REDUX: Place In The Sun: What If Italy Joined The Central Powers?

[lukedalton]

You are correct in saying that the RN hasn't got much presence in the Med. The agreement was that France handled the Med. However, the RN is swimming in pre-dreadnoughts that are not needed in the battle against Germany. Those can be assigned to the Med. That will take time, it's true. I'd guess on the order of a month to get the relief force assembled, provisioned and sailed to Malta/Alex

The entire Med is a secondary front and the pre-dread and their crew are much more needed near the Home Island, expecially due to the fact that putting them on Malta basically is like cutting them from the rest of the world as they are a very tempting target for the italian subs and bombers and i don't know how much Malta infrastructure (even without bombing) can sustain them.
Frankly attempting to drow the italians with pre-dradnoughts will simple force Regia Marina to mount an assault to Malta to deny the place to the RN

 

[prester.john208]

You are correct in saying that the RN hasn't got much presence in the Med. The agreement was that France handled the Med. However, the RN is swimming in pre-dreadnoughts that are not needed in the battle against Germany. Those can be assigned to the Med. That will take time, it's true. I'd guess on the order of a month to get the relief force assembled, provisioned and sailed to Malta/Alex

Churchill planned to pull the crews of the old pre-dreadnoughts to man the navy's new ships. That's why he didn't care how many were lost in the dardenalles, Gallipoli.

 

[Evil Crusader]

Never thought I'd say, 'feel bad for the French'.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Chapter XXV​

Verdun Surrenders​

The trope of "lions led by donkeys", was made so popular in the years after the Great War by British writers seeking an explanation for defeat, chief amongst them Basil Liddell-Hart, whose 1936 book of the same title is a scathing indictment of Douglas Haig and Joffre. Postwar politicians in Britain and France built it into their national mythologies. Defeat, they claimed, was not the fault of the individual men in the trenches, but in the British case, of the noble officers who owed their positions to family connections, and in the French, of men selected for their loyalty to the Republic. Even a hundred years on, this idea pervades the defeated Entente states (and was, perhaps, necessary to enable their rapprochement with the Central Powers). It may have been politically expedient, but it was also a long way from the truth- for the most part.

In reality, few Great War commanders on either side were as incompetent as the popular histories were made out. Gas, the machine-gun, years-long stalemate, and industrial slaughter were novelties to them, just as "digging in", trench foot, and days-long artillery bombardments were to the men on the front line. Those men did everything in their power to survive and defeat the enemy amidst brutal circumstances; while their commanders avoided physical privations, they were no less determined to break out of the horrible tactical and strategic situation. One can levy legitimate criticism against them: Joseph Joffre and Luigi Cadorna overemphasised infantry offensives and elan in the face of defensive firepower, and the latter was infamous for mistreating the men under his command. Roberto Brusati and Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf were out of their depths, reliant on better men to bail them out. Erich von Falkenhayn cared so little for his men that he traded their lives man-for-man with the enemy; Philippe Petain cared so much, he refused to commit everything to stop the Germans early at Verdun, preferring to fall back and hope something would go right.

Revisionist historians have challenged this narrative over the last quarter century, rehabilitating all the above figures to one degree or another. Even the traditional French disdain for Petain as the man who lost Verdun has diminished; the modern consensus among military historians is that had Joffre and the War Ministry reinforced the Second Army in February, Verdun could have held, even if there was a cost in the Alps. Only two French commanders have not benefitted from this trend: the two men deemed responsible for the loss of Verdun.

General Robert Nivelle and Colonel Lucien Chanaris were about to disgrace themselves for a hundred years.

Nivelle was born in a provincial town and was fifty-eight when the Great War broke out. He was commissioned as an artillery officer at twenty-two and served in France's various colonial campaigns, reaching the rank of Colonel by 1914. Talent aside, two factors boosted his career prospects. For a start, Nivelle was half-English; his mother taught him both the Anglican faith and the English language. The nascent Third Republic's quest to liberalize and purge itself of anything "reactionary" gave Nivelle an advantage over his Catholic, seulement-francais, fellow officers. Second, Nivelle radiated self-confidence and, even as a junior officer, never missed an opportunity to promote himself. As artillery gained prominence on the battlefield, Nivelle rose with it and ingratiated himself with all of the right people over the next year. His real fortune was of course the job he received in early 1916: a subordinate general to Philippe Petain in the Second Army, soon to place him in the public eye as "a hero of Verdun." When Joffre promoted Petain to command Army Group Centre- for no other reason, he insisted after the war, than "to simplify the chain of command"- Nivelle was the obvious replacement.

Nivelle assumed command of the Second Army on May 21st, 1916. The warning signs of disaster were apparent from that very first day, though no one could afford to notice them- Joffre had staked his career on a miracle at Verdun and saw no man other than Nivelle with a chance of delivering. Nivelle moved Second Army headquarters to Bar-le-Duc, a bare 45 miles from the frontline, "the better to witness and coordinate offensive action." He then summoned all of the Second Army's staff officers into the map room and began marking up a wall map.

