Paris falls 1914

It occurs to me that it is possible with a bit better luck that the Germans might have taken Paris between September and November 1914.

Does this end the Great War? If so on what terms

If France fights on and eventually ends up on the winning side might Versailles be harsher?
 
I'll leave aside discussion why it could have happened. - Fact: Paris is taken by the Germans in September 1914.
That means the whole of Northern France falls to the Germans. A lot more French civilians and industry are lost to the invader. The most important French rail hub (Paris) is no longer available. All the French centralistic bureau stuff is lost (a malus or a bonus?).
The Germans now control ports west of Dover/Calais.

France will continue to fight (as long as Russia and Britain do so) - they thought the British blockade would force Germany to give up within four months.
But the strategic situation has become much worse for the Entente.
 
France will continue to fight (as long as Russia and Britain do so) - they thought the British blockade would force Germany to give up within four months.
But the strategic situation has become much worse for the Entente.
Hm. Might the better position for the Central Powers make the neutral states more inclined towards them? Italy (re-)joining the CP, or remaining neutral for longer? Romania? Less support for Venizelios' ideas in Greece?
 
I'll leave aside discussion why it could have happened. - Fact: Paris is taken by the Germans in September 1914.
That means the whole of Northern France falls to the Germans. A lot more French civilians and industry are lost to the invader. The most important French rail hub (Paris) is no longer available. All the French centralistic bureau stuff is lost (a malus or a bonus?).
The Germans now control ports west of Dover/Calais.

France will continue to fight (as long as Russia and Britain do so) - they thought the British blockade would force Germany to give up within four months.
But the strategic situation has become much worse for the Entente.

German control of channel ports is going to make the UK very nervous. They will likely attempt to establish an armistice in the west. German demands on France would be modest at this stage; demobilization, reparations and some colonial adjustments. If this fails Italy could be offered Nice, Savoy, Corsica Djibouti and Tunisia to rejoin the Central Powers.
 
I suppose Italy would think twice now about joining the Entente, because a defeat of France has become a straight possibility.
Romania's behaviour is more oriented towards Russian failure or success.
I don't see Gallipoli happen in this TL, and no subsequent landing in Thessaloniki. So, most probably Greece will stay out of the war.
Britain will be very nervous about the German submarines out of Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne and Calais. The Germans now are in a much better position to reach around Britain and interdict shipping.
Most probably, the French will bleed white their army in desperate offensives in order to retake their lost capital. They might collapse in 1916.
 
Koreanization

I am gratified that no one is claiming that the capture of Paris immedately results in total German victory which is a common misperception. Assuming that Paris is captured but most of the French Army is not destroyed (the real primary objective of the Schlieffen/Moltke Plan) then France would fight on for a while but it would be greatly weakened. There is even some possibility depending on the details of the military campaign that the French could pry the Germans out of Paris which would be interesting.

Still another interesting variant is that the Germans were only able to take Paris because they kept the Eastern Front so weak the Russian steamroller succeeded.

But if we go with the Germans taking and holding Paris and and an Eastern Front close to OTL, I would see at least two massively bloody French counteroffensives with sizable British involvement in at least one of them. A coalion government emerges in Britain in November.

In early 1915 with neither the superoffensives, British blockade or the Russian steamroller rescuing France and Bulgaria joining the CP with Romania soon to follow the Entente will enter into negotiations secret at first but then openly. Everyone wants to twist WWI into an early WWII but what would happen here is more isomorphic to the Korean War with a period of negotiations while the war is still going on. Everyone knows the war will end soon but every battle is hoped to have an impact on the imminent armistice and treaty.
 
Was the Goverment Captured or not . That makes the diffrance If it was captured with the city I could see the War ending and France losing some of its Colonies to Germany . France would still be better off then she as in 1919 after the War ended . She would still have in the work force about 3-5 million of the wounded or dead men that died in the war .
 
France fight on is a given in 1914. This does not presuppose an entente victory, as Paris is THE node of the french railroad and road networks, making it's loss a significant one for entente logistics on the west front, which means entente position is worse than OTL. It just means that fall of Paris is not an automatic CP war-winner.

Nor is the governmant captured. OTL, Paris was declared an open city and the government already evacuated ( to Bordeaux IIRC ). The troops were in the process of evacuating the city when the Paris military governor changed his mind and called the french CiC, Joffre ( who had been HIS ordinance ) and told him he was resisting on Paris and to send reinforcement instead of evacuating, then he conscripted the Paris Taxis and the rest is history. Abscent that decision, Paris would be open, but the governmant would not be in it.
 
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