While it is true that the Japanese has extensive trade with the rest of Asia, it seems to me that politically the nation stayed isolated most of the time, with things like the Imjin War being rare exceptions while most conflicts where all within Japan herself. I’m speaking of isolation on the sense that they stay uninvolved in the geopolitics of the continent, not the extreme of the Tokugawa Sakoku
AHC: Have the British Isles be Europe's Japan
- Thread starter Peppe
- Start date
Distance is one problem.
Another one is that South-East England, the most important part of British Isles is facing continental Europe, and some of the most important parts of Continental Europe face England. Note that the most important region of Korea, the closest nation to Japan faces China and Japan's most important region faces the Pacific.
So, moving the British capital region to somewhere else, for instance where Liverpool is located, would help too.
So Japan was very involved with mainland issues. You would have to be as far as Iceland in order to have made little to no connection, problem with that is that innovations and ideas wouldn't come to England, making it far behind everyone else. Unless that is what you want.
It's very hard to move the British capital region further away than the Midlands. Any sensible ruler needs a power base south of the Pennines, because the North of England is very hard to travel East-West, but easy to move North-South up both the East and West coasts.
I think there might be some merit in this idea. If a pagan state could be formed, and take over the whole of the island, and have the majority of the population adhere to a belief system to a similar degree to Shinto in Japan such that it becomes part of their cultural identity, you might be able to make Britain be considered not part of Europe. Especially if a few invasions fail and the British have little interest in the Continent. Perhaps a split in late-Roman times, with a rump pagan Empire being formed in Britannia in opposition to a Christian on on the mainland. Add a few generations of propaganda about Christians being agents of the userpers, and the Britannians being barbarians, and it could stick.
Let's ignore the fact that, as several have pointed out, Japan wasn't cut off from the rest of Asia and simply try to make an England that isn't integrated into Christendom/the European "republic".
What would it look like? Two examples come to mind; the muslim States on the borders of Europe - but these do not really count since they were part of their own cultural/political world and not "islands" are we are trying to make Britain - and Lithuania. The latter was a pagan State on the eastern fringes of Europe until the XIVth century, and although it did maintain some links with Europe, I think it is the most other-ness we can get in this scenario. Trade won't vanish and people will read books, and whatever changes we enact in history the Brits will keep some links with Europe.
Additionally, in early medieval Europe religion - shared faith and identity, networks of Church and learning, papal and imperial authority - were the most powerful cement of continental unity, so we need Britain to either never to convert or to relapse into paganism.
I think our best bets are either:
1) The Roman attempts at conquering the islands fail and resistance prompts an upsurge of "nationalism" and State-building. We end up with a mixture of Lithuania and Sassanind Persia, basically: particularist, stronk and fiercely anti-romans. Problem is, the roman invasions need to take place - else the Brits don't develop their particularism and end up integrated into the Roman world like OTL germany was - and fail. So we need the Romans to become incompetent, which they... weren't known for.
2) The Norse are more successful at conquering the islands in the Viking age, wiping out the Christian kingdoms in the South, and somehow do not convert to christianity. I find this one even more unlikely, because by this points there are already strong religious links with the rest of Christendom, a huge prestige for Christianity in the islands, and trade links. Basically our viking chieftains will see that they can either remain pagan, or get the support of these prestigious scholars in Canterbury, get to wear a piece of the roman mantle, have an opportunity to increase trade with the mainland and alliances there, and as a bonus get a tool versus their political adversaries, and they probably will go "hmmmmm."
What would it look like? Two examples come to mind; the muslim States on the borders of Europe - but these do not really count since they were part of their own cultural/political world and not "islands" are we are trying to make Britain - and Lithuania. The latter was a pagan State on the eastern fringes of Europe until the XIVth century, and although it did maintain some links with Europe, I think it is the most other-ness we can get in this scenario. Trade won't vanish and people will read books, and whatever changes we enact in history the Brits will keep some links with Europe.
Additionally, in early medieval Europe religion - shared faith and identity, networks of Church and learning, papal and imperial authority - were the most powerful cement of continental unity, so we need Britain to either never to convert or to relapse into paganism.
I think our best bets are either:
1) The Roman attempts at conquering the islands fail and resistance prompts an upsurge of "nationalism" and State-building. We end up with a mixture of Lithuania and Sassanind Persia, basically: particularist, stronk and fiercely anti-romans. Problem is, the roman invasions need to take place - else the Brits don't develop their particularism and end up integrated into the Roman world like OTL germany was - and fail. So we need the Romans to become incompetent, which they... weren't known for.
