AHC: Anglo-Japanese Alliance in the 1880s

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
The challenge is to create the conditions to bring an Anglo-Japanese alliance into being in the 1880s. Give a target for the alliance, eg. Russia, the US, Germany. Give potential flashpoints, eg. the Samoan Civil War. Give a catalyst, eg. Spain being selling its possessions to Germany (but you would need to provide a compelling reason for why Spain would do that).
 

Flubber

Banned
Phew... this is a tough one because we're looking at worldwide changes...

You're going to need an 1880s Japan worth allying with. That means a Japan which was both opened sooner and modernized sooner.

You're going to needs an 1880s Britain which needs or believes it needs allies. That means a Britain which feels less secure either at home, in it's colonial possessions, or both.

You're going to need a very, very different 1880s and a POD which reaches back further than that. A spat over Samoa or a Spanish yard sale isn't going to be enough.
 
Better chinese performance in the Opium wars could potentially accomplish all those things. THAT is tough to achieve by itself.

I'll give it a shot. What if The Heavenly Kingdom never tries to take Shanghai, never gets their army torn to shreds by the Brits artillery. They survive and attempt to modernize their military and centralize government control with modest success. They wreak havoc on opium production and generally act like a massive thorn in the side of British Asia and aids a faster collapse of the Qing.

Meanwhile in North America...
Lincoln dies early, defeat at antietam, worse draft riots, border states all join the CSA, everything that can go wrong for the Union does. Stonewall Jackson goes on a pillaging spree through D.C, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that puts OTL's Sherman to shame. He tears up all the railroads, burns the crops and salts the earth. Out west the Sioux take advantage of the tattered union supply lines and pull off a victory of their own, cutting off nearly all northward movement of Americans.
Dystopic USA means a few things; no Seward's purchase, The Russians stick around long enough to find their gold and rush to populate Alaska. Most alaskans end up being from Finland, the Ukraine, Belarus, or the Baltic.
A border dispute over gold mining areas on the Alaska/Yukon border sours Russo-British relations.
New England experiences a third great awakening of evangelical protestantism largely due to the vast numbers of organized widows. Boston swells many times it's size due to the influx of refugees. The union victory was won almost entirely by soldiers from New EnglandThe evangelicals believe the war accomplished nothing.
I'll also make the Mormons anti-polygamy so they gain a larger following. Joseph Smith decides to settle in the Colorado river basin and has access to lots of silver as a result, lots of ex confederates move there for the Silver. The result is a bigger but less Mormon state of Deseret which is much closer to southern California.
Reconstruction is even less successful than OTL, public perception is that the war did nothing to improve the quality of negro life in the country. The North doesn't look any more attractive than the south in this world, divert a large percentage of the post-war black migration to the south-west instead. Massive loss in life and infrastructure makes Americans lose faith in government authority, everyone believes the Union only won by the skin of their teeth. This seems to me the perfect environment for breeding a healthy and robust communist revolution! How about William Taft's family leaves his wartorn home in Ohio and moves to England. His father gets a good positon running a textile mill or something and they decide to stay in London rather than return to the hellhole America has become. William gets mocked at boarding school for being a fat posh american and grows a deep disdain for the upperclass which he is a part of. He hangs around in a lot London coffee shops during his young adulthood and meets Karl Marx.
Commie Taft moves to New York around 1879. There was already a strong socialist movement growing and he provides the spunk and the leadership to increase membership tenfold. By the mid 80's red sentiment is spreading wildly. A supreme court unsympathetic to labor movements makes this worse.
In 1894 he Pullman strike is about fifty times worse, a massacre ensues killing lots of innocents. Soon every industrial city in the middle portion of the country is experiencing rebellion. Commie Taft, Eugene Debs, and Robert LaFollette all work tirelessly to topple the bourgeois. After a few years of fighting the Reds are losing ground.
At this point the USA decides to go back on the Silver standard. This causes uproar in Deseret who's residents believe that silver to be theirs, the public consensus is that Deseret citizens should not have to finance the wars of a nation they barely feel part of. The turning point of the war happens when the Deseret militia take it on their own to finally defeat the Plains indians after being raided for years. The Republic of Deseret secedes from the union in 1902.
A similar situation occurs in New England which is now just as conservative and religious as the middle states are radical. They've been fighting rebels from the countries midsection to ease the pressure off the southern states, this seems incredibly backwards to many people. The populace will not support any continued fighting to preserve the southern way of life at the expense of New English lives. Many churches organize to prevent the conscription and mobilization of any more New England boys. New England secedes from the Union in 1903.
A border dispute over gold mining areas on the Alaska/Yukon causes a skirmish where 10 men and a horse die, Russo-British relations are soured. The issue becomes a drawn out struggle with escalating attacks from either side, mostly just miners and fur trappers. Alaska is a lot more populated in this world, but not by Russians. The alaskans develop their own distinct cultural identity during the years they are staring down the British threat.

Due to screwed USA the Americans don't open up western relations to Japan, the British do. In the Russo-Japanese war. The Japanese do not win as decisively on land as they do at sea. The fight over Port Arthur becomes an extended siege with huge casualties on both sides. After they sink the baltic fleet the Japanese take advantage of their naval superiority and invade Russian alaska to boost public support. The succeed initially, but commit atrocities in their occupation. The Alaskan independence movement uses guerilla tactics to kick the japanese from the land they were raised in. The Alaskans seem to have a good chance at winning. The brits are now in a tough spot, they want alaska without ruining their great relations with Japan. In accordance the British sign an agreement wherein they will increase pressure on Russia and force them to give up Korea, in return the Japanese will leave Alaska to the UK.
Balkanized US makes the british extremely paranoid, they lose their ally in the pacific and have a whole new host of problems in North America to deal with. Japan seems a lot more attractive in comparison to anyone else at this point.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
^But the Anglo-Japanese alliance was signed in 1902. You've gone to a lot more trouble to achieve what was achieved OTL, only slightly later, and haven't met the challenge, which was an Anglo-Japanese alliance 20 years earlier than OTL.
 
^But the Anglo-Japanese alliance was signed in 1902. You've gone to a lot more trouble to achieve what was achieved OTL, only slightly later, and haven't met the challenge, which was an Anglo-Japanese alliance 20 years earlier than OTL.

I was more working based on the rule of cool, the challenge could certainly be reached in a more timely manner. That would deprive the multiverse of Commie Taft though, and that is unacceptable.
This alliance would be a lot more sustainable here I think. W/o a strong USA, Japan will probably fill the power vacuum in the pacific, maybe they get Spanish possessions much earlier. The British might think its easier to keep Japanese power in check by strengthening their alliance rather than antagonizing them.
 
Have the British open Japan instead of the US or Imp. Russia to Western influences and be instrumental in the Meiji reforms and modernization. With an improved and established Rappore with Imp. Japan..then alliance is doable in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of the late 1870's to counter increasing Russian influence. Imp. Japan being seen as a way of diverting Russian attentions somewhat eastward. Japanese focus can be directed at influence in Korea and the adjacent northern islands at this point.
 
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