PODs for a different Rhodesia/Zimbabwe

I've been on a bit of a postcolonial Africa tangent lately and I was thinking about how a few changes could've changed the situation in what is now one of Africa's most destitute nations, Zimbabwe. I have no illusions of Rhodesia being able to hang onto White Minority Rule forever but perhaps a more peaceful conclusion (like South Africa in 1994 to an extent) could be reached. I might try my hand at a TL on this (even though my past two attempts with one have run into ASB walls or just run out of steam) if I get some feedback.

Possible POD considerations:

  • The UK either doesn't contest Smith's UDI or doesn't go to the UN for sanctions (borderline ASB unless some more pressing crisis can be manufactured back home)
  • ZIPRA knocking down two Air Rhodesia planes and killing the survivors execution style proves to be the act of brutality that turns the locals off to the Chimurenga and ZANU/ZAPU/ZIPRA collapse for want of support (possibly but maybe a bit too late to make a difference by that point)
  • A better military situation for the Rhodesians in 1980 gives them a more favorable Lancaster House Agreement that lets them keep more power or keep their 10% guarantee for longer. By the time the Africans take full control the revolutionary clique of Mugabe et. al. has been displaced.
  • Covert support from a major power (the U.S. under the CIA "kill commies at all costs" strategy) gives Rhodesia's military more/better equipment and maybe some advisers.
  • Smith or someone else (if he's replaced) reforms the biased voting rolls to make them more equal (likely ASB given the white mentality of the day)
 
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What about an earlier POD, one that removes or delays Smith? Would we still have UDI at that particular point, in that particular way, if Smith either was not involved so much?

Maybe wave away the foundation of the Rhodesian Front too?

It has been a whiles since I studied the period, but a quick scan on the net suggests that Smith and a financial backer were the main organisers of the RF and that Field was more of a figurehead. Seems like there would be some room for movement there perhaps.
 
One idea I've seen suggested is that in the aftermath of WW2, the Rhodesian authorities launch a concerted effort to attract more European immigrants. IIRC Rhodesian immigration policy was very restrictive and potential immigrants had to pay something like £4,000, a truly huge sum in the immediate post war period, to get in. One of the reasons for this was that Rhodesia was supposed to be something of a giant Gentlemen's Club in Southern Africa and there would have needed to have been a total change of mindset by the Rhodesians.

Assuming they do this, they begin advertising in post war Europe to encourage people displaced by the War or wanting to escape the hardship of post war Europe to emigrate to Rhodesia where they are given land, seized from the Africans of course. This won't make Rhodesia majority White but it will give them more manpower to fight the Bush War. Rhodesia was totally exhausted by 1979, their military was highly effective but by the end units like the Rhodesian Light Infantry were making 3 combat paradrops every day Sounds impressive but the real reason was because there was no one else available. Many young whites were choosing to leave rather than face years of military service.

With that additional manpower then it's possible that Rhodesia could have lasted another decade, with the fall of the Soviet Union ZANU and ZIPRA would have lost their main sponsor and would have had to concede more to the Rhodesians in the eventual peace talks.

I suppose the question is would another decade of White minority rule have been acceptable if it prevents Zimbabwe's implosion under Mugabe?
 
The 1922 referendum goes the other way (maybe have the governments get more involved to entice a yes vote?), and Southern Rhodesians vote yes to joining the Union of South Africa. Southern Rhodesia is fully integrated by 1925.

It goes through the worst of South African history: apartheid, establishments of bantustans, etc. Robert Mugabe fights with the ANC, and is sent to that same island prison that Nelson Mandela is. Mugabe starts and is killed in a prison riot, as are a few of his Rhodesian ANC buddies. No one else is inujured or killed.

Apartheid is finished on the same timescale, and the South African government keeps agriculture in the north thriving. Living standards in Matabeleland state are the second highest in the country, and the area is still known as the Breadbasket of Africa even today.
Notice: I've spent all of ten minutes thinking about this so there could be some holes...
 
The 1922 referendum goes the other way (maybe have the governments get more involved to entice a yes vote?), and Southern Rhodesians vote yes to joining the Union of South Africa.


Really the beginnning is the only place where I see a problem with this.
I think some sort of incentive would be nessesary for the Rhodesians to go with joining South Africa. And I can't really think of a viable one at the moment. However, besides that this is the POD that I'm leaning towards the most.
 
