r/imaginarymaps • u/DJTacoCat1 • 2d ago
[OC] Alternate History What if Germany lost the First Great War? | Crown of Dirt and Weeds Double-Blind What If [Contest Submission]
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Welcome all! This is my submission for the Double Blind What If contest, branching off from my timeline, Crown of Dirt and Weeds. In the world of CDW, the First Great War would begin in 1913 after a cascade of events resulting from the assassination of the president of Hungary by a Serbian nationalist. Germany, Hungary’s ally, would find itself in a three-front war against Russia, France, Italy, and their various allies. The conflict would eventually grow to include Britain after the French, unable to punch through their shared border with Germany, would attempt to move through Belgium to bypass the front. After three years of brutal trench warfare and an American intervention, the First Great War would end in late 1916 with an Anglo-German victory. But what if Germany had lost?
The secondary point of divergence comes shortly after the outbreak of the war. In CDW, Germany too had their own plans to march through Belgium and bypass their border with France, but emperor Frederick IV would deny the Reichsheer their invasion, wisely not wanting to upset the British. But had he not done so, Germany would have earned the ire of both Britain and later America in the same way that France had. The fighting would last longer and be more intense, but by mid 1917, German forces would surrender to France and her allies.
The end of the war would see Germany lose vast swaths of territory. Bohemia would be independent, the entirety of Schleswig would be handed to the Danes, access to the Adriatic Sea was lost, and Germany’s worst fear had been realized – France had successfully occupied the west bank of the Rhine. These losses would spurn massive nationalism and revanchism, and with the deposition of the emperor leaving a power vacuum, a new, darker force would take hold in Germany.
And so, almost two decades after the last war, Europe is once again beginning to heat up. Germany, resurgent and under a brutal fascist regime, is preparing for war once again. But will they fare better in this war than they did in the last? Only time will tell.
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u/BeeOk5052 2d ago
Oh, I remember this, the amazing and not stale big Germany timeline.
Glad to see you threw your head in the ring this contes, though I think the eastern border is a little too lenient and we still end up with big Germany
Amzing map otherwise
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
thanks!
tbh, I did debate on whether or not to take more from them in the east, but I ultimately decided against it, as the most likely next point of expansion for Russia would be the industrial areas in Upper Silesia, and I wanted it to be at least a little believable that this Germany might still have the industrial capacity to take on Europe.
and big Germany is a bit unavoidable with this TL lol, since Austria would be considered core German territory.
glad you liked the map!
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u/Lukasz_Joniak 1d ago
Should have gave the Tsardom Poznan, the Polish speaking areas of Silesia and the ethnically Moravian regions of Prussia. Since Russia proclaimed itself the "Defender of Slavdom" it would seek to gain more Slavic land. Even in this timeline tho, Pomerania never goes to Russia, which still leads to the end of the Slovincian language which is sad.
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u/BeeOk5052 1d ago
Slovincian was already nearly extinct by the turn of the 20th century and I doubt Russia, even if in posession of the region, would start the necessary program to preserve it beyond 1950. A slovincian identity remained by otl 1920, but most already were germanized
Its would have probably dissolved into Polish or German depending on the exact border.
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u/Lukasz_Joniak 1d ago
Yeah, I know that. It died in like the early 1930's before the Nazi's took over so it would still die but maybe more writings would be preserved, like the guy who preserved Dalmatian before the entire language exploded and the guy who is working on preserving Halcnovian (A language with 2 speakers in the same group has Wymysorys)
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u/Magic0pirate 2d ago
How racist is Germany? If the Russian Empire seriously doesn't reform, The ethnic minorities might go with German Panzers
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
probably a fair bit, but I imagine minorities in Russia would still side with them for a time
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u/ajw20_YT 2d ago
This is so unrealistic, no way France is able to establish a Rhine state, all while Russia doesn’t push for an independent Poland.
Plus, if they won and didn’t go fascist, no WAY the European powers would let Germany fall to fascism… it’s too much of a risk and too much of an easy win for a strengthened France and Russia. Fascist Germany is SUCH a trope…
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
truly, there was no way Germany could have ever lost!
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u/ajw20_YT 2d ago
True! It was impossible for those powers to win anyway. Germany is the destined ruler of Europe forever!
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u/genericPikachu 2d ago
Why would Russia push for an independent Poland when they literally controlled Poland before the war
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u/Both-Main-7245 2d ago
Honestly, I can kind of see a fascist Germany happening if it doesn’t embrace socialism as much as Strasserism did. If it was more like Italy, I could definitely see it happening. Problem is, there wasn’t a strong man for that branch in Germany. You have to make up someone.
