From Alternative History

Flag of the German Empire

[edit] Points of Divergence

• Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, torn between his desire for an alliance with England and his desire for a strong navy, is a bit more pragmatic and grudgingly agrees to discontinue German naval expansion. Although he can’t obtain the alliance he wanted, he does manage to sign a nonaggression pact with the UK.
• Due to the nonaggression pact with Germany and unwillingness to be involved in a Continental war, Britain vacillates for two weeks following the August 3 invasion of Belgium before finally invoking the 1839 Treaty of London and declaring war on Germany on August 17.
• Commander of the German Second Army, General Karl von Bülow, is a little more daring.
• Germany convinces Austria-Hungary that, despite Austria-Hungary's qualms lying mostly with Serbia, defeating Russia must be the primary concern of the Eastern Front. As such, most of Germany's forces are deployed in the west, trusting that Austria-Hungary and the modest German forces in the East will be able to hold off Russia long enough for Germany to win on the Western Front and then bring its focus East.
• Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke sticks with the Schlieffen Plan and does not transfer troops from the right to the left flank.

[edit] The Great War

• August 1, 1914 - Despite being a member of the Triple Alliance, Italy officially declares neutrality in the brewing conflict. However, many key individuals in the government wish to come into the war on the side of the Allies.
• August 30, 1914 - September 4, 1914: The Battle of the Marne. In its first engagement of the war, the British Expeditionary Force, along with French forces, are badly mauled by the German juggernaut. Both retreat back towards Paris, hoping to make a final stand to prevent the city from falling into German hands, something which both German and Allied commanders know could mean the end of the war. In the event that the capital should fall, officials of the French government are hastily evacuated to the city of Orléans.
• September 1914 - German forces continue their advance. Bülow's Second Army advances between Paris and the combined French and British forces, preventing them from erecting a defense perimeter around the city, and then continues to advance. Kluck's First Army moves around Paris, cutting it off. However, rather than staying to pursue a siege, the First Army joins in the ruthless pursuit of the French Army and British Expeditionary Force. Only at the Seine south of Paris do the French and British manage to stop the German advance as German lines grow thin. Both sides begin to dig in. However, with France’s northern ports and the capital Paris behind enemy lines and the government trying to reconstitute itself in Orléans, no further British reinforcements are able to get through, and no further French reinforcements can be assembled. German reinforcements quickly build up, consolidating German control over northern France. Belgium surrenders by the end of the month.
• October 1914 - As German manpower resources build up, the German trenches quickly begin to encircle the French and British. The British and French forces fall back to the town of Troyes and being to construct heavy fortifications.
• November 1914 - German forces attack and destroy the cities of Paris and Orléans, with the French government just barely managing to escape to Bordeaux. Despite advice from the military top brass to leave behind a couple of armies to lay siege to Troyes and send the rest of the German forces to the Eastern Front, Kaiser Wilhelm wants a quick victory and orders an attack, the First Battle of Troyes. Despite their advantage in terms of manpower, the heavily fortified Allied position manages to hold off the assault, inflicting heavy casualties upon the Germans.
• December 1914 - February 1915 - the Siege of Troyes, a trench stalemate between the two sides. By the end of December, Kaiser Wilhelm finally agrees to leave behind three armies to contain the British and French forces and send the rest of his forces to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians. Upon seeing how the war is unfolding, Italian prime minister Antonio Salandra, who had hoped to enter the war on the side of the Allies in return for territory from Austria-Hungary, gives up his intention to go to war and keeps Italy neutral.
• February 23, 1915 - After six months of fighting, and with their Expeditionary Force running low on provisions and morale, the British decided to withdraw from the war, despite the protests of the French government and military. The Germans agree to grant the remaining soldiers safe passage under the condition that the British will renew their non-aggression pact with Germany and pay Germany a modest amount in reparations for breaking the pact. Despite his great anger at Britain breaking the pact, Wilhelm does not want to alienate Britain, and doesn’t demand anything more from the British.
• April 11, 1915 - After fighting alone for another two months, French forces surrender to the Germans unconditionally.
• Late 1916 - Amidst civil war, Russia surrenders unconditionally to the Central Powers.

[edit] Aftermath of the Great War

Germany (red), the Ost Schutzgebiet (pink), France (blue), and Hungary (yellow) in 1920, showing new borders and African colonies

[edit] Immediate Consequences

Germany sought to prevent another two front war, and especially another war with France. As such, it installs German-friendly puppet monarchies in France and Belgium. It also establishes an "Ost Schutzgebiet" (East Protectorate) from territories of the Russian Empire conquered during the war and ceded to Germany by treaty. The various ethnicities are given limited autonomy, but the area is a de facto part of the German Empire.

