An excellent timeline. The lead-up to the next Great War is interesting. The camps seem to be Britain, Netherlands, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman empire as a loose coalition arrayed against a tighter Franco-Italian-Russian alliance. Will neutral Germany perhaps enter the war after France violates Belgian neutrality in their attempted invasion of the Netherlands? That just seems too lovely an event not to include, in my opinion.
Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak
- Thread starter Al-numbers
- Start date
1898-1899: Sarawak and the outside world.
David Hubenov, Six Degrees of Distance: The White Rajahs and the Wider World, (Journal of Asiatic Sciences, 2013)
…The personal entry of the Habsburgs was one factor no one expected.
Charles Brooke had already dismissed a Viennese trade legation in late 1896, so it was nothing short of shocking to hear of Franz Ferdinand choosing the kingdom as a place to explore in his 1898 world tour. While Sarawak was courted more often than not during the decade, it was eyebrow-raising for a Habsburg heir to interact with a kingdom that many saw as wild and exotic, not to mention the unclear nature of Sarawak itself and how the state exists in relation to its patron.
Simply put, Most Western governments before the Sino-French War weren’t sure how did Sarawak relate itself to the larger British sphere. By and large, ‘an exotic anomaly’ was what many thought of the kingdom: It was self-governing and conducted its own foreign policy, yet that very same policy was generally aligned with that of the British Singapore, which was especially the case during the Sulu Affair. Foreign exports of raw materials were handled through the monopolistic Borneo Company Ltd., which rang too much of the same sort of British endeavours that were at work across the African continent. The deep ties to the Royal Navy, up to having work relations with famous admirals such as Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Henry Keppel, added to the assumption that Sarawak was a naval appanage of the Admiralty.
And all this was not helped by Charles Brooke’s adversarial behaviour to any non-British enterprise that wanted to extract concessions from the land. In all, the kingdom was seen as a state that is both a part of, and apart from, the British Empire. And no one knew where one ended and the other began.
That changed with the Sino-French War. In hindsight, the façade was crumbling down with the end of their involvement over Sulu, but it accelerated with the closure of British ports to the French navy. The Sarawakian government’s protests against the Italian acquisition of Brunei and Sabah were well-documented, as was their distance from the rumour that Singapore was conspiring with them to close the South China Sea. The kingdom’s independence was now seen as more than a formality, and the opportunities for aligning the state to foreign interests was too much to imagine. Still, few expected such a wild state, where boats were the main transport and electricity out of reach, to grab the attention of Archduke Ferdinand.
The route of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on his World Tour of 1898-1899
But in that, most observers have been too blinded by European politics to look at the man himself. As his diaries would later confess, the Habsburg prince was an enthusiast of foreign cultures and that he hoped that a visit to Sarawak would at least add to the ethnographic collections of Vienna and Budapest. He also hoped that, with some persuasion, the kingdom’s government would allow Austrian firms to in Kuching. Rejecting such a person was a difficult matter to achieve, even for Rajah Charles, and it was so that Ferdinand and his entourage arrived at Kuching on May 30th 1898, the very day before the local harvest festival.
By all accounts, he was both impressed and perplexed at the nature of the Brooke court and of Sarawakian society, but whatever Ferdinand’s views of the harvest celebrations was quickly overshadowed by a courier from Miri, bearing the results of a surveying expedition to the area. In 1882, the local townsfolk had uncovered some oil seeps from the nearby swamps. Calling the fluid minyak tanah (literally: ground oil), the substance quickly gained favour as it can be mixed with resin and then used to caulk wooden boats, which quickly brought about a lively trade in watercraft repairs for the town [1]. Nevertheless, most people thought that whatever oil that lay beneath was too little and too cumbersome to extract using modern machines and it was only in early 1898 that a group of geologists was hired to assess the true worth of the deposits.
Their reply came back during the middle of the festivities. The geologists discovered that the oil reserves were much larger than previously thought and, despite the harsh conditions, could be well profitable to extract and refine [2]. The news quickly grabbed the attention of the government and the Habsburg prince, as well as the ears of Singapore and the Royal Navy. Immediately, all the latter parties asked Kuching for concession rights over the town. Rajah Charles’ answer was swift and firm: A roundtable before anything else.
