The Loud Blast That Tears The Skies

The Loud Blast That Tears The Skies

Chris Nash

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;

As the loud blast that tears the skies,

Serves but to root thy native oak.

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

-Rule, Britannia! 3rd stanza.

Birmingham Tribune

24th January 1965

EARL OF LONDON DIES

"Winston Churchill, the Earl of London, has died at the age of 90 surrounded by his extended family. Acting as Prime Minister during the most desperate period of modern British history, Churchill has for many years been a highly controversial figure. Attacked both by those on the political left and the right for his actions during his brief premiership, and having spent a long time in the political wilderness, it is only within the past two decades that Lord London's reputation has begun to heal.

Prime Minister Foot this morning delivered a brief statement to the House of Commons, referencing Churchill’s often overlooked military career, his time as a journalist, and his eventual success as a novelist and historian. Foot pondered how history might look back upon the late Earl more kindly for his literary legacy than for his political one. The King, who raised Churchill to the peerage in 1948, also made a brief statement of sympathy. The Earldom now passes to Churchill's nephew, architect Sir George Spencer-Churchill.

Winston Churchill's political career began in 1900, when he was elected as MP for Oldham in Manchester. He would defect to the old Liberal party in 1906. Only two years later..."

Herbert Asquith

Liberal

1908

The last Liberal

Herbert Henry Asquith carries the unfortunate honour of being known to history as the last pre-Crash Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. His tenure cut short by a force far beyond his control, there is little that can be said of his time in office.

Asquith was born in Yorkshire to a family of wool merchants. After attending Oxford and making a career as a barrister, he was first elected to Parliament as a Liberal in 1886. From 1892 he became Home Secretary under Gladstone, a post he would retain until the Liberal Party lost power to the Conservatives in 1895. Returning to office in 1905 as deputy to the new party leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith's reputation grew as a powerful parliamentary orator. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for two years, a position from which he would strongly support free trade and introduce the very first old age pensions. His more radical budget proposals would at this time be blocked by an unreformed House of Lords. When Campbell-Bannerman resigned as Prime Minister in April 1908, Asquith was his natural successor. With King Edward VII holidaying in Biarritz, unable to return to London for health reasons, Asquith was forced to travel to France to kiss hands. It was an inauspicious start to his brief premiership.

Over the next three months, assisted by his new Chancellor David Lloyd George (the Liberal father of Gwilym Lloyd George), Asquith would push forward the Liberal welfare programme. Conservative opposition in the Lords combined with the limits of Parliamentary timetabling meant that, despite their ambitions, little additional legislation was passed in this brief time. Asquith also had to contend with growing tension over Ireland and women's suffrage. Protesters had recently demonstrated outside the Prime Ministerial residence of 10 Downing Street. Asquith himself was considered by the Metropolitan Police to be at serious risk of assassination.

It was to be on a muggy evening towards the end of June 1908 that Asquith's leadership would come to a sudden end. With the sunset only an hour earlier, a dull glow in the west at first appeared as an extended twilight. Those few observers who were out of doors, their attention increasingly captive, now had to shield their eyes from the growing brightness. Accounts from more peripheral survivors have described a white streak of light arching down from the heavens. Bright light was followed by a sharp cracking sound, shattering windows as far afield as Woking. Then, with a roar beyond all earthy imagination, an instantaneous blast obliterated the avenues and town-houses of Chelsea and Kensington. Flame and shock waves spread rapidly through the capital. Asquith, working late in his Downing Street office, likely remained unaware of the danger until it was too late; not that any conceivable action could have saved him. In the years to come, his supporters and those romantic champions of the old Liberal party would paint him as a martyr to the nation – selflessly working late into the night right until the bitter end. Less generous commentators would spread old rumours of an adulterous affair and the real reason why that the lights were still on in Number 10.

Regardless of the true motivation for Asquith's burning of midnight oil, it was ultimately to doom him. Following two centuries of neglect and ad hoc extension work, the Georgian townhouses of Downing Street were already on the verge of collapse. Soft soils had caused foundations to sink and the stonework to crack. Damp and dry rot had weakened the extensive wood panelling, almost beyond repair. The blow of a cosmic hammer was more than sufficient to destroy this work of man. It would be several days later before salvage teams, working in from the outer suburbs, reached as far as Westminster. After fallen masonry and the fires that had raged for days, little remained to be identified. It was a grim end to the penultimate Liberal ministry.

