It should be a bit longer than that. The British have other interests at the moment and are as things having relatively good relations with Germany, whereas the French will need at least twenty-thirty years to fix up what they lost.
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We haven't gotten to France yet, but TrekAddict's right. The loss of North Africa and pretty much the entire eastern border from Calais to Nice is a blow from which France will require years to recover. The fact that there are two French "governments" - Giraud and Petain - REALLY exacerbates the situation, and it's not eased by the death of Petain in 1948. Ironically, compared to the post-Vienna Bourbon restoration, the Bourbons themselves are the least of France's problems post-restoration.
The Brits could have it worse: the loss of the Orkneys and Suez is a large blow to their prestige, but not especially harmful. The loss of India was something Labour anticipated a long time ago too. Without anyrestrictions to the size of their army and navy, and German industrialists paying for the reconstruction of parts of their economy, Britain can rise again. Liked the way Attlee refused to be badgered by Papen too 
. Guess history will look kindly uponthe man, even if I cannot see him win the next elections. Will we see a one-armed, one-eyed Eden as PM?
. Guess history will look kindly uponthe man, even if I cannot see him win the next elections. Will we see a one-armed, one-eyed Eden as PM?The arm's in a sling, not a tourniquet! The eye I haven't made up my mind about. I have to say that if anyone could manage an eyepatch and make it look good, it'd be the only British PM to my knowledge to have a hat named after him. To be honest, I'd have to rake my savegames to see what happened at the 1945 general election. It's quite possible that Attlee points to France and goes "Well it could be a lot worse." As a matter of fact, I have a feeling that there's a LOT of "well it could be a lot worse" in Britain after 1942, what with German reinvestment and all.
Good news, the conference is just about over. Still have to deal with France ("Reeking Tube and Iron Shard") and the Other Powers settlements ("Lesser Breeds Without The Law"), which includes Poland. I'd better be near done; I'm running out of lines of Recessional to steal.
Good news, the conference is just about over. Still have to deal with France ("Reeking Tube and Iron Shard") and the Other Powers settlements ("Lesser Breeds Without The Law"), which includes Poland. I'd better be near done; I'm running out of lines of Recessional to steal.
83. At One With Nineveh and Tyre
Reims Cathedral
Reims, Kingdom of France
9 October 1942
It was supremely ironic, the Vicomte de Lassan thought, that the only way to end Giraud and Petain's squabble had been to accede to the Kaiser's demands. He had called the French Republic "foolish, frivolous, and irresponsible, with no one upon whose shoulders blame or praise could rest." Thus, he had produced the Comte de Paris, Henri, from the Foreign Legion garrison at Dakar. Henri, at the command of the German Emperor, would be the first King of France since 1830, and the first Orleanist king since 1848.
His coronation was a sad, shabby affair. For the second time in fifty years, Reims Cathedral had been smashed by German artillery - this time a mix of Krupp tubes and Junkers bombers. Thus, the cathedral's crossing had been cleared laboriously by hand and by bulldozer, and a mix of German and French engineers had worked to erect sufficient scaffolding to hold the walls up and seat the grandees in keeping with what records remained of the last coronation in 1824. The work had been rushed, and the Vicomte cast a jaundiced eye toward the scaffolding: the coronation had deliberately been forced to match the feast-day of St. Denis of Paris, in honor of the new king's former title.
Much of the ceremony seemed an open mockery of what it was meant to symbolize; when the Te Deum began, the Vicomte glanced around the other assembled representatives of the nobility - such as could be brought together on short notice. None of them seemed particularly interested in giving thanks, and one of them, the Comte de Hauteclocque, looked as nearly mutinous as a French noble and officer could at a royal coronation. He had marked Hauteclocque early on, seeing the dark looks the man gave the honor guard outside for carrying Mauser rifles, despite knowing quite well that such were all that was available. Such a man might be useful in a future France, if the reversals dictated at Wilhelmshaven were to be undone.
After listening for what seemed an eternity to the priests droning in Latin, he saw the sword and spurs brought forward, representatives of the nobility girding the king with Joyeuse and fastening the spurs upon his feet. Things moved slightly faster now - albeit in more interminable, turgid Latin - as the retainers bared Henri's chest, shoulders, back, and elbows and the abbot presented the sacred oil to Cardinal Suhard, the Archbishop for the anointing. Several times, the archbishop ceased his Latin, and at the prompts, the assembled estates replied with "Amen."
Somewhere in this period, he reflected, was when a man whose family had bungled the rule of France not once in 1793, but twice, losing their thrones again in 1848, was transformed by the Grace of God into a divinely ordained monarch incapable of error, by the application of a thin coat of oil dating back fourteen hundred years. It seemed fitting that a French monarch was anointed with oil that, if legend were true, must of necessity first have gone rancid, then dessicated. The longer he watched, the sadder he became, and he was not the only one to cast a glance at the sky, watching as clouds gathered steadily and the temperature fell.
