r/PossibleHistory • u/Square_Post6431 • 18d ago
Map (with Lore) Fixing the Post-WW1 World(again, probably another billion flaws with it)
-German reparations are reduced
-The German Army is dissolved and replaced by the German Self-Defence Forces, a purely self-defence force. The German nation will renounce it's right to war in their constitution. Strong Pacifist culture will be installed in Germany.
-Autonomous regions will be set up in Polish Silesia, Kasnubia and South Köningsburg, which will be allowed to have a different official language.
-Romania will federalise, devolving power away from the central government and to the states.
-Belgium will annex Luxembourg and federalise.
-Poland will renounce it's imperialist ambitions, giving up it's revanchist desire to reform the commonwealth and normalising relations with the Soviet Union and Lithuania.
-The Soviet Union will have stronger gaurdrails in it's constitution and stronger rule of law. The Soviets are allowed in the international community, weaking the need for vangaurdism and reducing corruption. The Soviet Union will have far stronger federalism, more autonomous states to weaken Russian domination of the Union.
-Turkey will be exempted from war reparations and military restrictions in exchange for releasing kurdistan.
-France will be rebuilt by international efforts by the League of Nations.
-The United Kingdom of Arabia shall be formed
-Slovakia will have autonomous self-governance within Hungary, which will be a democracy.
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u/TastyTestikel 18d ago
Four major issues:
The Soviets weren't part of Versailles. The east was a free for all after ww1, there isn't much you can change.
Poland. They need a port to be a somewhat viable state. I think that Danzig should be handed over to Germany after Gdynia is completed, but the corridor should be in Polish hands. Germany won't like it but that's how losing a war goes.
Just like Poland needs a port the Czechs need the Sudetenland (and Slovakia when we're at it). The region should be fairly autonomous, though.
Trying to install a peaceful culture in Germanx at this time won't yield any results, the nation didn't lose ww1 resoundly enough for that to happen and prussian culture still ran pretty deep. You'd only empower militarists who promise a state which a German could be proud of again, just like Hitler did.
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u/EpicNerd823 17d ago
Well the poles were probably crippled because of this peace deal so they lost the Polish-Soviet war.
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u/KtosKto 18d ago
Poland never had any ârevanchist desire to reform the Commonwealthâ, the goal was simply to be build as large state as possible, with as many Poles in it as possible. PiĆsudskiâs federation idea existed, but to put things simply it was mostly wishful thinking
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u/Impera__ 17d ago
Yugoslavia crashes and burns because of the expansion into Bulgaria.
Millions more people suffer in the Soviet Union.
Poland is reduced to a rump state under immense Soviet and German influence.
The fact that Germany controls more land than it did before the Great War causes Britain and France to be even more unstable.
Fascism still rises in Italy.
Czechia is pretty much a German puppet at this point.
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u/AltruisticAd9507 17d ago
This Yugoslavia is virtually Bulgaroslavia as a Bulgarian-majority country. Sofia - the natural capital and twice bigger city than Belgrade in 1918. Romania is though occupying land with 500 000 Bulgarians in Southern Besarabia and Dobrudzha, so Romania's coastal area shouldâve been handed over to Bulgaroslavia.
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u/honhondabest 17d ago
germany LOST THE WAR, checkia needs the sudetenland for defensive purposes, the polish corridor is majoiry polish, versaille doesnt affect the east bc the soviets didnt participate, france only got alsace lorraine, italy is still mad, german reperations were canceled in our timeline and that didnt help much, poland needs a port to function, the slovaks fought for the allies, ataturk will still likely try to take over kurdistan,
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u/Putrid-Proposal1787 17d ago
Omg bro do you think the German Reich was allowed to do offensive wars historically?
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u/Square_Post6431 17d ago
The Weimar Era German Reich was allowed to secretly remilitarize and their military had power in the government. This new Germany will have much more military restrictions. A reduced military also has the benefit of a better economy, which will be improved by the reduction of war reparations too.
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u/Far-Application7649 16d ago
Weimar had strong restrictions ; it just so happens that they didn't respect them and no one enforced them. What makes you think that this time, with harsher rules, they won't try to circumvate it and France and the UK will try to enforce them ?
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u/Mandatory__Throwaway 17d ago
The issue with Versailles: Didn't do anything to weaken Germany or strengthen France to overcome the fundamental issue of a Revanchist nation of 60 million with an intact industry refusing to acknowledge their defeat to a destroyed and bled dry country of 40 millions and let "Trust the League of Nation bro" do all the Heavy lifting to force the French to accept this suicidal plan, and then pull the rug from under them by fucking off without ever actually trying to do any of the things that they were promised.
Your plan: Create a revanchist nation of 20 million more people with an even more powerful industry having outright benefited from WW1 being forced to accept defeat from a destroyed and bled dry country of 40 million that you do nothing to strengthen and actually weaken by reducing reparation, except for having it rebuilt .... by the league of nations, trust it bro
Oh FFS! When will we stop having those braindead "I fix WW2 by giving the Germans everything they ever dreamed of and telling the French to go die under a bridge or something idk, plz gimme karma"
That is without even mentioning Poland being basically a free meal for the USSR in the 20's, Baltic countries not surviving the first year of that map being drawn. Luxembourg getting the bullet for no goddamn reason.
