Stranger things have had happened.
[FONT="]The Empire: Fragmentation or Federalisation?[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Second British Civil War: Part III[/FONT]
[FONT="](1922-1927)[/FONT]
[FONT="]The outbreak of the Civil War sent shockwaves throughout the British Empire and its Dominions (not to mention the rest of the world). The Empire too suffered its fair share of domestic crises. The Dominions of Canada and Columbia both suffered severe industrial action, protest and violent civil disorder in some of the major cities: specifically including Newcastle, [FONT="]Stratford [/FONT]and Fort James. This was on a far lower scale however than the events in Britain, and most violence had been suppressed by[FONT="] early 1923[/FONT]. Similar low levels of disruption occurred in the Dominion of Australia. Though here overly ambitious Collectivists attempted a coup in the capital, but were ruthlessly suppressed. Australia as a whole was more [FONT="][FONT="]Conservative[/FONT] than [FONT="]the rest of the Empire, and Collectivism had never[FONT="] been strong here. [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]To pre-empt further incidents or wide spread panic over the outbreak of Civil War in Britain, Canada (soon followed by the other Dominions and Newfoundland) enacted emergency measures and put troops out to secure major cities. They were now however in a bind, how do they react to the developments in the mother country? The Collec-Solidarist pact had apparently won the General Election, but the vast, vast majority of populations in the Dominions remained loyal to the king and the so-named “Loyalist” faction. It was the [FONT="]since dubbed[/FONT] Cain Telegram that helped immensely in this regard. Albert Cain, a former soldier and diplomat now serving as
de facto Foreign Minister for the Loyalist government in Oxford, sent a telegram to Newcastle, informing the Canadian government of widespread electoral fraud and contesting the election results, and “proof” was dispatched to Canada. The claim was false and the information forged. Cain knew that. The government in Canada knew that. Most people who read about it in the following weeks in the media also probably suspected it was all fake. But it was enough, and it would shape the outcome of the Charlotte Conference of[FONT="] August 1923[/FONT]
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[FONT="] The Conference was held in Charlotte, capital city of the Dominion of Columbia, sitting on the Pacific Coast. Held at the request of the Canadian and Columbian governments, the conference was attended by representatives from the Dominion governments of Australia, Canada, Columbia and Indiana, a delegation from Newfoundland, Albert Cain himself (though he notably arrived a few days late due to the distance and trouble of getting out of Britain), delegates from British India, the Caribbean territories, and scattered attendees from colonies in Africa and Asia. The Conference was initially dominated by three men: the First Ministers of Canada, Columbia and Australia (Matth[FONT="]ew Caldwe[FONT="]ll, [/FONT]Richard Green[/FONT], and [FONT="]James Evans [/FONT]respectively). As heads of the three main Dominions they led and steered the conference throughout the several days of its duration. There were three primary goals to the Charlotte Conference: who should the Empire declare for in the Civil War (if anyone), what their response/aid should be to the fighting and how does the Empire and the colonies govern/manage themselves in the absence of direct British rule. It was very clear from the offset that no one of any credible rank had any interest in declaring for Carr and the Collectivists. Hostility to that ideological faction, compounded by violence not only in Britain, but the Dominions and in neighbouring New England (who had a representative at the Conference, as an allied observer and its worth mentioning that the Commonwealth still had the British monarch as nominal Head of State) as well as of course fear of the Collectivist armies massing in Tejas and California, meant that sympathies lay with the “loyalist” regime in Oxford. Hesitations over whether not to declare openly for the Oxford government over the democratically elected government were brushed aside by the arrival of Albert Cain and the “Cain Telegram”. With overwhelming support the Conference declared for the Oxford government and the monarchists.
