Eastern Europe under Brest-Litovsk

[RadioSilence]

This is my first post so bear with me here.

After 1916, Germany made peace with Russia in which it got pretty much everything up to the Russian border. However Germany then lost the war in the west and was forced to give up all these gains two years later.

What if the Germans for whatever reason kept all that land? What would they do with it? It's very large and well-populated so I can't imagine that the Germans would be able to or even want to annex much of it. How the Germans deal with this and how would things look in those countries? Would the Soviet Union (assuming there is one) try to get some of it back?

[agabe]

I assume if Germany keeps the land it means they won WWI. If this is true it means a very different Russian Civil War as the Germans would have been in a better position to influence things there. Maybe support White Russian forces or just play spoiler to prevent any other singular force from coming back and making Russia a threat.

There would also have been a host of ethnic conflicts ranging from Ukrainian to Polish concerning future states.

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by agabe

I assume if Germany keeps the land it means they won WWI. If this is true it means a very different Russian Civil War as the Germans would have been in a better position to influence things there. Maybe support White Russian forces or just play spoiler to prevent any other singular force from coming back and making Russia a threat.

There would also have been a host of ethnic conflicts ranging from Ukrainian to Polish concerning future states.

Not counting the fate of A-H as the empire was at clear risk of collapse

[Blackfox5]

The Germans intended for the land lost by Russia to be the home of various puppet states that were economically dependent on Germany and politically subservient to it.

The Baltic would be home to the United Baltic Duchy (Latvia and Estonia) ruled by Germanized nobility with the Kaiser as the notional head of state, but with a lower noble as a king of "governor general" to exercise the powers.

Lithuania, Finland, Belarus, and Ukraine were all mentioned to be independent countries probably with Germany dukes and such as heads of state.

Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, but the Germans had set up a quasi-independent Polish state in Russian Poland earlier. In actuality, the area was to be Germanized and the government to be in the hands of Germans.

How well Germany would be able to keep effective control of those countries depends on how strong they are after the war. If Germany was victorious in WWI and received indeminities from France, then Germany will keep long control over the puppet states as long as the military is in charge. However, it's possible that if the Reichstag becomes dominant, that effective German control will be removed at some point a decade or more later while German influence remains high. If the war ends in a draw, and Germany is weak, then true self-rule may come sooner. However, a true independent foreign and domestic policy is not likely to happen for many years until those countries develop their own industrial economies and become politically stable.

[Snake Featherston]

If Germany wants to have 1 million troops on permanent duty in a hostile area it undergoes its own progressive economic and political collapse in the process.

[yourworstnightmare]

United Baltic Duchy: Estonia + Latvia, dominated by Baltic Germans

Lithuania: Newly established kingdom with a German prince as king

Ukraine: New nation with a disliked government (the Hetmanate), only survives due to German and Austrian backing.

White Ruthenia: Nation built from scratch. A pet project of the Germans. Some relative of the Kaiser as king.

Poland, umm, messed up. Never declared an independent State, but neither annexed. Just "occupied territory" under German military supervision. A Polish cabinet exists, but their power is limited.

[d32123]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

If Germany wants to have 1 million troops on permanent duty in a hostile area it undergoes its own progressive economic and political collapse in the process.

Yeah there's no way they could keep down the populations of all those puppet states forever, especially with the Russians right next door. They'd probably wisen up and exercise looser control over those puppet states.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by d32123

Yeah there's no way they could keep down the populations of all those puppet states forever, especially with the Russians right next door. They'd probably wisen up and exercise looser control over those puppet states.

Under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff? I'm going to say that that's as probable as Hitler giving the speech from The Great Dictator in perfect New York American English.

[Mikestone8]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff? I'm going to say that that's as probable as Hitler giving the speech from The Great Dictator in perfect New York American English.

Will Ludendorff still matter once the war has ended? The Kaiser loathes him, the German in the strasse isn't especially fond of him, and with the war over Hindenburg no longer needs him. Seems to me he could be jettisoned as easily as Bismarck was.

[yourworstnightmare]

Originally Posted by Mikestone8

Will Ludendorff still matter once the war has ended? The Kaiser loathes him, the German in the strasse isn't especially fond of him, and with the war over Hindenburg no longer needs him. Seems to me he could be jettisoned as easily as Bismarck was.

I don't see Ludendorf and von Hindenburg giving up their power voluntarily when the war is over. However I see some kind of confrontation between the civilian elected politicians, and the junkers being inevitable in a post- victory Germany.

[altamiro]

Originally Posted by yourworstnightmare

I don't see Ludendorf and von Hindenburg giving up their power voluntarily when the war is over. However I see some kind of confrontation between the civilian elected politicians, and the junkers being inevitable in a post- victory Germany.