The Winds of Change

Article by Benjamin Smith for Lunar Magazine

Kaiser Wilhelm III Space Centre, Namibia. January 1965

The billowing vapour trail arcs higher and higher into the sky. The assembled platform crane their heads back, squinting against the brightness of the mid-afternoon sun, focusing still on the glowing, diminishing speck above. Now the trajectory appears to be falling sideways - an oddity of perspective as the rocket tacks north towards the equator. Cautious cheers and congratulations begin to come from the people around me; today marks a big milestone on a project they have worked on for many long years. I turn to my guide. His face is a wide grin - muttonchop to muttonchop. Unlike the engineers who have been both exhausted and wrought with nerves, he has viewed this part as a mere spectator. A biochemist by training, an exobiologist by project necessity, his part of the mission is yet to come.

Two days beforehand and I am sitting with Herr Doctor Ozimov in the corner of his laboratory. With every other engineer and technician tied up in last minute preparation, he is the only scientist who has time to spare me. It is to be expected that as an English journalist I am low in the press pecking order - and yet I don't for a minute feel fobbed off. Dr Ozimov may formally and by strict qualification alone be a biochemist, but he is also as much of a knowledgeable master of every aspect of the Zeus Programme as anyone.

Does he find it ironic that a mission heading for a moon of Jupiter, in search of life, should launch from a remote and otherwise lifeless outpost in Africa? He states that he does not - the seclusion is beneficial to both scientific productivity and to maintaining security. While Germany remains by far the world leader in what others have flippantly termed the space race, Berlin is keen to ensure that classified information remains classified. Further, the reliable clear blue skies are an aid to launch visibility - certainly preferable to early abortive launches in the Niger delta. The complete absence of any local population is also a bonus - nobody wants a crashed rocket in their village.

The goal of the Zeus Programme? Life. Alien life. The first ever to be discovered. Ozimov is clearly optimistic, and the programme is ambitious. It has done well to get this far - the real prestige, and hence the bulk of funding is in a manned mission to Mars - though that mission is likely to be more than a decade away from launch. In the meantime DLR, the German Aerospace Agency, busies itself with side missions, unmanned probes and autonomous electronic drones. Is there a risk that stepping back from lunar walks and other manned missions will reduce the effectiveness of the agency?

"No. No, we can get just as much data - sometimes more - from the unmanned landers. You couldn't, for instance, have a man walk on the surface of Venus. We know enough about that planet to suggest that it would be a one way mission if we tried. No, the Eisenschachtürken are an efficient way to visit less habitable worlds..."

I'm sorry, the... what?

Eisenschact- oh, forgive me - you have a different term for them in English don't you? Iron workers? No? Anyway, they are good. So long as they are given laws to follow, they work very well.

Are you confident of finding life on Europa?

Yes. Very.

His absolute confidence surprises me. I was led to believe that scientists didn't work in certainties, but he continues at length down all manner of speculative avenues.

I very much expect them to be smarter than us, to be greater intellects.

On what basis does he anticipate this?

Say you have a moon where the surface is entirely ice. Beneath that ice you have a warm, maybe even tropical ocean fed by geothermal heat. Creatures that evolve there could grow to great sizes, rise to the top of complex trophic networks - why shouldn't they have large brains? But say you also deprive them of the ability to generate fire, and to thus work metals or fashion other complex materials. Well, in the absence of a material culture where material thought dominates - wouldn't such mental energies be directed instead into abstract thought, philosophy, theoretical science?

I laugh and suggest that such creatures would make for a great science fiction story.

Perhaps they would Ozimov agrees.

Later that day I catch up with some British scientists who have travelled down from Newport to observe the launch. Strict security prevents them from interacting much with their German rivals - although their invitation alone is evidence of some charitable feeling towards Britain's own shoestring programme.

