Extend WW1 to 1921

No matter what happens on the Western Front, the collapsing Southern Front will decide matters for Germany.

Of course, there is always the option of Germany trying a knock-out punch against the Salonika front, perhaps in conjunction with an earlier end to hostilities in the east.

Then strike Italy as OTL - maybe get lucky and bag some more prisoners, forcing more Anglo-French forces to be transferred from the west.

Then shift and attack in the west, and focus on taking Amiens. After that, dig in and watch the British logistical system in Flanders collapse.

If the Entente panics and once again relocates forces from Palestine, even better.

That should maybe hopefully somehow buy about an extra year. How you get two years though with any reasonable PoD is beyond me at this point.
 
So Germany was on the verge of collapse in late 1918.

However General Pershing had a plan to invader Germany in 1919.

The Germans were also however preparing for this-creating anti tank weapons and tactics, digging traps, etc...

How can we have the First World War continue to 1921?
The Spanish Flu would still exist
 
No matter what happens on the Western Front, the collapsing Southern Front will decide matters for Germany.

How is the "southern front" supposed to collapse if the western front doesn't?

The Alps are an impregnable barrier , and an offensive from the Balkans is impossible in the face of any serious opposition, due tot he terrain and inadequate rail communications.

The Macedonian and Italian fronts collapsed in 1918 because, and only because, the German army was unable to bolster them, due to its deteriorating situation on the WF.
 
How you get two years though with any reasonable PoD is beyond me at this point.


Field Marshall Haig would agree with you.

When Sir Henry Wilson sent a memo about the anticipated 1919 campaigns leading to "the decisive struggles of 1920" he noted in his diary "What nonsense! Who is going to last until 1920? Only America?"
 
This scenario is really not possible.

The Allies and the Germans were nearing collapse at this point.

(The Germans due to the hopeless on the western front and the fall Austria. The Allies due to no longer having the money to afford american loans and supplies)

Something was going to give 1918-1919.
 
The Alps are an impregnable barrier , and an offensive from the Balkans is impossible in the face of any serious opposition, due tot he terrain and inadequate rail communications.


The entire Bulgarian front crumbled after an Allied Salonika Army offensive launched from Greece severed communication between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. On 15 September, the international Entente force defeated the starving, demoralized Bulgarian Army at the Battle of Dobro Pole. After the Bulgarians signed an unconditional surrender with the Salonika group commanders on 30 September, the Central Power Balkan front defense dissolved, leaving the Balkan Peninsula open to an Entente offensive. Troops could not be transported from other fronts and deployed rapidly enough to halt the Entente advances (the reinforcements would have come from the Serbian and Ukrainian fronts). Turkey also signed an armistice agreement shortly thereafter on 30 October. This represented the beginning of the end militarily for Austria-Hungary and Germany. The Bulgarian collapse created significant danger for both the Habsburg Balkan front and for Turkey. General Franchet d'Espèrey followed up the victory over Bulgaria by overrunning much of the Balkans and by the war's end, his troops had penetrated well into Hungary. That collapse of the Southern Front was one of several developments that effectively triggered the November 1918 Armistice.

The Macedonian and Italian fronts collapsed in 1918 because, and only because, the German army was unable to bolster them, due to its deteriorating situation on the WF.

No, it was the deteriorating position on the CP home fronts. Draconian rationing of the dwindling food supplies and grave shortages of raw materials led to strikes, demonstrations, and civil unrest. During early 1918, massive strikes, far larger than previous stoppages, broke out all over Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people protested the steadily worsening food situation. Tthe social and political order began to disintegrate after a major ammunition-workers strike erupted in January and the tightening Entente blockade further restricted the food supply.
 
No, it was the deteriorating position on the CP home fronts. Draconian rationing of the dwindling food supplies and grave shortages of raw materials led to strikes, demonstrations, and civil unrest. During early 1918, massive strikes, far larger than previous stoppages, broke out all over Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people protested the steadily worsening food situation. Tthe social and political order began to disintegrate after a major ammunition-workers strike erupted in January and the tightening Entente blockade further restricted the food supply.


