Play as · WW2 1939 · L1 · British Crown Colony · South Atlantic

Falkland Islands - 1939

The Falkland Islands in 1939 is the British Crown Colony in the South Atlantic - under British administration since the 1833 reassertion of British sovereignty that ended the Argentine attempt to extend the post-1810 independence-era institutional control to the islands - and operating through the substantial post-1833 colonial-administrative framework. Population about 2,400. The strategic identity is the British Crown Colony in the South Atlantic with the limited Royal Navy South Atlantic strategic-positioning at Stanley, the substantial sheep-farming-and-wool-export economic foundation, the continuing Argentine sovereignty claim that the post-1833 architecture has continuously contested, and the December 1939 Battle of the River Plate that will be the principal South Atlantic naval engagement of the early wartime period (the Royal Navy task force HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax, and HMNZS Achilles will engage the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee at the River Plate estuary, with the subsequent Graf Spee scuttling at Montevideo on December 17, 1939 producing the principal early-WW2 South Atlantic strategic-political development).

Starting position

The Falkland Islands' defense-architecture in 1939 includes the limited Royal Navy presence at Stanley (substantially the small post-1914-Battle-of-the-Falkland-Islands-legacy positioning), the small Falkland Islands Defence Force formation, and the broader British South Atlantic strategic-architecture. The post-1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands (the December 8, 1914 Royal Navy victory over the Imperial German East Asia Squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee) had produced the substantial post-WW1 strategic-positioning legacy. The substantial wartime December 1939 Battle of the River Plate will substantially involve the Royal Navy South Atlantic task force operating from the Falkland-and-broader South Atlantic positioning architecture.

What turns the campaign

What the Falkland Islands in 1939 wants is the British Crown Colony framework preserved against the continuing Argentine sovereignty claim, the substantial wartime December 1939 Battle of the River Plate operations supported through the limited Falkland-based Royal Navy positioning, the sheep-farming-and-wool-export economic foundation maintained through the substantial wartime-environment disruption, and the broader British South Atlantic strategic-architecture preserved through the multi-year wartime period. What the Falkland Islands fears is an Argentine political shift that escalates the sovereignty claim during the substantial British-strategic-resource compression that the European-theater commitments will produce, a German raider operations escalation in the South Atlantic that exceeds the limited Royal Navy positioning's capacity to address, and a Royal Navy strategic-resource-redirection that compresses the limited South Atlantic engagement.

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