Was German success in WWI at all possible?

2. the funny Thing is: internal Development would bring Russia there automatically and safely. The Germans Were well aware of that which contributed to their readiness to Risk war in 1914.

Would it? Russia has for 500 years been the promise of greater things unfulfilled.
 
Would it? Russia has for 500 years been the promise of greater things unfulfilled.

Indeed. As was said of Brazil, "It is the land of the future - and always will be." But I suppose the Germans felt they could not absolutely count on the future prospects never materialising.
 
Would it? Russia has for 500 years been the promise of greater things unfulfilled.

I am not talking of utopian promises.

An undisturbed Tsarist Russia could just, year by year, enhance the equipment of its military a little, only reducing the gap towards Germany, but with a lot more manpower.
Only improving the infrastructure, the fortresses, little by little, would cause enormous headaches to the German planning.

That needed no wonders, given the massive manpower and ressources of the realm.

Just consider what Stalin accomplished despite the weaknesses of the kind of despotism which bore his name, despite smaller territory from the outset, and the losses caused by revolution and civil war in-between.
 
I am not talking of utopian promises.

An undisturbed Tsarist Russia could just, year by year, enhance the equipment of its military a little, only reducing the gap towards Germany, but with a lot more manpower.

Russia has a long history of disappointing its potential, so I don't see why we should expect it to do otherwise.

Germany and Austria-Hungary (110 million) were on fire economically in this period, with both having a long way to go before reaching British per capita GDP of 1914 (Germany was about 2/3rds this level and Austria-Hungary about 40%). So there is no reason to suppose Russia was going to significantly alter the industrial balance of power against the Central Powers in the next 20 years, when robust CP economic growth is accounted for. Then, throw in the Ottoman Empire (which was recovering rapidly after 1912) and Japan (another economy on fire in the Far East) and the Russian place in the world, over time, is improving, but nothing too drastic.

And that all assumes that Britain and Russia somehow manage to hold their hollow Entente together, when by 1914 it was decidedly starting to fray at the edges.
 
->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)

According to both calculations done here, Russia was the China of the 1900s. If the German economy was on fire, Russia's was exploding. I am aware, that if we calculate these numbers per capita, things look different. But the overall GNP had just overtaken the German one in the 1910s. But you do not rise the GNP per capita spectacularly in order to get your armed forces into better shape.

In 1914, the sharp rise of the Russian economy was not a promise, at that point of time it was a reality.

The German GNP grew by 9.3% between 1910 and 1913, that is quite good. The Russian GNP had grown by 19.6%.

Even if the German GNP would continue to grow by 10% each three years, and the Russian rise would weaken, let us say by 18% until 1916, 15% until 1919 and 12% until 1922. Russia would then almost have a 20% higher GNP than Germany instead of 5% less as in 1910.
79670
 

katchen

Banned
At that rate at that time, how long would it have taken Russia to pass up Great Britain and the US?
 
->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29

According to both calculations done here, Russia was the China of the 1900s. If the German economy was on fire, Russia's was exploding. I am aware, that if we calculate these numbers per capita, things look different. But the overall GNP had just overtaken the German one in the 1910s. But you do not rise the GNP per capita spectacularly in order to get your armed forces into better shape.

In 1914, the sharp rise of the Russian economy was not a promise, at that point of time it was a reality.

The German GNP grew by 9.3% between 1910 and 1913, that is quite good. The Russian GNP had grown by 19.6%.

Even if the German GNP would continue to grow by 10% each three years, and the Russian rise would weaken, let us say by 18% until 1916, 15% until 1919 and 12% until 1922. Russia would then almost have a 20% higher GNP than Germany instead of 5% less as in 1910.
79670

It's Russia on one side and Germany plus Austria-Hungary on the other. Much of the CP growth potential was in Hapsburg lands. 180 million to 115 million. Yes, Russia was changing the strategic picture, yes power in Europe was flowing east. No, Russia was not going to outpower the Central Powers anytime soon.
 
At that rate at that time, how long would it have taken Russia to pass up Great Britain and the US?

Great Britain, you can write a scenario where this occurs in maybe 20 years. For the United States, to write such a scenario, you'll require maybe 20 beers...
 
Yes it was.....

