Mosleys Britain
12-08-2004, 13:12
Nation: Mosley’s Britain
Leader: Sir Oswald Mosley
Recent British and World History, from the ascension of Sir Oswald Mosley to the present day:
In May 1937, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) was elected to the office of Prime Minister. Just one month earlier, Neville Chamberlain, who had been the likely candidate to win the election, was assassinated by a Spanish Communist. Sir Oswald had took advantage of this and rose to power on the basis of offering assistance to the Spanish Nationalists under General Franco. Along with the German and Italian troops fighting there, the British fought against the Communists and Republicans and by February 1938 the war had been won and all resistance destroyed. Britain stepped up rearmament by increasing military spending with an unprecedented threefold increase.
The status quo in Europe was no longer holding. The rise of Fascism had first seen Mussolini take control of Italy, then Hitler take control of Germany. Franco had consolidated his power in Spain, and now Mosley needed to do the same in Britain. Sir Oswald mobilised the army, and with this very obvious threat the House of Lords did not offer any resistance when the BUF-led House of Commons voted through an act giving virtually dictatorial powers to Sir Oswald. Small units of troops along with government ministers took up positions in the BBC’s Broadcasting House and in printing presses up and down the country. Freedom of Speech and Association, however, were not revoked.
A month later, German troops entered the Republic of Austria, the country of birth of their leader Adolf Hitler. To France’s dismay, Sir Oswald gave a speech which wholeheartedly gave support to Germany, “who is only trying to bring all Germans into the borders of their Reich”. Czechoslovakia was now surrounded on three sides by Germany, but this was not to be their next target. Reports had reached the Fuhrer that pro-German revolts in the Danish border region had been put down by the Danish Army. Germany demanded that Denmark return the disputed areas on their borders – which had been Danish since 1919. Denmark, with its army already in place, refused and ordered its troops to dig in.
German troops headed north, but did not engage the Danish army. Instead, the newly enlarged Luftwaffe proceeded to bomb Copenhagen indiscriminately. Atfer two days, the German’s sent demands for unconditional surrender, and to their surprise, the Danes agreed. British Marines, despatched the previous night, had captured Iceland and Greenland and declared them ‘in the name of the King’. A week later, Denmark was formally annexed into the Reich. France protested, but did nothing.
Trouble in Europe was brewing. At a meeting in Manchester, General Franco of Spain, Il Duce Mussolini and the German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler met Sir Oswald Mosley signed a defensive military alliance, generally but not specifically aimed towards the threats of Communism in the East. The French public were in a state of general panic, after witnessing Copenhagen and being surrounded by four Fascist countries. After covert arms had been smuggled in from Germany and Britain, Flemish separatists captured the city of Antwerp and advanced on Brussels. The Belgian government, completely overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of a large hostile army, fled to France. The King ordered the army to fight the rebels, and Brussels quickly became a battlefield. Slowly but surely, with aid from the Axis in the form of anti-tank rifles and flamethrowers, the Flemish pushed the pro-French Belgians out of the city and declared independence. France, coming to the aid of its fellow Frenchmen, sent in a Corps under General Charles De Gaulle, after stopping in Sedan to sew Belgian flags to their uniforms. Unwilling to see the Flemish resistance put down, the German Armeekorps guarding the Belgian border moved in, with more reinforcements following. Soon both sides had reported fighting each other, and a major diplomatic incident broke out. The French refused to recognise the Free State of Flanders, and the talks broke down. Soon, the fighting had been reported all along the Franco-German border: WW2 had broken out.
In the East, all was not quiet. Stalin ordered his armies, without a declaration of war, into the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Republics offered no resistance, and were annexed into the Soviet Union. Two weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and after initial success lost the momentum and the war bogged down. A huge salient between Prussia and Warsaw failed to cut off supplies to the Polish forces advancing into Lithuania.
