Would the world be a better place if Germany had won WWI?

[Ecthy]

Spiffor

Some of you guys believe to much of that interpersonal crap talk. It's the structures stupid.

[Lancer]

Spif, KW was the reason GB sought to bury the hatchet and join with France. They never felt threatened by the Germans until Germany sought to build a navy capable of challenging GB, which did them no good at all in the war and only achieved gaining them their strongest enemy capable of starving them out.

Ecthy, what do you mean?

[Ecthy]

The personal relations between the leaders are much less important than their countries' strategic targets. As Spiff said, it's Germany's growth that spawned the entente, not the Kaiser's weirdness. If that was the case then all we would need to do is vote very nice people into leadership offices who are very nice to each other. Wouldn't change ****.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Lancer
There was no road to run a truck up. Iirc the Germans achieved their goals but couldn't bring up the reinforcements needed to roll up the lines, to exploit the penetration. So, gaps were closed, the effort negated.

They had tactical inventions, reinforcements available and trucks, but there were no roads! Too bad! Am I wrong or logistic is a major part of strategy, even in Germany? And why do they launch an offensive supposed to be decisive, just forgetting such "MINOR" detail? The goals that you declared achieved can only be summarized in serious losses. In fact, the German High Command, despite that he initiated the request for cease-fire when the military situation became hopeless, started to argue that the war was not military lost, which is wrong.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ecthy
The personal relations between the leaders are much less important than their countries' strategic targets. As Spiff said, it's Germany's growth that spawned the entente, not the Kaiser's weirdness. If that was the case then all we would need to do is vote very nice people into leadership offices who are very nice to each other. Wouldn't change ****.

Well, one could argue that realism was a good analysis for the time, but I think it is naive to believe that realism is the only possible analysis for all eras.

[Ecthy]

Realism

It's never a complete analysis, especially not for complex systems such as the ME of our time. But it often sets a very good framework, definitely good enough to explain colliding geopolitical interests between industrialized nation states, which is why it fits so perfectly well for the WWI era.

It just doesn't explain much in-depth, and definitely doesn't help in policy-making for it implies a) information on growth and how growth is translated into military capability and b) most importantly, implies an absolute definition of closed systems. This is probably the weakest point. Is the US a power in the ME? How strong is it in the ME? How much force willing to project into the ME? These are points where we need to ask questions about internal matters, which realism doesn't touch.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Lancer
Of course Molly. However KW detested GB.

It was actually more complex than that- had he been less unstable and more like the 'dropped pilot' Bismarck, he could have cultivated the friendship of Great Britain. They were after all, Germany's most important trading partner outside mainland Europe, and his mother was British too.

He also seemed genuinely devoted to Queen Victoria, but unfortunately he preferred the advice of militarists not politicians.

Edward VII forged a 'personal' relationship with the great and good of France; rivalry between France and the British Empire had led to them teetering on the brink of conflict in Africa (France still felt miffed at Great Britain scooping up Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) but the cack-handed affair of the gunboat at Agadir pushed France and Great Britain closer together.

Walter Sickert could visit Paris, and Van Gogh, Monet and Camille Pissarro could all visit and stay in London. Toulouse Lautrec's work was bought by canny Francophile British collectors.

By the outbreak of WWI, thanks in part to the Kaiser's deficiency in Bismarckian diplomacy and Realpolitik and the British King-Emperor's personal contacts, France's 'gratin' was all a-buzz with talk of 'Le Jockey Club' (where the unwanted would be 'black-boule') , 'le betting' at Longchamps, 'le steeplechase' at Auteuil, 'le Derby' at Chantilly, and Proust could model M. Swann in 'A La Recherche' on Charles Haas, who had 'Mr.' engraved upon his visiting cards *.

(* paraphrased from Barbara Tuchman's excellent survey of the culture and civilization of Europe pre-WWI, 'The Proud Tower'.

Also, Poincare, senator and President of the Republic, was from Lorraine, and Clemenceau, who was prime minister from 1917 onwards, had opposed the settlement with Imperial Germany in 1871 and was a notable member of the Paris Commune.

Difficult to launch a charm offensive against those two if you're the unstable Kaiser...

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Ecthy
The personal relations between the leaders are much less important than their countries' strategic targets. As Spiff said, it's Germany's growth that spawned the entente, not the Kaiser's weirdness. If that was the case then all we would need to do is vote very nice people into leadership offices who are very nice to each other. Wouldn't change ****.

Worked out ok for the allies, who btw had some right colonial bastards for leaders.

I suggest you look into KW's relationship with GB. You will find that this relationship "spawned the entente" by driving GB into the other camp. Bismark had a hand in this btw. The 'great statesman' traded GB and got Italy. Are these the structures to which you refer? These structures didn't even work for the winners. From theser structures came WW2 and the cold war, and the dominance of Russia...those guys on the other side of the Brandenburg gate.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by molly bloom



It was actually more complex than that- had he been less unstable and more like the 'dropped pilot' Bismarck, he could have cultivated the friendship of Great Britain. They were after all, Germany's most important trading partner outside mainland Europe, and his mother was British too.

He also seemed genuinely devoted to Queen Victoria, but unfortunately he preferred the advice of militarists not politicians.

Edward VII forged a 'personal' relationship with the great and good of France; rivalry between France and the British Empire had led to them teetering on the brink of conflict in Africa (France still felt miffed at Great Britain scooping up Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) but the cack-handed affair of the gunboat at Agadir pushed France and Great Britain closer together.

Walter Sickert could visit Paris, and Van Gogh, Monet and Camille Pissarro could all visit and stay in London. Toulouse Lautrec's work was bought by canny Francophile British collectors.

