FARs vs BOGs

This was inspired by the long-running Male Rising timeline.

Challenge: With a POD after the OTL fall of the 2nd French Empire, have a World War I analogue with the following sides: On one side would be France, Austria, and Russia, and the other side would be Great Britain, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.

Bonus points if you get Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal in the war too.
 
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This was inspired by the long-running Male Rising timeline.

Challenge: With a POD after the fall of the 2nd French Empire, have a World War I analogue with the following sides: On one side would be France, Austria, and Russia, and the other side would be Great Britain, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.

Bonus points if you get Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal in the war too.

Austria and Russia could be a rump league of Three Emperor's but how do we get them to become enemies of the last Emperor. Possibly a worse Austro-Prussian War, in which Prussia annexes more of Austrian Poland and possibly parts of Bohemia? That would rather turn Austria away from Germany, and her rivalry with Russia over the Balkans would dissolve. France would probably align with these states because of a mutual hate of Germany and the deliberate isolation of France by Germany which Britain was implicitly involved in.

Britain and Germany are natural allies in such a scenario. Both Britain and Germany want to maintain the Ottoman Empire because it is weak. The Germans want to turn the Ottomans into their India, and the British want them to block Russian ambitions in Asia. If Austria is focussing on getting back parts of Poland and Bohemia, then Russia will be left to their Pan-Slavic ambitions in the Balkans, which directly threatens the Ottomans and hence the German-British hopes. This puts the Ottomans in the British camp.

As for the remaining powers, I don't see a way to get Spain involved, though I can see Portugal becoming a British ally. Denmark could be an Austrian ally, as in a worse Austro-Prussian War scenario, Schleswig-Holstein would be a battleground. There may be Danish irredentist ambitions over the territory.
 
Napoleon II intervenes successfully in the Austro-Prussian War. The foundation of an alliance between a confident France and a Germanies dominating Austria. Denmark is drawn towards this alliance.

The resurgent France worries Britain and the "entente" proves temporary. France encourages Russia to challenge Britain in the Near East and in Afghanistan.

France seeks to avoid conflict between its ally, Austria and its, friend, Russia by mediating in the Balkans. The sick man of Europe is dying - France, Austria and Russia can conspire to profit by it. The League of the Three Emperors is born (or four as I like to have Maxmilian succeed and survive in Mexico)...

An encircled Northern Germany looks to Britain as does italy, now abandoned by its original sponsor France. Britain and Russia grow increasingly hostile over influence in Persia....

France formally expresses a desire to unite all "Frenchmen" in one nation including Walloons and the French-speaking Swiss. Increasing alarm at the "Pan-French" movement causes the Netherlands to drift towards a sympathy to Britain and North Germany without formal alliance...

The Fashoda crisis almost causes a major war but is averted because of French naval weakness. France resolves upon a major naval building program. Russia to increases its strength in the Baltic and the Black Sea...

France exposes Anglo-German deal to divide Portugeuse colonies. Berlin and London deny rumours. Lisbon remains wary. The reactionary monarchy in Spain is increasingly dependant on its France support...

Increased tensions on the Ottoman border near Kars. An incident results with Russian troops entering Ottoman territory on a "punative raid" against "rebellious elements". The Ottoman Empire considers it an act of war. Ottoman Empire and Russia at war. Fearing Russia will obtain the lion's share of gains in the Balkans, the Austrian Emperor declares war in alliance with Russia. This British press forces the government to stand by its guarantee of Ottoman territorial integrity and Britain declares war on Russia and Austria. France acts on her treaty obligations to Russia and Austria declares war on Britain and the Ottomans, as does Denmark. Northern Germanies begin to mobilise without a declaration of war. Russia and Austria hold back troops from the Ottoman Front lest Northern Germanies act...

North Germanies and Italy declare war on the League. Austria and North Germany now has a three front war. Britain actively seeks further allies to oppose the league...

Japan, on paper acting on its obligations to Britain, declares war on France and Russia. Japanese troops in Manchuria. ANZAC and Japanese forces in French Indochina and the Pacific...

Sweden, subsidised to a degree by Britain, joins the war primarily against Denmark and Russia, and begins to motivate a rebellion by the Finns...

Polish rising against Russia and Austria. British agents suspected. France threatens to withdraw support from Spanish monarchy without a declaration of war. Spain joins the league. Gibraltar beseiged. Portugal declares for the Alliance of Nations. British expedionary forces in Portugal, Hanover and in Thessaly...

