Effects of no WW1

Apart from the Home Rule situation in Ireland, were there any other potential flashpoints that could have led to conflict in a TL where the First World War is delayed?
 
If it's anywhere after 1917 then conflict is unlikely because Russia was industrializing. Germany let war happen in 1914 because the Germans knew it was their last chance of winning. If it doesn't happen shortly after 1914, then it won't happen at all unless there's estrangement within the Entente (I'm thinking between Russia and Britain). As for Ireland, I don't think so. If German weapons are found on Irish rebels or something, then it could lead to a falling out, but not war (then again the sequence of events leading to WW I were stupid enough...).
 
How long would the status of the aristocracy last? Would they still be in charge in 1930?

They had a lot of influence prior to the war but lost a considerable amount of it after.
 

yourworstnightmare

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France might of course start a war over Alsace- Lorraine. Avoiding WW1 is hard since the Great Powers wanted it, but it's not completely ASB. The most interesting stuff would of course be how the old Empires: Russia, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Empire would do without WW1.

With being no expert on the Ottoman Empire I'd say the dictatorship would fail after a couple of years, and the Empire would be back on the democratization track. The Young Turk dictatorship was OTL probably saved by WW1. In Austria- Hungary it would probably be more about autonomy for the different regions than democracy. There would probably be large problems in the Habsburg Empire if no reform attempts were tried. Russia is of course a problem child. Yes, Russia would be forced to go through a series of changes both when it comes to how workers and peasants are treated, to more power to the Duma, and how border regions like Poland and Finland are represented within the Empire. If Russia want to avoid troubles, and there are several potential sources for that in Russia, there has to be serious changes.
 
I think by "conflict" he means not necessarily a general war, but troubles in general, like the very real possibility of civil war in Ireland.

There's the Armenian Reform Package and its consequences for the Ottomans; Bulgaria, with its large, bitter army and swarms of irredentist terrorists stranded in other countries; and Austria's approaching Ausgleich as the strains in Hungarian society become apparent (two countries made their own communist revolutions in the aftermath of WW1, one being Russia, the other Hungary).

How long would the status of the aristocracy last? Would they still be in charge in 1930?

They had a lot of influence prior to the war but lost a considerable amount of it after.

That's a very large generalisation. In Russia it's true, of course (although "considerable amount" is a rather gentle way of putting it) but Britain and France no longer had "aristocracies", that is, political landowning interests: the bourgoisie had routed ours in the 1830s and 40s and now landowning and titles were mere status symbols. And in France, the land was largely owned by the farmers anyway.
 
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France might of course start a war over Alsace- Lorraine.

No, no, no! Sorry, but this cliche annoys me no end.

The Third Republic was run by sober middle-class statesmen with a realistic assesment of their country's power. For decades up to 1906, they religiously avoided conflict with Germany, certain that it would result in defeat and possibly a new Commune and the collapse of bourgoise civilisation in France. Obviously it was political suicide to claim that the Franco-German border was correct and should last, but that doesn't mean everyone wanted to go to war to change it at the drop of a hat. General Boulanger - who may not have been such a pig-headed revanche as his followers in any case - give the French political elites the willies by his mere existence. There were those who treated Alsace as an elephant in the room, and others, those inclined to be friendly to Germany (bankers because of the Ottoman debt, and obviously socialists) who dreamed of conga-lines of revision in which Russia got Galicia, Germany Austria, and France Alsace.

Now, the passing of a generation and the real improvement in France's military situation changed attitudes, although in 1906 the French general staff were still desperately reliant on British support in the event of war with Germany. By 1912, you had the cult of the offensive in control and Plan bloody 17, but that reflects a change in military attitudes which triggered the change in political attitudes - by making the French diplomats willing to stick it to Germany is they felt they had to.

And Germany had presented France with demands that were obviously supposed to be impossible to fulfil. No, France was far too sensible to launch an unprovoked war of aggression on Germany. Imperial Germany, which had much more to gain, never launched an unprovoked war of aggression on another European country.

In Austria- Hungary it would probably be more about autonomy for the different regions than democracy.

Quite, given that in Austria all men over the age of 24 could vote since 1907.

Austria is quite a differant matter from Hungary, however, where the problems of opression of the non-Magyar nationalities and the disenfranchisement of the majority of the people, Magyar or not, are hard to disentangle. As I say, I see Hungary as somewhere prone to blowing up.

There would probably be large problems in the Habsburg Empire if no reform attempts were tried.

Well, A-H had reforms of a sort built into its constitution every ten years, and Franz Ferdinand coming to the throne would have caused merry hell in Hungary anyway. But there were no particularly pressing nationalities concerns for the Austrian bit of the Empire. Everyone - including Serbs - found it more profitable to work within the Empire's institutions than out of them.

