Glen
Moderator
It's a fair criticism, but the timeframe still allows for the deal to go through before Bertie's set can settle into power.
However, it might require some more elaboration on the politics to show both the friction between sovereign and parliament after this deal, and its resolution in the end. Actually this is less of a problem for this thread than it is for the Anglo-German Alliance where war with France actually breaks out! Therefore, I will cc this to that thread as well.
However, it might require some more elaboration on the politics to show both the friction between sovereign and parliament after this deal, and its resolution in the end. Actually this is less of a problem for this thread than it is for the Anglo-German Alliance where war with France actually breaks out! Therefore, I will cc this to that thread as well.
Glen,
whilst I entirely agree that this is what they should have done, and we would have been delivered from most of the evils of the 20th entury, there is a problem.
For reasons that are not entirely clear Edward VII was violently anti-German, despite the fact his brothers ruled German states and he spoke English with a german accent. It may have been with his dissolute ways he did not get on with his parents, but mainly because he had fallen in with ardent Imperialist enthusiasts who were part of his "Set" at Marlborough House - Lord Esher was one - and also connected to the Roundtable - , Sir Charles Dilke another.
He had also been a protege of Palmerston in his youth.
This meant he was an ardent advocate of the Triple Entente, - an entente with France, and adopting the idea of certain Imperialists of the '90's, an alliance with Russia. He used his position as king to actively promote these, although clearly with the support of a cliche of leading politicians.
He is credited with getting the French Entente "in the bag" when the French thought it was too soon, and the critical meeting with Isvolsky in Copenhagen in spring 1905.
So instead of the assassination of WII he will have to be removed and Albert II, his son, become king in his stead.
"Bertie", Prince of Wales falls downstairs in a high class Paris bordello in 1896 and the details of the accident are covered up.
He is the "knave" card in all of this and the outcome of events and not his much-maligned nephew.