Effects of No World War I

Wolfpaw

Banned
The title pretty much says it all. How would economics, countries, politics, technology, and social development, etc., have gone without World War I?

A broad (massive) topic I know, but I've been wondering lately.
 
If you literally mean Franz Ferdinand leaves Sarajevo on June 28th unharmed and Europe stumbles along for a while longer, it could be interesting.

One area that never really seems to get talked about is growing trade unionist unrest in the early 1910s, all across Europe strikes and worker-police clashes were escalating right up until War broke out - its why things like the Union Sacree were seen as such a big deal.

In Britain you have the issue of Ireland, the Home Rule Bill had finally been passed in 1914 but the War stopped it being instituted as law. Say by 1915 you have the Dublin Parliament being established, I think the UVF could prove very dangerous. You'll probably see British troops deployed to quell Ulster paramilitaries - something that will be very unpopular in Britain and particularly in Conservative circles - I see the Liberals taking a hammering in the January 1916 General Election. The new Tory ministry will institute Ulster Home Rule, or possibly keep them within the Westminster system but probably won't reverse Dublin Home Rule.

Still there'll be plenty of noise in Ireland for a few years yet - however without the Easter Rising you might see moderates retain power in Ireland.

The 1917 Ausgleich will be messy IMO, and might be a trigger for war.

In Germany I think the Bismarkian Democracy will eventually crumble under public pressure by the early 1920s, possibly with Wilhelm II being forced to abdicate.

Another major trigger for war, and one that arguably had a strong pull on Britain to enter it, was German encroachment into the Iraqi oilfields. The Young Turks, bloodied in Libya and the Balkans and with well-intentioned European liberals calling for Armenian freedom by 1914, could see the Three Pashas do something silly to retain power, possibly including kicking the Brits out of Iraq - war within days certainly. Or they might blink, leading to reactionary forces seizing power (Pro-Sultan forces in the Army and Civil Service never really died out) or maybe their opponents in the Liberal Union will come to power.

Other things, no war will probably do democracy in Portugal and Japan a bit of good. The City of London will retain its role over Wall Street as the international banking hub, at least into the forseeable future. This will probably butterfly away something as vicious as the Great Depression of OTL.

Russia I'm really not sure on - I don't think economic reforms will save the Tsarist system but it took quite alot to see the Two Revolutions of 1917 come to pass so possibly the 1920s will be a messy decade? Really I think best bet is Nicholas II dies and bolder reforms are iniated by bureaucrats working on behalf of Alexei or whoever. If the Duma is empowered I could see this blowing up in the Tsar's face and a Republic eventually installed.
 
In the US, President Wilson will actually have his first term judged by his domestic achievements, rather than "He kept us out of the War." I think that it is likely that a Republican would be back in the White House by 1917. Probably Charles Evans Hughes, but there is at least an outside chance that TR will find himself back in the White House again.

Without WWI I think we can safely push back the date of decolonization. Especially in francophone Africa and the German colonies, I think that the locals could start identifying themselves more with their respective Empires than their native tribes/ethnic groups, which could be a good thing in the long run (as they would be more likely to form a coherent nation state when (if?) granted independence.

The West, plus Japan may respond very differently to the unfolding Chinese revolution without the distraction of the War. Russia and Japan would likely seek to take advantage in the Northeast, while the British would likely extend their influence into the newly independent Tibet.

The Ottoman empire will probably muddle along for a while longer under the Young Turks, though their autocratic tendencies could provoke unrest in the Hejaz and other regions that will not be easily put down. With the support of the Germans they will likely prevail, but find themselves more economically and militarily dependent upon the German Empire.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The Young Turk dictatorship in the Ottoman Empire would fail, since not even all Young Turks supportrd it. I could see a Third Constitutional Era in the empire, and the establishment of some kind of democracy. The Young Turks would probably be one of the established parties though.

US involvement in Mexico could be very interresting with no European war going on.
 
If you literally mean Franz Ferdinand leaves Sarajevo on June 28th unharmed and Europe stumbles along for a while longer, it could be interesting.

One area that never really seems to get talked about is growing trade unionist unrest in the early 1910s....

In Britain you have the issue of Ireland, the Home Rule Bill had finally been passed in 1914 but the War stopped it being instituted as law...

The 1917 Ausgleich will be messy IMO, and might be a trigger for war.

In Germany I think the Bismarkian Democracy will eventually crumble under public pressure ...

Another major trigger for war, and one that arguably had a strong pull on Britain to enter it, was German encroachment into the Iraqi oilfields. ....

