Well, without the UK and its Empire, Germany really doesn't have to knock out anyone. They could probably stand their ground in Alsace-Lorraine forever, they could probably take what they wanted from Russia pretty quickly (Poland, maybe Lithuania). And help AH knock out Serbia, if needed. They're not blockaded. The onus of having to win the war then passes on to the French and Russians, and they will not be able to defeat the CP. War economy will cripple the Russians in 1916 and the France in 1917, less if they have to carry Italy too.
East First in 1914?
- Thread starter miketr
- Start date
There is an alternate history book that was just published and covers this scenario. It's titled "Gray Tide in the East" and the pod occurs when the Kaiser forces Moltke to turn east. From the reviews on Amazon it seems to be a well done alternate history and covers all the points on how a turn to the east effects the French and British.
The Yogi's got it
Bingo, bingo, bingo.
If Germany and Austria-Hungary are content to win "on points" or aim for an advantageous diplomatic settlement (retaining all their pre-war territories, crushing Serbia, possibly gaining some buffer space from Russia or destruction of fortifications, or possibly ransoming some Russian territory for an indemnity), shouldn't the Central Powers be able to do that just fine? What's so hard about them achieving that? And how capable are the French and Russians of trying to overturn a German fait accompli, and for how long?
A knock-out blow against Russia is only necessary if your goal is to render Russia helpless. If your goal is just to protect Vienna, neutralize Russian power in the Serbian affair, and show that the Berlin-Vienna alliance is more capable of backing up its word than the Franco-Russian alliance is, there's no need for a Napoleonic or Hitlerian deep invasion of Russia. You just need to basically fend off the Russians until the Serbian issue is resolved.
Bingo, bingo, bingo.
If Germany and Austria-Hungary are content to win "on points" or aim for an advantageous diplomatic settlement (retaining all their pre-war territories, crushing Serbia, possibly gaining some buffer space from Russia or destruction of fortifications, or possibly ransoming some Russian territory for an indemnity), shouldn't the Central Powers be able to do that just fine? What's so hard about them achieving that? And how capable are the French and Russians of trying to overturn a German fait accompli, and for how long?
A knock-out blow against Russia is only necessary if your goal is to render Russia helpless. If your goal is just to protect Vienna, neutralize Russian power in the Serbian affair, and show that the Berlin-Vienna alliance is more capable of backing up its word than the Franco-Russian alliance is, there's no need for a Napoleonic or Hitlerian deep invasion of Russia. You just need to basically fend off the Russians until the Serbian issue is resolved.
Lets play it out.
They know that Germans are sending a multi-army force to East Prussia. Is it safe to say that the Russians would also know that its going to take some time for this force to assemble?
The Russians and French had BOTH committed to launching offenses into Germany by no later than D+15 without regard to specific German moves. Their plans can be summed up as Club Germany on both fronts and wait for them to break.
How does Russia explain to France that the going to throw out the last two and half years of joint staff work? What is France going to say in response to being told that they are expected to do all the heavy lifting to start the war vs. Germany?
Why not just press ahead with the offensives to attempt to defeat the German armies in detail before they have had enough time to complete concentration concentrate? 1st and 2nd German armies were expected to foot march 100KM from the rail-heads west of Vistula to their assembly areas in East Prussia; Germans expected this to take over a week to complete. There is in theory an opening if the Russians want to take it.
I expect such a move to end in disaster but thats because I have know what did happen; the Russians wouldn't.
Michael
Deleted member 1487
They both committed to engage the Germans. They can engage with skirmishing forces and draw the Germans into their defenses, as the Germans are coming at them; so long as they have a major engagement with them within the first month they can wiggle into the provisions of the treaty without the French saying boo, especially if the Russians are the major target and are engaged with the A-Hs to boot. Its incumbent on the French to take pressure off the Russians then.
They won't have to because the Germans will engage them offensively pretty quickly, especially once the Russians start smashing into the A-Hs and the Germans have to support them somehow.
The Russians cannot move fast enough to out mobilize the Germans and they know it; if its obvious the Germans are coming to them, why move ahead at all? Complete mobilization behind your fortress shield and let the Germans come to you on your terms, especially given that your doctrine and dispositions favor a defensive engagement. If they know the Germans have a large force coming, they want to preserve their strength until fully mobilized and use their stream roller to run over the weakened Germans once they march onto Russia territory and are blunted on their fortress system.
They would; IOTL they were obsessed with taking advantage of the Germans turning West with most of their strength to support the French and take Berlin while they had the opening; here they realize they don't have the obligation to attack Germany to engage the Germans and help the French, as the Germans are coming right at them. Sit still, play it safe, try and smash up the A-Hs to help the Serbs and wait for the French to do their bit while the Germans take care of the engagement part of their treaty obligations.
http://firstworldwar.com/features/plans.htm
So the plan was to let the Germans attack, absorb the blows, and then counterattack. Smart plan to me, given Russian capabilities and strengths, very bad scenario for Germany.
