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Alternate World War

Venocara

God Save the King.
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How could a World War with all of the following features be achieved:

  • Complete Ottoman defeat by December 1916
  • Complete Romanian defeat by December 1917
  • German victory on the Western and East African fronts by November 1918 (assume the Americans will never truly enter the war, but the threat remains)
  • German victory on the Eastern front by January 1918 without an October Revolution
  • Austro-Hungarian victory on the Italian front by November 1918
The Alliances must be the same as OTL except for Bulgaria, who can be on either side. The POD must be no earlier than August 1914.

All helpful responses welcome.
 
I don't really see a way that gets all of that down. If say the Ottomans are defeated by a successful Gallipoli Romanian and Russian defeat becomes considerably more difficult especially on such a neat time frame. Furthermore Anglo-French Resources that otherwise would have gone to the drag out war against the Turks could make an Austro-Hungarian victory in Italy considerably harder considering the only real chance was Caporetto and that was due to the fact that the Anglo-Americans were spread thin and unable to back the Italians; here that becomes a much harder turn.

That said, if you're interested in writing a story in such a setting, go for it. You don't have to show all the sausage making if its for the sake of a story.
 
I don't really see a way that gets all of that down. If say the Ottomans are defeated by a successful Gallipoli Romanian and Russian defeat becomes considerably more difficult especially on such a neat time frame. Furthermore Anglo-French Resources that otherwise would have gone to the drag out war against the Turks could make an Austro-Hungarian victory in Italy considerably harder considering the only real chance was Caporetto and that was due to the fact that the Anglo-Americans were spread thin and unable to back the Italians; here that becomes a much harder turn.

What if the Provisional Government of Russia requests a peace with Germany after the February Revolution to prevent the total collapse of the Empire? Furthermore, the Italians would receive no help from the Americans in 1918 in the aftermath of Caporetto, so could this tip the balance in the Austro-Hungarians favour?

That said, if you're interested in writing a story in such a setting, go for it. You don't have to show all the sausage making if its for the sake of a story.

The problem is that it has to be plausible.
 
What if the Provisional Government of Russia requests a peace with Germany after the February Revolution to prevent the total collapse of the Empire? Furthermore, the Italians would receive no help from the Americans in 1918 in the aftermath of Caporetto, so could this tip the balance in the Austro-Hungarians favour?

Expecting a February Revolution after an exceptionally early Ottoman defeat is a mistake IMO. If Russia is reconnected to the Allies then the situation changes drastically, which could do anything from an early revolution to the triumph of the Czar. And Italy received more aid from France and Britain then it did the US so American neutrality isn't going to outweigh extra British and French Empire forces on hand.

The problem is that it has to be plausible.
No, it just has to be a good story. If we're going to be completely honest about it the need for maximum plausibility has lead to some truly terrible stories and things that are less then stories in the community. If you write the story and it comes with a barebones outline it can be a great read. And telling that story is more important then if the math fully checks out.
 
Expecting a February Revolution after an exceptionally early Ottoman defeat is a mistake IMO. If Russia is reconnected to the Allies then the situation changes drastically, which could do anything from an early revolution to the triumph of the Czar. And Italy received more aid from France and Britain then it did the US so American neutrality isn't going to outweigh extra British and French Empire forces on hand.

Hmmm. Could a worse French army mutiny in 1917, compiled with a second one in early 1918 when it becomes clear that the Americans are in fact not coming make a difference? And how long could the Russians hold out after the defeat of the Ottomans? Could it delay the Revolution until the actual German victory, or even until the 1920s?

No, it just has to be a good story. If we're going to be completely honest about it the need for maximum plausibility has lead to some truly terrible stories and things that are less then stories in the community. If you write the story and it comes with a barebones outline it can be a great read. And telling that story is more important then if the math fully checks out.

I understand this, but I would like it to be plausible so that no-one can attack me for it not being so. The story itself actually begins shortly before the War but with very little changes until it happens.
 
I understand this, but I would like it to be plausible so that no-one can attack me for it not being so.
This is something I've run up against in the past, and it's an issue with what I call "semi-soft AH" (hard being plausible with strict butterfly effect, soft being TL-191 parallelism and handwaving).

The way I figure it, if you want to construct a scenario with specific end goals in mind, that requires contrivances to at least some degree, as setting up the particular set of starting conditions one wants will mean the different decisions made which achieve a divergence from OTL may not necessarily be the most plausible - as noted above, the Russian Revolution is unlikely to fire in the same way with an Ottoman defeat in 1916.

This is where story becomes important. Fiction requires from the reader a willing suspension of disbelief [1], with the writer having the challenge of making the story and characters engrossing enough that the reader doesn't mind the contrivances in the background that allowed the events of the story to take place.

A good example of this, to my mind, is @David Flin 's Nor Shall My Sword sequence. The "WWI doesn't happen" premise is just background against which the events unfold. Thanks to good storytelling and interesting characters, the specifics of that background don't matter.


[1] in the looser sense of accepting the realness of character and setting, not Coleridge's original supernatural definition. Nor the Blackadder definition of staring in disbelief at someone's willie suspension.
 
This is something I've run up against in the past, and it's an issue with what I call "semi-soft AH" (hard being plausible with strict butterfly effect, soft being TL-191 parallelism and handwaving).

The way I figure it, if you want to construct a scenario with specific end goals in mind, that requires contrivances to at least some degree, as setting up the particular set of starting conditions one wants will mean the different decisions made which achieve a divergence from OTL may not necessarily be the most plausible - as noted above, the Russian Revolution is unlikely to fire in the same way with an Ottoman defeat in 1916.

This is where story becomes important. Fiction requires from the reader a willing suspension of disbelief [1], with the writer having the challenge of making the story and characters engrossing enough that the reader doesn't mind the contrivances in the background that allowed the events of the story to take place.

A good example of this, to my mind, is @David Flin 's Nor Shall My Sword sequence. The "WWI doesn't happen" premise is just background against which the events unfold. Thanks to good storytelling and interesting characters, the specifics of that background don't matter.


[1] in the looser sense of accepting the realness of character and setting, not Coleridge's original supernatural definition. Nor the Blackadder definition of staring in disbelief at someone's willie suspension.

I understand this. The thing is though, all the timelines I have planned are either of the Decades of Darkness kind (spread over a long period of time with interludes focusing on characters) or of the Twilight's Last Gleaming kind (focus on characters, but a short time after the POD) which means that inevitably diverged events will receive quite a bit of mention (as they are quite central to the plot). This means if the setting isn't plausible, people will notice and the story will begin to unravel.
 
I understand this. The thing is though, all the timelines I have planned are either of the Decades of Darkness kind (spread over a long period of time with interludes focusing on characters) or of the Twilight's Last Gleaming kind (focus on characters, but a short time after the POD) which means that inevitably diverged events will receive quite a bit of mention (as they are quite central to the plot). This means if the setting isn't plausible, people will notice and the story will begin to unravel.
Fair - Jared is on the site, he might be able to advise you on how he handled it in DoD.
 
Okay, how would the Eastern Front be impacted by the defeat of the Ottomans in 1916? And how could the German Spring Offensive of 1918 be executed in a successful way, especially considering the lack of American troops (kept away from the battlefield using creative measures)
 
Okay, how would the Eastern Front be impacted by the defeat of the Ottomans in 1916? And how could the German Spring Offensive of 1918 be executed in a successful way, especially considering the lack of American troops (kept away from the battlefield using creative measures)
The Russian Army would actually get supplies. And helmets.

As such it's unlikely the Spring offensive could even be launched as it, and the Italian Offensive entirely depended on the transfer of Eastern Front forces Westward.
 
The Russian Army would actually get supplies. And helmets.

As such it's unlikely the Spring offensive could even be launched as it, and the Italian Offensive entirely depended on the transfer of Eastern Front forces Westward.

So would the Ottoman defeat prevent the Russian collapse entirely or merely delay it? And what effect would this have on the Russian Empire's home front?
 
Well, yes, but the issue wasn't the getting of the supplies, but getting said supplies to the people who needed them. The logistic support was, well, the phrase totally inadequate springs to mind. If we posit the Ottoman Empire falling out of the war in 1916 (and without going into the consequences for the Middle East), a number of things happen.

Firstly, those forces that had been busy in out there are now no longer busy. Austria-Hungary, already struggling, finds that the Russian armies are not distracted with a Georgia campaign, that the Entente now has serious amounts of force to put in to Salonika, and the Balkans becomes a nightmare for Austria-Hungary.

