Homage to Britannia: An HOI4 Kaiserreich AAR | Part Six: On Ne Passe Pas

Published: 2017-08-25, edited: 1970-01-01

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Homage to Britannia: An HOI4 Kaiserreich AAR

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Game: Hearts of Iron IV

Homage to Britannia: An HOI4 Kaiserreich AAR | Part Five: The Hunt for Huey Long

Images: 51, author: Ceannairceach, published: 2017-08-05, edited: 1970-01-01

[The Second Weltkrieg has engulfed the world, with both the monarchies of Europe and democracies of Africa and the Americas aligning themselves in opposition to the Third International. Britain, France and Italy stand united in the cause of workers liberation, but will their strength combined be enough to stave off their most hated adversaries? Artillery roars and men die as the opening shots are fired, in the war to end all wars...]

Part One: http://imgur.com/a/A4pYC
Part Two: http://imgur.com/a/opvee
Part Three: http://imgur.com/a/6TSmW
Part Four: http://imgur.com/a/AHgf7
Part Five: http://imgur.com/a/8FYKa
From Dover to Cornwall, British men and women watched as lights flashed all along the English Channel. We found ourselves mesmerized by the plums of smoke that followed every shot, and the inevitable crack as the shock wave it the beach. Overhead, Republican planes flew south, their pilots dipping wings to wave at the people gathered below. When they returned the next morning or night, it was always with a few planes less, and those that did return were covered in bullet holes or shredded by flak. The war had begun, and from the shores of southern England, I and hundreds of others watched like the captivated spectators of a football match, helpless to change the course of the battle before us.
The Republican Navy's first challengers were the ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy, who attempted to break past the Union's blockade to join their Entente allies in the Atlantic. Andrew Cunningham, commander of the British naval forces, was unwilling to let such a substantial force escape unscathed, and despite the disorganization of his force, ordered all ships to engage the Dutch in the Manche.
The Weltkrieg had begun explosively, as France reeled from the sudden declaration of war by the Nationalists. Germany, only recently recovered from Black Monday, nevertheless proved ready to begin hostilities immediately, with hundreds of thousands of German men prepared to cross the border.
Like a tide, the Heer rolled across the French border largely unopposed, catching the French in the middle of their redeployment to defend their shores from invasion. German troops were ruthless in their efficiency and speed, cutting down hundreds of French troops in an advance that some referred to as a "Blitzkrieg," or lighting war.
For their part, the French were massively disadvantaged, forced to remove troops from the German front to shore up their defenses elsewhere. With the Communard army disorganized and reeling from the German offensive, it was expected that British arms and blood would be needed to halt the German offensive.
British troops were, compared to their French counterparts, jubilant at the chance to join the war effort. Many of my friends and comrades enlisted for the Expeditionary Force, an impromptu union of militiamen willing to deploy immediately for Calais. We knew nothing of the horrors of the battlefields in France: the men who left in high spirits would return, years later, forever changed by the experience. As would I, when my time came to serve.
The war produced strange changes on the world stage, as nations that desired a collapse of the German world order offered their services to the besieged International. Perhaps most interesting were the visitors from Asia, especially the Mongolians, who arrived in London to study British arms in exchange for their support in the fighting. Though they were turned away by the Republican Army, it left a lasting impression on me, that the war had indeed engulfed the whole world in flames.
With the wheels of government turning too slowly for Mosley's liking, a secret plan was initiated, that disseminated to the Maximists piece by piece as it was readied. The Trade Union Congress, though dominated by Maximist representatives, still acted, in the Autumn of 1939, as a check against the power of the Grand Protector. With popular support on his side, Mosley sought a fundamental change in the politics of the Union, to shape it according to his will and vision.
Mosley's beliefs had begun to seep into every fabric of British society. Women who had enjoyed sexual, personal and political liberation in the 1925 Revolution were slowly converted by propaganda that desired their subservience to the "Socialist ideal," a term that changed based on the whims of the Maximist leadership. Though still expected to carry arms in the service of the Revolution, a sort of quasi-conservatism had returned to British society, one that threatened to forever shape the future of Britain, as more and more joined in the totalitarian practices of Mosley's ideology.
