To the Victor, Go the Spoils (Redux): A Plausible Central Powers Victory

[BurkeanLibCon]

Cheers for the supportive messages all - and fear not, I very much intend to continue.

Today's update will cover what ends up happening to the German fleet!

Great to hear, I've been deeply interested in the timeline since the first edition (even before I joined the site last year).

Just a few questions, now the Ottomans are out of the war, how do they negotiate peace treaties with the Allies. This is how I see the peace negotiations and their participants, minus the Ottomans (please correct me if wrong):

Laeken (Brussels)
- Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria)
- France
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- United States (observer)

Vienna
- Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria)
- Serbia
- Albania
- Montenegro
- Greece
- Italy
- United States (observer)

With the Ottomans out of the negotiations, will they be negotiating separate peace treaties with the states they were at war with? Additionally, are the Americans solely attending the Vienna and Brussels conferences as observers, or are they negotiating their own peace terms as well?

Other than that, loving this new edition and I keenly await your latest update.

 

[weasel_airlift]

I enjoy this immensely. Watched.

I'd say that something not yet touched upon is that I think Wilson is utterly screwed. The US got nothing out of this except a casualty list, and the average man on the street wasn't keen on the war anyhow.

 

[Yankeewolf]

I enjoy this immensely. Watched.

I'd say that something not yet touched upon is that I think Wilson is utterly screwed. The US got nothing out of this except a casualty list, and the average man on the street wasn't keen on the war anyhow.

categorically disagree.

Wilson in OTL had a stroke, almost died, had his wife basically take over from 1919-1920 got taken to the cleaners regarding his peace agreement and 14 points, his party got shellacked, and america suffered over 300,000+ casualties.

What happens here? America fights one battle with around 12,000 casualties that's a *very minor* success. Wilson, rather than having the pressure of trying to force together the 14 points through a bloodthirsty Clemenceau and Lloyd George and give up on nearly everything in the hopes of ensuring an organization built on International Cooperation, which doesn't even get ratified in his own country (partly due to his own intransigeance) stroking out because of it, instead he gets to play the part of "Tribune of the Balkan plebs" which always plays well.

While this would be stressful, it's not what would think enough to give him a debilitating stroke, meaning he remains lucid for far longer. This has consequences far beyond the league of nations. The American Intervention in the Far East of Russia was headless and deeply confused BECAUSE Wilson was basically off his rocker. Given he most likely doesn't have this stroke, he's more apt to get involved which would be a good thing.

I'm not saying the Democrats would be going into the midterms expecting a confident victory nor am I saying that Wilson, who wanted to go for a third term, would win a landslide or even win at all. But it seems really clear to me that the ceiling for Wilson and the Democratic Party is already low enough in OTL that it really seems they'll clear the bar here purely by virtue of some issues not even coming up at all.

Be honest here, do you seriously think the Democrats do worse than THIS?

Spoiler: house and senate 1920

 

[TheReformer]

Great to hear, I've been deeply interested in the timeline since the first edition (even before I joined the site last year).

Just a few questions, now the Ottomans are out of the war, how do they negotiate peace treaties with the Allies. This is how I see the peace negotiations and their participants, minus the Ottomans (please correct me if wrong):

Laeken (Brussels)
- Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria)
- France
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- United States (observer)

Vienna
- Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria)
- Serbia
- Albania
- Montenegro
- Greece
- Italy
- United States (observer)

With the Ottomans out of the negotiations, will they be negotiating separate peace treaties with the states they were at war with? Additionally, are the Americans solely attending the Vienna and Brussels conferences as observers, or are they negotiating their own peace terms as well?

Other than that, loving this new edition and I keenly await your latest update.

This is correct, however the United States is not an observer at Vienna (Schönbrunn Palace), that is where it is negotiating it's own treaty officially. It is however an observer at Laeken yes.

