Another What-IfThis is an example of creating another alternate history. The story starts with the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916. I picked a battle because seemingly trivial decisions could have profound effects on history. In
our history Scheer used Option #2, which led to a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet. The High Seas Fleet wasn't as badly hurt in the battle in our history as it was in what followed below (which, by the way, came from a game).
An Alternate North Sea Outcome
It was shortly after 5.30 p.m. on May 31st, 1916, and the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, was beginning to smell a rat. Before him, just tantalizingly at the maximum range of his guns, were four of Great Britain’s latest dreadnoughts, the 15" gunned Queen Elizabeths. Just ahead of them, barely visible through the intermittent haze, were Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battlecruisers.
His own battlecruisers, under the command of Rear Admiral Hipper, were a few miles ahead, trading shots with the Queen Elizabeths and Beatty’s battlecruisers. Just an hour before those battlecruisers had scored a spectacular success over Beatty, sinking two of his battlecruisers with a loss of only a few destroyers. Beatty, upon seeing the High Seas Fleet advancing to Hipper’s aid, had turned and quite rightly fled. But Beatty was fleeing north, not west or northwest toward his home ports on the English coast. That meant Beatty was falling back on Jellicoe and the 24 dreadnoughts of the British Grand Fleet, the last thing Scheer wanted to face.
Scheer paced the flag bridge of the Friederich der Grösse, weighing his possible courses. As he saw it, he had four choices:
1. He could turn about and return to Wilhelmshaven. However appealing this might be, it was also impossible. People, especially the Kaiser, would say “You had the Tommies on the run. This was exactly in accordance with the strategy the High Seas Fleet has been pursuing: overwhelm isolated portions of the Grand Fleet to achieve parity in numbers. Why, then, when you had the very situation you wanted, did you turn away? Especially when your U-Boats and zeppelins had reported no signs that the Grand Fleet was at sea?” He had to ask himself: did a lack of reports truly indicate a lack of something to report? Was Beatty fleeing north to make him think Jellicoe was at sea? Was he seeing phantoms?
2. He could keep on his present course and hope that a lucky engine room hit would deliver one of those Queen Elizabeths into his hands. His ships could then quickly overwhelm and sink it. Having sunk one of the most modern English battleships, as well as two battlecruisers, he could claim a victory and return home.
3. He could break off to the northeast, circle around Denmark, and head to the Baltic. He could claim he was only following Hipper’s battlecruisers, which were currently steering ENE, and saw nothing of the Tommies. That was probably the prudent thing to do, and if the ships he was chasing disappeared into the mist that was what he would do. He would still be criticized, but if Jellicoe was at sea, he didn’t know it. None of his scouting forces had sighted the British battleships.
4. He could turn west. He stopped his pacing and considered that. He was convinced Jellicoe was close at hand, and from the way Beatty was acting, he was probably somewhere to the ENE and steering a course that would put his 24 battleships between the High Seas Fleet and its bases. A turn to the west would be risky; most of his scouting ships were to the north and northeast at the moment, but except for Hipper they really hadn’t told him much of anything. Sailing west would probably negate any trap the English were setting. And if he then steered south during the night he could return to Wilhelmshaven via one of the southern entrances to the protective minefields around his home port. As an added bonus he could threaten Allied shipping near the English Channel and probably scare the daylights out of the Tommies, forcing them to disperse their fleet even more. That could pay dividends later in the year, giving him even more of a chance to locate and defeat portions of the British fleet. The more he thought about it, the more he liked this option.
Scheer summoned his signals officer. “Inform Fleet Headquarters in Wilhelmshaven. I want a zeppelin reconnaissance of the southern entrances to the minefields. Make it an urgent signal so they’ll act on it right away. Tell them I intend to be there about mid-morning.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the officer replied as he jotted down the message. “It’ll be sent right away.” He handed the message to a rating to deliver to the radio room, where within 10 minutes the message was encoded and sent on its way.
