AHC: Landlocked Colonial Empire

So while playing a game I remembered this idea I thought of awhile back and decided to actually do an AHC thread for it.

Basically the challenge/idea is how could you get a landlocked country to have overseas or far away (IE the distance between Slovakia to Kyrgyzstan far away over land) colonies without the country having in the recent past had a coastline.
 
So while playing a game I remembered this idea I thought of awhile back and decided to actually do an AHC thread for it.

Basically the challenge/idea is how could you get a landlocked country to have overseas or far away (IE the distance between Slovakia to Kyrgyzstan far away over land) colonies without the country having in the recent past had a coastline.

Well, Russia managed that. And it was essentially landlocked. Little shipping went through Murmansk, and the Baltic and Black Seas were blocked off by hostile powers.
 
So while playing a game I remembered this idea I thought of awhile back and decided to actually do an AHC thread for it.

Basically the challenge/idea is how could you get a landlocked country to have overseas or far away (IE the distance between Slovakia to Kyrgyzstan far away over land) colonies without the country having in the recent past had a coastline.

If you allow the mostly frozen Arctic Ocean's coasts as counting for making the country effectively landlocked, Russia came close to qualify for a while in the seventeenth century.
Otherwise, something akin to a surviving Mongol Empire. Or you mean non-contiguous colonies? That's going to be a challenge before air travel.

However, here's a half-plausible attempt. The Boxer Revolt gets seriously nasty and the Western Civilization (TM) decides it has to hold fast to face the Yellow Peril (TM). :rolleyes: Therefore, Switzerland joins the botherhood of the Aryan Nations (TM) sending an expeditionary force to China.
In the aftermath it is decided that the Civilized Peoples (TM) have to get something substantial for their trouble and some bits of China are distributed among them to Civilize (TM). Switzerland is given a bit somewhere in Shandong as a display of fraternity among the Germanic Peoples (TM) at the insistence and courtesy of Kaiser Willy.
 
I think it's most easy to do at an alt Berlin conference. Not having a coastline isn't any bigger an obstacle than all the other stuff Europe ignored while splitting up Africa.
 
Have the colony settled by national corporations with major investments and shipping interests in other countries? Maybe some sort of private/elite endeavor on the lines of the Congo Free state which later becomes more officially a possession of the state in question. Of course, the landlocked state either has to be 1. Neutral or 2. Share borders with sea-going competitors and be able to kick their ass if needed or it will lose the colony the minute a fight breaks out.

Not quite the same thing, but with the old-fashioned land-swapping-through-marriage business in Olde Europe, you could easily have a monarch of one chunk of land-locked land be the rightful owner of lands hundreds of miles, if not thousands away (possibly also landlocked). Now if we have a fragmented Russia engaged in the dynastic marriage market with western Europe...
 
I think it's most easy to do at an alt Berlin conference. Not having a coastline isn't any bigger an obstacle than all the other stuff Europe ignored while splitting up Africa.

Well, I guess he means the colonizer is landlocked, which raises the serious problem of how to get there.
However, it was plainly accepted precisely at the Berlin Conference that a colonial claim should have some sort of coastal starting point, although Nyasaland could be construed as a partial exception.
Also, there weren't much landlocked European countries in 1885. Switzerland, Luxembourg, Serbia, Liechtenstein, Andorra, that's it. Perhaps Luxembourg get something in a perverse sort of deal involving Belgium and/or the Netherlands? Some seriously weird stuff was happening at that point. Or some Swiss company that gets rights over some far out bit of Africa (of perhaps it's Borneo, or some Polynesian island) and the Swiss Government relieves it?

I'm struggling for a way to get Paraguay a tiny colonial empire, but I can't think any.
 
Have the colony settled by national corporations with major investments and shipping interests in other countries? Maybe some sort of private/elite endeavor on the lines of the Congo Free state which later becomes more officially a possession of the state in question. Of course, the landlocked state either has to be 1. Neutral or 2. Share borders with sea-going competitors and be able to kick their ass if needed or it will lose the colony the minute a fight breaks out.

AFAIK, there's only one OTL state during the Age of Imperialism that is both neutral and sufficiently endowed with capital for this to be feasible.
Hint: it isn't Afghanistan. :D
 
Well, Russia managed that. And it was essentially landlocked. Little shipping went through Murmansk, and the Baltic and Black Seas were blocked off by hostile powers.

If you allow the mostly frozen Arctic Ocean's coasts as counting for making the country effectively landlocked, Russia came close to qualify for a while in the seventeenth century.
Otherwise, something akin to a surviving Mongol Empire. Or you mean non-contiguous colonies? That's going to be a challenge before air travel.

Well, I guess he means the colonizer is landlocked, which raises the serious problem of how to get there.

The colonizing country itself is the one that's meant to be landlocked, though the idea of landlocked colonies is interesting; additionally by Landlocked I mean actually landlocked, as in having no coastline, frozen or otherwise.

Oh, also, the PoD does'nt have to be in the 19th century, hell if you can find a way for a landlocked Wendic Kingdom to have colonies in the American North East go for it, though it would generally be a bit more interesting (since you're confined to more realistic as opposed to theoretical ways) to have a nominally recognizable state doing it.
 
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