Talking Turkey: Alternate History from 1936

[Bullfilter]

Chapter 244: Turkey and the UGNR – November 1944 to December 1945

State of Turkey and the UGNR – November 1944

As the Geneva Conference ended, the same government that had run Turkey and the UGNR for the war years remained in place. Even though the governing CHP - seen as a right-wing autocracy that conducted no elections - remained in power, its popular support was languishing. It retained a slight plurality over the conservative Millet Partisi and the social democrats of the TIP but had barely a quarter of the Turkish community’s support after long years of war, despite Turkey’s hard-won successes.

​

In terms of diplomatic relationships, of course the ‘strange bedfellows’ Comintern alliance with the Soviets remained unshakeable. Relations with the US remained cordial and those with Japan not nearly as bad as they might have been – even better than those with the current French government. Of the other major victorious powers, a balance of positive and negative influences meant diplomatic ties with the UK were neutral.

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Unrest in Greece: Dec 44-Feb 45

On 3 December 1944 a series of clashes in Athens known as the Dekemvriana ("December events") began when Turkish troops and Greek GNR police opened fire on a massive nationalist [British v leftist in OTL] demonstration, killing 28 and wounding 100.

Unarmed protesters lying dead or wounded on 3 December 1944 in front of the Greek Parliament, while others run for their lives, moments after the first shootings that signalled the beginning of the Dekemvriana events.​

Two days later Turkish forces in Greece shelled rightist positions near Piraeus. Turkish planes began strafing rightists in Athens on the 6th. Then on 18 December Turkish troops began a ground offensive against the rebels.

Greek nationalists in the mountains, 1945. Not all would disarm after the Dekemvriana formally ended.​

Inönü [Churchill in OTL] arrived in Athens on 25 December to try to stop the fighting. The Dekemvriana ended in victory for the Turkish Army and government of the Greek GNR on 15 January 1945.

The Treaty of Varkiza was signed on 12 February 1945 in which the Greek resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections, and the removal of Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police. But the unrest and dissatisfaction with what was seen as the ‘puppet’ pro-Turkish administration and UGNR tyranny was simply pushed underground and repressed, not eliminated.

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“The Day of Reckoning” – 28 January 1945

A long-simmering feud between the two leading security officers of Turkey broke out again once the discipline of winning the war wore off. On 28 January 1945 – Republic Day, the sixth anniversary of the founding of the Glorious Union back in 1939 – things came to a head between Interior Minister Şükrü Kaya and Foreign Intelligence (and oversight of S.I.T.H.) Chief Şükrü Ögel.

Each heard rumours of the other plotting their downfall. And both decided to act to pre-empt the other, on the basis that the best form of defence is attack and the most important element of attack is surprise. In the event, neither would be surprised … but both would be. In a manner of speaking.

Kaya and Ögel. Their animosity would eventually prove irreconcilable.​

On Republic Day in 1945, Kaya received a file from Ögel via a S.I.T.H. courier detailing a trail of corruption and treason leading to Kaya’s door, which would soon be publicly released. Some of it was in fact true, but most was a fabrication. Kaya was so incensed that he immediately reached for his apoplexy tablets. As Ögel knew he would. They had been laced with poison and placed by a double agent at the Interior Ministry. This time Kaya’s face went white rather than red and his lips blue, the last words he heard were uttered by the courier: “Şükrü Ögel sends his regards!”

As Ögel received word that he had finally eliminated his implacable foe, he could not help but gloat. He smiled across the table at Cennet Kavgaci and they drank a toast of raki together to celebrate.

“To victory!” offered Ögel.​

​

“Vur ha!” was Cennet’s happy response.​

As Ögel drained his glass, he choked and bent over in pain, before collapsing to the ground.

“Darth Kelebek sends his regards!” Cennet said with a smile and she drained her quite safe glass as Ögel’s life drained away.​

“Vur ha!”​

A brief whiff of sulphur was the only indication the Dark Lord of the S.I.T.H. had been present. He soon disappeared and was never seen in that world again. After having reported to her ‘uncle’ the Milli Şef that the ‘housekeeping had been taken care of’, Cennet was soon sworn in as the new and separate head of S.I.T.H., while the formal replacements for the “Two Şükrüs” would be more obscure and less powerful than their infamous predecessors.

Darth Kelebek - never seen in that world again.

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Emerging Political Developments in Turkey – late 1945

For the Kemalists there was a long-standing desire for Turkey to develop into a democracy. In an opening speech to the Grand National Assembly on 1 November 1945, Milli Şef Inönü openly expressed the country's need for an opposition party. He welcomed Celal Bayar formally establishing the Democrat Party (DP) as a legal entity, which separated from CHP in early January 1946.

Celal Bayar – resigned as prime Minister in December 1944 before forming the opposition Kemalist Democratic Party.​

The DP was a centre-right political party. The DP’s ideology was liberal conservatism, economic liberalism and right-wing populism. It had a Kemalist party program. [In OTL, due to anti-Communist hysteria brought on by the new Soviet threat, new leftist parties were swiftly banned. This does not happen in the ATL – yet, anyway!]

The end of GW2 brought about competing global waves of both capitalist democracy and Soviet-style communism. In Turkey, the power struggle in the one-party regime resumed between the two versions of statism espoused by İnönü and Bayar. Bayar resigned as Prime Minister and from his parliamentary position and the CHP in December 1945.

Kemalist-Inönüist populism aimed to establish popular sovereignty but also a social-economic transformation to realise a true populist state. The principle of Kemalist statism was generally interpreted to mean that the state was to regulate the country's general economic activities and engage in areas where private enterprises were not willing to do so.

However, Kemalists rejected class conflict and collectivism, which started to see them drift away politically (though not yet diplomatically) from the war-time Comintern alignment. This would see them begin to develop the concept of an international ‘Third Way’ which Turkey would lead in an attempt to forge their own path in the emerging multi-polar world order – and try to keep the disparate and often unruly members of the UGNR and wider Bucharest Pact together and within the Turkish sphere of interest and influence.

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General Diplomatic Developments - 1945

Turkey officially reopened their embassy in Tokyo on 5 January 1945. [In OTL they severed diplomatic relations with Japan that day].

The Soviet Union notified Turkey on 19 March that their non-aggression pact signed in 1925 would be renewed after it expired in November. [In OTL it was announced it would not be renewed and Turkey responded by rejecting Soviet demands for territorial concessions and a revision of the Montreux Convention.]

Turkey ratified the League of Nations Charter on 28 September 1945, determined to exert its influence in the new world order as one of the P5 LNSC members.

Later in the year, the Japanese diplomatic outreach began to ramp up. The first concrete proposal was more about trade: a Japanese offer to cooperate in the development of Turkish-controlled oilfields in the Middle East through massive financial investment, in return for equity and guaranteed export agreements. The proposal was welcomed in principle as Turkey considered the details. And possible offers from other powers who may care to offer development money in return for favourable trade (oil) agreements.

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North Africa and the Founding of the Arab League

The new provisional governments of the ‘Four Brothers’ in North Africa – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya – spent the year drafting new constitutions while also sending representatives to the recently founded Arab League. They were admitted to the Bucharest Pact as ‘associate members’, but formal ratification would be left to their new governments, due to come into effect after constituent and presidential elections slated for early 1946.

On 22 March 1945 the Arab League, formally the League of Arab States, was established. It was a regional organisation combining the newly ‘de-colonised’ Bucharest Pact states of North Africa (ie Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya); the UGNR members Arabia, Syria and Lebanon; and the British-aligned Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Yemen and Transjordan. The first meeting was convened in Cairo.

An early meeting of the Arab League in Cairo.​

The League's main goal was to "draw closer the relations between member states and co-ordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries".

The fact it formed and reached across international political boundaries and spheres of interest was a sign of a new drive for regional autonomy among both Turkish and British controlled territories and autonomous states and that neither Turkey nor Britain believed they should (or could) stand in its way.

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The Balkans and Central Europe

Czechia. The Prague uprising began on 5 May 1945 when Czech pro-democratic resistance members launched an attempt to liberate the city of Prague from Turkish occupation. The Prague uprising became a national myth for the new Czech nation even though it did not succeed, ending in a ceasefire after three days of street fighting. [It was of course against the Germans in OTL].

Bulgaria. On 25 October 1945, in Bulgaria communists and opposition members battled in the streets of Sofia. Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 18 November, where the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union and the Bulgarian Communist Party both won 94 seats, showing how close the political balance there was.

