Realistic length of TL-191 Great War?

[Saladan]

Now, one common criticism I tend to see and one I happen to share is that realistically, with all the resources the Central powers had at their disposal with just the US and Germany alone, the Entente should have realistically never lasted even till 1917.

But, regardless of my own opinion I'm curious as to what more knowledgeable minds might say. So realistically, how long do you think the first great war should have lasted?

And to get it out of the way, lets ignore the issue that realistically the thing never would have occurred (at least in a recognizable form) in the first place with a independent CSA.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

IMO the CSA should be knocked out by Spring of 1916 and Canada by the end of summer. In Europe France and Russia should be falling the same time.

Quite simply a German trained US army with two year conscription should have steamrollered the South hard in the early phases, chewed up the Souths reserves over 1915 and knocked them out in Spring of 1916, before turning on Canada

Likewise in Europe, with a weaker BEF the French should have been handled more roughly in the opening phases than OTL, and the Germans get farther. With british reinforcements reduced [no Canadians and some British going to canada] the French will be taking more casualties, while no US imports will mean France has to cut war production by 25%. Italy likely stays out when it realizes it will get no help from the Entente, so Austria does better against Russia in 1915. By 1916 France should be out of reserves and near mutiny and a big push should finish them and take Paris, while Russia will be in the situation of OTL 1917 due to less loans and imports. Italy should be thinking about dogpilng on the French by this point.

 

[Trotsky]

Not weighing in on either side of the argument here, but IIRC the British and Canadians both have had conscription for years.

 

[Abhakhazia]

I agree with the prediction that the C.S. could have been out by Spring 1916, but at the time they still held Washington D.C. and a good chunk of Maryland. Because of that, I'd say fall of 1916 is a better prediction.

The Red Rebellion probably should have taken more troops than it did to be crushed so quickly.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

I agree with the prediction that the C.S. could have been out by Spring 1916, but at the time they still held Washington D.C. and a good chunk of Maryland. Because of that, I'd say fall of 1916 is a better prediction.

The Red Rebellion probably should have taken more troops than it did to be crushed so quickly.

They shouldn't have taken that area in the first place, against prepared defenses and good doctrine, well look at the French offensive on Alsace Lorraine getting chewed up, given that the CS is France to the US Germany the results should be similar

 

[elkarlo]

IMO the CSA should be knocked out by Spring of 1916 and Canada by the end of summer. In Europe France and Russia should be falling the same time.

Quite simply a German trained US army with two year conscription should have steamrollered the South hard in the early phases, chewed up the Souths reserves over 1915 and knocked them out in Spring of 1916, before turning on Canada

Likewise in Europe, with a weaker BEF the French should have been handled more roughly in the opening phases than OTL, and the Germans get farther. With british reinforcements reduced [no Canadians and some British going to canada] the French will be taking more casualties, while no US imports will mean France has to cut war production by 25%. Italy likely stays out when it realizes it will get no help from the Entente, so Austria does better against Russia in 1915. By 1916 France should be out of reserves and near mutiny and a big push should finish them and take Paris, while Russia will be in the situation of OTL 1917 due to less loans and imports. Italy should be thinking about dogpilng on the French by this point.

This. France would have been more or less bankrupt without US loans by 1916. Russia was having troubles too, but may be able to hold on until late 1916.

The CSA being so badly outnumbered, unless they have great defensive tactics and the USA has terrible wasteful attacks, then the CSA is going to run out of steam by late 1915 imho.

 

[elkarlo]

I agree with the prediction that the C.S. could have been out by Spring 1916, but at the time they still held Washington D.C. and a good chunk of Maryland. Because of that, I'd say fall of 1916 is a better prediction.

The Red Rebellion probably should have taken more troops than it did to be crushed so quickly.

maybe the Red rebellion was poorly led and badly equipped? I don't see how they would be crushed so quickly unless they did got them selves into some stupid situations, and little in the way of anything that was heavy weaponry

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Canada should have been almost completely overrun within the first month — especially in the west. Twelve legions of angels with flaming swords and AK-47s couldn't defend that border. Not even in the era of trench warfare.

I can believe that Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Vancouver Island and a few places along the coast would hold out for a while as long as British supplies could get through, but there was simply no excuse for the U.S. to be slogging through barbed wire to get to Winnipeg instead of going around it.

