Would a victorious Germany in WWI have been much more willing to enforce the post-WWI peace settlement relative to the Allies in our TL?

[WolfBear]

Would a victorious Germany in WWI have been much more willing to enforce the post-WWI peace settlement relative to the Allies in our TL? I mean things such as the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, et cetera.

Once Russia will inevitably begin remilitarizing, for instance, what exactly is Germany going to do about this? Send German troops to occupy Russia's major cities? And what if this will trigger major strikes by Russian workers, as was the case with German workers in 1923-1924 when France occupied the Ruhr? Germany probably isn't capable of occupying all of Russia for logistical reasons, so that option is ruled out. And in any case, if Germany is at peace, then Germany's elected civilian government likely isn't going to be very eager to spark a new war for fear that this will once again allow the German military to create a silent dictatorship and to sideline Germany's elected civilian government, as was previously the case in World War I.

And what happens if Russia begins making military preparations to reconquer Ukraine? Would Germany actually be willing to fight on behalf of Ukraine? Or would Germany, like present-day NATO members, prefer to deal with Russia through sanctions and whatnot while taking the military option off the table? Even a Russia that is shorn of its Brest-Litovsk territories would still have 175/180-ish million Slavs by the middle of the 20th century, which is a lot. Maybe a total population of slightly over 200 million once you add in the Central Asians, et cetera. If Germany actually already has nuclear weapons, then I could see it using nuclear weapons to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, especially if Russia itself will still not have any nuclear weapons back then--or at least not very many of them. But what if Germany itself doesn't actually have any nuclear weapons yet either?

Any thoughts on all of this?

 

[raharris1973]

Germany will be more willing to enforce the settlement through the 1940s than the OTL WWI allies were, because the Germans, unlike the allies, will not be divided among multiple buck-passing British, French, American, and Russian decision makers. The Germans are the overwhelming leaders of their coalition, and and can and will make the decisions to arm and protect their puppet states. They won't be like France, which felt too weak to do it itself and wanted British approval and support, and didn't get it. Germany was France and Britain rolled into one.

 

[WolfBear]

Germany will be more willing to enforce the settlement through the 1940s than the OTL WWI allies were, because the Germans, unlike the allies, will not be divided among multiple buck-passing British, French, American, and Russian decision makers. The Germans are the overwhelming leaders of their coalition, and and can and will make the decisions to arm and protect their puppet states. They won't be like France, which felt too weak to do it itself and wanted British approval and support, and didn't get it. Germany was France and Britain rolled into one.

I suppose that France, Britain, the US, and Russia in the interwar era can be viewed as being comparable to NATO today? As in, quite a formidable force when united but much less formidable when they're divided, which is why Russia is able to boss around Ukraine right now with such impunity while NATO isn't actually doing very much to help Ukraine, not even to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia.

 

[stevep]

Germany will be more willing to enforce the settlement through the 1940s than the OTL WWI allies were, because the Germans, unlike the allies, will not be divided among multiple buck-passing British, French, American, and Russian decision makers. The Germans are the overwhelming leaders of their coalition, and and can and will make the decisions to arm and protect their puppet states. They won't be like France, which felt too weak to do it itself and wanted British approval and support, and didn't get it. Germany was France and Britain rolled into one.

Would agree. Plus Germany is probably more concerned about the defeated foes rearming as their potentially more easily able to exceed them in total capacity.

However as WolfBear says, for Russia and also for Britain if it decided on secret rearmament, Germany can't really check that much on such activities due to the sheer size of the respected empires. Even given that if Germany was to win on both fronts your likely to see a peace settlement in the west proportionally similar to that in the east in terms of its demands. Expect a fair chunk of France to be either annexed or under some sort of occupation and other areas demilitarized. Similarly Belgium will be under direct or indirect control and Germany will almost certain seek a large colonial empire in central Africa based around its pre-war German E Africa and the Belgium Congo plus probably some other areas.

 

[WolfBear]

Would agree. Plus Germany is probably more concerned about the defeated foes rearming as their potentially more easily able to exceed them in total capacity.

However as WolfBear says, for Russia and also for Britain if it decided on secret rearmament, Germany can't really check that much on such activities due to the sheer size of the respected empires. Even given that if Germany was to win on both fronts your likely to see a peace settlement in the west proportionally similar to that in the east in terms of its demands. Expect a fair chunk of France to be either annexed or under some sort of occupation and other areas demilitarized. Similarly Belgium will be under direct or indirect control and Germany will almost certain seek a large colonial empire in central Africa based around its pre-war German E Africa and the Belgium Congo plus probably some other areas.

