We shot quite a lot of them, and helped them to shoot each other a bit, and introduced them to a lot of new and exciting exotic life forms. But to be fair a lot of them continued to lead good lives and had many happy descendants. Including myself, in fact.

I'd just like to point out that if it weren't for America, you sorry little Brits would be digging out railroads and building bombers for Hitler's successors. Not to mention that ALL of Europe, and most of Africa and Asia would be reduced to slave labor under the German-Japanese fascist alliance.

And I'd be sitting in my million dollar home, as I am today, applauding them on their conquests to Australia.

So long live America, sweet land of Liberty!

(Paid for by the Mitt Romney Foundation.)

I can well imagine you sitting in your home applauding the Nazis, Atom. You have my pity.

The Germans allowed the evacuation of Dunkirk, so I kinda doubt enslavement was on the horizon for Britain.

While we are at counterfactual history, without American involvement, WWI and ensuing reparations wouldn't necessarily completely ruin German economy and allow the Nazis to take over in the first place since they wouldn't have to surrender in the fashion they had to. The Japanese could get something from Versailles and not feel betrayed by Allies as well. Two can play this pointless game.

Well, to be fair, if it wasn't for America, Hitler probably doesn't get involved in politics at all, given the vastly divergent history which would have resulted. For one thing, emigration skimmed off a ton of ambitious German commoner types, the kind of people who might have shaped Germany in a much less nationalistic image had they stuck around to oppose Bismarck and the rest of the Prussian military elite.

"While we are at counterfactual history, without American involvement, WWI and ensuing reparations wouldn't necessarily completely ruin German economy and allow the Nazis to take over in the first place since they wouldn't have to surrender in the fashion they had to."

That's incorrect. The Americans proposed the 14 , which Germany was happy to accept. Those weren't the terms of surrender. Also, reparations payments were suspended and pretty much never paid. The Weimar Republic had recovered by the late 20s. The problems were caused by the disastrously deflationary policies of Bruening, which intensified the Depression there.

"The Japanese could get something from Versailles and not feel betrayed by Allies as well. "

The Japanese took over several German concessions in China and the Pacific. The Japanese had no reason to quarrel with the treaty.

Japanese didn't receive much as a mandate compared to what they wanted (and we're talking the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of colonies here, islands that Germany managed to grab because no one rushed to take them before - apart from Shandong of course), not to mention the rejection of their Racial Equality Proposal. So yes, they had reason to be angry and they were angry. I don't know why you mention 14 which were irrelevant as you yourself mention, the important thing was Americans made it possible to end the war sooner and abruptly, worsening the negotiating position Germans would have otherwise and paving way to things like Dolchstoßlegende.

You seem to believe the Nazi problems have roots in the 30s, shortly before they took over. I believe the roots lie in the first five year after the war, the reparations, hyperinflation, occupation of Rhineland, demilitarization, all those events shaped the atmosphere paving way for Nazis.

Japan lost less than 500 people in the war. Who cares what they wanted. The Italians lost 700,000 men and were left with a massive debt, and the Allies conspired to keep them almost entirely out of the war booty. If you want to bring up an aggrieved party, it is they who got the rawest of deals. The Japanese were already on the march well before 1919. They already annexed Korea by then and humiliated the Russians just prior to that.

"not to mention the rejection of their Racial Equality Proposal"

Yes, while they were busy forcibly assimilating and putting 'racial inferiors' to the sword in Korea (March 1st Movement), that very year they wanted the Europeans to allow unfettered Japanese migration anywhere on the planet.

"You seem to believe the Nazi problems have roots in the 30s, shortly before they took over. I believe the roots lie in the first five year after the war, the reparations, hyperinflation, occupation of Rhineland, demilitarization, all those events shaped the atmosphere paving way for Nazis."

I believe that's the excuse the German nationalists used to gain sympathy and win concessions from the Entente. The Germans ended up paying very little in the way of reparations, inflation was defeated by the Weimar Republic by the mid- 20s. Reparations payments only ever amounted to 1/3 of the German budget even in the early 1920s. In the elections of 1928, after the SPD-led government had effectively managed the economy into a strong recovery, the Nationalists were getting destroyed in the polls. So, how is Versailles responsible for the NSDAP, when the effects of Versailles had long since been gone. In 1929, Reparations had become a joke under the Young Plan.

