French-German relations without WWI

50 years is oddly specific number, just the same as coring time in EU3.

I used 50 years because longsword14 used it.

Polish nationalism hadn't died after 120 years, Greek one didn't die after 400, Jewish identity didn't after 2000. After 200 years together, Flemish and Wallons hate each other more than ever.

Poland was divided between 3 nations, 2 of which had basically zero interest in cultural assimilation (and the last one actually did manage to colonize large parts of Poland, see the mess after WWI), the ottomans never forced the Greeks to spoke turkish, there is no unified jewish identity (and jewish identity was mostly dead in western Europe before WWII, it was some other parts of the population that assigned them to a jewish identity [Léon Blum was as French as he could be forex], also they had a different religion), both the Felmish and Wallons have strong neighbours with cultural ties to them (France and the Netherlands) and most attemps to create a Belgian identity actually tried to preserve the divide between the two. Meanwhile there are basically no more Sorbs or others. Very small populations living in unisolated areas in large countries tend to disappear, especialy during the early 20th century (mass media will do that to you).
 

NoMommsen

Donor
...
What ethnic germans ? Alsatians due to their history at this point had a culture apart from germany.
...
As apart as the bavarian "culture"

Except that up to this point despite german colonisation (roughly 90% of state workers were not alsatians but germans coming from other parts of the Empire, ...
What do you mean with "state workers" ?
IIRC there were in the whole Elsaß-Lothringen in august 1914 60.000 italian foreign workers in the mining and metal industry (the military railways admin struggled a bit to,get out of the war zone in time).
no local military units unlike every other parts of the Empire, ...
Erhm ... VX., XVI. and "new" XXI. Corps ??
... imposition of the german languages [before the conquest 80% of Alsatian spoke French as a second language without havaing to go to school], ...
Same numbers to be found as well in Luxemburg and the belgian-german border region.Such "language distrubution" for 2nd languages is typical for transitional zones between different language areas and can be found almost everywhere in the world (polish-lithunian, polish bjelarus, polish-ukrainian, ... has Moldavia an "own" language ?)
so yes it was a colonization) ...
As much "colonization" as the polish influx into the Ruhr-region for economical reasons. ... IMHO
... , pro french parties still had more than half of the vote.
Interesting ... I can't find any proof of your claim. Neither here nor there or even there. ...
The "frankophones" (mainly from Lorraine) had about 16 to (maybe, if you assume some frankophils in other parties too) 25 % of the vote for the "Lantag" (regional Parliament) in 1911.

And post-war the Alsatians together withnthe Lorrains were much more interested in independence from Germany as well as from France (what France as the then occupational force wasn't prepared to accept on its part).
 

Cook

Banned
Why? The country was developing and without a war you wouldn't have the economic, social, or political upheaval for a Revolution.

Precisely because the country was developing; it was the growth of a bourgeoisie in Russia that led to instability, this new educated and skilled class leading the demand for change and an end to the autocracy. It was those demands, principally for political reform, that boiled over in 1905, resulting in the beginnings of revolution. The Tsar, in an effort to save the dynasty, was persuaded by Witte to issue the October Manifesto, guaranteeing universal male suffrage and a legislative parliament, the State Duma, civil freedoms including an end to censorship and freedom of religious belief, and legal reforms including peasant access to the civil courts.

Had Nicholas II honoured the manifesto and permitted reform, then Russia probably would have evolved reasonably peacefully into a parliamentary democracy; that was after all the ambition of all of the leading political parties, the Kadets, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, as well as the Octoberists. However, no sooner had Nicholas released the manifesto then started backpedalling, claiming that the October Manifesto placed restrictions on the bureaucracy, not on him as autocrat. Witte’s replacement Stolypin found the Duma impossible to work with and advised the Tsar to dissolve it and pass bills by decree, winding back the voting franchise until the Duma was dominated by the aristocracy and wealthy landowners. So having raised expectations of liberal political reform, Nicholas shattered them, undermining the liberal political parties in the process.

