Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mbailey on May 05, 2014, 09:01:02 PM
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I saw this on another forum I belong to and thought it would be intresting to bring the question here
Would the world be a better place?
I do think it's a bigger question than what if Princip never killed the Arch Duke as Europe was ripe for a war
If the Schlieffen Plan was successful and the Germans took out the French early in World War I, before Britain could get involved in the war:
A peace agreement probably would have been similar to the Franco-Prussian war and added a little more territory on each front to the German Empire. Since the war was short, the punishment would not be nearly as high as the Treaty of Versaille.
Also Hitler would never have come to power, due to the lack of German resentment for losing the war.
As a result, no holocaust or WWII
Also if the war ended early there would be no need to send Lenin into Russia and as a result there would no Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, oppressive communism, the massive amount of deaths related to Stalin, or a Cold War. With the Russians able to concentrate on the home front communism may have been blunted
There would also be no Saudi Arabia because the British would have never negotiated with the royal family for assistance against the Ottomans
The Ottomans would continue to keep the Middle East stable and filled with violence as it is now
Would America have become a Superpower?
What do you think about an alternate world of an early German victory of WWI?
I find the "what ifs" of history to be a very intresting topic as their are really no wrong answers. What are your thoughts?
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Who knows. Maybe I would be speaking German instead of English?
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Would the world be a better place?
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9779
Sorry. I would not have wanted these people in charge.
- oldman
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Who knows. Maybe I would be speaking German instead of English?
It was touch and go in America what would be the state language all the Immigrants were using German :old:
The Germans idea of Lebenraum in the East was already on the agenda at this time :old:
Russia would be like India :old:
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Interesting :aok
My History adviser (from Stuttgart, and remembers hvy bombers overhead) way back when, has done his whole life's work on the idea that post-war scarcity is the reason for the cultural revolution of the '60's, thus lots of time devoted to mindset (WW2) of rationing...however, he never brought up this idea, I wish we had though.
What he did bring up, was if they had let the lunatic in to damn art university, of course that's hardly worth talking about if you've ever seen his art.
Marx had already proposed his ideas, where would Europe have headed, roaring '20s, would the US and world markets still collapse in '29...hmmm
That professor always said, as if to poke us Americans in the eye, "Russia won the war, they spent the men," maybe so, but did America win the world?
:salute
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Well the nazi party would likely not have come to power. It's very difficult to imagine that a non-nazi Germany could have been worse.
You might find this interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5AbQF1jJ_A&list=PL6EA1BA1FBCABF250
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Honestly I think Europe would have still had another war left in them. By "winning" all that means is that probably Germany would have only subdued France. They could never have taken England nor would they have had the means of beating Englands Naval blockade on them. They didnt have the technology to over run Russia and probably would have frozen like Napoleon did.
Most likely thing would have ended with a negotiated settlement with better terms for Germany and worse for France. But I'd agree its unlikely the Nazis would have rose to power.
I dont think America and England would have accepted a mainland Europe dominated by Germany. And I dont think that Germany at the time had the ability or ruthlessness to enforce such a Empire. They were, at the time, an honorable educated Christian people. The German army was an honorable institution. However without the bitterness and economic meltdown imposed upon them by losing the world today would be a very different place. And a German army that thought it won, instead of Not thinking it lost, would probably have not made the deal with the Devil it eventually did in order to rise to prominence again.
Very interesting thread.
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I have to admit I know much more about ww2 than ww1. This exert ( if accurate) is about the causes of ww1 and interesting it states Japan and Britain had an alliance? Never knew Japans role in ww1. I guess all these nations were positioning themselves to control resources.
Over time, countries throughout Europe made mutual defense agreements that would pull them into battle. Thus, if one country was attacked, allied countries were bound to defend them. Before World War 1, the following alliances existed:
•Russia and Serbia
•Germany and Austria-Hungary
•France and Russia
•Britain and France and Belgium
•Japan and Britain
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia got involved to defend Serbia. Germany seeing Russia mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany attacked France through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies.
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While the idea of this thread is not bad, at all, I can easily see it wondering into politics.
So here is a preemptive warning. If you do bring politics into this thread, it will not end well. Just a friendly heads up.
Thank you.
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See Rule #2
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Wilhelm was a weak man trying to prove he was strong. It lead to his erratic posturing, impulsivness and bullying behaviour.
If Wilhelm had managed to win WW1 he would have continued to sabre rattle and cause conflict to continue to build an Empire.
