WI: no WWII?

What if there was no second world war? Say perhaps the great depression was just a mild recession. How would that impact the rest of the 20th century?
(no PODs earlier then the end of the first war please, this is not a central powers thread.)
 
Decolonization is slowed by a few decades at best, since nationalistic movements in the colonies were already on the rise while the colonies themselves were losing profitability in economic terms.
 

Goldwater64

Banned
Technological progress in certain fields is hampered.

Conventional and atomic weapons, jet aircraft, radar, rockets, computers and audio recording are just some of the things whose development OTL were directly tied into the war.

Antisemitism is probably more acceptable socially if there's no genocide. Fascism and similar totalitarian ideologies aren't nearly as controversial.

The United States would probably remain non-interventionist, at least for a while longer than OTL.

A lot of it depends on why there is no war.
 
Depending on whether the Russian Civil War played out as IOTL with all the deaths from battle and famine, Russia will still be demographically screwed by century's end with a negative rate of population growth.
 
Difficult to see how WW2 can't happen if WW1 ends as it did as the two are linked in so many ways but try this.
Germany is initially more succesful in the initial moves of the conflict and not only takes Paris but all of Belgium and then is halted by a combination of exhaustion, logistical problems and French resistance
The BEF lands at Nantes and takes up position on the left flank of the French army.
Trench warfare, Royal navy blockade continue as IOTL
Russia implodes but with no overall winner resulting in civil war
Italy remains neutral but leans towards the central powers
Ottaman empire remains neutral
U boats are slightly more succesful leading to more rationing and outbreaks of food riots in UK and France
Zimmerman telegraph or some other cause of war results in USA joining allies in 1918
With the troops not being used in Africa and Italy as IOTL and with a better supply system the Central powers are able to force a stalemate
until 1919 when US troops tip the balance and gradually force the German army back.
German army conducts a scorched earth policy destroying towns and villages as it retreats
Paris is destroyed
Germany surrenders 1920 with massive starvation within its borders
At the peace conference the allies, appalled at the damage wrought, seek revenge by reversing Bismarks work and balkanise Germany with puppet governments and institute a demodernisation plan [similar to the Mogenthau plan]
In this they deliberately forgo Reperations, believing that the greater danger is a resurgent Germany.
Emigration of German refugees into Eastern countries, large scale starvation.
As a result and in no particular order
USA is still a major industrial power but will remain isolationist
There will be no ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand and not as much sense of seperate nationhood [This may apply to Canada as well]
Military technology will have advanced more
There may be a greater rise in pacifism
Rebuilding France and Belgium will cause inflation in those countries .
French empire dissolves as it is a drain on limited resources
In the UK, imperial preference act is passed giving advantages to empire goods and hence less reliance on imports from US.
Visit of Japanese crown prince on good will visit to London cements WW1 relationship
Both countries vow to set up ' South east asia co -prosperity sphere' to 'advance the cause' of civilisation in this area.
Please feel free to pull this time line to bits;)
 
hugh lupus, you are ignoring the OP specification of no POD before the end of the Great War! (Which name it would retain if there isn't another big war within a generation.)

I for one would never "forget Communism."

I also don't think one can simply butterfly away the Great Depression. I do think maybe it can be spread out. IMO, the surging dynamics of capitalism has a material basis, and if the world OTL sank into a deep economic mire that one way or another messed up the entire capitalist sphere, that indicates deep underlying weaknesses that can be shifted around by alternative decisions but can't be swept under the rug completely. So if we avoid the big concentrated cascade of failure that OTL was all clearly linked to Black Thursday, it can only be because some other, less obviously catastrophic and final-seeming, collapse starts earlier and other ones that don't seem so clearly connected kick in later, spreading it out a bit. Or the whole boom cycle before 1929 is less buoyant, leading to a more modest crash that seems even more moderate because it is compared to a less delirious boom before it, and the eventual recovery is also less impressive. The latter is easy to see; OTL the world only recovered from the Depression with feverish war preparations and then the actual fighting of the war. If we avoid serious war and rumors of it, then the capitalist world will be limping along in an uninspiring manner.

Under those circumstances, various radical alternatives will have at least as much popularity as OTL. The Soviet Union (one could try to prevent the rise of Bolshevism, it's a popular enough theme, but don't look at me to foster it!) would almost certainly come under Stalin's rule, unless he's killed off or exiled, and Stalin will probably act pretty much as OTL regardless of what's going on outside Russia. Since for all its faults the Soviet system will be decoupled from the cycles of capitalism, Soviet Leninism will be one of those attractive radical alternatives championed in various political catfights.

To prevent another round of world war, one obvious thing to prevent is the rise of a re-arming Germany, or at any rate to weaken it. There might be various ways to do that. Certainly if the economy doesn't tank Weimar could well keep limping along happily enough. Since I think avoiding capitalist failure in one form or another is unlikely (it doesn't have to look like sudden collapse though, it could just be weak markets all along) I'd discount that possibility, though not the possibility that some moderate reforming types, people like Hugo Eckener say, get the upper hand in Weimar and manage to shepherd the ailing republic through the hardest times and it comes out a moderate social republic, with a rather rickety balance of power between right- and left- wing radicalism. Another mode of non-Nazi survival I'd favor would be a hard left-wing takeover; this could only happen if they win over a substantial bloc of support from the business sector. So, a sort of Social Democrat/Communist rank and file movement that ignores their respective leaderships and takes power, but is cautious enough to solicit help on fair terms of business leaders. They'd be dubbed heretics by Stalin quickly enough, or rather would have been denounced as such in advance.