The first line, drawn in thick red ink, stretched from Avocourt in the west, through Montzeville and the wreckage of Fort Sartelles, and through Regret, before crossing the Meuse and touching Fort Haudanville. Beyond this line, Nivelle declared, "les batards non passerent pas!" When reinforcements came, and he had word from Paris that they would, their first task would be to keep the Germans back from this line, thus preventing a mass breakthrough into Eastern France. Nivelle had, of course, misdiagnosed the problem. Had Falkenhayn wanted to, he could have broken through the French lines at any moment. German soldiers on the west bank could have swept by Fort Sartelles in April and charged towards Bar-le-Duc, or left a skeleton force to surround Verdun while sending the bulk of their strength south. Instead, the Germans had opted to strangle Verdun and its defenders. Nivelle's red line looked good on paper but was irrelevant to the end goal of saving the city, and the men sent to hold it were wasting their time.

Nivelle then drew a dark blue line, from Fort Sartelles to Thierville and Regret, then running down the Meuse. His upcoming offensive, he declared, was to liberate this chunk of land and reopen a corridor to Verdun, through which more reinforcements could arrive to push the Germans out of the city. A green line through the Bois Borrun, up to Douaumont, showed the second phase of the offensive. Nivelle instructed his subordinates to be on the blue line a week after the offensive opened, and on the green two months hence. Whereas Petain had condemned his men to crouch inside forts and behind buildings, leaving them exposed to artillery fire and gas, Nivelle would free them to go forward as the offensive spirit dictated.

Nivelle shrugged off all concerns from subordinates. Had he not served in the Second Army since the battle began? Was he not familiar with the conditions? That same day, he telephoned Joffre, explaining his plan in as much detail as possible. All Joffre heard was that the new man would bring results on the battlefield and save his career. He was too desperate to ask the questions which needed asking, such as where the necessary reinforcements would come from, or how "the offensive spirit" would protect men from the adverse effects of artillery fire and gas better than rubble, masks, and concrete forts. Nivelle already had twelve divisions en route from Italy and Joffre promised to secure him "as much as we can obtain, as much as the war situation permits."

One biography of Nivelle, released to coincide with the battle's centenary, raises an interesting theory: that Nivelle's artillery background was a hindrance, not an asset, in planning for his offensive. He was far from alone in firing everything he could at the enemy before going forward; this was standard doctrine before Germany proved the efficiency of the "hurricane barrage". The real problem, this biography claimed, was the "mathematical artilleryman's mindset". Nivelle viewed humans as commodities no different from shells: sheer weight of mass should be enough to break the enemy. Paired with an attachment to notions of elan and the need for a glorious victory, as opposed to an efficient one, to appeal to the public, as well as the ego of a man used to everything going right under his command, this set Nivelle's counteroffensive up for failure from the very first day.

Falkenhayn dealt all of France a blow only a few days later: on May 27th, a lucky artillery shell came down on a wine cellar in Verdun where Guillaumat and Balfourier had made their headquarters, killing the two corps commanders and all of their staff. A hitherto unknown division commander by the name of Lucien Chanaris took charge of the French debris inside the. city, and decided at once that the situation was hopeless. As just one obscure colonel among many, Chanaris had no reputation amongst the high command to protect and few prospects of promotion after the war. He was free of the political blinders the late Guillaumat and Balfourier had worn. However hopeless the tactical situation, they had remained in the city because Petain and Joffre were counting on them. Chanaris knew no loyalty to Nivelle and saw no reason not to request permission to break out- besides, he wrote after the war, "a court-martial was preferable to death by gas."

Three runners and a dozen carrier pigeons gave their lives for Chanaris' message to reach Bar-le-Duc. Upon reading it, Nivelle raised his eyebrows and threw it in the wastepaper basket. How could his men do their job if there were no French left behind to distract the Germans in the city itself?

Two days later, after Chanaris' men had taken another nine hundred casualties, a carrier pigeon touched down on the roof of his headquarters bearing a handwritten note from Nivelle. It read, "Verdun meutre, mais ne se rende pas!" Napoleon's field marshal Cambronne had, at least in legend, said as much of the Imperial Guard during the Battle of Waterloo- the last formation of French troops not thrown before the Duke of Wellington's muskets. A hundred years later, in a basement in one of the lower circles of hell, shells and mortars bursting all around him and with no prospect of relief, Chanaris scribbled one word and sent ten pigeons back to Bar-le-Duc, only one of which made it through. If Nivelle wanted to quote from Waterloo- perhaps seeking to top it as the worst defeat in French history, Chanaris thought with a sneer- then he would not play along. His responsibility was to the men under his command, with whom he had fought since August 1914. If the new general would not let him save their lives, he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. It ran counter to his every instinct- he considered himself a loyal Frenchman and a good soldier- but dying in this hell served no one.

By the time Nivelle unfurled Chanaris' note and read his one word reply- merde!- the colonel had already done the unthinkable.

At dawn on May 28th, 1916, a man advanced from Chanaris' headquarters under flag of truce. Shooting halted, and the German commander on the scene agreed to a provisional cease-fire. After disarming him and making sure he carried no explosives, he passed the French messenger up the line to the Kronprinz's headquarters. On seeing the Kronprinz- no one could miss the resemblance to the hated Kaiser- the messenger's face fell flat. He read out Colonel Chanaris' message, every word an act of physical exertion. Acting on his own initiative, the new commander of Verdun wanted to surrender his encircled forces. Perhaps fifteen thousand men, perhaps twice that number, remained in the city and surrendering would spare their lives. Chanaris would ensure the men were disarmed and promised the Germans would encounter no resistance. All he asked was for a Red Cross observer on the scene, and that his suffering men receive all the protections the Geneva Convention offered, especially medical care.

