How can you plausibly get a WWI 'East first' strategy?

In turn I'd say you are prioritizing operational-strategic objectives over actual strategic objectives. Keeping Britain and the US out of the war and giving Russian and French decisionmakers the option to believe that the war was not an existential question for them were actual strategic priorities, not optimal unit deployment.

I think the various powers had a certain Armageddon view of things, a war was inevitable and would decide who ruled the world, a little too much "there can only be one!" Part of my attraction to this scenario is breaking that mindset. Instead of a war that broke the peace, we have a more Realpolitik world where peace can truly root itself because war is just not worth it. Careful diplomacy becomes the new battleground and economics weigh more than set piece war material.
 
I think the various powers had a certain Armageddon view of things, a war was inevitable and would decide who ruled the world, a little too much "there can only be one!" Part of my attraction to this scenario is breaking that mindset. Instead of a war that broke the peace, we have a more Realpolitik world where peace can truly root itself because war is just not worth it. Careful diplomacy becomes the new battleground and economics weigh more than set piece war material.

The problem with that is the at the time the leaders weren't awake to the issues in any serious sense; he last European war had ended 43 years earlier, and even that had been tame compared to the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars. They thought in terms of Social Darwinism and Armageddon, but without the perspective of having armies ravage your homeland or doing the ravaging themselves, being in a city subject to siege and bombardment or being the besieger, going hungry or broke or being maimed or ruthlessly maiming others.

It took 2 world wars to put this into perspective, the first gave a flawed perspective to virtually all combatants which gave rise to the second.
 
The problem with that is the at the time the leaders weren't awake to the issues in any serious sense; he last European war had ended 43 years earlier, and even that had been tame compared to the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars. They thought in terms of Social Darwinism and Armageddon, but without the perspective of having armies ravage your homeland or doing the ravaging themselves, being in a city subject to siege and bombardment or being the besieger, going hungry or broke or being maimed or ruthlessly maiming others.

It took 2 world wars to put this into perspective, the first gave a flawed perspective to virtually all combatants which gave rise to the second.

Being a bit optimistic I am having the stalemate and cold peace accelerate the thinking. I do feel the post-war pacifism would continue in the civilian population without the ToV and its fallout both sides, a guilty appeasement or the wild eyed revanche, it was the political leaders that accepted a re-play who had lived through it. With a better functioning German democracy post-war I am hedging my bets that WWII is not arising in Europe at least.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Financier, naval blockade, land campaigning on the periphery of Europe, you know basically everything they did IOTL without having ~50 divisions in France.

So if the Germans take the defensive in the west, it removes 3 frontline Entente armies from the continent in the west, while preserving German strength that would otherwise be frittered away in an advance through Belgium, Marne and matters relating thereto. Is that not an overwhelmingly decisive victory for the CP powers in the west?

In respect of Britain the banker, if northern France is wholly in French hands and the western front is limited to the narrow German-French border, the French finances are far less dependent on British bankers, who like the British Army, are substantially redundant in this scenario.

The OTL technically illegal blockade of the continent will be more difficult to implement from a logistical perspective and more difficult to sell from a diplomatic perspective if Belgium and Italy remain neutral and German reputation remains intact. The OTL blockade only started to bite Germany in 1916 and many have argued the silent dictatorship was even more damaging to the German economy. In this scenario any British blockade is more porous, the battlefields stacked in the CP favour - the silent dictatorship stillborn.

The British land campaigns on the periphery of Europe are not going to trouble the core CP powers, but are interesting to contemplate. I could see the British pushing the Ottomans back to the periphery of Anatolia some time in 1916, but I think the scenario almost encourages an earlier and supersized version of the OTL cluster f**k that was Gallipoli. The problem with the periphery is British amphibious ineptitude was an unknown, and coupled with Churchill's 'genius' is likely to result in truly memorable experiences for the British...

Again, I doubt the Russians will be thrilled with the perception of the British ignoring the Germans and instead attempting to advance British interests in areas sensitive to Russia...
 
If you take the defensive in the west. Tha gains are likely to entice Romania into joining your side before the current king dies. If you ally bulgaria before war starts Serbia will be to busy to launch an attack into AH and will collapse much sooner
 
Another idea is for the Kaiser to not give a full blank check to the AH Emperor in his dealings with Serbia which gave rise to the ridiculous demands that they then made (which shocked even the Kaiser when he read them)

And perhaps he finishes his Norweigian boating Holiday earlier and gets a better grip

Although all that might result in no war in the first place.....
 
If you take the defensive in the west. Tha gains are likely to entice Romania into joining your side before the current king dies. If you ally bulgaria before war starts Serbia will be to busy to launch an attack into AH and will collapse much sooner

I think the arguments being that with Germany savaging the Russian 1st and 2nd, A-H not suffering such a blatant defeat, Romania is enticed by getting Moldavia rather than its claims on Hungarian territory. Likewise Bulgaria sees an opportunity to settle with Serbia and secure Macedonia, maybe getting some of Serbia, Montenegro or Albania and this further prompts Greece to steer neutral. Worst case you get Romania a benignly hostile neutral and Bulgaria a friendly neutral, both giving less pressure the CPs and adding pressure to the war against Russia although A-H is still distracted by Serbia and Germany does more than an equal divide of the fighting.
 

