DBWI: Better world if Entente wins the Great War?

[MichiganNationalist1837]

It is often theorized that the world would be a better place if the Entente defeated the Central Powers in the Great War. Many bad things following the great war are direct results of the German victory. There would likely be no syndicalism in France, Italy, or Spain if the Entente won, and the French and Spanish civil wars would have been averted. The expulsion of Poles from the territory Germany directly annexed and the many deaths this caused would have never happened. In addition, if the red army defeated the white army because the Germans didn't intervene, the Russian National Government would have never taken power, butterflying away the Russian pogroms against Jews and the Russo-German war. The Soviets were not anti-Semitic and likely would have been too weak to launch the war on Germany. Finally, Austria-Hungary would have likely been peacefully dismantled by the Entente, preventing the horrible mess of the Austro-Hungarian Civil War and the Third Balkan War. If the Entente won, Germany would likely have been demilitarized like France, but the German syndicalists were too weak to have taken power, so Germany would probably keep whatever democratic government the Entente would have put in charge. In all, many horrible wars and atrocities would have been avoided and the many syndicalist states of Europe would be democratic.

 

[Mikestone8]

Indeed. It would have been worthwhile simply to save the 100,000 Jews who died in the Russian Holocaust.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

A better place?

Well, bearing in mind the French revanchism after 1871 and 1919, somewhat similar may had risen in Germany. And there, revanchism plus Prussian militarism and a feble democratic tradition may have led to something dreadful, I think.

About Russia. Bearing in mind the Red Terror spreaded during the Civil War, one could think that the post-war period wouldn't be a better place under a Syndicalist Russia. All the killings of those deemed to be against the "revolution" would have been extended to purge the defeated side, the same way as the White Terror bloodedRussia afer the war.

Finally, A-H. The seed for troubles was there. The mutual mistrust betwen Serbs, Croats, Hongarians Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Czechs would have, eventually, caused a war in the area. And Austria would have not taken lightly to see the end of the Empire, unless it had collapsed wholly in case of a defeat, something that could happen easily.

As a sidenote. Spain was almost fated to end up in a civil war. Without Germany winning the war, the Carlist party would loose a lot of steam, but the "leftish" ideology was quite widespread in the country. Also, the army had a tendency to take issues on their own terms too often and, all in all, the "democratic" system was bankrupt. Perhaps the corrupt monarchist system would have collapsed around the 1940s or so and it would have ended in a Republic that, if it was balanced enough, it could have lasted peacefully for some decades.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Can you really imagine Russia having a worse 30s or 40s without the 1st Junta, the People's Vozhd and the 2nd Junta? A red victory might have created a much stabler state than the Petrograd Republic, and maybe a red Russia would have better relations with it's neighbors than the Republic had in the 20s and the Juntas and Great State had in the 30s and 40s.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Bearing in mind the actions of the Chekas, killing all those who might be acting "against the revolution" (the Cheka of Ekaterimburg comes to mind, that petty kingdom of terror and murders, or the massacre of the retreating Czech Legion, slaughtered to a man even after it had surrendered), and the actions of Japan invading Eastern Russia, the vitriolic speeches of Churchill and the reaction of the post Great War world to the "Red Scare" after the French revolution, in case of a Syndicalist victory you could expect a wider range of repression and, if the foreign intervention goes out of scale (not only Japan, but also UK if Churchill gets the upper hand in the end, or even the United States, even a greater scale of murder, out of sheer paranoia about foreign conspiracies.

The fear of the Western world to a revolution that had toppled the Czar would not have been easily forgotten, so no good relations between the Red Republic and the rest of the world, at least for two or three decades.

And I cannot think anything worse that the Cold War between the remnants of the British Empire and the Union of Britain, the never ending civil wars in China and the Japanese intervention.

 

[MichiganNationalist1837]

Bearing in mind the actions of the Chekas, killing all those who might be acting "against the revolution" (the Cheka of Ekaterimburg comes to mind, that petty kingdom of terror and murders, or the massacre of the retreating Czech Legion, slaughtered to a man even after it had surrendered), and the actions of Japan invading Eastern Russia, the vitriolic speeches of Churchill and the reaction of the post Great War world to the "Red Scare" after the French revolution, in case of a Syndicalist victory you could expect a wider range of repression and, if the foreign intervention goes out of scale (not only Japan, but also UK if Churchill gets the upper hand in the end, or even the United States, even a greater scale of murder, out of sheer paranoia about foreign conspiracies.

The fear of the Western world to a revolution that had toppled the Czar would not have been easily forgotten, so no good relations between the Red Republic and the rest of the world, at least for two or three decades.

