ede144 wrote:
RF I find it really funny that you want to teach me the history of my own country. If you don't believe my words, you will probably believe wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_with_Germany. 1923 started the occupation of the Ruhrgebiet, by French troops. France started this action to bring further pressure on Germany to fulfill the ToV reparations.
Nothing in this article offers contradiction to my post. So what is your point?
Comparing it to Israels occupation of West Jordan country is a valid one, because the French put a lot of pressure on the German people with road blocks, controls of companies etc. If I remember correctly the influence of the French occupation is even mentioned in Whittley's book "German capital ships". He mentions that production of ship turrets went down from 3/year to one/year due to the French.
If France tried to annex the Saar they would have gotten in conflict with the other signees of the ToV.
The road blocks, control of infrastructure and business was more severe during the post WW2 occupation. The Allies neither in 1920 or 1923 or post 1945 (excluding the USSR, which did directly annexe German territory) tried to permanently annex the parts of Germany they occupied, deport the local population and replace them by importing their own citizens into their own townships. They didn't try to make parts of Berlin permanently part of either Britain or France or the United States.
Isreali policy on the West Bank of Jordan has been to permanently incorporate it into the state of Isreal, partly for ethnic reasons of Eritz Isreal, partly for reasons of military defence and preserving the state of Isreal on militarily feasible borders. Isreali policy aimed at full assimilation of Jerusalem into Isreal as a future capital city in place of Tel Aviv.
There is no comparison with the French occupation of the Ruhr or the Rhineland. Indeed it bears more comparison to the German occupation and annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. With respect to the Saar, had the French wished to annex it they would have done. I suspect that they didn't because it was ethnically German and would pose major problems of assimilation.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
German voting records Weimar Republic Look at 1920-28 which is the period of interest Note the poor fluctuating record of the NSDAP
According to German historians Hitler’s NSDAP was treated as lunatic Fringe during this period.
These are voting figures for the whole of Germany, without breakdown. Now if you care to reread my posts above, you can observe that these figures should be taken into closer context. Nothing in my post is actually contradicted; the NSDAP was indeed a lunatic fringe. But it was growing in membership from a nadir reached in 1925, just after Hitler was released from prison; then its vote slowly started to rise, initially by the largest margin in areas where it was strongest, and then in rural areas in eastern Germany and in Schleswig-Holstein. In other areas of Germany, such as Bavaria (excluding Munich), Hamburg and Berlin, its vote fell until after 1930.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
RF wrote:
Given the type of vessels that the panzerschiffe were, its quite possible that the Germans would still develop them, additional to the fleet specified above, though publicly getting round the 8 inch calibre restrictions on heavy cruisers would be a problem.
And that would add to the problem the RN would have to face...
German voting records Weimar Republic Look at 1920-28 which is the period of interest Note the poor fluctuating record of the NSDAP
According to German historians Hitler’s NSDAP was treated as lunatic Fringe during this period.
These are voting figures for the whole of Germany, without breakdown. Now if you care to reread my posts above, you can observe that these figures should be taken into closer context. Nothing in my post is actually contradicted; the NSDAP was indeed a lunatic fringe. But it was growing in membership from a nadir reached in 1925, just after Hitler was released from prison; then its vote slowly started to rise, initially by the largest margin in areas where it was strongest, and then in rural areas in eastern Germany and in Schleswig-Holstein. In other areas of Germany, such as Bavaria (excluding Munich), Hamburg and Berlin, its vote fell until after 1930.
Then we are in agreement. If there is no 'war guilt' for Germany and hyper inflation instead of paying the war debt, then two of the main elements that allowed the Nazi party to catapult from Lunitic fringe into power don't exist...so its much less likely they would gain power without radical measures. Not to say they would not influence the party/parties in power.
It looks like you are right about the economic problems being more 'self imposed', but none of that matters if the war ends in stalemate. Germany would definately be part of the London treaty.
