Creating a stable Europe in a CP win after WW1

Let's say the CP win in 1918 or 1919, because the US stays out of the war. Brest-Litovsk stands as in OTL and Britain exits the war via treaty. A-H is falling apart after the war and the Ottomans aren't looking so good either.

This means Germany is the only country left standing, but just barely. The challenge is now to create out of the aches of the war a new European order. In this timeline Germany could do whatever it wants, within reasonable boundaries. The question is what to do?

What is the best way to create a post war Europe, which is stable and serves to some extend Germany’s interest?

What should be done with the newly created countries like Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and others? What form of government should they get?

What of the new countries that will come out of A-H and Balkans?

And the big question what to do with France and Italy?

I don't really care about the plans Germany did make. I want to know what you think Germany should have done in this scenario.
 
Well all this is on the verge of ASB, but if Germany decide to play smart well, better a negotiated end of the hostilities with the Entente, giving them some concession like:

- Referendum in A-L (basically an excuse to give to France the French part)
- evacuate Belgium and give it some reparation money
- let the Entente keep the colonies conquered (they are a waste of money), maybe just take Congo in exchange of let Belgium go.

For A-H go for controlled demolition, distribute some piece to appease the various border nations and keep Hungary as your sidekick/attack dog for the Balkans (everybody hate them so they need Germany to keep going).
Try to integrate France and Italy in the economy of Mitteleuropa (this is the reason of the lenient peace and to give them some scrap) and go for some Washington Treaty like agreement between all the great powers, more importantly try to use a light hand in east europe and somewhat limit how much you enslave the locals to the German economic interest, a too tight grasp will cause only revolutions and insurrection and Germany is not in a great shape.
 
The victorious German army and navy would be the stabilising agent throughout Europe, much like the US and Soviet militaries with atomic weapons were the stabilising agent after WW2. This would encourage cooperation from great powers like Britain, France, Russia and Italy and enable coercion of small/weak countries or collapsing empires like AH, Ottomans and in Eastern Europe.
 
The victorious German army and navy would be the stabilising agent throughout Europe, much like the US and Soviet militaries with atomic weapons were the stabilising agent after WW2. This would encourage cooperation from great powers like Britain, France, Russia and Italy and enable coercion of small/weak countries or collapsing empires like AH, Ottomans and in Eastern Europe.
I don't think AH is going to continue its trajectory towards collapsing now that it has proven it is here to stay. The surrounding countries with ties to nationalities inside the empire are defeated and now under the CP's thumb (look at terms of the treaty Romania had to sign). Nationalists hoping to secede or unite with a mother country will be marginalized, radical organizations like the Society of the Black Hand will be nearly stamped out, and any hope of Russian intervention will be lost for some time. Perhaps shared experience of the war followed by victory would count for something in terms of unity too, but that might be a bit much to expect.
 
AH will have to undertake some significant political reform in the wake of the war, probably more than Germany promised to in the 1917 Easter Message. This may result in shedding of territories, or not, but in any case it will be done with a powerful Germany watching over it.

I don't know what Romanias terms were, but they were wartime terms that never had a chance to be altered. The Brest Litovsk treaty was altered in August or so making the reparations payment terms easier and some other concessions, so loosening of harsh terms was a thing.
 
Interesting thought.

If you should have the CP win in 1918/19, A lot of blood has been spilled and it is difficult to argue for a peace in any country that does not have the flavor of victory, somehow.

Let us try to define 'win' a little bit:

US stays neutral
French army mutinies must cripple the French efforts severely
Germany must somehow occupy the channel ports, shutting out UK participation
BL is probably OK

So, there are a few things to get settled in the west:

1) AL - vote and giving back to France the French portions
2) Get out of Belgium
3) Create an economic bloc based on the Ruhr output (France, Belgium and Germany)
4) Get back to having a working relationship with UK based on family ties (Royalty is still important!) and common interests

Of course that can bee seen as a Proto-EU - which is the only way forward anyway

Balkans:
AH might come to an end. The creation of the Balkan states is even now causing problems and wars.

