The next update (when it comes) will be about the British Empire. Stay tuned!
Red Sun Rising: The Reverse-Russo-Japanese War
- Thread starter Forbiddenparadise64
- Start date
The British Empire (1924-1931)
Pete Johnson, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, 2013, pp.134-137.
With a substantially changed political system having emerged since the days of the bittersweet position in the Great War, Britain has had to adapt as a nation. They on one hand, had a major ally in Franfe defeated and humiliated, with relations souring between the two as a result. On the other, they had gained several signicant territories from the Ottoman Empire, particularly Palestine, where it was hoped a Jewish state could eventually be created. This mixed situation led to some interesting political implications in the country and its empire.
With the conservative government having a Pyrrhic victory in the war, their level of support dropped over the next few years, and by the time the 1924 election came round, they lost seats in favour of the Labour Party, lead by Ramsay MacDonald. At 350 seats in parliament, labour ended up getting the largest vote in that election, and so changes in MacDonald's system of governing started. With the formation of Hejaz to maintain decent relations with its Muslim subjects and allies, he could turn his attention to floating the British economy.
Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour PM from 1924-28. With an anti-war and somewhat socialist leaning, MacDonald was certainly controversial for his time.
While in favour of generally good relations with the French and Russians, he certainly opposed he move of those two countries to the political right, especially due to their respective extremist parties. Similarly, a very tense situation was developing with The Ottomans under the leadership of Turkomen, who coveted stolen British lands that were rightful Ottoman territory. While hoping to avoid war, he remained firm in not allowing Ottomans to advance into his or neutral territory. Even during the Tirana crisis of 1927, Britain stayed strong and narrowly preventing the annexation of Albania from Jugoslavia following an increase in Turkish influence and pan-Islamist thought there. Reinforcement was also given to Persia to protect them from such an attack, as if the regime was Pan-Turkic, then several minorities within their borders would be at risk, as well as a gateway to Central Asia. This could not be allowed, and so Persia was propped up.
Regarding the closer to home situation with Berlin, MacDonald's government was more easy with regards to their social policy, not wishing to provoke the Germans while maintaining their sovereignty. An uneasy situation could be seen from this, though the two tried to at least seem friendly on the outside. Aid was sent to France to prevent extremism and maintain the status quo, but Germany barely wished to reduce their occupation zone in case the French made use of it to get revenge. So, the countries continued to trade peacefully with one another for the most part. However, it was British agents who let loose the information that Germany had funded Taureg insurrections in French Africa in 1926, souring relations between the three powers. While military plans were divised in case of war, MacDonald's Britain remained hopeful that peace would prevail.
Stanley Baldwin, who took over as Conservative PM following the defeat of MacDonald in the 1928 election, ruling till 1931.
The Fourth Balkan War reignited British interest in the region, though MacDonald had little to no interest in involvement. However, the election that year drove him out in favour of Stanley Baldwin, who was in favour of supporting the Bulgarians. Baldwin was relatively neutral with regards to Hungary and Romania, though vaguely supportive of Hungary, but his main interest was in Bulgaria, hoping to prop it up against the fascist Ottomans, while Greece would be used as an additional front against a future attack and pushed aside for now. Russia also supported their Slavic, Orthodox brothers against the Romanians and Greeks, while the Jugoslavians protected themselves from Bulgarian assaults into Macedonia. Once the dust was settled in 1930, Baldwin was one of the main proponents and writers in the Treaty of Sofia. He proposed mild treatment of the Greeks to prevent war and to strengthen Bulgaria as much as possible. This antagonised the Germans somewhat, as they were supportive of Romania and Greece, but the tensions would become resolved eventually. Hungary was soon stripped of its territories in both Transylvania and Slovakia and made a 'permanent' sattelite of Germany for violating the Mitteleuropa agreement.
