Remember Eureka!
text by “Rickshaw”
Profiles by “Apophenia”
1854 is the point of departure for this counterfactual history of the Great Southern Land. Why 1854? Well, 1854 was the year that the Eureka Stockade happened. One of only three attempts at insurrection against the Crown in the short, glorious history of Australia.
For our overseas readers, Eureka Stockade was basically an uprising by a group of malcontent gold miners, resentful at being taxed excessively by the Colonial Government. While presenting grievances to the authorities, they were ignored and met with increasing oppression by the heavy-handed use of colonial police to collect their licence fees. In the end it seemed to them nothing short of armed insurrection would solve their problems. I won't bore you with the details except to point out how, in our trouser-leg of time, the rebellion was put down fairly easily and quickly by the authorities and most of the ring leaders either killed or arrested and placed on trial, later to be acquitted with one eventually even becoming a long standing member of the colonial parliament and judiciary.
However, in this other trouser-leg of time, where the insurrection was successful, the settlers of the colony of Victoria, rose up and threw off the shackles imposed upon them by their distant imperial masters in London. President John Basson Humffray declared the Republic of Victoria on 4 December 1854, after the defeat of the English forces led by Commissioner Robert Rede, the colonial government's representative on the diggings around Ballarat. After a swift march to Melbourne, the rebels found themselves in control of the entire colony and a very large fund of gold indeed, in the vaults of the Colony's banks which was worth the equivalent today of several billions of Pounds Stirling. Interestingly, there was a strong American contingent of gold miners in Ballarat on that fateful day and their influence continues beyond 1854 and colours Victoria's outlook for some time.
The other colonies, at least initially, remained loyal to the Crown. New South Wales, in particular was vehement in its condemnation of the upstart Victoria for seceding from the Empire. It attempted to impose a blockade upon the new nation. However, as most trade was by sea and the wealth of the new administration ensured its failure as NSW lacked the means, as did the Royal Navy of the day (being largely distracted by distant events in the Crimea and later India).
South Australia however, being settled by many non-English Europeans took a far more liberal attitude towards Victoria's actions. The large German population in particular, in and around Adelaide, had much less allegiance to young Queen Victoria. When the free colony went into virtual bankruptcy in 1865, it too broke away from the Empire and declared its independence. Welcomed by the Victorians, the result was two independent nations on the continent. South Australia also claimed at this stage and had administered what was later to become known as the North Territory, with the result that it controlled a wide strip across the continent from North to South. That left Western Australia, isolated from the other pro-imperial colonies on the East coast of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland. Tasmania also remained loyal to the Crown.
While tension was high between Victoria and NSW, it was in fact the eastward movement of South Australia, into what in our timeline was to be far-western NSW to grab the mineral rich Broken Hill area which precipitated the first modern conflict in Australia's history in 1885. Neither colony was really in a position to wage large scale conflict and the distance from Sydney prevented the grab from being resisted. Much later, when the borders were being drawn up, South Australia ceded a much larger area in compensation between Birdsville and Tanbar.
So, as the map shows, by the time that Federation was being talked about in our trouser-leg of time, in the 1890s - in this one, Australia was very much a divided continent. Victoria, being the main source of funds and supplies for Tasmania, infiltrated that colony and fomented a desire to be free from the shackles of London's tyrannical rule and, with the turn of the century, they declared UDI. (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) Again, London was simply too preoccupied to be able to respond (in Southern Africa and China).
While one may imagine that these shenanigans in a far off, southern land would have little consequences beyond their shores, the reality is somewhat different. When the 2nd Anglo-Boer War occurs in our timeline, in 1899, the British find themselves just as unable to counter the independent minded (and very rich) Boer republics. However, whereas in real life they were able to call on a large series of colonial and then Dominion contingents from Australia (it is not well known but the 2nd Boer War was a major impetus to the Federation of Australia in 1901) the divided continent’s reaction as much different. The result was that the Canadian contingent is considerably larger, drawing that Dominion and London much closer together. Eventually, the Boers were forced into surrender but not without cost. A small contingent of Central Australians actually fought on the Boers' side but not much notice was taken of their presence even when their commander Harry “Breaker” Morant was executed for the murder of several British officers whom he ambushed under a false flag of truce.
In this new time line, the Australian colonies, that is NSW and Queensland do Federate but several years later, in 1905. Victoria, South Australia (renamed “Central Australia”) and Tasmania go their own ways as independent nations. Western Australia seeks and gains Dominion status in its own right. This has several interesting outcomes.
World War One
World War One breaks out “on time”, that is 1914. With the heavy German influence in Central Australia's society, its sympathies lie with the Central Powers. Graf von Spee, instead of sailing his German East Asiatic Squadron to its fate off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, flees to Port Darwin, on the Northern Coast of Australia, where the nominally neutral Central Australian Republic interns them. With the Royal Navy fully occupied in home waters, countering the High Seas Fleet and there being effectively no Royal Australian Navy to prevent this, Graf von Spee and his squadron sit out the war, enduing the climate of the Top End. The Japanese Navy, then an ally of the RN keeps vigilant watch off shore. Its presence inflames Australian suspicions about Japanese intentions in the region.
The RAN exists only really in name consisting only of a few colonial naval relics only useful as a coastal defence force. Indeed, the ocean going RAN does not come into being until after WWI, when it is gifted several well worn RN cruisers and destroyers. The Australian Imperial Force on the other hand, is formed however, it is considerably smaller. The Australian Militia Force, formed in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales remains in Australia, to keep a watchful eye on the Central Australian Republic's forces, this in turn robs the AIF of reinforcements and after Gallipoli, it is not redeployed to the Western Front until 1917, after the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres).
Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia send their own, independent contingents to France. Because of the thorny problems of co-operation between these forces and the AIF, they are deployed widely across the British sector of the front and kept well separated. However, the exigencies of the German 1918 offensive force them together where a new spirit of co-operation is formed out of necessity. WWI drags on into 1919 but ultimately the central powers are inevitably forced to surrender. The newly formed ANZAC corps in France, under the command of General John Monash, made up of the AIF and the other Australian contingents spearhead the attack and break through the Hindenburg Line, following the German Army in full retreat. Hailed as the Empire's “Stormtroopers”, the ANZAC Corps proved their mastery over their enemies, helping force the German Army to surrender.