One quick correction on the whole freedom angle while Britain arguably didn't (kinda did when you see Belgium propaganda but let's face it Germany handed that one on a platter) some colonies such as good ole Australia where I currently call home very much histography wise call it a fight for freedom and binds it to the Anzac mythology.
historical moral narratives: which was the 'good' side, if any, during WW1?
- Thread starter spoonzandforkz
- Start date
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Pre war, what did the Germans do to the Herero?
Whataboutism is never appealing.
As if its opponents weren't also doing atrocities against their own colonies.
A plague on all Europe's houses.
What is the French, or British or hell even Russian equivalent of the Armenian genocide during the war? Of what the Young Turk triumvirate was doing to the Ottoman Greeks and Assyrians? Since the groupies of Imperial Germany tell us how harsh Versailles what were the equivalent of the treaties of Brest Litovsk and Bucharest? The Entente equivalent to German and Austrian occupation policies during the war? How did these differ from German occupation policies a generation after? Which of the combatants had turned into a proto-fascist military dictatorship by 1918? By 1918 again on which side every single state was a democracy and on which side every single state (with the possible caveat of Bulgaria) was not?As if its opponents weren't also doing atrocities against their own colonies.
A plague on all Europe's houses.
Sacer Bubonicus
Banned
For anybody who wants to see decolonization actually happen, the side whose victory doesn't lead to one nation becoming European hegemon is the clear-cut winner. Why? Because decolonization as a political force was really given teeth by America and the Soviet Union, and was only forced on the European colonial empires after WW2, when they showed those old empires what was what. Without their influence, the Europeans would've stubbornly clung onto their colonies until the bitter end - indeed, a few still tried regardless, but they were the exception and not the rule.
To have America and/or the Soviets be in a position to cause that, you need them to actually be in a position to dominate Europe, preferably while also discrediting European racial ideologies at the same time, and this is basically impossible if Germany dominates Europe. And since Germany in particular was the home of some rather nasty race ideologies even before WW1, I also wouldn't feel terribly safe living in a TL where all their peer-level opponents were either neutered or across the sea. You just never know what that stuff, which was rather popular in the high circles of the German Empire, could turn into if it was allowed to metastasize and nobody was there to stop the resulting madness.
To have America and/or the Soviets be in a position to cause that, you need them to actually be in a position to dominate Europe, preferably while also discrediting European racial ideologies at the same time, and this is basically impossible if Germany dominates Europe. And since Germany in particular was the home of some rather nasty race ideologies even before WW1, I also wouldn't feel terribly safe living in a TL where all their peer-level opponents were either neutered or across the sea. You just never know what that stuff, which was rather popular in the high circles of the German Empire, could turn into if it was allowed to metastasize and nobody was there to stop the resulting madness.
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*looks at the residential schools in Canada, the Scramble for Africa which was initiated mostly by Britain and France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Mosley's Blackshirts*
Stop whitewashing yourselves.
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Really? Discussions on giving Independence to India started prior to WW1, and gained speed in the 1920s. By the mid-1920s, it was a question of "When", not "If."
The memoirs of India Civil Servants (both Indian and British) are fairly clear. From about 1920, each new British civil servant going to India expected to be the last non-Indian in that post.
As for the Soviet Union enforcing decolonisation, given the Empire building of the Soviet Union, that's a rather sick joke. I don't think citing the example of the instigators of the Holodomor helps your case.
Winston Churchill said many unwise things in his life, but his comment to Roosevelt about India had a bit of an edge. "At least our Indians are still alive."
Mosley's Blackshirts? Hardly a significant force.
Was Britain and France pure white hats? Of course not. Some appalling things were done. That said, the German treatment of the Herero is not something to be glossed over.
Sacer Bubonicus
Banned
Kick
Still nowhere near the level of what you're replying to.*looks at the residential schools in Canada, the Scramble for Africa which was initiated mostly by Britain and France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Mosley's Blackshirts*
Stop whitewashing yourselves.
(also, give the British credit; they showed Mosley the door in style, which you can't say for Germany or Italy)
*sigh*
Given that we're literally having an atrocity-measuring contest right now and we've already seen some pretty headass takes come out of some posters here, I'm just amazed that nobody's gone for the Boers yet, because that's also a pretty standard one that gets tossed around.
Sacer Bubonicus
Banned
As long as the hand of Stalin was handing out AKs to every African and Asian rebel group that painted their flag red and slapped a few hammer and sickles on their clothes, he was sadly the hammer to America's decolonialist anvil.
Uncle Sam to the empires: "You either decolonize on my terms, or you decolonize on his. I think you'll like my terms a lot more."
And those who didn't take America's terms ended up falling to communist guerillas. Viz: Portugal, Rhodesia.
First, you conveniently ignored Belgium.
Second, if you take the view that Venizelos' faction (given the fact that Constantine used monarch power to dismiss Venizelos and his majority elected government) was the more legitimate side, then the Greece situation was far more nuance. The CPs were also very quick to occupy Eastern Macedonia. Looking back, the Greek Monarchy was among the ones that deserved to be sent packing.
