This would also be a major shitstorm in Brazilian politics, to say the very least. The pro-slavery lobby would try to revive the slave trade, and it would fail, IMO; the abolitionist lobby already was too strong in Brazil, and slavery already was with its days counted by 1878. My guess is the pro-slavery group(which was centered on the Paraíba do Sul River Valley) would decide the future was in the African territories and move there, to enact de facto slavery on the natives, as de jure slavery was on its way out. I could even see some planters simply leaving their lands and telling their slaves 'You're free now. Do what you will.'. As these planters still were a powerful block on Brazilian politics, their moving to Africa would have consequences in Brazilian politics.
There's an important question to ask oneself before thinking of the future of slavery and emancipation, especially any resumption of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
Will it be economically viable? Who will be the markets for Brazilian coffee plantations with all the customers of Europe
(Britain included) simply vanished? Now there's North America, Argentines, the Antipodes and few others with a taste for coffee.
If some steppe-based power (Central Asian Khaganate?) arises following the collapse of Russia's remnants (or even absorbs those remnants), it'll have a pretty good shot at moving into Europe from the East.
What's with the repeated presumption that Trans-Ural Russian society and state won't hold together and will be weaker than its Kazak subject peoples and neighboring Bukharan, Khivan, and Turkmen neighbors to the point they may take over and inherit the Russians' Siberian lands and power?
As I said:
One thing I think that is happening in the responses though is an underestimation of the Russians, or of the Christian peoples of Russia. Remember, Russia here is not just Siberia and the Far East, but also the more densely populated Caucasus, which will also have the most populous cities, like Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. There were millions of Russian Empire citizens in the Caucasus. Now maybe no more than a million were ethnic Russian. A couple million were probably Shia Muslim Turkic-speaking Azeris, but the remainder were millions of Orthodox Christian Georgians and Armenians, who are not going to roll over for Ottoman rule without a fight. I think all responses forgot these lands and populations were there.
Others wrote as if the Russians grip on Siberia was endangered in the faced of Chinese, Japanese or Central Asian Turks, and maybe Siberian natives, but that really shouldn't be the case. Certainly this is only a fraction of the total Russians of 1878, but the ethnic Russians, despite lacking the biggest metropolises and industries, are going to be better organized than any Siberian natives or any still independent Central Asian Turkic states. And for the first generation at least, despite lacking their European base, the administrative and bureaucratic weaknesses and underdevelopments of China and Japan (and Korea) should prevent any of them from seizing any territory in Asia at Russian expense. I could picture illegal immigration that the Russians don't truly control.
I suspect that the Russians will still have the technology edge to win out against say Kazakh rivals but its a factor to be considered.
Exactly, and logical considerations suggest that the Russians will be stronger than the Central Asian groups, with better administration, road infrastructure, weapons, productive farms, and overall technology compared with those neighbors.
China starts eating Russian Far East causing Japan to jump in.
Right at 1878? I'm skeptical. China was just finishing up dealing with rebellions, and possibly famine. They had some good commanders like Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang who pacified the country, but I'm not sure if *that* good. Operating in the Russian Far East and Siberia is a long logistical haul.
Massive warfare across the world for the next 60 years till a new political order arises.
Most of the great powers to fuel its *massiveness* are gone. I can imagine small, localized border warfare at borders at points all over the world but interconnected global warfare will take alot of multiple powers developing over many decades to get to the point that they could have worldwide power projection and the ability to sustain rivalries on that scale.
What is most likely for decades instead is local border wars, of varying intensity, and for the Americans, and eventually other powers like Japan, overseas wars on the scale of the Spanish-American War and Filipino insurrection
India will be a mess for decades unless someone can win a few decisive battles and bring peace. Europeans will either leave or intermarry into the Indian gene pool.
Do local powers have to act on cue as if they've just fallen in to a game of Risk, with everybody trying to rob and conquer everybody all the time? India was pretty stable at this point, with few rebellions, couldn't alot of the princes, merchants and other power-holders make alot of live-and-let live arrangements as power devolved to them?
I wonder if the US might become interested in a colonization of India: Not necessarily a permanent one, but merely a temporary one to help India better guide its way towards eventual independence.
You would have to make up a really well-written and detailed scenario to get me to suspend my disbelief. My prediction, from an 1878 point of view, is that of course the United States is going to be highly interested in trade with India, purchasing Indian products, and providing substitutes for products in demand that Britain is no longer available to make. But America will by default follow a Washingtonian policy, expand trade, but not military ties or commitments.
Now, as a side effect of increased trade activity, there probably will be growing support for expanding the US Navy East India squadron for show the flag and trade protection purposes. But again, the types of interventions it will be involved with will be fitting to the time, like the American punitive expeditions to Korea and Taiwan, or the early Barbary wars, not empire-building. The U.S., at least not without plenty of intervening experiences to encourage it, will also not stumble onto a paternalistic nation-building or democracy exportation rationale for establishing colonial rulership or protectorate over India either.
BTW - with Europe, specifically France (the birthplace of most military innovations) gone, how many decades is the invention of smokeless powder delayed?
That was a great question to bring up.
The delay could be a decade or more. Do the chemicals involved in that kind of propellent have any kind of non-military, non-ballistic application?
Was TNT around and in use by 1878?
