Due to the number of comments (which are much appreciated), I'll respond to some topics generally; if you aren't quoted, no slight is intended.
Also, a belated thanks for the half-million views.
Oh, a RUSSIAN air force then? It would certainly fit, considering that they have the potential for it. #3 then however has to be either Germany or France.
France and Germany already have air forces - Venezuela's is only
one of the first rather than
the first. The topic of discussion was who would be next after Venezuela - I apologize if that was unclear.
A Russian air force makes sense given the size of Russia and the poor state of road and rail infrastructure in many regions... but Russia will be fifth, not fourth.
By the way, how are Sikkim and Bhutan faring so far?
They're British protectorates governed in a relatively hands-off manner; as in OTL, Britain had little interest in annexing the Himalayan kingdoms outright. But all that is about to change.
Here's to hoping Grandma ITTL learns to cook beef patties and Ackee and saltfish.
I'm intrigued to see if some Patois words will enter Dominican Spanish's lexicon and if the accents will be changed to some degree.
Mmmm, ackee and saltfish.
Dominican Spanish will definitely pick up a bit of Patois, and there will also be some movement of Spanish words into the Jamaican demotic speech as some of the immigrants return.
Interesting times ahead in Latin America! How will the region develop, there may be a Colombian-Venezuelan war over the Guajira peninsula if Venezuela needs a scapegoat.
However, are you sure Araucania would extend much farther IX region on the Chilean side? On the Patagonian side, I would have imagine Chile to control Chubut and Santa Cruz since they are the powerhouse of the region.
Colombia would be an easier target than either Brazil or Britain, so if Venezuela wants to manufacture a crisis, it may well be there.
I think you may be right about the Araucanian borders. The northern end of the traditional Mapuche territory is at the Bio Bio river in the VIII region, but this territory is too heavily settled by Europeans for the Mapuche to hold much of it. Let's assume then that their northern border is pushed south to the IX (with maybe a bit of the southeast part of VIII) and that their kingdom includes the IX, XIV and X, with their western border approximately where Route 5 is in OTL, or maybe a bit east of that. On the OTL Argentine side they would control parts of Chubut and Santa Cruz province, but largely the inland parts.
I really liked what you've done with the copperbelt, even if with AIDS most white people may try not to blend with the local population.
The Copperbelt is potentially one of the richest regions in Africa, and although the German and Portuguese mining companies are developing it in order to exploit it, the Africans are still benefitting in both the short and long term. (Not to mention that, although Mme Skłodowska doesn't know it, children are coming hundreds of miles to study at her high school because she teaches there.)
As for intermarriage... give it time. HIV won't be an obstacle forever.
Who's the Imperial Prime Minister?
Would you believe I haven't thought of a name? I guess that's my tendency to think of history primarily in terms of forces and mass action.
The PM is someone who has no OTL counterpart; I'll come up with a name between now and the next update.
I can't even see us Canadians remaining quiescent at these developments, especially if the Imperials try to muck up trade with the US. Opposition to this regressive overlord could be a unifying force for Anglo-Franco relations.
The dominions, even those with center-right governments, are watching events in Britain with a rather appalled fascination, and they'll certainly keep their own counsel if the Imperial Party tries to intervene in their affairs. Loyalty dies hard, though, and there will be countervailing factors for some: for instance, Australasia isn't happy about the prospect of an independent India achieving political dominance in its region.
You'll see in the next substantive update as well as the 1917-20 one that the dominions will not speak with one voice.
On the matter of women having the vote taken away, in Victoria the 1863 electoral act accidentally enfranchised rate paying women, who proceeded to vote in the 1864 general election. Depressingly this was "fixed" in 1865 and Victoria became the last colony to enfranchise women, but is a fun footnote nevertheless.
The same thing happened in New Jersey during the early nineteenth century. There were a couple of other American states that gave women the vote and then took it away - Utah, for instance - and I believe some Canadian provinces did the same thing. Progress on woman suffrage during the early days was less linear than many people think.
Why do I want the Imperial Government to stuff itself over it's policies? The sheer thought of this... and the colonies'... *mad*
There are many good reasons why this government should stuff itself - not only are its policies oppressive, but it's casually smashing relationships that have in some cases been centuries in the building. This will make it much harder for subsequent governments to restore those relationships - some of the Imperials' successors
will want to restore and improve them, but by then they may be beyond repair.
