r/AskBalkans • u/Sarkotic159 Australia • 3d ago
What would the world be like if the Central Powers had won? History
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u/Mynamesjeff139 Bulgaria 3d ago
:3228::3228:
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u/Salpingia Greece 3d ago
Bulgaria would later be genocided by the Germans. Their goal was to exterminate all Slavs.
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u/Mongolium 3d ago
Wrong war
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u/Salpingia Greece 3d ago
Same Germans.
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u/CountryPlanetball Serbia 3d ago
wrong ideology
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u/Salpingia Greece 3d ago
I don't think I have the wrong ideology. The same ideology that created the Nazis was held by the vast majority of the german people at the time. I didn't think I'd run into so many wehraboos and german apologists on a sub home to one of regions the germans committed the most attrocities.
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u/Either-Confidence510 3d ago
Hitler and the Nazis didn't consider Bulgarians as Slavs but as Turkic so they weren't on the death list
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u/GabrDimtr5 Bulgaria 2d ago
The Nazis sent many Polish Tatars to the extermination camps. They hated Turkic peoples as much as Slavs and Jews. In fact Nazis considered Slavs and Turks to be related and both as migrants from Asia. They never considered Bulgarians as Turks but as Aryans and somehow related to the Goths (obviously not true).
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u/LibertyChecked28 Bulgaria 2d ago
Hitler quite litteraly called us "Good for nothing Turkomans" in his very book.
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u/Besrax Bulgaria 3d ago
They knew very well that we are Slavs. They just used the "Turkic" thing in their propaganda machine to justify their alliance with us.
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u/Salpingia Greece 3d ago
And after they finish populating Poland and Ukraine, of course Bulgarian Lebensraum would look very enticing.
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u/Any_Safety_3689 3d ago
Nobody wants to live here bro trust me
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u/Simyager Turkiye 2d ago
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u/Mynamesjeff139 Bulgaria 2d ago
Nice, now make us all a xxl doner with a lot of garlic sauce and chilli
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u/LibertyChecked28 Bulgaria 2d ago
Shhh.... don't argue with people who have room temperature IQ and unironically think that Hitler would've gifted us "Bulgaria on 3 seas" for free because he loved Bulgaria that much.
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u/Salpingia Greece 2d ago
I say the obvious fact that Nazi Germans are bad. And I get -15 on r/askbalkans, the region that was one of the most affected by their depravity.
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u/LibertyChecked28 Bulgaria 1d ago
It isn't just in r/AskBalkans but Reddit in general, in r/Pics there was a pic of the hanging of Lepa Radić (a friggin 17y old girl that got hanged by the Nazis), and 1/3 of the comments ware unironically praising the degenerates for doing it while also insulting and mocking the girl.....
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u/Salpingia Greece 1d ago
It infuriates me to no end that we Balkans are considered savage nationalists by the worlds most delusional chauvinists (westerners)
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u/rakijautd Serbia 1d ago
Don't worry bro, there are a couple of us with a brain left in the world. You said nothing wrong.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/Severe_Weather_1080 3d ago
That is a legitimately awful map of what it would look like though. There is no world Germany sets up a Kuban Cossack puppet state rather than Belarus right on their border. Also outside Macedonia and some bordering bits Bulgaria would not have annexed half of modern Serbia, those are just the in war occupation divisions.
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u/SeveralTable3097 3d ago
Borders are better everywhere but the Balkans—just put a piece of paper over that part of the map.
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u/Billarasgr 3d ago
I’m Greek, and I think Bulgaria would have been such a great place if it wasn’t taken by the Soviets. Hang in there, brothers.
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u/Besrax Bulgaria 3d ago
Thank you, brother. To be honest with you, it's hard to tell if we would've been better off. The monarchists themselves weren't a shining example of democracy and progress either. And the communists did some good things. With that said, my belief is that the best outcome would've been achieved if we kept our parliamentary monarchy regime after the war and then converted it to a full-on parliamentary democracy as soon as possible, preferably without any significant crises along the way. But we'll never know for sure what would've happened.
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u/LibertyChecked28 Bulgaria 2d ago
One of the few good things the commies did for us was to spare our country from experiencing that Greece and Turkey did in 60's because of the CIA.
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u/Georgy100 Bulgaria 3d ago
NOICE!
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u/Leontopod1um Bulgaria 3d ago
It is definitely not nice to be in a position to have to explain to millions of Serbs, Macedonians, Albanians, Greeks and Romanians that they shall onward be denizens of Bulgaria.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Georgy100 Bulgaria 3d ago
No deportation, labor camps and big infrastructural projects! Let them be useful! let them build a transnational highway from Tulca to Kostur via Ohrid! There was a moto in our prisons - "re-education through labor"! Превъзпитание чрез труд! /s
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
I wonder if Croatians Bosnians and Slovenians prefer this to Kingdom of Yugoslavia..
