Opinion of Kaiser Willhelm II

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't get this pro-German World War I view that the world would have been so much better if they had won. Events don't occur in a vacuum.

If France lost, there is a good chance the Third Republic fell and that would result in the creation of a government dedicated to restoring its former glorly. That could easily be a fascist dictator.

Also, Russia was in an abyss of rioting in 1914. Knowledge of this actually made things worse, because the German diplomats fueled the notion in Berlin that Russia was a paper tiger and could not possibly stand up to the Central Powers. Patriotic fervor temporarily papered over these problems, but a swift defeat by Germany probably plunges the country into revolution. Considering their history, an iron man on a horse is the most likely outcome.

To be fair, fascist France weaker with a monarchist/democratic Germany with a strong military and a communist Russia is not worse than fascist Germany with a democratic France with a weak military and a communist Russia.

It's much better. Hitler was far worse than Mussolini or the austro-fascists.

It's actually difficult to express how awful the Nazis were.

What is the basis for the "We would be so much better with Germany winning World War I".

1. No World War II: Wrong - see previous post.
2. No mass slaughtering by Hitler - A slaughter is a slaughter, does the author really matter?
3. No Fascism - Yea, France and Russia just gonna happily accept German domination. Their weak gov'ts would fall and the chaos would lead to militant dictators in both countries.

I guess if your standard is "No Hitler", then fine. But that is pretty weak and doesn't even imply avoidance of the devastation caused by him and the war, its just about avoiding him. Which makes little sense. Today, there would be some evil dictator reviled throughout the world for mass mudering, we would never have known Hitler, but we would know this guy instead.

[Kingpoleon]

Yes, but instead of Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and Tojo, it migh just be Stalin and some Frenchman, especially if Germany treated Japan wants equal in the negotiations. The main point is, it would be hard for someone to be as bad as Hitler.

[Derpist]

3. No Fascism - Yea, France and Russia just gonna happily accept German domination. Their weak gov'ts would fall and the chaos would lead to militant dictators in both countries.

I guess if your standard is "No Hitler", then fine. But that is pretty weak and doesn't even imply avoidance of the devastation caused by him and the war, its just about avoiding him. Which makes little sense. Today, there would be some evil dictator reviled throughout the world for mass mudering, we would never have known Hitler, but we would know this guy instead.

That's a perfectly reasonable standard, because any French fascist regime would be much better than Hitler, much like how Mussolini was much better than Hitler. Mussolini didn't want to kill millions. Thousands, yeah. But not millions.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

3. No Fascism - Yea, France and Russia just gonna happily accept German domination. Their weak gov'ts would fall and the chaos would lead to militant dictators in both countries.

I guess if your standard is "No Hitler", then fine. But that is pretty weak and doesn't even imply avoidance of the devastation caused by him and the war, its just about avoiding him. Which makes little sense. Today, there would be some evil dictator reviled throughout the world for mass mudering, we would never have known Hitler, but we would know this guy instead.

That's a perfectly reasonable standard, because any French fascist regime would be much better than Hitler, much like how Mussolini was much better than Hitler. Mussolini didn't want to kill millions. Thousands, yeah. But not millions.

You forgot the other country I mentioned repeatedly. One that has long history of blood thirsty tyrants rising to power and killing vast numbers of their own people, Russia. Lets just for arguments sake, say Reactionary Russia, engages in its own holocaust. Assuming that were the case, would still stand by the claim that Germany winning was a better outcome.

Hitler did not rise to power because the Allies defeated Germany in World War I. IT happened because of the economic collapse and the failure of the Weirmar Republic to handle the crisis. It is true he played off of the revanchism just as much as the anti-semitism. But the opening was caused by the Depression.

Pinning for German victory in World War I to avoid WWII is like pining for British victory in the Revolution to avoid the Civil War. Victory by Germany would mean the world is dominated by authoritarians, because Democracy would have failed in France and Russia and Germany while possessing some elements was not a democracy under the Kaiser.

[Derpist]

3. No Fascism - Yea, France and Russia just gonna happily accept German domination. Their weak gov'ts would fall and the chaos would lead to militant dictators in both countries.

I guess if your standard is "No Hitler", then fine. But that is pretty weak and doesn't even imply avoidance of the devastation caused by him and the war, its just about avoiding him. Which makes little sense. Today, there would be some evil dictator reviled throughout the world for mass mudering, we would never have known Hitler, but we would know this guy instead.

That's a perfectly reasonable standard, because any French fascist regime would be much better than Hitler, much like how Mussolini was much better than Hitler. Mussolini didn't want to kill millions. Thousands, yeah. But not millions.

