Thank you!
A negotiated peace acceptable to the UK would certainly require Japan's eviction from Hong Kong and China, so even that would still be a fairly long way off.
It's A Long Way To Nagasaki: The Anglo-Japanese War
- Thread starter SealTheRealDeal
- Start date
We will have to start to charge rent in our warehouses for your oil which you have not yet collected. We are aware you are having difficulty buying afraid that we can't put upon the warehouse owners for their generosity forever.
I want to ask will the Manchuria be a separate colony from China, would Taiwan be part of Japan, and what would Korea‘s status be after Japan surrenders?
Ps: I hope a southern and northern China situation occurs, and that south China uses Cantonese. I also hope northern Chinese uses a ping yin as Mao wanted to do so.
Ps: I hope a southern and northern China situation occurs, and that south China uses Cantonese. I also hope northern Chinese uses a ping yin as Mao wanted to do so.
Congrats on the new job. Duration of war will depend on how things happen in Europe as much as East Asia. Presumably Stalin can start inflating oil prices, especially once the Dutch can pretend to have supply problems. The loss of so much oil that early (assuming the American's go for a permanent, full cut-off also) would have interesting effects on Japan's ability to do well, anything.
I thought the title was a reference to "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" which was a popular British marching song of WW1, not a clue that Nagasaki would play a particular role in the end of the story. But yes, even if it is just a WW1 analogy it does look like it's a clue that the war is going to be a long, hard grind.
I thought about that, and it's possible that's all it is, but it does make one wonder what the author has planned. It does indicate a long war though. Long enough for UK's own Tube Alloys to somehow get somewhere perhaps?
It'll be interesting to find out, and whatever happens, it's a great read so far.
Sargon
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Why is China always so unprepared in this time period anyway?
I believe the war will end with a peace treaty between Britain China and Japan. Although it's going to drag out since the Soviets are supplying oil to the Japanese as part of the non- aggression pact. So my guess is that the war concludes sometime around 1941-42, as the John Vereker will wish to assist the desperately handicapped Chinese on the mainland.
If it means anything, there won't be mass fire bombings on Japan or Britain like in OTL.
Many reasons, corruption within the KMT, factionalism within the NRA, infiltration by Japanese collaborators, other conflicts distracting from the main war effort, a general staff that was ill prepared to fight a war of this scale, underdeveloped intelligence apparatuses, limited capabilities for aerial reconnaissance, poor living conditions and equipment quality leading to frequently low moral at the front, ect...
When it rains it pours.
Hoo boy, that's a university class in and of itself.
To try and sum up in a sentence: China started the 20th Century at a massive disadvantage stemming from terrible decision making and institutional momentum that lasted the whole 19th Century, failures that compounded as the nation turned into a quagmire of internal threats and infighting (and full-blown civil war) right at the time when all of its neighbors became external threats instead of tributary states.
Post-war OTL, China spends the rest of the 20th Century playing catch-up under Mao's communists (to mixed results) and has spent the 21st Century so far with a massive chip on its shoulder from the last two centuries.
Massively reductive, but I think that covers it.
Wow, and here I thought it was a western bias to portray the Nationalist as incompetent to cartoonish extremes.
Oh, they were incompetent. It's just... well, they had the deck stacked against them in ludicrous fashion, and kept getting their asses (well, not just them but China as a whole) kicked repeatedly. Admittedly, some of the image came from General Joseph Stilwell (the American liaison to the Nationalists) and his massive dislike of Chiang, to the degree that he would sabotage the Lend-Lease in an attempt to wrestle control of the Chinese war effort from Jiang Jieshi. Needless to say, while Joe was being an asshole, Chiang/Jiang wasn't all that competent to begin with, and he had this paranoid insistence to command every important position possible (about 110+ positions in total, including leader of the Chinese Boy Scouts!)
So a little of column A, a bit of column B. And it all added up to being a massive punching bag for Japan. The only saving grace was that a) China was way too vast and b) far too populous to be easily conquered, so they managed to turn the Chinese front into a massive quagmire for the IJA.
