Against all Odds: The British Empire in World War Two

[trekaddict]

Come to think of it, I might have to delay what I have in mind until next RL year, mainly because it would be incredibly spoiler heavy, going over the weight limit you can carry. ( Started playing Fallout 3 again, last attempt failed due to Computer breakage. )

[Thomas Kenobi]

Happy November 9th, 1989 anniversary for all Germans here!

[trekaddict]

You beat me to it! Happy 9th everyone!

[Raaritsgozilla]

Happy 9th indeed.

Oh, and I hope you are happy. I have had to restart reading this to catch up properly. 2 down... 184 to go

[trekaddict]

Chapter 187

17th November 1941

RAF Airfield, Western Egypt

The band was waiting on the sandy strip of the base without knowing what they were waiting for. Orders had been to turn out and were to wait for a dignitary of some sort who would obviously arrive by plane, that much was clear from the waiting red carpet and the guards that had surrounded the base and the hangar. Why said dignitary was here was something that was didn't require much of a mental exercise either. But most of them were only busy with thinking about how long they had to wait here again, so when the retrofitted de Havilland D.H.91 Albatross they didn't look at it with anticipation but rather with relief. The aircraft flew past them and then their demeanour didn't change. The plane flew around the base twice, presumably the pilot was talking with the tower over the wireless and then the plane came in to land.

When it rolled to a stop the soldiers waiting immediately went to attention, not because they were ordered but rather because of the flag that was painted under the cockpit window. It was not the usual Union Flag that VIP transports such as this one used, it was the flag of the house of Windsor instead, making it very clear who was coming to visit their little backwater.


On the plane meanwhile the Prime Minister was still not pleased with the King insisting on coming along. When he had briefed the Palace, the King had been adamant about it, saying that it was the responsibility of the monarchy to smooth over these problems even though Palestine was not really a part of the British Empire as such. He heard the voice of his sovereign and looked up from his papers. The King repeated himself.

“It is my own responsibility Winston, not yours.” “That may be so, your Majesty, but the fallout should you be killed would be....”

“Still my own responsibility. I believe that my attending this rather impromtu conference will give our position much more weight. Besides, Princess Elizabeth might be young, but I believe that she is very capable should I be killed. If anyone can rule longer than my Grandmother, it's her.”

The plane stopped and prevented the Prime Minister from answering, and instead they rose from their seats and began to exit the aircraft. The King stepped out first, and and was greeted by the band suddenly playing the appropriate music. George VI spent almost an hour on the base, talking with the troops and generally raising morale, and the Prime Minister grudingly admitted that nothing raised the morale of the troops like the presence of their Monarch. It gave them knowledge that they weren't a forgotten backwater[1] and made willing to stay where they were. Soon enough though the motorcade that had swallowed the King and the Prime Minister moved from the base onto the road that led towards their destination.

The day before a lone Land Rover left an oasis near Cairo. The occupant was less than pleased to be again be taken from his work, but as his second in Command had said, if the King beckoned, Naval Officers, even Captains came running. Stirling had remarked that with such connections Ian would go far, but Ian had merely grunted and said that he would rather go on with screwing over the Germans. He had to admit though that it made sense for the head of the local SOE station to join the conference, there was after all the possibility that this whole thing was engineered and not the work of a single madman like people believed. Ian was to meet the train which would take the King and the Prime Minister into Palestine to the north-west. For some reason the meeting point had been set to be near a small train station in North-Western Egypt. Again from a professional point of view that made sense, because unlike the station in Cairo the one in the middle of the desert was easily defended.

He spent the better part of the day on the road, but when he came close to his destination, he stopped at the side of the road to have a look at the map. Even to a Naval Officer like him the position looked defensible, and he could almost see the British and Commonwealth troops making a stand there in a strange way against an Italian Force that had somehow penetrated that far into Egypt. He shook his head. The useless forces the Eyties had used in Lybia could never have made it, not without massive German and Soviet Help. Sighing and taking a swig from his canteen, he smashed the Landy into gear again and raced down the road towards a small train station, towards El Alamein.[2]

