US Occupation of Smaller British colonies

xsampa

Banned
In discussions of Britain Falling, whether it be by Halifax signing the Armistice or something worse, it is mentioned that the Dominions and India would try to defend the rest of the Empire. However, there is the possibility that the US might try to help out securing the colonies, although the amount of troops would have to be relatively small due to fighting Germany and Japan, securing French North Africa etc. Perhaps occupying Oman ?
 
Oman isn't on the table- Aden was administered as part of the Raj, so India will pick up Oman and the Trucial States.

The US might pick up some of the Caribbean colonies, though Canada is more likely to grab those. And Australia and New Zealand had spent decades agitating for more influence in the Pacific Islands, so they'll take Fiji and so on.
Hong Kong gets nabbed by the Japanese.

I'm not actually sure what colonies are close enough to the US or US possessions to secure that won't be picked up by the Dominions, especially since FDR, Landon or Wilkie would all prefer the Dominions to do the hard work rather than fight a needless battle with the isolationists.
 

xsampa

Banned
Oman isn't on the table- Aden was administered as part of the Raj, so India will pick up Oman and the Trucial States.

The US might pick up some of the Caribbean colonies, though Canada is more likely to grab those. And Australia and New Zealand had spent decades agitating for more influence in the Pacific Islands, so they'll take Fiji and so on.
Hong Kong gets nabbed by the Japanese.

I'm not actually sure what colonies are close enough to the US or US possessions to secure that won't be picked up by the Dominions, especially since FDR, Landon or Wilkie would all prefer the Dominions to do the hard work rather than fight a needless battle with the isolationists.

Malaysia, perhaps. Singapore was briefly considered as a US Navy base.
 
Sure, but I think there'd be a delayed fuse.... he said, blaming his lack of coffee for thinking purely in terms of logistical proximity, rather than obvious political reality!
 

Driftless

Donor
What happens with the more remote locations: Falklands, South Georgia, Ascension, St Helena, Diego Garcia, etc.?
 

xsampa

Banned
Would the US try to modernize any of its occupied territories? Maybe even a nudge towards postwar republic status?
 

Driftless

Donor
What about British Honduras/Belize? That location I could see going over to US hands for a time. There were corporate farm connections back to the US in pre-WW2 era anyway.
 
What happens with the more remote locations: Falklands, South Georgia, Ascension, St Helena, Diego Garcia, etc.?

Falklands and SGSSI > Argentina and/or Chile; since this would be well before anything flared up IOTL, then an Argentine presence would not be considered as much of a problem in the 1940s as it did IOTL in the 1980s and BS-AS could be more accommodating to the locals (even using «Islas Falkland» and translations of the English rather than what the OTL junta came up with) since at the time Argentina was very much dependent on Britain in order to have its economy function and the last thing anyone in the Argentine federal government would want to do would be to upset the biggest bankroller of the government's finances; I include Chile in this also since it too also has a presence in the South Atlantic and in this case as helping out a fellow Latin American country/neighbor, even with territorial disputes in the Beagle Channel and all that
St. Helena, Ascension, Tristan > Most likely South Africa, though Ascension and Saint Helena could theoretically also fall into the hands of the US; Saint Helena and Tristan are close enough to South Africa that Pretoria/Cape Town could ensure oversight there
Diego Garcia/BIOT > India
 
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Upon further reflection, as well as my silliness about assuming that the Raj blithely continues on its way- I forgot the most obvious contender to seize Oman: the Omanis.

Many of Britain's African colonies didn't have sufficiently organised nationalist movements to liberate themselves before some other colonial power takes them, but I suspect that Britain's various Middle Eastern protectorates will set themselves free right quick.
 

xsampa

Banned
SenatorChickpea said:
Many of Britain's African colonies didn't have sufficiently organised nationalist movements to liberate themselves before some other colonial power takes them, .

Would American occupation of Nigeria and Ghana be possible?
 
I doubt it. Those probably declare for I Can't Believe It's Not Vichy UK. Then either they get retained by the puppet government, transferred to an Axis power as an award (less likely,) or taken by some Free British government operating out of the Dominions- with various degrees of bloodshed, much like France's possessions.


I think it's very unlikely that the US will occupy any large colony at all, for the simple fact that they don't want to get involved in the war- or at least, not yet. Much better to have them picked up by a heavily US backed 'Free British' government. That serves America's strategic purposes, keeps the isolationists at bay and doesn't get America into any awkward internal disputes about what to do with unwanted and unprofitable African possessions at a time when they're still recovering from the Depression.
 
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