What kinds of sensitive issues would emerge in a Central Powers victory?
- Thread starter Caravels of Portugal
- Start date
Well, there were also the shooting of civilians, and all the rest of the war crimes Germany committed in Belgium.
The Entente press certainly gilded the lily in publicising it, but Germany wasn't exactly blameless here.
Except that Germany unilaterally invaded Belgium. IOTL, they got the consequence. ITTL, they would have been rewarded, and similar behaviours would have been encouraged down the road.
Add to that, Germany also did scorched earth when withdrawing.
I don't deny that, but this thread is about what happens after CP victory, once peace comes Germany won't be shelling medieval churches and shooting 'francs tireur' suspects.
This thread is about what happens after CP victory, atrocities and scorched earth withdrawal are the stuff of war not peace.
After a victory and the arrival of peace, by definition, the fighting ends (apart from the atrocities certain to be committed during occupation - and the chances of Germany giving up Belgium in a peace agreement is essentially zero if they have a victory. By 1917, retaining Belgium had become part of its war aims. I digress).
If you reference "during fighting", then you must expect people to comment on events that take place "during fighting". If your first response to comments about events that took place during fighting is to deny that you were talking about "during fighting", despite the plain evidence, then debate is futile.
And this very specifically points out the consequences of a peace that rewarded the atrocities committed by Germany on Belgium. It can't just be dismissed with an airy:
@NedStark specifically stated that the consequence would have been that such behaviour would have been encouraged. By any sane debate, that's the stuff of the aftermath of the war. One might argue that a German victory on the foundation of atrocities wouldn't lead to that type of behaviour being encouraged, but dismissing it as not being relevant to the topic being discussed is unworthy of you.
Unless there are German Troops retaking those areas, there is zero percent chance of the Japanese giving them up at the Peace Talks to end hostilities.
It would be the first modern 'Frozen Conflict'
Tbf, the Entente violated Greek neutrality too. International law only matters as far as it benefits the dominant faction in the world. There's countless examples before and since the Great War of great powers stomping on international law and suffering no repercussions.
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There have been enough WW1 threads here for me to know that this is where the War Guilt, proto-Nazi argument starts. While I admit that the bad things done during the war will leave bitterness they will not drive German politics of the 20s.
Or to put it another way Germany will not genocide Belgium in the 20s because of what happened in the 1914 offensive.
Jews and the subjects of colonies. Without ww2 things like Anti Semitism and Scientific Racism are more are not rendered socially unacceptable nor are the conditions for the end of Colonialism set up.
Let's pick a PoD first; the 1917 mutinies. In this universe, some soldiers around the Rheims area don't just mutiny, they march with their hands in the air towards the German lines and surrender, telling all. A small gap opens up which allows German infantry to move into what is left of Rhiems, and threatens the line of communication between Petain and Duchene. News travels along the line in the area and an order for an orderly retreat is not observed by all the units in the area. A combination of mutinous units prefering their chances in German captivity, units forced to pull back by their mates giving up, and some soldiers actively shooting their officers causes a general breakdown in the area. Through handwavium, this then leads to a retreat to the Marne, and London is presented with the possibility that continued German advances will leave the BEF surrounded, and after the French army is clearly no longer willing to resist, the BEF are safely evacuated, along with the Belgian army and royalty, who stay in exile in Britain. Britain eventually signs a 'white' peace, but probably holds on to those colonies it has pinched liberated.
Germany is likely to occupy Belgium, both as conquest and to deny the channel ports to Britain should she attempt to land again. The U-boat war will continue, and the bases on the Flemish coast will make the issue more and more difficult for Britain. If the USA comes in, it will have to land in Italy, where the geography makes a breakthrough unlikely, so we can assume the Italian front does not recieve reinforcement. Sacroegoismo would suggest that the Italians would at this point cut their losses, but I don't think this would be politically very popular. Fortunately, Austria in 1917 was desperately short of food and looking for a way out, and would be likely to sign anything the Italians offered by way of peace. Russia's provisional government will not be able to continue without a Western front, and is likely to sign terms fairly quickly. While the military won't have marched as far into Russia as in our time, Germany is still likely to insist on terms similar to Brest-Litovsk, and Russia, for sake of argument, concedes.
