What Would have Happened if Germany Won World War 1?
84This has been a thought that I have been quite preoccupied with, and at the end, would like to hear your opinion and output.
Now, what was society like in the early 1900's? For the major European powers, not very well socially but productively, yes. The industrial revolution was in full swing at the time and each nation was at a competition with one another to see who had the largest industrial capacity. The United States of America, France, England, Germany, and Russia were the biggest powers at the time and most of the world was slowly coming towards the end of their monarch years. However, the world was slowly turning into a social class turmoil, especially with the publication of the Communist Manifesto a few decades earlier. Monopolies and large trusts practically ran the economic sectors of many nations since laissez-faire was a commonly embraced idea. Living and working conditions were often horrible and homelessness was a common sight in nations such as Russia and England. This of course angered many lower and middle class populations as small, secret, unions as well as populist political parties were put together in an effort to win unwinnable battles against corrupt, power-driven trusts. These were not surprisingly unsuccessful as unions fought between skilled and unskilled workers and often excluded African Americans, immigrants, and native Indians. Enough of social issues though, now comes the real causes of World War 1.
By the turn of the 1900's surges of nationalism struck the world at alarming rates. Germany's Kaiser had bigger plans for Germany, and France, Britain, and Russia were also ambitions for more European holdings. There are two main reasons why World war 1 started.
1. A Serbian nationalist assasinatedArch-duke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne
2. The alliance system
With each major nation with an alliance with one or the other, it wasn't long before each one was dragged into a conflict that mankind had never seen before. Yet, we already know the results of what occurred as well as the results of World War 1. The main theme of this article is to see what would have happened for Germany to win.
Here is my opinion of what Germany should have done as well as what it couldn't help to do.
First off.. Germany is in a horrible position geographically in Europe. It's seas surrounding it is full of heavy interest trade routes and is patrolled by English and Scandinavian navies. Also, for anything to get to Germany via water trade route, it would only have two ways to get to Germany; both include passing through French and British navies. Germany also should have built up an alliance with England since they had close ties even before the turn of the 1900's (and as Winston Churchill said in WW2, but that's another story). This would allow a better grasp on the seas on Northern Europe as well as provide great bases for quick bombardments to France. This would also have probably subtracted the possibility of the sinking of the Lusitania, a key factor that made America join the War. Also, with Russia's monarchy having close ties with France, this would have allowed better concentration on the Russian front rather then having to worry about Britain's naval blockade and France's defensives with British reinforcements. It is also important not to forget about the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empire. Both provided the passage of Central Power Dreadnoughts. However, I'd like to focus on the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey). If Britain was on the Central Powers, this would have allowed the Ottomans to assist the Austro-Hungarians in retaking certain Bulgarian and Greek lands. Also, this would have prevented the largest massacre of innocent civilians in World War 1: 2,000,000 innocent civilians killed by British and French forces who failed to capture the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans would also have allowed German shipbuilding facilities to be constructed as a means of controlling the Mediterranean Sea. However most of this would have been unlikely as the Ottoman Empire was closing in on it's monarch days.
Austro-Hungarian Empire - This was also a key ally to the Germans. The biggest downfall to the the Austro-Hungarians was the failed attempts to recapture Serbia, which resulted in the crushing of numbers and moral of the Autrian-Hungarian Army. If a front was formed on the Serbian border and focuses were made towards the Italian border, then events would have probably turned in favor of the Austrian-Hungarians.
Now back to Germany.. German soldiers were often poorly trained by older generation generals which resulted in older tactics and thinking used. Also for Germany to win WW1, they would have to have a huge industrial capacity as well as the will for their people to fight as most of these soldiers were middle and lower class men. Also, closer relations with Italy would have proved fruitful as the American soldiers would not have been able to land there. Another thing would also have to be the elimination of the Kaiser as calls for democratic and socialist changes were echoing throughout German lands. Also, with Britain as a Central Power, America would also have less tendencies to join the war as Britain and Germany were major cotton consumers. France would have to count on the help of Russia (if the Bolshevik Revolution didn't occur yet) or many other nations.
