AHC/WI: France has more gains in Europe at Versailles, Britain has more colonial gains

BigBlueBox

Banned
As the title says, with a POD after the American entry into World War 1, could we see a peace that ends of Britain gaining more colonies but France gaining more in Europe? I'm imagining something like France annexing Saarland, establishing a protectorate over Luxembourg (perhaps a joint Franco-Belgian protectorate?), and maintaining an indefinite occupation of the Rhineland, but Britain gets all of Togoland and German East Africa, and also gains a protectorate over a surviving Arab Kingdom of (Greater) Syria.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Sure - just up the cynicism level of the British and French governments several degrees. If they are doing things that way, might as well give Italy its full menu of Adriatic claims also.
 
OTL.

The French got Alsace-Lorraine and a string of new Eastern European nations to contain Germany with while the British got most of the Pacific and African colonies while also achieving a favorable split in the Middle East.
 
As the title says, with a POD after the American entry into World War 1, could we see a peace that ends of Britain gaining more colonies but France gaining more in Europe? I'm imagining something like France annexing Saarland, establishing a protectorate over Luxembourg (perhaps a joint Franco-Belgian protectorate?), and maintaining an indefinite occupation of the Rhineland, but Britain gets all of Togoland and German East Africa, and also gains a protectorate over a surviving Arab Kingdom of (Greater) Syria.

Inter-war france lacks the economy for an indefinte occupation without allied support. In 1936 a French mobilization in perperation for a war would have bankrupted the France.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
OTL.

The French got Alsace-Lorraine and a string of new Eastern European nations to contain Germany with while the British got most of the Pacific and African colonies while also achieving a favorable split in the Middle East.
Considering the fact that the British did nearly all the work in the Middle East, having to split it at all was unfavorable to them.

Sure - just up the cynicism level of the British and French governments several degrees. If they are doing things that way, might as well give Italy its full menu of Adriatic claims also.
Italy should have gotten its Adriatic claims. That would have prevented Mussolini, and Serbia would have been better off without Croats anyways.
 
Considering the fact that the British did nearly all the work in the Middle East, having to split it at all was unfavorable to them.

They only gave up on Syria, while gaining everything else. Given they got the Lion's share in both Africa and the Pacific, this was a paltry sum in the wider scheme of things.
 
Inter-war france lacks the economy for an indefinte occupation without allied support. In 1936 a French mobilization in perperation for a war would have bankrupted the France.

Would the French occupying the Rhineland for an indefinite period of time really be all that expensive? Without an insurgency there really isn't much at all in the way of cost, and how draining would an insurgency in the Rhineland truly be on a French occupation?
 
Italy should have gotten its Adriatic claims. That would have prevented Mussolini

I am skeptical of most claims that <Leader or movement X> would never have come to power in <Country Y> if only it had posessed <Territory Z>. Would posession of Dalmatia and Albania really have solved the economic and social problems which caused the instability of postwar Italian governments? Including the new problem of having a large number of Croats and Albanians who did not want to become Italians?
 
I am skeptical of most claims that <Leader or movement X> would never have come to power in <Country Y> if only it had posessed <Territory Z>. Would posession of Dalmatia and Albania really have solved the economic and social problems which caused the instability of postwar Italian governments? Including the new problem of having a large number of Croats and Albanians who did not want to become Italians?
I take your point in the first and second sentences.

However, IOTL the Italians had a hundreds of thousands of Croats in Istria who AFAIK didn't want to become Italians. AFAIK the Italian government coped with them.
 
I am skeptical of most claims that <Leader or movement X> would never have come to power in <Country Y> if only it had posessed <Territory Z>. Would posession of Dalmatia and Albania really have solved the economic and social problems which caused the instability of postwar Italian governments? Including the new problem of having a large number of Croats and Albanians who did not want to become Italians?

Benny boost due to Versailles was more due to the Allies and expecially Wilson treat Italy openly as a third rate nation and making plainly obvious the limit of our influence; this and the fact that the italian goverment basically needed to beg for some colonial scrap really create a lot of rage around the treaty and made the liberal goverment look extremely weak, both things that Benny and co. exploited.
 
Benny boost due to Versailles was more due to the Allies and expecially Wilson treat Italy openly as a third rate nation and making plainly obvious the limit of our influence; this and the fact that the italian goverment basically needed to beg for some colonial scrap really create a lot of rage around the treaty and made the liberal goverment look extremely weak, both things that Benny and co. exploited.

A good point. Mussolini's success was against a government which had been weakened because of the regions which Italy had been promised previously.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Benny boost due to Versailles was more due to the Allies and expecially Wilson treat Italy openly as a third rate nation and making plainly obvious the limit of our influence; this and the fact that the italian goverment basically needed to beg for some colonial scrap really create a lot of rage around the treaty and made the liberal goverment look extremely weak, both things that Benny and co. exploited.

So you are agreeing that Mussolini does not come to power and Italy basically remains a status quo power if Italy is both a) treated like one of the big boys and b) given the territory it asked for/expects?

Or was their psychology so fragile that anything remotely plausible would seem "mutilated" to Italian demagogues?
 
So you are agreeing that Mussolini does not come to power and Italy basically remains a status quo power if Italy is both a) treated like one of the big boys and b) given the territory it asked for/expects?

Or was their psychology so fragile that anything remotely plausible would seem "mutilated" to Italian demagogues?

Well, at least if a) happen, it will be more difficult for him (and the communist) work; the problem with the 'mutilated' victory myth is that frankly, nothing was enough to satisfy the population, after all we have lost 1.200.000 people in the war and the economy was in shambles...so something was needed to show at the population that's was worth the struggle, and being treated as the tagalong kid that must the gratefull for the scraps really made a number to the collective italian psyche (plus the behaviour and lack of plan/decision/unity from our delegation really finalizated the damaged).
Basically getting what given in the colonial sphere at Benny in the late 20's/early 30's and reach an agreement like the Treaty of Rapallo at the beginning of 1919 without all the drama will have greatly improved the goverment position even if the nationalist and demagogue will have still cryed betrayal, hell the taking of Fiume by D'Annunzio can be butterflyed away avoiding boosting Mussolini political career
 
... but Britain gets all of Togoland and German East Africa, and also gains a protectorate over a surviving Arab Kingdom of (Greater) Syria.
Would Syria - which they seemed perfectly happy to live without, the eastern part of Togoland, and Rwanda and Burundi in German East Africa really be considered enough by the British to allow France to go crazy in Europe? For all the desire to punish Germany I could see these measures as being considered a bit much, if not at Versailles then a few years later.
 
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