If the Schlieffen Plan adopted by the German General Staff remained unmodified by von Moltke after 1906 and proved successful with the capitulation of France in late September of 1914 after a 6-week war of movement, then an overall German victory was likely. In order to defeat the western allies, rapidly moving German forces would have had to quickly overcome resistance by the Belgian Army (assisted by the small 75,000-man British Expeditionary Force (BEF)), instead of being slowed down considerably by those allied forces. The war in the East would remain a defensive war on the part of the Germans in 1914, with General Paul Von Hindenberg stopping the initial Russian offensive in the first battle of Tannenberg as in OTL.

If France was knocked out of the War in autumn of 1914, along with the small BEF, then the war between Great Britain and Germany would have thereafter been a naval war and a colonial war in Africa. Germany would soon establish new submarine bases on the French Atlantic coast, and on the North Sea coast of Belgium and perhaps the Netherlands, while the English Channel would have been heavily mined by the both the British and the Germans. The Germans would have certainly tried to starve Great Britain out of the war earlier with unrestricted submarine warfare beginning in 1915. An armistice between Germany and Great Britain would probably end the war on far better terms for Great Britain than defeated France would have received in 1914 or than defeated Russia actually received in early 1918 in OTL.

With a victory on the Western Front largely secured in late 1914, and the naval war against Great Britain going reasonably well in 1915, Germany would be in a much stronger position in the East. The Tsarist regime in Russia could not survive another major loss after the disastrous defeat in 1905 to Japan. EITHER a reasonable early armistice ends the War in the East in 1915-16, with the cession of Russian Poland to the German Reich and some lands to Austria-Hungary as a buffer zone between the two nations, following the defeat of France and collapse the Triple Entente, OR the land war continues. A German/Austria-Hungarian victory is very likely in such a one-front land war, with a Treaty not unlike that of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk being signed following a Russian military collapse and the fall of the Tsarist regime.

In the short-term, the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm becomes the uncontested dominant land power in Europe. In the West, Germany annexes Luxembourg outright and secures naval base rights on the French/Belgian/Dutch coasts. France and the Western Allies must pay war reparations and cede much of their African colonial territory to Germany. Great Britain emerges largely unscathed, the War having been costly but far less so in terms of both lives and treasure than in OTL. Italy cedes some border territory to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, but is otherwise largely unscathed by the war. The USA never enters the war, despite its anger at Germany over unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915, because Great Britain signs an armistice to avoid being starved into submission and ends the Western war early. Among the allies, only Japan, which has seized German possessions in the Far East, is satisfied with the outcome of the War.

In the East, either the Tsarist regime survives and cedes much of its power to the elected Duma following an early armistice with the Germans in 1915-16, or the Tsarist regime falls to a social democratic revolution with an armistice and treaty negotiated by the provisional govt which ends the war by ceding vast tracts of Russia's European lands to Germany. Without Western allies to be concerned with, the provisional govt would not pursue the unwise policy of attempting to continue the War. In the latter case, the situation in Russia is chaotic for many years as the provisional govt struggles against armed Reds and, perhaps armed Whites, to retain its grip on power.

The nominally victorious Austria-Hungary survives as a multi-ethnic empire under the Habsburgs, but gains little in the way of new territory and is thereafter subordinate to the victorious Germany.

The Great War ends in what may turn out to be a 20-year armistice. Ethic tensions agitated by War still remain unabated in the East--Czechs, Slovaks, and the various Yugo-slavic peoples within the weak Austria-Hungarian Empire; the remaining peoples governed by the weakened Russian regime; and the Poles, Baltic peoples, and others who have merely traded their former Russian masters for new German masters. Outside victorious Germany, Anarchists and Marxists continue to preach revolution on the continent. Italian fascism develops much as it did in OTL. France seeths with hated towards Germany after being defeated for the second time since 1870, and still dreams of revenge. The Third French Republic falls and a weak Fourth Fench Republic faces challenges from both the extremist Left and extreme Right, as it chafes under the initial German occupation and then struggles to pay war reparations. Russia can be expected to seek the return of its western lands from Germany, once it sufficiently recovers from the War and its own internal troubles. A stab-in-the-back myth develops in Great Britain as it chafes against the reality of both losing the War, without ever being actually invaded, and a German-dominated continent. That myth, plus an unpopular Ireland policy, leads to the fall of the Liberal party in the UK. The Tories form an enduring parliamentary majority and actively seek an Anglo-American alliance as a way of re-dressing the new imbalance of power in Europe.
 
