Faeelin
Banned
In the 20th century yes, Britain could have done with being less trusting of the US.
Trusting the US though, means that are consequences. Maybe no Lend-Lease, for instance.
In the 20th century yes, Britain could have done with being less trusting of the US.
Sure, right up until the USA carves up the British Empire with the Kaiserreich in revenge...
In your Ameriwank dreams!
What appeasement are we talking about?
For Britain to be more powerful it would need to stay out of wars in Europe and help the CSA remain independent, which would mean a divided America that would be easier for Britain to stand up to.
A small British empire would be useful too. (0) British Empire would become too large to control for a country the size of Britain. (1)
Sure, right up until the USA carves up the British Empire with the Kaiserreich in revenge...
But you see the CSA will be more than a speed bump for reasons...
Not sure why the Germans would want to attack Britain? Germany's main interests were in dominating central and Eastern Europe.
Germany went to war with Britain twice in OTL's twentieth century, right? Unless you're positing butterflies mean that Germany doesn't go to war with Britain, then presumably it will ATL. (2) Except instead of having America as an ally, the British face a US that is at best hostile and aiding Germany economically and at worst making the First Lord of the Admiralty put a pistol in his mouth by cutting off Britain's imports. (3)
I'd love to see the Yankees pull a Tannenberg in the opening stages of the war, mind.
I know but realistically the Confederacy will be dead within 20 years..
It was the other way around Britain declared war on German not German that declared war on Britain.
Yes. British stay out of conflicts on the continent and put their resources in to their empire.
The French and Germans and Russians etc are left to fight to out among them selves.
<snip>Then we come into the twentieth century. It is quite true that American ambition expanded in this time, and efforts were made at British expense--but it is also true that Britain got into serious trouble without any Yankee schemes being to blame, troubles inherent in imperial overreach without the benefit of superhuman, ASB foresight and cleverness. (4)
Suppose that instead of looking at 20th century Anglo-American relations through the rosy crystal of the "special relationship," we take a jaundiced view instead, of ruthless Yankee encroachments on the glorious Empire. Suppose indeed that that view had prevailed in London, the moment the Americans seemed ready to step forward?
How could Britain have fared had she not been willing to mortgage her holdings to Yankee creditors? Had she been too proud to ask for American help in winning the Great War? It seems certain to me that the Americans would have held aloof, watching the Germans prevail over France and leaving Britain, battered and bled, to make what she could of her overseas power in denying them colonies while the Germans remade the Continent to their own convenience.
Drained, demoralized, but with a free hand in the colonies, having gobbled up German ones and probably French ones too (to the disgust of their Entente former ally) and owing Washington nothing, could Britain have kept her balance and recovered from colonial holdings alone, while frozen out of continental markets both in Europe and North America?
But the terms on which they are its subjects are demeaning. To tap their potential, the British must simultaneously exploit and conciliate them. It's the same problem our hypothetical victorious King George III faced with the vast prize of Western North America--a prize he dare not plunder lest it turn his native allies against him.
Well, in the Empire as we knew it OTL, the die of white supremacy had been cast. Could the Empire turn over a new leaf at this point, and start incorporating its subject peoples on more equal and dignified terms, to get them accept the identity of British subject with grace and enthusiasm, and thus make good the vast potential of their global empire? Doing so would have raised discontents among the white British, especially the very ones who went south to the colonies to hold and exploit the place for their own betterment (and the good of the Empire of course!)
If instead the empire took a hard line of white supremacy, I suppose that as the Apartheid Nationalist government of South Africa did OTL they could prevail on those terms for some time, but at the cost of raising up vast discontent against them.
If at that juncture the USA were indeed the predatory thug the OP seems to imply by referring to British policy as "conciliation," (5) the Yankees, and other rival powers such as Germany, France or Russia, would have opportunities a-plenty to assist in disrupting British control. Doing so would make them all big hypocrites of course (6) but the subjugated peoples might well rationally prefer to see two or three rival hypocrites wooing them for favors over one smug one that feels invulnerable. (7)
At the end of the day, I don't think it's reasonable to blame the British failure to keep control over the vast majority of the world on the schemes of her rivals. (8) The problem is inherently hard to solve and the only fair solution would have had the British Empire evolve into an Indio-African one, with the white English speaking lands being a mere minority faction in something vaster and distinctly non-European. That might be a fine thing but how likely is it? Far more likely would be a hostile USA that doesn't owe Britain anything joining in a general feeding frenzy. (9)
OTL I know there are British perspectives that see the USA as having accomplished just that, on its own without sharing with anyone. It still seems an odd perspective to me, even acknowledging the degree to which Americans did indeed plot for supreme power, to a large degree at British expense. (10) And anyway, it seems clear enough now that the USA's day as a hyperpower able to get whatever it wants whereever it wants have already passed--we can surely throw tantrums and mess things up anywhere, but getting what we want is not so easy. (11)
I therefore chose the option of "Britain would be worse off," figuring that while the British did not have perfect foresight, they generally made pretty good decisions considering the situation they actually faced, and those decisions gave the collapsing Empire a soft ride down and left Britain herself, and the Commonwealth nations, quite well off and distinctly favored on the whole by American power when it was dominant, and in a position to align with American policy where it suits them and abstain from it where we are misguided today.
