PanzerKaput's Illustrations

This project started out because two of us wanted to do some 1920s/1930s gaming. I had been looking at the Musketeer Miniatures, now Footsore Miniatures and Games, Irish Wars of Independence range whilst Mort, Steven Mortimore, had seen the Spanish Civil War figures form Anglian Miniatures, now Empress Miniatures. We chatted about how we might use these together in a slightly different context and Sir Ian McKellan’s version of Richard III, with its ‘30s setting and Fascist-uniformed Yorkist King, was mentioned. Over the next few days some idle research on the web led to the conclusion that there was a quite serious alternate history surrounding the abdication crisis of 1936. Had Edward VIII decided not to abdicate then there was every likelihood that Baldwin’s government would have fallen leading to a constitutional crisis. Further chats between us, and the members of the wargames forum ‘The Gentleman’s Wargames Parlour’ saw the bare bones fleshed out. A conversation with Simon Douglas, Solway Crafts and Miniatures saw further developments, the creation of some flags and then the fatal phrase, ‘we could do a book’. And here it is.

What we have aimed to produce is an alternative-historical outline of the events of 1936-8, a description of the main protagonists and some scenarios as examples of the types of military conflicts taking place We have quite specifically left some areas vague and some regions completely because we always felt that this project leant itself to people using their own local knowledge to create their own local civil war. By that same rationale you should feel perfectly justified in changing details of the conflict, re-sizing the scenarios and generally playing about with what we have produced for your own games as you see fit.

The alternate timeline begins with Edward’s decision not to abdicate at the end of 1936. Up until then all events actually happened as they happened. It was one of the startling discoveries of our research that so much of what had been going on – the General Strike, the Fascist rallies at Earls Court and the Albert Hall, the battle of Cable Street, the Jarrow marchers, the mutiny of the Atlantic fleet at Invergordon, the ‘tithe wars’ in rural Kent, the International Brigades in Spain – all fed so neatly into our fiction.

A fiction is what this work is. Whilst some events, groups and individuals mentioned are real, the actions, reactions and behaviour described within this book are purely fictional, and intended to lend flavour to the setting. They are in no way intended as a criticism, condemnation or justification of any political, social or religious policy or viewpoint.

Foreword in the VBCW Source Book by Dr Rob Jones.