Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[Batrix2070]

@stevep @Marduk @ATP @Batrix2070 If Weimar Germany would have survived or been replaced by a right-wing authoritarian regime rather than by Nazi Germany and would have eventually waged a successful war against Poland (and maybe France) to recover the Polish Corridor without the Soviet Union entering this war on the German side for whatever reason, would Poland have been able to subsequently spend a lot of money developing Riga as an alternative port for itself if Germany will refuse to even give Gdynia (along with an extraterritorial railway connecting it to the rest of Poland) back to Poland in a post-war peace settlement?

This assumes two things, that the right-wing authoritarian military junta will be as reckless as Hitler, and that it will be effective like him.
As for the second question, are you crazy? Why would Poland spend a ton of money on a port that is not only very far from its production center, but also has no direct connection to Riga but only through Lithuania which is hostile to Poland and anyway Riga is not Polish so there is no reason for it to have to intest there, not when it has tons of other things to do.

 

[Buba]

The II RP bordered Latvia, the country where Riga is located.
Could not find better map sorry

For some parts of Poland Trst or Konstanca would be better
BTW - in OTL Jews from Poland sailed for Palestine from Konstanca, a special passenger line operating between that Romanian port and Haifa (?).

 

[WolfBear]

This assumes two things, that the right-wing authoritarian military junta will be as reckless as Hitler, and that it will be effective like him.
As for the second question, are you crazy? Why would Poland spend a ton of money on a port that is not only very far from its production center, but also has no direct connection to Riga but only through Lithuania which is hostile to Poland and anyway Riga is not Polish so there is no reason for it to have to intest there, not when it has tons of other things to do.

Poland does not have to access Riga through Lithuania; Poland does have a common border with Latvia, after all.

 

[WolfBear]

The II RP bordered Latvia, the country where Riga is located.
Could not find better map sorry

For some parts of Poland Trst or Konstanca would be better
BTW - in OTL Jews from Poland sailed for Palestine from Konstanca, a special passenger line operating between that Romanian port and Haifa (?).

You mean Trieste and Constanta, right? Anyway, Yeah, Poland could also focus on developing those two ports, especially Constanta since it belongs to its ally Romania.

 

[ATP]

@stevep @Marduk @ATP @Batrix2070 If Weimar Germany would have survived or been replaced by a right-wing authoritarian regime rather than by Nazi Germany and would have eventually waged a successful war against Poland (and maybe France) to recover the Polish Corridor without the Soviet Union entering this war on the German side for whatever reason, would Poland have been able to subsequently spend a lot of money developing Riga as an alternative port for itself if Germany will refuse to even give Gdynia (along with an extraterritorial railway connecting it to the rest of Poland) back to Poland in a post-war peace settlement?

No,becouse those germans have secret alliance with soviet,which was broken by Hitler in 1934.
So,they would steal our lands again,soviets would come liberate ukrainians from their food and wristwatches,and,few years later,conqer Europe.
It seems,that Adolf the idiot saved western Europe - for us,poles,do not matter.

 

[WolfBear]

@raharris1973 Do you think that there was any realistic chance of the US ever having a draft again after the end of World War I if Russia would have avoided going Communist in 1917 and Germany would have subsequently avoided going Nazi?

No,becouse those germans have secret alliance with soviet,which was broken by Hitler in 1934.
So,they would steal our lands again,soviets would come liberate ukrainians from their food and wristwatches,and,few years later,conqer Europe.
It seems,that Adolf the idiot saved western Europe - for us,poles,do not matter.

At least you Poles got the Recovered Territories!

 

[Batrix2070]

Poland does not have to access Riga through Lithuania; Poland does have a common border with Latvia, after all.

Yes, only that there is no direct rail link with Latvia, another thing is that it is so far away that it is simply uneconomic. It is more profitable to continue shipping from German ports despite the duty.

At least you Poles got the Recovered Territories!

Yes, very cool just you know we preferred to have both the Recovered Territories and the Borderlands.
Lands for economic reasons, Borderlands for cultural reasons.