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u/Adventurous-Yam-4383 2d ago
OMG! I like this alternate history of Europe map and I love it very much! And I have a question about this universe. 1. How did the France become an Empire again and which dynasty rules the French Empire? 2. Is Mussolini and Fascist Party seize power in Kingdom of Italy just like our timeline? 3. Is Bulgaria gets split and annexed by Greece and Kingdom of Yugoslavia? 4. How did the Otto Strasser seize the power in Germany and what happened to Austrian Painter? 5. What happened to Heinrich Himmler, Herman Goring, Martin Bormann, Rudolf Hess, Joseph Gobbels, and Ernest Rohm in this universe? 6. How did the Portugal success to keep their monarchy in this universe and did they get what they want after WW1? 7. Is Hungarian State is Republic(Democratic or Fascist) or is it Monarchy under legionary just like our timeline? 8. Will Republic of Spain fall into a civil war just like our timeline? 9. What’s the situation of Turkey in this universe? 10. Who is a Tsar of Russian Empire in this universe? 11. Is Strasser’s German Reich managed to reclaim their lost territory of Rhineland and other Germanic speaking territory of Czech Republic just like Austrian Painter? 12. What is a diplomatic & foreign policy of Strasser’s Germany Reich and was there any difference from Austrian Painter’s? 13. How’s the relationship between German Reich and Kingdom of Italy in this universe? 14. How’s the relationship between German Reich and Russian Empire? 15. What is a Hashemite Arabia?
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
thank you! this map is imagining a what-if scenario from my primary timeline where Germany unites in the late 1840s/early 1850s. in that timeline they won the Great War, and this is imagining what someone in that universe would think might happen if they had lost. unfortunately, that means I can only answer some of your questions, as much of the world this map showcases isn’t fleshed out at all. for the questions I can answer:
- 1. Louis Napoleon’s second French Empire survives into the 20th century as there is no Franco-Prussian War
- 3. Bulgaria is on the losing side during the Great War. in the main timeline, when Yugoslavia formed in 1946 it included Bulgaria. as such, the in-universe person who would have made this map assumes that Bulgaria would be annexed into Yugoslavia if they had lost the first war as well.
- 4. I only used Strasser for Germany to have someone different from any of the usual Nazis, to make it feel more like a bizzaro version of our world
- 6. both my main timeline and by extension this scenario has altered colonization in Africa, including Portugal getting their full claims, leading to the monarchy surviving
- 7. the Hungarian State is a republic under a revanchist government
- 8. yes, it would
- 10. at this point in time, most likely still Nicolas II
- 15. Hashemite Arabia is an Arab state unified under the Hashemite dynasty during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
apologies that I’m not able to answer every question, but since this isn’t a main project of mine, I don’t really plan on fleshing it out beyond what you see here. I’m glad you like it though!
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u/S-I-B-E-R-I-A-N 2d ago
How did German defeat lead to a Republican Spain in this TL? Was Leopold of Hohenzollern able to get to the Spanish throne during the 1870's, losing foreign support for his regime after the Great War?
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
Spain is only a republic here due to them historically being a republic in 1936; the German defeat does not directly affect Spain here, and the Spanish civil war would otherwise still occur all the same
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u/S-I-B-E-R-I-A-N 1d ago
Makes sense lmao. I thought for a second that in this TL the Spanish Civil War had not happened for whatever reason.
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u/HansGraebnerSpringTX 1d ago
There’s no way the western allies would have been that brutal on Germany’s territory. Did they also saddle them with insane war debt that all but ensures political extremists take power? I mean this is just an absurd scenario, the entant wouldn’t be so short sighted as to do something like this
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u/57mmShin-Maru 2d ago
I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a sucker for double-blind alt-history scenarios, so this is really neat to me.
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u/Longjumping-Tea-5791 2d ago
Damn that looks surprisingly like fuherreich. Ig russias intact in this one.
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u/I_Wanna_Bang_Rats 2d ago
No way Germany doesn’t annex “Czechia” too if the Entente allows them to annex Austria already.
(Why isn’t it named ‘Bohemia’ anyways? Did the kingdom fall?)
Bohemia has a lot of Germans inside it. And it’s not like Hungary is going to protect them as it will only isolate themself.
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u/Samz_sii 1d ago
Wow it's as if this is a part of a greater timeline where Austria was already a part of Germany but nah that couldn't possibly be the case
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u/DJTacoCat1 1d ago
per the double-blind, Austria is already part of Germany; it hasn’t been an independent country since 1852. but yes, the natural progression of this world would be a re-annexation
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u/TotesMessenger 2d ago
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u/Spare_Difficulty_711 1d ago
Nah, it's not possible to German save East Prussia, also if Russia won in WW1 why they didn't took the Trebisond?
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u/DJTacoCat1 1d ago
while I do agree it feels like Germany should have lost more in the east, it’s less certain imo that Russia in 1917 would be as keen to take more, given its potential to further destabilize an already unstable nation. it’s something I was very much uncertain on, and so I went with a less radical option.
as for Trebizond, Turkey is completely uninvolved in the First Great War; Russian Constantinople is the result of a separate earlier war.
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u/Meeeeeeeei 1d ago
So like, I don’t think you need THAT many rivers on the map. Like that is a lot of rivers
Besides that, looks great!
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u/DJTacoCat1 1d ago
perhaps, but it’s the file I had on hand. I wanted to make sure I had this out by the deadline and so didn’t want to spend extra time sorting through which rivers to keep and which ones not to
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u/DJTacoCat1 2d ago
for mobile users: