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2019 Britain ISOT to November 1944?

Torten

Well-known member
Location
Wessex, UK
Pronouns
He/Him
We wake tomorrow morning, to find that Britain has been sent back to November 1944
- Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan still rule large parts of Europe and Asia
- The Soviet Union is waiting to descend on Europe like a Jackal.
- Britain still has a massive colonial empire

Britain is faced with a number of internal problems
- The entire economy is a peacetime economy, with large amounts of services and a Just in Time system.
- The country cannot feed itself
- Many young men are fighting in Europe for a country that doesn't exist and cannot support them in the long run.

Now, all these problems can be overcome, but firstly Britain needs to win the Second World War. Do we get Trident out and take out the Axis capitals and major cities, or do we instead throw all our resources in trying to finish the war as soon as possible without using these weapons? And after we do that, we need to deal with the Soviet Union and protect the emergent democracy's of Eastern Europe from Communism, and find our place in the place in the post-war road, whatever that is, be it that of a half starved island trading away its secrets while holding the world to peace through Nuclear weapons, or that of Global Power, and an industrial powerhouse of a different sort.
 
"Does England use the only strategic weapon they have left that isn't built around supporting and utilizing a seventy year old defensive alliance who's presence has helped sap their military into a sad joke" does not seem like an interesting question. If England does nuke, they win. If England does not nuke, they loose the entire English army in Europe because they can't be supplied, followed shortly after by the Empire because they can't keep it down with purely fiscal measures. Worse, they then start getting looked at by America- and at this point in time, there's no Special Relationship to bank on when the government does a diplomatic fuckup. There's a lot of war debt floating around to use as a polite hammer, and cracking a few Anglo knees isn't a far-fetched concept.

Or they use their heads and turn a few cities into smoking glass craters, have absolutely ludicrous piles of money thrown at them, and get hailed as heroes. Such a tough decision!
 
Does seem like some people would object to that sort of thing.

Objectors may voice their complaints to 21st Army Group, and the one million, twenty thousand, five hundred one and eighty men contained within who are fighting and dying while they debate the morality of ending the war. 15th and 18th Army Groups will of course receive copies of the letters, and while it'll take a few months the boys in 14th Army, I'm sure the assorted Indians, Malays, West Africans, East Africans, Bengalis, Burmese, and general lads of the Empire that'll be the only thing propping up the English economy will be quite happy to know they'll continue to collect back hazard pay while stuck in the disease riddled jungles fighting the Japanese.
 
Many young men are fighting in Europe for a country that doesn't exist and cannot support them in the long run.
With the knowledge and technology Britain has you're going to see a major resurrection of the manufacturing industry, at least once you sort out the power generation situation, that would soak up some of the manpower. For many however I could see large numbers emigrating to the Dominions.


Do we get Trident out and take out the Axis capitals and major cities...
The Americans have a hundred or so variable yield tactical nuclear bombs at RAF Lakenheath but I'm not sure what their security arrangements are like – does being cut off from Washington mean they can't arm them, or can local commanders take the initiative. It's a bit of a bugger that the UK got rid of their WE.177 bombs in the late 1990s in this scenario.


Does seem like some people would object to that sort of thing.
True, but the fact that the country finds itself at war with the Nazis would I think help mitigate or overcome many of those objections. First use I'd imagine would be a demonstration detonation either off the coast of Germany or somewhere unpopulated in Germany, if the Germans don't concede then you move on to the question of whether to use them on cities or not. It might be a major case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut but using them against concentrations of German ground forces would seem an obvious choice.
 
Britain just became the number one power with better technology, economy and capabilities than any other. Britain would legitimately say that the queen is divinely willed as they just time travelled to defeat the Nazis.
 
If the UK as-now showed up in November 1944, it couldn't last long with a just-in-time food and resources system but it can last long enough to send the RAF to Berlin and terrify the loving piss out of everyone with the fact it has mad futuristic Flash Gordan weapons. Presumably we do that while yelling "SURRENDER OR WE'LL KILL YOU" loudly so by the time we need to beg for food imports, the Axis (and USSR, USA etc) are scared of us.
 
Presumably we do that while yelling "SURRENDER OR WE'LL KILL YOU" loudly so by the time we need to beg for food imports, the Axis (and USSR, USA etc) are scared of us.

Honestly at that point we'd keep the food imports coming just to soak up all that nice, wonderful tech that's going to be walking out the doors as fast as troops cycle through the area. While digital resources would be rather difficult to aquire, anything not kept under lock and key will probably have a GI or three waltzing out with it. Even basic college textbooks would be useful, since it would bring forward engine design and signal tech a good bit. After that happens, there goes the most major technological advantage England has- and it'll be no short amount of time before they're told as much.
 
Can we please not used 'England' and 'Britain' interchangeably? They are not the same thing. Since I'm being nitpicking there has not been an 'English Army' since 1706 at least.

The use of Trident may not be something that the UK can do imediately. After all the boat at sea may not have come through with the rest of the British Isles (btw has the RoI also come through in this scenario?). If I'm honest knowing the calibre of our politicians in 2019 I think they'd somehow manage to mess things up. The Maybot would be her usual indecisive self and Corbyn would probably suggest we find a peaceful way of ending the war.
 
