Personally my hunch is Europe in the aftermath of the next war is going to make the Europe from Calbear's AANW look good. Basically from the Pyrenees to the Urals its all been destroyed. Its why we don't know what the figures for losses in this war is.
Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars
- Thread starter RamscoopRaider
- Start date
That’s not the impression I get. Records are pretty easy to destroy. A major reason we don’t know Kaiser Wilhelm’s exact role in the Namibian Genocide is because the records concerning the subject were destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during WWII. Something similar might be the case here.
Well, 300.000 more than OTL for Italy, horrible but considering the situation it can be much worse, also Serbia...probably a little better than OTL
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Frankly i think you all read too much, sure war has lasted more but all the loss are not THAT much higher than OTL, even because there is the addition of the deads due to the Spanish flu that are excluded by the official count.
Human society is a lot more resilient than many think about, destruction of such document can happen for natural disaster in some case, revolution (that hardly mean 'social collapse and civil war') or simple physical destruction in the second round; plus destruction of documents don't imply the destruction of ALL the document, you can't make a correct analysis of data if 30/40 % of them is not available and so you go to guess
DM, Adamsite, is still used as a riot control weapon, usually in combination with CN in 'burning' type munitions. It's been used in the US within the last few years by police agencies.
Earlier in the Great War the Germans used a mix of 'Blue Cross Gas' (diphenylchloroarsine or DA, a powdered irritant) and 'Green Cross Gas' (chlorine or phosgene) because early respirators lacked particle filters and adsorption filters didn't stop the dust. It was quite effective.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
This weeks update is cancelled due to internet problems. Branch came down at 8:30, took out the power and internet, power came back in two hours, internet took 8, so no ability to do research
So, I've only read the first 3 pages so far, but I am quite enjoying what I've read! You build tension well. In part 1 the actual events are very similar to OTL, yet the historiography is visibly much more grim and sympathetic to the Central Powers. This gives the impression that something rather nasty will happen with/to the entente. Then in part two we see the divergences grow, and it's apparent what at least one of the problems will be: America enters a WW1 where the Central Powers are doing much better, meaning they'll be in the war longer with more opportunities for things to go wrong... I am VERY curious how this develops!
This is from a 1996 work, so it seems the USSR lasts a little longer in TTL.
BTW What became of Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck? Was he able to continue his destructive guerilla war in Africa until the 1919 surrender?
Still seems the USA got off lightly, but let's see how badly the peace goes...
Part 2-36 Unfinished Business, Sideways
RamscoopRaider
Donor
…The end of the First World War saw the Entente victorious in Italy, in the West and the Middle East. However their victory was slight, none of the three continental Entente powers could maintain a full scale war past the end of 1920 and they knew it, France would start having trouble by the end of summer and Italy would not be far behind. Of the others Japan had no interest in Europe, they had taken the German colonies in East Asia and events in Europe were of no concern with them. Only the United States had both an interest in the European status quo and the ability to enforce it, yet they had no desire to do so.
The departure from the traditional American aloofness from Europe had cost more than every one of their foreign wars put together for issues that were all together minor. The American public wanted the war to be over, they wanted their sons to come home, an end to wartime restrictions and a return to normalcy. Fighting to impose the will of Britain, France and Italy on Europe was not something the American populace would even consider and the politicians were aware of that fact.
This left the options of the Entente at the peace table as quite limited. The Bulgarians and Romanians were undefeated in the field, and there was no viable way to compel them with force. The future Poland was completely occupied by troops from Germany and those pledging loyalty to a newly organized Hungarian Government in Budapest. Finland and the Baltic states had organized themselves into Constitutional Monarchies with German Monarchs and wanted the German troops in country to stay right where they were. And there was the elephant in the room, for while the Provisional Government of Russia was still recognized by the Entente, it was increasingly losing ground to the Soviet Union.
Other problems were taking up Entente energy as well. Britain had a revolt in Ireland and a border war Afghanistan that had just broken out. France and Italy had revolts in their North African colonies that had taken large parts of the countryside there that needed to be put down. Troops and money were needed to deal with these as well. The ability of the Entente to impose terms was thus further limited.