France, when hostilities with Germany became apparent, asked Czechoslovakia to honour their alliance, who did so. Germany, not yet completely re-armed, was in a tricky situation. They were fighting both France and Czechoslovakia, and there was an increasingly unstable Poland and a militant USSR on their Eastern border. Hitler decided to act, and requested military aid from Spain, Italy and Britain. After a flurry of telegrams between the nations, two days later Spain, Italy and Britain jointly declared war on France. Within a week, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand had all joined the war, with Canada remaining neutral due to its large French population.
A month later, on June 5th 1939 British troops landed unopposed on the Normandy coast at three designated landing zones – beaches, codenamed Sword, Juno, and Gold. A German offensive through the Ardennes had smashed the French centre and had split their forces. The Spanish and Italians, after initial setbacks, were making steady progress towards Bordeaux and Marseilles respectively. The British quickly set up a bridgehead and advanced on Caen, which was surrounded and reduced with artillery.
Meanwhile, the last of the French cabinet members along with President Lebrun had boarded the flight from Paris to New York via Lisbon. Before leaving, Lebrun urged the army to officially surrender, but they refused to put their honour on the line after being drawn into a war by the government. A new President, WW1 Field Marshall Henri Petain, was appointed and immediately sent an offer of conditional surrender to the opposing coalition. The offer was returned, asking for unconditional surrender – to which the old Marshall duly accepted. The French Army was ordered to disband and return home, which it did.
As the victorious allies met to discuss the peace terms for France, German artillery rained down on Prague in preparation for the infantry assault. France was to be subjugated and put in an eternally weakened position. Flanders gained the Sedan region, Germany annexed Luxembourg (they didn't resist), Wallonia, and Alsace-Lorraine, as well as taking Morocco. Spain advanced its borders fifty miles north and took parts of Algeria, and Italy pushed its borders deep into French territory up to the river Rhone and took the island of Corsica as well as Tunis and the rest of of Algeria. Britain gained the Normandy region in northern France, the city of Calais, the French Cayenne in South America, and French Indochina (Vietnam & Cambodia), French Central Africa, and various small islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and more islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Peace with France: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/01.JPG
A month later, after the fall of Prague and the surrender of all Czech forces, Slovakia declared independence (under German guidance), and Bohemia-Moravia were incorporated into the German Reich. Poland was offered an alliance with Germany in return for land gained by Poland after the German defeat in 1918. Poland was promised land in the east as compensation following the defeat of the Soviet Union. The Poles accepted, and the German Army advanced into the Baltic States to engage with the hordes of Russians. Poland regrouped and advanced in the direction of the Belarus and Ukraine, but winter soon arrived and hostilities wound down.
The British Home Fleet sailed into the Baltic to engage the Russian Navy, while the Mediterranean Fleet and the Italian Navy sailed into the Black Sea to engage them there. The German army, fighting further north than there Polish counterparts, suffered worse from the bad weather. A large Russian counterattack failed abysmally after tactical German retreats and counterattacks surrounded and captured larges numbers of conscripted Russians.
By the spring of 1940, things were looking bad for the Soviet Union. A lot of the Ukraine had slipped under the occupation of the Poles before the harvest could be collected, and a renewed German offensive had reached as far as North Latvia. The army was going through men at a rate of 2000 killed or injured per day, but the train system was good enough to supply enough men and ammunition to keep this up. Leningrad had been under prolonged aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, whereas the Soviet Air Force had mostly been destroyed on the ground by strafing fighters. The RAF was also doing its fair share of damage, with light bombers and fighters based off carriers in the Baltic harassing supply lines, the railways and ammunition dumps. By summer, the Germans had advanced into Russia proper, capturing the cities of Pskov, Minsk and Smolensk in a quick succession of battles. The Poles had reduced the defences of Kiev and Odessa and advanced within 50 miles of Kharkov. British Marines had also taken the White Sea port city of Archangelsk. In early Autumn, General Vlasov ignored orders and switched sides to the allies. He declared the Russian Republic, a German-style Fascist dictatorship, and a few other previously ‘Red’ army groups joined him. But a bigger disaster was the amount of Russian soldiers and generals who became ‘neutral’, taking orders from neither Vlasov nor Stalin, and not fighting anymore. With more help from the Germans and Poles, Vlasov pushed further into Russia, towards Moscow.
