Talk: Coup d'Etat

Let the Speculation Begin

Let the speculation begin. TR 19:57, November 14, 2011 (UTC)

It is a title that begs for speculation. I'm thinking it refers mainly to Britain. We've got a Prime Minister who's eroding the strength of the kingdom's democratic institutions, and a cabal of politicians reduced to meeting in secret and planning for regime change. The situation seems ripe for escalation, though I would have thought HT would pace it a bit more slowly and saved the climax for Book Five.

There are other possibilities, of course. It could be a coup in France, starting with the mutiny that was threatening to break out among Harcourt's subordinates. It could be in Germany, though that was attempted when things were looking much worse for Hitler than they were at the end of the last book, and he was still around. It could be in the USSR, brought about by the Second Coalition's attempts to raise up local quislings in areas they've overrun. It could be in Poland. It could be in one or both of the Spanish factions, or in any combination of the above. I doubt it would be in Japan, where the leadership hasn't done anything to cause a major crisis of credibility, or in China, where the Nationalists, Communists, and warlords will surely not find anything worth breaking their alliance over while Japan continues to pose an existential threat. It's almost impossible to imagine it happening in the US. The US is at war, but only on one front, far away from all its major population centers, against an enemy it outnumbers several times over and which is unable to reach anything east of Hawaii or maybe the Aleutians. I can't conceive of anything there causing enough domestic turmoil to erode eight decades of universal respect for the Constitution. There might be a coup d'etat in the Philippines, though; enough people there will remember the half-genocidal American conquest of the 1900s that they might be won over by smooth-talking propagandists of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. I've always thought that would make for an interesting AH, and from the beginning of this series HT has been willing to experiment with secondary PODs on the side, in situations where the main POD hasn't yet produced much in the way of deviation from OTL.

But mostly I'm thinking Britain. The foreshadowing there was the heaviest. Turtle Fan 04:29, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Summary is up at Amazon, too.[1] Looks like your bet on the UK is the winner.

Another time I pick a winner but don't put money on it. :( Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Given France's history, I think a French coup is basically inevitable. The English coup would probably be just the spark to light the French revolutionary fire.

I wouldn't be surprised. France had its share of fascists, remember, so there's potential for more of a civil war situation there. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

That would also seems borderline inevitable. The question then of course: do the Germans get involved, and does it look like Romania or like Italy. TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

I guess it depends on what the Germans feel is at stake. Have they come to rely on the French portion of their army in the USSR, or is it enough for them to have the Western Front resolved, and the French alliance is just icing on the cake? If the former, they'll be hurting when the French army goes home and/or mutinies. If they have a sizable reserve some place, would they be better off using it to try to bring France back to heel, or using it to fill the holes in the line that the French opened? If they have no reserve to speak of, dare they take even more men off the line in a gamble to get the French army back, or should they cut their losses?

But if they decide to cut their losses--even if they don't depend too heavily on French support in the east, and perhaps even especially then--can they risk having a Hitler-hating coalition seize power in Paris and reopen hostilities on their hitherto secure western flank? I every situation I think the answer is no. If this French coup attempt is a serious threat to the Axis, Germany must respond. If they're feeling the pinch, their response may come at the expense of their Spanish allies. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

I still think Hitler will go the way of Kaiser Bill. But not yet.

Coup in the Soviet Union--I guess the threat of the Second Coalition might be enough to scare some of Stalin's cronies into acting if they think it means trading space for time. But really, that lot had Hitler figured out before anyone else did.

I was thinking more along the lines of anti-Stalinists scenting blood. Maybe the Westerners are moderating the Nazis' brutal occupation policies? That plus Stalin on the rails could be very encouraging to people who are sick of his despicable human rights record. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I can see that. If the Second Coalition is trying to curb the Nazis inhumanity, then it would seem unlikely that Einsatzkommandos are going to be active right were British and French troops can see them. And plenty of people in Soviet territory initially welcomed the Germans as liberators, until it was too late. So the full horror of Stalinism would be on display, whereas Nazism wouldn't be so much. TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Notice how well behaved they're being in Poland. If this trend is copied in the Soviet Union, schemes like the Lokot Autonomy should have a lot of support indeed.

And of course we now have hints that the Germans are behaving themselves even in their own country. I find this all . . . interesting. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what make of the Pacific War going badly point--that scans with OTL, and I can't see why it would be worse under these circumstances. I think that line is in there to remind us how "different" the US-Japanese war is rather than create an impression that the coup could be in the U.S.

That's my thought as well. Massive Filipino mutines would probably make the war even worse than OTL, but that's a low probability. You'd have to go back to 1920 or so for a POD that would really make that work; the US had been building up goodwill since then.

Also, I wonder if Peggy is campaigning for interventionism, or just continuing to argue with Herb and their friends. That would be enough for me, actually; the way she continually fails to have a major effect on world events despite her proximity to them is sympathetic to regular folks like us. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

An anti-McGraw would be nice. TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

It would, but as I said, I've come to enjoy Peggy's bug's-eye-view of the world, a world whose major trends she can understand but not influence. HT hasn't really done anything like that since Sylvia Enos sank Roger Kimball, and one of my knocks against SA was that it didn't really have any ordinary schlubs; everyone kept finding themselves with some sort of opportunity to get their names in the history books. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Other random thoughts-"free-thinking" is not he first thing that pops into my head when I think of Luc Harcourt. That could be publisher overstatement, or it could mean Harcourt doesn't make it to the end.

It was an odd phrase. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I suspect Vaclav Jezek will ultimately kill José Sanjurjo. It will be somewhat anti-climactic in one sense, since the act itself won't free Czechoslovakia. In the broader sense, I suppose it could be appropriate since Sanjurjo's continued survival did somehow cause the invasion of Czechoslovakia. (Operative word being "somehow".)

Yeah, really. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

HT seems as if he'll be doing something more with Clemens August von Galen, a good thing indeed.

Yes, that will be delightful. And it's interesting that the Nazis are willing to behave themselves for the sake of international respectability now that they have to cooperate with neighbors whom they can't intimidate or overawe. Almost makes me wonder if HT is offering political commentary for the debates over whether to maintain relations with this and that rogue state. (It will be an election year offering, after all, and the last one he offered was intended to affect his readers' votes.) Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I would dispute that MWiH had that intent. Listening to the interview with HT on the back back in 2008, he stated that the publisher wanted it out before the elections, and he asked for a higher paycheck to do it (on the grounds that he'd have to set aside a few things to get it done on that schedule). The impression I got was that DelRey was trying to insure the maximum relevance of the book, not make a broader political statement.

Oh? I missed that one. It does sound like something he'd do and say, and something a publisher would ask for. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

To go one further, I listened to an interview HT did with some conservative publication (the Weekly Standard maybe?) where the interviewer was more interested in using MWiH as some sort of manifesto or endorsement of Bush and/or McCain than HT was comfortable with.

Maybe not a partisan endorsement, but there was an agenda there that was hard to miss: Cindy Sheehan clones, "Ladies and gentlemen--We got him," etc. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

So, long way around the barn, I wouldn't make too much out of the timing and HT's creative decisions. It's always more complicated than all that. TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Oh undoubtedly. And anyway, that whole kerfuffle over whether to open relations with Iran or the DPRK or this one or that one really doesn't come up so much anymore, and isn't likely to be an issue next year. And "Germany's behaving itself better" isn't quite so heavy handed as "Here's an entire book devoted to a costly and increasingly unpopular occupation, and a look at the costs of not sticking with it." Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Japan's "diabolical new weapon" would point to Unit 731 bearing fruit. (Or possibly HT reading Zzarchov's happy thoughts for ideas and deciding to give Japan the a-bomb first.)

I'm thinking it's got to be a biological weapon based on foreshadowing. I'm wondering what they'll discover that they didn't in OTL, and why. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

It may not be anything spectacularly new--in reviewing OTL, while Japan used such weapons on the Chinese with abandon, they never did on the US, more for reasons of logistics then for anything else. In this world, where Japan is presumably far more depleted after Siberia than in OTL, using bio-weapons would probably be a necessity. (And it's worth remembering that the vast majority of American readers will be too young to have living memories of chemical weapons being used in a large scale conflict; from that perspective, any bioweapon would be "diabolical" and "new".) TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

True, we do have a certain horror of such things that tends to make them seem even more frightful than they are. The last large-scale deployment of such things was the war between Iraq and Iran in the 80s, and veterans of that one, from what I've seen, pretty much shrug and say "You just made sure your gas mask and protective covering were in good shape and close by. Past that, you got used to it."

So what did Unit 731 mainly deal in, as far as weaponized germs went? Smallpox? Anthrax?

(The Brits played with anthrax themselves, as a way of preparing for Operation Sea Lion. They experimented with it extensively on some tiny little islet in the Orkneys, and deployed so much of the stuff that they quarantined it for sixty years. An interesting coincidence, which got it a lot more attention than it might have had otherwise, is that the quarantine expired in October 2001, right as anthrax started appearing in US mailrooms.) Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

On a more meta-note: this is probably the earliest release of a summary for an HT book that I can recall. Usually, these appear the Spring before a Summer release. Mathematically, we're still closer in time to the release of TBS than to CdE. It leads me to wonder if HT made good use of the slow schedule for 2010. TR 05:25, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I remember seeing somthing in February a few years back, but never before New Year's, let alone while the afterglow of my birthday has yet to wear off. Not unless you count projects like GMBML! that are announced and then delayed. Not sure what to make of it. Turtle Fan 06:28, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Other random thoughts not addressed in the summary:

• Italy-I think Mussolini gets to be the Franco of TWPE, that is, a prominent proponent of a fascist ideology who gets to survive World War II. He's playing it much smarter than in OTL.

He really is, isn't he? Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, given how quiet Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and other points east have been, I wonder if they might also survive the war with their nationalist or fascist governments intact.

Maybe, but should the Soviets turn the tide of the war (a very smart bet given HT's tropes) and come charging out of the east all hellbent for leather, they may just pick those countries off regardless of how quiet their rulers have been. The rulers of the Baltics and Finland didn't do much to provoke Moscow in OTL, and it didn't help them any. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

• Finland has also fallen out of the story. I can't see them jumping back in. I don't get the sense that they had any territorial asperations in OTL. With the threat of the USSR effectively neutralized, signing onto the Second Coalition would be of no benefit.

No. And with the British and French on their side, Germany probably won't care if they want to drop out. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

• Poland-Edward Rydz-Smigly died in December, 1941 of a heart attack. Using whiat I've come to think of as the the Calvin Coolidge Rule (which really should be the Richard Harding Davis rule, but Coolidge is more memorable), wherein people whose deaths in OTL weren't due to infectious disease, but rather some internal biological issue will die on the same schedule as in OTL (unless killed off sooner), I think Rydz-Smigly will probably die on the same schedule, quite probably by book's end. It will most likely be an "Oh, shit, now what?" cliffhanger moment.

Interesting. If the German alliance continues to work out relatively well for Poland, it shouldn't be too hard to find a replacement who will continue willing participation in the Second Coalition. But if they do find an anti-Hilterite . . . Well, unlike Finland, Poland is strategically significant, too much so for the Germans to shrug and let it go. And also unlike Finland, Poland has enough Coalition troops already in-country to begin conquering it at need.

Now if Germany is being well-behaved, readers are going to find it very strange indeed. No doubt we'll keep waiting for Hitler to stop playing the wolf in sheep's clothing and start showing his true colors. And if he can say to London and Paris (assuming his friends there are still in power) "We have legitimate grievances against Poland now, let's teach them the price of crossing us" . . . Ending on "Hitler stops pretending and puts away the smily face" could be a very emotionally powerful ending. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I attempted to post this last week, but Wiki was having problems and ate my post. Just now remembered it. TR 18:49, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

That's happened to me before when making a very long edit. Sometimes I get into the habit of saving periodically as I go. More often I forget. Turtle Fan 20:10, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Title

I had the thought that it might not be the worst idea to rename this article "Coup d'Etat (Novel)." Given HT's tropes it's not hard to imagine that some day we might need an article devoted to explaining what a coup d'etat is and providing specific examples from HT's writings, if we aren't there already. Turtle Fan 23:15, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

I'd thought about that as well. My counter-argument (such as it is) is that readers know what a coup d'etat is (I hope), and so creating a general definition article is probably unnecessary. TR 02:12, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

I would hope so, but we still have quite a few HT coups which we'd do well to discuss in one place. I also recall not too long ago you, ML4E and I trying to define how we would use words like coup and putsch and revolution etc and finding that it's not nearly as easy to define these things as we might have thought it would be. Turtle Fan 02:29, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

Well, coup d'etat and putsch are the same thing--that's a French "Civilisation" vs. German "Kultur" pissing match issue.

In relation to a revolution: a coup is an overthrow by a small section of the society which then uses the government apparatus already in place to rule. TR 04:24, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

It's not that I object to your characterization, but it was not so easy to resolve last summer.

Here's an idea: At the top of the article we write: "This article relates to the 2012 novel Coup d'Etat, part of The War That Came Early series. For information on plot-relevant coups in various Turtledove works, see [[List of Coups and Attempted Coups]]." Then we create that list with links to those that already have articles, like the 2011 Putsch and the Bunker Plot, and do short one-paragraph write-ups on others. It might be useful to have all those things together, for compare/contrast purposes, etc.

I agree that once HT has a novel titled Coup d'Etat to his name, people are more likely to expect an article by that title to include information on the novel than they are on anything else which might be described as such. However, since you and I both anticipated potential need for clarification, we should not ignore the issue altogether. Turtle Fan 05:17, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

Another option: we do already have a coups category. We can define coup there, and then people can see all the well, failed coups, really, that appear in HT's work. TR 16:43, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

And say ""This article relates to the 2012 novel Coup d'Etat, part of The War That Came Early series. For information on plot-relevant coups in various Turtledove works, see Category:Coups."?

You're right, now that I think of it, that HT has yet to write a successful coup. Zhukov's counter-coup after Beria overthrew Molotov might qualify, or Hoover taking over in "Joe Steele;" but the former has some pretty significant caveats and the latter is vague to the point of near-meaninglessness, really just a postscript to the story. Someone who was loyal to Petronas to the bitter end might say Krispos had staged a successful coup, but that's another debatable one. If this book has a coup which everyone admits was an unreserved success, it will be like Charlie Brown kicking the football. Turtle Fan 17:05, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

Custer-eqsue dream

So I had a dream about this one last night that didn't quite reach the heights of The Simpsons asking for Jake Featherston to help find their dog, but it was close.

It was June, and I was surprised to find this book in my mail box several weeks early. I was also surprised to see that the title of the book had been changed at the absolute last minute to "Villains and Heroes". Also, HT or the publisher had done something completely new by including full-color maps at the beginning of the book, a lengthy summary of what had happened thus far, and a small letter of apology from HT about HW and W&E.

Sometimes you do get lucky with release dates. I remember the bookstore calling to say I could come pick up my reserved copy of RE a full five days before I was supposed to; naturally, I dropped everything and ran over lest they realize their mistake. I vaguely recall having something similar happen with USA, too.

With delivery by mail that's a little harder to come by. But sometimes they get generous with the scheduled release date: CCH came out in June.

I like the idea of a colored map (hopefully one that's not three books out of date and actually reflects reality, rather than a diagonal slash through northern Virginia representing the Rappahannock), and a "Previously, on The War That Came Early" section would fit in quite nicely. As for HT apologizing for the quality of HW (W&E didn't bother me any), it would be nice. An apology for the last three TL-191 books would also be appreciated, and God knows he should apologize for The Golden Shrine. I guess he wouldn't want to set the precedent, or hurt residual sales.

I don't require an apology for IatD. I don't need one for W&E, either, but such is the nature of a dream. TR 19:43, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

IatD did rally a bit, enough to give the series a strong finish, but by then actually making SA a strong story was a lost cause. Every so often I dream that I'm demanding an apology for, or am otherwise outraged over, something that really wouldn't bother me if I were awake.

