The Anglo-Saxon Social Model

[Rattigan]

Tales of a New Jerusalem: Britain Enters the Atomic Age

Visions of a new age: Capenhurst Nuclear Power Station in mid-1954


Following the widespread reforms of his first ministry, Attlee’s second ministry would be rather quiet on the domestic front as domestic reforms were given time to bed in and much of the government’s time was taken up firefighting various foreign policy crises in Asia.

The biggest early event of note was a cabinet reshuffle in May 1950, following poor local election results for Labour. Most of the senior members of the Attlee cabinet were occupied by men born the late nineteenth century, who saw their mission as being the culmination of the social reforms begun by Chamberlain, Dilke and Lloyd George in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many were now running out of ideas and were, in any event, in failing health. To this end, Attlee decided to use this opportunity to freshen up his top table.

Cripps left the Exchequer, Chuter Ede the Board of Trade, Nicolson the Foreign Office and Dalton the Office of Privy Seal, being replaced by Hugh Gaitskell, Evan Durbin, Patrick Gordon-Walker and Richard Crossman, respectively. Further significant changes followed in April 1951, when Ernest Bevin died and his position at the head of the Labour and Supply Ministry was taken by Douglas Jay, whose position at the Colonial Office was filled by John Strachey. At the time of the second reshuffle, it was rumoured that Attlee himself considered retirement too but decided against it owing to concerns that his favoured successor, Gaitskell, did not yet have the internal backing to see off the challenge of Attlee’s great personal enemy Herbert Morrison (who remained as Lord President).

In December 1950, the government opened the world’s first civilian nuclear energy plant, HER-1, in Capenhurst in Cheshire. Funded heavily by research money from the SWF, the plant was a mixed civilian and military installation, producing both electricity for future civilian consumption as well as progressing towards a nuclear bomb. It had been ordered in October 1947 pursuant to an agreement between Attlee, Bevin and Nicolson that had circumvented cabinet discussion. Its entire existence was secret until its civilian opening in December 1950 but the military part remained secret until the detonation of the Commonwealth’s first nuclear weapon in October 1951. HER-1 would first begin to produce commercial electricity in December 1953.

Somewhat accidentally, the opening of HER-1 also became an important stepping stone towards further Commonwealth unity. The military part of its work was, naturally, under the general overview of the ICS. When the ‘Hurricane’ nuclear bomb was detonated in October 1951, it made the Commonwealth the world’s third nuclear power and strengthened its hand at the superpower table. When HER-1 also began producing commercial electricity (it was powering the entirety of the County of Cheshire by the middle of 1955), this naturally stimulated interest amongst the rest of the Commonwealth about sharing the technology. Although run by private companies, the commercial nuclear industry operated using proprietary technology leased from the SWF and under the utmost secrecy, with the regulators mistrusting not only the Soviets but also the Americans. However, in December 1953 Attlee delivered his famous ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, which allowed for the exporting of nuclear expertise and technology to other Commonwealth countries (under certain guidelines).

 

[Analytical Engine]

LIMTLESS ATOMIC POWER!

 

[Rattigan]

LIMTLESS ATOMIC POWER!

Damn fucking right...

 

[Salvador79]

Can't cheer for nuclear Power, but a plausible choice at the time.

Given the international Finance system and earlier Energy autarky, some of the big destabilising factors of the second half of the 20th c. are eliminated. OTOH, OTL's Cold War froze a lot of Potential geopolitical conflicts. ITTL, there has not been a Berlin crisis, and while the US and UK may still not like the Soviets, there is a lot less clear-cut polarisation of the world than IOTL. This could lead to a lot of rivalries breaking out into regional conflicts which IOTL were buried under the bipolar overkill threat.

