DBWI: Poland with these borders

(OOC: Trying to establish a POD. Y'all can flesh it out. Also, I'm not trying, despite what the below might sound like, to make this into some kind of Nazi victory world-the base POD is them not existing. I think a 20th century where communists were the main villains would be interesting.)

Actually, I just remembered a (probably ASB) way something very similar to the map in the OP might have come about...

After WWII, when historians sifted through the archives of Soviet Russia, I believe they found a memo to Trotsky advocating that, if the USSR won the war, they "shift" Poland westwards, by forcing it to cede basically every territory with Belarussians or Ukranians in it. Poland was to be compensated for this massive territorial loss with equally massive German cessions-basically every part of Germany west of the Oder and Neisse rivers. The memo further goes on to outline a population transfer, in which the several million Germans who would now be inside Poland would be deported to Germany, to be replaced by ethnic Poles deported from the USSR. (Sounds nuts, but this sort of insanity is pretty much par for the course if you look at Bolshevik postwar plans)

Of course, to get this work, we have to figure out a way to make Trotsky prevail in WWII, and I believe we've had a million discussions as to why the Commies winning after their German adventure went bad and the entire rest of Europe united against them verges on ASB.
 
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Germany lose to France, you'd need to get both the US and Britain in the war on their side then.

WilhelmderGrosse1871: ASB without a pre-1900 POD. Maybe if France doesn't take Southern Sudan at the Berlin conference or agreed to drop its claims on Egypt there's a chance, but it's doubtful that Revanchist France would dare cede a scrap of colonial territory to those uncultured Brits. The French were already trying to fill the void caused by the loss of Elsass-Lothringen with colonial territory, and ceding such an important colony to their historic enemy would've been a blow to French Pride. Germany under Wilhelm II was far easier for Britain to work with, as they were willing to compromise in a way that the French weren't willing to do. Remember how France sabre-rattled and tried to take over Morocco in 1905 and 1912 - an area that was supposed to remain un-conquered? They'd have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for the Panther and the RN's Mediterranean fleet. Not to mention, if it wasn't for Germany defeating Russia in WWI, Poland wouldn't exist in any form today!

OOC: In this world, Wilhelm II wasn't a breech birth and became an adept statesman like his younger brother, Henry. The culmination of this was the Anglo-German Abkommen in 1902. France, meanwhile, was able to take control of Southern Sudan at the Berlin conference. This had the effect of souring relations between the two powers and scuttling Britain's Cape-To-Cairo ambitions, while simultaneously making France grow increasingly belligerent once the Abkommen was signed. (The term "Revanchist France" is used for the period in French history from 1871-1918, much like how "Wilhelmine Germany" is used IOTL) After WWI and the Treaty of Brandenburg, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland, et. al., were recognized as independent states. While Germany did wield significant influence over them, it never tried to create a Mitteleuropa-style bloc until after TTL's (yet undefined) WWII. Even then, Mitteleuropa was more like the commonwealth than OTL's proposed network of puppet and buffer states. My IC is a 20 year old German living in Königsberg. :p
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
OOC: Someone has to propose OTL...

Maybe The Germans lose their asses in WW1 and the allies force Germany to cede territory to a Polish state(which the allies want to have sea access(via the Danzig Corridor)). Russia sues for peace in 1917 to Germany after a Coup overthrows the Czar. Germany becomes a Republic, Russia goes Communist.

Then during the 1930s a guy in Germany called Adolf Hitler is elected Chancelor and forms a totaltarian regime underthe Nazi banner(similar to Slavonicism) and starts to militarize Germany. He invades Poland in 1939, thus starting WWII. WWII lasts till 1945. The Soviets end up in control of most of Eastern Europe, plus eastern Germany. The Soviet leader named Joeph Stalin creates the Polish borders you see in OP.

Sorry for the lack of detail. The Keyboard I'm using sucks something terrible.
 
Communist coup in Russia? Maybe (one flavor of Communism or another was really popular among the intelligentsia), but I don't think they could hold power without being a lot more popular among the peasants. Remember how a lot of peasants were rioting in favor of absolutism after the Tsar finally established the Duma.
 
This would have to be a timeline where Germany got well and truly curbstomped in a way rarely seen - and a lot of Germans are dead or fled.

It's just hard to imagine that happening to Germany.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
This would have to be a timeline where Germany got well and truly curbstomped in a way rarely seen - and a lot of Germans are dead or fled.

It's just hard to imagine that happening to Germany.

Well, if the British pull off an effective blockade of Germany and the BEF and French Army prevents the German capture of Paris and holds the line and the Americans join the war then you could have the Germans lose quite handedly.

If Germany is on the losing side the allies will be harsh.
 
A crushing Russian victory in the Eastern War would probably be the best way to go. Only a Poland that's firmly a satellite of Petrograd would agree to those losses in the east. I could easily see the integralists trying to ensure Poland's loyalty by putting them in charge of a lot of unhappy Germans.

