DBFHWI: What do you think about this future history map of the world in 2021, a whopping 107 years from today?

[WolfBear]

This is a DBFHWI, aka a Double-Blind Future History What-If. You have to pretend that it's currently January 1, 1914 and that some alternate history group shows you a map of the world in 2021, a whopping 107 years into the future:

Anyway, what do you think?

FWIW, this thread of mine was inspired by this AH.com thread:

DBWI(?) - Europe in the Year 2000

The months before and after the start of the twentieth century has provided a new focus on the 'long term view' of the energies of members of the Counterfactual History Society, the second millennium since Christ now in its final, hopefully uneventful, stretch. Imagining the world the Millennium...

www.alternatehistory.com

 

[Skallagrim]

I can only conclude one obvious truth from this map: the Great War that many to-day expect to occur has indeed come, and Germany has secured a decisive victory.

Look at Eastern Europe! All those German client states carved out of Russia's periphery! And the rest of the world! The colonial empires of Britain and France have been utterly dismantled!

But from the looks of it, Germany and its allies suffered from victory disease. It appears as if they destroyed Britain and France by incentivising the colonial subjects to mass revolts, and that they similarly carved out ethnic vassal-states for the Western subject peoples of Russia. But... quite possibly inspired by the sentiments of ethno-nationalist revolution spread by Germany and its allies... the Eastern European states eventually rose up against Germany, and the subject peoples of the Ottomans and the Habsburgs have clearly also revolted.

Germany and its allies decisively won the war, and then decisively lost the peace. I'd call this timeline "The Murder-Suicide of Empires".

(One thing that stands out is that the USA is seemingly unaffected by all this, and has given up its hold on the Philippines. I'd wager that the Americans were smart enough to stay out of the Great War, disentangled themselves from colonial ventures, and retreated into a humble isolationism.)

 

[WolfBear]

I can only conclude one obvious truth from this map: the Great War that many to-day expect to occur has indeed come, and Germany has secured a decisive victory.

Look at Eastern Europe! All those German client states carved out of Russia's periphery! And th rest of the world! The colonial empires of Britain and France have been utterly dismantled!

But from the looks of it, Germany and its allies suffered from victory disease. It appears as if they destroyed Britain and France by incentivising the colonial subjects to mass revolts, and that they similarly carved out ethnic vassal-states for the Western subject peoples of Russia. But... quite possibly inspired by the sentiments of revolution spread by Germany and its allies... the Eastern European states eventually rose up against Germany, and the subject peoples of the Ottomans and the Habsburgs have clearly also revolted.

Germany and its allies decisively won the war, and then decisively lost the peace. I'd call this timeline "The Murder-Suicide of Empires".

(On thing that stands out is that the USA is seemingly unaffected by all this, and has given up its hold on the Philippines. I'd wager that the Americans were smart enough to stay out of the Great War, disentangled themselves from colonial ventures, and retreated into a humble isolationism.)

If you'll look carefully, you'll also see that the US acquired the Danish West Indies, which it apparently subsequently renamed the US Virgin Islands (how original! ).

Anyway, what I don't get is how Russia ended up in control of northern East Prussia without it actually regaining Belarus and Ukraine and how Poland was able to seize so much Prussian territory and keep it. My guess:

The defeated Anglo-French were able to make a military comeback once Germany, A-H, the Ottomans, et cetera descended into revolution and provided an extremely massive amount of military assistance to the Poles. Thus, since the Germans had to deal with a revolution while they fought off the Anglo-French in the west and the Poles in the east, Poland got a golden opportunity to conquer an extremely massive amount of Prussian territory. Though why exactly France itself did not conquer the Saarland at this point in time is an interesting question. The Saarland does have a lot of coal, after all. Maybe they reached a deal with Germany where Germany keeps sovereignty over the Saarland while France gets access to the Saarland's coal reserves, at least for a good amount of time?

As for northern East Prussia, maybe Poland gives it to Russia in exchange for Russian military aid against the Germans? Russia could always use a year-round warm-water port, after all, even if it is not directly connected to Russia. Russia can still access it by sea, after all! Though why exactly Russia doesn't use military force to reconquer Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries, the Caucasus, and Central Asia still remains a true mystery to me. Maybe the Poles and the Anglo-French all oppose this and Russia does not want to jeopardize its ties with them?