32. The diplomatic quandary: the neutrals.
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32. The diplomatic quandary: the neutrals.

When the war broke out, the Russian Empire and Romania declared their neutrality. Although nominally allied with the German Empire, Russia did not join Berlin in the fight. Saint Petersburg stated that, as the Alliance was of a defensive nature and Germany had attaked France without consultation, Russia was not obliged to join the war. Even more: Russia was formally allied with Germany but, at the same time, it also maintained good relations with France and the United States. The Russian public opinion wanted peace, and the Czar and his ministers were aware of how poorly prepared the nation was in contrast to the empires at war. The small war party, lead by Alexander Izvolsky, the former Foreign Minister and the then Ambasador in Paris, was powerless to change this stance.

Thus, Russia remained neutral but, by late 1919, however, Prime Minister Nikolai Golitsyn and Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov decided that there were more advantages to Russia by joining the Entente. Furthermore, the war would help to calm the serious internal dissension by bringing glory to the victorious army. Thus, in early December, just as the second Battle of the Piave died, Sazonov opened negotiations with Paris while Golitsyn did the same with Berlin. They negotiated with both sides for the best deal, and got one from the Entente, which was quite willing to promise a large slice of the German Empire and Hungary, plus an access to the Dardanelless and a meaty war loan from the United States. It was agreed that Russia (Treaty of Paris, December 1919) would join the war in a month. However, this was to be delayed until March 1920.

Romania had also demanded support for its territorial claims to parts of Hungarian Transylvania, and especially those parts with a Romanian-speaking majority. However, the negotations were stalled when Russia became worried by the Romanian demands, fering that Bucharest could had territorial designs on Bessarabia, claimed by nationalist circles as a Romanian land. When the treaty of Bucharest was signed on January 1920 it was agreed that Romania would join the war at the same time of Russia, to mutually support the offensive actions of both allies, that Russia would send troops into Dobruja, and that the Romanian army would not be subordinated to Russian command. However, given Romania's historical hostility towards the Russian Empire, it was doubtful that any meaningless collaboration could exist between the two allies.

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When Salih Hulusi, the Ottoman prime minister, declared the neutrality of the Ottoman Empire, he was widly applauded for this in the Parliament. The views of the piblic opinion on the war were divided as the upper classes and the Army favoured Germany, while there was a mild pro-Entente sentiment among the middle and professional classes and intellectuals. However, the strong war party led by Enver Pasha, Ahmed Izzet Pasha, Said Halim Pasha and Talaat Pasha began to conspire at once against Hulusi and to open secret negotiations with Germany, which was doubtful of the military value of the Ottomans. However, in spite of the best efforts of the war party, it was to be a foreign unwanted intervention which settled the score in their favour.

Meawnhile, the war had created a goverment crisis in the British Empire. Opinions ranged from neutrality to war, and, within the last one, from war with Germany for invading Belgium to war with France for the same. Grey, the Foreign Secretary, had warned the British ambassador in Paris, the germanophobe Francis Bertie, that the British public could not be expected to support British intervention in a quarrel that was so remote from the country’s own interests. If Grey was under pressure from his liberal imperialist ally, Richard Haldane, to find a way of preventing Britain from joining the war in either side, it is not know. A reason for Grey's attitude may lay in his anxiety about the increasing fragility of the international financial markets.

Was the prosperity of the Empire really worth risking over an issue as comparatively trivial as the neutrality of Belgium? This question laid behind the British declaration of neutrality (June 5, 1919) and became more and more divisive as time went on and the British position remained the same. As those who were in support for an alliance with Germany saw that there was no intention to going to war against the United States and France, they moved to the side of the prime minister, Lloyd George, and became fanatical supporters of continued neutrality and were to lead to heated Parlamentarian debates as the pressure that Austen Chamberlain and the Tories put upon No 10 kept going up, even more when Herberth Asquith, the Secretary for War, and Alfred Milner, Secretary of States fo the Colonies, resigned in protest and were replaced by the earl of Derby and Winston Churchill (June 10).

In those days, the Daily News expressed disgust at the notion that British lives might be sacrificed ‘for the sake of French hegemony’ and pointed out that crushing Germany would in effect establish a French dictatorship over ‘Europe and Asia’, which only helped to increase the polarisation of the British society. Even the Tory papers were unenthusiastic. The Yorkshire Post , for example, was doubtful that a German victory would leave England any worse off than a Franco-American victory and could ‘see no reason why Britain should be drawn in’. Only The Times argued consistently for British intervention. Neverhteless the rantings of Horatio Bottomley on his own John Bull ended being more damaging for his own side that for the government as he demanded, in the same article, to wipe out the "Serbian hotbed of cold-blooded conspiracy and subterfuge" and the utter ‘annihilation’ of the German fleet.

Thus, for the while, Britain remained outside of the war.
 
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33. The reforms of the Spanish Armed Forces in the 1910s
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A Lohner Pfeilflieger flying in the Tetuan area in 1913.
33. The reforms of the Spanish Armed Forces in the 1910s.

Just after the reforms of the Navy (Maura-Ferrándiz plan of 1908) and the ones of the Army (1906, 1908 and 1911), it was the turn for the Servicio Militar de Aerostación (SMA - Military Ballooning Service). It had been created in 1884 and was slowly expanded from then onwards. In 1905 the first Spanish airship (the España) was constructed and joined the SMA. When they were used in Morocco in 1909, the balloons and the airships had an instant success in observation, artillery correction and reconoissance tasks.

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The España airship
However, the arrival of the first aircrafts to the service in 1910 (three Henri Farmans) changed its orientantion and led to the creation of the Servicio de Aeronáutica Militar (Military Air Service), with two different branches: Hot ballooning and aircrafts, which included a naval branch in 1917. In October 1913 the first squadron was created with 3 Farman MF.7, 6 Lohner B-1 Pfeilflieger and 2 Nieuport IIG. The unit is lead by Captain Alfredo Kindelán. In December 1915, the first seaplane of the naval service, a Curtiss JN-2, made its first flight. In 1918 the first naval unit, with 12 seaplanes, is ready for service in the naval base of Los Alcázares (Murcia) -1-. To this new-born naval branch a more ambitious project was added: a seaplane.

