Victorias Britain

Is it just me, or is Victorias reign Britwank to the extreme?
If someone had posted that considering it hadn't happened OTL, it would be laughed at. Wholeheartedly. The only way I can see it becoming more britwank without becoming ASB is retaining America.
 
It would be Britwank if it weren't for the various other states which did well during the same period. The French got half of Africa, for instance - more than the British by some margin. They also got French Indochina in a period where Britain had taken most of its Indian possessions and only gained Burma and Balochistan. If you removed the successes of the other states, it would seem more exaggerated to me, but really given how Europe was by this stage colonising the remaining parts of the globe like mad, and considering that Victoria was on the throne for what? 64 years? which is somewhere just under 1/4 of the boom-time in British imperial history, it actually seems like the Empire was winding down in this period. Certainly there were no colonial wars with European powers to steal huge swathes during...
 
Britain had nothing to worry about in Europe at that time, save for random conflicts such as Crimea.
In many places, such as Australia and North America, there was little to no resistance in the way of natives, so expansion could continue uninterrupted. The only thing that could prevent British expansion was another colonial power, and most of these were quite weak during this period, especially in the early part of Victoria's reign where France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands were no match for the might of the British Empire.
It is a Britwank, I believe.
 
It is a Britwank, I believe.

I'm not quite sure I see, though please explain. My principle point is that I don't believe the UK did anything with its power to justify Vicky's reign being a Britwank. I mean, if we're just talking about in military terms, I guess yes, the RN was quite wankingly strong. But Victoria's reign was past the point at which it was needed. By 1837, the UK wasn't fighting in North America anymore, except to suppress rebellions. Similarly it wasn't really colonising Australasia. In Asia it took barely any land - though I admit on paper, its victory against the Chinese was rather infeasible, but given the weakness of the Chinese army at that point, I think any European country could've done it, given the ability to move the troops - which if it can be considered a result of wank, certainly didn't derive from Victoria's reign. In Africa it expanded hugely, granted, but it was using near-modern troops against tribesmen, facing no opposition from European colonial nations which it had had to contend with elsewhere. As far as I recall, it had to deal with no wars in Europe save the Crimean War, and the British and their allies did so badly there it surely can't be considered wank. And France wasn't that weak, in fact it was pretty strong until Prussia humbled it. It's just that the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath had polarised Europe into the starting phases of the alliances which would become the alliances of World War One - i.e. counter-alliances of nations designed to prevent war by being the military match of each other. They didn't want war except where they thought it absolutely necessary. Hence, no chances to show military weakness.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I think you are wrong. You could well be right. I am just looking for an explanation of your side, as personally I think that the British Empire was about as inactive as it could have been in this era - there were many places it could have expanded further, or been more successful, but didn't.
 
Actually, it's pretty dystopic. Britain, in 1830, rules the seas, an empire upon which the sun never sets, and fails to stop German unification, Russian industrialization, the North winning the Civil war and the US snaffling California and the west?

Wha?
 
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