Could the German Empire "keep" africa if they win WWI?

[marathag]

don't think so. If there is Peace Treaty like OTL Versailles, a victorious Germany would certainly demand all the colonies back and might pursue a more benign approach on Europe, not demanding much territories on Western Europe

Japan will either tell them to go pound sand, or come and try to take them back.

 

[Gukpard]

Most likely, the US would be the one backing rebels in the colonies.

I don't see Germany and USA having much of rivalry. Germany has now quiet much more land and massive influence in Europe and good part of Africa. Germans hardly have much reason to confront USA. And Britain would be still around. So more plausible is just some cordial relations where Germany not step to American backyard and USA not bother with colonies. Evenif there is some Cold War thing, it wouldn't be anything like OTL one was.

Something to be said is that without US intervention in WWI there is no assimilation of German americans, so the German-US lobby is going to be strong

 

[JohnBull]

Yes, I am sure the Japanese and New Zealanders will be terrified of war restarting with whatever rafts the Germans have left. Speaking of which, even if the Germans get back most of their Africa colonies, Southwest Africa is a no go. British officials were chatting among themselves that if the war went the wrong way the Germans would need to get something instead of that area, as giving it up would anger the South Africans. Much like how the Australians and New Zealanders would be very angry that islands they personally invaded were being demanded by the British, to give back to the people who had been machine gunning them in trenches. The Germans probably wouldn’t care about distant islands or deserts anyways, when Europe and the Congo offered so much more labor, resources, land, etc.

Germany has a very powerful navy on OTL. Don’t you remember how many ships they sank on Scapa Flow?

If they had just defeated Britain and France making them to accept a peace treaty, NZ would be legally bond to it and Japan would have to comply, otherwise they would face world’s 2nd largest navy.

 

[JohnBull]

Japan will either tell them to go pound sand, or come and try to take them back.

OTL, Britain and France after all the destruction on the Western Front, were involved in Russia, Turkey, all over the place. If Germany wants, they’d take it back. Germany was not 1905 Russia and Japan was not 1941 Japan.

 

[wcv215]

OTL, Britain and France after all the destruction on the Western Front, were involved in Russia, Turkey, all over the place. If Germany wants, they’d take it back. Germany was not 1905 Russia and Japan was not 1941 Japan.

Germany projects its power there through what bases exactly?

Germany has a very powerful navy on OTL. Don’t you remember how many ships they sank on Scapa Flow?

Not enough to match the Hone Fleet, let alone the Royal Navy as a whole.

 

[JohnBull]

Germany can gain territory at the expense of France and Belgium or it can keep its colonies, but not both. In contradiction to what I said above, annexing the iron mines of Longwy Briey and Luxemburg, and establishing naval bases on the Flemish coast is far more valuable at the time than any of their colonies. Britain would likely give Germany the option/ultimatum.

Germany liked their colonies. Even the very eurocentrist Hitler complaining about losing them.

Britain and France who had plenty of them, didn’t care much about a couple more.

If Germany can impose a peace over the W Allies in the same way peace was imposed to them OTL, I don’t see how they wouldn’t have demanded them back or why Britain would object to it. And France had no choice: or that, or the war would keep going with the entire north occupied by Germany.

 

[JohnBull]

Not enough to match the Hone Fleet, let alone the Royal Navy as a whole.

They wouldn’t have been matching Home Fleet, but Japan only.

We’re talking about an ATL Versailles here. Germany being the winner and of course they would demand at least the status quo ante bellum.

 

[wcv215]

They wouldn’t have been matching Home Fleet, but Japan only.

We’re talking about an ATL Versailles here. Germany being the winner and of course they would demand at least the status quo ante bellum.

Which they have to sail across three quarters of the planet. Including the many, many ships that are smaller and have drastically shorter range. Once again, what bases are they using to project this power?

Germany can demand whatever it wants. Until they can move enough ships into the Pacific to threaten Japan, and then somehow manage to defeat the IJN in their home waters their demands mean literally nothing.

 

[marathag]

OTL, Britain and France after all the destruction on the Western Front, were involved in Russia, Turkey, all over the place. If Germany wants, they’d take it back. Germany was not 1905 Russia and Japan was not 1941 Japan.

1918 Germany wasn't 1914 Germany either.
The HSF would have the fate as as the Russian Baltic Fleet, no base to sortie from unlike, the Russian Civil War interventions
To do what they want, they need the USN Fleet Train of 1943.
The 1918 IJN would be able to handle what what ends up in the Pacific. German Heavy Units were not built for endurance, unlike their light cruisers

 

[Gukpard]

1918 Germany wasn't 1914 Germany either.
The HSF would have the fate as as the Russian Baltic Fleet, no base to sortie from unlike, the Russian Civil War interventions
To do what they want, they need the USN Fleet Train of 1943.
The 1918 IJN would be able to handle what what ends up in the Pacific. German Heavy Units were not built for endurance, unlike their light cruisers

Which they have to sail actoss three quarters of the planet. Ibcludibg the many, many ships that are smaller and have drastically shorter range. Once again, what bases are they using to project this power?

Germany can demand whatever it wants. Until they can move enough ships into the Pacific to threaten Japan, and then somehowanage to defeat the IJN in their home waters their demands mean literally nothing.

They wouldn’t have been matching Home Fleet, but Japan only.

We’re talking about an ATL Versailles here. Germany being the winner and of course they would demand at least the status quo ante bellum.

Ladies and gentlemen, to solve this question, the germans are lucky enought to keep their african holdings and maybe take Congo from Belgium so they decide to not retake the pacific holdings

 

[RuneGloves]

What would the internal situation of the colonies look like in 1980.

 

[JohnBull]

What would the internal situation of the colonies look like in 1980.

I guess it depends on how German and Western racial attitudes evolve. As I tend to be optimistic, I guess they could have evolved like OTL or even faster.

In this case, we could have a situation similar to the British, French, US colonies today, with relative weak independence movements.

 

[CHKeeley]

What would the internal situation of the colonies look like in 1980.

Highly contingent on events from 1918-1980. The emergence of anti-colonial powers and doctrines on the global stage will aid greatly in this process, but generally speaking the democratization of the rate of fire by the introduction of mass-produced assault rifles will ensure that guerrilla movements will start to emerge among the oppressed. If the circumstances favor a German colonialism that stands and fights, I expect no less horrific results than the dirty war in Algeria and the indiscriminate fire bombings in Portuguese Mozambique from OTL. If, for one reason or another, the German state decides to relinquish control to an up-and-coming (docile) native bourgeoisie, then we see the former colonies continue under German tutelage. Whether that requires a bloody dictator or not is dependent on the level of indigenous resistance this transition requires. It could be a Côte d’Ivoire or it could be a Democratic Republic of the Congo, but that’s contingent on world and local developments specific to the colony in question. The question of German settler-colonialism in the colonies is also something I didn’t consider but could play a very large role.

 

[Interdimensional Nomad]

Snip

I think as long as Wilhelm II is in power, Germany is likely to retain a certain degree of authoritarianism. And he lived well into WW2 in OTL, so he'll probably be around for quite a while. How much power Hindenburg and Ludendorff have likely depends on how long this alternate Great War goes, but they were also old-guard Prussian military leaders who were deeply conservative and unfriendly to the idea of democracy.

Regarding the potential relations between Germany and the US, while there is the possibility of them staying largely within their own spheres of influence and generally staying cordial, given their ideological differences and the German Empire's attitude towards the US before and during WW1 in OTL, I would imagine their relations being more similar to those between the US and the Russian Federation in OTL. Not necessarily on the level of the Cold War, but not friendly. Germany had already gotten into a standoff with the US over Samoa, and had plans to try to force the US to abandon the Monroe Doctrine, through direct war if necessary. While this was partly because they were a latecomer in the colonization game and wanted to grab some parts of the world that they could, and winning WW1 would give them a former Entente colony or two, it would still be a relatively modest empire. So I think they would continue to regard the US as a geopolitical rival, and the feeling would likely become mutual as colonies increasingly start agitating for independence, and their struggles become increasingly public.