Poland would have still been invaded as 1897 Weltpolitik stated that Gemany should have a colonial empire, an ocean going navy and most notably, Living Space (in the east).
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We would have to wear leather shorts and eat big sausages :cry
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But I like big sausages! With beer :cheers:
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:banana:
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:cheers:
I have to admit I know much more about ww2 than ww1. This exert ( if accurate) is about the causes of ww1 and interesting it states Japan and Britain had an alliance? Never knew Japans role in ww1. I guess all these nations were positioning themselves to control resources.
Over time, countries throughout Europe made mutual defense agreements that would pull them into battle. Thus, if one country was attacked, allied countries were bound to defend them. Before World War 1, the following alliances existed:
•Russia and Serbia
•Germany and Austria-Hungary
•France and Russia
•Britain and France and Belgium
•Japan and Britain
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia got involved to defend Serbia. Germany seeing Russia mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany attacked France through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies.
I believe Belgium also accidentally declared war on themselves at first in the confusion......
As to the results, really hard to say. But we would likely not be us at this point if we were at all. And we'd be playing Grey Demons and complaining the torps were overmodeled and wondering what would have happened if they had lost the war.
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We would have to wear leather shorts and eat big sausages :cry
Some images cannot be defined nor erased.......
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all I see is my grandma perhaps telling me how her cousins with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes would have been married and have kids instead of being mia when the german army called them up when they grew up in mexico. or my other grandma about how her oldest son who moved to the united states looking for work didnt get a letter that he had been drafter and was going to a place called europe.
semp
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There's not very much to say France wouldn't have been humiliated at the hands of Germany similar to the way it happened vice-versa and a similar situation could've resulted.
WWI would have resulted either way, Europe was a powder keg at the beginning of the 20th century. Similarly, honestly which ever side would've lost probably would have had a totalitarian demagogue come to power. It happened in Germany and it happened in Russia.
It even happened in Italy, and they not only won, but got a lot of concessions that they wanted.
It happened in Spain, and they were neutral.
Japan even got a more hostile, militarist government resulting from the first world war, and they won as well.
Inter-war Europe was also rife for extreme political movements that were inevitably going to be very aggressive toward each other.
I honestly think that the path of the Europe in the first half of the twentieth century was practically set in stone.
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I have to admit I know much more about ww2 than ww1. This exert ( if accurate) is about the causes of ww1 and interesting it states Japan and Britain had an alliance? Never knew Japans role in ww1. I guess all these nations were positioning themselves to control resources.
Over time, countries throughout Europe made mutual defense agreements that would pull them into battle. Thus, if one country was attacked, allied countries were bound to defend them. Before World War 1, the following alliances existed:
•Russia and Serbia
•Germany and Austria-Hungary
•France and Russia
•Britain and France and Belgium
•Japan and Britain
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia got involved to defend Serbia. Germany seeing Russia mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany attacked France through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies.
WWI was a mess politically. Italy was originally aligned with the central powers as well, it took a lot of politicking to for them to declare war on Austria-Hungary.
It's kind of interesting how under-appreciated that front was, at least in the US. Something like 1.5-2 million people died. More Italians died in the First Wold War than Americans in both world wars combined.
It took a while for the Central Powers to get the Ottoman Empire in on the whole thing too
And then there's the Zimmerman Telegraph
And then of course there's the fact that Kaiser Wilhelm II, Czar Nicholas II, and King George V were all first cousins
It was a crazy time
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Russia was already on the road to revolution before WW1. The war only sped it up in my opinion.
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http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9779
Sorry. I would not have wanted these people in charge.
- oldman
Very interesting article Oldman. Seems like the precursor of the barbaric things to come in WWII.
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We would have to wear leather shorts and eat big sausages :cry
No change for you there then big boy :banana:
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:old:
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I have been listening to Dan Carlins new podcast about WWI....I love this description of the German army marching thru Belgium at the start of the hostilities...gives me chills (to hear Carlin read it is even better)
Richard Harding Davis, American newspaper man staying in the upper floors of a hotel in Brussels:
<quote>
"The entrance of the German army into Brussels has lost the human quality. It was lost as soon as the three soldiers who led the army bicycled into the Boulevard du Régent and asked the way to the Gare du Nord. When they passed, the human note passed with them. What came after them, and twenty-four hours later is still coming, is not men marching, but a force of nature like a tidal wave, an avalanche or a river flooding its banks. At this minute it is rolling through Brussels as the swollen waters of the Conemaugh Valley swept through Johnstown.
c
At the sight of the first few regiments of the enemy we were thrilled with interest. After they had passed for three hours in one unbroken steel-gray column were bored. But when hour after hour passed and there was no halt, no breathing time, no open spaces in the ranks, the thing became uncanny, inhuman. You returned to watch it, fascinated. It held the mystery and menace of fog rolling toward you across the sea.
