五十: Sekai Heiwa? (The Treaty of Bern/Peace?)
[...] Therefore we, in the interest of international cooperation and mutual goodwill, we, as per the proposal drafted by His Majesty himself, propose a formal end to this needless bloodshed under the following three terms:
1: A guarantee of the territorial integrity of our new allies, particularly Germany, as well as the liberation of the remainder of the French colonial empire and forfeiture of Elass-Lothringen
2: A guarantee against American meddling in Asia and the so-called "Old World," in neither of which they belong.
3: Reparations to the German and Italian peoples for the grave damage inflicted by the Anglo-American reign of terror. in the interest of goodwill, we shall also pay indemnities to British and Americans who have suffered damages in the course of the Great East Asia War.
This offer is time-sensitive; if we do not receive an answer in the affirmative by the deadline of 10 o' clock on May 1st, silence shall be taken as a sign of refusal and hostilities shall continue."
- Prince Fumimaro Konoe, issuing the so-called "May Day Ultimatum" in his capacity as Foreign Affairs Minister, April 23rd, 1952
Of course, the prince's proposal issued on behalf of Tokyo was controversial in Washington, London, and particularly Paris. While both the Democratic and Republican parties blustered publicly to "liberate" Eurasia and destroy the Japanese Empire, with the Presidential elections approaching quickly, privately, the party power brokers in both parties became increasingly insistent upon a settlement with the empire. In London, with British fortunes even worse than the darkest days of 1940, the Second Attlee Ministry was in utter shambles, but the opposition had little to celebrate: Major unrest in blue-collar neighborhoods across the country had become daily occurrences, the Communist Party of Great Britain becoming more and more boastful in its pronouncements, General Secretary Harry Politt hailing the unrest as "the British proletariat finally beginning to shake off their chains."
As France stood the most to lose from such a settlement, the debates in the National Assembly proved to be some of the most tense debates in republican French history, said discussions coming to blows more than once: French combat losses against the Japanese having already surpassed those sustained against Germany, the dissolution of the remainder of the French colonial empire and surrender of Elass-Lothringen to Germany were considered extremely controversial and by the 24th, any sort of common fronts pro-accord and anti-accord, had broken down entirely and infighting within the parties became the norm rather than the exception. Finally, on the afternoon of the 27th, the young socialist firebrand François Mitterrand successfully grabbed the attention of the delegates, delivering an impassioned, two-and-a-half hour speech, rejecting the very intentionally-timed ultimatum from Tokyo, urging his audience not to give in to "the Oriental barbarism which our fathers and grandfathers spent so much blood and treasure to dispel and bring the light of progress to the peoples of Indochina."
""Que le sang des jaunes abreuvent nos sillons!!"
- Popular replacement for the second stanza's end in La Marseillaise. Meaning literally "let the blood of the yellows water our fields," it needless to say, not exactly a positive description of the "hordes" led by Tokyo
The deadline having come and gone, after his string of victories in the worker's paradise in the east, Count Terauchi was given overall command of the campaign against the holy land for revolutionaries the world over:
One-hundred-and-sixty-one divisions of varying strength and size from across the Co-Prosperity Sphere were to descend upon Gaul, seize Paris and the channel coasts first of all while mowing down any and all opposition the Allies could muster, driving for the vital ports of Normandy and Brittany all the while and bisecting the country.
The next four days saw some of the most brutal fighting in the area since the German rout in 1944-45: Already ravaged by losses in Germany and Italy and the token American force already in grave danger, primary responsibility for the futile attempts to hold back the Co-Prosperity Sphere fell primarily to poorly-equipped and gendarmes and reservists armed with American surplus. More numerous however, were the assorted "revolutionary" militants who sought to defend the land of
Liberté, égalité, and
fraternité from the forces of "Asiatic despotism," armed with more revolutionary zeal than modern weaponry, training, or common sense. As more and more of Lorraine, Champagne, and Burgundy became utter killing fields, it more often than not, fell to the Japanese and Ukrainian troops to restrain their German counterparts from French POWs and civilians:
The speed with which Metropolitan France was being overrun shocked and alarmed NATO commanders, having grown accustomed to the somewhat stable lines of Germany and Central Europe: A mere two days into the offensive and Muto's forces were already threatening Paris, well ahead of Allied projections:
The defenders of Paris being quickly enveloped by Japanese mechanized forces from the north and south, Ridgway actually proposed drawing Muto's forces as deep into the city as possible in order to stall for time, a suggestion resoundingly rejected by Auriol; furthermore, German heavy artillery pounding the east bank of the Seine made it difficult and dangerous for civilians and political leaders alike to flee the city. In the space of eight savage, chaotic hours, the French defenders were either destroyed or forced to surrender; only compounding upon the humiliation was the capture of President Auriol and the bulk of his ministers and National Assembly members, and even General Ridgway himself. Muto's forces already keen to pursue what remained of the scattered French Army north and three divisions of the German Imperial Guard under the infamous General Josef "Sepp" Deitrich en route to keep Paris under control, Auriol literally got on his knees to beg for the Japanese terms. As a backhanded, insulting gesture to the Allies and gesture of friendship to Berlin, Konoe all but demanded the French capitulation be signed at the Palace of Versailles [52]:
But the prince's plan was soon to be derailed: Having gathered survivors from the aforementioned militias and disillusioned stragglers from the French Army taking control of the city of Versailles and his right-hand man Jacques Duclos arranging smuggling out a number of sympathetic-slash-like-minded delegates, French Communist Party leader Maurice Thorez, delivered a fiery speech, condemning the Fourth Republic's political class as "traitors both to the proletariat and the memory of the revolution," and in the spirit of 1871, proclaimed the birth of the Commune of France, claiming authority over the entirety of Metropolitan France. Also in the spirit of 1871, Dietrich's three Guards divisions were diverted to Versailles to strangle the revolution in its crib; by the following morning, there were no survivors.