Once there he was stopped no less than five times before he actually was allowed to enter the small assembly of ramshackle houses and was had his papers checked again, but his rank and his Distinguished Service Order smoothed the way. From afar he could see a train waiting for her last passengers and supplies to be loaded. Ian readjusted his pack on his shoulder and stepped towards the troops that formed the last perimeter around the train. Here he was only asked for his name that was checked against a list one had on his clip-board, and he was allowed in. There he was immediately met by the Prime Minister's bodyguard who still remembered him from back when he had last met the PM outside of the Cabinet Bunker, and so Ian was was simply winked through this last layer of security. In the distance down the corridor of the carriage he could see Churchill entering the most spacious cabin at the back, but then Ian followed someone from railway personnel to his own cabin. Once there he sat down, and much to his amazement the train was beginning to move within less than twenty minutes and ending the utterly insignificant station's contact with history, soon to be forgotten until eternity. The train raced eastwards to it's destination, not into Palestine proper, but rather towards Suez where they would do their job. Ian was reading the briefing papers that he had been given a few minutes after the train had left the station. He was deeply immersed in his papers when someone knocked on the door of his compartment. He looked up from his papers and rose to open the door. Outside was an obviously uncomfortable civil servant who seemed to be slightly annoyed that a lowly Naval Officer seemed to be perfectly comfortable with the weather outside of the train, and that shone through when he said: “His Majesty and the Prime Minister would like to see you, Captain.” Ian decided not to express his annoyance and rather rose, dusted off his tropical Uniform as well as he could and followed the Civil Servant back. He entered the Cabin and stood at attention before the king waved it away dismissively and ordered him to sit down.

“You may wonder why you are here, Captain.”

It was the Prime Minister who opened the conversation, who didn't wait for Ian to answer.

“From our position the troubles in Palestine look like they are just the work of someone out to stirr up trouble. As a matter of fact we don't even have any reliable information on when this started yet, at least not here in this compartment, but it looks like it was just a chain of unfortunate circumstances.” Ian did not reply, but the other men in the compartment could sense the unasked question. This time it was the King who answered. “You are here because we cannot afford to take any chances. MI5 and MI6 have their stations here, but the Prime Minister and I think that someone from the SOE might see something that the others have missed..”

Ian creased his forehead and still felt that there was something he was not being told, but he could hardly accuse the King of withholding information, so he said nothing at first and took his time to phrase his answer carefully.

“With all due respect your Majesty, but the SOE is more on the operational side of things, and I left that other line of work long ago.”

Even though they were by no means forced to actually answer him, the two men decided to do it anyway. Both the Prime Minister and the King however decided that the man had earned honesty, and so he talked.

“While there is nothing, not even the slightest to indicate that this isn't what it seems to be, in the past you have proven to be someone who finds things where there aren't any...”

“And now you think that when you take me along not only in my position as the Head of Station for the Special Operations Executive I might be able to find indicators if there are?” Ian didn't know how he felt about being used as a snooping dog, but then again he and Felix had hunted spies for quite some time back in Blighty, and he had to admit that he had a sort of talent. It was not that he went and looked for trouble, it was more as if an unseen higher power was dictating his every move and kept throwing him into more adventures than most men didn't experience in a dozen lifetimes.[3] But alas, his was not to reason why, and he had to agree that the King and the PM had a point, because someone thinking along slightly different lines might see things that the administrators and college professors that still made up most of MI6 in the backwaters of the British Empire missed.

“So where are we going?”

“You weren't told?”

“No, Sir.” Ian denied. “All I was told was that His Majesty and the Prime Minister were asking for my attendance due to matters of gravest importance, and it didn't take a nobel prize winner to figure out what this has to do with.”

The King was once again the one who answered first.

“Good. This train is on it's way to Suez, where we will attend a conference on Palestine and.....”

For the next hour Ian listened as the Prime Minister and by a lesser extent the King explained. After that Ian went back to his own cabin and began to study the reports that had found their way to Cairo over the last few days. The violence in Palestine was dying down, mostly thanks to heavy patrolling by more than a Division's worth of Colonial Cavalry and Indian Infantry, and investigations carried out by the local police and the RMP had not yet yielded anything substantial, but from what little had been found out, the trouble had started in the Old City of Jerusalem. Rumours were flying about, but a substantial number of people said that it had started with an explosion near the Whailing wall, far too many people and far too many casualties in the hospitals that had operated the entire time were saying things to the effect, so the Commissioner was willing to accept this as the most likely conclusion. Ian shuffled through the papers he had been given and was inclined to agree, and indeed nothing except the timing, it was suspiciously close to the raid that had plagued North Africa, it had started just after many of the troops in Palestine had been moved to Lybia and Egypt. Many would see this as paranoya, but Ian had seen far too many such 'coincidences' to believe in them any more, but other than that there was nothing to suggest foreign involvement. Something about it all was bugging Ian though, and so far his hunch had mostly been right. He shook his head and decided to go and get a drink instead of sitting here and staring at papers that didn't really tell him anything new if he kept staring at them, tired as he was. He stepped out into the corridor and walked forward towards the dining car, he had almost an hour before the train reached Suez, and that was just enough time for something to eat and a good pot of tea.

