Great Britain

The Union Jack, the de facto official state flag of Great Britain since 1801 and the official state flag that was used throughout World War II

## Geographic Information

### Climate

A maritime, moist and temperate, with a moderate annual temperature range

### Terrain

High ground, knife-edged mountain ridges, separated by deep valleys

## Political Information

### Language

English (de facto official language)Regional and Minority Languages: Scottish, Ulster Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and British Sign Language

### Notable Cities

Edinburgh (Scotland), Manchester (England), Birmingham (England) and Glasgow (Scotland)

### Government

Unitary, parliamentary, constitutional monarchy

### Leader(s)

Monarch: George VI (1936-1952)Prime Minister: Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940), Winston Churchill (1940-1945)

### Affiliation

Allies

Great Britain or the United Kingdom, officially known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Norther Ireland, is the one of the "Big Three" nations, who mainly fought against Nazi Germany in Europe and the Italian Empire in North Africa throughout most of the Second World War

Notable engagements that Great Britain was involved in included the Phoney War, Operation *Weserübung*, during which, Great Britain tried to stop Nazi Germany from invading and capturing Norway's iron ore supply but failed and had to retreat, the Western Front of World War II, during which, Nazi Germany managed to encircle a bunch of British, French and Belgian divisions at the port city of Dunkirk, resulting in the following evacuation of said soldiers, which would officially come to be known as Operation Dynamo and the North African Campaign, during which, Great Britain managed to inflict devious damage to the Italian colony of Libya, while also fighting the German "Afrika Corp" and stopping them from helping out their fellow Italian comrades in Africa

## **Great Britain Before the War**

Before the official start of the war, Great Britian found itself as the biggest and most powerful empire in the world, with over 13.71 million square miles of land at its control, which at the time was 26.35% of the whole world, which was also about 97 percent of the whole size of the moon! Though with such a big empire, comes its fair share of problems. After the First World War, there was a huge surge in nationalistic tendencies across all of the world, with colonies and puppet states forming their own national identities and vowing for independence, with 2 main examples existing in the British Empire. The first one would be the Irish, who managed to elect a pro-Irish independence candidate from the Sinn Féin party, by the name of Éamon de Valera, who in turn, created the first ever independent parliament of Ireland in Dublin, thus effectively declaring independence from Great Britian, which started the Irish War of Independence in 1919. The war would end in a ceasefire between Great Britian and the now independent Irish Republic, which was followed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which recognized the independence of Ireland by creating a semi-independent Irish Free State, which was still effectively linked constitutionally to the British Crown. The second example would be India, which at the time was known as the British Raj. The Government of India Act was passed on December 23rd, 1919, which was meant to give India more autonomy and self-governance, but it wasn't enough to satisfy the native population in India. With new tensions brewing over, especially after the Ghadar Mutiny, which was a planned overthrow of British rule over India by Indian communists, the British decided to renew the Rowlatt Act in fear that they would lose control over India. This culminated in even more tension, especially in the Indian region of Punjab, which led to the Amritsar massacre, in which between 379 to 1000+ peaceful protestors were killed by members of the 9th Gurkha Rifles, 54th Sikh regiment. After the massacre, Britian was forced to heavily re-evaluate its colonial policy. Even though there were heavy tensions caused by these 2 incidents, Great Britian managed to preserve its colonial empire for the most part, until the start of the Second World War, which was when trouble started for the gigantic empire