Decades of Darkness #189: Shards Of A Broken World
“The greater powers of our time have come to the same place, but they will never stand on the same side.”
- Australian Prime Minister Lane, speaking on the first day of the Dublin Conference
* * *
Taken from: “Wars That Changed The World, Volume 1: The Great War”
(c) 1948 by Prof. Isamu Hayashi and Dr. Berndt Chou
Keio University, Tokyo, Empire of Nippon
English Translation by Kathryn Warner
Chapter 48: Legacy of the Great War
Of the defeated members of the Bouclier, none would be treated more harshly than France. Such was the inheritance of long Franco-German enmity and, paradoxically, the strong sense of French unity. Morocco and Aragon were distant and survived by accepting German overlordship. Britain’s own internal divisions meant it broke apart before it suffered full occupation. While the successor nations to Britain were subject to treaty restrictions and German forces permanently based on their soil, they still retained part of their sovereignty. Italy, the first member of the Bouclier to fall, lacked a strong sense of national unity and dissolved into civil war after military defeat. This meant that while Germany eventually intervened to impose a peace on the feuding factions, they found it more convenient to maintain a partitioned Italy than to sustain a costly occupation [1].
France, however, maintained its internal unity and sense of nationalism throughout the entirety of the Great War. While militarily defeated, the sense of French nationalism had persisted, and continued during the occupation period when Germany divided the former France into military districts. Resistance to German occupation, both violent and peaceful, began almost immediately after the defeat of France, and has continued at a lower intensity to the present day. For these reasons, Germany imposed partition on former France, although the governments of the new states have been plagued by perceptions of illegitimacy and subordinacy to Germany [2]...
* * *
“If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me.”
- Raoul Salan, co-founder of Solidarité Nationale Française, 1933
* * *
Excerpts from: “End of Empires: A Short History of the Great War”
(c) 1951 by Ronald Bunton
Eagle Eye Publishing, Richmond [Brisbane], Kingdom of Australia
The Great War started, in large measure, over Germany’s wish to retain a de facto empire over Central Europe. The question of the future of the Verein was put in abeyance for the duration of hostilities; within Hungary and Croatia themselves, German and allied forces sought simply to maintain order rather than re-establish full political control...
Victory in Europe brought Germany great pride, but it also brought with it great problems. The old Verein could not be restored in anything resembling its present form. The Hungarians and Croatians were willing to continue as friends of Germany, but they had not lost their underlying resentment of German primacy or of its financial systems. Courland had been lost to the Verein, a price which Germany had been willing to pay to buy Russian support, yet the tensions over that bargain would be long remembered. Most troublesome of all, Germany now had to determine how to rule the formerly hostile nations which it had defeated in the war...
There had never been any question that the Verein would continue as a free-trade zone. Too many corporations and people in too many nations relied on the trade links between the nations of Europe for there to be any serious discussion of abandoning the trade barriers. The critical issues in the negotiations were how the restored Verein would set broader fiscal policy, and how the traditional methods of military and political control could be adapted to the changed geopolitical reality of the new Europe.
The result was, inevitably, a compromise. The Grosseuropaische Wirtschaftsverein, the Greater European Economic Union, was formally created on 1 January 1935 and the old Verein dissolved. The name was chosen to represent the supposed Europe-wide structure and economic focus of the new body, but even on the day of its creation, few Europeans had any illusions that the GEEU was as much a military and political body as an economic forum.
From its inception, the GEEU was intended to function as much as a military alliance and vessel for German control of Europe as it was meant to be a free trade region. This was evident from the structure of the two main intergovernmental bodies in the GEEU; the Economic Council and the Security Council. The Economic Council had representatives from member states appointed on a weighted representation of population and economic strength, and had responsibility for co-ordinating economic and other non-security issues of common interest.
Within the Union, however, true power was vested in the Security Council, which had responsibility for common defence and any other matters which were deemed to affect the security of the GEEU or any of its member states. Nowhere was the purpose of the Union made more clear than in the formation of the Security Council. The body had nine seats. Three of those were permanently allocated to Austria, the Netherlands and Prussia, and those representatives also had the right of veto over all motions of the Security Council. The remaining six seats were allocated to all full members of the GEEU on a rotating basis. Four smaller German states [3] were also including in the rotation of seats on the Security Council...
Membership of the GEEU was divided into full and associate membership. Germany had automatic membership as a single nation; while some of its member states had separate representation on the Security Council, their representation on the Economic Council was assigned on a German-wide basis, not divided amongst the member states. The other full founding members of the Union were Poland, Hungary, Croatia, North and South Italy, England, Scotland, Cymru and Denmark. Associate members of the GEEU were part of the free-trade zone, but were not part of the military alliance. Associate members were permitted to send one observer to the Economic Council, who could speak but not vote, but they could not take part in any debates in the Security Council. There were initially three associate members: Albania, Montenegro and Aragon...
* * *
“The War of the Giants has ended; the wars of the pygmies begin.”
- Clement Churchill, describing the chaos of post-war Europe, 15 January 1933
* * *
Taken from “The New Oxford Historical Dictionary”
(c) 1949 New Oxford University,
Liverpool [Melbourne], Kingdom of Australia
Used with permission.
Dublin Conference (1933). The peace conference which is usually considered to mark the end of the Great War, although some sources consider the Great War to have continued until 1935 [4]. Held in Dublin, Ireland between 7 August and 14 November 1933. Attended by the heads of state or government of most of the surviving powers of the war and some nations which had not taken part: Germany, Russia, the United States, Nippon, Australia, South Africa, Ceylon, South China, Palestine, Ireland, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Albania, Montenegro, England, Scotland, Cymru, Portugal, Aragon, Greece, Serbia, Castile, Abyssinia, Liberia, Sweden, Denmark, and New England.
