Unfortunate announcement: I'm going to have to wait to resume writing entries for another week until December 21, because final exams have been eating up all of my time these past couple weeks. But I've got much more of the TL planned out and I'm almost ready to resume our adventures!
Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree: A Nineteen Eighty-Four Timeline
- Thread starter Roberto El Rey
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 1984 book derivative dystopia orwell
In case you haven't noticed, this thread has been moved from the Books and Media thread to the post-1900s thread. I figured the thread belongs there more because while it is a derivative work, it's an original ATL and Nineteen Eighty-Four is used more like an endgame or a backstory than as a framework. Next update still coming on the 21st.
This is pretty good.
I always assumed Goldstein was a fictional character (within the Orwell universe) and was portrayed by an actor. Good concept for him to be real.
I always assumed Goldstein was a fictional character (within the Orwell universe) and was portrayed by an actor. Good concept for him to be real.
Goldstein at some point had to have been a real person but the Party propaganda during the 2 minutes hate with "goldstein" on film would have to be an actor. Winston himself comments that Goldstein uses more and more newspeak words which the original couldn't and thus would have to be a Party construct by that point.
46: The Hottest Places in Hell...
It's back, baby! Happy winter solstice to you all. And on this darkest of days, let us take the time to catch up with this darkest of men:
Josif Vladimirovich Zelyonov (аs his passport identified him) pushed open his front door a crack, stuck a bare arm into the cool, pungent Birmingham air and retrieved the issue of The Daily Worker that was deposited each morning on his doorstep. When he'd first arrived in his rather unideal hiding spot, the Foreign Office had offered to procure for him regular issues of Pravda, so that he could follow events in Russia without having to consult a dictionary for every other word. Josif, convinced half his neighbors were KMD spies, refused on the grounds that a Russian-speaking man reading a Russian-language newspaper would be so noticeable and conspicuous that he'd be chained up a cellar in Siberia within a week. It was only after two years had gone by without the slightest molestation that he consented to receive a copy each week. However, when he finally opened one for the first time in years, Josif found to his disgust that the once-proud publication had been turned into a pile of Trotskyist dreck, advocating that expansionist breed of Marxism that ignored the inevitable deficiencies of domestic, home-grown socialism and resulted in nothing but bloody, bloody war--absolutely unproductive to the communist cause. After two months, Josif only paid an occasional glance to the confounding Secretary's daily orders, to see if he could gain a glimpse into the man's agenda and plan.
When he opened The Daily Worker on the sixteenth of March, 1940, Josif needed little aid in comprehension, having acquired ample skill with written English after fifteen years in exile. Still, he was deeply perplexed by the content of the day's news: evidently Trotsky's armies had sliced through an obscure corner of Czechoslovakia on their way to eviscerate the Romanian fascists, and now the Italians were accusing the British and French of having conspired to allow it to happen. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was claiming total cluelessness as he begged and pleaded with the fascists not to turn their worn-out guns westward. In three minutes, Josif had worked it all out: Moscow had cut into Czechoslovak territory without any prior warning or agreement, hoping that hearsay and wounded national pride would bring a hasty declaration of war by the Axis on the North Sea Bloc and force the creation of a second German front.
The plan didn't bother Josif. In fact, it was brilliant--likely he would have done the same in such circumstances. What did bother him, however, was that the Trotsky he knew--meek, high-voiced Lev Bronstein, the kulak's son from the Dnieper plain--would never have the nerve or the guts to devise such a scheme. That had always been Trotsky's problem: when it came time to spill civil blood in the service of the Revolution, he balked and hesitated, as though he hadn't spent countless armed lives as a commander during the Civil War. If a new front were opened, civilians--millions of them--would suffer and die. Children orphaned, wives widowed, villages leveled, all for the mighty and unsurpassable cause of bringing fascism to the ground. Trotsky would never think of such a trade, necessary though it was; and that meant that Trotsky, whether he knew it or not, was being reined in by the very bureaucrats and officers whom he was meant to subordinate. It was that muddled power structure that made implementation of true socialism impossible. If Josif were in power, he'd have Tukhachevsky, Blyukher, Kollontai and a dozen others shot and fill the ranks with proper followers of socialism.