And so it was that Franz Ferdinand’s royal tour became a rallying cry for influence on the island. The memory of Russia and Siam burned fresh in everyone’s mines and there was a certain keenness for all parties to settle what they can to avoid another surprise. Ferdinand himself had to leave Sarawak after two weeks to continue his tour, but he kept in touch with current negotiations through his appointed representative in the kingdom: namely, the new Austro-Hungarian Consul of Sarawak. In effect, the stakeholders of the following meetings at Kuching all had different demands: Charles Brooke wanted as minimal a molestation of Sarawak as possible; Singapore wanted a local concession for British firms; the Admiralty wanted a refuelling station at Miri; while the Austro-Hungarians wanted to commercially sell and export the oil through their companies, and a refuelling station at Miri.
Perhaps serendipitously, the roundtable also came at a time of diplomatic discourse between Vienna and London over Russian expansion, which added significant weight to the affair. Taking palace throughout the length of 1898, the talks were marked with many setbacks and disagreements, but the subsequent Oil Policy of September 19th 1898 resulted in perhaps the most consequential legislation of the Kingdom of Sarawak since the handover of the Sentarum Floodplains.
- Miri and a 15-kilometre stretch of the surrounding countryside would be leased to a consortium of British and Austro-Hungarian companies, of which the Anglo-Austrian Oil Company would obtain a significant share.
- The corporations have the right to drill, refine, and sell the oil, but they have no right to expand leasing territory unless approval was sought from both the Sarawak government and the Admiralty.
- Most of the profits would belong to the extractors, though the Sarawak government is entitled to 15% of royalties from the endeavours.
- Labour would be sourced not from the local population, but through immigrant workers and supervisors.
- Company law would take effect within the territory, but only to the workers, with Sarawakian law being more predominant in case of cross-racial altercations. Separate townships would be built to minimise conflict.
- Most importantly, two refuelling stations would be built to cater to both the Royal Navy and the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine/Cs. és Kir. Haditengerészet.
The very first oil well in Miri, which was later nicknamed the 'Grand Old Lady' by her workers. Taken circa 1899.
To say that the new policy was radical was an understatement. Not only did the roundtables prove that oil resources at Borneo were worth investing, it scored multiple tangential interests to everyone involved: Vienna and Budapest now have a base on the South China Sea – albeit a small one – and thus the logistics of a Croatia-East Asia naval route were significantly improved. It was also a victory for Franz Ferdinand; a lone voice among the Habsburgs, he greatly admired the Kriegsmarine and argued for Austria-Hungary to be a more proactive Empire on the globe. For the Admiralty, they scored a valuable resource for no conflict, further secured the Singapore-Hong Kong shipping route, and obtained a new naval ally (and one that can’t fight as easily against them, if turned violent). For Sarawak, it would provide a new stream of revenue in which the kingdom could modernize, which was greatly needed after the decline in mineral and wild rubber exports.
The Oil Policy also marked other, darker milestones. For one, it brought independent Sarawak into the European web of political and military alliances that will prove to be so consequential just five years later. It also proved to nearby Italian Borneo that oil may be lurking under western Brunei, a realization that was hitherto overlooked in earlier assessments of the sultanate. Finally, it led both Britain, Italy, and Austria-Hungary to look north towards the Spratly Islands, whose sovereignty had never really been clarified…
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Charlie MacDonald, Strange States and Bizarre Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2014)
…In March 1883, a British naval captain by the name of James George Meads decided to claim a number of islands in South China Sea as his own domain. Calling his new state the Empire of Unanimity, it claimed control over the Amboyna and Alison reefs and was conceptualised as a thalassocratic absolute monarchy with himself as emperor. Needless to say, Meads was promptly captured by the Spanish authorities a month later when he tried to include a few more islands into his domain. Upon being questioned for his motive, Meads simply answered “Sarawak did it. Why can’t I?”
–Alex Marcopolis, The Unknown Microstates, 2014
–Alex Marcopolis, The Unknown Microstates, 2014
I think that pretty much sums up what most western adventurers imagine about the kingdom.
