alternatehistory.com

…Every schoolchild knows why the US entered WWI; President Wilson screwed things up. Honor Roll students will explain further, Wilson convinced the Germans that the United States would enter the War on the Entente side, therefore the Germans launched unrestricted submarine attacks and to try to ally with Mexico. While not wholly inaccurate it does not tell the whole truth either. Like modern orthodox historiography it tends to be overly generous to the Germans of the period…

…In truth American public opinion started off sympathetic to the Central Powers. The gruesome imagery from the bombing of the Archduke’s limousine, as well as the collateral damage when assassin Nedeljko Čabrinović blew himself up to avoid capture made an impression on the American people through newspapers.

This sympathy was not to last. German actions in Belgium, motivated by a desire to avoid attacks on their rear area by irregular troops known as franc-tireurs, as seen in the Franco-Prussian War, proved fodder for Entente Propaganda. The British had cut off direct German communications with America via their control of undersea cables leaving their narrative to become dominant. Accounts of rape, murder, arson, looting and torture filled the British press, each more lurid that the last, and almost all aimed at an American audience. While some incidents assuredly did happen, such as the burning of Louvain, the vast majority were found in the 1920’s to be fabrications of Entente propaganda, but this was not known at the time.

Cases like that of Edith Cavell, a British Nurse who was executed for aiding 200 Entente soldiers in escaping Belgium and returning to the fight, were publicized and lionized, even when a postwar British investigation would later regard the verdict in her case as legally correct. Another case was that of a Canadian soldier supposedly found crucified by the Germans at the battle of Ypres, of which the only evidence is of contradictory eyewitness accounts. All these and more seeped into the American psyche and shifted public sympathy against the Central Powers…

…At sea, the Germans began a policy of attacking Entente merchant vessels without warning in a declared area around the British Isles in February. While not true Unrestricted submarine warfare as would later be seen, it was different that the cruiser rules of previous conflicts that were championed by Britain and elements in the US Government; rules intended for sailing ships in the 18th century, not submarines in the 20th . Incidents involving the vessels Falaba, Cushing and Gulflight, along with the sinking of the Liner Lapland with the 500 dead including 30 Americans, caused Wilson to respond forcefully to the Germans, as Americans were dying and a neutral American vessel, the Gulflight, had been torpedoed. Germany apologized for the Gulflight incident, and the U-Boat in question was found by the British to have behaved as under cruiser rules, with the attack partly due to the British escort, though this was not published at the time.

US response to the situation was a forceful protest aimed solely at Germany. US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was vigorously opposed to this, believing that Americans were traveling at their own risk and that the German apology for the Gulflight incident was sufficient. In June he was forced to resign and replaced by Robert Lansing, upon whose advice Wilson based his response. While Lansing in private believed that the logical and fair response to be an embargo of military goods against both sides, but Lansing thought that would harm the US Economy which was selling so much to the Entente. Lansing would shape much of what Wilson actually did over the next few years with regards to the Great War…

…Perhaps the biggest part of the issue was the incompetence of the German Diplomacy. The German Embassy in the United States, after the first few months of the war, devoted the majority of its clandestine efforts to sabotage, rather than propaganda. Arms were bought and an attempt was made to ship them to revolutionaries in India. A Factory, Bridge and Merchant ship were blown up in early 1915. A plot was made to divert phenol from explosive manufacturing, which incidentally helped permanently associate Bayer with Aspirin. Finally, in July 1916 there was the infamous Black Tom explosion which injured hundreds and damaged the Statue of Liberty. There was even a plot to recruit an army of 600,000 cowboys to attack Canada; it is telling that more time was spent discussing whether cowboy outfits counted as uniforms rather than the practicality of the plan. Of course, besides sabotage the German embassy staff was up to other things, a photo of the ambassador with two scantily dressed ladies surfaced in late 1916, and at least one staffer was found to have somehow contracted syphilis.