Russia was definitely more British friendly initially, until the 1931 Great Game affair, where Russia annexed its Mongol and Xinjiang sattelites and began to invade Qinghai, leading to profound international denouncing, especially by the Chinese. Baldwin allowed the annexation of Mongolia and Xinjiang, but promised that Russia would merely take border territories from Qinghai, before enabling it to reunite with China proper. Russia instead invaded and incorporated the region as a protectorate. This soured Anglo-Russian relations and led to Russia cosying up towards Turkey, an old enemy in the past. Baldwin was humiliated for allowing the situation to escalate and on the 12th of Novemver 1931, resigned from his post in favour of a conservative-liberal coalition, led by Winston Churchill, his former 'Chancellor of the Exchequer', who would rule until the next election took place. The remainder of the year would be quite uneventful in comparison.
Winston Churchill, the emergency PM after Baldwin's resignation. His short rule, quite uneventful led to him being a footnote in history politically.
In in the Far East, the more left leaning government had somewhat more to follow with the regime in Tokyo, as well as its satellites in Indochina. Hoping to maintain relations or even reignite the Anglo-Japanese alliance against Germany or a resurgent Russia. MacDonald knew that the government at home would find a lot of difficulty approving of such cosying up to a communist nation, but realpolitik was a factor in finding a reasonable ally in the region and working to prevent a major war. As someone who opposed the previous war, he certainly understood the nature of conflict in the name of belief in the nation, and while ideology was here to play into factors as well, precautions would have to be taken. In 1928, MacDonald personally visited Japan to undergo talks with Foreign Minister Rosa Luxembourg, who knew Japanese and English fairly well following from her escape to Tokyo. The start of the nation's Five Year Plans was underway into its third year, and the nation was trying to build up in its time. It would be about two months before the attempt on Sakai's life and so he was still in a healthy condition to discuss diplomacy between the different groups. This move undermined his popularity further however, leading to Baldwin taking vital voted in the election later that year. Baldwin reversed several measures to improve Anglo-Japanese relations, while turning his attention to China as a bulwark against Japanese and Russian aggression. His deals with Sun helped prop up the main democratic faction against the more militant Chiang group, hoping for Chinese markets to remain open.
With regards to Gibraltar, the indefinite status of the landmass indeed led to negotiations with Spain. It would remain in British hands until the year 2012, by which it would be handed in return to Spain, though with particular privileges of autonomy. The Spanish government wasn't particularly concerned about the compromise, but was happy to recieve some promise about a territory they considered rightfully theirs.
Overall, Britain managed to successfully avoid wars in various places, but had left perhaps the nearest places alone from containment. The exploration of those shall certainly be of note.
That might be the only thing that can defeat TTL Russia.An unholy alliance that will shake half of the world.
Pan-Asianism is underrated! A key objective for Sun should be getting rid of Chiang (easily explained by his insubordination when he killed those left-wingers, thus 'undermining the revolution', and took in the people that Japan wanted to execute and stuff). It shouldn't even be that hard - older leaders tend to be even more paranoid.
Meanwhile, Sun studied in Japan. He's bound to be more pro-Japan than normal Chinese people (and normal people wouldn't even be anti-Japan at that time). PLEASE at least get East Asia in an alliance (easily fulfilled by just getting China in - Indochina, Korea, Japan, and China would basically be East Asia). I've never seen something like this before (which would be amazing and lovely).
There's just one problem. China isn't communist/Japan isn't a democratic Republic.
This feels eerily OTL.
Never before have I wished for the CCP to take over quickly as I have now.
I was wondering if China would be the main anti-communist power in Asia like it was in the original map threat version, but who knows considering the divergences already? After all, Japan needs its equivalent of a Warsaw Pact . Of course, the multipolar world post GW2 will make politics much more dynamic as well.
