Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-10975360-20131129121937/@comment-3428312-20141201024549

Lordganon wrote:

1. Be nice if you bothered to read the posts of others, GB.

2. A quick German victory over France means a short, small war. It would without question not be called "WWI." There is so many reasons why that war is called that that there is no possible way.

Fighting elsewhere in the globe? Irrelevant. Wars had been on that scale since the 1500s.

What matters far more is that it was a war on a scale never seen before, and that it was total war - a new thing. A short German win? Nothing of the sort.

3. You would see basically no changes from such a war. Probably the only thing that happens is the rest of Lorraine gets annexed, and some colonial borders are adjusted in German favor (in addition to Serbia getting screwed, but that is another matter) We are not talking about a war everyone is invested in, and ruined themselves over. The peace would be similar to those that had been the case before - small concessions. It is a loss, not a complete and utter defeat. There is MASSIVE difference.

4. Wrong about the 1918 Spring offensive. Only a small number of American divisions were even there, and they barely participated in any fighting, even along the Aisne, until after the German offensive had been halted. For all that their actions are covered in textbooks, you would think that they won the war, or stopped the attack. They did neither.

5. Foch wanted more men to hold the line. And it was his own troops that he wanted them to help, not the Brits.

6. No US troops in France merely means that the Germans get closer to Paris before being halted, and the war lasts into 1919 before the German leadership gives up. A people starving to death and completely out of manpower - i.e. WWI Germany - cannot fight for long.

7. Only chance that the Germans had to win was in the first few months, barring a Russian collapse in 1915 or so - when their otl 1918 offensive would have stood a better chance.

8. In such a version, Brits get the status quo. 1. I do read the previous posts, but just because they were posted before my entry into this thread does not make them correct if they are false.

2. I still have my doubts, but I'm willing to concede because the name of such a conflict is a rather irrelevant detail in the grand scheme of things.

3. So you expect this ATL Germany, which has seen its forces decisively beat the French as well as crushing a numerically larger Russian force at Tannenberg, to just go for a bit of Lorraine and maybe Dahoumey (For example)? That's ludicrous, and ignoring the actual works of the German Goverment at that time (The Septemberprogramm). Granted, a quick victory would mean the years of hate the OTL Great War built up would not be present, but to suggest Germany is just going to grab a few little pieces is completely unrealistic.

4. That's false, as was previously pointed out. You should re-read my post.

5. Except, you know, for the time he personally requested the AEF detach four divisions to be used to secure the British left flank at Amiens.

6. No US troops means the Entente war effort falls apart completely in 1918, possibly even in 1917 (No US entry at all insures an Entente collapse in 1917) The promise of fresh US troops is what helped end the French mutinies, and the arrival of more and more US forces into Europe along with poor logistics is what brought the Spring Offensive to an end.

7. False. With just a few PODs in 1916, the war could've easily ended in 1917. Heck, possibly even a few PODs in 1917 could've brought the war to an end then.

8. This I agree with, for a change.