Any WW1 TL with a more decisive Entente Victory? + need Bibliography

Hello, everyone, like said in the title, I'm looking for TL with a more decisive victory of the Entente. After reading several of these, I'm quite wary of seeing TLs where Germany wins "because Germany was cool" (yep, forced germanization, racial anthropology, social darwinism, plans of ethnic cleansing -meaning massive population transferts- in Western Poland to settle Germans -Hindenburg's wet dreams- ; all of these were so cool...).
But Hemingway... is there any good, detailed TL about WW1 (in pdf27, johnboy, Zhenghe style) where the Entente wins in a more decisive way, meaning:
-The French are more effective (or, to quote Ludendorff: the soldiers are still fighting like lions, but they're not commanded by donkeys), inflict more casualties, are suffering less casualties.
-The English (pretty good already IMHO) with a more effective navy perhaps and sligthly more effective offensives (1917, in spite of all the casualties, was a strategic success)
-The Russians, perhaps not saving the monarchy (I would like to but it's pretty difficult and Johnboy already did it in his great TL) but they could manage to bleed the Germans more.
-The Ottomans: no opinion about them, they could stay neutral or not (but please, perhaps less genocides, my heart is broken when I read about it).
All these conditions are indications. The TL don't need to have all of these at all. Basically Germany getting more kicked in order to: turn her into a lasting democracy which understood that it had be clearly beaten and become less hawkish and supremacist OR -worst case- bleed it enough in order to weaken it for round two.

Also, if some of you have articles or books I could find on internet (pdf, download etc) in English and/or French about it: specially military strategy, the details about each army, diplomacy, intelligence. I would be really grateful. If not, no problem at all:)
 
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There's none that sticks out to me as great on my must read list.

In reality it's pretty easy for a more successful Entente WW1.

Let's say Galippoli works OE drops out of war Russia gets shorter line, Balkans all joins Entente and Russia can trade with western allies. OR Britain manages to catch German Navy and bring them to battle without having a 30% success rate on their shells. OR cut out a few stupid failure battles that kept the Central Powers in the war.
 
There's none that sticks out to me as great on my must read list.

In reality it's pretty easy for a more successful Entente WW1.

Let's say Galippoli works OE drops out of war Russia gets shorter line, Balkans all joins Entente and Russia can trade with western allies. OR Britain manages to catch German Navy and bring them to battle without having a 30% success rate on their shells. OR cut out a few stupid failure battles that kept the Central Powers in the war.
It's sad that WW1 truly lacks good TLs on this forum like the WW2 ones. But thanks nonetheless, any bibliographical advices by any chance? :)
 
It's sad that WW1 truly lacks good TLs on this forum like the WW2 ones. But thanks nonetheless, any bibliographical advices by any chance? :)
To be honest the best ww1 timelines are slight central power wants so I figured they wouldn't be your style.

Have you any specific interest in ww1? Or just general.
 
To be honest the best ww1 timelines are slight central power wants so I figured they wouldn't be your style.

Have you any specific interest in ww1? Or just general.
Well, I'm not an expert about naval warfare (really not at all) so I'm more interested in land warfare (where I have some limited knowledge) and western front (I'm currently interested in french weaponry and french battle plans from Victor Michel to the one made by Joffre).
 
Well, I'm not an expert about naval warfare (really not at all) so I'm more interested in land warfare (where I have some limited knowledge) and western front (I'm currently interested in french weaponry and french battle plans from Victor Michel to the one made by Joffre).
Well I will stay away from my bibliographical recommendations.

Its mainly naval, with some industrial industrial and less land (but only really 1914)
 
industrial is welcome since you need it to produce weapons. for example, if france had kept the iron and coal field in 1914, who knows how many more LMG and 155mm cannons they would have buit?
 

Thomas1195

Banned
industrial is welcome since you need it to produce weapons. for example, if france had kept the iron and coal field in 1914, who knows how many more LMG and 155mm cannons they would have buit?
Well, French keeping the Victor Michel Plan, which was IOTL criticized for being too defensive, would enable this.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Get back to pre 1900, no Home Rule, and eventually Joseph Chamberlain become PM would lead to stronger British economy and industry. I mean British industries could be more modern ITTL.
 
