Skies Over London, 15 January 1925
Air Dominance.
It was a term Jin Jie had heard when he was in training, and it was a term that he had enforced in the skies.
If he was remembering correctly, it was an offshoot of Air Supremacy, with the idea being that if Air Superiority meant having a degree of dominance in the air battle that allowed one's side to perform operations unimpeded.
Which they could do, now that they spent the last month bombing anything and everything that so much as looked like an airfield, fuel depot, or a hangar.
Air Supremacy, on the other hand, involved having complete control of the skies.
That was where they were right now, because the last ten sorties came up empty. Either the British were holding back what was left of their air force, or the Accord might have outright destroyed them.
Either way, the rest of the Accord Air Force was free to start launching airstrikes, and they went everywhere. Bunkers, camps, barracks, it made no difference to the AAF.
As long as it wasn't civilian, it was fair game for bombing to hell.
Was it unfair? Absolutely.
Were they going to simply not exploit their advantage to its full potential?
Of course not.
Bridge of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, Scapa Flow, United Kingdom, 27 February 1925
This was a disgrace. There was no way around it.
Here Admiral Jellicoe was, on one of the largest ships in the Grand Fleet, and they were cowering in their harbor or on convoy duty in the North Atlantic.
At least the destroyers and cruisers can patrol the North Atlantic. We are here, stuck cowering behind the bloody isles we were trained to protect!
Yes, he knew full well why they were here rather than in the Channel, but it still frustrated him to no end. The Royal Navy was founded by wooden ships crewed by iron men, but this was little more than steel ships crewed by idle men.
Between them and the Kaiserliche Marine, there was little either of them could do while the Accord massed along the French coast. That, or end up like the IJN had over a decade ago, but neither he nor Admiral von Reuter had any interest in losing their fleet in a single night.
It was irritating, frustrating, and utterly boring, but the two of them knew full well that there was little else they could do to combat an invasion besides laying mines, building defenses, and guessing where the Accord would strike.
Bridge of the CNS Yushan, English Channel, 15 March 1925
This was the day they had all been waiting for, and everyone knew it.
Months of preparation, years of shipbuilding, and a decade of industrialization all came down to this moment, and Michael knew it.
The 6th Marine Division, his division, would be leading the spearhead onto the beach. It was almost familiar to him, as if he was embarking on the same mission he had over a decade ago.
Only if you forget the lack of landing craft, haphazard organization, and the fact that we had to ram fucking barges into the coast. Other than that, yeah, it's just like Guangzhou.
Except this time, he would not be going in the first wave with his troops.
No, that's Chiu's job now, Mike. You don't need to do everything this time.
Not anymore.
He still needed to tell himself that on occasion. Michael wasn't sure why, if he was being honest, but it was probably a force of habit from the days when he had to do everything, like he was some Call of Duty protagonist, rather than a senior officer.
Yet he still wanted to be there, in the thick of the action.
You also have a wife now, idiot. And two kids who will be very pissed if you get yourself killed.
Idiot.
Michael breathed and looked off the bow. He could see the swarm of jets and drones flying off towards the shore, followed by the landing craft.
The die was cast at this point, and Hastings would be the landing point for the invasion.
Little Haywood, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, 22 March 1925
On some level it was selfish of her to be happy that her husband had contracted trench fever and become weak and emaciated.
But it was better than the alternative, when the alternative was a life of paranoia and fear that any knock on the door could be news of her husband's death.
Yet he survived it all, from France to Belgium to the Netherlands. Her dear husband had endured it all, from trench warfare to airstrikes to poorly-executed gas attacks against an enemy that seemed almost-insurmountable.
And now he was here, safe at home. Emaciated and sick as he was, he would be far from the front.
"Better a man who could fight, Ronald," Rob Gilson had told her husband, before motioning to his missing leg. "And neither of us are those men."