In November 1921, the Spanish navy bought a steamship, the España Nº 6, which began to be converted in December into a seaplane, following the example set by the French Foudre. Converted into a seaplane carrier named Dédalo, she entered service in 1922. She could carry two captive observation balloons and 20 seaplanes

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The first Spanish seaplane, Dedalo.

This need of new aicrafts and the troubled situation would lead to the creation of the first aeronautical companies -“Hispano-Suiza Aviacion” and “Carde y Escoriaza” (1915), “Construcciones Aeronáuticas" and “Aeronáutica Industrial S.A” (1923)- and to the purchase of British, German and French models. When the Great War broke out, the number of foreign adquisitions dwindled as most of the French and German productions were devoted to their militaries.

Meanwhile, the Spanish army began to experiment with the use of armoured cars. After studying seven vehicle proposals from different European companies -Armstrong Whitworth, Hotchkiss, Maudslay Motor Company, Rheinische Metallwaren und Maschinenfabrik (RMM), Schneider-Brillié, Süddeutsche Automobilfabrik Gaggenau (SAG), and Thornycroft-, two unarmored Schneider P2-4000 buses were bought in March 1909 by the Spanish Army, along with two S.A.G. trucks and a Berliet car. The Schneider-Brilliés were given to the Comisión de Experiencias de Artillería (Artillery Testing Commission). Transferred to either Ceuta during the Melilla War, a third unarmored Brillié followed them soon after. The Camión blindado Schneider-Brillié (Schneider-Brillé armoured truck) were initially unarmed, but, prior to being sent to Morocco, they were equipped each with two 7mm Vickers machine guns adapted to Spanish cartridges. By 1911, the Spanish army would have ten of those armoured vehicles in use -2-.
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One of the Schneider-Brillié. The ‘letter-boxes’ are open allowing for rifle and machine gun fire.


-1- In 1917 IOTL
-2- IOTL the Spanish army used two or three of those armoured trucks.​
 
34. January 1920.
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US troops parading in the streets of Paris
before marching to the frontline

34. January 1920.

On New Year’s Day, 1920, the Western Front was deadlocked. Trenches ran from the Channel to Switzerland as the two great adversaries were between one hundred and one thousand yards from each other, gazing at each other across no man’s land. The firepower revolution of the late 19th century had given firearms immense destructive power, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defenders, who were able to re-supply and replenish on a continual basis. Thus, the defender had an advantage in early 1920 :dug behind earthworks and increasingly in bunkers, the defender was hard to locate and hard to hit. The solution lay in suppressing enemy fire in order to allow the attacking infantry to seize enemy trenches with much less harassment. However, in January 1920, the technology did not exist to allow this, and in particular, the US Army in France was short of resources and the means, generally, to break the deadlock.

In addition to the ten French armies and the remnats of the Belgian armed forces, there was the American Expeditionary Force, which fielded two armies under the command of General Leonard Wood. Manpower was not an issue for the US Army, even if the regular units had suffered a beating during the first months of the battle, leading to an acute shortage of trained personnel, which meant that the National Guard would play an increasing role on the western front in the coming months. Even if President Roosevelt had been readying the country for what he saw the incoming war, even with the systematic mobilization of the entire population and the entire economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, munitions, and money needed to win the war, the AEF still used French equipment, as the canon de 75 modèle 1897 in addition to the US version, the 75 mm Gun M1897 (1), built by the American industry since the spring of 1918 and to an accelerated pace since the beginning of the Balkan Crisis; and the canon de 155 C modèle 1917 Schneider, in use by the US Army as the 155 mm Howitzer Carriage, Model of 1917 (Schneider) since 1917 (2). Finally, the so needed soldiers were then recruits who had to be trained before they would be any use, and until then, the AEF would have to make do with what it had. Trained for a swift war of manoeuvre, the AEF was short of the tools necessary to wage the trench war that dominated the battlefield. There were not enough neither sappers or engineers nor wood, barbed wire, and sandbags. As for weaponry, there were shortages of mortars, grenades and most vitally, heavy artillery and high-explosive shells. Thus, Wood was to lead the most powerful army in the world without the means to do so.

On the Greek front, the Hungarian and Bulgarian Armies had moved cumbersomely to try and bring about the defeat of their last remaining enemy, Greece, who barely hold the line even its army was offering a dogged defence of his country, hoping that the Entente come to help them. Even after mobilization, Greece could muster only 200,000 men (plus 50,000 French and 20,000 Americans), against 325,000 Bulgarians. Thus, in early December 1919, a National Government was fromed, with Eleftherios Venizelos at its head

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A heavy Greek gun

Russia was also ready to join the war. General Alexei Brusilov, recently promoted to the rank of General-Adjutant, had decided to hit key areas with interdiction fire against command posts, road networks, and other critically important targets to degrade German and Hungarian command and control over the whole front. Brusilov had also coordinated his actions against Hungary with his Romania counterpart, General Constantin Prezan. However, the demands of helping Greece with an offensive against Bulgaria worried Prezan, as the Romanians' greatest concerns during the negotiations were the avoidance of a conflict that would have to be fought on two fronts (one in Dobruja with Bulgaria and one in Transylvania). However, Bucharest was promised that neither Hungary nor Bulgaria were going to be able to respond to the Romania offensive as they would be busy both in the Venetian and the Greek front.

