PC: no annexation of Alsace-Lorraine

RousseauX

Donor
You sound salty friend, you should unrustle those jimmies before you get us in trouble. Just because I'm not being overly serious about the discussion doesn't mean I'm trolling.
That's true, it's probably less trolling and more ignorance on your part. I'll give you that one


I'm not sure how you got that out of what I said, I said it would be out of Character for the two not to view each other as rivals.
No, that's not what you said
It had no ambition to do so? It's desire to dissolve the German Empire into smaller states after ww1 suggests otherwise,
France wanted to dissolve Germany as a -defensive- move, not because it wanted to be European hegemony
Germany didn't have any ambitions to carve up the Russian empire until the opportunity to do so fell into it's lap. It's easy to say they had no ambition when they had no opportunity.
No, they didn't have the ambition to do so before 1914, which is why I keep saying 1871-1914

Mhmm I don't recall saying colonies werent of interest but Prussia was quite clearly interested in revising European borders only just before that and so it seemed was Austria who annexed Bosnia and also Russia to some extant, who was very interested in the Balkans.
The balkans wasn't part of the European heartland: the Balkans -were- more like a colonial conflict than a European one. The annexation of Bosnia was the Austrians expanding into what had being the Ottoman Empire, it was colonial expansion into a collapsing empire. Note they did not challenge a traditional European heartland objective like Silesia. This proves my point: the European powers were interested in border revisions away from traditional intra-European power struggles.

The French analogue like this would be expanding into North Africa (into the collapsing Ottoman Empire) which is what they did OTL post-1871, and in neither the Balkans nor North Africa are the Germans and the French "natural" enemies in any way. In TTL, the natural French expansionist tendencies are still going to be directed towards the colonies.

am I allowed to count the one that caused WW1?

But no, not really, the July crisis was over the Balkans on the imperial periphery, not the European heartland.
 
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RousseauX

Donor
@JackLumber

look, tbh in all likelihood you are prob a pretty smart guy from just being on those boards and obviously interested in history

if you have the patience for reading, I strongly recommend The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 1/3 of the book is about French Revanchism and the mood of the French public and political elites after the 1871 defeat and how they dealt with it. If you have energy for arguments like those you are losing out on a lot of potential enjoyment by not reading more into history.
 
Guys, we should calm down a little bit. France took a dam beating from Prussia that make them clear who's the new big boy in town. They channelled all their humiliation and frustration on recovering A-L, preparing for a round two. Without losing A-L, we will never know what path France will choose...
Their Russian Aliance was nor primarily a defensive one but had the main scope recovering A-L and secondary one, the curbing power of Germany which become more and more powerful.

On another hand, Germany did not searched a border revision on west but definitely wanted to crush Russia (and carving it if possible). The fear that Russia will depass Germany was one of the main reasons that Germany goes to war. It was afraid that wating several more years will be too late for defeating her.

Italy was pretty much revisionist. It wanted back Nice and Savoy... It desired Corsica. It wanted S Tirol and Trieste. ALL of them European core lands. I have not counted on Albania, Lybia or Tunisia....
 

RousseauX

Donor
On another hand, Germany did not searched a border revision on west but definitely wanted to crush Russia (and carving it if possible). The fear that Russia will depass Germany was one of the main reasons that Germany goes to war. It was afraid that wating several more years will be too late for defeating her.
This wasn't true until maybe the early 1900s (and even then, I don't think the ambition started out as wanting to carve up Russia ala Brest-Litvosk until the war itself), the Germans and the Russians were -allies- under the League of three emperors and later Bismarck's reinsurance treaty. The treaty was allowed to lapse not because Germany was growing fearful of Russia: it was because Wilhelm II saw the German diplomatic arrangement in eastern Europe as contradictory (it was guaranteeing Austria against Russia and Russia against Austria simultaneously for instance), constraining German foreign policy, and because he thought his personal relationship with the Tsar was enough to guarantee good relations. Basically the main reason why Germany and Russia fell out wasn't because of realpolitik reasons so much as it was Wilhelm II was stupid.

Had there being a continued reinsurance treaty (the russians were up for it), and no Franco-Russian entente, there is a pretty good possibility Germany wouldn't have feared Russia that much. The game changer wasn't just Russian economic development, it was Russian economic development in context of a hostile France investing into Russia and the Franco-Russian Alliance.

Basically in reality if you actually look at what political elites were thinking and doing in Europe they were not robotically playing "balance of power" games
 
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RousseauX

Donor
Italy was pretty much revisionist. It wanted back Nice and Savoy... It desired Corsica. It wanted S Tirol and Trieste. ALL of them European core lands.
This is actually true but then again: they never provoked a crisis over any of those lands either, but they did however, go to war over:

Lybia or Tunisia....
All of which are colonial in nature
 

RousseauX

Donor
The way to think of post-Bismarck German foreign policy is if Trump was German Kaiser and got to run German foreign policy: with much less constraint than the ones he currently faces in running American foreign policy
 
That's true, it's probably less trolling and more ignorance on your part. I'll give you that one


No, that's not what you said
France wanted to dissolve Germany as a -defensive- move, not because it wanted to be European hegemony
Correct I didn't say that to you, I also wasn't responding to you their

No, they didn't have the ambition to do so before 1914, which is why I keep saying 1871-1914
Again that's easy to say when they didn't have to opportunity

The balkans wasn't part of the European heartland: the Balkans -were- more like a colonial conflict than a European one. The annexation of Bosnia was the Austrians expanding into what had being the Ottoman Empire, it was colonial expansion into a collapsing empire. Note they did not challenge a traditional European heartland objective like Silesia. This proves my point: the European powers were interested in border revisions away from traditional intra-European power struggles.
I disagree with the idea of likening the expansion in the Balkans to colonial conflicts, it was a different dynamic.
Further west conflicts settled did due to political dead lock, the countries that wanted to revise borders lacked the power to do so (those being Italy and France) and the countries that had the power to didn't want to, this was the case until ww1 broke that deadlock.