As Paris refused the previous Japanese offer, the peace terms of the Second Treaty of Versailles were accordingly harsher. Not only was the French colonial empire to be consigned to the dustbin of history and figures such as de Gaulle, Pène, Widmer, and Kœnig turned over to the Germans as war criminals, but French republicanism was to join it as well:
Under a government headed by Pierre Boutang, the philosopher, journalist, and intellectual successor to the late Charles Maurras, the restored French throne was offered to the
Infante Jaime of Spain under the regnal name Henri the Sixth, the prince, while surprised, was obviously flattered by his election:
Of course, the French colonial empire was completely dismantled, the French Pacific holdings going to Japanese administration. The Italians were granted Corsica, Tunisia, and a good half of Algeria. King Mohammed was released from Allied custody as well, with the remainder of French Algeria given to Rabat as compensation. The remainder of the French colonial possessions were seized either by the Americans or British.
Much like their neighbor across the channel, the United Kingdom was not without its internal problems either. The debate surrounding a peace settlement with Tokyo was only exacerbated by the British position being arguably worse than in 1940, Attlee's suicide after learning of the French capitulation doing no one any favors either. Shortages of consumer goods were endemic and the labor-related unrest had reached a fever pitch, unruly mobs, sometimes armed, had great sway (or outright control) over the better part of the present-day Greater London region. Finally, on the morning of the 8th, all hell broke loose: A general strike signed off on by the highest echelons of the Trades Union Congress, while nominally in response to increasingly desperate conditions in war-related industries, the events quickly got out of control as a crowd of an estimated half million strikers began to march on Downing Street, demanding an end to the war and the material shortages. Churchill as interim PM still dragging his heels in hope of a miracle akin to twelve years ago, the strikers would in fact, get an end to their war, just not in the way they had been expecting:
Loyal British troops putting down the rioters on the so-called "Bloody Thursday," May 8th. Taking the Queen's ambiguously-worded advice of "Do whatever you deem necessary," to heart, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's imposition of martial law and the consequences thereof would irrevocably sunder the "special relationship" between Washington and London.
With order restored across most of the country, Parliament dissolved, less-than-reliable MPs either interned or mysteriously vanishing and membership in the CPGB treated as a
de facto capital offense (and later
de jure), within two days, a provisional government would be in place, Konoe extending a special deal to London in deference to Hirohito's respect for the British:
Outstanding territorial claims were to be handed over to the Indians, Malays, Omanis, and Pakistanis, while the British Pacific possessions were to be divided into mandates of Tokyo and Wellington respectively, while Africa and the Caribbean were to be left unmolested. By that same token, the British recovery after thirteen years of war would require a good deal of natural and mineral resources for which London lacked the capital, leading to "reorganizations" of what remained of the empire.
The eclectic "Emergency Government" of 1952. Headed by Enoch Powell, a (relatively) young and ambitious veteran of the 1940s campaigns in Africa and India, the cabinet was united only in their distaste for communism and their desire to rebuild Britain after thirteen disastrous years of war. Below: Technically, Field Marshal Montgomery was not Britain's military dictator; he had no need to be given his strong pull with both the Queen and the Conservatives and resulting influence over the new prime minster:
With the British capitulation, the end was truly in sight, a fact apparent to all concerned parties by this point:
Norway had almost entirely recovered from the damage suffered in the war, and King Olav V intended to keep it that way, leaning strongly on on his minsters for peace with the empire. With no outstanding disputes with other Co-Prosperity Sphere members, the peace offered to Oslo was fairly generous:
By the evening of the 10th, Washington was becoming increasingly frustrated by the deterioration of the situation and it was not difficult to see why: The Norwegian desertion of NATO had left the alliance a shell of its former self and a
de facto club for republics in the Americas. This would come to have a decisive effect upon the history of all the nations of the continents and their relations with Japan. But the political aftershocks had yet to subside:
British troops stationed in Northern Ireland marching across the border and a Royal Navy fleet composed of obsolete, but still-very deadly battleships, the government of the Emerald Isle was faced with the undesirable prospect of either repealing the Republic Act of 1948 and keeping affairs more or less unchanged or suffer a series of unsaid, but rather strongly implicit consequences:
The government of Prime Minister Tage Erlander had collapsed under Washington's desperate diplomatic and economic pressure to bring at least one Scandinavian power into NATO, however "unintended consequences" was the operative term among the US State Department on the 12th of May: The military government which took control over Sweden clung even more tightly to the country's neutrality:
On May 21st, the last major republican uprising in France was crushed by the Imperial Japanese Army and royalist French troops, sundering any hopes of a widespread resistance movement as seen against the Germans.
