AHC : A quicker WW1, Entente victory

[LSCatilina]

While there's many threads and TL about how Central Powers would have won WW1 and its consequences, I feel like this question was a bit left over :

How Entente could have one the Great War earlier than OTL? Is a quick victory, as envisioned in 1914 was definitely out of question, or should it be more likely between 1915 and 1917?

What would have been the immediate (and if possible, more distant) consequences of an earlier victory, for Europe and the world?

 

[Riain]

I think a quick victory with OTL war plans is unrealistic, but with a bit different war plans 1914 could have been considerably different. Firstly many of the Russian problems in East Prussia were personnel driven, different commanders could see the huge Russian forces achieve something commensurate with their numbers.

Secondly the BEF has a few options with their deployment, which opens up possibilities for potentially big impacts. Perhaps the BEF or some sizeable part of it goes to Belgium and threatens the German flank which gives the French a chance to do some good.

Other than that just a quicker cycle of OTL things will get the job done sooner. Things like recognising the good points of Neuve Chappele etc.

 

[MattII]

If you can keep the Belgian ports out of German hands, you can deny the U-Boats those ports as bases, thus forcing them to base out of either Emden (furthest west port in German control) or Wilhelmshaven, which will reduce the amount of time each one can spend in the Atlantic.

 

[Derek Jackson]

Could Russia's military have been competent? For instance not starting out by broadcasting plan in clear to their enemies

 

[Thande]

I agree this is a very underused WI.

The 'how' of the Entente getting a short victorious war is a worthy question, but to my mind an even more interesting one is 'what does the peace look like'? How would it shape up without the bitterness of the years of bloodshed?

I would guess treaty demands would be something like:

France - Alsace-Lorraine would be their red line, although I suppose they might settle for a plebsicite if they were sure they could win it. Maybe a German African colony as a bonus.

Britain - Tanganyika would probably be the only thing they really want for the Cape-to-Cairo railway, as opposed to feeling the need to get a pound of flesh from the Germans.

Russia - Austrian withdrawal from Serbia, obviously; maybe annexation of Galicia, or part of it? Neutralisation of Bosnia? Germans to break ties with Ottoman Empire?

Belgium - Might try for OTL border adjustments but would probably settle for reparations and perhaps Ruanda/Urundi.

Thoughts?

 

[Iserlohn]

I agree this is a very underused WI.

The 'how' of the Entente getting a short victorious war is a worthy question, but to my mind an even more interesting one is 'what does the peace look like'? How would it shape up without the bitterness of the years of bloodshed?

I would guess treaty demands would be something like:

France - Alsace-Lorraine would be their red line, although I suppose they might settle for a plebsicite if they were sure they could win it. Maybe a German African colony as a bonus.

Britain - Tanganyika would probably be the only thing they really want for the Cape-to-Cairo railway, as opposed to feeling the need to get a pound of flesh from the Germans.

Russia - Austrian withdrawal from Serbia, obviously; maybe annexation of Galicia, or part of it? Neutralisation of Bosnia? Germans to break ties with Ottoman Empire?

Belgium - Might try for OTL border adjustments but would probably settle for reparations and perhaps Ruanda/Urundi.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I would generally say that as well. For France restoring the old border of Cameroon and maybe annexing Togoland are likely. For Britain I think taking over (most of) the German Pacific possessions would also be possible. Otherwise I think it fits quite well. Italy would get Trentino and maybe, just maybe, something along the lines of OTL in the "east".

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

HOW...

1.) Bribe the Turks to stay out.

2.) Bribe the Bulgarians (Romanians+Greek) to join in (early) - Balkans front before Serbia collapses

3.) Let the Western front settle without costly counterattacks

4.) Support the Italians with troops + supplies (more than OTL)

5.) support the Russians with troops + supplies (more than OTL)

Basically a determines Austria first strategy.
Terms get more severe the longer the war goes.

A-L is a minimum, Togo for France as topping

German comolies as OTL

Austria loses Bosnia to Serbia

Italy gets what it did OTL with possible exception of the Adriatic gains (Zara,...) and Südtirol (Trentino goes to Italy no matter what.)

Russia gets Bukowina maybe Eastern Galicia (western would be considered not good as it contains too many nasty Poles).

Probably the Monarchy will split with a lost war. Depends on how badly the loss is - even complete dismemberment.


