Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
I'm working my way through the postscript pieces at the moment, and I'd just like to add in my comment- this is an absolutely magnificent timeline, the first I've read from start to end in a long time. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it.
This may be covered in a postscript pieces (or possibly several?) but I'd be very interested to see some chapters on decolonisation in this world. You've touched on France, but I'd be interested to see how things are going for the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and of course the British.
One specific question about the Dominion of India: is the King-Emperor (or I guess here Queen-Empress) still head of state in 1980?
This may be covered in a postscript pieces (or possibly several?) but I'd be very interested to see some chapters on decolonisation in this world. You've touched on France, but I'd be interested to see how things are going for the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and of course the British.
One specific question about the Dominion of India: is the King-Emperor (or I guess here Queen-Empress) still head of state in 1980?
Garrison
Donor
Thank you. The emperor part of the title is dropped but the Queen is technically head of state until the 1970s.
As it stands I have three more postscripts written which will be posted at the start of 2024, but beyond that other writing projects are beckoning and I think I will probably call time on this TL as I don't want to run it into the ground or just get bored of writing for it.
Postscript Aftermath - Britain – A Land Fit for Heroes 1945-1983
Garrison
Donor
Postscript Aftermath - Britain – A Land Fit for Heroes 1945-1983
A good war is inevitably something of a contradiction in terms, war is innately a destructive thing, however there are two ways in which one can consider a war to have been good. The first is that fighting was morally justified, and in this regard the major criticism of the British usually focuses on their failure to take decisive action against Nazi Germany sooner rather than later, not their choice to fight. The reasons why taking such a firm stance was difficult if not impossible have been rehearsed many times but barring a few fringe historians on the far right of the political spectrum that Britain fought a just war is not disputed. The more pragmatic way of looking at whether a war was good or not is of course whether a nation was on the winning side. Superficially this seems an easier proposition to judge, but the complication come from the cost of that victory and whether nations that were victorious in war had ‘won the peace’. World War I clearly illustrated the issues. Britain had indeed been on the winning side but the fact that the victory had been less than total, and the post-war issues faced by the country led to a deep sense that war had been futile and pointless, culminating in the fact that the ‘war to end all wars’ had failed dismally to deliver on that grand claim.Victory in World War II had come at a considerable cost to the British both in lives, money and damage to the national infrastructure but the Imperial possessions in Africa and Asia had been successfully defended by forces from the British Empire and the British found themselves with considerable influence over the future of the other European colonial empires. Some have lamented the ‘decline’ of the empire post-war, but the reality was that even before the outbreak of hostilities some sort of rationalization and retrenchment had been inevitable, and the outcome of the war left Britain with the ability to choose when and how it ‘downsized’ the empire and focus maintaining relationships with those newly independent countries that offered economic opportunities while walking away from others. Focusing on these former colonial possessions was something of necessity as while relations with the USA remained cordial, they were not especially close and relations with the French, Dutch, and Italians were positively chilly, owing to British ‘interference’ in their colonial possessions. This was not to say Britain had no friends in Europe. Relations with the Poles became increasingly warm in the 1950’s and 60’s. Given the considerable growth of the Polish economy during this period, partly as a result of being a major recipient of Marshall Plan aid, this a fruitful relationship for the British. Britain would also eventually establish a strong trading relationship with the resurgent Federal German Republic, which alongside their links to Poland gave them a significant role in the formation of the European Free Trade Zone.
The continued focus on Asia and Africa certainly benefitted the Royal Navy. While there would still be a terrible reckoning for their battleships the RN would successfully argue the need for new generations of carriers, cruisers and destroyers, though they would sometime have to accept that many of these ships would be rather long in the tooth before they were replaced, with the carrier HMS Vanguard and the five ships of the Tiger Class of cruisers soldiering until the 1980s, though they would all give good service until their retirement.
