eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 27, 2017 18:13:25 GMT
As requested in another thread, here is a scenario for a successful Weimar Germany. Possible PoDs for this may vary, one of my preferred ones is Chancellor Heinrich Bruning getting successful in his schemes during the early 1930s. He sets up a customs union between Germany and Austria in 1931 which soon evolves in a democratic Anschluss. France is unable to interfere by sabotaging the German and Austrian banking system because the Great Depression hits it harder than OTL. Germany buys Mussolini's compliance by giving it a compensation package that includes German support for Italian ambitions in Ethiopia and the Balkans, as well as a deal to transfer the German-speaking population of South Tyrol to Germany.
Bruning engineers Germany's political stabilization by organizing a deal between the DNVP, the SPD, the Zentrum, and the Liberals to restore the Hohenzollern monarchy with the former Crown Prince or one of his sons on the throne. The former Kaiser is unable to veto the deal because of his early death, and his son approves it, securing full support from Hindenburg and the Nationalists. The Reichstag cancels the 1932 presidential election, extends Hindenburg's term, and proclaims a monarchy with Hindenburg as regent. Upon Hindenburg's death, Crown Prince William or one of his sons gets invited to assume the throne. The restored Kaiser more or less keeps the Reichspresident's powers, although most of his political decisions require the assent of the Chancellor or the competent Minister. The German government indefinitely suspends payment of reparations and starts a massive public-works program that significatively lessens unemployment.
These policies please the German public opinion and support for the NSDAP and the KPD substantially lessens. The government picks the excuse of Nazi and Communist involvement in street violence to ban both parties. When their militias try to stage a clumsy uprising in a uneasy alliance of convenience, the army crushes them without too much effort with the support of the Nationalist and Socialist militias. Bruning takes the opportunity of monarchical restoration and the failed Commie-Nazi uprising to enact a comprehensive constitutional reform. It includes introduction of constructive vote of no confidence, an electoral law reform to curb political fragmentation and ban extremist parties, a change of German states' borders to make federalism balanced, and a restoration of the most prestigious German dynasties besides the Hohenzollern as heads of state in various states, such as the Wettin in Saxony, the Wittelsbach in Bavaria, the Welf in Hanover, and the Habsburg in Austria. Political reforms, foreign-policy successes, and economic recovery spurred by public-works and rearmament programs stabilize German democracy and drain support for extremist movements to fringe insignificance. The new constitutional monarchy system proves a compromise all major German political factions (Nationalists, Christian Democrats, Socialists, and Liberals) and the Heer can more or less support in good faith.
Germany re-establishes conscription, expands the army to full size, and scraps all weapons limitations, with the aim of land and air military parity with the Entente powers and the USSR. However it offers a deal to France and Britain for mutual and balanced arms limitations in Western Europe that would not endanger Germany on its eastern border nor Anglo-French control of the colonies. It scraps unilateral demilitarization of the Rhineland but offers the French to establish a mutual, balanced demilitarization of Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland. It signs a version of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement with an extension of naval limitations to submarines. Negotiations for a forces limitation and border demilitarization treaty in Western Europe prove complex but ultimately successful between Germany, France, and Britain.
When German rearmament has progressed enough, the German government starts to put increasing pressure on Czechoslovakia and Poland for a revision of the status of the Sudetenland, Danzig, and the Corridor by internationally-supervised plebiscites. Britain and France do not really care to risk a general war for the sake of territorial integrity of the Polish and Czechoslovak states, for the usual appeasement reasons magnified by the non-threatening attitude of democratic Germany and its ability to use national self-determination of ethnic Germans to win sympathy for its cause. The Czechs eventually cave in to international pressure and isolation; the Soviets offer military help but it proves impossible to provide after the Poles and the Romanians refuse to give passage to the Red Army. A plebiscite gives the Sudetenland to Germany and southern Slovakia to Hungary.
The Poles stubbornly cling to the Versailles status quo and refuse all German requests about a revision of the status of Danzig and the Corridor. Out of nationalist pride and overconfidence, they overestimate their own importance and military capabilities, and underestimate resurgent German military power, the threat of Soviet intervention, and their own growing isolation. The pro-German government of the Free City of Danzig eventually loses patience and sets up a plebiscite under its own authority. When it approves union with Germany, the Danzig authorities move to enact it and sever all ties with Poland. The Poles send their army in the Free City to suppress the union, and the Danzig Germans appeal to Berlin for military protection. Fighting between German and Polish troops starts in the Free City and soon escalates to a state of war.
