WI No Nazis. Who starts World War 2?

[raharris1973]

The history of appeasement shows how keen the WAllies were to avoid war, so a less extreme German government can likely get all or most of the concessions Hitler got - probably even Danzig if the are i n less of a hurry than Hitler.

Maybe.

But certain things need to work out correctly or well-finessed to keep the consequences of Germany's revisionist desires toward Poland 'contained' short of European war.

Germany's desire to revise the Polish border to get at least Danzig, or the Polish corridor was popular across the political spectrum. Britain anticipated this revision's popularity so much, it refused to guarantee Germany's eastern borders (really the borders of Germany's eastern neighbors) at Locarno) while guaranteeing the borders on the western side of Germany.

But Poland was not going to give up this land without a fight. [Well outside chance of Danzig, if the Germans make it a political-demographic fait accompli without a frontal assault or Polish retreat- but that still doesn't resolve the corridor issue]. Once a German-Polish war starts, avoiding a second world war, or another 'Great War' in Europe depends on the German-Polish war being ended at some point by some western equivalent version of the Peace of Riga (that ended the Polish-Soviet War) being signed, before any escalation happens that another major power (like France or the USSR or UK) believes is unacceptable. It is no impossible. But it is not guaranteed or easy. The Poles and Germans could be angry with each other and escalate in reaction to being 'surprised' by the other party not meeting their expectations. For example, the Poles may try to escalate or draw out resistance and asymmetic tactics even after losing disputed ground because they are surprised the Germans are not impressed enough by their will to fight to restore the status quo ante bellum. The Germans may escalate their goals for destruction of Polish armed forces, infrastructure or acquisition of territory if, as is probable, the Poles 'surprise' them by not simply recognizing the tactical/operational loss of the Polish corridor as a fait accompli that should mean the end of the war on the basis of the new territorial status quo. Poland's likely continue resistance and futile counter-attacks would seem in Berlin to 'irrationally' prolong an unneccessary (now) war, and Germans could find that increasingly outrageous and justifying of more extreme and *decisive* German measures. Any of France, the USSR, or Britain may disagree those German escalations are justified.

It's why I've had a couple fine-grained polls over the years over the degree of Polish defeat Europe would tolerate and the ultimate 'containability' of any German-Polish war in the last three-quarters of the twentieth century.

----a second consideration is this - Neither Hitler, nor any substitute leadership in his place would have gotten the 'bloodless' territorial concessions he got before WWII without the *threat* of military force, made credible in some way. A credible military threat isn't cheap. Unless you balance costs and benefits carefully within your means and are willing to wait until you have the resources, you could over-leverage yourself with military expansion and create a need to bail yourself out through loot from conquest or bluff-based takeover......which erodes the appeasement paradigm, and eventually mobilizes coalitions. And coalitions mean if there's a war, it can be a big one.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I did the original post, and one point I think is being missed is that the last option on the poll reads:

"No great war in Europe for over a century"

So for this to work out, no great war has to be fought in Europe before 2019.

That is 2019, not 1939. And it can break out elsewhere but Europe still be a major theater.

 

[Seandineen]

Maybe.

But certain things need to work out correctly or well-finessed to keep the consequences of Germany's revisionist desires toward Poland 'contained' short of European war.

Germany's desire to revise the Polish border to get at least Danzig, or the Polish corridor was popular across the political spectrum. Britain anticipated this revision's popularity so much, it refused to guarantee Germany's eastern borders (really the borders of Germany's eastern neighbors) at Locarno) while guaranteeing the borders on the western side of Germany.

But Poland was not going to give up this land without a fight. [Well outside chance of Danzig, if the Germans make it a political-demographic fait accompli without a frontal assault or Polish retreat- but that still doesn't resolve the corridor issue]. Once a German-Polish war starts, avoiding a second world war, or another 'Great War' in Europe depends on the German-Polish war being ended at some point by some western equivalent version of the Peace of Riga (that ended the Polish-Soviet War) being signed, before any escalation happens that another major power (like France or the USSR or UK) believes is unacceptable. It is no impossible. But it is not guaranteed or easy. The Poles and Germans could be angry with each other and escalate in reaction to being 'surprised' by the other party not meeting their expectations. For example, the Poles may try to escalate or draw out resistance and asymmetic tactics even after losing disputed ground because they are surprised the Germans are not impressed enough by their will to fight to restore the status quo ante bellum. The Germans may escalate their goals for destruction of Polish armed forces, infrastructure or acquisition of territory if, as is probable, the Poles 'surprise' them by not simply recognizing the tactical/operational loss of the Polish corridor as a fait accompli that should mean the end of the war on the basis of the new territorial status quo. Poland's likely continue resistance and futile counter-attacks would seem in Berlin to 'irrationally' prolong an unneccessary (now) war, and Germans could find that increasingly outrageous and justifying of more extreme and *decisive* German measures. Any of France, the USSR, or Britain may disagree those German escalations are justified.

