All these comments and I utterly failed to follow up last night with another update, sorry folks, the Fiancee needed help with some stuff and the next two scenes were not typed. Hopefully this weekend.
Well, shit.
You knew I'd turn up eventually, thank you for being so patient and apologies for my own tardiness. As expected, this is a nuggety treat.
'Chancellor Kapp' was the latest of many things to make me go 'heeeeeheeeee' while reading. There's just so much hear. Capper's tankers, the Bottomley scene and his Huns In High Places (probably the highlight so far), and of course the plausible (with a far-back POD) GreatWarPunk invasion of the south coast. I really, really like this, mate. Please keep it going.
I figured after I'd pestered you enough trying to figure out details for the plan here that you'd at least tell me that I am a disgrace to British political TLs and that these nandos were uncheeky. Your support is thus a pleasant surprise, and very welcome. It'll certainly keep going, if only because my interest in Interwar Germany is keeping my mind going though literally dozens of PODs I've played with for over a decade, and its just so damned
fun to do a translation of it to another country. To not shit on anyone else who have done amazingly fun "Britain as Equatorial Kundu" TLs, I've always felt that those projects, by sticking too closely to their second country that they miss the real point, which should be to see
how things can work without destroying the nature of the first country. Hell I'm already planning to do this with China when this one is eventually done.
The shape of BritNazism will be great fun, it could be Bottomley but it also could not. For a Yank, you have a good grasp of what makes Britain British. I don't think it'll turn up here, but one of my favourite 'mumby pls' moments in an old document was reading that Sassoon once wrote to Wilfred Owen that Bernard Shaw (IIRC) had written to him and encouraged him to become 'the Lenin of the Packlestone Hunt', at which point my trousers appeared to remove themselves and I awoke several hours later in policy custody. Like I say, I don't think that'll happen here (the Sassoon bit, not my trousers) but you're conjuring with similar magic.
Holy shit I'd lose my pants too over that. Thats utterly insane. In exchange all I can offer are some historical ironies from Weimar, but damn. BritNazism
is I hope going to be an interesting thing to create. But its worth noting that the Nazis went though several forms, just under Little Mister Hysterical Blindness, so be prepared for me to take that to weird places. It wont be Bottomley though, Bottomley though will have a longer role to play, akin to a certain German Newspaperman of the far right who got involved in political things, and thus will at least be on the stage with Britnazism at times.
I greatly look forward to more, particularly if you plan to take this all the way up to *1945. I've always found 'Britain split like Germany' analogues a bit silly, because geography means it's just very unlikely that would happen. Britain split like Korea, however, sort of makes sense, but still doesn't really.
Still, when the hacking, wheezing Bill Wedgwood gives his last Parkinson's-addled wireless broadcast as the shells of the Republique Populaire fall on Croydon (I spotted her in the narrative, don't think I didn't) I will be in the front row with popcorn.
Roaring in my skin, these keks, they are too real.
I'll admit I had originally only intended to take this to the "January 1933" moment which probably wouldn't have been then.
That said I also thought this was going to be a "Here's 1918, two, three, 1921, 1924, 1927, and that's my weekend!" type deal (Note to self: Never pretend I can do that again). If the interest continues, I don't think there's any reason not to go up to the bloody end. Or at least to do some Epilogue stuff there.
I'll repeat my bastardization of Twain in regards to Bill Wedgewood going down in flames: "Allohistory doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes!"
And on Croydon having a bad time, between the potential of my kid sister spending a semester there in a year, and the fact it shows up in
Every. Damn. British. TL., which I've always assumed was your doing, I figured "Hey, why not?" Traditions must be maintained. And everything can't happen in Whitehall, Whitechapel, and Limehouse (I need to learn more places in London).
Ooh, two updates in a row! Interesting to see Germany and France's plans for the world -- and what will become of a Britain laid low.
I have to wonder if Celtic mysticism might not play a role -- play up Arthur and the Welsh to contrast with the wretched Saxon and Franco-Norman invaders.
