Hypothetical question: What if Germany won WWI?

[MorningWood]

The thread title speaks for itself.
So in 1914 Germany is pulled into a war it did not want. The French are still butthurt because of Alsace-Lorraine and the Brits can't stand anyone else having a powerful Navy The Russians side with the Serbians against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and Italy is only a dubious ally (they switched later during the war).

The Germans launch a preemptive strike against France, using a modified version of the Von Schlieffen-plan. However, the Brits hop in and the German offensive is brought to a stop not too far from Paris. The war in the West gets bogged down in a slugfest of trench warfare.
In the East, the Austrians are getting their arses handed to them by basically anyone they fight against. The Germans manage to achieve a major victory at Tannenberg, though, and start driving the Russians back quite succesfully. Eventually the Russians are forced to withdraw because of internal issues.

The last German offensive on the Western front allows them to advance up to 60 kilometres at certain points. Now imagine if, for example, the Americans did not get involved into the war. The Brits and the French face a German army which is still more powerful than theirs and, since everybody is becoming war-weary, everybody wants the war to end. The Germans, preparing a final assault, propose an ultimatum to the entente, which they agree to. The war ends and the Germans end up victorious. If this would've happened, which impact would it've had on the aftermath and onto the present day?


I think:
-World War II (at least certainly not the one we know) would've never happened: no vengeful feelings after the Dictate of Versailles.
-The entente wouldn't have been forced to make huge concessions (like what Germany had to do after Versailles): they probably had to pay some war damages, but no major territorial changes (excluding concession of some colonies, methinks). The Germans didn't start the war, so there was no specific goal except self-defense and therefore they probably wouldn't impose disproportional measures.


So what do you folks think?

[mdk]

The german efficiency model probably wouldn't have bothered with trying a League of Nations, and we might not have a UN today.

[Flamelord]

I think the French still would have been pretty vengeful, getting their asses kicked twice. And I doubt the 'no major territorial concessions' part, since the Germans had to justify the war somehow, and their ambitions sorta expanded as the war went on.

[Kadaeux]

Ib4 Shitstorm.

But what if Germany won WW2, well we'd finally have proof magic physics-violating fairies exist

[Goldmarble]

Germany winning WWI?

Possibly result in WWII not happening, delaying the advancement of our technology by a couple decades. The US may never have risen to quite the "super power". We might not be stuck with the pointless 7.62x51 and 5.56x45 ammunition that the US shoved down the UN's throats in the stupid, asinine manner that they did.

There would be a lot of changes; some good, some bad. Hard for me to say, since I really never gave too much of a shit about politics when I was in school and supposed to be learning it.

[Dervish]

We might not be stuck with the pointless 7.62x51 and 5.56x45 ammunition that the US shoved down the UN's throats in the stupid, asinine manner that they did.

Hey now, I quite like 7.62x51mm! It's an excellent all purpose cartridge. 5.56 does nasty things to the body, but there's definitely better comparable cartridges out now. Also, the US didn't shove it down the UN's throat. It was a NATO motion to standardize almost all common weapon cartridges during the later years in the Cold War so NATO countries could use allied nation ammunition if they were having shortages. Thus, a French FA MAS could use an American M-16 cartridge, and a Canadian C1 could use a German G3 cartridge, and so on. It was a big problem in WWI that there were ammunition shortages at times because soldiers couldn't use French or British ammunition because they didn't use the same caliber. The Canadian troops in the early war used the piece-of-shit Ross rifle which fired a .280 Ross round, which needless to say couldn't take the British ammunition until it was rechambered later, but it still remained a giant pile of crap until the Canadians were finally issued the much less likely to be used as a club to defend your trench because it actually did well in WWI's conditions SMLE Mk. III.

Anywho, I was actually thinking on this topic the other day. Germany basically got screwed in WWI, being blamed for the entire thing when they only got involved to support Austria-Hungary due to being in a military Alliance with them. The Treaty of Versailles basically was grossly unfair and had conditions that would have been impossible for Germany to ever dig itself economically out of the hole Britain and France put them in and they lost a lot of resource producing land to the French, making that much harder to pay post-war concessions.

Had Germany won the war, I'm not really sure how much different things would have been, it wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing, I don't think. I imagine after a time they probably would have sought out an economic partnership with the US, whose economy and infrastructure wasn't devastated from the war, and the war effectively ended the US isolationist policies it practiced before the war. I don't think Germany would have put nearly as harsh conditions on Britain and France, but certainly would have put them in a position to not pose a military or economic threat for quite some time.

What would have been interesting is if Russia would have had more involvement by the Germans after they surrendered and if the Germans would have tried to put an end to the Bolshevik revolution. It's easier to deal with a defeated foe you know in Czar Nicholas II than a radical like Lenin who wants to take the largest Empire in the world in a new, and potentially terrifying direction. I imagine the Central Powers would have become very economically powerful and likely maintained a strong military presence, and quite possibly we'd be still looking at a somewhat divided Europe with strong nationalistic ideals instead of a relatively united Europe that we see now that was forged out of the cold war.

Of course, this is all speculation, but I think the world we see now would have been quite different than what would have happened if Germany won the First World War. Hell, I don't even think a lot of technology would have been the same. Would the atomic bomb, and thus nuclear power, have been invented in the 1940s like it was in our timeline? Or for that matter, any of the technological innovations we've seen in the Second World War? It's one of the crazy fascinating things about history is sometimes, one outcome can completely change everything.

[TP]

'Mericuh dropping all the bombs.

[Kadaeux]

'Mericuh dropping all the bombs.

Not in WW1. America wasn't even manly enough to participate until the last two years of the war when germany decided to poke it a little. Even then their participation was little more than a foot note

[TP]

Instead of the Japs, it would've been the Natzi's.

[mdk]

We might not be stuck with the pointless 7.62x51 and 5.56x45 ammunition that the US shoved down the UN's throats in the stupid, asinine manner that they did.

To be fair, we prefer shoving our ammunition through the chest cavities of terrorists.