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[FONT="]Delegates at the [FONT="]First C[FONT="]harlotte Conference, 1923
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[FONT="] Second to address was the issue of aid and support. Canada and Newfoundland immediately announced they would accept exiles, as well as inviting those elements of the monarchy and political establishment that hadn’t already fled to Canada to do so. The Dominions also began making plans to deploy troops to colonial regions in the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere to allow British Army units to be sent back to Britain. The Commonwealth of New England also offered to provide troops for garrison duties as well as pledging financial and material aid. A welcome addition was the arrival of the Portuguese ambassador in Charlotte who, with instructions from Lisbon, promised the support of the Porto-Brasilian Empire in aiding the loyalist faction and their country’s oldest ally. In fact though there was talk of expeditionary forces to aid the Civil War fighting, it was Portugal that was the most bellicose. Wary of the Palma Pact in Europe and with Collectivist Peru a threat to Portugal, as well as of course the increasing tensions in East Asia, Lisbon was terrified of a British collapse. It would prove to be the Portuguese who would be most influential in convincing the Empire to adopt a more aggressive response to the outbreak of the fighting. An expeditionary force was ordered to be assembled under Canadian control immediately. Finally upon how to govern the Empire: for now it was agreed that whilst under nominal rule from Oxford effective governance was divided with the Canadian First Minister to take effective control of the Western Hemisphere and the Australian the Eastern. A more permanent solution to Imperial governance and talks of a full political transition for the Empire were mooted and warmly received, but were postponed for now to a second conference to be held at a later date.
[/FONT] [FONT="] Two groups of representatives were fairly quiet throughout the Conference; both would take very different directions than the rest of the Charlotte Conference attendees in the coming period. The first was British India. For a while, decades even, the British Empire, its governments and citizens, had all knowingly played along with the idea that India was a true part of the Empire. In fact it was anything but. By the turn of century, India enjoyed a sense of autonomy unlike any other part of the Empire. By 1922 and the outbreak of the Civil War India was independent in all but name. The Governor-General oversaw India directly from the regional capital in Calcutta. Also under his gaze were the British vassal states on the subcontinent, Orissa and the states of the former Delhi Sultanate. The Governor-General was a royal appointment, based on a recommendation by the Indian Assembly, comprised of local Indian elite, high ranking British officials and the members of the increasing number of important offspring of the Anglo-Indian intermarried classes. Though this in theory made the Indian Assembly subject to the crown, in reality the British government simply had been rubberstamping the Assembly’s recommendations for half a century. The Governor-General at the time of the Civil War was the well-respected but ambitious Lord Thomas Hyde. Hyde was representative of the Anglo-Indian elite now running India. The son of a respected English aristocratic family, whose mother and wife were both native Indian nobility (from families with ties to the old Maratha rulers), he had been educated at university in England as well as at the prestigious Calcutta University. Not only did he speak fluent English, but French and several Indian languages, had made every effort to integrate himself and his family into Indian traditions and had extensive ties amongst the British and Indian power centres on the subcontinent, as well as importantly enough after his service in the Great War, with the Indian Army (by now a near totally autonomous military force of 200,000 men, with most of the “British” elements already sent back to Britain for the fighting). In other words he was the right man in the right time for what followed and in hindsight it is likely Hyde was planning on such a move anyway and was given the opportunity by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1922. The declaration of the Commonwealth of India on [FONT="]November 10th 192[FONT="]4[/FONT] [/FONT]was as perfectly executed as it was shocking. Meeting in an extraordinary session the Indian Assembly passed almost unanimously (with a few [FONT="]skeptic[/FONT] members apparently not informed of the vote till after the fact) the new Constitution of the Commonwealth of India. Heavily modelled on that of New England, the Commonwealth was a federal state comprising all of British India. In addition after promises of guarantees to the rulers, Orissa and [FONT="]one or [FONT="]two of the[/FONT][/FONT] former Delhi states were absorbed as constituent federal states[FONT="]. [FONT="]T[FONT="]he other (heavi[FONT="]ly Muslim) states were not [FONT="]added as sectarian tensions between Hindu and Muslim had been inflamed by the acts of the Delhi [FONT="]Sultanate in the Great War[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]. These Musli[FONT="]m states rose up [FONT="]in rebellion against [FONT="]British rule, and for the most part Calcutta let them leave, though blo[FONT="]ody border skirmis[FONT="]hes were endemic.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]Back in Calcutta, [/FONT]Hyde was made Lord Chancellor, with his long term ally the Nawab (local princely ruler) of Dhaka made Deputy Minister and Chairman of the Assembly. India was now an independent state with the British Monarch remaining ceremonial head of state (this was [FONT="]an empty gesture[FONT="] aimed only at somewhat placating the British)[/FONT][/FONT]. New plans to expand suffrage to the Indian upper and parts of the middle class were laid, the Army was removed of any officers whose loyalty was suspect (a few scattered cases of skirmishing occurred), declarations of a “unified, independent and free India” were read across the subcontinent and the move was effectively unchallenged. What could Britain and its Empire do? Very little in fact. With Britain itself consumed by Civil War, Australia fixated on Japan and Canada leading efforts to help the monarchy, the Empire was left with no choice but to accept the new state of affairs. The maintenance of the Monarch as Head of State continued the polite fiction of respective loyalty to Britain, but for all intents and purposes India had declared its independence from Britain, with barely a shot being fired.