I'm thinking that the conservative powers, notably France, would try to move against them but then find it's too politically controversial at home, limiting their range of motion. The French might re-occupy the Rhineland but find their soldiers are becoming unreliable; they might solicit the Poles to invade in police actions in the East, but then the Polish forces would also find the ranks churning in questionable loyalty, that German forces weak as they are are a match for them, and Poland itself wracked with dissensions this move has taken the lid off of. So pinkish Germany (itself wracked with serious dissension) is left sort of in peace.

Stalin is arming not so much against any specific enemy as the capitalist world in general, which is much as OTL. Whatever happens, I don't think any future big war would be one the Russians start, though there's a good chance they finish it. It's not that Stalin had no intention of waging a big war on behalf of Communism, Stalinist style, someday. It's that making an army capable of prevailing in such a campaign involves putting some competent generals at the head of it, and he would always fear such a possible alternative to his own power. When the Soviet state is in a fight for its life, then he can dare to leave such generals in place, if he has any left by then. In peacetime--preparing the mighty Red Army for an attack is a step he can never quite take. So as long as no great power actually attacks Russia, the situation there is stable despite all manner of apocalyptic rhetoric from the Communist International approved by the Kremlin.

The situation in China is still probably a big mess. There's another flashpoint and lightning rod for some future global war, perhaps with a very different alignment of forces.
 
The Soviet Union will remain a powerful state on a relative periphery, the United States will remain a Great Power, and both will start creeping into a lesser, weaker equivalent of superpower status around the time of de-colonization, the USA piggybacking off of the fear of the Soviets exploiting the issue to secure its own reputation. Ironically ITTL both the US and Soviet militaries will be the great WI of warfare because neither are likely to see service in any really big wars so their capacities for it would be both based off of their earlier performances (meaning the Polish-Soviet War and the USA's role in WWI).
 
K first off I just could not see a way that if WW1 ends as in our time it does not end in some form of WW2. Frankly if mother Theresa and every saint in heaven was in charge of Germany after the great war there still would have been a second world war. It was recognised at the time by all the statesmen concerned and it is recognised now. I am no cleverer than those politicians then ,even with the benefit of hind sight.
So I followed the letter of the POD rather than the spirit:eek: and my time line does begin after the end of WW1 albeit with a smashing defeat and a vengful rather than punitive enforced peace
I thought long and hard about communism and how to stop the sparticists from taking over .With this in mind I gave Russia a long, bitterly contested civil war . The soviets have their hands full at the moment and have little time to help The comintern may be an idea in the back of Lenins mind [If he's still alive] but it will have to wait until/if victory is achieved.
Next I put famine in Germany, it's difficult to think of, let alone plan political change if most of your day is spent wondering where your next meal is coming from .Not impossible I agree, but much more difficult.
Next blow against communism is the massive dislocation that happens ,Germany is full of displaced persons and rampaging vengeful armies with the destruction of Paris in their minds .Something along the lines of the thirty years war and Po Pots year zero is begining in Germany.
There will be a resistance movement in Germany and it may well be led by the communists but that is all. Besides the allies have seen what communist revolution can do in Russia ,they are likely to come down hard on any signs of it in Germany.
With Germany turned into an agrarian society there is no upturn in German industry which was one factor in the crash of 1929. France, Belgium etc are devasted and will be reliant on US goods to rebuild for a good number of years, even if they still had the money and resources left they simply dont have enough man power left after 6 years of bloody war.
Next the UK embraces Imperial preference, reducing its reliance on imports from the US
Both these factors will mitigate any sudden changes in the finacial markets.There will be a slowdown, and it will hurt but not to the degree it did IOTL.
Next Japan is co-opted into an economic union which recognises it as a full blown member of the club of victorious nations and recognises its 'special interest' in China . this not only disempowers the more rabid nationlists in Tokyo, but allows a swifter absorbsion of China with the UK [six years of war hav'nt been helpful to the UK economy which needs a massive cash injection.. and China is a rich undeveloped country:(]
So with Germany 'gone', Russia divided, Japan on side and the USA contemplating its navel all the major players of WW2 are changed
Europe will be licking its wounds for a while yet but won't have to worry about a resurgent Germany.
There will be changes
No family planning and no abortion, in fact taxation will be skewed to favour large families
Political parties will favour mild pacificm or massive rearmenent ,unionism will follow these lines with for example the skilled trades which have a vested interest in arms manufacture favouring the latter. this slows down the growth of socialism as it has less support amongst the working classes.
Eugenics will become popular 'to improve man so that war is bred out of us'.
Air travel becomes less of a novelty earlier due to two extra years of ariel warfare pushing development
Entrenepuership is encouraged especially in the far east with China touted as the 'new India'
No Washington treaty, Japan is backed by the UK in the negotiations
Holland faced by competition in its far east empire from the co -prosperity sphere joins as a junior member further alianating it from France .
Poland enacts laws against refugee Germans forcing them to live in 'areas of special control'
 
Depending on whether the Russian Civil War played out as IOTL with all the deaths from battle and famine, Russia will still be demographically screwed by century's end with a negative rate of population growth.

