The British Empire: how could it survive?

Sorry to bring this back up, but for accuracy's sake, this is the title taken from a map published in London in 1743.

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"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth[5] last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."- Winston Churchill

But, hey, the nitpicky fact that there never was constitutionally an official unitary Empire surely has far more relevance :D
 
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth[5] last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."- Winston Churchill

But, hey, the nitpicky fact that there never was constitutionally an official unitary Empire surely has far more relevance :D

It sounds like how the US wasn't an Imperialist Power because it used "Manifest Destiny" instead of "the White Man's Burden" to justify spreading European diseases and drugs.
 
Twice a year the British governemnt and the Queen hand out honors. The three most common are the CBE, OBE and MBE.

That is the Commander of Order of the British Empire, Order of the British Empire and Member of the Order of the British Empire.

If the Empire doesn't exist outside of India how come these are given out by the people who know about such things!
 
Twice a year the British governemnt and the Queen hand out honors. The three most common are the CBE, OBE and MBE.

That is the Commander of Order of the British Empire, Order of the British Empire and Member of the Order of the British Empire.

If the Empire doesn't exist outside of India how come these are given out by the people who know about such things!

Silence! The Empire never existed! It was a free association of darkies who placed themselves under the benevolent rule of Britain.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I don't think we can reasonably say "How many king were from outside the UK?" as relevant. There were no royal dynasties in what became the Dominions, or a Roman-style anyone can become emperor style situation, so its not at all the same thing - and its not as if the royal line was full blooded English/British Isles anyway (more German than anything else).

Minor nitpick, but I think it does need to be noted that its not entirely like the US being limited to the original Thirteen for all positions.

It is relevant when the Kings had real power, which is at least 1910 at the latest. Being a major force behind constitutional changes is real power. And the Romans were largely limited to the senior leaders of the 7 main families of Rome. Around 50 BC, Rome achieves major possessions outside of modern Italy. I am pretty sure we have non-Italian emperors. At the same pace, the first British King from the 13 Colonies should have been in 1849. There is no way the UK was on that pace if the ARW is prevented.

Or take commanders. It is common to see non-city-of-rome commanders well before we see Emperors. Yet in the 7 year war, an English LT outranked a Colonial General.
 
The UK created the Indian identity by treating them all as third class citizens. It did the same thing in Ireland where it treated Norman Catholic and Irish Catholics as second class citizens, thereby merging the groups.
.

Anglicanism was the state religion.
Only Anglicans or Episcopalian were consider protestants.Presbyterians, Baptists, methodists etc were consider to be Dissenter.

The motto of the United Irish Men http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_United_Irishmen was Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.

All people in Ireland had to pay a Tithe( 10%) of in come to the Anglican church of Ireland no matter what church they belonged to, until the Irish Church Act 1869
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Church_Act_1869

Penal Laws (Ireland)


  • Exclusion of Catholics from most public offices (since 1607), Presbyterians were also barred from public office from 1707.
  • Presbyterian marriages were not legally recognised by the state
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_laws
 
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It is relevant when the Kings had real power, which is at least 1910 at the latest. Being a major force behind constitutional changes is real power. And the Romans were largely limited to the senior leaders of the 7 main families of Rome. Around 50 BC, Rome achieves major possessions outside of modern Italy. I am pretty sure we have non-Italian emperors. At the same pace, the first British King from the 13 Colonies should have been in 1849. There is no way the UK was on that pace if the ARW is prevented.

Or take commanders. It is common to see non-city-of-rome commanders well before we see Emperors. Yet in the 7 year war, an English LT outranked a Colonial General.

And the idea of "the same pace" just doesn't make sense given the dynastic principle (which Rome lacked). Commanders and prime ministers and so on, sure - but not kings.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
And the idea of "the same pace" just doesn't make sense given the dynastic principle (which Rome lacked). Commanders and prime ministers and so on, sure - but not kings.

It is actually as easy to adapt the English system as the City-of-Rome system. I will take the USA as an example, since it is what I am familiar with, but it applies to other colonies/dominions just as well. Let's say the early kings/parliaments are committed to integrating the colonies into the British Empire over a 200 year period (1650-1850). Call it 6 million English, 3 million colonist, 1 million Scots, 1 million Irish in 1750.

