TripleBossyDeluxe
Banned
With a POD of 1707, have the British Empire control all the world except for Europe. They must have the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and Antarctica.
AHC: British Empire controls all non-European territory
- Thread starter TripleBossyDeluxe
- Start date
It would a Brit-wank par excellence.
I'm inclined to say ASB but maybe just very, very, improbable.
Will you settle for mostly informal control via the financial dominance of the City, being the pre-eminent sea power and possession of the carrying trade in every ocean? Plus no other European colonies beside the odd entrepôt base like Goa or Macau?
I'm inclined to say ASB but maybe just very, very, improbable.
Will you settle for mostly informal control via the financial dominance of the City, being the pre-eminent sea power and possession of the carrying trade in every ocean? Plus no other European colonies beside the odd entrepôt base like Goa or Macau?
TripleBossyDeluxe
Banned
They must either directly control their areas or rule them as absolute puppets. Britain can have no competitors.
That's a very, very tall order.
I'll have to sleep on it to come up with anything non-ASB. It may a three-pipe (or nightcap) problem.
I'm throwing plausibility out the window here, and aiming for merely avoiding outright ASB.
1) Win the Hundred Years War decisively, claiming all of France.
1a) Somehow manage to make that stable without the English Barons deciding they want a new King.
2) Incorporate Ireland and Scotland at least vaguely peacefully.
3) Conquer at least part of Northern Italy to establish a stronger Mediterranean presence and getting in on that sweet, sweet future trade.
We now, hopefully, have the population base to make an attempt.
4) Have your fishermen discover North America, and share the information with the Royal Navy, so that the British Empire can lay claim to the Americas. Disease and warfare will make control possible.
5) With all the gold and silver wealth, build the Royal Navy into something truly massive.
6) Hegemonic trade empire slowly comes to dominate India, China, and the East Indies.
Great Britain now rules the Americas (officially, at least; settlement will take time), and dominates the richest part of the world. You're left with the Middle East (no reason it can't be dominated), Africa (which Europe ruled anyway), Australia (low population density makes conquest practical), and the Royal Navy is so much bigger that nobody else can really contest claims to "own" Antarctica.
1) Win the Hundred Years War decisively, claiming all of France.
1a) Somehow manage to make that stable without the English Barons deciding they want a new King.
2) Incorporate Ireland and Scotland at least vaguely peacefully.
3) Conquer at least part of Northern Italy to establish a stronger Mediterranean presence and getting in on that sweet, sweet future trade.
We now, hopefully, have the population base to make an attempt.
4) Have your fishermen discover North America, and share the information with the Royal Navy, so that the British Empire can lay claim to the Americas. Disease and warfare will make control possible.
5) With all the gold and silver wealth, build the Royal Navy into something truly massive.
6) Hegemonic trade empire slowly comes to dominate India, China, and the East Indies.
Great Britain now rules the Americas (officially, at least; settlement will take time), and dominates the richest part of the world. You're left with the Middle East (no reason it can't be dominated), Africa (which Europe ruled anyway), Australia (low population density makes conquest practical), and the Royal Navy is so much bigger that nobody else can really contest claims to "own" Antarctica.
The problem being if there's only one colonial power, there's no scramble for new colonies so no incentive to pick up lots of the more marginal land that was in otl money sinks.
You're going to need multiple competing colonial empires that are all folded into one or there's no incentive for growth.
Clearly they are looking for new snacks for tea time.
Edit: This is also why they haven't bothered conquering Europe - they know there's no good snacks there.
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scholar
Banned
Prevent the breakaway of the thirteen colonies, transfer colonies of non-Europeans to the British by some method or another, and take over China, Japan, Thailand, and Ethiopia. That is all that actually needs to happen, and I think a British Raj style set up for various situations is more or less an acceptable solution. Hard to do, sure. Would require the fostering of blatant imperials and you would need to delay the moralistic movements that began propping up even before the POD from gaining much standing, or perhaps marry the two since self righteous moralizing imperialism is how the British got to where they went at their greatest height. Preventing the morality from inverting with a healthy dose of reality and prevent the complete collapse of the imperial finances because of two world wars, and you can set the course for imperialism.
To make this ludicrously and reductionarily simple, you might manage to have the overthrown crown of France and Spain revert to the UK with the proper dynastic rangling. While Spain and France themselves remain stubbornly independent parts of the new monarchy, even occasionally warring with them, you could have the colonial administration slowly usurped by British style governments and authorities that divert themselves to the British parliament, and you get most of the world united on their crown already.
I'm afraid this really does fall into the ASB territory.
I mean - think about the sheer landmasses involved. To take's just @scholar's idea because it is the most recent: I mean 'China, Japan, Thailand, and Ethiopia'? That's an enormous area of land. We aren't even discussing how Britain tears away the East from Russia, destroys and takes over the asian lands of the Ottomans, or dislodges generations deep Spanish and Portuguese [by 1707] colonisation in the Americas?
Also, this is a fundamental misunderstanding about how and why Empire happened and for what purpose - Britain exerted considerable economic power over Argentina and Chile, for instance, between about 1850 and the 1920s but never needed to invade and occupy. If they are buying your stuff, accepting your treaties, and not causing you problems as a country, why would you need a costly invasion and occupation?