Still screwed in spite of having grown OTL after the RCW and Stalin's purges? And after having a a very very large number of men aged between 15-60 killed between 1941-45 along with the lowered birth-rate during WW2 etc.

Eh, no by any standard the U.S.S.R in general and Ukraine Belarus & Russia in particular are much better off without WW2. In fact the U.S.S.R would likly still exist today if not for WW2.

What happens between the U.S.S.R & Japan is interesting. Japan might find itself getting a major curb-stomp by the Red Army at some point...
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Like most of these types of threads, it really all depends on the POD. The devil is in the details.

Maybe Germany goes communist and China goes communists, and the communists win.

Maybe France and Britain don't oppose Hitler, and the Nazi gain enough land to be satisfied without a major war. The Polish population is largely exterminated.

Maybe without a severe depression, France and Britain allow the German people to reunite in peace in the late 1920's.

Maybe a stronger France and Britain split Germany into a bunch of smalls states when Hitler/communist challenge them.

Besides the are a lot few war deaths in the 1936-1945 time frame, and military technology is less advance in 1945, almost anything could happen.
 
By WWII is the challenge no European war, no Pacific War, or both?

Earliest POD within OP's constraint: Scheidemann doesn't proclaim the German republic, Prince Max becomes regent for Wilhelm IV. No Weimar republic, SPD and Centre party form government "acceptable" to Wilson.

No Republic to overthrow, nazis and communists are suppressed.

Germany and China grow closer (no peace treaty with Japan, China irritated at concessions given to Japan in Paris as in OTL)

Germany does not forsake China in favor of Japan in late 30's, German advisers assist China in mounting better defense against Japanese agression. Japan bogged down in China, does not expand the war to America. America stays neutral.
 
Anyone remember/read "Catch that Zeppelin!" by Fritz Leiber?

He posited that for WWII to be avoided, Germany had to be decisively taken by the Allies, butterflying the Dolchstosslegende.
IIRC he makes it clear that the Treaty that ended the war had no promises of reparations or assignment of war guilt due to America making it clear that was their price for intervening from the git-go.
If Germany weren't hamstrung with French occupation and reparations payments in gold draining their treasury, their list of bitches would a lot shorter, especially if the blockade were lifted quicker and food could be delivered, preventing a lot of the German flu deaths because folks were malnourished on the home front.
You look at Weimar, and folks acted weird because they felt goodness had no meaning, a lot like medieval towns affected by the plague.

Of course, this POD means France goes through four years of war, loses 20% of their men, has their industrial areas and coalfields torn up by war and ends up far worse for wear and told to go suck it. Gee, how could that go wrong?:eek:
I can see why IOTL Clemenceau was insistent for every drop of blood he could squeeze from Germany at Versailles. Anyone who saw the trenches of France knew that France would not be living high on the hog for decades afterward no matter what Germany gave them.

IMO to butterfly WWII, you need several POD's


  • The Russians don't mobilize to help the Serbs after A-H demands the Serbs' liver and lights for sponsoring the goobers that assassinating the Archduke. No Russian mobilization, no French involvement.
  • Kaiser Bill doesn't give A-H carte blanche to kick the Serbs and assures all concerned (France, UK, Russia) he has no interest in mobilizing. This is a matter between A-H and Serbia, so let's keep it that way. If he can convince the UK and other neutrals of that, WWI is a damp squib.
  • The UK doesn't get involved in WW1 b/c Belgian neutrality is respected and/or informing France that attacking Germany voids their Entente.
However, let's assume WWI occurs as OTL.

  • Wilson manages to get US Senate to ratify membership in the LON.
  • Dawes plan and other attempts at German economic stabilization work to head off the hyperinflation that made so much misery in Weimar. BY 1925, economic conditions are improving enough to where people see some improvement from post-war disruptions.
  • Somehow, Republic of China avoids the warlord-era and has a united, semi-functional government that is taken seriously abroad.
  • The Japanese get recognized as a Great Power after WW1 and the official response to Tokyo earthquake of 1926 is handled better. Taisho democracy doesn't get overshadowed by militarism. Washington Naval Treaty recognizes Japanese interests as equal with US if not UK. Bonus points if all three can come to memo of understanding about Pacific trade and spheres of influence.
  • the Russian Civil War (if there is one) does not end in a Red victory. Without a pariah nation eager to flout LON resolutions, nobody else feels froggy about changing the status quo.

  • Benny the Moose stays socialist and doesn't give the fat cats a model of how to keep the masses employed and pointed at external threats rather than agitating for political and social change.
 
Last edited:
Top