The Great War, to the eyes of most of the world, seemed to end on the 11th day of the 11th month of the Year of Our Lord 1918. When the armistice was signed, people thought, the men who had been gone for so long (at least the ones who had survived) would finally get to return home to their wives, their children, their parents, and all the people that cared about them. And for a number of countries, this was true.

For Britain and France, however, reality told a different story.

Having defeated one enemy in the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Turks, a new threat immediately rose to take its place, in the form of the Bolshevik Red Army. Having taken over most of the former Russian Empire, the Reds seemed unable to stop at their own borders, instead looking to encite a global Communist uprising, and began pushing deeper into Europe. Britain and France immediately saw the danger in such a victory, and committed many of their troops and ships to fighting back the "Red Menace", demonstrating their commitment to fighting for peace and liberty.

But this was nearly a year ago. What was supposed to be the "war to end all wars" was over, with peace agreements being drawn up across the continent, and yet men were still out fighting and dying for a cause many at home could not bring themselves to care about. They were tired of war, tired of fighting, tired of dying. And so eventually enough was enough, and they decided to speak their minds.

In France, opposition was more contained to the major cities. Paris of course saw the majority of the outcry, but further protests began to spring up in Marseilles, Lyon, Toulouse, and Nice as well. They took to the streets with signs, shouting, and a common rallying cry - "bring our brothers home". From what little they had heard of the fighting, it was not going well, and it seemed to them that should the Eastern Europeans be unable to fight back this army from the east, then that was their business, and not the business of the French. Things seem peaceful for now, but further silence from the government and continued involvement to the east could threaten to turn them violent.

In Britain, however, the people were well past peaceful protesting.

The British government had, accidentally, revealed the fate of one particularly disastrous attempt at intervention in Estonia, where six thousand British lives had been lost with no ground having been made. This number quickly inflated in the public consciousness, growing to ten thousand, then twenty, and is now said to have been anywhere from sixty to a hundred thousand men lost. But whatever the number, it is seen as absolutely unacceptable by the general population. These are mainland affairs, they shouldn't be the focus of the mighty British Empire, not when their own colonies are in disarray, the Irish are in revolt, and their own economy is struggling to turn around from wartime mobilization. They want their men home, and they want them home now. This general fury has spilled out into the streets, where people are attacked for supposedly being in favor of the intervention, and rioters taking advantage of the chaos to loot and destroy shops in major cities across the British Isles. Government buildings are also under fire, sometimes literally, as the population begins to take drastic measures to voice their opposition to a government that seems to be completely ignoring the will of the people. Public sentiment has also turned harshly against the Irish, as they are seen as "disloyal subjects" aiming to "take advantage of a weak government" to assert "unearned levels of autonomy". Some members of parliament are even beginning to worry that simply bringing the troops home and demobilizing will not be enough to fully placate the feelings of anger that have boiled over across the nation.

Both the nations of Britain and France stand at a precarious moment in time. All that remains to be seen is how they will respond to both their old threats abroad, and the new ones popping up at home.