WW1 THREAD

The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Such a depressing nation that I feel legit sympathy for them.

Austrohungarian empire cuz they had the balls to start the war

>nation

Czechoslovak Legions

>no country? no problem, we'll fight to get it
>get caught in the middle of a revolution/civil war
>have to take a train across all of Russia to the Pacific just to get back to Western Europe
>refuse Bolshevik demands to hand over their guns
>end up fighting everyone and alongside anyone if it means survival and continuing the journey
>shouldn't even be a factor in the Russian Civil War but still the most effective fighting force - take numerous cities/large spans of the Trans-Siberian Railway
>after almost 2 years of fighting in a foreign land in a war they had no business in, they return to their now-independent homeland
>that skull & bones + Hussite communion cup on the battalion banner

I don't care if they're only related to WWI, it's always a good time to post about these guys

Americaaaaaaaa

But nah seriously every tale I hear about Canadians, Strayans, and New Zealanders during the war is terrific. I remember a quote from Dan Carlin's podcast when he was talking to some vet about best armies "The British generally, Australians and New Zealanders in particular" sounded about right though for WW1 especially I wouldn't definitely throw in Canucks.

>Small élite army
Just because its Small doesnt make it élite. The brits expeditionary force was about on par with the other armies.

>a well trained, professional force of volunteers who have practical experience is the same as millions of conscripts who have no experience

Probably America, my own country.

america did all the work there would have been a 1914 sealion had america not saved ur ass

Italy or Ottomans seem to interest the most, and even though they had little to do with the war Japan was interesting with its 22 demands stuff and exploiting the chaos in China

they also won entete the war when they stopped hundreds of thousands of German POWs to go back to German to help with western front

Italy,the only nation that fought the war as a war of coalition

You cant deny that France really took the brunt out of it,same goes to the Belgian and Dutch
tell me another country that stopped an invasion force even larger than Barbarossa

>tfw it fell
I didn't ask for this feeling

France taking the brunt of it isn't what's being argued here. What strikes me as utterly retarded is the assertion that the French endured the German onslaught 'alone', which is completely fucking untrue, and that British victories were actually French ones. I don't mean to downplay the sacrifice of French soldiers but this level of revisionism is laughable

are you implying that it isnt?

>we will never live in a world where Arthur Currie lived to WW2
JUST

...

lmao what the fuck
is that the French Wikipedia page Google translated into English or something?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele

Germany.
Schlieffens plan was absoultely fucked, I love how he basically o'reilly-ed it all.
>Long marches, Belgiums neutrality, and the Pact it had with Britian and not enough men to do it with.
>Fuck it! we`ll do it live!
>Looses the war
Also I think I read somewhere, that France was throwing around the idea of invading Belgium too. I mean alternative history doesnt usually appeal to me but fuck that would be something. The war would look completely different, and all at the result of a few words.

I read somewhere that the Schlieffen Plan was a thought experiment meant to convince the German army to raise more standing troops, but they took it as a real plan instead and tried to enact it unaltered

If this is true, its shit like this that makes me like Germany, just completely bollocksed up an otherwise reachable win. Really fucking everything up.

America because they won both WW
>inb4 we didn't
Nice revisionism

This board is worse than /pol/, /pol/ does not take itself this seriously and does roughly the same amount of mistakes. You can feel the sand in the Vaginas of the Antigermans through their word. Pathetic

Personally, I used to be one of them people who were like "The US didnt do anything blah blah" and its absoloute bullshit. They did a lot in both wars.
I think its just because, Americans, some anyways, do take a lot of the "glory". At least in The UK, mostly because we share a language. So we get grouped on the internet with you and shit. You type in World War 1 in google and America is the first belligerent that comes up.
The US helped a lot, but we all fought together. No one won the war because there was a second. There are people in the Uk who say the Yanks didnt do anythng to and there is in every country.
I think it comes down to a lack of education in world war 1 particularily. Thats why I said it anyways.
So in short, the Allies won world war 1 and 2. Each country would be a lot better off remembering our forefathers fought together, and died so. On both sides.
And that to be true, it was Austria and Russia fault if anyones.

It's not true though. The Schlieffen plan was an extremely serious plan, not a "thought experiment." It is true that Moltke used it to try to justify an expansion of the Army to the Kaiser, but that's because he genuinely believed that at least 4 additional army corps were needed to keep the plan as a viable option, not because he developed the plan for that purpose.

I'm not saying that other allies didn't do a single thing, since it was a joint effort, and American aid was fundamental in the ally victories, and the direct involvement shifted the tide of the war in both WW. In America we do exaggerate our efforts, and ridicule the other Allies oftentimes

>Liberty
end this meme

I think Europeans get pissed off at that, and also bitch about Yanks a lot because of how little US, compared to other nations, soilders died and other effects on war time countries etc. In both wars. And how it wouldnt really effect them much if they were defeated unlike France.
Thinking about it America was just taking advantage of the fact theres an Atlantic between them and the front lines, in both wars. Thats pretty much been Britians game since day one with the channel. Holy shit. I guess America is our daughter country.

Didnt he also move some units to the Eastern front from the Western when he was changing the plan (Moltke)? I think he did and yeah, its kind of a shame. I read he stayed up, and it was pretty much his life work to an extent. But it was a shit one. Germany was between a rock and a hard place. The Schlieffen plan resembled that.

He absolutely had to do that. People present the whole issue as "lol Moltke was dumb because he didn't follow the plan to the letter." When the Schlieffen plan was first conceived by Alfred von Schlieffen, both France and Russia were much weaker in comparison to Germany. Russia especially, was a very underdeveloped nation during that time, it was assumed that it would take the Russians a very long time to launch any significant offensive.