Demobilization of large parts of the army was a high priority for the British even before victory in Japan. There was however a reluctance to return too quickly to the prewar condition of an army that was incapable of dealing with a major crisis in a hurry, something that would be emphasized by the Red Skies Crisis and repeated turmoil in Eastern Europe and Asia. Conscription still had negative connotations in Britain, so they simply chose to give it a new name, National Service. Introduced in 1946 it would eventually embrace more than two million men between the ages of 17 and 22 before it finally ended. That the Labour government was so willing to embrace this form of military service surprised many, especially in the USA where it had been assumed that a collection of hardline Socialists would gut the military to finance their social programs. Beyond the fact that Labour was keenly aware that Britain still had global commitments there was also the consideration that with so many men having to be demobilized and seeking to return to their former employment there was a risk that many young men would find themselves unable to find employment. Taking them into the military would allow Britain to meet its commitments, keep these young men off the streets and provide at least some of them with skills that would be useful when they returned to civilian life. Inevitably some of these young men would find themselves in active combat and preparations were made for a major British deployment to Korea had the Manchurian Conflict continued, which much to the relief of the British government was rendered unnecessary by the Dulu’er bomb. Other flashpoints where many of the National Servicemen spent their time in uniform included the Israel/Palestine border and the Suez Canal Zone, especially after discussions over financing the Aswan Dam threatened to breakdown in 1956. Other postings were far more popular with the men, Poland and Germany being highly regarded in the 1950s as both countries rapidly recovered from the war and proved convivial to British squaddies. In many respects it was Dulu’er that marked the beginning of the end for National Service. Britain’s possession of its own nuclear deterrent means less need for a massed army and at the same time the increasing cost of modern weapon systems meant that there was a desire to move to a smaller more professional force that could retain its hard-won skills rather than starting over every eighteen months. National Service finally ended in 1964, to the relief of a generation of teenage boys.
Inevitably the British economy would see some significant ups and downs, arguably reaching a low ebb in the 1960s before both Labour and Conservative governments reversed what was now seen as the overreach of post-war nationalization and many British household names such as Cadbury and ICI grew considerably as the 1970’s arrived, either by exporting to the burgeoning Asian markets or, more controversially, outsourcing production to former colonial possessions, with Malaya and Burma proving especially popular. Britain would also see a boost from something that was unconnected to the war, the boom in North Sea oil. The creation of the National Oil Fund in 1977 would see profits from oil production funnelled into infrastructure and regional development. The flow of money from the fund increased considerably after the outbreak of the seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East during the 1980s, which some British historians and politicians have blamed on the progressive decline in British involvement in that region over the preceding decades.
The distribution of the oil fund created political tensions inside Britain as the Scottish Nationalist Party stridently claimed that it was ‘Scottish Oil’. After victory in the 1978 election the Labour government negotiated a larger share of the fund going to Scotland and agreed to a referendum on limited devolution, crucially accepting that a simple majority in the poll would be sufficient. A narrow victory by the supporters of devolution saw the establishment of a devolved parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh, though to the surprise of the SNP it would be dominated by Labour for most of the next two decades as it slowly won more powers. This led to a campaign by Welsh nationalists for a similar arrangement, but they struggled to gain traction, ironically for fear that devolution might lead to a lesser share in the NOF. A very limited assembly would only be agreed to in the 1990s. As for Northern Ireland, meaningful discussions over its political future didn’t even begin until after the ‘ceasefire’ between the Republican and Loyalist factions that was negotiated in 1988.
Overall, then if Britain had been forced to accept the end of its time as a global superpower after World War II, then it at least was able to settle into a relatively comfortable existence as middle ranked power, with the ‘gravity of the political centre’ drawing the major parties closer in terms of economic and social policy than either would have been comfortable admitting.
Garrison
Donor
This is the last of the national postscripts. There was going to be more about Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland, but it would probably stir up the wrong sort of discussion. Suffice to say that some form of the partition plan is maintained in the Middle East and Northern Ireland lumbers towards peace sooner, probably reflecting some of the more egregious mistakes by the British are avoided.
Also not going to give a further list pf British PMs but if you guessed that the next Conservative PM was Heseltine or Howe I wouldn't say you were wrong.
Also not going to give a further list pf British PMs but if you guessed that the next Conservative PM was Heseltine or Howe I wouldn't say you were wrong.
Garrison
Donor
Devolution is inevitable with the Scots once the oilfields start coming online and there has been some long standing grievances there, and as for Northern Ireland, well that's been going on for 400 years.
Garrison
Donor
There are two more postscript updates, about Germany and the Middle East, but that will be it as it stands. For a TL originally planned to finish in 1942 its suffered a lot of mission creep.