Before he could sit down and let alone order, a brainwave hit and he suddenly realized what was bugging him. He raced back to his cabin, ignoring the annoyed voices that followed him. Once there he shuffled through the papers again and again until he had found what he was looking for. He placed the sheet of paper on the floor and then went through his bag and the papers he had brought, even though it was technically against regulations and standing procedures established by the SOE. Here the search took longer but eventually, as the train was pulling into the Station at Suez, he had found what he was looking for, even though this was not the time to approach the PM or the King, both were inspecting troops of some Regiment or other, and anyway, he had to formulate his arguments, even though now it was proof that there was a connection after all.




[Notes: This will all make sense...one day.... And as you can see, the Monarch of the AAO-verse is somewhat more involved, but nothing like in For King and Country. How far it does go though is something I have to figure out, for now he merely reinforces the position the interests of the Empire and threads were elected officials can't go for whatever reason. Also the promised update for RHBF will have to wait, because Ian wasn't the only one with a brainwave, and between that and Fallout 3 I haven't got that much time left for Prussia, I am sad to say.]



[1] This can be sort of compared to the Burma front between 1941 and 1944.

[2] Now come on. I had to give that place a spot.

[3] I have no idea at all what he is talking about. * whistles innocently *

[Raaritsgozilla]

Dammit man did you not hear me.

Sigh... 11 down 176 to go.

Seriously though, its good from the word go. And reading it is making me want to update my "Tales of kitten kicking and other sad stories" AAR

[Le Jones]

Good old George VI - I'd just like to say I think you had his character well portrayed. Loving it as ever...

[trekaddict]

Raaritsgozilla What can I say, AARing is my hobby.

Le Jones I tried to make the King like I interpret and saw the position of the monarch in these times, not him in particular.

[trekaddict]

This is what I am wasting my time with these days, thanks to the Anchorage DLC.

[gaiasabre11]

This is what I am wasting my time with these days, thanks to the Anchorage DLC.
...

I suppose then you also have time to continue working on the SHBB you posted at shipbucket a long time ago?

[trekaddict]

I suppose then you also have time to continue working on the SHBB you posted at shipbucket a long time ago?

That didn't really work out, because all my super-structure designs were rubbish.

[gaiasabre11]

That didn't really work out, because all my super-structure designs were rubbish.

Work on a real design first then, or make an AU design based on someone else's drawing. Doing the Jean Bart (1955) really helped me gain a lot of experience, and playing with derivatives of the Strasbourg helped too.

[El Pip]

And so you start another supposedly short idea that will doubtless turn into a vast sprawling sub-plot.

Not that I'm complaining, I'm looking forward to it in fact, I just think you should know what you're getting yourself into!

[trekaddict]

And so you start another supposedly short idea that will doubtless turn into a vast sprawling sub-plot.

Not that I'm complaining, I'm looking forward to it in fact, I just think you should know what you're getting yourself into!

It was always part of a larger sub plot, you just didn't know.

[trekaddict]

Chapter 188

Suez Canal Special Administrative Zone

The Grand Hotel in Suez was packed to the brim, not with the normal illustrious guests but with dignitaries, Officers and worker bees from the Administrations of various British Territories in the region, with even the fortified port of Aden sending a representative. There were however just as many differing opinions in the great ( and only ) conference room as there were dignitaries, and it soon became clear that nothing substantial would be agreed upon soon. The Sudanese wanted an Arab state, the British Commissioner for Palestine wanted a Jewish state and there were some that wanted Palestine to be integrated into the Empire for good, and none of these were suitable to the position of either the Government or the Crown who had already co-ordinated beforehand. The King was playing the referee for the most part, even though he repeatedly expressed the wish of the nation for a 'peaceful and agreeable solution' in order to make sure that those there knew that he and by an extent the Imperial Subjects of the crown wanted a solution that would allow them to concentrate on the war in Italy where the front had ground to a halt in the weather as both sides hunkered down and awaited the outcome of the only action that was being fought, the Canadian drive towards Monte Cassino. Late on the fourth day of the conference the Prime Minister and Ian sat in a room at the back of the hotel, enjoying drinks and finally giving Ian the chance to present his findings such as they were at the moment. He had used the enforced idleness to go further into it, but there was preciously little to go on. Ian's instincts however told him to pursue this, not only because it might be important to what was going on in the Holy Land, but also because Ian felt personally committed to doing so without even knowing why. The man opposite him on the other hand wasn't, and also was not one of the men that Mountbatten liked to recruit for the Special Operations Executive.

