WI:WWI Stalemate continues
- Thread starter Mosshadow
- Start date
Plausible if the US stays out in 1917. It could lead to a negotiated peace in the West (the Eastern Front is settled), or if it drags on long enough into successful communist revolutions in France and Germany, though they may not be friendly with the Bolsheviks.
Generaloberst
Banned
Both sides fully expected that one or the other would fold, at the very most. By 1920.
Probably sooner than that.
This is the basic problem. Sooner or later someone has to fold, and the chances of both sides collapsing simultaneously are pretty remote.
BlondieBC
Banned
Yes, but it takes a series of POD. If the USA still joins, then we need a series of Buff to help the CP, but not enough for the CP to win by 1917. If we keep the USA out, we need to find ways to nerf the CP so we don't get a quick win.
And to be fair, fighting continued in the east (Russia) until 1921, and the last fighting among powers was 1923 (UK, Greece, Turkey), so in many ways, the war did not end on Nov 11, 1918
It was the PoD of my TL "The Republics of Britain" with both sides agreeing to an "honourable peace" owing to troubles at home i.e Red Clydside and the Spartacists, both of which are bloodier conflicts than OTL but both unsuccessful. (later continued in the TL in my sig). The war continuing into 1919 also lead to less intervention in the Russian civil war and a larger/more expansionist USSR.
The PoD with these was no unrestricted sub warfare leading to the USA not entering, as mentioned above.
The PoD with these was no unrestricted sub warfare leading to the USA not entering, as mentioned above.
How about a POD of Russia decides that to preserve the Monarchy they wiill be no offensives in 1916. 1916 is about recovery, we hold the line everywhere. No Lake Naroch or Brusilov offensives or even Armenian offensives.
So
1) Falkenhayn remains in power, no Hindenburg economic plan so Germany a bit better off economically
2) Rommania remains neutral and sells grain and oil to CP
3) Less losses for Russia, Austria, Germany, a bit more for France, Italy, Britain in 1916
4) With Falkenhyn still in power no unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917
5) With the west blocked after Verdun and the Somme and not wishing to provoke the now sleeping Russian bear, Germany attacks only in Italy in 1917 in a big attack, Italians retreat to the Po (but cover Milan).
6) Greece remains neutral
7) Blockade looser with USA neutral, Germany uses a few subs to get a small quanity of the most strategic of supplies. USA Belgian relief supplies continue.
8) The German repulse the occasional British/French offensive as in OTL, everntually the French mutiny and can't contine the offensives.
9) Without unrestricted submarine warfare there is less desire to take the Flanders bases so the British reduce offensive activity, building up a force of tanks and planes and trying the occasional Cambrai style offensive to test new tactics.
10) Big Allied offensives are not really possible anyway to due financial restrictions imposed by no USA involvement.
11) Allies just try to continue the blockade and hold the line, hoping the Germany will continue to collapse.
12) No Russian revolution ever occurs, but Russia doesn't really do much.
13) Talks about peace occur from time to time but parties can't agree.
1920 rolls around. Everyone tired of war. Peace agreed.
So
1) Falkenhayn remains in power, no Hindenburg economic plan so Germany a bit better off economically
2) Rommania remains neutral and sells grain and oil to CP
3) Less losses for Russia, Austria, Germany, a bit more for France, Italy, Britain in 1916
4) With Falkenhyn still in power no unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917
5) With the west blocked after Verdun and the Somme and not wishing to provoke the now sleeping Russian bear, Germany attacks only in Italy in 1917 in a big attack, Italians retreat to the Po (but cover Milan).
6) Greece remains neutral
7) Blockade looser with USA neutral, Germany uses a few subs to get a small quanity of the most strategic of supplies. USA Belgian relief supplies continue.
8) The German repulse the occasional British/French offensive as in OTL, everntually the French mutiny and can't contine the offensives.
9) Without unrestricted submarine warfare there is less desire to take the Flanders bases so the British reduce offensive activity, building up a force of tanks and planes and trying the occasional Cambrai style offensive to test new tactics.
