Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

Discussions on all aspects of the First World War not covered in the other sections. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#91

Post by Sid Guttridge » 07 Aug 2017, 17:54

Hi pod,

You write, "England (actually UK) was so financially hard up they had to debase their coinage to pay off war debts postwar." Yes, and did so successfully. What is your point?

You write, "It is no exaggeration to say they were on the verge of total collapse in the Spring of 1917...." Yes it is an exaggeration, because they clearly did not.

You write, "The Central Powers knocking off one Power a year." Yes, but until 1917 no major ones and after 1917 no major ones. The USA certainly didn't save Imperial Russia!

Certainly, "The French mutinied" but the Germans didn't even notice!

You write "Admiral Sims' Department of the Navy-approved official history of ASW was clear that the British were losing the battle against the submarine." In April 1917, yes, but not after the introduction of convoys, which was nothing to do with the USA.

Cheers,

Sid.

Blackadder2000
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#92

Post by Blackadder2000 » 07 Aug 2017, 21:03

The OP's basic thesis that Germany could have won the War is factually correct.
No, its an opinion you hold.[/quote]

If Germany went eastwards and invaded Russia instead of France, I'm pretty sure Germany had a very good chance at winning WW1


ljadw
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#93

Post by ljadw » 07 Aug 2017, 21:29

This assumes that Germany would defeat Russia in a short campaign, which in 1914 was out of the question .

This also assumes that a German invasion of Russia only would result in a world war .

It finally assumes that Germany would be better off if it had defeated Russia .

The Ibis
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#94

Post by The Ibis » 07 Aug 2017, 21:39

Blackadder2000 wrote:If Germany went eastwards and invaded Russia instead of France, I'm pretty sure Germany had a very good chance at winning WW1
Since it would have been a very different WWI, no one has any way of plausibly guessing whether they would have won or what victory would have looked like.
"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." - Casey Stengel

Blackadder2000
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#95

Post by Blackadder2000 » 07 Aug 2017, 23:01

ljadw wrote:This assumes that Germany would defeat Russia in a short campaign, which in 1914 was out of the question .

This also assumes that a German invasion of Russia only would result in a world war .

It finally assumes that Germany would be better off if it had defeated Russia .
Why would it have to be a short campaign? After all, if Germany doesn't invade Belgium and France, the risk of a two-front war is (at least for a while) evaded.

I think the consensus among historians about why Germany lost WW1 was because they fought a two-front war.

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Terry Duncan
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#96

Post by Terry Duncan » 07 Aug 2017, 23:42

Blackadder2000 wrote:If Germany went eastwards and invaded Russia instead of France, I'm pretty sure Germany had a very good chance at winning WW1
It is an interesting idea and has been discussed here and/or the Alternate History board a few times in the past. The big problem is there really are not enough Germans to do too much.
Blackadder2000 wrote:I think the consensus among historians about why Germany lost WW1 was because they fought a two-front war.
Under the circumstances in 1914, it is hard to see Germany not having to fight a two front war, though people may question the timing of the second front opening, most conclude that it would do so, and possibly as a moment less favourable to Germany such as if she were deeply committed in Russia.

France cannot afford to see Russia defeated heavily, and to a degree, neither can Britain, so there would be great pressure for a fast negotiated peace, with the threat of armed intervention unless Germany agreed, and the settlement would not be likely to be anything better than a return to the pre-war borders for Germany. My guess is that France would declare war within one or two weeks at the most, with Britain following within the first month to six weeks unless Germany moved into any of the Benelux territories. This was why the Germans were hoping to 'localise' the war to one of either Austria vs Serbia or Germany and Austria vs Serbia and Russia as these scenarios obviously greatly favoured them. To make this even vaguely possible, Austria-Hungary needed to show good evidence that the Serbian state was complicit in planning the Sarajevo assassination, not to forget following German advice to keep Italy onside by offering whatever Italy demanded - though with there were suggestions of this being a purely temporary measure and Austria and Germany could 'settle' things with Italy after a successful war by a military intervention there!
The Ibis wrote:Since it would have been a very different WWI, no one has any way of plausibly guessing whether they would have won or what victory would have looked like.
Correct, but that has never stopped people from imagining such things, indeed even waxing lyrical about them.

