Interesting AH ideas that aren't commonly used

Spain being a great power in the 19th century and beyond is pretty rare I think. Also, perhaps more countries, than the usual ones, gaining Nukes seem to be pretty rare. Republican Japan and larger/stronger Arab States. I think in general, it's pretty rare to even see discussion about any country in Latin America, Africa, and Asia( not including East Asia) being stronger and more influential than they are in OTL. Same is true of Iberia and the Balkans. And also France. Honestly, when I think about, I don't think there are that many threads that involve any discussion of nation outside of America, Britain, Germany, and the USSR being stronger in terms of power and influence in an alternate timeline. Also, timelines that talk about fashion, j feel like that's barely talked about at all.
 
Now let me flip it & ask one I came across some years ago: WI Spain had settled *Oz? IIRC, the argument went, it was a lot like Spain, so settlers would adapt easily, & TTL Oz would end up with a much larger population.:cool:
I doubt that, given that if we look at the Western Hemisphere, it is striking how the most nutrient-rich regions of that hemisphere were colonised by the Spanish, and Australia is by far the most oligroptrophic (nutrient-poor) extant continent (though likely the closest to most continents over geological time). Thus, although Spain is ecologically less different from Australia than any other part of Europe – relatively arid with variable runoff – I do not see the Spanish settling Australia.

However, I have imagined an alternate timeline where Spain’s Iberian rival, Portugal, colonised Australia – and also New Zealand. Portuguese colonies in Africa and the Western Hemisphere tended towards the oligoptrophic, which makes them more likely to take Australia and, given that New Zealand is less eutrophic than the hypereutrophic Southern Cone, it is not beyond me to imagine a Portuguese New Zealand as well.

As I might have hinted at in some past posts, I imagine that, whereas the actual British Australia was an early democratiser, a Portuguese-colonised Australia would remain wholly authoritarian and powerfully Catholic even today and even at Australia’s present income levels. Because the large landlords under a Portuguese Australia would very likely have controlled the state, there would have been no opportunity to democratise early on, and there would have been much less pressure than in Portugal or Brazil from the lower classes.

Indeed, apart from being Catholic instead of Muslim and much less alien to the democratic West, a Portuguese Australia would likely have shown up some of its resemblance to the Gulf States I have hinted at in some recent posts. Given that in Europe the Catholic Church was strongly hostile to democracy right up to Vatican II, I can imagine that a Portuguese-colonised Australia would have evolved into a monarchy or monarchical federation, likely of large pastoral landholders, and would have been implacably hostile to any demands for democracy abroad. This monarchy would have been equally opposed to the social reforms that have swept Europe, East Asia and the Americas since the 1960s (though supported much earlier by the urban working classes).

As for New Zealand, if it became a Portuguese colony its natural resource poverty would likely have made it analogous to the Central American nations began as mercantilist colonies. Probably in modern times New Zealand with a Portuguese colonial history would be a very poor nation for its latitude as it would likely have been made up of large estates holding extreme political power and unable to expand.
However, what if the Dutch do settle southern Australia? Why would not they suffer the same New Amsterdam/New York/South Africa/Boer Republic outcome?
Once Australia is controlled even from an extremity, it is very difficult to dislodge the “owner” from this control, and because Australia is a land of extreme “connectedness” (much higher than that of China) if the Dutch established permanent settlements they would likely hold the country permanently.

Given the history of the Boers’ relationships with native peoples in colonial Africa whereby they excluded them much more fully from public life than even British-colonised America did with free people of color, I have thought a Dutch Australia would have evolved – à la Kuwait, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates – into a nation with a very small and rigidly restricted citizen population and a much larger expatriate population divided into skilled and unskilled subgroups and with rigid laws against acquiring citizenship. How such a system would have evolved is not clear, but I might say that Australia would have demanded independence once demands for democratisation in the Netherlands itself became overwhelming, and would not likely have modernised such a system of labour control.

Likely a Dutch-colonised Australia would have not been that different from actual Australia when it came to the major wars fought over the globe in the twentieth century. In World War I, I imagine Australia might not have been involved if they had been granted independence by this time. With a Dutch base in Indonesia as well as Australia, they would have certainly resisted Japanese expansion and having both lands controlled by the same power could certainly mean a more rapid withdrawal by Japan.
Anything involving Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. A Gaddafi-esque figure coming to power there would reek havoc in world politics.
There was some such possibility in the era of King Saud in Saudi Arabia. If for some reason the Wahhabi clerics had been more resistant to the importation of foreign labour, it is certainly possible that the House of Saud could have been overthrown around the time the monarchy in Libya was. There are certainly risks of such an overthrow whether it attempted to modernise Saudi Arabia or not, given the history of Gaddhafi’s Libya and of Osama bin Laden.
 