Paul L wrote:
If there is no 'war guilt' for Germany and hyper inflation instead of paying the war debt, then two of the main elements that allowed the Nazi party to catapult from Lunitic fringe into power don't exist...so its much less likely they would gain power without radical measures. Not to say they would not influence the party/parties in power..
If Germany didn't win big in 1918, after all the losses and suffering, there would be a substantial ''war guilt'', and a substantial perceived communist threat.
Remember it was Germanys' defeat that caused Hitler to enter politics in the first place; a stalemate situation, without a winner and no Tov, would be almost as bad as the ''betrayal'' and ''Jewish betrayal'' propaganda still exists. That would be enough to get the NSDAP going.
Long term a perceived communist threat would be more significant for the growth of the NSDAP than a depression; it was the cause of the bulk of the party funding, and would be likely to get in power eventually.
A ''betrayal' scenario in which Germany keeps a large surface fleet would have been a very dangerous scenario for the other naval powers. It is likely that the Germans would have boycotted any international naval treaty negotiations and simply built as big a fleet as their resources and economy would allow.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
The 'war guilt' was triggered by articale 231 in the "Treaty of Versailles". Since in this alternative history their is no ToV or at least its not the historical document we all know, then the 'war guilt' would not happen. Germans didn't accept that they lost the war or that the war was there fault in the first place. It was their miss interpretation of clause 231 that lead to the hostile reaction to Reparations payments through hyper inflation that clearly did more damage to the German economy than paying the 2-3 billion Rm would have done....at least thats what the economist argue , which means were are on very thin ice here.
The ''war guilt'' would still happen, without article 231, without even a ToV - the politicians would simply find something else in place of it and exploit it for all that it was worth.
The wiki article reveals that there are many interpretations of article 231 anyway, many of them conflicting, not least also by article 232. Note also that it wasn't a problem for either the Austrians or Hungarians, not even ''guilt by association'' in ''Germanys' war.''
You may care to note that the German signatory to the ToV was Jewish. Another significant propaganda play for the NSDAP, probably more so than the actual ''guilt clause'' itself.
My own view is that Germany did start WW1 - by the act of declaring war on Russia, and then on France, and then implementing the Schlieffen Plan. The fact that the plan was flawed was the Germans undoing.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
Yes but the importance of the 'war guilt' is the german reaction which triggered the Hyper inflation rather than just pay the reparations. No Reparations = no Hyper inflation; which equals a stronger economy= less dissatisfaction with the Weimar Republic = less chance for Nazi to gain the popularity to get into power. I wonder what they might have been like as leaders of opposition?
ede144 wrote:
RF I find it really funny that you want to teach me the history of my own country. If you don't believe my words, you will probably believe wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_with_Germany. 1923 started the occupation of the Ruhrgebiet, by French troops. France started this action to bring further pressure on Germany to fulfill the ToV reparations.
Nothing in this article offers contradiction to my post. So what is your point?
Comparing it to Israels occupation of West Jordan country is a valid one, because the French put a lot of pressure on the German people with road blocks, controls of companies etc. If I remember correctly the influence of the French occupation is even mentioned in Whittley's book "German capital ships". He mentions that production of ship turrets went down from 3/year to one/year due to the French.
If France tried to annex the Saar they would have gotten in conflict with the other signees of the ToV.
The road blocks, control of infrastructure and business was more severe during the post WW2 occupation. The Allies neither in 1920 or 1923 or post 1945 (excluding the USSR, which did directly annexe German territory) tried to permanently annex the parts of Germany they occupied, deport the local population and replace them by importing their own citizens into their own townships. They didn't try to make parts of Berlin permanently part of either Britain or France or the United States.
Isreali policy on the West Bank of Jordan has been to permanently incorporate it into the state of Isreal, partly for ethnic reasons of Eritz Isreal, partly for reasons of military defence and preserving the state of Isreal on militarily feasible borders. Isreali policy aimed at full assimilation of Jerusalem into Isreal as a future capital city in place of Tel Aviv.