British troops arrived in France on the 8th September, 1939, and were immediately deployed along the entire Eastern front. Though French troops had brought the German advance to a crawl, their arrival was a welcome sight by the Communards, who had been pressed back to the Somme in the north.
The Republican Navy made contact with the Kriegsmarine the same day, as German battleships moved in to save the faltering Dutch navy. Heading the pack was the formidable SMS Kaiser, a behemoth of a warship whose smoke trail could be seen from Dover.
The fighting would claim dozens of ships on both sides, especially from the French navy, who were unprepared for the brutality of naval combat. German guns tore in to French destroyers caught in port, while planes from the Republican Air Force dropped bombs on anything flying a German flag, in a campaign that would claim thousands of lives, both sailor and civilian.
On the 13th September, the British forces fighting in America returned home, trading a foreign war for one on their doorstep. They were afforded only a few weeks before they were expected to deploy to France, an opportunity I used to glean everything they knew of my war-torn home. It was then that I learned that my block in Atlanta had been leveled by Red Army artillery, though no news arrived about the fate of my family and friends, who I assumed were still alive out of naive hope.
With the front stabilized following the arrival of the Republican Army, British troops, wh o had been fighting from Calais to Mulhouse to halt the German advances, were ordered to regroup along the Somme to defend the approach to Paris. The Commune's military command was sad to see so many troops centralized in one area, but was forced to admit that British troops, few as there were, were better used in the defense of the capital of the revolution.
British troops were welcome with solemn celebration by the French people, who were already weary from the fighting by the end of that first brutal month. British troops had lost their dreams about the war in the face of the nightmares that plagued the French, who fought tooth and nail to repel the monarchist invasion.
News from the Orient, however, alleviated some tension in the air: many assumed that the Ottoman Empire, masters of the Levant since the end of the First Weltkrieg, would join with their former allies, but such talk was halted with the announcement of hostilities between the Empire and their enemies in Arabia and Egypt. No aid, it seemed, would come to the Kaiser from Constantinople.
As the war dragged on, the Republican Air Force found itself the dominant power in the air, as the Germans and Entente found themselves unable to compete with British planes.
British air superiority relied upon its technological and training advances, which consistently produced airmen and aircraft of great quality. The RAF would become famous at home for their acts of bravery and success in the Channel and over France, credited with saving the International's ground forces more often than they saved themselves.
With British forces reorganized north of Paris, a new plan of attack was ordered to push in to German Wallonia: the Belgian forces were meager compared to those of the Germans, and though their resistance was heavy, it was expected that they would fold within months.
As the first battles of the Channel came to a close, a shocking revelation was delivered by France: the famous battleship, l'Internationale, had been sunk by the SMS Alte Dessau.
l'Internationale, the pride of the Communard navy, had been struck by torpedoes in the Channel as it returned to port from an engagement with the SMS Kaiser. Crippled and on fire, it was easy prey for the Kriegsmarine, who sacrificed two destroyers to sink the mightiest ship the Commune had to offer. Newspapers in Britain, firmly under the control of the Maximists, downplayed the loss of life, but those who subscribed to the French papers that were smuggled across the channel were aware of the thousands that died as the mighty warship slipped beneath the cold water of the Atlantic.
Hope was restored in part as International troops reached the border of Wallonia, where they threatened to push the Germans out of France entirely. Lille had again become a frontline city, as German troops dug in to protect their gains.
French soldiers were increasingly optimistic with the arrival of British support, though the morale of the International forces was constantly under threat: each loss of territory shook the French troops, who feared a repeat of the First Weltkrieg should they become bogged down in French lands. A victory was needed, to show the men and women of the International that total victory was possible.
Mosley, for his part, was keen to use his increasingly dictatorial power to militarize the Union of Britain to his liking: the economy was regeared towards total war, and for the first time since the Revolution, conscription was put into place: men and women who had joined the Militia Reserve were called up for training, to prepare a new army for deployment in France. My number was called on September 26th, along with the rest of the Greenwich militia. Though it would be months before I saw battle, the looming battle shook us all to our core.