“We’ll stay on this course a few more minutes,” Scheer went on. “Send a preparatory message to the battle squadrons: we will be turning west in succession. Pass a message to Hipper telling him what’s about to happen. I’ll want him to proceed northeast a little longer, and then turn south. He’s to make for Horn’s Reef on his own.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the signals officer said for the second time. This message would go by blinker, and he would have to be ready for Hipper’s inevitable questions.
Scheer grunted and peered north with his binoculars. He could explain a lunge to the west to the Kaiser, who would like his thrust toward England. With any luck he could sink a few fishing boats, and maybe some coastal transports, too. Tomorrow morning promised to be a glorious day of shooting. And then he would escape back home, neatly evading the Tommies.
At the Admiralty, in Room 40, the code breakers quickly deciphered Scheer’s message. Captain Jackson, an imperious ass in the minds of most of the occupants of Room 40, had been in earlier demanding to know where Scheer’s ID was, and they had answered that the ID he used when in port was in harbor, where it always was. Scheer always transferred his home port call sign to a land station just before he sailed. They had explained that to Captain Jackson several times, but he had brushed them off as mere clerks.
With the latest message in hand they considered calling him back, but agreed that they’d had enough of Captain Jackson to last the rest of the day. Instead one of the civilians went looking for a different senior officer. He soon found the Royal Navy’s Chief of Intelligence.
That Admiral instantly grasped the import of the intercepted message. After a gruff “thank you” to the civilian, he took the message to the First Sea Lord. The First Sea Lord read it and began issuing orders.
The first was to Commodore Tyrwhitt, who had earlier sortied when Beatty had first encountered Hipper's ships. Now Tyrwhitt was order back to sea with his Harwich Force. He was to be off the southern entrance to the German minefields before first light. Any submarines based in Harwich should accompany him, if possible. The second was to Jellicoe, repeating the intercepted message, and giving the results of the radio direction finders on the origin of that message. As was customary with Admiralty practice, he issued no orders to Jellicoe, assuming he was in a better position than they to put all of the pieces together.
Jellicoe received the message on his flagship
HMS Iron Duke at 6.15 p.m. He had not yet seen Beatty, and the pressure for the proper deployment was weighing on him. He knew the Germans were nearby--he could hear heavy gunfire to the south and southwest. The two forces were approaching each other at a combined 50 miles per hour. His battle squadrons were in cruising formation, six parallel columns of four ships each, and he needed to shake them out into a proper line of battle before the Germans came into view.
He had been contemplating a turn to the SE to endeavor to get between the Germans and their bases when the Admiralty’s message arrived; he had already moved one of his destroyer flotillas to the east in preparation. As he studied the compass, he was interrupted by a contact report forwarded to him from Admiral Burney, commanding the starboard-most squadron of battleships. Beatty was in sight bearing nearly south. Within a minute came a second message, this one from Commodore Goodenough of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron. He had Scheer in sight.
Goodenough had been stung by a conflict of orders during the action at Dogger Bank, breaking away from the Germans even though he was in contact with their light cruiser screen. He had since decided that a light cruiser squadron’s job was to maintain contact with the enemy, not slavishly follow every pirouette and “bright idea” that forced its way into the heads of his superior officers. Earlier this day he had been the first to spot the High Seas Fleet, and he had maintained contact with the German battleships ever since. When he saw the outlying ships of the Grand Fleet, he immediately sent his updated contact report by blinker.
On the
Iron Duke Jellicoe’s smile thinned. He knew where Scheer was, and he was much closer than he’d thought. There appeared to be some errors in navigation between Beatty, Goodenough, and the flagship. But the information from the Admiralty had helped clarify everything. And it gave him an idea for a new plan.
He reviewed the courses in his mind. He knew what he was about to do was a risk, but he thought the potential reward would be well worth it. He motioned to his Signal Officer. “Fleet Course West by Southwest. Notify Beatty. Tell him....” Jellicoe paused. “Tell Beatty that once he clears the head of the fleet he is to sweep to the southwest.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the signal officer replied. He issued the necessary orders to his yeomen, and the signal flags went up the halyards. At the same time they went out by wireless and blinker.