I'm not gunna touch on the Ottoman peace after this besides with Britain really, but basically as I briefly touched on in the update, the Ottomans will sort of just agree to the return of bodies, prisoners and ships, mutual guarantees of no indemnities, status quo with all the other parties, etc. They'll sign individual peace's where relevant, with some being sorted out sooner and some later. Probably will 'technically' be at war with Brazil and China for example for a while largely out of laziness/apathy.

 

[Tom_B]

While the resolution of the Ottoman situation was excellent overall I do feel something significant was overlooked. Eliminating the Capitulations was a surprisingly big goal of the Three Pashas in the Great War. So I feel it would surely come up in their negotiations with the British. I will note that in OTL the Treaty of Lausanne abolished the Capitulations for all signatories so it is not an outrageous demand.

 

[Fulton 44]

Do these developments change - or are they affected by - the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918-19?

 

[KingSweden24]

The Ottoman Armistice
September - October 1918​

By November Britain was on the precipice of more dramatic political upheaval. The country had been due an election since 1915, with the planned vote having been suspended due to the war. By December, the British people would have been waiting nearly four years since the previous election - almost an entire Parliamentary term without a say in their governance.

For many in the UK this was growing increasingly tiresome, especially since the War Cabinet had collapsed and the Conservatives now governed alone with the support of some Coalition Liberals under Lloyd George. A politically exhausted H. H. Asquith, who had proven to be a weak war leader and now continued to prove a man beyond his time politically, remained leader of the Opposition while most Britons looked to Labour’s William Adamson as the real alternative.

With the war over in Europe and peace literally being discussed as Britain fought on, many ordinary Britons increasingly viewed the conflict as pointless. The military gains in the middle east had raised the hopes of many that there would soon be a settlement, but yet the fall of Adana had taken place a month prior and still fighting raged in the Taurus Mountains.

The Ottomans, to their credit, seemed determined to fight on with German arms despite their rapidly declining strength. While the Ottomans had initially had a large army in 1914, by 1918 the country had essentially been in a non-stop war since 1911, first with Italy, then the Balkan powers twice, and then the world war.

Unfortunately though, having successfully seized Baku and its vital oil fields and established the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, the Ottomans had inadvertently infuriated the German Government who had been locked in a ‘race’ with the Turks to the city. Germany, for its part, was determined that Azerbaijan would become a neutral state with a German supported Government and full oil extraction rights being held by Germany.

In this they were of course willing to be conciliatory to the Turks, however the Turkish Government - determined to control Azerbaijan and the oil themselves, had undermined German claims to provide security to the Georgian Government after the Army of the Caucuses engaged Georgian units in June at Vorontsovka. In the aftermath of the engagement, Hans von Seeckt had been dispatched to meet with Enver Pasha, and Vehip Pasha had been fired from his role in the army. Worse still, Germany had briefly threatened to withdraw all support from the Turks, leaving the Turks concerned that Germany would not be a reliable partner in the future.

This was a fair assumption, and the Germans in fact were so determined to prevent the Turks from advancing that they even sought out the Soviets to stop them. In August, having recognized they lacked the strength to directly seize Azerbaijan, the Germans and the Bolsheviks agreed that if Germany were able to prevent the advance of the Army of Islam, they would annex Azerbaijan and permit the Germans to receive 25% of all oil extracted from the oil fields.

Germany then insisted that Enver Pasha cease his advance - but he intentionally ignored the request, and instead seized the city on September 15th. This infuriated the German Government, who promptly refused to provide military aid to the Sublime Porte unless concessions were agreed and German industry were given access to Baku’s fields. On this, the Turks were at the very least open to discussions and negotiations opened shortly after - much to the frustration of Enver Pasha.

Despite this diplomatic uncertainty, the Ottomans now felt they had now achieved their main strategic goal in the war and thus their incentive to remove Britain from the conflict grew significantly. Britain, after all, was the only state besides Germany with forces near Baku, and thus the only state capable of threatening Ottoman control of its oil.