. Of course, the multipolar world post GW2 will make politics much more dynamic as well.trurle
Banned
I tried to compile an ATL geo-political outlook by 1931:I was wondering if China would be the main anti-communist power in Asia like it was in the original map threat version, but who knows considering the divergences already? After all, Japan needs its equivalent of a Warsaw Pact
The total war-making potentials:
US: 38% (stagnating in Great Depression)
Germany: 19% (likely stagnating together with US)
British Empire with India: 11% (slowly falling)
Russia: 8.5% (rapidly falling)
Japan 4.1% (rapidly rising)
Semi-independent British colonies (Canada (1.8%), South Africa (0.4%), Australia (1.2%), New Zealand (0.2%)) - 3.6% (rising)
Italy 2.9% (slowly rising)
France 2% (slowly falling)
Spain 1.5% (slowly falling)
Ottoman rump state 1% (slowly falling)
Core of Republic of China - 1.38%.
Xinjiang - Muslim theocracy under Russian control (Military power ~0.1%)
Tibet - Buddhist theocracy? (Military power ~0.12%)
Qinghai - Muslim theocracy? (Military power ~0.08%)
West Gansu - buffer warlord state with Japanese, Russians, and China fighting for influence? (Military power ~0.03%)
Mongolia - indigenous monarchy? (Military power ~0.07%)
Manchuria - surviving Qing monarchy under Russian control? (Military power ~0.08%)
Korea - indigenous monarchy under nominal Russian control, hotbed of communist resistance. (Military power ~0.38%)
Dutch - 0.82%
Rumania - 0.7%
Bulgaria - 0.65%
Greece - 0.6%
Yugoslavia - 0.5%
Hungary - 0.4%
Belgium - 0.4%
Afghanistan - 0.3%
Brazil - 0.7%
Argentine - 0.5%
Mexico - 0.3%
Ethiopian Empire - 0.25%
Chili - 0.2%
Colombia - 0.2%
Total world 100%
Any comments?
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That definitely seems useful thanks. It may be good to calculate the interwar period and the economic situation that's for sure. German domination takes a tumble due to the economy, while the need for war will grow in comparison.
I'd have to disagree with Manchuria. It's majority Chinese and would chafe under the rule of non-Chinese people. It would probably have a large Chinese resistance, which would suck up a lot of troops without providing many troops in return.
trurle
Banned
Point taken. Yes, i remember the IOTL Manchukuo troops quality and reliability was particularly bad. Although IOTL it was partly caused by low-quality equipment provided by Japanese. Taken 0.22% from Manchuria and distributed among neighbours.
trurle
Banned
If Qinghai really be stronger, Tibet would not dare to attack repeatedly in the first place. The OTL success of Qinghai defense against Tibet should be attributed to the standard advantage of defender (attacker on fortified positions need 3-times advantage to succeed if all other parameters are equal).
Shouldn't the "Commonwealth" colonies (not sure if that term is anachronistic or not ITTL) of Britain be "stagnating," not rapidly rising, due to the Depression?
It would not exactly amaze me to find that OTL they were doing relatively OK in the Depression despite the fact that they produced mostly "colonial" type goods (plantation and other agricultural such as Australian pastoralism (sheep/wool) extractive exports (mining, lumber from Canada) etc), which generally took a worse hit than overall economies in the Depression OTL. 1) they may benefit from extra degrees of British Imperial preference, sacrificing competing goods in the other colonies to an extent to keep up good relations with the extra-useful and sentimentally preferred "white Dominions;" 2) enjoying to an extent still undeveloped land they might expand and moderately prosper on internal development despite the poor global market conditions. So if the Dominions prospering is OTL, so be it. Also, this is ATL and conceivably the details of the downturn are significantly different. I'd think the extra-hard hit on agricultural/extractive goods is deeply structural, going to the fundamentals of how capitalism works and therefore hard to butterfly. And insofar as the "white colonies" are indeed prospering, one would certainly expect some emigration there from Britain, which ought to help British overall economy for those left behind, particularly as British capitalists enjoy expatriated profits from the dominions. And although it would be somewhat displeasing to the colonies, if they were doing well while the motherland is doing poorly I'd expect some policies that favor Britain over the dominions moderately, to soften the blow in the metropolis, and provided this does not bite too hard on basically prosperous colonies (again, only talking about powerful Dominions here--the "colored" colonies are in for sad days economically, being relatively thrown under the bus, although compared to outside the formal British Empire system in say Latin America or other powers' colonies they might enjoy some protection) they will grudgingly go along with it for sentiment and the argument that the Empire is a collective defense system, and that they remain better off within Imperial Preference than outside it..
