IIRC, the exploration of Australia was accelerated and a river was explored a decade or so early. From the last post, the British have claimed New Caledonia, which was left alone until the French claimed it in the 1850s in OTL, the New Hebrides, and Norfolk Island.
Under the Southern Cross We Stand
- Thread starter johnboy
- Start date
IIRC, the exploration of Australia was accelerated and a river was explored a decade or so early. From the last post, the British have claimed New Caledonia, which was left alone until the French claimed it in the 1850s in OTL, the New Hebrides, and Norfolk Island.
Could this Australia being that big, be a far more powerful player in the 20th and 21st centuries? Maybe Australasian? troops can turn the tide in Gallipolli far more sucessfully and then start many, many butterflies... unless even bigger changes are made in the previous decades.
I"m going to stop you right there. Gallipoli failed because the British underestimated the strength of the Ottoman defences. Said Ottoman defences were backed up by German-made Krupp guns, which the Royal Navy failed to soften up. The screw up that gave Anzac Cove it's name didn't help matters.
The meeting body for the Australian colonies before federation was called the Federal Council of Australasia. At one point, the council included New Zealand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_of_Australasia
Fair point, but it depends on the size of the butterflies. If Australia is bigger and richer it might have more Imperial clout by TTL 1915. Gallipoli with Monash in charge of the ground forces might have gone significantly different to OTL for instance.
"Significantly" may mean it went worse, too. Let's not pretend that early 20th century Australians were less dismisive than their british counterparts about people they considered lesser.
Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
I’m not sure we should beat ourselves up over this. Are there any examples of a more developed culture taking an enlightened view when coming into contact with indigenous peoples?
Monash, hell most Aussies at the beginning of WW1 were not important. I have lots of doubts Monash could even get anywhere (career wise) in 1915 that where he was at that moment.
Besides, being a descended German Jew is not profitable in any TL, especially by ww1.
Make me wonder if @johnboy is going for a more *Monarchial/Imperial Australia* with its larger size and population, perhaps with its own monarch. But ithen agian you would have to make the case why Canada and South Africa didn't get their own as well...
Monash didn't do too badly OTL with those same disadvantages. But that's my point, doesn't have to be Monash, just used him (in my opinion Australia's best WW1 general) as an example. Could be someone else totally unknown OTL who is a big player TTL due to a larger Australian contribution to the Boer War for instance.
Greater opposition from Canada and Australia to trying to absorb the Boers into the empire? Rhodes wasn't really much help to Britain. The Cape Colony would have been happier without them. The cultural clash wasn't worth the taxes on the gold and diamonds.
February 1835 - Founding of Melbourne, Aboriginal exile
22 February 1835, Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, Van Diemen's Land, Australia
It had taken three trips via the converted whaler Prince George, but 229 Tasmanian aboriginals had been relocated from the mainland to Bruny Island, which had been set aside exclusively for their use, aside from the trading and whaling port at Adventure Bay. Many had been brought to Hobart Town via the exhortations and efforts of George Augustus Robinson, who was motivated to try and bring peace in the endless clashes between settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of the island.
It had followed a number of sad events in the mind of Robinson, most notably a massacre of over 30 aboriginals on the land of the Van Diemen Company and also the 1830 "Black line". George Arthur had allowed himself to be persuaded to change his policies from the strangest of places, namely John Batman, a well known terror of natives in the colony. Batman had sailed to Port Phillip the previous year and established a settlement, purchasing land from the local aboriginals for a nominal amount of blankets, clothes, axes, scissors, knives and mirrors. Whether the savages understood what they were agreeing to was another matter, but that was a matter for them and them alone. Motivated by this seeming success, Arthur had been only to happy to move the quarrelsome blacks from the areas of main settlement and the island of Bruny seemed a fair location where they could be out of sight and out of mind. Hence, he was to provide twenty bags of flour, knives, scissors, three spades, six mirrors, 50 axes, 20 sets of clothes and even two muskets and a small amount of powder. Reports indicated it left less than 40 natives on the island, not counting half breeds. Robinson was well intentioned and motivated by simple Christian charity, but a fool none the less in Arthur's opinion, yet such an accommodation had been encouraged from Sydney and in his own opinion would be beneficial in the long run, perhaps even to both parties.
Land was badly needed in any case, with the colony expanding at a rapid pace. In England, a survey conducted by hulk officials indicated that convicts "appeared to have a general wish for transportation", with the Antipodes seen as a chance to start a new life with a clean slate.
It had taken three trips via the converted whaler Prince George, but 229 Tasmanian aboriginals had been relocated from the mainland to Bruny Island, which had been set aside exclusively for their use, aside from the trading and whaling port at Adventure Bay. Many had been brought to Hobart Town via the exhortations and efforts of George Augustus Robinson, who was motivated to try and bring peace in the endless clashes between settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of the island.
It had followed a number of sad events in the mind of Robinson, most notably a massacre of over 30 aboriginals on the land of the Van Diemen Company and also the 1830 "Black line". George Arthur had allowed himself to be persuaded to change his policies from the strangest of places, namely John Batman, a well known terror of natives in the colony. Batman had sailed to Port Phillip the previous year and established a settlement, purchasing land from the local aboriginals for a nominal amount of blankets, clothes, axes, scissors, knives and mirrors. Whether the savages understood what they were agreeing to was another matter, but that was a matter for them and them alone. Motivated by this seeming success, Arthur had been only to happy to move the quarrelsome blacks from the areas of main settlement and the island of Bruny seemed a fair location where they could be out of sight and out of mind. Hence, he was to provide twenty bags of flour, knives, scissors, three spades, six mirrors, 50 axes, 20 sets of clothes and even two muskets and a small amount of powder. Reports indicated it left less than 40 natives on the island, not counting half breeds. Robinson was well intentioned and motivated by simple Christian charity, but a fool none the less in Arthur's opinion, yet such an accommodation had been encouraged from Sydney and in his own opinion would be beneficial in the long run, perhaps even to both parties.
Land was badly needed in any case, with the colony expanding at a rapid pace. In England, a survey conducted by hulk officials indicated that convicts "appeared to have a general wish for transportation", with the Antipodes seen as a chance to start a new life with a clean slate.
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Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
Whenever I hear about butterflies in Southern Africa I have this insane desire to shout 'Drakka'. I clearly need cultural sensitivity training.
Yes, a very good point. If the Australian forces commanded by Chauvel had arrived in South Africa a little earlier and been engaged in combat for instance there could have been reasonably significant butterflies by 1915, influencing how how Gallipoli was managed for instance.
You know, after reading lots about Australia due to this timeline, I think it's a very interesting country, and has lots of potential to immigration, make Australia a bit less racist and more open and you won't have problems repealing the Japanese in WW2 to build one of the greatest countries in Asia and the world by the mid 60s.
I'd like to visit, maybe live there someday
I'd like to visit, maybe live there someday
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March 1840 - A rise of the wool baron class
18 March 1840, Government House, Sydney, New South Wales
Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere pondered his position as Governor of New South Wales, an institution he had filled for some nine years and had no plans to vacate. There had certainly been plans and schemes to remove him from the job, schemes he was only too well aware of. In New South Wales in particular, the wool industry was booming. This had provided an export industry to financially support New South Wales and pay for necessary food imports as required, it had also allowed the emergence of a wool baron class whilst convict society and transportation was at it's peak. Under his own hand there was a form of forced labour with little mitigation, at least until such time as a ticket of leave was obtained and Cotton had made that a more lengthy and more difficult process.
That is not to say that he did not face his opponents. The passage of the South Australia Act in 1834 and the establishment of a convict free South Australia had been very much against his self interest. There were ever those in favour of the abolition of convict transportation, the same sort of people who had eventually succeeded in the abolition of slavery some five years before.
Yet he was not without his own allies. With himself at it's head, the wool barons of New South Wales had leverage in the Westminster. Their requests had allowed him to continue as Governor and in return he had helped establish them as an aristocracy built on land ownership and convict labour and in return their men in Westminster had provided ongoing support for transportation. He had an able ally in Van Diemen's Land when Arthur was Governor, less so now with Franklin, yet he still had a measure of support.
Yet for all that, their was a movement to outflank and usurp his rightful authority. South Australia was lost to him, so he had created a new colony called Northern Australia for all land above 26 degrees South and installed a loyal man as Lieutenant Governor. There was pressure from abolitionists to create a separate colony in New Zealand, something he adamantly opposed. For all that, he had agreed with the offering of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed at a time when the natives in New Zealand were engaged in a ruinous civil war and therefore more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness. What had happened in Van Diemen's Land had showed the it was possible to negotiate favorably with the natives at times.
The continuation of the current situation was very much in his interests, as in the last nine years he had become the richest man in Australasia and had no wish for this state of affairs to change.
Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere pondered his position as Governor of New South Wales, an institution he had filled for some nine years and had no plans to vacate. There had certainly been plans and schemes to remove him from the job, schemes he was only too well aware of. In New South Wales in particular, the wool industry was booming. This had provided an export industry to financially support New South Wales and pay for necessary food imports as required, it had also allowed the emergence of a wool baron class whilst convict society and transportation was at it's peak. Under his own hand there was a form of forced labour with little mitigation, at least until such time as a ticket of leave was obtained and Cotton had made that a more lengthy and more difficult process.
That is not to say that he did not face his opponents. The passage of the South Australia Act in 1834 and the establishment of a convict free South Australia had been very much against his self interest. There were ever those in favour of the abolition of convict transportation, the same sort of people who had eventually succeeded in the abolition of slavery some five years before.
Yet he was not without his own allies. With himself at it's head, the wool barons of New South Wales had leverage in the Westminster. Their requests had allowed him to continue as Governor and in return he had helped establish them as an aristocracy built on land ownership and convict labour and in return their men in Westminster had provided ongoing support for transportation. He had an able ally in Van Diemen's Land when Arthur was Governor, less so now with Franklin, yet he still had a measure of support.
Yet for all that, their was a movement to outflank and usurp his rightful authority. South Australia was lost to him, so he had created a new colony called Northern Australia for all land above 26 degrees South and installed a loyal man as Lieutenant Governor. There was pressure from abolitionists to create a separate colony in New Zealand, something he adamantly opposed. For all that, he had agreed with the offering of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed at a time when the natives in New Zealand were engaged in a ruinous civil war and therefore more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness. What had happened in Van Diemen's Land had showed the it was possible to negotiate favorably with the natives at times.
The continuation of the current situation was very much in his interests, as in the last nine years he had become the richest man in Australasia and had no wish for this state of affairs to change.
With all of this early exploration, I wonder if diamonds will be discovered in Australia before they are discovered in Africa.
Also, with a more populous early Australia, would Australia be able to develop its manufacturing industry earlier, in spite of discouragement by English vested interests?
Also, with a more populous early Australia, would Australia be able to develop its manufacturing industry earlier, in spite of discouragement by English vested interests?