You can cumulatively alter three events in 20th century European history; which events do you alter?

History Learner

Well-known member
Yeah, I'm aware of the Wilson mediation efforts. AFAIK, though, they didn't actually have very much success because both sides still believed that they could win this war. Maybe if the US would have remained neutral, though, then the Entente would have become more willing to negotiate by late 1917 or early 1918 due to their much more dire financial situation by then.

Wilson had already laid the framework for exactly that in November; the Fed issued a note that non-collateral supported loans could no longer be issued and the Entente was due to run out of that in months. USW at the last second snatched ultimate victory away, as it forced the U.S. to rescind this policy in February. It was that close.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Wilson had already laid the framework for exactly that in November; the Fed issued a note that non-collateral supported loans could no longer be issued and the Entente was due to run out of that in months. USW at the last second snatched ultimate victory away, as it forced the U.S. to rescind this policy in February. It was that close.

What do you think that Hughes would have done had he won in November 1916 instead of Wilson? Also, what about if Hughes won AND Germany refused to resume USW for whatever reason?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
What do you think that Hughes would have done had he won in November 1916 instead of Wilson? Also, what about if Hughes won AND Germany refused to resume USW for whatever reason?

Germany refusing to do USW is really all that is needed. We'd get a peace deal by the Summer of 1917 that mildly favors the Central Powers, although the Ottomans probably get screwed. I could see the Tsar being forced to abdicate, with Michael taking the throne as a Constitutional Monarch in Russia in the aftermath.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Germany refusing to do USW is really all that is needed. We'd get a peace deal by the Summer of 1917 that mildly favors the Central Powers, although the Ottomans probably get screwed. I could see the Tsar being forced to abdicate, with Michael taking the throne as a Constitutional Monarch in Russia in the aftermath.

Do you think that Hughes would be willing to do unsecured loans to the Entente without USW?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
Do you think that Hughes would be willing to do unsecured loans to the Entente without USW?

I don't and the public opinion was pretty firmly against it by this point. It's forgotten nowadays, but there was serious issues with the Entente at this time too, it's just the Germans shooting themselves in the foot really screwed them over.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
I don't and the public opinion was pretty firmly against it by this point. It's forgotten nowadays, but there was serious issues with the Entente at this time too, it's just the Germans shooting themselves in the foot really screwed them over.

What were the specific grievances against the Entente?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
What were the specific grievances against the Entente?

Blockade being a major one, as Germany was like the second or third largest trading partner of the United States in 1914. The Irish and Germans were always Pro-German anyway, but likewise there was growing concerns over the Entente actions endangering the economy; unsecured loans risked pulling the U.S. down with them if they lost.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Blockade being a major one, as Germany was like the second or third largest trading partner of the United States in 1914. The Irish and Germans were always Pro-German anyway, but likewise there was growing concerns over the Entente actions endangering the economy; unsecured loans risked pulling the U.S. down with them if they lost.

So, basically, secured loans meant that something was placed as collateral to be seized in the events that the loans were incapable of being repaid, right? But unsecured loans means that you'd be left out of options if the loans failed to be repaid?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
So, basically, secured loans meant that something was placed as collateral to be seized in the events that the loans were incapable of being repaid, right? But unsecured loans means that you'd be left out of options if the loans failed to be repaid?

Exactly, and the Entente was out of collateral somewhere around April according to most estimates I've seen. We actually have the British all government departments meeting from November of 1916 which explicitly spells this out. World War I was, ultimately, fundamentally Germany's to lose.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Exactly, and the Entente was out of collateral somewhere around April according to most estimates I've seen. We actually have the British all government departments meeting from November of 1916 which explicitly spells this out. World War I was, ultimately, fundamentally Germany's to lose.

Yep, and it's a huge shame that Germany failed to know/realize this. Firing Falkenhayn and replacing him with H & L was probably Kaiser Bill's biggest mistake in the war. Would you agree?
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
As for me:

1. Have the Whites win the Russian Civil War.
2. Have the Poles be more successful in their post-World War I war with Russia, allowing them to expand up to the Dnieper River and create nominally independent pro-Polish Ukrainian and Belarusian puppet states.
3. Have Adolf Hitler get killed in 1923.

FWIW, if I could add a fourth event to this list, it would be:

4. Have the US Senate ratify the Security Treaty with Britain and France after the end of World War I, thus creating a peacetime defensive alliance between these three countries, an alliance that other countries could possibly join later on

@sillygoose What are your own thoughts on my question here?
 

ATP

Well-known member
As for me:

1. Have the Whites win the Russian Civil War.
2. Have the Poles be more successful in their post-World War I war with Russia, allowing them to expand up to the Dnieper River and create nominally independent pro-Polish Ukrainian and Belarusian puppet states.
3. Have Adolf Hitler get killed in 1923.

