WW1 alliance between Germany and France against Britain possible?

Would an World war 1 alliance between Germany and France against Britain have been possible?

Question related to this. How would Britain react to this (Ignoring the question how logical such an alliance would be)?
 
Would an World war 1 alliance between Germany and France against Britain have been possible?

Question related to this. How would Britain react to this (Ignoring the question how logical such an alliance would be)?

Ignoring how such a thing came about, what could each side even do to the other? Neither have the ability to invade the other on land and the Royal Navy is still going to be preeminent at sea. With Japan on her side in the Pacific, Britain will take all of their Pacific colonies pretty quickly. Likewise for the Indian Ocean. Africa is a bit more of a fair fight because France is pretty entrenched there, but Britain will eventually still win IMHO. The Western Hemisphere...that's tricky. France is dug into islands like Martinique pretty deep, and opposed amphibious landings in the WWI era aren't likely. Probably a long series of sieges there.

Long term, Britain ends the war on favorable terms after rolling up all of France and Germany's colonies while they can't do much in return.
 
Would an World war 1 alliance between Germany and France against Britain have been possible?

Question related to this. How would Britain react to this (Ignoring the question how logical such an alliance would be)?

I guess that depends mostly on how exactly the war starts and who GB is aligned with.
 
Would an World war 1 alliance between Germany and France against Britain have been possible?

Question related to this. How would Britain react to this (Ignoring the question how logical such an alliance would be)?

Not without a major POD. France was too angry at losing A-L still. Maybe if in a fit of insanity, the UK went and started colony snatching from Germany and France without war declarations, but then it's pretty much going to be the world against the UK.
 
No Entente? If this is the case, we have a potential alliance of Russia, France and Germany. It's logical to assume that Austria-Hungary would be in that alliance too.

It might be possible if Germany didn't annex A-L.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
It might be possible without a war in 1914.
Come 1915 the UK has a less Francophile Gov't, the Tories having replacing the Liberals.
France and Russia have massive dreadnaught building programmes, each ordering 2-4 ships a year, whereas Germany is back to 2-3 a year (and pledged to replacement building in the future - a target a sane person is aware it cannot match, as replacing 20K ton vessels with 35-40K vessels on a 1:1 basis is not financially possible for Berlin).
So I see scope for the Entente Cordiale dieing of natural causes. Paris (and its sidekick St.Peterburg) and Berlin finding common cause against London is odd, but politics makes for strange bedfellows ...
 
Ignoring how such a thing came about, what could each side even do to the other? Neither have the ability to invade the other on land and the Royal Navy is still going to be preeminent at sea. With Japan on her side in the Pacific, Britain will take all of their Pacific colonies pretty quickly. Likewise for the Indian Ocean. Africa is a bit more of a fair fight because France is pretty entrenched there, but Britain will eventually still win IMHO. The Western Hemisphere...that's tricky. France is dug into islands like Martinique pretty deep, and opposed amphibious landings in the WWI era aren't likely. Probably a long series of sieges there.

Long term, Britain ends the war on favorable terms after rolling up all of France and Germany's colonies while they can't do much in return.
Starve Britain out is what the Franco-Germans would attempt to do

Britain is massively dependent on Coastal shipping for internal transportation and Franco-German light units in the channel would make that very difficult. Add in submarines and surface raiders based out of French Atlantic ports and the situation is even worse for her. Britain getting starved out before she manages to grab a majority of Franco-German colonies is probable IMO

Of course as you say this is ignoring how such a thing comes about
 
No Entente? If this is the case, we have a potential alliance of Russia, France and Germany. It's logical to assume that Austria-Hungary would be in that alliance too.

It might be possible if Germany didn't annex A-L.

No you don't. France aligning with Germany basically means she has to abandon her alliance with Russia. You can't just be friends with everybody as it would require juggling dozens of mutually conflicting interests in a network of obligations that's bound to choke you and bind you into inaction if war ever comes around. Russia would need to have a detante with Britain and line up alongside her for such an alliance to be even remotely possible.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Russia and Germany did not have conflicts of interest. They went to war because of the Alliance System. Russia was allied to France and Germany was allied to Austria (and chums with Turkey).
Russia had an axe to grind with A-H and Turkey, while France was pathologically bent on revenge for the German worm tuning upon it in 1870.
In 1914 there were some voices of "you ditch Vienna and we ditch Paris" from Russia to Germany ...
 
