To answer the original question, could Rhodesia have lasted longer? Yes. Could it have lasted to the present day? Perhaps, but that requires a long ago POD and rather different thinking on the part of the people involved.
I'm thinking that the best opportunity is to have a considerable number of black Africans in the military units Rhodesia sent to fight the Nazis. Many of these men fight with distinction in North Africa, a fact that leads to a considerable number of black junior officers in the Rhodesian units involved in the invasion of Italy. Two Rhodesian battalions are also with the British invasion forces on D-Day, leading to three of them getting awarded the Victoria Cross in Italy and northern France. These men return home to the status of heroes, leading to late 1945 legislation that says that any veterans of the Rhodesian armed forces in good standing are to be granted all of the same rights as the white population, regardless of their skin color, background or any other qualification. Veterans here are described are those with 18 months service in wartime or with five years service in peacetime, though those wounded in action are automatically eligible under the principle of 'having shed blood for Rhodesia'. This leads to 22,500 black men automatically added to voting rolls for the first post-war elections, held in 1947.
The white population of Rhodesia grew rapidly after WWII, exploding from 80,000 in 1946 to 290,000 by 1955, which kept on growing, passing the 500,000 mark in 1964. (the black population in Rhodesia in 1964 numbers 2,375,000). However, laws in the mid-1950s, supported by many newcomers to the area, support an extension of the voting franchise to a larger number of black Rhodesians. The federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, founded in 1953, actually helps this, as many of the factions of the federal government are not helpful to the blacks, but many of their replacements in the southern government in Salisbury are. The new Premier in Southern Rhodesia, Sir Garfield Todd, was able to expand numerous elements to help grow the black Franchise and improve education standards among the country's black majority, expanding the black share of the Franchise from 5.2% in 1953 to 21% in 1960. (This growth in black voters, it should be said, also helped Todd's position politically.) A conservative backlash against this went nowhere, as Todd pointed out that the larger numbers of educated blacks helped advance many of the territory's industrial enterprises.
The federation was an economic success but a political nightmare. The British Government was increasingly against the idea of colonialism, and a letter by the Northern Rhodesian Governor to Whitehall criticizing the planned constitution for the federation was leaked to former Rhodesian PM Godfrey Huggins, who in turn leaked its contents to his successor, Roy Welensky. After a political crisis that resulted, Welensky seriously contemplated independence for the federation but chose to not do it. But that did not stop the problems, and while the federations voting qualifications were loosening fairly quickly, and by 1960 the federation government had six junior ministers - Todd's government had two black ministers and twelve junior ministers - and the voting franchise was expanding fairly quickly.
The federation collapsed in 1962, with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland gaining independence as Zambia and Malawi, both rapidly becoming one-party states. The rise of one-party states in both countries became, in an ironic twist, helpful for Southern Rhodesia, which by now was just named Rhodesia. Todd won re-election in 1963, but lost his majority. The Rhodesian Front, led by Ian Smith, won just six fewer seats than Todd's United Rhodesia Party, leaving trade union organizer and black businessman Joshua Nkomo and his National Democratic Party with the balance of power. Despite that position, Smith's complete refusal to work with him made sure that Todd and Nkomo were allied on issues, and trust grew between them. Nkomo brought numerous other influential black Africans into the government, including right-hand man Edgar Tekere. The intelligent, clear-speaking and moderate Nkomo and Tekere, despite both being quite open pushers for greater black rights, were quite open in admitting that they wanted their success to come from negotiations with the whites, which put them in hard conflict with Smith and the conservative wing of Rhodesian politics.
By 1965, the situation on both sides was coming to a head. Smith and the Rhodesian Front's attempt to push Todd out of power by bringing his ministers into the Rhodesian Front failed when Todd simply appointed Nkomo as his deputy Prime Minister, a result that also saw Tekere made a minister. Whites driven out of other African colonies were openly welcomed in Rhodesia - and after a highly-publicized and mess fight in France saw a rise in disgust towards the Pieds-Noirs of Algerian descent, saw thousands of them leave France for other places, of which a number ended up in Rhodesia. By 1965, with the white population having swelled to 541,000 by white refugees from the Congo and the Pieds-Noirs, the white population of Rhodesia felt pretty secure about its prospects - and 1960s economic growth, which drove the nation's unemployment rate down to below 15% in 1963 and was rapidly swelling the standards of living, was helping this.
