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This is one of those AARs that has switched from casual to serious writing project that I want to rewrite entirely every five minutes.
As an editor and writer, I can definitely tighten up and improve a lot of what's previously been written and make it flow better. On the other hand, when this has happened in the past, it means the story dies because nothing new is written and I eventually move on to something else.
So for this, I'm committed to the first draft with plan and roadmap, rather than the above. And when it's all done, I'll rewrite if I feel like it.
As an editor and writer, I can definitely tighten up and improve a lot of what's previously been written and make it flow better. On the other hand, when this has happened in the past, it means the story dies because nothing new is written and I eventually move on to something else.
So for this, I'm committed to the first draft with plan and roadmap, rather than the above. And when it's all done, I'll rewrite if I feel like it.
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The AAR which inspired your username. Do do deny it, it is your history.
Anyway catchup. Part 4 could have been an awful mess but you carried it off well and it worked in the end. Atherleigh has the truth of the matter and Ouster for all his sense is still perhaps a bit in denial about how bad it is going to be. The Aftermath summary was as effective as such things can be, a reminder of from how far behind the Entente is coming from.
A Napoleonic Peace is a good guide, precisely because it doesn't involve an ongoing commitment or occupation. Just transfer 'irrevocably' chunks of territory and set up new puppet or independent states. As I suggested earlier, HRE 2 This Time it's Even Less Correctly Named, seems a decent plan.
Overall though I still struggle to reconcile the first post of this AAR (which I just reread) with what has happened. Absolutely no way is Britain 'reconciling' with Germany or letting them off any reparations. Indeed I struggle with Hindenburg, the archetype Prussian sociopath, escaping the noose, let alone being allowed to be President.
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I've had the name for a while before coming to the forums, but yes, it's a formative work for me.
The curious impact of Germany having a pretty good early war without actually achieving anything that will help them win (and making a lot of long term enemies in the process).
They handled the East a lot better, both in the Balkans and in the invasion of Poland, but they did a pretty good job of it OTL and it was rendered mostly irrelevant by defeat in the West.
Yes, I think the first post is going to get re-written, probably after Versailles is over and I know who is still alive and kicking.
The British switching from knocking Germany down a peg or two, to 'okay, we need a plan to rebalance Europe again', this early hopefully means they'll come up with a proper plan by the end of the war, and try so far as possible to get everyone else to agree to it.
This is going to be harder this time though, because Napoleonic France was under occupation and not in the midst of revolution, meaning they could and did invite the French to the table. Fully occupying a revolting Germany is beyond the capabilities of France or the appetite of the British, and in any case Russia is beyond their powers. A lot of the ww1 peace negotiatons will occur with all present knowing that Europe beyond former Russian Poland and Finland is deeply uncertain, and the communist uprisings in Germany, Russia, possibly Hungary, and rumblings in France need to be taken into account.
Some sort of German Confederation is probably going to be favoured by most, even by quite a few Germans fed up with prussia but who don't really want to be rid of the pan-german union. Several large republics, and the rhineland (seperared out and much more closely watched by France) that can be much better dealt with by France and Britain, but strong enough together to maintain social cohesion, not fall to communism and also serve as a bulwark against the east.
Then various figures, parties, and even sympathetic outside powers, slowly trying to get closer ties, bonds and a union together again, this time without prussia in domination...and more like the federated model that occurred post 45.
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I shall shortly put up a post showing the new German states added to HOI4 which we can pick and choose from.
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So here is Germany as default in 1936:
Here is all the splinter states possible at game start:
And what Prussia looks like with all its cores:
Every german state has the option to push for German unifciation if they manage to conqyer or puppet the others:
And the full list appears to be:
Here is all the splinter states possible at game start:
And what Prussia looks like with all its cores:
Every german state has the option to push for German unifciation if they manage to conqyer or puppet the others:
And the full list appears to be:
- The Rhineland
- Westphalia / Hannover
- Thuringia
- Baden-Swabia
- Hesse
- Bavaria
- Schleswig-Holstein
- Mecklenburg
- Prussia (big and small)
- Kashubia
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If Bavaria is getting separated off, so too is the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Kingdom of Wurttemberg (which would probably be in some sort of confederation with Bavaria by 1936 for the sake of common markets and defense).
France and Britain are definitely going to want the Rhineland, Hesse, and Hannover broken off for strategic and dynastic reasons as well (although the spectacle of the Windsors and British parliament dealing with the House of Hannover after they yanked away all their titles and honors for kissing up to the Kaiser during the decade prior is going to be wild to watch - some in both Westminster and Buckingham Palaces might well push for a Lower Saxon Republic instead).
The Kiel Canal cannot be allowed to remain in Prussian control, so I suspect an independent republic under British protection will be established over the German bits of Schleswig (the Danish bits obviously being returned to Denmark) and Holstein. Hanseatic branding would be quite appropriate methinks.