[/FONT] [FONT="] The other part of the Empire to take a different road was the Dominion of Indiana. A small representative team was at Charlotte, but they contributed little and kept to themselves. Indiana had been drifting for years, with resentment towards Imperial control growing in the population, and pan-native nationalism emerging as not only a unifying force amongst the various tribes of the Dominion but as the focal point for the emergence of a two party system in Tanka Wicoti, between Nationalist and Unionist parties. Dominated by the Sioux[FONT="],[/FONT] the Nationalist elements in Indiana had increasingly been inspired by Collectivism, and it was under this pan-native Collectivist ideology that Indiana would go its own way. As calls for Indiana to commit troops to the expeditionary force for Britain came, the government in Tanka Wicoti refused to send more of its sons to die in another “White Man’s War”. The government fell, and the opposition took power. Quickly moving to secure the country and with suspiciously large and pre-prepared stockpiles of weapons (it is now clear that to quite a great extent Mexico City’s hand was in play here) the new government abolished all ties to Britain. The independent First People’s Collective was declared. Around a fifth of the political and military establishment remained loyal to the Crown. And whereas India and Calcutta were a world away, Indiana was not. As the loyalists made a fighting stand, Canadian troops, those few not already occupied, entered in their support to put down the ‘rebellion’.
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[FONT="]Flag of the Fi[FONT="]rst People's Collective[/FONT][/FONT]
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[/FONT] [FONT="]This period would also see the loss of one of Britain’s most important overseas territories. Seized from France in 1902 and briefly run in co-operation with Turkey, Egypt was a semi-independent part of the British Empire. As British forces were withdrawn during the 1920s it was only a matter of time before the Egyptians rose up. The trigger was the news of the developments in India. Emboldened by this news and working on the (accurate) assumption that Britain was far too pre-occupied to intervene, the Egyptian army (an autonomous force) seized control of Egypt. Securing Cairo, the Suez Canal and other major bases the Egyptians, under the overall command of General Maguid, soon had almost total control of the country. Maguid however wisely ordered his forces not to attack the British. Remaining British garrisons were surrounded but not shot at, high ranking British officials and tourists were arrested and detained but broadly well treated and the border with British Syria was secured but not crossed. This was a[FONT="] smart [/FONT]policy. Acting effectively independently the British Governor of Syria, Lord Alden, began negotiations with Maguid. In return for the transfer of British soldiers and civilians and a guarantee of British access through the Suez Canal, Alden recognised the new Egyptian regime. Some in Damascus argued for intervention to restore British control, to which Alden is reported to have said “you are welcome to try and conquer Egypt my friends, but even if each of you was to personally kill 10,000 Egyptian soldiers we would still be outnumbered”. Cameron and the Loyalist government were furious at this decision and it was a blow to the Empire as a whole, but in reality there is little they could have done differently. As Maguid, effectively now dictator began securing control of Egypt in the name of the King (Ismail II), the question arose about what to do with the other parts of the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East. The Protectorate of Mecca, remained under Turkish protection as Britain regrouped in Syria (a rising here incidentally was defeated by the British Army which proved it could still fight when needed), but British rule in Sudan and central Africa (always rather tenuous) collapsed. Though the coastal territories were for the most part secured, Britain lost the will or means to retain influence in the interior. Instead a new scramble for the centre of Africa began, as Egypt joined the European powers (principally Portugal, Spain and Italy but also Denmark) and Mysore in rushing to secure this new vacuum as local African elites also sought their chance to liberate themselves. From the Niger River to the Red Sea, there was chaos and anarchy.