By the outbreak of WWI, thanks in part to the Kaiser's deficiency in Bismarckian diplomacy and Realpolitik and the British King-Emperor's personal contacts, France's 'gratin' was all a-buzz with talk of 'Le Jockey Club' (where the unwanted would be 'black-boule') , 'le betting' at Longchamps, 'le steeplechase' at Auteuil, 'le Derby' at Chantilly, and Proust could model M. Swann in 'A La Recherche' on Charles Haas, who had 'Mr.' engraved upon his visiting cards *.

(* paraphrased from Barbara Tuchman's excellent survey of the culture and civilization of Europe pre-WWI, 'The Proud Tower'.

Also, Poincare, senator and President of the Republic, was from Lorraine, and Clemenceau, who was prime minister from 1917 onwards, had opposed the settlement with Imperial Germany in 1871 and was a notable member of the Paris Commune.

Difficult to launch a charm offensive against those two if you're the unstable Kaiser...

Bismark supported the efforts of what's his name, the idiot that suggested competeing with GB on the seas while the enemies of Germany were on the land.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Spiffor

Some of you guys believe to much of that interpersonal crap talk. It's the structures stupid.

Who or what swung the Catholic Centre Party behind the idea of German colonies in Africa ?

Bismarck.

When confronted by a native uprising, Bismarck needed 10 000 000 more marks from the Reichstag to fund the military required to put it down.

He cynically said:

" Can't we scare up some vivid details about inhuman treatment ?"

with respect to the Arab slave trade. Bismarck actually despised Black Africans, but the only way to get the Catholic party to approve the funds was by suddenly discovering a hitherto unknown 'tendresse' and a new desire to:

"...bring the nations of Africa within the pale of civilization by opening up the interior of the continent to commerce, by furnishing the natives with the means of instruction."

And also with alcohol, because he opposed cooperation with other foreign powers on the restriction of sales of alcohol to native Africans, possibly because he owned a distillery himself...

It's worthwhile remembering that the colonial empire of Germany was almost all achieved within the space of a year: in July of 1884 Togoland and the Cameroons, South West Africa in August that year, New Guinea in December and German East Africa by May 1885.

I do admire his cynicism however:

" The acquisition of land is very easy in East Africa. For a couple of guns one gets a piece of paper with several Negro crosses. "

[Wycoff]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Would the world be a better place if Germany had won WWI?

Originally posted by molly bloom No, really I don't. He was subject to massive moodswings, what would most likely be called a bi-polar disorder now, and had serious psycho-sexual hang-ups relating to both his own mother and close male friends. Oh, and that defective arm too.

Even taking this for granted (the pyscho-sexual disorders are still a matter for debate, IIRC), there wasn't all that much damage that Kaiser Wilhelm could do besides make more blustery PR gaffes (though it seems like someone was reigning him in after 1909). Wilhelm wasn't an absolute monarch. He could appoint the Chancellor, but his power was limited by the Junkers, the Military, and the Reichstag. If Kaiser Bill went completely insane, they would have deposed him in favor of his son.

Hmm, I don't think so: in the 1880s there was a growth in avowedly anti-semitic parties, the Antisemitische Deutschsoziale Partei, the Antisemitische Volkspartei, the Deutschsoziale Reformpartei, and so on.

Like I mention in the quoted post, these groups were fringe groups. They existed, but they never won anything significant. I'm not denying that anti-semitism was part of Wilhelmine society, but the vicious anti-semitism of these Nazi forebearers was not politically viable in Germany proper (Karl Lüger had some success in Austria). It wasn't until after the war and after the factors that I listed that a mass-party was able to turn viscious anti-semitism into a political tool. Had those things never occured, I don't see why these parties would have developed into anything great than what they had been throughout the Wilhelmine era: fringe groups.

And imperialist men like Ludendorff thought like this:

By the 1920s, Ludendorff had gone beyond the pale. He had basically become a völkische Aryan mystic, and lost the support of people like Hindenburg and Hugenberg. That's why I didn't name him. By the mid-1920s, he wasn't really a Conservative. He was something else entirely. That quote represents one of his milder thoughts

[Patroklos]

@ Americans who don't know their own history. The Klan had five million members in 1925 and Marched on Washinton that year. Sure, the collapsed soon afterwards due to a sex scandal involving the Lt. Gov of Indiana and a young woman, but if the U.S. had lost the war and been bitter and resentful, things might have turned out very differently.

So why hasn't our country been taken over by the Nation of Islam?

Commies are funny. Another one, please....

[Patroklos]

The German issues with the original Schlieffen plan were various. Beyond it being quetionable that German soldiers could march that long and still fight, politically the plan demanded that the Germans leave other fronts undermanned, which would mean enemy penetrations into Germany. Germany's political leaders were not willing to do so.

The original plan would have worked, without a doubt. The problem was that the Crown Prince was commanding one of the skeleton armies along the French border, and didn't like being out of the action and continually damanded more troops for his area. The other fake armies did the same. So at the beginning of the war instead of falling back slighty into Germany to draw the Franch even further into the the trap they actually advanced into France. Through another 10-15 divisions into Belgium and the French army even further away from the actual attack point and victory becomes inevitable.

[St Leo]

Re: Re: Would the world be a better place if Germany had won WWI?

Originally posted by Heresson
Yes, for the world would be Germans.

nah, I am a Pole, and as existance of Poles as a nation would be in peril then, I would not be happy with that.
Also, I am partly Armenian, so I do not like the perspective of Ottomans slaughtering the remaining part of Armenians, and perhaps other christian nations of ME.

Uh, Germany liberated the bulk of Poland from the Russians and made it independent in WW1.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Patroklos


The original plan would have worked, without a doubt.

Another perfect plan which did not work, without a doubt.