In Paris, Communard leadership was pressed by their constituents to bring victory to the east, as thousands died in each confrontation with the Kaiserreich. It was only when Leon Jouhaux himself took to the radio that these bombardments of dissent were quelled:
In a speech broadcast to the whole of the International, the French chairman called upon the promise that had been broken at Verdun, two decades prior.

"The Germans shall not have one more inch of France, for a wall of French flesh and steel stands ready to repel them. We shall do what our fathers failed to do. It is my promise to you, free peoples of the world, that we shall make the German bleed for every step they have taken across the Meuse. On ne passe pas!"
Reinvigorated by his words, the French army pressed onward, the Republicans close behind them. Frenchmen threw themselves against German positions, unwilling to let the Kaiser's men have even a moment of rest between assaults. Their gallantry, it is certain, would earn them the love of the Commune, who threw their support behind their underdog soldiers at the front.
As the war on land continued, so to did the war at sea, with the arrival of the Royal Canadian Navy marking the true start of hostilities between the major forces of the Entente and International. King Edward, brazen and filled with a revanchist desire to crush the forces of Syndicalism, had sent the whole of his navy to the Channel, hoping to break the Republican Navy in one glorious battle.
As the fighting raged in the south, Mosley and the Republican brass were preparing to open a new front in the Low Countries to force the Netherlands out of the war. Drawing from the ranks of the Blackshirt volunteers, a force was formed and battle plans drawn up for the invasion of Holland in a month's time. Operation Malay would, if successful, require the whole of Britain's military power.
I, like many conscripts from the early days of the war, was saddled with the task of preparing the invasion force. Thousands of men and women were put to work preparing Britain's first foray into Europe since the First Weltkrieg, a massive undertaking that required the efforts of all three branches of the Republican military. Though I would not join the veterans of the American intervention on the first wave, I was slated to follow them should the operation prove a success, a prospect that many found unlikely in the early days of the war.
On the 29th September, 1939, French troops reached their former border with Germany, and launched an immediate attempt to reclaim the city of Mulhouse, occupied by Germany since the end of the First Weltkrieg.
Despite repeated French attacks, the Germans were well dug in along the border, and prepared for a protracted siege by the Communards. It would be many weeks of slow, grueling battle before any progress was made by either side.
The Canadian presence in the Channel had increased tenfold since the start of hostilities in early September, and by the end of the month such warships as the Warspite and Queen Elizabeth could be seen attacking British and French forces.
The Royal Navy, save for the Kriegsmarine, was perhaps the only naval force on the planet that threatened the Republican Navy of Britain at sea. They alone could pushed the Union's forces from the water, and poured everything they had into that mission. It was set to be, at the time, the bloodiest naval confrontation in recorded history.
Though losses in the war against the Entente were negligible - relegated to the sea and air - by the end of September, 200,000 men and women had died as a result of the fighting between France and Germany, with Frenchmen representing the bulk of the casualties. A grim realization came over those at home that read the figures: millions would die before the fighting would end.
The opening shots of the Battle for the Channel came across the bow of the RNS Revolution: a light cruiser and among the first ships to make up the Republican Navy, the warship dueled its Canadian superior, the battleship Warspite, in a confrontation off the coast of Cornwall. The fight lasted barely two hours, and though men of the RAF were awarded for their heroism in assisting the Revolution, it was doomed the moment the battle began.
A volley from the Warspite's main battery tore through the hull of the cruiser, igniting its munitions in a fireball that engulfed the ship in its entirety. Of the 500 crew, only a few dozen escaped the inferno that tore through the ship, illuminating the wreckage as it slipped beneath the waves.
The RAF would prove instrumental in preventing these tragedies in future confrontations, as they formed the first line of defense for the embattled Republican Navy. Despite their successes, however, the sea was too large a beast to police effectively, and for every ship saved by the airmen of Britain, another was lost, along with a dozen pilots in its defense.
General Montgomery, leader of British troops in France, was unable to break past German lines that guarded the way into Wallonia. Spread too thin, they required French aid to break the Kaiser's line, something all to scare in the early days of the war.
Another terrible defeat for the Republican Navy was the loss of the Edinburgh: although outdated, the heavy cruiser's success in battle was valued by the Navy, who wept at its defeat by the Iron Duke.
The favor was finally returned on the 7th October, 1939. A fleet of British destroyers and cruisers caught the Canadian carriers Aegus and Majestic along the coast of France.
In an engagement that lasted the majority of the afternoon, British vessels encircled the two Canadian carriers while the RAF peppered them with bombs, torpedoes and light fire. Forced to make a breakout, the carriers were fatally struck by artillery and torpedo late in the evening, only to limp away from the fighting into the Atlantic. Surveillance would capture their sinking, far away from relief by the Royal Navy: some several thousand Canadian lives would be lost at sea as the massive vessels finally sunk into the ocean.
In a major change in the tide, vessel after vessel was sunk by British ships that pursued the fleeing Canadian navy, who attempted to regroup in the Atlantic away from the fighting. The Warspite, Queen Elizabeth , Valiant and Revenge, the bulwark of the Royal Navy's battleship line, all fell to Republican fire as their fleet broke against the combined forces of Syndicalism at sea.
Though costly for the Union, who would come to regret every ship lost at sea, the victory in the Channel was unparalleled, surpassing even that at Trafalgar a century prior. Dozens of Canadian ships had been lost, and though Britain did not walk away unscathed, the Royal Canadian Navy was crippled in the fighting, never to recover.
Still, the battle for France raged on in the air, and though England was safe, France's own air force proved unable to best their German counterparts in the sky. British planes that had been set aside for the defense of the Channel turned their attention to northern France to relieve their comrades.
The fighting over France would claim dozens of planes in mere weeks, as German and International forces fought desperately for superiority in the sky. Britain's intervention would secure the International's dominance, but for how long was a question no one wanted answered.
As the war raged in Europe, a response was expected from the Combined Syndicates whose victory we had secured in '37 and '38. No response would come, however: Jack Reed, for all his rhetoric about the world revolution, was unwilling to sacrifice American lives in a foreign war while Americans still lived in chains. All resources were put into the conclusion of the Second Revolution, in the hopes that when it was complete, the arsenal of the new world might be turned to aid Europe.
American troops marching across the Great Plains and Texas found themselves increasingly welcomed by the people they liberated: the situation in the once-United States was quickly deteriorating in late 1939, and the Red Army, for all its faults, were welcomed as liberating heroes rather than as socialist oppressors, bringing with them food, supplies, and the liberties they once enjoyed.
On the 19th October, 1939, Communard forces declared, perhaps prematurely, the expulsion of all German troops from Champagne, and that their next goal was the liberation of Nancy from German occupation. The rolling tide of International forces was proving too much for the Germans, who could not stave off the endless French militias arrayed against them.
Unfortunately, that day also marked the first invasions by the Entente along the western coast of France. Surprisingly, it was not the Nationalists or Canadians that landed the first boots on French soil, but the Dutch, whose commandos touched down in Brest. Dutch soldiers are quick to launch further assaults on Lorient, defended only by French reservists.
The fighting in Brittany was the first western France had seen in some hears, and it quickly proved the ruthlessness that would characterize the Second Weltkrieg in the years to come. Dutch soldiers, many conscripted from Indonesia, slaughtered themselves on the landing grounds of a nation they did not want to fight. Those poetic souls around me were quick to compare their early defeats to Gallipoli, and I cannot find fault in the comparison.
With the situation in Ireland deteriorating by the October of 1939, Mosley's government reviewed the policy regarding the administration of Ireland. Though Blair's moderates had won out in the previous debates following the annexation, with his power nearing absolutism, Mosley would have no arguments from his cabinet: Operation Demetrius was put into immediate effect.
Though we in England would not hear of the details for many years, to know now what the Union of Britain did in Ireland sickens me. Mosley reopened dozens of detention centers across the Emerald Isle, where thousands of dissidents, ranging from nationalists to radical socialists, were imprisoned against their will for the simple crime of opposing Ireland's conquest. They were subjected to beatings, interrogation, and in some cases starvation. A grim fate for a people that had suffered too long under an imperialist boot, only to be crushed further by an international one.
Blair, for his part, threatened resignation over the treatment of who he called "his Irish comrades." Mosley managed to keep his bucking protege on a leash with promises of the program's temporary nature, but the rebellious Blair was forever marked in Mosley's books for his perceived arrogance. Where once Blair's name was synonymous with virtue, following his resistance to the suppression of Ireland, his name disappeared from many publications that praised Mosley. A shift in the wind had happened, though few would notice it then.
Lorient fell to Dutch troops on the 28th October, 1939, after the French reserves abandoned the city following a brutal firefight in the dead of the night. With only more reserves to stand against them, there were fears that the Dutch would establish a beachhead for the Nationalists to return to the continent.
Dutch soldiers were mainly veterans from Indonesia, seasoned from the campaigns against insurgents there. Drawn home to fight for Queen and Country, these fighters would be the first taste of the Entente's military power in the Second Weltkrieg, and a bloody reminder of the strength of the once-called "colonies."
Operation Demetrius proved a disastrous failure: though thousands of IRA sympathizers and partisans were imprisoned over the course of the counter-terror campaign, the totalitarian measures were quick to rile up the restless Irish people, who by the end of October were already chaffing under British rule. Outside of Leinster, those free from British captivity took up arms to fight off the invaders once more.
It was impossible to hide the news from the people of Britain as the opening shots of the 2nd Irish War rang out in Dublin, where hastily-built barricades dotted the city. Republican soldiers and Maximist collaborators were swift in organizing a defensive scheme for the island, but outside of those areas held by the Republican Army, IRA partisans and Irish Nationalists held complete control, and talks were under way to reestablish the Irish Republic effective immediately.
And so it was that on the 30th October, 1939, the Irish Republic was reborn in Limerick, where a provisional government was established by delegates from the rebellious counties and leaders of the Irish Republican Army. They dedicated themselves to a singular cause: the liberty of the Irish people under self rule, whatever the cost.
Little did we know in London at the time, the Irish republicans were supported heavily by the Kaiserreich, who shipped weapons and equipment to the rebels under foreign flags. Irish soldiers, with German advisers, seized supplies from Trade Unions that were established by the Union, and prepared for a protracted partisan war against the superior Republican Army.
The coalition government of Ireland's new republic was made up of an alliance between a variety of political parties, united under the "United Nationalist Front." Though dominated by the liberal CPNH, Fine Gael and socialist parties also threw their lot in with the coalition in the interest of Ireland's independence.
The republic was led by Sean Lemass, a veteran of the Easter Rising and a moral authority to many of the nationalist factions. His even hand earned him the respect of the competing interests surrounding Ireland's independence movement, but it would not so easily defend against Britain's vengeance.
Ireland was quick to mobilize a volunteer force to defend their temporary campital of Limerick, though this required they abandoned Ulster and the northern counties to British reclamation. Though outnumbered by the Republican Army, Lemass promised to fight until Ireland was independent or he was dead.
With French defenses faltering in Brittany, General Montgomery was forced to reassign a portion of the Expeditionary Force to the Atlantic shore, lest the Nationalists be allowed to deploy their forces behind the Dutch. Though the Commune had turned the tide slowly against the Germans, those on the mainland feared their brothers in Africa, who bleated daily about their return to their homeland as if it were inevitable.
Fortunately for the Communards, the Nationalists were forced to contend with the Italian Navy in support of the Entente's invasion of Sicily and Sardinia. French battleships guarded the waters of the western Mediterranean while Mussolini's vessels kept to the east, unwilling to risk the whole of their navy against the French for the sake of their Syndicalist allies, unwittingly leaving the door open to Entente allies to storm the beaches of Sicily and Sardinia.
The Entente invasions were small, often attempted by the lesser partners of the alliance. New Englanders, as well as the persistent Dutch, were at the front of every landing party. Though Mussolini was quick to push back these small forces, they warned of a greater threat: the mighty of Canada, which, then forced to reconsider its prioritization of the home isles, set its eyes on the Mediterranean.
Black news for the Union of Britain reached London on the 3rd of November, 1939. Germany, in secret talks with the Irish revolutionaries, admitted the freshly minted Irish Republic into Mitteleuropa, bringing with them legitimacy to the rebellion.
Though they had been armed and trained by German officers before the war, Ireland now stood behind Germany in the Second Weltkrieg, and were they not crushed swiftly in the early days of the war, threatened to open up a new front for the besieged Third International. Irishmen from across their emerald island took up German arms in the defense of their homeland and the generous Kaiser.
With Europe swiftly approaching the abyss, strange new allies made themselves available to Mosley, perhaps out of nationalistic ferver, or perhaps for reasons more sinister. Chief among them was Thomas Edward Lawrence, (in)famous for his role in the First Weltkrieg, in which he was responsible for the failed Arab Revolt. A hero to Arab and Briton alike for his heroism and moral character, he had been left aimless by the 1925 Revolution, but returned to offer his services on the 6th of November, 1939.
Lawrence, who some pegged as a secret monarchist, was well-liked by members of the Republican Army and conservatives, who saw him as an upstanding picture of British integrity. Though not a syndicalist or socialist by any means, Lawrence was not an asset to be refused lightly: he promised his complete loyalty in exchange for a contingent of men with which he would destroy the Kaiserreich from the inside, a return to his partisan roots. Mosley could not deny him, and so in November 1939, Lawrence saw his rank and command restored.
His first deployment was against the Irish Revolt. With four hundred men, Lawrence began a counterinsurgency campaign that broke Ireland's spirit: friends and family of those fighting in Limerick were detained, and syndicates that sheltered members of the IRA shut down and disbanded. The counter-terror campaign would leave Ireland a shell of its former self, as Lawrence "of Arabia" turned his skills in fighting oppressors against the oppressed.
On the 9th of November, 1939, Ireland surrendered, though their guerrilla campaign against the Union of Britain would continue on for years to come. Lawrence, for his part, was left in command of the "Irish Pacification," a brutal continuance of the fighting to root out remnants of the Irish Republicans.
Hundreds were brought before the firing lines in a retaliatory wave of executions: priests, nationalists, revolutionaries and union leaders who had even quietly supported the Irish cause were shot dead for the crime of opposing Mosley's imperialism. We would not know their names until the Irish Papers were published nearly a decade later.
Montgomery's men arrived in Brittany in mid-November, 1939, and set to the task of repelling the Dutch invasion force in Brest and Vannes. Outnumbered ten to one, the Dutch were not expected to last long against the then-seasoned Republican Army.
By mid-November, 1939, the war between the International and Mitteleuropa had claimed over 600,000 lives, primarily on the side of France, who struggled to remove the Germans from their land.
Comparatively, the war with the Entente was referred to by many in Britain as the "Phoney War," as few casualties were experienced on either side, save for the French, who had lost nearly their entire Atlantic fleet to the Entente's attempted breakthrough. Only five hundred Canadian and Nationalist French troops had been lost thus far, compared to the nearly nine thousand British casualties, which were miniaturized in the papers that reported losses, in an attempt by the Maximists to control the import of information regarding the war effort.
As winter began to rear its ugly head in Europe, the French broke through the German offensive in former Belgium, and Lille remained the sole city in the north under German occupation. With Wallonia under threat, German forces were desperate to hold on to their last bastion of resistance in occupied France.
The fighting in the north was reaching a crawl by late November, as early snowfall limited armor on all sides from effectively covering ground. British tanks were converted slowly into stationary armor positions, lest their usefulness on the front become completely nil.
With his mission in Ireland complete and better left to local garrisons, Lawrence put in a special request to the Trade Union Congress, which still maintained some power then: Lawrence, with a team hand-picked by him, would parachute behind German lines into the Rhineland, where members of the Free Worker's Union of Germany (FAUD), driven underground by the Kaiser's anti-syndicalist policies, were arming themselves for a partisan rebellion. Though Mosley protested, he was overruled for the last time, and Lawrence left with a team of commandos for Paris, and then for Essen.