In regards to Germany combatting Russia rearmament, Germany's best bet might be to ensure that Russia is unable to field huge armies near the borders of Germany's satellite states in Mitteleuropa. But if Russia wants to rearm in Siberia and/or in Central Asia, then I'm not sure that Germany can actually do very much to stop them.

I suspect that the German working-class is going to be extremely wary of enforcing anything that would require giant German troop and/or financial committments. If Germany would need to occupy Russia for several years or more with a million troops in order to remove a Russian revanchist regime from power, then this might very well be perceived as being too high of a price to pay for this by the German working-class.

 

[ATP]

Would a victorious Germany in WWI have been much more willing to enforce the post-WWI peace settlement relative to the Allies in our TL? I mean things such as the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, et cetera.

Once Russia will inevitably begin remilitarizing, for instance, what exactly is Germany going to do about this? Send German troops to occupy Russia's major cities? And what if this will trigger major strikes by Russian workers, as was the case with German workers in 1923-1924 when France occupied the Ruhr? Germany probably isn't capable of occupying all of Russia for logistical reasons, so that option is ruled out. And in any case, if Germany is at peace, then Germany's elected civilian government likely isn't going to be very eager to spark a new war for fear that this will once again allow the German military to create a silent dictatorship and to sideline Germany's elected civilian government, as was previously the case in World War I.

And what happens if Russia begins making military preparations to reconquer Ukraine? Would Germany actually be willing to fight on behalf of Ukraine? Or would Germany, like present-day NATO members, prefer to deal with Russia through sanctions and whatnot while taking the military option off the table? Even a Russia that is shorn of its Brest-Litovsk territories would still have 175/180-ish million Slavs by the middle of the 20th century, which is a lot. Maybe a total population of slightly over 200 million once you add in the Central Asians, et cetera. If Germany actually already has nuclear weapons, then I could see it using nuclear weapons to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, especially if Russia itself will still not have any nuclear weapons back then--or at least not very many of them. But what if Germany itself doesn't actually have any nuclear weapons yet either?

Any thoughts on all of this?

Yes.They would create puppet states - Poland,Ukraine and baltic ones - and practically colonize them,the same goes for whatever territory they take from France.
Result - anybody except germans and maybe jews there would wait for any army who come and crush germans.British would support that,maybe USA ,too.
Do not matter - we have WW2 with every nation hating germans,which they would lost.

 

[raharris1973]

Germany's not going to be enforcing disarmament mandates deep in adversary territories, but, it will have the option, if it wishes and has the political will, to respond militarily, to the militarization or any border zones on land or the North Sea it has gotten Russia, France, Italy, Romania, or Britain to agree to as part of its victory settlement (its own version of the Rhineland demilitarization).

Germany will either have the will to counter violations in any such border zones, or it won't. Germany will *not* be waiting on the approval of a stronger, richer ally.

Germany, I would expect, *would* have the political will to provide security assistance to any buffer states it establishes, and *would* have the political will to send its armed forces to defend thee buffer states, or at least most of them, against outright attack by hypothetical revanchist versions of Russia, France, Italy or Britain.

I could imagine that for political or budgetary reasons and geographic reasons there may be buffer state that is rather small or in an outer "layer" not touching Germany directly, that Germany *might* let Russia subvert or conquer. But that would only serve to "wake up" German militarist leaning factions and rally them protect all the other buffer areas on the path to Germany itself.

Also, I don't agree that German relations with its Eastern European buffer/client states, especially after a peace settlement, will have to be colonial, or anything like a Nazi Generalplan Ost.

 

[raharris1973]

The worst trope about about a Central Powers victory in WWI, by far, even worse than the idea that it would have to be a better world than OTL's Entente victory, is the idea that it would somehow would likely lead to a revanchist France that pulls its own blitzkrieg or "guerre eclaire" on Germany. That's just lazy role reversal that ignores France's relative lack of strength. It can't fuel a blitzkrieg on vengeful feelings alone.

 

[WolfBear]

The worst trope about about a Central Powers victory in WWI, by far, even worse than the idea that it would have to be a better world than OTL's Entente victory, is the idea that it would somehow would likely lead to a revanchist France that pulls its own blitzkrieg or "guerre eclaire" on Germany. That's just lazy role reversal that ignores France's relative lack of strength. It can't fuel a blitzkrieg on vengeful feelings alone.

