WI: No Disraeli, Gladstone, Lincoln, Bismarck or Napoleon III

Because I'm bored...:eek:

Let us imagine that the individuals named in the title all died in infancy.

How would the 19th century proceed without them? What kind of 20th century would we be looking at?

Discuss.
 
Possible leaders of the Conservative Party instead of Benjamin Disraeli are Lord John Manners, Sir John Pakington or Spencer Walpole all of whom were cabinet ministers in Conservative governments.

The most interesting of these three is Lord John Manners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Manners,_7th_Duke_of_Rutland ). An MP from 1841 to 1847 and from 1850 to 1888 when he succeeded his father as Duke of Rutland in 1888, he was a leading figure in the Young England Movement ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_England ), whose leader and figurehead was Benjamin Disraeli.

Young England was a political group whose ideology was a romantic and socially concerned Conservatism. It rejected Benthamite utilitarianism and laissez-force economics for an idealised neo-medievalism and Tory paternalism.

If Manners were Prime Minister his domestic and foreign policies would probably have been much the same as Disraeli's. Perhaps more "left wing".

Likely leaders of the Liberal Party instead of Gladstone are Robert Lowe; Spencer Cavendish, the Marquis of Hartington (an MP from 1857 to 1891 when he succeeded his father as Duke of Devonshire); and after the mid 1880s Joseph Chamberlain. They were all Liberal cabinet ministers.

Gladstone was the prime mover behind the Irish Home Rule bills of 1886 and 1893. Without him it is unlikely that they would have been introduced. Therefore there would have been no Liberal Unionist breakaway from the Liberal Party in 1886, though there would have been a leakage of right wing Liberals to the Conservatives from the 1880s onwards.
 
Alternative scenario for British Liberal Party politics in the absence of Gladstone: By the mid 1880s radical Liberals have become dissatisfied with the caution and conservatism of the Liberal government under Hartington and its refusal to introduce Home Rule for Ireland. They break away from the mainstream of the party with a programme of advanced social and political reform, Home Rule for Ireland and an anti-imperialist stance, and form the Radical Party. Possible leaders are Sir Charles Dilke ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Dilke,_2nd_Baronet ), or John Morley.

However Dilke's political career was ruined in 1886 by a divorce case in which he was found guilty of adultery with Virginia Crawford, the wife of a Liberal MP, while John Morley did not become an MP until 1883 in OTL.

In this TL the Radical Party is allied to the Irish Parliamentary Party (or Home Rule Party) and wins the votes of Irish Catholics in British constituencies. It also attracts the support of early socialists from the 1880s and 1890s onwards.

Joseph Chamberlain becomes leader of the Liberal Party in the late 1880s or early 1890s. His political views are the same as in OTL.

In a four party House of Commons - Conservative, Liberal, Radical and Irish Parliamentary Party - a Conservative/Liberal coalition is necessary to prevent a Radical government with Irish Party support introducing Home Rule. Also the Liberal Party in this TL is more right wing than in OTL.
 
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