What dielect of German do they speak? Prussian, Saxon, swabian? And what if the people in the three houses at the north end of the village feel polish?
What if the end of WWI was along ethnic lines
- Thread starter Artienia
- Start date
What dielect of German do they speak? Prussian, Saxon, swabian? And what if the people in the three houses at the north end of the village feel polish?
Fair enough but if they do go into the mindset of maximum peace then they are going to look at the points more closely. Then it will go down the drain quick as the points were very niave
Amazing Reply by Sallagarim
"A lot of people here seem to be bent on ignoring that a lot of trouble in OTL arose because the idea was implemented poorly, not because it was implemented in the first place. There are some areas where you will see trouble, particularly the Hungarian exclave in Romania and in (what was in OTL) Yugoslavia, because it's hard to get those areas "right" (but they were very problematic long before Wilson's plan). As much as I detest Wilson, there is a very dumb tendency to dismiss his ideas as being the product of this "old racist", with the implication that his racism means he cannot possibly ever have had a single valid idea. That's logically incoherent.
The truth is that if you'd altered the Hungarian borders to include the clear Hungarian-majority areas around OTL Hungary, there would be far, far less revanchism. Why? Because the no-longer-Hungarian regions would all be evidently not Hungarian. The whole myth that "Hungary was carved up" thrived on the fact that there were indeed an awaful lot of Hungarians outside Hungary afterwards. If that's not the case, both the validity and the support for irridentism woul be vastly reduced. (The exclave could theoretically be a separate Hungarian country, which should be allowed to unify with Hungary via a pleibiscite if it wishes. Free civilian travel between the two Hungarian states should be guaranteed by treaty.)
Likewise, Germany: if we go by ethnic majority, Poland doesn't get the coastline, and all of Germany stays contiguous. The whole excuse for war with Poland is gone. There are no "germans under the Polish yoke!!!", since Poland contains no (or very, very few) Germans. Same goes for Czechoslovakia. There won't be a Czechoslovakia. Those will be two countries. And while the Czech state will be small, since the Sudetenland goes to a united Germany (also including Austria), there will be no real reason for Germany to want to invade Czechia. All the irridentist anger that so fuelled Hitler will be totally gone in this ATL. If the idea is really applied, Germany even gains South Tyrol and gets to keep over half of Elsaß-Lothringen! What "wrongs" will Hitler have to "right" via brutal force, then? For a lot of Germans, there would be far less reason to ever vote for him.
And sure, the whole primise is hypocritical since the winners of the war surely do not intend to apply it to themselves (or to their colonies), but has "this is hypocritical" ever been a reason not to do a thing, in all of history? The self-determination of peoples was not a stupid idea, it was one of the best ideas in political history, it remains morally sound, and if it had been applied more honestly, it would have been a great step towards preventing World War II and all Nazi atrocities."
i would say this is the most detailed and most realistic version for self-determanistic / along-ethnic-lines treaty of Versailles / Trianon / Serves
"There is no way to draw "fair" ethnic borders in Central/Eastern Europe after ww1. There were predominately German towns surronded by Polish countryside, or Polish towns surronded by Ukrainian/Belarusian countryside, enclaves and other stuff. Or places like Vilnius/Wilno (Poles want it for ethnic reasons, Lithuanians for historical reasons). In theory the best solution to minimalize conflict would be to piss off weaker side (they'll be angry enough for revenge but simply not strong enough)."
In the End - you can never draw borders on fully ethnic lines unless you want to create the Unholy Unroman Unpire but half of Europe this time.
My aim is to create the most realistic version of this happening, and after all is done, i could definitely see this timeline going towards an Italian World War Two
"A lot of people here seem to be bent on ignoring that a lot of trouble in OTL arose because the idea was implemented poorly, not because it was implemented in the first place. There are some areas where you will see trouble, particularly the Hungarian exclave in Romania and in (what was in OTL) Yugoslavia, because it's hard to get those areas "right" (but they were very problematic long before Wilson's plan). As much as I detest Wilson, there is a very dumb tendency to dismiss his ideas as being the product of this "old racist", with the implication that his racism means he cannot possibly ever have had a single valid idea. That's logically incoherent.
The truth is that if you'd altered the Hungarian borders to include the clear Hungarian-majority areas around OTL Hungary, there would be far, far less revanchism. Why? Because the no-longer-Hungarian regions would all be evidently not Hungarian. The whole myth that "Hungary was carved up" thrived on the fact that there were indeed an awaful lot of Hungarians outside Hungary afterwards. If that's not the case, both the validity and the support for irridentism woul be vastly reduced. (The exclave could theoretically be a separate Hungarian country, which should be allowed to unify with Hungary via a pleibiscite if it wishes. Free civilian travel between the two Hungarian states should be guaranteed by treaty.)
