For King and Country

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Kurt_Steiner - Thou art most favoured and lucky then, my friend!

Lord E - While I am quite confident in the Empire's ability to spank the Japanese for their most insulting activities... right now just is not the proper time for Tokyo to be engaging in these activities. Now, once the Soviets finally see the light and surrender, well then all things will be made clear to the Japanese on the error of their ways. If only they will be considerate enough to wait, eh?

Vann the Red - Thank ye kindly, ol' friend. I try my best.

Nathan Madien - I don't think there is anything that can stand against wiggling pudding! But did you truly have to share that? I'm still having flashbacks, man! :wacko:

GhostWriter - While I think that American was honor-bound to retake the PI, I do agree that if we had put more boots on the ground in China history would have been quite different in the latter half of the 20th Century.

Oh, I also agree that if Steiner and guess his lady's wishes that should not only be sufficent but I wanna know how he does it so I can achieve the same feat with my lady!

Ciryandor - It took America quite a few years to put down insurgents in the PI following the Spanish-American war, years that were just as brutal as America's time in Vietnam. I have to agree that if America had ignored the PI and concentrated on China your vision would probably be a valid one. My wondering mind, however, is intrigued by the idea of America using both the PI and Formosa as staging bases for activities in Asia...

GhostWriter (2) - I wonder though about the feeling of the Chinese toward America if America started pouring in resources and troops, given the support the AVG recieved from the general population. What if the Kuomintang were convinced by the Americans to be more generous with the supplies provided by America and the general lot in life for the average Chinese skyrocketed? What sort of draw would the ChiComs get then and what would that say for their chance of success? Sounds like a good AAR basis....

Porkman - Exactly! Just how much resent would there be if that economy was not crippled and the population starving as a result of US assistance... or back to this AAR, Imperial assistance?

Nathan Madien (2) - Sounds like par for the course for America, sadly.

Ciryandor - There were a good many politcos in D.C. that wanted to do exactly that before the start of WWII and a good many more during the 1970s. Being a closet imperialist (proudly though ) I think the idea of leaving the PI was stupid no matter what. Hell, when I was younger, I wrote a paper for school proposing that the PI be granted statehood within the U.S. (I included Guam as well). Wouldn't that have made for some interesting debates?

Falastur - Accidental genius? I like that title! You will henceforth be known as the King's loyal cavalier and accidental genius. Whaddya think?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you as well, my friend!

Rensslaer - I was wondering if you would find your way back to this AAR with the restoration of the Hohenzollerns, my friend! Glad to see you back!

Thuringia was, of course, created as a political body by German in RL during the Weimar Republic. My line of thinking was that rather than split up the admin of the state, simply keep it working but as a Duchy. Whether or not it serves another purpose within the future of Germany... well... I'll leave that in the hands of the Germans.

Everything was at it appears regarding the Toyama Maru Incident, including a good deal of wondering why the freighter sank so quickly despite only a moderate amount of damage and how there could have been a higher death toll than warrante based upon the freighter's crew compliment...

Thanks for the praise and I find myself very surprised that this AAR has been trucking along since August of 2005... Dear God in Heaven, has it actually been that bloody long?!?!? Damn. I did not know then that this would last as long as it has but I can only say that the only reason this AAR has lasted is due to the such loyal ReadAARS and LurkAARs that follow this story. You guys have no idea how much that means. Thanks. o

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and is staying safe. Have a very Happy New Years!

Oh, and by the by, I'll have the next update posting tomorrow. ​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Yay! A good way to say bye to the year!

 

[Ciryandor]

Honestly, it wouldn't have been stupid at all to have proposed statehood; the population even in 1898 simply desired some form of self-government without oppression from the elite. It was mostly the Philippine elite's line of thinking of "sharing the spoils" so to speak with Americans that drove them to thinking that independence was a better idea than anything else as I would see it. Now look where it has gotten my country. *sour look of disgust*

Bringing democracy to a country that is in its economic and cultural systems ill-prepared for it and leaving it to its own senses is... not exactly good nation-building. If that sounded like present-day America, then it just shows that there are lessons that have been taught long before that have either not been taken to heart or whole-heartedly adopted, whatever side of the coin you believe in.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if the Philippines ended up as something like Texas in mindset, having once been independent, frontier territory and a land of opportunity. (And sure as hell I wouldn't mind if the Americans pushed birth-control and right to abortion HARD; having potentially 20-30million less people in the country would be an enormous benefit)

 

[Nathan Madien]

Nathan Madien - I don't think there is anything that can stand against wiggling pudding! But did you truly have to share that? I'm still having flashbacks, man! :wacko:

Look at it this way: if the Japanese have a weakness for wiggling pudding, then you have a potent weapon to use against them.

