AHC: Germany collapses in 1917

NoMommsen

Donor
snip

a) Unlike OTL, the Germans keep their forward lines in January 1917 instead of retrenching. Without a better organized and "thicker" defense in the west on the Hindenburg line, the Allied offensives of 1917 might actually work at driving back the overextended Germans, bite-by-bite, so that Germany collapses by the end of the year under the recurring blows and the WAllies and even Russians do not come to feel their efforts are futile.
I would like to know by what means the Entente in the west manage to achieve a moving of front lines they did not for 1 1/2 years prior. With what weapons, what numbers of men they did not have prior to ?
I can't see the germans "collaps" as you describe it. There might be some (rather) moderate moving of front towards what was the Hindenburg line of OTL, where the Entente will now be stopped after having already lost a HUGE amount of men and material.
b) The Germans mismanage the Hindenburg economic plan even more than OTL and this leads to imbalances that collapse the Army or home front earlier than OTL.
Given the screwing they performed IOTL struggle seeing them doing even more harm ... and not being accused of High Treason.
c) Romania does not declare war on Germany in 1916 in a moment of (ir)rational exuberance. Instead, she joins the war in 1917 after the American DoW and inspired by the British western offensive and Kerensky offensives.
And ... what will happen ITTL with the "renewed" 9th Army as well as Mackensens troops ?
Where will they now be used in late summer/autumn 1916 ? They wouldn't sit around twiddling their thumbs ...

d) a combination of a) and c) -

snip
If c) "happens", a) becomes rather improbable, as there are - as mentioned above - in early autumn at least two german Corps and the cavalry-coprs Schmettow available to be ... employed elsewhere, perhaps the western front
as well as the austrian 1.Army perhaps deployed in Galicia.


If at all, then only a combination of a) and b) (however improbably) might lead to a worse situation for the CP, esp. Germany at the beginning of 1918.
But would still be not enough to bring them down for any kind of "provisional" goverment in Russia to take advantage from.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
For the CP to collaps in 1917 somehwere "near" the february revolution IMHO you would need a CP-fuck-up in 1915/early 1916.

Maybe a course of events like this :
  • a successfull Gallipoli-campaign
  • followed by a large enough Entente-Army deployed against A-H in Serbia
  • Bulgaria not joing the CP (rather the Entente maybe)
  • an even more successfull Brusilov-offensive (Brusilov "staying" with his "new" tactics instead of returning to the old-style mass attacks)
  • succeeded by Romania also joining the Entente
This could put enough strain on Germany with a now truly collapsing A-H to ask/sue for peace negotiations.
However, such a development might also "trigger" the February-Revolution NOT to happen.
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
There might be some (rather) moderate moving of front towards what was the Hindenburg line of OTL, where the Entente will now be stopped after having already lost a HUGE amount of men and material.

I think your suggestion here that the only penalty the Germans pay for remaining in the overextended forward lines of 1916 is to be forced back involuntarily to the line of the Hindenburg significantly understates the penalty the Germans will pay for not shortening their lines. I think it more likely that the result of Germany trying to keep and patch up the old front line will be Entente offensives that gain enough traction to push the Germans back to the lines of 11 November 2018. That is, a liberation of most of occupied northern France, the western third of Belgium and the complete “flattening out” of the German “bulge” in the western front.

Western Front 1915-1918.gif


If the Germans somehow scrape enough of everything together to limit losses only to the green area in the western front, it will have only been able to do so by stripping support from the Ottomans and Bulgarians and probably Austrians.

Weakening the support for the Bulgarians in particular will enable an Allied breakout from Salonika in 1917, and cause the beginnings of the CP collapse.

Look at it this way - Between December 18th, 1916, the conclusion of the battle of Verdun, and about a week after the conquest Bucharest, until 1 September, 1917, when the Germans launched an offensive to take Riga and accelerate the weakening of Russia, Germany initiated *no offensive operations at all* on land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jugla

That means, for January, February, March, April, May, June, July and August, a total 8 whole months, the Germans did not take the offensive on land. (U-Boats and aerial bombing are another story, and they may have had air superiority for much of 1917). The German Army would not yield the initiative to its encircling enemies for so long without a very, very good reason.