Canada will obviously drift into Yankee orbit -- Australia and New Zealand are wild cards.
Hope the Boers get their due vengeance against the khakies...
I mean its worth pointing out that the reactionary right in Germany was not really a United force until after Hitler actually assumed power, I'd argue not until the Night of the Long Knives really. All sorts of ideals can appear and pop up in the various movements in the short and long term, I'd assume a bit of Celtic or Anglo-Saxon nostalgia, which there is a bit of a history of in the UK (See: Civil War/Commonwealth era writings about how the UK was far more egalitarian, law-based and democratic before 1066 no matter what was actually the case) so I'd watch the space.
The British Dominions are in for an interesting time certainly, especially considering the more
open view of their legal statuses at this point in time. Canada and Newfoundland are probably bound to be tied in a certain direction though, South Africa another, and New Zealand, Australia and West Australia in others, either together or separately. The big question is going to be their own politics, the UKs (obviously) and the diplomatic stances and internal politics of other players in the world.
Based on the fact that some argued at the time that the Dominions weren't really countries, and with Jan Smuts in the UK government at the moment and Billy Hughes IOTL wartime service in London, I will do an update or two for a Commonwealth round up when the time for it comes, being as this thing is very clearly past any TLIAD timeframe now.
I did say if they were smart
. But would the Germans go to the trouble of putting down an Ethiopian revolt or something? Becuase I think that's how it would go down. Can you give us a general idea of what the Africa looks like?
Any trouble is (Most likely) going to be on par with the post-war troubles that shook colonial empires in the 1930s. Between Syria or the Rif and South African Riots. Unfortunately they're not the ones who will have much of a chance in actually creating a real change.
I mean in General, as noted Angola reaches out to Katanga, the British are in Ethiopia, Egypt leans more towards actually being a country than actually being a colony, the Ottomans still were in Libya, British Kenya is actually a rather small colony smushed between British territory in IOTL Somalia and a larger German East Africa. Uganda is French. Namibia is part of South Africa, and the British South Africa Company/Cecil Rhodes did less well than IOTL, in part due to some Lender Starr Jameson related shenanigans diverting attention. The Belgian Congo IOTL here was colonized on both sides of the river by the French, as it struck be as a suitably Second Empire sort of thing to dash into an "Anti-Slavery/Humanitarian" colony and thus start the scramble, the death toll was probably comparable to Leopold. In turn the Germans did a bit better in Cameroon and Togo, both of which are generally bigger. Beyond that, and yes, admittedly thats quite a lot, things are generally akin to IOTL, with a few tweaks on borders to different mountain ranges and rivers
The main difference being that the UK has a lot more colonial territory to be potentially divided.
[Obvious Statement Intensifies]
Yes, yes they do. As for "potentially" get ready for
Britain Não é Em País Pequeno
I'm an Anglophile I swear!
I wonder how long it would take before Germany and France begin trading shots
After the war they just fought, actual shots are going to be far down the road if they even happen. Its worth noting that the British and French didn't always see eye to eye after the war IOTL either, though admittedly their problems were, far, far less than this.
Gods dammit! I get my subscription list down to a manageable level and decide not to add any more until at least one of the current ones has finished and you go and write this!
I hope you'll take the following in the way it is meant too:
With the way you had written this, I thought you were British.
The feel, the grasp of, as Meadow puts it, what makes Britain British while stretching and perverting this is excellent.
I'm thoroughly looking forward to following this arc. Thank you.
I can certainly sympathize with the issues of an overloaded subscription list, though I do appreciate being added to it.
As with Meadow it means a lot to be credited for trying to keep this all British, so thank you. It means a lot to a poor Yankee who's never been further East than the Maine coast.
And all of that aside, for everyone: It really does mean a lot that a timeline to get this kind of support and feedback. If there's anything wrong with anything, please mock and rip it apart, but I'm just glad everyone is reading. I'm going to bed now, but there's quite a few more pages in my notebook I've been scratching out at work, including more scenes with our two ideologically chosen POVs and soon, with a few more.