On its part, the new Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, believed that although victory might no longer be achieved by a decisive battle, the French army could still be defeated if it suffered a sufficient number of casualties. For this, he would launch an offensive at Verdun at the beginning of February 1919. He was sure that the French would send all their reserves to hold the place. Then, the German forces would consolidate their defensive positions. Then, supported by a powerful artillery reserve, they would bleed the French white. He also thought that as the French would launch their counter-offensive, the American were to a relief offensive that would be decimated by the strong German defences in Flanders. After this, the French would have to accept a separate peace. If the French refused to negotiate, the second phase of the strategy would begin in which the German armies would attack the weakened Franco-American armies and then crush them while moving towards Paris.

Von Falkenhayn, however, was weary of Russia and feared that the Czar was going to complete his betrayal of Germany by joinning the Entente. For that reason, since he had replaced von Moltke, he had been reinforcing the defences of Prussia and Silesia. For this reason, he was unwilling to move forces from the reserve to support the offensive at Verdun. Only two corps from the strategic reserve were assigned to the attack. To justify this, the German general pointed out at the limited scope of the operation and to a possible intervention on the Venetian front.



(1) American industry built 1,050 French 75s during OTL WW I, but only 143 had been shipped to France by 11 November 1918; most American batteries used French-built 75s in action.
(2) In addition to the 1,503 examples purchased in France and used there, 626 were manufactured by or for the US in the United States during WW1.
 
35. The frontlines in 1920: the Western Front
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German trenches in the Aisne, 1920

35. The frontlines in 1920: the Western Front

General Robert Nivelle formulated the plan that would lead the Allies to victory: two separate offensives in Picardy and Artois that would break the German front in one of this two places. A victory in Picardy may lead to the reduction of the German salient and to break the enemy line in the center, which would be followed up by a continuation of the offensive into Germany itself. For the attack in Artois, Nivelle trusted his American allies. To achieve this, the French Generalissimo pressed Wood to act more aggressively. In addition to this, Wood was also under pressure from Washington and wanted to demonstrate that his army was ready to attack.

The American offensive was to be carried out by General John Pershing’s First Army, and would attack in the direction of Lille along a relatively narrow front between Béthune and Armentières. Lieutenant-General Hunter Liggert's I Corps and Lieutenant-General George W. Read’s II Corps headed the attack. Meanwhile, Nivelle was to throw the 7th and 8th Armies against the German salient in Picardy. However, the shortage of ammunition was to play a decesive role in the battle, as Persing had only five days’ worth of shells for the upcoming battle.

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French heavy artillery in action in the Champagne offensive

The first part of the offensive (First Battle of Champagne, February 15 -28, 1920) was determined by the lack of a sufficient number of French heavy guns and the shortage of shells. The 10th Army (General Victor d'Urbal) attacked towards Cambrai and the 4th Army (General Henri Gouraud) in Champagne, towards Rethel and Mézières. However, after several days of attacks, which obtained more small pieces of territory, the Germans counter-attacked on the right flank, recovered most of the lost ground and inflicted many casualties to the French units. Next day, the 4th Army retook most of the lost ground but the Germans made four big counter-attacks, which disorganised the French offensive, which was finally called off. The French had suffered 61, 254 casualties and the Germans 26,100.

On February 25 the AEF attacked in (the First Battle of) Artois. However, the 10th Army contribution was reduced to support from its heavy artillery. More than 400 guns had been amassed, which opened a wild thunderstorm over the German fortifications, while the American infantry waited in the trenches. The attack achieved tactical surprise and a break-in, but communication failed, infantry-artillery co-operation broke down and by the time those problems were solved, the Germans had digged a new line. Furthermore, by February 27 the US artillery had used most of their ammunition and the offensive was abandoned. The AEF had suffered 8,582 casualties and the Germans 6,017. In total, the US Army succeeded in capturing just over 2 km of ground.
Two weeks later, the French resumed their attack (Second Battle of Champagne, March 3 -10, 1920), this time with a four day artillery bombardment, in which over 1.2 million shells were fired. The attacking units fought well and had initial success. However, the French were unable to bring up necessary reinforcements, and the attack eventually stalled in face of the repeated German counterattacks. The effort would be resumed again, when the 7th Army attempted another breakout against the German lines at Vincennes (First Battle of Picardy, May 2nd-9th, 1920), during a long week of protacted and, in the end, useless fighting. On the first days, the offensive was successful and the Germans lost ground. As reinforcements arrived for the Germans, history repeated itself and the offensive began to loose momentum until it finally ended. The two battles resulted in little territorial gain, at a cost of 60,000 French and 45,000 German casualties.

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AEF trenches in Artois in 1920.

At the same time, the Russian army moved against Germany and Hungary (March-May 1920). This was to prove to be a slight relief to the Entente, as Falkenhayn devoted his attention to the East and cancelled Unternehem Gericht against Verdun. However, in spite of this, a diversionary attack was launched in April against the Ypres Salient to disrupt the Franco-American offensive planning, and it featured the first mass use of poison gas in the Western front. The Second Battle of Ypres (April 22 - May 8) moved the German lines closer to Ypres, but, as it had happened to their enemies, the Germans were unprepared for the level of their success and lacked sufficient reserves to exploit it.

The Entente Autumn Offensive (Third Battle of Artois, 25 September – November 1; Second Battle of Champagne, 25 September – November 5) ended in dissapointment. After small gains at a heavy cost, the offensives turned from October 16 onwards into a battle of attrition that relied, on both sides, upon the mass use of artillery to overcome the enemy defenses. Thus, when the offensives were finally called off, the paltry gains had bleeded white the attackers (200,000 French and American vs 120,000 German casualties). In fact, Nivelle had kept the offensive to support the third Russian attack on the west, in spite of the obvious lack of results and the bloodshed. In the end, this was to cause the dismissal of Nivelle (December 2) and his replacement by General Maurice Sarrail. On the American side, Pershing, who had barely survived the failure of the Artois offensive, met in Chantilly (December 17), along with Secretary of War John W. Weeks, their French, Belgian, Russian and Piadmontese counterparts, to coordinate their efforts in 1921.
 
