Optimal GERMANY post-World War I borders survey (Central Powers victory)

No I would give it back, because it would be a Saar level headache for Germany. That it would serve as a nice gesture only helps.

But would it be realistic for the Germans to give Briey back? They never considered giving back Metz all the years before WW1 despite it being French.
 
But would it be realistic for the Germans to give Briey back? They never considered giving back Metz all the years before WW1 despite it being French.

But AL the region wasn't entirely French Briey is entirely French 100% no Germans here annexing that bit will cause headaches for everyone the French don't want the Germans as rulers the French will be angry the Germans are wondering why they are here and all a round headache
 
Briey+Longwy, Luxembourg, maybe slight modifications in Poland and maybe the UBD annexed. Poland, White Ruthenia, Lithuania, Courland?, Ukraine, Crimea, Don, and Kuban in the East, the Ottomans can do shit in the Caucasus. Maybe make Belgium a puppet. As for colonies, Mittelafrika! But since I have a feeling that would be ASB, Belgian Congo and French Equitorial Africa. It would make Tanganyika and Kamerun meet. If possible, get French West Africa to get it to meet Togoland, but that seems unseemly. Maybe British New Guinea.
 
Briey+Longwy, Luxembourg, maybe slight modifications in Poland and maybe the UBD annexed. Poland, White Ruthenia, Lithuania, Courland?, Ukraine, Crimea, Don, and Kuban in the East, the Ottomans can do shit in the Caucasus. Maybe make Belgium a puppet. As for colonies, Mittelafrika! But since I have a feeling that would be ASB, Belgian Congo and French Equitorial Africa. It would make Tanganyika and Kamerun meet. If possible, get French West Africa to get it to meet Togoland, but that seems unseemly. Maybe British New Guinea.
The best they can do in the Pacific is retain their colonies there. As for Africa, getting Dahomey, all of the Congo, and perhaps Chad/Ubangi-Shari is the most likely scenerio. Germany would probably give SWA to South Africa to keep the Pacific
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
Yeah, as long as the Polish front is secure, the Neman River border would be very good for Germany; if Poland becomes hostile, though, then Germany has bigger things to worry about.
Except Poland is smaller than Russia. If Germany can handle Russia it can handle Poland.
 
In the West: Meuse as a border between France and new Lotharingia (puppet made from French territory, mostly Lorraine and Franche Comte, minus Briewy mines) with Belgium losing its territory east of said river while becoming a satellite of Berlin. The Netherlands and Denmark come under increasing pressure to join the Zollverein, ironically backfiring and causing at best somewhat of a less friendly US-Canada type relationship.

Assuming Austria survives no border changes in the South. If Austria crumbles like a dry cookie then Austria, Slovenia, Trentino, and Bohemia are likely part of the Empire (the latter perhaps as a special status area but if three sides are German it's possible).

In the East: things get dicier but perhaps the Empire pushes to the Daugava River in the north with the leftover Estonia and Latvia becoming a neo-Teutonic satellite under (insert German princeling). Crimea and environs might also become a satellite, as might much of OTL Ukraine, under (insert German princeling). Byelorussia I am not sure about given its ethnic ties with Russia proper, and as for colonies I doubt the victorious Germans earn any without taking and holding Paris. Britain may ask for some of the colonies as a symbolic pound of flesh though Tanzania likely stays German, perhaps Kamerun as well.
 

Deleted member 94680

These aren't the optimum borders for Germany in any realistic world.

You're taking territory from a nation, crippling it's economy and imposing restrictions on it's recovery after a War. Sound familiar?

By taking the remainder of Lorraine (100% French) you're bringing a hostile diaspora into the Reich. For what benefit? To protect A-L as a buffer? Alsace-Loraine was a buffer. The 'true' border of Germany was the Rhine, always was, always has been. Bismarck - by far the most capable German statesman of what, the last 100 years? - was barely persuaded to take it by the military purely on the justification that it stops the French from being on the Rhine. There was a reason it was an Imperial Territory instead of a Duchy etc. Berlin wanted direct control of it, to ensure it could be used as a buffer in case of War.
 
These aren't the optimum borders for Germany in any realistic world.

You're taking territory from a nation, crippling it's economy and imposing restrictions on it's recovery after a War. Sound familiar?
Post WW2 Germany, it has been very peaceful ever since. Sounds like a good enough plan for WW1 Germany to fix French revanchism.
 
Huh. Does this all really count as a survey? Anyways, simply having the Scandinavians, Low Countries, Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Ottoman's in German's economic sphere would be optimal enough. No real need for further border changes.
 
