The British Empire without the World Wars

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What would have become of the empire without the strain of 2 world wars in less than half a century?

It was already moving towards a form of dissolution / dominionisation based on the ideal of the 'colony' nations ability to rule itself.

A much neater, longer, and better organized move towards self rule.

This!

In OTL it was rushed / Pushed due to the UN and Britain's weakness from both World wars - this resulted in many unresolved issues that spilled over to outright war in subsequent years.

Take away the Wars and you have a more stable world, a less powerful UN or equivalent and a much stronger and influential UK able to assert its desire for slower change.

The nations would still get their independence - its just it would be a slower / better process.

I'm aware that not all would agree but I come from the point of view - that the 'Empire' responsible for said 'Colony' nation has an obligation to ensure that the Colony could function in the then modern world before being granted Independence and any handover to be gradual and phased over years if not decades.

This may be a naive ideal on my part and ultimately unworkable - but it should still have been the intention in each case.
 
Decolonisation happens still but probably British Empire would be bit bigger and there might be more dominions, speciality in Africa. And decolonisation would be slower.
 
Good site on the empire here, http://www.atlasofbritempire.com/ including this map showing the economic contribution of each region.

Imperial_Preferential_Trade_1932.gif
 

TFSmith121

Banned
No peace to end all peace in Southwest Asia...

What would have become of the empire without the strain of 2 world wars in less than half a century?

No peace to end all peace in Southwest Asia, presuambly; that's a start.

Some sorts of pan-Arab and Turkish sucessor states...

Best,
 
i think aswell that british wanted to make almost all the colonys who had the desire and the ability to go dominion and then eventually federlize them into permament alliance/trade bloc in exchange for that i guess but that might be hindsight and wishful thinking. But they did prefer letting the colonies run themselves when possible especially early on if it generally stuck to londons positions like the african companies and EIC but they did let greed run their colonies abit excessivly(half the problem of american rebellion was running the colonies from britain when that hadnt been done before that and managing it horribly aswell). Only country that the british really didnt want to give dominion status in their empire was india for various reasons i think , they should have coopted indians alot more to be honest and there were indians interested in that and you would be seriously suprised how popular the king-emperor was india for example.


Also the free traders were incredibly hurtful to the empire in almost stupid contravetion to national interests during early 20th century. A free trade zone inside the empire to spur investment and interlockment i guess as a reward for participating and sacrificing with the mother country in ww1 would have made so much sence its almost sad that it didnt happen and keeping the imperial war cabinet togheter as a paper tiger could have helped a little bit with the dominions avoiding disarmament to extent they did maybe .


Brits had massive class issues , wich was one of their main problem and they even saw their own descendants in the white colonies abit inferior wich was the main problem but if it could be abandoned progressivly with maybe seeing them inferior cause of their education or something like that and trying to fix that eventually?

and the idea that south africa is a african nation and how succesful they were before ww2 aftermath and used that formula to convert more countries into dominions aswell while still making investments and building infrastructure especially in bureacracy and avoiding dictatorships. Kenya for example would have become dominion very happily i imagine if done after first world war and if the british didnt run out of nigeria i imagine they would be one of the strongest african nations cause of their oil riches and population if it isnt wasted on corruption and religous tensions. Rhodesia was actually a very succesful colony but white supremacy and its results managed to screw it up. Egypt should be abandoned to be honest but maybe keep the canal somehow and get the egypt to be ok with (maybe like 50/50 revenue split or even higher but control in british hands) . Cyprus for example would have done better to stay united instead of its fate after british withdrawal for the most part.

Burma was attached to india wich was a mistake in hindsight and could have been retained if treated better and not the japanese running british out of almost the entire country and honestly burma would have been lucky considering their history post independence till few years ago to be honest. malaya and singapore kinda wanted to stay british but the brits just abandoned them even with the japanese occupation involved . Carribean was forced into indepence cause of british financial situation for the most part and maybe either running them as the vacation spot of the empire could have made sense post ww2 (like otl but earlier i guess is the thought). Dijbouti could have been kept maybe as a colony/base of sorts opposite or instead of aden i guess , also socotra island is in a very interesting position as a alternative for both of them if the harbor is good enough or could be built up i guess? Ceylon or sri lanka with dominion status as a trial before india maybe could have been doable and even with india seceeding from the empire eventually even then with enough will and want they could have stayed lol.

Brits really should have found oil in their own colonies or hell saudi arabia before persia and be more focused on that instead of messing around in iraq and iran where the population and the enivorment is abit more condusive to that.
 
Tell that to the Unionists and the Ulsters Volunteers who threatened to resist by physical force the implementation of the Act and the authority of any Dublin Parliament by force of arms.

Or to those army officers who mutinied at Curragh...
 
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