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Yeah, this Spanish regime doesn't have legs. Hell, it doesn't have spine either.
The Widening Gyre: The Great War and the Remaking of Europe
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QueenOfRoses
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I really like Argentina's left-caudillismo, I always find regimes founded by junior officers like that to be very fascinating if nothing else. Shame about Yrigoyen though
That's a rare South America W there, I think. Like, yeah, they're military juntas and that's not great, but they seem to be trying to do the best for their citizens and not just for the junta, so given how SA history OTL is largely a series of "and then they were shat upon from a great height" this seems like a marked improvement.
Shame about Spain, though.
Shame about Spain, though.
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The big difficulty for the next while for South America is that frankly Red (and Black) Europe is going to be kinda busy sorting its shit out. A significantly weaker (relatively) USSR post-WW2 was still able to provide some aid and stick its fingers into some parts of SA just to fuck with the US or counter US influence.
But there's also targets much closer to home. It's pretty clear that China and India are both places that have a much bigger potential payoff to poke your fingers in. Frankly if China and India both went red, then I think Communism just wins long-term as long as there aren't any major reverses?
But there's also targets much closer to home. It's pretty clear that China and India are both places that have a much bigger potential payoff to poke your fingers in. Frankly if China and India both went red, then I think Communism just wins long-term as long as there aren't any major reverses?
Great timeline, but I do have to point out the weird mistakes with the last post on the Argentina section. Firstly "Tragica Mes" is not how you'd say "Tragic month" in Spanish. It'd should be "Mes Trágico", since in Spanish you put the adjective after the noun instead of before it, and because month is a masculine noun. Then there's some uncharacteristically sloppy work in keeping the initial wrong terminology. "Semana Mes" is "Week Month", while "Res Tragica" is "Tragic Beef" (as in what you eat, not conflict). I assume those errors came from forgetting what to replace when you chanced the Semana Trágica from a week to a month and from trying to put the month (misspelled) and the tragic in the correct order, respectively. Also, for some reason, you wrote "new l Argentina", and I'm not sure what if anything was meant to go there, but I'm sure that l is not what you intended.
Aside from those mistakes that I felt obliged to point out, I really enjoyed reading the chapter. It's going to be quite interesting to see where things develop from here. I can see the left caudillos being a long-term problem for the US, since them trying to work with anyone will eventually make the US try to force them to stop negotiating with the communists and that'll probably backfire and pull them towards their camp. On the other hand, Sanjurjo's Spain feels like it's going to be an absolute quagmire that will cost quite a lot of blood for the European reds when they go to war with them, but I have the inkling that they get dealt with in the same conflict that will eventually crush White France.
Aside from those mistakes that I felt obliged to point out, I really enjoyed reading the chapter. It's going to be quite interesting to see where things develop from here. I can see the left caudillos being a long-term problem for the US, since them trying to work with anyone will eventually make the US try to force them to stop negotiating with the communists and that'll probably backfire and pull them towards their camp. On the other hand, Sanjurjo's Spain feels like it's going to be an absolute quagmire that will cost quite a lot of blood for the European reds when they go to war with them, but I have the inkling that they get dealt with in the same conflict that will eventually crush White France.
Curby
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Thanks for pointing out these rather...embarrassing mistakes and slip-ups. I'll make sure to correct them. Suffice to say, I did not do particularly well in my high school Spanish classes! Given that my partner actually speaks the language (and never tires of making fun of my own fumbling attempts to do so), I probably should have just consulted them.
Imperial Crisis and Imperial Renewal: Britain and her Empire, 1919-1923
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Curby
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I am happy to say that we are nearing the end of the First Revolutionary Era! There will be a final post on 1924 - the year of struggle - and then we will be off to the "Interregnum Period". Thanks again to all my readers. I'm really excited to get to the next part of the TL, where I'm hoping to write much more about everyday life, culture, and mentalities in this brave new world!
Imperial Crisis and Imperial Renewal: Britain and her Empire, 1919-1923
The world has become a lunatic asylum run by lunatics. We all must be on guard against infection by the general madness of the times.
-David Lloyd George
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
-Winston Churchill
Like the rest of us, I believed Winston Churchill to be a young man of promise, but it appears he was simply a young man of promises.
-Arthur Balfour
A wise man once said: there are times when everything must change if everything is to stay the same. In November 1919, the British world-system hung tenuously on the precipice. India was in open revolt. Egypt was aflame. A Eurasian behemoth was in the process of being born. London's vaunted financial position was under assault from across the Atlantic. The dominions, who had thrown their men into the meatgrinder of the western front, demanded that their soldiers be repatriated. The century-long project of domesticating the northern working class appeared to have unravelled.
And yet, four years later Britain would emerge triumphant from its seemingly terminal imperial crisis. Every point at which it at last appeared that the British system was collapsing into the abyss, it would be pulled back up - by luck, by outside assistance, or by the sudden and miraculous exhaustion of its manifold enemies. This is the story of how British power, perhaps the most reviled and ridiculed imperium of the 20th century, transformed and reconstituted itself. This is the story of how the despotic liberal-imperialism of the 19th century remade itself to confront the new world-order.
The field-marshals who led Britain through its era of crisis were outsiders. Not, of course, of the customary sort - not outsiders from society writ large, elements generally exogenous to the ruling class - but outsiders nonetheless, men who had broken with their party, who held strange and novel ideas. The two prime figures here are Winston Churchill and Lloyd George. The former was a lapsed welfare liberal, a Georgist at heart, who had left the party for principally opportunistic reasons. He had been offered a better deal by the Tories, who nonetheless distrusted his immoderate personality, demagoguery, and ideological flexibility. Then there was Lloyd George himself, a man who at one point had been universally recognized to be on the left-wing of the liberals, who had grown popular by introducing a "people's budget" that catered to the working-classes. In wartime, however, he had shown himself a staunch ally of the most hawkish elements of the government, and had not flinched at employing unconventional and extreme measures to keep Britain in the war.
Above all, what distinguished Churchill and Lloyd George was their unflinching readiness to transform and renovate the British state. Whatever ideological convictions they possessed, each was willing and able to revise them if it was necessary to preserve British power. Eventually, such naked hypocrisy and opportunism would catch up to both men - in fact, by the end of the First Revolutionary Era, neither would have a future career in politics. But the imprint they left on Britain was also never fully rubbed off.
The outsiders could not rule alone. The 1917 election had given a mandate to the conservatives, who won an absolute majority of seats. Churchill hardly had an iron grip over the party which had just recently invited him into government. He was forced to bring Curzon and Balfour into his "inner circle" to ensure the compliance of the backbenchers. Balancing this out somewhat was the presence of Alred Milner, a Georgist liberal with ambitious plans for imperial reform, and Leo Amery, a tariff reformer and welfarist conservative close to Churchill. These two men were also outsiders and iconoclasts ready to dispense with 19th century political dogmas and unceasingly build up the machinery of the British state.
The Crisis At Home
Britain, more than any other power in the Great War, possessed an enduring constitutional order which purported to guarantee the liberal freedoms of its citizens. When repression was ramped up, it was targeted first and foremost at the colonies. When the homefront began to strain, the state directed its efforts as much as possible through constructive propaganda rather than regressive violence. British Unions were permitted to openly recruit workers and were even included in war planning boards. At times haltingly, England attempted to live up to its liberal heritage.
This was, of course, a double-edged sword. Outright repression of labor action was not wholly avoidable. English unions, like those across continental europe, steadily moved to the left, albeit at a slower rate than in Germany and France. By the time of the November Revolutions, Britain had the highest rate of unionization on earth and a labor leadership that was ready to be finished with the war. The powerful miners and railwaymen unions had decided to affiliate outright with the Independent Labour Party. While this was not an orthodox marxist party, it was more radical than the mainstream Labour Party would ever be.
Nearly every union of note participated in the general strike of November 1919. Like in Germany, France, and Italy, the industrial action occurred organically, without the direction of politicians or union bureaucrats. Both openly insurrectionary and moderate elements of the labor movement participated. However, unlike in much of continental Europe, the union hierarchy gradually reasserted their control over the action and helped set determinate goals. Although nothing like the council movement emerged, there was a proliferation of local "strike committees" that had some role in pressuring the unions. The eventual program adopted for the strike was neither revolutionary nor merely reformist. In good English fashion, it threaded the needle between maximalists and moderates. Yet, in a sign of the radicalization of workers and unions alike, the demands were impossible for the British state to accept.
The most controversial goal of the strike was to end the militarization of society and place Britain once again on a peace-time footing. This meant, first and foremost, the demobilization of the army down to its pre-war strength of 200,000 men, down from the current number of a little over 3 million. This would mean the end of British rule in India and perhaps even the termination of Britain's status as a world power. It was also an act of solidarity with their European brethren: with the British Army demobilized, the revolutions unfolding across the Central European plain could proceed without outside interference. In addition to this, the unions demanded that wartime wage arbitration boards be made permanent, universal suffrage be instituted, and major industries be nationalized.
Under the terms of the emergency acts, the British military was deputized to provide supplies and work in the factories. Across a swathe of the midlands and the northern industrial belt, however, something closer to an insurgency prevented the resumption of industry. Loyalist soldiers were directed to restore public order, and hundreds of thousands suspected of socialist sympathies were temporarily interned upon their return home.
The Churchill-Lloyd George government practiced a twin strategy of repression and concession. Churchill publicly promised an extension of the suffrage, the expansion of the British welfare state, and a "partial demobilization" of the army while simultaneously passing draconian legislation that permitted the government to engage in a broad-ranging crackdown on worker's organizations that continued to participate in the strike. Unions were warned to "desist" from their ambitious demands or face official government sanction. The official press organs of the labour party were targeted for their support of the strike.
Such measures would have been unthinkable in peacetime. Churchill only had the political capital to engage in repression of such scale because of the red panic. England had one of the largest and most radical networks of middle-class activist organizations, but almost to a member, these agreed to support the Churchill ministry in this time of "national emergency". These included groups such as the Union of Democratic Control, which counted amongst its number actual socialists. Those who dissented from these decisions, such as Bertrand Russell, would go into exile in the new socialist states.
Haldane's liberals adopted an equivocal position, both condemning the strikers and the excesses of Churchill's response. They tried to position themselves as a "loyal opposition", and pointedly refused to endorse any "extra-parliamentary" action against the government. Historians still are uncertain whether a more robust Liberal line on the matter would have expedited their eventual return to Whitehall or simply rendered them even more unpopular during the time of emergency.
The crackdown on radical worker militants demoralized many of the smaller unions outside of the "triple alliance" of miners, railwaymen, and transport workers. A devastating blow was struck when Churchill agreed to demobilize two and a half million soldiers. In doing so, the government chose to prioritize the economic recovery and the establishment of social peace over the colonial war abroad. By flooding British cities with demobilized soldiers, a new labor reserve was created that employers could substitute for the strikers. The funds of the unions began to run out by April and the pressure was eased on employers. Of course, the spike in unemployment led to its own form of social unrest, and necessitated additional expansions to police power.
