alternatehistory.com

Background

When the Great War broke out at the end of 1914, the German concerns regarding fighting a war with two fronts (East against Russia, West against France) were very serious, until they were quickly dissipated when the Russian Empire, after several defeats in East Prussia and Galizia, started to be devoured by a wave of strong popular discontent which led to a period of different revolutions between 1915 and 1917, and a prolonged state of civil war between the White Republicans and Lenin’s Bolsheviks. The Central Powers occupied Congress Poland permanently, but they did not intervene in the Russian Civil War at its first stage.

The virtual withdrawal of the Russians from the War by 1915 allowed Germany to focus on the West front while Austria & Hungary were fighting the Italians in the Adriatic and the Serbs in the Balkans, with the helpful support of Bulgaria. Despite the insistent British pleas, the United States, following their policies of international isolationism, refused to intervene in the Great War as long as the Central Powers did not harm their international interests. The United Kingdom occupied, one by one, all the badly protected German colonies in Africa and Asia, but could not help France to avoid German invasion in 1916, while Austria & Hungary also invaded Northern Italy with German help right afterwards.

In 1917, realizing that there was no way to win the War in the continent without the Russian or the American involvement, the United Kingdom accepted the negotiation of a treaty of peace with the Central Powers if they compromised to liberate both France and Belgium.

The Central Powers and the United Kingdom agreed on a ceasefire to be enforced from 1st December 1917 and negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Calais, which would put an end to the Great War in the West. This Treaty, signed by both parts in March 1918, established the following points:

* From the Central Powers, they compromised to:


- Liberate most of France, excepting a wide buffer area comprising from Calais to Nice. The cities of Paris and Lyon would be divided between a Central Powers’ joint administration and a Free France’s/UK administration, while the area of Calais would be declared ‘international zone’ under common administration of the powers from both sides.

- The status of the occupied areas (French buffer and Northern Italy) would be reviewed after 25 years (in 1943).

- Liberate Belgium, restore its formal independence and withdraw all the troops from there. This had to be enforced immediately after the Treaty signature.

- Liberate Serbia, Montenegro and Albania before 1930.

- Cede all the German colonies in Africa and Asia to the United Kingdom (they were actually occupied by British forces) and abandon any colonial project outside Europe.

- No economic reparations would be claimed.



* From the United Kingdom, it compromised to:


- Accept the creation of Mitteleuropa, a new international organization controlled by the Central Powers which would administrate the occupied areas in France and Italy for 25 years, as well as it would establish a new economic, trading and security model in Central Europe, tied to German/Austrian interests.

- Accept the administration of the occupied areas in the French buffer and Northern Italy by Mitteleuropa for the following 25 years.

- Accept the incorporation of Romania and Belgium to Mitteleuropa; in the later case, its pre-War neutrality would be officially revoked. Accept other continental states incorporations ‘if they do it by their own interests’ (however, Norway was explicitly vetoed by the UK).

- Recognize the new borders of Romania (it had annexed Bessarabia after Bulgaria incorporated the Romanian Dobrudja) and Bulgaria (including all Macedonia and Dobrudja).

- Withdraw any British involvement in the Russian Civil War.

- No economic reparations would be claimed.

Once the Great War was over in the West and in the Balkans, the Central Powers launched a large-scale invasion of the ravaged western Russia and Ukraine. The White-controlled areas fell under the military occupation, but the Bolsheviks managed to halt the German advance towards Moscow (Saint Petersburg had been occupied though). A fragile ceasefire was agreed between the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks in the autumn of 1919 and the Bursow-Klimensky line was then fixed as an unofficial border between the former Russian territories now occupied by the Central Powers and the newly created Soviet Republic of Russia.

With the Great War also deactivated in the East (though not officially ended), the Central Powers demobilized their armies (excepting the ordinaty garrisons assigned to the administration of the occupied territories) and focused on the reorganization of their newly acquired political, economic and military sphere.

The first Mitteleuropa organization was topped by the German Empire, the Empire of Austria & Hungary and the Tsardom of Bulgaria, as the victorious powers after the Great War. Under their common influence, there were two kind of ‘associated’ members: the ones still militarily occupied by the Powers (Serbia, Montenegro and Albania) and the ‘free’ states, which in reality all of them were either explicitly forced to join by the peace treaties (Belgium and Romania) or more subtly coerced to join (the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Denmark joined between 1919 and 1924).

It was expected that the new countries to be formed out from the area conquered from Russia (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine…) would also join Mitteleuropa in the future, but the chaotic situation caused there by the Russian Civil War and its aftermath prevented it for many years after the end of the Great War. The first Mitteleuropa was officially in charge of the administration of the occupied territories in France, Italy and Russia, even if de facto Germany administered the occupied France, Austria & Hungary the occupied Italy and the two Powers the occupied Russia together.

However, the first years of relative peace in the continent will prove that the authoritarian model imposed by the German leaders to the rest of members of Mitteleuropa would not work. The economic prosperity brought by the post-war industrial boom was not matched by the conquest of more political and social freedom and the level of frustration gradually rose in the emerging urban middle-classes across the Mitteleuropa sphere.


* Map of Mitteleuropa in 1925:

Mittel_00.png

Red: Areas occupied by Germany.
Dark purple: Countries and areas occupied by A & H.
Light purple: 'Free' associated members.
Dark green: Areas annexed by Bulgaria.
Top