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Is there any way to get the politicians and military types of the early twentieth century to discount the cult of the offensive? I'm pottering around with the idea for a time line where at the start of the Great War the British decide after a few goes of banging their heads against a wall on the Western Front to try and arrange it with the French for a division of labour - the Grand Fleet continues to blockade the High Seas Fleet in the North Sea whilst the Army concentrates on what were known as the side shows in IOTL and the French pick up most of the Western Front. The general strategy is starts off with the BEF and initial deployments as IOTL but then seeing the Ottomans and then the Austrians as the weak links of the Central Powers 50% of their resources gets put into defeating the Ottomans and opening the straights to the Russians, 25% to the Balkans to help Serbia and Romania and pressure Austria - and once the Ottoman Empire surrenders the troops there to move to the Balkans to help knock out the Austrians, and 25% on the Western Front so the French and Belgians don't feel abandoned although in more of a defensive posture.
Of course this all falls down if everyone is still in the thrall of the cult of the offensive as they'll be wanting to attack attack attack at seemingly any cost. Is there any way to get someone senior enough unwedded to the idea to make it viable or will I have to resort to Bob the freindly neighbourhood ASB? The only idea I have is possibly the Siege of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War going much worse for the Japanese for one reason or another and it turning into a bloody debacle with the Japanese losing such silly amounts of men some strategists start to have second thoughts about the idea.