Josif set the paper down, approached a beat-up old rolltop desk, grabbed a pen and started to write. His tracts always found their way back into Russia, and even though they were used solely as targets of ridicule and condemnation, they kept Josif's views relevant in a time when political anger and conflict was a neverending occurrence. As he set the tip of his pen down on the paper, he paused for a moment before writing, in a loopy Cyrillic script:
"On the Conduct of Modern War"
Josif Vladimirovich Zelyonov (аs his passport identified him) pushed open his front door a crack, stuck a bare arm into the cool, pungent Birmingham air and retrieved the issue of The Daily Worker that was deposited each morning on his doorstep. When he'd first arrived in his rather unideal hiding spot, the Foreign Office had offered to procure for him regular issues of Pravda, so that he could follow events in Russia without having to consult a dictionary for every other word. Josif, convinced half his neighbors were KMD spies, refused on the grounds that a Russian-speaking man reading a Russian-language newspaper would be so noticeable and conspicuous that he'd be chained up a cellar in Siberia within a week. It was only after two years had gone by without the slightest molestation that he consented to receive a copy each week. However, when he finally opened one for the first time in years, Josif found to his disgust that the once-proud publication had been turned into a pile of Trotskyist dreck, advocating that expansionist breed of Marxism that ignored the inevitable deficiencies of domestic, home-grown socialism and resulted in nothing but bloody, bloody war--absolutely unproductive to the communist cause. After two months, Josif only paid an occasional glance to the confounding Secretary's daily orders, to see if he could gain a glimpse into the man's agenda and plan.
When he opened The Daily Worker on the sixteenth of March, 1940, Josif needed little aid in comprehension, having acquired ample skill with written English after fifteen years in exile. Still, he was deeply perplexed by the content of the day's news: evidently Trotsky's armies had sliced through an obscure corner of Czechoslovakia on their way to eviscerate the Romanian fascists, and now the Italians were accusing the British and French of having conspired to allow it to happen. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was claiming total cluelessness as he begged and pleaded with the fascists not to turn their worn-out guns westward. In three minutes, Josif had worked it all out: Moscow had cut into Czechoslovak territory without any prior warning or agreement, hoping that hearsay and wounded national pride would bring a hasty declaration of war by the Axis on the North Sea Bloc and force the creation of a second German front.
The plan didn't bother Josif. In fact, it was brilliant--likely he would have done the same in such circumstances. What did bother him, however, was that the Trotsky he knew--meek, high-voiced Lev Bronstein, the kulak's son from the Dnieper plain--would never have the nerve or the guts to devise such a scheme. That had always been Trotsky's problem: when it came time to spill civil blood in the service of the Revolution, he balked and hesitated, as though he hadn't spent countless armed lives as a commander during the Civil War. If a new front were opened, civilians--millions of them--would suffer and die. Children orphaned, wives widowed, villages leveled, all for the mighty and unsurpassable cause of bringing fascism to the ground. Trotsky would never think of such a trade, necessary though it was; and that meant that Trotsky, whether he knew it or not, was being reined in by the very bureaucrats and officers whom he was meant to subordinate. It was that muddled power structure that made implementation of true socialism impossible. If Josif were in power, he'd have Tukhachevsky, Blyukher, Kollontai and a dozen others shot and fill the ranks with proper followers of socialism.
Josif set the paper down, approached a beat-up old rolltop desk, grabbed a pen and started to write. His tracts always found their way back into Russia, and even though they were used solely as targets of ridicule and condemnation, they kept Josif's views relevant in a time when political anger and conflict was a neverending occurrence. As he set the tip of his pen down on the paper, he paused for a moment before writing, in a loopy Cyrillic script:
"On the Conduct of Modern War"
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This is Stalin contemplating what could have been. Ironically, he didn't have Kollontai shot IOTL even though he certainly could have had.
47
Happy New Year, everbody--a long update after a long wait (Edit: trimmed a little bit).
March 16, 1940
"I'm telling you, Mr. President, if we stay neutral now we're risking our relations with practically all of Europe west of the Rhine. What George [1] says about looking after our own industry is true, but how much good will our factories and seaports be if no one wants to trade with us? It won't do any good to the tire industry if the Dutch East Indies fall to the Japs?" Fiorello LaGuardia hoped his position as Secretary of Commerce would add weight to his advice on the well-being of American industry.
