1 NATO was founded and funded by he US.Germany was to poor to fund its satellites .And an independent Poland would demand the return of East and West Prussia and of Silesia . .Futurist wrote: ↑11 Nov 2021 08:55
Couldn't these newly independent states have their own armies? Think of a NATO-style arrangement here--Germany might help around the edges, as the US did in real life, but most of the preparedness will have to come from these countries themselves.Other points : a Schwerpunkt Ost would ruin Germany ,as Russia could not pay for the German war expenses and Germany would be forced to have a big occupation army in these territories.How would it pay this ? It was already before the war on the limits of its financial possibility .The German government had issued war loans for 100 billion of Reichsmark.Who would pay them ?
A socialist regime in Russia, Germany can live with. A Communist regime in Russia, Germany cannot live with and would have to overthrow them in one way or another. Honestly, I wouldn't view the German Social Democrats as the enemy here; after all, they could be persuaded that Germany simply wants to spread civilization and German culture to Eastern Europe in order for Germany to finally have its own place in the Sun.France would be very pleased and if the Tsar had to leave ,Germany would be saddled in the east with a socialist/communist regime that would be a magnet for the German socialists .
2 Germany could not live with a socialist Russia.The truth was that if the Tsar went, the Kaiser and the Emperor of AH would disappear .A Socialist Russia would become a Communist Russia .Kerensky was replaced by Lenin .
The Tsar was overthrown in February 1917,a few months later the Kaiser was forced to promise that after the war the Prussian (3 classes ) electoral system would be replaced by a one ma/woman /one vote system,which meant the end of the rule of the monarchy and aristocracy in Prussia .In the one man/one vote elections for the Reichstag in 1912 the SDP and the Zentrum had already the majority .
Germany wanted to dominate Europe,the only way was to eliminate France ,not to eliminate Russia .
The Kaiser would be faced by the choice to become a constitutional king or to abdicate .