However while the ability was limited, the desire was not. France in particular was vengeful for all the damage that had been done and proposals to completely dismember Germany were taken seriously there. Britain was not as angered but suffered enough loss they wished to ensure Germany could never do the same again and for Germany to repay what had been done to Britain. Italy, arguably even more damaged than France, wanted all that had been promised to her in the early days of 1915, despite British and French second thoughts. The populations demanded a great deal of their politicians, even if there was not the ability to carry them out
And of course there was also Germany to consider. As far as she was concerned, she had asked for an armistice, but that did not mean she had surrendered and she expected to be involved in the determination of her fate, as France had after Napoleon. This was something the Entente powers were not about to give her and arguably the root of the Second World War…
-Excerpt from Unfinished Business: The Making of the Second World War, New American Press, Chicago, 2007
…PODs in the latter half of WWI are rarer than those in the earlier half. Most American writers of counterfactuals desire to avoid American entry completely, while non-American writers generally want a much shorter war. However they are common enough to analyze.
In general Central Powers victory through a purely tactical POD is possible through to Mid-Summer of 1918 given the nearness of complete collapse by the Entente at a number of points. However such a victory would be pyrrhic, arguably more so than the Entente victory in the Original Timeline. Germany has already suffered enormous casualties, lost almost all of their colonies, and had to take economically difficult actions to sustain the war effort, the Hapsburgs have suffered enormous strain and the Ottomans have basically lost their Arab territories. Germany would be better off than France or Italy, but rather worse off than Britain.
The perception that Germany could break the Entente lines in Spring or early to midsummer 1918, would lead to the Central Powers being able to dictate to the Entente like Versailles in reverse, or even to a greater degree is pure fantasy. There was no real way for them to force Britain to agree to massively unfavorable demands, much less the United States and Japan, not with Britain an island, the complete naval superiority of the Entente and the general ineffectiveness of the submarine war. Germany might actually be forced to lose colonies or Alsace-Lorraine in order to preserve her massive gains in the East, and Austria would have minor gains at best while the Ottoman Empire would be shorn of her Arab territories.
Less looked at is the possibility of a faster Entente victory. While the chance for the Entente to defeat the Central Powers before the end of 1918 was probably gone by American entry into the war, a quicker and less costly Entente victory could have been won. Arguably the results of this are harder to predict than a Central Power victory, because the changes are narrow rather than broad, and thus the prediction has to be more specific.
Other significant changes include not altering the length of the war, but simply events during it. The Death Ride of the High Seas Fleet is probably the most talked about, while it did not effect the length of the war, it certainly effected the interwar era…
…The most common motivation for a late WWI POD is of course to avoid WWII the far greater horrors that followed, without making the entire world completely unrecognizable. The most common POD for that is of course ensuring that a particular scar-faced madman does not manage to live through the last days of the war and lead the world into the abyss for a second time…
-Excerpt from Sideways: An Examination of Common Divergences in Counterfactual History, Gate Publishing, Atlanta, 2016
This Concludes Part II of Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars
Part III: Upon Both of Your Houses will begin shortly
Okay so I am going to continue this for now, rather than try something else
The departure from the traditional American aloofness from Europe had cost more than every one of their foreign wars put together for issues that were all together minor. The American public wanted the war to be over, they wanted their sons to come home, an end to wartime restrictions and a return to normalcy. Fighting to impose the will of Britain, France and Italy on Europe was not something the American populace would even consider and the politicians were aware of that fact.
This left the options of the Entente at the peace table as quite limited. The Bulgarians and Romanians were undefeated in the field, and there was no viable way to compel them with force. The future Poland was completely occupied by troops from Germany and those pledging loyalty to a newly organized Hungarian Government in Budapest. Finland and the Baltic states had organized themselves into Constitutional Monarchies with German Monarchs and wanted the German troops in country to stay right where they were. And there was the elephant in the room, for while the Provisional Government of Russia was still recognized by the Entente, it was increasingly losing ground to the Soviet Union.
Other problems were taking up Entente energy as well. Britain had a revolt in Ireland and a border war Afghanistan that had just broken out. France and Italy had revolts in their North African colonies that had taken large parts of the countryside there that needed to be put down. Troops and money were needed to deal with these as well. The ability of the Entente to impose terms was thus further limited.
