Some Less Hackneyed Alternatives to the Bolsheviks

I agree the Western Front is likely to go worse for the Germans without being able to redirect forces there, meaning that the war likely ends months earlier.

How this series of events plays out exactly, I'm not certain -- does Lundendorff call off the Spring Offensive? If he doesn't or if said offensive is less successful, do Entente Forces in the Middle East send divisions away to the WF? Speaking of the Ottomans, independent of all this is the question of the non-German CP forces; for example, would the Macedonian Front still prove a crucial loss to the CP later in 1918?

Might the Germans have actually tried pulling troops away from the West (and going on the defensive there) to try and push its success against a stubborn Russia?

fasquardon
 
Might the Germans have actually tried pulling troops away from the West (and going on the defensive there) to try and push its success against a stubborn Russia?
If Russia were doing a land for time strategy, would this be the smart move for Germany? For that matter, would going on the defensive in the west be the smart move with Americans arriving in force? My instinctual response to both of these answers is "no", but I could very well be wrong here.
 
If Russia were doing a land for time strategy, would this be the smart move for Germany? For that matter, would going on the defensive in the west be the smart move with Americans arriving in force? My instinctual response to both of these answers is "no", but I could very well be wrong here.

I have difficulty seeing the Germans not trying some gambit to deal with the entry of the US - I imagine that offensives to occupy Petrograd and (maybe) Moscow would look like realistic options for forcing a stubborn Russia to make peace (which I was thinking the Germans may need more troops for - hence my musing on them going on the defensive on the West).

Alternatively, the Germans could do what they did OTL and pull troops out of the East to try to knock the French and British out before the US can arrive (probably after a limited offensive to further wreck the Russian army so that they couldn't mount any serious offensives before the Germans are hopefully done in the West).

Or maybe they wouldn't move any troops around. I'm guessing that would translate into a strategy of defending in the West and slowly advancing in the East.

Either way, I can't see things in the South going well whatever Germany does and that must surely push the high command to seek to deal decisive blows.

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