How can we make this situation possible? (1914)

As the title says: How can we bring this situation on the table and what consequences will that situation have?
Would the "London-Berlin-Vienna-St. Petersburg axis" win, although the USA is on the side with France and the Ottoman Empire?

Your opinions would very interesting to read. :cool:

20130119 alt CP & Entente.png
 
A freak shower of meteors demolishing most of the Axis' infrastructure seems to be a necessary prerequisite - the French and Ottomans weren't suicidal.
 
This isn't that hard. Preserve the Dreikaiserbund by keeping Bismarck around longer, killing off or giving less influence to Kaiser Wilhelm. Also, have a more tense Fashoda and several other colonial incidents, probably in West Africa or maybe the Djibouti/British Somaliland border.

The Ottomans were largely pro-French at the elite level, many of them also spoke French. It isn't hard to envision a France that puts a lot of investment into the Ottomans, a la Germany OTL, whilst more antagonism between A-H and the Ottomans makes the Ottomans more anti-German.

The problem is the smaller states. I can see Britain joining the CP over France's decision to send troops into Belgium even at the behest of the Belgian govt. and using it as a casus belli. But Serbia wouldn't be fighting Russia, and why would Romania join a fight when surrounded on three sides?

By the way, surely at least some of the green states are neutral? They aren't all fighting, surely...
 
This isn't that hard. Preserve the Dreikaiserbund by keeping Bismarck around longer, killing off or giving less influence to Kaiser Wilhelm. Also, have a more tense Fashoda and several other colonial incidents, probably in West Africa or maybe the Djibouti/British Somaliland border.

The Ottomans were largely pro-French at the elite level, many of them also spoke French. It isn't hard to envision a France that puts a lot of investment into the Ottomans, a la Germany OTL, whilst more antagonism between A-H and the Ottomans makes the Ottomans more anti-German.

The problem is the smaller states. I can see Britain joining the CP over France's decision to send troops into Belgium even at the behest of the Belgian govt.

With all the great powers of Europe (except for the Ottomans) allied against it, France will be meek as a lamb. Provocations are out of the question, as is any fighting other then in self-defense.

I don’t see what interest Britain could possibly have in joining such an attack on France. It cared primarily about preventing the emergence of an European hegemon. In OTL Belgium was just a handy excuse to intervene on the side of the weaker alliance.
 
although new to this board, I am detecting a trend. folks get bogged down in the 'how the heck could this scenario come about?' argument.

simply transposing alliances (regardless of the why), with all else remaining the same, Britain-Germany-Russia absolutely kicks ass against any and all. You can virtually add in the rest of the world, it doesn't matter.

You're talking three spheres: The US is a non-factor. They don't have a military and even if they did, Britain denies them the ability to get it to Europe. Germany vs France straight up is a no-brainer. Germany kicks their ass. Russia vs Ottomans? another no-brainer.

good golly miss molly, you've got the three stongest powers, whose strengths all mesh well, vs the three weakest powers.
 
Gernerally speaking any alliance that has Germany Russia on the same side and does'nt have the rest of Europe against is the one that's going to win in the 1880-1940 time period.


although new to this board, I am detecting a trend. folks get bogged down in the 'how the heck could this scenario come about?' argument.

Yes, because the how is inherently important in answering the overall question.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Three Emperor's League remains intact, combined with more colonial tension between the French and British. But you'd need a lot more antagonism between the British and Americans to get the United States to throw in with the French and I see no reason why Serbia and Romania would ally with them at all.
 
results:

hmmm.

Britain throws it's weight against the US. Naval denial of US to do much. If they want to get aggressive, Britain sends troops to Canada to invade US. Britain has superiority in air power, and coventional tactics. The world war doesn't last long enough for Canada to do much, but they probably gain some territory.

Germany takes over a good number of French colonies. Maybe a bit more of French territory. definitely takes over hegemony of some French territory. The strongest individual power has the least to gain from it's enemies. They maybe get concessions in the Ottoman area.

Austria- Hungary: strengthens hegemony in balkans. For how long remains to be seen.