Deleted member 1487
The thing is the Russian forts were pretty close to the border, so there is not really that much valuable that the Germans can take. They will be stopped on the Vistula and won't be able to move beyond thanks to the river crossings being heavily fortified. So while they can engage and divert Russian forces from A-H, which will enable them to crush Serbia and maybe score some victories in Galicia, it won't end with much more than a trade of territory in the East and Serbia crushed; that's not exactly worth several hundred thousand lives, so something of value with need to be taken by the CPs to justify the war. Once they complete the taking of Lithuania and/or Poland then yes, you are right, though they will need to do something in the West if France takes anything valuable.
Russian fortress system:
http://lithuanianmaps.com/images/1915_Russische_Festungen_Comp.jpg
The terms of the Franco-Russian agreement were joint OFFENSIVES; that is always how I have seen the agreement described. Not one party defend and the other attack. There had been joint staff talks on for some time.
I haven't seen a full copy of the agreement that I recall but will look again through my books.
Germany and A-H did ZERO pre-war planning and only most basic of communications once the war started till events forces A-H to scream for help.
The war German war plan as presented by Zuber has the Germans waiting till they have their full force assembled. French are going to be dying in droves in A-L while the Russians and Germans are looking at each doing ZIP. The mission of the first two armies in East Prussia was to screen the border to allow the other two armies to get into place and THEN attack.
I really have trouble with France being fine with events playing out this way.
Because they made an agreement to do just this with the French. France had given lavish loans to help Russian mobilization efforts all for the purpose of joint offensives vs. Germany. Several years of joint plans to do just this and now that the balloon is going out the Russians aren't doing their part.
Why not extend this to going defensive vs. Austria? Certainly at least 1 of those armies will need to be moved north to face East Prussia. I think your map shows Russian 4th going north.
The obligation was written for joint offensives and the one thing the Tsar government displayed was incredible loyalty to their western allies. They answered the call and Nicholas in effect broke his dynasty to help his allies. Hair splitting word games isn't the type of behavior I ever described to Nicholas. Maybe they would do this but I don't see the French being happy with it.
Do you have anything other than an internet source? I like works with foot notes that I can back track.
Thanks for taking time to reply.
Michael
Deleted member 1487
The best I can offer is Hew Strachan's "To Arms". It don't have my copy with me, so I cannot reference it, but it does cover Russian war plans IIRC. As to the offensive you keep mentioning, check and see what Russian plans were and what the actual text was. If the Russians expect an attack they will sit back and wait; if it doesn't materialize then they can go on the offensive later.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_franco-russe
According to this it was simply to engage a number of troops against the Germans.
There is this, but I don't have access:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4203152?uid=3739656&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103296580947
Stavka will still want their Third and Eighth Armies to smash KuK Third Army as planned. Their Fifth Army though would make a fighting withdrawal to Brest-Litovsk.
Second Army would remain on the defensive along the Narew (except maybe for some probing by cavalry) until Ninth Army finishes mobilizing at Warsaw.
Deleted member 1487
That article I mentioned has the info about the G-variant from a Russian general involved in the war planning. Its solid confirmation that the plan was to stay on the defensive in case of a German attack, with the Russians in Ukraine were to 'paralyze an A-H offensive'. Without A-H attack they would advance to support Serbia, as it would be under attack. The 5th army would mobilize around Brest-Litovsk here instead of further forward at Komarow as per OTL and A variant. This would mean the Russians would be facing three A-H armies with two armies in Ukraine and one deployed deeply in Poland and wouldn't be in theater in time for the decisive battle.
The decision needed to be made on the 9th day of mobilization as to whether it was the A or G variant of the plan, so if they know if the first week about German intentions then they can mobilize against Germany.
The decision needed to be made on the 9th day of mobilization as to whether it was the A or G variant of the plan, so if they know if the first week about German intentions then they can mobilize against Germany.
According to Golvin in variant G 5th army would deploy at Brest Litovsk, so would have to march to Galicia over several days; IOTL it wasn't finished deploying in Komarow when the A-Hs overran it.
Assuming that the frontlines move eastwards in the first years, the fighting will take place in regions that most Russian peasant conscripts consider to be "Russia proper." In OTL the fighting in areas inhabitated by non-Russian peoples made many soldiers feel that they were "abroad", fighting far away from their homes and lives.
Luring the Germans eastwards without wasting the trained pre-war cadres so badly as in OTL 1914 will do wonders to Russian morale - expelling the foreign invader from sacred Russian soil is way better casus belli than just another land grap for Romanov dynasty.
