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Africa Without the Scramble
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
- Start date
Says loudly how bad the Scramble was that "pushed around by richer countries, has wars of nationalism and slave-owning autocracies" is the utopian AH and not just in the long run but in the death toll avoided at the time
I don't want to sound like a determinist (even though I must admit to leaning in that direction), but reading George Bruce's The Burma Wars (which was obviously about the British in regards to that country) makes me lean towards the Scramble being, if not inevitable, at least highly likely barring some giant distracting Europe-wide crisis/war/whatever.
The same dynamics Gary's talked about were there in full. London was often ambivalent but it was local British who were the most eager and who pushed them into war. Their native opponent was also an expansionist autocratic power, making conflict even more likely. Even in the First Burma War when the technology was a lot more balanced, the British still won pretty handily (in the next two the gap had grown and were easy British stomps.)
The same dynamics Gary's talked about were there in full. London was often ambivalent but it was local British who were the most eager and who pushed them into war. Their native opponent was also an expansionist autocratic power, making conflict even more likely. Even in the First Burma War when the technology was a lot more balanced, the British still won pretty handily (in the next two the gap had grown and were easy British stomps.)
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- NYC (né Falkirk)
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I'd imagine first instinct would be to do the broadest article first in the series, but here it works so much better towards the end since many of the polities, persons and organisations are probably unknown to many readers.
As such, it works great combining many different places and events into several alternate possibilities that could have worked together, whilst being realistic about Africa still being brought into the global community but on better, if not even, footing.
As such, it works great combining many different places and events into several alternate possibilities that could have worked together, whilst being realistic about Africa still being brought into the global community but on better, if not even, footing.
Agreed.I'd imagine first instinct would be to do the broadest article first in the series, but here it works so much better towards the end since many of the polities, persons and organisations are probably unknown to many readers.
As such, it works great combining many different places and events into several alternate possibilities that could have worked together, whilst being realistic about Africa still being brought into the global community but on better, if not even, footing.
I assumed this was meant to be the capstone (I referred to it as 'the last, for now' in the social media update) but I don't know if Gary has more planned.
frustrated progressive
SLPing Through the Cracks
Even coming off an amazing series of articles, this-in its deconstruction of tropes, evenhanded analysis of how colonialism's OTL impacts could be altered, and the imagination to craft a coherent picture of Africa that plausibly escaped wholesale conquest while still being under Europe's shadow-is a triumph of AH as a discipline.
To centre back on Europe, I think it'd be a much more violent century there. Even before the Scramble, the wars with Asian states were showing a real eagerness of some European people to do violence unto others. The Concert of Europe was quite effective at limiting that from happening, plus massive emigration to the Americas, Oceania... and colonial expeditions. I think you could say Europe was an exporter of violence at a rate yet unseen (Spain in the sixteenth century maybe excepted), just like it was an exporter of manufactured goods. And without Asia and Africa to act as pressure valves, that violence is not going to evaporate into thin air, it's going to be more revolutions, more nationalistic wars, etc. Once the taboo set by Vienna disappears, I think the continent would be engulfed in wars again, much longer than the few months which were the common nineteenth century wars. And in turn this would help explain why no scramble: if the Powers are locked into conflict and bloody themselves and empty themselves of treasure, that's so much energy they can't dedicate to colonizing.
FriendlyGhost
Haunting history in a good way
I echo this. Much of what I read in the previous articles was new to me, even though I like to think of myself as fairly well-informed about world history (and, yes, that's both somewhat shaming and a wake-up call), so having this 'what-if' towards the end of the series works really well.here it works so much better towards the end since many of the polities, persons and organisations are probably unknown to many readers.
As such, it works great combining many different places and events into several alternate possibilities
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- NYC (né Falkirk)
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To centre back on Europe, I think it'd be a much more violent century there. Even before the Scramble, the wars with Asian states were showing a real eagerness of some European people to do violence unto others. The Concert of Europe was quite effective at limiting that from happening, plus massive emigration to the Americas, Oceania... and colonial expeditions. I think you could say Europe was an exporter of violence at a rate yet unseen (Spain in the sixteenth century maybe excepted), just like it was an exporter of manufactured goods. And without Asia and Africa to act as pressure valves, that violence is not going to evaporate into thin air, it's going to be more revolutions, more nationalistic wars, etc. Once the taboo set by Vienna disappears, I think the continent would be engulfed in wars again, much longer than the few months which were the common nineteenth century wars. And in turn this would help explain why no scramble: if the Powers are locked into conflict and bloody themselves and empty themselves of treasure, that's so much energy they can't dedicate to colonizing.
