8mm to the Left: If Hitler Died in 1923
- Thread starter KaiserKatze
- Start date
yes that is what i meant. giving in to a bunch of violent nobodies (the nazis ittl) calling for banning the film might make them look weak
Yes but if the Prussian militarists don't like it anyway? That said buried and ignored seems more likely.
Ramontxo
Donor
Since an joke in an Catalan newspaper at the beginning of the century The Spanish Army retained the right to judge any offense against its honor. In 1980 (with the constitution three years old and Franco five years dead) Pilar Miro made a film about a famous cause celebre "The Crime of Cuenca" knowing what was coming she took extreme care to follow to the letter what was declared proved by the Spanish Supreme Court at the time.
La Guardia Civil being an militar institution she was (literally) court martialled and the film banned. Later Civilian Jurisdiction lift the ban and the law was changed
The Crime of Cuenca - Wikipedia
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12 - Trust
8mm to the Left: A World Without Hitler
"So much of the blame for the conflicts of the 20th Century has been laid on nations like Germany, Italy, or France, holding one or all of these as solely responsible for the bloodshed and death which tore Europe apart. I argue instead that the failure of peace during this era was a collective fault of the institutions which existed to uphold that peace, and the selfish whims of kings and rulers whose petty squabbles came to undermine the very civilisations which they had sought to build.” - Christopher Lee, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Great Britain, 1981
Trust
Despite the waning Summer period, the city of Geneva retained a certain warmth borrowed from the Mediterranean coast located not too far to its south. Lake Geneva was dotted with white sails of casual boaters and children could be seen swimming in the shallows near the edge of the city. It was a gorgeous day and the first one in a long time that journalist Aubrey Leo Kennedy had been able to actually enjoy.
Sipping a cup of tea on the terrace of his hotel, Kennedy watched the vibrant, multi-coloured city teem around him. Geneva was a city like no other, and one placed high up the list of places he’d love to move to upon retirement. His wife wasn’t so sure—she didn’t like France and found Geneva to be far too close, both in geography in culture—but he was positive that he could wear her down with a bit of work.
“Don’t you feel the same?” he asked his companion after voicing his views on the city. “A more stunning city I am pressed to find.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alexander Cadogan answered diplomatically, sipping his espresso. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the sun setting off the coast of Casablanca.”
Kennedy huffed, but it was a good-natured sound, accustomed to the diplomat’s way. “You rather take the fun out of it, you know?”
“Indeed.” Cadogan’s eyes twinkled with silent laughter as he finished off his drink and took a bit of the biscuit that accompanied it. “Though tell me, am I less enjoyable to be around than my fellow delegates?”
“Assuredly not,” the reporter quickly replied, nose wrinkling as he thought back to his recent meetings with the French and afterwards the German representative. “Though those Dutch are not half-bad. They have shown themselves to possess a level head unmatched by their larger neighbours.”
“The neturals have everything to gain from the talks,” Cadogan pointed out. “They benefit if their neighbours reduce their militaries and they profit if they go to war. The only thing that they can’t stomach is having to enter into equal discussions with their fellow nations.”
“We are here in Switzerland,” Kennedy reminded the man.
“And how well have the talks been going? I daresay that the notion of disarmament was dropped before it even began in earnest.”
On this Kennedy had to nod. The World Disarmament Conference began in 1932 as a long-overdue answer to the troubles which had been birthed before and during the Great War, namely increasing militarisation, the advancement of technologies, and the staggering loss of life caused by both of those. If there was one lesson which Europe had collectively been forced to come to terms with, it was the realisation that modern war could not be fought as it once had been done, and that the technologies which made their lives easier also made it far easier to strip those lives from them. The world could not go on as before, not if they had any hope of continuing on to the next century.