Hungary. Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 4 November 1945, won by the right-wing Independent Smallholders Party, resulting in its leader, Zoltán Tildy, becoming prime minister. The ISP was based on agrarianism, Hungarian nationalism, right-wing populism, national conservatism and anti-communism. In the elections, the Smallholders polled 57% of votes against the Communists' 17%. Despite this victory, the Turkish-dominated Control Commission forced the winning party into a grand coalition government with the other parties including the Communists. [Almost exactly as in OTL, except Turkey substituted for the USSR.]

Austria. Elections to the Austrian National Council were held on 25 November 1945. The Austrian People's Party led by Leopold Figl won a majority. The APP was a christian-democratic party, centre-right to right-wing on the political spectrum.

Yugoslavia. After protracted internal negotiations under Turkish supervision, a re-unified Glorious National Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed on 29 November 1945. A new 'federation within a federation' constitution and elections were planned for 1946.

Albania. On 2 December 1945 parliamentary elections were held in the Albanian GNR. The Communist-led Democratic Front won all 82 seats after a successful Soviet-backed operation to effectively fix the elections. This would become an issue the Turkish cabinet would have to address in the new year.

Slovakia. Slovakia remained quiet through 1945 under its own new centre-right government which remained firmly under quite overt Turkish control.

Romania. The Romanian government remained quiet, organised and proud to be the host of the new Bucharest Pact. For now, they politely resisted Soviet overtures and remained close to their Turkish ‘brothers’.

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Italy

In late 1944, Italy was divided by the Turkish occupation authority into three administrative areas within the framework of the UGNR.

​

Northern Italy would get a provisional government heavily influenced by the leftist wartime resistance fighters that Turkey had worked with during its 1944 invasion. It was led by the Resistance hero and Party of Action leader Ferruccio Parri. Parri soon launched a campaign of anti-Fascist purges and reprisals. The capital of the new provisional GNR was established in Milan.

Ferruccio Parri (b. 19 January 1890) Chief Minister of the Northern Italy Provisional GNR from November 1944.​

The purges caused much alarm, as virtually anybody with a job in the public sector had had to be a member of the Fascist Party. Soon there was an anti-purge backlash, supported by the Liberals. In reality, the purges were short-lived and superficial, and even leading Fascists were able to benefit from a series of amnesties, the most important of which was backed by the Communist minister of justice, Togliatti.

Liberation parade in Milan on 6 May 1945. Parri is in the front row, third from the left.​

For now, the Parri government managed to incorporate and restrain the more extreme left-wing elements in the north but it was uncertain whether this could be maintained into 1946 and beyond.

Central Italy was centred around the old Italian capital of Rome and in essence provided a buffer between the other two new provisional Italian GNRs, which had each been founded on very different principles and leadership groups. The Christian Democratic leader, Alcide De Gasperi, was called on to form a more moderate “Roman” inter-party provisional government.

Alcide De Gasperi, (b. April 3, 1881) Chief Minister of the provisional Central Italy GNR.​

It soon put a stop to any purges in its jurisdiction, returned large industrial firms to their previous owners, and replaced partisan administrators with ordinary state officials. In general, there was considerable continuity in many areas, including the judiciary, the police force, and the body of legislation created in the 1920s and ’30s.

Southern Italy was soon taken over by the Turkish-backed Mafia supremo Vito Corleone, who became Chief Minister of the provisional GNR and soon consolidated his position in a one-party state, run by a cabal of criminal syndicates (including his own) that quickly became known the ‘Five Families’.

'Don' Vito Corleone, Chief Minister of the provisional Southern Italian GNR.​

He and the Turkish overlords of the GNR soon had a working relationship in place, with essentially a criminal-police state fusion running the southern part of the peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia with an iron fist.

1945 saw each of these three administrations attempting to settle in and firmly entrench themselves in power, exercised as internally autonomous regions within the governing framework of the Turkish-run UGNR and with a firm remit to keep Italy within the Turkish orbit.

There was sporadic communal violence throughout the country, though relative peace reigned in the centre. In the north both leftist pro-Soviet and nationalist anti-Turkish groups would cause some trouble, though nothing that would qualify as anything approaching civil war. In the south, the violence was almost entirely at the direction of the government, which conducted ruthless ongoing internal purges against any element that sought to resist them.

 

[DensleyBlair]

which was backed by the Communist minister of justice, Togliatti.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Togliatti actually get a decent position out of the war in an AAR!

I can’t possibly imagine the Italian situation will prove stable for the long, or indeed medium term, but I’m sure Turkey will be busting plenty of heads together to ensure it at least sort of works for now. With Vito’s help, of course.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

terms of diplomatic relationships, of course the ‘strange bedfellows’ Comintern alliance with the Soviets remained unshakeable. Relations with the US remained cordial and those with Japan not nearly as bad as they might have been – even better than those with the current French government. Of the other major victorious powers, a balance of positive and negative influences meant diplomatic ties with the UK were neutral.

There's no real reason to break or even chill relations. All the border tension, spheres of influence and other issues that could possible dull cooperation were sorted out in the peace conference. There is very little reason why the Soviets and Turks would not remain best friends, esepcially considering how much interrelated they are at present.

The Treaty of Varkiza was signed on 12 February 1945 in which the Greek resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections, and the removal of Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police. But the unrest and dissatisfaction with what was seen as the ‘puppet’ pro-Turkish administration and UGNR tyranny was simply pushed underground and repressed, not eliminated.

That is going to be an issue for Turkey. And so soon after the war! Greece might be indepednant within 2 decades...

On Republic Day in 1945, Kaya received a file from Ögel via a S.I.T.H. courier

Ah. SITH are cleaning house.

“Darth Kelebek sends his regards!” Cennet said with a smile and she drained her quite safe glass as Ögel’s life drained away.

Glad that we completed our coup and destroyed the last two men standing between SITH and total intelligence, security and terror monopoly in the UGNR.

A brief whiff of sulphur was the only indication the Dark Lord of the S.I.T.H. had been present. He soon disappeared and was never seen in that world again.

A good contract deal well done, I think.

Cennet was soon sworn in as the new and separate head of S.I.T.H., while the formal replacements for the “Two Şükrüs” would be more obscure and less powerful than their infamous predecessors.

Mmm. Interesting. That should keep SITH going quite well. Everyone else on the other hand is in trouble...

Later in the year, the Japanese diplomatic outreach began to ramp up. The first concrete proposal was more about trade: a Japanese offer to cooperate in the development of Turkish-controlled oilfields in the Middle East through massive financial investment, in return for equity and guaranteed export agreements. The proposal was welcomed in principle as Turkey considered the details. And possible offers from other powers who may care to offer development money in return for favourable trade (oil) agreements.

Well the British obviously have billions at stake there and already have a sort of deal going on in persia but now the war is over, that deal ends and Turkey can renegotiate or fob them off from a position of overhwwhleming strength. I suspect rhe british are about to be kicked from the Persian oil fields unless they play very nicely in Arabia itself.

The Soviets and the US are the other two parties that could and would make some offers here, but really, given the situation on the ground, it's first a toss up to see if britsh Turkish deals can be made or collapse. If they do or don't, determines how invoked the britsh are in the gulf and Arabia after the end of their puppets and formal empire.

the recently founded Arab League

22 March 1945 the Arab League, formally the League of Arab States, was established. It was a regional organisation combining the newly ‘de-colonised’ Bucharest Pact states of North Africa (ie Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya); the UGNR members Arabia, Syria and Lebanon; and the British-aligned Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Yemen and Transjordan. The first meeting was convened in Cairo.

They are going to be a constant pain in the side for the US, the UK (if they stick around) and the UGNR. Good news for Russia though as it means they'll have allies in setting global oil prices and making life difficult for the western oil producers.

Yugoslavia. After protracted internal negotiations under Turkish supervision, a re-unified Glorious National Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed on 29 November 1945. A new 'federation within a federation' constitution and elections were planned for 1946.

Ah. Surprising and possibly the worst decision they could have made. This one may now be the single biggest headache for Turkey in the next half century.

Albania. On 2 December 1945 parliamentary elections were held in the Albanian GNR. The Communist-led Democratic Front won all 82 seats after a successful Soviet-backed operation to effectively fix the elections. This would become an issue the Turkish cabinet would have to address in the new year.

Excellent.

Northern Italy would get a provisional government heavily influenced by the leftist wartime resistance fighters that Turkey had worked with during its 1944 invasion. It was led by the Resistance hero and Party of Action leader Ferruccio Parri. Parri soon launched a campaign of anti-Fascist purges and reprisals. The capital of the new provisional GNR was established in Milan.

There's the Soviet stomping grounds. If we can subvert Austria too, we've got a good chain of socialist countries and states running the length of the continent.