The battle for Moscow itself was an anti-climax. After the opening volley of German artillery, the Russian infantry under Vlasov proceeded to assault the defences of the city. Gains were made, but progress was slow with heavy casualties on both sides. The shining towers of the Kremlin could be seen dominating the skyline. The story was told that a staff car bearing the white flag raced through the Russian lines where it was directed to Vlasov’s HQ. The occupant was none other than Beria, Stalin’s chief of police. He informed them of Stalin’s untimely death (poison), and declared his allegiance to Vlasov and his Republic. Soon after, the fighting slowed, and the Soviet troops began laying down their arms. Some were marched into captivity, others just went home. A conditional surrender was signed with Germany and Poland, guaranteeing that all Russian lands would remain in Russian hands. The Baltic States, Belarus and the Ukraine would be split by Poland and Germany.
Thus, WW2 was concluded. The total casualties were around fifteen million.
Britain: 100,000 killed or wounded
Spain: 250,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians killed (including civil war)
France: 250,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians killed
Italy: 100,000 killed or wounded
Flanders/Belgium: 50,000 killed or wounded, 200,000 civilians killed
Denmark: 5,000 killed or wounded, 20,000 civilians killed
Germany: 500,000 killed or wounded
Poland: 500,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians (within old borders)
Russia: 3,000,000 killed or wounded (fighting for Soviets)
Russian Republic: 500,000 killed or wounded
Various Russians, Baltic Citizens, Byelorussians, Ukrainians: 2,000,000 killed or wounded, 6,000,000 civilians killed.
Final Peace Treaty: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/02.JPG
After WW2, a period of improvement and productivity ensured. France became a hotpot for investment, especially from the New World. The large homeless population, mainly expelled from acquired French Territory in Flanders, Spain, Italy, Normandy, Wallonia and Alsace-Lorraine, created a huge need for cheap housing, and the contracts were filled by Spanish and Italian labourers, with the British and German industries working flat out to produce the materials acquired. Over the next five years, British industrial output overtook that of Germany, as Hitler’s madness and paranoia forced out many young administrative geniuses whom he suspected of disloyalty. These were often replaced by party hacks, which often had no experience in working in the economic/industrial sector. Self-government was granted to India in 1946, allowing them say over all domestic issues except the general economic direction and foreign policy. Canada broke away from the Commonwealth, furthering ties with an increasingly isolationist America, which had still not fully recovered from the crash. Japan was stuck in a war with China, unable to advance further but well enough supplied to be able to hold off the Chinese indefinitely.
To improve relations with America and Canada, Britain sold the Bahamas and all their Caribbean Islands to the former and Newfoundland and Greenland to the latter. Belize was returned to Guatemala, and the territory owned by Britain in between Venezuela and Brazil was split between them in return for first choice in oil and rubber exports respectively. Economic reforms were brought in, which privatised a lot of heavy industry, some to rich British investors but mostly to government loan-assisted worker-cooperatives, which did much to stimulate the economy. The transport system was upgraded, and underground rail systems brought to most metropolitan cities, while high speed lines ran horizontally and vertically across the country. Eire, in dire economic trouble and virtually at war with itself over religion, finally joined the United Kingdom in a Federation of the British Isles, in return for vast financial aid. Mosley, not content with just improving the economy set up vast social reforms, bringing about the first fully funded National Health Service, which provided care to everyone free of charge. Under pressure from socialist elements, Mosley also set up a Labour Exchange and a ‘mother’s wage’ rather than, directly subsidising unemployment. The Labour Exchange was a good system, which took the unemployed and homeless and provided them with a generous wage, in return for long hours working to clean up the environment and providing security to public buildings. The mother’s wage afforded mothers the opportunity to stay at home and bring up children without suffering financially from lack of a career. This policy took a lot of women out of the work place, and the subsequent strain on the labour pool saw a virtual end to unemployment and also an end to low paying jobs. Those getting paid least saw there wages rise by at least 50%. This policy was also accredited with stopping the birth-rate slide below the 3 children/couple mark, which kept the population growing at a steady rate.