Actually we do very well at what we do one of them hastily corrects me when I reference this national backwardness. While Britain has no manned programme, it is true that our country have launched an impressive number of satellites and coordinates more ground-based observatories than any other nation. It is rumoured - though none of those around me will confirm or deny it - that the longer term plan is towards some sort of orbital observation platform.

But does this not just confirm the difference of national ambition? Germany - bold, exploring the frontier, in the middle of the action off-world just as they have long been the powerful hub of Europe. England by contrast; modest and defensive. Seeking isolation. Building the interplanetary equivalent of Drake's beacons?

It is a difference of priorities, not of ambition. The Germans do that which brings them glory. We do that which keeps us safe.

Not just us. Another from his party corrects. The rest of the planet too.

They all nod solemnly at this. One of them would later privately confide in me his desire to see such national delineations torn down in favour of a genuine international effort.

We've put men on the Moon and sent machines to other planets. Imagine what we could do if our efforts were combined!

Such optimism aside the general mood of the English is despondent. While they are as excited as I am to view the rapidly approaching launch, they are feeling something of a chill from the Germans.

It's like being in the school First XI on a trip to the Ashes one of them laments. The sentiment generally is that they aren't taken seriously - orbital platforms or otherwise.

It is after the launch. I am back among the Germans and there is a drinks reception. Mission Control have reported that the Zeus 3 is safely beyond Earth's gravity and already on its decade-long trip to the outer solar system. National triumph is the mood, and if anyone had previously felt that this programme was somehow of lower importance, they certainly aren't showing it now. Some military and political personnel have come over from Windhoek and the mood is getting raucous. Dr Ozimov looks uncomfortable, clearly wanting to get back to the peace of his books and his laboratory. I put to him the Utopian contention of his English counterpart.

Yes, I believe that is the way forward. No nations. No borders. We could achieve so much more. If someone like me can be born a Russian Jew and maybe end up putting a German on Mars - well, why shouldn't we aspire to a single humanity?

Across the room the German colonial governor has just arrived and boisterous song has broken out. I recognise it as yet another patriotic song, celebrating the routing of one historical rival or other. Against such passionate national feelings, Dr Ozimov's dream of a single humanity may struggle. Short of any overriding motive for unification, what hope for a collective space-faring effort? The English scientists could perhaps suggest one, but no-one here would listen to them. Not today.

Winston Churchill

Liberal

1908

The man who seized Britain's darkest hour

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was an unlikely man to become British Prime Minister. Barring the quite exceptional circumstances of June 1908, it is unlikely that he would ever have done so. Born the son of raffish aristocratic playboy and maverick politician Randolph Churchill, Winston would follow mediocre academic results with an unorthodox career as a soldier-cum-war correspondent. In 1900 Churchill entered parliament as a Conservative. Just a few years later he would defect to the Liberal Party over the issue of Free Trade. At that time, the Free Trade issue was tearing the Conservative party apart. Joseph Chamberlain, leader of the Liberal Unionist Party (junior party in the governing coalition) and the leading advocate for protectionist tariff reform, had resigned from Cabinet over the issue in 1903. Joseph Chamberlain was to spend the rest of his life leading a futile national campaign of stump speeches and town hall meetings on the issue. Though Churchill had once shared a platform with the elder Chamberlain, he would now break away from the old radical imperialist.

As a Liberal, Churchill was never fully trusted by his peers. On Free Trade he was naturally in full agreement with the party's old shibboleth. On other issues, such as Ireland, he was stubbornly dissident. Headstrong, and drawn to romantic and impulsive causes over the cold reason of elder parliamentarians, he soon risked being as much of a rebel on the Liberal benches as he had been to the Tories. When the Liberals took office in 1905, Churchill was made a junior minister at the Colonial Office. In 1908 he would be promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Though he lost the resulting by-election (under the laws of the time, MPs appointed to Cabinet were required to seek a fresh mandate with their electorate) he would be successfully returned for Dundee a few weeks later.

From his new office Churchill set about working on the ambitious Liberal agenda. Together with Chancellor David Lloyd George he drafted several new bills pertaining to employment conditions. Few records survive of this legislation, and the bills would never come before Parliament, but it is thought that they sought to further extend the social reforms of previous years. Reduced working hours for mine workers and a system of minimum wage levels were among the ultimately lost proposals.