It was too late in the ceremony to stop; he believed it was perhaps two-thirds finished. The Archbishop began to hurry as the first distant peals of thunder sounded, all but forcing the ring onto Henri's hand, and the scepter into his hand immediately after. One by one, a handful of men were called forward, some glancing upwards nervously. These were what passed for the Peers of France - in most cases, Spaniards and Austrians. The new king's own children were either too young or too female for the ritual's purposes, leaving the Rohans, the Spanish Bourbons, even, irony of ironies, the Este branch of the Habsburgs.
The first fat drops of rain began to fall at the same time that Cardinal Suhard raised a replica of the Crown of Charlemagne to set it atop Henri's bowed head, again declaiming in Latin. The other eleven Peers - members of houses no longer French or even allies of France - crowded around and did their ceremonial duty of touching the crown as it rested on his head. To his credit, Henri made no gesture to look up at the rain, unlike many of the Peers, then sat back for the first time on the low curule chair of Dagobert.
Suhard rushed through the final prayer, leaning forward to kiss Henri on the forehead, then turned around, raising his arms high. "Vive le Roi!" he declared at the top of his lungs; the cry faltered as it was lost in the thunder, then spread, subdued in spirit and muffled by rain, from the crossing to the narthex, then out into the rubble-strewn streets.
The Vicomte followed in the new King's train as the Peers raised his throne on their shoulders and carried him a handful of symbolic steps. Henri himself, straight-backed and relatively fresh from the Legion's harsh basic training, walked despite the increasing weight of the blue robes draped across him, traveling the short distance from crossing to the doors to be acclaimed by his people. Lassan had heard that Reims had deliberately been built with a short nave, so that physically weaker kings could accomplish this same feat. Whether he could achieve the same effect with the kingdom which had been foisted upon him, Lassan reflected with a half-hidden snort, was a separate issue.
It seemed unlikely, given the men in the new king's train. Philippe Petain, Marshal of France, had been granted the purely symbolic title of Duc de Lorraine for his Great War services and control of the army and security forces - a de jure recognition of the de facto reality. Petain's "army" consisted of a handful of overseas battalions, a mass of German and Italian prisoners, a brigade aboard white-flagged transports being returned from Indochina, and a single division of Chausseurs Alpins in Burgundy. The police were in better shape, but that was hardly a consolation, as the condition of the French army made a farce of calling Wilhelmshaven a "negotiation," and Petain had already begun culling gendarmes who had cooperated with the German occupiers - the majority of the Paris metropolitan force and the northern gendarmeries, when it came to it. Admiral Darlan, Petain's naval subordinate, was in even worse shape: the Hebrides had completely smashed what would have been France's fleet in being.
Petain was unacceptable because of his yearlong rule of southern France under German guidance. He was too close to a collaborator for comfort, in other words. Who, then, was Henri's premier? Petain's deadly rival - the two were not even on speaking terms, each calling the other a traitor to France in public - Henri Giraud. Giraud was an equally tainted figure, because when France was laid low, in her hour of greatest need, Giraud had been exhorting French forces to fight for every inch of their soil... from Horse Guards... in London. Unfortunately, they were the strongest voices in France. Petain and Giraud had each sent their own delegations to Wilhelmshaven... whence the king was now bound to sign the final peace. These were the gloomy thoughts that filled the Vicomte's mind as the sky finally opened up in a deep, booming peal of thunder, rain pelting down on the coronation crowd and soaking the velvet, gold, and ermine robes. The weight of his soaked arms actually drove the king's hand downward, and only an extraordinary effort on Henri's part kept the Hand of Mercy from the pavement.
Lassan fell into step behind the king, walking beside the Comte de Hauteclocque, and leaned close to that dignitary, a tall thin-faced man with a block-cut moustache and a gloomy, downcast look. "M'sieur Major de Hauteclocque? Colonel de Lassan," he said with a quiet offer of his hand. The Major looked over, taking the offered hand. "My son was a lieutenant in your regiment, you may recall him?" Hauteclocque nodded, absently, then upon recalling, with slightly more animation. "Yes, yes, I recall him now - the General sent him away with the colors. Tell me, how did he fare?"
"That is precisely what I wished to speak about, sir. I assure you, your colors are safe. As a matter of fact... I was hoping that you could introduce me to your general?" Hauteclocque snorted and shook his head. "He is seeing no one. He threatens to turn in his commission if this German peace is ratified. The Germans, he says, have stripped France of her honor just as surely as if they had prostituted Marianne in the Champs Elysee." He glanced at Lassan, an eyebrow rising. "You have to admit, he has a point. Bad enough that they crowned their emperor in Versailles, non? But to force a king upon us? And a king who fought -" and Hauteclocque loaded the word with scorn; Henri's service at Dakar had not been terribly dangerous - "as a ranker? It is simply not done!"