So if Dominion prosperity is OTL, all right. I'd want to bid to moderate "rapidly rising" to just plain rising; with the world, economically dominated by the US and German economies, in a nasty slump, I don't see how they can be doing fantastically well--but doing OK, and much better off than most of the world, mainly due to having underdeveloped regions that a "frontier" economy can expand into, might make sense especially if it happened OTL.
If OTL the Dominions suffered as much as the British homeland or somewhat more so (makes sense due to their less industrial status, despite the fact that the industrial core is what collapsed--big capital and centralized capital despite being at fault for internal reasons still knows how to throw small and dispersed capital under the bus to soften their crash) then you might want to revisit "rising" at all, and put in "stagnating" with the USA and Germany and Europe in general.
Anyway scraped together they only amount to a fraction of the potential military power European nations can muster; Canada has the highest potential but is joined at the hip to the crashed US economy which normally buoys her up but now is sucking her down. Australia is behind at this stage historically but has I suppose greater long-term potential, but long-term is long-term and with world capital immobilized by fear is on her own in terms of development potential in the short run.
OTL it took the second world war to really get the US economy rolling again. Despite the obvious utilities involved in fully mobilizing while remodernizing American plant and fully employing the work force, moral opposition to war was strong (and would be stronger still if the enemy were not an insane and disgusting and yet dangerous regime like the Third Reich or the not-entirely-but-largely fairly despised Empire of Japan, but some more ambiguous foe). No one could respectably suggest getting into an optional war just to strengthen the economy; such talk would tend to play into the hands of socialists and communists who argued that war was a capitalist disease, as were economic slumps for no compelling natural reason.
The great clashes of the OTL late 30s and easy 1940s made the Depression era economic problems irrelevant, but for most people in the world who were involved the new problems of war itself were worse still; only the postwar peace made it "pay off" for the survivors. I suspect that it would be quite possible to have wars that fail to revive anyone's economy and have the worst of both worlds.
It would not exactly amaze me to find that OTL they were doing relatively OK in the Depression despite the fact that they produced mostly "colonial" type goods (plantation and other agricultural such as Australian pastoralism (sheep/wool) extractive exports (mining, lumber from Canada) etc), which generally took a worse hit than overall economies in the Depression OTL. 1) they may benefit from extra degrees of British Imperial preference, sacrificing competing goods in the other colonies to an extent to keep up good relations with the extra-useful and sentimentally preferred "white Dominions;" 2) enjoying to an extent still undeveloped land they might expand and moderately prosper on internal development despite the poor global market conditions. So if the Dominions prospering is OTL, so be it. Also, this is ATL and conceivably the details of the downturn are significantly different. I'd think the extra-hard hit on agricultural/extractive goods is deeply structural, going to the fundamentals of how capitalism works and therefore hard to butterfly. And insofar as the "white colonies" are indeed prospering, one would certainly expect some emigration there from Britain, which ought to help British overall economy for those left behind, particularly as British capitalists enjoy expatriated profits from the dominions. And although it would be somewhat displeasing to the colonies, if they were doing well while the motherland is doing poorly I'd expect some policies that favor Britain over the dominions moderately, to soften the blow in the metropolis, and provided this does not bite too hard on basically prosperous colonies (again, only talking about powerful Dominions here--the "colored" colonies are in for sad days economically, being relatively thrown under the bus, although compared to outside the formal British Empire system in say Latin America or other powers' colonies they might enjoy some protection) they will grudgingly go along with it for sentiment and the argument that the Empire is a collective defense system, and that they remain better off within Imperial Preference than outside it..