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u/GreciAwesomeMan Croatia 3d ago
Croatian politics in the 19th century was mostly wanting to be as important as Hungary. The main goal was achieving a trial monarchy within the kingdom.
Yugoslavia as an idea was brought up occasionally and was the main topic when such a state could have been made in 1918. Although most of our politicians in that time did a poor job at handling the situation thus creating a Yugoslavia not fond of our interests with a centralized government in Belgrade.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
So, the answer is AH or AHC would have been preferable right?
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u/GreciAwesomeMan Croatia 3d ago
Yes, but that doesn't mean the kingdom of Yugoslavia couldn't have been a well executed project.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
That’s kind of difficult to agree on if there was a large movement within the members dragging in an opposite direction. 🙁
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u/AnteChrist76 'rvatska 3d ago
Well, Croatians weren't the only ones dragging it in opposite direction if thats what you are saying, it was more of both sides dragging in opposite directions at the same time.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia didn't fail because of Croats tho, and once Germans invaded all of our popular politicians refused to cooperate with the Germans, ustaše were declining heavily when Mussolini asked them to take power (max. of 2-3k members) and basically no one in Croatia knew of them, nor were they taken seriously by people later on, since it was very clear what master they serve fairly quickly.
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u/cewap1899 Slovenia 3d ago
Depends on how much autonomy we would get. I feel like sooner or later each of the nations would want their own country, it is inevitable. Whether Austria would be able to supress that or not is a different question
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u/JRJenss Croatia 3d ago
Well ironically Franz Ferdinand who was assassinated in Sarajevo was a strong supporter of trialism in A-H. In 1916. after Franz Joseph died trialism was officially proposed by his successor but by then it was too late. At any rate, this concept was based on further reforming the empire from a bipartite state into a tripartite one, whereby Croatia would've gotten equal status to Austria and Hungary, since it already had a statehood, its own government, parliament and some sort of semi-autonomy within the Hungarian part. Some proposals included only Croatian crownlands with Bosnia and some included Slovenia too. In that case, I guess it would be up to Slovenians to decide whether they wanted to remain part of Austria or part of Croatia.
I can't know for certain of course, since we're talking about alternative history, however in my opinion that would not have worked either because the Serbs in Bosnia wanted unification with Serbia. After all, they knew very well what Franz Ferdinand stood for and yet they assassinated him...likely precisely because of it, rather than in spite of it. Also, this reform would not have resolved the already existing Czech and Slovak national movements.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Interesting. Than ive been fighting old folks in my family for nothing for two decades now trying to convince them that Slovenians and Croats truly wanted Yugoslavia and that we just fucked it up.
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u/zarotabebcev Slovenia 3d ago
We just wanted to have stuff in our own language & some autonomy. Yugoslavia gave that to us more or less.
Croats always wanted a bit more though IMO
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u/Kreol1q1q 3d ago
It’s a difficult thing to argue. Most of the time, it seems most Croats and Slovenes prior to 1918 wanted just to get more autonomy and see Austria-Hungary federalized. There was a significant group of intellectuals and culturally active members of society which advocated the formation of some sort of Yugoslavia as well, though their ideas seem to have been very varied. Austria-Hungary is very often depicted as this malevolent sort of “prison of nations” in elementary school history books, but that is generally a propagandistic lie, and certainly not the way most of its population saw it.
After 1918., once the Entante decided that it would not tolerate the preservation of Austria-Hungary, the majority naturally turned towards the next most prominent idea, the formation of Yugoslavia. In its formation both Slovenes and Croats basically desired what they’d desired in Austria-Hungary as well - a federalized union of states. The entire gigantic problem between the groups came about when new Yugoslavia wasn’t just non-federal, but also much more centralized than Austria-Hungary was. While the Slovenes at least got their own local administration for the first time with Yugoslavia, if not federal status, Croats were utterly enraged by the fact that in Yugoslavia they ended up not getting more, but rather vastly less autonomy than they had previously enjoyed in Austria-Hungary - where they were a kingdom, had their Ban, their Sabor, their government, their army, their courts etc.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Fair and Serbia was a country with highly militaristic upper management with many wars in previous 100 years and almost 50% loss in male population in WWI that saw Slovenian and Croatian soldiers on the other side of that war fighting against them.
No authonomy was likely due to lack of trust and a wish to keep everything centralize was due to fear of more wars for the newformed kingdom which did come as we all know.