You forgot the other country I mentioned repeatedly. One that has long history of blood thirsty tyrants rising to power and killing vast numbers of their own people, Russia. Lets just for arguments sake, say Reactionary Russia, engages in its own holocaust. Assuming that were the case, would still stand by the claim that Germany winning was a better outcome.

Hitler did not rise to power because the Allies defeated Germany in World War I. IT happened because of the economic collapse and the failure of the Weirmar Republic to handle the crisis. It is true he played off of the revanchism just as much as the anti-semitism. But the opening was caused by the Depression.

Pinning for German victory in World War I to avoid WWII is like pining for British victory in the Revolution to avoid the Civil War. Victory by Germany would mean the world is dominated by authoritarians, because Democracy would have failed in France and Russia and Germany while possessing some elements was not a democracy under the Kaiser.

Reactionary Russia already existed - it was called Imperial Russia. It's unclear that fascism would automatically rise in a defeated Russia or France. France seems more likely, but there are a lot of key differences between Russian and German society, political ideology, and etc. I am no proponent of the Sonderweg thesis, but it seems too simplistic that defeat in war ---> fascism. Bulgaria didn't go fascist. Plus, Russia ended up pretty badly IRL too. A lot of people died under Stalin, probably far more than under most non-Nazi fascists.

And yeah, it seems increasingly obvious to me that the US would have been better off had the American independence war failed. Slavery probably goes away faster and the world is probably spared the modern American empire.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

3. No Fascism - Yea, France and Russia just gonna happily accept German domination. Their weak gov'ts would fall and the chaos would lead to militant dictators in both countries.

I guess if your standard is "No Hitler", then fine. But that is pretty weak and doesn't even imply avoidance of the devastation caused by him and the war, its just about avoiding him. Which makes little sense. Today, there would be some evil dictator reviled throughout the world for mass mudering, we would never have known Hitler, but we would know this guy instead.

That's a perfectly reasonable standard, because any French fascist regime would be much better than Hitler, much like how Mussolini was much better than Hitler. Mussolini didn't want to kill millions. Thousands, yeah. But not millions.

You forgot the other country I mentioned repeatedly. One that has long history of blood thirsty tyrants rising to power and killing vast numbers of their own people, Russia. Lets just for arguments sake, say Reactionary Russia, engages in its own holocaust. Assuming that were the case, would still stand by the claim that Germany winning was a better outcome.

Hitler did not rise to power because the Allies defeated Germany in World War I. IT happened because of the economic collapse and the failure of the Weirmar Republic to handle the crisis. It is true he played off of the revanchism just as much as the anti-semitism. But the opening was caused by the Depression.

Pinning for German victory in World War I to avoid WWII is like pining for British victory in the Revolution to avoid the Civil War. Victory by Germany would mean the world is dominated by authoritarians, because Democracy would have failed in France and Russia and Germany while possessing some elements was not a democracy under the Kaiser.

Reactionary Russia already existed - it was called Imperial Russia. It's unclear that fascism would automatically rise in a defeated Russia or France. France seems more likely, but there are a lot of key differences between Russian and German society, political ideology, and etc. I am no proponent of the Sonderweg thesis, but it seems too simplistic that defeat in war ---> fascism. Bulgaria didn't go fascist. Plus, Russia ended up pretty badly IRL too. A lot of people died under Stalin, probably far more than under most non-Nazi fascists.

And yeah, it seems increasingly obvious to me that the US would have been better off had the American independence war failed. Slavery probably goes away faster and the world is probably spared the modern American empire.

Imperial Russia under Tsar Nicholas II was weak and indecisive. That is not to say he didn't earn fully the title bloody Nicholas, he most certainly did.

My scenario is a Tsarist General becomes dictator following a defeat and Revolution.

Bulgaria is not Russia either. Russia was being held together by a thread after 1905. Good harvest and continued industrialization helped smooth over the problems, but there was a full on strike in 1914 before the war started and many thought the country was on the verge of exploding even without war. Germany certainly believed this and it fed into their naive belief that the Schleffein plan could work. Instead they failed to account for the unifiying effect of Russian patriotism and the exact extend to which France had funded the construction of East-West Railway lines in Russia over the previous forty years.

My assumption is quick defeat, leads to the downfall of the Tsar, a weak Republic and that is followed by a reactionary coup.

I had a feeling you would think such. I must say I disagree completely. Success of the American Revolution was a key turning point in world history, and led numerous revolutions the world over. Most people would be living under Saudi style oppressive Monarchy today were it not for the Revolution succeeding.

[Badger]

NCYank has pwned this thread with historically accurate analysis

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Yes. It's incolvincable to imagine the modern world as we know it without the industrial revolution, the American revolution and the French revolution.