Britain and France refuse any aid to Poland under these premises and the German army proves much more effective than the Poles had expected, quickly seizing the upper hand. The fate of Poland is sealed when the Soviets opportunistically invade the eastern Polish territories; the Polish army is utterly crushed in the two-front war, despite the poor performance of the Red Army. Despite mutual distrust, the Germans and the Soviets agree out of common interest to a partial partition of Poland. Germany annexes Danzig, the Corridor, and Upper Silesia. Being mindful of their past bad experiences with Polish separatism, the Germans enact a forced population exchange of the Polish population in the annexed territories and the remaining German minority in Poland. The USSR annexes the eastern Polish territories, and their inhabitants become subject to Stalinist terror.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 27, 2017 20:08:58 GMT
Well this is much better than your usual TLs with their emphasis on military conquest largely for its own sake, although the hacking up of Czechosolvakia seems very petty given that if extreme nationlistic feeling in German is suppressed there is neither need or motive for it.
Would also say that under those circumstances Poland would seek a settlement that still allowed it some access the the sea to avoid it becoming dependent on German controlled access given the previous bad history of German rule.
Not sure that France would be happy with being made that much more vulnerable, losing its eastern defences against a markedly larger Germany but it might be presurised into such a concession. However this does leave it very vulnerable if German was to turn expansionist again.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 27, 2017 20:57:48 GMT
As requested in another thread, here is a scenario for a successful Weimar Germany. Possible PoDs for this may vary, one of my preferred ones is Chancellor Heinrich Bruning getting successful in his schemes during the early 1930s. He sets up a customs union between Germany and Austria in 1931 which soon evolves in a democratic Anschluss. France is unable to interfere by sabotaging the German and Austrian banking system because the Great Depression hits it harder than OTL. Germany buys Mussolini's compliance by giving it a compensation package that includes German support for Italian ambitions in Ethiopia and the Balkans, as well as a deal to transfer the German-speaking population of South Tyrol to Germany. So do we have a strong leader for Germany who in the late 1930s. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 27, 2017 21:48:30 GMT
Well this is much better than your usual TLs with their emphasis on military conquest largely for its own sake, although the hacking up of Czechosolvakia seems very petty given that if extreme nationlistic feeling in German is suppressed there is neither need or motive for it. The Sudetenland people wanted to join Germany since 1919, well before Nazism was a thing. ITTL Czechoslovakia had no moral high ground or better appeal vs. a successful, prosperous, and stable Weimar Germany to counter the nationalist argument in the eyes of Sudetenland Germans so their irredentism got strong on its own. The Germans got the dispute settled and another injustice of Versailles rectified the way it ought to be, by internationally-supervised plebiscite. As nationalists often try to do, the Czechoslovak leaders wanted to eat their cake and have it: if self-determination was the criteria, the Sudetenland belonged to Germany; if the historical, economic, or security arguments were the criteria, then Germany had as valid a claim on Bohemia-Moravia at large as the Czechs had on the Sudetenland, because of the region's millennial political bond with German states, its position as a salient in German territory, and the HRE forming a natural economic area. ITTL the Germans and the Czechs get a stable ethnic border sanctioned by the will of the people and international consensus, Weimar Germany has no further ambitions on the Czech state nor any incentive to undermine its democracy. In a few years the two nations can achieve friendly coexistence and resume the close economic, cultural, and political bonds history and geography called for, quite possibly all the way to a customs union. I'm just not so sure if ITTL circumstances the secession of Slovakia would occur or not, although it did twice IOTL, so I'm leaning on the positive. Theoretically speaking yes, a compromise that conceded the minimum German demands for Danzig and an extra-territorial connection across the Corridor would have been the by far best course for Poland in these circumstances. But their interwar foreign policy was from beginning to end so stupid, arrogant, and stubborn, and built on a foolish dream to recreate the PLC and the assumption the fleeting circumstances of 1919 would trump geopolitical hard facts forever (despite the near-miss warning of 1921), that I let the same suicidal mindset be pursued to the extreme consequences. Fortunately for the Poles, however, the price of the lesson was not so hard ITTL. They got beaten down into geopolitically-sustainable borders, their people kicked out of a few valuable territories to entrench the new borders, and painfully purged of their nationalist delusions of grandeur. But the Polish nation still stands with stable ethnic borders, a sizable territory, and good resources that are entirely able to support a prosperous livelihood. Democratic Germany has no further claim on them nor any wish to oppress them. Most of the nation has been spared its terrible OTL fate, although unfortunately not the eastern portion, but it cannot be helped since ITTL Stalinism is still a big thing. In a few years the Poles are in all likelihood going to acknowledge friendship with a democratic Germany on terms the stronger party is comfortable with and the other side can live with is by far their best course available. Once detente sets in, the Germans and the Poles