In the late 1950s, the British Space Agency was set up, tasked to put a man in space before either the Americans or the Germans, and by 1959 it had been achieved. In 1963, the first British citizen touched down on the moon, which was claimed as a new British colony. Fast forward two decades, and a permanent scientific research station was set up on the moon. Powered completely by the sun and huge rechargeable batteries, the station provided heat and oxygen for its inhabitants. Expansion of the base continued, and in 1997 the first permanent settlers arrived. By 2000, the moon had a population of 16,000, as businesses took advantage of the cheap land and the abundant natural resources. The countries of Europe had also joined together to build a large penal colony with the capacity for 100,000 men and 5,000 guards on the moon’s dark-side. The survival rate was hovered barely above 30% for those without life sentences, and those with life normally went crazy and did something to get shot for after a few years.
As for the rest of the world, Spain and Portugal were having trouble modernising and retaining their empires, but Italy was still in its expansionist phase. Civil war in Yugoslavia in 1959 saw Italy interfere and annex the Slovene and Croatian areas while allowing the Serbs to take direct control over Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1961, Greece was attacked and annexed into the Italian Empire, except for Thessaloniki, which was sold to the Bulgarians, giving them access to the Mediterranean. ‘Italy’ now stretched down almost unbroken (Montenegro was Serb-controlled) from Venice down to Athens.
Europe, 1965: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/03.JPG
France, too, was doing remarkably well, and had the fastest economic growth among all of the countries in Europe. As the French had been expelled from lands they lost in the war, there was little desire for revenge among the populace, who had prospered under Petain’s leadership, or rather the lack of it, as he tended to just allow people to do whatever they want. Germany, however, had slumped and become stagnant. Maintaining such a large peacetime army was only part of the problem, as there were large scale riots and protests, some of which were allowed to proceed, and others were brutally broken up with mounted police charging through the streets cracking skulls with their rifle butts. Hitler had not been seen in public for years, but it was common knowledge in the rest of Europe that he had gone crazy, or was dead.
In the East, the Sino-Japanese war raged on, with Russia supplying arms to China. Japan, ironically, had lost so many men that it no longer needed the living space it started the war in the first place for. But it was not in the Japanese psyche to retreat, and so the young men of Japan did their duty and died for their Emperor, as did the young men of China for their leaders, the Nationalists in the south and the Communists in the north. America, once renowned as the land of opportunity had become a land of intolerance, as their leaders had suppressed their citizens of African and Asian origin to the point where seeing bodies in the street from protests was just another part of everyday life. Canada, however, treated their minorities with far more respect, and thus saw a large amount of immigration from their southern neighbour, which did wonders for their export economy.
By 2004, Oswald Mosley, born in 1896, was a very old man, but he was still active on the political scene. Pioneering surgery, modern technology and regular fasting had allowed him to live for years longer than any normal man would, and weekly injections of cloned stem cells regenerated his vital organs to the point where life seemed never-ending. His political opponents were few and far between, as most people had by now long recognised the man’s political genius was unparalleled. The Empire was still going strong, and while its inhabitants longed for independence they understood that to leave the Empire, which they had been granted the right to do at any time of their choosing, the loss in standard of living would condemn them to a third-world standard of living, like in small independent countries such as Persia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. And so Britain remained the most influential country in the world. With a total population of over 2 billion (including its Empire) and ten times the economy it nearest rival, the future never looked so bright.
