Compared to what came after, some might wonder if multi-ethnic monarchic empires weren't a little underrated!
WI: Imperial Germany does not attempt to compete with Royal Navy
- Thread starter RousseauX
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Compared to what came after, some might wonder if multi-ethnic monarchic empires weren't a little underrated!
TDM
Kicked
Heh well if you mean WW1 I agree it would have been better is that found a less expensive way to transition into the C20th!
Interesting discussion as always on this topic with many good points raised. I'm still firmly of the opinion that 'they all did it'* and we are only arguing over minor differences in responsibility.
The Great Powers had been playing chicken for a decade. Each previous time one backed down , this time they didn't. Had all sides really wanted a compromise, i think they could have found one.
For instance, I think Grey might have been clearer to Germany that invading Belgium meant Britain would join the war and not given the French what they thought was unconditional support to back Russia and Serbia. Austria could have adopted the 'halt in Belgrade' option to allow talks in a formal setting between the Powers . And so on .
* The Great Powers and Serbia. Exemption for Italy in the July Crisis but it joined willingly later anyway. Ditto the Ottomans Romania.
The Great Powers had been playing chicken for a decade. Each previous time one backed down , this time they didn't. Had all sides really wanted a compromise, i think they could have found one.
For instance, I think Grey might have been clearer to Germany that invading Belgium meant Britain would join the war and not given the French what they thought was unconditional support to back Russia and Serbia. Austria could have adopted the 'halt in Belgrade' option to allow talks in a formal setting between the Powers . And so on .
* The Great Powers and Serbia. Exemption for Italy in the July Crisis but it joined willingly later anyway. Ditto the Ottomans Romania.
Oh, not just the Great War, but maybe also the Nazis, Bela Kun, Arrow Cross, the Heimwehr, the Ustaše, the Iron Guard, the Hlinka, the Holocaust, the Holodomyr, Katyn, Stalin, the Warsaw Pact dictatorships, the defenestration of Prague...
It's been a rough century in Eastern and Central Europe. I'm not really a Romanov fan, but I tell ya, the Habsburgs don't look quite so bad next to what came after 'em.
TDM
Kicked
Ah Ok, I think while I'll happily draw lines in history from the July Crisis and preceding situation to all those things, I do also think those things happened for their own reasons (even if some of them were underlying for while in their own right)
Also frankly if I was going to link them to the collapse of various multi ethnic, multi-polar monarchist empires I'd likely link them to the ways they fell as much as that they fell in abstract. And well frankly those empires had more than a fair share in their own fall and how they fell.
You could argue they had the seeds of their downfall within them - especially the Romanovs.
That said, there is, I think, a greater appreciation for the argument that the Entente leaders generally and the Wilson Administration particularly (and a few of his successors) failed to appreciate the stabilizing political force provided by the legitimacy of long standing monarchies in these countries. (Prescinding from questions about how they might operate constitutionally could be modified, of course.) That once these vehicles of legitimacy were removed, it made it far easier for really radical, even totalitarian movements to come to power. They simply assumed that "Republican form of government = Always better."
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It also didn't hurt that conservatives usually supported the monarch/monarchy instead of chauvinistic nationalism.
Which is certainly preferable, all things considered.
A pity no one got the memo to Richard Washburn Child.
TDM
Kicked
I never really sure about the de facto argument about "stabilizing political force provided by the legitimacy of long standing monarchies in these countries" (I'm using your wording but I recognise what you mean!) because well if they were really that stable then they wouldn't have been being pulled apart by the challenges of ethnicities and nationalities seeking self determination and so on.
Basically in this case legitimacy is really just they've been in charge for a long time, that isn't in and off itself a source of legitimacy
However that said I do agree with you that the assumption that "Republican form of government = Always better." that was certainly about is also not proved. Since in abstract it does nothing to address underlying issues more complicated than 'I don't like the idea of Kings in Crown being in charge'. I.e a national republic that doesn't address the problem that cause the monarchy to fall will still have those problems.
I do agree that the gap left by them did allow other thing to move in and sometimes those things were pretty awful, but they didn't invent racism and nationalism. Frankly some of the old monarchic empires were pretty totalitarian at the sharp end of their policies, and I see no reason for why thy would be immune from indulging in the worse excesses of the C20th if they felt the need. The Armenian genocide happens under the empire's watch after all
But in summery I would say that Multi-ethnic, multi Polar monarchist empires are kind of inherently built on ignoring or kicking those problems down teh road, so are going to really struggle to address them even if other systems don't all uniformly fix them either
The problem is that you are wrong about the reasons of the fall of those monarchies: without WWI its very questionable that "ethnicities and nationalities seeking self determination" would have destroyed them. I mean the multhiethnic monarchies that survived the war still exist and are still multhiethnic, still monarchies: meaning Belgium and maybe the UK.
