the water could sweep down at any moment to snuff out the Republic would give rise to a much more militarily prepared Ireland.
In that situation I can see a similar model to the Swiss or Finnish model - 2 years National Service followed by a further period of reserve service, (although the majority would probably decide to voluntarily increase this period with something akin to Territorial service). That could cause significant butterflies - for example actually interning British sailors or airman landing in Ireland for the duration, not just Axis.
How that would translate later on I have no idea.
I suspect a similar outcome could come about if Collins is not killed during the Civil War and his meetings with Dan Breen* are ultimately successful in bringing a negotiated end to the civil war.
*Oddly enough, this is also my name although to the best of my knowledge, we are not related. My paternal Granfather was from Sligo and moved to Liverpool after being discharged from the British Army in 1915 for injuries recieved in France. He was declared PNG by the IRA and was literally ONLY allowed back to attend his father's funeral, being escorted from the boat in Dublin, to the funeral and escorted straight back the moment the service ended.
I missed this post what a wonderful amount of nonsense and perhaps trolling.
You're right we were so poor then it was potatoes all the way, it was potatoes when the state paid to build the largest Hydroelectric dam in Ireland between 1925-29. Tell me how many potatoes goes into 5.2 million pounds?
How many tanks would 5.2 million pounds worth of potatoes buy? The L-60's were being bought by the Irish at the time, just start a buy earlier, it's only a 20mm gun but it's still going to be a threat to the other light tanks at the start of the war.
We had industry then we had 1 shipyard and the capability of bringing the other one into operation, we had a Ford plant, steelworks, small arms ammunition manufacturing, and we have a wide industrial base now as the others that have read my TL can support.
I won't bother with you dig about the current state of the economy. Your completely wrong but I doubt you care.
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amphibulous
Banned
The title is HEAVILY militarized. Switzerland has a few jets; Ireland will have fewer. The Swiss airforce is 1600 people, so scaling by GDP Ireland would have, what, 200-300? This is not heavily militarized by any sane standard.
Gosh. The Irish government managed to outspend anyone else on hydroelectric damn building in Ireland. Wow. Which created a might 85MW. Compared to the Hoover Dam's 2000. And cost only 1/5 of an entire year's government budget. That proves that... well, to be honest, that Irish economic capacity was even more minuscule than I'd imagined.
Also: what were Ireland's non-agricultural exports in this period? If I've insulted the mighty Irish, umm, car making industry I'll be glad to apologize - but I'm pretty sure that Ireland was an agricultural economy that was no great shake economically and would have had a devil of a time paying for significant modern arms imports.
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Two shipyards, wow.
That's almost enough to compete with what, Boston (Massachusetts)?
Sorry, had to get that out of my system.
I wouldn't want to say Ireland was nothing but poverty, popery, and potatoes (although that sounds awfully catchy) - but it doesn't sound like it has the resources to support any significant steps to being a "heavily militarized country".
More effective and/or larger than OTL? Probably. But "fairly sizable" would only be relative to the population.
And just for laughs (@ describing Ireland as Poverty, Popery, and Potatoes): 36 cents for ten pounds of potatoes in 1925 http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/20sfood.html
So if my rough estimate of the exchange rate is correct I believe it would be "a metric fuckload" of potatoes.
33 F 18's 42 F5's, 200+ Leopard 2's and over a thousand other IFV types. That's a fair chunk of military hardware for a nation in the middle of Europe without ever deploying them.
But if that's not good enough how about Finland, only €50 billion between us in GDP yet they field 60 F 18, and another 60 Hawks
How is the US and the Hoover Dam connected to the situation, Ireland was coming out of a civil war and a War of Independence, that the economy was even function only a couple of years later should be considered, hell it was nothing short of a bloody miracle considering the damage that happened.
You made a blunt comment about the capability of Ireland to invest in anything at that period, and I've shown you that they were able and willing to do so. If there was a pressing need, or a policy like national conscription smaller such investments could be made over a longer time to develop the needed equipment.
As to what was built back in the 1930's I've enough work tracking down data for my own TL not tracking it down for you, but since there were trains built for the domestic lines, ships to replace what was lost in WW2 and we actually managed to pay for equipment from the UK, like AA, AT, Bren Carriers, MTB's and Fighters I would argue that it was enough that if we had a set policy we could have either secured connections with suppliers or nurtured Ireland's own capabilities.