 

[Riain]

I think as long as Wilhelm II is in power, Germany is likely to retain a certain degree of authoritarianism. And he lived well into WW2 in OTL, so he'll probably be around for quite a while. How much power Hindenburg and Ludendorff have likely depends on how long this alternate Great War goes, but they were also old-guard Prussian military leaders who were deeply conservative and unfriendly to the idea of democracy.

Electoral reform in Prussia had been promised in Easter 1917, having first been mooted in mid 1914. The so called 'Silent Dictatorship' rested on powers that existed only in wartime, Hindy and Ludy never staged a coup and would recede into the background once the war ended.

 

[Riain]

Britain didn't reorganize its African administrative sub units when it picked up territory in WW1, although by then the acquisition needed a veneer of legitimacy in the form of a League of Nations "mandate'. With a CP victory I doubt there would be a LoN and therefore no 'Mandate' to provide a veneer of legitimacy so Germany might reorganise its administrative subdivisions to better suit its requirements. Whether this results in better outcomes when decolonisation finally rolls around I couldn't say.

 

[TheMaskedDiscombobulator]

If they had just defeated Britain and France making them to accept a peace treaty, NZ would be legally bond to it and Japan would have to comply, otherwise they would face world’s 2nd largest navy.

If I recall correctly, Germany's existing battleline was heavily optimized for short-range missions in the North Sea, because the pre-WWI German ship designers weren't stupid. They were perfectly well aware that if they couldn't win battles in the North Sea, it didn't matter whether their dreadnoughts could fight a battle at the end of a ten thousand kilometer voyage anyway; they'd never get there. While I doubt the Germans would fare as poorly as the Russians did if they attempted to retrace the steps of the Voyage of the Damned, they would face many of the same problems in projecting power into the Pacific. Britain and France might not be shooting at them but certainly wouldn't be friendly, and refueling the fleet en route could be a serious problem. The High Seas Fleet never got much actual experience on long range sea voyages; I can't comment as to the mechanical reliability of the ships when out of their home port for months at a time, a condition they were never designed for.

And at the end of it, the world's second or third-largest navy would face the world's fourth or fifth-largest navy. Which would be well prepared, operating an order of magnitude closer to its bases of operation, and probably informed as to the exact composition, whereabouts, and details of the opposing force by sympathetic Englishmen and Frenchmen.

Moreover, the Japanese could with reasonable confidence concentrate all their ships on meeting the Germans, whereas it would be, ah... bold... of the Germans to send the entirety of their fleet off into the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japanese.

This is a prospect that a sensible German government would view with great caution. Giving the Japanese a reasonable chance of pulling off a second Tsushima, less than a generation after the first one, could turn out to be a huge unforced error for them.

Of course, high on military arrogance and victory disease, a government might not be sensible- but I can't say how that would turn out.

I guess it depends on how German and Western racial attitudes evolve. As I tend to be optimistic, I guess they could have evolved like OTL or even faster.

Regardless of German racial attitudes, they were not gentle colonial overlords. Ask the Namibians.

In this case, we could have a situation similar to the British, French, US colonies today, with relative weak independence movements.

I'm not sure what you mean by "similar to the British, French, US colonies." Could you expand on that?

The set of all former British and French colonies, let alone all US ones, covers a pretty wide range of different places that saw different outcomes.

 

[JohnBull]

If I recall correctly, Germany's existing battleline was heavily optimized for short-range missions in the North Sea, because the pre-WWI German ship designers weren't stupid. They were perfectly well aware that if they couldn't win battles in the North Sea, it didn't matter whether their dreadnoughts could fight a battle at the end of a ten thousand kilometer voyage anyway; they'd never get there. While I doubt the Germans would fare as poorly as the Russians did if they attempted to retrace the steps of the Voyage of the Damned, they would face many of the same problems in projecting power into the Pacific. Britain and France might not be shooting at them but certainly wouldn't be friendly, and refueling the fleet en route could be a serious problem. The High Seas Fleet never got much actual experience on long range sea voyages; I can't comment as to the mechanical reliability of the ships when out of their home port for months at a time, a condition they were never designed for.

And at the end of it, the world's second or third-largest navy would face the world's fourth or fifth-largest navy. Which would be well prepared, operating an order of magnitude closer to its bases of operation, and probably informed as to the exact composition, whereabouts, and details of the opposing force by sympathetic Englishmen and Frenchmen.

Moreover, the Japanese could with reasonable confidence concentrate all their ships on meeting the Germans, whereas it would be, ah... bold... of the Germans to send the entirety of their fleet off into the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japanese.

This is a prospect that a sensible German government would view with great caution. Giving the Japanese a reasonable chance of pulling off a second Tsushima, less than a generation after the first one, could turn out to be a huge unforced error for them.

Of course, high on military arrogance and victory disease, a government might not be sensible- but I can't say how that would turn out.

Regardless of German racial attitudes, they were not gentle colonial overlords. Ask the Namibians.

I'm not sure what you mean by "similar to the British, French, US colonies." Could you expand on that?

The set of all former British and French colonies, let alone all US ones, covers a pretty wide range of different places that saw different outcomes.

I also believe Japan was already a formidable opponent, but Germans could try to engage anyway and be more successful than the Russians. Assuming they retake their colonies, they could use Tanzania as a support and maybe try to convince Dutch East Indies or China to allow them in.

Yes, German colonial history is particularly brutal and amidst one of the worst period where racism got scientific justification. That's why I said I was optimistic, hoping attitudes, specifically German ones, to improve.

About British, French, American colonies, I meant precisely that: to cover all range of possibilities, from colony with full internal independence (current British ones, Aruba, Greenland), with low autonomy (Hong Kong), absorbed into the metropole (Hawaii, French ones) and Puerto Rico, New Caledonia types. German colonies lasting till this day could follow any of those models or even new ones.

 

[TheMaskedDiscombobulator]

I also believe Japan was already a formidable opponent, but Germans could try to engage anyway and be more successful than the Russians. Assuming they retake their colonies, they could use Tanzania as a support and maybe try to convince Dutch East Indies or China to allow them in.

They could try.

Note, however, that their Step 1 involves building up a substantial naval basing infrastructure in Tanzania, not a place famous for being well built up.

Their Step 2A involves convincing the neutral-in-WWI Dutch (who are exposed to Japanese retaliation in the Far East and have no meaningful fleet of their own) to commit what is arguably an act of war against Japan (by basing a fleet that intends to attack them).

Their Step 2B involves convincing China (which is horrifically vulnerable to Japanese retaliation, and also in the process of catching fire and exploding at this moment in history) to commit what the Japanese will assuredly choose to interpret as an act of war because it would give them a pretext to conquer Manchuria, and the Germans can't actually stop Japan from conquering Manchuria anyway.

I think back to The Dark Knight and I say, in my best Morgan Freeman voice...

Good luck.



All things considered, I think Germany would do better to take the L. Cheaper all around and a lot safer, without doing any meaningful harm except a tiny scratch to a very large pile of pride.

I'll address the rest later. Gotta run.

 

[RuneGloves]

I guess it depends on how German and Western racial attitudes evolve. As I tend to be optimistic, I guess they could have evolved like OTL or even faster.

In this case, we could have a situation similar to the British, French, US colonies today, with relative weak independence movements.

What British colonies are there today are comparable? The Caribbean islands BOST are so small and would have difficulty with self sufficiency so would not have the same dynamic as a Land polity, like Namibia, etc.