Largest possible British Empire?

With a POD after the ARW what is the largest size the British Empire could ever feasibly hope to achieve and still look like a British Empire, with a similar system of control and covering the same core territories of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt and India

How much larger could the empire have got?

Also were there any planned purchases of land that nearly succeeded but failed on OTL?
 
Well, if things go worse for the Netherlands in the territorial round-up of the Napoleonic wars, Britain certainly could get Indonesia. Could have held onto French Guyana. They could also have taken more of Africa - sans Leo and his ambitions, might get a British Congo/Zaire. Not sure about Latin America, but the intervention south America during the Napoleonic period might lead to, say, a British Uruguay, although the annexation of areas with large resident Hispanic populations seems unlikely. A British Taiwan could arise from, say, an alt-Opium war.
 
The British made an attempt on Buenos Aires during the Napoleonic Wars, if that had gone well then we might have seen a British Argentina.
 
What B_Munro said. Indonesia and the Congo are the biggest chunks the UK could claim. There's a small possibility of colonialism in China progressing a bit more, with the treaty ports and their hinterlands being formally annexed.
 
The British made an attempt on Buenos Aires during the Napoleonic Wars, if that had gone well then we might have seen a British Argentina.

That was what I was thinking, but the OTL British invasion did not go well, with local forces offering stiff resistance: conquest of Argentina strikes me as a bridge too far, acquiring the smaller Spanish settlement north of the Rio de Plata is a little more plausible. It's not like the British couldn't conquer Argentina, it would just be too much trouble for too little gain. (Argentina's main export at the time, IIRC, was cow hides).

There would of course have been some opportunities for more territory in north America, but due to the likelihood of that complicating things with future wars vs the US, perhaps those should be left off the table.

Might pick up Alaska in a war with Russia.

If France gets less involved in the colonial game (no defeat of 1870?) the British might expand further into SE Asia: perhaps Thailand becomes a protectorate if the French don't have a strong presence in Indochina. Not sure the British would really want Vietnam for themselves.
 
That was what I was thinking, but the OTL British invasion did not go well, with local forces offering stiff resistance: conquest of Argentina strikes me as a bridge too far, acquiring the smaller Spanish settlement north of the Rio de Plata is a little more plausible. It's not like the British couldn't conquer Argentina, it would just be too much trouble for too little gain. (Argentina's main export at the time, IIRC, was cow hides).

I actually think there's a lot to gain from Buenos Aires, as a sort of Hong Kong for South America. However, the reason thread we had on various British Argentinas made it clear to me that while an invasion before the 1770s could really have worked, it is incredibly difficult to have a lasting British colony post-1780s.

Here's another thought: could we have had a British Ethiopia if Germany isn't in the way in East Africa?
 
I actually think there's a lot to gain from Buenos Aires, as a sort of Hong Kong for South America. However, the reason thread we had on various British Argentinas made it clear to me that while an invasion before the 1770s could really have worked, it is incredibly difficult to have a lasting British colony post-1780s.

Here's another thought: could we have had a British Ethiopia if Germany isn't in the way in East Africa?

Well, the British did have access through Somalia, and they did invade one time to slap around the monarchy for some slight or other (I don't recall the details). Butterflying German colonization in East Africa probably would be easy, in any case.
 
Well, the British did have access through Somalia, and they did invade one time to slap around the monarchy for some slight or other (I don't recall the details). Butterflying German colonization in East Africa probably would be easy, in any case.

You can just stop the rise of Prussia if necessary. If Britain's main ally in Europe is the Habsburgs, it's really just Britain versus France in the colonial stakes.
 
The question in these kind of scenarios always becomes: at what point does Britain become overstretched. Britain was not capable of ruling the entire world outside of Europe. At some point its empire will be too large too rule and will collapse.
 
Perhaps if England had NOT attempted to restrict Colonists from crossing the Appalachians nor attempted to impose taxes to pay for the French and Indian War, there may not have been a rebellion of the Thirteen Colonies which would have meant that Great Britain may have kept them AND expanded their North American holdings to the Rio Grande.
 
Perhaps if England had NOT attempted to restrict Colonists from crossing the Appalachians nor attempted to impose taxes to pay for the French and Indian War, there may not have been a rebellion of the Thirteen Colonies which would have meant that Great Britain may have kept them AND expanded their North American holdings to the Rio Grande.

The continued restrictions on money and currency would have annulled any gains therefrom.
 
