Military capability of a victorious Kaiserreich

What the title says. Im generally interested in the early 1940.`s era, i.e. tanks, airforce, infrantry weapons, millitry doctrine, technology levels and so on and so forth.

Since its impossibble to make an assesment without a scenario, I will use a peace treaty preposed for a "Italy-in-CPs" scenario discussed a couple of months ago. Note that this scenario also features a 1917. end to WWI with a favourable peace for Britain.

The peace treaty goes like this:

Britain (Europe): status quo.

Britain (colonies): gains western Tanganyka, Senegal, Guinea, Goa, Macao, the French Indian Ocean islands. Sells Somaliland to Italy.

South Africa (colonies): gains southern Namibia and eastern half of the Caprivi Strip.

Japan (colonies): gains German Pacific possessions.

Australia (colonies): gains New Guinea.

Germany (Europe): annexes Luxemburg, Briey, Longwy, Belfort, and a slice of Belgian Luxemburg (the Arlon area). Protectorate over the Unified Baltic Duchy, Lithuania, Finland, (de facto) Poland.

Germany (colonies): recovers Cameroon (1911-1916 borders), Rwanda and Burundi, eastern Tanganyka, northern Namibia, western half of the Caprivi Strip, and Tsingtao. Gains Morocco, Belgian Congo, Ubangi-Shari, Benin, Middle Congo, Gabon, Angola, northern Mozambique, and some minor adjustments to the north of Togo. Buys Equatorial Guinea.

Italy (Europe): annexes Nice, Savoy, Corsica, and the western slopes of the Alps. Protectorate over Albania, Montenegro, (de facto) Greece.

Italy (colonies): recovers Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia. Gains Tunisia, Djibouti, Ivory Coast, central-southern Mozambique, Ethiopia, Somaliland.

Austria-Hungary (Europe): Gains (nominal) protectorate over Poland, (real) protectorate over Romania (which gains Bessarabia). Serbia becomes an Austrian protectorate and is heavily garrisoned by the CPs.

Turkey (Europe): depending on PoD, it may keep either the 1914 borders or the post-1st Balkan War ones (keeping the slice of eastern Thrace beyond the Enos-Midia line or not, which otherwise goes to Bulgaria).*

Turkey (Middle East): recovers 1914 borders plus Transcaucasia, Khuzestan, Persian Azerbaijan.**

Bulgaria (Europe): keeps/recovers southern Dobruja and western Thrace, annexes Vardar Macedonia. Depending on POD, it may keep either the 1914 borders or the post-1st Balkan War ones with Turkey.*

Netherlands (Europe): after a later plebiscite, it gains Flanders.

Netherlands (colonies): gains Indochina, sells Irian to Australia.

America: gains French Caribbean, French Guyana, New Caledonia.

France: keeps Algeria, the northern portion of West French Africa (Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta, Niger), Chad, and Madagascar.

Russia: keeps Belarus, Ukraine, northern Caucasus, and Central Asia.***

French possessions in China are split between Germany and Italy.

Besides the territorial losses, France gets a harsh peace treaty: war reparations equivalent to some 80 billion GM are imposed on them. Their army is limited to 125,000 professional soldiers and officers (maximum 100,000 in the mainland at any time), conscription is forbidden, and the French aren’t allowed to posses heavy artillery, chemical weapons, tanks, armored cars, and military aircraft. Furthermore, a demilitarized zone of 100 km is established in French territory on the borders with Germany and Italy. The French navy is forbidden to own capital ships and submarines.

Russia may have to pay reparations if it has not got the Bolsheviks in charge. Military limitations likewise possible with the same caveat.

The peace treaty declares that the war's responsibility lies into Panslav terrorism and aggressive French and Russian revanchism and imperialism.

Britain and Japan pay no reparations and suffer no military limitations.

Britain makes a pledge not to interfere with the territorial or political settlement of continental Europe or CP colonial empires, the CPs pledge to respect the security of the British Empire.

Belgium is forbidden to enter any political-economic union or military alliance with France without the assent of the Central Powers, and its neutrality is rescinded. It must grant extensive autonomy to Flanders, and in five years, run a plebiscite on the union of Flanders with the Netherlands (which the Flemish irredentists win). It is also forbidden to construct millitary fortresses on its territory.

French shares of the Suez Canal are seized and the onwership redistributed among the CPs and UK as follows: Britain 50%, Germany 20%, Italy 20%, Turkey 10%.