When German officials did comment, these often did not help. Rather than apologizing or downplaying their actions, the Germans attempted to justify them in legalistic or nationalistic terms. German propaganda aimed at neutrals was often simply that aimed at a domestic audience with certain points downplayed or ignored, thus was less effective than possible. The slogan “work, order, duty,” did not resonate nearly as well with Americans as with Germans, especially when compared with the Entente’s “liberty, equality, fraternity”. Events that could have made useful propaganda, such as the French execution of two German nurses in a mirror of the Edith Cavell case, were purposefully ignored.

In all during the key early phases of the war the Germans proved lousy at manipulating American PR…


-Excerpt from Why did they do THAT!?! Historical Madness in Context: Volume III, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2015



…The Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive began on May 1st, 1915 and ended on June 20th. It was launched to relieve pressure on Austria-Hungary before Italian intervention. With the Western Front quiet the Germans thought that they could employ their reserves in the east without issue. August von Mackensen was placed at the head of the newly formed German 11th Army and Austrian 4th, with the Austrian Second and Third to attack in support in the Carpathians. German heavy artillery supported by airborne spotters allowed them to silence Russian guns while the light artillery supported the advance. Attacking on a 25 mile front the Germans quickly broke through and they and the Austrians began a broad front advance.

Russian attempts to stop this proved catastrophic, two divisions were annihilated without any word getting back to headquarters. Other formations were sent in with limited equipment, with some soldiers only having clubs, in a desperate attempt to stem the tide. This did not work and by May 8th the Germans and Austrians had achieved all their objectives. A further objective of the San river was achieved on May 16th. The Germans and Austrians then paused to sort out logistics before launching the next attack on June 10th. The target was Lemberg, the Galacian capital, and Mackensen’s forces took it on the 20th, after the Russians had abandoned it on the 19th. The Russians had taken 350,000 casualties, a quarter million of which were captured, while the Central Powers had taken substantially less than half that.

At this point Conrad and Hindenburg proposed a grand encirclement to surround and destroy the Russian Armies in Poland. This was refused by Von Falkenhayn on grounds of logistics. Instead a broad front offensive would be launched to push the Russian back.

On July 10th, this offensive was launched. Despite heavy casualties to certain units, by day 4 the Germans and Austrians had advanced 100 miles in some places and forced the Russians to start a general retreat. This quickly became the Russian Great Retreat. By early August Congress Poland had fallen. In mid-September when the Central Powers had to halt due to exhaustion, the front ran on a line of Riga-Jakobstadt-Duenaburg-Baranovichi-Pinsk-Dubno-Ternopil.

Following ineffectual Russian counter attacks a smaller attack by Mackensen’s Army group in the South was launched in October. When they stopped at the end of the Month the from exhaustion and to avoid the onset of winter the front was pushed back to Pinsk-Rovno-Proskurov-Kamenets Podolski.

In total the Russians suffered 1.7 Million casualties in the Great retreat, of which over a million were captured. The Central Powers suffered about 450,000 in comparison. Vast amounts of irreplaceable equipment was lost and Russian morale was shattered. Any lesser country would have been destroyed, and the Central Powers even asked the Danes to host a Peace Conference. But Russia remained in the war, Czar Nicholas would not make a separate peace and chose to sack Grand Duke Nicholas and lead the Army himself…


-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004





Okay author's note. Just to be clear part I of this update is from an in universe perspective. I am not trying to downplay or deny German atrocities in Belgium, which OTL were considerable if not to the extent WWI British propaganda would have you believe. This is from an in universe POV, and even in OTL during the 20's German behavior in Belgium was in anglophone sources often dismissed as pure fabrication, and this did not change until new research at original documents occurred in the late 20th century, suffice to say the historiography is different ITTL

Also given the local reopening my church is reschuduling a lot of cancelled events, and spreading them out over more sessions, which may impact my update schedule for this TL