In addition to this, the Allies, including Britain, France, Belgium, and Russia, are forced to pay reparations, albeit of varying amounts, with Britain having to pay a modest amount in reparations. France and Belgium, being run by German puppet governments, are require to pay only a bit more. Russia is a different story. Wilhelm II knows that Russia will be the biggest threat to reckon with in any future European conflict, and as such forces them to pay economically crippling reparations in hopes of keeping Russia from rebuilding after the war.

[edit] German Colonial Empire

Germany, eager to form a colonial empire, agrees to a peace treaty on the conditions that all French and Belgian colonial possessions in Africa will be given over to the Central Powers. Some members of the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) criticize the move, saying that Germany is overextended as it is, and noting the rapidity with which the German overseas territories fell during the Great War. However Germany’s victory fever and Wilhelm’s personal charisma and dream of a German “Place in the Sun” mute much of the opposition. It is decided that Algeria and Morocco are to be left in the hands of the French puppet government. Germany takes direct control of the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, French West Africa, Madagascar, French Somaliland, and Comoros. Tunisia is granted to Austria-Hungary.

Despite Kaiser Wilhelm II's zeal for new colonies, the spectre of the ease with which the German colonies fell during the war haunts him. He causes a minor uproar when many conscripted soldiers, expecting to be demobilized and sent home, are instead deployed to stabilize and secure Germany's new colonies in Africa. Although this period of consolidation of power over the colonies lasts only a couple of years, national discontent leads to socialism receiving its strongest support during this period.

[edit] Collapse of the Empires

The war put immense strains on all parties involved, which is the final straw that leads to collapse for many. The Russian Empire falls into several years of civil war, eventually leading to the rise of the Soviet Union in 1918. Despite their best efforts, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire also begin to fall apart. The Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, comprising the territories of Cisleithania minus Galicia-Lodomeria, is annexed directly to the German Empire less than a year after the end of the war, in 1917. Hungary inherits Tunisia. Galicia-Lodomeria is made a puppet state of the German Empire. Turkey declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Germany itself is wrought by socialist and communist unrest.

[edit] The Clash between Nationalism and Socialism

From the end of the First World War and throughout the early 1920's, a major conflict was brewing underneath the surface between the Nationalist interests in Germany, which sought to expand the German Empire and subjugate the non-German races of the world (as the former colonial powers had done), and between the Socialist interests, which strove for the institution of a socialist or communist system in Germany, and the integration of the newly conquered territories into the Empire. The two major players on both sides were the German Worker’s Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD). Growing resentment towards the Soviet Union and German difficulties in maintaining control over its newly acquired colonies led to ever increasing support for nationalist sentiments in Germany. This comes to a head in 1924, when members of the Spartacist League, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, attempt to form a commune in Berlin. Like the Paris Commune half a century earlier, the Berlin Commune is destroyed, with Chancellor and former general Erich Ludendorff ordering Reichswehr troops to show no mercy. Within a week the commune is crushed. Both Luxemburg and Liebknecht are captured and summarily executed by Reichswehr troops, all but destroying any hope for the establishment of a socialist government in Germany for the foreseeable future. Revived socialist sentiment will not receive any significant support until after the fall of the dictatorship under Jürgen Lieber.

[edit] The 20's: An Empire's Growing Pains

Although the colonies which Germany acquired after the Great War already had most of the infrastructure necessary for their governance, many groups within the colonies saw the transfer of power as an opportunity to rebel against their new masters. As a result, the 1920's and early 1930's saw Germany struggling to maintain control over their new holdings. During this period, the Germans managed to perfect a system that would help them to maintain control

• Use native ethnic disputes to divide and conquer the subjugated lands. In the colonies, Germany would select one or several native ethnic groups to act as proxies in the administration of the colonies. Hatred by other ethnicities would be directed at these proxies, instead of at the Germans.
• Use native troops to help maintain order, to avoid loss of German lives in colonial uprisings, and to also direct hatred away from Germany directly.
• Use overwhelming force to quash even the most insignificant rebellions, and thereby instill fear into native populations.
• Build fortifications to help maintain control during rebellions, even with minimal personnel against native enemies which are vastly superior in number.
• Build concentration camps to exploit native labor and conduct killings en masse in secret.
• Use newly-created chemical weapons to disperse and kill large numbers of rebels with little effort.
• Later on, using eugenics and mass sterilizations to reduce the native population level in a less shocking way than mass killings.

Historians agree that Germany's experience in the 20's, perfecting the techniques of maintaining control with limited resources, would be a major factor in the methods of warfare used during the Second Great War, and a factor which would greatly aid in Germany's victory.