Lassan considered, then made the plunge. "True - perhaps, but didn't the Emperor serve as a mere lieutenant? Perhaps..." His voice dropped and he leaned close to Hauteclocque. "Perhaps the lily has wilted, and it's time for the eagle to fly again." Hauteclocque's jaw dropped, then his face firmed once more. "I will convey your belief to the General. He may perhaps speak to you after all."
As if to punctuate Hauteclocque's last words, the sky blackened, then lit in a single great burst of lightning. Courtiers scurried, Henri bravely bore up under his heavy robes, and the officers behind him moved with as much dignity as recent history allowed.
---
The signature of Henri VI, King of France, at Wilhelmshaven sealed the fate of the French empire. Algeria and Morocco went to Spain, Tunisia to Italy, Djibouti to Germany. Ironically, none of these powers expressed any great interest in the critical fueling station at Dakar, nor France's sub-Saharan territories. Thus, France preserved Senegal-Mali, and the flood of "blackfeet" from North Africa actually aided greatly in Petain's efforts to rebuild his army. Darlan would have to wait, because there were vastly more important matters to settle. The entire French monetary reserve in specie was transferred to German control, and when that did not meet the indemnity, German industrialists began to confiscate French properties. This is how the Renault plants came to be in Nuremberg under the management of Ferdinand Porsche as an extension of the Zündapp works, and Citroën in Chemnitz as part of Auto Union. In Paris, endless fighting between Petain and Giraud over every aspect of the Fourth Kingdom made it impossible for even the semblance of government to appear. It seemed likely that France had been plundered and left for the vultures.
Reims Cathedral
Reims, Kingdom of France
9 October 1942
It was supremely ironic, the Vicomte de Lassan thought, that the only way to end Giraud and Petain's squabble had been to accede to the Kaiser's demands. He had called the French Republic "foolish, frivolous, and irresponsible, with no one upon whose shoulders blame or praise could rest." Thus, he had produced the Comte de Paris, Henri, from the Foreign Legion garrison at Dakar. Henri, at the command of the German Emperor, would be the first King of France since 1830, and the first Orleanist king since 1848.
His coronation was a sad, shabby affair. For the second time in fifty years, Reims Cathedral had been smashed by German artillery - this time a mix of Krupp tubes and Junkers bombers. Thus, the cathedral's crossing had been cleared laboriously by hand and by bulldozer, and a mix of German and French engineers had worked to erect sufficient scaffolding to hold the walls up and seat the grandees in keeping with what records remained of the last coronation in 1824. The work had been rushed, and the Vicomte cast a jaundiced eye toward the scaffolding: the coronation had deliberately been forced to match the feast-day of St. Denis of Paris, in honor of the new king's former title.
Much of the ceremony seemed an open mockery of what it was meant to symbolize; when the Te Deum began, the Vicomte glanced around the other assembled representatives of the nobility - such as could be brought together on short notice. None of them seemed particularly interested in giving thanks, and one of them, the Comte de Hauteclocque, looked as nearly mutinous as a French noble and officer could at a royal coronation. He had marked Hauteclocque early on, seeing the dark looks the man gave the honor guard outside for carrying Mauser rifles, despite knowing quite well that such were all that was available. Such a man might be useful in a future France, if the reversals dictated at Wilhelmshaven were to be undone.
After listening for what seemed an eternity to the priests droning in Latin, he saw the sword and spurs brought forward, representatives of the nobility girding the king with Joyeuse and fastening the spurs upon his feet. Things moved slightly faster now - albeit in more interminable, turgid Latin - as the retainers bared Henri's chest, shoulders, back, and elbows and the abbot presented the sacred oil to Cardinal Suhard, the Archbishop for the anointing. Several times, the archbishop ceased his Latin, and at the prompts, the assembled estates replied with "Amen."
Somewhere in this period, he reflected, was when a man whose family had bungled the rule of France not once in 1793, but twice, losing their thrones again in 1848, was transformed by the Grace of God into a divinely ordained monarch incapable of error, by the application of a thin coat of oil dating back fourteen hundred years. It seemed fitting that a French monarch was anointed with oil that, if legend were true, must of necessity first have gone rancid, then dessicated. The longer he watched, the sadder he became, and he was not the only one to cast a glance at the sky, watching as clouds gathered steadily and the temperature fell.
It was too late in the ceremony to stop; he believed it was perhaps two-thirds finished. The Archbishop began to hurry as the first distant peals of thunder sounded, all but forcing the ring onto Henri's hand, and the scepter into his hand immediately after. One by one, a handful of men were called forward, some glancing upwards nervously. These were what passed for the Peers of France - in most cases, Spaniards and Austrians. The new king's own children were either too young or too female for the ritual's purposes, leaving the Rohans, the Spanish Bourbons, even, irony of ironies, the Este branch of the Habsburgs.
The first fat drops of rain began to fall at the same time that Cardinal Suhard raised a replica of the Crown of Charlemagne to set it atop Henri's bowed head, again declaiming in Latin. The other eleven Peers - members of houses no longer French or even allies of France - crowded around and did their ceremonial duty of touching the crown as it rested on his head. To his credit, Henri made no gesture to look up at the rain, unlike many of the Peers, then sat back for the first time on the low curule chair of Dagobert.
