Looking for a POD for CP victory in 1917

Susano

Banned
Exactly. And - more to the point - Germany collapsed anyways; there was essentially no government from the Armistice to about 1921 or so.

Thats not quite true. The 1918 Revolution was actually, purely politcially, a very, very smooth one (of course, socially, much upheaval came with it, and after the initial transfer of power the smoothness ended). The real problems only came with the hyperinflation.
 
Thats not quite true. The 1918 Revolution was actually, purely politcially, a very, very smooth one (of course, socially, much upheaval came with it, and after the initial transfer of power the smoothness ended). The real problems only came with the hyperinflation.

Really? The BSR doesn't count? The Freikorps, the Spartacists, the fighting in the streets and blood and death and starvation all counts as "very very smooth"?

I'm not talking about how well the Weimar Republic was able to justify itself, as the legitimate successor to the Second Reich, in the mid-20s. I'm talking about Weimar's actual ability to function as the state of Germany over the year or two following the armistice.
 

Susano

Banned
Okay, yes. The transfer of power was smooth. Reactions... not. Though as usual Ill note the Munich Soviet Republic gets way too much credit. Now the Kapp Putsch, that was much more serious. But... a state of continous unrest isnt yet "practcialyl no government". Only when government fall left and right and the constitution is violated or abused (mid-20s with hyperinflation and Reichswehr interventions in Thuringia and Saxony and early 30s with the presidential decree rule) you could really say that...
 
Okay, yes. The transfer of power was smooth. Reactions... not. Though as usual Ill note the Munich Soviet Republic gets way too much credit. Now the Kapp Putsch, that was much more serious. But... a state of continous unrest isnt yet "practcialyl no government". Only when government fall left and right and the constitution is violated or abused (mid-20s with hyperinflation and Reichswehr interventions in Thuringia and Saxony and early 30s with the presidential decree rule) you could really say that...

What!? :confused:

The late-Weimar government was a mess, yes; but it was a government. A nasty, authoritarian, constitution-trampling government rushing from State of Emergency to State of Emergency, but a government. Early-Weimar was not.

More to the point of this thread, if the Second Reich tries to go on fighting into 1919 and falls apart like Weimar did over the winter of 1918-9 - and I see no reason to doubt that it would - the Allies win by default. They will in all likelihood get that triumphal march under the Brandenburg Gate they always wanted because they'll be no one left to stop them. After Michael - probably for quite a long while before that, but definitely after Michael - Germany has lost; they just don't know it yet. There's no possible way the war could have gone on for more than four years because WWI chewed up countries and spat them out. Russia hit the wall in 1917; AH hit it in late 1918; and Germany was going to hit it in 1919. The Allies just lucked out in that they had Britain and the blockade, which was able to force Germany down faster than France was going.
 

Susano

Banned
Oh, I didnt argue that. I was just making secodnary nitpicks :D
But yes, germany in 1918 has no stamina to last another war year. I wouldnt quite formulate it so dramatcially like "western civilisation eating away itself"*, but yes, it cant last. Not with a PoD thats only in 1917, anyways.

*But then, I never liked the phrase "western civilisation" ;)
 
Top