WI Britain was slower

I was thinking today about a smaller, weaker British Empire. I always love a good Britwank, but today I was imagining what the world could have looked like if Britain hadn't been so quick at grabbing colonies.

I'm not sure what kind of POD this would need (my fullest knowledge doesn't surpass that of colonial names of places), but what could Britain have been if it had stayed out for a couple more decades (or longer)?

I can imagine parallels or competition with Italy, as both would be scurrying and hurrying for an empire (maybe Abyssinia is a likely target of British aggression? Maybe they would war with the Ottomans as well?). Or would we see an alliance between the two budding empires in a quest to ultimate take from the other major powers?

What say you, patrons of AH.com?

Britain usually grabbed colonies (or protectorates rather in the 1800s) quite reluctantly, and only because they feared someone else would grab it otherwise.

yourworstnightmare said:

Britain usually grabbed colonies (or protectorates rather in the 1800s) quite reluctantly, and only because they feared someone else would grab it otherwise.

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God forbid!

I think this is a fairly interesting POD. You could probably make a pretty easy TL. Spanish Armada bests the English in 1588 but can't make a land victory. English forces win a patriotic Battle of London and they're basically reduced to a regional power, warring with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Meanwhile Spain is doomed to failure. Two reasons: 1) Burning out of resources too soon. Their main resource being man power. They'd over work the Amerindian population too fast and too far, leading to weaker immune systems combined with new diseases to destroy them with. 2) Weak bloodline. Inbreeding is what ultimately destroyed the Spanish Empire. By the time Napoleon came, they were as dumb as Alexei Romanov was fragile.

This leaves the floor open, most likely to a Portugal, Netherland, and France wank. Maybe even give Sweden a little longer of a shot in the New World. Britain would most likely get in on the act but not until later leading to a much more international Atlantic coast in North America. Something we don't see enough of in the Maps section...

yourworstnightmare said:

Britain usually grabbed colonies (or protectorates rather in the 1800s) quite reluctantly, and only because they feared someone else would grab it otherwise.

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Oh really? Is that how you become the first global superpower. I wonder what Cecil Rhodes would have said...

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I assume that the mentioned 1588-scenario might only be a very temporary delay. England could have recovered within a few years if Spain doesn't turn his relative decline around.
Britain did a lot of damage to the Spanish empire back then already, but was not yet painting the globe pink for some more decades. The real take-off for the British empire came IMO in the mid-17th century.

Another possible PODs would have been a defeat in the Seven-Years-War. What if Britain loses some of Colonial America, but manages to hold on to it in a fragmented North America? Or maybe France and Britain "switch roles" - France becoming a dominating power in North America, the Carribean, India while Britain only manages to make a Colonial comeback during the 19th century.

How about a more balanced naval war against Napoleon which makes global actions more difficult in that era, maybe preventing the takeover of the Cape Colony or Ceylon.

I can hardly imagine a post-1815 POD which would in a more than slightly reduced British empire, though.

Well in another thread it was mentioned that the beginnings of many English colonies were shaky, storms constantly broke supply ships, men were left stranded without supplies. He mentioned that it was a near miracle that the empire stretched as far as it did.

So you could easily go and find those early colonies and delay colonization by a good few years each or completely altogether.

Hörnla said:

Oh really? Is that how you become the first global superpower. I wonder what Cecil Rhodes would have said...

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I assume that the mentioned 1588-scenario might only be a very temporary delay. England could have recovered within a few years if Spain doesn't turn his relative decline around.
Britain did a lot of damage to the Spanish empire back then already, but was not yet painting the globe pink for some more decades. The real take-off for the British empire came IMO in the mid-17th century.

Another possible PODs would have been a defeat in the Seven-Years-War. What if Britain loses some of Colonial America, but manages to hold on to it in a fragmented North America? Or maybe France and Britain "switch roles" - France becoming a dominating power in North America, the Carribean, India while Britain only manages to make a Colonial comeback during the 19th century.

How about a more balanced naval war against Napoleon which makes global actions more difficult in that era, maybe preventing the takeover of the Cape Colony or Ceylon.

I can hardly imagine a post-1815 POD which would in a more than slightly reduced British empire, though.

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Well, most colonial expeditions were actually more planned by the men like Rhodes, than London. London usually agreed to the plans of adventurers like Rhodes, because France, Germany and some other nation might be lurking around.

Hörnla said:

Oh really? Is that how you become the first global superpower. I wonder what Cecil Rhodes would have said...