Before we delve in to the 20th century, I figure that we might need a bit of a breather. And since part of the next decade involves what was going on in Sarawak, I think it’s time we educate ourselves on how most outsiders viewed the kingdom and it’s white royal family. Now before you start whacking off about this being unrepresentative of the blog, you are right. But hey, at least now I don’t have migraines researching what’s up with pre-War Europe.
So… yeah, to say that the Brookes inspired nutjobs like the above was kind of an understatement. We all know what happened with the Marquis de Rays and his Kingdom of New France, but there were plenty of others who tried to build their own failed states in line with the White Rajahs. Some, like Unanimity (okay, did anyone spoke to the captain how bad that sounds?) was done because the person wanted to be king. Others, like the Christian State of Tonga, was done because said person wanted to settle the land with, well, Christians (and this was despite Tonga already having its own king). Besides all this, there were a few times where a government seemed to act according to what the Brookes did, such as Chile and the Kingdom of Easter Island [3]:
- Problem: The government wanted to annex the place, but there is no elected paramount chief that could sign the land contracts.
- Solution: find a relatable person who is charismatic, talk to the islanders to make him leader, and declare him king.
But I think it’s a bit narrow to only look at the family copycats and ignore what everybody else thought of the state they lived in. I mean, Sarawak back then was far-off, but it wasn’t Afghanistan or Timbuktu.
Let’s start with Europe and the Americas. By the Final Fifteen Years, Sarawak had become almost a byword for all that is tribal and exotic in Sundaland, a sort of mirror to the misty mountains of Indochina. It was already known amongst naturalists and ethnographers since the days of Russel Wallace, but the turn of the century brought about a new pull in the form of penny novels and, strangely enough, Orchidmania. Children and adults would shill out cash to buy dime-novels that feature swashbuckling white men duking it out with fearsome Dayaks while orchid hunters were paid to collect the rarest specimens for their eccentric collectors from the remotest peaks. As you can expect, the accounts of Sarawak from these sources differ wildly.
Jumble all this together with some big ol’ fashioned racism and classism and you will get some pretty odd ideas. The pulp writer Emilio Salgari wrote of the Malays and Dayaks as caricatures, yet he also expressed them as being races that are both primitive yet noble, traditional in culture but full of respect and honour. But for every Emilio Salgari, there are at least two other sods who see them all as something lower than themselves. Theodore Roosevelt once described a conversation with a Washington socialite about Sarawak as being “absolutely dreadful” since the lady he talked with couldn’t stop seeing them all as stupid savages, stating to his face “…since they are naked, not Christian, and are black, it is simply fine to call them savages.” After Teddy explained how the locals are definitely not black and some being even Christian, she said “It doesn’t matter. They don’t wear clothes and are not white, so they are savages in both culture and race. That is a fact.” [4]
The White Rajahs themselves were a hot topic in of themselves. Being the public face of the nation, they were seen in so many ways that just trying to talk about them would probably bloat this piece. But to sum it up, views on the family alternate from either being benevolent rulers, lucky eccentrics, despots, or just plain mad, with their exploits forming the basis of a whooooole lot of stories of the region (compare Conrad’s Lord Jim to Salgari’s Sandokan series)*. There were even women who sent the Brooke family love letters because they thought living in the jungle and wresting with tigers was “Oh so romantic~!!” and could think of nothing less [5]. When Franz Ferdinand visited the kingdom and got himself in the place’s oil politics, it led to a lot of interest of Sarawak in the Habsburg lands, which would partly lead to the kooky theories of the post-War era…
A scene from the 1965 movie Lord Jim. Um... Looking a little Siamese there, Sarawak? That Buddhist pagoda at the back isn't subtle.
However, opinions on the state were more complicated if we are talking about people living closer to the place aka. India and China. Complicated as in “What kind of word is Sarawak?” and “Oh, there’s such a place like that? Okay.” Now, both places had their own issues to deal with and the state generally didn’t loom large in the collective consciousness. But with that said, there were a few people from British India, mostly Sikhs, who did write to their families about their time there, mostly about how thick the jungles were and how they are working alongside Dayak warriors to keep the peace. The Johorean government also knew of the kingdom, with Sultan Abu Bakar considering Rajah Charles as a rival and business correspondent (his Hawaiian friends, especially Lunalillo, were otherwise horrified at Sarawak and its implications – Y’know, with the whole warring and annexing the mother empire and all).