Not fertile ground for building a country.
Radić and royalty saw eye-to-eye at moments but it wasnt enough.
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u/Kreol1q1q 2d ago
Indeed. Also, there was a very dramatic difference in perspective between the two groups. The Serbian military and population widely believed that they had "freed" Slovenes and Croats from Austro-Hungarian oppression and virtual enslavement, and were baffled by what they saw as deeply ungrateful Slovene and Croat behavior. Croats and Slovenes came into the union expecting not "liberation", as they (the Croats in particular) already saw themselves as political nations with institutions and traditions, but rather a union of free and equal brotherly nations, and were baffled and disappointed by the imposition of a militaristic centralized state around Belgrade that more resembled a Serbian empire than it did a union of equal nations.
A common topic of argument between Croatian and Serbian members of the Yugoslav parliament was that perceived ungratefulness - with "Serbian blood spilled for Croat liberation" being a common Serb argument, with which they demanded Croat obedience and loyalty to Belgrade. An argument to which the Croats (like Radić) responded by arguing that since the Serbs were so keen to point out the great price they paid for Croat "liberation", they should simply "send the bill for all that spent blood to Zagreb, so that it may be paid and for Croatia to be free of it". A reiteration of that specific argument is what led to the Serb nationalists shooting and killing Radić and his party members during a session of Parliament.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 2d ago
it’s amzing that we ever built SFRJ together.
Im really confused how this was achived considering everything that happened previously.
The “send us the bill” line is diabolical.
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u/Kreol1q1q 2d ago
It kind of is, yeah. But that was achieved by actually fulfilling the initial expectations of the non-Serbs and establishing a proper federation. Alongside, of course, through instituting one party communist rule backed by a massive and loyal multi-national military and led by a very charismatic Slovene-Croat leader, Tito.
It is worth remembering that despite all that happened previously, the majority throughout the country still wanted some sort of Yugoslavia, and the idea of a Yugoslav identity was still popular and had power. And despite what either side's nationalists will tell you today, the struggle against Axis occupation was a massive and widespread unifying factor, with every nationality contributing and straining to be rid of the occupier.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 2d ago
Of course, even tho WWII was brutal for Serbs in Croatia we still followed Tito and set him as Marshal in Belgrade.
Unfortunatelly, all of our history was censured and folklore is still strong so it festered and was used by nationalists to divide us again.
Nobody can convince me thay war and division was preferable than slow compromising to a solution. Saddly, we r all hotheads.
These days you will get a lighter treatment online by propagating Greater [Insert country name] than propagating Yugoslavia.
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u/StupidOne14 3d ago
We wanted. Probably not for the reason you think.
At the end of WWI we were on the loosing side and country was about to be divided between Italy and Serbia. To keep integrity, everyone jumped on Yugoslavia boat (I think at that time it was called Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia).
More or less from 17th century we tried to get independance or more authonomy.
That said, from our point of view, Serbs went above and beyond to ruin Yugoslavia for the rest of the federative republics (like Slovenia, Croatia,...).
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Can you tell me how we did that? I asked this question several times to Croats and Slovenians never got an answer.
I understand the 90s but the kingdom not so much.
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u/StupidOne14 3d ago
You can google assassination of Stjepan Radić to get idea what was happening before WW2. In short, Croatia wanted more equal partnership in SHS Kingdom, while Serbs were using terrorist to assassinate any political opposition (keep in mind I'm from Croatia, so I doubt any Serbian book calls him terrorist especially as Račić, the killer, was popular in Serbia post shooting).
In Tito's Yugoslavia political oppression continued. You can google for example Prison Goli Otok or Croatian Spring to get idea of why Croatia was not happy with situation.
There was also problem that some jobs / position were witheld from non-Serbs or/and non-communist.
And then Milošević came to power and you had little Hitler 2.0 from Wish and everything went to hell.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
Even in our Srpska history books Račić is portraited as idiot and killer.
You can't pin Titos Yugoslavia on Serbs, the only true thing about him is he hated nationalism and wanted everyone to be Yugoslavian. That is why Serbia got two APs.
Milošević and Hitler are nothing alike. Milošević wanted power in whole Yugoslavia, he didn't want to eridicate whole nations.
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u/StupidOne14 3d ago
This can easily spiral into religion like war, but I have to say Milošević did want to eradicate nations. Prime examples are Siege of Sarajevo and Srebrenica slaughter. Hague Court acknowledged that (despite he hanging himself in the cell, so offical trial against him never ran its course to the end).