EDIT: Though I will give the Nationalists credit where it was due. Early in the Second Sino-Japanese War, China had some very good soldiers; German-trained and German-equipped divisions, with exceptional training and morale.
They all got wiped out at the Battle of Shanghai, which lasted for months, IIRC, but managed to inflict massive casualties on the Japanese.
See what people mean when the deck was horribly stacked against the Nationalists?
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Yeesh, talk about reality is unrealistic in full force in that conflict.
I do expect things to eventually go better for the chinese nationalist than OTL since John Vereker would have a MUCH more functional working relationship with Chiang.
20. Relief in Sight?
Disaster in High Command V: Breaking Point
Perpetual misery was the order of the day, every day, in New Britain. Outnumbered and outled, the Canadian First Division was pressed on both sides the length of a narrow corridor stretching from Uvol to Mataburu. In the forested highlands in the middle of this corridor, the line of contact became quite broken and hazy, and the Japanese were able to move supplies and personnel between the eastern and western halves of their force with near impunity. With most of their naval support having withdrawn[1], it seemed as though the Force was doomed.
McNaughton did his best to describe the situation to Imperial command in every way short of admitting that his “secure corridor” was essentially cut in half. Lord Gort may have been willing to wait to see how things progressed had it not been for the influence of the Canadian Army’s representative to the British defence establishment in Singapore.
Brigadier Harry Cerar was in many ways quite like McNaughton. He was an engineer by passion, an artilleryman by trade, cautious, arguably more familiar with military theory than practice, politically savvy, and a careerist. However, he was a serious man with no patience for sycophants or “citizen soldiers”, and he had long since run out of patience for Mcnaughton’s mishandling of his army. He was at last well positioned to act on these principles, he’d studied under Lord Gort at Camberley and easily inserted himself into the British Chief of Staff’s circle. He also had something of a working relationship with the First Division’s GSO II, Guy Simonds, and through him gained additional insight into the operations on New Britain.
Convincing Gort that McNaughton was underperforming was easy enough. Convincing him that yanking McNaughton from his post in the middle of a battle would do more good than harm was another matter. It seemed that any resolution to the issues within Canada’s military leadership would have to wait until after the New Britain operation was concluded.
Then disaster struck.
On the 4th of August, the Japanese occupied the highlands in strength, and all efforts to evict them were repulsed. The Canadian position was divided into a pair of toe holds around Uvol in the south and Mataburu in the north. In desperation McNatughton unleashed artillery barrage after artillery barrage, but only succeeded in creating a cratered, muddy obstacle course between his positions and the enemy, frustrating efforts to penetrate the enemy line.
Tensions boiled over as annihilation loomed, enough for a close call to bring down the entire house of cards. The section of the perimeter around Uvol occupied by the 1st Battalion, 48th Highlanders of Canada was subject to a surprise shock action by Japanese infantry. The line held, but delays in getting artillery support made it a costly defense for the Highlanders. To their further disappointment, they then received orders to pursue their beaten foe and probe the enemy line. To the Highlanders’ credit, they did as asked and began filtering out of their prepared positions, at which point their artillery support finally arrived. It is incredibly fortunate that only twelve injuries were sustained when shells began falling within 100 feet of the Highlanders.[2] They refused to budge after that, and refused all further orders that day.
News of the Japanese breakthrough and Highlanders’ mutiny were a one-two blow that McNaughton wouldn’t recover from. Ottawa was cabled requesting McNaughton’s dismissal, which was secured by the tenth, as was Cerrar’s promotion to Chief of the General Staff.
The insert image from a MacLeans article on the Canadian Militia's new Chief of Staff.
This still left the tricky matter of the First Division’s deadly predicament. The brigade stranded in Mataburu seemed sure to be lost before reinforcements could arrive. Lord Gort lamented that the tanks of the Ontario regiment would surely be lost with it, when they could have been so effective in the hands of a spirited commander.
As a long time resident of the Military College of Canada, Henry Cerrar was quite familiar with many of the personalities in the Canadian Militia, and he knew exactly who to slot into the leadership role in Mataburu. He knew quite well of a certain swashbuckling mercenary turned tank enthusiast who fit the bill to a T.
