The Third Superpower: A British TL

Thomas1195

Banned
That seems like a big ask with the Great Depression and global trade collapsing no matter what they do.
Thomas, raising average annual growth by even 2% over 22 years will have an impact, but would be somewhere between extraordinarily hard and impossible to sustain, particularly as the period includes several recessions, a Depression and the flat 1920s; it is possible in a computer game, but not in real history. Economic growth isn't something that sticks forever, particularly if it took Britain until 1924/25 to simply get back to a 1914 level. If you want to alter the trajectory of the British economy, you need to do what you've done elsewhere and go back to the 19th century. Even if we fiddle with dates, the Soviet Union will eventually overtake Britain in raw GDP, whether it is 1947, 1955 or 1960. Now, the British standard of living was better, along with a number of other measures. These don't amount to much in the hard power stakes.

I mean from 1923-1929, and then 1931-1939. If Britain did not return to Gold in 1925, combined with Land Value Tax (a very big tax in terms of revenue), there would be plenty of room for Keynesian spending on public works. Spending on public works to improve infrastructures like roads, housing, telephone and electricity supply would both create demand for industries and raise national productivity, and this would be much better than the wait-and-see policy like IOTL, as it was clear that IOTL the private sector did not do much in these areas. Also, the industrial unrest between labour and employers should have been tackled during this period rather than in 1980s. Worse, IOTL, the Geddes Axe also rolled back education spending, which is vital for improving human capital.

And it's not guaranteed that population growth would not be higher than IOTL if British economic growth was stronger. During the interwar and especially postwar and even before ww1, Japan and many other Western countries like Germany experienced significantly higher population growth than the UK.
 
Going for leadership in the EC doesn't give Britain an independent Great Power role, let alone a superpower role. It simply shackles them to the Continent, with all of the problems that entails. They would become an adjunct of a larger entity, rather than its major driver; France and Germany will eventually recover. It is more in line with consistent British policy to play the two off against each other, but the broader issue of the Cold War threat from the Soviet Union.

But I believe that there was a window of opportunity to fashion a European Community more along British lines for several years after the war - France was still too suspicious of Germany and the situation in Western Europe was quite fluid with many countries looking towards London for leadership. I don't think it would have meant a great change as regards great power status but it would surely have been a blessing for Europe to escape the cumbersome Franco-German bureaucratic structures for the EC and EU. Though of course in hindsight it was probably always very unlikely that Britain would have taken such a radical step and forsaken its traditional policy of semi-detachment from the continent.
 
Thomas: Not returning to gold would require a very different leadership and an accompanying lack of a desire to return to prewar normality. There was no significant political support for LVT among those who mattered. Keynesian spending wasn't on the cards for the 1920s, when the priority was to reduce budget deficits and try and reduce the debt; Gladstonian/traditional Whig and Liberal retrenchment. You are operating with the benefit of hindsight, rather than considering matters from the perspective of the time. The Geddes Axe was unavoidable unless we change things well in beforehand - it was not just a matter of fiat, but long standing belief and policy from both sides of government.

British population growth could be 10% higher, which is nigh on impossible, and it would still not be enough. The radical changes required will not be achieved with a few nudges here and there, a couple of different policies and greater deliveries from storks. They will ameliorate certain short and medium term issues, but not change the trajectory of the country.

Go back to 1900 and there is more of a chance. Go back to 1870 and even more so. However, changing things at any time won't happen in a vacuum and the world and other rival states will change with Britain.

hwyl: There was no such window. Monnet and Schumann were steering France from 1946/47. In 1946, Britain was still playing the global game, as it was involved up to its neck. The advent of the pro-European base in France coincides with Britain's postwar annus horribilis of 1947, which took 2 years to recover from and really put a stake through the heart of so many plans and developments. Britain in 1946 and 1947 was thinking of more than just Western Europe, which at that stage was France and the Low Countries.

Sometimes, things developed the way they did for very strong and sound reasons.
 
Interesting to see how this diverges from my TL. I'm doing the same POD with the same task in mind.
I'll have a look at yours - I wish you good luck with it!