Communism:
Should a new Europe then fight Communism?

The 'un-doing' of communism can to a certain extent be attributed to the emerging Social Democrat parties. THAT happened to be the stabilizing factor in Scandinavia, etc.

Just a thought
 
What is the best way to create a post war Europe, which is stable and serves to some extend Germany’s interest?
The cost of the war to Germany was about 330% of 1913 GDP, A-H was 430%, Turkey's 160% and Bulgaria was 230% of their respective 1913 GDP. This was all basically internal debt but inflicting hyper-inflation on a 'victorious' population to address it may be hard to swallow. By 1918 prices in Germany are up 4 fold on pre-war, A-H 16 times and Turkey 18 times. Revolution is coming.
 
The victorious German army and navy would be the stabilising agent throughout Europe, much like the US and Soviet militaries with atomic weapons were the stabilising agent after WW2. This would encourage cooperation from great powers like Britain, France, Russia and Italy and enable coercion of small/weak countries or collapsing empires like AH, Ottomans and in Eastern Europe.

Not with a victory in 18/19, by that time Germany will have their internal problem as everyone else, with the economy in need to rebuild and the soldiers returning desiring reform that the Junkers will not be ready to give (plus the OP explicity say that Germany still stand...but barely) and there will not only too much fire to stop but as OTL for the victors the will to do it will lack.

When will people finally understand that giving up any part of Alsace-Lorraine is something a victorious Germany would never do?

The OP say what will Germany need to do to create a stable Europe regardless of what her real plan were, so yes, if she want to create a stable europe, she need the carrot plus the stick because the stick is tired and is start to thinking that the actual leaderships it's more an enemy than the Entente was.
Basically she need a MittelEuropa that's not the planned string of economic colonies that have their only reason to exist to be pool for cheap labor and resrources plus a captive market, she need a block that at least is more like beneficial to everyone involved even if it's clear that Germany is the biggest boy in the group and the one that decide and this also mean include the rest of the continent like France, Benelux and Italy due to their economic importance
 
My question is what happens to the Reds ittl with another year of blockade...they say hunger is the Communist's greatest ally. Germany is likely still going to have a harsh economic crunch it to, and the Right doesnt have the Stab in the Back myth to gain recruits.
 
As someone working on this sort of ATL, I would say the best case is a stalemated end to the war. The Western front was effectively there, given a cessation of American financial resources beginning at the end of 1916 the British will need to dig deeper into internal debt and inflated currency to sustain the war, support France and not simply lose. If Falkehayn had chosen to focus East instead of attempting to attrite the French we might see Russia fold far earlier, Romania not fall out, Italy be less a distraction and no rise of the H-L dictatorship. Generally I think we still see a 1917 much akin to OTL but Germany is here more victorious but also just as spent. If we can get the more level headed to negotiate a status quo cold peace by the end of 1917 then we get the groundwork for a more stable post-war.

Generally I do not think this Germany gets the full B-L "peace" but the fluidity in the East likely does tumble a lot of turf into CP hands. A-H is already dependent upon Germany but I doubt it implodes, contrary I think Germany holds it very much together, it likely gets Poland as Germany takes the Baltics, the Ukraine gets some compromised joint rule weighed in favor of Germany, but I am not convinced Germany here overruns the Ukraine, especially if the Provisional Government opts for peace. That might water down the revolution and simply plague Russia with a long twilight of disorder, perhaps a right-wing versus Bolshevik dictatorship. Russia is screwed no matter but long term could look far different than the USSR. In the West I would think Germany evacuates Belgium and agrees to indemnify for damages, that is really the minimum Britain will demand, likely some limits on German naval power, likely a return of her colonies if the British are savvy, it weakens Germany and keeps her at play globally. The French will need to give up a lot to get Germany off French soil, so A-L is now gone forever, some minor colonial tidbits to appease the Germans, a once more neutral Belgium, no reparations and a war for nothing. France should drop into a long bitter inner recriminations political soul searching but are now wedded to the British as the opposite to Germany's customs union. It will be a virtual cold war, Germany needs to rebuild its trade and Britain is likely shifted towards discouraging such easy commerce with its Empire. That handicaps the world and recovery, Britain here is neither better or worse off, but the continent will have a coherent trade network rebuilding. I do not think we totally head off the economic mess of the 1930s but I do not see another war as easy to pull off.