Suhard rushed through the final prayer, leaning forward to kiss Henri on the forehead, then turned around, raising his arms high. "Vive le Roi!" he declared at the top of his lungs; the cry faltered as it was lost in the thunder, then spread, subdued in spirit and muffled by rain, from the crossing to the narthex, then out into the rubble-strewn streets.
The Vicomte followed in the new King's train as the Peers raised his throne on their shoulders and carried him a handful of symbolic steps. Henri himself, straight-backed and relatively fresh from the Legion's harsh basic training, walked despite the increasing weight of the blue robes draped across him, traveling the short distance from crossing to the doors to be acclaimed by his people. Lassan had heard that Reims had deliberately been built with a short nave, so that physically weaker kings could accomplish this same feat. Whether he could achieve the same effect with the kingdom which had been foisted upon him, Lassan reflected with a half-hidden snort, was a separate issue.
It seemed unlikely, given the men in the new king's train. Philippe Petain, Marshal of France, had been granted the purely symbolic title of Duc de Lorraine for his Great War services and control of the army and security forces - a de jure recognition of the de facto reality. Petain's "army" consisted of a handful of overseas battalions, a mass of German and Italian prisoners, a brigade aboard white-flagged transports being returned from Indochina, and a single division of Chausseurs Alpins in Burgundy. The police were in better shape, but that was hardly a consolation, as the condition of the French army made a farce of calling Wilhelmshaven a "negotiation," and Petain had already begun culling gendarmes who had cooperated with the German occupiers - the majority of the Paris metropolitan force and the northern gendarmeries, when it came to it. Admiral Darlan, Petain's naval subordinate, was in even worse shape: the Hebrides had completely smashed what would have been France's fleet in being.
Petain was unacceptable because of his yearlong rule of southern France under German guidance. He was too close to a collaborator for comfort, in other words. Who, then, was Henri's premier? Petain's deadly rival - the two were not even on speaking terms, each calling the other a traitor to France in public - Henri Giraud. Giraud was an equally tainted figure, because when France was laid low, in her hour of greatest need, Giraud had been exhorting French forces to fight for every inch of their soil... from Horse Guards... in London. Unfortunately, they were the strongest voices in France. Petain and Giraud had each sent their own delegations to Wilhelmshaven... whence the king was now bound to sign the final peace. These were the gloomy thoughts that filled the Vicomte's mind as the sky finally opened up in a deep, booming peal of thunder, rain pelting down on the coronation crowd and soaking the velvet, gold, and ermine robes. The weight of his soaked arms actually drove the king's hand downward, and only an extraordinary effort on Henri's part kept the Hand of Mercy from the pavement.
Lassan fell into step behind the king, walking beside the Comte de Hauteclocque, and leaned close to that dignitary, a tall thin-faced man with a block-cut moustache and a gloomy, downcast look. "M'sieur Major de Hauteclocque? Colonel de Lassan," he said with a quiet offer of his hand. The Major looked over, taking the offered hand. "My son was a lieutenant in your regiment, you may recall him?" Hauteclocque nodded, absently, then upon recalling, with slightly more animation. "Yes, yes, I recall him now - the General sent him away with the colors. Tell me, how did he fare?"
"That is precisely what I wished to speak about, sir. I assure you, your colors are safe. As a matter of fact... I was hoping that you could introduce me to your general?" Hauteclocque snorted and shook his head. "He is seeing no one. He threatens to turn in his commission if this German peace is ratified. The Germans, he says, have stripped France of her honor just as surely as if they had prostituted Marianne in the Champs Elysee." He glanced at Lassan, an eyebrow rising. "You have to admit, he has a point. Bad enough that they crowned their emperor in Versailles, non? But to force a king upon us? And a king who fought -" and Hauteclocque loaded the word with scorn; Henri's service at Dakar had not been terribly dangerous - "as a ranker? It is simply not done!"
Lassan considered, then made the plunge. "True - perhaps, but didn't the Emperor serve as a mere lieutenant? Perhaps..." His voice dropped and he leaned close to Hauteclocque. "Perhaps the lily has wilted, and it's time for the eagle to fly again." Hauteclocque's jaw dropped, then his face firmed once more. "I will convey your belief to the General. He may perhaps speak to you after all."
As if to punctuate Hauteclocque's last words, the sky blackened, then lit in a single great burst of lightning. Courtiers scurried, Henri bravely bore up under his heavy robes, and the officers behind him moved with as much dignity as recent history allowed.
