AHC: Smallest British Empire in 1900, POD of 1815

Keep the Brits out of Egypt by having Ottomans winning the 1877-78 War. That way, Ottomans would have had the confidence to reoccupy Egypt during Sudan crisis and therefore saving the British from the trouble of occupying Egypt and the need to to build continuous land bridge between it and the Cape.
 
This could happen. Lincoln is not murdered. The south comes back into the fold a lot faster. Less problems. Relations between the US and the British Empire become bad. The US blames Britian for many of their problems in the Civil War. The US does not down size their military. They are worried about Mexico, that problem gets worked out OTL style. But then freedom fighters from Canada come a knocking to the White House. Seward gets his war with the Brits. The US wins and Canada becomes an independent nation with US help.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
This could happen. Lincoln is not murdered. The south comes back into the fold a lot faster. Less problems. Relations between the US and the British Empire become bad. The US blames Britian for many of their problems in the Civil War. The US does not down size their military. They are worried about Mexico, that problem gets worked out OTL style. But then freedom fighters from Canada come a knocking to the White House. Seward gets his war with the Brits. The US wins and Canada becomes an independent nation with US help.

I wouldn't necessarily say that they would win. The war at sea would be a loss. I watched a video about a theoretical war between the US and Britain. They had the war at sea being a stalemate and that was during the 1930s. Before the naval build up under Teddy Roosevelt's Naval department any war at sea with Britain would be a loss. So unless a president had the foresight to build up the navy before your war the Naval war would be a loss. Canada might well be a win. So a net win in the overall war for the US.

Also the US plan for a war with Britain called for an Occupation of Canada then an attack of Britain's global trade, capturing such places as Bermuda and the Bahamas. The former has the potential for victory, the latter not so much. At best a stalemate develops.
 
This could happen. Lincoln is not murdered. The south comes back into the fold a lot faster. Less problems. Relations between the US and the British Empire become bad. The US blames Britian for many of their problems in the Civil War. The US does not down size their military. They are worried about Mexico, that problem gets worked out OTL style. But then freedom fighters from Canada come a knocking to the White House. Seward gets his war with the Brits. The US wins and Canada becomes an independent nation with US help.


Why would the US blame Britain for many of its problems in the ACW if Lincoln is in office? Why would the US not scale down the size of its military?

And "freedom fighters from Canada"? What freedom fighters? Canada was a loyal part of the British Empire and not exactly thrilled to border crude Yankees.
 
Hmm, I'm sure that you could try a knock out India, maybe a Indian mutiny much earlier (like 1817?) so that Britain couldn't afford to send loads of troops to reinforce the small BEIC white British troops. If the BEIC seems in trouble then you can bet that the Indian princes will jump on the chance to push them out. Depending on the size of the munity you could have the British pushed out of mainland India....

Without India the whole Asian & Indian Ocean central aspect of the Empire goes. The results in no Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Arab states and the lack of a need for Suez makes Egypt less likely.

When African colonialism comes along, Britain would be much weaker. Especially if Italy and Germany unite quicker and get their colonial muscles flexing earlier. Britain would probably want to focus on the Atlantic and Southern Africa. However, these already have competition. So not much more territory in these areas. So British Africa would probably be like OTL but without Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda & Tanzania. If you get a stronger Portuguese position then no Zambia, Zimbabwe or Malawi. Plus maybe recognizing the Boer states.

In the Americas, I doubt the US would really go to war with the UK but they could still get all of Oregon country if Britain was really weak.

My (very quick) attempt below :)

Brit emp small.png
 
Hmm, I'm sure that you could try a knock out India, maybe a Indian mutiny much earlier (like 1817?) so that Britain couldn't afford to send loads of troops to reinforce the small BEIC white British troops. If the BEIC seems in trouble then you can bet that the Indian princes will jump on the chance to push them out. Depending on the size of the munity you could have the British pushed out of mainland India....

1) Mutiny over what? The OTL cause won't apply, for instance.