 

[Buba]

there is no direct rail link with Latvia,

You again have scored EPIC!Fail

 

[Batrix2070]

You again have scored EPIC!Fail

Come back, with Lithuania it wasn't because they mostly dismantled them, with Latvia it is but it's still much less sensible because it's farther than to the Romanian Ports.

 

[Buba]

You said "no direct rail link with Latvia", yet a rail link between Warsaw and Riga has existed since the mid XIXth century.
This is what I am referring to, not the economic viability.
The Sankt- Peterburg to Warsaw RR - with the entire southern section inside the 2nd Republic's borders - had a Daugavpils/Dyneburg to Riga branch almost immediately. In 1914 Warsaw to Riga traffic was over a double tracked line all the way.

BTW - for anything north of Grodno or Wilno Riga was closer than Gdynia anyway (not using the artificially expensive PKP Polish railroads to get to a port probably extended Riga's "profitability footprint").
Romania has a single port.

I do not dispute that being denied a port in the Gulf of Gdańsk would be bad for most of the country.

 

[Skallagrim]

"Plausible Check: Effects on the British Isles from a Surviving Anglo-Saxon England, or both Harald Hardrada and William the Would-be Conqueror fail to take the English crown"

I am not sure as to how a surviving Anglo-Saxon England would have fared, had the two candidates in question failed in their quest to grab the English crown.

Tolkien would be very pleased, since he considered the Norman conquest to be the most horrifying tragedy in English history. (He wouldn't exist, with a POD back in AD 1066, but you know what I mean...)

England would be considerably less centralised for the time being, with a less pronounced and 'removed' nobility. More lesser nobles who were still generally rooted in the local community, rather than high-up overlords who spoke a different language and considered themselves categorically different from the masses.

There would be no enforced centralised legal code, and no circuit judges. Legal matter would be ground-up affairs as well, following the traditional Germanic pattern of having a local judgement first, and then the possibility of appealing it higher up. (This was later restored, in part, both in England and later in the USA. But William did his utmost to crush this system: it gave too much liberty for the peasants!)

The tradition of representative bodies would also persist, also from the ground up. Decisions would mostly be made in local assemblies, and for greater matters, such assemblies would send the men they considered the best and wistest to form a greater assembly (the Witan, literally "the Wise"). To be fair, such assemblies would not be open to just anybody. Functionally only the land-holders, but we must again note that in Anglo-Saxon times, there were far more "little" land-holders, instead of a small clique of huge magnates. And the nobility was far more "open", instead of forever closed to the supposed "lower classes".

Finally, although not all kings would like it, the nobility would have a continued say in who gets the crown. Kings of England would be chosen, not born. More like the HRE. It would probably be men from one or a few major families at all ties... and often the son of the last King... but if an heir turned out to be unsuited, they'd be able to choose another.

All in all, you'd have a far more decentralised, localised and egalitarian country and culture. Politically less stratified, lrgally more rooted in the community. Infinitely more ground-up than top-down. Far more of the typical Germanic ways and institutions survive. The language remains Germanic, too: not some strange hybrid with loads of Romance influences.

 

[Batrix2070]

Tolkien would be very pleased, since he considered the Norman conquest to be the most horrifying tragedy in English history. (He wouldn't exist, with a POD back in AD 1066, but you know what I mean...)

England would be considerably less centralised for the time being, with a less pronounced and 'removed' nobility. More lesser nobles who were still generally rooted in the local community, rather than high-up overlords who spoke a different language and considered themselves categorically different from the masses.

There would be no enforced centralised legal code, and no circuit judges. Legal matter would be ground-up affairs as well, following the traditional Germanic pattern of having a local judgement first, and then the possibility of appealing it higher up. (This was later restored, in part, both in England and later in the USA. But William did his utmost to crush this system: it gave too much liberty for the peasants!)

The tradition of representative bodies would also persist, also from the ground up. Decisions would mostly be made in local assemblies, and for greater matters, such assemblies would send the men they considered the best and wistest to form a greater assembly (the Witan, literally "the Wise"). To be fair, such assemblies would not be open to just anybody. Functionally only the land-holders, but we must again note that in Anglo-Saxon times, there were far more "little" land-holders, instead of a small clique of huge magnates. And the nobility was far more "open", instead of forever closed to the supposed "lower classes".

