Was there any possibility at all of Germany and her allies winning WWI?

Was there any possibility at all of Germany and her allies winning WWI?

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In retrospect, the obvious correct strategy was to focus on Russia while defending in the West. Also avoid invading Belgium and talk a lot about liberating Poland and so on in order to weaken Allied sense of moral rightness.

Cont. Russia had to be offered good peace terms, though. Trying to gobble up huge chunks of Russia would have driven the West into a panic about the possibility of a dominant Germany with a controlling position on the continent. But Germans had a hard time limiting their aims for some reason.

Not after the Marne, that was their one shot

Yes.

>I'm retarded

Pretty much this. Germany's biggest mistake was seeing Russia as the strong one, and France as the weak one. It turned out to be the other way around. Another problem for Germany is that they really weren't prepared to fight a war. They had not way of knowing that the Archduke would be assassinated in June 1914, nor did they know that Conrad von Hoetzendorf would use the assassination as casus belli for annexing Serbia.

they were close to knocking italy out of the war, then they could maybe have fought to a stalemate and somesort of peace that lets both sides keep their shit together, but not realy a wictory, even tho there would have been great gains in the east they probably couldnt realy get more colonies and such, but at least they could have a position to bargain from

Yep. Although I will say this - the West would probably never have accepted a peace in which Germany gained anything significant. Germany had to aim for a draw from the get-go. Any attempt to actually win would have triggered an unbeatable France-UK-Italy-US alliance that would have the resources to fight indefinitely. On the other hand, Germany needed resources in order to survive the UK blockade. So the war was always going to be a delicate thing. Germany had to succeed enough to endure the blockade, not enough to make the opponents feel that they were locked in an existential battle for survival.
It's tempting to think that Germany could have seized enough Russian resources to obtain a winning geopolitical position, but I doubt this actually could have worked. Russia wasn't developed enough that conquering it would have made Germany unbeatable.

Germany got like 1 shipment of grain from Ukraine during the entire war. Germans were going to starve to death before any winning the war.

>another problem for Germany is that they really weren't prepared to fight a war.

They had timetables set up for invading France, accurate to the minute. They had over a month to prepare, and spent most of that time pressuring A-H to invade. Germany was as ready as it could ever be.

If that's true, maybe Germany was fucked to begin with and the only correct move was to avoid war. Would beating France have solved the supply problems, assuming that the UK stayed in the war? If not, then going to war was in essence a major mistake because there was never any way to force the other side to stop fighting, Germany would have had to just hope they would give up.

>Germany was as ready as it could ever be

Wrong. There were still several parts missing from the machine. The first was the Navy. The German navy wasn't yet big enough to seriously challenge the Royal Navy in open combat, which is why Britain was able to blockade Germany so easily. The second problem is the army. The Schifflein plan was designed to make use of 96 divisions. Germany went to war with less than the required number.

if she could've drawn in any one force that joined the entente to her side or atleast stay neutral in would be a huge game changer (Romania,Greece or Italy)

>The German navy wasn't yet big enough to seriously challenge the Royal Navy in open combat

And it was never going to be. A nation of soldiers will never beat a nation of sailors on the sea.

>The Schifflein plan was designed to make use of 96 divisions. Germany went to war with less than the required number.
That was entirely due to their poor planning. More time or materials wouldn't have made up for bad strategy.

>From the middle of 1917 to the end of 1918 some 1,249,950t. of foodstuffs, cereals, and fodder had been obtained from the Russian area of occupation and the Ukraine (710,000t. to the army of occupation, 539,950t. exported to Germany).
archive.org/stream/GermanyAndSecondWorldWarVolumeIVAttackOnSovietUnion#page/n1213/mode/2up
It was around the same level of effectiveness as the occupation 24 years later but it wasn't nearly as autistic or ruthless in things like feeding priority.

Zero chance with America involved.

Basically focusing on a quick victory in the east rather in France

A-H dualism was a big problem too, they even invented their own stab in the back for Czechs. Chaining soldiers to the machineguns so they cant retreat isnt realy the best idea.

>was to focus on Russia while defending in the West
It is what the G*rms did

>people memeing about quick victory against Russia
nyet possible,Russia could've done what they did all the while ago against Napoopan,and attacking Russian heartland will definitely inflame nationalistic sentiment which exactly what the Tsar wants

Germany could have started WW1 in 1905 with the Morocco crisis, and they almost did.
They were prepared as fuck, but that doesn't mean they were invincible. Probably, if Germany followed the >3326544 suggestion, they would have had some more chances to win.

In my opinion though, it was the USA that ultimately defeated Germany, maybe not in the numbers, but in the morale and the psychological level, in the sense that Germany was exhausting its forces while the US army was fresh and relatively big. But for me, there's no way that the USA wouldn't have joined the great war against Germany. The USA couldn't accept the birth of a new continental superpower that stretched from western Europe to the Urals and capable of posing a threat to a sea power like Britain or the US.