Ironduke

Would anybody care to speculate what the world would look like if the Central Powers had defeated the Allies in WWI? Keep in mind, purely hypothetical.

glyn

Interesting, as are all the 'what ifs' of history. A good place to start might be to see the manouvering by the diplomatic corps of the combatant powers before the commencement of hostilities, and immediately after. Not all the papers of all the powers are available for study, but what is clear is that ALL sides were ill-informed as to the others intentions. A book that will serve as a primer is "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin. The sub-title 'The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East' gives one some ideas where lessons can be drawn.

Ironduke

One of my favorite books

Of course, there are endless scenarios as to how the Central Powers would end up winning the war.

For example, the United States stays out of the war and cuts off trade with all belligerent parties. Any thoughts on how this would play out?

astralis

why would the US do that? part of the reason why the US jumped in on the side of the Allies in WWI was because of masterful british propaganda...and also british trade, which exceeded that of german trade.

Kansas Bear

The complete extermination of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.

PubFather

The US intervention into the war was not all that decisive. Had the US cut all trade with the UK - it would have seriously weakened the UK. It wouldnt have changed the fact that the UK still had a naval stranglehold on Germany and was still capable of moving resources by sea through the Empire.

Britain and France managed to break the "Spring Offensive". Without US troops - would they have? Probably (although not to underplay US heroism a Belleau Wood for example).

The difference would be that the allies would not be able to replace their manpower losses with American troops so both sides would be in the same situation.

Most likely result - the war ends in a negociated peace late 1918/19. Germany comes to the table after internal revolts/revolutions. Return to status quo of 1914 borders in France. Austria-Hungary collapses anyway, as does the Ottoman Empire.

No Treaty of Versailles - and probably no WWII either...

__________________
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Goatboy

That's a tough question. It's quite possible that the world would have been a better place -- all the way to 2006, if the central powers had won, say with a negotiated peace.

Goatboy

I don't see a victorious Austria-Hungary collapsing actually. I see revolts in some areas perhaps. Neither do I see the Ottoman empire collapsing. The Ottoman empire would certainly gain territory at the expense of Southern Russia, and why wouldn't they? many of these areas are Turkic. The Brest-Litovsk treaty of course wouldn't be voided by allied victory in the west, so Russia would have shrunk, and become more homogeneous in it's ethnicity.

German colonies would be returned, and France would lose some of hers to Germany.

glyn

In many ways the First World War was the making of the USA into a major power, certainly it was not one before the outbreak of war. Europe was where the power and wealth lay until they collectively commited suicide in four and a quarter years of total war that left much of the continent in ruins.
America supplied the allies with material, and profited mightily by so doing.This money was most wisely invested in industry.
By November 1918 Europe was exhausted and broke, and America was energised and rich. Would America have been so powerful had the German/Austro-Hungarian/Turkish Alliance won? Possibly. But it would have had to live in a different world as the Austro-Hungarian 'empire' was going to collapse from within, just as Imperial Russia had, and the Ottoman empire was about to do.
As PubFather has said, the Royal Navy was blockading Germany and her people were facing starvation, so I can't really see Germany winning the war. I'm fairly sure she would have sued for peace. If that had happened, and the Kaiser remained there may well have not been WW2. However, what could then have happened................?

PubFather

You misunderstand... no one would really be victorious - certainly not Austria-Hugary. AH was already tearing itself apart pre-war, the costs of the war would only have hastened this - especially with the "disease from the east" communism.

You obviously dont understand that the Ottoman Empire had been destroyed (more or less) by Allenby et al in the Mid East, they had been crushed already in Palestine and Syria and Iraq. If you think that being part of the Central Powers would have gained them an ounce at the negociating table after the war - even with a European stalemate - then you greatly overestimate the willingness of Germany to prop up a failed ally.

The periphal powers would have failed - they were always empires on borrowed time and the war simply hastened their demise...

Goatboy

Huh? IronDuke already set the premise of this thread which is: "Would anybody care to speculate what the world would look like if the Central Powers had defeated the Allies in WWI? Keep in mind, purely hypothetical."
So we've already established a victorious Central powers victory in this case, not a stalement. Of course what "kind" of victory it would be is definitely open to discussion, such as the obvious: France and Russia are defeated on land, but England is certainly territorially intact -- I'm thinking England wouldn't be prepared to make any concessions, pay any indemnity, etc.

So I think yes, the victorious Ottoman and AH empires had plenty of pull in negotiations and why wouldn't they? Would a victorious Germany let defeated France pour troops into Palestine? Would a victorious Germany abandon its allies AFTER their combined efforts defeated the Entente? Of course not. There's no way Austria-Hungary would have fallen apart in 1918 anyway, Later perhaps, but not right away.