 

[unmerged(28944)]

Kurt_Steiner - I thought you'd like that!

Ciryandor - I wish you would have been my teacher then, he thought it an absurb thought. Felt that America had no right to be anywhere outside the ConUS... and that included Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Needless to say I did not receive a good grade on that paper. But I'm glad I found someone who didn't find the idea not half bad, thanks!

Nathan Madien - Trust me, as painful as it is for them, the boffins of the Imperial General Staff are now working hard to come up with a use of the wiggling pudding that won't be just as harmful to Imperial troops.

**

Okay, as promised.... the next update follows.... Enjoy and again, have a Happy New Years!

 

[trekaddict]

Your teacher was born too late. During the Cold war America had an obligation to defend Europe as the US was and is the strongest of the Democratic powers.

 

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CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE​

Preparations​

The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory.

- Douglas Haig​

Since being established as a Crown Colony in 1842, Hong Kong had lived in the shadow of being invaded by the China seeking to recover her lost territory. That threat, while never truly manifested into feasibility, was magnified by the addition of Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutter's Island to the Colony following the end of the Second Opium War in 1860. When the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory provided to the Empire a 99-year lease of Lantau Island and the adjacent northern lands, henceforth known as the New Territories, the perceived threat lessened significantly. With the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 and the rise of Chinese instability due to warlord factionalism, the threat became insignificant as no Chinese warlord within striking distance had the ability to threaten Hong Kong let alone the desire due to the counter-threat of Imperial retribution.

However with the rise in power of the southern warlords, and then the Chinese Communists and finally the Chinese Nationalists (the Kuomintang), the possibility of a Chinese threat to Hong Kong was once more entertained by the British. With the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s and the crushing of the warlords by the end of the decade the threat to Hong Kong was once more very real and very evident to all who lived within the confines of the Crown Colony. The question was no longer a matter of if an attack would come; it was a matter of when and by whom, the Japanese or their puppet’s the Chinese.

The Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the primary star in the British Empire's Far East crown.
​

For the majority of Hong Kong’s existence as a Crown Colony its defense rested on the strength of the Royal Navy and the threat of retribution of any attack by both the Royal Navy and the British Army. As the threats to the Empire began to be centered in Europe during the 1930s, the strength of the Colony’s garrison and the ships that comprised the Far East Station of the Royal Navy shrunk. During the early summer months of 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy began engineering incidents with the Royal Navy which resulted in the Admiralty reinforcing Admiral Sir William M. “Bubbles” James Far East Station.

The first to arrive in Hong Kong were assets of the Fleet Air Arm, specifically Strike Group 7 (FAA Squadrons 754, 825 and 914 flying the new Bristol Torbeau fighter-bomber) and Reconnaissance Group 3 (FAA Squadrons 461 and 662 flying Short Sunderland Mk I flying boats). Subsequent to the redeployment of Vice Admiral Holt, Commander-in-Chief East Indies Station, and his squadron (County-class heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk, the Danae-class light cruiser HMS Diomede, the Emerald-class light cruisers HMS Emerald and Enterprise, and the V-class HMS Valorous and HMS Valkyrie) to Singapore, he was joined in by the Australian manned Force A of Admiral Crace (the Leander-class light cruiser HMS Perth, the A-class destroyer HMS Wanderer and the Australian built Tribal-class destroyers HMS Arunta, Kelvin, Napier, Warramunga, Nestor and Queensland) and Force B commanded by Rear Admiral A.C. Crutchley, VC (the County/Kent-class heavy cruiser HMS Australia, the Leander-class HMS Sydney,and the Town-class light cruisers HMS Rockhampton and Brisbane).

Next to arrive in Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong was Rear Admiral McGrigor’s New Zealand Station squadron (Northumberland-class heavy cruiser HMS Auckland, Town-class light cruiser HMS Māori, the A-class destroyers HMS Vansittart, Ardent and Arrow, the B-class destroyer HMS Beagle and the F-class destroyer HMS Fearless) to Hong Kong with Rear Admiral Custance’s Force C of the Australia Station (the County/Kent-class heavy cruiser HMS Canberra, the Northumberland-class heavy cruiser HMS Melbourne, the Caledon-class light cruiser HMS Adelaide, the W-class destroyer HMS Warlock and the Tribal-class destroyers HMS Nizam and Kipling) arriving close behind.