I think we see the new German led continent slowly rebuild, slant towards autarky but reach into the other markets, Latin America and China, it should reconcile with Russia on trade, oddly realigning Europe, the British can recovery upon the strength of her Empire and the French, the USA is the wildcard but certainly wanting to see the closed systems opened. It is a coin toss if Germany or the British win the alignment of the USA to their trade zone, I am betting Germany, both her and the USA have far weaker Empires so trade between them may be the way around things. If Russian resources are unlocked then we still get a potent Russia, a fiercely independent USA and a German industrial powerhouse uniting Europe, the Anglo-French hold on as colonial powers and reengage closer to peers, creating a four way global power structure of virtual equals. Since not one of these are going to truly align with another, it is a less static world, only a hostile USSR would disrupt it but under Stalin it should remain insular enough to let things get very cozy.

Long term we might see political instability in A-H and the German dominated areas but that will arrive later, after the recovery and during the peace as it usually does. An undefeated Germany, rather than victorious, returns to its political evolution towards a limited monarchy and fuller democracy, it internalizes its debts and recycles wealth to pay it down and funding growth, its "rule" is likely as unpopular as any dominant state is, its dominance is as imperfect as any other, but this Europe should solidify into a stability that can foster prosperity, unity and peace.
 
The OP say what will Germany need to do to create a stable Europe regardless of what her real plan were, so yes, if she want to create a stable europe, she need the carrot plus the stick because the stick is tired and is start to thinking that the actual leaderships it's more an enemy than the Entente was.
Basically she need a MittelEuropa that's not the planned string of economic colonies that have their only reason to exist to be pool for cheap labor and resrources plus a captive market, she need a block that at least is more like beneficial to everyone involved even if it's clear that Germany is the biggest boy in the group and the one that decide and this also mean include the rest of the continent like France, Benelux and Italy due to their economic importance

None of this even remotely justifies the sheer idiocy of giving up territory after a victorious war to the most hated enemy power. Unless defeated, Germany is not conceding territory to France!
 
Yeah, victorious Germany isn't going to give up pieces of A-L (even French-speaking ones) any more than a victorious France would say "Oh, by the way, you can keep A-L!" or anything of the sort.
Their populace would be up in (potentially not-so-proverbial) arms over it; not exactly the most conductive to a stable peace.

I think the most reasonable for stability would be a white/status quo ante peace with Britain and France, or something reasonably close to it. It wouldn't make anyone particularly happy, but it also wouldn't make anyone particularly unhappy, either, which is arguably the more important thing to avoid outbreaks of revolutions and the like.

And with millions of dead and maimed with nothing to show for it, none of the participants should be particularly eager for a repeat.

The only ones who'd have strong reasons to come back for a second go would be Russia, due to B-L. So the question would be how well Germany could prop up and organize the new nations it carved out of the Russian Empire.
 
None of this even remotely justifies the sheer idiocy of giving up territory after a victorious war to the most hated enemy power. Unless defeated, Germany is not conceding territory to France!

Yes Germany has won, the problem is that she has won like the man that die in ambulance just before reaching the hospital after a knife fight; so if they want a stable Europe, give some small concession towards Italy and France to co-opt them in Mitteleuropa, as frankly conceding a referendum in A-L and being ready to giving up just the french speaking part is a small price amply recouped by absorbing the German part of A-H, if the objective is burying the hatchet with France and create a stable block...because with a victory in 18/19 there is no way that the Hapsburg empire will survive and i doubt that Germany will be in any shape to prolong the life of the corpse for long.
Sure it's almost assured that in RL in this scenario nobody in Berlin will give up anything, but the OP asked 'what Germany absolutely need to do, not what Germany realistically will do'