As for the title switch, "Villains and Heroes" sounds more like the title for an expansion pack to a CCG than it does a book. Turtle Fan 03:29, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

It does. I remember thinking the other title was better. Another little detail-I couldn't remember what the original title had been. TR 19:43, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Scanning through the book, I was pleased to see we'd have articles for this guy and this guy as two key anti-fascist plotters (the fact that they were both dead didn't seem to bother me). I tried to get online to brag about my good fortune, but a rather large hamster cage was blocking my access. Then I woke up, and I was actually rather saddened to realize that CdE is a ways off. TR 17:46, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

We used to have a Clemenceau article on the grounds that he was probably the premier of France in TL-191 during the GW, based on well-worn patterns of assuming contemporary politicians held the exact same jobs as OTL or else the nearest equivalent unless we were told otherwise. It wound up on the cutting room floor after we tightened the speculation policy.

I remember that. TR 19:43, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Now the hamster cage--Was it interfering with your Internet connection, or was it physically blocking you from your computer? Maybe your computer was inside the cage and you couldn't figure out how to get in? Or you suddenly discovered you were in the cage and couldn't find a way out? Or something else entirely? Anyway, sounds like a hell of a dream. I can count on one hand the number of times I've dreamed so vividly, and not at all since I turned twenty. Turtle Fan 03:29, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

It was physically blocking me from the computer. I could actually see my computer but the magical forces of dream logic mandated I address the "issue" of the hamster cage, whatever the hell that means. TR 19:43, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could have learned the secrets of the Wheel drive and thus made your fortune. ML4E 20:51, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

When I was fifteen I dreamed I was about to lose my virginity (the identity of the girl kept changing every time I looked away, but hey, you go with it) but then I remembered that there was archery equipment in the closet of my parents' guest room, and "addressing" that issue took priority over the other thing. The various girls who kept swapping out got tired of waiting for me and I had to do without. Turtle Fan 23:43, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Predictions

Earlier today I heard someone mention von Galen, of all the odd topics, and it made me realize that we would have normally started up a couple rounds of speculation by this time of year. We've got a very thorough one up at the top of this page, but nothing since then, our recent guesses about Wolfgang Storch notwithstanding.

I've got nothing new to add since November, aside from curiosity about von Galen's expanded role and my little pipe dream of the King doing something dramatic to help out Cartland. Still, I thought I'd donut the talk page in case anything drifts to the surface for anyone. Turtle Fan 01:12, March 22, 2012 (UTC)

I have to hand to HT at this point: this series has now confounded my expectations. So aside from the stuff that was reasonably obviously built up in TBS (like Unit 731 and various coups in various places) along with what's been hinted at in the summary, I'm stumped.

Same, and I'm very surprised. We got early confirmation of the obvious conclusions we drew about the broadest strokes, but beyond that it really could go anywhere. Even the character threads are looking unpredictable, and even more surprising than the twistiness of the plot, is that, though I remember how gray they all were in HW, now I actually care about some of them. Not all, but a lot. Turtle Fan 04:43, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Germany vs. Japan?

I've seen various people suggest that Germany has to declare war on Japan now that Japan has jumped Britain and France. Obviously it doesn't have to, but much as Hitler declared war on the US with the expectation that it would cost him nothing, he might just do that as a show of good faith for his new allies (plus he might feel pissy after Japan stopped fighting the USSR). Here, however, I think that their geographical distance will pretty well insure that the declaration is simply that, a declaration, and that Britain and France will be doing much of the fighting in the Pacific, alongside the US.

Germany obviously has to do no such thing, any more than the USSR and Japan had to declare war on one another in OTL, at least until Stalin committed himself to it at Yalta. (Just think, North Korea would be free today if the Western leaders hadn't begged him to. Well that's a depressing thought.)

Certainly at the end of TBS relations between Berlin and Tokyo have to be much chillier than they were before, but unlike OTL the two were never allies. It was in both parties' interests to pursue the same course vis a vis the USSR until all of a sudden it wasn't. Then it was in both parties' interests to pursue opposite courses vis a vis western Europe. I think their respective foreign policymakers will understand it's strictly business, and even if they don't, since the Anglo-Japanese Alliance chased Germany out of the Pacific in WWI, there's hardly anything they can do to each other.

It occurs to me that, from the German perspective, while Japan's actions are not personal, they still gum up Germany's schemes. Roughly six months after Hitler finally gets Europe's remaining great powers on his side against the Soviet Union, Japan comes along and creates a distraction for those powers, and now they can't necessarily focus on the Russians like Hitler wants them to. And Hitler being Hitler, he could very take that personally.

I guess what I am saying is that there is no reason to expect a German-Japanese war, but that there are plausible ways of having one come about.

True, and it might be an even bigger drain on resources than in OTL. When the British were Allies, they had to be concerned about defending their island, so threats to the colonies were viewed as secondary. I'm not saying they didn't pull their weight in the Pacific, they did; but it was understandable that they'd be more concerned about Germany, especially after Percival surrendered in Singapore and Yamashita bagged the largest capitulated force in British history. This time the British homeland is not seriously threatened, air raids over Scapa Flow notwithstanding; the British can gain in Europe, but they can't lose, and in the absence of any known details as to the deal Chamberlain cut with Hess, I'm assuming they can't gain all that much; Germany will presumably get the bulk of the victors' spoils of the new war. Examples of London looking to its threatened overseas possessions ahead of its threatened European allies go at least as far back as Henry VIII. The French have had fewer opportunities to do this historically, but they do tend to take those they get. There's a reason that we in the US and Canada think of the Seven Years' War first as a North American affair, and it's not just provincialism. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Now with the Hitler-hating Roosevelt having held the White House and the interventionist star rising since Pearl Harbor, the prospect of the US going to war with Germany would make this war just about the most complicated I've ever encountered in either history or fiction. You might conceivably have the US and Royal Navies conducting joint operations in one ocean and simultaneously fighting a battle in the other. Turtle Fan 04:43, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Well, hell, even without a war between the US and Germany in this circumstance, the co-belligerency that Japan has forced upon the U.S., the U.K. and France will make this whole thing hella convoluted. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and the history buff in me loves it. Since it's fictional and no actual people are suffering, I feel no guilt in letting that love run wild. But two countries being in one alliance while fighting wars against one another's other allies just elevates it to a whole new level. And again, I must say it's a level that's much more interesting than the usual model for a systemic conflict, where everyone lines up in one of two alliance systems, looks out across the field at the other side, and says "We're at war with all of the above." Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Soviet Front

But other than that--we know that General Winter did a number on Germany in late 1941. However, here we have four(ish) nations on the offensive in Russian territory very early in 1941. While the drive might stall until the spring, given the relatively successful initial push of Barbarossa in OTL, it's conceivable that the Second Coaltion will have done a thorough number on the Soviets before General Winter moves in (depending on what various coups do, of course). Admittedly, much of the success of Barbarossa comes from the element of surprise, which is not at play here. So, I may be over enthusiastic in my reading of things.

The structure of "Soviet Union or its equivalent gets beaten like a drum for a couple of books before suddenly turning everything around right as the Nazis or their equivalent are within sight of the surrender spot" runs so deep in Turtledove's canon that I literally find it hard to imagine something going significantly differently. And I ask myself how the first year of the war would have gone in OTL if the Germans had given up the element of surprise and some of the Red Army's unpreparedness but in exchange gained the ability to pad out their forces with the Afrika Korps, a British army, a French army, and a pretty intact Polish army, plus a neutral US and far fewer commitments to occupying small but restive conquests like Yugoslavia. Were I Hitler, it's certainly a trade I'd be willing to make. Turtle Fan 04:43, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

I think we've kicked around the idea that, if the situation looks dire enough, the coup will spread to the USSR. I think it's a "cool" idea but I don't have any strong feelings as to its inevitablity. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of any AHs about a coup in the Soviet Union, and I'm surprised. Stalin never even bothered trying to do anything other than rule through fear; oh sure he was willing to pander now and then by appealing to patriotism and mytho-historical allusion, as Mouradian reminded us in the last book, and he even made his peace with the Orthodox Church in OTL; but even then fear underlay everything. It's not so easy to maintain his brand of totalitarian terror when the whole country knows someone has challenged you and is having his own way of it. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

I am given to understand that in one of Conroy's books, Beria assassinates Stalin. So that's one anyway.

Well that's good. I'm not going to read it, but it's nice to hear. Turtle Fan 17:13, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I'm no expert on the Stalin era, but I've read more than a few books on it, and after straining my brain, I think the last serious, honest-to-God documented challenge to Stalin was Kirov's ascendency. And Kirov was doing it above boards and mostly legally.

The last internal challenge, yes. Hitler's invasion represented a challenge to Stalin that very mearly resulted in his fall, and for several years he was unable to meet it. And there were way, way too many people involved in the war effort for the state-run media to conceal the fact, so Stalin looked weak for the first and only time in the younger generation's experience. Turtle Fan 17:13, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if there is just a presumption that, because in OTL, the implementation of that fear was so thorough, that it's "implausible" that a coup could come about in an AH work. TR 15:57, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Could be. It could also be that a coup would most likely rely on some sort of cooperation with the Nazis, just as the Bolshevik revolution involved cooperation with the Kaiserreich, and no one wants to write about a protagonist who would do so. Turtle Fan 17:13, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

POV?

I'm also curious as to what sort of POV will rotate in for Yaroslavsky. Since HT rotated in Mouradian for Delgadillo, no reason why we should get another Soviet pilot (or Soviet for that matter). TR 01:27, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

I actually had slightly more to say about the POV switch, but dinner was ready and my thought was complete as was. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been there. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Replacing Delgadillo with Mouradian is up there with the Michael-Pound-for-Mary-McGregor switch of DttE for "Where the hell did that come from?" value.

While the switch is unexpected, I suggest that maybe we should not use 191 as a model. In leafing through WW for our little product, I've found HT was far more liberal with POVs rotation than he became in 191. Obviously, the scope of the series, the fact that it was his first series of novels, and the fact that he dropped an alien culture into the mix should all be considered in that analysis, but it might be safer to expect a certain "randomness" in this series than the rigidity of POV found in the North Amerocentric 191. (Darkness was about a fictional world, and I never finished it, so I can't really recall how HT approached it; DoI was more rigid than 191, but extremely limited in its setting and scope.)

Darkness followed the 191 format pretty closely, but point taken. Much more telling is that he really hasn't deviated from the structure in the first half of TWTPE. And while he was more liberal in WW, in Col and HB he settled into something a lot closer to what we've come to think of as the norm. I think it's just what he's most comfortable with. Maybe now that he's writing some pretty long single-POV pieces over on Tor.com and in some of the Atlantis installments, he'll rediscover his love of that format; it's how he wrote the series about Gerin the Fox, and Krispos; I don't know about the other series in the Videssos universe. But he certainly won't do it in TWTPE. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

If HT's playing that game, it becomes impossible to guess who's going to get the vacancy. We can't even ask ourselves what front needs additional coverage, because that's not how the game is played either: Mouradian didn't show us anything that Yaroslavsky couldn't have, at least not anything of particular interest,

That is true: Mouradian's main purpose, I think, was to show a little bit of the Soviet-Japanese air war, emphasize the fact that the USSR was desperate enough to put co-pilots behind new planes without much worry about experience, and, I don't know, give us a more cynical view of the USSR? Yaroslavsky was growing more cynical, but HT made it clear that Mouradian was already quite cynical at the outset of HW.

Mouradian's narrative certainly gives more entertainment value pound for pound than Yaroslavsky. Come to think of it, Hossbach's cynicism gives him a bit more personality than Rothe despite his antisocial behavior. Think maybe HT could be making these switches in part as a response to criticism of how boring the characters were in HW? Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

and Pound just became something like the eleventh POV on Morrell's Chattanooga campaign ripoff. All we've really got to go on is wishful thinking.

Hell, let's run with wishful thinking. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Might as well. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see someone in France.

Yep.

Since the new POV should ideally be a supporting character who's gotten a lot of face time already, the likeliest way to do that strikes me as, have Smokey the Bear Demange get a hometowner and end up with the government forces when the barricades go up; I don't see him as a rebel, at least not at first.

He's another cynic, but if given the circumstances, he might follow Walsh's road.

Harcourt stays in Russia and takes over Demange's duties. Or Harcourt gets sent home and Demange takes over narrating the squad's story, though since we've already got a couple POVs with SecCo in the USSR, it seems like doing it that way would be a wasted opportunity.

Harcourt's the only non-German POV on that front. So removing him seems a waste (unless he's pulled out because France is out, then it makes perfect sense); removing and replacing him with Demange seems needlessly complicated (unless taken in the light that Harcourt is more likely to get mixed in with rebels than Demange is); moving Demange and leaving Harcourt, however, is pretty painless.

That was another thing that I found appealing about Storch becoming the POV in France-he's already (presumably) there and you don't have to jostle the status quo otherwise. Which is not an argument for or against Storch.

It's not a bad argument. I do think he wasn't prominent enough as a supporting character to merit promotion (I thought that of Hip Rodriguez as well--sorry, sorry, it's hard not to lean on TL-191 as a reference point; that's where I cut my teeth on Turtledove's tropes).

Oh, I'm not saying disregard 191 entirely, just try to balance it with other stuff. And Rodriguez is the perfect example of a character who was a visible secondary character for a while, vanished for a whole book, and then got promoted. If HT can do that with one character, he can do it with anyone. TR 16:43, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Most of the other stuff with which I would balance the TL-191 format, though, is other stories that followed the same pattern. And as for Hip, he was a bit more visible than Storch back in the GW books, and I still managed to forget all about him until he came back. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Also I still don't see him being very useful as a propaganda tool for the Free French or whatever they end up being called, not by himself. For the mileage you suggested on the other talk page they'd need either one defector of much higher rank or a sizable number of grunts with similar, consistent, but independent stories to tell. And they very well might have such a group, but other than Storch we don't know of any so there's no reason to assume one way or the other. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe just a warm body who has combat experience, then. Or he brings some personal skill to the table that is useful in killing lots of enemies, kind of like how Bobby Fiore got recruited by the CCP for his pitching arm. TR 16:43, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

If the Free French can cook up a plausible false identity for him they might be able to use him to infiltrate some German organization or other. That might or might not mean sending him back to Germany. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Unless there's a mutiny in the French army at some point, or even a tease at one happening, in which case a French soldier could keep his ear much closer to the ground than a German. Turtle Fan 04:43, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

That is quite possible. It was hinted that mutiny was something the government was worried about before the big switch. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Now, HT has hinted at one possible POV. Herb Druce did state he would try to re-enlist. While we do have McGill, I anticipate that his POV will be about the battle for the Philippines for much of the foreseeable future, or that he'll be dead (given his foreshadowed revenge narrative, that doesn't seem likely). Druce would be in a position to give us some island hopping that McGill doesn't seem in the position to do at the moment.

Could happen, I suppose. I find it hard to get excited about the possibility.

Incidentally, when the recruitment officer mentioned to Walsh that someone of his experience was considered valuable enough to be kept on with a guarantee of not having to fight alongside the Germans, I initially thought he might be our second Allied POV in the Pacific. (I say second because, after three whole volumes of serving no purpose except saying "We'll probably end up fighting the Japs one of these days," for McGill to be killed off now that he's finally got the opportunity for some plot relevance seems like an absurd idea. Absurd ideas do have their place in fiction, of course, but that place is providing us with an unexpected interesting development, not denying us an expected one.) That wouldn't be good; Singapore's not going to be any more defensible in this timeline than it was in ours ("Boy, it sure is a good thing that the dragged-out Spanish Civil War gave the War Ministry the idea to build a fort on the northern side of the island!") and if anything veterans of Vladivostok will make the Japanese even better at urban warfare. So if Walsh were there he'd probably end up in 731 in short order. What he's doing now is infinitely more interesting. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

And related to that: how far will Walsh rise? HT is strongly hinting that Cartland will become PM when the shouting is over (or I'm just overreacting). Does Walsh become part of the Cartland cabinet? (Can he, if he's not an MP?) Does he become an MP himself? Does Cartland do a hard turn somehow, and Walsh becomes his number-one skull-cracker? (I hope not.) TR 16:43, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

He'd have to be an MP. Or else a Lord; I know of no constitutional provision that expressly prohibits him from being granted a life peerage, but I can't conceive of a remotely plausible scenario in which he could do so. Now that he's becoming very political he might develop an interest in standing for Parliament, but even if he did he wouldn't get the opportunity to do so till Wilson was out. Of course, Cartland wouldn't be forming a Cabinet till then, anyway.