It soon put a stop to any purges in its jurisdiction, returned large industrial firms to their previous owners, and replaced partisan administrators with ordinary state officials. In general, there was considerable continuity in many areas, including the judiciary, the police force, and the body of legislation created in the 1920s and ’30s.

So central Italy is still very corrupt, making things easier for...

Southern Italy was soon taken over by the Turkish-backed Mafia supremo Vito Corleone, who became Chief Minister of the provisional GNR and soon consolidated his position in a one-party state, run by a cabal of criminal syndicates (including his own) that quickly became known the ‘Five Families’.

The sicilian crime state. Good for Turkey now but terrible for them, Italy and Europe in the long term. Going to be a blight of Turkish prestige and international and inner UGNR reputation too.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Togliatti actually get a decent position out of the war in an AAR!

I can’t possibly imagine the Italian situation will prove stable for the long, or indeed medium term, but I’m sure Turkey will be busting plenty of heads together to ensure it at least sort of works for now. With Vito’s help, of course.

Well it was as I thought would happen, only even worse because Turkey OFFICIALLY put them in charge too! They'll have to rely on SITH to keep the peace and keep them on side, making the organisation even more powerful (and giving them a huge amount of income not controlled by Turkey at all).

Playing with fire to fight fire with fire, there.

 

[diskoerekto]

It seems we'll have the save the Arabs from themselves eventually. They can be safe and free within the democratic umbrella of UGNR, or be imperial subjects of UK, or be stray lambs and be grabbed piecemeal by imperial powers.

We don't endorse how things are being run in Southern Italy, and we don't endorse any action against non-nationalist or non-extremist popular movements. We'll be a modern 21st century united federation, not a crumbling empire trying to keep it together by violence.

We're also thinking about redrawing the borders elsewhere within UGNR to make nice ~7 million population chunks just like the 3 Italies, but one thing at a time

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

It seems we'll have the save the Arabs from themselves eventually. They can be safe and free within the democratic umbrella of UGNR, or be imperial subjects of UK, or be stray lambs and be grabbed piecemeal by imperial powers.

We don't endorse how things are being run in Southern Italy, and we don't endorse any action against non-nationalist or non-extremist popular movements. We'll be a modern 21st century united federation, not a crumbling empire trying to keep it together by violence.

We're also thinking about redrawing the borders elsewhere within UGNR to make nice ~7 million population chunks just like the 3 Italies, but one thing at a time

So we have an internationalist socialist comintern Soviet Union...and a user criminal UGNR empire. An isolationist US. A super paper tiger and Austria Hungary levels of unstable Japan. A pretty defeated and wealthy but somewhat irrelevant and unpopular UK.

And France.

 

[Wraith11B]

I think those who are pushing the "Soviet Union Turkey Best Friends" are overlooking the immense historical opposition to close relationships. Convenient bedfellows make for bad long term partners, especially one who controls access to the Black Sea ports... Even moreso one who also controls a "Slavic brother" to the Russians. Moscow isn't going to stand for the Turks holding the reins of Belgrade for long.

 

[Bullfilter]

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Togliatti actually get a decent position out of the war in an AAR!

Well, I'm glad I managed to strike one there for the fight against obscurity!

I can’t possibly imagine the Italian situation will prove stable for the long, or indeed medium term, but I’m sure Turkey will be busting plenty of heads together to ensure it at least sort of works for now. With Vito’s help, of course.

It will likely be a constant struggle, for the local governments and the Turks. And who knows what various 'state actors' may try on, too!?

There's no real reason to break or even chill relations. All the border tension, spheres of influence and other issues that could possible dull cooperation were sorted out in the peace conference. There is very little reason why the Soviets and Turks would not remain best friends, esepcially considering how much interrelated they are at present.

Yes, for now at least.

That is going to be an issue for Turkey. And so soon after the war! Greece might be indepednant within 2 decades...

Another tough one for Turkey to keep under control. Peaceful co-existence while occupying Greece? Erm, ah, right!

Ah. SITH are cleaning house.

Glad that we completed our coup and destroyed the last two men standing between SITH and total intelligence, security and terror monopoly in the UGNR.

A good contract deal well done, I think.

Mmm. Interesting. That should keep SITH going quite well. Everyone else on the other hand is in trouble...

Those two were always going to be their own worst enemies. Peace time was going to be no place for them and Inonu had just the right team there to 'fix things up'.

Well the British obviously have billions at stake there and already have a sort of deal going on in persia but now the war is over, that deal ends and Turkey can renegotiate or fob them off from a position of overhwwhleming strength. I suspect rhe british are about to be kicked from the Persian oil fields unless they play very nicely in Arabia itself.

The Soviets and the US are the other two parties that could and would make some offers here, but really, given the situation on the ground, it's first a toss up to see if britsh Turkish deals can be made or collapse. If they do or don't, determines how invoked the britsh are in the gulf and Arabia after the end of their puppets and formal empire.

This will be a tricky and complex situation. And likely volatile as well. Many flies seeking to get into the ointment ...

They are going to be a constant pain in the side for the US, the UK (if they stick around) and the UGNR. Good news for Russia though as it means they'll have allies in setting global oil prices and making life difficult for the western oil producers.

They will be thorns in a number of sides. Not necessarily a slam dunk positive for the Soviets though. May not be quite as simple as that.

Ah. Surprising and possibly the worst decision they could have made. This one may now be the single biggest headache for Turkey in the next half century.

The whole thing will be a mess, however it is sliced or diced. Will they end up staying together, fighting each other or fighting the Turks, or a combination of these - and if so when?

There's the Soviet stomping grounds. If we can subvert Austria too, we've got a good chain of socialist countries and states running the length of the continent.

They will try. May have more problems subverting Austria though, who will have no love of the Soviets.

So central Italy is still very corrupt, making things easier for...

The sicilian crime state. Good for Turkey now but terrible for them, Italy and Europe in the long term. Going to be a blight of Turkish prestige and international and inner UGNR reputation too.

Corruption abounds. No change - full steam ahead! What, are those rocks? Hard places?

Well it was as I thought would happen, only even worse because Turkey OFFICIALLY put them in charge too! They'll have to rely on SITH to keep the peace and keep them on side, making the organisation even more powerful (and giving them a huge amount of income not controlled by Turkey at all).

Playing with fire to fight fire with fire, there.

Fire v fire, for sure. Or setting a thief to catch one, or ... KABOOM! Molotov cocktail sets off dumpster fire!

It seems we'll have the save the Arabs from themselves eventually. They can be safe and free within the democratic umbrella of UGNR, or be imperial subjects of UK, or be stray lambs and be grabbed piecemeal by imperial powers.

UGNR isn't too democratic yet. Will see how it turns out. Post-colonial pan-Arab nationalism may be hard to contain. But Turkey will be jealous of those oil fields. Wolves and lams abound - are any for those wolves in sheep's clothing?

We don't endorse how things are being run in Southern Italy, and we don't endorse any action against non-nationalist or non-extremist popular movements. We'll be a modern 21st century united federation, not a crumbling empire trying to keep it together by violence.

By 'we', does that mean to pro-Democracy Kemalist opposition in Turkey? Because the governing regime seems pretty keen on mixing its high rhetoric with low opportunism and gangster affiliations for now.

We're also thinking about redrawing the borders elsewhere within UGNR to make nice ~7 million population chunks just like the 3 Italies, but one thing at a time

Ditto. But suggestions from the opposition parties are now welcome, as we've permitted them to at least exist and just loosened the press censorship up a little.

So we have an internationalist socialist comintern Soviet Union...and a user criminal UGNR empire. An isolationist US. A super paper tiger and Austria Hungary levels of unstable Japan. A pretty defeated and wealthy but somewhat irrelevant and unpopular UK.

And France.

The UGNR has at least two (probably 3-4) quite different personalities all existing in the same time a space. The US ... we haven't seen how much (or even if) they will go isolationist. Japan is on a knife's edge, for sure. The UK, probably more of a slippery slope. France? Well, quite.

I think those who are pushing the "Soviet Union Turkey Best Friends" are overlooking the immense historical opposition to close relationships. Convenient bedfellows make for bad long term partners, especially one who controls access to the Black Sea ports... Even moreso one who also controls a "Slavic brother" to the Russians. Moscow isn't going to stand for the Turks holding the reins of Belgrade for long.

Agree, it's very much being kept together on shared wartime experience and the Inonu-Stalin relationship for now. But once the immediacy of the former wanes and the passage of time and vagaries of events eventually ends the latter, what then? Demands for Moldova? Serbian independence movements? Proxy interventions in UGNR states? US, UK and Japanese overtures to Turkey? etc etc. The longer it goes, the more other factors will come into play.

