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What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
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What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...-world-war

Interesting read, and a thought I hadn't seen before.
03-02-2017 09:11 AM
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DaSaintFan Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
I want to say there are a few alternate history fictional book written about if Germany had won WW1, although more of them were focused on if the Third Reich had won world war 2.
03-02-2017 09:19 AM
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LeFlâneur Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
I was wondering how you managed to come across a newspaper opinion column from 2013?

After posting this, you might expect a visit from Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith.
03-02-2017 09:19 AM
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
(03-02-2017 09:19 AM)LeFlâneur Wrote:  I was wondering how you managed to come across a newspaper opinion column from 2013?

After posting this, you might expect a visit from Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith.

There was a link in RCP today which linked to RCHistory.
03-02-2017 09:27 AM
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solohawks Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
Its very interesting to think about.
03-02-2017 09:31 AM
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banker Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
Interesting thought, but once the US entered WWI (and WWII) it was over for the Germans. The issue that any country would have in fighting against the US in a conventional war is the unfettered production capabilities of the US while your own country's production capability is constantly under attack. It's the advantage of having thousands of miles of oceans on each side. So really it just becomes a matter of time.
03-02-2017 09:59 AM
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miko33 Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
If the U.S. never entered WW1, most likely there would have been a stalemate and the treaty to end it would have been much more equitable. While Germany alone was the most powerful European country in terms of its army and possibly airforce, it was tethered to some true dogs as allies in Austria-Hungary and Turkey. The question would have become did the allies (without the U.S.) have enough stomach to wait out the blockades of German ports that would have eventually brought it to its knees, or would have the loss of life been too great to bear before the blockades id their worst?

I think it would have ended in stalemate, and that another war would have been fought later. Let's face it, the Europeans would have maintained their colonial empires for as long as they could until a large enough war destroyed their abilities to maintain their colonies. Also, Russia probably gets taken over by the Bolsheviks regardless.
03-02-2017 10:31 AM
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LeFlâneur Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
(03-02-2017 09:27 AM)bullet Wrote:  
(03-02-2017 09:19 AM)LeFlâneur Wrote:  I was wondering how you managed to come across a newspaper opinion column from 2013?

There was a link in RCP today which linked to RCHistory.

And since this is the 100th anniversary of the Zimmerman telegram which led to the US entering WWI, kind of makes sense.
03-02-2017 10:40 AM
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49RFootballNow Offline
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RE: What if Germany won the World War-the first one?
Had Germany won the First World War?

1)) The likelihood of a Second World War goes down significantly.

a) A victorious Germany wouldn't tolerate a Bolshevik regime on their newly expanded western frontier. They would set up the Baltic States, Belarus, and Ukraine as puppet states and buffer zones. They would back the White forces in the Russian Civil War and to a far greater extent than the Western Intervention in our timeline. The Whites would have won and been beholden to Germany militarily and financially for a couple of decades, securing Germany's eastern frontier.

b) A further Revanche France still has half the economy, population, and military might of Germany; and no French version of Hitler could change that fact. Since the war took place on French soil and they'll take decades to recover from that, another French war against Germany would be national suicide.

c) Britain, who's colonies will try to take advantage of her losing the war, will be busy for some time putting down revolts. She'll be focused on her colonies and won't be focusing on Europe where she just got a bloody nose for nothing. Since from a geopolitical perspective, a British loss on the Continent will mean little for her world power status (assuming losing didn't involve a major defeat for the Royal Navy), I expect Britain will back away from Continental entanglements for a while.

d) America, obviously never entering the war, will continue to prosper financially while focusing even more so on the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific like in our timeline.

2)) Germany would likely get the atom bomb first. The contribution to the Manhattan Project of European refugee scientists was immense. I could also see the development of the atom bomb pushed off into the 1950's with it being a slower peacetime initiative.

3)) Tensions between Japan and America will still make war in the Pacific more likely. The real issue is whether the US can arrange to divorce Japan from the Anglo-Japanese Treaty as the Washington Naval Treaty did in our timeline. With Germany still in possession of the world's second largest fleet and just across the North Sea, Britain's willingness to reduce her own naval forces will be minimal at best. Without the ability for the US to get Britain to slight its Pacific ally at the conference table, it will be more difficult for the US to politically move against the Japanese.

4)) Britain refocusing on keeping her colonies will lead to a lot of bloody little insurrections, further drawing British focus away from Europe. The relatively peaceful devolution of power of the British Empire after WW2 won't happen in the 1920's and 30's. I suspect Ireland will be a bloodier mess as well.

5)) A victorious Germany will have to focus on incorporating their new territories into the Reich. That means a little more bloodshed in Eastern Europe but the Second Reich was not particularly brutal compared to Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. A victorious Germany will focus on integration and economic issues for some time. A version of the European Union had been on the Kaiser's victory agenda even in our time.

a) Happy Germans = No radical politics = No Nazis and no Communists = No Hitler = No Holocaust. This is the greatest benefit of a German WW1 victory.

b) Imperial Germany was basically a constitutional monarchy where over time the powers of the monarch were moving more to the civilian government. Wilhelm and the military would have to work with the Social Democrats to get any domestic agenda passed to help solidify their new territories into the Reich. It would be a lot more stable than the Weimar Republic and a lot more humane than Nazi Germany.

c) Crown Prince Wilhelm was relatively disinterested in politics and likely to devolve even more of his power to his Chancellors once he came to the throne.

6)) With German money backing them up the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empires cling on for a few more years.

a) Can Kaiser Karl's high-minded ideals overcome a stale and entrenched bureaucracy's intransigence to change? Can he inspire his diverse subjects to give him a chance to fix things before they take up arms to throw out their Austrian overlords? Perhaps he gets a decade or two depending on how much the Germans want to invest in his regime. Karl was a well-intended softy who would probably back down a lot. Honestly. his uncle Franz Ferdinand, who despite their personality differences shared many of the same designs for their empire, would have been more readily able to force through those changes than Karl would. Perhaps the Hapsburg Empire really did die on that hot July day in Sarajevo?

b) The Ottomans weren't called "The Sick Man of Europe" for nothing. I still see numerous revolts in the farther reaches of their territory. I still see Enver Pasha and Attaturk wanting reforms. I still see the Ottoman bureaucracy being too slow to change and too out of touch to realize change is needed.
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2017 11:18 AM by 49RFootballNow.)
03-02-2017 10:59 AM
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