10) Big Allied offensives are not really possible anyway to due financial restrictions imposed by no USA involvement.
11) Allies just try to continue the blockade and hold the line, hoping the Germany will continue to collapse.
12) No Russian revolution ever occurs, but Russia doesn't really do much.
13) Talks about peace occur from time to time but parties can't agree.
1920 rolls around. Everyone tired of war. Peace agreed.
Sure, but it wasn't necessary to wage USW against American ships in order to achieve this.
The limiting factor on the early subs was their supply of torpedoes. They generally went home when they ran out of these. So if a u-boat ran into five American merchantmen in the course of a tour, but didn't torpedo them, this just meant it had five more torpedoes to use against British or other ships instead. So the total tonnage sunk would be little changed if at all.
Broadly there's two scenarios:
Scenario 1: US does not join the war, but still extends unsecured credit to Entente. Result: In 1919 Germany either folds or collapses due to Blockade.
Scenario 2: US does not join war and also stops extending credits once loans cannot be secured any longer. Result: Entente folds or runs out of stuff before Blockade brings down Germany.
However there's to consider that the people in charge back then did not have the benefit of hindsight nor a full realistic appraisal of the situation. They made their choices based on what they thought things looked like.
For example I could see Germany winning even if the US still extends credit by a combination of:
a) non-unrestricted submarine warfare
b) the Entente decision makers not knowing that despite Russia throwing the towel Germany is still doomed to eventual defeat due to the Blockade. Therefore they decided they need to launch one final war-winning offensive before "Massive German reinforcements" arrive from the east. After which the Germans then can launch an alt-version of Operation Michael against the demoralized and depleted Entente armies.
Probably followed by France asking for terms given how close they came to panic in OTL.
Likewise it's just as possible for the Central Powers to do something stupid in Scenario 2.
However either way I don't believe "white peace by exhaustion" is realistic. Looking at is dispassionately is is, but not when taking in the human factor into the equation.
Scenario 1: US does not join the war, but still extends unsecured credit to Entente. Result: In 1919 Germany either folds or collapses due to Blockade.
Scenario 2: US does not join war and also stops extending credits once loans cannot be secured any longer. Result: Entente folds or runs out of stuff before Blockade brings down Germany.
However there's to consider that the people in charge back then did not have the benefit of hindsight nor a full realistic appraisal of the situation. They made their choices based on what they thought things looked like.
For example I could see Germany winning even if the US still extends credit by a combination of:
a) non-unrestricted submarine warfare
b) the Entente decision makers not knowing that despite Russia throwing the towel Germany is still doomed to eventual defeat due to the Blockade. Therefore they decided they need to launch one final war-winning offensive before "Massive German reinforcements" arrive from the east. After which the Germans then can launch an alt-version of Operation Michael against the demoralized and depleted Entente armies.
Probably followed by France asking for terms given how close they came to panic in OTL.
Likewise it's just as possible for the Central Powers to do something stupid in Scenario 2.
However either way I don't believe "white peace by exhaustion" is realistic. Looking at is dispassionately is is, but not when taking in the human factor into the equation.
Grey Wolf
Donor
1919 would see Germany planning and managing the harvests in the East, in co-operation with nationalist regimes. Also, Ludendorff was supporting Yudenich etc to try to take Petrograd from the Bolsheviks
No US entry increases the threat of labour unrest and social revolt in Britain and France. Keeping Italy in the war is going to have been exhausting, with no US aid. Beating back Michael and holding the Front again.
Sure, food shortages are bad in Germany, but there is promise of more from the East, and in OTL the worst civil unrest occurred when it became clear the Western Front was collapsing
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
No US entry increases the threat of labour unrest and social revolt in Britain and France. Keeping Italy in the war is going to have been exhausting, with no US aid. Beating back Michael and holding the Front again.
