No Great War - consequences?

So, for whatever reason you choose (perhaps the assassination plot against Franz Ferdinand fails, perhaps cooler heads prevail among European diplomats, perhaps something else), no World War I in 1914. What happens?
Some things to consider:
1) Home Rule in Ireland? It's been debated here before about what would happen, about how the public would react; still, it's worth mentioning.
2) Tank development? Armored cars were already beginning to be integrated into armies; at what point would armored, armed tractors start joining them? Without the Great War, how would tank and armored-car designs evolve?
3) The Rifians? Considering earlier German plots in Morocco, I'd be shocked if Germany didn't try to supply any Rifian revolt.
4) The Augsleich? It was due for renegotiation in 1917.
5) The 'war poets' and 'war novelists' and other literary-types whose careers were directly impacted by the Great War? Would any of them be likely to go into literature anyways?
5b) Dada? Dada was strongly influenced by the Great War, though the fin-de-siecle mood pervading Europe also contributed. Without the war, though, how does it develop? On the other hand, might the lack of war help spread a Dada-like movement faster, since there wouldn't be closed borders between France and Germany?
6) Airplanes? No Great War means no massive production runs of aircraft, no large-scale training programs, no base of trained pilots to fuel 1920s aviation. How much does the lack of a Great War slow developments in aviation?
7) Flu? No Great War means that the 'Spanish' flu can't spread among the troops... but it can still spread like an ordinary epidemic. Thoughts?
8) Kaiserliche Marine? How long could Germany keep up the naval arms race with Britain, and to what extent was it interested in doing so?
9) Colonies? No Great War means no mass usage of colonial levies, no large-scale debts run up by the war. How much longer could colonialism last?
10) Diplomacy? How long before a major war would break out in Europe, even if the one in 1914 was avoided?

Feel free to address any or all of these questions, along with any other thoughts you have about how history might've proceeded without the Great War.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
4) Google "United States of Greater Austria". If the POD is no assassination, then something like this is likely. It was the intention of the new Emperor who would have assumed power in 1916. It is at least the start of the debate. Without war, I think some more federated type A-H is likely. Anywhere from the Triple Monarchy of the Austrians, Hungarians, and Slavs to the full USGA plan.

8) Indefinintely. The Germans had a growing economy, and spent less per capita than the French on their military. German planners were satisfied with a 1.5 to 1 Brit to German ratio. Some in Britain thought 1.6 to 1 was workable. I can even see some type of Washington treaty happening, and this issue fading over a few decades.

9) Without the wars, Europe could have maintained their colonies even to modern times. It would be more a matter of will, than ability. The USA is too weak to force Europe to give up colonies, there is no Soviet Union stirring up trouble. People often wait to revolt until they think they can win. As soon as France started pulling troops back to France, revolts started. Without WW1, these fair weather freedom fighters could have a long wait.


10) The POD on why no great war matters hugely. For example, is it some small change in July 1914 or is it a major change in the Pan-Slavic attitude of the Russians? Small changes most likely mean the war happens within 15 years anyway, but may come out much different. No Pan-Slavic would make the world unrecognizable quickly. There are probably scores of different reason war could have been avoided in 1914 with a POD of 1910 or later.

The basic problem is the leaders and the people of the Great Powers believe a war would be quick and would benefit them. This belief is like soaking a building in gasoline, it is just waiting for the small spark. Imagine today if China, Russia, Europe, USA and India all believed they would quickly and cheaply win any war in the middle east, and each believed they would get all the oil from the middle east. Any small thing then would explode into war. For example, the embassy attack by Iran this week would be all that was needed to get the armies of NATO moving. I believe a lot of Bush's Iraq invasion was based on the belief of quick, cheap victory combined with the idea that USA would get most of the benefit of the Iraqi oil.
 
I'll give you my thoughts on the issues I know most about;

1.) Ireland, the likelihood is that some form of compromise on Ulster would be worked out, apparently Carson and Redmond came close to agreeing one IOTL and they may well have done if the War hadn't started. Mostly likely it is that what we know as NI is excluded for 20-30 years.

9.) Colonialism, lasts a lot longer, places like India will eventually become independent but the Carribbean and Pacific Islands as well as many smaller African states would still be colonies/dominions/protectorates with full self government. Those that had become independent would still have close economic and defence links to the metropole.

10.) Another war, the German General Staff estimated that by 1916 France and Russia would be too strong for Germany to wage war against simultaneously, therefore if peace can hold for another 18 months then Germany will be wary about going to war to support A-H.

Assuming another World War can be avoided to this day then everything else in the modern World is different. Without the carnage of WW1 then the pre-war social order doesn't get slaughtered in the trenches, the values of La Belle Époque continue long into the 20th Century. Civil Rights and other forms of equality will take a lot longer to happen without things like women working in factories that total war necessitated. Also without the massive impetus to technological research generated by 2 world wars and the Cold War we could still be at the technological level of 1970, aviation would be another 10 years behind and space exploration still a fantasy. Fashion would be a lot more conservative and without the cultural mixing OTL there'd be no rock and roll, the most popular music is probably jazz.

Finally as all the people who had died in the world wars and associated conflicts would have lived ( there would still have been wars but probably nothing like on the scar OTL) a lot of us wouldn't be here!
 
9.)

Civil Rights and other forms of equality will take a lot longer to happen .

without the massive impetus to technological research generated by 2 world wars and the Cold War we could still be at the technological level of 1970, aviation would be another 10 years behind and space exploration still a fantasy.

Fashion would be a lot more conservative and without the cultural mixing OTL there'd be no rock and roll, the most popular music is probably jazz.