McPherson

Banned
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Once Australia is controlled even from an extremity, it is very difficult to dislodge the “owner” from this control, and because Australia is a land of extreme “connectedness” (much higher than that of China) if the Dutch established permanent settlements they would likely hold the country permanently.

China, currently, is not "connected" in any cohesive sense as inferred. Its regionalism and ethnic diversity is rather akin of that of any large continental sized nation. One might more accurately describe it as a top down controlled orthogonal oligarchic gerontocracy with an imposed ideology and identity that is a temporary state of equilibrium outside the Han core. Even at the Han core, just as the Mason Dixon line (or Ohio River, it depends on the anthropologist) is a cultural cleave line in the United States, so there are the "Northern Chinese" and "Southern Chinese" with a similar cleave line at roughly the Yellow River that changes over the centuries north or south a few hundred kilometers north or south of that river valley; depending on who conquers whom in the 300 year yo-yo.

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Given the history of the Boers’ relationships with native peoples in colonial Africa whereby they excluded them much more fully from public life than even British-colonised America did with free people of color, I have thought a Dutch Australia would have evolved – à la Kuwait, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates – into a nation with a very small and rigidly restricted citizen population and a much larger expatriate population divided into skilled and unskilled subgroups and with rigid laws against acquiring citizenship. How such a system would have evolved is not clear, but I might say that Australia would have demanded independence once demands for democratisation in the Netherlands itself became overwhelming, and would not likely have modernised such a system of labour control.

Boer Africa is a much closer comparison to Australia after the British take over. Consider Canadian history (Quebec) as another startling parallel... But let us stick with the Boer example. Notice the British incursions and operations?

Background and detail on the Boer War.

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Likely a Dutch-colonised Australia would have not been that different from actual Australia when it came to the major wars fought over the globe in the twentieth century. In World War I, I imagine Australia might not have been involved if they had been granted independence by this time. With a Dutch base in Indonesia as well as Australia, they would have certainly resisted Japanese expansion and having both lands controlled by the same power could certainly mean a more rapid withdrawal by Japan.

Now let us look at Australia. First population islands...

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I have covered why the Americans descended upon Australia in force in WW II in 1942 and why the Battle of the Coral Sea would have been inevitable and should rank in importance in that WWII struggle as possibly as significant as Jutland did in WW I in that it did not guarantee Allied victory so much as it ABSOLUTELY ensured Japanese defeat and for exactly the same reasons as Jutland did for Germany in WW I. Australia was the last barrier west of the Hawaiian Islands and in 1942, just about the same magnitude a problem, militarily for Japan. it would have been 5 divisions lift with the main objective the southeast coast between Brisbane and Melbourne.

WHY? Well it comes down to population distribution and railroads.
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(Note in 1942, there was no railroad between Alice Springs and Darwin, just a single lane dirt track that was impassible during the rainy season along the final 150 km south of Darwin. The current major east west trunklines into the eastern interior north of Perth did not exist either. McP.)

One should read my detailed account and analysis of these factors in ...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided of how Australia fits into WW II. Australia was vital, and primary in the strategic, especially logistical sense, for Allied recovery in the Pacific for at least 1941-1944 and still most important (submarine warfare especially) I argue through to the bitter end as a logistics platform and a primary allied power, and would have been involved in the war, whether it wanted or not. It most assuredly did not want to be involved as did not the Philippine Islands, but the Japanese had other ideas.

I doubt that, given that if we look at the Western Hemisphere, it is striking how the most nutrient-rich regions of that hemisphere were colonised by the Spanish, and Australia is by far the most oligroptrophic (nutrient-poor) extant continent (though likely the closest to most continents over geological time). Thus, although Spain is ecologically less different from Australia than any other part of Europe – relatively arid with variable runoff – I do not see the Spanish settling Australia.

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Perhaps I am missing something?

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Perhaps I am missing something?
You definitively are missing something. Most decisively, how those with any experience working with Australian soils know “Soil Taxonomy” as utterly inadequate to deal with the unique characteristics of Australian soils vis-à-vis any other Quaternary landmass. Irrespective of classification by “Soil Taxonomy”’s unsuitable criteria, Australian soils are:
  1. vastly older
    1. by four-and-a-half orders of magnitude (as I noted in an earlier post) relative to soils in Europe, East Asia and all the Western Hemisphere except Brazil and the Guianas
    2. by at least two orders of magnitude relative to most other tropical regions
    3. not externally enriched – as African soils are to some extent – by dust fallout from deserts or oceanic islands
    4. this is because Australia lies upwind of all nearby oceanic islands and far from major dust plumes in Central Asia and Lake Chad
  2. deficient by up to two orders of magnitude in phosphorus, sulfur and chalcophile micronutrients.
One might more accurately describe it as a top down controlled orthogonal oligarchic gerontocracy with an imposed ideology and identity that is a temporary state of equilibrium outside the Han core. Even at the Han core, just as the Mason Dixon line (or Ohio River, it depends on the anthropologist) is a cultural cleave line in the United States, so there are the "Northern Chinese" and "Southern Chinese" with a similar cleave line at roughly the Yellow River that changes over the centuries north or south a few hundred kilometers north or south of that river valley; depending on who conquers whom in the 300 year yo-yo.
However, as Jared Diamond noted, the “Han core” – which was what I meant by “China” in this context – has had a tendency for consistent unity ever since the formation of the first imperial Chinese state. This is due to the ease of movement along the hypereutrophic alluvial plains of the Han core region.