I see it being more likely that Walsh becomes something of a fixer for Cartland, a job that may involve some skull-cracking alongside other duties, but that if it did would be for a good cause. Can't have a completely nonviolent coup d'etat, after all. After Cartland moves into No 10, some high-ranking civil service post while serving in a highly unofficial capacity as some sort of kitchen cabinet advisor. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

As for others: I don't see much reason to expect a Pole at the moment. That might come later, but the only major Polish character is Sofia, and she can't show us much of anything that Rudel can't. No Italian characters have appeared whatsoever aside from Mussolini himself.

Sofia as a POV has some potential to be interesting down the road, but it's not getting me excited now. Otherwise, agreed and agreed. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

Obviously, HT could rotate the Nationalist POV in Spain back in, especially as Chaim is looking more like a politician and Jezek can shoot Nationalists. TR 15:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

HT's had three years to tie the SCW-Extended Edition into the main show, and he hasn't given us one single hint as to what he's got in mind there. Even the fall of Gibraltar went nowhere. Until Spain starts mattering, my only wish for that theater is to see less of it. Another POV would be a step in the wrong direction. Turtle Fan 20:55, March 23, 2012 (UTC)

See, I disagree about the wish to see less, now that we have the Czech castoffs there. I find Jezek to be one of the more sympathetic characters of the series, and he certainly brings an impressive skill with him. To me, Spain is just fine because we see more of Jezek. And, in my opinion, if we're going to have Jezek picking off Nationalists, might as well have some Nationalist's (probably Carasquel, speaking of characters we haven't heard from in a volume) view on the situation, as well. TR 16:43, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I've got nothing against Jezek but I feel that Spain is a waste of time no matter who's narrating there. And if we get a Nationalist POV there's no reason to assume he'll be showing us more of Jezek; Delgadillo and Weinberg didn't hook up till the very end of Delgadillo's tenure. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Another odd-ball sort of POV popped into my head the other day. We know that the Germans are ghettoizing the Czech Jews. We know that Slovakia is totally a German puppet. I don't expect that the Slovak that was with Jezek in HW will be a part of that, but I don't think I'll be surprised if he is. TR 16:44, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

He could be there, if we remember his name. Surely not as a POV. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

If Storch does start making nice with the Free French, the SS might bring that bastard Baatz in to help run him down, and if he's successful he might be recruited to transfer to the Gestapo permanently. That might be good; I can't stand Baatz and wish he were dead--I can't figure out why Dernen hasn't shot him in the back yet--but we haven't had a secret policeman as a POV in a while--I guess that Chekist in MwIH was the last one--and they tend to tell interesting tales. Turtle Fan 17:33, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Wish fullfillment/Wild-ass Guesses

Ok, so what sort of things do you hope HT at least passingly addresses in CdE?

My list, in no particular order:

Trotsky

1. Trotsky: Dead or Alive? In OTL, he was assassinated on Stalin's orders in 1940, but now Stalin may not care enough to worry. I'm inclined to think he might still be alive since there wasn't any sort of victory dance in the Spanish Republic in TBS over his death.

I don't remember exactly how I came up with this, but I do recall an earlier discussion of something or other on here involving some elaborate system for getting him to China. I'm sure Mao would enjoy flipping off Stalin by taking Trotsky in. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

The counter argument for that is that Trotsky was in Mexico from 1937 until his death, and, given the course of events, it's probably safer in Mexico than any number of places. Also, given that Mao was in conflict with the CCP's own Trotskyists, it seems more trouble than it's worth for Mao to bring Trotsky in just to nettle Stalin; Trotsky is just as likely to nettle Mao. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

I didn't figure it would happen. I don't remember what even led me to think of it in the first place, but it was just a pipe dream. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Commonwealth

1. The Big Switch and the Commonwealth. It might be nice to hear whether Canada, Australia, New Zealand, et al, are going along with the UK's big move. The fact that it hasn't been addressed probably means that they are. Still, it might make an interesting plot point for say William Lyon Mackenzie King (who based on my cursory googling, is almost certainly still the PM of Canada at this point; ML4E can tell me if I'm wrong) and/or Robert Menzies (who, based on my cursory googling, could still be PM of Australia; Nelg can tell me if I'm wrong) to announce that with Japan's aggressive moves, neither of their countries can continue to participate in the fighting in Europe. (The fact that this would give us some fodder for this project is a bonus). Or, perhaps a continued role in Europe brings about the collapse of one more governments

It's worth noting that when WW2 began in this series, the PM Of Australia was Joseph Lyons. He died of a sudden hart attack on the 7^th April 1939. Robert Menzies would no doubt be the PM even in this time line, because he was seen as Lyons successor way back in 1934. Mr Nelg

That was more or less what I gleaned from the internet. Nice to know I wasn't just pulling stuff out of the air. TR 14:48, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Canada

I was very curious about Canada in particular in the last book. I really would have liked a mention.

It could still happen. We know in HW that they were providing munitions at a minimum. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Even that much means war with Germany. We can assume they aren't at war any longer; my read of Mackenzie King is that he would never fracture the Commonwealth that badly, and even if he would there would be nothing Canada could do to Germany. Their options are neutrality, technically at war with the USSR but not doing anything, and contributing to SecCo's fight, whether munitions and supplies or actual troops (so I guess that's four options). The farther we go along that spectrum, I have to think the less likely it is that Canada wants to get involved to such an extent. If Hess even bothered thinking of things to offer Canada as incentives to switch, he would have come up pretty empty. At best maybe tweak a few minor trade agreements. Britain can only apply so much pressure before looking like a bully, damaging its own trade partnership and driving Canada into a more American orbit.

Of course, that assumes Canada is reluctant to go to war with the USSR, more so than it was to go to war with Germany. I think that's a valid assumption but I guess it could go otherwise. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Australia/NZ

Now that Japan's on the move I think the ANZACs dare not risk losing British protection and will have to sign off on the war against the Soviets no matter how they feel about it. They might, however, be able to get away with saying "We're technically at war with the Soviets, but we aren't going to do shit about it." Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I anticipate a scenario like that at this stage. Given the series of successes Japan had enjoyed, the ANZAC are probably worried sick, and alienating the Brits seems silly. Although I could also see closer coodrination between the ANZAC and the US as the US are fighting Japan exclusively at this point and are thus able to commit nearly everything to the Pacific. The Brits can't quite do that.

I take it it's the start of 1941 in the 4^th book? That means Australia would've just had an election in September 1940. It would've been interesting to know what the Big Switch would have had on the Australian people. Menzies and the conservatives were anti-communist while there was also a big sympathy for soviet Russia. There would've been demonstrations by the far left, and clashes with the far right. I feel it's worth mentioning that the far right in Australia never ever wanted power. The majority of them, including the most famous of them, the New Guard, just existed to keep the communists in check. Australian's were still for King and Country and fighting the soviet's would cause division in the classes, but they would still follow Britain. The war with Japan, that would create a shock, but not a panic. Australian's were told time and time again, Singapore was our first, last and only line of defence. As long as Singapore held, Australia was safe. I can tell you so long as Singapore doesn’t fall, there won't be a dramatic shift to the US. Unless the Japanese decide to attack Australia's New Guinea holdings. Menzies was a staunch monarchist, and a supporter or Britain. He's earned an unfair reputation as leaving Australia open to it's fate, but I have no doubt any other PM would've done the same. Depending on how much Britain throws in the war with Japan, will judge his actions. If things go badly, he'll start sweating and looking at the US, but he won't openly say anything. However, should the US come knocking, he'll hurriedly throw open the doors with a biggest smile he could muster. Mr Nelg

Late winter of 1940-41, after the new year. The Japanese attack was in December of 1940, almost exactly one year to the day before the OTL one except moved one day earlier so they could still do it on a Sunday morning.

Actually, no the attack came in mid-January, 1941. So book 4 is firmly in 1941. TR 14:48, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry. Turtle Fan 16:34, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

That's in Pearl Harbor, of course;

It was actually still Saturday in PH. TR 14:48, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

That's right, the main attack was in Manila. Turtle Fan 16:34, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

it would have been Monday in Singapore--but you know what I mean. So that wouldn't have affected the election.

That is probably correct.

So it was Sunday in Singapore too--I believe they're only one hour behind Manila. But after the Australian election just the same. Turtle Fan 16:34, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

As for the Big Switch itself--I don't remember when it happened. Summer, I want to say, in which case it would be a very hot story indeed in September.

About then. HT was vague, but I'm fairly certain it was a done deal by August. That could account for FDR waiting until October to cut the Allies off-the full impact of what the switch actually meant would be better understood. TR 14:48, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Given that public opinion was pro-SecCo, it was pretty daring of FDR to cut them off right before an election. Unless he was hoping that cutting them off would be seen as an isolationist move rather than an anti-German one.

You know, we really had been counting on the presidential election to provide a lot more tension than it did. It was non-competitive, foreign and defense policies seemed to be pretty secondary issues, and it really had no effect on the story whatsoever, did it? Even the historical figures it shook loose for our purposes were retreads from earlier stories. Turtle Fan 16:34, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Singapore fell quite quickly in OTL, of course, and barring the ass-pull of the extended Spanish Civil War giving the War Ministry in London a flash of inspiration to build another Siloso north of the city, I can't imagine anything that will save it from the same fate here. If anything the Japanese will be even tougher: Their army will include a lot of veterans of the successful siege of Vladivostok, with experience in urban warfare that the Allies can't hope to match. Given the difference between the two cities in terms of topography, geography, climate, and culture, I'm not sure just how much that will help, but it can't possibly hurt, can it?

Also, Britain is committed to the Eastern Front in a big way at this point, as opposed to just the maybe three-quarter-assed campaign against the Afrika Korps and much smaller fronts elsewhere. The Americans knew a war with Japan was coming sooner or later, but our British POV gave no indication whether his country was expecting it or not, so it's possible--though this is just a guess--that they reinforced their contributions to SecCo with the 18th Infantry Division. If they did--and again, that's wild speculation on my part--the Australians may have picked up the slack, if they were so sure that Singapore was essential to their own defenses; so when Percival raises the white flag, Australia's even worse off.

Well, while Menzies was pro British, he was also a realist. However, If Britain could still come to Australia's aid after the fall of Singapore, then that will cement Australia's relationship with Britain even stronger. Even if the Brits were kicked out of Malaya and Singapore, if the British decided to throw everything they had against Japan, Menzies and the rest of Australia will stay with Britain to the last; So long as Britain didn't suddenly decided to switch fronts. Mr Nelg

As for New Guinea, the Japs appear to be playing it slightly more conservatively this time based on their opening salvos, but we haven't seen nearly enough to suggest whether that will last. Turtle Fan 05:05, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Not surprisingly. Originally, in OTL, the Japanese never even considered any operations against the New Guinea area until MacArthur arrived in Australia. They thought the main American thrust would be from Hawaii, until he went down under. This caused the operations against Port Moresby and the Solomon's. Mr Nelg

I would think there's more Austro-American (is that the right prefix?) cooperation as the series goes on, but at the outset Australia and New Zealand had their militaries fairly well tied up in mutual defense commitments with the British Pacific colonies, with shared command structures and joint installations and all that. Realigning with the US would involve setting up a lot of infrastructure from scratch.

Also, putting this ball in play depends on Anglo-American relations chilling to just such a point: If they stay very friendly the US will not be interested in undercutting Britain's relationship with Australia (FDR shot down a request from Curtin that he believed would have had that effect in OTL); if things get really ugly (unlikely but not impossible), the US may pull in its oars, focus solely on its sphere of influence, and not care what the Japs do down in Australasia--a shortsighted policy in the extreme, but we all know that doesn't mean it won't happen. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

South Africa

The last Commonwealth realm at this time was South Africa. The white supremacy of the ruling class there might have led to some sympathy for the Nazis; Stirling certainly thinks so. Now that I think of it, HT had Auerbach reflect in one of the Col books on the fact that South Africa had been on the Allies' side before the Lizards showed up but that it had had a sizable minority of Nazi sympathizers. And of course you've got the AWB in GotS.

And it's an independent Reich ally in ItPoME. HT really doesn't seem to have much faith in South Africa, does he? TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Huh, forgot about that. Certainly the SA government of the late twentieth century was racist and deeply unpleasant, but that doesn't automatically mean pro-Nazi. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

South Africa's allegiance is more significant than one might think, actually: At the time of WWII, it possessed the world's largest known uranium deposit. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Good point. It's hard to imagine an HT work set after 1933 without the prodigious use of atomic weapons (although he might surprise us here). TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, it's a bit surprising we haven't heard a peep about nuclear weapons yet. We don't really have anyone positioned to pass on such information, though. Goldman's father could mention that a former colleague at the university told him the SS has been hanging around the physics department, and maybe the gossip around Unit 731 will include complaints that the government suddenly seems to be redirecting R&D money elsewhere. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Japan

1. PM of Japan? Since they changed PMs multiple times during the period between 1938 and 1941 in OTL, a quick ID would be nice (and that would be purely for our purposes--Japan will do as Japan will do, whether or not it's Konoe, Tojo, or some other random guy who rubberstamps it).

Would be nice for article-writing purposes. Would have no effect on the story. Still, details like that should be at least referenced. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Low Countries/Scandinavia

1. Some reference as to how the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway are fairing. Did the Germans leave (probably not)? Are the Germans behaving themselves in the events of the big switch (more likely)?

I did wonder whether the Brits advocated for their fallen allies in the Hess Agreement. (I'd really like to hear some of the details about the Hess Agreement across the board: Hess lands in the UK and next thing you know two of the four major combatants have changed sides. What the hell did he offer them?) The only reason Hitler steamrolled those countries was so he could threaten Britain and France more easily. The Anglo-French may have demanded he leave as a sign of trust. Or they may have demanded he stay so he could more easily come to their aid if their people rebelled against the governments' new courses. Since the people are indeed going to rebel against the governments' new courses, we'll probably at least get some telling hints as to what happened. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

There is also the mundane reality that neither Britain nor France were in the position to actually liberate those places, I suppose. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

True, though that could also have been one of the carrots Hess offered: "Say yes and we'll leave your friends alone. Say no and you know you won't be able to help them." Their withdrawal then allows the Westerners to say "See, they're reasonable people!" and sugarcoat the pill they're about to shove down their people's throats a bit. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Czechoslovakia

1. Czech government in exile. I assume they all went to Spain now, but it would be nice to hear something from that lot.

Not sure they did go to Spain. The French let Jezek's pals go there because they refused to betray men who had fought for France, and presumably there were so few of them that the Germans didn't care. They will care about a government-in-exile. Maybe the French turn them over. Maybe the various government people melted away and snuck out. If the latter I'd look for them to show up in America eventually--They wouldn't be any too safe in Spain. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Ah, good point. Since Peggy seems like she'll be politicking against Germany, maybe she'll attend a fundraiser or two where she hear's Benes speak, or something. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

That would be exciting. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Italy

1. Italy. Something more concrete. Since we hear so much about how Italy is doing so little, I assume that they aren't really fighting at all. Still, might be nice for someone to say: "I wish Mussolini would help us fight the Reds" or "Wow, the Italians are so worthless in our war against the Reds, they might as well have stayed home."

Whose war against the Reds, Spain's or the SecCo's? We've gotten a little bit of that in Spain.

