03-02-2012, 05:16 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Quote:
Again, Germany wins the Great War, or somehow unifies along the lines England and France did. The Kaiser wins the Investiture Controversy, perhaps? |
|
03-02-2012, 06:39 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Hmm...
I guess part of the question in my mind is, how big does the Great War have to get before it's great? My thinking, more-or-less, was that without France as a Great Power, there's no pact between France and Russia that leads France to declare war on Germany after Germany declares war on Russia. And without France, would the U.K. really go it alone against Germany? For the purposes of the end goal here, I assume not*. Now, without France, does Russia declare war on Austria-Hungary? Maybe, maybe not. If they do, they might get steamrollered by Germany which is only fighting a one front war (assuming the Germans don't go after Italy, which seems unlikely). Would that be a war great enough to be a Great War? Maybe. Otherwise, Russia decides that discretion is the better part of valour, and hangs the Serbs out to dry, and WWI fizzles before it lights off. About the only thing I think leads to greater Prussian annexation of France after the Franco-Prussian war is if the French, instead of agreeing to an Armstice to end the seige of Paris, choose to fight it out to the bitter end. At which point Germany does pretty much whatever they want with it. * I can see England, and especially the house of Hannover, deciding they have more in common with Germany than either Russia or a rather denuded France. So they stay out of what they feel is a 'Continental War' that doesn't concern them.
__________________
An ongoing narrative of philosophy, psychology, and semiotics: Et in Arcadia Ego "To an Irishman, a serious matter is a joke, and a joke is a serious matter." |
03-02-2012, 09:23 PM | #23 | |||||
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Quote:
Even if France and environs are split—say, Holland and Flanders and Alsace and Lorraine go to Germany, Walloons and Burgundy and Brittany are independent polities or at least separate of France, southern France goes to Spain—someone is going to have control of those resources. Spain? I can see a super-Spain with Spain, Portugal, and the Langue d'Oc parts of France, but now it controls resources and stays a great power. But it's a different power, more rural. I presume it holds onto Gibraltar, which boosts its prestige and saps England's. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
So some points of divergence. This is interesting: * I can't see the Reformation being stemmed, since, regardless of whatever theological issues, there was too much to gain for so many states to split from Rome. You have make Germany more independent of Rome first. (I'm sure you can dig up other places, but I'll again pitch the Investiture Controversy.) Regardless, Germany is sprawling, but Habsburg-dominated and generally unified. * Richelieu somehow botches the Thirty Years War, which unifies Germany under Habsburg domination. The capital of Germany is Vienna and it includes Bohemia and the Low Countries but not Poland; Prussia proper (or, as they used to say in Germany, Altpreussen), oddly enough, is probably also left outside, but still German-speaking. France is sapped, to the weal of Germany and Spain and to a lesser extent England. * Prussia joins the Third Coalition, helping England, Austria and Russia defeat France and the Holy Roman Empire stays intact. Germany is probably still bipolar as it is (modern Germany being essentially the remains of Prussia and its those southern lands that basically gave up their independence, and modern Austria being south Germany), though Austria would dominate Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony and the Rhineland, maybe Hanover and Oldenburg (or those go to the British crown in some sort of loose union with the UK), leaving Prussia to itself and Mecklenburg and Holstein, and maybe Hanover and Oldenburg. Or, the events of the 1860s happen to the benefit of Austria, not Prussia (which becomes the lesser allied satellite). Russia wouldn't dare to move into the Balkans to upset this state, and negotiates some help from Germany and Prussia (wow, that's weird to type) in the Russo-Japanese war to keep Russian interests away from the region. * Germany doesn't bother to build up its navy in the 1890s or at least limits it to the Baltic, keeping England at least neutral, though this also probably keeps the Ottomans out of any conflict. * Kerensky thinks of Russia and not France and throws in the towel in 1917, letting Germany and Austria-Hungary mop up in Italy and the Balkans and move all troops into France before the Americans can send troops. Fascism takes hold in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Romania rather than Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Romania, leading to Germany being allied with England and America in the inevitable anti-fascist war, with Russia being the wild card yet again, or going fascist itself. |
|||||
03-03-2012, 03:05 AM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Quote:
http://www.shwi.alternatehistory.com...ead.php?t=2687 |
|
03-03-2012, 03:30 AM | #25 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Germany
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
maybe a successful revolution in 1848? 12 years later a young unified and democratic Germany sides with the North vs. the "slavekeeper states" of the South, thus leading to a "special relationship" with the Union. Add some german colonies (esp. in the Pacific and Africa) and let it cook for a few decades...