The question in these kind of scenarios always becomes: at what point does Britain become overstretched. Britain was not capable of ruling the entire world outside of Europe. At some point its empire will be too large too rule and will collapse.

I completely disagree. I don't think there's any evidence out there that British rule in Canada reduced their ability to rule India, or that British rule in Nigeria reduced their ability to rule Singapore. As long as the colony in question is profit-making, it increases the ability of the British Empire to rule new areas, rather than reduces.

Perhaps if England had NOT attempted to restrict Colonists from crossing the Appalachians nor attempted to impose taxes to pay for the French and Indian War, there may not have been a rebellion of the Thirteen Colonies which would have meant that Great Britain may have kept them AND expanded their North American holdings to the Rio Grande.

They didn't restrict colonists from the crossing the Appalachians. They restricted the ease of buying land across the Appalachians, and then reduced these restrictions after protests. By the late 1760s, this issue had been resolved. It was an example of how the British could row back on offending the colonists on a sensible manner, and the opposite of the Townshend taxes or the Intolerable Acts.
 
Could an earlier start of Dominions help/ maybe even branching out to be a Federalized Empire so that an Empire Dominion might come about?

Noble titles spread to overseas to reward loyal citizens. Regional Orders of Chivalry.
 
I completely disagree. I don't think there's any evidence out there that British rule in Canada reduced their ability to rule India, or that British rule in Nigeria reduced their ability to rule Singapore. As long as the colony in question is profit-making, it increases the ability of the British Empire to rule new areas, rather than reduces.
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But how do we define "profitable?" Defending the Empire often required holding onto non-profitable bits for strategic reasons. Gaining a new profitable bit doesn't mean that it doesn't come with new strategic costs. And the non-white Empire - an area predominantly of raw materials production and purchases of British manufactured goods - is ultimately a relatively declining economic asset as long as it remains non-industrialized, while military costs are going up with the technological arms race. I'm not saying that the empire couldn't be bigger, but I think you're oversimplifying a little.
 
Quick question for Caiaphas but are we allowed to include Mandates, protectorates, protected states, concessions and the like in this?


I actually think there's a lot to gain from Buenos Aires, as a sort of Hong Kong for South America. However, the reason thread we had on various British Argentinas made it clear to me that while an invasion before the 1770s could really have worked, it is incredibly difficult to have a lasting British colony post-1780s.
If you want a British Hong Kong in the area then Uruguay seems like the best option, IIRC it had the best harbour in the region and would help guarantee access to the River Plate. General idea runs the invasion is somewhat more successful but still not great, the British look to more defensible territory such as behind the River Uruguay and are eventually able to retain it in the peace. Realistically though a British southern cone isn't really necessary considering how insanely successful they were with their informal empire, they got to dominate most of the trade and industry with none of the costs of actually running the place.


Here's another thought: could we have had a British Ethiopia if Germany isn't in the way in East Africa?
Who's to say that there would be a German presence in East Africa? Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar apparently offered Scottish shipping company owner Sir William Mackinnon a deal for a 70-year lease to run Zinj - his territory on the mainland that ran from roughly the modern northern border of Mozambique up to the southern borer of Somalia and as far inland as the African Great Lakes, effectively Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania - in the late 1870s. Now the Sultanate's authority beyond the coastal strip was fairly nominal but it was technically recognised by people and it's not like fuzzy borders ever stopped people in this period before. Anyway. When Mackinnon approached the government about obtaining a Royal Charter for a company whilst initial open to the idea one of the major figures, I forget who, had a change of heart and scuppered the deal. He had more success about a decade later when the Imperial British East Africa Company was formed to run what would become Kenya and for a time Uganda so simply have him somehow be more successful the first time around.
 
If you want a British Hong Kong in the area then Uruguay seems like the best option, IIRC it had the best harbour in the region and would help guarantee access to the River Plate. General idea runs the invasion is somewhat more successful but still not great, the British look to more defensible territory such as behind the River Uruguay and are eventually able to retain it in the peace. Realistically though a British southern cone isn't really necessary considering how insanely successful they were with their informal empire, they got to dominate most of the trade and industry with none of the costs of actually running the place.

Seems to me that no matter how wonderful a British Argentina along the lines of Canada or Australia is, I'm starting to realize that, in the wake of a British victory in 1807, Buenos Aires (and the rest of OTL Argentina) might well still go on the independence route, with the British as liberators, while the Banda Oriental (aka Uruguay) might become a British colony. After all, Montevideo residents weren't as rabidly opposed to the British invasion as their Buenos Aires counterparts.
 
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