Jellicoe looked at the compass one more time. “Execute,” he said. Seconds later the Iron Duke sounded a horn to announce a course change, and the ship began to heel. Five other flagships swung with her. As each of the battleships in the six columns came up to the spot where their next-ahead had turned, they swung onto the new course. Alerted by the firing, each of them trained their guns out to port, where they expected to see the Germans.
Beatty was stunned to see the battleships sailing in the opposite direction. He tried to frame his anger in a coherent signal, but when he saw the new orders from Jellicoe, and looked at the plot, he smiled instead. He wasn’t going to lead the Grand Fleet’s battleships, as he'd expected. Instead he was going to remain detached, coming down on the Germans from a different direction. The only fly in that ointment was that the Queen Elizabeths of the 5th Battle Squadron were nowhere to be found. He had fought long and hard to have those fast battleships attached to his command, and now when he needed them Rear Admiral Evan Thomas had fallen behind. He made a note to reprimand Evan Thomas after they returned to port. But that was for the future. Admiral Hood had just joined him, giving him three more battlecruisers. Beatty knew right where Scheer was. He was going to push Hipper to one side, and then be the hammer to Jellicoe’s anvil. It was going to be a glorious day.
The only person left out of all of this calculation was Rear Admiral Evan Thomas in
HMS Barham. He had been poorly served by his superior officer this afternoon, forgotten by Beatty in his initial impetuous turn toward the Germans. Later Beatty had overridden his natural intincts and held him on a course to the south far too long; Evan Thomas suspected it was to cover his battlecruisers, but knew there would be no proof. Now, faced with the Grand Fleet coming directly at him, and with no way to get to Beatty without blocking the fire of every one of the ships in the Grand Fleet, he decided he had no choice. He reversed his course, forming up just ahead of the lead battleships of the Grand Fleet. Ironically, this put him in the position originally foreseen by Jellicoe in the Grand Fleet’s Fighting Instructions, leading the battleships rather than trailing the battlecruisers.
The turrets on the Queen Elizabeths swung back around to port. The Germans had disappeared into the mist only a few minutes before, but Evan Thomas knew they were near. He knew that when contact came it would be sudden and at close range. He just wasn’t prepared for how close that range was about to be. As his ship steadied on its new course he thoughtfully directed his intentions to Goodenough, now visible on his starboard bow and told him what was happening with the rest of the Grand Fleet.
Goodenough read the message, stared at the distant shapes of the German fleet--he could see it turning toward him--and passed that information back to Evan Thomas. Then he swung around, prudently keeping his distance from the 12" guns of Scheer’s battleships.
The mists of the North Sea were always a variable, but never so much as on the early evening of May 31st, 1916. In some places it opened out to 15,000 or even 25,000 yards. In other places it closed down to under 4,000 yards. When Scheer made his turn to the west at 6:25 p.m. the visibility to the east from the flag bridge of
Friederich der Grösse was measured at anywhere between 2,000 and 15,000 yards. The visibility to the west closed down in another bank of mist; one of Scheer’s officers measured visibility in that direction at 4,500 yards. That proved to be illusory; that particular bank of mist was thinner than anyone could know. Five minutes after entering the mist the
König, lead ship of the III Battle Squadron, emerged from the fog directly at a line of British battleships.
HMS Revenge and her eight 15" guns were just 5,000 yards from the
König.
Revenge was flanked by the other ships of her squadron. It took only a few seconds for the gunnery crews to make minute adjustments to their aim before her guns roared.
The
Grösser Kurfurst took the first hit, a 15" shell from
HMS Revenge that barely missed the
König. The shell plowed into the forecastle of the
Grösser Kurfurst, opening the bow to the sea. The
Grösser Kurfurst immediately took on several hundred tons of water. Two other shells from that same salvo slammed into
König, knocking out one of the forward turrets and starting a severe fire. The other ships of that division of British battleships opened fire seconds later, punching hit after hit into every German ship in sight.