2) The Norse are more successful at conquering the islands in the Viking age, wiping out the Christian kingdoms in the South, and somehow do not convert to christianity. I find this one even more unlikely, because by this points there are already strong religious links with the rest of Christendom, a huge prestige for Christianity in the islands, and trade links. Basically our viking chieftains will see that they can either remain pagan, or get the support of these prestigious scholars in Canterbury, get to wear a piece of the roman mantle, have an opportunity to increase trade with the mainland and alliances there, and as a bonus get a tool versus their political adversaries, and they probably will go "hmmmmm."
To add to this, even during the sakoku Japan continued to interact with other Asian nations. Nagasaki had a large Chinese merchant population and trade there was from a purely economic perspective much more important than that conducted with the Dutch. Trade with the Ainu allowed Japan to connect to trade from Manchuria and Siberia. And the Shimazu clan through their vassals in the Ryukyu Kingdom allowed Japan to have one more additional link to China. Officially China had forbidden trade with Japan so having Ryukyuans acting as middlemen was very useful as it allowed Japan to link up with much more legimitate trade routes compared to Nagasaki trade which was technically illegal in China. Trade with China also allowed Japan to gain access to intellectual developments in China and the west too through Chinese translations of western books. Besides Ryukyu, the Tokugawa government also conducted diplomacy with Korea, the latter which sent 12 missions to Japan during the Edo Period. During this whole period, the Tsushima Island also continued to act as a trade link between Japan and Korea.
In general, recent scholarship has been trying to move away from the concept of sakoku, at least how it has been usually depicted, and move towards a more nuanced view of issue. Related what you say above, when people say that Japan was closed to foreigners except the Dutch, they actually mean it was closed to Westerners except the Dutch.
If we just take the sakoku and move the concept to Britain, this would essentially mean a situation where Britain would continue to trade with the continent but keep political relations at a relatively low level with some exceptions while heavily restricting access of non-European nations to the country. Which I am not sure really works or is what OP really wants to achieve so there probably needs to be some modifications to the AHC's aims to make this feasible.
1) At first 1 seems reasonable. Especially if Britain is the last Celtic-speaking region, which linguistically cuts it off even further from mainland Europe. But then, as you said, the likelihood of a single nation coalescing there capable of defending the island for a long period of time seems low. Not only were the Romans rarely incompetent about this sort of thing but they were persistant and vengeful. No defeat is too great to stop them from returning so big victory would be hard to repeat. And the odds were stacked in favor of the Romans here. I suppose if the Romans would have decided not to conquer the island , a local tribe became dominant and when the Romans later invaded, they might do so on a more limited basis.... Maybe then you could get an isolated Britain.
Shinto didn't exactly become a part of the "Japanese cultural identity" until the Tokugawa period
as an reaction to... Confucianism and Chinese cultural influence...
And the idea doesn't seem to have caught on until late in the period.
I recall the official conversion of Sweden being described in terms of "similar to joining the EU".
Isn't this close to "OTL with a different emphasis in the phrasing"?
The problem is, I believe roman pressure is needed to get tribes there to coalesce in the first place, at least in a form capable of withstanding an imperial assault. Sure enough, if the island is left alone some tribe might get ascendancy over the others and put together some kind of confederacy, but I don't believe they would get together the State institutions, the fiscal-military structures, needed to challenge Rome. In the best case, they would get something like Arminius' OTL germanic confederacy: tribes huddled together in a fragile alliance that might pull together enough forces to crush one roman army in a best-case scenario - but this would be their last mistake as the romans would immediately muster superior ressources to crush this resistance, as happened to Arminius.
OTL, it took the germanic peoples four centuries of near-constant roman pressure, with access to roman networks of trade, and contact with roman models, to develop consolidated and hierarchised proto-kingdoms capable of challenging Rome (granted Rome kept interfering to prevent the formation of such kingdoms, but this would happen to Britannia too anyway). Sassanid Persia did this more efficiently, after "only" the civil war that followed the Parthians' demise, but they were building on centuries of statecraft traditions and a vastly superior economic development level. And here we are hoping that a similar process of state-building and the constitution of an anti-roman mentality happens from a much lower level of development in a much shorter time, short enough for the Romans not to attract the Brits into their cultural and economical if not political orbit?
