How much of their colonial empires can the Europeans preserve after WWII?

Not very much, really.

a) India was already on the road to Independence by the 1930s. Once India goes, every other colony in the world has a precedent set for it.

b)WW2 was a massive loss of prestige for the colonial powers- it became clear that Britain and France had no ability to defend their colonies in Asia and, quite frankly, what you can't defend you have no mandate to rule.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Define colonies. Direct rule is on it's way out ever since the start of Indian Nationalism. Indirect rule is very much a possibility though.
 
I disagree, if anything the colonies were ruthlessly exploited for their natural resources and would have been an economic asset.
They were drains you need to administrate and educate the natives protect the colonies with a strong army and for some case a strong navies as well.
It cost a lot even with the exploitation of natural ressources.
 
Colonies were economic drains if you tried to run them in a way that matched the stated ideals of the colonial powers. If you were doing a pure exploitation, then some of them could pay for themselves.

I would say that to get colonialism lasting until present day in any significant form you would need to go back to at least the 1880s and prevent the scramble for Africa as such. If you have Africa colonized when it was economically beneficial to do so and ignored when it wasn't then you don't end up up with a lot of colonies that weren't worth having there. Of course you also have a whole lot of bad things happening in areas outside of European control, as European weapons got traded into the interior and the early adopters got to use repeating rifles against opponents at the spearchucker or musket level of military tech.

And what happens in Africa still doesn't do anything to prevent the independence of India or Indonesia. The problem, especially in India was partly that the British said a bunch of things to justify their empire that were total BS, and then gradually started believing them and trying to live up to them. At that point, yeah the empire cost more than it was worth.
 

scholar

Banned
Define colonies. Direct rule is on it's way out ever since the start of Indian Nationalism. Indirect rule is very much a possibility though.
Indian Nationalism is as fictional as European Nationalism. The only reason why Indian Nationalism came about was because the British created it. If the British promote Tamil Nationalism, Rajput Nationalism, Punjab Nationalism, etc. Also play on Indian, Buddhist, and Hindu differences and even differences within the faiths themselves. And besides, Indian Nationalism didn't spell the end for colonialism. That would be the economic recession and the complete devastation of the European Colonizers.
 
If we have a friendly US and not our FDR/Truman/Eisenhower US that promoted decolonization, a decent chunk of africa could remain colonial even today.

The pacific war made sure Asia wouldn't though.
 
By the present day, that is.
For the Netherland:

Dutch Antilles, they are still part of the kingdom of the Netherlands after all
Surinam, as Surinam barely wanted independence, the majority was against it (and a lot moved to the Netherlands just before independence)
Dutch New Guinea and the Malucans Islands possibly, Neither wanted to become part of Indonesia and had good relations with the Netherlands. Both wanted to independent, but if they somehow managed to remain part of the Netherlands (through some changes during the Indonesian war of independence like American political supprt), they end up remaining part of the Netherlands and after a while decide not to become independent, because they prefer Dutch money over independence and possibly want Dutch support against possible Indonesian agression.

This is the "best" case scenario (and unlikely) for the Netherlands, using a very loose definition for best as it would probably cost the Dutch quite a lot of money.
 
Surinam, as Surinam barely wanted independence, the majority was against it (and a lot moved to the Netherlands just before independence)

Why were many of the Surinamese against independence? Why did many Surinamese immigrate to NL? Economic interest? I've been aware for a long time that there is a large Surinamese-expat community in NL. Wikipedia claims that the NL expat population is almost as large as the population of Suriname itself.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Why were many of the Surinamese against independence? Why did many Surinamese immigrate to NL? Economic interest? I've been aware for a long time that there is a large Surinamese-expat community in NL. Wikipedia claims that the NL expat population is almost as large as the population of Suriname itself.


Mainly because Surinamese politics have been rotten ever since the first sliver of autonomy. It has always been ethnically divided between the three main ethnic groups: Javanese, Hindustanis and Creoles. The Bush-Creoles and the Natives never had much political power. The politicians basically set out to buy votes from their own ethnic groups. This was all balanced by Dutch control which made sure things didn't get out of hand. However, when the socialists basically kicked Suriname out of the Kingdom because they were so principled against colonisation people feared the worst. Couple this with the Hindus fearing Creole domination and you get the Bijlmer.
 
I do not see the point of keeping colonies. They were all financial drain.

Ugh. This simply isn't true. Britain used its empire to maximize its economic position in the 1930s and after the war as well.

Maybe Angola wasn't profitable; I don't know. But Malaya? Nigeria? The Empire ran a profit.
 
Ugh. This simply isn't true. Britain used its empire to maximize its economic position in the 1930s and after the war as well.

Maybe Angola wasn't profitable; I don't know. But Malaya? Nigeria? The Empire ran a profit.

Faeelin

Were do you get that from? Britain was notorious for not exploiting it's colonies as much as it could have done because of the combination of liberal theories and commitment to laissez faire.

Malaya was profitable but one of the few. Not sure what products there were in Nigeria at this time? Angola was a Portuguese colony.

Steve
 
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