Weimar Britain?

if you're asking if there's ever been an elected communist government in a constitutional monarchy, I think the answer is yes, in nepal at the very least. if you're asking if there's ever been a case of a revolutionary socialist/communist party retaining a monarch, even in a ceremonial role, I'm not so sure about that.
 
if you're asking if there's ever been an elected communist government in a constitutional monarchy, I think the answer is yes, in nepal at the very least. if you're asking if there's ever been a case of a revolutionary socialist/communist party retaining a monarch, even in a ceremonial role, I'm not so sure about that.

Prince Sihanouk was ceremonial head of state of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge 1975-1978, so it has happened. Sihanouk had supported the Khmer Rouge however, and they needed him as most peasants supported the Khmer Rouge out of loyalty to the king rather than any great identification with Communism.
 
Well, if by some chance you got the US on the other side of the war...

Unlikely, but unnecessary. Their continued neutrality would be bad enough.

Mostly I am asking how stable British society was, and whether or not revolution is something unique to fairly autocratic societies; or if Britain even qualifies as less autocratic than Germany.

Well, her own leaders at the time were far from certain. After all, look at the panic over possible reactions if the Tsar were allowed to come to Britain (in fact, I doubt if the average Brit would have given a ****. He/she had more serious worries) and Lloyd George recounts finding a crown of striking policemen gathered at his door in August 1918, and wondering for one wild moment if the revolution had started and they had come to take him away.

Britain was more democratic than most places, but by 2011 standards only partially so. Even ignoring the question of female suffrage, Istr that between 30% and 40% of the men still couldn't vote, due to not having separate households.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
I agree that you need Britain to *lose* the war. If Britain had seen France fall and with a hunger winter of its own....
Still Britain would rule the seas, and the best deal the Germans could get out of them would probably be restoration of the German colonies. The British politicians could still call that a tie, or even a victory, since Britain really lost nothing (except for thousands of lives, but who care about that).
 
I believe that one of the UK SWP members wrote an excellent history comparing shop stewards movement in Western Europe in the period 1914-1919.

A communist party is not relevant to a revolution occurring.

In 1917, the Bolshevik faction was miniscule, and Moscow was carried by the geographic Soviet and factory Soviets. Similarly in the German revolution the shop stewards were fundamental, and until the early 1920s, the steward organised KAPD was larger than the III International Bolshevik KPD. Stewards too in Italy, and in France, and in England.

The best way to cause a revolution in England in 1915-1921 is sovereign default, hyper-inflation or hyper-deflation, a collapse in working class living standards, and an inability of factory managements to control nascent industrial unionism in the form of shop stewards and factory committees.

* * *

However, any revolution is going to face a crisis as the Socialist movement in that country splits between a kind of Fabian Social Democracy (the pro-war II International parties), and the revolutionary position.

In Italy and Germany the revolutions were hamstrung by the strength of the Social Democrats, and by the amelioration of the worst of the crisis by the new position held by the state. In Russia, continuing crisis meant that the Social Democratic parties, the SRs and the Mensheviks, became discredited. In fact, as the workers councils grew in strength in Russia, many members of the Social Democratic parties moved leftwards (the Left SRs) or joined more radical parties. Even the Bolshevik Party was radicalised by the continuing crisis and the presence of real workers councils.

The ideal condition for a "Weimar" Britain, is for Britain to default on a massive debt crisis, which causes workers councils to further radicalise, and the Labour Party to split in two; but, that Britain still has enough economic clout over the Dominions and Empire to barely survive but in constant crisis. It would also help to cause a "Weimar" situation if the Tory and Liberal parties were torn in two over an issue.
 
The front line on 11 November 1918 was still well within France and Belgium.

The allied 1918 offensive (the hundred days) was steadily rolling the German army back towards their borders. Between August 1918 and November 11th 1918 the allies took more land than all the ground taken in offensives since 1914 until that point. The German army essentially collapsed and the Allies were on the verge of entering Germany. In fact, in counter to as you claim, the allies did actually invade Germany, pushing around 20 miles into southern Alsace-Lorraine. The German High Command threw in the towel in order to prevent a wholesale occupation of the Rhineland.

The difference is, that without defeating the Royal Navy (highly unlikely) Britain is never going to be at risk of actual invasion. Any blockade by 1918 is likely to be ineffective.

Russell
 
The difference is, that without defeating the Royal Navy (highly unlikely) Britain is never going to be at risk of actual invasion. Any blockade by 1918 is likely to be ineffective.

Though as previously noted, much depends what happens to the currency. If a collapse of the Pound causes imports to dry up, we could get hungry even without a blockade - while the RN could be crippled if we can't import enough fuel oil.
 

mowque

Banned
Though as previously noted, much depends what happens to the currency. If a collapse of the Pound causes imports to dry up, we could get hungry even without a blockade - while the RN could be crippled if we can't import enough fuel oil.

The USA would be able to import enough food to stave off mass starvation.
 
The real variable would be the White Commonwealth. What, if anything would they do if if a very unstable Home Islands developed along the lines of Weimar? At the time the economic, cultural, constitutional and political links were a lot stronger too.

