Chapter 558 Anti-War Britain

Inevitably, the matter was going to require the help of Edward Bridges, former Cabinet Secretary and now Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. Fortunately, as an expatriate civil servant, Alan Wilson did not have to be involved in the intricacies of Whitehall’s internal relationships.

Edward Bridges was a man who distanced himself from the parties, which was significantly different from Norman Brooke.

Norman Brooke had always maintained a personal relationship with Churchill, the leader of the opposition party, which was known to Prime Minister Alderley, and Alderley had agreed that Churchill could borrow government records to complete his memoirs on the condition that he did not disclose government secrets or seek partisan advantage, and it was Norman Brooke who did the vetting.

Churchill’s writings often had Norman Brooke as the first reader, and Norman Brooke had the job of revising them.

Alan Wilson believes that Churchill must have conferred with Norman Brooke in recent months about whether the rumored royalty reform should be implemented or not.

Churchill would surely have inquired about such a matter of immediate interest. Norman Brooke also knew Churchill’s style of doing things and where he was vulnerable very well.

Although the two Cabinet Secretaries, before and after, were no longer as close as they had been at the beginning, this did not detract from Edward Bridges’ authority, and everything went smoothly regarding what Alan Wilson was trying to do.

It is true that the influence of the Cabinet Secretary is undeniably greater than that of the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and the Minister of the Civil Service. But it does not follow that Edward Bridges loses influence.

Naturally, Edward Bridges also talked about the recent outbreak of war, “The Americans won’t fail to listen to our advice.”

“That’s not necessarily true, they think differently than we do.” Alan Wilson shrugged, “It’s impossible to gauge.”

The UK and the US were different, although the UK had once chased world hegemony, the UK still prioritized maintaining stability.

As a lone island country in the European overseas, it has long pursued the policy of uniting the European continent’s oldest two to beat up the European continent’s oldest one, and never allow a superpower to emerge in the European continent.

But after the fight, Britain tends to be the most kind to the defeated party. Because it knows that if it completely killed the boss, the second immediately become a new boss, it still have to fight again.

This is something France knows best, and Britain has always chosen a balance between war and letting the defeated country preserve its strength.

Britain’s treatment of the colonies also appeared to put profit above all else, and of course judging by the results now, getting shit on the head by the Americans is something Britain chose to do, and if it had been France instead, the US wouldn’t have been able to become independent so easily.

The British strategy in the colonies was to have a high degree of autonomy, make the locals into merchants and squeeze trade to the last penny.

To this end, they would also actively arrange for the locals to study in England so that they could facilitate self-governance. Therefore, the middle and upper classes in the British colonies were often still favorable to the British.

The United States was not a true island nation, although it was in similar circumstances to Britain, and there were differences in thinking between the two countries.

Edward Bridges was much more in favor of distancing himself from the United States, and very much approved of sending ground troops into the war as much as possible, just as he had always distanced himself from his cabinet ministers.

Like Norman Brooke, however, Edward Bridges did not think it was as easy as he thought it would be to avoid sending ground troops altogether, but did say that the matter was open to negotiation.

Edward Bridges was also significantly more attentive to the news of the Soviet Union’s reinforcement of Germany, and gave his own opinion, and finally said, “Alan, so it seems that after you return to Malaya, the situation you face may change a bit, do you need any help?”

“Sir Edward, once I need it I will definitely open my mouth.” Alan Wilson did not hide anything, directly said, “Although many places people are just like Indians, always miss the land that has been occupied for a short time thousands of years ago, but I believe that even if the Chinese people are more confident, they will not have any idea about Malaya. I do hope the other side does, and once they do, won’t the Soviet Union be wary?”

Ancestor broad over the mentality, Alan Wilson is not opposed to it, as long as it is moderate. This mentality is also found in the British, after all, the Industrial Revolution was accomplished independently in Britain, and there is no such thing as an Industrial Revolution that took place in the West and did not take place elsewhere, and the correct answer is why it did not take place in other countries, but in Britain.

It was only because Britain happened to be geographically in Europe that European countries followed suit. Do you really think that Oxford University, which was built before the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, is a fake?

“It is indeed difficult to exert influence on the US with our current strength. It would probably be much easier if Canada and Australia could side with us.” Edward Bridges knew in his heart that it was not enough to rely solely on Britain itself to calm the United States down.

“Convincing Canada and Australia is difficult in itself.” Alan Wilson laughed bitterly, “From what I know of the two countries, Canada does share a common language with us, but Canada is too close to the United States. The Australians are of a similar mindset to the U.S., very keen to get into the war, except that they used to follow Britain, now they follow the U.S. I agree, of course, that in the spirit of candor, informing both countries of our concerns would be a way of us being forewarned should the situation end up getting out of hand.”