The Soviet Union was a huge multi-ethnic empire and weathered defeat -- (i.e. didn't split up into all it's little pieces) so what's so different about a victorious Austria-Hungary, (an entity which had existed for several hundred years -- im including Hapsburg administration of Austria here ) pulling through despite insurrection? What makes Austria-Hungary more difficult to hold together than all the many ethnicities in imperial Russia?

PubFather

I was actually responding to IronDuke's later suggestion of continued American neutrality leading to a Central Power victory.

Any victory for the Germans would have come at the start - so we would then need to think along the lines of the Schlieffen Plan actually working - and therefore France is largely defeated by the end of 1914 ala the Franco-Prussian war.
With an early victory - in 1914/15 possibly correct, but not in the circumstances I was talking about in my post.

Bad example. The Russian Empire did indeed fragment during the civil wars that followed WWI. It was pulled back together after a long period of hostility, huge casualities and then controlled by one of the most repressive regimes in the history of the world. Such as regime could have held Austria-Hungary together - but this was not on the horizon in 1914/15. The same holds true for the "sick man of Europe", the Ottoman Empire. With an early and successful close to the war - they would have persisted longer.

However, what I was talking about was a war ending circa 1918/19.

With regards to the "peace terms" of such a conflict ending in 1914/15 - I would imagine some limited French territorial losses, mostly colonial. Britain would not consider itself to be defeated and so would more likely negociate a ceasefire, leading to a peace treaty - rather than a full blown surrender.
Russia would probably face a watered down version of Brest-Litovsk - depending on how great the German advances had been after the defeat of France. Russia would - in all likelyhood - have come to table after the defeat of France.

Longterm - the stage would have been set for quite a different WWII. There would have been less pressure for disarmament, certainly in the UK and probably in Russia also (France, would likely be restricted from full rearmament for some years after the war). The arms races - naval and otherwise would have continued. Proxy wars in the Mid East and Balkaans also seem likely.
The other possibility is greater British-German cooperation - especially if Russia did suffer a communist revolution, or perhaps its own version of facism.
Russia was still the real bete noir for Germany, and a strong Russia threatened the British Empire far more than than Germany.

Pablo Cortez

The question of the effects of a victory of the Central Powers in World War I is something that deserves an extensive consideration because it provides the opportunity to exorcise some of the corrosive popular notions created by the British propagandists as part of an effort to sell a skeptical British public an unpopular war.

One of history's great ironies is that Hitler is identified as the creator of the "Big Lie"---yet the quote that identifies it from Mein Kampf is actually an analysis of British policy and practice in WWI and how Germany should do likewise in the future. Sadly American leadership has faithfully followed the British model of duping public opinion in all the major conflicts since 1914.

Another piece of historical orthodoxy is the nearly universal condemnation of the Treaty of Breat-Litovsk as a demonstration of German rapacity. Interestingly enough, the frontiers it established were virtually identical to those arising in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR. Does that invalidate the self-determination of its peoples, or does it indicate that the negative evaluation of the treaty was essentially propaganda? Worse still, did it demonstrate the will of the Central Powers to establish a postwar system more just than that of the Paris treaties inflicted by the Allies?

The survival of Austria-Hungary is another, and closely related, example of Allied historical orthodoxy. Rather than admit that they had destroyed a nation simply to sate their greed (as demontrated by the promises of the secret Treaty of London in 1915), it was convenient to attribute the end of the Habsburg Monarchy to inevitable internal conflict. Yet the monarchy had held together well throughout the entire course of the war without any uprising of any of its various peoples. The collapse came only after military defeat and by the agency of external committees fomenting partition between greedy neighbors and new homeland for expatriate patriots. A militarily successful Austria-Hungary might more likely have become a Superswitzerland or a prototype of a European Union.

Much more to say, but hoping there is still interest in this subject.

deadkenny

Not sure how I 'missed' this one the first go around however, I'll add my 2 cents worth now. I would say a lot depends on exactly when and how the Central Powers are victorious. For example, if Germany 'wins' the first Battle of the Marne (for that to be plausible, you'd obviously have to have other things go differently leading up to it) and there's a 'peace treaty' in 1914, that looks very different than if you assume that the war fights out historically through to 1918, the Germans 'impose' the Treay of Brest-Litovsk in the east and then there's some 'settlement' in the west - either a German victory (somehow) in their final offensives or a stalemate and a negotiated peace in the west that leaves the eastern situation as per B-L. Either scenario could be considered a 'victory' by the Central Powers, depending on the particulars (Germany might decide that they didn't really care much about the Turks or the Middle East and 'buy' Britain off by allowing them to keep parts of the Ottoman Empire for example, not exactly a 'victory' for the Ottomans).

deadkenny

Well, IIRC I do believe that Germany's eastern border was rather further east in the earlier version.

This is a bit more interesting. The Allies broke up a 'multi-national' state but in effect created 2 new ones (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, both of which ended up breaking up ultimately, in spite of the 'ethnic cleansing' of the peoples on the 'losing side' after WWII).