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katchen

Banned
The various powers have been described as "sleepwalking" into World War I. From Germany's point of view, there was a shortage of rationality about Germany's strategic situation. The strategic situation terms of alliances for Germany and the Central Powers was certainly not good. Too many enemies on too many sides. The question that Germany should have been addressing, from 1904 and the Entente Cordiale should have been the same one that the Nazis addressed after WWI had been lost. How can Germany change it's strategic situation by enhanced alliances in order to weaken the Entente against it?
If there is a need to pass through Belgium in order for the Schleiffen Plan to work, what kind of political maneuvering and political organizing in Belgium is likely to move Belgium in a pro-Central Powers direction so that when the time comes, Belgium does not mobilize or if it does, it mobilizes on the side of the Central Powers?
In other words, how does Germany win Bellgian elections?
Only then can the Germans be sure of the Schleiffen Plan's success--and be more sure that the British will stay out of the war or that if they don't, Germany can hold the channel ports aganst British deployment.
The same thing in the Balkans. Russia is a problem? How can Germany and Austria help forces come to power in Romania that will find what Germany and Austria has to offer, namely Bessarabia, in a war with Russia and not only cut Serbia off from any allied support but provide a springboard via Northern Moldavia for a modified SchleiffeinPlan in the East..by striking North from Iasi into Volhynia and Poland, cutting off Russia's Polish bulge (especiall if the German and Austrian Aries can get through the Pripyat Marshes before the Russians finish mobilizing?

Totally cut off by a Central Powers Romania, Serbia would likely have had no choice but to accede to Austrian demands at least outwardly while perhaps fighting an ongoing guerilla war against hopefully Bulgaria, which might keep Russia out of the war. The Nazis paid more attention to this building of alliances with small powers in Europe in the second go around.
Until those alliances were in place, delay and postpone, delay and postpone.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Your plan would have Germany lose this war and be partitioned by Russia and France. The historical plan defeated Russia, (and so avoided partition) and lost the war only because the USA bailed the Entente out in 1917. Otherwise, if not for the USA, the historical plan would have probably won the war.
...
If the Russian decision for war was incompentent, (which it was), then it follows that the German gamble to test Russian intentions was more competent because it caused Russia to lose the war, whereas Germany emerged victorious over Russia and still had a chance to win the war.

I give Germany little more credit for defeating Russia than to a lottery winner for filling the right digits on the ticket. Germany drew Russia out of Prussia and gave relief to A-H after their tremendous losses. But that's no victory, that's the absense of defeat. The Russian Revolution that brought Germany the victory was something to hope for, but nothing you could rely on and even less part of the OTL pre-war plan. Instead, Germany should have expected a defense in depth similar to the defeats of Napoleon and Hitler.

Re - no issues between Germany and Russia for the 'warlords' to make an issue. The lost French provinces and Polish Silesia/Prussia, which would form the basis of the war the Dual Alliance, (now confident of total victory), would pick with isolated Germany. You may say these could not form a crisis point, but the Dual Alliance would use the same tactics of nationalist agitation that the Serbians, (and later Hitler) found so successful.

You are telling me that Russia wanted Polish Silesia/Prussia so badly that it would have attacked a military superpower for it?

Additionally, I don'T see that Germany is more isolated than IOTL: A lot of Austrias economy and manpower would be in Germany's hands, and when Italy gets Venice it has no reason not to join the CP's, even less join the Entente. Additionally, Russian expansion in the Ottoman Empire could make Britain nervous enough to rethink their inolvement in the Entente.

But that's just it. Just because some posters collectively decide Germany 'created' the threat to its alliance does not mean that Germany actually did so. As has been long established by historians, the inception of the Ententes was independent of Germany, and it was within the logic of these arrangements, as well as in the calculus of Franco-Russian strategy in a two front war, that the political fault lines of the Balkans come to the forefront. Germany certainly never went to France and Russia and said, you guys should support Serbian terrorists. The Entente figured that one out all on their own.

The Entente didn't figure out that A-H would still insist to go to war - and that Germany would continue its unconditional support - even after Serbia had agreed to most of the conditions of the ultimatum in that case. Neither did the Entente figure the attack on Belgium that brought Britain in.

It's the Ems dispatch reversed: BOTH sides wanted the war, but only one side was stupid enough to serve the casus belli on a silver plate.

The ironic part is that in some alternative universe, where Germany did this, had the Ottoman and Austria Empires destroyed, then was itself overwelmed by France and Russia, I can picture an AH Perkeo in AH 2013 blaming AH Germany for being so spineless as to betray its own allies.