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Rhodes was an exception. What sometimes happened is the private colonies would go bankrupt or something and Britain would grab it to stop some other power. But that doesn't make much sense to me either, if others want to take a money pit, let them. Anyhow, can't remember who said it but:

"We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind."

SilverPhantom2 said:

Meanwhile Spain is doomed to failure. Two reasons: 1) Burning out of resources too soon. Their main resource being man power. They'd over work the Amerindian population too fast and too far, leading to weaker immune systems combined with new diseases to destroy them with.

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I'm not sure what you mean here. The Spanish did not do this in OTL... they were able to dominate huge parts of North and South America (from Louisiana to Argentina) from the 1500s until the early 1800s. I really don't see how they Spanish would be "doomed to failure" ITTL.

SilverPhantom2 said:

2) Weak bloodline. Inbreeding is what ultimately destroyed the Spanish Empire. By the time Napoleon came, they were as dumb as Alexei Romanov was fragile.

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I suppose the Spanish Bourbons did not exist then? It was just the inbred Spanish Hapsburgs having children with their cousins until Napoleon overthrew them?
Look up the Bourbon Reforms. There were no inbred Hapsburgs after the early 18th century, and the succeeding Bourbon dynasty tried to massively reform the Spanish Empire.

Hörnla said:

The real take-off for the British empire came IMO in the mid-17th century.

How about a more balanced naval war against Napoleon which makes global actions more difficult in that era, maybe preventing the takeover of the Cape Colony or Ceylon.

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I would argue that the real take off for the British Empire would not come until the loss of the American colonies led to a shift in priorities to securing India and its trade primarily.

MNPundit said:

"We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind."

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Can we agree that an informal empire is still an empire and counts as to the task of this challenge?

Given the weak condition of early modern states, most European colonial empires were erected on private initiative which sooner or later looked for public recognition, i.e. usually military support.

Even the German expansion in Africa in 1884/85 happened roughly along these lines, although in a fast-forward mode.

Grab the benefits, make the crown/taxpayer pay...

rcduggan said:

I would argue that the real take off for the British Empire would not come until the loss of the American colonies led to a shift in priorities to securing India and its trade primarily.

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Good point. Though; the Carribean/Northern American empire combined with slave trade was a wonderful business model and worked fine until its cornerstone broke away in 1776/83.

Who would have thought then that an even more impressive empire was to come in the next century?

The new focus on India (or rather the Indian ocean) is an excellent example how a nation can overcome a setback and get to new heights after adjusting to the new situation.

I guess that for a globe-spanning empire, you might need more than one take-off-points.

MNPundit said:

Rhodes was an exception. What sometimes happened is the private colonies would go bankrupt or something and Britain would grab it to stop some other power. But that doesn't make much sense to me either, if others want to take a money pit, let them. Anyhow, can't remember who said it but:

"We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind."

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According to the Internet, that would be Sir John Robert Seeley, Victorian historian. Ooh, rhymes!

SilverPhantom2 said:

I think this is a fairly interesting POD. You could probably make a pretty easy TL. Spanish Armada bests the English in 1588 but can't make a land victory. English forces win a patriotic Battle of London and they're basically reduced to a regional power, warring with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Meanwhile Spain is doomed to failure. Two reasons: 1) Burning out of resources too soon. Their main resource being man power. They'd over work the Amerindian population too fast and too far, leading to weaker immune systems combined with new diseases to destroy them with. 2) Weak bloodline. Inbreeding is what ultimately destroyed the Spanish Empire. By the time Napoleon came, they were as dumb as Alexei Romanov was fragile.

This leaves the floor open, most likely to a Portugal, Netherland, and France wank. Maybe even give Sweden a little longer of a shot in the New World. Britain would most likely get in on the act but not until later leading to a much more international Atlantic coast in North America. Something we don't see enough of in the Maps section...

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If Spain landed troops, any troops at all, England would be finished. Frankly their troops weren't up to scratch at all because they no longer had land wars to fight, what experienced troops they had were in Ireland and couldn't be recalled in time, and the Spanish had the best military in the world at this point. The English would be absolutely slaughtered, and they would know from before the very first shot that they were done for. A naval victory was England's only hope for success, and they knew it from the start.

Besides, as Hörnla said, if England wasn't made a Hapsburg domain and quite forcefully prevented from colonising by its own government, England would bounce back fast. England had become too influential by this point, even if it didn't pose much threat on land all of Western Europe acknowledged that it was a worthwhile alliance partner in politics, and it was clear that it was on the rise. Scotland would never pose problems to England if England could focus on them, Wales had been annexed unofficially 200 years ago (and officially, 50 years ago). Ireland was unruly and rebellious but really the English were in control there and everyone knew that that wouldn't change.

