Without the Nazis, Might WWII Still Have Happened?

DougM

Donor
Italy was still going to mess around in Africa and that could have resulted in a war with England and or France depending on how it turns out.
As for Germany itself? It all depends on what you put in place of the Nazi’s. If it is a dictatorship it has a good chance of starting a war for various reasons ranging from economical to giving the people an “enemy” so they will join together and not resist the dictatorship. If it is a weak republic then it probably won’t go to war. Unless the leaders are afraid the republic may fall and want to use the outside enemies bit. Kind of what France did after their first revolution when the Committee for Public Safty or what it was called used the war as an excuse for various power grabs. That kind of thing has happened throughout history from Rome up to today. One group or other using a war or attack or some such as an excuse for grabbing power. So you may very well still see a war at some point involving Germany

But no matter what happens in Europe there will be a war of some sort. As I don’t recall any Nazi aircraft being over Peril Harnor on December 7th. And while the Two counties had agreements in place the really had little to nothing to do with each other. And once Japan starts down its path in China prett much nothing in Europe is going to change that. Yes it may take longer because France and England is going protect there interests better as they (may) are notvin a war but Japan started its power grab before that happened and that means they will get the US upset, and the US will embargo them so they will be faced with the same choice Attack to get resources or give up and withdrawal and the same crazy military will be in charge so the will eventually try something. It may not be at Peril in Dec but they will try someplace. Because the Military either tries to grab the resources or it will ultimately lose control of Japan.

So a war is going to Be fought but where and when and whom may change a bit.
 
(1) "For the French it doesnt matter what kind of Germany starts wars with its neighbors, that's guaranteed escalation from 0 to 100." Uh, French conduct with regard to Czechoslovakia in 1938 makes me really doubt that. (True, there was no war then, but only because Benes yielded.) Why is appeasing a non-Nazi Germany over Poland (in a TL where Czechoslovakia had not already shown that appeasement just whetted Hitler's appetite for more) any more unthinkable than Munich in OTL?

(2) "For the Soviets it doesnt matter what kind of Poland goes down vs Germany, they're taking their own pound of flesh from it, probably back to 1914 borders if the German generals merely want back what they lost in 1918." The Soviets are not going to risk a war with Germany over 1914 borders if they can get the borders they got in 1939-41 (and basically after 1945) in OTL. If the Germans want a rump Poland to survive, it will survive.

By the way, the very experience of 1914 is going to make the UK and France more leery of going to war--as it did in OTL in 1938--especially since France now has Alsace-Lorraine back. (Even with Hitler, it is questionable whether Chamberlain would have issued his guarantee to Poland if not for the German occupation of Prague.)
So the French will ignore the Germans going on the war path again when this was precisely what they wanted to make impossible for the past 20 years?

They hold A-L, Germany going revanchist and irredentist is going to ring their alarm bells. A land grab by diplomacy and one by war are two very different things, and OTL Czechoslovakia was used as an opportunity to enable rapid rearmament anyway, it was not just ignored. This puts us back to the situation as it was in 1914, everyone staring at the others guns.
 
So the French will ignore the Germans going on the war path again when this was precisely what they wanted to make impossible for the past 20 years?

They hold A-L, Germany going revanchist and irredentist is going to ring their alarm bells. A land grab by diplomacy and one by war are two very different things, and OTL Czechoslovakia was used as an opportunity to enable rapid rearmament anyway, it was not just ignored. This puts us back to the situation as it was in 1914, everyone staring at the others guns.

"A land grab by diplomacy and one by war are two very different things"--Munich was made possible by the threat of war, and Hitler would have resorted to war if Benes had resisted the Munich settlement--and France would not have come to his aid. Very likely Poland, unlike Czechoslovakia, would not yield, and there would be a German-Polish war--and France and the UK would not come to Poland's rescue. They went to war in OTL because of the cumulative aggressions of Hitler, with Poland simply viewed as the last straw. In this ATL Poland will not be the last straw because the earlier aggressions will not have taken place, and the western allies will resort to Munich-like appeasement, and when Poland rejects it they will not feel it is worth another world war.

"OTL Czechoslovakia was used as an opportunity to enable rapid rearmament anyway"--Well, in this ATL no doubt there will be rearmament by the major European powers, but that doesn't have to result in a world war--if Germany proves that its "revanchism" is limited to Poland. With Hitler it was not, and everyone knew it.
 
"A land grab by diplomacy and one by war are two very different things"--Munich was made possible by the threat of war, and Hitler would have resorted to war if Benes had resisted the Munich settlement--and France would not have come to his aid. Very likely Poland, unlike Czechoslovakia, would not yield, and there would be a German-Polish war--and France and the UK would not come to Poland's rescue. They went to war in OTL because of the cumulative aggressions of Hitler, with Poland simply viewed as the last straw. In this ATL Poland will not be the last straw because the earlier aggressions will not have taken place, and the western allies will resort to Munich-like appeasement, and when Poland rejects it they will not feel it is worth another world war.

"OTL Czechoslovakia was used as an opportunity to enable rapid rearmament anyway"--Well, in this ATL no doubt there will be rearmament by the major European powers, but that doesn't have to result in a world war--if Germany proves that its "revanchism" is limited to Poland. With Hitler it was not, and everyone knew it.
Where's the source for this kind of trust? There is none. It also should not be forgotten that Denmark and Belgium too had received German lands, so a merely military dictatorship going after the non-French lands (why would they not want that as well?) wanting the old borders will be bothering them as well.

War with Poland --> French rearmament --> European arms race = political situation of early 1914.

Again, i dont think there would be a war over it but putting everything back to 1914 is the next best thing.
 
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