What if WWI ended in 1916 with a status quo ante bellum?

[Moctezuma1466]

In late 1916 after the desastrous Brusilov offensive which almost broke A-H, and after the conquest of Bukarest, the Central Powers actually made a peace offer to the allies (the wiki article is only available on german: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensangebot_der_Mittelmächte).

Was that a serious offer? And if so, what if the Allies actually accepted? I assume the german pacific colonies would have been lost but Germany gets back its african colonies and leaves Belgium but can keep Luxemburg? Also maybe the Regentschaftskönigreich Polen would be a german puppet maybe or would they have returned that to Russia?

How would the post war situation have developed if 2 1/2 years of brutal war didnt bring the people anything and basically just went back to a status quo ante?

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

There's no way they go with an status quo ante, all states when they joined wanted something and with a white peace they don't get that something.
And no side will accept what the other side demands, after the Brusilov Offensive the Russian government thinks it has a chance to win the war and doesn't want to lose any territory, Germany wants gains in the East since they beat the Russians and, if possible, in the West since they're occupying large parts of France, France wants Alsace and Britain wants to get rid of the German colonies and navy.
Simply their goals are not compatible, any compromised peace would not be enough after all the suffering they've been trough.

 

[Garrison]

Didn't we have this same discussion last week? And I think @EasternRomanEmpire has summed it up pretty nicely. I would only add that the damage done in the occupied regions of Belgium and France mean that the status quo ante was impossible regardless.

 

[Lalli]

Any Entente power wouldn't agree that and CPs couldn't afford demands of Entente. So not going to happen.

 

[DougM]

I have always thought that IF the power’s involved had been reasonable/realistic then once the race to the sea made it obvious that no one was winning the war in any fast way, that they would have gone to the table to negotiate a way to end the war.
But EVERYONE had hidden agendas that they refused to let go of.
France for example was only ending the war in one of two ways. Utterly defeated or taking back A-L. So you are not getting a treaty until one side can’t really go on any longer.
If Germany had a bit more food and a few other things the war would have continued. And it would have see a lot of very nasty battles as the Western powers (including the US) tried to slowly push Germany back.
But once the war started no one was going to accept the terms the other side would insist upon.

 

[Seandineen]

Karl I Pope Benedict XV, and Clemenseu seemed to think other wise.

 

[DougM]

Huh?
You mean they thought that a treaty could be reached?
well like everyone else (now or then) they are entitled to their own opinions.
Bet let’s look at a few things.

If A-H was willing to be reasonable they would not have started the war in the first place as they were offered MORE then generous terms to avoid the fighting.
Germany was sitting on other countries territories so why should it accept losing territory or anything else?
France was NOT giving up without at LEAST getting A-L back and preferably more.
GB MAY have been willing to settle for Germany going back to Germany but would want Belgium “fixed” and compensated
Russia wants to gain influence in the Balkans and to avoid a revolUnion/civil war. And sees fighting an outside enemy as a way to not have yo have an internal fight.
And GB and France and to a degree Russia all wanted reparations for a war they Blame Germany for starting.
Germany views the war as being more or less forced upon them. As they think if they stay out of the war A-H will get trashed by Russia and her Allie’s leaving Germany surrounded with no Allie’s. So Germany is not going to agree to reparations going to the three powers that it sees as having ganged up on it.

So how do you find a common point? When irl Germany did go after terms the other side took advantage of the subsequent internal issues and forced on Germany pretty harsh terms with no real pretense of actually negotiating. So until one side can’t go on I just don’t see anyone coming to terms and once one side is forced to the table the other side will take advantage,

Typically you get treaties when one side is thinks it can’t win or that the cost is not worth it and the other side is also in bad shape and tired of the war. Whichever side is worse off gives up the most.
But in this war all sides were willing to keep fighting no matter how horrible the casualties or costs.

 

[Mildtryth]

If A-H was willing to be reasonable they would not have started the war in the first place as they were offered MORE then generous terms to avoid the fighting.