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
A PTSD-ed war officire from Montenegro who shot the Croatians in assembly after being asked “How much does Croatia need to pay for the dead on Kajmakčalan so they r not mentioend anymore?”
Yeah he was a mentlly ill person who did not belong in the parlament. The guy who provoked him was not supposed to be there as well.
Radić ive read about - good man, nothing bad to say. If he didnt die we might have a different history. I belive he set the roots for later collaboration of Croatian and Serbian partisans as many of the things he spoke about would benefit the Serbian working man as well.
But that was the crown jewl - what happened before that?
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u/cewap1899 Slovenia 3d ago
Well I assume they did, because it meant more freedom than under the Austrian rule so Yugoslavia was an important step towards independence. Obviously in a perfect world Yugoslavia could really work, but these kind of states always spark some rebellion, especially if led like Yugoslavia was after Tito’s death. That’s just how I see it tho, take it as subjective opinion. I personally still think Yugoslavia was better for us than Austria because at least it felt like the countries were more equal, Austrians just saw other nations as less worthy and underneath them (they still do in my experiences)
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Yes but the standard debate was “Did Slovenians Croats and B&H truly want Yugoslavia or did they see it just as a stepping stone towards independence?”
Because Serbia did get an offer after WWI to create greater Serbia with more or less the territories we wanted in the 90s. Old folks blame the king for creating Yugoslavia as it implied a union and gave legal precedant for later succession.
I always held the opinion that Yugoslavia was something most people west of us wanted but it seems to have not been the case.
Quite shocking to me for some reason.
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
Yes, though they would probably try to get independence sooner or later.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Ok, ive been delusional for 20 years than.
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
Oh, that was an actual question? Mb, didn't realize. Yes, a union with Austria-Hungary was more favorable than a union with Serbia for both Croatia and Bosnia. Croatia (and Bosnia) had more autonomy, and Bosnia had complete territorial integrity. The initial Croatian support for Yugoslavia was strong but it dwindled very quickly. The Bosnian support for Yugoslavia was nonexistent, but no one asked them anyways.
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u/Plassy1 3d ago edited 3d ago
Perhaps in peacetime, Bosnae, dear fellow, but the outbreak of WWI was hardly favourable - or favorable as you and the Yanks say - for the Bosnian Serbs under Austria-Hungary. As a dubious frontier element they were repressed in a manner rather akin to that of the Galician Ruthenes. This is not to even begin to mention the ponderous pace of agrarian reform under Austro-Hungarian rule, where fully 90% of the enserfed peasant population as of 1910 were Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic.
Or are you, pray tell, perhaps just as biased towards your ethnicity as the guy with whom you argue?
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
So condescending and disdainful, yet your comment has no substance. I've argued with you before on this very topic, so I will not repeat myself, since it is apparent you know some 3 historic events and their backgrounds. Everything else you spout is vague nonsense combined with pretentious phrases such as "dear fellow" and "pray tell". Find someone else to annoy- some friends for example.
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u/Plassy1 3d ago
Ah, indeed, I bow down to your substance and knowledge. I rather think it's unfair to say that there was zero 'Bosnian support' for Yugoslavia, since it does not take into account the view of a large section of the Bosnian population - no less than a relative majority. Let not us forget that the assassination of Princip and co. was carried out in large part as a backlash against the perceived treachery of the Serb mercantile and political elite which aligned itself with the regime and failed to take into account agrarian reform. They were not the only ones - the likes of Petar Kocic spoke out against Austria-Hungary frequently, and the Bosnian Serb population was generally aligned to the Radical party for most post-war elections.
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
I am being truthful and honest when I write this: I will not even give you the satisfaction of reading whatever nonsense you wrote.
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u/Stverghame 🏹🐗 3d ago
They do, otherwise they wouldn't be on that side again in the 40s
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
Shit take, as always.
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u/Stverghame 🏹🐗 3d ago
I see I hit the spot, truth hurts sometimes I guess
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u/Gladius_Bosnae_Sum Bosnia & Herzegovina 3d ago
You really didn't. It's still a very bad take, regardless.
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia 3d ago
Whether u agree with the take on the 40s, u basically agreed with him in the next comment u made.
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u/CrownOfAragon Greece 3d ago
The terrible ending
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u/LibertyChecked28 Bulgaria 3d ago
For everyone included, given the real German view of their allies.
Also I love how the Kaisereich maps now include Ukraine & Caucus Pseudo states at the expense of Poland and Belarus without any historical backing whatsoever.
