To what degree would Roosevelt and Churchill pursue war against a non Nazi Germany?

I disagree. At the absolute minimum the lead-up to WW1 started the moment the League of the Three Emperors broke up giving the opening for France to successfully approach Russia, the Entente Cordiale was the prelude and in 1907 the Anglo-Russian Entente to the Triple Entente was the confirmation at which point a war happening was almost inevitable, best you can really do at that point absent flukes is keep it restricted to four countries(Austria-Hungary, France, Germany and Russia). If Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia had stayed allied whatever WW1 equivalent, if one happened at all, would be wildly different.

Oh it is a possibility sure, just one I deem so utterly unlikely that I don't really feel it makes the position of conflict any less certain. Countries just don't agree to solve things like that even today and pretty much every factor is far better much less at that point in time.

France and Germany though Austria-Hungary and Russia is an interesting one that I don't think I have ever seen either.
 

Deleted member 94680

France and Germany though Austria-Hungary and Russia is an interesting one that I don't think I have ever seen either.

Oh anything after 1871 involving a Franco-German alliance is ASB, to be sure.

Yeah, I was reading (I think) The Fall of the House of Habsburg by Edward Crankshaw where he makes the point that a Austro-Russian alliance was the "obvious" solution to both country's needs. Provided they can carve the Balkans into mutually agreed spheres of influence, there's no reason for it not to work. Russia wants the straits, Austria wants a port further into the Adriatic (usually listed as Durres, but I've also seen Salonica mentioned) if the Russians drop Serbia and re-patronise Bulgaria it seems a win-win. Both can help suppressing the other's internal issues (Slavic or Polish/Ukrainian agitation) as well.
 
We've gotten way off the OP here, but the OP presented an absurdity anyways. I don't think it's even likely that a non-Hitler leader would have deferred the Danzig issue as long as he did, for starters.
 
Ok, that's going a little far. All Imperial Germany did in WWI was back up their Austrian Allies. Serbia started the war, and the first offensives were by the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Balkans.

Did Germany go through Belgium? Yes, but that doesn't net them the Blame for the Entire Thing. Even if they hadn't attacked through Belgium, Britain probably would have entered the War anyway, just a little later. They couldn't risk being frozen out of an eventual peace settlement, France and Russia were always going to Join, France Because of it's Alliance with Russia and Russia because of it's alliance with Serbia. The Violation of Belgian Neutrality wouldn't have changed that if it hadn't happened.

If you want to Blame Anyone for WWI, Blame Serbian Intelligence and Franz Joseph of Austro-Hungary, not Germany. Even Wilson Understood that much. . .

Yeah no that is just flat out ridiculous. Austria-Hungary and Russia conflicting over the Balkans was the immediate reason something would eventually blow up, Germany and France backing either are the reason such conflict has greater repercussions and Britain is the reason a war was inevitable, with the Ottomans just kinda going along the ride and the USA entering due to money.

No country can be blamed for WW1 all the first five sharing the guilty. With perhaps France and Germany having the least for being the only ones with actual serious issues unresolved.

Germany actively and affirmatively encouraged Austria-Hungary to go to war for the explicit reason that they expected a general war to result and thought they were more prepared at that moment than France and Russia. They wanted war with the Entente and actively tried to make it happen. Then when they got it they invaded a neutral country, murdered tens of thousands of its citizens, and otherwise stomped all over international norms by introducing lethal gas (yes, the allies did it later, too, but when countries violate any part of the Geneva Conventions they lose those protections), torpedoing hospital ships, etc.

The Entente side wasn't perfectly clean but there was a definite right and wrong to the conflict. Claiming otherwise is like the Putin apologists who go, "Sure, the Kremlin launched an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country that has killed nearly ten thousand people but there are some far-right militias on the Ukrainian side and Petro Poroshenko said something racist once, so everybody's equal!"

Britain would have gotten involved regardless once it was clear the war wouldn't be over by christmas. Britain couldn't afford to not have a say in the shape of the Post War Europe.

