WI a Finnish Ovamboland?

Poor Finland. An average of the climates of Lapland and Ovamboland would probably be really nice, and quite fertile. Instead there is nothing to do but toil and plot revenge on whoever inflicted this colonunon them.

Constant toil, feeling depressed and planning revenge on someone is the default state of Finns IOTL. So, not much change there.

Wonder what the Portuguese would have to say about that?

Surely some kind of a deal could be arranged. Even if a colonial war between Finland and Portugal over the right to use the Cunene River would be a funny little AH scenario to think about...
 
Would it really be impossible for the Grand Duchy to get it as a colony, it’s a pretty minor area without any valuable resources?

As for Namibia, it would remove around 50% of the population of Namibia pretty much all of them Black.

It would leave a population which would be.

“Bantus” 55%
Khoisan 30%
Coloured 13%
White 12%

It would be relative easy to remove 26 percent point from the “Bantus” by cutting another pierce of land off pretty leaving only the Herero in Namibia. Creating a rough 35/35/15/15 split. With

As for a Finnish Ovamboland created under the Grand Duchy, could we see Swedish being used as the local administrative language?
 
Would it really be impossible for the Grand Duchy to get it as a colony, it’s a pretty minor area without any valuable resources?

I find it highly unlikely for the Finnish Grand Duchy get a colony of any kind, if only for the fact that Finland needs to be independent (at least ostensibly) to even aspire to get colonies, and an independent Finland would not be a Grand Duchy but very likely a Kingdom or a Republic of some description. If there for some freak accident of history was a Finno-Russian colony in the 19th century that administratively is under the Grand Duchy, then it would be put under direct Russian rule during the late 19th century Russification.


As for a Finnish Ovamboland created under the Grand Duchy, could we see Swedish being used as the local administrative language?

If Finland gains independence early in the 19th century, then maybe for some decades before Finnish nationalism has matured. But with a post-1900 POD, Finland will be a bilingual country, and Finnish will be the dominant language for administering any areas that are not themselves majority Swedish-speaking.
 
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Maybe (and this requires a pre-1900 POD) Tsar Nicholas II is a Finnaboo like Alexander II, and as a result he is able to serve as the constitutional monarch of Finland (we'll assume someone helped him escape from Tobolsk) and he's accordingly able to argue that Finland needs to be rewarded for all of the former Tsardom's contributions to Germany's defeat. He only receives Ovamboland and however much of Wrangel's fleet he can afford to keep.
 
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Maybe (and this requires a pre-1900 POD) Tsar Nicholas II is a Finnaboo like Alexander II, and as a result he is able to serve as the constitutional monarch of Finland (we'll assume someone helped him escape from Tobolsk) and he's accordingly able to argue that Finland needs to be rewarded for all of the former Tsardom's contributions to Germany's defeat. He only receives Ovamboland and however much of Wrangel's fleet he can afford to keep.

You would need totally different Nicholas II. He would be so different that history would be altered and OTL WW1 would be butterflied away.
 
You would need totally different Nicholas II. He would be so different that history would be altered and OTL WW1 would be butterflied away.
Our WWI certianly, though it's not too hard to still get a WWI, especially if liking the Finns a lot end up translating into a Baltic focus (which makes headlong collision with the German Empire almost unavoidable). Hardest part would be then figuring out how to get him deposed and have Russia collapse into a civil war without OTL's Nicholas II.
 
Surely some kind of a deal could be arranged. Even if a colonial war between Finland and Portugal over the right to use the Cunene River would be a funny little AH scenario to think about...

I do say that "colonial war between Finland and the Estado Novo Portugal" is a strong contender for the most WTF alternate history conflict ever, post-1900 at least.
 
I do say that "colonial war between Finland and the Estado Novo Portugal" is a strong contender for the most WTF alternate history conflict ever, post-1900 at least.
Pfft. Lichtenstein and Luxembourg come to blows over the Lado triangle. The conflict drags on until the UK tires of it and arranges the transportation of three regiments of Bugandans who seize Lichtenstein and colonise both Lichtenstein and Lado under the suzerainty of the Bugandan king as a vassal of the King-Emperor In London.
 
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