I suppose we really should stop holding you hostage for more updates now...There are two more postscript updates, about Germany and the Middle East, but that will be it as it stands. For a TL originally planned to finish in 1942 its suffered a lot of mission creep.
Garrison
Donor
More of an economic low point, though all things are relative. Britain's cultural impact is about the same and perhaps greater in Asia.
The British invasion brought a lot of money into the country, It's why the Queen gave the Beatles a medal.
Postscript Germany - Ein Volk 1983
Garrison
Donor
Postscript Germany - Ein Volk 1983
Life in the German Socialist Republic had never been easy or prosperous, regardless of what the propaganda emanating from Munich claimed. The output of propaganda was symbolic of the state of the entire East German economy, a moribund industry turning out low quality products that the people only consumed because there was nothing else available, though thanks to the saturating power of the media generated by its democratic and capitalist neighbours the people were acutely aware that there were better things on offer outside of the Communist Bloc. Periodic calls for reform had been brutally rejected and when Yuri Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev in 1979, he took an even harder line with the USSR’s satellite states, attempting to use Iran as object lesson to others who doubted to resolve of Moscow to hold on to its sphere. As with the rest of Andropov’s policies this one failed badly. Far from reinforcing revolutionary zeal in the GSR this ‘not one step back’ attitude only served to convince many in the country’s intelligentsia, those who hadn’t escaped the country or been imprisoned that the only solution to the country’s ills was to dissolve the GSR and create a reunited Germany.In the west reunification had been regarded with apprehension in previous decades but by the end of the 1970s the Federal German Republic was a bastion of democracy and an integral part of the economic and military networks that tied the nations of Western Europe together and whatever trepidation might have been felt in London, Paris and Warsaw was offset by the desire to see the communist redoubt in Western Europe finally removed. The place where there were the most serious concerns about reunification was in the FGR itself, where there were extensive discussions about the costs of absorbing the GSR and the social disruption it would entail, particularly if the GSR were to collapse into chaos. Overall given the relative size and economic strength of the two German states reunification might be painful, but the FGR could ride it out if the time came, though they still expected it would be many years before it became a practical concern.
Also weighing the balance of western opinion in favour of reunification was the efforts of a group of leading East Germans who had fled the country and organized themselves to keep the predicament of their fellow countrymen in the public. This collection of writers, artists scientists and other elements of the brain drain that had continued to plague the GSR became the authors of Charter 80, a document which called for the recognition that the GSR was a failed state and that its people had been exiled from the rest of Europe for no better reason than the insistence of the USSR on having their pound of flesh after World War II, and had remained cut off because Moscow couldn’t bear the humiliation of admitting that Communism had failed in East Germany. Coming only a few months after the Soviets invaded Iran Charter 80 attracted a great deal of attention in the West, which meant details of it reached the GSR almost immediately. Charter 80 served to crystallize the idea that the GSR had been come little more than a giant concentration camp, a comparison that may have made people in the west rather squeamish but citizens of the GSR had no such qualms. The idea that they were imprisoned and being used as nothing more than forced labour for the benefit of the Politburo in Moscow was one the leadership couldn’t crush however hard it tried.
Naturally most people in the GSR weren’t concerned with the political niceties east versus west, they were worried about their of living. Already low it took a serious downturn in the aftermath of the invasion of Iran. There had been an escalating embargo on Soviet exports and imports since the invasion. This hadn’t initially been extended to the GSR and other Bratislava Pact nations, but the leader of the GSR, Kaspar Liehard, enthusiastically endorsed the Soviet action and in a speech on April 22nd 1982 even went so far as to volunteer military support to ‘fight for the revolutionary cause in Iran’. Liehard had only come to power at the end of 1981 and was a relative young and charismatic leader, by East German standards, and one who felt the need to ingratiate himself with Moscow, ironically in the hopes of persuading the Soviets to allow him to make desperately needed changes to keep the GSR from collapse. Publicly Andropov supported the speech, though privately he saw right through and regarded Liehard as unreliable. Liehard’s name was unfortunately a gift for western politicians and the embargoes were swiftly extended to the GSR, which was a massive blow to a country heavily dependent on imported food and fuel and given its geography the GSR received much of its basic needs from its capitalist neighbours not its Communist allies, who offered little in the way of practical assistance to East Germany. The USSR could have invoked its transit rights to support the GSR directly and while they insisted on maintaining these rights the flow of supplies to the GSR was barely more than a gesture as the USSR was also struggling in 1982 and fearful that any large scale effort to prop up the GSR might provoke a military clash.