The Soviets, sorry. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Now that Hitler's got sizable numbers of allies who are worth a damn, he may have just told Mussolini not to bother coming along. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Which, given the frustration Hitler displayed with Mussolinin in HW, is plausible in this case. Certainly Germany has been doing ok without Italy up to now. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

It has, and Italy seems to be playing it smarter as well. Musso may be eager to get the chance to disconnect himself from SecCo so he can look at shrewder options--or options that he thinks are shrewder but will get him in trouble, perhaps. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Spain

1. Spanish Republican Government. Right now, the Spanish Republic has out-lived its OTL counter-part by well over a year. A quick nod to just who is in this government would be nice. (More for our project, really.) TR 16:43, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

We do hear that the Communists aren't as dominant in the coalition as they were before the USSR got attacked by everyone. We'd need more than that for our project, of course. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Hess Agreement

1. As stated above, the Hess Agreement. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I think the scene where Demange spitballs about the motives and Paris and London is HT's way of saying "Here's what happened." More detail would be nice, and it could be coming. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

It would be a pretty glaring omission if it didn't. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Ireland

1. Ireland. I've got a sinking feeling Wilson will try to dominate it or conquer it outright. If the latter he'll have a very stiff resistance from the IRA. Maybe they'll even make contact with Cartland's crowd. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I have not had much luck with gleaning detailed information about Horace Wilson beyond what can be found in wikipedia, etc. What I have gathered does not leave me with the impression that he was particularly anti-Irish, but does suggest a strong anti-communist bent, and was big on maintaining the empire. So the UK turning back to Ireland is probably not a worry with the war against the USSR and Japan, especially in the rather truncated tenure Wilson seems to be facing. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Not anti-Irish, but HT seems to be writing him as something of a bully. And a neutral Ireland does open up a few options for Britain's enemies to make a little bit of trouble behind the lines. They had far fewer such opportunities in OTL once the USN and RN ruled all the sea lanes approaching Ireland, but Churchill tried to bully de Valera into borderline neutrality-violating arrangements with the Allies just the same. Of course, his role in the Black and Tan War does make him look like no friend of Dublin, and as far as we know there's no such impression to be had from Wilson. I know so little about him, though. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Chinese POV

1. I hope McGill ends up with the CCP, either through being ordered to go help them or by being rescued by them after he's stranded behind the lines a la Moss in TG. That arc is rife with possibilites for dramatic tension. On the other hand, he's a rather obtuse character; he's had all he could do to express anger that someone he loved was killed, so his narrative's capacity for emotional content may be limited. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Certainly a POV in China would be useful. If not McGill, then the Communist Marine he palled around with (damned if I can remember his name). I'd suggest an actual Chinese person, of course, but aside from the bartender who let slip Mao liked younger women, I can't think of any.

Weissman, maybe? I remember it was something close to Weinberg, because I had wondered if he might be related to Chaim, but on further review he wasn't.

He'd be an excellent choice. He's captured at the fall of Shanghai and is being death-marched to 731 when CCP guerrillas rescue him. They trust him when he establishes his own Marxist credentials and he ends up like Moss in TG or Fiore in TtB. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Despite being a Marine, McGill has the potential to be in close proximity to MacArthur if he stays in the Philipines. I kind of like that idea. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Von Galen

1. Very curious as to how von Galen expands his role. I'm sure that will come out. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

SE Europe

1. Southeastern Europe: Staying on good terms with Poland, plus Mussolini not going off on a bunch of ill-advised expansionist misadventures, has allowed SecCo to bypass the region up to a point, but the politics of Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia etc make it very hard to imagine them staying on the sidelines forever. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

The big thing that drove Hungary and Romania in to the German camp was the USSR. Yugoslavia came into play because of Italy's attack on Greece, which set of a series of events that led to the Axis invasion.

As HT has touched on all of those places, you are right, they will probably do "something", but I'll be very surprised if it's a dramatic "something". They might offer moral support to the SecCo in CdE, but I don't think they'll sign on for a military alliance under the present circumstances. Heck, they might be better sitting on the fence in the long run. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe not much, but it's not too easy to imagine them as a sleepy backwater. SecCo may want to open a second front in the USSR and need to twist one or more of their rulers' arms into cooperating. Hell, with the large war swirling around them they may just decide it's as good a time as any to try to get away with a small one and jump each other. When Hungary joined the fun in Czechoslovakia in HW, I thought Horthy--who, as I recall one of the Internationals telling Weinberg, was conscripting himself a large army--might start pressing irredentist claims elsewhere, but it seems that if he was going to, he became distracted trying to figure out where the Mormons wound up being resettled in 191, what happened to the Snake's amphetamine stash, and so on. Maybe in a later book he'll make a go of it after all, though destabilizing SecCo's flank and rear carries risks of its own. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Lokot Autonomy et al

1. I'd like to see an erosion of support for Stalin domestically. We touched on that a bit above. The Axis set up a few quislings in territories they'd overrun in an attempt to capitalize on the legitimate grievances the people in those regions had against their dictator, but Hitler's human rights record was quite as bad as Stalin's and those ventures didn't last long before he showed his true colors. It's implied that the presence of western Europeans is having a moderating effect on Nazi occupation policy, and they're certainly being perfect gentlemen in Poland, so projects like the Lokot Autonomy just might gain traction. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see that, too. For that reason, HT might have to just give us a Soviet civilian POV. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

We haven't met any so it would have to be someone coming out of nowhere, and that's not how HT plays it. Maybe someone gets caught behind the lines and falls in with one group of partisans or another, depending on his nationality and sentiments, something like what we saw in Grelz through the eyes of Leudast and Sidroc in the middle Darkness books. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Tertiary Fronts

1. I'm not particularly interested in how Britain allying with Germany is going to affect the desultory tertiary fronts it fought against minor German allies in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, but I wouldn't mind a throwaway reference. And on a related note, it's going to have an effect on al-Husseini's activities; it would be nice to know what that effect will be. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, a quick line about all that should do it. It worked with North AFrica in TBS. TR 16:49, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

I'd like a mention mainly because what happened on those small fronts in OTL WWII contributed to conditions that eventually gave rise to some fairly major conflicts many years later. A hint as to how that's all going could be thought provoking. Turtle Fan 21:13, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

French Indochina

1. One other thing I just thought of is Vietnam, where it is, of course, famously difficult to fight a war even if you don't have commitments elsewhere. In OTL the Axis occupied France and Berlin twisted Vichy into ordering its forces to stand down when Japan invaded Indochina. That didn't stop the Vietnamese and Khmers from fighting, but it did take a lot of what could have been the most advanced Allied weapons and installations in the region out of play. Now there's no real impediment to the French making a fight of it, maybe even alongside the local groups (wouldn't that be ironic) so Japan may have to devote a lot more of its limited resources to that front. On the other hand, the local nationalists may see Japan as a threat to the hated French imperial presence, and coupled with Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere propaganda, they might fight on the Japanese side (wouldn't that be ironic). That's what happened in Burma in OTL: Aung San Suu Kyi's father actually led an uprising behind the lines at the same time the Japanese first approached the country, dooming any hope the British might have had of holding onto it. Eventually he switched back to the Allies when he realized the Japs were no bargain, but it took them nearly three years to show enough of their true colors to make them look worse than the British. (And by then it was pretty clear the Allies would win in the end, and that if the British came back they'd deal very, very harshly with collaborators. . . . ) Turtle Fan 05:05, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I guess that's one of those "we shall see" moments. Frankly, either option in a throwaway reference would be useful.

India

1. A quick mention of India would be nice. It needn't be a central plot point. When one considers how repressive the Brits wound up being in OTL, it's hard to imagine that they'll be any worse in TWPE, but it could be an angle for HT to at least acknowledge. TR 20:39, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I could see HT giving the Brits' repressive policies a bit more attention than they usually get as a way of reminding the reader "Wilson and his Cabinet are not pleasant people." Turtle Fan 23:10, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

King George

The King of Britain. What does he do? He and his wife were very visible symbols of resistance to the Germans in OTL, of course, and from my cursory read of British history he did more for democracy than any other British monarch before him. What does he do now that democracy is eroding at home and his country is fighting on the Germans' side? If Wilson does something unconstitutional, the King would legally have quite a few options: countermanding his orders to the military, instructing MI5 to withhold parts of foreign intelligence briefings from the Government, withholding Royal Assent from bills. He can even dissolve Parliament (a right which the monarchy apparently lost in 2011) and dismiss a Prime Minister who still enjoys the confidence of the Commons. (The last time a monarch did this was 1834.) Any of those things would be radical departures from longstanding precedent, however, signalling that circumstances had become very extreme--though a coup d'etat would send the same message. If Cartland is able to chip away at support for Wilson in the Commons, to the point that there's a hung Parliament with several claimants to the office of PM, George would be standing on somewhat firmer ground in supporting Cartland over Wilson and other challengers. That kind of intervention could set British democracy back a bit as well, but not as much as the crisis Wilson represents.

Of course, any attempt George makes to exercise royal prerogative against Wilson may very well be met with Wilson telling him to stick it. That would touch off a constitutional crisis, but it's not impossible to imagine that going Wilson's way; given that, to date, his rise to power has been very much on the up-and-up, there's a certain moral high ground to be had if he can portray himself as resisting the unelected monarch's abuse of power.

George may have other options, PR as opposed to political and legal wrangling, which he could exercise with no risk of being accused of overstepping his bounds. Specifically I'm thinking of an incident in Thailand in 1992, I believe it was. A military figure named Suchinda was installed as the head of a parliamentary coalition which had been elected on a promise of appointing a civilian PM, touching off protests in Bangkok (led by another general, Chamlong) and a military crackdown. The King summoned Suchinda and Chamlong to an audience; since he was commander-in-chief of the Army, neither could refuse. The King also gave the major news outlets permission to put cameras in his throne room for the evening. As protocol demanded, the generals prostrated themselves when the King entered, and after he had taken his seat he did not give them permission to rise. Instead he proceeded to make an address on the importance of civilian government and the peaceful transition of power. The cameras were rolling and millions of Thais saw a would-be dictator on his knees being lectured to by a very popular figure who usually remained above the fray politically. After that Suchinda resigned in disgrace.

So I could see George attempting to intervene to check Wilson, and I could see this either touching off the titular coup or bringing it to an end. I could also see HT leaving him out of it altogether, of course, but I think that would be a mistake from a dramatic perspective. For one thing, we'd lose the potential for a very cool scene. For another, we'd have to ask ourselves why a coup was breaking out when constitutional measures to resolve it had not been exhausted--unless HT tells us that George has decided to hole up in the palace and is refusing to have anything to do with it, but that kind of cowardice really doesn't ring true to his character. And if the King is making his opinions clear on the matter of Wilson's government and, by extension, the Hess Agreement, that might have an effect in the capitals of the other Commonwealth realms, something we've both expressed interest in. Turtle Fan 18:56, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Don't want to seem as if I'm disregarding this point, TF, as I'm certainly not. But George VI's role is a "we shall see" event (I hope), so my answer has been long in coming.

Appreciate it. Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Given how HT has used the British monarchy in other works, I think he is aware of both the de facto and de jure powers that George VI could bring to the table. (See, e.g. [[Henry IX]] in ItPoME.)

I hadn't thought of that, but good point. And the reason he always restores Edward VIII (or never has him abdicate at all in TL-191's case) when he wants to have Mosley running things could be that he knows/believes George wouldn't put up with creeping fascism. (Though Elizabeth did in Col.) Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

A rather far-fetch scenario occurs to me: As you pointed out, while Walsh and Cartland are saying the word "coup" aloud, there are still plenty of perfectly legal ways of getting Wilson out, and they could still stand to exhaust them. But instead, they just go to George directly, present their case, and ask that he dismiss Wilson. Also, as you pointed out, this hasn't happened since 1834, and it didn't go very well. So George refuses, but Wilson gets wind of the meeting and starts plotting directly against George in a panic, on the theory that the Commons forced Edward's ouster, it can force George's. That might be the final act that reveals Wilson for the parnoic he is, and soon Cartland is able to push the non-confidence vote.

Like I say, a bit of a stretch, but I think it would make for an interesting narrative.

It would be an interesting way to force a political crisis without involving the monarchy directly, or forcing a constitutional crisis. If HT wants to write an affirmation of the value of representative democracy, loyal opposition, and rule of law, that would give him an opportunity to show that such systems can withstand the occasional challenge from a tinpot tyrant, especially if he draws parallels with the far more volatile Third Republic, where everything is going to pot. Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

One other thing about this scenario is that it might carve out roles for Mackenzie King, Menzies, Fraser, and Smuts to play. When the Commons pushed Edward to abdicate, they did not do so alone: Four of the five other Commonwealth Parliaments supported the effort and the fifth said "Hell, we never wanted a constitutional monarchy at all; we only took it because it was better than the 750 years of colonialism that preceded it." Some historians I've read feel Edward might have resisted abdication if he'd had a friendly PM in one of the other capitals encouraging him to hang around. I'd look to Mackenzie King as George's champion; as Mr Nelg pointed out, many factors are pushing Menzies and Fraser, while HT's pattern of anti-South African bias will probably have Smuts chomping at the bit to oust an anti-Nazi monarch, or at least unable to resist the political pressure of those who are. (We ought to make the Anti South African Bias an IFiMT entry.) Turtle Fan 00:13, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Going off on a tangent: what little I've read about Wilson suggests that this paranoia is a sort of historical "truism", and that HT is not the first author of fiction to depict Wilson as a bullying snoop. Whether or not there is any factual basis, I can't say.

Never heard of him until IatD, and in fact at first I thought he was supposed to be Harold Wilson, which made no sense because he was only 28 when 191-Churchill's government fell. Since he was leading the charge to oust the fascists and semi-fascists from power I assumed he was one of the good ones in OTL as well. Now here he's leading the semi-fascists into power. From the little poking around I've done this seems more in keeping with his character. The real Wilson may not have been an undemocratic quisling, but I could see him falling in with the wrong crowd at that point in history in exchange for the opportunity for some personal advancement.

Who else has written about him? Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Here's his wikipedia page. It lists a few unflattering takes. TR 00:06, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Going off on another tangent: as we discuss the course of the series, I realize that I will not be surprised in the least if Cartland winds up a POV. I'm reservedly hopeful that is the case, as Walsh can't always give us the insight into the workings of government that Cartland could. He certainly has many of the traits HT seems to like in his historical POVS: He's a name the readership may know, but not have any particular opinion of; he's at point in his career may he may be still called an "everyman" or a "little man", as a opposed to a "great man", and so we can follow him to "greatness"; he died young in OTL, making him something of a blank slate for HT's purposes. Also, HT's never had an MP as a POV (although since he's had two Representatives, that may not be so "critical"), and, if Cartland does wind up as PM, obviously HT hasn't had one of those either.

No reason HT can't have a Prime Minister as POV. He's had a sitting POTUS (Moffat), a former POTUS (Lincoln), two PsOTCS (Lee and Featherston), a General Secretary of the CPSU (Molotov), a Fleetlord (Atvar), three Atlantean Consuls (though one only got the job at the very end of his narrative) and numerous POVs who could make more informal claims to holding the highest office in their Atlantean society, a First Speaker of the Second Foundation, and any number of monarchs (Krispos, Gerin, Reatur, Otto Schlepsig, Burger, Sabium, the self-proclaimed Emperor Gilmer) plus plenty of people very close to the highest office.

And obviously, an MP as a POV would eliminate one of the deficiencies of the story that bothered us most back in the early days. Walsh palling around with Cartland as well as a few other characters' political activities has helped even out the unbalanced perspective, but having at least one holder of a government office is what we'd really need to put those unhappy days behind us once and for all. Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

My reservation is that Cartland's promotion would put Walsh in harm's way--I'd rather have Walsh as this stage with Cartland as a secondary figure. TR 21:12, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I was going to point out that last year HT promoted a supporting character to POV while the POV who'd encountered him was still very much alive. However, Yaroslavsky died at the end of the book, no doubt because HT couldn't come up with enough ways to make him and Mouradian different (in which case I might ask, unkindly, why HW didn't end with a complete slaughter, since everyone there had the same job and none of them were standing out from one another; but since the series is getting better I'm less inclined to harp on that).

The way to avoid having that happen to Walsh after Cartland gets a POV spot is to separate them: Cartland stays in Westminster Abbey and covers the high-stakes political power plays, while Walsh travels across Britain covering the other side of the coup: shoring up support, feeling out key officers whose support they need, maybe a bit of skullcracking. Turtle Fan 23:42, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

That occured to me as well. Send Walsh home to Wales. Send him to Scotland. Hell, send him to Canada and the US (a plot development that would give Lemp something relevant to do; the big switch looks like it rendered submariners obsolete for the time being), and make sure Cartland's big move will have support. TR 00:06, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Template

I don't remember whether we updated the template over on World War II (The War That Came Early) last year, but we're definitely going to have to do it again this year, and it's not going to be easy. A whole series of templates would probably be best, showing the development of the war from one phase to the next, and maybe on different fronts. As stated, the alliance systems in the Pacific are already quite different from what they are in Europe and will get even more different still if the USSR and Japan resume hostilities and/or if the US goes to war against Germany. The Spanish Civil War has gone from closely related to the main show to distantly related: Britain and France aren't going to sell the Republic down the river, and for the sake of maintaining SecCo I would think (though again, I'd much rather see some specifics from the Hess Agreement) that Germany probably shrugged and agreed to disagree. The roles of Mongolia and Manchukuo (my spell check just tried to correct it to Manchuria--the winners write history) are also going to defy easy classification. I'm sure I could think of other examples given a bit more time.