Sure, food shortages are bad in Germany, but there is promise of more from the East, and in OTL the worst civil unrest occurred when it became clear the Western Front was collapsing
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
RamscoopRaider
Donor
The Pandemic is pretty much agreed to have started in Army Camps in the Continental US from what I recall, so no US entry, no overcrowded army camps full of recruits and no influenza pandemic
Generaloberst
Banned
IIRC, the Entente was already at the breaking point, and only the entry of the United States stopped their collapse.
On scenerio 2: the Allies could just shut down any offensives on the western front in 1917 (but that might be a good thing for the Allies, i.e. less losses).
They could shut down any offensives in Palestine or Iraq and even evacuate Salonika (Greece hasn't declared war yet on the Central Powers). This should reduce the strain on shipping.
On the eastern front, without USA aid promises and less British artillery and military supplies shipped in via the Murmansk railway, perhaps the Kerensky offensive doesn't happen (but could this allow the Kerensky government to survive?, at least allowing the Russian army to be at least nominally on the side of the Allies longer. Maybe instead of shipping military supplies in on the newly completed Murmansk railway, food is shipped in instead averting a revolution.)
If Japan thought her gains threatened, could she kick in more to the Allied war effort at this point. Some divisions for the western front???
(Of course Germany has much more reserves and less conflcting obligations which might mean trouble for Italy in late 1917)
So maybe the Allies find a way to survive, the Germans don't offer any reasonable peace terms the Allies would accept, the Germans start launching offensives which eventually have to spend themselves out at some point. Even if the Germans did better than OTL 1918, can we really see Paris falling? Is France ever going to agree to the Germans having the Briery basin, Belfort or such places the Germans will surely ask for? Is Britain ever going to settle for German domination of Europe and German submarine bases in Africa?
I am a firm believer that the Allies have to do absolutely awful to lose after September 1914. That any bad situation has butterflies that mitigate things for the Allies. It might take until 1920, but Britain, all the dominions, France with its colonial empire, Japan and Italy just have to win or at least force something close to a tie, because the alternative (a German dominated Europe) just can't be allowed to happen.
#1 is not going to happen, before the US entered wilson and the fed already advised the banks against supplying more credit (and this was secured!), so unsecured is not gonna happen.
Indeed - as late as Summer 1918, after the failure of the German offensives, The Imperial War Cabinet was discussing how many divisions Germany would have in December 1919 (!!). They estimated 170, as against 36 British, 65 French and 112 American. There was no mention at all of Germany collapsing due to the blockade.
FTM not much was said about it on the German side either. The Memoirs of Prince Max of Baden contain accounts of several Cabinet meetings in October 1918, where various concerns were discussed - notably tanks and American strength - but only passing reference to the blockade as causing "hardship in working class areas". They seemed to have considered it the least of their worries.
Also, of course, without US participation it would in any case have been quite a bit weaker than OTL. The Northern Neutrals, the biggest leak in it, did most of their importing from America, so US belligerency meant that their supplies could be controlled at source. It was only then that the blockade became really watertight.
Agreed. Neither side will compromise until they despair of winning - and then it will be too late.
Certainly we can - though possibly in the same sense that Cologne and other Rhineland cities "fell" after the OTL Armistice.
Zabecki gives a good discussion of this in The German 1918 Offensives. Despite all of Ludendorff's blunders, the Germans came within a whisker of knocking out the BEF's supply system by capturing the irreplaceable railway junctions at Amiens and Hazebrouck. And though he emphasises it less, this would also have meant the loss of the coal mines bear Bethune, which (if Haig can be believed) supplied 70% the fuel for the munitions plants supplying the French armies. In short, only slightly greater German success in March/April would deprive the French of British support while simultaneously causing their ammunition supplies to dry up. Sounds pretty terminal to me, especially absent American support.
Was Germany going to "agree" to the surrender of Alsace or Posen? FTM had Russia, earlier in the year, been agreeable to surrendering the Baltic States or the Ukraine? If defeated there wouldn't be a choice.