Miscellaneous: 1900 (Alternate) History Thread

  I don't know how easily he would be able to remove Bismarck, at least in the short term, as he was in a strong position having been the effective leader of the wars that had made Prussia/Germany the most powerful state in Europe and brought about the much desired unification.  It would be a rocky relationship and you might see Bismarck resign after a while but that would be at least a couple of years down the line I suspect.

  Frederick would definitely be more liberal but the army has gained a lot of influence and prestige.  I wouldn't rule out a strong Chancellor although he might be a more liberal one who is an ally of the emperor.

  The question might be does Frederick still die of throat cancer in 1888 and if so has his son changed personality that much?  He could have simply hardened his views in opposition to his father now being Kaiser.  However a decade or two under a more liberal Kaiser might mean more progressive ideas and policies have been more established which could cause tensions under Wilhelm II.

  Its possibly difficult to tell because the country was in such chaos even before the Japanese invasion with assorted warlords and a civil war between the KMT and the communists.  Also with the relative backwardness figures are probably unavailable. Also while the Japanese were savage, especially in areas where they were attacking they probably relied on locals a lot for food and the like so they couldn't destroy everything.  Furthermore possibly the Chinese government, like the Soviet one for a while after WWI - which claimed only ~7 million deaths - are under-reporting deaths to make the country look stronger?

  Quite likely, because of the duration of the war, from 1937-1945 and the size of the population that more people in China died than in the USSR but its probably going to be virtually impossible, especially so long after the war ended, to ever know for sure.

  I recall reading that somewhere as well.  Would say its difficult to tell but definitely would make things significantly tougher for Britain and forces based there.  Hitler largely targeted London which reduced the damage to other areas which might have been more important such as the southern ports.  However the weapons were pretty inaccurate and that was made worse by British control of the German spy ring in the UK which meant Berlin was fed false info that the V1's were flying further than they actually were.  Which meant the Germans sought to reduce the range so many fell short.  This took some pressure off London - at some cost for the areas south of the city - and this would probably have been even more important if Germany has sought to target southern ports as many would have ended up in the Channel.  Also the ADUK [Air Defence UK] system caught a lot of V1's between aircraft and AA Guns.

  It did also tie down a lot of allied tactical bombers and escorts as targeting V1 sites became a very high priority and this was likely to become worse if the V1 had been deployed in significant numbers months earlier, especially since the total numbers being launched by summer 44 are likely to be larger than OTL.

  One other point is when did Ike make that comment and under what circumstances?  If it was before the landings - which he had fears of then failing we must recall - that could be a different thing to making it post war when more information was available.  Also there could be some political maneuvering involved if say, aware of the concerns in Britain about the attacks, was seeking to gain influence so that bomber elements eager to continue the strategic bombing campaign needed their arms twisted to commit serious forces to attacking V1 launch sites.

  My gut feeling is that while it would have increased the death toll and destruction in Britain, especially in London and neighbouring regions it wouldn't have prompted Overlord to fail but that's a feeling from an amateur and could well be wrong.

  The big problems were that:

a) Austria was increasingly crippled by its multi-national empire as both nationalism and the need for better education became increasingly important.  On the latter point its bloody difficult if you have a dozen or more languages for anything from operating an army, or normal business activities to education in the 1st place.  The solution such as it was that most important activities would be done in German or [after 1867 especially] Hungarian only entrenched the power of those two groups and the alienation of the other populations.  Again with that grow of national identity Austria was increasingly seen by many other Germans, if not most of the other rulers, as not a suitable centre for a German state because of its vast numbers of non-Germans.

b)  That Prussia not only had a more culturally and linguistically population but a better educated one with a centralized bureaucracy and as it turned out a better resource base for an industrial revolution greatly boost the relative power of Prussia compared to Austria.

c)  That the multi-national structure of Austria meant those minorities with fellow nationalities outside the empire could look to them for support - the most obvious case here being the Italians in the rich Lombardy and Venice provinces, especially as much of Italy unified.

  Austria really needed deep root and branch reform of its government structure and aims which was very difficult.  Also it would need to decide whether it was a German state or a multi-national empire and what choice its leadership made was towards the latter which seemed to be the wrong one.  At least in terms of it staying as the dominant power in Germany.