The carrot came along with the stick. Churchill and the liberals passed an election reform bill that extended the suffrage. Under the existing franchise, around 40% of the adult male population was excluded from the vote by wealth and property requirements. The bill granted a number of selective exemptions to these; the male suffrage was expanded from 5.2 million men to a little under nine million. Around 20% of men were thereby given the right to vote. Overwhelmingly, these were voters inclined toward the labour party. To counterbalance the inclusion of an additional section of the working class, an infamous "female suffrage" bill was paired with it. This selectively granted suffrage to around 4.7 million women, predominantly from the upper and upper-middle classes. Not unintentionally, the new electorate was more conservative than the one before it.
The appearance of reform was nonetheless sufficient to quiet some of the already discouraged worker militants. By the middle of the year, not only had the three main labour unions surrendered to their bosses in a feeble attempt to preserve the employment of their workers, but the British economy as a whole had begun recovering at an astonishingly rapid clip. The great irony is that British recovery rested principally on war-time economic decisions adopted under great duress. By floating Sterling and removing itself from the gold standard, the British government allowed itself to spend freely and embark upon an inflationary monetary policy. As American businesses struggled under severe price deflation, Britain was able to jumpstart industry with public money. The resulting depreciation of Sterling hyper-charged the recovery of export industries.
Perhaps most instrumental to British recovery was the parlous position of Britain's traditional competitors. Over the past half-century, British export industries struggled under the continuous assault of more highly capitalized European and American competitors. In the space of a little under a month, financial crisis and social revolution eliminated the main threats to British manufactures, while the ever-present threat of cheap Japanese goods was obviated by the American blockade. For several years, British manufacturers enjoyed a global position which they had not possessed since the very beginning of the industrial revolution. Lancashire textiles and Midland machine tools once again flooded every corner of the world. The only barrier to even greater industrial expansion was a lack of ready domestic capital; Britain had consumed most of its reserves in the wartime era. This would have to be built back up internally, but for now economic expansion helped to combat the scourge of unemployment, and - perhaps even more importantly - once more endowed the government with a reserve of money to supply the army and placate the masses.
The Crisis Abroad
There was, of course, still a world to be won. Economic recovery at home would mean little if the imperial system shattered. The prime strategic thinker in the Churchill-Lloyd cabinet was Alfred Milner. According to Milner, Britain's essential strategic dilemma was not substantially different at the end of 1920 than it was over the final years of the Great War, when German troops threatened France. If Paris fell, a eurasian heartland dominated by a German hyper-power would threaten the exposed flanks of Britain's eastern empire. The battle would inevitably shift from Europe into Africa and South Asia. After German land-power cut the commercial arteries of British Empire in the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal, Britain would lack the means to continue waging war.
Of course, Britain now faced a much greater and more threatening combination of power, a German-Russian hegemony with the capacity to bear down on all the outposts of empire. The frenetic expansion of British territory in the First Revolutionary Era - the extension of a protectorate over Tibet, the formalization of British sovereignty in Constantinople, and the addition of Palestine and Lebanon - must be understood as a response to this perceived threat. The previously informal control which the Empire exercised over its forward outposts had to be bolstered and fortified.
The priority given to this project is a testament to Britain's faith, perhaps not entirely warranted, that India would return to the fold. Even as the Indian Republican Army streamed into the Central provinces in 1920, tens of thousands of British troops continued to garrison Constantinople and thousands more guarded the new acquisitions of Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, many of them sent in to replace mutinying Indian soldiers. That this gamble ultimately proved foresighted should not obscure the fact that it was indeed a gamble.
How did Britain pay for this global war? Even taxes from the ballooning export industries could not meet the full bill. The short answer is that Britain received close to a blank check from its new American financiers. The American government extended additional loans in sterling to Britain, which were then inflated away over the next half-decade. While the Anglo-Indian war was largely viewed as a regrettable necessity by the Americans, the ambitious project of colonial expansion was looked upon with far greater skepticism. Yet America continued to bankroll it.
To many diplomatic historians, this has appeared to be a truly unprecedented situation. America in effect poured money into the British Empire at a time when it was itself in the midst of an economic depression and at war with another major power. Less than a year ago, of course, the two nations had been at the precipice of war over the China issue. It is admittedly difficult to make out precisely how such a policy could be made out to be in the American interest; without it, it is almost certain that American exports would have been more competitive and the American economy recovered more rapidly.
A number of the American diplomats who participated in the Atlantic negotiations have compared the experience to negotiating with a mental patient who has taken themselves hostage. Britain threatened that without an immediate infusion of loans, India and then undoubtedly all of Southeast Asia would fall unceremoniously into the hands of the reds. Britain itself would succumb to social revolution. America would then be forced to foot the bill of paying for a global, unilateral war against the reds. Better to pay up while it was still cheap. The American diplomats, swept up in the mood of popular anti-communism, appeared to buy this argument wholesale. They gave the British astonishingly generous terms and secured astonishingly few concessions. Eventually, British warnings of imminent implosion would be less persuasive, but this ploy would be successful for another few years.
The British pleas were granted credibility by the deteriorating political situation in the dominions. While none of them withdrew from the British system outright, they insisted on a drastic reduction of responsibilities. Britain had no real means to prevent the repatriation of dominion soldiers, as useful they may have been in Constantinople or India. Dominion politicians excused their new stinginess by referencing the domestic political situation. While no genuinely revolutionary governments came to power in the dominions, populist movements did threaten to upend the political order. On the Canadian prairie, for example, a progressive-isolationist farmer's party attracted enough of the vote to force the Liberals and Conservatives into coalition. In Australia, Labour easily retook power from the conservatives and pursued an independent foreign policy in which closer relations were forged with America. South Africa reeled as gold prices deflated and nearly elected an Afrikaner Republican government. Repairing relations with the dominions would take time.
British power backstopped by American money nonetheless expanded apace. Increasingly, the empire took on a more than merely "British" character. Many aristocratic and colonial elites from France, the Netherlands, and Italy arrived in Britain, preferring it to democratic America. The most significant factor in the "internationalization" of Empire, of course, was the addition of the new "foreign colonies." The most significant of these was the territory formerly known as the Dutch East Indies. In the pre-war era, this was one of the most profitable possessions on earth, widely admired as a "model colony". The Dutch royal family left England to form a government-in-exile in Batavia in early 1920. A wave of conservative exiles from the Netherlands followed them. By 1924, around 650,000 white dutchmen lived there, well over double the pre-war population. They were drawn relatively painlessly into the British world-system. Already dependent on British naval power, the Dutch government agreed to accept protectorate status and adopt the pound in return for promises of local autonomy. Similar arrangements existed in French Indochina and Madagascar. These new possessions gave Britain control of over 90% of the world's rubber production and helped reinforce the Sterling bloc.
A common pattern can be discerned across Britain's economic and imperial recovery. Despite internal British weakness, the exhaustion and disarray of its main competitors permitted it to consolidate its power and extend its influence. Britain's centrality in the capitalist world-system meant that America felt obliged to prop up its finances to slow down the global revolutionary wave. British flexibility and naval power gave local colonial elites incentive to bargain with and join the British system. Somehow, the imperium emerged from the decade of war not only intact, but enlarged, though it would now have to share the stage with the world's three other great powers.
Political Change and Renewal
Whatever the extent of domestic repression, Parliament would remain in session, a testament to English liberty - or, depending upon one's perspective, the illusion of it. Once the strike was put down, the public soured on the anti-bolshevik crusade quicker than it did the anti-German one. While a broad consensus emerged in defense of retaking the colonies, there were already in 1921 growing calls for more of the army to be demobilized. A new brand of literature, quite popular with the liberals, accused Churchill of constructing a "totalitarian" military state along the same lines as the Soviets. Sporadic protests, largely middle-class in character, continued to erupt against rationing.
By this point, the main opposition force to the government was J.B.S. Haldane's liberals. Macdonald's Labour Party had attached its fate to that of the strike; in doing so, they had incurred the wrath of both their middle-class liberal coalition partners and the state. Their parlous political situation in the last three years of the First Revolutionary Era is demonstrated by their abysmal performance in most by-elections. Haldane's liberals, on the other hand, were at last beginning to win back some of the support lost during the general strike. Their decision to sit in opposition since the very beginning of the war was once dismissed as unpatriotic, but many now believed it to be prophetic. Perhaps if the entire liberal party had joined them the current era of bloodletting would never have begun.
The anti-georgist liberals were hardly a unified ideological camp. On the right were the followers of the previous prime minister H.H. Asquith: free-trade, reforming liberals whose principal opposition to the conservatives and georgists was the ballooning size of government under their rule. They were as liable as any to react with horror to the spread of bolshevism. While they once controlled the liberal party, they were now a dying breed: the new world did not align with 19th century liberal pieties. British industry had benefited from protectionism, and the new military industries and state bureaucracy was here to stay. There would be no returning to the politics of yesteryear.
In the new centre of the liberals sat its new leader, Richard Haldane. He was a perhaps unlikely figure to lead a major party. Born in Edinburgh, he came from a religious family, and was one of the few party leaders educated outside the Oxbridge system. He attended the Edinburgh Academy, the University of Gottingen in Germany, and then the University of Edinburgh, where he completed an MA degree in philosophy. He was offered a place at Balliol College, Oxford, the center of ethical-reformist British neo-hegelianism, but decided instead to pursue politics and law. After winning election to parliament in 1880, he became a key ally of Edward Grey and H.H. Asquith. Although closely acquainted with the leading figures of the Fabian socialists, he maintained a distance from their politics. Their influence could perhaps be seen in his vociferous defense of Lloyd George's welfarist People's Budget.
When war in Europe broke out, most who knew him expected Haldane to rally to France's defense. He had been instrumental in reforming the army and preparing it for a possible continental intervention. Though rumours proliferated that he was a secret Germanophile due to his dalliance with the idealists and connections with German businessmen, in reality he had little desire to see Germany supplant Britain as the leading world-imperial power. During the July crisis, Haldane favored attempting to diplomatically de-escalate the situation, but he also urged Asquith to mobilize the army in case the worst came to worst. When war finally did break out, however, he was determined to wash his hands of it. The Serbian atrocities in Albania still weighed on his mind, and there was not much of a place for him in a government without Asquith.