I mean - think about the sheer landmasses involved. To take's just @scholar's idea because it is the most recent: I mean 'China, Japan, Thailand, and Ethiopia'? That's an enormous area of land. We aren't even discussing how Britain tears away the East from Russia, destroys and takes over the asian lands of the Ottomans, or dislodges generations deep Spanish and Portuguese [by 1707] colonisation in the Americas?
Also, this is a fundamental misunderstanding about how and why Empire happened and for what purpose - Britain exerted considerable economic power over Argentina and Chile, for instance, between about 1850 and the 1920s but never needed to invade and occupy. If they are buying your stuff, accepting your treaties, and not causing you problems as a country, why would you need a costly invasion and occupation?
The british isles plus all of asia, all of africa, all of the americas and all of the non european islands is about 95% of the world's land.
The two largest empires to ever exists (the british and the mongol) both controlled less than 25% of the world's land. All of the western colonial empires at their greatest extent added together (spanish, dutch, french, german, italian, portugese and british) is less than 60%.
Just to understand the magnitude of the task here. How will britain find the men and money to hold that much of the world's population down at once?
The two largest empires to ever exists (the british and the mongol) both controlled less than 25% of the world's land. All of the western colonial empires at their greatest extent added together (spanish, dutch, french, german, italian, portugese and british) is less than 60%.
Just to understand the magnitude of the task here. How will britain find the men and money to hold that much of the world's population down at once?
scholar
Banned
Presumably by way of utilizing some against others, that's how Britain found the men and money to hold the plurality of the world's population down at once.
Its less land than you might think, considering the amount of land already taken over. Ethiopia's independence is a trope, but historically the only reason they were independent largely had to do with mishandling on the part of the Italians, and they won the second time they tried. Thailand maintained independence by manipulating two great powers, and otherwise would have joined Raj or Indochina. Japan's independence was never really threatened, but that does not mean it never could have been. The biggest obstacle to this situation is China, but given that a puppet was allowed, China also really isn't much of an issue since it was a British puppet twice for several decades, and Britain only really backed down with the Open Door and Britain's own internal moralists vehemently objecting to it.
Asian Lands of the Ottomans, assuming any remotely similar situation to the twentieth century, is a non-issue. At worst you have parts of Anatolia after you strip away Kurdish lands that can be placed under a puppet. The same with the Russian Far East. As for the Spanish and Portuguese, you do not dislodge them, you shift the emphasis of their loyalty.
As for the nature of how the British Empire formulated, I am more than well aware. The preamble to my post was that it was ludicrously simple and reductionary. The only point was to make it not impossible, not to make it within the realm of plausibility without a series of unlikely events. ASB territory? No, but look at it this way. Another reductionary outlook might be for a plausibility of a Rome surviving: 30% chance that Western Rome falls before when it did, 20% chance that Western Rome falls within the 5th century, 15% chance that it falls before the 7th, 15% chance that it falls before the 10th, 5% chance it falls before the 13th, 5% chance it falls before the 16th, 3% chance it falls before the 18th, 2% chance it falls before the 20th, and a 1% chance it lasts until modern times, or falls in the 20th. The likelihood of this happening is less than that, but not by much.
The fact of the matter is we have never had a world empire in a true sense, as such we have no real means of testing its plausibility outside of the fact that it did not happen. The Achaemenids, the Chinese, the Mongols, Alexander, and the Romans all danced around it, and pushed to the edges of their capacity before peaking and then declining. However, we do not know of a state that tried to accomplish this and succeeded or failed with the capacities of a modern state. Even the Soviet Union and the Third Reich had limited immediate aims and world domination was never quite what they intended, often portraying themselves as saviors and liberators of the right kind of people and ideology. The British never once attempted world conquest, it was never part of their framework. They believed themselves to be the most superior, morally and politically, of all mankind. Most of their conquests of the lesser developed "semi-civilized" states and "barbarous states" were driven by that self righteousness. China and Latin America were the same in their eyes, semi-civilized states that only understand brute force and the power of coin. Others they had even less respect for. If their morality could be permanently tied to conquest, rather than constantly at odds with it, then it may have been possible. People have an odd sense of viewing past imperialism as simply conquest for land, resources, money, and prestige. That was part of it, but it was never sold to their supporters and people as conquest for conquest's sake. Even the Romans claimed that they never waged an unjust war, and questions about the justness of Julius Caesar's Gallic Campaign was enough to nearly end Julius's career (and life), which resulted in the civil war that brought down the Republic itself.
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To be honest I don't think this could happen without some serious divergences from OTL, and they would be near impossible to occur.
Deleted member 93645
For everything to be annexed or a direct puppet state is impossible. There is no reason to annex Haiti or Bolivia, for example.
For Britain to dominate the entire world economically and politically, however, is very feasible with British victory in the ARW, and almost happened in reality.
For Britain to dominate the entire world economically and politically, however, is very feasible with British victory in the ARW, and almost happened in reality.
It's not bordering ASB. It is ASB. It would need a massive Brit Wank. Even if we assume that Britain can conquer and hold down all non-European countries including the Europeans in South and Central America, how are they going to annex Russian Asia?
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