In many instances, the conference simply ratified the separate peace agreements which had been reached between individual powers in the war. The main areas of contention were the unfinished negotiations between Germany and Nippon and the former British Empire, and the delineation of spheres of influence between Russia and Germany. The German-Allied negotiations were resolved through American mediation, while Russo-German negotiations came close to breaking down but were eventually concluded without the involvement of other parties. Both sets of negotiations saw the establishment of buffer states. Portugal occupied a buffer position in West Africa, while Russia established Syria and Lebanon as protectorates [5], and Palestine and Rashidi Arabia were recognised as neutral territory.
The other main outcome of the Dublin Conference was the establishment of the Council of Nations (q.v.), based in Dublin, as a forum for permanent communication and resolution of disputes between nations. All of the attendees to the conference joined the Council of Nations as founding members, and Rashidi Arabia was also invited as a founding member under German sponsorship. The disagreements between the attending powers meant that the Council of Nations had few specific powers except as a forum for discussion; the Assembly could hold debates and pass motions commenting on any aspect of world affairs, but these motions were not deemed binding on any member state. The Council Charter included a process for mediation on international disputes before either party should declare war, but there was no meaningful way of enforcing this clause...
* * *
“I admire the Council [of Nations], but I do not believe in it.”
- Russian Chief Minister Konstantin Kazimirovich Korovin, 1933
* * *
Taken from: “Wolves At The Gates: The Story of the Great War”
(c) 1951 by Noel Browne
Trinity Publishing: Dublin, Ireland
Russo-German cooperation had always included an element of tension during the war, but these strains became exacerbated during the concluding days of the war. In terms of external affairs, this was reflected in Russian diplomatic leaks of the terms of the Warsaw Accord, particularly the concession of Courland, which weakened German relations with its allies. The increasing tension would later be reflected in Russia retaining the new republics of Syria and Lebanon as protectorates, rather than allowing German control, and in Russian support for Abyssinian occupation of the former German Somaliland.
In internal affairs, the strains between the two emerging superpowers required them to amend their plans for the post-war world. Germany was forced to change the pre-war Verein structure into a new form which addressed the grievances of Hungary and Croatia. The new Union which emerged in Europe still preserved Germany primacy in defence and foreign affairs, but the other European nations were granted a meaningful voice in setting economic policy.
For its part, Russia found it prudent to formalise and extend the federal structure which had been developing before the war. Finland, Courland, Bulgaria, Thrace & Marmara, Bokhara, Khiva, Tuva and Tibet were recognised as ‘states in federation with Russia.’ Individual decrees specified the level of autonomy which each state possessed. Finland and Courland had almost complete control of all foreign affairs, to the point where they could set separate economic and tariff policies if they chose and maintained separate armed forces, while the other states had lesser levels of control. In time, more federated states would be added...
* * *
“Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language, another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand: ‘How many divisions have you?’”
- Werner Wolfgang vom Rath, then German Minister of Industry as part of the NLPP government [6], when attending the Dublin Conference as a member of the German delegation, 1933. (He would be elected German Chancellor in 1941, as the head of the United People’s Party.)
* * *
Taken from: “Wars That Changed The World, Volume 1: The Great War”
(c) 1948 by Prof. Isamu Hayashi and Dr. Berndt Chou
Keio University, Tokyo, Empire of Nippon
English Translation by Kathryn Warner
Chapter 48: Legacy of the Great War
... Like the Council of Nations, the foundations of the Restored Empire were laid during the Dublin Conference, but unlike the Council, the Restored Empire did not formally come into existence until the following year, and most of its membership would not admitted until 1939. The Restored Empire was a creation both symbolic and significant; many of its institutions were given titles and roles to suggest continuity with the vanished British Empire, but at its core it contained the functions needed to ensure that it survived as a meaningful alliance and economic pact.
The driving force behind the formation of the Restored Empire was the desire to maintain existence for the shards of the British Empire and the former German colonies which they had acquired. Australia and South Africa were the two principal powers who founded the Empire, but from its beginning the Empire was intended as a pact amongst equals. As the senior monarchy amongst the founding members, the King of Australia was established as the Restored Emperor, yet this was purely a symbolic office. The re-creation of the rank of emperor was not to give primacy to Australia, but as a symbolic act of defiance against Germany. The further symbolism of the restored imperial office was as justification for the military alliance of the Empire; since every acre of imperial soil was part of the Restored Emperor’s dominions, then an attack on one member state of the Empire was automatically treated as an attack on every member. Another principle which carried over from the old British Empire was for free movement of all imperial subjects within the Empire.
The principal purpose of the Restored Empire was to act as a defensive alliance, and to encourage trade and commerce amongst the member nations. Unlike the GEEU (which is sometimes cited as inspiration), the Empire was not a full free trade zone; member states were free to set their own tariffs and other economic policies, although free trade was encouraged. All member nations retained their national sovereignty, with the right to leave at any time of their choosing. While an Imperial Parliament was created at the founding of the Empire, this institution has largely become a sinecure, not a major forum for discussion between member states. A few initiatives are sometimes started in the Imperial Parliament, but in practice most important negotiations amongst the member states are held in yearly meetings of heads of government...
Most former British and German colonies would eventually opt to join the Restored Empire by the end of the decade. Siam opted to maintain cordial relations rather than become a formal member, Jamaica was never invited due to American attitudes, while South China was likewise never given the opportunity to join [7]. Bharat was far too populous and focused on independence to accept the proposed five-year transition period which had been instituted for other former colonies. Bharat had initially intended to go its own way entirely, although the chaos within the subcontinent would soon force amendments to those plans...