[edit] The 30's: The Storm of War

[edit] Jürgen Lieber

Arguably the most crucial event in German history since the unification of the Reich came in 1931 when Jürgen Lieber, son of a Bavarian farming family, veteran of the Great War and the Colonial Wars, and leader of the Nationalistische Deutsche Partei des Vaterlandes (NDPV) was chosen by Kaiser Wilhelm to be Reichskanzler. Many historians believe that Lieber’s racial ideas were formed during his time in the army, where he became good friends with a fellow soldier named Adolf Hitler. It is alleged that Hitler introduced Lieber to his views of German superiority and Germany’s destiny to subdue the non-German races of the world. It is believed that Hitler’s capture and murder by indigenous people during their tour in the Congo helped set Lieber’s racial beliefs.

[edit] The Second Great War

The issues which had caused the Great War had not been solved during that war, and indeed, if anything, they were deepened by the bad experiences of both sides during the war. The main losers of the Great War, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, both feared a future aggressive war by Germany that would leave their respective countries in the same position as France and Belgium; puppet states under Germany hegemony. As a result, both countries signed a mutual defense pact in 1932 following Jürgen Lieber's ascension to power. Lieber, realizing that the treaty threatened Germany with the possibility of another two front war, and especially fearing going to war with Russia for a second time, sought to not only make strong alliances, but also force Russia to split its forces on more than one front in the case of war. The most logical ally for this, Lieber quickly realized, was Japan. Although Japan had fought on the side of the Allies during the Great War, it also had a long history of animosity with Russia. Lieber managed to negotiate an alliance whereby Germany and Japan pledged mutual support in case of war.

Although neither Britain under Stanley Baldwin, nor the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin wanted a war with Germany, the longer Lieber stayed in office, the more it looked like a second Great War would be inevitable. Although Stanley Baldwin tried his best to maintain peace, he could not prevent the Soviet Union, on the direct orders of Josef Stalin, from launching a surprise attack on Germany, hoping to seize the initiative. Although it was clear that the Soviet Union had launched an aggressive war, and that Britain was thereby not bound by the 1932 treaty, Baldwin believed that it was only a matter of time before Germany turned its sights to Great Britain. As such, two weeks after the Soviet invasion, Great Britain declared war on Germany.

The Opening Moves

Soviet Armies drove west, crashing into East Prussia.

[edit] The 40's: The Decade of Civil War

Even for the victors of the Second Great War, unrest was stirring beneath the surface.

[edit] Germany

In Germany, monarchists who had at first supported the "emergency" dictatorship of Jürgen Lieber, now wondered when or if he planned to restore the "temporarily" abrogated monarchy. Once it became clear that Lieber had no intentions of giving up his stranglehold on power, and with the regime resorting to ever more repressive measures at home, even against political allies, the monarchists began to join forces with their longtime enemies, the socialists, to determine how best to rid themselves of their common enemy, the Lieber regime. It eventually became clear that only military force could topple his regime. The monarchists, who controlled the military with the exception of Lieber's personal Praetorian Guard, the Schutzstaffel, believed that a quick strike against the Schutzstaffel and Lieber directly could topple his government with a minimum of casualties, and without risking a drawn out civil war. The socialists, who were gaining ever greater support among the German people, could then establish a provisional government until a permanent government could be established. The planning for this was not without its difficulties. The monarchists insisted upon the reinstitution of the monarchy, while the socialists demanded nothing less than the establishment of a liberal socialist democracy. Secret negotiations between the leaders of the SPD and the military established a compromise that, although the details of the new government would be established after Lieber had been ousted, the monarchy would be retained, although more power would be given to the elected Reichstag.

Any hope of a clean strike against Lieber was dashed upon the implementation of the coup. The military had planned for the entire coup, from the first movements by the military until all Schutzstaffel units had been disabled and control had been established over the country, to be accomplished within no more than twelve hours, with Lieber being arrested or killed within the first hour. As the first military units were put in motion, it quickly became evident that Lieber, an ambitious but cautious man, had been planning on an attempt to remove him from power. That, combined with mistakes and complacency on the part of the military leadership orchestrating the coup, caused things to go awry within the first 30 minutes of the plan being put into action. After two hours, with Lieber having gone into hiding and Schutzstaffel units mobilizing far more quickly than expected, the worst fears of the monarchists and socialists had been realized; Germany had fallen into civil war.

[edit] France

France itself had been chafing for two and a half decades under the puppet monarchy instituted by Germany after the Great War.

[edit] Britain

[edit] The 1950's: The Decade of Liberalization

[edit] Decolonization: A mixed track record