I can't definitely disprove that but what we know is that the Kaiserreich invaded a neutral country and then killed tens of thousands of civilians there for good measure. Britain only declared war at that point, and actual historical fact beats hypotheticals when they come into conflict.
 
Oh anything after 1871 involving a Franco-German alliance is ASB, to be sure.

Yeah, I was reading (I think) The Fall of the House of Habsburg by Edward Crankshaw where he makes the point that a Austro-Russian alliance was the "obvious" solution to both country's needs. Provided they can carve the Balkans into mutually agreed spheres of influence, there's no reason for it not to work. Russia wants the straits, Austria wants a port further into the Adriatic (usually listed as Durres, but I've also seen Salonica mentioned) if the Russians drop Serbia and re-patronise Bulgaria it seems a win-win. Both can help suppressing the other's internal issues (Slavic or Polish/Ukrainian agitation) as well.
Yep, didn't even bother trying to search for the topic since I was sure I wasn't going to find anything.

I think on their side the greatest hurdle is agreeing to a division, probably works better earlier on having committed less, can't imagine them not almost coming to blows a few times before things settle down even with the leadership on both sides invested in the alliance. Afterwards though there is a serious problem in that any of their enemies would end up trying to destabilize the region and it is the Balkans, even two great powers working together are not going to make it stable any time soon.
 
Back to the OP. Yes, if Germany had acted as aggressively as it did in OTL, Nazis or not, war was inevitable. As others have pointed out, WWII wasn't a crusade against fascism at least initially. It was a war against a power that routinely flouted international concerns for it's own gain. The Entente saw Kasierriech 2.0 in Nazi Germany and they were determined to nip German militarism in the bud. The objectives and reasons would be the same, all the horrors of the Nazi regime only really became apparent as the war was entering its final stages. What you are proposing was essentially what the Anglo-French thought Nazi Germany was. The holocaust and everything else was just a horrific concession prize...
 
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The Entente side wasn't perfectly clean but there was a definite right and wrong to the conflict. Claiming otherwise is like the Putin apologists who go, "Sure, the Kremlin launched an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country that has killed nearly ten thousand people but there are some far-right militias on the Ukrainian side and Petro Poroshenko said something racist once, so everybody's equal!"

Funny, but I don't remember the Ukrainians pushing to annex large sections of Russia and letting their intelligence service sponsor assassinations of Russian officials towards that end. These things get lost in the shuffle, I guess.
 
The Serbian and Russian culpability for Franz Ferdinand assassination and the general malaise of state-sponsored terrorism is unjustifiably ignored. Austria's "ultimatum" likewise is overly exaggerated, likely due (again) to Entente Propaganda. Frankly Speaking I hold Russia to be the most culpable of the involved great powers; as the most directly revisionist (unlike Grrmany, A-H and to an extent Britain, which largely were satisfied with the starush quo) and expansionist towards the balkans, with a longstanding policy goal of annexing the straits (which has many parallels with Soviet and contemporary Russian policies.. they established an environment where in the Serbian government felt as if it could actually with impunity. Russias allies- Britain and France- encouraged this adventurism for their own goals, France for her revan check Britain because a European oriented Russia is a Russia that does not challenge her in Asia. The Czar likewise found, post russo-Japanese war, that the Balkans were the natural outlet for his ambitions. Russian mobilization was ultimately yhe trigger for the conflict; Germany, under obligation to defend her ally from unwarranted Russian aggression. Russias intervention in the Serbian conflict was a highly dubious and "criminal" act in and of itself, and far and away the single most direct cause of the conflict's escalation. Whether or not the Sarajevo band were directly tied to the Serbian state, the Serbs had deliberately aided and abetted nationalist groups at an arms length, precisely to have their cake- a nationalist war of "liberation" and eat it- have plausible deniability when something like the assassination occured. Austria refusing to allow Serbia to maintain sole oversight of the investigation was entirely warranted, indeed Austrian demands werected not less harsh than the NATO demands levels to yugoslavia prior to the 1993 intervention, and again the depiction of the poor Serbs unjustifable subject to Habsburg yoke is a decidedly slanted view of the events of 1914.