Due to this the Prime Minister was not looking convinced after hearing what Ian had just told him.
“That's very very thin, Captain.”

“I know that, Prime Minister. But that was the only thing I could find, and I did find that by pure chance. It's merely a reference to a certain person in Jerusalem by both the documents you gave me on the ring leaders of some of the Arab defence groups and those that we found in the outpost raided recently.”

Ian paused and then continued:

“You did ask me to keep my eyes out for anything that was, or rather is fishy, and there you go.”

Churchill was in deep thought and Ian waited patiently for a reply after all he had done his job. After a while Churchill looked directly at Ian and said:

“So you think this is worth going after?”

Ian nodded. “Yes, Sir. It's the only thing we have, and anyway, why should the Gerries know of him, let alone refer to him in secret documents?”

“True enough, and for that reason I am extending your tenure with this expedition for a while. Fancy a trip to Jerusalem?”

All Ian could do was to try and not choke on his own cup of tea and he therefore decided not to say anything quite yet. The Prime Minister talked as if Ian had answered and went on to describe his plans for the next week or so. He would travel to Jerusalem by air, go to the local Army base and there meet the local leaders, trying to discuss if and when any form of agreement could be reached.

“And you Captain will have a look at this man. By the time we get there, our people should have arrested him.”


This at last gave Ian the assurance that his advice was not being ignored and therefore decided not to dwell on the wisdom of this decision that was not his to make anyway. Soon after he was standing on the gallery that overlooked the great conference room and could not help but wonder what Felix would have said about all this, considering that he knew how it felt to have violence tear apart ones home country, and once more he felt a stab of pain and realized how much he was still missing the man that had been his brother in all but blood. Down in the room the men still could not decide on what to do, but in the end the Prime Minister and the King announced that the position of the Government and the Crown was such and such. Ian was watching the reaction and once again had the feeling that the PM and the King were following their own agenda that not only was concerning Palestine, and indeed he was witnessing an ongoing effort by the government to exert greater centralized control over the various colonies, because even though the Empire Act had been pushed by the media and everyone of the various Colonial Government going through London in the last three years there were still some that believed in business as usual and believed that London had no right to tell them how they had to run their colonies. Over the last years many had been promoted away or simply sacked, but some had connections that made it difficult even for the PM to attack them, and it would not do to invoke the influence of the Palace at every corner when things got rough.

At this point in his life Ian did not really care about the state of the Empire and how the Imperial Dominions were ruled, his priority was doing his bit to win the war, but he could apprechiate that the Prime Minister wanted the Empire to provide a solid front without any cracks that could be seen from the outside, and petty squabbling about who levied the taxes on backends like the Falklands or Diego Garcia was not the way to do this. He had however seen enough and decided that it was time to go to bed because he knew that he would not get too much sleep in the near future.

In his room though he found that he could not sleep even though he wanted to, and his mind went back to his wife and child who would most likely spend Christmas without him, and Ian hoped that he would be able to spend the first Birthday of his son in the latter's presence instead of being stuck in an office somewhere in the expanses of the Empire. In his pocket he had his only photograph of the three of them, his most prized possession, and he hoped that he would be able to come back to them soon. With these thoughts in mind he fell asleep just as the outside began to light up again.

The next day was not much different from the last, but when the evening began to turn into the night, Ian was given word that he was expected to be at the airfield early on the next morning, so he decided not to waste any more time and did instead gather up all his papers and began to formulate a report in his mind that would summarize what he had learned so far.


[Notes: Sorry for the shortness, but I had trouble thinking of something good to fill the rest of this chapter with, so instead I decided to end it here and concentrate on the next one.]

[Griffin.Gen]

Damned Palestine.
It's not that short, it's good.

[trekaddict]

Thanks.



Public Service announcement:


After thinking about it for a long time I have decided to slightly edit one of my earlier intermissions, the one about Strategic Bombers by moving up the Lancaster a year and a half.

