Piracy/privateers in the late 19th century

[Monk78]

WI the major colonial powers re-start the practice of piracy/use of privateers in the late 19th century to attack and intimidate the merchant ships of their opponents? No full scale war just think of 18th century style small scale engagements fought in the far corners of the world.
WHat kind of ships would be used ? How will they be armed and disguised

Will colonial powers also respond by building fortresses around their ports with coastal artillery to counter these threats and statin garrisons there ?

 

[Arkenfolm]

Pirates were basically considered "enemies of mankind" in international law and it gave no advantage to any great power to employ them since their enemies would too. The closest I could think of would be employing African and Asian colonial subjects to attack enemy ships, but that's really risky diplomatically and probably not a good idea.

If we handwave the international law and diplomatic issues, then I think the main sort of pirate ship would be like OTL auxiliary cruisers and be like banana boats or similar types of cargo ships, fast transport vessels capable of mounting enough guns and carrying enough marines to be a potent threat to cargo ships and their escorts.

 

[Belisarius II]

Those tactic always ended in wars, and undeclared wars. The whole point of late 19th Century diplomacy was global stability, and predictability. Large scale piracy ended in the Mediterranean only when the shores of the whole basin were controlled by Colonial Powers. That hadn't happened since Roman times. Somali Pirates started operating only when there were lawless ports. In an age of large scale international trade, as opposed to a mercantilist system, were trade was largely in a closed system, your not just raiding someone else's shipping, your raiding your own. In the growing global free trade system evolving in the late 19th Century piracy was counterproductive, and today it makes no sense at all. Of course there will always be small scale piracy, just like other criminal activity, like truck hijacking.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Given attitudes of the time this is too likely to lead to a war, too much nationalism, too much of a yellow press and the telegraph means that communications are shorter so news arrives in days instead of months

Also historically most of the major powers abolished Privateering with the Paris Declaration in 1856, the US, Spain and China being the principle parties that did not sign it, but the US and Spain agreed to abide by it when they fought wars anyways

One must also contend that the RN is strong enough to put a stop to that sort of thing if it so chooses at this time period, which it would

 

[Monk78]

The closest I could think of would be employing African and Asian colonial subjects to attack enemy ships, but that's really risky diplomatically and probably not a good idea.

Or can some of the independent states in asia/africa form their pirate fleets to attack European merchant ships ?

 

[Arkenfolm]

Or can some of the independent states in asia/africa form their pirate fleets to attack European merchant ships ?

They did to a degree and usually preyed on other native states or on lightly defended portions of European colonies. The Sultanate of Sulu is probably the most notorious and was a persistant threat in terms of piracy until the late 19th century when Spain finally subdued them, and their pirates periodically appeared afterwards.

That's really what I meant with that response. Some way of European colonial powers using those native states in proxy wars, but outside of Southeast Asia and maybe East Africa, there's not a lot of places with the pre-existing naval tradition and colonial rivalries to do that. And of course it's still really risky in terms of diplomatic relationships. Like for instance there was an unofficial arms embargo on African native states in the late 19th/early 20th century that basically ensured the conquest of otherwise powerful native states.