Asquith himself was an exhausted and beaten man who regretted his own betrayal of "liberal ideals" during the July crisis. Leadership of the party slowly passed to the philosopher-politician. Compared to Asquith, Haldane represented a more radical, populist, and aggressively reforming liberalism. There were more than a few similarities between his politics and that of Lloyd George. The key distinction separating the Georgists and the opposition liberals thus quickly became war policy. Faced with an overwhelming surge of patriotic sentiment, Haldane initially did not criticize the war itself, but the government's prosecution of it. He advocated for Britain to act as it did in the Napoleonic wars: financing its allies, blockading its opponents, and securing the sea-lanes of Empire and its vital chokepoints. He gained a loyal following among the anti-conscription radicals, men such as Leif Jones, William Llewelyn Williams, R.D. Denman, and Joseph King.
Haldane's opposition to the "totalizing measures" of the government also won him support amongst the noncomformist middle-classes and parts of the working-class still not aligned with the labour party, but it also precluded his opposition liberals from serving in a wartime ministry. The 1917 election delivered a mixed verdict on this political strategy: on the one hand, Haldane's liberals eclipsed those of Lloyd George's, and his faction won the overwhelming majority of seats in which the two two contenders were liberals. On the other hand, both liberal factions together won a paltry 37% of the vote, their worst showing in British history.
1917 British Parliamentary Election
| Party | Party Leader | Vote | % | Seats Before | Seats Won | Change |
| Conservative | Bonar Law | 1,703,812 | 43 | 271 | 368 | +97 |
| Liberal | David Lloyd George | 551,975 | 14 | 150 | 74 | -76 |
| Labour | William Adamson | 394,255 | 10 | 42 | 51 | +9 |
| Independent Liberal | Richard Haldane | 906,786 | 23 | 122 | 94 | -28 |
| Sinn Fein | Eamon de Valera | 173,472 | 4.4 | New Party | 70 | +70 |
| Irish Parliamentary | John Redmond | 105,506 | 2.6 | 74 | 10 | -64 |
The relative growth of the "Independent Liberals" did permit Haldane to become the de facto leader of the party as a whole. Leading newspapers such as the Westminster Gazette and The Nation began referring to Lloyd George's followers as "Georgists" or "Coalition Liberals" and his opponents as simply "Liberals". The decline of George's parliamentary clout meant that he could now be excluded entirely from government. For a few years, under the Bonar Law ministry, George joined the backbenchers, though his organizational skills and work ethic were sorely missed even by many conservatives. Even while out of government, Whitehall frequently consulted him. When Churchill finally came to power in 1919, he invited the Georgists both for their deep knowledge of the new state bureaucracy and as a counterbalance to the more traditionalist conservatives.
During the course of the First Revolutionary Era, the liberals grew more, rather than less ideologically heterogeneous, serving as a big-tent party for all who opposed Churchill and George's governance. Complaints included "overweening colonial expansionism", "the erosion of English liberties", the "metastasis of the state", and the "destruction of England's finances". A significant "patriotic" section of the Labour party joined them in 1920. The prominence of many leading Liberals made it difficult for the government to suppress their primary organs of dissent.
The revived Liberal Party would soon find the Churchill-George coalition shoveling political capital into their hands. The oppositional press, which had remained dutifully quiet in 1920, burst into action after the initial threat of a socialist takeover dissipated. Despite America's more explicit "constitutional" commitment to free speech, English civil society remained far more active and censorship much more narrow. Attempts to expand it during the First Revolutionary Era were met with elite outrage. The Manchester Guardian, once a solid ally of George, became the main organ of the opposition and unearthed scandal after scandal. The first came in April 1922, when it was revealed that Britain had conspired with the Turkish archenemy to suppress an Arab revolt in the Levant. Troops ostensibly positioned to guard against a Turkish attack into Egypt had, in fact, been primarily stationed in the area to suppress Arab nationalism in Palestine and Lebanon. Luckily, the anti-british local notables could never quite manage to cooperate fully with the restless Fellahin. Another report later that month demonstrated that British officials had wide-ranging knowledge of Greek atrocities being committed against Turkish civilians, and had acted to hide such information from the British population. Dismissals of junior officials followed, but the scandals did not. A number of documents published in August, related to ongoing peasant unrest in Burma, purported to show that the Churchill government had refused to negotiate with the eminently reasonable demands of the local elite and thereby been forced to station additional troops in the area.
The most shocking revelations arrived in September. Junior government ministers in the India ministry wrote an open letter, published in several leading newspapers, which accused the government of ignoring their counsel and pursuing an overly intransigent policy during the first weeks of the First Revolutionary Era. The present Anglo-Indian war, they suggested, may have been avoided. A parliamentary inquiry and the resignation of several cabinet members soon followed.
The Irish issue also haunted the conservatives. In 1922, a treaty was signed granting Ireland dominion status after two and a half years of war. Yet almost immediately, civil war broke out between the various Irish Republicans. Assisted by Dutch and German arms smugglers, "Anti-treaty" forces dominated by red militias quickly gained the upper hand. Dublin once again was lost, and Britain was forced to divert soldiers to the theater once again to shore up the position of the pro-treaty forces. Once more, accusations were levelled that conservative intransigence and bellicosity had needlessly increased the costs of empire and inflamed socialist radicalism. Liberals denounced Churchill - and now George - as the unwitting allies of the reds.
Under increasing pressure from within his own ranks, Lloyd George finally stepped down from the Churchill ministry in early 1923, bringing his dwindling group of supporters back into Haldane's camp. The enlarged opposition liberals began agitating for elections. Under the emergency act passed after the November Revolutions, the government was not obligated to call them until the end of Britain's imperial crisis. Although the reds raced across Europe in 1923, liberals argued that with victory in the Anglo-Indian War and the settlement of the Irish conflict, the time had arrived for Britain's first elections in over six years. Churchill's hold on power wavered as conservatives worried that keeping him as prime minister for any longer would do permanent harm to the party's reputation. The dam finally broke when news leaked of British support for Roman Dmowski and the details of the Jewish ethnocide became undeniable. The Jewish-British conservative Leo Amery, one of Church's closest allies and a thus far quiet skeptic of his Balkan Policy, left the government and called for Churchill's resignation. Leading Jewish Tories such as Lionel Rothschild and Philip Magnus soon joined him. Fifty-eight conservatives combined with all of the liberals to demand elections, and in December they repealed the emergency act. Churchill vowed to stay on until elections were held. A no-confidence vote narrowly failed, with more than twenty conservatives defecting.
1924 British Parliamentary Election
| Party | Party Leader | Vote | % | Seats Before | Seats Won | Change |
| Conservative | Winston Churchill | 2,822,714 | 31 | 368 | 186 | -182 |
| Liberal | Richard Haldane | 4,370,654 | 48 | 168 | 398 | +230 |
| Labour | Ramsay Macdonald | 1,730,050 | 19 | 42 | 83 | +41 |
The scale of the drubbing became clear as soon as election results came in. The 17-point victory margin was the largest since Gladstone's first victory in 1868. Privately, conservatives found some reasons for optimism. Haldane had campaigned on a widely popular platform of imperial retrenchment and peace-making, and yet still failed to reach a majority of the vote. A predicted surge in support for Labour largely failed to materialize; many of its core voters were still discouraged from the events of 1920. Churchill directly lost his seat, absolving the party of a potentially ruinous leadership fight, and the various factions of the liberals had already begun squabbling over the apportionment of cabinet ministries. Conservative strength in Southern England and the failure of the Liberals and Labour to reach an electoral pact also permitted them to hold onto an unexpectedly large number of seats.
While the conservatives searched for silver linings, the Liberals celebrated. Haldane had an ambitious reform agenda to implement: this included a further expansion of the suffrage, the extension of welfare measures, and, most crucially, a program to devolve more autonomy to the colonies and reduce the costs of Empire. Echoing the lines of Milton's Areopagitica, Haldane spoke before Parliament on January 21st. Not a natural orator, he delivered the speech rather awkwardly, but it nonetheless received thunderous applause from England's new governing party:
"People of England! Consider the nation of which you are part, and which you have entrusted us to govern: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, eager to invent and to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point that human capacity may soar to. Why else was this nation chosen before that of any other to sound forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe? Behold now this vast city: a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war does not have more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defense of truth, then there be pens and heads, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas to meet the challenges of this new world.
And if the prior government of this nation has attempted to wind up the activity of our minds and dim the torch of liberty, we now signal our intention to release it from its self-imposed bondage, to bring to this nation a liberty which will be at home in our brave new world. The tide of despotism which has swept over Europe shall not be permitted entrance to these shores! Never shall this nation's parliament become a foreign and a Prussian beast, unshackled from the rightful demands of Britain's people. No longer shall we lower ourselves to alliance with petty tyrants and oppressors, no more shall we besmirch the name of Britain with the crimes and outrages of men who have no love of English liberty. Our island's security, and the perpetuity of this great empire, will only be fully achieved once honor and good sense are restored to the administration of this government. I ask that you grant me your faith and support as I embark on these tasks. This may be a trying time for this empire; demagogy and madness have overtaken Europe, and many have begun to doubt the creed of liberty. Yet I am without doubt that, as it has countless times before, this great nation will persist through all challenges, and that the English race shall endure."
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Gladsome
VOULL NE XATA VOK, MARA LOHK?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
On the other hand, this will hopefully avoid British Labour becoming thoroughly entangled in the maintenance of the British Empire.
1924: The Year of Struggle (Part 1)
New
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
1924: The Year of Struggle (Part 1)
…But let us not intentionally obscure a clear state of affairs: the extraordinary pastness of our story results from its having taken place before a certain turning point, on the far side of a rift that has irrevocably sundered our lives and consciousness. It takes place, or, to avoid any present tense whatever, it took place back then, long ago, in the old days of the world before the Great War, with whose beginning so many things began whose beginnings, it seems, have still not yet ceased. We who have made it to the other side must look back at that old world as something entirely different, as a dreamworld whose illusions now appear to us in a wholly different and far crueler light...
- Thomas Mann
At long last, at long last, the guns have gone quiet, the world's people may rejoice at their deliverance from violence, and yet, and yet, as we today settle down, as we set upon the task of reconstruction, who can say what the future will bring? It lies somewhere over the horizon, far out of sight, and it shakes like the graven earth pounded by shells, wracked by the mournful dead. This terrible mix of hope and foreboding will render us all restless for at least another decade.
- W.H. Auden
One cannot tell in these times if one is fully awake. The previous day, when I woke up, I was still haunted by the apparitions and shades of the departed, which visited me during sleep; upon reading the newspaper, however, my head started to pound and I began wondering whether it was, in fact, the visions of sleep which bore the true stamp of reality. Growing dizzy and confused, I made my way back into bed, where I promptly fell into another restive and tormented slumber.
