WI Indian mutiny/Ghadar drives British out of the subcontinent
- Thread starter Monk78
- Start date
Yes they still have footholds in Madras and other parts of southern india
There is still south were almost no mutiny happened during 1857, so the English could easily launch a counter attack from there. The Empire will be much more brutal this time around
Yes but what should be the war planning ?
WHich locals will ally with british
what do the rebels do in the north after defeating the british
can rani jahnsi, bakht khan, mughals , nana farnavis , tantia topi and the legions of religious muslims get along ?
The problem with the aftermath of a successful mutiny is that there is no guarantee that the winners will get along. I think the alliance was just temporary just to kick the company out. If there are terrible massacres in this mutiny, even worse than the ones that we had OTL, the British crown will intervene and send British army. I don't think the mutineers can take the full might of the British army.
I think if the mutiny is very successful to the point driving the British from the north the south might as well revolt too. From what i gather they seem take wait and see approach.
@Madhav Deval maybe can explain it better though
@Madhav Deval maybe can explain it better though
Why? The British army proper consists of 70,000 individuals, with the British army in India is 4 times that- they've had the same training as well. It then depends on leadership, but if the British have already been driven from the north one has to assume that whatever the political situation up north, they've managed to get some very talented leaders in charge.
Does this have to happen? Beyond random acts of undisciplined soldiers, an official policy of tolerance of the British would serve the revolutionary government much better- any Englishman that swears loyalty to the new sovereign and has in the past not been too missionary in Christian proselytisation should be allowed to stay and help lead the war effort. They understand how the new tech works, they understand how their old superiors think, and I doubt they can't be bought with promise of high office and wealth. It's a strategy that always worked for the mughals in the past. We're after all only a few decades beyond the period of the white mughals, where the English in India practiced polygamy and were generally participants in late Persianate culture. The surest way to have a successful revolutionary government launching India into post colonial modernity and strength is to use members of the old colonial intelligentsia as members of the high nobility, helping to direct policy for a modern state. It's also far easier to coopt an already existing bureaucratic apparatus than to tear the old one out and replace it from the ground up.
Also if there are prominent British loyal to the revolutionaries, it'll dampen down wanton cruelty and make the rest of the company officers that much more likely to join the revolt instead of stick it out to the bloody end, desperate for revenge against the savages. In Britain itself, public opinion will be much more against the war if the revolutionaries have prominent Englishmen as they can't all be typecast as ungrateful, fanatical, violent Orientals.
In order to win in the north, they'll have had to figure out a unifying ideological framework, and regularised communication and cooperation. They can't win throughout the north as independent movements.
It depends on what form of unified government emerges in the north- how willing would it be to allow princely states their autonomy, how tolerant is it of British administrators, how expansionist are it's aims, how much cash the revolutionary government has.
For the mutiny to be so successful that it drives the British from the subcontinent entirely, it probably would have to turn into a terrible, long-lasting quagmire that costs Britain so much blood and treasure that they’ll eventually just decide it’s not worth it to hold onto India and leave (probably sometime in the 1860s). A huge, 19th century uber-Vietnam, basically.
I wonder how Britain would’ve dealt with such a humiliation during this period, and how the other powers would’ve reacted. Without India, the British Empire’s status as the world’s sole superpower would be seriously in question. Do they try to make up for it elsewhere? Does India serve as an example for other places in Asia to resist European imperialism (China, Vietnam etc.)?
I wonder how Britain would’ve dealt with such a humiliation during this period, and how the other powers would’ve reacted. Without India, the British Empire’s status as the world’s sole superpower would be seriously in question. Do they try to make up for it elsewhere? Does India serve as an example for other places in Asia to resist European imperialism (China, Vietnam etc.)?
Many issues here
1- Chance of a unite pan-indian effort against british is practically nil, british will ALWAYS find some local allies
2-Long protracted conflict in that era is severely limited by logistics esp in the north -south direction
3-As soon as the british hold weakens their opponents will turn on each other so the conflict will evolve into something other than just a "revolutionary struggle against imperialism "
4 For the uber vietnam to happen some outside power has to sustain the insurgency in-case of india it can be France , Persia or Russia neither of whom have the resources or interest to do so
In OTL it was the Germans who supported or at least encouraged it during WWI of course that limited how much materiel they could supply since the Royal Navy was much stronger than the High Seas Fleet and the East Asia Squadron. I supposed its possible to have some pan-Indian support develop in response to a British crackdown a la the Easter Rising, but it's far from a given, especially given that India is much larger and has more demographic difference than Ireland. In OTL a lot of the conspirators were in the USA and Canada at this point, and many ended up being tried and convicted in American courts (though of course the actual mutineers were mostly in the Asian portions of the Empire). I suppose a more Anglophobic USA wouldn't cooperate with prosecuting ringleaders, but you have to get the USA sufficiently Anglophobic to do that, and even if the USA is hostile to the UK, that's no guarantee of a successful Ghadar rebellion.
I suppose a sufficiently strong CP victory could bring it about not so much due to events in India but because the CP force the issue, but I think such a victory would require more than merely keeping the USA neutral. You'd have to somehow get them to enter the war on the side of the CP. If the USA does join the CP, it probably keeps China from joining the Entente. They joined in the hopes of getting respect from the great powers. Their relations with the USA were warmer than with any of the other great powers since the USA had been using diplomatic pressure to discourage colonization of China; France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and Japan had all carved off pieces of China. If you can get them to join the CP too, it would probably be even better in that it would force the Brits to stretch their resources thinner, but that's not easy.
Then there's the issue of holding India together. Here it's a mixed bag. On the one hand there wasn't quite the level on animosity between Hindus and Muslims that led to partition. There were religious divisions of course, but the Muslim-Hindu hatred skyrocketed during WWII with a lot of Muslims seeing the Hindus as either coward or as collaborating with fascist powers and a lot of Hindus saw Muslims as collaborating with the British. Note that a lot of the education of Indian civil servants happened during the interwar period, so even though the country wouldn't completely be without administrative infrastructure there would be less of it. Also at this point Burma is part of India. Most of the Burmese will want full independence. With that being said there is a substantial Indian/south Asian minority in Burma at this point. Successfully holding on to a heavily Buddhist region could help encourage religious pluralism and discourage Hindu nationalism. On the other hand if its sufficiently bloody it could encourage animosity towards Buddhists. Many though by no means all of the Indians/south Asians in Burma are Muslim, so even if there is increased anti-Buddhist sentiment, there might still be less anti-Muslim sentiment from the Hindus if they can hold Burma.
The princely states all joined the mutiny in favour of the British. They all had large armies which were x100 times professional and armed than the mutineers.
Also the mutiny was not a pan Indian effort. The northern rebels swore allegiance to the mughals nominally only and the southern rebels did not even do that much.
Also the mutiny was not a pan Indian effort. The northern rebels swore allegiance to the mughals nominally only and the southern rebels did not even do that much.