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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#97

Post by The Ibis » 08 Aug 2017, 03:35

Terry Duncan wrote:
The Ibis wrote:Since it would have been a very different WWI, no one has any way of plausibly guessing whether they would have won or what victory would have looked like.
Correct, but that has never stopped people from imagining such things, indeed even waxing lyrical about them.
Ain't that the truth!!!!
"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." - Casey Stengel

ljadw
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#98

Post by ljadw » 08 Aug 2017, 03:59

Blackadder2000 wrote:
ljadw wrote:This assumes that Germany would defeat Russia in a short campaign, which in 1914 was out of the question .

This also assumes that a German invasion of Russia only would result in a world war .

It finally assumes that Germany would be better off if it had defeated Russia .
Why would it have to be a short campaign? After all, if Germany doesn't invade Belgium and France, the risk of a two-front war is (at least for a while) evaded.

I think the consensus among historians about why Germany lost WW1 was because they fought a two-front war.
1)A short campaign was necessary as Germany could not afford a long campaign,and as a long campaign increased the risk of a Western intervention .


2) For political reasons a two-front war was inevitable .

michael mills
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#99

Post by michael mills » 18 Aug 2017, 08:06

In order to answer the question posed at the beginning of this thread, it is necessary to come up with a realistic definition of what is meant by Germany "winning" the First World War.

To my mind, the only alternative to what happened in historical reality in 1918 would not have been Germany defeating the Entente decisively, but rather the Entente being unable to defeat Germany decisively. In other words, not so much Germany "winning", but rather avoiding defeat, which would mean retaining its pre-war position in terms of territory, governmental system, social structure, economic and commercial strength, as well as preserving the integrity of its allies the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.

It seems to me that there were only two ways in which this alternative could have been achieved:

1. A rapid end to the war in the west through a successful conclusion to the invasion of France by the destruction of the French armies. This was actually expected early in September, when the Battle of the Frontiers had been won and the German forces were advancing. It was at that time that the German Government began discussing with interest groups outside the Government the terms that should be offered to France to induce it to make peace.

The German military proposed that an armistice should include an occupation of the northern part of France, which would be become a base from which the war against Britain could be pursued, ie pretty much what actually happened in 1940. The outcome would probably have been much the same as the situation in 1940, ie a Britain expelled from the Continent but continuing to wage war against Germany by economic means, with Germany unable to strike Britain in any way sufficient to force it to make peace.

In this scenario, Russia would probably quickly have agreed to make peace on the basis of the status quo, since it would have had little to gain from continuing to fight Germany and Austria-Hungary on its own, with France defeated and Britain unable to provide any meaningful aid.

2. The Entente agreeing at some point after 1914 to end hostilities on the basis of the status quo, with Belgium and Serbia restored to their former status. The Entente would only have agreed to end hostilities short of victory if the cost of continuing the war greatly outweighed any benefit to be gained from the destruction of Germany. The problem was that Britain and France were already benefiting economically from the war, since the exclusion of Germany from the global economy, which had occurred at the very beginning of the war, meant that those two countries, as well as the United States, had picked up all the world trade that had before the war flowed to Germany. Thus, Britain and France had no economic incentive to end hostilities, and every incentive to perpetuate their new-found domination of global trade by continuing the war until the final destruction of Germany as a military and economic power.

In this scenario, the only possibility for Britain and France agreeing to a compromise peace would have been if Russia dropped out of the war against Germany, due to the massive economic losses it was suffering, and that only if it dropped out at a point where the Central Powers had not been fatally weakened by the economic warfare waged by the Entente. By the time Russia did drop out of the war at the end of 1917, that point had already been passed, such that the ending of the war in the East did not benefit Germany in the West.

ljadw
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#100

Post by ljadw » 20 Aug 2017, 08:35

michael mills wrote:In order to answer the question posed at the beginning of this thread, it is necessary to come up with a realistic definition of what is meant by Germany "winning" the First World War.

To my mind, the only alternative to what happened in historical reality in 1918 would not have been Germany defeating the Entente decisively, but rather the Entente being unable to defeat Germany decisively. In other words, not so much Germany "winning", but rather avoiding defeat, which would mean retaining its pre-war position in terms of territory, governmental system, social structure, economic and commercial strength, as well as preserving the integrity of its allies the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.

It seems to me that there were only two ways in which this alternative could have been achieved:

1. A rapid end to the war in the west through a successful conclusion to the invasion of France by the destruction of the French armies. This was actually expected early in September, when the Battle of the Frontiers had been won and the German forces were advancing. It was at that time that the German Government began discussing with interest groups outside the Government the terms that should be offered to France to induce it to make peace.

