End of the Rhine By Artificer6 Watch

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The fighting in Spain bogged down the advancing Allied armies far more than was initially expected. By the time the war was coming to a close, and the forces of the Allies were meeting the forces of the Soviet Union, the Allies had only made a token advance in to Germany itself. The post war borders were set at the Rhine, splitting the Kingdom of the Netherlands in half. To combat this, and give the Kingdom of the Netherlands a stronger claim on the north, a secret deal between the Allied and Dutch governments was agreed upon, to split Belgium (still effectively under the governance of the Allies) between France and the Netherlands. Divided by provincial lines, with the majority French-Speaking provinces going to the French, and majority Dutch-Speaking provinces going to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.



This was not taken well by many of the annexed peoples - many political activists of both Flanders and Wallonia have called for their nations to be given the independence they used to enjoy [1], but their efforts have yet to amount to anything significant, with infighting between those who want an independent Flanders/Wallonia and those that want an independent Belgium being common.



However, the biggest problem for stability in the region is the 'Rhineland Germans'. The efforts of the 'Academie Francaise' to aggressively Frenchify the area, supported by a vengeful French Army, has lead to many of its German occupants to take up arms against the French under the name 'Werwolf' [2]. As a result, the area has almost become a 'no-go area' for French Armed Forces outside of a few key areas.



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[1] Rather inversely to their governments agreement to the plan, one of the larger sources of support for Belgium independence is the British populace, with many of them seeing its annexation as an insult to the efforts of the British during the First World War.

[2] Despite the adoption of the name and pennant of the Nazi organisation, 'Werwolf' is simply the informal term used for many small groups that have a wide range of views, including Communists, Monarchists, Nationalists, Nazis, and those that simply want the French out of their Germany.



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Or, in other words, it's the West-East German split, but with the Dutch. I've had this sitting on my PC for some time now, sitting at near completion, but I lost interest in finishing it. Rather than just keeping it hidden, I thought I'd publish it as is. Hooray for laziness. If my Dutch here is bad, forgive me, for I do not speak Dutch. In addition, I'm aware that the orange-white-blue tricolour has become associated with the far right in the Netherlands today with the association starting during WW2, but I chose to use it here due to its other, royal connotations - and simply because I really like the flag. I'm unaware of any Dutch communist flags, so I just used a modified Red-White-Blue tricolour.

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Published : Oct 31, 2017