CHALLENGE: Create Britain a Superpower...

[Earling]

Britain didnt try a Federal Union that was the problem.
It even forced more powers on the White colonies when they didnt want them.

As for Australia and New Zealand they would have stoo by Britain to the end as both countries leaders said at the time of Suez.

But what does a Federal Union mean in real practical terms?
Beyond sentiment there is very little keeping them together. Britain, stripped of her Asian Empire is a world away from Australia and New Zealand and operates in very different markets. With time sentiment tends to fade when faced with hard facts.

 

[Tyr]

WW1 is really too late for the second empire.
I'd think you would need a new third empire....Perhaps a earlier and better EU?

 

[perfectgeneral]

But what does a Federal Union mean in real practical terms?
Beyond sentiment there is very little keeping them together. Britain, stripped of her Asian Empire is a world away from Australia and New Zealand and operates in very different markets. With time sentiment tends to fade when faced with hard facts.

I would recommend a collective treasury, defence spending, foreign policy and head of state (same royal family). After shared expenses, each country would gain an equal (per capita) share of the treasury to spend as their parliament sees fit.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

Wouldnt that incite rebellion in Egypt?, not to mention the reaction of the Commonwealth/Colonies, USA etc.

Australia, Rhodesia and New Zealand where all very loyal and supportive at Suez.
As for the Suez area itself it could have been cleared of Egyptians.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

But what does a Federal Union mean in real practical terms?
Beyond sentiment there is very little keeping them together. Britain, stripped of her Asian Empire is a world away from Australia and New Zealand and operates in very different markets. With time sentiment tends to fade when faced with hard facts.

The British Settler economys where bound by blood.
The subject collonies would be jetisoned when they became costly.

An Imperial Union as pushed by Joe Chamberlain the Colonial Secretary and the second most powerful man in the Conservative government of the late 19th century advocated an Imperial British Union of all the White Dominions he was concerned far less about the areas inhabited by non-British people.
An Imperial Parliament in London would control Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Colonial Empire as well as some Central taxation while the home nation and Dominion Parliaments in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Newfoundland, Canada, Rhodesia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand would control all other domestic powers.

 

[stevep]

But what does a Federal Union mean in real practical terms?
Beyond sentiment there is very little keeping them together. Britain, stripped of her Asian Empire is a world away from Australia and New Zealand and operates in very different markets. With time sentiment tends to fade when faced with hard facts.

Earling

Don't know about that. Until we joined the EEC, as was, there was still a lot of trade as well as other economic interactions between Britain and Australia/New Zealand and it was only the protectionist policies of the EEC that curtailed them. Furthermore a large densely populated country like Britain is always a good market for large scale food producers.

Steve

 

[stevep]

The British Settler economys where bound by blood.
The subject collonies would be jetisoned when they became costly.

An Imperial Union as pushed by Joe Chamberlain the Colonial Secretary and the second most powerful man in the Conservative government of the late 19th century advocated an Imperial British Union of all the White Dominions he was concerned far less about the areas inhabited by non-British people.
An Imperial Parliament in London would control Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Colonial Empire as well as some Central taxation while the home nation and Dominion Parliaments in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Newfoundland, Canada, Rhodesia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand would control all other domestic powers.

Joe

Unfortunately, apart from being outside the POD set by the scenario - if your talking literally about your namesake, you have a contradiction in your scenario. You differentiate between subject and settler colonies but include S Africa and Rhodesia in the latter. They were dominated by the white settlers at the time but overwhelmingly native in population. [Especially if you were talking about the full Rhodesia rather the region that declared UDI]. So what are you assuming happens to those two places as the 20thC passes?