---
The signature of Henri VI, King of France, at Wilhelmshaven sealed the fate of the French empire. Algeria and Morocco went to Spain, Tunisia to Italy, Djibouti to Germany. Ironically, none of these powers expressed any great interest in the critical fueling station at Dakar, nor France's sub-Saharan territories. Thus, France preserved Senegal-Mali, and the flood of "blackfeet" from North Africa actually aided greatly in Petain's efforts to rebuild his army. Darlan would have to wait, because there were vastly more important matters to settle. The entire French monetary reserve in specie was transferred to German control, and when that did not meet the indemnity, German industrialists began to confiscate French properties. This is how the Renault plants came to be in Nuremberg under the management of Ferdinand Porsche as an extension of the Zündapp works, and Citroën in Chemnitz as part of Auto Union. In Paris, endless fighting between Petain and Giraud over every aspect of the Fourth Kingdom made it impossible for even the semblance of government to appear. It seemed likely that France had been plundered and left for the vultures.
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The only industry left alone in France is the white flag industry? Nevertheless great update again!
Nevertheless great update again!
A painful peace to say the least. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine was to be expected, the loss of most of the northern departements and Algeria must be much more painful. Guess the Spaniards have a horrible task before them in said Algeria, with natives and many pieds-noirs all hating their new overlords equally. Especially the pieds-noirs, even if part of them had Spanish and Italian roots, where more French than many metropolitan Frenchmen.
With the map of Western Europe redrawn, I guess its time to look at the east?
With the map of Western Europe redrawn, I guess its time to look at the east?
Well yes, wouldn't be much of a war if the poor got all the profit. The more shares you have to divide out, the more complicated the division gets.
The only industry left alone in France is the white flag industry?
Unfortunately, French industry isn't a strong point of mine historically. I didn't include Peugeot, but I suspect they're in the same boat. I came very close to sticking Porsche's works in Stuttgart, but since he's still employed at Zündapp in the AAR, I figured giving him a very long leash in Nuremberg was a better choice.
The fact that Spain gets the Algerian quagmire is a blessing in disguise for France; among other things, it means that the Foreign Legion has a vast recruiting pool. I am a little surprised that you neglected Italy's land grabs in Tunisia and Nice-Savoy.
I don't know if the German industries would take parts of the French industries...I don't know which is better, for instance in the car manufacturing industries the German cars are obviously better...but the French tanks, some at least are worthy to look at. Nevertheless the German industries would get some spoils of war...in the form of materials...or other resources, it would make sense yes.
What about a French civil war...with the monarchists on one side, separatists like Bretons and Normandians and other regional separatists, and republicans/communists ? Is that possible?
Tim
What about a French civil war...with the monarchists on one side, separatists like Bretons and Normandians and other regional separatists, and republicans/communists ? Is that possible?
Tim
84. Of Lesser Breeds Without the Law
The last three weeks of the Wilhelmshaven Conference felt both curiously rushed, and curiously pointless. The German delegation seemed intent on driving home the point that they had won the war, the British delegation was exhausted after fighting to maintain what it had with minimal loss, the French were at this point exhausted and defeated. Thus, matters like the Italian purchase of British Somaliland were handled on an almost informal basis. In the case of Somaliland, it was awkwardly positioned, difficult to reach, and useless after first the destruction, then the territorial loss of the Suez Canal. Britain had never really exercised its considerable authority there, and the transaction provided another infusion of French resources into the British economy. Attlee phrased it as "Where are our efforts better spent, Somaliland or Sheffield?" Even Eden, generally in favor of preserving the Empire, agreed that Somalia was a small loss compared with everything else going on.
"Everything else" included the reunification of the Arabian Peninsula with the Ottoman Empire, which extended now from Constanta to Aden, from Athens to Chah Bahar. Even Papen was alarmed by the gains made by the Turks, mostly under German leadership. "It's a house of cards!" he declared in exasperation when briefed on the region. It was obvious that the Sultan's domains were bloated and unstable; it would require decades of brilliant leadership to knit together such an empire, and such wisdom was unlikely in the atmosphere of Istanbul. Already Papen was hearing private criticism from His Holiness for placing Jerusalem and Mecca under the same banner, and a variety of other groups, from Zionists to the Orthodox clique surrounding Princess Kira, had begun to agitate against the Turks for their own reasons. Publicly, he ignored them; privately, contracts were let to Wintershall, Krupp, and IG Farben to exploit Ploesti to its limits and begin oil exploration outside Zagreb.
Italy and Spain combined to begin exploiting their North African possessions; in Italy's case, a longed-for rail line from Tripoli to Addis Ababa was frustrated by the fact that Britain had not ceded Sudan, and though Sudan was distant and troublesome, Attlee held on to it, apparently out of a perverse desire to frustrate Mussolini. Papen refused to intervene and dictate to the British, having sated himself and seeing the Italian acquisitions in southern France, Switzerland, Tunisia, Egypt, and Somalia as more than sufficient compensation for the contributions of Italy to the war. Mussolini grumbled, but in truth, Italy was fantastically overstretched as it was. Italy's gains, unlike Germany's, suffered either from distance or lack of any traditional claim, or in many cases, both.