And an AH Glenn would tell me the decision to abandon Austria was flawless...

It's an artistic judgement, which means that there can be no solid conclusion. I see no basis for a hypothesis that France could break Germany up. All I see is a France with the ability to radicalize Germany such that, eventually, France brings the roof down on its own head.

It's time for you to make up your own mind on that issue: On the top of the post you claim that any strategy other than OTL's would have resulted in a partition of Germany, on the bottom you call it an "artistic judgement", see "no basis for a hypothesis".
 
I give Germany little more credit for defeating Russia than to a lottery winner for filling the right digits on the ticket.

Without Austria-Hungary as an ally, Germany is favoured to be defeated.


You are telling me that Russia wanted Polish Silesia/Prussia so badly that it would have attacked a military superpower for it?

You'd indicated that an isolated Germany would have nothing to fear from Russia and France, as if Russia and France would become less inclined to make trouble with Germany the better their chances of victory.

Additionally, I don'T see that Germany is more isolated than IOTL: A lot of Austrias economy and manpower would be in Germany's hands,

Two issues here. First, how the residual annexation of, say, 10 million Austrians compensates Germany for the loss of 45 million to the enemy camp. Second, why the French and Russians would treat a German annexation as other than an opportunity to confront Germany.

and when Italy gets Venice it has no reason not to join the CP's, even less join the Entente.

If Italy had just demonstrated the weakness of the CP by extorting Trieste, then why would Italy do other than extort the CP for more? If the CP was so weak that even the weakest of Great Powers could push them around, the Italy would be cutting its own throat to leave the Entetne.

Additionally, Russian expansion in the Ottoman Empire could make Britain nervous enough to rethink their inolvement in the Entente.

And yet in 1915 it was the British themselves that gave Russia the key to the Ottoman Empire and then invaded Turkey to make it come true.

The Entente didn't figure out that A-H would still insist to go to war - and that Germany would continue its unconditional support - even after Serbia had agreed to most of the conditions of the ultimatum in that case.

Germany didn't go to Sarajevo and murder the heir to the Austrian throne. That happened all on its own.

It's the Ems dispatch reversed: BOTH sides wanted the war, but only one side was stupid enough to serve the casus belli on a silver plate.

Russia was catastrophically defeated and much of their ruling class brutally murdered because they decided to fight an avoidable war, so by any measure their decision was the stupidest of all the Powers.


It's time for you to make up your own mind on that issue: On the top of the post you claim that any strategy other than OTL's would have resulted in a partition of Germany, on the bottom you call it an "artistic judgement", see "no basis for a hypothesis".

I didn't say "any" strategy would result in partition. I'm saying your strategy would stand a good chance of doing so.

Any defeat by Russia and France of Germany is likely to result in partition, just like in WW2. Any defeat of Germany by France alone will leave Germany largely intact, like in WW1. This is because Russian and French attitude towards Germany was in harmony - the weaker Germany, the better for both. Without Russia, France had no other allies with the same outlook, and without Russia France was too weak to undertake the project on her own.
 
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It's Russia on one side and Germany plus Austria-Hungary on the other. Much of the CP growth potential was in Hapsburg lands. 180 million to 115 million. Yes, Russia was changing the strategic picture, yes power in Europe was flowing east. No, Russia was not going to outpower the Central Powers anytime soon.

The German fear was not that Russia would utterly outpower the complete Central Powers. It was sufficient to see that Russia would overcome the classical obstacles of poor equipment and snailpace mobilisation in order to make a two-front-war hardly winnable.

I give Germany little more credit for defeating Russia than to a lottery winner for filling the right digits on the ticket. Germany drew Russia out of Prussia and gave relief to A-H after their tremendous losses. But that's no victory, that's the absense of defeat. The Russian Revolution that brought Germany the victory was something to hope for, but nothing you could rely on and even less part of the OTL pre-war plan. Instead, Germany should have expected a defense in depth similar to the defeats of Napoleon and Hitler.

A lot of your thoughts are interesting, but this is a clear mis-judgement of the situation. However silly a lot of the conclusions taken by the German High Command were in and before 1914, they were always fully aware of the strategic problem of Russia's possible defense in depth. They had learnt Napoleon's lessons.....and not yet forgotten it unlike the planners of Barbarossa.