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36. The frontlines in 1920: the Eastern Front -1-
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Russian troops in the trenches at the East Prussian frontier.
36. The frontlines in 1920: the Eastern Front -1-

As it had been agreed, the Russian and Romanian armies attacked on March 23, 1920. In East Prussia, the First (General Alexander Litvinov) and Second (General Sergei Sheydeman) pushed back with great ease the German Eight Army (General Hermann von François). The Germans, though, managed to delay the enemy advance with a fighting withdrawal and bold counter-attacks. The Russian offensive came on an abrupt end on March 26, as the vanguard of the First Army reached the German defensive line that went from Labiou to Rastenburg, even if the II Corps (General Vasily Flug) managed to break the line north of Rastenburg. However, without support from the other Russian corps, General Flug was forced to withdraw and to dig in. To the south, Sheydeman found similar problems with the fortified line that ran from Seeben to Allenstein. Thus, on April 7, both commanders called off the attacks (First Battle of East Prussia, March 23- April 7) and prepared for a new offensive.

Almost two weeks later, the Russian forces attacked again, in spite of the shortage of artillery, even if the number of heavy guns had increased since the last offensive. The Second Battle of East Prussia (April 18 - May 14) followed the same lines of the previous onslaught. However, the Second Army was to carry out only demonstrative attacks all over his front. The major role, assigned to Litvinov's First Army, was to conquer Königsberg. Litvinov's tactics were simple, crude and harsh: after a heavy artillery bombardment his troops were to advance in a frontal assault against the German line, overcome the enemy's barbed-wire fences, and take the trenches. However, the insufficiency of war material, again, nullified the Russians' numerical superiority and their attacks hardly won a few inches out of their starting positions. Ironically, while the First Army was unable to advance, Sheydeman's Second was more successful and their advanced units managed to advance until they were five miles south of Allenstein. However, the actions against Tannenberg, Hohenstein and Gilgenburg ended as bloody failures and, again, the shortage of military materiel brought the offensive to a halt. Thus, after early two months of hard fighting, 145,000 Russians and 86,000 Germans had become the first casualties of the war in the East.
Meanwhile, the Third (General Radko Dmitriev), Fourth (General Alexei Evert), Fifth (General Alexei Kuropatkin) and Eigth (General Lavr Kornilov) Russian armies, under the overal command of General Alexei Brusilov, had been assigned to Galicia. In front of them, the Hungaryan forces were made up by the 2nd (General Sándor Belitska), 3rd (Generaloberst Karl Tersztyánszky) and 4th (General Adalbert von Gyarmata) armies.
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Grand Duke Alexander Sergeievich (1)
reviews the troops before they depart to the front

The first attacks by the Fourth and Eight Armies were easily repulsed by the Hungarian defenders, the Third and the Fourth were able to break the enemy lines and, by March 25, they had flanked the main line of Hungarian resistance. The bad state of the roads, however, delayed the Russian advance, giving precious time to the Hungarians to establish a new line of defence running from the Carpathian Mountains to Tarnow, leaving the fortress of Przemyśl isolated behind enemy lines. When the Russian Third Army conquered Lemberg, it was felt as a hard blow in Budapest and Berlin alike while it was celebrated in Saint Petersburg and Paris as the first great victory of the war. However, the Russian forces lacked the heavy guns needed to force Przemyśl to surrender. Then, on the night of March 27, three Romanian armies (1st, 2nd and Northern Army) launched the Battle of Transylvania through the Carpathians. Initially, the only opposing force was Belitska's 2nd Army, which was pushed back by the attackers.

This surprised and scared Berlin, and German reinforcements were rushed to the area and the 8th Army (General Friederich von Scholtz) and Budapest moved with all haste the 1st Army (General von Kövessháza) from Serbia to Galicia. While this was happening, the Romanian 3rd Army invaded Bulgaria, whose defenders were caught by surprise. Thus, as reinforcements were rushed from the Greek front to stop the invaders, the Romanian commander, General Constantin Teodorescu hesitated and also demanded more troops. When his advance was first stopped and then forced to withdraw (March 31), this unnerved the Romanian High Command and severely affected the morale of the army and the people as several divisions were detached from its armies in Transylvania, greatly reducing the impetus of the advance there, to bolster the forces in Bulgaria. However, the attack, even if badly planned and executed, had managed to reduce the pressure over the Greek front and to give time to bring reinforcements to the beleaguered defenders from France. Command of the Romanian 3d Army was taken over by General Averescu, and Russian send the 47th Army Corps under General Anderi Zayonchkovski.

By this time, General Erich von Falkenhayn had decided to cancel Unternehem Gericht as we have already seen and began to send reinforcements to the East once he was persuaded that the new concept of defense in depth was proving successful against the offensives of the Entente. Thus, when the Russian Ninth (Lieutenant-General Gieorgij Stupin) and Tenth Armies (General Yevgeny Radkovich) attacked the German Silesia, which had been deeply reinforced and its defences increased, their offensive became an inmediate failure. The late start of the Vistula Offensive (as it was named by the Stavka), in April 8, also benefited the defenders, who had plenty of time to prepare for the attack. Thus the German 9th Army (General August von Mackensen) was able to stop the Russian offensive, which was called off on May 2.

Russia had been defeated in East Prussia, but their victory at Lemberg masked that and, along with the precarious situation of the Hungarian army, which was on the verge of collapsing, it could be hailed as a great triumph by Czar Michael and thus the Prussian defeat and the Polish failure did not took its full toll on Russian public opinion.

(1) Grand Duke Alexander is, ITL, the only son of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, and grandson of Alexander II of Russia. He bears an uncanny resemblance to OTL Nicholas II, does he...
 
37. The frontlines in 1920: the Italian and Balkan Fronts.
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Piamontese Alpini climbing Monte Cassino
September 1920

37. The frontlines in 1920: the Italian and Balkan Fronts.

After it had been decided at the war conference of Chantilly, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was deemed not only the weakest but the first enemy to defeat, as its navy could block the supply sea lanes to Greece and was housing Hungarian submarines that could become a dangerous threat to the Entente navy. For that reason, the Piamontese Army attacked with all its strenght in the Southern front and remained on the defensive in the North.