This is interesting in and of itself. A different revolutionary wave in 1848 creates ripples that leads to the 1850s looking more like the 1790s? Anglo-French tensions lead to a the confusion of the Second Napoleonic Wars against Napoleon III? Bismarck fails to roll a single six and Central Europe winds up plunging into destructive wars?
heraclius
Well-known member
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There was already a long-term habit of Western European mercantile powers exploiting trade with the coastal African polities and of rivals, eg Britain vs the Dutch in West Africa in the C17th and the Dutch vs Spain (and for a time Portugal when the latter was united with Spain in 1580 - 1640) in the early-mid C17th, and constantly getting deeper into involvement with such areas partly to pre-empt a move there by their rivals or to expel the latter and cut back their resources. Even without a race to set up spheres of influence and later 'on the ground; colonial empires in Africa in the C19th, which was probably kicked off by the long-term French occupation of Algeria from 1830 and so may have been different if an insecure and success-needing Charles X had not been King in 1824-30, this was likely to continue - on the coasts not inland unless some expansionist or seemingly 'tyrannical' inland African state had mistreated passing Europeans and so kicked off a revenge expedition and temporary occupation plus the installation of a friendly potentate who would need propping up. (Equivalents of the 'hit them hard and gain favourable press headlines but then withdraw and don't get bogged down' Gladstone plan for the march up the Nile to Sudan in 1884 which General Gordon messed up by staying on in Khartoum against orders.)
Expanding coastal trade bases plus installing - and probably converting to Christianity - local friendly chiefs as proxy allies was more likely than inland empires in this case, given the difficulties of paying for the latter and the risk of overstretch - though out of control colonial governors or generals meddling in some interior inter-tribal war or installing an allied king then getting into a mess, losing men in a humiliating battle against superior 'native' forces which the press then shout about (equivalents of Isandlwana 1879), and having to be backed up for prestige purposes might draw in Britain , France, or Germany with their bigger armies into setting up or propping up semi-Europeanised tribal states as 'allies'/ vassals . Except in coastal West Africa (eg Benin, Dahomey, various Yoruba peoples) the local African states lacked long-lasting dynasties or stable institutions and a degree of urbanisation or networks of vassal sub-kingdoms owing loyalty to a respected superior warlord that the Europeans could just take over or operate through trade and military intimidation - though I can see a more cautious series of European states , perhaps worrying about the diseases, running a more resistant series of Gulf of Guinea and inland Mali/ Niger kingdoms via bribed or intimidated local kings like the British did the Persian Gulf in the later C19th and C20th.
The inland kingdoms were too fluid and unstable for a local equivalent of princely control by vassals of the 'overlord' sovereign in Europe as the British tried to do more successfully in India, and there was no cultural similarity or tradition of a local 'empire' in S or Central Africa that the Europeans could use unlike in India - except the assorted expansionist Moslem trading/ warrior states of the western Sahel which would have been hostile to any Christian overlord , eg a surviving French monarchy or a second Napoleonic empire that had not collapsed in 1870, for cultural reasons anyway. The most intriguing possibility is a more stable and urbanised Ethiopia as a centre of resistant African political and economic power, perhaps if Tewodros had not been overthrown in 1868 and set up a long-lasting dynasty with a stable pyramid of vassal warlords and there had been more of an urban economy and trading community in Ethiopia plus a stronger army (or Menelik had had more of a power-base to build on and been succeeded by stronger heirs). Possible if there had been no long Ethiopian wars with the sultanate of Harar to weaken the expansionist late medieval state and no period of disunity and civil war after the early C18th to 1855, but a surviving strong state under one line of father-son kings plus wealth from trade (controlling the Eritrean coast plus the mouth of the Red Sea and having a series of ports and a navy to force the Red Sea traders to pay customs dues for use of the straits?) to pay for importing and training the troops with Portuguese muskets and cannon in the C16th and C17th?). A large and stable Ethiopia with the tribes of NE Kenya and Somalia as its vassals changes the power structure and vulnerability of NE Africa a lot, as a stronger and longer lasting naval Omani empire (with Ottoman cannons on their ships and masses of local tribal vassals as mercenaries?) linking Zanzibar to Muscat would reduce the European penetration along the East coast.