Of course, I'm following a simplistic linearist conception of statecraft here; in reality, state building isn't just progressing from tribes to chiefdoms to kingdoms into a full-fledged fiscal-military State following increasing levels of economic growth and institutional complexity allowing to support larger and more efficient armies. But still, there's something to that model. To beat the Romans at their own game, germanic peoples to some extent had to become like the Romans. They did not simply unleash their primitive tribal energy on the decadent romans or something. And from my point of view, if we want our alt-brits to develop a "national" consciousness and the military power necessary to resist attempts at invasion or assimilation from the Continent, we need them to "ascend" in Statecraft. A bunch of tribes on an island just cannot have roman influence bounce away from them.
So the most likely possibility I see is... hypocrisy. As in, adopting a lot of Rome's tools and institutions while claiming these are perfectly indigenous and not-at-all influenced by the continent. Let's say for some reason the Roman attempts at conquering Britain under Claudius are even more half-hearted than OTL, allowing the Brits to start consolidating and strenghtening; an uprising/reconquest à la OTL Boudicca then starts a protracted war between Rome and the Brits, during which the latter develop an ideology about them being special for some reason all the while stealing all they can from the roman toolbox. At this point, we need to have the roman screwing up massively for some reason - maybe by having the war break out shortly before the IIIrd century crisis in the Empire prevents them from sending reinforcements? And voilà, an island state which hates the roman and lived to tell the story.
Where did you read that? I cannot fully measure the historical accuracy of the claim, but I can see some likeness: giving up a limited measure of political independence in some fields in return for a massive economic boost and hugely increased political influence in other fields. A good bargain either way. Maybe, maybe we just need to make our ATL Brits dumb?
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Which incidentally...
...more or less...
...although I think that was after several centuries of accepting/admitting that it had come from the continent.
Documentary. Can't recall the title since I was zapping around and stumbled upon it. As I recall.
Possibly titled some variation of When Sweden Became Sweden, since the main thrust was
the unification of the Swedes and The Geats.
Which was described in as not dissimilar to a merger of two corporations, with Sweden being
the larger and internationally more known brand.
But, yeah, the economic benefits were emphasised.
The most plausible POD would be the continued influence of Insular Christianity (post c.600) and Anglo-Saxon-Celtic culture (post 1066 CE). I also think a continuation of Mediterranean primacy on the continent as opposed to a Franco-German centric powerbase would increase the likelihood of British cultural autonomy. This could be a surviving Western Roman Empire or a more likely Gothic Empire forged after c.400 that becomes the HRE of that ATL. The kingdoms of the Rhine and Central Europe remain smaller and focused on continental affairs while the British Isles and Scandinavia develop down there own path, influencing each other formostly.
Though I expect paganism in the British Isles is unfeasible after c.640 not withstanding the Viking Invasions of the 9th century, paganism in Scandinavia may last much longer...
Though I expect paganism in the British Isles is unfeasible after c.640 not withstanding the Viking Invasions of the 9th century, paganism in Scandinavia may last much longer...
Wouldn't a capital in North-West England work as a capital of the British Isles in which Ireland plays a greater role?
It's not a sensible position to be capital. To put down rebellion in the North East you would have to march down to the bottom of the Pennines and up the other side. It is also a long way from the agricultural heart of the country, which straddles the Midlands, East Anglia and the South East. If you want to center more on Ireland you would have a capital on the Severn.
Only if you have an weak navy and land fortifications, if not it is literally in the middle of the British Isles and I sincerely think it’d be a good nominal capital to an united archipelago (similar to how Kyoto was Japan’s capital but the center of power was in the Kanto Plain during the Shogunate)
To have a Japan in Great Britain, we can begin to have a neverending period of civil wars starting with the Wars of the Roses and continuing during 148 years as the Sengoku period (1467 to 1615).
You add to it wars with the Scots and the Irish, some religious wars, and an extensive naval wars of british pirates similar to the Japanese "Wokou" against the continental navies. At the end of this time, the British will only compete with the others Europeans in naval and colonial war across the Ocean.
At this point, the British are living under some kind of ultra conservative Puritan sect with its own model of government, a kind of very religious Republic. With a "social distancing" to the continent similar to the Amish...
You add to it wars with the Scots and the Irish, some religious wars, and an extensive naval wars of british pirates similar to the Japanese "Wokou" against the continental navies. At the end of this time, the British will only compete with the others Europeans in naval and colonial war across the Ocean.
At this point, the British are living under some kind of ultra conservative Puritan sect with its own model of government, a kind of very religious Republic. With a "social distancing" to the continent similar to the Amish...
Kyoto is nestled deep in an inlet that can be fortified. The Isle of Man is a pretty flat place that an army can invade across plenty of coastlines. Also, it can easily be blockaded.