To All: Thanks once more for all the comments. I'll look to post the next chapter tomorrow my time, which will deal with the UK and India in the immediate post-war months. So there's still time for any more observations on the last chapter or two before that drops.

 

[SSmith]

Apologies. It looks like I've got some post-Christmas catching up to do!

In a motion sponsored by Turkey and seconded by Japan, the League of Nations Security Council (LNSC) approved the creation of the League of Nations Atomic Energy Commission (LNAEC) on 1 January 1945.

A smart move by the UGNR I'm thinking, since Turkey has invested absolutely nothing in nuclear research so far and the new LNAEC does at least subject the four leading nuclear powers to some degree of accountability. This might actually help mitigate some of the tensions that are sure to arise in future years.

The classified report of the LNAEC, eventually submitted to the P5 of the LNSC on 1 January 1946, noted that the countries leading civil nuclear research as the GW2 armistice came into effect on 9 October 1944 were the UK, USA, USSR and Germany. Each of these four nations had successfully researched isotope separation and completed the first stage of civil nuclear research. All except the USSR had begun to research the second stage. France and Japan had only completed the first stage of basic atomic research, while Turkey had not undertaken even begun that level of research.

Japan is notably behind the curve here, and unlike Turkey or France is forced to be completely self-reliant. For the UK, I think the way the war ended makes on-going investment in defence a key national priority, which is most unfortunate when a (hopefully) new Labour government has an important domestic agenda it would rather be addressing.

The next day, the Yalta LNCIO concluded when the New League of Nations Charter was signed by 50 of the 51 attending member countries.

I would also be interested to know which country said no.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established on 27 December 1945. It was envisaged as a major financial agency of the League of Nations and an international financial institution. It would be headquartered in Leningrad. Its stated mission was "working to foster global economic justice, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote full employment and equitable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."

In this chapter we've seen several steps taken that do more to bring nations together rather than to divide them. Encouraging.

A steady British advance had been made in Burma all year. A marginal advance in Malaya and the elimination of of the Japanese enclave in southern Sumatra were minor sideshows. But the big move was the British-led Allied invasion of the Japanese Home Islands in early November 1945. By January, significant progress had been made and a firm beachhead established.

Ah... this is rather embarrassing. Having insisted to FDR that the UK could not conceivably continue to prosecute the war against Japan, leaked documents from the War Office now prove conclusively that Winston had a master plan for defeating Japan in '46. Since I was kept out of the loop on this one, I can only surmise that the big idea was to lull the enemy into a false of security by appearing to be utterly incompetent for a period of five or six years, before landing the knockout blow. If I had been briefed about this, I might approached the conference in a different manner.

 

[Bullfilter]

Apologies. It looks like I've got some post-Christmas catching up to do!

No need to apologise of course, my friend! Glad to be providing a bit of holiday content for the loyal readAARship. And to be getting comments.

A smart move by the UGNR I'm thinking, since Turkey has invested absolutely nothing in nuclear research so far and the new LNAEC does at least subject the four leading nuclear powers to some degree of accountability. This might actually help mitigate some of the tensions that are sure to arise in future years.

It struck me so too. There's also perhaps a small chance nukes may not become the thing they have in OTL ... we can but dream our electronic dreams.

Japan is notably behind the curve here, and unlike Turkey or France is forced to be completely self-reliant. For the UK, I think the way the war ended makes on-going investment in defence a key national priority, which is most unfortunate when a (hopefully) new Labour government has an important domestic agenda it would rather be addressing.

Interesting perspective. The next episode will move to the UK and where it might be headed after the Geneva Conference.

I would also be interested to know which country said no.

OK, I'll see if I can find out (the original once-over-lightly wiki article I found on it didn't mention who the holdout was).

Edit: It seems it was just a delayed signature:

• "The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of 50 countries; Poland signed on 15 October 1945."
• "There were 51 Founding Members in 1945. The founding members of the United Nations are the countries that were invited to participate in the 1945 San Francisco Conference at which the UN Charter and Statute of the ICJ was adopted."
• "In accordance with Article 110, the Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945, after ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of the other countries."

In this chapter we've seen several steps taken that do more to bring nations together rather than to divide them. Encouraging.

It's fallen that way given the more multi-polar world the ATL has developed into, while still tracking some of the events and themes of OTL. One can but hope it stays that way, though there are bound to be potholes in the old Path to Glory!

Ah... this is rather embarrassing. Having insisted to FDR that the UK could not conceivably continue to prosecute the war against Japan, leaked documents from the War Office now prove conclusively that Winston had a master plan for defeating Japan in '46. Since I was kept out of the loop on this one, I can only surmise that the big idea was to lull the enemy into a false of security by appearing to be utterly incompetent for a period of five or six years, before landing the knockout blow. If I had been briefed about this, I might approached the conference in a different manner.

It was interesting and I found it quite amusing. Allied AI invasions of Japan (I've seen the US, UK and France do it in recent games) seems to be one of the areas where they work fairly regularly. And Japan never seems to garrison itself properly. Poetic justice really, given what they keep doing to Australia and NZ in HOI3 games!

 

[Bullfilter]

Chapter 245: The UK and India (Part One) – November 1944 to June 1945

The UK in October-November 1944

In early October 1944, the Conservative Party appeared to have a stranglehold in the national political popularity stakes, belying the far closer position in the Parliament of that time. Labour Party support had seemingly collapsed, with the Leninist Revolutionary Socialist League being the main opposition party of the left. The main opposition voice at the time was coming from the right-wing parties, led by the National Socialists.

​

At the previous election (taken from OTL), way back in 1935, the Conservatives had been led by Stanley Baldwin (since succeeded by Neville Chamberlain and then Winston Churchill), Labour by Clement Atlee (who remained the leader in 1944) and the Liberals by Herbert Samuel (Archibald Sinclair in 1944).

In the House of Commons (615 seats total in 1935), the Conservative-led National Alliance retained majority government with 429 seats (51.8% of the vote, after a swing of -15.4%). Of the National Alliance, the Conservatives held 387 seats, the National Liberals 33, National Labour 8 and Nationals 1. Of the opposition parties, Labour held 154 seats (38%, + 7.4% swing), the Liberals 21 (6.7%, +0.2% swing) and other minor parties and independents held 11 seats.

The state of the parties after the 1935 election.​

Despite the Conservative majority, Labour had been brought into a National Unity government while elections had been suspended for the duration of the conflict. That agreement was now in doubt following the October armistice and the conclusion of the war with the Treaty of Geneva. The next election [according to the game, anyway] was due on 14 November 1945.

In terms of diplomatic relationships, that between Britain and the US remained their strongest in November 1944 (despite the latter’s formal membership of the Comintern), just as the US elections were being held. If anything, those elections were likely to bring the two closer together in terms of political ideology and programs, anyway.

Relations with France were also strong, with the recent British liberation of France being seen to have saved it from the twin evils of German tyranny and the spectre of a Soviet Communist takeover. Relations with the USSR and UGNR remained cool though not actively hostile. Japan was still perceived as an adversary, though the relationship was not as bad as it might have been.

---xxx---​

The End of the ‘Wartime Consensus’: October 1944

Shortly following the end of the war and before the Geneva Conference ended, the British Labour Party decided at a meeting in Blackpool on 21 October 1944 to withdraw its support for Winston Churchill's coalition government, though this did not immediately force a national election. The ostensible reason was Churchill’s “obtuse, unreasoned and unreasoning” insistence that India be retained as part of the Empire in defiance of the will of the Geneva Conference. [This happened in May 45 in OTL straight after the defeat of Germany, and it did force an election then].

Clement Atlee, Labour leader.​

Peace now prevailed and the National Unity government reverted to the pre-war Conservative-led National Alliance government, Labour and the Liberals going into opposition. The focus of the electorate began to quickly turn more to domestic concerns during the winter of 1944-45 and Atlee in particular was able to argue an alternative policy platform.

This put Churchill’s claim as a wartime leader and his ‘recalcitrant’ imperialist focus increasingly at odds with the concerns of many of his constituents. Developing events in Europe, especially in Poland, also began to erode the Government’s standing, which deteriorated further in early 1945. Labour’s decision proved a political master-stroke and quickly turned around their fortunes, returning them to the rough position of popular support they had held after the 1935 election in the last few months of 1944. Still well behind Churchill and the Conservatives, but back within striking distance of what had recently seemed an extreme political long shot.