But nothing held the jungle kingdom higher in the collective imagination than to the Foochow Chinese, especially the Christian ones. Since the acceptance of the Methodists at Maling, Sarawak became almost like a beacon of safety for the Foochow community. Sure, it’s hot and wet, and there’s also malaria and insects, but compared to the persecutions back home it was a blessing. Some Chinese nationalists also followed there, despite Rajah Charles’ turndown of Chinese reformist parties. Heck, even Sun Yat-sen stopped by Sibu for a few days before settling down in Singapore!
And I am not going to even begin on how the Javanese, Moro, and other groups in Southeast Asia thought of the country. There were just too many judgements floating around that would make any kind of ‘summing-up’ absolutely worthless. For what it’s worth, many Sundaland locals did saw Brooke Sarawak as a place (and a family) that was apart from the norm. And maybe, that’s what matters in the end.
In December 1899, Sámuel Teleki said thusly in a letter to a friend: “The kingdom of the White Rajahs twists all the usual notions of a state. And that is why it lives.”
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Notes:
1. Given the greater dependence of Sarawak in riverine transport ITTL, word of raw oil and its uses would spread far, making it a valuable commodity instead of being a very localised tool like OTL.
2. IOTL, the first geologist wasn’t sent until after 1900 and his results posited that the oil would be too much a hassle to extract, delaying production until 1910.
3. While an ITTL invention, it is worth noting that Easter Island IOTL was ruled at least twice by foreign sailors and royalty.
4. This was based from an actual conversation between Frank Sweetenham and an American journalist.
5. Love letters were indeed sent to the Brooke family IOTL. Charles Vyner Brooke even framed and hanged several of them on the wall!
* Both Lord Jim and the Sandokan novels are IOTL novels (and movies) based on the Brooke Rajahs' adventures.
The Habsburg family ran away to seclusion in Sarawak, The austrian-jews ran away from persecution in Sarawak.....maybe secret austo nazi cloning experiments. Hope you touch on this in the future.
One sided?
I do wonder whether Austria-Hungary's base will be a stepping stone for future expansion or whether it is something of an anomaly. Could Sarawak use any future war as leverage to avoid the seemingly inexorable draw to Britain? Or it could even spell disaster for the Brookes if they make a misplaced step.
Oh great, a new player in an already complicated game...not only that but one that had a very very interesting relationships with another colonial powers; things will become heated quickly. The problem with A-H colonial effort is that not only need to built up a navy almost from scratch (the navy was the lesser service and must of her new equipment and ships in the early xxth were done only due to the minister and admirals litterally cheating and liying at the goverment) but ITTL she had less naval bases of OTL due to Dalmatia being lost in the third war of italian independence (unless the author, decide to retcon this)...this mean that the risk of the K.u.K to being kept on the Adriatic are higher than OTL.
Maybe they try to cozy up with Montenegro getting a naval base there as a mean to bypass a blockade or at least to have better changes
Maybe they try to cozy up with Montenegro getting a naval base there as a mean to bypass a blockade or at least to have better changes
Hmm... do you have any sources for Pilar’s actions in Spain? I could see him become the communicative nexus for all the Philippine sympathisers in Europe as his fellow nationalists are now either arrested or exiled. But with that comes the danger of scrutiny from local authorities, and if Pilar becomes involved in any insurrectionary activities (or if the government links any incidents to him without cause) then his future may be dim in both his homeland and Barcelona.
True, and cold hard cash can never replace competence in positions of government. I can see Spain throw money and troops at the problem anyways, hoping it would go away, or bankroll pro-Spanish sentiment among the business class and the lower population. The late 1890’s are not going to be pretty.
The world’s alliance systems are still in flux, and there are a few players that are yet unseen from our eyes. Some of the nations you mentioned though have… interesting relations; the Ottomans have a low opinion of the Italian government over Tunisia, and Britain is getting shifty-eyed with what’s going on between Alexander III and the Siamese king. Pre-war Asia and Europe are going to highlight ‘the Game’ in the Great Game.
