World War I
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Poll
Question: President Wilson:
#1
[American] did the right thing by going to war
 
#2
[American] did the wrong thing by going to war
 
#3
[non American] did the right thing by going to war
 
#4
[non American] did the wrong thing by going to war
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 40

Author Topic: World War I  (Read 4475 times)
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StatesRights
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« Reply #50 on: August 12, 2005, 12:29:07 AM »

I only support British imperalism in Northern Ireland because they are protecting the Protestants there from the horribly authoritaraian and mysgonistic government on the rest of Ireland. Although it has been improving.

Yes, like the Protestants weren't put there by the British. They've been there all along..yeah, sure. Roll Eyes
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J. J.
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« Reply #51 on: August 12, 2005, 12:51:19 AM »

I only support British imperalism in Northern Ireland because they are protecting the Protestants there from the horribly authoritaraian and mysgonistic government on the rest of Ireland. Although it has been improving.

Yes, like the Protestants weren't put there by the British. They've been there all along..yeah, sure. Roll Eyes

Actually, most are native.  They aren't even Church of England.
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Max Power
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« Reply #52 on: August 12, 2005, 12:53:31 AM »

I only support British imperalism in Northern Ireland because they are protecting the Protestants there from the horribly authoritaraian and mysgonistic government on the rest of Ireland. Although it has been improving.

Yes, like the Protestants weren't put there by the British. They've been there all along..yeah, sure. Roll Eyes
Exactly. The British murdered Irish Catholics who refused to convert a while back, while giving more money and land to the Protestants.
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J. J.
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« Reply #53 on: August 12, 2005, 12:54:12 AM »

Right thing.  With German soldiers redeploying from the eastern front, the allies would have lost.  A Central Powers victory could potentially have been disastrous from a historical standpoint, as the great European Democracies would probably become fascist states, like the Weimar Republic.

I seriously doubt it.  Germany was about 5 years away from a constitutional crisis.  The Socialist  were the largest party before the war, and growing.  Wilhelm II might have saddled with a Socialist PM after the war.
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Sam Spade
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« Reply #54 on: August 12, 2005, 01:03:31 AM »

My answer on this of course, depends on what happens to the Germans.  Remember that a lot of what the Allies did after the war led to Hitler's rise and Stalin's rebuilding of Russia. 

Whether America's entry not entering into the war is a good thing or not is of course entirely dependent on what happens to the Germans and Russians (and Austria-Hungary and Turkey to a lesser extent) post-war.  I think it's fairly safe to assume that nothing much happens to England (except for the massive loss of life and maybe the loss of a few colonies) and France is of course, exceptionally weakened.  But France was already considerably weaker than Germany pre-WWI anyway.

And what happens to the Germans depends on a lot things, do they win the war or is it just an exasperating draw that ends with a peace in 1919 (let's say). 

Remember that there were a lot of possibilities on the table at the time.  I think it's safe to say that the Kaiser would have remained on the throne had he not lost, but other than that who knows.  Germany could have stayed strongly authoritarian or it might have moved all the way to a modern social constitutional democracy (remember that in 1914, Germany had some of the most liberalized and strong social programs in the world) and the Social Democrats and Socialists were only growing in number by the bushel.

I'll make a couple of minor what-ifs to tell you what I think would have happened.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #55 on: August 12, 2005, 05:59:29 AM »

To say that people are put in places is just silly. Why don't you give the entire American continent back to the Indians then?
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Virginian87
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« Reply #56 on: August 12, 2005, 08:20:51 AM »

To those here who oppose imperialism so much, may I point out that it brought Western know-how and innovations like railroads and telephone/telegraph systems to many underdeveloped countries.  Had the British not been in India, there would be no unified nation today.  There are so many different peoples in India with different languages, that without English as a common language there would be hardly any unity.  Without imperialism, Hong Kong and Singapore would be rice paddies, diamonds would probably not have been dicovered in South Africa, and to a lesser extent, the Middle Eastern oilfields never would have been discovered.  Sure imperialism has some harmful effects over time, but in many ways it was useful. 

While we're on the subject of imperialism's problems, what's your opinion of American imperialism in the Caribbean, Philippines and Pacific (Hawaii and other islands)?  We didn't just go in and take it peacefully, you know.
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BRTD
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« Reply #57 on: August 12, 2005, 10:51:03 AM »

I only support British imperalism in Northern Ireland because they are protecting the Protestants there from the horribly authoritaraian and mysgonistic government on the rest of Ireland. Although it has been improving.

Yes, like the Protestants weren't put there by the British. They've been there all along..yeah, sure. Roll Eyes

Ireland is where the Scots came from initially actually, so you can't really argue they have no business being there because of things that happened 300 years ago. And lots of the Protestants in Antrium county come from families that always have been in Ireland.

Ireland in the earlier part of the 20th century was an AWFUL place for women. They even had caps on how much married women could be paid! And ever heard of the Magdalene Laundries?
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BRTD
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« Reply #58 on: August 12, 2005, 10:54:17 AM »
« Edited: August 12, 2005, 10:56:50 AM by BRTD: The Poll Troll »

While we're on the subject of imperialism's problems, what's your opinion of American imperialism in the Caribbean, Philippines and Pacific (Hawaii and other islands)?  We didn't just go in and take it peacefully, you know.

It was wrong. You can't really undo it though, most in Hawaii certainly want to remain part of the US, so I have no problem remaining that way. But it should've not have been forcibly annexed in the first place.

