Or maybe the forts are still there but just irrelevant and tiny and not on the map for those reasons?
Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak
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- Start date
The Dutch still have Suriname ITTL, and the loss of Aceh, the Gold Coast, and parts of Papua have left it with more cohesive colonies to exploit, so a fair number of people are seeing the handover as a positive thing. On paper at least, the Netherlands won't have to spend all their cash propping up African forts or battling decades-long insurgencies in north Sumatra.
They're still there, but the map caters to colonial polities and native states on a continental level rather than detailing which fort or railway goes where. Unless it's a specific map of a specific place, clutter is the enemy of readability.
Graphic: Rank Insignia of the Sarawak Rangers
Oh. YES.
Now there's something I can base on for the Rangers' transformation!
(Also, update tonight!)
Now there's something I can base on for the Rangers' transformation!
(Also, update tonight!)
I love how this isnt the biggest community, but we got some diehard fans (myself among them). Like, oh by the way, found these emblems, Military stuff, small kingdom.
July-December 1905: Happenings elsewhere (and closing out the world-updates)
Nearby the village of Timbang Batu, Kingdom of Sarawak, 21 December 1905
Even with the new plant growth, Clayton could see the mounds.
Despite the cleansing smell of recent rains, he could almost detect the whiff of charred wood and decomposing flesh all around. His coronation tour was supposed to be an act of placation for Sarawak and the people, and the planned Christmas dinner in Sandakan would herald the process of reconciliation in the far north, especially with communal wounds being so raw from all that has happened.
But this… how can I reconcile this?
Walking into the field, he couldn’t help but see how some of the mounds were so small. They were spaced unevenly, seemingly haphazard on the somewhat bare earth. From what he’d heard, there wasn’t enough time to give them all a proper burial. There were three great mounds whose size indicated a mass of… what lied beneath, but the most depressing were the smaller mounds, some of which were only as long as Clayton’s knees, their heights no taller than the neighbouring weeds. Many were unmarked, but a few had scraps of cloth, sticks, and stones placed on top; a reminder by the survivors of where their dear ones were.
The fields and forests surrounding him were somewhat better, but the marks of war were still visible through the undergrowth despite three months of relative peace; the bushes and tree trunks still show bullet holes encased with hardened sap. Nearby, the charred frame of longhouses and single dwellings rose like dead fingers, striking black against the rain-filled grey sky.
“About 400 people lived here, once.” The Ranger beside him, Maraun, said, gazing sadly at the scene. [1]
Clayton could only nod. From what the local-born Ranger told him, the people of his village, the Rungus, believed in souls influencing on the world after their bodies passed and decayed. But with that, there was always the one thing they fear most for death: decapitation. Such an act breaks the taboos of peace and offend the land, even cursing the village if it disgusted the native spirits. For the victim, a broken body would release a bloody soul, and such a mutilation ensured it would never be accepted in the afterworld by their ancestors.
They would be horrified at the deceased. [2]
Clayton jumped when he heard his companion’s bitter swears. “May their families beyond curse the Askaris. Fuck.” Usop cried out. “Are there any rituals done since to appease them?”
Maraun replied, “We have done some, but without our bobolizan – our high priestess, we’re going about it half-blind. Come, Tuan Rajah. The survivors are waiting at the fort.”
“Wait. I think I need a moment.” And with that, Clayton walked out from his security detail and wandered towards the piled field. Looking at them – some of the smallest ones had flowers laid – he wondered how reconciliation could even begin; some of the savages that did this came from the village itself, and the Sarawak Ranger clammed shut when mentioning what happened to his close family. Or his brother.
The shuffling of feet reached him after a while.
“We are still here.” Usop said, comforting. “And they would want us to live. We have to try.”
The Melanau companion said nothing more. His presence, and eyes, said enough.
********************
Charlie MacDonald, Strange States, Weird Wars, and Bizzare Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2015)
So... how ‘bout that 1905, eh?
Okay, I think we can all agree that so far, the Great War is a bit of a fustercluck (okay, a LOT of a clusterfuck) and plenty of future generations have every right to curse their grandparents for making their history essays a mindbender to learn. But in it all, the Great War is perhaps a triumph of the adage that history is a story of humanity’s prides and sins, providing a cornucopia of examples that show how far we can shock, terrify, and outweird our opponents. And ourselves.