I would also like to note the attitude towards the Habsburgs in the successorstates:
in 1921 Charles tried to regain the throne of Hungary. In reaction to this Czechoslovakia threatened Hungary with war if he succeeded. Because loyalty to the Habsburgs was still a strong factor and they feared the effect of his return in either Austria or Hungary.
TDM
Kicked
Honestly if you trying to equate the Belgium and British Monarchy's with the AH empire, to make you point it's not very compelling
What you mean different ethnicities and nationalities in different parts of the former AH empire vehemently disagreed (to the point of threatening armed conflict) about the validity of the former AH royal family?
I suppose we're getting off the track of the OP's question here, but . . .
It seems a bit harsh to judge a system's durability because it faces complete defeat in a total industrialized [EDIT: war] in which it has millions of casualties - and the enemy has basically made it clear it wants you to have a change of government.
The idea that France's Third Republic (for example) could survive a week past such an outcome is . . . well, generous, since we know how it fared in 1940.
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TDM
Kicked
Well I think they were being challenged before WW1 kicked off let alone ended 4 years later with 8 digit death toll. I also think these systems were also challenged during teh war in ways that were specific to them as well*.
However I also thinks it's telling that I'd say the majority of absolute monarchies / monarchical empires considered the war as a way to sure themselves up and/or maintain their way of life in the face of encroaching modernity /social challenges
*although it can be hard to split out cause and effect in terms of challenge vs. social set up/system.
True, and you are right losing a big war is a test for anyone!
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On further reflection - and reference back to Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought - I think my paragraph here stands in need of some revision. In fact, the second German novelle ("Fleet Law") in 1900 *did* start to trigger concerns in Whitehall, and pretty arguably pushed an initial (pre-dreadnought) phase of the Anglo-German naval arms race. The 1900 Law (passed in the Reichstag on the heels of RN detention of German merchies in the Boer War) increased the authorized strength of the KM to 32 battleships, which was was a literal doubling of capital ship strength of the KM, and when completed would give Germany more capital ships than any power but Britain.
Lord Selborne, Lord Salisbury's First Lord of the Admiralty, felt compelled to address papers to the cabinet, first in November 1901:
The naval policy of Germany is definite and persistent. The Emperor seems determined that the power of Germany shall be used all over the world to push German commerce, possessions, and interests. Of necessity, it follows that German naval strength must be raised so as to compare more advantageously than at present with ours. The result of this policy will be to place Germany in a commanding position if ever we find ourselves at war with France and Russia...Naval officers who have seen much of the German Navy lately are all agreed that it is as good as can be.
In an October, 1902 cabinet paper, Selborne was at it again:
The more the composition of the new German fleet is examined, the clearer it becomes that it is designed for a possible conflict with the British fleet. It cannot be designed for the purpose of playing a leading part in a future war between Germany and France and Russia. The issue of such a war can only be decided by armies on land, and the great naval expenditure on which Germany has embarked involves a deliberate diminution of the military strength which Germany might otherwise have attained in relation to France and Russia.
Salisbury's and Balfour's (admittedly already high) naval estimates began to increase accordingly. It arguably helped give impulse to pursuit of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty in 1902, too.
Still, I think this only revises my argument in its timeline, not its essence. The 1898 Law, which authorized a strength of 16 battleships, was not enough to alarm the British. Its doubling, two years later, did.
I wonder what this might suggest about a KM fleet structure that would fulfill the OP's requirement. It gets complicated because both France and Russia were structuring *their* building programs in partial response to Germany's by the dreadnought era; but also because due to awkward geography both were forced to split their fleet into different theaters, Russia emphatically so. A KM which is *not* building at a Tirpitzian madlad pace might see France's 1906 naval law demand only, say, 12 battleships instead of the 16 of our timeline (and that probably more in response to Italy than Germany); though how it would deploy them in the absence of any deployment agreement with Britain could be harder to size up. The Russians are probably still likely to build something like the four Ganguts for the rebuilt Baltic Fleet, though...
So, perhaps 8 dreadnoughts, and perhaps an equal number of pre-dreads for the KM In 1914? This would be plenty enough to confine the Russians to the Gulf of Finland, and assured trade access to Scandinavia; mining of Heligoland Bight, and a quick shift of a squadron via the Kiel Canal (which would still need to be widened, I think) would be adequate to deal with any French approach in the North Sea in the unlikely event the British allowed it. But this would be a modest enough number, and clearly limited enough in purpose, to leave Whitehall under any conceivable cabinet feeling relatively unthreatened.
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