Chanaris had acted on his own initiative and not coordinated with all of his subordinate officers: those who'd been his subordinates before Guilaumat and Balfourier's death were behind him, while everyone else resented his authority and felt that they deserved the post. News that Chanaris wanted to throw them and their men over to the enemy threw them into a quandary. None were keen on fighting to the death in the city's ruins, without any prospect of relief- but what was the alternative? To follow a man devoid of legitimacy into laying down their arms and rendering void the sacrifices their men had made over the last three months. To make matters worse, no higher authority had anything to say. Nivelle, Petain, and Paris were counting on them to hold the city; surrender might go down in the books as disobedience, possibly even treason. Desperate though their situation was, no one wanted to be forced to stay in Germany after the war because France would not have them back- the fate which befell their commanding officer.

A lieutenant colonel by the name of Jacques Derrien decided his superior had gone too far. It seems incomprehensible that anyone would choose to stay in the hell of Verdun, but whether motivated by patriotism or masochism, he opted to fight to the death and take as many of his men with him as possible. On receiving the surrender order, he conferred with his subordinates, who decided to resist. There was some debate about whether they should merely ignore the surrender and let others do as they pleased, or topple Chanaris. In the end, they agreed to the latter. Fighting on while everyone else surrendered would only make it easier for the Germans to crush their little pocket. Resistance needed to be uniform if it was to be effective. That afternoon, a company of men wearing blue armbands marched to Chanaris' basement headquarters. Derrien demanded to speak with Chanaris, but his adjutant sensed the danger and said he was not there. A full-strength company of a hundred men was a massive force in the chaos of Verdun- there was no good reason for them to all be here. It was a good thing, then, that the truce still held; Chanaris pulled two hundred men from the line and marched them to headquarters while his adjutant kept Derrien talking. Once they arrived, Chanaris stepped out and demanded that Derrien state his business.

Noble though Derrien may have been for choosing death in Verdun over surrender and survival, he was no fool. Regardless of what the average soldier trapped in the city might have supported, he was outnumbered two to one right now. There was no way to win and, although his men had not yet killed anyone, even planning a mutiny was a capital crime. If he did not talk his way out of this, and fast, he was a dead man. He explained that he'd never sought to disobey orders or betray the country: his concern was that Chanaris lacked the authority to surrender the entire Second Army. If he went ahead in the moment, only for Paris to change its mind later on, they could all be tarred with treason. Was not death preferable to dishonour?

Chanaris sensed a trap: he would talk to Derrien, but only alone, in his office. Everyone else would have to wait outside- where they were outnumbered two to one. Otherwise, he would have no choice but to take this at face value and treat the men as mutineers. Derrien agreed, and the two sat in his dingy office. The shell which killed Guillaumat and Balfourier had also destroyed all of their maps and equipment: Chanaris' command post thus consisted of a schoolboy's desk with one chair and a hand-drawn map of the city marked in red pencil. Stripped of his sidearm, Derrien stood in the corner while Chanaris sat, fingering the Modele 1892 in his pocket.

He explained to the lieutenant colonel that he was surrendering the remnants of the Second Army as a "humanitarian gesture". Three months of combat had left him confident that the Second Army could play no further military role other than tying down German troops; even that diminished every day as its fighting power slackened. A German conquest of Verdun was inevitable, he told the lieutenant colonel, and his surrender order did nothing but speed the process up, thereby saving thousands of lives- quite possibly their own. "The principle of national resistance has sustained our nation through one and three-fourths years of fighting", he said, "but it has reached the end of its use. National resistance entails men to resist, and a nation to rally behind. As it stands, we have neither."

"I am a man of principle", replied Derrien, "and I have no cause to surrender. My three brothers have already given their lives to France, my sister stopped a Boche howitzer in her aid tent a year ago, and my father never came home from 1871. And you, sir"- he jabbed a finger in Chanaris' face- "are the basest form of coward known to man!" He pounded the desk. "What would France have done if all of our leaders were men of your calibre?"

Chanaris smirked, the Modele 1892 heavy in his pocket. "Perhaps we would not have killed- how many men now? Will we ever know?- for the honour of a little Slavic state in the Balkans. Perhaps your brothers and your sister- and, for that matter, my cousin- would still be with us. Perhaps my nephew would have his dick and his legs still." He shrugged. "Je ne sais pas."

"Traitor!" The fire left Derrien's face as fast as it had appeared. He growled at Chanaris, teeth bared. "So you are betraying your own relatives too, eh? If you know what it means to lose and to sacrifice, and you still choose the easy path, you betray everyone who has died since August of 1914- even those you claim to love."

Chanaris stood up. "You might want to be careful, addressing your superior in that tone." His voice was deceptively casual. "It would be a shame if we had to shoot you for raising a mutiny." He drew the Modele 1892 and fired a single shot; Derrien's eyes went wide and he clutched his stomach, face pale. "You may want to die here for the sake of honour", Chanaris said. Derrien lay slumped against the wall, his face white and his breaths shallow. Chanaris knelt down and picked up his chin, looking him in his grey eyes. "You might find that honourable. Perhaps you thought that in killing my men and I, you would bring back your brothers and your sister."

"Damn... you." Broken though his voice was, Derrien had lost none of his conviction. No more bravado, but nothing left to lose, either. "You... betrayed... the... mission..."

