WI: CP sue for peace early

Maybe AH and the Ottomans can convince them they can’t hold out much longer?
That's likely to make them just attempt to defeat the West even faster. The Kaiserschlact was essentially a last ditch attempt to kill the West and if your Wilhelm really does get info from AH and OttOt that they can't hold out, Germany will likely push harder for an even bigger offensive. Whether they can pull a peace out of that offensive is anyone's guess.

Unless the US and Entente can look REALLY menacing to the Germans, so far as to make them scared of even attacking, Germany ain't gonna try a peace.
 
That's likely to make them just attempt to defeat the West even faster. The Kaiserschlact was essentially a last ditch attempt to kill the West and if your Wilhelm really does get info from AH and OttOt that they can't hold out, Germany will likely push harder for an even bigger offensive. Whether they can pull a peace out of that offensive is anyone's guess.

Unless the US and Entente can look REALLY menacing to the Germans, so far as to make them scared of even attacking, Germany ain't gonna try a peace.

Is this ASB, then?
 
Is this ASB, then?
I don't know much but I'd think that if you can get the German High Command to realize their loss right at the height of the Spring Offensive, you can probably sue for peace while the Entente is being forced back. I think that one Happenstance TL used that one.
 
Plus you'd need a really good POD to get both Wilhelm and the Germans to defeat Russia and just go "Yeah, we're okay with just this. No need to potentially win the West too."

Maybe the Caporetto offensive fail and A-H leadership tell in in blunt terms that if their empire want to survive they need to sue for peace in the west ASAP.
 
What's the Kaiser gonna do? Attempt to convince the military that they can't win after they've won on the Eastern Front? Sounds like a recipe for getting even less credibility and influence.
I recall reading something that had pictures showing the Germans having nicer trenches in WWI, because they were pretty much just sticking around in some places rather than trying to attack all the time. Now sure if it was true, but if the Germans get Eastern and Southern Europe, then they should content. Of course if they win in the East there will be the expectation of driving back the French, getting the aloe Contries firmly in their pocket, regain and expand on their colonies (perhaps ditching the Pacific once and South West Africa in exchange for the lucrative French and Belgian Congos), do something with backing up the Ottomans and keeping their territorial integrity... Yah, victory disease would be a real problem.
 
If you have the spring offensives succeding on the tactical level, isolating or destroying the bef, bit failing to ultimatelty reach paris, you can have germany realize that they expended their last resources and France panicming at thd same time. In thais case thwre is a possibility for a compromise peace where geemany cedes A-L but retains Brest-Litowsk
 
How do you make the Entente accept the peace? The problem really isn't Germany offering it (although I think that is extremely unlikely given their position in February 1918). It is the Entente actually accepting it.

Any attempt at sweetening the deal (like returning AL) would be looked upon as a sign of weakness by the Entente. Also in February 1918 Brest-Litovsk hadn't been signed (yet).

I think Germany has to roll the dice with the Spring Offensive and hope that the French government collapses first.
 
Would an offer to return to the status quo ante in France and Belgium count as "suing for peace"?

Field Marshall Haig was very fearful of this. In Jan 1918 he told King George V that his soldiers understood that we had gone to war to preserve the independence of those countries and were resolved to fight on to this conclusion [1], but were totally indifferent to other questions, such as whether Strasbourg should be French or Trieste Italian. Were Germany to concede these points, and the men were then called upon to continue fighting for such lesser objectives, the morale of the British Army might be compromised. He didn't use the M-word but may well have been thinking it. And the "backs to the wall" message might have rung hollow had the soldiers known that Germany had offered to meet our (declared) war aims and out government had turned them down.

General Max Hoffman may have been thinking on similar lines. In Goodspeed's biography of Ludendorff, Hoffman is quoted as advocating a public declaration that Germany "does not desire a single square yard of Belgian territory", as "England would never make peace" otherwise.


[1] Haig may have overstated the case on the first point. His information came from censors' reports on the content of soldiers' letters home, and they might have feared that to dismiss Britain's official war aims could be viewed as seditious. They probably felt safer dismissing French or Italian aims, having probably overheard many of their officers doing the same.
 
