Is it possible for Central Powers to win Great War before 1916 ends?

Anderman

Donor
@Anderman ... always happy to learn :)

About the "Ämter" : sure you're right, and the heads of these "Ämter" were called "state secretaries". I just used a term reflecting their function, as it is understood today (and being shorter ;)).

Right but that was not my main point there was no imperial war office like was a navy office the Reichsmarineamt. The administration of the various armies was a state thing. Which was far from ideal for a fighting a world war.

Btw we come from a country with a foreign minister but only a foreign office the Auswäritges Amt as it still called. ;-)
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Right but that was not my main point there was no imperial war office like was a navy office the Reichsmarineamt. The administration of the various armies was a state thing. Which was far from ideal for a fighting a world war.
What only supports my arguement for crappy control over things for the Kaiser.
 
I'm not a scholar of the Imperial German Constitution.

Personally I'm finding that I have to virtually become one to get a handle on what was going on, a simple Wiki article isn't going to help, although opening a lot of links gets a decent picture.

@NoMommsen and @Anderman how were people put onto the Bundesraat? The PM of Prussia was the President and Imperial Chancellor so were the other 16 Prussians elected members of the Prussian Landtag? What about the other states? Who was in charge of Prussia when the PM was off Chancelloring the Reich/Presiding the Bundesraat?
 
The delegates to the Bundsrat were appointed by the ruling Princes/governments of their states.

BTW Prussia didn't necessarily have 17 delegates. It had 17 votes, but these were cast as a block, not individually. So just one man could cast all 17. Similarly for the other states.
 
Ok, but who did the state governments send? Were they like Prussia and sent the Prime minister? Surely they held some sort of office and weren't just appointees.
 

Anderman

Donor
Ok, but who did the state governments send? Were they like Prussia and sent the Prime minister? Surely they held some sort of office and weren't just appointees.

The governments could send whoever they wanted it was not a fix appointment for certain amount of time. If it was not important only a bureaucart with a set of instruction how to vote if it was important a minister or the head of government and so on.
The idea behind it was that if was discussion about railways the members would send somebody who was from the ministry or office in chare for railways in the state.
The different numbers of votes for the members goes back to the constitution of the german conferderation and are based on the size (by area) for each state.
After 1866 Prussia took the votes from the annexed states (Kingdom of Hannover and so on).
Each member could send as many delegates to the Bundesrat as it has votes, so in theory Prussia could 17 but the votes had be uniform so for Prussia 17 votes yes or no not
10 yes 7 no.
 
So the Bundesraat wasn't a political chamber like a Senate, full of important politicians, the Prime Ministers or whatever of the states? It seems strange to have a heavy hitter such as the PM of Prussia/Imperial Chancellor chairing meetings of bureaucrats and technical experts, I would have thought heavy hitters of other states would want to be there making laws and dissolving the Reichstag.


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Anderman

Donor
So the Bundesraat wasn't a political chamber like a Senate, full of important politicians, the Prime Ministers or whatever of the states? It seems strange to have a heavy hitter such as the PM of Prussia/Imperial Chancellor chairing meetings of bureaucrats and technical experts, I would have thought heavy hitters of other states would want to be there making laws and dissolving the Reichstag.


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The government which meanch the executive branch can send who ever they want. That could mean the ruling monarch his Ministerpräsident or in cases of the hanseatic city states the mayor. Depends how important the whole affair was. If was not important it could be simply a bureaucrat. The most states had somekind of Ambassador in Berlin (even today). Btw the chairman of the Bundesrat was the form the Emperor appointed Chancellor.
 
So the bundesraat was more like a meeting than a parliamentary assembly, and each time it met different people would attend?

Did it have a regular sitting schedule, or was it ad hoc?
 

Anderman

Donor
So the bundesraat was more like a meeting than a parliamentary assembly, and each time it met different people would attend?

Did it have a regular sitting schedule, or was it ad hoc?

The Bundesrat would assembly when the Emperor called it into session, which he das to do atleast once a year or when one third of its members requested it.
The Bundesrat didn´t had sessions per se because it´s members were the states and they exist in theory for ever. The whole organisation is more like the UN general assembly or the EU council of ministers. The organisation of the EU looks very much like the Kaiserreich without a monarch and teeethless parliament.
 
First of all italy is death weight, so it care little.