It's why I've had a couple fine-grained polls over the years over the degree of Polish defeat Europe would tolerate and the ultimate 'containability' of any German-Polish war in the last three-quarters of the twentieth century.

----a second consideration is this - Neither Hitler, nor any substitute leadership in his place would have gotten the 'bloodless' territorial concessions he got before WWII without the *threat* of military force, made credible in some way. A credible military threat isn't cheap. Unless you balance costs and benefits carefully within your means and are willing to wait until you have the resources, you could over-leverage yourself with military expansion and create a need to bail yourself out through loot from conquest or bluff-based takeover......which erodes the appeasement paradigm, and eventually mobilizes coalitions. And coalitions mean if there's a war, it can be a big one.

Poland and Germany minus Der Fuhrer, could be anti Soviet friends, If Benes can be reassured, Prague may get on this too. If the Boss, attacks Poland, the worldwide anti soviet union crusade is on.

 

[raharris1973]

Poland and Germany minus Der Fuhrer, could be anti Soviet friends, If Benes can be reassured, Prague may get on this too. If the Boss, attacks Poland, the worldwide anti soviet union crusade is on.

Just because you want it, doesn't mean they want it.

Just because joe American in the Kennedy or Reagan Administration would have preferred it that way, doesn't mean Weimar Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all cooperate.

In OTL, Weimar Germany and the USSR were semi-friendly fellow outcasts, even as Germans found the USSR kinda scary (scary and sexy at the same time I guess).

Pre-Fuhrer Weimar Germany was in a constant trade war with Poland that only the Fuhrer ended and only he of interwar leaders signs a nonaggression pact with them.

Poles and Czechs were poisoned against each other since the start of the Zaolzoie dispute in 1919.

The Czechs, not having a common border with the Soviets in the interwar era, got over their beefs with the Soviets between getting their Czech Legion out of Russia and the 1930s.

I did the original post, and one point I think is being missed is that the last option on the poll reads:

"No great war in Europe for over a century"

So for this to work out, no great war has to be fought in Europe before 2019.

That is 2019, not 1939.

That's why you actually set up a high bar to clear.

No century had that- the long 19th century came the closest with 1816-1913 - no previous time in history met the qualification. In prior century-long periods, hundred year spans typically had half a dozen or more coalition wars. Go back a few centuries more possibly the scale of wars shrinks but only because transportation and state-size limits shrink. Unless war was physically unfeasible, Europe and west Asia and north Africa tended to have more years of war than peace in most centuries.

An odd exception to the pattern? The Pacific Rim - the China-Japan-Korea-Vietnam quadrangle went for much, much longer periods without mutual wars.

 

[Ambusher11]

----a second consideration is this - Neither Hitler, nor any substitute leadership in his place would have gotten the 'bloodless' territorial concessions he got before WWII without the *threat* of military force, made credible in some way. A credible military threat isn't cheap. Unless you balance costs and benefits carefully within your means and are willing to wait until you have the resources, you could over-leverage yourself with military expansion and create a need to bail yourself out through loot from conquest or bluff-based takeover......which erodes the appeasement paradigm, and eventually mobilizes coalitions. And coalitions mean if there's a war, it can be a big one.

For Germany to deliver a credible military threat, I believe Germany would have to both remilitarize the Rhineland (otherwise France can put a stop to any German aggression against Poland or other countries by occupying the Rhineland, plus rearmament would be slowed down) and be at least militarily superior to Poland (for what it's worth, Konstantin von Neurath stated in April 1933 that the German rearmament plan at that time would've given Germany military parity with Poland by 1938).

 

[thaddeus]

Italian, Japanese, and Soviet ambitions are going to be the real flashpoint here, especially Japan, who’s already deep into an aggressive war on China

The USSR and Italy are also contenders for having a large war against them

In my proposed Great Pacific War TL Pearl Harbor did not happen until after Japanese expansionism took on British possessions in the Pacific, and Britain dragged the US into the conflict with the equivalent of Lend-Lease and other support.