This was the idea, anyway. In practice, the issues were far more complicated, as while the victors of the Great War were the ones most interested in ensuring a perpetual preservation of the status quo through the enforcement of disarmament and peace, they were simultaneously the nations who most feared further losses from resurgent enemies. For France, the idea of vast military reduction was untenable without an extensive alliance system to restrain German aggression; for Germany, pacifism could not be considered until the border disputes in the East had been considered; for Eastern European nations like Poland or Romania, demilitarisation remained an impossibility as long as the threat of the Soviet Union remained on their borders.
It was a grand mess of a situation and it was therefore to no great surprise (at least for the likes of Kennedy and Cadogan) that the conference had relatively quickly transformed itself into a forum on current geopolitical topics and the best ways to handle zones of perceived “high-risk”, including, most prominently, Germany and France.
“The French have been making overtures to anyone who will listen,” Cadogan mentioned once the waiter had whisked away the dishes. “This is strictly off-the-record, of course, but Hugh Gibson, the American delegate, spoke with me privately just yesterday. The Americans are being aggressively courted by the French. It seems that the resurgent German economy has Paris in a tizzy and they have gone seeking friends with deep pockets. Gibson was quite concerned, you see, that the French might make promises to the Americans which they have already offered to us. That was not the case, but it was a realistic worry.”
“The French are seeking friends with deep pockets and they went for the Americans?”
“Economic pockets,” Cadogan clarified with a wave of his hand. “The French are too afraid of British industry invading their precious Metropole to risk London, and who else is there? The current government is far too cautious of Soviet influence to look East. Of course, the Americans are keeping to themselves mostly, so I don’t anticipate tremendous success.”
“There will always be new French governments. Frankly, I am astounded that they have retained the same delegate for the duration of the congress.”
“Left or Right, both sides agree on Germany being their greatest threat, so attempts to block renegotiations of the Versailles Treaty are acceptable to both.”
“Unusually single-minded of the French.” Both had enough English in their blood to smile at a joke made at France’s expense. “It doesn’t seem to have helped them in the end, though,” he added, leaning forward so that he wouldn’t be overheard. “I’ve seen the notes from the last session. Is it true that German rearmament is currently under negotiation?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Cadogan replied cagily. It was not a no.
Kennedy pondered for a moment. As a soldier during the Great War and a journalist in its aftermath, he had been one of the few voices to decry the Treaty of Versailles as unequal and cruel, feeling that its enforcement would prove to destabilise Europe by pressing the Germans into a corner where their only solution to their claims was war. Though this opinion had been a minority one in 1920, the rise of Fascism in Italy and the threat of Communism from the Soviet Union, not to mention political instability in France and Spain, made many more convert to his viewpoint, Cadogan among them.
The Geneva Conference in which Cadogan was taking part had only cemented these views. Despite its nominal focus on lessening the militarisation and hostility of the world powers, it seemed to have only inflamed them. France refused to dismantle or reduce their defensive measures on the German border nor were they willing to sign off on a remilitarisation of the demilitarised German Rhineland, much less allow the Germans more than the 100,000 troops stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles. The prerequisite for even the possibility of negotiations on their end was the formation of multiple defensive alliances to contain Germany, something which Germany, understandably in Kennedy’s opinion, felt unfairly targeted by, especially when they had so far complied fully to the terms of the Treaty.
“How have the recent events affected the nature of the British government’s relationship to the other continental Great Powers?” Kennedy tried, slipping into reporter mode.
One of Cadogen’s eyebrows cocked. “Our relationships have remained thus far the same.”
“Let me rephrase. How has it affected the opinion of the continental Great Powers?”
Cadogan watched him for a moment. “Off the record?”
And oh, how badly Kennedy wished that he could publish whatever came out of the man’s mouth, but he knew better and nodded.
The diplomat seemed to consider his words deeply. “His Majesty’s Government finds itself… disappointed in the stance taken by its French allies, who seem to value the ambitions of their nation far more than the idea of European peace. They insist upon treating Germany as a dangerous and barbaric threat rather than as their equal—and, in the minds of some, superior. To this end they concentrate all of their focus on containment and forego the idea of détente which only a decade ago seemed near-inevitable.”
