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Prelude: On the night of July 31st, 1914, Generaloberst von Moltke was becoming as desperate and frustated as the man he was speaking with. "Your Majesty," he said to Wilhelm II once again, "it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised. If your Majesty insists on leading most of our army to the East it will not be an army ready for battle but a disorganized mob of armed men with no arrangements for supply. These arrangements took a whole year of intricate labor to complete,and once settled, it cannot be altered."
"Your uncle would have given me a different answer," the Kaiser said to him bitterly, and the heated debate that would continue for hours to come took turn to the worse. In the end Kaiser Wilhelm II had his way. Germany would not mobilize according to the Schlieffen Plan, but would instead respect Belgian neutrality and initially take a defensive posture against France while sending bulk of her forces against Russia.
Horrified officers of the German General Staff who had been busily preparing for war along the outlines of the Schlieffen Plan were now forced to improvise as von Falkenhayn, the Prussian Minister of War (discreedly and hidden from public eyes) assumed command from von Moltke, who had completely collapsed upon hearing that the Kaiser had made up his mind and now wanted to confront Russia first and maintain defensive posture in the Western Front in order to avoid hostilities with Britain. Yet OKL was first and foremost a professional force, and though comitted since 1905 to a plan of attack upon France first, they also had in their files, revised each year until 1913, an alternative plan against Russia with all the trains turning eastward.
As General von Staab now worked day and night to make the impossible happen, the old sarcastic notion that the best brains produced by the War College went into the railway section and ended up in lunatic asylums held true once more. The mobilization system passed this enormoust test. Annual war games that had kept railway officials in constant practice and tested their ability to improvise and divert traffic by telegrams reporting lines cut and bridges destroyed had done their work well, and as German armies moved towards the Russian border, continental Europe descended into war...
What this thread is about: I'm making a mod for HoI3: FtM. The background scenario for this mod will be partially based on the Yogi's AAR here.
General outlines:
-After Anglo-German detence, changes in German naval policy and other events described with excellent details on the first chapters of DerGreif's TL, British political leadership is less inclined to see Germany as a primary threat to Empire.
-Thus, once WW1 starts as in OTL, instead of marching to Belgium Germany respects her neutrality and mobilizes against Russia while standing on the defense in West. Consequently Britain stays non-belligerent, focusing on the troubles that follow the implementation of Home Rule in Ireland.
-France and Russia fight against Germany and Austria-Hungary, with Ottoman Empire joining to the war in early 1915 alongside with Bulgaria. Italy stays neutral, and occupies Albania.
-The Western Front soon stagnates to trench warfare in German Alsace, where the German defense holds due the narrow front while casualties are high on both sides.
-Seeing that they are the main target of Germany, Stavka opts for Plan G, and the trained prewar armies of Russian Empire die a slow death of a thousand cuts in bitter and bloody defensive actions. Their early success against A-H is more due the poor coordination between Berlin and Vienna, and after Austria-Hungary has used superiour numbers to knock Serbia and Montenegro out from the war by 1915, Ottoman Empire joins the fray and the fate of Russia is sealed, while the war still drags on.
-War exhaustion in Russia gets steadily worse, as the whole society starts to slowly crumble down due increasing casualties and growing dissent. As the Ottoman Empire joins the war and advances to Caucasus, mounting tensions in Russian domestic politics lead to the abdication of Nicholas II on February 1917. During July, the events in Petrograd get out of hand as described in Hnau in his TL - the fledgling coalition of SRs and Mensheviks take over, and S-R leaders Gershuni and Gots manage to retain control of the situation, securing their leading position in left-wing coalition government of Russian Republic that is formed after the first elections of the Constituent Assembly in late 1917. As the situation in the front keeps deteriorating as Germans keep advancing towards Petrograd through the Baltic areas and the effective resistance of Russian armies starts to crumble despite finally improving supply situation, as soldiers start to desert en masse. Seeing no other choise, Gershuni and Menshevik leaders opt to sign a separate peace.
-Japan stays neutral in the Pacific and focuses on China that also avoids entaglement to this European conflict.
-War in the seas are limited to small-scale cruiser and raider action according to international naval warfare treaties.
- Russia quits the war in late autumn 1917 with Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, where Germany gains former Russian Polish territories (including parts of Belarus), Baltic provinces and a recognition to Finnish independence during the time the country remains embroiled to a bitter civil war that broke out soon after the declaration of independence.
-German forces return to Western front and pushes French troops out from Alsace-Lorraine. Britain urges France to make peace.
- Germany ultimately agrees to "only" demand French disarmament, severe war reparations and minor adjustments to Franco-German border in Alsace in Europe, while her main demands include colonies: Morocco, parts of French Kongo and Indochina. By late 1917 the war in Western and Central Europe is effectively over.
-Meanwhile Russian Civil War begins, and while Germany seeks mainly to consolidate her new buffer zone in the post-BL states and is content to leave Russians to fight among themselves, the Ottoman Empire stages an intervention to Central Asia to support rebels in Russian Turkestan. In the end the Soviet coalition gains victory against the scattered White armies, and Russian Republic begins the painful reconstruction after the loss of large parts of former Russian empire.
The start date of this scenario is 1st of January 1936, and the aim is to create at least somewhat plausible world based on the scenario I described.
Feedback and ideas considering the different parts of the world are much appreciated. I'd especially like opinions regarding the postwar situation in France, Italy, Japan, China and Africa. Good, plausible what-if scenarios that could go either way and thus offer interesting gameplay events and replayability are the key here. For persons more familiar with Hearts of Iron-games and their mods, my humble goal would be to create something akin to Kaiserreich with more plausible overall scenario.