Edit To Add: My other assumptions in that TL included that a) the lack of an immediate European threat meant less of a military buildup and readiness posture on the part of the Americas and Europe and b) eventually the USSR, seeking territorial expansion, is persuaded to join in as an ally to Japan.

Does this envisage someone other than Stalin in power?

OTL, iirc, he was dismissive of any suggestion of supporting Japan, assuming that a nation producing 7 million tons of steel per year could never defeat one producing 77 million tons.

while certainly not likely it's not impossible for USSR-Japan-Italy to cooperate, the Soviets could flood the other two with oil, either or both (Italy and Japan) might have looked a better "cat's paw(s)" than Germany ever did, historically or under this scenario.

 

[ehbowen]

I did the original post, and one point I think is being missed is that the last option on the poll reads:

"No great war in Europe for over a century"

So for this to work out, no great war has to be fought in Europe before 2019.

That is 2019, not 1939. And it can break out elsewhere but Europe still be a major theater.

That's why I didn't vote on the poll. Too many butterflies for me to make a call on 100 years of European peace. (Would we have had the last 75 without the threat of nuclear Doomsday hanging over all of Europe's head?)

I'm looking at the topic, not as a historian, but as a writer trying to set up a story that he really wants to tell. And the setup I'm trying to reach to get where I'm going to is no war in Europe (after the War To End War), but a Cold War with the Soviets dancing around the ring with the Anglo-American bloc. Very briefly, here's how I get there:

• Hitler is accepted to architecture school. While Europe may still be a latent powder keg, it's no longer a dry one.
• Japan goes expansionistic as in OTL and rolls over China, Korea, and Indochina (1937-1942).
• Soviets are their 'cool' allies. No troops, but regular supplies of raw materials and petroleum...in exchange for cash, of course.
• Japan takes on the British Empire in the Pacific (mid-1942). Hong Kong, Singapore, and eventually lands an invasion force in Australia.
• Britain begs and pleads for assistance from an initially reluctant USA (someone other than Roosevelt is in the White House), eventually receiving the kind of help Japan is getting from the USSR but with a much longer logistics train (obviously).
• Japan wants to cut the head off that snake, and plans and successfully pulls off a near-analogue to OTL's Pearl Harbor attack in October 1943.
• Rather than sink back into its lair and sulk, though, the USA is galvanized into action as in OTL. Japan is Public Enemy Number One. USSR is Public Enemy Number Two.
• However, USSR never commits troops and is wise enough not to give an overt casus belli.
• The USA, although much less prepared than OTL since there was never a military buildup starting in the mid-30s, spins up the Arsenal of Democracy and goes on the offensive.
• Japan retrenches and consolidates, mostly in the northern Pacific. The USSR is quick to move in and fill the vacuum, ostensibly playing both sides of the street. Nobody trusts them now.
• While the Manhattan Project (OTL; TTL Project Prometheus) gets a late start and is missing a good bit of the German brain trust (some are persuaded to defect by American agents; although no Nazis TTL America is a friendlier place for Jews) it nevertheless succeeds in producing an atomic weapon in mid-1948.
• With atomic weapons in play and now outnumbered and outfought by the combined Anglo-American armies, Japan surrenders as in OTL. USSR picks up a few choice tidbits but is still hated.
• USSR had a mole inside Project Prometheus and detonates their own nuclear weapon in 1950. Cold war under way.
• Cuban revolution much as in OTL. "Our aircraft carrier (words of USSR)..."
• Hmm, looks like Cuba is a fine place for some ballistic missiles...

That's where my story picks up in (alternate) 1962.

 

[Enigmajones]

Honestly I see it as unlikely to happen on the same time table as OTL without Hitler.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

Italy will still attack Greece and continue building up in North Africa. This will however not lead to a World War. I wonder how much the British will intervene , though. A very strong Italy in the Med is not in their interests.

Italy vs Greece without German help is likely to end in a stalemate or a very expensive Pyrrhic victory for Italy.
If Britain (and possiibly France) support Greece, even if only with equipment, it is unlikely to end well for Italy.
Libya looks very vulnerable between French Tunisia and British Egypt, and it's conceivable that Italy could find itself losing its African colonies, or at least under threat of this if it doesn't leave Greece.

