Chapter 58, Stamford Street, South Bank, London, 12 October 1936
“Of course I realised that it was,” the young MP said caustically, rather angrily. “But I’m not the only one that this has happened to. Between you and me we’re all getting ‘carrot and stick’ hereabouts.”
“So,” Butler said carefully, “the lunch, was it a lunch?” There was the briefest of nods. “Thanks. The lunch with Halifax was the carrot, what was the stick?”
The MP, Cartland, looked sheepishly into his pint. “I’d rather not…”
“…material of a personal nature,” Butler finished, gently, having a reasonably certain opinion what they ‘had’ on him. The well-placed guess earned a nod of confirmation. “Who knows? The Whips?”
“They must, Margesson runs a tight ship, and some others.”
“The Whips, again,” Butler said to himself. “Anything else?”
“I’ve had about three calls with Eden in the last few weeks. Well, during each one,” he looked down to his glass again, “it sounds silly but…”
“…you would not believe some of the stuff we’ve heard,” Butler offered supportively.
Cartland nodded. “I could have sworn that there was someone else, listening in.”
Butler supressed the flicker of excitement and adopted the old detective trait, of offering ‘a way out’. “Keyes? He is helping Eden.”
“No, that’s just it, Eden always tells us if Roger is there.”
“The 'hello girl'?”
“Well yes, but after connecting the call she probably went off and did something else. No, this was something else. They half wanted us to be aware, to be suspicious. I distinctly remember, on the second call, a heavy breathing sound. Sounds mad, I know, but you said you wanted everything.”
“You’ve been very helpful Mr Cartland,” Kathleen Milne said cheerily.
Butler wasn’t quite finished and played his next card very, very, carefully. “Have you ever experienced that before?” He saw the almost electric ‘jump’ as Cartland struggled to join the dots and so, as per the script in his head, added a slight explanation. “Because of course, if you have it rather makes you more credible.”
Cartland though, passed the test. “The funny thing is, and I really hadn’t thought of it, and I cannot imagine it is really normal. I think I knew what it was like because something like it happened when I was called by the King’s people. I have been toying with His Majesty’s cause, as some newspapers speculate I too wonder if the marriage tastes of a forty odd year old are really a hindrance to his ceremonial role,” he rushed this last bit, “I’m certain that it happened there, too.”
“Who was the call with?”
“Monckton, the King’s lawyer,” Cartland said immediately.
Butler was treading lightly as a cat. “I don’t suppose you know where the call was made from, do you? Just my idle curiosity, in case Mrs Simpson was listening in?” He offered a hearty smile, which Cartland, in his anxious state, barely acknowledged.
Cartland shrugged at the remarks and then took a very literal line. “I think he vaguely mentioned that he had made the call straight from an audience with HM. So, I suppose it might have been in HM’s study,” Cartland said, unsure. “But at the time I thought it was done to impress me that he was in Belvedere House in the inner sanctum.” He finally confirmed which of the King’s residences was the source of the call.
“Well that’s all, Mr Cartland, thanks again,” Butler said lightly. “Well,” he said to Milne with a sigh as the MP darted from the small pub that they had taken refuge in.
“Same as the rest,” she said flatly.
Which was pretty fair. Having met with a few select MPs and civil servants Butler and Milne had heard the same story reported. Pressure from the Tory Whips, initially very chummy with lunches and dinner invitations but turning darker if the MP or civil servant stood his ground. And often with a vague notion, from those talking to the Palaces or Belvedere, or perhaps also the smaller Tory leadership campaigns, of being listened to, or of confidential information being widely known, or the subjects of conversations being understood by people who weren’t parties to that conversation. But nothing solid, in his assessment; they had a lot of information, and even some intelligence, but no coherent evidence of who or what was behind this.
“We should talk about Spain,” Milne said gently, snapping him out of his thoughts. “That is officially our job.”
====
He knew that he was being followed; it was inconceivable that their pursuer had any real training, he was too overt, too conspicuous. Butler gave a lot of thought to what it was that had alerted him and then came to a firm conclusion; it was the man’s lack of a hat. In a city in which virtually every adult, male and female, working or professional class, wore a hat (indeed the type of hat worn was a good indicator as to the class of the wearer) a youngish man, dressed in a vaguely professional manner but not wearing a hat (probably a bowler) stood out. He was half decent, Butler allowed; when he and Kathleen had tried to lose him among the chaos of Waterloo Station had managed to stick with them, guessing, rightly, that their making for the cab rank was a ruse. But now, as they passed under the railway arches, making a vague route for the London County Hall, it was decision time; to lose him finally or to confront.
