Breaking German dominance in Europe following a CP victory

Exactly as it says on the tin. How and when do you think this may happen?


Depends when the victory happens. In a 1918 scenario it might fall apart under the weight of having to prop up shaky allies and keep control of the Ukraine with the Bolsheviks running a terror campaign. And if the UK and US continue to boycott trade it might not take that long.
 
It depends a lot on how Germany handles the aftermath. For a CP "standard victory" (Brest-Litovsk in the East, minor concessions in the West), from what I can see, there's really two general paths: Germany establishes Mitteleuropa and becomes dominant power of Europe semi-permanently, or Germany suffers from imperial overstretch; after a couple to a few decades, Mitteleuropa falls apart, and a revitalized Entente eventually returns to try and knock down Germany again.

This all depends on Germany's relationship with the Mitteleuropa states. The first path, the successful Germany path, favored by Germanophiles, boils down to a greatly expanded Zollverein, which gives makes the German economy center of a proto-EU, with Germany acquiring a position eventually similar to modern America in the world. The B-L states agree to this because they need the protection of Germany from a vengeful Russia. AFAICS, this is basically the result, with some variations, of every CP victory TL that's been written on this site.

Here's basically the answer to your question:

The other path is if Germany concludes that the Brest-Litovsk states are new colonies, or possibly compensation for its African ones, and proceeds to loot them for all that they're worth. Stuff like the Polish Border Strip somehow manage to go forward, and Germany attempts to long-term Germanize the B-L states in general through settlement and gradual absorption and puppetization. Austria-Hungary falls apart and Germany absorbs German A-H and is obliged to maintain a protectorate over the former A-H states, further spreading out its resources (having to continue pouring resources into helping A-H maintain itself, or turning the AH successor states into hostile Entente-aligned states will have the same effect). Within twenty years, trying to hold down Eastern-Central Europe causes the German state to break. In that time, Germany has been forced to let go of holding down France to maintain the Eastern European empire, and Britain has never really been broken. To hold back a revanchist war from France and Britain, Germany needs to devote less resources to maintaining its ECE hegemony, letting a revitalized Russia (who Germany, to hold down ECE, has not been able to stop from rearming, or going the USSR route and becoming an industrial superpower) retake that area. Eventually, because they've lost any semblance of control over Eastern-Central Europe, a depleted Germany has to face off France, Britain, and Russia alone, leading to its eventual total defeat. Many boo-boos are had by everyone.

The difference really lies basically in whether Germany needs to "hold down" Eastern Europe or whether they can convince them that joining the German bloc is in their own interests. If Germany all but annexes Eastern Europe, with all the horrors that accompany that, then naturally, they will need to devote monumental resources to holding down Eastern Europe, eventually destroying herself.
 
Depends when the victory happens. In a 1918 scenario it might fall apart under the weight of having to prop up shaky allies and keep control of the Ukraine with the Bolsheviks running a terror campaign. And if the UK and US continue to boycott trade it might not take that long.

Pretty much this. Honestly I doubt you'd even need British and/or American action to kill it. Though I also doubt there'd be intervention from either nation as I think the British would be more concerned with keeping their own Empire alive after the economic beating it would take after the defeat of it's allies.

And wasn't Wilson actually interested to have the US start trading again in Central Europe so you'd might have US money flowing through the continent and help prop it up just a bit.
 
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