The status of the Kingdom of Saxony, the Thuringian statelets, and the two duchies of Mecklenburg is, I think, entirely up in the air. Technically they have never been part of Prussia, ever, but all hell has probably broken loose in that part of Germany and the British and French are probably unable and unwilling to push any further than they already are. Funnily enough, I think Piłsudski has the opportunity to upend everything and prevent the Prussians from re-establishing the North German Confederation by remembering where the last dynasty of Polish-Lithuanian kings came from…
As for the rest, the idea that Pomerania and Silesia are getting separated from Prussia is utterly ludicrous. OTL that only happened after one of the largest ethnic cleansing campaigns in history at the end of WWII, and no one is going to be both willing and able to do so here. Probably what will happen is that Poland’s OTL borders with Germany are its TTL borders with Prussia/the NGF, and this will make precisely zero people happy.
The status of Austria and the Sudetenland is going to be another utter mess that pleases no one. Ironically, I suspect whatever German state manages to reunite the rest of this mess is going to have a far easier time annexing them than Hitler ever did, just because they already had to make sufficient concessions to the victorious powers and build enough popular support across the German-speaking world to even get this far.
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Yeah, I suspect Germany gets smashed into as many peices as the entente can mange on the western side, plus Bavaria, and then whatever happens in the east is mostly down to on the ground realities.
Some merging will then occur over the 20s, and the entente mostly goes home except for the rhineland. Then various German states have to try and get along with each other whilst living in fear of the entente coming back, various war reparations, temptation of annexing each other and the big dream of reforming Germany, with or without the kaiser.
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The correct response is all of them, bar Prussia of course which should not exist. So all of East Prussia to Poland and split up the central bit to the surrounding states.
The top priority though has to be to give each unit a distinct identity and form of government, dredging up things like the Hansa and so on. You probably cannot put pan-Germamism back in a box but you can mutate what it means so that a federal/confederation style is more popular. The different forms of government is important so that it makes unification harder by throwing up barriers, but doesn't stop the probably inevitable co-operation between distinct states.
I think you over-estimate how much anyone in the Entente will care about what happens to Germans after this war. I agree you are not going to see British or French troops doing the 'population exchange', but equally they are not going to say anything if the Polish government starts doing it. I do agree with most of the rest of it though.
I'd also remind everyone that the League of Nations Mandate of the Saar Basin ran until 1935, with a string of French and British diplomats serving as essentially governors, but basically no occupation troops. Indeed they had to draft troops in for the referendum because of the fear the police force would be overwhelmed. I would heavily advise against projecting the modern disastrous experiences of occupations onto the early 20th Century, the politics and details are very different, particularly if the area in question does not have an uncontrolled border with a hostile power.
So I think a longterm basically Entente puppet Rhineland is doable, as is the Hansa branded North German Kiel Canal Zone and a heavily Anglo-Dutch influenced Hannover. Is there a cadet branch of the House of Orange that could be dumped on the throne, after being married to a British princess of some flavour, or vice-versa.
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This is going to be the French and probably the Dutch view. Basically everyone will be gunning for Prussia, and once that's gone, what to replace it with will be the contention.
This will broadly be the British view. Smash apart for now, but Germany remains stable, investable and capable of paying bills. And if they reform, eventually, more sensible too.
Well...not at first anyway. The German states on the other hand will become increasingly loud and convincing that 'something must be done' and international pressure will, eventually, make the Poles stop, if indeed they start. Lots of damage can be done in that time however.
League of Nation itself may not exist, but a temporary Coalition like after the Napoleonic War keeping an eye on the successor states might. Depends on what gets agreed at the peace conferences. I doubt 'mandates' become a thing rather than normal colonies.
Lots of things may be tried that to modern eyes seem inadvisable, immoral or just plain stupid, but they don't necessarily know that (or don't get successfully shot down by those who do know better).
I think the Rhineland republic dominated by the Dutch and French makes sense. It's not much more extreme than OTL.
Kiel Canal being given to a small German-Danish republic overseen by the British and possibly Denmark, unless Denmark wants it themselves (the Danish nationalists might, the pan-Scandinavians won't, and the rest will be worried about the majority German region).
Hannover (or Westphalia if that's too awkward for the British), under Anglo-Dutch influence finishes off securing the North Sea, the border and the threat, for the most part, so far as the British and Dutch are concerned. At that point, they would want Prussia and their leaders heavily punished, but southern and eastern Germany is less of an issue, provided it doesn't go communist. Bavaria still probably splits, both internally and via the Entente, not sure what else happens.
It also begins to tie into what happens to Austria, their German lands, and Poland.
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Had a quick look a wiki, 1.5million Germans in East Prussia in 1905 apparently. The Greeks and Turks did a "Population Exchange" of 1.6million in the 1920s and that was with the full support and co-operation of the League and the great powers.
I'd agree the post-WW2 15million Germans moving is not going to happen, but emptying East Prussia seems feasible and there is historic precedent. Also fits with the punish Prussia mood and it makes Poland far more viable as it doesn't have to build a set of ports from scratch.
