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No WWI
18 Answers
How would the worl have been different if WWI had not been fought?
If Germany and Britain, France and Russia had managed to resolve their difference without abody getting invaded?
If Germany and Britain, France and Russia had managed to resolve their difference without abody getting invaded?
Answers
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Who knows? there are just so many variablesfor instance the Russian Revolution might not have occurred or taken a different path, Germany wouldn't have been forced to sign the treaty of Versailles which was a major factor in the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, or something else may have caused everything to kick off with totally different results. I'm afraid it's one of those things you can speculate about but thats all you can do
Personally I think its important - We are always told how all these people gave their lives for their countries..
I believe that only happened - not because their countries needed them to fight and die but because of political failures in the first years of the 20th Century.
WWI was largely about the conflict of empires and imperial power - had these great powers come to an understanding we would have entered a time where countries naturally became independant as happened in the last half of the 20the century.
The world would have been richer, there would have been fewer deaths, no Holocaust but no state of Israel.
After WWI it became necessary to believe the great lie that all those deaths had been for a greater purpose - despite the fact that this is clearly not the case. The alternative would have been unbearable.
This has continued to the present day
The talk is always of "Sacrifice" - in a sacrifice you get something back - this is why the absurd "war to end all wars" label comes about. It was the something for which the sacrifice supposed to have been made.
Or maybe I'm wrong - maybe something good came out of WWI that made their sacrifice worthwhile
I believe that only happened - not because their countries needed them to fight and die but because of political failures in the first years of the 20th Century.
WWI was largely about the conflict of empires and imperial power - had these great powers come to an understanding we would have entered a time where countries naturally became independant as happened in the last half of the 20the century.
The world would have been richer, there would have been fewer deaths, no Holocaust but no state of Israel.
After WWI it became necessary to believe the great lie that all those deaths had been for a greater purpose - despite the fact that this is clearly not the case. The alternative would have been unbearable.
This has continued to the present day
The talk is always of "Sacrifice" - in a sacrifice you get something back - this is why the absurd "war to end all wars" label comes about. It was the something for which the sacrifice supposed to have been made.
Or maybe I'm wrong - maybe something good came out of WWI that made their sacrifice worthwhile
-- answer removed --
No Idea Jake, but you seem to think WW1 was avoidable in some way. Care to let us know how the government of the day got it wrong. I assume you mean we should not have got involved. Was our involvement avoidable? Would they not have fougt it out on the continent then used a massive force to take Britain? I don't have enough knowledge to second guess the whole thing, I assume you have.
It's a fabulous question, but the problem lies with there being so many variables that all we can do is tinker with them randomly. For example, with no WW1 Russia may not have undergone revolution - Hitler would have not had an easy route to power -no reparations, no second world war....no influenza epidemic killing thousands of who knows what future leaders and thinkers.....no rise of US global involvement.
No, it's just to much to compute, it's the original flap of the butterfly's wings in Chaos Theory. We'll just have to make do with poring over what actually happened.
No, it's just to much to compute, it's the original flap of the butterfly's wings in Chaos Theory. We'll just have to make do with poring over what actually happened.
Good question.
i think there'd already been a revolution (of sorts) in Russia in 1905, the Itihadists would still have reigned supreme in the east and the constitutional reform they promised would have been no closer to realisation.
So Mustafa Kemal may have brought about a revolution to oust Enver Pasha etal, this still would have destabilised the region, pro Russian Armenians would have sought to devolve as would the Syrians and other Arab states.
The Balfour declaration would never have been made although Zionism existed then politically it was a non-entity in the west and the steppes as the Jews had reached a level of acceptance, integration and wealth that they were content with.
i think there'd already been a revolution (of sorts) in Russia in 1905, the Itihadists would still have reigned supreme in the east and the constitutional reform they promised would have been no closer to realisation.
So Mustafa Kemal may have brought about a revolution to oust Enver Pasha etal, this still would have destabilised the region, pro Russian Armenians would have sought to devolve as would the Syrians and other Arab states.
The Balfour declaration would never have been made although Zionism existed then politically it was a non-entity in the west and the steppes as the Jews had reached a level of acceptance, integration and wealth that they were content with.
Worth having a look at this view of the situation in 1914 from an outsider's viewpoint:
http://wwi.lib.byu.ed...t_to_President_Wilson
http://wwi.lib.byu.ed...t_to_President_Wilson
In the west it's different, imperial appetites and jingoism still held sway in the public conciousness, Britain would not have become indebted to America and thus America would not have recieved the huge boon to industry and international prestige that the war gave it, America probably would have continued further down it's isolationist path.