Butler asked Kathleen to stop for a light and to check her appearance. She gave him a reasonable readout on their follower’s build and dress and so deciding that between them they could take him if required, they prepared the trap. It was simple fieldcraft. Butler would give something to Kathleen (it was actually nothing more than
Calvacade magazine, rolled up) in a furtive way and then hurry as if to try and get across Waterloo Bridge. She would fumble and make a poor attempt at vanishing into the maze of rather dowdy buildings next to the station. Butler could then circle back and surprise the pursuer as he was surprising Kathleen.
It worked like a dream; the man took the bait and as Butler scurried off, Kathleen, her utterly unsuitable heels click-clacking down the cobbles, wobbled through the hubbub of Waterloo. Butler had used this part of London before, indeed for this very purpose, during the awful mission he had worked on with the spycatchers. And so, as he completed his arc, he saw the man very forcibly pull Kathleen to one side.
“C’mon chum, the game’s up,” Butler said in his most menacing voice. “Time for a chat, I think.”
====
It turned out that the man was a mere scribbler, a reporter. Butler’s professional pride was immediately hurt and he thus wanted to know more as they gathered in yet another dingy pub. “What I am flabbergasted by is how you came to know about us.”
“That,” Fenn said without meeting their gaze, “wasn’t me. I was given a tip off, not about you,” he gestured to Butler, “but about you,” this was said with a nod to Milne.
“Me?”
“Yes. From my man in the Home Office. Something about a chap that had tried to recruit you for
his club,” Fenn shook his head sourly, “bloody English with making everything a dammed game. His organisation, which I’m guessing is foreign, back at Oxford but was pretty sure that our security lot had scooped you up. Said something else, too,” there was an inflection at the sentence that seemed to promise intrigue.
“Oh yes, go on then,” Butler said with a sick feeling in his stomach.
“He boasted,” this was blurted out as ‘bossteed’, Butler suspected that this sudden surge in Scottishness was a sign of nervousness, “about how he had asked for a check and his man, he called it that, ‘his man’ on the inside has confirmed,” this was said with a heavy burr, “that someone high up was snooping around and that you were his agent.”
Butler had expected this; you couldn’t go asking questions of high profile people without other high profile people becoming vaguely aware that something was amiss. Whitehall was just too leaky for that. He was intrigued, though, that the focus seemed heavily on Milne. She had been recruited by the Security Service, streamed for the Secret Intelligence Service, but unceremoniously dumped back on ‘the Security lot’. Butler felt that this, and the lack of awareness of Vansittart’s (or even, until now, Butler’s) involvement meant that the SIS / Foreign Office connection was not yet understood. He decided to risk irritating Fenn even further.
“So just how on Earth are you involved?”
Fenn nodded, expecting this question. “My paper is a Beaverbrook paper. He supports the King and the roasters now running the country. I was asked to see if anyone was digging up dirt on the King, as well as finding out if the Tories are up to anything that we could publish.”
“Just in case?”
“No,” he looked glum. “We’ll publish. I know all about the Duke of York and the Archbishop, secret meetings and taking tea with the MPs,” he said this sullenly. “And of course, the Tory grandees,” in his lowland lilt the words rolled wonderfully, “all sucking up to the younger MPs. There’ll be stories about that.”
“We call that ‘the carrot’,” Butler said, deciding to reveal some of his hand. “What we’re lacking clarity on is 'the stick'.”
“You know the other bit, then?” He looked seriously at Butler.
Butler sighed. “We think that someone in the Home Office or its stablemates is watching and listening to the MPs who are wobbly and the Palace.” He sighed again. “
I know, but neither you or I have anything tangible that we can use.”
“I think you’re wrong there,” he said, carefully. “If I gave you this, what would you say?” A brown envelope was pushed toward Butler. He took it out, read it, and placed the contents back in the envelope.
“Simon did it then,” Butler said finally after reading for a few minutes. “Well, there we are. What will you do?”
“I have to report it back up to my editor, and then it’ll probably go up,” Fenn said heavily. “What I will not do is stop you. To be frank I don’t have enough; I don’t even know who your benefactor is.”
