Balkanize England
- Thread starter Goroski
- Start date
usertron2020
Donor
No Norman Invasion? No Danelaw? England remains a backwater? By the time of the Bourbons tho France will force English unity regardless. SOMEBODY will get their act together eventually. Unless you want to keep the Dark Ages going forever.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Some kind of Anglo-American War in the 1930s or 40s, culminating in an Irish Sealion? Britain can be broken up in the aftermath (Scotland, North England, South England, and Wales).
Then stop one or both of them from being a democracy.
Though I agree that even then it's morbidly unlikely, but this is an AHC.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
I'm assuming that Britain went fascist in the 1920s. I should have written that.
Historically, England was divided into about seven kingdoms from 500 to 850 CE. The Heptarchy ended when England suffered outside attacks from the Vikings. The English united behind a common cause and the superficial divisions gradually fell away. It would be difficult to keep England divided indefinitely for this reason. Eventually, someone is going to intrude upon the isles. The British cannot remain is splendid isolation forever.
You would need to make the nobility dependent upon their fiefdoms and afraid of consolidating into one crown.
You would need to make the nobility dependent upon their fiefdoms and afraid of consolidating into one crown.
Except for the War of 1812, the First World War (hello, Reichstag), the Second World War (hello, Finland), the American Revolutionary War, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Belgian Revolution, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First Boer War, the Second Boer War, the Polish-Lithuanian War of 1920, the British invasion of Iceland (also in WW2), the Football War, the Israeli-Lebanon War (of 2006), and the Russo-Georgian War of 2008... And I'm sure I've missed a few.
Democracies don't war with one another... except when they do.
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Perhaps have their unity not be enough and have the Vikings conquer the whole island in a devastating conquest?
That's just going to unify the British under the Norse.
The Holy Roman Empire was a uniquely German phenomenon. There is no reason for the Pope to crown any Englishman as successor to the Roman Empire. He could not live up to the title.
Hardly a "balkanization" by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't understand, why was the Holy Roman Empire a uniquely German phenomenon?
usertron2020
Donor
1) The pre-1832/1867 British were not a democracy
2) The Germans in WWI were ruled by a military-dominated monarchy. Goodbye Reichstag.
3) The Finns were invaded by a Communist Soviet Union, and then in turn attacked them after Barbarossa. Having made their bed, the Western Allies declared war on them only on Soviet insistence.
4) See (1) about the British. With a fully truly representative Parliament and a king stripped of his powers the Loyal Opposition of the time could easily have been elected and gained a peaceful settlement long before the first shots were fired.
5) See (1). Call Britain of the time an oligarchical constitutional monarchy if you like, but it was no democracy.
6) The monarchy ruling the United Netherlands was not a democracy. The Belgians were not being democratically represented.
7) The Confederacy was not a democracy. There were no referendums on Secession, and any dissent against it by the 20% of the White population who were Unionist (and that's not even counting the Border States that the Confederacy claimed as their own) was brutally, even bloodily, suppressed.
8) Probably the closest possible example you've provided, even with the corrupt turno system in which the Spanish King CHOSE the government to be elected, and then the "election" assured it. I guess I should've dis-included "banana republic/constitutional monarchies".
9) The Boers were no more a democracy than Apartheid South Africa
10) See (9) It doesn't excuse British avarice, however.
11) NEITHER country had a democratic tradition, had only just immediately come out of occupation by dominating non-democratic powers that very year, were both fighting wars on multiple fronts against Germans, Soviets, indigenous forces, and each other. Despite all that, as two very newborn republics they tried to hammer out a peace agreement between each other. Tried, and succeeded. Only to see it fail thanks to rebellious military officers. Not an unusual problem to be faced in the inter-war period in Eastern Europe. And both Poland and Lithuania would fall into military dictatorships in all but name in 1926 anyway.
12) THAT was a peaceful occupation in fear of German aggression. Iceland doesn't even HAVE a military!
13) Banana republics are not fully functioning democracies, and it lasted all of 100 hours
14) Hezbollah is not a democracy
15) You would describe Putin's Russia today as a democracy?
16) And I stand by my statement that democracies do not war with one another. You have a VERY generous concept/definition of what constitutes a "democracy". Do perchance you include the Ancient Roman Republic and the Greek City States too?
17) Fixed it for you
Apologies for going off point
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Can the focus return to how one would "balkanise" England/GB? As noted, there would have to be some centralisation attempts in the face of outside aggression but I am curious how the island (or just the Southern half, whatever) could maintain seperate polities at sometime past OTL. Democracies have fought one another, move on please. 
Lateknight
Banned
You seem to be using inappreciably and narrow definition of democracy. If you meant modern day liberal democracy don't go to war each other you would be correct however you somehow make the leap of logic that a democracy needs to liberal to be a democracy which is in my opinion incorrect.
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Never mind a long history of elections or anything like that. I guess they weren't a True Democray, eh? Even though they had plenty of True Scotsmen.
I've snipped the rest of your list, since its just about 16 straight repetitions of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy.
But I note that even by your own idealised standards, Finland and Britain in WW2 were democracies, and they did go to war with each other, including military action. Thus disproving your blanket statement that democracies don't go to war with each other.
I hate to break it to you, but some of the ancient Greek city states were democracies. Having universal adult suffrage is not a requirement for counting as a democracy.
Now if you'd said modern liberal democracies don't go to war with each other, you'd be closer, though still wrong. Liberal democracies are less inclined to go to war with each other, but it does sometimes happen.
Israel and Lebanon in 2006, for example. Israel attacked Lebanon, after all. Not to mention Finland in WW2, which you tried to brush aside. Or the War of 1812, which was a war between two democracies. Sorry, but you don't get to wave your hands and proclaim Britain not to be a democracy just because it disproves your contention.
Nope. Repeating the same mistake and playing No True Scotsman doesn't work, I'm afraid.
Technically, by the OED:
A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives:
But "all the eligible members of the state" being as small as they were in early 19th century Britain raises the question on if that's really rule by the dēmos in any meaningful sense.
I don't think it's "No True Scotsman" to point that out.
A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives:
But "all the eligible members of the state" being as small as they were in early 19th century Britain raises the question on if that's really rule by the dēmos in any meaningful sense.
I don't think it's "No True Scotsman" to point that out.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Arguing liberal peace theory is fun, but can't we all just get back to devising ways to balkanize England?