WI: Limited World War 1

Presuming that after the assassination of Francis Ferdinand, Russia had decided that Serbia had dug themselves too deep a hole and had not intervened during the crisis, and Serbia had been forced to agree to all stipulations of the Ultimatum, and also presuming that if war had started between Serbia and A-H, Russia did not intervene (at least overtly), what would the world have looked like in the coming years?

Other presumptions: Germany and Britain had managed to agree upon a naval accord with one another, limiting the High Seas Fleet to ½ or ⅓ the size of the Royal Navy. France may or may not intervene, but I cannot see them doing such without British or Russian backing.
 
According to John Keegan in his book The First World War, there would have probably been a limited war had Austria-Hungary acted alone regarding Serbia.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Serbs did better than anyone had a right to expect in WWI, hanging on until the fall of 1915. The Austrian-Hungarians eventually needed to bring in the Germans and the Bulgarians to break their resistance. But ITTL, they would have been able to turn their full force against the Serbs because they would not need to fight the Russians.

In this case, I can see the Serbs putting up a terrific fight until finally throwing in the towel in late 1914, having kept their national honor.
 
I do believe that WWI at that point in time could have been avoided, but it would require a lot more "cool heads" around in Europe.

The first point is that AH should have invaded immediately and held Belgrade "hostage" for the ultimatum.

That would have localised the conflict and might not have been seen as overly threatening to Russia. That point is critical.

The "blanck cheque" must be avoided. Germany better keep out of it despite obviously "cheering on from the side lines".

If Germany is taking the chance of not mobilising (although one of the last to mobilise, it did trigger a lot of other actions in the West), France can be isolated.

The critical one here is France. If France and UK are not "joined by the hip", it just might be limited to the Balkans, despite the naval race.

However, the joker in the pack is Slav nationalism. Could Russia really take a back-seat in this instance?

Let us assume, along the lines of OP, that is is localised:

1) Serbia must be dismantled. maybe a rump state left to pacify Russia
2) Germany and UK must come to an agreement on the naval race. I am not sure how this can be achieved as Germany had put too much prestige nto it.
3) France must be isolated as Bismarck had managed to do.

AH might collapse before 1920 in any event as it is too unstable

Russia itself might still collapse due to internal unrest, but it could have a chance of carry on if the "blessings" of rapid industrialisation can trickle down to the masses.

Rapid industrialisation might lead to more union power and that can still entail a communist revolution

US? that is a good guess.

Ivan
 
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