India in a Napoleonic Victory scenario... brainstorm

[jycee]

What could be the fate of British India, specifically the East India Trade Co. in the event of a Napoleonic Victory scenario? I realize that the timing and manner of Napoleon’s victory would greatly affect the outcome, but assume it comes as a result of Napoleon being successful in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The allies are not entirely routed but Napoleon’s standing at the end is good enough for a pre-war status quo in Europe.

I’m really not sure how the wars had affected India, except that the French colonial possession’s in the subcontinent change hands a few time. I reckon Napoleon would at the very least want: 1) to have the French possessions returned (possibly enlarged), 2) annul the 1763 Treaty, which forbade France from erecting fortifications in India, and 3) hopefully end the EIC’s monopoly on trade and limit the size of its military arm.

However, I also reckon that even if victorious Napoleon won’t be in a position to make demands on Britain regarding India. And if he did the British would outright refuse and be willing to fight for it. Nevertheless, we are likely to see some big butterflies in India that are rarely discussed.

If Napoleon gets his way, how likely are we to see Indian states being capable of playing of the British and French against each other (like Thailand in OTL) down the line to keep their independence? Who’d be the big winner?

And who gets Goa and the Portuguese possessions?

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

Britain probably just takes all the french holdings and keeps India. The French really had no ability has far has I know to threaten British India.

 

[Dan Handsome]

Britain probably just takes all the french holdings and keeps India. The French really had no ability has far has I know to threaten British India.

This. In any realistic scenario Britain keeps it's colonies plus French colonies, plus Dutch if Napoleon occupies the Low Countries. As long as Britain rules the waves, there's nothing Napoleon can do.

 

[jycee]

Britain probably just takes all the french holdings and keeps India. The French really had no ability has far has I know to threaten British India.

This. In any realistic scenario Britain keeps it's colonies plus French colonies, plus Dutch if Napoleon occupies the Low Countries. As long as Britain rules the waves, there's nothing Napoleon can do.

What would it take for Napoleon to make any realistic demands for India? I reckon then it is an earlier victory... say at Trafalgar during the war of the Third Coalition?

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

What would it take for Napoleon to make any realistic demands for India? I reckon then it is an earlier victory... say at Trafalgar during the war of the Third Coalition?

Boots in London

 

[Fernan3451]

Boots in London

Would a Napoleonic invasion of Britain be possible here?

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

Would a Napoleonic invasion of Britain be possible here?

Most likely not thats the point.

 

[Dan Handsome]

What would it take for Napoleon to make any realistic demands for India? I reckon then it is an earlier victory... say at Trafalgar during the war of the Third Coalition?

Invasion of the Isles, which is nigh-ASB within a Napoleonic War POD.

 

[Agra]

There were a lot of key events in India during the time period of the Napoleonic Wars, but by the War of the 6th Coalition, those would be pretty much all resolved in the Company's favor. I'd think you'd need an earlier POD, probably in the Egyptian Campaign if you wanted to focus on India. Part of the goal of taking over Egypt was so that France could establish a presence in the Red Sea, from where they could threaten British trade routes to India and coordinate better with the Kingdom ofMysore who they had been allied to. In OTL this was one of the biggest causes of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War which resulted in Tipu Sultan's death, what remained of Mysore becoming a princely state and was really the end of significant French Influence in India.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

In 1784, Parliament passed an act assuming full control of the East India Company; OTL, this “constitution” for governing India’s affairs remained in place until the Rebellions of 1857, which ushered in the Raj Era.

What intrigues me is how conditional that period is, and whether changing it has potential - for example, the EIC’s charter has to be renewed by Parliament in 1793, 1813, and 1833, and each Charter Act covered things like what kind of monopolies the Company got to enjoy, etc. (eg the 1833 Charter Act ended the monopoly on opium, and I think we all here know how that ended up). There’s also the effect individual Governor Generals have had --apparently (and I’m pretty much using Wikipedia here) Lord William Bentinck not only instituted several reforms that (in time) changed the social fabric of India, but came into office at a time when the Company was bleeding money, and was (seemingly) in very real danger on not being re-chartered, then turned around the financial situation; in any event, it’s may not be too hard to imagine a scenario where neither he (nor someone like him) has this kind of impact.

What I’m getting at here is that there seems to be all kinds of potential to altering India’s history (and the history of Asia and the British Empire more generally, for that matter) given the period we’re talking about. It’s just a question of where you want to go with it.

 

[Iron_Lord]

I think this idea probably revolves a Nelson Failure POD, right?

France keeps Egypt, launchs strikes on British India?

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

Maratha had France general in their army who changed sides in the middle of battle , if Napoleon victory in Europe he can pressurise this general to support Maratha against the British.

 

[Bad@logic]

This. In any realistic scenario Britain keeps it's colonies plus French colonies, plus Dutch if Napoleon occupies the Low Countries. As long as Britain rules the waves, there's nothing Napoleon can do.

While true in the literal sense, this ignores the actual reality of peacemaking in the era and the strategy involved on the part of France. Napoleon somewhat famously said that he would win back Pondicherry on the banks of the Vistula, and given the OP's stipulation, a mostly dominant France in Europe, he'd be likely to do so - he'd trade something in exchange for Pondicherry. The same exact thing happened in the Peace of Amiens after all - it isn't like the British gave the French and Dutch back their colonies out of the goodness of their hearts, but it was more valuable to attempt to get the French to make concessions over Italy than to keep the French and French allied colonial empire

My guess is that you would see the French give up something in exchange for getting their colonies back, something more important to the British than those colonies. What exactly this would be, I am ignorant, but if the French own almost all of Europe, then there is bound to be something: Southern Italy, in order to protect Malta? Iberia? The Adriatic? Something will be found and the French and Dutch will get back their colonies - probably not all of them, since some will be too strategic, like possibly the Cape Colony, but most of them.

This is of course, ignoring too the long-term build up of the French Navy, which would eventually start to pose a credible challenge to the Royal Navy.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Does anyone have (any more) ideas specifically on how regulation of the BEIC could have changed history?

For example - what if the Charter Act of 1813 ended all of the Company’s monopolies, particularly those on opium and trade with China? Would this have resulted in even more opium flooding into Qing earlier? If so, how do they respond? And if this is happening with the context of a Napoleonic Europe, would things still head toward something akin to OTL’s Opium War?

To take a completely different example - what if the Company’s financial woes continued longer, or got worse, such that they’re charter is not renewed in 1833? What exactly is Britain’s policy toward India in this scenario? Do they (try to) establish an earlier Raj? Or does this allow the Indian states to (begin to) reassert independence?

What do you guys think?