Neville Chamberlain meets with Hitler in the beginning of the year
to deal with trying to settle an “Eastern Locarno.” Hitler’s gamble to
force the Western Allies--specifically Great Britain--to declare war
failed.
With the global baiting of breath of 1939 and then the subsequent exhale of 1940, the world seemed to have taken a collective step back from the brink of war. At least, that was the appearance. With Germany, Poland, Great Britain and France involved in stumbling their way towards a sort of “Eastern Locarno” in settling the borders of Germany and Poland, and Italy distracted with trying to subdue Albania, it seemed that 1941 should have joined other, more peaceful years. It was not to be.
The Shah of Iran’s son, Mohammed-Reza, meeting with former
President Franklin D Roosevelt. Taking much of the foreign policy
direction from his father, the Iranians were dismissive of the British
attempts to sway them.
The United Kingdom continued to work on influencing one of the regional powers in the Middle East: Iran. The Pahlavi dynasty, led by Reza Shah Pahlavi, had been working since his coup in 1925 to modernize Iran, through a similar plan to that of Ataturk: forced Persianization, and a rapid modernization (though perhaps not rapid enough for those detractors in the nation). Great Britain had much to gain if an agreement could be worked out with the Peacock throne: a land link between Britain’s holdings in the Transjordan and Palestine to India, as well as a buffer against Soviet intervention south to the Indian Ocean or India proper. The Foreign Office’s influence, however, was overtaken by events later in the year.
President Charles Lindbergh speaking to his supporters about the
tensions from abroad trying to affect the outlook for the United States.
With the victory of the America First/German-American Party wing of the Republican party in the 1940 election, a even more hard-core isolationist stance became widely acceptable to the American people. This culminated in a large march on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in support of the current “peaceful” direction of the world at the time which began on 18 June. President Charles Lindbergh spoke at the gathering, saying:
“Shall we now give up the independence we have won, and crusade abroad in a utopian attempt to force our ideas on the rest of the world; or shall we use air power, and the other advances of modern warfare, to guard and strengthen the independence of our nation?”
The crowd cheered massively for his stance: one seemingly not ignorant of possible problems, but definitely steering clear of involving them in those conflicts abroad and instead working on strengthening their forces to defend the United States.
The funeral for the former Kaiser Wilhelm II. Despite the order
forbidding any Nazi appearance, Hitler dispatched several
“representatives” to the event.
Two days after President Lindbergh’s speech, the newsreels reacted to the death of Kaiser Wilhelm II due to a pulmonary embolism on 20 June. Living at Huis Doorn in the municipality of the same name, Wilhelm had been quietly supportive at first of the NSDAP, in the hopes that it might return his grandson to the throne of Prussia. When this proved to not be the case because of the intense hatred of senior NSDAP personalities--most especially Hitler--Wilhelm soured on the movement. He would be buried in the Netherlands, with an honor guard provided by the Wehrmacht and attended by Admiral Canaris, among others.
Former Prime Minister Hirota Koki who negotiated the acceptance
into the Pact of Steel. The Japanese desire was for the Europeans
to tear at each other before preying upon the undefended colonies
in Asia.
The conclusion of several months of secret negotiations between Ambassador-at-Large Joachim von Ribbentrop and the former Japanese Prime Minister Hirota Koki regarding Japan joining the Pact of Steel became public when they signed onto the Alliance, 21 July. Japan had been largely unsure of its role in the Pact when it had first been discussed in the mid-to-late 30s: their own experience in the combat between the Soviet Union and their forces had cost them nearly a division of troops with no real gains made against the Soviets and their armored forces. Japan looked covetously towards the European colonies in China and the East Indies. The Japanese government, sure that any future European war would turn attention away from the Pacific, enjoyed the idea of gaining a free hand in the hemisphere. The conclusion of this pact brought Koki back into the good graces of the military, who went on to appoint him to the Foreign Ministry on 1 October.
A Focke Wulf Fw 200 during acceptance testing. Nearly 200 would
be purchased by the Nationalist Spanish government.
The Reichsluftminister’s office announced more foreign military sales in late August to Italy: this time for 400 examples of Messerschmitt Bf109G multi-role fighters for nearly $56.5 million, which included training and disposable stores for the aircraft. Only a month later, the office also concluded the sale of over 200 of the Focke Wulf Fw 200C naval patrol aircraft, again complete with training and weapons, for $52.4 million to Nationalist Spain on 20 September. Since the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists had courted their former allies for more investment for rebuilding the shattered nation. These sales contributed to the funding of the Wehrmacht’s own expansion, ensuring that the Reich would maintain its edge over future enemies.
Italian propaganda newsreel about the invasion of Greece.
The flags of war rose for the second time in a decade in Europe on 14 August when Italy declared war on Greece after its ultimatum was rejected by the Metaxas government in Athens with the laconic reply: “Alors, c’est la guerre” (French for “Then it is War”). This aggression caused the Canadians and Australians to declare that they would fully support the Commonwealth in standing against such aggression in the future.
Goebbels speaking to the crowd. His propaganda set the
stage for the rationale Germany would use to justify their
war.
The strain in the capitals of Europe to maintain peace after the Italian adventure in Greece and the apparent fracturing to the negotiations over Danzig in Berlin and Warsaw began to tell in late September. Ireland and Belgium experienced significant political disruption after scandals emerged in the press regarding some rigged votes in their respective parliaments. Despite the facts that would emerge later--that none of the votes had been tampered with--the sentiments that existed caused an inflammation of emotion, rather than deliberate consideration. The tensions began to rise at an exponential rate when Germany took the decision to mobilize its forces on 28 September; the German minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, told the press that with both Poland and France having been mobilized since mid-1939, there was little the German state could do but respond likewise given the threats from Warsaw and Paris.
Stalin during a Politburo meeting. The disagreement caused
a rift between those who held some influence behind the
throne, such as it was, and resulted in some being purged.
This was rapidly followed by a feud emerging from the Politburo in the Soviet Union, likely over the lack of ability of the Red Army to overcome the bloodshed from its border skirmish with Finland. Denmark, deep in the control of the DNSAP, continued the investigation of the Communist party receiving funding from Moscow in early November. Sweden’s populace, feeling the effects of the ever-spreading tension, held a demonstration calling upon the government to maintain its neutrality on 17 November.
A picture in happier times of Quai D’Orsay. The French
government turned their backs upon their notional allies
after the British failed to fully back them in their disputes
against Germany.
By December, the tension was such that the French government, such as it was, conducted a “stimulus package” to increase the spending on defense, finalizing the funding 10 December. The feeling at the Quai D’Orsay, however, was that United Kingdom was looking to using a continental war as an excuse to drag the British economy out of the doldrums. This sentiment began to tell in the negotiations over Danzig, causing the Four Power talks to begin breaking down with France nearly withdrawing two or three times during the last month of the year. Even Hungary joined the French in directly investing in its economy, but through a nationalization of some of the private sector on Christmas Eve.
*****
Author's Note: Sorry that this is a day late, but things just shook out that way. So, the wars start!
it would be much more easy in a scripting language because text parsing, but on second thought there are libraries that parse data similar to xml just like the save games for java and c++. if I were still a student i would've done for you with pleasure but i'm working 60 hour work weeks
I wouldn't dare ask that of you, but that's something I wish I could get to work because that would alleviate so much of the grunt work that comes from making this work.
Don't tell me, it's always a chore to get game-wise stuff to fit in "story-wise" narrative.
I try to make it work in anyway I can, and to keep it fresh so that its not the same thing over and over again.