By 1914, that was no longer true. Russia was modernizing very fast, expanding both army and navy. Even more importantly, Russia had constructed a huge network of railroads that enabled them to mobilize their troops much more quickly than when the Schlieffen plan had been first created.

So Moltke simply had to make adjustments to account for these changes when he inherited the plan. This was the entire reason why he wanted those 4 extra corps so badly, so that he wouldn't have to make so many compromises to the plan. As for why the request for additional corps wasn't granted, it had a lot to do with the Prussian aristocracy's unwillingness to utilize non-Prussian officers, and the planned expansion would have created so many new officer positions that it would have been necessary to allow non-Prussians to fill those spots. Kaiser Wilhelm also was more enthusiastic about naval expansion than army expansion, which might have also been a factor.

And the UK learned a lot of it from the Dutch and their habit of flooding half the country to stop invading armies.

Water is a useful tool.

>the Spanish can't invade you if your country is underwater

What meme?

Britain, it single-handedly won the war for the Entente by blockading Germany. It also carried every front but the Eastern one as well, along with its dominions.

Oh god I hate that Prussian Elitism and Wilhem II.
"Muh Navy"
"Muh Prussian Superiority"
"Muh Federal Government"

Could've been so glorious following these:
>Do not fuck with Russia or Britain
>Centralize and Uniform Germany
>Fuck Hapsburg (Unite Germany, extra clay)
>Ethnic Nationalism (for propaganda, sovereignity etc)
>Do only minimum Navy and Colonialism (To get rid of overpopulation)
>Mixed Economy (more taxes)
>Expanding agrarian production hard

Optimal if Britain is allied and Kikes & Commies btfo'ed

>Could've been so glorious following these:
do not ever fucking post this again you incredible moron
i am so fucking sick of these shitheads saying HURR DURR DEY CUD HAV WUN IF DEY DID DIS
fuck off retard

>triggered

Honestly, the naval expansion was Germany's biggest mistake of the war, and it didn't even happen during the war, but rather before it. During the 19th century, if you'd asked somebody "who is Britain's arch-enemy" he would very likely have said France. The dreadnought arms race is what changed the situation, and made Britain start to see Germany as the bigger threat. And the worst part is that after all that money was spent trying to expand the navy, Germany got almost nothing out of it during the actual war. Those 4 additional army corps that Moltke wanted so badly would have been a godsend for Germany in terms of making the Schlieffen plan actually work, and they would have likely been far less detrimental to Germany's diplomatic situation than the naval expansion was.

The focus on the navy, colonialism and prussian elitism were in most aspects utter trash.
I can't find much about the economic laws of this time, but i think the income tax was under 10% for normal people. The tax rates were incredibly low

>being sad that a state ran by a literal autistic cuckold fell
Nicky deserved it

France was the strongest/most important allied country, but they were still thousands miles behind Germany
Germany was THE country of the war all sides combined

Bc we don't have to save you're stupid asses from your little tiffs right way. US stands back and watches Europe erupt into chaos every so often and then when your stupid shit gets out of hand we have to come and protect the interest of the side we lent the moats $ to.

>What strikes me as utterly retarded is the assertion that the French endured the German onslaught 'alone', which is completely fucking untrue

It's true for the first two years at least
Until the Somme in late 1916, British numbers were so ridicylously slow that France was basically alone on the Western front

They didnt win the war alone, but they did stop the German advance and then held the front for two years alone

Would the world be better off if Germany would have won it quickly?

yes
>Germany marches to Paris and extracts some meme concessions from France
>swings around and attacks Russia
>republican revolution happens but there's no communist revolution because Willy doesn't have to use Lenin as a weapon to knock Russia out of the war

Also maybe stability in the Middle East.
North Korea never happens.

I honestly think the best possible outcome is if Germany loses much sooner than 1918. Imagine a world where America doesn't wait so long to enter the war. Imagine that Teddy Roosevelt wins the 1912 election, and as a result, the USA adopts a more hawkish foreign policy. This leads to the US declare war on the Central Powers in December of 1914.

The overall effect of this is that the war's total length is dramatically shortened, and that has many pleasant side effects. If the Americans are able to significantly shorten the length of the conflict, then events such as the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and even possibly the Armenian Genocide might be prevented. That second one is kind of a long-shot, because the Armenian Genocide actually began in 1915, but if the Americans are able to launch a successful campaign against the Ottomans during that time, they might still be able to put a quick end to it.

And of course, Russia would end up getting Constantinople at the end of the war, which I think can be considered a positive development.

Depends on why they win so quickly
If fash than yes
If luck/other it would be only slightly better than now

So it's americas job to fix you fuckers problems. I see

>/pol/ does not take itself this seriously
don't tell them that, they'll say "this is why Trump won the election" unironically and then start berating you for being a bigoted liberal

Well, it also probably would have prevented WW2. Germany being defeated more quickly would actually be a good thing for them, because it would mean that the duration of the hunger blockade would be shortened as well. And there wouldn't be any "stab-in-the-back" myth either, because Germany would have been obviously outmatched from the beginning, which would make defeat easier to accept. Sure, losing the war would still suck, but it would be a softer, more digestible loss.

>fuck Hapsburgs extra clay
>makes the lopsided 3 vs 2 of the great powers a 3 vs 1

Actually surprised you autistic Germans didn't fuck up this badly.

>Promise A-H's Adriatic territories to Serbia in 1914
>Promise the same territories to Italy in 1915

lol, why is diplomacy so easy guys?

The Australians were literally the best troops.

One example of their exploits:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_penetration

But australians weren't sturmtruppen, user

They didn't care

The absolute madmen

>I guess America is our daughter country.

tell me im pretty dad

My favorite thing about World War I was the story of Cher Ami

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher_Ami