__________________
Malmsturm: German FATE Sword&Sorcery Roleplaying |
03-03-2012, 07:22 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Quote:
I'm not saying it isn't possible, but there needs to be a clear reason why history doesn't happen this way. |
|
03-03-2012, 08:06 AM | #27 | |||
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Mannheim, Baden
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Quote:
Its manifestations might not have been so different from earlier anti-Jewish sentiment, but there was a strong biologist component to German racism. I don't want to say Goldhagen and Fischer are right, but there is certainly some continuity that makes me doubtful of a really positive German parallel. I am not saying that a "good guy" Germany would not be possible or indeed likely with a different outcome of WWI, but visitors from our timeline would still have to contend with quite a few opinions and customs that would come rather close to Nazi thinking. Victory also precludes the need for re-orientation and self-examination like it took place in post-WWII Germany Quote:
An 1848 divergence point would have the advantage that you don't have to make up that many new German artists, scientists and philosophers. The end result would be easily recognisable. You should include a lot of infighting between different members of the new confederation, though. But that makes for good stories and a healthy political culture. Quote:
One general point about the scenarios arguing for greater power, expansion or more unified German state. I may be prejudiced in this regard, but I think loose confederations are more conductive to both scientific and cultural achievements. It might not hold up to scientific scrutiny in every case, but it certainly makes for a good narrative trope to distinguish "Culture Germany" from "Power Germany". This might even work if some other power conquers them in the end. The Baltic Germans were very influential in the Russian Empire, for example, and they were a tiny minority. Think of what could have happened if Russia conquered everything to the Rhine and then found it couldn't hope to govern without extensive help from the conquered. It's just like the "defeated Greece conquered Rome" scenario. |
|||
03-03-2012, 08:18 AM | #28 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Actually, now that I think of it, Iron, one of the timelines in GURPS Steampunk, could plausibly be described as German-dominant, though the United States, Japan, and Sweden are important secondary powers imitating the German model as far as possible. There's a backstory involving the UK and France going to war over the Fashoda Incident and Friedrich Engels meeting Charles Babbage, among other things.
Bill Stoddard |
03-03-2012, 08:27 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Apr 2011
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Kaiser Wilhelm II has an uneventful birth, and grows up strong, healthy, and deeply influenced by (rather than hostile to) his equally fun British cousins. This ended up having a profound impact on the young man. Without a disfigurement to over-compensate for, his impetuousness was channeled into a sharp satirical wit and playboy lifestyle rather than hot-tempered militarism.
Upon taking the throne, the new Kaiser largely left the day-to-day operations of the throne to Bismarck. Under Bismarck, Germany increasingly sought to tie the great powers together with a series of complex and entangling alliances, designed to prevent an alliance directed against him. Wilhelm's early efforts were largely directed at suppressing pro-democratic forces to provide cover for Bismarck's supposedly "timid" policies. As Bismarck did, he attempted to defuse democratic sentiments by buying the public off with ambitious entitlement programs. It largely worked. The militant German nationalist press condemned him as a "meek, besotted dilletante", and history has largely seen his reign as a wasted opportunity. In particular, they decry his botched handling of the assassination of his dear friend, the Archduke Ferdinand. In the end, the Russo-Austrian war of 1918 proved to be a comic collision of two powers incapable of harming each other, but more than capable of smashing themselves into oblivion. The farce spiraled out of control and ended with both empires collapsing. One fell to communism, while Austria became a network of smaller states, under heavy german influence but nominally independent. What might have been a golden opportunity to double the size of the German Empire, became a major communist rival and a festering sore of ethnic bloodshed in the Balkans that took more than two decades to quell. Meanwhile, German industrialization, technology and demographic advantages made it the dominant power in Europe, despite its leaders' timidity. At a time when England might otherwise have turned against it, a combination of French petulance and the personal relationship between Wilhelm and the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (especially his childhood friend King Edward) lead to England staying on the sidelines as Germany consolidated its power. He and Edward are remembered as "the Playboy Kings". Democracy in the modern world is considered a peculiar Anglo-Saxon institution. The British Empire remains strong but sclerotic. The Americans remain isolationist but heavily industrialized; while they may well be the most powerful country in the world, the other European powers would be surprised to hear it (so would the Americans). France remains a basket case, as a series of leaders still follow the model of Louis Napoleon and are still bewildered that they get the same results. Russia remains backward and still struggles to escape international isolation; under Stalin, their main concern is uniting nationalist and internationalist socialism under a single (russian-lead) banner. Incredibly, the Ottoman empire clings to life. German's main role in the international community is to keep all the teetering and out-of-control powers on their border from destroying themselves and their neighbors. It's an economic powerhouse, politically stable and (finally) nationally self-confident. Antisemitism, always a feature of European culture, remains rife but relatively benign compared to what the Nazis brought. Actual violence is limited to Russia, where purges never target Jews directly, but always seem to hit them the hardest. Anti-Jewish laws were mostly repealed in the 20's, but discrimination remains common and socially acceptable. Einstein and other jewish scientists remained in Germany or its satellites, and Germany retains its position as the world leader in both science and technology. Games in this world should center on European countries other than Germany. France, Spain and Italy are constantly swinging between revolutions. Conspiracies, terrorist cells, and radical student movements embrace any and every cause. In Eastern Europe, it's Cold War adventure-- only this time, it's between the German Empire and the Soviet Union, and the gloves are off on both sides. Adventures in the ottoman empire are a mix of the two: separatists and revolutionary movements contend with Great Power skullduggery. Upperclass Germans, Englishmen, and now some Americans often go on a wanderjahr that includes idealistic or opportunistic meddling in local politics. |
03-03-2012, 09:00 AM | #30 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: [IW] Non-Nazi Germany-Dominant World?
Ah! Works for me.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
Tags |
alternate history, germany, hanseatic league, infinite worlds, nazis |
|
|