AHC/WI: Britain won world war 1 without becoming heavily indebted

Thomas1195

Banned
That still requires fighting on the Western front and the Ottomans are highly unlikely to stay neutral given they believe (100% accurately as it happens) that the French and British want to partition them post war so its Germany or bust and its not in Britain's power to choose any of these outcomes.

It can gamble on everything going well but it can't decide what will and won't happen given its one out of multiple belligerents.
More sensible diplomatic action from british than otl could help. For example, the ottoman navy was pro british before the seizing of the 2 battleships. The seizing created a big opportunity for germany, who later took advantage of this to bring ottoman to the CP.
 
IIRC the Ottoman government, or at least the Three Pashas, had already signed agreements several days before the seizure of the Ottoman battleships by the Admiralty.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
The german-ottoman agreement/secret military pact was signed the same day the later HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin were seized.
 
According to Horn, who cites data was from the Histoire des finances the French gold holdings were:
1914 Stg£164.9
1915 Stg£201.4
1916 Stg£201.5
1917 Stg£212.2
1918 Stg£217.2
while the Bank of England holdings were:
1914 Stg£70.5
1915 Stg£50.5
1916 Stg£53.5
1917 Stg£56.4
1918 Stg£77.0
Stg£? Googles. Oh. Pound sterling. OK

Hmmm.... only 200£ worth of gold, eh? That's not very much.:p (one assumes that millions or milliards of pounds. or something.)

It does seem odd that France, going bankrupt due to the cost of war, massively INCREASES its gold reserves.

Yeah, the Brits should definitely have demanded it as a h/o/s/t/a/g/e/ collateral.
 
Stg£? Googles. Oh. Pound sterling. OK

Hmmm.... only 200£ worth of gold, eh? That's not very much.:p (one assumes that millions or milliards of pounds. or something.)

It does seem odd that France, going bankrupt due to the cost of war, massively INCREASES its gold reserves.

Yeah, the Brits should definitely have demanded it as a h/o/s/t/a/g/e/ collateral.
D'oh. Yes, millions of pounds Sterling
.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The german-ottoman agreement/secret military pact was signed the same day the later HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin were seized.
Actually, before the secret alliance, the Ottoman did approached both the French and the Brits but was rejected (of course because of russia :v).
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
One more thing to do is to stop the mass bloody offensives with mass assault, instead, using small unit tactic with defensive trench warfare (Maginot school of thought, which would be deadly effective in ww1) at least until mass tank offensives with infantry support were available.
 
Britain supports Germany, gets in on the spoils, war is over in 1914

You'd rather say there is no WW1 because Russia and France will back away and never go to a general war against such a formidable coalition as Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and probably the ottoman empire and Italy.

You would need a very different situation in Europe in 1914 to have Britain side against Russia and France.

And participating in such a war without being indebted at the end would imply Britain to behave quite the same as the US did OTL : massively supplying the belligerents and then joining them in the last year of the war.

Which supposes France to be demographically and industrially much stronger than It was OTL but still weaker than Germany (having retained control of what became Belgium and Luxembourg in 1814/1815 and having a bit stronger demographic growth all along the 19th century in order to have some 50/55 million people by 1914 instead of a mere 40 million), otherwise Britain will just not participate to WW1 and let the belligerents come to a standstill.
 
I half remember reading a quote that britain would have been a creditor nation if Russia hadnt defaulted when it went Soviet.

Can anyone substantiate the quote or tell me the sterling amount of Russian debts to the uk.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
You'd rather say there is no WW1 because Russia and France will back away and never go to a general war against such a formidable coalition as Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and probably the ottoman empire and Italy.

You would need a very different situation in Europe in 1914 to have Britain side against Russia and France.

And participating in such a war without being indebted at the end would imply Britain to behave quite the same as the US did OTL : massively supplying the belligerents and then joining them in the last year of the war.

Which supposes France to be demographically and industrially much stronger than It was OTL but still weaker than Germany (having retained control of what became Belgium and Luxembourg in 1814/1815 and having a bit stronger demographic growth all along the 19th century in order to have some 50/55 million people by 1914 instead of a mere 40 million), otherwise Britain will just not participate to WW1 and let the belligerents come to a standstill.
Go back to 1870, make France win the war and annex Ruhr.
 
I half remember reading a quote that britain would have been a creditor nation if Russia hadnt defaulted when it went Soviet.