* * *
“Our founders made many wise choices when creating the Empire, but they made one glaring mistake. They chose as our motto ‘one empire, many peoples.’ They should have said, ‘one empire, many arguments.’”
- Attributed to Andrew Kelvin (later Baron Kelvin), junior member for Macquarie in the Imperial Parliament, 1946
* * *
16 November 1933
Providence Military Hospital
Outside Harlow [8], Essex
Kingdom of England
Dr Hans Asperger toured the ward of Providence Hospital, as he had done several times a day for the last month. This time, he had an English counterpart with him, a young medical graduate named Dr Eric Dax who had been assigned as liaison while Asperger treated the sick and injured prisoners of war.
We’ve been far more generous to these English than they deserve, Asperger thought. The treatment of the sick and injured was his life’s work, and he was as glad to treat ill English as ill Germans. Almost as glad, at least. Yet the way the occupation forces treated the English civilian authorities was far too generous, in his opinion. Dr Dax seemed to think that he had more right to be in this hospital than Asperger. The same generous attitude had been carried across to all levels of the occupation, as far as he could tell. That should not be the case. These English were the ones who had bombed defenceless civilians, who had broken the laws of war by using gas, and whose “home defence force” had murdered German prisoners of war during their uprising in support of the late, unlamented Neville Wood. They should be receiving the same treatment which was now being meted out to France.
Still, for all of his arrogance, Dax was astute in matters medical. He followed Asperger through the ward, and his occasional questions were to the point. Asperger came to the rooms set aside for the African recruits. England had used a couple of divisions recruited from their colonies in tropical Africa, and those soldiers had fought well, by all reports. They had honoured the ceasefire, when so many of the local English militias had not. Now they were prisoners of war, waiting for a decision on whether they would return to their homeland, or whether they would be granted citizenship. Some of them still got sick, of course, and Asperger treated them willingly enough, although with some communication difficulties since many of the African soldiers had only limited English.
Asperger paused before entering the first of the Africans’ rooms. “Do you know whether these Africans will be allowed to stay here?” These recruits came mostly from what had been British Equatorial Africa, which was now in Portuguese hands. He doubted that many of them wanted to accept the rule of a country which was the one voluntary Jackal ally.
“If they want to, they should be,” Dax said. “We should not forget those who fought alongside us.”
Asperger bit back a snide remark. The English had forgotten the Scots and the Welsh – Cymry, now, he supposed – who were still fighting alongside them when they abandoned the war. “Good. Let’s find out what maladies they have, then.”
Few of the prisoners of war had injuries sustained from the fighting itself; most of those were long since healed or dead. The occasional injuries he treated were usually the results of accidents. More common were various sicknesses which the prisoners had acquired from one place or another. The prisoners were well-fed, unlike what the English had done to the Boers they took prisoner in South Africa, but they still became sick at times.
They toured the Africans’ rooms in relative silence, asking only brief questions of the patients. No point discussing diagnoses in front of patients, of course. The patients included many who had caught influenza or other sicknesses which were common outside the prison camps, too. Some, though, had more puzzling illnesses.
Once they had left the Africans’ rooms, Asperger said, “What did you notice about those illnesses?”
“Influenza, mostly, and some other sicknesses I’m not sure about,” Dax said.
“Some with tuberculosis, but several other illnesses which aren’t usually seen,” Asperger said. “Quite a few of these African recruits have died of minor maladies, things to which no healthy man should succumb. I’ve conducted some autopsies, and heard about others. Toxoplasmosis, pneumonia caused by a yeast-like fungus which I’ve only seen before in a couple of very young and malnourished children, others with moulds infecting the respiratory tract, and some other illnesses I still don’t recognise.”
“I’ve heard of a couple of cases elsewhere, all amongst Africans,” Dax said. “Not as many has here, though. It’s strange. No one disease seems to be the cause.”
“None at all. There’s a number of distinct infections. I’ll probably find more, too,” Asperger said. “The only common link I can find is that these are all illnesses which should only afflict people who are already unhealthy.”
Dax said, “Odd. These soldiers should all have been in good health, or they would never have been recruited.”
“Indeed. The only possible explanation I can find is that perhaps these Africans have been weakened by living in such an unfamiliar climate.”
Dax looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps, but then the French recruited soldiers from West Africa, too. Some of them fought here and in France, and I’ve heard nothing about similar sicknesses troubling those soldiers.”
“Neither have I,” Asperger said.
Dax added, “Besides that, we had Africans migrate here from the Caribbean a generation before. They had some minor health problems, but nothing like this.”
“This is quite the puzzlement, then,” Asperger said. He shrugged. “Nothing to be figured out for now, though I’ll keep an eye on it.” He started walking to the next room to continue his round of the ward.
* * *
17 November 1933
Dublin
Kingdom of Ireland
Edward Windsor [9] suspected that he would spend the rest of his life with a faint but irremovable sense of guilt for the fall of the United Kingdom. Still, he thought that he could forget it for a time, once he had other things to worry him. Such as now, with the difficulties he had faced residing in Dublin but not being permitted any involvement in the peace conference that had been held here.
Of course, he had occasional consolations. Another exile had recently come to Ireland from Britain-that-was, a man whose acerbic wit and boundless cynicism offered a new perspective on everything. Edward extended his arm, and shook hands with what had to be the least idealistic man alive. “A pleasure to meet you again, Clement.”