I agree completely.
 
not only civil right, but also social changes would have taken much longer to change. many countries in Europe would still have the stratification (layers) of society that was so common at the start of the 20th century. everybody belonging to their own group (or class depending what country).
Woman's right would most likely be like the 20s or 30s as there had been no wars that brought the woman into the factories and gave fuel to increasing their rights.

Not sure if tech would be much lower than otl, tech development would have been very different from otl, with some things lagging behind and some more advanced.

But there is one massive wildcard that throws up so many butterflies, that it makes anything utterly unpredictable, no wars means also no or at least a markedly different (less lethal) spanish influenza. 150M people that didn't die cause huge differences.
 
Incidentally, there could be food production issues - development of high-quality insecticides was spurred on by the World Wars (both the extensive use of gas warfare in the Great War and the need to deal with malarial flies in World War II), while development of high-yield crops (i.e., the Green Revolution) received extensive funding from the US government due in part to a need to feed the Third World to keep it from going Communist. No World Wars means less incentive for these; there'd still be research, obviously, but at a different pace.

No League of Nations (let alone a UN) means that relief aid is going to generally remain ad hoc, along with handling of international affairs in general.

The American Civil Rights struggle was affected greatly by the Great War, given the Great Migration of blacks to the North - moving them out of sharecropping and into industrial jobs.

There could easily still be a highly-virulent flu (there were two major flu pandemics in the 1950s and 1960s, though neither was anywhere near as virulent as the 1919 flu)... but it would spread via more conventional channels, rather than also being spread by troops.
 
4) Google "United States of Greater Austria". If the POD is no assassination, then something like this is likely. It was the intention of the new Emperor who would have assumed power in 1916. It is at least the start of the debate. Without war, I think some more federated type A-H is likely. Anywhere from the Triple Monarchy of the Austrians, Hungarians, and Slavs to the full USGA plan.
My problem with the Popovici plan is that it had already had its high water mark and crested by 1914. Fundamentally, the federalists did not have the kind of popular backing that would make them even minimally useful to the Habsburgs in a political sense. The Croats themselves destroyed much of the impetus towards either federalism or Trialism with the Fiume Resolution as well. And finally, perhaps most importantly, Franz Ferdinand had stopped 'believing in' federalism by 1914, considering it to not be adequate enough of a solution against the Magyars. And even if the Popovici plan were accepted and implemented (I have to think that it would cause a civil war with Hungary), it's not clear at all that it would have dissipated fissiparous nationalistic tendencies anywhere. Instead of fighting over linguistic rights per se, fighting might have centered around where the new federal entities' borders were to be drawn, and over the still-extant minorities within any area. Economic integration or lack thereof could also conceivably be a huge issue.

And all of this is overshadowed by the Hungarian Diet's plans for the upcoming Ausgleich renegotiations in 1917, which may have entailed the destruction of the Dual Monarchy by forcing the creation of a fully separate Hungarian military and foreign ministry (effectively full independence), circumstances that would almost certainly spark a civil war.
 
America, Brazil, and Argentina would also likely see another decade or two of heavy (Eastern and Southern) European immigration. In America's case, there would be no russian revolution and therefore no red scare to pass strict immigration quotas.

For Latin America without the disillusionment with "western civilization", resurgent nationalism, and the post-war collapse in commodities prices; Whitening is likely to continue to be seen as the most desirable means of obtaining development.
 
I have read that aircraft development during WW1 packed 20 normal years into 5. So that is the sort of tech gap you would be looking at (not 20 years across the board, that is just an example for a particular segment).
 
On #2

Tanks probably wouldn't be developed until another great conflict rolled around. The tactics of the time just didn't offer any need for great rolling behemoths with cannons mounted on them. The most we would probably see is armoured cars with machine guns as the more natural thing. These in turn would probably operate on the principal of screening both infantry and cavalry formations in quick advances. Artillery would most likely see the most widespread development as a mass killer.
 
Dada is defintely butterflied, yea. Other intersting art-history effects:
-Franz Marc and Apollinare probably don't die, which will certainly have interesting effects since Apollinaire was a fairly major promoter of Cubism. Also, sentimental fool that I am, I rather like Franz Marc so more work by him around makes me happy.
-Marcel Duchamp doesn't move to the USA. What that does to American art I don't know. In general, somewhat less contact with the European avant-garde although you'll still have Stieglitz doing his stuff.
-Futurism might get to be an even bigger thing, what with its worship of the machine.
 
not only civil right, but also social changes would have taken much longer to change. many countries in Europe would still have the stratification (layers) of society that was so common at the start of the 20th century. everybody belonging to their own group (or class depending what country).
Woman's right would most likely be like the 20s or 30s as there had been no wars that brought the woman into the factories and gave fuel to increasing their rights.

Not sure if tech would be much lower than otl, tech development would have been very different from otl, with some things lagging behind and some more advanced.

But there is one massive wildcard that throws up so many butterflies, that it makes anything utterly unpredictable, no wars means also no or at least a markedly different (less lethal) spanish influenza. 150M people that didn't die cause huge differences.

I not see a so dramatic scenery.
Remember that also without WW-I,WW-II and Cold War, are still pass almost 100 years from 1914,and in 100 years nothing advancement in rights,tecnology,medicine is ASB.
Obviously in this timeline are more back in many sectors:
Tecnology is probably at the same level that in 1970 OTL,and civil rights are the same that in 1960 OTL.
Pop culture is also probably completly different (imagine the 1950s pop culture but without rock and roll).
But on other hand,millions of peoples are not died,endless suffering and devastations have not happened.
Colonialism is still here,but very probably in Africa nobody dies for famine.
I think that the prices is not much high.
 
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