If Italy and Turkey were overextended as a result of their new acquisitions, Spain was bewildered by their luck at the table. Morocco had been anticipated; what were they to do with Algeria? "We have been given several million square kilometers of rebels and sand," Franco is said to have stated. The fact that the Spanish delegation had not even pressed for the territory, but had been given it as a further way of humiliating France, made many of the Spanish leadership acutely uncomfortable. Some of the more radical Spanish leaders - General Millan-Astray foremost among them - were already calling for a strongly interventionist attitude in North Africa; both King Jaime and Franco himself considered the one-eyed, one-armed general's plans to be wildly unrealistic and unneccessarily disruptive. Nevertheless, Millan-Astray was given permission to attempt to expand the Spanish Foreign Legion from Algerian Christian recruits. His presence in Algeria would lay the groundwork for much later trouble, but at the time, it seemed the best use of his unique talents.
The last territorial matter facing the conference dealt with the reading of the von Braun Report, authored by Magnus Freiherr von Braun, who had spent the last three years as the relatively benevolent, or at least too harried to be intrusive, dictator of Poland. Braun simultaneously held appointment as the commissioner for Osthilfe, the Kaiser's agricultural minister, commissioner for Poland, and vice-president of the German association of agricultural co-operatives. His Junker credentials were impeccable and he had experience in the Great War with occupational government, but he was simply stretched too thin, had too few resources, and was frankly not interested in the rather draconian occupation policies drafted by Bock's staff. Enforcing them, he believed, was more trouble than it was really worth. Thus, the report outlined only a handful of punitive measures: Poland, with far fewer reserves than France, ceded the Suwalki district to Germany, along with reverting to the 1916 border in East Prussia and Silesia. Germany assumed responsibility for the defense of Poland, at least until Poland could field an army of any size, preventing a repeat of the Soviet invasion of 1922. Poland was to be a monarchy, just as in 1916, and the crown, as in 1933, was to be offered to Friedrich Christian, King of Saxony. He accepted, though he was strictly informed by Wilhelm himself that the personal union must last one generation only; Poland and Saxony had diverging interests. The last punitive measures had to do with the assassination attempt of 1939 - a handful of former Polish leaders were to be tried for their roles in the affair. Again, the Kaiser himself intervened, with the result that former Minister Jozef Beck chose to assume sole responsibility, and President Moscicki and the rest of his cabinet were sent into genteel obscurity. "If they did it," Wilhelm declared in his public statements on the intervention, "I live. Let their failure be punishment enough."
Just as Poland was to return more or less to self-rule, so too Denmark, minus Schleswig-Holstein, was once more nominally independent. The heroic but futile efforts of the Danish navy in the Belt were commemorated by the Kaiserliche Marine's erection of a bronze of Canute the Great, arms extended to hold back the tide, across the harbor's entrance from the famous mermaid on the rock. In keeping with Germany's clear demarcation between whom Papen wished to keep friendly, the memorial, like the Churchill stela in Brittany, was built to commemorate a worthy adversary. It was in many ways the gravestone of Danish independence, for Denmark, with Flanders, Hainaut, and Poland, immediately joined Germany's resurrected Zollverein.
The last day of the session was the second day of November, 1942, the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Kaiser's coronation. The ministers of the various attendees signed first, then were augmented by the signatures of the monarchs present: Wilhelm III of Germany, Henri VI of France, George VI of Britain, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Christian X of Denmark, and the newly-minted rulers of Flanders, Hainaut, and Poland. It was perhaps the most brilliant gathering of nobility in centuries, conducted on a gray, misty day on the North Sea, with George VI casting his sailor's eye nervously on the horizon for the dash back across the North Sea.
On the opposite side of the world, the Truce of Singapore was being signed almost simultaneously, changing the balance of power further. Singapore recognized the de facto occupation of Burma, Indonesia, and Malaysia by the Japanese, allowing both sides to draw back and take a deep breath following the ascent of the Showa Emperor to rule over both China and Japan after the August capture of Chungking and death of Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese ruler made one ceremonial visit in the company of the Manchu Pu-Yi to the Forbidden City, then returned to Tokyo, never to return to his mainland possessions again. General Alexander von Falkenhausen, the German ambassador, discreetly ensured that many of the former Republicans were able to escape to Germany, including Chiang's adopted son, and at the Kaiser's request, asked whether the former Chinese Emperor was to be restored. The curt, absolute refusal of the Tojo government permanently turned Wilhelm against his former Japanese friends.
The last three weeks of the Wilhelmshaven Conference felt both curiously rushed, and curiously pointless. The German delegation seemed intent on driving home the point that they had won the war, the British delegation was exhausted after fighting to maintain what it had with minimal loss, the French were at this point exhausted and defeated. Thus, matters like the Italian purchase of British Somaliland were handled on an almost informal basis. In the case of Somaliland, it was awkwardly positioned, difficult to reach, and useless after first the destruction, then the territorial loss of the Suez Canal. Britain had never really exercised its considerable authority there, and the transaction provided another infusion of French resources into the British economy. Attlee phrased it as "Where are our efforts better spent, Somaliland or Sheffield?" Even Eden, generally in favor of preserving the Empire, agreed that Somalia was a small loss compared with everything else going on.