The War of Indian Independence is probably going to be relatively short - there's no way a turbulent, cash-strapped Britain can hold onto India through brute force, and they are not really considering partnership with Indian upper classes (what has held together the Raj anyway so far, like IOTL).
More than "not considering" - they're actively destroying what partnerships existed before.
In any event, I'll let your comment stand proxy for all the discussion of the balance of forces and probable length of the war. My take on it is this: India outnumbers the rest of the empire combined - by a considerable amount, in fact - and is more industrialized than it was at this time in OTL. It also has a large number of Great War veterans with combat experience, some of whom were fairly high-ranking officers with knowledge of logistics. On the other hand, the British army is better equipped, India's industrial regions will be its first targets, and it has its own nearby reserve of manpower in the Southeast Asian princely states, which haven't felt the Imperial boot as much as the outright colonies and which have little love for the Indian civil servants and merchants who set up shop in the British wake.
The dominions are likely to be divided: Canada and Ireland probably won't want any part of this war (although Ireland might be close enough to get blackjacked into it), but as noted above, Australasia might be sufficiently spooked by the prospect of a regionally-dominant India to join. The southern African colonies, which are still in a very loose union, will have varying amounts of misgivings - I suspect Smuts will try to stay out as long as he can. The war will be very controversial in both the dominions that join and those that don't.
Other factors: As several people have mentioned, there will be divisions within India, especially in the princely states - some will join the Congress, but most have blotted their copybook to the point where they see the Raj as the best chance for survival (at least as long as it isn't obviously losing). The British government could institute conscription, which isn't what the voters signed up for and will be unpopular, but which could be reinforced by patriotic propaganda ("ghost of 1857" in Badshah's words) and which would incidentally relieve some of the lingering unemployment. And there's always the African colonies, which as you and others have said, could go horribly wrong in a number of ways, but that doesn't mean Britain won't try.
I think the balance does favor India - the fact that the war is called the "Indian War of Independence" is a big sign of that - but I don't expect it will be a one-sided conflict. My tentative plans have it continuing into the early 1920s, albeit more intensely at some points than at others - I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong, but I'm thinking it will be a nasty war.
The USA are probably going to be very unsympathetic and possibly interested in some opportunistic landgrab - not going to war with Britain of course, but waiting for the right moment to get some more Caribbean island if opportunity presents.
Quite possibly. The expansionist faction in the United States has had its eye on the British Caribbean for some time, and a fire-sale purchase might be sold to the progressives as a liberation.
I am curious as to how things proceed in India once the British ARE gone. Might we see some of the princely states try to secede from the Republic of India, like the Nizam of Hyderabad in OTL? Will they succeed or will they be crushed easily by the Congress forces?
There will definitely be some who try to stay out - whether they succeed will depend on the balance of forces at the end of the war, the inclinations of whoever brokers the peace, and how war-weary the Indians are. Beyond that, I'll hold my peace for now.
I also wonder how the Indian War of Independence will affect the rest of the world. Will Britain's relations be strained if the war does indeed become a bloody one? Will other colonies be inspired by India's struggle?
Some readers have asked how, in the absence of a World War II-analogue, the European powers will come to realize that colonialism has an expiration date. One of the answers has always been Abacarism and the movements that followed from it. This is another one.
BTW, don't expect the entirety of the military to be on the side of the Imperials, particularly the lower decks of the RN. They mutinied in OTL in the 30s over pay, after all.
No, they probably won't all be on-side, especially if things start to go south or if the wrong unit is asked to participate in atrocities.
That 11-seat majority was gained with 36 percent of the vote, also.
The Tories will feel the effect of this for the entire 20th century. It seems that the Liberals and Labourites will be the dominant parties for a long time, pulling the country into a social democracy.
Keep in mind that the Tories are part of the
opposition to the Imperial Party - even the True Conservative splitters aren't happy with the more modernist parts of the Imperial platform. The British political system after the Imperial government falls will be quite a bit different than it was before, but some of the same players will still be there.
