DBWI: France hesitates in the Rhineland

In 1936, Hitler tried to remilitarize the Rhineland: one of the local French commanders (who's name escapes me at the moment), acting without orders, attacked the incoming German troops, forcing the hands of both governments. The subsequent war saw the French completely thrash the unprepared, underarmed German army, and the collapse of the Nazi government.
But most of the French politicians at the time didn't feel like they were ready for war: Hitler definetly wasn't, as he still tried to beg off until he realized the French weren't going to stop. So if the army didn't take their own iniative, and Germany reoccupies the Rhineland, will there be another war? What would an extended Nazi government and a French army lacking confidence mean for Europe for the rest of the 30's and 40's?
 
Well, Hitler, like many Germans of the day, wanted revenge on the Entente for Germany's defeat in the Great War. This came mostly from Germans viewing the harsh but just terms of the Versailles Treaty as a betrayal, a knife in the back, as the called it, when Germany had not yet been beaten. Therefore, had France not crushed them when they violated the Treaty there would have been a war within five years.

This would have been a fully rearmed Germany against France, Britain and likely Poland, Italy and/or Czechoslovakia. This would have been a disaster, as it would be a repeat of the Great War, fought with 1930s-40s era weapons such as tanks, assault guns and the newly discovered nerve gases. The last had just been discovered by German chemists when the Nazi regime was crushed. Had the war been delayed, these could have been a rather unpleasant surprise for the western allies, even more so than Chlorine and Phosgene were during the Great War.

It is possible that a 'Second Great War' could have lasted long enough for one side or the other to end it with atomic weapons, much as how the Bolshevik War* (finally) ended when the British Royal Air Force atom-bombed Moscow and Petrograd in 1954.

It is also very possible that such a 'Second Great War' could have become a alt-Bolshevik War if Communist Russia happened to intervene in favour of whichever side that they felt that they could dominate post-war/get the (biggest bribe) best deal (most territory/new vassals) out of.

*OOC the Bolshevik War is TTL's WWII, fought between the forces of democratic Western Europe (ironically including a rearmed Germany) and the totalitarian USSR, with a second Russo-Japanese War out east as a sideshow of sorts. It started in 1947 and ended in 1954 when the Brits won the race for the nuclear bomb, and then nuked Moscow and Leningrad (subsequently renamed by the occupying powers.) De-bolshevikaction is TTL's de-nazification. Stalin and communism are as reviled and discredited here as Hitler and the Nazis are in our world. Here Hitler is seen as nothing more than some kind of sick joke, and is used to depict the stereotypical tin-pot dictator.
 
Honestly, why does people keep repeating the old "EVOL Germans" warmongering myths? The Great War ended in 1919, guys! The Nazis was mainly a cultural group, triing to stage a renaissance on German traditions. Why should a nation just recovering from a severe depression suddenly invade, not just one neighbour, but "France, Britain and likely Poland, Italy and/or Czechoslovakia"? That is madness, pure an simple. Yes, they were re-fortifing against France, because they did not trust their neighbors -with VERY good reason, since they were invaded before they could finish, after all.

Hitler was a fairly good chancellor, than rebuilt a post war and post Great Depression Germany, and it's not his fault he lived in one of the antisemitic periods -and probably Stalin had a hand on them; look at the Tzaris Russian progroms.
I don't uderstand all that hate; I once even heard in a board than he would have expelled all the jews from Germany had he remained in power. What century are you people living on? He had jewish ancestors, and now he suddenly is the second coming of Torquemada? He was a painter, not some macchiavellan plotter, before he entered politics, for god's sake!
 
Honestly, why does people keep repeating the old "EVOL Germans" warmongering myths? The Great War ended in 1919, guys! The Nazis was mainly a cultural group, triing to stage a renaissance on German traditions. Why should a nation just recovering from a severe depression suddenly invade, not just one neighbour, but "France, Britain and likely Poland, Italy and/or Czechoslovakia"? That is madness, pure an simple. Yes, they were re-fortifing against France, because they did not trust their neighbors -with VERY good reason, since they were invaded before they could finish, after all.

Hitler was a fairly good chancellor, than rebuilt a post war and post Great Depression Germany, and it's not his fault he lived in one of the antisemitic periods -and probably Stalin had a hand on them; look at the Tzaris Russian progroms.
I don't uderstand all that hate; I once even heard in a board than he would have expelled all the jews from Germany had he remained in power. What century are you people living on? He had jewish ancestors, and now he suddenly is the second coming of Torquemada? He was a painter, not some macchiavellan plotter, before he entered politics, for god's sake!

Well... I think you let him off rather light. He clearly went a little off it in the war, and of course bing slightly nuts never hurt a politician, but in his book "Mein Kampf" he seems to advocate some sort of German colonial empire in eastern Europe based on German racial supremacy.

But yeah, everyone's a radical before they gain power. Why kick out the Jews? It would harm Germany's scientific tradition among other things and do no good. As for invading Poland, what now? Why invade Poland when he, as our history shows, could have got everything he wanted peacefully?