“Thank you,” Butler said.
“Don’t thank me, I am going to reveal the rest of the story, so it’s going to get harder for you,” he said with a lack of emotion. “I will wish you luck; you may be end up being the only honest man in this mess. Let’s keep talking,” Fenn said as he made to depart carefully, before stopping to add. “It can’t just be the Palace and junior MPs?”
“It’s not,” Butler said with a sigh, “but unless you are prepared to throw stones…”
“I’m not,” Fenn said warily, “but my proprietor might.” He departed with an unshowy nod of acknowledgement.
“I’m so confused,” Milne said when he had left the pub. “Why have we just given a newspaper the story?”
Butler didn’t think about it for a second. “Vansittart,” he replied gently. “This way his knowledge about involvement will be limited to us.”
“But the reporter knows…”
“…he knows that a senior Government figure is alarmed. He already has the proof that Sir John Simon tapped the King when he was Home Secretary, which means the Government knows. That journalist has used us to check his theory, he can go back and say that there is evidence of wrongdoing, either Whitehall does something or it doesn’t. But we keep Vansittart and the Secret Intelligence Service out of this mess.”
“But not the Security Service,” Milne said gently.
“They’re in trouble,” Butler confirmed.
====
It was much later. Lloyd George had just finished a ‘wooing mission’ to try and gain another unhappy Labour MP to their cause (unsuccessfully, leading him to again worry that Morrison had overvalued his support) and was reading yet another ‘what are you guys playing at’ message from one of the Dominions when a knock at the door sounded the arrival of Hugh Dalton and Lord Beaverbrook.
“Hugh,” (as ever pronounced ‘Hoo’) Lloyd George said, not really registering Beaverbrook, “you can tell Herbert bloody Morrison that he was dead wrong about Willie Whitely.”
Dalton frowned. “I thought if we could promise a favourable lean towards the Unions…”
“…he’s clinging to Attlee as the party best equipped to represent the working man’s voice,” Lloyd George said huffily. “He’s not going to join us, unless we can show that His bloody Majesty is on their side.” He glared at the unusual sight of the Press magnate and socialist stood side by side. “Well it must be bad if you two are here together.”
Dalton went first, to Lloyd George’s surprise. “You need to read this.” He offered some typed sheets.
“You’ve seen it?” Lloyd George asked this of Beaverbrook, who nodded. “So you two summarise it.” He gestured to the pile of papers strewn across his desk.
“We have evidence that the Security Service is actively spying on His Majesty and the Conservative campaigns,” Dalton said bluntly.
“And probably us, may they suffer in purgatory a fate…”
“…thank you,” Lloyd George snapped, not in the mood for one of Beaverbrook’s religious lessons. He rolled his eyes and read from Dalton’s notes, looking up and back and forth between the two men. “You say that someone in Westminster has already investigated this themselves?” The Welshman now had a knowing, superior air to him and was finally focussed on the task at hand.
“Yes Prime Minister,” Dalton said warily.
“Who do we think commissioned them? Attlee?”
Dalton shook his head. “No. According to Max’s reporter these were professionals. Attlee cannot call upon the State.”
Lloyd George had a malevolent grin. “So who can?” He said this sweetly.
“Ministers, a PUS if it’s vaguely official,” Dalton began.
“And we must not rule out the Dominions, so the same over there,” Beaverbrook, the Canadian, said with a jut of his head.
Lloyd George ignored him, looking at Dalton. “Your guess?”
“I’m stumped. It can’t be my team, or Hoare’s. The Army?”
Lloyd George sat back and his closed his eyes. After a pause he lifted up the papers, rereading the more salacious parts. “How many people have seen this? All of this?”
“Just us, in toto,” Beaverbrook said with a pompous air. “Some of my editors are aware of my boy’s work, and then there’s the Home Department.”
“Ah yes,” Lloyd George said with a satisfied sigh. “The Home Office.” He waved at Dalton to open the door; as expected Sir Maurice Hankey entered.
“Prime Minister?”
“There is a very clear way of nipping this in the bud,” Lloyd George said to Beaverbrook and Dalton before turning to Hankey. “Get Kell over here, now.”
“But Prime Minister, it’s gone eleven!”
“Get him,” Lloyd George half sang this as the Cabinet Secretary retreated.