Unless the US and Entente can look REALLY menacing to the Germans, so far as to make them scared of even attacking, Germany ain't gonna try a peace.

Maybe if the AEF can get into the front line faster.

Many moons ago, in Mr Hughes Goes to War, I had TR (as Sec of War under President Charles E Hughes) get them to the front in time to stall the Michael Offensive, and produce an armistice in April. Agree it's a long shot though.
 
What is the US motivation now? Germany declare they fought a war with a defensive intent, to prevent encirclement, now with a eastern peace, they decide to sue for peace. Even offer compensation for the unfortunate US losses in the war.
Is the US going to fight for Alsace-Lorraine or communism?
 
What is the US motivation now? Germany declare they fought a war with a defensive intent, to prevent encirclement, now with a eastern peace, they decide to sue for peace. Even offer compensation for the unfortunate US losses in the war.
Is the US going to fight for Alsace-Lorraine or communism?
So offer the US blood money to go away?

The US came into the war for regime change. To quote Woodrow Wilson

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Good luck trying to hold on to gains in the East under the existing German government based on that!
 
So offer the US blood money to go away?

The US came into the war for regime change. To quote Woodrow Wilson



Good luck trying to hold on to gains in the East under the existing German government based on that!

Well, there is the question of how flexable those principals if you manage to put the emphasis on the "blood" part (In Americans) and Germany can hold out long enough that horror stories of the Russian civil war allow for the client regimes to cast themselves as the thin "Pink" line against Red/White extremist terror. That's only if you subscribe to the school of thought that says the CP's domestic economies can keep up that long, which I personally don't. Wilson isent a dictator, after all: Congress might be able to force him to bend policy
 
What if in February of 1918 Kaiser Billy decides enough is enough and sues for peace? What would this ATL treaty look like? Would it be harsher or more lenient than OTL?
Disregarding the fact that suing for peace in February would have been completely illogical, the treaty would have been exactly the same.
 
How do you make the Entente accept the peace? The problem really isn't Germany offering it (although I think that is extremely unlikely given their position in February 1918). It is the Entente actually accepting it.

Any attempt at sweetening the deal (like returning AL) would be looked upon as a sign of weakness by the Entente. Also in February 1918 Brest-Litovsk hadn't been signed (yet).

I think Germany has to roll the dice with the Spring Offensive and hope that the French government collapses first.

This is why I think the date chosen is too late. And I will chose the different path, keeping the USA more steadfastly neutral takes motivation from the Entente as Russia falters and the Czar falls. After 1916 the money is running low and the blockade is taking hold, A-H and OE are weakening, a victory to the East is uncertain but achievable, the Western stalemate takes a release of troops to obtain any hope of breaking, making events in Russia more decisive. Have the Provisional Government strike an armistice, uncertain enough that Germany can ease off but not relocate forces, its supplies are drawing down and it can no longer hope to simply conquer food. In that you might get an offer of status quo to the West, a withdrawal from Belgium and France, keep A-L and return colonies, mediated by the USA. I do not think it ASB although I find it a very steep wall to get your hat over. Germany has won Congress Poland and some portion of Lithuania and modern Latvia, supporting insurrection in Finland, securing the West and not in a position to be defeated, yet. That may be enough to give Germany its honorable out. You need the Entente to be sucking fumes to agree, but I think Britain can and if it does France has no options.

As to if the Kaiser can do it, he is the Kaiser, his Generals will step in line, even Hindenburg would not disobey the Kaiser despite having little qualms in letting him abdicate to save Germany after losing the war, as to Ludendorff, he is not a "von", he would be dead before he lifted his treasonous finger, but I doubt he gets that off reservation. The power of the dictatorship is in Wilhelm's weakness, not their strength, if Wilhelm finds the spine, the Army will stand firm. Is it ASB for him to find the courage now? Maybe, but he was just enough humbled to perhaps put the nation before his glory long ago fleeting, it might be the perfect time for him to be mercurial.
 
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