AHC: Quicker Entente Victory: 1915 or after

Is there anything the Entente could have done once the trenches settled in on the Western Front to defeat the Central Powers earlier than November 1918?

Bonus points if it doesn't include America coming into the War early.
 
Is there anything the Entente could have done once the trenches settled in on the Western Front to defeat the Central Powers earlier than November 1918?

Bonus points if it doesn't include America coming into the War early.
Gallipoli succeeds and knocks Turkey out of the war. Guarantees passage of Entente ships for duration of the war. Greece and Romania enter the war on the Entente side, Bulgaria remains neutral. British and French troops move out of Salonika and are reinforced by troops from Palestine and the Middle East.

Russia is supported and supplied much better in the East and the German offensives of 1915 are much less successful due to the need to cover the new Southern front.

Brusilov offensive in 1916 collapses the Austro-Hungarian army, the war in Italy also swings in favour of the Entente.

Germany seeks an armistice. (if you want a total CP screw then they lose Jutland as well)
 

Cook

Banned
Gallipoli succeeds and knocks Turkey out of the war. Guarantees passage of Entente ships for duration of the war... Russia is supported and supplied much better in the East...
Russia was being supplied at about the limit of British and French capacity to do so, at least until well into 1916, by which time Russia’s own industries were providing the armaments the army required.

While 90% of Russia’s wheat exports prior to the war went via the Dardanelles, foreign trade simply was not a major part of the Russian economy of the time and didn’t generate a great amount of revenue for the government. Given the manpower shortages caused by the war, and the massive burden placed on the Russian rail network by the need to provide supplies and men to the front, and food and Ukrainian coal to Petrograd, any resumed export of the Ukrainian wheat crop would be far short of the pre-war volume and unlikely to be enough of an increase in the Russian economy to change the overall military situation in the East.

There is also the fact that a victory for the Dardanelles expedition and reopening of the straits would mean a resumption of Rumanian oil and Ukrainian coal exports to Italy; reducing the pressure the Entente can apply to Italy to bring them into the war.
 
Russia was being supplied at about the limit of British and French capacity to do so, at least until well into 1916, by which time Russia’s own industries were providing the armaments the army required.

While 90% of Russia’s wheat exports prior to the war went via the Dardanelles, foreign trade simply was not a major part of the Russian economy of the time and didn’t generate a great amount of revenue for the government. Given the manpower shortages caused by the war, and the massive burden placed on the Russian rail network by the need to provide supplies and men to the front, and food and Ukrainian coal to Petrograd, any resumed export of the Ukrainian wheat crop would be far short of the pre-war volume and unlikely to be enough of an increase in the Russian economy to change the overall military situation in the East.

There is also the fact that a victory for the Dardanelles expedition and reopening of the straits would mean a resumption of Rumanian oil and Ukrainian coal exports to Italy; reducing the pressure the Entente can apply to Italy to bring them into the war.

Last time I looked Italy was already in the war at the time of Gallipoli so no issue there then. The advantage that the Black sea supply would have would be in drastically reducing the load on the Russian railway system caused by landing Entente supplies at Murmansk or Vladivostok

Also the British and French troops would be able to stiffen the Russians and Romanians in the same way as the Germans did for the A-H armies.
 

Cook

Banned
Last time I looked Italy was already in the war at the time of Gallipoli so no issue there then.
The Gallipoli landings were on April 25, 1915 and were only ever going to succeed with initial shock and surprise; once the Ottomans began to respond the assault bogged down and never had an opportunity to recover. General consensus is that for them to have had any significant possibility of success, they would have had to have taken place without the previous naval assault on the Straits that resulted in the Turks increasing their forces in the Dardanelles from one division to six, so March 1915 or even earlier. Italy did not enter the war until late May 1915 and one of the guarantees the British government gave them was the supply of British coal to make up for their lost imports from Rumania and Russia.
The advantage that the Black sea supply would have would be in drastically reducing the load on the Russian railway system caused by landing Entente supplies at Murmansk or Vladivostok.
Transporting armaments from Odessa would have been an advantage over transporting the same arms from Murmansk and Archangel, but the advantage is not going to be decisive because the Entente would not have been able to supply much more because of the Shell Crisis.
Also the British and French troops would be able to stiffen the Russians and Romanians in the same way as the Germans did for the A-H armies.
The Russian army was 5 million men strong, how large an expeditionary force are you proposing? Bearing in mind that every man sent in an expeditionary force to Russia is one less men on the Western Front.
 
The Gallipoli landings were on April 25, 1915 and were only ever going to succeed with initial shock and surprise; once the Ottomans began to respond the assault bogged down and never had an opportunity to recover. General consensus is that for them to have had any significant possibility of success, they would have had to have taken place without the previous naval assault on the Straits that resulted in the Turks increasing their forces in the Dardanelles from one division to six, so March 1915 or even earlier. Italy did not enter the war until late May 1915 and one of the guarantees the British government gave them was the supply of British coal to make up for their lost imports from Rumania and Russia.

Transporting armaments from Odessa would have been an advantage over transporting the same arms from Murmansk and Archangel, but the advantage is not going to be decisive because the Entente would not have been able to supply much more because of the Shell Crisis.

The Russian army was 5 million men strong, how large an expeditionary force are you proposing? Bearing in mind that every man sent in an expeditionary force to Russia is one less men on the Western Front.

Treaty of London was signed April 26 - I wonder why?;)

Gallipoli absorbed about a half a million Entente soldier in all - more than enough to provide the stiffening of the Russians in key areas.

Keeping Serbia in the fight would add a net 250,000 men and the absence of Bulgaria from the CP would lose them 500,000 men and the opportunity to turn the Serbian lines. Romania could add another 600,000 men to the Entente. So Russia gets a half a million Western troops and a net gain of 1.35 million men for the Brusilov offensives

Gallipoli would have worked IF the tactical plan matched the strategic vision.
 
Also weren't the French in particular hoping the an Entente controlled Black Sea would allow Russians troops to come West? I believe there was some half-baked hope for 500,000-1 million Russians being shipped to Flanders.

Stupid as that may be, it suggests the French and British wouldn't be keen on throwing in large expeditions on the Eastern Front.

However no war in the Middle East does free up decent chunks of men and material for either front. Maybe the Brits throw a few Indian divisions into Russia? Now that would be an interesting culture clash.
 
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