In his mind’s eye Kennedy could image the words splayed out across the front page of a newspaper and lamented the loss. “And Germany?”
“Berlin has shown herself to have fully committed to fulfilling her place in the grand European machine. It is undeniable that Britain’s empire keeps her focus divided, something which cannot be said for the Germans, and her leadership within the current order is natural, if not contentious. With over a decade of unmolested peace between Germany and her neighbours, the time has finally come to grant Germany the room needed to fulfil her role as a true Great Power.”
Kennedy eyed the man. “Does His Majesty’s Government share your view?”
“Oh indubitably.” Cadogan was quite visibly pleased as he said, “I spoke recently with Minister MacDonald and foreign secretary the Right Honourable Anthony Eden—you know him, yes? Yes, and we are all in agreement that the Versailles system has become unfit to govern the emerging European order. As long as Germany continues to prove herself willing to cooperate, we so no reason to not treat her as the Great Power she is.”
“Do others share your view?”
“Quite a few, in fact. The Dutch have been supportive of the idea, as one might expect. The Baltic minors, too, and the Finns—not hard to see why, I imagine. The American delegate I mentioned before, Hugh Gibson, even seemed open to negotiations, though of course you can’t take tremendous stock in an American’s views on European politics. Who else? Ah, the Romanians, though I suspect it to be the king’s view more than his Francophile people.”
“Even if you have the support, will you really chart a course that could alienate the French?”
Here Cadogan let out a noise somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “The French are alienating themselves,” he declared, “and they are blinded by hubris if they believe that they can perpetually restrain Germany's growth with the force of a mere treaty. No, better to strike a deal while the power rests in our hands than to wait until German troops march on the Rhineland of their own accord.”
“I concur.” Kennedy’s hands twitched with the urge to begin typing this out and he let out a sigh of lamentation at the realisation that it would likely be weeks before anything he wrote would be allowed to see print.
“Cheer up, old boy,” Cadogan said with a smile, smoothing down his moustache with thumb and forefinger. “Things are about to get very interesting in European politics, and you will have more than enough to write about when the time comes."
If everything he said comes to pass, Kennedy thought to himself, interesting won’t be the half of it.
The World Disarmament Conference of 1932-1935 is sometimes mockingly called “A successful failure”, in that it not only failed to achieve global disarmament to any significant effect, but it is even considered today to have been a major stepping stone in the path towards the European disunity and eventual war in the coming years.
The movement towards global disarmament had begun in earnest following the Great War and the tremendous devastation and loss of life wrought from it, paved by a clause included in the Treaty of Versailles itself which called on the Great Powers to disarm, with this goal being an explicit component of the covenant of the League of Nations. It was, in theory, a noble and powerful goal; in practice, however, the rest of the Treaty of Versailles made the idea of such perpetual peace impossible, with noble principles like self-determination coming into conflict with the desire to punish and weaken Germany and her allies. It was all but impossible for the post-Versailles world to remain set in stone, with border disputes, ethnic dilemmas, and oppressive governments building friction to an eventual breaking point. As such, it was unsurprising to delegates when, by the middle of 1933, the focus of the conference had wholly diverged from disarmament and onto the topic of German rearmament.
By the early 1930’s, many in Britain, including Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Alexander Cadogan and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, had grown to criticise the measures placed upon Germany and were increasingly advocating for negotiations to take place regarding rearmament and the matter of German claims. Such propositions were wholly supported by the government of von Lettow-Vorbeck, himself a proponent of strong Anglo-German relations, but staunchly opposed by that of France. To the French, Germany represented a permanent existential threat to their mere existence, the sort of threat which even Britain, separated as it was by the English Channel, had never posed.