"Goddamnit, the Republicans can deal with this!"
- Harry S. Truman, June 7th, 1952
While that particularly optimistic American spirit caused some in Washington to hold out hope for some kind of a reversal in fortunes, intellectually, most in the Pentagon knew that there was no realistic way to regain the momentum. Realizing fully well that the game was up, Democratic Party power brokers leaned more and more on Truman and Acheson to finally accept some sort of peace settlement and cut the party's already-heavy losses. After more than eleven years of (declared) war and en estimated five million Americans killed or gravely wounded, in addition to countless ships and aircraft, Truman relented, instructing the the telecommunications tycoon-turned-ambassador to the United Kingdom Walter Sherman Gifford, to quietly contact the Japanese delegation for peace. While the treaty still formally had to be signed, for all intents and purposes, the Second World War, Twenty-One Years' War, Great East Asia War, whatever one wished to call it, was finally at an end:
Contrary to the expectations of his American counterparts, Konoe was fairly subdued upon learning of the American acquiescence, simply relaying the news back to Tokyo. All the details reaching the Imperial Palace within a couple of hours, at noon that same day, Hirohito, contrary to the expectations of the Privy Council, did something unprecedented in Japanese history, reading aloud the
Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War on a live radio broadcast. This soft-spoken but firm voice speaking in Classical Japanese a mystery to almost all of the commoners, the second the radio announcer had finished clarifying the source and context of the broadcast, the wild, raucous celebrations began across the empire. Similar events occurred across the Japanese bloc as news of the war's
de facto end was leaked.
All the parties recognized the need for a treaty, but both Tokyo and (particularly) Washington were reluctant to hold the ceremonies on the soil of either country, as it would undermine the
status quo ante bellum-like image the two attempted to promote. Most of the states traditionally seen as "neutral" were also problematic: Lichtenstein being returned to the Austrian patrimony and San Marino to be abolished completely obviously created conflicts of interest. Sweden was seen as too pro-Axis/Co-Prosperity Sphere for most of the State Department, Ireland as too pro-Allied/NATO for the Germans, Tibet as too easily influenced by Tokyo and Nanjing for the British, and requesting the mediation of the Vatican would create too much unwanted controversy. With all the intrigue and miscommunications occurring among the parties, it took three days to come to a mutually-acceptable solution, which in hinsight, should have been obvious:
The Hotel Bellevue Palace in Bern, circa 1970. Already a hotbed of diplomatic and intelligence intrigue during the 1940-45 leg of the war, while they would not say so at the time, more than a few diplomats were shocked that it had taken so long to name the Swiss as hosts. As a symbolic gesture of the "new era," the extensive security was to be provided by a joint Japanese-American team.
Two more weeks were required for the security arrangements and accommodations for the assorted diplomats and heads of state, and upon the arrival of the all the delegations, the major parties quite clearly had different concerns: The main British concerns being to keep the total reparations payments to Rome and particularly Berlin as low as possible, much as their French counterparts. The Germans, on the other hand, wished to bleed London dry to the greatest extent possible, demanding war criminals such as Harris and Churchill [55] be turned over to the Reich for execution. The Italians on the other hand, were more ambivalent, seeking mainly the consolidation of their gains at the expense of Paris and London. Finally, the Americans found the reparations to be paid to the Spanish and Finns to be a tertiary concern at best, dwarfed considerably by how to make the humiliation more digestible to an already-infuriated American people. Finally, with all the diplomatic niceties, negotiations, and cathartic bickering out of the way, at three in the morning on June 23rd, 1952, the Second World War came to an official close with the Treaty of Bern:
While hopes were high among the governments and populaces across the world, it remained to be seen if the lofty ideals proposed would truly succeed in keeping the world from another "world war," and some ominous clouds, while of course downplayed in the post-war euphoria, were already on the horizon. [56]
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[54] See Eisenhower p.268-89
[55] Although as fate would have it, after undergoing maintenance in Ankara, Harris' Avro York en route back home from Egypt would, as a result of human error and mechanical failure, go down a mere three kilometers outside the city of Dresden. While the passengers and crew sustained only minor injuries, this was not to last once the locals learned of the downed craft's VIP; what was to follow was one of the most intense acts of mob justice in the cities history, which local authorities attempted only halfheartedly (if at all) to impede. As one could imagine, conspiracy theories surrounding the crash are still quite popular in the United Kingdom.
[56] For one of, if not the best treatments of the background, the process, and consequences of the treaty, see Michael Wilson's
The Treaty of Bern: Hopes, Reality, and the World it Created (1980), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, New England.