Steve

 

[stevep]

Guys

Quite a challenge but not totally impossible. The idea path for me might be:

a) A shorter, more successful WWI. Say a small check for the RN at Dogger Bank and a properly organised Gallipoli. Those result in a shorter war, say ending in 1916 or early 1917, with a more successful Jutland resulting and a far more confident Britain still with much of its economic power. Its had a hard fight, which has shown the weaknesses of the old laisse-faire viewpoint and will prompt social changes. It also means changes in the post-war settlement to, to modify the old NATO saying, "keep the US out, Russia in and Germany down". Basically the US stays in isolation, Russia under either a weakened monarchy or moderate republic stays part of the political family, ideally Austria-Hungary survives in reduced form and Germany is split up, divide and rule to alienate the Prussian conservatives/Junkers from the bulk of the country.

b) With weaknesses shown by the conflict a major programme of social and economic reform, updating industry, greatly improving education and social conditions to strengthen the core of the empire. At the same time the ties strengthened by the conflict and concerns about vulnerabilities elsewhere a more serious attempt at Imperial Federation is made and has some progress. Since Britain is willing to be more interventionist, including tariff reform in the face of continued protectionism elsewhere, it is more likely to be able to win over the dominions. At the same time steps are taken to encourage reform in India and move towards self-rule.

c) Maintain the alliance with Japan and possibly also a period of naval tension with the US. This achieves a number of aims. If the US completes the historical 1016 programme it will give a number of bonuses.
i) The US will be left with an unbalanced and expensive fleet which will probably generate enough frustration in Congress that new construction will be greatly delayed.
ii) It will still be enough of a threat to Japan that, especially after the 1923 quake, that country will be more dependent on the alliance with Britain, enabling us to exert more influence and coupled with the stronger world economy very likely prevent the militant take-over.
iii) With a lot more money, still a lot of self-confidence and an improving economy the RN will not suffer the disastrous Washington Treaty with all the damage to the fleet and construction industry. Therefore construction will continue at a suitable rate avoiding the block-obsolesce Britain faced in the 1930s.
iv) If the navalists are loud enough in the US it might make the Canadians more receptive still to ideas of imperial federation, or at least co-operation on areas of common defence.

Those 2 steps set the pattern for a much stronger Britain and a larger state centred on it. Depends on the circumstances as to how things go. Should largely butterfly the Great Depression or at least moderate it. Even if, by some virtually ASB changes we get something like the world in OTL 1930s with an hostile Japan and reunited, expansionist Germany then Britain is in a much, much stronger position verses both those opponents while keeping Russia as a non-pariah will mean that any attempt by Germany to force drastic changes in Europe will be very short lived. As such any WWII equivalent conflicts should be fairly short and for Britain inexpensive.

In the longer terms I would see much of the empire move towards independence. Including India and most of the other African and Asian colonies. Ideally under friendly terms and with markedly greater stability and wealth. The awkward thing here might be the colonies in southern and eastern Africa with their white minority population. That gives the historically awkward problem of transition from minority rule to democracy. Ideally they might be included in the Federation on full terms and provide a good degree of stability to Africa as well as increasing the Federation's resources - population, raw materials, land etc significantly. Would also like to try and keep in the Federation at least some of the key strategic colonies - for instance Malta, Singapore, Hong Kong etc. Especially since some of those would also be important economic centres.

Given a multi-polar world with several major powers, the Federation, the US, Russia, possibly France and later Germany, China and India it should be possible to avoid a major cold-war period. There will be period of tension, especially with changes in the balance of power as non-European powers develop or at least gain independence. The Federation would probably have limited rivalry with the US, Russia, later China [over Hong Kong]. Enough to maintain a degree of unity in the face of external threats and decent interest in international affairs but not enough to led to serious conflict or social or economic strain.

The Federation, if at its smallest size, i.e. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some of the smaller but sell placed locations would have a population of say 120-150M which would be enough, as a developed state to be a major power. Whether that would be a superpower would probably be a matter of definition, along with probably dependent on who else is about.

If larger, say successfully including the African lands, then its a significantly bigger power with greater capacity. If really successful it would include India and the Asian colonies and would be more powerful still. Under those circumstances it would probably be in danger of generating a potential hostile alliance of a number of other powers to balance it.

