Red Germany 1918?

So I have an idea for a timeline that might be plausible and I need input.

POD is 1914 and I think that it should be Liebknecht leading the Social Democrats to vote against the war, leading to the banning of the party by the Kaiser who believes national unity will keep dissent against this minimal. With no legitimate party, many former SDs join the Communists and build a far larger base for revolution.

So the war goes on pretty much OTL, until the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the Americans joining the war incites the reds in Germany to rise up in December 1917. With the army tied down on both fronts, Berlin is taken swiftly and chaos ensues throughout Germany. The Eastern front crumbles on both sides, with mass desertions and many soldiers wreaking havoc in the occupied areas. The war is still officially on, but many don't know who is in charge.

On the Western Front, things are more simple for the soldiers. Due to shorter communication lines, the army is still intact, but near mutinous due to worries about home. Command has a serious problem, however, with revolutionaries starting to occupy factories supplying their armies, they either have to move forward the Spring Offensive and hope it works, or sue for peace and hope the army doesn't mutiny when set upon their fellow citizens.

There's much dithering and hesitation in German command until the Kaiser shows up at the front lines, smuggled from Berlin. When the Kaiser orders arrangements to be made for unconditional surrender, Erich Ludendorff arrests him and orders the Offensive to begin in a desperate bid gain a fair peace before the revolution gains momentum.

While the offensive to Paris is underway(late December 1917-January 1918), the revolution is crushed in the Rhineland, but is successful in Bavaria and Brandenburg. The rest of Germany is in turmoil, with revolutionaries often isolated and disorganized against the military police.

In February the offensive continues, with massive losses on both sides. To prevent mutiny in the German army, corporal punishment for even slight offenses is common. The Eastern Front has almost completely dissolved, with what remains of the organized German army heading back to Germany under orders from Ludendorff. The Bolsheviks are thus more successful without as many Germans to help the Whites and no opposition due to seeking peace. The Revolution in Germany starts getting more organized, with the People's Socialist Republic of Germany proclaimed in Munich. The Reds have taken Saxony, connecting their holdings, and there's a Red offensive into Hannover.

By March Ludendorff's offensive fails, with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides. The army has mutinied and the Entente isn't sure who to talk to since the Kaiser, Ludendorff, and Hindenburg are all missing. General Oskar von Hutier negotiates an unconditional surrender at Marnes-la-Coquette, giving the Entente permission to fight the communists at home. The terms are largely irrelevant, as the Communists have taken almost all of Germany, and the Imperial government consists mainly of commissioned officers and diplomats.

In April 1918, the Allies are moving into the Rhineland encountering heavy resistance. There are many voices at home, too, wondering if the war is over, then why aren't the boys coming home? There are strikes in solidarity in Britain and the US, while there's uprisings in Paris and Lyon that are crushed, but not quickly.

So what does AH.com think? I know there are a ton of things that I didn't mention, like Austria-Hungary, but there's only so much I can put in one post.:D
 

MSZ

Banned
The general idea of a stronger red revolution in Germany being the result of SPD voting against the war and operating in hiding building strength is a good one, but assuming that it would lead to a revolution taking place earlier and more than that actually succeeding is kind of a long shot. Them being stronger and starting a revolution one month after soviet one is not going to make a dolchstosslegende, it is going to be real stab in the back and make a lot of moderates/undecided become very anti-communist. Plus a grand offensive in the west with a revolution in the country and without the reinforcements from the east is not going to happen at all.

Ludendorf arresting the Kaiser? That seems kind of out of character for him, not to mention illegal. That would be more likely to spark a real-deal civil war in the army than a bunch of thugs waving red banners in Berlin.
 
Thanks for the input. The revolution seemed well-timed when I wrote it, but immediately after the treaty of Versailles seems more likely now. I believe I'll make the Bolsheviks less peace-friendly, though. They should have extensive contacts in Germany telling them Revolution is close. This should complicate Versailles, though.
 

MSZ

Banned
Thanks for the input. The revolution seemed well-timed when I wrote it, but immediately after the treaty of Versailles seems more likely now. I believe I'll make the Bolsheviks less peace-friendly, though. They should have extensive contacts in Germany telling them Revolution is close. This should complicate Versailles, though.

Post-Versailles or post-ceasefire, right in November 1918. And contacts with the Russian bolsheviks wouldn't necesserly be close - they weren't exactly with the reds in Hungary or Bulgaria. Whoever would lead the German Communists would most likely have his/her own ideas about how marxism was to work. Cooperation between them right from the start isn't exactly very plausible, both having troubles at home to attend to before they can get involved elsewhere.
 
Ludendorf arresting the Kaiser? That seems kind of out of character for him, not to mention illegal. That would be more likely to spark a real-deal civil war in the army than a bunch of thugs waving red banners in Berlin.