Geoffrey Smith had told him something similar, though he was off in captivity in China, if his letters from the Red Cross were to be believed. It was a decent-enough captivity that treated him with dignity, but it was a captivity nonetheless.
Christopher WIseman, for his part, was off in the Atlantic protecting convoys.
"The safest job in the Royal Navy," he had joked in a letter one time, "Is protecting our ships from an enemy that may not be able to reach us."
For his part, Ronald was torn. He was no coward, but he certainly enjoyed the company of his wife and sons, with a particular adoration for young Christopher. The boy was barely a few months old, but he had devoted every waking second he could spare to his youngest son.
Truth be told, his war would likely be over at this point, so long as the British Army was not too desperate for manpower.
Skies Above Slough, United Kingdom, 25 March 1925
"Dragon 1 to all Apaches," Shannon announced into the microphone, "We're moving up north to Watford. Fall in behind me."
"Thanks for the assist," Michael told her through the radio, "Even if you guys were mostly on standby."
It was standard procedure, ever since the rest of the army was on this side of the Channel about a week ago.
Airstrikes, helicopter sorties, then the Army and Marines would roll in.
Not that there's much for us to do these days, since the Air Force spent the last few months bombing Britain to crap.
It suited her just fine. Less work meant an easier job, and an easier job meant a safer crew and fewer hours at her therapist when she got back.
"I'll add it to your tab. How much do you owe me, now?"
"Add the Revolution and Europe, then subtract being a godmother… Yeah, we're about even. Thanks again, Shan."
"Godmother, huh?" her wingman asked her, "How'd that happen?"
"Long story, Zhao. Focus on the mission."
"Right… Sorry. So, blow the crap out of everything so that 1st Armored can roll through?"
"Pretty much," Shannon yawned. "Airstrikes went over this morning, so we'll be sweeping up anything bigger than an MG."
"That thorough?"
"Affirmative," she said, before looking out the windshield to see what was left of the defenses… which largely consisted of a ruined trench and a soldier in the field waving a white flag.
"Well then," she muttered, before turning the radio back on. "Dragon 1 to all helicopters. Do not fire unless fired upon. Repeat: Do not fire unless fired upon. We have enemies surrendering."
Corcaigh, Munster, Free Ireland, 1 April 1925
Patrick Shannahan would say he's Irish, but he and his family had never set foot in Ireland for two generations, ever since his grandfather had fled in 1861.
Old Sean Shannahan had enlisted in the Union Army, fought a Confederacy backed by Britain, then settled in Boston like so many other Irishmen.
Which was how Patrick ended up here, in the Irish Republican Army, fighting a Britain that was backed by neo-Confederates back in America.
Now that he thought about it, his grandfather was probably having a good laugh up in Heaven about the irony of it all. Though in fairness, Patrick could at least take pride in the fact that he had to travel even further than his grandfather had to fight his war.
It all began back in 1922, when news had broken out that Klansmen were traveling up north to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the name of "Racial Solidarity" with their English brethren.
The Irish-Americans of Boston, Providence, and New York were… "less than pleased" about thousands of klansmen proudly marching through their towns as they headed up to Canada. "Cross-burning bastards," was a particular insult the locals had taken a liking to.
In response, several Irish-Americans decided that the only logical response would be to pool their resources together so that their own volunteers could fight the British as part of the Chinese Foreign Legion… even if the Embassy in Washington had not heard about it.
That said, the Chinese were more-than-willing to foot the bill and take them in. If anything, they were more than a little surprised to see that ten thousand Irish-Americans had jumped at the call to join the Foreign Legion, enough to form an entire "Irish Battalion."
The training had been tough, but the Chinese accommodations were only matched by the Irish Battalion's enthusiasm.
By July of 1922, they were ready to fight, and fight they did. First in India, then in Egypt and across North Africa, Portugal, then up to Brest.
There, they could look northwest to see their homeland, even if they had never set foot there. Morale was good, and they were soon joined by a second Irish Battalion formed from POWs and even more Irish-American volunteers.
