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"On the morning of December 9th 1945, an Arado Ar196 float-plane operating from one of the cruisers of the German East Asia Fleet undertook an armed reconnaissance overflight of strategic Australian military facilities in the Admiralty Islands of the coast of New Guinea."
OOC: Since no other player is submitting annual reports on mandates, I see no reason to assume Australia has not been doing so. It is one of the many, many areas of minutiae to which I see no reason to hold hobbyist players to the paperpushing workload of an actual State Department/Foreign Office/etc.
Likewise, as I mentioned in the news thread, I find your implied declarations of what does or does not exist within other players territory a very slippery slope.
IC: The Dominion of Canada finds the German government's open admittance of conducting underhanded and invasive surveillance of territory not only belonging to another power, but one so far afield and removed from their own to be incredibly worrisome. It is a matter that the Dominion of Canada will have to consider with Grave Concern.
The Dominion of Canada further finds no grounds for the German or French protests, objections, or whatever is being lodged against the Commonwealth of Australia; You object to Australia's establishment of military facilities in a region you have no business approaching with a battle squadron, yet the article you cite in your objection provides for the administration of the region as an integral territory of Australia, and indeed, the establishment of military facilities for "the defense of territory"....something obviously required given the German lack of respect for those territorial boundaries.
The league mandate under which these territories lie, clearly allows and requires the defense and protection of the people living in said territories.
Said protection can only be accomplished thru the establishment of military facilities in the territories to provide defense against outside aggression and rapid military assistance in the case of natural disasters.
OOC: Since no other player is submitting annual reports on mandates, I see no reason to assume Australia has not been doing so. It is one of the many, many areas of minutiae to which I see no reason to hold hobbyist players to the paperpushing workload of an actual State Department/Foreign Office/etc.
OOC: Why are you harping on this? This is a complete non-issue. It's mentioned in the treaty, yes - but it's completely irrelevant to the debate at hand. I am presuming (though given Australia's and Canada's cavalier attitude toward the League, perhaps that presumption is unwise) that Australia has dutifully been filing reports as demanded by the League Mandate Commission. Same as I presume France and Britain are filing them. So stop wasting our time on non-issues, please.
I find his IC statements declaring what was or was not observed there to be close to the edge for my comfort....though admittedly they could be false or misleading IC. Ultimately, the nature and extent of facilities within Australian territory is soley at the control of the Australian player. Before continuing this exchange, I highly suggest you coordinate with him privately to establish what you're all fighting over, and to what extent.
Likewise, as I mentioned in the news thread, I find your implied declarations of what does or does not exist within other players territory a very slippery slope.
Again, irrelevant. We are not saying or that he does or does not have something existing in his territory. The fact is, he brazenly admitted to it with his own declaration.
IC: The Dominion of Canada finds the German government's open admittance of conducting underhanded and invasive surveillance of territory not only belonging to another power, but one so far afield and removed from their own to be incredibly worrisome. It is a matter that the Dominion of Canada will have to consider with Grave Concern.
Oh really? Two can play at that game. This being the case, the Republic of France wishes to lodge their own complaint against the Royal Australian Air Force for conducting underhanded and invasive surveillance of territory not belonging to them - evidence for which the French government could produce in spades. Certainly more evidence by far than Australia can produce to support their claim that German aircraft violated their airspace.
It's a classic case of "He said, she said!" You need to produce evidence, not invective.
The Dominion of Canada further finds no grounds for the German or French protests, objections, or whatever is being lodged against the Commonwealth of Australia; You object to Australia's establishment of military facilities in a region you have no business approaching with a battle squadron, yet the article you cite in your objection provides for the administration of the region as an integral territory of Australia, and indeed, the establishment of military facilities for "the defense of territory"....something obviously required given the German lack of respect for those territorial boundaries.
It's nice to know that the Commonwealth feels it necessary to demand that the LEAGUE MUST TAKE ACTION, but then openly derides the League's authority on long-standing treaty obligations!
I haven't read the Treaty in depth, but does it define what a military establishment is? I would not expect a harbour used for stationing and refuelling naval vessels alongside civilian use to count as a naval base. How would one define a naval base, one used 100% of the time by the navy or a port with fortified defence or one with arsenals of shells and torpedoes? Same with airfields too.
Also, if and I stress if it was a military installation, I would guess with SAER etc. that Britain and France and Russia and the Dutch would have known about it. Also that installation would have been/ is protected by radar and that plot would prove conclusively where the German planes were. Of course, Australia might not be able to use that evidence publicly, unless some civil use was claimed for the radar - civil airfield etc.
OOC Regarding 2) in order for the German flights to have confidence in their finds of little or none military activity they had to have been flight very close to the 3 mile limit, and while that can be done from international airspace for Seedler Harbor, the same can not be said for Rabaul as the waters surrounding Rabaul are internal waters.
Quoted
Archipelagic states are states that are composed of groups of islands forming a state as a single unit, with the islands and the waters within the baselines as internal waters. Under this concept ("archipelagic doctrine"), an archipelago shall be regarded as a single unit, so that the waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, irrespective of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the state, and are subject to its exclusive sovereignty.
OOC
Quoted
Archipelagic states are states that are composed of groups of islands forming a state as a single unit, with the islands and the waters within the baselines as internal waters. Under this concept ("archipelagic doctrine"), an archipelago shall be regarded as a single unit, so that the waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, irrespective of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the state, and are subject to its exclusive sovereignty.
Archipelagic States
I find it highly convenient that Canada would simply jump in on the complaint and state it "has been provided no compelling reason to believe Australia's claims are false" rather than wait for actual evidence to prove such claims. They merely come to the same conclusion as Australia using circumstantial evidence without giving Germany the due process that any other nation (most certainly a fellow commonwealth nation) would receive. That to me personally smells of power gaming and is at the very least skipping quite a few talking points to get to the point where they can form an opinion. Who is really looking for a gotcha moment?
Hedjaz: "I have no specific comment on the alleged overflight at this time. With respect to the Australian 'strategic facility', well, my own reading of Article 22 is that it's mute on the point of military facilities in South Pacific mandates such as New Guinea. Only the paragraph on Central African mandates appear to have a specific reference about prohibition of military bases..."
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