IS there some way to limit the ability for Great Britain to colonize and impede other countries' Colonization? And with something like that happening, let's discuss other possible colonizations.
Neuter GB
- Thread starter Stuyvesant
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wolf_brother
Banned
Are you looking at for a certain period? Because I can think of several ways that involve stopping 'Britain' from forming at all..
The natural resources and position of Britain will always make it exert more geopolitical power than one would expect.
However, if you split it up, particularly England, then the states there, just as they begin to industrialize, will be too busy fighting each other to be important in the age of imperialism.
Meanwhile in the previous era of colonization in the Americas, they will only have made miniscule colonies, which they barely have money to maintain.
However, if you split it up, particularly England, then the states there, just as they begin to industrialize, will be too busy fighting each other to be important in the age of imperialism.
Meanwhile in the previous era of colonization in the Americas, they will only have made miniscule colonies, which they barely have money to maintain.
If a later PoD would be allowed, France and Germany as allies (somehow) would alow both to focus their resources towards their navies and be much more capable of challenging the British individually, and possibly even surpass them with their combined strength. So there's an example of stronger rivals.
What if Britain had been a much more conservative and closed society with an corrupt, unstable and totalitarian government? Britain was good at making friends in OTL. A backward and treacherous England will not be quite so tactful.
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BlondieBC
Banned
The easiest way to neuter the UK is to buff a rival such as Charles V can hold together the HRE and Spain. France avoids the financial crisis of the early 1700's. The Dutch keep a larger portion of the HRE and therefore have more people. Austria unifies the HRE into Austria in the early 1800's. Napoleon has the good sense to know when to stop.
What about a tree blight that kills all the oaks and 80% of the the rest of the Trees in great Britain.
This would effectively prevent any naval construction.
ergo no colonies or the ability to impede other countries from establishing them.
Alex Richards
Donor
That's likely to wipe out most of the rest of Europe's colonisers as well though.
And cause such great devestation that we're probably looking at no European Colonies at all.
Ironically this is what kick started British colonisation of America.
Ironically the simplest way might be to have Britain win the American Revolutionary War. With the Colonies as a dependency further expansion would be very difficult.
The Dutch were strong rivals back in the 17th Century (when it was just England and Scotland). Even before the United Kingdom was a political union, England had the advantage of being on an island, which gave it a better defensible position than the Dutch Republic, which had the Spanish Netherlands and France as neighbors.
The Spanish Armada at the time of Elizabeth successfully cripples the English Navy, but does not make a successful land invasion.
From there, it feeds weapons and 'advisers' to Catholic Irish rebels, who with this Spanish help overthrow the English and become a Spanish protectorate. Spain then has access to a bunch of ports right off the coast of England to host a portion of its navy-any English attempts to rebuild a navy are met with rapid and destructive hostility from Spain, which is able to manage England but does not have to wage a long and costly occupation on a hostile country. England is kept from building up a powerful navy, and so does not manage to become a major military power.
From there, it feeds weapons and 'advisers' to Catholic Irish rebels, who with this Spanish help overthrow the English and become a Spanish protectorate. Spain then has access to a bunch of ports right off the coast of England to host a portion of its navy-any English attempts to rebuild a navy are met with rapid and destructive hostility from Spain, which is able to manage England but does not have to wage a long and costly occupation on a hostile country. England is kept from building up a powerful navy, and so does not manage to become a major military power.
Well the British have a long history of frequent regime changes, perhaps more of them turn violent? Perhaps regime changes in Britain tend to look a lot more like the War of the Roses than voting the crown to random German Princes? I'm not sure if this alone will get you what you want, Britian is sitting pretty on the North Atlantic with lots of relevant resources to turn that good position into a base for colonization, but it might at least be a start.