-Gerhart Hauptmann
Excerpt from alternatehistory.com thread: "WI: No Stockholm Armistice?"
bigeric said:
Thalmannian said:
Bigeric said:
Thalmannian said:
ladfromthenorth said:
GroverClevelandthe2nd said:
Bigeric said:
ladfromthenorth said:
Excerpt from Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System V: Capitalism's Forty Years' Crisis and the Rise of the Socialist Alternative (Rome: University of Italy Publishing Confederation, 1978)
If 1914 inaugurated the 40-year crisis of the capitalist world-order, 1924 concluded its first phase. The lineaments of the new global system, which had already emerged in the last months of 1919 but still appeared in flux, finally solidified and were frozen in place. For some time, the politicians and businessmen at the heart of the capitalist world, ensconced in London, Washington, and New York, had imagined that it would still be possible to rollback the revolutionary wave and restore "order" to Europe. But in 1924, even as they won victories on the battlefield, they exhausted their political capital. Continuing risked another outbreak of social unrest. They were forced to make peace with their socialist adversaries.
For their own part, the socialists had to give up dreams of imminent "world-revolution". The revolt on the peripheries had been extinguished, at least for the time being. Anglo-American power, protected by vast oceans and powerful navies, had entrenched itself across East and South Asia. Even the effort to reach the Eastern Atlantic and thereby outflank the English Channel failed. Continuing to wage an increasingly attritional war in France would only exhaust the resources required to rebuild Europe. Even ultra-left maximalists started to speak of the need for peace and negotiation. The merits of the socialist system would prove themselves in time, and the new world would surpass the old.
Peace did not come immediately. It was preceded by another round of extraordinary violence. France would be the setting of the twilight struggle of the First Revolutionary Era. This was predictable enough. The loss of the Balkans stung hard, but it was not a strategically vital region for the Anglo-American bloc. France, on the other hand, was viewed as a vital bulwark of "Atlantic", capitalist civilization. A red victory here would render Britain extraordinarily vulnerable to German submarines and reduce the white foothold on continental Europe to Iberia, Greece, and Constantinople. Even amongst the politicians of the more pacific Haldane ministry, this was felt to be unacceptable. But it was America which led the way.
Over the first two months of 1924, some 300,000 American troops landed in the ports of France, supplementing the 80,000-man American expeditionary force already present. They helped oversee the (largely) bloodless coup of the right-wing catholic General Del Castelnau, who replaced Clemenceau as Prime Minister in February. The French Worker and Soldier's Republic had already undergone a far more violent power struggle in 1923, when a contingent of some 20,000 red soldiers seized control of Paris and demanded a "soldier-friendly" government. After the city's soldier's councils endorsed the call, Oscar-Frossard resigned. Marcel Cachin, a civilian who had nonetheless shown himself a consistent champion of the army, became the new prime minister. He was forced to appoint a number of former soldiers to his administration, most notably Henri Barbe and Pierre Celor. A sizable contingent of politicians from the previous government were nonetheless allowed to remain on, largely to ensure good relations with their benefactors to the east.
The new administration refused to believe the ample reports of an American build-up. Against the advice of long-time socialist ministers, the government rejected German and Soviet requests to station around 100,000 additional troops in the Paris area, worrying that they would be used to bolster a growing worker's opposition in the Loire Valley. The main body of the foreign troops were thus forced to remain in the distant and strategically secure Alsace-Lorraine.
The brunt of the American assault was directed out of white-controlled Limoges, toward Poitiers, Tours, and Nantes. Another force of around 150,000 American soldiers and marines would land in Northern France, principally in Pas de Calais, though secondary landings were also planned in Normandy. By this point, the northern districts had been largely stripped of their garrisons as the Red Army (along, to be fair, as its white counterpart) steadily shrunk. The first landings occurred nearly unopposed in early March; the French Red Army had discounted the possibility of an amphibious invasion, believing that any offensives would be spearheaded by soldiers of the rival government, which lacked amphibious warfare capacities. As part of the operation, several German cruisers and submarines were attacked while in port. The majority were sunk outright, but several were damaged and captured by American soldiers. In response, German submarines sunk several American merchant vessels en route to British ports. The escalation appeared to end there, despite pointed American silence at the German request to return several captured cruisers and offer compensation for the sunk ships.
Yet the "quasi-war" would only continue to heat up, risking additional direct encounters between the main powers. Once the scale of the American landings became clear, panic spread throughout the French chain of command. By early April, Americans had secured most of the ports in Normandy and Pais-de-Calais with remarkably little bloodshed. Insufficient forces were in the area to defend Rouen, which fell after a short but bloody siege on April 28th. A joint French-German force finally checked the advance of American landships at Evreux, but the offensive out of Limoges, backed by overwhelming American air and artillery superiority, took Poitiers, La Rochelle, and in early May, the key city of Tours in the Loire Valley. German troops were at last allowed to stream into Paris to reinforce the city.
All the while, domestic political turmoil had begun to make military planners think twice about any long-term deployment. In a stunning blow to Luxemburg's government, the All-German Congress was called into session and demanded new elections; the pacific-minded Revolutionary Social-Democrats won over 35% of the seats in the councils, more than doubling their previous vote share. The People's Assembly passed a resolution, largely unenforceable, demanding that Luxemburg make efforts to bring about a negotiated peace. In Italy, anarchists threatened to bring down regional coalition governments if their socialist partners did not vow to keep the fledgling Italian militia army out of the conflict. Gramsci's left-catholic coalition partners also endorsed Italian neutrality and led several peace marches in Rome, Naples, and Umbria. Yakov Sverdlov scolded his Italian compatriots for not "controlling and disciplining anti-proletarian, anti-internationalist elements". IntRevMar's Council of Revolutionary States called an emergency session and struggled to formulate a response.
Meanwhile, the capitalist powers faced their own crisis of domestic confidence. Though the build-up in France was presented as a special military operation, its full scale could not be indefinitely obscured. News steadily leaked of the scope of the American commitment, especially once German and Soviet troops entered the field and losses began to mount. Fears proliferated of a "Second Great War"; the fragile recovery of the American markets was imperiled as the New York stock exchange once again teetered, forcing the government to close it for the first time since 1920. Several Senators, principally progressive Democrats but also some isolationist Republicans, took to the floor to demand a thorough accounting of the American commitment. The rise of Haldane in Britain did a great deal to grant legitimacy to these skeptical voices.
At the Republican convention of June 1924, Root kept to his promise to serve as a one-term President. He aimed to cement his legacy by ensuring that his hand-picked successor Frank Lowden won the nomination. Lowden was from the more conservative end of the party; as governor of Illinois, had spoken out in support of Root's crackdown on domestic dissidents. He was rewarded with the position of Attorney General in 1922, and then Secretary of State a year later. At the convention, however, Lowden faced an unexpectedly firm resistance from both remaining progressive republicans and business elements skeptical of a prolonged commitment in Europe. Lowden made a massive blunder by forthrightly endorsing Root's foreign policy commitments and refusing to distinguish himself from the man; to undecided delegates, this made him appear weak, a mere lackey of the President.
Thereafter, figures of varying popularity made a play for the nomination, including Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Charles Evans Hughes, and even Robert La Folette. These men were all either tied too firmly to the old progressive wing or too green and inexperienced in foreign affairs to gain the trust of the delegates. Eventually, it was the dark horse humanitarian, Herbert Hoover, who won the nomination. Hoover had earned widespread acclaim for his work coordinating relief in Spain, and afterwards had been appointed Secretary of Commerce in the Root administration after a shakeup in 1922. Despite this, he maintained a distance from some of Root's more draconian policies. Hoover campaigned on "finishing the business in France", "concluding a general peace", and "returning to normalcy". Domestically, he stood for a rather vague "pro-business, pro-worker progressivism." After hearing of the convention's decision, Root reportedly wrote to a trusted confidante in the state department that "Hoover is a fine man and will make a fine president, though I fear he still possesses too much of the old progressive idealism." He nonetheless made a sustained effort to bring Hoover on-board; he was included in most security and foreign policy briefings, and would be present at all the major negotiations throughout 1924.
Back in France, events of world-historical importance were unfolding. Not even the addition of several elite Red Army divisions was sufficient to break a renewed American offensive north of Paris. On May 28th, the city was surrounded by an army composed overwhelmingly of American soldiers. A joint Soviet-German attempt to break through the American lines temporarily succeeded before the siege was once again closed through liberal use of air and landship power. The world was now witness to the most heightened version of quasi-war: hundreds of thousands of German, American, British, and Soviet soldiers clashed over the fate of France while each state stubbornly refused to recognize that they were at war with one another. Despite the continuation of the American grain embargo, other consumer goods continued to trickle into Central and Eastern Europe.
The City of Light fell to advancing white forces in June. News spread of mass executions in working-class Parisian neighborhoods; it appeared that the tragedy of the Paris Commune was placing itself out once again, five decades later. They were assisted by Mussolini's "fascists", an Italian white emigre paramilitary that served as one of white France's last effective and enthusiastic military detachments. The Americans turned out to be too busy with the drive east toward the city of Reims to put a stop to the unfolding bloodshed.
Meanwhile, a state of indefinite national emergency was declared in Germany and Italy. The latter now entered the war, and chambers of labor throughout Northern Italy found themselves without effective governance as the anarchists left coalition governments in protest against conscription measures. Not unsurprisingly, this impeded Italy's actual ability to call up the local militia, though a significant self-mobilization nonetheless occurred. In June, hundreds of thousands of additional troops from the east arrived in France as Sverdlov committed fully to the war. The American offensive toward Reims met the battle-hardened soldiers of the Soviet Red Army, many of whom had been in service for a full ten years. The American firepower advantage was gradually weakened by joint German-Soviet counterbattery fire. The exhausted American Army finally gave up the offensive on the 14th.
Further south, the Germans were committed to avenging their Parisian comrades. An army of 80,000 German and French troops moved out of the Rhone Valley, beginning a 2nd offensive toward Marseille. The American and British soldiers in the area had been stripped down for the northern offensives. Mobile German forces sped through the hastily constructed defenses. Though the Italian militias were largely still unmobilized, there was sufficient paranoia of an Italian intervention that the French government was forced to disperse its troops, making the advance forward much easier. A suicidal uprising in Marseille, in which many of the city's remaining socialist workers were killed, prevented rear echelon forces from further entrenching themselves. On the 29th of June, the city fell, a crucial symbolic victory for the French Worker's and Soldier's Republic, which had lost its long-time capital.
The Reconstruction of Eastern Europe and Central-European Confederalization
Even as France became the last and largest battleground of the First Revolutionary Era, less monumental but equally important events unfolded across the rest of Europe. The attention of Germany and the Soviet Union was frequently diverted to the Balkans, where they had the difficult task of reconstructing nations occupied by their armies. The conflicts which emerged over the fate of East-Central Europe exposed ideological and power-political rifts between the two main socialist powers.
