Alternative Histories of the Awful 20th Century

The way the German war plan looked on paper.

Germany really might have won the First World War.

Looking back on events of world history, we get a sense of inevitability. We forget they were not inevitable at the time.

This is important because, had Germany won, it would have been disastrous for civilization. That they did not suggests the awful hand of God.

Note first that, unambiguously, despite attempts at revisionism, Germany provoked the war.

Countries and governments do not start wars they think they are going to lose.

Germany had good prospects, on paper, of winning.

They failed primarily because of one miscalculation. Nobody understood how the current battlefield technology favoured the defense.

Had they seen this, Germany’s grand strategy for war probably should have been the opposite of what it was.

Their plan, the famous Schlieffen Plan, was to quickly overrun France before Russia could fully mobilize, then pivot and take on Russia.

Were it not for the advantages held by defense, they would have quickly been in Paris, and it would have gone as foreseen. As it was, it was a close-run thing. And even with the failure of this initial drive, even up to mid-1918, it looked as though Germany might win anyway.

They should instead have set up a defensive screen on the French border, and concentrated their main forces quickly against Russia, taking as much ground as they could before the latter could fully mobilize. 

The French war plan: Plan 17.

Given the advantages on defense, such a relatively thin grey line in the West could probably have held. Let France beat its head against this Western Wall, and they only grow weaker as Germany grows stronger, taking the higher casualties with a smaller population. By not invading Belgium to bypass the French defenses, Germany could well have avoided getting both Belgium and Britain into the war, and, with Britain, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, and Britain’s allies Portugal and Japan, all significant factors. They would not have had to pursue unrestricted submarine warfare, and so the US would also probably have stayed out. Bundle that together, and they would have faced, throughout the war, less than half the forces and less than a third the industrial capacity that they did in the event. That alone sounds like enough for a win. Without Britain in, it seems dubious, in turn, that Italy would have come in on the Entente side. They would more likely have seen an opportunity in joining their treaty allies, Austria and Germany, and seeking their spoils in French North Africa, Nice, Savoy, and Corsica.

Germany would also have avoided the British blockade, which may have done more than anything else to hand them defeat.

Moving east instead of west, Germany would have had the advantage of fighting through lands and peoples unhappily subject to Russia, Poland, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic States, who would probably welcome them as liberators. Set them up as friendly governments as they passed through, and Germany would have been able to marshal their populations and industries in their war effort against the rest of the Russian Empire—and perhaps, later, France. Subsequent events have shown us that the Russian regime’s hold on power was fatally shaky; with a good sharp knock at the very start, the Russian Revolution might have come years earlier, taking Russia out of the war.

In the meantime, an early focus on Russia would have taken pressure off Germany’s weaker Austrian chum. Without England in, the Ottomans could have concentrated on the Caucasus, increasing the pressure on the Czar. Serbia might have been cordoned off at the start, relying again on the supremacy of defense. With Russia out, Italy not in, and belligerent Bulgaria joining the Central Powers for their main chance, Serbia could be taken out at leisure later.

With Russia and with Serbia erased, France might have seen the inevitable and sued for peace. If not, Germany might have wrought more havoc by teaming with Italy in North Africa, and blowing out all the French African colonies. And a later full bore frontal assault on the French border should have worked too, given the single front, if they felt it was worth the cost.

I think there was an outside chance Hitler could have won the Second World War as well. Just an outside chance, if things had fallen out differently, and just right, or, better put, just wrong. The critical issue was oil; Germany didn’t have it.

But consider if Franco’s Spain and Ataturk’s Turkey had come in on the Axis side at the start. It would have made ideological sense; Franco was in power thanks to the Fascists, and Ataturk was a model for them. Franco, they say, was afraid of British naval power staging a landing on his coast. Fair enough; but then, the same concern should have applied to Vichy Morocco and North Africa. Did not happen, until the Americans joined the war.

With Franco in, to begin, the Germans get to grab Gibraltar. They seal the Mediterranean at that end. Malta starves, Rommel and Italy get a free hand in North Africa, with which they might well take the other end of that inland sea, the Suez Canal. That sucks if you’re England and need to keep up communications with India, Australia, and the East.

In the meantime, with Turkey in, the Axis is already at the threshold of the oilfields of the Caucasus—they already have the stretch of terrain they fought so hard over two years to Stalingrad to get. Their new jumping-off point is their previous endgame. And the oil fields of Iraq are even closer, just to the south over low, tank-friendly terrain. Germany not only easily takes them, but thus takes them away from the Royal Navy. Without ever even having to attack Russia.

I think Germany would have been doomed anyway. The US was not going to just sit there for all of this, and I think the Nazi economic model was a Ponzi scheme that had to collapse without constant conquest. But it could have been so much worse than it was.