 

[Rattigan]

Restless Empire: The Birth of the Fourth Chinese Republic

The Red Emperor - Wang Ming in 1948


Following the surrender of China in September 1945, coastal ports had been occupied by the Commonwealth, Americans and the Dutch, while the Japanese and the Soviets occupied Manchuria and Korea. However, other than these aforementioned operations and a joint five-powers occupation (the Dutch no-doubt enjoying their brief return to Great Power status in this context) of Beijing, a widespread occupation of the vast Chinese interior was not attempted. Since Chiang’s declaration of the Third Chinese Republic in 1927, Chinese communists had generally gone into exile in Xinjiang and Soviet central asia, where, although welcomed in their way, they found little active support as the Soviets regarded it as more politic to not upset the Kuomintang in the pre-war years. However, following Soviet entry into the war in 1941, support was given to Communist insurgents as a way of destabilising the Kuomintang war effort. A strong Communist paramilitary and political organisation, headed by Wang Ming, arrived in Beijing on 1 January 1946.

The immediate postwar period, however, was largely free of violent conflicts (apart from small skirmishes between communist and nationalist paramilitaries), as the Allies commenced a thorough reorganisation and disarming of the Chinese military, under the five-party overview of Louis Mountbatten, Chester Nimitz, Georgy Zhukov, Sokichi Takagi and Karel Doorman. Negotiations between the two sides, lead by Wang and Sun Li-jen, produced a new constitution in April 1947, which would establish a federal semi-presidential form of government modeled on the United States. However, by this time the Western Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Soviets’ intentions as regards China. When Zhukov torpedoed the introduction of the new constitution by demanding that it only take place following the trial of Kuomintang leaders (not, with hindsight, a completely absurd demand), the Western Allies interpreted this as an attempt to buy more time for the communists to build up their internal structures ahead of a takeover.

With the other four Pacific powers opposed to their proposals, the Soviets eventually backed down in October 1947 and consented to the establishment of a civilian government. Sun was appointed the provisional President and Wang as the provisional Prime Minister, with a rump federal parliament made up of a mix of communist and nationalist appointees. The plan was for federal and provincial elections to take place in June 1948 but these were postponed when Soviet-backed communist forces in the upper Yellow River valley rose up in revolt in March. The outbreak of hostilities seems to have been occasioned by Wang’s concerns that his party was going to do significantly worse than he had anticipated and he reasoned that the only way he could rely on the Soviets to back an attempted coup under the nose of the Western Allies was if he forced their hand.

The conflict would rage for the next three years, primarily in northern and western China. At the same time, a communist insurrection erupted in Korea against the re-installed Japanese colonial government. At the UN, General Secretary Roosevelt attempted to garner backing for a military operation to be launched in support of the Chinese provisional government but these moves were vetoed by the Soviets, who did not want to be seen to be sanctioning the crushing of a prominent communist party, even as their support for the Chinese communists was some way short of what Wang seems to have initially anticipated. Limited deployments of Commonwealth and American troops in coastal cities and the surrounding countryside (notionally to protect their own positions but, in practice, in close coordination with democratic forces) did take place, as did Soviet deployments in Manchuria and western China, although also to a limited extent.

By the end of 1951, the communists had been forced from eastern China, Korea and Manchuria, retreating to their bases in Turkestan and Mongolia, where they received Soviet backing to stop them completely collapsing. With the democrats unable to decisively destroy the communists and the communists unable to effectively counter-attack, the war settled into a stalemate and the Soviets began putting feelers out to the Western Allies, resulting in a ceasefire in November 1951. This was followed up by the Geneva Conference in April 1952, attended by Soviet, Commonwealth, American, Japanese, Dutch and French representatives, along with delegations from China (both democratic and communist), Korea (both democratic and communist), Mongolia, Turkestan, Manchuria and Tibet, all overseen by the UN. Key to the conference going ahead was the defection of Zhou Enlai and his allies from Wang’s clique, confirming that he would be willing to take part in elections in a democratic China. In July, the parties agreed to the Treaty of Geneva, which acknowledged the 1948 Chinese constitution and agreed to hold elections in February-March 1953. In addition, China recognised the independence of Manchuria, as well as re-confirming the independence of Tibet, Mongolia and Turkestan. The treaty also provided for the independence of Korea and Formosa from Japan, including the restoration of the Korean monarchy. With Beijing now considered too close to the border with a potentially hostile Manchuria, the capital was moved to Nanjing on 1 January 1953. As the historian Jonathan Spence noted, the Fourth Republic had accidentally created the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ninety years later.