Things continued in a downward spiral, only getting worse when one of the Communist Party’s old school hardliner’s, Albrecht Bachmayer, who had previously been President for a brief transitional period at the beginning of the 1970s, now ousted Liehard and took up the office once more, with the full support of Moscow. He banished any idea of reform and promised to take a hardline against ‘traitors and provocateurs in the pay of the Poles and the Americans’. That the Poles attracted so much of his ire could be trace back to the fact that in some ways Bachmayer was an old-fashioned German nationalist who resented the ‘theft’ of German territory by the west and had nothing but disdain for the Poles as a people. Poland had also become a hotbed for political dissidents from across the Bratislava Pact and at the beginning of the 1980s the Poles were once again discussing acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons. This all contributed to Bachmayer’s bunker mentality, and he established his rule with a purge of what he saw as unreliable elements in the GSR, stretching the already full prisons of the state to bursting point.
There was no small irony in the fact that just as Bachmayer was reaffirming pure unreconstructed Communist values the hardline cadre in Moscow was losing its grip on power. In February 1983 Andropov retired, citing the old standard of ill-health and paving the way for the altogether more ‘ebullient’ Boris Yeltsin to take over as General Secretary. Much has been written about whether he was a genuine reformer, an incompetent, a drunk, or a cocktail of all three. Whatever drove Yeltsin forwards his policy in regard to the GSR was much the same as that he adopted with the Communist governments in Tehran and Kabul, which could be summed up as ‘good luck, you’re on your own own’ as he radically dialled back on the commitment of Soviet forces in the Middle East and Europe. This might have been expected to be fiercely resisted by the Red Army and the Politburo, but the army leadership had long since concluded the GSR was of little strategic value and supporting the regime there militarily in the event of a crisis would inevitably escalate into a global nuclear conflict. There was also an acute awareness of just how overstretched the Soviet armed forces were becoming. In the early 1980s they were having to modernize their equipment to try and keep pace with the latest western hardware, provide a counter to the NATO forces in Europe, face off against an ever more assertive China and worry about the unrest among the Muslim population in the Central Asian SSRs. Given the looming threat that USSR might crack under the weight of all the issues facing it and that the GSR was an economic liability there was little dissent from the newly reconstituted Politburo, if anything there was a sense of relief that someone had finally uttered the truth, even if some thought it was a case of ‘in vino veritas’. Yeltsin certainly wasn’t advocating the overthrow of the Communist regime in the GSR; he was only trying to make Bachmayer accept the reality of the economic and geopolitical situation and change course. This was not how the citizens of the GSR took his message and the country was on the countdown to a confrontation between the people and the authorities that reached its flashpoint in April of 1983.
The demonstrations on the streets of Munich and Stuttgart that started on the 17th of April took the German authorities completely by surprise. The GSR’s secret police, the Stasi, were watching the usual suspects who might have been expected to lead any protests. Some of these people had only recently been released from detention, which was not a humanitarian act on the part of the government. The hope was that putting them back in circulation would flush out associates and provide evidence to allow them all to be arrested. Some of these individuals would come to the forefront of the protest movement as it transformed into outright rebellion against the GSR, but importantly they did not instigate it. The first demonstrations were spontaneous and grew organically, escalating far beyond anything the small groups of student and disgruntled workers who supported them could ever have imagined. In the space of three days the protests went from hundreds, to thousands, to tens of thousands on the streets of Munich and the demands of the protestors swelled alongside their numbers.
