The Anglo-Dutch Empire
With the Glorious Revolution, Wilhelm van Oranje-Nassau and his wife Mary took the throne of England. He was also the Stadthouder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
WI Wilhelm and Mary had a child who could claim overlordship of both realms? Could we see, after a time, the Netherlands being united with England and Scotland forming the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelre, Overijssel, Friesland and Groningen?
How would this affect their colonial policy? Possibly the English style of colonisation could soften the rather hard-headed purely mercantile drive of the Dutch.
1688: William of Oranje and his wife Mary take the British throne. They leave their son Alexander (born 1678) in Amsterdam in the care of relatives.
1702: William dies. Alexander succeeds to the thrones of England and Scotland, and to the position of Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
1705: Act of Union passed. United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands formed. Unrest in the Netherlands quelled by guarantees of respect for the Calvinist Church and assurances that VOC monopoly areas would not be passed over to the EIC. Also through sheer force of personality from Alexander himself, an extremely congenial, very Protestant young man.
1705-1744: The UK settles down to it's new situation. A flood of immigration hits South Africa which, under Dutch policy had not been very open for settlement. Emigration also flow into New England and the New Netherlands in N. America.
1745: The Jacobite Rebellion/Scottish War of Independence. Backed by French and Spanish interests, alarmed at the military and commercial power of the UK, Bonnie Prince Charlie lands in Scotland and raises an army. Aided by Franco-Spanish troops, he succeeds in driving back the Anglo-Dutch, who are also preoccupied in defending the Netherlands. The French are crushed in a series of battles in the Netherlands, reassuring the Dutch that the English ARE actually taking the Union seriously. The effect of this, however, is that Scotland is lost. Many English are distressed by this but the general feeling is that the tradeoff of Scotland for the Netherlands is a good one.
1750-1800: A period of relative peace in Western Europe. The UK, France, Spain and Portugal consolidate their territories and fight only limited colonial wars. France and Spain grow ever closer while the Portugese reach a tacit understanding with the Anglo-Dutch giving up most of their colonies in the East Indies in return for Anglo-dutch protection.
In Central Europe, Austrian aggression begins gnawing away at the German principalities and kingdoms. There is increased migration of German protestants to the UK and thence to South Africa and Anglo-Dutch N. America.
In a parallel development, the incredibly harsh campaign to crush any sign of unrest in Ireland, now a viceroyalty separate from the UK, leads to a constant stream of Irish Catholics to French and Spanish territories in the New World. The Viceroy of Ireland, Detleev, Graf van Hogensdorp did nothing to stop them. Graf Detleev himself often said that their emigration gave him less work to do.
Meanwhile in England, the first stirrings of the Industrial revolution begin.
1799: Anglo-Dutch North America is proclaimed the Viceroyalty of New England and the New Netherlands, governed from Nieuw Amsterdam.
1800: The Great French Rebellion. French peasants and artisans rise against the King, Louis XVI. Louis flees Paris, heading South for Provence. The French army is divided but the King's nephew, Carlos of Spain lands troops at Brest and in Provence. With this Spanish aid, Louis retakes Paris. Carlos is acting in his own interests for he is heir to the childless Louis. Losing a potential second realm is not a good idea.
1810: Anglo-Dutch rule in India reaches what will ultimately be it's final borders. the UK holds the entire Eastern coast and the rich trading ports of Kerala. Farther up on the Western coast, Portgual had expanded inland while the French push into the Maharatta Confederacy, finally conquering it through their alliance with the Moghuls. They begin to expand their interests in some Iranian ports too.
1828: Anglo-Dutch India is proclaimed a Viceroyalty. The East India Company cedes it's governmental functions to the Crown but retains it's lucrative Opium monopoly in the China trade.
The Anglo-Dutch East Indies remain under the control of the VOC with the exception of Malacca, handed over to the jurisdiction of the Viceregal government in Madras due to it's importance as a port for the China trade. The VOC continues to rule the Indonesian Archipelago from Batavia.
Meanwhile, tensions in Europe are pulling all the Powers closer to the brink of a major war.