"Everything else" included the reunification of the Arabian Peninsula with the Ottoman Empire, which extended now from Constanta to Aden, from Athens to Chah Bahar. Even Papen was alarmed by the gains made by the Turks, mostly under German leadership. "It's a house of cards!" he declared in exasperation when briefed on the region. It was obvious that the Sultan's domains were bloated and unstable; it would require decades of brilliant leadership to knit together such an empire, and such wisdom was unlikely in the atmosphere of Istanbul. Already Papen was hearing private criticism from His Holiness for placing Jerusalem and Mecca under the same banner, and a variety of other groups, from Zionists to the Orthodox clique surrounding Princess Kira, had begun to agitate against the Turks for their own reasons. Publicly, he ignored them; privately, contracts were let to Wintershall, Krupp, and IG Farben to exploit Ploesti to its limits and begin oil exploration outside Zagreb.
Italy and Spain combined to begin exploiting their North African possessions; in Italy's case, a longed-for rail line from Tripoli to Addis Ababa was frustrated by the fact that Britain had not ceded Sudan, and though Sudan was distant and troublesome, Attlee held on to it, apparently out of a perverse desire to frustrate Mussolini. Papen refused to intervene and dictate to the British, having sated himself and seeing the Italian acquisitions in southern France, Switzerland, Tunisia, Egypt, and Somalia as more than sufficient compensation for the contributions of Italy to the war. Mussolini grumbled, but in truth, Italy was fantastically overstretched as it was. Italy's gains, unlike Germany's, suffered either from distance or lack of any traditional claim, or in many cases, both.
If Italy and Turkey were overextended as a result of their new acquisitions, Spain was bewildered by their luck at the table. Morocco had been anticipated; what were they to do with Algeria? "We have been given several million square kilometers of rebels and sand," Franco is said to have stated. The fact that the Spanish delegation had not even pressed for the territory, but had been given it as a further way of humiliating France, made many of the Spanish leadership acutely uncomfortable. Some of the more radical Spanish leaders - General Millan-Astray foremost among them - were already calling for a strongly interventionist attitude in North Africa; both King Jaime and Franco himself considered the one-eyed, one-armed general's plans to be wildly unrealistic and unneccessarily disruptive. Nevertheless, Millan-Astray was given permission to attempt to expand the Spanish Foreign Legion from Algerian Christian recruits. His presence in Algeria would lay the groundwork for much later trouble, but at the time, it seemed the best use of his unique talents.
The last territorial matter facing the conference dealt with the reading of the von Braun Report, authored by Magnus Freiherr von Braun, who had spent the last three years as the relatively benevolent, or at least too harried to be intrusive, dictator of Poland. Braun simultaneously held appointment as the commissioner for Osthilfe, the Kaiser's agricultural minister, commissioner for Poland, and vice-president of the German association of agricultural co-operatives. His Junker credentials were impeccable and he had experience in the Great War with occupational government, but he was simply stretched too thin, had too few resources, and was frankly not interested in the rather draconian occupation policies drafted by Bock's staff. Enforcing them, he believed, was more trouble than it was really worth. Thus, the report outlined only a handful of punitive measures: Poland, with far fewer reserves than France, ceded the Suwalki district to Germany, along with reverting to the 1916 border in East Prussia and Silesia. Germany assumed responsibility for the defense of Poland, at least until Poland could field an army of any size, preventing a repeat of the Soviet invasion of 1922. Poland was to be a monarchy, just as in 1916, and the crown, as in 1933, was to be offered to Friedrich Christian, King of Saxony. He accepted, though he was strictly informed by Wilhelm himself that the personal union must last one generation only; Poland and Saxony had diverging interests. The last punitive measures had to do with the assassination attempt of 1939 - a handful of former Polish leaders were to be tried for their roles in the affair. Again, the Kaiser himself intervened, with the result that former Minister Jozef Beck chose to assume sole responsibility, and President Moscicki and the rest of his cabinet were sent into genteel obscurity. "If they did it," Wilhelm declared in his public statements on the intervention, "I live. Let their failure be punishment enough."
Just as Poland was to return more or less to self-rule, so too Denmark, minus Schleswig-Holstein, was once more nominally independent. The heroic but futile efforts of the Danish navy in the Belt were commemorated by the Kaiserliche Marine's erection of a bronze of Canute the Great, arms extended to hold back the tide, across the harbor's entrance from the famous mermaid on the rock. In keeping with Germany's clear demarcation between whom Papen wished to keep friendly, the memorial, like the Churchill stela in Brittany, was built to commemorate a worthy adversary. It was in many ways the gravestone of Danish independence, for Denmark, with Flanders, Hainaut, and Poland, immediately joined Germany's resurrected Zollverein.
