General Whitelock succeeds.....a British Argentina

I was the one who wrote that site, actually. Please keep in mind that I was focussing on that topic intensely for a few years solid, and I did careful research on all aspects of what I covered. I've known that alternate history has lots of butterflies; I tried my very best not to ignore them, and I was conservative in how I used the butterflies.

Wow, yofie, looking back at that post I've realized that I was very unnecessarily nasty there, especially the part about you not getting butterflies. I'm sorry.
 

yofie

Banned
Here's my take on it, since I'm working on such a TL (with Part I already posted and already linked by our resident gauchos) - the original plan for any successful British "Argentina" was basically something akin to a Singapore or Hong Kong - a trading entrepôt, nothing more.

Of course, any British invasion of the Río de la Plata is going to have some knock-off effects that are going to vibrate. Maybe the US loses the War of 1812, for starters, . . . ;)

Some people speculate that the British would have conquered ALL of Spanish America had they been successful in Buenos Aires. My AH is right in the middle between what they think and what you think - i.e. the British end up conquering, in steps, all of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata but nothing more (and losing some eventually to the new states of Bolivia and Paraguay).

As for the War of 1812, there is debate over who were the real winners and losers - whether the British Empire or the US.
 
Some people speculate that the British would have conquered ALL of Spanish America had they been successful in Buenos Aires.

AFAIK any total conquest of Spanish America is downright ASB, simply because a lot of the resources for something like that were tied up in Europe. One has to remember that the first invasion of the Río de la Plata was, in and of itself, an unauthorized operation. The closest one could get for resources for this type of thing was (and I read this elsewhere on the site) making some use of their "disposable" units, but even then the operation was still technically illegal. Hence, it would actually make sense to keep their holdings small (and hence lose a good deal of the Viceroyalty).
 
b) would be an obvious benefit since most of the smugglers were British in the first place. As for a) - what would be better would either be some form of joint revenue collection by both BS-AS and Britain or having BS-AS alone handle revenue collection (after all, trade is basically the lifeblood of the city). If Britain were to handle revenue collection, that could be seen as a sneaking suspicion of a British colonization, which no one in their right minds would go for (after all, after going through Spanish colonization, why go through yet another period of colonization by a power that just as equally distant?).

As for c) - Britain didn't do that for Gibraltar and les Îles Malouines, right? So it would be spoils of war - or an avenue for early *Argentine independence under a British amical protectorate (a mini-*Monroe Doctrine covering the Río de la Plata), which is my "everybody wins" scenario that to me is realistic and pragmatic as a way of balancing both porteño and British desires. Of course, in my TL, I decided to build upon existing institutions to create the new *Argentine state - hence the continuation of the audiencias and cabildos and the convoluted system of intendencias, gobernaciónes, and the like (which will be rationalized at some point) - so as to provide some sense of continuity and thus let the porteños be capable of governing their affairs.

If the British did decide to run the place at arms legnth and be happy to simply deny it to the Spanish mention of Gibraltar made me think why don't they seize Montevideo (and what would later become Uruguay) permanently? Now granted that might make the locals a bit twitchy but combine it with cast iron guarentees of just wanting a local port and the light touch running Rio it could be doable I would have thought. IIRC British support for Uruguay came mainly from wanting a nice neutral buffer state so that they could trade freely in the region.
 

maverick

Banned
Some people speculate that the British would have conquered ALL of Spanish America had they been successful in Buenos Aires.

Some people also speculate that Germany could have invaded Britain in 1940, or that Japan could have invaded Alaska in 1941, or that Homo Sapiens evolved separately in the Americas...

Doesn't make it any more realistic...
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
I have only met three Argentines. They were all fabulously rich. The two men played polo and better rugby that I could ever had hoped to. The woman was a typical blue-eyed, blonde English Rose named Sandra. They had perfect accentless English and one of them had the not-exactly Spanish surname of Wilcox. Are you sure we didn't own it on the quiet?
 