Stolypin, in an effort to strengthen loyalty to the state amongst the peasants, tried to introduce land reforms and a widening of land owning peasant involvement in the zemstvos, the local district councils; through these reforms Stolypin hoped to create a yeoman class, whose new stake in Russia’s prosperity would guarantee their loyalty. But his reforms were blocked, by the Crown, by the landed aristocracy, and, ironically enough, by the very peasants he was trying to empower, who overwhelmingly rejected the proposed changes, preferring the unchanging poverty of the village commune to the new ideas from outside the village.

In the cities the legislated industrial reforms, banning women and children from working at night and reducing the working day from thirteen hours down to eight, were ignored by factory managers with impunity; the government did nothing to enforce the new laws and the police aided strike breakers.

All of this resulted in a steady build-up of anger, with terrorist actions by the SR, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, and a steady increase in industrial action and worker militancy to the point where, in the first half of 1914, more than half the workforce had been on strike and workers seizing factories was a common occurrence. Sans war in 1914 things would have continued to degrade, since public anger was continuing to grow and Nicholas was determined to prevent any encroachment on his autocracy; the Black Hundreds, armed bands loyal to the government, along with the army, were regularly being used to breakup strikes, attack socialist political rallies and launch pogroms against the Jews, and it is hard to see how all of this unrest could have continued much beyond 1920 without a revolution.
 
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As apart as the bavarian "culture"

Yeah sure ignore the opinion of someone who live there, speak the language and have studied it's history.

What do you mean with "state workers" ?

People who wroked for the Prussian state ? The German administration had basically no Alsatian in it.

Erhm ... VX., XVI. and "new" XXI. Corps ??

They were based in Alsace Lorraine ? The german army was reliant up until after WWII on batallion being raised in the same area (similar as the Brits and the French until the Winemakers revolt) which were based in their area of origins. Except for the Alsatians which were usually disperesed in other units (or sent to the navy, which had an unusualy high number of Alsatian, especialy for a region without a link to the ocean.

Same numbers to be found as well in Luxemburg and the belgian-german border region.Such "language distrubution" for 2nd languages is typical for transitional zones between different language areas and can be found almost everywhere in the world (polish-lithunian, polish bjelarus, polish-ukrainian, ... has Moldavia an "own" language ?)

Not to the same degree. French was assimilated by everyone to be the language of the Nation (alsatian felt French, every alsatian MP in 1871 screamed bloody murder when the Assemblé Nationale accepted the German terms. The first elections in the Reichstag returned a 97% score for the pro-French parties) while Alsatian was the language of the familly. Which is not what happen in border regions.

As much "colonization" as the polish influx into the Ruhr-region for economical reasons. ... IMHO

Poles were not in the administration of the rhineland, didn't decide rhinelanders shouldn't be in military units, etc

Interesting ... I can't find any proof of your claim. Neither here nor there or even there. ...
The "frankophones" (mainly from Lorraine) had about 16 to (maybe, if you assume some frankophils in other parties too) 25 % of the vote for the "Lantag" (regional Parliament) in 1911.

Maybe because you don't know that the Alsatian SPD was pro french and it's leader in 1914, Jacques Peirotes, was exiled to Hanover due to his pro-French sympathies ? Maybe because you should look at the Reichstag election results ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace-Lorraine#Reichstag_election_results_1874–1912

And post-war the Alsatians together withnthe Lorrains were much more interested in independence from Germany as well as from France (what France as the then occupational force wasn't prepared to accept on its part).

Source? Because i litterraly don't know about any Lorrains independantists, and in 1918 most independantists were the 5 to 10% of communists. You had a few pro german that were Alsatian and not german for almost everyone except the communists it was either France or Germany.
 
Polish nationalism hadn't died after 120 years, Greek one didn't die after 400, Jewish identity didn't after 2000. After 200 years together, Flemish and Wallons hate each other more than ever.

More than ever? French was the only official language until 1898!
 
Wow, so many responses, I totally forgot about this thread (because I thought it didn't attract interest). Thanks for the answers!
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
Russia was undergoing massive economic, social and political unrest. Arguably the war saved Russia from the Revolution of 1914.

My understanding is that the operative word there remains "arguably" -- much as The Strange Death of Liberal England claims that Britain was in line for a revolution of its own before the war disrupted everything, there's evidence for and against it.

For that matter, after all, a revolution in 1914 might end up not being nearly as successful as the revolutions of 1917.
 
