Poll
Question:
Would the World be a Better Place if the Central Powers Won the Great War?
Option 1: Yes
votes: 7
Option 2: Yes, but only if they won a quick victory
votes: 7
Option 3: No
votes: 13
Option 4: Other - Elaborate
votes: 0
Would the World be a Better Place if the Central Powers Won the Great War?
Yes, because Serbia would have ceased to exist.
I dunno. How do they win? It would probably be best if Archduke hadn't been assassinated, or failing that, the rest of the world stood back and said, "Yep, Serbia has gone to far", and let them get curb stomped by Austria-Hungary.
This is the best of all possible worlds. Haven't you been listening to Dr. Pangloss?
Quote from: Razgovory on December 25, 2011, 11:23:54 PM
I dunno. How do they win? It would probably be best if Archduke hadn't been assassinated, or failing that, the rest of the world stood back and said, "Yep, Serbia has gone to far", and let them get curb stomped by Austria-Hungary.
There are plenty of ways the CP could have won, the war wasn't the lopsided affair that WWII was. What matters is how quick they win, the longer the war lasts the harsher the terms will be.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 25, 2011, 11:39:57 PM
There are plenty of ways the CP could have won, the war wasn't the lopsided affair that WWII was. What matters is how quick they win, the longer the war lasts the harsher the terms will be.
Plenty? I suppose, if things had gone completely differently. But then the answer would depend on what things exactly went completely differently.
And obviously the best possible outcome of WWI would have been for it to not have occured at all or for it to have been short. If the Russians had run over the Germans in 1914 maybe it ends there...but the Russians didn't do that and I doubt were capable of it. Which is exactly how I feel about a CP victory. Knowing what I know now it does not seem likely given how things went.
Can German hackers release vast swarms of carrier pigeons creating an effective denial of service attack on the French Military causing it to collapse?
Quote from: Razgovory on December 25, 2011, 11:51:19 PM
Can German hackers release vast swarms of carrier pigeons creating an effective denial of service attack on the French Military causing it to collapse?
:lol:
No.
Well then I can't think of any realistic way for the CP to win.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 25, 2011, 11:51:19 PM
Can German hackers release vast swarms of carrier pigeons creating an effective denial of service attack on the French Military causing it to collapse?
:lmfao:
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:04:16 AM
Well then I can't think of any realistic way for the CP to win.
:mellow:
How much have you read about the war?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 26, 2011, 01:38:47 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:04:16 AM
Well then I can't think of any realistic way for the CP to win.
:mellow:
How much have you read about the war?
I read that they used pigeons.
The question is a bit too wide to be interesting. I think a more interesting discussion is about the Versailles treaty, and how it could have been made to be better and/or how the victors could have implemented it competently. The main problem with the Entente victory as it happened is Versailles. It was the Caudine Forks all over again, in spite of the warnings of Livy and Machiavelli.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 02:11:33 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 26, 2011, 01:38:47 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:04:16 AM
Well then I can't think of any realistic way for the CP to win.
:mellow:
How much have you read about the war?
I read that they used pigeons.
I thought it was Canaries. :huh:
Quote from: The Brain on December 26, 2011, 03:20:38 AM
The question is a bit too wide to be interesting. I think a more interesting discussion is about the Versailles treaty, and how it could have been made to be better and/or how the victors could have implemented it competently. The main problem with the Entente victory as it happened is Versailles. It was the Caudine Forks all over again, in spite of the warnings of Livy and Machiavelli.
Yes, the problem with the Entente victory was Versailles.
Ironically, I suggest you guys dig up a bit on the German Mitteleuropa plans they made during the war, preparing for their victory. They envisioned a Europe under economic dependency on Germany. :lol:
So you can say that the only difference we ended up after two world wars and scores of dead is that the Balkans is not under the control of a single German puppet, and is instead a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
Oh, and we also ended up with 50 years of communism.
Yes, it would depend on whether Mitteleuropa or the Syndicalist International won WWII.
Quote from: Tamas on December 26, 2011, 03:51:13 AM
Quote from: The Brain on December 26, 2011, 03:20:38 AM
The question is a bit too wide to be interesting. I think a more interesting discussion is about the Versailles treaty, and how it could have been made to be better and/or how the victors could have implemented it competently. The main problem with the Entente victory as it happened is Versailles. It was the Caudine Forks all over again, in spite of the warnings of Livy and Machiavelli.