can surely negotiate suitable terms for economic cooperation, cheap transit of Polish trade through German ports, and anti-Soviet collaboration. Please. History abundantly proved the Franco-Polish strategic platform whose collapse you seem to regret so much was utterly worthless for France, suicidal for Poland, a foolish pipe-dream for both nations, and an excellent way to antagonize Germany in a self-fulfilling prophecy way since great powers do not usually take purposeful attempts to encircle them kindly. Much better the house of cards collapsed this way with limited damage ITTL (apart from the Polish victims of Stalin) and now the French, the Germans, the British, and even the Poles after bad blood of defeat settles down can pursue genuine reconciliation with no serious grievances left between them. The forces-limitations and border demilitarization treaties are a good start for that, much more so than the Little Entente crap you seem to miss. The British realized they had no interest in spilling bucketfuls of their blood and money again to help the Poles avoid paying customs duties to the Germans in a German port, and harnessing the cooperation of a sane and reasonable Germany to contain the Soviet threat was much more important than anything the Polish nationalists could ever do for them. They were entirely willing to continue supporting the security of France at the Rhine, but not at the price of being dragged into another huge bloodbath that would accelerate the decline of their empire for the sake of French paranoia and Eastern European nationalists with delusions of grandeur. ITTL there is no Nazism on a rampage to give the anti-appeasers any vindication or moral high ground, so they go into the court of public opinion and history books as warmonger lunatics, and the appeasers get glorified as wise statesmen that protected peace, learned the lesson of WWI, and prevented paranoid nationalists from plunging the continent into another massive, senseless bloodbath. Anti-German paranoia goes out of political fashion, and the anti-appeasers get rooted out of office or marginalized. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 27, 2017 22:11:49 GMT
As requested in another thread, here is a scenario for a successful Weimar Germany. Possible PoDs for this may vary, one of my preferred ones is Chancellor Heinrich Bruning getting successful in his schemes during the early 1930s. He sets up a customs union between Germany and Austria in 1931 which soon evolves in a democratic Anschluss. France is unable to interfere by sabotaging the German and Austrian banking system because the Great Depression hits it harder than OTL. Germany buys Mussolini's compliance by giving it a compensation package that includes German support for Italian ambitions in Ethiopia and the Balkans, as well as a deal to transfer the German-speaking population of South Tyrol to Germany. So do we have a strong leader for Germany who in the late 1930s. Whoever manages to get himself elected Chancellor, of course. But in practice TTL Bruning got such an excellent, Bismarck-like domestic and foreign policy record that I assume he manages to stay in office at least as much as Adenauer, Kohl, and Merkel. Even the best democratic leaders eventually exhaust their political capital to incumbent fatigue and changing circumstances, but the most talented, successful, and lucky ones can easily reap 12-15 years in office, and sometimes push close to 20. Since he got in office in 1930, settled pretty much all the important problems of Germany in the subsequent decade, and his reforms purged Weimar Germany of its political instability down to post-WWII levels, I assume he is still quite in office in the late 1930s, with some serious popularity and political capital left in him. ITTL Bruning, FDR, Mussolini, and Stalin more or less form the 'elder statesmen' circle of the international community by the end of the 1930s, although FDR is about to leave office since he won't be able to defy precedent and claim a third term if Europe is at peace. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 28, 2017 17:47:27 GMT
Well this is much better than your usual TLs with their emphasis on military conquest largely for its own sake, although the hacking up of Czechosolvakia seems very petty given that if extreme nationlistic feeling in German is suppressed there is neither need or motive for it. The Sudetenland people wanted to join Germany since 1919, well before Nazism was a thing. ITTL Czechoslovakia had no moral high ground or better appeal vs. a successful, prosperous, and stable Weimar Germany to counter the nationalist argument in the eyes of Sudetenland Germans so their irredentism got strong on its own. The Germans got the dispute settled and another injustice of Versailles rectified the way it ought to be, by internationally-supervised plebiscite. As nationalists often try to do, the Czechoslovak leaders wanted to eat their cake and have it: if self-determination was the criteria, the Sudetenland belonged to Germany; if the historical, economic, or security arguments were the criteria, then Germany had as valid a claim on Bohemia-Moravia at large as the Czechs had on the Sudetenland, because of the region's millennial political bond with German states, its position as a salient in German territory, and the HRE forming a natural economic area. ITTL the Germans and the Czechs get a stable ethnic border sanctioned by the will of the people and international consensus, Weimar Germany has no further ambitions on the Czech state nor any incentive to undermine its democracy. In a few years the two nations can achieve friendly coexistence and resume the close economic, cultural, and political bonds history and geography called for, quite possibly all the way to a customs union. I'm just not so sure if ITTL circumstances the secession of Slovakia would occur or not, although it did twice IOTL, so I'm leaning on the positive. Theoretically speaking yes, a compromise that conceded the minimum