However while the ability was limited, the desire was not. France in particular was vengeful for all the damage that had been done and proposals to completely dismember Germany were taken seriously there. Britain was not as angered but suffered enough loss they wished to ensure Germany could never do the same again and for Germany to repay what had been done to Britain. Italy, arguably even more damaged than France, wanted all that had been promised to her in the early days of 1915, despite British and French second thoughts. The populations demanded a great deal of their politicians, even if there was not the ability to carry them out
And of course there was also Germany to consider. As far as she was concerned, she had asked for an armistice, but that did not mean she had surrendered and she expected to be involved in the determination of her fate, as France had after Napoleon. This was something the Entente powers were not about to give her and arguably the root of the Second World War…
-Excerpt from Unfinished Business: The Making of the Second World War, New American Press, Chicago, 2007
…PODs in the latter half of WWI are rarer than those in the earlier half. Most American writers of counterfactuals desire to avoid American entry completely, while non-American writers generally want a much shorter war. However they are common enough to analyze.
In general Central Powers victory through a purely tactical POD is possible through to Mid-Summer of 1918 given the nearness of complete collapse by the Entente at a number of points. However such a victory would be pyrrhic, arguably more so than the Entente victory in the Original Timeline. Germany has already suffered enormous casualties, lost almost all of their colonies, and had to take economically difficult actions to sustain the war effort, the Hapsburgs have suffered enormous strain and the Ottomans have basically lost their Arab territories. Germany would be better off than France or Italy, but rather worse off than Britain.
The perception that Germany could break the Entente lines in Spring or early to midsummer 1918, would lead to the Central Powers being able to dictate to the Entente like Versailles in reverse, or even to a greater degree is pure fantasy. There was no real way for them to force Britain to agree to massively unfavorable demands, much less the United States and Japan, not with Britain an island, the complete naval superiority of the Entente and the general ineffectiveness of the submarine war. Germany might actually be forced to lose colonies or Alsace-Lorraine in order to preserve her massive gains in the East, and Austria would have minor gains at best while the Ottoman Empire would be shorn of her Arab territories.
Less looked at is the possibility of a faster Entente victory. While the chance for the Entente to defeat the Central Powers before the end of 1918 was probably gone by American entry into the war, a quicker and less costly Entente victory could have been won. Arguably the results of this are harder to predict than a Central Power victory, because the changes are narrow rather than broad, and thus the prediction has to be more specific.
Other significant changes include not altering the length of the war, but simply events during it. The Death Ride of the High Seas Fleet is probably the most talked about, while it did not effect the length of the war, it certainly effected the interwar era…
…The most common motivation for a late WWI POD is of course to avoid WWII the far greater horrors that followed, without making the entire world completely unrecognizable. The most common POD for that is of course ensuring that a particular scar-faced madman does not manage to live through the last days of the war and lead the world into the abyss for a second time…
-Excerpt from Sideways: An Examination of Common Divergences in Counterfactual History, Gate Publishing, Atlanta, 2016
This Concludes Part II of Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars
Part III: Upon Both of Your Houses will begin shortly
Okay so I am going to continue this for now, rather than try something else
Oh dear.... Question: is this someone who was also scarred OTL?
Also, something else about the in-universe popular history: Britain is seen as a villain for going to war over a "scrap of paper" and making the European war a World one. But said "scrap of paper" was a defensive pact, so Britain is seen as a villain for honoring a prior agreement to defend Belgium from German aggression. Others have already noted a lot of somewhat-Kaiserboo "perhaps the Germans were closer to being the good guys in WW1" attitude in TTL so some of this might just be downplaying how cruel Germany was to the Belgians... but perhaps this is connected to a broader general distrust for Britain, and thus being unwilling to concede that this one time Britain was acting justly? I'm guessing they're going to do some sort of horrible colonial atrocity later.
This is going to be different. I honestly wonder how this is going to effect everyone as everyone is going to be having sore feelings over the peace.
A plague a'both your houses...
The US stays out of the European theater for much longer than OTL? No just not committing troops, but no Lend-Lease too. Or trading equally with both sides.