---xxx---​

The ‘Geneva Hangover’: December 1944

In November 1944, as the outcomes of the Geneva Conference became known, the perception that Churchill had been ‘done over’ by the Soviets at Geneva became entrenched in the British commentariat. After a humiliating vote in Geneva, his great imperialist ploy to try to retain the British Raj within the Empire failed during the November Rising. The attempt to retain India against overwhelming international opinion (even most of Britain’s western friends) and the desire of hundreds of millions of its people ended in a bloody fiasco, when a popular uprising saw India granted independence anyway, though it at least remained nominally an Allied power.

​

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became the interim Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of India on 3 December 1944. Nehru's major policy themes included parliamentary democracy, secularism, and developing science and technology via his Congress Party.

Jawaharlal Nehru (b. 14 November 1889).​

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a barrister, politician, and leader of the All-India Muslim League. By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that the Muslims of the subcontinent should have their own state to avoid the possible marginalised status they may gain in an independent Hindu–Muslim state. In that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation for Indian Muslims. In late 1944, he was the leading advocate for a separate Muslim state of Pakistan to be established.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (b. 25 December 1876).​

India’s independence had happened in such haste that no transitional government process had been set up. It was proposed that a convention of prominent Indians from all religious and ethnic groups would meet to draft a new constitution, including whether and (if so) how India should be partitioned. This was to be decided by July 1946.

Elections under whatever geographical, constitutional and electoral arrangements were devised were planned to be conducted on 14 August 1947. Unfortunately, throughout the rest of 1945 this would be conducted against a backdrop of violent clashes between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims in many parts of India.

There was also public disquiet in the UK about surrendering Burma to Japanese dominance, where British military advice had been confident it could have eventually been regained if the war had continued, with the Japanese under increasing Soviet pressure in that massive land front to the north. Whether fair or not, the sense of a British failure in Geneva undermined the dominant position Churchill had held in October, following the liberation of France and his leadership of the Allies throughout the war, which Britain had come through comparatively well.

---xxx---​

Growing Unease: International Developments, January-April 1945

Parliamentary elections in Egypt on 8 January 1945 were won by a coalition led by Ahmad Mahir Pasha. Ahmad Maher was an Egyptian politician from the Saadist Institutional Party, which advocated royalism and liberalism and was regarded as centrist. Egypt would increasingly assert its independence from British dominance, including with the founding of the Arab League in Cairo later that year. Churchill instinctively sought to oppose such ‘backsliding’.

Ahmad Maher Pasha (b. 1888).​

On 25 February, disquiet within the government became apparent, when Conservative MP Maurice Petherick introduced a motion in the House of Commons expressing regret that the peace agreement in Geneva [the Yalta Conference in OTL] did not allow Poland to decide its own future. The motion was defeated easily, with most of the government voting against it and Labour abstaining.

Labour was commonly said to be adhering to the principle of never getting in the way of an opponent’s internal brawl. But it was another blow for Churchill: the whole war had supposedly been triggered by the desire to preserve Polish independence and now it was falling under Stalin’s domination. [Far more will be said of events in Poland in the section dealing with the Soviet Union]. Atlee kept plugging away at his own blueprint for post-war Britain, while unrest and trepidation grew within Churchill’s own ranks.

---xxx---​

The Tory Leadership Crisis of May 1945

Achieving rapid promotion as a young Conservative member of Parliament, Eden had become Foreign Secretary in 1935 aged 38, before resigning in protest at Neville Chamberlain's handling of policy towards Mussolini's Fascist regime in Italy in 1938. Expecting to be reinstated by Churchill when he came to power during the Second Great War, Labour’s Ernest Bevin got the post instead during the Government of National Unity. This saw Eden serve as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs.

Robert Anthony Eden (b. 12 June 1897).​

Eden was seen as Churchill’s heir apparent in the Conservative Party but was also increasingly disenchanted – a dangerous combination. In 1942, Eden was given the additional role of Leader of the House of Commons but this still fell well short of his expectations. He was considered for various other major jobs during and after the war, including Commander-in-Chief Middle East in 1942 (which would have been a very unusual appointment as Eden was a civilian; General Harold Alexander would be appointed) and Viceroy of India in 1943 (General Archibald Wavell was appointed to this job). Eden saw these simply as ploys to try to ‘get him out of the way’.

Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden in somewhat happier times (1943).​

Then in early May 1945 Churchill offered to support Eden as the next Secretary-General of the newly revived League of Nations. For Eden, this was no olive branch; it was the last straw. With the National Government wilting in the polls, many Tories felt that Churchill should have retired gracefully once the war was won and allow Eden to become party leader, but Churchill refused to consider the idea. Eden therefore declined the offer and began to openly suggest Churchill retire in his favour. Churchill - ever the bulldog - refused once again and Eden sought to seize the moment.

To this point, Eden [in the ATL] felt he had been slighted and frozen out. He still considered himself as the Tories’ heir apparent and felt he could no longer watch what he believed was the rapid collapse of his party’s credibility at the hands of his long-time rival. So with many Conservatives seeing their support slipping away, Eden formally launched a party room leadership challenge on 23 May. [In OTL, this was when Atlee left the National Unity Government and triggered an election.]

Churchill narrowly defeated Eden in the party room vote a week later by 204 to 183, but the margin was not enough be convincing. It left Churchill wounded and the Tories bitterly divided.

Churchill addresses the Conservative party room after his narrow win in the leadership ballot, 30 May 1945.

---xxx---​

Election Campaign: June 1945

Atlee pounced on the political upheaval in the Conservative-led ‘National Alliance’ government (not to be confused with the wartime National Unity government), announcing he would bring on a parliamentary no-confidence vote the following week. When Eden privately advised Churchill that he had lost complete confidence in him and would argue for his supporters to abstain from such a vote, the Prime Minister was - for once - wracked by doubt.

Rather than risk a humiliating parliamentary debate and the prospect that enough defectors may heed Eden’s call to abstain to put him in danger of either losing outright or ‘winning badly’, Churchill instead resigned as prime minister and at the request of King George VI formed a caretaker ministry that would govern until Britain could hold elections on 5 July. They would have been due in November anyway and Churchill knew if he waited until then, his popular support would likely ebb even further and his internal party opponents and Atlee’s Labour Party gain ground.

Churchill had proved himself to be a popular leader during the Second Great War and the Tories had been riding high until late 1944, so despite Eden’s failed challenge he remained confident that the Conservatives would still win this election based on his wartime success.

The election campaign was focused on leadership of the country and its post-war future. Churchill sought to use his wartime popularity as part of his campaign to keep the Conservatives in power but faced questions surrounding the Conservatives' actions in the 1930s and his ability to handle domestic issues unrelated to warfare.

Churchill on the hustings, June 1945.​

Attlee had been Deputy Prime Minister [not an in-game appointment in HOI3] in the wartime Unity coalition from 1940-1944 and was seen as a more competent leader by many voters. Especially so among those who feared a return to the levels of unemployment of the 1930s and sought a strong ‘man of the people’ to lead the post-war rebuilding of the country.

Atlee on the hustings, June 1945.​

The longest British Parliament since the Cavalier Parliament of 1661–1679 was formally dissolved on 15 June 1945 ahead of the elections on 5 July. Opinion polls when the election was called on 1June still showed strong approval ratings for Churchill, but Labour had gradually gained support in the months following the war's conclusion. By early June 1945, polls were showing a large swing to Labour and the two main parties running neck-and-neck. The campaign itself would prove decisive.

---xxx---​

1945 Election – Working out the Starting Point

Given the ten-year gap since 1935 [and the variations in events in the ATL], the starting point for the 1945 election will be adjusted by your friendly Dungeon Master er, authAAR . This Parliament [as in OTL] will be expanded to 640 seats. To preserve the flavour of the first-past-the-post voting system but not subject myself to determining 640 individual votes for each constituency, I’m going to create 64 notional seat groups and then multiply the results by 10 to get a final tally.

Melding together the (pretty unrealistic) HOI3-generated party popularity figures, a nod to OTL trends and the invented post-war situation, I’ve come up with a hybrid solution that will hopefully provide some interest (and zaniness). Because of the British voting system, one’s national percentage of votes does not really translate into the number of seats won (it’s exaggerated for the larger parties and usually under-represented for geographically diverse broad-based parties), given the winner-takes-all electoral system. Though support concentrated in some areas can give disproportionate success in a few seats.

I’m going to use a few of the HOI3 parties (for a bit of a hoot) that had any percentage of the popularity figure in the October 1944 game screen [on the flimsy basis that the extreme right parties mustn’t have been banned during this war], plus some actual ones that won seats in 1945 as the starters. In general Labour gets a boost, Conservatives get a post-war backlash against them, but not to the same extent as the landslide 1945 win to Labour at the start of the campaign. To that extent, I’m taking a comparable line to the US election set-up I ran, leaving it up to the national and local swing die rolls to determine the results from that baseline.