Post WW2 Germany, it has been very peaceful ever since. Sounds like a good enough plan for WW1 Germany to fix French revanchism.
Umm... The Western Allies poured food and resources into their zone. And when a country tries to conquer a continent, literally enslaving nationals of their allies when they change sides, murdering eleven million civilians through various methods be it neglect or active homicide...
 
Umm... The Western Allies poured food and resources into their zone. And when a country tries to conquer a continent, literally enslaving nationals of their allies when they change sides, murdering eleven million civilians through various methods be it neglect or active homicide...
The food was explicitly brought in to keep them from going communist though, other groups argued that they should be starved to a more easily contrallable size, there's also the amass rapes, forced deindustrialization, seizure of intellectual property, demolishing of reconstructed homes errected without a permission by the occupying powers etc etc, many things which were in effect until the mid 50s, until then pretty much no real recovery could be made and afterwards Germany was still put on a tight political leash and banned from exceeding certain industrial goals or developing certain technologies, meanwhile the population was screened and for those who were responsible for the war and had any dealings with the Nazi party, afterwards their job opportunities were limited to keep them out of authority or publicly influential jobs like journalism.
 
The food was explicitly brought in to keep them from going communist though, other groups argued that they should be starved to a more easily contrallable size, there's also the amass rapes, forced deindustrialization, seizure of intellectual property, demolishing of reconstructed homes errected without a permission by the occupying powers etc etc, many things which were in effect until the mid 50s, until then pretty much no real recovery could be made and afterwards Germany was still put on a tight political leash and banned from exceeding certain industrial goals or developing certain technologies, meanwhile the population was screened and for those who were responsible for the war and had any dealings with the Nazi party, afterwards their job opportunities were limited to keep them out of authority or publicly influential jobs like journalism.
Indeed, rather complex. I feel the political situation would be rather different with a post WWI France, though. Would the Germans be bombing the entire place during the war out of a fear for their own survival? Would society be rebuilt? And more importantly, would the French government have done things so horrible that the continent recoils in horror for generations to come and lose the vision of glory in war, seeing it at most as being needed for defense. Though that feeling was already there after WWI, which was why the Nazis cooked up claims of Polish border incursions and had those posters showering Czechoslovakia as a giant airstrip.

It actually makes me think of one big change from WWII. The consolidation of ethnic groups. Eastern and Southern Europe expelling their Germans, the Poles moving their members from Vilnius, Siberia, and Galicia into Pomerania and Silesia, the Interwar period with the Turks and Greeks changing populations, and the Bulgarians and Romanians doing the same... In this world there is going to be a lot of Germans, everywhere. I imagine people are going to consider them a bit as Jews were treated, though without being legally able to hit them. Same with how the Chinese were treated in Southeast Asia during portions of WWII.
 
Indeed, rather complex. I feel the political situation would be rather different with a post WWI France, though. Would the Germans be bombing the entire place during the war out of a fear for their own survival? Would society be rebuilt? And more importantly, would the French government have done things so horrible that the continent recoils in horror for generations to come and lose the vision of glory in war, seeing it at most as being needed for defense. Though that feeling was already there after WWI, which was why the Nazis cooked up claims of Polish border incursions and had those posters showering Czechoslovakia as a giant airstrip.
No of course not, they're going in, smashing some bits, taking most of the iron and leaving it be as it is, bankrupt, politically unstable, with colonial unrest if they're left with any and with an industry now dependant on German iron having to pay arbitrarily calculated reparations and stuck with the "you started the war" stigma. What happens politically inside France has never really bothered the Germans much anyway (except for that one time with Bismarck).
 
Here is how Europe should look after WWI:

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And this is how Austria-Hungary should be split up:

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Just so that nobody is confused: German-Austria gets integrated as a Kingdom and a Duchy into the German Empire while Hungary becomes an independent kingdom, as does Croatia. Both Hungary and Croatia get parts of Serbia. So do Bulgaria and Albania. Lithuania becomes a Duchy in alliance with Germany. Latvia and Estonia get merged into the Baltic confederation or the United Baltic Duchy or whatever which is in alliance with Germany. Poland becomes an independent Kingdom in a customs union with Germany. Ukraine and Belarus become independent states in which Germany has exclusive extraction rigths for certain ressources.

In the west Germany annexes Luxemburg and gets to occupy a part of the French border for 10 years. Germany limits the amount of coal and steel which may be extracted from cerain mines in northern France. Flanders gets annexed by the Netherlands. The Walloons become an independent duchy under the "protection" of Germany.
 
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