So first lets take the House of Commons. Sure the vote will be restricted to not all men as OTL (less than 17% of the population), but we will need to equal out votes. The King and the English Parliament will want to spread the tax burden. So by 1750, the USA will have 17% of the House of Commons (1.5/8.5) and about half the tax burden of England. By 1850, the USA will be up to proportional representation based on population. And this shows the problem. To survive, the English Empire will need to become the true British empire. The weight of power migrates to America (USA and Canada) overtime.

House of Lords. There are about 1600 Lords today, and I will just use that number and the 1750 population. The King will need to appoint a lot of Lords to get even close to balance. Since England dominates the list, probably 1500 are English, so this implies 900 new Lords by 1850 or 450 by 1750. Or put another way 57 per colony. Ignoring for the moment the internal politics of England, this way higher than needed to keep the colonist loyal. So lets say you appoint 2 per decade per colony on average. More than enough to keep the colonist happy and they will never reach proportional representation.

Now there are at least two easy ways to do this using the traditional structures. Originally the Lords had duties of minimum number of men at arms, boats, etc. Just do the same thing in the USA. Just to pick numbers to illustrate, and I may have the ranks out of order. Any colonial Duke has to keep one regiment of redcoats at his cost or equivalent thing of value to the Empire such as ships, maintain infrastructure or annual gold payments. Marquis does 2 Battalions. Count is 1 battalion. Earl is 1 Company. Baron is one platoon. It does not a take any large leaps from what the King was doing in the 1300's, and using existing structures.

Or we take the existing colonial focused way. We basically copied the UK systems in 1780's with minor modifications (indirectly elected House of lord and King). And adding so many Dukes, Earls and Barons will cause so many issues with old families. And the UK wants tax revenue. There is an easy win/win. Trade seats in the House of Lords for tax revenue or military units freely useable for by the King/Prime Minister. So again, for say 300 seats in the House of Lords selected by the various colonial legislatures for lifetime appointments, the Colonies have to maintain a standing army of 10,000 and trained reserves of another 90,000 at the cost out of colonial tax revenue. George Washington becomes a regimental officer of some modest success in wars against France. Andrew Jackson is noted for fame with the "fighting Virginian" division at Waterloo. etc. The side benefit of this system beside fitting colonial mindset closer is it allows the King of England to appoint the Dukes and Baron in the normal fashion over time, who can also fit into House of Lords. The UK appoints one Duke about every 13 years on average, so it avoids the "unseemly" rush to appoint "undeserving Americans"

Note: In reality, it is probably easier to use a federation type mechanism to accomplish this item. If one crowns the King as the "Emperor of the Anglo-Saxon-Scots-Irish-Colonist Peoples", one can then form a new Imperial House of Commons and Imperial House of Lords/Senate. If one limits the upper house to a set number of delegates per area it works. For example, the most senior 100 English Lords sit on the Imperial House of Lords, the lesser ones sit on the old English/Irish/Scottish House of Lords. It sounds radical, it would be opposed by the powers that be in England, but it is less radical than what the Romans did. If you want to have an empire that last a thousand years, it helps to copy the Empire that lasted a thousand years, at least the wiser policies.

Now since England needs a navy, it makes sense to have the colonials raise the bulk of the British Army. I picked 100K, but by 1750 the USA could support 300K in a bind and by 1850 it will be millions. You could probably leave the Sea Lords and RN largely untouched except for some minimal number of officers that have to come from the colony each year. If you can have a "German Prince" running the RN at the start of WW1, you should be able to live with an "Bostonian Earl". It would make sense to move your Army training academy and GHQ to North American. West Point works fine with the Army GHQ located in NYC. If 90% of the time, the Land Lords come from outside of England, people can live with the Sea Lords being mostly from England.

Now we probably did enough to integrated the Monarchy/Nobility into the system, but it is easy to achieve a full King. We have Duke/Duchesses in the USA. If the Prince of Wales marries the Duchess of Toronto in 1815, we now have basically gone the full Roman integration. If every other King marries a Duchess from outside of England but in the Empire, everything works. And if it is critical to marry Princess, we simply declare the King of England Emperor and we can have plenty of King and Princes in the various colonies. So we now have the PoW marry the Princess of Toronto. By 1815, many American cities or state were far more powerful than the tiny areas in Germany that had "Kings"



And what I list is not the only way, but simply a way. Once the will exist to integrate the empire, the methods can be found. It was only an issue of the missing will and lack of understand of the fragility of an Empire that does not integrate its white colonies. There was a simple choice the English had. Have an English Empire that would last a couple hundred years or have a British Empire that has a real chance to last 1000. They chose the English Empire. People say India is too big for the British to keep, and this is true if we mean English. The British (USA/Canada/Aussies/NZ/South Africa/Ireland) is easily strong enough to rule India by force indefinitely. England could only afford a strong Navy and a very small army. The British could easily afford the RN and the world's most powerful Army.