For general national popularity, I averaged the 1945 OTL outcome v the Paradox popularity numbers (many of which were zero in one column or the other). Interestingly, for Tory and Labour this gave a starting point fairly similar to the 1935 outcome. For the smaller parties, I then halved the number of seats they would have got had those percentages been applied nationally, adding the seats lost to the major party (Tory or Labour) closest to them in ideology.

---xxx---​

Voting System – Campaign Start Positions

This gave the following notional seat allocation at the start of the campaign (multiplying my 64 seat ‘groups’ by 10 to give the 640 notional seats).

With a 640 seat House of Commons, 321 is the winning threshold for a majority government. Effectively 330 in my clunky simulated parliament. The 10 'others' might be polled individually if they hold the balance of power in a hung parliament after coalitions are negotiated.​

The minor party seats were then locked in – no campaign swing applied there – to give a notional cross-bench of 70 minor party/independent seats (7/64 x 10). The rest turn into a contest between Labour and Tories for the remaining 57 (570). Tories start with 37, Labour with 20. I rolled dice to see on each side what the two-party margin was for each of those using the trusty percentage dice (margin range from 0.5-20%) using this table:

This was the result for the remaining 57 ‘at contest’ seats (sorry, no imagination for the names of the seat groupings):

NB: for ease of calculation, it’s all based of the Conservative vote percentage vs Labour. ​

The simple majority on this two-party basis (ie not counting ‘others’) is 29/47 seat ‘groups’, highlighted on the table (at Seat 36). Notionally, a uniform national swing of 4% to Labour should deliver them that 29th seat, plus maybe an extra two. A simple plurality against the Tories, but not an overall majority in the Commons. That would theoretically need a 4.5% or more uniform swing (to get 33 seat groups) for a majority in its own right. So depending on the result, one side or the other may need to negotiate a coalition government.

---xxx---​

Swing Determination

As in the US election model, there will be die rolls for both national and seat group swings. This time, I’m evening up the contest by making a further national swing to Labour during the campaign of 4% the median die roll result. But the variation by seat will be larger and even either way, so there could be quite a few rogue results, reflecting considerable local volatility (fitting for a ten-year gap and all that’s happened since 1935).

​

The election and post-election UK and some other Allied events for the remainder of 1945 will be covered in the next update, as either the returned or new government tackles whatever is thrown at them.

 

[DensleyBlair]

The Nordic League having twice the support of the BUF is astounding. The idea that either of them survived the war at all is an uncanny reminder that Britain’s was really just a protracted phoney war (and/or a terrifying betrayal of the Tory party’s willingness to tolerate such people). But my word, HOI including the paranoid cabal of virulently hateful thugs that was the Nordic League – a group whose very slogan was so chillingly anti-semitic I don’t dare reproduce it here – is really something else. These guys were so crazy even the BUF were going to denounce them as traitorous before the Defence of the Realm act got there first!

So long as the dice aren’t in the pay of the Blackshirts then all should be okay, of course. But if the League is popular with even 3% of the electorate then that’s a serious (and sizeable) problem for the next government.

(For my own sanity I’m choosing to ignore the actual literal Nazis polling at 6%. Just how easy was the war for Britain if over a tenth of the voters are wanting what Germany got??)

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

In early October 1944, the Conservative Party appeared to have a stranglehold in the national political popularity stakes, belying the far closer position in the Parliament of that time. Labour Party support had seemingly collapsed, with the Leninist Revolutionary Socialist League being the main opposition party of the left. The main opposition voice at the time was coming from the

Well...that's disturbing. Possibly good for comintern but with that many nazi parties still electorally relevant, it's a bit of a worry. Esepcially with the empire collapsing and the old war hawks and imperialists needing somewhere to go outside the mainstream...

Relations with France were also strong

I don't believe that.

, with the recent British liberation of France being seen to have saved it from the twin evils of German tyranny and the spectre of a Soviet Communist takeover.

The whole reason they were in that mes to begin with was because of the UK. I can't see them forgiving them that easily unless they pay for the complete reconstruction of France.

the perception that Churchill had been ‘done over’ by the Soviets at Geneva became entrenched in the British commentariat.

Well...he had been.

In late 1944, he was the leading advocate for a separate Muslim state of Pakistan to be established.

Hooe he gets something somewhere. Pretty good statesman considering the time and place.

Not looking great for India or britian to be honest. The tories having the nazis and Labour having the communists to via with might destroy the post war consensus before it ever gets going.

 

[Bullfilter]

The Nordic League having twice the support of the BUF is astounding. The idea that either of them survived the war at all is an uncanny reminder that Britain’s was really just a protracted phoney war (and/or a terrifying betrayal of the Tory party’s willingness to tolerate such people). But my word, HOI including the paranoid cabal of virulently hateful thugs that was the Nordic League – a group whose very slogan was so chillingly anti-semitic I don’t dare reproduce it here – is really something else. These guys were so crazy even the BUF were going to denounce them as traitorous before the Defence of the Realm act got there first!

I’d never actually heard of them (which sounds like a very good thing). It sounds like labelling them simply as paternal autocrat was way too mild. I’m glad I’ve managed to marginalise them here.

So long as the dice aren’t in the pay of the Blackshirts then all should be okay, of course. But if the League is popular with even 3% of the electorate then that’s a serious (and sizeable) problem for the next government.

(For my own sanity I’m choosing to ignore the actual literal Nazis polling at 6%. Just how easy was the war for Britain if over a tenth of the voters are wanting what Germany got??)

Perhaps it can be attributed to a rogue poll!? I do (as a point of pride) try to take what the game provides and use it, but in this case was happy that the game part was now over and I could use narrative wiles to return things to something of a semblance or realism and order. Labour on 1% and the Nazis on 12%? I was shocked at how strangely the game’s political ‘system’ had operated in this case. So in essence, I’ve quickly overwritten it and didn’t want to waste too much precious nervous energy explaining why a treasonous nut bag extreme right cabal of three parties was commanding 20% of the popularity and Labour 1%! Better just to shake one’s head and step around, as one would avoid a steaming dog turd on the footpath!

Well...that's disturbing. Possibly good for comintern but with that many nazi parties still electorally relevant, it's a bit of a worry. Esepcially with the empire collapsing and the old war hawks and imperialists needing somewhere to go outside the mainstream...

Oh, I think you’ll find they are just an ephemeral nightmare soon left behind. The sun is out now and the cockroaches scuttling back behind the skirting boards and under the rocks they came from.

I don't believe that.

The whole reason they were in that mes to begin with was because of the UK. I can't see them forgiving them that easily unless they pay for the complete reconstruction of France.

To a certain extent, yes. But they’ve redeemed themselves somewhat and the current French provisional government is entirely indebted to Churchill for their existence and the restoration of Metropolitan France. Not much decolonisation for France to sour relations. I’m sure the old and new enmity will be bubbling away too. But who else can the French turn to? Maybe the US if they deign to engage?

Well...he had been.

True.

Hooe he gets something somewhere. Pretty good statesman considering the time and place.

He’ll certainly be trying!

Not looking great for India or britian to be honest. The tories having the nazis and Labour having the communists to via with might destroy the post war consensus before it ever gets going.

Oh, in the UK things are trending back more to what passes for political normalcy. The left and right may provide some residual issues, but only on the fringes. I see the rightists turning into more like a kind of proto-alt right populist fringe a bit ahead of its modern counterparts. The Communists, well, they will lurk there, no doubt with some external support and probably without the same kind of bi-polar Cold War setting of OTL.

India will be difficult. A range of possible outcomes and the probability dice may get a run there too … with a broadly OTL kind of set up the most likely, but also a range of other options possible. From peaceful to violent to full civil war, from unity to partition to fragmentation, though as less likely outcomes.

 

[DensleyBlair]

I’d never actually heard of them (which sounds like a very good thing).

I spent a rather grubby week back in the summer of 2019 researching them, along with all of Britain’s other interwar fascist groups, during the very early days of Echoes. Out of a bad bunch of psychos and loonies, they really did stand out as particularly hateful.

It sounds like labelling them simply as paternal autocrat was way too mild.

In a literalist sense I can sort of see it; Britain’s fash was always struck through with a strain of aristocratic imperialism and anti-communist fears of the working classes, so the Nordic League were, arguably, ‘paternal’ and ‘autocratic’. But to use that as the main label is certainly to bury the lede.

Perhaps it can be attributed to a rogue poll!? I do (as a point of pride) try to take what the game provides and use it, but in this case was happy that the game part was now over and I could use narrative wiles to return things to something of a semblance or realism and order.

