Anglo-German Alliance

[Faeelin]

The USA isn't the world largest industrial power in the early 1900's they don't become that until after WWI which was used to develop their industry to an incredible degree.

Actually, it was.

 

[Syphon]

Actually, it was.

Oh well wrong again.

Just goes to show don't believe everything you read.

 

[Glen]

Glen,

have you though of compiling all of this and including it in the T & S section.

Yes.

Even though Germany seems to have lost out on resources it might still bring the two empires closer together in that both will have convergent needs and abilities.

True. Of course, compared to what happened to Germany OTL, this Germany is doing quite well.

It is also quite possible with the way Germany ran her colonies that these German colonies might be far better off under German rule as they have land that German industry can use to expand while have an educated yet cheaper workforce.

Overall probably do as well as most British run ones. The Germans weren't the worst colonials, its true.

Given several decades you might find that Germany has two distinct industrial basins one in central africa that will mass produce under license and one in Germany that will develop new products and produce them as well.

Might take several, several decades, as some parts, despite the railroad, are still going to be harder to get to and not particularly good for establishing mass production. Still, there will be some of what you say.

these industries will be feed by the resources in the BE.

True.

It might turn out in the long run that Germany gets the better of the deal as they are selling value added goods right back to those who provided the resources in the first place.

A thought, but somehow I suspect it won't rise to the level of actually being better off, because I suspect that the British will eventually do their own development in that regard. And don't forget about Imperial Preference....

 

[Glen]

Glen, a point on this with the Anglo-German alliance still in force might the British and Germans come to an accommodation in which the Germans are encouraged to build up their fleet to lets say two thirds of the RN just so that any dispute with the USA the AGA has naval supremacy.

Hmmm...interesting thought. Still, I suspect the British won't be willing to see even that large of an Allied Fleet, not one so close to its interests and Home Islands....

On another point I can see the AGA also including trade as well as Germany will need resources that the BE has and Germany most likely will still be the world leader in chemistry that they seems to excel at.

Agreed and agreed.

Oh I hope you have taken into account that in this TL the USA didn't get the economic and technical boost from the seisure of all of OTL's German assets in the USA.

In general, the USA doesn't get the same boost (they'll still do quite well, of course, but not anywhere like what they did OTL).

Just something to ponder.

Thanks for the thoughts and the interest!

 

[pacifichistorian]

With the Russians likely to strip most of the Far East for a desperate defense of the West, the Japanese will make even more gains here, though they must be careful not to overextend themselves.

I think Manchuria and Korea are clear, as is all of Sakhalin Island, and I suspect the Amur region will be in danger of annexation.

Is it too late to propose the entire Maritime Provinces & Kamchatka?

Logistically the difficulty is simply keeping the supply train going through the North Sea & Baltic. Even if the French Navy didn't go to the same extreme of Submarine warfare that the Germans did, they would still be able to easily put boats into these waters to interdict British supply convoys.

I would expect lots of French subs & early MTB/PT. This was exactly the situation the Jeune Ecole expected...

RN would be able to sweep most of those boats out of the way.

Not with the ASW tech of the era: no hydrophones, no depth charges. And IIRC, France made significant contributions to early 'phones/ASDIC. You may be right about lo# subs, tho. Still, Germany in WW2 OTL only had 21 (22?) Type 7s in the Atlantic & wreaked substantial havoc... Loss of 3 cruisers in under half an hour (per U-9 OTL) could discourage a lot of RN officers....

What is the situation like in Quebec? Not sure how the population there would view war with France but probably not very happy.

Less troubled than you think. OTL, Quebequois didn't really see France so much as the mother country, & considered the European war generally none of their business.

On a similar vein Chamberlain and his group were also strong supporters of fair trade - i.e. tariffs to counter those used by other powers to block British trade. Victory will have increased his prestige. Also an imperial tariff will gain support from the dominions. As such that could occur, especially if there are continued economic tensions and fear about being increasingly overtaken, especially by Germany and the US. On the other had the decisive victory could give a big enough boost that more people become complacent and cling to the traditional free trade area.

This makes me wonder about something. Given fewer casualties & less debt, as well as a broader British Empire, what are the odds for Ford (& other U.S. carmakers) to build branch plants in Canada, Oz, SAf, & India to take advantage of the "Imperial tariff zone", as was done OTL? I picture it being even more common TTL, including early founding of Holden/Ford Oz/Mopar Oz & an Indian car industry, with resulting fx on any WW2, such as OTL Ram/Sentinel tanks, & thus on TTL Lend-Lease (if there is any...).

You'll still get trench warfare, it'll just be lower intensity, machine guns aren't quite as good, the railways to deliver men and material to the front aren't as good etc.
...
still significantly reduce casualties due to the logistics. There will also be far fewer deaths from disease, as trench lines will be very stable and more permenant, so they can be improved..

MGs were far less important than popularly believed. Artillery, thanks to the famous French 75mm M1897 coupled with new HE shells, returned to its traditional position of #1 lethal weapon on the battlefield. Given shortages of nitrates, I picture France TTL early developing the OTL late-WW1 technique of "instant" bombardment, shelling just for a few minutes before attacking, rather than the days'-long fires usual for most of OTL WW1. Strategic mobility would still be plenty good, too, IMO; it served well enough even in the OTL U.S. Civil War...

Also, I think the "short sharp war" argument may well lead to a belief (as OTL) in the continued ability to fight short, successful, even profitable wars...with disastrous results.

Hughes is elected president in 1916 and IOTL was one of the major architects of the Washington Naval Conference. If anything, he'll push for MORE decreases in naval forces. I was thinking he might calll a Naval Conference to put limits on the new naval developments of the time, such as the nascent idea of carriers...

I particularly like the idea of a U.S.-British naval/BB arms race. Absent the OTL example, & the slaughter of OTL WW1, there'd be small motivation for limitations treaties... I don't see Hughes' reason for doing it, given things have dramatically changed TTL versus OTL.

Also, given Japanese feeling slighted in re peace treaties & U.S. immigration laws OTL (not sure if the OTL failure to get an equality clause at Versailles applies TTL), & TTL more power, I see the chances of a U.S.-Japanese confrontation somewhat higher in the '20s & '30s. Does Japan still fall in the hands of militarists/imperialists, as OTL? That raises the odds even more. (Except it's also kinda boring...)

amongst the growing skyskrapers of Manchester and Frankfurt*, rather than Chicago and New York.

I'm not so sure about that. A lot of the OTL motivation for skyscrapers, as I understand it, was driven by a desire to rebuild after the war, which is much less necessary TTL.

Without a WWI, we may not see a Dust Bowl in America.

I think that's inevitable. I read not too long ago that was a product of a change in the surface temp of the Pacific Ocean, which changed the distribution of rain over North America.

I'm liking the direction it's going. (I had much the same scenario in mind myself, in connection with an earlier butterfly. Good to see mine is so much in agreement. I didn't really screw mine up, then.)

 

[pacifichistorian]

When was containerization developed IOTL?

Depends. Started on the railways in 1936ish, and then in 1956 the first shipping contaners were used. It was mainly someone havign abright idea, and international trade icking up to the point of it being viable again. It was quite feasible for it to have been invented in OTL 1920s/30s, just noone thought of it/saw the potential. In this ATL, it's very possible, indeed, one of the likeliest things to be accelerated, particularly given the existance of a couple of very major transport companies with the resources to invest and a very strong interest in seeing one particualr bootlneck (Cairo) opened.

WP says containers date to before the 1780s, iron by the 1840s, road/rail transhippables by early 1900s, & (Brit-only, wood, non-stackable) standard sizes by 1920s.

The initial Dutch and British forces that had taken the islands off the coast had been appalled by the conditions of the prisoners found on Devil's Island. With the American custody of the territory, the infamous prison became a macabre tourist destination.

It isn't used to replace Alcatraz?

 

[Glen]

Bump bump bump

 

[Glen]

Bump bump bump

Darn, wanted to do more than just write "bump bump bump", but having trouble focusing....getting too tired....

Got to do a round-up of what we've got so far I guess....

 

[Glen]

Another little tidbit I'll mention is that there's going to be an Anglo-Saxon Literary Movement of which J.R.R. Tolkien will be a prime member. His translation of Beowulf will be a best-seller in England and Germany.

Sauron Uber Alles!

In 1910, a revolution breaks out in Mexico, raising great concern in the United States government.

A modest education act based on some of the educational practices of Britain's ally, Germany, passes through the British Parliament. It is the first of several reforms to British education in years to come.

In 1909 the British helped foil a coup in Morocco against the pro-European Sultan. In consideration of their assistance, the Sultan granted Great Britain ownership of Tangier in perpetuity.

In this year, the new American president, William Howard Taft, sent forces to Nicaragua when some Americans were killed during an abortive rebellion against the Nicaraguan government.

Construction of major railways in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia continued forward, mostly by British and German firms.

The first Kibbutz begins in the British Levant.

In 1908, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, in response to mounting pressure from the public, including many war veterans, ushered through the Reichstag sweeping reforms for representation based in part on British Parliamentary elections. The Dreiklassenwahlrecht) was retained only for votes on expenditures, a demanded protection from the moneyed interests so as to act as a check on wealth redistribution.

1908 saw the discovery of major oil deposits in the British Protectorate of Persia, and thus the British flocked to the ancient land to exploit the new mineral findings.

1908 also saw a combined British-Egyptian punitive expedition against the remnants of the Sauds, who had been raiding into the Egyptian Hejaz.

Portugal declared against the Entente late in the war and managed as a result to pick up some small gains in West Africa and Timor. But by 1908 Portugal was broke and war broke out between monarchists and republicans. The Anglo-German Alliance forced the failing Portuguese government to sell the remaining Portuguese colonies to them, in order to prevent anarchy from spreading. Ironically, the sale probably allowed the monarchists to gain the upper hand barely and defeat the republicans, at least for the time being.

The long anticipated collapse of the Portuguese monarchy and government thus occurred in 1908, triggering the agreement between the British and Germans for the occupation and partition of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, with Goa going to British India and East Timor to Australia.

The year after the war, 1907, was for most a year of consolidation.

France, who had lost so many men on the killing fields of Holland and western Germany turned introspective, with the first intimations of whole new arts and literature from the lost generation of France. Paris, even in its melancholy over the losses of the war, was starting to show that it would once again become the leader of culture on the continent.

international pressure to strip Leopold II of his Congo holdings given humanitarian concerns.

King Leopold II bowed to international pressure and the needs of the Belgians in the aftermath of the war and agreed to sell the Congo to the British and Germans.

In 1907, the King of Sweden and Norway, Oscar II died. The period of mourning further delayed ideas of division of the two kingdoms, and made some begin to question even its necessity. The new King of Sweden-Norway is his son, King Gustav V.

Austria-Hungary had fought a hard war, and had shown several areas of concern in her armed forces. Thus the military after the war entered into an intense reorganization and retraining along the German lines.

The fledgling Russian Republic struggled to establish a new democracy, with the Parliament pushing through agrarian reforms, while at the same time fighting in Central Asia to hold down the rebellions of these regions. It was the military successes of the Republic in Central Asia that first began to earn them credit among the more conservative factions of the nation, while the agrarian reforms did the same for the liberals.

In the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks tired of the Sultan's continued intrigues against their new government and forced his abdication in favor of his brother, who became Mehmed V.

Libya is a British crown colony, while Egypt remains quasi-independent but with heavy British involvement. Egypt has gained in prestige in the Arab World for holding the Hejaz, and being treated on a more equal level than other Arab areas by the Great Powers. Abbas II has remained Khedive here, having read rightly the likelihood of an Ottoman victory in this war, and siding early with the British in return for the granting of the Hejaz to the Egyptians for administration at the end of the War.

In the British Levant, Jews form a self-defense force, the HaShomer.

Tunisia is now an Italian colony, giving the Italians control of that band of the Meditteranean. Many Sicilians and Southern Italians begin immigrating to Tunisia at the prompting of the Italian Government.

French Algeria and much of Western Sahara remain to the French, and have become the destination for many leaving Tunisia and the rest of Western Africa, giving a slight boost to the population there as well.

Madagascar, one of the few remaining colonial territories of France sees an influx of French citizens and loyalists from Indochina, beginning an interesting mixture of Madagascan, French, and Indochinese culture on the island.

The Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1907 saw the northern Malay states Pattani, Narathiwat (Menara), Songkhla (Singgora), Satun (Setul) Yala (Jala), Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis, and Terengganu formally ceded to the United Kingdom.

The Japanese Empire continued efforts to incorporate their new gains in northern Asia.

The year 1906 saw the resolution of the Great War. With more and more nations joining the Anglo-German Alliance against the Triple Entente, and the losses in Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and stalled front along the Dutch-German border with France, there was little hope of victory and so the Entente came to the negotiating table.

The Ottomans had lost several areas in Africa and Asia to the British and allied Egyptian and Indian forces. Persia had been a battleground for the Anglo-Indian forces and a joint taskforce of Ottoman and Russian troops. Neither side won a convincing victory, but in the end the nation would come under the protection of the British Empire. In Morocco, the Sultan there called upon British forces for protection from the French Algerians.

With the entry of the USA into the war, the French colonial possessions in the New World that hadn't already been occupied fell easily. American Marines aided Dutch forces in the taking of French Guiana. An expeditionary force was dispatched to Europe to aid at the Western Front. One famous quote from the time of the American Expeditionary Force in Germany was, "Von Steuben, we have come!"

Italy waited to see if the French would break through the German lines, but by the beginning of the year it had become obvious that the French offensive had stalled, and with the addition of the United States to the Alliance, it seemed likely that the Entente would lose. Italy declared war and opened a front in the South of France, but with no more luck than the French had had in the North. A more successful move was the Italian invasion of Tunisia and Eastern Algeria in support of the British invasion of Libya.

