WW1 Alt History Help

[Revy]

I recently finished writing an alternate history novel set in 1923, and while I'm getting it proof read and then trying to get it published, I want to start work on a prequel set about ten years earlier, but in the same alternate history setting I created.

I want this prequel to involve the events leading up to the start of the first world war, but as alternate history, I want to narrowly avert the war. Does anyone know how the first world war could actually have been prevented? By that I don't just mean if major political figures decided to avoid conflict, but how one or more individuals - upon learning that events are heading towards a massive war - could stop war breaking out?

To complicate matters, there are a couple of divergence points in my alternate history setting that make it harder for me to work out what would happen. The major one is that in my alt history, Japan (owing to different leadership) allied with Russia rather than fighting it, and together they took down an internally weakened China. The alliance between Japan and Russia continued after this, and they became a major influence of the time.

There are a couple of others, but I don't think they're as important or likely to influence the issue.

So my main pleas for help and info are:
* How could one or more people have prevented WW1 from breaking out?
* How would my divergence point affect the politics of the time and the run up to the war?

Sorry if this is the wrong place, and thanks in advance for any help.

[Simon_Jester]

I recently finished writing an alternate history novel set in 1923, and while I'm getting it proof read and then trying to get it published, I want to start work on a prequel set about ten years earlier, but in the same alternate history setting I created.

I want this prequel to involve the events leading up to the start of the first world war, but as alternate history, I want to narrowly avert the war. Does anyone know how the first world war could actually have been prevented? By that I don't just mean if major political figures decided to avoid conflict, but how one or more individuals - upon learning that events are heading towards a massive war - could stop war breaking out?

It's... difficult. Big wars don't start for small reasons; all the major combatants in WWI had logical reasons to fight each other, even if they wouldn't have agreed to pay the price they wound up paying.

It would help a bit if you told us what kind of fore-knowledge you're talking about. I mean, if we could give all the senior political figures in Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire a precognitive flash of what their countries would look like in 1920 if they touched off a war, that would probably kill the war quite effectively; Tsar Nicholas II wouldn't want to sacrifice his throne and his family, the Austro-Hungarians wouldn't want to watch their empire dissolve before their eyes, and the Germans wouldn't want their nation to become an abridged, despised, impoverished pariah.

But that involves hundreds or thousands of people all over central Europe suddenly having visions, which may be a lot more extreme than what you have in mind.

To complicate matters, there are a couple of divergence points in my alternate history setting that make it harder for me to work out what would happen. The major one is that in my alt history, Japan (owing to different leadership) allied with Russia rather than fighting it, and together they took down an internally weakened China. The alliance between Japan and Russia continued after this, and they became a major influence of the time.

I'm not sure how critically this would influence events circa 1912-1920. Remember that historically Japan wound up on the Allied side of WWI anyway, due to their close relationship with Britain; they didn't really contribute all that much because they were so far away from the key theaters of the war.

Without the Russo-Japanese War and its aftermath, Tsarist Russia might be marginally more politically stable, but that wouldn't change much.

Russo-Japanese expansionism in China might antagonize the other European powers, possibly breaking up the Entente powers (or preventing the Entente from ever forming). If the split between Britain/France and Russia got wide enough (this would probably require clashes with them in China, like the Agadir Crisis with Germany)...

...In that case, I can at least vaguely imagine "preventing" World War One by turning it into a regional Central European conflict that the French and British stayed out of. Serbs engage in various asinine behavior as historical, provoke crisis in the Balkans, Russia makes big bearish growling noises at the Austro-Hungarian Empire when they respond, but if there's a war, it's a limited one that peters out after the Russians realize they're diplomatically isolated and that the full weight of the Central Powers is concentrated against them.

But it would be strongly against Anglo-French interests to allow this to happen, no matter what happens in China, because this would leave Germany with a nearly uncontested position of prominence on the Continent. Not good.

[LaCroix]

Foil the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This would take the immediate reason away.

Foiling that attempt would be really easy. Just make the driver drive home after the first attempt had failed. Or postpone the convoy until the needed military units could be brought in for additional security.

