Future Timeline

I have decided to recreate a thread dedicated to alternate history. Please put all Alternate History related posts here and Here is a Alternate History Hub Youtube video to get the thread started.

I wonder how history would be different if Adolf Hitler was just better at art so he got accepted into art school, although I think World War 2 could still happen.

How could France have won? English colonists vastly outnumbered French ones in North America.

The most interesting alternate history scenario for me is what if America lost the Revolutionary War. I cannot even think how different world history would be if this actually happened.

Revolutionary Moderate wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 1:04 am The most interesting alternate history scenario for me is what if America lost the Revolutionary War. I cannot even think how different world history would be if this actually happened.

Well, there might just have been another Revolutionary War at a later date

joe00uk wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 1:25 am

Revolutionary Moderate wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 1:04 am The most interesting alternate history scenario for me is what if America lost the Revolutionary War. I cannot even think how different world history would be if this actually happened.

Well, there might just have been another Revolutionary War at a later date

I think that's what would have happened.

I think the most plausible and consequential alternate history scenario is Germany winning WWI. The odds were against it at almost every stage of the War, but it was far likelier than the French winning the French and Indian Wars, the CSA surviving the Civil War, or Germany winning WWII.

A victorious and confident Germany would not have succumbed to Nazism after the Great War. That means the Holocaust would not have happened. Gaining a lot of land in the east at the expense of the Russian Empire might have also quenched the German thirst for any further territorial expansion and kept them occupied managing their Great War gains indefinitely. Communism might not have risen in Russia, or if it had, its westward expansion into richer territories would have been blocked by Germany, a powerful foe.

A German WWI victory would have also accelerated the timetable for European political and economic integration by decades. I have no illusions that this would have initially served German interests over those of other groups, but the establishment of the framework was the most crucial thing. It could and would have been liberalized over the subsequent decades.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 2:54 pm A German WWI victory would have also accelerated the timetable for European political and economic integration by decades. I have no illusions that this would have initially served German interests over those of other groups, but the establishment of the framework was the most crucial thing. It could and would have been liberalized over the subsequent decades.

I think if that happened there would just have been a bunch of revolutionary wars all over Europe in the mid-20th Century as different nations fought to break free of German domination. Of the many lessons we can learn from history, one is that Europe can never be united for long.

joe00uk wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 3:02 pm

funkervogt wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 2:54 pm A German WWI victory would have also accelerated the timetable for European political and economic integration by decades. I have no illusions that this would have initially served German interests over those of other groups, but the establishment of the framework was the most crucial thing. It could and would have been liberalized over the subsequent decades.

I think if that happened there would just have been a bunch of revolutionary wars all over Europe in the mid-20th Century as different nations fought to break free of German domination. Of the many lessons we can learn from history, one is that Europe can never be united for long.

Let me be clear about something: I don't think a German WWI victory would have led to them controlling any more territory than the Central Powers had when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. Britain, Iberia, Italy, Greece, Scandinavia, and most of the Russian Empire's landmass would have remained independent. The worst France would have faced would have been a temporary occupation.

You're right that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have had serious problems controlling the other ethnic groups throughout their postwar territories, and it's an open question how well they would have managed it. Maybe they would have come to acceptable accommodations that provided just enough unity to prevent communist incursions.

World War 1 ending with a fair peace would be interesting to see. World War 2 could be avoided, but it could still happen, but it would be different from our World War 2, obviously.