"Je ne sais pas." Chanaris shrugged and stood up. "When I tell your little followers that you tried to shoot my inside my own office just to get them killed, how do you think they'll respond? Bear in mind that les Boches have stopped shooting at us while they wait for the Red Cross men. You have one hundred men and we have thousands. One Frenchman dead at another's hands is quite enough for this battle, si vous plait." He made for the door. "Our missions are both over at last. A pity you chose the stupid option and you won't reap the rewards. Helas." Chanaris shrugged and made for the door.

Outside, the men in the blue armbands had already thrown down their guns and were fraternising with Chanaris' men. He walked up to his adjutant. "Tout bien?" The adjutant nodded, but something seemed out of place. A moment later, Lucien Chanaris smiled for the first time since the battle began, because for the first time since February 21st, Verdun was silent. No small-arms fire rattled through the city, no more mortar bursts and gas alarms in the streets, no more artillery fire in the hills. He lit a cigarette and sat on a pile of rubble. Against all the odds, he began to laugh.

"We did it, men!" It was funny, in a macabre way. All it had taken to turn off the mincing machine was one well-placed artillery shell, one rude telegram to a superior, and one bullet- and just a drop of courage mixed with common sense. Why in the name of le bon Dieu had no one thought of this before? "The damn fools back of the line thought they could leave us to stew here forever, though they could let us be ground down, but they were wrong. They were wrong! C'est magnifique, non?" Were there tears in his eyes? He could never go home again- he knew that- but so what? The war was over, he had no more reason to hate Germany, and he had no one left to go back to in France.

Two hours later, an elderly German general walked up, escorted by a whole company of guards and three armoured cars. No mean feat for a man his age, thought Chanaris. If shooting starts up, he'll be the first to go down. He nodded to himself. Say what you will about them, no one could call les Boches stupid or cowardly. Everyone wore the new steel helmets, not the leather spiked hats with which they'd entered the war, and had bayonets on their rifles. The German's icy eyes darted back and forth, waiting for the first rifle shot to break the ceasefire. No shot came, though. Chanaris knew his men. A Red Cross man got out of one of the armoured cars and walked up to Chanaris. "Bonjour. Je suis un fonctionnaire de la Crosse Rouge Internationale." They shook hands like civilians, and he continued, "My role is to supervise the surrender of the French Second Army and ensure that all provisions of the Geneva Convention are followed, the French Third Republic and German Empire both being signatories to said Convention, as well as to provide interpretive services. This is General der Infantrie- in your country, he would be a plain general- Ewald von Lochow." The interpreter stepped back, and Chanaris saluted the general.

"Say what you will about you franzosen", von Lochow said through the Red Cross man, "no one can accuse you of being cowardly. Stupid at times, yes, but cowardly never. Certainly, I know that if German troops were to fight in one city for this long, while encircled, we could hardly put up a better showing. At all levels of the chain of command, Colonel, your men have given us many a lesson." He was being magnanimous- but then, he could afford to be. All the same to Chanaris. In twenty-four hours, he would be in an officer's prison camp, having showered and slept, and tucking into real food. Von Lochow could condescend if he wanted to. "All of your men, I take it, have received the surrender order? Any incidents of resistance might jeopardise the cease-fire." If your men start shooting back, you're dead.

"They have, sir." All but one. "Will you permit me to address my men one last time?" Von Lochow nodded, and Chanaris turned to face his soldiers.

"Men of the Second Army! Over these past three months we have gone through a crucible. Every one of you has distinguished yourself in honour, in valour, in physical and mental courage and in fighting skill, and for this you deserve the greatest of accolades. Too many of our number have given their lives so that we might stand here today, and they deserve no less praise. Yet the government in Paris and its appointees in the highest echelons of our command seem blind to the reality of what we face. These men, to whom the war is all an exercise, a chess-game or a bureaucratic matter, take no issue with leaving us to die in this city, killing ourselves and our German opposite numbers for no good reason. I do not deny that the war is just, I do not deny that we were right to defend our homeland- but I declare that enough is enough. I have fought with you, I have lost loved ones alongside you, I have drawn my revolver with my back to the wall. And as long as Majors-General Guillaumat and Balfourier lived, I was sworn to follow every directive of theirs. But their death has convinced me that to whittle away our strength any longer would be pointless. There will come a day, men, when this war ends, when we must pick up the pieces of our lives and go forward, French, German, British, Italian, Austrian, Russian. All of us must recognise that this serves no one. My command authority gives me the power to turn this off. It is with the sacrifices you have made, and the lives of those who lay strewn about this city, in mind, that I issue my final order: lay down your weapons and spend the rest of the war in peace, until we can return to our homelands. I thank you all, and may God bless France!"
Click to expand...

Chanaris tensed. If the men roared out "non!", if they fought back, then even now, everyone would die. But no- they looked around and threw their rifles to the ground. The Germans slackened their grips on their rifles and muttered in their own language. One of them even smiled. A Boche sergeant walked up to Chanaris and his adjutant. "Allons-y". His accent suggested he was from Alsace or Lorraine, and he was on the good side of forty. Which language had he grown up speaking? How many Frenchmen born in the years to come would grow up speaking German? Would they not then be Germans, just as this fellow was? Not his worry. "Come with me, sir, to the General's. You and he need to detail the final terms of surrender before you and your men are taken to the officer's camp."

Colonel Lucien Chanaris stepped into captivity. The Battle of Verdun was over.

