Ignore the assassination, all it needs to trigger is someone attacking a radio station!
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Ignore the assassination, all it needs to trigger is someone attacking a radio station!
Was there even such a thing as a radio station in 1914? Also, we're talking about an alternate timeline with NO ww1.
I'm not buying there is any reasonable timeline where WW1 doesn't happen in one form or another. I can buy that WW2 might have been avoided under better circumstances, but WW1? There wasn't enough of a sentiment that it shouldn't happen for it not to happen.
We'd have to go back to, I don't know, the 30 Years War or something to diverge timelines enough, and at that point everything is pretty much random anyway ^^
We'd have to go back to, I don't know, the 30 Years War or something to diverge timelines enough, and at that point everything is pretty much random anyway ^^
We can still have a war, however, it doesn't have to be the grand WW1 from our timeline. Perhaps, it can be a much smaller war between 1 or 2 powers.
there's plenty of ways to see the cataclysm not happen.
something as easy as Kaiser Bill saying 'nein', for instance.
The power who start it will need to make sure other powers need to keep neutrality, or ready to fight them too. For example, In Prussia-Austria war, Bismark needed to secure neutrality of Russia and France.
Now Prussia is the strongest land power, no other power would allow them to grow more. And almost all the powers already chose sides in 1914.
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Especially if they not even try it. German diplomacy was awesome, sorry awful pre-1914.
An alliance between Germany and the UK was quite possible since both of them were happy with the status quo. Given a bit of flexibility by both sides they can reach that... and if that alliance takes place than that's it. There is no way to defeat them by any combination of other powers (especially if they also lock Austria-Hungary or Italy).
UK allying with the foremost European power? Have you learnt nothing of 500 years of history?
Hmmm they accepted the junior position in an alliance with the US... now THAT was against everything British diplomacy stood for.
(And there is a bear in the room somewhere). Never ever was such a shortsighted British diplomatic corps as pre 1914.
Eh, in the 1914-1918 timeframe, the UK was not really the junior partner.
After 1942/42, sure, when they were busy selling everything not nailed down, then selling the nails too, for good measure, so they could keep in the war, and during the postwar order after, yes, the UK was the junior partner. But in 1918, not really.
They didn't exactly have a choice, because they weren't that makor power anymore and were considerably weakened in all aspects. It was either become junior partner or become totally irrelevant (after 1945) or actually lose the war (before 1945).
Germany was happy with the status quo? So what were they building the Hochseeflotte for?
Spain didn't have a WWI, yet its gambit for a liberal republic went down the toilet and had a Fascist vs. Communist showdown.
And Russia was much more stilted than Spain.
The Russian Civil War would have happened, regardless of WWI. A liberal government would have an ice cube's chance in hell of surviving that. Whether it would have the same result, I don't know. But the probability that it would end up with Bolsheviks in power is not zero.
And elsewhere possibly too - Germany included. The steady march towards Socialism was on pre-war. It is possible they could have done it democratically (as in Scandinavia, which didn't have WWI). But that would presume the ruling elites would yield. I doubt they would have done it as peacefully in Germany as they did in Sweden.
So WWI didn't change directions. It merely accelerated a tendency that was already there. Whether they go the violent Spanish route or non-violent Scandinavian route is not entirely dependent on whether WWI happened or not. WWI may be an inflection point, but the first derivative sign does not change.
How would Lenin's return to Russia and the Whites' revolution against the monarchy work in this AH?
Well, Lenin opposed the WWI - in Lenin's opinion it was an imperialistic conflict and those elitists of Russia just kept on sending the proletariat soldiers into the murderous trenches. What Lenin didn't foresee was that actually the WWI worked for the Bolsheviks' and the Marxists' advantage pushing their effort - the two Russian Revolutions in 1917, the Tsar Family abdicating the throne and finally the Bolshevik establishment of the Soviet Union in 1923. The disastrous Russian war effort in the WWI hurried the collapse of the Russian Empire - it would had happened even without the Great War, but Lenin's return and the Bolsheviks raise to power would had been postponed.
The Russian Whites favored political monarchism, economic capitalism and hoped for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty.
Without the Germans starving..they would not have the need to create synthetic saltpeter, so our economy would have remained stable until copper mining started. That means that our 20s-30s would have been less chaotic and our workers movement never got into power, maybe the army would have never gotten into politics and without the soviets... socialism/communism would have never bea thing, so... radical liberals would have remained as our left. And our right wing would have remained more and more inclined towards German conservatives.
A conflict between the US and the Germans would have been inevitable.
A conflict between the US and the Germans would have been inevitable.
Wrong.
The Haber process predates WWI by almost a decade, and its industrial upscaling predates it by a year. And these processes did not come about from thumb-twiddling, but because Europe and the US wanted to become less dependent on nitrogen imports.
So at best, no WWI delays the adoption by a decade or so. Or, since the trade networks for the inputs of the process are likewise not disrupted, they cut the whole thing off quicker.
The Haber process predates WWI by almost a decade, and its industrial upscaling predates it by a year. And these processes did not come about from thumb-twiddling, but because Europe and the US wanted to become less dependent on nitrogen imports.
So at best, no WWI delays the adoption by a decade or so. Or, since the trade networks for the inputs of the process are likewise not disrupted, they cut the whole thing off quicker.
And a very successful one... it destroyed both empires mutally.