“The Crown Atomic”: A Kaiserreich Cold War AAR (Canada and Entente)

I can try and upload the events at some point. I'll have to do a bit of work on them to make them actually work in any game as most are scripted pretty basically just for the sake of this AAR (and I'm not so good at event-modding), but I'm very happy to share them. I also added in some new ministers, unit names etc. so that would have to come part-and-parcel. Also, for some reason I can't remember, the British Reconstruction Authority isn't the UK re-skinned but actually uses all the tags for Wales. So I'll think about how to do it lol.

I think some of them could be made more generic and I'll look into it. But yeah, this whole AAR was born out of my opinion that it was basically a bit unrealistic for Britain to suddenly become the leader of the Entente again after such a dramatic change in its circumstances and after you've built up Canada so much to get to that point. Anyway, small teaser below for the next update






The room was hot despite the late hour, crowded with bodies and the smells of labourers. A few ancient ceiling fans spun ineffectually overhead, the cracks in the smoke-yellowed ceiling plaster revealing the red cellar brick beneath. One fan didn’t move at all, a decade’s worth of spider webs wreathing its blunt blades.

“Come on, Anish!” Dev called, pulling him through the crowd by his wrist. He followed reluctantly, squeezing his slight frame through the begrudging room the burly men made. Dev was a firebrand, that’s what they’d always said in the village. Be careful, his father had said, Bombay will go to that boy’s head. Bombay could go to anyone’s head, with all its filthy, teeming, glorious excitement. Bombay with its thieves, and reds, and women of ill repute. Maybe that’s how he’d allowed Dev to talk him into this.

They reached the front, and the paltry stage. The speaker was slight and balding, wire-rimmed spectacles perched on a thin nose, but his voice was that of a larger man. He waved a small book as he spoke, fluttering at the end of his arm like a falconer’s bird, brandishing its pages to the illiterate dockers and factory-men.

“What have these maharajahs ever done for you? What have these so-called princes? They drove out the British you say, but what food have they put in your mouth, what coin have they put in your hand that they have not taken back again? And they send their guards to shame you, and their bosses to cheat you, and they sit in their palaces while you sit in the mud. But, my brothers, you have power: power in the factories! Power in the farms! Down with the maharajahs! Up with the Syndicates of the world! ”

Anish glanced sideways. Dev looked entranced, eyes wide and worshipful. Movement at the back of the hall caught his eye, a flash of pith helmets coming down their stairs into the cellar. He grabbed Dev’s arm.
“Dev! Police!”

Angry shouts from the back. A whistle was blown. The speaker scrambled off the stage as his audience were thrown into confusion. A meaty shoulder shoved Anish aside. He’d lost sight of Dev in the brawl. He heard glass breaking, and the floor and ceiling spun merged before his vision as he was pushed this way and that. Someone stamped hard on his foot; he tried to orient himself toward the door but couldn’t find it. The crack of a police truncheon connecting with the side of his face.

Black.

Thanks so much Jape. I'm blown away! Thank you everyone for reading. Glad you're enjoying it.

The downfall of European Syndicalism had not only left their comrades in the rest of the world without a potent source of support. It also provoked deep debates within left-wing movements about the proper policy for dealing with the outside world, and reignited the perennial question of whether it was the duty of Syndicalists to stoke worldwide revolution or to focus on building the Syndicalist state within their own country as an example to others.


Indochinese Syndicalist leader Ho Chi Minh was firmly of the international camp. The lessons of France and Britain were, he argued, that building Syndicalism in your own country left you vulnerable. If you did not smash your enemies, even if they seemed defeated, they may one-day return. This was the tragedy of the Union of Britain, he concluded, which had allowed the Monarchists to flee to Canada untroubled, and in doing so had allowed them to build a military, economic and cultural machine dedicated to the Union’s eradication. Even if it had taken twenty years, British Syndicalism had sowed the seeds for its own downfall.



Spreading revolution was therefore an ideological necessity for Indochina, but also a strategic one. Ho Chi Minh found himself surrounded by reactionary enemies. The Japanese had intervened to prop up the disintegrating Thai state. The European empires lurked in the wings. China was an ancient enemy. Distracting these enemies with Syndicalist uprisings would allow the Indochinese to consolidate their position.


Funded by the looting of occupied Thailand, Ho Chi Minh’s international brigades successfully established Syndicalist undergrounds in many of Indochina’s neighbors, sclerotic states ill suited to effectively oppose such well-organized partisans operating among their already disgruntled populations. Only in China and Japanese-occupied Korea did the authorities successfully crackdown on the Syndicalists’ efforts, but their violent tactics did much to fulfil the Indochinese objective of spreading dissent and opposition to the government.



