User blog:SandroChen/A preparation for an interwar point of divergence

The exact POD is at the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Radical nationalism and revanchism ruled France. In the streets were calls for a total division of the former German Empire: a Rhineland Federation in the north, a sphered South German Federation including Austrian and Bavarian territories, and let the new-born Poland take the Prussian lands. Diplomats and government heads were more reasonable. Still, they had proposed for more than a demilitarized but united Reich.

Britain however feared a new Napoleon Empire more, and considering her own heavy losses in the Great War, took a re-balancing and somehow isolationist approach. German states excluding Danzig and Poznan would stay intact; new German army will be restricted and closely watched, but the industrial roots would be given to the German people to decide the fate. Discussions soon escalated into a quarrel, with the future of Germany hanging.

Meanwhile the Balkans remained a headache. Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania and Greece all viled for regional power; however, this place was also an apparent southern front from a possible Soviet threat. An internal conflict would give Vladimir Lenin a chance to output socialist revolutions. The Fourteen Points were finally followed; but necessary revisions were made. A weak Danube Confederate, more a mutual non-aggression union than a federal state, was established, divided into French and British actual spheres of influence.

The rest of the treaty was smooth; nation-states built, old evils beaten and dismantled. Britain and the US passed the treaty; however, France still stuck to her more aggressive way. Will this peace endure?

(Await updates)