| Silver Shirts | |
| Fictional Political Party | |
| Southern Victory | |
| Leader: | Oswald Mosley |
| Political Ideology: | Revanchism, ultranationalism, imperialism, militarism |
| Political Position: | Right to far-right |
The Silver Shirts were a far-right party of revanchist nationalists in Britain, headed by Oswald Mosley. They grew quickly in Britain by taking advantage of bitterness and frustration in the wake of Britain's defeat in the Great War, paralleling the rise of the Freedom Party in the Confederate States and the Action Francaise in France.
The Silver Shirts seemed likely to become the largest party in Britain in the 1920s. The Conservative Party prevented this by moving to the right under the leadership of Winston Churchill. However, the Silver Shirts entered into a government coalition with the Conservatives, supporting Churchill as Prime Minister and Mosley as Minister of War. While the Silver Shirts were the junior partner in the coalition, they exerted considerable influence on the Government agenda, and the Conservative Party came to resemble the Silver Shirts much more than vice versa.
When three British cities were destroyed by German superbombs in the last year of the Second Great War, the Churchill-Mosley government collapsed, and the Silver Shirts with it.
Literary comment[]
In OTL, the name Silver Shirts was applied to an underground paramilitary organization with fascistic tendencies during the pre-World War II era. However, it was American, not British.
See also[]
- The British Union of Fascists (aka Black Shirts), the OTL political party upon which the Silver Shirts are based. In The War That Came Early, they are called the Silver Shirts, which appears to be an inconsistency.