Ho Chi Minh enjoyed notable success in the Princely Federation, an already weak confederation of maharajas and Indian feudal princelings made weaker by an influx of Syndicalist refugees fleeing from the destruction of the Bharitya Commune in 1940. With an archaic economy and dazzling inequality, Syndicalism had always bubbled under the surface in the teeming metropolises of southern India. An attempted Syndicalist uprising in 1940 had only been quashed by the princes deploying soldiers to put down riots in Bombay and Hyderabad. Rumors of new Syndicalist outbreaks, spurred on by Indochinese interference, reached the Entente-aligned government in Delhi by the summer of 1944. Antiquated Delhi had reasons enough of its own to be concerned by Syndicalist agitation, but at the same time, the Federation’s troubles could also represent opportunities.


Canada and the other surviving British dominions had always had a love-hate relationship with their Indian partner. In many ways, Delhi was a 19th century relic, emerging from the chaos of the revolution consuming the old British Empire thanks to a combination of luck and inertia. In those early years, the vastness of India had made Delhi too far away for the commissars of the infant Bhartiya Commune to try and sincerely lay claim to, especially when they had trouble enough controlling their own nominal territory. Delhi’s northern neighbors in Nepal and Afghanistan had descended from their mountains to help themselves to a few richer valleys, but this made little practical difference to the distant lowlands. For Germany, Delhi in the 1920s would have been a colony too far, and for the Princely Federation, Delhi held more commonalities that it did differences, especially with Syndicalists massing on their mutual borders. Indeed, apart from Delhi's nominal allegiance to the British crown, the social and economic structure of the two countries remained practically the same.



This similarity was not lost on the leaders of the rest of the Empire. In Canada, they muttered darkly about Delhi's backwardness and inefficiency. They doubted the sincerity of its maharajahs' affections, and the durability of their loyalty. They feared that should difficulties arise, they would jump ship as quickly as their southern brethren had. At the same time, certain segments of the imperial ruling classes had always bristled at being forced into accommodation with non-European 'native' princes they saw as little more than uncivilized despots. Nonetheless, they could do precious little about it with Entente power at its lowest ebb, so the insincere diplomatic dance continued. In Delhi, the British colonial bureaucrat-advisor class continued their slow, stately existence, progressing with the seasons between the winter and summer capitals much as they had done under the old Raj, while the maharajahs ruled in their palaces, and gave an Indian legitimacy to the whole affair. Of course, for the many millions of ordinary Indians, none of it much made difference at all.


Ultimately, whatever disquiet they had with Delhi’s rulers, the leaders of the Entente were concerned foremost about syndicalism and (perhaps more calculatingly) could see the advantage in an India that was once again fully under their total control. Throughout the summer of 1944, many of the Canadian units being withdrawn from pacified Britain were transferred to India in case the Syndicalist agitation in the Princely Federation metastasized to full-on revolution. This included armor divisions, mostly formed of CMW Calgary tanks, and motorized units that the antiquated armies of the Princely Federation were ill equipped to counter, as well as heavy air support in the form of Canadair Peregrine dive-bombers.


The Yamuna River Bridge Incident of July 19 1944 remains both controversial and opaque. The simple facts are these: in the early hours of that Wednesday morning, a rail bridge crossing the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganges near the north-west border of Delhi and the Princely Federation, was demolished by explosives. A goods-train crossing the bridge at the time tumbled into the river, killing three engineers. Delhian radio had been warning of Syndicalists slipping into the country across the long and porous border with the Federation for weeks, and officials in Delhi immediately seized upon the bridge attack as evidence that the Princely Federation could no longer control its Syndicalist problem. Others have argued that in the context of wider tensions and an Entente military build-up, the bridge was blown up in a false flag operation to justify war, by Delhi either unilaterally or in cahoots with Imperial Intelligence. Either way, despite muted appeals for calm from Berlin and Tokyo, Entente forces were soon rolling into Princely territory to ‘stabilize’ the troubled country.



The Princely Federation’s military proved no match for Canadian divisions hardened by combat with Mosely’s Totalists. Soon, the Entente was advancing on all fronts.



With Bombay having fallen to the Entente by the beginning of August, and battle raging around Hyderabad, the princes attempted to reach settlement with Delhi. A naked land grab might have been acceptable to the maharajas in Delhi, but the imperial leadership saw little point in anything but total victory. The Federation’s armistice was rebuffed.