With those hits the carnage began. Shells ripped into the German ships from nearly all directions. One of the early hits smashed the bridge of the
König, jamming the helm and starting the ship on a slow turn to port. The ships behind her twisted and turned to avoid the lead battleship, slowing and presenting an even better target to the British.
The
Grösser Kurfurst and the
Kaiser were soon en extremis, deluged by shells and taking on water in catastrophic progressive flooding. The
Kaiserin, already on fire in a dozen places, swerved to starboard, losing weigh and listing heavily. The
Markgraf, equally badly hit, collided with the
Kaiserin, causing severe flooding in both ships and bringing them to a halt. They were both taken under fire by
HMS Agincourt and her 14-12" guns. In six minutes, while firing full 14-gun salvos to confound the critics who claimed the ship would turn turtle if they tried that, the ‘Gin Palace’ pushed 16 hits into the
Markgraf, and 10 more into the
Kaiserin. With several hits from each salvo the results were devastating.
Within minutes the
Grösser Kurfurst, the
Kaiser, the
Kaiserin, the
Kronprinz, the
Markgraf, and the
Prinz Regent Luitpold were sinking. The
Oldenberg,
Friederich der Grösse and
Ostfriesland stumbled onto the scene and were savaged. At ranges less than 6,000 yards, shells punched through armor, exploding deep within the ships. Fires blazed everywhere, and soon the sea was dotted with German sailors swimming for their lives.
It wasn’t all one-sided. Well-trained German gunnery crews fought back valiantly, trying to dish out a little of what their ships were receiving.
Thunderer,
St. Vincent,
Canada and
Temeraire left the line to fight fires and massive flooding caused by German fire. Of those only the
Canada would survive rising wind and squalls that descended on the North Sea the next day.
When
Friederich der Grösse turned out of the line on fire and listing heavily, Vice Admiral Schmidt, Commander of the High Seas Fleet’s II Battle Squadron, assumed command of the shattered remnants of the German force. He had no choice: he turned east, away from the English. There he ran afoul of Beatty.
Hipper had already turned east, and then south, and was out of sight on his way back to Wilhelmshaven. That left the field clear for Beatty’s ships. They opened fire at 15,000 yards. As had been demonstrated earlier in the day, Beatty’s ships put out a high rate of fire, but most of it missed. Hood’s ships, fresh from gunnery practice at Scapa Flow, locked onto the German ships within a couple of salvos and began hitting and hitting hard. The pre-dreadnoughts
Posen and
Schlesien, leading the column of German ships, were heavily damaged. They turned back into the mist, feeling lucky to have survived.
Posen’s luck ran out later that night. Progressive flooding silenced her engines, and she was found by the British shortly after dawn. The results were inevitable, and motion pictures of
Posen sinking by the bow played in English movie theaters for months after the battle. The other ships of her squadron evaded contact by turning north. A severe engagement between both side’s lighter ships brewed up as Schmidt endeavored to escape. The German cruisers and destroyers tried to push their attacks home against Beatty’s heavy ships, torpedoing
Princess Royal and forcing him to briefly turn away.
The German I Battle Squadron, minus half their numbers caught up in the naval abbatoir that had consumed III Battle Squadron, got away more by accident than intent. They turned back into the mist, sailed north, somehow slipping between Jellicoe and Beatty. After dark Vice Admiral Schmidt found them and led the survivors around Denmark into the Baltic. Behind him, as darkness shrouded the scene, the German lighter ships tried to make their own independent ways home.
Some followed Hipper directly to Horn’s Reef. That led to a prolonged clash with Beatty’s forces the next morning when Hipper turned to fight and cover the escape of the lighter ships. While that cost Hipper his flagship,
Lutzow, the rest of the scouting forces made it into the protection of the minefields.
