Dilandu wrote:It require an improbable amount of coincidences, which is not impossible, but highly improbable. Basically what you are suggesting the common alternate history problem, known as "hyperdeterminism".
The hyperdeterminism is basically the attempt to claim "except for required changes everything else would went as usual". It's like (for example) author described the world where the American Revolution in XVIII century failed and North America remained British, but in the later half XX century there is a cold war between British Empire,led by Prime Minister John Kennedy, and Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khrushev. Which is very improbable, because with such large divergence point so early, the history of XIX and XX century would be completely changed, the real causes of Cold War and Soviet Union existence would be eliminated, and Khrushev and Kennedy would never actually be born, since the pattern of human interactions would be completely changed.
I completely agree with the above in general but in the specific case of WW1, the Eastern front, the Tsarist collapse, the Bolshevik coup and then successful hold on power, things are simpler:
- roughly speaking in WW1, Germany fought the Anglo-French forces to a stalemate after some initial successes, the Russians trounced the Austrian Empire forces (and the Turks too, so they had successes to compensate for the massive defeats against Germany in late 1914, 1915 and 1917) and the Germans trounced the Russians, while economically, England and Germany were in (relatively) best shape even in 1918, France held on, while the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia were in worst shape
- while overshadowed by the immense human losses of WW2, Russia actually lost a lot of soldiers (in millions) in both casualties and prisoners (who later formed the core of the Red Army after Brest Litovsk) - Great Britain and France lost considerably fewer people in WW2 (for example I just visited the noted Scottish war memorial "cathedral" in Edinburgh Castle and there were over 200k Scots who died in WW1 and some 40k in WW2), so it's no wonder that WW1 is much more vivid there from that point of view, but Russia and Germany for that matter, suffered greatly too, but much less than in WW2, so there that war is more vivid
- Lenin was unquestionably the driving force of the Bolshevik takeover and while the Tsarist empire collapsed due to defeat, nobody knows what would have happened if for example dismissing as highly unlikely the Lenin play to take Russia out of the war (as the Provisional Government dutifully fought on; badly true but not worse than in 1915 say and given Russia's immense population and territorial reserves that was enough), the Germans wouldn't have allowed Lenin to pass through their territories (from Switzerland) and provided him with a lot of money to jump-start the Bolshevik agitation when in Russia - this doesn't mean that Lenin was a German agent as some implied, just that his and Germany's interests were common for a while at least
- the peace of Brest Litovsk, while unquestionably unsustainable even in the medium run, gave the Bolsheviks (and like with everything about them, even the name was a propaganda lie as the SR were by far the most popular left-wing party and even the Mensheviks were more popular) 2 crucial things - time to consolidate their hold on power after the coup and trained officers coming from German captivity (so highly disgusted with the largely incompetent Tsarist high command and superior officers that led them to those shattering defeats and captivity) to form the core of the Red Army
- the decision of the German high command to stake everything on the Spring Offensive of 1918 was due to the entry of America in the war and the realization that the material forces changed dramatically (America's resources and population trumped Russia's surrender plus the Bolsheviks were untrustful anyway, while any other government replacing them would have denounced the peace treaty, so considerable forces had to be kept in the east to enforce Brest Litovsk, not to mention that the Germans were ready to launch an attack against the Bolshevik government a few times in 1918 for various reasons); and even so the Germans were successful for a while, until they met the full force of the Anglo-French armies, full force that could be deployed only because ~1 million USA soldiers were in France to guard their backs
So overall, assume WW1 goes as usual (its start had nothing to do with America really) but the USA doesn't enter the war (for example Teddy Roosevelt is a historically successful but failing in health and fairly unpopular President in 1917 after winning elections in 1908, 1912 and then 1916, last due to WW1 and him regarded as the only one to lead the USA in this perilous times or Germany doesn't go the unrestricted submarine warfare way etc - here lots of scenarios can be envisioned), Russia collapses, Brest Litovsk is signed but Germany has the time to fully exploit it, rather than rush all in a mad gamble...