There is no comparison with the French occupation of the Ruhr or the Rhineland. Indeed it bears more comparison to the German occupation and annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. With respect to the Saar, had the French wished to annex it they would have done. I suspect that they didn't because it was ethnically German and would pose major problems of assimilation.
What is my point? You post that France occupied the Rheinland in 1923 for a brief period. I tell you that it was part of the armistice and the Rheinland including bridgeheads like Duisburg, Koblenz and Mainz was were occupied for 12 years. I tell you in addition that in 1923 the French also occupied the Ruhrgebiet. That are two different areas. It's like taking New York City and Rhode Island as the same. One could cal this ignorant at best or stupid at worst.
Anexation of German teritory: Germany lost after WWI some counties around Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium and after WWII France tried to annex the Saarland and the Netherlands annexed the Selfkant near Aachen. In the 60ies it came back to Germany.
Regarding the comarison with the Israel occupation of the West Jordan, I think you missed my point.
Scrapping Values of the Hochseeflotte
If WW-I ends in stalemate and Germany is faced with the problem of keeping modern warship fleet program going, this represents a source of funding to maintain as modern a fleet as possible. If no reparations payments are made the additional funding ican be estimated by extrapolating the surviver warships x the average resale/scrapping value reported on sample ships.....to a first approximation that is.
In Eric Groner’s two volume set on the German navy “German Warships 1815-1945” documents most of the warships used by the German navy during the time period indicated. In volume two of the English translation, he reports 146 x 500-600 ton Mineboot 1914-16 were built and 109 scrapped after WW-I as part for reparations payments.
Groner documents 36 Mineboot sales with 15 ships broken up for an average price of 1,187,867 Rm, while another 21 were sold for re use averaging 1,328,333 RM each. The overall average sale price per ton works out to ~ 2164 Rm/ton. If this average is applied to all 109 scrapped boats, it totals over 131 million Rm of potential revenues.
However since most of these were scrapped by German companies their value maybe already represented in the naval purchasing of the 1920s/Early 1930s [about ½ billion Rm] . Counting only those not scraped in early 1920s in Germany, about 85 boats representing a value of about 85 million Rm of revenue, are lost to reparations payments. The problem with this approach is that it ignores the fact that many of the ships NOT SOLD had to soldier on into the 1940s due to shortage of warships in the fleet through the 1920s and 1930s. So it may be that the original figure is more representative of the sales potential given inconclusive end to WW-I.
In the same volume next section the 75 x 150 ton FM Boots are also detailed. Of these reportedly 46 were scrapped and Groner details 14 examples totaling 8.1 million RM, for an average of 578,500 RM each or 2907Rm / ton. Appling this average to the 46 scrapped boats, we get potential of ~26 million Rm total lost sales revenue.
Again like the Mineboot most were sold to German companies so the value may be already represented in the naval budget of 1922-1932. About 13 were sold to foreign countries representing an approximate lost revenue of 7.5 million RM
In the last section we get F1 class motor minesweepers, tiny 21 ton coastal craft. Groner details 85 boats of which 78 were scrapped with 16 probably broken up, while the rest are resold for civilian usage. With only several samples we find the scrapping price in 1930 was less than 900 Rm per boat while the sale price in 1921 was 290,000 Rm. The overall average is just under 7000 Rm /ton. If we apply this to the entire fleet we get a potential sales value of 18 million Rm.
Like the other minesweepers, the bulk of the vessels were scrapped in country, with only about a dozen sold abroad for a total loss of about 3.3 million RM.
Torpedoboot
Reportedly 18 x 19th century & turn of the century Gun boats and minelayers are documented with Est. potential sales value of ~5.7 MRm.
The old 19th century Torpedoboot section details 48 old Torpedoboot 7167tons @ 809Rm/ton = Est. 5,798103Rm potential sales.
