Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 117: "And once you hand him a ruler, he builds a sword."

The debate chamber was full before the bells even finished ringing.

Winston Churchill stood by the tall window in Committee Room B, watching droplets pur down the glass.

His hands were folded behind his back, his cane leaning against the ledge.

The benches behind him were filling fast Labour MPs shifting in their coats, Conservatives stiff in silence.

The recent naval pact had broken more than protocol.

It had cracked open a question no one wanted to face.

Just how far would Britain go to avoid confrontation?

More then that how far will Germany force them.

The door clicked open.

Baldwin entered without a word, followed by Samuel Hoare and a bunch of quiet advisers.

The Prime Minister’s face betrayed nothing.

Not pride.

Not shame.

For even he knows that only future will tell for what his decision hold.

Churchill turned from the window and stepped forward before the Speaker called for order.

He didn’t need permission.

"I rise," he began.

"To address what this House has not yet dared to name, a breach not of law, but of loyalty."

His eyes sweeping the room, "What we did this week was not strategy. It was improvisation. And when nations improvise in the face of militarism, they bleed."

A few murmurs.

Some grunted agreement.

Others looked away.

"The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, signed without consultation, without warning, and without ally, is not an act of diplomacy. It is an act of retreat."

Baldwin stood up.

"The agreement," he replied slowly, "prevents escalation. It preserves peace. It offers a framework."

"A framework for surrender," Churchill snapped. "We’ve invited Hitler to measure his fleet by our own. And once you hand him a ruler, he builds a sword."

Baldwin finally raised his eyes. "We’ve bought time."

"We’ve sold confidence," Churchill fired back.

Samuel Hoare spoke, voice controlled. "You forget, Mr. Churchill, that diplomacy is often measured by what it prevents."

"I remember that all too well," Churchill replied. "But sometimes what it delays... it only feeds."

"Fear-mongering," muttered a Tory from the back.

Churchill heard it. "You can call it fear. But I call it arithmetic. The Reich has just been handed a blueprint. And Versailles, gentlemen, has been cut from the frame."

Silence.

Even the scribes paused their pens.

Baldwin exhaled, slow and even.

"I will not govern through paranoia, Winston. Britain needs calm, not provocation."

"And the French?" Churchill pressed. "What do they need? A telegram? A newspaper column? Because that’s all they got."

Baldwin didn’t flinch. "They got a safer Europe."

Churchill became silent for a while.

Then said, quietly, "They got a warning."

In Paris, no one was calm.

The Quai d’Orsay was lit late into the night, windows aglow like embers in the rain.

Laval paced the carpet, a telegram in one hand and a stiff drink in the other.

His shirt was open at the collar.

The tie had been tossed hours ago.

Yvon Delbos entered without knocking. "The British press is calling it ’a practical measure.’"

Laval didn’t look up. "I’m sure they called Munich that, too."

Delbos sat, carefully. "The ambassador insists it wasn’t meant to bypass us. They’re calling it... ’bilateral necessity.’"

Laval turned to him. "Since when did necessity require silence?"

The room was quiet for a beat.

Then Laval laughed a short, bitter noise.

"Do you know what we are, Yvon? We’re the fool at the poker table who taught the other players the rules."

"There’s still room to act," Delbos offered. "We reinforce our eastern front. We reach out to Warsaw, Prague..."

"With what army?" Laval said. "With what gold? Gamelin is still using equipment stamped 1918. We’re not a wall anymore. We’re a bluff. Even if Moreau is working on something new, those fuckers in pairs would not allow full function of it unless Hitler comes knocking at their door."

A knock.

A young attaché poked in. "General Gamelin is here."

"Send him in," Laval said.

Gamelin entered briskly, hat tucked under his arm.

His uniform looked newer than most in the French army.

But only barely.

"I assume you’ve seen the agreement," Laval said before the general spoke.

"I have. And I’ve already ordered reconnaissance of the northeast corridor. If Germany moves now, it’ll be through the Ardennes. Not Alsace."

Laval raised an eyebrow. "Not through the Maginot?"

"They’re not fools," Gamelin said. "And neither are we. But we must act like it now."

(This is the first time and the last time French Army independently guessed the future from where Germany will invade.)

"Meaning?"

"Call Poland. Call Belgium. Call Prague," Gamelin said firmly. "If Britain wants distance, then we need closeness."

Laval nodded, slowly.

"Then it begins again," he said. "The quiet hunt for allies."

In London, the storm brewed differently.

Churchill’s article, printed in The Daily Mail two days later, bore the title: "Britain’s Vanishing Line."

"We are told that diplomacy demands compromise. But compromise with rearmament is not peace. It is permission. The Naval Pact is not a brake on German ambition. It is its fuel."

The article was passed around Parliament like contraband.

In Baldwin’s study, it sat on the desk, folded, unopened.

Samuel Hoare glanced at it.

"You’ve read it?"

"I don’t need to," Baldwin replied.

"He’s becoming... more than a voice," Hoare warned.

"He’s becoming noise," Baldwin muttered.

But neither of them fully believed that anymore. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Back in Paris, the Polish ambassador sat across from Laval in a discreet second-floor salon.

"You understand," the ambassador said carefully, "that any overt alignment between France and Poland would invite pressure from Berlin."

Laval swirled his drink once, then stopped. "Let them apply pressure. We’ve seen what happens when Berlin is left alone with silence."

"We’d need guarantees," the ambassador said.

"Then you’ll have them," Laval replied. "In ink, not promises."

The ambassador hesitated. "And Britain?"

Laval’s face darkened. "For now, we act as if Britain doesn’t exist."

That night, on the Champs-Élysées, candles flickered in shopfronts and cafés.

But down Rue de Rennes, a group of students carried placards through the rain.

One read. "35% Now. 100% Later."

Another. "London has left."

They weren’t large in number, but they were loud.

And the gendarmerie didn’t bother stopping them.

In the Élysée Palace, President Lebrun summoned Laval once more.

"Do we answer the press?"

"We answer Berlin," Laval said.

"And London?"

Laval looked at him squarely.

"Let them answer to themselves."