Latest PoD Preventing WWI

[John Fredrick Parker]

This depends on your PoD. If it's just that the assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand fails, no; the pan-Serb nationalists will try again and sometime they'll get caught, even if it's when they've (e.g.) distributed literature inciting rebellion rather than something as grand-scale as killing the crown prince. If it's the PoD I mentioned above, where Russia doesn't encourage Serbia as much, then yes.

If the Serbian pan-Serb nationalists aren't encouraged with Russian support for their expansionist ambitions, Russia and the United Kingdom will likely dissolve the Anglo-Russian Convention when it comes to be renewed in 1915. True, Russian power is increasing, but give it enough time (especially as the German naval threat becomes less worrying, as the British Empire's naval lead over Germany was constantly increasing at this time) and the British will be quietly searching for how to take the Russians down a peg.

But Austro-Russian disagreements over the Balkans are inevitable unless you have a PoD several decades earlier; I can talk about the reasons why at more length but that would derail this thread. So it's very difficult to imagine any great power conflict in which Austria-Hungary and Russia aren't on opposite sides.

What about a PoD after the assassination, one where Wilhelm takes his cousin's advice, and pressures the Hapsburgs to put the Serbian matter before the Hague? (FWIG, this is an idea that more or less has a great deal of support here in terms of plausibility.) If that was how OTL's WWI was prevented, would that be enough to prevent a Great War in general?

 

[Perfidious Albion]

What about a PoD after the assassination, one where Wilhelm takes his cousin's advice, and pressures the Hapsburgs to put the Serbian matter before the Hague? (FWIG, this is an idea that more or less has a great deal of support here in terms of plausibility.) If that was how OTL's WWI was prevented, would that be enough to prevent a Great War in general?

This is a really interesting case and I think it demonstrates something very important.

Let's say that Wilhelm II sees the Serbian response to Austria-Hungary's ultimatum, decides that it's an acceptable response and that Austria-Hungary therefore shouldn't go to war, and writes a note to Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria-Hungary saying so.

Believe it or not, that happened in OTL. The German government simply refused to send Wilhelm's note, and nothing ever came of it.

My conclusion is that the widely held idea that Wilhelm II's wishes were the deciding force of German policy is wrong. I don't think that any single man ultimately controlled German policy, and if one could ascribe control to any such man it would be Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg is the man to look at, not Wilhelm II.

Once there was a crisis, Germany had every reason to want to go to war now, before Russia was too powerful to defeat. From Bethmann Hollweg's perspective in July 1914, there were at least two pieces of evidence that Russia and France were actively seeking a war, so Germany would be best served in fighting one before Russia had had more years to grow economically. The French President had said that he didn't care what the outcome of the Austro-Hungarian investigation into Gavrilo Princip and co. was, he would still believe that Serbia was innocent, and that France would protect Russia, and thus Serbia, from Germany. And Russia had started a general mobilisation, targeted at both Austria-Hungary and also Germany (actually because changing the plans to make it a partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary alone would be too difficult administratively and because Russian mobilisation was so slow that the Russians didn't dare to delay it in case of war, but the Germans didn't know those facts).

I'll go out on a limb and make two potentially questionable but, I think, valid statements:

1. As soon as Russia launched a general mobilisation, the probability of avoiding a war between Russia and the Central Powers became extremely low.
2. Unless there had been massive changes to Russia's infrastructure, general staff and military capability before the war (which would change pre-war European politics so massively that there might not be a Sarajevo crisis anyway), the probability of Russia launching a general mobilisation was extremely high.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

A lot of very good points. (Just for the record, though -- can we safely assume that even if the Austrian Emperor had gotten Wilhelm's letter, that the mobilizations and breakout of war would continue more or less apace?) I was starting to think that a TL with TR winning the 1912 election would have the plausible chance of meeting the OP, but it now I'm starting to lean back toward my original quasi-determinist position.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

A lot of very good points. (Just for the record, though -- can we safely assume that even if the Austrian Emperor had gotten Wilhelm's letter, that the mobilizations and breakout of war would continue more or less apace?)