Russia suffered terribly in this year. With the stripping of the Far East forces, the Japanese were able to make inroads into the Amur region of Russia, only halted by the strain of the logistics involved. As the Germans and Austrians advanced, the ethnic groups on the fringe of the Russian Empire rose up. Finland was lost, as were the Baltics and Poland. Ukraine was in rebellion and only a concerted effort by the Russians was able to put this down, though this left little to deal with the Romanians who joined the war, occupying Bessarabia.

By mid year, the war was all but over, and peace would come in the Fall.

In recognition of their contributions to the war, Newfoundland and New Zealand are granted Dominion status.

France had to pay reparations to Belgium and to a lesser degree Holland and Germany. France also lost significant numbers of colonies overseas, with the complete removal of her possessions in the Western Hemisphere, most under the protection now of the United States. St Pierre and Miquelon are formally ceded to the new Dominion of Newfoundland, and the US gets Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as a protectorate over the former French Guiana. France's possessions in Africa were greatly reduced, with the Italians gaining Tunisia and Britain and Germany splitting most of the rest of Subsaharan Africa. France also lost Indochina to the British. Australia, New Zealand, and Germany split the French Pacific Islands between them.

The peace treaty of 1906 also has a naval limitation section based on ratios, and not just for the defeated Entente but also the victorious Alliance. For example, the US agreed to a three to two ratio with Britain.

The failure of the Entente led to domestic turmoil once the war was over, and saw the birth of the Fourth Republic in France as well as a new Republic of Russia with the forced abdication and exile of Tsar Nicholas II and his family to Switzerland, the man most blamed for the war.

The Russians ceded Manchuria, the whole of Sakhalin and the Amur region to the Japanese. The Grand Duchy of the Baltics (Courland) joined the German Empire directly. Bessarabia was ceded to the Romanians.

The new Kingdoms of Finland, Lithuania, and Poland were established, with German nobles for Finland and Lithuania, and a Hapsburg on the Polish throne.

The Ottoman Empire managed to survive, but barely. A new group of leaders called the Young Turks came to power in the aftermath of the war, greatly usurping the powers of the Sultan.

The European portions of the Ottoman Empire were completely gone, divided between the Balkan nations while the straits including Istanbul turned into a British occupation zone. Britain also gained the Levant as well as southern Mesopotamia. Egypt was ceded control of the Hejaz. Austria-Hungary occupied Montenegro and Albania, Serbia claimed Macedonia, the Greeks had taken Salonika, and the Bulgarians Thrace.

The Second Aliyah begins in earnest with Jews from Russia fleeing from the pogroms occuring during the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Several manage to make it to the British Levant. By the end of the year, the British Government announce their intention to see the Levant as a safe haven for Jews. This is mostly due to the influence of Professor Chaim Weizmann who provided an important method to making a precursor to cordite to the British during the War, and influential Baron Rothschild.

Tension in Norway-Sweden remained high, but the two parliaments kept peace at the behest of the Anglo-German Alliance during the course of the war. What the fate of the union would be after calm returned to Europe remained to be seen.

The year 1905 saw the War joined in earnest.

At the beginning of the year, in the presidential State of the Union address, returning US President Theodore Roosevelt warned both sides in the conflict to respect the neutrality of non-combatants. He also called for a mobilization of the nation in the event that the war widened.

Early in 1905, the British blockade French Guianan ports, but hold off on invasion at the request of the US, Netherlands, and Brazil.

Rapid mobilization in the Fall and Winter of 1904-5 by the Germans allowed for them to strike the first blow, cutting into the Russian West. Austria-Hungary was also able to make gains along the border, though not as quickly as the German army to the north. The British forces supported landings in Russian Finland, and in response to promises of independence, the Finns began a rebellion against the Russians. A similar story played out in the Baltic states as the German juggernaut advanced. The Russians desperately tried to move forces from the East to the West in time to prevent further collapse of the lines, which enabled a war-weary Japan to still make significant gains in the Far East.

But the French did not sit idle during all this. In the summer they launched a daring bid to relieve the pressure on their Russian allies with a plan for a lightning attack through the neutral lowland countries and into Northern Germany, and though successful in Belgium, their drive stalled in the Netherlands, and a secondary drive through Alsace-Lorraine did not get much past the border. Here the Germans had planned to remain on the defensive until the Russians could be dealt with, and held strong in the region.

Belgium and the Netherlands declare war against the French.

The Ottomans hesitated, but then struck, mostly at the British occupied areas formerly belonging to the British Empire. Initially, they had some success, especially in the Arabian Peninsula and pushing out of Lybia into Egypt, but the British and Egyptian forces held at the Battle of the Suez and the Battle of El Alamein, halting further advances. Aden too was able to hold against the onslaught, aided in part by Arabs who began to rise against the resurgent Ottomans. By the middle of the year, however, the plight of Russia and its threatened collapse made the Ottomans open another front, this time pushing into Austrian occupied Bosnia. Montenegro, long an ally of Russia, declared for the Entente at the beginning of the Ottoman offensive against Austria-Hungary, allowing Ottoman forces to pass through Montenegro to strike at Bosnia.

After negative reports from a committee sent to Uganda and the entry of the Ottomans into the war, the Zionist Congress politely refuses the British offer of a Jewish Homeland in Uganda, instead requesting the British support a Homeland in the Levant.

The attacks of Entente forces through neutral nations incited Theodore Roosevelt to demand their immediate evacuation and recompense, but when the French were not forthcoming, President Roosevelt addressed a special joint session of the Congress, calling for a declaration of War against the Entente. The rousing speech won over many, especially those already sympathetic to the Alliance cause, but there was still a great deal of isolationist sentiment in the Congress, and the vote in favor of war was passed with only a narrow margin.

Later that summer, the first action of the US in the Great War is to send US Marines to occupy French Guiana. US forces will occupy the colony throughout the war.

It was in 1904 that the Great Powers came into conflict. In the beginning of the year, British forces invaded and occupied Tibet. Also early in the year the Japanese demanded the Russians abide by their former agreement to pull out of Manchuria. The Russians, feeling confident in their ability to defeat an Asiatic nation, refused and so began the Russo-Japanese conflict. The Russians over the course of the year suffered defeat after defeat, mostly in the naval arena but on land as well. The other Great Powers tried to remain neutral at first, but the tension was greatly heightened by the war, and the potential alliances that could be activated should even one more power enter the fray.

It was in this climate that the Battle of Dogger Bank became almost inevitable, as in October of 1904 a Russian flotilla heading for the Far East mistakenly thought British vessels were part of a Japanese ambush. This quickly escalated into a full scale naval engagement which the Russians lost. The Russians refused to take responsibility for the action, claiming it was Britain's attempt to sereptitiously aid their ally Japan under the guise of an 'accident'. Russia and Britain entered into a state of war.

With two powers at war with Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire were obliged by treaty to enter into war on behalf of the Russians, which in turn would require the entry into the war of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and so on, as interlocking alliances were tripped by the expansion of the war.

Many in France cheered the announcement of hostilities with chants of 'Alsace-Lorraine!', inflaming the spirit of revanchism in the country.

France and the US, painfully aware of the exposure of the French Caribbean to naval actions by the British, agree to the sale of French Caribbean possessions to the US. The two exceptions are St. Martins, which is ceded to the Dutch who share the island, and French Guiana, which the French believe they can hold at least long enough to get a settlement in the war after they knock out Germany (they will find out they were wrong). Roosevelt is willing to look the other way on the tiny transfers so far, but sends diplomatic notes warning that anything more substantial will be frowned upon by the US.

By November, the Canadians and Newfoundlanders, in the first North American action of the war, grab the French St. Pierre and Miquelon islands.

However, by the end of the year, most of the fighting was still occuring only in Manchuria, and many thought that negotiators would prevail and general war in Europe be avoided.

Sweden-Norway had at the beginning of the twentieth century looked destined to split with increasing tensions between the two lands. However, with the Anglo-German Alliance one of the main sources of contention between the two, favor of England or Germany, ceased to be an issue. With the onset of the war in 1904, Sweden-Norwary remained neutral but now were reticent to seem split in the face of the threat of war.

January 1903 saw the addition of Germany to the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance agreement.

In the same year, On May 3, 1903, the Ottoman Empire became the third member of the Triple Entente, a move of great concern to Austria-Hungary and her allies. It would have been of even more concern to Britain if they had known of the secret side agreement where, in the event of general war between the alliances, the Ottomans were guaranteed restoration of their former territories in the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt after the defeat of the Anglo-German alliance. The plan for the Balkans was for a series of client states under the influence of either Russia or the Ottoman empire depending on whether there were a predominance of Orthodox Christians or Muslims in the region.

Also in 1903, the British government offered to give a plateau in Uganda to the Jews as the site of a Jewish Homeland. The Zionist community is split over this offer, with many preferring still to see a homeland in Ottoman Palestine.

1902 was a good year for the new monarchs of Britain and Germany.

On January 12, 1902 Austria-Hungary formally joined the Anglo-German Alliance, which then formally was referred to as the Triple Alliance, though most continued to refer to it by its former name.

Then, on June 7, 1902, the British Empire, the German Empire, and King Leopold II of Belgium signed a treaty allowing for two Trans-Congo railways, one running North-South connecting British Africa, and one running East-West connecting German Africa. A consortium of British, German, and Belgian companies would construct the railways in Belgium. Freedom of passage was guaranteed for German and British trains, and they did not have to go through customs in Congo so long as they made no stops other then fueling while in the Congo. A side agreement between the British and Germans agreed to have a spur of the British railway in the South go to German Southwest Africa.

One trouble spot occurred later in the year when Venezuela tried to default on loans to the British and Germans, but a satisfactory agreement for repayment was reached with the Americans acting as neutral guarantors, mainly due to the mediation of the American President, Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1901, three heads of state would die, one of advanced old age, the other two by an assassin's bullet.

On January 22, 1901, Queen Victoria died. At her bedside for much of the end of her life was her devouted grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire. Many British citizens were touched by this display of filial affection from the Emperor of Germany.

And thus were doubly grieved, when less than two months later, on March 6, 1901, an assassin killed Kaiser Wilhelm II in Bremen. The young Kaiser Wilhelm III would appoint a new Chancellor to usher his new reign, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg.

Another assassin would strike at American president William McKinley, mortally wounding him on September 6, 1901, though he would not succumb until eight days later. Theodore Roosevelt would be sworn in as the President of the USA on September 14, 1901.

It was also in September, September 20, 1901, that the governments of Great Britain and Germany committed to an Anglo-German Alliance. The proposal, one long proposed by Joseph Chamberlain, capitalized on the good will created by the shared tragedies of the year, to make it a reality. While the new King Edward was reticent, having previousl favored France over the bellicose Wilhelm II, the more reasonable Kaiser Wilhelm III is much more reassuring to the sovereign, who is persuaded to acquiesce to the arrangement.

Older Stuff:

Most of the timeline to date.

In 1901, three heads of state would die, one of advanced old age, the other two by an assassin's bullet.

On January 22, 1901, Queen Victoria died. At her bedside for much of the end of her life was her devouted grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire. Many British citizens were touched by this display of filial affection from the Emperor of Germany.

And thus were doubly grieved, when less than two months later, on March 6, 1901, an assassin killed Kaiser Wilhelm II in Bremen.

Another assassin would strike at American president William McKinley, mortally wounding him on September 6, 1901, though he would not succumb until eight days later. Theodore Roosevelt would be sworn in as the President of the USA on September 14, 1901.

It was also in September, September 20, 1901, that the governments of Great Britain and Germany committed to an Anglo-German Alliance. Both new sovereigns were in favor of the proposal, one long proposed by Joseph Chamberlain, and capitalizing on the good will created by the shared tragedies of the year, it was made a reality.

1902 was a good year for the new monarchs of Britain and Germany.

On January 12, 1902 Austria-Hungary formally joined the Anglo-German Alliance, which then formally was referred to as the Triple Alliance, though most continued to refer to it by its former name.

Then, on June 7, 1902, the British Empire, the German Empire, and King Leopold II of Belgium signed a treaty allowing for two Trans-Congo railways, one running North-South connecting British Africa, and one running East-West connecting German Africa. A consortium of British, German, and Belgian companies would construct the railways in Belgium. Freedom of passage was guaranteed for German and British trains, and they did not have to go through customs in Congo so long as they made no stops other then fueling while in the Congo. A side agreement between the British and Germans agreed to have a spur of the British railway in the South go to German Southwest Africa.

One trouble spot occurred later in the year when Venezuela tried to default on loans to the British and Germans, but a satisfactory agreement for repayment was reached with the Americans acting as neutral guarantors, mainly due to the mediation of the American President, Theodore Roosevelt.

January 1903 saw the addition of Germany to the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance agreement.

In the same year, On May 3, 1903, the Ottoman Empire became the third member of the Triple Entente, a move of great concern to Austria-Hungary and her allies. It would have been of even more concern to Britain if they had known of the secret side agreement where, in the event of general war between the alliances, the Ottomans were guaranteed restoration of their former territories in the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt after the defeat of the Anglo-German alliance. The plan for the Balkans was for a series of client states under the influence of either Russia or the Ottoman empire depending on whether there were a predominance of Orthodox Christians or Muslims in the region.

It was in 1904 that the Great Powers came into conflict. In the beginning of the year, the Japanese demanded the Russians abide by their former agreement to pull out of Manchuria. The Russians, feeling confident in their ability to defeat an Asiatic nation, refused and so began the Russo-Japanese conflict. The Russians over the course of the year suffered defeat after defeat, mostly in the naval arena but on land as well. The other Great Powers tried to remain neutral at first, but the tension was greatly heightened by the war, and the potential alliances that could be activated should even one more power enter the fray.