I have only met three Argentines. They were all fabulously rich. The two men played polo and better rugby that I could ever had hoped to. The woman was a typical blue-eyed, blonde English Rose named Sandra. They had perfect accentless English and one of them had the not-exactly Spanish surname of Wilcox. Are you sure we didn't own it on the quiet?
Up until the 1940's and Perón, Argentina was a Dominion of Honor. In other words, you did own it on the not-so-quiet :p
 

Goldstein

Banned
I was the one who wrote that site, actually. Please keep in mind that I was focussing on that topic intensely for a few years solid, and I did careful research on all aspects of what I covered. I've known that alternate history has lots of butterflies; I tried my very best not to ignore them, and I was conservative in how I used the butterflies.

If doing your research means that you learnt South American history in depth, then it was a well invested time. But it was not neccesary to write that much text. Look, I've condensed your scenario for you:

The British seize Argentina. Then there are slight cultural changes in south America, and some irrelevant changes in the rest of the world, excluding the shocking fact of the Falkland War not taking place. In Argentina, to the contrary, there is huge effects: Well known Argentinean people start having anglicized names, and the Argentineans become much richer and stable because Speaking English Does That.

You see? I invested much less time!

Seriously, I'm not trying to demoralize you, but just to be constructive: if you really value your scenario, and looks like you do, you should start considering to rewrite it from scratch. Just taking the butterflies into consideration while keeping the level of detail, would make it much better.

Some people speculate that the British would have conquered ALL of Spanish America had they been successful in Buenos Aires. My AH is right in the middle between what they think and what you think - i.e. the British end up conquering, in steps, all of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata but nothing more (and losing some eventually to the new states of Bolivia and Paraguay).

The aura mediocritas is not appliable to everything. In this case it is not, for the British could not have seized the whole Latin America, ad Dan1988 points out. Of course, this doesn't mean the British coulnd't have seized "just" a good chunk of the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata...
 
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Seriously, I'm not trying to demoralize you, but just to be constructive: if you really value your scenario, and looks like you do, you should start considering to rewrite it from scratch. Just taking the butterflies into consideration while keeping the level of detail, would make it much better.

I agree. Avoiding the World Wars would be of great help. :D And get some comic characters in there - all Latin American TLs should have analogues of Jânio Quadros and Mariano Malgarejo (or both at once), at minimum, to provide comic relief.


The aura mediocritas is not appliable to everything. In this case it is not, for the British could not have seized the whole Latin America, ad Dan1988 points out. Of course, this doesn't mean the British coulnd't have seized "just" a good chunk of the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata...

True, but it can be a bit more than that. The big thing to keep in mind is that OTL Argentina is basically, more or less, a BS-AS-wank - with all the trouble that followed, such as the centralist-vs.-federalist debate - and even then they didn't have all of the Viceroyalty. An "Argentina" that would be more plausible in an ATL would shrink considerably (particularly since even under the Spanish, the Viceroyalty didn't control all of its presumed territory - large swaths of Alto Perú and Paraguay come to mind), regardless of whether the British are involved or not. Heck, it could also be possible for BS-AS to be part of Brazil :)D), thereby uniting all the gauchos, if we want a complete wank.

**is chased by several angry Argentines, and makes a run for it**
 

yofie

Banned
The British seize Argentina. Then there are slight cultural changes in south America, and some irrelevant changes in the rest of the world, excluding the shocking fact of the Falkland War not taking place. In Argentina, to the contrary, there is huge effects: Well known Argentinean people start having anglicized names, and the Argentineans become much richer and stable because Speaking English Does That.

You see? I invested much less time!

Seriously, I'm not trying to demoralize you, but just to be constructive: if you really value your scenario, and looks like you do, you should start considering to rewrite it from scratch. Just taking the butterflies into consideration while keeping the level of detail, would make it much better.

Thanks for condensing my website into just a few sentences. On the other hand, I've written the website not just for the sake of AH but to tell the entire world, and especially South Americans and those mystified by Argentina's spectacular fall, in detail about what has happened. Not just the general stuff, but to put everything in detail, because otherwise it's just in my imagination. This is to put into life that world even more.

That's my way of communicating to everyone about just how too bad Argentina isn't up there with the developed countries. I've been aiming, though that, to make a radical change for the better in people's attitudes towards Argentina and its place in the world. Besides which, it's a real window into a parallel universe which may exist in real life, according to what some physicists speculate.
 
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