German demands for Danzig and an extra-territorial connection across the Corridor would have been the by far best course for Poland in these circumstances. But their interwar foreign policy was from beginning to end so stupid, arrogant, and stubborn, and built on a foolish dream to recreate the PLC and the assumption the fleeting circumstances of 1919 would trump geopolitical hard facts forever (despite the near-miss warning of 1921), that I let the same suicidal mindset be pursued to the extreme consequences. Fortunately for the Poles, however, the price of the lesson was not so hard ITTL. They got beaten down into geopolitically-sustainable borders, their people kicked out of a few valuable territories to entrench the new borders, and painfully purged of their nationalist delusions of grandeur. But the Polish nation still stands with stable ethnic borders, a sizable territory, and good resources that are entirely able to support a prosperous livelihood. Democratic Germany has no further claim on them nor any wish to oppress them. Most of the nation has been spared its terrible OTL fate, although unfortunately not the eastern portion, but it cannot be helped since ITTL Stalinism is still a big thing. In a few years the Poles are in all likelihood going to acknowledge friendship with a democratic Germany on terms the stronger party is comfortable with and the other side can live with is by far their best course available. Once detente sets in, the Germans and the Poles can surely negotiate suitable terms for economic cooperation, cheap transit of Polish trade through German ports, and anti-Soviet collaboration. Please. History abundantly proved the Franco-Polish strategic platform whose collapse you seem to regret so much was utterly worthless for France, suicidal for Poland, a foolish pipe-dream for both nations, and an excellent way to antagonize Germany in a self-fulfilling prophecy way since great powers do not usually take purposeful attempts to encircle them kindly. Much better the house of cards collapsed this way with limited damage ITTL (apart from the Polish victims of Stalin) and now the French, the Germans, the British, and even the Poles after bad blood of defeat settles down can pursue genuine reconciliation with no serious grievances left between them. The forces-limitations and border demilitarization treaties are a good start for that, much more so than the Little Entente crap you seem to miss. The British realized they had no interest in spilling bucketfuls of their blood and money again to help the Poles avoid paying customs duties to the Germans in a German port, and harnessing the cooperation of a sane and reasonable Germany to contain the Soviet threat was much more important than anything the Polish nationalists could ever do for them. They were entirely willing to continue supporting the security of France at the Rhine, but not at the price of being dragged into another huge bloodbath that would accelerate the decline of their empire for the sake of French paranoia and Eastern European nationalists with delusions of grandeur. ITTL there is no Nazism on a rampage to give the anti-appeasers any vindication or moral high ground, so they go into the court of public opinion and history books as warmonger lunatics, and the appeasers get glorified as wise statesmen that protected peace, learned the lesson of WWI, and prevented paranoid nationalists from plunging the continent into another massive, senseless bloodbath. Anti-German paranoia goes out of political fashion, and the anti-appeasers get rooted out of office or marginalized. Para 1 - any actual evidence that the German minority, which was well treated in Czechoslovakia, was that determined to jump ship? Excluding extreme German nationalistic sources of course. Similarly are you going to insist that the Germans of Switzerland and the minorities in Italy and scattered across much of Eastern Europe must all have the lands their currently living in come under German rule! Para 2 - Yes the Poles made a lot of mistakes between 1919-39 but they were fair less culpible than the Germans. Para 3 - Your ignoring the question. Its nothing to do with any Franco-Polish defence pact against Germany, although what yoiur suggesting does make that less effective. Referring to the fact that the French, who are a lot weaker than a rearming Germany, is expected to give up its main defensive line against a German attack, leaving it highly vulnerable to such an attack. True a democratic Germany may not take that choice but you have France habing to make a unilateral concession, which given the resources invested on the defences and recent history is going to be a difficult sell for any French politician. Its expecially odd given how you assume it is nature for large powerful state to attack and conquer weaker neighbours. What reassurance does France have that Germany will NOT act as you have so often assumed your selected master nation would do? Especially since you seem to assume that Germany is still arming to the teeth. Why if there is no need and everything is hunky-dory? - Please don't use the phantom of Stalin's empire. That is best countered by a properly defensive coalition rather than another nation throwing its weight about recklessly. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 28, 2017 20:28:11 GMT
1 - IOTL it took fairly little propaganda effort for the Nazis to harness nationalism and persuade the German-speaking people of the Saar, Danzig, and the Sudetenland to support union with Germany in overwhelming numbers, even if they weren't mistreated under the previous status quo and it might afford them greater human rights. ITTL Weimar Germany manages to duplicate or even improve on all the peacetime successes of Nazi Germany w/o any of the Nazi bad stuff. Hence the ethnic Germans of those territories become even more eager to pursue and pressure for union with Germany, even if the German government does much less active effort than the Nazis to destabilize Czechoslovakia.