The months following the signing were marked by mass movements of people, with communist hardliners making the vast trek to Turkestan or Mongolia, while ethnic populations on the wrong side of the new national lines attempted to move to the ‘right’ country. There was widespread violence and estimates of the number of deaths range from several hundred thousand to up to 5,000,000 (in addition to the 4,000,000 military and civilian deaths in the 1948-51 fighting). In addition, the Americans suffered 8,000 casualties and the Commonwealth 3,000. Soviet casualty figures are unknown.

In the subsequent elections, Sun Li-jen ran for President as an independent and was elected with 62% of the vote over Zhou, who stood as the candidate for the Democratic Socialist Party (as the Chinese Communist Party was renamed). Despite his service as a general in the Kuomintang Army, Sun was generally well regarded as a unifying figure in China and abroad, being thought to have fought an ‘honourable war’ in Malaya and admired by many former communists for his opposition to Chiang after 1944. In the elections to the federal parliament, the majority was won by the Progress and Development Party, a centre-right party made up of some of the more ‘liberal’ (and untouched by war crimes allegations) members of the Kuomintang. Yu Hung-chun became Prime Minister, his pre-war record largely spotless.

Upon taking office, Sun and Yu confirmed that they intended for China to avoid alliances with any of the Soviet, Commonwealth or American spheres, which served to allay the fears of the Democratic Socialists that an anti-communist crackdown was coming.

 

[Nagisaki]

China as the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement?

That's certainly... interesting.

 

[BigBlueBox]

Alright, I’m confused. Are the Communists in control of Manchuria or not? If not, why is Manchuria independent? It’s majority Han Chinese. Also, why did Japan give up Taiwan? Korea could make sense because after losing control Korea would be too hard to retake by force. But Taiwan saw much less unrest than Korea, and had been under Japanese control far longer. Also, about the previous update, did the Armenians and Greeks just ethnically cleanse all the Turks from their territory? That’s the only thing that would prevent a permanent insurgency.

 

[Rattigan]

Alright, I’m confused. Are the Communists in control of Manchuria or not? If not, why is Manchuria independent? It’s majority Han Chinese. Also, why did Japan give up Taiwan? Korea could make sense because after losing control Korea would be too hard to retake by force. But Taiwan saw much less unrest than Korea, and had been under Japanese control far longer. Also, about the previous update, did the Armenians and Greeks just ethnically cleanse all the Turks from their territory? That’s the only thing that would prevent a permanent insurgency.

The Soviets control Manchuria and the regime is dominated by ethnic Han.

Japan gave up Taiwan because she (Japan) was shattered by the war and decided it was a better idea to encourage a pro-Japanese democratic regime rather than try to hold it by force.

Much of the territory now in Greece (but in OTL Turkey) was controlled by Greece/Bulgaria/an international zone since the end of the Great War, so many Turks will have emigrated (both coerced and uncocerced). There were certain population transfers after the World War. But there is a substantial Muslim minority in Greece, as noted.

Armenia also had an independent republic after the Great War so the Turks aren't as demographically dominant in those regions as they were by this time OTL.

 

[Rattigan]

China as the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement?

That's certainly... interesting.

Wait until you see my plans for Deng in the 1980s...