It was in this climate that the Battle of Dogger Bank became almost inevitable, as in October of 1904 a Russian flotilla heading for the Far East mistakenly thought British vessels were part of a Japanese ambush. This quickly escalated into a full scale naval engagement which the Russians lost. The Russians refused to take responsibility for the action, claiming it was Britain's attempt to sereptitiously aid their ally Japan under the guise of an 'accident'. Russia and Britain entered into a state of war.

With two powers at war with Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire were obliged by treaty to enter into war on behalf of the Russians, which in turn would require the entry into the war of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and so on, as interlocking alliances were tripped by the expansion of the war.

Many in France cheered the announcement of hostilities with chants of 'Alsace-Lorraine!', inflaming the spirit of revanchism in the country.

However, by the end of the year, most of the fighting was still occuring only in Manchuria, and many thought that negotiators would prevail and general war in Europe be avoided.

The year 1905 saw the War was joined in earnest.

At the beginning of the year, in the presidential State of the Union address, returning US President Theodore Roosevelt warned both sides in the conflict to respect the neutrality of non-combatants. He also called for a mobilization of the nation in the event that the war widened.

Rapid mobilization in the Fall and Winter of 1904-5 by the Germans allowed for them to strike the first blow, cutting into the Russian West. Austria-Hungary was also able to make gains along the border, though not as quickly as the German army to the north. The British forces supported landings in Russian Finland, and in response to promises of independence, the Finns began a rebellion against the Russians. A similar story played out in the Baltic states as the German juggernaut advanced. The Russians desperately tried to move forces from the East to the West in time to prevent further collapse of the lines, which enabled a war-weary Japan to still make significant gains in the Far East.

But the French did not sit idle during all this. They launched a daring bid to relieve the pressure on their Russian allies with a plan for a lightning attack through the neutral lowland countries and into Northern Germany, and though successful in Belgium, their drive stalled in the Netherlands, and a secondary drive through Alsace-Lorraine did not get much past the border. Here the Germans had planned to remain on the defensive until the Russians could be dealt with, and held strong in the region.

The Ottomans hesitated, but then struck, mostly at the British occupied areas formerly belonging to the British Empire. Initially, they had some success, especially in the Arabian Peninsula and pushing out of Lybia into Egypt, but the British and Egyptian forces held at the Battle of the Suez and the Battle of El Alamein, halting further advances. Aden too was able to hold against the onslaught, aided in part by Arabs who began to rise against the resurgent Ottomans. By the middle of the year, however, the plight of Russia and its threatened collapse made the Ottomans open another front, this time pushing into Austrian occupied Bosnia, but not just from the narrow neck of territory linking them, but through neutral Montenegro as well.

The attacks of Entente forces through neutral nations incited Theodore Roosevelt to demand their immediate evacuation and recompense, but when the French were not forthcoming, President Roosevelt addressed a special joint session of the Congress, calling for a declaration of War against the Entente. The rousing speech won over many, especially those already sympathetic to the Alliance cause, but there was still a great deal of isolationist sentiment in the Congress, and the vote in favor of war was passed with only a narrow margin.

The year 1906 saw the resolution of the Great War. With more and more nations joining the Anglo-German Alliance against the Triple Entente, and the losses in Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and stalled front along the Dutch-German border with France, there was little hope of victory and so the Entente came to the negotiating table.

The Ottomans had lost several areas in Africa and Asia to the British and allied Egyptian and Indian forces. Persia had been a battleground for the Anglo-Indian forces and a joint taskforce of Ottoman and Russian troops. Neither side won a convincing victory, but in the end the nation would come under the protection of the British Empire. In Morocco, the Sultan there called upon British forces for protection from the French Algerians.

With the entry of the USA into the war, the French colonial possessions in the New World that hadn't already been occupied fell easily. American Marines aided Dutch forces in the taking of French Guiana. An expeditionary force was dispatched to Europe to aid at the Western Front. One famous quote from the time of the American Expeditionary Force in Germany was, "Von Steuben, we have come!"

Italy waited to see if the French would break through the German lines, but by the beginning of the year it had become obvious that the French offensive had stalled, and with the addition of the United States to the Alliance, it seemed likely that the Entente would lose. Italy declared war and opened a front in the South of France, but with no more luck than the French had had in the North. A more successful move was the Italian invasion of Tunisia and Eastern Algeria in support of the British invasion of Libya.

Russia suffered terribly in this year. With the stripping of the Far East forces, the Japanese were able to make inroads into the Amur region of Russia, only halted by the strain of the logistics involved. As the Germans and Austrians advanced, the ethnic groups on the fringe of the Russian Empire rose up. Finland was lost, as were the Baltics and Poland. Ukraine was in rebellion and only a concerted effort by the Russians was able to put this down, though this left little to deal with the Romanians who joined the war, occupying Bessarabia.

By mid year, the war was all but over. France had to pay reparations to Belgium and to a lesser degree Holland and Germany. France also lost significant numbers of colonies overseas, with the complete removal of her possessions in the Western Hemisphere, most under the protection now of the United States. Her possessions in Africa were greatly reduced, and the French lost Indochina to the British.

The failure of the Entente led to domestic turmoil once the war was over, and saw the birth of the Fourth Republic in France as well as a new Republic of Russia with the forced abdication and exile of Tsar Nicholas II and his family to Switzerland, the man most blamed for the war.

The new Kingdoms of Finland, Lithuania, and Poland were established, with German nobles for Finland and Lithuania, and a Hapsburg on the Polish throne. The Grand Duchy of the Baltics joined the German Empire directly.

The Ottoman Empire managed to survive, but barely. A new group of leaders called the Young Turks came to power in the aftermath of the war, greatly usurping the powers of the Sultan.

The European portions of the Ottoman Empire were almost completely gone, with only the remnant around Istambul hanging on. Austria-Hungary occupied Albania, while Serbia claimed Macedonia, the Greeks had taken Salonika, and the Bulgarians Thrace.

Tension in Norway-Sweden remained high, but the two parliaments kept peace at the behest of the Anglo-German Alliance during the course of the war. What the fate of the union would be after calm returned to Europe remained to be seen.

The year after the war, 1907, was for most a year of consolidation.

The fledgling Russian Republic struggled to establish a new democracy, with the Parliament pushing through agrarian reforms, while at the same time fighting in Central Asia to hold down the rebellions of these regions. It was the military successes of the Republic in Central Asia that first began to earn them credit among the more conservative factions of the nation, while the agrarian reforms did the same for the liberals.

France, who had lost so many men on the killing fields of Holland and western Germany turned introspective, with the first intimations of whole new arts and literature from the lost generation of France. Paris, even in its melancholy over the losses of the war, was starting to show that it would once again become the leader of culture on the continent.

In the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks tired of the Sultan's continued intrigues against their new government and forced his abdication in favor of his brother, who became Mehmed V.

The Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1907 saw the northern Malay states Pattani, Narathiwat (Menara), Songkhla (Singgora), Satun (Setul) Yala (Jala), Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis, and Terengganu formally ceded to the United Kingdom.

Newfoundland and New Zealand formally became Dominions, and with this change Canada formally ceded to Newfoundland the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.

The Japanese Empire continued efforts to incorporate their new gains in northern Asia.

ADDENDUM:

In 1907, the King of Sweden and Norway, Oscar II died. The period of mourning further delayed ideas of division of the two kingdoms, and made some begin to question even its necessity.

So...with the delay in splitting Sweden and Norway, plus the lessened tension with the Anglo-German Alliance (thus no Pro-British Norway and Pro-German Sweden division), do people think that Sweden and Norway would still divide?

If they do, I think the new King of Norway will actually be Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland, younger brother to the new King of Sweden-Norway, King Gustav V.

I suspect that in 1901, the new Kaiser Wilhelm III might have appointed Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg as his Chancellor. The man certainly appeared to look favorably enough on improving relations with Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg

1908 saw the discovery of major oil deposits in the British Protectorate of Persia, and thus the British flocked to the ancient land to exploit the new mineral findings.

1908 also saw a combined British-Egyptian punitive expedition against the remnants of the Sauds, who had been raiding into the Egyptian Hejaz.

The long anticipated collapse of the Portuguese monarchy and government occured in 1908, triggering the agreement between the British and Germans for the occupation and partition of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, with Goa going to British India and East Timor to Australia.

In 1909 the British helped foil a coup in Morocco against the pro-European Sultan. In consideration of their assistance, the Sultan granted Great Britain ownership of Tangier in perpetuity.

In this year, the new American president, William Howard Taft, sent forces to Nicaragua when some Americans were killed during an abortive rebellion against the Nicaraguan government.

Construction of major railways in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia continued forward, mostly by British and German firms.

1910 - Revolution breaks out in Mexico.

1911 - In late October, significant revolts break out in South and Central China under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen in Guongdong, and Huang Xing in Central China.

BTW, anyone notice that Huang Xing and Sun Yat-sen are IN China when the Revolution starts?

No Russian sector for the bombmakers to be in and accidently blow off. Slight butterfly perhaps, but really one could argue that the accidental start of the Revolution was the more random event, and this one the more probable.

In any event, I suspect the Chinese Revolution will at least start off a little bit more stable. And the Republic of China will have fewer powers to deal with, and no May Fourth Movement in 1919 to discredit them (snubbed by the Entente in the negotiations). The blame for the Japanese in Manchuria goes with the Qing Dynasty...

Okay, its 1911, one decade into the timeline thus far.

Lets do a Continental Round-Up and see what's changed, and what has stayed the same.

North America region first.

Canadians fought in the Great War, something to be proud of but nothing to change the course of Canadian history by and large. Newfoundland upon gaining dominion status received two small islands. Not much different up North thus far.

America has fought a war to defend the integrity of neutral nations. Boy, we must be feeling smug about now. Don't know yet how that will fully play out. Wonder if there were any fighting up near Alaska between US and Russians...probably minor stuff like in WWII with the Japanese, but probably even less than that.

Moderate change here...doesn't look like the US will pick up the Danish Virgin Islands in a few years, but they do now have control over French Guadeloupe and Martinique, as well as a protectorate in formerly French Guiana. Roosevelt would have put this on a fast track to independence if he could....I wonder how the French Guianans are reacting to all this.

Mexico pretty much like OTL so far.

Same with the Central American countries, I suppose.

I'll throw in South America here since it seems related. We've already mentioned the shift with Guiana. Don't know that there would be any other changes in South America yet. Probably more or less OTL.

Next installment...Asia!

Update continued, Asia 1901-1911...

The Far Eastern Amur region and Manchuria have been lost to the Japanese in the Great War. The new Russian Republic will be less focused on the Pacific than OTL Russia or Soviets due to that loss. There were uprisings in the Central Asian sections of Russia, which the nascent Russian Republic were able to suppress, which actually gave them a modicum of respect from the Russian people after the failure of the Empire's forces in the Great War.

Mongolia is probably more with the Chinese Republic than Russia at this point.
There are still Germans and English in China, but we haven't seen yet more than their coastal possessions.

Most of the Pacific has stayed under the same control, due to the dominance of the Alliance in the region. New Caledonia and associated French possessions ended up being taken by the Australians. French Polynesia was spared barely simply due to its distance from the main fighting. Later, with the onset of the Portuguese troubles, East Timor was annexed by Australia. The biggest change was the passage of Indochina to Britain. Be interesting to find out how Vietnamese and others are taking the transition. Siam is falling in the British sphere of interest, but retains independence.

Tibet was invaded and Llasa occupied prior to the entry of Britain into the Great War. It is currently a point of discussion between the British and the new Chinese Republic.

India is pretty much India, little change here. Afghanistan is still in the British Empire, and now Persia has come under the protection of Britain.

Due to their entente, Russia and Ottoman have kept the same border, but the Ottomans have lost significant regions in the Arabian Peninsula, Levant, and lost entirely North Africa and the Balkans. A more militant group, the Young Turks, have come to power in the wake of the war.

The British control the Levant and the Persian gulf, but their client state of Egypt controls the Hejaz.

Next time, Africa....

A Reminder for myself -

Posts: Need to retcon the 1904 post to mention the British invasion of Tibet before the outbreak of the war (OTL event) and the 1905 post to have Montenegro declare for the Entente at the beginning of the Ottoman offensive against AH, and the 1906 post to indicate their annexation by AH along with Albania.

Maps: Need to retcon the 1906 map to show Tibet under British influence and Montenegro as part of AH. Need to carry those over to the 1908 map as well.

That seems reasonable. I think they get more nitrates than you suggest, but they will have more supply problems of the type you suggest.



Call it a symbol of solidarity. Obviously it won't be a lot. And they'll probably be deployed mostly in the Netherlands.



I don't think this likely.

How about this as a clarification of what happens?

October 1904 - The Battle of Dogger Bank triggers the expansion of the Russo-Japanese War into the Great War.

November 1904 - Canadians and Newfoundlanders in the first North American action of the war grab St. Pierre and Miquelon islands.

Fall 1904 - France and the US, painfully aware of the exposure of the French Caribbean to naval actions by the British, agree to the sale of French Caribbean possessions to the US. The two exceptions is St. Martins, which is ceded to the Dutch who share the island, and French Guiana, which the French think they can hold, at least long enough to get a settlement in the war after they knock out Germany (they will find out they were wrong). Roosevelt is willing to look the other way on the tiny transfers so far, but sends diplomatic notes warning that anything more substantial will be frowned upon by the US.

January 1905 - Roosevelt warns in his speech against invasion of neutral nations by either side.