Therefore if Germany won (assuming with the assistance of Britain) then major reforms and the annexation of major European nations would most likely occur. So tell me Hubbers, what do you think would happen of Germany won World War 1?
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I enjoyed both the Hub and Chris57's comment. The biggest problem between Britain and Germany was the question of Empire, I think. Germany had a large and growing population and no where to go! Lack of any significant colonies also meant that she lacked many raw materials available to others. And any attempt to build a competing navy by any nation had always been viewed as a direct challenge to the Brits. In order to build a workable alliance, Britain and Germany would have had to have agreed on the questions of navies and Empire. I cannot help think of times I have played the games of both "Risk" and "Diplomacy" and how it always seemed inevitable that the Germans and Brits end up being the superpowers of that time and end up in the final struggle for victory. Historical "What Ifs?" are great fun. Chaos theory and the now well-known butterfly effect does suggest that something as small as a road accident may have altered history significantly. Thank you ComputerRewired and Chris57.
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Germany's greatest blunder in World War I was having to fight it at all. That she did was the result of the greatest German diplomatic blunder of all, which didn't occur in the run-up to the war, but at the end of Germany's greatest victory, over the Empire of Napoleon III in 1870-1871.
Germany's swift victory in that was was a surprise. The French Army was a powerful institution, and the Germans - really at the point the Prussians with some other German allies - should not have been able to win so swiftly, or at all. They did because the French Emperor, Napoleon III, was a political genius but militarily a boob. He marched his army into a trap and got himself captured along with it at Sedan.
This disaster was a surpise to everybody, including the Germans. Bismarck never expected to actually CONQUER France. He was expecting a more limited victory that would unify Germany. That was what he planned for.
Bismarck was a brilliant strategist and politician. He understood that Prussia had been astonishingly lucky, a "eucatastrophe" so to speak, and with the victory he was able to unite Germany swiftly. But he also understood very keenly the risk that Germany faced of overreaching, and he used all of the might of his office to try to persuade the Kaiser to NOT do what the German General Staff began to urge after the victory: to claim Alsace-Lorraine from France and incorporate it into Germany.
Bismarck understood well, and argued long, that this was forbidden fruit. Yes, France was down, for a moment, as a stroke of bad luck (for the French), good luck for the Prussians, but mostly because the French leader was a boob. He was gone, and France had not historically been ruled by fools, nor was Germany likely to be so lucky as to face a completely incometent French supreme commander again.
Bismarck urged a decent treaty. Leave France intact, and alone. Consolidate Germany. Don't reach for overseas Empire - it's expensive and pointless. Let the British and French compete for Empire and fight with each other, while Germany develops herself at home and comes naturally to incorporate all of Eastern Europe - the old Holy Roman Empire - into her sphere.
Bismarck had unified Germany in war, but he understood the LIMITS of war, and he understood that the ultimate strategic nightmare for Germany would be to turn France from a nation that had just lost a frontier war and a bad ruler into a permanent, bitter enemy by taking pieces of territory that had been French for 300 - or 800 - years from France. Lorraine was the birthplace of Joan of Arc. These were not German provinces. They were French provinces of people who were Germanic in origin, but who didn't think of themselves as German, didn't want to be part of Germany. Alsace-Lorraine seemed like a prize, but Bismarck saw that the price of taking them would be forever war with France, and that Germany might not be so lucky next time.
Worse, France and Britain had been at war for a thousand years, without doing very great damage to each other. Take a chunk out of France proper, and France would forget about England and overseas colonies, and focus all of the enmity and energy that she had focused on England in faraway places, with white-hot intensity on Germany for occupying pieces of the French homeland.
Bismarck practically begged his Kaiser to reconsider the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, but the Kaiser, flush with a surprise victory and urged by German generals whose luck went to their heads - ignored the greatest statesman in 19th Century Europe and grabbed a piece of France.