That was the rationale behind the gradual shift from a Russia-first-strategy to a more and more extreme France-first-strategy. The Russian geography makes an even halfway decisive victory impossible. Russia can only be defeated in a long campaign lasting years; and this is only possible with France removed from the game. That was the OTL pre-war plan for the long run; the OTL pre-war plan for the short run was "absense of defeat" in the East.
To that respect, I agree that Germany was lucky in the East in 1914; despite being wary about the speed of Russian mobilisation, they were caught in East Prussia before being ready. Competent Russian leadership would have conquered East Prussia and there would have been little even H&L could have done. But we know what happened instead.

From that point on, however, the German command handled the Easter Front competently, stabilizing and gradually gaining ground. I see no point of time at which the OTL German General Staff of '14-'18 would have deliberately brought itself into a situation comparable to the desasters of the winters of 1812, 1941 or 1942.

It's the Ems dispatch reversed: BOTH sides wanted the war, but only one side was stupid enough to serve the casus belli on a silver plate.

That's a bit nitpicking, but I would rather say: Serbia served the casus belli, but the CP were stupid enough to serve the declarations of war when, just like Napoleon III, with hindsight they better had not.
 
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Perkeo

Banned
Without Austria-Hungary as an ally, Germany is favoured to be defeated.

Then why do you keep objecting my theory that Austria-Hungary as an ally was the wrong choice?

You'd indicated that an isolated Germany would have nothing to fear from Russia and France, as if Russia and France would become less inclined to make trouble with Germany the better their chances of victory.

That is almost the opposite of what I said. I said that the OTL system of alliances was the greatedt level of isolation that Germany could possibly accomplish.

Germany could have had both Britain and Russia on the list of its allies - or at least remove them from the list of enemies. Only France seems inconvincible, but they can't do anything on their own.

Two issues here. First, how the residual annexation of, say, 10 million Austrians compensates Germany for the loss of 45 million to the enemy camp.

It's a lot easier to talk German-Austrians into believing they're Germans than Hungarians or Romanians into believing they're Russian.

Second, why the French and Russians would treat a German annexation as other than an opportunity to confront Germany.

Because Russia gets all it wants anyway. There's no need to confront Germany if Germany doesn't support Austria.

If Italy had just demonstrated the weakness of the CP by extorting Trieste, then why would Italy do other than extort the CP for more? If the CP was so weak that even the weakest of Great Powers could push them around, the Italy would be cutting its own throat to leave the Entetne.

AUSTRIA demonstrated its weakness. So why the heck can't the CP's do without it?

If the CP was so weak that even the weakest of Great Powers could push them around, the Italy would be cutting its own throat to leave the Entetne.

If Italy has all it wants from A-H, why it should join the Entente in the first place? Why should it even leave the Triple Alliance (more like a Double Alliance ITTL)

And yet in 1915 it was the British themselves that gave Russia the key to the Ottoman Empire and then invaded Turkey to make it come true.

At the time Turkey was the enemy of the enemy (Germany), and like all Anglo-Russian alliances, it lasted no longer than until Germany was defeated. OTOH the UK DID form an anti-Russian alliance with Germany in 1955.

Britain has even less interest to target Germany unless Germany makes itself a target by the useless naval arms race and the attack on Belgium.

Germany didn't go to Sarajevo and murder the heir to the Austrian throne. That happened all on its own.

But the chain of events from assassination to world war didn't, neither did the shift in the web of alliances from essentially pro-German around 1880 to catastrophic isolation in 1914.

Russia was catastrophically defeated and much of their ruling class brutally murdered because they decided to fight an avoidable war, so by any measure their decision was the stupidest of all the Powers.

I didn't say "any" strategy would result in partition. I'm saying your strategy would stand a good chance of doing so.

Any defeat by Russia and France of Germany is likely to result in partition, just like in WW2. Any defeat of Germany by France alone will leave Germany largely intact, like in WW1. This is because Russian and French attitude towards Germany was in harmony - the weaker Germany, the better for both. Without Russia, France had no other allies with the same outlook, and without Russia France was too weak to undertake the project on her own.

So we agree that Germany wants to avoid a defeat by Russia and France. So what is wrong with the conclusion that Germany should have done anything to avoid a war with both of them?

So if the Russian decision to join WW1 was so awfully stupid, why is it set in stone that Russia will make that mistake even if Germany is more Russia-friendly?
 
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