Looking forward to see what happens :)
Hope the special relationship continues. Did Truman get reelected in 1948?
I'm planning to write an entry about the US which will reveal what is happening over there - let's just say that the 1948 election goes....differently.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Thomas: Not returning to gold would require a very different leadership and an accompanying lack of a desire to return to prewar normality. There was no significant political support for LVT among those who mattered. Keynesian spending wasn't on the cards for the 1920s, when the priority was to reduce budget deficits and try and reduce the debt; Gladstonian/traditional Whig and Liberal retrenchment. You are operating with the benefit of hindsight, rather than considering matters from the perspective of the time. The Geddes Axe was unavoidable unless we change things well in beforehand - it was not just a matter of fiat, but long standing belief and policy from both sides of government.
Actually it was the Liberals who declared to introduce public works and supported LVT in their 1923, 1924 and 1929 manifestos.

The only way to avoid Geddes Axe is to butterfly away all the reforms during 1918-1920.

Have the Radical wing of the Party (which already held the majority of the Liberal even before ww1) hold power and you would see changes.

Reginald McKenna was one of the few if not the only politician who recognize that Britain should not go back to Gold. Have him being Chancellor would help.

But I agree that a POD in 1945 would require Britain to have economic growth of OTL postwar Japan (which means surpassing USSR by 1980 if we don't use PPP measure), and this would be ASB if we look at the leading parties.
 
Thomas, by the 1923 election, the Liberals were not going to get in as an independent electoral force. By 1924, their vote had collapsed and by 1929, they were irrelevant. The Radicals had their time in the sun before the war and bled support to Labour afterwards. The Geddes Axe or something like it was inevitable unless we go a lot further back.

Mustard, you probably need to put on the brakes a bit before forging ahead. There is a lot of material on this subforum alone regarding British economic performance and their situation in the aftermath of the Second World War and this is just the tip of the iceberg. People have tried versions of this very endeavour for at least 12 years and not one that I remember has come up with a viable post-1945 case that has been carried through to its logical extent.

Britain couldn't afford to keep up support to Greece, either in physical equipment terms or financial ones, leading to the circumstances of the Truman Doctrine. Leaving off the NHS and other Labour reforms won't change that nor alter Britain's economic circumstances. The recession started in 1945 and didn't break until 1948 and that was just on the most broad terms of the economy. Britain was so broke that it was selling ships for scrap to pay naval wages; at one point, the Home Fleet was ~ 2 cruisers and half a dozen destroyers, if I recall Nelson to Vanguard correctly.

A post-1945 handwavium solution to India isn't going to pass muster. The Cabinet Mission Plan and other such attempts failed to secure any changes; it could be argued that Churchill was less likely to reach an accomodation with Congress and others. Imperial Preference, which had essentially been destroyed by Lend Lease and American policies after the Atlantic Charter, isn't going to be enough as a bargaining chip. Look into the circumstances of the Indian mutinies of 1946 and 1947.

Finally, India actually did become a Dominion postwar, along with Pakistan. Avoiding Partition is the elephant in the room and needs a very deft and detailed justification rather than a couple of sentences. Even in such circumstances, the flag wouldn't stay the same.

Without India, the raison d'etre of your thread is a non-starter.

Finally, reading through Churchill's writings, speeches and letters, you might be struck by how he generally refers to his country as 'Britain' rather than the 'United Kingdom'. His nomenclature may seem a small matter, but is important, albeit on a minor level. It reflects different conceptions of the role, destiny and purpose of the country.

Read through what is around here before going any further and start posing some questions for the collective readership here; that will then give you a large amount of information to consider and mold to your purposes.
 
Britain couldn't afford to keep up support to Greece, either in physical equipment terms or financial ones, leading to the circumstances of the Truman Doctrine. Leaving off the NHS and other Labour reforms won't change that nor alter Britain's economic circumstances. The recession started in 1945 and didn't break until 1948 and that was just on the most broad terms of the economy. Britain was so broke that it was selling ships for scrap to pay naval wages; at one point, the Home Fleet was ~ 2 cruisers and half a dozen destroyers, if I recall Nelson to Vanguard correctly.
In this timeline, the UK Government is able to stimulate growth in the British economy more than OTL, due to the fact that the welfare state is delayed until 1949 and no industries are nationalised. This means that the Government will be able to accommodate more money towards Greece.

Finally, India actually did become a Dominion postwar, along with Pakistan. Avoiding Partition is the elephant in the room and needs a very deft and detailed justification rather than a couple of sentences. Even in such circumstances, the flag wouldn't stay the same.
When India became a Dominion in OTL, it was more of a transitional phase to a Republic - in this timeline, Dominion status is intended to be a permanent fixture. I'll re-write the entry to discuss why India hasn't been Partitioned.

