OT - alternative history

[wdolson]

If Mexico sends "a few battalions" into the US and kills a few dozen US troops, I don't think the headlines (or the politicians and the public) will use the words, "reconnaissance in force". [8|]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
Just a general remark, as this has happened a lot in this thread already. An attempt to explain, condemn, or justify, historical events with todays western world moral and logic standards will usually end up in failure to understand.

When Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico, it was called a "raid".

In any case, I agree the world has changed and our expectations have changed quit a bit since 1870.

Bill

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Re the second point, yes, in my opinion very true. Life is not always simple, and many nations played their part, but the "assurance" of war was the blank cheque. The blank cheque was given to suit the wider German purpose - and that was war. Maybe not the Kaiser, who blew hot and cold, but certainly Moltke.

Here's a little something that might interest you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z26bjxs

The First World War became the First World War (and not the Third Balkans War) when the Russians decided to order mobilization. After that point, the clock starts counting down the hours Germany has to ensure it's security and what would otherwise have been a limited regional conflict in the Balkans turns into a European-wide bloodbath as Russian mobilization sets off the various triggers to bring the other great powers into the war.

The "blank cheque" was not an assurance of war, as Russian military involvement was by no means a certainty. Russia had, after all, made a point of not intervening militarily in the past two wars in the Balkans, both of which threatened Russian interests.

warspite1

No blank cheque = no war (Balkan or otherwise) and so Russia's actions become irrelevant.

It's a nice notion, but wrong. The tensions in the Balkans were simply too high for there not to be another war. If Austria-Hungary had simply did nothing, you'd have had another war in the Balkans regardless, probably between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

Every nation in Europe was aware that another war in the Balkans was on the horrizon. The "where" and "who" questions weren't really clear, but there was common agreement that another war was brewing.

Germany wanted to support her ailing ally, that's perfectly understandable. However, when Austria-Hungary's ultimatum (that was designed to be rejected and could only have been sent with the blank cheque in her pocket) was accepted on all bar one point why, if Germany really did not want general war, did she not simply order AH to accept, what was, Serbia's abject humiliation. Germany could and should of course have limited the cheque in the first place, but having failed to do so she could, even then, have told AH that "we do not want this getting out of hand, failure to accept means you are on your own". Acceptance would more than have satisfied AH honour and revenged the death of their heir to the throne.

The "blank cheque" is one of those cases in history where a diplomatic sledgehammer is used to perform keyhole surgery. To be fair to the Germans, their alliance with A-H was quite critical to their defence, and unconditional support in what would have otherwise been a regional conflict was a small price to pay for the benefits brought by an A-H alliance.

As for the ultimatum, the Serbs single rejection was to refuse to arrest all accessories to the assassination and let A-H delegates take part in the investigation. Rather insignificant, considering the Serbs were fine with A-H providing a list of military and civil administration members to fire.

And what of Austria-Hungary's actions? Knowing that proceeding to war with Serbia (rather than just simply accepting her humiliation) would lead to a Europe wide conflagration, her behaviour was rather cavalier no?

Again, Russian involvement was by no means assured, and the Austro-Hungarian's (at least at the high levels of government) were out for blood. Considering the growing nationalist sentimens within A-H

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: mind_messing



Here's a little something that might interest you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z26bjxs

The First World War became the First World War (and not the Third Balkans War) when the Russians decided to order mobilization. After that point, the clock starts counting down the hours Germany has to ensure it's security and what would otherwise have been a limited regional conflict in the Balkans turns into a European-wide bloodbath as Russian mobilization sets off the various triggers to bring the other great powers into the war.

The "blank cheque" was not an assurance of war, as Russian military involvement was by no means a certainty. Russia had, after all, made a point of not intervening militarily in the past two wars in the Balkans, both of which threatened Russian interests.

warspite1

No blank cheque = no war (Balkan or otherwise) and so Russia's actions become irrelevant.

It's a nice notion, but wrong. The tensions in the Balkans were simply too high for there not to be another war. If Austria-Hungary had simply did nothing, you'd have had another war in the Balkans regardless, probably between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

Every nation in Europe was aware that another war in the Balkans was on the horrizon. The "where" and "who" questions weren't really clear, but there was common agreement that another war was brewing.