After the lessons received in the First and Second Battles of the Garigliano, General Enrico Caviglia was determined to avoid attacking the Garigliano Line head on. Thus, he made a feint in the Liri Valley, to caught the attention of the observation posts placed in the mountains behind Cassino. Meanwhile, he ordered General Emilio de Bono's VI Army to flank the position attacking the eastern end of the line, at the coastal town of Ortona, captured by Canadian forces on April 10, 1920, after sixteen days of heavy fighting: 13,750 Piamontese soldiers were killed and 9,468 wounded. Futhermore, 5,000 were evacuated due to battle exhaustion and illness. On the Neapolitan side, the losses were 8,675 killed and 13,463 wounded.

The advance to the Moro River was painfully slow. The villages of San Donato, Villa San Leonardo and Villa Rogatti were turned by the Neapolitan army into small strongholds that threatened to become another "Ortona". After two days of fighting (April 16-18), de Bono halted the offensive to reconsider the situation. A new attempt against San Donato was carried out on April 20: it was supported by a massive artillery barrage which pounded the enemy positions continuously for two hours. However, when the infantry moved forward after the heavy bombardment lifted, the advacing soldiers were met with bursts of machine gun fire and the attack collapsed again. De Bono kept pressuring the defenders until May 4, when exhaustion and the need to replenish the ammunitions stocks forced the Italian general to call the offensive off. Meanwhile, the feint against Cassino (March 25-April 2) became a bloody failure for Caviglia, whose Alpini units suffered a 77% casualty rate to take the Aurunci Mountains. However, the Rapido and Garigliano rivers proved to be an obstacle impossible to cross.

Caviglia and De Bono were to try again on May 1. On the Eastern side of the line, the VI Army managed to conquer Orsogna (May 14) after another protracted and bloody battle house-to-house as in Ortona; however, all the attacks against Crocetta failed as most of the enemy defences were out of the range of the Piamontese guns and they failed. De Bono then stopped the offensive to move forward the guns and resumed the offensive on June 1, but again without success. By June 14, the guns became silent on the Eastern side of the Garigliano Line. Caviglia, on his part, became obssesed with Monte Cassino, which became a salient in his line. Thus, the fourth battles of Monte Cassino (May 1 - September 27) were to see the most heavy artillery barrages of the war in the Italian front, until they were darwfed by the Entente offensive in France from 1921 onwards. When Monte Castellone was taken on June 19 during the Second Battle of Monte Cassino, Caviglia thought he had the key to open the enemy defences, until they attacks were halted at Albaneta Farm, which had been turned into a fortress by the forces led by General Giovanni Ameglio. Eventually, the I Army would conquer Monte Cassino on September 18), even if by that time the I Army was hardly a shadow of itself. When the offensive came to an end, the Rapido and Garigliano rivers remained impregnable and Caviglia would spent the last months of the war to replace the losses and the ammunition expended.

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An Piamontese Obice da 305/17 modello 16 self-propelled heavy howitzer on the road to the front.
The Piamontese army was the first European force to introduce self-propelled guns in their ranks.

In his obsession to take Monte Cassino and to cross the Garigliano, Caviglia had led General Cadorna to make a mistake. As the commander of the Southern Group Army promised that once Monte Cassino was taken and the Garigliano crossed, the enemy would have been bleeded white and its moral broken by the loss of such an important place and that the war would be over in a matter of a few weeks in the South, Caviglia, who had spent the beginning of 1920 trying to break the Piave line, followed the Chantilly setlement and accepted the plan of his subordinate while he refrained from launching a major attack until October (Third Battle of the Piave, October 9 - December 5). However, the German-Venetian commanders had used those nine months of inactivity to bring more reinforcements to the area and to build a new defensive line in the Livenza River, leaving only a strong rearguard at the Piave. Thus, Cadorna was able not only of crossing the river, but also of advancing in a speedy fashion to Caorle and Motta, again using the IZ Model 1916 armored cars of his cavalry units to spearhead the attack. However, when the Piamontese forces were close to the Livenza River, the enemy artillery opened fire against them, as it had happened at the Liri valley in 1919. After a few attacks to test the strength of the enemy line, which proved to be stronger than the one at the Piave, Cadorna called off the offensive and began to reorganize his logistics after such an advance. He was later to regret his inactivity and his boldness, as he had been led to a trap by his foe, General Vincenzo Garioni.

On the Balkans, the Romanian offensive had proved a failure and a blessing at the same time, as it had taken away most of the pressure than the Greek army was suffering from the Bulgarian foe. It had also given time to the timely arrival of reinforcements from France and the United States (6 French and 3 American divisions), which began to adapt to the new front and to build their own supply lines. Even then the Bulgarian army launched an attack along the coast, aiming at Katerini (January 6 - February 3, 1920) and then against the center of the Katerini-Edessa line (June 27 - August 19), but without sucess. However, the recovered Greek army, with the support of his allies, would launch a general offensive in October that made the Bulgarians to withdraw to the Delta of Axios by late November. From then on, the Bulgarian High Command decided to built a new defensive line along the Vardar River (Axios for the Greeks) and to withdraw there if needed, to shorten their lines, as their main objective, as we shall see, was to deal first with Romania.
 
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Two revolution Germany,French or Austria are the other likely posibilities

There's no Austria in this TL. In the prequel, it got annexed by Germany.

To Germany and France I would add the Ottoman Empire as likely candidates. And some Mediterranean country.
 

G-6

Banned
What the internal politics of Russia like is it like OTL with revolutionaries/anarchist bombing/striking ?
 
What the internal politics of Russia like is it like OTL with revolutionaries/anarchist bombing/striking ?