[trekaddict]

Chapter 189

19th November

British Embassy, Tokyo

The British Ambassador to Japan was not a happy man. The situation here was bad enough as it was, with both London and Tokyo having demands and requirements that the other could never agree, but now the stakes were even higher. He reached for his cup of best China tea and began to read through the report again and he once again had to keep himself from yelling at his secretary because of the sheer cheek of the Japanese. A day ago the Royal Singapore Army, the Militia Defence force that had split of from the MVF a few months ago had arrested a man trying to enter the new South Singapore Naval Base, and after resisting arrest evidence on his body had found that he was a Japanese national and the Ambassador himself had helped to discover that the tatoo he was wearing on his ankle was the sign of a school that almost exclusively fed into the Intelligence Service of the Japanese Army. Further evidence found on his person indicated that he was part of a larger espionage ring that had existed on Singapore Island for some time. The reaction of General Slim to the news that his defence plans might be compromised had not been conveyed to him, but he had received word that it would have put even the grisliest sailor to shame. The Mps and the Singapore Police Force had raided the flat where the man had lived and had smashed the spy ring he had belonged to thanks to evidence recovered there. It showed that the Japanese had started to realize that Burma and Malaya in General and Singapore in Particular had become the place where the British had dumped surplus before the war and obsolescent and obsolete equipment once the war had begun. The Australians and New Zealanders were sending several Divisions each to defend Burma along with what was already at Singapore, and the Japanese weren't worth their money if they didn't try to find out what the British were doing where to defend the Far Eastern territories of the Empire. The last days had been spent with delivering notes and angry communication between London and Tokyo, and the Ambassador had the feeling that the situation was fast spiralling out of control.

At this point his secretary poked his head into the room and announced that it was time for his meeting with General Tojo, the new de-facto ruler of Japan. He personally despised the man, but if one wanted to get heard in the higher halls of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun, then one had to go through the Army who was the undisputed ruling service in the country in the afterglow of the victory over China. Sir Robert Craigie rose from his armchair and walked down to the garage where the Embassy was parking it's cars. Once off the property it struck him again how much the Army had taken over recently. Ever since the Asiatic Pact had been signed, the Imperial Japanese Army had become the centrepiece of Japanese society and to an extent that even dwarfed how it had been in Germany and the Soviet Union before the war. On his way to the meeting in the intentionally obscure building of the Japanese Foreign Ministry some way away from the district of Tokyo where most of these offices were located the car passed the American Embassy. Sir Robert looked out of the window and saw the still unfamiliar two white hammers and the golden wreath of the flag of the Union of American People's Republics, and once more he was amazed how the world had changed from when he had entered the civil service. Back then the United States had eclipsed Britain's economic power and were on their best way to a Great Power in their own right, and now they were struggling to regain the international stature they had had before the Country had fallen to the Communists. He was realist enough that despite it all an agreement with the Americans had to be reached. The British Empire was simply unable at this time to fight the Asics on their own, one had to find out the position of the Americans should war break out in the Pacific. But how much good would that be? The American Asiatic Fleet had been rusting at anchor in Manila for years now as the Phillipines simply hadn't got the money to maintain it, the American Pacific Fleet was mostly in San Francisco and rarely sortied because the Americans concentrated on rebuilding their country, so by default the IJN was the strongest Naval Force in this ocean, much as the Royal Navy was the undisputed ruler of the European waters. But this still was not enough, the Admiralty still could
not part with any meaningful number of ships, and the Commonwealth Navies were barely enough for local and coastal Defence, evidenced by the large number of Destroyers the Australians and New Zealanders were building. No, if there was to be any hope of a victory against the Asiatic Pact in the lifetime of those that would most likely start the war, then at least some co-ordination with the Americans was needed, that much even the civilian in the car knew. He had communicated as much to London, and he was sure that No.10 was agreeing, even though the Prime Minister hated the Communists as much as the next man.

He was dragged from this line of thought when the car stopped in a back alley of the building where he was to meet the General. He knocked on the door like he had done so often in the last week and was greeted by the same stone-faced man who lead him into the same room, but there the similarities stopped. Normally Tojo was, at best, accompanied by an adjutant, a secretary and a translator, but now Sir Robert saw that the Foreign Minister, the Minister of the Navy and the Minister for Pact Affairs were also there, and he knew then that the matter was graver than he had anticipated.

“Sir Robert.”

No more greetings. This was grave indeed. He sat down in his usual chair and reached for his bag that contained several papers and the notes from the last meeting. Before he could take anything out, Tojo began to speak.