"The Marines can have England," one of them joked over dinner one night, "But we will be the first to Ireland!"
"Count on it," one of the Marines' generals told them a few days later. Oddly enough, the man told them that after mass, since the Marines seemed to find the one Catholic guy from China.
Whether it was a gift from God or mere coincidence, it didn't matter. Once the Marines landed at Hastings, and the Army pushed west to Portsmouth, he'd kept his promise by ordering the Yushan to transport the two Irish Battalions to Cork and land there with the 66th Marine Expeditionary in what had to be the biggest anti-climax of their war so far.
The two Irish Battalions were armed to the teeth with rifles, body armor, helmets, and more vehicles than some of them had seen in their lives. They were, quite literally, ready to fight and die for a free Ireland.
The fighting lasted for half an hour, and the Royal Irish Constabulary had done the bulk of the dying during the bombardment.
Just like that, the Irish Battalions were in charge of the third-largest city in Ireland, a largely-welcoming population, and a surprising number of prisoners from America.
"Richmond, Virginia?" he asked the unit's captain. "What's a southerner doing fighting for the British crown?"
"What you claim to be doing, Paddy," the man spat. "Fightin' for my people."
"Listen here, gobshite," Shannahan growled, "The only thing we have in common's our home country and the language we speak. I'm here fighting for my people. You? You're fighting for your race."
"I don't see any difference between the two things," the captain shot back. The man motioned to the Chinese soldiers processing the British POWs. "That's why I'm here fighting with the Brits and you're over here fighting with a horde of slant eyed fucks."
"Then I guess that makes them 'My People,' too," Shanahan chuckled, before walking off to meet with the other Accord commanders."Better them than a tool like you."
The Fall of Britain, by Dr. Martin Li, Nanjing University Press, (1940)
Chapter 25: The Beginning of the End
While the Second Battle of Hastings could be seen as the end of the beginning of the fall of Britain, Operation Leveler (the subsequent offensive northwards) was the beginning of the end for the British.
While the 6th Marine Division had landed on the 15th of March and reached Southampton within days, the rest of the invasion force needed over a week to cross, organize, and break out from their southern beachhead.
On the 23rd, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Combined Armies broke through the British lines, soon followed by the bulk of the Army.
The First Combined Army, under General Michael Chen, moved to encircle London from the north and west with the 6th Marines and 1st Armored as the spearhead, followed by a motorized infantry force from the Chinese Army that.
They were then followed by General Chen Jiongming's (no relation) 2nd Combined Army, who exploited the breach in the Alliance lines to move westwards and secure Cornwall, while General Cai E's 3rd Combined Army and the French 4th Combined Army under General Maurice Gamelin moved northwards and westwards, respectively.
The sheer weight of the armored spearhead, as well as the subsequent encirclements and breakthroughs, had utterly destroyed what remained of the British and German Armies. Men who had not been bombed to bits were blasted by helicopters and tanks, and the survivors were left with the dubious compensation of encirclement and surrender.
While the Alliance high command had planned for the Mother of All Battles, the reality was little more than British, Benelux, and German troops surrendering to tanks, helicopters, and in one notable case, an unmanned drone.
Within three days London was encircled by the First Combined Army from the north and west and General Pyotr Wrangel's Russian Expeditionary Force from the south and east.
Within seven, the 3rd and 4th Combined Armies were at the outskirts of Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, with only open fields, mountains, and British stragglers between them and Scotland.
As if to add insult to injury, the Irish Battalions, the 66th Marine Expeditionary Force, and the reconstituted French Foreign Legion had made their way to Dublin, with the Chinese 9th Marine Division landing at Balbriggan to cut the British off from retreat.
This would be the end of the British Empire, and the Chamberlain government knew as much from the Cabinet War Room, the wartime bunker they had all inhabited ever since the Chinese and their allies had begun the invasion.