Next we have 49 “Turn of the Century Torpedoboot” with total tonnage of 20627t x 419Rm/ton =
Prewar a batch of 46 Torpedoboot 1906 were built with a total tonnage of 34,179 @ 295 Rm/ton = Est. 10,082,805 Rm [1920-22] .
Prewar batch of 11 Torpedoboot 1911 were also scrapped 7751 tons @ 209 Rm/t = Est. 1,619,959 Rm potential sales lost.
Reportedly 38 Torpedoboot of the 1913 class were scrapped, however there are no documented sales since they were all turned over to the allies for scrapping. This means German lost all the resale/scrapping value of these ships. This is also true of all follow on scrapped Torpedo boots, but the total tonnage of the Type 1913 TBoots was 43,103 tons with estimated ‘replacement value’ of Est. 100 million RM.*****
The total tonnage of the 19xType 1916M Torpedoboot and the 27 unfinished models is an estimated 35,000 tons warship and an estimated ‘replacement value’ of Est. 92 million Rm. *****
Looking at Torpedoboot Zerstroers; 7 Russian models were scrapped by allies totaling 12905 tons and replacement value of about Est.33 million Rm. ***** The S113 class Torpedoboot Zerstroers has 15,531 tons warships scrapped by the allies with a replacement value of about Est.57 million Rm. ***** The estimated replacement value of the Type 1918M is Est.59 million Rm *****and the tonnage scrapped looks to be about 58.900 tons.
There were also 14 allied Torpedoboot that the Germans captured during WW-I that were taken as allied prize after the war with a total tonnage of about 14694tons.
Light Cruisers.
In the cruiser section of Groner’s 1st volume about 7 sales are documented out of the 47 Kreuzers scrapped post WW-I In the early 1920s about 5 old Kreuzers were scrapped for a total of 3.92 million Rm in revenue , representing 23,154 tons , while two other Kreuzers are sold at the end of that decade for 412 ,000 Rm in 6022 tons of warships. That’s 169Rm / ton Vs 68Rm /ton
If that is applied to all 49 Kreuzer with a total tonnage of about 215,033 tons, we get about 43 million Rm if sold in 1922 or Est. 15 million Rm if sold at the end of the 1920s decade.
Note that replacement value is not the same as scrapping value, just a way to get an idea of how to estimate an anticipated scrapping value if the war ended differently.
There is however a background problem of almost limitless variables that can affect a scrappage/replacement programme. One aspect central to this is what the precise naval requirements of such a post WW1 Germany actually are. For example does Germany remain the pre-eminent land power? What is its relationship with Britain and the RN? Does Germany keep its colonies - and hence a need for a naval presence in the outer oceans?
Inevitably a scrappage programme set against full replacement does imply a downsizing of the size of the navy; in the grand scheme of things that would probably be the best solution. A battleship race would be wasteful.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
Yes and since each service branch would be chasing fewer and fewer dollars/Rm it occured to me that the one area the navy could guaranttee funding from would be such a programme. I still have to add heay kreuzers Battle Kreuzers , Linenschiffe Uboats etc. The aim is to get a ball park figure around which planning could begin. At this point I started to go back to the most resent programmes to see how much this figure would change if they JUST kept the most resent models etc.
alecsandros wrote:
P.S.2: If an arms race would start again after WW1 (though I don;t know with what resources), the Germans would probably want to complete their 4 Mackensen's/Ersatz York's, and the BRitish would probably respond by completing all 5 Admiral class BCs... Again, the numerical advantage of the RN would be dilluted because of the many missions it had to carry out in WW2 as compared to WW1...
See my recent thread here 'Risk Theory Pays Off' about that.
I really don't think the British would have been too keen on 3-4 fast, heavily armored, 12" gun rebuilt battlecruisers prowling the Atlantic in 1939, 1940. Even if they kept a corresponding number of 13.5" battlecruisers to match them. Makes for interesting speculation.