Relief on the Way: The Royal Marines Division
While the Canadians toiled away in misery, their relief at long last departed Jamaica: the 63rd Division, Royal Marines.
The Royal Marines Division deliberately harkened back to the 63rd Royal Naval Division of the Great War.
While many may look back and be perplexed as to why a rapid reaction force like the Royal Marines took so long to get to the fight, it must be remembered that of all the armed services of Britain they had been hit the worst by post-Great War spending cuts. As previously mentioned, their artillery arm had been abandoned entirely, and proposals to establish a standing brigade size force were shot down in the 20s.
It is also worth remembering the specific circumstances that had allowed the Royal Navy Division to be assembled so quickly in 1914. The Great War fundamentally didn’t see all that much naval action, which meant that many marine detachments and Royal Naval Reserve personnel could be quickly pooled into a ground combat unit with little consequence. The Anglo-Japanese War was very much a naval war, and the largest navy on the planet needed all the seamen it could get.
The original plan for the Royal Marine Division had called for three light infantry brigades, each with organic artillery and motorcycle-borne reconnaissance. Training with the Canadians proved particularly useful as the Canadian’s mastery-borne-of-institutional-fixation over artillery helped bring the Royal Marines Artillery back from the dead, and the Canadian Militia had also experimented with motorizing via motorcycles. This, however, led to the Marines’ progress plateauing once the Canadians departed for the Solomons.
Another thing that plateaued was recruitment. As previously mentioned, the Royal Navy was keen to make sure any naval prospect was aboard a ship. Naturally the army soaked up most of those willing to become infantrymen. Had the original plan for 2,000 man “light” brigades been kept this wouldn’t have been too much of an issue, but as reports from the Canadians made their way back to Jamaica, it quickly became apparent that Island hopping was slow and attritional in nature, rather than the sort of rapid movement the 63rd had been billed for. When approval was given for the brigades to be scaled up to a more proper 3,000 man fighting strength, Whitehall found that the required additional personnel simply weren’t forthcoming.
This left the 63rd with a troubling question with no correct answer: They could wait months longer for additional personnel, and potentially let the Canadians die on New Britain. Alternatively, they could go ahead with their original plan, and deal with the consequences of island hopping attrition when it came to it. The final option was to dissolve their third brigade, adding its battalions to the other two, and press on as a binary division. Based on his experience during the Zeebrugge Raid,[3] Major General Arthur Reginald Chater opted for the third option.
The 103rd RM Brigade was dissolved, with the 8th RM Battalion joining the 101st and the 7th RM Battalion joining the 102nd. With the dubious distinction of being the only (intentional) binary division in British service, the 63rd departed Jamaica on the 20th of July in high hopes that the Canadians would have secure and orderly landing sites for them upon their arrival in late August. Their time in transit was not as dramatic as that of the Canadians,[4] but their optimism turned to despair as new reports came in from the Canadians while the Royal marines were still much too far away to intervene in the events unfolding on New Britain.
---
[1] Both capital ships withdrew first to Australia, and then moved to their new postings. Ark Royal redeployed to Singapore, while Canada and her coaler began the long voyage to England, stoping first at Bombay where her presence helped reestablish order in the city.
[2] most were still near enough their defences to dive back in when the battery opened fire.
[3] during which the 4th Battalion Royal Marines was badly mauled when their maneuver was detected and interdicted.
[4] Marine, you see, is an acronym: My Ass Really Is Naval Equipment. Naturally the RN’s sailors weren’t going to fight their equipment.
A/N:
I got another update out before a full month has passed!
No I didn’t...
Perpetual misery was the order of the day, every day, in New Britain. Outnumbered and outled, the Canadian First Division was pressed on both sides the length of a narrow corridor stretching from Uvol to Mataburu. In the forested highlands in the middle of this corridor, the line of contact became quite broken and hazy, and the Japanese were able to move supplies and personnel between the eastern and western halves of their force with near impunity. With most of their naval support having withdrawn[1], it seemed as though the Force was doomed.