The French analogue like this would be expanding into North Africa (into the collapsing Ottoman Empire) which is what they did OTL post-1871, and in neither the Balkans nor North Africa are the Germans and the French "natural" enemies in any way. In TTL, the natural French expansionist tendencies are still going to be directed towards the colonies.
Germany had no interest I the Balkans so yes they weren't enemies their but the morrocan crisis paints a different picture in North African.



But no, not really, the July crisis was over the Balkans on the imperial periphery, not the European heartland.
Then I can't but has more to do with the alliance structures at the specific time you have chose , had AH no been allied to Germany in sure tensions between AH and Italy would have flared up into something.
 
@JackLumber

look, tbh in all likelihood you are prob a pretty smart guy from just being on those boards and obviously interested in history

if you have the patience for reading, I strongly recommend The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 1/3 of the book is about French Revanchism and the mood of the French public and political elites after the 1871 defeat and how they dealt with it. If you have energy for arguments like those you are losing out on a lot of potential enjoyment by not reading more into history.
I'll add it to the list of books I want to but actually get around to reading.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
I agree a far more satisfying way for this to end would be for you to read a book and gain basic knowledge of the time period we are discussing instead of trolling people on the internet but here we are
Nope. NOPE.

Play the ball.
 

Perkeo

Banned
I don't buy France would not have been hostile to Germany if only Germany hadn't annexed A-L. They had been hostile and aggressive for centuries. Had they not been, A-L would never have become French in the first place, nor German in 1871 since there would have been no Franco-Prussian War. OTOH it was surely a bad idea to give them an excellent excuse not to change that attitude. The Germans should've foreseen that France won't be isolated forever.
 

RousseauX

Donor
I don't buy France would not have been hostile to Germany if only Germany hadn't annexed A-L. They had been hostile and aggressive for centuries. Had they not been, A-L would never have become French in the first place, nor German in 1871 since there would have been no Franco-Prussian War. OTOH it was surely a bad idea to give them an excellent excuse not to change that attitude.
Germany didn't exist before 1871 so it's pretty hard to argue that France and Germany had being hostile for centuries

There's a massive difference between French annexation of German speaking lands in the 1600s or whatever and diplomacy post-1871

I basically think the idea of inevitable and natural German-Franco amnesty is way too deterministic
The Germans should've foreseen that France won't be isolated forever.
The funny thing is I think if we got Bismarck 2.0 or something instead of Wilhelm II, there's a very good chance it could have being: Germany could have pre-empted the Franco-Russian alliance by continuing the German-Russian alliance, then Britain might have tried to better relations with Germany to peel it away from Russia (in OTL the entente cordial was about peeling France from Russia). Then France would have being isolated for decades longer.

I think a lot of the stuff about preventing German hegemony over Europe as a cause of WWI only really made sense in hindsight.
 
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Perkeo

Banned
Germany didn't exist before 1871 so it's pretty hard to argue that France and Germany had being hostile for centuries
A German nation state didn't exist before 1871, but a Germany confederation had existed continuously since the late 15th century: The HRE existed from the medieval ages until 1806. Just before its dissolution the Rheinbund was founded, which existed until 1813. Two years later the German Confederation was founded and dissolved in 1866, the year before the Norddeutscher Bund was created, who later renamed itself the Deutsches Reich.

Neither the European union nor the NATO are nations, but both do exist, don't they? And neither would forget all the past if it ever transformed into a formal nation, would they?

There's a massive difference between French annexation of German speaking lands in the 1600s or whatever and diplomacy post-1871
Of course, but France didn't stop annexing German speaking lands in the 1600s. Even the Ems Dispatch affair doesn't really make sense unless we assume that she was trying to do it again.

I basically think the idea of inevitable and natural German-Franco amnesty is way too deterministic
I didn't say it was inevitable, I said it required changes of the French attitude - not just the German - to avoid it.

The funny thing is I think if we got Bismarck 2.0 or something instead of Wilhelm II, there's a very good chance it could have being: Germany could have pre-empted the Franco-Russian alliance by continuing the German-Russian alliance, then Britain might have tried to better relations with Germany to peel it away from Russia (in OTL the entente cordial was about peeling France from Russia). Then France would have being isolated for decades longer.
As Yoda said: To a dark place this line of thought will carry us.

If Germany sides with authoritarian Russia rather than democratic France, this has some implications on the inner-German power struggle that I do not like at all. Plus, I wonder if the British strategy will side with Germany rather than Austria and the Ottoman Empire[edit: and of course France].

I think a lot of the stuff about preventing German hegemony over Europe as a cause of WWI only really made sense in hindsight.
At the very least, it makes no sense to excuse France's behavior in 1870 as a defense against a supposedly non-existent Germany. It's really a pity that they didn't ally earlier. As much as they tought their kids in school to hate each other, they had a lot of respect for each other's culture.
 
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