Norman Mattoon Thomas, 33rd President of the United States, sighed thoughtfully at his grand desk, leaning his elbows on the great slab of polished oak as he rubbed his temples, staring through closed eyes at the dilemma he faced. In his own opinion, the decision was clear: condemn countless Americans to bloody death and add to the death toll of an already-oversized war, or continue to promote peaceful and cooperative socialism, and turn America's vast industrial capability toward the betterment, rather than the murder, of its people. He barely understood how it could be much more complex than that.
And then there was reelection to consider. In just three years in office, Thomas had already accomplished so much to lift the American people out of the hole they'd been shoved into: The National Labor Corps had put over a million Americans to work, clearing forests and constructing roads and bridges; unemployment seemed prepared to fall below 20% for the first time in a decade. Already the economy was showing signs of pickup; reports from the Department of Commerce showed that the GDP had grown by no less than two billion dollars since the start of his presidency. [2] Schools were being built by the hundred and children from Orlando to Olympia were getting a good, socialist education. But most proudly of all, the labor unions had been elevated to heights that would make Nye Bevan jealous. The same country whose leadership had sat back and watched as generations of striking workers were bullied, beaten and starved into submission--that country had now passed the Labor Empowerment Act, turning thousands of labor unions into federally-chartered representatives of the state. Never again could the great titans of commerce and industry destroy the economy through short-sighted and careless business practices, then count on a corrupt government to protect them from consequence: treason against the worker was now treason against America. Opponents had claimed the Act was just a ploy to expand the power of the Socialist Party; to the Party's rapidly-expanding radical wing, it was exactly that, but to Thomas and his own clique of moderate allies, it truly was a leap forward in the cause of the working class.
But there was still so much left to be done, and to bring the nation to war would risk the lasting future of the reforms he'd put into place. The Socialists were pacifists, and they'd be hard-pressed to renominate a warmonger for a second term--and Thomas needed a second term. It wasn't that he wanted to keep this job for its own sake--in fact, he rather hated it, with the constant stress, near-impossible decisions to make, and endless criticism from all sides of the political aisle. But he knew he needed to keep it if he was to ensure that the socialist program could survive beyond his presidency. Already the Republicans (who had taken control of the House in the elections of 1938) were railing against just about every policy Thomas introduced; and if some reactionary puppet of the bourgeoisie were to take office tomorrow, he would tear down all of Thomas's work within a week. Thomas would need a second term to work socialism into American society, to make it resistant to the ravages of cronyism and corruption. And if he was to have a second term, he could not take the country to war.
Of course, none of this was going through the mind of LaGuardia as he tried to convince his President to commit to what was becoming the bloodiest conflict mankind had ever waged. He leaned in closer to Thomas, as if divulging some scandalous rumor. "Mr. President, a war might just be the shot in the arm this country needs to get back on track. I doubt Tucker's ever told you this," said LaGuardia, referring to Thomas's rather colorless Treasury Secretary, "but war is just about the best way there is to bring down unemployment--as a matter of fact, during World War I, unemployment was the lowest it ever was for the past seventy years." Thomas chafed at the mention of a war that, as far as he was concerned, was not distinct in any way from the current one.
"And I don't just mean the draft. Shells, guns, bullets, provisions--everything has to be made by someone. It would make millions of jobs. Come to think of it, we wouldn't even have to enter the war--we could just supply our allies with aid: oil, food, weapons, planes, tanks, munitions, that sort of thing. We'll be making huge contributions to the war effort without shedding a single drop of blood, and when the war ends the world will have nothing but gratitude for our help. Think of it, Mr. President--factories popping up everywhere, men in every family earning a living wage building planes and munitions! And even after the war ends, those jobs will still be there, employing a whole generation of Americans. A generation that will know who to thank for pulling them out of crisis and calamity!" LaGuardia's speech grew more enthusiastic as he himself became excited with the prospect.
Thomas sighed. "Fiorello, that those jobs will still be there is just what frightens me. At some point, though it pains me to think about it, there will be a man in this office who will be content to release all state-controlled endeavors to the control of rapacious tycoons, and let them run rampant without a damn to give about whom they trample in the process. If by that time a great industry will have been built around the creation of instruments of war, then the benefactors of that industry will realize that war, in and of itself, will be, to them, a profitable endeavor. And whatever chauvinist will be sitting behind my desk will be all too happy to bring this nation to war with any enemy he can find, just to appease those war profiteers who will control him and his administration. If we allow an arms industry to take root now, we will turn war itself into a profitable industry--just another source of enrichment for those magnates without a heart for anything but money." [3]
LaGuardia paused for a moment--he truly hadn't considered that possibility. But surely Thomas was exaggerating. Just sending some guns and gas across the Atlantic couldn't possibly cause an industry to develop around war--could it? Well, even if it could, it would never have the sort of power that Thomas feared. Fiorello was as progressive as anyone--he was plenty in favor of nationalization and regulation, and his years spent battling Tammany Hall meant he knew better than anyone how minuscule cliques could grab political process by the balls. But for a single set of interests to dictate the course of an entire nation's foreign policy? Sometimes these Socialists could get a tad bit too paranoid for him.