Thanks for the advice, anyhow, I'll take it on board and I'll restructure this entry to try and make it more plausible.
 
Oh, and I may as well ask a few questions to the readers here to see what I can do to make this TL more plausible:

1) How long would the Dominion of India remain un-partitioned, based on what I have established?

2) Is an Imperial Federation (or a closer Commonwealth of sorts) completely out of the question at this point?

3) Could the UK enjoy a Post-War Economic Miracle along the lines of Japan?
 

longsword14

Banned
Oh, and I may as well ask a few questions to the readers here to see what I can do to make this TL more plausible:

1) How long would the Dominion of India remain un-partitioned, based on what I have established?
The ship has sailed. Partition has gathered steam and complete independence is the only option that remains. Britain wanted their hands off the whole thing.
 
The Government cannot stimulate growth when it is facing the absolute worst economic conditions that Britain had ever confronted; even the Great Depression was arguably more manageable.

1945 GDP: $347,035 million (-4.6% on 1944)
1946 GDP: $331,985 million (-4.5%)
1947 GDP: $327,044 million (-1.51%)
1948 GDP: $337,376 million (+ 3.06%)

That doesn't paint the whole picture, which extended to budget deficits, a shortage of hard currency, an absolute dearth of export trade, a convertability crisis and a disintegrating Sterling Bloc. There was a shortage of fuel and the Winter of 1947 saw the country grind to a halt and bread rationing had to be imposed, which never occurred during the war.

Most of the spending in 1946 did not go to the welfare state or nationalisation compensation (the latter was quite small and not a major factor even in budgetary terms), but on defence.

Secondly, Greece wasn't just a matter of money, but of time, strategy, equipment and supply of goods. Britain had more pressing needs than Greece or Turkey and you haven't demonstrated how these have been met at this time.

A permanent Indian Dominion wouldn't be possible post WW2, when the genie of independence is out of the bottle. It would be 1920 thinking in a 1945 world. Remember, this was the time when the existing Dominions completed the move towards de jure independence with the ratification of the Statute of Westminster, associated nationality laws and a general move towards the USA (particularly Canada in economic, political and military terms and Australia and New Zealand in military and strategic terms, while South Africa was going Nationalist and going out into its own isolation without major changes).

You've chosen an interesting challenge and I would suggest following up the reading and research with a slight shifting of the goalposts, so that Britain aims to be the 'best of the rest', maintains an independent capacity for action as much as possible and tries to turn the Commonwealth into something effective. This was actual British policy in the late 40s-mid 50s, so would be an easier short and medium term aim than superpower status.

Taking things from there, it may be possible to craft and describe a different world that emerges post 1955 where Britain keeps up a bit better. The central problem will be that other nations will grow faster economically for a host of reasons and Britain will be seen to relatively decline compared to them.
 
1.) As said, Partition is a given from 1945 under Churchill and 99.5% sure under Attlee.

2.) Imperial Federation was a dead duck in the time of Chamberlain - Joseph Chamberlain. A close Commonwealth is a possibility, but will need some very detailed and clever reasoning as to how Canada and South Africa are kept in the fold. Without Indian numbers, it will still lag behind the potential power of the prewar empire.

3.) No, it could not have a postwar economic miracle a la Japan with a 1945 PoD. It could do better economically, but the Soviet Union and Germany will overtake it and France and Italy will grow faster. You would need to go a lot further back to get higher growth for Britain and even then it will not reach the stratospheric average GDP growth achieved by Japan in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, as several threads have examined, there was sufficient money wasted on a lot of cancelled defence projects so that there would be enough for quite the formidable force structure to be built up with the same general level of defence spending as occurred historically. Consolidating the aircraft and shipbuilding industries in the initial postwar fervour for planning and intervention would not go astray.
 
So, based on your advice, would it be better for me to abandon this TL and start a new one, with the same objective, although a much earlier POD?
 
I'd keep this one around at the moment, but rework it into a means of gathering opinions, links, information and perspectives. You're new and I can see that you've put time and thought into this, so I'm reticent to quash that. Lay out some of your ideas as discussion points and get some feedback on them to add to your collection of ideas.

