Southern Cone Under the British
Outside South America
What is mentioned below about the world in AWW outside Argentina, Uruguay, and their neighbours emphasizes the differences between our world and AWW. Therefore, the things that are the same in our world as in AWW will be omitted (and believe me, there are plenty).
The British victory in 1807 over the Criollos in Buenos Aires has had some, but not many, effects on the world outside South America in Auchmuty-Whitelocke World (AWW). For example, the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal in 1808-14 in AWW was somewhat different than in this world. For one thing, in our world, many of the leading participants in the British invasions of the River Plate subsequently participated in the Peninsular War in a prominent way – people like William Carr Beresford, Robert Crauford, and Dennis Pack (along with Home Riggs Popham late in the Peninsular War). In AWW, Crauford and Pack were senior participants in the Anglo-Plate War in western British South America (or the Plate Colony), along with the likes of John Whitelocke, Samuel Auchmuty, etc. But people like Wellesley, Moore, and Picton remained in the Peninsular War; the outcome was much the same as in this world, except with slightly more of an emphasis on Portuguese soldiers and on a few different British generals than in our world, so that the British still won against Napoleon in AWW.
Also, since Auchmuty in AWW continued to play a prominent role within the British forces in South America, he did not end up becoming the commander-in-chief in Madras, India, like in our world. Therefore, Auchmuty did not mastermind a British takeover of Java in the East Indies like in our world. So in AWW, another British general (Rollo Gillespie) became the commander-in-chief of Madras, and the British invasion of Java was still a success, though not as complete.
As for Whitelocke, whereas in our world he was court-martialed after 1807, in AWW, he continued to greater heights within the British Army and elsewhere. First of all, from 1807 to 1810, he was the first governor (albeit a military governor) of the Plate Colony. Afterwards, for five years, he participated in the Peninsular War and in Waterloo, and he received ever higher honours, despite his less-than-stellar performance in Buenos Aires in 1807. From 1817 to 1822, he was Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance within the British Army, with Hildebrand Oakes having been so from 1814 to 1817 (in our world, Oakes had that position from 1814 to 1822). Then, Whitelocke was the Commander-in-Chief of Ireland from 1822 to 1825. After that, he retired, and he died in 1833.
In Central America in the 1820s, the flag of the federation of its republics was based on the Union Jack (the British flag), because a ship sailing around the world to attack Spanish positions, including in Central America, was doing so under the Union Jack, and was based out of present-day Argentina under the command of Hypollite de Bouchard. That flag had a white straight cross, a red diagonal cross, and a dark blue field; the white cross overshadowed the red cross where the two intersected. As a result, the flags of the Central American republics (except Panama and Belize) are red, white, and blue in kind of a Union Jack pattern. Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua fly with light blue predominating, while the Guatemalan flag has the diagonal cross, and not the straight one, white. Costa Rica’s flag has inverted colours from those of Nicaragua, for example. See the flags here for more.
In the United States, meanwhile, development took place much as it did in our world, with a few exceptions. One of them is that fewer British and Irish people, and more Spanish, Italian, and French people, migrated to the United States. While these changes are slight relative to our world’s United States, they are still significant. Among other things, this means a Midwest that’s even more German and Scandinavian than it is in our world. It also means slightly more populous Italian-American and French-American communities and a much bigger Spaniard-American community (whether Basque, Catalan, Galician, Asturian, Andalucian, etc.). (Basques, Catalans, and Galicians are technically not Spaniards, but that is a whole other story.) Italians in America are 20-million-strong instead of 15 million like in our world, and the Spaniards number anywhere from some 750,000 to 1.2 million instead of 250,000 to 400,000 in our world. The French-Americans number 17 million, one million more than in our world.
