Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

   Headlines  |  Alternate Histories  |  International Edition


Home Page

Announcements 

Alternate Histories

International Edition

List of Updates

Want to join?

Join Writer Development Section

Writer Development Member Section

Join Club ChangerS

Editorial

Chris Comments

Book Reviews

Blog

Letters To The Editor

FAQ

Links Page

Terms and Conditions

Resources

Donations

Alternate Histories

International Edition

Alison Brooks

Fiction

Essays

Other Stuff

Authors

If Baseball Integrated Early

Counter-Factual.Net

Today in Alternate History

This Day in Alternate History Blog



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

King of Traitors

I was curious to see if I could do a British version of Dark America or The Paney War.

Those of us who are British may find this TL controversial, as indeed I do, but it seems a valid possibility.  Edward VIII may or may not have been a closet fascist.  He was certainly concerned about the failure of the British system to provide for the victims of the great depression, and it is a documented fact that he had some communications with Nazi agents, but the depth of his feelings are known only to the Lord of All Things. 

The pro-monarchist factions in Britain claim that he was a fascist and cite his semi-forced abdication as a triumph for anti-fascist movements.  That is nonsense.  He was pushed out because he dared to fall in love with Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, who was viewed as an unacceptable queen.  (She was American/a separated woman/she rubbed the queen mother the wrong way/who knows).

Let’s assume that there is a compromise worked out.  Edward had a strong hand, he had (in theory) the loyalty of the army, he was a very popular king and there was no precedent for evicting a king.  Few people would have considered beheading him, as had happened to Charles, and parliament was not united on the question.  Therefore, let’s have them all accept a face-saving solution; Wallis becomes the official consort (a title famously denied to Philip) and the line of descent is rewritten to exclude her and any children the couple may have.  The British public gets a royal wedding and everyone is pleased. 

Fast forward to 1939.  Edward is heavily involved in projects to feed and clothe people suffering from poverty.  The establishment is appalled, but Edward is the most popular king for a long time and he has the support of Churchill and many other politicians.  The Tory party leaders know that they cannot afford to be seen to act against their monarch, so they are forced to go along with him.  Britain gets some Hitler-type programmes; industrialising, massive agricultural development, improved social systems.  Britain has also conscripted unemployed men into Land Armies and the proper army. 

Edward and the conservative politicians don’t care about Europe.  Hitler gets to destroy Poland without any British interference; the British don’t want a war with Hitler, they want him steered to face godless, monarch killing communists.  Britain is quite willing to allow German domination of Eastern Europe in exchange for Hitler destroying the USSR.  The British press the French into staying neutral, brokering an agreement with Germany for French occupation of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. 

Hitler heads east in 1940.  The British are very enthusiastic about this move and declare a blockade of the USSR.  They also send troops and supplies to Iran and India, preparing to seize the oil wells and parts of the USSR as far as Stalingrad.  The British also supply Muslim rebels with weapons and advisors from India.  The war causes an economic boom as Britain sells arms, oil and other supplies to Hitler.  Some British reds protest this loudly and are promptly arrested for slandering the monarch.  (Still an offence, but one not invoked for a long time.)  Britain suffers some unrest which allows the establishment of a limited police state. 

The Germans take Moscow in late 1940.  The soviets have far less material than they did in OTL 1940, with far fewer factories and other supplies.  Most of the communist leaders make it out, but Stalin is killed in an air raid.  The reminder of the government, in uneasy coalition, flees east.  The British take this as their cue to seize Baku and the other oil facilities, while the Japanese hit the soviet rear. 

The British have quietly given the Japanese a guarantee that they won’t supply the Chinese in exchange for a non-aggression pact.  Many British wanted the Japanese to continue hitting the ChiNats and ChiComms as they had inconvenient amounts of nationalism inside them.  The Americans continue supplying the Chinese, but it’s not so easy without British co-operation. 

The British make deals with Hitler, who is now their staunch ally, and work to strengthen their empire.  The British take all the Jews/Czechs/Poles/liberals that the Germans can arrest and ship them to places around the Empire.  Rhodesia, South Africa, Kenya, all get a larger white population.  The British have also started to introduce a national security state – non-whites in Africa who refuse to become ‘civilised’ get nothing, not even rights. 

The British work to reform the Indian system.  Gandhi and his Congress friends get played off against the Muslim League.  The Princes are given important roles in government, as are notably pro-British Indians.  Nationalists and Communists are displaced.  Absent WW2, there won’t be a massive famine and the British can stamp on religious strife. 

The British have what is effectively a popularist dictatorship.  King Edward has more real power than his father and is very popular.  Churchill gets his empire, most of the mandarins are removed or pushed back to be replaced by thrusting go-getters.  The Empire is reinvigorated by new colonists and considerable anti-nationalist feelings.  Nazi Germany is a stanch ally.  The British officially keep their Jews down, more practically; they have a semi-independent dominion of ‘Israel’ in Africa.  The Belgium Congo is taken over without payment.  The French are following the British lead with massive settlement of Algeria.  Indochina is jointly occupied by British and American forces.  Japanese get the Dutch East Indies and hire Dutch ships to protect them, a legal fiction to keep America happy.  Russia is partitioned between Germany, Italy, Turkey and Japan.  The Balkans are shared between Greece, Turkey and Italy under German supervision.  The British could care less about them. 

In Britain, most citizens have the same amount of freedom they had in 1930.  There is some press censorship, mainly of communist, Irish nationalist and anti-monarchist papers.  Some parts of Britain become darker as local lords are allowed to reintroduce the federal system on their lands when they are ordered to use them for food growing.  The lords will ‘look after’ the workers, provided they follow orders and don’t leave the farms.  Work camps in the mines are there for the malcorants. 

Africa is a police state.  The black populations are practically used as slaves and work-fodder.  White settlements are permitted everywhere they want to go and massive industrialisation is being promoted everywhere.  Boers have been declared Englishmen and they get along better with the British now that the British have taken a pro-Boer stance on the race issue.  Railways, highways and massive telecommunication poles hold the African empire together. 

The British dominate the Middle East.  The Saudi Arabian nation is ripped apart and split into different small nations.  Iran is offered the choice between becoming a crown dependency or a German-dominated zone.  The Shah decides on the Germans, but is overthrown and the British dominate the area.  The British therefore control the oil supplies of most of Europe. 

Australia and Canada decided they hated the new order of affairs and declared their independence.  Canada made theirs stick with American support, starting the American-Europe cold war, while Australia’s was brutally crushed.  Australian refugees were permitted entry into the USA, which took over Central America in 1945. 

Summery:  The world is divided between the British Empire, the Japanese Empire, the Third Reich and the USA.  France and Italy are dependents of Britain and Germany respectively.  The USA is the only real democratic state left, although the British have a shadow democratic parliament with little real power.  The Empire is much stronger, but built on a far bloodier foundation – no civil rights for blacks, for example.  The British Army is based on the German model and much tougher than OTL, while the British, Americans and Germans all have atomic bombs.  Africa is much more developed at the cost of total European domination. 

Hit Counter

Changing The Times Discussion Board