The only thing that kept H&L in power was the state of war. As soon as peace is declared their situation is untenable. If they don't relinquish their power voluntarily, the experience of Germany 1918 OTL would be repeated. Even an almost total victory would only delay the inevitable - military governments are typically not very good in rebuilding civilian infrastructure, H&L are not an exception, and the German civilian infrastructre was worn out to the point of collapse by over-use during the war. Once the rail network collapses and not enough coal can get from Ruhr to Berlin...

[Riain]

I don't think Germany would militarily supress large areas postwar, they would quickly find local elites to run puppet states newly freed of Russian and Austrian occupation. If extra force was needed Germany would be able to quickly deploy troops to local trouble spots by rail. This would suffice for the first decade or more after the war, beyond that developments make the situation difficult to predict.

[yourworstnightmare]

Originally Posted by Riain

I don't think Germany would militarily supress large areas postwar, they would quickly find local elites to run puppet states newly freed of Russian and Austrian occupation. If extra force was needed Germany would be able to quickly deploy troops to local trouble spots by rail. This would suffice for the first decade or more after the war, beyond that developments make the situation difficult to predict.

Yes except:
a) Poland, major headache. What on Earth to do with Poland?
b) Baltic Duchy? Can really the noble Baltic Germans handle the horde of barbaric peasants alone?
c) White Ruthenia, don't have a national awakening yet. Germans needed to build the nation.
d) Ukraine, the Hetmanate is not liked. Will probably need German and Austria troops to keep it alive.

On the good side, I think Lithuania will be alright on it's own.

[Grey Wolf]

Poland had already been promised existence, and had a working shadow government. It was initially intended to give it a Habsburg king. Much of the talk about how all this failed and would never have happened due to how it developed misses the point that if the Germans have WON the war, then the Polish alternative is a complete non-starter and will be portrayed as lapdogs of the Allies.

Whilst the Supreme Command might like to keep Poland under military occupation, their writ is not going to last into even the medium term and the politicians are going to sort things out eventually. Poland is going to be reborn as a German puppet.

Finland is in a good place. It has its king already about to be crowned in late 1918 (they even made the crown), and its got civilian and military leadership operating independently of, albeit in conjunction with, German forces

Georgia is another area where the Germans have influence, having sent a high-level mission there

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Mikestone8

Will Ludendorff still matter once the war has ended? The Kaiser loathes him, the German in the strasse isn't especially fond of him, and with the war over Hindenburg no longer needs him. Seems to me he could be jettisoned as easily as Bismarck was.

Yes, as he'd rendered the Kaiser irrelevant in the course of the war and he and his crony had built personality cults around themselves.

[yourworstnightmare]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Yes, as he'd rendered the Kaiser irrelevant in the course of the war and he and his crony had built personality cults around themselves.

Still, post-war German politics will probably be full of conflicts between the junker junta and the elected civilian politicians. One of them has to go (and probably not very nicely), either the Reichstag wins in the end, or they are abolished and we have a full military dictatorship.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by yourworstnightmare

Still, post-war German politics will probably be full of conflicts between the junker junta and the elected civilian politicians. One of them has to go (and probably not very nicely), either the Reichstag wins in the end, or they are abolished and we have a full military dictatorship.

And of course, OTL saw the reichstag win in the end after the military lost the war, and still saw these guys cheering for fascists a few years later.

[Mikestone8]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Yes, as he'd rendered the Kaiser irrelevant in the course of the war and he and his crony had built personality cults around themselves.

There was certainly a terrific cult of Hindenburg, but not so much of Ludendorff that I recall. It was Hindenburg's face that appeared on the propaganda posters, and on the great wooden statue that loan subscribers hammered the nails into.

Ludendorff, afaics, only mattered because Hindenburg needed him (or considered that he did) for advice on tactics. Once the shooting stops, that advice is no longer needed, and Ludendorff is as expendable as a paperclip

[Wolfpaw]

Hindenburg was big among the people at large. Ludendorff's personality cult was more pernicious, being found mostly among right-wingers and the Junkertum, i.e. those who ran the Kaiserreich.

[Mikestone8]

Originally Posted by Riain

I don't think Germany would militarily supress large areas postwar, they would quickly find local elites to run puppet states newly freed of Russian and Austrian occupation. If extra force was needed Germany would be able to quickly deploy troops to local trouble spots by rail. This would suffice for the first decade or more after the war, beyond that developments make the situation difficult to predict.

And the forces required might not be all that large.

In 1919, General Yudenich had less than 20,000 men, yet he got to the outskirts of Petrograd before being turned back by Trotsky. This doesn't suggest that the Germans would need massive forces if they turned against the Bolsheviks.