 

[MUC]

Italy vs Greece without German help is likely to end in a stalemate or a very expensive Pyrrhic victory for Italy.

I am not sure about that. Bear in mind that Italy was also fighting Great Britain in Africa while it was at war with Greece and Greece received both substantial military aid by Great Britain, while the Royal Navy kept the Regia Marina contained.
If you eliminate these factors, Greece can come under a lot more pressure than in OTL.
An invasion through Albania would still likely not fare well for the Italians, but they have the potential to take islands, like Corfu or impose a naval blockade of Greece.

If Britain (and possiibly France) support Greece, even if only with equipment, it is unlikely to end well for Italy.
Libya looks very vulnerable between French Tunisia and British Egypt, and it's conceivable that Italy could find itself losing its African colonies, or at least under threat of this if it doesn't leave Greece.

Indeed, these scenarios exist, but would demand that France and Great Britain go to war with Italy over Greece. Would that happen?

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I don't think there is a war in the late 1930s or 1940s without Hitler.

No Hitler coming to power changes the high level leadership of the German government in 1933. The French and British governments are both changed in 1940, with neither Churchill or Petain in power, or De Gaulle later. The high level leadership in the USA changes in 1941, since FDR is unlikely to run for a third term, and of course without a war, Eisenhower won't enter politics.

Ironically, the one major European power where the war does not change the leadership is the USSR. Zhukov's political career never got off the ground. Post Stalin leaders were somewhat helped by their war records, but not a great deal. With Britain, France, and the USA, changes start happening in 1940. Memories of the Great War start fading around 1950.

The 1960 American presidential election was between two men who were junior officers in World War 2. At that point, and by the 1970s elsewhere, you start getting people have success in politics, who IOTL were killed in the war, and other people who were affected by doing something other than military service in the 1940s.

Eastern Europe starts on a very different trajectory in 1940. Butterflies start affecting East Asia and the Middle East right before 1950, since Japanese expansionism is handeld differently, and there is no Israel. Decolonization goes more slowly, though I think it still happens since the relative decline of European power was really set in place by the Great War. The timetable of Indian independence was really only affected on the surface.

Also, without World War 2 in the 1940s, the initial push for European integration does not develop in the 1950s. The original League of Nations is still around. Nothing like the Bretton Woods and associated international financial architecture happens.

A European great war breaking out between 1950 and 1970 is still quite possible, but its a question of which country, with the altered national leadership has the most adventurous foreign policy, that could roll into a great conflict. My vote in the poll was for Poland. I don't think anything like the prosperity of the post WW2 years, for ordinary people, is going to happen ITTL.

 

[thaddeus]

Eastern Europe starts on a very different trajectory in 1940. Butterflies start affecting East Asia and the Middle East right before 1950, since Japanese expansionism is handeld differently, and there is no Israel. Decolonization goes more slowly, though I think it still happens since the relative decline of European power was really set in place by the Great War. The timetable of Indian independence was really only affected on the surface.

there were some overtures to settle the Spanish Civil War, from the Republican side to Italy, if Mussolini had been able to achieve something of a victory there, he might likely turn towards Albania and Yugoslavia as targets.

IDK if that could develop into a wider conflict or not.

 

[Seandineen]

Just because you want it, doesn't mean they want it.

Just because joe American in the Kennedy or Reagan Administration would have preferred it that way, doesn't mean Weimar Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all cooperate.

In OTL, Weimar Germany and the USSR were semi-friendly fellow outcasts, even as Germans found the USSR kinda scary (scary and sexy at the same time I guess).

Pre-Fuhrer Weimar Germany was in a constant trade war with Poland that only the Fuhrer ended and only he of interwar leaders signs a nonaggression pact with them.

Poles and Czechs were poisoned against each other since the start of the Zaolzoie dispute in 1919.

The Czechs, not having a common border with the Soviets in the interwar era, got over their beefs with the Soviets between getting their Czech Legion out of Russia and the 1930s.



That's why you actually set up a high bar to clear.

No century had that- the long 19th century came the closest with 1816-1913 - no previous time in history met the qualification. In prior century-long periods, hundred year spans typically had half a dozen or more coalition wars. Go back a few centuries more possibly the scale of wars shrinks but only because transportation and state-size limits shrink. Unless war was physically unfeasible, Europe and west Asia and north Africa tended to have more years of war than peace in most centuries.

