Chapter 783 Churchill’s Death—He Went to Hell
There were explosions everywhere in London, on King Charles Street, Whitehall Street, Downing Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, Burlington Market Street, and of course outside Buckingham Palace - a US military jeep loaded with bombs exploded in the square outside Buckingham Palace, causing great chaos.
When the explosion sounded, Princess Elizabeth was having lunch with her fiancé Prince Frederick, her uncle the Duke of Windsor, and the Duke of Windsor's wife, Mrs. Simpson, and they were discussing the armistice and the accession of Princess Elizabeth - there were still many procedures to go through for the princess to become queen.
This matter is a bit complicated in the UK, unlike in China where the officers of the Royal Guard just put a yellow robe on Elizabeth and then shouted long live, and she would immediately become Queen Elizabeth II... This is definitely illegal!
And the legal procedures, of course, must be passed by Parliament! In addition to the famous "Bill of Rights", the UK also has a "Act of Succession to the Crown", which is also a tight ring on the king or queen's head. Without this law, Prime Minister Baldwin would not have been able to turn Edward VIII into the Duke of Windsor.
According to the provisions of the Act of Succession, the succession to the throne is decided by Parliament, not the monarch himself! In addition, in history, the British Parliament has deposed the king twice - one was Edward II and the other was Charles I. According to the conventions of these two impeachment of the king, Parliament can remove the king through the "Rebuke the King" or the "Great Remonstrance".
However, Princess Elizabeth did not want to make it so ugly, and hoped to have a milder reason to deprive her father of the crown.
Prince Friedrich proposed a suggestion of "urging the king to return home". Parliament could pass a "Return of the King". As long as George VI refused, he could be dismissed openly.
Just when the Duke of Windsor and Princess Elizabeth thought this step was good, a car bomb exploded a few kilometers outside Buckingham Palace.
"What's going on?" Prince Friedrich found an officer of the Royal Guard.
"Sir, someone has planted a bomb in James Park (the garden outside Buckingham Palace)!"
"Do you know who it is?"
"I don't know, but there are many places in London that have also exploded!"
"What? Many places have exploded?" Prince Friedrich immediately became alert.
Now is the critical moment for him to get both the country and the beauty! And for some people with ulterior motives, now is also the critical moment for them to make trouble and rebel!
"Sir," just when Prince Friedrich didn't know what to do for a while, another officer of the Royal Guard reported to him, "The people in the East End are making trouble again. More than 100,000 people took to the streets and held slogans such as "Churchill government resigns immediately" and "Immediate ceasefire."
"Didn't Churchill resign?" Princess Elizabeth frowned when she heard Prince Friedrich's report, "He is already the prime minister of the caretaker cabinet... If he steps down, who will preside over the government?"
"Or let Foreign Secretary Eden act as a substitute?" The Duke of Windsor seemed to have not understood what was going on and suggested letting Eden act as a substitute.
"Duke, they don't want Churchill to step down, but Churchill's government to step down!" Prince Friedrich frowned and reminded.
"But there is no way to organize a new government now." The Duke of Windsor looked helpless.
"Why not?" Prince Friedrich has only been a British citizen for a short time, and his legal awareness is still relatively weak. "Can't the princess directly appoint Attlee to organize a temporary cabinet?"
"This is illegal!" The Duke of Windsor looked at Friedrich from Germany and thought: Your wife is not the queen yet, how can she appoint the prime minister of the cabinet? Moreover, the British monarch has not appointed a prime minister for a long time. If a princess who has not yet been crowned appoints a prime minister now, I am afraid it will cause new disputes.
"And Attlee may not accept such a commission." The Duke of Windsor continued, "Because this commission will greatly enhance the monarch's authority..."
The British monarch is a rubber stamp. If a regent princess can appoint a civilian (because Parliament has been dissolved and Attlee is not a member of parliament now) as prime minister, this authority is really a big increase! If Attlee accepted the appointment and still relied on the Royal Guards loyal to the royal family to quell the rebellion, then who would be the most powerful in the future, Parliament or the King?
"Then send out the Royal Guards to suppress it!" Prince Frederick gritted his teeth and proposed another suggestion that would greatly increase the royal family's prestige.
"That won't work..." The Duke of Windsor shook his head again and again, "Do you want Elizabeth to become a monarch like Bloody Mary?"
Bloody Mary was Queen Mary I of England. During her reign, she adopted bloody suppression measures against Protestant forces and political opponents. She was a strong queen that the British people did not like to see.
