AH Challenge: Peaceful 20th Century in Europe

Anaxagoras

Banned
With a POD no earlier than January 1, 1914, how can Europe enjoy relative peace (at most a few quite short and localized wars) for the entire 20th Century?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Impossible, at 1914 there had already been wars in the 20th century, and 1914 is too late to stop some kind of great war to emerge before 1920.
 

Archibald

Banned
I think that in January 1914 France and Germany were ready to fight...

Maybe an earlier POD, something like "no Guillaume II", would do the job...
 
I don't think a POD in 1914 could prevent the world from a war. There were too many unsolved problems in Europe.

Only some of the main problems:
1. Minorities: Slavs, Danish, Alsatians - they all wanted to be treated equal and not like second class subjects.
2. Antagonism between Germans and French, as both of their nationalism (then!) had a strong part of militarism in it (French society was more militarized than German when it came to the ratio of soldiers/citiziens.)
3. Russian-Austrian antagonism

Maybe, if Francis Ferdinand had not died, let's say, he had broken a leg or something. But then war could have been broken out only few years later. A peaceful 20th century would have had its roots in the 19th century.
 
I wouldn't say it was impossible, just quite unlikely. There were trends in Europe seemingly pointing to war becoming more unlikely as the years passed (or at least that it would become less likely once something that seemed very likely to happen sooner or later had happened).
There wouldn't be one POD to point to as responsible, though, more a set of events all going in the right way- but it is not entirely impossible that, from the first of January 1914, Europe avoids a major war. Not all crisises need lead to war, after all, as had been shown earlier in the century.
 
Top