“You knew, you damn well knew,” Dalton said suspiciously. Beaverbrook, offended at the blasphemy, glowered.
“I suspected,” Lloyd George confirmed, “but this note from Sir John bloody Simon was useful.”
“Is there much to find?” Beaverbrook now looked horrified, and jumped as Hankey returned. He suddenly remembered all of his conversations with the King.
“Oh there is, Max,” Lloyd George said with a triumphant shout, “oh there is! Isn’t there, Sir Maurice?”
Hankey looked warily at his Prime Minister.
“The joy, the sole joy if we’re honest,” Lloyd George said chattily, “of having those tedious Tory outcasts Hoare and Duff Cooper around is that they sat in the last Cabinet and they like to talk.” He turned to Hankey. “Who are they? What phones are you monitoring?”
Hankey nodded sadly. “It was supposed to be cancelled on the resignation, I understood,” he looked defeated. “It goes on, I presume?” Dalton and Beaverbrook were stunned.
“But, but,” Dalton gabbled, “I am the Home Secretary!”
“That you are,” Lloyd George said in mocking reassurance. “Duffy suspects that Simon had ordered the tapping of the King, and probably York, but who else, I wonder?” He turned eyes wide with mock innocence at the Cabinet Secretary.
“Those were the only operations that I remember being discussed, and then not in full Cabinet,” Hankey said stiffly, carefully.
Dalton was very, very tense. “This other group, though, in addition to the Beaver’s man,” despite the tension he enjoyed Beaverbrook’s grumpy reaction at the use of the nickname. “They have this. What if they reveal it?”
“We wait, Hugh. We wait until that awful man is doing well and we are not. And then we hit him and his bloody friends. They were in Cabinet, they bugged our King. We make arrests, Max here has enough exclusive articles on Baldwin’s corruption that we bury his chosen successor.”
Dalton was not convinced. “But the other investigation?”
“Aye, that’s the danger. But I think that whoever this is, they have to come to us. Me, you, or even Max’s reporter. If it’s Whitehall, Civil Service, they have to be very careful. If it’s another politician, well, he shrugged. “My guess is the same. And if they do go public…”
“…it won’t look like a plot to keep you in power,” Beaverbrook finished, Lloyd George noting the distance between them implied by the use of ‘you’ rather than ‘we’.
Lloyd George suddenly looked less confident. “If it were to break now, as it were, it might increase calls for Parliament to return from its recess,” he frowned. “Time to play a trick on that,” he said brightly. He was prevented by saying more by a knock at the door. Colonel Vernon Kell, head of the Security Service, was rather awkwardly shown in.
“Prime Minister,” he began, warily.
Lloyd George had a terrifying smile, at once of warmth and menace. “Well, well, Vernon,” Lloyd George said happily, the predator stalking his target. “Take a seat, please. Not often we have you come to call,” he waved the man to a chair, placing Dalton and Beaverbrook at either side (where they towered over Kell’s slighter frame) while Hankey was banished to a corner. It had been neatly done and now no support was visible to Dalton. “You know,” Lloyd George began, with extravagantly emphasised Welshness, “that it’s been a while since I last sat here,” Kell nodded sheepishly, “when you and I were both learning our jobs. Yours as the man to catch the naughty spies, me as, well,” he waved a hand theatrically around the room, “this. If I remember rightly, if your boys wanted to be a bit canny, a bit sneaky, they had to go to the Home Secretary,” he paused to let Kell reply.
“As it always has been and always will be, Prime Minister,” Kell said warily, awkwardly, but not unlike someone intoning liturgy.
“So I have a really easy question. Who was it going to? If it wasn’t me or his nibs here,” Lloyd George pointed at the horror-stricken Hankey, “then where was it going to? Who is getting all of this?”
Kell was doomed, and knew it. After a panicked turn to face Hankey, which was abandoned when it became obvious just how obvious a gesture that would be, he looked down at his shoes.
“Prime Minister!” Hankey yelped, trying, belatedly, to intervene.
“Oh you’ll get your moment in the sun too, Boyo, don’t worry,” Lloyd George said with utter contempt. “Let me guess. You and your friends in the Civil Service,” Kell didn’t respond so Lloyd George kept on, “Chamberlain and Halifax and their little gang.”
Kell looked up, “actually.”