Seydlitz, battered by 23 major caliber hits and a torpedo, hit a mine and had to be towed in sinking condition over the bar. She finally grounded in shallow water, her decks awash and fires consuming the rest. She would still be there at the end of the war.
Other ships found different entrances through the minefields. II Scouting Group, accompanied by a dozen torpedo boats, made the unfortunate decision to use a southern entrance to the minefields. There they clashed with Tyrwhitt’s Harwich Force in the early dawn of the next day. That action cost them the rest of II Scouting Group and six torpedo boats before they got away.
#
The results of the battle were hardly encouraging for Germany. They had met the British in open battle, and had come away decidedly the losers. Ten battleships, several of the most modern design, two battlecruisers, one pre-dreadnought, four light cruisers and 34 torpedo boats were sunk. Thirty other ships of all sizes were badly damaged; some would be in dockyard hands for months. As if to add insult to injury, Admiral Scheer, badly wounded, was rescued from the sinking Friederich der Grösse by the British destroyer HMS Shark.
The British lost three battlecruisers; Indefatigable and Queen Mary had been lost earlier in the day. The Princess Royal put up a struggle against rising wind and water, but finally succumbed. Three battleships, two light cruisers and six destroyers were also sunk. Another 12 battleships, four battlecruisers, one armored cruiser, three light cruisers and five destroyers were damaged.
Jellicoe, upon returning to harbor, sent his worst hit ships to the dockyards, coaled and refilled his magazines, and reported 18 battleships ready for sea on four hours notice. The Germans could only put light forces to sea, and then only two days after they had returned to harbor.
As could only be expected, the newspapers had a field day. The news of the triumph in the North Sea resounded around the world, and Jellicoe was hailed as the new Nelson (much to the chagrin of Admiral Sir David Beatty).
Within a week of the battle the Royal Navy changed their strategy. German U-boats were becoming a major threat to Britain’s economic lifeline. Something had to be done about them, and with the High Seas Fleet out of action for several weeks, the time had come to deal with the U-boats in their lairs.
In the weeks after Jutland the Royal Navy instituted a form of the close blockade that the Germans had expected at the start of the war. Lighter ships, backed by a distant Grand Fleet, patrolled incessantly. Additional minefields were laid, and aggressive patrols covered British minesweepers as they removed German mines. In the ensuing “Battle of the Minefield Exits” the Royal Navy’s destroyers sank at least eight U-boats. Several more that tried to evade the British light ships were lost to British mines. The rest, learning from this, stayed bottled up in their pens. A few got out into the open ocean via the Skaggerak (north of Denmark), but this took such a huge toll on their range that their impact was minimal. A few U-boats operated briefly from ports along the Belgian coast, but those ports were soon closed by mines and patrols. The U-boats had been a major threat to Britain’s economic lifeline, but these steps put an end to that threat.
The psychological shock of the defeat at Jutland was profound. The Kaiser shut himself in his rooms, not to emerge for several days. A feeling of despair swept through Germany. England had proved once more, and decisively, to be the master of the sea. All of Germany’s sacrifices for the naval building programs of the pre-war years were called into question. Questions were raised in the German Parliament about the tremendous expense of the Navy. Influential people were utterly convinced that the Navy, the Kaiser’s pet, had brought Britain into the war against Germany. The Kaiser’s unrelenting calls for a large navy were perceived as blind folly. There was even talk of demanding his abdication and seeking a general armistice.
Other, cooler heads called for Germany to draw down the Fleet in favor of the Army, Germany’s real strength. The war would continue, but after Jutland people acknowledged that Germany would not win the war; at most she could get a negotiated settlement. The bloodbath at Verdun and on the Somme brought death and injury to what seemed like every home in the Fatherland. The tremendous success of the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1916, coupled with the disaster in the North Sea, brought war weariness to Germany. When Franz Joseph, Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire died at the end of summer, that was the last straw.
