WWI... In 1939

iddt3

Donor
the ottomans are going to be swimming in oil money.

more than enough for a formidable navy, modernized army, industry, schools and hospitals etc etc etc. i'd say they get upgraded from second rate power to first rate power.

too bad for italy - lybian oil is still some years away.
Or they become a kleptocracy a la the Arab oil states or get partitioned by the other great powers to ensure that they have uninterrupted supplies of oil.
 
Secondly there is a key issue that the 'lost generation' is never lost when it was. This means the European population is likely to be around 50% larger than it was historically in 1939. Some 120million people in Germany for instance, which is far bigger than todays population in Germany.

Is possible a massive immigration in the colonies ("Young man go to Africa... and to Asia") ?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Here you have a situation where from 1916-1939 Germany knows it can't fight Britain in some Mahan like confrontation (or intimidate her with the threat of one). The subs Germany would be building post 1914 some of which would be pretty rangey and large. I am thinking they would figure it out by 1918 that a few hundred of these, backed by fast mine layers and a few fast cruisers would be a cheap way of keeping Britain occupied for a while.

And sort of like your Prince Henry Uboat TL they would be stationed in the colonies too, and since you have to supply those colonies with torpedos and spare parts etc..., why not a quanity of supply submarines (not merchant controlled, but military). Somebody says "man we could use these to import strategic metals and rubber in war time with a few of these so a few more are built.

Well, the military situation would be very similar in 1923 ATL as in 1913. Nothing you say is wrong, but I don't see an event to cause the change. The Kaiser should live to around 1940. Tripitz retirement would be the next good chance for a change, but the Kaiser would have probably selected and Admiral with a similar doctrine. My guess is Germany continues the battleship heavy doctrine, adds some scouting carriers and a few Zeppelins, and continues to have fewer cruisers and U-boats than needed. I can't prove to you that the German War Plan in 1917 would not have airborne soldiers destroying Russian bridges, but I can say it is unlikely.

By 1918, they probably are still building 6 U-boats per year, so the Germans have a slowly growing U-boat force well under 100. In all my reading, I did not see a plan to add warships to the African colonies. The German navy did not seem to have a master plan beyond the risk fleet concept. Another problem with the Merchant Warfare concept would be it would only be required if a major war was seen to be likely a long war, and having a Merchant Warfare plan would mean massive changes to the German Army war plan. These are the main reason I had to change the leadership for the TL, and the early victory by the U-boats was so important. It allowed me to sideline a lot of Admirals, so I could get more open thinkers into the mix.

I was just projecting trends out in my statement. It would only take one decision by the Kaiser or Admiral in Charge to change paths. And the Reichstag would surely like the concept that U-boats at 5% of the cost of dreadnoughts could be used to do many roles. The issue is having the senior naval leadership change its mind. Merchant Submarines are like wire guided aerial torpedoes for Zeppelins or special forces carrying Zeppelins. Within the technology limits of the era, but did not happen prewar.

The merchant submarines would make sense as a military assets for either the concept of special forces or supply of isolated units. The USA could have used a few in the Pacific in WW2. It is just a mater of having someone come up with the idea, the ships are not that expensive. To the best of my knowledge, these types ships were only used by the USN when we converted SSBN to special forces submarines. There may be some other examples, but I don't think they entered service.
 
Would we maybe still see the use of Cavalry? I think the last time they more or less had their last Hurah in the Great War, but perhaps Dragoons or Hussars would still see use in the early stages? (Then again weren't Cavalry used even in the Korean war by the British Empire?)
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I can see both points here, you can have the large world war 2 style German army (some mechanization) or the smaller world war 2 front line U.S. army (mosty mechanized).

Certainly the 1939 ATL German army is going to be more motorized that the OTL 1914 and significantly more motorized (absolute vehicles and as a percentage) than OTL 1939 army, but it would be hard to motorize the hundreds of divisions needed to fight a war against Russia.

The Germans have the funds to pay for the full motorization, if they chose this route. The Annual budget was 2.4 billion marks. The war cost 88 billion marks, and the lost value of future work (dead workers) was even greater. The other side is the lack of driver of doctrine changes. I would guess the Germans would have around 25 mechanized/armored divisions by around 1940, basically the Calvary would be replaced by mechanized units, and they would still have many straight leg infantry divisions with transportation regiments that are attached to infantry divisions/corps/armies as need. The German doctrine would evolve to met the needs, and the question becomes in 1917 when Russia is too strong for the existing War Plan, what War Plan do the Germans go to?

Petroleum is a bit of a wildcard. With the Ottomans in the CP and the right pipelines in the Balkans, the Germans have plenty of petroleum. Or they could be severely petroleum limited if Galicia is the main supply location.
 