Yes, the problem with the Entente victory was Versailles.
Ironically, I suggest you guys dig up a bit on the German Mitteleuropa plans they made during the war, preparing for their victory. They envisioned a Europe under economic dependency on Germany. :lol:
So you can say that the only difference we ended up after two world wars and scores of dead is that the Balkans is not under the control of a single German puppet, and is instead a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
Oh, and we also ended up with 50 years of communism.
:yes:
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on December 26, 2011, 04:17:56 AM
Yes, it would depend on whether Mitteleuropa or the Syndicalist International won WWII.
I am interested in your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :mmm:
What about the rest of the world? If France and the UK lost WW1, their colonial empires would fall earlier - what would replace the power vacuum?
Quote from: Martinus on December 26, 2011, 07:02:34 AM
What about the rest of the world? If France and the UK lost WW1, their colonial empires would fall earlier - what would replace the power vacuum?
In some cases, Germans. In other cases, tribalism. In still others the Japanese. And there are always the Americans and their business interests.
Shame we don't have Languish's archives, so we could just sticky the same thread once instead of Timmay restarting it every so often.
We could easily sticky an alt history thread here.
A more interesting question here might be that if the allies had know the consequences of versailles; what, if any, different choices might the Entente make? Or, for that matter, the Central Power or the Bolsheviks make based on the situation of 11:00-11/11-1918.
Well it's clear that the Central Powers can't win by invading France and Russia. All attempts to do so had a 100% failure rate. To win they really need to think out side the box. Like dig a series of massive trenches on the French border down to the Earth's mantle thereby creating a fault and hope that France is subducted under Germany. That's something of a long term project.
Quote from: Neil on December 26, 2011, 08:06:57 AM
Quote from: Martinus on December 26, 2011, 07:02:34 AM
What about the rest of the world? If France and the UK lost WW1, their colonial empires would fall earlier - what would replace the power vacuum?
In some cases, Germans. In other cases, tribalism. In still others the Japanese. And there are always the Americans and their business interests.
Given a quick CP victory, the British and French would almost certainly have kept the bulk of their overseas empires. The French would have almost certainly had to cede some territory to the Germans, but had the French been knocked out quickly, the British might well have settled for a peace that more-or-less left the British possessions as they were--the Germans could
possibly have knocked out France in 1914 given really good luck and a bit better leadership, but they had no real means to invade the UK or seriously threaten Britian's overseas territories in the face of the Royal Navy.
Given that a short war wouldn't have been so destructive to the Great Powers, there's no reason to think that it would have hastened the fall of the colonial empires--in fact, it might have delayed it.
I'm somewhat suspicious of the notion that the world wars weakened the European empires and so hastened the fall of their empires. Weakened them how? The UK in 1960 was richer and more powerful in absolute terms than in 1939. But still, it left Africa.
I don't see how the Kaiser's boot on the people's of Europe is really ideal or better than OTL.
By 1960 they had already dropped some of the dead weight. Still, vast amounts of money and manpower were lost due to the war. Money that could have gone somewhere else. The World Wars also created another problem: there were a lot of weapons floating around afterword. Colonial insurgencies were often nearly as well equipped as their colonial masters. Before 1914, armies in Asia and Africa were severely antiquated. Soldiers equipped with muskets or swords in 1914, would have semi-automatic rifles and machine guns in 1960. The best example of this is the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu who showed up to the battle with WWII era artillery and used it to defeat a French Army in the field.
Quote from: Faeelin on December 26, 2011, 02:53:41 PM
I'm somewhat suspicious of the notion that the world wars weakened the European empires and so hastened the fall of their empires. Weakened them how? The UK in 1960 was richer and more powerful in absolute terms than in 1939. But still, it left Africa.
I don't see how the Kaiser's boot on the people's of Europe is really ideal or better than OTL.
It weakened them financially and it shattered the myth of European invincibility.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:25:22 PM
Well it's clear that the Central Powers can't win by invading France and Russia. All attempts to do so had a 100% failure rate.
:rolleyes:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 26, 2011, 06:41:47 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:25:22 PM
Well it's clear that the Central Powers can't win by invading France and Russia. All attempts to do so had a 100% failure rate.