Early 1905 - British blockade French Guianan ports, but hold off on invading at the requests of the US, Netherlands, and Brazil.

Mid 1905 - With the reverses on the Russian front, and no sign of a German offensive in the West, the French gamble and launch an attack through the Lowland Countries. Belgium and the Netherlands declare war against the French. Shortly after, Roosevelt gets the US to declare war as well.

Summer 1905 - One of the first actions of the US in the Great War is to send US Marines to occupy French Guiana. US forces will occupy the colony.

1906 - The War ends.

That seem reasonable, Alratan? If the US had enough money (or credit) to buy rights to the Panama Canal (which they did), they can swing the islands deal.

Back to our update...

Oceania 1901-1911 Well, the Australians and the New Zealanders gain territory from the French Pacific Islands. So we have slightly bigger/different Dominions for them. But otherwise I imagine not much difference.

Germans retain their Pacific possessions, and have picked up a couple more islands from France as well. The Dutch still have Indonesia, which isn't much different than OTL at this point.

Africa 1901-1911 update...

Here is one of the places where large differences have happened.

We'll go from South to North....

Namibia is still in German hands, but both South Africa and German West Africa have grown with the troubles in Portugal. With the Anglo-German Alliance in place, the plans of these two to split the Portuguese colonies in the event of a political/economic meltdown in Portugal goes further than talk and into action. Angola is German and Mozambique British/South African. Madagascar has been retained by France, and has become one of the major destinations from people from the former French Indochina and Pacific Islands, leading to a population boom. Djibuti is now British, while the Ethiopians and the Italians have retained their borders in East Africa. In West Africa the French Congo has gone to Germany, while Dahomey has gone to Germany, the Central Sahel/Sahara have been split up between the two powers to allow access to Lake Chad as a transfer point between holdings of the British and Germans overlapping in the region. Much of the Southern coast of West African has gone to the British, finally linking their possessions in the region and giving them control of the Niger river. Portugal for their siding with the Alliance in the war had gained a small increase in their West African colony, but their collapse in 1908 saw them lose it entirely to Britain, completing British control of the Gambia/Senegal region. Morroco is still under the control of her Sultan, but he is heavily supported by the British, who have protected Morroco first from the French in the War, then from a coup against the Sultan, in return for which they have received Tangier as a British base (ironically returning to them a city once part of English holdings). Algeria and much of Western Sahara remain to the French, and have become the destination for many leaving Tunisia and the rest of Western Africa, giving a slight boost to the population there as well. Tunisia of course is now an Italian colony, giving the Italians control of that band of the Meditteranean. Many Sicilians and Southern Italians begin immigrating to Tunesia at the prompting of the Italian Government. Libya is a British crown colony, while Egypt remains quasi-independent but with heavy British involvement. Egypt has gained in prestige in the Arab World for holding the Hejaz, and being treated on a more equal level than other Arab areas by the Great Powers. Abbas II has remained Khedive here, having read rightly the likelihood of an Ottoman victory in this war, and siding early with the British in return for the granting of the Hejaz to the Egyptians for administration at the end of the War.

A major endeavor in the last half of the decade has been a series of railways in Africa meant to link the British and German colonies one to the other, with a nexus through the Belgian Congo at Bukavu. It is expected that in the coming decades, this will prove a vital part of developing the continent.

Similar railways are in the planning stages for linking British North Africa and Middle East with South Asia.

Europe Update 1901-1911 (first draft)

The news of 1901 had been the death of the Kaiser and the formation of the Anglo-German Alliance.

Of course, the war a few years later proved to be a much more important event, changing the face of Europe and much of the world. In the West, there was little border change, but significant political change.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland of course gained much from the War, with the increases in the British Empire for little in cost of life. The architect of the Anglo-German Alliance, Joseph Chamberlain, had parlayed its success into the passage of his cherished Imperial Preference legislation. However, this success proved in the end the undoing of the Unionist party as it in the end split the party enough to allow the Liberals to come to power at the end of the War. One of their first acts was to introduce a new Budget that imposed new taxes on the wealthy to pay for some of the cost of the war. The House of Lords defeated the bill, triggering a crisis settled when the Liberals forced through a bill limiting the power of Lords with the weapon of Edward VIIth's promise to flood Lords with liberal peers.

This in turn led to the passage of the Irish Home Rule bill, which would go into effect in 1911. Unfortunately, the decade ended in sorrow for the UK as they lost the second monarch in a decade with the death of Edward VII.

The Dutch were drawn into the Alliance by the actions of France during the War, and would remain closely linked to Britain and Germany in the years after.

Belgium had been devastated, and much of the reparations paid by the Entente went to rebuilding the small nation. Funds from the Congo Railway agreement also helped somewhat as King Leopold II invested much of it into rebuilding the nation.

Luxembourg remained fundamentally the same in this decade, only touched softly by the events of the war.

France of course was much effected by the war. Though in Europe she managed to retain her borders, the cost of defeat overseas was a much reduced empire. The failure of the war was blamed on the Republicans and their leftist coalitions, and with the rise of the conservatives after the peace a new Constitution was proclaimed, marking the birth of the Fourth Republic. The monarchists attempted to bring back the monarchy, but internal dissention over the three main claimants prevented it. Instead, France adopted a presidential system, more along the lines of the Americans, that did away with the parliamentary system that seemed to bring too much instability to the government in the opinion of many Frenchmen of the time. However, by 1911 there were signs already that the conservative factions of France were slipping in control, and that the left was beginning a comeback.

Spain remained isolated and indolent throughout the war, though they made a significant amount of profit as a middleman for shipping supplies and materials to France during the war when the sea had become treacherous for Frence shipping.

Portugal declared against the Entente late in the war and managed as a result to pick up some small gains in West Africa and Timor. But by 1908 Portugal was broke and war broke out between monarchists and republicans. The Anglo-German Alliance forced the failing Portuguese government to sell the remaining Portuguese colonies to them, in order to prevent anarchy from spreading. Ironically, the sale probably allowed the monarchists to gain the upper hand barely and defeat the republicans, at least for the time being.

Sweden-Norway had at the beginning of the twentieth century looked destined to split with increasing tensions between the two lands. However, with the Anglo-German Alliance one of the main sources of contention between the two, favor of England or Germany, ceased to be an issue. Other compromises were found to support unity during the uncertain times of the war in 1904-6, when Sweden-Norwary remained neutral but was unwilling to seem split while the threat of the war continued. By 1907, the tension of previous years was much abated, and both mourned the death of King Gustav that year. By the end of the decade, though there is still talk of disunion, most people seem happy with the status quo.

More later....

Finland started the century as a Grand Duchy of Russia under the rule of the Tsar, but with the Great War the British and German supported revolt led to the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy under a German royal. The first years of Finnish independence were ones of rebuilding. To the surprise of other Europeans, they became the first nation in Europe to have full women's suffrage at the end of the war, even electing women to the new legislature.

The small kingdom of Lithuania was likewise placed under a German royal.

The restored kingdom of Poland, however, received a Hapsburg for its king.

Both were without commercial ports, and thus bound by trade to the German and Austrian Empires, respectively.

Russia began the century as an Empire engaged in the Great Game, but with a brittle monarchy in the form of the Tsar. The highlight of the decade was probably the negotiation of a secret treaty with the Ottomans to bring them into a war on the side of France and Russia in the event of a war between the powers. Only a few short years that would happen. What started as a war between Tsarist Russia and the Japanese Empire which embarrassed the Russian bear escalated into a world spanning war of the titans, embroiling eventually all the great powers of the age. The rapid drive by the Germans into the Empire devastated Russian order and morale, while continued Japanese attacks nibbled on the Empire from the rear, and thus it would be Russia that would have to capitulate first in the Great War. The defeat saw the loss of Finland, the Baltics, and Poland to the Alliance and revolt. However, the end of the war and even the calling of a Duma did not save the monarchy, and the Russian Revolution toppled the Romanovs, forcing them to go into exile. The newly established Russian Republic attacked the problems of unrest in Central Asia and the Causcases with renewed energy, giving the Russian military a chance to regain some of their lost glory. Agrarian reforms were greeted with jubilation by the peasants of Russia, but there was still much dissent between the right and the left of the new Duma, not to mention the significant debt and less significant but real reparations inherited from the war and the old Tsarist regime. However, by the end of the decade the troubles in Central Asia and the Caucases were calming, and agrarian reforms were already beginning to drive Russia to become the breadbasket of the world.

Switzerland and Liechtenstein went about the decade almost blissfully uninvolved in the games of the Powers.

Austria-Hungary had fought a hard war, and had shown several areas of concern in her armed forces. Thus the military after the war entered into an intense reorganization and retraining along the German lines.

AH to be continued....

The United States experienced an economic downturn in the mid 1910s, which led to the defeat of President Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. Former Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes the Republican candidate won the election.

In 1913, President Yuan Shikai on his own negotiated a loan with the British, Germans, and Japanese for 12 million pounds sterling to begin financing his Beiyang Army. In return, Yuan recognizes the Powers' spheres of influence in China as well as agreeing to the borders between India and Tibet as set out by the British, acknowledged for the first time Japanese control of Manchuria, and agreed to an extended area of direct control for Germany on the Shantung Peninsula. However, all of this was to no avail for Shikai, whose military build-up was incomplete by the time the Republicans launched the Second Chinese Revolution which overthrew him and restored control of the government to the parliament. Sun Yat-sen became the President of the Republic after Shikai fled to exile in Manchuria.

Also in 1913, the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Tibet and declared its right to independence from both the Chinese and the British. However, this was mostly ignored by the Powers at the time and the Dalai Lama had very little reach beyond Llasa.

By 1915, the Republic of China was starting to stabilize, and new relations were being forged with their fellow Republic to the north, the Republic of Russia. Mutual trade agreements were reached after the recognition of Chinese rights to Mongolia and Tanna Tuva. The Russians also began sending advisors to train the Chinese military.

I think that once the Second Revolution in China is over, the Republicans can negotiate some more favorable terms with the Anglo-Germans. I can see the British being willing to grant Hainan and Macao back to Chinese Control, and perhaps even the Germans going back to their one city in Shantung, rather than the larger area.

The Japanese will stay put in the Northwest, but any encroachment in Fukien in this scenario will have been ephemeral to say the least.

As for Tibet...I see it creeping towards independence, but remaining in the British sphere of influence and protection, perhaps somewhat like Thailand ITTL.

Okay, someone in Pax Anglo-Germanica brought up the OTL international pressure to strip Leopold II of his Congo holdings given humanitarian concerns.

Here I can see the Belgians in the aftermath of the war agreeing to sell their claim to the Congo to the British and Germans, given their need for cash after being the main battlefield for the Western Front.

So, I might throw that into a retcon, but would it be immediately after the war?

1918 will see the outbreak of the Hemispheric Influenzae, first in the United States, where it is believed to have originated, and then spreading throughout North and South America.

Heroic efforts at quarantine of ships coming from the Americas prevent the spread of the epidemic to the rest of the world.

In the aftermath of the worst flu outbreak on record, the US has scaled back its military efforts in the Caribbean and Central America, which were never popular with President Hughes anyway.

Given the way the poll is going, I've prepared updated maps with the British in control of the Straits and The City, and the Ottomans completely booted from Europe.

Will post them when appropriate.

By 1920, Europe is doing significantly better than OTL (even the 'defeated' Europeans), and the USA is doing somewhat less well than OTL. Relatively speaking, Europe is still the place to be ITTL.

Military tech is probably slightly behind, as the conditions in the war got people thinking, but didn't really last/warrant developing new weapons. Probably miltech by 1920 is lagging behind OTL levels almost as much as in the Pax AG timeline.

Civilian tech has probably as much if not more of a boost as the Pax AG timeline. The casualties in the war weren't very bad, and the flu epidemic doesn't strike Europe really. Having the AG in charge helped with efforts to enforce quarantine.

Socially...hmmm...actually the period from 1906 on has the French and Russians probably doing a lot of soul-searching, some shake-up of society, and so may actually be more innovative socially up to 1918 than OTL. Germany too with a new Kaiser and closer links to Britain is more liberalized up to 1918 than OTL. No 'lost generation' so the societal shifts are more than OTL but milder than post WWI OTL. USA is probably about the same as OTL socially up to 1918, though they'll get a little bit of a boost from following trends in Europe.

Socially this world is different once we hit 1918 and after. No 'lost generation' no mobilization of women for work or workers in general, no communist revolution, no major war for opportunities for minorities.

This world is probably thus far a bit more conservative on average, though moreso just 'different'.

1919 sees the ratification of Prohibition in the USA, which goes into effect in 1920.

The US presidential election of 1920 will probably be between Charles Evans Hughes and James Cox (with his running mate a guy named FDR).

Looking back, I can see within a few years from the end of the War in 1905 the Ethiopians, British, and Italians signing an agreement modeled on the Congo Rail agreement for rail-lines running through Ethiopia, which would cross in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia is likely playing off the Italians and British fairly effectively ITTL, at least in the first few decades.

Very likely. If you're building a Western Rift railway, then a Eastern Rift is obvious. This is particularly likely given that British control of the Congo will imply penetration of Indian labourers (and mid-level semi-proffessionals) into the Congo in large numbers. They will provide a ready soruce of traffic along this route.

As a side note, if we're going to see s chnage in British educational and investment culture as discussed above, some major Education Acts should be getting passed aroung 1910-1912.

Jackie Fisher should in in charge of the RN in this ATL as well as OTL, and with the RN's successful performance (particularly if Constantinople is taken) in the War, he will have much more leeway than OTL to implement his reforms (better gunnery, training, etc), and also to drive forwards his pet projects, such as Aircraft Carriers. The combination of external motivation and a real reformer at the top could well lead to the RN being more innovative and a tech leader than OTL, not less.