Steve

 

[birdy]

Australia, Rhodesia and New Zealand where all very loyal and supportive at Suez.
As for the Suez area itself it could have been cleared of Egyptians.

The image of Britain as a defender of democracy would take a beating when word gets out of forced relocations, even in Pro-British parts of the world.

How many Egyptians were there in the Suez area?

 

[Nick Sumner]

I'd like to throw a couple of ideas in if I may. I've been thinking about this a while and while I agree with much of what has been written here it seems to mostly concentrate on Britain's engagement with the rest of the world. It seems to me that Britain’s internal sea changes played just as important a role in decline.

The main problem with WW1 for Britain wasn't the length of the conflict or the cost in blood and treasure (though both were appalling) so much as what it did to the national psyche.

I could be wrong but my impression is that before WW1 Britain was a more optimistic, enthusiastic, positive society than she subsequently became. When WW1 began, thousands of Britons answered the call to arms, not merely, as many historians would have us believe, because they thought it would be a ‘lark’ but also because they were genuinely patriotic and believed in the justice of Britain’s cause. What this seems to imply is that the British people basically believed in and trusted the nation – the system in which they lived and the leadership.

That great upwelling of positive patriotic feeling died in the trenches because of the nature of the fighting and the apparent futility of the losses. (An aside - this was inextricably linked with the smallness of gains and the cost of those gains. Interestingly British soldiers tended to reflect positively on the ‘Hundred Days’ Campaign of 1918 when warfare became mobile again and negatively on the actions where the fighting was static, though casualties during the hundred days were quite as bad as those at 3rd Ypres (Passchendale).)

The impression of futility was reinforced by the memoirs of Lloyd George and to a lesser extent Churchill that portrayed Britain’s military leadership as incompetent and unfeeling butchers who didn’t care how many of their own soldiers they killed in pointless attacks. Their version of the conflict entered the national consciousness to the extent that the trust that existed in Britain’s leadership and system was badly eroded, the British became more cynical and more suspicious. They began to look out for number one because clearly the British system, Britain’s leadership, could not be trusted with the task.

Then there was the decision to get back on the gold standard and the subsequent economic dislocation that went with it and these two experiences came together to lead to the rise of militant Trades Unionism.

***

Britain has Oxford and Cambridge, to the best of my knowledge it still doesn’t have a school of business. Now Oxbridge is all well and good, I’m sure no one would question they are assets to the nation but a peculiarly British conceit meant that until quite recently engineers and entrepreneurs were looked down on by the upper echelons of the British education system. Engineers and entrepreneurs build industrial societies (and one of the reasons Britain has fallen from Superpowerdom is the relative decline in manufacturing) but how long did it take for Britain to have an equivalent of the French Ecole polytechnique, or the German technical universities? How long will it be before Britain has an equivalent of Harvard?

The LSE - which might have become Britain’s business school - was for a long time a think tank for radical socialism. It was founded with the initial intention of renewing the training of Britain's political and business elite, but two of the founders were members of the Fabian Society and so study of social sciences was somehow added too and then pushed aside the study of business. That has all changed now but what a lost opportunity.

***

Has the British sense of humour been an asset or a liability? I am British so perhaps I can be forgiven if I say that I can’t help think that we Brits often make jokes about problems rather than fixing them.

Sorry I’ve rambled, does any of this make sense or am I talking complete cobblers?

 

[joe-chamberlain]

Joe

Unfortunately, apart from being outside the POD set by the scenario - if your talking literally about your namesake, you have a contradiction in your scenario. You differentiate between subject and settler colonies but include S Africa and Rhodesia in the latter. They were dominated by the white settlers at the time but overwhelmingly native in population. [Especially if you were talking about the full Rhodesia rather the region that declared UDI]. So what are you assuming happens to those two places as the 20thC passes?

Steve

Re-settlement would be the practical solution.