My understanding is that the operative word there remains "arguably" -- much as The Strange Death of Liberal England claims that Britain was in line for a revolution of its own before the war disrupted everything, there's evidence for and against it.

For that matter, after all, a revolution in 1914 might end up not being nearly as successful as the revolutions of 1917.


I'd think things would be more like 1905 than 1917 if a revolt broke out in Russia.


Here's a neat timeline idea: Russian social pressures erupting into open revolt at the same time as Austria has intense internal tensions because of the Ausgleich renegotiation.
 
My understanding is that the operative word there remains "arguably" -- much as The Strange Death of Liberal England claims that Britain was in line for a revolution of its own before the war disrupted everything, there's evidence for and against it.

For that matter, after all, a revolution in 1914 might end up not being nearly as successful as the revolutions of 1917.

I'd think things would be more like 1905 than 1917 if a revolt broke out in Russia.

A revolution in 1914/15, sans WW1, would be utterly different to the historical 1917 revolutions, especially the Bolshevik coup. You'd probably have a moderately weak Social Democrat (in the Russian sense) government with democratic characteristics and leanings that would keep the more extreme (both in ideology and methodoly) groups out of power while creating the foundations for a democratic state. There would have been very serious instabilities, however, within such a state. And plenty of opportunity for foreign meddling[1].

Given the level of civil unrest in Russia in 1914, with huge numbers of strikes, supported by the progressives, a revolution in ~1915 is far more likely than the survival of the Tsarist state. It wouldn't necessarily a communist revolution, but a major (and probably rather violent) 'readjustment' is (IMO)inevitable. The Russian system, with it's mix of Tsarist absolutism (for example Alexander's violation of the 1906 constitution to alter the Duma election laws), administrative incompetence and corruption, pan-Slavism (leaving it vulnerable to entanglements in the Balkans), historical problems with Britain (notwithstanding the Anglo-Russian Entente and the agreement around 'spheres of influence'), increasing industrialisation (creating a larger urban working class) and the consequent appalling working conditions, and ethnic and nationalistic tensions (e.g. Poland, Finland), is simply not tenable in the medium-to-long term.

Alexander's incoherent and incompetent mix of liberalising and repressing was the worst option for the situation. Sooner or later there will be a repeat of the factors[2] that triggered the 1905 revolution (because the causes haven't been addressed), and the second revolution (heaving learned from the Tsar's reneging on his earlier promises) will not be as easily stopped.
Historically the outbreak of the Great War acted to dramatically reduce the level of worker unrest; the wave of strikes that began in April 1912 (with the massacre of miner and workers in the Lena goldfields[3]) were damped down by an upsurge in patriotism and nationalism (and anti-semitism). In the first seven months of 1914 Russia saw 3,493 strikes involving 1,327,897 participants; in the final five months there were 49 strikes with 9,561 participants.
The mix of additional internal security measure, nationalism and war preparations also heavily disrupted the organising of labour activity.

Indeed, if you delay the Great War by a year or two it becomes vastly less likely as two of the major players will have other problems.





[1] To "restore order" and maintain proper government of course. It would be ironic if external intervention in a Russian revolution acted to trigger a large scale European war. I leave this scenario for someone else to devise but don't forget Wilhelm II, the familial ties within European monarchies, the Third Home Rule Bill, French fear of Germany, German fear of Russia's potential and how unwise it is for a state to look like a take-away buffet to it's neighbours.

[2] Shooting unarmed marchers, the peasant communes and their petitions to the Tsar, an upsurge in liberal demands for political reform (e.g. the appointment of Sviatopolk-Mirskii) which led to the General Strike of October 1905 and the Moscow Uprising.

[3] An event that led to the first public notice for Kerensky, who reported on the massacre in the Duma.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
...
What ethnic germans ? Alsatians due to their history at this point had a culture apart from germany.
...
As apart as the bavarian "culture"
Yeah sure ignore the opinion of someone who live there, speak the language and have studied it's history.
Oh, you're an alsatian nationalist then ...

However :
What makes the alsatian "culture" more a culture of its own than the bavarian compared to ... lets say the Lusatians or the Dithmarse or the palatinate or the ... in the first 1 1/2 decade of the 20th century ?