Russia is of course a problem child. Yes, Russia would be forced to go through a series of changes both when it comes to how workers and peasants are treated, to more power to the Duma, and how border regions like Poland and Finland are represented within the Empire. If Russia want to avoid troubles, and there are several potential sources for that in Russia, there has to be serious changes.

I don't consider the odd transitory system that existed in 1914 something that could last forever. A couple of sketches of possible futures:

-A larger *1905 as a result of some future political crisis (Duma grows a spine?) leading to a federal, agrarian-social republic with lots of contending political trends.

-Takeover of the Tsarist state by radical army officers and Black Hundreds and the imposition of fascism from above. Admittedly, this isn't the best PoD for my old hobby-horse.
 
Russia's building up of power is not necessarily a guarantee of peace and could in fact become a prod for war, not least because Russia's strategic focus is against the Ottoman Empire and at some time they intended to attack. They were building up their fleet in the Black Sea and were about to initiate a Med squadron (like Germany had) and had secured basing rights in both Tunisia and Greece (Lemnos? I forget).

If things came to a new head in the Ottoman Empire (and one can not really argue that things were stable) then you could see an extended version of the Balkan Wars this time including Russia.

Now, you can take the view that the Ottoman Empire had weathered the storm and was about to start becoming really strong and too dangerous to attack - with dreadnought battleships, oil production coming online, new railways for strategic movement, and presumably an expedition into the heart of Arabia to put down Ibn Saud.

But when things look like they are going well, that is when things suddenly go wrong!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Russia's building up of power is not necessarily a guarantee of peace and could in fact become a prod for war, not least because Russia's strategic focus is against the Ottoman Empire and at some time they intended to attack. They were building up their fleet in the Black Sea and were about to initiate a Med squadron (like Germany had) and had secured basing rights in both Tunisia and Greece (Lemnos? I forget).

If things came to a new head in the Ottoman Empire (and one can not really argue that things were stable) then you could see an extended version of the Balkan Wars this time including Russia.

Now, you can take the view that the Ottoman Empire had weathered the storm and was about to start becoming really strong and too dangerous to attack - with dreadnought battleships, oil production coming online, new railways for strategic movement, and presumably an expedition into the heart of Arabia to put down Ibn Saud.

Interesting - so the Germans thought WWI was their last chance before Russia becomes to powerful and if WWI is avoided, then the Russians might start a war with the Ottomans before they become too powerful!

Now what would the British do, if the Russians attack the Ottomans? IOTL, this was a side-theatre which started after the main thing. ITTL, it would be about control of the straits. Maybe in this situation British interests share more with CP interests?
 
Interesting - so the Germans thought WWI was their last chance before Russia becomes to powerful and if WWI is avoided, then the Russians might start a war with the Ottomans before they become too powerful!

Now what would the British do, if the Russians attack the Ottomans? IOTL, this was a side-theatre which started after the main thing. ITTL, it would be about control of the straits. Maybe in this situation British interests share more with CP interests?

It depends on whether in this thread we are just going with Franz Ferdinand Lives as the key or whether we are looking at changing things further back?

Both Britain and Germany were competing for influence in the Ottoman Empire so in theory if one became too dominant, the other wouldn't mind them being taken down a peg or too along with the empire...

Egypt is also a main point here, a British protectorate but still legally an Ottoman vassal. That could provide some flashpoint, though perhaps from without since the British proved pretty adept at just getting rid of Egyptian khedives who were not pro-British enough

If Germany gains control of Ottoman oil production (and it was financing the railway expansion as well) then Britain could look on askance, and not be TOO upset if Russia joins in a carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, not least because Britaiin would also step in to get its bit

We could argue that Germany would not go as far as war and thus retain the No Great War aspect of this thread

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I've got to question the assumption that the Russians were necessarily planning to attack the Ottomans, I'm afraid. There's no doubt that they were building up a southern fleet again, but when you think about it, what good do basing rights in Tunisia do you against the Ottomans? They seal the straits, and until you've opened them - which proved beyond the combined forces of Russia, Britain, and France in WW1 - then any ships in the Med are just ships that could be somewhere else doing something useful.

Those bases were an assertion of world power and prestige. Certainly, revived naval power in the Black Sea was designed to threaten the Ottomans, as was the Armenian Reform Package. But if Russia could use these to intimidate the Porte into obeying its will, why take the risk of war? The last thing Russia wanted was for anyone who was neither Russia nor the Ottomans to control the straits: they went into paroxysms at the false alarm of Bulgaria getting them in 1913, and you might think there are countries more hostile to Russia than Bulgaria.