Can we please not used 'England' and 'Britain' interchangeably? They are not the same thing. Since I'm being nitpicking there has not been an 'English Army' since 1706 at least.

The use of Trident may not be something that the UK can do imediately. After all the boat at sea may not have come through with the rest of the British Isles (btw has the RoI also come through in this scenario?). If I'm honest knowing the calibre of our politicians in 2019 I think they'd somehow manage to mess things up. The Maybot would be her usual indecisive self and Corbyn would probably suggest we find a peaceful way of ending the war.

I actually disagree here.

May would go full out on invoking the spirit of Churchill and calling the country to arms. Might not work but she wouldn't be particularly indecisive on it. And I can't see Corbyn going wishy-washy against literally the Third Reich. Opposing the use of nuclear weapons sure, but Guilty Men was written by literally Michael Foot.
 
I actually disagree here.

May would go full out on invoking the spirit of Churchill and calling the country to arms. Might not work but she wouldn't be particularly indecisive on it. And I can't see Corbyn going wishy-washy against literally the Third Reich. Opposing the use of nuclear weapons sure, but Guilty Men was written by literally Michael Foot.

Yeah, exactly. Even Corbyn-era Labour would struggle to argue against prosecuting the fight against Hitler.

Some Eisenhower-style tours of the camps might be in order for certain activists, however; might change a few minds
 
I actually disagree here.

May would go full out on invoking the spirit of Churchill and calling the country to arms. Might not work but she wouldn't be particularly indecisive on it. And I can't see Corbyn going wishy-washy against literally the Third Reich. Opposing the use of nuclear weapons sure, but Guilty Men was written by literally Michael Foot.

Also wasn't most of Labour eager to smash Nazis just as much as the Conservatives, if not more?
 
I actually disagree here.

May would go full out on invoking the spirit of Churchill and calling the country to arms. Might not work but she wouldn't be particularly indecisive on it. And I can't see Corbyn going wishy-washy against literally the Third Reich. Opposing the use of nuclear weapons sure, but Guilty Men was written by literally Michael Foot.
Yeah, as someone who tends to think a contemporary Corbyn would not have been too keen on World War II, I absolutely cannot see 2019 Corbyn wanting peace with Hitler. Opposing nukes definitely, and probably fairly isolationist when it comes to the postwar settlement, but he will be supporting a war with the Nazis.
 
For some, it depended to an extent on when in the war one was talking about. Prior to June 1941, there were a number who felt that a war between a right-wing power on the continent, and a Government led by the right-wing Churchill was something of complete irrelevance to the average working man in Britain. Strikes were used as a mechanism to get better wages (Nicholas Monsarrat, in Three Corvettes, his autobiography of his service in the RN during WW2, describes how, when his ship came in for a refit from the Atlantic convoys, the very first thing dockyard workers did was go on strike for higher wages before starting work. It's also referenced in Proud Waters, by Ewart Brooks (this one about minesweepers), and several others). I've only got reports from dockyard works; I simply don't know whether it applied to other industries.

Post June 1941, and there was a shift in dockyard worker behaviour, and it became a matter of national survival.

Now, this is purely related to dockyard workers, and may or may not have been indicative of elsewhere.
This may be accurate for communists, both small-c and CPGB, but Labour's MPs virtually without complaint supported the war from its outset. In the words of Arthur Greenwood: 'Labour hates war, but Labour hates fascism more.' Labour's moves towards the far left in recent years don't reflect its makeup in the 1940s, when it was, due to the very different political picture, as much a non-communist party as it was a non-fascist one.
 
Sadly November 1944 is only two months before OTL, but you can bet your house that a subject of the second COBR meeting (after 'erm, what') will be special operations to immediately put operatives on the ground in and around all known concentration and death camps.
 
Cheers. I (and the authors) didn't know the precise political affiliations of those dockyard workers mentioned. Monsarrat and Brooks were not clear, and I rather suspect they were rather busy at the time.

I can quite believe that there were very stark and clear lines between Labour party members and Communist/communist workers.
Bear in mind after 41 the CPGB does completely back bashing the fash
 
Sadly November 1944 is only two months before OTL, but you can bet your house that a subject of the second COBR meeting (after 'erm, what') will be special operations to immediately put operatives on the ground in and around all known concentration and death camps.
(clears cobwebs)

Would Britain even be able to field that many operatives? Might it be more beneficial to send that strike team to the Wolf's Lair or Berlin, depending on the date?
 
(clears cobwebs)

Would Britain even be able to field that many operatives? Might it be more beneficial to send that strike team to the Wolf's Lair or Berlin, depending on the date?
There's an awful lot of chaps in France and the Low Countries who could be picked up by Chinook and would quickly pick up how things worked, and that may well be more beneficial to the war, but it's not going to be a question of that. We've gone back in time to the tail-end of the worst crime in history, the government is going to do something about it, do it immediately, and tell the Board of Deputies that they have indeed sprung immediately into action.
 
It suddenly occurs to me that Anne Frank is still alive at this point. Obviously one amidst thousands, but I imagine she in particular is going to be a symbol of what happens differently.
 
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