Take out WWI, and the Soviet Union never comes about. Hitler never comes to power. No WWII. Nuclear weapons aren't invented (or at the least, delayed). No Holocaust. No Korean War, no Vietnam War. You basically take out a bunch of the bad stuff of the past 90-odd years just by taking out WWI.
It's the problem of history, really; redrawing Europes map in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, and a century of dancing around the consequences to avoid another major war, made some form of the Great War inevitable. The pressure was never relieved, it just built with each attempt to contain it, until it exploded.
Without the Great War the tensions that led to the Bolshevik Revolution are still present; they'd been festering in Russia for some time before 1914, already having resulted in the assassination of a Czar and the exile of Lenin well before war broke out in Europe. That comes to a head sooner or later, too; the absence of the Great War might mean the White Army wins the Russian civil war due to greater Western aid, but the problems remain, and the fact is Russia was plenty autocratic even before Stalin, so the same Cold War might have resulted, only slightly mitigated by the debt the Czars owed the west for keeping them on the throne. And, yeah, nuclear weapons are just the inevitable march of science; had America not used them it's entirely possible WWII would've lasted long enough for Japan to develop them, a big game changer.
The thing is, though, that WWI caused a lot of these things to happen sooner. While they still might have happened, WWI was the powder keg that set them off.
Had the problems been addressed, seriously and fairly addressed, after 1848 the Great War might have been avoided. Until that happened some form of large scale conflict among all the injured and injuring parties was just a matter of time, but sometimes that timing is important. Imagine it had been delayed until the '30s, or the '40s, or the '50s. Trench warfare, chemical warfare, artillery and machine guns directed at the "human waves" these are all terrible--but what if we delay it until the atom is split...?
Maybe it WAS inevitable; Europe DID manage German and Italian integration before the Great War, but the problems stemming from the first Islamic military push across the Bosporus remained (and largely still do, which is the biggest reason I think admitting Turkey to the EU before dealing with them is, to use a term now associated with an earlier form of the same conflict, "MADNESS!" ) The Sick Man was a well known problem in Europe long before the Great War, but the solution was less well known.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!

LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
I know I just did a survey, but this was too good to pass up.
- 07/04/2010 12:44:15 AM
864 Views
Myself: World War I.
- 07/04/2010 12:45:57 AM
737 Views
I don't think it's that simple.
- 07/04/2010 12:57:16 AM
687 Views
I see your point.
- 07/04/2010 01:02:33 AM
681 Views
Sometimes sooner is better than later.
- 07/04/2010 01:10:11 AM
661 Views
True, one might even say *adding* a war there would've improved things.
- 07/04/2010 01:36:07 AM
642 Views
Re: True, one might even say *adding* a war there would've improved things.
- 07/04/2010 10:48:49 AM
650 Views
I had a teacher with an interesting theory related to that
- 07/04/2010 12:57:49 AM
528 Views
Well, at this time, it was pretty well accepted that Russia wasn't exactly a techinical power.
- 07/04/2010 01:04:35 AM
484 Views
The Plague
- 07/04/2010 12:52:33 AM
619 Views
Re: The Plague
- 07/04/2010 01:05:35 AM
514 Views
He must be talking about a different plague, but I'm not sure which one, either. *NM*
- 07/04/2010 01:37:32 AM
392 Views
Maybe; there were episodic plague epidemics before and after that time.
- 07/04/2010 02:05:18 AM
677 Views
I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague
- 07/04/2010 02:50:25 AM
619 Views
Re: I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague
- 07/04/2010 08:45:26 PM
611 Views
I'm so glad you have the time and inclination to type up these replies.
*NM*
- 08/04/2010 07:09:22 AM
390 Views
*NM*
- 08/04/2010 07:09:22 AM
390 Views
...?
- 08/04/2010 07:51:14 PM
526 Views
Sounds like he was thanking you for saving him the effort of writing a similar reply. *NM*
- 08/04/2010 09:28:55 PM
410 Views
OK, think this one's been pretty thoroughly covered in my absence.
- 13/04/2010 11:51:16 AM
677 Views
- 13/04/2010 11:51:16 AM
677 Views
The spread of Christianity
- 07/04/2010 12:55:29 AM
696 Views
Re: The spread of Christianity
- 08/04/2010 09:29:17 AM
534 Views
But wasn't Christianity the inspiration for a whole era of art? *NM*
- 08/04/2010 01:41:34 PM
483 Views
Re: But wasn't Christianity the inspiration for a whole era of art?
- 08/04/2010 01:44:36 PM
664 Views
The product of Christian inspiration was heavily Hellenistic in origin...
