The post-war political environment in Indo-china will be !!FUN!!. I wonder how badly Franco-British relations will be soured by the Brits working with the resistance movements. With poor Ho Chi Minh dead, who becomes the new champion of the "fuck france" cause?
Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
Garrison
Donor
I am open to suggestions on the latter, but don't be surprised if whoever it is tries to get the support of the British, or at the Indians.
Since the Viet Quoc hasn’t been coopted/purged/betrayed by Ho and the Viet Minh here (at least not as far as I can see), the VNQDD seems like they could step into the melee
Dai Nguyen hasn’t had his fateful flight either
Here the questiin arises whether Garrison wants the leader to be Communist or not.
Garrison
Donor
Much of it comes down to how the politics of the region develop. How many of those groups were genuinely Communist and how many simply chose to turn in that direction when it seemed the western powers refused to treat them seriously. Put it another way, much of it may come down to how the British and French act postwar.
There was tons of opportunism within the Viet Minh, especially once several longtime VNQDD partisans read the room.
Ho’s communism was genuinely held but it took the post-1945 sense of betrayal by Truman backing the French for him to really go hard. His declaration of Vietnam’s independence was in part inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s, after all, with some thought that it was designed to appeal to American sensibilities.
(I took a course on Vietnamese history in college, though I’ve forgotten about 80% of it).
Might be an Attlee left-wing government in London at some point, if that matters.
Interesting opportunity to experiment with the concept of a enlightened post-colonial transitions. Free Trade with mother countries to create jobs. Scholarships to best schools in mother countries to prepare the colonies leaders for future roles in government and business. Targeted infrastructure paid for by home countries in terms of clean water, schools, hospitals, etc. Short version is a reorientation away from the exploitation of former colonies to trying to find ways to build win-win relationships on their paths towards independence.....so when independent the colonies see the benefit of maintaining a positive relationship rather than feeling they are "throwing off their shackles."
I am not sure what you mean by that. What you envision is nearly the same as what the French did OTL. They exactly tried to show that staying in close they created a French educated ruling class, with infrastructure designed to extract that countries resource and of course keep French businesses dominant. They never really left their colonies. They moved from the Governor's palace to the Central Banks and their Embassies. They retained control over lot of the natural resources, their currency (whose value they remained unchanged while devaluing the Franc to be able to further exploit them as a benefit, as the higher value of the African currencies meant that exports became cheaper while domestic industries couldn't take hold and close association with the French meant that French Countries dominated their economies) and regularly sponsored coups to keep the countries that chose to be independent in line. The currency control has led to decades long stagnation of the economies of their African colonies.
Guinea dared to reject this "generous" offer and paid for it by having their economy ruined by the French as during the withdrawal they destroyed infrastructure and things like light bulbs and medicines to avoid them being used by the Guinea's independent government. The Dutch did everything in their power to take back Indonesia and impose a similar deal of free trade and close association like France OTL but the Indonesian nationalists were strong enough to resist the Dutch. You call this to be enlightened? This awful concept of "mother countries" is greatly disturbing as for the non settler colonies, it means, for the lack of a better word, shit. The only place the French left honorably was its Indian territories, which were tiny and their survival was completely dependent upon India.
India getting greater autonomy was a done deal as the nationalists went from strength to strength and ITTL preparations for future combat, like mobilization plans mean that Indian industries were put into war production earlier than OTL, makes the hands of the Indian nationalists stronger. Individual satyagraha promoted by Gandhi probably continues but I don't think that there would be anything like the Quit India Movement to gut the Congress, so they would be in a much stronger bargaining position. Incremental autonomy was granted by the British to the Indians and meaningful autonomy was granted after the first world war and would continue. But that does not make them any better. Through a variety of means like exorbitant salaries to those British officials posted in India, free trade coupled with a plethora of policies to hamper Indian industries. The author has decided to completely ignore the subject of Bengal famine by simply importing food from Burma, which is reasonable given the event ITTL. It was caused by loss of Burma, a lean harvest, Food from rest of India being diverted elsewhere, the British destroying the boats, which formed a vital part of internal transport in Bengal, creating pockets of abundance and areas with no food, not making effort to redirect food, etc. The acts of the administration was immensely negligent and apathetic. This is not the only man made famine in British India. While historians are divided as to whether Holodomor was a genocide with most agreeing but rarely does any such attention is received by the multiple famines in India which resulted in far more deaths. During the wartime, the Administration in India made no efforts to check inflation unlike Canada, Australia or UK itself. Hundreds of miles of railways were dismantled OTL and sent to the middle east along with the rolling stock. They blocked the creation of automobile and medicine factories to protect the British producers. What capacity of automotive and shipbuilding production existed was underutilized and orders were placed with foreign goods.
Guinea dared to reject this "generous" offer and paid for it by having their economy ruined by the French as during the withdrawal they destroyed infrastructure and things like light bulbs and medicines to avoid them being used by the Guinea's independent government. The Dutch did everything in their power to take back Indonesia and impose a similar deal of free trade and close association like France OTL but the Indonesian nationalists were strong enough to resist the Dutch. You call this to be enlightened? This awful concept of "mother countries" is greatly disturbing as for the non settler colonies, it means, for the lack of a better word, shit. The only place the French left honorably was its Indian territories, which were tiny and their survival was completely dependent upon India.
