What does a longer lived British African Empire look like?

The loss of India seriously weakened the Empire and was a signal that the age of empires was ending. Many conservatives continued to oppose indian independence throughout the war, including Churchill. I’m assuming a shorter war leaves the conservatives in a stronger position. If that was the case then the British would drag their heels even more and OTL a delay of just a few months would have caused civil war. People don’t realise the extent to which violent unrest engulfed India over the 1940’s. Many parts of the country were already undergoing civil war. Of Churchill and other conservatives got their way the Britain would end up engaged in a war that it couldn’t win and that would destroy the empire on it’s own.
Many conservatives, but not all. A shorter war might mean no Churchill in charge, and an early enough move to Dominion status (say in 1940-1) means no Cripps Mission or Quit India movement. Churchill aside, London knew quite well that India could not be held in the Empire (in whatever status) solely (or even primarily) by force; that needed a degree of consent e.g. from the Indian Civil Service, the various princes, the business class, the police, and above all the Indian Army's rank-and-file. Dominion status might have refreshed that consent for a time. Congress would not have accepted it as sufficient, but they were pragmatic enough to work in a Dominion framework temporarily, the better to achieve independence - which was certain eventually, and probably little (if at all) later than OTL.
For this thread the question is how this would affect Africa. Might it have set a template of Dominion status as a pathway to independence? If it were seen to work that way in India, African national movements might have regarded it as a natural progression - though there's the possibility that some nationalist movements might have split on the question of accepting Dominion status versus demanding immediate independence. I don't know enough about the dynamics of African nationalist movements to say how that would have played out. Perhaps such splits would then have set up a major driver of political contestation in African states post-independence, with the 'refusers' (or Dominion status) regarding the 'accepters' as collaborators etc.
 
so we’d likely see an attempt to maintain the Empire and then acceptance of the inevitable in the 1960’s.

So no change from OTL? I find that hard to believe.

I could maybe see Britain coming to OTL's conclusions a decade late (so mid 70s)

Many conservatives continued to oppose indian independence throughout the war, including Churchill.

I thought most of the Conservatives were a good deal less hide-bound than Churchill (who, if we take a war over Czechoslovakia as the PoD, would arguably never see the halls of power again).

That said, if you are right, then I could actually see decolonization going as quickly as OTL, as Britain squandered her resources breaking the agreements she'd made with the Indians in the 30s...

They weren’t just rebellions of tribesmen.

To be honest, I don't think it's fair to dismiss the unsuccessful anti-colonial efforts as "just rebellions of tribesmen" - that's what the European victors painted them as, but some of these "tribal rebellions" were sophisticated rebel states that fought for decades. The Dervish state in Somalia existed for 21 years and was a German ally in WW1.

The USSR and USA were on the way to overtake the British without WW2.

Sure. But it will take more time for them to overtake Britain within her own empire. And in that time things will change. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse.

For example, it might be enough time for British racism to make a more violent mess of things. Or it might be enough time for them to emplace strong pro-British independent states like the French managed to to in their African colonies. Or it might be enough time for the British to somehow win populations over or enforce compliance well enough that by the alt-2018 the British states in Africa are as independent as Scotland is from England - i.e. they have a high degree of theoretical self-governance but lack their own militaries or foreign policies and are so intertwined with the UK that they aren't really independent.

For my part, I just don't think the British had the right mindset to offer a deal to the local people that would lead to the last outcome, but I can see a "BritAfrica" equivalent of "FrancAfrique" emerging.

fasquardon
 
So no change from OTL? I find that hard to believe.

I could maybe see Britain coming to OTL's conclusions a decade late (so mid 70s)



I thought most of the Conservatives were a good deal less hide-bound than Churchill (who, if we take a war over Czechoslovakia as the PoD, would arguably never see the halls of power again).

That said, if you are right, then I could actually see decolonization going as quickly as OTL, as Britain squandered her resources breaking the agreements she'd made with the Indians in the 30s...



To be honest, I don't think it's fair to dismiss the unsuccessful anti-colonial efforts as "just rebellions of tribesmen" - that's what the European victors painted them as, but some of these "tribal rebellions" were sophisticated rebel states that fought for decades. The Dervish state in Somalia existed for 21 years and was a German ally in WW1.



Sure. But it will take more time for them to overtake Britain within her own empire. And in that time things will change. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse.

For example, it might be enough time for British racism to make a more violent mess of things. Or it might be enough time for them to emplace strong pro-British independent states like the French managed to to in their African colonies. Or it might be enough time for the British to somehow win populations over or enforce compliance well enough that by the alt-2018 the British states in Africa are as independent as Scotland is from England - i.e. they have a high degree of theoretical self-governance but lack their own militaries or foreign policies and are so intertwined with the UK that they aren't really independent.

For my part, I just don't think the British had the right mindset to offer a deal to the local people that would lead to the last outcome, but I can see a "BritAfrica" equivalent of "FrancAfrique" emerging.

fasquardon
Calling the pre-50’s rebellions ‘tribesmen’ was wrong, but it is important to recognise that by the 1950’s African nationalist movements were highly organised mass movements. They were willing to take up arms if the British didn’t start giving serious concessions and eventually independence.