Likewise, Germany: if we go by ethnic majority, Poland doesn't get the coastline, and all of Germany stays contiguous. The whole excuse for war with Poland is gone. There are no "germans under the Polish yoke!!!", since Poland contains no (or very, very few) Germans. Same goes for Czechoslovakia. There won't be a Czechoslovakia. Those will be two countries. And while the Czech state will be small, since the Sudetenland goes to a united Germany (also including Austria), there will be no real reason for Germany to want to invade Czechia. All the irridentist anger that so fuelled Hitler will be totally gone in this ATL. If the idea is really applied, Germany even gains South Tyrol and gets to keep over half of Elsaß-Lothringen! What "wrongs" will Hitler have to "right" via brutal force, then? For a lot of Germans, there would be far less reason to ever vote for him.
And sure, the whole primise is hypocritical since the winners of the war surely do not intend to apply it to themselves (or to their colonies), but has "this is hypocritical" ever been a reason not to do a thing, in all of history? The self-determination of peoples was not a stupid idea, it was one of the best ideas in political history, it remains morally sound, and if it had been applied more honestly, it would have been a great step towards preventing World War II and all Nazi atrocities."
i would say this is the most detailed and most realistic version for self-determanistic / along-ethnic-lines treaty of Versailles / Trianon / Serves
"There is no way to draw "fair" ethnic borders in Central/Eastern Europe after ww1. There were predominately German towns surronded by Polish countryside, or Polish towns surronded by Ukrainian/Belarusian countryside, enclaves and other stuff. Or places like Vilnius/Wilno (Poles want it for ethnic reasons, Lithuanians for historical reasons). In theory the best solution to minimalize conflict would be to piss off weaker side (they'll be angry enough for revenge but simply not strong enough)."
In the End - you can never draw borders on fully ethnic lines unless you want to create the Unholy Unroman Unpire but half of Europe this time.
My aim is to create the most realistic version of this happening, and after all is done, i could definitely see this timeline going towards an Italian World War Two
You can't make everyone happy. In this TL the "priority" is to maximize peace between the new countries (Yugo, AT, HU, CZSL (Or sepratated) and ROM).
BigBlueBox
Banned
This might shock you, but not only was Wilson's 14 Points actually taken seriously, there was 14 of them, not one. Point 8 stated that all of Alsace-Lorraine should granted to France, and it listed no conditions about "self-determination". Point 9 on Italian territorial gains was vague and its interpretation was guaranteed to piss someone off. Point 13 explicitly stated that Poland should be given "free and secure access to the sea". Guess what port was the obvious choice to give to Poland?
Point 10 might seem to have been violated by Czechoslovakia getting the Sudetenland, but it could be interpreted in a myriad of ways and Wilson himself thought the Sudetenland should go to Czechoslovakia.
None of the 14 Points was completely ignored. Even the League of Nations Mandate system presented a fig leaf towards well-being of colonial populations (Point 5).
As for Denmark's territorial gains, that was the most clean cut example of national self-determination to ever happen in Europe. Nobody but the most extreme of German nationalists had any complaints. I see no reason to trust the obviously German-biased census results you provided over the actual referendum results.
Wikipedia actually has a great quote from Teddy Roosevelt on the 14 Points: "Most of these fourteen points ... would be interpreted ... to mean anything or nothing."
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Which is fair but its not the new nations we should be worried about it are the old ones outside germany most of them are getting screwed in some way. Once again because i am biased i am going to refer too italy. You are going to tell a group of people of fairly powerful nation that they get the smallest fraction of what was promised when they have bodies pilied when land that was promised to them was given to these nations that in their minds gave nothing. Now that is asking for war with Yugoslavia hell in otl they literally occupied fiume but was told to pull back this wont happen. and in this sernario the powers are likely going to let it happen the only way is if it was the french and italians that propesed it then you can avoid war. It doesn’t help peace it jeopardises it. It assumes that people will care about the ethics they wont the cultures at the time didn’t care. The only ones that espoused the ideology were hopefuls like wilson or those who benefited from it like the serbs. While agree that cutting along ethnic lines and self determination are fine ideas if implemented correctly but also when you know when it wont work and the balkans are one of these areas because it also has to do with history the idea that it is their traditional lands even though they might live there on mass. For a more recent example Israel, it was built on that idea. So it is fair enough but it wont always work. If you gave italy Otl gains then in that case you wont see much of the problems especially if the ideas caught on. But what was suggested i think is just too little for what was provided especially when places like france aren’t giving up nearly as much. Though like you said it would create one good fucking timeline so i wish you good luck.
Among other things, it leaves Poland very weak--without access to the sea (and that can't even really be justified by self-determination because while Danzig was mostly German, the Gdynia area was Polish or at least Kashubian) and deprived of the Ukrainian and Belarusian borderlands; and the new Czechoslovak state is very vulnerable to an eventual German attack, especially if Austria and Germany would some day be united (which everyone knew was a possibility in the long run). Also having a Szekely "island" in Romania as part of Hungary doesn't look practical.
This "experiment" was never really about practicality or stability. it was about the good but short sided goal of what if we drew borders on ethnic lines. doesn't mean it will be peacefull, it means it was made in the *hope* of peace.
as others in the thread pointed out, this TL could easily lead to an Italy guided WWII