I would have to disagree that Zimbabwe is one of the most destitute countries in Africa (Somalia, Darfur, DRC, Chad, CAR on the other hand). When I was there last year on family business, whilst it had gone a bit pricey, the supermarkets were full of food (even microwave ready meals - not a sign of a destitute country but a prosperous one), no one was starving (I saw a lot of morbidly obese people (can post pictures if you like, and I'm not being weightist I'm clinically obese)), crops were being grown and people were generally happy. Where my wife's family are from the workers at the platinum mine in Zvishavane were given a new Toyota car each as a bonus, and the infrastructure in the country is still fairly good (I can do 150kph on most of the main roads in the countryside with no problems (but gotta watch for speed traps, limit is 120kph :p). Hotels are generally high end Western standards - check out the kingdom or the Elephant Hills in Victoria falls, and the company I have timeshare swaps with (RCI) with has resorts in Zimbabwe (Hwange, Caribbea Bay, various Cruise Boats at Lake Kariba :) The boats are really good on a 5 meals a day package).

To make Zimbabwe more prosperous you need to buttefly the farm invasions which did wreck the economy for a time, but not stability of the country. To do this you need Mugabe to retire in 2002 and not be a hostage of the ZDF who are terrified of him dieing / retiring (he wanted to retire after the last election and fled to Malaysia for a week according my Brother in Law who's a Brigadier in the ZDF). You also need to neutralise the War Veterans Association (most of whom aren't). But how you do these things is another matter given the nature of Zimbabwean politics :mad:.
 
One Way

Oh, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe threads again.


The Oncoming Storm;4703416]. IIRC Rhodesian immigration policy was very restrictive and potential immigrants had to pay something like £4,000, a truly huge sum in the immediate post war period, to get in. One of the reasons for this was that Rhodesia was supposed to be something of a giant Gentlemen's Club in Southern Africa and there would have needed to have been a total change of mindset by the Rhodesians.

This I most certainly can believe. The place was really gentrified from accounts read, although not to the point of degeneracy in OTL Kenya "White Mischief"/"Out Of Africa". It is difficult to modify this intertia.

One modified deflection is to have in post WWI & WWII a policy of allowing in if not ecouraging refuges of a very specific nature: war damaged veterans of British stock. They and their families might live poorly, hundreds of thousands disfigured in face and body to not walk outside without at times extreme notice had the opportunity to be subsidized for immigration with their immediate families. In Africa, more opportunity and leeway would be had, and it could be labeled an act of charity. Certainly there would be no upstarts rocking the national elite or muscling in on their landed estates.

Their publically educated children, though, would slowly change the norm. A small plot of land on the periphery of the highlands and outside the boudaries of the estates, still somewhat healthful, might be enough and cost a pitance, and eventually most would migrate to easily expanded cities. I am hard pressed to think of what these families would do for serious income, though the same was true in OTL in the UK. Still, people are remarkably resourceful and greatly tend to fit into economies with whatever functions available to them. Remitted UK disability pensions would be a great help, and stretch far longer in a country like Rhodesia than home areas. It sounds elitist, but many could have at least occasionally afforded servants, which in turn helps sell the idea to the unfortunates.


Assuming they do this, they begin advertising in post war Europe to encourage people displaced by the War or wanting to escape the hardship of post war Europe to emigrate to Rhodesia where they are given land, seized from the Africans of course. This won't make Rhodesia majority White but it will give them more manpower to fight the Bush War. Rhodesia was totally exhausted by 1979
Very true. We had here a state that was overly refined and needed to lighten up a little to survive (no pun intended).

And if they managed to fight on until circa 1989 or so, there was a climate event (in OTL, but yearly climes are not assumed to change in the TL with or without butterflies!) which Newsweek/Time reported only Zimbabwe had a full tobacco crop globally. The farmers were so flush with money, and knew that inflation would quickly completely wipe out the value, so on average bought newly minted Mercedes Benzes despite the 300% or so import tarriff.

If Eastern Europe/Russia imploded about at that time as with OTL, the potential for 10 or more million immigrants would have been easy. Western Europe had (false) rumors of 100 million hungry Russians going west looking for food in the early winter. Not all would stay, but the country could easily be completely tranformed. Difficult, as the terror campaigns normally interferes with mass migrations (as Geronimo did temporarily in the US southwest circa 1880's). It pays to be mindful of the desperation of Eastern Europeans at that time, enough so to brave the image of violence. Despite an almost certain western media campaign to prevent, no reasonably prosperous country would take them in OTL.


I suppose the question is would another decade of White minority rule have been acceptable if it prevents Zimbabwe's implosion under Mugabe?
It was not a rational purpose, so maybe we should not expect one from the mass public (in this case, Black).
 
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Start with increasing the white population. Getting any more than perhaps 1 million is ASB territory, but even that number in 1965 would make them 15% of the population, about the same as it was in the Republic of South Africa at that point. The larger white population allows for a considerably bigger economy post-WWII. Getting that number probably means immigration starts in the 1920s - you could easily enough get this by trying to have the British Empire handle the depression by moving more whites to its colonies.
 