Then you need some cool minds to soothe the secession attempts by Serbia. Serbia would have to stay with Austria, maybe with some concessions or two. The problem is that if Austria would allow Serbia to secede, it would open the door for mass secession and a complete unravelling of the Monarchy, which would probably lead to a delayed start of WWI.

Allying Russia with japan and plotting to attack china would actually help this, because if they can go after China instead, they might not offer help to Serbia, and without that offer, Serbia would be much more docile. They probably would accept article 6 without amend, or Austria would agree to the slight amendment, as they don't have a death prince to rile them (for a given quantity of "rile", most weren't that unhappy that he had died)

Basically, having Russia busy would go a long way into preventing the war (As France only got into the fray when Russia and Germany got it on, and the Germans moving through Belgium enraged the British enough to make them join. *Simple version*)

[Revy]

Foil the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This would take the immediate reason away.

This is what I had in mind. I read somewhere that his assassination was sponsored or set up by a Serbian terrorist group called the Black Hand. I was hoping to include that aspect, perhaps play it up into a semi-conspiracy, and have the main characters discover the plot and then eventually thwart it.

I'm not set on having rock hard historical plausibility (my first story had quite a bit of silliness in it) but I do want the events to be recognizable enough to people. Since it's alternate history, I can also play about with historical events prior to the time in question if that'd help.

If the successful assassination was thwarted though, would the people responsible try again?

[Simon_Jester]

Foil the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This would take the immediate reason away.

This is what I had in mind. I read somewhere that his assassination was sponsored or set up by a Serbian terrorist group called the Black Hand. I was hoping to include that aspect, perhaps play it up into a semi-conspiracy, and have the main characters discover the plot and then eventually thwart it.

Well, the attempt was kind of a cluster-fuck.

The Black Hand had a bunch of guys (trained and equipped by Serbian agents) ready to kill him as his motorcade drove around. The assassins were concentrated along the route of the motorcade. Some guys didn't do anything. One guy threw a bomb at him, missed, and managed to blow up a nearby police car, injuring the occupants. Said bomb-thrower then attempted to commit suicide by taking a poison pill and jumping into the river, but the poison pill made him throw up and the river was only five inches deep, so that didn't work out.

Gavrilo Princip only nailed the Archduke after some further comedy-of-errors resulting from the Archduke wanting to visit the injured policemen in the hospital and his driver getting lost, resulting confusion and the Archduke's car stalling right in front of the shop where Gavrilo (who had said "fuck this" after the bomb debacle) happened to be eating a sandwich.

It would not have been difficult to disrupt this chain of events enough to prevent the assassination. Indeed, you could probably come up with a number of ways to do so without breaking the comic-silliness theme of the novel.

If the successful assassination was thwarted though, would the people responsible try again?

I doubt they'd get such a good opportunity in the near future. The Black Hand were a local terrorist group: Bosnian secessionists. They didn't pose much of a threat to the Archduke or anyone else who stayed home in Austria.

[LaCroix]

The 'successful' assassination was a series of blunders and mishaps on both sides. Simon beat me to it...

Would there be a second?
No.
Franz Ferdinand shouldn't have been there, period. The plot was a spur of the moment thing that only happened because he went there. Also, there was nearly no police at hand. Even more unbelievable, after Ferdinand himself punched away a thrown bomb, which subsequently injured and killed a lot of people, they continued their tour. At least one assassin didn't throw his bomb, and the fatal shooting only occurred because the prince's car stopped right next to another one of the assassins.

So, unless FF has a death wish and returns to Sarajevo for a second time, there would be no repeat.

Also, the incident was only a facade for the real reasons. you need to deal with the secession, or else all will go down the drain. Giving Russia a bigger chew toy in the form of China might be the key to make it believable. Make Sarajevo plea to Moskau for help, but getting a polite 'Njet, we're too busy right now' as sole response. Let diplomats handle the incident less bluntly, and the world should postpone the war starting in that area for a decade or so.

Complete avoidance is unlikely, though.

