So is T.R. still the president because that means he ran and won a third term in 1912.
With the Crescent Above Us 2.0: An Ottoman Timeline
- Thread starter Nassirisimo
- Start date
France after pushing the Germans out of Paris should now dig in and make the Germans go on the offensive and bleed in battles like Somme. The English can attempt a landing on the Northern French Coast. A longer front only allows the Germans to bleed over a longer front. From protests the goal should be that the Germans should lose the home front. If the situation worsens on the home front, then Germany sending reinforcements elsewhere becomes politically untenable and the Russians would have to take up the burden.
The Bulgarians can slowly but steadily recruit enough people to maintain force numbers but if artillery and other ammo is supplied they can possibly hold on and if they manage to link up with the Italians somewhere in the Balkans, the Austrians are in a great trouble.
General Alberto Pollio of Italy is against war, but if they join in they can capture bits of Austria Hungary and then take the war to the Adriatic islands and can cause immense headache to the Austrians.
The Russians fighting at the end of two supply lines means that their job is immensely harder and would soon be bogged down and the British and the Japanese can go on the offensive and lock up enormous numbers of Russian troops in central Asia and the Far East and seize Sakhalin and the islands of Russia in the Far East. The war in the periphery can make them lose interest in the war. If the Americans can be involved then again it is game over, surely in the Far East.
We would like to see some naval action too. What happened to the Ottoman Dreadnoughts ITTL?
The Bulgarians can slowly but steadily recruit enough people to maintain force numbers but if artillery and other ammo is supplied they can possibly hold on and if they manage to link up with the Italians somewhere in the Balkans, the Austrians are in a great trouble.
General Alberto Pollio of Italy is against war, but if they join in they can capture bits of Austria Hungary and then take the war to the Adriatic islands and can cause immense headache to the Austrians.
The Russians fighting at the end of two supply lines means that their job is immensely harder and would soon be bogged down and the British and the Japanese can go on the offensive and lock up enormous numbers of Russian troops in central Asia and the Far East and seize Sakhalin and the islands of Russia in the Far East. The war in the periphery can make them lose interest in the war. If the Americans can be involved then again it is game over, surely in the Far East.
We would like to see some naval action too. What happened to the Ottoman Dreadnoughts ITTL?
Roger Evans; A Descent into Hell - A History of The World War: Penguin Publishing
The Fall of Bulgaria
The Fall of Bulgaria
The Redl affair which had scandalized Viennese society and the military establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with its seamy late-night bathhouse visits and strolls around the Prater Park had saved Bulgaria at a time when her stocks of shells and ammunition had been almost entirely spent. The 2nd Bulgarian army which had been the main force behind the autumn counter-offensive was exhausted. Ivan Konev reported that many of his infantrymen were down to around ten rounds of ammunition or less, that their uniforms had worn away to rags, and that the troops had marched hundreds of kilometres in the weeks of fighting. The Bulgarians had gained a great deal of territory during the counter-offensive and severely embarrassed the Hapsburg armies, but little of the land gained was of much operational or tactical benefit to the Bulgarians. The Austro-Hungarian forces were still on the southern bank of the Danube, and the losses they had suffered were quickly being made good by reinforcements. Even with the winter lull in fighting to bring up reinforcements and supplies, the Bulgarians were not confident of their ability to survive whatever offensive would take place the following spring.
The Hapsburg Army was carefully planning its next moves. The hope amongst some that Conrad von Hötzendorf would be replaced by General Redl was dashed as the latter saw himself disgraced, and after no small dispute, Viktor Dankl (later von Pirot) was appointed as the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff.[1] Dankl had gained a reputation for competency if not brilliance, and his cautious nature became evident as he planned for the upcoming spring offensive against Bulgaria. The invasion was to be done in different stages, with Austro-Hungarian forces advancing to a certain point before halting to allow the logistical situation to catch up with them, even if this would mean that Bulgarian forces would escape the clutches of the Hapsburg Armies. They were also to incorporate artillery-focused tactics more than had been the case in 1912, though the lack of modern artillery would limit the effectiveness of these tactics and necessitate infantry-based assaults. Although Dankl planned for the offensive to begin on the 1st of April 1913, he explained to the emperor that victory may not come until later in the summer despite the numerical superiority of the Austro-Hungarian forces.