Can anyone substantiate the quote or tell me the sterling amount of Russian debts to the uk.
Total Imperial Russian debt before the revolution was approximately 11 billion rubles. Of that about three billion was general pre-war debt. The roughly eight billion rubles in wartime (foreign) debt was split:
French government 1.5 billion
UK Government 5.4 billion
Others 1.2 billion This includes the Japanese government as well as private banks in the US, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The Russian government engaged in a number of deception measures to hide their indebtedness; for example between 1914 and 1917 they shipped about two billion rubles in gold to Canada to fulfill a British demand for collateral for further loans. This was officially classed as a loan, in exchange for around 1.8 billion rubles in British treasury bonds. In fact the bonds were provided in addition hard currency loans by Britain against their gold. Plus the Russians continued to count them as part of Russia’s gold reserves, despite being held in British repositories in Canada.
There was also about eight billion rubles in internal debt in the form of war bonds, plus 7.8 billion in short term 5% Treasury notes. In total there was around 23.9 billion rubes in debt, around 62% of the cost of the war.

While this thread is specifically about UK debt problems it should be noted that Russia was also becoming an economic basket case due to the costs of the war; basically the ruble had lost more than 70% of it's purchasing power by early 1916. By late 1916 there was effectively no coinage left as people hoarded coins of all denominations and metals, leading to more printing of stamp money and paper coupons to replace coins. This merely showed people that the Russian Empire and once mighty ruble was on unstable ground; this naturally led to food hoarding, shortages, food riots and the usual outbreaks of anti-Semitism.

It's also notable that after the first 1917 revolution the currency crisis continued; the new "Kerenky" notes were widely perceived as worthless, even Tsarist paper was preferred. Between the revolutions more than five billion rubles in paper were issued, further weaking the economy both in fact and in perception. By October 1917 the ruble had lost ~94% of it's pre-war value.


Hope this helps.


Slightly OT but relevant to the subject of Bolshevik debts (and a personal interest of mine) is the matter of the Romanian Treasure which was sent from Romania to Russia in 1916. This consisted of three trains; the first left Iaşi (in Moldova, eastern Romania, and the temporary capital after Bucharest was occupied at the beginning of December) at around 3AM (local time) on the night of 14/15 December 1916 loaded with gold bullion. 21 carriages carried about 120 tonnes of bullion (in ingots) along with two hundred armed police guards. Included in the shipment was a collection of Queen Maria's personal jewellery.

On 27 July 1916 a second and third train were dispatched to Russia. The first had three wagons loaded with 188 crates containing several tonnes more bullion, artworks and the State archives.
The final train was larger, 24 wagons (3,549 crates) holding an immense collection of works-of-art and other precious objects of the Romanian state. These included a set of 3,500 year old gold jewelry, the archives of the Romanian Academy, a collection of ancient Dacian jewels, the accumulated jewels of the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia, the historical archives of Braşov, the Romanian royal treasury and jewel collections, several thousands paintings, the religious objects owned by Romanian monasteries and churches (including icons and manuscripts), the collections of the National Museum of Antiquities and more. It also contained cash, bullion and others valuables on deposit the national banks.
The value of this trainload is extremely difficult to estimate but the Russian government signed for it in the sum of 8.4 billion Romanian gold Lei, or around 370 million pounds Sterling in 1917. Today it would be worth billions of Euro/Pounds/Dollars.
Neither of these collections was returned to Romania after the Russian Revolutions of 1917. On 13 January 1918 the agreements between Russia and Romania were formally repudiated by the revolutionary government after Romanian troops entered Bessarabia. The fate of the treasure is still a subject of inter-governmental dispute today.
 
Go back to 1870, make France win the war and annex Ruhr.

The Ruhr is on the right bank of the Rhine. There is no chance France would annex it, even if It won a crushing victory in 1870/71. It was only later that the Ruhr became the industrial superpowerhouse of Germany. Even at the greatest extent of France under Napoleon I, France never considered annexing what became the Ruhr 3 generations later.

And anyway, if France was as powerful as It would be if It controlled not only the whole Rhineland but also the Ruhr, then Britain would side with a weaker Germany in order to balance France.
 
I found a source claiming Russian war debt to British state at 1.4 billion pounds. Not sure how that compares to catsmate's figure.
furtyer debt existed to the British market.

French debt to thr UK was 14 billion Francs, not sure what that was in Sterling. Italy managed to borrow over a billion in sterling from the UK and minor entente nations such as Serbia, Montenegro and Romania managed borrow over a billion sterling.
 
If this is helps the following is the National Debt from 1903 to 1939 followed by the cost of servicing it. Both are in millions of Pounds.