The Town-class light cruiser HMS Māori, Capt. Hugh W. Faulkner, DSO, commanding. Māori is seen here sailing with the rest o f Rear Admiral McGrigor’s New Zealand Station squadron toward Hong Kong, summer of 1941.
​

The last ships to arrive, were the vessels of Admiral Power’s Force H (Illustrious-class aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious and Formidable, the Northumberland-class heavy cruisers HMS Northumberland, Durbin, Auckland and Ceylon) and Rear Admiral Brodeur’s Canada Station squadron (Northumberland-class cruisers HMS Ottawa and Labrador, the Caledon-class light cruiser HMS Quebec, the A-class destroyer HMS Saguenay and the Tribal-class destroyers HMS Iroquois, Micmac, Nootka, St. Clair, and Eskimo).

Following the near clash between the Royal Navy’s vastly reinforced Hong Kong squadron and the Imperial Japanese Navy task force commanded by Admiral Nagumo in the second week of August and coming to the realization that any naval activities against the Crown Colony would be hotly contested by the Royal Navy, the Japanese and their Chinese puppets began to agitate incidents on land, making numerous forays against the Colony’s border. Having considered such a possibility occurring years previously, the Imperial General Staff had ordered the erection of a line of defenses across the border to assist in limiting the impact of such possible incursions. Built between 1936 and 1938 the Gin Drinkers Line was a series of fortifications stretching across Hong Kong’s New Territories from Gin Drinkers Bay, near Kwai Chung, (the defenses taking the name from the spot where construction first started) and passed through Kam Shan, the Shing Mun Reservoir, Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, and Tate's Cairn, and ended at Port Shelter in Sai Kung. The eleven mile length of the Line made use of the mountains north of the Kowloon Peninsula and was not actually a solid defensive line like France’s Maginot Line, but a series of bunkers, concrete fortified machine gun posts, trenches and artillery batteries linked together by paths. The new defensive line would be anchored by three key points, Beacon Hill and Sha Tin Pass, and the Shing Mun Redoubt, with each position being a small fortress dominated by a massive concrete bunker able to be garrisoned by one hundred twenty men and containing a nine inch howitzer, half a dozen Ordnance ML 3-inch mortars, two Vickers .50 Mk III machine guns (naval version normally used as an anti-aircraft weapon in a four gun mounting) and three Vickers machine guns for support. By the time construction was completed in 1938 the paths linking the different defensive positions were changed from mere foot paths to four foot deep concrete trenches with mountings for heavy machine guns every one hundred yards and many of the defensive positions had been heavily camouflaged to concealment.

Members of the Hong Kong garrison looking out from a make shift fighting position during the early states of construction on the Gin Drinkers Line​

The arrival of General Christopher Maltby in 1938 saw the Shing Mun Redoubt being deemed the garrison command headquarters in the event of hostilities and the institution of construction on a series of bunkers and pill boxes ahead of the Line to provide a semblance of a defense in depth for the Colony and similar defense positions on the avenues leading into the urban areas. The new garrison commander also had to make plans for the security of the Empire’s newest protectorate, the former Portuguese colony of Macao which lay was roughly thirty-seven miles southwest of Hong Kong on the western side of the Pearl River Delta.

General Maltby made perfectly clear in several reports to the Imperial General Staff, that while the acquisition of Macao was a strategically sound move as it provided the Empire controlling points on both sides of the Pearl River Delta as well as two islands within the Delta itself, the garrison currently in Hong Kong was far from sufficient for defending the Colony let alone the added responsibility of Macao. He and his men, he reported, would be able to hold the Gin Drinkers Line for a week, hold the Portas do Cerco (Barrier Gate) in Macao for a handful of days perhaps but not both. With more troops the situation would be far different, but not without additional men and material.

