Es Geloybte Aretz Continuation Thread

kham_coc

Kicked
If Britain is on the German/Austrian side, wouldn't they just win outright?
They would almost certainly eventually win - but at the start Germany was reeling with a Russian barbarossa (in spirit, not scale) so if France had pushed at the same time maybe that would have been enough - its worth nothing of course that there is no BEF, and even if Italy joins its not like they could push the Alps. So looked at it from that Angle, its a possible PoD.
 
If Britain is on the German/Austrian side, wouldn't they just win outright?
I doubt it. It makes a victory far more likely, but neither quick nor easy. Britain can provide extra industrial capacity, but at this stage, not enough offset that of France. It cannot provide manpower in any decisive numbers quickly, and is very likely unwilling to do so at all. The most valuable things it brings to the table are access to international markets, and sea power. Neither is immediately available or easy.

Access to international markets is a good thing, but in this scenario it would become more rather than less precarious. The Germans had free access to the global economy before. Now, they lost all sources under French and French-allied control (Italy will join on the French side). The French navy will be a serious headache as a challenge to commerce, not likely able to actually choke off supplies, but certainly able to reduce the amount getting through and raise the cost and risk of transactions. In the early stages of the war, they may well be able to close the Mediterranean to all non-convoyed traffic and strike against shipping in the Northeast Atlantic/North Sea with all the leftover vessels from the 'Jeune Ecole'. If they focus on submarines (technically just barely feasible by 1907), they could continue to do serious damage for many months or years. At the same time, Britain and France going on a war footing means added demand for all kinds of war-critical supplies. Germany will both lose more and be able to afford less copper, tungsten, leather, nitrates, horses, nickel, timber, coffee and thousands of other things.

Naval power is excellent, but will take months to go into full effect. It will basically be a larger-scale replay of the early stages of the war where the Royal Navy needs to neutralise the French threat while protecting its own force. It will take months to put ships in place to bottle up colonial concentrations, hunt down cruisers, and shut down bases between Martinique and Dakar, Madagascar, Vietnam and New Caledonia. The French navy has many very good officers willing to take insane risks Kolchak-style to beard the British lion. Meanwhile, the main battlefleets are likely to engage in feints, chases and provocations, putting off the climactic battle for months or years. All the while, British sea power will be of limited use. It will negate the French advantage over Germany, but Germany is still worse off in terms of market access than they would have been without France in the war.

Most centrally, with Britain going to war itself, it will need a vast amount of capital and draw in billions of pounds in war bonds. That is money Germany can no longer access on the London stock exchange. So having Britain as an ally actually worsens the country's credit standing.

Meanwhile, France is a formidable land power that can easily tie up two thirds of Germany's army and last for years in a war of attrition. Morale will be excellent when they move against the boche, and I don't see the Germans being able to stop them at the border. Metz may or may not fall - fortresses take massive investment to reduce - but realistically, this advance is likely to stop at the Rhine. Germany just doesn't have the depth and numbers to go on the offensive against France.

Germany will likely win. But this would be very painful for all concerned.
 
Got some questions.

Do how high can german poles reach in german society and its military?

Are there any russian population left in the new baden-baden countries? If so how are they treated and if its bad how bad.

What is the relations between baltic german and baltic native? Are the baltic germans still top dog?

Lastly nsp (poland secret police) does it have any pop culture, how does polish population view them?
 
Got some questions.

Do how high can german poles reach in german society and its military?
Pretty high. Not all the way up - there is only one chancellor, one chief of the general staff, one guards commander, and these positions are handed out in a closely guarded inner circle. But ministerial posts, general staff appointments, army corps commands, high civil service positions are all open to them. In old Prussia, the question is much more about what family you come from than what ethnicity your ancestors had, and in postwar Germany, German is as German does.
Mind, though, that the price of admission to German society is assimilation. You're not going to face any considerable obstacle just because you are called Kolaski or von Radziwill, but if you refuse to speak German, you're not going anywhere.
Are there any russian population left in the new baden-baden countries? If so how are they treated and if its bad how bad.
There are some, but in general they are assimilating rather than identifying as Russian. That's not a healthy thing to do.
Generally, there is a historical arc to this. Initially, some Russian speakers stayed behind because they did not want to go to the Integralist hell that was their 'home country' (or just didn't want to leave their homes), and they got it pretty bad. Most assimilated, learned the language, played by the new rules. Everyone had a vested interest in the pretence, after all. By the end of the century, things loosened up and people started discvovering their family roots. There are now Russian speakers in Eastern Poland, Finland, Ruthenia and the Baltics facing little or no harrassment, even getting minority funding for cultural events and stuff. But there are not a lot, if there were, things would be different.

What is the relations between baltic german and baltic native? Are the baltic germans still top dog?