I just don’t see how a stronger Britain would result in a more progressive attitude to the colonies. If Britain did adopt those views then I still don’t think independence movements would be willing to accept anything less than independence, especially with a POD so late. Obviously it would vary case by case.

I think more resistance to decolonialisation would result in independence in the late 60’s to early 70’s, which is around a decade later than OTL for most colonies, after several violent conflicts demonstrate the British people are unwilling to pay the price for maintaining the Empire.
 
Some thoughts:

1) Britain has much more hard and soft power with which to work with.

2) Chances are this won't be dedicated to Africa, Britain has bigger fish to fry (especially since no Fall of France very easily translates to no Pacific War). I expect that things will go mostly the same, with the only substantial differences being the UK forcing through some of its last minute policies (like getting the Central African Federation to stick) and perhaps keeping Zanzibar as a second Hong Kong* (Lagos was merged with South Nigeria in 1906 so it's off the table).

3) Stronger UK means the Commonwealth is a lot more relevant, some former colonies may remain dominions for longer if the benefits of the commonwealth are great enough. This may also mean that South Africa doesn't become a republic, or that Natal does secede following the referendum.

*as a second side note, Singapore may choose to return to self governing colony status after its fallout with Malaysia (assuming Malaysian independence still occurs)
 
regarding colonial oppression, we don't know a lot of it because the british burned the really gnarly stuff.
this makes discussions hard, because while lots of very bad things quite possibly happened, there are no sources and writing about those would be speculation, not to count very alive political biases, be they conscious or not, cause these wounds are still very much alive.
not like this stops people writing a lot of stuff about native americans, but that's a whole another context/story.

but again, what do i know. i am sitting in my underpants smoking weed.
 

Toraach

Banned
So Britain has colonies in Africa for longer, and the 2WW looks diffrent. But there still is a danger lurking on the horizon. A big, nasty, agresive, but also cunning evil empire called the Soviet Union.

Britain might have probably got a lot of soviet backed "Vietnams" in Africa, which ultimately would have lead to the fall of their colonial empire and serious troubles in the United Kingdom itself.
 
So Britain has colonies in Africa for longer, and the 2WW looks diffrent. But there still is a danger lurking on the horizon. A big, nasty, agresive, but also cunning evil empire called the Soviet Union.
Don't forget the continued existence of the Japanese Empire.
 
British Africans might be slightly more prosperous compared to otl due to the economies of scale from having nearly half the continent within the same currency area/trade zone. Capitalist or communist, dividing Africa into so many smaller countries severely increases the costs of doing business through tariff regimes and different regulatory environments.
Would Africans have greater access to higher education? A longer-lasting British Africa would start to look like an accelerated version of the Raj's trajectory with a civil service staffed by African professionals.
If more of the global south manages to stop associating capitalism with imperialism, poverty will decrease much faster. Even among those who didn't gravitate toward state socialism and command economies, lots of newly independent "capitalist" African states tended toward a heavy-handed, state-led development model that was trendy until the '80s thanks to ideas like dependency theory.
 
Well let me explain it it a bit better then - the last of the Empires created lots of artificial nations by drawing lines on maps that often ignored the local cultures history and dare I say it tribal affiliations/rivalries that are still having repercussions to this day where differing 'peoples' of what is in effect an artificially created nation cannot get along particularly when one of those 'peoples' is stronger than the other and have a history of warfare between each other going back to pre-Empire days often exacerbated by acts taken by the European Rulers - for example the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi by the formally suppressed Hutu which can be blamed on the early German and subsequent Belgium Empires who both ruled the nation through the Minority Tutsi who dominated the other peoples of that nation. While the issues that existed between the 2 peoples go back several centuries it was not helped by the Belgians being pro Tutso before at the very end becoming pro Hutu and making short sighted decision making in the early 60s that resulted in a spiral of violence that ultimately resulted in at least 1/2 million people being murdered in less than 100 days.
I have seen that line very often. However, I tend to disagree. It's not as much the creation of frontiers but their forced stabilization.
Most countries get unified through war or through reorganizing their ethnies through limited warfare and evolution of polities.
However, by imposing the Westphalia system, it became impossible for nations to evolve organically, as they did in Europe, East Asia and America.
By contrast, the Levant, a normally rich and developped area, is mired in wars as it's stuck in old colonial frontiers (the line in the sand) and it would seem unacceptable for Syria or Turkey to go and straight up conquer parts of Irak
 
I have seen that line very often. However, I tend to disagree. It's not as much the creation of frontiers but their forced stabilization.
Most countries get unified through war or through reorganizing their ethnies through limited warfare and evolution of polities.
However, by imposing the Westphalia system, it became impossible for nations to evolve organically, as they did in Europe, East Asia and America.
By contrast, the Levant, a normally rich and developped area, is mired in wars as it's stuck in old colonial frontiers (the line in the sand) and it would seem unacceptable for Syria or Turkey to go and straight up conquer parts of Irak

I don't think we disagree all that much then.
 
I don't think we disagree all that much then.
I'll agree it's nuancing but my point is that there's probably no ideal frontier that could reasonably have been created that would make viable countries naturally.
In East Asia, things were more stable because the frontiers were based on precolonial polities that had arisen organically.
Whether you cut by ethnies (like in the Balkans), by economy or whatever, it will not work if they cannot evolve naturally
 
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