It is for this reason that on 5 April 1925, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour had begun meeting with Nanjing Accord representatives to negotiate the European Alliance's terms of surrender.
Diary of Michael Chen, 30 April 1925
I swear to God my life can be boiled down to, "And then I was put in charge of this, because there was nobody else qualified, and I was the next best thing."
I guess I can add "Oversaw the British Instrument of Surrender" to that pile now.
Now, I know I'm not one for pageantry, but I should probably add this for when Morgan and Lin inevitably go through my stuff when they get bored.
Yes, I know you are reading this.
No, I'm not mad, and you're not in trouble.
If I'm being completely honest, I suck at planning ceremonies. There's a reason Aki and I had Shannon plan my wedding, after all.
I guess that's one of the perks of being a general. Y'know… Not having to literally do everything.
And for what it's worth, the Navy guys did a pretty good job with Kensington Palace once the Army cleared it. Helps that the military adopted my policy on trophy-taking.
Which is a fancy way of saying "Don't take everything that isn't nailed down, especially anything you can use to shoot or blow up people."
Everyone was in attendance, and it was why it had taken so damn long in the first place.
Sure, you have to actually do the whole ceasefire and negotiations thing, but then you actually have to find a venue that Shannon didn't explode, roll in, secure the place, and fly in everyone from all over the planet.
After that, you need to find some old parchment because this is going in a museum.
Also, Aki and Marty would be pissed at me if I had them use printer paper, and I like having my best friend and being married, so that meant flying in parchment from France.
After that, it was all a matter of ceremony. I was there with the various generals from our side, while the British delegation walked in from the other side.
From the looks of them (and what Marty emailed me the night before), the big figures were Foreign Secretary Balfour, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, Admiral John Jellicoe, and Prime Minister Austen Chamberlain for the Brits, while General von Falkenhayn surrendered on behalf of the German government, General Luigi Cadorna on behalf of the Italians, and General von Hotzendorf for the Austro-Hungarians, and probably another half dozen other generals I honestly can't remember.
Yeah… it turned out that their countries technically didn't surrender, but they were the closest we had to Governments in Exile ever since their monarchs fled to Canada.
After that was our turn signing the document, and oh boy was that a thing.
I was the first one to sign for China, followed by General Wrangel signing for Russia, Admiral Okada Keisuke signing for Japan, General Gamelin signing for France, General Suleyman Sefik Pasha for the Ottomans.
Yeah, we were the "Big Four" of the Nanjing Accord, so it was no surprise we got to go first.
After that were Former Minister of Defense Park Jae-Hyun for Korea. General Rash Behari Bose of India, Provisional President Phan Boi Chau of Vietnam, and Major General Juea Kawakul of Thailand.
Also, it turns out you're supposed to sign your name with over half a dozen pens for historical purposes, or at least that's what Marty and Aki told me. They get two, while the rest probably go to museums with all the other crap I've taken as trophies over the years.
If they can fit it all.
No, seriously, the amount of stuff I've taken from people I've fought is probably larger than the stuff the British stole and put in their museums. From flags to swords to uniforms to bayonets to field guns to tanks.
Then there's the Spitfires and Fokkers we found in a hangar back in Munich.
Yeah… It's a lot.
And that's not even including the British and German fleets that were turned over to us. I swear to God, Marty practically had a heart attack when I told him the Brits had handed over the Dreadnought to us.
Between that and the British having to forfeit basically all the artifacts they stole over the years, he's probably having a field day.
Honestly, I'm pretty sure he's in their archives right now, looking for all the stuff they took from us.
Okay, maybe not Looty the puppy they'd stolen when they burned down the Summer Palace. Dog's long dead, and he and Rachel are probably looking for those bronze zodiac heads that were stolen.
Also, while I'm writing about this, who the fuck steals a dog?!
Don't get me wrong, Pekingese puppies are adorable, but why in God's name would you steal a dog?
That's like John Wick villain level stuff.
Anyways, I'm getting off-track. Where was I?
