Different 19th century in Europe, Asia, Africa

As part of a large timeline that I'm working on (very sporadically), I have a general outline for possible alternate events in Europe, Asia, and Africa during most of the 19th century. How plausible does this sound?

The original POD is the United States breaking apart in the late 1780s and early 1790s, but events in Europe don’t change that much until 1815. In that year, Napoleon defeats Wellington’s army (which is a little smaller than in OTL) at Waterloo before the Prussians can come to his aid. This doesn’t save Napoleon, though – he finds himself facing growing numbers of Prussian and Austrian troops, and is ultimately pushed back into France. In November of 1815, Napoleon is killed by artillery fire in a battle against Austrian and Prussian forces not far from Paris.

After this harrowing resurgence of Imperial French power, the representatives of Austria, Russia, and Prussia are convinced that they need to alter the borders that they agreed on at Vienna in such a way as to keep France even more contained. The idea of restoring France to her full 1789 boundaries is discarded, and instead Prussia and Austria will each get a little territory at France’s expense. Prussia gets most of Lorraine, which is simply added on to the big piece of territory in western Germany that Prussia had already received. Prussia also gets the Duchy of Luxemburg and the area around Leipzig. Austria, with some reluctance, takes Alsace. The idea of getting this piece of territory that is completely separated from the rest of the Austrian Empire is not terribly appealing, but it seems safest to have land belonging to one of the Great Powers on France’s eastern flank rather than some small duchy. The British are less than happy with a lot of these alterations, but they find that they have less influence on the continental powers than they once had. After all, what had the British done while the other 3 powers, especially Austria and Prussia, defeated Napoleon once and for all?

So Prussia and Austria get even more territory, and France gets, well, smaller. Britain gets irritated and has another reason to avoid too many entanglements on the continent for a long time to come.

Fast forward to the 1830s. As in OTL, Greece is now an independent Kingdom, and Louis Philippe has replaced Charles X as King of France because Charles tried and failed to turn the clock back a few decades. By now, a few more differences have cropped up. Among these differences are –

1. There is no Belgium. Back during Napoleon’s last campaigns in 1815, the British and Dutch basically started blaming each other for losing the battle at Waterloo. As a result, the Netherlands had poor relations with Britain in years to come, and has drifted towards better relations with France. In order to please France, the Dutch authorities gave a little more local autonomy to their southern provinces, especially the French speaking areas. As a result, there was no significant revolt in 1830, and therefore no independent Belgium.
2. Tsar Alexander I of Russia is still alive. In OTL, he died after a sudden stroke of illness in 1825 (although I read a book claiming that his death was faked and that he lived another 40 years as a holy hermit in a small town in Siberia). In this timeline, he recovers and will continue to lead Russia for many more years. Thus, there is no “Decembrist†uprising. Alexander, a mercurial and unpredictable person, is beginning to become interested in technological developments in Western Europe by the 1830s. His dream is to expand Russian control over as much of Asia as possible.

In the 1830s, things start to diverge more. Instead of getting involved in Algeria, France strengthens ties with Egypt, which is technically part of the Ottoman Empire but is really operating as an almost-independent state. At the same time, Russia is again showing signs of aggressive intent toward the Ottoman Empire. In response, the British strengthen ties with the Ottoman Empire. As in OTL, there is a brief Egyptian-Ottoman war, but in this timeline Britain and France both give more backing to their respective sides.

Twenty years later, in the late 1850s, French and British companies are both interested in building a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. The only problem is that it isn’t clear whether the land is part of Egypt (only nominally part of the Ottoman Empire) or the Ottoman Empire proper. Naturally, the only way to resolve this dispute is to fight another war. When the war is over, the Ottomans and their British backers have won again and taken control of the Isthmus of Suez, where work soon begins on a canal. On the other hand, Egypt has declared itself a fully independent sultanate.

Back in Europe, industrial progress is happening at about the same pace as OTL, but it has spread faster. By the 1850s, France and Austria are economically somewhat stronger than in OTL. They are both politically more stable as well – Louis Philippe was a little more astute and granted enough political concessions to avoid a major uprising in 1848. There were uprisings in the German States, Austria, and Hungary, but they were uncoordinated and suppressed by their respective local governments. Prussia has increasingly strong economic and political ties with the other north German states, while Austria is doing the same with the southern German states that lie between the main part of the empire and Alsace. Russia under Alexander I (who lives until 1854) goes through a lot more economic development than in OTL. Rail lines between a few of the major Russian cities are being built, and industry is beginning to expand. There is no Crimean War, just a growing tension between Russia on the one side and Britain and the Ottoman Empire on the other. The common rivalry against Britain also pushes France and Russia toward each other.

Italian and German unification as we it never happens in this version of the 19th century. Unlike OTL, France has tolerably good relations with Austria and wouldn’t think of backing Savoy/Sardinia against the Austrians. The Italian peninsula remains divided into several pieces, with Austria dominating the north. The solid economic and political relations between Austria and Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttenburg confine Prussian influence to northern Germany. After a victorious war against Denmark in 1864 (which is just about the last war anywhere in the world that will happen in the same time and place as in OTL), the German speaking lands are divided into a Prussian-dominated federation in the north and an Austrian-dominated federation in the south. There are no Austro-Prussian or Franco-Prussian wars.