 

[Rattigan]

The War of the Running Dogs: The Commonwealth and the Malayan War, 1948-61

Fijian (left) and Maori (right) Commonwealth troops on duty during the Malayan War c. 1950

As they had done in India, a key challenge for Labour’s foreign policy was navigating the question of decolonisation in Southeast Asia in a way which was, firstly, just on the colonised inhabitants and, secondly, did not deal a blow to British prestige. In Malaya the British had exerted colonial control through a patchwork of sultanates, protectorates and crown colonies. However, while he was at the Colonial Office, Douglas Jay had reasoned that responsible government would be better served through a single administration. To this end, in 1948 he combined them all into the single crown colony of Malaya.

The result was that the British colonial government got their fingers badly burned: the sultans were none too pleased about this reduction in their power; and the entrepots formerly known as the ‘Straits Settlements’ had large Indian and Chinese populations who were uncomfortable about joining a state dominated by ethnic Malays. Public opinion in the new colony swiftly turned against the union and, a year later, Jay was forced to reorganise the colony once more. North Borneo was transferred to the administration of Sarawak, which was once again governed as a single unit. The settlements of Penang, Malacca, Singapore and Labuan were then separated from Malaya to be administered together. The Sultanates were left large internally autonomous under a loose colonial umbrella. Although it came about awkwardly, the British had proved themselves to be responsive to popular opinion and committed to orderly and speedy decolonisation.

However, tensions remained, not least because of the continuing economic problems that were afflicting Malaya, as the peninsula’s export-based economy struggled to adapt to the new Lismore System. In June 1948, a general communist insurrection began and many, at the time, expected the Commonwealth to abandon the Malayan rulers to their fate. However, the ICS and civilian governments immediately confirmed that they intended to fight the insurgents. This was not an easy choice for some of the latter to make - the tax rises associated with maintaining the military expenditure to fight in both Malaya and China is generally regarded as having contributed to the fall of the Curtin government in Australia and the St Laurent government in Canada (both in 1949), for example. In 1949, Jay published a white paper calling for independence for Britain’s far eastern colonies in 1964, provided that the colonies were not still in a state of conflict. This was then endorsed at a Commonwealth Foreign Ministers’ Conference (with only South Africa and Rhodesia dissenting, both governments concerned about an influx of non-white influence in the Commonwealth).

The same year that the Commonwealth had provided a path to independence for Malaya, the communist insurgency spread to the Dutch colony of the East Indies. The Dutch had successfully re-occupied the colony easier than many suspected in 1945, something probably helped by the fact that many of the local nationalist leaders had enthusiastically embraced the Chinese invaders in 1940-45. By 1949 however, a generation of communist rebels emerged looking for independence immediately without the taint of collaboration. Following a loss of control of the countryside by 1950, Dutch officials were rumoured to be getting ready to negotiate and exit. However, they were persuaded to prolong the war following an agreement that they would receive Commonwealth resources and aid if they too published a roadmap to self-government along the lines of Jay’s offer to the Malayans.

Over the next 12 years, the fortunes of the war would wax and wane, with the final surrender of the communist insurgents coming in April 1960. (They were greatly helped by the Soviets cutting off their under-the-table support for the insurgents in 1958, following secret talks with the Commonwealth.) As promised in Jay’s 1949 white paper, the Federal Kingdom of Malaya, the Federation of the East Indies and the Kingdom of Sarawak would all achieve independence on 1 January 1964, with each country forging their own destiny. The former Dutch East Indies would receive their independence exactly a year later, with the states of Java, Borneo and East Indonesia becoming independent members of the Benelux Union.

The Malayan War (as it was known in the Commonwealth) became important outside of the UK for a number of reasons (films about the conflict were a mainstay of British ‘New Wave’ cinema in the 1960s, for example) and its effect on the domestic politics and cultures of the various Commonwealth and Imperial nations were significant. Of particular note was the way that soldiers from the non-white Empire and Commonwealth were, by necessity, integrated into the Commonwealth forces, rather than being segregated into their own colonial units, performing with distinction and further heightening these nations’ sense of dignity and selfhood as equal partners in the Commonwealth. The valour of the black Rhodesian soldiers is credited with igniting Commonwealth-wide support for their simmering civil rights movement. Fijian soldiers also performed bravely and they have since been regarded as key to advancing calls for them and the other Pacific Islands to exercise self-government.