Click to expand...

*These changes depend heavily on the conditions in which the war starts, i.e. weather an alternate POD is used to start WWI or the Arch-Duke gets killed on schedule.

**These changes have not been agreed upon on the tread dealing with this scenario.

***The USSR has roughly the Interbellum borders. Alternatively, the border is drawn similarly to the Soviet-Polish front in June 1920.

NOTE: This WWI Peace Treaty is the result of a 14-page discussion. Any objections to its content should have been adressed on the tread in question. This tread was started to discuss the millitary capability of the Kaiserreich, not the treaty.

Hrmm, you know, this is an interesting question in general. Historically, the 1920s were something of a "lost decade" for the German economy, thanks to the chaos imposd by the loss of traditional markets, the instability of the mark, reparations, etc. Here, one presumes that would be the plight of the French... and British? I'm not sure how badly the British are hurt.

I could thus see technology progressing a bit more slowly than OTL if the damage to Britain (and hence the global economy) is bad enough. Hrm.

They would probably be worse off. They now have to police all those puppet states, restless minorities and worthless colonial territories, which means lots of subpar colonial infantry and hemorrhaging of resources. Making things worse, they would probably try to actually get to that 1:1 naval parity with Britain, which would wreck their economy, since all those added territories don't actually add much industrywise - you can't just take the prewar industrial potential of those places and add it to the Reich's GDP. They'd probably have a bloated, inefficient WW1-style military tailored towards suppression of minorities and colonial peoples, with little money left for modernization. On the seas they'd have a massive number of aging ships they can't afford to replace and are too numbers-obsessed to scrap.

its a pity that they didn't get indochina in your starting conditions & got to keep new guinea.
Because under those conditions they would have to build a true world Navy.
Now it can concentrate on europe & africa, but in the mentioned case also a considerable pacific fleet would have to exist.

due to no restrictions on tech developments on germany the developments would be continious from that point, in otl there was a huge break in developments.
Earlier panzer developments, and also continious air developments.
This might not be all good news, they might hang too long to older design principles & theories.

with much more colonies to tend to i see more stress on long range transport developments

Faeelin said:

I'm not sure how badly the British are hurt.

Click to expand...

Considering the peace treaty, Britain actually benefited from it.

tez said:

Making things worse, they would probably try to actually get to that 1:1 naval parity with Britain

Click to expand...

Since I read that tread and posted in it, this was meant as a Washington Naval Treaty-type thing rather then a German obsession with building ships.

Questions regarding the peace treaty...

There's a few questions I have, and some comments...

Germany should certainly retain Ost Afrika. (I'm away from my sources, so I don't recall the modern name. I can find my way quite nicely about a pre Great War map if Africa--but shaky on today's map)

I would question the prohibition on tanks, since they were barely experimental, if that--and you don't prohibit what doesn't exist.

Why does the USA get anything? Did it get into the war early? Or is the territory a simple sale in exchange for forgiving war debt?

The pledge of Britain not intervenening on the Continent, and the Central Powers respecting the integrity of the British Empire, is all well and good on paper--a bit to make the treaty more palatable--but realistic politicians know that it's merely a bit of paper with no teeth. Honored for now, but by the '40's, largely irrelavant.

I can't see Britain accepting parity with Germany, unless it had a strong alliance with another major nacal power, or was forced to at gun point. Naval parity is simply too risky.

While it would look good on paper, I cant see Germany being able to afford anything like parity with the RN - remember, the British and german economies are of a similar size, and Britain only supports a small army.

I'd expect something more like Japan, 60% of the UK/US, after all Germany isnt primarily a naval power. And in practice, I'd suspect they cant even afford to build to that level, they have a big army to maintain (and more territory to waste money in..

Also, going for 60% is good in diplomatic terms, it allows Germany to look reasonable at the conference table for what is really no cost to themselves.

NHBL said:

Germany should certainly retain Ost Afrika. (I'm away from my sources, so I don't recall the modern name. I can find my way quite nicely about a pre Great War map if Africa--but shaky on today's map)

Click to expand...

The Germans have only given up the interior part of Tanganyka (2/3 of it), because it was argued on the tread in question that the British would demand territory to build their Cape-to-Cairo railway as a condition for their signature.

I would question the prohibition on tanks, since they were barely experimental, if that--and you don't prohibit what doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

What? The Entante prohibited Germany from having tanks in Versailles.