In the rest of Latin America and in the rest of the British Commonwealth, there are also some population composition changes relative to our world. Latin America other than Argentina and Uruguay sees increases in the number of Spanish, Italian, and French immigrants and their descendants compared to our world, particularly Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Venezuela. In various corners of the former British Empire like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (and indeed Great Britain and Ireland themselves), there are somewhat fewer people of British and Irish descent than in our world. All of the demographic changes between our world and the other world presented in this paragraph and the previous one represent a vast increase of British and Irish immigrants, and a substantial decrease of Spanish, Italian, and French ones, to Argentina and Uruguay for AWW. This is not to say in any way that there are profound changes in all the above countries other than Argentina and Uruguay; indeed, they are relatively cosmetic on the whole.
In AWW, the inaugural World Cup of soccer in 1930 took place in Spain, and not in Uruguay like in our world. Spain won that World Cup as well as the one in 2010, and also hosted the 1982 World Cup. Mexico has also performed better in AWW than in our world, even winning a World Cup in 1986; it hosted both the 1970 and 1986 World Cups. The Netherlands, for its part, hosted the 1978 World Cup (as opposed to Argentina in our world).
The card game that, in our world, is known as canasta is known in AWW as basket, since the game of basket was invented in 1939 by angloparlant Uruguayans. Also known as basket rummy, it has enjoyed wide popularity as a card game all over the world.
The AWW outcome to the events of 1807 in Buenos Aires also has some implications for the two World Wars and the Cold War. In both World Wars, Argentina and Uruguay were on the Allied side, serving under the British (just like Canada, Australia, etc. did), as opposed to being largely neutral during these wars. In World War II, there was a Battle of the Graf Spee, albeit in Florianopolis, Brazil; it was German U-boats which posed a threat to shipping lanes between the River Plate and Britain.
After that war, Argentina didn’t provide as much sanctuary to Nazi war criminals as it did in this world; Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay were the top Nazi havens in South America. In fact, in AWW, Adolf Eichmann was captured in 1960 in Santiago, Chile, not in Buenos Aires. Josef Mengele lived in Chile, then fled to Paraguay and ultimately Brazil. Among other things, that meant less anti-Semitism in Argentina than in our world. A substantial number of Nazis did go to Argentina, but they were lower-ranking than those who came to Argentina in our world; they were typically German Nazi scientists or Eastern European camp guards (much like those who came to North America or Australia).
Mexico's main film award is called the Azul Awards, named after the seminal 1888 work by Ruben Dario, an important Nicaraguan author. Established in 1946, these are the equivalent of our world's Ariel Awards, named after Ariel (a significant work by the Uruguayan author Jose Enrique Rodo of our world).
As far as the dependency theory of economic development is concerned, Ralph Prebisch didn’t come up with that theory along with Hans Singer of Germany because, being Argentine, he was not nearly as worried about economic development as his counterpart, Raul Prebisch, was in our world. Hence, there was still dependency theory in AWW, except that Singer and Anibal Pinto of Chile played much greater roles in the theory than in our world. Prebisch was also not in the United Nations’ Economic Commission of Latin America like he was in our world, certainly not in a leadership capacity. Neither was he the leader of the UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) in the mid- to late-1960s like he was in our world; instead, it was Anibal Pinto.
When the youngest Somoza dictator was exiled from Nicaragua in 1979, to be replaced by the Sandinistas, he was not assassinated the following year; rather, he lived for 20 more years, and died of natural causes in exile. This was because there was nobody from Argentina who went to Nicaragua to cooperate with the Sandinistas, unlike in our world.
Starting in the mid-1980s, democracy was being restored to the neighbours of Uruguay and Argentina. Meanwhile, since there was no Falkland War in 1982 in AWW, the British national elections the following year still saw Margaret Thatcher remain in power, except by not nearly as much of a landslide as in our world. Speaking of the Falklands, because there is no separate British dependency of the Falklands in AWW, the telephone country code +500 is assigned to Aruba and not to the Falklands. Therefore, +297 (our world's country code for Aruba) is left unassigned.
Finally, given the absence of Juan Peron from politics, and therefore his first wife Eva, there has been no "Evita" musical like there has been in our world.
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