Finally, although not all kings would like it, the nobility would have a continued say in who gets the crown. Kings of England would be chosen, not born. More like the HRE. It would probably be men from one or a few major families at all ties... and often the son of the last King... but if an heir turned out to be unsuited, they'd be able to choose another.

All in all, you'd have a far more decentralised, localised and egalitarian country and culture. Politically less stratified, lrgally more rooted in the community. Infinitely more ground-up than top-down. Far more of the typical Germanic ways and institutions survive. The language remains Germanic, too: not some strange hybrid with loads of Romance influences.

So would something like a synthesis of HRE and PLC come out?
Some of what you've described reminds me very much of the structure and underpinnings of how the Polish Sejm and Sejmiks came to be, although definitely much more open.

Particularly the passage about the greater entrenchment of social structures and sending from smaller representative bodies to the larger one where Witan is sent.
This is very reminiscent of the Seimas and their sending of MPs* to the Diet.
*In Polish, MP (Poseł) literally means a person sent on behalf of someone else. In this case, people from a particular area who sent a man with instructions on how to vote on issues, but it can also mean any diplomat sent abroad for some purpose.

 

[Buba]

*In Polish, MP (Poseł) literally means a person sent on behalf of someone else.

I've seen the word "envoy" used as translation for Polish MP.

The language remains Germanic, too

Probably closest kin being Frisian. Maybe Plattdeutsch.

 

[Batrix2070]

I've seen the word "envoy" used as translation for Polish MP.

Oh that's exactly the word I was looking for.
That's what the Polish MP is, an envoy to the Diet.
In and of itself, this is probably what members of parliament would be called in such England.

 

[stevep]

Fully seconded!

Well I'm back for the weekend. Chaz's daughter has come back from uni for the weekend and I'll take over again Sunday evening. Getting a lot of exercise walking his four legged boss and been lucky so far with the weather so hopefully that will last. Will be the cycle for the next few weeks at least.

 

[WolfBear]

Well I'm back for the weekend. Chaz's daughter has come back from uni for the weekend and I'll take over again Sunday evening. Getting a lot of exercise walking his four legged boss and been lucky so far with the weather so hopefully that will last. Will be the cycle for the next few weeks at least.

Chaz (Charles) is your friend who got injured?

 

[stevep]

@stevep @Marduk @ATP @Batrix2070 If Weimar Germany would have survived or been replaced by a right-wing authoritarian regime rather than by Nazi Germany and would have eventually waged a successful war against Poland (and maybe France) to recover the Polish Corridor without the Soviet Union entering this war on the German side for whatever reason, would Poland have been able to subsequently spend a lot of money developing Riga as an alternative port for itself if Germany will refuse to even give Gdynia (along with an extraterritorial railway connecting it to the rest of Poland) back to Poland in a post-war peace settlement?

A lot would depend on the circumstances, but would a defeated Poland have the resources and be able to persuade Latvia to allow it such access?

 

[stevep]

Chaz (Charles) is your friend who got injured?

Yep. Got used to calling him that. We used to have a Saturday night computer gaming session as well but its been a bit hit and miss recently and suspended for now.

 

[WolfBear]

A lot would depend on the circumstances, but would a defeated Poland have the resources and be able to persuade Latvia to allow it such access?

Maybe? Especially in exchange for a military alliance? I mean, who exactly would oppose this?

Yes, only that there is no direct rail link with Latvia, another thing is that it is so far away that it is simply uneconomic. It is more profitable to continue shipping from German ports despite the duty.

Yes, very cool just you know we preferred to have both the Recovered Territories and the Borderlands.
Lands for economic reasons, Borderlands for cultural reasons.

Can't Poland build a direct rail link with Latvia through Vilnius? Also, what about if Germany will end up closing its ports to Poland?

 

[WolfBear]

Yep. Got used to calling him that. We used to have a Saturday night computer gaming session as well but its been a bit hit and miss recently and suspended for now.

Is Chaz your age?

BTW, the two most famous fictional Chaz'es I know are Chas from Rugrats and Chazz Princeton from Yu-Gi-Oh GX!