You've got it wrong on what destroyed the Spanish Empire, by the by. What destroyed the Empire was:

A - a huge dependency on imported gold bullion which made the Spanish currency worthless and ironically imposed frequent bankruptcies (if you frequently magic up millions worth of gold from nowhere, every buyable item in existence loses value as it's too easy for you to buy it...therefore prices drop and your currency becomes negligible) and an insistence on royal and Spanish monopolies over trade.

B - The Spanish Empire had no economic resilience because merchants and producers in the colonies knew how much they would sell and for what price every year. There was no incentive to produce more or to find new items to sell as non-Spanish traders were forbidden to buy or sell items anywhere except Cadiz in Spain, and monopoly holders could dictate the trading price of goods. There was no support for the colonial businessmen at all. Middlemen controlled EVERYTHING. By 1650, the Spanish Empire had stagnated but the Spaniards were too proud and closed-minded to change anything. 1650...before any other country save Portugal even had an Empire to speak of. That's how quickly it fell apart for them. By the time any changes happened it was too late. That's why the Spanish Empire declined.

Falastur said:

If Spain landed troops, any troops at all, England would be finished. Frankly their troops weren't up to scratch at all because they no longer had land wars to fight, what experienced troops they had were in Ireland and couldn't be recalled in time, and the Spanish had the best military in the world at this point. The English would be absolutely slaughtered, and they would know from before the very first shot that they were done for. A naval victory was England's only hope for success, and they knew it from the start.

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Assuming Spain won't annex England (and I believe they weren't planning to), England wouldn't be finished. It would still exist, but with a catholic king. It would rule a very unhappy population and would be busy keeping them under control and possibly get involved in religious wars on the continent. Maybe a English civil war starts. This all might keep England too busy to colonise for decades, maybe even more than a century. At that point the Portuguese, French, Dutch (having a large part of the Spanish army fighting in England instead of the Netherlands is very good for the Dutch), Danish, Swedish and maybe even the Scotish might all fill the gap the English left open.

Catholic England? All is not lost!

pompejus said:

Maybe a English civil war starts. This all might keep England too busy to colonise for decades

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England actually had a civil war in the 1640s - but that didn't stop colonization, its results was actually an emphasized focus on the colonies...

Also, an "unhappy" population can also lead to more colonization, just think of the Mayflower.

pompejus said:

Assuming Spain won't annex England (and I believe they weren't planning to), England wouldn't be finished. It would still exist, but with a catholic king. It would rule a very unhappy population and would be busy keeping them under control and possibly get involved in religious wars on the continent. Maybe a English civil war starts. This all might keep England too busy to colonise for decades, maybe even more than a century. At that point the Portuguese, French, Dutch (having a large part of the Spanish army fighting in England instead of the Netherlands is very good for the Dutch), Danish, Swedish and maybe even the Scotish might all fill the gap the English left open.

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Philip wanted to put his daughter Isabella on the throne. You're right that she would be very unpopular, but I don't think that England would burst into spontaneous constant rebellion like the Netherlands. Rather there would be a "political war" for control of the Church of England and the tuition of any children of Isabella's. Otherwise, the Protestant nobles would just retreat from court and the people would just become more desensitised to politics, as a portion of the population did with religion. At any point of weak rule (i.e. a malleable monarch or a child king) Protestant nobles would step in, outnumbering the Catholics as they did, to try to engineer a Protestant education to restore the new faith, and to reinstate reformist priests in the bishoprics. Spanish troops might be called in for the Queen's protection but England wouldn't absorb loads of tercios and make the job easier for the Dutch.

Either way, remember that colonisation in this era was not state organised. Colonies were founded by enterprising gentlemen raising funds, obtaining a charter, and then organising the work themselves. Of course, the major problem is that a Hapsburg monarch won't sanction any English colonisation as the Hapsburgs believed whole-heartedly in the Treaty of Tordesillas which promised 99% of the Americas to Spain. If they could get around that, though, a monarch disinterested won't stop colonisation. Remember that the eastern seaboard wasn't properly colonised until the period of 1650 to 1700, which gives plenty of chance for the English to recover even from a Hapsburg puppet monarch.