- 08/04/2010 07:54:12 PM
510 Views
The destruction of the Great Library.
- 07/04/2010 01:02:59 AM
591 Views
Internet spam sucks indeed.
- 07/04/2010 01:08:23 AM
690 Views
We'll never know; makes for fascinating speculative fiction.
- 07/04/2010 01:13:49 AM
643 Views
This whole topic is wild, it's something I sometimes think about.
- 07/04/2010 01:17:50 AM
627 Views
"Joel captures Alexandria! The Great Library is destroyed!" *NM*
- 07/04/2010 01:08:35 AM
261 Views
It's crazy to think that the human knowledge base doubles every 2 years...
- 07/04/2010 08:49:28 PM
486 Views
Literacy and communication have literally made a world of difference.
- 13/04/2010 09:25:45 AM
571 Views
if the giant meteor hadn't destroyed the dinosaurs...
- 07/04/2010 01:10:42 AM
554 Views
"FOR" global warming? Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd here!
- 07/04/2010 01:16:04 AM
473 Views
The spread of Islam
- 07/04/2010 01:26:11 AM
652 Views
oh aren't you clever. *NM*
- 07/04/2010 01:47:13 AM
370 Views
There's such a thing as being right for the wrong reasons, though I'm not sure he is.
- 07/04/2010 02:12:14 AM
469 Views
Wikipedia is of course not a scholarly source, but all the same...
- 07/04/2010 11:57:01 AM
623 Views
Fair enough.
- 07/04/2010 12:51:16 PM
613 Views
Re: The spread of Islam
- 08/04/2010 09:24:31 AM
687 Views
I...do not know.
- 07/04/2010 07:18:13 AM
523 Views
A lot of times, you change one thing, and everything changes- even the things you don't think about.
- 07/04/2010 12:26:51 PM
485 Views
Amusing that the underlying expectation seems to be more along political history lines
- 07/04/2010 12:56:49 PM
708 Views
Here's one that'll be more to your liking...
- 08/04/2010 10:40:53 AM
459 Views
Re: Here's one that'll be more to your liking...
- 08/04/2010 11:58:27 AM
493 Views
Uh...
- 08/04/2010 12:11:14 PM
653 Views
Re: Uh...
- 08/04/2010 12:15:20 PM
670 Views
The Devil is always in the details
- 08/04/2010 12:29:25 PM
614 Views
- 08/04/2010 12:29:25 PM
614 Views
Re: The Devil is always in the details
- 08/04/2010 12:32:34 PM
403 Views
- 08/04/2010 12:32:34 PM
403 Views
Not really
- 08/04/2010 01:07:57 PM
573 Views
Re: Not really
- 08/04/2010 01:10:16 PM
491 Views
Only to a degree
- 08/04/2010 01:27:22 PM
588 Views
Re: Only to a degree
- 08/04/2010 01:30:12 PM
700 Views
I was into cultural and religious history
- 08/04/2010 01:38:24 PM
595 Views
Re: I was into cultural and religious history
- 08/04/2010 01:41:31 PM
466 Views
Ha!
- 08/04/2010 01:49:23 PM
624 Views
- 08/04/2010 01:49:23 PM
624 Views
Re: Ha!
- 08/04/2010 01:51:28 PM
449 Views
- 08/04/2010 01:51:28 PM
449 Views
Since, surprisingly, no one's pointed it out yet, prehistory/=history.
- 13/04/2010 09:52:19 AM
594 Views
Re: I know I just did a survey, but this was too good to pass up.
- 07/04/2010 09:04:02 PM
494 Views
Science getting on the ball in the 40's and making superhumans *NM*
- 08/04/2010 05:31:34 AM
421 Views
The spread of peanut butter and jelly.
- 08/04/2010 07:12:21 AM
643 Views
I think two spreads that would be better to eliminate would be marmite and vegemite (sp).
- 08/04/2010 05:30:26 PM
609 Views
- 08/04/2010 05:30:26 PM
609 Views
The head of [Roman Catholic] Christianity.
- 08/04/2010 07:15:21 AM
600 Views
You completely missed the "pick 1" part of the question, didn't you? *NM*
- 08/04/2010 09:26:23 AM
377 Views
Well, techinically, I never said that you couldn't make multible posts, each discussing 1 thing. *NM*
- 08/04/2010 05:36:37 PM
351 Views
I'm fairly sure he was just mocking someone's earlier post "just thought it would be interesting..." *NM*
- 08/04/2010 08:06:56 PM
354 Views
I'm pretty sure of that too. *NM*
- 08/04/2010 08:33:46 PM
358 Views