The Austro-Hungarians had also attempted to improve their position for the upcoming year by enticing the Romanians and Greeks who had previously fought against the Bulgarians into the conflict. The Romanians proved relatively easy to persuade, as with the backing of Austro-Hungarian arms, the conquest of the Dobrudja seemed to be a certainty, enabling them to gain their previous war goals with ease. Negotiations with the Greeks proved to be far more difficult, as the Austro-Hungarians proved to be reluctant to promise the Greeks their main territorial claim against Bulgaria, the city of Salonika. Instead, the Austro-Hungarians desired to have Salonika under their own influence, seeing the city as a conduit of control within the southern portion of the Balkans and weighed the benefits of Greek intervention to be less than the costs that handing them Salonika would incur. After weeks of negotiations, the Greeks ultimately refused to join the fight against Bulgaria once again and assured Bulgaria of her neutrality in exchange for a reduction of the war indemnity which Bulgaria had previously imposed.[2]
The Austro-Hungarian forces would find themselves better-equipped than the previous year, though still not to the standards of their German allies
Dankl’s long-awaited offensive began on the 1st of April with a push toward the Serbian city of Kruševac. The Bulgarians were outnumbered almost 3 to 1 in these initial battles, and indeed many Bulgarian units retreated without taking part in conflict, instead following the plan of the Bulgarian General Staff to retreat until Austro-Hungarian supply lines were overstretched. Those Bulgarians who stood and fought were often low on ammunition and other crucial supplies. The Hapsburg armies were taking far more prisoners than they had done the previous year, and those prisoners they did take tended to be malnourished and dressed in rags rather than the uniforms in which they had marched off to war in 1912. Low morale was one of the main concerns of the Bulgarian General Staff, and officers were implored to remind troops that eventually the Austro-Hungarians would be marching on Bulgarian soil and to emphasise the ravages that would almost certainly be visited upon the civilian population in that eventuality.
Despite their poor conditions, Bulgarian morale held up in the first few weeks of the war. The turning point began at the Siege of Niš. Although Niš had been seen as a Serbian town, the population had been majority Bulgarian for quite some time. [3] The Bulgarian high command had decided that the city must be seriously defended. Provisions were stocked for a long siege, and the Bulgarian high command assigned two army corps, numbering over 60,000 men, to the city’s defence. They hoped that these men would tie down a disproportionate number of Austro-Hungarian troops, allowing the Bulgarians better odds along other parts of the front and that the preservation of Niš would boost the morale of Bulgarian forces. The initial battles around the city went poorly for the Bulgarians, and an attempted counter-attack against forward elements of the Austro-Hungarian army resulted only in Bulgarian bayonet charges being torn to shreds by the disciplined defensive fire of the Austro-Hungarians. Dankl only surrounded the city when he was certain that his numbers would allow him to beat back any relief attempt on the part of the Bulgarians, and by the 2nd of May, the city had been totally closed off to the rest of Bulgaria. The Siege of Niš had begun.
Despite the fact that the Austrians had devoted the whole of their 1st Army to the Siege of Niš, they continued with the rest of the offensive. The 2nd and 3rd armies were preparing to move towards Sofia, one of the largest cities in Bulgaria and the main obstacle before the capital of Plovdiv. The Austro-Hungarians had also convinced the Romanians to send their armies across the Danube into the Dobrudja, in the hopes that this would force the Bulgarians to split their already-overstretched forces. The Bulgarians hoped to continue their defensive campaign, adopting strictly defensive tactics to avoid the unnecessary loss of manpower. Bulgarian defensive firepower proved unable to overcome Hapsburg steel at the Battle of Pirot however when determined bayonet charges supported by artillery proved sufficient to overcome the weakened and outnumbered Bulgarian forces. This time rather than an orderly retreat, the Bulgarian forces were routed, and much of the Bulgarian V and VI corps who had tried to stand against the 2nd Austrian Army were scattered into the hills and forests around Pirot.
The overwhelmed Bulgarians were hard-pressed after the defeat at Pirot
This was an unmitigated disaster for the Bulgarians. Now their forces were scattered across the front, pressed on every side and seemingly unable to halt the onslaught of the Austro-Hungarian forces. By the 20th of May, Sofia had fallen and only a single corps was available for the defence of Plovdiv itself. The 25th saw the fall of Pleven in the north, as well as the capture of Dobrich by the Romanian army. It was quickly becoming apparent to the Bulgarian General Staff that the collapse of their war effort was imminent, and discussions now turned to what could be done next. The situation had turned against the Entente everywhere except for Northern France, and even here the Germans held great amounts of French territory. Considering the dire situation, even the hawkish Fichev now began to advocate for seeking an armistice, noting that the alternative would be “the annihilation of the Bulgarian nation”. Much of the Bulgarian government agreed though this wasn’t universal, especially amongst the Bulgarian army. Ivan Kolev, who had won a great victory at Aranđelovac over the Austro-Hungarians the previous year, was convinced that the Entente would eventually prevail over the Three Emperor’s Alliance and thought it prudent for Bulgaria to keep fighting no matter the odds.