Why does the USA get anything? Did it get into the war early? Or is the territory a simple sale in exchange for forgiving war debt?

Click to expand...

Not really. In the tread it was explained by the Monroe Doctrine.

tez said:

They would probably be worse off. They now have to police all those puppet states, restless minorities and worthless colonial territories, which means lots of subpar colonial infantry and hemorrhaging of resources. Making things worse, they would probably try to actually get to that 1:1 naval parity with Britain, which would wreck their economy, since all those added territories don't actually add much industrywise - you can't just take the prewar industrial potential of those places and add it to the Reich's GDP. They'd probably have a bloated, inefficient WW1-style military tailored towards suppression of minorities and colonial peoples, with little money left for modernization. On the seas they'd have a massive number of aging ships they can't afford to replace and are too numbers-obsessed to scrap.

Click to expand...

Not really why should they? Imperial Germany aren't USSR or Nazi Germany it's just the dominating state, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine are going to be loyal out of the fear of the Russians, the Baltic Duchies can be dominated by the local Germans. Maybe they need soldiers in Belgium, but they can just rotate conscrips through it, it's not like there will be a armed struggle.

Minority wise, it will have few new ones, and the old ones stayed loyal through most of the war, likely the Balts are included, but I wouldn't be suprised if the biggest problem there would be keep the Baltic German from oppressing them too much.

In the colonies, Germany tended to run them rather cheap, by using mostly local troops, so I doubt they will waste mch there either.

NHBL said:

I can't see Britain accepting parity with Germany, unless it had a strong alliance with another major nacal power, or was forced to at gun point. Naval parity is simply too risky.

Click to expand...

Astrodragon said:

While it would look good on paper, I cant see Germany being able to afford anything like parity with the RN - remember, the British and german economies are of a similar size, and Britain only supports a small army.

I'd expect something more like Japan, 60% of the UK/US, after all Germany isnt primarily a naval power. And in practice, I'd suspect they cant even afford to build to that level, they have a big army to maintain (and more territory to waste money in..

Also, going for 60% is good in diplomatic terms, it allows Germany to look reasonable at the conference table for what is really no cost to themselves.

Click to expand...

See this:

machine3589 said:

NOTE: This WWI Peace Treaty is the result of a 14-page discussion. Any objections to its content should have been adressed on the tread in question. This tread was started to discuss the millitary capability of the Kaiserreich, not the treaty.

Click to expand...

Nevertheless, the main grievances against the treaty seems to be with the naval parity. Oddly enough, that part wasnt even in the treaty itself, but a offhand comment about the alt-Washington Naval Treaty. If it really is such a problem, I can delete theat part of the OP.

machine3589 said:

See this:



Nevertheless, the main grievances against the treaty seems to be with the naval parity. Oddly enough, that part wasnt even in the treaty itself, but a offhand comment about the alt-Washington Naval Treaty. If it really is such a problem, I can delete theat part of the OP.

Click to expand...

Given the general conditions re Britain, I'd think it unlikely there would be any naval ratios discussed (maybe for France...)

So I guess we are really talking about this timelines Washington Naval treaty, and it would probably originate for similar reasons (unable to afford a Naval arms race).

Astrodragon said:

Given the general conditions re Britain, I'd think it unlikely there would be any naval ratios discussed (maybe for France...)

So I guess we are really talking about this timelines Washington Naval treaty, and it would probably originate for similar reasons (unable to afford a Naval arms race).

Click to expand...

As the original proponent of the naval ratio idea back in the original thread, yep, I can tell that I meant this quite possibly and indeed perhaps most likely be the result of TTL Washington Naval Treaty. That's what was meant by

Either in the peace treaty itself, or more likely a few years afterwards, Britain has to agree to a more balanced naval standard with the other great powers (1:1 with Germany and the USA, 5:3 with Italy and Japan, 3:1 with Austria-Hungary and Turkey).

Click to expand...

If this is TTL Washington Naval Treaty, are your objections satisfied ?

As it concerns France, giving them a naval ratio would be far too generous for the kind of Versailles peace that they are getting. Since they keep some rump colonial empire (mostly because those colonies too poor to give the victors any appetite), the CPs give them a blanket ban of capital ships and submarines instead of hard tonnage limits limits like OTL Germany, but that's all.