“Likewise,” Churchill said. “Here we stand, two exiles from a country which preferred that we grace her with our absence.”
Edward said, “Me for failing the State, you for being a gadfly on the rump of the State.”
Churchill chuckled. “An unexpected turn of phrase, coming from you. I think I’ll borrow that phrase for another time.” He paused, then added, “Of course, I’m glad to be exiled, since I wouldn’t want to live in what England is becoming. The good men of England lie buried under stone in France, while in England the little men have come out from under the stones.”
“Where would you want to live, then?” Edward asked, more to hear how Churchill phrased his reply than for any other reason.
“Anywhere that life calls,” Churchill said. “Perhaps here, perhaps Palestine.”
“Not Australia or South Africa, where so many of our countrymen are fleeing?”
“The safe life is the boring life,” Churchill said. “And where do you want to live, Your Majesty?”
Edward held up a hand. “I’ve renounced that title.” He could still be wearing a crown if he really wished, but the Scots did not really want him to come there, nor did he really want to remain anywhere in Great Britain. Scotland would be too close to England, to close to the memory of the country which had fallen apart. He preferred to let the Scots establish their own commonwealth, as they were calling it – a republic without being a republic, so far as he could tell. All the Celtic nations had to make an accommodation with the new world. Cymru and Scotland were dependents of Germany, Ireland was independent and the Isle of Man its semi-sovereign dependency.
“You could find another. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, but the head that says it wants no crown merely lies.”
Edward considered for a moment, whether he could take Churchill into his confidence. At length, he said, “As it happens, I have another throne in mind. One of the shards of the Empire which needs a new protector. Jamaica.”
Churchill’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he grinned. Acerbic he might be, but he had never been a fool. “You want to take the crown so that the Americans will treat with you, when they would never speak to the Jamaicans themselves.”
“Precisely.” Jamaica was the one nation where his pursuit of a new crown would do some good. That was the last remaining fragment of the British Empire in the New World, and full of black men who were nothing but slaves in American eyes. As the monarch, he would be someone that even Americans could accept dealing with. “Only that will keep the island safe from the Americans’ depredations. Nothing else will, now that the Germans have won the war.”
Churchill let loose a sound which was as much bark as laughter. “You think that Germany won this war?”
“As much as any nation did,” Edward replied. “No nation got everything they wanted, after all. Germany triumphed in Western Europe and North Africa, even if they lost in the rest of the world. The United States has driven most foreign influence out of the Americans, but they have failed to stop Germany. Russia has obtained sweeping influence in the Middle East, but was checked in India and failed to break Nipponese power in the Far East.”
“Germany did not win,” Churchill said. “They lost the war in the moment they signed an accord with Russia, even if it will take them years to realise that fact.”
“Germany now rules all of Europe west of the Russian border,” Edward said. “I fail to see how you can consider that a loss.”
Churchill said, “Germany has not won anything except an endless quagmire. They have won the responsibility for trying to hold down a hundred million Europeans. They will now need to hold down Europe, while they have all the might of Russia on their eastern border. To match Russia’s strength, they will need to draw on all of Europe’s men and industry. Which they cannot achieve if half their armies are needed to garrison Western Europe. Russia can stir up endless trouble in German-ruled territories, far more than Germany can return the favour. The only way in which Germany will be able to match Russia is to treat all the nations of Europe as equal partners, not as conquered subjects. And if they need to do that, then they have not really won anything from this war, have they?”
* * *
[1] The relatively short-lived Italian Civil War resulted into the division of the country into two new nations. The Republic of Italy consists of the OTL Italian regions of Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Abruzzo, Marche, and Umbria. It also includes part of the OTL Italian region of Emilia-Romagna; the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Forlì-Cesena and Rimini are part of the Republic of Italy, while the provinces of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia and Modena were annexed to Germany. The Kingdom of Italy consists of the OTL Italian regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia, as well as the island of Corsica (in OTL France).
[2] Germany annexed northern and eastern France, roughly everything north of the Seine and east of the Saone until that joins the Rhone, and then all former French territory east of the Rhone until that river reaches the Mediterranean. Paris and its environs were not annexed, but created as the Special Administrative Region of Paris. The remainder of France was divided into a number of puppet states which were based on historical (medieval) divisions of France: Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Berry, Poitou, Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne, and Burgundy. The borders of these new states do not always correspond with the medieval divisions.
[3] Bavaria, Hanover, Baden and Elsass-Lothringen.
[4] This is because the United States remained at war with Chile until 1935.
[5] The division of Syria and Lebanon was conducted for religious reasons; Muslims were the majority in Syria but non-Muslims formed the majority in Lebanon (only because the Russians considered the Druze as non-Muslim).
[6] The NLPP (National Liberal & Peoples Parties) is the main party in what was then Edmund Schulthess’s coalition government.
[7] The members of the Restored Empire aren’t particularly keen on being automatically committed to a war with Russia, particularly for a nation which has such a long and difficult-to-defend land border.
[8] TTL’s town of Harlow is what is called Old Harlow in OTL; the new town was built post-WW2.
[9] Similar to what happened in WW1 in OTL, the British royal family found it prudent to change the name of their dynasty to Windsor during the Great War. In OTL, the British monarchy was of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. ITTL, the British monarchy remained of the House of Hanover (since it continued in the male line instead of through Queen Victoria), but this was still considered too German-sounding a name during the Great War, so Richard IV changed the family name to the House of Windsor shortly before his death.
* * *
Thoughts?
Jared
P.S. The borders of France are too complicated to explain in words, but there will be a map forthcoming on the DoD website which will show the precise borders. They aren’t too far from the medieval borders, though.