By when? Baltic Germans stay the dominant social class for a long time, but not forever. Today, it's a bit like the position of WASPs in the USA - disproportionately represented among the elites, but no longer alone or protected.
Lastly nsp (poland secret police) does it have any pop culture, how does polish population view them?
Well, that's a big topic. Basically, 'the NSB' is a movie and pop culture genre in its own right. No war movie can be without an agent, sometimes as the hero, the last-second rescuer or selfless supporter, sometimes as a corrupt petty tyrant or boneheaded antagonist. It really is a two-edged narrative, on the one hand the heroic story of holding together the young country in the early years of war and hardship, on the other the tale of corruption, tyranny and abuse of power. But everyone knopws the leather jacketed figure on the street corner, the ubiquitous spy-in-disguise, the master of deception and surveillance. And every Pole of a certain generation has a story of the NSB, good or bad, often both.
Today, they mostly subsist on the legendary past. The NSB is just another intelligence service now.
 
By when? Baltic Germans stay the dominant social class for a long time, but not forever. Today, it's a bit like the position of WASPs in the USA - disproportionately represented among the elites, but no longer alone or protected..

The question is what is German, as example in modern OTL Denmark if we take the 100 richest families around 1/3 has German names [1], but none of them belong to the German minority. While I imagine Baltic Germans speak German as first language, I would think most also have Estonian or Latvian as co-first language. You likely also have a lot of Baltic and Russians middle class people who don’t identify as Germans who also grew up in a bilingual home. In fact I would imagine the Russians no matter class of Riga likely speak better German than Latvian or Russian.

[1] Mostly descendent of Holsteinian, Mecklenburgian and Baltic nobility.
 
The question is what is German, as example in modern OTL Denmark if we take the 100 richest families around 1/3 has German names [1], but none of them belong to the German minority. While I imagine Baltic Germans speak German as first language, I would think most also have Estonian or Latvian as co-first language. You likely also have a lot of Baltic and Russians middle class people who don’t identify as Germans who also grew up in a bilingual home. In fact I would imagine the Russians no matter class of Riga likely speak better German than Latvian or Russian.

[1] Mostly descendent of Holsteinian, Mecklenburgian and Baltic nobility.
You know Danish stuff will the UK remain Denmark largest trading partner if so? how does this effect denmark? Wasn't one of the reasons Denmark joined EU because the UK joined (i may be making that up but i swear read this somewhere). So would Denmark be anti France due to France now challenging the UK?
 
You know Danish stuff will the UK remain Denmark largest trading partner if so? how does this effect denmark? Wasn't one of the reasons Denmark joined EU because the UK joined (i may be making that up but i swear read this somewhere). So would Denmark be anti France due to France now challenging the UK?

I think it’s important to remember there’s no WWI or WWII here, there’s the German-Russian War, where a lot of German farmers was conscripted and no German bankruptcy. So I expect the war has resulted in Germany has become the most important Danish export market. In OTL the collapse of the German economy and the collapse of British agriculture (as they focused solely on producing calories in WWII, which meant collapse in meat production) caused Britain to become the main market of high value Danish agricultural export. Here UK keep a more diverse agricultural sector and Germany has the money to import Danish pork and dairy.

As for foreign policy Denmark is pretty much a German client state.
 
Got some questions.

Do how high can German Poles reach in German society and its military?
I just watched an otherwise respectable videocast where the name of a key July 20th personage was alternatingly pronounced as Tresckau or Tresckoff.
It really drives home for me how far contemporary Germany is removed from her Prussian and Polish past.

I would welcome comments on this.
 
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I just watched an otherwise respectable videocast where the name of a key July 20th personage was alternatingly pronounced as Tresckau or Tresckoff.
It really drives home for me how far contemporary Germany is removed from her Prussian and Polish past.

I would welcome comments on this.
Was the videocast in German? Because I could see how that would confuse a non-native speaker, but from a native speaker it's embarrassing.

Not impossible - I shudder to recall the "Rentierstaaten" of the Gulf.
 
Got a question what is the german military (moslty army) relationship with society? Does the military play a heavy role in society? Does it have strong pop culture and general cultural ties and stuff? Akin to how the us military has invisible and visible effects on us society and culture, through historical reasons and deliberate things they do such funding video games and movies etc.

Second how is the kingdom of prussia (not as in current prussia rather the actual kingdom itself prior to unificatiin) viewed by all of germany?

How are Fredrick the great, the soldier king, and the great elector viewed by Germany?german heros or still viewed mostly just as prussian strongman? Due prussian influence have these figures become akin to how Richard lionheart or Margaret Thatcher and Churchill are viewed and constantly brought up and evoked, some hero worshipping.
 

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I just watched an otherwise respectable videocast where the name of a key July 20th personage was alternatingly pronounced as Tresckau or Tresckoff.
It really drives home for me how far contemporary Germany is removed from her Prussian and Polish past.

I would welcome comments on this.

The 'w' at the end of the name 'von Treskow' should be silent.
 
I shudder to recall the "Rentierstaaten" of the Gulf.
A Word between Friends, Sanssouci Palace, 24 June 1922 [post canon]

Keeping the Diamonds for Palestine deal under wraps took quite some effort. General von Ludendorff was ready to testify to the committee. We hired De Boers and they did a wonderful job to brand those baubles The Rock on which to Build a Marriage. Warenfetischismus your man calls it, eh Walther ?