To sum up a bit,

The reforms that began with Czar Michael and were hurried to quell the loss of face after the short and dissapointing war with Japan in 1904 could not diminish the turmoil. The good thing? No 1905 Revolution and a quite scared Czar that accepted to reform. The Duma works quite well, even if the Czar retains his veto power and the electoral reform of 1908 (like the one of OTL 1907) reduced the electoral weight of lower-class voters and increased the weight of the nobility. Also, the economic, industrial and political-cultural modernization of Russian society started at in the 1890s have improved the country a great deal. However, this modernization has also led to an rise in the popular support to the Left Parties. Furthermore, the social divisions are still there

Stolypin, who has not been murdered in this TL, became prime minister again in 1916, knew that the war was to be quite unpopular to a big part of the Russian population, and that, along political ambitions and the degradation of the alliance with Germany, moved him to remain neutral. However, by 1920, there was a shift in the popular mood, with even Lenin supporting the war, as he considered that the war could easily led to a revolution. So, the declaration of war caused a revival of nationalism across Russian society, which has reduced internal strife. For how long? That's to be seen.

The news of the first defeats have led to the first anti-war protests, as we shall see.
 
What about police unionism in Russia ITTL?

Do you mean police socialism? Zubatovischina? Zubatotov's reports caused some concern to the Czar and the Zubatovischina was put to work. It has been slightly more successful than IOTL and it has led to the creation of some kind of "trade unions" controlled by the Russian Home Office, but the Czarist labour legislation needs a lot of improvement yet.
 
38. The frontlines in 1920: the Eastern Front -2-
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German heavy siege mortars ready
for the initial barrage of the Gorlice offensive

38. The frontlines in 1920: the Eastern Front -2-

Von Falkenhayn used the summer of 1920 to move four corps from France to the Eastern front and to prepare the next offensive. On September 5, the Tenth (General Walter von Schmidtseck) and Eight Armies (General von François) launched a frontal attack against the First (General Litvinov) and Second (General Sheydeman). Four days later, the Ninth Army (General von Mackensen) attacked from Silesia into Poland. After gruesome battles, the Russian armies were forced to withdraw to the Kovno-Grodno line, where they entrenched. Then von Falkenhayn called off the ofensive (September 20). On his part, von Mackensen, with the support of the Hungarian 4nd Army (General von Gyarmata), broke the enemy lines and moved forward. However, snow, with drifts as high as a man, slowed German progress down the roads for the first two days; this, and the heroic resistance of some Russian units, allowed the bulk of the Czarist forces to withdraw and to from a new line from Lodz to Kielce. However, von Mackensen attacked again on September 18 and pushed back the Russian lines to Bolimov. By then, the Russian had sufferd 130,000 casualties and the Germans 73,000.

Then, on September 19, with the support of the German Eleventh Army (General Max von Faben), General Svetozar Boroević von Bojna, the new Hungarian chieff of staff, the Gorlice offensive began. The 3rd (General Tersztyánszky) and 2th (General Belitska) armies, with the German reinforcements, achieved a fast breakthrough thanks to the their superior artillery firepower and the accuracy of their aerial observation. The Russian forces faced serious ammuniton shortcomings for they heavy guns and soon their armies had to withdraw, first to the Jaroslaw-Sambor lie (October 6), then to Lemberg (October 12) and finally to Brody (October 19). In spite of suffering 95,000 casualties, the Russian forces were able to withdraw in good order and to restore the line at Brody. The Hungarian-German forces lost 56,000 men. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1) The victors asked the Danes to offer to host a peace conference, but the Czar refused even to receive the Dane ambassador.

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A Russian 122 mm gun in action.
Meawnhile, the Romanian forces had abandoned Transylvania to retreat towards the mountains in order to shorten their lines and to send reinforcements to stop the Bulgarian advance. The German-Hungarian forces launched some attack tests in the passes of Carpathians in order to test the weakpoints of the defense. However, as the Bulgarian forces proved unable to break the stalemate at the Dobrudja front (First Battle of Cobadin - September 19/25; Second Battle of Cobadin - October 9/23; First Battle of Cinghinarele -October 26/30-), von Falkenhayn decided to end the operations there to prepare a new offensive in 1921. General von Mackensen was sent to Bulgaria with reinforcements. At the same time, the Russian Stavka was pressing Czar Michael I to abandon the Polish sailent. However, the Czar was unwilling even to listen to such an ideas, as he feared that such a withdrawl could dangerously damage the Russian morale. Nevertheless, by early December, he accepted the construction of a defensive line running from Bialystok to Dubno as a preparation for a general withdrawl from Poland and to send a plea for help to the Western Allies.

(1) OTL Wilhelm, Crown Prince, son of OTL Wilhelm II
 
39. Spain in 1921.
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José Canalejas (left) and Theodore
Roosevelt (right),
two uncanny allies.

39. Spain in 1921.

José Canalejas, the Spanish Prime Minister, had wished to end his second term in 1922 and then withdraw from politics, as he would be by then 69 years old. He had been grooming Álvaro Figueroa y Torres Mendieta, earl of Romanones, as his replacement, but he feared he could be a divisive figure that could damage the unity of the Liberal Party. Then, as a bolt from the blue, the main cause of concern for Canalejas, Manuel Garcia Prieto, had been ousted from the party because of the Montero affair. Thus, the leader of the most critic faction of the Liberal party was defenestrated. This, by itself, was not to grant an easy term for Romanones, but it removed a great trouble for him.

However, Romanones was a well known sympathizer of the Entente, and his undisputed rise to the premiers ship worried Berlin to no end. Until then, the division of the Spanish public opinion between Alliadophiles (the middle and professional classes and intellectuals) and Germanophiles (made up by the upper classes, the Catholic Church and most of the Spanish Army) and the lack of importance of Spain in the strategic theatre of war helped to keep this neutral stance. Politically speaking, the country was also divided. The followers of Antonio Maura, the Mauristas, even if his leader, was in favour of closer ties with the Entente, as he feared the German colonialism in north Africa. The Pro-Entente side was made up by Socialists, Republicans, Catalan nationalists and part of the Liberal party.