Your efforts to achieve such a semblance are very commendable and certainly do not go unnoticed or appreciated. Especially in the fash-bashing department.

 

[SSmith]

The Treaty of Varkiza was signed on 12 February 1945 in which the Greek resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections, and the removal of Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police. But the unrest and dissatisfaction with what was seen as the ‘puppet’ pro-Turkish administration and UGNR tyranny was simply pushed underground and repressed, not eliminated.

Turkey has trouble in Greece? Who would have thought? I imagine this is just the first of whole string of problems the UGNR is going to have with the occupied territories. The problem I think is that if the UGNR tries to hold on too tightly, it will encourage serious resistance. On the other hand, if the federation is too loose, the GNRs might just decide they don't need the centre...

Kaya was so incensed that he immediately reached for his apoplexy tablets. As Ögel knew he would. They had been laced with poison and placed by a double agent at the Interior Ministry. This time Kaya’s face went white rather than red and his lips blue, the last words he heard were uttered by the courier: “Şükrü Ögel sends his regards!”

As Ögel drained his glass, he choked and bent over in pain, before collapsing to the ground.


“Darth Kelebek sends his regards!” Cennet said with a smile and she drained her quite safe glass as Ögel’s life drained away.

A fitting end for the both of them, and it really had to happen in the end, didn't it?

Cennet was soon sworn in as the new and separate head of S.I.T.H.

Congratulations, Cennet!

For the Kemalists there was a long-standing desire for Turkey to develop into a democracy. In an opening speech to the Grand National Assembly on 1 November 1945, Milli Şef Inönü openly expressed the country's need for an opposition party. He welcomed Celal Bayar formally establishing the Democrat Party (DP) as a legal entity, which separated from CHP in early January 1946.

I was wondering whether there would be democratic experiment in this time line. The future of the UGNR is hard to call, but I rather think the Soviets would have preferred stability and continuity from their long-term ally and partner.

The first concrete proposal was more about trade: a Japanese offer to cooperate in the development of Turkish-controlled oilfields in the Middle East through massive financial investment, in return for equity and guaranteed export agreements. The proposal was welcomed in principle as Turkey considered the details. And possible offers from other powers who may care to offer development money in return for favourable trade (oil) agreements.

There's every chance of Turkey getting a lot of potential investors and/or partners if they play their cards right. We'll see if the Japanese have been forgiven for those pesky insurrections... or not!

The fact it formed and reached across international political boundaries and spheres of interest was a sign of a new drive for regional autonomy among both Turkish and British controlled territories and autonomous states and that neither Turkey nor Britain believed they should (or could) stand in its way.

A sensible approach by both imperialist parties, thankfully.

1945 saw each of these three administrations attempting to settle in and firmly entrench themselves in power, exercised as internally autonomous regions within the governing framework of the Turkish-run UGNR and with a firm remit to keep Italy within the Turkish orbit.

Dividing Italy against itself is probably a very good strategy - and the desire to keep Italy firmy within Turkish grasp is as expected.

 

[Bullfilter]

I spent a rather grubby week back in the summer of 2019 researching them, along with all of Britain’s other interwar fascist groups, during the very early days of Echoes. Out of a bad bunch of psychos and loonies, they really did stand out as particularly hateful.

I expect it took a couple of sessions of scrubbing in the shower to abate the noxious odour!

In a literalist sense I can sort of see it; Britain’s fash was always struck through with a strain of aristocratic imperialism and anti-communist fears of the working classes, so the Nordic League were, arguably, ‘paternal’ and ‘autocratic’. But to use that as the main label is certainly to bury the lede.

We can but hope that in the ATL they will fade away into irrelevancy, though one can never be too sure ...

Your efforts to achieve such a semblance are very commendable and certainly do not go unnoticed or appreciated. Especially in the fash-bashing department.

Excellent. It was surprising and offensive to see them so prominent in the in-game political screen for the UK. One can't imagine they would have been either popular enough nor tolerated (legally) during the war to still have such a presence in late 1944. Something had to be done, even if a rump remains.

Turkey has trouble in Greece? Who would have thought? I imagine this is just the first of whole string of problems the UGNR is going to have with the occupied territories. The problem I think is that if the UGNR tries to hold on too tightly, it will encourage serious resistance. On the other hand, if the federation is too loose, the GNRs might just decide they don't need the centre...

It will surely be a morass for them, especially given the long history (800 years plus) between the Turks and the Greeks!

A fitting end for the both of them, and it really had to happen in the end, didn't it?

Quite. In my mind's eye, it was always going to end in a mutual death spiral.

Congratulations, Cennet!

We'll see if the female touch will make SITH ... even more ruthless!

I was wondering whether there would be democratic experiment in this time line. The future of the UGNR is hard to call, but I rather think the Soviets would have preferred stability and continuity from their long-term ally and partner.

It will be attempted, but may or may not turn out exactly as it did in OTL. There are some similar and some quite different circumstances here.

There's every chance of Turkey getting a lot of potential investors and/or partners if they play their cards right. We'll see if the Japanese have been forgiven for those pesky insurrections... or not!

Very much, and they need not be mutually exclusive, either, given the wide range of oil resources they now control. The British will via their puppets, too, irrespective of whether they retain access to the Iranian fields or gain it to the Saudi ones.

A sensible approach by both imperialist parties, thankfully.

Even with sensible approaches, the Middle East has a way of defying sense or happy endings. But we'll see whether the ATL will be any different - for better or worse.

Dividing Italy against itself is probably a very good strategy - and the desire to keep Italy firmy within Turkish grasp is as expected.

They will try, but as with Greece it's hard to imagine it not ending in at least some tears and violence.

The next chapter follows soon, covering the UK election of July 1945 and events (in brief) for the rest of the year.

 

[Bullfilter]

Chapter 246: The UK and India (Part Two) – July to December 1945

UK General Election: July 1945

As the election campaign of 1945 was drawing to a close, polls were pointing to a major swing to Labour. Most were predicting a swing of at least 4% during the campaign alone, some outlying polls showed an even larger swing was possible. But despite all his recent travails, Churchill remained popular and held out hope of snatching an unlikely win.

Churchill campaigned hard to the end and firmly believed he would triumph on 5 July.​

On the other side Attlee was confident (in public anyway) and went into election day with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

Attlee as he headed in to vote on 5 July.

The Daily Mirror pre-election headline: subtlety was clearly not their strong suit!

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Polling Day, 5 July: Early Returns

Voters cast their ballots at Holborn in London, 5 July 1945.​

The early signs were not good for the Conservative-led National Alliance government. The earliest results – for seats that appeared would be clearly won by one side or the other, with likely margins of 10% or more – showed only 40 Conservative seats in the retained column. At the same time, Labour victories were called in 210 seats. [NB: as the war has been over in the ATL for some months now, there will not be a delay in counting and announcement of results until 26 July, which there was in OTL.]

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Polling Day, 5 July: The Swing Is On

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As more results came in [seats with a 5% or greater margin], it emerged that no more could be declared for the Tories, with those leaning their way being too marginal to call yet, leaving them still on just 40. Labour added another 60 to bring their tally to 270 – barely 50 short of being able to form a majority government, without needing the support of any of the 70 likely seats held by cross-bench parties.

Early results were being broadcast to an interested public. And the early news was not good for Churchill and the Tories.

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Polling Day, 5 July: Late Calls

A national swing of up to around 7% was being estimated – 3% more than that what had been predicted to put them in front of the Conservatives. But there was considerable local variation and in some crucial seats there had been some significant swings in favour of local Conservative candidates. 100 seats, most of them Conservative, were likely to come down to a margin of less than 2%.

Therefore, on the evening of the election it was clear Labour had won, and convincingly. By late that night, Churchill had clearly won another 60 seats, giving them 100 in the confirmed column. But another 100 went to Attlee, given Labour at least 370: enough to comfortably form a majority government. Churchill conceded that night.

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Final Results

In the end, 70 of the remaining 100 very marginal seats were declared for the Conservatives, giving them 170 in the new House of Commons. Labour secured another 30, to bring them up to 400: a landslide!

Total seats won and a comparison to the OTL 1945 result.​

Above is a summary of the party standings before and after the ATL election. The actual 1945 result is provided for comparison. As it happens, they have turned out quite close. In essence, the far right have managed to get the extra 30 seats that might otherwise have gone to the Conservatives.

Attlee celebrates his clear victory on election night, 5 July 1945.​

Spoiler: National Swing

The die roll for the national swing was 97/100! This turned the election into a landslide of very similar proportions to the real one in 1945. Art imitates life. And it meant election night was never going to be close.