To put the African powers in a stronger position, arguably you need a series of PODs well back into the C16th and C17th - eg an Ottoman naval presence in the Indian Ocean in the C16th instead of Sulaiman the Magnificent/ Lawgiver (r 1520-66) spending his resources on the Balkans?
Expanding coastal trade bases plus installing - and probably converting to Christianity - local friendly chiefs as proxy allies was more likely than inland empires in this case, given the difficulties of paying for the latter and the risk of overstretch - though out of control colonial governors or generals meddling in some interior inter-tribal war or installing an allied king then getting into a mess, losing men in a humiliating battle against superior 'native' forces which the press then shout about (equivalents of Isandlwana 1879), and having to be backed up for prestige purposes might draw in Britain , France, or Germany with their bigger armies into setting up or propping up semi-Europeanised tribal states as 'allies'/ vassals . Except in coastal West Africa (eg Benin, Dahomey, various Yoruba peoples) the local African states lacked long-lasting dynasties or stable institutions and a degree of urbanisation or networks of vassal sub-kingdoms owing loyalty to a respected superior warlord that the Europeans could just take over or operate through trade and military intimidation - though I can see a more cautious series of European states , perhaps worrying about the diseases, running a more resistant series of Gulf of Guinea and inland Mali/ Niger kingdoms via bribed or intimidated local kings like the British did the Persian Gulf in the later C19th and C20th.
The inland kingdoms were too fluid and unstable for a local equivalent of princely control by vassals of the 'overlord' sovereign in Europe as the British tried to do more successfully in India, and there was no cultural similarity or tradition of a local 'empire' in S or Central Africa that the Europeans could use unlike in India - except the assorted expansionist Moslem trading/ warrior states of the western Sahel which would have been hostile to any Christian overlord , eg a surviving French monarchy or a second Napoleonic empire that had not collapsed in 1870, for cultural reasons anyway. The most intriguing possibility is a more stable and urbanised Ethiopia as a centre of resistant African political and economic power, perhaps if Tewodros had not been overthrown in 1868 and set up a long-lasting dynasty with a stable pyramid of vassal warlords and there had been more of an urban economy and trading community in Ethiopia plus a stronger army (or Menelik had had more of a power-base to build on and been succeeded by stronger heirs). Possible if there had been no long Ethiopian wars with the sultanate of Harar to weaken the expansionist late medieval state and no period of disunity and civil war after the early C18th to 1855, but a surviving strong state under one line of father-son kings plus wealth from trade (controlling the Eritrean coast plus the mouth of the Red Sea and having a series of ports and a navy to force the Red Sea traders to pay customs dues for use of the straits?) to pay for importing and training the troops with Portuguese muskets and cannon in the C16th and C17th?). A large and stable Ethiopia with the tribes of NE Kenya and Somalia as its vassals changes the power structure and vulnerability of NE Africa a lot, as a stronger and longer lasting naval Omani empire (with Ottoman cannons on their ships and masses of local tribal vassals as mercenaries?) linking Zanzibar to Muscat would reduce the European penetration along the East coast.
To put the African powers in a stronger position, arguably you need a series of PODs well back into the C16th and C17th - eg an Ottoman naval presence in the Indian Ocean in the C16th instead of Sulaiman the Magnificent/ Lawgiver (r 1520-66) spending his resources on the Balkans?
I honestly can see this POD being handled well in a Harry Turtledove short story. He can be very good at individual set pieces, and I think he'd be able pull off one that showed the theme of the divergence: IE, different and better, but not utopian better and with many of the some problems as OTL still there.
Although I sadly don't think the divergence is big enough to be that marketable as an "AH as a setting" novel (or if it was, like the Regency romance set in a French-occupied England, whatever genre it was would be emphasized and not the AH setting directly). Going either full Wakanda or full Draka is eye-catching to a less knowledgeable reader in a way that "instead of being exploited and taken over, they maintained notional independence and were exploited, but somewhat less severely" isn't.