The Portas do Cerco (Barrier Gate), the remains of the old fortifications that marked the only land border between Macao and China at the end of the two tenths of a mile wide tip of the Macao Isthmus.
​

In response the Imperial General Staff cancelled the orders sending General Sir Cyril Bingham-White’s Australian Overseas Force from (the Canberra Rifle, the Royal Adelaide Grenadier, the Rockhampton Rifle, the King's Own Tasmanian Regiments and two artillery brigades) from Western Australia to North Africa and instead redeployed the Australians to Hong Kong. General Sir Bernard Freyberg’s New Zealand Expeditionary Force (the Christchurch Fusilier, the Royal Auckland Fusilier, the King's New Zealand Rifle, the King's Own New Zealander, the Napier Grenadier Regiments, one engineer brigade and one anti-aircraft artillery brigade), with had been processing for transit to the British Isles, was also redeployed to Hong Kong to assist in the defense of the Colony. Both commands reported to General Maltby in the first week of June, 1939. After a few days of allowing the newly arrived men to familiarize themselves with their exotic new surroundings, Generals Maltby, Bingham-White and Freyberg set about integrating the troops into the defensive scheme for Hong Kong and Macao and additionally began work on a new series of fortifications around the Portas do Cerco. These fortifications, not nearly as elaborate or heavily armed as the Gin Drinkers Line, came to be known as the Lady’s Line due to being built in Macao’s Our Lady Fatima Parish.

Troops of the King's Own Tasmanian Regiment, part of General Bingham-White’s Australian Overseas Force, marching through Hong Kong after disembarking from their transports, June 1939 ​

Fortifications may have been built, but the British Army was by no means prepared to simply take a defensive stance in the Far East. Indeed, as confrontations between the Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy became more frequent in the late summer and early autumn months, the Imperial General Staff was guided by a quote of Field Marshal Haig and prepared to take the fight to the Chinese and the Japanese. To that end on October 1 the 3rd Australian Corps commanded by General Claude E. Cameron (the Australian Guards, the Moresby Highlander and the King’s Own Rockhampton Light Infantry Regiments) arrived in Macao, the RAF’s Darwin Air Command (Wing Commander George R. Beamish’s 41 and 55 Wing of Bristol Buckinghams) and India Air Command (Air Commodore Nawab Haji Khan’s 684 and 696 Wing) arrived in Rangoon on October 3, 1941. While not having enough troops to fully defend India against a concentrated attack by the Japanese operating out of China, nor Burma or Malaya, the Imperial General Staff had made a determination in the later 1930s to trade space in India for time and defend Malaya and Burma.

As tensions continued to rise between the two Empire, the IGS moved forward with plans for the active defense of Burma, and by extension Malaya, and ordered the deployment of General Harold E. Barrowclough’s 3rd New Zealand Corps (the Hauraki Grenadier, the Countess of Ranfurly’s Own Light Infantry, the Duke of Wellington’s Own Fusilier, the Royal Napier Light Infantry and the Royal Auckland Grenadier Regiments) to join with the British Army of Malaya (the Rangoon Rifles Regiment) on November 1 and assume command from General H. M. Wilson.

To further insure enough air assets were available for operations over the Malaya Peninsula, the RAF also transferred Air Vice Marshal Venter’s South African Air Command (Hawker Typhoon equipped 39, 88, and 91 Wing) to Mandalay, Air Commodore Douglas Bader’s newly formed Fighter Command C (Typhoon equipped 9 and 22 Wing) to Rangoon and Air Commodore Ian Brodie’s British Columbia Air Command (Bristol Buckingham equipped 486, 513 and 606 Wing) to Singapore, those commands arriving on October 26, November 1 and November 4 respectfully.

It was following this build up of Imperial forces that the Toyama Maru-Emerald Incident occurred, the incident itself another Japanese response to the British Empire’s quiet build up of her Far East possessions’ defenses. On November 22, following the conclusion of the first meeting between the diplomats following the which only heightened tensions between the two Empires and convinced London that the Japanese were gearing up for war, Fleet Admiral Cunningham and the entire Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to deploy from Alexandria to Ceylon with all dispatch. In England, General Sir Robert Grice Sturgese’s Third Royal Marine Expeditionary Unit (the Royal Halifax Marine, the Royal Australian Marine, the Royal County Cork Marine, the King’s Auckland Marine, and the still forming Royal Trincomalee Marine and the King’s Own Rangoon Marine Regiments) was put on alert for possible deployment to the Far East, while in Australia General Sir Thomas A. Blamey’s British Army of West Australia (the Penong Grenadiers, the King’s Australian Highlanders, the Royal Wyndham Rifle, the Duke of Perth’s Rifle, the King’s Own Australian and the Mount Isa Fusilier Regiments) were ordered to deploy from Perth to Darwin with preparations for further deployments to South East Asia to be arranged.

