Can the Dutch, Spanish or Italians colonize some or all Vietnam?

Possibly Spain..... although it's a stretch, they did hold the Philippines (fun fact: the Philippines are named after Spanish King Philip II) and they could make advances through there.
 
Power projection. The French had bases in the Indian Ocean plus a large and functional navy, plus a very large army. Spain was not a very stable state at the time, Italy had not finished its own unification and the Netherlands were in the middle of colonial campaigns in Indonesia. Neither state had enough power to begin another colonial conquest.
 
In the 19th century? The Netherlands can't do it. They simply aren't powerful enough to allocate resources towards both Indonesia as well as Vietnam. Maybe, maybe if the Netherlands is stronger. If for example Belgium had remained partof the Netherlands. They would be able to shift some resources towards Vietnam. That said, the primary focus of the Netherlands would always be the Dutch East Indies.

If you shift to an earlier POD, I could see it. For example avoid the collapse of the Dutch republic in the late 18th century, avoid the Netherlands being turned into a French puppet or even occupied by France and have the Dutch have establish some influence in the region from which it can expand. You need that and you have stengthen the Dutch position in Europe (for example by gaining Belgium and keeping it) and remove other areas of the world the Dutch could focus on instead of Vietnam (so get rid of Dutch Ghana, Ceylon or India), while still keeping enough of a presense in Asia to have a base of operation to start operations in Vietnam (so you have to keep a Dutch Indonesia). Yes, than I can see the Netherlands colonising Vietnam, besides the Dutch East Indies. But a lot of things must go right for the Netherlands (and wrong).
 
Spain could have taken parts of Vietnam but not all of it maybe because of Chinese Support to the Vietnamese.

Firstly, if Spain conquered the Khme Kingdom during the 16th century through their invasions (historically), they may have a chance to spread their Christian faith through conquering this new lands, this will have an affect on Buddhism, which will greatly affect indochina region.

At some point, Spain will have to retreat back to the Philippines seeing how hard it could be at maintaining parts of Vietnam or Cambodia, like how it did with the Philippines (Spain nearly abandoned the Philippines in the 18th century due to pressuring resources).

But it will greatly affect the religion in the areas so it's primarily Catholic Christian kingdoms of Khmer and South Vietnam.
 

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Wow, a great set of responses-

Italy had not finished its own unification

This applies to the very beginning of the French wars which took Cochinchina and Cambodia, but the conquest of central and Northern Vietnam occurred later, from the 1870s Garnier expedition and not finished until the mid-1880s, which was well after Italian unification. If we abort Louis Napoleon's Indochina wars of 1858-1863 and Vietnam/Cambodia stay independent till the 1880s "new imperialism" era, could the Italians have a shot? The Germans?

@pompejus I find your rundown of the Netherlands' prospects in different periods and their limitations in others very interesting, and convincing.

@Terranical - very interesting treatment of Spain's possibilities, especially in the earlier era. So the Spanish did try to invade the Khmers in 1500s? Very interesting and I was not aware. I think Saigon and the Mekong Delta at this time was still Khmer.

This, as you say could have a huge religious impact on southern Indochina.

The idea of an eventual retreat is also interesting. This puts Spain even closer to the boiling pot that was China during the Ming-Qing transition. I wonder if a Spanish proselytizing presence in the region could turn rolling back Spanish influence, into an early priority for the Qing dynasty, leading them to launch campaigns in Indochina to drive out the Spanish and either take the lands outright or restore tributary clients?

The Spanish in Cambodia would also have to reckon with Thai ambitions at some point.

(Spain nearly abandoned the Philippines in the 18th century due to pressuring resources).

Where could I found out more about this. I never heard they considered abandoning the territory. I know the British captured Manila for a time, but that's different.
 
This applies to the very beginning of the French wars which took Cochinchina and Cambodia, but the conquest of central and Northern Vietnam occurred later, from the 1870s Garnier expedition and not finished until the mid-1880s, which was well after Italian unification. If we abort Louis Napoleon's Indochina wars of 1858-1863 and Vietnam/Cambodia stay independent till the 1880s "new imperialism" era, could the Italians have a shot? The Germans?

Political unification was just a first step. It took long years (at least 1890) begore the various aggregated italian navies, of which the Sicilan one was rhe largest, became The Italian Navy. Plus Italy had no bases in the Indian or Pacific Oceans.
 
