Queen Victoria demands to tour India 1895

Telling her ministers and advisors to go sod themselves, Queen Victoria decides she wants to visit India, and in 1895 intends to accompany Abdul Karim on his return to India.

You're in charge of managing the visit, assuming a month in transit, two months in India and a month return trip. The lengthy transit assumes stops enroute to visit the empire, etc.

So, what are your plans for the visit? How do you keep Victoria safe? What sort of escort does Victoria's ship get?

Can Victoria's old yacht make it to India and back? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Victoria_and_Albert_II If not, what to send? What if she wants to go the long way round, via Australia, NZ, Canada, and Caribbean?
 
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I plan on showing her the slums, ghettos, and sufferers of the government-caused famines the British created. That should do something for India at least.
 
I plan on showing her the slums, ghettos, and sufferers of the government-caused famines the British created. That should do something for India at least.

I doubt that officials would allow that. They hardly want show how badly they have managed with social troubles. Did Victoria even visit in slums of London? And even if they don't care what Victoria would see, it would be quiet unsafe anyway.
 
She will have to visit every British coastal region in Africa on the way, so it's going to take a lot longer than a month to get there. And then she'll have to go on to Australia and come home across Canada, ending up back in UK, tired, feeling every year she's lived and vowing to never go further than Balmoral for the rest of her life.
 
She will have to visit every British coastal region in Africa on the way, so it's going to take a lot longer than a month to get there. And then she'll have to go on to Australia and come home across Canada, ending up back in UK, tired, feeling every year she's lived and vowing to never go further than Balmoral for the rest of her life.
Ahhh, this is certainly a fun thread topic. I feel she might go to Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt, however. Lots of old fashion prestige there, and it is a lot shorter using the Suez Canal than going all the way around Africa. I have to wonder if Parliment would shell out for a load of extra jewels or something to make her glitter for the local dignitaries. Though having her in her widow's outfit that she usually wore would be Moreno iconic. Anyone who saw a cartoon of her would recognize her. I feel that would also have an interesting effect on India. Her clothing style would be seen as almost Indian, given the head veil and such, and I can only imagine the effect she would have giving dignity to widows. Though I guess people would put it down as her having multiple children toeing her to the family, or that Albert was the 'wife' in the situation. If only some legal reform could be pushed that returned to women the right to hold property. Some say they didn't have t back then due to British legal reform to India, thus changing dowries being the property of wives tot he property of husbands, thus helping along unscrupulous relatives of husbands to get rid of the widows of their relatives.
 
Yeah, but anyone coastal she doesn't visit is going to feel slighted.
Updated my post. But yes, if she is insisting on visiting India is one thing. Going around India would still result in many people slighted, as well making t into a world tour which would need government funding. After all, Victoria had money but she wasn't a czar or Rockefeller. I imagine it would defiantly be seen as slighting the South Africans if she ignored their dominion and no others, though.
 
Updated my post. But yes, if she is insisting on visiting India is one thing. Going around India would still result in many people slighted, as well making t into a world tour which would need government funding. After all, Victoria had money but she wasn't a czar or Rockefeller. I imagine it would defiantly be seen as slighting the South Africans if she ignored their dominion and no others, though.

Well, it is 1895, so South Africa wasn't a dominion yet - it was merely a colony. AFAIK it only became a dominion with union after Victoria's death. Plus, there's the build-up to the Boer Warr of 1899 going on, hardly safe
 
Each of the countries visited would be expected to foot part of the bill, so that would offset some of the financial difficulties for Parliament. The problem is the amount of time it would take to plan and coordinate the world tour of Queen Victoria. That alone will take six months to a year.
 
Well, it is 1895, so South Africa wasn't a dominion yet - it was merely a colony. AFAIK it only became a dominion with union after Victoria's death. Plus, there's the build-up to the Boer Warr of 1899 going on, hardly safe
Good point. I say skip most of Africa then. Or have one of her many children tour those areas later.

Each of the countries visited would be expected to foot part of the bill, so that would offset some of the financial difficulties for Parliament. The problem is the amount of time it would take to plan and coordinate the world tour of Queen Victoria. That alone will take six months to a year.
Please quote my posts, as otherwise I might miss them. And travel itself was a big expense, and if the local administrators foot the bill it might cause resentment.
 
I'd love to see the Royal Navy presence. You can't just send a couple of ACRs with Victoria. Which and how many battleships would accompany her?

The new Majestic class, then entering service were the game-changer design of their era.

Britain built these....
640px-HMS_Mars_LOC_ggbain_16923.jpg


While France built these...
640px-Massena-Marius_Bar.jpg


Can you imagine the painting and polishing that would occur on every ship and at every naval base along the route?
 
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I doubt that officials would allow that. They hardly want show how badly they have managed with social troubles. Did Victoria even visit in slums of London? And even if they don't care what Victoria would see, it would be quiet unsafe anyway.

I doubt it, but if she ever saw the slums of London, the problems of mismanagement should be fair game for this trip.

A caveat however. Most of the suffering of the economic mismanagement (which is actually an improvement over the EITC) ends up to rural farmers or jobless rural dwellers. The slums might actually be a bad idea since if those are what she thinks is all that's wrong with India and she suggests something to fix it, it would actually miss 90% of those who were made worse off by the government.

So if she ever saw the slums of London, those of India are fair game but they probably shouldn't be visited. She should see the dignitaries and the formal stuff yadda, some natural beauty of the place, and then the example of victims of the economic mismanagement should be directed toward those now landless masses out in the countryside. If she sees that and sympathizes with them and asks the Earls to write up some bill that could help out the poverty or better yet tackle the root cause (taxes? Land redistribution? No disaster relief? Whatever it is), then we might have something that could help as many victims of the Raj mismanagement.
 
Ummm



Given your lengthily time, I assumed they were taking the long way instead the Suez. Admittly, the pit stop in South Africa would be short and not leave the port areas since the main goal of the trip is India.
30 days from Britain to India and 30 days back does not make for a global tour.

Here's the route Portsmouth to Bombay, 6,149 nautical miles. With the Mediterranean being the primary focus of the Royal Navy in the 1890s, Victoria will be expected to visit the naval forces and territories. That's anu about all she can do in those 30 days and still cross those 6,149 miles in 30 days.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/vo...da55bfcd6ef08394f05d758720f1fb8897ac582e1a37b
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If she goes to Cape Town, I could see her getting her head blown off by a radical Afrikaner

Was there ever an occasion in which a would-be Afrikaner assassin attempted to kill Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner, or any other major British figure? I don't remember any such occurrence.
 
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