It's difficult to say with any degree of certainty; ultimately the choice is in Franz Josef's hands. I'd lean towards the idea that he would back down upon realising that he would have to fight Russia without German support, but one could argue that he would intervene for fear of the negative consequences to Austro-Hungarian prestige if he didn't, or even that he would intervene due to gambling that Germany would support him anyway for fear of losing its sole great power ally. Personally I'd think him too cautious for the latter two, but I can't honestly claim to be certain.

I was starting to think that a TL with TR winning the 1912 election would have the plausible chance of meeting the OP, but it now I'm starting to lean back toward my original quasi-determinist position.

I think your 'quasi-determinism' in this case sounds fairly reasonable.

My best bet, for what little it's worth, would be that Russia doesn't encourage Serbia and gradually drifts away from Britain after the Anglo-Russian Convention expires in 1915, mostly due to conflict in Persia. With the Balkans somewhat more stable and Africa dealt with by Berlin, I can't think of any easy triggers for war except China (which is likely to be dealt with by a Berlin-esque conference to decide its partition among the empires of Europe) and the decaying Ottoman Empire, and if Britain is hostile to Russia I can imagine Britain and Germany together keeping the House of Osman in power as a bulwark against Russian expansion, which would certainly be traditional for British foreign policy. But this scenario presumes that Germany won't be reckless enough to spur a war without an easy trigger, while trying to end the imbalance between Germany's rising power and its lack of colonies, and that, in turn, depends on German internal politics. Given the multitude of interpretations on the internal politics of the Kaiserreich before the war, I can't claim any certainty on whether that would happen either.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

It's interesting, but you would think that if a crisis can be plausibly deescalated late in the game (eg, Wilhelm sending the letter brings the matter before the IC), and if delaying the war makes it unlikely (by letting the Anglo-Russian alliance cool off, Russia grow economically, etc), then it seems it would follow that "Great War" (and any war like it) was not inevitable (not just at that point, but at any point following 1815).

And yet, the underlying causes of OTL (Russia's support of Serbia, Germany's fear of Russia, etc) continue to stare you in the face whenever you try to imagine the possibility. It's like WWI was somehow simultaneously completely avertable and ultimately inevitable.

 

[Comte de Geneve]

Given the existing alliance constellations and the intransigance of the major players, there is little or no hope of averting general war after the issuance of the A-H ultimatium to Serbia in July 1914. Effectively the assassination of F-F forced the issue and was the proximate cause of general war unless either Willy or Nicky defied their respective cabinets and general staffs. That was almost certainlynot going to happen. If Gavrilo misses FF and Sophie in Saravejo, there is a very reasonable chance that a general European peace could endure for a while since there were no obvious flash points at that time barring the unexpected, like the Saravejo attack. I personally think the next best chance for a general war would come in 1917 when the Ausgleich comes up for renewal with FF on the K und K thrones. If FF carried through on his anti-Magyar elite beliefs, the ultimate trigger for an alternate WWI could be a Hungarian revolt aaginst Viienna followed by Russian intervention in their support (the mirror image of 1849).

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

<snip>

Well, that sounds like a "large war" was still inevitable by the time of the assassination; in which case, keeping with the OP, when did this become the case? Would you agree with PA that this inevitability started when Russia started backing Serbia, or do you think the geopolitical binds closed even earlier?

 

[David S Poepoe]

Believe it or not, that happened in OTL. The German government simply refused to send Wilhelm's note, and nothing ever came of it.

My conclusion is that the widely held idea that Wilhelm II's wishes were the deciding force of German policy is wrong. I don't think that any single man ultimately controlled German policy, and if one could ascribe control to any such man it would be Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg is the man to look at, not Wilhelm II.

A very good observation. I also think Wilhelm was being continually marginalized by the likes of Bethmann Hollweg and other members of his government.