- Australian Prime Minister Lane, speaking on the first day of the Dublin Conference
* * *
Taken from: “Wars That Changed The World, Volume 1: The Great War”
(c) 1948 by Prof. Isamu Hayashi and Dr. Berndt Chou
Keio University, Tokyo, Empire of Nippon
English Translation by Kathryn Warner
Chapter 48: Legacy of the Great War
Of the defeated members of the Bouclier, none would be treated more harshly than France. Such was the inheritance of long Franco-German enmity and, paradoxically, the strong sense of French unity. Morocco and Aragon were distant and survived by accepting German overlordship. Britain’s own internal divisions meant it broke apart before it suffered full occupation. While the successor nations to Britain were subject to treaty restrictions and German forces permanently based on their soil, they still retained part of their sovereignty. Italy, the first member of the Bouclier to fall, lacked a strong sense of national unity and dissolved into civil war after military defeat. This meant that while Germany eventually intervened to impose a peace on the feuding factions, they found it more convenient to maintain a partitioned Italy than to sustain a costly occupation [1].
France, however, maintained its internal unity and sense of nationalism throughout the entirety of the Great War. While militarily defeated, the sense of French nationalism had persisted, and continued during the occupation period when Germany divided the former France into military districts. Resistance to German occupation, both violent and peaceful, began almost immediately after the defeat of France, and has continued at a lower intensity to the present day. For these reasons, Germany imposed partition on former France, although the governments of the new states have been plagued by perceptions of illegitimacy and subordinacy to Germany [2]...
* * *
“If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me.”
- Raoul Salan, co-founder of Solidarité Nationale Française, 1933
* * *
Excerpts from: “End of Empires: A Short History of the Great War”
(c) 1951 by Ronald Bunton
Eagle Eye Publishing, Richmond [Brisbane], Kingdom of Australia
The Great War started, in large measure, over Germany’s wish to retain a de facto empire over Central Europe. The question of the future of the Verein was put in abeyance for the duration of hostilities; within Hungary and Croatia themselves, German and allied forces sought simply to maintain order rather than re-establish full political control...
Victory in Europe brought Germany great pride, but it also brought with it great problems. The old Verein could not be restored in anything resembling its present form. The Hungarians and Croatians were willing to continue as friends of Germany, but they had not lost their underlying resentment of German primacy or of its financial systems. Courland had been lost to the Verein, a price which Germany had been willing to pay to buy Russian support, yet the tensions over that bargain would be long remembered. Most troublesome of all, Germany now had to determine how to rule the formerly hostile nations which it had defeated in the war...
There had never been any question that the Verein would continue as a free-trade zone. Too many corporations and people in too many nations relied on the trade links between the nations of Europe for there to be any serious discussion of abandoning the trade barriers. The critical issues in the negotiations were how the restored Verein would set broader fiscal policy, and how the traditional methods of military and political control could be adapted to the changed geopolitical reality of the new Europe.
The result was, inevitably, a compromise. The Grosseuropaische Wirtschaftsverein, the Greater European Economic Union, was formally created on 1 January 1935 and the old Verein dissolved. The name was chosen to represent the supposed Europe-wide structure and economic focus of the new body, but even on the day of its creation, few Europeans had any illusions that the GEEU was as much a military and political body as an economic forum.
From its inception, the GEEU was intended to function as much as a military alliance and vessel for German control of Europe as it was meant to be a free trade region. This was evident from the structure of the two main intergovernmental bodies in the GEEU; the Economic Council and the Security Council. The Economic Council had representatives from member states appointed on a weighted representation of population and economic strength, and had responsibility for co-ordinating economic and other non-security issues of common interest.
Within the Union, however, true power was vested in the Security Council, which had responsibility for common defence and any other matters which were deemed to affect the security of the GEEU or any of its member states. Nowhere was the purpose of the Union made more clear than in the formation of the Security Council. The body had nine seats. Three of those were permanently allocated to Austria, the Netherlands and Prussia, and those representatives also had the right of veto over all motions of the Security Council. The remaining six seats were allocated to all full members of the GEEU on a rotating basis. Four smaller German states [3] were also including in the rotation of seats on the Security Council...
Membership of the GEEU was divided into full and associate membership. Germany had automatic membership as a single nation; while some of its member states had separate representation on the Security Council, their representation on the Economic Council was assigned on a German-wide basis, not divided amongst the member states. The other full founding members of the Union were Poland, Hungary, Croatia, North and South Italy, England, Scotland, Cymru and Denmark. Associate members of the GEEU were part of the free-trade zone, but were not part of the military alliance. Associate members were permitted to send one observer to the Economic Council, who could speak but not vote, but they could not take part in any debates in the Security Council. There were initially three associate members: Albania, Montenegro and Aragon...
* * *
“The War of the Giants has ended; the wars of the pygmies begin.”
- Clement Churchill, describing the chaos of post-war Europe, 15 January 1933
* * *
Taken from “The New Oxford Historical Dictionary”
(c) 1949 New Oxford University,
Liverpool [Melbourne], Kingdom of Australia
Used with permission.
Dublin Conference (1933). The peace conference which is usually considered to mark the end of the Great War, although some sources consider the Great War to have continued until 1935 [4]. Held in Dublin, Ireland between 7 August and 14 November 1933. Attended by the heads of state or government of most of the surviving powers of the war and some nations which had not taken part: Germany, Russia, the United States, Nippon, Australia, South Africa, Ceylon, South China, Palestine, Ireland, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Albania, Montenegro, England, Scotland, Cymru, Portugal, Aragon, Greece, Serbia, Castile, Abyssinia, Liberia, Sweden, Denmark, and New England.