The full results for the seats being contested directly between Labour and the Conservatives (under my simplified electoral model) showed a big range of very marginal Conservative seats they were lucky to retain – or in one case win – due to favourable local swings that just got them over the line. Though one of their safest seats (margin of 17.5%) fell to Labour with a 15% local swing on top of the national swing.

Seat by seat results.

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A New Government

The headlines the next morning said it all.​

After Churchill’s concession came his formal resignation as caretaker PM, after which Attlee paid a visit to the King that night, where he was invited (no doubt with a degree of private disappointment) by George VI to form a new government.

Attlee meeting King George VI in the early days of his premiership.​

Churchill, though re-elected to Parliament, stood down as Conservative leader soon after the election, with Eden endorsed unopposed as the new Conservative leader.

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Trouble in Palestine: August-November 1945

The World Zionist Congress, whose goal was to build an infrastructure to further the cause of Jewish settlement in Palestine, met in London in London in August 1945. On 13 August they approached the new British government to talk about the establishment of the state of Israel.

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Neither the new Labour PM Attlee nor Ernest Bevin (freshly reinstated as Foreign Secretary) were particularly interested in nor supportive of these approaches. If anything, they appeared to be leaning more towards support for the Arabs in the Middle East.

In the ‘Night of the Trains’ on 1 November, the Jewish Resistance Movement carried out a sabotage operation of the British railways in Palestine in one of its first operations. During the operation units sabotaged a network of railways around the country and blew up three British guard boats in Jaffa port and in Haifa, and a combined Irgun–Lehi unit attacked Lydda railway station, which is the key junction between the Haifa – El Kantara main line and the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway.

The ‘Night of the Trains’ in Palestine, 1 November 1945.​

An estimated 1,000 men were involved in the operations. Approximately fifty Palmach units, which included sappers and guard, severely damaged 153 points along the railway system in Mandate Palestine, primarily at railway junctions and bridges above them.

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Other International Developments: August-December 1945

While the new government focused primarily on setting their domestic reforms in progress, they also had to respond to events occurring overseas. On 20 August 1945 British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin condemned Soviet policy in Europe – specifically Denmark, Germany and Poland [more to follow in the Soviet update] as "one kind of totalitarianism replaced by another."

Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin – an experienced ‘old hand’ by this time due to his wartime service in the Unity government.​

Attlee made a worldwide broadcast on 19 September 1945 supporting the independence of India and stating that “never again would Britain make an imperial claim on that great nation”. [In OTL it was pledging independence, which Churchill had brought about early in the ATL through his defiance of international and Indian national will at the Geneva Conference. Attlee would have granted it now anyway.]

On 20 October the United Kingdom ratified the new League of Nations Charter. India followed suit on the 30th.

Having discontinued lend lease early in 1945 [more on that in the next US update], on 9 December 1945 the Dewey Administration in the United States granted Britain a reconstruction loan of about US$2.2 billion. Britain had sought twice that amount [what they were in fact granted in OTL], but general US reticence and the watering down of the special personal bond that had existed between Roosevelt and Churchill limited American appetite to bankroll the Allied leaders.

This sum would go only part of the way to fulfilling Attlee’s needs and would lead to a period not of hostility so much as ‘a slight chill’ in the otherwise good relations between the two countries. But all through 1945, Britain under both Churchill and then Attlee had begun to exert its ‘best efforts’ to bring the US more firmly into the developing Western group – at this stage, it was too early to call it a Western Alliance.

 

[DensleyBlair]

As reassuring as 400 Labour MPs is, 30 open fascists in the Commons is very worrying indeed. Hopefully they’ll all accidentally brutally stab themselves in the stomach while shaving the morning before the state opening and we can all get on with our lives in peace.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

On 20 August 1945 British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin condemned Soviet policy in Europe – specifically Denmark, Germany and Poland [more to follow in the Soviet update] as "one kind of totalitarianism replaced by another."

Oh pissarro off Bevin, you old cow snatcher. People will be comparing you to me...er...Stalin...for the next 70 years.

This sum would go only part of the way to fulfilling Attlee’s needs and would lead to a period not of hostility so much as ‘a slight chill’ in the otherwise good relations between the two countries. But all through 1945, Britain under both Churchill and then Attlee had begun to exert its ‘best efforts’ to bring the US more firmly into the developing Western group – at this stage, it was too early to call it a Western Alliance.

To be fair to the Amercians, the britsh haven't been bombed, barely fought, and don't have any large debts to pay aside from...Well...to the amercians. So really, the British should be the ones paying them, and they (probably) can afford to start doing so.

 

[roverS3]

Great to see the updates on post-war events and elections continue. Considering the starting position, which at least seemed significantly worse for Labour than OTL, it's impressive that they managed to get an even larger majority than OTL. Just goes to show that your methods do allow for the significant swings and surprises that do occasionally happen in real life elections. Of course, this means things for the UK will likely continue as mostly OTL, except for the fact that there has been much less destruction of it's cities. It might have been interesting to see how a notionally Churchill-led government would have done instead, hampered by conservative party divided between Eden and Churchill. Surely, such a government would be much more assertive in defending and maintaining the Empire, or what remains of it. The labour result means the differences are going to be more subtle, like the smaller reconstruction loan from the US, and maybe some pressures within the labour party, to move towards an alignment with a Comintern that came out of the war more successful than OTL.

As for Turkey, it seems like it's going to depend on how quickly they can start pumping and selling crude in large quantities. If they manage to get the money flowing in before there is too much upheaval in the UGNR republics I reckon Turkey could do well, using oil money to fund an oversized military and police force that can hang on to most of the neo-ottoman empire that is the Bucharest pact and the UGNR. The deal with Japan for them to help fund oil extraction is definitely a good start. Of course, this only works if corruption and embezzlement of oil money is kept to reasonably low levels, so you'd need to have leaders who have loftier goals than simply enriching themselves and their cronies. Of course, the most profit and stability is to be had in the long term from Turkey developing it's own oil industry so it doesn't end up paying a premium for foreign expertise in perpetuity. How a supra-national UGNR or even Bucharest pact government-owned oil-conglomerate would be called is a question that remains to be properly answered:
UGNRPC is rather clunky. Taking a leaf from the Saudi book, maybe Turkish Japanese Oil Company, shortened to UGNR Tujaco, which would be less offensive to the non-Turks in the UGNR than 'Turkish Petroleum'. United Republics Petroleum (URP)? Or just keep it simple and call it Gulf Oil (maybe with those same colours and racing liveries...) as most of the extraction is going to be happening around the Persian gulf anyway.

Japan is in a pickle. They were spread thin before Geneva. Having gotten more than expected, they now get to try and manage a massive non-Japanese population while it's armed forces are occupied staring down the Red Army over a piece of the Mongolian desert. Really, I concur with the others in saying that they need to swallow their pride and make a deal with the Soviets. Offer them all of Mongolia, maybe some border territories in Manchuria, in exchange for non-agression pact and non-intervention, as in neither party funds insurgents in the other's empire. Even then, it's not clear the Soviets would bite, because they are in such a strong position on the Eurasian mainland that they can just erode the Japanese empire from within over the decades, and there isn't that much the Japanese can do about it as going to war with this version of the USSR is clearly suicidal. The Japanese need friends, and both the Turkish and their sphere of influence and the Americans could be incredibly useful. The former to safeguard a plentiful and relatively cheap source of petroleum (maybe the Japanese can help the Turks build their navy), and the latter to pressure the Soviets into somewhat behaving themselves on the Asian mainland. The cold war is going to happen, even with the Comintern in place, and offering the Americans bases in Japan and Korea could be mutually beneficial and might even evolve into covert, or even overt, US support for Japanese counter-isurgency operations in China, and elsewhere, especially when the insurgents in question are funded by the USSR and/or Communist. After all this version of the IJA still has a massive punch and Japan hasn't demilitarised, so the IJA might end up being a much better ally against Communism in Asia than the South Vietnamese, or even the South Koreans. I could see a fanatically anti-communist US government in the '50s sending troops into China to help the IJA destroy Mao and root out Communism in China (or at least try...) maybe in exchange for part of China (probably the part 'liberated' with US support) becoming notionally democratic (but really with rigged elections and a vassal state to Japan and/or the US). That's probably the best scenario for Japan short of a deal with the Soviets which removes, at least, the threat of a Red Army invasion. As long, of course, as the US sees Communism as more evil than Japanese imperialism Japan might do very well for themselves.

Anyhow, I'm back up to date and looking forward to the next instalments of 'Talking Turkey: The Epilogue'