Yep, the "Belle Epoque" was really quite the powder keg, wasn't it. Throw in rising Socialist votes in the USA, bear in mind that "rising trade union unrest" was an issue not only in the developed capitalist nations but also in Russia where it was linked to Bolshevism, Menshevism, and the Social Revolutionaries in an agrarian form, factor in rising anti-colonialism in not just the British Raj, but Vietnam for instance, consider the internal destabilization of Turkey other commentators point out (meaning that the Ottoman regime probably couldn't survive without being shored up by some European power or other, probably Germany implying yet more Anglo-German flashpoints), consider the breakdown of the Manchu Empire and the way the USA kept getting entangled in suppressing revolution not only in Mexico but throughout Central America and the Caribbean...you know, this is why I give so much weight to Lenin and Trotsky's analyses of the basic causes and nature of the Great War. From this perspective it is pretty ASB not to have some kind of Great War or other start sometime between 1910 and 1930 at the latest.

I keep waiting for updates on LordInsane's "Central East" timeline because instead of wishing away the Great War, he seems to have hit on the next best thing for a more "Belle Epoque" kind of world--have the Great War happen but in such a fashion that the necessary social earthquakes that so much pressure has been building up to cause do happen, but do as little damage as possible, leaving the world to move forward with relatively little disruption and with many of these issues either resolved or a clear path for peaceful evolution of them opened up.

To wit: the War breaks out between France and Germany, but France invades Belgium first, thus alienating the rest of Europe. Britain and the USA never get drawn into the war at all--meanwhile Britain resolves the Irish issue peacefully. Germany concentrates on defeating Russia first (until the French invasion of Belgium anyway); Russia falls a year early, the revolutions there happen more along traditional European bourgeois lines. Actually they are strongly leftist, but a coalition of leftists that avoid the one-party state basis of Soviet Red terror OTL, meanwhile the Red/White civil war happens sooner, quicker, and leaves the Red state based in Moscow shorn of much territory, but with more of its people left alive and more industrial base left intact, so the leftist state develops more along the lines that socialist idealists hoped it would and also cultivates better relations with the capitalist world. Germany seizes most French colonies (but not Algeria); the Ottomans are allies of victorious Germany and so are upheld. In Germany, the leftists continue to operate in the quasi-parliamentary Second Reich framework and so presumably there is a chance of peaceful evolution of a more liberal society there, I gather this also has a good influence on inclusive progressivism in the Ottoman sphere.

There are still lots of long fuses burning here of course. How will any of the capitalist powers handle domestic trade unionism/socialism? Will they accommodate worker's parties in the parliamentary system, allowing peaceful evolution of something like the New Deal social balance of power, or is some sort of bloody confrontation inevitable (perhaps, as Lenin/Trotsky claimed for OTL, diverted instead into imperialist war, meaning another round of Great War?) What of the rump Red Russian state confronting various White regimes that surround it--will the latter become tinpot oligarchies practically begging for Red intervention? Or will any of them become strong right-wing, more or less fascist regimes that pose a serious threat? How strongly will the bourgeois parties in Germany, Britain, the USA, Italy wish for someone to strangle these pestilent Reds that set such a subversive example for Western workers, insofar as they are successful domestically--and if they aren't successful domestically, will the Red Russian regime inevitably fall into something like Stalinism anyway despite their better start? Would such a Stalinist regime be strong enough to fight off those who want to feast on its corpse? What of the colonial issues--can people like Ho Chi Minh be recruited to support a more enlightened colonial regime that evolves toward inclusive democracy, or will the Germans running Indochina make the French OTL look like saintly philosopher-kings by comparison? How is Britain going to react to a German High Seas Fleet that has legitimate business in peacetime steaming past them to bases in formerly French Africa and Indochina, a fleet that will presumably grow and modernize further? What bearing would this allegedly peaceful rivalry between Britain and Germany have on their colonial policy--would they go for better relations to secure their hold on India by co-opting more Indians into the Raj, or panic and clamp down harder? What of race relations in the USA and what bearing would that have on the development of US relations to Latin America and for that matter, by example and analogy, British and German colonial relations in Africa?

Sorry to wander so far from the topic of "No Great War at all." I think this is so improbable, for reasons outlined above, that it is up to whoever proposes it to work out how it happens that the huge military forces mustered by the great powers never do get actually used on full scale. Just as a general proposition it seems wildly unlikely to me.
 
The Christmas Truce holds ??

Perhaps have the Christmas Truce hold due to a *really* vicious storm and bitter January ??

Just enough war to frighten all concerned...

Given that large numbers of folk will survive the Western Front, chemical weapons are not deployed and aircraft don't advance by leaps & bounds, there's plenty of butterflies...

