More countries in WWI? (asked yet again)

I know I've asked this before, but now for the 2011 edition:

What countries have a plausible chance of joining WWI as combatants? Or would have had a greater role in the war?

Italy
Sweden (Admiral Essen)
Portugal (they didn't do much)

Any others?
 
Denmark. It was during the war that the U.S. acquired the Danish West Indies, obstensibly to stop them from falling into German hands, and the Danes picked up land after the war despite not having been a party to the war.
 
Denmark. It was during the war that the U.S. acquired the Danish West Indies, obstensibly to stop them from falling into German hands, and the Danes picked up land after the war despite not having been a party to the war.

Denmark joins the central power?

And perhaps Italy could have honored her alliance to the Central Powers (Triple Alliance) when war broke out.

But what if the Schlieffen Plan had worked? I mean, had the plan not been modified by Moltke and thus, had the pincer movement into France via the low countries not been weakened, the French army would be captured and France would be forced out of the war. Then, Italy might possibly in on the side of the central powers.
 

Cook

Banned
The German Admiralty had various proposals to break out from the naval prison they were in caused by the extremely narrow coast Germany had on the North Sea, each of which would have resulted in a wider war.

Commander Wolfgang Wegner, a German Naval Staff Officer, wrote a series of papers proposing the occupation of Denmark and the establishment of a Protectorate over Norway. While Denmark would not have been a great challenge to Germany, Norway would have. It is hard to see how any pressure could have been brought to bare on Norway with the constant presence of the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow.

There had also been pre-war suggestions of negotiation with the Dutch to have them grant permission to establish naval bases in Holland. They were unrealistic but the idea could have led to an attempt by Germany to seize Dutch territory for this purpose, which would have brought Holland into the war on the Entente side and widened the war.

There has also been mention on this board of an early variation of the Schlieffen Plan that included the occupation of Holland. It’s not something I’ve heard of anywhere else and sounds to me like it would have demanded forces that the Germans could not spare from the attack on France. Alternatively, if these were forces that would subdue Holland before moving south through Belgium and into France it just seems to be a plan that would further delay forces that would already be struggling to stick to the six week time frame for conquering France, not to mention that invading Holland and Belgium would almost certainly have resulted in Britain entering the war; something that the Germans had hoped to avoid.

Spain had lost her empire in 1898 and was politicly unstable; might the Spanish have been persuaded to join the Entente with the offer of territorial compensation from the plunder of Germany’s overseas empire?

And perhaps Italy could have honoured her alliance to the Central Powers (Triple Alliance) when war broke out.

Italy did not ‘honour’ her alliance with the Central Powers because the alliance was defensive only. Italy’s commitment was to provide support to Germany in the event the France attacked Germany. In 1914 Germany declared war on and attacked France, not the other way round.
 
There has also been mention on this board of an early variation of the Schlieffen Plan that included the occupation of Holland. It’s not something I’ve heard of anywhere else and sounds to me like it would have demanded forces that the Germans could not spare from the attack on France. Alternatively, if these were forces that would subdue Holland before moving south through Belgium and into France it just seems to be a plan that would further delay forces that would already be struggling to stick to the six week time frame for conquering France, not to mention that invading Holland and Belgium would almost certainly have resulted in Britain entering the war; something that the Germans had hoped to avoid.

The idea behind moving forces through the Netherlands was to lighten the logistical load of the forces pushing through Belgium. With the pre-motorized transportation trains and infantry/cavalry forces of the era hogging up valuable road space, German forces being forced to await the passage through hostile territory of the guys in front of them could not participate in the battle, so if you spread the invasion frontage through into the Netherlands and then into Flanders as well, you can have greater force driving into France all at once, instead of tying up numerous German divisions waiting in the rear in Belgium while the roads in front of them are cleared of the traffic from the front-line forces.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Wasn't a Japanese expeditionary force proposed for service on the Western Front? That might have been interesting.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
The German Admiralty had various proposals to break out from the naval prison they were in caused by the extremely narrow coast Germany had on the North Sea, each of which would have resulted in a wider war.

Commander Wolfgang Wegner, a German Naval Staff Officer, wrote a series of papers proposing the occupation of Denmark and the establishment of a Protectorate over Norway. While Denmark would not have been a great challenge to Germany, Norway would have. It is hard to see how any pressure could have been brought to bare on Norway with the constant presence of the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow.