Russia: OK, I'm a dunce when it comes to Russian aims in the balkan/ottoman area. I know they've steadily lost influence there. They want a warm water port. In this war, they get it.

Long term: magic got this alliance together. if the magic runs out, Russia has most of what Germany wants/can get at. Watch out Tsar Nicky. I can see Britain and Germany remaining cautious allies since the magic that made them allies obviously has Britain giving up pretensions of being a mainland power (and really, this is the new age. trade is the game, and Britain has plenty of it with Germany. B went against trade tides in declaring war on G OTL). Middle east: more or less the same, except for the players. Defeating the Ottoman Empire causes a lot of dislocations. they're ruled now by German and British consortiums. oooh. here's a future conflict between Germany and Britain - control of the middle east. Russia: it gets what it wants. a warm water port, and now it settles down to consolidate internally. Has some tension with Britain regarding the boundaries/goals of the 'stans' (afghanistan, turkmenistan, etc). Obvious future tensions, but so spread about the globe that it doesn't spark a second world war.
 
Iori

"Yes, because the how is inherently important in answering the overall question."

Not necessarily. Sometimes a what if is simply a what if. We don't need to know why the US would oppose the UK. It's simply a what if. Sometimes (usually) you want some cogent reasoning why, but often it's just a substitution and asking what if. I've seen it multiple times on this board. Someone asks what if, and gets bombarded with "that's stupid, X would never do that, prove to me why X would". sometimes it's not a reverse game of chess where you have to look back 4 moves to see why someone went there. It's simply this is how it is, answer the dang question, and stop asking me how we got here.
 
Not necessarily. Sometimes a what if is simply a what if. We don't need to know why the US would oppose the UK. It's simply a what if. Sometimes (usually) you want some cogent reasoning why, but often it's just a substitution and asking what if. I've seen it multiple times on this board. Someone asks what if, and gets bombarded with "that's stupid, X would never do that, prove to me why X would". sometimes it's not a reverse game of chess where you have to look back 4 moves to see why someone went there. It's simply this is how it is, answer the dang question, and stop asking me how we got here.

How we got here is always important to what happens from there.

For example: If you have a situation with a long term Anglo-British rivalry where the US has built up a far more powerful fleet and army than OTL, OTL numbers are out the window.

If Germany has remained on largely friendly terms with Britain, the German navy is probably considerably smaller than OTL - since it won't be trying to build a fleet "equally capable to England".

If Russia isn't expecting trouble to/from the West, it'll change where and how it distributes the resources it put into the military.

If Britain and Germany have drawn close, that probably effects the colonial situation in Africa even before 1914.

This isn't a chessboard in which how you got the pieces positioned in such a way has no impact on where they move from there.
 
For one thing, this almost certainly means that the Anglo-Japanese alliance hasn't been signed, or broke down at some point (presumably after the Russo-Japanese War).

Japan is thus isolated anyway, so they're presumably picking up France as an ally, but France are weaker in the Pacific than Britain, so they've probably also built up the navy even more than OTL.
 
I hear what you're saying, and it makes sense.

however, (treading very lightly here), not everyone in Alt History land goes into that depth. This WI is an excellent example. It doesn't matter whether it makes no sense at all. Thread starter says what if. You guys who want to make sense of it all start back tracking the POD. You start asking why. my point is that some (dare I say most) what if's don't want to know why. They want to know what if. From what I've seen, there are some master Time Liners here. But there's also some (I don't care about Why) What Ifers. Britain still thinks France is enemy # 1 and actually makes a deal with Germany (which, OTL, they tried). Wilson wakes up one morning and his eggs are prepared excellently French style (or his eggs benedict come out wrong) and he decides to back the French. Tsar Nicky wakes up one day and says 'ya know, I've heard it said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar' and decides to befriend the Austrians instead of make enemies. Viola, you have a WI. Doesn't matter if it makes sense. you have a What If. go from there.

That said, I've derailed the conversation too much, so this is my final word on the 'does it make sense' matter.
 
A hell of a lot of people here will argue a minute PoD to death and then 5 minutes later have the most pathetic country be the first to Mars or some bullshit because of the PoD.
 
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