Hungary and Serbia presented the fewest difficulties. The former had been a key ally during the Balkan War, and won broad territorial concessions in return for exchanging national-personal autonomy to its Slavic minorities. Serbian Chetniks were a significant force throughout the war, and both agrarian and national-bourgeoisie parties showed a willingness to work with IntRevMar. Though the dream of a united south slav state was vetoed by the Russians, Germans, and Italians, who feared another round of ethnic bloodletting, Bosnia was ceded to the new Serbian state and the Croatian settlers in the area transferred back to a diminished Croat rump state. Unlike other new revolutionary states, Serbia incorporated some of the dual-power arrangements of Germany; a minimum quantity of seats would be guaranteed to the proletarian parties to ensure their leading role in the new polity.
Romania, Poland, Czechia, and Croatia posed significantly more serious issues. Only the Jews of Poland and the urban workers of Czechia and Warsaw had much sympathy for the socialist project. Sverdlov initially favored a joint committee, overseen by the Council of Revolutionary States, to determine the shape of the Romanian, Polish, Czech, and Croatian governments. Though Luxemburg and the Revolutionary Worker's front were willing to entertain such an idea, their revolutionary social-democratic were far more skeptical, especially once it became clear that the joint committee would be dominated by the Russians. An agreement was reached in February for Romania and Czechia to be placed, respectively, in the Russian and German spheres, but this still left Croatia and Poland, where significant numbers of troops from each country were still stationed.
Poland quickly became a lightning rod for political disagreements both within Germany and between Germany and Russia. Luxemburg and the revolutionary worker's front insisted on the full annexation of Poland as a constituent autonomous republic of Germany. The crimes of the polish national-bourgeousie won this position a good deal of sympathy in Russia, especially among the left-communists. Bukharin favored a plan to partition the country outright between Germany and Russia. But Sverdlov, as well as the revolutionary social-democrats in Germany, feared that this would only inflame Polish nationalist sentiment. The commissariat of nationalities issued a formal report recommending that Poland be granted formal independence after a period of "socialist tutelage". Luxemburg herself reluctantly conceded to this after the Revolutionary Social-Democrats' improved performance in council elections. However, the Germans and Russians proved unable to settle upon a provisional leadership of Poland. Karl Radek, the former general secretary of IntRevMar, was favored by the Germans, but Sverdlov, Bukharin, and Trotsky all considered him to be too ideologically heterodox and anyways lacking in the qualities needed for leadership. The question of the Jews also divided the two camps. While the Germans hoped to repatriate the sizable Jewish refugee community in Silesia and Posen, the Russians feared that returning them to their native country would exacerbate existing tensions.
In May, a major scandal rocked IntRevMar when the Council of Revolutionary States issued a report detailing the transfer of additional German and Russian troops into Poland, ostensibly for garrison duty but in reality to lay claim to their respective spheres of influence in the area. The independent-minded German and Russian delegates to IntRevMar denounced the "chauvinist conflict" over Poland which had drained necessary resources from the French theater. Both governments took a significant hit to their prestige. Gramsci offered to mediate, but the chastised and embarrassed Russian and German administrations rapidly reached their own agreement formalizing the zones of influence, allowing them to withdraw most of the soldiers from the area. Germany won control over much of Lesser Poland and Polish Galicia, and the Soviets over the area previously known as "Congress Poland".
While the Russians rapidly went about constructing a semi-independent client state, the German government puzzled over what to do with the odd patchwork of borderlands it controlled. Some reversed course and favored handing them over to the new Polish government, but Germany's allies in the Bund resolutely opposed this. Instead, they proposed the creation of a new multinational "state of Jews, Poles, and Ruthenes". It was unclear, however, if the demographic basis for such a state was present. The ethnocide had affected first and foremost the traditional Jewish populations of Galicia. Around 15% of the population in the territories was Jewish; however, if the remaining Jews in Congress Poland and the Jewish refugees in Germany could be enticed to migrate to the new state, this would increase to around 40%. If Russia could be persuaded to cede some additional lands in Galicia, the Ruthenian population may increase from 5 to 15%.
This proposal met a great deal of skepticism in the German government, not least from the Revolutionary Worker's Front, who considered this to be a "proto-zionist" proposal. Yet it slowly gained support over the middle of 1924. The Poles in the region hardly showed enthusiasm for an independent Galician state, and the idea of a multinational one gained some additional adherents among the Jewish refugee community in Silesia; ethnocide had done a great deal to create a quasi-national consciousness among the region's Jewish population.
The fate of the Galician territories cannot be divorced from the defeat of traditional zionism, which suffered a decisive blow in 1924. This was made all the more shocking by the repeated dalliances of Churchill's conservative government with the Zionist project. On several occasions, it appeared to be on the verge of issuing a declaration in support of a Jewish state in Palestine, but balked at the outrage it might provoke in an already restive levant: Britain hardly had the spare troops to put down an Arab Revolt. Nonetheless, a resurgence of Zionist sentiment gripped Britain after news of the ethnocide reached its shores. The incoming liberal government promised the creation of a formal commission to investigate "Jewish national ambitions in the Levant". In April, it released the so-called "Montagu report", named after its chairperson, the British-Jewish Indian Viceroy Edwin Montagu. It poured cold water on the prospect of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The achievement of a Jewish state, it stated, "could not be achieved without the displacement of the local population, a task that will strain the finances of the British state and inspire universal enmity toward Britain amongst the Moslem peoples." Britain would not act to "subsidize the importation of Jews into Palestine", though it would "commit to making reparations for the victims of the Polish ethnocide through programs of immigration and resettlement into England." Predictable denunciations from the World Zionist Congress followed, particularly after Montagu himself insisted that the entire Zionist project was motivated by thinly veiled antisemitism.
A sizable number of previously skeptical German politicians now came around to the creation of a quasi-zionist state in Galicia. A good number of them - even secular, non-practicing Jews - were motivated by their own anti-semitic canards. Hugo Haase believed that by meeting Jewish national ambitions, the power of "Jewish Finance" would begin to be mobilized on behalf of the socialists. For her part, Luxemburg stoutly resisted the creation of a trinational state to the very end, but was outvoted by the right-wing of her own party led by Paul Levi, as well as the revolutionary social-democrats.
The "Free Socialist Republic of Poles, Jews, and Ruthenes" almost uniformly failed to fulfill Zionist ambitions. By the end of the year, the Jewish population was still a little under a third of the total, and the Poles still an absolute majority of the new state. There would be no "population transfer" of the Poles, nor any separate electorates, which were treated by the Revolutionary Worker's Front as "national-chauvinist" proposals. Jewish rights were written into the constitution, but in practice, besides a unilateral right to immigrate into Galicia, the Jewish population had no special national rights beyond those it was already afforded by other socialist states. Much of the former Jewish intelligentsia and elite of Poland elected to remain in Germany, Britain, and America, though a significant quantity of working-class refugees trickled back into the new Galician state. Karl Radek, the leader of the new state, resolutely denied that it was intended to fulfill any Zionist aspirations. When asked about the "Jewish" character of the republic, he spoke instead of the liberation of Galician workers - when the interlocutor brought up the name of the state he governed, he icilly replied that it referred simply to the "ethnic character of its main inhabitants, and nothing more." For their part, the Jewish Bund resolutely distinguished between the "national-personal" autonomy Jews had won in Galicia and the "Chauvinism" of traditional Zionism.
The left-wing of the RAF suffered another defeat on the matter of Czechia, which they favored incorporating wholesale into Germany as an autonomous republic. The centrist people's assembly rejected this plan, favoring instead a proposal for Czech Independence with annexation of German-majority border areas. In the end, a compromise solution was reached: a more limited plan of annexations added significant territories to RAF strongholds in Silesia and Saxony, while Czechia itself became an independent associated republic under the rule of the Czech Social-Democratic Party.
Croatia was the one area in which Soviet-German cooperation succeeded in constructing a new state. In part, this is attributable to the mediating influence of the Italians, who acted to conciliate their rival visions. A hybrid council-republic along both Dutch and Serbian lines was created, with a strong executive and mandatory representation for both the peasantry and urban proletariat. The fragile new state was obligated to pay significant reparations to Serbia and Hungary, though in the end these were met primarily through German loans.
Romania, meanwhile, fell entirely into the Soviet sphere. After tentative attempts to construct a semi-independent Romanian republic along Polish lines, it was decided to entirely incorporate the state into the Soviet Union to ease the task of administration. The leadership of the Romanian left had been decapitated after the failed uprising in 1919, and it would take time to build a new cadre of loyal socialists. The new ideology initially proved quite unpopular and was associated with "foreign rule", but the benefits of agricultural mechanization and the high price of grain in the socialist bloc eventually pacified the countryside.
The other major development of 1924 was the rapid progress made toward European Federalism. The Vienna Memorandum in February announced the intention of the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy to move toward the creation of a "common economic zone", though given the widely varying economic landscape in each country and the desire to promote domestic industry, this remained more a slogan than a reality. Nobody knew how to integrate the centrally planned economies of the Netherlands and Germany with regionalist Italian market socialism. It was not economic but military cooperation that paved the way for greater European Federalism. The Netherlands had long shown an interest in becoming an associated republic of Germany and thereby securing a formal guarantee of military protection. Its long coastline was uniquely vulnerable to a British naval assault, and around half of its naval forces had deserted to join the white government in the east indies. In January 1924, they requested associated republic status, which was rapidly granted by the German People's Assembly.
Italy, too, possessed a long and vulnerable coastline, and, moreover, its naval forces had been badly ravaged by British assaults during the first month of the First Revolutionary Era. A sizable contingent of the Austrian Navy had mutinied during the beginning of the First Revolutionary Era and brought their ships into sympathetic Italian ports. This included four battleships (one dreadnought), an armored cruiser, two protected cruisers, and seven destroyers, as well as a number of smaller torpedo craft, staffed by around 4,000 sailors. This sizable force swore loyalty to the German socialist Republic, but it was locked into the Mediterranean, unable to traverse the British-controlled straits of Gibraltar. For some time, the Italians attempted to convince their German compatriots to either hand over the ships or allow them to be purchased, but the Germans, who had suffered even more crippling losses during the first months of the First Revolutionary Era, insisted that they be returned.
An uptick in the incidence of American requisitions of Italian and German merchant vessels forced a rethinking of naval policy in 1923. The Bordigists favored applying to become an associated republic of Germany, but nationally-minded syndicalists and socialists saw "subordination to the Germans" as a step too far. Even the anarchists initially balked at subjugating Italian foreign policy to the "militaristic" Germans. Even as concerns were aired over Italian military weakness and isolation, little progress was made.