And I can’t think of any recent TL’s that use the France-invades-Belgium trope, though I have to admit to not reading some of the large timelines lately.
And then there shall be an Austrian Schoenberg, who shall compile all music of Nusantara while flying the colours of the ‘Pin the Zion on Eurasia’ movement!
For what it matters, the Habsburgs’ involvement are going to pull a lot of attention to the jungle kingdom, which also means grabbing the attention of all the quacks and pseudoscientists of Europe. We’ve already seen one racial theory making the rounds, and it won’t be the only one that shall try and explain the ‘races’ and ‘sophistication’ of Borneans and the local peoples ITTL.
Definitely. Nowadays, Abu Bakar thinks of the Brookes as “well, they’re going to be here for the foreseeable future. Might as well make my peace get some businesses going while I’m at it.”
Charles Brooke, on the other hand, sees him as just another ha’penny Malay ruler with an added dash of flamboyancy, though he does seem to have a brain when it comes to foreign matters.
A lot is still up in the air in regards to Austria-Hungary’s pretensions. The nature of the empire’s foreign policy and the different political leanings of the Habsburgs are going to put foreign policy in a mess for the time being. But there was a notion of the A-H government seeking at least some power projection abroad IOTL (see the Boxer Rebellion and the concessions of Tianjin), and this could be pushed through and expanded with the backing of Ferdinand and the pro-expansionist members of the government.
As for Sarawak, for now the government is relieved that the oil problem is resolved with their independence still intact. For the future… you’ll see.
The good news is that the Admiralty will slap down any shenanigans between Austria-Hungary and her Southeast Asian neighbours. The bad news is that oil reserves are now the hot commodity of America and Europe, regardless of colonial boundaries.
As for the Kriegsmarine, keep in mind that their command base is located at Pola while their naval academy is at Fiume (now Rijeka), two places that are still held by the Dual Monarchy. The Third Italian War of Independence is not retconned and the loss of Venetia and Dalmatia did set back naval progress for a while, but it has clawed back somewhat through influence at court and through the backing of pro-naval forces in government. It’s still in a somewhat diminished capacity, and there are many who openly question the waste in government funds, but the image of a Great Power having a navy of some sort still holds strong ITTL. With the Oil Policy of Sarawak, the pro-naval faction is going to have a field day.
As for cosying with Montenegro, I could see that happening. Austria-Hungary could also try and haggle for docking access along the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, which could drift it further to foreign alliances.
Ooooh, now that is something worth tinkering. We can say Tahiti’s history went a little different ITTL, with the elder sons of Pōmare IV surviving childhood and attaining the throne. The French would still have pressured the royal family to cede the kingdom (British rivalry is still not butterflied), but monarchical sentiment is still popular among the populace and Protestantism is still the main faith. Some of the royal family are even in contact with the British, hoping to seize back their birthright in the future. Watch this space.
Yes! The first oil well was set up on a hill just as OTL, and I wanted to have some local continuity. The name of the hill will change though, due to the differing history and the alternate companies doing the drilling. Right now, I’m vacillating between three different choices.
@Al-numbers: Take a look at his wiki page, for starters. And go from there. There's a couple of sources about him, like this one.
Thanks! I check them out.
And thank you all for the 200,000 views! I never thought the timeline would last this long, or gain such a following on this site. You people are the ones that truly make me go on with this world; so... thank you.
And now, on to the rest of the world!
I've seen the "France invades Belgium" thing a few times, but not in the past year- and there being a limit to my willingness to dive through old timelines to prove a point, I'll retract my accusation that it's a full blown cliche. It has definitely been done, though. Usually in conjunction with the tired "French get destroyed by a German/British alliance" trope, which absolutely is a cliche at this point. With the exception of the Unwanted Clairvoyant, it's really hard to find a recent Great War or Great War analogue timeline where France comes out victorious. Which is not to say those timelines are bad, several of them being among the best on the site... but it is a tired idea.
Anyway, my apologies for the diversion.
You've already dealt with the ripple effects on popular culture of a stronger SE Asia. I'm wondering if Sarawak or Johore will have any presence at things like the World's Fair? I realise that's unlikely due to expense, but perhaps an alternative might be a "Model Dayak Village" along the lines of the Japanese one that came to London OTL?
