ITT you are Germany in 1914

>Do nothing.
>Russia potentially conquers Austria-Hungary, leaving you with yet another hostile power on your border
You can at least understand that germany declared war for more reasons than just "Gemans are better than slavs and I wanna show off my cool new weapons."

I don't. There is absolutely zip I could possibly get out of a war that would be worth the cost and risk of fighting it. Instead, I just try to keep things in Europe happy and stable, and tamp down tensions after that whole assassination thing, instead of ramping them up by mobilizing and writing blank checks to AH.

>deescalate
>with the french
good luck with that

This.

Throw Austria under the bus and stay out of it.
If I absolutely have to enter the war, because the Frogs and Russians decide they're gonna invade anyways. I'd fortify and turn my western border into Japanese nightmare mode and send every last available soldier against Russia to try and knock them off early.

Right, it was all about maintaining the central balance of power in europe. If European culture hadn't been obsessed with the cult of the offensive, not coming to the aid of Austria Hungary in order to maintain the status quo would have been the rational choice.

Yeah, I know. But how 'bout Anglos?

the only goal of the anglo is to destroy any challenger on the continent, and germany is building a rival fleet. So good luck with that too

Why send soldiers to the east when you could just give this guy a train ticket to Moscow?

If you sent Lenin back too early the revolution wouldn't have taken hold

Allright, it's time for the final plan. A surefire strategy.

I commit collective suicide.

Austria.... the Balkans...

no, keep the western front as small as possible, dont try to envelop though belgium.
Thanks to the newly improved gatling gun, the defense overpowers the defence.
On the eastern front, push through poland to get a straight front, which will minimize the front lengh, and give independance to poland in order to get more soldiers on your ranks.
Let russia invade the austro hungarian empire, but keep italy at bay.
Once Russia reachs the adriatic sea, the western powers will have no choice but to support germany because england or france dont want an overwhelming russian power in europe (see crimean wars)
invade austria and sudetenland. and let the western powers make war with each others

Defend the border with France and don’t invade belgium, focus on Russia and Smash them, once the bolsheviks take power sign the breat-litovsk treaty, now you can redeploy all your available divisions on the west , invade belgium (they won’t last as long as they did in 1914 IRL since Germany has now more artillary and men) , take Paris , France surrenders. Also force Austria to accept Italians demands to make them join the war on your side

>defense overpowers the defence.
*the defense overpowers the offense

Russia won't invade an Austria-Hungary allied to Germany without a legitimate casus belli such as going to war in the defence of Serbia.

Better relations with England in prior times. Getting the brits on my side would be a huge because the brits would not only bring themselves but possibly the US.

Really, all of German's problems in war stem more from Germany being a diplomatic retard for the last three centuries.

Depends how Germany manages the situation. They can threaten to invade if Russia tries to annex Austrian territory.
It doesn't matter if Serbia is given a few hundred square miles of territory as reparations.
As long as it
A: Prevents general European war
B: Doesn't let Russia significantly weaken Austria-Hungary
Then it's fine for Germany.

This , or the madman actually manages to topple the Tsar and then he decides to export his faggotry to the rest of Yurop. Better to kill him desu while he's a literally who spouting retardation in Switzerland.

The only way Ingerland stays on Germany's side is by neutering the German Navy and cancelling any designs Germany has for an overseas empire.

>they won’t last as long as they did in 1914 IRL since Germany has now more artillary and men
that is assuming belgium doesn't see the signs on the wall and devotes it's considerable industrial capacities to fortifying their border

not to mention that there's absolutely no guarantee that the british won't enter the war anyways to prevent germany from rising as the sole dominant continental power which would mean you're going to have to deal with the blockades anyways

Would that really be any worse than what already happened? I don't see any German colonies making it out of the world war anyway.

Germany would've been better off attempting to continue their enclaves in the US, imo. Flooding it with immigrants who eventually wind up becoming dominant would work a lot better than attempting to colonize places in Africa.