“Sir Robert, we have several notes to convey to your Government. But let me tell you first that we can come to an agreement. Japan does not wish a war so soon after the police action in China, and surely the British Empire would rather concentrate on the war in Europe instead of wasting troops on the Far East?”

Sir Robert saw the trap for what it was. If they had thought they could trick him into saying that the British Defences in the Far East were anything but impregnable, then they were amateurs, and that was something he had not come to expect from the men sitting in front of him today. No, they had a different agenda, and strongly suspected that he was about to hear it. In the meantime though he had to give an answer.

“We have enough to do both, Sir. After all, the Empire Act is beginning to yield results at last, and the Imperial Subjects of His Majesty King George VI flock to the banner so to speak.”

That was only a partial overstatement, because recruiting was indeed picking up. He decided to send a second volley towards the Japanese to make sure that they understood that the British were not to be blackmailed. He quickly searched his mind for a formulation that would convey what he wanted to say and that would not start the war there and then. After a few minutes he at last decided on what to say.

“Besides, as we all know both His Majesty and the Prime Minister are very interested in a secure Far East, and we are willing to do everything to achieve that aim.”

The 'by force of arms if needed.' was left unsaid, but it hung in the air, and Sir Robert now knew the official and unofficial British position on the Far East. Britain would not give in to any Pact demands on Hong Kong, not give in on any demands on decolonization in India, Burma and Malaya and would only agree to any form of arms restrictions if the Defences that were in place already remained. On the other side of the room the Foreign Minister of Japan cringed and hoped that his disapproval did not show on his face. Tojo had to be the most undiplomatic person in the entire army. He had just told the representative of the stronger of the two enemy nations that he expected them to give up a huge chunk of what made up their strength or at the very least leave it totally defenceless, and he expected the British to comply just because Japan wanted them to and because the European powers were weak.

However accurate that assumption might be, there were some things that just weren't done in the diplomatic arena, and the British were probably the masters at this. He also knew that now the British Ambassador would come back to why he had started this series of meetings in the first place, and he knew that the Army and the Navy would demand that their Officers were to be released immediately. On a meeting that had taken place only an hour earlier it had been decided without consulting him, that the British were to be given no quarter. After all, they were a decadent and weak western power, however resurgent their Empire might appear at the moment. The Foreign Minister was informed enough to know that the Army felt that Japan was running out of time, and that the best time to strike was now, now that the British were heavily engaged in Europe and as long as the Americans were still rebuilding from the war. He also knew that the Navy still fumed because they had not been allowed to seize the American possessions in the Pacific when the War had still been going on on the mainland. All of this combined to a view where the west was holding back Japan from her rightful place in the world, and he feared that the Armed Forces were hell bent on a war sometime next year. With these thoughts prevailing in his mind, it took him a few seconds to realize that the British Ambassador was talking again.

“But this is not why I am here. I am here again because the Government of His Imperial Majesty still refuses to acknowledge that the men we arrested have acted not on their own, in spite of irrefutable proof. Now, before you deny again, we do not demand an apology [1] nor do we expect public acknowledgement. All that the British Empire desires is peace and a private assurance that this will not happen again. We are willing to suppress the matter as it is now, but I need something that I can tell my Government on this, and I am afraid that something will have to come from you.”

“Rubbish.” said Tojo.

“You are the ones who are building up in your Colonies. How are we to tell if this is really defensive? To some” meaning us this might look like a prelude to war.”

Sir Robert nodded.

“Indeed, and because of this we want to assure Japan that these are merely defensive measures, because what's to stop the Soviets from coming after India through Persia or Afghanistan?”

Tojo nodded and had to admit that this Britishman had managed to lure him into a trap of his own. What could he do but agree? If he disagreed it was an open and unmistakable implication that Japan was the danger, and even though both sides knew, diplomatic practice did not permit them to admit this openly.

“Certainly so, Sir Robert.” Tojo quickly cleaned his glasses. “What did your Government have in mind?”



[Notes: I felt like going to the Far East again. As usual with multi-lingual conversations, I am mostly leaving out the translator.]

[1] Not that the Japanese would willingly give one, and the Foreign Office is realistic enough. Demanding one would IMO just deteriorate the whole thing further.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Mmmh... tell me you have at least to A-bombs in store...

Just in case, you know...

It's not because I don't trust the Foreign Office, not at all.

It's just I don't trust Tojo...

[Griffin.Gen]

Cool, more Far East Politics! At least, they are politics for now.