[/FONT] [FONT="] It was against the backdrop of Indian Independence, the declaration of the FPC and rampant Mysorean-Japanese aggression in Asia that the second Charlotte Conference was called in [FONT="]February[/FONT] 1925. With several notable absentees this second edition was attended by high ranking officials from the loyalist government in Britain, Edward Prince of Wales, the Dominions of Canada, Columbia and Australia, representation from the colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, Newfoundland and Ireland as well as leading elements from the Royal Army and Navy. Their choice was an obvious one: closer integration o[FONT="]r do they allo[FONT="]w the [FONT="][FONT="]complete[/FONT] [FONT="]fragmentation[/FONT] of the Empire?[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] It was clear that the Empire risked falling apart and with War in East Asia, Collectivist scares in North America and Britain still in the heart of Civil War, something had to be done. Interestingly with India and the FPC now out of the equation, it made consensus building far easier. And after an impassioned and now world famous speech by Princess Catherine (the second child of King George) and the political skills of Canadian First Minister [/FONT][FONT="][FONT="][FONT="]Caldwe[FONT="]ll[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] the Second Charlotte Conference would announce the formation of the Imperial Federation. A federal full political union aimed at uniting what was left of the Empire. [FONT="]Enthusiastically sup[FONT="]ported by Australia which was already mobilising its forces as Japanese and Mys[FONT="]orean [FONT="]expansionism tore through East Asia and with the Dominion f[FONT="]eeling increasingly isolated and threate[FONT="]ned, ty[FONT="]ing the rest of t[FONT="]he Empire to it seemed like a d[FONT="]amn good idea. [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]Headed by the monarch and with its capital in London (in theory, but with the Civil War still far from decided the
de facto Imperial capital was Charlotte, with the Canadian capital Newcastle seen as too close to the fighting in the FPC), the Imperial Federation was a politically unified super state. There were six federal commonwealths comprising the IF: Canada, Columbia, Newfoundland, Australia, Britain and Ireland. The addition of Ireland as a separate commonwealth was much debated but with the insistence of Irish loyalist attendees and the theory (proved correct) that this level of appreciation for Ireland might win over some of the rebel nationalist elements in that country, it went ahead. Each commonwealth would have a Federal Parliament (not overly dissimilar from the current Dominion governments in three cases), subservient to a new Imperial Parliament to be convened after the Civil War (assuming the loyalists won it). The Imperial Parliament was to be of two houses: a lower which would feature 300 MPs from the commonwealths, with each commonwealth having a number of seats proportional to population, and an upper with 70 members, with each commonwealth being given ten seats, with the rest given over to representatives from the colonial regions, the military and other bodies. The leader of the largest bloc in the lower Imperial Parliament would ser[FONT="]ve as[FONT="] Imperial[FONT="] First Minister (a job Caldwell had his eye on) and serve as Head of Gover[FONT="]nment. The other First Ministers [FONT="]were subservient to the[FONT="]ir Imperial counterpart, this they accepted. The British were mo[FONT="]re resistant[FONT="], not keen on having [FONT="]their Prime M[FONT="]inis[FONT="]ter subservient to this new role. But with the Houses of Parliament under artillery fire and the Empire [FONT="]collapsing[/FONT], they relented (Cameron too now began [FONT="]eyeing this position).
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]The remaining non commonwealth colonies were now under Imperial (simply a matter of renaming in most cases) control with plans drawn up for gradual integration and granting of commonwealth status depending on progression. Imperial forces moved to secure what [FONT="]they could[/FONT], in alliance with New England and Portugal. Denmar[FONT="]k too had secured British Caribbean and Atlantic territories, which is now turned over to [FONT="]Imperial rule. Danish co-operation was well appreciated in Charlotte, and the government in Copenhagen was [FONT="][FONT="]satisfied[/FONT] that its moves had secure British [FONT="]friendship (increasingly important as Europe seemed to be marching once more to war).[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] [/FONT]The new Imperial Constitution was put to a referendum in the territories. Canada and Newfoundland passed it overwhelmingly. Australia and Columbia (motivated in part by fear of the CSA and Japan respectively) passed it with large majorities also. Britain and Ireland due to the troubles in those countries had the Constitution passed by the rump loyalist assemblies in very hastily organised and conducted votes. While the constitutional and political earthquake of the Imperial Federation was finalising itself, the Expeditionary force comprising Canadian, Columbian and other Imperial forces, supported by detachments from New England (which had quietly following the declaration of the Imperial Federation removed the British monarch as Head of State, completing its part to full independence) and Brasil set off from the Canadian port of Lanville en route to Britain. [/FONT]