31/03/1903 - 798.3 - 27.3
31/03/1904 - 794.5 - 27.0
31/03/1905 - 796.7 - 27.0
31/03/1906 - 789.0 - 28.0
31/03/1907 - 779.2 - 28.5
31/03/1908 - 762.3 - 29.5
31/03/1909 - 754.1 - 28.0
31/03/1910 - 762.5 - 21.8
31/03/1911 - 733.1 - 24.6
31/03/1912 - 718.4 - 24.5
31/03/1913 - 711.3 - 24.5
31/03/1914 - 706.2 - 24.5
31/03/1915 - 1,162.0 - 22.7
31/03/1916 - 2,189.8 - 60.2
31/03/1917 - 4,063.6 - 127.3
31/03/1918 - 5,921.1 - 189.9
31/03/1919 - 7,481.1 - 270.0
31/03/1920 - 7,875.6 - 332.0
31/03/1921 - 7,623.1 - 349.6
31/03/1922 - 7,720.5 - 332.3
31/03/1923 - 7,812.6 - 324.0
31/03/1924 - 7,707.5 - 347.3
31/03/1925 - 7,655.9 - 357.2
31/03/1926 - 7,633.7 - 358.2
31/03/1927 - 7,652.7 - 378.6
31/03/1928 - 7,631.0 - 378.8
31/03/1929 - 7,620.9 - 369.0
31/03/1930 - 7,596.2 - 355.0
31/03/1931 - 7,582.9 - 360.0
31/03/1932 - 7,648.0 - 322.0
31/03/1933 - 7,859.7 - 308.5
31/03/1934 - 8,030.4 - 224.0
31/03/1935 - 7,902.4 - 224.0
31/03/1936 - 7,901.6 - 224.0
31/03/1937 - 7,909.9 - 224.0
31/03/1938 - 8,149.0 - 226.8
31/03/1939 - 8,301.1 - 230.0
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Actually, before the secret alliance, the Ottoman did approached both the French and the Brits but was rejected (of course because of russia :v).
And as the German proactively declared war, the Ottoman was not compelled to join
I was only correcting the statement of @Simon about a possible influence of the german-ottoman pact on their seizure of the turkish battleships.

The Brits took and would take them anyway, despite what's going on between Germany and Turkey.
 
FWIW on the discussion that not seizing the dreadnoughts building for Turkey might have prevented the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war I think its worth noting that the British Government seized all the warships being built in the UK for other countries, but Turkey was the only one that ended up being at war with the UK. AFAIK the countries were all paid compensation and if Turkey had remained neutral or joined the Entente she would have been compensated too. IOTL the British sold one of the two dreadnoughts they sized from Chile after the war back to that country.

AFIAK Admiral Souchon took the Turkish fleet out on manoeuvres in October 1914 and bombarded Sevastopol forcing the Ottoman Empire into the war on Germany's side. Therefore I think the Ottoman Empire's entry into the Great War on Germany's side could be avoided or at least delayed if the British Mediterranean Fleet had intercepted and sunk the Goeben and Breslau before they could reach Turkish territory.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
FWIW on the discussion that not seizing the dreadnoughts building for Turkey might have prevented the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war I think its worth noting that the British Government seized all the warships being built in the UK for other countries, but Turkey was the only one that ended up being at war with the UK. AFAIK the countries were all paid compensation and if Turkey had remained neutral or joined the Entente she would have been compensated too. IOTL the British sold one of the two dreadnoughts they sized from Chile after the war back to that country.

AFIAK Admiral Souchon took the Turkish fleet out on manoeuvres in October 1914 and bombarded Sevastopol forcing the Ottoman Empire into the war on Germany's side. Therefore I think the Ottoman Empire's entry into the Great War on Germany's side could be avoided or at least delayed if the British Mediterranean Fleet had intercepted and sunk the Goeben and Breslau before they could reach Turkish territory.
This might require an earlier Dow from brits to allow their ships to open fire early, i mean before the german ships reached italy to refuel, or an earlier pact with italy
 
This might require an earlier Dow from brits to allow their ships to open fire early, i mean before the german ships reached italy to refuel, or an earlier pact with Italy
I've looked up the Wikipaedia entry on the pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau and they were passed by the British battlecruisers Indomitable and Indefatigable at 9.30am on 4th August, but as you write they didn't give battle because the declaration of war had not come into effect.

With hindsight Troubridge should have given battle on 7th August with the 3 armoured cruisers and 8 destroyers he had under his command. His force would probably have received a severe mauling, but their sacrifice might have bought time for the British battle cruisers to catch and sink the German ships.

Considering the mischief that Souchon made with the Goeben and Breslau after they arrived in Turkey I wonder how much more he could have done if reinforced by the ships seized by the British. AFAIK both were about to sail for Turkey and their completion had been delayed because the Turkish Government was in financial difficulties because of the Balkan Wars.
 
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