German syndicalists and trade unionists had long been supported in clandestine operations by France and Britain, but Lawrence's mission marked the first combat mission in which British troops were deployed directly to German territory. The FAUD militias, though poorly equipped, were masters of sabotage and hit-and-run attacks, and Lawrence's experience in the Arab Revolt helped them greatly in their mission to hinder the German war effort. Lawrence of Germania, as he would be re-dubbed by the British press and propaganda, would become a central hero in the International's war of words.
After the liberation of Vannes, British troops focused their efforts in Brittany on the retaking of Brest, where two Dutch divisions entrenched themselves in the hope that Nationalist French or Canadian troops would relieve them. Unfortunately for them, no help would come.
On the 16th of November, 1939, British society became forever changed: with the people of London and the Union distracted by the increasingly bloody war in Europe and the Atlantic, Mosley's consolidation of power went unnoticed, until for many, it was too late: in a legislative coup, Mosley called for an emergency session of the Trade Union Congress, to settle the matter of executive power regarding the war effort.
Mosley's Maximists dominated the floor of the Congress, as enemies to the Great Protector were shouted down by the united Maximist majority. Mosley delivered a speech to the Congress, in which he called for total and absolute control over the Union's government, to "safeguard the future of British socialism and the flames of the eternal revolution."
As the votes were tallied, it became clear that the "Law for Enabling of Control," a thinly veiled measure that granted absolute and dictatorial authority to the Great Protector, had passed with a clear and unopposed majority.
Mosley's supporters took to the streets in celebration, often coming to blows with those that doubted his sincerity. Perhaps to his credit, Mosley promised to relinquish power upon the conclusion of the Second Weltkrieg: his opponents knew the lies behind his smile. Eric Blair would summarize the Maximist victory in a quip he wrote in his journal, not published until after the war:

"Il est passe." Or, in English, "he has passed."
Empowered as the dictator of Britain, Mosley called for total war against the forces of capitalism and reaction, in what he referred to as "the only war worth fighting: class war." All industries and peoples not committed to the war effort were expected to reevaluate their priorities or be removed from their positions of authority. Factories were seized and people imprisoned over their dissent, in a power move that would solidify Mosley's control over the British people.
On the 16th November, 1939, French troops reached Nanzig, to them called Nancy, and began the tedious and bloody work of dislodging the German forces that held the city, which had been under German control for two decades. Though pro-French partisans had seized the city at the outbreak of the war, their defeat left the German defenses strong, and it would be tough work to overpower them.
The same morning, French troops liberated Lille, and alongside British forces, pushed into Belgium and German Wallonia. The Benelux Campaign was about to begin, the start of the bloodiest years of the Weltkrieg's early existence.
Their preparations complete, the British invasion force set sail for Holland, where a breakthrough would force German and Entente forces on the continent to divert their attention away from the French front.
Though the Canadians would fight hard on the sea to prevent the invasion of their sole European ally, it was for naught: the Republican Navy was quick to halt their attempts, allowing the British to slip past their blockade with few casualties.
On the 18th of November, 1939, British boots touched down outside Amsterdam, and the Battle for the Netherlands had begun. Operation Malay was, officially, begun.
British troops touching down in Holland were met with immediate resistance by the Dutch, who refused to surrender even a centimeter of ground, knowing that to do so would mean the end of their Kingdom. Though rumors were flying in every direction during that time, it was unclear if Wilhelmina or other members of the royal family had fled the country, but it was clear as British troops stormed the beaches that it would be necessary before long.
As the dust cleared in London following Mosley's putsch, it was clear that a new day had brought with it a new world: though war still raged on the continent, Britain found itself changed radically, without a shot having been fired. I would not realize it at the time, but the new day was not something to cherish: it was something we would all lament in the days, weeks, months and years to come, for now, two words were on the lips of every man, woman and child in Britain, spoken honestly, bravely, courageously, tearfully, and fearfully:
Hail Mosley.

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