Leader: Sir Oswald Mosley
Recent British and World History, from the ascension of Sir Oswald Mosley to the present day:
In May 1937, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) was elected to the office of Prime Minister. Just one month earlier, Neville Chamberlain, who had been the likely candidate to win the election, was assassinated by a Spanish Communist. Sir Oswald had took advantage of this and rose to power on the basis of offering assistance to the Spanish Nationalists under General Franco. Along with the German and Italian troops fighting there, the British fought against the Communists and Republicans and by February 1938 the war had been won and all resistance destroyed. Britain stepped up rearmament by increasing military spending with an unprecedented threefold increase.
The status quo in Europe was no longer holding. The rise of Fascism had first seen Mussolini take control of Italy, then Hitler take control of Germany. Franco had consolidated his power in Spain, and now Mosley needed to do the same in Britain. Sir Oswald mobilised the army, and with this very obvious threat the House of Lords did not offer any resistance when the BUF-led House of Commons voted through an act giving virtually dictatorial powers to Sir Oswald. Small units of troops along with government ministers took up positions in the BBC’s Broadcasting House and in printing presses up and down the country. Freedom of Speech and Association, however, were not revoked.
A month later, German troops entered the Republic of Austria, the country of birth of their leader Adolf Hitler. To France’s dismay, Sir Oswald gave a speech which wholeheartedly gave support to Germany, “who is only trying to bring all Germans into the borders of their Reich”. Czechoslovakia was now surrounded on three sides by Germany, but this was not to be their next target. Reports had reached the Fuhrer that pro-German revolts in the Danish border region had been put down by the Danish Army. Germany demanded that Denmark return the disputed areas on their borders – which had been Danish since 1919. Denmark, with its army already in place, refused and ordered its troops to dig in.
German troops headed north, but did not engage the Danish army. Instead, the newly enlarged Luftwaffe proceeded to bomb Copenhagen indiscriminately. Atfer two days, the German’s sent demands for unconditional surrender, and to their surprise, the Danes agreed. British Marines, despatched the previous night, had captured Iceland and Greenland and declared them ‘in the name of the King’. A week later, Denmark was formally annexed into the Reich. France protested, but did nothing.
Trouble in Europe was brewing. At a meeting in Manchester, General Franco of Spain, Il Duce Mussolini and the German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler met Sir Oswald Mosley signed a defensive military alliance, generally but not specifically aimed towards the threats of Communism in the East. The French public were in a state of general panic, after witnessing Copenhagen and being surrounded by four Fascist countries. After covert arms had been smuggled in from Germany and Britain, Flemish separatists captured the city of Antwerp and advanced on Brussels. The Belgian government, completely overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of a large hostile army, fled to France. The King ordered the army to fight the rebels, and Brussels quickly became a battlefield. Slowly but surely, with aid from the Axis in the form of anti-tank rifles and flamethrowers, the Flemish pushed the pro-French Belgians out of the city and declared independence. France, coming to the aid of its fellow Frenchmen, sent in a Corps under General Charles De Gaulle, after stopping in Sedan to sew Belgian flags to their uniforms. Unwilling to see the Flemish resistance put down, the German Armeekorps guarding the Belgian border moved in, with more reinforcements following. Soon both sides had reported fighting each other, and a major diplomatic incident broke out. The French refused to recognise the Free State of Flanders, and the talks broke down. Soon, the fighting had been reported all along the Franco-German border: WW2 had broken out.
In the East, all was not quiet. Stalin ordered his armies, without a declaration of war, into the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Republics offered no resistance, and were annexed into the Soviet Union. Two weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and after initial success lost the momentum and the war bogged down. A huge salient between Prussia and Warsaw failed to cut off supplies to the Polish forces advancing into Lithuania.
