I’m neither a lawyer, law student, or even British, but isn’t this like the biggest breach of the constitution since the Glorious Revolution? Parliament wants to sit, the public by a large majority want parliament to sit, and only the sovereign and his ministers of a minority government want it to not sit. It’s highly questionable if even the Privy Council wants parliament to not sit, and that’s the body which the prerogative is supposed to be exercised. If this wasn’t taking place in the 20th Century, I’d swear this story was the setup for a rebellion against not the king, but his wicked counselors!
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Oh no, I don't think this is even the biggest breach of the 20th century thus far...just the most egregious because the House is clearly being halted (temporarily) by a rouge government that does not have its approval.
This compared to actually subverting the House of Lords in 1911 by leaning on the Monarch to threaten to stack the House to fundamentally alter the unwritten constitution...is fairly mild. Though come to think, some of the main drivers of that whole escapade are now in this new gov too...
The thing about delaying tactics is that they have to be in aid of something. Here we have, "We must remain in power" for no purpose other than, "We must remain in power". I don't believe for a moment that any of these men truly, passionately believe in the King and his proposed marriage. Some in favor, some not, some seeing an opportunity for one thing or another...
But the essential problem remains. Parliament cannot (I think) legally be kept indefinitely from meeting, Lloyd George does not have and cannot get a sustaining majority, and none of the other parties will countenance the King's marriage.
So. I see two excellent possibilities (and I mean that in an evil, mustache-twirling way). One is to provoke some 'short victorious war' and wave the bloody shirt hard and often. Two is to get the King married immediately and simply present the opposition with a fait accompli: He's the King, he is legally married and what are you going to do about it? The obvious 'what' is an escalation to an actual, shooting civil war but as HoI4 does not, I think, permit that, the outcome is that everyone has a bad taste in their mouths, LG may or may not retire ahead of a lynch mob and life, pretty much, goes on toward World War Do-over.
Aggressively backing the French against the Germans, or discovering an urgent reason for visiting Madrid with an expeditionary force, seems a practical alternative... wag the dog, and all that... but if it was up to me, I'd recommend a very rapid wedding and coronation and to blazes with pomp and precedent.
stnylan is the Prime Minister of AARland - this is known. *nods*
Good God! LG and Winston in political bed with Edward the Simpsonian is appalling... but the thought of them cavorting about with rouge on their cheeks!
The thought of an entire government devoted to the practice of slathering on trowels of rouge!
It's... it's simply monstrous!
And now, if you will pardon me, I have to go wash my mind out with soap.
But the essential problem remains. Parliament cannot (I think) legally be kept indefinitely from meeting, Lloyd George does not have and cannot get a sustaining majority, and none of the other parties will countenance the King's marriage.
So. I see two excellent possibilities (and I mean that in an evil, mustache-twirling way). One is to provoke some 'short victorious war' and wave the bloody shirt hard and often. Two is to get the King married immediately and simply present the opposition with a fait accompli: He's the King, he is legally married and what are you going to do about it? The obvious 'what' is an escalation to an actual, shooting civil war but as HoI4 does not, I think, permit that, the outcome is that everyone has a bad taste in their mouths, LG may or may not retire ahead of a lynch mob and life, pretty much, goes on toward World War Do-over.
Aggressively backing the French against the Germans, or discovering an urgent reason for visiting Madrid with an expeditionary force, seems a practical alternative... wag the dog, and all that... but if it was up to me, I'd recommend a very rapid wedding and coronation and to blazes with pomp and precedent.
stnylan is the Prime Minister of AARland - this is known. *nods*
Good God! LG and Winston in political bed with Edward the Simpsonian is appalling... but the thought of them cavorting about with rouge on their cheeks!
The thought of an entire government devoted to the practice of slathering on trowels of rouge!
It's... it's simply monstrous!
And now, if you will pardon me, I have to go wash my mind out with soap.
Last edited:
Not anymore, no. But reviving the Jacobite cause at this point seems unlikely, which is why DLG may try it.
This is what actually happens in HOI4, or so it seems.
There is always the communist uprising.
Tbf, the game heavily encourages and empowers the King's Party to war against their former dominions and everyone else as soon as the crisis is over so...
I mean, my original hypothesis a year ago was that this entire crisis was orchestrated because Baldwin and Edward were lovers and wanted to escape together. DLG is just a smokescreen.
When the history of this is written the absolute lethargy and inaction of everyone not part of DLG's cabal is going to baffle the hell out of people.
Looking past the crisis I wonder if there might be an actual National Government, no-one is going to fancy an election in the short term (all the parties are in a mess over this, some worse than others admittedly) and foreign affairs will not have stopped happening. Everyone will think it temporary, just while they get their houses in order and deal with the immediate issues, but the constant drum beat of problems from elsewhere will keep preventing anything from happening.