That places Germany into the position of having to choose between letting A-H go hang, or supporting it. It really can't spare the forces from either the Western or Eastern Front. Supplies of food are getting critically low (OTL, this was the point where the German agriculture and especially food distribution started to collapse, and starvation is starting to become a factor. We've got the Turnip Winter ahead of us, and things are looking grim).

Germany is bleeding 35-40K troops a month at Verdun alone, and getting nowhere and achieving sod all other than getting into a war of attrition with an enemy with far greater manpower reserves. Germany can draw troops away from the Western front to prop up the Balkans. That weakens the Western Front to dangerously thin levels - maybe one of the big pushes actually holds in this situation. Or it can draw troops from the Eastern front, relieving the pressure on Russia, and possibly doing enough to circumvent the Revolution. Or it can ignore the Balkan problem, and find itself fighting on yet another front once AH goes belly-up.

Ok, so what would it take for the Germans to win on both the Western and Eastern Fronts?
 
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By 1916, Germany was screwed anyway. The blockade was starting to bite big time. Starvation was building up in the cities (and this is going to get worse come the collapse of the harvest and the Turnip Winter). Supply shortages were already biting. It's got a manpower deficit - Britain and France have extensive Empires to call on, and attrition was hurting.

Industrial output in Germany was declining, and things were in a desperate situation.

OTL, Germany couldn't win both Western and Eastern Fronts. If it is having to prop up the Balkans as well, it is going to be weaker on either Western or Eastern or both. If it doesn't prop up AH in the Balkans, then AH collapses before mid 1917, and Germany is now fighting on the Eastern and Western and Southern fronts. It's cut off from grain supplies, making starvation even worse in the cities, but that's all right, because the transport infrastructure is screwed anyway, so it can't distribute the food it doesn't have anyway.

Collapsing the Ottomans means that Germany is going to be in a worse position, which means that getting a German victory on both the Western and Eastern fronts is in the realms of either fantasy or German Military Planning.

Couldn't Germany do what it nearly succeeded in doing in OTL: wait for the Eastern Front to collapse (as it still could have, the problems in Russia were still there) and then transport those troops over to the Western Front, conduct a successful Spring Offensive and win the war?
 
If the Ottoman Empire collapses and falls out of the war, which was the original posit, then it's uncertain that the Eastern Front is going to collapse. At the very least, the Eastern Front isn't going to collapse as quickly, which means that the window of opportunity (such as it was) pretty much disappears.

That presupposes that a Spring Offensive could be pushed to the point of winning the war. That's at best highly unlikely. As was proven time after time after blood-soaked time, maintaining momentum of an offensive was not exactly easy, and the German logistical follow-on support for the Spring Offensive, well, the word contemptibly small springs to mind.

I was under the impression that the Spring Offensive could have been successful if Amiens was captured, but I don't know.

Remember the situation that applied at the time. German troops were sending food parcels home from the front lines because their families at home were starving. Saxon and Bavarian regiments (among others) were shooting on Prussian regiments.

I wasn't aware that the situation was this bad...

If you want to write a TL in which the Ottoman Empire collapses, and the German Army somehow does even better than was physically possible in OTL, then go ahead. At this point, I bow to your greater knowledge of the period.

I've never claimed to have greater knowledge of the period than anyone. I'm just trying to have a discussion so I know what is plausible and what is not. I want to learn from others.
 
And then what? Does this end the war? No. Does it split the defences? No. Does it alleviate Germany's supply problems? No. Does it produce casualty lists that make France and Britain decide enough is enough? Probably not.

Does it enable Germany to hold Amiens in the face of counter-attack? Probably not - Germany can't supply and reinforce as quickly as the French and British can, and the French and British have more men and much more equipment to throw into yet another meat grinder.

Fair enough.

Had been since Verdun. The German Trench Newspaper Die Sappe is a fascinating read. In 1915, it's all optimism. In 1916, it's more cautious. By late 1916, it's "let's hope we're still alive when this is all over". By 1917, everyone was blaming the Prussians for dragging the war on. I cover a lot of this ground in the articles on the SLP blog. Simply put, the Saxons and the Prussians were pretty much at war with each other by the end of 1917. Saxons would warn British troops of time and location of planned Prussian trench raids. It's a mistake that's easily made to view the German Army as a single entity. It wasn't, not by a long shot, anymore than the British Army was a single entity, rather than a collection of Aussies and Canadians and Indians and South Africans and West Indians and New Zealanders and Newfoundlanders and countless others.

