Fate of Colonial Empires without WW2

I wonder if any of the colonial empires could of turned into federation. I believe french were thinking of it but will any country be willing to give the colonists control of their country?

I think this is only possible where the colonizing country imports its own population into the colony, and that population becomes the overwhelming majority. Examples include Australia, which was populated by people from the British isles and a small admixture of white Europeans.

In places like North Africa, however, it will not be possible. Here the population is mostly Berber with some Arab admixture, speaks Arabic and has deep Muslim cultural roots. Morocco was an independent country for nearly all of the last thousand years; Algeria and Tunisia are modern inventions in a territory that was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, and before that various local dynasties ruled.

These regions have a well-established civilization which is part of the same Mediterranean - Near Eastern development which included the great empires of antiquity, Greece, Rome, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, and which reached its peak around the 16th and 17th centuries. By that time, the Ottomans had conquered territories far into Europe.

The Great Divergence starting in the mid-18th century led to an imbalance of power that resulted in the French colonial state arriving in Algeria in 1830 and Morocco in 1912. This stemmed from a unique set of geographical and social circumstances. The French ruled until the 1950s, before being pushed out once more.

In retrospect, the colonial effort here was more like a temporary abberation, because it was premised on an imbalance that could not be sustained, and because the existing population and culture were too advanced. It was always going to be short lived.

The British dominions, on the other hand, represent a real chance for federation. Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Britain might just have been able to pull this off, although world war one seems to have put an end to that idea.
 
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The British dominions, on the other hand, represent a real chance for federation. Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Britain might just have been able to pull this off, although world war one seems to have put an end to that idea.
Those in the South Pacific seemed to like the idea, but the Afrikaners of South Africa, the Scots and Franchophones of Canada and the Irish of... Ireland... were not so fond. I imagine the British would be fine enough with keeping the Dominion system going, as well as to have the Dominions pick up some of the load. The Brits did well out of American independence and the independence of most Spanish colonies, getting to basically buy and sell whatever they wanted without needing to garrison places. Armies are expensive. Better to have most of two continents as a buffer zone, in which you sink anyone else trying to get to them. I also read comparisons before that Portugal was England's oldest colony. It works if you go by the economic stance. So long as the states in Africa respond well to gunboats, and India is somehow managed in a way that the more snobbish in the Foreign and Colonial Officies are content, the British would be able to keep doing as they did. For a bit. Their attempts to stop the Thirteen Colonies from having industry got them angry, and the same happened with India. The British would need to not try monopolizing countries anymore. Ahhh, and without WWII we may not have the British taking all the stocks and bonds of their citizens for companies in the Americas to use to pay for Lend-Lease and such. Meanin they would still have more sway in the area.
 
The USA are very debatable. See Puerto Rico IOTL.

Puerto Rico is only the start, Hawaii is another example, then we have large areas of the US that were brought or conquered (many would include Indian lands here) and the locals were then absorbed into the US.

Then we could say the immigrants that the US absorbed? Admittedly they came to the US but the US now is a creation of many different peoples.
 
The British dominions, on the other hand, represent a real chance for federation. Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Britain might just have been able to pull this off, although world war one seems to have put an end to that idea.

It was over long before WW1, I would say about the 1860s for Canadia and 1890s for Australia. For all intents and purposes, both were independent in domestic matters for many years before the 1860s. New Zealand is a maybe. The other problem is that both Canada and Australia are potentially major and very expensive commitments to defend. Something that Britain did not want.

South Africa has an additional problem that a large number of blacks would need to be absorbed and many of the whites do not want the British rule.

By WW1, all these countries had made it quite clear that they were independent.

In any case, you want such a federation you would need to start your POD in the 1850s.
 
It was over long before WW1, I would say about the 1860s for Canadia and 1890s for Australia. For all intents and purposes, both were independent in domestic matters for many years before the 1860s. New Zealand is a maybe. The other problem is that both Canada and Australia are potentially major and very expensive commitments to defend. Something that Britain did not want.