Stashing his excited tone, Fiorello began to carefully moderate his voice in preparation for his last resort. "Listen, Mr. President," he implored, "fascism is a poison--and communism is hardly any better. And one of them is going to take over Europe if we don't interfere. Once the Germans and the Russians are done shredding each other, whichever one is still standing won't wait long to turn their guns on France and its neighbors." He put on his best radio voice, accentuating his words to maximize the effect. "If we leave them in the cold, they won't last long, not against the monsters of militaries they'll be up against. If we don't come to the defense of our allies, democracy--socialist or not--will soon be well and truly dead in Europe. Lives will be lost--many of them. But it's a sacrifice worth making if the reward is freedom and prosperity for future generations."
Thomas sighed, considering the words. Then he spoke. "Thank you, Fiorello." With half a smile, Fiorello turned on his heel and scooted wordlessly out the door of the Oval Office. When he'd accepted the position, he knew he'd be a moderate voice surrounded by radicals, but the people Thomas had surrounding him--they were pacifist to the point of spinelessness. If he was going to get America in this war, he'd need a friend in the cabinet.
Hours later, President Thomas went on the radio to reaffirm American neutrality in the expanding European conflict, insisting that America had no place interfering in the business of other nations when it was still hard at work solving its own issues. Nor would America supply significant aid to any combatant parties, not wishing to contribute to the conduct of a war that it viewed as immoral and unnecessary. Democratic Europe was on its own.
[1] George Norris, the Secretary of State.
[2] This is roughly on par with the situation in OTL late 1934, after about a year and a half of FDR's policies. Thomas fears that rapid, explosive economic growth will be unmanageable by the state, and in TTL, the Socialists lost control of the House of Representatives (but not of the Senate, due to statewide vote-splitting in key states) in 1938, and a lopsided coalition of conservative Republicans and Democrats have been fighting hard to block nearly every bit of legislation Thomas submits, effectively halting recovery two years into the implementation of the Socialist agenda.
[3] The concept Thomas fears was more succinctly described by OTL President Eisenhower as a military-industrial complex.
March 16, 1940
"I'm telling you, Mr. President, if we stay neutral now we're risking our relations with practically all of Europe west of the Rhine. What George [1] says about looking after our own industry is true, but how much good will our factories and seaports be if no one wants to trade with us? It won't do any good to the tire industry if the Dutch East Indies fall to the Japs?" Fiorello LaGuardia hoped his position as Secretary of Commerce would add weight to his advice on the well-being of American industry.
Norman Mattoon Thomas, 33rd President of the United States, sighed thoughtfully at his grand desk, leaning his elbows on the great slab of polished oak as he rubbed his temples, staring through closed eyes at the dilemma he faced. In his own opinion, the decision was clear: condemn countless Americans to bloody death and add to the death toll of an already-oversized war, or continue to promote peaceful and cooperative socialism, and turn America's vast industrial capability toward the betterment, rather than the murder, of its people. He barely understood how it could be much more complex than that.
And then there was reelection to consider. In just three years in office, Thomas had already accomplished so much to lift the American people out of the hole they'd been shoved into: The National Labor Corps had put over a million Americans to work, clearing forests and constructing roads and bridges; unemployment seemed prepared to fall below 20% for the first time in a decade. Already the economy was showing signs of pickup; reports from the Department of Commerce showed that the GDP had grown by no less than two billion dollars since the start of his presidency. [2] Schools were being built by the hundred and children from Orlando to Olympia were getting a good, socialist education. But most proudly of all, the labor unions had been elevated to heights that would make Nye Bevan jealous. The same country whose leadership had sat back and watched as generations of striking workers were bullied, beaten and starved into submission--that country had now passed the Labor Empowerment Act, turning thousands of labor unions into federally-chartered representatives of the state. Never again could the great titans of commerce and industry destroy the economy through short-sighted and careless business practices, then count on a corrupt government to protect them from consequence: treason against the worker was now treason against America. Opponents had claimed the Act was just a ploy to expand the power of the Socialist Party; to the Party's rapidly-expanding radical wing, it was exactly that, but to Thomas and his own clique of moderate allies, it truly was a leap forward in the cause of the working class.
But there was still so much left to be done, and to bring the nation to war would risk the lasting future of the reforms he'd put into place. The Socialists were pacifists, and they'd be hard-pressed to renominate a warmonger for a second term--and Thomas needed a second term. It wasn't that he wanted to keep this job for its own sake--in fact, he rather hated it, with the constant stress, near-impossible decisions to make, and endless criticism from all sides of the political aisle. But he knew he needed to keep it if he was to ensure that the socialist program could survive beyond his presidency. Already the Republicans (who had taken control of the House in the elections of 1938) were railing against just about every policy Thomas introduced; and if some reactionary puppet of the bourgeoisie were to take office tomorrow, he would tear down all of Thomas's work within a week. Thomas would need a second term to work socialism into American society, to make it resistant to the ravages of cronyism and corruption. And if he was to have a second term, he could not take the country to war.
Of course, none of this was going through the mind of LaGuardia as he tried to convince his President to commit to what was becoming the bloodiest conflict mankind had ever waged. He leaned in closer to Thomas, as if divulging some scandalous rumor. "Mr. President, a war might just be the shot in the arm this country needs to get back on track. I doubt Tucker's ever told you this," said LaGuardia, referring to Thomas's rather colorless Treasury Secretary, "but war is just about the best way there is to bring down unemployment--as a matter of fact, during World War I, unemployment was the lowest it ever was for the past seventy years." Thomas chafed at the mention of a war that, as far as he was concerned, was not distinct in any way from the current one.
"And I don't just mean the draft. Shells, guns, bullets, provisions--everything has to be made by someone. It would make millions of jobs. Come to think of it, we wouldn't even have to enter the war--we could just supply our allies with aid: oil, food, weapons, planes, tanks, munitions, that sort of thing. We'll be making huge contributions to the war effort without shedding a single drop of blood, and when the war ends the world will have nothing but gratitude for our help. Think of it, Mr. President--factories popping up everywhere, men in every family earning a living wage building planes and munitions! And even after the war ends, those jobs will still be there, employing a whole generation of Americans. A generation that will know who to thank for pulling them out of crisis and calamity!" LaGuardia's speech grew more enthusiastic as he himself became excited with the prospect.
Thomas sighed. "Fiorello, that those jobs will still be there is just what frightens me. At some point, though it pains me to think about it, there will be a man in this office who will be content to release all state-controlled endeavors to the control of rapacious tycoons, and let them run rampant without a damn to give about whom they trample in the process. If by that time a great industry will have been built around the creation of instruments of war, then the benefactors of that industry will realize that war, in and of itself, will be, to them, a profitable endeavor. And whatever chauvinist will be sitting behind my desk will be all too happy to bring this nation to war with any enemy he can find, just to appease those war profiteers who will control him and his administration. If we allow an arms industry to take root now, we will turn war itself into a profitable industry--just another source of enrichment for those magnates without a heart for anything but money." [3]
LaGuardia paused for a moment--he truly hadn't considered that possibility. But surely Thomas was exaggerating. Just sending some guns and gas across the Atlantic couldn't possibly cause an industry to develop around war--could it? Well, even if it could, it would never have the sort of power that Thomas feared. Fiorello was as progressive as anyone--he was plenty in favor of nationalization and regulation, and his years spent battling Tammany Hall meant he knew better than anyone how minuscule cliques could grab political process by the balls. But for a single set of interests to dictate the course of an entire nation's foreign policy? Sometimes these Socialists could get a tad bit too paranoid for him.
Stashing his excited tone, Fiorello began to carefully moderate his voice in preparation for his last resort. "Listen, Mr. President," he implored, "fascism is a poison--and communism is hardly any better. And one of them is going to take over Europe if we don't interfere. Once the Germans and the Russians are done shredding each other, whichever one is still standing won't wait long to turn their guns on France and its neighbors." He put on his best radio voice, accentuating his words to maximize the effect. "If we leave them in the cold, they won't last long, not against the monsters of militaries they'll be up against. If we don't come to the defense of our allies, democracy--socialist or not--will soon be well and truly dead in Europe. Lives will be lost--many of them. But it's a sacrifice worth making if the reward is freedom and prosperity for future generations."
Thomas sighed, considering the words. Then he spoke. "Thank you, Fiorello." With half a smile, Fiorello turned on his heel and scooted wordlessly out the door of the Oval Office. When he'd accepted the position, he knew he'd be a moderate voice surrounded by radicals, but the people Thomas had surrounding him--they were pacifist to the point of spinelessness. If he was going to get America in this war, he'd need a friend in the cabinet.
Hours later, President Thomas went on the radio to reaffirm American neutrality in the expanding European conflict, insisting that America had no place interfering in the business of other nations when it was still hard at work solving its own issues. Nor would America supply significant aid to any combatant parties, not wishing to contribute to the conduct of a war that it viewed as immoral and unnecessary. Democratic Europe was on its own.
[1] George Norris, the Secretary of State.
[2] This is roughly on par with the situation in OTL late 1934, after about a year and a half of FDR's policies. Thomas fears that rapid, explosive economic growth will be unmanageable by the state, and in TTL, the Socialists lost control of the House of Representatives (but not of the Senate, due to statewide vote-splitting in key states) in 1938, and a lopsided coalition of conservative Republicans and Democrats have been fighting hard to block nearly every bit of legislation Thomas submits, effectively halting recovery two years into the implementation of the Socialist agenda.
[3] The concept Thomas fears was more succinctly described by OTL President Eisenhower as a military-industrial complex.
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How will the Oceanian ideology being called "IngSoc" be reconciled with the fact the (former) US is supposedly the center of Oceania?
A good question. I think the Anglophone Standards, so the name comes from this.
Or they simply call the ideology by different names in different parts of the Oceanian Empire. For example, they could call it "ProgDem" or "AmSoc" in the (former) US and "BoliSoc" in Latin America.
At the moment, pretty much as it was in OTL March 1940. US oil exports to Japan are steady as ever thanks to Thomas's attempts provide government revenue for his statist economic programs, and Soviet aid to the CCP has been minimal so far due to the outbreak of war with Germany. So, Japan has been prosecuting the guerrilla war with about as much success as OTL, with northeastern China and most of the large ports in their control but the guerrillas fighting hard in the hinterland.
48
From The Second Great War: A Picture History, Houghton Mifflin, 1954
On March 18, 1940, Czechoslovakia became the first North Sea Ally to face the wrath of the German war machine. It had done its level best to prepare; the country's government had been anticipating hostilities with Germany since the beginning of Hitler's reign, and by 1938, they had come to view invasion as inevitable. So President Edvard Beneš and his government resolved to make it as difficult as possible for the invaders once the time came by fortifying the country's borders and remilitarizing the nation. However, during the sixteen months between the outbreak of war between the Germans and Soviets and the North Sea Bloc's formal entry into the war, the Czechoslovak Republic had practically been under siege. Buried within the center of the European continent, the young democracy had always been dependent on the services of other nations for its foreign trade; By 1939, with the nation bounded on the north by an ever-shifting war zone and on all other sides by allies of the Germans, there was no practical route into the country through which food, ammunition, or personnel could pass. Thus, most of the resources and money that would have been used to secure the frontiers and expand the Army were instead used to feed the isolated nation and keep its machines and furnaces running. Despite the best efforts of Beneš and his administration, Czechoslovakia had to face the Germans in 1940 as a nation short on food, armaments, fuel and able men, protected more by mountains than by manmade defenses.
Slovak partisans traveling to engage a German squadron near Kezmarok
Despite the situation, the Czechs put up an admirable fight. Ostrava, the first city to be threatened by the Germans, held on for over three weeks of siege with very little stockpiled food and supplies, significantly delaying the progress of the northern claw of the German pincer attack while the southern flank was held up at Brno. Still, by mid-April both cities had fallen, and the nation was bisected as the two sides of the German pincer slammed together and chased the ill-equipped, outnumbered Czechs and Slovaks into a westward retreat. The eastern half of the country was quickly flooded with German forces from the adjacent front in Poland, and was overrun in early May. In the west, despite the energetic efforts of the many civilians who joined in the fight--destroying several Panzers with fertilizer bombs and ambushing advancing German platoons with farmers' shotguns--the Czechoslovak Army could not hold out against the Germans' overwhelming numerical and material advantage. As irreplaceable infantry divisions were wiped out by the German sturmkrieg and the Heer closed in on Prague, President Beneš considered a plan to pull the remaining units back to the capital and resist until British or French relief could arrive. However, this bold plan was discarded upon the bitter realization that neither of the country's two greatest allies would be joining in anytime soon--despite having declared their belligerency, the French and the British had done little to fight the Germans in those early months beyond small border skirmishes. On May 29, 1940, the Czechoslovak Republic surrendered unconditionally. Prague was declared an open city, and was infiltrated the next day; Beneš and much of his cabinet were arrested and imprisoned in the fortress at Terezín, while the Sudetenlands, with their high population of German speakers, were annexed to the Reich. The country was split into the Governorates of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia; earlier plans for a self-administering "Slovak Republic" were discarded due to the chaos in Poland that made indirect rule unsustainable. As they saw their country become split into pieces and subdued, the people seethed at the apparent betrayal of their country by the British and French.
Indeed, even under the current European order, the Czechs and Slovaks still appear to resent to this day the inactivity of their alleged allies during the so-called "Ersatz War". During the first months of the war, the British and French gave the appearance of being removed from the conflict they had accepted. The government of each power had its own reasons to avoid fighting: The once-massive Royal Navy had undergone considerable cuts and reductions during Arthur Greenwood's four-year-long coalition government, and transportation of troops to the Continent now required significantly more planning and logistical work, especially with German ships patrolling the seas. In addition, the Socialist Labour Party, the junior partner of Greenwood's coalition, threatened to withdraw support for the government in the event of major military action. Even if French Prime Minister Leon Blum had not faced similar threats from the French Communist Party, it is doubtful he would have been particularly eager to throw France into war; watching the never-ending Polish bloodbath from afar, no one in either country had any desire to see such butchery recreated in the west. Thus, even as Czechoslovakia was overrun and war continued to rage on the Eastern Front, the French and the British kept their armies at bay, pretending to fight while the rest of Europe burned.
On March 18, 1940, Czechoslovakia became the first North Sea Ally to face the wrath of the German war machine. It had done its level best to prepare; the country's government had been anticipating hostilities with Germany since the beginning of Hitler's reign, and by 1938, they had come to view invasion as inevitable. So President Edvard Beneš and his government resolved to make it as difficult as possible for the invaders once the time came by fortifying the country's borders and remilitarizing the nation. However, during the sixteen months between the outbreak of war between the Germans and Soviets and the North Sea Bloc's formal entry into the war, the Czechoslovak Republic had practically been under siege. Buried within the center of the European continent, the young democracy had always been dependent on the services of other nations for its foreign trade; By 1939, with the nation bounded on the north by an ever-shifting war zone and on all other sides by allies of the Germans, there was no practical route into the country through which food, ammunition, or personnel could pass. Thus, most of the resources and money that would have been used to secure the frontiers and expand the Army were instead used to feed the isolated nation and keep its machines and furnaces running. Despite the best efforts of Beneš and his administration, Czechoslovakia had to face the Germans in 1940 as a nation short on food, armaments, fuel and able men, protected more by mountains than by manmade defenses.
Slovak partisans traveling to engage a German squadron near Kezmarok
Indeed, even under the current European order, the Czechs and Slovaks still appear to resent to this day the inactivity of their alleged allies during the so-called "Ersatz War". During the first months of the war, the British and French gave the appearance of being removed from the conflict they had accepted. The government of each power had its own reasons to avoid fighting: The once-massive Royal Navy had undergone considerable cuts and reductions during Arthur Greenwood's four-year-long coalition government, and transportation of troops to the Continent now required significantly more planning and logistical work, especially with German ships patrolling the seas. In addition, the Socialist Labour Party, the junior partner of Greenwood's coalition, threatened to withdraw support for the government in the event of major military action. Even if French Prime Minister Leon Blum had not faced similar threats from the French Communist Party, it is doubtful he would have been particularly eager to throw France into war; watching the never-ending Polish bloodbath from afar, no one in either country had any desire to see such butchery recreated in the west. Thus, even as Czechoslovakia was overrun and war continued to rage on the Eastern Front, the French and the British kept their armies at bay, pretending to fight while the rest of Europe burned.