What if WW1 never happened

[Spelaren]

How would it look like then? Obviously this means avoiding WW1 from any other scenario that could arise, and keeping it civil in Europe till 1936. I assume the ottomans and austria-hungary would collapse regardless of what happens with eventually Yugoslavia being created.

 

[Cavalry]

At that time German will help allies so no collapse on Austria and OT

But both sides had prepare for war for too long. They need war to end these costly build up.

 

[Director]

If WW1 is entirely prevented (no assassination or other trigger) then the Ottomans likely continue a slow decline, losing peripheral territories and struggling to modernize. AH likely accepts some eventual 'Congress of Europe' deal over the Balkans with neither AH or Russia getting all of what they want.

If there is a triggering event but a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, then the alliance system and diplomacy are hailed for preventing it. Serbian independence is quashed by Austria with Russia probably getting compensation elsewhere. Some better, faster communication lines might result, particularly from Britain to the other powers, to help defuse a future crisis.

Since Germany has probably 'shot its bolt' with massive naval construction we can look for an easing of tensions with Great Britain. The German economy continues to grow at a steady pace; Britain institutes 'imperial preferment' in an attempt to bind the Commonwealth and Dominions together. Russia would continue to grow its economy with loans from the west. German debate over whether to strike first at France or Russia resumes. If the Italian economy continues to improve then expect her politics to shift away from the Central and toward the Entente powers; Italy wants AH lands and only France can help her get them.

Austria-Hungary will undergo a revolution of some sort as internal pressure breaks the old imperial system. It may be a quiet or violent shock, the former producing more of a constitutional federation and the latter a set of independent states. A lot depends on whether or not Franz Ferdinand comes to the throne and is able to push needed reforms.

A 'near run thing' might help keep the peace for decades; otherwise, there would be a series of crises (as there had been for a century) with greater and lesser chances of a European-wide war. A lot of things had to break or fall just right for AH to get the war they wanted, so it is not a sure thing that any future crisis would produce the same result.

 

[Jopa79]

If the WWI never happened it would had been far more harder for the states like Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to cut loose the Soviet-Russia and declare their independence. At least the previous nations wouldn't had their independence same as they historically declared in the late 1910's and the early 1920's. The poor performance of the Russian Empire in the WWI and the aftermath turmoil during the Russian Civil War encouraged and enabled the declaration of independence of these five(5) nations and the Soviet-Russia doing poorly in its internal affairs recognized the declarations.

Still, if the WWI didn't happen, it's likely that Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland would had signed a military alliance against the Soviet-Russia to support their quest for the independence. An actual event, the Baltic Entente was maybe not a military alliance - but, sharing common tendencies, the five(5) countries, as being border states at the Soviet western border signed a pact in the 1920's and doing collaboration against the Soviet threat. The Finnish membership is considered only loose in the Baltic Entente, it only co-operated with Estonia - not with the other three(3) member states. Furthermore, in 1932 Finland signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union - in practice this meant that if a Soviet invasion would happen in the Baltic States or Poland, Finland wouldn't support them.

 

[Herbert West]

How do you get to Soviet Russia if WW1 does not happen?

 

[Jopa79]

How do you get to Soviet Russia if WW1 does not happen?

The unpopularity and the resistance against the Empire of Russia, the Russian Imperial Family and Nicholas II of Russia was extensive. The Russian Monarchy would had collapsed even without the WWI, the communists and the socialists would had been the new powerhouse anyway. I don't see the WWI as a reason why they called the country as the Soviet-Russia and later the Soviet Union - the origin of the name is not dependent on the WWI.

 

[Herbert West]

The unpopularity and the resistance against the Empire of Russia, the Russian Imperial Family and Nicholas II of Russia was extensive. The Russian Monarchy would had collapsed even without the WWI, the communists and the socialists would had been the new powerhouse anyway. I don't see the WWI as a reason why they called the country as the Soviet-Russia and later the Soviet Union - the origin of the name is not dependent on the WWI.

Imperial Autocracy falling was more or less a given. That its replacement would be the bolsheviks, is, however, not a given. To wit, it wasn't even in our timeline.

 

[Jopa79]

Imperial Autocracy falling was more or less a given. That its replacement would be the bolsheviks, is, however, not a given. To wit, it wasn't even in our timeline.

I'm not arguing about this. I only said, that without the WWI, gaining the independence for Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland wouldn't have happened like it historically did. It would have affected to Europe and its economy - for instance prolonged Russian (or whatever you like to call it) dominance in the Baltic Sea trade.

 

[Yakman]

short answer everyone should have: no idea.

World War 1 was one of the most important events in European history. It's a massive inflection point, and almost everything afterwards was different from what had come before.

 

[Kovax]

As Yakman points out, modern history is mainly dealing with the crazy aftermath of WWI and the situations and backlashes that arose from it.

The demise of Imperial Russia may have been inevitable, but the relatively unexpected hijacking of the revolution by Lenin's group was not. It's quite possible that Kerensky's short-lived government could have survived, potentially turning Russia into another Western democracy.

Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had their shares of problems, and some kind of breakdown or reshuffling was likely, but things would most likely have gone down a different road for A-H if not for the assassination, and then the exploitation of that event by various parties.

What if Kaiser Wilhelm had quietly asked Britain just how much of a naval buildup Germany could do to protect itself against a potential French blockade, without raising the specter of a naval race against Britain?

 

[Cavalry]

What if Kaiser Wilhelm had quietly asked Britain just how much of a naval buildup Germany could do to protect itself against a potential French blockade, without raising the specter of a naval race against Britain?

Not much, they need German industrial goods remain uncompetitive vs British goods. And any Germany'gain vs France is unacceptable for the British anyway.

 

[Cavalry]

I don't see the WWI as a reason why they called the country as the Soviet-Russia and later the Soviet Union - the origin of the name is not dependent on the WWI.

The Red gained power just because the other factions could not give "peace, land and bread", especially bread, because of ww1.

 

[Cavalry]

I think the root of ww1 was France desire to revenge and get back Alsace Lorraine, and Prussia to prevent that, defeat France one more time and grow. Other countries united behind them to solve their own problems.

So war cannot be avoided unless Alsace Lorraine found its way back to France peacefully.

 

[Eusebio]

I think the root of ww1 was France desire to revenge and get back Alsace Lorraine, and Prussia to prevent that, defeat France one more time and grow. Other countries united behind them to solve their own problems.

What? France had given up on Alsace Lorraine by the 1890s and devoted itself to imperial competition with Britain. France even tried to ally with Germany at multiple points, even sacking the foreign minister who created the Entente Cordiale in an attempt to mollify Germany, who responded by trying to humiliate France in the First Morocco Crisis by threatening it with war.

 

[Ming]

Foreign educated Chinese intellectuals may not have turned away from Democratic reforms and toward communism if the west did not award shandong to the Japanese post war.

Of course, if the German Imperial colony continued to flourish as it historically did the Kaiser may find himself propping up client warlords against geo-national insurgents, possibly dragging in other colonial powers.

 

[Cavalry]

What? France had given up on Alsace Lorraine by the 1890s.

One speech of a politician of the day cannot empty 20-40 years works of teaching revenge in the whole France

 

[Jopa79]

The Red gained power just because the other factions could not give "peace, land and bread", especially bread, because of ww1.

How is this related the country name - the Soviet-Russia or the Soviet Union? And I must disagree also the standpoint, the Reds giving the bread. They only gave it, if having a benefit for their own - like giving the bread to the big garrison cities and the troops in there to maintain the public order.

 

[Yakman]

What? France had given up on Alsace Lorraine by the 1890s and devoted itself to imperial competition with Britain. France even tried to ally with Germany at multiple points, even sacking the foreign minister who created the Entente Cordiale in an attempt to mollify Germany, who responded by trying to humiliate France in the First Morocco Crisis by threatening it with war.

French governments had done that.

The Alsace issue was always going to be an issue with the French population.

 

[AegonVLLI]

I usually like alt-history, but WW1 is much too big to answer. Usually, you can at least somewhat ignore some factors.
But WW1 killed 40 million people. Even if you only look at the "important" persons. just look at the expressionistic intelligentsia killed (many yearned for a "cleansing" war that burned down the old order and died in the first few months) or at the lost generations of the best and brightest in Germany, France, the UK or Russia? How many Atatürks, Brusilovs and Remarques died in that senseless slaughter?
I am normally of the opinion that small changes even out and single people rarely change history against macroscopic trends. But can you really do that with 40 million deaths on the, at the time, most advanced continent on Earth? Even if we disregard political developments, how could you ever discount the people getting slaughtered in this war?
Hitler almost died in WW1. He's probably the single most chosen guy to eliminate via time travel. How many like him did die in WW1? How many of his assassins did? How many events were prevented that could have stopped his rise to power?
We can look at events that happened because of WW1 (no German colonial empire, rise of Japan, rise of the US, WW2, German nazis, Russian communists, Italian fascists, European brain drain, decolonisation etc.), but that doesn't make the reverse true. No WW1 doesn't make Austria-Hungary a stable country or doom Africa to be an eternal colony. But does it make the change slow enough to allow the rulers to adapt? Would France lose Algeria without the wars? Would the UK lose India? Probably. But how?
So what happens if WW1 doesn't happen? Everything.
Any answer beyond that is entertaining fiction, but nothing else.

 

[JackAlNXT]

We can probably make an interesting timeline, but first we will need to stop it with set-in-stone theories of A didn't happen, so B, C and D. Let's go back to the start:

What triggers WW1? Assassination of the Arch-Duke. What changes in this timeline? The Duke's driver simply takes a different turn and the attempt is foiled.

Where are we now? Duke is alive, however, the attempt still happened. How does the AH government respond?

For my 2 cents, they can go the Ottoman route, and violently suppress the Bosnian nationalists, to the point where they are no longer a threat. Many civilian casualties. Bosnian refugees fleeing to Serbia. What happens next?