 

[Superman]

It definitely shouldn't have taken too long. The Americans should've overrun the Canadians very early, and even with guerrilla insurgencies, the Confederates wouldn't have lasted much longer.

 

[Polish Eagle]

Between the US Navy and the German Navy, exactly how effectively could the Royal Navy keep supplies flowing into Great Britain? Germany was starving IOTL by the end of the war--since the US and Brazil are Central Powers, shouldn't Germany be rather better fed ITTL, and thus more effective? And shouldn't Britain, in turn, be suffering from prolonged convoy raiding by both Germany and the US?

 

[Saladan]

Between the US Navy and the German Navy, exactly how effectively could the Royal Navy keep supplies flowing into Great Britain? Germany was starving IOTL by the end of the war--since the US and Brazil are Central Powers, shouldn't Germany be rather better fed ITTL, and thus more effective? And shouldn't Britain, in turn, be suffering from prolonged convoy raiding by both Germany and the US?

And one reason why Germany was starving was because of the British blockade. So weaken that substantially and they'll be even better off.

 

[LHB]

maybe the Red rebellion was poorly led and badly equipped? I don't see how they would be crushed so quickly unless they did got them selves into some stupid situations, and little in the way of anything that was heavy weaponry

I had the impression they had very little, if any, heavy equipment since every passage dealing with the Red rebellion made a point of mentioning directly or indirectly the CS troops had artillery and the Reds didn't. That said I was surprised it took about as long for the CSA to crush the Reds as it did for the US to crush the Mormon rebellion; unless the US was doing it on the cheap and as minimally as possible while the CSA was throwing all they could possibly scrape up and then some to reign in the uprisings it wouldn't make sense for Utah to hold out as long as many of the Red enclaves did. If anything the implications of that suggest the CSA should have lost a LOT of ground from the rebellion just thanks to decreased troop strength on the front lines & supplies going to crushing the uprisings before even getting into the disruption caused by a mass uprising of the segment of the population that did all the shitwork. That should have ended with the US pushing the Confederacy out of DC & Maryland and crossing the Cumberland River, not the near-stalemate (except in Kentucky) that happened.

They shouldn't have taken that area in the first place, against prepared defenses and good doctrine, well look at the French offensive on Alsace Lorraine getting chewed up, given that the CS is France to the US Germany the results should be similar

That bugged me. I shudder to imagine how expensive forcing the Potomac in the face of Great War weaponry would have & should have been for the CSA.

 

[Craigo]

Between the US Navy and the German Navy, exactly how effectively could the Royal Navy keep supplies flowing into Great Britain? Germany was starving IOTL by the end of the war--since the US and Brazil are Central Powers, shouldn't Germany be rather better fed ITTL, and thus more effective? And shouldn't Britain, in turn, be suffering from prolonged convoy raiding by both Germany and the US?

Brazil didn't enter the war until the middle of 1917, if I remember right.

You're right on both counts. But the thing about blockades is that they're going to fall on the civilian population most heavily. The army and navy get what they need, and everybody else gets what's left. Once patriotic fervor wears off, you start to see mass protests and, if it goes on long enough, an uprising. But it's not going to have a quick, material effect on military performance.

 

[Tocomocho]

One that bothers me is how the war spreads to North America in the first place.

So Germany invades France and Britain jumps on Germany. Fine. Why does the CSA care? And what would it be able to do anyway?

Ship food, credit and guns to the Entente, send volunteers, be an asshole to CPs diplomacy and an Entente member in all but name but still neutral (this is Wilson after all)... still don't need declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary for that.

So they had an alliance. Big deal. Italy had one as well and didn't jump in a war it wasn't sure its benefits outweighted the costs.

It'd make more sense if the US, sensing that it was its opportunity to settle scores now that Britain and France are distracted, went to war with the CSA again - and only the CSA.

Or if the USA decided to jump on Britain in vengeance for the 2MW, and the British (then) appealed to the Confeds and these realized that if Canada fell they would be next, and complied.

Or the USA decided it was time to jump on Britain but its war plans dictated a pre-emptive invasion of the CSA, predicting that it would invade them in response to going to war with Canada anyway, and the paralel with Europe's war would be even closer to boot!

But what do we have? The CSA goes to war with Germany for nothing. In response, the USA goes to war with Canada and the CSA. Wilson predicted that, but did it anyway.