So if Dominion prosperity is OTL, all right. I'd want to bid to moderate "rapidly rising" to just plain rising; with the world, economically dominated by the US and German economies, in a nasty slump, I don't see how they can be doing fantastically well--but doing OK, and much better off than most of the world, mainly due to having underdeveloped regions that a "frontier" economy can expand into, might make sense especially if it happened OTL.
If OTL the Dominions suffered as much as the British homeland or somewhat more so (makes sense due to their less industrial status, despite the fact that the industrial core is what collapsed--big capital and centralized capital despite being at fault for internal reasons still knows how to throw small and dispersed capital under the bus to soften their crash) then you might want to revisit "rising" at all, and put in "stagnating" with the USA and Germany and Europe in general.
Anyway scraped together they only amount to a fraction of the potential military power European nations can muster; Canada has the highest potential but is joined at the hip to the crashed US economy which normally buoys her up but now is sucking her down. Australia is behind at this stage historically but has I suppose greater long-term potential, but long-term is long-term and with world capital immobilized by fear is on her own in terms of development potential in the short run.
OTL it took the second world war to really get the US economy rolling again. Despite the obvious utilities involved in fully mobilizing while remodernizing American plant and fully employing the work force, moral opposition to war was strong (and would be stronger still if the enemy were not an insane and disgusting and yet dangerous regime like the Third Reich or the not-entirely-but-largely fairly despised Empire of Japan, but some more ambiguous foe). No one could respectably suggest getting into an optional war just to strengthen the economy; such talk would tend to play into the hands of socialists and communists who argued that war was a capitalist disease, as were economic slumps for no compelling natural reason.
The great clashes of the OTL late 30s and easy 1940s made the Depression era economic problems irrelevant, but for most people in the world who were involved the new problems of war itself were worse still; only the postwar peace made it "pay off" for the survivors. I suspect that it would be quite possible to have wars that fail to revive anyone's economy and have the worst of both worlds.
trurle
Banned
The white British colonies had a very positive demographic trend in early 20th century. It overweighted any transients from the Great Depression. Also, the colonial mining and smelting sector was much more relevant for hypothetical "total war" war-making potential estimation than any "colonial goods". For example, Canadian Arvida aluminium smelter started to operate in 1927 grown gradually to become the largest aluminium production center of the world by WWII.
So are you saying that OTL they did well, and so do here too, or that because Britain is arming more than OTL despite the Depression (and thus probably are mitigating the Depression in the Imperial preference sphere generally) these colonies do better than the OK they did OTL, since Britain is stockpiling strategic metals?
This makes sense I suppose. OTL in the 1920s both Britain and France adopted the position that there would be no major war for at least 10 years out (and furthermore planned in terms of each other being the enemy!) which for reasons of economy they kept rolling forward throughout that decade and well into the 1930s. They continued to modernize their forces but in low numbers and didn't get serious about arming until the latter half of that decade.
Here Britain is not as exhausted by the Great War, and know that they live in a dangerous world from day one; they have several enemies who might threaten them at any time. Even with no imminent war crisis at hand, a watchful rearmament would make sense and seem less unbearably burdensome.
Rhodesia (north Rhodesia, modern Zambia) was a major source of copper; it might not just be the White Dominions booming. Though I would think colonial policy would be designed to shift as much profit their way as possible as they are most likely to be loyal to the Empire as a whole.
This makes sense I suppose. OTL in the 1920s both Britain and France adopted the position that there would be no major war for at least 10 years out (and furthermore planned in terms of each other being the enemy!) which for reasons of economy they kept rolling forward throughout that decade and well into the 1930s. They continued to modernize their forces but in low numbers and didn't get serious about arming until the latter half of that decade.
Here Britain is not as exhausted by the Great War, and know that they live in a dangerous world from day one; they have several enemies who might threaten them at any time. Even with no imminent war crisis at hand, a watchful rearmament would make sense and seem less unbearably burdensome.
Rhodesia (north Rhodesia, modern Zambia) was a major source of copper; it might not just be the White Dominions booming. Though I would think colonial policy would be designed to shift as much profit their way as possible as they are most likely to be loyal to the Empire as a whole.