Looking past the crisis I wonder if there might be an actual National Government, no-one is going to fancy an election in the short term (all the parties are in a mess over this, some worse than others admittedly) and foreign affairs will not have stopped happening. Everyone will think it temporary, just while they get their houses in order and deal with the immediate issues, but the constant drum beat of problems from elsewhere will keep preventing anything from happening.
Well...they're all trying stuff, they're all just achieving very little.
Including the actual government so...
just...everyone was asleep for most of the crisis. Almost as if its solved in a few days by two button presses.
Depends who eventually wins. Chamberlain winning is probably going to have to pull a national gov because of his cloak and dagger shit. Anyone else winning would probably be through calling an election so...depends on the votes.
Well I have now caught up and oh my goodness. The tone of the AAR is starting to smell remind me of the redolent fragrance of the village in Cornwall I grew up at certain times of year, on those days when the farmers spread their muck and so enriched our olfactory senses with the fruits of their labour. In other words, I think in the last few updates have marvellously realised this whole situation going from brewing crisis, to outright crisis, and still sliding calamitously forward.
Unlike many I don't have detailed knowledge of many of the personalities of the period, but I have to say the potrayal of DLG is true to my own mental image of the man. A more simplistic image than that of @DensleyBlair or @El Pip or yourself, perhaps - but he leaves a bitter taste in the mouth at the best of times. And what is portrayed is hardly the best of times.
Something very poignantly misguided about the Jarrow marchers (and other marchers). But in a way they are echoed by others. An interesting counter-point really to whatever is going on in the Tory party right now. Both flailing rather ineffectually about their lost jobs.
That said I think these shenanigans might well come back to bite DLG and co. - shenanigans beget shenanigans, and the game of "let's tear up constituional niceties" tends to be quite hard to stop once you've given it momentum by a good hard shove.
All in all I can't wait to see what happens in the story.
As for the game ... I find it helpful to remember that Paradox games (and indeed no game) can actually portray anything more than the merest fraction of the depth of any particular situation. The cast of characters alone even in this more restrained treatment - and multiltues await lurking on the edges of what each episodes portrays. First game that portrayed WW2 I played was probably CommandHQ back in 1990 (I think it is available on GoG now). We have come a very long way, but a game expected to run on a home computer and be playable to a general strategy audience ... . But through our stories and sleigh of hand we can take the code, crude as it and its results may sometimes (oftentimes be) and craft from them a thing to enspell. The game is but a raw material. A pile of bricks, cement, and building stone is not, generally, an inspiring site. Put all of those bricks together, and up rises many a monument that is so much greater than the sum of its base and insipid parts.
Got a bit all poetical there, but I hope you get what I am trying to say.
Thank you. I knew someone once who had a saying, "Life is what happens when you think are getting back up on your feet." That said, things are generally still improving. Am slowly trying to read up on some AARs (this is the third AAR I have caught up on). And perhaps my flowery paragraph above is a sign that the writing urge, if not yet blooming, is not entirely dormant anymore as well.
Unlike many I don't have detailed knowledge of many of the personalities of the period, but I have to say the potrayal of DLG is true to my own mental image of the man. A more simplistic image than that of @DensleyBlair or @El Pip or yourself, perhaps - but he leaves a bitter taste in the mouth at the best of times. And what is portrayed is hardly the best of times.
Something very poignantly misguided about the Jarrow marchers (and other marchers). But in a way they are echoed by others. An interesting counter-point really to whatever is going on in the Tory party right now. Both flailing rather ineffectually about their lost jobs.
That said I think these shenanigans might well come back to bite DLG and co. - shenanigans beget shenanigans, and the game of "let's tear up constituional niceties" tends to be quite hard to stop once you've given it momentum by a good hard shove.
All in all I can't wait to see what happens in the story.
As for the game ... I find it helpful to remember that Paradox games (and indeed no game) can actually portray anything more than the merest fraction of the depth of any particular situation. The cast of characters alone even in this more restrained treatment - and multiltues await lurking on the edges of what each episodes portrays. First game that portrayed WW2 I played was probably CommandHQ back in 1990 (I think it is available on GoG now). We have come a very long way, but a game expected to run on a home computer and be playable to a general strategy audience ... . But through our stories and sleigh of hand we can take the code, crude as it and its results may sometimes (oftentimes be) and craft from them a thing to enspell. The game is but a raw material. A pile of bricks, cement, and building stone is not, generally, an inspiring site. Put all of those bricks together, and up rises many a monument that is so much greater than the sum of its base and insipid parts.
Got a bit all poetical there, but I hope you get what I am trying to say.