South Africa has an additional problem that a large number of blacks would need to be absorbed and many of the whites do not want the British rule.

By WW1, all these countries had made it quite clear that they were independent.

In any case, you want such a federation you would need to start your POD in the 1850s.

Legally, I thought the Statute of Westminster in 1931 was the critical moment.
 
By 1931, all these were independent countries.

They were self-governing dominions, but the British Parliament had legislative authority and could make laws that were binding on the dominions. The 1931 Statute established their legislative independence.

Under section 9 of the Statute, Britain could still legislate with effect in any of the Australian states (although this was never used). This last residual power ended with the Australia Act 1986.

The principle that the dominions were independent had already been agreed at the Balfour Declaration in 1926, but the Statute of 1931 was the key moment from a legal perspective.
 
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The Imperial Federation league died off in Britain by... 1893, without looking at my notes. In lasted longer in the Dominions, but it was a fringe movement by World War One.

Frankly, I don't think it ever had anything close to a serious chance of happening.
 
The Imperial Federation league died off in Britain by... 1893, without looking at my notes. In lasted longer in the Dominions, but it was a fringe movement by World War One.

Frankly, I don't think it ever had anything close to a serious chance of happening.

Yes, it only became a serious proposal in the late 1800s but which stage it was too late. For it to work it has to start by 1850 and we need a change in the British system to make something like a confederation of states.

They were self-governing dominions, but the British Parliament had legislative authority and could make laws that were binding on the dominions. The 1931 Statute established their legislative independence.

Under section 9 of the Statute, Britain could still legislate with effect in any of the Australian states (although this was never used). This last residual power ended with the Australia Act 1986.

The principle that the dominions were independent had already been agreed at the Balfour Declaration in 1926, but the Statute of 1931 was the key moment from a legal perspective.

I would say this was a legal formality at best by then all these countries considered themselves independent states.
 
With regard to the particular example of the US colonial empire, it'd be a mixed outcome. We've been able to hold onto a lot of our colonies up to the present day even in OTL: Alaska and Hawai'i were integrated into the country as states, Puerto Rico has continued to have that ambiguous associative status, and Guam, American Samoa, the Marianas, and the US Virgin islands have essentially become economically dependent on the US, to the extent that they'd have trouble maintaining their economies as independent countries - not to mention the strategic role Guam has as a military installation, or the Guantanamo Bay lease in Cuba for that matter.

The Panama Canal Zone was given up, but that was a voluntary decision by the US to respect the original lease; no one could have forced the US to let go of it, with or without WWII. So that territory could easily remain American to the present.

The Philippines is the big exception. The US already had to fight a determined insurgency the second we took it over, and only succeeded in putting it down through overwhelming military force and zero squeamishness about committing atrocities. From that starting point, US policy in the Philippines would have to be a lot different for the Philippine people to be happy remaining a US territory. First, there would have to be extensive economic development of the islands to the point where it raises the GDP and the standard of living of the islands far above the Philippines' neighbors, to make staying in the US sphere a more attractive option materially than independence. Second, the cultural rights of the Filipinos would have to be either completely respected or completely disrespected - i.e., either the US keeps the Filipinos happy through a light cultural touch, or it embarks on a campaign of Americanization so strong and pervasive that it erases any notion of a heritage or identity separate from the mainland US. Either way could backfire, the latter especially so.

Finally, even if all those needles are threaded, there's still the demographic challenge that other posters have mentioned upthread. The current population of the Philippines is just over 100 million, while the current population of the US is around 325 million. Assuming roughly comparable population growth rates in an ATL with no WWII (a debatable point), you'd have a situation where at some point the colonial population would be at least a quarter of the entire population of the entire US/empire. That is a huge demographic bloc that, in a democracy like the US, can't just be kept out of sight and exploited. Eventually the Filipino population will influence the internal politics of the US, whether in the form of the immigrant diaspora or the Philippines itself, and then you have the very "tail wagging the dog" scenario that others have pointed out as being fundamentally at odds with the nature of a colonial empire.

