DBWI: WI Italy hadn't joined CP?

[Jimbrock]

Re the disintegration of AH:
You all seem to be assuming that in ATL the CP still win. I know it might sound odd, but with an Entente Italy the Entente might have won! Then as I said we could either have Italian gains in Dalamatia as OTL, or maybe the 'multiethnic federation' some suggested while AH was still afloat.
And on the Czechs, I think it is absurd to think that they could have ended up anywhere but Germany following the Partition. By that time Bohmen-Mahren was pretty much an integral part of German Austria.

 

[Aranfan]

OOC: assuming that Woodrow still wins a second term ITTL. Besides, the bulk of Mexican population isn't in the northern states. And that land has some interesting resources.

OOC: There were still too many 'spics there! Almost all of America's colonies had some sort of self government and, other than the people needed to extract those resources you mentioned, there isn't going to be a lot of Americans moving to the desert. Especially with the economic turmoil of the Entente defaulting on its debts. Which means giving 'spics the vote.

 

[Aranfan]

Re the disintegration of AH:
You all seem to be assuming that in ATL the CP still win. I know it might sound odd, but with an Entente Italy the Entente might have won! Then as I said we could either have Italian gains in Dalamatia as OTL, or maybe the 'multiethnic federation' some suggested while AH was still afloat.
And on the Czechs, I think it is absurd to think that they could have ended up anywhere but Germany following the Partition. By that time Bohmen-Mahren was pretty much an integral part of German Austria.

If the Entente wins, and I gave a way, A-H would be more unstable. Faith in the government would have ended when the armies came home in defeat, and the Hapsburg empire would have blown up, imploded, and disintegrated soon after. Winning the war wasn't enough to keep it together, losing the war would have torn them apart.

 

[ZachScape]

Roosevelt was largely discredited in the Northeast when Italy joined. Those so-called "hyphenated-Americans" made him largely an outcast his home state and one of the only states he carried back in 1912, Pennsylvania. Had Italy stayed neutral, or better yet joined, he may be seen as one of our top 5 presidents today.

 

[Eurofed]

If the Entente wins, and I gave a way, A-H would be more unstable. Faith in the government would have ended when the armies came home in defeat, and the Hapsburg empire would have blown up, imploded, and disintegrated soon after. Winning the war wasn't enough to keep it together, losing the war would have torn them apart.

Quite true, and with an Entente Italy there sure would have been a big potential conflict between Italy and Serbia about Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania. Perhaps a wholly different brand of Third Balkan War.

 

[Aranfan]

Roosevelt was largely discredited in the Northeast when Italy joined. Those so-called "hyphenated-Americans" made him largely an outcast his home state and one of the only states he carried back in 1912, Pennsylvania. Had Italy stayed neutral, or better yet joined, he may be seen as one of our top 5 presidents today.

I don't see how TR's reputation could really be improved further. He is already celebrated and remembered 100 years later. Teddy could only have been more famous if he had won that third term.

 

[Jimbrock]

Quite true, and with an Entente Italy there sure would have been a big potential conflict between Italy and Serbia about Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania. Perhaps a wholly different brand of Third Balkan War.

I doubt it. A victorious armed-to-the-teeth Italy could certainly boss about some Balkan states, as it and Germany did to AH OTL. If it was left to them to duke it out, we might even see the whole of the Eastern Adriatic falling to Italy!

 

[Eurofed]

OOC: There were still too many 'spics there! Almost all of America's colonies had some sort of self government and, other than the people needed to extract those resources you mentioned, there isn't going to be a lot of Americans moving to the desert. Especially with the economic turmoil of the Entente defaulting on its debts. Which means giving 'spics the vote.

OOC: assuming they immediately go and give statehood to the new north mexican territories, which is not necessarily the case. Actually, it is quite likely they stay territories for at least some years, there is post-war reconstruction, adapting to integration with US economy and legal system, etc. Puerto Rico and the Philippines were annexed without too much trembling hands. Heck, Alaska and Hawaii certainly didn't get immeidate statehood either. Any economic disruption caused by Entente default is going to be annoying but temporary (if nothing lese because Britain itself is not likely to default) and soon balanced by resumption of commerce with the trade-starved continent. Giving the spics local self-government, as a territory, is not going to upset the Southern racists too much, as long as they don't get statehood and a federal vote.

 

[Eurofed]

I doubt it. A victorious armed-to-the-teeth Italy could certainly boss about some Balkan states, as it and Germany did to AH OTL. If it was left to them to duke it out, we might even see the whole of the Eastern Adriatic falling to Italy!

Assuming the Russian Empire would let its Serbian client be butchered by Italy again as they did during the war IOTL, and not lift an hand, which I doubt it. Unless Serbia does something to alienate Russia as Bulgaria did in the 1880s.

 

[Jimbrock]

Assuming the Russian Empire would let its Serbian client be butchered by Italy again as they did during the war IOTL, and not lift an hand, which I doubt it. Unless Serbia does something to alienate Russia as Bulgaria did in the 1880s.