Further, the Ottomans were plainly running out of manpower and ammunition, and would benefit from a force to balance the influence of Germany in Europe and Bulgaria in the Balkans. With Germany seeming an intimidating continentally dominant power now, and German diplomatic pressure visibly bullying the Ottoman Government over matters of economic policy, the Government decided to act. On October 30th the Ottoman Government dispatched captured British General Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend to request a negotiated, conditional armistice.

Ottoman terms were simple; the British would receive limited territories in the Ottoman Arabian territories. In exchange, Britain would cease its conflict with the empire and would not demand any financial indemnity for the conflict, and would recognise Ottoman suzerainty over conquered territories in the east, and make no demands regarding Armenia.

For Britain, this was a divisive offer. The territorial claims offered to her excluded Mosul and northern Mesopotamia, and even excluded Aleppo, with the border being drawn in a nearly diagonal line towards Kirkuk from Aleppo. Despite this limitation though, Britain would achieve virtually all of her war aims by seizing Transjordan, Palestine and most of Mesopotamia, while only the French segment of the Sykes-Picot agreement would be lost.

While Britain lost little by simply waiting the Ottomans out as Turkish forces could not easily re-conquer the Arab provinces, the idea of a final peace did carry significant attraction. By forcing a Central Powers state out of the conflict for good, PM Bonar Law could show the British public that the conflict was worth it, and could also secure significant territorial concessions, and deliver for Britain’s Arab allies without a painful mountainous campaign.

Despite this, Britain would not commit to exact borders in an armistice agreement. Responding to the Ottoman Government through an envoy in Switzerland, the British nonetheless agreed to negotiate under the principles of a southern British zone and maintaining Turkish territorial integrity up to and north of the Taurus Mountains - maintaining intentionally vague positions regarding exact borders. Additionally, Britain required that the Empire immediately evacuate their conquered Persian holdings.

The two sides would announce an armistice agreement along the lines of those principles by October 10th, which would be signed by Ottoman Marine Affairs Minister Rauf Bey and British Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe on board HMS Agamemnon in Kaleköy Harbour on the island of Imbros.

Consequences
The Ottoman armistice agreement with Britain marked the first and only case of a Central Powers partner agreeing to unilaterally end hostilities with any single member of the Allied powers. It almost immediately triggered a split with German leadership, who excluded the Ottomans from any further negotiations with the Allies at Vienna and Brussels, prompting a flurry of background treaties between the other allied powers and the Ottomans later.

The British agreed to the Ottoman armistice on the behalf of the entire Allied force, further emphasising a split between Britain and France over the peace as Britain reneged upon the Sykes-Picot agreement, no longer offering the French any middle eastern holdings.

This was in part out of concerns that the Turks would simply never offer territory to a power who had not defeated them, but was more so out of a genuine long standing competition between Britain and France. Even prior to and during the negotiations for Sykes-Picot, the Foreign Ministry had sought to exclude France from territorial influence in the middle east and, seeing their opportunity, chose to ignore the agreement under the pretext that France had not contributed to the Ottoman defeat.

This came as a bitter blow to the French Government who quietly had been urging Britain to finish the Ottomans off and thus secure France territories that could translate into somewhat of a ‘victory’ in the conflict - though in reality this was a deeply naive hope.

The German-Ottoman split would further trigger animosity over the future of Baku also, which remained occupied by Turkish forces with the Azeri Republic in the region remaining a close partner of the Turks. Germany, while still de-facto allied with the Ottomans, would continue to press for economic concessions, but with the Ottomans out of the conflict, the nationalist Government had relatively skillfully removed the pressure of a British advance and their dwindling supplies from Germany. Without a war, what could Germany offer but later economic investment - investment that now the Turks could themselves secure through the sale of oil, perhaps even to Britain.

Awesome stuff!

 

[TheReformer]

As it turns out, I've got to pretty totally re-write the next update to implement changes after discussions here about the German potential for sallying out the fleet. Not gunna rush it as I want it to be right, so I'll post it tomorrow when it's ready. Have half fixed it, so shouldnt take too long.

