AHC: No Trench Warfare in World War One

How could World War One have still occurred, yet the Western Front never results in trench warfare? Would technological changes have been necessary?
 
Have the Germans do a lot better in their initial invasion of France and Belgium so that they quickly win in the West before Trench Warfare sets in.

 
Have the Germans do a lot better in their initial invasion of France and Belgium so that they quickly win in the West before Trench Warfare sets in.
Could trench warfare be prevented without a quick German victory? Or perhaps a sparser war is fought in central France, south of Paris?
 
Could trench warfare be prevented without a quick German victory? Or perhaps a sparser war is fought in central France, south of Paris?

I don't think so. There's just too many men concentrated into a narrow area and after the Race to the Sea, there's no room to flank around.
 
As the RN invented armoured cars and tanks, have the RN create a mobile invasion force that doesn’t use horses (no army would come up with this as machines frighten the horses) and this force is landed 90 miles from Berlin on the Pomeranian coast.
 
The American Civil War reverted to an early trench warfare in some theatres by the end, so it was not a new phenomenon.

To avoid it you need to either avoid it beginning or have some way to easily break it:
Avoidance
Lower densities of troops - not that likely
Maintaining momentum of advance - possible, an early seizure of Paris is the best option, or perhaps a catastrophic encirclement of the German advance by a sneaky French counterattack.

Breaking the trench lines before they can be established
Massive artillery build up pre war - plausible, light and medium artillery struggled to break trench lines, but heavy artillery would have been sufficient to prevent the build up of trench lines.
Tanks - I can’t see a reason they would have been built up pre war unless something changed with regards to availability of horses. I guess a horrifying horse flu a decade earlier might have led to a need to replace ‘heavy’ cavalry with some sort of armoured tractor and lots of off road capable vehicles?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Massive artillery build up pre war - plausible, light and medium artillery struggled to break trench lines, but heavy artillery would have been sufficient to prevent the build up of trench lines.

Would it? IOTL, massive artillery bombardment facilitated trench warfare because it assured that the attacking force, even if it broke the enemy line, would not be able to move quickly enough over the enemy rear areas (which had been so badly pulverized by the heavy artillery), so that the defending force would always have time to bring up reserves and prevent a breakthrough.
 
Faster development of auto and semi-auto small arms, starting right after the invention of smokeless powder.

War became mobile not just due to armored vehicles, but also when the infantry became able to deliver high volume of fire on the go with LMGs and semi auto-rifles.
 
As the RN invented armoured cars and tanks, have the RN create a mobile invasion force that doesn’t use horses (no army would come up with this as machines frighten the horses) and this force is landed 90 miles from Berlin on the Pomeranian coast.

The Royal Navy being gutted early in the war avoids trench warfare in a different way than you're imagining.
 
Even today every military around the world still train in how to build and defend field fortifications. There will always be a temptation to dig in if not doing so resulted in almost certain injury and/or death. If we bring in new weapons the defences will adapt to this as they adapted in every major war. The early trench lines of WW1 where transformed in to deep defensive zones by the end of the war.

The only way not to have trench warfare is for the war to be over quickly. Probably with the fall of Paris. As soon as one sides offensive runs out of steam everyone is going to did in. A mechanised force with all terrain vehicular capable of going further and striking deeper is not possible with WW1 industrial levels and arguably technology.
 
The American Civil War reverted to an early trench warfare in some theatres by the end, so it was not a new phenomenon.

?

Heaps of wars have reverted to trench warfare even before the American Civil War, ever read Julius Caesar's works? Today we see long lines of trenches in the Ukraine conflict despite both sides having large numbers of artillery, tanks, radios etc all these inventions that it is claimed in WW1 finally destroyed trench warfare. We see it in Syria, the Arab Israeli wars, etc. The reason is trench warfare is highly effective.
 
The American Civil War reverted to an early trench warfare in some theatres by the end, so it was not a new phenomenon.
Indeed, perhaps someone was paying attention to the imbalance between offensive and defensive power?

Breaking the trench lines before they can be established
Massive artillery build up pre war - plausible, light and medium artillery struggled to break trench lines, but heavy artillery would have been sufficient to prevent the build up of trench lines.
Heavy tube artillery of the time was difficult to move. Maybe rocket batteries?

Tanks - I can’t see a reason they would have been built up pre war unless something changed with regards to availability of horses. I guess a horrifying horse flu a decade earlier might have led to a need to replace ‘heavy’ cavalry with some sort of armoured tractor and lots of off road capable vehicles?
A horse flu, in the manner of ‘The Great Epizootic of 1872’ would be possible but would basically stop the war due to the dependence on horses for logistics.
In 1872 life in North America was severely effected by a plague, but not one that infected humans. ‘The Great Epizootic of 1872’ was an outbreak of horse flu on a huge scale, effecting about 97% of horses and mules in North America. It left animals ill for several weeks, and killed about 3% overall (~400,000 animals).
Given the reliance on animal power the effect on travel and transport was enormous, and catastrophic. Huge backups in freight occurred all over the US and Canada; even canals (which employed horses to pull barges) and some railways (where horse transport delivered coal) were idle.
A fire in Boston was exacerbated by the lack of horses to pull the fire-fighting appliances. The US Cavalry became infantry. The US government effectively shut down. Cities suffered shortages of everything from milk to beer and rubbish piled up in the streets.
The outbreak began in Ontario in early October and spread rapidly reaching Detroit on the 10th, New York and Boston on the 22nd, Chicago on the 23rd, Washington on the 28th, New Orleans on the 27th of November and Havana on the 7th of December.
 
Would it? IOTL, massive artillery bombardment facilitated trench warfare because it assured that the attacking force, even if it broke the enemy line, would not be able to move quickly enough over the enemy rear areas (which had been so badly pulverized by the heavy artillery), so that the defending force would always have time to bring up reserves and prevent a breakthrough.
A fair point! I was making the assumption that part of the problem was massed bombardment with artillery that was not heavy enough was churning up the ground but not the trenches. I also assumed that if one side had enough of heavy artillery ready to go it could be used before the trenches became a feature of an area, that may be unrealistic though.
 
A fair point! I was making the assumption that part of the problem was massed bombardment with artillery that was not heavy enough was churning up the ground but not the trenches. I also assumed that if one side had enough of heavy artillery ready to go it could be used before the trenches became a feature of an area, that may be unrealistic though.

I don't think heavy artillery was ever the answer. The opposition can always dig deeper bunkers and emerge after the bombardment has passed/finished often able to use the craters as defensive strongpoints. It also churns up the ground and makes advances and moving the following logistical support difficult. As such used as an attempted defence destroyer it actually increases the likelihood of prolonged trench warefare.

OTL this was realised after the massive bombardments lasting days in 1916 didn't destroy enough of the trench system to allow the infantry to get through without horrendous losses. Later in the war most heavy artillery was used in counter battery fire. The role of the rest of the artillery wasn't to destroy the trenches and other defensive positions but to suppress them so the infantry following the barrage could capture them intact so they could be used as a rally point if (and usually when) the attack ran out of steam and the inevitable counter attack rolled in.
 
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