The response from Bachmayer was to fall back on well-worn tactics, send in the riot police, scatter the protestors and then have examples made afterwards, while the ringleaders would simply vanish altogether. With hindsight the fact that these tactics were so familiar explains why they failed in 1983. The protestors knew they had crossed a line from which there was no going back and when the riot police went in the protestors fought back. The police had the equipment, but the protestors had the numbers, and the police, whose own confidence in the regime was perhaps less than total, were driven back. There were casualties on both sides and shields helmets and batons were wielded as trophies by the protestors. The response of the leadership was to deploy the GSR Army and to call on the Red Army contingent based in the country for assistance. When this request was relayed to Moscow the response was not the one Bachmayer might have expected. Far from supporting using tanks to crush protestors Yeltsin demanded that the Red Army act to restrain Bachmayer and hopefully have his predecessor step in to deescalate the situation. The response from the GSR army was equally bad from the perspective of Bachmayer. Made up largely of poorly paid conscripts whose families were suffering just like everyone else some troops refused to leave their barracks and others actively turned against the regime, looking to link up with and protect the protestors rather than disperse them.
On the morning of the 22nd of April Bachmayer was forced to allow Liehard to ‘temporarily’ assume control of the GSR, but there was nothing to be done to save the GSR by this point, barring mowing down the protesters in the streets, something that neither Liehard nor Yeltsin would countenance. Liehard pinned his hopes on plans to open the borders and allow free travel between the GSR and its neighbours. Announcing this concession only served to encourage the protestors who were now becoming far better organized, and they were now insistent, they wanted an end to one party rule, to the Stasi, to the whole existence of the GSR. This last demand was too much for Liehard, but with Moscow unwilling to risk any escalation in tensions with the west Liehard had little choice but to concede on the other demands. The Stasi among others were far from happy about this radical change of policy, but they focused their attention on destroying as many of their documents as possible to stave off the threat of being prosecuted for the numerous crimes they had committed should the state collapse. The Stasi would be defeated in this effort by the sheer scale of their operations and their insistence on keeping meticulous files on every aspect of it. The downside of this inability to destroy all the evidence were the revelations about just how many citizens of the GSR had been informants for the Stasi.
Liehard’s fresh concessions got the protestors off the streets for the time being and stabilized the situation. With this achieved Bachmayer was swiftly invited to Moscow to consult with Yeltsin, while leaving Liehard in charge in the GSR. These discussions were stretched out for weeks, making it obvious to everyone except Bachmayer that he was being patronized by the Soviet leader while being kept out of harm’s way. Bachmayer continued to entertain hopes he could reclaim his position and restore the status quo ante in the GSR even as the country was entering its final days. Throughout May 1983 there was steadily increasing flow of people trying to visit the west and queues steadily built up outside every office where visas were being issued, this was not a deliberate action of obstructionism but merely reflected the fact that the GSR bureaucracy wasn’t geared up to handle this level of demand. Most people only wanted to try out their newfound freedom and had no intention of fleeing the country. They were however keen to buy western goods, and this created a crisis as the GSR limited reserves of foreign exchange ran out.
Trying to make good on the promise to end one party rule was equally fraught. For all the enthusiasm of the opposition trying to form competing parties was a struggle and many in the establishment found it very hard to let go of the levers of power. This explains why at the beginning of June the threat of fresh protests loomed over the GSR and prompted Liehard to open secret talks with the FGR government in Hannover, seeking an accommodation that would preserve the GSR as a state while bringing greater integration between the two Germanies. This would have been an impossible balancing act under any circumstances and given the ongoing collapse of the East German economy there was no hope of the FGR agreeing to anything short of complete control over financial affairs, which in practice meant reunification. News of these talks leaked to FGR media on the 9th of June, who portrayed them as an outright discussion of the mechanics of reunification. Once word of this reached the citizens of the GSR the people took to the streets once more, demanding no further delays to the negotiations. With Moscow still unwilling to bail the GSR out Liehard had little choice but to accept the terms of co-operation laid out by the FGR, which didn’t quite amount to outright reunification but made the process that led to it unstoppable and the formal dissolution of GSR took place on the 7th of February 1984.
Garrison
Donor
That is somewhere beyond 1983, but I wouldn't be surprised if some glamorous descendent of someone whose reputation has been rewritten over the decades plays a part.
So Umberto II dissolves South Italy and merges with North Italy?
Also who leads India as of 1983? Is it still a Dominion.
So the next and final update is about Oil Wars?
Interesting how the UK and USA did not form the “special relationship” after WW2 due to the British Empire fighting more independently and successfully during and after the war.