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To avoid necrothreading (myself) I restart my game of questions.

This is on possiblilities for/of Joffres reactions/plans of operation in an ATL I'm still working on.

The general outlines :
  • Germany goes east on 1st August 1914. No ultimatum to Belgium, no incursions into Belgium, France or Luxembourg, officially guaranteeing french, belgian and luxembourgish integretiy ... if not attacked or the low countries 'invaded' by someonelese (France :p).
  • No german DoW against France.
  • Happenings in the east mostly as OTL (beside starting of deployment of "eastern troops" by Germany around 4-6th August, with a "start of opereations" planned for around 18th to 20th August). Therefore ...
  • "State of War" between Russia and Germany from 3rd August onwards (I plan to ... change some wee details, but nothing of it now ... don't wanna spoil it ;))
  • France DoWing Germany around 11th to 13th August (as worked out on last page of this thread) but with Joffre "kept informed" on the commitment of the french goverment to its russian ally.
ITTL Joffre is - at least in the beginning/aka 1914 - politically restricted NOT to move through Belgium (may it be north, south or straight through the Ardenne Forrest) and Luxembourg.
That leaves him with only two other directions of attack (á outrance) :
- the burgundian gap/Belfort into upper Alsac towards the Rhein
- through Lorrain and the Saar-basin tiowards the lower Moselle and ... the Rhein

Personally I'm convinced, that he would (like OTL) put his main effort into Lorraine. But there he now has ... more options. Ofc his decisions will be at least influenced on what intelligence he might get about the german deployment.

Therefore I was just prepared a wee bit.Staabs West ATL.jpg
This is a deployment of the german "West-Heer" that came to my mind using the texts, maps and tables, that can be found here (the records and story of the raiways at the start of the war OTL).
Therefore : this deployment is absolutly feasable and realistic to be completed at the 14th/15th August.

Joffre would NOT see this plan. But ITTL he would still see a lot of traffic around Cologne, Aachen and the belgian border, though not knowing that its less than OTL. What were his options ?
(BTW a nice site sjowing the concentration and deployment of the french troops can be found here.)

We all (should) know, that Plan XVII was a concentration plan, giving Joffre quite some more options of deployment and operations in difference to what Moltke had set up, what was a plan of oprations.



And these are my thoughts on possible thoughts Joffre could have had :
give the push through Lorraine more power with ordering the 4. Army to attack in Lorrain also like :
  • (left wing) 4th Army a sector south of Metz from Pagny/Pont-a-Mousson to Nancy, aiming at Faulquemont (Falkenberg) and St.Avold
  • (center) 2nd Army asector from Nancy to Blamont, aiming at Dieuze and Sarrale
  • (right wing) 1st Army (nortehrn part) from Blamot to the Col de Saales, aiming at Sarrebourg and Sarre-Union/Saverne Zabern) with the additional task of taking Donon and the Bruche-valley
3rd Army to keep the germans a bit 'busy' in front of Metz and Thionville (but nothing more, plan is to encircle and capture them with the later push to Saarbrücken and the Moselle ;)), maybe with some additional force from 5th Army, which would still have to cover the belgian border ... just in case the german do different as they've told ITTL.

An additional thought, that came to my mind might be of interest for Joffre :
give the push through Alsac more power with diverting another corps of the 1st Army to that task :
- 14th Corps comming from Lyon could be easily diverted for that.
There would still be enough power for the northern part of 1st Armys now shortend sector of operation but you would have the power of 2 full corps to push into Alsac towards the Rhein.

Now :
What do you think of my thoughts of what might Joffre think ITTL ?
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