The only reason good enough to not launch a major offensive on any front in that period of time must have been because it just wasn't possible, because the Germans were spread too thin on all fronts and in their industry.

If we spread them thinner still, by holding the old front-line in the west, and not retrenching to the Hindenburg Line, something is going to give, and it will snowball into catastrophe for Germany before the year is out. The western front will give out to one degree or another, or the Salonika, or arms production.

Then, also think about the obverse positive effects on the Allies.

With the Germans at their forward line in France, they will be where the Allies expect them to be. The Allies in OTL kept on the strategic offensive in the west, most of the time between April 2, 1917 and December 3rd, 1917. Much of the time it was British troops and British Empire troops doing the job alone, without the mutinying French and the tardily arriving Americans.

Now in the ATL, instead of a pointless disaster, the French and British are likely to make gains fairly early in the 1917 campaign to push the Germans back from the 1916 lines to where the Hindenburg line would have been in OTL.

While bloody as all hell, these gains will be quite large by WWI 1917 standards. They will make even French commanders appear less inept, which probably dissuades the French Army from going on mutiny/strike at all. Thus, with a better initial return on its 1917 offensive investment, France can spend more of 1917 having more of its forces on the attack. This combined with all the British pressure is going to push back the Germans further.

That level of progress could well get Lloyd George to stop holding back British troops from Haig as he started to do in 1917. Instead, Germany will be pressed all the harder by the British and French all through 1917. The combined weight of those offensives should totally flatten the German bulge and get the Germans back to what the front line was at the time of OTL's armistice, running halfway through Belgium. At that point, even if the Germans are not also dealing with a parallel Bulgarian collapse, it will be obvious to the German high command and soldiers alike that they've lost so much ground that no gamble in 1918 could offer them victory.

That is going to suck for German morale, and despite potential variations on this front or that in detail, it is going to cause Germany to sue for armistice and to effectively give its people permission to have a revolution, most likely before 1 November 1917.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Trouble is, you haven't had the 1918 offensives, whose failure broke the German army's morale. W/o that a German collapse is at best extremely unlikely, and probably impossible.

So unless you can find away for them to do Michael etc a year earlier - - -


No attempt to try at Operation Michael (and fail) is needed in the circumstances I outlined in my post just prior to this one. The 8 month German offensive pause of 1917, even after retrenching to the Hindenburg Line and economizing on 21 Divisions shows the Germans were at the precipice of defeat in that time. You stretch the Germans any further, the Germans fall over the precipice.
 
No attempt to try at Operation Michael (and fail) is needed in the circumstances I outlined in my post just prior to this one. The 8 month German offensive pause of 1917, even after retrenching to the Hindenburg Line and economizing on 21 Divisions shows the Germans were at the precipice of defeat in that time. You stretch the Germans any further, the Germans fall over the precipice.


That wasn't Haig's opinion. He observed that had the Germans been resisting as stubbornly as in 1917, he would never have risked an attack on the Hindenburg line.

Also note the dramatic increase in prisoners taken. From around 200 per day in the British sector during the first half of 1918, from the beginning of August it soared to around 4000 per day, and continued to average about that till the end of the war. The failure of their offensives had cracked their morale.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
I think your suggestion here that the only penalty the Germans pay for remaining in the overextended forward lines of 1916 is to be forced back involuntarily to the line of the Hindenburg significantly understates the penalty the Germans will pay for not shortening their lines.
Dear @raharris1973 , first I want to apologize, if I painted a wrong picture:
ofc the germans would have to pay a damn awfull bloody prize in blood in continued defending a front they did so for two years without they or the Entente achieving anything resembling a success.​

However, I would please you to consider also the part of my post you did not quote :
I would like to know by what means the Entente in the west manage to achieve a moving of front lines they did not for 1 1/2 years prior. With what weapons, what numbers of men they did not have prior to ?
I can't see the germans "collaps" as you describe it
. There might be some (rather) moderate moving of front towards what was the Hindenburg line of OTL, where the Entente will now be stopped after having already lost a HUGE amount of men and material.
IMHO the Entente was as exhausted as the germans on the turn of 1916 into 1917. They could restart their offensive(s) also only in April 1917, what we know as
all of which is also known as the Nivelle Offensive 1917.
All these battles took place on locations where the german retreat to the Hindenburg-line was only a few miles back, not at the "bulging front" of the "Alberich"-region, as the abondoned regions were called by the germans.
Also given the time of 3 - 4 month I doubt the germans would have NOT considerably reinforced their defenses/trenches at the prior front, though probably not as "elaborate" as the Hindenburg-line IOTL.