Russia is a much bigger threat here than France is. At its full potential, even with the loss of Ukraine and Belarus, Russia should have around 300 million Slavs and 100 million others, mostly Central Asians. Of course, this will be by the end of the 20th century. There might be slightly less than 200 million Slavs in Russia by 1950 and much less than 100 million Central Asians.

France's population is absolutely minuscule in comparison to Russia's. And even in 1914 terms, Russia and France were rough equals industrially-wise--though AFAIK a lot of Russia's industries were in its border zones, which Russia will have to deal with if it will lose these territories to Germany by building new Russian industries elsewhere.

 

[ATP]

Russia is a much bigger threat here than France is. At its full potential, even with the loss of Ukraine and Belarus, Russia should have around 300 million Slavs and 100 million others, mostly Central Asians. Of course, this will be by the end of the 20th century. There might be slightly less than 200 million Slavs in Russia by 1950 and much less than 100 million Central Asians.

France's population is absolutely minuscule in comparison to Russia's. And even in 1914 terms, Russia and France were rough equals industrially-wise--though AFAIK a lot of Russia's industries were in its border zones, which Russia will have to deal with if it will lose these territories to Germany by building new Russian industries elsewhere.

Add fact,that germans loved to behave like,well,prussians.Result - all belarussian,almost all ukrainians,and even some poles woud wait for RETURN OF THE TSAR.Only minority which would help them would be jews.
If Russians get their own Guderian,they could get to Odra river in half a year.

 

[Agent23]

No Wilsonian nonsense, Wilhelminan nonsense - maybe.
I think that Austria will either split up or it will become a looser confederation, like in OTL.
The Magyar aristocracy in particular opposed higher taxes on the aristocracy, disenfranchised Slavs and were against industrialization because they feared that a working class might kick them out.

Perhaps Austria-Hungary will drag itself along for a decade longer than in OTL, but there are too many contradictions that necessitate either sweeping reforms, federalization, or outright dissolution.
Since the dissolution of the old Holy Roman Empire was a thing in almost living memory, IMHO the Austrain rump state will just pull the same and tell Hungary and all the assorted Slavic groups good bye, and "deal with your own nonsense".

 

[WolfBear]

Add fact,that germans loved to behave like,well,prussians.Result - all belarussian,almost all ukrainians,and even some poles woud wait for RETURN OF THE TSAR.Only minority which would help them would be jews.
If Russians get their own Guderian,they could get to Odra river in half a year.

Russia wouldn't necessarily have to be led by an actual Tsar in this scenario. It could be led by a Fascist pseudo-Tsar from the Black Hundreds Movement, for instance.

 

[ATP]

Russia wouldn't necessarily have to be led by an actual Tsar in this scenario. It could be led by a Fascist pseudo-Tsar from the Black Hundreds Movement, for instance.

True,but change nothing - russians stil would be welcomed by all except jews and part of poles as liberators.Andfascist leader mean,that modern army with blitzkrieg tactic is more probable.

 

[WolfBear]

Since the dissolution of the old Holy Roman Empire was a thing in almost living memory, IMHO the Austrain rump state will just pull the same and tell Hungary and all the assorted Slavic groups good bye, and "deal with your own nonsense".

Austro-Czecho-Slovenia?

 

[Agent23]

Austro-Czecho-Slovenia?

I kinda doubt it, the Magayrs will want to keep the territory.

 

[WolfBear]

I kinda doubt it, the Magayrs will want to keep the territory.

None of those are actually Magyar territories, though.

 

[ATP]

None of those are actually Magyar territories, though.

Magyar keep slovaks and croats,but i dunno about slovenia.Germans from Austria keep it?

 

[Agent23]

None of those are actually Magyar territories, though.

Not now they aren't, but the Slavic parts of Austria-Hungary were chiefly under Hungarian control and they were notorious about denying them their rights.

 

[WolfBear]

Not now they aren't, but the Slavic parts of Austria-Hungary were chiefly under Hungarian control and they were notorious about denying them their rights.

The Czechs and Slovenes were under Austrian rule, not Hungarian rule. The Croats, Slovaks, and Ruthenians were under Hungarian rule, though--as were the Transylvanian Romanians.