People who wroked for the Prussian state ? The German administration had basically no Alsatian in it.
Ah, you meant the "civil service". What do you base your statement upon ?
If you mean the "german administration" in terms of the construct of the "Reichsland" as a directly by prussian aadministered region and the top-level administration your right.

However, on local level, "Kreise" (districts) , "Gemeinden" (communities), "Städte" (cities) you are simply wrong. These were purely local. The prussian civil service simply did not have the manpower to supply officials for every city, community, district. And even the top-level civil servants were more and more recruited from local sources after the 1911 constitution.
(Otherwise i.e. Eugen Ricklin wouldn't have been able to become mayor of a city in 1896 and 1902 or the mentioned Jacques Peirotes member of the town council of Strasbourg in 1902. Just as two examples of many.)


They were based in Alsace Lorraine ?
YES !
The german army was reliant up until after WWII on batallion being raised in the same area (similar as the Brits and the French until the Winemakers revolt) which were based in their area of origins. Except for the Alsatians which were usually disperesed in other units (or sent to the navy, which had an unusualy high number of Alsatian, especialy for a region without a link to the ocean.

As a first stop you might look here. The maps might give you a first impression of the distribution of the army corps in question.
If you're not afraid of the german language (otherwise google tarnslate might be your friend ;-)) this site is able to show and name you the garrisions down to regimental level, sometimes even down to batallion levels.

Again, google translate might be your friend : This site
To make it easier :
"Only from 1903 a quarter of the alsatian recruits was trial-wise drafted to the troops stationed in their homecountry."

Therefore I would assume, that prior to the outbreak of WW 1 integration of the alsatians also into the army was well on its way.


Not to the same degree. French was assimilated by everyone to be the language of the Nation (alsatian felt French, every alsatian MP in 1871 screamed bloody murder when the Assemblé Nationale accepted the German terms. The first elections in the Reichstag returned a 97% score for the pro-French parties) ...
Well, your assumption of these 97 % being pro-french is just that : an assumption. They could as well be called "simply" anti-german, which does not automatically means pro-french, what you try to presume here.Also such a "position" is quite understandable just 3 years after the end of war, with all of the peace treaty condition not yet fullfilled.

More interesting is the evolution of these votes ... (later more).


... while Alsatian was the language of the familly. Which is not what happen in border regions.
Well, this perhaps sounds more like "occupational" development, like ... german in southern Poland (Cracow-area) or Czechia or Silesia under the austrian or german "boot".

So the alsatians were under a french "boot", that everyone had to learn/speak french until 1871 ??


(Oh, btw, you know, that alsatian is a germanic "language" or better dialect ?)

more to come
 
I see that many here took the position that there was no anglo-german alliance because Germany was too demanding. However I disagree. Look at an anglo-german alliance if it happened.

Its true that it could pull Brittain into European conflicts in a way Brittain didnt want to be involved in them. However even if a war breaks out it will be Germany who will be fighting Russia and France while Brittain uses mainly its navy and fights on the colonies - so Germany does the heavy lifting and Brittain picks up the colonies it desires - assuming he wins the colonil war which I think it would as France and Russia would be concentrating on Germany.

On the other hand a conflict could start on the colonies - in this case most likely because of british interests. Like in Persia or China against Russia or against France in Africa. In this case Germany will fight a two front world war entirely for british interest - and will again do the heavy lifting.

So if whatever conflicts results in a war it will be Germany who does most of the fighting while Brittain reaps most of the benefits and risks little.

Compared to OTL Germany would still be better off but thats hindsight. I seriously cant fault the german leadership of the time for not really wanting an alliance with Brittain.
 

Cook

Banned
Wow, so many responses, I totally forgot about this thread (because I thought it didn't attract interest). Thanks for the answers!

You can adjust your alert settings to let you know when someone comments on a thread you've started.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
continuation of post #52

Maybe because you don't know that the Alsatian SPD was pro french and it's leader in 1914, Jacques Peirotes, was exiled to Hanover due to his pro-French sympathies ?
Maybe, but how and by what sources do you know either ? What do you base your assumption upon, that the SPD of d'Alsac-Lorrain as a whole (What I would highly doubt. The "culture of disparity" was in the first qurater of the twentieth century not less than in the twentyfirst ;-P ).