If you are going to have more technical education in Britain than OTL, expect to see noticabley faster technological advancement, particularly in the chemical sector. Earlier polymers, vulcanisation, earlier adoption of mass production, the whole works.

On economics. I'll try and find some stats on growth. I'd expect Britain to dip below German GDP whilst the educational reforms are implemented, then grow and stabilse at slightly higher. America would be greater than either, but by a much smaller degree than OTL (excluding the Dominions and Colonies). Russia will be bigger than either by 1925, and the bigger then the States by 1935.

On migration. A wealthier Britain and Gemrany (+Europe in general), should see a substantial reduction in European migration to the US. The potential migrants will flock to industrial centers closer to home, amongst the growing skyskrapers of Manchester and Frankfurt*, rather than Chicago and New York. This will have significant effects on particularly Central European migration to the US, but also on Irish migration. I'd expect to see an earlier importation of unskille dlabourers into Britain (possibly from Ireland, but also India), as the British transition to a German system of skilled manufacturing workers.

*The change in physical geography of European cities will be one of the most striking features of this TL. The great British industrial cities becoming like Detroit and Chicage OTL, with skyscrapers and underground mass transity systems, and also merging into one greater Northern conurbation, would be a big change. The German (and possibly northern Italian and French cities, given free trade and less destruction of the French economies) could well see something similar.

So we'll be entering the 1920s soon. James Cox wins in 1920 and benefits from a gradual upturn in the US economy, riding it to a second term.

The English and the Germans are pretty satisfied solidifying their empires and reforming their political and economic systems for the 20th century.

Emperor Franz Ferdinand has established with some difficulty the Triple Crown of Austro-Hungary-Slavia.

The new Republics of Russia and China are in a growth cycle.

Science and technology are booming, especially in the British Empire, Germany, and the AHS.

Paris has resumed its role as the cultural capital of the world, with some of the most innovative ideas coming out of the French post-war intelligentsia.

Even the Japanese in the Taisho Era are gradually reforming.

Without a WWI, we may not see a Dust Bowl in America.

Okay, to summarize my thoughts here....

There was a naval limitations section to the peace treaty of 1906, so the idea of ratios on the navies of the world is very well established by 1918. The US would have agreed to a two to one ratio with Britain, which Theodore Roosevelt is on the record in OTL as having supported...well, maybe more like 1.5 to 1 when it comes to the capital ships, just to assuage the naval hawks. Though I would remind people that TR WAS a naval supporter, but even he saw that the British had more need of a larger navy than the USA.

Likely the 1918 Naval Conference will not change the ratios established in 1906 but reduce total numbers proportionally. This would be a fairly conservative addition, and welcome by the British and Germans who want to put more money into their imperial acquisitions.

India will get earlier responsible government, but also remain closer to the British overall. Probably we see a looser confederation forming that retains the Islamists, Hindus, and Buddhists in an Indian Commonwealth.

The Chinese are going to be much more interested in internal improvements than territorial acquisitions. They will be distrustful of the Japanese, but not as interested in Manchuria as one might first believe. Manchuria is still predominantly Manchu, and the Han have risen to power once more in China in the form of the Republic. Adding Manchuria back to the Republic is more headache than it might be worth. Tibet is developing more into a neutral state between China and the British subcontinent, so less friction there overall. The Russians are chumming up to the Chinese because they have similar interests and both need friends in this Anglo-German dominated world.

In 1915 the short reign of Lij Iyasu was overthrown by supporters of Zauditu with the support and encouragement of the British and Italians.

By 1916, the Addis Ababa treaty was worked out, allowing for British and Italian railways to pass through Ethiopia, based on the model of the British and German railways that were agreed to by Leopold II through Congo at the turn of the century.

OOC: So, Goma and Addis Ababa are likely to be important transportation hubs in Africa...where else?

Time for a decade round-up of the 1910s!

First off, North America 1910s -

Canada sees the defeat of the Liberal government at the beginning of the decade. The decade is one of peace and continuing high numbers of immigrants flocking to the shores of Canada. Only by the end of the decade is women's suffrage becoming a widespread phenomenon.

Newfoundland sees not much change, and St Pierre and Miquelon continue their languid incorporation into the Dominion.

The United States of America is preoccupied first with the amazing election of 1912 where former President Theodore Roosevelt launches a third party bid for a third term. With the Republicans split, Dark Horse Woodrow Wilson takes the White House. His administration is taken up mostly with dealing with Mexican bandits such as Pancho Villa, part of the chaos of the Mexican Civil War. With a large economic downturn, Woodrow Wilson is defeated in 1916 by former Supreme Court Justice Charles Evan Hughes. One of the first major diplomatic acts of the Hughes administration is to sponsor a Naval Conference, strengthening and expanding the Naval agreements of 1906, helping to maintain peace and keep down military costs for the Great Powers.

Mexico suffered through a Civil War after the Diaz Presidency, but out of the chaos came a new constitution and things began to return to normalcy by the end of the 1910s.

Next time....Central America and the Caribbean....

By 1921, the population of Canada is bigger than it was in 1921 of OTL.

Okay, after much thought.....I think in 1920 the match-up will be Hughes versus McAdoo, with Hughes winning re-election. Although Cox was a popular choice in the convention, he did not actively seek the nomination as he rightly judged that it would be a difficult campaign against the incumbant Hughes.

In 1924, Cox will be the Democratic Nominee. Still determining who the Republican Candidate will be....

Central America and the Caribbean 1910s -

In the 1910s, events in Central America and the Caribbean were highly influenced by their Northern neighbor, the USA. With the election of President Wilson a period of military intervention ensued, with US Marines occupying at various times Nicaragua and Haiti. The Wilson administration imposed upon Nicaragua the Bryan-Chamorro treaty as well. About the only bright spot in relations between the Wilson Administration and Central America was the openning of the Panama Canal in 1915. The US territories of Martinique and Guadelupe were being slowly integrated into the American system, and benefitted economically from increased tourism from the US, especially in light of lax enforcement of Prohibition in the Caribbean territories.

However, with the advent of the Hughes Administration in 1917, relations with Central America and Haiti began to change. Hughes ended military occupation in the region and was more even-handed in his foreign policy towards these nations.

(Note that St. Maartins is entirely Dutch, Virgin Islands still Danish)

South America in the 1910s -

The US took possession of the territory formerly known as French Guiana after the war, but from the beginning was a difficult area for the United States to know what to do with. The initial Dutch and British forces that had taken the islands off the coast had been appalled by the conditions of the prisoners found on Devil's Island. With the American custody of the territory, the infamous prison became a macabre tourist destination.

Trade between Brazil and Germany continued to increase in this decade.

(Otherwise, it appears most of South American history so far remains similar to OTL.)

Anglo-German Alliance to date (a requested summary) -

POD March 1901 when an assassin kills Wilhelm II.

Due to sympathy from Wilhelm's visit to his dying grandmother, Victoria, his own untimely death, and the efforts of Chamberlain, and the desire of the new Chancellor and Kaiser to put their own mark on the empire, an Anglo-German Alliance is formed.

Sign agreement with King Leopold of Belgium for extraterritorial railways that allow for British and Germans to link their colonies in Africa. The two systems will cross in Goma.

France and Russia freak, grow closer together. Make secret treaty with Ottomans in case of war.

Dogger Banks grows into full battle, initiating a war between the powers.

Germany goes East towards Russia first, with good success. Holds France at the border in defense, leading France to throw itself in the meatgrinder of trench assaults, and in desperation France tries flanking through the Low Countries.

Invasion of neutral nations triggers President Roosevelt to bring the US in on the side of the Anglo-Germans.

Big win for the Anglo-Germans, much faster than OTL WWI. Even the losers are in better shape than OTL, though they don't know that. French form Fourth Republic, Russia becomes a Republic, with the Romanovs exiled to Switzerland (and Rasputin in tow).

Canada eventually gets those tiny French islands near Newfoundland.

US gets Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as a protectorate over former French Guiana.

Japan gets all of Sakhalin and Amur region.

Australia and New Zealand and Germany split the French Pacific Islands, though I believe we left them French Polynesia.

Britain takes Indochina.

Germany gets Courland, buffer state of Congress Poland, also a free Lithuania.

Austria-Hungary also get Montenegro, half of Albania.

Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria all make gains.

Straits under British control, including Constantinople.

Britain also gets Levant, Southern Mesopotamia.

Egypt gets Hejaz.

Italy gets Tunisia.

Germans and British split up most of French Subsaharan Africa, but France retains Madagascar.

Navies are kept at specific ratios by the treaties ending the war.

After war, due to abuses of Leopold and need of Belgium for cash, Congo sold to the British and Germans who split it up in interesting ways.

Portugal has economic/political meltdown, is forced to sell colonies to Britain (Mozambique, North African bits, Goa), Germany (Angola), Timor (Australia), etc. Actually ends up saving the Monarchy this way, though.

China has slightly more successful revolution, so Republic doesn't descend into Warlordism.

Tibet is developing into a buffer state between the Raj and China.

Italy and Britain and Ethiopia sign agreement similar to that for Congo to extend railways through Ethiopia, meeting in Addis Abiba.

Etc. Etc.

1920 match up Hughes versus McAdoo (Cox decides not to go for the nomination due to perceived increasing strength of the Hughes Administration), Hughes wins second term. However, I think Cox runs and gets it in 1924.

 

[Don Draper]

This is very interesting, do try and revive it.

 

[Glen]

This is very interesting, do try and revive it.

Thanks. I will indeed try. No promises for quick revival, but I will try. The one thing I can guarantee is that it is never too far from my thoughts.

 

[Greg the Historian]

Excuse me

If the question is given for the time that Hitler ruled Germany.That's not really possible because if he started to cooperate with British,he had to start it with Americans too.Hitler may have tried that to be a friend with them,then attack both of them from the back,that happened to Soviet Union (Read THE DICTATORS).
Winston Churchill himself was antifascist. And that's not really possible for Britain to have an alliance with fascists.
This opinion was depended on the World War 2 section.But during the Weimar Republic from 1920-1930 they may have become friends.Why?lets check it out.
When someone fights with someone,after the fight they MAY become a friends. In this situation that's the same thing.during World War 1 Germany fought against Britain and it's possible for them to become friends after the fight...

 

[machine3589]

Thanks. I will indeed try. No promises for quick revival, but I will try. The one thing I can guarantee is that it is never too far from my thoughts.

Hope you havent given up on this now!

 

[Glen]

If the question is given for the time that Hitler ruled Germany.That's not really possible because if he started to cooperate with British,he had to start it with Americans too.Hitler may have tried that to be a friend with them,then attack both of them from the back,that happened to Soviet Union (Read THE DICTATORS).
Winston Churchill himself was antifascist. And that's not really possible for Britain to have an alliance with fascists.
This opinion was depended on the World War 2 section.But during the Weimar Republic from 1920-1930 they may have become friends.Why?lets check it out.
When someone fights with someone,after the fight they MAY become a friends. In this situation that's the same thing.during World War 1 Germany fought against Britain and it's possible for them to become friends after the fight...

Read the actual timeline....

 

[Glen]

Hope you havent given up on this now!

No, I haven't, but work has been very busy.

 

[Glen]

Some clarifications and retcons to the partition of French Africa. Names are OTL, but borders may differ some from OTL.

France retains Algeria, Mauritania, Northern Mali, Madagascar

Italy gets Tunisia

Britain gets Senegal, Guinea, Cote d Ivorie, Burkina Faso, Southern Mali, Niger

Germany gets Togo, Chad, French Equatorial Africa (CAR, Congo (not Belgian), Gabon)

In addition, Britain takes Libya from Ottomans.

When they partition Belgian Congo, Germany gets most of the West and North, Britain gets the Southeast (Katanga) and the Northeast (adjacent to Uganda).

 

[Glen]

Roughly updated map for 1913.

 

[Glen]

A whole bunch of notes: The years 1901 - 1910 have been updated, cleaned up, etc. Everything after that still needs editing and expansion.

Originally Posted by Glen
In 1901, three heads of state would die, one of advanced old age, the other two by an assassin's bullet.

On January 22, 1901, Queen Victoria died. At her bedside for much of the end of her life was her devouted grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire. Many British citizens were touched by this display of filial affection from the Emperor of Germany.

And thus were doubly grieved, when less than two months later, on March 6, 1901, an assassin killed Kaiser Wilhelm II in Bremen. The young Kaiser Wilhelm III would appoint a new Chancellor to usher his new reign, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg.

Another assassin would strike at American president William McKinley, mortally wounding him on September 6, 1901, though he would not succumb until eight days later. Theodore Roosevelt would be sworn in as the President of the USA on September 14, 1901.

It was also in September, September 20, 1901, that the governments of Great Britain and Germany committed to an Anglo-German Alliance. The proposal, one long proposed by Joseph Chamberlain, capitalized on the good will created by the shared tragedies of the year, to make it a reality. While the new King Edward was reticent, having previously favored France over the bellicose Wilhelm II, the more reasonable Kaiser Wilhelm III is much more reassuring to the sovereign, who is persuaded to acquiesce to the arrangement.

It was also in this year that the Commonwealth of Australia became a reality.

Originally Posted by Glen
1902 was a good year for the new monarchs of Britain and Germany.

On January 12, 1902 Austria-Hungary formally joined the Anglo-German Alliance, which then formally was referred to as the Triple Alliance, though most continued to refer to it by its former name.