During the 1920’s France’s position had been the dominant one, supported as it was by many of the other nations who feared German influence, including past victims of German aggression, such as Belgium and Poland, as well as those with large German populations, including the Baltic states and Czechoslovakia. However, by 1933, this fear had shifted. Nations in Central and Eastern Europe now turned their frightened gazes to the Soviet Union, increasingly powerful with claims on some of their lands, or to their own internal economic and political strife which threatened to erupt. The Great Depression had put the importance of the German industrial backbone in perspective and, with the German economy flourishing once more, support for German rearmament became a bartering chip towards economic investment.
In July 1933, the Kingdom of Denmark approached Germany with a proposal for an economic agreement in exchange for lending their voice to the German movement towards rearmament. This treaty would grant German investors in Denmark greater financial autonomy and freedom, in exchange for Berlin recognising preferential purchasing rates on Danish products for a period of ten years. Though a more minor voice in the grand scheme of politics, Denmark’s proposal was backed by the fact that, for a period of three years beginning in 1933, they would hold one of the 10 non-permanent member seats on the League of Nations Council, one of the lead deciding bodies in the decisions to be made about Germany.
Denmark’s choice to offer their support to Germany came as a shock to many, as the yet-unrecognised Dano-German border (the northern half of the Prussian state of Schleswig being ceded to Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, despite Danish neutrality in the Great War) had been viewed as a serious roadblock to future cooperation between the two. What drove the Danes to pursue closer ties with Germany was, as for many others, the effects of the Great Depression. While the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were able to ride out the effects of the Depression with relative stability, it nevertheless had a significant effect on their trade with other nations. For Denmark, their close trade with Britain had suffered a serious blow when, in 1932, Britain established the Imperial Preference system, cutting trade from nations outside of their empire and cutting tariffs for those within it. The Danish economy had survived this blow, but the effects were substantial, and alternatives were quickly sought out.
Territorial and linguistic split of Schleswig, 1920. Pink represents the German-speakers, Blue the Danish-speakers; the post-Versailles border appears in black.
(https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Abstimmung-schleswig-1920.png)
The deal would be accepted by the government in Berlin within the span of days, the only point of alteration being the exact size of the decreased tariffs. This rapid agreement further compounded the surprise felt by onlookers and the next few months would see several other nations mimic the Danish approach, though each would be different and not all would be economic. Alongside Denmark, the nations of Albania, Greece, and Romania would receive limited economic investment, and over the next several years German-owned factories would become a common sight in cities like Tirana, Thessaloniki, and Brasov.
Finland and Bulgaria were two other nations to approach Germany for aid, though in both cases their goals were more military-based than economic. Finland had long been concerned of possible attempts by Stalin to expand the Soviet Union’s control into the lands of the fallen Russian Empire, of which Finland had been a component, and expressed interest in German help developing counter-measures in the case of a Soviet incursion. This provided the Finns with valuable military training from Europe’s most experienced leaders, while Germany in turn gained the chance to test out many of their tactics in a region geographically similar to the terrain they would be fighting on in the Soviet Union. For Bulgaria, the benefits reaped by Germany were fewer, but exceptional Bulgarian performance in the Great War and a shared ideological opposition to Communism lent the Balkan nation the sympathy it needed to earn a German military mission of its own.
All of this is to say that Germany did not simply sit idle while its delegates defended its right to rearm in Geneva, and it is this proactive approach which is credited today as the basis for the victory which the German delegation achieved in 1935. In contrast, the French, as much in their ideology as in their military planning, remained on the defensive, using their perceived moral superiority (defending Europe from its former threat) and the weight of their own international influence to try and guide the Conference towards rejection of German desires. This is not to accuse the French of incompetence; rather, they had simply failed to adapt to the new realities of the situation and the opponent they were facing, hindered as they were by preconcieved notions and distracted by the turmoil within the borders of their own nation.
It was at the end of 1934 when the discussions finally reached their peak, triggered by the upcoming 1935 plebiscite to be held in the League-controlled Saar Basin Territory. From 1920, Prussia’s South-Westernmost region (along with a small piece of Bavaria) had been removed from the control of Berlin and had been established as a League of Nations protectorate under the watch of France and Britain, similar to Danzig’s role under Poland. Like Poland with Danzig, France desired the direct annexation of the region, and like in Danzig, this had been against the wishes of the people living there. The Saar Basin Territory had been a compromise; independence for fifteen years followed by a vote. Three choices had been laid out beforehand for the people of the Saar: Rejoining Germany, continuing on as an international zone under French protection, or formally joining the French Republic.
Territory of the Saar Basin alongside Germany
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri...ia/File:Lage_Deutsches_Reich_-_Saargebiet.png)
France had sought to resolve the question of the German military long before the day of the referendum, as, should the territory be returned to Germany—as many predicted based on numerous surveys—it would further lengthen the Franco-German border and add an unneeded boost to Germany's industrial capacity with its rich coal mines. France had in fact attempted to hold the plebiscite back as a bargaining chip to be used against Germany, threatening to oppose German annexation of the region without guarantees of certain borders and military sizes, but this backfired on Paris quite spectacularly when it was used to portray them as opponents of the democratic right to self-determination.
On December 13th, exactly one month before the referendum was to take place, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald responded to French requests to indefinitely extend the lifespan of the Saar Protectorate by saying, “Nothing less than an overwhelming French majority will convince me that the Germans of the Saar want anything other than to be German. Your government’s continued refusal to recognise the democratic principles in which you pride yourselves makes me wish that we had done the same in Alsace!”
On January 13th, 1935, the Saar Referendum took place to determine the fate of the Saar Basin Territory. For obvious reasons, the two biggest regional powers had pre-existing biases towards the results of this referendum, and to that end the League of Nations had established a neutral peacekeeping force to prevent tampering during the referendum.
Suspicion of tampering was far from mere paranoia. Indeed, both sides had worked hard throughout the years leading up to the referendum to skew opinion in their favour. On the French side, census reports were forged to depict the region as possessing an enormous French-speaking minority, while the Germans (under Hermann Göring and his VoSiSt) infiltrated newspapers and warned of French-led population expulsions were they to take over the region. It remains unknown to what effect either side was really able to influence the plebiscite, and it is often joked by inhabitants of the Saar that the duo largely cancelled each other out. In the end, however, German hopes and French fears were realised, and with 93% of Saar occupants in favour, the region was re-annexed back into the Reich.
President von Lettow-Vorbeck sensed the opportunity when it arose and struck, appearing personally before the delegates to make a case for Germany’s future himself.
“Honoured gentlemen,” the German President spoke, voice echoing through the large room. He had been allowed onto the speaker’s stage and from there he could see the dozens of countries represented splayed out in every direction, all watching him with indifferent, curious, or hostile eyes. This was an important moment, he knew, and what he said here would have a profound impact on Germany’s future, so he made sure to speak each word carefully, grateful to have had the last few weeks to refine his French with his wife. “I stand here before the greatest collection of intelligence, ingenuity, and patience that I have ever seen. Here today I see the men who represent their nations in the most noble of goals: The pursuit of a true everlasting peace.
“I am a general, as many of you will already know. A soldier. I have travelled much of the world and I have seen the horrors of war in ways that few others can imagine. I know war. I know its horrors and its tragedies, as does my nation. Like many of yours, my nation fought in the Great War. We lost our fathers, sons, and brothers. We lost, in the end, but we have learned from it. We have grown and evolved as a people. Now we seek to rejoin our brothers across Europe, to be looked at as equals and friends, not to be isolated and hated for the threat of what we might do. For have we not shown our commitment to peace? We have accepted our restrictions with grace and have made no attempts to resolve the matter of our claims in Europe. We have respected the sovereignty of the League Territories, we have honoured our military restrictions, and have now peacefully regained territory through the will of the people living there. What more is there?”
From the side of the room with the French and Polish delegations came some irritated sounds and voices, no doubt related to his… stretching of the truth in regards to the military. Von Lettow-Vorbeck shot them a look out of the corner of his eyes, repressing a smile when they were quickly silenced by the stares it brought down on them.