IOTL, the modern American Empire is a successor state to the British Empire, we just use different forms to rule our Empire. We often just use old British bases or bases in old colonies. We gave up direct rule, but many countries have resemblances to the old British Empire. Just like the UK used to depose Sultans that cause too many issues, we do the same (Marcos, Sadaam, Qadafi, many Latin American leaders over the years.) Using the old British empire color the map Red philosophy, England probably should be painted blue and called an American Dominion. After all we told the UK they could not keep the Suez. We told them it was ok to get the Falklands back. This is similar to the UK telling the Aussies how much of the German Pacific colonies it could keep after WW1 or telling the 13 Colonies not to cross into the Mississippi river drainage.
 
(Snip.)

Now we probably did enough to integrated the Monarchy/Nobility into the system, but it is easy to achieve a full King. We have Duke/Duchesses in the USA. If the Prince of Wales marries the Duchess of Toronto in 1815, we now have basically gone the full Roman integration. If every other King marries a Duchess from outside of England but in the Empire, everything works. And if it is critical to marry Princess, we simply declare the King of England Emperor and we can have plenty of King and Princes in the various colonies. So we now have the PoW marry the Princess of Toronto. By 1815, many American cities or state were far more powerful than the tiny areas in Germany that had "Kings"

How many areas in Germany had "kings"? Not dukes or princes, but actual "kings"? Not so many.

And the existing system also worked, because the king not being Australian blooded and the House of Lords being British really has about as much to do with anything as the king being a yachtsman or not does.

Would the idea of broadening the House of Commons be appropriate? Sure. But the royal line being European isn't an issue. I'm pretty sure that there being no Canadian dukes didn't bother Canadians either.

And I'm not sure that broadening the Empire to be "all whites are 'British'" makes India easier to hold, given that the white areas aren't going to be automatically loyal and obedient and interested.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
How many areas in Germany had "kings"? Not dukes or princes, but actual "kings"? Not so many.

And the existing system also worked, because the king not being Australian blooded and the House of Lords being British really has about as much to do with anything as the king being a yachtsman or not does.

Would the idea of broadening the House of Commons be appropriate? Sure. But the royal line being European isn't an issue. I'm pretty sure that there being no Canadian dukes didn't bother Canadians either.

And I'm not sure that broadening the Empire to be "all whites are 'British'" makes India easier to hold, given that the white areas aren't going to be automatically loyal and obedient and interested.

We seem to be of different opinion. IMO, early federalization/power sharing will lead to the rise of true national British identity.

On your Canada part, I am pretty sure that Canada is not ruled from London anymore, so we need major POD to keep even the Canadians. While what I wrote was about the USA, it just as easily could be the "Reforms of 1790's" that were designed to correct the flaws of the British Empire after losing the 13 colonies. The key is preventing the emergence of Canadian Nationalism. Power share at the House of Common levels is part of the program. The provides a mechanism to to allow the solving of problems/frustration while they are small. You need the integrated military commands for national pride. The power of a Canadian commander winning a Trafalgar/Waterloo type win is hard to over overstate. While Canadians were treated far better than the brown/black people of the empire, they were second class citizens. And if treated as less than full citizens, a second national identity normally emerges over a couple of generations/centuries. A story such as a Bill Clinton from a broken home rising to lead America is not possible under the English system. Or Lincoln becoming the second/third most important leader of American history is impossible under the English system. Illinois had only been a part of the USA for 3 generations when he was elected. Heavily settled less than two.

Now while the King marrying and Aussie is not required, the attitude you list is the problem. Sometimes it is not the the actions, but the attitude that causes the issues. The mere fact that it is important to English man that the King maintain the "pure European" bloodline is the issue. It is simple racism. While many people tend to think in terms of skin color on racism, Europe shows you can also treat a group of whites as a lesser race. (Polish in Germany, Irish in England). As long as the English establishment remains openly racist, the empire is doomed to break apart. The marrying is critical at some point not because the King has huge power by the end, but for what it symbolizes.