 

[Rattigan]

The P-Word: The Failure of the Dominion of India, 1948-51

Images of Imperial Failure: Kashmiri troops in action against Pakistani forces in November 1950 (top); General El Edroos surrenders the Hyderabadi army to India in September 1950 (bottom)

The transition to independence in India has been relatively painless, and figures such as Slim, Nehru, Liaquat Ali Khan and H.S. Suhrawardy received praise for their competent and statesmanlike handling of events. However, over the first three years of its existence, the notional federal government (referred to here as “the Dominion,” for clarity) faced considerable and, ultimately, secular challenges. In the first place, the Pakistani state that did emerge under Slim’s division was only 70% Muslim and its continued attachment to the Dominion government frustrated many political constituencies, including Muslim thinkers who sought an Islamic state, Punjabi landowners and industrialists concerned about the regulations and land reform proposed by the INC-dominated political leadership in New Delhi, and merchants in Karachi who sought to attract greater prestige for themselves out from the shadow of Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. In Bengal, religious conflicts were more pronounced (not helped by centuries of the two communities being played off against each other by the British and prior rulers) and in 1949 the government installed the separate religious constituencies that British imperial officials had been anxious to avoid. The INC leadership in India Proper (referred to here as “India”), meanwhile, was anxious to avoid further Balkanisation of the subcontinent and was already dissatisfied with the loss of eastern Punjab and western Bengal in 1948.

Matters came to a head in 1950-1, over the question of the future status of the non-Dominion states on the subcontinent. While the remaining French possessions had acceded to the Dominion as part of India in 1948, negotiations for the Portuguese possessions to join the Dominion had come to nothing by 1950 and the princely states of Kashmir, Hyderabad and Sikkim flatly refused to join in 1948, declaring and asserting their own independence. While the case of Sikkim is curious, the refusal of Hyderabad and Kashmir to join the Dominion struck at the core of the self-identities of Indian and Pakistani elites. Although Slim was firm with most of the princely states that they should join the Dominion, he had decided that it was simply not worth it to try and coerce these three final states and instead they had signed standstill agreements with the Dominion in 1948, carrying over previous arrangements with the Raj ahead of further talks to take place at a “further date.”

As an independent state, Hyderabad had a population of nearly 20,000,000 people, its own currency (albeit one pegged to sterling), post office, military and public transport system. It was clearly capable of becoming an independent state and had a long and proud history of its independent relationship with the British Crown and the Mughals and Marathas before them. Its location in the middle of the subcontinent, however, made it important ideologically for the Nehru government to pursue its incorporation into India as a matter of urgency. Things came to a head in the spring of 1950, when stories leaked out that the Nizam of Hyderabad was in negotiations with the Portuguese over purchasing their remaining territories in order to give his state access to the sea.

A similar situation was going on in Karachi over Kashmir. Although this province was not as economically powerful as Hyderabad, it was still ideologically important for Pakistani intellectuals (it was in the name after all). Similarly, the Maharaja and his government there were equally clear that they were perfectly capable of going their own independent way and had a history of direct relations with the British throne.

Although the Dominion government had theoretical command over the whole Dominion’s army, it was clear to everybody that such command was just that: theoretical. The power that the Dominion government had was, ultimately, that of persuasion and it was one which ebbed away over the course of 1949-50 when it became clear that, while Slim himself was committed to making the Dominion working, Dominion Prime Minister C. Rajagopalachan felt no such compulsion and was openly colluding with Nehru’s Bombay government.