BooNZ

Banned
I think the various powers had a certain Armageddon view of things, a war was inevitable and would decide who ruled the world, a little too much "there can only be one!" Part of my attraction to this scenario is breaking that mindset. Instead of a war that broke the peace, we have a more Realpolitik world where peace can truly root itself because war is just not worth it. Careful diplomacy becomes the new battleground and economics weigh more than set piece war material.
Armageddon is a fair reflection of the personal views of Moltke J and Conrad, but not the views of the civilian leadership of Germany or A-H. Most militaries were enthusiastic about the prospects of war, but it was only Serbia and Russia and maybe France where any level of enthusiasm was shared by the civilian leadership. In 1914 the French general election resulted in French socialists gaining a majority on a platform of peace, so Armageddon was not a done deal.

I think the arguments being that with Germany savaging the Russian 1st and 2nd, A-H not suffering such a blatant defeat, Romania is enticed by getting Moldavia rather than its claims on Hungarian territory. Likewise Bulgaria sees an opportunity to settle with Serbia and secure Macedonia, maybe getting some of Serbia, Montenegro or Albania and this further prompts Greece to steer neutral. Worst case you get Romania a benignly hostile neutral and Bulgaria a friendly neutral, both giving less pressure the CPs and adding pressure to the war against Russia although A-H is still distracted by Serbia and Germany does more than an equal divide of the fighting.

The OTL collapse of the Serbian health infrastructure and the ensuring typhus pandemic ripping through Serbia buys the Entente some time, but with the Russians retreating/routing I would expect Bulgarian entry around June 1915. The timing of the anticipated Bulgarian entry should be early enough to keep Italy and Greece on the sidelines indefinitely. My assumption is Romania would ultimately join the CP powers once the outcome was substantially decided, but Romanian politics/ diplomacy has not featured in my recent reading.
 
With Britain not declaring war on the CP (for at least a little while) Japan probably won't feel secure enough to do the same. This could butterfly the Twenty-One Demands, which could in turn allow Yuan Shikai to stay in power (could his bid to become emperor actually work this time?
 
Much is spoken of the 1913 plan for the east in these threads, and obviously a scenario where an updated version of the plan was made for 1914 so that the Kaiser had a second option to choose from would be the easiest way to deliver an east first stratgey.

However, unless I missed it, it is simply assumed we know all the ins and outs of said plan. What was the plan laid out in those documents? Is there a place online we can easily read about it in English? How many armies were to be sent to the east? Where would they be positioned? How long was this expected to take? Were they expected to go on the offensive ASAP, or wait for Russian attack and attempt to envelop and destroy the attacking armies?

How many armies in the west? Where would they be positioned? What forces, if any were to guard against French invasion through Belgium? How long was this expected to take? Were German forces in the west to be strictly on the defensive or was a more active strategy of baiting the French into positions where the Germans can launch major counterattacks?
 

BooNZ

Banned
Much is spoken of the 1913 plan for the east in these threads, and obviously a scenario where an updated version of the plan was made for 1914 so that the Kaiser had a second option to choose from would be the easiest way to deliver an east first stratgey.

However, unless I missed it, it is simply assumed we know all the ins and outs of said plan. What was the plan laid out in those documents? Is there a place online we can easily read about it in English? How many armies were to be sent to the east? Where would they be positioned? How long was this expected to take? Were they expected to go on the offensive ASAP, or wait for Russian attack and attempt to envelop and destroy the attacking armies?

How many armies in the west? Where would they be positioned? What forces, if any were to guard against French invasion through Belgium? How long was this expected to take? Were German forces in the west to be strictly on the defensive or was a more active strategy of baiting the French into positions where the Germans can launch major counterattacks?

I believe there were four German Armies to be deployed to East Prussia, but due to the limited rail infrastruture the deployment of the fourth army would be delayed by a couple of weeks and get a leg workout. I get the impression it was more of a deployment plan than operational plan, so not very prescriptive on either front. I don't think it would be difficult for the Germans to replicate an eastern strategy at short notice (Groener purportly estimated 2-3 days).

As far as I know, Zuber appears the most accessable English language resource of German war planning, but I would be very happy to be corrected.
 
Much is spoken of the 1913 plan for the east in these threads, and obviously a scenario where an updated version of the plan was made for 1914 so that the Kaiser had a second option to choose from would be the easiest way to deliver an east first stratgey.

However, unless I missed it, it is simply assumed we know all the ins and outs of said plan. What was the plan laid out in those documents? Is there a place online we can easily read about it in English? How many armies were to be sent to the east? Where would they be positioned? How long was this expected to take? Were they expected to go on the offensive ASAP, or wait for Russian attack and attempt to envelop and destroy the attacking armies?

How many armies in the west? Where would they be positioned? What forces, if any were to guard against French invasion through Belgium? How long was this expected to take? Were German forces in the west to be strictly on the defensive or was a more active strategy of baiting the French into positions where the Germans can launch major counterattacks?

If you can't get hold of Zuber for a while we hashed through the various plans in this thread. It has maps and the like, as well as details of Russia's plans.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/germanys-1914-eastern-plan.385711/

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