And then there's the issue of viceregal autonomy; when a situation is desperate, I can see the Viceroy stepping in as an arbiter
The reason I don't see the viceroy really coming into it is because the guy who they have now seems to be a complete stooge for the Imperials, he has nothing worth offering and in fact his management of the situation has arguably led it to being as bad as it's gotten.
All of this is true - the current viceroy is the Imperials' man, and his mismanagement was part of the reason the situation deteriorated (the Amritsar massacre was something nobody in government wanted, not that the Indian nationalists will ever believe that). On the other hand, a lot of his mismanagement was directed from above, and he's closer to the facts on the ground than London is, so it's
possible that he might break with the Imperial Party down the line. I'm not saying it will happen, but I'm also not ruling it out.
It's a shame that the imperialists have majority, because this alone would probably have been enough to have a minority government lose a confidence vote and throw things to new elections (after the war proved to be a debacle I mean, not at the time of the declaration).
Honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing, presuming they don't suspend elections entirely, how the Imperial party would even win another election. Of course, there's a hell of a lot more they could muck up in the next three years...
There is precedent for suspending elections during wartime. On the other hand, as eschaton said, some of the Imperial MPs are former Conservatives or Liberals, and they might be weak links if things get desperate. Remember what happened to Leclair - and also remember all those House of Lords members from the dominions and colonies.
damn, wrong man at wrong time, i hope monarchy can survive this.
I hope it can't personally.
Whether the monarchy survives [whether in Britain or one of the dominions] depends on whether King Albert or his heir actually does anything against the Imperials. Its unlikely that Albert will IMO but we don't know whether everyone in his immediate family shares his views....
Albert is definitely the wrong man at the wrong time - Edward VII would have used his behind-the-scenes influence against the Imperial Party rather than for it. The royal family does
not all share his views, and what happens to it after the Imperials fall will have a lot to do with how much of the unwritten constitution people want to restore and how much the institution of the monarchy is viewed as necessary to keeping what remains of the empire together.
Wow, I didn't realize Britain was so bad off that it was going to be taken over by a militaristic xenophobic regime so easily.
Wow, I didn't realize things were going to get this bad in Britain this quickly.
It's a combination of a more rapid and wrenching process of social change than occurred in OTL, Britain being the country hardest hit by the depression, and the major parties making all the wrong decisions. It's a perfect storm, but IMO not an impossible one; I've never been one to think that Britain is immune to such things any more than the United States is. The 1910s and early 20s, like the 1930s in OTL, will be remembered as a time when much of the world went a bit crazy, and Britain went with it.
Note, though, that the unwritten constitution has survived to some degree - the Imperials aren't trying to establish a one-party state, and the tactics they're using against the opposition are reminiscent of Lee Kuan Yew, not Hitler. They're a nasty government, but there are constraints on how nasty they can be.
Might we see the idea of a united Nigerian Federation bandied about again? The very insistent rumors that the Empire is about to fall will promote more thoughts on independence, and that is one that could gain popular support due to its presence in a time of relative prosperity.
I did mention, very early on, that there would be federalist parties in the Niger Valley during the later 1920s and 30s. There will be some major obstacles, though, which we'll see more of in upcoming episodes.
On an aside, will the Imperialists be publishing propaganda? The Ghost of 1857 and the like?
Most certainly. At the beginning, they'll see the war as a major rallying point. That won't last, but propaganda might be even more important when things start to go sour.
The Indians and Africans in the UK will have a rough few years, although they'll survive.
Thinking more about this in the morning, Jonathan has indicated that 1917 will be a major disjuncture in terms of the empire.
Which it is - 1917 is the year that the Indian war of independence begins in earnest. (I'd actually been thinking, up to now, that the Amritsar massacre and the resulting flashpoint would occur at the 1917 rather than the 1916 Diwali celebration, but as I was writing, I realized that the pace would probably be faster with Indian nationalism as developed as it is in TTL.)
Damn, you have been updating this with some pretty impressive speed.
Well, the ideas have been flowing quickly, and December's always a slow time at the office. The next narrative update should also be ready soon (it's one I've had in mind for a while), but then it might be several days while I meet deadlines and figure out what's happening in the dominions.