German "miltiarism" is IMHO overstated. Germany was no more or less nationalist or sanguinary about the prospect of war as any other great state of the time, nor any more or less guilty of leveraging her power to force the arms of lesser nations, Belgium included cf Greece or Versailles annexations in the Levant. Great powers do as they will, and have done so since the days of the Athenians and Medes; for the likes of Great Britain, at the height of her empire, to decry German imperialism is rank hypocrisy.

To the extent that a revanchist German government would invariably seek annexation in the east and union with Austria the potential for conflict remains regardless of the regime in Bslrin- indeed a republican government would probably be even less compromising with Poland. However as this government would be (presumably) more "reasonable" in its demands the lead up to war might be avoided, as the Anglo sphere countries in particular felt that Germany was (justifiably) seeking her due as part of the European community. Hitler exploited this feeling of regret over Versailles as well as general reluctance to engage in another round of bloodletting to extract his initial demands.
 
Funny, but I don't remember the Ukrainians pushing to annex large sections of Russia and letting their intelligence service sponsor assassinations of Russian officials towards that end. These things get lost in the shuffle, I guess.

The line during the July Crisis came when the Austro-Hungarians sent an ultimatum whose conditions were so harsh that no nation state that wished to remain independent could accept them. That was the intention; it was specifically designed to provoke a war. Even then the Serbians accepted all but half of one of the conditions, the one about allowing Austro-Hungarian police to operate throughout their country. They agreed to arrest everyone who participated in the plot and a host of other things as well.

Consciously fanning the flames of a regional crisis for the explicit purpose of causing a continental war after the other side already swallowed an extremely harsh set of conditions that any rational, fair-minded arbiter would have considered sufficient to resolve the situation turns you from the aggrieved into the aggressor.
 
The line during the July Crisis came when the Austro-Hungarians sent an ultimatum whose conditions were so harsh that no nation state that wished to remain independent could accept them. That was the intention; it was specifically designed to provoke a war. Even then the Serbians accepted all but half of one of the conditions, the one about allowing Austro-Hungarian police to operate throughout their country. They agreed to arrest everyone who participated in the plot and a host of other things as well.

The condition that was rejected was the ones that could ensure compliance, however, so prevarication on that "minor detail" was rather important. Considering that the Serbian army had only three shells per regiment per day or some such terrible number during the July Crisis, they had every incentive in the world to stall for time, and given both the Russian ambassador's entreaties to stand firm, plus the French Prime Minister's declaration that his country would support Serbia regardless of any investigation results, the Austrians had no reason to trust the Serbs or their patrons. And that's a general point: it's stupid to talk about blank checks from Germany to Austria-Hungary, when France and Russia were both just as explicit in their unconditional defense of Serbia, and the French even believed themselves to have a similarly unconditional guarantee from Britain. The truth of that matter was more complicated, but they believed it, which caused Sir Edward to do his utmost to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. So in the end, singling out a single country for culpability elides the larger reality that although some countries may have acted more provocatively than others during the crisis, all of them saw going to war as preferable to not going to war, and none of them trusted the other side to conduct diplomacy in good faith. For good reason, given the way they conspired against each other.

Consciously fanning the flames of a regional crisis for the explicit purpose of causing a continental war after the other side already swallowed an extremely harsh set of conditions that any rational, fair-minded arbiter would have considered sufficient to resolve the situation turns you from the aggrieved into the aggressor.

The regional crisis in question was caused by a Serbian military officer who had the explicit goal of causing a continental war in which his country could annex Bosnia, so any steps exacerbating said crisis, while unhelpful, can only be called reactionary.
 
Funny, but I don't remember the Ukrainians pushing to annex large sections of Russia and letting their intelligence service sponsor assassinations of Russian officials towards that end. These things get lost in the shuffle, I guess.