Todd and Nkomo, with an agreement in 1966, further expanded voting rights to include over 20% of Rhodesia's black population, a fact which made black Africans a majority in upcoming elections. Smith then caused himself immense trouble when he tried to organize opposition to this in Rhodesia's armed forces. Todd ordered Smith to back off of he'd have him arrested for sedition, to which an enraged Smith barked back "Tell that nigger (Nkomo) that this is my land, and he will never take it from me, especially not with your help." Nkomo surprised many when his response to that was to publicly say "I am not interested in taking from you, Mister Smith. I am interested in creating more for my people. I would rather build than destroy, because when you build, you can be proud of your efforts and make life better for all."
Violence broke out in March 1967 between groups supportive of the Todd-Nkomo government and those supporting the Zimbabwe African National Union, led by Robert Mugabe and Ndabaningi Sithole. The 1967 riots killed more than 100 people in Salisbury, Gweru and Bulawayo, also saw ZANU break in half, as Nkomo convinced Sithole to sit down with Todd and him and help work out a solution. Sithole did this, asking for amnesty for his supporters who had committed crimes against Mugabe supporters. He got this to an extent, enraging Smith, though Nkomo held out any killers and house-burners to both appease Smith, respect Todd's wishes and provide justice for the families involved. Mugabe, infuriated, declared war on the Rhodesian government and his supporters, notably those of the Shona tribe, took to that war with a vengeance. After a mob stormed a mixed-race school in Hwange in September 1967, killing 17 people, both Todd and Nkomo had had enough.
A state of emergency was declared and the Rhodesian armed forces, along with the British South African Police, were dispatched to arrest those responsible for the violence. Nkomo and Sithole asked their supporters to help with this, noting that eleven of the seventeen dead in Hwange were black themselves. The emergency was lifted in February 1968, but by this point the battle divisions were drawn.
The 1968 elections went on with Nkomo expected to be the first black PM of Rhodesia, but with a month to go a United Rhodesia Rally was mortared by ZANU terrorists, killing twelve and critically wounding Todd. He survived, but was left in a wheelchair - but also loudly enraged, something Nkomo sympathized with. Nkomo's party won the election, but in an act which made history, he refused Governor-General Welensky's request to become PM, instead asking Todd to do it. This act stunned Rhodesians of all kinds, and when asked about it Nkomo responded "He [Todd] is the one who can lead all of this, and I want all the good people of Rhodesia, black and white, to be free together. Many of the whites fear a black man leading the government, and with Mugabe intent on destroying us all, we need to be unified. If that means I must give up a position, I will. It is more important that the people bringing destruction to Rhodesia be defeated. The political questions can come later."
Thoroughly surprised but impressed nonetheless, Todd took back the PM position on June 26, 1967, and promptly ordered the Rhodesian armed forces to destroy Mugabe and his ZANU, while also offering Smith and three senior Rhodesian Front officials cabinet posts. They accepted, a fact that would prove important.
On January 7, 1968, Britain announced that it wanted Rhodesia to be independent, even though it violated its policy of no independence before majority African rule, noting that black voters were the majority in the 1967 elections and that Rhodesia's 550,000-strong white population was working to find reasonable accommodations with the three million black Africans they shared the nation with. Negotiations began in June over Rhodesia's independence, even as the Rhodesian security forces battled Mugabe and his ZANU forces, who by this point were getting help from the Soviet Union, a fact by then known to Britain, who after negotiations began deployed the SAS and units of the Royal Air Force to the assist the Rhodesians. One of Mugabe's top deputies, Enos Nkala, was killed by a close air support run on August 6, 1968, a blow that hurt Mugabe's forces. After a year in the mess, however, Britain's government changed in 1969, and the RAF withdrew - but no before leaving behind a considerable number of aircraft for the Rhodesians to use, including Hunter FGA.9 attack aircraft, Canberra bombers, Sea Vixen air-defense aircraft and Westland Wessex helicopters, all old designs being phased out by the RAF but useful to the Rhodesians.
The country became independent on August 1, 1969, with Garfield Todd as its first PM and the insurrection by ZANU still raging. South Africa was willing to provide supplies to the Rhodesians, a fact that grew more important in the 1970s, and transport links through South Africa and through Mozambique were used by the country, despite the fact that Rhodesia grew more disenchated with apartheid as time went on - though the end of apartheid in the early 1980s changed matters entirely. Seeing Rhodesia's attempts at reconciliation between its black and white populations having some success, the country soon became an example that South Africa strove to follow in the 1970s as well as being supported by the West to a considerable extent. The Rhodesians focused their efforts on fast moving forces, developing the "Fire Force" strategy using paratroopers and helicopter-bourne infantry and gunships, a force which was refined to an amazing degree through the 1970s as the civil violence raged, and the arrival in 1974 of ex-RAF Armstrong Whitworth Argosy transport aircraft and UH-1H Huey transport helicopters, as well as cannon-armed Westland Gazelle scout helicopters, proved to be devastatingly effective.