 

[Neroon]

IMO the problem with making the Empire into a sort of Imperial Federation of which India (which i agree would be the key) is a happy, educated & industrialized part, is that sooner or later you'd end up with what is de-facto at least an Indian Empire rather than a British one.

 

[Lord Insane]

IMO the problem with making the Empire into a sort of Imperial Federation of which India (which i agree would be the key) is a happy, educated & industrialized part, is that sooner or later you'd end up with what is de-facto at least an Indian Empire rather than a British one.

True, though it might be delayed to sometime in the 21th century, and, naturally, it might be a more British Indian then what Indian is in OTL.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

The image of Britain as a defender of democracy would take a beating when word gets out of forced relocations, even in Pro-British parts of the world.

How many Egyptians were there in the Suez area?

Less than a half a million at the time.
Back in the 1950's such a large re-settlement wouldn’t be seen as that bad.
Just 10 years earlier the Russians re-settled several million Germans to the west and countless other minorities to the East.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

True, though it might be delayed to sometime in the 21th century, and, naturally, it might be a more British Indian then what Indian is in OTL.

The Federal Union proposed by the Unionists in the early part of the 20th century was for the White Settler Colonies only.

 

[Lord Insane]

The Federal Union proposed by the Unionists in the early part of the 20th century was for the White Settler Colonies only.

And such a Union would have a bloody hard time keeping India in the Union.
No, India would have to have a say in the Union by the 50s, at the least, for India to remain in. A fair say could very well take more then a decade into the 21th century to achieve, though.
And India weren't as 'black' as the African non-settler colonies, so racists would have an easier time countenancing such a thing for India.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

And such a Union would have a bloody hard time keeping India in the Union.
No, India would have to have a say in the Union by the 50s, at the least, for India to remain in. A fair say could very well take more then a decade into the 21th century to achieve, though.
And India weren't as 'black' as the African non-settler colonies, so racists would have an easier time countenancing such a thing for India.

Joe Chamberlain and most Unionists would rather have got rig of India that give them an equal vote with us.
That would basically make the British Empire an Indian Empire.

 

[Admiral Canaris]

Joe Chamberlain and most Unionists would rather have got rig of India that give them an equal vote with us.
That would basically make the British Empire an Indian Empire.

Funny fact #79: since Indians played such a large part in the British colonial administration in Asia, people there did view the Empire as an Indian Empire...

 

[Lord Insane]

Joe Chamberlain and most Unionists would rather have got rig of India that give them an equal vote with us.
That would basically make the British Empire an Indian Empire.

Pardon, but 'Federalist' would be better. The Unionists were an actual political grouping dedicated to keeping Ireland in the UK (as opposed to merely keeping Ireland in the Empire).
India was 'the Jewel of the Empire', so just getting rid of it would be political suicide at the start of the century, and note that I didn't say that India would be given a say directly, but later on. Joseph Chamberlain wouldn't be involved in British politics by 1953, after all.
And India might be given a smaller say at first, then later on an equal say, and then a say based merely on population.
And the Empire might end up as an Indian Empire, but
a) it wouldn't be that for quite some time and
b) it would be a more British Indian Empire then what an Indian Empire would be today.

 

[joe-chamberlain]

Pardon, but 'Federalist' would be better. The Unionists were an actual political grouping dedicated to keeping Ireland in the UK (as opposed to merely keeping Ireland in the Empire).
India was 'the Jewel of the Empire', so just getting rid of it would be political suicide at the start of the century, and note that I didn't say that India would be given a say directly, but later on. Joseph Chamberlain wouldn't be involved in British politics by 1953, after all.
And India might be given a smaller say at first, then later on an equal say, and then a say based merely on population.
And the Empire might end up as an Indian Empire, but
a) it wouldn't be that for quite some time and
b) it would be a more British Indian Empire then what an Indian Empire would be today.

The Unionist party was the name for the entire UK Conservative party at the time.