What if? What if WW1 had never been fought?

What If? What If The Great War had never happened? Austria-Hungary never split into multiple countries, and the Ottoman Empire didn't fall, Germany didn't lose territory, and Imperial Russia still existed?
My Prediction is there wouldn't be a world war in 1939 or an aggressive Nazi Germany at all.
 

mowque

Banned
Good prediction. Butterflies will prevent all that stuff. Now, however, we will have new issues, wars and events.
 
There are many threads like this. The search function is your friend.
None that i could find. after about 12 pages of search results i just said "screw it." and posted this.
Another prediction, Italy wouldn't have become fascist under Mussolini, and the USA would be more active in world politics. (due to post-ww1 isolationism not existing)
 

mowque

Banned
None that i could find. after about 12 pages of search results i just said "screw it." and posted this.
Another prediction, Italy wouldn't have become fascist under Mussolini, and the USA would be more active in world politics. (due to post-ww1 isolationism not existing)

Right again. Butterflies change all this. However, I'd argue the second point. America wasn't very isolationist in the 20's. The Washington Naval treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the VAST extension of international business. It is something of a overestimation to say the USA was isolationist. And why would a lack of heavy involvement in Europe cause us to be MORE active? :confused:
 
Right again. Butterflies change all this. However, I'd argue the second point. America wasn't very isolationist in the 20's. The Washington Naval treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the VAST extension of international business. It is something of a overestimation to say the USA was isolationist. And why would a lack of heavy involvement in Europe cause us to be MORE active? :confused:
just after WW1 the US went into diplomatic isolationism, due to the somewhat heavy manpower losses and witnessing the horrors of WW1.
If that never happened, we wouldn't have been like that, the interventionist policy would still be standing.
 
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just after WW1 the US went into diplomatic isolationism, due to the somewhat heavy manpower losses and witnessing the horrors of WW1.
If that never happened, we wouldn't have been like that, the interventionist policy would still be standing.

Maybe, maybe not, depends on what the POD is. The United States was isolationist because it wanted to make lots of money, but if something threatens our interests in far away foreign places we're still going to get involved. We still had a good sized navy, granted not as large as if we had intervened, but still pretty large. And if anything happened that we didn't take a pining too, I think it would be safe to assume someone like Wilson would send in the big guns (I'm not really an expert in this area at all though.
 

mowque

Banned
just after WW1 the US went into diplomatic isolationism, due to the somewhat heavy manpower losses and witnessing the horrors of WW1.
If that never happened, we wouldn't have been like that, the interventionist policy would still be standing.

I just provided evidence that the USA did NOT go into diplomatic isolation. They did avoid joining the League but that was more due to Wilson's own issues then any innate isolationistic stance. It was, in my opinion, not till the Great Depression that isolationism really took off. In many ways WW1 opened America's eyes to the outside world, and not all was negative, to quote a popular song at the time

"How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'"

Note- List of American interventions before the Great Depression but after WW1.

Turkey, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, China (three times), and El Salvador.
 
I just provided evidence that the USA did NOT go into diplomatic isolation. They did avoid joining the League but that was more due to Wilson's own issues then any innate isolationistic stance. It was, in my opinion, not till the Great Depression that isolationism really took off. In many ways WW1 opened America's eyes to the outside world, and not all was negative, to quote a popular song at the time

"How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'"

Note- List of American interventions before the Great Depression but after WW1.

Turkey, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, China (three times), and El Salvador.
Hmmm, I was taught in history that the USA went into Diplomatic Isolation after the end of WWI, Maybe they didn't, Textbooks can be wrong, but i don't know you, so...
Anyways, Spain would probably still had a Civil War in '36, but most of Europe would have intervened, to protect their own interests.
So the war would have ended waaaay faster, instead of ending in '39
now im thinking about the poor Czech and Slovaks, never given independence :( poor wierd Czech people.
 
Hmmm, I was taught in history that the USA went into Diplomatic Isolation after the end of WWI, Maybe they didn't, Textbooks can be wrong, but i don't know you, so...
Anyways, Spain would probably still had a Civil War in '36, but most of Europe would have intervened, to protect their own interests.
So the war would have ended waaaay faster, instead of ending in '39
now im thinking about the poor Czech and Slovaks, never given independence :( poor wierd Czech people.

But if your postulating a TL where WW1 never happened why would they go into isolation?
 

mowque

Banned
Hmmm, I was taught in history that the USA went into Diplomatic Isolation after the end of WWI, Maybe they didn't, Textbooks can be wrong, but i don't know you, so..

What does knowing me have to do with it? I think the list of interventions + this list of treaties show that while the USA wasn't nearly as active as the period after WW2 (but who was), it was still not very isolationistic until the Great depression.


1922 – Washington Naval Treaty – limits the naval armaments race, supplement to restrict submarine warfare and ban chemical warfare was rejected by France.
1923 – Treaty of Lausanne – sets the boundaries of modern Turkey
1925 - Anglo-American Convention - American acceptance of the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine and supervision of British performance as mandatory of the Mandate for Palestine.
1928 – Kellogg-Briand Pact – calls "for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy"
1929 – Third Geneva Convention – establishes rules for the treatment of prisoners of war
1930 – London Naval Treaty – regulates submarine warfare and shipbuilding
 
What does knowing me have to do with it?
Because your a random stranger on the internet. i believe you, but we will probably NEVER know what really happened, considering damn-near no one who was 15+ in the 20s is still alive.
Anyways, what about the Chinese civil war? would it still have happened?
Most likely not, but would the Republic of China have stood more of a chance had European powers intervened?
My Prediction: Chinese civil begins, Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Germany send forces and supplies to China, to fight off the Communists and win the war, To protect their own interests of course. (did ANYONE fight for a reason besides the stuff they want?)
 
He is arguing that the USA will not go into any type of isolation. I'm arguing that WW1, if anything, helped us out of isolationism.

Historically, the US was never isolationalist, that is definitely a historical myth. Aside from the international treaties mentioned above there were international organizations it was a member of. The important thing is that the US looked after its own interests and became involved when it deemed fit.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Yes, of the empires you mentioned the Ottomans would be in the best position. They just need to get rid of that useless dictatorship and enter a Third Constitutional Era.

Austria- Hungary will have huge problems with Czechs, Poles, Croats, Italians and all the other ethnic groups will demand autonomy or even independence (although they'll probably start with autonomy). Neither the Austrian Germans and certainly not the Magyars would be willing to give them anything.

Russia will have problems with the rising demands of the working classes and the unwillingness of the elite and the Czar to reform. Imperial Russia would have to reform, but with those persons in charge things could not end well. Also, the different ethnic groups on the western edge of the empire more and more had already started to demand independence.
 
I just provided evidence that the USA did NOT go into diplomatic isolation. They did avoid joining the League but that was more due to Wilson's own issues then any innate isolationistic stance. It was, in my opinion, not till the Great Depression that isolationism really took off. In many ways WW1 opened America's eyes to the outside world, and not all was negative, to quote a popular song at the time

"How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'".


Though the song is a trifle misleading. Americans had been moving from farm to city for years, and the 1920 Census would show town dwellers outnumbering countryfolk for the first time - and far too soon for the sight of "Paree" to have had much impact yet.

The growth of wartime industries may have accelerated the process a mite, but it was already well under way.
 
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