On Friday November 28, 1941, once more the diplomatic discussions taking place in Tokyo between Britain and Japan fell apart due to Japanese refusal to negotiate from their original demands. Less than one hour later the normal radio signal traffic undertaken by units of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy fell ominously silent.

At approximately 10:00 a.m. Tokyo time on November 30, 1941 General Kesago Nakajima, commander of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Kempeitai (secret police), issued orders that resulted in the sudden storming of the embassies of the British Empire in Tokyo and Nanking as well as the various consulates across both Japan and China. After a furious and embittered defense by the embassy guards, General Kenzo Kitano, Military Police Commander, China Forces, Imperial Japanese Army, was able to report that complete capture of the embassy in Nanking. General Rokuro Iwasa, Commander in Chief Kempeitai Forces, Tokyo HQ, had reported a similar result at 10:15 a.m. local time, with the British consulates across Japan and Tokyo being secured by 10:30 a.m. Tokyo time.

A rare colour photograph of the Embassy of the British Empire to Japan in Tokyo, taken sometime in late 1940.​

At exactly 11:00 a.m. Tokyo time Sir Robert Craigie, His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Empire of Japan and Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen, His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Nanking Nationalist Government, sent the same signal to London:

It has been determined by the authorities of the Empire of Japan that the staff of the embassy of the British Empire have been conducting acts of espionage and subversive activities against the Heavenly Sovereign in Japan and China. Finding sufficient evidence to support our guilt, the Empire of Japan and the Nanking Nationalist Government has determined the only recourse available is for the staffs of all consulates and the embassy, including the person of the ambassador, to be sentenced for execution forthwith and for there to be a state of war in existence between the Empire of Great Japan, the Nanking Nationalist Government and the British Empire. This state of war will continue to exist until such time that all territories and property currently held by the British Empire in Southeast Asia are returned to the peoples of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

After confirmation that each signal had been received by London, both embassies went silent and communication could not be established.

****

Happy New Year with this very ominous cliff-hanger and stay tuned for more!

 

[Porkman]

Honestly, it wouldn't have been stupid at all to have proposed statehood; the population even in 1898 simply desired some form of self-government without oppression from the elite. It was mostly the Philippine elite's line of thinking of "sharing the spoils" so to speak with Americans that drove them to thinking that independence was a better idea than anything else as I would see it. Now look where it has gotten my country. *sour look of disgust*

My impression was that the US didn't want to give the phillipines statehood because the 1920's US didn't want to have a state filled with brown, catholic, Asiatics. This was the era of the Asian exclusion acts, and the likes of Samuel Gompers were terrified of having 25% of the US population coming from some archipelago on the other side of the world. I really doubt that the Phillipines could have convinced the rest of the US to accept it as an equal state but the Phillipines is too big and too well populated to stay a US territory.

Exactly! Just how much resent would there be if that economy was not crippled and the population starving as a result of US assistance... or back to this AAR, Imperial assistance?

US assistance would help lessen resentment but imperial assistance would not. Britain has never been a friend to China. Every Chinese statesman from the republic period, the guys in their 50's and 60's in 1941, remembers how the British alliance with Japan allowed the Japanese a free hand in the first Sino Japanese war. More recently, the people Britain will need to run a stable, democratic, post Japanese state are mostly going to have cut their political teeth during the May Fourth Movement of 1919. This movement was the first real burst of nationalism in China that spanned all classes and areas. The cause of this widespread outpouring of national fervor was the British. China had joined the allies and sent 140,000 laborers to the Western front on the assurance that the German concessions in Shandong would be returned on wars end. However, the British had made those assurances under false pretenses and chose to honor a secret agreement with Japan transferring sovereignty of Shandong to Japan. Though Wilson had been complicit at the peace table, the American public was outraged and Shandong came to be a major part of the platform that was used to defeat the treaty in congress. America, pressured by its own strong China lobby, forced Japan to cede Shandong back to China at the Washington Naval conference in 1922. In 1925, in response to British soldiers firing on a hostile crowd supporting strikers in Shanghai, Chinese people in Hong Kong and along the coast launched a 15 month boycott of British goods.

The Americans, despite having a much smaller share of the indemnity from the boxer rebellion, used there money to send Chinese students to college. During the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, a single battalion of Chinese soldiers were left behind to defend a warehouse across the river from the British and French concessions to cover the retreat of the rest of the army. For 7 days, the soldiers held out against the Japanese in full view of the foreign powers. Britain offered to mediate a ceasefire where the soldiers would be evacuated through the British concessions and then shipped down the coast to join another unit. However, after the soldiers successfully extricated themselves and crossed the river, the British arrested the soldiers and put them in prison due to Japanese pressure.