Luring the Germans eastwards without wasting the trained pre-war cadres so badly as in OTL 1914 will do wonders to Russian morale - expelling the foreign invader from sacred Russian soil is way better casus belli than just another land grap for Romanov dynasty.
Deleted member 1487
Russia was heavily underrated in WW1 due to incompetent leadership throwing away the best soldiers early on; Germany gets so much credit because they managed more than anyone to preserve its pre-war army into 1916 (until the Somme killed off the remnants). Here the Germans might lose some of that sheen from OTL because they aren't fighting in their backyard against the toughest foe in 1914.
I don't have To Arms, I read it but don't recall what he said specifically about the Russian War plans and Strachan's general book on the war has few details.
Now I had some more success with a book by Keegen.
The French had been pressuring the Russians to agree fully agree to attack by D+15 for some time and then in 1913 had success.
"...extract from General Zhilinshky, the Russian Chief of Staff, a promise that his army would attack Germany with at least 800,000 men - half its peacetime strength 'after M +15,' fifteen days from mobilization. The promise was made specif - 'on' rather than 'after' M +15 - in Article III of the Russia-French Military Convention of September 1913."
John Keegan, The First World War (Knope, New York, 1999) pg 40-41.
On page 40 Keegan makes fairly clear that the French had attached great importance to getting Russia to agree to a joint attack. Before the 1913 agreement Russia had promised vague action to attack some time after D+15.
I did find this online. Its purported to be a translation of the 1913 convention. With attached commentary on the French side.
http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/archives/texts/t041012.html
Please note the French Commentary to the preamble.
"The two chiefs of the general staffs declared by common agreement that the words "defensive war" do not mean a war conducted defensively. They assert the contrary, that it is absolutely necessary for the French and Russian armies to take vigorous offensives and as far as possible simultaneously, according to the text of Article 3 of the Convention."
Emphasis added by me.
It should be noted that the French Commentary to Article 3 they were clearly expecting the Germans to come after them.
So I think its fairly clear that France was setting a great deal on Russia to attack Germany. Also clearly France had expected for them to be the main focus. Now despite this France adopted an offensive stance. Why is France going to expect Russia to not do the same just because the Germans are going east?
Again it might be logical and make more sense for Russia to sit on the defensive but if they do Paris is going to livid. That is my view.
Michael
Deleted member 1487
They can expect it all they want, but as General Golvin mentions in his article that wasn't the plan in variant G. However it WAS in variant A. I think the French expected it because they anticipated the Schlieffen Plan and realized they would be the focal point of the German attack. If Russia is the one being attacked, then there is no real reason for France to complain about the Russian defensive posture, as the Russians would be in combat in a matter of days after the agreed on limit. I think it would be quickly forgotten as an issue once the Russians enter combat with the Germans.
As far as a PoD goes: let Von Moltke Jr. have a riding accident in the early 1900s. Subsequently Von der Goltz becomes Chief of Staff instead. The Russo-Japanese War then provides a nice excuse to focus on Russia first along with Berlin's Mitteleuropa plans.
Hey Tom.
The Russian 10th was to form in the Baltics?
We end up with the following per the map from Wiking.
1st, 2nd and 4th vs. East Prussia
5th, 3rd and 8th vs. Galacia.
9th forming in Poland
10th forming in Baltics
Anyone know when 9th and 10th finished mobilization?
Also to clear up while do tend to discount Russia going pure defense vs. Germany I don't totally dismiss it either. I suspect that what we are seeing is an artifact of earlier war plans where the Russians were simply not confident of facing the Germans and by 1914 the situation had changed and they were more confident. Hence the 1913 agreement for joint attacks concluded with France.
Michael
The French expected the Russians to attack because they promised to do by convention as part of their alliance. Your view point is not attacking would have little effect on relations because the Russians would still be fighting. I disagree, its a judgement call on on either of us.
My view is that Russia blowing off the last few years joint staff planning after taking lots of Franks is just NOT going to go over well. If the French offensive into A-L runs up huge body count and little else then someone, reasonable or not, is going to point to the Russian failure to stick to the pre-war plan as being a problem.
Michael
Deleted member 1487
Don't forget the 6th army that formed on Warsaw or the 7th army that formed on Romania and became the 11th army in October. The 9th army fought in mid-August against the A-H 1st army near Lublin, while the 10th army fought some time in early September IIRC.
I still think the 1913 agreement had to do with the Schlieffen Plan rather than anything else, given that variant G still had the Russians on the defensive until the mobilization was complete.
So the Russians take an extra 5-7 days to fully engage the attacking Germans. What are the French going to do about it? Complain and nothing else.
6th Army
This source which I've found useful has the 6th Army forming at Odessa. http://warchron.com/russianWarCommand.htm Was it different under Plan G?
This source which I've found useful has the 6th Army forming at Odessa. http://warchron.com/russianWarCommand.htm Was it different under Plan G?