“Actually nothing,” the Prime Minister finally snapped. “You are under arrest. You are arrested,” he waved airily, ignoring the confused expressions of Dalton, Beaverbrook and Hankey, who all doubted his power to do that, “and you are dismissed from your position as Head of the Security Service. Someone picked by Hugh here will review the Service and see if it is fit to remain,” he said this with spite, enjoying the power. “Hugh here,” he pointed at Dalton, now clearly no more than a lieutenant of Lloyd George’s caprice, “will listen as you call a deputy and get him over here.”
“Where do I…”
“…go? Hugh, ask a barracks to hide him somewhere. You will remain out of contact until Hugh has finished his report. Go,” he snapped, waving Kell away. Hankey went to follow. “Not you.”
“Now Prime Minister,” Hankey began, but he lacked conviction.
“You won’t resign, I cannot have a scandal. You’re taking sick leave to the same barracks as your little chum Kell,” Lloyd George said with force. “When this is over, you’ll no doubt get your bloody peerage, but you won’t now, not from me,” he said spitefully.
“You cannot merely click your fingers and…”
“…lock you up? Try me. I can sack Vernon Kell, your note on the Prerogative makes it clear that it doesn’t have any statutory existence. As for you taking a rest, I’m being a considerate Prime Minister,” he said with a chuckle. “Now go,” he pointed at the door.
Dalton waited until Hankey had left. “Shouldn’t we…”
“He can do whatever he bloody likes,” Lloyd George said, relaxing into his armchair. “We’ve won against him.”
“You’re not really going to lock him up, are you? There is that habeas corpus…”
“…he can go and take some leave somewhere, preferably abroad and without a telephone,” Lloyd George said with a dismissive wave. “That felt good,” he said with a chuckle.
“And now what,” Beaverbrook asked, not unreasonably.
“Hugh, you stop the taps. Get someone utterly dull but scrupulous to do a thorough job, show you and your team how they did it. And then reinstate the taps on Belvedere and Buckingham Palace.” Beaverbrook was smiling, enjoying his involvement in the conspiracy. “Just in case the drunkard isn’t telling us everything.”
Dalton frowned. “Is that all?”
“And make sure you get an independent in to look at MI5. Someone thorough, earnest. We’ll need a new chief, someone not connected to Hankey and Fisher and that crowd. Max,” Lloyd George said, looking at Beaverbrook, “prepare as many stories as you like about this. Make it a small cartel in Whitehall trying to pick who should be running things.”
Dalton frowned again, “isn’t that what we’re…”
“…and,” Lloyd George cut across Dalton, “play up on the Duke of York angle. If the stammering idiot isn’t angered by this, and Chamberlain’s support for this, then I’m Stanley bloody Baldwin.”
====
GAME NOTES
I know, I know Butler running around London again. But I needed to tie up, at least in part, an element of the intelligence stuff that I launched a while ago and he’s back in London after the Lisbon adventure, so it is he and Milne (last seen at Oxford thirty or so chapters ago) that Vansittart turns to after the Eden suspicions a few chapters ago. Of course, this being
ARP nothing is straightforward and the circle is closed, not on Chamberlain’s efforts, (more on that in a moment) but on the Baldwin Government’s decision to bug the Palace(s) and some Government buildings. Hilariously, this chapter, based on decisions actually made OTL by Baldwin and his Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, is actually therefore more plausible than having Butler and Milne unearth the Tory internal stuff (they sort of have, but have linked it to MI5 and the Home Office in error) if you are not with me on the lengths to which Chamberlain and his advisors would go to get their man into Downing Street. FWIW I remain convinced that the ‘carrot and stick’ approach would absolutely be taken (it was OTL over getting MPs to support appeasement) and wobbly Tories wooed with lunches and / or threatened with scandal. Chamberlain, who looms large over this update without actually featuring, has lived to fight another day.
Ronald Cartland was indeed a Conservative MP (as well as the brother of Barbara Cartland, the writer) and I have put him as a waverer due to his rather interventionist views. He was also a homosexual in an age where it was illegal; there were careful rules as to how this was to be ‘managed’ and it is an effective if contemptible weapon to wield at the young MP. Cartland was an economic moderniser, wildly opposed to the policies of Baldwin and Chamberlain, and later become a vocal anti-appeaser. A famous speech in which he predicted the onset of war and the risk of death was eerily prescient; as a junior officer he died at Dunkirk, brave to the last.