Churchill had been at the Board of Trade for barely a month when the Crash happened. On that fateful evening he was not in Whitehall, but instead at one of the lesser clubhouses that then dotted the fashionable and less fashionable quarters of London. Indeed, had Churchill been dining at one of the more prestigious establishments in Kensington or Chelsea he likely would have faced a premature immolation. The tale of Churchill’s survival and escape from a collapsed wine cellar is the stuff of action-adventure legend, easily on par with his Boer War escapades. Dragging himself through the chaos and horror of post-apocalyptic London, one leg broken and likely suffering a mild concussion, Churchill would travel a distance of many miles towards Southwark. With Westminster destroyed, and the whole city north of the river seemingly aflame, it was to the east that many people travelled in search of rescue and salvation. The Tower of London, an unmistakable landmark and still standing defiant after eight hundred years, would be a natural rallying point for those leaders of government and order who still lived. It was there that Churchill at last arrived, as the sun's rays began to shine on a new uncertain day. He would be greeted by surviving figures from Parliament, the Civil Service, and from the Metropolitan Police, and also by representatives of the Armed Forces including the Royal Fusiliers and the Tower Warders. With targeted radio distress signals now being sent out, more dignitaries arrived over the course of the day, among them surviving members of the Government. Early reports made it apparent that few survivors were to be found about Westminster, while order and a clear chain of command was urgently needed. On the reasonable presumption that Asquith was dead, Churchill gathered together those Liberal MPs he could find and had himself declared both party leader and Acting Prime Minister. Over time Churchill's motives and actions that day have become clouded. Was it an opportunistic and crude power grab, as some have alleged? Or, as others have alternatively suggested, a desperate and noble attempt to ensure some clear leadership for the sake of national survival? With the only scholarly record of those events being Churchill's own memoirs, it is impossible to objectively determine his true motivations. Less generous assessments may equally be coloured by the later events of the Churchill premiership. With both Asquith and Lloyd George buried under the rubble of Downing Street, and Grey last seen about the now-gutted Foreign Office, Churchill was clearly among the most prominent surviving members of the Government. That other Cabinet Ministers (including Richard Haldane and Herbert Gladstone) could not be traced until several days later clearly worked to Churchill's advantage.

Churchill would set to work immediately, with a determination that made up in energy what it lacked in technical constitutional legality. In the name of Parliament, Churchill assumed command of the Army and called up every reserve and territorial unit. For centuries an exclusively naval power, Britain at that time had one of the smallest standing armies in Europe. This thin red line would be stretched to its utter limit in the weeks ahead. From the growing masses of the displaced citizenry, Churchill conscripted work gangs to begin an immediate clear up. Though his initial authority barely extended beyond central London, in the absence of any competing or coordinated opposition, the country gradually fell behind Churchill.

Historians have long disputed Churchill's claim to being a legitimate Prime Minister. His succession to the Liberal leadership was dubious and under highly irregular circumstances. No parliament was ever assembled during his term, though admittedly this would scarcely have been possible. Opponents over the next decade would come to decry him as a dictator. In his own memoirs, Churchill only ever claims the title of Acting Prime Minister, though that distinction was never firmly established at the time. Most crucially, Churchill would never kiss hands or receive royal assent.

Where is the King? was the question on many Londoners minds over the next few weeks. The royal location had never really been questioned before – indeed Edward VII seemed to spend more time overseas than in his own kingdom. Now, with Buckingham Palace flatter than the Mall, the question carried a little more urgency and importance. King Edward, as it happened, was in Russia – the guest of Tsar Nicholas II. Prior to the Crash this particular royal visit had been proceeding as a major success. Decades of Anglo-Russian antagonism were being smoothed over, the gregarious charm of the Uncle of Europe paving the way for a more cordial arrangement. Tsarist Russia – the bogeyman of British liberals and imperialists alike – now seemed like the safest place to be. On the day of the Crash, His Majesty had been halfway down the Volga, watching yet another traditional peasant dance from the comfort of the Imperial barge. It would be several hours more before backward Russian communications could inform him of the devastation to his homeland.