When Plovdiv finally fell on the 29th of May, the Bulgarian government, now based in Salonika, made a formal request for an armistice to Emperor Franz Josef. The Austro-Hungarian conditions were fairly harsh, confident as they were in their impending victory over the Bulgarians. These conditions included the internment of the Bulgarian army for the duration of the war as well as the surrender of Salonika and Niš to an Austro-Hungarian army, pending a peace treaty which would likely see both of them surrendered. The Bulgarian Cabinet hesitated, as these conditions would doom Bulgaria to lose her current status as a key regional power, but little help seemed to be forthcoming from her allies who were hard-pressed elsewhere. The hand of the government was forced when Ivan Konev’s Army retreated into the Ottoman territory of Albania rather than face destruction at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian army. Konev’s army was interred by the Ottoman authorities, denying Bulgaria the use of her last intact field army. The Armistice of Sofia was signed on June 16th 1913, bringing Bulgaria’s participation in the war to an end, at least for now.
This had been the greatest victory of the Three Emperor’s Alliance so far. The Balkan conflict which had triggered the war in the first place was now over, leaving Austria-Hungary as the undisputed master of the Balkans and leaving her in a very secure position. The Hapsburg Army, which had been mocked at the beginning of the conflict, had shown her worth in crushing the Bulgarian Army with apparent ease, and indeed Bulgaria had been defeated before Chief of Staff Dankl’s own prediction. This restored the prestige of both the army and the monarchy itself within the country, and celebrations were reported even within smaller provincial towns in Hungary. Dankl received a series of military decorations following a parade of the victorious army through Vienna. Although Austria-Hungary remained at war with the remaining Entente powers, the reality of the situation meant that her general mobilization was downgraded to a partial one. Consequently, the country began to feel like one at peace, and besides sending an army corps to aid Germany on the Western Front, it seemed as though Austro-Hungarian participation would be minimal from this point forward.
[1] – Viktor Dankl von Krasnik only gained the title of Kransik after his victory at the place of the same name in the first weeks of OTL’s Battle of Galicia, which was an early and misleading victory for the Hapsburg Armies.
[2] – This doesn’t discount a later Greek intervention of course, but for now, the Greeks will remain neutral, which may well be wiser considering her exposed position.
[3] - The Ottomans at least had seen Niš’s population as majority Bulgarian, though some have claimed that the city was in fact Serb majority. Balkan demographics are usually a particularly murky subject at any rate.
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Author's Notes - Apologies for the very long wait on the update. I don't have an excuse. Sorry.
Bulgaria's amazing run against the odds is finally over, at least for the time being. Austria-Hungary is unlikely to devote many resources to aid her allies, and can now enjoy something of a phoney war. It would be rather foolhardy for Italy to intervene in the war given the current situation, nor are any of the Balkan powers likely to challenge Austro-Hungarian supremacy. Good job guys, mission accomplished!
The next update will be looking at Russian progress (or a lack thereof) against the British in India and Central Asia. I'll try not to post this next update after another two months.
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They must stay neutral no matter what.
you know that perfidious album didn't say it's last words yet. And the Americans will help them know matter what .
No need to apologize! This stuff takes time and its not like any of us are writing timelines. Good work!
Austria-Hungary definitely got what it wanted in this conflict with Bulgaria smashed and dominance of the Balkans completely assured. Italy is even going to back down from entering into the war, so this is probably the biggest A-H wank I've seen in an alternate WW1 scenario (kinda deserved considering they did poorly OTL).
Bulgaria gave all they could, but in the end couldn't do much against an Austria-Hungary not forced to divide its attention between three fronts.
Your gonna want to add this latest chapter to the Thread Mark.
Ivan Kolev’s decision to retreat into Ottoman Albania can and willingly be interred has to be because he believes the Entente will try something to spirit the last standing Bulgarian Field Army away from the Balkans and to fight the Germans in France.
I guess the question is what can the UK and France do to convince the Ottomans to look the other way while a couple hundred thousand Bulgarians board transports at Durres. Maybe Ivan Kolev takes a Charles de Gaulle approach and says he represents Free Bulgaria. And if they let him go once the Entente is inevitably victorious he’ll negotiate concessions to the Ottomans in return for letting him go. Hell that and a massive bribe might be what the Entente offers and that Ivan’s personal opinions on the matter would be a secondary concern.
Ivan Kolev’s decision to retreat into Ottoman Albania can and willingly be interred has to be because he believes the Entente will try something to spirit the last standing Bulgarian Field Army away from the Balkans and to fight the Germans in France.
I guess the question is what can the UK and France do to convince the Ottomans to look the other way while a couple hundred thousand Bulgarians board transports at Durres. Maybe Ivan Kolev takes a Charles de Gaulle approach and says he represents Free Bulgaria. And if they let him go once the Entente is inevitably victorious he’ll negotiate concessions to the Ottomans in return for letting him go. Hell that and a massive bribe might be what the Entente offers and that Ivan’s personal opinions on the matter would be a secondary concern.