Then, on June 7, 1902, the British Empire, the German Empire, and King Leopold II of Belgium signed a treaty allowing for two Trans-Congo railways, one running North-South connecting British Africa, and one running East-West connecting German Africa. A consortium of British, German, and Belgian companies would construct the railways in the Belgian Congo. Freedom of passage was guaranteed for German and British trains, and they did not have to go through customs in Congo so long as they made no stops other then fueling while in the Congo. A side agreement between the British and Germans agreed to have a spur of the British railway in the South go to German Southwest Africa.

One trouble spot appeared later in the year when Venezuela tried to default on loans to the British and Germans, but a satisfactory agreement for repayment was reached with the Americans acting as neutral guarantors, mainly due to the mediation of the American President, Theodore Roosevelt.

Originally Posted by Glen
January 1903 saw the addition of Germany to the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance agreement.

In the same year, On May 3, 1903, the Ottoman Empire became the third member of the Triple Entente, a move of great concern to Austria-Hungary and her allies. It would have been of even more concern to Britain if they had known of the secret side agreement where, in the event of general war between the alliances, the Ottomans were guaranteed restoration of their former territories in the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt after the defeat of the Anglo-German alliance. The plan for the Balkans was for a series of client states under the influence of either Russia or the Ottoman empire depending on whether there were a predominance of Orthodox Christians or Muslims in the region.

Also in 1903, the British government offered to give a plateau in Uganda to the Jews as the site of a Jewish Homeland. The Zionist community is split over this offer, with many still preferring to see a homeland in Ottoman Palestine.

Originally Posted by Glen
It was in 1904 that the Great Powers came into conflict. In the beginning of the year, British forces invaded and occupied Tibet. Also early in the year the Japanese demanded the Russians abide by their former agreement to pull out of Manchuria. The Russians, feeling confident in their ability to defeat an Asiatic nation, refused and so began the Russo-Japanese conflict. The Russians over the course of the year suffered defeat after defeat, mostly in the naval arena but on land as well. The other Great Powers tried to remain neutral at first, but the tension was greatly heightened by the war, and the potential alliances that could be activated should even one more power enter the fray.

It was in this climate that the Battle of Dogger Bank became almost inevitable, as in October of 1904 a Russian flotilla heading for the Far East mistakenly thought British vessels were part of a Japanese ambush. This quickly escalated into a full scale naval engagement which the Russians lost. The Russians refused to take responsibility for the action, claiming it was Britain's attempt to surreptitiously aid their ally Japan under the guise of an 'accident'. Russia and Britain entered into a state of war.

With two powers at war with Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire were obliged by treaty to enter into war on behalf of the Russians, which in turn would require the entry into the war of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and so on, as interlocking alliances were tripped by the expansion of the war.

Many in France cheered the announcement of hostilities with chants of 'Alsace-Lorraine!’ inflaming the spirit of revanchism in the country.

France and the US, painfully aware of the exposure of the French Caribbean to naval actions by the British, agree to the sale of French Caribbean possessions to the US. The two exceptions are St. Martins, which was ceded to the Dutch who share the island, and French Guiana, which the French believed they could hold at least long enough to obtain a settlement in the war after they knocked out Germany (they find out too late they were wrong). Roosevelt was willing to look the other way on the tiny transfers of territory, but sent diplomatic notes to the European powers warning that anything more substantial would be frowned upon by the USA.

In November, the Canadians and Newfoundlanders, in the first North American action of the war, occupy the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.

By the end of the year, most of the fighting had still occurred only in Manchuria, and many thought that negotiators would prevail and general war in Europe be avoided.

Sweden-Norway had at the beginning of the twentieth century looked destined to split with increasing tensions between the two lands. However, with the Anglo-German Alliance one of the main sources of contention between the two, favor of England or Germany, ceased to be an issue. With the onset of the war in 1904, Sweden-Norwary remained neutral, but was reticent to seem split in the face of the threat of war.

Originally Posted by Glen
The year 1905 saw the War joined in earnest.

At the beginning of the year, in the presidential State of the Union address, returning US President Theodore Roosevelt warned both sides in the conflict to respect the neutrality of non-combatants. He also called for a mobilization of the nation in the event that the war widened.

Early in 1905, the British blockaded French Guianan ports, but held off on invasion at the request of the US, Netherlands, and Brazil.

Rapid mobilization in the Fall and Winter of 1904-5 by the Germans allowed them to strike the first blow in 1905, cutting into the Russian West. Austria-Hungary was also able to make gains along the border, though not as quickly as the German army to the north. The British forces supported landings in Russian Finland, and in response to promises of independence, the Finns began a rebellion against the Russians. A similar story played out in the Baltic states as the German juggernaut advanced. The Russians desperately tried to move forces from the East to the West in time to prevent further collapse of the lines, but this enabled a war-weary Japan to make significant gains in the Far East.

The French did not sit idle during this time. In the summer they launched a daring bid to relieve the pressure on their Russian allies with a plan for a lightning attack through the neutral lowland countries and into Northern Germany, and though successful in Belgium, their drive stalled in the Netherlands, and a secondary drive through Alsace-Lorraine did not get far past the border. Here the Germans had planned to remain on the defensive until the Russians could be dealt with, and held strong in the region. As a result, Belgium and the Netherlands declared war against the French.

The Ottomans hesitated, but then struck, mostly at the British occupied areas formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Initially, they had some success, especially in the Arabian Peninsula and striking out of Libya into Egypt, but the British and Egyptian forces held at the Battle of the Suez and the Battle of El Alamein, halting further advances. Aden too was able to hold against the onslaught, aided in part by Arabs who rose up against the resurgent Ottomans. By the middle of the year, the plight of Russia and its threatened collapse forced the Ottomans to open another front, this one pushing into Austrian occupied Bosnia. Montenegro, long an ally of Russia, declared for the Entente at the beginning of the Ottoman offensive against Austria-Hungary, allowing Ottoman forces to pass through Montenegro to strike at Bosnia.

After the entry of the Ottomans into the war and with negative reports from a committee sent to Uganda to investigate its potential for settlement, the Zionist Congress politely declined the British offer of a Jewish Homeland in Uganda. Instead the Zionist Congress requested British support for establishing a Homeland in the Levant.

The attacks of Entente forces through neutral nations incited Theodore Roosevelt to demand their immediate evacuation and recompense, but the French refused. President Roosevelt addressed a special joint session of the Congress, calling for a declaration of War against the Entente. The rousing speech won over many, especially those already sympathetic to the Alliance cause, but there was still a great deal of isolationist sentiment in the Congress, and the vote for war passed by only a narrow margin.

Later that summer, the first military action in the Great War by the Americans was to send US Marines to occupy French Guiana. American Marines and Dutch forces worked together to take the French colony. US forces remained in occupation of French Guiana throughout the war, freeing up Dutch forces to concentrate on fighting the French invaders in the Netherlands.

Originally Posted by Glen
The year 1906 would see the resolution of the Great War.

The Ottomans had lost several areas in Africa and Asia to the British and allied Egyptian and Indian forces. Persia had been a battleground for the Anglo-Indian forces and a joint taskforce of Ottoman and Russian troops. Neither side won a convincing victory, but in the end the nation would come under the protection of the British Empire. In Morocco, the Sultan had called upon British forces for protection from the French Algerians.

With the entry of the USA into the war, the French colonial possessions in the New World that hadn't already been occupied fell easily. An American expeditionary force was dispatched to Europe to aid at the Western Front. One famous quote from the time of the American Expeditionary Force in Germany was, "Von Steuben, we have come!"

Italy waited to see if the French would break through the German lines, but by the beginning of the year it had become obvious that the French offensive had stalled, and with the addition of the United States to the Alliance, it seemed likely that the Entente would lose. Italy declared war and opened a front in the South of France, but with no more luck than the French had had in the North. A more successful move was the Italian invasion of Tunisia and Eastern Algeria in support of the British invasion of Libya.

Russia suffered terribly in this year. With the stripping of the Far East forces, the Japanese were able to make inroads into the Amur region of Russia, only halted by the strain of the logistics involved. As the Germans and Austrians advanced, the ethnic groups on the fringe of the Russian Empire rose up. Finland was lost, as were the Baltics and Poland. Ukraine was in rebellion and only a concerted effort by the Russians was able to put this down, though this left little to deal with the Romanians who joined the war, occupying Bessarabia.

With more and more nations joining the Anglo-German Alliance against the Triple Entente, the losses in Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and the stalled front along the Dutch-German border with France, there was little hope of victory for the Entente, who thus asked for peace talks. By mid year, the war was all but over, and peace would come in the Fall.

France had to pay reparations to Belgium and to a lesser degree Holland and Germany. France also lost significant numbers of colonies overseas, with the complete removal of her possessions in the Western Hemisphere, most under the protection now of the United States. St Pierre and Miquelon were formally ceded to the new Dominion of Newfoundland, and the US acquired Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as a protectorate over the former French Guiana. France's possessions in Africa were greatly reduced, mainly retaining Algeria and the northwest section of French West Africa, and Madagascar. The Italians gained Tunisia, and Britain and Germany split between them the French colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of French West Africa went to Britain except Benin which was united with German Togo. French Equatorial Africa was ceded to Germany. France also lost Indochina to the British. Australia, New Zealand, and Germany split the French Pacific Islands between them.

The peace treaty of 1906 also had a naval limitation section based on ship ratios, and not just for the defeated Entente but also the victorious Alliance. For example, the US agreed to a two to three ratio of ships with Britain.

The failure of the Entente led to domestic turmoil once the war was over, and saw the birth of the Fourth Republic in France as well as a new Republic of Russia with the forced abdication and exile of the man most blamed for the war, Tsar Nicholas II. He and his family settled in exile in Switzerland,.

The Russians ceded Manchuria, the whole of Sakhalin and the Amur region to the Japanese. The Grand Duchy of the Baltics (Courland) was directly annexed to the German Empire. Bessarabia was ceded to the Romanians.

The new Kingdoms of Finland, Lithuania, and Poland were established, with German nobles for Finland and Lithuania, and a Hapsburg on the Polish throne.

The Ottoman Empire managed to survive, but barely. A new group of leaders called the Young Turks came to power in the aftermath of the war, greatly usurping the powers of the Sultan.

The European portions of the Ottoman Empire were completely gone, divided between the Balkan nations while the straits, including Istanbul, turned into a British occupation zone. Britain also gained Libya, the Levant, as well as southern Mesopotamia. Egypt was ceded control of the Hejaz. Austria-Hungary occupied Montenegro and Albania, Serbia claimed Macedonia, the Greeks had taken Salonika, and the Bulgarians Thrace.

After the peace, the Second Aliyah began in earnest with Jews from Russia fleeing from the pogroms that occurred during the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Several managed to make it to the British Levant. By the end of the year, the British Government announced their intention to see the Levant as a safe haven for Jews. This is mostly due to the influence of Professor Chaim Weizmann, who provided an important method to making a precursor to cordite to the British during the War, and the influential Baron Rothschild.

In recognition of their contributions to the war, Newfoundland and New Zealand are granted Dominion status.

Tension in Norway-Sweden remained high, but the two parliaments kept peace at the behest of the Anglo-German Alliance during the course of the war. What the fate of the union would be after calm returned to Europe remained to be seen.

Originally Posted by Glen
The year after the war, 1907, was for most a year of consolidation.

France, who had lost so many men on the killing fields of Holland and western Germany turned introspective, and the nation saw the first intimations of whole new arts and literature from the lost generation of France. Paris, even in its melancholy over the losses of the war, was starting to show that it would once again become the leader of culture on the continent.

International pressure came to a head to strip Leopold II of his Congo holdings given humanitarian concerns. King Leopold II bowed to this pressure and the needs of the devastated Belgians in the aftermath of the war, and agreed to sell the Congo to the British and Germans.

In this year, the King of Sweden and Norway, Oscar II died. The period of mourning further delayed discussion of division of the two kingdoms, and made some even begin to question its necessity. The new King of Sweden-Norway was his son, King Gustav V.

Austria-Hungary had fought a hard war, and had shown several areas of concern in her armed forces. Thus the military after the war entered into a period of intense reorganization and retraining along German lines.

The fledgling Russian Republic struggled to establish a new democracy, with the Parliament pushing through agrarian reforms, while at the same time fighting in Central Asia to hold down the rebellions of those regions. It was the military successes of the Republic in Central Asia that first began to earn it credit among the more conservative factions of the nation, while the agrarian reforms did the same for the liberals.

In the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks tired of the Sultan's continued intrigues against their new government and forced his abdication in favor of his brother, who became Mehmed V.

Libya became a British crown colony, while Egypt remained quasi-independent but with heavy British involvement. Egypt would gain more influence in the Arab World for holding the Hejaz, and being treated on a more equal level than other Arabs by the Great Powers. Abbas II remained Khedive there, having read rightly the likelihood of an Ottoman victory in the war, and siding early with the British in return for the granting of administration of the Hejaz to the Egyptians at the end of the War.

In the British Levant, Jews formed a self-defense force, the HaShomer.

Tunisia became an Italian colony, giving the Italians control of that band of the Mediterranean. Many Sicilians and Southern Italians began immigrating to Tunisia at the prompting of the Italian Government.

French Algeria and much of Western Sahara remained French, and became the destination for many French leaving Tunisia and the rest of Western Africa, giving a slight boost to the population there as well.

Madagascar, one of the few remaining colonial territories of France, saw an influx of French citizens and loyalists from Indochina, beginning an interesting mixture of Madagascan, French, and Indochinese culture on the island.

The Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1907 saw the northern Malay states of Pattani, Narathiwat (Menara), Songkhla (Singgora), Satun (Setul) Yala (Jala), Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis, and Terengganu formally ceded to the United Kingdom.

The Japanese Empire continued efforts to incorporate its new gains in northern Asia.