To some, the Great War was a mess that intruded into their already messy lives. Consider the Algerians of New Caledonia, for an example. Much like late-colonial Spain and her penchant for exiling uppity illustrados to the scandal-ridden Congo, France witnessed that and pondered “can we copy that?” Henceforth, some of the biggest rabble-rousers of Algeria that were arrested from the 1870’s onward – and especially during the boringly-named ‘Final Fifteen Years’ – quickly found themselves boarding a one-way ticket to being interned at the farthest place they could conceive from Algeria: the Pacific Ocean.
Now, you may wonder why couldn’t the French authorities simply cast them off in their South American territories? Well, let’s just say great distances settle more than just rattled nerves.
Life for these people was pretty drudgery-ish, all things considered. There was the typical prison deprivation and discrimination which were concurrent for the time, along with harsh labour at what was basically a penal colony (the nickel mines of Houailou had a particular knack for swallowing new arrivals) But the biggest deal was that these prisoners weren’t allowed to return home after their sentences, which created a new class of people on this island in the south Pacific. Thing is, New Caledonia was also a dumping ground for mainland France’s own rabble-rousers, ranging from thieves to socialists, women included. [3]
And… yeah. Now, there were many that didn’t intermarry due to religion and culture. There were also many that married anyway. In the end, around 25,000 former French Empire convicts made themselves a new home by 1905, with around 5,000 Algerians and around half of whom in families. And being who they were, many of them have… less than warm opinions on the French. So perhaps it wasn’t exactly a surprise that some of the first intelligence gathering for the British began with these people.
“And how can we be sure the British won’t just keep us here?”
“Do you have a better idea, Rachid?”
And that was just in the western Pacific. Hop over to South America and you’ll find the madness that was the Marseille-Antofagasta nitrate route. When you’re fighting a modern war, you want to make sure your weapons are powered by the best chemicals available. Chief of these are nitrates, which were commonly deposited and found as (and I am not joking here): salt and bird poop. Otherwise known as guano. [4]
And take a guess which region in the world has variable mountains of it. If you are guessing the Chinca Islands or the Atacama Desert, you are exactly either a French spy planted there to make sure production runs smoothly, or a British admiral circling off the Chilean coast to strike at any French-bound shipments of bird excrement (while praying that your British-bound salt poop doesn’t get blasted to Poseidon’s birthplace. Or Millalobo’s residence, if you’re Mapuche). Also, most French and British salt-poo hulks flew other nations’ flags to divert attention, so good luck wondering if that Mexican-flagged freighter steaming southwards is actually Mexican. And good luck dealing with the diplomatic fallout if it is and you just blasted them.
There are entire comedies that could be written on the cat-and-mouse hunts over this route; one ridiculous example HMS Resolute which fired on what was supposedly a French cargo hulk in dense fog, only to be met with a furious – and drunk – Venezuelan captain screaming about how he would try and sway his nation to war for bombarding his ship. All the while ignoring the actual French freighter – draping the Venezuelan flag, of course – chugging off near the horizon.
Thankfully, neither Venezuela nor Mexico went to war participation, though it is best if you avoid their British consulates if you’re a time-traveller hopping to 1905.
Man on horseback on salt field: “I am the richest bastard in the world!!”
But jokes and flag aesthetics aside, all this madness belie a sick fact that this war, the Great War, was a brutal conflict on a scale the world had not seen. From the Strait of Magellan to the jungles of Phuket, from the war-torn city of Lemberg to the blinding shores of Lake Chad, this was a war that consumed nations, chiefdoms, kings, and empires. An ordinary London paper would describe how Sarawak’s White Rajah fell in battle as Ottoman troops streamed west of Egypt to be obliterated themselves by unfeeling machinery, while also noting the hundreds of thousands of combatants already dead and dying across the Balkans and eastern Europe.
The war saw the largest movement of humans and materials ever seen. From Halifax to Hanoi to the train stations of Budapest, hundreds of thousands of men, millions of men, from volunteer teenagers to aged veterans, would converge to fight in whatever way for a promise(s) from their leaders that seemed to make sense. You would have German volunteers defending the Carpathian alpine trenches with Hungarians and Bukovinans, British seamen bottling Sevastopol with their Ottoman counterparts, all the while seeing that reason for war slip away with every mutilated corpse. Many of them wrote letters back home, and some of their contents slowly tore away the façade of bravery and honour to their distraught families, despite the work of censors.
Some of those letters would end up knocking history askew, and nothing exemplifies this better than the colony most Westerners don’t think much during these years: India.