Right. The surrender.
Well, that about does it, if I'm being honest, unless you want to include the afterparty on the Yushan that is still going on as I write this.
I mean, I get why. The war's over, so now it's time to celebrate.
But I'm also writing this at two in the morning.
"Europe Could Not Win The Great War," Past and Present History, 1950
[Scene begins with Futurama's Anthology of Interest]
Professor Farnsworth: I've finished fine-tuning my What-If Machine. It can answer any What-If question, accurate to within one tenth of a plausibility unit. Who wants the machine to show them an alternate reality?
Bender: Ooh, ooh, I want to know [IF THE ALLIANCE WINS IF THEY HAD SOMEBODY SMARTER IN CHARGE].
[Professor Farnsworth pulls the string, and a video of the Chinese flag raised over London plays]
Farnsworth: Who else has a question for the What-If Machine?
Fry: I have one! [DO THEY WIN IF THEY MASS-PRODUCE THE CENTURION TANK]?
[Professor Farnsworth pulls the string, and a video of the Chinese flag raised over London plays]
Leela: Make that machine show what would happen if [IF THE ALLIANCE WINS IF THEY TOOK FRANCE]?
[Professor Farnsworth pulls the string, and a video of the Chinese flag raised over London plays]
Leela: That's so plausible, I can't believe it!
Narrator: People love rooting for the underdog, especially when they are anything but that. The Goliath wants to see himself as David, even when he is who he is.
Narrator: This translates to fiction, as well as non-fiction, although real life doesn't always have a story where the underdog wins. So there's this romanticism that comes with fighting for a lost cause that a lot of people apply to real-life groups.
Narrator: One of these groups is the European Alliance of the Great War. How they could have clinched victory from the jaws of defeat if General Haig wasn't in charge or different decisions were made.
Narrator: These are my favorite, "Here's how The Alliance Could Have Won" scenarios, and how they are wrong.
[Screen shows "Just Take Paris"]
Narrator: I hear this one all the time, that if the Germans, British, Italians, Dutch, and Belgians just marched on Paris and took it, the war would have been won, but there's barely any evidence. Even in the memoirs of German and British generals they love arguing that they could have capitulated France if they had just taken the capital in the chaos of the failed coup.
Narrator: The problem with this is that the France of our time is anything but the France of the Lost History, both militarily and socially. This is a country whose national spirit is rioting against authority, and they aren't about to throw up their hands and accept the OAS once Paris falls.
Narrator: If anything, they would have fought in the hills and countryside, just as the French Resistance had in the Lost History, or God forbid, the Yugoslav Partisans.
Narrator: This also ignores that there is a massive force on the Alliance's eastern front that almost-certainly wouldn't just lay down their arms and go home, even if the French did surrender.
[Screen shows "Get Smarter Generals Who Understand Modern Warfare"]
Narrator: This one always annoys me, because it boils down to "What if we had better generals?" Of course they would have performed better, but that's easier said than done.
Narrator: It also fails to understand how men like Haig and von Falkenhayn enthusiastically adopted modern weapons such as the assault rifle, tank, M2 Browning. Tabun gas, and their various fighter planes into a doctrine that they were rapidly-modernizing.
Narrator: They, plus many other generals, used these weapons during the invasion of France and the European Front. Yet so many generals talk about how their commanders were simply "Out of touch" and how the war could have been won if men like Cadorna, Haig, von Falkenhayn, and von Hotzendorf would have listened to their subordinates.
Narrator: The problem is that these men are the ones who these field marshals delegated to. They were the ones who executed the orders or even were in the field themselves. They were the ones who understood modern warfare, and by their own arguments they are the ones who should have been able to win the war on their terms.
[Screen shows "Just Build More Stuff"]
Narrator: This is one I used to believe in, because there is some truth to it. The Alliance industry was in many ways inefficient, with tasks that would have been automated by their opponents done by hand.
