DB WI: The Entente Wins The Great War???

One of my students asked me, "Dear teacher, what if the English, the French and the Russians had prevailed in the great war? What do you think could have happened?"

After the student sat down, I smiled and worked not to laugh. "That is a fascinating and interesting question, dear student," I replied, keeping a straight face. I then had a flash of genius. "Students, I give you a twenty minute literary 'fantasy' exercise: Tell me in your words what you think could have happened if the Triple Entente had somehow won against the Central Powers in the great war a century ago?"

I urged the students to keep their scenarios as realistic as possible, of course.

Seriously, chaps, can you imagine? The English in charge of all Africa instead of Our Beloved Kaiser? Do you really think the French, of all people, could manage, say, building a Zeppelin with capacity for incendinary bombs? I mean, LOL, maybe if the Americans had joined in and somehow built a dreadnaught battleship fleet to match ours! Oh, it is to laugh. Do you think Russian space specialists could today be building colonies on Mars? Truly, I wonder.

I asked my students to consider posting their essays (or at least excerpts of them) onto this website if their parents allow them to. My dear chaps, I do welcome your thoughts on this, at the very least for my potential amusment!

Yours With Grace Of Our Beloved Kaiser,
Wilhelm Goldstein, New Jersey District, Northeast America Province of The Beloved Kaiser's Domain.


[ooc, not my actual name ;)]
 
Yours With Grace Of Our Beloved Kaiser,
Wilhelm Goldstein, New Jersey District, Northeast America Province of The Beloved Kaiser's Domain.

Since when does Germany own any part of the America's? That sounds about as unplausible as Opération l'Otarie, or Operation Sea Lion as it's known in English (OOC: I apologise for not being able to resist this cliche) actually succeeding. You're one of those nationalist German Americans again, aren't you? *shakes head*

But to be serious, yeah, I suppose that you're right regarding the plausibility. There were some points where the Entente generals thought they had a chance of winning, but they should've known better than that. Sure, the battle of Sicily was almost a success for the Entente, and it might have fallen, but Italy itself was not something they were able to invade.

To really get an Entente victory, one would have to interfere with the fall of the Balkan nations in favour of the CPs. One could attempt to turn that around - keep Bulgaria neutral, for instance, and get Greece and Romania on the Entente side. While the first seems kind of hard with neutral Bulgaria, the latter is plausible, with Romanian claims to Transsylvania and all. Also, if the Entente had focused more on the Ottoman Empire after the fall of Libya, they could've perhaps destroyed it in a three-front war, with Greece on the Entente side ITTL. Of course, that would require the Libyan war to speed up more.

Overall, it would be the easiest to just get the USA in, or Italy out. The latter, however, seems ASB to me. Italy got what it most wanted from Austria and all it wanted from France and Britain offered to it from the CP's, and there's no way that France and Britain would've been willing to offer any of their territory (Nice-Savoy, the Somaliland's and Malta, for instance) to Italy to get them to join. There is a chance that Italy might've maintained neutrality, or even join the Entente, if Germany had never realised that they should do their best to not get any more enemies against them in early '15 and hadn't encouraged Austria to give Trento and Trieste to Italy. Possible, but not really plausible.

Anyway - the outcome. I think that after German defeat, the world is going to be different. Assuming that America came on time to save Russia, we'll get Russian Galicia, and maybe parts of other ethnic Slavic areas (Posen and the south of West-Prussia) as well, along with the northern coast of Anatolia and the straits. Serbia will annex Bosnia and Vojvodina, Romania gets Transsylvania, France gets Alsace-Lorraine and perhaps Luxemburg, and might annex the Saarland as well. Piedmont, Sicily and the Rhineland will be demilitarized. The German and Italian colonies will be split between France and Britain, as will the Middle-East. Greece will get the Anatolian coastal areas, and both the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary (I don't think they'd destroy it all together, but a Russian sphere of influence in at least some parts of A-H is likely) will become shadows of their former selves. I'd expect an Austro-Czech breakaway within a few years after the war in favour of Germany (whether the Entente will accept that or create an independent Austrian state depends on the wish for another war in the people's minds) and unless Hungary stops it's Magyarization politics and accepts a lot of autonomy for Croatia, it might very well be soon left with only Hungary and Slovakia, the remaining core lands of the Habsburg dynasty.