The CP home front had been pretty awful for a long time. It hadn't caused any collapse as long as they appeared to have a chance of winning. That came only after defeats in the field made it clear that there was no hope of victory - and in particular no hope of German support for her allies. After all, conditions in A/H and Turkey were quite a bit worse than in Germany, yet they quit the war less than a fortnight before she did, and weeks after she had requested an Armistice, while even Bulgaria only did so after Germany had been in headlong retreat for over two months, and was clearly in no position to help anybody. No one quit as long as they had hope of German support.

Note that when the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was debated in the Reichstag, the Majority Socialists were content to abstain rather than voting against it, and when the Treaty with Rumania came up most of them voted for it. The Independent Socialists, who opposed, were rewarded by losing the last two by-elections in the Second Reich. Striking for better conditions might imply weariness of the war, but not opposition to it or even to the government's war aims, in which even the Social Democrats were ready to acquiesce, as long as there was still a hope of victory.
 
Extremely difficult without a very early PoD. The only way I can see it happening, and this is a stretch, is a no-US entry followed by a late 1919 German victory in France, with Britain and Germany then exchanging harsh words for 13 months across the channel. Diplomatic bungling is essential.
 
Extremely difficult without a very early PoD. The only way I can see it happening, and this is a stretch, is a no-US entry followed by a late 1919 German victory in France, with Britain and Germany then exchanging harsh words for 13 months across the channel. Diplomatic bungling is essential.

Which pretty much agrees with Haig. I assume that when he wrote of no-one (except America) lasting until 1920, he was referring to carrying on the continental war.
 
When Sir Henry Wilson sent a memo about the anticipated 1919 campaigns leading to "the decisive struggles of 1920" he noted in his diary "What nonsense! Who is going to last until 1920? Only America?"

Actually, this was Haig's response to a letter from Winston Churchill (then munitions minister) on October 3rd 1918 in which the latter had expressed a need to conserve "resources 'for the decisive struggles of 1920.'" Reacting to this pessimistic outlook Haig fumed: "What rubbish. Who will last till 1920? Only America??". Haig knew at this point that the war would be over by the end of 1918 or early 1919 with the Germans in full retreat and that his own forces could still deliver a coup de grace.
 
The Spanish Flu would still exist
If the Spanish flu had occurred before any efforts at peace were made, it might have been much more destructive and led to larger army mutinies than even occurred during the overthrow of the Tsar in Russia. What the result of a large mutiny would have been I do not know, but the likely response – severe repression – makes me think the war could have ended in a successful Communist revolution in Germany or even in Britain if they were in a worse state than the Central Powers.
 
The Spanish Flu would still exist

My question is how much of the flu was brought to Europe from America, at least some speculation is that this flu ramped up in the American training camps and then crossed to Europe. Or was this a usual flu given power by starvation, troop concentrations and other factors in Europe itself? If the later we may see the flu still and we might see it cause a break in the war. But will hostilities truly resume after?

My arguments would be you need a war with a break in between, this requires more balanced sides and no easy victor, either early or late. Thus I suggest you first remove the USA, in fact make her less Entente leaning and trading with CPs to keep them in the game. Next I would take out Belgium and have the war open to the East, devolve to French offensives, having Britain hanging non-belligerent but pro-Entente. Better for the CP but still botched and fraught with imbalances so victory is not easy. I think you get a Russian loss by 1917 and exhaustion by 1916, especially economic, but not enough to end the war. Here Italy and OE have remained on the sidelines. War is a stalemate West and Germany is "winning" in the East. Armistice comes, something pushes everyone back to war, maybe an Italian attempt to get a cheap victory, or the outbreak of revolution in Russia, the war starts back up with the UK backing France, intervening in Russia, the OE going to war, A-H struggling against Italy and Germany trying to salvage its victory. Here you are trying to make the Great War work like the Balkan Wars, a series of wars with enough breather to let it fire up again. A war just as destructive but not as intense yet it sprawls over many years because the stakes are still high, defeat equals destruction, revolution or dismemberment.
 
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