India getting greater autonomy was a done deal as the nationalists went from strength to strength and ITTL preparations for future combat, like mobilization plans mean that Indian industries were put into war production earlier than OTL, makes the hands of the Indian nationalists stronger. Individual satyagraha promoted by Gandhi probably continues but I don't think that there would be anything like the Quit India Movement to gut the Congress, so they would be in a much stronger bargaining position. Incremental autonomy was granted by the British to the Indians and meaningful autonomy was granted after the first world war and would continue. But that does not make them any better. Through a variety of means like exorbitant salaries to those British officials posted in India, free trade coupled with a plethora of policies to hamper Indian industries. The author has decided to completely ignore the subject of Bengal famine by simply importing food from Burma, which is reasonable given the event ITTL. It was caused by loss of Burma, a lean harvest, Food from rest of India being diverted elsewhere, the British destroying the boats, which formed a vital part of internal transport in Bengal, creating pockets of abundance and areas with no food, not making effort to redirect food, etc. The acts of the administration was immensely negligent and apathetic. This is not the only man made famine in British India. While historians are divided as to whether Holodomor was a genocide with most agreeing but rarely does any such attention is received by the multiple famines in India which resulted in far more deaths. During the wartime, the Administration in India made no efforts to check inflation unlike Canada, Australia or UK itself. Hundreds of miles of railways were dismantled OTL and sent to the middle east along with the rolling stock. They blocked the creation of automobile and medicine factories to protect the British producers. What capacity of automotive and shipbuilding production existed was underutilized and orders were placed with foreign goods.
While Indochina may be liberated peacefully, if the Indian Army is used to occupy the territory until the French rebuilt their administration or till the brought in their own troops then in that case defections among Indian troops and mutinous attitudes can be seen like we saw OTL in Indonesia. If the Nationalist Chinese occupy Northern Vietnam ITTL and they also win the civil war then in that case VNQDD will become a significant force that will cause endless headaches for the French with support from China and possibly even the United States.
Attlee was less imperialist and more of a realist than Churchill but he gave up territory in India and Palestine because he had to, he didn't pull out of anywhere much else.
And of course the intention was to exploit the African Crown Colonies to replace earnings from India . With the Commonwealth intended to be the kind of relationship France tried with its ex-colonies.
Groundnuts anyone?
why do i have a very bad feeling there's going to be chemical warfare once we get to China...
My point is that much like the conflicts in which we envision various butterflies from technology to deployment to grand strategy, it may be that similar butterflies (at the discretion of the author) post-ww2 could lead to very different post-colonial futures for many countries. The death of Ho Chi Minh being a great example of that. Who will be the new leader to take the reins? Or will it be multiple leaders and years of turmoil? Will Vietnam forge different alliances than they did OTL? Do those alliances cause cause conflicts amongst the wartime allies (with Great Britain and America likely having a different vision for French Indochina than those in Paris)?
Garrison
Donor
Overall the British will have more control over how the empire transitions to something else and with cooler relations between London and Washington Britain is likely to place more value on the Commonwealth and the perception of Britain in the rest of the world will be different, 'the lion's mane may be greying, but its claws remain sharp and you anger it at your peril'.
Well I will answer this discretely for those who really want the answer:
Yes it will, doesn't mean its going to be better necessarily as the USA tries to keep the Kuomintang as a functioning government.
Well fortunately Japanese plans will be thwarted by the speed of events.
Something very interesting is that the Pacific Theater may be seen sort-of like the Eastern Front OTL, A massive blitz, a stalemate, and eventually being driven back. That may play an important role in Post-war media depicting WW2. There will also be a mood of "Do not anger the Lion" since, ITTL, from the point where Churchill gives his "Never Surrender" speech, there has been constant & consistent victories. Though I do wonder what will the sort of "New British Empire" after reformation will look like. ESPECIALLY because this may lead into power players within the empire, jockeying for influence (Nigeria for instance). That does raise a question however, how will being part of the british empire be seen by the populace? Will there be pride, resentment, or will people simply be content? Eitherway, it seems the post war order is in for quite a shuffle.
Whilst the current Anglo-French relationship may be... Frosty... It's worth remarking that with cooler Anglo-American relations, the natural partner for the UK, outside of the Commonwealth, is, well, France.
They very much share common interests: Keep the Americans over there, and the Soviets likewise.
They very much share common interests: Keep the Americans over there, and the Soviets likewise.
Defeating the Japanese without the bomb is gonna be one hell of a question
A hypothetical operation Olympic would have been an absolute humanitarian disaster, the Japanese high command were full of lunatics and an actual invasion of the home islands would see the worst of the worst come through
A hypothetical operation Olympic would have been an absolute humanitarian disaster, the Japanese high command were full of lunatics and an actual invasion of the home islands would see the worst of the worst come through
Keep in mind that the war apparently drags on to 1945. This is especially important because between the offensives of the British and French (retaking the east indies and indochina) The Americans (Phillipines, i presume) the Chinese (probably retaking central china) The Soviets (Taking Manchuria and Korea) I can see the Japanese throwing in the towel without the bomb, though it will take more of a push.