“Peace is a choice. The most difficult of choices. The German people have not had the chance to make that choice, for it was taken from us when our nation was dragged into war. I do not see peace as a removal of all armies, for what is an army but an expression of a nation’s fitness, like in the human body? No—the truth to peace is trust. Trust in oneself and one's neighbours to not take advantage of its weakness. The League of Nations was the first step towards a collective trust, one which Germany was initially not privy to. Now we sit upon its Council. We earned your trust once—it is time to allow us to do so again.”
The French were positively livid. In the span of just under a month, Germany had not only regained an extremely valuable bit of territory which France had sought to annex, but it had successfully convinced, bought, and manipulated the other powers of the League of Nations into allowing a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Even Italy, whom France had hoped to join their side, had come to support the Germans, using the chance to push their agenda for a Four-Power-Pact granting the European Great Powers of Britain, Germany, France, and Italy preeminence among their neighbours to improve Italian prestige and try to acquire their claims in the Balkans and Africa.
The proposed resolution consisted of three components targeting three different facets of the military restrictions on Germany. The first and most important was that the troop count, formerly capped at 100,000, had now been raised to 400,000—four times the amount agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles and more than half of the amount of the Imperial Army prior to the Great War—for a duration of eight years, at which point the limitation would end completely. Following this, the restrictions on the German war colleges had been lifted, allowing for Berlin’s famous war college to reopen. Lastly, and of the greatest concern to the French, was the matter of the Rhineland, where German demilitarisation was to be lifted after a period of two more years, granting German troops access to “their own backyard”, in the words of one delegate.
The French attempted to withhold their allowance, citing the necessity of unanimity in all votes, but this was smoothly countered by the German delegation with the trump card of the demilitarised Rhineland bordering France; should the French grant Germany their vote, the region would retain its demilitarised status as a gesture of peace; should the French oppose them, the Rhineland would be re-militarised the moment the restriction lifted. Given their position trapped between two horrible decisions, the French caved and allowed the vote to pass, recognising that they had been outplayed and that continued resistance would only hurt their own place in the international stage.
Very little in the name of disarmament was accomplished at the World Disarmament Conference, but Germany came out of it in a far better position than they had entered. Full rearmament had been prevented, it was true, but the 100,000 limit under which they had strained so far had not prevented the Reichspolizei, and the same would undoubtedly be true for a restored army. 400,000 was enough to stave off the risk of invasion that had lurked over their heads and while the Rhineland remained off-limits to their troops, none doubted that such a situation would not last for long.
President von Lettow-Vorbeck and his administration reaped the rewards of these successes, heralded as “Retter der deutschen Ehre” (Saviour of German Honour) and more than offsetting what little backlash he had received for his affiliation with Crown Prince Wilhelm. If there had been any doubt as to the military following him, it was now thoroughly snuffed out. The president announced an immediate military expansion to take advantage of the alleviation of the restrictions, though he was quick to caution that economic concerns made the 400,000 threshold a goal of the next few years rather than the next few months. A large shift would follow wherein the best and brightest of the Reichspolizei would be moved over to the army, jump-starting the rearmament which the German people had so long awaited.
Scarcely had the ink dried on the paper than the French were warning all that “They would regret this when German boots crossed their borders!”, several delegates going so far as to storm out of the conference altogether. They decried it as a slap in the face to the brave soldiers who had died to protect their homelands, and countered the Germans with an expansion of their own army by an extra 100,000 men and laying down plans to extend the Maginot Line northwards along the Belgian border. The Belgians protested this action, fearing being sacrificed to German ambitions in the event of the next war, but this went ignored by the French government.
“If France is to stand,” Prime Minister Pierre-Étienne Flandin said in an interview with a French newspaper, “then I fear she is to stand alone.”