And so Churchill had licence by omission to act as he pleased. For a while he was popular. London, along with the rest of the country, was desperate for guidance and leadership. Churchill seemed to provide it. He would even make a habit in those early days of giving outdoor speeches upon upturned soap boxes. With the assistance of the army and constabulary, some semblance of public order was restored. As news spread to the rest of the world, much goodwill flooded towards Britain. Even a deep sense of schadenfreude couldn't blind the oldest of rivals to this unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany was to earn the enduring respect of the British people for his telegrams of support. President Roosevelt committed himself to assisting with the rebuilding efforts after his own term of office expired.

And yet after the destruction, the impact and the fires, there were to be deeper ripples. The City of London had been the world's financial capital, and the UK the world's largest creditor nation. With centuries of financial records charred to ash, global financial ruin was imminent. As days passed, global leaders became aware of the implications. Market confidence melted. One by one the links of the world economy fell. A global decade of isolation, economic turmoil, and civil strife would follow.

Churchill would attempt to put a brave face on this new isolation. Britain stands alone! he would declare in a radio address, though few would hear it. For years a net importer of food, Britain was far from self-sufficiency. As the necessity of food rationing became evident, Churchill would break with his free trade background in favour of autarky and protection. Across the UK civil disorder broke out. No longer restricted to London, this instability would initiate a cycle of decline in Churchill's popularity.

Always prone to far-fetched and eye-catching schemes, Churchill had already proposed the one plan that was to most harm his legacy. Fearing that Britain was far too overpopulated for true self-sufficiency, and with one eye to protecting continued colonial power, he sought to resettle millions of displaced citizens across the Empire. While the thinking behind the plan was reasonable, if flawed, it was the implementation that would be truly damaging. Most relocations would in fact be entirely voluntary, but with the few that weren't it didn't take long for uncomfortable parallels to be drawn. A report in the Daily Chronicle, likening the relocations to the Trail of Tears, would gain international attention.

In Ireland discontent reached boiling point. With Churchill a known opponent of Home Rule, and with more radical Catholic preachers proclaiming the Crash to be a divine judgement against the Protestant rulers in London, it was only a matter of time before conflict began. Three weeks after the Crash, extremist Irish Home Rulers seized a number of key government posts across the island. With units of the British Army already spread thin across the UK, there was little Churchill could do to respond directly. The actions of a few rogue commanders, acting entirely on their own initiative, only served to alienate the wider Irish population from London. In Ulster full blown street-fighting would break out between rival factions. In mainland Britain a number of other radical and revolutionary groups seized their moment. Most would be crushed fairly soon by police and right-wing vigilante action. Glasgow and Tyneside, as the exceptions, saw the establishment of more permanent leftist communes.

Churchill's strongman image was rapidly crumbling into bluster. Increasingly he withdrew from reality, plotting further bizarre schemes. The creativity and invention that would serve him so well later in life now perpetuated the delusions of a near madman. The early trust and support afforded to him by the army was also wearing thin. Senior generals had taken to ignoring him outright, acting on their own judgement and passing him off with platitudes.

Events came to a head only four weeks after the Crash. In Russia the King had remained the honoured guest of the Tsar. Once Nicolas had learned of what had befallen London, he had done everything within his absolute power to ensure that his uncle returned safely to the UK. In the event this had taken a month. The Admiralty, never fully trusting Churchill or really falling in behind him, were also anxious to ensure that the King returned safely. For a time than meant delay. Delay while the full extent of the situation was assessed. Delay also to ensure that His Majesty wasn't delivered to a newly barbarous isle of half-starved revolutionaries. As it was, it took several days for His Majesty to travel back from Kazan to St. Petersburg, and from there to wait for a Royal Navy vessel to arrive (the Royal Yacht being deemed an unsuitable means of transport under the circumstances). For his Russian hospitality at such a time, the King was to remain ever grateful to the Tsar. Now he was determined to find out just what had happened to his country.

King Edward VII returned to England on the 1st August 1908. Landing in Portsmouth to be greeted by huge crowds of cheering subjects, he would also be met by the Chief of the General Staff. After having time to read the full reports on the domestic situation