And the Phillipines was just wrong, period. The US killed as many a million civilians there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

oh and all the diamonds in the world can't excuse what the British did in South Africa.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #59 on: August 12, 2005, 11:27:09 AM »

BRTD: I've told you this a couple of times, but British Imperialism in Northern Ireland ended in 1921 with the partition. Northern Ireland was a de facto independent country until the collapse of Stormont in the early '70's.
And there has never been any need to protect the Protestants in NI; quite the reverse in fact... under Stormont, Catholics were treated in a way similer to Blacks in the Deep South prior to the end of segregation. Intially British troops were sent to NI to protect Catholics from the Protestant majority.
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BRTD
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« Reply #60 on: August 12, 2005, 12:34:00 PM »

What you say may be true, but try telling that to an Irish republican. Most of the ones I've met (which is quite a bit over here, I've always found it interesting how Irish Americans had so much concern over what was going on in their ancestral country than most Americans do), talk about it being "the last remnant of the British Empire, the Occupied Six Counties, etc."

And what I meant by protecting the Protestants was keeping them out of what at the time was a pretty repressive country. No divorce, Magdalene Laundries, caps on the salaries of married women, pregnant teenagers often just thrown out on the streets and abanonded, abortion not even legal in the most dire of circumstances (I believe the Supreme Court case in Ireland that legalized abortion in cases where the mother's life was threatended involved a raped 13 year old girl who the Attorney General tried to prohibit from traveling to Britain for an abortion), the Republic was a pretty dire place during most of the time when The Troubles was going on. I'm quite happy it's been liberalizing lately, but during the conflict, that would definately have me backing the unionist side (of course that doesn't mean backing lunatics like Paisley or brutal unionist paramilitaries...)
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #61 on: August 12, 2005, 01:07:32 PM »

What you say may be true, but try telling that to an Irish republican. Most of the ones I've met (which is quite a bit over here, I've always found it interesting how Irish Americans had so much concern over what was going on in their ancestral country than most Americans do), talk about it being "the last remnant of the British Empire, the Occupied Six Counties, etc."

The Unionists are just as insane... "everything is a Popish plot", "the Pope is the devil" yadda, yadda, yadda. Both sides are stuck about four hundred years ago in the past...

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Northern Ireland wasn't exactly a haven of liberalism either. Abortion laws there are actually more restrictive than in RoI.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #62 on: August 13, 2005, 07:28:13 PM »

Here's my view on what would have happened had Wilson followed a course of true neutrality instead of the pro-Allied Powers pseudo-neutrality that he followed.  Without American loans or purchases of American arms, the Allies would have realized by 1916 that they weren't going to win the war on the battlefield.  However, Germany is hurting enough that it is in its interests to seek peace as well.  A likely peace settlement would see Europe's boundaries largely unaffected save in the balkans where Montenegro and Serbia would have to give up their gains in the First and Second Balkan Wars earlier in the decade to Albania and Bulgaria.  Serbia and Montenegro would receive a status similar to that of Belgium and the Netherlands as a small country that all the major powers have pledged to go to war over if someone else violates their neutrality.  The Ottomans regain the Dodecanese from Italy.  Germany  would have gained territories in Africa, with most of French Equitorial Africa joining Kamerun (save for a small portion along the banks of the Congo being joined to Belgium Congo) and South Africa ceding Walfish Bay to German South West Africa.  The Czar likely would have had to cede Poland to the Central Powers.  Considering that most of the fighting took place on Allied territiry, I can't see reparations as being large, even if they were exacted.

Of course it is possible that the Allies would have refused terms sch as these.  In that event, the war in east would have largely proceeded ilargely as it did in reality until the Czar abdicated in 1917.  The Kerensky government having fewer prospects of eventual victory would likely have signed a peace with the Central powers, but would have to cede the  quasi-independence of Finland and Lithuania as well as Poland as well as cede Bessarabia to Rumania (with the Allies unable to present as good an inducement for entering the war on the Allied side as they did in OTL, Rumania likely joins the Central Powers in 1916.) and the Transcaucus region to the Ottomans.  Italy likely gets knocked out of the war in 1918 due to the inability of France and Britain to spare the troops that kept Italy from defeat in OTL.  Likely Italy has to cede its entire colonial empire back to the Ottomans from who they nominally had acquired most of it from.  The desire to restore friendship with Britain is likely to lead to Geramny to not be too harsh with France, but the Germans will take Belfort and a good deal more of France's colonial empire than what I described above.  Germany does not have the naval force with which to defeat the Royal Navy in 1919 and war-weariness will be affecting the homefront even as it did in OTL.  So in exchange for peace, reparations will be kept at a minimum if at all.

In short, I'd expect a Central Power victory to see territiory to change hands, but the crushing effects of reparations would be kept to a minimum, enabling grudges to be eased sooner.  Of course, Europe will still have the fun of dealing the effects of the inevitable collapse of the Habsburg Empire, which potentially sparks WW II, and the Armenians will be even less numerous than they are in OTL, so I don't see American non-entry in The Great War as being a solution for all of our problems, but three of the great problems of the 20th century would either not have occurred or been greatly delayed.
1.  Lenin would not have the opportunity to come to power in Russia.
2.  The Shoah would not have happened.
3.  The current turmoil in the Middle East would not exist.  Not only would the Zionists been less successful in emmigrating to the area with it remaining in Ottoman control, they would have had less incentive to do so.  In short, there would be no State of Israel to serve as a focus of dispute.
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