For All Nails #257: Crash of Civilizations
by David Mix Barrington
- From Britannia Renewed
- 10 September 1976
- Leading Article, page 2
The present number of Britannia Renewed contains an article by the distinguished historian and political thinker J. Llewellyn Rothenberg of Cambridge University, arguing vigorously against the present policies of His Majesty's Government with regard to the American War. While the editors do not necessarily share the views presented, we are proud to publish them here, in the Party's primary written forum, in the spirit of free debate amongst all loyal Britons on matters of national importance.
We reject the view, all too commonly expressed by some members of the Government, that loyalty to Britannia is synonymous with unqualified support for all Government policies. As a decorated veteran of the Global War and a signer of the Britannic Manifesto, Professor Rothenberg has proven his loyalty beyond doubt. We urge our readers to consider carefully the arguments he presents herein.
- "Britannia Betrayed: The Legacy of Geoffrey Gold"
- by Jacob L. Rothenberg,
- Wedgwood Professor of History,
- Bolingbroke College, Cambridge
In 1942 the British Empire lay in ruins. German boots defiled the sacred soil of Kent and Sussex. Three member nations of the United Empire: Egypt, Victoria, and above all India, had fallen to German arms and to the corruption within their Britannic institutions. Our noble Antipodean cousins were hard pressed by the German armies that had taken Port Cook and the Mexican ships and airmobiles that neared the Australian continent itself. Lost in self-contemplation, our North American cousins seemed indifferent to our fate.
But even in those darkest of days the seeds of Britannic Renewal could be found. Under the leadership of George Bolingbroke we repelled the Germans a third and a fourth time, rallied the economic and logistic resources of the CNA to our cause, and battled those same Germans to a military standstill in Europe. Recognizing the roots of our failure in Africa and Asia in the inadequate integration of the native peoples into sound Britannic institutions, we began anew in the West Indies and West Africa to build true partnerships within the reinvigorated United Empire. The signing of the Britannic Manifesto in 1956 committed our movement, soon to be the core of a stable governing coalition in Britain and elsewhere, to a renewed Britannia, free of divisive racialist thinking and ready to bring the gospel of Britannic institutions to our own peoples and to others.
But Britannic civilisation then faced and now faces a welter of other organizing principles in this world. In some nations, such as the CNA, elements of Britannia co-exist uneasily with other, less wholesome elements. In others, proud and ancient civilisations like the Nordic, Islamic, and Nihonic have sometimes sought, in alliance with us, to forge an amalgam of their virtues with ours. It may be that in a century or two some of these allies will be as much a part of some Grand Britannia as now the separate virtues of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish tradition live on in our own civilisation.
Some world civilisations are inherently inimical to our own. The most obvious example of this is the Germanic, which holds most of Europe and so many other subject peoples in its thrall. But we must not forget Mexico, riddled with Hispanic decadence and founded on the perverted French ideas of the North American Rebellion. And though its members have fought and do fight honourably beside us, the civilisation emerging around the Canton Pact must be viewed with suspicion if not alarm. Its founding institution, Kramer Associates, had its origins in the atheistic demagogic society of Mexico. And in organizing the inscrutable mercantilism of Sinic civilisation around itself, Kramer has created a government based on the amorality of the market alone, a government that seeks through trade to establish economic domination over all others, in a manner not unlike that of the Hebraic core of the Germanic civilization.
By 1974, the tide of the mighty clash of civilisations seemed perhaps to be turning in the direction of Britannia. In Europe, Germania's expansion was contained and cracks were appearing in its control of Europe. Scandinavia stood defiant and enabled an anti-German government to take power in the very city founded by Tsar Peter the Great. Unrest in France led to a more independent government there and even a withdrawal of the German forces facing our shores across the Channel. And finally, discontent in the Balkans culminated in the striking down of the leader of Germany by a Serb assassin.
Elsewhere, the government of Victoria sought a diplomatic rapprochement with and even associate membership in the United Empire. In West Africa and especially the West Indies, our Empire brothers continued to demonstrate through their embrace of Britannic institutions that Britannia is for all people, regardless of colour. The Kingdom of Australia showed renewed vigor in its economy and in its military actions in Indonesia and India. In North America, a program of military cooperation with Britain promised to strengthen that nation's Britannic identity while making it better able to act on the world stage. And finally, a new government in New Granada actively sought Britannic guidance in its emergence from Hispanic decadence, even to the point of selecting a British princess as its Queen.