The problem for Germany was the German military elite had never accepted the legitimacy of a republican government. But that would have been the case regardless of the war settlement. Germany emerged from the war better off than any other European power. They were not unfairly treated. The German militarists had aspired to be like the British Empire and thought the democrats gave away all they had built up since the days of Bismarck.

Can we all agree that the whole "what if" is completely bullshit? It doesn't take much to blame some group for some other group's misfortune.

@KA - Honestly, I'm pro USA as well, but winners write history and the real truth is that the US, while heavily involved in WWII after PEarl and secretely helping before with the Lend Lease program that included pilots as well as equipment, we did not single-handedly win the war. Japan, yes pretty much, but Hitler screwed himself by attacking Russia and the motherland contributed much to the war effort if just by not rolling over and playing dead like the fucking French army. No, it was a group effort. Britain held true and gave as well as she got when it came to bombing Germany. Russia held Germany at bay on the Eastern front, and we banged on Germany's African forces while joining with the other Allies to invade Germany herself.

"The Italians lost 700,000 men and were left with a massive debt, and the Allies conspired to keep them almost entirely out of the war booty. If you want to bring up an aggrieved party, it is they who got the rawest of deals."

Well, the Italians were expecting to get land inhabited almost entirely by Croats and Slovenes. Maybe the Italians felt they were entitled to Dalmatia, but I bet the people living there were happy to join Yugoslavia instead. Same for the Turks who didn't end up being part of an Italian colony adjacent to the Dodecanese.

It's also a bit weird to say Italy got the rawest of deals, when Hungary was sliced to the bone. As a part of the losing side they ought to have been punished, but entirely ethnic Hungarian areas were torn off and added to neighboring states when the spirit of the age was self-determination. I mean, it makes sense for them to lose Croatia and most of Transylvania since non-Magyars lived there, but why put Upper Hungary into Czechoslovakia? That's a brutal punishment that Hungarians still haven't gotten over, as the troubling rise of the nationalist party Jobbik shows.

The Venetians controlled Dalmatia for something like 400 years. The fact is they were a member of the Central Powers until they were offered the Treaty of London, and they bled for the Entente and got a pittance in return for their efforts.

"Same for the Turks who didn't end up being part of an Italian colony adjacent to the Dodecanese"

Those islands were Greek. The British had Cyprus. It's a bit hypocritical to invoke self-determination so selectively.

"It's also a bit weird to say Italy got the rawest of deals, when Hungary was sliced to the bone. As a part of the losing side they ought to have been punished, but entirely ethnic Hungarian areas were torn off and added to neighboring states when the spirit of the age was self-determination."

And Austria was specifically denied Anschluss even though the German speaking rump territory voted overwhelmingly for it in 1919. Self-determination didn't apply to defeated powers. The Hungarians got that area back anyway when they helped Germany carve up Czechoslovakia before the war. If the Jobbik Party is upset about it, maybe they should stop getting defeated in major wars.

So-called "Upper Hungary" was majority Slovak anyway. I don't get why you think the Hungarians were entitled to it.

"The Venetians controlled Dalmatia for something like 400 years. The fact is they were a member of the Central Powers until they were offered the Treaty of London, and they bled for the Entente and got a pittance in return for their efforts."

The Italians were neutral from the start since they interpreted Austria's actions as a war of aggression.

I don't know why the Venetian control matters too much. That had already not been the case for over 100 years and the people (outside of minorities in some cities) were demonstrably not Italian. How can you build a state for the South Slavs and yet give the coast to Italians? What do you think should have happened?

It certainly makes perfect sense for the Italians to feel like they didn't get enough, but I don't see how things could have been too different.


"Those islands were Greek. The British had Cyprus. It's a bit hypocritical to invoke self-determination so selectively."

I'm talking about self-determination for the newly established territories. Italy had a presence there before.


