The convoys wouldn't have been formed without the Americans in the war. It was the presence of the USN which made the Admiralty feel comfortable enough to spare the shipping and escorts for it
A German-aligned USA and a British-aligned CSA is more likely than vice versa, especially if the British were the primary means for the CSA to win its independence in the first place
So I found an archive version of this and was able to download a zip, but they are all sbx, shp, dbf, prj files which don't seem to open in QGIS. How were you able to get it to work?
https://web.archive.org/web/20210731221637/https://web.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/pub.php?id=51
I forget the name, but Ludendorff had a plan developed for intervening in Russia with a very large force after a successful Spring Offensive in the West. I expect that the Kaiser and Hindenburg would rubberstamp the plan. Because Germany would have a large, land border with the Russians, I think...
According to the Septeberprogramme, the Germans wanted to bring the Dutch in their sphere of influence with "close economic cooperation". Keep in mind though that many German nationalists wanted to bring the Dutch into the Empire as a constituent state. I can imagine you will have some...
Again, it really all comes down to how the war breaks out. It is definitely possible that Stolypin gets his way and successfully makes the case that since France was the original aggressor, Russia is not treaty-bound to join the war.
Because of Stolypin and the Conservatives: under Stolypin you had the greatest moment of German-Russian détente. This was reflected in the Morocco Crisis where Russia, in stark contrast to Britain, pursued a more reserved and conciliatory policy. It is entirely possible that the Russians stay...
Briey was only 6km from the German border. Longwy, 13km. Neither are particularly defensible. There is no reason to doubt German ability or desire to capture them.
Having an additional 170,000 troops more or less trained and ready by the start of the war is a big deal: it was also seen as such by the German General Staff. But even so, the point remains that the steep rise in Franco-Russian military funding between 1911 and 1914 certainly improved their...
I suspect that a German government set on war in 1911 will also go for such last minute shipments to tide them over.
Diedenhofen was the third best protected city in Elsaß-Lothringen, right behind Metz and Straßburg. The same cannot be said for the also important French mines in Briey and Longwy.
Britain will back the French to the Hilt, yes, but it is by no means clear or inevitable that you'd see British troops on the ground in France or a general mobilization of the Empire.
The Germans would certainly have less fortress killer artillery, but not none. They still have the 21cm, 28cm...