Challenge here today is to make it so that these countries are allied or at least friendly towards each other by 1900 (I'm of course referring to the Russian Empire and German Empire when I mean Germany and Russia).

Bonus points if you could get this to happen before or just after the Franco-Prussian War (cheating I know, but I'm mostly interested in the effects of this after 1900.)
Bonus bonus points if you can create a World War 1 with the French, Germans and Russians being allies.
 
Last edited:

BigBlueBox

Banned
The Dreikaiserbund is never dissolved because Germany decides to give Russia a free hand in the Balkans and against the Ottoman Empire and forces Austria-Hungary to accept this. Sometime in the late 1910s or early 1920s Russia goes to war against the Ottomans. With Europe distracted Germany takes the opportunity to invade France over some flimsy excuse, annexing even more territory and occupying the country under a puppet government, which is "allies" with Germany. Russia ends the war and takes everything it wants including Constantinople and establishes hegemony over the Balkans. Russia and Germany remain theoretically allied but in reality both are just biding their time so they can consolidate their conquests and find new allies.
 
Is it specifically WW1 era? Can there be shenanigans involving divisions of the countries or governments in exile? Like communist France joins the Warsaw Pact with East Germany? Or the Tsar-in-exile leads “Russia” from somewhere like a White Finland and makes a pact with French and German governments.
 
I'm not sure this counts because Prussia here wouldn't be Germany, but...
Austria defeats Prussia at Sadowa/Koniggratz in 1866, and obtains an overwhelming victory, annexing parts of Prussian Silesia and apportioning the Rhineland and Westphalia provinces to friendly nobles, while also rewarding her allies in Saxony and Hanover with other bits of Prussian territory. Prussia, weakened, ends up excluded from Germany proper's affairs and decides to reorient her economy and foreign policy closer towards Russia. Meanwhile, Austria, in her competition with France over patronage of the German Confederation's states, gradually breaks with Paris, causing the latter to seek an understanding with Russia and her bloc, including the Prussian kingdom.
 
This was what Durnovo recommended in his famous memorandum to the Tsar: "The future belongs to a close and incomparably more vital rapprochement of Russia, Germany, France (reconciled with Germany), and Japan (allied to Russia by a strictly defensive union)." https://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/classes/durnovo.html Just how France could be "reconciled to Germany" given the issue of Alsace-Lorraine, is not specified...
 
This was what Durnovo recommended in his famous memorandum to the Tsar: "The future belongs to a close and incomparably more vital rapprochement of Russia, Germany, France (reconciled with Germany), and Japan (allied to Russia by a strictly defensive union)." https://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/classes/durnovo.html Just how France could be "reconciled to Germany" given the issue of Alsace-Lorraine, is not specified...
The simplest way to go about this would be turning over Alsace-Lorraine to France, but I don't think that'd ever happen...
 
I think you need, at the very least, to make the Franco-Prussian War at least end in a white peace of not avoid it altogether.
 
Best POD is probably that Bismarck wins out and the Germans don't take A-L; France is just forced to acknowledge the unification of Germany. In that situation I could see the three powers uniting against their common enemy in Britain.
 
Challenge here today is to make it so that these countries are allied or at least friendly towards each other by 1900 (I'm of course referring to the Russian Empire and German Empire when I mean Germany and Russia).

Bonus points if you could get this to happen before or just after the Franco-Prussian War (cheating I know, but I'm mostly interested in the effects of this after 1900.)
A real stretch and you don't have to discuss this, but bonus bonus points if you can create a World War 1 with the French, Germans and Russians being allies.

Most every other European nation except for France, Germany, and Russia becomes socialist or communist. France, Germany, and Russia form an anticommunist alliance.
 

Baldrick

Banned
During the Austro-Prussian War, France joins the Prussian side to reduce Austrian influence in Italy, while Russia joins to gain as much territory as possible. Prussia annexes Bohemia and Austria, Russia gains Galicia, Hungary becomes a Russian puppet. Italy gradually falls under the sway of the French. The Seven Weeks War fosters a new spirit of Franco-Prussian co-operation, and Napoleon III quietly drops his objection to German unification. This terrifies Great Britain, who look to the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and Japan as allies. WWI consists of the Turks/Bulgarians getting their teeth kicked in and the British surrendering very quickly to avoid the spectacle of a 1914 (or whenever the year might be) version of Sealion (impossible though that operation would be)
 
Best POD is probably that Bismarck wins out and the Germans don't take A-L; France is just forced to acknowledge the unification of Germany. In that situation I could see the three powers uniting against their common enemy in Britain.

There was never any real possibility that a victorious Prussia/Germany would not take some of Alsace-Lorraine. The question was how much.