Thank you. I knew someone once who had a saying, "Life is what happens when you think are getting back up on your feet." That said, things are generally still improving. Am slowly trying to read up on some AARs (this is the third AAR I have caught up on). And perhaps my flowery paragraph above is a sign that the writing urge, if not yet blooming, is not entirely dormant anymore as well.
- 2
I recently met a very old and retiring lady who was the lady in waiting to Estée Lauder. Purely hearsay of course, but I heard some very interesting stories about the upper set of New York and London.
For our purposes, the good lady confirmed that the disdain Wallis felt for Edward was and remains to this day extremely understated compared to the truth. Very swiftly after the marriage, she had a set schedule of how long and how often he could be in her presence, and tried very hard to get rid of him through abuse. Such as making him lick dirt off her shoes...
So, whilst I cannot obviously confirm this, I now wonder exactly how long Wallis would be willing to wait 'in exile', whether she genuinely would want to be queen (on top of actually marry Edward) and so on. This whole aar could end up a shaggy dog story where Wallis leaves him, and everyone feels super awkward and embarrassed.
I think that would be the most British ending possible...
For our purposes, the good lady confirmed that the disdain Wallis felt for Edward was and remains to this day extremely understated compared to the truth. Very swiftly after the marriage, she had a set schedule of how long and how often he could be in her presence, and tried very hard to get rid of him through abuse. Such as making him lick dirt off her shoes...
So, whilst I cannot obviously confirm this, I now wonder exactly how long Wallis would be willing to wait 'in exile', whether she genuinely would want to be queen (on top of actually marry Edward) and so on. This whole aar could end up a shaggy dog story where Wallis leaves him, and everyone feels super awkward and embarrassed.
I think that would be the most British ending possible...
- 1
Chapter 60, Westminster, 20 October 1936
Even though it was not yet winter and certainly not late it was already very dark, as if the sun gods couldn’t be present for the rather tawdry affair that was about to be enacted. A crack of thunder, like the sounds of distant gunfire, rumbled ominously in the distance.
In the House of Lords, Lord Eustace Percy, elevated by the chaos of this crisis to unwanted importance and a position as one of the Lords Commissioners, was clearly, to those standing close, shaking with nerves. Aware that despite this being repeated often this really was history in the making, he coughed, and then launched into his first address.
“My Lords, on behalf of His Majesty,” he coughed again. It was not an impressive performance and did nothing to ease the tension of the House.
Sir William Pulteney Pulteney, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, with a fixed grimace marched with due ceremony and perfect military bearing, and summoned the MPs from the Commons to attend the Lords.
The MPs filed out of the Commons and into the Lords in sullen acquiescence. Percy, his audience now doubled, read his second speech. He took a deep breath. “’My Lords, and Members of the House of Commons, I am addressing you for the first time as your Sovereign. I desire before all to express once more my deep appreciation of the sympathy which has been extended to me and to my dear mother’…”
“…and Wallis bloody Simpson!” The challenge, barked and clearly laden with emotion, startled Percy who looked around for inspiration. Churchill was staring down at his shoes but he saw Philip Sassoon, who mouthed ‘keep going’.
“Ah, yes,” Percy regained his composure, “ah yes. ‘My mother, in every part of my dominions. I have been profoundly touched by the universal expression of the affection and respect with which my beloved father was regarded. I am well assured that the memory of King George's life of devotion and unremitting service will long live in the hearts of his people’.”
He coughed, thanking God that this would soon be over. Not far away, with the Lord Spiritual surrounding him like a Pretorian Guard, the Archbishop of Canterbury glowered. Percy caught his eye, winced, and continued. “’My relations with foreign powers continue to be friendly. On the twenty-sixth day of August a treaty of alliance with the King of Egypt was signed in London by delegates representing my Government and the Egyptian Government. It is my earnest hope that this treaty when ratified will be the beginning of a new era in which the friendly cooperation that has marked the relations between my country and Egypt in the past will be confirmed and strengthened’.” On the front of the Conservative benches, Anthony Eden looked into the distance, remembering a diplomatic foray that was so recent but seemed so distant.
Percy continued. “Er, ah, ‘a conference was held at Montreux in the summer for the revision of the Straits Convention of Lausanne. The successful outcome of this conference, to which I am pleased to think that my Government contributed, has set a happy example for the future. I have viewed with concern and anxiety the events in Spain during the last three months’.” There should have been more but Hoare, utterly committed to no involvement at any cost rather than the previously agreed non-intervention, had ensured that it was expunged and so the foreign policy summary was shorter than planned; references to the League, as well as Spanish non-intervention and the financial treaty with the US and France, had been irretrievably jettisoned.
