Chapter CXI: A Difference of Horizons
Chapter CXI: A Difference of Horizons
In the ongoing Anglo-French arguments about protectionism and parochialism 1937 provided the French with what they believed to be the winning argument. In a year full of ‘world’ fairs and international expositions the highlight was arguably the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition dedicated to Art and Technology in Modern Life). The exposition was essentially five months of festivals and exhibitions strung together, the result being generally agreed to be very heavy on the arts but alarmingly light on technology. Of all the arts present it was perhaps the ‘black art’ of propaganda that was most prominent, the Soviets and the Germans leading the way with their colossal pavilions that dominated the main exposition site. The British effort was frankly poor, not only in comparison but on a fundamental level, overshadowed not only by the other great powers pavilions but even by other pavilions from within the British Empire, the Canadian pavilion in particular attracted many an admiring comment due almost entirely to the efforts of the French-Canadian community who had pulled out all the stops to impress on their return ‘home’. This lack of effort was seen as proof positive in France that parochial Britons did not look beyond her own borders, and thus were entirely to blame for poor state of Franco-British trade. The British view was, naturally, somewhat different.
A view towards the Eiffel Tower, with the German pavilion on the left and the Soviet effort on the right. By virtue of their vast size (and the fact they were among the few structures to be finished on time) these pavilions dominated the event, turning much of the exposition into an ideological contest. The Soviet building was topped out by a sculpture, “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”, a couple marching forward with hammer and sickle aloft. Due to the layout of the exposition this meant they appeared to be marching from East to West, a quirk fully exploited by the German pavilion. The German pavilion was designed by Albert Speer on his usual colossal scale and was widely interpreted as a representation of Germany as a bulwark against the advancing Soviets, a trick Speer pulled off by illicitly obtaining a drawing of the Soviet pavilion months in advance and adjusting his design accordingly. Speer would leave Paris with a string of awards, not only for the German pavilion but, somewhat unfortunately for the French judges’ future reputations, a Gold Medal for his work on the Nazi party rally grounds at Nuremberg.
In their defence the British embassy in Paris, and their masters in the Foreign Office, resorted to a less than subtle ‘No, you are the parochial ones’ argument. While it was not a very imaginative approach to take, that does not necessarily mean it was incorrect. As mentioned earlier 1937 was a busy year for international expositions and world’s fairs; Nazi Germany was busily demonstrating quite how large it’s inferiority complex was, organising not one but two exhibitions directly in opposition to the Paris Exposition, while in the United States Dallas and Cleveland were doing their bit to prove that events more than a year long were a bad idea, both cities dragging out their respective 1936 Expositions into loss making second years. For our purposes it is the ill-named Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition that deserves attention, and not just for the irony of its name.
The Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition was certainly an exposition in Nagoya and the presenting nations were gathered from across the Pacific, however where it fell down was the ‘peaceful’ part. While the attendees managed to avoid actual war breaking out during the exposition, though not without some effort, within 12 months of the event ending those same attendees would variously be embroiled in two wars, have been involved in half a dozen border ‘incidents’ and would have seen their militaries ‘regrettably’ or ‘accidentally’ sink an alarming number of foreign warships. There was more to the event than merely being ironic in hindsight however, even at the time the absence of peace and goodwill was noted, as was the cause; the decidedly undiplomatic actions of the host nation. While blatant propaganda was par for the course at an international exposition, Japan’s choice to push both her expansionist Toa shin Shitsujo (New Order in East Asia) foreign policy and her aggressively mercantilist “Yen Bloc” trade policy managed to offend pretty much every foreign observer.
The battleship Mutsu at anchor in Nagoya harbour during the exposition. A Nagato class battleship she and her sister had been designed by the fatally flawed genius Yuzuru Hiraga and were the first Japanese battleships to be manufactured entirely in Japan. This, along with the large public subscriptions that had funded her construction, made her one of the prides of both the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Japanese public. After an extensive two year rebuild she had acquired the iconic ‘Pagoda’ mast, replaced her coal fired boilers with modern oil burning units and had incorporated the many lessons learned from the disastrous Tomozuru and Fourth Fleet Incidents earlier in the 1930s. In yet another breach of ‘good form’ the Mutsu and her fellow IJN ships were the only naval force present, the Japanese government barring any other nation from showing the flag during the exposition, yet another source of tension during the event.