Originally Posted by Glen
In 1908, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, in response to mounting pressure from the public, including many war veterans, ushered through the Reichstag sweeping reforms for representation based in part on British Parliamentary elections. The Dreiklassenwahlrecht was retained only for votes on expenditures, a demanded protection from the moneyed interests to act as a check on redistribution of wealth.

This year saw the discovery of major oil deposits in the British Protectorate of Persia, and thus the British flocked to the ancient land to exploit the new mineral findings.

1908 also saw a combined British-Egyptian punitive expedition defeat the remnants of the Sauds, who had been raiding into the Egyptian Hejaz.

Portugal declared against the Entente late in the war and managed as a result to pick up some small gains in West Africa and Timor. But by 1908 Portugal was broke, and civil war broke out between monarchists and republicans. The Anglo-German Alliance induced the failing Portuguese government to sell the remaining Portuguese colonies to them, in order to prevent anarchy from spreading. Ironically, the sale probably allowed the monarchists to temporarily gain the upper hand (barely) and defeat the republicans, at least for the time being. As per a secret agreement already in place between the British and Germans the occupation and partition of the Portuguese colonies in Africa went forward, with Goa going to British India and East Timor to Australia.

Originally Posted by Glen
In 1909 the British helped foil a coup in Morocco against the pro-European Sultan. In consideration of their assistance, the Sultan granted Great Britain ownership of Tangier in perpetuity.

In this year, the new American president, William Howard Taft, sent forces to Nicaragua when Americans were killed during an abortive rebellion against the Nicaraguan government.

The first Kibbutz begins in the British Levant.

Construction of major railways in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia continued forward, mostly by British and German firms.

Originally Posted by Glen
In 1910, a revolution breaks out in Mexico, raising great concern in the United States government.

A modest education act based on some of the educational practices of Britain's ally, Germany, passes through the British Parliament. It is the first of several reforms to British education in years to come.


Originally Posted by Glen
Okay, one decade into the timeline thus far.

Lets do a Continental Round-Up and see what's changed, and what has stayed the same.

North America region first.

Canadians fought in the Great War, something to be proud of but nothing to change the course of Canadian history by and large. Newfoundland upon gaining dominion status received two small islands. Not much different up North thus far.

America has fought a war to defend the integrity of neutral nations. Boy, we must be feeling smug about now. Don't know yet how that will fully play out. Wonder if there were any fighting up near Alaska between US and Russians...probably minor stuff like in WWII with the Japanese, but probably even less than that.

Moderate change here...doesn't look like the US will pick up the Danish Virgin Islands in a few years, but they do now have control over French Guadeloupe and Martinique, as well as a protectorate in formerly French Guiana. Roosevelt would have put this on a fast track to independence if he could....I wonder how the French Guianans are reacting to all this.

Mexico pretty much like OTL so far.

Same with the Central American countries, I suppose.

I'll throw in South America here since it seems related. We've already mentioned the shift with Guiana. Don't know that there would be any other changes in South America yet. Probably more or less OTL.

Next installment...Asia!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glen
Update continued, Asia 1901-1911...

The Far Eastern Amur region and Manchuria have been lost to the Japanese in the Great War. The new Russian Republic will be less focused on the Pacific than OTL Russia or Soviets due to that loss. There were uprisings in the Central Asian sections of Russia, which the nascent Russian Republic were able to suppress, which actually gave them a modicum of respect from the Russian people after the failure of the Empire's forces in the Great War.

Mongolia is probably more with the Chinese Republic than Russia at this point.
There are still Germans and English in China, but we haven't seen yet more than their coastal possessions.

Most of the Pacific has stayed under the same control, due to the dominance of the Alliance in the region. New Caledonia and associated French possessions ended up being taken by the Australians. French Polynesia was spared barely simply due to its distance from the main fighting. Later, with the onset of the Portuguese troubles, East Timor was annexed by Australia. The biggest change was the passage of Indochina to Britain. Be interesting to find out how Vietnamese and others are taking the transition. Siam is falling in the British sphere of interest, but retains independence.

Tibet was invaded and Llasa occupied prior to the entry of Britain into the Great War. It is currently a point of discussion between the British and the new Chinese Republic.

India is pretty much India, little change here. Afghanistan is still in the British Empire, and now Persia has come under the protection of Britain.

Due to their entente, Russia and Ottoman have kept the same border, but the Ottomans have lost significant regions in the Arabian Peninsula, Levant, and lost entirely North Africa and the Balkans. A more militant group, the Young Turks, have come to power in the wake of the war.

The British control the Levant and the Persian gulf, but their client state of Egypt controls the Hejaz.

Next time, Africa....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glen
Back to our update...

Oceania 1901-1911 Well, the Australians and the New Zealanders gain territory from the French Pacific Islands. So we have slightly bigger/different Dominions for them. But otherwise I imagine not much difference.

Germans retain their Pacific possessions, and have picked up a couple more islands from France as well. The Dutch still have Indonesia, which isn't much different than OTL at this point.
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Originally Posted by Glen
Africa 1901-1911 update...

Here is one of the places where large differences have happened.

We'll go from South to North....

Namibia is still in German hands, but both South Africa and German West Africa have grown with the troubles in Portugal. With the Anglo-German Alliance in place, the plans of these two to split the Portuguese colonies in the event of a political/economic meltdown in Portugal goes further than talk and into action. Angola is German and Mozambique British/South African. Madagascar has been retained by France, and has become one of the major destinations from people from the former French Indochina and Pacific Islands, leading to a population boom. Djibuti is now British, while the Ethiopians and the Italians have retained their borders in East Africa. In West Africa the French Congo has gone to Germany, while Dahomey has gone to Germany, the Central Sahel/Sahara have been split up between the two powers to allow access to Lake Chad as a transfer point between holdings of the British and Germans overlapping in the region. Much of the Southern coast of West African has gone to the British, finally linking their possessions in the region and giving them control of the Niger river. Portugal for their siding with the Alliance in the war had gained a small increase in their West African colony, but their collapse in 1908 saw them lose it entirely to Britain, completing British control of the Gambia/Senegal region. Morroco is still under the control of her Sultan, but he is heavily supported by the British, who have protected Morroco first from the French in the War, then from a coup against the Sultan, in return for which they have received Tangier as a British base (ironically returning to them a city once part of English holdings). Algeria and much of Western Sahara remain to the French, and have become the destination for many leaving Tunisia and the rest of Western Africa, giving a slight boost to the population there as well. Tunisia of course is now an Italian colony, giving the Italians control of that band of the Mediterranean. Many Sicilians and Southern Italians begin immigrating to Tunisia at the prompting of the Italian Government. Libya is a British crown colony, while Egypt remains quasi-independent but with heavy British involvement. Egypt has gained in prestige in the Arab World for holding the Hejaz, and being treated on a more equal level than other Arab areas by the Great Powers. Abbas II has remained Khedive here, having read rightly the likelihood of an Ottoman victory in this war, and siding early with the British in return for the granting of the Hejaz to the Egyptians for administration at the end of the War.

A major endeavor in the last half of the decade has been a series of railways in Africa meant to link the British and German colonies one to the other, with a nexus through the Belgian Congo at Bukavu. It is expected that in the coming decades, this will prove a vital part of developing the continent.

Similar railways are in the planning stages for linking British North Africa and Middle East with South Asia.
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Originally Posted by Glen
Europe Update 1901-1911 (first draft)

The news of 1901 had been the death of the Kaiser and the formation of the Anglo-German Alliance.

Of course, the war a few years later proved to be a much more important event, changing the face of Europe and much of the world. In the West, there was little border change, but significant political change.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland of course gained much from the War, with the increases in the British Empire for little in cost of life. The architect of the Anglo-German Alliance, Joseph Chamberlain, had parlayed its success into the passage of his cherished Imperial Preference legislation. However, this success proved in the end the undoing of the Unionist party as it in the end split the party enough to allow the Liberals to come to power at the end of the War. One of their first acts was to introduce a new Budget that imposed new taxes on the wealthy to pay for some of the cost of the war. The House of Lords defeated the bill, triggering a crisis settled when the Liberals forced through a bill limiting the power of Lords with the weapon of Edward VIIth's promise to flood Lords with liberal peers.

This in turn led to the passage of the Irish Home Rule bill, which would go into effect in 1911. Unfortunately, the decade ended in sorrow for the UK as they lost the second monarch in a decade with the death of Edward VII.

The Dutch were drawn into the Alliance by the actions of France during the War, and would remain closely linked to Britain and Germany in the years after.

Belgium had been devastated, and much of the reparations paid by the Entente went to rebuilding the small nation. Funds from the Congo Railway agreement also helped somewhat as King Leopold II invested much of it into rebuilding the nation.

Luxembourg remained fundamentally the same in this decade, only touched softly by the events of the war.

France of course was much affected by the war. Though in Europe she managed to retain her borders, the cost of defeat overseas was a much reduced empire. The failure of the war was blamed on the Republicans and their leftist coalitions, and with the rise of the conservatives after the peace a new Constitution was proclaimed, marking the birth of the Fourth Republic. The monarchists attempted to bring back the monarchy, but internal dissention over the three main claimants prevented it. Instead, France adopted a presidential system, more along the lines of the Americans, which did away with the parliamentary system that seemed to bring too much instability to the government in the opinion of many Frenchmen of the time. However, by 1911 there were signs already that the conservative factions of France were slipping in control, and that the left was beginning a comeback.

Spain remained isolated and indolent throughout the war, though they made a significant amount of profit as a middleman for shipping supplies and materials to France during the war when the sea had become treacherous for Frence shipping.

Portugal declared against the Entente late in the war and managed as a result to pick up some small gains in West Africa and Timor. But by 1908 Portugal was broke and war broke out between monarchists and republicans. The Anglo-German Alliance forced the failing Portuguese government to sell the remaining Portuguese colonies to them, in order to prevent anarchy from spreading. Ironically, the sale probably allowed the monarchists to gain the upper hand barely and defeat the republicans, at least for the time being.

Sweden-Norway had at the beginning of the twentieth century looked destined to split with increasing tensions between the two lands. However, with the Anglo-German Alliance one of the main sources of contention between the two, favor of England or Germany, ceased to be an issue. Other compromises were found to support unity during the uncertain times of the war in 1904-6, when Sweden-Norway remained neutral but was unwilling to seem split while the threat of the war continued. By 1907, the tension of previous years was much abated, and both mourned the death of King Gustav that year. By the end of the decade, though there is still talk of disunion, most people seem happy with the status quo.

Finland started the century as a Grand Duchy of Russia under the rule of the Tsar, but with the Great War the British and German supported revolt led to the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy under a German royal. The first years of Finnish independence were ones of rebuilding. To the surprise of other Europeans, they became the first nation in Europe to have full women's suffrage at the end of the war, even electing women to the new legislature.

The small kingdom of Lithuania was likewise placed under a German royal.

The restored kingdom of Poland, however, received a Hapsburg for its king.

Both were without commercial ports, and thus bound by trade to the German and Austrian Empires, respectively.

Russia began the century as an Empire engaged in the Great Game, but with a brittle monarchy in the form of the Tsar. The highlight of the decade was probably the negotiation of a secret treaty with the Ottomans to bring them into a war on the side of France and Russia in the event of a war between the powers. Only a few short years that would happen. What started as a war between Tsarist Russia and the Japanese Empire which embarrassed the Russian bear escalated into a world spanning war of the titans, embroiling eventually all the great powers of the age. The rapid drive by the Germans into the Empire devastated Russian order and morale, while continued Japanese attacks nibbled on the Empire from the rear, and thus it would be Russia that would have to capitulate first in the Great War. The defeat saw the loss of Finland, the Baltics, and Poland to the Alliance and revolt. However, the end of the war and even the calling of a Duma did not save the monarchy, and the Russian Revolution toppled the Romanovs, forcing them to go into exile. The newly established Russian Republic attacked the problems of unrest in Central Asia and the Causcases with renewed energy, giving the Russian military a chance to regain some of their lost glory. Agrarian reforms were greeted with jubilation by the peasants of Russia, but there was still much dissent between the right and the left of the new Duma, not to mention the significant debt and less significant but real reparations inherited from the war and the old Tsarist regime. However, by the end of the decade the troubles in Central Asia and the Caucases were calming, and agrarian reforms were already beginning to drive Russia to become the breadbasket of the world.

Switzerland and Liechtenstein went about the decade almost blissfully uninvolved in the games of the Powers.

Austria-Hungary had fought a hard war, and had shown several areas of concern in her armed forces. Thus the military after the war entered into an intense reorganization and retraining along the German lines.

AH to be continued....

1911 - In late October, significant revolts break out in South and Central China under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen in Guongdong, and Huang Xing in Central China.
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Originally Posted by Glen
The United States experienced an economic downturn in the mid 1910s, which led to the defeat of President Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. Former Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes the Republican candidate won the election.
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Originally Posted by Glen
In 1913, President Yuan Shikai on his own negotiated a loan with the British, Germans, and Japanese for 12 million pounds sterling to begin financing his Beiyang Army. In return, Yuan recognizes the Powers' spheres of influence in China as well as agreeing to the borders between India and Tibet as set out by the British, acknowledged for the first time Japanese control of Manchuria, and agreed to an extended area of direct control for Germany on the Shantung Peninsula. However, all of this was to no avail for Shikai, whose military build-up was incomplete by the time the Republicans launched the Second Chinese Revolution which overthrew him and restored control of the government to the parliament. Sun Yat-sen became the President of the Republic after Shikai fled to exile in Manchuria.

Also in 1913, the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Tibet and declared its right to independence from both the Chinese and the British. However, this was mostly ignored by the Powers at the time and the Dalai Lama had very little reach beyond Llasa.


