DBWI Germany invades Belgium during the Serb War

We recall the 1914 war. Germany and Austria invaded Russia. Russia agreed to tolerate Serbia's humiliation becoming more or less a protectorate after its high level involvement in the out rage at Sarajavo.

France got a very bloody nose when it tried to take Alsarce and Lorraine back by force.

You will recall how Germany stated that it had no quarrel with France.

There were elements in Britain that wanted to declare war on Germany.

However the Entente was not an alliance. And few wanted to take the side of the terror supporting state of Serbia.

What might have happened had events followed a different course?
 
I can't see Britain getting involved in any way with Ireland aflame. It'd be like running a cup of sugar over to your neighbor while the garage is burning down. As it is the window of opportunity between the Irish Revolt and the start of the Serb War is only about four months. I don't think England could achieve anything in that time before they're forced to turn to attend matters closer to home. At most the RN would provide support for the blockade, and probably save the MN its humiliating defeat against the HSF...
 
Bismarck was right, the Balkans weren't worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.

Germany lost hundreds of thousands dead, immense treasure spent, economic disruption for months, for what, Serbia knocked down a peg. Germany and Austria should of just agreed to Britain's idea of a conference to handle the whole thing and saved the effort.
 
Well, possibly no Revolution in France. The casualties from their continuous ruinous attacks on Alsace-Lorraine...they were the nail in the coffin of the Third Republic.

Which has knock in effects elsewhere. No chais in France means no ‘liberation’ of Indochina by Japan in the 1920s. Which in turn means no guerrilla conflict there during the 1950s and early 60s - no Japanese puppet regime means no uprising by republican nationalists.
 

Dolan

Banned
Well, possibly no Revolution in France. The casualties from their continuous ruinous attacks on Alsace-Lorraine...they were the nail in the coffin of the Third Republic.
The French is indeed the biggest loser without any gains in The First Great War, all they get is having Socialist-Communist riots and later full on Communist Uprising which resulted in the Communist Fourth French Republic, which then export Communist agitators everywhere.

Thank The Lord, The Second Great War was won by Alliance of Kings instead of the Communists. At least the French and USSA backed global Communist Revolution was crushed decisively.
 
France gets crushed even quicker as the Germans overrun Belgium in less than a month and can march into northern France virtually unopposed. I thought Britain might get involved given that it signed a treaty with Belgium in 1839, but there's no way Britain would go to war over a scrap of paper it signed over 80 years earlier.
 
Do you think it’s possible that the entente could have won the war? Or is that just too ASB.
It’s possible that this scenario could butterfly communism away all together.
 

Deleted member 94680

France gets crushed even quicker as the Germans overrun Belgium in less than a month and can march into northern France virtually unopposed. I thought Britain might get involved given that it signed a treaty with Belgium in 1839, but there's no way Britain would go to war over a scrap of paper it signed over 80 years earlier.

I’m confused here. Is the part that I’ve emboldened what you suggest as a kind of ATL?

OTL, the French invaded (or tried to, I don’t think the few kilometres they managed to reach over the border before the humiliations of late ‘14) Alsace-Lorraine in a vain attempt to ‘regain’ the territory.

Francophile warmongers like Grey aside, there was no appetite in London to assist an aggressor in such a blatantly offensive move. The “Cabinet Crisis” of July ‘14 (a phrase that never really caught on outside of the revisionist memoirs of Grey or Asquith) was not much more than a discussion of England’s obligations, national interests and how a continental conflict was secondary to the brewing Home Rule emergency.

If, as you posit, the Germans had violated Belgian neutrality, then maybe there would be more of a split in the British Cabinet? I find it hard to see, as you say. The London Treaty of 1839 would be a shaky motivation to plunge into a Great Power conflict.

The butterflies are immense if we did. Would the Royal Navy still be the behemoth it is today? Would London’s unparalleled financial dominance remain without the vast sums generated (and debt saddled to the aggressors) by the Empire selling and trading with the fighting nations of the Great War? It’s so hard to unpick...
 
I’m confused here. Is the part that I’ve emboldened what you suggest as a kind of ATL?

OTL, the French invaded (or tried to, I don’t think the few kilometres they managed to reach over the border before the humiliations of late ‘14) Alsace-Lorraine in a vain attempt to ‘regain’ the territory.

Francophile warmongers like Grey aside, there was no appetite in London to assist an aggressor in such a blatantly offensive move. The “Cabinet Crisis” of July ‘14 (a phrase that never really caught on outside of the revisionist memoirs of Grey or Asquith) was not much more than a discussion of England’s obligations, national interests and how a continental conflict was secondary to the brewing Home Rule emergency.

If, as you posit, the Germans had violated Belgian neutrality, then maybe there would be more of a split in the British Cabinet? I find it hard to see, as you say. The London Treaty of 1839 would be a shaky motivation to plunge into a Great Power conflict.

The butterflies are immense if we did. Would the Royal Navy still be the behemoth it is today? Would London’s unparalleled financial dominance remain without the vast sums generated (and debt saddled to the aggressors) by the Empire selling and trading with the fighting nations of the Great War? It’s so hard to unpick...

Yes. I'm suggesting it as an ATL.
 

Deleted member 94680

Yes. I'm suggesting it as an ATL.

Wild. So much would (could?) be different.


Traditionally our strength and influence (speaking as a proud Britisher) comes from staying apart from continental entanglement whilst lending a hand (or money or naval power) to whomever suits our interests at the time. We allowed the Germans to sort the Russians and humble the French in ‘14, yet worked with the Italians to check Austrian expansion into the Mediterranean in the 20s. By the early 40s we were assisting the French to carve up the Ottoman Empire whilst the late 40s saw us enter into the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra rail agreement with the Germans.

Makes one wonder what our place in the world would be in this ATL today?
 
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