So no update today!

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

Here is an example from Denmark on how the food balance could change ittl. According to this Denmark maintained food exports to Great Britain because the were dependent on animal feed imports after russian exports diminished.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03585522.1996.10414628

I would Think that just the perceived German win and prospects of renewed Russian exports might shift this balance towards Germany. Not an example refuting any general arguments you have made, but an example of a quantitative shift in Germany favor. No need to respond to this, its only a small added weight on the scale.

…Be honest here, do you seriously think the Democrats do worse than THIS?

I really enjoy reading detailed information on fairly obscure topics like the link in Gudestein's post and the superb maps as in Yankeewolf's spoiler. From his timeline here, TheReformer obviously transforms raw data just like this into a very believable alternate World War I history. I salute all 3 of you.

P.S. Yankeewolf, it was eye-opening to see the House of Representative districts as they were then. And several states had more electoral votes than I ever assumed they had, like Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

 

[kham_coc]

As it turns out, I've got to pretty totally re-write the next update to implement changes after discussions here about the German potential for sallying out the fleet. Not gunna rush it as I want it to be right, so I'll post it tomorrow when it's ready. Have half fixed it, so shouldnt take too long.

So no update today!

If I were to guess at German strategy here, it should be to isolate the UK - all German thinking agreed that any gains or structures (customs union) imposed must be accepted by the world, or trade would suffer.
So in other words the US must be made happy, even if it means worse terms when peaceing out the continent.
Only if colonies matter should the UK be involved, but tbh given the ease with which they were cut of, the logical response should to write it all off and just focus on Europe.
Once the UK is isolated, the blockade is weakened significantly.

As for any general fleet action, before US dreadnoughts have gone home it's a death ride (tbh, after too but one could make the argument for risking it).
If the navy is to be used, it should be in a light role from Flanders, otl not used because of horrific command structure, with the war mostly over, the navy in mild disgrace and told to do something, those units should be freed up regardless of what the HSF commands think.

 

[Hohensaufen]

It's not simply a tit for tat arrangement, as German franchise is incredibly misleading due in large part to the 3 class voting system. It is more inherently flawed than Britain's property requirements for voting.

Ultimately both are flawed and brutal colonial regimes. I don't dispute that. However the influence of German Militarism over the government combined with those brutal crackdowns in my view creates a *generally* more reprehensible empire, and I find it distasteful to support the Germans over the British ittl because "the Germans got their comeuppance iotl".

And I maintain it was a tit-for-tat, as the British franchise was directly linked to property ownership and thus limited to the wealthy until the end of the second world war; that is in my view a heavily restricted suffrage. Also, the German franchise was not a 3 class voting system, although Prussia's was which certainly had a significant impact on the democracy (or lack thereof) of Germany.

Alright, the last sentence is just ridiculous. This is after all alternate history, so obviously people try to find scenarios where states that failed iotl would not in their own timelines. This includes exploring distasteful scenarios such as exploring what a lasting confederate US would look like or how an Africa that still is occupied by imperial powers would develop or how the UK could hold on to India.

Also, what brutal crackdowns? The only ones I would be aware of would be the breaking of strikes, which let me remind you was again pretty standard for the day and age; the UK brutally suppressed strikes well into the 20th century (Margaret Thatcher wink wink). As a matter of fact, the Kaiser was against using the army against strikers and Germany was indeed pretty much the first nation in the world to enact social laws to address the problems of the workers; so, indeed, the government addressed the problems of the workers (voters) and did not simply beat them into submission, yes, they did in their own way banning socialist parties and the like, but still.

Lastly, sorry for the late reply, I hope I'm not derailing the thread (again), but this thread is moving quite fast and I can't really keep up lol

Edit: Edit because the thread owner does not want any more of this discussion (understably so), so just a couple last points. @Megas Valens Yeah, I'm aware of the atrocities committed by Germany in Africa, I was under the impression Godwin was referring to domestic Militarism. The massacre of the Herero in Namibia is obviously inexcusable, as is in a any genocide.