The main problem is getting to such a point. The Russians' main problem was that they had no allies in Europe; the French were in no shape for a third round against the Germans after the Great War, the Austrians (were they technically called the Danubian Federation at this point? Interwar Balkan history isn't my strong point) were effectively German satellites, and Italy was tied down in Libya. Maybe if it was just Germany versus Russia, with Italy as a possible Russian ally, the Russians could pull it off, but they at least need the British to remain neutral, and maybe avoid mucking around in Hungary.
 
Guys, this are what Piast borders would look like if they had remained strong and stable not losing any territory for 900 years. It's impossible to have in post-1900 PoD though.

Post-1900 PoD I can see Germany losing the Great War and then being punished really really harshly be the Entente for some reason. That or it loses the Great War, then the communist revolutionaries rise, then polish nationalist rebels rise.
 
Poland did not even gain independence until early 1919 then only as a satellite of Germany following the CP victory two years earlier. It was only following WWII after Chancellor Streicher drove the nation into conflict that Poland really ever had even a small chance at the territory you mention. Warsaw is definitely in the western edge of the modern state of Poland and at the Western edge of the Commonwealth, this puts it center-east at best in an independent Poland. There are a *lot* of Germans would rather have war than be asked to vacate or go Polish. You would need a devastating/total strategic victory, not simply the negotiated cease-fire of 1946 and Treaty of Warsaw a year later but outright Russian boots in Berlin and the entire nation under occupation. Plus, you just made the Ukraine about 25% larger, so while they are happy their problems might be magnified instead of solved if there are more Ukrainians in the country following attempts at Russification. Given that the Commonwealth is the third most powerful economy in Europe after the UK and Germany I am not sure what the other impacts on history would be either.
 
A lot lower, that's for sure. No Wilna, no Lwow, most of the Pale gone.

My best attempt: An expansionist, Communist Germany captures the remaining portions of Poland until the eastern border there (that's not a particularly great border, though - facts on the ground as of a ceasefire? Not a very sporting way of going about it, but Communists...). An increasingly nationalistic Russia starts expelling Poles in response to allegations that Poles are working with Communists and Jews to foment revolution. We're looking at several million Poles, all told. Let's say that the generous Communists resettle them all; partly in already Polish majority areas, but also further west into German regions...for the sake of anti-nationalism and such. These Poles are probably going in Bavaria, the Rhineland, etc etc. as well, but let's say that some trick of the immigration office puts them all in Prussia, Pommerania, and east Brandenburg, because reasons, or that this is something that happens naturally over the course of a few decades.

If this happened, and Communism later fell, I could see a partition of the resulting state into a German-majority and Polish-majority state.

But still, pretty ASB.
That's quite creative, well done. Although it still doesn't explain what happened to northern East Prussia. (Maybe Koenigsberg stays majority-German and so becomes an exclave?)
 
Poland did not even gain independence until early 1919 then only as a satellite of Germany following the CP victory two years earlier. It was only following WWII after Chancellor Streicher drove the nation into conflict that Poland really ever had even a small chance at the territory you mention. Warsaw is definitely in the western edge of the modern state of Poland and at the Western edge of the Commonwealth, this puts it center-east at best in an independent Poland. There are a *lot* of Germans would rather have war than be asked to vacate or go Polish. You would need a devastating/total strategic victory, not simply the negotiated cease-fire of 1946 and Treaty of Warsaw a year later but outright Russian boots in Berlin and the entire nation under occupation. Plus, you just made the Ukraine about 25% larger, so while they are happy their problems might be magnified instead of solved if there are more Ukrainians in the country following attempts at Russification. Given that the Commonwealth is the third most powerful economy in Europe after the UK and Germany I am not sure what the other impacts on history would be either.

OOC: Did you notice the post I made earlier in this thread? Poland was independent since at least before WWI.
 
OOC: Someone has to propose OTL...

Maybe The Germans lose their asses in WW1 and the allies force Germany to cede territory to a Polish state(which the allies want to have sea access(via the Danzig Corridor)). Russia sues for peace in 1917 to Germany after a Coup overthrows the Czar. Germany becomes a Republic, Russia goes Communist.

Then during the 1930s a guy in Germany called Adolf Hitler is elected Chancelor and forms a totaltarian regime underthe Nazi banner(similar to Slavonicism) and starts to militarize Germany. He invades Poland in 1939, thus starting WWII. WWII lasts till 1945. The Soviets end up in control of most of Eastern Europe, plus eastern Germany. The Soviet leader named Joeph Stalin creates the Polish borders you see in OP.

Sorry for the lack of detail. The Keyboard I'm using sucks something terrible.

Imaginative and you certainly put in a lot of description but why would Germany invade Poland? Their problems were with France and Italy not Poland. Poland is almost certain to bring the Russians in against them and between France, Russia and Italy they are toast. The Russians simply would have to see them as a threat. Any troops they have in Poland they can't have on the French border.
 
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