"And Austria was specifically denied Anschluss even though the German speaking rump territory voted overwhelmingly for it in 1919. Self-determination didn't apply to defeated powers. The Hungarians got that area back anyway when they helped Germany carve up Czechoslovakia before the war. If the Jobbik Party is upset about it, maybe they should stop getting defeated in major wars."

Not only that, the ethnic Germans in Bohemia were forbidden from joining with the Germans in the former hereditary lands. That's a consequence of the war since the Allies certainly couldn't allow Germany to GAIN territory as a result of its defeat. Anchluss was also a left-wing idea basically right up until Hitler actually did it, so fear of an ascendant socialist Greater Germany might have played a role as well.

As for Hungary, if you look into it the Hungarians really weren't the drivers of the war and didn't deserve the whooping they received. They lost proportionally more territory and population in the aftermath of the war than Germany did. Surely if Hungary deserved to loose most of the lands it had held for a thousands years Germany should have lost the Rhineland at least.

The Hungarians did get the ethnic Hungarian land (and then some) back during WWII, but if basically those borders had been what they were given all along then maybe Hungary wouldn't have been a German ally to begin with. There's of course a problem with the Szekely Landnot being contiguous with the core area, but that could have been worked out somehow.


"So-called "Upper Hungary" was majority Slovak anyway. I don't get why you think the Hungarians were entitled to it."

I just meant the southern part, which was almost all Magyar inhabited. Should have been clearer. And it isn't "so-called" Upper Hungary. That's a real and widely accepted historical term for the area.


Hungary probably gave up any legitimate claim to the Magyar-inhabited border areas in its cooperation with Nazi Germany, but that problem likely wouldn't have happened if Hungary were given basically the borders it got in the 1940s. That would still be far smaller than Hungary was when united with Austria and yet hold basically all Hungarians in one state.

Much of what was called 'ethnic Hungarian land' is suspect considering the quite brutal nationality law which imposed forced Magyarization on everybody living in Hungarian Crown lands. The population of Hungarians skyrocketed, magically, under that regime, relative to everybody else. Also, Hungarians have a habit of losing wars, and thus losing claims to particular areas. For example Vojvodina, a region I have great familiarity with having lived there for over a month, was site of a war between the Serbs and Hungarians, who were fighting the Hapsburg Monarchy at the time. The Hungarians lost that war, but took it over again when the Dual Monarchy was formed. So after WWI when a number of new countries were to be created, it is likely that like Vojvodina, these other countries had very strong claims to controlling these supposed ethnic Hungarian lands.

It's really not a subject of debate that ethnic Hungarians were placed in other countries as a result of the new borders. It's even still the case today. But in the cases where things were unclear there's a simple solution. All you'd need would be plebiscites in areas where the population of Magyars was suspicious. If they were carried out properly (as happened in Silesia, etc) the areas authentically inhabited by Hungarians could remain in Hungary and those inhabited by others could join the new or expanded states.

It wouldn't have been clean-cut and no one would have been completely satisfied, but if the borders have been drawn more fairly Hungary could still have been severely punished and yet not have the quasi-legitimate grievance that significant parts of the Hungarian nation was outside of their nation-state. Like I said, it's too late to change this, but if things were handled more equitably in the first place a lot of the history of Eastern Europe would be different.

*checks on still-active July 4th thread*

*notes raging discussion on Hungary and Hapsburg dynasty*

*shows self out*

And the fall of the USSR led to many Russians living outside of Russia, with no citizenship rights. L ast I checked you were defending Georgia's 'territorial integrity' re South Ossetia. Yeah if Germany was allowed to keep East Prussia and Danzig, there would have been no WW2, but I didnt take you for being a revanchism appeaser.

And how would Hungary have been punished exactly, if allowed to keep Greater Hungary?

Don't pretend you don't understand. They wouldn't keep Greater Hungary. That would include Transylvania and Croatia, while I'm just saying that they should have only kept areas inhabited by Magyars. Roughly the 1940s borders without the corridor to the Szekely Land. And this isn't revanchism, it's the prevention of revanchism in drawing realistic and fair borders after the war. I'm not advocating changing the frontiers now, merely saying that Hungary got the worst deal when it came to the changes as a result of the aftermath of WWI.

Hungary in 1918 was 125,500 sq. mi.
Croatia, which they absurdly acquired after being defeated by the Hapsburgs, is 22,000 sq. mi.
Transylvania, the birthplace of Romania which is absurdly given to the Kingdom of Hungary after 1867, is 40,000 sq. mi.

These two territories you say they shouldn't have gotten back in 1919. So when people claim that Hungary lost 70% of 'historic Hungary', 50% of that 70% are those two territories. Two territories they unjustly received after being defeated by the Croatians and Romanians in the 1848 war.

In addition to those, the Hungarians lost the aforementioned (Serb plurality) Vojvodina, which is 8,300 sq. mi. They also lost the Ukrainian majority territory of Transcarpathia to Czechoslovakia (5,000 sq. mi). This region voted for union with Czechoslovakia, so I'm wondering what the problem was there. Upper Hungary, which you claim is not "so-called" Upper Hungary but an actual legitimate term, comprises most of current day Slovakia, and is 20,000 sq. mi.

If you're keeping track, all of that adds up to 75% of 'historic Hungary'.

So somebody tell me what injustice was done here. None of these areas were Hungarian majority areas. And in at least one of them (Carpathia) there was a plebliscite. In two others (Vojvodina & Transylvania), bloody wars were fought against Hungarian rule.

Looks like justice to me. The 1940 borders gave Hungary a huge number of Slovak speaking areas and effectively closed off Slovak transportation links with Europe. Their annexations in Ukraine took the best farmland from Transcarpathia. Even after Hungarian annexations in the Vienna awards in the late 1930s, Hungary still, even against German wishes, moved to take more Slovak speaking regions.

So sorry, they were led by nationalists, they didn't have just grievances.

And you're saying this scenario is worse than being lied into supporting the Entente and losing 700,000 men, and nearly 1 million injured, and getting very little while being on the winning side. You asked me earlier what should have happened. Well, either Italy should not have been offered the lie of the Treaty of London or Italy should have been awarded what was promised.

"The Italians were neutral from the start since they interpreted Austria's actions as a war of aggression."

Correct, but they were still members of the 'defensive' Triple Alliance until the Treaty of London. Austria agreed with Italy's assessment that the alliance was defensive and released Italy from any obligation to join the war.

@Draugnar

The French did not roll over and play dead. They shared a several hundred mile land border with the 1940 Wehrmacht, as lethal an army as earth has seen since Jochi and Jebe the Arrow were busily burning Kwarezm into a desert. The British bugged out early (actually, a pretty good idea, but one that left France's left flank totally exposed), and therefore, France was doomed. What should they have done, retreated to the Alps and mounted a guerrilla campaign against the Nazis? The only difference between the British war record against the 1940 Wehrmacht and the french is that Britain was favored enough by geography to have a giant fucking moat keeping the Sixth Army off of their soil.

I don't know where you're getting the information that Croatia and Transylvania were only acquired by Hungary in the 19th century. They had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary for hundreds of years. Now, it wasn't an independent kingdom after the Habsburgs inherited the crown in the 1500s, but they were part of the legally distinct Hungary nonetheless. It looks like you don't really know the history of the area and the interplay between the Habsburgs as rulers of Hungary, the Magyar nobility, and the steady march to drive out the Ottomans.

But that's not really germane to what I'm saying. I only say that the areas actually inhabited by Magyars should have been part of Hungary after the end of World War I. That means NOT all of what was Upper Hungary but just the border areas for example. That means NOT an arc into Romania but rather an enclave or (morel likely) autonomy for the Hungarians in the Szekely Land. And so on. I always said ROUGHLY the 1940s borders. By that I mean that there shouldn't have been significant Hungarian minorities in neighboring states, apart from Romania for practical purposes. That's still much smaller than the vast domain Hungary had while under Habsburg rule, and yet with no sizable Hungarians outside of a state called Hungary the potential for wars to regain territory is somewhat reduced.

Here's a map. My position is that basically the red should have been independent Hungary after the First World War. Without ethnic irredentist claims on its neighbors Hungary could very well have been content with its position and may have even denied Hitler an easy entry into the Balkans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Redmap.jpg


"So sorry, they were led by nationalists, they didn't have just grievances."

