inspired by Area11, what would Colonial empires look like without WW1?
I'll focus on India for a moment, as that is the critical piece of the largest, British, colonial Empire.
Without World War I, the
Indo-German Conspiracy doesn't occur, which was an important event, partially because it lead to the
Defence of India Regulations Act, which lead to the
Rowlatt Acts. These laws suppressing the freedom of association and the press, originally passed thanks to the wartime state of emergency and clear evidence of German espionage were then, as always, preserved and then abused afterwards. Without this, the intial attempts by the British at granting limited self-government may go better, as it was their imposition and prosecutions under them that radicalised many of the important Indian political leaders, who had previously been operating within the political infrastructure the British had established.
Notably, there will be no Amritsar massacre. Without the fall out from this, Congress probably won't boycott the first provincial assembly elections. There will also probably by no third Afghan War, so there won't be the running sore of the insurgency in Waziristan for the next decades.
There will also not be the feeling of betrayal that many in India felt, after the huge scale of volunteering to serve in the War, that what the government of India Act 1919 offered was so paltry. In the run up to the war, the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge was generally favourable to self government, as was his successor, Lord Chelmsford. I see no reason why they wouldn't continue to do so, and without the exigencies of war, are likely to be much more successful.
After then, who knows. Without the war India will have a lower international profile. There will be no League of Nations for it to be a founder member of, and it is very unlikely to be invited to compete in the first summer Olympics. How much this will impact on the formation of a national conciousness I don't know, but I'm confident that without it having been discredited from the start, the liberals in Congress (who were content with self-governance rather than formal independence) will remain influential longer.