"What's wrong with being Mary I?" Prince Frederick asked loudly. "Isn't the Tudor dynasty a golden age?"
Yes, what's wrong with being Mary I? At least you won't be deposed because of marriage problems! The Tudor dynasty to which Mary I belonged was the golden age of British monarchy. In that era, there was neither the Bill of Rights nor the Act of Succession. The army was the king's tool, Parliament was only responsible for providing advice, and ministers were the king's servants. The people would never dare to protest on the streets for no reason.
The Duke of Windsor and Princess Elizabeth looked at each other. Neither of them knew how to answer Friedrich's question. At this moment, another Royal Guard officer rolled in and reported to Prince Friedrich.
"Sir, the marchers are storming Whitehall Street and are fighting with people from the London County Division!"
"Attacked Whitehall Street? There was a fight?" Friedrich frowned, "What was the result?"
"I don't know," the officer shook his head, "but the gunshots coming from the direction of Whitehall Street are very intensive!"
"What?" Prince Friedrich's expression changed. He quickly walked to a closed window, opened the curtains, and then pushed open a large glass window with a bronze frame. The cold wind rushed in. Everyone in the stuffy conference room shivered, and then they heard crackling gunshots and louder and louder slogans.
"There will be peace soon!"
"Down with Churchill!"
"Down with the Windsors!"
"Long live the Republic of England!"
The voices of the people and the heavy sound of gunfire reached the bunker where Churchill was located. They were loud and loud. It was clear that the number of people besieging Whitehall Street, King Charles Street and Downing Street was rapidly increasing.
The bunker was also noisy, with phones ringing one after another. Secretaries, staff officers, or higher-level officials were like ants on a hot pot, either shouting on the phone or running around. Only the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who was at the end of his rope, was sitting in his office, lighting a cigar and smoking it slowly, as if he didn't care about anything.
Churchill's personal secretary, John Martin, opened the door in a panic and ran in, "Mr. Prime Minister, the phone still can't be reached. None of the people sent to contact us have come back..."
The phone lines have been cut! The Bolshevik Party and the Third International have been operating in London for many years, and they still have some foundations. The explosion in King Charles Street was the signal. At the same time as the explosion sounded, internationalist fighters cut off the phone lines.
At the same time, the death squads of the Bolshevik Party disguised themselves as British officers and soldiers and raided the headquarters of the Conservative Party, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Fascist Alliance, and the residences of the bosses of these parties.
Nothing like this would have happened before the last London protests, when London was under tight control. However, after the London protests, the prestige of the war cabinet was discredited, and the morale of the people and the military in London began to fluctuate. Workers in the East End could openly form armed forces. Moreover, when the U.S. military withdrew, they handed over a considerable portion of their weapons and food to the Bolshevik-controlled unions, and the U.S. Embassy gave millions of dollars in rebellion funds. The combination of these factors caused the situation to gradually spiral out of control.
Churchill was not ignorant of this, but he made the same mistake as Kerensky in 1917, wanting to increase his prestige through a victory. But the British army failed to bring him victory...
"Where is Buckingham Palace?" Churchill asked calmly, "They shouted the slogan of overthrowing the Windsor Dynasty, so they should also send people to attack there, right?"
"Prime Minister, nothing will happen to Buckingham Palace. There are 12,000 Royal Guards stationed there."
"But they still pointed the finger at Buckingham Palace. Why?" After Churchill raised the question, he did not wait for his secretary to answer, but continued on by himself, "Didn't Stalin know that there are people in the British royal family who do not interfere in politics?" Tradition? Doesn't he know that the royal family has a royal guard? Why did he let the Bolsheviks in London target the Windsor Dynasty from the beginning? I think... he didn't think that the Bolsheviks in London could succeed at all! It’s just a Britain that has lost its political foundation and democratic system and is completely heading towards chaos and turmoil. This is what he wants!”
"Mr. Prime Minister," John Martin had no intention of listening to Churchill's nonsense. Listening to the bursts of gunfire outside, he hurriedly said loudly, "We can no longer hold the position. The rebels' firepower is very fierce and there are too many people. The soldiers of the London County Division cannot resist... You must leave immediately!"
Churchill smiled bitterly and said, "No, I won't leave. I won't go anywhere except to hell!" As he spoke, he took out a pistol from the drawer and said, "John, you can go by yourself. If you can enter Buckingham Palace, Please tell Her Majesty the Princess for me, if someone must have her hands stained with the blood of the people, I hope that person is her!”
After giving his last words and ruining the British Empire, the Prime Minister waved John Martin away and waited alone in the office, waiting for the end to come...