If Poland supported Wrangel after miracle of Wisła,it could be covered in one change.
You do not kill Adolf then - whatever he try,Poland and White Russia would crush him.

Okay, having given it some thought...

Number 1: Have the Germans scrap all plans for fleet expansion as of the earliest possible moment in the 20th century. All potential investments to go into the army instead.

Number 2: Have the Germans, in the knowledge that their colonial empire is a net money drain, offer to sell the German colonies to Britain on the cheap. This removes the perception of Germany as a colonial competitor to Britain.

Number 3: Have the Germans ditch their existing war plans, and have them instead develop an 'East first' strategy for the coming war. Effort must be taken to conceal this plan, up to and including efforts to make it appear as if Germany will most likely pursue a 'France first' strategy. Yet in reality, the plan must be to fight a purely defensive war in the West (never violating Belgian neutrality), and move to knock out Russia quickly.

The goal of these changes is to avoid British entry into the Great War, by removing the two foremost motivations for this, as well as OTL's casus belli. From an outside perspective, the war mostly looks like an Austria-versus-Russia match, with Germany standing by its closest ally, and France stepping in primarily to exact vengeance on Germany (instead of any real desire to help Russia).

I expect the overall result to be a war that ends in a CP victory, in early 1916 at the latest. We avoid the USSR, we avoid the death of multiple monarchies, we avoid Germany being humiliated and bled dry, we avoid Austria-Hungary being cut to pieces, we avoid the Ottoman Empire being dismembered, we avoid the seeds of the British Empire's shameful implosion, we avoid US involvement (and thus the seeds of the USA attempting to be the world's policeman), we avoid a whole generation dying in pointless trench warfare, we avoid the worst of the Great Depression (there'll still be a serious down-turn, but much less dramatic), and avoid Hitler and his goons, too.

Meanwhile, we gain an independent Balticum (a country in personal union with Germany, under the Kaiser), an independent Finland (with a Hohenzollern monarch), an independent Ukraine (with a Hohenzollern monarch), an independent Poland (potentially with a Habsburg monarch because Catholic?) and a defeated French Republic (with seriously good chances of a monarchist restoration).


Nice and dandy,BUT....you need normal leaders,not prussians,for that.Becouse they would:
1.Somehow manage to fuck it anyway
2.Win,made all other countries hate them,start WW2 for more lands and lost.If prussia could stop their land grabbing,they could become european power.Unfortunatelly,they always wonted MOAR.
And,also unfortunatelly for them,they do not genocided in Europe,but still was dicks - so polish children was beaten for speaking in their language,but not kiled.
And,as adults,made only polish succesful uprising in 1919 in Wielkopolska.

So,it would work,if you turned prussian leaders into normal competent imperialists.
Since you need change minds,not history,it is not possible here.

Also hopefully stopping a Genocide or two, see Namibia.


Whose first order of Buissness will be to go “REVANCHE” on Germany, this being the French Right of the time.0 Any restoration is likely going to have a lot of “We will redeem ourself”.

Now my personal take:

1. Kerensky holds on and manages to get Russia into a mostly Stable Republic. No Communism, No Autocracy and No Civil war. Stills screws over Ukraine (no way Russia let’s them out if they peace out early, the only reason the Germans got that was the Bolsheviks being dumb) but what can you do. kills Nazism before it ever develops, and Kills Communism as well.

2.Eliminate the Pro Choice Movement by sending various people else where.

3. Make the Catholic Church Structurally more serious on dealing with the Pedophile problem, unlike the utter shame and disgrace of OTL.

There, I belive I’ve made a better world right out of the gate. Prevent the totalitarian murder states of OTL while still allowing the positive forces to develop, albeit force the Colonial powers out more slowly. The church is more respected and millions of children aren’t slaughtered. A Utopia? No. Better than OTL? Certainly


1.Kerensky could do that,if he killed Lenin and Trocky and do not attacked germans in 1917.Possible.
2.it was not united movement,so could not be covered by one wish
3.Do not made Vaticanum 2,no problems then.Homosexuals in church become important after that.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
FWIW, if I could add a fourth event to this list, it would be:

4. Have the US Senate ratify the Security Treaty with Britain and France after the end of World War I, thus creating a peacetime defensive alliance between these three countries, an alliance that other countries could possibly join later on

@sillygoose What are your own thoughts on my question here?
Politically impossible given the US public's mentality after the war
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
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Atarlost