Chanaris never wrote memoirs or gave any written evidence as to why he had done what he did- in fact, he vanished from history upon his removal from the German POW camp for officers for "reasons of safety" in August 1916. Modern historians only know these most basic details thanks to German Intelligence records released on the 75th anniversary of Verdun, which show how Chanaris was given a new identity. Despite this, his reasons for surrendering seem obvious: out of the 60,000 men in the French double corps defending the city, only a quarter of that number were left by the end of May. Many would die of their wounds or of illnesses if they did not receive treatment, while malnourishment was killing others. Even the able-bodied had seen three months of combat without relief. Divisions had dwindled into over-sized brigades, which had melted away until they had the fighting strength of a regiment. Every day, the German ring around the city hardened and Nivelle's chances of breaking through diminished.

Lucien Chanaris never returned to France, taking an assumed name in Germany after the war, where he died without anyone, even the woman he married, ever knowing his true identity. For the next twenty years, then, one very quiet, reserved, secondary school French teacher- from Strassburg, his papers said- was haunted by the decision he made one day in spring 1916. It was just as well, as even the defanged French government which emerged from the Peace Treaty would have extradited him in a heartbeat had they known his whereabouts, and would have sent a hitman after him but for the threat of German reprisal. He made a perfect scapegoat for the loss of Verdun and the war, even if France was already past the point of no return when the shell caved in on Guillaumat and Balfourier. Even today, the French people rate him as one of the worst figures in their history, on par with Robespierre on the one hand and Charles X on the other.

Worst of all, Chanaris' surrender did not mark the end of the Battle of Verdun. Desperate fighting continued for months, as Nivelle threw as many men as he could, Nice be damned, to retake the city. All of his efforts failed, and when the mutinies began that summer, the men looked to Chanaris. He may have been dishonourable, but he survived, and that was good enough.

"With commanders such as these", the French quipped after the war, "we had no need for Germans to drive us into the ground!"

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Lucien Chanaris is a fictitious character- he featured in a very different role in 1.0 and I thought it would be fun to bring the name back.

The wheels are starting to come off for France and this is the first sign of that. Next chapter will cover Nivelle's counteroffensive, then the Somme, then TTL's Brusilov Offensive, then we're off to Part IV with the first mutinies at Verdun. Fun for everyone except the French.

Thanks for reading as always.

 

[RedLegion]

You are correct in saying that the RN hasn't got much presence in the Med. The agreement was that France handled the Med. However, the RN is swimming in pre-dreadnoughts that are not needed in the battle against Germany. Those can be assigned to the Med. That will take time, it's true. I'd guess on the order of a month to get the relief force assembled, provisioned and sailed to Malta/Alex

Is without doubt that the British navy has the hulls, but it also has the men? Genuine question BTW I know next to nothing of naval matters.
I'm assuming that most of the pre-dreadnoughts got mothballed and the crews moved to the more modern ships so while they can be put in condition sail relatively quickly it can be done only at the cost of crewing them with green sailors.

And isn't a month quite a long time to leave the Mediterranean unguarded? That's enough for even the most cautious of Austrian admirals to grow a pair and at least try a sortie.

 

[weasel_airlift]

I'm assuming that most of the pre-dreadnoughts got mothballed and the crews moved to the more modern ships so while they can be put in condition sail relatively quickly it can be done only at the cost of crewing them with green sailors.

Offhand, discounting maintenance, the 2 Lord Nelson class are manned and available, the 7 King Edward VII, 2 Duncan class are already in the Med, and the 5 Formidable class are available. I think the Formidables are also already there.

 

[Dragonboy]

@Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth , amazing work! Can't wait for the central powers to make more progress! Specially eager to check on blessed karl!

 

[weasel_airlift]

Let me complement you on your portrayal of the Battle of Verdun. An outstanding job of portraying just what sort of a hell it was. Chanaris is shown quite well as the sort of decision he had to make, and likely second-guessing himself to his grave.

 

[Knightmare]

Chanaris is shown quite well as the sort of decision he had to make, and likely second-guessing himself to his grave.

Yeah, honestly, I would've likely done the same. It's not like I could outlast much longer, reinforcements might not even make it through, and how long before a mutiny?

 

[pls don't ban me]

i'm wondering... how many more deaths compared to OTL has france?

 

[prester.john208]

? Nope, the KuK had his own series of problems much also due to the past cadre of multi lingual officers having a bad case of load intoxication

They did have that issue with the dead officers. An unrecoverable loss, similar to the Russian losses. Many thanks to Alfred Redle.

AH would have done better if the bomblers in Sarajevo took out Conrad and Potiorek. FF was going to can both of them after the maneuvers and other incidents. He would certainly have not called for war. He saw that as a recipe for disaster for AH, unlike Conrad and associates.

Conrad's options for Redle's treason:

1. Debrief him - no
2. Turn him - no
3. Cover it up - yes
4. Let him commit suicide - yes
5. change the plans, no. just have the troops get off the mobilization trains early and walk 100+ kilometers in full gear in August to their jump off points.

Redl has been called one of history's greatest traitors since his actions were responsible for the deaths of half a million of his countrymen and all of AH's agents in Russia.

Potiorek executed invasion plans that had resulted in defeat in AH wargames and maneuvers.

 

[Tannenberg]

From what we've seen, does that mean that France isn't going full wacky extremist?

 

[prester.john208]

Lucien Chanaris is a fictitious character- he featured in a very different role in 1.0 and I thought it would be fun to bring the name back.