There had also been pre-war suggestions of negotiation with the Dutch to have them grant permission to establish naval bases in Holland. They were unrealistic but the idea could have led to an attempt by Germany to seize Dutch territory for this purpose, which would have brought Holland into the war on the Entente side and widened the war.

There has also been mention on this board of an early variation of the Schlieffen Plan that included the occupation of Holland. It’s not something I’ve heard of anywhere else and sounds to me like it would have demanded forces that the Germans could not spare from the attack on France. Alternatively, if these were forces that would subdue Holland before moving south through Belgium and into France it just seems to be a plan that would further delay forces that would already be struggling to stick to the six week time frame for conquering France, not to mention that invading Holland and Belgium would almost certainly have resulted in Britain entering the war; something that the Germans had hoped to avoid.

Spain had lost her empire in 1898 and was politicly unstable; might the Spanish have been persuaded to join the Entente with the offer of territorial compensation from the plunder of Germany’s overseas empire?



Italy did not ‘honour’ her alliance with the Central Powers because the alliance was defensive only. Italy’s commitment was to provide support to Germany in the event the France attacked Germany. In 1914 Germany declared war on and attacked France, not the other way round.

There were also British plans to seize Dutch islands in the North Sea as forward base for operations against the Hochseeflotte.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
I know I've asked this before, but now for the 2011 edition:

What countries have a plausible chance of joining WWI as combatants? Or would have had a greater role in the war?

Italy
Sweden (Admiral Essen)
Portugal (they didn't do much)

Any others?
Italy- were in the war dude
Sweden- not really a big plausibility for them to join
Portugal- they weren't really strong enough to do that much
 
Saying that the two Portuguese divisions that served with the BEF 'didn't do much' is a bit unfair. Sadly they did effectively collapse in 1918.
 
Having both Denmark and Sweden involved would be interesting. Swedish involvement in WWI has been discussed a lot; search "Admiral Essen" on this board and you'll find out how.

Just going by Wikipedia:

From the Central Powers page,

Irish republicans could have played a role.

Wow, I had no idea that the Germans were that involved with the Raj. Indian revolutionaries are talked about much in WWII, but for WWI? Whoa. Why do people always focus on the Indian National Army, Bose, and so on? Must be it's more "interesting" to have Nazis help out fellow Aryans kick out the British in WWII, than see the Kaiser's agents running amok. There certainly does seem to be a focus on WWII over WWI.

Afghanistan! Ahahah WWI truly is a lot more global than one immediately thinks. Between this stuff, the "Hindu-German Conspiracy" (see above), and the Zimmerman Telegraph, WWI is just as exotic as WWII.

Polish legions

The Finns- again, Sweden could have entered the war to both counter Russian aggression, and try to help Finland gain more autonomy. I've read that somewhere.

Ukrainian and Lithuanian nationalists

The Ottoman Empire also had its own allies in Azerbaijan and the Northern Caucasus. The three nations fought alongside each other under the Army of Islam in the Battle of Baku.

I'll do one for the Entente later.
 

Cook

Banned
Irish republicans could have played a role.

The Irish Republicans did play a role with the Dublin uprising in 1916, but the huge number of their countrymen fighting for the British Empire on the western front meant that they were very unpopular at the time. It was only the execution of the ringleaders of the uprising that changed things.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
OTL?

Of course, as with Ireland, the "national" leadership being on one side doesn't mean most Ukrainian soldiers didn't serve on the other. It's much more complicated in this case, what with Galicia.
Also, there were never many Ukrainian "nationalists". RCW shows that far more Ukrainians joined up with the Whites, Reds or with Makhno than joined with those trying to build an independent Ukraine.

Most Ukrainian nationalists were on the Austrian side of the border + a few intellectuals in Kiev.
 
Also, there were never many Ukrainian "nationalists". RCW shows that far more Ukrainians joined up with the Whites, Reds or with Makhno than joined with those trying to build an independent Ukraine.

Most Ukrainian nationalists were on the Austrian side of the border + a few intellectuals in Kiev.

True. Of course, most Ukrainian peasants didn't have either much sympathy for any side, or much choice which to fight for. The Ukrainian army and the Blacks commanded some enthusiasm from the peasantry insofar as armies led by mutinous sailors and the miscellanious lower-middle classes represented Us against The Lords. The the Whites (and the Poles) were "lords and officers" and despised; the "yids and commissars" of the Bolsheviks were only marginally better.
 
Top