As a colonial part of the British Empire, India joined the war without the say of millions of her citizens. It also supplied a fountain of soldiers from which the 1905 Indochina campaign would have been otherwise literally impossible. These men would write down what they’ve seen, and their initial words spoke pretty richly of the old temples and gabled cities of the Mekong. Of the peoples and cultures they are now overseeing. But by December, there were already a few that spoke of the dense Tonkinese jungles and Laoatian mountains. Of the sickness and humidity. Of how the smiles of locals slowly turned to frowns.
In the following years, the change would be more severe. And gory. By the war’s end, many of them would be writing back to stop their neighbours from going into recruitment.
India’s local politics also changed. Nationalism in the subcontinent has already been rooted, but the Indian National Congress that was formed from the botchedness* of the Lambert Law – to oversimplify, a veeery controversial law that could allow Indian judges to convict Europeans [5] – was still mostly a middle-to-upper-class thing. Sure, they were reaching out to the general population and nationalist ideas were brewing, but Indian self-rule was still a thing for intellectuals.
Not anymore. While some nationalists advocated resistance, the majority of the Congress actually encouraged locals to be recruited for Indochina, hoping that participation with global events could hand them future political power as recompense. And yeah, you’d think it is a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but the British viceroy did say something along those lines, promising that India would be better-off after the War than before it. And plus, a lot of these men could make India more known to the world, helping the case for the Indian people!
…Which it did, but not in the way the Congress or the British would have wanted.
Looking at their photos, I kinda wonder what happened to their families who never saw them again.
But while some empires wared and some nations grumbled, a few saw the Great War as a fountain of wealth. Just look at the Spanish Philippines, which saw industrial development rising by as much as 120% percent in some regions! Why? Because the Spanish Empire was neutral, and openly neutral at that. Meaning, if you were a warring belligerent who wants rice or tinned food or, I don’t know, weapons, you could just hop in for 24 hours and buy as much as you need. Couple that with some timely investments and a not-caring attitude for work safety, and it’s no surprise the Philippines bloomed during this era.
Unsurprisingly, there were some salacious tales for the time that called the Spaniards and Filipinos slimy cowards and greedy bastards.
Philippine culture and society also grew; In the early 1900’s, many westerners were amazed at how open Philippine society was toward intermarriage, even amongst Peninsulares and Criollos. The Austro-Hungarian consul to Manila, Gustaf Falkenberg, remarked in his stays how: “The lines separating entire classes and races appeared to me less marked than in the Sundaland colonies, save perhaps Sarawak. I have seen on the same table Spaniards, Mestizos, Indios, priests, and military, all dining as family. Spaniards and natives lived together in great harmony, and I do not know where I could find a colony in which Europeans mixes as much socially with the natives.”
But progress and wealth can be a double-edged sword. Peel back the numbers and the economy and the new mines mushrooming across the archipelago, and you’ll see a lot of ugly. Happy intermarriages? The Peninsulares are still somewhat racist towards the locals. [6] War industrialization? Hope you like a skewed economy focused on resource exports and not domestic consumption. New factories and mines? Don’t look too much into the deplorable wages and working conditions. You’re a farmer and want the profits from agricultural exports? The Franciscan and Augustinian friars that run the haciendas would like a word (and your land).
But aren’t the Philippines a dominion now, with an elected house and all? [7] Not if you’re the governor-general and tinker constantly with the Manila Cortes to produce conservative majorities. New universities and schools? Oh great, new uppity illusrados. Feeling like making a pro-independence group? Don’t mind the foreign friars tattle-tailing. Hope you enjoy prison! (Before the war, it’s ‘hope you enjoy Congo!’ but the high seas aren’t exactly safe nowadays).
And it’s even worse if you’re from the marginalized groups! You’re an indigenous tribe? Get ready to face eviction by greedy businessmen (and haciendas) for your people’s lands. You’re a poor farmer from the Visayas wanting a factory job? See the previous paragraphs on such work. You’re a Muslim from Mindanao or Sulu? WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
Hardly surprising then that by 1908, even the local clergy stopped acting against revolutionary groups.
A study in wealth: the rich ladies of Manila, and the poor miners digging for the gold and copper that they wear (or export).
