The Serbo-Bulgarian War of the 1880's was a pretty one-sided conflict. Serbia was very powerful and were easily favored to win. The Bulgarians had no officers above the rank of captain. Still, the Bulgarians beat the Serbians to the point that Austria-Hungary (the real facilitator of the war in the first place.
The Serbs had several problems. One, crappy generals, and no General Staff. Two, the war was unpopular; everyone knew that Serbia was acting as a proxy for Austria, and nobody wanted to die for Franz Josef. Two sub (a), attacking Bulgaria was unpopular... the Bulgarians were still seen as Slavic brothers, and their struggle against the Turks a decade earlier had aroused a lot of sympathy in Serbia. (The quarrel over Macedonia wasn't an issue yet.) And three, massive corruption in procurement -- the Serbian Army ended up with a lot of knackered horses and dud ammunition.
Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine Serbia doing much worse!
In any case, allow me to echo everyone and say that this sociological approach to AH is very interesting. I look forward to more!
Well, thanks for the kind words. This sort of thing used to be pretty common back on soc.history.what-if (which is where I come from). Like most of Usenet, soc.history.what-if is not what it used to be, but it's still around and there are still good threads.
Anyway, I'll try to come up with another one.
Doug M.