As it concerns the South Tyrol Germans, the concessions Germany gives to Mussolini to make him accept the democratic Anschluss include more or less the same accord Hitler signed in 1939 to transfer them to Germany. ITTL the treaty gets signed almost a decade earlier than OTL and WWII does not take place, so the transfer takes place. As it concerns the scattershot German minorities in Eastern Europe, even the Nazis acknowlegded in their annexation was utterly impractical, so they often pursued their transfer to the Reich with the expectation to use them to colonize the East. ITTL democratic Germany certainly has no such plans (at the very most if a war with the USSR seemed inevitable they would try to do Brest-Litovsk 2.0), so I guess it would leave them in place unless they assume they are somehow going to be in trouble. Alternatively, they might still set up some kind of preferential German-speaking immigration program to help resettle the territories they conquered from Poland, if they expect subsidized internal immigration might not be fully up to the task. As far as I know, Swiss Germans did not really fit in the list of irredentist objectives for non-Nazi German nationalists in the interwar period, and things stay that way barring exceptional circumstances. The same applies for the other Germanic peoples.
2 - ITTL the Poles do pretty much the same mistakes as OTL but without Hitler to give them a big moral high ground vs. Germany, the situation is reversed in the eyes of the world. The Polish authoritarian regime is a bunch of nationalist passive-aggressive bullies that refused any compromise and Germany is a nice democracy that made a convincing appeal to national self-determination and reasonable demands. Of course once the crisis escalates and the issue gets settled by war the victors make the peace terms substantially harsher if it is convenient to them but this is par the course. Unfortunately the conflict gives Stalin a golden opportunity to make a big land-grab of its own and any significant expansion of Stalinism is a humanitarian tragedy but that's not really the Germans' fault, since they did not make any M-R Pact. Stalin simply exploited circumstances to backstab the Poles and the Germans did not care to fight the Bear to protect the Kresy for the Poles when Poland was a defeated enemy. If and when Poland becomes an ally and the USSR makes itself an enemy, things may change.
3 - Ahh, I suppose your point actually refers to the Maginot Line and the possibility demilitarization of Alsace-Lorraine might make its use impractical. Honestly I had misunderstood your previous argument. If so this is actually a good point. I'm not any big expert on the topic, but I assume it would be technically possible to establish a partial demilitarization system that allows to build border fortifications but limits the deployment of military forces in the areas to the numbers strictly necessary to maintain them and do some basic garrison and patrol duty. If this is possible at all (I've read a couple TLs where the French and the Germans make this kind of agreement and they seemed well-researched), this is the deal: France builds and maintains the Maginot Line, Germany does the same with the Sigfrid Line, both parties agree to limit deployment of military forces in both sides of the border region to a skeleton crew to maintain the fortification and do basic garrison and patrol duty.
On a larger scale, Britain, France, and Germany make a similar deal as it concerns limitations of land and air forces in Western Europe, that are set to significantly lesser levels than OTL for the theater, but reserve the right to build up and deploy as many forces as necessary in the rest of their territories. The numbers involved more or less ensure basic military parity between the signatory powers and ensure they are still quite capable to defend themselves as necessary against other potential enemies, such as the USSR in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, or to a lesser scale Japan in the Pacific. Of course, without a proper military alliance, the deal has to assume the Germans would have to do the bulk of the effort alone to defend themselves in Eastern Europe and the Anglo-French in the colonies. If and when goodwill and budding cooperation between the European powers progresses to the point of a proper defensive alliance, then their military policies can be further restructured to ensure their military power is entirely re-oriented away from each other and against common potential enemies, and rearmament is kept to the level strictly necessary to deter third-party rogues.