:rolleyes:
It's your thread, you fucking moron. You deserve the responses you get. Like this one.
And this one. You fucking moron.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 26, 2011, 06:41:47 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:25:22 PM
Well it's clear that the Central Powers can't win by invading France and Russia. All attempts to do so had a 100% failure rate.
:rolleyes:
Which war did they win by invading one or the other?
Quote from: sbr on December 26, 2011, 08:56:38 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 26, 2011, 06:41:47 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 26, 2011, 01:25:22 PM
Well it's clear that the Central Powers can't win by invading France and Russia. All attempts to do so had a 100% failure rate.
:rolleyes:
Which war did they win by invading one or the other?
Franco-Prussian War?
Not the Central Powers.
France 1940.
Also, not Central Powers.
Quote from: Faeelin on December 26, 2011, 02:53:41 PM
I'm somewhat suspicious of the notion that the world wars weakened the European empires and so hastened the fall of their empires. Weakened them how? The UK in 1960 was richer and more powerful in absolute terms than in 1939. But still, it left Africa.
I don't see how the Kaiser's boot on the people's of Europe is really ideal or better than OTL.
One thing that changed is the 1960 world was dominated by the US and USSR: neither of which were traditional colonial powers. The world system was not so tolerant of colonialism.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 25, 2011, 11:17:37 PM
Would the World be a Better Place if the Central Powers Won the Great War?
I think the World Would Sure be a Better Place if the Central Powers Won the Great War.
No, because World War II would not have occurred in the same fashion that it did, and World War II was ultimately a planetary good, shattering fascism as a political possibility in the West, probably forever, and probably did more than anything in history to convince people that racism was bad. Also, turning to the Pacific, WWII transformed Japan into a good and decent country able to take its place at the table of civilization, supplying us with automobiles, electronics, and enjoyable entertainment, such as Gamera and bukkake. Weenies may not like it, but the numbers speak for themselves: nuclear war has a 100% success rate.
Shame about that Soviet domination, I suppose, but really, what's the difference? Excepting Czechoslovakia, the whole of Eastern Europe was a corrupt, authoritarian hellhole long before the RKKA got there. At least the commies managed to impose some order on their balkantardation, something the Habsburgs could never do.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 27, 2011, 12:06:30 AM
enjoyable entertainment, such as Gamera and bukkake.
:lol:
If the Central Powers won, we'd have to deal with alt hist threads about the Allies winning, so we'd be no better off than before.
I am pretty sure that the only way to eliminate alt-history threads is if the Nazis won. :hmm:
Tim would find a way.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on December 27, 2011, 03:16:44 PM
If the Central Powers won, we'd have to deal with alt hist threads about the Allies winning, so we'd be no better off than before.
But we would be doing it in german.
Or worse, Austrian.
Quote from: Ideologue on December 27, 2011, 12:06:30 AM
to convince people that racism was bad.
I doubt most people on this planet are convinced about that. It's still a rather western thing afaik.
Well, no one else counts.
...That's not racism.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on December 26, 2011, 10:01:41 PM
I think the World Would Sure be a Better Place if the Central Powers Won the Great War.
:lol:
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on December 27, 2011, 05:13:56 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 27, 2011, 12:06:30 AM
to convince people that racism was bad.
I doubt most people on this planet are convinced about that. It's still a rather western thing afaik.
LOL, and you say you've traveled in Asia?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on December 27, 2011, 10:23:28 PM
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on December 27, 2011, 05:13:56 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 27, 2011, 12:06:30 AM
to convince people that racism was bad.
I doubt most people on this planet are convinced about that. It's still a rather western thing afaik.
LOL, and you say you've traveled in Asia?
I believe he's saying "racism = bad" is a Western thing, not that racism is.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on December 28, 2011, 06:14:03 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on December 27, 2011, 10:23:28 PM
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on December 27, 2011, 05:13:56 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on December 27, 2011, 12:06:30 AM
to convince people that racism was bad.
I doubt most people on this planet are convinced about that. It's still a rather western thing afaik.
LOL, and you say you've traveled in Asia?
I believe he's saying "racism = bad" is a Western thing, not that racism is.
Wiggin is correct.
And Seedy: Ive been in Asia? I would have loiked to know about that rather than hearing it here :p