As we have seen, as it became obvious that the war was going to be a long one, the value of Spain for both sides grew out of any proportion as both the Entente and Germany were looking for new sources of raw materials, and also because the spy game that both sides developed in Spain. However, the unrestricted submarine campagin that began in February 1920 and the attacks of the German U-boats against Spanish merchant ships, began to turn the Spanish government to get further close to the Entente. Thus, in March 1920, as the raise of Romanones seemed unstopable and the then Foreign Minister, Miguel de Villanueva, who was pro-German, was replaced by Santiago Alba, and de Villanueva became Minister of the Treasury, the German ambassador in Madrid, Max von Ratibor, became more and more worried about it, as its messages to Berlin proved.

When sixteen Spanish merchant ships were sunk in four months (June-October 1920) and the Spanish complaints to Berlin received nothing but empty words, Canalejas sent Alba to Paris to open talks that would lead to Spain joining the USA-Franco Entente, which was formalized with the Paris Pact (February 1921), signed by Alba without the approval of the Spanish Parliament. In the following days all the parties supported declaring war to Germany, even the PSOE, while nationalist crowds demonstrated in public areas for it and the press ran a highly jingoistic campaign. Eventually, the support of Besteiro to the war would lead to a vicious war between the former members of the PSOE, with Francisco Largo Caballero and the Partido Comunista de España (PCE - Communist Party of Spain) branding Besteiro's policy as a betrayal of the Socialist International, while the moderate Partido Social Demócrata (PSD - Social Democratic Party) led by Indalecio Prieto, also rejected the war, but muted their criticism to keep the country together.

Thus, on March 15, 1921, Canalejas asked the Spanish Cortes for a declaration of war against Germany. Largo Caballero and the PCE voted against it. During the next week, Cuba, Panama, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Peru joined the Entente, and, during the first week of April, Guatemala and Honduras also declared war to Germany. México, under Álvaro Obregón, would remain neutral until August 1921, and then joined the war. In early April 1921, the Cuerpo Expedicionario Español (CEE - Spanish Expeditionary Corps) was created around a cadre of professional officers and soldiers, around which two full infantry divisions were formed during that year with the volunteers that were joinning in masse the army. Then, after an intense albeit brief trainning in trench warfare, by late October the first Spanish brigade occupied a sector at the battle front, in the Soissons-Reims area. Hardly a week later, the German artillery bombed the Spanish trenches. By early November, the first CEE Division assumed the responsibility of its part of the Spanish sector on the battlefront, with a total 18 km frontage, under French command. The second Spanish division would arrive to the Western Front in December.

By then the Spanish army had other conflicts to deal with: two rebellions, one in Morocco and the other one in Libya. In Morocco, a general uprising led by Muhammed Abd-el-Krim surprised the garrisons of the Spanish Protectorate and opened a second front for Spain in May of that year. A similar disaster took place in Libya when the Grand Senussi Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi rose in rebellion in south-eastern Cyrenaica in August. Those two rebellions couldn't arrive in a worse moment for Spain and for the Entente.
 
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40. January 1921.
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40. January 1921.

Optimism in all countries that the war would be over soon had evaporated by January 1921. In the streets, chancelleries and trenches across Europe there was an increasing feeling of realism. Both sides now plan that oculd shape the destiny of the entire continent: to finish the war that year.

Again the Entente leaders met at Chantilly (December 1920) to plan their common strategy to finally bring coherence to their war effort. The members of the Entente committed themselves to launch a simultaneous assault on all on all the fronts to deny the enemy the chance to move troops during lulls. The offensives were to be carried out as soon as they were in a state to do so, utilising maximum force on the main fronts. Furthermoer, vigorous attacks were to be made when one member of the Entente was threatened.

Surprisingly, President Roosevelt was hesitant. The American Expeditionary Force was committed to launch offensive operations in France in close co-operation with the French. However, Roosevelt was too aware of the immaturity of the AEF, of its lack of equipment, guns and ammunition. The bulk of the force was made up of volunteers and the fast expansion had created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Thus, he was unwilling to commit the army to the same unsuccessful offensives which had failed in 1920. The commander of the AEF, General Wood, agreed. He made it quite clear to his French counterpart, General Sarrail, that he was not going to be rushed into mounting offensives against the Germans: he wanted to nurture the AEF’s strength in preparation for the main offensive in 1921.

Thus, by early 1921, Wood found himself in command of the largest army ever to be put into the field by the United States, as the AEF was made then by four armies, mustering more than 1,500,000 men in their ranks. Unable to visit the front as often as he would have preferred, Wood's contact was now to be limited to those in higher command – two such commanders being General John J. Pershing, the commander of the First Army; General Robert L. Bullard, Second Army; General Hunter Liggett; Third Army; and General George W. Read; Fourth Army. Meanwhile the creation of a Fifth Army was on the way. In January 1921 this future army was just by a single army corps consisting of two infantry and one mounted division, under General Charles P. Summerall.

The AEF’s vast demand for amunnition, soldiers and equipment and the planning of the offensive necessitated a meeting between Wood and Roosevelt. Wood told directly to the president that the AEF’s strength should be husbanded in preparation for a major offensive later in the year. The Secretary of War, John W.Weeks, argued that the AEF should wait until the new volunteer divisions were ready before resuming the offensive, an idea that was popular among a number of cabinet members. However, neither Wood nor Weeks were able to fully persuade Roosevelt. The AEF would attack in the summer.