“’Members of the House of Commons, I thank you for the provision you have made for the public service. I thank you for the arrangements you have made for the maintenance of the honour and dignity of the Crown’.” There was an eruption, as guffaws and cries of ‘shame’ drowned out Percy’s words. Winston Churchill looked ready to vomit; Archie Sinclair looked ready to faint. Lloyd George stood, stock still, eyes fixed into the distance. An island of aloof control in the chaotic scenes now unfolding.
The tumult seemed to recede rather than being controlled. Percy croaked and tried to resume. “’My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, the measures essential for improving and strengthening all three of my defence forces, which were laid before you this year, have been steadily pursued. I rejoice at the further marked increase in trade and employment during the year. I note, with much gratification, that unemployment generally is still diminishing and that employment has reached the highest level ever recorded. Schemes for the amelioration of the conditions in those districts where the problem of unemployment still presents special difficulties have continued to engage the close attention of my ministers’.” This again was much less detailed than the anticipated; whole sections on unemployment relief, health, education and housing had been removed entirely. Anything that hinted at legislation had been purged. “’In bidding you farewell, I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your labours’.”
Percy looked down at the speech and read the final paragraph. “My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, by virtue of His Majesty's Commission, under the Great Seal, to us and other Lords directed, and now read, we do, in His Majesty's Name and in obedience to His Majesty's Commands, prorogue this Parliament to Tuesday, the fifteenth day of December, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six, to be then here holden; and this Parliament is accordingly prorogued until Tuesday, the fifteenth day of December, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six.”
And with that, Parliament was prorogued.
====
“It’s unnecessary,” Keyes said to Eden angrily. “Utterly unnecessary. He’s breaking with tradition!”
Anthony Eden held his head in his hands and silently wished that Keyes would leave. He had retreated to an anteroom to collect his thoughts as he believed that today would almost certainly be his last as a prospective leader of his party and did not want it to be overshadowed by yet another Royal calamity thanks to this petulant King’s decision. Looking up, he saw Keyes’ expectant glare and, closing his eyes, accepted that he would have to entertain him.
“Is he really, though?”
Keyes was incredulous. “Well, he wouldn’t have said it unless he meant it!”
Eden’s head sagged back into his hands. “Does anyone care what I think?”
Keyes looked thoughtful, assessing whether to be honest or to be kind. “No,” he said, choosing honesty. “No one cares, Anthony, on idle comment about the news. That the King has cancelled the Christmas radio broadcast? They might care about that, but no one will ask for your view.”
Eden looked at Keyes sharply. “Of all the things that have happened in this place over the last month your only, your only criticism is that the radio broadcast has been cancelled.” He closed his eyes and forced his own petulance aside. “Is he here?”
There was a knock at the door. “He is now.”
Eden nodded. “Would you, ah, leave him here, with me.” He saw Keyes frown. “This is not going to be my favourite of meetings Sir Roger,” he drawled, this time with real sadness. “I would prefer that it happens alone.”
As Keyes left the Conservative Chief Whip, Margesson, arrived. He sat down without being asked, and as usual his darks and bony, angular frame portrayed aggression, but ruthlessly controlled. Eden wondered how to respond and decided to be effortlessly languid, fighting the other man’s intensity with superior indifference.
“Eden,” he said curtly.
“Captain David,” Eden said with a drawl, fighting to control his nerves.
“I thought that we might take a stroll,” he said in a commanding way, leaving Eden in no doubt that this was an order, not an invitation. As ever he didn’t know what Margesson was thinking as he followed him into the courtyard.
“Eden, I have had it confirmed that two of your supporters left your grouping yesterday. One went to the Government, the other will back Chamberlain. Is this correct?” These comments were fired like bullets; direct, repetitive, unsympathetic, mechanical.
It was, and maddeningly so. “A ha,” said Eden, with a hint of inflection. He knew that Margesson could see through the insouciance. “Yes, fine,” he snapped.
Margesson, walking as lightly as a cat, betrayed no hint of emotion. “I think that on that basis it is time,” he said sternly, gravely, “to again consider the interests of our Party. An acceptable degree of discussion is welcome,” there was an odd emphasis on ‘welcome’, “but we must not hazard the Party.”
Eden ‘s temper surged suddenly. “Tell that to Winston, or Duffy, or Hoare.”
Margesson stared utterly blankly at Eden. “It is time for you to consider your courses of action,” he said after a pause. “I think that a chat with Chamberlain is appropriate.”
“Fine,” Eden said, fumbling for a cigarette. “Ah, when, and where?”
“It’s all arranged,” Margesson said, not unlike a veterinarian about to kill a prized horse. “He’s waiting for you over there.” He pointed to a small patch of garden in which Chamberlain sat, looking irritated, fidgeting with his watchchain. “I’ll be waiting here for you when you return.”
As Eden approached the bench upon which Chamberlain was awkwardly sitting, Eden couldn’t resist a jibe. “Oh no, Neville, don’t, ah, get up on my account.”
Chamberlain looked up, coldly, at the younger man. “Yeeees,” he said in that thin, nasal way of his. He stroked his moustache (making Eden involuntarily roll his eyes). “Shall we go for a stroll, Anthony? The weather is unpalatable but perhaps we could walk the Embankment.”
They walked in silence, both responding to hats raised in acknowledgment or muttered greetings. Eden wondered what this dour little man really wanted; confirmation as leader, yes, and soon. The Royalist newspapers were excoriating in their criticism of Chamberlain’s role in Baldwin’s acts of subterfuge and spying, and this had given Eden a ‘second wind’. But the grim, unyielding and relentless weight of the Tory establishment had proven irresistible. Chamberlain, damaged, weedy, disagreeable Chamberlain, he would win.
Chamberlain’s gaze seemed to pierce into Eden’s thoughts, and his response seemed designed to ameliorate Eden’s concerns. “Your candidature has raised some interesting issues,” Chamberlain said sternly, Eden wondering if Chamberlain was actually betraying his irritation with the entire process. “Indeed I was saying to young Dunglass only yesterday that your points on the League of Nations were just the type of thing that the senior leadership ought to be discussing.” He glared at Eden, almost daring him to interrupt, to complain. Seeing Eden’s nervous, tense expression, he offered a chilly smile. “When, that is, the present issues with His Majesty are resolved.”
The point made, Chamberlain relaxed, the two men walking in silence towards the Embankment. Eden finally snapped, finally broke the silence. “And how, Neville, would you, ah, resolve those issues?”
“His Majesty will be brought to heel,” Chamberlain said with an air of menace. “The election that we will certainly now require will be one issue,” he voice rose as he came to ‘one issue’. “Can a King, in the modern age, dictate to Parliament? No, I say, no.”
Eden was unimpressed. “That is what Attlee, and, ah, well I have been saying…”
“…but you have not openly broached that most obvious point. We have a King-in-waiting, ready and able.”
“A man who lacks the fibre,” Eden said in a gossipy way, “for what you’re asking of him. That’s why I wanted to look at the current incumbent first.”
“No, no,” Chamberlain snapped, before offering a patronising smile. “I was confiding to my sister yesterday,” he frowned when Eden, privately amused at the notion that yesterday seemed to have been a busy one for Chamberlain, chuckled, “yesterday, that your points on the need for a sensible settlement with His Majesty,” unlike the coarser elements of Whitehall, Chamberlain was still deferential to the institution, “were ones with which I agree. I do believe,” he looked at Eden as if he was an amusing if not gifted student, “that we diverge on how to progress this matter.”
Eden was lost; was Chamberlain agreeing with him or disagreeing? “Yeees, in what way?” He chose to protect himself by a question.
“A good question,” Chamberlain said with a nod, seemingly pleased that the conversation was going the way he wanted it to. “His Majesty is offered a choice; abdicate or a bill is placed before Parliament declaring him unfit to rule.”
Eden’s eyes narrowed: that was precisely what he had suggested, along with some reforms to areas of legal confusion. He reflected that this had been Attlee’s point: Labour was openly calling for some form of Royal Commission (the irony not lost on anyone) to tidy up the constitution. Eden had been squeezed by the left, by the right, and had even had Stanley’s brief campaign fighting him in the centre. “A ha. But isn’t that precisely what…”
“…no,” Chamberlain snapped, “for you would have it done publicly. This choice, along with a financial settlement and instructions for him to seek exile overseas would be done with the utmost discretion. We must ensure that the Duke of York is given the best start.”
“The phone calls tell you that, did they?” Eden was irritated by Chamberlain’s pompous dominance and had been unable to resist a quip.
Chamberlain offered a wholly and obviously insincere smile. “The question is, Anthony, can you be persuaded to back this?”
“Ah, erm, well…”
“…because if you could be persuaded, well, as a consequence I would be prepared to offer you the Exchequer.”
Eden was stunned, wondering if had underassessed his own strength. “Chancellor? Neville, it’s a thrilling notion, but, ah, are there not others…”
“…no,” Chamberlain replied instantly, irritating Eden by interrupting him yet again. “This new Parliament and Government will be dominated by the need to calm investors at home, and to rebuild trust in Great Britain.”
“Foreign Secretary?” Eden croaked this.
“I had wondered if you held a desire to return, but I have promised it to Edward. It is the only great office that he can hold as a peer.” Chamberlain turned to the younger man, looking at him rather than through him for the first time. “In any event, I intend to pursue my own diplomacy. I will not be as distant with Edward as Stanley was with you.” There was a sly smile, as if Chamberlain knew that Eden would find such an interventionist PM unpalatable.