On top of all that, no World War II doesn't mean no war. There could easily still be a US-Japan war at any time in the early-mid 20th century that could result in the loss or independence of the Philippines or the US's other Pacific island possessions.
 
The Philippines is the big exception. The US already had to fight a determined insurgency the second we took it over, and only succeeded in putting it down through overwhelming military force and zero squeamishness about committing atrocities. From that starting point, US policy in the Philippines would have to be a lot different for the Philippine people to be happy remaining a US territory. First, there would have to be extensive economic development of the islands to the point where it raises the GDP and the standard of living of the islands far above the Philippines' neighbors, to make staying in the US sphere a more attractive option materially than independence. Second, the cultural rights of the Filipinos would have to be either completely respected or completely disrespected - i.e., either the US keeps the Filipinos happy through a light cultural touch, or it embarks on a campaign of Americanization so strong and pervasive that it erases any notion of a heritage or identity separate from the mainland US. Either way could backfire, the latter especially so.

Finally, even if all those needles are threaded, there's still the demographic challenge that other posters have mentioned upthread. The current population of the Philippines is just over 100 million, while the current population of the US is around 325 million. Assuming roughly comparable population growth rates in an ATL with no WWII (a debatable point), you'd have a situation where at some point the colonial population would be at least a quarter of the entire population of the entire US/empire. That is a huge demographic bloc that, in a democracy like the US, can't just be kept out of sight and exploited. Eventually the Filipino population will influence the internal politics of the US, whether in the form of the immigrant diaspora or the Philippines itself, and then you have the very "tail wagging the dog" scenario that others have pointed out as being fundamentally at odds with the nature of a colonial empire.

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This is a problem that all democratic states that want colonies will face. This is why I think that states with large foreign groups like Russia with the Czar and under the communist have it easier as to the decision maker, making a Tatar or a Slovak equal to a Russian does not affect him, in fact, there may be many advantages to him in doing so.
 
With regard to the particular example of the US colonial empire, it'd be a mixed outcome. We've been able to hold onto a lot of our colonies up to the present day even in OTL: Alaska and Hawai'i were integrated into the country as states, Puerto Rico has continued to have that ambiguous associative status, and Guam, American Samoa, the Marianas, and the US Virgin islands have essentially become economically dependent on the US, to the extent that they'd have trouble maintaining their economies as independent countries - not to mention the strategic role Guam has as a military installation, or the Guantanamo Bay lease in Cuba for that matter.

The Panama Canal Zone was given up, but that was a voluntary decision by the US to respect the original lease; no one could have forced the US to let go of it, with or without WWII. So that territory could easily remain American to the present.

The Philippines is the big exception. The US already had to fight a determined insurgency the second we took it over, and only succeeded in putting it down through overwhelming military force and zero squeamishness about committing atrocities. From that starting point, US policy in the Philippines would have to be a lot different for the Philippine people to be happy remaining a US territory. First, there would have to be extensive economic development of the islands to the point where it raises the GDP and the standard of living of the islands far above the Philippines' neighbors, to make staying in the US sphere a more attractive option materially than independence. Second, the cultural rights of the Filipinos would have to be either completely respected or completely disrespected - i.e., either the US keeps the Filipinos happy through a light cultural touch, or it embarks on a campaign of Americanization so strong and pervasive that it erases any notion of a heritage or identity separate from the mainland US. Either way could backfire, the latter especially so.

Finally, even if all those needles are threaded, there's still the demographic challenge that other posters have mentioned upthread. The current population of the Philippines is just over 100 million, while the current population of the US is around 325 million. Assuming roughly comparable population growth rates in an ATL with no WWII (a debatable point), you'd have a situation where at some point the colonial population would be at least a quarter of the entire population of the entire US/empire. That is a huge demographic bloc that, in a democracy like the US, can't just be kept out of sight and exploited. Eventually the Filipino population will influence the internal politics of the US, whether in the form of the immigrant diaspora or the Philippines itself, and then you have the very "tail wagging the dog" scenario that others have pointed out as being fundamentally at odds with the nature of a colonial empire.

