A Greater Britain by Ed Thomas

Author:Ed Thomas [Thomas, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RO:SF
Publisher: Sea Lion Press
Published: 2015-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction.”

(Taken from “Memories of the Austrian war: An oral history” Longman 1967)

(An except from the testimony of Ottokar Prohaska, who commanded the ‘Kaisertreu’ Squadron of the Austrian Air Force)

“You probably think I’m completely crazy. In the spring of 1938 I had an easy life, all things considered; I was a Commodore in the Polish Navy, and spent most of my time hanging around the port of Gdynia inspecting submarines. Then Otto Hapsburg arrived in Innsbruck, and within the month I was flying above the Alps in a rickety old biplane. I can see that you’re thinking ‘why did a half-Polish, half-Czech peasant like me decide to risk my life for a young Austrian lad barely out of university?’ I can tell you why; it was my duty.

You see, the only oath of loyalty I ever took was as a pink-cheeked young cadet back in 1905, swearing lifelong devotion to Emperor and Dynasty as I tied on for the first time that sword belt of black and yellow silk. Like a nun taking the veil! That was what they used to drum into us cadets at the Imperial and Royal Marine Academy in Fiume: 'Whoever puts on the tunic of a Habsburg officer puts aside his nationality’. When the Archduke raised his banner we had a duty to come; and so I went, as did thousands like me[173]. The flotsam and jetsam of central Europe had their chance to be Hapsburg Officers once again.

Barely three days after I arrived in Innsbruck, I found myself assigned to a newly formed aerial squadron; while Austria had little use for naval veterans, I had also spent nine months during the last war flying reconnaissance planes over the Izonzo and it was felt that I could soon regain my piloting skills…”

(Taken from “The Monstrous Boat: From Raj to Dominion” by Edward Bridge, OUP 1986)

“By March 1938 Attlee’s meticulous preparations for Federation had almost been completed. The Princes were reluctantly on-side; Congress was impatient but nonetheless broadly satisfied. It was at this point, at the very moment before his triumph, that Attlee’s Herculean task threatened to be completely undone by events outside his control… The sudden outbreak of war in Europe had little impact on India at first, but as it became increasingly clear that Britain might be drawn into the conflict both Attlee and the Indian nationalists realised that London would expect India to shoulder some of the burden… For its part, Congress was uncompromising. On the 15th, Subhas Bose warned that any attempt to take India into the war without Indian assent would result in Congress resigning their ministries and abandoning Federation[174]; Gandhi was similarly explicit, announcing the following day that “India will enter the war as a Dominion or not at all”. Aware that the British Government risked sleep-walking into a disaster, Attlee’s messages back to London became more and more urgent.

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