McNaughton did his best to describe the situation to Imperial command in every way short of admitting that his “secure corridor” was essentially cut in half. Lord Gort may have been willing to wait to see how things progressed had it not been for the influence of the Canadian Army’s representative to the British defence establishment in Singapore.
Brigadier Harry Cerar was in many ways quite like McNaughton. He was an engineer by passion, an artilleryman by trade, cautious, arguably more familiar with military theory than practice, politically savvy, and a careerist. However, he was a serious man with no patience for sycophants or “citizen soldiers”, and he had long since run out of patience for Mcnaughton’s mishandling of his army. He was at last well positioned to act on these principles, he’d studied under Lord Gort at Camberley and easily inserted himself into the British Chief of Staff’s circle. He also had something of a working relationship with the First Division’s GSO II, Guy Simonds, and through him gained additional insight into the operations on New Britain.
Convincing Gort that McNaughton was underperforming was easy enough. Convincing him that yanking McNaughton from his post in the middle of a battle would do more good than harm was another matter. It seemed that any resolution to the issues within Canada’s military leadership would have to wait until after the New Britain operation was concluded.
Then disaster struck.
On the 4th of August, the Japanese occupied the highlands in strength, and all efforts to evict them were repulsed. The Canadian position was divided into a pair of toe holds around Uvol in the south and Mataburu in the north. In desperation McNatughton unleashed artillery barrage after artillery barrage, but only succeeded in creating a cratered, muddy obstacle course between his positions and the enemy, frustrating efforts to penetrate the enemy line.
Tensions boiled over as annihilation loomed, enough for a close call to bring down the entire house of cards. The section of the perimeter around Uvol occupied by the 1st Battalion, 48th Highlanders of Canada was subject to a surprise shock action by Japanese infantry. The line held, but delays in getting artillery support made it a costly defense for the Highlanders. To their further disappointment, they then received orders to pursue their beaten foe and probe the enemy line. To the Highlanders’ credit, they did as asked and began filtering out of their prepared positions, at which point their artillery support finally arrived. It is incredibly fortunate that only twelve injuries were sustained when shells began falling within 100 feet of the Highlanders.[2] They refused to budge after that, and refused all further orders that day.
News of the Japanese breakthrough and Highlanders’ mutiny were a one-two blow that McNaughton wouldn’t recover from. Ottawa was cabled requesting McNaughton’s dismissal, which was secured by the tenth, as was Cerrar’s promotion to Chief of the General Staff.
The insert image from a MacLeans article on the Canadian Militia's new Chief of Staff.
This still left the tricky matter of the First Division’s deadly predicament. The brigade stranded in Mataburu seemed sure to be lost before reinforcements could arrive. Lord Gort lamented that the tanks of the Ontario regiment would surely be lost with it, when they could have been so effective in the hands of a spirited commander.
As a long time resident of the Military College of Canada, Henry Cerrar was quite familiar with many of the personalities in the Canadian Militia, and he knew exactly who to slot into the leadership role in Mataburu. He knew quite well of a certain swashbuckling mercenary turned tank enthusiast who fit the bill to a T.
Relief on the Way: The Royal Marines Division
While the Canadians toiled away in misery, their relief at long last departed Jamaica: the 63rd Division, Royal Marines.
_division_WW1.svg)
The Royal Marines Division deliberately harkened back to the 63rd Royal Naval Division of the Great War.
While many may look back and be perplexed as to why a rapid reaction force like the Royal Marines took so long to get to the fight, it must be remembered that of all the armed services of Britain they had been hit the worst by post-Great War spending cuts. As previously mentioned, their artillery arm had been abandoned entirely, and proposals to establish a standing brigade size force were shot down in the 20s.
It is also worth remembering the specific circumstances that had allowed the Royal Navy Division to be assembled so quickly in 1914. The Great War fundamentally didn’t see all that much naval action, which meant that many marine detachments and Royal Naval Reserve personnel could be quickly pooled into a ground combat unit with little consequence. The Anglo-Japanese War was very much a naval war, and the largest navy on the planet needed all the seamen it could get.