If we are talking about realism, well neither a white peace will be accepted by the population or being favorable to Germany, much of their war expense were done with caveat that in the end they will be payed by the defeated nations...so a white peace without the indemnity they are like Bart Simpson: in deep deep troubles; so frankly if they need to suffer, better let go a part of Germany that basically was a colony and try to rebuild the economic trade in the continent as soon as possible
 
Yes Germany has won, the problem is that she has won like the man that die in ambulance just before reaching the hospital after a knife fight; so if they want a stable Europe, give some small concession towards Italy and France to co-opt them in Mitteleuropa, as frankly conceding a referendum in A-L and being ready to giving up just the french speaking part is a small price amply recouped by absorbing the German part of A-H, if the objective is burying the hatchet with France and create a stable block...because with a victory in 18/19 there is no way that the Hapsburg empire will survive and i doubt that Germany will be in any shape to prolong the life of the corpse for long.
Sure it's almost assured that in RL in this scenario nobody in Berlin will give up anything, but the OP asked 'what Germany absolutely need to do, not what Germany realistically will do'

Your logic falls apart even if we take your reasoning. "What Germany absolutely needed to do" is not a gigantic show of profound weakness and an utter disregard for the sacrifice of two million of its dead soldiers.

Again, people keep talking about how Germany giving up Alsace-Lorraine is "smart" or "sensible" but it is exactly the opposite. It is a genuinely idiotic move that undermines Germany.
 
Your logic falls apart even if we take your reasoning. "What Germany absolutely needed to do" is not a gigantic show of profound weakness and an utter disregard for the sacrifice of two million of its dead soldiers.

Again, people keep talking about how Germany giving up Alsace-Lorraine is "smart" or "sensible" but it is exactly the opposite. It is a genuinely idiotic move that undermines Germany.

First it's not all A-L, it's the third that spoke French and don't feel very now and frankly never German and second, suuuure it's an idiotic move that undermine Germany because they look weak...this is more or less what the A-H leadership though of giving up an economical and strategical almost irrilevant territory to keep their neighbough neutral and has not ended very well.
It will be politically feasible...i doubt it because almost everyone will think your way, but honestly if they want something of stable out of this mess, giving up some scraps (because part of Lorraine, Trentino and some other minor territory are litteraly useless scrap for Germany at this stage) it's the best way to mend fence and made the pill of being absorbed by the German economy sweet enough
 
I think Zulfurium‘s ‚A Day in July‘ is actually a good start for such a scenario. In that TL relations between France and Germany are fairly decent, because instead of splitting up A-L, it is Belgium which is partitioned between France and Germany (and the Netherlands). That way both France and Germany gain territory, but without taking anything from each other. In fact, getting Wallonia would be a much better deal for France: not only is the region richer and more industrialized than A-L, but it is even entirely populated by people who speak French. The Belgian Congo also gets partitioned, as do the Italian colonies.

I agree with others that Germany would never give up an inch of territory anywhere, because if they do it in A-L, what are they going to say to the Poles when they ask for Posen?

I also think the dismanteling of A-H will actually be a boon for Germany. Not only would Germany be able to absorb Austria (and possibly Bohemia), but they can give Galicia to the Poles, and maybe a bit of the Austrian Littoral or Trentino to the Italians, thus improving relations with both countries considerably. Unlike A-L, neither Trentino nor Galicia would be considered German core territories, so i doubt the Germans would have much issue with giving those away.

Another advantage of a late German victory is the fact that Russia is embroiled in civil war, which offers Germany the opportunity to break up Russia entirely, and remove their eastern rival from the board once and for all, since a victorios Germany is able to intervene in Russia much more than the Allies were able to IOTL. The best strategy for the Germans would be to intervene just enough to prevent a Red victory, but not enough to ensure a total White victory either, so that the civil war last a few years longer. In the end Russia would be such a basket case, and the warring factions so exhausted, that Germany could do almost anything it wanted - including breaking up Russia into a bunch of independent ‚Tsardoms‘, as Wilhelm imagined in 1918. Maybe they even leave a part of Russia for the Reds, to serve as a bogeyman. If Bessarabia was given to the Rumanians, then this would be a way to improve relations with another former enemy.