Germany wanted to support her ailing ally, that's perfectly understandable. However, when Austria-Hungary's ultimatum (that was designed to be rejected and could only have been sent with the blank cheque in her pocket) was accepted on all bar one point why, if Germany really did not want general war, did she not simply order AH to accept, what was, Serbia's abject humiliation. Germany could and should of course have limited the cheque in the first place, but having failed to do so she could, even then, have told AH that "we do not want this getting out of hand, failure to accept means you are on your own". Acceptance would more than have satisfied AH honour and revenged the death of their heir to the throne.

The "blank cheque" is one of those cases in history where a diplomatic sledgehammer is used to perform keyhole surgery. To be fair to the Germans, their alliance with A-H was quite critical to their defence, and unconditional support in what would have otherwise been a regional conflict was a small price to pay for the benefits brought by an A-H alliance.

As for the ultimatum, the Serbs single rejection was to refuse to arrest all accessories to the assassination and let A-H delegates take part in the investigation. Rather insignificant, considering the Serbs were fine with A-H providing a list of military and civil administration members to fire.

And what of Austria-Hungary's actions? Knowing that proceeding to war with Serbia (rather than just simply accepting her humiliation) would lead to a Europe wide conflagration, her behaviour was rather cavalier no?

Again, Russian involvement was by no means assured, and the Austro-Hungarian's (at least at the high levels of government) were out for blood. Considering the growing nationalist sentimens within A-H

warspite1

Come now mind_messing, you are playing with my words and you know it [;)] Was I really saying there would never be another Balkan War? No of course not. And you would of needed to be a rather strange, inward looking foreign minister of any European country in 1914 to believe otherwise. But that, as I suspect you know, is not what I am saying. There were previous Balkan Wars - did they all lead to a World - or even greater European War?

There is a huge difference between a limited Balkan War and one that brings in the big boys and leads to Europe wide annihilation.

As I have confirmed in my previous posts, I am more than happy to be fair to the Germans, after all, it takes two to tango. But, and I repeat, why did the Germans, IF THEY REALLY DID NOT WANT A WAR, not simply tell AH to accept what was a complete and abject humiliation for the Serbs?

You say Russian involvement was not certain - no it wasn't, well not until AFTER the AH declared war on Serbia - at which point they mobilised.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Just a general remark, as this has happened a lot in this thread already. An attempt to explain, condemn, or justify, historical events with todays western world moral and logic standards will usually end up in failure to understand.

True to some extent, but when one nation threatens another (which France did prior to the famous "Ems Telegram"), and then that same nation declares war for literally no good reason, and THEN that same nation is the first to send it's troops across the border into the other.....well, that's an invasion. There seems to be a lot of quibbling over terminology due to the size of the forces involved, but the larger issue is that France started the war and was the first to move their troops onto the soil of the other. That is highly aggressive behavior, and fully justifies a word like "invasion".

More interesting perhaps is to bring this up in the context of the thread theme, which is "counterfactuals". So what DOES happen if France doesn't pull the mind-numbingly stupid act of declaring war on Prussia? The French lost overwhelmingly and in so doing, they set up all that followed - German reunification, the triumph of militarism, a supremely powerful Kaiser, WW1, WW2.

Prussia (or at least Bismarck) certainly wanted a war, but if Prussia had started the war instead of France, there's no guarantee the other German states would have joined in. And that alone changes the entire dynamic. Victory might still have come, but it would not have been as decisive, and that would have placed reunification in doubt. At the very least it would not have resulted in the all powerful emperorship - with obvious implications in the years leading to 1914.

You can certainly make the case that 70 years of German militarism were entirely the result of decisions made in France in 1870.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: temagic
Suppose Japan withdrew from China and Indochina in 1941 and didn't start any new war of conquest, would Japan be as good a country to live in today as it is?

Suppose Spain followed in Portugal’s footsteps in the, 13th century, and leapfrogged down the coast of Africa, and thus didn’t feel the need to support Christoforo Colombo. Would Chile be as good a country to live in today as it is? [8D]

And just suppose that the flow of deadly pathogens did not go from the old world to the new but the reverse happened-wiping out 80% of the population of Europe before the first Meso-American ever set foot ashore in France. Would we still be practicing human sacrifice today?

I raise the question only because my idiot neighbor left his three barking pugs out doors all last night and I did not get a wink of sleep. Right now I have a pretty good idea about who's heart I want to cut out and eat first...[:@]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: temagic
Suppose Japan withdrew from China and Indochina in 1941 and didn't start any new war of conquest, would Japan be as good a country to live in today as it is?

