TL Idea: Different Ending to WWI

This is a random idea I've been thinking about for a while. It's not very well thought-out, but I would like some input.

The POD is that due to various factors in the US, Charles Evans Hughes wins the 1916 Presidential Elections on a platform of staying out of the Great War and not giving out loans to any European states that can't provide collateral. The US remains neutral, also.


One of the main effects of the ending of loans to the Entente is that the Nivelle Offensive is delayed until July 1917, as it takes the French and British a somewhat longer to gather up the supplies and money that they need to finance it. The British pull some of their troops out of the Sinai to prepare for the offensive.

When the Nivelle Offensive begins, it coincides with the Kerensky Offensive on the Eastern Front. Now, in OTL Ludendorff himself speculated that if the two offensives had happened simultaneously, Germany would have collapsed between the combined onslaught, unable to deal with two full-scale offensives at once. So ITTL, during the Nivelle-Kerensky Offensive, Germany loses big and begins to slowly cave in, although faster on the east.

In August 1917 (AIOTL), the French focus more on getting Austria-Hungary out of the war with a separate peace (as they did in OTL). They offer more concessions to Austria and less setbacks, which causes A-H to sign peace in August. The French had an ulterior motive for doing this: they wanted to prop up a more powerful Austria to serve as a breakwater for Germany and any possible threats from Russia.

So Austria is out and Germany is collapsing, but what about the Ottoman Empire? ITTL, Allenby remains commanding the British Third Army in France, and is not appointed to the British army in Palestine. Murray remains commanding a reduced army, which is defeated at the Third Battle of Gaza. This leads to the Ottomans retaking the Sinai and threatening the Suez Canal.

Since most of the British soldiers are tied up in the Nivelle Offensive and there are few to spare, they can't do much about the Ottomans in the Sinai. So the British request an armistice which basically amounts to a white peace, with a few changes (Iraq back under the Ottomans, Western Thrace to the Ottomans, and the Dardanelles to Greece.

So by the time the dust settles, Germany is gone, but A-H and the Ottomans have survived. The Russian Provisional Government is much stronger, and there is no Wilson to screw up the post-war treaties.

So what do you think? Plausible, implausible, ASB, somewhere in between? Keep in mind that 75% of this I made up while writing this post, so bear with me. :eek:
I'm kind of split with the Ottomans though, do you think that after defeating Germany the British would be more likely to go after them?
 
I think that Hughes could not have kept the US neutral for long. Much like Wilson he would have had to act against the German renewal of their unrestricted submarine campaign and exactly how is he to ignore the Zimmerman Telegram?
 
I think that Hughes could not have kept the US neutral for long. Much like Wilson he would have had to act against the German renewal of their unrestricted submarine campaign and exactly how is he to ignore the Zimmerman Telegram?
He could be convinced by the British that the Zimmerman telegram was a forgery... because IIRC for a while the British thought it was such. Maybe the Germans realize that the tension can be diffused and do not admit it was real?

I probably should have gone into the first part in more detail. The actual POD involves Mexico, and Pancho Villa. The way to keep the US out of the war like I had planned was to have them focus their efforts on Mexico instead.
 
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