Several developments in 1924 changed these political dynamics. Firstly, the accession of the Czechs and Dutch to the German Revolutionary Defense Council meant that there was less risk of German domination. Secondly, renewed American attacks on Italian merchant shipping and naval assets prompted a search for a rapid means of bolstering the navy. Finally, the German minister of confederal affairs, Karl Kautsky, devised a plan for Italy to join the Revolutionary Defense Council on a "provisional" basis. A unified chain of command would be imposed over the Italian, German, and Dutch Navies. The sizable German-Austrian Naval squadron currently at port in Trieste would join a "Mediterranean Task Force" under de facto Italian command. Italy would make a promise to eventually integrate its militia-army into the structure, but there would be no set date on it doing so.
Against the opposition of both left-luxemburgists who believed the arrangement to be too lenient to Italy and right-wing social democrats who worried about the diminishment of German national sovereignty, the measure passed Parliament and the executive committee. The catholic socialists in Italy were also brought on board after some haranguing and a promise to pursue future political integration, a favorite project of many internationally-minded catholics. It was welcomed most enthusiastically by the Dutch and German members of the Council of Revolutionary defense: a unified, Central-European red navy had at last been born, perhaps the worst nightmare of the British Empire.
The Stockholm Armistice
Altogether, it took a little over two weeks of attritional warfare after the fall of Marseille for the two blocs to realize that there was not much point in continuing the battle over France. Perhaps some symbolic victories could still be achieved, but as a matter of fact, France had lost much of its physical infrastructure and wealth in the past decade of war, not to mention the immense blow to its human resources. Together, Haldane and Hoover pressed Root to negotiate, and IntRevMar's Council of Revolutionary States narrowly voted for a resolution calling for peace. Both French governments begged their benefactors to enter into talks. On July 15th, 1:00, almost ten years after the Great War commenced, an armistice was signed in Stockholm, Sweden.
Terms of the The Stockholm Armistice
- Cessation of all German, American, British, and Soviet operations on the former territories of the Republic of France, to occur not less than twenty-four hours following the signing of the armistice.
- The cessation of hostilities between the French Worker and Soldier's Republic and the Republic of France for at least five years.
- The opening of the borders between Republican France and the French Worker and Soldier's Republic for the span of at least fourteen days to allow for the movement of refugees and displaced peoples, beginning within 24 hours of the signing of the armistice.
- A gradual drawdown in Soviet, American, British, German, and all other allied forces from the territories of the French Republic and the French Worker and Soldier's Republic. The forming of a commission with representatives of all parties to ensure an equal and orderly withdrawal of troops.
- The borders of the Republic of France and the French Worker and Soldier's Republic shall run along the present lines of fighting.
- The Republic of France shall offer a one-time amnesty of those convicted of political crimes for which the penalty is under 10-years imprisonment, on the condition that the convicted individuals migrate to the French Worker and Soldier's Republic. A commitment on the part of the French Worker and Soldier's Republic to do the same.
- The states of the Third International jointly vow to not initiate hostilities against British, American, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Norwegian territories and naval vessels. The above-mentioned states similarly forswear the initiation of further hostilities, which include the use of blockade and aerial bombardment.
- A conference shall be held within at least one month of the signing of the armistice between the representatives of the Atlantic Union and the International Union of Revolutionary Marxists. This conference will aim to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between states, settle the matter of commerce, and resolve existing territorial disputes, such as Iceland and Thrace.
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- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
I am thinking with the wartime losses on all sides women will have to join the workforce. Minorities will also be hired or forced to contribute more. Both sides will push for a common set of standards from small arms ammunition to railroad tracks.
PrognosticHannya
Far Too Enthusiastic About Etymology
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It feels like by the 2000s "Jews anywhere in the world technically have a right to move to Galicia" is going to end up being one of those weird facts at bar trivia nights in the Red world.
Squidfam
Functionary of the Gender-Communist Party
- Location
- Atlantis, Sweden
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Poor France.
Anyway, it's time to check out what these guys were up to OTL!
Oh dear. Maybe they remain communists in this timeline, but this doesn't promise great things for Red France's future...Article: * Henri Barbé (14 March 1902 in Paris – 24 May 1966 in Paris) was a French Communist, and later, fascist politician.
* In 1942 (Pierre Célor) joined the Parti populaire français (PPF) of Jacques Doriot.
Maps, Circa 1924
New
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
I was initially going to cover the whole of 1924 in a single post, but this would have likely been an over 10,000-word entry. In the interest of readability, I've decided to break things up into two different updates. The next one will cover the Stockholm Conference and its fallout; hopefully, I'll be able to find time to finish it in the next couple days.
Anyways, I now feel comfortable posting two maps - some of you may have already seen these posted in discord or elsewhere, but I didn't post them here in the interest of avoiding spoilers. These were both commissioned from @rajavlitra . The first one has some small blemishes, wholly attributable to my clumsy after-the-fact editing in of some border modifications, and includes a Catalan Republic, a rather half-baked idea which I decided didn't really make sense after doing further research.
Anyways, I now feel comfortable posting two maps - some of you may have already seen these posted in discord or elsewhere, but I didn't post them here in the interest of avoiding spoilers. These were both commissioned from @rajavlitra . The first one has some small blemishes, wholly attributable to my clumsy after-the-fact editing in of some border modifications, and includes a Catalan Republic, a rather half-baked idea which I decided didn't really make sense after doing further research.
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Man, Red France really is a rump state.
QueenOfRoses
Athena Promachos
- Location
- Department of Motor Vehicles
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I was just about to ask what the borders of Red France were, so thank you for the map!
You mentioned a discord, is there one for the timeline?
You mentioned a discord, is there one for the timeline?
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
Will we have an update on what's going on in Switzerland given it's.... ah... predicament?
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
There is not, though I occasionally bounce ideas around in a public channel on the Wordsmiths discord, which to my knowledge is affiliated with SV, though I might be mistaken about this.
Sometime in the upcoming Interregnum Era, Switzerland, Turkey, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and the other neutrals will almost certainly receive a dedicated entry covering their rather perilous position.
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LuxemburgLover69
There are more things between Heaven and Earth...
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I'm a little behind on commenting on these updates but I wanted to say I've been really enjoying them.
Also incredibly thankful that you commissioned an artist to make a map of Europe and the world! Looks lovely! I love how different Europe looks. You can start to see who the big players on the continent will be, and how cultures and the politics of these new polities will evolve is exciting to think about. The new sr's in the USSR and other countries joining Germany's orbit are developments I'm keeping my eye on.
Most recent update is interesting. I will admit I was quite bummed about the inability for red France to pull through in the end, and the inability for the IntRevMar to muster an appropriate response. But I do think it makes sense. War has been ongoing for around a decade for many people, and I should be thankful that they acted swiftly and decisively in the Balkans.
I do remember an update prior mentioned how France is still considered poor/destitute, at least up until the 60s, I think? Which makes me wonder if that's referring to white or red France? Or perhaps a reunited France after a conflict between the two? How that all resolves itself I don't know. Can't wait to see it.
I'm also eager to see what a proper lull period looks like and what the politics of these new socialist nations shakes out to be in the next decade or two. I feel like it can't be understated what a loss Lenin is, but Yakov Sverdlov seems like he will carry that Leninist and internationalist torch. The USSR in particular as a global entity supported by Germany and others is going to develop in such a different way. I imagine it'll be a joy to write about.
Also incredibly thankful that you commissioned an artist to make a map of Europe and the world! Looks lovely! I love how different Europe looks. You can start to see who the big players on the continent will be, and how cultures and the politics of these new polities will evolve is exciting to think about. The new sr's in the USSR and other countries joining Germany's orbit are developments I'm keeping my eye on.
Most recent update is interesting. I will admit I was quite bummed about the inability for red France to pull through in the end, and the inability for the IntRevMar to muster an appropriate response. But I do think it makes sense. War has been ongoing for around a decade for many people, and I should be thankful that they acted swiftly and decisively in the Balkans.
I do remember an update prior mentioned how France is still considered poor/destitute, at least up until the 60s, I think? Which makes me wonder if that's referring to white or red France? Or perhaps a reunited France after a conflict between the two? How that all resolves itself I don't know. Can't wait to see it.
I'm also eager to see what a proper lull period looks like and what the politics of these new socialist nations shakes out to be in the next decade or two. I feel like it can't be understated what a loss Lenin is, but Yakov Sverdlov seems like he will carry that Leninist and internationalist torch. The USSR in particular as a global entity supported by Germany and others is going to develop in such a different way. I imagine it'll be a joy to write about.
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
Something I definitely curious about is what's going to be the relationship between the Socialist Bloc and Japanese, given the needless to say very poor relations they're going to have with the Anglo British going forward.
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
Japan needs raw materials and a thrist for revenge. The Comintern needs an outlet to trade for items it cannot produce and can help build and develop military equipment away from Western eyes.
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- He/Him
China's fate is ultimately what I'm most curious in now, seeing the map. On top of the previous territorial concessions they've made like Hong Kong and Macau, they've now also had yet more of their territory taken over by Japan, Britain and the Communist bloc.
The map's labelling makes it clear that they've ultimately wound up in the American Bloc, but given that America not only failed to stop Japan taking Shandong and part of Manchuria, but also seems to have acquiesced to Britain's own imperialistic land-grab, I'd imagine that's more of a 'least of all evils' sort of partnership rather than a very enthusiastic alliance.
The map's labelling makes it clear that they've ultimately wound up in the American Bloc, but given that America not only failed to stop Japan taking Shandong and part of Manchuria, but also seems to have acquiesced to Britain's own imperialistic land-grab, I'd imagine that's more of a 'least of all evils' sort of partnership rather than a very enthusiastic alliance.
1924: The Year of Struggle (Part 2: The Stockholm Conference)
New
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
1924: The Year of Struggle (Part 2: The Stockholm Conference)
6 years, 9 months, and 15 days. The set of numbers had a pleasing congruity. Adolph Joffe temporarily entertained the idea that this was more than merely coincidental, a hint, perhaps, from some providential god. But he had forsworn such illusions long ago.
Much had changed in the nearly seven years since the Treaty of Warsaw had been signed. There was a time when it felt as if the revolution was dependent upon the whims of the mad general Ludendorff and his reactionary hangers-on; that time was gone. So too, was the man who led them here, who foretold the great proletarian offensive in Central Europe. And somehow, Joffe, the minister of foreign affairs, had remained there throughout all the government shakeups; he had not signed onto Trotsky and Bukharin's mad plan to enter into an alliance with the peasant revolutionaries, which had likely saved him in the revolution's early days. And now they still regarded him as an ally, of sorts - he could tell that Leon no longer had the same affection for him. But nobody wanted to replace the foreign minister in times like these.
Once more to Stockholm, then. What was it about this provincial backwater that so appealed to the capitalists? They refused the offers of the Italians and the Germans. Not entirely unfair, perhaps; he would not be packing off for London or New York anytime soon. It must have to do with Brantling. Not a man to be trusted, but admirable in his own way. The Germans were far too chummy with him, though. One would have thought that they learned their lesson from the failure of parliamentarianism of the pre-war years.