“Well, ah, I…”
“Stanley will be offered the Home Office,” Chamberlain interrupted, again, with the air of someone betraying a confidence. “Kingsley Wood will get the War Office, Hailsham Lord Chancellor, Zetland returns to India of course” he looked again at Eden with the sly expression. “And then there’s Hoare.”
“Who is, ah, with the King.”
“He will defect,” Chamberlain said smugly, “it is all arranged, bringing ten MPs who will be rewarded with the return of the whip and support in re-election. That, at least, is what they have been told,” Chamberlain said coldly.
“Slippery Sam strikes again,” Eden said bitterly.
Chamberlain looked mildly exasperated. “He will be mollified with the Admiralty,” he snapped, softening the remark with a humourless smile. “But when I give the nod,” he said this expansively, “he will bring down Lloyd George. He will rejoin the Government as a reward.”
Eden offered a shy smile. “You sound, Neville, very confident.”
“I think, Anthony, that despite our differences we can agree that Lloyd George has missed the bus.”
Eden frowned at the odd analogy. “And what would the Government’s priorities be?”
“As the first truly Conservative Government for some years we would have the power to quietly usher in the new reign. I do, as I said to Austen, support sensible rearmament policies and your point on this were ones with which I agreed.”
Ah, Austen, nicknamed by Churchill as ‘the Honourable Member for Undecideds’ and who had kept everyone guessing before (seemingly very reluctantly) supporting his half-brother. “A ha,” was Eden’s initial reply. “But does that, erm, mean…”
“…not until His Majesty is safely dealt with,” Chamberlain interrupted. “Nothing is said by this Government until His Majesty’s matter is safely settled. He’ll take the bait,” Chamberlain said smugly, “if it is big enough. And when he is on our line, we bring him in, slowly, until he is ours.”
“If join you, Neville,” Eden said, irritated at the older man’s arrogant presumptions.
“Oh I think you will, Anthony, you all will, in the end.”
====
GAME NOTES
Two events, but before we get to those I must first beg your indulgence on two points. While I will deal with comments, as is my tradition, after the explanation, I wanted to firstly deal with @El Pip ’s point that those opposing the rebels appear to be, well, rather inactive.
I accept that premise in part – although just because I haven’t written much on them doesn’t mean that they haven’t been going about their efforts to stop Lloyd George. I have deliberately focussed on the rebels (with occasional diversions around the world) while ignoring the traditionalists. As @TheButterflyComposer replies, this does not mean that the establishment wouldn’t have responded massively.
And it would have done, but with some constraints. My second point is the contrivance on timing – most of what in this TL is having (to vaguely align the game with plausibility) to be spread over weeks would, in reality, have taken days. The game will be followed more closely when we get the election and the replacement government (finally! One with a mandate!) set up. This update offers two events that, in their own way, take us closer to that day.
The first of those is prorogation (not dissolution – that comes later when the monarch dissolves Parliament for the election); I’ve skipped some of the ceremonial nonsense at the start but have included the Prorogation Speech, and I’ve largely stuck to the OTL one; it was probably half-drafted when Baldwin stepped down and the Lloyd George administration would have probably just picked it up, dusted it off, trimmed anything they didn’t like, and send it to the indolent King for him to sign. It is astonishingly little known about in the UK (the 2019 political nonsense and subsequent legal nonsense aside) as everyone focuses on the State Opening of Parliament instead. I don’t blame them, of course, the State Opening has all the falderal associated with the British tradition – the King or Queen, the Peers dressed like something from Iolanthe, the Household Cavalry, the Irish State Coach, as well as the elements of the prorogation such as Black Rod summoning the MPs to the Lords etc that I have described above. The obvious anomaly is the date; prorogation usually lasts no more than a month or so in the modern era for party conferences but even in the 30s it was a week to three weeks. By pushing the date out to effectively Christmas (and the Christmas recess) Lloyd George has probably bought himself three months. It probably won’t be enough.
And finally to the culmination of the Tory leadership selection – it was always going to be Chamberlain during the OTL crisis, and I believe that it would still be in our TL, despite the revelations about the Baldwin Cabinet’s phone tapping efforts of the King by the Security Service. Of course, the full extent of Chamberlain’s own efforts, to rig the Tory leadership in his favour, have yet to be revealed and we have also yet to see Chamberlain fighting a General Election (probably one of the strangest in British history). I accept that it would almost certainly be Chamberlain, for with the weight of the Conservative grandees behind him the evidence points overwhelmingly to the MPs falling in behind him as the candidate with the experience and support to prevail over the King (and Neville is right, this has to be the priority). I am far from convinced that he would prevail in an election – I’m not predicting a Labour or Royalist landslide, and I accept the charge that personality politics do not matter in 1936 as much as they do now, but I do not think that he is the Conservatives’ best man for the looming election. Food for thought…
They can decide all they like, it will take an age to get before a judge and by that time Lloyd George could very well be out of office.