And in some regions, the Great War sowed the seeds of future discord that would upturn entire societies. You can just look to the semi-independent empire of Benin in West Africa and see how much that came about; their northern neighbour of Sokoto was hammered hard by French colonial forces, so a fair number of Beninese quickly acted as porters and middlemen, hauling armaments and supplies from the sea to the northern fronts via the Niger river. Trouble is, if you’re hauling and heaving from Lagos to the Caliphate, you’re going to be exposed a lot of outside faiths. And… yeah, it wasn’t long before Christianity and Islam began taking hold inside the empire. Also, while the Benin court could curtail British missionaries from entering their land, a clause in their ‘inclusion deal’ allowed local Africans to travel freely across borders, which pretty much resulted in African priests and imams freewheeling and proselyting. [8]
Across the Atlantic, the nation of Chile was having a money bath over their nitrate boom. If you’re a farmer scraping a living in a neighbouring nation in 1905, you’d try your luck going to Antofagasta to seek a (possibly) higher-paying job in the mining industry, damn the odds! In fact, Chile was one of the few nations that saw increased immigration during the Great War. But no one in the capital ever thought what would happen once the war ended, and few ever thought to care for the masses of miners now living in squalor up north.
In all, the first year of the Great War saw an incredible movement of peoples and materials across the world to do one thing: advance the cause of a side, by whatever lives necessary. The death toll rose so high in some places – 600,000 men across Lemberg and the Carpathians, 300,000 at the Caucasus – that some governments stopped reporting on them just to preserve public morale. Abroad Europe, the war laid the seeds of future discontent from Africa to the Americas, and in some places, turned native states into hell on earth.
And even with all that, there hungs the unsaid question: what will you do once it is all over?
********************
The Astana, Kuching, Kingdom of Sarawak, 31 December 1905
The study looked exactly as her father left it.
Lily entered the space, the silence of the air seemingly muffling her already soft steps. The rattan, softwood, and chintz furniture looked just as inviting as it always had, and the venerable desk stood just as always with the usual assortment of pens and papers sorted neatly on top, as if expecting their master to come home soon, ever ready.
But what if there is a new penner? One who is unknowing of his tasks?
And that was why Lily was there. The slip of paper clutched in her hands weighed as light as a feather, but the contents therein seemed to feel elephantine in heaviness. She looked at the desk, at the small stack of papers detailing the various happenings of Sarawak, and for a moment imagined what her father would have said of her, slipping in advice and topics of discussion to help his second son rule.
He’d probably call me imprudent and smile at the same time.
But father is gone. And so is dear elder brother. With Clayton on tour in the far north, the day-to-day handlings of the kingdom in Kuching now fall on the Supreme Council. But for all they are, their powers aren’t absolute, and there are certain things only a Rajah can decide.
Going around the desk, Lily opened the side-drawer and slipped in her note on the major topics her brother must focus on.
Brunei…disagreement…oil policy…advocate: annexation
Sabah…aid…redevelopment…occupied…status…annexation?
Navy…rebuild…new ships…contacts…India and Australia…Canada?
Funds…all endeavours….consideration: opening investment
Looking at her writing for a second, she pushed the space closed with a final thunk.
____________________
Notes:
Okay, I lied about making a first-year summary. After looking back at the scope of the conflict and its complexity, I decided to fold my cards and table that topic for another time. Instead, I tried to focus on the occasionally-mentioned, kinda-important, but less-explored regions of the world that had been languishing in inattention for far too long. There was a lot to cover, and there are some places that are still not receiving enough scrutiny for their importance (India: like, where are the regiments to Africa!? Which I’ll cover later). But for now, I really want to close-out the worldwide view so that we can return to Sarawak and the happenings there.
[1] We have seen Maraun and Timbang Batu village before, on post #1335.
[2] Rungus cosmology and burial beliefs are a fascinating topic to explore, and I don’t think I could do it justice in just 540 words; here is a really good – though somewhat dated – article that goes into it in full detail. In a nutshell, they believe that a person has multiple souls and spiritual counterparts, and proper rituals are done after their deaths to ensure these souls would travel to the afterworld, minimize their negative effects on the longhouse, and help the family and community.
But one of the community’s biggest fears is headhunting, since it would alter their bodies beyond repair. This, in effect, is perhaps the greatest atrocity the Askari inflicted on their community: through their decapitations, not only would they render their victims’s mutilated souls unrecognizable in the afterworld – and to their predeceased families, it would horrify them into rejecting their kin.
[3] Yup. New Caledonia was really used as a place to dump France’s rabble-rousers IOTL, whether they be Algerian or Frenchmen. Women criminals were also sent there, though they were mostly shut-up in convents to induce morality until their sentences were up.
[4] The Haber process for producing nitrates is still a few years away, though many of Europe’s warring nations ITTL are experimenting hard for a suitable alternative to bird poop. The Cyanamide Process has been unlocked by this time, but its large requirements of electricity (for the time) has also make it somewhat hard to produce. As a result, South America is still a major export player in the game of resources.