1831-1835: The Turkish War
Throughout the early 19th Century, the Ottoman Empire had been slowly decaying, rocked by unrest in it's Arab territories and by Russian aggression in the Caucasus. This came to a head in 1831 when Russia and her allies, Hungary, Sicily and Venice declared open war. Russian troops came pouring into the Carpathians and the Caucasus while the Venetians, Sicily and Hungary wreaked havoc in the Mediterranean. At first the Ottomans withstood the onslaught but in 1832, a charismatic Arab leader, Iskander ibn Taufiq raised an army from the Arab clans and in a lightning campaign, aided by local uprisings and defection of regular troops proclaimed himself Caliph. The Ottomans fought on but in a largely futile series of campaigns from 1833-34 lost almost all their territories save for Thrace and Anatolia itself.
In 1834, a coalition of Russian, Hungarian, Sicilian and Venetian troops laid seige to Constantinople itself and took the city on December the 23rd. The Ottoman Emperor, having fled to Konya sued for peace and was forced to cede his European territories and some of his North African ones to the victorious Powers. Russia now extended to the Agean Sea and through the Caucasus, though in later years many of these territories would rebel. Constantinople itself, however, was declared the capital of the Empire of all the Russias and Tsar Nikolai was crowned Pantokrator, vice-regent of God on Earth, in Constantinople in 1836.
The Ottomans were now restricted to Anatolia- although they had not conceded defeat to Iskandar, it was he who was the de facto ruler of all the Arab lands from Baghdad to the Sahara. He made Alexandria his capital and began negotiating with France to provide him with military advisors.
Meanwhile in the Emirate of Oman, Emir Muzaffar III had noticed French encroachment on Iranian territory with dismay and sought close ties with the Anglo-Dutch Empire. He embarked on a stringent programme of modernisation and though this brought him into disfavour with some of the more conservative elements of society, he had many of these ringleaders exiled to Persia.
Muzaffar himself had his eldest son, Mansoor, sent to England for his education. In later years, once the unrest had died down, he would be known as Muzaffar the Great, the only Arab leader to properly modernise his country.
1838-1845: The War of the Powers
The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we loose the legions --
Ere yet we draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!
1837: King-Emperor William IV of England and II of the Netherlands makes a speech before Parliament declaring that official Anglo-Dutch policy will be to phase out slavery in it's territories by 1847. This is a step up from the previous policy which banned the importation of new slaves to Anglo-Dutch territories.
This Emancipation Proclamation is greeted with murmurs of unrest, mostly from the southern provinces of Anglo-Dutch North America. However, any idea of a rebellion is quelled when a somewhat disorganised "army" of Irishmen begins raiding into Anglo-Dutch territory from the Duchy of Lousiana. They are crushed by Anglo-Dutch troops but provide a lesson to the now terrified planters of Maryland and Nieuw Brabant*.
London makes a strong protest to Paris about alleged French funding for but this is somewhat rudely rebuffed and slowly but surely, Europe slips into a state of war.
The two sides are generally as follows:
France, Spain, Venice, Mogul Empire, Poland (with the Iskandiri Caliphate as a friendly Neutral)
UK, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Oman
Though the Netherlands seemed vulnerable to attack from France, the UK possessed an excellent source of fighting men- the vast numbers of Protestant Germans streaming out of the Austrian occupied German Principalities. Over the past few decades, the Franco-Dutch border had been extensively fortified by the Anglo-Dutch government and the French were unable to make significant breakthroughs. A similar situation prevailed in Portugal where Lisbon came under seige multiple times but never fell.
The situation in the Pacific was very different. The Portugese and Anglo-Dutch had been expecting to make easy gains in Indo-China and the Philippines. To everyone's surprise, however, Spain seemed to shake itself from slumber and recall a shadow of it's past glory. A great armada sailed from San Francisco in Nueva Espana to defend the Philippines and wreak havoc in the East Indies. The VOC and the Portugese fought back, but at best were merely holding their ground.
In India, the Moghuls proved a poor ally for France- their troops were driven back from their Bengal holdings by the Anglo-Dutch and the Portugese pushed deeper into Maharashtra.
The French did, however, succeed in taking Madagascar from the Omanis and Portugese and in holding the main centres of the island against all further assaults.
Though the Danes and Swedes did assist the Anglo-Dutch in supplying the Netherlands and sweeping the French from the Channel, their main energies were dedicated to assaulting Franco-Spanish in Guinea and the Congo.
North America, however, was by far the most hotly contested battlefield of the War of the Powers. Great armies stormed back and forth across the Appalachians, the Anglo-Dutch bringing to bear their technological advantages. The Iroquois Confederacy came to grips with a mainly Irish-based French army sent to defend the Great Lakes and pushed them back from Wisconsin. In Quebec, the French were soundly defeated by overwhelming forces despatched from Boston and Nieuw Amsterdam.
In the Caribbean, a titanic naval campaign was decisively won by Admiral Theunis van Troxel at the Battle of Bermuda. With Franco-Spanish naval power in the Atlantic effectively destroyed, Paris and Madrid began to consider seeking terms. This attitude was confirmed when a Franco-Spanish army was soundly defeated by a combined army of Anglo-Dutch, Portugese and Scandinavian troops in 1843. This army was personally led by the dashing Prince Harald of Oranje-Nassau** ending the Third Siege of Lisbon.
In 1844, the Austrian Emperor hosted the Congress of Vienna where the various Powers came to the table.
France and Spain were forced to make numerous concessions in Quebec, the Caribbean and West Africa, but retained their Indo-Chinese and Philippine posessions. France got one notable prize- Madagascar, though the Omanis retained their ports in East Africa and Northerrn Madagascar.
*OTL Maryland region and Georgia
** In TTL, the UK's Crown Prince is the Prince of Oranje-Nassau and Wales. Since Oranje-Nassau takes precedence, he is generally referred to by that title alone. Harald's name is an example of the effect of "Germanic Romanticism" on Anglo-Dutch culture.
A note on the VOC and EIC:
By the mid 19th C, the influence of these Companies had been greatly diminished. The EIC was now specifically involved in the Opium trade to China and the VOC, though still influential in the Spice trade and with a monopoly on Anglo-Dutch trade with Japan retained hardly any of it's governmental powers in Indonesia. The head offices of these companies, however, had moved from Europe to Calcutta and Batavia respectively.
1859-1862: The Japanese Question
With the colonial spheres of influence having been demarcated throughout much of the world, Anglo-Dutch attention now turned to Japan. Though missionary work was generally discouraged by the VOC, a number of determined preachers had settled in Japan and had won converts in Honshu, most notably to the Anglican church. In Kyushu, the Portugese had been even more active resulting in a strong Catholic minority. In a belated attempt to curb Western influence, the Japanese government began a pogrom against all Christians and placed severe restrictions on Portugese traders and the VOC. Infuriated, both at the Japanese and the missionaries, a delegation from the VOC argued their case in Parliament. In conjunction with the Portugese government, the United Kingdom determined to secure Japan once and for all.
This was, perhaps, the first war in which the full strength of the Anglo-Dutch Empire was displayed. Cavalry from India, stolid Anglo-Dutch infantry from the homelands and North America, skilful Javanese skirmishers and the wild erratic Afrikaner cavalry regiments were all represented in the expeditionary force, transported across half a planet by the most powerful navy ever built by Mankind, many of whose ships were the new steam-powered Ironclad models.
There had been much talk of the warrior ethos of the Japanese and many misgivings about the Japanese Question but in the event, the actual campaign was almost an anticlimax. As it happened, many among the samurai had converted to various forms of Christianity and these leaders sowed rebellion amongst the peasantry.
An Anglo-Dutch-Portugese army, once again led by the irepressible Prince of Oranje-Nassau, stormed Edo and seized the Emperor. The Shogun comitted seppuku moments before English troopers broke down his door.
There were a few bloody campaigns against hardline patriotic Japanese nobles but they proved no match for the stunning array of technology brought to bear on them.
Much of Japan was parcelled out amongst the nobles who had taken the side of the invaders or who had stayed neutral, Christian and Buddhist alike. The Portugese went one step further and chose to directly govern Kyushu. In the North, the Russians had seized their chance and occupied Hokkaido where they would lose thousands of men in a constantly simmering low intensity rebellion.
As the effective ruler of most of Japan, the Anglo-Dutch Crown also assumed the title of Emperor of Japan. An Anglican Japanese noble, Hyuuga Togo was appointed Shogun of Anglo-Dutch Japan, an office equal to a Viceroy in other Anglo-Dutch Dominions. The activities of missionaries were more strictly curtailed and religious freedom was guaranteed to any Japanese Buddhist, Protestant or Catholic (to placate Portugal) so long as they did not work against the Imperial Government.
Bard of brave-banner'd Kr'rundor