What would have to happen to get to 2012 without any World Wars? What would a 2012 look like that has not experienced either of the World Wars, or any other wars of such size?
One of the questions asked was, almost, what would the world be like. I think it would be more like living in the late '70's/early '80's war is always good for tec stuff.
The trick would be to break up the big, multi-state alliances that make world wars possible. Give many different powers many different, incompatible agendas. Then, instead of a few huge wars there'd be a lot of smaller but still sizable wars. I'm not sure that's an improvement.
You have autocratic states where it only takes a single person to start a war. You have the Balkans that are a constant witches brew and Alsace Lorraine preventing real peace between France and Germany. You have colonial rivalry all over the globe and territorial ambitions by every power. You have an alliance system that is very unlikely to be dismantled; you make alliances out of fear not from simple convenience. You have populations and statesmen who don't know what a large war is like. Whose experiences with war have all been small colonial affairs that were painless. (Except for Russia and Japan.) You have nations who fear NOT going to war more than they do war itself.
To think this could stand for a hundred years is simply ridiculous. At some point a major war in Europe is inevitable. Even if the British Empire were somehow neutral as long as France and Germany are involved there will be fighting in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Atlantic, and Pacific. That would certainly constitute a world war.
That arguably means the POD has to be far enough back to avert the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars, which were on a far larger scale than any of their precursors and effectively at least as global in scope as WW1, and were definitely referred to as "the World War" by some politicians and/or writers around that time...What would have to happen to get to 2012 without any World Wars? What would a 2012 look like that has not experienced either of the World Wars, or any other wars of such size?
Exactly.Well, the goal is to avoid world wars, not wars. The latter is ASB, the former just hard.
[...] If the Balkans can be calmed down (perhaps A-H agrees to respect Serbia's sovereignty in exchange for Russia telling Serbia to shut up or they will throw them to the wolves) the big threat to European peace is Alsace-Lorraine. The French want it back (justly), but the Germans aren't going to give it up. I'm not sure how to work this one out, but if it can be resolved, the reason for the alliance blocs go away.
Bismarck had nothing to do with it. He avoided war after all for the 29 years after the unification. He understood perfectly well what a war would entail.The First world-war was not avoidable political, thanks to Bismarck and emperor Franz-Jopsef of Habstburg
and first world-war let to second world-war
and the second one let almost to a third world-war in 1961-62...
Exactly!More advanced, probably. Tens of millions of potential engineers, scientists and inventors died either as soldiers or were civillian casualties, not to mention the immense economic destruction. You can have rapid military development without a war, and after a while the more advanced civillian technology will start pushing military hardware ahead, too.
No. As I already said earlier in this thread and and in this posting, Europe had started a serious consolidation and the democratisation process was underway in all 'autocratic' states. If the German Reichstag had been serious about not wanting to go to war, than that would have been a very difficult situation. After all without money no army and without army no war. Germany had already one of the best suffrages in Europe these days and was phasing in true secret ballots. A-H had similar developments going on. Only Russia was lacking behind in development, but looking at the situation there, it was only a question of time until the system would break down. And the colonial rivalries were in the process of getting settled. Morocco was no longer an issue, Germany and the UK had reached an understanding on the Portuguese colonies and their other respctive interests.You have autocratic states where it only takes a single person to start a war. You have the Balkans that are a constant witches brew and Alsace Lorraine preventing real peace between France and Germany. You have colonial rivalry all over the globe and territorial ambitions by every power. You have an alliance system that is very unlikely to be dismantled; you make alliances out of fear not from simple convenience. You have populations and statesmen who don't know what a large war is like. Whose experiences with war have all been small colonial affairs that were painless. (Except for Russia and Japan.) You have nations who fear NOT going to war more than they do war itself.
To think this could stand for a hundred years is simply ridiculous. At some point a major war in Europe is inevitable. Even if the British Empire were somehow neutral as long as France and Germany are involved there will be fighting in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Atlantic, and Pacific. That would certainly constitute a world war.
Exactly! You have spoken out of my heart.But at the same time you have a growing democratisation even in countries like Germany, a weakening of the aristocratic diplomatic game that created the alliances before WW1, a stronger social democratic pacifism in most countries (that IOTL was killed by the nationalist fevor during WW1), a stronger Russia, an Austria-Hungary that soon will lose Frans Josef and enter the 20th century and suffragets demanding voting rights for women. All these factors would act against a world war - at least in Europe.
Sure about that? As far as I know the decision-makers in Germany and the UK were speaking of a world war even before it started.[...] Wwi wasnt called that until wwii, [...]
As I said earlier the deterrence potential was already there in 1914. The German military was well aware of that, as was the chancellor. Moltke had written to his wife in 1905:The reason there has been no world war, or even a war between great powers, for 67 years is due to the existence of nuclear weapons. They alone made a serious war too dangerous for countries to enter into lightly. It is one thing to say, 'give me what I want or I will kill you.' It is something very different to say, 'give me what I want or I will kill us both.' Minus atomic weapons there certainly would have been a World War III in the 40's or 50's between the US and USSR and their respective allies.
If you somehow manage to avoid a world war until the 1940's or early 50's and if atomic weapons are developed by multiple nations at about the same time; say Germany, France, UK, and USA. Then maybe the nations are rational enough to understand a war between them is no longer worth the risk. Even then if either France or Germany is the first to have them there might be a willingness to use them in a preemptive war.
Even the above is highly unlikely as I don't see an additional thirty years passing without a major conflict.
It only needed any one of those in the know to react accordingly.„Es wird ein Volkskrieg werden, der nicht mit einer entscheidenden Schlacht abzumachen sein wird, sondern ein langes, mühevolles Ringen mit einem Land sein wird, das sich nicht eher überwunden geben wird, als bis seine ganze Volkskraft gebrochen ist, und der auch unser Volk, selbst wenn wir Sieger sein sollten, bis aufs äußerste erschöpfen wird.“
Translation by me: „It will be a war of the people, which will not be brought to an end by one decisive battle, but will become a long, agonizing struggle with a nation, that will not acknowledge defeat until all of its people's power is broken, and which will leave our own people utterly exhausted even if we can stay victorious.”