I'd think that from their perspective, standing back and doing nothing as a hostile neighbour tries to peel off your territories and is going as far as assassinating members of your royal family, while nobody else seems willing to do anything about it, is anything but reasonable.

Austria had good reasons to believe that Serbia was behind the assassination - it wasn't, but as it eventually turned out later, the people who did were on quite important positions in the Serbian government and army. Letting something like that go unpunished was just going to invite them to get even bolder in the future.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

If A-H was willing to be reasonable they would not have started the war in the first place as they were offered MORE then generous terms to avoid the fighting.

Once Karl takes power a peace deal is possible and he was willing to even make concessions to guarantee peace but the other powers are not willing to do so.

Russia wants to gain influence in the Balkans and to avoid a revolUnion/civil war. And sees fighting an outside enemy as a way to not have yo have an internal fight.

??
What do you mean by "sees fighting an outside enemy as a way to not have to have an internal fight"?

 

[iddt3]

I'd think that from their perspective, standing back and doing nothing as a hostile neighbour tries to peel off your territories and is going as far as assassinating members of your royal family, while nobody else seems willing to do anything about it, is anything but reasonable.

Austria had good reasons to believe that Serbia was behind the assassination - it wasn't, but as it eventually turned out later, the people who did were on quite important positions in the Serbian government and army. Letting something like that go unpunished was just going to invite them to get even bolder in the future.

It wasn't *doing nothing* they sent a list of demands they knew were impossible, and then the Serbians accepted 95%, minus the being occupied by AH part.

 

[DougM]

A-H while understandably concerned with the situation in the Bulkans was 100% ridiculous in its list of demands. And was give all but one of those. Now if they want to discuss other issues fine, but don’t pretend the issue is one thing when it is something else then and don’t demand that another country let you just walk in and run roughshod over them in there own home.

Russia had been having internal unrest for a long time by the start of WW1. And like other countries have before and after it, it is often useful to quell internal tension and conflict by presenting an outside enemy for everyone to team up against.
Argentina did this with the Falklands for example. A less planed and much lesser example was how the Left and the Right buddied up after the 9-11 attacks on the US.
It is an old tactic. And while Russia didn’t want it or intend it they got it for a while. So there was a window where Russia was better off staying in the fight then letting the army go home as once the army was sent home it was very likely that an internal revolt would kick off.
Of course by the end it was the war itself that caused the issue. But this tactic which amounts to the idea that “We can settle our dif later after we save our country from those outside bad guys” has a short useful window.

Russia was heading towards a revolution WW1 or No WW1. But the start of the war put any chance for that on temporary hold. For various reasons. But Arming the presents and then sending them back home is a good way to kick the revolution off. On the other hand the bad conditions that came along with the horrifle loses in the war did enough damage the eventual folks were no longer willing to put up with it in order to fight those Nasty Guys from the other country.
It is a fine line to walk and often blows up in the governments face but usually by that point the government is so desperate that even postponing the revolt a little while is seen as a good thing.
But there came a point that if Russia had just given up and agreed ee to reasonable terms and basicly said that the war was for nothing that they probably would have seen an immediate revolt.

Frankly that is an understandable fear for everyone involved. (well the big powers). But even in England if they had just gone home and accepted a treaty that was more or less go back to pre war lines then odds are its Government is out on its ear as a result. It wont be an armed revolt but it will happen at the voting booth. (Or whatever they used then)
Same with France, and Italy. In Russia voting them out was not an option so… revolution it is.

The war was sold to the common man by the governments and they were full of it. The common man paid in lost time, money, and the horrible conditions not yo mention injuries and deaths. You are risking your jobs and or your very lives (depending what country we are talking about) to tell them that it was a bad idea and to just go home and forget about it, And remember you just taught these people to band together and be an army.
So in the case of Russia were they can’t vote you out and after you taught them how to work together and fight and how to stomach bad food bad conditions and horrible casualties and death How do you think this is going to turn out?