And I cannot think anything worse that the Cold War between the remnants of the British Empire and the Union of Britain, the never ending civil wars in China and the Japanese intervention.

With regards to the Chekas, they were no worse than the Russian National Government under the 1st Junta. The Russian Holocaust killed more than 100,000 Jews, and during the Russo-German war the Russians massacred surrendered German soldiers, and when they occupied Ukraine and White Ruthenia from 1944-45 they were completely brutal in the slaughter of many "separatists," most of whom were just normal civilians. That is not to mention the wholesale murder of anyone who dissented from the rule of the 1st Junta by the revived Okhrana. Things only got worse under the Vozhd, and they are still bad to this day, although they have gotten better. It is hard to imagine a Syndicalist (technically they called themselves "communists") state in Russia be worse than what we had in OTL.

OOC: Do you think a nationalist/fascist russian government call their secret police the Okhrana or would they come up with a less tsarist name?

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

I don't get those Entente propaganda about the "horrors" of the 20s and 30s is still around.

regardless if the Entente or the Central powers win - Russia will be going down the drain. We know what the "white" terror looked, we will probably never know what a Red terror would have looked - If you study the acting people you see that they were no monolithic block. They seemed to have their own agenda and differing views of the world. Trotzky and Stalin did not get along well. The nominal communist warlords from the late civil war period (Blücher, Budjonny,...) did more infighting than fighting the White Forces. From this its definitely legal to sa ythat Russia does not have a bright future in any reality.

Concerning the birth troubles of the Danubian Federation - an entente win would have meant that some nations would get their revenge on "Austria" and "Hungary" unhindered. The so called "civil war" was comparable short during its hot phase, though in some places people were more savage than in others. But in reality the transiton from Monarchy to federation was tempered by people like Marshal Boroevic (being a Serb by nation and federalist/monarchist by conviction) commander of the common army. Imagine if there were no mediating powers during an Entente victory, the mess would be 10 or 100 fold...

THe Balkan War was probably inevitable. The moment Romania and Serbia sensed a weakness in the Monarchy it is logical they would aact to get "theirs" back. Romania already defeated by 1916 and Serbia occupied would have no say in any Entente peace treaty, so they will have to get theirs differently (like they did OTL triggering the 3rd Balkan War). Saying that otls conflict (and I agree conflict was there) is worse than what could happen in an Entente victory is ignoring dacts. The potential for Conflict was there - regardless who won - the BAlkans HAD to explode - it is and was the most unstable part of Europe - fortunately nationalism is a fringe movement today, but its still there.

WOW "the expulsion of Poles" - another revanchist meme. It can be hardly an expulsion when Poland itself asks Polish people to move from Germany to Poland. Sure Germany annexed part of Poland to achieve the Warthe-Border (and it was only there that 8 out of 10 people moved to Poland - from Germany only 1 in 10 Polish speakers decided to leave Germany - the Ruhrpolen are one of the best examples how vivid is the Polish culture in Germany today - Chancellor Schimansky even was of Polish descent...)

THE Germano-Russian war is also a logical development. the reasons are many.

Poland gaining so much territory inhabited by (white) russians/Ukraineans - certainly it looked to get Polish settlers into those territories - they being the masters where they were slaves before...

Germany was in the process of decolonisation in the 20s. Lettow-Vorbeck started the process - He was impressed by his black Askaris and sought to better their situation leading to the creation of todays "black Prussian" belt in Africa - the only part of Africa where delcolonisation did NOT end in terror and civil war. But it meant that Germany lost its emigration destination number one. So Germany (having even today the highest population density of the Great Powers except the Peoples Republic of Japan) looked east where russia lay war torn, depopulated and weak. Germans first came as settlers to "Russia" and only the Russian progromes led to Germany declaring war to return civilisation to Russia (and taking the best part for itself and its Swedish allies).

 

[Magical123]

If the Entente had won we would have avoided the mass slaughter of Turks and Azeris by Armenian and White Russian militias, Egypt would not be an economically starved train wreck and the Ottoman reactionaries sitting in Ankara would not be drinking the blood of every last secularist/Jew/Greek/Turkish nationalist. The French death rate would not have eclipsed the birth rate by twice as much and the British monarchy wouldn't have been toppled in that utterly nightmarish coup followed by an Irish Uprising and civil war in Britain itself between the Labour movement and the arch-reactionary Lloyd George-Churchill Junta.