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Crazy Boris
Banned
There’s no real good guys or bad guys, but I have to give the entente a bit of a stink eye for their peace just setting up another, even worse, war to come.
I think it’s kind of pointless to play the “who’s worse” game for wars that don’t involve a certain man with a little moustache or something on that level of psychotic evil simply due to how subjective it can be (and I prefer to at least try and be objective regardless of my own thoughts for the sake of professionalism), but if I had to make a choice, I would specifically look down on France for being overly harsh on Germany and the USA for its republicanism fetish setting up Eastern and Central Europe for a nightmare of dictatorships for the next 70 years instead of keeping the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns around and empowering them to keep politicians in their rightful place (ie; far away from real power). I don’t really have anything against the other entente powers, they made some bad moves but I can chalk a lot of that up to “it’s war, what do you expect”
The Central Powers did some horrible things in the madness of war, and had they won outright, I don’t think things would be too much better than OTL, once Princip pulled the trigger, the 20th century was destined to be a shitshow from start to finish, but at least a Central Powers victory probably wouldn’t have led to Hitler.
I think everyone could have conducted themselves much more honorably, it was an all around awful war, but the circumstances of the time put the wrong people in the wrong positions and kept the right people out of them. This was an age dominated by ambitious, fiery, and nationalistic politicians with little to no regard for typical morality or even simple pragmatism, it was a perfect storm for atrocities of all kinds and no country’s hands weren’t stained by at some blood (except Albania and Montenegro I suppose)
I think it’s kind of pointless to play the “who’s worse” game for wars that don’t involve a certain man with a little moustache or something on that level of psychotic evil simply due to how subjective it can be (and I prefer to at least try and be objective regardless of my own thoughts for the sake of professionalism), but if I had to make a choice, I would specifically look down on France for being overly harsh on Germany and the USA for its republicanism fetish setting up Eastern and Central Europe for a nightmare of dictatorships for the next 70 years instead of keeping the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns around and empowering them to keep politicians in their rightful place (ie; far away from real power). I don’t really have anything against the other entente powers, they made some bad moves but I can chalk a lot of that up to “it’s war, what do you expect”
The Central Powers did some horrible things in the madness of war, and had they won outright, I don’t think things would be too much better than OTL, once Princip pulled the trigger, the 20th century was destined to be a shitshow from start to finish, but at least a Central Powers victory probably wouldn’t have led to Hitler.
I think everyone could have conducted themselves much more honorably, it was an all around awful war, but the circumstances of the time put the wrong people in the wrong positions and kept the right people out of them. This was an age dominated by ambitious, fiery, and nationalistic politicians with little to no regard for typical morality or even simple pragmatism, it was a perfect storm for atrocities of all kinds and no country’s hands weren’t stained by at some blood (except Albania and Montenegro I suppose)
Derek Pullem
Donor
The Boers are always problematic for a particular viewpoint as they are an example of Imperialism/ Colonialism that is not racially driven. Which gives some people an issue.
Pretty simply in my mind a Central Powers victory would have set back Social Democracy not only in Germany and Austria but also in France and the UK. And for those who point to the rise of the far right in Europe as a consequence of an Entente victory I'd argue that was much more about the peace than the victory. At least with an Entente victory the concept of a broadly democratic nation state overcoming an authoritarian one was established. If WW1 had ended up in a CP victory the meme would be reversed.
Naturally, but consider that, from an outside perspective, any one of the European great powers have committed comparably awful atrocities. It's all gray to us, TBH.
Are ya talking about the atrocities committed by the Boers or against them?
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
As opposed to the Brest-Litovsk peace?
The Central Powers don't escape with clean hands when it comes to setting up peace deals.
A comparison of the Treat of Versailles, and that ending the Franco-Prussian war is quite instructive; both were harsh, with Versailles being less onerous in terms of reparations as a proportion of GDP.
Derek Pullem
Donor
This is often said. But the devastation inflicted on Germany (and France) during WW1 was not of the same order of magnitude as that on France during her Franco Prussian war. So in terms of the loser's ability to pay the Franco Prussian war was less harsh.
Germany's GDP was only 73% of its pre war value in 1919 and only 81% by 1923. In contrast France's GDP was back to pre-war levels 3 years after the Franco-Prussian war. Essentially even though it was a bigger indemnity and a bigger military defeat for France, it did not wreck her economy and she was able to raise the indemnity in full through its own credit.
Speculation but this might have been a factor in setting the size of the Versailles indemnity - "We paid ours off why can't you?"
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Oh, almost certainly. France certainly recovered from the FP war faster than Germany recovered from WWI. In terms of the GDPs at the time of the reparations, the two are comparable. Explanations as to why France paid and Germany didn't are varied, some more plausible than others.
It's not if you take the view. Constantine launched what amounted to a royal coup blatantly violating existing Greek constitutional norms at German instigation. Ok the Germans had obvious reasons to meddle to keep one more country away from the war and found an idiot with ideas to play absolute monarch to do their bidding in the face of Constantine but if you had to blame someone for what went on in Greece in 1915-17 it should be Germany and Constantine not the Entente.