Central Power Victory: Does Germany force the UK to let go of India?

If Germany wins WW1 the British Empire will almost definitely collapse, given that Germany losing WW1 also led to the Empire's collapse. The BE was a very fragile institution that fell apart incredibly quickly once Britain actually had to fight a serious war, and indeed likely would have collapsed even if the Brits didn't fight any big wars.

That said, even if Germany wins it will not be Germany that dismantles the Empire. It will be the same forces that did it OTL, only now strengthened and more confident much earlier. India never had any desire to remain a British cash cow, while the Dominions recognised the limits of Britain's power well before the 20th century and if Britain actually loses a war will become truly independent very quickly, out of necessity not desire. The other colonies were either smaller versions of India that would similar to OTL become independent a little after India did i.e. Malaya etc, or were pretty useless like most of Africa and did not offer much other than secure bases to India.

It's hard to see a scenario in which Germany actually invades the British Isles with a WW1 PoD, and that is what would be necessary to force the British to do anything that major. There is no likely scenario in which Germany can invade Britain in the 1910's, given the massive superiority of the RN, so to do so would involve having a second crack at it for... reasons? Before aircraft became capable of knocking out battleships an 'invasion of Britain' scenario requires Germany to look at the numbers and say "yeah we are cool with losing 50% or more of out battleships in order to beat Britain and effectively handing naval superiority to the Americans". I mean, it's not impossible to make that calculation but there'd need to be really good reasons. I doubt "India would look better in grey" is a persuasive one.
 
Doesn't it all hang on whether (or how long) Britain's Indian soldiers remain loyal? As long as they do, British control of India is in no danger. If/when they don't she can't hold on even if she still wins WW1.
 
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Where to begin? that the only thing that saves Britain is that somehow the Americans save them. Not much of an Empire

The thread assumes a CP victory Since the only CP victory scenarios are short war ones- its really hard to have the Germans win after 1916. The situation on the continent would be:

The Germans had managed to encircle and destroy a chunk of the French army bringing the war to a close in the West. The armistice terms would be like the ones t he Germans got: hand over the weapons and disband. France is no longer a great power. The September Programme called for France to pay an indemnity of 31,000,000.000 marks. That will finance any navy the Germans want

the Americans and the Japanese are going to get scared of the Germans but not the British?

Okay - so this new navy the Kaiser is building (presumably between bouts of redesigning the uniform) - what's it for?

And had Britain threatened the USA or Japan in the previous hundred years? If the Germans are building a Navy that is from what I gather intended to wipe the British Empire out - what happens to it afterwards. Peacefully turned into razor blades? I seriously doubt it.

How does France pay this 31,000,000,000 marks fine given that she was 'Non Mehi Argentum' ? And 31 Billion? The September plan which was not really a thing anyway called for 10 Billion! How long does it take to pay it? And how long does it take to turn that into gert great Battleships instead of paying off Debts and the Veterans that the plan slates it for?

Is Germany and the British Empire still at war by this point? If not then the only thing the September plan calls for is an effective end to Britain's Global hegemony.

What that would look like and how it would be achieved and when? The September plan is a bit ambiguous on this point.

I suspect that in this scenario of a CP win - Britian and Germany will be trading partners long before the shell craters have grassed over.
 
