AH Challenge: More Pro-Colonial Rule Revolts

Why is AH so goddamn pro-colonial anyways? Is there any "WW2 avoided" TL here with proper decolonisation?

The bread and butter of AH is making things different and it's one of the big things, like Germany winning one of the wars, Soviet in present day and CSA. It even comes with a different set of names for places (Liberville, Standleyville, Ferdinad Po...).

Beyond that, at least I find the era romantic in a pulpy sort of way. The adventures. Cool uniforms. To me, it's some people feel for battleships.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Eh. The fall of empires designed for the profit of alien states that had little policy of internal development seems destined to failure.

(Honestly, the Japanese had more impressive economic performance in Manchukuo than the British had anywhere outside of the settler states).

I was thinking about Africa, while most colonies was disasters in the first post colonial periode, most of them in Asia has stabilised as funktionel developing states today, while most of the African ones hasn't, the extra years give the locales a chance to get extra infrastructure and getting more locales in the adminstration, which mean that they keep a more stable adminstrative apparature after the decolonisation. The first post-colonial decades will still be hell, but likely we see a few African Lions (the African equalant to the Asian Tigers), when globalisation grow stronger.

P.S. Manchukuo was a Japanese settlercolony also:p
 
I was thinking about Africa, while most colonies was disasters in the first post colonial periode, most of them in Asia has stabilised as funktionel developing states today, while most of the African ones hasn't, the extra years give the locales a chance to get extra infrastructure and getting more locales in the adminstration, which mean that they keep a more stable adminstrative apparature after the decolonisation.

The objection I have is, "Wait, what extra infrastructure?"

The British colonies, after all, were run on the cheap and often developed to keep "regressive" elements in positions of power, like chieftains and the like. Education was underdeveloped in the African colonies, which were run by a triflingly small number of administrators; something like 9,000 people ran Britain's non-settler colonies in Africa, for instance.

This is why I think comparison to the Asian Tigers is off. And let's remember that of the Asian Tigers, the only ones run by European powers were entrepot city-states. Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are conspicuous by their absence from the list.

Regarding Manchukuo: It was in theory a settler colony; in practice, with hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrating in each year versus a few thousand Japanese... well.
 
Because WWII hurried the decolonisation along, through it would no doubt have happend anyway, just at a later point in time. And I don't that as bad, it would have given some colony adminstrations a oppotunity to get proper control over the entire country, and likely have resulted in more stable post-colonial states. Of course some was a lost cause anyway like DR Congo.

I think the idea that WW2 sped upt he process seems overplayed. This might be true in some places, like Indonesia and Vietnam, but the rest? Nationalism in the Arab world was present before the 1920s. Africa was having trouble in the 30s... and so forth. The endogenous factors that led to the war will still be there. What isn't there is a continent that was broke and divided in a war that in many was was the logical culmination of the motives that led to imperialism. But I am wondering if Britain can really fight a Vietnam like war across a continent.
 
I think the impact of world war two on racial ideas and the idea of what "evil" is percieved as is often underplayed. Following the holocaust the idea of states with openly racist politics were in the medium term doomed. An Empire which does not have an inherent belief in the superiority of the ruling people can not survive, and WW2 destroyed this idea for most of the western elites.
With no world war two a possible point of departure is if the mass murders in the Soviet empire became widely known. If the idea that communism and revolution always leads to mass murder replaces oot idea that racism is the greatest evil then pro-colonial uprisings become a possibility, why would a local elite and its power structure want to go the way of the Tsar or the French aristocracy? If an Imperial place guarantees that elites status, and independence offers the spectre of revolutionary massacre, then it becomes fairly feasible. Particularly as knowledge of the man made famines in the USSR makes indpendence as dangerous to the poorest as to the elites. A broadly middle class based revolt and declaration of independence, particualraly if portrayable as communist backed could result in a counter pro-colonial coup if the laternative is seen as bleak enough.
 
The objection I have is, "Wait, what extra infrastructure?"

Well they got a lot more infrastructure than they would have done without colonisation.

The British colonies, after all, were run on the cheap and often developed to keep "regressive" elements in positions of power, like chieftains and the like. Education was underdeveloped in the African colonies, which were run by a triflingly small number of administrators; something like 9,000 people ran Britain's non-settler colonies in Africa, for instance.

When you say developed I hope you mean they developed that way rather than was intended to produce that effect. As you say the laisse faire attitude in Britain meant they sought to rule with the minimum cost and also intended impact on the local societies.

The alternative approach of far more European intervention, with detailed European control as shown in the French and German colonies doesn't seem to have had a much better impact.

Steve
 
As with Anguilla, have more countries rebel in favour of being ruled by a European country.

The present day Republic of Santo Domingo, in the Eastern part of La Hispaniola island. I think that at some point in the XIX century it rebelled against those who ruled her and ask to be reincorporated to Spain's domain. I think it was after they were able to "liberate" themselves from Haitian rule, but I'm not sure. They were effectively reincorporated to Spain, and where a Spanish colony till 1869, IIRC.
 
Well they got a lot more infrastructure than they would have done without colonisation.

What's the counter-evidence? After all, it's not like Britain was laying thousands of miles of track in Africa; and even in India, the railways were of marginal utility, financed to guarantee a profit to Britain investors because the Empire in India would subsidize railroads, if necesary.

When you say developed I hope you mean they developed that way rather than was intended to produce that effect. As you say the laisse faire attitude in Britain meant they sought to rule with the minimum cost and also intended impact on the local societies.

It was a bit of a mix; Britain's record on primary education, in India and Africa, was simply atrocious.

(Compare even the American success in the Philippines, or Japanese success in its empire. But the Philippines had a host of other problems, and Japan was... Japan.)

The alternative approach of far more European intervention, with detailed European control as shown in the French and German colonies doesn't seem to have had a much better impact.

Sure, I freely admit all of the European states did a terrible job. :D
 
What's the counter-evidence? After all, it's not like Britain was laying thousands of miles of track in Africa; and even in India, the railways were of marginal utility, financed to guarantee a profit to Britain investors because the Empire in India would subsidize railroads, if necesary.

Factually inaccurate. Given the governmental attitude at the time that's not going to happen. You need a far more interventionist government, like that in the US. There were military reasons for parts of them and probably political in terms of interaction with some of the native states.

The counter-evidence is blindingly obvious. If Africa for instance stays wracked by tribal war, slavery both local and Muslim organised, arbitary rule etc you can tell how much investment there will be.


Sure, I freely admit all of the European states did a terrible job. :D

So your unhappy with leaving the areas undeveloped, low intensity colonisation in the British model, more intensive continental colonisation and presumably also the more brutal American/German version. What would you be happy with?

Steve
 
Factually inaccurate. Given the governmental attitude at the time that's not going to happen.

I don't see why it's factually inaccurate.

You need a far more interventionist government, like that in the US. There were military reasons for parts of them and probably political in terms of interaction with some of the native states.

True, but a big part of it was cost. Let's not forget at the end of the day these were empires, devoted to making a profit for Britain, France, etc.

(Whether they did or not doesn't change the fact that it did.)

The counter-evidence is blindingly obvious. If Africa for instance stays wracked by tribal war, slavery both local and Muslim organised, arbitary rule etc you can tell how much investment there will be.

Hrmm. If you get rid of Muslim, this sounds a lot like Africa into the 1910s, under the Europeans. The Belgian Congo, the nigh-slavery in Kenya...

So your unhappy with leaving the areas undeveloped, low intensity colonisation in the British model, more intensive continental colonisation and presumably also the more brutal American/German version. What would you be happy with?

Steve

Well, Taiwan turned out pretty well...
 
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