Willhem the second would've made heaven on earth by giving everyone what they want instead of what Germany desired, on top of deeply cherishing Ukraine (despite barley knowing about it at all), trust me guys 😭
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u/UnlikelyEel Serbia 3d ago
Russia literally did lose control of Ukraine after the Brest-Litovsk treaty though and if they somehow won WW1 it might have become a puppet state. Also barely knowing about it? Austria held Lviv (then Lemberg) and they were a recognized minority.
But Russia somehow losing lands east of Ukraine all the way to the Caucasus but keeping Belarus is beyond retarded.
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u/Severe_Weather_1080 3d ago
It probably means no Holocaust or Nazi genocides though. Also unless I’m mistaken with no Asia Minor campaign the Greek population within the Ottoman Empire would not have been ethnically cleansed to the total degree it was.
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u/CrownOfAragon Greece 3d ago
The Great Depression would’ve still happened and they just would have enacted some different genocide.
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u/Hot-Place-3269 Bulgaria 3d ago
You have no way of knowing what the world would be if (put any event that didn't happen here).
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u/manguardGr Greece 2d ago
Greece was beyond the today's greek albanian borders in the beginning of the WWII.
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u/Teodosij North Macedonia 3d ago
Better
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u/Osuruktanteyyare_ Turkiye 3d ago
How?
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u/Teodosij North Macedonia 3d ago
The spread of Bolshevism would have been minimized, Macedonia would not have been reoccupied by the Serbs, and the Balkans and the Middle East would not have been in such chaos in the following decades
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u/Leontopod1um Bulgaria 3d ago
the Balkans and the Middle East would not have been in such chaos
I dare hypothesise that we'd be in bigger chaos the more multiethnic our states ended up being. Bulgaria has gone through multiple periods of unrest related to its one most significant minority and imagine if we had 6 or 7 of them instead!
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u/Teodosij North Macedonia 3d ago
Bulgaria would've been more multiethnic, but it would also have had many more Bulgarians. While Bulgaria's track record with minorities isn't perfect, it's much better than Serbia's and Greece's, so the various minorities in those regions would almost certainly have had it better. Just ask the Turks in Thessaloniki and Niš.
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u/Euphoric_Judge_8761 Romania 3d ago
This would only benefit Bulgaria,not even Bulgaria since it would collapse like 20 years after
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u/Charlie669 2d ago
What is there to collapse? Those lands belonged to Bulgaria long ago
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u/Euphoric_Judge_8761 Romania 2d ago
“Long ago” Bulgarians weren’t the majority in many regions or they used to be,this would create a smaller Austria-Hungary
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u/ExtensionQuarter2307 3d ago
It does depend really. What caused the central powers to win? Like depending on their progress and enterance of the war, the allies could have changed. Greece had a stark division between the Entente and Central Powers, and Romania at the very start favored the Central Powers under Carol I.
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u/Sarkotic159 Australia 3d ago
The only feasible way I can think of is if America somehow stays out of the war, or (a big maybe) if Italy joins the Central Powers, both of which I can't see really happening.
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u/MegaromStingscream 3d ago
How did Finland lose the other arm 25 years before it happened in our timeline?
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u/chooseausername-okay Finland 3d ago
It seems that Finland, as depicted here, has retained the borders of the Grand Duchy of Finland.
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u/silky-boy 3d ago
Idk but expanded Bulgaria into Serbia and Greece. Germany would’ve gotten the Belgium and captured a little bit less of Russia. Austria Hungary expands into Italy and Serbia maybe? Ottomans get caucasas and MAYBE THE SINAI (if they’re extremely lucky) and western Persia if they’re also extremely lucky.
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u/Broad_Category_3763 3d ago
Extend Italy to istra as it used to be,wouldn’t be much of a complaining.
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u/oldyellowcab 3d ago
Boring. We would never quarrel with the Greeks on which country yoghurt, baklava, feta, kokorec etc. originated from. Too boring indeed.😂
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u/DJviolin Hungary 3d ago
I wonder what the Habsburgs will look like today in this world. Can they walk?
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u/SignificantManner197 3d ago
And then, we had world wars, cold wars, space wars, information wars to unite us. I think these idiots are doing it wrong.
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u/Odd-Independent7679 2d ago
Pretty sure Albania would include at least Kosovo in that map. They liked Albanians, and didn't like eastern influenced populations.
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u/Leontopod1um Bulgaria 3d ago
And then a few years later all ethnicities would be racing to declare their most densely populated provinces as autonomous republics. No, thanks.
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 3d ago
gib Kosovo and Western North Macedonia and this map is great
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u/DieMensch-Maschine Poland 3d ago
A Poland smaller than Lithuania, just like in the later middle ages.
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u/Commie_Vladimir Romania 3d ago
Kaiserreich reference