raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the British, deciding they didn't like the encouragement of French competition in southern China and their monopolization of commerce in all Indochina, supported Qing dynasty and Nguyen dynasty forces with finances, weapons, and training when the French went to war against them? Note that the French started the war with a secure hold on Cochinchina in southern Vietnam, and Cambodia only. Their hold on Hanoi and northern Vietnam was tenuous and being contested by Vietnamese armies backed by the Chinese.
Could the French prevail in Indochina against British cock-blocking? What does this do to Anglo-French relations longer term? How does Britain end up collecting on the additional 'debts' that the Chinese and Vietnamese incur from them?
Britain doesn't have an especially strong affirmative reason to do this, but Britain also doesn't have any compelling need for close French friendship at the time either. It has the 'freest hand' of all the great powers, and all the great powers thought the French war on China of 1884-1885 was somewhat piratical and greedy [in reality because they weren't in on it]. So I could imagine Britain trying to contain French ambitions a little more tightly than OTL. Whether smart or not, the British can afford to be more 'frivolous' whereas the Germans at the time were deliberately encouraging the French to look to the colonial realm instead of Europe, so less likely to get involved, the Russians were looking at possible French friendship, so wouldn't mess with that, the Americans were too apolitical, and the Italians and Austrians were too weak to matter.
Could the French prevail in Indochina against British cock-blocking? What does this do to Anglo-French relations longer term? How does Britain end up collecting on the additional 'debts' that the Chinese and Vietnamese incur from them?
Britain doesn't have an especially strong affirmative reason to do this, but Britain also doesn't have any compelling need for close French friendship at the time either. It has the 'freest hand' of all the great powers, and all the great powers thought the French war on China of 1884-1885 was somewhat piratical and greedy [in reality because they weren't in on it]. So I could imagine Britain trying to contain French ambitions a little more tightly than OTL. Whether smart or not, the British can afford to be more 'frivolous' whereas the Germans at the time were deliberately encouraging the French to look to the colonial realm instead of Europe, so less likely to get involved, the Russians were looking at possible French friendship, so wouldn't mess with that, the Americans were too apolitical, and the Italians and Austrians were too weak to matter.