Stockholm bay, the so-called Riddarfjarden, stretched out before the Soviet Ambassador. It was unseasonably warm. The water was filled with pleasure boats of varying make and craft; the playful carping of the young struck him like the idle trills of so many song-birds. Joffe suddenly felt like an old man; but he had just turned forty years of age! A quiet chuckle escaped his lips.
Joffe sat on the lone bench beside a long stone promenade splayed lazily along the water's edge. The Swedes had just started to build up the area, it seems; everywhere, trees were being planted and parks carved out of forests to provide the best of "modern living" for the city's workers. An older gentlemen, who appeared at least two decades senior to Joffe, came over and took a seat; Joffe obliged him, not upset by the company. At first, Joffe thought him to be another one of the English dignitaries. There was something unmistakably familiar about the man. But before he could get the chance to make a remark, another man, much younger, strode up to him, seemingly from out of nowhere. He was from somewhere in the east; Joffe at first assumed that he was one of the Japanese observers, but on closer inspection, he appeared to be from elsewhere; perhaps the Chinese had lobbied the Americans into permitting their own delegation?
To his astonishment, the man approached him outright and began speaking fluent Russian. "Comrade Joffe, the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, might I say how pleased I am to make your acquaintance. I was sincerely hoping to run into someone of your caliber during my sojourn here in Stockholm; Paris, I am afraid, has gotten far too dangerous…"
Joffe frowned at the mention of the Parisian debacle. Who was this man, then? An easterner in Red Paris, who had the wits and resourcefulness to escape the city in time? And was this some manner of insult or accusation? Joffe had to admire the audacity…
"Yes, the Parisian tragedy troubles us all…we will have to confront the Americans about it at some point. I am pleased to hear you were able to depart from the city in time, too many were not so fortunate. Excuse me for one moment…" Joffe pauses, glancing at the gentlemen nearby, slightly concerned at the prospect of divulging sensitive information. He addressed the man in Russian; after receiving a somewhat confused, bewildered look, he switched to French. "Sir, I cannot help but feel that I have seen you somewhere; are you attending the upcoming conference?" The elderly gentleman smiled ironically at the suggestion, the greys in his beard flashing in the waning sunlight. "I am afraid it would be too much for me to attend a gathering with my persecutors, even if I was invited." Joffe thought that seemed unreasonably petty; the entire Soviet delegation had spent their time in exile during the days of the Tsar, and the British had been content to bankroll them. "It is John Dewey. And this…" He gestured over toward the easterner, who was standing patiently, with great poise and a sense of quiet dignity. "Is Nguyen Ai Quoc, a fellow exile. Though I have my doubts that is his real name." Nguyen Ai Quoc - that is a name he knew. A vietnamese dissident. IntRevMar's anti-colonial committee had tried, largely in vain, to gain contact with him over the past few months. He was in Paris all along, then…
The man stepped forward slightly now, and Joffe spoke again. "Nguyen Ai Quoc! Well, unless you are a British spy taking on the name…" He now spoke in French, largely convinced of this "Dewey's" conviviality. "Then it is indeed a pleasure to make your acquaintance. How, if I may ask, have you made your way here? Were the Germans not hospitable to hosting you? You could have written a letter to Petrograd, too, you know, I have no doubt our government would have offered you a position at the IntRevMar offices in the city…and well, I suppose I must ask: has this Mr. Dewey become an associate of yours?"
"I would hardly call him an associate, more of an interlocutor. Mr. Dewey, you see…" His eyes are diverted for a moment to the man. "He is an intellectual, and hardly wants to become involved in heady matters of state. After all, this city is crawling with American and British spies, and he would be quite well-advised to avoid doing anything that might provoke them. But he enjoys a good conversation, you see, and finds that Stockholm is one of the few places in the world where that can be achieved. And he finds plenty to approve of in our own conceptions, but, as an intellectual, he seems to be incapable of coming fully on board. There are still some outstanding disputes about certain details, you see." He looks back at Mr. Dewey; the man's eyebrows are raised slightly, and he wears an expression both warm and bemused. "Yes, that is a fair characterization of things. Mr. Joffe, I am not a Bolshevik, but I despise what my own nation has become. Mr Ai Quoc here, well, he has spoken stirringly of the need for a free indochina. He believes that it is in Asia, in the east, where the true destiny of your revolution will be forged." The man adjusts his glasses, seeming slightly unsatisfied with his own phrasing. "You two surely have much to discuss, and so I will excuse myself." He pauses for a moment, his mind revolving around some unknown object. "Mr. Joffe, if you find the time, feel free to call upon me while you remain in Stockholm, but do make it discreet."
Prelude
The three dozen diplomats who met in Stockholm to hammer out an armistice concurred on the need for a more formal conference to settle remaining disputes and lay the groundwork for a lasting peace. The Swedes were quite interested in promoting diplomacy, not just for the sake of the nation's commercial health but also for its international prestige. After some mild pressure from their hosts, the diplomats agreed to include in the text of the armistice a reference to a future conference in Stockholm. Brantling generously offered the use of the waterside City Hall, which had finished construction just a year ago, though many of the attending dignitaries would be forced to room in the less-than-well-kept Stockholm Royal Palace, which had not received renovations in several decades.
Before the conference began, several agreements were reached between states fighting peripheral conflicts. In late 1923, Japan signed an agreement with the Soviet Union returning the northern half of Sakhalin Island in return for a 5-year nonaggression pact. This still left the matter of the Far Eastern Railway unresolved. Japan had won the right to station hundreds of thousands of troops in Manchuria, which meant that, if it so desired, it could easily seize the railway. Doing so, however, would provoke a diplomatic incident and undercut the Soviet-Japanese detente. The Soviets were unwilling to surrender the railway categorically to Japanese control, but also believed Japan to be more useful as a trading partner and potential counterweight to American power in the Pacific. In February and March, Soviet and Japanese diplomats met in Vladivostok, hashing out a deal which saw the Soviet Union sell off its shares in the railway at an inflated cost to the Japanese government, which in turn promised reduced freight and passenger costs to the Soviets for fifteen years. The Japanese formally recognized the Soviet sphere of influence in Mongolia and West Turkestan, and both sides promised to respect each other's territorial integrity.
Greece and Turkey also reached a peace, with Britain acting as a mediator. Though hardly a neutral party, Britain did hope to stabilize the situation in the Near East and gain Turkish acceptance of the British presence in Constantinople. This they were not able to definitely achieve, though the Greeks and Turks signed an armistice and agreed to additional population transfers. The Turks refused to permanently recognize Greek control of the Western Anatolian coast, but they did promise to cease hostilities for at least five years.
The Stockholm Conference: Hopeful Beginnings
The Stockholm Conference opened on August 10th, 1924, just over ten years after the Great War began. The conference was just as much a vehicle for domestic propaganda as it was a diplomatic summit. Photographers and journalists were omnipresent, and arrived from as many nations as the diplomats and ambassadors. Governments treated the gathering as an opportunity to prove their pacifist credentials to a war-weary population. Several famous photographs circulated of the "Big Six" - Luxemburg, Sverdlov, Root, Hoover, Gramsci and Haldane - seated in a not-so-private side-room. In all, over twenty-five states participated in the negotiations:
IntRevMar and IntRevMar-affiliates
The Soviet Union
German Socialist Republic
Worker and Peasants Republic of Bulgaria
Worker and Peasants Republic of Italy
Federal Council Republic of Hungary
Democratic Republic of Serbia
Galician Socialist Republic of Poles, Jews, and Ruthenes
Dutch Council-Republic
Sweden
Denmark
Democratic Republic of Kurdistan
AU and AU-Associates
United Kingdom
United States of America
Republic of France
Kingdom of Spain
Kingdom of Belgium
Republic of Brazil
Kingdom of Norway
Kingdom of Portugal
Dominion of Ireland (Observer)
Republic of Greece
Dominion of Canada
Dominion of South Africa
Dominion of Australia
Dominion of New Zealand
Neutrals
National Republic of Turkey
Empire of Japan (Observer)
Republic of China (Observer)
Swiss Confederation
Among the world's people, there were both high hopes and profound skepticism. While most fervently yearned for an enduring peace that would permit reconstruction and the resumption of unrestricted commerce, there was still deep-seated mistrust of the ideological enemy. Not just state propaganda, but also the self-mobilization of civic society had instilled a perennial loathing for, alternatively, "Bolshevik Aggression" and "Anglo-American Imperialism."
It did not help that the conference's aims were still very much up in the air. The grand procession of diplomats and the palatial surroundings of the conference belied a curious lack of purpose. Resolutions issued by Italian and German organs of worker's democracy spoke of a general desire for peace and the end of imperialism, but did not provide concrete directives. For the diplomats and politicians representing the Central-European states, however, there was very real domestic pressure to reach some form of peace. In America, even the wide-ranging crackdown on liberal civil society had not been sufficient to win permanent support for putting the country on a war footing. Hoover knew this well; he had campaigned on a "return to normalcy" and the cessation of foreign military adventures, and was not ready to renege on his promises.
The Stockholm City Hall, Site of the 1924 Stockholm Conference
The Soviet Union stood as something of an outlier. Protected by a cordon of friendly socialist states, it had less to fear from a resumption of hostilities. Its government was ideologically committed to the project of world-revolution, and its greater control of domestic politics meant that there was less reason to fear popular pushback to a continuation of warfare. It also possessed the largest - and most effective - army of all the socialist powers. The soviets were therefore well-positioned to press for maximalist concessions.
The first matter of the conference was to determine an agenda. It was universally agreed that the settlement of existing territorial disputes was crucial to avoiding another outbreak of conflict. These were relatively few: the border between the two French states, Greek and Bulgarian claims to Thrace, the British-Danish conflict over Iceland and Greenland, and Italian claims over Sardinia, currently the home of the Kingdom of Italy. Helpfully, the socialist states had long ago renounced all claim to their colonial possessions, though they did insist that they be permitted "self-determination" rather than be subsumed under British suzerainty. Related to the issue of territorial boundaries, there was the matter of the neutral European states: Albania, Switzerland, and Turkey. Both sides jockeyed for influence in Turkey, but neither was willing to make the territorial concessions necessary to bring the Turks into their own camp. Britain and the Soviets both found themselves constricted by their alliance with, respectively, the Greeks and the Kurds, unable to make concessions which would alienate their regional partners. Turkey nonetheless insisted that if it was not given territorial concessions, that the main powers at least come to some formal agreement to not interfere in internal Turkish politics. Sverdlov would only assent to such a proposition if additional British guarantees were given over Russian use of the straits. This was reluctantly provided, and Turkey thus settled into its position as a buffer state between the two blocs.