The same is also true in relation to the Duke/Earls. Philadelphia was the third largest city in the Empire, yet had no royalty. If some small city in England had risen in size to be the 3rd largest city, it would have many local nobles. It was used to make loyal/important families more loyal to the empire. An example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Atholl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Montrose

The fact the Kings are creating/renewing Dukedoms to keep Scotland loyal says a lot about the value of Scotland compared to the Colonies to the King. There were some hugely successful Americans in this time period. There were large land owners. Now maybe for these Americans Earls/Baron titles would have been more appropriate, but it is clear there are many Americans who would have been granted peerhood if they just had done the same accomplishments in England not the Colonies. Again, attitude. Why besides the attitude that the colonies are second class citizens does the King of England create two Dukes to help keep Scotland loyal but nothing to keep Virginia or NY State or Penn loyal? From the other side of the pond, the question has only one possible answer.

Titles were given for military wins, and this is why Colonial officers of flag rank are important. We don't know who would have been the Colonial officers in charge of the French and Indian war, but it is clear whoever won the battles would have been granted peerhood if they accomplished similar gains in Europe. Again attitude matters. One can't overstate the importance of having someone like "Duke of Ohio" General George Washington as an British Icon. People over here love our military heroes. And yes, it is more likely the title is "Earl of Pittsburg" or something lesser.

And finally, the House of Lords is important. Lord Churchill helped blocked one of the Irish reform bills. If one merely gives the colonial proportional representation in the the House of Commons but keeps the House of Lords with veto power as 90% English, it almost guarantees a civil war and the emergence of non-English nationalism. For the English Empire to have endure like the Romans do, the English have to get past the "we/them" attitude. Now if you strip the House of Lords of all power in 1700, sure you can keep the Empire together with merely House of Commons reform. But this is far more radical changes, and what I propose is much more gradual. The King of England picking a prominent Virginian to be "Duke of Richmond" and the Kings representative in Virginia is much less radical.

Those that make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable. ARW showed this. So did Ireland in the 1910's. The only reason we don't have the Canada/English Civil War is that the powers that be finally allowed real power to be given by dominion status. While the English Empire system looked great to English, it looks terrible to the second class white citizens. My example about the USA trying to rule its current land but only allow the 13 original colonies to have power is a very accurate analogy. The USA chose the path that allowed integration. The English powers that be chose the path of making some white men second class citizen.

And finally, having all of USA and Canada still a part of the UK does not guarantee that India is still a colony, but it does allow the for enough power to make it possible. By the 1950's, the UK would simply lose a war to keep India. With the might of the USA added, it becomes doable. Now with such an old POD, we have butterflied away OTL, but we do know the new Greater Great Britain allows for enough power to remain a super/great power and Great Powers can keep colonies. Modern second rate powers such as the UK are too week to keep major colonial empires.
 
Well, there was a greater British identity amongst the settlers right until WW2 so that side of things is already there. Converting that to a universal state is harder. The tyranny of size and distance are not answered

Now that I live London that was both a giant city and heart of the Empire, it is easy to see how myopic or distracted leadership and the people can get and how hard it is to empathise with anyone outside the city, in the UK let alone the Dominions
 
We seem to be of different opinion. IMO, early federalization/power sharing will lead to the rise of true national British identity.


I don't know if it will or not, but I don't see why that means that Canadians for instance have no reason to want to leave.

And frankly, your argument about making North American peers actually meaning anything or kings having North American wives is unconvincing. And I don't think anyone has argued that "pure European blood" was important, simply that being of noble/royal blood was what mattered in regards to royalty.

Canada's problems weren't that there weren't Canadian peers, so how does adding them help?

How does not adding them make Canadians "second class citizens"?

And the AR was caused for reasons that an American Duke of Ohio wouldn't make a feather's weight of difference on, so. . .

Frankly, if you want to build a common "Imperial" identity, this is not how to do it. Or at least, this in and of itself won't address any of the reasons one didn't form - Parliament as in the HoC, sure, but the House of Lords? That's a separate problem, not a British-as-in-Britain vs. Broader British as in the white part of the empire.

You're concentrating on the House of Lords and the monarchy too much.

As for the white parts of the empire giving the power to hold India - because obviously the alt-American colonies will be like OTL only British.

Somehow, I don't see that happening.
 
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