It certainly is my friend - he was just starting out in the civil service in the OTL '36 and given the chaos engulfing Whitehall has been moved from the War Office to the Cabinet Office, right at the heart of governance.
So I agree - the more bohemian elements at the very top (and we'll see them in two updates' time) would be behind him (basically Sassoon and his friends), while elements of those at the bottom probably would as well. But that leaves all of the more conservative (small 'c', as well as most of the Conservative Party) parts of the upper classes, virtually all of the middle and professional classes (again, bar a liberal minority) and a sizeable chunk of the working classes (particularly the Church of England types) ranged against. If their case is weak, then all they have is to undermine their opponents. It's all they have.
My dear chap, your sanity is thus preserved as a result...
So it is clearly one of the most dramatic constitutional confrontations of the 20th Century, although at the point we're at now I think that is creeping up to 1911 (but it's not there yet - I think we'd need a General Election and the King ignoring it for that).
Interesting thoughts @Director - there was talk in OTL of merely getting them married and presenting them to the nation in a "ha ha, now what're you going to do, huh," way. I did toy with that but couldn't reconcile the plan with Edward's behaviour - it was his openness to Baldwin in declaring his intention to marry that got him into the mess he did. And in this TL, even with the decree nisi being issued in August, we're still nowhere the decree absolute. It's all about time.
Sadly an international war, even a little one, is just not on the cards. But your thought, switched to a national / imperial crisis, has merit...
She is a most odd choice as the focus of a constitutional crisis. If it was Kelly Brook or Liz Hurley or Salma Hayek or Monica Belucci yes, yes I would dump the Church of England and any errant dominions and I would rip the constitution apart willingly, gleefully. But Wallis Simpson. Good Lord no.
Well mon brave you know my thoughts - I think the idea has merit, but I think that there almost has to be an election, which will resolve the royal issue but will create an oddly composed lower house and will leave no-one happy. That's where I think your idea might occur.
Thank you @stnylan and it is a treat to hear from you. Jarrow meant something to me, even if it was in the "look, there's more to this than the Labour Party waffle" sense. The sense of dislocation from Whitehall, even despite the mutual flailing, was something that I have tried hard to portray in the occasional glimpses of the North East of England, Spain, and of course Palestine.
You're right, of course, that Paradox offers a way in for the storywriter, and while we can moan and gripe at its imperfections HOI4 provides a canvas upon which we can make our mark. While there is no pressure, of course, your own efforts are always a delight to read.
Well I for one am delighted to see you back, a sentiment that I know the readAARship of this story will share.
It would be very funny, especially after 60 chapters of setup...
Last edited:
- 6
What a way to begin.
They have Tommy guns hidden beneath those robes. Inglorious bastards style ending incoming.
Hmm! That's one way to call it. Shame about the dominions though.
Well...I think that's the end of parliments mercy run. When this all collapses, which it will, its public beheading. Metaphorically...probably.
Yes I think so...
I don't think it'll be a majority Conservative govermnet though (maybe barely, but who can say?).
Similar ish cabinet and government after the election regardless, even if there's a national gov. The real point of change will be when Germany really hots up and the Conservatives have to find a war hawk untainted by all this...
I think the young uns in the DLG plot will survive this eventually and be rehabilitated. The old horses are all getting shot, however. No idea what happens to DLG himself, but Churchill may well genuinely kill himself over this, which seems rather tragic.
I've always thought Lloyd George had a bit of the look of a predatory bird... and now he is apparently to be stuffed and mounted.
Chamberlain will make a place for Eden and if so he may cobble together enough votes to present the King with an ultimatum. The problem with an ultimatum is that, when you deliver it, you will have to be ready to accept any outcome, and I'm not sure that the choices are as clear and few as Dear Neville seems to think.
Despite the usual historical dismissal of Chamberlain as an appeaser, he is a political force (as was his father before him) backed by the Church, the opinions of the Dominions and probably the Lords. Given an election in reasonably short time, on his terms, he is going to win it...
But I suspect that what is coming is rather like the great clash of 1940, when the excellent, methodical brute-force WW1-style armies of France and England met the rapid, chaotic elements of infiltration, initiative, tanks and aircraft. Chamberlain is in his element when he is working quietly and secretively at the levers of power and at his worst when surprised. Can he get an election if Loyd George gives him nothing in which to have No Confidence? Will his coalition hold in the face of an Imperial crisis? And can he win an election in the brawling, media-intensive, bloody-knuckles era of the late 1930s?