It is a work in progress, but it may well lead to the the rise of a basic Euro-NATO equivalent in the next decade or so. If everyone agrees to throw Italy a few compensations in Africa and the Balkans and give it the respect due a great power, even Mussolini may be won over without excessive difficulty. Without malignant Nazi influence, in all likelihood the democratic powers can afford to treat fascist Italy the way they treated many other friendly right-wing authoritarian states during the Cold War - a few of them even became official NATO members.
Honestly, this kind of course seems the best available for Europe in the absence of Hitler but with Stalin around. Keeping Germany disarmed to appease French paranoia was not only unfair and politically unsustainable in the long term, but strategically suicidal for Europe at large once the USSR grows into its true potential.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 28, 2017 20:46:30 GMT
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 29, 2017 15:15:43 GMT
I know there was a quite decent thread on that line on the AH site. Called "holdimg out for an hero" IIRC, although it did assume some German gains in the east if I recall correctly. |
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Post by stevep on Oct 29, 2017 15:28:01 GMT
1 - IOTL it took fairly little propaganda effort for the Nazis to harness nationalism and persuade the German-speaking people of the Saar, Danzig, and the Sudetenland to support union with Germany in overwhelming numbers, even if they weren't mistreated under the previous status quo and it might afford them greater human rights. ITTL Weimar Germany manages to duplicate or even improve on all the peacetime successes of Nazi Germany w/o any of the Nazi bad stuff. Hence the ethnic Germans of those territories become even more eager to pursue and pressure for union with Germany, even if the German government does much less active effort than the Nazis to destabilize Czechoslovakia. As it concerns the South Tyrol Germans, the concessions Germany gives to Mussolini to make him accept the democratic Anschluss include more or less the same accord Hitler signed in 1939 to transfer them to Germany. ITTL the treaty gets signed almost a decade earlier than OTL and WWII does not take place, so the transfer takes place. As it concerns the scattershot German minorities in Eastern Europe, even the Nazis acknowlegded in their annexation was utterly impractical, so they often pursued their transfer to the Reich with the expectation to use them to colonize the East. ITTL democratic Germany certainly has no such plans (at the very most if a war with the USSR seemed inevitable they would try to do Brest-Litovsk 2.0), so I guess it would leave them in place unless they assume they are somehow going to be in trouble. Alternatively, they might still set up some kind of preferential German-speaking immigration program to help resettle the territories they conquered from Poland, if they expect subsidized internal immigration might not be fully up to the task. As far as I know, Swiss Germans did not really fit in the list of irredentist objectives for non-Nazi German nationalists in the interwar period, and things stay that way barring exceptional circumstances. The same applies for the other Germanic peoples. 2 - ITTL the Poles do pretty much the same mistakes as OTL but without Hitler to give them a big moral high ground vs. Germany, the situation is reversed in the eyes of the world. The Polish authoritarian regime is a bunch of nationalist passive-aggressive bullies that refused any compromise and Germany is a nice democracy that made a convincing appeal to national self-determination and reasonable demands. Of course once the crisis escalates and the issue gets settled by war the victors make the peace terms substantially harsher if it is convenient to them but this is par the course. Unfortunately the conflict gives Stalin a golden opportunity to make a big land-grab of its own and any significant expansion of Stalinism is a humanitarian tragedy but that's not really the Germans' fault, since they did not make any M-R Pact. Stalin simply exploited circumstances to backstab the Poles and the Germans did not care to fight the Bear to protect the Kresy for the Poles when Poland was a defeated enemy. If and when Poland becomes an ally and the USSR makes itself an enemy, things may change. 3 - Ahh, I suppose your point actually refers to the Maginot Line and the possibility demilitarization of Alsace-Lorraine might make its use impractical. Honestly I had misunderstood your previous argument. If so this is actually a good point. I'm not any big expert on the topic, but I assume it would be technically possible to establish a partial demilitarization system that allows to build border fortifications but limits the deployment of military forces in the areas to the numbers strictly necessary to maintain them and do some basic garrison and patrol duty. If this is possible at all (I've read a couple TLs where the French and the Germans make this kind of agreement and they seemed well-researched), this is the deal: France builds and maintains the Maginot Line, Germany does the same with the Sigfrid Line, both parties agree to limit deployment of military forces in both sides of the border region to a skeleton crew to maintain the fortification and do basic garrison and patrol duty. On a larger scale, Britain, France, and Germany make a similar deal as it concerns limitations of land and air forces in Western Europe, that are set to significantly lesser levels than OTL for the theater, but reserve the right to build up and deploy as many forces as necessary in the rest of their territories. The numbers involved more or less ensure basic military parity between the signatory powers and ensure they are still quite capable to defend themselves as necessary against other potential enemies, such as the USSR