[5] A TTL name for the Ilbert Bill, which followed along the same lines of Indian judges having the capabilities to convict Europeans. The controversy arosing from this formed the Indian National Congress IOTL.
[6] Spanish Philippine racism is an evolving issue throughout the centuries, and the last hundred years saw a fair amount of softening of racial laws and prejudices. Still, locals were expected to take off their caps to any passing Peninsulares or kiss their hands when offered. This deference goes even into the clergy, where the high archbishops and friars are selected from Europe to hold plum jobs while local parish priests were denied advancement. The reasons the church establishment gave ranged from the understanding (a fair number of local priests weren’t fully educated) to the racist (priests with “dark skin colour” were deemed unfitting for high offices).
[7] See post #1067 regarding the Spanish Empire and the Philippine situation.
[8] See post #1090 regarding Benin’s autonomy within the British Empire.
[2] Rungus cosmology and burial beliefs are a fascinating topic to explore, and I don’t think I could do it justice in just 540 words; here is a really good – though somewhat dated – article that goes into it in full detail. In a nutshell, they believe that a person has multiple souls and spiritual counterparts, and proper rituals are done after their deaths to ensure these souls would travel to the afterworld, minimize their negative effects on the longhouse, and help the family and community.
But one of the community’s biggest fears is headhunting, since it would alter their bodies beyond repair. This, in effect, is perhaps the greatest atrocity the Askari inflicted on their community: through their decapitations, not only would they render their victims’s mutilated souls unrecognizable in the afterworld – and to their predeceased families, it would horrify them into rejecting their kin.
[3] Yup. New Caledonia was really used as a place to dump France’s rabble-rousers IOTL, whether they be Algerian or Frenchmen. Women criminals were also sent there, though they were mostly shut-up in convents to induce morality until their sentences were up.
[4] The Haber process for producing nitrates is still a few years away, though many of Europe’s warring nations ITTL are experimenting hard for a suitable alternative to bird poop. The Cyanamide Process has been unlocked by this time, but its large requirements of electricity (for the time) has also make it somewhat hard to produce. As a result, South America is still a major export player in the game of resources.
[5] A TTL name for the Ilbert Bill, which followed along the same lines of Indian judges having the capabilities to convict Europeans. The controversy arosing from this formed the Indian National Congress IOTL.
[6] Spanish Philippine racism is an evolving issue throughout the centuries, and the last hundred years saw a fair amount of softening of racial laws and prejudices. Still, locals were expected to take off their caps to any passing Peninsulares or kiss their hands when offered. This deference goes even into the clergy, where the high archbishops and friars are selected from Europe to hold plum jobs while local parish priests were denied advancement. The reasons the church establishment gave ranged from the understanding (a fair number of local priests weren’t fully educated) to the racist (priests with “dark skin colour” were deemed unfitting for high offices).
[7] See post #1067 regarding the Spanish Empire and the Philippine situation.
[8] See post #1090 regarding Benin’s autonomy within the British Empire.
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Huzzah! It's back!
Also!
I see that Charles is not yet done with the living world. That, or it was a typo
And are we seeing a possible co-sibling rule for the first few years between Clayton and Lily? Work some kinks out where Clayton needs to perform his duties as the new White Rajah but also needs some time to grieve and move on and Lily will help out in a way that eventually helps pave the way for it to be okay for women to be involved in politics and governance?
I can't help but be amused at the irony of it. Then again, in the long term, annexing and swallowing up what's left of Brunei would benefit that small former empire more than its Sultan had thought.
Also!
I see that Charles is not yet done with the living world. That, or it was a typo
And are we seeing a possible co-sibling rule for the first few years between Clayton and Lily? Work some kinks out where Clayton needs to perform his duties as the new White Rajah but also needs some time to grieve and move on and Lily will help out in a way that eventually helps pave the way for it to be okay for women to be involved in politics and governance?
I can't help but be amused at the irony of it. Then again, in the long term, annexing and swallowing up what's left of Brunei would benefit that small former empire more than its Sultan had thought.
And with the naval war for Nitre, there's a significant part of this war in South America as well. Truly, this is a world war far moreso than OTL. The hardships and the sense that noone is truly going to come out of this with gains that make up for the losses (except a few neutral war profiteers) is very evocative.
Likely it will unofficial unless she is named something like regent. I do wonder if she will become an advocate of women weilding power im the region for future generations though. Im thinking that if Clark is unable to sire an heir, the counsel Negri will advocate an inheritence clause that the nearest nephew i.e her son inherits the Rahj. After all Chatles himself was a nephew of James.
