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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Alternate
Obituary: General Andrew Victor Braddock It is with heavy heart that I must
write about the death of one of Britain’s foremost heroes, General Sir Andrew
Braddock. As we know, General
Braddock was born in Edinburgh in 1870, and joined the British army in 1890.
His talents, however, evidently did not lie with the field and, after a
battle with Pathens, on the northwest frontier of India (now the dominion of
Pakistan) he was transferred to the army’s administration department as a
young secititary. Despite some
notable successes in sweeping out corruption in the army ranks, an affair with
an Indian woman saw him removed from India in 1900, just in time to take part in
the exhibition to relive the siege of Peking, during the Boxer rebellion. While forbidden any combat action, he
displayed personal heroism when a small boxer force attacked, grabbing a rifle
from a dead German trooper and firing indiscriminately on the boxers with it.
After the fight became hand-to-hand, he stew a boxer with his baronet,
before the other army units returned to drive off the rest of the raiders.
After taking part in the victory parade, Braddock returned to Britain,
where he was awarded the Victoria Cross from a grateful monarch and a choice of
assignments. Having observed the
multi-national force in action, and having written a report on the foreign
armies that was leaked to the press (the article was supposed to have been
written by Winston Churchill, but no one in the army doubted the authorship,
they blamed it (correctly) on Braddock), he chose to be assigned to the Japanese
army as an observer. Learning
Japanese, he was assigned to the command of the Japanese General Kuroki as
Captain Braddock, just in time for the Russo-Japanese war to begin in 1904.
What he saw, as modern warfare was displayed for the first time, appalled
him. After the war had finished, he
attended the peace talks in the USA and observed both how the military skills of
the Japanese had been dissolved by the cunning diplomatic actions of the Russian
negotiator Witte and the potential power of the American giant. Returning to Britain, he took a leave
from the army after receiving a promotion to Major, and threw his efforts into
writing a book about his experiences. Despite
opposition from senior members of the establishment, his book was a bestseller
and – however inadvertily – guided the course of British politics and her
relations to her empire and the rest of the world. Splendid Isolation, as the
book was called, promoted the following points.
Britain has a small population; therefore it must not be wasted in futile
wars on the continent. Despite
claiming that Britain would win any continental war, Braddock was convinced that
the ‘victory’ would not be worth the candle – or even the huge casualty
lists. He therefore urged that
Britain should rely on her navy to defend her shores, while building a small,
professional army to handle the business of destroying the overseas processions
of any European power that decided to challenge Britain.
Furthermore, Britain should establish a web of alliances, preferably with
France and Japan, to help provide a ‘continental sword’ for the British
Empire if needed. He also urged the careful review of
any guarantees given by Britain in this new light to see if they would involve
Britain in a war that she could not win. The
offer to Belgium was quietly forgotten about by the foreign office, to reflect
the changing public mood. Unusually for someone writing in
those times, he proposed the establishment of political structures in India and
a change in attitudes so that Indians would be regarded as equals.
This was probably a reflection of his affair with Sumrita Manjour, who
gave birth to a son not long after Braddock left India.
In 1907, Braddock finally acknowledged the child, Salim Manjour Braddock
as his own and brought him to London to live with him.
Sumrita, while she came with her child, did not agree with the English
weather and passed away in 1908. Heartbroken,
Braddock arranged for a proper funeral, in line with the customs of her people,
and never spoke of her again. Unsure what to do with him, the army
promoted him to major general and assigned him to the military review board,
where he spent his time organising the British army. His
expenditures on shells, which were regarded as extravagant, were a reflection of
his time in China, when the Japanese army had nearly used up its shells on more
than one occasion. Braddock also
insisted on proper quarters to the men and had a tendency to remove or sack
officers that he felt to be too aristocratic or incompetent.
When he heard a man called Douglas Haig propose a charge at the enemies
guns, he fired him from the army on the spot.