Well, maybe he really did want the pre-war borders, but that was probably just bluster to improve his negotiating position. The real Cherbourg Agreement ought to have bene more than enough.

Britain and France? Not even funny. ASB forum, please!

This Germanophobia gets on my nerves no end. I've heard people seriously comparing Hitler to Stalin! Now I'm no Hitler fan, but that's just ridiculous. Come back when Hitler tries to take over the world and kill millions of innocent people, guys!
 
Hard to imagine, given that Hitler had the balls to march into the Rhineland in the first place, who knows were he might have gone, Norway?! :D

He was a poor-man's Mussolini and thats saying something! If the French dont do anything over the Rhineland, he'd no doubt get slapped down by someone over other claims, I mean he wanted to seize 'german' parts of Czechoslovakia, remilitarising is one thing but invading another country, he'd get gang-banged by the Czechs, Italians, Poles, French & Brits in no-time.

That said I doubt the French couldn't intervene in 1936, we're talking about France here, say what you want but they're a proud bunch and the last people to run off or surrender in the face of a threat is the French.
 
Hard to imagine, given that Hitler had the balls to march into the Rhineland in the first place, who knows were he might have gone, Norway?! :D

He was a poor-man's Mussolini and thats saying something! If the French dont do anything over the Rhineland, he'd no doubt get slapped down by someone over other claims, I mean he wanted to seize 'german' parts of Czechoslovakia, remilitarising is one thing but invading another country, he'd get gang-banged by the Czechs, Italians, Poles, French & Brits in no-time.

That said I doubt the French couldn't intervene in 1936, we're talking about France here, say what you want but they're a proud bunch and the last people to run off or surrender in the face of a threat is the French.


"A poor-man's Mussolini" perhaps, but not as accurate as "an idiot's Mussolini".

Mussolini, if you recall, ruled his Roman Federation well into the 1950's and expanded his reach even while other fascists fell. Remember, Mussolini's entry into the Bolshevik War was conditional on receiving French and British Somaliland. If course, once that war ended, Mussolini's federation was rewarded with protectorates in Georgia and Armenia.
 
Look at it this way: Hitler got squished while he was still small-time. Stalin ruled Russia for 25 years, started the bloodiest war in history, butchered untold millions, and had such a grip on power even as he was losing the war that it took being killed by the atom bomb to stop him. Both of them were evil. Yes Hitler was nothing next to Stalin, but what if that nut had had a few more years to build up his strength? In a full blown war of revenge Germany would still have lost, but it would have been a bloodier repeat of the Great War, not the fast and easy win the frogs got here.
 
RE:

What does everyone think the state of Franco-British relations would be in this timeline? After the war, the British establishment got scared of France's trigger happy tendencies, and played a major role in rebuilding and rearming Germany. In this altered timeline, do France and Britain drift closer, or further apart as they were doing in our time until the war against the Soviets patched things up?
 
What does everyone think the state of Franco-British relations would be in this timeline? After the war, the British establishment got scared of France's trigger happy tendencies, and played a major role in rebuilding and rearming Germany. In this altered timeline, do France and Britain drift closer, or further apart as they were doing in our time until the war against the Soviets patched things up?

Relations between France and the UK will likely continue to deteriorate, possibly even to the point where the inevitable occurs and France goes to war with Germany, it is even possible that the British choose to remain neutral. This certainly would be the case if the German rearmament focused on their Army and Air Force, with little more than a token navy, and France, like the actually did, starts the war by invading Germany over some seemingly trivial provocation. Hell, given that before the turn of the 20th century, France was Britain's natural rival and enemy, under these circumstances it is entirely possible that Britain could enter the war on the side of Germany.:eek: Smashing France and forcing the British to realize (and publicly admit) that their Great War alliance with France and Russia, the Entente was a 'mistake' would have been the best revenge that Hitler could possibly have hoped for.

Look at it from that nut's point of view: The Frogs lose big, Britain and her Empire/Commonwealth join Fascist Italy as natural allies, and likely become very sympathetic to Fascism, even if a Fascist Britain is rather NIAMY*. Once the alt Bolshevik War starts, either because Stalin wanted to be a 'Red Caesar' or perhaps as some great Fascist-inspired crusade against Totalitarian Communism, Britain already has Italy on side, and thus has no need to bribe them with more African colonies. However, the Frogs would just sulk on the sidelines, bound by Germany's revanchist treaty, until things get bad enough that their help winds up being needed. The end result would be that Hitler gets his insane drams of German lands in the East fulfilled, and his butcher's bill meets or exceeds that of Stalin just on some mad quest to steal the Ukrainian and Russian steppes from their rightful owners, not to mention that which would have come from fulfilling his perverse fantasies about annihilating the Jews and/or the Gypsies.
 
I think WWII might not have happened. Hitler seemed to be strongly Anti-Communist and Germany may have helped stop the Red Tide.
 
Top