With Russia broken up and eastern Europe within the German sphere, Germany‘s position would be strong enough that it would no longer feel threatened by France at all, which means relations between the two countries could improve a lot in the post-war era.
 
First it's not all A-L, it's the third that spoke French and don't feel very now and frankly never German

Utterly irrelevant. Germany holds it and just fought a four-year war to keep it. Two million Germans died to win this war. Giving this part up would mean pissing off the entire German public to appease the main enemy of the war. It is a stupid choice, and no one in Germany would suggest it.

second, suuuure it's an idiotic move that undermine Germany because they look weak...

Yes, exactly that. And if you don't understand why surrendering territory to your main enemy after a war you've won makes you look weak, then I can't help you.

this is more or less what the A-H leadership though of giving up an economical and strategical almost irrilevant territory to keep their neighbough neutral and has not ended very well.

The way the Italian front went shows that the territory wasn't "strategically irrelevant". Again, it is the exact opposite.
 
Not with a victory in 18/19, by that time Germany will have their internal problem as everyone else, with the economy in need to rebuild and the soldiers returning desiring reform that the Junkers will not be ready to give (plus the OP explicity say that Germany still stand...but barely) and there will not only too much fire to stop but as OTL for the victors the will to do it will lack.

IOTL Germany beat Russia by late 1917 and was transferring troops to the west by then, in 1918 had 50 divisions by by 1919 had 25 divisions in Russia. Russian indemnity amounting to 900 million marks worth of gold and 545,440,000 Roubles in banknotes had been delivered to Germany by the end of 1918. The same thing will happen to France in 1918-19, a quick injection of cash will make the German pile of shit improve pretty quickly compared to France and Russia.

As for the Junkers, the Kaisers Easter message to abolish 3 class franchise in Prussia, had already given the ex servicemen hope for a better political future and would in practice address many of the political problems in Germany in the short term.
 
The way the Italian front went shows that the territory wasn't "strategically irrelevant". Again, it is the exact opposite.

The original agreement left the control of the pass necessary to move troops to A-H...or as Conrad said: i want to retake the place in 24h, so yes, what given to Italy will have been strategically useless; and the real strategic important place is South Tyrol that even a much much thougher nut to crack than Trentino.

Utterly irrelevant. Germany holds it and just fought a four-year war to keep it. Two million Germans died to win this war. Giving this part up would mean pissing off the entire German public to appease the main enemy of the war. It is a stupid choice, and no one in Germany would suggest it.

For the nth time, i know it but the OP ask simply and precisely what Germany needed to do, not what she wanted to do...that are two very different things.


Yes, exactly that. And if you don't understand why surrendering territory to your main enemy after a war you've won makes you look weak, then I can't help you.

Because this has not be a war, but the biggest conflict know to men till that moment, a conflict were even the victors look scarcely better than the loser; again the OP ask some solution to keep Germany and the continent stable regardless of the possibility that German will accept it in reality

IOTL Germany beat Russia by late 1917 and was transferring troops to the west by then, in 1918 had 50 divisions by by 1919 had 25 divisions in Russia. Russian indemnity amounting to 900 million marks worth of gold and 545,440,000 Roubles in banknotes had been delivered to Germany by the end of 1918. The same thing will happen to France in 1918-19, a quick injection of cash will make the German pile of shit improve pretty quickly compared to France and Russia.

That divisions will be composed by men that once the war end will want to go back home and stop fighting, even doing simply garrison duty will be not accepted and there will be revolts as happened in RL with the entente and France can 'simply' go to a hyperinflationary phase making reparation moot, the Roubles become worthless due to the civil war and same for France.

And what the Kaiser say and what will really happen are entirely two different things; it will not the first, second or 100th times that promise will be broken during that war and after. In poor words, no Germany is not that magic semiomnipotent entity that by some divine right will skip all the social, economic and political troubles that afflicted Europe in OTL in the immediate postwar, expecially due to her being overextended and with her two biggest allies on the verge of implosion plus much of her new subjects not really happy of the new management
 
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