Survivality of the Empires

[Admiral Matt]

The two major things that made it happen so fast OTL:
-communist block giving support to liberation movements
-anticolonialist USA dominating western politics
could be butterflied away / reduced in strenght without 2 world wars.

I'll dispute that. The major factors leading to decolonization included the fact that the most profitable colonies (India, Indonesia, Algeria, etc.) were impractical to maintain by force. Further, there was the issue that the vast majority of colonies were far from profitable.

Aside from the Fascist experiments of the 1920s and '30s, modern European culture didn't have the stones to do what it'd take to hold places like India or Algeria. Once the valuable colonies started going, the balance sheets would show just how much of a waste places like Niger or Somalia really were. Countries would release colonies, which would only highlight the value of doing so to their neighbors.

That said, regimes have appeared now and then that'd accept the actions necessary to hold colonies indefinitely. Libya is a prime example, as others have mentioned. Not only did it have only small areas of arable land, but the Fascists had a very successful program of settlement and ethnic cleansing going by the beginnning of World War II. Give them another two decades and the coast will have a solid Italian majority. Of course, the interior would have a very angry Muslim majority, and it is most of the country, but ultimately they'd be more helpless than the Palestinians.

 

[Mikestone8]

Could Franz Ferdinand successfully reform Austria-Hungary into a "United States of Central Europe" with a figurehead monarch? Hungary would probably protest violently as they only really believed in freedom and autonomy for Hungarians, while the Austrians were more amiable to compromise.

Why does the monarch need to be a figurehead?

Keep in mind that democracy and parliamentary government were very much on the retreat in the post-WW1 era. By the mid-30s, the overwhelming majority of Continental Europe (bar Scandinavia) was ruled by dictatorships of one stripe or another. In the Balkans, several of these dictatorships were headed by the King. Any reason why FF (a distinctly autocratic type, from all I've read) couldn't follow the same course?

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Why does the monarch need to be a figurehead?

Keep in mind that democracy and parliamentary government were very much on the retreat in the post-WW1 era. By the mid-30s, the overwhelming majority of Continental Europe (bar Scandinavia) was ruled by dictatorships of one stripe or another. In the Balkans, several of these dictatorships were headed by the King. Any reason why FF (a distinctly autocratic type, from all I've read) couldn't follow the same course?

A-H would be too diverse, he can't claim to be the National Leader, as Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and Romanian kings did, since Austria- Hungary isn't a nation.

 

[Uriel]

I'll dispute that. The major factors leading to decolonization included the fact that the most profitable colonies (India, Indonesia, Algeria, etc.) were impractical to maintain by force. Further, there was the issue that the vast majority of colonies were far from profitable.

Aside from the Fascist experiments of the 1920s and '30s, modern European culture didn't have the stones to do what it'd take to hold places like India or Algeria. Once the valuable colonies started going, the balance sheets would show just how much of a waste places like Niger or Somalia really were. Countries would release colonies, which would only highlight the value of doing so to their neighbors.

That said, regimes have appeared now and then that'd accept the actions necessary to hold colonies indefinitely. Libya is a prime example, as others have mentioned. Not only did it have only small areas of arable land, but the Fascists had a very successful program of settlement and ethnic cleansing going by the beginnning of World War II. Give them another two decades and the coast will have a solid Italian majority. Of course, the interior would have a very angry Muslim majority, and it is most of the country, but ultimately they'd be more helpless than the Palestinians.

If you read my post completly you will notice that I said that the French and British Empires were likely to collapse (for the reasons you mentioned).

But the colonies of Germany, Spain and Italy were so sparely populated that without politcal pressure they could have been held indefinitly. (And so could be remants of the French, Portugese and British Empires, without the superpopulous colonies )
Yes they would have been a finacial drain but many of the former colonial powers are still paying a lot of aid to their former colonies OTL and pay other "useless stuff" like space programms, Aircraft carriers and the EU.
They could take that burden (especially without beeing ruined in the World Wars).
And there would be a lot of lobbys in favour of keeping the colonies (settlers, infrastrutur contractors, mining companies, the army).

 

[Urban fox]

The Ottoman Empire is really the only one.

Germany and Italy could remain Monarchies, but they'd still eventually lose their colonial holdings.

By that time Russia was already to far gone to have remained an Empire, though it does'nt necessarily mean it's destined to go Communist.

Say what? Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire (population 80% Russian/Russianized Slav BTW) are more survivable that the Ottomans. Despite the level of Otto-wank on this forum. It took forced dismemberment to do A-H in. It was also in good shape before the war. Ditto Russia, despite Nicky the idiot having a zero-percent approval rating.

It took a series of very unfortunate and unlikely events to bring A-H and the Russian Empire/Soviet Union down. The Ottoman Empire was much weaker than those two, both in terms of state legitimacy/control over it’s territories and economically.

 

[RMcD94]

Uh, isn't the British Empire still around?

Pretty sure there is. Falklands, Gibraltar, Cyprus holdings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_overseas_territories

14 holdings apparently.

 

[archaeogeek]

Say what? Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire (population 80% Russian/Russianized Slav BTW) are more survivable that the Ottomans. Despite the level of Otto-wank on this forum. It took forced dismemberment to do A-H in. It was also in good shape before the war. Ditto Russia, despite Nicky the idiot having a zero-percent approval rating.

It took a series of very unfortunate and unlikely events to bring A-H and the Russian Empire/Soviet Union down. The Ottoman Empire was much weaker than those two, both in terms of state legitimacy/control over it’s territories and economically.

