AHC: Central Powers USA --- One man in the wrong place.

Can you guess who/what my POD involves?

  • Obviously, you're going to have to create something that would get the USA fighting mad!

    Votes: 27 75.0%
  • You'll make up something completely off the wall, and call it good.

    Votes: 7 19.4%
  • It was colonel Mustard, in the Library, with the Candle stick

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • Total voters
    36
Italian entry into the central powers could help, since you've then got the three biggest immigrant groups aligned, plus a better naval situation for the cp means a more desperate british blockade which means more opportunity for pissing off the United States.

Maybe something with Japan or Russia in the far East results in the US entry?
An interesting idea, and welcome to the thread!
 
An interesting idea, and welcome to the thread!

imho any realistic CP victory scenario includes at least Italian neutrality and/or entry, or else CP Japan. Flipping one, or ideally both, to the German side allows them to win, not merely get status quo ante in the West and great Litovsk in the east. Since the key problem is the british navy... otherwise you just put the Kaiser in the same situation Hitler and Napoleon both faced, that of a continental power engaged in a global war.
 
Italian entry into the central powers could help, since you've then got the three biggest immigrant groups aligned, plus a better naval situation for the cp means a more desperate british blockade which means more opportunity for pissing off the United States.

Maybe something with Japan or Russia in the far East results in the US entry?
Wouldn't it be difficult to get Italy and the Ottomans onto the same side in WW1? I'm not discounting it out of hand as ASB, but their geopolitical interests in the Mediterranean seem to diametrically opposed. The same thing could be said about Japan and Russia in Manchuria + East Asia before 1914, so it's not impossible.

The far east probably settled into a stable equilibrium post 1905 because there were only two major players, but in the mediterranean the Italo-Turkish war just provide a green light for the balkan nations to pounce onto Turkey's European provinces, destabilizing the region even more. A different Italo-Turkish war, a different 1st and /or 2nd balkan wars, or avoiding these conflicts altogether may be necessary to provide an understanding between Rome and Constantinople in the Mediterranean.
 
Wouldn't it be difficult to get Italy and the Ottomans onto the same side in WW1? I'm not discounting it out of hand as ASB, but their geopolitical interests in the Mediterranean seem to diametrically opposed. The same thing could be said about Japan and Russia in Manchuria + East Asia before 1914, so it's not impossible.

The far east probably settled into a stable equilibrium post 1905 because there were only two major players, but in the mediterranean the Italo-Turkish war just provide a green light for the balkan nations to pounce onto Turkey's European provinces, destabilizing the region even more. A different Italo-Turkish war, a different 1st and /or 2nd balkan wars, or avoiding these conflicts altogether may be necessary to provide an understanding between Rome and Constantinople in the Mediterranean.

About as difficult as getting Japan and Russia in the same alliance?:biggrin:
The italo Turkish war has potential for diversions but not essential and by definition butterflies world war one as we know it due to radically altering the Balkans. Also if Italy is rivals with Turkey then she must depise Britain considering the latter is far worse if allowed into the middle East.

In any case it's Austria, not Turkey, which is relevant to world war one and Italy. Austria being weak and looking about ready to collapse is why Italy jumped in in the first place. As in WWII they were horribly mistaken but WWI they managed to tough it out and win in the end.
 
About as difficult as getting Japan and Russia in the same alliance?:biggrin:
The italo Turkish war has potential for diversions but not essential and by definition butterflies world war one as we know it due to radically altering the Balkans. Also if Italy is rivals with Turkey then she must depise Britain considering the latter is far worse if allowed into the middle East.

In any case it's Austria, not Turkey, which is relevant to world war one and Italy. Austria being weak and looking about ready to collapse is why Italy jumped in in the first place. As in WWII they were horribly mistaken but WWI they managed to tough it out and win in the end.
I use the far east comparison because less than a decade after the Russo-Japanese war, Japan and Russia were technically allies or at least co-belligerents in WW1 for separate reasons. Russia was honoring its commitment to Serbia and backing up France, and I'm pretty sure Japan cited its obligations under the Anglo-Japanese alliance as its reason for joining WW1.
 
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