As a final gambit, in August 1950 Slim publicly announced that he would refuse to allow Dominion troops to be ordered into battle against Hyderabad and Kashmir, urging instead a continuation of talks between the relevant leaders. But this was a bluff and everybody knew it: if some Dominion units did decide to follow Indian or Pakistani orders, Slim could not count on the remainder of his army to put down the mutiny. Furthermore, the chance of intervention by troops from the wider Commonwealth was minute to nothing, partly for ideological reasons but also because of their continued involvement in China and Malaya. As such, Nehru simply ignored Slim and announced that he would be commandeering the Dominion forces in India to launch an invasion of Hyderabad. This was accomplished in 5 days in September and ended with the surrender of the Hyderabadi armies and the flight of the Nizam.

Following Nehru’s lead, Liaquat Ali Khan announced similar measures with respect to the Dominion troops in Pakistan. An invasion of Kashmir began on 22 October 1950. Although it was not as swift a success as India’s invasion of Hyderabad had been, the Dominion government made it clear that they would not come to the Maharajah’s aid and he surrendered and acceded to Pakistan on 1 January 1951. Suhrawardy made the same declaration with respect to the Dominion troops in his territory but was restrained from launching a similar invasion of Sikkim in May 1951.

Despite the ending of hostilities, the aftermath of the events of the previous year had made it clear that the Dominion could not control its own army anymore and was simply no longer a viable state. Attlee and Gordon-Walker urged Slim and Rajagopalachan to try and make the Dominion work but both recognised the situation on the ground. Representatives from the Dominion, India, Pakistan and Bengal drafted the Simla Agreement in June 1951, dissolving the Dominion on 2 July 1951 and bringing Pakistan, India and Bengal into existence as independent states.

The Dominion thus failed as a long-term political project and arguably helped push the radical sections of the INC into adopting a republican constitution in 1953 and withdrawing from the Commonwealth. The consensus at the time was certainly one of failure. This was a view echoed by Perry Anderson in his ‘The Indian Ideology’ (2012), who saw the Dominion as a failed last-ditch attempt to enforce British military and economic hegemony over India Proper. Winston Churchill famously denounced the Dominion as “a crooked attempt to partition India and run roughshod over its traditions under the pretence of not doing so.” However, Ramachandra Guha in ‘India After Slim’ (2007) saw it as a reasonably successful delaying action that paved the way for a partition and transition to independence more peaceful than it otherwise might have been.

 

[Nyvis]

No east/west Pakistan means Bengal avoid a tragedy. On the other hand, it's bigger and thus less religiously uniform so it's totally possible they'll make their own tragedy at home. They probably need to go for a secular solution if they want to avoid it, and it's going to be tense. I also wonder how Pakistan will handle their larger minorities.

 

[Rattigan]

I also wonder how Pakistan will handle their larger minorities.

Without spoiling anything, I plan for Pakistan to be one of TTL's success stories.

 

[Nagisaki]

I also wonder how Pakistan will handle their larger minorities.

Without the war against India and being split across it, I imagine Pakistan would be much more peaceful. Also, more likely to cooperate with India without the Kashmir issue.

 

[Rattigan]

Diplomacy with a Difference: The Ottawa Declaration, the Treaty of London and the End of Empire

John Strachey at his desk during the Ottawa Conference


The first decade of the postwar era was a remarkable period for Commonwealth relations, which would culminate in the Treaty of London on 1 June 1953. During this time, tremendous changes were put in place to rationalise the Commonwealth’s structure and speed up the transition of the remaining colonies to independence or Commonwealth membership. The central driver of these changes was a change to the world status of the UK: to put it simply, in 1900 the UK was a global power and so had a special relationship with the Commonwealth; in 1950, the UK was a global power because it had a special relationship with the Commonwealth. In addition, other Commonwealth nations such as Australia, Canada and, later, Pakistan would rapidly attain a level of wealth and global influence which meant that the UK could no longer dictate to them and, from then on, would have to be, at best, a first amongst equals.