Issues:
Germany is likely to occupy Belgium, both as conquest and to deny the channel ports to Britain should she attempt to land again. The U-boat war will continue, and the bases on the Flemish coast will make the issue more and more difficult for Britain. If the USA comes in, it will have to land in Italy, where the geography makes a breakthrough unlikely, so we can assume the Italian front does not recieve reinforcement. Sacroegoismo would suggest that the Italians would at this point cut their losses, but I don't think this would be politically very popular. Fortunately, Austria in 1917 was desperately short of food and looking for a way out, and would be likely to sign anything the Italians offered by way of peace. Russia's provisional government will not be able to continue without a Western front, and is likely to sign terms fairly quickly. While the military won't have marched as far into Russia as in our time, Germany is still likely to insist on terms similar to Brest-Litovsk, and Russia, for sake of argument, concedes.
Issues:
- The stability of Austria-Hungary. 1916-17 was the first really serious year for the home front in Austria, but the breakdown of the state had not yet occurred. With Karl able to claim he has secured peace for all his people, and the promise of food from the east, the short term looks better. Longer-term, the nationalist and socialist groups in the various countries are likely to strain the state, and Vienna's instinct to march soldiers in to solve the problem will be likely to stoke further resentment. If the internal contradictions of the Hapsburg state prove stronger than the benefits from victory, the German-Austria Committee we saw in OTL is likely to occur again, and this time nobody will be able to stop it. Is the legacy of the Great War the unification of all the German-speaking peoples*?
(*Swiss not included!) - The economic fallout - France and UK are likely to default on their debts, which will in turn present issues for the US government. A crash in the war industries of steel, chemicals, and engines will hamper Ford's attempt to make the car a mass product, and financial straits will lead to difficulty at home, which is likely to bring the General Strike forward a few years. Britain, being a fundamentally conservative country, is not likely to collapse altogether, but a Labour government is likely in the second half of the twenties. France, on the other hand, goes through Republics like a mouse goes through cheese.
- Russia - the Whites and Reds are still likely to come to blows, but will a victorious Germany allow a socialist state on their eastern frontiers? Probably not, especially when it could threaten their breadbasket in Ukraine. Germany will be too exhausted to provide a formal occupation, but it will provide volunteers and arms to whatever conservative forces will keep a monarch - or at least, not a socialist - government in place.
- The Ottoman empire is sunk, dead, finished. Even a victory couldn't save it - the Turks are still likely to pack it in, even if Ataturk's analysis that the war will be lost proves false in this timeline. Germany will probably instinctively move to put down the revolt, but it is hard to see any path from 1917 that gives the Ottomans any chance to stick around - they are too old an idea to be applicable to the modern world, and industrialisation and liberalisation benefit the Central Powers by strengthening a trade partner and increasing output of goods Berlin and Vienna will want to get their hands on.
- USA - clearly, the impression the Americans will get is that a European war has been ruinous for Europe, and it is best not to be involved, leading to even stronger non-interventionism in the post-war years than in our timeline. America is likely to do well even in the post-war crash, because the fundamental strengths of her economy, especially her young workforce, give her a huge advantage over a Europe which has just spent three years trying to kill itself.
- Potential second world war - it's hard to see. Germany has proven herself to be the strongest force in Europe twice now. The Balkans are likely a mess due to the greek-turkish wars, and Bulgaria might want to get some of the pie while it's going, but I don't know where the next war comes from - a European order divided between rigid authoritarian conservatism and socialist republicans quietly agreeing not to blow each other up again looks to be the future for this timeline.