Australia is much more extreme in its natural unity than even the Han core. Away from the small section occupied by coastal rivers, Australia is, in essence – read Mary E. White’s Running Down: Water in a Changing Landone single extremely flat floodplain. Because rainfall over Australia is extremely variable and – excluding the “south-facing” coastal areas from North West Cape around to Fraser Island – exceptionally spatially coherent, almost all the continent’s land area experiences its rare extreme floods almost simultaneously, with lag times of no more than five months. Such conditions naturally produce human societies that cooperate to an exceptional degree over the whole continent, even though the above-mentioned “south-facing” areas hold most of Australia’s present population. A dramatic example can be seen when Aborigines offered food relief to neighboring groups affected by the long droughts that dominate Australia’s climate.
 

McPherson

Banned
1. I was talking about SPAIN when you claimed the Spanish settled the most fertile regions of the Western hemisphere. I knew that could be wrong, hence why I addressed the Spanish topic with the helpful cartography and asked my question.
2. I suggest you might read my war analysis of the Australia problem to understand exactly where you went wrong, there. YMMV and it should, but there are a lot of things besides pre-existing soil chemistry that go into 20th Australian agriculture and its impact on the Australian biome. For example I KNOW that Australia and Japan mined coral reefs to obtain nitrates and phosphates, precisely because the soil chemistry in their limited arable regions required the materials as soil enrichers and they knew it. The Japanese planned to conquer those very coral reefs in their next naval operations had they won at Coral Sea and Midway, because their agriculture had been cut off from these British Empire controlled resources by the United States Navy as a strategic operational action. IOW, this ain't my first rodeo on Pacific War logistics or what Pacific and East Asian nations did and do. I know why these things happened in WW II both from the Japanese and American perspectives and from Australia's perspective, too.
3. Same goes for China. There was a north/(Mao);south(Chiang) cleave at work in this early 20th century era. The Han were divided as they usually are by regionalisms and local political and economic interests. You can trace it through their history, thus:


VERY simplified.


Australia is much more extreme in its natural unity than even the Han core. Away from the small section occupied by coastal rivers, Australia is, in essence – read Mary E. White’s Running Down: Water in a Changing Landone single extremely flat floodplain. Because rainfall over Australia is extremely variable and – excluding the “south-facing” coastal areas from North West Cape around to Fraser Island – exceptionally spatially coherent, almost all the continent’s land area experiences its rare extreme floods almost simultaneously, with lag times of no more than five months. Such conditions naturally produce human societies that cooperate to an exceptional degree over the whole continent, even though the above-mentioned “south-facing” areas hold most of Australia’s present population. A dramatic example can be seen when Aborigines offered food relief to neighboring groups affected by the long droughts that dominate Australia’s climate.

As for Australia... it is a complex of coastal settlements (roughly four groups as seen above) separated by a hard harsh to travel desert down to the 1940s. Most communication with the north and west settlements was by SHIP. This was why the New Guinea campaign was so hard and operations in western Australia north of Perth was rendered impossible. All, and I mean ALL communication north of Cooktown in the east, the only feasible axis of advance, in that grim era was by ship and plane, because the railroads stopped there.

Political unity in Australia, actually cleaved into three distinct identifiable regions; (North, West and Southeast) is still based on those logistics and geographical terrain facts, which continues down to the present. Rainfall and flood plain has nothing to do with it at all, except as it limits a modern urban bureaucratic state's sustainable human biomes. (See Maps (^^^)).

Modern Australia is a curious great nation. Even into what should be the homogenous transport unified southeast coast there is a distinct regionalisms at work..

McP.
 
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There are plenty of TLs which begin with a premise which has been used by many, or have ideas in the TL which again aren't that creative. But are there AH ideas which are plausible, but aren't commonly used (or in some cases, not used at all)?
What If the Hominid Red Deer Cave people in China survive even longer ?
 