France, when hostilities with Germany became apparent, asked Czechoslovakia to honour their alliance, who did so. Germany, not yet completely re-armed, was in a tricky situation. They were fighting both France and Czechoslovakia, and there was an increasingly unstable Poland and a militant USSR on their Eastern border. Hitler decided to act, and requested military aid from Spain, Italy and Britain. After a flurry of telegrams between the nations, two days later Spain, Italy and Britain jointly declared war on France. Within a week, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand had all joined the war, with Canada remaining neutral due to its large French population.
A month later, on June 5th 1939 British troops landed unopposed on the Normandy coast at three designated landing zones – beaches, codenamed Sword, Juno, and Gold. A German offensive through the Ardennes had smashed the French centre and had split their forces. The Spanish and Italians, after initial setbacks, were making steady progress towards Bordeaux and Marseilles respectively. The British quickly set up a bridgehead and advanced on Caen, which was surrounded and reduced with artillery.
Meanwhile, the last of the French cabinet members along with President Lebrun had boarded the flight from Paris to New York via Lisbon. Before leaving, Lebrun urged the army to officially surrender, but they refused to put their honour on the line after being drawn into a war by the government. A new President, WW1 Field Marshall Henri Petain, was appointed and immediately sent an offer of conditional surrender to the opposing coalition. The offer was returned, asking for unconditional surrender – to which the old Marshall duly accepted. The French Army was ordered to disband and return home, which it did.
As the victorious allies met to discuss the peace terms for France, German artillery rained down on Prague in preparation for the infantry assault. France was to be subjugated and put in an eternally weakened position. Flanders gained the Sedan region, Germany annexed Luxembourg (they didn't resist), Wallonia, and Alsace-Lorraine, as well as taking Morocco. Spain advanced its borders fifty miles north and took parts of Algeria, and Italy pushed its borders deep into French territory up to the river Rhone and took the island of Corsica as well as Tunis and the rest of of Algeria. Britain gained the Normandy region in northern France, the city of Calais, the French Cayenne in South America, and French Indochina (Vietnam & Cambodia), French Central Africa, and various small islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and more islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Peace with France: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/01.JPG
A month later, after the fall of Prague and the surrender of all Czech forces, Slovakia declared independence (under German guidance), and Bohemia-Moravia were incorporated into the German Reich. Poland was offered an alliance with Germany in return for land gained by Poland after the German defeat in 1918. Poland was promised land in the east as compensation following the defeat of the Soviet Union. The Poles accepted, and the German Army advanced into the Baltic States to engage with the hordes of Russians. Poland regrouped and advanced in the direction of the Belarus and Ukraine, but winter soon arrived and hostilities wound down.
The British Home Fleet sailed into the Baltic to engage the Russian Navy, while the Mediterranean Fleet and the Italian Navy sailed into the Black Sea to engage them there. The German army, fighting further north than there Polish counterparts, suffered worse from the bad weather. A large Russian counterattack failed abysmally after tactical German retreats and counterattacks surrounded and captured larges numbers of conscripted Russians.
By the spring of 1940, things were looking bad for the Soviet Union. A lot of the Ukraine had slipped under the occupation of the Poles before the harvest could be collected, and a renewed German offensive had reached as far as North Latvia. The army was going through men at a rate of 2000 killed or injured per day, but the train system was good enough to supply enough men and ammunition to keep this up. Leningrad had been under prolonged aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, whereas the Soviet Air Force had mostly been destroyed on the ground by strafing fighters. The RAF was also doing its fair share of damage, with light bombers and fighters based off carriers in the Baltic harassing supply lines, the railways and ammunition dumps. By summer, the Germans had advanced into Russia proper, capturing the cities of Pskov, Minsk and Smolensk in a quick succession of battles. The Poles had reduced the defences of Kiev and Odessa and advanced within 50 miles of Kharkov. British Marines had also taken the White Sea port city of Archangelsk. In early Autumn, General Vlasov ignored orders and switched sides to the allies. He declared the Russian Republic, a German-style Fascist dictatorship, and a few other previously ‘Red’ army groups joined him. But a bigger disaster was the amount of Russian soldiers and generals who became ‘neutral’, taking orders from neither Vlasov nor Stalin, and not fighting anymore. With more help from the Germans and Poles, Vlasov pushed further into Russia, towards Moscow.