All this, of course, led to him making enemies of his own, and he was
sent to the foreign office in 1910. The
matter of his army standing – he had acquired the rank of general – was
carefully forgotten about. Hearing about his plight, the Prime
Minister of that time gave him his full backing to construct a foreign policy
that would keep Britain out of any wars, while ensuring that the British Empire
would stay together. He built trade
bridges with America and, while he failed to get an alliance, he ensured
American investment in parts of the Empire, most notably Canada and Australia.
He promoted better relations with the Ottoman Empire, forming British
investment and ensuring that British interests would be paramount in the region.
He also strengthened the alliance with Japan, although at a cost –
which remains controversial to this day- of allowing the Japanese a free hand in
China. Possibly his most noted achievement
was the forming of the Indian parliament, which would slowly become the
government of the dominion of India. While
Hindu/Muslin scrabbling continued, most of the delegates were desperate to show
the British what they could do and the parliament achieved wonders in its first
twenty years of existence. Braddock’s Career was threatened by
the aftermath of the second Franco-Prussian war, when both the French and the
Germans blamed ‘perfidious Albion’ for the war that had laid waste most of
Europe. The war, which had begun
over the shooting of an obscure Austrian Nobleman, saw German forces advance
against France and Russia. The
French, after the loss of their main industrial area, were supplied by Britain,
which probably allowed the war to continue until 1917, when the Russians
collapsed and allowed the Germans to take much of their land.
On the German-French side, however, three years of bloodshed had achieved
precisely nothing. Braddock left the foreign office
after pressure from France and Germany demanded his extradition.
While this was refused, the population, suffering from an excess of war
guilt, demanded his removal. He
moved to India with his son, and died there in 1945.
His last act, after the king knighted him in 1930, was to grant the
backing of the Braddock estate to a young Austrian painter, one Adolf Hitler,
for an art show in Britain. Braddock remains a controversial
figure to this day. To the Indians,
the Africans, and even the Jewish and Arabic peoples he is a hero.
His son, who served as India’s prime minister 1950-1954, was one of the
greatest prime ministers India, or even any other country in the commonwealth,
has ever had. The outbreak of
violence between Hindu’s and Muslims that led to the separation between the
dominions of India and Pakistan, while it lost him his job, are now seen as the
act of a great statesman. In France, Germany and China,
however, Braddock is regarded as the villain who put British interests first and
shamelessly manipulated the conflict so that it would cripple the development of
the nations involved. While there
is some truth in this claim, many Britons were relived to have no part in the
conflict, and they would not have allowed Braddock to be penalised unduly. Braddock’s greatest achievements,
ironically, was realised after his death, when Prime Minister Churchill brought
the United Empire into being. Consisting
of over seventy states, the United Empire is a trade and defence block spanning
the world. Meanwhile, the European
states united, at first under German guidance, and then as a fully democratic
group, while continuing the development of Africa.
Almost as if guided by a divine hand – or perhaps Braddock’s last
book, Unity – The United States of America slowly expanded until it
covered the whole of the American continent, aside from Canada.
Perhaps because of this, the USA and the UE have an unspoken agreement
that they will not fight each other, regardless of the circumstances The four power blocks, The United
Empire, the European Union, The United States and the Japanese Empire, between
them dominate the world. All four
have presences in outer space and trade between them flows freely.
Let that be Braddock’s legacy. OK, hands up all those who
thought that was real? I saw that
hand, write out fifty times “I must never believe anything I read until I see
it somewhere else as well.” This
is an idea I thought up to inspire anyone who’s not sure what to write. I belong to the faction that
believes that while economic factors are important, people can and do matter.
This outcome is by no means the most unlikely one; the lesions of the
Russo-Japanese war were there for all to see.
I suspect a second round between Germany and France was inevitable
anyway, Britain, however, need not have become involved. Comments, anyone? Braddock Timeline As was obvious, the alternate obituary in CTT10 was deliberately very British-based and centred. This is the timeline for the world during those times.
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