-

For the war proper, I agree that the USA should have cut Canada in two fairly early, then we could bring all kind of excuses to justify why Canada doesn't break - the USA gets bogged down in mountains/rivers/lakes/taiga forests, commits more forces to the southern front, Canadians have greater fighting spirit, American generals screw it up, Japanese and Russians send enough reinforcements to hold BC's defenses, whatever. But going by geography alone, the Americans would be in Edmonton before Ottawa knew it. Maybe Roosevelt preferred to invest all the money in other objectives and there were only small underequiped armies in the long border told to defend their border forts only, I don't know.

 

[Dirk_Pitt]

One that bothers me is how the war spreads to North America in the first place.

So Germany invades France and Britain jumps on Germany. Fine. Why does the CSA care? And what would it be able to do anyway?

Ship food, credit and guns to the Entente, send volunteers, be an asshole to CPs diplomacy and an Entente member in all but name but still neutral (this is Wilson after all)... still don't need declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary for that.

So they had an alliance. Big deal. Italy had one as well and didn't jump in a war it wasn't sure its benefits outweighted the costs.

It'd make more sense if the US, sensing that it was its opportunity to settle scores now that Britain and France are distracted, went to war with the CSA again - and only the CSA.

Or if the USA decided to jump on Britain in vengeance for the 2MW, and the British (then) appealed to the Confeds and these realized that if Canada fell they would be next, and complied.

Or the USA decided it was time to jump on Britain but its war plans dictated a pre-emptive invasion of the CSA, predicting that it would invade them in response to going to war with Canada anyway, and the paralel with Europe's war would be even closer to boot!

But what do we have? The CSA goes to war with Germany for nothing. In response, the USA goes to war with Canada and the CSA. Wilson predicted that, but did it anyway.

-

For the war proper, I agree that the USA should have cut Canada in two fairly early, then we could bring all kind of excuses to justify why Canada doesn't break - the USA gets bogged down in mountains/rivers/lakes/taiga forests, commits more forces to the southern front, Canadians have greater fighting spirit, American generals screw it up, Japanese and Russians send enough reinforcements to hold BC's defenses, whatever. But going by geography alone, the Americans would be in Edmonton before Ottawa knew it. Maybe Roosevelt preferred to invest all the money in other objectives and there were only small underequiped armies in the long border told to defend their border forts only, I don't know.

But Roosevelt, going back to How Few Remain, clearly had a score to settle with Canada. Why wouldn't he go whole hog into Canada?

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Or maybe turtledove is a no talent hack who never let logic or believability get in the way of wfiting his dreck.

More specifically, the Alt-WW1 and WW2 are basically 1861-63 and 1863-65 in a near-replica of teh actual Civil War. Turtledove has had a bad habit of just repeating actual history in his novels lately

the MArching Through Peachtree series is Chicamauga to Atlanta, just with directions changed, nobility titles and some clever namechanges. Nothing else from OTL really changes

Into Darknes is WW2 with magic wands -- the broad strokes of teh war are the same

Timeline 191 redoes the actual civil war, just bloodier and over 1914-1945 instead of 1861-65

Atlantis has the same pathway of American Independenc, just 200 years earlier

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Or maybe turtledove is a no talent hack who never let logic or believability get in the way of wfiting his dreck.

He's got talent, his short stories are great, his older fantasy is good, and he writes the occasional good single book

His long AH series aren't that good, but he had kids to put through school, though his recent stuff has no excuse

 

[Darth Invictus]

I can see the German colonies suffering more if the Entente encourage a policy of 'whoever gets them in the war keeps them' so Japan in particular goes after German holdings like German New Guinea and the German pacific islands

But I'm having a real issue seeing how the UK can hold on without the food and other supplies from America, not just food but everything else imported from the colonials. Canada is screwed unless it can keep getting supplies from China and Japan via the Pacific (and that route is insanely long) coast of British Colombia

The only hope the Entente has if if they attack first in North America with the CSA and Canada advancing as far as they can into US territory before digging in somewhere in New York State, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kansas and New Mexico. Then it's the USA whose on the back foot and having to rearrange supply routes, transportation routes, etc. And get the Empire of Mexico on side to push up from Baja into California

The real problem for the USA was the Deseret Rebellion, that dragged the war our far longer than it should've by redirecting UIS forces from grinding the CSA and Canada into the dirt. Realistically the Entente should've been done by late 1916, early 1917


Actually it may have been far earlier if the BEF is depleted enough to allow the Germans to smash through them and get the channel ports