On August 30th German emissaries in Switzerland contacted the Allies seeking an end to the fighting. This started a stutter-step of diplomacy that slowly brought the fighting to an end. Negotiations were difficult, and broken off several times. But the diplomats, spurred by their governments, persevered. In mid-December the basic forms of an armistice were hammered out. Fighting ceased on January 1, 1917.
Over the next three months German armies grudgingly gave up their gains in the west, slowly falling back to the original frontier. Allied armies followed at arms length, ready for the fighting to begin anew. There were several clashes that threatened to upset the armistice, but in each case things were worked out. Nobody really wanted the bloodletting to begin again.
One of the sticking points had been Germany’s perceived success against Russia. When it was made clear that there would be no separate peace, and with Austro-Hungary threatening a unilateral peace with Russia, fighting stopped there, too. Russia demanded Germany and Austria-Hungary retreat to the pre-war borders. This was shelved when the Germans put their foot down, and assured that Franz Joseph’s successor did likewise. The armies halted in place, awaiting negotiation of a general peace.
In April of 1917 the diplomats of both sides sat down in Geneva to hammer out a peace treaty. There were faced with several seemingly intractable problems:
1) Italy had lost a lot of men with nothing to show for it. They wanted compensation. Specifically they wanted the Tyrol, Trieste and surrounding lands. Italian politicians were threatening to continue the war if they didn’t get them. Austria-Hungary resisted, and threatened to continue the war against Italy (but not anyone else).
2) President Wilson had his idealistic Fourteen Points, and was shoving them in everyone’s face. This was something nobody in Europe wanted any part of. He had to be kept out of the primary negotiations, but carefully because of the mountain of debt France and the UK owed the US.
3) France was suffering labor unrest brought on by Communists and Socialists. Something had to be done to quiet them. The best solution was probably to give the appearance of victory and a return to normalcy, whatever that proved to be.
4) Germany had a similar problem with social unrest. While the tendency was to ignore Germany’s desires, it was nonetheless painfully clear that this contagion might spread. Everyone remembered the lessons of 1848. The monarchies had paid lip-service to popular democracy, but still distrusted it.
5) Russia wanted a buffer between Germany and Russia. Only France and the Poles wanted to recreate Poland.
6) Various German overseas interests had been snapped up by the British and their ally, Japan. Was that just too bad, or were the British willing to give some back provided they could get something in return?
7) What would be done about the High Seas Fleet that had contributed so mightily to bringing England into the war? This touched on a different question: what to do about Kaiser Wilhelm, who was now seen as too erratic to be a modern monarch.
8) What was to be done with the Ottoman Empire? They were present at Geneva, and they had successfully repulsed all attacks on them. Were they to be allowed to keep them? Who would enforce any changes in the map?
Faced with these questions, the diplomats pulled out the maps and their pencils, ready to redraw the face of Europe for the first time in a century.
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What follows is a discusion I had with Colin about various aspects and fall-out from the above.
Colin’s comments on the “issues” and Bruce’s replies
1) Italy had lost a lot of men with nothing to show for it. They wanted compensation.--Stuff the Italians. They will make foolish noises in Africa and elsewhere. projecting a war in the 1920s in the Balkans, a war that threatened to bring Austria-Hungary back in. Serbian ambitions had to be squashed, too. They were seen as one of the causes of the Great War. This would occupy diplomats in all major European capitals for several years to come. Serbia's attempts to create a Yugoslavia were destined to failure because of the intransigence of Austria-Hungary and Italy.
2) President Wilson had his idealistic Fourteen Points, and was shoving them in everyone’s face. This was something nobody in Europe wanted any part of. He had to be kept out of the primary negotiations, but carefully because of the mountain of debt France and the UK owed the US.--How do you keep Wilson outside the door? Easy. Don’t invite him to the party.--Wilson has no cards on the table. America sent no troops and did not enter the war. --At worst, Wilson will fling ambassadors across the briny. Lovely job, that.--No League of Nations. Maybe a new “Treaty of Westphalia”? Probably. At the very least a new European “arrangement”. This might lead to problems in the next couple of decades as America continues to ramp up industrial strength. Remember, though, the massive debt France and the UK owed the US.