Whether they were actually just or not is mostly irrelevant. The important part is that having a sizable part of your nation denied membership in the nation state is a recipe for revanchism, and revanchism of the sort that others can sympathize with, rightly or wrongly. It's a lot easier to say we need to join Hitler to make the village your Hungarian in-laws came from part of Hungary again than it is to say we need to join Hitler so we get back Fiume.

And if the point of taking land away regardless of whether Hungarians lived there was a way to punish Hungary after its loss in a war, why didn't they lose more after WWII? After all, the Horthy regime was implicated with genocide. You'd expect the Czech Corridor to come up again, but instead the pre-war borders were restored. Why would that be, except that the Allies learned the trouble that happens when you tell one ethnic group that all of a sudden they're part of a different country.

Naturally Hungary didn't get to keep the annexations of the 1940s and shouldn't have since it cooperated with Hitler. But if something like those borders (not exactly them, in fact smaller than them) were what were agreed to initially then a lot of suffering could have been prevented or at least mitigated.

"Well, either Italy should not have been offered the lie of the Treaty of London or Italy should have been awarded what was promised."

So it's better to put thousands of Croatians under Italian rule against their will and keep a diplomatic promise than to allow those people to decide their own future? You can't seriously believe that. I admit Italy got used by Britain, France, and the United States (since Wilson made the original deal politically impossible), but that's kind of what happens in statecraft. Surely you've played Diplomacy before? At any rate, I still don't accept that a not-so-good peace booty is worse than the loss of core Magyar population that Hungary recieved.


"Austria agreed with Italy's assessment that the alliance was defensive and released Italy from any obligation to join the war."

That's not right. I suggest you read A History of the Habsburg Empire by Robert A. Kann. It's exhaustive in the detail of everything from diplomatic correspondence to political party strength to industrial development and more, from 1526 to 1918.

"If you want to bring up an aggrieved party, it is they who got the rawest of deals."

It isn't the question of who got the rawest deal but how the faster conclusion of WWI thanks to overwhelming American force could've affected the WWII. So Italy is pretty irrelevant because their army sucked in that war. All Axis military forces apart from Japan and Germany sucked donkey balls. That's why I mentioned only Germany and Japan.

"Germany emerged from the war better off than any other European power."

That's kinda the point, you know, so I will repeat myself. You could hardly maintain such a stupid idea like Dolchstoßlegende when the general population enjoyed the visit of enemy forces, destroyng its homes and stuff. On the other hand, if you surrender while still in enemy's territory because you lack the manpower to win and have no chance of success in the war of attrition (which is what the US brought to the table), you kinda wonder what actually happened and if you're stupid, you can easily believe the nationalist bullcrap. You don't do that when they raise the flag on the shambles of what once was your capital city. The worse the better, I believe you know that phrase very well.

"Yes, while they were busy forcibly assimilating and putting 'racial inferiors' to the sword in Korea (March 1st Movement), that very year they wanted the Europeans to allow unfettered Japanese migration anywhere on the planet."

I didn't say the idea held any moral water but the Japanese wanted to join the club of nations that treat each other more or less equal while exploiting everyone else pretty badly, as an assurance of respect for what they achieved in the previous 50 years. The proposal should've been a symbol of that (plus the perks of joining the superior race club). That's the same thing China desperately wants so bad today, an approving nod of the countries that are already there. Up there, with the best of the best. Westerners playing the Iceman, hating Maverick's guts just to become bffs in the end. Not that the Americans were the actual obstacle for the proposal, unlike Australia and thus GB but hey, counterfactual history is, like Gunfighter said, complete bullshit and that was the reason I even responded to KA's marvelous depiction of American überawesomeness with my comparatively less wild what if. It's still what if but at least it doesn't claim that Americans singlehandedly liberated the Europe when by the time they diembarked, the Axis was already shot thanks to the Red Army.

Let's face it, America in the European phase of WWII was basically the Jack Burton to the USSR's Wang Chi in taking out Adolf Lo Pan. We brought some resources to the game, and can plausibly argue that we helped defeat the Big Bad, but we don't get shit done without Stalin and his Chang Sings cutting a swath through Hitler's Wing Kong.