The longer the war lasts the more the Entente will demand - even the dismemberment of A-H

 

[superkuf]

Fritz Haber doesn't invent the Haber process. Thereby when the Central Powers can't import guano from Chile as raw material (due to the British blockade) for explosives they can't replace it with home produced nitrogen and sometimes during late 1914-early 1915 simply run out of ammo. And the CP agriculture would be badly damaged by a lack of fertilizer.

Victory to the Entente by summer 1915, and also a far less bloody war before that, since the CP simply wouldn't have grenades to fire at the Entente troops.

Another easy way to shorten WW1 would to have the Ottomans stay out, thereby letting Russia gather all forces against Germany/A-H instead of diverting troops to Caucuasus. That could be a big gamechanger. In the longer run (1915 onwards) UK don't have to spend troops on Gallipoli or invading Basra, and Russia would have access to the global trade network from the Black Sea. In this case I predict Entente victory by 1916.

 

[Simon]

Fritz Haber doesn't invent the Haber process. Thereby when the Central Powers can't import guano from Chile as raw material (due to the British blockade) for explosives they can't replace it with home produced nitrogen and sometimes during late 1914-early 1915 simply run out of ammo. And the CP agriculture would be badly damaged by a lack of fertilizer.

You don't even need to get rid of the Haber process. IIRC the Germans seized tons of nitrates - something like six months worth of their wartime needs - that was either in warehouses or waiting to be offloaded from freighters when they captured Antwerp, since they were still in the process of bringing the Haber process factories online this handily covered the gap. Have someone notice that there all these nitrates hanging about and get them evacuated and the Germans are going to be running out of artillery shells and associated ammunition fairly quickly.

 

[Monty Burns]

I agree this is a very underused WI.

The 'how' of the Entente getting a short victorious war is a worthy question, but to my mind an even more interesting one is 'what does the peace look like'? How would it shape up without the bitterness of the years of bloodshed?

I would guess treaty demands would be something like:

France - Alsace-Lorraine would be their red line, although I suppose they might settle for a plebsicite if they were sure they could win it. Maybe a German African colony as a bonus.

Britain - Tanganyika would probably be the only thing they really want for the Cape-to-Cairo railway, as opposed to feeling the need to get a pound of flesh from the Germans.

Russia - Austrian withdrawal from Serbia, obviously; maybe annexation of Galicia, or part of it? Neutralisation of Bosnia? Germans to break ties with Ottoman Empire?

Belgium - Might try for OTL border adjustments but would probably settle for reparations and perhaps Ruanda/Urundi.

Thoughts?

That's pretty much what I'd expect, too. Most colonies will be lost for the Germans anyway as IOTL, the question is whether they get them returned. In a quick war, denying the Germans all colonies is unlikely IMHO.

In case of Tsingtao I doubt however that they'll get it back once the Chinese or Japanese take it.

 

[Glenn239]

Any quick Entente victory would probably be related to the Russians breaking over the Carpathians and into Hungary.

 

[Lindseyman]

I have a personal interest in this as my grandfather was in the Territorials before WWI and survived the whole conflict (rather obviously as I am writing this!Doh!!). Given the stories I heard when he was alive, which basically equated to High Command couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery at any time during the war, it might need something of ASB proportions to shorten this War with an Entente victory! The only thing I can think of is deploying the BEF in Belgium as mentioned before in this thread.

 

[Julius Vogel]

I am quite taken with an alternative to Gallipoli - an invasion at say İskenderun in 1915, to split the Ottomans and divert attention. That might allow for a quick Ottoman collapse /surrender with luck.

If the Ottomans agree to a piece or become obviously defeated then that puts pressure on everything else and maybe spooks the horses in the Austian-Hungarian Empire at the very least.

 

[LSCatilina]

Non american intervention could have reinforced its traditionnal isolationnism or USA were bounded to intervene regularly and deeply in world affairs?

 

[anotherlurker]

no battle of tannenberg.

with the russians walking into berlin and the german army bogged down in belgium the plan has obviously failed and the war is over before it had even truly begun.

big winner: russia, not because of extra polish land, but because it wont go down the otl path of stabbing itself into the stomach repeatedly.

big loser: ottomans, yeah, the war's over before they even joined, but now they still have to face land grabs by powers that are not exhausted from fighting. not even 100 kemals can save them.

big whatever: germany, it's an obvious military loss, 0 chance of a stab in the back myth. that together with no after-war looting and no war related starvation should keep the public away from extremism. the anticipated big bad war turning out to be rather short and absent 4 years of heavy propaganda would keep diplomatic relations on both sides to be still ok afterwards, so i dont see much of a reason why austria shouldnt be able to join if ( depending on whatever remains of a-h) they desire it. that would keep the rabid nationalist from screaming bloody murder.

