Make WW1 go for longer.

The only way I see the war prolonged is if Germany can knock out France with the Spring Offensive, and just sit staring at England from the North of France until a white peace can be settled
 
The entente can and would cut back its war effort, but that doesn't mean it would collapse.

Rations for the general population can be lowered, less shells can be expended on the front, India can be stripped of food if need be,

I don't see how India can be stripped of food without triggering a revolt there, but in any case the sea voyage to and from India is about three times as long as for North America, so that any given ship can make only a third as many journeys in any given time period. That's a reduction of imports far greater than the u-boats ever managed.

In any case, though, the big problem isn't Britain's own war effort, but the fact that without the unsecured loans which became available after US entry into the war, she can't bankroll her continental allies. That's not just an opinion. GB had already, in late 1916, had to turn down a French request for a further loan. And if Britain couldn't keep her allies afloat, there would have been little point in fighting on alone.

BTW, the Nivelle Offensive started on April 16, only two weeks after the US declaration of war. It had, IOW, been prepared long before, and would have gone ahead on schedule whatever the US had done. Indeed, continued US neutrality would make it, and other offensives like it, more probable rather than less. The worse the Allied financial position becomes, the greater the perceived need to deliver a "knock out blow" before the funds run out. And when the knock-out blow fails - - -.
 
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Kongzilla

Banned
OK how about this.

Germans do better in 1914 reach withing 50km of Paris.
The Front grinds to a halt.
Germany decides to go For Russia first.
Russia collapses a bit before OTL.
Germany decides ti simply bleed the French out.
And I'm not sure where to go from there.
 
I was just wondering if it is possible for the First World War to last longer than it did in OTL. Is it possible for there to be lull in the war but a Western Front Remains in place.

Listen to General John J. Pershing and actually invade Germany before negotiating with them. Then not only did World War I last longer, there also might not be the horrible consequences OTL.
 
The only way I see the war prolonged is if Germany can knock out France with the Spring Offensive, and just sit staring at England from the North of France until a white peace can be settled

Basic trouble is that it toook two events (neither unlikely in itself but a little improbable in how they coincided) nto even make the war last as long as it did.

Had the Russian Revolution not happened when it did, Germany would have lost the war in 1917. Had the US not come in when it did, the Entente probably loses in 1917 or early 1918. It took the near simultaneous combinanation of the two to enable Germany to carry on longer without, in the process, enabling her to win.

However, had the weather been worse in second half of 1918, so that the Allied offensive was held up by mud, it is conceivable that things could drag on into 1919, though only if Austria-Hungary can also fight on longer.
 
The only way I see the war prolonged is if Germany can knock out France with the Spring Offensive, and just sit staring at England from the North of France until a white peace can be settled

I'm not so sure a white peace would be settled if France really fell, I think Germans can get good terms in that scenario. Sure, in WW2 France's fall didn't end the war, but this time France's resistance is really the heart of the conflict, and Russia has already fallen. The UK fights for balance of power on the continent and geopolitical interests so it wouldn't be happy with such a scenario, but it seems far less likely to imagine Britain and the US try to stare down central powers with absolute mastery of the continent in WW1 than it was in WW2. The logic of the Germans, at least, was that knocking out the French would give them favorable terms.

Then again, though such victory in France would quiet the home front a bit, it doesn't do anything for the great shortages created by the blockade and because of those the CP want rapid resolution. The Germans hoped earlier in the war that peace in the East would let them extract some resources from the East, but that takes time to set up and the late peace made it unworkable. Furthermore, they ended up occupying so much land that a large amount of troops had to stay East, minimizing the military gains of Brest-Litvosk. So to prolong the war, perhaps an earlier diplomatic breakthrough in the east, with lesser gains in terms of land, would work. You'd have more military power for a renewed push westwards earlier, which would logically allow for taking and holding more gains (nobody wants to surrender when the war map looks favorable), and more time to extract resources out of the conquests, which may help lessen the blockade's effects a bit.

This should add up to a slightly longer war, assuming Paris holds, which is more likely than not. It would likely mean an ever more devastated Northern France, less chance that the Bolsheviks ultimately win in Russia, and perhaps more respect for the Russian ability to defend itself in post-war Germany. Being able to walk so easily to the depths of the Caucasus after OTL's B-L didn't help the Germans in the long run. The myths that created sure played a part in making the invasion of the Soviet Union look like a workable idea.
 
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