Colonialism requires that A)It be profitable to the colonizing power or at least perceived to be profitable (and profit doesn't have to just be economic terms, it can also be militarily, culturally, prestige, etc.) B)Have some form of buy- in from the local population, at least among their elites, to work effectively, C) Related to enforcing the former, the colonizing state must be able to marshal overwhelming military superiority, with organizational and technological advantages.
Without the Great War, all of these are going to be much more slanted in favor of the European empires. Economically, the wars disrupted colonial trading relationships to a great extent, In French West Africa, the French lost market share during the war due to lack of shipping, merchant house employees mobilized for the front, and their industry being entirely concentrated on military activity. While this was to the benefit of the English, we know that the English had their own problems of having to assign scarce shipping, worn down industry, and manpower losses. Wartime was a dramatic rupture to local economies and punished them when they were increasingly being drawn into the world commercial system by destroying their export markets and preventing them from receiving imports. Without the wars I'd expect the colonies to be, in absolute terms, much more economically significant, even if in relative terms they'd be less so.
The level of expenditure on colonies would also be more limited I expect, since at least in the French case, many of the expensive projects that the French undertook (conscription, Office du Niger, colonial defense infrastructure, etc.) were tied up with arms races and above all else trying to leverage their colonial resources to metropolitan benefit to account for their weaknesses or deficiencies - manpower to be solved by drafting Africans, cotton grown in Niger to make up for their reliance on the Americans, etc. In a more multilateral world and one which is more stable, without frantic expenditures of temporary arms races but instead longer and more stable ones, the empires would have less need to spend massive amounts of money on their colonies: economic resources could be devoted more rationally and more efficiently.
Furthermore in at least the French case the wars meant that the colonies were formally integrated as part of France and had to receive some financial treatment equivalent, and without the world wars there wouldn't be any such "gratitude" shown to the colonies, and hence much less financial expenditure. Similar things probably happened with other colonial powers and escalating expenditures.
Of course, without the wars, the European states will be far stronger and more capable of enforcing their will over the colonies if there are revolts.
Most importantly however, I feel is the moral factor is why colonialism will last much longer. Before the First World War, when Europeans spoke of the superiority of European civilization, it was hard to deny it - hardly any wars for a century, massive population expansion, fast advancing technology, confidence, self-assurance, domination of the world, high culture and grandeur. The Great War fundamentally shook European beliefs in the superiority of their own civilization and the fruits of the industrial revolution and caused many colonized intellectuals to find the idea of European civilizational superiority a sham. The Second World War of course, only intensified this, and greatly discredited the racist thinking which predicated colonialism, as well as destroying what remaining moral superiority the European powers could lay claim to.
Without the world wars, this wouldn't be the place, and I'd expect a lot more buy in from local elites who are genuinely convinced in the European civilizing mission to some extent - that the Europeans really are the possessors of a superior civilization, or at least one that they simply have no choice but to emulate. And the Europeans would be capable of deploying racist, Darwinian, and evolutionary thinking to justify their control. I think it entirely likely that unlike in our world, such thinking would continue to the present as a justification for colonialism. Even in today's world there are a massive number of people who subscribe to some extent to the idea of people being dumber or smarter based on what race they belong to, and that is despite decades of vigorous attempts to counter-act previous scientific racism. Without the massive blow-back to this stemming from the world wars, I'd think that that social science, as it tends to do so well, will find some other criterion and continue to institutionalize racial hierarchy and biological determinism.
Of course, these are all just factors that mitigate, rather than entirely prevent, the factors that lead to the end of colonialism. I'd expect that the more "developed" territories would sooner or later gain independence - particularly the Asian colonies and Egypt. They might still have some form of neocolonial control or relationship to the metropole, but they would at least have formal independence. The Japanese colonies in Asia I don't know enough about to say for one way or another, but I can't help but think that Korea might follow a similar trajectory.
The rest of the world however, I think might remain under colonial domination to the present, although increasingly they would be becoming restive....
I would dispute that for most of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that it could really be referred to as colonialism as we understand it, with exceptions of perhaps Bosnia, it was at heart an old-style land dynastic empire based on non-nationalistic principles that was having to adapt to the modern era and the rise of nationalist sentiments. Russia fits colonization much more closely given that its domination by the Russian ethnic group and its russification policies and settlement policies. I don't see either as collapsing: Austria-Hungary proved remarkably resilient during the horrors of the First World War and although it may reform, I doubt it will break apart, and without the world wars or communism the domination of Russians and russification will continue and accelerate in Russia.