In stark contrast to the dismal efforts of Paris the British pavilion in Nagoya had the full weight of both the Indian Office and Colonial Office behind it, with impressive results. This was not however a mere Westminster rivalry, both departments had motivations beyond ‘putting on a better show’ than their rivals in the Foreign Office, though that undoubtedly played a part. As Whitehall turned its attention to the Far East the efforts in Nagoya were intended to serve a variety of purposes; impressing the unstable but militaristic government of Siam, bolstering the efforts at corralling the Dutch into a defensive agreement in the Pacific to help replace the lost French Far Eastern forces and as a strong sign to Australia and New Zealand of London’s genuine interest in the region. To this end manufacturers, financiers and industrialists from across the Empire were encouraged to attend, with a special effort made to entice the nascent ‘Empire wide’ conglomerates such as Vickers, Imperial Chemical Industries, Ferguson-Brown-Massey and the trading powerhouse of Jardine, Matheson & Co. Even the cultural side was carefully judged, the artists involved asked to ‘consider’ the recent successes in the Abyssinian War as a source of inspiration, the resulting creations being dramatic, inspirational but above all unsubtle reminders of the fate of those who challenged the British Lion, or so it was hoped. In short it was everything the effort in Paris should have been but wasn’t.
The French government having decided not to make a strong effort in Nagoya avoided the embarrassment suffered by the British in Paris by the expedient of not even bothering to make a token effort. Quite simply there was no French pavilion at Nagoya or even an official ‘French’ delegation; instead the Governor-General of French Indochina sent a small delegation of officials and representatives of the many puppet ‘emperors’ that made up the colony. As with the British this was not an economic or logistical decision, for instance the Dutch government managed to put on a respectable show in both Nagoya and Paris, but a diplomatic choice. Heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War and still vigilant after the Rhineland affair the previous year Paris had decided to focus all efforts on Europe and l'Hexagone at the expense of the Far East. In contrast with Imperial concerns rising in Whitehall and a general disillusionment with Europe and European allies in the country Britain was increasingly looking to the Far East and disregarding the ‘continentalists’ pressing for re-engagement with Europe.
Despite their different directions both policies shared one key flaw; just because you ignore an issue does not mean the issue will ignore you. The ‘strike south’ faction of the Japanese military would not find Indochina any the less attractive if France ignored it, quite the contrary in fact. Equally while the British government, or elements of it, may have wished to disengage from Europe, that did not mean the powers, great and otherwise, of Europe would let go so easily.
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Notes:
An update! Sneaked onto the bottom of a page almost as if I didn’t want anyone to notice… I’ll be honest it wasn’t the dramatic return I hoped for, handily it isn’t the dramatic return so don't get your hopes up. I'm just tidying up an update I’d half written and needed to finish to clear the decks and complete part 2 of Franco-British relations.
The Paris Expo and the Nagoya Exhibition were both OTL events. The German and Soviet exhibits were both OTL as was the unfortunate architecture prize to Speer… The British effort in Paris was terrible, I saw one description of it as a cardboard box filled with cricket bats and a few nice books, and the Canadian effort was far better. Harder to find details on Nagoya, I do know Britain did attend with at least a half decent pavilion but France didn’t bother to go, instead sending a colonial delegation. TTL I’ve beefed up the British contribution to reflect Britain looking East more than OTL but kept France as distracted.
In true Butterfly Effect fashion I found out a string of interesting events I wanted to shoe horn in but couldn’t without doubling the size of the update. Instead I’ve gone for tantalising teases, hopefully, which I will try and expand on next time I have to write about the Japanese navy and Japanese economy.
Up next I'm disregarding everything I said before (sorry about that) and finally doing some plot for something other than Spain, which will be nice.
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