The battle for Moscow itself was an anti-climax. After the opening volley of German artillery, the Russian infantry under Vlasov proceeded to assault the defences of the city. Gains were made, but progress was slow with heavy casualties on both sides. The shining towers of the Kremlin could be seen dominating the skyline. The story was told that a staff car bearing the white flag raced through the Russian lines where it was directed to Vlasov’s HQ. The occupant was none other than Beria, Stalin’s chief of police. He informed them of Stalin’s untimely death (poison), and declared his allegiance to Vlasov and his Republic. Soon after, the fighting slowed, and the Soviet troops began laying down their arms. Some were marched into captivity, others just went home. A conditional surrender was signed with Germany and Poland, guaranteeing that all Russian lands would remain in Russian hands. The Baltic States, Belarus and the Ukraine would be split by Poland and Germany.
Thus, WW2 was concluded. The total casualties were around fifteen million.
Britain: 100,000 killed or wounded
Spain: 250,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians killed (including civil war)
France: 250,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians killed
Italy: 100,000 killed or wounded
Flanders/Belgium: 50,000 killed or wounded, 200,000 civilians killed
Denmark: 5,000 killed or wounded, 20,000 civilians killed
Germany: 500,000 killed or wounded
Poland: 500,000 killed or wounded, 500,000 civilians (within old borders)
Russia: 3,000,000 killed or wounded (fighting for Soviets)
Russian Republic: 500,000 killed or wounded
Various Russians, Baltic Citizens, Byelorussians, Ukrainians: 2,000,000 killed or wounded, 6,000,000 civilians killed.
Final Peace Treaty: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/02.JPG
After WW2, a period of improvement and productivity ensured. France became a hotpot for investment, especially from the New World. The large homeless population, mainly expelled from acquired French Territory in Flanders, Spain, Italy, Normandy, Wallonia and Alsace-Lorraine, created a huge need for cheap housing, and the contracts were filled by Spanish and Italian labourers, with the British and German industries working flat out to produce the materials acquired. Over the next five years, British industrial output overtook that of Germany, as Hitler’s madness and paranoia forced out many young administrative geniuses whom he suspected of disloyalty. These were often replaced by party hacks, which often had no experience in working in the economic/industrial sector. Self-government was granted to India in 1946, allowing them say over all domestic issues except the general economic direction and foreign policy. Canada broke away from the Commonwealth, furthering ties with an increasingly isolationist America, which had still not fully recovered from the crash. Japan was stuck in a war with China, unable to advance further but well enough supplied to be able to hold off the Chinese indefinitely.
To improve relations with America and Canada, Britain sold the Bahamas and all their Caribbean Islands to the former and Newfoundland and Greenland to the latter. Belize was returned to Guatemala, and the territory owned by Britain in between Venezuela and Brazil was split between them in return for first choice in oil and rubber exports respectively. Economic reforms were brought in, which privatised a lot of heavy industry, some to rich British investors but mostly to government loan-assisted worker-cooperatives, which did much to stimulate the economy. The transport system was upgraded, and underground rail systems brought to most metropolitan cities, while high speed lines ran horizontally and vertically across the country. Eire, in dire economic trouble and virtually at war with itself over religion, finally joined the United Kingdom in a Federation of the British Isles, in return for vast financial aid. Mosley, not content with just improving the economy set up vast social reforms, bringing about the first fully funded National Health Service, which provided care to everyone free of charge. Under pressure from socialist elements, Mosley also set up a Labour Exchange and a ‘mother’s wage’ rather than, directly subsidising unemployment. The Labour Exchange was a good system, which took the unemployed and homeless and provided them with a generous wage, in return for long hours working to clean up the environment and providing security to public buildings. The mother’s wage afforded mothers the opportunity to stay at home and bring up children without suffering financially from lack of a career. This policy took a lot of women out of the work place, and the subsequent strain on the labour pool saw a virtual end to unemployment and also an end to low paying jobs. Those getting paid least saw there wages rise by at least 50%. This policy was also accredited with stopping the birth-rate slide below the 3 children/couple mark, which kept the population growing at a steady rate.