Eurofed said:

As the original proponent of the naval ratio idea back in the original thread, yep, I can tell that I meant this quite possibly and indeed perhaps most likely be the result of TTL Washington Naval Treaty. That's what was meant by



If this is TTL Washington Naval Treaty, are your objections satisfied ?

As it concerns France, giving them a naval ratio would be far too generous for the kind of Versailles peace that they are getting. Since they keep some rump colonial empire (mostly because those colonies too poor to give the victors any appetite), the CPs give them a blanket ban of capital ships and submarines instead of hard tonnage limits limits like OTL Germany, but that's all.

Click to expand...

I wasnt objecting to it per se, merely pointing out it was unlikely that Germany could afford a big fleet after the war. While they will be getting reparations from France, the whole European economy is still going to be in the mess it was in OTL.
Germany is in the opposite situation to Britain - the army is the big spender, the navy is a luxury, so its pretty obvious which service gets the short end when the money starts getting to be a problem.

Has anyone noticed that there isnt a ban on France having aircraft carriers.....?

Astrodragon said:

Has anyone noticed that there isnt a ban on France having aircraft carriers.....?

Click to expand...

There is. Aircraft carriers are capital ships too.

Oh, this would be a REALLY nasty bloodbath, probably as bad as OTL WW II, maybe worse thanks to the new front in sub Saharan Africa.

The Kaiser's Germany has every reason to keep an extremely strong military, since right or wrong, a strong military paid off big. France has been turned into OTL post-war Germany, but with a strong likelihood that Alt Germany will not replicate the French missteps toward the German state IOTL.

Russia/USSR will be the same massive problem as IOTL, maybe a bit worse.

The Japanese and U.S. are still in serious friction, with new friction points for the U.S. and Alt Germany. Japan has just as much reason to go after China ITTL as IOTL, so that sore point is there too.

The British and Germany are going to be counting the minutes until they go at each other thanks to the set up with the colonies. The U.S. will likely be slightly more expansionist and somewhat less isolationist.

This would be a real lovefest.


BTW: The Treaty this devolves from makes absolutely no sense at all.

machine3589 said:

There is. Aircraft carriers are capital ships too.

Click to expand...

No; not in the Washington Treaty. Aircraft carriers were treated as a sub set in OTL treaty , specifically in Article VII, slightly above cruisers and below capital ships. The concern was that carriers would become more or less super cruisers and a way around the other treaty limits, especially those laid out in Article XI, which was why their was both a size limit and a total tonnage limit for the aircraft carrier which was separate from that for capital ships.

Valdemar II said:

Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine are going to be loyal out of the fear of the Russians, the Baltic Duchies can be dominated by the local Germans.

Click to expand...

Sure, the local leadership gangs in Ukraine and the Baltic (Poland and Lithuania are less clear-cut) may fear the Russians and hence cling to Germany... but Hetman Skoropadsky, in adhering to such a strategy, managed to alienate nearly everyone in the Ukraine, since his political agenda was essentially Denikinite except for some superficial Ukrainiasation and, you know, working for the "German barons". The Bolsheviks sabotaged all the industries in the country; the peasants were bitter at having to return the land to the landlords and ready to revolt at the first opportunity (Makhno's boys were essentially peasant self-defence units, but with an anarchist leadership); the intellectual backers of the Directorate were the ones who took advantage of this to topple the hetman; and he finished begging at the feet of the Volunteers.

Any Russia ruled by anyone from Kadets leftwards will be exploiting this. German-dominated Ukraine will be a powderkeg.

As for the Balts, Latvians would literally fight for anyone if it was against their own crop "German barons", who were frankly a liability for the Reichsdeutch occupying forces: they raised volunteer battalions for the Tsar who then went Bolshevik.

One thing to consider is that a won WW1 with no following problems will reconfirm the German militarists and reactionaries.

Concerning military capabilities, that might mean they will remain large for quite some while maybe, but concerning the economy, that isnt exactly optimal for Germany (To not even mention general political and social conditions...)

Susano said:

One thing to consider is that a won WW1 with no following problems will reconfirm the German militarists and reactionaries.

Click to expand...

God dammit! Nobody said anything about no problems in the post-war era! In fact, the only reason the treaty is here so people wouldnt whine about not having a scenario to base their assumptions on. Plus, the war lasts at least 3 years, maybe even 4. Its not like the Germans just waltzed into Paris without any opposition.

CalBear said:

BTW: The Treaty this devolves from makes absolutely no sense at all.

Click to expand...

Allright. What do you want to know?