Off the top of my head, potential PoDs that would lead to a British superpower status by, say, 1955-1960, are the beginning of WW1, the end of WW1 and 1900. There is a decent TL in the finished timeline section called 'Rule Britannia'; others include the (albeit fictional) 'ASBs Save the British Empire', 'Ministry of Space' and some of Riain's threads on post WW2 British defence spending. Perfectgeneral has also written a few attempts that are worth a look, as they look at some issues in great depth.

Have a search and a read through them and some others that can be found in the archives. I have quite a lot of resources and texts on the British Empire in the 20th Century if you would like any specific information.

Once again, don't stop by any stretch of the imagination. But gather your information and get feedback first.
 
So, based on your advice, would it be better for me to abandon this TL and start a new one, with the same objective, although a much earlier POD?

My advice would be to decide which is more important to you; the POD or the outcome. Some people (of which I am one) prefer to set up a POD and to follow where that goes, wherever that may be. I find the journey more interesting than the destination. If you go down this route, you can start fairly quickly and do the research as required as the timeline develops.

Others prefer to know the outcome, in which case you need to do the bulk of the research beforehand. You'll also find that there are others who disagree with some of the assumptions made, and will be able to present a strong case.

In your shoes, I would continue with the POD and the TL, and just see where it goes. However, if you have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome, that wouldn't be the greatest idea in the world.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I'd keep this one around at the moment, but rework it into a means of gathering opinions, links, information and perspectives. You're new and I can see that you've put time and thought into this, so I'm reticent to quash that. Lay out some of your ideas as discussion points and get some feedback on them to add to your collection of ideas.

Off the top of my head, potential PoDs that would lead to a British superpower status by, say, 1955-1960, are the beginning of WW1, the end of WW1 and 1900. There is a decent TL in the finished timeline section called 'Rule Britannia'; others include the (albeit fictional) 'ASBs Save the British Empire', 'Ministry of Space' and some of Riain's threads on post WW2 British defence spending. Perfectgeneral has also written a few attempts that are worth a look, as they look at some issues in great depth.

Have a search and a read through them and some others that can be found in the archives. I have quite a lot of resources and texts on the British Empire in the 20th Century if you would like any specific information.

Once again, don't stop by any stretch of the imagination. But gather your information and get feedback first.
Pipisme's Liberal Tl would also a good one, as ww2 is butterflied away
 
The Whale has Wings by Astrodragon is a good example.

One of the big reasons why the Empire collapsed so quickly was because British Prestiege and power was worthless after getting the crap kicked out of them by the Japanese.

New Zealand and Australia lose many of the reasons for remaining in the Empire once Britain has proved that it can't adequately defend them.
 
After comparing the NHS to the Nazis? I'm skeptical. Being a Conservative often involves assuming that no change is inevitable.



A coalition government, actually. Attlee was in the War Cabinet.



Was he? His reactions to the Chanak Crisis and the assassination of Henry Hughes Wilson suggest otherwise. Anyways, keeping India as a Dominion would open up an uncomfortable can of worms over who dictates Commonwealth policy that I don't think he'd find appealing either.
exactly Churchill in office simply means no commonwealth and an even weaker GB. the only way to keep the British empire lies in a POD prior to or during WW1, or at the absolute latest no appeasement and no WW11. 1945 is too late.
 
So, based on your advice, would it be better for me to abandon this TL and start a new one, with the same objective, although a much earlier POD?

My advice would be to decide which is more important to you; the POD or the outcome. Some people (of which I am one) prefer to set up a POD and to follow where that goes, wherever that may be. I find the journey more interesting than the destination. If you go down this route, you can start fairly quickly and do the research as required as the timeline develops.

Others prefer to know the outcome, in which case you need to do the bulk of the research beforehand. You'll also find that there are others who disagree with some of the assumptions made, and will be able to present a strong case.

In your shoes, I would continue with the POD and the TL, and just see where it goes. However, if you have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome, that wouldn't be the greatest idea in the world.
Excellent question and advice, but the outcome is based on preference and you stated the desired outcome.
Sometimes improbable things happen and Can turn things around, but if you need too many of them you'll get hammered as I tend to.
ITTL a tricky opportunity which requires some guts (which Churchill has) is to admit defeat.
He could, precisely because he is Churchill, move towards European collaboration and dominate through this collaborative base.
Its not his first preference, but could be an option. Just consider that it was Nixon who opened up with China. Similarly, only Churchill could deposit (a bit of) independence abroad.
 
I would Think WETO has a nice ring to it....
Build in the economic collaboration and tube alloys and you have a very different World
 
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