With Russia and Japan gang-raping China, sooner or later France and Britain would have to intervene to protect their interest, while still keeping an eye on Prussia, just in case. So a (limited) war in the pacific colonies is more likely to break out soon, which might be containable, as no 'big power' homeland would be in direct danger (German/KuK empires forming a buffer between Russia and France/Britain. Either attacking that buffer would decrease their own chances.)

That war might soothe the war-hungry minds enough to keep the big one away for a few more years, but at some point, Germany and KuK will come down on a side. (Most probably against Russia, as their interest laid in the Baltic areas.)

Edit:
So basically, you'll have and 'All against the Zar!' war, where Russia soon will fall due to the same reasons as in the original time line, Germany and the Kuk will gain a bit territory in eastern Europe and further their influence, Britain will get a bigger chunk of China, while France also gets some new flower beds there... Japan will get thrown out of China and probably get completely isolated, as I doubt anyone would try invade them. So you have a few years moderate war action, and in 1914 or 15, everything is well again...

[Revy]

Ehh, okay, that's quite a lot. Most of this is going over my head.

The Russian/Japanese Alliance taking over China wasn't meant to occur during the events of this prequel story (1913/1914). When I wrote my first story, I had the general notion that Japan and Russia allied around about the time of the first Sino-Japanese war (late 1800's) and took over China then, and their position was solidified by 1913. I made no mention of Britain/France moving against them by the 1923 period of my first story. Rewriting that would mess things up for the story already finished.

Could I make the assassination more of a threat / more dramatic if I had Russia (or a Russian faction) lend aid to the Black Hand, so the assassination attempt is made more competently? And if so, would it be better or worse if their involvement in the assassination attempt was made known?

I should also point out that the main characters of the story are German, if that changes anything.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, you've got a problematic objective here if you want no war in Europe. There were simply too many conflicting interests, too many large armed nations in close proximity, for the whole thing to be resolved with no bloodshed.

If you're just interested in "foil the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand," you can write that story readily enough; just do some background research into the assassination plot and have it get foiled in one of the many, many ways the whole thing could have failed entirely. You can then use this (plus other butterfly effects) to justify no major wars fought in Europe.

[Revy]

I don't mind some bloodshed, I just want to avoid an all-out global war where one conflict snowballs into everyone piling in. I could ditch the idea of stopping the assassination and instead have the characters work on damage control, manipulating some other element in order to prevent the inevitable conflict from spreading out and expanding - basically contain the resultant outfall of the assassination so it only creates a smaller conflict rather than the Great War.

So if you view the whole thing as a big domino picture, and the assassination as knocking over the first domino, which one would you pull out to stop the entire picture panning out? The picture being WWI in this case. How would you stop the conflict spreading to the whole world? What would be the best way to contain/minimize the damage?

[LaCroix]

I see one possibility.

Make the Black hand more rutheless, have them throw bombs left, right and centre, killing and wounding scores of bystanders, but failing to hit the car. The support of the civillians would go away, and Serbia keepy low and stays. Russia is found out to be the supplier in order to manufacture a war, breaking the alliance with Britain and France. Sowjets rise up early, handing the csar over to Austria, which causes them to not go to war.

A very tentative peace would occur, since without russia, France and Britain won't go after Germany, and Russia will take time to restructure.

[Revy]

What about tying Germany's hands? Germany entering the war also brought in a lot of other major players. They invaded France, and went through Belgium first, which brought in Britain and her allies. They also had their subs attack anything moving, which pissed off America and brought them in.

If the main characters are German then it stands to reason that they wouldn't want their own country to get involved in the war, especially given the sorry state Germany wound up in after WW1. If they can somehow pull Germany out of the conflict or find a way to stop them getting involved, wouldn't that also prevent a lot of other nations piling in as well? Germany seems to have been pretty central to the war overall. If you remove them from the equation, the size of the war should be much smaller right?

[LaCroix]

Not really, since Austria would have gone to war with Serbia, anyway. Even if Germany didn't move to help, Russia was already committed to help Serbia in order to create a hegemony in the area. When Russia would enter a war with them, Germany would be treaty bound tto lend assistance. Also, France would assist Russia, which the Germans wouldn't ignore.