Although I sadly don't think the divergence is big enough to be that marketable as an "AH as a setting" novel (or if it was, like the Regency romance set in a French-occupied England, whatever genre it was would be emphasized and not the AH setting directly). Going either full Wakanda or full Draka is eye-catching to a less knowledgeable reader in a way that "instead of being exploited and taken over, they maintained notional independence and were exploited, but somewhat less severely" isn't.
It's not as radical as scenarios like "Down in the Bottomlands" or "A Different Flesh" but it shows he does have some interest in that kind of idea.I honestly can see this POD being handled well in a Harry Turtledove short story. He can be very good at individual set pieces, and I think he'd be able pull off one that showed the theme of the divergence: IE, different and better, but not utopian better and with many of the some problems as OTL still there.
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- NYC (né Falkirk)
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- he/him
I honestly can see this POD being handled well in a Harry Turtledove short story. He can be very good at individual set pieces, and I think he'd be able pull off one that showed the theme of the divergence: IE, different and better, but not utopian better and with many of the some problems as OTL still there.
Although I sadly don't think the divergence is big enough to be that marketable as an "AH as a setting" novel (or if it was, like the Regency romance set in a French-occupied England, whatever genre it was would be emphasized and not the AH setting directly). Going either full Wakanda or full Draka is eye-catching to a less knowledgeable reader in a way that "instead of being exploited and taken over, they maintained notional independence and were exploited, but somewhat less severely" isn't.
The setting would be so vast and diverse I'm not sure a single novel would really do it justice.
I do think you're right though that it's not as attention grabbing as a full-on utopia or going even more dystopic than OTL. Despite this middle-ground scenario being more interesting than either of those.
There would be an appeal to an AH audience if you were to slap a map of Africa on the cover showing all these unfamiliar polities instead of masses of French blue and British pink punctuated with the odd bit of whatever the colour scheme is using for Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
A collection of isolated vignettes in different settings and/or times like "A Different Flesh" or "Agent of Byzantium" does feel better - then you can just paper over the fact that developing the entire background would be a hugely complex nightmare.The setting would be so vast and diverse I'm not sure a single novel would really do it justice.
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- NYC (né Falkirk)
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- he/him
A collection of isolated vignettes in different settings and/or times like "A Different Flesh" or "Agent of Byzantium" does feel better - then you can just paper over the fact that developing the entire background would be a hugely complex nightmare.
Absolutely, and I believe Africa was suggested as a potential SLP anthology down the line on a continent wide basis but presume that would be more akin to prior anthologies where each story is its own individual AH separate to the others.
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Like I said in the article, this is a book I aim to write some day, and yes it would almost certainly be a 'Reid in Braid' like collection of shared world shorts. I wouldn't object to opening it up as a community anthology but I think when there is an agreed setting for shorts, it very much reduces the possible creativity in a way I feel is unattractive.
That makes sense. Yes the style of Ryan's book would be a good exemplar.Like I said in the article, this is a book I aim to write some day, and yes it would almost certainly be a 'Reid in Braid' like collection of shared world shorts. I wouldn't object to opening it up as a community anthology but I think when there is an agreed setting for shorts, it very much reduces the possible creativity in a way I feel is unattractive.
- Location
- NYC (né Falkirk)
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- he/him
Like I said in the article, this is a book I aim to write some day, and yes it would almost certainly be a 'Reid in Braid' like collection of shared world shorts. I wouldn't object to opening it up as a community anthology but I think when there is an agreed setting for shorts, it very much reduces the possible creativity in a way I feel is unattractive.
I agree and tend to dislike multi-author anthologies that have a narrow scope like setting etc. unless it has its a spin-off like those Star Wars collections they used to do, or the Kolchak comic one I'm eagerly awaiting as a backer reward. There is a definite difference though between "we're open to submissions for a Star Trek anthology" and "we're open to submissions for a science fiction anthology using this setting (see attached 100 page PDF)". One asks you to expand on something, one asks you to narrow what you can imagine.
- Location
- Coventry
I'd argue that without the Scramble-and particularly without the settlement of Zimbabwe and Kenya and even Zambia, South Africa/The Cape is even more fucked.