Something I forgot to say earlier, after UDI South Africa seriously considered giving full support to Smith but they considered that the ratio of Europeans to Africans was so low that eventually Rhodesia would fall. So although they did give support to Rhodesia they felt it was in their interests to keep it at arm's length.

But if the ratio had been better for the Europeans then South Africa may decide that UDI is a viable proposition and give full backing to Smith.
 
Getting that number probably means immigration starts in the 1920s - you could easily enough get this by trying to have the British Empire handle the depression by moving more whites to its colonies.

Now that would be very interesting! In the wake of WWI the British announce a emigration plan to enable war veterans to settle in the African colonies (sort of like Mugabe's land seizures in reverse), when the Depression strikes they expand the scheme to include the unemployed, especially miners. This would increase the European populations in South Africa and Rhodesia but also Kenya and possibly Uganda and Tanganyika. This would mean a greater role for colonial armies in WW2 as Britain would have less manpower available.

How viable this would be I don't know but it's a very interesting idea.
 
You will have to make an economic case for the increased immigration to Rhodesia to be sustainable. Once they get there, will they have an economic reason to stay?

Historically, there was quite some on-movement between colonies of immigrants, if jobs did not turn up, or there was a lack of prospects. The migrants will either go back home, or move onto SA or some other colony (NZ, Australia, Canada) or destination.
 
Now that would be very interesting! In the wake of WWI the British announce a emigration plan to enable war veterans to settle in the African colonies (sort of like Mugabe's land seizures in reverse), when the Depression strikes they expand the scheme to include the unemployed, especially miners. This would increase the European populations in South Africa and Rhodesia but also Kenya and possibly Uganda and Tanganyika. This would mean a greater role for colonial armies in WW2 as Britain would have less manpower available.

How viable this would be I don't know but it's a very interesting idea.

The problem with that is that the first thing that happened with the depression was a collapse of commodity prices. That was why white migration to Africa was so low between the wars. After WW2 when the price of food and raw materials was high you had a large white migration to Africa.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Covert support from a major power (the U.S. under the CIA "kill commies at all costs" strategy) gives Rhodesia's military more/better equipment and maybe some advisers.

Something to remember is that the Rhodesian military in the 1960s/70s on a tactical level was for all intents and purposes the finest counterinsurgency force on the planet. They were winning battles against forces that were superior to them numerically, logistically, and even training-wise.

One can attack the moral validity of the Rhodesian state, but the need of the Rhodesian military for advisors on a tactical level is nil. That being said: they were an extremely anti-intellectual officer corps, and this led to a group that was well suited to the tactical side of counterinsurgency but more or less ignored the political/strategic side.

If you had some Rhodesian Army general in the HQ that was able to impress upon his superiors that the armed forces as a whole needed to enforce a pacification plan instead of a warfighting plan.
 
The problem with that is that the first thing that happened with the depression was a collapse of commodity prices. That was why white migration to Africa was so low between the wars. After WW2 when the price of food and raw materials was high you had a large white migration to Africa.


Indeed.

Whether or not the local Settler government or the British government want to encourage immigration or not, the economic case for them staying, assuming the governments could find the money or political will, will be questionable.

Also, I suspect there are quite strong local White interests in not increasing immigration, as well as the obvious Black interests in the same. Large landowners or farmers often have an economic interest in not encouraging further immigration for farm settlement, as the government may be tempted to break up their farms, rather than force Blacks off their land.

In NZ, after WW1 and WW2 there were extensive land resettlement for veterans, which was quite strongly opposed by many landowners, where land was compulsorily purchased (my family lost a fair bit of land that way, for which the grandparents were always slightly bitter). I would imagine that in S Rhodesia, where the voting population is much smaller and the landowners much stronger, comparatively, opposition could be a lot stronger. Also, in early settler colonies farmers tend to be quite well organised and resourced, politically, compared to other interests.

@Mac - Advisors can be useful for other reasons thoug - one being a proper commitment to that country, the other being that they could supply manpower at the back end - support etc, which would be valuable for a manpower stretched country like Rhodesia
 
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When I said advisors I was actually thinking along the lines of equipment and advisors. The Rhodies do pretty well with what they have OTL but Rhodie ingenuity betrays how desperate the situation got at some points. A steady supply of rifles, maybe some Hueys to replace the obsolete Alouettes they converted into K-Cars, and of course a steady supply of replacement parts for their aircraft and vehicles (procured via third-party purchase) would go a long way I think.
 
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