No, the only way to nip this in the bud is to remove the Russian assistance (which was basically Russia meddling in an internal affair)

Germany basically had no choice but to enter any war that breaks out, since about every possible scenario pointed at Germany being in the middle between france and russia...

If you look at what happened, Russia declared war at Austria, and mobilized, well knowing that Germany wouldn't approve. Germany protested, but to no avail. On August, 1st, Russia declared war, and invaded on the same day! It was all a plot to get at Germany.

If Russia hadn't, France would have done, as they still were pissed because they lost the last war in the endless tug-o-war over Elsass-Lothringen.

Even if Germany had turned itself in the biggest Buddist pacifist monastery possible, they would have been drawn into a war.
The whole WW1 was the end result of every european power wanting something from either Germany or Austria-Hungary. France wanted revenge, Russia the former Byzantine areas and Eastern Prussia, Italy wanted Venetia in order to get the Austrian Navy out of their backyard, and Britain wanted to destroy Germany's economic power and it's new-found naval strenght at all cost.

[Simon_Jester]

LaCroix:

On the flip side of that, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had ambitions of their own- Germany had a quite ambitious list of war aims, once they got round to publishing them. Austria-Hungary's main goal was just to survive as an empire, but given the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, that inevitably meant frustrating the ambitions and desires of several subject ethnicities.
_________

Revy:

Better to concentrate on the Austro-Hungarians and the Russians. Once Russia was committed to backing up Serbia, even if it meant war with Austria-Hungary... well, the shit hit the fan. It would be grossly stupid for the Germans to let Russia stomp all over Austria-Hungary, because Austria-Hungary was their only reliable ally.

The best places to break the chain, in my opinion, would be:

1) Prevent the assassination and neutralize the Bosnian secessionist movement, removing the flashpoint that was likely to provoke a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia.

2) Create a split between the Anglo-French Entente and Russia, to the point where they would not support Russia against Germany, and where Germany knew this and planned their military operations accordingly- you would have to set this up as building up during the decade or so earlier; by 1913 France and Russia were pretty much committed to supporting each other.

(2) might mean war between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, but if France stayed out, and if Germany knew France would stay out, and so did not simply attack France to pre-empt them...* Well. Then you would have a "big war," but it would not be a "world war." It would probably go down in history as the "Third Balkan War" or something, seen as an extension of the 1911-1913 Balkan Wars and not as a general conflict in Europe.

But this would require you to manufacture a split between the Anglo-French Entente and the Russians. A split sharp enough to override the strategic logic that made both the Brits and the French and one side and the Russians on the other side both fear the rising power of Germany enough to band together against it.

Russian expansionism in China could give you exactly that excuse.
__________

*This is what happened historically- the Germans' main war-plan involved knocking out France in a hurry and then flattening Russia, because they assumed that if they ever had to fight either, they would inevitably have to fight both, because the two nations were allied together against Germany. The German plan figure that it was better to sucker-punch France and take on the Russians as they gradually mobilized their forces, rather than concentrate all the troops against Russia and risk having a million angry Frenchmen charging at their backs.

[LaCroix]

I never said they hadn't their own motives, but in this case, Russia was the one bound for war. KuK were basically dealing with internal matters, and Germany was concentrating on colonial expansion.

I agree, scenario 2 needs Russian expansionism threatening French and British colonies in Asia. Nothing short of this would break the valuable alliance.

[Simon_Jester]

To add to this:

It wouldn't be enough to merely 'destabilize' the alliance either; you have to outright break it apart. The Germans will pre-emptively attack France if they think there's any real chance of France becoming involved in support of Russia, simply to deny the French a free shot at their rear while they're fighting the Russians.

We can see this in the chronology of events that happened in real life- the Germans were quite aggressive about declaring war on both France and Russia, announcing that French provocations (such as aerial bombing of German installations near the border) had already taken place, and demanding that the Belgians remain passive in response to German troops pushing into their territory to get at France before the (asserted) French attack.

Of course, it's equally true that the French did plan to launch major attacks into Germany as soon as their army was mobilized, and indeed they did exactly that. But the point here is that even had the French been ambiguous about entering the war, the Germans would have fallen back on something like the von Schlieffen Plan and struck first, anticipating a French attack at the worst possible moment should they concentrate on fighting the Russians.

This was a big problem with the set of mobilization plans used by most of the great powers: as a rule, there was only one plan for all circumstances. One set of railway timetables, one set of orders calling up the reserves and issuing weapons to them, one battle plan for how to use the troops once they were delivered to the front. Each nation's plan was drafted to deal with the worst case scenario, and the interaction between the plans did a lot to make everyone's worst case scenario come true.

In Germany's case, The Plan involved having to fight France and Russia, and since there was no other plan for mobilizing the German army in the event of war, this plan was to be used regardless of the diplomatic circumstances. Which left Germany cast very much as the aggressor on the Western Front, because they were the ones to declare war on France and to invade Belgium, before their own territory was threatened.

[Revy]

Not really, since Austria would have gone to war with Serbia, anyway. Even if Germany didn't move to help, Russia was already committed to help Serbia in order to create a hegemony in the area.

Why would Russia be forced to help Serbia? I thought some of the Serbians at the time were concerned that Russia wouldn't back them if it came to a war with Austria, and didn't want to rely on them for support. Even if these concerns were unfounded in our history, I could make them well founded in my setting.

Maybe Japan reins them in by threatening to cut their alliance together if Russia intervenes, and Russia would rather let Serbia fight without their help than lose the support of Japan if push comes to shove. Or maybe they lose major international face when it is found out that they had a large hand in helping the Serbians assassinate the Archduke, and back down when everyone accuses them of trying to incite a war between Serbia and Austria.

If Russia doesn't support Serbia against Austria, then Germany doesn't have to weigh in and support Austria against Serbia and Russia, right? And even if they still want to, I can cook up some kind of incentive for them not to - either some kind of blackmail against high ranking military/political leaders to convince them to stay out of it, or a bribe, something valuable enough for them to take that over helping Austria.

Even if everyone still wants to fight and all want something badly enough to get stuck in for it, that might be enough to prevent an all out war between the lot of them, or at least confine the conflict to just Austria and Serbia. They can all still be gnashing their teeth to get at each other, just so long as it doesn't blow up all at once the way it did in our history.

[Simon_Jester]

Not really, since Austria would have gone to war with Serbia, anyway. Even if Germany didn't move to help, Russia was already committed to help Serbia in order to create a hegemony in the area.

Why would Russia be forced to help Serbia? I thought some of the Serbians at the time were concerned that Russia wouldn't back them if it came to a war with Austria, and didn't want to rely on them for support. Even if these concerns were unfounded in our history, I could make them well founded in my setting.

Russia's other choice was to allow the Serbians to be squashed by Austria-Hungary.

They could do that, but it would destroy their credibility among the Slavic peoples of the Balkans, and pretty much ruin their hopes of building up a sphere of influence in the Balkans.

Remember that the policy of every Czar since the days of Peter the Great was to expand Russian power on and around the Black Sea, pushing into the Caucasus and the Balkans, at the expense of the declining Ottoman Empire. The dream for Russia was to one day take control of Constantinople and thus control access to the Black Sea, which would greatly strengthen Russia's naval and commercial position.

In the early 1910s, before World War One, a round of local wars within the Balkans gave the Russians reason to hope that this might actually happen soon, because the Ottomans took a terrible beating at the hand of the Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs. Moreover, many of these people had ethnic (Slavic) and religious (Orthodox Christianity, in its various stripes) ties to the Russians.

And with the war, the Ottoman position in the Balkans was made much weaker. After that, the Russians could reasonably hope that if they could form an alliance with the other small states of the region against the Turks, they would be able to push the Ottomans out of Europe altogether and secure control of Constantinople.

Which from their point of view was a tremendously desirable prize, though one that almost everyone else in Europe would try to stop them from obtaining because of how much stronger it would make Russia.*

But to get that, they had to uphold the interests of their chosen clients in the Balkans (the Romanians and the Serbs being among the big ones) against not only the Ottomans, but against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. If they refused to back Serbia against Austria-Hungary, it would undo decades of work in the Balkans, and be a disastrous setback to Russian efforts to expand into the region.