No you don't. France aligning with Germany basically means she has to abandon her alliance with Russia. You can't just be friends with everybody as it would require juggling dozens of mutually conflicting interests in a network of obligations that's bound to choke you and bind you into inaction if war ever comes around. Russia would need to have a detante with Britain and line up alongside her for such an alliance to be even remotely possible.

I understand the logic behind this post, but why would Russia choose Britain rather than France and Germany, bearing in mind that back then Russia and Britain were main rivals in central Asia?

France and Russia began to approach each other after the Franco-Prussian War. In the case that Prussians were smarter and didn't annex A-L for some reason, why would France and Russia create an alliance in the first place?

Of course, there is a question how were Balkan problems solved and who controls what. What happened to Ottomans and Italy?
 
No. France has always been threated the most by Berlin since 1871. From 1871 to 1963 they were bitter enemies. No way.

A British German alliance against France is more probable. This would be like having a Russo-Ottoman alliance against Austria-Hungary. Never gonna happen.
 
Ignoring how such a thing came about, what could each side even do to the other? Neither have the ability to invade the other on land and the Royal Navy is still going to be preeminent at sea. With Japan on her side in the Pacific, Britain will take all of their Pacific colonies pretty quickly. Likewise for the Indian Ocean. Africa is a bit more of a fair fight because France is pretty entrenched there, but Britain will eventually still win IMHO. The Western Hemisphere...that's tricky. France is dug into islands like Martinique pretty deep, and opposed amphibious landings in the WWI era aren't likely. Probably a long series of sieges there.

Long term, Britain ends the war on favorable terms after rolling up all of France and Germany's colonies while they can't do much in return.

I agree that Britain would win in the colonies zone (why I liked the comment; also since you said that how could it even come in the first place), but the combined Franco-German industrial capabilities will win in the end. Germany could have won WW1 in OTL. With France by their side, they will win.

No way Russia and Italy would fight against a Franco-German alliance just to save Britain's sorry hind. They would rather be subservient and maintain their existing domestic power structure in place.


This is exactly what Britain feared. This would be nightmare 101. A resurrected Empire of Charlemagne would be the strongest power on the planet.
 
Starve Britain out is what the Franco-Germans would attempt to do

Britain is massively dependent on Coastal shipping for internal transportation and Franco-German light units in the channel would make that very difficult. Add in submarines and surface raiders based out of French Atlantic ports and the situation is even worse for her. Britain getting starved out before she manages to grab a majority of Franco-German colonies is probable IMO

Of course as you say this is ignoring how such a thing comes about

Didn't work in either world war, most likely wouldn't in this one.

Britain has historically been almost unbelievably effective at shutting down hostile traffic in the English Channel. Enemy forces have managed to transit it exactly once since the Anglo-Dutch Wars (the WWII Channel Dash). Even with friendly French ports, that raises the question of how exactly significant German surface assets are going to get into them. U-Boats are the biggest threat, but to be really effective the WWI ones had to be used in the unrestricted fashion, which is going to bring in the U.S. eventually. At that point, France and Germany's chance of winning goes to flat zero.

I'm not sure of the statistics on how dependent Britain was on coastal shipping in the early 1900s (if you have any on hand would love to see them), but I don't see where it's likely that a country with a road and rail network that sophisticated is going to starve because the channel ports are compromised.
 
Didn't work in either world war, most likely wouldn't in this one.

To be fair Germany didn't have an ally on the level of France. It was really just Germany and crummy allies versus the other most powerful forces on the planet. German industry is as OP as Britain's naval and colonial network is, and France really boosts the German column like it did Britain's in OTL.

I don't think an Operation Sealion would occur, but give the alliance time and they would be Britain's worst nightmare.
 