in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, or to a lesser scale Japan in the Pacific. Of course, without a proper military alliance, the deal has to assume the Germans would have to do the bulk of the effort alone to defend themselves in Eastern Europe and the Anglo-French in the colonies. If and when goodwill and budding cooperation between the European powers progresses to the point of a proper defensive alliance, then their military policies can be further restructured to ensure their military power is entirely re-oriented away from each other and against common potential enemies, and rearmament is kept to the level strictly necessary to deter third-party rogues. It is a work in progress, but it may well lead to the the rise of a basic Euro-NATO equivalent in the next decade or so. If everyone agrees to throw Italy a few compensations in Africa and the Balkans and give it the respect due a great power, even Mussolini may be won over without excessive difficulty. Without malignant Nazi influence, in all likelihood the democratic powers can afford to treat fascist Italy the way they treated many other friendly right-wing authoritarian states during the Cold War - a few of them even became official NATO members. Honestly, this kind of course seems the best available for Europe in the absence of Hitler but with Stalin around. Keeping Germany disarmed to appease French paranoia was not only unfair and politically unsustainable in the long term, but strategically suicidal for Europe at large once the USSR grows into its true potential. 1) Well if an element of a population wants to be part of another country when their being treated well in the country they live in there is a very simple solution.  2) IF Poland resisted any agreement yes that may happen but this seems unlikely under the circustances you suggest. A peaceful settlement as seems likely does leave the problem that a large number of German expansionists are left unsatisfied but hopefully a democratic German government would see the importance of sitting on such groupd heavily. 3) That is the basic point. If France doesn't have defences on its border with a Germany that is building a large military and has markedly greatly resources it is very vulnerable. [This leaves aside what Germany did twice in attacking through neutral neighbours, one occurrence of which has already occurred by this point?] Basically the problem is an international lack of trust in German behaviour, which is why all its neighbours are twitchy about it rearming heavily. I don't know what you thought I was referring to? Throwing Mussolini some 'compensation' presumably means carving up one or more countries [or significant parts of] for him to build part of his new roman empire. Not sure this is wise as it both sets a bad precedent and will alienate just about every small nation that would fear it might be treated as badly by the proposed alliance of great powers. Italy has no significant Italian speakers living elsewhere, except in Switzerland and I doubt anyone would agree to carving it up. Plus while if democratic it would make a useful ally its too weak for it to be needed and definitely for the costs being paid. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 30, 2017 15:35:01 GMT
I know there was a quite decent thread on that line on the AH site. Called "holdimg out for an hero" IIRC, although it did assume some German gains in the east if I recall correctly. There no link to holding out for an hero, like to read it. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 30, 2017 16:23:59 GMT
1) This is precisely what happens ITTL. International pressure forces Czechoslovakia to have a plebiscite for the Sudetenland, and the 90% German population of the region returns an overwhelming majority for union with Germany.
2) Theoretically speaking, yes, if TTL Poles had seen the writing on the wall they surely could have defused the crisis by accepting to give Germany Danzig and an extra-territorial connection through the Corridor, which would have appeased German moderates enough to make them ignore the most radical irredentists and settled the issue peacefully for good. After they had built Gdynia their need for secure access to Danzig had diminished considerably and they surely could bargain with Germany for free access to its Baltic ports like Czechoslovakia had done for what was left. The fact they did nothing to settle the issue by diplomacy IOTL and stubbornly clung to the Versailles status quo in a passive-aggressive way till it was too late makes me think ITTL they might easily make the same mistake and ignore the gathering storm out of nationalist overconfidence, rather like Serbia did in 1999, and be forced to accept a worse bargain after they got their butt on a plate on the battlefield. They were not the first power and would not be the last to make the wrong strategic and diplomatic calculation.
3) Well, if the French fear a German attack going through a neutral neighbor again, the natural solution is to extend their fortification system to the Belgian and Swiss borders (the Alps were already covered). TTL force-limitation accords won't stop them from doing so. As an aside, I may point out that history did not begin in 1914 nor ended in 1918, and the Germans had reason to fear a French aggression as much as the French feared a German attack. France had tried to grab pieces of western Germany from the 1500s to the 1840s, they had started the Franco-Prussian War, and they occupied the area as recently as 1923. Germany had good reason to want Rhineland defensible and build the Sigfrid line as much as the French had to build the Maginot line. Anyway, TTL treaties enable a substantial forces-limitation regime in the Western European theater for all involved powers and allow to build fortification systems on both sides of the border albeit manned by skeleton garrisons, which ought to settle all reasonable defence concerns.
