Afghanistan joins the Central Powers

Germaniac

Donor
In 1915 the Turks and the Germans sent a diplomatic mission to Kabul to try and sway the Afghan king to join the central powers and attack British India. The Plan was for Afghanistan to Enter onto the Turkish side and invade India, hopefully creating nationalist feelings in India and in turn cause India to rebel against British rule. In OTL this mission led to the Afghans recieving a huge payment and arms provision for invading India.

According to the all knowing and all powerful Wikipedia Britain, while officially controlling Afghanistan's foreign Policy, really had little power to enforce it. Also at the time Britain considered Afghanistan to be the only country capable of Invading India.

What happens if Afghanistan accepts and invades India. The Afghans would likely have much more soldiers than in the Third Anglo-Afghan War because one of the Rallying cries by Mehmet V was that WW1 was a Jihad against the Allies and he was, for most, considered to be the Caliph. In the Third Anglo-Afghan War the Afghan troop levels were around "50,000 men in 21 cavalry regiments and 75 infantry battalions, plus 280 modern guns and up to 80,000 tribesmen" Straight from Wikipedia.
 
Skirmishes in the Kyhber Pass, pretty easily repulsed by British Indian Forces. Will likely cause British reprisals after the fighting ends in Europe and the Near East in 1918. Maybe a short bloody invasion or use of aircraft to bomb some Afghans post war. Doesn't really do anything.

Afghanistan was still not that cohesive and was a hole pretty much.
 
Why donnt you think about possibility of invading Russian middle asia? There were problems with local population here in1916
 

Tellus

Banned
This sounds about as likely as Mexico launching itself into a suicidal war ten minutes after receiving the Zimmerman telegram.

Honestly, you are a little nation of sheepherders, mountains and sands. Your neighbors are the British Empire, and Tsarist Russia, both on war footing engaged in total war, and you're gonna declare war on both of them? I don't know man, I think your odds would be better crashing planes in the World Trade Center or something. :p
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
This sounds about as likely as Mexico launching itself into a suicidal war ten minutes after receiving the Zimmerman telegram.

Honestly, you are a little nation of sheepherders, mountains and sands. Your neighbors are the British Empire, and Tsarist Russia, both on war footing engaged in total war, and you're gonna declare war on both of them? I don't know man, I think your odds would be better crashing planes in the World Trade Center or something. :p

So 9/11 wouldn't have happenend if the US had not declared war on Germany in 1917?:eek:
 
Beyond harassing a few Russian villagers in Central Asia, Afghanistan will find itself sitting around with nothing to do. I'm sure the CP would just mainly use it for its value to increase their color on the map.
 
The British were terrified of Islamic troubles in India and the Germans tried to egg this on, although they didn't do very well in OTL.

IIRC there was an Anglo-Afghan War after WWI--could we transpose the results a few years early?
 
People seem to be forgetting the important role that the army from India played in Mesopotamia, Egypt etc. Its not only the REALITY of the Afghan threat, its the POSSIBILITIES from it that the Viceroy and the Indian Office are going to be responding to - what IF an invasion breaks through, what IF the NW frontier rises, what IF the Khan of Kalat also throws off British protection etc

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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