Is possible a massive immigration in the colonies ("Young man go to Africa... and to Asia") ?

Interesting thought but I wonder if they would still want to goto to the USA (or maybe Argentina) instead, it was pretty easy to show up in America dirt poor and find some way of earning a living, probably in a factory. Going to Africa you arrive at the port of Tanga in east Africa with nothing and your going to work where, on a plantation, probably plenty of native Africans around for that kind of work.

I imagine to move to Africa, you would have to be middle class enough to be able to buy or claim a plantation, plant some crops, buy some supplies etc... even with a government subsidy, so European increases would be steady but its hard to imagine millions.

Even the Americans will probably restrict immigration at some point so as a government you better be able to find jobs and such for these teeming millions or the whole system breaks down (right wing radicals start talking about "Living Space" and there you go again)
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Is possible a massive immigration in the colonies ("Young man go to Africa... and to Asia") ?

It is certain to have much more immigration. The population loss (killed and not born) associated with WW1 ended the mass migration from Europe. Without WW1, we would have millions more white immigrants per year, and I have seen sources with 300 million more European decent people in the world today. Many would be absorbed by favorites of OTL such as the USA, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. But we would likely see several white majority countries or white majority regions in Africa. SWA, Angolan highlands, British East Africa, and German East Africa are possible. Algeria being a part of France today is a given. Libya being a part of Italy is very likely.

Would we maybe still see the use of Cavalry? I think the last time they more or less had their last Hurah in the Great War, but perhaps Dragoons or Hussars would still see use in the early stages? (Then again weren't Cavalry used even in the Korean war by the British Empire?)

Without a war between major powers to show it is past it day, there will be Cavalry in most major armies, perhaps all.
 

iddt3

Donor
One interesting effect of 20 further years of battleship building would be further proliferation of second hand battleships to second tier powers, there was certainly a market for them OTL, and with no Great Depression to massively constrict military budgets, I would think there would be plenty of extras to go around.
 
While it's easy to say that broader prosperity and deeper industrial development would facilitate the motorization, possibly the mechanization of European armies, the ensuing population increase might make W. Europe too densely populated for maneuver warfare. Think mile after mile of medium density row/terrace homes, streetcar suburbs, etc. with limited gaps between cities functioning as 'choke points'.
Another important question is how many theater size (Russo-Japanese war, Spanish Civil War) conflicts occur and what lessons the great powers derive from them.
 
While it's easy to say that broader prosperity and deeper industrial development would facilitate the motorization, possibly the mechanization of European armies, the ensuing population increase might make W. Europe too densely populated for maneuver warfare. Think mile after mile of medium density row/terrace homes, streetcar suburbs, etc. with limited gaps between cities functioning as 'choke points'.
Another important question is how many theater size (Russo-Japanese war, Spanish Civil War) conflicts occur and what lessons the great powers derive from them.

Unlikely that housing and construction will 'urbanise' Europe to the point of making it a battlefield-unto-itself. Even today with all our ribbon development and so forth Europe has plenty of open spaces for manover warfare.

However the ensuing population increases will mean that the armies that be, will be of a scale much larger than they historically were, this means that there will be less room for manover warfare as the local troop front density will be higher, and their will be greater concentration on defense in depth. Deep penitration techniques such as the armoured schwerpunkt won't work because now the rear lines of armies are not just full of logistics troops, but also part of 2nd and perhaps even 3rd or 4th reserves because their won't be enough weapons to go round after mobilisation (or at least not enough after they work out the rate at which soliders expend those weapons).

This will change warfare techniques in mobile warfare to terms of multilayered tactical operations.

Because there will be the numbers of units to utlise, engagements won't be designed to create tactical sized holes in the enemies front, but instead designed to create operational level collaspes of the enemies front line, by continually switching the focus of the attack, so that the opponants reinforcements are left in continual flux.

The aim of which is to deny the opponant a portion of his large force, while you maximise your own.

The Schlliefen plan will likely go out the window as Europe enters the late 1910s and 1920s as the French and Russians will improve their infrastructure to be on a par with Germany's thus making the rapid mobilisation and attack plan more and more unlikely to work in attempting to quickly take Paris. Paris indeed will have enough local population even with emmigrations to warrent needing a couple of armies at the least to take...

This will be all coming at a time when the full implications of the machingun and modern rapid fire artillery will be coming to the forfront of stratergy, and so the 'industrial concept' of overlapping supported files of fire, large scale broad offensives conducted in multiple stages with specialist 'tools' units for dealing with the othersides 'specialist tools' will become a concept within a concept.

In essence your going to have attrition battle strategy mixing with combined arms.


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Caverly will likely still be around, but more reserved for rear guard work than silly charges or operations along those lines.
 
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