That's the issue though, Harris can't be a scapegoat because no one above him can say they either "did all they could" to stop it or not know about it. A scapegoat only works when you can have plausible deniability in the involvement of said scapegoats problems which none of them would have. Any jury with half a brain would see that and acquit him of the charges. If you want allied war crimes there's got to be enough cases of gunning down surrendering/surrendered soldiers for them to have gone after that.
The Empire Parnell Built
- Thread starter Rattigan
- Start date
The Monroe doctrine was OTL actually enforced by one organisation. The Royal Navy. So not much the US could really do. OTL. In this world things are even more unbalenced.
Even Otl it would be less than easy for the US to do that until the mid 20th Century. In this world they dont have the military muscle or economic power to force the British to do anything.
Given that it's a military regime in power, to what extent is this Republic actually democratic? Given Hutzinger's actions otl I can't imagine he's all that interested in Republicanism, or really any government, royalist or republican, that doesn't have him and his military friends in positions of power.
Absolutely, Hutzinger is certainly no De Gaulle and French democracy has a long and tough road ahead of it...
This sounds like a comparatively minor incident to start a war over, given no deaths of British merchant sailors occur and the cargo lost was, presumably, iron ore.
I suspect it's more of a straw-that-breaks-the-camel's-back type of thing.
Yeah unless Japan was doing that to literally every British vessel they came across depending on the cargo being shipped legally they could do that.
How much authority does London have over the Dominions? What, politically, ties the Empire together at this point?
It’s a bit of both honestly. So, from the beginning, although Britain is notionally neutral in practice it’s shipping goods and funds to the Chinese and everyone knows it, while also instituting an embargo on oil exports to Japan (the Dutch wisely just nod along with this). So what Japan had done is try to enforce a cordon north of Hong Kong within which British-flagged shipping isn’t allowed. (Not the most feasible plan you might say but the IJN, TTL as in OTL, doesn’t always have the best analysis of its own capabilities.) The Iron Chieftain was the first ship to fall victim to that new rule and the British public were particularly outraged by the fact that the sailors were imprisoned in Japan.
So, for GB, Ireland and the Dominions, they are in a real union, which means they share a foreign and defence policy and are in currency and customs unions with each other. As regards who still calls the shots on those policies, London still has a kind of primus inter pares status but that’s going to be eroded over time especially with the rise of India.
Also, the Dominions all share a single Royal Navy and Imperial Army, which I will elaborate on in a future post.
As regards the non-Dominion bits of the empire, the colonies in Asia and the Caribbean are basically as OTL. In Africa, the model is to pursue protectorates along the lines of OTL Egypt and Botswana rather than Crown Colonies but to an extent that’s an academic difference.
Yeah no nation's going to war over the first incident though. If the IJN is only enforcing this Blockade north of Hong Kong the British still have enough ports(including Hong Kong) that they can ship supplies through without running afoul of the Blockade as well. The Blockade would be a paper tiger until Japan got control of the southern coasts which if the British can still ship up north they wouldn't have yet. Literally the only way the very first ship being captured would spark the war is if Japan decides to execute every sailor.