WI: British Central Asia

I admit that I'm dabbling in an area I don't know too terribly much about, so bear with me.

What if Britain had decisively won the Great Game - by war or other means - and absorbed Central Asia into it's empire or sphere of influence before/from the Russian Empire?

How far would England's claims into Turkestan go? Would they merely go for a few buffer states to protect India from Russian expansion (which seems like their actual goal IOTL), or could they go further and absorb Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand into their Empire?

How would Central Asia develop under British rule rather than Russian rule?
 
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With enough conditions, it's more-or-less possible.
Afghanistan is doable as a british ally. So are the Bukhara and Kokand khanates.
Khiva, meanwhile, is the hardest -- in time, it'll be encircled by the russians in Turkmenistan.
I believe the best possible situation for a british-influenced Central Asia (Bukhara, Kokand, and Khiva) would be having a stronger Persia encroaching in the Turkmenistan region, and for it to also be opposed to Russia. After that condition, we'll need to have the british subjugate the afghans, or at least install a friendly emir in control of them. Then, it's only a matter of time until the khans decide to turn to the british for help against the russians.
 
I think if Crimea goes pear shaped for Russia and it turns into a free for all against Russia Britain could prop up the central Asian states against Russian conquest. I doubt they'd be British ruled though, more British influenced I would think. It would be neat to see the British get friendly with the locals and attempt to build rail lines over the mountains of Afghanistan.
 
I suspect the British would really only set up puppet states in the region (except the key point of Kashgar in modern Xinjiang, China perhaps) - as a cost-conscious Empire I doubt London would appreciate having to guard millions of km2 against Russia.

Would there be any conceivable OTL where Central Asia could be 'opened up' to British settlement (or even Russo-British settlement) in the manner of the Canadian Plains?
 
I suspect the British would really only set up puppet states in the region (except the key point of Kashgar in modern Xinjiang, China perhaps) - as a cost-conscious Empire I doubt London would appreciate having to guard millions of km2 against Russia.

Would there be any conceivable OTL where Central Asia could be 'opened up' to British settlement (or even Russo-British settlement) in the manner of the Canadian Plains?


... what sane British person is going to want settle in the already fairly populated and politically established steppes of Centeral Asia? They could barely get whites to settle in India, and pretty much any other British colony/dominion on the planet would be more attractive to potential settlers... like the Canadian plains, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya: The list goes on and on.

But setting up the Khans in the same manner as the Princely States of India would certainly be the preferred option.
 
To be fair, settling Central Asia has similar risks to settling Kenya, and possibly even worse since the British would be replacing much more established people than the peoples who lived in the Kenyan highlands.

But I don't see why they wouldn't make some princely states and call it a day, although having a few directly ruled territories would exist as well. Those would be open for white settlement, and I could see maybe a few thousand whites settling there.
 
To be fair, settling Central Asia has similar risks to settling Kenya, and possibly even worse since the British would be replacing much more established people than the peoples who lived in the Kenyan highlands.

But I don't see why they wouldn't make some princely states and call it a day, although having a few directly ruled territories would exist as well. Those would be open for white settlement, and I could see maybe a few thousand whites settling there.

Except the fact that, in settling Kenya, you at the very least have (relatively) tolerable access to and from the outside world via colonial ports. Anybody (or anything) going to or from centeral Asia would either have to travel up through Persia or Afghanistan: and all the lack of infrastructure, rough terrain, and other general unpleasentiness and expenses such a trip would entail. I just can't see how a small farmer would even be able to be economically profitable to remotely the same extent they could be anywhere else in the Empire.

Granted, you could see SOME people settling there, but not enough to remotely resemble colonial populations in the settler colonies.
 
This is quite doable. Just delay the Russian conquest of Central Asia enough, and Britain will find it worthwile to cross Afghanistan and take over large parts of Central Asia.

I think you need steampunk airships to assist with settlement of somewhere that far away from the coast.

<british_racialism>
Nah. You need some Gurkha soldiers.
</british_racialism>
 

Deleted member 97083

... what sane British person is going to want settle in the already fairly populated and politically established steppes of Centeral Asia?
That could be the draw, like European immigration to Latin America. British immigrants going to already established but sparsely populated areas.
 
Guys I'm not exactly sure of the number of Brits, that don't work in the government and army, that would that Central Asia is THE place to migrate in the 19th century, more so when we have almost any climate they want being already there more open and more geopolitically secure(Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Caribbean, Southern and East Africa).
 
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