What if britain never kept the cape colony/ kept all Dutch colonies after the napoleonic wars?
This are two questions i know but you can answer just one or both if you want.
For some background, the cape colony was seized by the english during the napoleonic wars, gave back and retaken in 1860 where they did pay the Dutch so they could pay their debts.
Cape was a strategic location both to easliy supply india and to project naval supremacy so it makes sense why britain wanted It.
But what if they just didn't and the Netherlands kept it? How whould the scramble for africa go now? Whould the Netherlands take all of south africa here? Whould britain still want pieces of the region or whould they just dont care?
On the flipside what if the english kept ALL Dutch possesions: Indonesia,Suriname,ect. I know they didn't because they didn't want to get involved in the regional politics of those places but let's say they dont care here.
How much more stupidly powerfull whould britain be here with Indonesia as a colony? Whould the Netherlands start a war over this? Could they even control such a massive empire now?