[DoctorNiCYDEn]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
BTW, there was a good side to WWI . . . the Reds. We ended the war. You did? I thought you had to sign a humiliating seperate peace with the Germans after collapsing into anarchy. Originally posted by BeBro
...and fought a devastating civil war instead.
chegitz meant the reds in germany, the ones that stabbed the army in the back.


Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Let's not forget the 100 days offensive and Reds organizing all over the place. The Allies are lucky that Germany had it together enough to be able to crush the Reds. what would have happened if the germans hadn't had it together enough to crush the reds? red weimar?

[TughEmotteTug]

Originally posted by Andemagne


what would have happened if the germans hadn't had it together enough to crush the reds? red weimar? They would have aided the communists in Hungary and had "good" relationships with the Soviet Union (a war couldn't break out). Since France would probably have a harder time getting a coalition of all the left political parties (peoples front) to stave off the fascists. The Republican side would have won in the Spanish Civil war. The British union of Faschist might have taken off or it might have not. In any case the US would remain democratic till 1950 after that I can say. The Russian civil war would have been less devastating, but the Germans would have to fight out interventionist forces right after WW1, but the economic crises wouldn't have touched them.

WW2 would be about commies vs. fascists & democracy

or it would have been two wars not a word war, on in Europe and one in the Pacific

If it was global the Japs may even have decided to attack the Soviet Union not the US, making them an ally.

[HitAttetlyTek]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Define them.
no, I meant "what are proper concepts?"

[Breeriacoirl]

Originally posted by Andemagne
I wonder how much troops they still had in russia in the fall of '18? They had lots of old men and boys.

[Janarealiti]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


AH more or less followed Germany's instructionst, they where very much the junior parter. According to Barbara Tuchman's book the unrealistic demands placed on Serbia came from the Austrians themselves. The Germans didn't instruct them, but gave them a carte blanche regarding the handling of the crisis. In doing so the Kaiser knew full well what would likely happen and was fully prepared to follow through.
It should be pointed out that Bosnia - Herzegovina was never legally given to Austria. The treaty of 1878 handed the administration of the region to Austria, but the actual ownership was to remain Ottoman.
In many ways though the blame for WW1 is evenly distributed throughout Europe. The greedy aristocrats had nursed their grudges for so many decades, they decorated their studies with the trophies of glorious campaigns past. They had made their plans and had dreamt of glory for so many nights. They could not be denied forever. The myth of martial glory had to be finally laid to rest.

[pkopwqzsdcvbn]

Originally posted by Andemagne


german high command doesn't believe or estimate, they count.
trenches came into play AFTER the Schliefen Plan had failed, and Schliefen Plan failed because Moltke the B@st@rd moved "an armycorps and a half" from western front to eastern front. And I think this Schlieffen-Plan was largely influenced by the successes in 1870. It didn´t account for modern defensive technologies (like the machinegun) but instead counted on the same rapid successes like in the war in 1870 in defeating the french army.
IMHO this lets it appear questionable if this plan had worked even if Russia hadn´t mobilised so fast (and therefore germany was forced to fight a 2 fronts war).

[doolarsva]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Define them. Good: "anything I like"

Evil: "anything I don't like"

[Phoneemer]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Let's not forget the 100 days offensive and Reds organizing all over the place. The Allies are lucky that Germany had it together enough to be able to crush the Reds. The first strike/civil disturbance over food shortages in Imperial Germany during WWI was in 1916....

[gariharlj]

Edmund Blackadder put it best, I should think.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=l5a9m_t6PN0

Very nice way to summarise things, "Bollocks".

Great series, BTW. Has one of my favourite quotes of all time.

"Good luck, everyone."

Needs context, mind.

[BEyng6hj]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
... They might have found themselves sweeping the Russians out of Poland by the end of the year.
and?


I think that troop increase early in the war would have benefitted western front more thatn eastern front.

[LesLattis]

The reason teh Schlieffen plan failed was because the power of the right hook was weakened to apease the ego of the crown prince. He was in command of one of the armies opposite the main French defenses on the French frontier, and he wasn't happy with playing the decoy. Nope, plus out in the eastern front to protect Koenigsberg. They left the 8th army to defend all of East Prussia. Prittwitz couldn't handle his postion when Rennenkampf and Samsonov ran the 1st and 2nd Armies right at Koenigsberg, and ordered a retreat behind the Vistula.

Moltke sacked Prittwitz after his retreat order was started, and put Hindenburg and Lunendorff in their places. He also sent 3 corps and 2 calvary divisions from the right flank to help shore up East Prussia.

Moltke was the one who also reinforced the border along the Rhine to prevent French incursions.

The Schlieffen plan would have worked, but the armies didn't circle around Paris, and the wheel turned in front of the city, which meant the French didn't have to worry about being outflanked.

[wp6Eg2Fm]

Originally posted by Deity Dude


Afterall, does anyone or any group of people consider themselves the "Bad Guys" Timur Lenk/Tamerlaine and Attila spring to mind... Timur Lenk professed to be a devout Muslim, yet made war on Muslims himself, both Shi'ite 'heretics' and Sunni Turks.

Of course he also made war on infidels and Christians, and was preparing to invade China when he died, so he was fairly comprehensive in his bloodthirstiness.



I sadly cannot find my source, but I read somewhere, supported by quotes from contempory French leaders, that France was worried about the shifting population demographics between them and Germany, in Germany's favor. They were anxious to start a war, so they could recapture Alsace-Lorraine and also regain their honor lost by losing to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war (reference the many good post on the glories of war and unrealistic expectations on all sides).
Some French revanchists were eager to begin a war, but many French politicians were not- and certainly regaining Alsace-Lorraine was a great spur to French warmongers and populist ideologues, but many French were also opposed to another European war.

The German High Command was quite keen for a 'pre-emptive' war with Imperial Russia- they were particularly concerned about Germany's Slav minority and the growing industrialization of Russia and the increase in railway networks there.

Their ideal situation would have been a German-Austrian war with Russia- German intelligence on Russian forces had been boosted by observers during the Russo-Japanese War (some of these same observers seemed to go out of their way to offend the Japanese with racial slurs, though...).

[MichaelfromSpace]

... just to complete...

AD&D,

With regards to law you have Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic and with regardst to moral standards good, neutrality and evil. This makes for 9 possible alignments.

I assume the Germans were the LAWFUL faction meaning there were the Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil ones.

Just my thoughts on the matter...

[bestgenpower]

Germans used polish cities, just like in ww2, as target practices for new kinds of weaponry. They reduced the oldest polish city, Kalisz, to 10% of its population by bombarbment but that doesn't include the ones that fled), though there was no military in it. They wanted to force out 2mln of Poles from western Congress Kingdom to make room for german settlers. They wanted to turn entire eastern Europe into their colony.
It's a common thing for westeners to think Germany was wronged after ww1 and only this caused Hitler. No, Germans had very long traditions of imperialism and mistreatment of other peoples. From the perspective of central/eastern Europe, the result of the war - German defeat, but also severe weakening of Moscow - was what allowed them to regain freedom.