What was at stake was not any trivial territories in Eastern Anatolia - those were Russia's means, not its end - but rather the whole economic health of the Tsarist state, which rested on exporting grain from the black-earth belt and importing capital to its developing industrial centres, all through Odessa and the straits. Even a very brief bottleneck, as the Ottomans imposed in 1911 for military reasons during the Italian war, caused panic in Russian capitalist circles.

Certainly, the fate of the Ottomans had passed out of the realm of Balkan politics: the Ottomans had only one Balkan border left (with Bulgaria, which was actively trying to kiss and make up) and only one Balkan people left in its borders (Greeks, and we know how an attempt to carry Megalism to its conclusion against the direly weakened rump of Turkey turned out). If there was a crisis, it would be an Armenian crisis, caused by the attempts of the Dashnaks to establish an Armenian state through the reform package.

The Ottomans were of course anxiously modernising with German expertise and investment, but the Armenian issue hung over them. That, along with the capitulations, was what they went to war for, not such comparatively trivial prizes as Kars and Batum.

What I think is most likely as a casus beli a few years down from 1914 (the German estimate for the year when France and Russia together would be stronger, by the way, was 1916: pessimistic and scaremongering, obviously, but not so much as you might think, when you consider that both France and Russia did a splendid job of kneecapping themselves in the opening months of the conflict) is that the Russians are trying to hold Armenia over the Ottoman neck to get some sort of 1833-type arrangement. The Germans, afraid of Russia's growing power, give the Ottomans rather than the Austrians that "blank cheque" (to thumb off Russia backed by the German army on her western border).

How such a conflict would escalate would rather depend on what's happened since 1914: various parties could go either way. Britain, for instance, was less concerned about the straits than you might think (our strategists had acknowledged that so long as we had a base at Alexandria and control of Suez, Russian control of the straits wouldn't make much difference back in 1903; it was merely the jingoistic mythos of the place that prevented governments from fully accepting this), and unlike France our economic interests were largely trade, which continues regardless, not debt, which depends on the health of a particular government. But then, the last bit of correspondance between George and Nick before the war broke out was an attempt to diffuse the strained situation in Persia, the fixation of Russian capital and a handy new flashpoint where Britain was actually violating the spirit of the 1907 agreement pretty flagrantly - not that the Russians weren't trying to, of course. It all really depends on the Anglo-German relationship. Britain, remember, had just pulled ahead in the naval race in 1914 and was looking for a way to let the beaten Germans exit honourably so we could go back to spending money on reform at home.

More surprisingly, perhaps, France isn't a certain thing either. Britain and France were pretty well joined at the hip security-wise in that if Germany attacked France, Britain couldn't really stayout owing to the fleet agreements, but France didn't need to involve herself in a Russo-German war if the Germans didn't do it themselves - that is, if Schlieffen's plan was ditched, and that seems wholly plausible given that it rested on a premise that was already false in 1914 (Russia will be slow to mobilise) and was visibly getting falser. Alsace-fever, I've explained above, has been exagerrated. If banks and socialists were in control of France that week - I mean, this is the third republic - and the Germans had been good boys since 1914, then a France confident in the protection of her three-year conscript army and Britain might decide to let Russia go hang.

Austria, though, is bound to come in for Germany: the government might not like it, but popular pressure from the monarchy's Germans backed by the reich government forces the issue
 
If Otto von Bismarck and his alliance systems could be butterflied away then a conflict at the scale of WW1 would probably be avoided. There would probably still be wars, but it wouldn't be on the devastating scale like WW1 in OTL.
 
If it's anywhere after 1917 then conflict is unlikely because Russia was industrializing. Germany let war happen in 1914 because the Germans knew it was their last chance of winning.
Russia is a huge Continent.
Why should invade Germany?
If Russian wanted expand the natural candidate was Ottoman Empire to conquered Costantinople.
And in this case British Empire and France would permit?
I don't think.
So Russia was not a real peril for Germany.
 
Russia is a huge Continent.
Why should invade Germany?
If Russian wanted expand the natural candidate was Ottoman Empire to conquered Costantinople.
And in this case British Empire and France would permit?
I don't think.
So Russia was not a real peril for Germany.

The two were competing for dominant influence in the middle east, however, and obviously Russia being able to roll over the German army wasn't really desirable from a strategic standpoint. And there was Alsace. I'll be the first to tell everybody that the French weren't going to rush headlong into war for it, but a) quite understandably, Germany saw things a little differantly than France and b) would that remain true if Russia has it in their power to Take Over Ze Vurld?

The fears of Russia were very exaggerated, of course, being upper estimates that ignores its deep social problems, but as so often perceptions are more important than realities.
 
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