The question would be now :
Where will the Entente attack ITTL ?
IOTL the devastated state esp. of the logitical infrastructure (deliberatly destroyed by the germans while retreating to the Hindenburg-line) was not the least importan reason, why the Nivell-offenseives took place where they did. Would Haig and Nivelle "dare" to be outflanked from the direction of Bapaume, when attacking at Arras ? ... or from the Oise while attacking across the Aisne ? Or would they try another Somme or Oise or Soisson or ...

With what resources, other than what they had IOTL ? There resources would be as "spread" as the germans, what would result in less "strong" offenses as in IOTL

I think it more likely that the result of Germany trying to keep and patch up the old front line will be Entente offensives that gain enough traction to push the Germans back to the lines of 11 November 2018. That is, a liberation of most of occupied northern France, the western third of Belgium and the complete “flattening out” of the German “bulge” in the western front.

...
... and here you enter IMO a realm of wishfull thinking I usually associate with someone else.


View attachment 380537

If the Germans somehow scrape enough of everything together to limit losses only to the green area in the western front, it will have only been able to do so by stripping support from the Ottomans and Bulgarians and probably Austrians.

Weakening the support for the Bulgarians in particular will enable an Allied breakout from Salonika in 1917, and cause the beginnings of the CP collapse.
Do you have any numbers/records of troops withdrawn from the west-front during and after "Alberich" being employed elsewher and NOT replaced by other troops ? How "big" was actally the/a "drain" of troops from the west due to/during the retreat ?

Look at it this way - Between December 18th, 1916, the conclusion of the battle of Verdun, and about a week after the conquest Bucharest, until 1 September, 1917, when the Germans launched an offensive to take Riga and accelerate the weakening of Russia, Germany initiated *no offensive operations at all* on land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jugla

That means, for January, February, March, April, May, June, July and August, a total 8 whole months, the Germans did not take the offensive on land. (U-Boats and aerial bombing are another story, and they may have had air superiority for much of 1917). The German Army would not yield the initiative to its encircling enemies for so long without a very, very good reason.
Maybe the same reasons, why on other front there were also relativly few and limited Entente-offensives with rather questionable siccesses (if any at all).

The only reason good enough to not launch a major offensive on any front in that period of time must have been because it just wasn't possible, because the Germans were spread too thin on all fronts and in their industry.

If we spread them thinner still, by holding the old front-line in the west, and not retrenching to the Hindenburg Line, something is going to give, ...
Same "spreading thin", as the Entente has to suffer on the same front.
... and it will snowball into catastrophe for Germany before the year is out. ...
... and from here onwards you are writing a story with in my personel opinion contains a good portion of ... wishfull thinking.

Something maybe for the writer's forum section of this board.
 
Incidentally, if Germany was really "on the verge of collapse" in 1917, how is it that, as more troops became available from the weakening Russian Front, they were sent to Italy (to win Caporetto) rather than France or Flanders?

Had Germany been truly on the ropes, she could have spared nothing for her allies. This of course was exactly the situation which arose during the "Hundred Days" of 1918, when the German Army was defeated, demoralised and in headlong flight, losing men by the tens of thousands as prisoners or deserters. This was not the case in 1917, though it could have been were there no February Revolution, and the Russian Army continuing to perform at 1916 levels or better.

Also, given that in 1917 the Russian Army was increasingly ineffective, America, though technically at war, still little more than a gleam on the military horizon, and the French Army "convalescing" from the Nivelle mutinies, German collapse would require a British Army able to win the war almost singlehanded. Afaik, even the late John Terraine never made a claim as extravagant as that.
 
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