By the early days of September 1944, the Federation’s remaining forces found themselves almost encircled into the vicinity of their capital by an Entente pincer strategy. As the geography of India narrowed with their southern retreat, the defenders were left with little room to maneuver.


By the end of the month, defeat of the Princely Federation seemed near. The Madras Republic, the Federation’s Tamil ally, was officially annexed by Delhi on 2 October 1944. By November 1, 1944, the Princely Federation was no more.



Victory. Once more, the mahrajas could look to all of India as their personal domain, the deluded Syndicalists of the Bhartiya Commune and the upstart burghers of the Princely Federation relegated to the dustbin of history. But though they didn't realize it, that victory would come at a great cost, for to achieve it the rulers of Delhi had opened a door they could not easily close again. Even as Canadian and Australasian forces paraded through Delhi as allies, far away, shadowy forces spoke of an empire remade on their own terms...




For the people of India, this peace would prove strictly temporary.

The Empire Strikes Back

The sound of popping champagne corks and laughter drifted up from the fragrant gardens behind the terracotta walls of the fort. The party had already started, but then she liked to make an entrance. Violet checked her reflection in her antique Mughal mirror as she put on her earrings. The pearl and diamond pieces glittered under the lamp light. A birthday gift from the maharajah. She dabbed scent on her neck and cleavage, and adjusted the neckline of her black silk dress. The court were celebrating, and he’d want her looking her best.

She stood and went to the narrow window, where Mughal defenders had once rained arrows down on raiders, and looked out at the glittering lights of the town in the valley. The wireless burbled in the corner. The fort was hot and stuffy, not like the airy colonial bungalow she’d grown up in. Her father had been one of the maharajah’s officers when the Revolution had broken out, and their place in India had been tenuous. Now her father was dead, and she’d found her way into the maharajah’s household, and his bed.

Someone knocked at the door to her rooms.
“Come in,” she called lightly, turning from the cool window.
The Maharajah entered, his moustache and hair fragrantly oiled, his splendid uniform gleaming. He looked a little drunk already. She steeled herself.
“You are looking ravishing, my dear,” he told her, crossing the floor, and laying his hands on her hips. She smiled.
“Thank you,” she purred. She didn’t want his sweaty hands rumpling her silk. “I didn’t expect I would get to see you until later.” Usually the Maharajah’s wife enjoyed pride of place at official events, while she lurked in corners. She was sure she wasn’t the only girl, but she knew she was the best. She slipped out of his grasp.

“Drink?” she asked lightly, sashaying toward the small alcove room where she was permitted her European alcohol. She heard him settle on the bed, and turn up the wireless. Spike Jones was playing: Sailor With the Navy Blue Eyes.

“A scotch,” he called. Now that Britain was liberated, the distilleries were flowing again. She looked over her shoulder, and gave a promising smile.
“Of course,” she said. Her smile faded as she pushed through the beaded curtain into the other room, and picked up one of the dusty bottles. She could hear his heavy breathing drifting through.

The song on the wireless stopped. “This is Delhi calling, on the Imperial Broadcasting Service,” the announcer said. “We have just heard ‘Sailor With the Navy Blue Eyes.’ The weather tomorrow in Bengal will be hot; the ladies of Calcutta are advised to carry parasols. And now, more music.”

The next song started up. Violet’s hands had frozen in mid-pour when she’d heard the code-phrase. The ladies of Calcutta are advised to carry parasols. She had to replay it in her mind to make sure she’d heard it correctly.
In the other room, the maharaja was growing impatient. “My dear?” he called.
Violet was snatched back from her thoughts. “C-coming!” she trilled. She finished pouring his scotch, and quickly replaced the bottle. Then, quickly, she slipped the ring from her finger - the ring the recruiter from Imperial Intelligence had given her. He’d been nondescript, shaded by a newspaper, and full of promises. She twisted the ring open as he’d shown her, pouring the powder into the whiskey.

The poison fizzed slightly as it dissolved. She swished the amber liquid to make sure it was all gone, making sure there was no trace. Tasteless, the man from Imperial Intelligence had said. Undetectable. If he was wrong…
She heard the beads clinking behind her, and spun round so he wouldn’t see the remains of her ring.
The maharajah leered. “In the cupboard? Why not?”
Too late for indecision now. She smiled sweetly.

“Darling,” she said, handing him the tumbler. “Have your drink first.”