Subject: No World War I -- Cultural From: neume001@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Craig J Neumeier) Date: 1997/01/13 Message-ID: Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if [More Headers] This what-if is derived from a conversation I had over New Years with Ken Hite, one of my co-authors. This will require a fairly lengthy set-up; keep in mind that the *point* is not the 19th-century material, or even the notes on 20th-century politics. The point is to allow the 19th-century world to continue without being cut off at the knees by World War One. Preventing this is not as simple as just, say, saving Franz Ferdinand -- it might be possible for Europe to bumble through the early 20th century without a major conflict breaking out, but this would be difficult and improbable. So go back earlier. The most fundamental reason for WWI, in my opinion, was Germany and its ambitions which could not be realized in the existing world order. It might be possible to prevent German unification, but a better and more stable solution is to make Germany even larger at the outset, but less centralized and much less militaristic: the "Grossdeutschland" idea, including Austria, rather than "Kleindeutschland" as an expanded Prussia. No doubt there are several ways to get this result; what we came up with (after reluctantly deciding that 1848 was a dead end) was to restructure Europe from the Napoleonic period: make him determined to break the power of Austria (which was, after all, traditional counterweight to France) and split apart Austria and Hungary into two kingdoms, perhaps with a conveniently timed Habsburg death. The Prussian army thus forms an even greater component of the Grand Armee which marches on Moscow and is all but destroyed, shifting the relative balance of power in Germany. At the Council of Vienna, Austria gives up its Danubian lands and follows a more German-centered policy, getting the Rhineland territories in exchange for surrendering the southern Netherlands. In 1848, then, Hungary becomes a republic and the King of Austria is offered the crown of the German Empire. Unlike the King of Prussia in similar circumstances, he accepts it. We now have a large but decentralized German Empire in central Europe. While it will advance at least as fast as in OTL, its increasing economic, industrial, and technical power will not be matched by corresponding military power. It may attempt to hold on to Venice, as part of the Habsburg patrimony, and hold ambitions in the Balkans. Though I prefer to allow Italian unification to happen anyway, perhaps including a bit less of the Tirol and probably not Trieste. Grossdeutschland will probably not be willing to support Habsburg ambitions in the Balkans. Most importantly, however, neither the Emperor nor any other significant faction will be out for overseas colonies and challenging British predominance at sea. The geopolitics of the 20th century starting from this arrangement seem likely to produce a Great Power war or two -- they pop up every so often -- but there is very little chance of a general conflagration. More probably Russia will eventually move on the Balkans (as a distraction from internal troubles, no doubt), and Grossdeutschland will respond, but the other powers -- certainly Britain, probably even France [remember, Alsace-Lorraine is still French] -- will see no need to intervene. That being so, the Powers will probably mediate a peace before either power is really exhausted. Eventually, Grossdeutschland will emerge as probably the leading Great Power, given its technical achievements and the US continuing to be more of a regional power without global conflicts; very likely, it takes over the job of guaranteeing the world order as the British start to feel the strain of empire. (I don't imagine the transfer will be all that smooth, but it need not involve an Anglo-German War.) Which brings us, at last, to the real point of the exercise. This is to allow the Victorian world to continue in being until it is done in by its own internal stresses rather than being decapitated by military conflict. Ken and I disagree on the stability of the Victorian system (though neither of us question its dissolution), so this is where I throw it open to you. Here are some of the stresses it will certainly be faced with: * socialism and class conflict. This is, we think, likely to follow a process of reforms rather than leading to a revolution in any major country. Without the Soviet Union -- and the October Revolution is a fundamentally improbable event -- it is quite likely that the socialist movement will become less fixated by Marxism, dropping the need felt for so long this century to pretend to be following the master's teachings. * feminism. Here we both profess ignorance; the movement will surely appear, but when? and where will it go after the obvious battles for suffrage are over? What about the movement into the workplace, which in OTL didn't really happen till the '60s and '70s? * decolonization. Britain and France can't keep up their empires forever, but we disagree about how long they can last without WWI & II, and also on how their end is likely to play out. Grossdeutschland and the US will probably claim the moral high ground of opposition to imperialism, but their disapproval seems unlikely to translate into concrete activity. (With a healthy dose of really good luck, the Third World might even become independent when a workable theory of development holds sway, but I admit that's quite a stretch. I'd just as soon avoid arguments about what such a theory might be, too.) * environmentalism. This is probably more contingent than the others, but it does seem likely to become an issue as industrialization continues and the developed world starts to notice (and to be able to afford to deal with) the problems of pollution. * I do not mention totalitarianism. While the form becomes possible during the 20th century, it does not seem obvious that it will actually come into existence in any major power. Thoughts? I presume that democratization will continue, but what form will mass politics take? How does the world economy evolve without the shock of the Great War to produce a Great Depression? What about high culture, without the confidence-shattering experience of total war? In essence, I am asking what the 20th century *should* have looked like, without being opened by an unforeseen and deadly serious trauma in the dominant region of the world. Craig Neumeier, LHN