20th Century Alternate History

I've made alternate history theories and timelines before, but never one on this scale.

My ideas are:

1914- World War I is narrowly avoided when the Austrian-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand escapes assassination. Gavrilo Princip is later killed by bandits while trying to cross the border back to his home country. With no World War I, the Ottoman, German, and Austrian empires remain.

1917- Communist revolution in Russia succeeds after 4 years

1921- Vladimir Lenin becomes the first Communist Premier of Russia

1922- A communist revolution spreads to China. It fails, but a growing resentment is left in the Chinese public. Japan becomes more democratic.

Now, where can I go from here?

now I'm not a history buff but I do know World War 1 would have still happened even if Franz Ferdinand lived. his assassination was just the spark that lit up a whole lot of underlying issues that triggered WW 1 (and obviously by consequence WW 2). a lot of national was around at the time, imperialism was still kinda a thing, and pretty much every nation was tangled in a web of treaties which would have resulted in pretty much any minor conflict growing to the size of a global war (which is what actually happened).

now I know that's probably not a very detailed explanation on the political situation at the time, but the point is, a big, likely world war sized conflict was gonna happen with the mentality and politics at the time, and it would be very difficult to truly get rid of that. again in real life it took both world wars to get rid of it.

edited 29th Sep '13 10:14:13 PM by Jetyl

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

Without the devastation of WW 1 I'm not sure any revolution (of which I'm given to understand there were several) would have been successful, and if one was it might not have been the bolshevik one.

edited 29th Sep '13 11:12:40 PM by MattII

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edited 30th Sep '13 6:06:38 AM by fulltimeD

What's going on in America during this time? I'm assuming with all these world wars avoided, we remain Isolationists and don't become a superpower.

Also with no World War I, I'm assuming there'd be no massive swine flu epidemic in 1918? It's well documented that massive troop movements during WWI were a major factor in the epidemic.

Also, WW 1 and WW 2 brought about many technological advances that may not have been developed in peacetime. Military applications frequently proliferate to civilian use after they've been tested in war. It's the same with the space program. NASA gave us disposable diapers and a host of other technology we take for granted. Computer technology, for example, was vital in World War II because of the need to crack enemy communication codes. In terms of computing, where would we be today without ENIAC or any of those other room-sized punch-card operated processors? Medical technology, too, that was pioneered in the military later made it into every hospital. Fire suppression technology. The use of lighter and stronger metals... the list goes on.

edited 30th Sep '13 6:09:26 AM by fulltimeD

Hmm, Lenin had been planning a communinst revolution in Russia for quite some time. However, without World War I substantially weakening both the Russian military and government, the revolution probably would have had a very different outcome.

World War I was inevitable. It would take near-divine intervention for any sort of World War I to be averted with any point of divergence after, say, the Congress of Vienna.

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

And put paid to more than a would have been developed. Airlines for example, Igor Sikorsky had some airliners designed and built in 1913, and had not the war intervened, I'm pretty sure more would have follower. From there we would have had an aircraft race of sorts, except instead of being focussed on speed and manoeuvrability, it would have been focused on endurance and reliability.

probably almost the same place considering that computers didn't really go anywhere until the transistor came along. Heck, without the war the transistor could have come along earlier, and thus our computers might be more advanced now.

No, war may advance some technologies, but it takes money from a multitude of others.