The Austro-hungarian empire had been falling apart since the 19th century and unlike the Ottomans, it was basically propping itself up with a very complex system of making every ethnicity in it at odds with every other one; the major ethnic groups all had a lesser, more insignificant group to lord it over. It was a replay of the Metternich system that was holding the empire with glue until a repeat of 1848 happened, and without the war tensions were going to grow and grow especially as Hungary was doing everything to sabotage not only the empire but their own ability to lord it over half of Romania, Slovakia and Croatia.

 

[iori]

Say what? Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire (population 80% Russian/Russianized Slav BTW) are more survivable that the Ottomans. Despite the level of Otto-wank on this forum. It took forced dismemberment to do A-H in. It was also in good shape before the war. Ditto Russia, despite Nicky the idiot having a zero-percent approval rating.

In the case of Russia I meant ceasing to be a Monarchy.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Uh, isn't the British Empire still around?

Pretty sure there is. Falklands, Gibraltar, Cyprus holdings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_overseas_territories

14 holdings apparently.

Indeed, and I think that without the World Wars, you can get a continued existence of a "minimal" Empire, with plenty of other territories as Dominions.

So you'd see strategic colonies like Malta, the entirety of Cyprus, Singapore, Ceylon, Malaya, Hong Kong etc continuing under some form of direct rule from London, with other areas like East Africa gradually becoming Dominions. India is still likely to break off entirely though.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Without the financial stresses of WW1 and the financial/existential stresses of WW2 the British Empire could have muddled about for quite a bit longer. I don't think by way of Imperial Federation, but some stabler version of what happened in OTL.

I'm not entirely sure it would be a wholly positive move even for the Dominions though, as having the transition between the Empire and then the US centric model did give us all a bit more freedom to do our own thing. Having now lived in London (admittedly well past Empire), it is pretty obvious that the metropole and Home Islands largely do their own thing, for their own reasons and while that might coincide with what the colonies want, it often might not.

 

[Mikestone8]

A-H would be too diverse, he can't claim to be the National Leader, as Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and Romanian kings did, since Austria- Hungary isn't a nation.

But he's still the only unifying force there is.

Amy attempt at greater democracy will of course only make things worse, as it just gives the various ethnic groups that much more opportunity to quarrel. Yugoslavia held together as long as Tito's dictatorship lasted, but as soon as it tried to be a democracy, it blew up at once.

 

[Mikestone8]

The Austro-hungarian empire had been falling apart since the 19th century and unlike the Ottomans, it was basically propping itself up with a very complex system of making every ethnicity in it at odds with every other one; the major ethnic groups all had a lesser, more insignificant group to lord it over. It was a replay of the Metternich system that was holding the empire with glue until a repeat of 1848 happened, and without the war tensions were going to grow and grow especially as Hungary was doing everything to sabotage not only the empire but their own ability to lord it over half of Romania, Slovakia and Croatia.

But where will the nationalities go?

As long as they have intact German and Russian empires next door, they cannot become independent. They can only be shared out between the bigger neighbours. Is there any point rebelling in that situation?

 

[Uriel]

But he's still the only unifying force there is.

Right. In govermental documents and the press A-H was spoken of as "the monarchy". That was the smallest common determinator.

 

[The Knight]

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that they could all survive to the present day. However, they would all need to make changes and reforms. Britain, for example would have to get rid of the colonies it can't keep such as India and invest heavily in those it has left. The problem is not that they couldn't survive but that none of them had any leaders with the foresight to see what needed to be done in order to survive.

 

[Wendell]

The German Empire. Of any listed, it was the most homogenous, and, largely, had an efficiently-run, limited presence overseas.

 

[Ze Kaiser]

I once read an excellent TL where the Allies win WWI two years early, and the 20th century goes on to be the second British Century. However, the Empire only stays together because of a boat load of reforms and the heads of the Empire bending backwards to keep places like India in.

 

[I Blame Communism]

The German Empire. Of any listed, it was the most homogenous,

What about Italy?

 

[I Blame Communism]

I once read an excellent TL where the Allies win WWI two years early, and the 20th century goes on to be the second British Century. However, the Empire only stays together because of a boat load of reforms and the heads of the Empire bending backwards to keep places like India in.

I regard that scenario as unlikely to begin with, but it does interest me how one would go through with it. Your typical Indian, as Orwell pointed out, got his daily dose of oppression from other Indians, be they landlords, petty officials, shopkeepers, gendarmes, native cotton millionaires, or rajas. The movement for Indian independence was thus also a move for social tranformation, although the aim of independence meant that many different strands were combined in a few parties.

So, concessions to India to keep it onboard.. to which Indians? Is India to be run on the basis of a nasty but to a considerable extent native dictatorship of Anglo-Indian staffs, princes, sectarian divide-and-rule, martial races, ruthless police action, etcetera? I can see this working (for a time) if a movement in the style of EdT's Unionists got control of Britain. But by 1914, things were really too late for anything like that to be established.

So, concessions to keep India aboard mean that India becomes something not too unlike OTL: a peasant democracy compromising with moves to industrial modernity.

I feel that if you wanted to keep the Commonwealth together in a substantial way much longer than IOTL with some semblance of democracy (so no EdT stuff, whether Unionism or the Federation of Workers' Republics), you'd want to go the England-you-England way: a fairly close alliance of lefty countries receiving British protection and expertise in a world full of nastier other empires.

 

[Typo]

What about Italy?

Northern Italians are actually really different from Southern Italians, the unification of Italy involved a virtual war of colonization by the Piedmont against southern Italy.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Northern Italians are actually really different from Southern Italians, the unification of Italy involved a virtual war of colonization by the Piedmont against southern Italy.

Oh, I'm aware of that, but then, England and Scotland are different too. The point is that a southern Italian seperatist movement never having gotten anywhere in the last century, Italy has the least potential seperatists around in 1914. Some of Germany's minorities - Poles and Alsatians - are politically important, and Germany has more and larger colonies too.