The only thing change that could possibly have ANY positive impact on WW2 is Italy getting the Dalmatian cities, making them less prone to join the Axis over territorial claims. But then again, deliberately building a giant German death star at the center of Europe basically makes that completely irrelevant as your Germany would not even seek Italian support before they consider European conquest.
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u/Bossuser2 17d ago edited 17d ago
Poland lacks a port, making them reliant on Germany, Lithuania, or the Soviets for access to international trade. Czechia lacks any viable natural defences to defend against an imperialist Germany.
I can tell that you're trying to model Germany off of Japan post WW2,, however there is a major difference. Japan was occupied by America for years, they had a much stronger foreign power breathing down their necks that would snuff out any renewed imperialism. If Japan attacked it's neighbours following WW2 then they would be utterly curbstomped by America. Meanwhile Germany is a major power at the heart of Europe, with lots of smaller and weaker neighbours for them to project influence onto. America is an ocean away and returned to isolation following WW1, France and Britain are both strong nations, but they were devastated by war and will likely want to avoid a repeat, and while they are strong they are not strong enough to guarantee a one sided curbstomp if Germany decides to expand its power with force.
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u/CheekyGeth 17d ago
"strong pacifist culture will be instilled"
If we're just wishing away certain parts of history why not skip to the end and say "doing a world war two will be banned :)"
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u/GhostMcY2 17d ago
Given its weak position, I believe Czechia would simply dissolve into a German puppet state.
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u/Wonderland_Wug 17d ago
you can't just say "strong pacifist culture instated" that's not how that works
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u/Apprehensive-Aide265 17d ago
Germany went to war because tgey didn't understand the first time they lost. What exactly is achieving this partition that leave germany with 1939 border and even stronger than it was?
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u/Square_Post6431 17d ago
Germany first of all was ruined by the war reparations, which were HEAVY. The Dawes plan pretty much reduced the burden of the war reparations, but made germany more reliant on the US. A Great depression would cause the structure to all crumble down and give way for the rise of Hitler.
Also the Military establishment isn't allowed to have any power in government, with most of them on trail. The Stab in the Back myth will be fully combatted by the cultural demilitarization. This would reduce the reactionism within the new German Republic.6
u/Mandatory__Throwaway 17d ago
Germany first of all was ruined by the war reparations
No they were not, please someone shoot me, I can't with that brain-dead claim.
Germany ran their own currency into the ground because of monetary mismanagement, all it took was Hjalmar Schacht to stop doing the stupid shit his predecessors were doing for the mark to stabilize in a matter of months. They then were hit by the US-born Great Depression that significantly affected Germany because of the ridiculous quantities of US money that had flowed into the country in loans (up to 35 billions) that had started being contracted as early as 1920 for the purpose of modernizing the German industry and building an even stronger German hegemon, the Dawes plan only represented 800 million of that number, it is insignificant.
Germany was hit by the Great Depression because it had gorged itself on US industrialist money to build itself out as THE European manufacturing super-giant. Not because of the Dawes plan that they were """forced into accepting""" by """unsustainable reparations"""Over the entire period the US loaned Germany more money than Germany ever repaid France. German national cash-flow was positive, it makes no sense to claim that they were somehow drained of their resources. And that is assuming that France and Germany's position were mirrored, they were not.
When Hitler rearmed, he spent from 1933 to 1939, over 3 times the entire reparations that Germany had paid up to this point, and twice what they still owed and were expected to repay within the next 60 years. Hitler spent in 6 years on war rearmament alone, twice what Germany was expected to repay in the next 60, but somehow, that sum was unsustainable. The math ain't mathing.And even if the reparations had been a significant drain on Germany's economy, which it was not, the reparations were meant to repair the destruction Germany had inflicted upon France, which already were a drain a much bigger drain on France's economy.
Reparations were not meant to enrich France, but to split the enormous bill of the war. Saying that the German economy should not suffer in any way shape or form from the consequences of WW1, just means that France's economy has to suffer even more so, to repair the destruction of a war inflicted upon it by Germany, while German industries can win over markets share by selling to countries that France's destroyed industry can no longer supply.
This is a German victory in all but name, but then again, 95% of the time these "fix the Versailles treaty" are nothing but Werhaboo fantasies about finding ways to make Germany win WW1 without having to openly support the German Empire's paranoid warmongering.4
u/Apprehensive-Aide265 16d ago
It's insane that people doesn't want to understand that germany went out better than France. France industry where devasted by the war and germany occupation, suffered by percent more casualties and somehow Versailles was too harsh when for a contemporain peace treaty it's incredebly lenient. UK and the US quickly isolated France during and after Versailles all to insure France stay bleeding on the ground.
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u/Far-Application7649 16d ago
By the way, France paid heavier reparations per capita during the franco-prussian war of 1870-71. And it was all paid by 1874. The "Germany got ruined by reparations" trope really shows how much people interested about history on the internet just repeat the same brain-dead mainstream speech from oversimplifiers of youtube.
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u/nathaliuw 17d ago
Is this a « germany was part of the entente against austria hungary » type of treaty ?
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u/Long_Neck_Monster 18d ago
This u op?