Well-known member
1) Woodrow Wilson loses the 1912 election in a landslide.
Without Wilson's incumbency an actual isolationist will win in 1916 and the US will remain neutral resulting in a peace of mutual exhaustion in WWI. There is no stab in the back myth because the CPs achieve a pyrrhic victory instead of a defeat while holding foreign soil and thus no fascist movement in Germany. There is also no 1919 naval expansion plan and thus no Washington Naval Treaty, which means the Anglo-Japanese Naval Agreement remains in place and Japan retains the trust it had before WWI that at least some Europeans can keep agreements. Other benefits to just about every aspect of American society because Wilson was a horrible racist and ivory tower elitist.
2) If change 1 has not averted the second Russian Revolution by keeping Lenin in New York, Oil is discovered in Siberia before the end of the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War.
With a large oil source that can be taken from an acceptable target, Japan never turns its eyes towards the Dutch East Indies and as synthetic rubber has already been invented by this point they don't really need to covet Singapore if they have oil. With oil in Siberia they will ensure a White Russian enclave holds it as a Japanese puppet state or annex the region outright if the Whites fail to stabilize. A Japanese backed White Siberia also blocks Mao's supply lines from Russia. It also means their attention is in the north and they probably can't spare the men to invade China. It also means that even if they do invade China, no American president can embargo Japan into a state of desperation where bombing Pearl Harbor looks like the least bad option.
3)When scientists first predicted that fusion power was 30 years away they were right.
This one ought to be obvious. Fusion means we have the energy budget for serious space travel and makes oil and natural gas nearly irrelevant starving militant Islam and Russian irridentism and the human extinction lobby of their funding sources either directly or by making the carbon dioxide scare unsustainable.

I allow the USSR to (probably) form because it gives socialism a deservedly bad name and keeping Japan invested in fighting Russians instead of Chinese and removing the temptation to go after the Dutch East Indies also avert the Pacific War, which doesn't result from just preventing the revolution. This saves me a slot for fusion power, which has all sorts of benefits.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Not at all. Many Republicans were in favor of this treaty back in 1919-1920. Lloyd Ambrosius wrote about this here and also elsewhere as well:

Sure some were, but there were enough who weren't an enough Americans voters who were pissed off by the ToV to make it impossible to pass. After all they required a 2/3rds majority to pass it and the majority of Republicans, who controlled the Senate, opposed it in the existing form (it was impossible to renegotiate it with every other nation to bring it into line with what the US Senate wanted and Wilson wouldn't even allow an attempt, which is understandable given what happened in Paris and his failing health):
The Republican Party controlled the United States Senate after the election of 1918, but the Senators were divided into multiple positions on the Versailles question. It proved possible to build a majority coalition, but impossible to build a two thirds coalition that was needed to pass a treaty.[1] One block of Democrats strongly supported the Versailles Treaty. A second group of Democrats supported the Treaty but followed President Woodrow Wilson in opposing any amendments or reservations. The largest block, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,[2] comprised a majority of the Republicans. They wanted a treaty with reservations, especially on Article 10, which involved the power of the League of Nations to make war without a vote by the United States Congress.[3] The closest the Treaty came to passage, came in mid-November 1919, was when Lodge and his Republicans formed a coalition with the pro-Treaty Democrats, and were close to a two-thirds majority for a Treaty with reservations, but Wilson rejected this compromise and enough Democrats followed his lead to permanently end the chances for ratification.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Sure some were, but there were enough who weren't an enough Americans voters who were pissed off by the ToV to make it impossible to pass. After all they required a 2/3rds majority to pass it and the majority of Republicans, who controlled the Senate, opposed it in the existing form (it was impossible to renegotiate it with every other nation to bring it into line with what the US Senate wanted and Wilson wouldn't even allow an attempt, which is understandable given what happened in Paris and his failing health):

The irreconcilables did not make up 1/3 of the US Senate; they made up less than that. Had Wilson agreed to the Lodge Reservations, then the ToV could have been ratified. And technically speaking, the French Security Treaty was (or at least could have been) independent of the ToV. Even if the ToV would have failed, the French Security Treaty could have still been ratified.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
The irreconcilables did not make up 1/3 of the US Senate; they made up less than that. Had Wilson agreed to the Lodge Reservations, then the ToV could have been ratified. And technically speaking, the French Security Treaty was (or at least could have been) independent of the ToV. Even if the ToV would have failed, the French Security Treaty could have still been ratified.
Sure, but the point is that well over 1/3rd still wouldn't agree to the treaty as is and Wilson refused to allow any modifications given what happened in Paris and how the rest of the Allies would react.
If you read these they basically neutered the treaty and would have effectively been as good as a veto, which would completely undermine the point of the treaty.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Sure, but the point is that well over 1/3rd still wouldn't agree to the treaty as is and Wilson refused to allow any modifications given what happened in Paris and how the rest of the Allies would react.
If you read these they basically neutered the treaty and would have effectively been as good as a veto, which would completely undermine the point of the treaty.

Wilson was an idiot, though; that's the thing. A more rational US President would have agreed to the Lodge Reservations. Likely even Thomas Marshall had Wilson's stroke killed him in late 1919.

Whether the Lodge Reservations would have neutered the Versailles Treaty is really besides the point; the French Security Treaty is much more important here. I'd easily accept the LR in exchange for getting the FST ratified. A peacetime Franco-Anglo-American alliance would be quite formidable!
 

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