Where could I found out more about this. I never heard they considered abandoning the territory. I know the British captured Manila for a time, but that's different.[/QUOTE]
Wow, a great set of responses-



This applies to the very beginning of the French wars which took Cochinchina and Cambodia, but the conquest of central and Northern Vietnam occurred later, from the 1870s Garnier expedition and not finished until the mid-1880s, which was well after Italian unification. If we abort Louis Napoleon's Indochina wars of 1858-1863 and Vietnam/Cambodia stay independent till the 1880s "new imperialism" era, could the Italians have a shot? The Germans?

@pompejus I find your rundown of the Netherlands' prospects in different periods and their limitations in others very interesting, and convincing.

@Terranical - very interesting treatment of Spain's possibilities, especially in the earlier era. So the Spanish did try to invade the Khmers in 1500s? Very interesting and I was not aware. I think Saigon and the Mekong Delta at this time was still Khmer.

This, as you say could have a huge religious impact on southern Indochina.

The idea of an eventual retreat is also interesting. This puts Spain even closer to the boiling pot that was China during the Ming-Qing transition. I wonder if a Spanish proselytizing presence in the region could turn rolling back Spanish influence, into an early priority for the Qing dynasty, leading them to launch campaigns in Indochina to drive out the Spanish and either take the lands outright or restore tributary clients?

The Spanish in Cambodia would also have to reckon with Thai ambitions at some point.



Where could I found out more about this. I never heard they considered abandoning the territory. I know the British captured Manila for a time, but that's different.


I am new to this replying thing so this is why it took the whole reply.
But here's the article that showed Spain nearly abandoning it's Asian colonies in the late 1700s.
"https://www.filipiknow.net/spain-almost-abandoned-the-philippines/"
 
I really think it would be better if the Spanish lose Northern Luzon from the Dutch in the 17th century but retain Ternate..the Spanish abandoned the Christians from Mindanao so that they can have Manila, the visayan and mindanaoan christians are loyal to the spanish.
 
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Lets say that a non French power colonized Vietnam. How would that affect Vietnam culturally, economically and demographically? How would the alternate timeline differ from OTL(French Vietnam).

Some potential colonizers are:
Germany
Great Britian
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Portogal
Spain
 
Lets say that a non French power colonized Vietnam. How would that affect Vietnam culturally, economically and demographically? How would the alternate timeline differ from OTL(French Vietnam).

Some potential colonizers are:
Germany
Great Britian
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Portogal
Spain

Well for one thing, the French were adamant about pushing the Latinized script developed by Jesuit missionaries centuries earlier. From the wiki on the Vietnamese alphabet:

“Later on, under French rule in the late 19th century, missionaries often saw the Confucian literati as the main obstacle to Catholic conversion in Vietnam, hence the elimination of the Chinese language was also regarded as a means for isolating Vietnam from its heritage, and instrumental in neutralizing its traditional elite.[7] Historian Pamela A. Pears asserted that the French, by instituting the Roman alphabet in Vietnam, cut the Vietnamese off from their traditional literature, rendering them unable to read it.[8] The French colonial authorities adopted the quoc ngu romanized phonetic script in Cochin China as early as 1860 with a view to breaking the links to the Chinese writing tradition the local elites had used, cutting off new generations from their previous literature and, as a colonial official put it, "expose the Vietnamese only to French" influence.[9]Accordingly, another aim of the newly established French educational system in Indochina consisted of creating a French-speaking and French-writing acculturated indigenous elite prone to serve the colonial rulers in the administration.[10]

The French colonial education system was based in the east of Indochina,[11] and in that context the Tonkin Free School flourished fleetingly, set up by nationalists in 1907, and adopting the alphabetic script. By 1917, the Confucian examination system was suppressed, so convincing the Vietnamese elites of the need to educate their offspring in the French language education system.[12] That, however, did not satisfy the ruling French, who demanded exclusive educational establishments.[13] The colonial regime then came up with the idea of setting up an educational system for natives with quoc nguVietnamese as first language in primary school, but French as second language, via quoc ngu. Hundred of thousands of text books for primary education began to be published in quoc ngu, with the result of unintentionally turning the script into the popular medium for the expression of Vietnamese culture. By the late 1930s, approximately 10% of the population was literate, a huge increase over several decades before.[13] However, the expansion of this alphabet was not without conflict with other peoples inhabiting Indochina, like the Khmer Krom.[citation needed]”

So who knows if another power would care as much. We might end up with Vietnam retaining Chinese influenced scripts.
 
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