In Britain suffrage would have taken much longer to achieve, the plural democracy we have today would have been equally difficult as land reform would not have happened.
France would have carried on the same wheras Germany would still be a Monarchy, Germany would have continued to industrialise and probably would have sought imperial expansion in China.
China would have been stuck with Yuenist neo-traditionilism, the May 4th movement would not have occurred, China still would not have been a democracy and globally very weak and internally more corrupt.
In Britain suffrage would have taken much longer to achieve, the plural democracy we have today would have been equally difficult as land reform would not have happened.
France would have carried on the same wheras Germany would still be a Monarchy, Germany would have continued to industrialise and probably would have sought imperial expansion in China.
China would have been stuck with Yuenist neo-traditionilism, the May 4th movement would not have occurred, China still would not have been a democracy and globally very weak and internally more corrupt.
The tensions within Russia for reform were intense but the Communists would not have been in receipt of German money and organisational assistance so may not have prospered, a constituional monarchy like ours may have been the outcome.
But Russia would have been several decades behind a democracy like ours, even then.
A lot of good came out of The First Great War, no pun intended, but it was the making of modern Britain it formed the foundation of every social advancement we enjoy today.
Because of the Great War the working classes learned to forget "our place", because of The Great War the upper classes got to see us as human beings worthy of dignity and respect, because no man goes to war so that things can stay the same.
But Russia would have been several decades behind a democracy like ours, even then.
A lot of good came out of The First Great War, no pun intended, but it was the making of modern Britain it formed the foundation of every social advancement we enjoy today.
Because of the Great War the working classes learned to forget "our place", because of The Great War the upper classes got to see us as human beings worthy of dignity and respect, because no man goes to war so that things can stay the same.
It is also a naive question. Throughout history there have always been struggles for power- it is part of the human condition. For every situation, there is always somebody who disagrees, and often to the point of wishing to enforce their own point of view. Sometimes they feel moved to do that by force. Faced with that, many people get dragged in because to stand by may mean that an opinion different or even abhorrent to your own may prosper. When this reaches the point of being forced to accept a religious view people find objectionable, a political view people find objectionable, a treatment of people that is objectionable, then people will be roused to resistance. If what we call WW! had not happened, for the reasons it did, it would have happened for another reason.
war will only end when we can find another way to resolve such differences. Looking at my paper this morning, I don't expect that to be any time soon!
war will only end when we can find another way to resolve such differences. Looking at my paper this morning, I don't expect that to be any time soon!
Women likely either wouldn't be able to vote or would have gotten it much later.
Social welfare programs wouldn't have advanced anything like as much as they did. True, Lloyd-George and others had begun the process, but the considerable expansion of state intervention in WW1 pushed the process on dramatically.
The Ottoman Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. I think that's something we can all be grateful for.
The Russian Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. Of course, the emergence of the Soviet Union was by no means inevitable, but the massive human misery the civil war and Soviet era brought with it are direct consequences of World War 1.
The Hapsburg Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. The European map would be a lot simpler than it is now, but there'd still be plenty of nationalities living under foreign rule. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on your viewpoint.
The German Empire would - to the best of my knowledge, at least - probably still be around today, though I'm open to persuasion on that. But even if it wasn't, there'd still be a considerably bigger and probably stronger Germany at the heart of Europe. Whether it would still be autocratic (or semi-autocratic, I suppose) or even if that'd be a bad thing is anybody's guess.
And then you have the huge changes that wouldn't have taken place in the Middle East had it not been for WW1...
I think dismissing WW1 as 'pointless' is somewhat ignorant - it's probably one of the most significant events in modern history. But it's also true that absolutely nobody went to war to achieve any of the above.
Social welfare programs wouldn't have advanced anything like as much as they did. True, Lloyd-George and others had begun the process, but the considerable expansion of state intervention in WW1 pushed the process on dramatically.
The Ottoman Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. I think that's something we can all be grateful for.
The Russian Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. Of course, the emergence of the Soviet Union was by no means inevitable, but the massive human misery the civil war and Soviet era brought with it are direct consequences of World War 1.
The Hapsburg Empire wouldn't have collapsed when it did. The European map would be a lot simpler than it is now, but there'd still be plenty of nationalities living under foreign rule. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on your viewpoint.
The German Empire would - to the best of my knowledge, at least - probably still be around today, though I'm open to persuasion on that. But even if it wasn't, there'd still be a considerably bigger and probably stronger Germany at the heart of Europe. Whether it would still be autocratic (or semi-autocratic, I suppose) or even if that'd be a bad thing is anybody's guess.