An odd exception to the pattern? The Pacific Rim - the China-Japan-Korea-Vietnam quadrangle went for much, much longer periods without mutual wars.

there were some overtures to settle the Spanish Civil War, from the Republican side to Italy, if Mussolini had been able to achieve something of a victory there, he might likely turn towards Albania and Yugoslavia as targets.

IDK if that could develop into a wider conflict or not.

Possibly the wars leading to German and Italian unification. The back and forth of the Franco Prussian conflict.

 

[TheKutKu]

Sustained German-Soviet cooperation to me seems the norm that would happen In most timeline if not for the Nazi

 

[Deleted member 177304]

I would say Soviet Union with one critical caveat: Trotsky is leader. Given his OTL beliefs It's not hard to imagine him starting World War II to spread the Revolution. Without that however i'd imagine there is no World War II as we know it. Perhaps there are seperate regional conflicts involving one or more of the same players, akin to the Napoleonic Wars, and IMO a Pacific War between Japan and the West is still pretty likely,.

 

[raharris1973]

Sustained German-Soviet cooperation to me seems the norm that would happen In most timeline if not for the Nazi

Yes -

Yet so many don't seem to get this, and go in the opposite direction. The opposite direction of German defensive, or possible offensive, bulwark-ery against the USSR, only this time in cooperation with the other countries of western and even east-central Europe.

I think this opposite direction in italics is less objective analysis of Weimar politicians, diplomatics, and Reichswehr policy and attitudes, and more wishful thinking.

 

[Kevin Andrew Yap So]

This poll is actually wrong from the very start because it was Britain who started WW2 to protect Poland from Nazi aggression. (Or put it in another way, prevent Germany from becoming too powerful to threaten Britain and France). Remember in 1939 there was no holocaust, just Jewish persecution (that was also happening in the USSR) so the main motivation was not because everyone knew Nazi's were evil in 1939 (unless they had crystal balls)

And once again, you can argue logically that WW2 stared in Pearl Harbor

And the stab in the back myth was always there. Germany was eventually going to start a war no matter what anyway, Hitler or no Hitler. They were already cheating the treaty WAY before Hitler.

Nazi's or no Nazis, it is very likely that it will still be Britain that will start WW2 to prevent continental hegemony by a European country. It could be Britain declaring war on the Soviets.

 

[BeardedHoplite]

You'd likely see Japan attacking European colonies in the Pacific and maybe a couple small wars (Italy v. Greece, Hungary v. Rumania) in Europe, but nothing like WWII and overall it would be seen as an era of peace.

Nuclear arms and economic integration would likely make it so a big war could not happen after.

 

[Garrison]

This poll is actually wrong from the very start because it was Britain who started WW2 to protect Poland from Nazi aggression. (Or put it in another way, prevent Germany from becoming too powerful to threaten Britain and France). Remember in 1939 there was no holocaust, just Jewish persecution (that was also happening in the USSR) so the main motivation was not because everyone knew Nazi's were evil in 1939 (unless they had crystal balls)

No, they just knew that the Nazis were brutal, expansionist, and untrustworthy. Having assured Chamberlain that all Germany's territorial claims were settled after Munich Hitler then had the Wehrmacht marching into Prague and started making demands on Poland even after the guarantee was issued. WWII started because Hitler was determined to have a war, trying to shift responsibility to the British because they issued the declaration is just hair-splitting nonsense.

 

[Kevin Andrew Yap So]

yes but brutal, expansionist, and untrustworthy also applies to a lot of other countries in the past including the British Empire.

Also, one saying the Britain started WW2 is not me saying it was WRONG for them to start WW2. No one is shifting responsibility it is in fact the absolute right thing to do. And it is absolutely correct that Hitler is the reason why WW2 started. But the key word here is reason.

Also let's use an analogy, for example I attacked your best friend despite you repeatedly warning me not to and you ended up killing me. You can certainly say that through my actions you I was asking for you to kill me. But did I specifically attacked you and started a war?

No, they just knew that the Nazis were brutal, expansionist, and untrustworthy. Having assured Chamberlain that all Germany's territorial claims were settled after Munich Hitler then had the Wehrmacht marching into Prague and started making demands on Poland even after the guarantee was issued. WWII started because Hitler was determined to have a war, trying to shift responsibility to the British because they issued the declaration is just hair-splitting nonsense.