I would love to read more on this. Could I please have the links for your articles?

If I'm honest, you've been coming across to me as constantly asking for people to present the information to get the outcome you want, and when it doesn't tie in, getting querulous. There comes a point when it's worth doing ones own research; there's an awful lot to cover, and it's just more satisfying to dig through and find out rather than asking a constant stream of questions probing around a single point.

I'm very sorry if I've come across this way, but you have motivated me to do some more reading to find another way. I really don't want to sound petulant in any way, I just want discussion.

In this case: OTL, Germany couldn't win both Eastern and Western front. The default option is, if you make things harder for them by having the Ottoman Empire collapse earlier, it is unlikely Germany will end up doing better as a result. The probability is that it will do worse.

If the Ottoman Empire falls, then Austria-Hungary won't be far behind. Once AH falls, it's Germany against the rest of the world. That's probably not going to end well for the chaps with the pointed helmets.

If you want a Central Powers victory that hasn't come before the Leaves Have Fallen, and if you want it plausible, then you really need to look at a way of getting one of Britain, France, or Russia out of the war quite early. If you don't, then weight of metal will probably tell in the end.

OK. Could this series of events be plausible (even with the defeat of the Ottomans in 1916):


  • The Bulgarians join the war in 1914 due to better German/Austrian diplomacy.
  • The Italians stay neutral rather than join the war in 1915 (what could motivate them to do so, I don't know. Maybe a different prime minister of Italy or a lack of Sir Edward Grey?)
  • The Battle of Kolubara is a decisive Austro-Hungarian victory rather than Serbian, knocking them out of the war for early 1915, freeing up more troops.
  • General Brusilov dies in 1915 before he can implement his offensive, as a result the Romanians don't join the war.
  • All of this allows an Operation Faustschlag in the spring of 1916 rather than 1918 in OTL, which either triggers revolution or forces the Russians out of the war.
  • This allows the Germans to transfer their troops over to the Western Front in 1916 before the situation truly got dire, allowing for some sort of victory by 1917.
I don't know if this is plausible or not though, what do you think?
 
Have you considered a negotiated peace, or the Ottoman empire deciding to stay out of the war in the first place? Both might be quite plausible options? The Ottomans getting their Dreadnoughts (or at least one) would avoid giving them a immediate reason to go to war. Or Greece could join the Central Powers, instead of the Entente and the Ottomans could join the Entente for some revenge.
 
The first 21 articles can be found here.

I pick out a range of subjects, from trench newspapers through shellshock and conscientious objectors to strategic aspects such as could the war have been delayed or start early. It's on ongoing series, each looking at a very specific aspect of the war.

Thank you for this. I will read them all.

Have you considered a negotiated peace, or the Ottoman empire deciding to stay out of the war in the first place? Both might be quite plausible options? The Ottomans getting their Dreadnoughts (or at least one) would avoid giving them a immediate reason to go to war. Or Greece could join the Central Powers, instead of the Entente and the Ottomans could join the Entente for some revenge.

OK. Could this series of events be plausible (even with the defeat of the Ottomans in 1916); I added some extras from yesterday:
  • The Italians stay neutral rather than join the war in 1915 (on the 13th May 1915, the Prime Minister of Italy [Antonio Salandra] offered to make way for Giovanni Giolitti, who was pro-neutrality along with most of the Italian Parliament. If he accepts in TTL, this could keep Italy out of the war)
  • The Battle of Kolubara is a decisive Austro-Hungarian victory (due to some better Austrian decision making early in the battle) rather than Serbian, encouraging Bulgaria to join the Central Powers earlier, leading to the defeat of Serbia for early 1915, freeing up more troops.
  • General Brusilov dies in 1915 before he can implement his offensive, as a result the Romanians don't join the war.
  • All of this allows an Operation Faustschlag in the spring of 1916 rather than 1918 in OTL, which either triggers revolution or forces the Russians out of the war.
  • This allows the Germans to transfer their troops over to the Western Front in 1916 before the situation truly got dire, allowing for some sort of victory by 1917.
I don't know if this is plausible or not though, what do you think?

Do you think that either of these scenarios are plausible?
 
Austrian diplomacy of the period was less than perfect. If it was possible for Austria-Hungary to make the worst of a situation, it did so, and then added on additional blunders no-one even dreamed possible. One can change AH diplomatic skills, and any change would be an improvement for the Central Powers.



Italy had an agreement with both the Entente and the Central Powers. It went with the Entente because it was, to use a technical term, totally pissed off with AH crapping on agreements with a merry laugh. If you want to switch Italy's role, look to AH.

I think I can make changes here.


Decisive victory. Austro-Hungarian Army. This is the AH Army that made the Russian Army look organised and efficient, with arguably the worst collection of generals in WWI, an under-equipped, poorly trained, badly motivated army with dreadful officers (promotion by assassination was accepted practice) and untrustworthy troops riven with ethnic divides. That's an army that isn't going to win any decisive victory anywhere against any opponent.

There may be a touch of hyperbole there, but the Austro-Hungarian Army was, to use a technical term, complete crap.

I read this on Wikipedia about the Battle of Kolubara:

The Austro-Hungarians reached the Kolubara on 16 November and launched an assault against Serbian defensive positions there the following day. The Serbs managed to force the Austro-Hungarians back and over the course of the next five days, the two armies fought a series of battles under heavy rain and snowfall. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, with a large number of soldiers succumbing to frostbite and hypothermia.[29]

The Austro-Hungarian assault began at Lazarevac, a strategically located town just south of Belgrade whose capture would have given them access to the Mladenovac railway line and the ability to outflank the Serbian forces holding the road to Belgrade. Further south, the Austro-Hungarians attacked the Serbian 1st Army. During this assault, they made the mistake of attacking its stronger right flank and were met with determined Serbian resistance which prevented them from gaining any ground. Military historian David Jordan notes that had the Austro-Hungarians attacked the junction splitting the 1st and Užice armies, they might have been able to split the Serbs down the centre and gotten hold of an unimpeded passage to the Morava River. The Serbian 1st Army was quick to reinforce its left flank, realizing that any subsequent attack against it would be far less easy to repel.

What this means, I don't know, but could it potentially be a way for them to win the battle? Or, if the Bulgarians are gotten into the war beforehand, could they help?

Not a problem. Who he is replaced with would be worth following up.

Apparently his replacement would be a man called Aleksei Gutor. I don't know anything about the man's competence though because his Wikipedia page is light, but I think it's safe to assume that he won't be as good as Brusilov.

Not so much. The Russians need to be degraded to the point of effective non-existence. There's more space and more room for movement on the East compared to the West, but forcing Russia out in 1916, that's a tough ask.

Is it possible for the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive to go better than OTL, or for the Great Retreat to turn into a Great Collapse of the Russian Army? And has a peace faction arisen in the Russian government in the aftermath of the offensive?

We'll wave a magic wand, and assume that Germany can defend the Eastern Front with a single German soldier, and that they have no need to commit anyone to the Balkans. We'll assume that every soldier, every bullet, every turnip, everything can go to the Western Front in 1916.

They have two options. They can sit and wait for an attack, in which case they achieve nothing different to OTL. They successfully hold off attacks, and attrition takes its toll on both sides, and 1916 becomes 1917, and there is nothing different to OTL.

Or they launch an attack of their own. For details, see Verdun. It's the Somme, going in the other direction, and the factors that led to attacks failing apply equally here. More so; the British and French have shorter supply lines, greater combined industrial output, and far more lavish supplies of artillery.

If one starts to apply the tactics of 1918 to 1916, the question comes: Where did the Germans learn these tactics? The tactics adopted in 1918 came about precisely because of the lessons learned in 1916 and 1917 (and that applied to the British and French as much as the Germans).

I've done a bit of fooling around with the Great War. Others may well differ, but I'm pretty much of the view that after 10 September, 1914, there's no real way to get a plausible Central Powers victory. You can fiddle around with the details of the butcher's bill and the timescales, but the end result looks pretty much the same. Of course, OTL is littered with implausible results, so you shouldn't let that be the last word. OTL has the advantage that reality doesn't need to be plausible. I've been involved in enough implausible history to be able to verify that.

Would they need to do anything in the Balkans if Serbia is gone by early 1915 and if Greece, Italy and Romania never enter the war?

Let's say the Entente attack in 1916 (I'm thinking of the Somme). Could this go worse for the Entente, in such a way that a 1917 German offensive with all of those Eastern troops, teamed with a French army mutiny, is successful enough to force an end to the war?
 
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