PC/WI: Perpetual WWI stalemate?

Is it plausible that, by a combination of a few wartime political missteps and disasterious military manuvours, some form of a permenant, perpetual-war stalemate could have materialized during WWI?

If so, how long could it have actually lasted? And what would be the long term effects?
 

jahenders

Banned
Is it plausible that, by a combination of a few wartime political missteps and disasterious military manuvours, some form of a permenant, perpetual-war stalemate could have materialized during WWI?

If so, how long could it have actually lasted? And what would be the long term effects?

I can't see it. Both Germany and UK/France were exhausted and somewhat 'bled out' well before 1918. If the US doesn't get involved, they maintain periodic fighting on the battlefield, but eventually give up. There would probably be a more balanced peace in late 1918 or early 1919.
 
Well, theoretically the Korean War never ended.

There could be an Armistice with a stronger Germany that won't give up Alsace and Lorraine. No final peace treaty comes about and war resumes the minute everyone catches their breath. That may not be until 1939 again, though.
 
Is it plausible that, by a combination of a few wartime political missteps and disasterious military manuvours, some form of a permenant, perpetual-war stalemate could have materialized during WWI?

If so, how long could it have actually lasted? And what would be the long term effects?

Even if you remove considerations like food or raw materials, eventually you'll run out of warm bodies to be put in uniform and handed a rifle.
 
I can't see it. Both Germany and UK/France were exhausted and somewhat 'bled out' well before 1918. If the US doesn't get involved, they maintain periodic fighting on the battlefield, but eventually give up. There would probably be a more balanced peace in late 1918 or early 1919.
IIRC Germany was facing famines at home, so a longer war clearly wouldn't do too much good for them.
 
Even if you remove considerations like food or raw materials, eventually you'll run out of warm bodies to be put in uniform and handed a rifle.

Which is why the stalemate can't continue indefinitely. At some point one party or the other will decide it can't wait any longer and have one last fling in the hope of a knock out blow. This will either succeed or fail, and either way is likely to bring the war to an end.
 

tenthring

Banned
Militarily the powers had started to figure out how to break trench warfare. Tactics, technology, and leadership were all reaching a point where even if material/moral concerns hadn't caused an end, I think that the era of static fronts were already slipping away.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Is it plausible that, by a combination of a few wartime political missteps and disasterious military manuvours, some form of a permenant, perpetual-war stalemate could have materialized during WWI?

If so, how long could it have actually lasted? And what would be the long term effects?
Sounds a bit as if you seek a way to make the first parts of "Things to come" by H.G.Wells happen with WW I ?
 
Militarily the powers had started to figure out how to break trench warfare. Tactics, technology, and leadership were all reaching a point where even if material/moral concerns hadn't caused an end, I think that the era of static fronts were already slipping away.

Given what the Eastern Front looked like, I get the sense that the Western Front was the way it was less because of technology and more because the two sides were evenly matched, or close enough that they couldn't effect a breakthrough on such limited frontage.
 
The "best" you can get is a Israel-Palestine esque situation where a few small territories are the constant focus of mostly indirect and sporadic direct warfare. This would require Germany and France to be both undefeated and relatively secure in both their economic strength and mutual hatred. Maybe something like the following:

Germany stalemates France and keeps its Brest-Litovsk gains. War ends 1919 with a lot of bitter feelings.

A generation or so later, Russia bereft of Ukraine and Belarus is either Soviet or fascist and demands a rematch with Germany, which in turn leads to a rematch with France. The main front is in Eastern Europe, with French help to Russia and French and German armies mostly just staring at each other angrily in the west. Germany loses this battle and is stripped of its eastern holdings and Alsace-Lorraine, where an active anti-French insurgency develops.

By about 1940-1950, Britain and the US have decided that the Franco-Russian entente is more than enough to check the Central Powers, so they cooperate with the latter to maintain the geopolitical balance. All sides probably have nukes by this point.

National and religious insurgencies supported by Central Powers active in Balkans, Franco-German border, and perhaps the Near East in opposition to the Franco-Russia entente. Germany and its central European clients are poor and illiberal enough that continuous low-level warfare is politically acceptable, and the more affluent Franco-Russians keep step. The Anglo-Americans are happy to trade with all.

Anti-war movements will crop up in both sides by the latter half of the 20th century, but given the strength and motivations of the two blocs involved, the war may continue for decades to come.
 
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