How would this WW1 go ?

Apologies for vagueness - quick question :eek:

If a war in around 1910 erupted and the sides were Spain,France,Italy,Russia with USA backing and monetary support against Germany and Austria, who would win and how would the war go ?

I assume trenches are likely but would spanish support make up for lack of British troops ? I assume the Germans are likely to win the naval war.
 
probably a stalemate on land, where franco-spanish troops manage to keep counter-offensing the germans back and then the germans re-counter attack and gain land once again.

in the east, poor military standards and political chaos will allow germany to push into european russia, but they won't get to moscow before peice is made.

now the interesting part, as england has done for centuries the germans will destroy the franco-spanish navy and begin colony grabbing. probably grab all the richest colonies and when the war is done, germanys probably the second largest empire on the planet and their navy has probably grown to about half the size of englands.

the peice treaty would see germany giving back all money-sink colonies but keeping the good ones. A Brest-Livosk style treaty with russia and a status quo with france and spain in europe.

edit**
expect a WWII between a much more powerful germany and a declining england.
 
probably a stalemate on land, where franco-spanish troops manage to keep counter-offensing the germans back and then the germans re-counter attack and gain land once again.

in the east, poor military standards and political chaos will allow germany to push into european russia, but they won't get to moscow before peice is made.

now the interesting part, as england has done for centuries the germans will destroy the franco-spanish navy and begin colony grabbing. probably grab all the richest colonies and when the war is done, germanys probably the second largest empire on the planet and their navy has probably grown to about half the size of englands.

the peice treaty would see germany giving back all money-sink colonies but keeping the good ones. A Brest-Livosk style treaty with russia and a status quo with france and spain in europe.

edit**
expect a WWII between a much more powerful germany and a declining england.

Thank you that was very helpful.
 
Initially, in Europe, the winner will be the British Empire. There's a good chance that they would have made an awful lot of money selling weapons and ammunition most likely to the French & Spanish paid for with American money, which in return will proobably be leant to the Americans again.

However, no lessons would have been learnt militarily so the idea of a declining Britian facing a resergeant Germany is entirely plausible in my mind.
 
I suppose Britain would be able to use its money to invest in mantaining naval dominance and keeping its prime trading position which would help. Supposing Britain was to get into war with france or Germany around 1940 who would likely be in the better position ?

Britain with wealth and confidence or those with the experience. Would it also help mantain the dominions loyalty without imperial slaughters ?
 
I'm not sure it would as I don't think the war casualties, especially in India's case had anything to do with the desire for independance.
If anything, it could actually be worse. In the event of an Entent victory, Wilson would push ahead with his 14 points, and the league of nations would be born. Britain might have a seat on it, but as one of the main points was to allow National Self Determination, (e.g. Poland), The Indian Independance movement would have a good case to argue. As Britian would not be a contributing power to the victory in WWI, then they are much less likely to get support for holding onto the Empire, and certainly none from America* or France.**

Seeing outside support, even if only verbal I think you could see Ghandi's peaceful protest sidelined and more violent direct protest being the norm, with the British colonial doubly violent response also being the norm until it was effectively a civil war.

Given Britain's invention and use of concentration camps in the Boer war, there's no reason why this would not happen again in this situation.

So, Big Bad Imperialist power, using concentration camps to persecute natives,*** while trying to use war debts as a hold over various nations protesting againt them, you could in theory see Britain cast as the Nazi analogue in this one. If the German Nazi rise happens as OTL as well then it is concievable that you could have a British/Nazi alliance against the precieved socialists of the US, France and Russia.



*America was generally anti-Imperialism
** France were at the time a colonial rival, so anything that weakened Britain's position would be right by them, even if it meant putting their own neck in the noose later on, as happened to Britain OTL
*** I'm sure the irony of the US government protesting against Britain's conduct would not be lost on Native Americans
 
Apologies for vagueness - quick question :eek:

If a war in around 1910 erupted and the sides were Spain,France,Italy,Russia with USA backing and monetary support against Germany and Austria, who would win and how would the war go ?

I assume trenches are likely but would spanish support make up for lack of British troops ? I assume the Germans are likely to win the naval war.

How Neutral is Britain? Do the Germans not invade Belgium? Do they allow the German fleet access to the Channel, or warn them off? If Britain is staying out because Germany is not provoking them, the war in the west is a bloody stalemate in Alsace. France is stronger, as they haven't lost the industrial regions around Lille, and the German artillery train is not as developed, but they still get to attack into the teeth of the German defenses. With the Spanish providing manpower, the Germans will have to keep half their army in the west to play war of attrition but no one is going anywhere fast.