There are plenty of TLs which begin with a premise which has been used by many, or have ideas in the TL which again aren't that creative. But are there AH ideas which are plausible, but aren't commonly used (or in some cases, not used at all)?
What If the remaining Irish out of gratitude for Ottoman shipments convert to Islam to some degree after the famine ?
 

xsampa

Banned
Some dystopias:
  • The Pacific under fascist America
  • Indonesia under fascist American rule
  • German (2nd reich) mittelafrika
 
An Arab state being created out of Mandatory Palestine in addition to a Jewish one... and surviving, at least for a time. Think of the butterflies it would cause.
 
Boer Africa is a much closer comparison to Australia after the British take over. Consider Canadian history (Quebec) as another startling parallel... But let us stick with the Boer example. Notice the British incursions and operations?
Given that the Boers were even more opposed than (at least early) American settlers to citizenship for non-Whites, what I have to happen if the Dutch did colonise Australia imagined is that, in point form:
  1. the Dutch would take control of the whole of Australia once they establish permanent settlement
  2. at least once the first minerals are discovered, they would be short of labour
  3. they would have much less labour back home to export than did the British, and much less native labour than in South Africa
  4. the Dutch would find the use of non-White labour cheaper than White labour, but as noted above would be absolutely and intransigently opposed to giving these labourers citizenship rights or even the possibility of obtaining citizenship
    • if the British did take over, they could still continue a policy of expatriate (non-White) labour if they thought it cheaper than importing potentially-citizen labour from Europe
  5. ultimately Australia’s unique abundance of mineral resources would make a system of a largely expatriate population with extremely restricted citizenship self-sustaining as it is in today’s Gulf States
Regarding your point about Australia in World War Two, I am sorry to say I have never fully grasped your point and how it would be different with a Dutch-colonised Australia.
Have we ever had Italy as part of victorious central powers in WWI?
Not so far as I know, but it is an extremely logical alternate possibility given Italy “changed sides” less than a decade before World War I broke out. The result of such an occurrence could potentially be a stalled or slowed democratisation of Europe, especially if there was no Bolshevik Revolution (although I cannot rule out the first Communist revolution occurring in China or even India). The continent might have been in a more stable state under such conditions, as might Africa if it where wholly under Central Powers rule and less money was diverted by Europe’s vast welfare states. Larger-scale land ownership in Africa by European landlords might even have become a possibility after an Italy-supported Central Powers triumph, whilst Britain and France would have become more and more tied to the Scandinavian nations and New Zealand.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Many who joined the Taiping Rebellion where not Christians, or cared for Christianity, or for Hong Xiuquan madness. They all wanted 3 things: The Qing to be gone, land to farm, and rice to eat.

You still run the strong chance of China fragmenting. ( Xinjiang and Mongolia, Guizhou.)

Or even have the British help the anti-Qing rebellion.
I'm sure you could have said that in 1913 Russia. Not many there were communists, but a lost war, disruption of the economy. Lack of food as well, makes many people seek out radicals for a chance of a future. I'm sure the Chinese peasants and Russians would have suffered in common way
 

McPherson

Banned
Given that the Boers were even more opposed than (at least early) American settlers to citizenship for non-Whites, what I have to happen if the Dutch did colonise Australia imagined is that, in point form:
  1. the Dutch would take control of the whole of Australia once they establish permanent settlement
  2. at least once the first minerals are discovered, they would be short of labour
  3. they would have much less labour back home to export than did the British, and much less native labour than in South Africa
  4. the Dutch would find the use of non-White labour cheaper than White labour, but as noted above would be absolutely and intransigently opposed to giving these labourers citizenship rights or even the possibility of obtaining citizenship
    • if the British did take over, they could still continue a policy of expatriate (non-White) labour if they thought it cheaper than importing potentially-citizen labour from Europe
  5. ultimately Australia’s unique abundance of mineral resources would make a system of a largely expatriate population with extremely restricted citizenship self-sustaining as it is in today’s Gulf States
Regarding your point about Australia in World War Two, I am sorry to say I have never fully grasped your point and how it would be different with a Dutch-colonised Australia.

What economic incentive do the Dutch have, again? Minerals? The place started as a British convict dump for a reason because it was the backend of nowhere offering nothing at first sight. Things take a while, almost a hundred years to get going as the Australians, not the British, not the Dutch, not anybody else, get themselves organized and figure themselves out. They bootstrapped UP without much help from anyone but themselves. Not even the US can claim that.
 

kernals12

Banned
A more successful Protestant Reformation.
If it were to succeed in Bavaria, it would probably give us an earlier unification of Germany with the lack of religious fissures.
If it were to succeed in Poland-Lithuania, it would impact the culture of the Great Lakes region, which received a large number of Polish immigrants IOTL
If it were to succeed in the Southern Netherlands, Belgium probably wouldn't exist today
If it were to succeed in Ireland, well you know
If it were to succeed in France, it would mean an earlier rise to constitutional governance
If it were to succeed in Spain, Latin America today would be unrecognizable
 
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