Challenge - WW2 seen as 'cleaner' than WW1
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
That's a big challenge... I mean, all the Nazi/Japanese genocides, Stalin's things, Nukes... But WW1 does have all that grizzly trench warfare and gas... Tough.
MrP
Banned
Hm, leave France as OTL. However, when we get to Russia, have Stalin less trusting, so the initial German advance gets less far, and so the Einsatzgruppen are never formed. There's a lot of desperate fighting, but it doesn't involve race-based mass-murder, and the Germans are driven back by the Russians by about '43, Hitler dead/suicided, and the German military surrenders/agrees to a status quo ante bellum - Stalin, not as filled with wrath at Germany as he was IOTL by all the nastiness, agrees. War in the Desert goes as OTL. That seems quite gentlemanly.
I don't know quite what to do with the Japanese in China, though, since they'd been being bastards for years. P'raps a technicality, and consider it a different war?
I don't know quite what to do with the Japanese in China, though, since they'd been being bastards for years. P'raps a technicality, and consider it a different war?
Alien Space Bats come down to Earth, killing Hitler and Stalin and wiping out the entire political leadership of Germany and Russia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, more Alien Space Bats kidnap the senior Japanese leadership in charge of the invasion of China.
Well, for a variety of reasons, Germany did wage WW2 in a more "gentlemanly" way against the western allies in the first year or so (no unrestricted submarine warfare, no terror bombings until the British bombed Berlin, etc). In the popular conscious there also remains a notion (probably largely incorrect) that aviators in the ETO still played by rules against each other, the war in North Africa was chivalrous, and surface raiders went out of their way to spare lives.
If WW2 ended in 1940 with an armistice between Germany and England, it would be remembered in the popular conscious as a cleaner and more humane war than WW1. Whatever happened to the Jews and in any later Russo-German war would be something different (and for a number of reasons glossed over in the west because we made peace with the Nazis)
Now, given the racism on both sides, It would be hard to get the US-Japan thing to be gentlemanly or clean.
Grey Wolf
Donor
But doesnt that bring about trench war and everything that people associate with WW1 being 'messy' for ?
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
If you have China do a lot better against the Japanese, they won't have the opportunity for most of their crimes. More to the point, they're not as likely to go charging the Europeans if they're stuck in Northern China.
Europe is a lot harder. If you could somehow prevent Barbarossa without changing the war's outcome, it'd make a big difference. Most of the really awful stuff happened on the Eastern Front, and the Holocaust only really got going under the cover of it.
Hrm.... Let us say that the Germans have far less success in France. That or they end up at war with Italy as well. For good measure, let's have the allies go to war against Russia before people realize that this isn't going to be another trenchwar. With the main battle still going in Europe, civilian bombing is limited relative to OTL, and little of it happens in Britain or Germany. Germany is eventually forced to surrender/switch sides before any massed extermination efforts even begin. Suddenly cut off, Russia gets something like the status quo ante bellum and a black eye for their trouble. The war is hailed as a triumph of moderation in victory (nothing like Russia's OTL empire to spoil the pretty picture).
I'd say that looks better than the horrors that spilled out of WW1.
Thoughts?
Europe is a lot harder. If you could somehow prevent Barbarossa without changing the war's outcome, it'd make a big difference. Most of the really awful stuff happened on the Eastern Front, and the Holocaust only really got going under the cover of it.
Hrm.... Let us say that the Germans have far less success in France. That or they end up at war with Italy as well. For good measure, let's have the allies go to war against Russia before people realize that this isn't going to be another trenchwar. With the main battle still going in Europe, civilian bombing is limited relative to OTL, and little of it happens in Britain or Germany. Germany is eventually forced to surrender/switch sides before any massed extermination efforts even begin. Suddenly cut off, Russia gets something like the status quo ante bellum and a black eye for their trouble. The war is hailed as a triumph of moderation in victory (nothing like Russia's OTL empire to spoil the pretty picture).
I'd say that looks better than the horrors that spilled out of WW1.
Thoughts?
The bunkers would improve the living conditions and I think the medical service would be better. The real trick is removing bombardment al la OTL WWII.
China's gonna be the hard one. Partially because you still have the Japanese gassing and bombing with complete disregard for innocent lives, but also because the PLA and KMT really weren't all that better behaved.
Also don't forget your WWII Betas in Spain and Abysinia. Good luck making them any more gentlemanly.
Eh. The Japanese military had the free reign it did because it also had results. If you reduce their success rate you probably do the same to the free hand they had to do whatever they felt like. Obviously they aren't going to look squeaky clean, but I think we can manage a huge improvement over our TL.
As to Spain and Abyssinia, I don't see it as an issue. They aren't technically part of the World War, after all. Moreover, the worse the situation is pre-war, the better the war itself will look in comparison. The atrocities are as likely to be categorized as fallout from the previous war as to be attached to the new one, especially if it were less severe.
What about this? The Nazis contribute more to the Spanish Civil War in terms of aircraft so that they can test new ideas on mass bombings of civilian populations. The Italians were contributing about what they could, but they could coordinate bombing efforts against the Republicans.
For a variety of hand-wavy reasons - luck, weather, poor organization - the test runs of city bombing come up spectacular failures. The Germans accordingly plan more for short range and tactical fighters than OTL; less for "real" bombers. If you combine that with an ongoing land war in Europe, the Battle of Britain will be stillborn. I can envision a war with a much larger focus on targetting the enemy's military, with less to spare on their civilians.
As to Spain and Abyssinia, I don't see it as an issue. They aren't technically part of the World War, after all. Moreover, the worse the situation is pre-war, the better the war itself will look in comparison. The atrocities are as likely to be categorized as fallout from the previous war as to be attached to the new one, especially if it were less severe.
What about this? The Nazis contribute more to the Spanish Civil War in terms of aircraft so that they can test new ideas on mass bombings of civilian populations. The Italians were contributing about what they could, but they could coordinate bombing efforts against the Republicans.
For a variety of hand-wavy reasons - luck, weather, poor organization - the test runs of city bombing come up spectacular failures. The Germans accordingly plan more for short range and tactical fighters than OTL; less for "real" bombers. If you combine that with an ongoing land war in Europe, the Battle of Britain will be stillborn. I can envision a war with a much larger focus on targetting the enemy's military, with less to spare on their civilians.
If we could get the military focus on defeating the army, and not the population it would go a long way towards a cleaner WWI. For much of the inter-war military thinking was based on avoiding the army, and striking at the cities, and population centers behind it. Due to the bomber "always getting through" it was considered not only important, but smart to drop chemical weapons upon cities, if it meant the soldiers at the front would not get food, or ammunition.
Make it so the tank or the bomber is seen as a strictly military weapon, and not a weapon to terrorize and it is likely that some aspects of WWII are cleaner.
Make it so the tank or the bomber is seen as a strictly military weapon, and not a weapon to terrorize and it is likely that some aspects of WWII are cleaner.