Suppose Spain followed in Portugal’s footsteps in the, 13th century, and leapfrogged down the coast of Africa, and thus didn’t feel the need to support Christoforo Colombo. Would Chile be as good a country to live in today as it is? [8D]

And just suppose that the flow of deadly pathogens did not go from the old world to the new but the reverse happened-wiping out 80% of the population of Europe before the first Meso-American ever set foot ashore in France. Would we still be practicing human sacrifice today?

I raise the question only because my idiot neighbor left his three barking pugs out doors all last night and I did not get a wink of sleep. Right now I have a pretty good idea about who's heart I want to cut out and eat first...[:@]

Latest I read, it's thought that some of those pathogens went from the new New World to the Old World, then back to the New World in mutated form, proving more deadly to New World inhabitants. [X(]

[fcharton]

ORIGINAL: Kull
You can certainly make the case that 70 years of German militarism were entirely the result of decisions made in France in 1870.

You sure can, and it will result in yet another fine piece of historical research, where 70 years of history are explained by a single cause, preferably a simple one, which goes along the lines of "it was all the fault of xxx" (the French, Prussian militarism, US imperialism, Stalin, big business, Japan warrior culture, the Church, just pick a villain).

Mind-numbing, as you said.

Francois

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Kull
You can certainly make the case that 70 years of German militarism were entirely the result of decisions made in France in 1870.

Certainly, in the same way as you can make a case for any local event in history to be exclusively causally related to subsequent a local condition.

You would need to artificially and subjectively limit the area and timeframe you want to observe, artificially and subjectively limit the parameters that define the local event and the succeeding condition, and describe the event to take place in a closed system excluding any additional external triggers that might have the the capability to shape a similiar condition.

The consequence would most probably be an extremely speculative debate, with participants of the discussion all relying on different sets of data points to back up their opinions and conclusions, and thus an expectable (non-)outcome.

History is not that simple.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: Kull
You can certainly make the case that 70 years of German militarism were entirely the result of decisions made in France in 1870.

Certainly, in the same way as you can make a case for any local event in history to be exclusively causally related to subsequent a local condition.

And that's what makes counterfactuals so interesting. I kind of like this one because it's never been given serious consideration, to my knowledge. But everything that made Germany so dangerous in the years to come flowed out from the results of this war. And this wasn't a war with the inevitability of WW1 with all it's tangled alliances. France had already achieved a diplomatic victory in 1870 by getting the Prussians to back down on the Hohenzollern candidacy for the Spanish throne, but that wasn't good enough. They decided to "spike the ball" and demanded that no Hohenzollern would ever seek the throne of Spain. Wilhelm I refused to respond to the insult, and France declared war because they didn't like the wording of a telegram.

Good Lord. One of the most unnecessary wars ever, and it directly led to WW1 (and by implication, all the rest). I guess the only argument against an alternate outcome is that France had been the bully of Europe since the days of Charlemagne, so it was perhaps too much to expect that the leopard would change it's spots overnight.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: Kull
You can certainly make the case that 70 years of German militarism were entirely the result of decisions made in France in 1870.

Certainly, in the same way as you can make a case for any local event in history to be exclusively causally related to subsequent a local condition.

And that's what makes counterfactuals so interesting. I kind of like this one because it's never been given serious consideration, to my knowledge. But everything that made Germany so dangerous in the years to come flowed out from the results of this war. And this wasn't a war with the inevitability of WW1 with all it's tangled alliances. France had already achieved a diplomatic victory in 1870 by getting the Prussians to back down on the Hohenzollern candidacy for the Spanish throne, but that wasn't good enough. They decided to "spike the ball" and demanded that no Hohenzollern would ever seek the throne of Spain. Wilhelm I refused to respond to the insult, and France declared war because they didn't like the wording of a telegram.

Good Lord. One of the most unnecessary wars ever, and it directly led to WW1 (and by implication, all the rest). I guess the only argument against an alternate outcome is that France had been the bully of Europe since the days of Charlemagne, so it was perhaps too much to expect that the leopard would change it's spots overnight.

Look at it this way:

Ever since the dawn of mankind we slowly but surely steered towards globalization. There are certain exceptions to the rule, but in general empires, economy, and communication (and thus diplomacy), expanded on an absolute as well as a relative basis, and so do the alliances and wars along them. From the perspective of neutral and pacifistic observer every war is unneccesary and can be prevented. 1870 is just another example, nothing special.

Europe (and westerns Asia) is and was geographically, climatologically, and geologically, induced to spawn empires, trade, and natural borders. This is in part the reason why Europe has such a rich history of massive conflicts, ever changing alliances, and fallen leaders. And partly the reason why it is politically the most fragmented continent of modern times.