Well, French keeping the Victor Michel Plan, which was IOTL criticized for being too defensive, would enable this.
I don't think the Victor Michel was THAT good: only 300 000 men to defend the A-L border was risky (OTL the defense of the border was quite succesfull: one battle lost, two won against the Konprinz of Bayern who had the reputation of being a good general, but it needed more than 300 000 men). Plus the idea to add reserve regiments to the active divisions (thus turning a 15000 men divisions into a 30000 one) was a fantasy.
But that's not really the point: the point of this thread is about the possible existence of a good WW1 TL with a more decisive Entente victory and bibliography.
 

longsword14

Banned
Also, if some of you have articles or books I could find on internet (pdf, download etc) in English and/or French about it: specially military strategy, the details about each army, diplomacy, intelligence. I would be really grateful. If not, no problem at all:)
It is hard to find useful works on the French Army online, therefore you will have to find some books. Or at least I, being unable to read French could not find any. You should go and do a thorough check at archive.org under French language subsection for reports and immediate assessment, if you have the time.
Best books, at least for those who do not understand the language, would be Pyrrhic Victory (Doughty), Marne (Holger R Herwig), Krause (Early French Trench Tactics). Avoid certain books that peddle lions led by donkeys too much (ex. Porch, March to the Marne).
There is no good TL that has a more decisive Entente victory , because making any victory decisive is hard enough after stabilisation of the lines (the size difference between resources is not decisive enough to have a victory that does not bleed France badly, though most things would have been better than OTL), and an early strong POD demands Joffre winning BotFr., something which has not been written as most people concentrate, for some perplexing reason, on the BEF.

About Michel, we cannot know how good he would have been under fire.Joffre was at fault for the initial stages, but he worked under enormous pressure to gain a victory at the Marne (damn him though, he bled France so badly in 1915:mad:). I am not sure that just anybody would have been able to use such a large force and not have victory slip through the fingers.
How much time did the reservists have? Because unlike some people's expectations, the Germans did throw theirs in for 1914, and reservists performed decently onwards (something that led to policy makers making stupid decisions about professionals in the 30s).

Will try and write something coherent about roads not taken during the preparation for war by re-reading the books mentioned above. To tell the truth, however, I doubt significant PODs can be possible unless somebody who knows the civil and army mish-mash well decides to make changes in a TL that are related to politics, because technological changes are not going to cut it. Blasting through so many division with the available tech is not going to be cheap, so you might get to Berlin, but would be ruined regardless.
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
I don't think the Victor Michel was THAT good: only 300 000 men to defend the A-L border was risky (OTL the defense of the border was quite succesfull: one battle lost, two won against the Konprinz of Bayern who had the reputation of being a good general, but it needed more than 300 000 men).
Because the French was on offensive manner at first.

Victor Michel Plan would focus on defending Franco-Belgium border, and the French might be very likely to fight on a defensive manner. Regarding Franco-German border, it was heavily fortified, so if you just defend, you actually do not need lots of troops in a ww1 style warfare.
 
It is hard to find useful works on the French Army online, therefore you will have to find some books. Or at least I, being unable to read French could not find any. You should go and do a thorough check at archive.org under French language subsection for reports and immediate assessment, if you have the time.
Best books, at least for those who do not understand the language, would be Pyrrhic Victory (Doughty), Marne (Holger R Herwig), Krause (Early French Trench Tactics). Avoid certain books that peddle lions led by donkeys too much (ex. Porch, March to the Marne).
There is no good TL that has a more decisive Entente victory , because making any victory decisive is hard enough after stabilisation of the lines (the size difference between resources is not decisive enough to have a victory that does not bleed France badly, though most things would have been better than OTL), and an early strong POD demands Joffre winning BotFr., something which has not been written as most people concentrate, for some perplexing reason, on the BEF.

About Michel, we cannot know how good he would have been under fire.Joffre was at fault for the initial stages, but he worked under enormous pressure to gain a victory at the Marne (damn him though, he bled France so badly in 1915:mad:). I am not sure that just anybody would have been able to use such a large force and not have victory slip through the fingers.
How much time did the reservists have? Because unlike some people's expectations, the Germans did throw theirs in for 1914, and reservists performed decently onwards (something that led to policy makers making stupid decisions about professionals in the 30s).