This annus mirabilis for Britannia came to an end, of course, with the tragic and murderous explosion on the island of Bali. This attack on Kramer Associates by the lunatic Vincent Mercator was ipso facto also an attack on Australia and hence on the United Empire itself. But our natural inclination toward self-defense veered off, nay, was deliberately diverted, into the present conflict in South America. The Bali explosion was a criminal action and should have been pursued as a criminal action, with an international investigation taking place in Mexico and New Granada with the cooperation of the legitimate governments of both those nations. Instead, our Prime Minister was maneuvered by his supposed new German and Kramerite allies in the "Bornholm Pact" into an outright war that serves no discernible British interest.
As a consequence of the actions of His Majesty's Government, we find that from the high point of 1974 Britannia has been thrust into a position nearly as dark as that of 1942. A German-inspired military coup d'etat in Scandinavia against King Christian Gustav has robbed us of our principal ally in Europe. FN1 Inaction in Africa, particularly in the face of renewed turmoil in Victoria, threatens to reverse all of our recent gains. The West Indian nations in a body have all but repudiated their membership in the United Empire, choosing to rely on the CNA for their security. And finally the CNA, the nation with the largest economy in the world, has rescinded its formal ties with the British Crown. Placed in ever closer contact with the devilishly seductive popular culture of its western neighbor, it risks drifting ever farther from its origins in Britannia. We already face one large state in the Americas in the grip of anti-Britannic ideology. Could we eventually be facing another?
And what has the remnant of the United Empire gained from this military adventure? We have conquered the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, replacing their New Granadan occupation with one of our own. We have taken superficial control of large portions of the territory of New Granada, though some resistance activities persist. Most importantly to H. M. Government, it seems, we have seized most of the oil fields and production facilities along the New Granadan coast, though these have yet to provide us much in the way of actual oil due to the non-cooperation of the indigenous work force.
I have every confidence in the ability and courage of our Britannic fighting forces. It is overwhelmingly likely that they will eventually complete their mission, subdue the remaining armed forces of New Granada, and bring the American War to a successful conclusion from a purely military point of view. But what would be the fruits of such a victory? The most optimistic projection for the aftermath would yield a suppliant but resentful New Granada, able perhaps to supply a certain amount of oil to its new British master, oil that could as easily have been obtained on the open market or from the vast fields now known to exist off the coast of Scotland. FN2 For this we shall have sacrificed thousands of British lives and tens of thousands of millions of New Pounds. FN3
And those lives and treasure will not be the only, indeed may not even be the most important sacrifices to the altar of Sir Geoffrey Gold's ambition. For when we examine the situation of Britannia in its totality, we find it to be far more similar to 1942 than to 1974. We are at war, in ruinous economic straits, isolated from our natural North American ally, and without most of the members of the former Empire, even our formerly most loyal cousins in the West Indies. Germany once again bestrides Europe, and spreads its influence across Africa and Asia without hindrance from Britain. All the analogy lacks to be complete is the actual tramp of German boots upon our soil. But those boots, on the feet of tourists and tradesman if not of soldiers, will not be long in coming. As our nominal ally in the so-called Bornholm Pact, Germania is free to launch a campaign of economic and cultural conquest upon Great Britain itself, a campaign far more likely to bring us to our knees than was its military analogue of 1942.
The sole architect of this disaster is Sir Geoffrey Gold. I call upon the members of Parliament, within our Party, within our coalition, FN4 and among the loyal Opposition, to remove the Prime Minister from office forthwith and to choose a new ministry that may begin a new Britannic Renewal. This must have as its first component a diplomatic conclusion to the present war, with a comprehensive international investigation of the roles of Mexico and of New Granada in the Bali explosion. It must continue with the rebuilding of the Empire through reconciliation with the West Indian nations, and the first steps toward the restoration of the Empire's relationship with North America. The damage done has been severe but not irreparable. Our Britannic civilisation can survive and even prevail in straightforward competition with other civilisations. But for it to have any chance to do so, its present leadership must be removed.
Forward to FAN #258: We're a Happy Family.
Forward to 8 October 1976: Turncoats and Telephones.
Forward to Great Britain: Easter Rising - Aftermath.
Forward to American War: No Oil for Blood.
Return to For All Nails.