The Habsburgs. Napoleon. The 30 year war. Venice. The Hanse. The Vikings. Charlemagne. The 100 year war. The hordes. The Byzantine empire. The rise and fall of the Roman empire. The Teutons. The Greek. I could go on and on.

Europe for ages had and abundancy of nieches for cultures and societies to spawn and develop until borders grow to build mighy empires. The only thing special about 70 years of German militarism (and the root causes for it) is, that it actually happened. As have 100´s of similar conflicts. Had a (lack of) events prevented the war from 1870 and the rise of German militarism from rising, something else would have stepped in and taken it´s place.


One of the most unneccesary wars ever? Don´t think so. There is too many candidates.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
And just suppose that the flow of deadly pathogens did not go from the old world to the new but the reverse happened-wiping out 80% of the population of Europe before the first Meso-American ever set foot ashore in France. Would we still be practicing human sacrifice today?

Not gonna happen.

Simple explanation? Almost all 'old world' plagues are, in fact, animal diseases. Diseases from *domesticable* animals (yes, there are exceptions ... Malaria, for example, which is probably originally a disease of Monkeys dating well after the split between Humans and Apes, but they are mostly much less lethal).

The diseases jump the species barrier because they are domesticated animals ... and it was common for humans and such animals to live in close proximity (hence China being an influenza sink because Birds, Pigs and Humans live in close proximity in rural areas) which made it effectively inevitable.

The problem is, in the New World, there are very few domesticated/domesticable species ... the Llama/Alpaca, the Guinea Pig, the Chihuaha etc. ... hence there is less chance that such animal diseases as existed in those populations would spread, especially as the Llama/Alpaca is geographical isolated within the New World.

Then there's the problem of how these diseases jump the species barrier and then become endemic with occasional epidemics ... it requires lots of humans living close together. Cities, in effect. And lots of time ... thousands of years.

Again, the Old World has an advantage ... almost all of the domesticable food crops, and all of the most efficient ones (in terms of grain or edible part size/yield) are from Eurasia. The few that are elsewhere available are generally developed much much later than in the Old World and, hence, cities are a much later development in the New World ... so, even if they'd had more domesticable species, they'd not have had enough time to develop the whole range of nasties that the Old World had in its arsenal.

Phil

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

ORIGINAL: crsutton
And just suppose that the flow of deadly pathogens did not go from the old world to the new but the reverse happened-wiping out 80% of the population of Europe before the first Meso-American ever set foot ashore in France. Would we still be practicing human sacrifice today?

Not gonna happen.

Simple explanation? Almost all 'old world' plagues are, in fact, animal diseases. Diseases from *domesticable* animals (yes, there are exceptions ... Malaria, for example, which is probably originally a disease of Monkeys dating well after the split between Humans and Apes, but they are mostly much less lethal).

The diseases jump the species barrier because they are domesticated animals ... and it was common for humans and such animals to live in close proximity (hence China being an influenza sink because Birds, Pigs and Humans live in close proximity in rural areas) which made it effectively inevitable.

The problem is, in the New World, there are very few domesticated/domesticable species ... the Llama/Alpaca, the Guinea Pig, the Chihuaha etc. ... hence there is less chance that such animal diseases as existed in those populations would spread, especially as the Llama/Alpaca is geographical isolated within the New World.

Then there's the problem of how these diseases jump the species barrier and then become endemic with occasional epidemics ... it requires lots of humans living close together. Cities, in effect. And lots of time ... thousands of years.

Again, the Old World has an advantage ... almost all of the domesticable food crops, and all of the most efficient ones (in terms of grain or edible part size/yield) are from Eurasia. The few that are elsewhere available are generally developed much much later than in the Old World and, hence, cities are a much later development in the New World ... so, even if they'd had more domesticable species, they'd not have had enough time to develop the whole range of nasties that the Old World had in its arsenal.

Phil

For those wanting to dig into this sub-topic: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond goes into this in great detail. A most interesting book

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: pompack
For those wanting to dig into this sub-topic: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond goes into this in great detail. A most interesting book

I bought this book back in ´99, the first read was eye opening, reread it several times over the years and it has not become less fascinating ever since.

It is one of those books with the ability to convey eye opening truths to the reader about the world we live in, and it will always have a place of honor in my library, sitting next to books like Hawking´s Brief History of Time, Brian Greene´s Elegant Universe (not so current anymore because of recent events - hello Higgs [;)]), and Dawkins´s Blind Watchmaker.