[quote=@Lady Lascivious]
<Snipped quote by Eldritch Puppy>

Not super keen on a drastic population reduction, though. It kind of ruins any plans I might have had for joining in some jolly good wars on the continent if everyone's dead.

And I had no opposition to the original divergence whatsoever. I'm, well, the kind of person who wrote up basically Nazbol Japan for fuck's sake. My point was simply that I thought my proposal was perfectly sound with what, to me, seemed a pretty damn unlikely scenario. Mine is, also, unlikely, yes. But I assumed that in a world where the British were willing to cede that much control to a non-European nation and the Austrians caving into super liberal ideas in the 1840s, it was perfectly reasonable.
[/quote]

To be honest, I had worries about that last part, and it was my absolute limit or close to it.

As for the British willingness to cede that much control to Egypt, well, it helps that Egypt [i]already had the land[/i] the British allowed them to [i]keep[/i]. The British and the Ottomans were prepared to drive them off said land, but concessions were made to have the British betray the Ottomans and deal with Egypt as a (subordinate) partner instead.

I'm sure that the Wikipedia page for Muhammad Ali of Egypt said that he already controlled the territory he claimed and was about to overrun the Ottomans themselves.