The original plan for the Royal Marine Division had called for three light infantry brigades, each with organic artillery and motorcycle-borne reconnaissance. Training with the Canadians proved particularly useful as the Canadian’s mastery-borne-of-institutional-fixation over artillery helped bring the Royal Marines Artillery back from the dead, and the Canadian Militia had also experimented with motorizing via motorcycles. This, however, led to the Marines’ progress plateauing once the Canadians departed for the Solomons.
Another thing that plateaued was recruitment. As previously mentioned, the Royal Navy was keen to make sure any naval prospect was aboard a ship. Naturally the army soaked up most of those willing to become infantrymen. Had the original plan for 2,000 man “light” brigades been kept this wouldn’t have been too much of an issue, but as reports from the Canadians made their way back to Jamaica, it quickly became apparent that Island hopping was slow and attritional in nature, rather than the sort of rapid movement the 63rd had been billed for. When approval was given for the brigades to be scaled up to a more proper 3,000 man fighting strength, Whitehall found that the required additional personnel simply weren’t forthcoming.
This left the 63rd with a troubling question with no correct answer: They could wait months longer for additional personnel, and potentially let the Canadians die on New Britain. Alternatively, they could go ahead with their original plan, and deal with the consequences of island hopping attrition when it came to it. The final option was to dissolve their third brigade, adding its battalions to the other two, and press on as a binary division. Based on his experience during the Zeebrugge Raid,[3] Major General Arthur Reginald Chater opted for the third option.
The 103rd RM Brigade was dissolved, with the 8th RM Battalion joining the 101st and the 7th RM Battalion joining the 102nd. With the dubious distinction of being the only (intentional) binary division in British service, the 63rd departed Jamaica on the 20th of July in high hopes that the Canadians would have secure and orderly landing sites for them upon their arrival in late August. Their time in transit was not as dramatic as that of the Canadians,[4] but their optimism turned to despair as new reports came in from the Canadians while the Royal marines were still much too far away to intervene in the events unfolding on New Britain.
---
[1] Both capital ships withdrew first to Australia, and then moved to their new postings. Ark Royal redeployed to Singapore, while Canada and her coaler began the long voyage to England, stoping first at Bombay where her presence helped reestablish order in the city.
[2] most were still near enough their defences to dive back in when the battery opened fire.
[3] during which the 4th Battalion Royal Marines was badly mauled when their maneuver was detected and interdicted.
[4] Marine, you see, is an acronym: My Ass Really Is Naval Equipment. Naturally the RN’s sailors weren’t going to fight their equipment.
A/N:
No I didn’t...
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Nitpick:
It this TL's WWI has gone the same way there won't be a 4th or 6th Battalion R.M.
There was a 4th Battalion R.M. that took part in the "Eleven V.C.s before Breakfast" Zeebrugge raid, and distinguished itself overwhelmingly.
There was a 6th Battalion R.M. that mutinied in North Russia.
So for different reasons those numbers won't be repeated.
It this TL's WWI has gone the same way there won't be a 4th or 6th Battalion R.M.
There was a 4th Battalion R.M. that took part in the "Eleven V.C.s before Breakfast" Zeebrugge raid, and distinguished itself overwhelmingly.
There was a 6th Battalion R.M. that mutinied in North Russia.
So for different reasons those numbers won't be repeated.
I made sure to not have a 4th, didn't know about the 6th so thanks for the heads up, I will edit accordingly.
:headdesk:
Gotta love how the pencil-pushers and institutions hobbled their own militaries before there was even a war.
Of course, it's not like they had the gift of foresight, so nobody knew how badly they'd need the Royal Marines in a couple of decades. Still, one has to pity the poor Canadians for getting torn up like that while their reinforcements have a long way to go...
Gotta love how the pencil-pushers and institutions hobbled their own militaries before there was even a war.
Of course, it's not like they had the gift of foresight, so nobody knew how badly they'd need the Royal Marines in a couple of decades. Still, one has to pity the poor Canadians for getting torn up like that while their reinforcements have a long way to go...