The wheels are starting to come off for France and this is the first sign of that. Next chapter will cover Nivelle's counteroffensive, then the Somme, then TTL's Brusilov Offensive, then we're off to Part IV with the first mutinies at Verdun. Fun for everyone except the French.

Thanks for reading as always.

I recently read that Pétain was one of the few/only senior commanders with an infantry background.

One of my favorite Pétain quotes, when asked which of his officers attended Catholic services, (the 3rd Republic didn't like Catholics), he responded, "I have no idea, since I sit in the first Pew".

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

Excellent comments all around. To respond to a few:

Oof, had forgotten about the Nivelle offensive. And yes, the Central Powers are doing well here. The French Second Army has virtually ceased to exist as a full formation (I guess a lot of units have been transferred rather than them losing 70% of their entire combat strength as casualties). The (seemingly coming) French retreat from the area around Nice will give the Italians a city and a morale boost - admittedly likely nothing of any strategic worth around the area.

The French can fall back and entrench - the Italians may be (mostly) out of the Alps but they still have a good ways to go. Maybe holding the city will give them a better supply route if they can extend the rail network there (?) but not sure what it would give them strategically beyond taking a city on a map - or is there something I'm missing that gives them an advantage with it?

-The original Second Army has been effectively destroyed- some remnants of XX Corps are still floating around behind what was one la Voie Sacree but that's about it. Nivelle is going to create a "New Second Army"- a piecemeal composition of different units pulled from Italy and other parts of the West. Think the opposite of OTL's troop rotation: rather than moving units through Verdun to minimise attrition, France has to wear its units down and then ship in a replacement from the least vulnerable sector they can find.

-I should have mentioned in Post #905 that before the mutinies in the French Army, we have to look at the Italian seizure of Nice. Not militarily important (not least because the Italians don't have the skill or strength for a Falkenhayn-style "mincing machine") but a political triumph. A lot of poilus are going to die if for no other reason than, after losing Verdun, the French Government can't afford to lose another city.

-Windhover's post below sums up the effects of losing Nice perfectly.

From an operational military point of view it would I think be mostly useful for the navy. It would deprive the French of a forward naval base and (probably after some repairs) allow the Italians to use it themselves to operate easier in the northwestern Mediterranean. It would make an amphibious assault against Corsica a lot more realistic (although far from a guaranteed success, amphibious landings with WW1 technology is not an easy endeavor).

In a broader sense, the capture of Nice would probably mostly be a morale/political victory. It would be making progress in the war, capturing an area that Italy plans to annex which would give Cadorna and Sonnino the opportunity to sell to the troops and the homefront that the young men if Italy are not dying in wain. That the Italians/Cadorna/Sonnino are not incompetent and stuck while the Germans are conquering Verdun. It will allow the Italians to paper over some cracks, if it will stick depends on what happens later. It will be hard to break out of the Alps and the British blockade will keep hurting, but the as time goes on the French get closer to a general collapse with all that that would entail.

Losing Nice would also hurt the French morale at a time when they cannot take many more blows of that nature (not only losing against the Germans, but also the Italians!). And political leadership in neutral nations would likely also see this as a sign of France being incompetent and collapsing (not only losing against the Germans, but also the Italians!). Now this might not be completely fair, but then things related to perception rarely are.

100% correct all around. It's going to be the first visible, unambiguous victory for Italy in over nine months since they declared war on October 1, 1915, although it won't come cheap.

Will Nivelle have General Mangin lead the attack?

Anyone else would be too competent.

One of my favorite quotes regarding his offensive. "The army had expected a victory and gotten a massacre." In three weeks of the Chemin des Dames attack, the army had 30,000+ dead, vs 50,000+ in three months of the Somme. Of 10,000 Senegalese Tirailleurs in the initial assault, 6,000 were casualties. He also had over 200 tanks. Of 121 used on the first day, 81 were out of action by nightfall, 52 were knocked out.

Horrifying- and likely to be even worse in TTL.

The Somme is (possibly) going to be an emergency offensive by the British before they planned it/were ready for it to drwa off pressure from Verdun. Them hitting as hard as they can to force the Germans to stop and throw thier reserves up north. Depending on how the campaign goes, the Central Powers could be caught offguard.

Then again, Falkenheyn can very well be in a place that falling into defense in the south while the French try to break the seige of Verdun and holding in the North as the British use human wave assaults might well suit his plans. And he might even be a lot more limited of the (OTL) doctrine of counterattacking as soon as there's a breach in the trenches anywhere and be willing to just fall back a few kilometers at times.

Verdun is designed as a mteagrinder. Somme will be an attempt to slow it down. And where would a discussion of Blackadder be without Sir Haig?

-You're correct: the Somme is going to start earlier, and there will be no French component. On the one hand- hopefully- the battle starting a month or so earlier will mean the German defences are less well-prepared and 19,000 Britons won't be killed with twice that number wounded. On the other, the lack of French forces will limit how much damage the British can do to the Germans.

-The combined Somme/Nivelle Offensives are going to punish the German Army, but not to the extent of OTL 1916, and the year will end with the ruins of Verdun city still in German hands. At the end of the day, Falkenhayn is fine with the Anglo-French attacking with everything they have because it means enemy forces are falling into the meatgrinder at a faster rate than his, and that's a race he knows Germany can win.

There was no mentioning of Romania except as a still neutral country.

Most likely the Russians aren't able to bully them in the Entente by Force.

Because France is getting absolutely pummeled and Austria is standing strong / most likely stronger than OTL i don't believe they will want to intervene on Entente side.

