AHC: Invasion of the British Isles

Just because Britain had a powerful navy in 1817 doesn't mean that she shall in 1900, especially as this was the Industrial Revolution and sailing ships were on the way out as is.

And the Industrial revolution was centered in Britain, so its not like the changing ships make much of a difference.
 
I don't think this is impossible, though a post-Trafalgar PoD is certainly challenging. IOTL the United Kingdom never faced a foe that was both near enough to it (that is to say, Western European) and also powerful enough to invade it. But if you change the sides of wars in some hypothetical ATL, that could change.

The issue of Alsace-Lorraine destroyed any prospect of a Franco-German alliance… but such an alliance (perhaps aimed at gaining British colonies) could have formed in some ATL where Germany never annexed Alsace-Lorraine or demanded harsh reparations from France and there wasn't some other incident (e.g. a very destructive several-year-long war) to cause recent bad blood between Germany and France. A Franco-German alliance could have out-built the UK navally—not before the launch of HMS Dreadnought or some equivalent (otherwise the UK has too much of an initial lead), but after it. It's pretty much the only force that could indisputably stand a good chance at invading the UK.

As for what scenario would bring that about, to pick the latest PoD I can, Austria does worse in the Second Schleswig War and gets the impetus to improve its army by the time the Austro-Prussian War comes around. Austria still does very badly against Prussia, but not as extraordinarily badly as it did IOTL, so an alarmed French Empire has time to intervene. After a long, nasty and bloody conflict, Austria marches into Prussia with French help, winning the war. The German Confederation becomes much more tightly bonded (and fixed under Austrian authority), to avoid states like Prussia breaking out on their own; however, it is still much less centralised than OTL's North German Confederation and later German Empire. There may or may not be a rump Kingdom of Prussia but it doesn't matter. The Franco-Russian Alliance is never formed, so the Anglo-French entente cordiale and the Anglo-Russian Convention (both results of the Franco-Russian Alliance) aren't formed either. Russia and the UK remain hostile, for obvious reasons. Germany (that is, the Austrian-led German Confederation) and Russia invade the Ottoman Empire in 1876 (IOTL Russia discussed this with Austria-Hungary, but Austria-Hungary, humiliated and unconfident of its ability to actually hold any new lands, refused), thus earning the enmity of the UK as both of them grab lots of land from the Ottomans. After some colonial conflicts, France chooses to side with Germany and Russia. There's a major naval arms race. In some WW1-equivalent caused by struggles in the Far East, South Asia or some other such theatre, the UK gets invaded.

That's a fairly hastily compiled five-minute scenario, and I'm sure you can all pick it apart in minutes, but it's a start.
 
The US didn't invade.

Best ask my granddad about that, apart of the fact that you can't anymore, he's no longer with us.
Bloody Jerrys, bloody Ities, bloody Russians now bloody Yanks. He wasn't over keen on the French.
He didn't mine the Poles or Czechs. However everyone else could bugger off.:p:D
 
1817 to 1945 , not realistically possible.

It would need absurd levels of handwavium ( a political revolution puts massively socialist government in power in the 1920s which unilaterally disarms and junks the navy and airforce); or an ASB event (meteor strike frex).

It actually gets harder once steam arrives. So long as ships relied on the vagaries of the wind, an invader might get lucky , with the Royal Navy trapped downwind and impotent to intervene (though the RN was of course aware of this and took steps to deal with it ). But once fleets were independent of the wind, the RN would always intercept

Consider the forces.

The countries with serious naval capability, close enough to engage:

France, 1817-whenever
Germany, about 1890-1918 and 1939 to 1945 (assuming world wars not butterflied away)
USA About 1880 to whenever
Spain 1817 to about 1850
Holland and Denmark not big enough in themselves, but useful makeweight.


Now, for most of the period, the RN was powerful enough to deal with any combination of these. Pre 1880ish it would have had to be France plus XX. And no XX would be enough.