The second-best is that "both US and Britain would be worse off," but I'm enough of an American patriot to think that had Britain been pig-headed enough to throw down a challenging gauntlet in the mid-19th or early 20th century, despite the liabilities of taking down a big and tough adversary, we might have come out at least as well off as OTL. I prefer a world of Anglo-American friendship myself, and trust that it is probably the best outcome between us.
<snip>
Given that reality, the Anglosphere has worked out about as well as can be expected for both nations, truth be told, and with due diligence to individuals and circumstance over four centuries of (more or less) shared history.
Best,
In the 20th century yes, Britain could have done with being less trusting of the US. (12) This is in before 1900 though so I've no idea what you're talking (13) about with "appeasing america". Do you mean such things as not caring to fight over Washington and the like? The impact of such minor things would have impacted Britain very little. They could change a lot for Canada but not for the UK. (14)
Also don't forget that the real world isn't a strategy game. (15) Nations aren't ran by some immortal controller with a mission to paint as much of the world his colour as possible. Far more important in the real world is money- and considering how much of America's 19th century development was down to British investments...having a Britain-hostile US would probably not have been profitable for the UK. (16)
Trusting the US though, means that are consequences. Maybe no Lend-Lease, for instance.
Couldn't in any world really be better. Any ATL is bound to be worse for both America and Britain in the long run. I voted worse for Britain only because they don't have the protections of two oceans that the USA does.
A high degree of British appeasement of American interests and power becomes apparent at least from the late 19th century, even if this only reached full flower in the middle 20th century.
What if Britain tried to hold on much more strongly to its relative military, naval, diplomatic, and economic power compared with the United States over this time. Would Britain be a greater power today in all those spheres, or not?
What appeasement are we talking about?
What appeasement are we talking about?
2) VERY ATL. Britain's foreign policy post-William the Conqueror was always to back the second most powerful nation on the Continent, so that the most powerful could not threaten Britain herself. Every time Britain went to war on the Continent, it was against the Great Land Power of the time, with a major ally on the Continent to support Britain's own small army.
Generalise much? An alternative interpretation is Britain habitually backed any continental power that went up against the French - not actually correct, but equally as valid. I recall there were at least 3 wars against [that continental powerhouse] the Netherlands in the 16th C.
I find it curious the assumption Britain could never tolerate any nation (specifically Germany) economically dominating continental Europe, yet OTL over the course of WW1 & 2, Britain handed its world empire and financial independence to the US.
It would have been much cheaper to appease Willy in the late 19th century with glamorous boat rides, fancy uniforms and a few worthless colonies - perhaps in South America...
Ya. 'Appeasement' is a very, very loaded word. I almost reported it as offensive.
I'm not sure why people have a problem with the term appeasement, given it's been used in a historiographical context to describe this policy.I think I even remember thinking, "hey, the OP wouldn't use such an absurdly overblown word, would he?"
I'm not sure why people have a problem with the term appeasement, given it's been used in a historiographical context to describe this policy.
Try "I'm not sure why people have a problem with the symbol Swastika, given it's been used ..."
You don't seem to have understood my point. I understand that appeasement has taken on a pejorative sense since the 1930s just as clearly as I understand why people have a problem with swastikas. What I don't understand is why anybody get offended by a post which describes a policy of appeasement as appeasement (to the point of considering reporting that post), any more than I can understand someone being offended by the swastikas on a two-thousand year old Buddhist temple.Try "I'm not sure why people have a problem with the symbol Swastika, given it's been used ..."
There's this, as well:
The Confederate Flag is just a symbol of states rights... Yeah, and the Swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm.
—Robin Williams Live on Broadway (2002)
Best
Well, no disrespect intended for the recently deceased, but the "Swastika" is just a Tibetan good luck charm. The Nazis used the Hakenkreuz as their symbol, which is a bit differrent in appearence than the "Swastika".
Well, no disrespect intended for the recently deceased, but the "Swastika" is just a Tibetan good luck charm. The Nazis used the Hakenkreuz as their symbol, which is a bit differrent in appearence than the "Swastika".
Yeah, but...there's a reason the 45th Infantry Division used this patch:
Best,