Without the Great War, all of these are going to be much more slanted in favor of the European empires. Economically, the wars disrupted colonial trading relationships to a great extent, In French West Africa, the French lost market share during the war due to lack of shipping, merchant house employees mobilized for the front, and their industry being entirely concentrated on military activity. While this was to the benefit of the English, we know that the English had their own problems of having to assign scarce shipping, worn down industry, and manpower losses. Wartime was a dramatic rupture to local economies and punished them when they were increasingly being drawn into the world commercial system by destroying their export markets and preventing them from receiving imports. Without the wars I'd expect the colonies to be, in absolute terms, much more economically significant, even if in relative terms they'd be less so.
The level of expenditure on colonies would also be more limited I expect, since at least in the French case, many of the expensive projects that the French undertook (conscription, Office du Niger, colonial defense infrastructure, etc.) were tied up with arms races and above all else trying to leverage their colonial resources to metropolitan benefit to account for their weaknesses or deficiencies - manpower to be solved by drafting Africans, cotton grown in Niger to make up for their reliance on the Americans, etc. In a more multilateral world and one which is more stable, without frantic expenditures of temporary arms races but instead longer and more stable ones, the empires would have less need to spend massive amounts of money on their colonies: economic resources could be devoted more rationally and more efficiently.
Furthermore in at least the French case the wars meant that the colonies were formally integrated as part of France and had to receive some financial treatment equivalent, and without the world wars there wouldn't be any such "gratitude" shown to the colonies, and hence much less financial expenditure. Similar things probably happened with other colonial powers and escalating expenditures.
Of course, without the wars, the European states will be far stronger and more capable of enforcing their will over the colonies if there are revolts.
Most importantly however, I feel is the moral factor is why colonialism will last much longer. Before the First World War, when Europeans spoke of the superiority of European civilization, it was hard to deny it - hardly any wars for a century, massive population expansion, fast advancing technology, confidence, self-assurance, domination of the world, high culture and grandeur. The Great War fundamentally shook European beliefs in the superiority of their own civilization and the fruits of the industrial revolution and caused many colonized intellectuals to find the idea of European civilizational superiority a sham. The Second World War of course, only intensified this, and greatly discredited the racist thinking which predicated colonialism, as well as destroying what remaining moral superiority the European powers could lay claim to.
Without the world wars, this wouldn't be the place, and I'd expect a lot more buy in from local elites who are genuinely convinced in the European civilizing mission to some extent - that the Europeans really are the possessors of a superior civilization, or at least one that they simply have no choice but to emulate. And the Europeans would be capable of deploying racist, Darwinian, and evolutionary thinking to justify their control. I think it entirely likely that unlike in our world, such thinking would continue to the present as a justification for colonialism. Even in today's world there are a massive number of people who subscribe to some extent to the idea of people being dumber or smarter based on what race they belong to, and that is despite decades of vigorous attempts to counter-act previous scientific racism. Without the massive blow-back to this stemming from the world wars, I'd think that that social science, as it tends to do so well, will find some other criterion and continue to institutionalize racial hierarchy and biological determinism.
Of course, these are all just factors that mitigate, rather than entirely prevent, the factors that lead to the end of colonialism. I'd expect that the more "developed" territories would sooner or later gain independence - particularly the Asian colonies and Egypt. They might still have some form of neocolonial control or relationship to the metropole, but they would at least have formal independence. The Japanese colonies in Asia I don't know enough about to say for one way or another, but I can't help but think that Korea might follow a similar trajectory.
The rest of the world however, I think might remain under colonial domination to the present, although increasingly they would be becoming restive....
I would dispute that for most of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that it could really be referred to as colonialism as we understand it, with exceptions of perhaps Bosnia, it was at heart an old-style land dynastic empire based on non-nationalistic principles that was having to adapt to the modern era and the rise of nationalist sentiments. Russia fits colonization much more closely given that its domination by the Russian ethnic group and its russification policies and settlement policies. I don't see either as collapsing: Austria-Hungary proved remarkably resilient during the horrors of the First World War and although it may reform, I doubt it will break apart, and without the world wars or communism the domination of Russians and russification will continue and accelerate in Russia.
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