Franz Ferdinand Lives

[Devil Wincarnate]

Apt for this time of year and for the anniversary of the war commencing.  What if the assassination fails?  My thoughts are:
1. Serbia takes robust action against the Black Hand, knowing that FF himself is the man holding together the anti-war brigade in the Austrian military.
2. The Liberals do not split as early into Asquith and Lloyd George factions, and are returned in an election in late 1914 or early 1915.
3.  Home rule for Southern Ireland goes ahead.  There is no Easter Rising.
4.  A continental war breaks out over an unrelated subject in 1915 or 1916, probably involving Albania or Greece.  Britain only gets involved if Greece is threatened.
5.  Italy does not collapse into political chaos.
6.  Emigration from Europe to North and South America, and to the Antipodes, continues at a high rate due to the lack of deaths in war.
7.  Employing large numbers of domestic servants remains relatively normal for the wealthier parts of society.  A general, distinct lack of social progress, although women eventually do get the vote, possibly later than in real life.

Thoughts?  Alternatives?

[neilm]

Franz Ferdinand lives, they had an album out last year...

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Nov 14, 2014 12:20:31 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

3.  Home rule for Southern Ireland goes ahead.  There is no Easter Rising.

Problem with this is that the Ulster Volunteers were gearing up for civil war. They did not trust the Liberal government's "temporary" exclusion of four (or six) counties of Ulster and would have prepared for an insurrection. If the British government is too generous to them, the Irish nationalists will give way to republicans. Both sides are prepared to provoke violence and a civil war in Ireland from 1916 is highly likely.

There are big social consequences of there being no British involvement in the European war 1914-18. The major electoral reforms of 1917-18 are prolonged; votes for women and universal suffrage will take longer to happen and will be achieved with much more acrimony.

[slon]

I think history would have panned out more or less the same, the war was inevitable, the major powers had the intent and the fracture lines in relations were there for all to see (Alsace, Balkans, Northern Italy, East Prussia, etc, etc).

The assassination was start point (Austria threatens Serbia - Russia supports Serbia - Germany supports Austria - France supports Poland and Russia, etc, etc)
This all could have kicked off due to any number of events in any of the potential flash points.
Franz Ferdinand even if alive was in no position to control or have much influence on what was going to happen.

To try to see the causes and how history could have worked out differently I think you have to go back into the growth of nationalism in the 1800s ..... sort of where my thread about Napoleon winning at Waterloo was intended to go.

[carlton43]

Our massive mistake was getting involved in any way at all. This was a territorial and army event for the Continent. We were a naval and empire power. Naval engagement and blockade wold suit, but lofty superiority and arms supply to both sides would have been better than neutrality. It would have weakened all of our competition, opened a vast market and left us free to trade with the rest of the world. The financial and commercial reward would have been enormous. Exactly the same may be said of round two otherwise styled WW2.

[Khunanup]

Nov 14, 2014 12:42:28 GMT slon said:

I think history would have panned out more or less the same, the war was inevitable, the major powers had the intent and the fracture lines in relations were there for all to see (Alsace, Balkans, Northern Italy, East Prussia, etc, etc).

The assassination was start point (Austria threatens Serbia - Russia supports Serbia - Germany supports Austria - France supports Poland and Russia, etc, etc)
This all could have kicked off due to any number of events in any of the potential flash points.
Franz Ferdinand even if alive was in no position to control or have much influence on what was going to happen.

To try to see the causes and how history could have worked out differently I think you have to go back into the growth of nationalism in the 1800s ..... sort of where my thread about Napoleon winning at Waterloo was intended to go.

Yes, I agree with this. Any real reading of the period leading up to Franz Ferdinand's assassination shows that it was just an excuse as much as anything. The alliances were in place, Europe was a powder keg and Germany would have eventually found some excuse to invade it's neighbours outside the Triple Alliance. So a war sometime in 1915 or 16, probably panning out in much the same way, certainly on the eastern and western fronts with the really interesting alternatives in Russia (do any additional reforms happen in the interim that preempt the 1917 revolutions or does the Bolshevik revolution fail) and Ireland (home rule will take place, the Ulster volunteers are seen as much as terrorists as the IRA were by the public IOTL and the upshot is that a rebellion is put down and a forced united Irish Home Rule parliament is enacted... Unless the conservatives win a general election before it all kicks off).

But there was no will for peace by anyone and the web of alliances made the whole thing completely inevitable.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Yes. The Liberals were in reality rotting from the inside long before the Great War, with some associations dependent on a single benefactor and few active members. Only the fact that the Unionists put forward a suicidally unpopular policy in 1906 gave them a landslide.

[lbarnes]

Nov 17, 2014 17:04:06 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Yes. The Liberals were in reality rotting from the inside long before the Great War, with some associations dependent on a single benefactor and few active members. Only the fact that the Unionists put forward a suicidally unpopular policy in 1906 gave them a landslide.

I honestly hadn't realised that, David.  The Liberals only won a landslide because their policy platform was vastly more popular than their opponent's.  Ain't that just like 'em, the duplicitous b******s?

[Sibboleth]

Yes, but it was the same platform (more or less) that the Liberals had run on since the 1840s, it just so happened that...