Though the British at the time couldn't see it and didn't want to admit it, any western educated Chinese person could see that the Japanese were merely copying the British. That every act of aggression or brutality, while differing in scale and lethality was the same stuff that the British had pioneered. That the Japanese arguments of core economic interest and co prosperity were merely recycled castoffs from the Opium war. This is a quote from a British history of China written in 1898.

While this action deterred the Chinese fleet from coming to close quarters, it also imbittered the contest, and there was no longer room to doubt that if the Chinese were to be brought to take a more reasonable view of foreign trade it would have to be by the disagreeable lesson of force.

The "reasonable view of foreign trade" he espouses, is that China did not have the right to refuse to trade with Britain and that British subjects, despite living in a foreign country uninvited were not subject to Chinese law.

Britain can defeat Japan but they can't denounce it with a clear conscience. The right to use force to defend economic interest is the founding principle of the British empire. Britain putting troops on the ground in China is a really bad idea. They won't be resented because they're rich, they'll be resented because they're soldiers of an empire that has already conquered and continues to rule half of Asia, including parts of China. Would you trust a guy who punched you until bought his drugs, took possession of a room in your apartment, and then muttered vague apologies while his friend infected you and your family with bubonic plague?

The post war Chinese economy is going to be in shambles for a while, the war with Japan, especially a lost one has already bankrupted China and the rural partisans and dislocation have destroyed food prices. No post war Chinese government is going to have the breadth or penetration to alleviate this quickly. The economy is too big and too dislocated. The best the British can hope for from any post war Chinese government is trade relations and no open hostility. If I was the king, I would be doing absolutely everything I could to get the Americans into the war with Japan because I will need them to deal with China after the war is over. Anything that the British touch directly in China is going to be tainted in the eyes of Chinese people. The imperial government is going to have a hard time getting people to believe message #1) We do not seek further conquest or hegemony while their flooding their empire with message #2) However if you are fortunate to have already been conquered and ruled by us, it is the best thing that could ever have happened to you. (Though, #2 is pretty convincing with hindsight, its not an argument that worked terribly well to stop independence movements while they were going on.)

 

[unmerged(28944)]

Porkman - You are quite right about RL Anglo-Sino relations and the disaster that would result in British troops moving into China. However, in the AAR Japan has puppeted China after a very conclusion of The Second Sino-Japanese War and while relations have not been harmonious, Japan has been building up the Chinese economy (albeit to serve Japan). For a great many Chinese, despite having a bad history with the British, it is preferred to the current relationship with Japan.... but we shall see what the future holds.

 

[trekaddict]

HM and Winston throwing a collective fit in 3...2...1....



Blimey. That is as close to Pearl Harbour as you can get without bombing Scapa Flow.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Ouch. War in the Far East while the USSR is not completely gone... Well, another reason to go to Vladivostok, too.

 

[Porkman]

The British are of course preferred over the Japanese but that's only because the Japanese set the bar so very low. The British need the Americans because, without them, the British options for influencing the future Chinese state are limited. The great risk is that they'll be forced to commit troops on the Asian mainland and while this might tolerated while Japan is yet unhumbled, they risk uniting the country against Britain once the lesser of two evils is the only evil left. Even just deferring occupation duties to Americans without co belligerence would help. That being said, I'm also curious if any famous Nationalist generals made it into Burma after China fell.

 

[Falastur]

Nathan Madien - Trust me, as painful as it is for them, the boffins of the Imperial General Staff are now working hard to come up with a use of the wiggling pudding that won't be just as harmful to Imperial troops.

The more we talk about that pudding, the clearer the images appear in my mind of a giant Giga Pudding fighting among the skyscrapers of Tokyo with Godzilla...

Hmm. So the war begins right on time. Never say the Japanese aren't efficient.