In the late 1950s, the British Space Agency was set up, tasked to put a man in space before either the Americans or the Germans, and by 1959 it had been achieved. In 1963, the first British citizen touched down on the moon, which was claimed as a new British colony. Fast forward two decades, and a permanent scientific research station was set up on the moon. Powered completely by the sun and huge rechargeable batteries, the station provided heat and oxygen for its inhabitants. Expansion of the base continued, and in 1997 the first permanent settlers arrived. By 2000, the moon had a population of 16,000, as businesses took advantage of the cheap land and the abundant natural resources. The countries of Europe had also joined together to build a large penal colony with the capacity for 100,000 men and 5,000 guards on the moon’s dark-side. The survival rate was hovered barely above 30% for those without life sentences, and those with life normally went crazy and did something to get shot for after a few years.
As for the rest of the world, Spain and Portugal were having trouble modernising and retaining their empires, but Italy was still in its expansionist phase. Civil war in Yugoslavia in 1959 saw Italy interfere and annex the Slovene and Croatian areas while allowing the Serbs to take direct control over Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1961, Greece was attacked and annexed into the Italian Empire, except for Thessaloniki, which was sold to the Bulgarians, giving them access to the Mediterranean. ‘Italy’ now stretched down almost unbroken (Montenegro was Serb-controlled) from Venice down to Athens.
Europe, 1965: http://www.geocities.com/pud238/03.JPG
France, too, was doing remarkably well, and had the fastest economic growth among all of the countries in Europe. As the French had been expelled from lands they lost in the war, there was little desire for revenge among the populace, who had prospered under Petain’s leadership, or rather the lack of it, as he tended to just allow people to do whatever they want. Germany, however, had slumped and become stagnant. Maintaining such a large peacetime army was only part of the problem, as there were large scale riots and protests, some of which were allowed to proceed, and others were brutally broken up with mounted police charging through the streets cracking skulls with their rifle butts. Hitler had not been seen in public for years, but it was common knowledge in the rest of Europe that he had gone crazy, or was dead.
In the East, the Sino-Japanese war raged on, with Russia supplying arms to China. Japan, ironically, had lost so many men that it no longer needed the living space it started the war in the first place for. But it was not in the Japanese psyche to retreat, and so the young men of Japan did their duty and died for their Emperor, as did the young men of China for their leaders, the Nationalists in the south and the Communists in the north. America, once renowned as the land of opportunity had become a land of intolerance, as their leaders had suppressed their citizens of African and Asian origin to the point where seeing bodies in the street from protests was just another part of everyday life. Canada, however, treated their minorities with far more respect, and thus saw a large amount of immigration from their southern neighbour, which did wonders for their export economy.
By 2004, Oswald Mosley, born in 1896, was a very old man, but he was still active on the political scene. Pioneering surgery, modern technology and regular fasting had allowed him to live for years longer than any normal man would, and weekly injections of cloned stem cells regenerated his vital organs to the point where life seemed never-ending. His political opponents were few and far between, as most people had by now long recognised the man’s political genius was unparalleled. The Empire was still going strong, and while its inhabitants longed for independence they understood that to leave the Empire, which they had been granted the right to do at any time of their choosing, the loss in standard of living would condemn them to a third-world standard of living, like in small independent countries such as Persia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. And so Britain remained the most influential country in the world. With a total population of over 2 billion (including its Empire) and ten times the economy it nearest rival, the future never looked so bright.