Meanwhile, a conference was held at Mézières in January 1921 in which senior German generals, admirals and politicians were in attendance. Kaiser Wilhelm II presided over the meeting in which strategy was discussed at length. General von Falkenhayn put forward a strong case for a renewed offensive against the weakened Russia while launching an strike against France to bleed white her army, whilst unrestricted submarine warfare would be resumed. This strategy might have been accepted in its entirety had the Kingdom of the Two Siciles in such a dangerous position. Her defeat would open the Mediterranean Sea to the Entente and thus ease the precarious situation of Greece. Von Falkenhayn was therefore compelled to back down, again, from his proposal of an offensive in the west, even if the commander of the Fifth Army, Generalmajor Crown Prince Wilhelm, was to find a way to read the instructions of the OHL.

On the topic of the unrestricted submarine warfar, the admirals if the Kaiserliche Marine were only too happy to assist in. Von Holtzendorff and von Tirpitz argued strongly for the reapplication of unrestricted submarine warfare, terminated the previous year in the wake of British protests. With better submarines now in service, they argued, enemy merchant shipping could be sunk to an extent that France would be forced to sue for peace within six months. Chancellor Max von Baden pointed out that Great Britains' entry into the war on the Entente side would probably be the consequence of such strategy. The navy’s response was sharp and direct: Britain would not enter the war if France was seen to be beaten. The Kaiser’s opinion was essential in this matter, and, with the future of Germany at stake, he joined the Navy. Within days, the Kaiser gave the order which unleashed the submarines for the second time since the outbreak of war.
 
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41. The frontlines in 1921: the Eastern Front -1-
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41. The frontlines in 1921: the Eastern Front -1-

Since late September 1920, even before the Czarist army had started to withdraw from Poland, the Russian government had been demanding and looking for help to its allies and friends. To pay that help the Minister of Finance, Pyotr Lvovich Bark, hoped that the fastest way to get a much-needed injection funds was to open lines of credit and to place loans on the London, New York, and Paris bond markets. Foreign creditors were concerned that as the war hindered exports and destabilized the Russian economy, so it would become difficult for the tsarist government to service its debts, even if the Black Sea was relatively free from the enemy blockade. In spite of these fears, Bark was able to secure 1.5 billion rubles from the French governent, 7 billion rubles from the United States and lesser contributions from private banks in the British Empire, Spain and the Netherlands. By October 1921 Russia’s wartime foreign debts totaled more than 8 billion rubles (on top of 3 billion rubles of pre-war foreign debt) and provided 20 percent of the government’s total war expenditure. To this we must add the war bonds of 1919-1921, which did raise the substantial sum of 8 billion rubles, which accounted for about 30 percent of the total wartime budget of the Russian Empire.

With the loans the Czarist army was reinforced and resupplied. The United States shipped to Russia 15,000 Lewis machine guns (plus 10,000 from Britain) and eighty 75 mm M1897 field guns, as well as tens of thousands of Model 1908 sapogis (boots), trousers, coats and even furazkhas (field cap) and papakhas (a wool hat); Britain became an outstanding source of guns: from 1921 to 1922, four hundred 4.5-inch howitzers, some dozens of BL 60-pounder Mk I heavy guns, and forty 9.2-inch howitzers (with 1,110 rounds per gun) arrived to the Czarist army; France also helped to reinforce the artillery with eighty 155 L de Bange heavy guns and two Obusier de 400 Modèle 1915/1916 railroad howitzers; the French industry also produced Adrian helmets for the army, most of them sent to elite units or given to the officers. Thus well supplied in high spirits, the Russian army attacked on March 5, 1921.

The offensive was aimed to test both the German defenses and the fighting capabilities of the Imperial forces. For this reason It was not meant to be a long battle. However, when the German onslaught landed on France on March 2, the timetable of the battle changed. As it had been agreed, if a member of the Entente was attacked, Its allies inmediately put pressure upon Germany with their own offensives. Thus, the STAVKA was pressed to act. Its head, General Brusilov, had called upon his Piamontese allies to keep the German-Hungarian units at bay on the Venetian front by attacking at the same time.

The Russian Eighth Army (General Aleksei Kaledin) overwhelmed the Hungarian Fourth (General von Gyarmata) and pushed on to Lutsk, advancing forty miles beyond the starting position (First Battle of Lutsk, March 7-15). That was the only real gain they had made. After week of fighting that cost the lives of 40,000 men to each sides, the clashes ceased on March 15, dues to the terrible weather and because the attackers has devoured the resources devoted to the offensive. Satisfied with the results, General Brusilov began to prepare the next phase if the offensive. Along certain parts of the front skirmishes between enemy platoons until March 30 and beyond, in a protracted struggle that produced no clear victor. Meanwhile, General Oskar von Hutier, who had been appointed by von Falkenhayn to command the German forces on the Eastern Front, found himself with a dilema.

Already for some time (since he had arrived to the Eastern headquarters), von Hutier had been proposing the idea of a limited offensive that would lethally cripple Russia so that she could be finished in 1922. However, von Falkenhayn was unwilling to move resources from neither the ongoing Unternehem Gericht nor the defeat of Romania. Thus, von Hutier resigned himself to launch a minor attack to check the Russian forces. Thus, 2,000 German guns opened a heavy barrage against the Russian lines (Second Battle of Lutsk, May 15-June 9) and the infantry attacked along a 50 km front towards Lutsk. The Russian wings held, but the center yielded, and the Germans broke through, threatening to reach the city. The commitment of reserves and the replacement of several Russian commanders who were judged unfit gradually improved the situation. By June 2, the German offensive came to an end. A week later, the Russian counterattacks forced the Germans to withdraw to their original lines. The Germans suffered 100,000 casualties (including 15,000 dead and 15,000 missing and prisoners) while the Russians lost 150,000 (including 12,000 dead and 50,000 missing and prisoners).

Although the German attack had been checked, it had political consequences for the Czarist regime. The first year in the war had been marked by only very limited success, and the German attack was the last nail in the coffin of Stolypin, who had to resign. He was replaced by the Interior Minister, Prince Nicholay Borisovich Shcherbatov, on June 21, 1921.
 
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