BlondieBC
Banned
Not precisely- by this time Indians were already starting to agitate for independence. It may take a little longer (by which I mean late 50s instead of early 40s) but India will still go and once India goes every other colonised people in the world has an example.
While what you list is possible, it is by far from the only or most likely outcome. India independence might well be delay well past the 50's. We might have a long rebellion war. The Indians might lose. etc.
And to losing one part of the Empire collapsing the rest is not a given either barring the catastrophic losses of the World Wars. Spain lost a large portion of its empire, but not all in the Napoleonic wars. Same for Portugal. And neither cause the collapse of the empire system world wide. So even if I grant that India will be independent by 1958, it is far from given the UK losses the rest of its empire. And it is a huge jump to say that this causes the Germans to abandon SWA or EA. So lets look at some other British colonies, OTL & ATL.
1) Hong Kong preferred UK status, but UK too weak to hold. With possibly divided China and much stronger UK, likely stays in Empire.
2) Singapore and Straights colony. Stays.
3) India area. UK can fall back to Sri Lanka and have adequate naval bases. Much easier area to Dominate.
4) Aden - Likely keeps port.
5) Kuwait - Will keep oil.
6) Suez, Malta, Gibraltar - Keeps.
7) White Dominions - Likely stay in system, but we can debate how closely integrated. Now there are a lot of lesser value colonies that really lose money.
So sure, I can see them leaving some less valuable area like the Sudan. But there will be areas that have substantial white populations (over 1/6) that they will definitely keep. I just can't tell you which ones without writing a full TL. For example, the Uganda/Kenya highlands will be settled by non-Africans, but it might be Indians or Europeans. And the divide an rule can work here. Since the Indians were largely expelled after Kenyan independence, it makes a 20% Indian and 15% White population need a strong Empire. At times, the UK was quite good a cynical power moves.
And lets go more on topic to the French. Let us assume that the UK lose all of India/Burma/Pakistan and a few lesser colonies. What happens to French Colonies.
1) Algeria - Went into detail how it is kept.
2) Tunisia - Also likely kept, but might go to Italy. Italy is exporting substantial population, and Libya can't hold the entire export. Heavy Italian settlement in Algeria and Tunisia is possible.
3) The vast Sahara areas the French hold. They are very likely to hold de jure control, but the actual level of defacto control can be quite light until resources are discovered.
4) French West Africa- Tropics. Probably held by force, but France could easily decide certain areas are not worth the effort. France is not generating the population to make these areas French like Algeria, so they need other European settlers. And it is mostly not a prime area to attract settlers from Europe. USA, Argentina, Brazil and UK white dominions are much better. So is SW Africa, Angolan highlands, German East African Highlands, and British East African Highlands.
5) The little things France still holds IOTL. Still holds in this ATL.
In today world it is important to remember that there will be up to a 1 billion person swing in demographics and definitely over 500 million. There will be a lot more whites and a lot fewer non-whites. And there will be a lot of people switch identities for personal advantages, many of these non-White. While it certainly will not go all to Africa, assuming they all do will illustrate the same. Sub-Sahara Africa has about 600 million people, mostly black. ITTL, there will be only 300 million blacks due to lower birth rate and higher death rate. There will be 300 million people of European descent. So we are looking at much more of a Mexico type ratio of DNA than the Africa of OTL. And the whites will cluster in areas. The Congo will still be mostly native due to malaria and yellow fever. But Rwanda will be a clear white super majority. Same for Kenya and Uganda Highlands and Angola.
Or another illustration is the MENA area of about 300 million. We can simply settle the Europeans there and get a majority. But if under colonies,we will see a lot lower Muslim population due to conversion, changing the ethnic cleansing ratio, and Christians hogging resources. So we are probably looking at under 200 million Muslims in the area if we have major white inflows. It is easy to see many of these areas as Christian majority or plurality.
Now note: I am not saying this is a better world. Some of these places could easily resemble aparteid SA or modern Israel. I would not be surprised to see 5-15 festering wounds such as Israel with constant low level violence and systematic discrimination. And I can easy see Holocaust against none whites. The track record of Europeans in Africa from 1880 to 1960 is simply immoral. So some of the more stable areas could easily be because 80% of the blacks were killed in British or German East Africa or they we expelled into the swamps of the Congo and no one bother to count the dead. After all, the Belgians clearly committed Genocide in the Congo and no one cared. The Germans killed 40-70% of one tribe in a few years. The UK did not bother keeping death tolls in the Boer war. WW1 killed from 1 million to 10 million blacks in the Congo. Again, not worth counting. WW1 killed up to a million blacks in British and German East Africa.
The best illustration of how unimportant black life was pre-WW2 is the Boer war. I can find the number of horse killed (360K) and how long they lived (6 weeks on average), but is was not counting black live lost. While deeply offensive, a black life was probably worth somewhere between a chicken and a cow in the European decision process. Definitely way less than a horse, much less a white life. And it is probably closer to the value of a chicken than a cow. I can easily see a situation where there are two reports on the colonial desk. One says 100K cows died of disease and famine. Another says 150K natives died. The issues of the cow dying is forward to higher officials for action, and the report on native deaths is just filed away.