Switzerland was another point of tension. Entirely encircled by socialist polities, it had no means of trading with the broader world unless its goods were permitted to move through them. For their part, Britain and America entirely washed their hands of the matter, much to the despair of the Swiss government, which had previously been hopeful that any IntRevMaw violation of its sovereignty would lead to formal Atlantic Union support. This forced the Swiss to effectively supplicate itself before the emerging socialist confederation in Central Europe. Trade concessions and the promise of internal electoral reform expanding the suffrage soon followed in return for Italo-French permission to transship Swiss goods. It was hoped that the Swiss Social-Democratic Party could be brought into power peacefully and bring the state into the socialist bloc.
Then there was the matter of Albania. Against all odds, the Ottoman prince Ahmed Izzet Pasha still led the tiny nation despite the demise of the Ottoman state. Hoping to keep Albania free from the acrimonious power blocs, he had refused a Soviet offer to help him retake northern Epirus from Greece, and also British attempts to mediate territorial disputes. Now, representatives of the Ottoman Prince, hoping to take advantage of Albania's position on the Adriatic, tried to secure explicit guarantees from the main powers. Even Sverdlov had little interest in bringing socialism directly to the "backwards mountain-peoples" of Albania, but he did want to ensure it did not become a staging ground for the expansion of Atlantic Union power in the Balkans. The AU and IntRevMar thus came to a relatively amicable agreement to respect the neutrality of Albania. A muted protest, but little more, was issued by the Serbian Social-Democratic Party, which still held some irredentist ambitions but hardly had the desire to regain the reputation of the old Serbia.
The direct territorial disputes between the two blocs were considerably more difficult to resolve. Danish diplomats demanded the return of Iceland and Greenland, as well as a formal apology from Britain. Britain would only permit the territories to be retroceded if Denmark left IntRevMar and forswear all security cooperation with Germany, in effect making it a neutral state. Although some on the right-wing of the Danish Social-Democrats were desirous of such an outcome, this was an immensely risky security gamble so long as German soldiers stood posed to stream into Jutland and attack its wayward ally. A greater number were outraged with British intransigence on the matter; they had already promised that no IntRevMar ships would be based on the islands, and even that the naval facilities would not be expanded without British permission. Britain - even more fearful of a red armada after the merging of the German, Italian, and Dutch navies - refused to budge. Eventually, German diplomats pressured their Danish counterparts to come to a compromise agreement. While Denmark would not formally rescind their claims to the islands, they would agree to pursue purely "peaceful channels" for their return. In exchange, Britain agreed to respect the language rights of Danish residents and provide a small yearly payment for their possession of the islands.
Adjudicating the border disputes between the rival French governments was made considerably more vexatious by their refusal to directly recognize each other's legitimacy. This meant that negotiations had to be conducted by third-party intermediaries, typically a combination of German, Italian, British, and American diplomats. Frequently, these third powers interposed their own interests into the negotiations. An exchange of rural red burgundy for some territories in northeastern France was vetoed by Britain, who wished to avoid having any channel ports fall into the hands of the socialist government. By the end of the conference, most minor border disputes had been resolved, but ominously, each government still refused to directly conduct diplomacy with its rival.
Bulgaria and Greece, exhausted after a full decade of war, settled their remaining conflicts with surprising ease and amiability. Both governments were worried that their major-power sponsors might use them as a platform for a military build-up. Despite Russian resistance and some British mistrust, Bulgaria and Greece agreed to a fifteen-year non-aggression pact and pledged to limit the amount of troops from foreign powers stationed near one another's borders. These moves were hugely popular among their domestic populations.
The resolution of territorial matters would help reduce the risk of a European conflict once more becoming a World War, but it did not guarantee peace. It was understood by all involved that this would require a more thorough transformation of international relations. In fact, power was already beginning to shift from sovereign states to larger confederal entities and supranational organizations. British and American diplomats, though not unanimous on all matters, agreed on the need to present a united front well before the conference met. There was somewhat more dissension in the Soviet and German camp; the new political concordance between Germany and Italy had brought the former to a less maximalist and hardline position, but the need to preserve proletarian internationalism was agreed upon. The Council of Revolutionary States, in concert with the main body of IntRevMar, issued a series of "minimum directives" meant to guide the diplomats at Stockholm. After some pressure, even the social-democratic Scandinavian governments signed onto these.
The Stockholm Conference: A Fretful Conclusion
There was a hope that the conference would lay the groundwork for a supranational concert of powers that would incorporate the new trans-national organizations and keep the peace. Such a plan was supported by a motley mixture of British radicals, Italian left-catholics, and German social-democrats. A working group led by Sydney Webb, Eduard Bernstein, and Romolo Murri met in Stockholm two weeks in advance of the conference, and drafted a provisional plan for such a body. They agreed that the formation of such a "Commonwealth of Nations" would likely require a more than merely territorial settlement. The socialists would need some guarantee that key waterways, overwhelmingly controlled by Britain, would be open to their commerce and travel and that the much larger Anglo-American navies would not - as it appeared they were quite capable of doing - pen them into Eurasia. Britain may even have to formally renounce the device of blockade, though it would in turn require guarantees that the socialists would not interfere in colonial affairs and foment revolution on the periphery. Their slogan became "One world, Two systems".
Most of their assumptions proved predictably unrealistic. The vast majority of socialist delegates agreed that the "minimum directives" -which instructed them to remain faithful to "the spirit and actuality of proletarian internationalism" - forbade any such promise of non-interference. Although they purposefully toned down the headiest internationalist rhetoric during the conference itself, there was no question of forsaking the hundreds of millions of toilers under the imperialist boot. For its part, Britain scoffed at the proposal to "internationalize" the waterways and return to the 19th century regime of free and open trade. After a half-decade spent fighting to shore up the vital arteries of the empire, Britain was not about to surrender them to an international commission or renounce its sovereignty over them.
The idealistic goal of creating a "Commonwealth of Nations" was soon scuttled. In its place, the rival powers at least hoped to create a framework that would avoid an arms race and permit a reduction of spiralling military expenditures. Britain worried that in an aeroplane arms race, it would lack the combined resources of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Czechia. Its naval position was more secure, though even here a Central European build-up would likely mean American hegemony in the Pacific and South Atlantic.
Britain had to use the only leverage it had left. It promised the socialist states the use of the Suez Canal, Straits of Gibraltar, and Dardanelles Straits for the shipment of civilian goods, in return for a commitment of the Central Europeans to keep their navy at less than 75% of Britain's tonnage. If the Soviets were to ever bring their substantial Baltic fleet through the Danish straits, this would give them a rough parity with Britain, though it is worth keeping in mind that a substantial portion of both forces were stationed in the Mediterranean, and Britain still obviously had commitments in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. No similar agreement was reached on the manufacture of aeroplanes, though both sides made informal pledges to scale down production.
So long as matters were focused on such questions of geopolitics and comparative military strength, a measure of consensus could be found between the two blocs. In a remarkable show of common purpose, both sides had done their best to avoid touching on matters of a more ideological character. Yet this would eventually prove unavoidable. Around a week into the conference, small delegations from Galicia and Serbia led by Karl Radek and Dimitrije Tucović demanded the repatriation of a number of "Polish and Croatian war criminals" from Britain. It would be politically imprudent for the British government to simply deny such a request; after all, Churchill had been brought down at least in part for his support of Dmowski. Haldane met personally with the Serbian and Galician delegations, promising to investigate repatriating the Polish and Croatian war criminals if the Soviet Union was similarly willing to return the INC leaders it was harboring. The moral equivalence suggested outraged the Serbian and Galician delegations and nearly prompted them to walk out of the meeting. Demands, backed by the vast majority of socialist delegates, were now made for a formal apology from the Anglo-American bloc for "Bankrolling the ethnocidal butchers of Belgrade and Krakow". Leading diplomats of the capitalist powers denounced this as a "political stunt" and urged a resumption of negotiations. With the tacit backing of IntRevMar, the Serbian and Galician delegations left the conference in protest when it became clear that no apology was forthcoming.
Begrudgingly, the rest of the delegates returned to work. The Serbian-Galician intervention, however, marked not a singular irruption of disorder and polarization but the beginning of the conference's disintegration. Anticolonial activists from a number of independent, unrecognized powers found their way into the conference, where they demanded that a "self-determination clause" be included in the final wording of the treaty. The socialist delegates backed their demands, and Jan Smuts, South Africa's lead delegate, in league with the Americans, attempted to win support for a politically innocuous version of self-determination. But the attempts to water down the actual content of self-determination to mere consent and "enlightened trusteeship" met with united opposition from the socialist delegates. It proved impossible to find a compromise settlement. The Chinese, ostensibly an ally of America, voiced support for the robust version of the self-determination measure, an important propaganda coup for the socialists.
During the final days of September, the arrival of a delegation from the "Republic-of-India-in-Exile" threw the conference into chaos. The delegates of the Atlantic Union charged IntRevMar's anti-colonial committee with attempting to undermine negotiations. In fact, only around a quarter of the anti-colonial committee was aware of the Indian delegation's inconspicuous arrival in Stockholm; the initiative was largely that of the "Republic-of-India-in-Exile". The socialist delegates closed ranks behind their Indian comrades, making it impossible for them to be expelled. Britain now appeared to be on the verge of leaving the conference altogether.
Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed. Notwithstanding their renewed rancor, the diplomats agreed to formalize previous agreements already reached in a series of documents that became known as "The Stockholm Accords." Other commercial and military matters would have to be settled through future negotiations. There were no illusions that peaceful coexistence could be indefinitely maintained. British and American politicians denounced the "colonial subversion and expansionism" of the socialist powers, while the socialist bloc duly condemned the refusal of the Anglo-Americans to "abide by the democratic principle of self-determination, instead resorting to the establishment of a grand imperial despotism over the earth in service to their capitalist paymasters in London and New York."
For now, however, peace was a necessity agreed upon by all parties. The Stockholm Accords were signed and published on October 8th, bringing an end to the conference. The war-weary citizens of great and minor powers alike greeted the news with unalloyed relief. Celebrations broke out in Berlin, Leningrad, Moscow, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome, Turin, Milan, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Boston, New York, and Chicago as citizens hailed the beginning of a new age. The First Revolutionary Era had ended, and the Interregnum era begun. In the passing of one world into another, a great variety of strange and morbid symptoms appear: peace would neither temper their boiling intensity nor slow their rapid proliferation.
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Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
And with that, we have reached the end of the First Revolutionary Era. Thank you to everyone who has followed this timeline and provided me with feedback. This is the first alternatehistory timeline I've written, and I doubt I could have found sufficient motivation to keep going without you. I have no intention of stopping now, though updates might slow for a little bit as my physical health seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Cheers everyone!