So there's a lot at stake here, you see.
__________

*Remember the Crimean War?
"We don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do,
we've got the men, we've got the ships, we've got the money too!
And the Russians shall not have Constantinople!

[Revy]

Okay, I had a thought last night about the whole thing, lets see how it goes.

Instead of trying to hammer history every which way to stop WWI from happening, would it be better if I instead drop the whole 'avert the Great War' angle I was going for and write my prequel as an actual war story, with an alternate version of WWI? Since it seems very difficult to plausibly avert a major conflict in the area at the time, might it be easier then to just let it happen, and instead make the actual events of the war play out differently in order to fit with the alt history aspect of my story?

So, say, have Germany invade France directly instead of trying to march through Belgium first, or have France pre-empt Germany before Germany pre-empts them? So basically - WWI but with different decisions made and different outcomes?

I'm just thinking that might be easier to do than trying to shoehorn WWI out of history altogether. If I did that, would it also be possible to avoid the trench warfare everyone associates with the time? One of the divergence points in my setting does potentially give everyone slightly more advanced tech than we had at that point in history. Maybe I could have tanks brought in right at the start of the war, instead of late into it?

[LaCroix]

Easier...

Without Belgium, Britain would probably keep out (and cackle like the bad witch about how everyone else is doing their job so well)

Germany wouldn't dare attacking the French directly. The border is defended like a castle wall. They would be forced to be defensive on that front, and advance against Russia, instead.

Trench warfare would ensue. It was the most effective tactic, that's why everybody fell back on it. You advanced at much as you could, dug in and then let the enemy waste thousands of warm bodies to drive you back a bit. When he was exhausted from that effort, you tried to advance further. You could only fight that by making trenches, yourself.

That war could be fought for some years, then Russia collapses like in the OT, and the Germans would concentrate on France. Britain wouldn't help without Russia as anvil to their hammer, and America won't interfere, either. (France an Germany at war was status quo, in a way. Nobody really listened any more.) Austria might help or keep out, depending on the situation. (Hint: It might be a demand of Britain in order to keep them out.)

So, you could either have that conflict resulting in a long (might be decades) low/mid-intensity border conflict of trench jumping, or have them split Elsass-Lothringen , gaining another uneasy peace. (The French would probably sign a treaty with Germany as soon as they learn that Russia is destabilizing.)

[Revy]

That won't work, as I have mentioned - in my original novel set in 1923 Russia is still going strong to the point that they are one of the main antagonists in the story. I can't have Russia collapse without having to completely scrap my first book, which I'd rather not do. Also if Germany invaded Russia, Japan would pile in and help them out because the two are allied in my setting.

So the situation there would be Germany fighting on two fronts, with France hitting them on one side while they try and take down the combined forces of Russia and Japan on the other, and that's with the Russian/Japanese alliance in control of most if not all of China as well. Would Germany really try something like that?

Is there any way for Germany to negate the French border defences without going through Belgium first? Or wait - could I have Belgium in this setting allow German troops to march through their country unchallenged, resulting in France invading Belgium to keep the Germans from using it as a staging point to invade them? So I could focus on a German/French warfare taking place in Belgium?

Would Britain get involved then if Belgium simply let Germany walk through without a fight? Would they come to the aid of the French?

[LaCroix]

No, Belgium was the way to go, even in WW2, there was no one crazy enough to try the direct route. Belgium denied on the grounds that they feared they'd become the primary battleground. If they realized that they would become it, anyway, they might as well throw their lot with one of the parties, in hope that one pushes the other out over their borders, quickly. As in, if we let the Germans through quickly, they'll fight at our French borders instead of meeting the French in the middle of Belgium.

If it were to become public knowledge that Belgium was to agree, a French invasion of Belgium would certainly occur as quickly as possible.

Would Britain get into such a fight? Hard to say. They were only loosely allied to France-Russia. If France pre-emptively occupies Belgium before the Germans actually move through, they might have to hold back. Moral outrage and high ground, you know... If Belgium allows transit, they might fabricate a reason out of this, but can't go for "bad Germans" to mobilize public support. Of course, it always depends of weather Russia is playing the anvil or not.