This a chapter about closure; the ending of a line of investigation, the end of the careers of two important (and overlooked) figures in 20th Century British History, of the curtailing of the power of that senior Civil Service group that has occasionally popped up (and of which Vansittart is a part – so he has, effectively, harmed himself with his own investigation) and of that ‘honeymoon period’ for the new administration (although to be fair it is more that everyone else is busy or in shock). There is a bit of law in here as well, the British spy agencies the Secret Intelligence Service and its fellow the Security Service had a truly murky, British genesis and essentially fell out of the Committee of Imperial Defence. That, as we have commented in an earlier update, kept the services on a level of ‘plausible deniability’ by keeping them away from Parliament and any official scrutiny. The secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence at the birth of the spy agencies? Yep, one Maurice Hankey. It is therefore mildly ironic that it is one of his works that has resulted in his downfall. Lloyd George has quite a lot of power here, as he wields his authority in an area which officially doesn’t exist and which has no means of oversight (beyond a couple of secretive committees). It is also worth noting that Kell was in his 60s by 1936 and so retiring / dismissing him is probably easy enough to do, but will impact that Service’s ability to prepare for what is coming up. I have a notion of who would lead the review, and I have two candidates for the next leader of the Security Service, but this will be covered when we get there. Habeas corpus, of course, is the oft-quoted legal order that states that a person in prison must appear before and be judged by a court of law before he or she can be forced by law to stay in prison (it is often held to mean more than that, such as offering a right to a fair trial, but it doesn’t).
I’ve tried, desperately in this update, to not portray anyone as a superman (or woman in Kathleen Milne’s case). These are fallible people in an extraordinary situation. Cartland might bend to Chamberlain’s whim; Fenn didn’t protect Butler and Milne; Butler let what is arguably a criminal offence get handed over to a reporter; Kell and Hankey lacked the motive / courage / inclination to remind DLG and Dalton of the taps; DLG behaves like a spoiled child; Beaverbrook is slightly out of his depth here…the list goes on. I am very aware of the seduction offered by portraying people as cartoonish, and hope that has been avoided (or at least mitigated). I am also aware that I have given the DLG mess another success (after Palestine – although I would qualify that with
@El Pip's canny assessment that it is the ‘least bad’ plan) before the real political fighting starts. Bear with me, because having played the first tricks (hurt the senior Civil Servants and stop the bugging – and I am convinced that DLG would know / be able to guess about them) the next, a biggy, must now be deployed.
France is, all at the same time, glad to be independent, terrified of being alone, desperate for allies, resentful of 'help' and in general fervently wishing they could sit back and criticize leadership instead of having to provide it.
That, my dear
@Director, says in a sentence what I took a bloody chapter to write.
For the first time in a long while, a prompt for the list.
Yes! It needs to see the light of day for the first time in a while!
I do feel a bit sorry for Sir George, the French embassy was never supposed to be a taxing position and he is in many ways trying to defend the indefensible about actions back home. I'm also unsure what exactly you expected anyone to do differently in Paris, I don't think it was a lack of communication between London and Paris that caused the Entente problems in the inter-war. Could someone else have done the same things with a bit more flair, perhaps, but would it have made the slightest bit of difference, I struggle to see it. But as you say you are a connoisseur of ambassadorship so perhaps there is a subtlety I am missing.
So what do I expect? A fair question; I think that Clerk lacked sufficient / any real initiative, and that is where he must be judged. So much of the job of an ambassador is to filter, to help the natives to understand what Whitehall actually means (and the other way back up to Whitehall!). He just didn't do that: a clever, smarter man, someone younger, with a bit of flair, could do more. Clerk has merely acted as a communications node. So while that element of this terms of reference has been faithfully performed, he has not shown that skill that separates adequate from excellent.
Well as you know, HOI4 is a deeply immersive and serious historical simulator. Thus, there are many more ways to establish various different monarchies in the French Republic than in any actual preexisting monarchy in the game.
The UK for example has three monarchs set, but one is going to die very quickly, one is standard and only one actually has any event chains around him (George V, VI, and Edward respectively).
France meanwhile, aside from the basically elected monarchy that is the presidency system, has options for a bourbon, hapsborg, carlist, napoleonic etc restoration.