Yeah, I'll play with templates here in a bit. TR 21:29, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the template last night (didn't make any changes, partly because I was at a loss as to what I'd do) and it got me thinking: This war is so complicated that I'm wondering if it can even be kept in one article. It's really testing the limits of straightforward description--and how minimal any real intercontinental coordination has been to date, it might not qualify as a world war at all. I'd like to float the idea of converting World War II (The War That Came Early) to a beefed-up disambiguation page that lists links to articles with titles like "European War of 1938, Phase I (TWTPE)," "European War of 1938, Phase II (TWTPE)," "Second Sino-Japanese War (TWTPE)," "Second Russo-Japanese War (TWTPE)," and "Pacific War (TWTPE)," with each of those far more manageable conflicts getting its own template on its own page. The main article would also have some narrative content explaining how the various conflicts were related to one another. Turtle Fan 00:36, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

By the way, if Germany-Britain-France-Poland is the Second Coalition, who was the First Coalition? Seems to me that Germany-Italy-Poland-Hungary(-Japan?) and Britain-France-USSR-Czechoslovakia-Canada-Norway (Belgium cut a separate peace, and I believe the Dutch, Luxembourgers, and Danes did as well though my memory's a little foggy on that point) have roughly equal claims on that title, depending on whose perspective one adopts. Certainly the British, French and Germans will all publicly claim that their objectives in going to war against one another had been met, and will probably all claim unmitigated victory out of earshot of their new allies. Turtle Fan 05:18, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I started using the "Second Coalition" name for a lot of not-terribly dramatic (and probably not very defensible) reasons: the numerous references to Napoleon in TBS; it felt more "natural" than "Axis", since there isn't a Pact of Steel or Tripartite Pact; and it helps underscore just how different the Germany-Britain-Francy-Poland alliance is from anything that happened in OTL WW II. So I never really gave much thought as to which side gets to be "first coaltion"; as you say, both sides could have made the argument for First Coalition.

Obviously, unless HT starts using it in CdE, it's the name we should use behind the scenes, and not in articles themselves. TR 21:29, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I think we've used Axis in article bodies to refer to Phase I of the war, which is fine because its existence predates the POD, though not the membership of Japan and its satellites. And if we used Axis it's a bit of a no-brainer to use Allies as well, even though it's anachronistic: The name "Allied Forces" actually didn't really gain traction till they started writing history books of WWII; during the war one was more likely to hear "United Nations" than anything else (which obviously wouldn't work in the postwar world), and such silly names as "the Four Policemen" and "the Trusteeship of the Powerful" were in vogue in the Roosevelt Administration.

Anyway, since it's Britain and France who did the Big Switching, joining Germany rather than Germany joining their alliance and the USSR simultaneously withdrawing, I think SecCo is probably closer to being a successor for the Axis than it is for the Allies, but it's different enough that we should not refer to it as such. And obviously the Soviet side can't be described as the Allies when they don't have any. You're right that continuing to use SecCo in talk pages and forums while circumventing the issue altogether in articles is the way to go. Turtle Fan 00:36, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Dernen

I was just thinking about something that HT may have been foreshadowing that we've overlooked. Dernen is a German but has no use for the Nazis. And unlike Potter, among others, he doesn't seem willing to support the Nazis (the Freedomites in Potter's case, you know what I mean) despite serious reservations about them because his patriotism outran those reservations; if he had he wouldn't've helped Storch get away.

We don't know how SecCo is distributing its armies. It's possible--probably fairly likely--that the Brits, French, and Germans will all keep their armies to themselves, alternating positions. But if they're mixed in together somewhat, or if Dernen's unit is on the flank and there's a Western unit right past them, and he ends up working closely with the British and/or French, and his Western comrades end up mutinying, think Dernen's reservations about Hitler plus the "infection" of foreign ideas might lead him to join the mutiny? I wouldn't be too surprised. HT just hates to leave good people on the Nazis' side, so eventually he'll probably have Dernen flip, like Jager, or else buy the farm, like Bartlett. Turtle Fan 05:33, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

With the "great sniper war" fizzled out, Dernen has acquired a skill set that he didn't get to use much in TBS. It also occured to me that since Dernen isn't particularly pro-Nazi, that skill set might be used against famous people who are awful.

The summary suggests that Harcourt (or some other French soldier, anyway) is rubbing shoulders with Germans, so that could give Dernen ideas, as you suggest, and who knows, maybe he winds up in Berlin with his rifle over his shoulder, looking to bag a few Nazis?

Or he could just be shipped off to Spain as some sort of punishment, and he and Jezek finally finish off their battle. TR 15:04, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Lemp

As I alluded to above, with the war becoming almost exclusively a land one for Germany, (the USSR presumably having been pushed back from the Baltic Sea) what the hell is Lemp going to do now?

Since his name is still mud after the Athenia, he's likely to get shit jobs for a while.

I can see a couple of circumstances where Lemp might be useful. The first would be that, as we speculated above, Walsh starts bopping around the world, and Lemp is tasked with sinking him (assuming Walsh opts not to fly). The second would be that whenever a coup event breaks out, Lemp is charged with making sure the anti-German side doesn't get all of its supplies. So he might be lurking in the English Channel, or the Atlantic if North America gets more directly involved in supporting the anti-German side.

Otherwise, his options seem fairly far-fetched: he becomes a token gift from Germany to the Western Allies and is sent to the Pacific to harass Japan; he gets to make his way to the Bering Strait on the off chance the US starts shipping to to the USSR. Neither seems plausible.

Another option: he's called home, and gets to spend leave in Berlin, giving us an idea of what's happening there, then gets back in a sub when the coups happen.

Or he just gets killed and replaced, mostly likely with Karl Dönitz. Even in the event of the coups, Lemp's POV isn't that essential. A few words from one side or the other saying "Those subs in the Channel are a pain" would cover it. TR 15:42, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe he intercepts shipments to the Spanish Republic? He can't shoot up British or French ships, if they're still supporting the Republicans (HT's been pretty vague on that, hasn't he? We know they didn't sell the Republic down the river altogether but we've got no idea beyond that.) And the Soviets are going to have a hell of a time finding anything to spare for their proxies and a second hell of a time getting it to them. But there are others. Mexico helped the Republic quite openly, though mostly through diplomatic as opposed to material support; if Soviet help has been cut off, it's possible Mexico would decide to fill the void (and by the way, quite a few Republicans would, from my read of the conflict, have preferred to get their assistance elsewhere; their Soviet alliance was a lot uneasier than HT's been writing it, though I suppose he could find a butterfly in there somewhere since the course of this war is substantially different from OTL).

It would be nice to see Mexico in a context other than the CSA's junior partner or as part of the international ginger trade.

Mexico joined the war in OTL after German U-Boats sank two tankers bound for the U.S. in 1942, sinking of Mexican supplies bound for Spain would be the kind of tip-of-the-hat to OTL HT likes to work in to his works. TR 18:08, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if Mexico would go to war with Germany over something like this. Like Canada, there's not a blessed thing they could do to the Germans militarily as long as all the great powers of Western Europe are on its side. I don't know nearly enough about how the economic side of things would be affected if the two stopped trading, to whatever extent they traded before the war. Unlike Canada, they could probably make the grand gesture of declaring a war-in-name-only on Germany without fear. (The Canadians would have to worry about fracturing the Commonwealth.) Germany can't use its fleet to make even a token attack on Mexico, even if they're able to reach that far, without provoking the US. I think that fear will probably still stay their hand, if nothing else does; they might assume that the US being allied to their own SecCo allies will give them some latitude when it comes to pissing on Roosevelt, but not nearly enough latitude to let them get away with so flagrant a move so deeply within the US sphere of influence. Turtle Fan 18:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Commercially, they had fairly strong ties before the war in OTL, but I don't get the sense that a break would be bad for either country under the circumstances. Mexico would have the US, which bought oil in OTL, and set up the Bracero Program. Presumably, we'd see something similar in CdE.

I thought so, but I didn't feel like looking up specifics, so I appealed to ignorance and left it open. Turtle Fan 20:00, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

So war would probably be more a matter of political honor if such a sinking took place. Maybe Germany throughs money at Mexico and shuts them up. Maybe they declare war and it's something a la the Pacific War; mostly naval and out of sight-out of mind for both sides.

I could also see such an attack be seized on by FDR as a reason for war with Germany (if Mexico isn't safe, neither are we). TR 19:40, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

He could. It would be an uphill climb politically: US public sentiment has never been all that pro-Mexican, and the sinking of a ship that was carrying weapons into a war zone doesn't really tug at the heart strings. Unless it's heavily spin-doctored, of course; look at the Lusitania. But that depended on grafting it into a popular narrative that was already largely in place. Turtle Fan 20:00, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe FDR starts propping up the Republic because he's frustrated at the dearth of options for hurting Hitler. That might even involve Lemp torpedoing an American ship and providing the catalyst for a US-German war at last. Naturally that on top of the Athenia would probably mean Lemp's execution, which I wouldn't mind; or his imprisonment, which could potentially lead to something interesting if he falls in with a group of political prisoners; or his spending the rest of the series doing tasks that are even more menial and less interesting than he's doing now, which would be terrible.

Anyway, Spain would seem to be the most organic role HT could find for Lemp.

Ah yes, the Spanish angle. Well, if the Soviets aren't as influential in the Republic, then maybe FDR can sell the Congress on that plan. In light of the war with Japan, that might still be hard, but that would be something for Lemp to do. (I once considered the idea that Sanjurjo, ambitious and revanchist blowhard that he was/is, abruptly decides to avenge the Spanish-American War by declaring war on the US to no real consequence; it was silly and implausible on its face, but I found it "different" enough to play with in my head a bit, but that's all. Even under the circumstances you've suggested, I don't anticipate it.) TR 18:03, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

I think I remember you floating Sanjurjo's revanchist war idea. Wasn't it after we read HW and were so annoyed by the lack of action that we were sort of mocking the book by deliberately coming up with the most outlandish ideas we could think of? Turtle Fan 18:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much. I was desperate for anything that wasn't by the numbers at that stage. Admittedly, the Japanese-American conflict is still by the numbers, especially for HT, but as it came against the backdrop of a conflict that had given up on the numbers altogether, I didn't mind so much. TR 19:40, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

I think that back then, if it hadn't been for the chance to practice my sarcastic wit and the gratification that comes from using it well, I wouldn't've wanted to talk about HW at all. I'm still a bit surprised I spent money on W&E. (It was probably just force of habit; I've been buying up HT's Del Rey summer release every year since 1999. At this point, doing otherwise would feel unnatural.) We've certainly come a long way since then. Turtle Fan 20:00, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Another option, since Germany's not really using most of its navy for anything but doesn't need to worry about the Brits sinking its ships, is that the Kriegsmarine just sort of sails around the Atlantic as a show of strength and a way of thumbing their noses at Roosevelt. Not unlike Roosevelt's kinsman did with the Great White Fleet forty years earlier, actually. Lemp could take part in that tour. It wouldn't be interesting, but at least it would feel like he was serving some purpose.

Yeah, that's something....TR 18:03, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Well it does seem that the US's role is going to expand from here on out, and a peaceful but very adversarial relationship with Germany will add some real dramatic tension. When that sort of thing has been needed in the past, HT's been known to have one side do something provocative just for the sake of being provocative.

And the Nazis are pretty the personification of provocative for the sake of being so. TR 19:40, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Little bit, yeah. Turtle Fan 20:00, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

A similar situation with a little more logic behind it would be to have one of the SecCo allies invite the German fleet to a naval base in a colony in the Western Hemisphere--perhaps so it can prosecute a maritime war with Mexico, see above. Roosevelt would be furious, but the SecCo countries would be within their rights assuming a modicum of carefulness. Whether one of the SecCo governments would be willing to sign off on it will probably depend on how much they feel they need American help in the Pacific, and how far they're willing to risk it by needling the US. By that standard alone, France is more likely to pull the trigger than Germany.

Of course, even if the Kriegsmarine does decide to move into the US's neighborhood, they're not going to send everybody, and how likely is it that Lemp, who's already sunk one American ship, will get sent into such a delicate situation while someone without that blemish on his record gets benched? Turtle Fan 18:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

And getting him killed would be fine with me. HT really seems to have run out of ideas for what to do with him, and now that the war is shifting into the Eurasian interior, that will show more and more. I don't necessarily see Donitz replacing him, since the criteria we identified that make Cartland a likely historical POV don't apply (Donitz was already established by this point, and many readers will have a fairly strong opinion of him) but no matter who takes over, they will almost surely have more relevance to the new direction the story has taken; anyone short of a Tibetan monk or South American peasant farmer could hardly have less. Turtle Fan 16:40, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'll reverse myself slightly and try to nake a cogent argument for Donitz, although I don't expect his promotion nor do I particularly want it. Donitz is, at this point, the only historical figure to actually appear in every volume of the series thus far, save for Chamberlain (who's dead): every other historical figure has been in at most two volumes, including Hitler and Sanjurjo.

I suppose that's so. Hadn't really thought of it. Turtle Fan 18:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

If Lemp dies, and if HT decides to follow from his POV somehow, Donitz is the most likely person to do that (Lemp's crew would most probably be dead along with him). Donitz's virtue is that he would give us some access to the workings of the German government. That will probably be something we'll need more of if the Nazis are all growing more frustrated with the fact that they can't persecute the Jews the way they want; Donitz could give us a view of that. Plus, we know that there has been one scheme uncovered and another out-and-out coup attempted; coups in Britain and France would almost certainly embolden anti-Hitler factions in Germany, and again Donitz could be in a position to witness this.

To the first sentence, that's true if Lemp dies when his boat is torpedoed, assuming someone doesn't get transferred before that happens. If Lemp is executed for sinking another American ship or something, or is poking his head of the conning tower and gets seen by an enemy sniper from somewhere or other, or gets hit by a truck, who knows.

For the rest of it, you're right that Donitz offers possibilities no one else does. As we discussed with the possibility of Cartland's promotion, we need POVs who are close to the centers of power in their respective countries; we've got characters--Weinberg, Walsh, to some extent Peggy--who have been moving in that direction, but I think none of them can realistically get as close as Molotov and Flora and Moishe Russie and Clarence Potter did, not in the two or three years till the war surely starts winding down. So replacing POVs with much higher-ranking characters is our last best hope of eliminating the imbalance in perspective that has gotten better since HW, but is still there. Turtle Fan 18:54, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

And while Donitz was more established at this point than Cartland, he's still commander of the submarine fleet, not head of the Kriegsmarine, so he's middle-tier at best, not unlike Leslie Groves and Minoru Genda, although not quite the level of Vyacheslav Molotov. He's probably known to most readers, but HT's changes could still dramatically impact how Donitz conducts himself in this TL as opposed to OTL, thus potentially confounding reader expectations.

Anyway, that's just a stab at a reason. I won't be surprised if HT kills doesn't promote Donitz, nor will I lament that decision. But I won't be much more surprised if HT does so. TR 18:03, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

Mexico

I think the idea raised in the section above, that Lemp is assigned to sink ships carrying supplies to Spain for the Republic, that he sinks a Mexican ship and Mexico goes to war over it, bears considering on its own right. As I was working through all the implications it really could be the series' defining moment and could tie together all kinds of stuff we've wondered about over the past few days.

Mexico can't do a thing to Germany militarily as long as Germany doesn't have any enemies in Western Europe. However, it can wage a phony war against Germany with no real diplomatic repercussions, because unlike Canada or even the US it's not that closely tied to the other SecCo countries. If it's willing to take the economic hit of losing German trade, it might make the grand gesture on the assumption that Germany can do no more against Mexico militarily than vice versa.