About the only two possible periods and combinations would be around the Spanish American war, with UK for some incomprehensible reason allying with Spain against USA, and Germany and France both jumping in to declare war against UK. That would give USA, France, Germany (assuming German fleet as OTL) against UK, and Spain, for what the latter is worth. That might be a combination capable of taking out the RN.

The other possibility would be a *WWII combination of Germany and USA against UK (assuming France conquered as OTL)

The likelihood of either possibility I leave to the reader's discretion.
 
1817 to 1945 , not realistically possible.

It would need absurd levels of handwavium ( a political revolution puts massively socialist government in power in the 1920s which unilaterally disarms and junks the navy and airforce); or an ASB event (meteor strike frex).

It actually gets harder once steam arrives. So long as ships relied on the vagaries of the wind, an invader might get lucky , with the Royal Navy trapped downwind and impotent to intervene (though the RN was of course aware of this and took steps to deal with it ). But once fleets were independent of the wind, the RN would always intercept

Consider the forces.

The countries with serious naval capability, close enough to engage:

France, 1817-whenever
Germany, about 1890-1918 and 1939 to 1945 (assuming world wars not butterflied away)
USA About 1880 to whenever
Spain 1817 to about 1850
Holland and Denmark not big enough in themselves, but useful makeweight.


Now, for most of the period, the RN was powerful enough to deal with any combination of these. Pre 1880ish it would have had to be France plus XX. And no XX would be enough.

About the only two possible periods and combinations would be around the Spanish American war, with UK for some incomprehensible reason allying with Spain against USA, and Germany and France both jumping in to declare war against UK. That would give USA, France, Germany (assuming German fleet as OTL) against UK, and Spain, for what the latter is worth. That might be a combination capable of taking out the RN.

The other possibility would be a *WWII combination of Germany and USA against UK (assuming France conquered as OTL)

The likelihood of either possibility I leave to the reder's discrtion.

But you can't assume that the world wars remain the same. IOTL the UK never faced opponents capable of this; you have to change the sides in major wars, or else it's obviously impossible.

Put France and Germany on the same side and they have industrial capacity that significantly exceeds that of the UK, they no longer have to focus on building enormous armies to outmatch each other, and once dreadnoughts come along the UK's initial lead is wiped out, so this hypothetical Franco-German alliance can out-build the UK navally. They won't have virtually indisputable naval superiority over the UK as the UK did over Germany in both world wars, but give them some good luck in one important battle and they might manage to whittle down British numbers far enough to give them a workable advantage.
 
This is very doable with a POD that far back. It's done in Decades of Darkness (which everyone on this forum should read, it's the magnum opus of this entire genre in my opinion), though POD is technically in 1809, it's not particularly necessary here. The alternate Congress of Vienna does help Germany, yes, but it's certainly doable.
 
What % was tasked with garrisoning the colonies of the empire/protecting trade routes etc vs constituting the home fleet?

Not really relevant. The colonial stations, trade protection squadrons etc were made up of frigates/light cruisers ( plus a few heavies and obsolete battleships) , gunboats, brigs etc, depending on era.Ships that didn't form part of the battle line.

The sail of the line/ capital ships were kept close to home. And for most of the period the battle fleet could deal with any realistic combination. The official unofficial standard was to be able to see of any two fleet combination.
 
But you can't assume that the world wars remain the same. IOTL the UK never faced opponents capable of this; you have to change the sides in major wars, or else it's obviously impossible.

Put France and Germany on the same side and they have industrial capacity that significantly exceeds that of the UK, they no longer have to focus on building enormous armies to outmatch each other, and once dreadnoughts come along the UK's initial lead is wiped out, so this hypothetical Franco-German alliance can out-build the UK navally. They won't have virtually indisputable naval superiority over the UK as the UK did over Germany in both world wars, but give them some good luck in one important battle and they might manage to whittle down British numbers far enough to give them a workable advantage.