Mugabe's forces sought refuge in other nations and got it, namely from Zambia and Angola, a fact that led to the Rhodesians being willing to strike in both nations. The Portuguese in Mozambique and Angola were also willing to let the Rhodesians hit in both nations, a fact that was used often by the Rhodesians. Following the end of Portuguese rule in Angola and Mozambique, the Rhodesians found the FRELIMO government willing to accept the presence of the ZANU guerillas, a sore point for both sides for a long time. By 1975, numerous acts of terror against black civilians by the ZANU groups, most brutally against the Ndebele tribe members, had angered the black population to the point that support for the attackers was fading, and even among the Shona population, long cosseted by the Rhodesians and with "collaborators" attacked repeatedly by ZANU, the insurgent forces had lost a lot of their support.
The most infamous moment, the raid on Lusaka, happened on February 10, 1976, where the Rhodesian Air Force attacked and suppressed most of the Zambian Air Force, with three MiG-17 fighters shot down by Hawker Hunters of the RhAF. They were followed by over a thousand Rhodesian soldiers, who arrived in RhAF Argosy aircraft (as well as some South African Hercules and Transall aircraft) and lots of Rhodesian Wessex and Huey helicopters (again, supported by South African Puma and Super Frelon transport helicopters), who raided the headquarters and two ZANU military camps outside of Lusaka, causing more than 750 casualties, though twenty-one Rhodesian soldiers were killed in the raids. The raiders on the ZANU headquarters killed Mugabe and five of his senior military commanders. Having suppressed the airport, the Rhodesians battled their way to the airport and left in the same aircraft they had come in, having devastated the Zambian forces and done crippling damage to ZANU.
Despite loud condemnation from the Soviet Union and some portions of Europe, the Rhodesian attack was seen as a massive success for the Rhodesians. ZANU stepped up its attacks, but their shooting down of an Air Rhodesian Boeing 707 outside Salisbury on May 23, 1976, causing 137 deaths (21 of them people on the ground), caused a massive backlash against them, made worse when twenty people, including fifteen women and children, were killed by ZANU militia members outside Kariba on May 28, 1976, when their homes were burned down. The Salisbury shootdown so infuriated the Rhodesians that they bluntly told the Zambians that if there were any more such events that they would hold the Zambians responsible for them. That got the attention of Kenneth Kaunda, who was not about to go to war with a nation that had destroyed a sizeable portion of his armed forces in his capital, who ordered ZANU out in January 1977. In response, ZANU tried to move its whole force wholesale into northern Rhodesia, an attempt that saw the first units of them run head-on into the Selous Scouts, who killed hundreds of them.
The heavy fighting continued into early 1977, which also saw Rhodesia's first three black flag officers, two of them WWII and Malaya veterans. That year also saw Todd hand over leadership of the nation to Nkomo, retiring to his ranch outside of Bulawayo. The Rhodesians focused on Mozambique, even as ZANU attempted more retaliatory measures. The bombing of the Bulawayo car race track and the Woolworth's department store in Salisbury on the same day in April 1977 killed fifteen people and injured 78, but did nothing to hurt the resolve of the nation and its now-diverse people. South Africa, which was negotiating the end of apartheid now, loudly supported the Rhodesian government - and by mid-1977, the ANC had condemned the attacks on Salisbury and Bulawayo as an "act of terror against innocent people", a stand that stunned ZANU. By the end of 1977, they had effectively been driven out of the country.
In February 1978, Sithole loudly called for ZANU to lay down its arms and negotiated an amnesty with Nkomo and Smith, the latter having been appointed to Nkomo's unity government as his deputy after the 1977 elections. With now 626,800 whites in Rhodesia - and more arriving almost daily, usually from Eastern Europe - the position of the white Rhodesian was quite secure, as by this point they made up over 12% of the population and with majority rule negotiations underway. Over 2500 ZANU members took advantage of the amnesty in 1978, and by the end of the year, the violence had all but ceased.
By the time apartheid went away in South Africa in 1981, the Rhodesians were working on a system of majority rule of their own, and without the nasty sanctions that had damaged the apartheid state, Rhodesia was one of the most prosperous places in Africa, and it showed in the standards of living of nearly all of the people in the nation.
OOC: Thoughts?