 

[bm79]

POD: Plan XVII not adopted by the French in 1913. How you get there, given that guerre à l'outrance had been strategic policy for a generation, that's for better minds than mine to suss out. But if the French don't throw the majority of their army into a futile attack on German defenses in the Vosges, then the Battle of Charleroi might replace the Marne as the point where the Germans were stopped.

 

[Captain Jack]

POD: Plan XVII not adopted by the French in 1913. How you get there, given that guerre à l'outrance had been strategic policy for a generation, that's for better minds than mine to suss out. But if the French don't throw the majority of their army into a futile attack on German defenses in the Vosges, then the Battle of Charleroi might replace the Marne as the point where the Germans were stopped.

Have a different general appointed Supreme commander instead of Joffre. At least one of the OTL candidates, I believe it was Gallieni, was in favor of adopting a defensive posture in Northern France and Belgium instead of an offensive through the Vosges.


I recently put some thought into how to realistically achieve an early Allied victory. Here's what I came up with.:

Have the Russian offensive into East Prussia be better organized and prepared. Pick your POD for this as there are plenty that would give the desired result. As a result, the Russians are more effective and are able to force the 8th Army under Prittwitz into Koenigsberg or, failing that, have him execute his planned retreat to the Vistula. With the Russians doing better in East Prussia and looking like they might be able to cross the Vistula and potentially threaten Berlin, Moltke diverts more than OTL's two corps to the east. In the west the war goes essentially OTL until the Battle of the Marne when the missing German corps mean less pressure on the BEF so French doesn't order the last retreat. Being in a better position the BEF is able to advance into the gap between the German 1st and 2nd Armies faster and more aggressively. The gap is also wider than OTL due to the additional missing corps. All this leads to the Marne being a more decisive Allied victory with the 1st Army cut off and surrounded and the other German Armies retreating in disorder. The Allies are able to exploit this and pursue the German more closely and assume better positions north of the Aisne when and if the front stabilizes. It also changes the Race to the Sea by allowing the Allies to support the Belgians in Antwerp.

Now we have a scenario in which the German armies have been beaten on all fronts; the attempt to capture Paris has clearly failed and they've lost an army to being enveloped and the forces in East Prussia have been defeated and surrounded in Koenigsberg wit only a small force between the Russians and Berlin. This might be enough to force the Germans to come to the negotiating table but even if it isn't it puts the Allies in a much more advantageous position especially on the Western Front.

 

[Riain]

By avoiding the offensives of Plan 17 then French concede all the initiative to the Germans, virtually admitting they cannot fight them on equal terms. I don't think this is realistic given how slim the German advantages over the French were: better rifles, more machineguns, minenwerfer and howitzers, all of which were not shown to be superior to the French arms and doctrine until the clashes of 1914. I personally don't think the big French-German army battles offer much scope for a quick Entente victory. However they are totally necessary so other events can happen which are more likely to bring about a quicker Entente victory, without them the Germans are free to go nuts.

 

[Lord Malikai]

Have the Russian offensive into East Prussia be better organized and prepared. Pick your POD for this as there are plenty that would give the desired result.

Since the decision of who would command which Russian Army was decided nearly on the eve of war it always seemed obvious to me to swap Samsonov with say Nikolai Ruzsky, the commander of the Russian 3rd Army. I've really always wondered why no one in the Stavka thought giving Rennenkampf and Samsonov neighboring armies would be a problem considering their history.

The Western Front could easily be improved by having General James Grierson not die of a heart aneurysm on August 17, 1914. He was quite capable if the 1912 Army Manoeuvres were anything to go by and according to Wikipedia he spoke French quite well which would improve French-British coordination. So having him live a month longer through First Marne seems like an easy way to bag the German 1st Army and possibly 2nd as well.

With the Russians marching towards the Oder after destroying, capturing or just screening 8th Army in Koenigsberg and the Germans possibly back as far as the Meuse on the Western front, I'd be surprised if the Germans didn't go for a quick, reasonably light peace treaty instead of fighting on in a bad situation.

 

[Riain]

A different commander for a single division will lead to the defeat of at least one and possibly 2 German armies that IOTL were the strongest and most successful?