AH challenge - a democratic Germany and US

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
That would be hard, it's harder to make a war between US and UK than making a democratic Germany (which is hard). Somehow UK must have become fascist, ans perhaps Canada left the commonwealth, UK answered with force, and US and Germany stepped in to save Canada, but even that is farfetched.
 
That would be hard, it's harder to make a war between US and UK than making a democratic Germany (which is hard). Somehow UK must have become fascist, ans perhaps Canada left the commonwealth, UK answered with force, and US and Germany stepped in to save Canada, but even that is farfetched.
Making a democratic Germany isn't that hard, there are multiple opportunities for accelerating the democratisation of Germany that was occuring when the Great War halted it.
And, of course, Germany was democratic in 1921 in OTL.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
The second Napoleonic wars. No WWI but world is still economically beleaguered in 1920. Britain sees her Empire/Commonwealth and Japan as her salvation, passes big tarriff walls against anyone else. Trade war with basically the rest of the world ensues, lasts thru 20's and becomes real in the 30's. Combatants are England, Commonwealth and Japan against, Germany, France, USA
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Making a democratic Germany isn't that hard, there are multiple opportunities for accelerating the democratisation of Germany that was occuring when the Great War halted it.
And, of course, Germany was democratic in 1921 in OTL.

Yup, but in a very unstable condition, would have become a dictatorship of some sort in the 30s anyway, and would not have been able to wage a war before that. Also I wouldn't call the pre WW1 Germany democratic, there were elctions yet, but it was the Kaiser who appointed the governmnet, and they only had to answer to the Kaiser.
 
Yup, but in a very unstable condition, would have become a dictatorship of some sort in the 30s anyway, and would not have been able to wage a war before that. Also I wouldn't call the pre WW1 Germany democratic, there were elctions yet, but it was the Kaiser who appointed the governmnet, and they only had to answer to the Kaiser.
Yes, in OTL, but it would not necessarily have become a dictatorship in the 30s. Even with a post-Great War POD that doesn't remove the Great Depression, it wasn't completely assured, only likely, and I was talking about a pre-Great War POD. Remember, accelerate the democratic development that was occuring. Yes, it was far from as long gone as in the UK, but it was likely that, without a Great War, or if the development had been quicker, parliamentarism would have become triumphant.
It did in Sweden during the Great War, and before that Sweden and Germany were pretty similar to eachother in their level of democracy.
 
Making the powers democratic isn't the difficulty.

The question is if they are democratic, why are they going to war with Britain? The old fact that if the USA doesn't want to annex Canada, she has no reason to go to war with Britain remains. Britain has no reason at all to go to war with the USA. A democratic USA is unlikely to want to annex Canada post 1900 (or if you believe certain people, ever).

Britain and Germany have relatively little to fight over, but can end up in a war against each other quite easilly through European alliances. This is after all what happened in OTL.

Even if you make Britain fascist, how will this change her foreign policy? She is unlikely to embark on invading Mexico or France.

The idea of a trade war between Britain and the rest of the world in the 1920's-30's is an interesting one, but the idea of Germany and the USA allying seems a bit unlikely. As industrial powers they are each others biggest rival. Britain while being third place for industry has far great supplies of raw materials through Empire and London would remain the heart of the international money market. It seems more likely that Germany and the USA would seek to ally with Britain against the other in pure economic terms.
 
Yes, in OTL, but it would not necessarily have become a dictatorship in the 30s. Even with a post-Great War POD that doesn't remove the Great Depression, it wasn't completely assured, only likely, and I was talking about a pre-Great War POD. Remember, accelerate the democratic development that was occuring. Yes, it was far from as long gone as in the UK, but it was likely that, without a Great War, or if the development had been quicker, parliamentarism would have become triumphant.
It did in Sweden during the Great War, and before that Sweden and Germany were pretty similar to eachother in their level of democracy.

Wasn't Sweden already a parliamentary democracy, though with voting reserved for property-owners? Isn't that a bit more democratic than Germany?
 
Wasn't Sweden already a parliamentary democracy, though with voting reserved for property-owners? Isn't that a bit more democratic than Germany?
No, it wasn't a parliamentary democracy when the war began: Statsministern was still appointed by the King, and it was still the King that choose the Prime Minister. It was the Borggårdskrisen, during the Great War, that changed that.
Actually, the Reichstag had a more democratic system of voting then the Swedish one, it was just that the monarch didn't choose the Chancellor from the largest party in the Reichstag (whereas the Swedish King could, because the Swedish system of voting that was at that time made it more likely that the conservatives would be the largest). Actually, that was what the Borggårdskrisen was about: the King, and the Conservatives was forced to accept parliamentarism after the Social Democrats/Liberal Coalition (they were in it together for democratic reform, mind you, not for economic policy) had won a comfortable majority, and the King was more-or-less forced by the threat of a big mob attacking the Palace to accept that Coalition should rule, not the Conservatives.
 
OK. With lots of handwaving. Remember I'm a noobie.

Try this one - POD 1819, the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent is born - and is Victor, a boy, rather than Victoria, a girl. As a result, when Victor inherits the British throne in 1837 he keeps Hanover.

Perhaps Victor is a more aggressive personality than Victoria would have been , and possibly as a result Britain have a (minor) war with the US over the Oregon territory rather settling things diplomatically. Britain wins , which gives her marginally more territory and perpetuates bad feelings between the two countries.

Meanwhile. Most of Germany eventually becomes united - but Hanover stays British.... a few other German states stay out of the unification process as well , so Germany is less aggressive and there are only smaller wars in the world instead of those two big ones.

Sometime in the Twentieth century, public opinion in Hanover is split very evenly over whether to stay with the UK or join up with Germany. There's a disputed election, a sort of Hanoverian version of the Irish Troubles breaks out, the UK forces are too heavy-handed with protestors, and the Germans cross the border with US as an ally....
 
^ Multiple problems there.

The US was deeply isolationist until WWII, and no major world wars would just reinforce that opinion. So, I don't see them getting involved - especially over a relatively small territory dispute. A loss in a battle over Oregon would probably be irrelevant as likely said territory would eventually become part of Canada, and Canada was independent in 1867. Plenty of disagreements with the US between 1867 and full independence in 1982, but Canada never asked Britain to get involved.

Second, what is the point of Germany going to war over a small state? Sooner or later the personal union would have ended, because we aren't always going to have kings of the UK, and with Hanover probably having a German majority and being more connected with Germany, they would just ask if Hanover would join.
 
Didn't Turtledove actually do this..?:confused:

How democratic were either states in that set of stories. Unclear about Germany as events in Europe were only lightly touched upon by you have a US that was not only highly militarised and xenophobic but also pretty brutal towards its own population.

Steve
 
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