One idea. You could as well have Russia pull out of the war early, in order to overthrow the budding revolt, leading to a civil war. This would mean that it would have a few years of internal struggle, and the Zar being in a stronger position afterwards. Should fit within your story. If it happens early enough, it could even mean that France back-pedals so fast that the bike catches fire...

For example - let the Bolsheviks seize their chance after the loyal troops are routed in a big battle (Have multiple Tannenbergs due to incompetent officers and bad supply/equipment, just like Tannenberg) and start an armed rebellion. Russia immediately sues for peace - status quo ante, which Germany happily accepts and smirks into France's direction...

Let the Japanese help the Zar when the revolt seems to get out of hand (Europe is a bit busy or not willing), and you have a good reason for their new alliance.

[MarshalPurnell]

A Russo-Japanese alliance in the late 19th century is unthinkable on so many levels as to be preposterous. The Russians fully intended to dominate Manchuria and Korea as economic spheres for their own development, and Czar Nicholas had a pathological distrust of Asians and especially the Japanese after a failed assassination attempt by a deranged samurai during his visit to the country as Tsarevitch. Japan on the other hand absolutely determined to carve out its own economic sphere of Korea and Manchuria as vital to its development as a modern industrial power, which was seen as a matter of survival, not least against the vast, militant pressure of Russia. Any compromise would involve one of the two powers abandoning long-held geopolitical goals, and "let's take over China" completely ignores the certain opposition of Britain, France, Germany and the United States, all of which had their own economic concerns (in the case of the British, complete domination of much of Chinese trade) that they would be loath to give up.

Also removing Japan as a potential ally in the east makes it vastly more likely that Lord Salisbury's preference for an alliance with Germany becomes a done deal, since the British Pacific Fleet would have to be enormously strengthened to confront the threat of the alliance. The resulting alliance structures would be lopsidedly in favor of German domination of the continent, with British support of Germany insuring some stinging humiliations for France in colonial contests in Africa. Possibly enough that the French drop out of the alliance with Russia, at least temporarily, to patch things up with the British and pursue an understanding with Germany, or at least strengthen the more pacifist-leaning Socialists and the very reactionary conservative parties.

Stopping the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand would be trivial, as discussed by others.

I will note that "Bosnia" is the province of Austria-Hungary, and that "Serbia" is an independent state bordering Bosnia and Hungary to the south. The assassination was undertaken by the terrorist group "Young Bosnia," which was a front for the Black Hand, a Serbian revolutionary nationalist conspiracy that had led the bloody 1903 coup that brought the pro-Russian, anti-Austrian Karadjordic dynasty back to power in Serbia. King Edward VIII actually laid significant pressure on the British government to refuse to recognize the new regime due to the murders of the Obrenovac dynasty that accompanied it, and for several years the British had no ambassador in Belgrade. Said coup was led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, the head of the intelligence department of the Serbian Army, who continued on in a leadership capacity of the Black Hand and personally authorized the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The Serbian authorities, represented by the otherwise formidable Prime Minister Nikolai Pasic, were terrified of Dimtrijevic since he had after all overthrown one King and showed no more inherent loyalty to the new King. There are rumors that the Russian military attache in Belgrade knew about the plot and provided some financial support; the Russian embassy was known to be a source of support for the Black Hand in general, though it is unlikely that anyone there had any planning or operational role in the organization. In any case Pasic learned of the plot and tried to warn the Austrian government, but the warning went to the Finance Minister, who misinterpreted the very vague warning (along the lines of "It would be a bad idea for an Archduke to visit Sarajevo on the day of Kosovo Polje") as a threat on the part of the Serbian government and did not pass it along to anyone in Franz Ferdinand's entourage.