Although Alan Wilson didn’t think it would do much good, there was still no problem with a frank reminder.

If everything went well, the glory would go to the United States, and if it ended up causing a series of tragic consequences, of course, the United States would have to bear the burden alone.

Although historically, throughout the war, Edmund Adderley’s cabinet has maintained great restraint, Britain with two-thirds of the U.S. military strength, contributed one-thirtieth of the U.S. ground troops in the war.

Still, Allen Wilson didn’t think it was enough, and if he were to be honest, it would have been better to stay out of the war. The U.S. was not paying for the British army, so why should it risk the confiscation of British-owned businesses and the loss of the exclusive trade channel with China centered on the Fragrant River?

Unlike history, Malaya is now an economic booster for Britain because of the Chinese majority, rubber and tin mines, and once Malaya falls into an unstable state, Britain’s just-beginning economy will be in trouble again.

Regarding the merger of the three occupied territories and the positive response to the United States, about the establishment of a transatlantic military alliance in exchange for the United Kingdom does not send out the army to participate in the war, the United States has already made a lot of money, in this case, what else does Washington want?

With the North Korean army raging, the U.S. troops continue to retreat at the same time, returned to London Alan Wilson, is from the geographic situation, historical tradition, while drawing on the Soviet Union was founded at the beginning of the very adventurous foreign policy, coupled with the prediction of damage to the interests of the United Kingdom.

To the Labor government that the risks of this war are huge, the Americans think that they are invincible things, just the Americans themselves so think, this war is not as easy to win as Washington thought.

At the same time, the position of Britain in the present war was made known to Canada and Australia through public opinion, and Britain, out of traditional feeling, wanted very much to help the United States. But Britain could not organize a five-nation coalition to contain Indonesia while confronting the Soviet Union in Europe and at the same time organizing an expeditionary force to go to places it had never even heard of.

And the support was given to what only five years earlier had been part of Japan, with many of the captured Allied soldiers in Southeast Asia in the care of the Koreans.

How to create an anti-war atmosphere does not require Alan Wilson, a Whitehall civil servant, to worry about anything at all; politicians who want to stay out of the war naturally have ways of dealing with it.

In the last few days, for example, there has been a sudden increase in anti-war letters from local organizations across the Labour Party. Anti-war petitions organized by World War II veterans, especially in the midst of the Asian theatre of war, who had been captured and survived to return, were very unhappy about helping to fight a war in a place that had once been a major source of Japanese soldiers.

Public opinion needs to be guided, for example, after Alan Wilson noticed the unprofessionalism of anti-war public opinion, he said that he could focus on facts like the punishments Austria and Thailand received after the war, while South Korea came out unscathed.

Austria’s situation was known to everyone in Europe and was occupied by the four-nation partition as was the treatment of Germany itself. As for Thailand it relied on the foresight of a humble social commons and was ceded the Isthmus of Krakatau by settling scores immediately after the war.

Concentrating on veterans of World War II, especially those who had fought in Southeast Asia, the story claimed that the Koreans were part of Japan at the time, and that the brutal treatment of the Allied soldiers in the POW camps was nothing less than a credit to the Koreans.

For a time, anti-war public opinion in Britain was thoroughly brought up, and after having such an atmosphere, the Labor government of Prime Minister Adderley officially opened communication with Washington, saying that Britain should not be drawn into the most difficult problems.

Britain was willing to contribute more for the defense of Europe, but in the issue of the Korean Peninsula, it was not supposed to have anything to do with Britain.

And the current fact that American troops kept retreating made it hard for Britain to have confidence in the next military action.

But even so, Britain is still willing to deploy its navy and air force to assist the United States in stabilizing the situation on the peninsula. This is already the maximum extent that Britain can do at this stage.

This is considered to be the current British government, officially signaling to the United States that limited intervention is supported by Britain, and as for other issues, such as sending ground troops, Britain has the heart to do so.

As for Alan Wilson himself, of course he was doing very important things, such as taking ballet lessons with Hepburn. There were official matters too, wasn’t he running around for Malaya, looking for good breeding stock for the Great White Yorks?

The fact that the current U.S. military is losing ground is indeed embarrassing to Washington, but that doesn’t mean that Five Star Admiral McEnvoy. Emperor Mak, who is in Tokyo to help Japan, is obviously not as timid as the British, and even though the American GIs are retreating, Emperor Mak still thinks he can win.