No doubt even more are coming. I'm actually rather surprised there is no option to make De Gaulle Prince of France or something like that...then again that's probably behind the Emperor McArthur expansion on the list.
It is truly awful, isn't it. And this is my frustration with HOI4 - we need some serious gameplay improvements but what do we get? Lashings and lashing of 'more of the same', which means idiotic focus trees.
That said a Franco-American agreement might happen, the US needs a stable Franc far more desperately than the UK so might just bite the bullet and cover all the costs. Or France could follow the German example and foresake international trade in favour of basically barter agreements at a govt to govt level, make it part of a concerted effort to stitch together a stronger Eastern European alliance - blueprints and arms to Poland in exchange for Polish coal to replace UK imports, that sort of thing.
Watch this space, old friend, watch this space! But as ever two very valid points made.
If they really want an Eastern Europe alliance and have them be strong enough to do anything, they're going to have to do a lot of bartering, or rather gifting, to get them into a deal and then up to speed against Germany.
Not much point in having Poland, Czechslovakia, yuguslavia etc in an alliance only for Germany to kill them instantly. Sure it buys time for France, cynically speaking, but it also makes them look pathetic and evil, whilst making the nazis much stronger looking and more desperately needed resources.
I don't think that France, in this TL, has (to be fair to them) enjoyed sufficient time to cobble together something approaching a policy; they're just setting out, and this will be a policy of little changes, lacking, I suspect, and 'endgame', an overarching strategy.
A more general question: once the main crisis is played through, do you intend to take the whole war through to its game conclusion? If so, would you keep things at their current pace and (very impressive) depth of characterisation, or start to march through them in quicker time? I’m happy whichever path you take, just curious.
So my rule at the moment is that I will try and explain the crisis in as much detail that I can. When we eventually get out of this (and we will, eventually!) the TL will speed up. When we get to the war I may slow down again, depending upon how the battle scenes (mixed with the Whitehall management of the war) are received.
Of course we carry on. We must put napoleon back on the throne of France, after all
Ha! And the Ottomans restored, Rome supreme (breaks down in tears)...
Ahh the constant tension between what happens in HOI4 (Germany beats everyone, instantly) and what would actually happen if there were such an alliance. If all parties were committed and if it was followed through then Germany faces either backing down at alt-Munich Crisis (and the Germany economy then imploding) or a war on 2-and-half fronts. Sure you can cover the Yugoslav border fairly easily, but the Sudeten defences are strong and doing the OTL of going through Belgium will drag Britain out of it's apathy and into the war. So try the OTL plan of hitting the Poles first, but you are doing it without all the shiny kit of OTL (no Panzer III or IV, no decent Me-109s, etc). Indeed I'm fairly sure the German amphetimine factories weren't ready at that point, so no 'lightning war' as the troops won't be marching on Speed. On the Polish side if they are getting legal blueprints from France they may actually build some modern weapons, after all in OTL they spent more on cavalry training than tanks and aircraft combined so there is budget and potential there.
Maybe the French will be too apathetic to do much in the opening phases, but the Czechs won't. They know that once Poland falls their north flank is wide open, so they will counter-attack into the Reich and take Vienna. Hitler will, of course, go mad at this and demand troops be sent there, but the only reserve is on the French border - OTL German war plans for a '38 Czech invasion had 12 divisions on the border, but 6 were freshly raised and with equipment 'in transit. Once the best of them get stripped away surely there will come a point where the border forces are so weak that even the French Army will have to do something.
Plus of course the Soviet wildcard, without Britain getting in the way a Franco-Soviet deal to contain Germany becomes much more likely, particularly with the Popular Front in the driving seat. Even if it just stops the Soviets stabbing Poland in the back and supplying resources to Germany it will be worth it.
As to the French situation, it is of course fascinating, terrifying and deeply necessary to consider how the British Implosion has impacted things on the Continent. If it forces France to sit up and work out an alternate counter to the Germans, then things could yet be alright. But seeing as this is both a) HOI4 and b) a horrible world of political negligence I won’t be holding out hope for that eventuality.
So this is the point - even with a 'semi-detached' Britain, Germany can be efficiently and effectively balanced. As I said in my response to
@TheButterflyComposer, I do think that the French have fully grasped this yet. It's more "shit, Britain can't be trusted, who else can we get onboard?"