[Kingpoleon]

Listen, I really think we can all agree that a strong German monarchy is better than the Hitler regime. I doubt a powerful Germany would allow fascists to seize France. It's far too risky to change the outcome of WWI now, because IOTL the world does not end. However, if I were to choose one at the time, not taking into account that IOTL the world does not end and it could in a different one, the Triple Alliance would be far preferable.

Germany was also far less imperialistic in terms of Africa, as even its few colonies there had a large degree of autonomy compared to the French and British colonies, especially taking into account its far smaller size.

[mencken]

I fail to see how a hypothetical Russian Hitler would be able to inflict a higher death toll than the IRL Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin put together (which would be needed to support the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds)

On the other hand, given Prussian designs of Mitteleuropa, I am not entirely convinced that Germany would behave much better than they did IRL.

[Californiadreaming]

HP, but "incompetent" is a better description of him.

[Kingpoleon]

I fail to see how a hypothetical Russian Hitler would be able to inflict a higher death toll than the IRL Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin put together (which would be needed to support the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds)

On the other hand, given Prussian designs of Mitteleuropa, I am not entirely convinced that Germany would behave much better than they did IRL.

Russia would almost definitely not end up worse, especially if the Romanov family takes it back over.

A French Hitler couldn't be nearly as successful. The French people were less naturally militaristic, and not even the Bonapartes could change that post-1890 or so.

[Californiadreaming]

I don't get this pro-German World War I view that the world would have been so much better if they had won. Events don't occur in a vacuum.

If France lost, there is a good chance the Third Republic fell and that would result in the creation of a government dedicated to restoring its former glorly. That could easily be a fascist dictator.

Also, Russia was in an abyss of rioting in 1914. Knowledge of this actually made things worse, because the German diplomats fueled the notion in Berlin that Russia was a paper tiger and could not possibly stand up to the Central Powers. Patriotic fervor temporarily papered over these problems, but a swift defeat by Germany probably plunges the country into revolution. Considering their history, an iron man on a horse is the most likely outcome.

To be fair, fascist France weaker with a monarchist/democratic Germany with a strong military and a communist Russia is not worse than fascist Germany with a democratic France with a weak military and a communist Russia.

Who said anything about a communist Russia. I said iron man on a horse. As in a proto-fascist military dictatorship that rose to power by bathing the country in blood.

Remember Communist Russia was a fluke produced by the fact that the war had continued and the Bolsheviks were the only group that was both organized and anti-war. Once in power in Moscow and Petrograd, the central nature of their controlled areas, superior organization and quite frankly, ruthless leadership allowed Communist Russia to emerge from the ensuing Civil War. They also channeled Russian nationalism in response to the foreign interventions.

Without the war, a Russian Revolution probably produces a weak gov't followed by a military dictator as the more likely course. It might even be in the form of Tsarist hard liners seeking a counter-revolution.

Tsarist Russia had a long history of persecuting Jews. Depending on the dictators in of
France and Russia especially, mass extermination of people is highly likely and a Russian holocaust is plausible in that scenario.

There was no way for anybody to win WW1 without the other side feeling cheated. Russia felt cheated out of its land because it surrended so much to get peace and then when Germany lost, it got nothing. The Reds blamed the West of course for that. Germany likewise. Revanchist sentiment, anti-semmitism, ruthless right-wing dictatorship. Stalin easily exceeded Hitler in the body count department as it was, I think the same is possible in Russia.

And another thing. a better led and equiped Russian Army could not be defeated by Germany. As it was Russia held up remarkly well when under competent commanders in the first year of World War I. The disasters at Tannenburg were the result of incompetence leadership and rushing into battle head of schedule to relieve the Frence at Marne. German planning even accounted for the fact that Russia would be unbeatable by 1917 as the country had been aggressively industralizing in the early 1900's and more importantly, building up its railway network.

And that gets me to another point, better management of the railway network would have prevented the extreme food and fuel shortages in Petrograd that sparked the rioting that would turn into a full Revolution in February 1917.

Russia under the leadership of such an iron man on a horse, would likely steamroll Germany.

Those German projections of an unbeatable-Russia-in-1917 were probably excessively negative, though. Plus, a defeated Russia is probably not going to be able to acquire large-scale loans from France due to France's loss of iron ore-rich Briey and Longwy after its defeat in World War I. Thus, unless a Stalin-like figure comes to power in a defeated Russia and becomes the absolute ruler of Russia, a defeated Russia will need to find loans (for industrialization) from elsewhere--something that might be difficult given the likely hostility of wealthy Jewish British and U.S. bankers to Russia's anti-Semitism.

[Cory]

NCYank has pwned this thread with historically accurate analysis

[Kingpoleon]

NCYank has pwned this thread with historically accurate analysis

What a great endorsement from a great poster!