One gotcha is that the prospect of trench warfare might bring on the Tank regardless...

And, uh, the Maginot line gets built a bit sooner...

And the Great Depression may be butterflied to a mere bubble...
 

Deleted member 1487

Perhaps have the Christmas Truce hold due to a *really* vicious storm and bitter January ??

The Christmas truce was only at one part of the line, not the whole Western Front. You'd need a pretty massive POD for the troops to rebel en masse against their high commands; it was probably not going to happen precisely because the French were too pissed to give up, the Germans were not going to give up their hard-won gains without a fight, and the British were all volunteers who had high morale and treated war as a sport at this point. Not a good recipe for peace from below.
 
Being a Biologist, I will put my Two cents into this:

I'd think Spanish Flu wouldn't have originated in the US Army if No WWI, as they hadn't gone to War (which homogenizes diseases from all involved).
It would probably emerge in France or Germany , and be named appropriately.
The New German Flu would definately be the pandemic we saw in OTL, just originating from a different place and being less of a military disease.

In Russia, There would be less food and fuel shortages, but Nicolas and his family will probably be killed like in OTL. If not, (for whatever reason), then the Russian Drosophilist (Fruit fly scientists) will not be forced from Russia, keeping some important genetic discoveries in Russia.

The German Sheperd could've become the most Popular dog in America and Britain at the time, although the War weakened it's popularity in OTL. Who knows. Perhaps German Sheperds become the Labs of TTL.
 
Decolonization is going to be delayed quite a bit. In some places it might not happen at all. Without the war Europeans are going to be emigrating to Africa a lot more than in OTL. Up until the Second World War you had Italians on course to outnumber Libyans in Libya, even with the casualties of the First War. Without them, it's almost assured that Libya will remain a part of Italy. northern Algeria could remain French as more colonists pour in. Brits and Germans leaving for their colonies will also increase dramatically.
 
Decolonization is going to be delayed quite a bit. In some places it might not happen at all. Without the war Europeans are going to be emigrating to Africa a lot more than in OTL. Up until the Second World War you had Italians on course to outnumber Libyans in Libya, even with the casualties of the First War. Without them, it's almost assured that Libya will remain a part of Italy. northern Algeria could remain French as more colonists pour in. Brits and Germans leaving for their colonies will also increase dramatically.

Tiring of the Kaiser Wilhelm's failure of a Deutschland?

Komm to Rwanda, for a long Vacation!

We advocate for minorities, and the people never tire of it.

Soak up some Sun and Fun in Rwanda

*Advertisement paid for by the Colony of Rwanda.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Decolonization is going to be delayed quite a bit. In some places it might not happen at all. Without the war Europeans are going to be emigrating to Africa a lot more than in OTL. Up until the Second World War you had Italians on course to outnumber Libyans in Libya, even with the casualties of the First War. Without them, it's almost assured that Libya will remain a part of Italy. northern Algeria could remain French as more colonists pour in. Brits and Germans leaving for their colonies will also increase dramatically.

You're right but it primary a few colonies which may stay under White rule, Algeria and Libya you have already mentioned, but German South West Africa also have a good chance and so do Eritrea, I doubt Rhodesia will be significant Whiter population at best/worst a few precent more, but Kenya and German East Africa may see a significant increase, through doubtful enough to create viable White dominated states, through the White settler in Kenya may flirt with a idea of a autonome republic in the highlands.
 
You're right but it primary a few colonies which may stay under White rule, Algeria and Libya you have already mentioned, but German South West Africa also have a good chance and so do Eritrea, I doubt Rhodesia will be significant Whiter population at best/worst a few precent more, but Kenya and German East Africa may see a significant increase, through doubtful enough to create viable White dominated states, through the White settler in Kenya may flirt with a idea of a autonome republic in the highlands.

Well, even if there isn't a white majority in some of the places, you could see an Apartheid situation.
 
Air plane [ship] development is a lot slower.
No masive air plane building, and development/counter development.
No thousand of Pilots, no thousands of War Surplus Planes, and Barn Stormers.
No Dirigibles bombing London, and development of High Attitude Dirigibles.
[No development of Anti Air defenses either]

No war means no US entry. No big government mobilization, no draft, No military buildup, continued Isolation, etc.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
How bad are Irish troubles?

How much is women's suffrage delayed in the UK + US
Woman suffrage will probably only be delayed by a couple of years, it was coming, and already in place in some countries.

The Irish troubles will be bad, but the UK will be able to beat the Irish into submission for 5 minutes, every time they occur.
 
Top