The British have been reinforced (though I can't remember the original compliment so I can't put a number on the percentage increase in defenders) but will surely be on the defensive for a while. Of course, knowing Japan of this era it is highly probable another frontier will open up with the Indian border soon so an attack can hopefully be pressed from there - if the Japanese aren't overwhelming enough in number already. I do have to say that, unless the British troops manage stunning acts of efficiency in combat in Asia, this could be a hard ground war to win without help. I do really wonder what will happen. The USA could be brought in, but in a way (no offense meant to the Americans here) that would feel like a defeat - a final proof that the resurgent British Empire can't win on its own as it has been attempting to do, no matter the logic of the case. Yet it may be necessary. In the meantime, the war rages on with the Soviet Union, but supposing they collapsed overnight I would question just how many troops can be brought to the Asian theatre, and how fast. In a way, it doesn't really seem logical or feasible to mobilise most of the troops from the European theatre in Asia. Not having played HoI I don't really have much of a feeling for how big the Japanese army is here either, nor how big the British army is. I have a feeling that this war could be the kind that ends with the Japanese being pushed back and being punished for attacking the UK, yet holding most of China for the entire length of the war and not being roundly defeated as in OTL unless the atom bombs are dropped on Japan with the war in China and Indochina still raging.

As for Porkman's stuff on Sino-British relations, that does indeed make for grim reading. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens here. I wonder if any good can be made of the situation at all, or whether the best scenario to hope for is to create an anti-Japanese siege mentality amongst the Chinese population of the ports of Hong Kong and Macao, build the walls up and pray it lasts. Even the (ethically questionable) tactic of encouraging another...creative restructuring of China into several smaller states with friendly governments now no longer seems to look like a good option. Perhaps the only thing to do is to wait a few generations for the Chinese to (hopefully) forget the antipathy, and perhaps pray for a miracle in the form of the Japanese rule becoming so unbelievably brutal that simply by being a Japanese adversary, we start to regain some credibility.

I actually feel a bit guilty for my nationality, now :\

Hmmm...the ball is in your court for unlocking this enigma, Draco. All yours

 

[Dinglehoff]

The Japanese and Chinese won't be able to handle the Western war-fighting style on the Asian mainland.

The naval conflict will shape the length and strategy of the war. If the Japanese Fleets can be decisively defeated, the home islands can be isolated and blockaded from China. Landings and expansion can take place along the China coast to shorten the war there significantly. If the naval war is not conclusive; the Empire will need to slog it's way across China with mountain fighting, heavy air support, and finally armored breakthroughs and deep penetration. The war might not last long enough for nukes.

Diplomatically; the Empire has been putting monarchs in as rulers a lot, so it would probably put some old dynasty people in charge, maybe with a weak legislature.

 

[Ciryandor]

@ Porkman
I would like to correct the impression that America would have been flooded by Filipinos during that time; the total American population of the period (1900) was at 76 million, while the Philippine population in the whole archipelago was at around 7.2 million. Most of this population had no desire to emigrate; not because they were uneducated, but because they would have been content to till their lands/practice their crafts. While it is true that adding the country to American territory would have resulted in a major demographic shift, the fears in the United States were primarily targeted not against Browns as they were called, but against Yellows (Chinese and Japanese); as Browns (Mexicans and Filipinos) were generally tolerated as an underclass that normally existed, not actively discriminated against. The prevailing view of Browns needing education and training, not to mention their "stated distaste" for integration with America was fueled by the elites who wanted to keep their stranglehold on their power bases of large, private landholdings (the haciendas) tilled by non-owner, tenant farmers.

Integration, education and development would have forced the Americans to break up these lands, and would have meant the loss of both income and power-base of dependent people. Furthermore, for those in the upper strata of society in the Philippines that did not rely on farming lands (trade and other businesses to be more specific), integration would have meant a loss in "privileges" with other states that America did not have good relations with or that discouraged trading with major powers, like the colonies that dotted the region at the time, and most importantly, the Chinese; not to mention the possibility of being muscled out by CONUS-based trading businesses from their lucrative deals.

Further roadblocks to possible integration came from two sides; the long-existent anti-immigration lobby; who wanted to argue that adding countries like the Philippines would result in a mass-exodus that would leave regular Americans both penniless and exploited, but also the agricultural lobby, who wanted their access to large plantations of coconut oil (an important ingredient in things like soap during those days) at exploitative levels, which they could not do if integration were to be pursued there.

Short version; it was in the interests of the elite in the Philippines and economic interests in ConUS that sought and successfully created the impression that the Philippines was best left to self-rule of the independent sort, and not given the chance to decide among its population whether to integrate or go its own way.

 

[Porkman]

@ Porkman
Short version; it was in the interests of the elite in the Philippines and economic interests in ConUS that sought and successfully created the impression that the Philippines was best left to self-rule of the independent sort, and not given the chance to decide among its population whether to integrate or go its own way.