Even if we say the Serbian government is responsible for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand (which is highly debatable)...
...that the motive of the assassination was to start a war (which is outright false)...
...and that none of the Central Powers were guilty of similar actions against neighboring states (also false)...

...that alone still couldn't determine war guilt, let alone determine the morality of the war. The final decision for war was made by the Central Powers in general and Austria in particular. And the Central Powers' appalling conduct and appalling plans cannot be erased from the picture.
 
Even if we say the Serbian government is responsible for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand (which is highly debatable)...
...that the motive of the assassination was to start a war (which is outright false)...
...and that none of the Central Powers were guilty of similar actions against neighboring states (also false)...

...that alone still couldn't determine war guilt, let alone determine the morality of the war. The final decision for war was made by the Central Powers in general and Austria in particular. And the Central Powers' appalling conduct and appalling plans cannot be erased from the picture.

And if you'll refer to my follow-up post, I reject the notion of war guilt as something that applies to one party when all parties were of a mindset that, for reasons both political and military (the general belief that mobilization had to be done quickly lest one be attacked unprepared), found war preferable to peace. Also, I worded that post to avoid making accusations that "the Serbian government" generally was party to the assassination, or that the murder itself was intended to start a war, merely that the organization responsible was led by a Serbian officer (true), and that said organization desired the annexation of Bosnia, by force if necessary (also true, I think). And in any case, actions by Austria-Hungary in other contexts add to the climate of distrust, but unlike the Black Hand, they cannot be considered proximate causes for the July Crisis.
 
If anything, rather than having the blame fall squarely on Germany's shoulders, it would make more sense for it to fall on the Russians and French as well. With regards to Belgium, if the Germans hadn't invaded, the French would've - given how revanchist France was after 1871, I highly doubt they'll be content with a "You shall not pass". As for Russia, they egged on Serbia the same way the Germans egged on Austria, hence, they are both to blame.
 
I personally blame France for the massive scope of the war, Austria for incompetently allowing the situation to even become a crisis, Russia for Escalating the Crisis and Germany for allowing itself to end up in such a poor diplomatic position that it essentially had to back Vienna.
 

longsword14

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If anything, rather than having the blame fall squarely on Germany's shoulders, it would make more sense for it to fall on the Russians and French as well. With regards to Belgium, if the Germans hadn't invaded, the French would've - given how revanchist France was after 1871, I highly doubt they'll be content with a "You shall not pass". As for Russia, they egged on Serbia the same way the Germans egged on Austria, hence, they are both to blame.
About France invading Belgium : Go read some sources, Joffre had strict orders not to enter Belgium unless attacked by Germany first.
 
Belgian neutrality is far less important than Russian mobilization insofar as "causing" the wars' outbreak. "War guilt" is not tied to being morally culpable in general, no more than the Nazis being mass murderers was the lwgal casus belli for the Second World War, it is merely the post facto justification in popular consciousness, which naturally depicts the struggle in Manichean terms rather than the starkly geopolitical outlook of contemporary actors in the crises.

Any scenario where Russia gets involved automatically means France and Germany get involved as well, by stint of their respective treaties and geopolitical positions. Russia's actions are the most immediately responsible for the Third Balkans war becoming the First World War.
 
Well, Roosevelt had contempt for Germany in general and would probably still ask for nothing but unconditional surrender. Churchill would be more willing for peace but he would still ask for harsh terms for the war to end.
 
About France invading Belgium : Go read some sources, Joffre had strict orders not to enter Belgium unless attacked by Germany first.

This was a direct rexult of France desperately trying to get Britain in the ear. Greys party was not monolithic; they needed Germany to do something like the Belgian invasion to have even a chance of making that happen.
 

longsword14

Banned
This was a direct rexult of France desperately trying to get Britain in the ear
Doubt that, the diplomatic furor over it was not worth the military gains. This was a point in French military circles even when (before 1914) Britain's involvement on land was a distant idea at best. The Germans were kind enough to oblige.
 
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