The German military proposed that an armistice should include an occupation of the northern part of France, which would be become a base from which the war against Britain could be pursued, ie pretty much what actually happened in 1940. The outcome would probably have been much the same as the situation in 1940, ie a Britain expelled from the Continent but continuing to wage war against Germany by economic means, with Germany unable to strike Britain in any way sufficient to force it to make peace.

In this scenario, Russia would probably quickly have agreed to make peace on the basis of the status quo, since it would have had little to gain from continuing to fight Germany and Austria-Hungary on its own, with France defeated and Britain unable to provide any meaningful aid.

2. The Entente agreeing at some point after 1914 to end hostilities on the basis of the status quo, with Belgium and Serbia restored to their former status. The Entente would only have agreed to end hostilities short of victory if the cost of continuing the war greatly outweighed any benefit to be gained from the destruction of Germany. The problem was that Britain and France were already benefiting economically from the war, since the exclusion of Germany from the global economy, which had occurred at the very beginning of the war, meant that those two countries, as well as the United States, had picked up all the world trade that had before the war flowed to Germany. Thus, Britain and France had no economic incentive to end hostilities, and every incentive to perpetuate their new-found domination of global trade by continuing the war until the final destruction of Germany as a military and economic power.

In this scenario, the only possibility for Britain and France agreeing to a compromise peace would have been if Russia dropped out of the war against Germany, due to the massive economic losses it was suffering, and that only if it dropped out at a point where the Central Powers had not been fatally weakened by the economic warfare waged by the Entente. By the time Russia did drop out of the war at the end of 1917, that point had already been passed, such that the ending of the war in the East did not benefit Germany in the West.
The second section is wrong, thus the rest of the post also :the only way for Germany to preserve its social structure and industrial strength,and for AH to survive ,was a short,quick and cheap victory in the West and a show war in the East (a Russian defeat would result in the collaps of the Russian Empire,which would result in the collaps of AH ) ;a German victory in 1918 would not prevent the collaps of the Junkers and their replacement by the SPD/Zentrum . In 1918 millions of Germans had been killed/wounded and Germany was broken :the war had already destroyed the pre war social order, not only in Germany, but also in France and Britain .

And Allied victory in 1918 had the same results as Germany defeat in 1918 .

Total war destroys social order .

michael mills
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#101

Post by michael mills » 20 Aug 2017, 09:29

All right then, let us assume a rapid German victory over France in 1914, and Russia then agreeing to make peace on the basis of the status quo.

What would happen then? That is what this thread is about.

ljadw
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#102

Post by ljadw » 20 Aug 2017, 10:30

No one knows: it would depend on the if Britain would continue the war ,something which is the most probable possibility,and than, Germany would be in the position of Napoleon,and as Napoleon, Germany would lose ,because it was too weak to dominate Europe . In 1871 Germany could defeat France without dominating Europe, why was that Britain did not intervene . The situation in 1914 was different :a German defeat would destroy the European Balance of Power, and this,Britain would not accept .The war would continue and Germany would lose him :Britain could afford a long war, Germany not .

The only possibility for Germany was a peace of compromise,but,as this would leave France intact, it was impossible for Germany :the German war aims were very clear: France would be crushed for always .

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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#103

Post by Plain Old Dave » 05 Sep 2017, 05:44

Probably the best opportunity for Germany to maintain military hegemony was Fall 1916-Spring 1917. Unrestricted submarine warfare was methodically starving Britain out of the War, and with restraint on the part of the German Foreign Office in NOT sending the Zimmerman Note, the US may not have entered the war. And without US intervention, German victory was inevitable.

The key to the OP's thesis is keeping the AEF out of Europe in 1917-18. The only real question is did Germany have industrial means sufficient to build U-boats at a pace sufficient to remove the British merchant marine from the seas by Spring 1917 instead of Summer 1917 as RL trends clearly suggested?

ljadw
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#104

Post by ljadw » 05 Sep 2017, 08:13

Plain Old Dave wrote: And without US intervention, German victory was inevitable.

This is not correct .

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

#105

Post by Sid Guttridge » 05 Sep 2017, 17:00

Hi Guys,

I think we are drifting off the thread title, which is; Would the world be better if Germany won WWI?

The question really begs an answer to the question: "What did a victorious Germany have to offer the world that the status quo did not?"

Cheers,

Sid

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