They may not have been a powerhouse, but there millions of men involved on the Italian-Austrian front. If, instead, France had to worry about hundreds of thousands of Italians on their Southern border, they'd have to shift considerable resources there. Also, as noted, if Austrian only has to worry about Russia and Serbia, they're going to do a lot better against both and Russia would fall sooner.
 
I would suggest knocking out Russia first in 1914, then moving everything Germany has for a Schleiffen Plan in 1915/16

I like this option -- a reverse Schlieffen Plan -- hold in the West and work for a fast knockout of Russia in the East, then worry about France I think it would work.

The other option, of course, is just a bit more luck in 1914. They got real close to Paris as it was. If the Germans are a little more coordinated and the French don't pull off 'the miracle', Paris falls. That might not necessarily knock France out, but it causes them some chaos and disrupts their transportation system.
 

Redbeard

Banned
IMHO the race for Paris in 1914 was a close call and could very well have meant a French collapse. If this happens we have a situation superficially similar to OTL after 1940, but Russia is relatively weaker than USSR in WWII and the German navy is much closer to seriously challenging the RN than it ever was in WWII. If France is out by 1914 Italy is unlikely to join the Entente - or what is left of it. With the French fleet out, the Italians neutral or CP and the Grand Fleet occupied in the North Sea the British communications to India and the Far east through the Med. will be seriously challenged. The Japanese might soon find it opportunistic to hand back the Germans the deplorable islands they took from them and go for the much bigger British/French/Dutch loot instead.

Even if USA still join UK it is unlikely to happen in force before Russia is out and doing a "D-day" against a German controlled European continent and with the Germans not seriously engaged elsewhere is basically an impossible job - be it the 10s or the 40s.
 

BooNZ

Banned
I like this option -- a reverse Schlieffen Plan -- hold in the West and work for a fast knockout of Russia in the East, then worry about France I think it would work.
Agreed, although I think a stalemate and negotiated peace in the West is the most likely result, since the Belgium fortress line supported by a fully mobilized Belgium field army would not necessarily be a walk over.

The other option, of course, is just a bit more luck in 1914. They got real close to Paris as it was. If the Germans are a little more coordinated and the French don't pull off 'the miracle', Paris falls. That might not necessarily knock France out, but it causes them some chaos and disrupts their transportation system.
Disagree. The German forces were already exhausted at Marne and at the end of their strained logistical lines. Expecting the Germans to win decisively at Marne, march on Paris, defeat the Paris fortresses and then successfully lay siege to Paris requires more than "a bit of luck". In pursuing the capture of Paris the Germans would need to abandon their hopes/ plans to destroy French field armies.

IMHO the race for Paris in 1914 was a close call and could very well have meant a French collapse. If this happens we have a situation superficially similar to OTL after 1940,
As outlined above, the capture of Paris was not a close call. It was not impossible, but would have required multiple Entente mistakes of a significant magnitude and a change of German priorities. France was far more resilient in 1914 than 1940 and no one expected the fall of Paris would end the French war. The German priority was the destruction of French armies in the field, not the capture of Paris.

OTL the Germans were hoping to entice the French into a battle of annihilation, but in reality, the best case scenario of the OTL Schleiffen Plan was the Germans winning the race to the sea. It is debatable if this alone would have been a war winner and it certainly would not have been contemplated as such prior to the war.
 
As outlined above, the capture of Paris was not a close call. It was not impossible, but would have required multiple Entente mistakes of a significant magnitude and a change of German priorities. France was far more resilient in 1914 than 1940 and no one expected the fall of Paris would end the French war. The German priority was the destruction of French armies in the field, not the capture of Paris.

OTL the Germans were hoping to entice the French into a battle of annihilation, but in reality, the best case scenario of the OTL Schleiffen Plan was the Germans winning the race to the sea. It is debatable if this alone would have been a war winner and it certainly would not have been contemplated as such prior to the war.

You're right. The focus was on the field armies, but the French were definitely in a bad position. You're right, too, that they were more resilient than in 1940, but they did start mutinies in a few years (though largely due to extended slaughter) so their resilience was definitely finite.
 
The capture of Paris with the OTL course of the campaign was too much to ask, but the campaign could have gone differently to make the prospect of the capture of Paris very different indeed. Not that the capture of Paris is as important as the destruction of an army that would make it possible.
 
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