I think you're exaggerating thinking the Danes and Swedes will become major players given England's absence, by the way. They were never that interested in colonies, they didn't have the strength to really become major overseas players and they didn't tend to focus on North America anyway, instead choosing small spice islands to hold as isolated outposts. Exception goes to New Sweden, but this proves my second point - against the Dutch, French, etc they were never strong enough overseas to protect their investments. English non-colonialism will only strengthen France and the Dutch. Scotland definitely won't colonise. It just didn't have the ability. The Scottish economy was a joke in this period - a lot of sources refer to it, even in 1707 when it joined the Union with England - as being the economically poorest country in the whole of Europe. It had no real successful industries, no decent products to trade, a small population with little interest in forming colonies even in the few who had the money to, and furthermore, again no military ability to defend the said colonies. Scotland could have tried colonising but IRL it didn't even try until 1706 and there's no reason to assume that if England were reduced to a menial existence that Scotland would do any differently. In fact if we are to take your initial suggestion that a defeated England would resign itself to an existence picking on the Scots and Irish, then the devastated Scottish economy would make 100% certain that Scotland could never attempt any colonialism.

Here's another interesting point I thought of; if Britain had been slower in say, taking over India, and it was left to another power, what sorts of ramifications would this have on the people?

Would we see a more unified nation or did they have the better deal under British rule? I suppose the same goes for other areas the British ruled. Maybe we'd even see a Dutch South Africa surviving, which would likely mean no Boer Wars. It'd be interesting to see a map of the colonial world with a lesser Britain.

If Britain were slower off the mark...

Spain and France would fight it out over America - and probably France would win...

The other Europeans would step into the vacuum in Africa: again, I think the French would benefit the most, but the Germans and maybe other powers such as the Dutch and Belgians too. Who knows, maybe even the peaceable Scandinavians would fancy getting in on the act too?

Something tells me the Middle East would be much more Republican if Britain had never had a dominant influence there; I think many of the Kingdoms and Sultanates which have survived to the present day would not exist by the 20/21 century...

...or the Ottoman Empire could perhaps be left unbothered for long enough to stage a modern comeback, to reinvent itself as a successful Constitutional Monarchy ruling a multi-ethnic state... A stretch that one, but possible...

In India...whooo boy! So hard to imagine. I think it's perfectly possible India would have been a patchwork of independent states, maybe with several in the south under varying degrees of French, Dutch and Portuguese influence. I don't think it's at all inevitable that another power would have come to dominate all of India like the British Raj did. The Brits got alot of lucky breaks along the way...

Megas Dux ton Kypraion said:

In India...whooo boy! So hard to imagine. I think it's perfectly possible India would have been a patchwork of independent states, maybe with several in the south under varying degrees of French, Dutch and Portuguese influence. I don't think it's at all inevitable that another power would have come to dominate all of India like the British Raj did. The Brits got alot of lucky breaks along the way...

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Actually the French became very dominant in India. For a long time it was by no means sure that Britain could overcome France - the French had a stronger power base and local politics was working their way. Napier really settled the issue but before his whirlwind campaign the French were slowly winning. With no British Empire in India it's virtually a certainty that the French will engulf the entire region all the way to Indochina (Vietnam and the like).

To my mind, unless you deliberately take steps to prevent France from colonising, the long and the short of it is this: France would dominate everywhere. They would take over all of North America, by virtue of being able to conquer countries in Europe and extract reparations if they can't win in the colonies, they would slowly expand over all of western Africa, they would be virtually unchallenged in Asia and would gobble up all of Oceania in one go if they don't think they have the British to contest with and thus to be potentially punished by. When Spain becomes weak in Europe (which is inevitable for the economic reasons I've previously stated in this thread) chances are the French will then move in to annex all of their colonies too. Essentially you're looking at "Francowank World" here. The British were the force that kept the French in check, just as the French were who kept Britain in check - only Britain had the economic strength to face off against France and win, and only Britain was untouchable in Europe by virtue of its perfect natural defense, being an island. The colonial wars were really the only thing which stopped either power from concentrating too hard on expansion. No-one else had those two critical advantages to allow them to stop France from colonising exponentially.

Falastur said:

Essentially you're looking at "Francowank World" here. The British were the force that kept the French in check, just as the French were who kept Britain in check - only Britain had the economic strength to face off against France and win

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I agree to a certain degree. A French Empire which rules a lot of the world is quite feasible under these circumstances (never mind the butterflies). I would like to add, that until the 19th century, France was also demographically a force to recon with, more popolous than Germany (all states combined) or the British Isles. To put it short - it had the manpower to colonize!

In the short run, the Dutch would benefit from lessened British activity - but they wouldn't be able to withstand their continental neighbour forever.

The most striking point in this idea, though, is the idea of France winning the War of Spanish succession and ultimately merge with Spain during the 18th century. Thus, we would have a united Bloc Americaine from Buenos Aires to Montreal!

WHOA, slow down, I dun think that if France can uphold that whole empire, that'd be huge.