Wouldn't that be a boon to a communist revolution succeeding in the Interwar Period, if the German Army tears itself apart in the final phases of the Great War by fighting between Pro and Anti Treaty factions? If the prestige and power of the German military is smashed and veterans are more likely to fight each other than form large and unified freekorps, won't that aid the revolution?
 
There was a revolution in Germany in November 1918 that very nearly succeeded in establishing a socialist state. It only failed because the moderate SPD leadership decided to crack down on the workers' councils. Had Ebert et al come down on the side of the workers and USPD, there would have been a Red Germany, one looking very different from what the USSR turned out to be. Instead he decided to unleash the Freikorps and start a civil war that crushed the workers and resulted in thousands of deaths. The split in the left cause by the SPD leadership during the revolution was crippling and led directly to Hitler taking power.

So change Ebert's mind about some things and you get a Red Germany at the end of WWI.
 
There was a revolution in Germany in November 1918 that very nearly succeeded in establishing a socialist state. It only failed because the moderate SPD leadership decided to crack down on the workers' councils. Had Ebert et al come down on the side of the workers and USPD, there would have been a Red Germany, one looking very different from what the USSR turned out to be. Instead he decided to unleash the Freikorps and start a civil war that crushed the workers and resulted in thousands of deaths. The split in the left cause by the SPD leadership during the revolution was crippling and led directly to Hitler taking power.

So change Ebert's mind about some things and you get a Red Germany at the end of WWI.
Or the Freikorps unleash themselves, even without his orders...
 

RousseauX

Donor
December 1917 is way too early for a revolution.

At the time American presence in Europe was not serious, the Russians had just done the equivalent of capitulation, in other words: Germany was winning the war a the moment. Revolutions are not borne out of victories.

A year later: December 1918 though: had the full potential for a Communist Germany.
 

MSZ

Banned
Wouldn't that be a boon to a communist revolution succeeding in the Interwar Period, if the German Army tears itself apart in the final phases of the Great War by fighting between Pro and Anti Treaty factions? If the prestige and power of the German military is smashed and veterans are more likely to fight each other than form large and unified freekorps, won't that aid the revolution?

A sudden 'internal civil war' between.... I don't even know what the sides of such a civil war in Germany would be. Monarchists against Republicans? Pro-ending war against Pro-continuing war? Ludendorfists against Loyalists? No idea how that would work. Such a sudden conflict would certainly make the KPD more popular, especially if they took the stance of being against the war in the first place: "Look, now that the war abroad is ending the capitalists want working people to kill themselves at home, lets end this!". I could imagine some councils or even communes forming, with returning soldiers, uncertain who they ought to support in the conflict, deciding to support themselves, return home and point their gun at anyone approaching their city/village - the communists taking advantage of such a sentiment. So it could aid the revolutionaries in Germany. But not outside Germany. There was a significant difference in the revolutionary sentiment between peoples who had their own state and those who didn't. Everyone wanted a better life, future and 'change'. But for Germans, Austrians, Bulgarians, Hungarians 'change' meant destroying the old regime which brought them to defeat - communist revolutionaries could benefit from that. On the other hand Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Lithuanians and others - for them 'change' meant establishing a state - not destroying it. This led to an immidiate conflict with the communists as their agendas were contrary to popular wishes, even of the workers and peasants, forcing them to crawl to Moscow for aid in invading others. So collapsing the Ober-Ost would not aid the revolution in non-Germans area, as doing so would mean that those German soldiers there could not spread it - they would fighting at home.
 
Expect things to get bloody, real fast. If the HSF is stil in German hands, also expect a naval battle between Britain and the (German) Red Fleet.
 
What I think might work is to take the typical "Warsaw falls", but rather than having the French decide to reward the Germans for aiding and abetting the collapse of the Polish state, have them move into the Ruhr as they planned, while German strikers stop aid from reaching Poland.

Things escalate like in 1923, but it ends with Germany going Red. Adenauer gets his Rhenish state, but from the Rhine to the Pacific, the Communists are triumphant.

I second Magnificate's recommendation.
 
Really the best way to go about it would be to have the POD a bit earlier. If Liebknecht and Luxemburg make more of an effort to develop a base in the SPD against Kautsky and then Liebknecht takes the reins of the party after Bebel's death in 1913, you have a much better chance of getting the party to go against the war in 1914. You'd probably have a right-wing, pro-war split in the party, with a number of the trade unions, Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske, Haase et al. going over to a pro-war party.

An uprising should be later than December 1917 - Liebknecht and Luxemburg were generally not prone to precipitate actions (the Spartacist revolt was forced on them), it still wouldn't happen until the mass anti-war strikes of 1918 that IOTL led to the formation of the Weimar Republic.
 
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