Overseas, the colonial struggle gradually becomes stronger. France purchases Portugal’s colonies of Angola and Mozambique in Africa, while expanding its outpost in Senegal and seizing Tunisia (ironically, in this timeline Algeria will be a relatively late addition to France’s colonial territories). Britain has consolidated its control of India, while following a more cautious policy that avoids the disastrous Afghan expedition of OTL, and also avoids any major uprising on the scale of OTL’s Indian Mutiny. One reason for Britain’s greater caution in India and other parts of the east is that Britain has much more territory in North America than in OTL, and so there the empire has to divide its attention more evenly between east and west. Japan is opened to the outside world in the early 1860s by Russia, although merchants, missionaries, and mercenaries from France, Britain, and the Netherlands aren’t far behind. Tensions within Japan rise between a pro-imperial faction supported by Britain, and a pro-shogun faction supported by Russia. When war finally breaks out in the 1880s, the shogun’s faction wins and Japan effectively becomes an ally of Russia.

China’s decay is slower than in OTL. The equivalent of the Opium War comes a few years later, and there is no single massive revolt like the Taiping, just a series of smaller uprisings mostly confined to one province or another.

In Africa, Britain looks around for allies and finds them. The British in the Cape Colony reach an agreement the independent-minded Afrikaner republics in which both sides will cooperate against the expansion of French influence from either Mozambique or Angola. In another part of Africa, Britain establishes friendly relations with the Kingdom of Abyssinia, even as French supported Egypt keeps pushing south and west to extend its control far down into the Sudan and into Libya to the west. Meanwhile, the Dutch are pushing up the Congo river. Interestingly, though, there will never be a full-blown “scramble for Africaâ€. Only 3 European powers have a serious interest in Africa – France, Britain, and the Netherlands, and they establish colonies mainly in areas that are economically or strategically useful.

As Russia overruns the various principalities and tribes in Central Asia, British representatives from India succeed in establishing and alliance with Afghanistan.

In southeast Asia the Dutch control Java and Sumatra, but the British get Borneo and the southern part of the Malay peninsula. The Kingdom of Siam falls into the British sphere of influence, but the French and Dutch both establish colonies in OTL Burma, driving a wedge between British India and Britain’s other south Asian colonies.

As the 19th century neared its end, Russia continued to strengthen. Tsar Alexander II finally abolished serfdom, while Peter IV allowed local assemblies to take some of the authority in local matters that had previously been in the hands of (often ignorant) government bureaucrats. Peter’s government also fostered an even stronger sense of Russian nationalism than his predecessors, coupled with a strong emphasis on economic and technological growth. By 1900, unlike OTL, Russia is one of the world leaders in technological development and is much more fully industrialized. These great economic shifts have caused massive economic and social disruptions, but the Russian government has been surprisingly effective in fighting the influence of socialists and other radicals by establishing some of the rudiments of a welfare state and legislation to protect workers from excessive exploitation. Much the same is true of France and Prussia. Britain and Austria have much less of an inclination toward welfare statism, and rely on the prosperity created by an open market to keep most people happy.

Britain feels the burden of essentially carrying on a sort of cold war against both Russia and France, and in the 1890s draws increasingly close to the Prussian-dominated North German confederation. Of the great powers, only Austria remains steadfastly neutral, refusing to commit to either side. In 1894, the Austrian Empire formally disappears and is replaced by the Imperial Federation of the Danube, a federated monarchy with the Hapsburg emperor of Austria at its head that also gives a considerable amount of local autonomy to its various parts, such as the Kingdom of Hungary and the Duchies of Bavaria, Alsace, Bohemia, Slovenia, Cracow, Venetia, and Lombardy (among others).
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
A couple of questions come to mind - one is that Louisiana territory. If he USA is splintered into smaller nations, then its unlikely that any of these has the wherewithal to raise the finance to purchase Louisiana off Napoleon, especially since the most possible candidates would be New England and they would no longer share a contiguous border with it anyway. What happens to it ? Does Britain divert forces to its conquest, thus leading to the smaller force that Wellington can put forward at Waterloo ? But doesn't this leave the British Empire with the Missouri Valley after the wars are over ?

My other thought is Greece - if you make the British less inclined to intervene in continental affairs, does Navarino still happen ? Without it, might not Mehmed Ali and Ibrahim reconquer Greece for the Ottomans with their Egyptian forces ? If Britain is still involved in these affairs, and something analogous to Navarino still occurs, would this not therefore tie Britain into the continent anyway as it will be one of the guarantor powers of the new kingdom ?

But these are maybe nitpickings that could be explained away, certainly the second could though I am genuinely intrigued as to how you intend to sort the first...

I like the France not being involved in Algiers scenario, that took a lot of events, some random, some avoidable and some which successive regimes only did to save face. An avoidance of the start of the affair and a concentration on an alliance with Mehmed Ali would work well I feel

Grey Wolf
 
I've seen his timeline. Louisiana was kept by the French during the Napoleonic Era, though the local governor encouraged American immigration to make the area more defensible. With the help of the new settlers, French regulars drove off the British c1812.

Louisiana became an independent republic in the peace. The Northern 2/3 of it ended up in British control, through trading links and such.
 

Diamond

Banned
I may have missed it (and I don't remember reading about it when Paul posted the original TL), but what happened to Italy? Did it unify, or is it still a mess of independent states?
 
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