"The annexation of Strasbourg and of Alsace appeared to him [Bismarck] necessary in order to enhance the security of southern Germany and make any French pressure on the South German states impossible." Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany: 1840-1945, p. 222. https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4pLQ1jC1JIC&pg=PA222

What is true is that Bismarck did not originally favor taking Metz, but yielded to the military judgment of Moltke on that issue. (Indeed, there was a real dilemma here. Even a limited annexation--of the German-speaking areas of Alsace--would be enough to embitter France and make it dream of a war of revenge in the future. So to put Germany in the best possible position for such a war, it was thought necessary to take even more territory and thus embitter the French even more...)
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Most every other European nation except for France, Germany, and Russia becomes socialist or communist. France, Germany, and Russia form an anticommunist alliance.
The only countries in Europe that can turn communist without outside interference and successfully defend the revolution from outside intervention are France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, and the last one is unlikely. If France, Russia, and Germany are all anti-communist then none of Continental Europe is communist.
 
The only countries in Europe that can turn communist without outside interference and successfully defend the revolution from outside intervention are France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, and the last one is unlikely. If France, Russia, and Germany are all anti-communist then none of Continental Europe is communist.

You could also reverse it and make France, Russia, and Germany all communist.
 
Jean Jaures survives the assassination attempt and is elected Prime Minister of France in 1919, governing alongside the Radicals. In the 1924 elections, he manages to gain a majority coalition alongside the Communists under Frossard. He signs a joint interests agreement with President Friedrich Ebert and Chancellor Otto Weis, while Lenin secretly meets with Foreign Minister Frossard, signing agreements concerning cooperation in the future. Lenin is succeeded by Leon Trotsky, with the support of Sergey Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, who marginalize and eventually forcibly exile Stalin and his allies.

Jaures retires, and, for a time, right wing governments retain control in France; However, in 1930, facing intense public pressure to return, he is elected President of France, and Leon Blum, Frossard, and Maurice Thorez form a government under him. Fascist movements begin to be suppressed, and Jaures is forced to resign when he refuses to arrest Philippe Petain for meeting with reactionaries and fascists. Jaures flees to America, and he is replaced by Jacques Doriot, who establishes a Council of Ministers, including Leon Blum, Maurice Thorez, Marcel Deat, and a handful of others, which assumes legislative authority and signs a defense and trade pact with the Soviet Union.

Ernst Thalmann eventually is elected President over Hitler, and he begins purging the Nazis, monarchists, and reactionaries, with the help of the Strasser brothers and Ernst Rohm. President Thalmann appoints himself Chancellor, and signs a military pact with Trotsky and Doriot. Mussolini signs an agreement with Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Romania*, leading a Fascist alliance against the Trio of Communists. World War Two breaks out when Mussolini sends troops to Austria to aid Engelburt Dollfuss against German-backed Communist protestors.

Trotzky, Thalmann, and Deat vs. a Mussolini-led fascist-monarchy alliance.


Spain: Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera(Falangist-Fascist-Royalist Alliancw
Portugal: Antonio de Oliveira Salazar(Estado Novado)
Yugoslavia: Milan Stojadinovic(United Front - Union & opposition alliance)
Romania: Prince Nicholas of Romania(United Front - Armand Calinescu, Dinu Bratianu, Iuliu Maniu, Octavian Goga)
Finland: Kyosti Kallio(Finnish coalition)
Poland: Jozef Beck(Roman Dmowski, Aleksandra Pilsudska, Wladyslaw Studnicki)
Czechoslovakia: Rudolf Beran(national unity party)
Austria: Engellburt Dollfuss(Fatherland Front)
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Jean Jaures survives the assassination attempt and is elected Prime Minister of France in 1919, governing alongside the Radicals. In the 1924 elections, he manages to gain a majority coalition alongside the Communists under Frossard. He signs a joint interests agreement with President Friedrich Ebert and Chancellor Otto Weis, while Lenin secretly meets with Foreign Minister Frossard, signing agreements concerning cooperation in the future. Lenin is succeeded by Leon Trotsky, with the support of Sergey Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, who marginalize and eventually forcibly exile Stalin and his allies.

Jaures retires, and, for a time, right wing governments retain control in France; However, in 1930, facing intense public pressure to return, he is elected President of France, and Leon Blum, Frossard, and Maurice Thorez form a government under him. Fascist movements begin to be suppressed, and Jaures is forced to resign when he refuses to arrest Philippe Petain for meeting with reactionaries and fascists. Jaures flees to America, and he is replaced by Jacques Doriot, who establishes a Council of Ministers, including Leon Blum, Maurice Thorez, Marcel Deat, and a handful of others, which assumes legislative authority and signs a defense and trade pact with the Soviet Union.
The only reason any French Third Republic administration would agree to an alliance with the Soviet Union would be for the purpose of containing Germany. If Germany isn't a threat, then there is no alliance.

Ernst Thalmann eventually is elected President over Hitler, and he begins purging the Nazis, monarchists, and reactionaries, with the help of the Strasser brothers and Ernst Rohm.
Communist support in Germany was far too low for them to take power through election.

President Thalmann appoints himself Chancellor, and signs a military pact with Trotsky and Doriot. Mussolini signs an agreement with Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Romania*, leading a Fascist alliance against the Trio of Communists. World War Two breaks out when Mussolini sends troops to Austria to aid Engelburt Dollfuss against German-backed Communist protestors.
France has no reason to sign any military treaty or take part in this war. It would just sit back and watch as the rest of Europe goes down in flames.
 
Last edited:
Top