| June 28 |  |
Editor says, what if Woodrow Wilson's ideas had framed the Treaty of Versailles? Please note that this post was the result of collaboration between Ed,. Eric Lipps, Eric Oppen & Stan Brin. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1919, a comprehensive peace settlement was signed on this day in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles; the signatories were the proletariat representatives of the provisional socialist governments which had emerged from the Great War.
Crying WolfNaturally, the United States acted as the guarantor, being the only great power to have emerged unscathed from the conflict. Consequently, President Woodrow Wilson's proposals for self-determination and a League of Nations would be central to the new framework for collective security.
America's declaration of neutrality at the outset of the war had in fact proven unenforceable because both sides had attempted to starve each other out with naval blockades. There could be no freedom of the high seas for neutrals whilst the battle raged in the Atlantic between the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine. And so during May 1915 America actually came close to joining the war as a belligerent when a passenger ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line had entered the war zone. However Captain von Luckner of the steamship SMS Seeadler chose not to sink the RMS Lusitania, but instead to capture it. And the German Government was therefore able to issue an unambigously worded official statement that the Lusitania had been armed with guns, and had "large quantities of war material" in her cargo.
Subsequently, the US Government made any form of involvement conditional upon the belligerent's acceptance of the Fourteen Points proposed by President Wilson. And during 1916, a settlement became a distinct possibility because by then both sides were exhausted and only wanted to save themselves. Emperor Karl Habsburg of Austria-Hungary issued a letter seeking peace on the basis of a "status quo ante bellum" agreement, but the initiative came to nought.
By 1918, Spanish Flu had decimated the continent of Europe, the monarchies were overthrown and provisional governments sought to re-establish central authority in their anarchic nations. Far-flung Empires were disgarded by the impoverished new nations that could scarely control their own borders.
And yet Versailles would prove a false dawn. As many members of Congress had warned, American's commitment to collective security dragged the US into a never ending series of brush wars in the nineteen twenties and thirties. And by the time Hitler set Europe on the road to war, America had already withdrawn from the League of Nations.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Today in Alternate History, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Alternate Nations Source: Wikipedia Labels: Versailles, World War 1, Great War, Armistice, Allies. Editor says, Herr Wolf was Adolf Hitler's nickname
~ OK, not sure whre to begin, but for starters, in WWI, the German navy wasn't called the Kriegsmarine but the Kaiserliche Marine. Fixed - thanks
Secondly how does a small U-Boat stop a large ship, which can travel 10 knots quicker than it on the surface, which is also something like 100 times it size, not to mention the U-Boat crew would be vastly outnumbered?
Thirdly, if through some miracle the Lusitania is captured, what are the 25 or so Germans on board going to do when the RN intercepts them with anything bigger than a 3 inch gun? In other words the RN will intercept the ship with just about everything they can spare that's fast, including battlecruisers with 15 inch guns, cruisers with 6 - 8 inch guns, & destroyers with 3 - 4 inch guns, whilst the Germans will be lucky if they've got a machine gun.
Fourthly, considering it's wartime & the Lusitania is a British flagged merchant vessel, so what if it is being used to transport weapons materiel.
Fifthly, why would the USA support a whole lot of new European countries who, as their political philosophy, are opposed to the capitalist Americans? Plus why would these new European socialist/communist nations want to have much to do with the USA when they remained isolated, & kept out of it, whilst Europe tore itself to pieces? Er - money?
Sorry guys if I appear to be so scathing, but...
~ Money? But you've got them as socialists/communists ;) They may not take it out of principle, whilst the conditions applied to any American loans maybe completely unacceptable. Meanwhile the Americans may in fact not offer any given the political philosophies of the two groups.
~ My learned friend Mr. Atwell is apparently unaware that Cpt. von Luckner's _Seeadler_ was NOT a U-boat...she was a converted windjammer. Cpt. von Luckner had a very swashbuckling career, and captured lots and lots of ships. Finding him stooging around the North Atlantic would be a _little_ OOC for him, but you could say that he was just getting out of port and couldn't resist temptation. And the fuss about the _Lusitania_ in OTL was "Oh, those evil, evil, evil Germans---they sank an _unarmed passenger liner!_ By the rules of the time, if _Lusitania_ was carrying war materiel, she was fair game, as I understand it.
Von Luckner waged a very humane war; he left very few corpses in his wake. Grabbing the _Lusitania_ would have been very much in character for him.
~ Oh did I get the OTL interception wrong? My humble apologies if I did as I just assumed that the OTL encounter took place, naughty me, as I really didn'y understand the part about the "Seeadler" :o So we are really talking about a sailing ship taking on the Lusitania & capturing her?
Comment from Mia Amani on Facebook: The WWs aint my thing but the RMS Lusitania is another example of our government misleading the public for the sake of waging war. If only more Americans studied history.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