 

[Evil Crusader]

In late 1916 after the desastrous Brusilov offensive which almost broke A-H, and after the conquest of Bukarest, the Central Powers actually made a peace offer to the allies (the wiki article is only available on german: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensangebot_der_Mittelmächte).

Was that a serious offer? And if so, what if the Allies actually accepted? I assume the german pacific colonies would have been lost but Germany gets back its african colonies and leaves Belgium but can keep Luxemburg? Also maybe the Regentschaftskönigreich Polen would be a german puppet maybe or would they have returned that to Russia?

How would the post war situation have developed if 2 1/2 years of brutal war didnt bring the people anything and basically just went back to a status quo ante?

The offer, if accepted, is a very limited but actual German victory. It's why it was proposed. It also is why it was refused, overall; the Entente could yet gamble on the situation slowly eroding the CP faster than them, the CP attempted to quit while ahead but didn't want to give up all gains and accept the destruction of war (especially on France) as their actual prize.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Russia was heading towards a revolution WW1 or No WW1.

Without WW1 this Revolution will never succeed, EVER.

Russia had been having internal unrest for a long time by the start of WW1. And like other countries have before and after it, it is often useful to quell internal tension and conflict by presenting an outside enemy for everyone to team up against.
Argentina did this with the Falklands for example. A less planed and much lesser example was how the Left and the Right buddied up after the 9-11 attacks on the US.
It is an old tactic. And while Russia didn’t want it or intend it they got it for a while. So there was a window where Russia was better off staying in the fight then letting the army go home as once the army was sent home it was very likely that an internal revolt would kick off.
Of course by the end it was the war itself that caused the issue. But this tactic which amounts to the idea that “We can settle our dif later after we save our country from those outside bad guys” has a short useful window.

Nicky didn't use the war that way, he entered in the war for geopolitical reasons not really because he cared about his popularity (the guy legitimately thought the Russians loved adored him). You are right that the war at the beginning saw a surge of patriotic feeling in the Duma and that the common Russians were scared of Germans (slightly more complex than that) but it quickly was overshadowed by the terrible conditions, if in 1916 Russia had come to terms and got out of the war the conditions were good enough to not cause total collapse but were still bad enough for it to have sense to make peace.

In Russia voting them out was not an option so… revolution it is.

Revolution won't happen that easily, pulling out of the war would not cause a total collapse if you do it before the Kerensky Offensive, most people would want to go home and forget about everything, at worst the Tsar has to do a few extra concessions (if the Provisional Government is in charge just promise land reforms).
The common people are not able to rebel, the soldiers who have just been demobilized do not have weapons anymore and officers are all from higher classes so they lack leadership to do this. After you return to peace time even if there are uprisings, once the army is fed it will obey orders and crush the rebellions. At worst a few concessions from the Tsar.

 

[Mildtryth]

It wasn't *doing nothing* they sent a list of demands they knew were impossible, and then the Serbians accepted 95%, minus the being occupied by AH part.

A-H while understandably concerned with the situation in the Bulkans was 100% ridiculous in its list of demands. And was give all but one of those. Now if they want to discuss other issues fine, but don’t pretend the issue is one thing when it is something else then and don’t demand that another country let you just walk in and run roughshod over them in there own home.

I know that. And Serbia was well within its rights to refuse, but what I'm trying to get at is the difficulty of avoiding a war without at least losing face (and that definitely mattered in that context) in these circumstances:

-Austria will look weak if it lets that crime go unpunished, suspects that the Serbian government has something to do with this and doesn't trust the Serbs to do anything about it themselves, or anybody else to do it either.
-Serbia, in turn, can't do anything about it because the elements behind the assassination are too strong to remove, and can't accept the Austrian ultimatum without looking weak either.

Add to this the general feeling among a lot of the decision makers, not just in Austria, but all over Europe, that some kind of war was inevitable somewhere down the line and if it was to happen, it'd better happen now while the other side hadn't too much of a advantage, you end up with a very difficult situation to get out from.

 

[Nivek]

France was NOT giving up without at LEAST getting A-L back and preferably more.

them,that's NOT SQAB