Since the early Edwardian period, Commonwealth unity had mainly been expressed at the level of the military. The Royal Navy and, after 1919, the Royal Air Force were shared resources with all Commonwealth nations contributing a portion of their budget towards it (a process that was the subject of intense backroom discussions every five years) and by 1945 the land forces were so closely enmeshed that they were effectively a single organisation for all practical purposes. When the British nuclear deterrent was revealed to the world in 1951, it was rapidly integrated within the Commonwealth’s overall military forces. Alongside the military, the hotch potch of preferential tariffs, the MPC and the Fuel and Steel Treaty meant that the Commonwealth nations were, for practical purposes, fiscally and economically reliant upon one another.

Politically, developments like the Balfour Declaration and the annual meetings of prime ministers created a shared political culture amongst senior politicians of member states. The social democratic parties of these countries formed the Commonwealth Progressive Alliance of Socialists in 1946, an annual meeting of party delegates to share policy and electioneering ideas. Outside of the realms of high politics and macroeconomics, the introduction of the Commonwealth-wide licence fee to pay for the CBC further cemented its role as the premier global broadcaster, linking together the nations of the Commonwealth in a shared musical, artistic and sporting culture. In terms of consumer products, ‘British’ Canadian butter, New Zealand lamb and Caribbean sugar were regular sights on British dinner tables.

Perhaps, therefore, Commonwealth unity was inevitable. However, to the extent that individuals can be responsible for such grand historical changes, perhaps nobody stands out more, in this context, than John Strachey, whose tireless work as Commonwealth Secretary since his appointment in 1951 did more than anybody to set the stage for the Ottawa Declaration and the subsequent London Treaty. The initial impetus behind the organisation of a prime ministers’ conference in Ottawa in March 1953 was to handle the administrative details of India’s departure following the ratification by the Lok Sabha of a republican constitution in November 1952. However, it was clear from the beginning that India wanted to leave the organisation and so the arrangements for her to do so in fact occupied relatively little of the discussion. Instead, the conference was dominated by how to rationalise the disparate Commonwealth structures left behind by previous generations.

In April, the Ottawa Declaration reaffirmed that the supremacy of the British Crown was a paramount requirement for membership of the Commonwealth (although other monarchies were allowed on the proviso that they acknowledged the suzerainty of the British monarchy), giving India an easy way out. The text of the Declaration also sketched out the creation of independent Commonwealth structures to better manage the organisation in the future, all of which were to be signed into being at the London Conference in May.

The eventual agreement was signed as the Treaty of London on 1 June 1953. The Treaty created a free trade area and customs union between the signatory states, including structures for ministerial meetings to coordinate foreign and trade policy, the guarantee of continued visa-free movement within the block and a roadmap for the accession of new members. It also created the institutions of the Commonwealth Assembly and the Commonwealth Cabinet to coordinate the drafting and passing of future regulations. Winston Churchill was offered, and accepted, the position of the first President of the Commonwealth Cabinet, a role which was then thought to be largely honorary (and was a useful way for the Labour government to get him out of domestic politics ahead of the 1953 election). The Commonwealth Assembly would develop greatly over the next few years but initially it was envisaged as a largely technocratic body. As such, its membership at its first meeting in 1953 was appointed and no provisions were made to elect it. Michael Collins (the Liberal Irish First Minister 1935-50) was appointed as the inaugural Speaker of the Assembly. Although he was a Liberal, Attlee and Strachey favoured his appointment because he was generally of progressive sympathies and had been a noted and competent First Minister.

The original members were as follows:

1. Australia
2. Bengal
3. Canada
4. Ceylon
5. New Zealand
6. Newfoundland
7. Pakistan
8. Puerto Rico
9. South Africa
10. United Kingdom

 

[Cool-Eh]

What’s (Southern) Rhodesia’s relationship to the commonwealth at this point TTL?

They gained dominion status in the 1920’s right?

 

[Rattigan]

What’s (Southern) Rhodesia’s relationship to the commonwealth at this point TTL?

They gained dominion status in the 1920’s right?

They did but had it revoked just before the Ottawa Conference as part of Britain's attempts to prevent another apartheid government gaining influence in the Commonwealth.

(It's a bit more complicated than that and will be covered in an update next week but that's the headline story.)

 

[Rattigan]

This New Dark Ocean: The Megaroc Project

The Space Artist: R.A. Smith, President of the Commonwealth Space Agency, 1951-1959

Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before: Megaroc-6 blasting off from its launchpad in Western Australia, March 1953


In the aftermath of the World War, all of the world’s great powers were scrambling to master rocket technology. The United States managed to snatch the Germany’s finest minds under the Operation Paperclip programme and the Soviets managed to occupy many of the old German research facilities. Britain, meanwhile, had to make do with salvaged rockets that had been used as the basis of a V-1 and V-2 bombing campaign and whatever else they had been able to pick up.

In October 1946, the military unit known as T-Force began to prepare technical readouts of German rocket weapons and conducted experimental launches from a base in northern Germany. Although two of the launches suffered from engine failures upon launch and the third and final one failed to reach full orbit, there was enough there for R.A. Smith of the British Interplanetary Society (‘BIS’) to put forward a design for sending a manned object into space and returning it to Earth safely. Operating under the utmost secrecy, the BIS presented their proposals to the Paymaster General Manny Shinwell in December 1946 for a project known as ‘Megaroc.’ Although the project was more than slightly whimsical when compared to the Attlee government’s other reforms, the amount of money requested wasn’t too large and Shinwell agreed to provide funding for your years.

By 1950, the Megaroc Project had failed to send a rocket into space but had done enough to justify a much larger infusion of cash from SWF funds distributed by the government. In 1951, an agreement was reached with the Canadian and Australian governments to collaborate on the project, which resulted in the creation of the Commonwealth Space Agency (‘CSA’) in October 1951. Working in collaboration with scientists from Canada and Australia, the existence of Megaroc was kept secret from the public at large, with scientists sequestered in launch pads and labs in Western Australia.

Under this new set-up, Smith’s plans for manned spaceflight were put on the back-burner behind plans for an unmanned satellite, which, it was theorised, could be used for espionage and defence purposes. Smith, however, remained vitally important to the project, chairing the CSA from its foundation. Flights which reached the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere had been achieved before the final breakthrough came in March 1953, when Megaroc-6 was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit. The satellite orbited the Earth, sending back signals to its controllers, for three weeks before its batteries died. From then on, it orbited silently for two more months before falling back into the atmosphere and being recovered by the CSA.

The launch immediately caused an international incident, with both the Soviets and the Americans taken completely by surprise. The secrecy with which the CSA had operated stirred a media panic in the United States and a more private political one in the Soviet Union about the perceived technological superiority of the Commonwealth. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver used the so-called “rocket gap” to argue for more spending on research and development and burnish his own presidential ambitions. Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Megaroc Shock’ in the Soviet Union looked, for 48 hours, like it might even cause the fall of Tukhachevsky.

In the long term, the launch of Megaroc-6 was the spur to an enormous number of programmes in the Commonwealth, ranging from defence to education, as well as spurring a newfound interest in space around the world. In the short term, the launch boosted the position of the government in the polls, which had been lagging for some time. Over 1953 and 1954, the governments of Canada and Australia (respectively) held elections which resulted in their governments being re-elected. It has also been considered a key reason why Attlee went to the country in the autumn of 1953.

 

[Analytical Engine]

BRIIIIIIIIIIITS IIIIIIIIIIIIIN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

 

[Cool-Eh]

BRIIIIIIIIIIITS IIIIIIIIIIIIIN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

AE never saw a Britwank he didn't like. I share the sentiments!