And ... Jacques Peirotes was not "the leader" of the alsatian SPD but (just) one prominent figure, making a lot of noise in the Reichstag during the Zabern-affair in late 1913, being a local/regional politician since 1902 and being far from representing the alsatian SPD majority.

(Btw : Do you have a freely accessable source/transscript/translation of his famopus/infamour writing :"Neutral oder Französisch" (Neutral or French), he seems to have written in his hannoveranian "exile" after the outbreak of war ?)

Do you know when exactly he was deported to Hannover in 1914 ?
Before the battle of Mulhouse or after ?
Given his "popularity" after/of the Zabern-affair as well as his membership to the SPD were reasons enough to remove him from a war zone.
...
Or was it a move of the german admistration to "keeping him save" from possible "mischiefs" of war ?? At last : he was still (until 19181) active member of the Landtag of Alsac-Lorraine as well as active member of the Reichstag.
Maybe because you should look at the Reichstag election results ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace-Lorraine#Reichstag_election_results_1874–1912
Then let's return to these numbers and mentioning of electoral votes.
Your link is rather ... interesting (same numbers as in the french wiki version ... who might have copied from whom ?) if compared to the german version here (also at least one more source the table is based upon).

First : the german version is much more detailed with links to the respective parties, esp also their "local" alsatian branches.
Second : What's not part of mayor, nationwide parties seems simply and quite freely summarized under the title "Regional Parties Autonomists" with a link to "Protestant Deputies", who ceeded to exist in that sense after 1887 and at last with the introduction of the constitution for Alsac-Lorrain in 1911.
Third : There are quite some "disparirties" of numbers.

All these critics I mentioned only serve to draw a ... tendicious - to put it mildly - picture of the RT-elections of Alscac-Lorrain.

But even if one accepts the "twisted" numbers of the french/english wiki site it showe a clear development away from separatism or even a back-to-France-movement (if there ever was one at all, beside the first years).

Source? Because i litterraly don't know about any Lorrains independantists, ...
STRANGE ... you carry the "source" for it in your profile : Location ...

Other than that : just follow the links of your own link as well as the stories of i.e. Jacques Peirotes and Eugen Ricklin I mentioned before (feel free to compare the different language-versions).
 

NoMommsen

Donor
So,
all of what I've written IMO shows a clear direction towards assimilation of Alsac-Lorrain into the german empire/realm, if there would not have been a wolrd war (as stated by the OP of this thread).

The situation prior to the outbreak of WW 1 was far from "ideal".
But affairs like the "Zabern-affair" were as typical for the whole of Alsac-Lorrain as the Bataclan-massacre of 13.11.2015 for the situation all over France today.

Alsac-Lorrain was on the best way to become a member state of the german empire in the same sense as Hessia, Badenia, Württembergia, maybe even as important as Saxony and/or Bavaria.
 
I see that many here took the position that there was no anglo-german alliance because Germany was too demanding. However I disagree. Look at an anglo-german alliance if it happened.

Its true that it could pull Brittain into European conflicts in a way Brittain didnt want to be involved in them. However even if a war breaks out it will be Germany who will be fighting Russia and France while Brittain uses mainly its navy and fights on the colonies - so Germany does the heavy lifting and Brittain picks up the colonies it desires - assuming he wins the colonil war which I think it would as France and Russia would be concentrating on Germany.

On the other hand a conflict could start on the colonies - in this case most likely because of british interests. Like in Persia or China against Russia or against France in Africa. In this case Germany will fight a two front world war entirely for british interest - and will again do the heavy lifting.

So if whatever conflicts results in a war it will be Germany who does most of the fighting while Brittain reaps most of the benefits and risks little.

Compared to OTL Germany would still be better off but thats hindsight. I seriously cant fault the german leadership of the time for not really wanting an alliance with Brittain.

Well, I think the problem is that exactly that happened back in the mid-18th Century, and although it may have seemed like a good idea at the time to let Frederick the Great do the heavy lifting while they made off with everyone's colonies, it left them friendless on the continent for a generation. That isolation really bit them in the rear during the American Revolution, when their colonial rivals joined forces against them and none of their usual foes lifted a finger to stop them. Combine that precedent with the possibility that Germany would lose against France and Russia, and the outlook gets grimmer still.
 
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