And then you have the huge changes that wouldn't have taken place in the Middle East had it not been for WW1...
I think dismissing WW1 as 'pointless' is somewhat ignorant - it's probably one of the most significant events in modern history. But it's also true that absolutely nobody went to war to achieve any of the above.
Had to walk the dog and think about Africa, I do like me history. ;-)
There was no great movement for self determination in Africa that I can recall either there or the west.
Anti imperialism had lagely subsided with the death of Gladstone in the 19th century, so Egypt would have remained a British protectorate, the weakspot in the African empires was Portugal so there may have been an incursion over that.
The Balkans were already a tinder box of ethnic tensions so a multitude of small wars would have broke out, newly indepedent Bulgaria coveted Macedonia, Serbia wanted unity, Poland existed in the hearts of it's people, Albania and Macedonia wanted independence.
The Great War was avoidable without Bismarckian diplomacy or at the very least if the Schlieffen plan did not involve the invasion of Belgium it may not have involved us.
I've read the other posts now too, many countries were not indepedent in the second half of the 20th century, the eastern bloc were sovreign states but subservient to Moscow.
Increased access to education and new political and social thinking added to mass transportation meant a huge melting pot of ideas, the Great War heralded the end of the old ways of thinking, it heralded the end of empires and absolute monarchies.
The great imponderable for the war is the talent it denied to the world, how many people who would have become great scientists, doctors, artists, poets, engineers, trade unionists, politicians and legislators died?
That is the tragedy of war.
There was no great movement for self determination in Africa that I can recall either there or the west.
Anti imperialism had lagely subsided with the death of Gladstone in the 19th century, so Egypt would have remained a British protectorate, the weakspot in the African empires was Portugal so there may have been an incursion over that.
The Balkans were already a tinder box of ethnic tensions so a multitude of small wars would have broke out, newly indepedent Bulgaria coveted Macedonia, Serbia wanted unity, Poland existed in the hearts of it's people, Albania and Macedonia wanted independence.
The Great War was avoidable without Bismarckian diplomacy or at the very least if the Schlieffen plan did not involve the invasion of Belgium it may not have involved us.
I've read the other posts now too, many countries were not indepedent in the second half of the 20th century, the eastern bloc were sovreign states but subservient to Moscow.
Increased access to education and new political and social thinking added to mass transportation meant a huge melting pot of ideas, the Great War heralded the end of the old ways of thinking, it heralded the end of empires and absolute monarchies.
The great imponderable for the war is the talent it denied to the world, how many people who would have become great scientists, doctors, artists, poets, engineers, trade unionists, politicians and legislators died?
That is the tragedy of war.
-- answer removed --
I don't usually jump in on these things, but I will offer you a fleeting thought:
If WW1 had not been fought we would have been treated to a truly British form of modernism. This was something cut short by WW1. Regardless of whether you care for the modernism of the early C20th it is notable mark against British visual art that there has never been a prolonged period of experimentation (as seen in other European countries of the previous 30 years).
All the best,
Spare Ed
If WW1 had not been fought we would have been treated to a truly British form of modernism. This was something cut short by WW1. Regardless of whether you care for the modernism of the early C20th it is notable mark against British visual art that there has never been a prolonged period of experimentation (as seen in other European countries of the previous 30 years).
All the best,
Spare Ed
Sorry Geezer been busy this morning.
I think everton's point about the jingoism of the age strikes me as the most important.
I wonder if some carve up of the world might not have been possible between the imperial powers that would have settled things but thinking of the thought processes going on at the time and the sort of things that were coming out of the Daily Mail (Nothing changes does it?) it's difficult to see how that could have been sold to an imperialistic public raised on British Jingoism.
If you didn't see Andrew Mars History of modern Britain this week - catch the repeat, it gives a real feel of the spirit of the age
Spare Ed's point comes out of left field - I'll have to think about that
I think everton's point about the jingoism of the age strikes me as the most important.
I wonder if some carve up of the world might not have been possible between the imperial powers that would have settled things but thinking of the thought processes going on at the time and the sort of things that were coming out of the Daily Mail (Nothing changes does it?) it's difficult to see how that could have been sold to an imperialistic public raised on British Jingoism.
If you didn't see Andrew Mars History of modern Britain this week - catch the repeat, it gives a real feel of the spirit of the age
Spare Ed's point comes out of left field - I'll have to think about that
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