Narrator: Modernization happened everywhere. Not just in China, but in their downtime allies in Russia, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. After so many years since the Great Journey happened, there was no reason they couldn't import machinery, just as the Russians, Japanese, and Ottomans had.
Narrator: Although inefficiencies were mitigated year after year, it wasn't enough to fight an enemy with superior weaponry. So logically, the thing that should have been done is to mass-produce weapons in such a quantity that they could match the Accord's quality.
Narrator: The problem with this is that the Nanjing Accord had such a quality advantage over the European Alliance that the force multipliers of the former were more than enough to match the latter despite their numerical advantage. After all, it doesn't matter if you have ten times as many tanks if your enemy can just explode them with attack helicopters and aircraft.
Narrator: Losses are another thing I really want to point out as well, because there just wasn't enough operational experience for the European Alliance when the vast majority of their tankers and pilots would be blown up or shot down in their first few engagements.
Narrator: Tanks and aircraft need crews and pilots, but crews and pilots take a long time to train. And when the best people to train them are veterans with actual experience, then there aren't enough people to train the pilots and crews.
Narrator: Every tank crew blown up in their tank is four people who can't train the next generation. Every pilot who gets shot down behind enemy lines is one person who can't train the next batch of pilots.
Narrator: This leads us to a scenario where even if the European Alliance is able to build two, ten, or even twenty times as many tanks and planes, they wouldn't be able to train enough people to use them.
Narrator: This is something that just can't be remedied by increasing production efficiency. Either the Accord is able to destroy even more tanks and aircraft, or the Alliance just runs out of manpower.
[Screen shows "More Wunderwaffe"]
Narrator: No. For the love of God, no.
Narrator: In all seriousness, this is one of my favorite ones. If they made (INSERT WONDER WEAPON HERE), the war would have ended differently. And it's the idea that this thing."
[Screen shows Centurion tank]
Narrator: Or this thing.
[Screen shows Hawker Hunter]
Narrator: Or this thing.
[Screen shows a picture of a nuclear bomb]
Narrator: ...Would have somehow lengthened the war. The biggest examples of this are the Hawker Hunter jet fighter and the Centurion tank that, while technologically-sound, could not be produced in large enough numbers that they could turn the tide of the war.
Narrator: Even then, these "Wonder Weapons" that people keep bringing up have one key flaw that flew in the face of the entire concept.
Narrator: They would have been obsolete, anyways. Sure, the Hunter would have done well against a Spitfire or a Fokker, but a F-CK-1? Unless they want the Chinese pilots to die of embarrassment at their plane's name, there isn't much they can do when those poorly-named planes can blow them up from beyond visual range.
Narrator: Then there's the Centurion, which would be a step up from the tanks they or the Germans were using. But the same problem exists when the Chinese are fielding Leopards and their allies' hand-me-down modernized M60s still make them obsolete.
Narrator: Even if they could produce them in bulk, they still have to deal with the problem of training enough crews to somehow manage to survive against attack helicopters and guided bombs.
[Screen shows "The End"]
Narrator: These are just a few of the points that I have heard, but there are so many that are just as baseless.
Narrator: Like the argument that the Germans and British should have attacked Taiwan from Indonesia, despite the fact that neither the Royal Navy nor the Kaiserliche Marine could have controlled the seas long enough for the Chinese Navy to track them down and explode their fleet like it was the Japanese Navy in 1911.
Narrator: You'll see these guys bring up scenario after scenario that bends reality and technology to create a scenario where the European Alliance would win. The fact of the matter is that this is an alliance that is too-outgunned and too-outmanned despite the resources they had to handle an army that was over a century ahead of them in technology, thinking, and manufacturing.
Narrator: Basically, the European Alliance was dealt a bad hand, played it poorly, and then kept doubling down once it became clear that their enemies were playing for keeps.
Narrator: They were going to lose unless you could bend the laws of time and space so that future Europe also got teleported to the past, and I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen a second time.
Narrator: Probably.