Of course Bismarck was right. Bismarck was right about everything. This was no exception. France and Britain had been at war for 1000 years. After 1871, that was over. Now France was focused like a laser-beam (if such thing had existed back then) on Germany, with white-hot hatred that did not cool. The byword of France for forty years was "Y pensez toujours; y parler jamais" - "Think of it ever; speak of it never" - the "it" being the "lost sisters" - Alsace and Lorraine.
Every graduating class of French officers marched from the French military schools marched in silence to a hill and looked out at "occupied France", the territories under German occupation. Three generations of Frenchmen were spoiling for a war with Germany.
And England? Feh. The French made peace with the English quickly, quietly divvied up the world with them (letting the English have some of the nicer pieces without a fight). All of France's energies were bent - one might say hellbent - on surrounding Germany, hemming Germany in and, when the time came, attacking Germany and destroying Germany. Peace was never going to be possible until Alsace-Lorraine were returned to France.
Bismarck new that from the beginning. He knew it all along. And he new that the worst strategic mistake Kaiser Wilhelm made would eventually cause Geramny to have to fight for her very life - against France.
He also knew it was completely unneccesary. Consider the situation at the end of the war in 1870. Germny was united, and strong. Every other country in Europe but France (and the Swiss) was a monarchy. The German, British and Russian monarchs were cousins and allies. The Ottomans were peaceful. Italy was predisposed to be friendly to Germany.
The French were alone, with a democratic republic that the crowned heads found unsettling, without allies. Traditional enemies of the British. With the echoes of Napoleon's predations still stirring the old men of Russia and Austria.
Bismarck's plan was to reunify Germany, make peace with France, and essentially encourage the French and British to fight it out, leaving Germany a free hand.
But the Kaiser's and the German generals' blunder: grabbing a piece of France, changed all that.
France turned on Germany, and hated Germany alone.
1000 years of war with England - done - cooperation abroad. By 1905, essentially an alliance between the two. By 1914, formal alliance.
Russia, that Napoleon burnt down, with a Tsar who was cousin to the Kaiser, found itself courted by France. The French bankrolled the building of railroads and ports, and favored Russian claims here, there, everywhere. By the time of World War I, Russia, France's traditional enemy, was France's ally, committed to declare war on Germany if France were ever attacked. Of course the alliance was reciprocal, and the French were ITCHING for revenge.
In the Balkans, the French allied with everybody, bankrolled everybody. The German dream of peacefully expanding their influence into the Balkans through Austria ran, once again, into French-bankrolled adversaries.
Italy, which had originally unified very much against the French will, was bribed, bought off, subjected to every sort of blandishment. The French accomodated the Italians in Eritrea, where French Djibouti might have turned the place into another element of the French Empire, became Italian.
The French bent over backwards to placate all of their traditional enemies, to buy off the little countries, and by 1914, Germany faced the ultimate strategic nightmare: a France that would never, ever make peace with them unless they surrendered Alsace-Lorraine to them, allied with the British Empire, the Russian Empire, Rumania, the Greeks, even the Serbs, and whose heavy efforts in Italy would see Italy join her too.
Germany stood alone, with a weak-sister ally in Austria, and the decaying Ottoman Empire (whose territories would be divvied up between Britain and France) as her only friends.
And this time, France was not commanded by a boob.
Bismarck's nightmare, the very thing that he had tried to avoid, had come to pass. Germany attacked France, but this time the French did not collapse. The Germans were stopped. From that moment forward, things got worse and worse. The British sent their army. The Russians joined, then the Italians; finally even the Americans (with the American Expeditionary commander General Pershing saying "Lafayette, we are here!" when the Americans came ashore in France.
Germany did
In short: Germany could have won World War I by never fighting it. She never would have had to fight it had she not grabbed a piece of France in 1871. Bismarck knew it, warned his Emperor against it, and was overruled.
Had the Kaiser simply listened to Bismarck, Germany would have come to peacefully control all of central Europe, been in a good cooperative relationship with France, and would have been developing Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
Having made the strategic blunder of grabbing a piece of France in 1871, Germany was doomed to fight World War I. The French were never going to let it go.