 

[Megas Valens]

And I maintain it was a tit-for-tat, as the British franchise was directly linked to property ownership and thus limited to the wealthy until the end of the second world war; that is in my view a heavily restricted suffrage. Also, the German franchise was not a 3 class voting system, although Prussia's was which certainly had a significant impact on the democracy (or lack thereof) of Germany.

Alright, the last sentence is just ridiculous. This is after all alternate history, so obviously people try to find scenarios where states that failed iotl would not in their own timelines. This includes exploring distasteful scenarios such as exploring what a lasting confederate US would look like or how an Africa that still is occupied by imperial powers would develop or how the UK could hold on to India.

Also, what brutal crackdowns? The only ones I would be aware of would be the breaking of strikes, which let me remind you was again pretty standard for the day and age; the UK brutally suppressed strikes well into the 20th century (Margaret Thatcher wink wink). As a matter of fact, the Kaiser was against using the army against strikers and Germany was indeed pretty much the first nation in the world to enact social laws to address the problems of the workers; so, indeed, the government addressed the problems of the workers (voters) and did not simply beat them into submission, yes, they did in their own way banning socialist parties and the like, but still.

Lastly, sorry for the late reply, I hope I'm not derailing the thread (again), but this thread is moving quite fast and I can't really keep up lol

Didn't the Germans commit Genocide against some of the natives in German Sudwestafrika?

 

[kham_coc]

Didn't the Germans commit Genocide against some of the natives in German Sudwestafrika?

Colonialism the word you are looking for is Colonialism.

 

[TheReformer]

Colonialism the word you are looking for is Colonialism.

Yeah.... No.

Lets not have a moral debate on the virtues and ethics of the unquestionaly vile things Germany, among others, did in the colonial era here please.

Go elsewhere, or dont talk about it on my thread. I'll address these issues my own way within the TL - they are not for people to debate and discuss here.

 

[Spamavalanche]

Huh, this site stopped showing notifications to me, and I was quite worried about that, good job AH.com, good job
anyway, I would not be AT ALL surprised if by 2022 of this TTL, the world is bit worst off, I think the eastern Europeans are inclined to agree with me

 

[TheReformer]

Huh, this site stopped showing notifications to me, and I was quite worried about that, good job AH.com, good job

I've noticed it does that sometimes if you dont like click the alerts for replies, think it's something to do with the alerts stacking up.

 

[Spamavalanche]

I've noticed it does that sometimes if you dont like click the alerts for replies, think it's something to do with the alerts stacking up.

But I click the alerts for replies, in my experiences the site just stop notifying me

 

[Hohensaufen]

But I click the alerts for replies, in my experiences the site just stop notifying me

Alerts don't always work, the only alerts that work reliably are the notifications of reacts to your contributions. I have given up on using alerts in the all together and only use "watched threads" these days. But this only works for me because I don't contribute much and if I contribute it's more likely than not that it's in a thread I watch.

 

[Adamgerd]

Huh, this site stopped showing notifications to me, and I was quite worried about that, good job AH.com, good job
anyway, I would not be AT ALL surprised if by 2022 of this TTL, the world is bit worst off, I think the eastern Europeans are inclined to agree with me

I'd disagree as a Czech, it wouldn't be a bed of roses but there wouldn't be a genocidal Nazi third reich or afterwards the communist USSR and the four decade occupation. Other parts of the world might be worse off but Czechia at least I don't think would be

 

[Spamavalanche]

I'd disagree as a Czech, it wouldn't be a bed of roses but there wouldn't be a genocidal Nazi third reich or afterwards the communist USSR and the four decade occupation. Other parts of the world might be worse off but Czechia at least I don't think would be

I was more talking about Poland, which will be marginally worse