In any case Young Bosnia was not a serious threat to the Austrian administration, though the authoritarian and incompetent military governor Oskar Potierek was convinced it was and behaved in paranoid fashion after the assassination. The majority of the population of Bosnia was composed of Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, neither of whom had any stake in being absorbed by the Orthodox Greater Serbia that Nikolai Pasic was working toward. It was a fringe group, popular only among university student radical circles, funded, used, and organized by the Serbian Black Hand. The internal political instability of Austria-Hungary is greatly exaggerated for various reasons, but World War I made clear that the real threat came from outside the country. Practically every bordering nation had some nationalistic, irredentist claims on its territory and the most vociferous one (Serbia) was being backed by
the most powerful one (Russia), and those surrounding nations were increasingly open and direct in stating their ambitions to dismember the Empire. Crushing Serbia was seen as vital to proving the strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and forestalling further territorial demands, to the point that war with Russia was acceptable if Germany also threw in- though the Austro-Hungarian High Command (in the form of Conrad von Hotzendorf) was laboring under the intentionally misleading impression that Germany would focus on Russia rather than France.

Franz Ferdinand was very much against the preemptive wars with Serbia (and Italy) urged on by Hotzendorf and would have been a voice for peace and moderation if he had survived. Hotzendorf at one point remarked in 1916 that "the Archduke would have had me shot," in regards to the way the war started.

Also as far as timetables go, it's pretty true. Austria-Hungary did try to improvise a deployment of an entire Army, their large Second Army, first against the Serbians and then against Russia and the whole thing collapsed into a fiasco. Not to say that Germany couldn't have done as the Kaiser pressed Moltke to do, make a shift in mobilization away from France to the East, since the head of the railroad mobilization corps presented evidence after the war that such plans existed and could have been implemented- but Germany was probably the only belligerent organized enough to do so.

[Thanas]

LaCroix:

On the flip side of that, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had ambitions of their own- Germany had a quite ambitious list of war aims, once they got round to publishing them. Austria-Hungary's main goal was just to survive as an empire, but given the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, that inevitably meant frustrating the ambitions and desires of several subject ethnicities.

Germany had no war aims to speak of. They first of all were very surprised there would even be a war with Britain and until 1916, there did not even exist a plan about the terms of what peace Germany would like.

Honestly, despite all the bluster, Germany had no real interest in a war, given that it was peace that enabled the prosperity. Notice how Germany tried to find allies all around to avoid fighting wars - the Dreibund was designed to allow Austria-Hungary to pretty much fight on two fronts only etc.


Second - Franz Ferdinand's idea of an Austrian empire was more of a confederation. It is quite ironic that by shooting him, they also killed the best chance of a peaceful transition.



However, if Russia collapses, there is no way that Germany and Austria-Hungary will agree to a status quo ante. Not when the border with France is secure and the French have no real way of invading Germany (unless they go through Belgium).



And Russia and Japan dividing China is not going to happen, for the reasons Purnell lined out. Just look at Germany in that category and look how much of the Chinese armed forces were actually equipped by the German Empire.

[Metahive]

Second - Franz Ferdinand's idea of an Austrian empire was more of a confederation. It is quite ironic that by shooting him, they also killed the best chance of a peaceful transition.

According to what I read it was supposed to be a "Austrian-Hungarian-Southern Slaw" trialism. How Ferdinand planned to get the Czechs, who were clamoring loudly for more autonomy and had the numbers to back their demands up, to accept this is another question.

[MarshalPurnell]

The Czech lands were divided between Bohemia and Moravia, which had separate diets, and both were part of the "Cisleithenian" part of the Empire represented in the Austrian Reichsrat. The Russophile Czech nationalist party in Bohemia was powerful and had been gaining ground, but was balanced to some extent by the German minority in the Sudetenland and in the urban areas, by the clerical establishment in the province, and by the tendency of the parties in the Bohemian diet to fragment over personality conflicts and ideology. Moravia on the other hand was relatively stable thanks to a fairly recent bit of political reform that enhanced the power of the Czech majority while still maintaining the influence of the large German population. Inside the Reichsrat itself the Czech nationalists could usually be shut down by the Christian Democrats, Socialists, remnant liberals, and the Polish delegation from Galicia, which always sided with the government in exchange for autonomy in the province. At very last resort if the Reichsrat became ungovernable the Emperor retained the ability to dismiss it and rule by decree, which Franz Josef frequently did and which Franz Ferdinand would probably not be any more reluctant to do.