AHC: Moroccan Crisis Leads to a Stalemated War

The Moroccan Crisis is a popular point of divergence for starting World War One early normally ending with either Germany going on to dominate the continent, whilst Austria-Hungary falls apart, or it being a replay of our timeline's WWI. Is there any way though to set things up so that Britain stays out of the conflict, the Eastern Front goes mostly as our timeline, but the Western Front between France and Germany ending with the German advance not getting very far before bogging down leading say a year or two's worth of hard slogging backwards and forwards and a couple of million casualties and it ending with status quo ante bellum peace? The best I can think of is


  • That other old favourite the Fashoda Incident escalates slightly, not enough to start a conflict and being settled diplomatically quickly but still manages to derail any chance of the Entente Cordiale
  • The war happening pre-Schlieffen Plan means that Germany has to fall back on the old Hey Diddle-Diddle (Straight Up the Middle) strategy so that Belgium isn't violated
  • Having trouble penetrating the newer French defences, and France vice versa, the front bogs down into a backwards and forwards match that racks up the casualties for little real gains
  • Russia initially does as badly as our timeline's Great War before recovering mostly settling down to a defensive posture against Germany whilst attacking against Austria-Hungary
  • The have better luck there capturing Galicia but then likewise going on the defensive after their next couple of offensives are much less successful
  • Italy weasels out of their commitments and tries to sell their services to the highest bidder but are obnoxious enough and ask too much so that they're effectively rebuffed by both sides
  • After a year or two of rising Franco-German casualties they decide to bite the bullet and negotiate an armistice followed by a peace treaty that sees things return to their pre-war situations
Can anyone else come up with anything better?
 

BooNZ

Banned
A couple of considerations, the Russian economy, army and political scene was a mess in 1905, Germany was more dependent on imported nitrates and French military doctrine was not so much the crazy cult of the offensive as it had become in 1914.

Each of the above mess up your goal scenario somewhat.
 
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