Far more profitable to wait out most of the fighting and join in the eleventh hour when everything is decided.

Romanian plan:

Step 1: Sell to everyone
Step 2: Wait out who is winning
Step 3: Sell the winning side with better conditions
Step 4: Horse trade with everyone
Step 5: If Strategic War situation changes return to Step 2 or 1. Else go to Step 6
Step 6: Declare war on loser and get clay (either Austrian-Hungarian clay or Russian, just get it)
Step 7: Get the admiration of your population.

Excellent analysis. "Seven Steps to Profitable Neutrality, by King Carol, 1916"

-Though the great ammunition dump explosion (the name of the place escapes me) still happens ITTL, Romania can read which way the war is going by August 1916 and has no reason to abandon the neutrality which has served it so well. Once the Russians start collapsing in 1917, they may swallow their pride and join the Central Powers to pick up Bessarabia. Irridentists would love to go after Transylvania, but sense it wouldn't be wise here.

-Alexander Watson's Ring of Steel (don't have it on me at the moment, can give a page number if you'd like later on) makes the point that peacetime trade with Romania was actually more lucrative than military occupation. Along with Italy, Romanian resources are going to help ameliorate the effects of the Turnip Winter ITTL.

IMVHO the most probable developement are (in no particular order)

- The Austrian Navy attempt a sortie out of the Adriatic to show the world that she exist and she is relevant as frankly if she let the italians do all the fight...and suceeded her stock will go even lower than normally
- Regia Marina and the Italian Army (the air force was part of the army at the time) will try to bottle whatever force the British have in Malta by increasing the bombing raid and the use of MAS. The objective is to keep them on port so to avoid any enemy raid and to mantain a lifeline between the mainland and the forces in Libya.
- Cadorna Increase the use of the air force to attack the French position to keep the pressure, same for some use of the Navy to give the French army the same treatment the initial italian offensive force received (but this will be more a request and at the moment Adm. Revel is probably one of the three men in Italy that can ignore Cadorna
-The French, cry, menace, beg both the British and the Russian for some offensive so to relieve the pressure over Verdun, so we get ITTL version of the Brusilov offensive and while not succesfull as OTL one will probably create a lot of problem for the A-H army (there is also the possibility that with French on the verge of falling, the Russian brass will decide that an 'all or nothing' approach is the one needed now and so commit even more forces than OTL.
- Romania not considering Wien or Sofia doing an enormous diplomatic blunder will probably remain neutral entering the war the moment some clear winner appear or maybe simply selling at 'friendly rate' in exchange of a secret treaty regarding Bessarabia but honestly the treaty between Italy and the CP will convince them that keep some diplomatic pressure over A-H will give some result

-The Austro-Hungarian Navy is secure in port for now; any such move would come at the eleventh hour after the Italians and Entente have already whittled each other down.

-I want to include a Battle of Malta and/or a British raid on Naples or Taranto as the war winds to a close- that could be the blow which forces Italy to make peace. I agree that keeping the supply lines to Libya open will be a priority, if a challenge. The Central Mediterranean is very tense ITTL, it's the only place where two enemy navies exist side by side without geographic distance separating them, as in the North Sea.

-Cadorna would love more naval bombardments as the Italian army moves on Nice, but di Revel is not going to budge. Surviving the Battle of Cannes was enough of an accomplishment and if he had his way, the Italians would not sortie for the rest of the war.

-We are going to get Somme and Brusilov Offensives ITTL. If anything, the Brusilov Offensive may be even bigger than OTL, with greater Russian and Austro-Hungarian commitments (enabled, in part, by Romanian neutrality). France is certainly going to push her allies even harder than OTL, and the British are going to adopt the idea that the Western Front is the only one which matters far sooner than OTL.

-Exactly right about Romania.

The KuK army's in pretty good shape. No Italian front and Serbia long gone. With good reserves and plenty of artillery and ammo, a brusilov offensive could turn out badly. It was launched on a shoestring, against a front stripped of reserves. The AH should have over 400,000 more soldiers available.

Austria-Hungary has approximately sixty extra divisions, some of which are engaged in farm/factory work at home, but most of which will be available to counter Brusilov's push. Knowing Conrad, once the damage is contained he's going to push back hard. Attrition warfare across Galicia is going to break the Russian Army the same way the Kerensky Offensive did a year later in OTL. Doubly so if the Russians overcommit to the initial Brusilov Offensive to try and relieve pressure on the French.

You are correct in saying that the RN hasn't got much presence in the Med. The agreement was that France handled the Med. However, the RN is swimming in pre-dreadnoughts that are not needed in the battle against Germany. Those can be assigned to the Med. That will take time, it's true. I'd guess on the order of a month to get the relief force assembled, provisioned and sailed to Malta/Alex

After the Battle of Cannes, the British are going to bump up their Mediterranean fleet considerably, using the older ships. Far from perfect, but better than nothing.

Churchill planned to pull the crews of the old pre-dreadnoughts to man the navy's new ships. That's why he didn't care how many were lost in the dardenalles, Gallipoli.

You are of course correct, but here the Admiralty sees having more ships afloat in the Mediterranean as a bigger priority. Now, I'm not sure how badly undercrewed this will leave the newer ships- or how that will affect Jutland- but there will be ramifications once the High Seas Fleet sorties.

@Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth , amazing work! Can't wait for the central powers to make more progress! Specially eager to check on blessed karl!