The Russian fleet was crap, it never recovered from Tsushima. And how is Germany going to keep the fleets from being scuttled, or sailed to Britain or the colonies? So long as there's a crew onboard (which won't be German due to a lack of sailors to properly crew every Continetal navy like you're suggesting), they can simply turn the guns on the shore and threaten bombardment while they escape. If the Germans respond with force, congrats, they've lost a ship. If they don't, congrats, they've lost a ship. Hitler never got the Vichy navy, and the Italians never beat the British in the Med in far more favorable conditions, just how is the Kaiser going to strongarm those two out of their ships? And the even better question, who's going to crew them? Germans? Like I said, there won't be enough sailors to crew them. The conquered peoples? Yeah, that's a real good idea. The Austrians? Why would they care? There is simply no way for Germany to realistically use the Continetal navies for a Grand Armada vs Britain. Even if they did, I doubt they'd be able to wield them effectively against a foe who's navy is unparalleled in quality and quantity and likely getting ships left and right from the Americans, if they aren't in the war. If things got really, and I mean really bad, the British would start recalling squadrons from around the world. In 1914, Britain either had numerical superiority or a slight numerical disadvantage to a combined Franco-German-Italian navy in nearly all categories. Wartime construction coupled with higher quality British sailors would doubtlessly offset this even assuming that Germany somehow managed to seize the entirety of each fleet at their prewar strengths. Throw in likely sabotage, scuttling, and defections (or British attacks on fleets about to be handed over) would whittle those numbers down even further. All in all, Germany can't compete with the Royal Navy save for with extreme luck in a battle, and this isn't even getting into the different designs for the ships and how asinine it is to assume that Italian ships would be designed or perform well in an Atlantic or Channel environment. French ships likely would, but the Italians had a fleet for the Med, not the open ocean.
Plus, even if a few French/Italian/Russian fleet elements don't immediately defect, the British will just do what they did in WW2 and sink them in their ports.
 
I dont recall the Germans having any serious plan to invade or blockade Britain in the first World war with a giant combined navy made up of defeated France and or Russia and I call bullshit. Germany was more pragmatic than that, it sounds like speed run of a hearts of iron game.

But India could definitely go after a WWI defeat, I don't think Germany would be the one directly calling that, but the spell of British invulnerability is broken so to speak, so things could definitely unravel earlier on the sub continent.
 
Plus, even if a few French/Italian/Russian fleet elements don't immediately defect, the British will just do what they did in WW2 and sink them in their ports.


They can't get at the Russian fleets in Baltic or Black Sea.

The French and Italian ones are more accessible, if Britain can send enough of the Grand Fleet to the Mediterranean to deal with them. However, I suspect the French fleet at least would scuttle itself as did the HSF at Scapa Flow.

Also, did Germany have enough trained sailors to man so many ships? I suspect they would only have demanded the French and Italian submarines, to reinforce their U-boat fleet. This they might get, as admirals didn't take the pride in subs that they did in battleships
 

Perkeo

Banned
But who's available? Once Germany has beaten France and Russia, who can challenge the Germans on the continent

And what terms are the Germans giving the British?
The Germans can make France and Russia sign humiliating treaties, but not Britain. The terms will include German naval bases on the Belgium Channel coast - the unmentionable sea mammal becomes a real thread - and make it impossible to challenge Germany in the near future, but permanently and completely taking out either France or Russia is ASB.

Really? In his notes during the July Crisis the Kaiser wrote "If it is Germany's fate to bleed, my England at least lose India"
That's like taking every tweet from president Trump as literal US policy.
The ASB scenario is that Britain could seal itself off from the continent and rule a vast colonial Empire unmolested
Not a bit more ASB than any scenario where Germany's opinion on British rule in India has any direct impact whatsoever on wether or not Britain does rule India. German permission won't help, German denial won't harm, German claims won't be enforced. What matters is how many ressources Britain has to withdraw to solve European issues - just as OTL.
 
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raharris1973

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Force no. But a CP victory in WW1 might very well result in Indian independence even without Germany explicitly demanding it.
Consider how exhausted the UK was in OTL after WW1. A determined revolt in India probably could have expelled them then, it just didn't happen. Obvious why: Having just won the biggest war in human memory they looked a lot stronger than they were.
Now consider a Britain as exhausted as in OTL, with everyone in India knowing Britain just lost a big war, the Ottoman Empire looking far stronger than they really are, with no reparations to pay for Britians war debts, perhaps US banks already seizing collateral, etc. Now have some Indian Veterans getting screwed over by what might even be just be bad paperwork rather than outright malice. Riots, mutinies, things escalate...... You do the math.

This- this is my favorite post in the thread.

While the rest of the participants rehash the argument over the defeatability or lack thereof for Britain, and what it would take for Germany to *force* India out of Britain's hands, Drizzt points out sagely that an independent India could become an indirect "side-effect" of whatever process causes Britain to do much worse in WWI. Bravo.
 
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