Basically, I want Gilbert and Sullivan to write an operetta about the thinly disguised Brookes. "For I am the Pirate King," and all that....
Anyway, my apologies for the diversion.
You've already dealt with the ripple effects on popular culture of a stronger SE Asia. I'm wondering if Sarawak or Johore will have any presence at things like the World's Fair? I realise that's unlikely due to expense, but perhaps an alternative might be a "Model Dayak Village" along the lines of the Japanese one that came to London OTL?
Basically, I want Gilbert and Sullivan to write an operetta about the thinly disguised Brookes. "For I am the Pirate King," and all that....
... that's certainly an interesting idea, but I'm not sure where I talked about a 'fair fight?'
You didn't. Germany + Britain versus France would in most timelines be a stomp (however cliche it might be), however. Germany playing the part of the USA in an alternate World War - joining the side they like anyway later down the line and tipping the balance - is in my opinion a very interesting premise, as they are already in Europe and would be able to mobilize an order of magnitude or three faster.
Oh, yes. Sorry, I thought you were saying that I wanted 'game balance' for lack of a better term.
Apology accepted.
For what it's worth, I found that it's easy (in a comparative sense) to create an alternate war where Germany and Great Britain are united against a common foe, which would then result in the France-invades-the-Low-Countries-trope. I guess that - and this is my opinion, mind you - France being belligerent with both Powers for most of history makes such a scenario feel like more a 'continuation' of (ATL) historiography, more 'natural', rather than a recurring ATL theme. To add with that, the fact that the Low Countries are wedged in-between the Great Powers make them prime material for meddling and trope-twisting. Top this off with well-known POD's, and you get a easy-to-plot scenario.Of course, a timeline's enjoyability doesn't need to revolve around a few invasion tropes, but I can see how it wears off for us readers.
Johor did have a presence at the World's Fairs IOTL, and that hasn't changed. The chance to both educate the Western public and showcase the sultanate's progress has not gone unnoticed by Abu Bakar, and he may in fact take greater investment into commissioning more comprehensive pavilions ITTL. The World Fairs may see both Siam and Johor host mini-palaces unto themselves, displaying both the culture of their nations and how far have they progressed as a form of soft diplomacy.
But as for Sarawak, I can't see that, not with Charles Brooke at the helm. He is a different character than his OTL counterpart, but not by much, and his penny-pinching attitude would see such a project as wasteful. The Sarawak government would also see sponsoring WF pavilions as diverting funds, especially with Miri's infrastructure now at attention. His descendants, however, might see such a endeavor as worth getting into.
For Gilbert and Sullivan, what makes you think they haven't?
They'll probably make it a parody, though; no use making the Admiralty and the Colonial Office mad over a nation that has aided them in keeping watch over the seas. Making fun of said nation, though... they'll need to be witty.Bear in mind that we haven't yet seen who the leader of Germany is, or how he sees the world. As for a 'fair fight', if you mean 'fair' as the amount of resources and manpower that can be fielded, then... I might need to get back on that. If there's one thing I'm clueless on, it's war resources.
However, if you mean 'a fair fight' as having second-tier Powers and underdeveloped nations duking it out with each other, then there's going to be a lot of that.
Well, Gilbert and Sullivan didn't use the Mikado to mock Japan so much as Britain.
That's very cool- I had no idea about the Malay presence at the OTL world fair. This TL has that special mark of quality you get with EdT- you keep seeing strange little asides that turn out to be non-fiction....
That's very cool- I had no idea about the Malay presence at the OTL world fair. This TL has that special mark of quality you get with EdT- you keep seeing strange little asides that turn out to be non-fiction....
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"Ohh... Better to die to a cutlass blow, with shotgun blasting roaring-raw;
than to play a big huge conquest game, with the outlaw blood is in my veins.
Off to fight, since others can't, kill all the enemies to a man;And I'll be true to my outlaw dream, and live and die a Pirate King!
For... I am a Pirate King! Hurrah, hurrah for a Pirate King!It is, it is a glorious day, to be a Pirate King!!!"
"Hmm... Still prefer patter songs."