Ordinarily I'd say that's a safe assumption, but there's a wild card introduced in this timeline: The Kriegsmarine can extend its range to the Atlantic's western shore if two conditions are met: The French and/or British are willing to allow the Nazis to build bases in their holdings in the islands, and the Nazis are willing to rely on allies who are neither deeply in their debt, like the Spanish Nationalists, nor easily dominated, like Poland.

Whether those conditions are met depends on how chummy the SecCo members are with one another; since both the British and French have to deal with coups, I'd guess the comfort level may not be there. But if all the necessary parties are on board, hold on to the roof.

There can be no question that Roosevelt would interpret the Nazis waging war against an American neighbor as a just cause for war for the US itself. There can also be no question that nearly all Americans of this time saw their country as the dominant power of the Western Hemisphere by right; the Anti-Imperial League had lost its battle for public opinion long ago. If the Germans project military power so deep into the US sphere of influence, there will be a lot more prospective support for a war against Germany, likely even more than there was after Pearl Harbor in OTL. Hitler will probably misread the situation: He might underestimate American resolve in the face of so provocative a move, which is dumb but not really out of character for him. He might assume that the US will respect the safe harbor offered his navy by the SecCo allies. Now that may give the US pause after all; not only are France and especially Britain traditional allies, they're also all on the same team in the Pacific, and the USN can't risk firing on one British naval installation when it will soon need to be seeking safe harbor in another on the other side of the world. But Germans in the Gulf represent a far more immediate threat than Japs in the Philippines, so Americans may well decide that the Pacific War will have to suffer.

The knife can cut both ways: Atlanticism was very strong in Britain at the time of the POD, and we saw nothing to suggest that had changed in the first two and a half books of the series. In late TBS FDR cut off their Lend-Lease aid, which probably caused a bit of a dip in the popular British view of the US, but that's likely to have jumped right back up once Japan forced the two countries on the same side. Wilson committing the UK to a course that actually leads to a war with the US is fairly likely to cause a great deal of political blowback as it gives a dramatic illustration of just how disconnected his foreign policy is from the national interest. Cartland's cabal will certainly capitalize, and it might even be the moment that touches off the coup.

Of course, if Britain, whose leaders generally understand American politics far better than the Nazis ever could, anticipates these dominoes falling, it's likely to refuse to allow the Germans to build a base in Bermuda or wherever they want it. For that reason it's more likely that the Germans will end up in Martinique or another French possession, and while France and the US were friendly enough before WWII, for the French to find themselves at war with the US probably wouldn't have the same shock value.

I'm wondering about the effect that someone else fighting Germany has on the Soviet Union. We've seen in this war that a common enemy does not an alliance make: The Anglo-French and USSR were just barely allies when they were both fighting Germany, Japan and Germany weren't allies at all when they were both fighting the USSR, and the USSR and Japan certainly aren't allies now that they're both fighting Britain and France. The USSR and Mexico will have no options for helping each other whatsoever beyond a certain amount of moral support, and even that won't be forthcoming for a host of reasons, including Trotsky. Stalin was fond of the grand gesture and may very well say "Now that we're both at war with Germany, you'd better extradite Trotsky, don't you think?" But if he does Camacho will just tell him to fuck off.

Once the US joins up, however, we may see the nucleus around which some sort of loose anti-German alliance can grow. The US would probably at least offer the USSR Lend-Lease aid, if they don't mind running the gauntlet past the Japanese in Vladivostok; it certainly wouldn't do to have Japan intercepting US weapons, turning around, and immediately using them against US soldiers. If Japan is seizing gun shipments intended for the Red Army I guess it's possible the Kremlin will break the ceasefire, perhaps believing that Japan can't fight the entire Pacific Rim all at once without dropping the ball somewhere. Of course, if the Red Army needs the Lend-Lease guns in Europe that badly, they surely can't afford to reopen another front, especially given how vast Soviet territory is and how slow their troop movements always seemed to be. Any chance they'd invite a US army to land in their territory and retake Vladivostok for them? I don't see it; and even if they did ask, it wouldn't happen: In Worldwar, when the situation for both countries was much, much more desperate than it is now, the answer was still "No."

As for POVs, this development would transform Lemp from a fifth wheel to an invaluable perspective on the SecCo side of the Atlantic War overnight. Who we'd get on the American side is an open question. Obviously not McGill; he's needed elsewhere. Herb Druce might join up and get Yaroslavsky's spot, but he'd be joining the Army and this would be primarily a naval war. Constantine Jenkins? He had a good amount of face time in the first two books, enough to qualify him for promotion to POV, though he did fall by the wayside in. The US would obviously close its embassy in Berlin in the event of a war with Germany, so Jenkins would be stateside and at loose ends for a time. Having been in Germany so long, State may lend him to the War Department as an intelligence analyst, which would give him glimpses of both military and civilian leaders' roles in the war. And he could run into the Druces at some point, and Peggy would have to worry about keeping her indiscretion secret from Herb.

If HT decides to give Yaroslavsky's spot to someone other than an American, Peggy, living on the East Coast as she does, might be able to cover the American side herself. Her whole character arc has been about advocating for interventionism, so once the war with Germany actually starts she'll have to find something else to do; can't have her running around saying "Told you so!" for the rest of the series. The OSS could possibly pump her for intelligence on what she observed in Berlin, but that news is all fairly outdated and anyway, much to our frustration at the time, she wasn't really looking for militarily useful information. Unfortunately she might have to go the way of Anne Colleton and be replaced by either the reenlisted Herb or the intelligence-analyzing Jenkins.

We could also have the Spanish Civil War end (perhaps the sinking of the Mexican convoy was the final straw?) and the Abe Lincolns return home, with Weinberg joining the US military and telling the story. (Many Abe Lincolns did, including Wolff himself; normally it would have been a match made in Hell, but CPUSA was all for killing Nazis and the Army was all for having experienced combat veterans.)

Of course, I know none of this will play out in CdE; the summaries that Del Rey puts out are always incomplete, often misleading, but they wouldn't fail to mention or even hint at such a huge shakeup, certainly not when they're trying to sell to American audiences. It could lay the foundation for Book 5, however, with the Mexican-German War beginning say 75% of the way into the book (which still leaves us with the problem of making Lemp useful) and someone listening to FDR issue a declaration of war in the final round of POV scenes.

I am liking this scenario, and I am now torn as I really have no reason to think HT will bring Mexico in, much less make it a pivot point that you've suggested it could be, so spending much more time with it seems silly--but I'm REALLY liking it, and it's a fun one to kick around. TR 14:48, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

The first link in the chain is plausible enough, I think, that Lemp is assigned to keep shipments from reaching the Spanish Republic; but after that it depends on the plot taking the less likely fork at each juncture it comes to, so no, it won't happen. However, no harm in spit-balling it around a bit, is there? Turtle Fan 15:34, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

Reviews

Steven Silver has a review up. It's pretty non-specific and spoiler free. We won't be gleaning much from it.

One or two minor points:

Silver tip-toes around the country that experiences a coup, stating HT takes his time. The cover copy telegraphs that it is the UK. Not sure if Silver is being a careful reviewer or if the publisher is wrong or both.

The Druces are trying to be a couple. That suggests that Herb doesn't become POV, combat or otherwise.

Silver also states that multiple characters die.

That's what jumped out at me. TR 00:10, May 2, 2012 (UTC)

No, not much to go on. I actually found myself thinking that a lot of that review read like it was written by someone who hadn't read the book but knew enough to fake it. I doubt that's what it really is, but I would say he's being coy.

His repeating points/complaints we've brought up--especially the lack of a high ranking POV--was interesting, though it's not that hard to feel the lack, especially for those of us who remember series where HT struck a better balance. I guess that won't be corrected this year, despite high hopes for Alistair.

Walsh could still be on the rise. He just may not get to the top before the end of the book. Or he might get to a higher position, relative to where he is now, but with limited access to the overall situation.

However, that tid-bit would argue against Cartland being moved into POV. Even as an MP, he'd have a very good grasp of the strategic and political situation. TR 20:15, May 2, 2012 (UTC)

Other than that, our only game changer is the point about death becoming more unpredictable, which you addressed. I welcome that. Turtle Fan 20:05, May 2, 2012 (UTC)

Excerpt at Amazon

Is up. It looks like only a partial one due to space considerations. It gives a full McGill scene, then the first sentence of a Peggy scene. I'd recommend checking in at DelRey every so often if you really gotta read that Peggy scene. TR 16:50, May 29, 2012 (UTC)

Publisher's Weekly review

Here. Very barebones. The only useful bits are that Egypt becomes a front (that's interesting) and that this book is more about character development (I approve). TR 19:50, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

I wonder how an Egyptian front opens? The only thing I can think of is some sort of pan-Arab anti-colonial uprising. That hits SecCo interests all over the Middle East, though not the Germans specifically. Maybe they all get thrown out of Southwest Asia altogether and have to hold the line in Egypt against an attack from the east across the Sinai Peninsula?

In light of the uprisings in various placed in the Middle East in OTL, an uprising (or uprisings) in this series makes sense. Not sure if it need to be specifically pan-Arab. Could be just a series of independent moves with varying degrees of success for failure, or just Egypt by her lonesome, I guess. TR 22:18, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. I was looking directly for a Big Picture answer, and systemic conflicts don't necessarily work that way. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Arabs on the move is good for the Soviets, obviously, as Britain, France, and Italy will all have to take troops off the line. Can they give material support, Enos-in-Ireland style? I'm picturing a map of the region appropriate to 1941 in my mind, or trying to. I've got quite a few parts I'm not too sure on, but if memory serves, they would have to cross either Iran or Turkey, and neither would be too sanguine about a militant pan-Arab movement.

Certainly the tendency for various British mandates in the Middle East to trend Axis in OTL would be less likely here, and the USSR would make an obvious replacement. Not an automatic replacement of course. TR 22:18, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

If Arab leaders end up against the Nazis by default, what would that mean for Zionism? The enemy of my enemy, and all of that. Al-Husseini wasn't the least bit Nazi in his philosophy, really; but he hated the British and he hated the Jews, so of course Hitler would look like a pretty good bargain, especially from a distance. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

An interesting question. Here's a vague partial stab at an answer: I suspect Zionism gets a small boost as a consequence of the war coming early and the big switch.

It's probably worth remembering that at first, the Nazis were "ok" with exporting the Jews; perhaps rather than pay lip service to Al-Husseini and his ilk, Hitler instead works on Britain for larger resettling in Palestine. If the cover copy is to be believed, mass murder isn't something the Jews have to worry about just yet.

Here's an interesting idea, al-Husseini whips up a revolt in response to Britain opening the mandates to large scale Jewish settlement. Germany supports Britain openly because it needs the Brits to be able to give the USSR their full attention; they're already fighting Japan, and their getting sucked into a third front makes things even worse for SecCo. So now Hitler has to send forces to fight in support of Jews' rights to live among their neighbors without bulls' eyes on their backs. Works well with the cover copy's insistence that the Nazis are behaving themselves re the Jews, and its implication that they're doing so as a grab for good press in the West.

A variant on this would be for the military to support the British so their allies can get back to work, while at the same time the SS is very, very quietly supporting Arab attacks on Jewish settlements. If they can keep that under wraps, they can have their cake and eat it too: good press in the West, and dead Jews.

If they can't keep it under wraps . . . Say German-made weapons that were meant for attacks on Jewish settlements end up being used against British soldiers instead. Cartland and Friends loudly peddle the story to every paper in the kingdom. (Maybe not loudly, depending on how the information reaches London. We can't have a prospective Prime Minister passing top-secret MI5 briefs along to tabloid writers. Maybe Cartland will need someone who's not a politician to provide the leak, and farms the job out to Walsh?) Either way, the ensuing scandal turns public opinion against SecCo, Wilson becomes increasingly authoritarian in his resistance to the people's demands for a response, and the coup is catalyzed. (We ought to make a list of possible catalysts for the coup some place.) Turtle Fan 19:06, June 12, 2012 (UTC)

In OTL, Britian adopted the White Paper in 1939 limiting Jewish settlement in Palestine. With the war coming early, it's a safe bet that this issue wasn't addressed by Parliament in any meaningful way. So there is likely no official plan to limit Jewish resettlement.

If the Germans are trying not to be genocidal because Britain and France don't approve, then the Germans might be able to say "If you care about them so damn much, open up Palestine." And since now the only thing Al-Husseini et al has to offer Hitler is that they are reliably anti-Jewish, who cares what they think?TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

They might also publicly say "Who cares what al-Husseini thinks?" while sending Heydrich or Kaltenbrunner or someone like that to say very quietly "Don't worry, we're just saying that for PR purposes. We'll help you take care of them." See above for how that could shake out.

Now that you mention it I recall a plan that was briefly floated in OTL that involved resettling the Reich's Jews in Madagascar, of all places, after twisting Vichy's arm into letting Germany build a playground there. In this instance I think the playground was actually going to be a series of concentration camps. The plan was abandoned almost immediately because the Allies had naval superiority in the Indian Ocean. The twin fears were that they'd interfere with German shipping to the island and that they'd eventually get around to liberating it (which they did in 1943), discover all the ghettoes and concentration camps, and make propaganda out of it. (Say what you will about the Nazis, but one very minor point that might be offered in their defense was that they knew how bad the Holocaust would look if it became common knowledge in areas outside their influence. Even if that was pure pragmatism, some vestigial sense of decency at least is necessary, otherwise it would never have occurred to them that foreigners would object to their actions at all.) Turtle Fan 19:06, June 12, 2012 (UTC)

It's also good for the Japanese. If they can take Indonesia quickly--and that's a safe bet--and run the gamut past the territorial waters of the Raj, they can sail to Saudi Arabia.

Is there any upside to the U.S. involving itself in the matter one way or the other? I suppose there is a vague negative in that potential co-belligerents against Japan have their attention divided. But given the distate FDR has expressed for Britain and France thus far, and given how narrowly the American people want to focus on Japan, I can't see the U.S. making any effort to aid one side or the other. TR 22:18, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

I don't see it. Anglo-Franco-American relations may have cooled, but they're not frozen. And as you say, if the Brits need to reinforce Egypt, they're more likely to take troops off the line in Southeast Asia than they are in the USSR. Plus, Arab nationalism was pretty incompatible with American interests even back then. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Given the resistence to a war in Europe we're still seeing in the USA in the preview chapter--a Middle Eastern jaunt seems unworkable at the moment. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

That's all based on speculation born of an inability to come up with a simpler explanation for a one-off comment, so make of it what you will. Nevertheless, it has me wondering. Now that the Soviets and Japanese have common enemies, might they start quietly cooperating in projects like that? The Soviets quietly cooperated with the Nazis in projects to fuck real and perceived common enemies in OTL--most famously Poland, of course. Still, I wonder.

Another possibility is the conflict between Britain and Italy in North Africa continues on even after the big switch. Aside from comments that Italy is in the war from various characters, HT hasn't actually shown Italy doing anything belligerent outside of Spain in HW, and tipped us off about the war in North Africa in TBS. As I've said in the past, I think HT means for us to understand that Italy has refrained from fighting in Europe.

If this is the position that Italy has staked out, then going to the USSR is of no benefit, whereas controlling North Africa was always one of Mussolini's goals.

So while I find the Arab uprising plausible, perhaps a plausible alternative is that Italy drops out of the alliance it's barely in in the first place and presses on Egypt. This could mean a continuing war with Britain (hey, look at that, another wrinkle in this alliance system). Or a slightly less complicated alternative: British forces in Egypt don't want to play with the big switch, and decide they need to "help" Egypt against Italian aggression, a sort of analog to the International Brigades in Spain. Doing some research, the 1936 treaty between Britain and Egypt did allow for the Brits to occupy Egypt if the Suez Canal were threatened, so there would be color of law.

I like this. I like this a lot. I bet Germany would side with Britain and throw Italy under the bus, if only as a way of gaining PR points with British MPs and citizens who remain unhappy about the Big Switch. Hell, for all we know, the Hess Agreement included a secret treaty obligating Germany to double-cross Italy upon British request all along. Italy seems to have had no representation in those sessions. (Of course, so does France, and somehow they were convinced to go along with it, quite easily.) Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Certainly Hitler throwing Mussolini under the bus makes sense at this point, and actually making it part of the Hess Agreement is plausible, anyway. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

It would be fairly similar to the secret treaty which Britain offered Italy to get them to join the Entente in 1915--which really would be a delicious irony. Turtle Fan 19:06, June 12, 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. I hope that isn't a typo in the review. We'd almost certainly get a King Farouk out of the deal if Egypt is really a front. Maybe a few other Egyptian big wigs.

Abdul Nasser? Ooh, Anwar Sadat?? Squee!! Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of one or more of long list of dudes who were PM under Farouk during the war in OTL. But a cameo a la Castro in 191 "That Gammel/Anwar we sold guns to sure seems smart enough to be running the country" is certainly conceivable. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

Assuming it isn't a typo and HT actually has a POV, which character in our stable seems most likely to get moved there? TR 22:18, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

The likeliest way I can see it happening is to have the Soviets support the Italians or Arabs or whomever, and Mouradian is part of a Red Air Force contingent sent to provide air support. That sounds interesting and exotic though it has the disadvantage of leaving us with no Soviet characters in the Soviet Union. That in turn means far fewer opportunities to observe Stalin's reaction to the invasion while he's there; even if that observation is filtered through the very thick lens of official propaganda, HT usually allows us to read between the lines.

With Yaroslavsky dead, a new Soviet POV could rotate in and carry out this function. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

Second likeliest way to get a POV there is to have Jezek decide he's bored with Spain and move on. I'm bored with Spain myself, and wish HT would move on from it if he's not going to have it finally pay off, but I can't see him making such a big deal of sending another character there only to reassign him again right away. There's also some question as to how he'd get to Egypt at all; SecCo rules most of the Med.

I think Jezek's going to tally up quite the list of Nationalists. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

We can have Cartland send Walsh to Egypt for some reason. Maybe he wants to open contacts with this hypothetical mutinous army of yours. Maybe he just wants Walsh to lie low for a while so he can bring him back during the final stages of preparations for his coup and have someone who's not under suspicion. (Scotland Yard was trailing him at the end of TBS, but they might forget about him if he's gone long enough.) Of course, that takes him away from Cartland's side, so we have no one to watch the coup unfold. I certainly don't want that, and since this coup is the central plot point of the entire book, I can't imagine that HT would, either. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not as keen on that either. Walsh drumming up support in various places makes sense. Just not Egypt.

Given the death count that seems to be hinted at in various reviews, it may be the Egypt POV is someone who isn't a POV yet, and hasn't done much of anything so far. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

I guess, but so far this series HT has promoted replacement POVs from among the ranks of characters we've already met. I can't think of many characters we've met who would have a good reason for ending up in Egypt under any of the circumstances we've imagined. That dude in Walsh's squad who didn't like cats? Jock, I think his name was? (If the army in Egypt mutinies, that might provide a way for Cartland to open channels with them via Walsh without having to send Walsh away from the main action in London. Assuming Jock can get a hearing with anyone important enough to be worth bringing into the conspiracy, of course. Unlike Weinberg, he can't just walk up to a brigadier and start demanding favors.) Turtle Fan 19:06, June 12, 2012 (UTC)

That's one reason why I'm excited to hear we're taking a step even further back from the battlefields, especially if not much of note is changing on them. This war is becoming very complicated politically, and to cover that properly we need a large number of our POVs not to be in positions where they have to focus on immediate dangers. And character development is of course something I'm delighted to see as well, though this time last year I wouldn't have believed anyone except maybe Sarah had the potential to carry a really compelling story. (Even then I thought and still think the father would tell it better.) Now there are a number I find myself caring about the way I used to care about people like Lucien Galtier and Sylvia Enos. Turtle Fan 04:32, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The idea that more than one character is doomed is not something I'm happy about (well, Lemp's death would produce at most an indifferent shrug, but he's it; I find I like everyone else, or that I am entertained by a character's story even when I don't like the character).

Lemp's death would come as a relief; he's a real drag on the story. I like Walsh, Sarah, Peggy, Mouradian, Dernen, Harcourt, and surprisingly, Weinberg. I would like Jezek if I didn't get the sense HT is having trouble coming up with a meaningful role for him; he was redundant in France, and he may yet prove redundant in Spain, especially if the entire Spanish subplot continues plodding along with no real payoff as it's been doing the last three years. I don't personally like Hossbach all that much, but I do find him interesting, especially as an observer to tell Sarah's brother's story. (I like it better coming from him than I think I would if it came from the brother himself.) I don't have much invested in McGill emotionally; I have found his adventures up to this point at least moderately entertaining, and now that the US is finally at war with Japan he's pretty indispensible to the story. Rudel still makes me yawn, I wouldn't mind losing him, but I don't see HT making a historical figure with his credentials a POV if he doesn't have something big planned for him. (That may have been true for Lemp at the beginning as well, but I think HT is realizing that he's written himself into a corner there.) Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Rudel seems to be following a redemptive arch with his love affair with Sophie, which could be an interesting counter-point to his OTL bio. TR 17:33, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

Eh, I guess. I've always thought character arcs based on "I was one way, then I met a girl and now I'm completely different!" is lazy writing. Turtle Fan 19:06, June 12, 2012 (UTC)

Another thing that popped out at me in re-reading the review is that the reviewer wonders how the war can go for another two books. That again prompts me to suggest that the war will be basically done in book 5 and that book 6 will be mop-up and establishing the post-war status quo, rather like SA and what evidentally GW was supposed to be when it was first launched as a tetraology.

I thought IatD took too long to end GWII and left us with not enough time to set up the next generation of conflict. We got a rudimentary sketch, and details were only filled in so far as they impacted the characters' fates moving forward. Granted by that point in the series I had pretty much had my fill of the story proper (and of course arguing with Gizzi about the Evidence! left me hoping HT would firmly slam the door to further sequels in his face) and was more interested in saying farewell to the characters anyway, but I was hoping the pacing would look more like the last Darkness book. That wrapped things up neatly and made it clear there'd be no sequels, but managed to do all those things while still laying a pretty good framework in place for letting us know what would happen next even though we wouldn't see it.

But I digress. If I had to guess how HT is going to keep this series going, it would be that, after the coup(s) break out in the SecCo nation(s), the alliance systems undergo another realignment and the war is rebooted into Phase III. I'll hold off on speculation as to who does and doesn't join the Third Coalition until we've read CdE. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

I also notice that this reviewer dances around the country that experiences a coup. Either the reviewer didn't read the cover copy and is avoiding spoilers (which seems unlikely, since the cover copy has been out for a long time, but then plenty of reviewers refrained from spoiling Churchill's death in TBS, and that was also blown in the cover copy) or the cover copy is just incorrect (plausible, as we've discussed in other contexts, but then TBS was accurate). TR 22:18, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

Huh, hadn't thought of that. I wouldn't put too much stock into it. Turtle Fan 00:59, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Kirkus Review

At the Barnes and Noble website. No pussyfooing around there: the coup is in the UK. Sadly, not much other detail. TR 18:36, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just now gotten around to reading this, and I'm almost positive we've seen it before.

That's cuz you're re-reading the cover copy. Scroll down to "editorial reviews". First you have the PW, then the Kirkus. 05:18, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, how silly of me.

So we might see foreshadowing of a ThirCo, but we won't actually see it happen in this book. Well I wasn't expecting to read "The Big Switch Back" right away; it would cheapen last year's installment way too much.

I'm encouraged that the only things this reviewer actually criticized were tropes HT's been using for years and years; whether or not those criticisms are legitimate, they're things we're well used to, are expecting, and won't mind. I for one generally prefer the huge casts and ever-shifting focus to Turtledove's use of more focused storytelling styles in full-length novels, like USA. I can see where some might find it ponderous; Birmo usually apes it, and the pacing of his books can be downright glacial. I think HT usually avoids that trap as long as most characters are unique and distinctive, either in what they're doing or in their characterization generally. (This was not the case in HW, of course, and I certainly felt that book's length a lot more than I usually do with the Del Rey novels.) Turtle Fan 07:00, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Two or three things bring up very specific memories, like raising an eyebrow at the characterization of Harcourt as "freethinking" and being excited to learn that von Galen's role will be expanded.

One thing I don't remember commenting on is the line that "Stalin's terrible machine fights for its life." That could just refer to his military machine, though then the adjective is a bit out of place; the Soviet military to date has been no more nor less terrible than any of its counterparts elsewhere. (Army collusion with Unit 731 might give Japan a lead in the terrible militaries category, though, I suppose.) More likely it means the apparatus of totalitarianism. That seems to hint strongly, though not conclusively, at some sort of internal challenge to the regime. Stalin will probably respond by being even more oppressive than usual, but it's just possible that he'll accept some sort of modest reform as a way of shoring up domestic support in the face of the invasion. When things were at their darkest in 1942, he took a few small steps in that direction, most famously his deal with the Patriarch and his rehabilitation of some of the generals he'd purged in the show trials of the 1930s.

If his conduct at home improves, that might embolden anti-Hitlerites in the West who are lying low for fear of being painted as Stalinist sympathizers. In the UK that could mean more support for Cartland's power play. In the US, Peggy is in prime position to let us know if accusations of being a secret Red lose their sting.

Oh, and speaking of Stalin's totalitarianism, von Galen was extremely critical of his human rights record. He actually thought even Hitler was a better bargain, and for that reason urged his flock to support the war in the East even as they opposed the Nazis domestically. That was part of the reason he was mistreated by the Allies after he stopped being useful to them. Another part was his willingness to publicize abuses of the German population by their occupiers, most famously the extremely short rations in the British zone. London was so offended that it actually tried to interfere with von Galen's travel plans when he was summoned to Rome to receive the red hat. Really a man of tremendous courage in testifying to the truth in the face of severe opposition.

But I digress. If we see a lot of von Galen, and HT's halfway faithful to the character, we'll surely see him speak out in favor of SecCo. The Jews he's protecting won't like that. Maybe we'll get a debate on the morality of the situation with Sarah's father. That should be interesting. Turtle Fan 05:10, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

All the more so if the Goldmans let him in on the fact that they have a son in the Heer and thus a much greater rooting interest than most of their fellows. Turtle Fan 05:15, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Title Specific Speculation

As we enter the speculative home stretch, I thought it would be a good idea to put all our thoughts on this specific point in one place.

We know from the cover copy and from a bit of reading between the lines that the main story in this year's installment will be a coup d'etat in Britain; there may or may not be similar developments elsewhere, but the British one will take center stage.

Furthermore, there's no question that the leaders of the two sides will be Horace Wilson and Ronald Cartland.

I think we can hedge a bit. It would be strange for HT to select a historical figure for a longer life span just to kill him off, but it also strikes me that Cartland's imprisonment or death could be the actual catalyst for the coup, with Walsh the old soldier doing the heavy lifting.

In other words, yeah, it will probably be Wilson vs. Cartland, but it's not automatic.

TR 18:17, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, true. Cartland could end up like Plato in "The Daimon." And he was celebrated as a martyr in OTL, so having him be martyred again would be fitting parallelism.

But even if Cartland exits before the coup begins, the leader of one side will be a successor of his, someone who builds on the foundation he started.

On a related note, my read on Wilson is that he was just a bland gray bureaucrat. I find it hard to imagine him setting up a dictatorship on his own. Maybe there's someone else pulling his strings from behind the curtain--Oswald Mosley?--and that person decides, in the face of mounting resistance, Wilson's not strong enough to weather a determined coup, and needs to be replaced. Given that Wilson's other HT appearance was replacing the government which had made Mosley Chancellor, I guess that's ironic. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Well, see below--Chamberlain did a fair amount of foundation laying in OTL for authortarianism. Wilson is an interesting guy from what I can dig up on him (which ain't much on this side of the pond). For someone who didn't hold a cabinet position or a seat in parliament, his influence and power in the Chamberlain government (and on Chamberlain personally) is extraordinary. It's an article of faith among historians that he was "up to no good", but direct evidence seems scant. In fact, it's not entirely clear just who dominated, Chamberlain or Wilson.

I other words, Wilson could be doing this on his own, simply using the tools Chamberlain left him, without Mosley being a puppetmaster.

That's entirely possible as well. I really don't know what HT's driving at, giving this guy such a prominent role. I'm kind of entertaining as many hypotheses as possible with him. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

(The fact that Wilson didn't hold a seat in parliament doesn't seem to be a legal issue by the way; I still get e-mail from Videssos, and one fellow from the UK was bothered by Wilson succeeding Chamberlain because his position was relatively minor, and that there were other, more obvious choices, like Halifax. The fact that Wilson wasn't an MP before he became PM didn't come up.) TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, I somehow hadn't thought of that. There would have been a by-election when Chamberlain died, and Wilson is of course legally eligible for election. By-elections tend to take quite a while to arrange, however.

I tried looking up the British constitution, which of course doesn't actually exist in black and white. Even by the standards of an uncodified constitution, however, the rules about the premiership are vague. The only eligibility standard I can find in a quick search is "The monarch must appoint the person most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons." I guess that need not be an MP, but if he's not, he wouldn't even be allowed to speak during floor debates, would he? It would be like a non-priest being elected Pope, which is also technically legal. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Since Wilson is currently in power, and is consolodating that power, it seems likely that it will be Cartland who leads the coup. However, I suppose we can't rule out the possibility that Cartland will seize power legally, either by mounting a successful challenge for the Conservative leadership or by convincing an adequately sizable minority of Government MPs to join the Opposition in a second confidence vote. Wilson might then leave Number 10 but then launch a coup to retake power a short while later, though in that case I think it's more likely he'd just refuse to give up power to begin with, requiring Cartland to use force to take what's his by right. More on that particular point later.

There seems to be enough mutual loathing between Wilson and Cartland that HT could credibly have them seek to undermine one another as is; however, the crisis HT would need to develop a coup would require both of them to line up quite a lot of support, and that requires something more substantive than "He sucks." That means some dramatic event in the news that will galvanize public opinion and force people to choose sides and act.

Before we get to that point, however, it's important to note that respect for the rule of law runs very deep in Britain, so no one's going to want to attempt a coup until ordinary political and legal processes have been exhausted. That could mean Wilson losing a confidence vote/Conservative leadership election and refusing to vacate No 10. It could mean a bill he likes being defeated in Commons and he goes ahead with it anyway. It could mean a refusal to admit duly elected enemies into Parliamentary sessions.

It could mean a confrontation with the Crown--we've discussed already that an extrapolation of the King's OTL political philosophy makes him a likely supporter of Cartland, and since the Prime Minister technically serves at the pleasure of the monarch, that's not insignificant. We know of course that the King isn't really allowed to dismiss a PM who continues to enjoy the confidence of the Commons, but the perception of George being in cahoots with Cartland could also lead Wilson to do something rash, as TR suggested. After all, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Spain all provide OTL examples (many of which are part of the history of this timeline as well) of fascist leaders in what were supposed to be constitutional monarchies preemptively maneuvering their kings into corners based more on paranoia than reality (though in Yugoslavia the reality was arguably there as well). Significantly, none of them really suffered any serious backfiring as a result.

So I will be looking for a constitutional crisis in Britain to precede and precipitate the coup. Although, now that I think of it, it's not inconceivable that Wilson, a bureaucrat by training, will prove remarkably good at maintaining the letter of the law while shitting all over its spirit, till in his frustration Cartland realizes that the Constitution has been effectively neutered and that he needs to take more drastic steps to save the national soul.

But as I said, since all parties concerned are currently playing by the rules, something needs to happen that will shake up the status quo significantly. We've batted around a few ideas: rapidly deteriorating Anglo-American relations give the British public a wake-up call and they realize that Germany is not their natural ally; evidence that Berlin is planning some sort of double cross comes to light--maybe in this Egyptian rebellion, maybe in the Pacific (Germany is in secret negotiations with Tokyo to pressure the Brits to make concessions if Japan resumes hostilities against Stalin?), maybe somewhere else altogether.

There's also the remote possibility it has something to do with the Holocaust. We know the Nazis worry that their mistreatment of Untermenschen will alienate their Western allies, worry about it so much that they've put the Final Solution on hold. But everyone knows that the people who ran Nazi Germany can't stand the thought of a racially "impure" nation-state, so maybe they're running some sort of dialed-back version: not genocide, but ghettoization, ethnic cleansing, pogroms, forced conversions, that sort of thing, in places that they think are safe from prying Western eyes such as occupied Czech territory. These places are not as isolated as thought, and word gets out, perhaps through some equivalent of Louis Armstrong in TL-191.

The unfortunate thing is, a terrible human rights record is usually not enough by itself to convince a country to break an alliance with another country that remains useful to them (Saudi Arabia), especially not in time of crisis like during a major war (even if it is a war of Britain's choosing).

Cartland had visited Germany before the war, and was actually appalled by Nazi anti-Semitism, and was quite public about in the Commons from what I can tell. But as you say, that needn't make much of a difference, especially in the world of TWPE. TR 18:17, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

It can be very hard for lawmakers like him to convince their colleagues that situations like that are problematic. Even if he succeeds in going that far, that need not translate to action.

And of course it's easier to bash an enemy than an ally. Can you imagine a contemporary of Cartland's being comparably vocal about Soviet political prisons or American internment of ethnic Japanese? Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

A final possibility is that the coup is provoked by some domestic issue. Wilson is already using Scotland Yard in an attempt to intimidate his enemies, so it's not hard to imagine that he'd like to set up an authoritarian regime. Maybe he intends to make a show of respecting rule of law until his position is secure enough to throw it out and proclaim himself dictator, and maybe one of Cartland's people is able to obtain evidence of this plan before it's ready to be launched. Turtle Fan 19:30, June 13, 2012 (UTC)

I've done a little bit of google research of both men. Here's a possible scenario given what did happen in OTL and which also sort of accounts for HT's trope of having OTL parallel events taken to extremes. I've also re-read the cover copy and find myself drawn to this phrase: "With civil liberties hanging by a thread, a conspiracy forms against the powers that be."

Something I did not know before a little research was that for the duration of the war in OTL, many rights were curbed (including habeas corpus), and that the PM had a tremendous amount of power to detain people it perceived to be a threat. It stands to reason that a similar state of affairs exists in TWPE.

Oh? News to me, though I don't find it surprising. Churchill did have something of an authoritarian streak, and even if he didn't, Inter arma enim silent leges was something lots of Westerners were willing to accept in the early twentieth century. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

I should point out that much of this was implemented by Chamberlain, actually. Churchill didn't undo any of it, of course. But anyway, Chamberlain also had that authoritarian streak (arguably a stronger one). TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense for Chamberlain as well. Of course, there's a pretty large gap between authoritarian and totalitarian. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

In OTL, August, 1939, Chamberlain stated he wanted to adjourn the Commons until October 3, 1939. Then he took the unusual step of announcing that a vote for adjournment would double as a vote of confidence in his administration, and used language that basically told his Tory critics that they were either with him or against him, and so they better vote with him. Cartland was one of the people who most adamantly spoke against this boot-strapping (which appears to have been technically legal), even going so far as to inform Chamberlain that he appeared to many parts of the country to be a dictator, but Chamberlain won out in the end.

So Cartland voted for adjournment when the chips were down? Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

He did not, but the majority did. His protest marked him, is all. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So he was on the shitlist. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

We have no reason to think that anything like this has taken place in TWPE. HT has reported Chamberlain winning two confidence votes in 1938 and 1939. A threatened third was never reported; I'll take that to mean it never happened.

Wait, do you suppose one of those confidence votes could have been a parallel of this adjournment vote? Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

No reason to think so at this stage. Perhaps, perhaps not. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Now, suppose Wilson tries to do something similar (an HT trick, there)-not adjournment during war time, but tries to enact some other important law or policy, and then tries to boot-strap in the confidence vote. Cartland is outraged, and makes a speech similar to his OTL one, calling Wilson a dictator point blank. Rather than take his win and just wave Cartland off as Chamberlain did in OTL, Wilson starts really putting the screws to Cartland. When Cartland continues to make speeches, Wilson hits a breaking point, declares Cartland a Soviet sympathizer, and has him arrested.

All sounds reasonable to me so far. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Walsh starts rallying as many people as he can to the Cartland. When it's clear that Cartland isn't going to get justice (and is perhaps even murdered), and/or Wilson goes even further towards authoritarianism, Walsh launches his coup, with aim of arresting or killing Wilson and his immediate advisors, and then forcing a vote of no confidence to rubberstamp it. Hopefully, Wilson is not replaced by another strongman, but that a real election takes place.

Okay, but I don't see how Walsh can do that. No matter how important he becomes in the underground hierarchy of the coup, when it comes to parliamentary maneuvers he can't do shit. He needs as a minimum an ally in the Commons whose strings he can pull, probably one of Cartland's lieutenants that he met in that political club in his last scene of TBS. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I say Walsh since he's our POV on the ground and he's become something of a confidante for Cartland in short order. We'll make an MP the leader. I'd say Anthony Eden, having resigned as Foreign Minister from Chamberlain's cabinet before the POD, he'd have a great deal credibility, is the best candidate. Macmillan and Cranborne's respective careers were unremarkable in OTL until the war. HT hasn't named anyone else. Walsh does the skull-cracking.

I imagine Attlee and Archibald Sinclair (the leader of the Liberal Party) will get name dropped somewhere, but this will probably be a Tory plot at its core. (Speaking of name drops and Liberals-Walsh's fellow Welshman, David Lloyd George died in 1945, meaning he still be alive during all of this. He personally hated Chamberlain in OTL, although he was also pro-peace with Germany even after the Battle of Britain.) TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

LG visited Berlin in '34 or '35, and at a banquet toasted Hitler with: "You have given Germany her honor back." He didn't even have the decency to recant it later on.

Also speaking of LG, at one point his government was more Conservative than Liberal, when Asquith led a lot of defective Liberals into Opposition. Even more recently, MacDonald's governments had the confidence of the Conservatives but Labour MPs in opposition. In his last election he was actually expelled from the Labour Party altogether and had to form a made-up party called "National Labour" with a few other victims of Henderson's purges.

I could see a situation (probably after the dust of the coup settles, so maybe I'll sit on this prediction till next year) where Cartland (or a successor) ends up leading a government made up of Liberals, Labour, minor parties, and a sizable minority of Tories, while the majority of Tories oppose him under the leadership of Wilson (or a successor). Maybe after Cartland makes a challenge for party leadership and comes close but not close enough. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think that if coup succeeds, the first order of business will be getting affairs in order. So I don't think it will be the intent of the new government to immediately turn round on Germany again, but it will simply try to withdraw from the war. However, I don't think Hitler will let that happen, and will immediately begin fighting Britain. We'll probably see pockets of Brits and Germans fighting in various places. Germany will probably start bombing Britain again (much to the chagrin of the British people), and Britain will have no choice to respond, which will make things difficult for the new government.

Certainly any anti-SecCo government rising in London will have Hitler seeing red, whether or not the new regime wants to resume hostilities against him. Forcing an immediate shooting war could backfire on him spectacularly, air raids on civilian targets even more so. When you say "bombing Britain again," it has me thinking that, while it technically would be "again," the bombing campaign they launched in HW was pretty half-assed, and there was no equivalent to the Blitz in Phase I. If there had been I think Hess's proposal would have been dead on arrival, battered in the face of overwhelming German-hating opposition, as it was in OTL (if Hess did in fact come bearing a proposal).

True, although it should probably be remembered that in OTL, the civilian response was in fact less unified and far more demoralized than we prefer to remember. In the context of TWPE, where the majority was expecting peace and got a war sprung on them, even half-assed bombing was probably sufficiently demoralizing to help make the Hess plan perfectly acceptable. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

I also think that Hitler launching a Blitz to protest Wilson's fall would guarantee the Brits will never, ever play ball with him again.

Granted, although this Hitler we're talking about, so I doubt he'll actually see it that way. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

I think his response might be subtler. We never did find out the circumstances of Churchill's death beyond the official version (though we still might), but everyone believes he was assassinated by some pro-German militant group, and it's not hard to imagine that they received backing from the SS, so Himmler may well have tendrils extending deep into Britain. A lot of that would come out during the coup, but I could see the German response being much more . . . subtle. There may be open conflict on the Continent in local pockets, but I think even Hitler will know better than to launch a total war. Then again, he is Hitler, and not only that but Hitler written by HT, so who knows. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

I do like the idea of the truth about Churchill's death coming out. That could also be a catalyst for the coup, actually: the truth comes out and maybe Chamberlain/Wilson knew or should have known...TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, hadn't thought of that. I hope that if the truth comes out it's something spectacular, like thugs whom Wilson later organizes into his own brownshirts (or whatever color) with support of elite SS assassins. Even if that seems predictable, it would beat the shit out of something lame like a fringe pro-Nazi group who didn't have Chamberlain's blessing but proved terribly convenient for him. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

That's my stab at it. I've re-read Silver's review, and he says that HT "takes his time identifying which country undergoes the revolution." That may mean while the coup is in Britain, HT plants a few seeds in other countries as he goes. Germany has foiled two coups, so that isn't much of a leap to expect a third. The only thing we've seen for France has been Harcourt and Demange spit-balling about the French Revolution. That might firm up, especially if one of them winds up in Paris somehow. Nothing at all in the USSR or the USA (a coup in the former would be a welcome change from OTL; the latter, not so much). We've heard nothing from Japan either, but given its run of failed coups throughout the 1930s leading up to the POD, a coup attempt there would not surprise me. TR 18:17, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

An anti-Stalinist coup in the USSR has long been a pipe dream of mine whenever I pick up a WWII AH. The hang-up always seems to be the fact that the Germans make it clear right away that they're even worse (and no doubt authors and/or publishers being afraid to try to sell a story which implies there's anything worse than Nazism). With Germany behaving itself for the sake of holding SecCo together, it becomes possible.

In France, I'd be surprised if there weren't a coup. The rule of law wasn't quite so strong in the Third Republic as it was in the UK, so the anti-Hitlerite elements there won't be likely to watch Cartland's crowd knocking over the apple cart and say "Whoa, we're not willing to go that far."

Indeed, and as I've said elsewhere, I suspect that while Britain's coup could be relatively bloodless, France, given her history, will turn into a hell of a mess. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

No doubt. We could see an all-out civil war. Hmm, I wonder what that civil war will mean for the ongoing Spanish one right over the Pyrenees. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

In Germany, good point. The coups attempted thus far have been cockteases if they don't lead to anything more.

I suspect for the time being, with two coups squashed and just about everything going Hitler's way with the formation of the SecCo, anti-Hitlerites are probably keeping their heads down and biding their time. If the SecCo starts to fall apart, the anti-Nazis will be feeling more confident. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

A coup in Britain and a civil war in France would constitute SecCo falling apart. And on a related topic, I wonder if there'd be support for an anti-German coup in Poland? I doubt it; the Soviets showed themselves to be the far greater threat by violating Polish neutrality, and as we're constantly reminded, German conduct in Poland thus far has been exemplary. That could change if factions in Britain and France trying to drag their countries out of the coalition leads paranoid Nazis to start pushing all their allies to suppress internal opposition. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I've pointed out elsewhere, Smigley-Rydz's time might be (or probably is, given HT habits) running out. That could count for something. TR 20:32, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

In the US proper, obviously it's not going to happen.

Although HT could have more than a few rabid anti-Communists/pro-Fascists make speeches. Maybe William Pelley visits Philadelphia on a speaking tour, stumping for war against the USSR. Not a coup, just an opportunity for HT to show a few unsavory types in action. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

That would be interesting. People like that existed, after all, and they had their mouthpieces and audiences; the German-American Bund once filled the Garden to capacity. Having coups in Western Europe in the news, I'd at least expect Roosevelt to say something like "Here in the good old US of A we tolerate open political dissent. We're not afraid of having our governments' records challenged. Can you imagine how Hitler, or even Wilson, would react to comments like those which William Pelley directed against me last week?" Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

However, I have said elsewhere that having the Filipinos turn on their conquerors when some smooth-talking Co-Prosperity Sphere propagandists remind them of Jacob Smith and Elwell Otis, and promise the Japanese will make sure that never happens again, is a situation with possibilities. Unlike the Nazis, the Japanese authorities could sometimes manage to conceal their true colors long enough for their dupes to stay contentedly pro-Japanese till they passed the point of no return.

And the war's too new to say whether or not that could happen. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

True, although the combination of administrative policies that grew steadily more benevolent after the smoke cleared from the Insurrection and the fact that the Japanese popped up out of nowhere and started firing on the Philippines makes it unlikely. It also doesn't help that as soon as the Japs start reminding the Filipinos of American conquest, the Filipinos will remember that the ball started rolling when their fathers listened to an American making promises that sounded a lot like the ones Japan's making now. Turtle Fan 19:53, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

In Japan, surprisingly I don't know much about those coups. The likeliest source of discord I can see there is the Army-Navy rivalry. The Army leaders might be frustrated that the northern war against the Soviets they had wanted so badly was called off so the country could redirect its attention to the southern war against the West that the Navy wanted. The problem is that the Second Russo-Japanese War didn't end prematurely; it lasted long enough for the Japs to take the only target worth taking in all of eastern Siberia, so they achieved their war aims. Turtle Fan 05:45, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

The coup attempts in OTL really were various factions of the military (mostly the Army but the Navy made their own attempt) who were being selfish crybaby assholes acting out because they weren't getting their way in everything. As you say, right now, everyone seems to be getting what they want. Perhaps if Japan is dealt a major defeat, and someone realizes that things might be better if they hadn't wasted all that time in Siberia, something could happen. TR 15:58, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Book available in Google books with preview

Just as the title said. Most pages are unviewable, so I'll probably wait for the release of the actual book. It's a pain in the ass to find, too. I probably should have linked it, but I am not terribly inclined to go through the pain of digging it back up.

Anyway, the search feature is also pretty limited. Obvious terms like Stalin and Hitler, which should have yielded multiple pages, only brought up one page each. However, one name search did reveal the early death of a historical figure. I won't spoil it unless asked, but I will say good riddance to bad rubbish. TR (talk) 21:40, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

I was going to hazard a guess, but fuck it. Consider yourself asked. E-mail it if you're reluctant to spoil publicly. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:19, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

First fifty pages are available over at randomhouse.com/delrey.TR (talk) 23:04, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

Hungary

So they officially join SecCo, huh? Turtle Fan (talk) 01:31, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that was something that jumped out in the 50 pages, especially since it wasn't referenced before now. TR (talk) 03:13, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Was it one of those clumsy "Hungary's always been with them, it's just that no one's bothered mentioning it till now" things? Turtle Fan (talk) 04:33, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

Essentially. Theo lists all of Germany's allies, and Hungary shows up.

So does Slovakia, but given what we know, that wasn't as jarring. TR (talk) 15:13, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

I thought Slovakia was already on board. I know we've been sort of teased with Lithuania in a "Will they or won't they?" kind of thing before. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:25, July 26, 2012 (UTC)

Link to the Preview page

http://books.google.com/books?id=XZTgygAACAAJ&dq=the+war+that+came+early+coup+d'etat&source=bl&ots=BC_IMO0v56&sig=vt0eT4M6GvABmzRmOF1GUKOgXwY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VrISUIqePKaUiAKIr4DYBg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA.

Leafed through it. Still much that is unclear, but it does answer a few questions here and there. The Historical Characters Who Died Sooner Than In OTL page may be getting a workout. TR (talk) 16:20, July 27, 2012 (UTC)

Those were the days

It's fascinating, reading this ancient talk page, to remember that there were days when anyone thought TWTPE might even be good.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 22:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Not so fascinating that it requires line-editing and editing for links. And yes, we did have hopes that TBS and Cd'E would right the ship. TR (talk) 22:15, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It was difficult to imagine that HT would keep the series running so long without doing anything worthwhile. Even after having read The Golden Shrine, it just didn't compute. I kept assuming this was a lot of very slow table-setting and that the payoff would be worth it.

It's kind of how I've felt about a lot of prestige TV series, where I spend the whole season thinking, "Okay, next week this is all going to be worth it." (By the way, Dune: Prophecy airs its season finale this weekend. No idea why that just popped into my mind.) But when you have a year between installments rather than a week, sustaining such delusional thinking is just weird. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)