3) France was suffering labor unrest brought on by Communists and Socialists. Something had to be done to quiet them. The best solution was probably to give the appearance of victory and a return to normalcy, whatever that proved to be.--Subtle nuance? Bold-faced lies? Is there a challenge in this? Observation: in our history the French have still not solved this problem.
4) Germany had a similar problem with social unrest. While the tendency was to ignore Germany’s desires, it was nonetheless painfully clear that this contagion might spread. Everyone remembered the lessons of 1848.--Did everyone remember the lessons of 1848? What lessons did they remember? Popular democracy was seen as ‘mob rule’ by the crowned heads of Europe, and popular enthusiasm had both contributed to the war and made it such a bloodbath.--What about reparations? France and Britain do not have the muscle to force this. This problem would vex people for some time. France demanded reparations; the Imperial German government saw no need for reparations as they had been encircled and were only lashing out in self-defense. This would be a thorny issue at the peace conference...until everyone remembered the High Seas Fleet. The German fleet had one last service it could perform for Germany.
5) Russia wanted a buffer between Germany and Russia. Only France and the Poles wanted to recreate Poland.--Regardless of the terms of any treaty, Austria-Hungary will disintegrate soon. Um, perhaps not. Projection that it will move toward a more Federal system rather than fall apart with a clunk.--Will this provide a series of buffer states or a series of provocations?--Yes. Both.
6) Various German overseas interests had been snapped up by the British and their ally, Japan. Was that just too bad, or were the British willing to give some back provided they could get something in return?--This might answer the reparations question.--Germany loses everything and breathes a collective sigh of relief. --All Germans believe their Navy cannot defend a colonial empire. Agreed.
7) What would be done about the Kaiser’s Fleet (and the Kaiser) that had contributed so mightily to bringing England into the war?--Germans scrapping “The Kaiser’s Folly” should have interesting long-term effects.--The Kaiser will abdicate. An heir will be crowned, with MUCH reduced powers. Agreed. The loss of the High Seas Fleet and the overseas empire will be made up by the increase in German shipping. The Crown Prince, a more sober and less erratic monarch than his father, will ascend the throne. The Kaiser will live in genteel retirement writing his memoirs. The German constitution will be revised over a period of years to preclude what happened from 1890-1914.
8) What was to be done with the Ottoman Empire? They were present at Geneva, and they had successfully repulsed all attacks on them. Were they to be allowed to keep them? Who would enforce any changes in the map?--Mustapha Kemal and the other westernized army officers will still have their day.--Greece might be somewhat less inclined toward foolish adventures in Ionia.--Yeah, right. More likely, they will try to be “clever” and really mess things up! Agreed. The ‘Young Turk’ movement will be a flash in the pan. Kemal will make Turkey a secular state. However they will still have their grip over much of the Middle East.
9) What about the world economy? A “Lesser Depression” in the mid-1920s? Yes, but with less impact in the US due to an economy that didn’t get shackled to a war. Various economic problems in the US are resolved by a steady repayment of the loans extended to the UK.
10) Of course, Japan will still commence making a mess in China in 1927 or thereabouts.... There will be rising tensions with the US, and probably very frosty relations tending toward war in the late 20s and early 30s. Japanese militarists in the army wouldn’t stop being expansionistic until it was beaten out of them like it was in 1941-45 by the US in our history.
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Note the extra sections. The whole post-war history is a convoluted mess as politicians labored long and hard, driven by popular pressure, to resolve what the fighting had not (and lay the seeds for WW2). But given the above, and some of the discussion, now pick some place and picture how it would be without the massive loss of life of 1917 and 1918, and the outpouring of treasure from the fighting during those two years. What would the world look like?
That's what playing with alternate history is all about.
