How would the Central Powers realistically be able to win WWI after the First Battle of the Marne?

Anaxagoras

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If Amiens is the key to the west and the war then perhaps the Germans should go after in in early 1916 instead of Verdun, if that's tactically possible.

The Germans were not trying to break the French lines at Verdun, but simply to bleed the French army white.
 
The Germans were not trying to break the French lines at Verdun, but simply to bleed the French army white.

I thought they were trying to do both; reduce the salient while bleeding the French white. Once the advance didn't go as well has hoped then the bleeding became the main aim.
 
Germany's execution of USW was arguably a consequence of the destruction of most of the Kriegsmarine's fleet of destroyers at the Battle of Jutland (1916). If you can make the germans somehow achieve a Tsushima-like victory in the battle and preserve their fleet, then USW becomes less attractive to the germans as a means of fighting the british naval blockade. With no submarine attacks, the USA are much less likely to enter.
Another point to consider is the russian Brusilov Offensive. It broke the position of Austria-Hungary as a reliable, autonomous fighting power in the CP. If you can get more competent and alerted commanders in charge of the Carpathian front, then the Offensive's initial breakouts may be prevented.
 
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the destruction of most of the Kriegsmarine's fleet of destroyers at the Battle of Jutland (1916)

The Germans only lost 5 destroyers at Jutland, in the aftermath they sent a flotilla to Flanders and then rotated 2 flotilla (for a total of 23 destroyers) to the area. It was only then, until early 1917, that the small surface war occured that the RN eventually (unsurprisingly ) won.

A better strategy would have been to rotate flotilla/s, stiffened by a light cruiser or 2, through Flanders as soon as it was defensible. As soon as the RN gets on top of such forces they should head back to the HSF and sortie to the north until the strength in the South dissapates. Then repeat!
 
Sure, but the issue is getting a trajectory where the US doesn't enter the war but the CP is going as well or better so that the 1918 offensives knock the French out of the war.

If they still are happen as OTL. With no US troops looming on the horizon, the Germans can probably hold out until Entente soldiers lose hope of breaking through and their morale starts to fail. They aren't "racing against the clock" as OTL, so don't urgently need to attack as and when they did.
 
If they still are happen as OTL. With no US troops looming on the horizon, the Germans can probably hold out until Entente soldiers lose hope of breaking through and their morale starts to fail. They aren't "racing against the clock" as OTL, so don't urgently need to attack as and when they did.

Still have the problem of the other Central Powers falling like Russia did, and an ongoing blockade.
 
Make peace with the Japanese, give them the Pacific possessions. Buy/trade for cargo ships loaded with coal, small arms to equip several light divisions, and room to evacuate all the troops and civilians to Ost-Africa.

Use the Marines and ships to capture Mafia and Zanzibar islands. This will make Dar-el-Salam available as the new base for von Spee's squadron. Just in range of the mouth of the Red Sea or the east side of the Cape passage.

Plus think what Lettow-Vorbeck could do with 3000 professional soldiers.

Promise Italy basically everything except the A-H lands to get them on board. Italians want Egypt they get Egypt, you want Nice, Corsica, and Tunessia no problem. Rinse and repeat for the Romanians, they want the land stretching to the Southern Buh and pound of flesh from the Serbians, can do. And again for Bulgaria.

Immediately send whatever troops you can scrape together and trap the Belgians in Antwerp or on the Left Bank as they retreat. Better yet sortie the fleet and remain radio silence until you are off the Belgian coast and land a brigade or two at Nieuwpoort. To take defensive positions along the IJzer. This would have the massive side-effect of forcing British divisions to stay in England.
 
Make peace with the Japanese, give them the Pacific possessions. Buy/trade for cargo ships loaded with coal, small arms to equip several light divisions, and room to evacuate all the troops and civilians to Ost-Africa.

Use the Marines and ships to capture Mafia and Zanzibar islands. This will make Dar-el-Salam available as the new base for von Spee's squadron. Just in range of the mouth of the Red Sea or the east side of the Cape passage.

Plus think what Lettow-Vorbeck could do with 3000 professional soldiers.

Japan declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914, so any offer of peace would have to come after that. Of course by then Australia and New Zealand would have already taken some German Pacific possession, Spee would be on his way to Coronel and finally destruction at the Falklands and the British already clamping down on worldwide non-allied shipping movements.

As such any Japanese attempt to materially help the Germans would be in the face of the British and amount to open war.

Immediately send whatever troops you can scrape together and trap the Belgians in Antwerp or on the Left Bank as they retreat.

This is a better bet, although such troop would have to be drawn from those who were already losing the Race to the Sea. Its tough to alter the Race to the Sea with decision made after the Marne.

Better yet sortie the fleet and remain radio silence until you are off the Belgian coast and land a brigade or two at Nieuwpoort. To take defensive positions along the IJzer. This would have the massive side-effect of forcing British divisions to stay in England.

The RN was very active in this area during this period and a forcing attempting such a landing would have to defeat what the RN had in the area, which is most likely possible, and then fight their way back to Germany with the Grand Fleet bearing down on them from the north cutting off their retreat.
 
Churchill lays this out pretty well and very convincingly in his book on WW I. The CP should have put much more emphasis on the Eastern Front. No Verdun offensive in 1916, more Eastern operations in both 1915 and 1916. Maybe Romania stays neutral or joins the CP. Russia falls earlier. Austria is more robust. The blockade is of less significance with food and other resources coming from the East. And of course no USW and all sorts of praise for Wilson and his 14 points. They might have gotten an arrangement like Brest-Litovsk a year or so earlier. Austria would have taken fewer hits and would be able to stay in the war. The Turks could have been shored up. Troops could have been released from the East to knock Italy out of the war.
On the Western front, stay mostly on the defensive with an occasional foray to mix it up but refrain from attritional warfare.
At worst, they get a status quo ante deal in the West and a Brest Litovsk in the East which sets them up very very well for another war because they don't have to worry about the Eastern front.
 
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