Indeed. You may note that is actually one of the scenarios I envisaged (I added the USA to use the Spanish American war as a trigger). It has to assume, though, that the UK watches all the preparation for this and ignores it.

It is like saying that UK, France, Mexico and Spain could all have allied with the Confederacy in 1860, which would almost certainly have meant a Confederate victory. It's possible, in theory, in reality it just would never get off the ground. Alliances don't just happen in a vacuum
 
Indeed. You may note that is actually one of the scenarios I envisaged (I added the USA to use the Spanish American war as a trigger). It has to assume, though, that the UK watches all the preparation for this and ignores it.

Does it? If the UK feels seriously threatened by the USA and France and Germany, even if it takes the naval arms race much more seriously than it did IOTL and builds as many ships as it can then that will only escalate things further and, unlike IOTL, escalation of the naval arms race is not good for the UK (IOTL, of course, the UK could out-build Germany so it was the other way round). Of course the UK will take countermeasures but I'm unconvinced that those countermeasures will necessarily be enough. They might be, but I don't think they're guaranteed to be.

All that I am contending is that it is reasonably possible, not that it is probable.

If you mean diplomatic countermeasures, of course the UK will try to extract itself from the situation of being isolated against a hostile Franco-German alliance but that doesn't necessarily mean that the UK will succeed in this goal. After all, Germany tried to extract itself from isolation IOTL but failed.

It is like saying that UK, France, Mexico and Spain could all have allied with the Confederacy in 1860, which would almost certainly have meant a Confederate victory. It's possible, in theory, in reality it just would never get off the ground. Alliances don't just happen in a vacuum

They do not, indeed. But the alliance systems in the pre-WW1 era were immensely fluid, and not easily comparable to the CSA (as none of the European great powers had much interest in supporting the CSA, whereas they had various competing interests with each other). I do not think that a Franco-German alliance is impossible, and if we throw in a war over the Venezuela crisis (change the mentality of either side and it becomes reasonably possible) Anglo-American enmity can happen too.

If you think it "would never get off the ground", please explain to me where, in the scenario I suggested above, I describe an event that could never have happened.
 
If you think it "would never get off the ground", please explain to me where, in the scenario I suggested above, I describe an event that could never have happened.

The key word there is 'could'. Almost anything in this world could happen, if it does not breach the laws of physics. But would is another horse. That is the essence of handwavium, to propose a scenario which is not impossible, but which is implausible, and hand wave away the problems.

It might just as well be said ' if every other country in the world simultaneously declared war on the UK then ....'. That could happen too.

Or, if in 1939 every single country in the world turned round and declared war on the USA. That could happen, too .And, probably USA invasion could succeed.

Or, indeed, if in 1939, Mr Hitler were to suddenly declare that he had seen the error of his ways, was stricken by remorse, and that Germany wanted only peace, would immediately disband its armies, and voluntarily make reparations. That could happen, too.
 
The key word there is 'could'. Almost anything in this world could happen, if it does not breach the laws of physics.

No-one is talking about whether it is physically possible. The question is how probable or improbable it is, given the initial PoD.

But would is another horse. That is the essence of handwavium, to propose a scenario which is not impossible, but which is implausible, and hand wave away the problems.

Please do me the service of explaining why the scenario proposed is implausible. There probably are indeed errors with the scenario that I haven't noticed (since I thought it up so quickly), but I'd like to hear what the problems are, please.

It might just as well be said ' if every other country in the world simultaneously declared war on the UK then ....'. That could happen too.

Provide a plausible way for this to happen, and it might actually be analogous to what I was saying, rather than a silly strawman.

Or, if in 1939 every single country in the world turned round and declared war on the USA. That could happen, too.[/QUOTE]

Ditto.

Or, indeed, if in 1939, Mr Hitler were to suddenly declare that he had seen the error of his ways, was stricken by remorse, and that Germany wanted only peace, would immediately disband its armies, and voluntarily make reparations. That could happen, too.

Ditto.
 
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