This chapter is the second of the two-part “critical junction” of the story where the timeline more seriously begins to diverge from real-life, as now von Lettow-Vorbeck has succeeded in earning Germany freedom from much of Versailles and has set Germany down the path towards retaking its old glory. From this point on the story’s progression is planned to slow a great deal, and while Germany will main the “protagonist” for a few more years in-world, the focus will gradually widen more and more.
Regarding German rearmament, please let me know if the troop numbers I used seem realistic. I am basing it off of the original Treaty of Versailles as well as the size of the German Imperial Army pre-WW1 (700,000) to try and come up with something which sounds reasonable. I am also hoping that British support for Germany did not seem too out of character; I am banking on the more pro-appeasement policies of many major diplomats, including Alexander Cagodan from this chapter, being enough to convince Westminster to loosen Germany’s leash. If they were willing to do it for Hitler, even given him being… well, Hitler, then I would imagine that a stable Conservative regime would be able to get even more. France’s opposition is hopefully also in-character, and I am basing their unpreparedness to counter Germany’s diplomatic strike on their general fumbling of the 1930’s IRL.
Regarding German rearmament, please let me know if the troop numbers I used seem realistic. I am basing it off of the original Treaty of Versailles as well as the size of the German Imperial Army pre-WW1 (700,000) to try and come up with something which sounds reasonable. I am also hoping that British support for Germany did not seem too out of character; I am banking on the more pro-appeasement policies of many major diplomats, including Alexander Cagodan from this chapter, being enough to convince Westminster to loosen Germany’s leash. If they were willing to do it for Hitler, even given him being… well, Hitler, then I would imagine that a stable Conservative regime would be able to get even more. France’s opposition is hopefully also in-character, and I am basing their unpreparedness to counter Germany’s diplomatic strike on their general fumbling of the 1930’s IRL.
Does this mean Ireland ends up reunified ITTL as the reference to a "Kingdom of Great Britain" and not a "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" seems like it confirms that happens ITTL.
🤫
Though would a hypothetical such kingdom still be called the United Kingdom, just without the Ireland part? British naming conventions in this case are not my specialty and I don't know if it would drop the United or not
98% sure "Great Britain" refers to the island that makes up England/Wales and Scotland (i.e. the two original "united kingdoms").
That I did know, but I wasn't sure if they would just call it the United Kingdom of Great Britain or drop the United
Interesting. Also makes sense as prior to about 1937 OTL Britain very much saw the USSR as the main problem and thought they could work with Hitler (Munich being desperate time buying once it was clear they couldn't). A sane sensible Germany that's even still paying lip service to democratic norms is a partner they can accept and work well with. Especially as France post WWI is a busted flush that's never going to fully recover it's former strength but remains strong enough to maintain British preference for counterbalance instead of one hegemonic power in Europe.
"Lip service" is definitely the right term for what's happening here.
You son of a bitch, I’m in
Well it could technically still be the United Kingdom of Great Britain I suppose. But for simplicity, it should be renamed to Great Britain in my eyes. Their pride might make it remain the UK
True but since they haven't resorted to the nazi move of exterminating all opposition (just sidelined it) and an immediate massive military build up it's easier for the world to pretend nothings wrong.
For the official name, I don't know for certain what we'd have done. I suspect it depends on which party's doing it and how they want to spin it. But returning to "Kingdom of Great Britain" might be useful from a legal perspective given that it existed from 1707 to 1801, so you've already got precedents to return to.
In terms of the every-day name, "Great Britain". Well, when metonymy isn't in effect and people use "England" when they actually mean the whole country.
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I feel like Great Britain is a more clear and logical choice, but also because I think that it would fit more into the global political scene of the modern era. Spoiler: In a greater and more federal Commonwealth system, the name "Kingdom of Great Britain" sounds more equal to other members than "United Kingdom" does, especially when several members do not have the British monarch.
At least this time there are only two options to mix up, not the third "U.K." to add to the mix.
@KaiserKatze ! Amazing work as always! Wishinh the Best For crown Prince Wilhelm and Otto. Hopefully both regain their rightful thrones