Your point is a good one, but what could Russia- humiliated, stripped of territory, on the verge of civil unrest- do to stop Italy beat Serbia X hundred miles from their territory?

 

[Eurofed]

Your point is a good one, but what could Russia- humiliated, stripped of territory, on the verge of civil unrest- do to stop Italy beat Serbia X hundred miles from their territory?

Another good point. Given how poorly A-H fared after its "victory" IOTL, it is quite questionable in what shape the Russian Empire would have been left by the "victory" provided by an Entente Italy.

 

[Aranfan]

Quite true, and with an Entente Italy there sure would have been a big potential conflict between Italy and Serbia about Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania. Perhaps a wholly different brand of Third Balkan War.

For one, Italy and the Ottomans wouldn't be working together to keep the place from falling apart all together. And a defeated Germany would be too tired and under the restriction of the Entente powers to do anything. Probably even be kept from absorbing Austria.

 

[Aranfan]

OOC: assuming they immediately go and give statehood to the new north mexican territories, which is not necessarily the case. Actually, it is quite likely they stay territories for at least some years, there is post-war reconstruction, adapting to integration with US economy and legal system, etc. Puerto Rico and the Philippines were annexed without too much trembling hands. Heck, Alaska and Hawaii certainly didn't get immeidate statehood either. Any economic disruption caused by Entente default is going to be annoying but temporary (if nothing lese because Britain itself is not likely to default) and soon balanced by resumption of commerce with the trade-starved continent. Giving the spics local self-government, as a territory, is not going to upset the Southern racists too much, as long as they don't get statehood and a federal vote.

OOC: In the same way the Great Depression was annoying but temporary most likely. I also don't really see the point of making a land grab in Mexico.

 

[Jimbrock]

Another good point. Given how poorly A-H fared after its "victory" IOTL, it is quite questionable in what shape the Russian Empire would have been left by the "victory" provided by an Entente Italy.

Exactly. Also, another defeat in the Balkans might serve to further destabilise Russia. Unrest might even spread to the Eastern Buffers, Livonia, Poland, Ostland, etc.

 

[Eurofed]

OOC: In the same way the Great Depression was annoying but temporary most likely.

OOC: now you are making wild exaggerations here. Russia defaulted even IOTL and it certainly didn't cause a severe economic harm to America. Even the French loans were nowhere that vital to US economic livelihood. A British default would have been more serious, but the UK is very likely to lose the war nowhere that bad as to go into default. Moreover, ITTL the Entente is in all likelihood losing faster than the CPs IOTL, so America is most likely not to become as financially committed to the Entente as it was IOTL.

 

[Aranfan]

OOC: now you are making wild exaggerations here. Russia defaulted even IOTL and it certainly didn't cause a severe economic harm to America. Even the French loans were nowhere that vital to US economic livelihood. A British default would have been more serious, but the UK is very likely to lose the war nowhere that bad as to go into default. Moreover, ITTL the Entente is in all likelihood losing faster than the CPs IOTL, so America is most likely not to become as financially committed to the Entente as it was IOTL.

OOC: The Great Depression was not caused by the defaulting of CP war debts. It was caused by American overproduction, the unregulated state of the Stock Market and American banks, and an inability to vent their excess products to forgien markets once the internal markets had been staturated because WWI had left all the other nations too busy rebuilding to buy America's stuff. I'm pretty sure you'd need a PoD before the start of WWI to avoid it.

 

[Eurofed]

OOC: The Great Depression was not caused by the defaulting of CP war debts. It was caused by American overproduction, the unregulated state of the Stock Market and American banks, and an inability to vent their excess products to forgien markets once the internal markets had been staturated because WWI had left all the other nations too busy rebuilding to buy America's stuff. I'm pretty sure you'd need a PoD before the start of WWI to avoid it.

OOC: of course, of course, but the GD happening more or less on schedule ITTL as well is a wholly different issue. I can see very good chances (although I lack the economic expertise to make an informed judgement) of it happening. However, this still leaves America a decade of economic prosperity to develop the new ex-Mexican territories, which could attract some substantial Yankee immigration into them, and make their eventual statehood (which, again, according to the Alaska/Hawaii/Philippines/Puerto Rico precedent, can be safely delayed for a long time, as long as the territories are given local self-government, and I see no big political difficulty about this). Your previous point sounded as you expected major, GD-level economic disruption in America by the defaulting of Franco-Russian war debts (Britain is not going to be hit hard enough as to default), and that I found outrageously implausible. The Entente default, although it's going PO American elites with the Entente cause and make them eager to get the UK blockade down ASAP, is not going to be more than a minor speed bump for US economy.

 

[Aranfan]

Your previous point sounded as you expected major, GD-level economic disruption in America by the defaulting of Franco-Russian war debts (Britain is not going to be hit hard enough as to default), and that I found outrageously implausible.

OOC: Oh, yeah, the only way you're getting a Great Depression right after WW1 is if both sides default. Without that kind of shock you need that decade of reckless economic asshat-ery that was the 1920s while Europe's economy is still in the toilet for a Great Depression to happen.