In many instances, the conference simply ratified the separate peace agreements which had been reached between individual powers in the war. The main areas of contention were the unfinished negotiations between Germany and Nippon and the former British Empire, and the delineation of spheres of influence between Russia and Germany. The German-Allied negotiations were resolved through American mediation, while Russo-German negotiations came close to breaking down but were eventually concluded without the involvement of other parties. Both sets of negotiations saw the establishment of buffer states. Portugal occupied a buffer position in West Africa, while Russia established Syria and Lebanon as protectorates [5], and Palestine and Rashidi Arabia were recognised as neutral territory.
The other main outcome of the Dublin Conference was the establishment of the Council of Nations (q.v.), based in Dublin, as a forum for permanent communication and resolution of disputes between nations. All of the attendees to the conference joined the Council of Nations as founding members, and Rashidi Arabia was also invited as a founding member under German sponsorship. The disagreements between the attending powers meant that the Council of Nations had few specific powers except as a forum for discussion; the Assembly could hold debates and pass motions commenting on any aspect of world affairs, but these motions were not deemed binding on any member state. The Council Charter included a process for mediation on international disputes before either party should declare war, but there was no meaningful way of enforcing this clause...
* * *
“I admire the Council [of Nations], but I do not believe in it.”
- Russian Chief Minister Konstantin Kazimirovich Korovin, 1933
* * *
Taken from: “Wolves At The Gates: The Story of the Great War”
(c) 1951 by Noel Browne
Trinity Publishing: Dublin, Ireland
Russo-German cooperation had always included an element of tension during the war, but these strains became exacerbated during the concluding days of the war. In terms of external affairs, this was reflected in Russian diplomatic leaks of the terms of the Warsaw Accord, particularly the concession of Courland, which weakened German relations with its allies. The increasing tension would later be reflected in Russia retaining the new republics of Syria and Lebanon as protectorates, rather than allowing German control, and in Russian support for Abyssinian occupation of the former German Somaliland.
In internal affairs, the strains between the two emerging superpowers required them to amend their plans for the post-war world. Germany was forced to change the pre-war Verein structure into a new form which addressed the grievances of Hungary and Croatia. The new Union which emerged in Europe still preserved Germany primacy in defence and foreign affairs, but the other European nations were granted a meaningful voice in setting economic policy.
For its part, Russia found it prudent to formalise and extend the federal structure which had been developing before the war. Finland, Courland, Bulgaria, Thrace & Marmara, Bokhara, Khiva, Tuva and Tibet were recognised as ‘states in federation with Russia.’ Individual decrees specified the level of autonomy which each state possessed. Finland and Courland had almost complete control of all foreign affairs, to the point where they could set separate economic and tariff policies if they chose and maintained separate armed forces, while the other states had lesser levels of control. In time, more federated states would be added...
* * *
“Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language, another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand: ‘How many divisions have you?’”
- Werner Wolfgang vom Rath, then German Minister of Industry as part of the NLPP government [6], when attending the Dublin Conference as a member of the German delegation, 1933. (He would be elected German Chancellor in 1941, as the head of the United People’s Party.)
* * *
Taken from: “Wars That Changed The World, Volume 1: The Great War”
(c) 1948 by Prof. Isamu Hayashi and Dr. Berndt Chou
Keio University, Tokyo, Empire of Nippon
English Translation by Kathryn Warner
Chapter 48: Legacy of the Great War
... Like the Council of Nations, the foundations of the Restored Empire were laid during the Dublin Conference, but unlike the Council, the Restored Empire did not formally come into existence until the following year, and most of its membership would not admitted until 1939. The Restored Empire was a creation both symbolic and significant; many of its institutions were given titles and roles to suggest continuity with the vanished British Empire, but at its core it contained the functions needed to ensure that it survived as a meaningful alliance and economic pact.
The driving force behind the formation of the Restored Empire was the desire to maintain existence for the shards of the British Empire and the former German colonies which they had acquired. Australia and South Africa were the two principal powers who founded the Empire, but from its beginning the Empire was intended as a pact amongst equals. As the senior monarchy amongst the founding members, the King of Australia was established as the Restored Emperor, yet this was purely a symbolic office. The re-creation of the rank of emperor was not to give primacy to Australia, but as a symbolic act of defiance against Germany. The further symbolism of the restored imperial office was as justification for the military alliance of the Empire; since every acre of imperial soil was part of the Restored Emperor’s dominions, then an attack on one member state of the Empire was automatically treated as an attack on every member. Another principle which carried over from the old British Empire was for free movement of all imperial subjects within the Empire.
The principal purpose of the Restored Empire was to act as a defensive alliance, and to encourage trade and commerce amongst the member nations. Unlike the GEEU (which is sometimes cited as inspiration), the Empire was not a full free trade zone; member states were free to set their own tariffs and other economic policies, although free trade was encouraged. All member nations retained their national sovereignty, with the right to leave at any time of their choosing. While an Imperial Parliament was created at the founding of the Empire, this institution has largely become a sinecure, not a major forum for discussion between member states. A few initiatives are sometimes started in the Imperial Parliament, but in practice most important negotiations amongst the member states are held in yearly meetings of heads of government...
Most former British and German colonies would eventually opt to join the Restored Empire by the end of the decade. Siam opted to maintain cordial relations rather than become a formal member, Jamaica was never invited due to American attitudes, while South China was likewise never given the opportunity to join [7]. Bharat was far too populous and focused on independence to accept the proposed five-year transition period which had been instituted for other former colonies. Bharat had initially intended to go its own way entirely, although the chaos within the subcontinent would soon force amendments to those plans...
* * *
“Our founders made many wise choices when creating the Empire, but they made one glaring mistake. They chose as our motto ‘one empire, many peoples.’ They should have said, ‘one empire, many arguments.’”
- Attributed to Andrew Kelvin (later Baron Kelvin), junior member for Macquarie in the Imperial Parliament, 1946
* * *
16 November 1933
Providence Military Hospital
Outside Harlow [8], Essex
Kingdom of England
Dr Hans Asperger toured the ward of Providence Hospital, as he had done several times a day for the last month. This time, he had an English counterpart with him, a young medical graduate named Dr Eric Dax who had been assigned as liaison while Asperger treated the sick and injured prisoners of war.
We’ve been far more generous to these English than they deserve, Asperger thought. The treatment of the sick and injured was his life’s work, and he was as glad to treat ill English as ill Germans. Almost as glad, at least. Yet the way the occupation forces treated the English civilian authorities was far too generous, in his opinion. Dr Dax seemed to think that he had more right to be in this hospital than Asperger. The same generous attitude had been carried across to all levels of the occupation, as far as he could tell. That should not be the case. These English were the ones who had bombed defenceless civilians, who had broken the laws of war by using gas, and whose “home defence force” had murdered German prisoners of war during their uprising in support of the late, unlamented Neville Wood. They should be receiving the same treatment which was now being meted out to France.
Still, for all of his arrogance, Dax was astute in matters medical. He followed Asperger through the ward, and his occasional questions were to the point. Asperger came to the rooms set aside for the African recruits. England had used a couple of divisions recruited from their colonies in tropical Africa, and those soldiers had fought well, by all reports. They had honoured the ceasefire, when so many of the local English militias had not. Now they were prisoners of war, waiting for a decision on whether they would return to their homeland, or whether they would be granted citizenship. Some of them still got sick, of course, and Asperger treated them willingly enough, although with some communication difficulties since many of the African soldiers had only limited English.
Asperger paused before entering the first of the Africans’ rooms. “Do you know whether these Africans will be allowed to stay here?” These recruits came mostly from what had been British Equatorial Africa, which was now in Portuguese hands. He doubted that many of them wanted to accept the rule of a country which was the one voluntary Jackal ally.
“If they want to, they should be,” Dax said. “We should not forget those who fought alongside us.”
Asperger bit back a snide remark. The English had forgotten the Scots and the Welsh – Cymry, now, he supposed – who were still fighting alongside them when they abandoned the war. “Good. Let’s find out what maladies they have, then.”
Few of the prisoners of war had injuries sustained from the fighting itself; most of those were long since healed or dead. The occasional injuries he treated were usually the results of accidents. More common were various sicknesses which the prisoners had acquired from one place or another. The prisoners were well-fed, unlike what the English had done to the Boers they took prisoner in South Africa, but they still became sick at times.
They toured the Africans’ rooms in relative silence, asking only brief questions of the patients. No point discussing diagnoses in front of patients, of course. The patients included many who had caught influenza or other sicknesses which were common outside the prison camps, too. Some, though, had more puzzling illnesses.
Once they had left the Africans’ rooms, Asperger said, “What did you notice about those illnesses?”
“Influenza, mostly, and some other sicknesses I’m not sure about,” Dax said.
“Some with tuberculosis, but several other illnesses which aren’t usually seen,” Asperger said. “Quite a few of these African recruits have died of minor maladies, things to which no healthy man should succumb. I’ve conducted some autopsies, and heard about others. Toxoplasmosis, pneumonia caused by a yeast-like fungus which I’ve only seen before in a couple of very young and malnourished children, others with moulds infecting the respiratory tract, and some other illnesses I still don’t recognise.”
“I’ve heard of a couple of cases elsewhere, all amongst Africans,” Dax said. “Not as many has here, though. It’s strange. No one disease seems to be the cause.”
“None at all. There’s a number of distinct infections. I’ll probably find more, too,” Asperger said. “The only common link I can find is that these are all illnesses which should only afflict people who are already unhealthy.”
Dax said, “Odd. These soldiers should all have been in good health, or they would never have been recruited.”
“Indeed. The only possible explanation I can find is that perhaps these Africans have been weakened by living in such an unfamiliar climate.”
Dax looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps, but then the French recruited soldiers from West Africa, too. Some of them fought here and in France, and I’ve heard nothing about similar sicknesses troubling those soldiers.”
“Neither have I,” Asperger said.
Dax added, “Besides that, we had Africans migrate here from the Caribbean a generation before. They had some minor health problems, but nothing like this.”
“This is quite the puzzlement, then,” Asperger said. He shrugged. “Nothing to be figured out for now, though I’ll keep an eye on it.” He started walking to the next room to continue his round of the ward.
* * *
17 November 1933
Dublin
Kingdom of Ireland
Edward Windsor [9] suspected that he would spend the rest of his life with a faint but irremovable sense of guilt for the fall of the United Kingdom. Still, he thought that he could forget it for a time, once he had other things to worry him. Such as now, with the difficulties he had faced residing in Dublin but not being permitted any involvement in the peace conference that had been held here.
Of course, he had occasional consolations. Another exile had recently come to Ireland from Britain-that-was, a man whose acerbic wit and boundless cynicism offered a new perspective on everything. Edward extended his arm, and shook hands with what had to be the least idealistic man alive. “A pleasure to meet you again, Clement.”
“Likewise,” Churchill said. “Here we stand, two exiles from a country which preferred that we grace her with our absence.”
Edward said, “Me for failing the State, you for being a gadfly on the rump of the State.”
Churchill chuckled. “An unexpected turn of phrase, coming from you. I think I’ll borrow that phrase for another time.” He paused, then added, “Of course, I’m glad to be exiled, since I wouldn’t want to live in what England is becoming. The good men of England lie buried under stone in France, while in England the little men have come out from under the stones.”
“Where would you want to live, then?” Edward asked, more to hear how Churchill phrased his reply than for any other reason.
“Anywhere that life calls,” Churchill said. “Perhaps here, perhaps Palestine.”
“Not Australia or South Africa, where so many of our countrymen are fleeing?”
“The safe life is the boring life,” Churchill said. “And where do you want to live, Your Majesty?”
Edward held up a hand. “I’ve renounced that title.” He could still be wearing a crown if he really wished, but the Scots did not really want him to come there, nor did he really want to remain anywhere in Great Britain. Scotland would be too close to England, to close to the memory of the country which had fallen apart. He preferred to let the Scots establish their own commonwealth, as they were calling it – a republic without being a republic, so far as he could tell. All the Celtic nations had to make an accommodation with the new world. Cymru and Scotland were dependents of Germany, Ireland was independent and the Isle of Man its semi-sovereign dependency.
“You could find another. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, but the head that says it wants no crown merely lies.”
Edward considered for a moment, whether he could take Churchill into his confidence. At length, he said, “As it happens, I have another throne in mind. One of the shards of the Empire which needs a new protector. Jamaica.”
Churchill’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he grinned. Acerbic he might be, but he had never been a fool. “You want to take the crown so that the Americans will treat with you, when they would never speak to the Jamaicans themselves.”
“Precisely.” Jamaica was the one nation where his pursuit of a new crown would do some good. That was the last remaining fragment of the British Empire in the New World, and full of black men who were nothing but slaves in American eyes. As the monarch, he would be someone that even Americans could accept dealing with. “Only that will keep the island safe from the Americans’ depredations. Nothing else will, now that the Germans have won the war.”
Churchill let loose a sound which was as much bark as laughter. “You think that Germany won this war?”
“As much as any nation did,” Edward replied. “No nation got everything they wanted, after all. Germany triumphed in Western Europe and North Africa, even if they lost in the rest of the world. The United States has driven most foreign influence out of the Americans, but they have failed to stop Germany. Russia has obtained sweeping influence in the Middle East, but was checked in India and failed to break Nipponese power in the Far East.”
“Germany did not win,” Churchill said. “They lost the war in the moment they signed an accord with Russia, even if it will take them years to realise that fact.”
“Germany now rules all of Europe west of the Russian border,” Edward said. “I fail to see how you can consider that a loss.”
Churchill said, “Germany has not won anything except an endless quagmire. They have won the responsibility for trying to hold down a hundred million Europeans. They will now need to hold down Europe, while they have all the might of Russia on their eastern border. To match Russia’s strength, they will need to draw on all of Europe’s men and industry. Which they cannot achieve if half their armies are needed to garrison Western Europe. Russia can stir up endless trouble in German-ruled territories, far more than Germany can return the favour. The only way in which Germany will be able to match Russia is to treat all the nations of Europe as equal partners, not as conquered subjects. And if they need to do that, then they have not really won anything from this war, have they?”
* * *
[1] The relatively short-lived Italian Civil War resulted into the division of the country into two new nations. The Republic of Italy consists of the OTL Italian regions of Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Abruzzo, Marche, and Umbria. It also includes part of the OTL Italian region of Emilia-Romagna; the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Forlì-Cesena and Rimini are part of the Republic of Italy, while the provinces of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia and Modena were annexed to Germany. The Kingdom of Italy consists of the OTL Italian regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia, as well as the island of Corsica (in OTL France).
[2] Germany annexed northern and eastern France, roughly everything north of the Seine and east of the Saone until that joins the Rhone, and then all former French territory east of the Rhone until that river reaches the Mediterranean. Paris and its environs were not annexed, but created as the Special Administrative Region of Paris. The remainder of France was divided into a number of puppet states which were based on historical (medieval) divisions of France: Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Berry, Poitou, Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne, and Burgundy. The borders of these new states do not always correspond with the medieval divisions.
[3] Bavaria, Hanover, Baden and Elsass-Lothringen.
[4] This is because the United States remained at war with Chile until 1935.
[5] The division of Syria and Lebanon was conducted for religious reasons; Muslims were the majority in Syria but non-Muslims formed the majority in Lebanon (only because the Russians considered the Druze as non-Muslim).
[6] The NLPP (National Liberal & Peoples Parties) is the main party in what was then Edmund Schulthess’s coalition government.
[7] The members of the Restored Empire aren’t particularly keen on being automatically committed to a war with Russia, particularly for a nation which has such a long and difficult-to-defend land border.
[8] TTL’s town of Harlow is what is called Old Harlow in OTL; the new town was built post-WW2.
[9] Similar to what happened in WW1 in OTL, the British royal family found it prudent to change the name of their dynasty to Windsor during the Great War. In OTL, the British monarchy was of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. ITTL, the British monarchy remained of the House of Hanover (since it continued in the male line instead of through Queen Victoria), but this was still considered too German-sounding a name during the Great War, so Richard IV changed the family name to the House of Windsor shortly before his death.
* * *
Thoughts?
Jared
P.S. The borders of France are too complicated to explain in words, but there will be a map forthcoming on the DoD website which will show the precise borders. They aren’t too far from the medieval borders, though.
posted by Jared at 8:56 PM
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