I think I remember hints that Brunei would survive into the modern era. After all the blog is called "weird borders."
Maybe it was swallowed up and then spat out at a later date?
Excellent update. I've been meaning to comment for a while that I'm currently knee-deep in a Phd chapter on Australian and New Zealand policy towards the Pacific Islands, and you've very much captured the colonial obsession with securing all of Oceania- an obsession only slightly marred by the absolute refusal to spend any money to do it.
Maybe, maybe they were annexed but protested and brunei becomes the Monoco of Asia.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
This remains great, and I continue to love it.
Some interesting foreshadowing in the recent chapter; revolutions in Bolivia, the Philippines, and New Caledonia? Sarawakan annexation of Brunei and Sabah?
Some interesting foreshadowing in the recent chapter; revolutions in Bolivia, the Philippines, and New Caledonia? Sarawakan annexation of Brunei and Sabah?
I don't think I could handle commenting if I have a bigger community, and loyal fans do help in finding out new things for the timeline!
Face, meet palm. Thank you for pointing that out.
I make no spoilers for the future, but let's just say Lily and Clayton are finding it nice to be as they are for the moment.
Women in the Brooke family aren't necessarily looked at as political players in Sarawak IOTL, but there were a few 20th-century individuals who were married to the Brookes like Gladys Palmer (who converted to Islam and took the name Khair-un-Nissa Sarawak) and Kathleen Hudden (the wife of Anthony Brooke) who did make some waves. In fact, Kathleen even visited Sarawak after Anthony Brooke signed the state away to the British after WWII and raised awareness for the state's push for self-determination amongst Malays and Dayaks. She was so renowned that it was said over 200 sampans/boats greeted her when she arrived in Kuching, and she also breathed life into the local Women's Movement (yes, there was one after the Japanese were kicked out) for Sarawakian independence. As a plus, she was always styled in her royal title during her stay as the 'Ranee Muda' - The Young Queen.
In this world, that change will come about a lot earlier.
What, can't a Brooke daughter simply follow the grand old family tradition of screwing over Bandar Brunei?
For what its worth, annexing the sultanate has been a family dream for decades, and that dream isn't extinguished simply because Rajah Charles lies six feet under. As Lily noted, there are credible reasons to annex it outright as it has some measure of petroleum, but there are also other matters to sort through. And I did note multiple times ago that 'Brunei would Not go Extinct in the World'.
Wars as large as the Great War can look depressingly bleak when viewed from a human perspective, and the only people who can stomach that are those who're ignorant or don't care in the first place. The Spanish, Philippine, and Chilean governments will be looked at by many as being slimy and greedy once the conflict is over.
South America is involved tangentially because of the nitrate route, and all their governments (which are politically neutral in some form or fashion) advocate the French and British to fight far off their shores. 'Course, that doesn't stop them from trading with both sides, and they'll raise a stink whenever their freighters are raided by a belligerent party.
Ahh, that's interesting. If it's not too much to ask, what was their political policy in respect to the French territories? I'm mulling some options for places like New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and if Australia/New Zealand aren't willing or refusing to commit heavily in Oceania, that does take this region into a different route than what I envisioned.
Thanks! And maybe (Chile too), maybe, and maybe. For Brunei and Sabah... maybe.
This still allows for an end result where Brunei will remain a title-in-being, a sultanate with a sultan and royal court, but no actual land.
I'll PM you later- but it's not so much that they're not willing to commit heavily, it's that they don't understand why the Colonial Office won't got to the expense and effort for them. The naval expedition that the Italians slice through because the colonies weren't prepared to properly fund local squadrons is very on point. Having said that, in any peace settlement the colonies will want... well, any island they can grab.
heh, reminds me of the Knights of Malta. An organization everyone treats as a sovereign entity, but with no land whatsoever.
I think Brunei will survive as a British Protectorate. The Sultan played a role in ousting the Italians, so I think the British would be reluctant to throw him to Kuching. My prediction is that Brunei will lose some minor border territory to Sarawak to appease Kuching who is instead placated with Italian Sabah.
This may be what begins to drive Sarawak to begin disentangling itself from its special relationship with the British Empire; if they feel London did not give them proper respect for their sacrifices in this war.
This may be what begins to drive Sarawak to begin disentangling itself from its special relationship with the British Empire; if they feel London did not give them proper respect for their sacrifices in this war.
Or a legally distinct subdivision after a Royal Wedding and Union of the Crowns....