1916 Peace Talks

Maybe some sort of truce and peace talks could be imposed on unwilling government.
Let's make the hypothesis of a repetition in '15 of the christmast truce (like the one in '14).
OTL both the armies prevented that with massive gunfighting (when you're shelled, you don't feel singing carrols).
Let's suppose artillerymen refuse to bomb, MPs refuse to arrest them, a few officials ordering "assault!" die of lead poisoning (from the back).
Fraternization between the trench soldiers such as in '14, but now there's some socialist discontent at home too.
Worried reports about socialist propaganda spreading (in both armies).
There's too much people in too little space! Damned trenches: just a socialist agitator could poison the minds of an hundred otherwise trustworty Pomeranian grenaders!
We must do some thing, Mein Kaiser!
But, in order to screen the army and isolate agitators we must reach some sort of prolonged truce with the enemy.
Hell, with it, we'll get our Revanche on the boches later: we cannot risk another Revolution Francaise in the midst of a war
 
With pressure from the Austrian Emperor a proposal is put forward to the allies for a cease fire. The Italians have taken a beaten and its government is on the verge of collapse immediately cease the chance to get out form under the possibility of defeat and agree to a truce. The French like wise have been shaken by the mutinies in the army and the massive loses both in 1916 and in the first 1/3 of the new year also feel the pressure.

The team of Hindenburg/Ludendorf seems to have fallen on hard times when Ludendorf is severly injured in an automobile accident and Max Hoffman replaces him.
Russia also suffers the first massive distrubance and the Czar realizes finally that to save the regime he must make peace regardless of what the others think. He thus sends a not to his couisn the Kaiser asking for a truce.

Germany may be winning but some of the politicans and Generals realize that it would be better to take winnings and have a peace than to lose it all. Thus on April 15,1917 a truce goes into effect on the Western and Eastern Fronts followed a week latter by one in the Balkans and in the Distant Middel East.

How mush is lost by either side and what is gained is yet to be determined. The allies will get a restored Serbia as a sop to the allies but Cousin Nicki's Russia will be a lot smaller with the coming peace.
 

Cook

Banned
The only chance Peace talks in 1916 would have I think would be a starting point of Status Quo Anti Bellum.
The problem with that for the Allies is that France would still be seeking to regain Alsace and Loraine as a minimum, and looking for a way to further weaken Germany.
For the Central Powers they’d be giving up all the territory they’d gained on both fronts, rendering all the sacrifice of the previous two years pointless.
For us it’s logical because we have the advantage of hindsight, for the combatants they don’t want all their sacrifices to be for nothing and would suspect that offers of negotiations from the other side are a sign that they are desperate and about to collapse.
 
While France Minght be willing to fight on to regain Alsace -Lorraine I am not so sure that Great Britain would. If the Germans offered to withdraw from Belgium and agreed to the restoration of Serbia it just might be enough to get the Brits to pressure the French.

Let us assume that the Czar's adviser clearly tell him that the war is lost and that unless something is dome the entire regime will fall. Russia then sues for peace in early 1917. Can the western allies afford to continue fighting. Lets face it Romania and Serbia are now lost, Russia is withdrawing from the war, The British and French people are war weary as are the Austro-Hungarians and the Italians.

What has been gained: Both sides have lost millions of lives in the war and the cost of it is so high that it will be decades before they recover. The Central Powers will have created a new Buffer state and perhaps separated the Baltic states from Russia. Serbia has be reduced to a minor problem.
On the other hand Germany has lost most of its colonial Empire but could get a little bit of it back in the peace. The Ottomans would have lost a lot but with the ending of the war they might have been able to keep a bit more than they did in OTL.

Who lost the most- France. It helped to start a war in hopes of regaining territory lost nearly 50 years earlier. It had had a lot of its territory damaged by the war and expended much treasure. Also devastated in the war is tiny Belgium.
 
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