Thank you very much. I do, in fact, have something planned for Karl once he becomes Emperor in November 1916.

Let me complement you on your portrayal of the Battle of Verdun. An outstanding job of portraying just what sort of a hell it was. Chanaris is shown quite well as the sort of decision he had to make, and likely second-guessing himself to his grave.

Thank you very much- I only want to get better. As for Chanaris, he would absolutely second-guess his decision for the rest of his life. What he did that day will define him forever. I tried to strike a balance between his being dishonourable, as in when he shoots his subordinate, but also desperate to save his life and caring for his men.

Yeah, honestly, I would've likely done the same. It's not like I could outlast much longer, reinforcements might not even make it through, and how long before a mutiny?

My personal rule is that if I can't say what I would have done in a situation, I void all right to judge- hence, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not an iron-clad rule by any means but it's served me well thus far.

i'm wondering... how many more deaths compared to OTL has france?

An excellent question, and one which is going to become increasingly relevant as time goes on. Some back of the napkin calculations:

-France had 20 divisions, or 320,000 men, in Verdun by March 1916, out of a total of 100 divisions. Those men are now either dead, wounded, or captured, with a select few moved into new divisions. Call it 300,000 losses by the end of May. That's 3/4 of the total French losses at Verdun in OTL, before the French have launched a single major counterattack (the push to retake Fort Sartelles notwithstanding).

-In less than one month of fighting during the Nivelle Offensive, the French lost approximately 180,000 men against a German army which they outnumbered 2:1, including British units. Even rounding down the losses to 150,000/month, that's another nine divisions- so the four corps brought up from Italy at the end of chapter 24 won't last two months. Clearly, we are not going to see efforts to retake Verdun last until December ITTL; let's say Nivelle suspends offensive operations (de facto admitting defeat) in late July. That leaves 600,000 French killed and wounded, compared to 400,000 in OTL.

-If we equate the French push at Menton back in chapter eight with Conrad's Asiago offensive, and the Italian offensives at Bardonnechia and Menton with the First Battle of the Isonzo, that's another thirty thousand casualties, not factoring in the forthcoming offensive to actually take Nice.

-In total, we can say the French have suffered approximately 230,000 more casualties than OTL by the end of summer 1916; the equivalent of fourteen divisions gone with no one to replace them, and mutiny starting to wear down the survivors. Not enough to knock France out of the war, but enough to prevent the French Army from doing anything in 1917 except taking punches.

Honestly, thank you for asking this question: it gives me a chance to put my thoughts down, which will help make future chapters more organised.

 

[Dragonboy]

Thank you very much. I do, in fact, have something planned for Karl once he becomes Emperor in November 1916.

Hope him and the Habsburg monarchy the best. Karl deserved better.

 

[lukedalton]

Austria-Hungary has approximately sixty extra divisions, some of which are engaged in farm/factory work at home, but most of which will be available to counter Brusilov's push. Knowing Conrad, once the damage is contained he's going to push back hard. Attrition warfare across Galicia is going to break the Russian Army the same way the Kerensky Offensive did a year later in OTL. Doubly so if the Russians overcommit to the initial Brusilov Offensive to try and relieve pressure on the French.

And knowing Conrad he will waste a lot of them like Cadorna in the Isonzo battle of OTL, even because with less need of the German resources the entire A-H enstablishment will be a lot more ...prudent in asking Berlin help prefering do it by themselfs regardless of the cost for fear that being too much indebted with them mean that they will become just a satelitte of Germany

-I want to include a Battle of Malta and/or a British raid on Naples or Taranto as the war winds to a close- that could be the blow which forces Italy to make peace. I agree that keeping the supply lines to Libya open will be a priority, if a challenge. The Central Mediterranean is very tense ITTL, it's the only place where two enemy navies exist side by side without geographic distance separating them, as in the North Sea.

A raid against Napes, Taranto or even Rome if someone is really bold is a strong possibility but with the force 'bottled' at Malta and under perennial control, the moment a force massive enough to do that exit the port, Revel will know it and will engage it whatever he want or not because letting the British do it is not an option.
The battle for Malta can be a late war attempt by the italians to get the island as everybody knows that being given to Italy at the negotiation table will be...let's say extremely difficult; maybe done after ITTL Jutland so to keep the Royal Navy under pressure.
Say that as you said Revel will want avoid sortie for the rest of the year but in some way need to show that he is doing something, so subs, MAS raid and air raid are the cheapest way to do it

 

[Wedgekree]

So things (seem to) be going according to general presumptions. Romania remains neutral and sells anything and everything they can at extremely marked up prices. This saves the CP the worst of their starvation.

Russia and the Brits commit to earlier counterattacks as soon as they can in wide scale. These may take land but will come with heavy casualties and not make a real difference in the big picture. The French army will be hit hard by the coming mass offensives it will be partaking at Verdun and Nice.

The British will reinforce the Med, which may/may not have anything happen.

 

[prester.john208]

Hope him and the Habsburg monarchy the best. Karl deserved better.

Karl's first act in office should involve shooting, rather than firing Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf (Born 1852). Conrad leading member of the sextet, that destroyed AH. Franz Joseph Karl (B. 1848), Leopold Berchtold (B. 1863), István Tisza (B. 1861), Oskar Potiorek (B. 1853) and Alfred Redl (B. 1864) were the others.

 

[Reisen Storm]

Loving this timeline. Keep at it.