AHC: More "Effective" Colonialism

Ok, now this is going to be a tough one: for the record, I do not in any way support colonialism and the evils it caused, I would never dream of trying to justify its crimes. This is only out of sheer curiosity and nothing more.

On to the actual challenge: maybe I am completely wrong, but it seems to me that many colonial powers, well, they didn't always manage their colonies effectively. In this, sadly I don't mean effective for the natives, as few cared about them, but for themselves, in other words, oftentimes, they shot themselves in the foot or they implemented policies that would later come back to haunt them. Your challenge here is this: have colonialism be as "effective" and as "successful" as possible, with a PoD after 1900. That could mean more profits for the metropole, more "cultural imperialism"(think France and the Francafrique perhaps, or the way Britain spread English around the world) or simple expansion.

I guess some useful ideas could be no World Wars, so that more metropolis have more people to send to their colonies. Another idea could be that in the Second World War, the British fare better against the Japanese in the Far East and thus the myth of the undefeated Europeans isn't shattered. Maybe for some reason the Americas are in turmoil and Britain cannot have its informal Empire in Latin America, while at the same time many immigrants are forced to flock to the colonies to seek opportunities instead of the Americas.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
There could have easily been a more effective and a peaceful colonialism. Just that then colonial leaders and entrepreneurs(if any) weren't that farsighted in intelligence.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Ok, now this is going to be a tough one: for the record, I do not in any way support colonialism and the evils it caused, I would never dream of trying to justify its crimes. This is only out of sheer curiosity and nothing more.

On to the actual challenge: maybe I am completely wrong, but it seems to me that many colonial powers, well, they didn't always manage their colonies effectively. In this, sadly I don't mean effective for the natives, as few cared about them, but for themselves, in other words, oftentimes, they shot themselves in the foot or they implemented policies that would later come back to haunt them. Your challenge here is this: have colonialism be as "effective" and as "successful" as possible, with a PoD after 1900. That could mean more profits for the metropole, more "cultural imperialism"(think France and the Francafrique perhaps, or the way Britain spread English around the world) or simple expansion.

I guess some useful ideas could be no World Wars, so that more metropolis have more people to send to their colonies. Another idea could be that in the Second World War, the British fare better against the Japanese in the Far East and thus the myth of the undefeated Europeans isn't shattered. Maybe for some reason the Americas are in turmoil and Britain cannot have its informal Empire in Latin America, while at the same time many immigrants are forced to flock to the colonies to seek opportunities instead of the Americas.

Lot of stuff here.

First, when you add in the military budget required to keep colonies, colonies are just money losers excluding a few specific exceptions - big gold, silver and diamond mines. Tin mines of Malaysia. Probably some rubber plantations. Just to give an example, one year of revolt by 70K or so people spent over 100 years of normal German colonial budget. While not a colonial enterprise, imagine the USA won and colonized Vietnam. How long to recoup a profit?

Second, the key to having colonies do better is to want them to do better, then spend government funds on development. IMO, this is near ASB so it makes a very hard ATL to write. It is why my limited efforts on better colonies for Germans have a naval arms a race attached.

If you skip WW1, you see vastly different demographics. You see the age of Colonialism continuing. Places like Libya and Algeria would be European. Libya is a good example. There was a steady by small flow of Italians to coastal city. There were a series of measures that kept the natives population from growing. If lasting more decades, one would expect to see Libyans flip to being Italians. IMO, WW2 is a bit late for the POD to save/improve colonies.

So now that we have this ATL where WW1 is avoid. And the colonial powers care about colonies, say as a proxy for naval strength and a way to raise bigger armies. Or whatever you like. How do you go about it? I will go with Germany since that is what I am familiar with. There colonies sucked on location, so say they buy Angola. You have to build infrastructure - Railroads, Dams, develop big mines. You have to remove the native population enough to allow settlement. You have to incentivize your immigrants to go to these new lands, not places like USA. If you are willing to spend big on these actions for a half century, you can end up with things like the Angolan Highlands being 30% or more European. Some areas of Cameroon. SWA. Some areas in rift valley of East Africa.

You then get a situation with a permanent, non-citizen underclass (native blacks and likely mixed bloods) like South Africa. And you get South African like results. Or you have to begin to accept these Africans as German. You can sort of think of the French in places or you could sort of think of Brazil if over time the Portuguese moved to thinking of Brazilian and Portuguese as the same. We tend to forget that the Romans over the centuries accepted other ethnic groups as Romans. So did the Chinese. In many ways, this inclusion is the difference in large surviving empires like China and the various elites that ruled a conquered people like the Mongols.

The actual programs unrelated to these ethnic issues are easy. You look for local power sources to power the economy. Africa is generally coal poor but in many places river rich, so we build lots of hydro dams. You need local universities to optimize things locally. Ag Universities like Brazil did so well with some of its land. A generation or two to see big impact. You will at first exploit local resources but over time, you build the factories. So say for Cameroon, you first build hydro dams. You mine the Bauxite. Over time, you build the smelter. If you are serious about developing Cameroon, then you build the industries that use aluminum near the smelters. So just like the USA had big Boeing plants near the the hydro dams in the pacific northwest, you would see the German Aviation industry with a big hub in central Cameroon. Just like you see steel cities and other factories sitting on German coal deposits.

I would also like to point out that keeping everything is probably the worst way to spend the money. Germany did not have a lot of land, so the UK is a better example. If the UK selects a few areas for inclusion and accepts that say India is too big to keep for centuries, it would be a lot easier. There is an ATL where the UK moves Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the House of Commons. Once this is done, things like keep Singapore, the Suez Canal, Malta, and a lot of other places is easier. Just to give one example, the Aussie are very interested in keeping New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. With votes in the House of Commons, these things are a lot more likely. And once you have the clear white areas (Settler colonies) in the UK, then something like a smaller section of South Africa joining the UK seems more doable.

Important note. Few of these changes will be seen as benefits to the people being colonized. Ethnic cleansing is basically a given.
 
Settler colonies would be disasters. South Africa at best and getting worse from there.

The real thing that made colonialism so fleeting is that a serious aim of the European homelands was to keep the colonies separate. Even places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand were not integrated into the United Kingdom itself. Adding racism into the mix... Well, who wanted bushmen becoming Englishmen? Or Germans? Or Frenchmen? (Well, a few white Frenchmen DID want to turn African natives into Frenchmen, but they weren't the majority in France.)

So you need a mix of a few things: 1) strong support in the homeland for an ideology under which the people in the colonies can be true equals of the people in the homeland, 2) infrastructure spending to build the railroads, cities and industries that would make the colonies economically useful, 3) a strong education system that allowed children in the colonies to participate as full and useful citizens of their empire.

Honestly, that's a huge task. Only France was anywhere close to having (1), and even if the French had been full-throated in their devotion to the equality of all men, the colonies still have to be seen as useful enough that they invest their resources in those colonies rather than on high-return investments in the US and South America.

Maybe a France locked in a proper Cold War with Nazi Germany would be motivated to properly develop her colonies.

fasquardon
 
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