The last day of the session was the second day of November, 1942, the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Kaiser's coronation. The ministers of the various attendees signed first, then were augmented by the signatures of the monarchs present: Wilhelm III of Germany, Henri VI of France, George VI of Britain, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Christian X of Denmark, and the newly-minted rulers of Flanders, Hainaut, and Poland. It was perhaps the most brilliant gathering of nobility in centuries, conducted on a gray, misty day on the North Sea, with George VI casting his sailor's eye nervously on the horizon for the dash back across the North Sea.
On the opposite side of the world, the Truce of Singapore was being signed almost simultaneously, changing the balance of power further. Singapore recognized the de facto occupation of Burma, Indonesia, and Malaysia by the Japanese, allowing both sides to draw back and take a deep breath following the ascent of the Showa Emperor to rule over both China and Japan after the August capture of Chungking and death of Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese ruler made one ceremonial visit in the company of the Manchu Pu-Yi to the Forbidden City, then returned to Tokyo, never to return to his mainland possessions again. General Alexander von Falkenhausen, the German ambassador, discreetly ensured that many of the former Republicans were able to escape to Germany, including Chiang's adopted son, and at the Kaiser's request, asked whether the former Chinese Emperor was to be restored. The curt, absolute refusal of the Tojo government permanently turned Wilhelm against his former Japanese friends.
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I'd expected "Wait, why does Italy stretch from Libya to Persia?" but yes, you do see Chinese commies. Within a few months, they're gone. Even the ridiculously fortified ChiCom provinces can't stand up to the five hundred odd Japanese divisions that got thrown at them.
'' ''Wait, why does Italy stretch from Libya to Persia?'' '' Answer it ....hahah but what about a future French Civil War, is it possible? Why is Egypt in Italian posession? Next Stop Berlin?
Answer it ....hahah but what about a future French Civil War, is it possible? Why is Egypt in Italian posession? Next Stop Berlin?Easiest to hardest: Egypt is Italian because the Italians took it.
French civil war? Probably not, but something very similar to the crisis of 1958, substituting an ineffectual monarchy for an ineffectual republic, and again starring De Gaulle, who has the distinction of having neither fled nor cooperated.
Italy from Libya to Persia - that's because the Ottomans and the Italians both have the same map color. I considered changing it, but all the logical alternatives were equally confusing because they too were neighbor colors.
French civil war? Probably not, but something very similar to the crisis of 1958, substituting an ineffectual monarchy for an ineffectual republic, and again starring De Gaulle, who has the distinction of having neither fled nor cooperated.
Italy from Libya to Persia - that's because the Ottomans and the Italians both have the same map color. I considered changing it, but all the logical alternatives were equally confusing because they too were neighbor colors.
The Germans took the shambles of Europe, and tried to build a new house from it... however all they got is a rickety contraption that will fall apart as soon as a mild breeze blows at it.
The Soviets don't feature much in this new order, except as bogeymen against Poland. But it's 1942 already, Stalin got to finish another round of 5-year plans, and the Red Army is surely a formidable opponent now? With the Soviet economy humming along, Stalin surely can spare plenty of guns, ammo and other support to the various rebel movements in this European house of cards. I would guess that Romanian, Slovakian and Bulgarian partisans would be the first recipients of covert aid? Then Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks and Corse, once smuggling routes through the Mediterranean have been set up... and the many discontented Arabs and Maghrebis of North Africa. Lots of clients for Stalin's smugglers!
The Soviets don't feature much in this new order, except as bogeymen against Poland. But it's 1942 already, Stalin got to finish another round of 5-year plans, and the Red Army is surely a formidable opponent now? With the Soviet economy humming along, Stalin surely can spare plenty of guns, ammo and other support to the various rebel movements in this European house of cards. I would guess that Romanian, Slovakian and Bulgarian partisans would be the first recipients of covert aid? Then Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks and Corse, once smuggling routes through the Mediterranean have been set up... and the many discontented Arabs and Maghrebis of North Africa. Lots of clients for Stalin's smugglers!
Yes, and thanks to pan-turkism, Turkey's just going to get worse. Italy and Spain pretty much stay where they are.
Thanks, glad to have you aboard.
I know, isn't it great?
Absolutely, though there's one problem with which to contend: the HoI2 AI. I don't give anything away when I say that Stalin declares war on Poland in 1944, I've said that already; however, I will say that the majority of Soviet armored divisions in '44 are light divisions, that their infantry seems to be 1930s relics, and that they are not at all well-led.
Plus, there's the disposition of the German military after the war. There are a quarter-million Germans in Turkey, for instance, acting as a kind of DAK-in-waiting. Bock and Brauchitsch recognize that the Sultan's army isn't near capable of fighting even the thin Red Army force on the Georgian frontier.
I suspect that latent pan-slavism in Russia might be behind the 1944 declaration of war, once the King of Poland is actually crowned, but that's a good few updates away. Now comes Papen's golden age, a period with no elections scheduled and a massive, profitable victory behind him.