 

[MichiganNationalist1837]

I don't get those Entente propaganda about the "horrors" of the 20s and 30s is still around.

regardless if the Entente or the Central powers win - Russia will be going down the drain. We know what the "white" terror looked, we will probably never know what a Red terror would have looked - If you study the acting people you see that they were no monolithic block. They seemed to have their own agenda and differing views of the world. Trotzky and Stalin did not get along well. The nominal communist warlords from the late civil war period (Blücher, Budjonny,...) did more infighting than fighting the White Forces. From this its definitely legal to sa ythat Russia does not have a bright future in any reality.

Concerning the birth troubles of the Danubian Federation - an entente win would have meant that some nations would get their revenge on "Austria" and "Hungary" unhindered. The so called "civil war" was comparable short during its hot phase, though in some places people were more savage than in others. But in reality the transiton from Monarchy to federation was tempered by people like Marshal Boroevic (being a Serb by nation and federalist/monarchist by conviction) commander of the common army. Imagine if there were no mediating powers during an Entente victory, the mess would be 10 or 100 fold...

THe Balkan War was probably inevitable. The moment Romania and Serbia sensed a weakness in the Monarchy it is logical they would aact to get "theirs" back. Romania already defeated by 1916 and Serbia occupied would have no say in any Entente peace treaty, so they will have to get theirs differently (like they did OTL triggering the 3rd Balkan War). Saying that otls conflict (and I agree conflict was there) is worse than what could happen in an Entente victory is ignoring dacts. The potential for Conflict was there - regardless who won - the BAlkans HAD to explode - it is and was the most unstable part of Europe - fortunately nationalism is a fringe movement today, but its still there.

WOW "the expulsion of Poles" - another revanchist meme. It can be hardly an expulsion when Poland itself asks Polish people to move from Germany to Poland. Sure Germany annexed part of Poland to achieve the Warthe-Border (and it was only there that 8 out of 10 people moved to Poland - from Germany only 1 in 10 Polish speakers decided to leave Germany - the Ruhrpolen are one of the best examples how vivid is the Polish culture in Germany today - Chancellor Schimansky even was of Polish descent...)

THE Germano-Russian war is also a logical development. the reasons are many.

Poland gaining so much territory inhabited by (white) russians/Ukraineans - certainly it looked to get Polish settlers into those territories - they being the masters where they were slaves before...

Germany was in the process of decolonisation in the 20s. Lettow-Vorbeck started the process - He was impressed by his black Askaris and sought to better their situation leading to the creation of todays "black Prussian" belt in Africa - the only part of Africa where delcolonisation did NOT end in terror and civil war. But it meant that Germany lost its emigration destination number one. So Germany (having even today the highest population density of the Great Powers except the Peoples Republic of Japan) looked east where russia lay war torn, depopulated and weak. Germans first came as settlers to "Russia" and only the Russian progromes led to Germany declaring war to return civilisation to Russia (and taking the best part for itself and its Swedish allies).

It is completely false to say that the terrible expulsion of Poles was "voluntary." There are massive amounts of evidence that it happened. The Border strip is German, and you say that it was because the Poles left. Why would only the Poles of the border strip have left and not the Poles in the rest of Germany? Ludendorff himself proadly boasted of his conceiving and execution of it.

OOC: This is based off of a real German plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

It is completely false to say that the terrible expulsion of Poles was "voluntary." There are massive amounts of evidence that it happened. The Border strip is German, and you say that it was because the Poles left. Why would only the Poles of the border strip have left and not the Poles in the rest of Germany? Ludendorff himself proadly boasted of his conceiving and execution of it.

OOC: This is based off of a real German plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip

IC: You will agree that its a matter WHO writes history. German (and Polish) sources indicate that the "forced" expulsion was indeed a mandatory move (if one did not declare his allegiance to the German Empire - which about 25% of the 360000 Polish People living within the annexed territory did in 1919. (OOC: Smaller than that suggested by OTLs "plans")

Of the remaining 270.000 some 130.000 finally stayed and declared their loyalty to 1929 (there was a 10 year grace period for moving). So in toto it was 140.000 people deciding to move. The people moving also got a 75% refund for their propertys worth from the German Empire and another 20% from the Polish governemnt including a 10 year property tax exemption if they settled in designated territories (those where too many Russians settled in the new Polish state).

The 150.000 Jews were also allowed to stay, but IIRC in 1939 some 120.000 had left for Madagascar. (Thats why Around Herzlstadt German and Polish is spoken in addition to Hebrew).

Facts my dear not propaganda tells the truth...

OOC: Yes I know - but I assume we should not judge what were war plans: I have a nice example for what some french politicans wanted: