Zwei Sonnen: The 20th Century (Part I - The Great War)

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
No. Bozen is historical a part of Austria and Triest the most important harbour. Would you give up, let's say, New York and Philadelphia for Tripolis and Tunis?
 
I don't understand. The british are at war ? Or they just don't want to come in ?
You read how a Prine Albert (later identified as the later British monarch) got also killed by the Serbs? That and the absense of Edward Grey tells me that there was a fast and hard shift in British thinking towars a "Entente-phone" and Germanophile stance. What will further happen is still open but that they let the Entnete, France, Russia and Serbia fall like a hot coal is naturally.
Also as Edward Grey was so adamant to tell everyone, Britain had no hard links to the Entente. So how could they betray them?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entente_Cordiale

Maybe because the alliance beetween England and France was declared ?
Your link is very absent of any concrete agreements to cooperate in the military or other areas outside of colonial matters. So was it an Alliance or was it an understanding in colonial matters that the British Foraign Office used for more without consent of the gov. and no written (as far as I know) gutantees for more, or was it something more?
 
Your link is very absent of any concrete agreements to cooperate in the military or other areas outside of colonial matters. So was it an Alliance or was it an understanding in colonial matters that the British Foraign Office used for more without consent of the gov. and no written (as far as I know) gutantees for more, or was it something more?

According to Grey once the actual July Crisis hit, it was something more, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that that may have been his intention all along. If not, he felt like his hand was forced by French naval dispositions, which portended dire consequences if the British were seen as abrogating their alliance with France. In this timeline, he may have decided that there was no choice, since siding with the regicides is just unthinkable.
 
For a sizeable chunk of modern day Libya, and possibly a share of any French colonial holdings if the French crap out, that's not a bad deal.

Irrilevant; Austria basically refused to give up Trentinto and some border adjustment in Friuli (with Italy paying for the territory and with border greatly favoring the Hapsburg military) and recognize italian control of Albania (at the moment the italian army occupied half of the nation) plus some other minot things in exchange for italian neutrality favoring the CP...and at the same time fullfilling art.7 of the CP treaty.
Giving up Trieste (the only real port of the Empire) and Trentino plus South Tyrol in exchange of some place that need to be pacified and nobody had a real interest in it, it's so out of the question to be ridicolous.

At max Wien will give up what promised for neutrality in OTL if Italy enter the war (after some pressure from Berlin) but Rome will need to forfeit any other claim towards austrian land and influence in the balkans; the rest of Italy spoil will come from France.
 
Irrilevant; Austria basically refused to give up Trentinto and some border adjustment in Friuli (with Italy paying for the territory and with border greatly favoring the Hapsburg military) and recognize italian control of Albania (at the moment the italian army occupied half of the nation) plus some other minot things in exchange for italian neutrality favoring the CP...and at the same time fullfilling art.7 of the CP treaty.
Giving up Trieste (the only real port of the Empire) and Trentino plus South Tyrol in exchange of some place that need to be pacified and nobody had a real interest in it, it's so out of the question to be ridicolous.

At max Wien will give up what promised for neutrality in OTL if Italy enter the war (after some pressure from Berlin) but Rome will need to forfeit any other claim towards austrian land and influence in the balkans; the rest of Italy spoil will come from France.

Correct. Trentino at least had an Italian plurality, that and some minor border adjustments would be the absolute maximum the Austrians would give. Bozen had no Italians (well, perhaps one or two running ice cream parlours and pizzarias :D ), and Triest was the main port of the entire monarchy. While Triest was plurality Italian, those Italians were quite loyal to Austria, because they ran an enormously lucrative port, but would become a decaying backwater if the area fell to Italy.

And the monarchy was completely uninterested in acquiring colonies, especially ones that were not pacified and couldn't be held against any enemy in case of war.
 
Base on some of the feedback, I've decided to rewrite part V. Part VI will cover some more of the history leading up to the war, and what Operation Ægir was.

Your new version of the Swedish invasion is perhaps more realistic in terms of the expected losses (assuming there is a sizable Russian force in/around Turku to defend Finland Proper), but still the sheer scale of the thing does not seem likely. Here, Sweden is throwing most of its military into a difficult and costly invasion of the Finnish mainland, and loses one fourth of the entire force, devastating losses for a small military. This is comparatively a lot worse than what the Allies suffered at Normandy, for example, and absolutely massive losses in terms of politics and morale. In absolute terms, this would be a lot more costly for Sweden than Gallipoli was for Britain. Another comparison: in the Continuation War, Finland had a military about the same size to the Swedish invasion force here. In the entire war 1941-44, Finland lost half the men Sweden lost here in one operation.

I think that if Sweden suffered such losses at this part of the war, it would cause a scandal back home, including demonstrations and calls for resignations for both political and military leaders. Despite taking Turku and the surroundings, and gaining a foothold in Finland, the costs involved would be seen as too heavy back home. Taking part in the war would be called a bloody, scandalous mistake by the political left on the basis of this battle alone.
 
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Ok, I have a few things to address:

1. I'm retracting Trieste from the agreement. It wouldn't make sense for the Austro-Hungarians to give up such an important port.

2. The losses in Turku were huge and will cause a huge problem back home. That will be addressed shortly.

3. The relationship between Britain and France is quite strained given their relationship with Russia and Serbia. Also, with France acting as the aggressor in Alsace, it was easier for Britain to not offer so much support.

4. With the British aware of the impending invasion of Belgium a week before it happened, the Germans found themselves at a crossroads, but when the French invaded Alsace, history changed in Germany's favor. In true military fashion (I'm a 10-year vet, so I know how some of these things work), the generals hemmed and hawed and didn't pass on any information until their hand was forced.

5. I'm thinking about when I complete this project to publish it as a pdf with each vignette followed by a brief historical explanation and overview. I've read quite a few Alternate Histories and that seems to work pretty well. Does anybody have any ideas on this? Thanks!
 
The Germans gambled by boosting their numbers for the Schlieffen plan and guarding the East a little more heavily leaving a much smaller contingent in Alsace. At the same time, the French gambled by throwing most of their weight at the relatively unprotected region and striking preemptively (August 2-3). Although they would take the region and dig in rather quickly, this proved to be in Germany's favor as they were able to avoid getting Britain involved, and they were able to better control the narrative thus garnering more support in Europe.
That doesn't really make sense. The Germans leave Alsace 'relatively unprotected' and then are surprised by the strength of the French attack? This is their only possible invasion route! Which they have prepared to defend for decades.
There's a reason the French offensive of OTL failed rather miserably. The German general staff would have to be composed of complete morons if it denuded Alsace much further than OTL - and they would have to denude it by a lot more in order to be overrun so completely that they actually lose the region within two days, provided that all other things stay the same. After all, in OTL the offensive was rebuffed without taxing the defending armies particularly hard.

The only thing that would realistically make sense is if there was not that much of a difference in troop numbers (which would be a critical idiot ball failure in planning), but instead some serious screw-ups by the rather less competent generals who might get assigned to the 'less important' front (which is a realistic danger to any military). Maybe compounded by some pre-war divergence which has the French use better doctrine or make better tactical decisions.

I think that if Sweden suffered such losses at this part of the war, it would cause a scandal back home, including demonstrations and calls for resignations for both political and military leaders. Despite taking Turku and the surroundings, and gaining a foothold in Finland, the costs involved would be seen as too heavy back home. Taking part in the war would be called a bloody, scandalous mistake by the political left on the basis of this battle alone.
Realistically, the Swedish military would be considered spent. They're essentially out of the war. With such losses, even if they received all the time in the world to rebuild, they could not hope to do another offensive for what... two years? This is a steeper hurdle to take than the already dangerously long build-up Britain had to do in order to improve its expeditionary armies into a credible offensive force.
 
Realistically, the Swedish military would be considered spent. They're essentially out of the war. With such losses, even if they received all the time in the world to rebuild, they could not hope to do another offensive for what... two years? This is a steeper hurdle to take than the already dangerously long build-up Britain had to do in order to improve its expeditionary armies into a credible offensive force.

Assuming the Swedish now stop their attack on the Finnish front and set up defensive positions around the Turku area to rebuild their numbers over the rest of 1914, the things in Finland ITTL could turn out to look something very much like in a little vignette I wrote some time ago...;)
 
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