And given German arrogance, the French were going to have the advantage in the diplomatic struggle. By 1914, the French had Germany completely enveloped on all sides. To win, Germany needed a battlefield miracle in France like she had in 1870. But the French Army was simply too good, and too well commanded this time, for the Germans to be able to do it again.
The Germans couldn't win at sea.
They couldn't win on land.
They were doomed before the war started, really.
To win World War II, Germany had to listen to Bismarck in 1871 and not take Alsace-Lorraine. Had they not done that, it is possible that World War II could have been a French-German effort to destroy the British Empire - and THAT would have probably been successful, for by 1914, the combined French and German navies were superior to the British Navy.
Instead, Germany took a piece of France and built a navy to antagonize the British, resulting in a French-British alliance which the Germans were not powerful enough to overcome.
It's "nein" you bloody idiot.
CHRIS57 Level 5 Commenter 15 months ago
After WWI in the early 20ties the world was at will of 3 powers, at the will of the French, British and the US. If Germany had won WWI, would that have changed the situation:
First, there are no natural ressources in Germany. Germany would have needed allies, better allies than the Austrians.
The beginning of WWI showed the same patriotic behavior in every nation, soldiers with high spirits marching to the front, with 3 cheers for the King, Kaiser...
With no substantial ressources and to keep the spirit high, that being the only mental ressource of Germany, Germany would have had to overrun and force to surrender either France or Britain (some kind of Blitzkrieg). Better would have been Britain, because Kaiser and King were relatives and would probably have found an agreement in the smoking room after their bloody chessmatch.
So lets assume all the Britisch Dreadnougths were sunk and at the same time all colonies declared war on England. Then Germany may have helped their newly overcome neighbour and relative out of the mess with the colonies. France with no relative to mourne in Serbia would have stayed put. Better French wine than French war, they had enough from Waterloo and 1871.
In Russia the revolution would take place not before 1925, after Lenin had died in his swiss exile and the Menchiwiki had overthrown Csar Nikolai II. Of course Kaiser Wilhelm II had tried to keep his other close family kin in Russia on the throne. However the wealth inequality in the Ukraine and Russia after 10 years of economic rally had become too large.
Germany with the UK on their side would become the major global player. The newly found mixture of prussian discipline, english fair play, scottish, swabian and bavarian ingenuity would have given world economy a kick, much more than anticipated in the roaring twenties. Germany would loose its language, finding it much more practical to communicate in English. The nation called itself Deutschanglia.
In the pacific, nothing really changed. Only after Japan had occupied most of Sibiria, China and was threatening Australia, Deutschanglia decided to defend their Commonwealth and declare war against Japan. It found a natural ally in the US. The US being worried for some time about aggressive Japan.
There was no WWII and no necessity for the US administration to force the American people into a war. So for a relatively long period of time relations between Japan and the US remained peaceful. Only when Japan started to look for South America and doing island conquering and hopping including and ambush at Pearl Harbour, the US joined with Deutschanglia into war with Japan.
It was well beyond the year 2100, when eventually the territories of India and China made their move to overthrow the colonial powers. China had been left to Japan by wize decision of the allies US and Deutschanglia.
Leaving the pacific to Japan for a very long period of time was owed to fact that a lot of trouble come from the Middle East where all developed nations saw their zone of interest. All of the quarrel was connected to oil. With respect to the islamic situation in the Middle East the conflict and turmoil was named Muslimoil.
Between those conflict zones of the Middle East on one side and India on the other side there existed a peaceful enclave called Afghanistan. As the British had their long experience from old colonial days, every nation was warned to keep their hands off.
During the Japan pacific war one nation took real benefit. After their revolution the Soviet Federation of Russian Nations had established a very moderate, social democratic administration. While Deutschanglia, Japan and the US exhausted their ressources, Russia raised to the top.
And yes - France, Italy, Spain and Portugal formed the mediterranian union, leaving Greece and Turkey in an everlasting local conflict.
Makes fun to come with an alternative timestream. Thanks for your hub.