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Originally Posted by Glen
By 1915, the Republic of China was starting to stabilize, and new relations were being forged with their fellow Republic to the north, the Republic of Russia. Mutual trade agreements were reached after the recognition of Chinese rights to Mongolia and Tanna Tuva. The Russians also began sending advisors to train the Chinese military.

In 1915 the short reign of Lij Iyasu was overthrown by supporters of Zauditu with the support and encouragement of the British and Italians.


By 1916, the Addis Ababa treaty was worked out, allowing for British and Italian railways to pass through Ethiopia, based on the model of the British and German railways that were agreed to by Leopold II through Congo at the turn of the century. As part of the agreement, the British and Italians agree to honor the borders and independence of Ethiopia.

OOC: So, Goma and Addis Ababa are likely to be important transportation hubs in Africa...where else?

Originally Posted by Glen
I think that once the Second Revolution in China is over, the Republicans can negotiate some more favorable terms with the Anglo-Germans. I can see the British being willing to grant Hainan and Macao back to Chinese Control, and perhaps even the Germans going back to their one city in Shantung, rather than the larger area.

The Japanese will stay put in the Northwest, but any encroachment in Fukien in this scenario will have been ephemeral to say the least.

As for Tibet...I see it creeping towards independence, but remaining in the British sphere of influence and protection, perhaps somewhat like Thailand ITTL.

There was a naval limitations section to the peace treaty of 1906, so the idea of ratios on the navies of the world is very well established by 1917. The US would have agreed to a two to one ratio with Britain, which Theodore Roosevelt is on the record in OTL as having supported...well, maybe more like 1.5 to 1 when it comes to the capital ships, just to assuage the naval hawks. Though I would remind people that TR WAS a naval supporter, but even he saw that the British had more need of a larger navy than the USA.

Likely the 1917 Naval Conference will not change the ratios established in 1906 but reduce total numbers proportionally. This would be a fairly conservative addition, and welcome by the British and Germans who want to put more money into their imperial acquisitions.
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Originally Posted by Glen
1918 will see the outbreak of American Influenzae, first in the United States, where it is believed to have originated, and then spreading throughout North and South America.

Heroic efforts at quarantine of ships coming from the Americas prevent the spread of the epidemic to the rest of the world.

In the aftermath of the worst flu outbreak on record, the US has scaled back its military efforts in the Caribbean and Central America, which were never popular with President Hughes.
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Originally Posted by Glen
1919 sees the ratification of Prohibition in the USA, which goes into effect in 1920.

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Originally Posted by Glen
By 1920, Europe is doing significantly better than OTL (even the 'defeated' Europeans), and the USA is doing somewhat less well than OTL. Relatively speaking, Europe is still the place to be ITTL.

Military tech is probably slightly behind, as the conditions in the war got people thinking, but didn't really last/warrant developing new weapons. Probably miltech by 1920 is lagging behind OTL levels almost as much as in the Pax AG timeline.

Civilian tech has probably as much if not more of a boost as the Pax AG timeline. The casualties in the war weren't very bad, and the flu epidemic doesn't strike Europe really. Having the AG in charge helped with efforts to enforce quarantine.

Socially...hmmm...actually the period from 1906 on has the French and Russians probably doing a lot of soul-searching, some shake-up of society, and so may actually be more innovative socially up to 1918 than OTL. Germany too with a new Kaiser and closer links to Britain is more liberalized up to 1918 than OTL. No 'lost generation' so the societal shifts are more than OTL but milder than post WWI OTL. USA is probably about the same as OTL socially up to 1918, though they'll get a little bit of a boost from following trends in Europe.

Socially this world is different once we hit 1918 and after. No 'lost generation' no mobilization of women for work or workers in general, no communist revolution, no major war for opportunities for minorities.

This world is probably thus far a bit more conservative on average, though more so just 'different'.
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Originally Posted by Glen
The US presidential election of 1920 will probably be between Charles Evans Hughes and James Cox (with his running mate a guy named FDR).
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Originally Posted by Glen
So we'll be entering the 1920s soon. James Cox wins in 1920 and benefits from a gradual upturn in the US economy, riding it to a second term.

The English and the Germans are pretty satisfied solidifying their empires and reforming their political and economic systems for the 20th century.

Emperor Franz Ferdinand has established with some difficulty the Triple Crown of Austro-Hungary-Slavia.

The new Republics of Russia and China are in a growth cycle.

Science and technology are booming, especially in the British Empire, Germany, and the AHS.

Paris has resumed its role as the cultural capital of the world, with some of the most innovative ideas coming out of the French post-war intelligentsia.

Even the Japanese in the Taisho Era are gradually reforming.

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Originally Posted by Alratan
Very likely. If you're building a Western Rift railway, then a Eastern Rift is obvious. This is particularly likely given that British control of the Congo will imply penetration of Indian laborers (and mid-level semi-professionals) into the Congo in large numbers. They will provide a ready source of traffic along this route.

As a side note, if we're going to see change in British educational and investment culture as discussed above, some major Education Acts should be getting passed around 1910-1912.

Jackie Fisher should be in charge of the RN in this ATL as well as OTL, and with the RN's successful performance (particularly if Constantinople is taken) in the War, he will have much more leeway than OTL to implement his reforms (better gunnery, training, etc), and also to drive forwards his pet projects, such as Aircraft Carriers. The combination of external motivation and a real reformer at the top could well lead to the RN being more innovative and a tech leader than OTL, not less.

If you are going to have more technical education in Britain than OTL, expect to see noticeably faster technological advancement, particularly in the chemical sector. Earlier polymers, vulcanization, earlier adoption of mass production, the whole works.

On economics. I'll try and find some stats on growth. I'd expect Britain to dip below German GDP whilst the educational reforms are implemented, then grow and stabilse at slightly higher. America would be greater than either, but by a much smaller degree than OTL (excluding the Dominions and Colonies). Russia will be bigger than either by 1925, and the bigger then the States by 1935.

On migration. A wealthier Britain and Germany (+Europe in general), should see a substantial reduction in European migration to the US. The potential migrants will flock to industrial centers closer to home, amongst the growing skyskrapers of Manchester and Frankfurt*, rather than Chicago and New York. This will have significant effects on particularly Central European migration to the US, but also on Irish migration. I'd expect to see an earlier importation of unskille dlabourers into Britain (possibly from Ireland, but also India), as the British transition to a German system of skilled manufacturing workers.

*The change in physical geography of European cities will be one of the most striking features of this TL. The great British industrial cities becoming like Detroit and Chicago OTL, with skyscrapers and underground mass transit systems, and also merging into one greater Northern conurbation, would be a big change. The German (and possibly northern Italian and French cities, given free trade and less destruction of the French economies) could well see something similar.
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Originally Posted by Glen
Without a WWI, we may not see a Dust Bowl in America.
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India will get earlier responsible government, but also remain closer to the British overall. Probably we see a looser confederation forming that retains the Islamists, Hindus, and Buddhists in an Indian Commonwealth.

The Chinese are going to be much more interested in internal improvements than territorial acquisitions. They will be distrustful of the Japanese, but not as interested in Manchuria as one might first believe. Manchuria is still predominantly Manchu, and the Han have risen to power once more in China in the form of the Republic. Adding Manchuria back to the Republic is more headache than it might be worth. Tibet is developing more into a neutral state between China and the British subcontinent, so less friction there overall. The Russians are chumming up to the Chinese because they have similar interests and both need friends in this Anglo-German dominated world.
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Originally Posted by Glen
Time for a decade round-up of the 1910s!

First off, North America 1910s -

Canada sees the defeat of the Liberal government at the beginning of the decade. The decade is one of peace and continuing high numbers of immigrants flocking to the shores of Canada. Only by the end of the decade is women's suffrage becoming a widespread phenomenon.

Newfoundland sees not much change, and St Pierre and Miquelon continue their languid incorporation into the Dominion.

The United States of America is preoccupied first with the amazing election of 1912 where former President Theodore Roosevelt launches a third party bid for a third term. With the Republicans split, Dark Horse Woodrow Wilson takes the White House. His administration is taken up mostly with dealing with Mexican bandits such as Pancho Villa, part of the chaos of the Mexican Civil War. With a large economic downturn, Woodrow Wilson is defeated in 1916 by former Supreme Court Justice Charles Evan Hughes. One of the first major diplomatic acts of the Hughes administration is to sponsor a Naval Conference, strengthening and expanding the Naval agreements of 1906, helping to maintain peace and keep down military costs for the Great Powers.

Mexico suffered through a Civil War after the Diaz Presidency, but out of the chaos came a new constitution and things began to return to normalcy by the end of the 1910s.

Next time....Central America and the Caribbean....
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Originally Posted by Glen
By 1921, the population of Canada is bigger than it was in 1921 of OTL.
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Originally Posted by Glen
Okay, after much thought.....I think in 1920 the match-up will be Hughes versus McAdoo, with Hughes winning re-election. Although Cox was a popular choice in the convention, he did not actively seek the nomination as he rightly judged that it would be a difficult campaign against the incumbant Hughes.

In 1924, Cox will be the Democratic Nominee. Still determining who the Republican Candidate will be....
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Originally Posted by Glen
Central America and the Caribbean 1910s -

In the 1910s, events in Central America and the Caribbean were highly influenced by their Northern neighbor, the USA. With the election of President Wilson a period of military intervention ensued, with US Marines occupying at various times Nicaragua and Haiti. The Wilson administration imposed upon Nicaragua the Bryan-Chamorro treaty as well. About the only bright spot in relations between the Wilson Administration and Central America was the openning of the Panama Canal in 1915. The US territories of Martinique and Guadelupe were being slowly integrated into the American system, and benefitted economically from increased tourism from the US, especially in light of lax enforcement of Prohibition in the Caribbean territories.

However, with the advent of the Hughes Administration in 1917, relations with Central America and Haiti began to change. Hughes ended military occupation in the region and was more even-handed in his foreign policy towards these nations.

(Note that St. Maartins is entirely Dutch, Virgin Islands still Danish)
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Originally Posted by Glen
South America in the 1910s -

The US took possession of the territory formerly known as French Guiana after the war, but from the beginning was a difficult area for the United States to know what to do with. The initial Dutch and British forces that had taken the islands off the coast had been appalled by the conditions of the prisoners found on Devil's Island. With the American custody of the territory, the infamous prison became a macabre tourist destination.

Trade between Brazil and Germany continued to increase in this decade.

(Otherwise, it appears most of South American history so far remains similar to OTL.)
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Originally Posted by Glen
Anglo-German Alliance to date (a requested summary) -

POD March 1901 when an assassin kills Wilhelm II.

Due to sympathy from Wilhelm's visit to his dying grandmother, Victoria, his own untimely death, and the efforts of Chamberlain, and the desire of the new Chancellor and Kaiser to put their own mark on the empire, an Anglo-German Alliance is formed.

Sign agreement with King Leopold of Belgium for extraterritorial railways that allow for British and Germans to link their colonies in Africa. The two systems will cross in Goma.

France and Russia freak, grow closer together. Make secret treaty with Ottomans in case of war.

Dogger Banks grows into full battle, initiating a war between the powers.

Germany goes East towards Russia first, with good success. Holds France at the border in defense, leading France to throw itself in the meatgrinder of trench assaults, and in desperation France tries flanking through the Low Countries.

Invasion of neutral nations triggers President Roosevelt to bring the US in on the side of the Anglo-Germans.

Big win for the Anglo-Germans, much faster than OTL WWI. Even the losers are in better shape than OTL, though they don't know that. French form Fourth Republic, Russia becomes a Republic, with the Romanovs exiled to Switzerland (and Rasputin in tow).

Canada eventually gets those tiny French islands near Newfoundland.

US gets Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as a protectorate over former French Guiana.

Japan gets all of Sakhalin and Amur region.

Australia and New Zealand and Germany split the French Pacific Islands, though I believe we left them French Polynesia.

Britain takes Indochina.

Germany gets Courland, buffer state of Congress Poland, also a free Lithuania.

Austria-Hungary also get Montenegro, half of Albania.

Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria all make gains.

Straits under British control, including Constantinople.

Britain also gets Levant, Southern Mesopotamia.

Egypt gets Hejaz.

Italy gets Tunisia.

Germans and British split up most of French Subsaharan Africa, but France retains Madagascar.

Navies are kept at specific ratios by the treaties ending the war.

After war, due to abuses of Leopold and need of Belgium for cash, Congo sold to the British and Germans who split it up in interesting ways.

Portugal has economic/political meltdown, is forced to sell colonies to Britain (Mozambique, North African bits, Goa), Germany (Angola), Timor (Australia), etc. Actually ends up saving the Monarchy this way, though.

China has slightly more successful revolution, so Republic doesn't descend into Warlordism.

Tibet is developing into a buffer state between the Raj and China.

Italy and Britain and Ethiopia sign agreement similar to that for Congo to extend railways through Ethiopia, meeting in Addis Abiba.

Etc. Etc.
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Originally Posted by Glen
1920 match up Hughes versus McAdoo (Cox decides not to go for the nomination due to perceived increasing strength of the Hughes Administration), Hughes wins second term. However, I think Cox runs and gets it in 1924.
Another little tidbit I'll mention is that there's going to be an Anglo-Saxon Literary Movement of which J.R.R. Tolkien will be a prime member. His translation of Beowulf will be a best-seller in England and Germany.

Sauron Uber Alles!

 

[Glen]

In terms of the Anglo-German alliance TLs that might have an effect, although markedly later. With good relations with Germany people in Britain might be interested in their educational system, which was very good in terms of producing well trained technical people. Also you might see more people going to Germany for education, at least in the shorter term.

Steve

Very good points. So good, in fact, I think this part will have to be reposted on the AGA thread.