Of course they weren't given a chance to decide among their own population. It's exactly the same reason they couldn't become a state. The people in the United states did not think the general population of the phillipines could make decisions for itself. Making them a state would have given them citizenzhip and entitled them to proportional representation and equal rights, something the US was not willing to grant. Giving them independence was a convenient way to wash their hands of it.

Landings and expansion can take place along the China coast to shorten the war there significantly. If the naval war is not conclusive; the Empire will need to slog it's way across China with mountain fighting, heavy air support, and finally armored breakthroughs and deep penetration. The war might not last long enough for nukes.

China really isn't suited to armored operations. Every road problem that the Germans had in Russia is worse in China and the terrain is also hilly instead of flat. The British could take the coast and make a good run of cutting off the Chinese mainland from Japan but pushing in is going to be much harder.

This is a quote from across China on foot written by John Dingle

The wider the Chinese street the more abuses can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at all--that is, in dry weather.

This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however, another kind of road--a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.

An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary (especially in the Yün-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another, the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains. In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at times are constantly under water, and beyond Yün-nan-fu, on my way to Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the roads.

The Japanese would have improved this a bit in the intervening years to extend control into the countryside and there are rail lines between most cities but this kind of road is still going to be what the British have to fight across. The western style of war that has worked so well across Europe, particularly the deep penetration by armored forces, is going to have to change to deal with the drastically reduced mobility. The British will probably have to switch to the same tactics they historically used in Burma, light infantry, deep penetration and air supply.

 

[Lord E]

And so the hounds of war are let loose again. I have to say the way the Japanese began this conflict can’t be described as anything else than war crimes, murdering a sovereign states diplomats and invade their embassies like this. I guess this war had to begin sometimes, but I had hoped it would wait a little bit longer, if you could have destroyed the Soviet Union first the Japanese would have been easy, at the moment I think you need to stay on the defence in the start at least until you can destroy most of the IJN and to do that you will need more aircraft carriers! If you can destroy all Japanese carriers destroying the rest of their navy is always easy and then you can invade the Home Islands and purge the emperor and his government for their war crimes

 

[Porkman]

And so the hounds of war are let loose again. I have to say the way the Japanese began this conflict can’t be described as anything else than war crimes, murdering a sovereign states diplomats and invade their embassies like this. I guess this war had to begin sometimes, but I had hoped it would wait a little bit longer, if you could have destroyed the Soviet Union first the Japanese would have been easy, at the moment I think you need to stay on the defence in the start at least until you can destroy most of the IJN and to do that you will need more aircraft carriers! If you can destroy all Japanese carriers destroying the rest of their navy is always easy and then you can invade the Home Islands and purge the emperor and his government for their war crimes

The King is shocked, shocked to find that Japanese war crimes are going on in here.

Assuming a Sino Japanese war that went relatively historical until the Japanese won, getting upset about murdering a diplomat is laughably silly. The Japanese have already perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre, purposefully infected areas with plague and typhus, blown up a US flagged gunship, used mustard gas, used nerve gas, and had the results of prisoner beheading contests posted in Tokyo newspapers. This has all happened in 1937, 1938, and 1939. (I seem to recall that Japan won the war in 1940 in this timeline)

If executing the embassy staff is all they do, the way they begin this conflict with the British is downright civil. (Though they could still launch plague rats into Hong Kong, or attack the far east station.)

 

[Nathan Madien]

It's a bad time to be an Embassy, story-wise and real-life-wise.

By the way, I like the talk going on right now.

 

[El Pip]

I actually feel a bit guilty for my nationality, now

Then man up you big wuss. If you start down that moral absolutism route and judge everyone by modern standards the entire world ends up feeling guilty; no nation on earth hasn't done some unpleasant things in the past and all of them, had they had the chance and/or been more competent, would have done a lot more.

For example the Chinese were not nice chaps when they had been top of the tree, China was welded into it's current state only by some fairly unpleasant and brutal emperors. You could just as easily claim the Japanese had been copying a past ruler of China than any British example, I accept the Chinese probably wouldn't like that explanation (who would?) but that doesn't make it any less valid.

For all that I agree with Porkman an occupation will be tricky, but I have to say I think he is overstating the problem, yes there are quite a lot of Chinese, but most of them really don't matter. I suspect vast numbers of peasants haven't even noticed the Japanese are now in power and wouldn't notice if someone else was notionally running the place. How many millions failed to notice Mao, and he made some quite determined efforts to wipe out most of the population?