2) How many Indian princes care?

Without India the whole Asian & Indian Ocean central aspect of the Empire goes. The results in no Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Arab states and the lack of a need for Suez makes Egypt less likely.

When African colonialism comes along, Britain would be much weaker. Especially if Italy and Germany unite quicker and get their colonial muscles flexing earlier. Britain would probably want to focus on the Atlantic and Southern Africa. However, these already have competition. So not much more territory in these areas. So British Africa would probably be like OTL but without Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda & Tanzania. If you get a stronger Portuguese position then no Zambia, Zimbabwe or Malawi. Plus maybe recognizing the Boer states.

In the Americas, I doubt the US would really go to war with the UK but they could still get all of Oregon country if Britain was really weak.

My (very quick) attempt below :)

3) There's no way Britain is going to be so weak that the US will be able to back up demands for all of the Oregon territory.
 
Lets see. A POD around 1815.

I think that means we can butterfly away the foundation of Singapore, which according to wikipedia was founded around 1819. Without Singapore and Malacca still Dutch I think Malaysia (and Singapore) itself could easily become Dutch. If we have a stronger Netherlands (for example with a different Belgian revolution in which more or all remains Dutch), I think making all of Borneo and New Guinea (and the Solomon islands?) Dutch is perfectly possible.

As western Australia was founded (also according to wikipedia) around 1829 and the French were actualy planning to colonise western Australia, lets give it to the French.

Next Africa, Ghana was partly Dutch and Danish before they sold it to the UK. So lets say one of them keeps it (maybe Denmark to prevent a Dutch wank). The Boer Republics remain independent, Portugal gains the pink map and connects Mocambique and Angola. Egypt manages to remain independent. Maybe we could prevent the scamble and keep various parts out of British hands, or maybe other countries are just quicker than the British.

The America's. Is it possible for the USA to gain the entire Oregon territory? Because that probably would limit Canada to Ontario Quebec and the Maritimes. Probably not, but still. British Guyana: Venezuela claims half of it. Is there a way for them to get that half?

India, there is always the possibility for the Netherlands and Denmark not to sell their parts, although it probably is needed for them to gain the British parts of Indonesia/Malaysia and Ghana. Although I could see a continued Danish presense in the Nicobar islands. The rest of India? Maybe Britain decides it is too expensive to go for the core and British India remains mainly the coastal regions or just the south.
 
A question though. How does this happen?

Britain is not just going to fold and let the world walk over it.
 
Britain was already dominating India by 1815. It'd be difficult to get them to lose what they had already taken by that point.
And even if you do manage to take India away, who's going to take Britain's place? Most of the others aren't powerful enough in the region, and nobody is going to let the French take it.

It's possible that Britain could lose it later in the century, but it wasn't called the Jewel in the Crown for nothing.

In my opinion, Africa and maybe West Canada/Australia are the best and easiest places to cut away.
 
I'm not convinced of that, especially given that they didn't have any great problem with OTL's empire.

Hey man its not a TL i've been researching, i just played a mind game and came up with a senario.

Canada and Australia were frontier nations, so they will develope nationalist tones and unless federated in 1815 then Canada and the rest of the dominions are going for independents.

And places like India are a different sort of problem than the white would-be dominions.
You ever heard of the Great Game?
Russia will definately support India with guns, and so will the US.



But how much of India is already in British hands in 1815?
Enough to completely conquer it within decades (the whole subcontinent.)
 
Hey man its not a TL i've been researching, i just played a mind game and came up with a senario.

"I just pulled this out of my hat" isn't really something I have a lot of respect for, frankly.

Canada and Australia were frontier nations, so they will develope nationalist tones and unless federated in 1815 then Canada and the rest of the dominions are going for independents.

Why? Again, they were perfectly fine with being loyal OTL through out the 19th century.

You ever heard of the Great Game?
Russia will definately support India with guns, and so will the US.

Russia might (does Russia have surplus guns to supply?) - why would the US?
 
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