How different would the Scramble for Africa be if the Boer Republics, Madagascar and the Ashanti remained independent?

Oba Cahokia

Oba Cahokia

I came up with this idea for my TL I'm trying to piece together and thought it would be cool to how different things would if a few African States stayed independent besides just two countries. For the Boer Republics I'm obviously referring to Transvaal and the Orange Free State, Madagascar is united under the Merina Kingdom and industrializes somewhat (I'm even planning on them getting Mozambique and the surrounding islands) and finally the Ashanti Empire that pretty plays the Thailand game essentially. I'm not sure if the KwaZulu, Eswatini and Lesotho remain independent or still colonized by the British. I obviously don't how possible these are it might ASB to keep the any of these countries in the long term stay independent but what would the borders look like, how would this affect WW1 if possible and how different would the late 19th and early 20th Century be in a scenario like this.
 
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Maburo

The Boer Republics certainly could manage to survive. Being white countries, it is much easier for them to get sympathy from other European powers. It would not be complicated to see them ally with Germany agains the UK.
If Ethiopia could survive, it is feasible, though more difficult that other african states could survive. The Ashanti I think are a good candidate for a State succesfully surviving 19th century colonialism. I think their survival may not change colonialism in the rest of the continent that much. Could be interesting to see if the leaders of Ashanti become relevant to the later Rastafari movement, as the leader of Ethiopia did, as an example of black resistance to European colonialism.
 

Kellan Sullivan

Oba Cahokia said:
I came up with this idea for my TL I'm trying to piece together and thought it would be cool to how different things would if a few African States stayed independent besides just two countries. For the Boer Republics I'm obviously referring to Transvaal and the Orange Free State, Madagascar is united under the Merina Kingdom and industrializes somewhat (I'm even planning on them getting Mozambique and the surrounding islands) and finally the Ashanti Empire that pretty plays the Thailand game essentially. I'm not sure if the KwaZulu, Eswatini and Lesotho remain independent or still colonized by the British. I obviously don't how possible these are it might ASB to keep the any of these countries in the long term stay independent but what would the borders look like, how would this affect WW1 if possible and how different would the late 19th and early 20th Century be in a scenario like this.
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I'm not optimistic about the Zulus surviving. After Shaka it was basically one weak king after another. And the Zulus are going to ally with the British against the Boers (at best the Boers will be ambivalent towards them, at worst regard them with distrust). The Boers might go with the Sotho against the Zulu (but IIRC Moshoeshoe and his successors weren't really "expansionist"). Don't know enough about the Swazi to comment
 

TickTock The Witch's Dead

Maburo said:
The Boer Republics certainly could manage to survive. Being white countries, it is much easier for them to get sympathy from other European powers. It would not be complicated to see them ally with Germany agains the UK.
If Ethiopia could survive, it is feasible, though more difficult that other african states could survive. The Ashanti I think are a good candidate for a State succesfully surviving 19th century colonialism. I think their survival may not change colonialism in the rest of the continent that much. Could be interesting to see if the leaders of Ashanti become relevant to the later Rastafari movement, as the leader of Ethiopia did, as an example of black resistance to European colonialism.
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How do would the Ashanti survive being colonized?
 
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