The gray of the uniforms worn by both officers and men helped this air of mystery. Only the sharpest eye could detect among the thousands that passed the slightest difference. All moved under a cloak of in visibility. Only after the most numerous and severe tests, with all materials and combinations of color that give forth no color, could this gray have been discovered. That it was selected to clothe and disguise the German when he fights is typical of the German Staff in striving for efficiency to leave nothing to chance, to neglect no detail.
After you have seen this service uniform under conditions entirely opposite you are convinced that for the German soldier it is his strongest weapon. Even the most expert marksman cannot hit the target unless he can see. It is a gray-green, not the blue-gray of our Confederates. It is the gray of the hour just before daybreak, the gray of unpolished steel, of mist among green trees.
I saw it first in the Grand Place in front of the Hotel de Ville. It was impossible to tell if in that noble square there was a regiment or a brigade. You saw only a fog that melted into the stones, blended with the ancient house fronts, that shifted and drifted, but left you nothing at which you could point.
Later, as the army passed below my window, under the trees of the Botanical Park, it merged and was lost against the green leaves. It is no exaggeration to say that at a hundred yards you can see the horses on which the Uhlans ride, but cannot see the men who ride them.
If I appear to overemphasize this disguising uniform it is because of all the details of the German out fit it appealed to me as one of the most remarkable. The other day, when I was with the rear guard of the French Dragoons and Cuirassiers and they threw out pickets, we could distinguish them against the yellow wheat or green gorse at half a mile, while these men passing in the street, when they have reached the next crossing, become merged into the gray of the paving stones and the earth swallows them. In comparison the yellow khaki of our own American Army is about as invisible as the flag of Spain.
Yesterday Major General von Jarotsky, the German Military Governor of Brussels, assured Burgomaster Max that the German army would not occupy the city, but would pass through it. It is still passing. I have followed in campaigns six armies, but excepting not even our own, the Japanese or the British, 1 have not seen one so thoroughly equipped. I am not speaking of the fighting qualities of any army, only of the equipment and organization. The German army moved into this city as smoothly and as compactly as an Empire State Express. There were no halts, no open place, no stragglers.
This army has been on active service three weeks, and so far there is not apparently a chin-strap or a horseshoe missing. It came in with the smoke pouring from cookstoves on wheels, and in an hour had set up post office wagons, from which mounted messengers galloped along the line of column distributing letters and at which soldiers posted picture post-cards.
The infantry came in in files of five, two hundred men to each company; the lancers in columns of four, with not a pennant missing. The quick-firing guns and field pieces were one hour at a time in passing, each gun with its caisson and ammunition wagon taking twenty seconds in which to pass.
The men of the infantry sang "Fatherland, My Fatherland." Between each line of song they took three steps. At times two thousand men were singing together in absolute rhythm and beat. When the, melody gave way the silence was broken only by the stamp of ironshod boots, and then again the song rose. When the singing ceased the bands played marches. They were followed by the rumbles of siege guns, the creaking of wheels and of chains clanking against the cobble-stones and the sharp bell-like voices of the bugles.
For seven hours the army passed in such solid column that not once might a taxicab or trolley car pass through the city. Like a river of steel it flowed, gray and ghostlike. Then, as dusk came and a thousands of horses' hoofs and thousands of iron boots continued to tramp forward, they struck tiny sparks from the stones, but the horses and men who beat out the sparks were invisible.
At midnight pack wagons and siege guns were still passing. At seven this morning I was awakened by the tramp of men and bands playing jauntily. Whether they marched all day or not I do not know; but for twenty six hours the gray army rumbled with the mystery of fog and the pertinacity of a steam roller." <end quote>
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^^^^ Great read it vividly describes the event. The Germans knew how to win Battles but not how to win wars.
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Just watched BBC program about Nazis :old:
Good bit when British soldiers catch up with Rudolf Hoss and give the animal a leathering :rofl