The german battle fleet was notoriously short legged, and they are not taking any colonies, but they may not lose many other than the pacific ones and the ones proximate to the French ones. The Franco-Italians own the med, and if the Ottomans are out, the Russians are able to sell wheat and what not to the British and Americans in exchange for war material, so economically the Russians are stronger, although they will not have reformed their army completely so will be militarily weaker. Which may actually be a good thing, as they may adopt the Germany first defense plan, and so avoid Tannenberg, hoping instead to Napoleon the Germans by bleeding them white as they advance into Russia.

The Haber process is not industrialized yet, so Germany is going to be short nitrates for ammunition. They will be able to buy them on the world market, but not from the US apparently, so that leaves south America. I expect lots of German and French commerce raiders and submarines in the Atlantic trying to strangle each other, but the French will have an advantage here as they actually have bases to operate from, and so will be able to operate more widely. Commerce raiders will also have to watch the unrestricted type of warfare, as both sides will be worried about American and British direct intervention, and if they are following the rules about boarding and warning and whatnot, France has an advantage here as well as they will have the larger cruiser fleet.

I expect all sides to slowly run out of men and money while America and Britain get rich, and at the end, regardless of who is "winning". Britain will threaten intervention to prevent any sort of decisive peace. Bankrupt Europe will have some revolutions, a nice post war depression and inflationary spiral, and all the governments involved will be thoroughly discredited.
 
So Serbia and the Balkans is out...

Austria-Hungary will do better (one less theater)

Though I think the War against Italy and Russia will be "roughly" the same.

Spain - don't know much about their capabilities during this period, but I would think they would NOT be able to provide more than Britain.


Britain outr is the most important fact I think...

No Blockade of Germany will do much good for the CPs as Germany can import much more than OTL (still there will be a lot of commerce raiding on both side, but NO unrestricted sub warfare.

I also noticed Japan is not mentioned being against the Cps - so the German colonies in the pacific are secure (as is Deutsch Südwest and Deutsch Ostafrika). You can bet Scharnhorst and Gneisenau will do a bit of raiding French Indochina ...

Togo might fall early, but Kamerun is probably holding out - Germany might be able to ship goodies and troops there.

Even if we assume Spain compensates for the lack of Commonwealth troops initially (spain has not the broad industrial capacity of Britain) the supply advantage will go to Germany this time...

So even if you assume the Eastern front goes EXACTLY as OTL by 1917/1918 Germany will have the numerical superiority on the Westen front
(after Russia collapsed they even had this IOTL until the Yanks came in force).

So in 1918 we will see an CP victory.

Would Germany impose a Versailles style treaty - or would it restrain itself (IIRC the Germans did not hate the French as much as the French did the Germans).

For Germany I think:

Reparations from France (mainly)
Expand Kamerun with French Central and Spanish Territory
Maybe Spanish Sahara/morocco to Germany (UK might have to say a word about Morocco)
Finland and Batics independent but in Germanys Sphere of influence

A Free Polish state...

(might Germany be bold enough to take Libya - maybe connecting it through Chad with Kamerun?)

Austria-Hungary - can't imagine that it actually "Expands" but It might force restrictions on Italy (especially the Fleet)
but It gets reparations from Italy
Overall the breakup will be delayed (if not prevented - but I will NOT insist on this) but for a time the Balkans will become Austrias backyard - with russia out of the game.

(I interpreted around 1910 as 1914;) - but it will not change much if you push the dates to 1909... Though Austria might be even better off comparably;))
 
The war will be far, far different from OTL. If the straights are open, the Russians are in a far better place than OTL... but if there's no British blockade of Germany, then she'll be in much better shape too. If Britain is neutral, then that means that Belgium was never invaded, which means the western front is even more of a slog than OTL but France hs more of her industry intact... this is pretty well a coin toss.

I fully expect Japan to get involved at some point and grab German colonies, then just sit tight and do nothing.

The only real winners here will be Britain and America, who got rich while Europe beat itself bloody.
 
compared to Russian oppression...

...the new state of affairs will be somewhat preferable (as long as Germany behaves reasonably), but far from perfect. Puppet states tend not to be very free, even if their populations cease to be subject to attempts at assimilation.
 
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