This is not what it means.
 
I think it’s important to remember there’s no WWI or WWII here, there’s the German-Russian War, where a lot of German farmers was conscripted and no German bankruptcy. So I expect the war has resulted in Germany has become the most important Danish export market. In OTL the collapse of the German economy and the collapse of British agriculture (as they focused solely on producing calories in WWII, which meant collapse in meat production) caused Britain to become the main market of high value Danish agricultural export. Here UK keep a more diverse agricultural sector and Germany has the money to import Danish pork and dairy.

As for foreign policy Denmark is pretty much a German client state.
As a minor nitpick, then OTL the UK was the largest Danish export market from the 1850s to 1977 with bacon and butter taking first place between 1880s to the 1940s, so ww2 had little to do with the UK becoming "the main market of high value Danish agricultural export". If anything, the two world wars disrupted Danish agricultural exports to the UK because it limited trade and created higher demand in Germany.

As I understand this timeline then DK-UK trade is not disrupted by any major conflicts, Germany has a number of agricultural states as their allies in Eastern Europe and the Schleswig question is still there, all of which speak in favour of Danish agricultural exports having less success in Germany than OTL. The German-Russian war as a disruption is a poor argument, because it is a substantially smaller disruption than OTL ww1.

The one thing that would make this change earlier ITTL is that this is a "no world war"-scenario, which essentially implies faster industrialization and technological advancement due to fewer deaths and less disruption, e.g. industrial products dominate Danish export faster than OTL.
 
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Got a question what is the german military (moslty army) relationship with society? Does the military play a heavy role in society? Does it have strong pop culture and general cultural ties and stuff? Akin to how the us military has invisible and visible effects on us society and culture, through historical reasons and deliberate things they do such funding video games and movies etc.
Short answer - who am I kidding? I will try to keep it brief. Short answer, it's huge. The military is involved in about everything. Preferntial employment for veterans in the public service means the 'military tone' is omnipresent. There are military representatives working with publishers and film production companies, they have a hand in curriculum evelopment and produce a lot of propaganda. In many places, th military is also an important source of employment and entertainment. And veterans' clubs are everywhere.

THe military is still the visible band that holds the German nation together. Its role in defending the nation against Russia and keepng it secure and prosperous ever since makes people view it very positively, so there isn't exactly much arm-twisting involved. And it's no longer a matter of oppressive power. You can absolutely be critical of the miltary. It just will not make you popular.

And yes, loads of military memoirs, war stories, military comedies, army and navy bands, air shows, parades, youth activities, tank shows - in many rural areas, the parties the local garrison throws are the best fun you can have without spending serious money.
Second how is the kingdom of prussia (not as in current prussia rather the actual kingdom itself prior to unificatiin) viewed by all of germany?
Differently. Very differently.
How are Fredrick the great, the soldier king, and the great elector viewed by Germany?german heros or still viewed mostly just as prussian strongman? Due prussian influence have these figures become akin to how Richard lionheart or Margaret Thatcher and Churchill are viewed and constantly brought up and evoked, some hero worshipping.
Yes and no. THey have, in Prussian-influenced national historiograhy. But there is a living tradition of local histpry writing that quite significatly opposes it (and I am not sure you can conjure much support in Scotland with the legacy of Margaret THatcher, nor in Baden or Frankfurt with the spirit of Bismarck or in Saxony with Frederick II. Germany has a lively publishing industry and the fact that education is state-level helps a lot with these things.
 
isn't frankfurt part of prussia? So on a state level a prussian king worship is stopped.
Frankfurt is about as happy to be part of Prussia as Derry is to be part of Great Britain. OK, that is a slight exaggeration, but the annexation in 1866 is a sore point. THe independent identity is even tronger than in Cologne, and the Kölner are famous for being the least Prussian Prussians you can imagine.
im guessing further south you go the worse it gets?
South and west. Königsbergh is basically ground zero of Treitschkeism, with the "Große Kurfürst", "Große König", "Große Kanzler" and "Große Kaiser" everywhere and most people buying into it. Of course they have their reasons: Their safety close to a hostile power depends on it, and really the only reason that their dinky little Baltic town matters is by its historic ties to Prussia. Brandenburg is pretty much settled into believing the narrative comfortably. But in Hanover, Hamburg or Schleswig-Holstein, people are already less comfortable with their Prussian identity. Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemberg and Hesse have established historical identities separate from Prussia that are institutionally defended, and their school histories tell a different and not always friendly story about Frederick II and Bismarck. (So do Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and Mecklenburg, but they are so small there is a certain negligible cuteness about their efforts) Of course, they still largely embrace the idea that German unification and German identity are historical inevitabilities, but they are at liberty to question whether this was really the best way to go about it.

It is possible, and in many places desirable, to identify as German, but very decidedly not as Prussian. In some ways, the Prussian identity is the 'Yankee' aspect of Germanness, something that not everyone who is patriotic about the whole shares or even respects.
 
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