I guess the closest OTL example would be how say the Spanish or Portuguese Latin American countries involved themselves in home affairs during say the Spanish Civil War or other such incidents
 
Though as previously noted, much depends what happens to the currency. If a collapse of the Pound causes imports to dry up, we could get hungry even without a blockade - while the RN could be crippled if we can't import enough fuel oil.

Well, i was wan't arguing that.

But that said, it would take a hell of a lot for the worlds biggest lender (1914) to collapse financially. The empire still exists for trading purposes so any absolute collapse is unlikley. If it were inevitable, it would most likley be a reflection of overall poor performance on the battlefield and see Britain withdraw from the conflict with victory unlikley.

I personally view any "revolution" in Britain unlikley and contrasting it to the German Empire is difficult. Parliamentary democracy plays a much larger role in Britain than it did in Germany.

Russell
 
The USA would be able to import enough food to stave off mass starvation.

Depends whether the US is in the war or not. Would a neutral country be likely to send food to one of the belligerants without payment? I know they did to Belgium but that was with the consent of both the occupying and the blockading power. Or do they observe neutrality by sending food to Germany as well?

Also, America's 1916 and 1917 harvests were very poor - more than 40% down on 1915. OTL, food was made available for export by "Hooverising" - observing meatless, wheatless etc days and forbidding the use of foodstuffs for producing beer or spirits. There won't be any Hooverising in a neutral US, so America will be consuming most if not all of its food production at home.

Finally, even if it does happen this will probably take time to arrange. If the poorer parts of London, Glasgow etc wake up to find there's no bread in the shops, things may boil over long before Mr Hoover gets his British Relief Commission up and running.
 
I personally view any "revolution" in Britain unlikley and contrasting it to the German Empire is difficult. Parliamentary democracy plays a much larger role in Britain than it did in Germany.

I'm not saying likely - only possible.

Actually I suspect that King George V would try and relieve the pressure by insisting on a general election, so that the angry public can "blow off steam" legally. At worst, that could saddle him with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister, but he can live with that.
 
Though as previously noted, much depends what happens to the currency. If a collapse of the Pound causes imports to dry up, we could get hungry even without a blockade - while the RN could be crippled if we can't import enough fuel oil.

The Dominions would give food, for instance, Canada gave Britain food after the Second World War (which iirc angered the farmers since the government refused to pay the farmers properly).
 
The Dominions would give food, for instance, Canada gave Britain food after the Second World War (which iirc angered the farmers since the government refused to pay the farmers properly).

Agreed, but without imports from non-Sterling countries (US, Argentina, maybe others) British food imports are still well below normal. And if shops run out of bread (the staple food of the urban poor) even for a short time, that could cause big trouble.

Oil could be an even bigger problem. Even OTL, the six months reserve Britian had in Jan 1917 was down to less than three months by May. In Spring 1917 the Grand Fleet was ordered to cruise at three-fifths normal speed to conserve fuel, and when the US entered the war, we had to ask them to send only their old coal-burning battleships as we couldn't spare any oil for the modern ones. With US intervention (and convoy) the situation eased, but if we couldn't import from outside the Sterling Area we'd be in trouble. We could probably still get some oil from the Mideast, but irc the fields there were nowhere near as productive as they became later.
 

Cook

Banned
The front line on 11 November 1918 was still well within France and Belgium.



But heading towards Germany with a fluidity that hadn’t been seen on the Western Front since 1914; the German Army was smashed and had nothing with which to stop the allies. The myth that the German Army was not defeated in World War One is just that, a myth.

the only victor to really see post war unrest was Italy...

France wasn’t exactly a model of stability.
 
I could see a desperate government requesting the Dominions send troops, if it came down to Weimar like attempted coups or streetfighting
 
I think its pretty unlikely. By the standards of the time Britain was a democracy. If people felt the government was hopeless the obvious outcome is to simply replace the individuals in power. The collapse of a government however isn't that exceptional. Since the monarchy is already ceremonial and even the lords are on their last legs, a change which simply makes the de facto state de jure isn't much of a revolution.

There would therefore have to be a coup and someone seizing power. It is however not clear who this someone could be in 1918. The British are too boring, which is to say they are too homogeneous, outside a very small fringe with no long term prospect of governance.
 
I took the premise to be that we had a new Republican state, with a series very of unstable government that frequently changed, with lots of internal and external problems (debt, unemployment, angry soldiers/civil servants etc). In that situation, perhaps all bets about stability are off
 

Thande

Donor
A British Revolution at this point, if pressures had been greater, is possible; but I doubt it would be wholeheartedly republican. Radical, perhaps, but not republican. I think in part it's because republicanism even in mainland Britain was strongly associated with the IRB and the Sinn Feiners: there was obviously a minority who would favour that mode of government, but it would not let them take the disgruntled majority with them that every revolution needs. One thing that does spring to mind is the fact that shortly after the war, there was a brief (not very serious) attempt by some bloke claiming Plantagenet ancestry to claim the throne, saying that as the royal family were German they should be deposed. Something like that could have happened to give legitimacy to a revolution such as that suggested here.
 
Prince Sihanouk was ceremonial head of state of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge 1975-1978, so it has happened. Sihanouk had supported the Khmer Rouge however, and they needed him as most peasants supported the Khmer Rouge out of loyalty to the king rather than any great identification with Communism.

oh neat, I had no idea.
 
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