Plus a very important Minor Patriarchate - Moscow.
I assume that the surviving Muscovite hierarchy resurrects the Russian Church.
Nope, Moscow is in European Russia, so not coming along for the ride. Since all of Trans-Ural Russia is a post-1589 product, I'd say there's no part of Siberia with Church with an especially storied ecclesiastical history. I don't even know if there were any Siberian bishops or saints. Of Russian imperial territory that goes back, the most ancient Christian churches will be Armenian and Georgian churches.
Americas: Well there won't be a peaceful unification of the North American States. No matter, Canada gets crushed and Alaska taken as well. Mexico takes longer, and the US juggernaut calls it good at Panama.
This is better discussed rather than treated as a foregone conclusion based on the idea that the US in a scenario like this simply *must* act on cue as if it is simply trying to be a space-filling empire like a player on the Risk board.
*If* the US wants commit to war effort, in 1878, that is of a magnitude of about half the effort that went into the American Civil War to conquer the 4.12 million Canadians, it could win [There were 4.12m Canadian in 1878, vs 9m Confederates in 1861, hence the 1/2 as strong as Confederacy calculation]. But one wonders if American politicians will be able to give their people, still recovering from the Civil War ended 13 years prior, and the postwar occupation of the south, just ending, and ongoing Indian Wars, a good enough reason and necessity for conquering Canada other than "hey it can be managed without British interference now".
Canadian armed resistance can't be lightly dismissed, both in the initial phases and any guerrilla warfare, and as English speaking whites familiar with the English common law tradition, no nationality in the world would be better positioned to play a better diplomatic and non-violent resistance game against American invader-occupiers.
In the non-violent toolkit for the Canadians, there's appeals to American public opinion, diplomacy, and lawfare. While an orphaned Canada is no longer protected by Britain, it is also no longer a potential British base against America. De facto, Canada, if left alone can just be another sister republic to the United States.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that American public opinion would have more problems blatantly disregarding and colonizing the Canadians as they would they residents of Central American and Caribbean "banana republics" because of racial, linguistic, and cultural affinities affording more mutual respect.
Yep, the US always could conquer and extend itself down through Mexico to Panama, and in the Caribbean, and it might.
But it might not. Saying it definitely would in this scenario is tantamount to saying that the only reason America did not go on such a mad conquest spree was because it was either afraid of British military-naval interference or afraid of looking bad to European powers. Really?
Looking over Egypt and its internal makeup, highly likely they internally collapse without Britain to prop them up.
So most likely course, Qajars as soon as its clear the bulk of the Ottoman Empire military, which was on the European side, is gone, will quickly secure the defection of the Baghdad and Basra provinces, and for the Kurdish Regions:
Kurds: We have our own state now Persians. Go away.
Qajars: You get smashed every time you make yourselves out to be big and bad. Submit and we'll let you loot Armenian lands to your hearts content and carry off their women and children as slaves.
Kurds: Ok deal.
Tough shit for the Armenians, but they will take a few Kurds down with them.
The main thrust of the Qajars though is securing the Transcaucasia region and getting a rail line through to where Batumi would be. This is their fallback if Syria resists absorption and they have to spend time fighting for it.
Interesting, so you really see the Qajars as internally that much more robust than the Khedival Egypt? I had thought that Muhammad Ali's dynasty had actually been more effective at modernizing, but maybe there's stuff I missed.
Hmmm...Russian Papacy in Moscow?
Moscow's not there.
Yep and in a few centuries if it can get a strong central government under a single rule, it will by default become a hyperpower as America exhausts itself.
This is in reference to Middle East (Qajar) inheritors of the Ottoman core.
I'm glad you at least gave it a few centuries to happen. I guess on that timescale, anything can happen. Because from the 1878-2022 timescale, I am not seeing this at all.
How is America going to be exhausting itself in this alternate reality? It won't be participating in the world wars against Germany and the Cold War. Are you envisioning the America stupidly tries to be direct hegemon over all the Asians in Japan and China and beyond, thus getting itself into never-ending, super-scaled up versions of the Vietnam War and Philippine insurrection?
The circumstances that led to OTL's Middle East wars of the 21st century won't be the same. And, any protracted American wars in the Middle East should be tearing up the Middle East at least as badly. [Much how the peninsular war was a nasty drag for France, but even worse for Spain]
Or were you assuming America exhausts itself in additional internal conflict not present in OTL, or overstretch in quagmires in Latin America?
Then their is the question of Spanish Ships and who they might defect to because the African colonies aren't worth shit, and the Philippines can't be held without the motherland to send help when the locals get uppity, and the West Indies are indefensible.
They'll probably defect to Spanish speaking (or other "civilized") countries that will pay them the most or would seem to be the best places to live.
If the US doesn't come for Qajar's oil Australia or Siam or Japan or whoever emerges at the dominant power in South America will.
Being minor in the 19th century doesn't get you ignored, it gets you colonized unless you thread a diplomatic needle playing powers that no longer exist off against each other.
People will come to trade when they want the product and they have the technology and expertise to develop it in these regions. The skillset, infrastructure, and systems to turn this into a colonial empire or protectorate regime however, takes a whole different level of specialization and spare change that nobody in the world will have at the beginning of this scenario, and that none of the countries you mention might end up developing during the ATL 20th century.