You need a radically different WW1 for that to happen. The mutinies were against suicidal offensives and the soldiers made it clear that they would still defend and take part in level headed offensives as they did so during their mutinies.
@NedStark can probably speak for himself. I understood him to be saying that:
1. If Germany invades and commits extensive war crimes in Belgium throughout the war (which you acknowledge happened in the underwhelming phrase of doing "bad things"
and
2. If Germany then wins the war and suffers no negative consequences for its actions in Belgium
then
3. Other countries will learn the lesson that ruthlessness and brutality against a civil population has no negative consequences
and that therefore
4. War crimes against a civil populace (taking hostages, murdering innocents in response to perceived non-compliance by others, looting private property, rape on a large-scale, etc) become normalised.
That these happen during war is undeniable. However, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, to which Germany was a signatory, would have been torn up and trampled in the dirt.
That's one hell of a change from OTL.
In OTL, the mutinies were a refusal not to engage in large scale attacks with minimal likelihood of success. The mutineers were happy to defend their positions and take part in local attacks with a reasonable prospect of success. There were also demands for better food and better organisation of rotation, but they need not concern us here.
To give an idea of the nature of the mutinies - the Germans in front of the French units that were mutinying never noticed that there was anything going on. It was only after the war that Germany realised that there had been mutinies.
As a result, you really need to provide some explanation for why what was essentially a "Work To Rule" wherein the soldiers were happy to fight Germans, just not suicidally so, has been transformed into Surrender-itis. You also need to provide an explanation why the British army - which in OTL did carry out spoiling attacks to prevent any possible exploitation - is seemingly sitting on its hands allowing this to happen in front of them.
This is OTL. People generaly are only punish for warcrimes when they lost a war. I doubt many of the Russian soldiers who misbehaved in Germany during WWII were punished. This is always the case and another victor in WWI would not change anything.
Eventually there would be no more International laws in any shape and form, especially if Germany annex or partition Belgium - which would mean that smaller nations have no right to exist as a sovereign state.
But WAllied troops who did were punished. Not all, by any means, and one can debate whether the punishments by Military Tribunals were completely impartial, but they were held accountable to an extent.
During WWI, there are certainly accounts of British occupation forces being punished for crimes committed against the German civil population.
War Guilt and the Rape of Belgium was used as justification to punish Germany collectively, yet the wars that followed were vastly worse than WW1, so the punishment didn't appear to be effective.
So I think it's a long bow to draw that the CP winning would lead to more brutal wars because the Rape of Belgium went unpunished. That's assuming that Germany wouldn't punish people postwar in order to clean up their international reputation.
So I think it's a long bow to draw that the CP winning would lead to more brutal wars because the Rape of Belgium went unpunished. That's assuming that Germany wouldn't punish people postwar in order to clean up their international reputation.
These things were not legitimised by the outcome of WW1 IOTL though. This seems to me a bizarre argument. The whole point of the League of Nations was to stop these types of atrocities and aggressive wars. The fact it failed is irrelevant, the intent was there where it wouldn't be in a Central Powers victory.
It would lead to more wars as Germany and Turkey have just found they can do what they like with no serious consequences so long as they win.
I don't think anyone here is seriously trying to defend the Soviet Union.
If there is one thing I despise, it is people saying that because the Germans could not behave like a civilised nation IOTL unless it was at the end of Anglo-American bayonets, we'd all be better off had they just won the First World War.
I did not mean to imply that anyone did. Actualy I assumed everybody would ackowledge the Soviet war crimes. My point was that OTL the Soviet forces commited horrible war crimes and were not punished, even though OTL we had the example of WWI Germany whose warcrimes were punished. So not having that example (in a timeline in which Germany won WWI) would not change anything, since the winner decides which war crimes are punished or not.
Or maybe more correctly, it depends on the government, since some governements are willing to acknowledge war crimes commited by their own soldiers.