The question is straightforward. Did Germany and her allies have more chance of defeating (or winning a favourable treaty from) the Allied Powers of the First or Second World Wars?
My guess (I’m not sure there can be a factual answer) would be World War I. Remember that Germany did defeat Russia in that war, and forced upon them the humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Germany also came very close to winning the initial battles against the western Allies. If a couple German corps had not been removed from the western campaign and sent to fight in Tannenburg, the Germans could well have occupied Paris in 1914.
Moved to GD.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
In WWII Germany wouldn’t have had to defeat Russia if they hadn’t stupidly invaded them. They also, I am sure you remember, did successfully occupy Paris and defeated France.
I think the answer to this question is pretty clearly WWII. At the onset of the war Germany could have isolated each enemy and defeated it in succession. They had superior tactics and weaponry compared to France. France could be (and was) defeated before Britain could put a significant force on the ground. Once France was down Germany had a superior population and industrial base than Britain. It would have only been a matter of time until Britain was defeated if Germany threw its entire brunt towards it.
If Germany could have maintained peace with Russia until those two countries were defeated its concievible that they could have gone on and defeated Russia. I still have my doubts that they could ever control and occupy Russia entirely but Germany could probably have forced them to capitulate.
True, but Germany didn’t have to invade anybody! In either war! 
They chose their opponents and the only real way to win is to not get into a war in the first place.
In both WWI and WWII, Germany was capable of defeating France - they actually did in WWII, but I don’t have any doubt that they could have in WWI if they’d been willing to ignore the Russian offensive for a little while.
In WWI, they not only were capable of defeating Russia, but they actually did it. I have serious doubts about Germany’s ability to defeat Russia in WWII. Russia’s always been a tough opponent and only the window of opportunity caused by internal revolution allowed the Germans to get away with it in WWI.
On the other hand, if they had waited a couple years to defeat England, Russia probably would have recovered somewhat from Stalin’s Purges when the Germans attacked.
I thought the only reason Russia made the treaty was because the Bolsheviks took over, and they didn’t want to continue the war? (Of course, Russia was already losing at that point).
Yeah, but the Bolsheviks took over because Russia was losing the war. Bread riots and an army mutiny had forced the Czar out, and the Kerenksky government lost popular support when it announced it was continuing to support the war. Remember, the revolutionary slogan was “Peace, land, and bread.”
Yeah, that’s true. IIRC, though, Kerensky was told by the Allies that the only way they’d send Russia much needed aid or whatever was if they stayed in the war, so he was kinda screwed.
Not to mention, it was the Germans that sent Lenin and his men back into Russia during the Revolution, hoping they’d fuck things up to Germany’s advantage.
I would say the first war was one of attrition. In the 2nd war, Germany attained a sizeable advantage in technology. Had they waited they could have unleashed a worldwide blitzkrieg and advanced much further than they did. The United States was not a world power in the sense it is today. Hitler had 2 other ships like the Bismarck under construction. Had he waited for a fleet of 10 of those he could have pounded the worlds Navies and more importantly their shipyards. If he could prevent the US from moving supplies to England then England would have fallen. If England fell then the US would not have a staging area.
If Hitler had waited a few years then he could have started the war with the V1 and V2 as well as jet powered fighters and bombers. I discount their attempt at building a nuclear weapon because of the resources it would have taken to perfect.
This old chestnut is treated, among many places, in What If? To my eye, the better argument is made there in favor of the Great War. To the extent of persuading me it was only by mismanagement that the Germans failed to succeed in the first month. But it should be borne in mind that this is partly because the objectives were narrower. All Germany wanted was control of the Continent; Britain unconquered would have bothered them none-at-all. So, in part, it’s because Hitler had a more aggressive agenda that the plan fell short.
To my mind, the more interesting question is which war was more preventable. (By whom and how being part of the question.) But it’s not my thread.
In the first month of WW-II Germany didn’t have any real tanks. They aquired the factories needed to produce them from countries they conquered.
And Hitler could not ignore England because the Britts declared war on Germany. He had to take the war across the channel. What he didn’t have to do was attack Russia.
I don’t know that Hitler was much concerned with conquering Britain, either. For that matter, I don’t think Hitler was really spoiling for a fight with France; my impression is that what he really wanted was to drive east into Poland and Russia. If France and Britain hadn’t finally declared war over Poland, I don’t know that the Nazis would have blitzkrieged the West, at least not until after they had dealt with the Soviets. (And of course the Low Countries and Norway and Denmark were simply in the way on the routes to France and Britain.)
Now, if Nazi Germany had been permitted to conquer the Soviet Union and other countries to the east, it would have been a horrific humanitarian nightmare, and eventually a Nazi Eurasian empire might well have turned against the Western powers.
Two problems with this:
1/ if the Germans hadn’t attacked Russia the Russians would have attacked them, at a time of their own choosing.
2/ the Germans’ entire point of going to war was to attack and defeat Russia (Lebensraum, remember?) - which the Russians knew, hence item 1/
German tanks in Sept 1939 were as much “real tanks” as anyone else’s at the time. If you’re thinking the German armour that invaded France was Polish, or built in Polish factories, well, they weren’t. You may be thinking of the Czech factories which did produce numbers of armoured vehicles for the Germans, but only as a supplement to Germany’s own.
Hitler DID have to attack Russia - that was his main reason for going to war. He COULD have ignored Britain, and France for that matter, quite happily; he considered the Brits in particular fellow Aryans and had no quarrel with them as such. He never imagined they would go to war over Poland, since they hadn’t over the Rhinelend, Austria, the Sudetenland, or the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Have you studied WWI at all? The first few months were not attrition, but frighteningly fast movement. Germany came within a hair’s breadth of defeating France and the BEF while easily beating off Russia at the same time.
Germany had no significant advantage in technology in WWII, apart from a few minor examples such as magnetic mines and jets, which could never have made the difference. Under no conceivable circumstances could they have “unleashed a worldwide blitzkrieg”, whatever that means. Building 10 Bismarks would have crippled the expansion of the Luftwaffe and the armoured forces, and also left essentially no oil for anything else. And they would have been sunk soon enough anyway.
If Hitler had waited a few years to start the war the Russians would have attacked him, on much more favourable terms than they have in 1941. But he was never going to wait, as he never imagined the West would really go to war aginst him, a fellow Aryan, anyway.
There are essentially no reasonable set of circumstances which lead to the Axis winning WWII. Given they were fighting four of the top industrial powers, it was just a matter of time.
I disagree. 10 Bismarks would have been very difficult to stop. The United States had nothing close to them at the beginning of the war and would have been limited in the ability to build them if shipyards could not be secured.
They had multiple jet aircraft with more on the drawing board. They also had wire guided air to air missiles with attenuating detonators. They would have ruled the sky for years. NOBODY had anything close to the V1, and V2. They were even tinkering with the concept of forward swept wing design.
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He never imagined? Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in Oct of 1938 and then threatened Poland. England pledged to support Poland in March of 1939 and when Germany invaded in September England declared war against them. 14 days later Russia invades Poland and 12 days after that they sign a pact with Germany to divide it up. The Russians were in bed with Hitler from day one.
They did not have to conquer the world to win Europe, they only had to stall transfer of assets and keep an alliance with Russia. They United States provided equipment to England, which was crucial for their survival. If Hitler could have delayed America’s ability to move equipment over water then England would have been alone. Between the V1, V2 and super guns they had in France they could have pounded England to dust. The great equalizer would have been creating a nuclear weapon. Germany had already split the atom in January of 1939. Hitler chose not to fund it to the extent the United States did (or was capable of). The only question would be if Hitler could have conquered England and completed a nuke before the United States could weigh in.
In real life, the Germans had two Bismarcks, the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, and they were both sunk. It was a good ship class, but it wasn’t unsinkable. And there were American ships “close to them” . The USS South Dakota and USS Indiana were commissioned at the beginning of 1942, and were about equal to the Bismarck in terms of size and firepower. And while it didn’t get commissioned until 1943, the USS Iowa as superior to the Bismarck.
And, like Askance said, battleships are expensive. The only way the Germans could have built up that kind of fleet would be to massively cut army and airforce spending, and Germany couldn’t afford to do that.
The German generals were tearing their hair out trying to get Hitler to stop. When he successfully annexed Czechoslovakia, he did so under threat of invasion. Hitler knew, and his generals knew, that they couldn’t have taken Czechoslovakia by force.
Germany was bested in all categories by France as well. if they had had the political will they could have rolled Hitler up in relatively short order. instead they got sucker-punched when Hitler bypassed the Maginot Line and were forced to capitulate.
Hitler was successful for one reason: he was smart. Once arrogance took over he was finished.
Contrast that with WWI. Germany was still occupying part of France when they surrendered. If they had kept the US out of the war they may have been able to negotiate a treaty with their gains intact. Then again, maybe not. We’ll never know. I say they were more successful militarily in WWI and could have won, maybe. In WWII they had no chance. If we (the US and Great Britain) hadn’t gotten them the Soviet Union would have eventually.
All this talk of battleships brings to mind the ascendancy of aircraft carriers in the war.
Seriously, does anyone think that the Bismarck, if faced with the Enterprise, would come off best? The carrier wings would have the ability to strike at the battleship without the carrier being anywhere near range of the big guns.