totalbooks.blogg.se

You're right that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have had serious problems controlling the other ethnic groups throughout their postwar territories, and it's an open question how well they would have managed it. The worst France would have faced would have been a temporary occupation. Britain, Iberia, Italy, Greece, Scandinavia, and most of the Russian Empire's landmass would have remained independent. Let me be clear about something: I don't think a German WWI victory would have led to them controlling any more territory than the Central Powers had when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. Of the many lessons we can learn from history, one is that Europe can never be united for long. I think if that happened there would just have been a bunch of revolutionary wars all over Europe in the mid-20th Century as different nations fought to break free of German domination. It could and would have been liberalized over the subsequent decades. I have no illusions that this would have initially served German interests over those of other groups, but the establishment of the framework was the most crucial thing. Communism might not have risen in Russia, or if it had, its westward expansion into richer territories would have been blocked by Germany, a powerful foe.Ī German WWI victory would have also accelerated the timetable for European political and economic integration by decades. Gaining a lot of land in the east at the expense of the Russian Empire might have also quenched the German thirst for any further territorial expansion and kept them occupied managing their Great War gains indefinitely. That means the Holocaust would not have happened. The odds were against it at almost every stage of the War, but it was far likelier than the French winning the French and Indian Wars, the CSA surviving the Civil War, or Germany winning WWII.Ī victorious and confident Germany would not have succumbed to Nazism after the Great War. I think the most plausible and consequential alternate history scenario is Germany winning WWI.