Will try and write something coherent about roads not taken during the preparation for war by re-reading the books mentioned above. To tell the truth, however, I doubt significant PODs can be possible unless somebody who knows the civil and army mish-mash well decides to make changes in a TL that are related to politics, because technological changes are not going to cut it. Blasting through so many division with the available tech is not going to be cheap, so you might get to Berlin, but would be ruined regardless.
In fact, Joffre in 1914 was not that bad. There is a myth about german superiority and discipline but the truth is that no french units panicked during the 1914 campaign while some german units did. The 75mm was a great gun and its range was equal if not superior to the german ones (including the 105mm and 155mm): sure the firepower was not the same but it could fire 20 times per minute, a 105mm cannon couldn't. The French artillery had well trained crews and was the first to understand and use the aviation to fire with precision: the germans were impressed and suffered a lot of casualties because of this. As for the reserve regiments, contrary to the myth, it was considered as decent formations ( during a 1909 inspection, Victor Michel reported that the reserve troops were sometimes better than the active ones) by the majority of the french generals: the real problem was with the officers who lacked experience but the soldiers were fine.
And I'm amazed to see that the battle of the Frontiers was a close run: basically, if Joffre had accepted to send the 1st army (and this was requested by his commanding officer several times!) a little further west, the battle of Mons would have seen the Von Kluck's army being partially flanked by the BEF while performing a frontal attack against the french. No enough to destroy it but enough to force him to retreat and thus creating a gap between the german 1st and 2nd armies.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
In fact, Joffre in 1914 was not that bad. There is a myth about german superiority and discipline but the truth is that no french units panicked during the 1914 campaign while some german units did. The 75mm was a great gun and its range was equal if not superior to the german ones (including the 105mm and 155mm): sure the firepower was not the same but it could fire 20 times per minute, a 105mm cannon couldn't. The French artillery had well trained crews and was the first to understand and use the aviation to fire with precision: the germans were impressed and suffered a lot of casualties because of this. As for the reserve regiments, contrary to the myth, it was considered as decent formations ( during a 1909 inspection, Victor Michel reported that the reserve troops were sometimes better than the active ones) by the majority of the french generals: the real problem was with the officers who lacked experience but the soldiers were fine.
And I'm amazed to see that the battle of the Frontiers was a close run: basically, if Joffre had accepted to send the 1st army (and this was requested by his commanding officer several times!) a little further west, the battle of Mons would have seen the Von Kluck's army being partially flanked by the BEF while performing a frontal attack against the french. No enough to destroy it but enough to force him to retreat and thus creating a gap between the german 1st and 2nd armies.
However, someone willing to fight defensively could have stunned the German offensive, as early ww1 warfare favoured defenders
 
Because the French was on offensive manner at first.

Victor Michel Plan would focus on defending Franco-Belgium border, and the French might be very likely to fight on a defensive manner. Regarding Franco-German border, it was heavily fortified, so if you just defend, you actually do not need lots of troops in a ww1 style warfare.
you still need mobile army corps to "fill the gaps" between the fortifications and avoid a breakthrough. Plus the german plan included an offensive made by the 5th and 6th army in the east in a "Cannae" style offensive. So to place an army or two to defend the border between longwy and the Vosges is not a bad idea.
The problem with VM plan is that it utterly lacked flexibility ( like the German one btw) even if it had rightly guessed the enemy's intentions. The Plan XVII utterly ignored the enemy's intentions but it was very flexible. A compromise between the VM plan and the plan XVII (more men to defend A-L border, smaller and more mobile armies and limited offensive in Lorraine while keeping three armies to defend the North) would have been a nightmare for the Germans.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
you still need mobile army corps to "fill the gaps" between the fortifications and avoid a breakthrough. Plus the german plan included an offensive made by the 5th and 6th army in the east in a "Cannae" style offensive. So to place an army or two to defend the border between longwy and the Vosges is not a bad idea.
The problem with VM plan is that it utterly lacked flexibility ( like the German one btw) even if it had rightly guessed the enemy's intentions. The Plan XVII utterly ignored the enemy's intentions but it was very flexible. A compromise between the VM plan and the plan XVII (more men to defend A-L border, smaller and more mobile armies and limited offensive in Lorraine while keeping three armies to defend the North) would have been a nightmare for the Germans.
The problem with Joffre is that his plan eliminated all of the defensive elements from the previous wargames.

Maybe Gallieni instead of Joffre. Joffre was a mad cultist of offensive, look at the plan XVII and what happened with all the French counter-offensives at German machine guns after Marne. Petain was too junior but his defensive view was perfect for ww1.
 
Maybe Gallieni instead of Joffre. Joffre was a mad cultist of offensive, look at the plan XVII and what happened with all the French counter-offensives at German machine guns after Marne. Petain was too junior but his defensive view was perfect for ww1.
Gallieni was a good general but OTL he refused to become COS of the French army after VM ousting because he considered himself as too old. Joffre only came after.
VM is the best choice but he would need to be less stubborn and more open to compromises ( after proposing his plan, he basically said "you're all full of sh..., my plan is better. Period"). Plus his idea to merge active and reserve divisions was not... wise to say the least (the same number of CO and NCO for twice the soldiers!). Messigny, the defence minister, wanted unity and concensus within the french staff and VM was too antagonizing for that: that's partly because of that he had to go. If VM had given a bone to the "offensive at the utmost" lunatics, his plan -albeit modified- would have been accepted: Joffre in 1911 was not against using french reserves at the frontline per se, in fact, he said "why not?" at the condition of using officers from the active to command them ( basically as a way to quicken the promotion of officers). Even Grandmaison (leader of the "offensive at the utmost" group) didn't attacked VM plan because it was defensive but because it concentrated all the forces in the North while he feared an offensive in the East.
 
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