French forces violate Belgian neutrality to flank German defensive lines on the Rhine. Netherlands demands immediate withdraw of League forces. French troops occupy Antwerp. Netherlands declare war on the league...

The "Mercier Telegram" - alleged telegram to French ambassador to Mexican Emperor Maximilian II seeking to involve Mexico in action against British interests in the Carribbean (no major warfare in the Americas to avoid provoking the US has occurred yet) and confirma defnesive alliance against the US in the event of war. US shipping sunk off Halifax by French submersible. President Theodore Roosevelt calls for a declaration of war from Congress. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, sent to US to discuss Allied strategy with President Roosevelt...

Finally an Anglo-American-German-Japanese alliance wins and crushes the League forces and all is right with the world...
 
All good suggestions, except all of you have a POD before September 4th, 1870, which therefore makes your suggestion invalid.

As for TheKnightIrish, if you read my original post correctly, it says Germany (as in post-1871 Unified Germany), not North Germany, so your post also doesn't work either. Though it would make a really good timeline.
 
This was inspired by the long-running Male Rising timeline.

Challenge: With a POD after the OTL fall of the 2nd French Empire, have a World War I analogue with the following sides: On one side would be France, Austria, and Russia, and the other side would be Great Britain, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.

Bonus points if you get Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal in the war too.

I won't try to crank a whole timeline, but I'll offer some suggestions for events that could have rearranged some of the OTL alliances as required.

First, France and Britain were not allies until the early 1900s, and even then it was a tacit alliance until WW I. Britain and France were nearly at war over the Fashoda incident of 1898.

The subsequent reconciliation required some skillful work. Edward VII did some of it, by making a state visit to France during which he ostentatiously praised everything French. But the whole thing could have gone the other way.

Second, Germany and Austria. Austria became allied with Germany, which had been its enemy, for a lack of any alternative. Many Germans regarded Austria as a failing state that was a drag on them. Pan-German nationalists openly wished for the collapse of Austria, so its ethnic-German territories could be added to Germany.

Suppose that Franz Josef died and was succeeded by Rudolf (obviously before Mayerling in 1889). Without FJ's patriarchal aura, Austria-Hungary comes even closer to breakdown than OTL. Now suppose that Pan-Germanists in the German government try to precipitate the collapse - perhaps by sabotaging renewal of the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich - and get caught. The German plotting extends to sponsoring violence, which backfires magnificently when some radicals connected with the German operation assassinate Rudolf. Now Germany is a known enemy of Austria, and Austria turns to Russia for support, with the relatively slavophile Franz Ferdinand in charge.

Russia, about this time, is marching against Turkey. Britain supported Turkey and prevented the complete triumph of Russia. Britain is paranoid about Russian plots against India. Germany, which is now at odds with Russia and Austria, also helps Turkey. Austria joins with Russia against Turkey. Italy has revanchist ambitions against both Austria and France, and maintains its alliance with Germany, and also allies with Britain, with its powerful Mediterranean fleet.

Wilhelm II marries a different wife, who is not anglophobic. Instead of wanting to compete with Britain at sea, he's Pan-Germanist and slavophobe, who wants land for Germany.

Japan is at odds with Russia in the Far East - and Japan is a British ally.
 
All good suggestions, except all of you have a POD before September 4th, 1870, which therefore makes your suggestion invalid.

As for TheKnightIrish, if you read my original post correctly, it says Germany (as in post-1871 Unified Germany), not North Germany, so your post also doesn't work either. Though it would make a really good timeline.

Well TKI did it that way because that's really the only way for it to happen naturally. Those are the circumstances wherein those alliances would be in everyone's best interests. With your conditions, the alliances could only spin out that way through someone (or better, a great number of someones) in a position of power acting with ridiculous stupidity and being caught out at it in an utterly embarrassing manner. Which you'll note is Mister Rostrom's solution.

Switching Britain over to the other alliance isn't terribly difficult, and the Ottomans aren't much harder (though they'll always be likely to the opposite Russia). The Hapsburgs, though, had very thoroughly lost any incentive for turning against the Germans by 1871, and vice versa. The main benefactor of German destruction of AH, for example would be Russia. Vienna, on the other hand, could have allied with Russia easily enough (and even was, for a time), but never would at the expense of its alliance to Germany. Not only would it just be completely against its interests, it'd cause a great destabilization in the European balance of power, which would threaten a war, which would put the empire more a risk than any other country, the Ottomans included.
 
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