The Worst WW I Alternate History Cliche

longsword14

Banned
The UK runs out of credit by 1917 and yet it can keep its production to its OTL mark, winning somehow.
 
Last edited:

longsword14

Banned
Neutral USA = CP victory
Considering how things were, a peace of exhaustion is the most likely outcome.
Related to above, the idea that a defeated France cannot radicalize in either far left or far right or neo-monarchist direction because of "democratic tradition" or "lack of resources alone standing up to Germany". You do know that they can build a containment alliance, right
Oh no, the reason is that the Germans will not allow a hypothetical communist regime to exist for long.
 
The UK Runs out of money by 1917 and the Entente loses as a result but Germany (who apparently are above such things) despite being significantly poorer do not
Eh it's not money per se but USD that the UK runs out of as they were buying from the US, Germany being blockaded could not run out as they could not spend what they had

Related is the cliche that the US will always join the Entente because of all the loans they gave out to ensure they are paid back, nevermind that until the US entered the war the majority of those loans were collateralized

Likewise the US will if it stays neutral just keep loaning the Entente funds even after they run out of collateral and run the risk of not being paid back
 
That all WWI generals were stupid and heartless, ready to sacrifice their men by the thousands at a moment's notice
 
Blackadder is hilarious, but not necessarily good history.

Shouldn't be totally dismissed, though.

I was amazed to find (in John Toland's "No Mans Land"), an incident similar to the opening scene in BGF, where a helmet pokes up above the rim of a trench - and is immediately riddled with bullet holes. It is then pulled down again, having been lifted up on a stick to check whether the trench opposite was still manned.

Also, I've heard that several thousand men were killed in the last six hours or so of the war, pressing home attacks on places which the Germans had already agreed to evacuate. That suggests to me that General Melchett was alive and well - even if a lot of his men weren't.

OTOH, in real life Melchett wasn't necessarily British. If anything the Americans were even worse. There was a Congressional investigation into the large number of "eleventh hour" casualties, but its findings were quietly suppressed so as not to rain on the victory parade.
 
Last edited:
Haber-Bosch
The British won't fight without Belgium
The Italians will never fight the British
The Italians don't do much
If the Germans go East, they will follow my master plan and the French will do exactly what I want so the Germans win quickly
The Ottomans are unimportant
Britain can't lose
 
French mutineers would good-heartily allow the Germans to march into Paris.
If you delay the war to 1917 everything plaguing Russia (corruption, ineffective rulership and overall backwardness) would be gone and the Tsar's "Modernization ProgramTM" would put Stalin to shame, the result is the Russians taking Berlin in two months (and probably enforcing Oder-Neisse, because why not?).
"Hurr Alsace-Lorraine!" French identity is solely based on this, so even if they get stomped the second time France would still thrown their people in the meat-grinding for it.
WWII-style expulsions, particularly of Germans in the Rhineland and Frenchmen west of the Meuse.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
British warships (Dreadnoughts and BCs) always explode regardless of POD

OTL one of the issues was the misconception that it was Rate of Fire that allowed the Germans to escape at Dogger Bank - when in fact it was poor communication - so to fix the former the BC squadrons tried to improve the speed at which the guns could be fired by removing or leaving open flash proof doors etc and storing extra propellant in or near the turrets.

The dreadnoughts did not do this!

But still explode ????

Dreadnought explosions still happen -- see HMS Vanguard, for instance.

I would agree, however, that going up in battle in significant numbers in the same way as the battlecruisers at Jutland did is unlikely. For that matter, without Dogger Bank -- or with the correct lessons taken from it, which might require someone other than Beatty being in command -- the battlecruisers wouldn't be exploding as they did at Jutland.

For that matter, without Dogger Bank, the Germans might not have identified their vulnerability to explosions as Seydlitz's near-loss demonstrated, and in an ATL it could be Hipper remarking that "there seems to be something wrong with our ships today" as his BCs began exploding...
 
The idea that the Central Powers, an alliance of old style monarchies with a wimpf of military junta and proto-fascism, winning is actually gonna make the world a better place.

The idea that the allies would have been done for had the americans not joined the war.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The UK Runs out of money by 1917 and the Entente loses as a result but Germany (who apparently are above such things) despite being significantly poorer do not

These two are true. The UK was out of money. And Germany still had cash for a very easy to understand reason. The blockade prevented Germany from importing as much as they had wanted to. If we make the ASB assumption the UK would allow unlimited imports via Holland, I would not be surprised if the German run out of cash faster than the British.
 
French mutineers would good-heartily allow the Germans to march into Paris.


Agreed - if by that you mean right away.

Trouble is, though, that unless they can be convinced that the war is winnable (and at the very least, many of the May mutineers were harbouring doubts on this point) then it's really just as futile to be killed in a defensive battle as in an offensive one. And sooner or later they are going to realise this.

"Just defend the trenches" is ok as a temporary expedient, but not as a permanent state of affairs.
 
Last edited:
"Just defend the trenches" is ok as a temporary expedient, but not as a permanent state of affairs.

Maybe less so if the Germans exploit French passivity to attack the BEF instead. Defending their own trenches isn't enough if they need to counterattack in support of their allies.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
That if the Royal Navy had sorted out its problems with shell quality - the Greenboys make an earlier appearance - that all the other issues (Beatty, faulty ammunition handling, failures in C&C, etc.) are butterflied away and the High Seas Fleet lies several fathoms down off the Skagerrak (instead of several fathoms down in Scapa Flow)
 
Top