Whether any of the nations involved will go fascist is questionable, but it could happen. Italy and Hungary are the most likely nations, but the right-wing movement might gather more support in Germany as well. Whether it will actually succeed is uncertain, but, even without the Austro-Czech annexation (or the Austro-Sudetenland annexation, if the Entente are willing to compromise) it seems implausible to me that Germany would go fascist. Unlike the OTL Second Great War, this will therefore be a limited conflict, one that the future historians won't even call a great war, a war between France, Serbia (eventually Croatia) and Russia on one side, and an Italo-Hungarian Axis on the other. It's pretty obvious who would win, and most likely, this will end up in Slovakia (and Croatia, if it was not independent yet, or if it was, they will annex Slavonia) being pulled away from the Hungarian kingdom/republic/whatever as well, resulting in a Russian dominated Balkans and, most likely, an American/British/French - Russian Cold War. Both Japan and Germany could swing either way. Of course, for Japan, it would depend on if it participated in the second war, but that chance is very unlikely, given their weak chance of succeeding.

Of course, this all assumes that America comes in before Russia is defeated. If they come in afterwards, we'll see a longer war, whose length varies depending on if America comes early enough to save France, which might even cause them to get a compromise peace. But since this WI assumes Entente Victory, I'm going to bet on them redoing the invasion of Sicily, invading Italy, and, after a long, long war, finally get the CP's to surrender in 1921 or 1922. That will create a harsh peace, and there won't be much of the former CP's remaining.

And, to conclude this, here's a scary thought. If Germany is occupied in Southern Europe, and eventually weakened to a peace treaty, the Russian Civil War might turn very different from how it did OTL, and the Bolsheviks might even come to power. :eek: And seeing how Germany is collapsing for the Entente, Russia might get into the war again, seize the areas that they just lost to Germany ITTL's Peace of Wilna (OOC: Brest-Litovsk, I figured that, with no American help coming and the Italians on the German side, there's no Russian who's going to continue the war after reaching roughly the borders of the OTL armistice, and with the butterflies taken into account, they might've put the peace discussions on a different location anyway), and, as soon as it gets a reason, storm into Europe to spread socialism. And with the CP's severely weakened, and the tired Entente unwilling to go to war to save them until it's far too late...

...did I just create a communist Europe? :eek:
 
Not really that plausible. The war was tipped on the CP-s side when the Germans forced the A-H give the Italians Trentino and Gorizia-Gradiscia, and unless the Germans suddenly decide to alienate Italy this isnt going to work.

France was fighting a huge front, and bleeding like crazy. Of course, you could "purge" their officers cadre of the incompetent generals that accelerated their defeat, but just having more soldiers isnt enough to make them win.

I dont see how you could save Russia. You have to have multiple POD-s a decade before the war to actually change their preformance in WWI.

You could also help the British by somehow butterflying away that disasterous amphibious assult attempt in the Balctics.

But Im not sure if this is really enough to make them win. The French and Russians were already buckling in 1916., and the only British success was in the Middle East.
 
The "second great war"?

You mean when Mexico's Prussian-ized army blitzkrieged the United States and the whole world watched? The petty English, saying they didn't want to ensnare themselves in a "North American" conflict, and so many peasant farmers with their squirrel-hunting rifles forced to rethink their pacifist, isolationist doctrine too little too late!
 
The loss of the Grand Fleet at Jutland couldn't have helped Entente morale. For a nation whose prestige is tied directly to seapower, such as Britain, to lose in a decisive battle against Germany, perceived as a naval power, is had a free hand in the Atlantic after defeating their largest opponent, even if they lost half their battle line. Then again, I don't think Admiral Jellicoe anticipated losing ten of his battleships and his life to torpedoes.
 
Northeast America Province of The Beloved Kaiser's Domain.

The "second great war"?

You mean when Mexico's Prussian-ized army blitzkrieged the United States and the whole world watched? The petty English, saying they didn't want to ensnare themselves in a "North American" conflict, and so many peasant farmers with their squirrel-hunting rifles forced to rethink their pacifist, isolationist doctrine too little too late!

OOC:

picard-facepalm.jpg


This is my only post in this DBWI.
 
Top