And what happens to his mighty coalition if something makes him stumble?
How is his health, by the way? Eating well? He doesn't look it...
Chamberlain will make a place for Eden and if so he may cobble together enough votes to present the King with an ultimatum. The problem with an ultimatum is that, when you deliver it, you will have to be ready to accept any outcome, and I'm not sure that the choices are as clear and few as Dear Neville seems to think.
Despite the usual historical dismissal of Chamberlain as an appeaser, he is a political force (as was his father before him) backed by the Church, the opinions of the Dominions and probably the Lords. Given an election in reasonably short time, on his terms, he is going to win it...
But I suspect that what is coming is rather like the great clash of 1940, when the excellent, methodical brute-force WW1-style armies of France and England met the rapid, chaotic elements of infiltration, initiative, tanks and aircraft. Chamberlain is in his element when he is working quietly and secretively at the levers of power and at his worst when surprised. Can he get an election if Loyd George gives him nothing in which to have No Confidence? Will his coalition hold in the face of an Imperial crisis? And can he win an election in the brawling, media-intensive, bloody-knuckles era of the late 1930s?
And what happens to his mighty coalition if something makes him stumble?
How is his health, by the way? Eating well? He doesn't look it...
For my own part listening to Chamberlain scheme I had the thought of counting chickens before they hatched. And somehow I think DLG will be a chicken whose neck is not so easily wrung.
Also, were I Eden and with this plan just revealed, I was choose to regard any offer in employment in a new government as an attempt to sink me in the next Act.
Also, were I Eden and with this plan just revealed, I was choose to regard any offer in employment in a new government as an attempt to sink me in the next Act.
- 1
All true but Eden can bide his time. He's a hawk, he's not affiliated with this dumpster fire of a government, he's fought the good fight like a good tory, got back in line when the party needed him to, and Chamberlain will be gone soon, either politically or literally. With very few other candidates for war PM, he's looking pretty good. Of course, if they aren't at war yet, we're probably getting...Well, Halifax again...
Chamberlain, DLG, Churchill, the King, even Eden and all the supporting cast ... whether by design or lack of fibre, not a one seems capable of successfully navigating a high road with honour nor acting in anyone’s interests but their own selfish ones. What a dreadful mess!
In a weird way this is all an argument for monarchy - for the moral and ethical power of the Crown to inspire and chastise its subjects.
The problem of course is that Edward is spoiled, privileged, self-centered and rotten. Hence we get politicians acting like this: look at the top.
The problem of course is that Edward is spoiled, privileged, self-centered and rotten. Hence we get politicians acting like this: look at the top.
The most tragic figure in this remains Churchill. As sad a sight as he is, and I fear it will only get worse for him, I can't summon up much sympathy; he all of people must have known what DLG was like and what this would entail - he was supping with the devil so can't go complaining that his spoon was too short. I still hope he manages to jump off at some point, not for his career but for his own health, though I fear that for narrative reasons he will stay on until the end.
Even Eden agrees with me that the 'traditionalists' have been baffling ineffective.
They do appear to have been more obsessed with details like cancelling a radio broadcast and glaring at people while not actually doing anything substantive, there is a definite sense of people pulling their punches about all of this. I concede that does suit Nev's moustache twirling plans to stamp out internal opposition, I remain slightly dubious that the rest of the country would go along with it though.I always like seeing Margesson, I just respect the efficient professionalism of him. Never going to be a great office of state though, perhaps he might have been better served in the civil service, I can see him as a formidable Permanent Secretary.
That's a lot better than I expected and if Nev is going to be keeping Halifax under his thumb in the Foreign Office then as a matter of practicality he can't be fighting with Eden about Treasury policy (well Nev can try to fight his entire cabinet all at once, but he will fail). Certainly a substantial improvement over OTL (though when OTL is John Simon basically any plausible candidate would be) so that is at least positive. Halifax is of course not a great choice for Foreign Secretary, but then Nev was never going to pick anyone with guts and the problem with appeasement was always the concept and not the execution so it's not like it can get any worse.
Honestly not terrible, indeed arguably better than his OTL cabinet. Kingsley Wood is a good reforming choice, if he gets the chance he will certainly shake up the Army and Hoare was a solid enough First Lord and has the right prioritise (lots of rearmament and get the FAA back under RN control). There is no good choice for India so *shrug* really.
Though as others have said this does all assume Nev wins a majority at the election (and that he actually follows through on all these promises), neither of which is looking a complete certainty at this point.
This does seem to be an eventual settup for an Eden government. Not many others left who can field the office at war...and Eden himself needs some more experience if he's going to be put there in 1940.