I'm not sure of the statistics on how dependent Britain was on coastal shipping in the early 1900s

Oh Britain was highly dependant on its colonies for just about every resource in fighting for a war. But the incredible prowess of their navy would assure that they could get grain from India or beef from Argentina (not a colony but still) without much worry; especially if their entire war effort depended on it. So this worry of coastal ports at least in the short term is not much. Its in a generation that the worry will be there. But in 1922? No issue.
 
I agree that Britain would win in the colonies zone (why I liked the comment; also since you said that how could it even come in the first place), but the combined Franco-German industrial capabilities will win in the end. Germany could have won WW1 in OTL. With France by their side, they will win.

No way Russia and Italy would fight against a Franco-German alliance just to save Britain's sorry hind. They would rather be subservient and maintain their existing domestic power structure in place.


This is exactly what Britain feared. This would be nightmare 101. A resurrected Empire of Charlemagne would be the strongest power on the planet.

It depends on what such a war is actually being fought over. Clearly it's not going to be over mainland Europe. Neither power has the ability to challenge each other at home. That leaves the colonies and the sea, which is where Britain is strongest.

I wonder about Russia in particular. As someone else said, this basically means that they will have to abandon their alliance with France, and Britain will most likely move in on that. So if they go to war with Germany, but Austro-Hungary isn't in it (I'm not sure what happens in the rest of Europe here and how the butterflies are affected), it becomes interesting. Probably depends a lot on what the Ottomans and Bulgaria do.
 
Neither power has the ability to challenge each other at home.

Not in 1912 no. But, and this is what Britain feared the most, if the French and Germans (or just great continental power) was given time, and with their power they absolutely would have time, they would eventually leapfrog over Britain.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
U-Boats are the biggest threat, but to be really effective the WWI ones had to be used in the unrestricted fashion, which is going to bring in the U.S. eventually.
1 - No OTL war in 1914 probably means that Wilson does not get re-elected. He was very pro-Entente and anti-Central Powers.
2 - no Entente changes perceptions of European conflict in the USA, starting with Wilson ...

I'm not sure of the statistics on how dependent Britain was on coastal shipping in the early 1900s (if you have any on hand would love to see them), but I don't see where it's likely that a country with a road and rail network that sophisticated is going to starve because the channel ports are compromised.
Not starving, but hurting nonetheless.
 
Didn't work in either world war, most likely wouldn't in this one.

Britain has historically been almost unbelievably effective at shutting down hostile traffic in the English Channel. Enemy forces have managed to transit it exactly once since the Anglo-Dutch Wars (the WWII Channel Dash). Even with friendly French ports, that raises the question of how exactly significant German surface assets are going to get into them. U-Boats are the biggest threat, but to be really effective the WWI ones had to be used in the unrestricted fashion, which is going to bring in the U.S. eventually. At that point, France and Germany's chance of winning goes to flat zero.

I'm not sure of the statistics on how dependent Britain was on coastal shipping in the early 1900s (if you have any on hand would love to see them), but I don't see where it's likely that a country with a road and rail network that sophisticated is going to starve because the channel ports are compromised.
Same way they got into those ports OTL during WWII. Remember I am talking about coastal forces, Torpedo Boats (those too big to go by rail), Destroyers, maybe a few light cruisers, Germany did get destroyers through the Channel in OTL WWII, and managed to get DD and CL to Belgium in WWI (and with France and Germany at war with the UK Belgium's neutrality means spit). OTL WWI Germany was almost completely shut out of the Channel, WWII Germany lacked the light forces to take advantage of having access to the Channel in a way WWI Germany would not. AFAIK would have to look it up, but one of the British officers in command of the Channel forces during WWI claimed that if the Germans held just a bit more of the channel ports London would starve

AFAIK the majority of U-Boat sinking until after the US joined the war were done by cruiser rules, U-Boat patrols were more limited by numbers of torpedoes carried than by endurance

France being on Germany's side likely keeps US from going in, Francophilia to counter Anglophilia and France isn't near as incompetent at managing US public opinion. Remember if took USW, massive German PR blunders and Zimmerman to get the US in, remove two and US stays out
 
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