The Great War

Deleted member 1487

Thanks for the discussion, you guys. You've hit on a lot of key points that will be discussed in future chapters.

Just to clarify, though, it will be vital for the Germans to screen Antwerp; while the British marines that went to Antwerp will also be added to the British troops there, more important is the fact that instead of four infantry divisions and a cavalry division, you're looking at six infantry divisions and a cavalry division crossing the channel, or about 4 corps. Roughly 140,000 British and 120,000 Belgian troops at Antwerp ready for action for the last week of August, in total.

A conservative estimate of the German forces likely in place by that point would be roughly, and again on the low side, 120,000 at a minimum. This does not include any Landwehr brigades, which would probably be added to the screening force, the marine division, which was formed on August 23rd and would take until September to get into place, or the reserve corps from the army of the north, which would probably be in place by the last week of August or at least in transit after a series of arguments at OHL. A German corps has about 48,000 men. The marine division was about 16,000. The Landwehr brigades are about 5-6,000 men. I will leave the exact details up to you, storyteller.
 
Hmm why do all the interesting WWI threads get started when I am off Board for a while. I find Arthur Bank's picture book a good source esp. for 1914. He has a map of the Belgian sorties out of Antwerp the first coming 25-26 Aug. He also has fort by fort details of the reduction of Antwerp.

You should factor in the personalities of the B.E.F.

French (the singular not the plural) is notoriously bipolar

Haig has some tactical skill but is a tad too offensive minded

Smith-Dorrien always struck me as the more realistic but he has a temper

Churchill is likely to poke his nose in and advocate something overly ambitious
 
Hmm why do all the interesting WWI threads get started when I am off Board for a while. I find Arthur Bank's picture book a good source esp. for 1914. He has a map of the Belgian sorties out of Antwerp the first coming 25-26 Aug. He also has fort by fort details of the reduction of Antwerp.

You should factor in the personalities of the B.E.F.

French (the singular not the plural) is notoriously bipolar

Haig has some tactical skill but is a tad too offensive minded

Smith-Dorrien always struck me as the more realistic but he has a temper

Churchill is likely to poke his nose in and advocate something overly ambitious

Some of those personalities have already poked their noses in. French, despite his denial in 1914, came up with the very questionable Antwerp proposal. Churchill has already flipped something from OTL; getting excited about the Russian victory in the Baltic made him give the OK to sending more divisions across the Channel, when IOTL he thought it unwise, and Churchill was almost certainly one of those who gave the OK to the Antwerp operation in TTL.
 
If I understand this correctly, your plan is to reverse the result of OTL - the Entente loses in the West but wins in the East?

I don't see how this can be possible unless the Russians manage to win in the immediate aftermath of the German victory in the west, and I mean within a couple of weeks.
 

wormyguy

Banned
I don't see how this can be possible unless the Russians manage to win in the immediate aftermath of the German victory in the west, and I mean within a couple of weeks.
It sounds like he's planning a Russian victory at Tannenberg, so the Eastern Front might be mostly fought in German territory.
 
It sounds like he's planning a Russian victory at Tannenberg, so the Eastern Front might be mostly fought in German territory.

Even if the Russians have tremendous luck and win at Tannenberg, can they really win big enough to brush aside the rest of the German army in the East, cross the Oder and occupy Berlin before Germany can transfer it's victorious armies from the West? Because if they can't I don't see how they can win the war. Without France I just don't think the Russians can win a long war with Germany. Economically, they're just not advanced enough at this point to do so.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Whoa. How is this supposed to happen on the rather limited rail lines of southern Alsace? Also, by removing the 5th army from the line, the French 3rd army and the army of Lorraine are completely unopposed. This makes absolutely no strategic sense whatsoever. The 5th army would not and could not have been used as such, as it was incredibly pointless. The fortress of Belfort stood astride the only major railway out of Alsace, and with so many forces cramming into the limited rail capacity of the area, the heavy artillery to knock out that fort is not going to be able to move up...that is if it even could. All the super heavy guns were bogged down knocking out Belgian and French forts to open rail lines for the right wing.
Furthermore, Moltke/Schlieffen were relying on a continuous front to push the French back. By removing so many troops, not only will there be a massive hole in the German line for the French to exploit, but then all of these forces are then removed from the line for at least a weak, as they are transited across the already jammed up front. Supply to the 6th and 7th armies would collapse to move something like 300,000 men to this area, which all would run through the supply lines of the 6th and 7th armies.

Sorry to inform you, but this is majorly ASB and completely ignores the mechanics of logistics and plausibility. If anything, the plan would just go forward as before, with all armies pressing forward, including the 6th and 7th, which were the actually arm of the double envelopment historically.
 
Sorry to inform you, but this is majorly ASB and completely ignores the mechanics of logistics and plausibility. If anything, the plan would just go forward as before, with all armies pressing forward, including the 6th and 7th, which were the actually arm of the double envelopment historically.

Thanks for the comment. I've removed that section. I checked my reference work and while I had understood "shift of forces to the left wing" to mean extreme left, it's fairly clear that isn't possible, which means that there would be more reinforcements of 6th and 7th army if the plan would go forward, which would be similar to OTL and not quite as interesting as what I *thought* I had read.

So...I'll try again. :p
 

Deleted member 1487

Thanks for the comment. I've removed that section. I checked my reference work and while I had understood "shift of forces to the left wing" to mean extreme left, it's fairly clear that isn't possible, which means that there would be more reinforcements of 6th and 7th army if the plan would go forward, which would be similar to OTL and not quite as interesting as what I *thought* I had read.

So...I'll try again. :p

I don't mean to come off as a dick about this. It just seemed like you were doing so well and then went off track. Just a little jarring. I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but I am pretty well read on WW1 (at least the battlefield aspects, so feel free to run questions by me if you feel the need.
And with that I will end my shameless self promotion.
 
Sorry gents, but I'm going to have to put the TL on hold. There's another time line I've planned out for a significant length of time about a hypothetical rather dear to my heart, but as it is significantly more obscure than the opening months of World War I, and I may not have access to my university's library after I graduate (as I'm not certain about grad school), I want to get moving on that time line while I still have the reference materials close at hand. Thanks for reading, and don't worry: I'll probably pick this up again after I graduate and my vacation to Italy is done, probably sometime in early June.
 
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