The League could go either way, the idea had been knocking around for years and didn't actually depend on Wilson (League propaganda pretended it did, to try and flatter the US into joining). The various international standards committees and groups did good work and did benefit from an overarching, so if there is no League I could still see something come into place if perhaps less ambitious. I so agree though, no mandates and no time limited transfers.
On this one the lack of US involvement probably does become significant, as probably does the aftermath of the Massacre. Self-determination was always a touchy point, hard to reconcile it with colonies for starters, so I suspect that idea dies.
Does anyone really want to blow up Austria Hungary? Chop bits off and get reparations certainly, but I don't think it has attracted the same hate Prussia has. Depending on how it loses, there is an argument for keeping it together, just a lot smaller. It would make giving territorial concessions to Italy a lot easier for instance. But that does depend on the state holding together and not being in open revolt by the end, the current early success probably help with that though there is a lot of war left.
One thing that does tie all that together, if German is being dismembered does that mostly sate the desire for revenge? OTL the Versailles had two parts, the A and B which were people actually expected to get paid and the Class C Reparations which were the huge figures that had no schedule and were mostly for show. If there is no equivalent to the Class C that undercuts a lot of the rhetroic about reparations.
Actually that brings up another good point, all of these new states can start as 'blank slate' and not inherit Germany's wartime debts (which were owed to German citizens so the Entente won't care). Removing that will cause some initial pain, but Germany is going to be in a lot of pain anyway so it can't make much difference and long term it will make reparations easily affordable and build a stronger economy. A related point, I'd imagine Britain will push for all these new German states to have a different currency. Promites local identity, makes unification harder, provides a bit of a barrier to stop economic problems spreading and provides Britains' banking and finance sector with many profitable opportunities.
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Means more disputes and finicking over exactly where Poland's western border is too, which should be fun.
There has to be something, because no one wants another world war and everyone wants to start getting along again, so some sort of international forum would be great for diplomacy, economy, trade etc, as well as making peacekeeping much more palatable for domestic populations. Coalition peacekeepers sounds much better to contribute towards than the actual British army being in Hessen for however many years, etc.
Plus there's quite a few already international organisations going on, like the Red Cross, that could do with some organisation, regulation and oversight.
Oh, and come to think, they'll be wanting an Entente combined court to try the war criminals and war crimes, which could easily evolve into lets keep that going in the Hague, although a lot of colonial nations will be very uneasy about doing that...even though that idea is probably quite popular everywhere else.
A majority of its population, yes. Italy, and probably some old-fashioned French people, too.
It'd be really difficult...it's a feudal collection of countries held together by being owned by one guy, and not particularly strongly at that. Splitting Austria, Hungary, and the rest into three makes a kind of sense, but what lands Austria can keep and meaningfully hold onto is hard to say (it would also look very bordergorey). Hungary has a better chance, if they don't have their own revolution, esepcially not a communist one, but they have quite a few minorities in their kingdom too. That leaves the rest of the Balkans, of which Serbia has to be given something for being a brave little squirt, Montenegro too. Bulgaria and Romania are central power members in full and so could be punished, but how far the Entente wants to weaken a nation bordering Russia...
You would think so, right? We went to war, and all three of the major powers against us cease to exist, split into constituent parts, many of which are under Entente thumbs or spheres of influence.
That should satisfy the majority of people, more so than the OTL treaties did anyway.
There's no major central power left to pay exorbitant sums, and immediately bankrupting the successor states isn't in anyone's interest what with the communists about and no one wanting another war.
Britain wants to be paid post war. The deal with the Entente (between them, France, the Netherlands and Russia so far anyway) is that the others pay their debts and bills post-war, with various colonial spoils as collateral. So they all want/need the defeated central powers to pay up, regardless of whether they are successor states or not. How they figure who owes what to who and how much is going to be extremely contentious on all sides, but something will have to be figured out.
Everyone agreeing that this wipes the other internal debts clean will at least make the German states, Austria and Hungary's position a lot simpler (though their citizen's businesses will lose out short term). It could be a way of aiding unification efforts later if some of the German states figure out some kind of collaborative repayment to their own citizens eventually.
And yes, I can see both France and the UK trying to get everyone separate currencies, so they can get them into their own sterling/franc circle. This I suspect will perhaps succeed in the Rhineland and Hannover, but the further east you go, the more its just whatever the northern country around Berlin uses, or the Bavarian coin. The rivalry between those two is the big stumbling block towards reunification in the East, really.
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That would be the people of Austria-Hungary, by and large.
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And as one little bit of flavor (I’m pretty sure it’s too small to show on any map), Britain is almost certainly reclaiming Heligoland here.
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It is similar to the idea of Imperial Federation, only even harder to pull off and has to start even earlier than the late 19th century.
If Austria-Hungary already exists, it's too late.
Hmm...yes, as mentioned way back in the World updates, they did own it for some time, and it was somewhat useful...though a united Germany wouldn't have much trouble dealing with it.
In such circumstances as suggested above however, it's either within the mini-canal republic and thus under British influence with a RN base there, or fully taken back regardless...probably under a 99 year lease or something.
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