I misunderstood your point to mean an anti-German Franco-Polish alliance, not the Maginot line, was vital to French security.
4) Feasible ways to appease interwar Italy enough to make it a reliable partner of a coalition that were entirely acceptable for European security included: a) let it do its thing in Ethiopia without much fuss, no sanctions or anything of the sort. Frankly, as long as the other European states had carved up the rest of Africa like a turkey and showed no sign of letting go, to harass Italy because they were grabbing the last available piece was way hypocrite and silly b) let France sell Tunisia to Italy. The French already had a vast colonial empire, in North Africa and out of it, they did not really need Tunisia c) let Italy get a protectorate on Albania. In all historical evidence the Albanians did not really mind that kind of bond with Italy d) make Yugoslavia cede coastal Dalmatia to Italy. Ethiopia and Tunisia involved colonies, coastal Dalmatia and Tunisia had important Italian communities, Albania and coastal Dalmatia had been promised to Italy in 1915 and then the Entente broke its word because of Wilson's misguided meddling. c) and d) would be especially easy to do (quite possibly throwing Kosovo in the bargain) if as I suspect Yugoslavia is going to collapse even without WWII and the great powers have to manage its breakup.
Even if Italy was not strictly necessary for an anti-Soviet coalition, its participation would surely be quite valuable to ease the burden for the other great powers (especially if alliance cooperation irons out the flaws of the Italian military) and stabilize the Med theater and if you ask my opinion to keep all great powers as content as possible was much more important for European security than to make every small state feel comfortable.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 30, 2017 19:05:31 GMT
I know there was a quite decent thread on that line on the AH site. Called "holdimg out for an hero" IIRC, although it did assume some German gains in the east if I recall correctly. There no link to holding out for an hero, like to read it. I found it at www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/holding-out-for-a-hero-gustav-stresemann-survives.89874/. If that doesn't work let me know and I will try and find out more. It dated from 2008-2011 and don't know how near completion it was as ages since I was reading it. Goes up to 66 pages so could be quite a read. Have fun. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 30, 2017 19:08:35 GMT
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 30, 2017 19:28:49 GMT
1) This is precisely what happens ITTL. International pressure forces Czechoslovakia to have a plebiscite for the Sudetenland, and the 90% German population of the region returns an overwhelming majority for union with Germany. That's what you want to happen and it might even occur, with a democratic and rational German government. OTL they were faced with a rabidly xenophobic regime that had already shown its words were worthless and the actions of that regime had made clear to Britain and France that a line had to be drawn. Hence all opposed any sort of 'agreement' conceding further gains to Nazi Germany, especially since they also knew that Hitler would be unlikely to stop if he gained yet more lands by threat and extortion. TTL if we have a democratic Germany making reasonable requests and gaining the support of the western democracies I very much doubt the Poles would take such a hard line and would realise their best chance is a compromise that has a reasonable chance to be kept as opposed to a concession after which Hitler would simply demand more. Yes France had been the stronger power and the aggressor in the past. Something which you have approved of in other threads. However its Germany that is the stronger and the more aggressive in recent decades so that is the source of concern. Localised force limitations in western Europe have no merit and would be highly unstable because, as I understand, you mean French and other western forces are strictly limited but Germany can maintain much larger forces. Which in the event it turns rogue again could very quickly be moved westwards again. Properly defences for France are essential for peace and stability, although as I pointed out the OTL defences were not enough. Germany was weaker for a decade and was not attacked. The 1923 incident you mentioned was because the Germans sought to breach the Versailles Treaty and France and Belgium took actions to try and force them to compile with their treaty agreement. You may think the treaty was harsh and hence the Germans had justification in unilaterally breaking it but most people/governments at the time didn't. Carving up smaller states to suit dictatorships, even moronically incompetent ones like fascist Italy will alienate far more people than it would satisfy. [Even without the fact the sort of people it would encourage are unlikely ever to be satisfied]. Not to mention it undermines the very stability and purpose of the alliance your trying to build up. If its just another system to allow powerful states to abuse weaker ones it will alienate those people with morals as well as those who suffer directly. Basically this is the flaw of many plans by dictators and autocrats. Because they hold people in contempt they put no value on meeting their needs and this often comes back to bite them. |
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