On top of all that, no World War II doesn't mean no war. There could easily still be a US-Japan war at any time in the early-mid 20th century that could result in the loss or independence of the Philippines or the US's other Pacific island possessions.

Well theoretically in the Phillipines you could try and avoid the demographics question by keeping parts of the Philippines and not the whole.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Nazism at the central point of WW2 took the same theories long adored by various colonial empires for long and put it in effect more radically and brutally making all those taboo and hence colonialism taboo too. Without Nazism,three Scenarios come to my mind. #1 Colonial empire remains and softly practices what they have been doing previously eventually making colonies dominions and maybe even part of their country.
#2 A more bloody wars of independence which would result in independence or a large mass killing of the natives and continuation of the empires.
#3 A possible collaboration between the Colonizers and the natives.
 
Let us think about Suriname. Read somewhere that when the left leaning (though really any government might have gone through with it) pushed for Suriname to be independent a third of there populatoin left for the Netherlands. Looking at thigns now, there are 590,000 Surinamese people in Suriname and 350,000 in the Netherlands. Quite a bit. Also comes down partially to how many Indians and Indonesians the Dutch and British brought over there and the mixing of native groups and former African slaves. I think that, if the Netherlands was fine with it, Suriname might have remained attached to the crown, at at least the level of Aruba or one of the other Caribbean states in personal union with them. Question is if the Dutch would start giving citizenship to them and if they would try limiting immigration from Indonesia. Might be they do in the case of them leaving Java and Sumatra, but retaining the Molossucs and western New Guinea, which wanted the Dutch but got invaded and swallowed up by the What was basically Greater Java.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Let us think about Suriname. Read somewhere that when the left leaning (though really any government might have gone through with it) pushed for Suriname to be independent a third of there populatoin left for the Netherlands. Looking at thigns now, there are 590,000 Surinamese people in Suriname and 350,000 in the Netherlands. Quite a bit. Also comes down partially to how many Indians and Indonesians the Dutch and British brought over there and the mixing of native groups and former African slaves. I think that, if the Netherlands was fine with it, Suriname might have remained attached to the crown, at at least the level of Aruba or one of the other Caribbean states in personal union with them. Question is if the Dutch would start giving citizenship to them and if they would try limiting immigration from Indonesia. Might be they do in the case of them leaving Java and Sumatra, but retaining the Molossucs and western New Guinea, which wanted the Dutch but got invaded and swallowed up by the What was basically Greater Java.
The Dutch planned on dividing the Dutch East Indies into several countries and hoping to keep some of these countries (think east Indonesia) aligned and linked to Netherlands. But Indonesia resistance wanted all of Indonesia (actually wanted all islands in the region) under java control and fought not only the Dutch but these other separate independence movements.
 
The Dutch planned on dividing the Dutch East Indies into several countries and hoping to keep some of these countries (think east Indonesia) aligned and linked to Netherlands. But Indonesia resistance wanted all of Indonesia (actually wanted all islands in the region) under java control and fought not only the Dutch but these other separate independence movements.
As I am aware. It shows how important names are, as they changed the United States of Indonesia into the Republic of Indonesia. And I think that in the USI, there was already a Republic of Indonesia, kept to Java and Sumatra.
 
Sarawak almost certainly survives as an independent state under the Brooke family considering their popularity—I could definitely see them marrying into a local family by the present day, though.
 
Sarawak almost certainly survives as an independent state under the Brooke family considering their popularity—I could definitely see them marrying into a local family by the present day, though.
Though it doesn't have to be the main line that does so. Depending on how large the family is, having a few siblings and cousins do so would work about as well, since it would mean not alienating any groups. Well, besides for the Australians, British, and Americans. I wonder if there is a way for Brunei to keep Sabah. Might be an issue though, as Brookes got Sarawak partially after helping the Sultan of Brunei back on his throne (who had lost it for letting Brooke's control half the Kingdom) after which Brooke and the British North Borneo moved further and further in. Still also the issues with the Sultan of Sulu.
 
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