Just do this:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=xCLNbGdXXK0

>Implying Germany wasn't trying to do the same but with the roles reversed

Don't start it

>germany started ww1

>kill lenin
>dig in on the border with France and hold them off.
>beat off the Russians until the Whites sue for peace
>bring everyone to the peace table in Amsterdam
>polish buffer state between germany and russia.
>free baltic/finnish nations from russia.
>keep french and german borders the same and reestablish relations with no reparations from either party
>change Serb government. mild serb reparations to Austria

Enjoy speaking Russian by 1935

>don't invade through Belgium
>don't send the Zimmerman telegram
>never charge across the trenches, just fortify our trenches and let the enemy die trying to gain ground
Boom, I just won the war for Germany.

Tell Austro-Hungary they're on their own.
If this is early 1914 try to switch to Russia as main ally.

Seems legit

The peace side in their government was pretty strong until the Germans invaded Belgium. Im sure you see some kind of support but I don't think Britain would have been as involved

First: Kill Hitler.

Probably do the Schlieffen plan but actually keep the right wing strong intead of falling for the double envelopment meme.

Go harder into Russia, hope they get out of the war earlier. With any luck they don't fall to communism. Western front isn't going anywhere, don't bother with the endless wave attacks, sit purely on defenseand let the Allies throw their manpower away.
DON'T piss off the US, they didn't do that much in WWI, but if they bring their full weight to bear Germany is gonna get fucked.

Fuck, almost forgot.
DON'T invade Belgium. Brits will probably get involved later on anyway, but it's a hell of a lot easier fighting only France and Russia at the start.

Well, WWI favored the defender in the Western Front, and Germany pretty muched cleaned house on the Eastern Front. So a reverse Schlieffen Plan, where Germany plays defense against France while throwing all it's military might against Russia would work.

Capture Moscow, Paris, London

Done.

This is probably the best answer
Defensive against France, don't violate Belgian neutrality, and throw everything you've got at the Ruskies. Their memearchy will fall in months.

>convince Russia to create a Tsar-Kaiser Alliance by declaring that I will not support A-H

basically this

>Limit the front with France and turn it into a meat grinder
>Capitulate Russia or push them towards revolution except this time dont send Lenin
>starve France with the blockade while Germany enjoys trade with Britain and the USA
>sue for peace as soon as russia is dealt with

I recognize the fact that this war is not in Germany's best interest and I refuse to intervene on Austria-Hungary's behalf. I sit back and watch Austria-Hungary get pummeled by Russia. In the aftermath, I would try to absorb the parts of Austria that are ethnically German, while allowing Russia to keep the rest. The end result looks something like this.

>do nothing
>watch Russia and France become stronger and stronger
>eventually become so outnumbered you can't demand anything for fear of pissing off your neighbours

This guy is the next Caesar

win at jutland
blockade english channel
starve out france
???
profit

If you're not planning to start a war then why does it even matter if France and Russia are becoming stronger militarily?

Except that almost certainly wouldn't work, because all would take is one big victory from the French to break through your lines while you're invading 1914 Russia, a nation with shit-tier railways, near-endless space, and an unfathomably large army.
At the time of Tannenberg the Germans had 8 armies invading France with only 1 in the east.
Even if you split those in half, you have 4 armies defending an area of Switzerland to Belgium against the entire French army while invading Russia and fighting the massive (if underequipped) Russian army on a front ranging from the Baltic sea to Romania with only 4/5 army groups, while your only ally autistically refuses to help you because they want to fail at invading Serbia for a second time
Congratulations, your plan was absolutely everything the Germans were afraid of in a bernal European war

Because wars are rarely planned, and you now have two expansionist powers (one of which you have a land dispute with already) on your borders that are both stronger than you and allied together

>bernal
General

>Don't send the Zimmerman telegram
Or better yet, send it and blame everything on Perfidious Albion

Tell Willie to shut the fuck up and take away his telegraph twitter account.

Tell Russia (secretly) that you'll let them have Constantinople if they throw the Serbs under the bus.

Garuntee Belgium and Netherlands independence.

Just dig trenches in Alsace Lorraine like you did in the middle of France.

If Austria won't back down. Let Russia invade anyways. Then annex Austria claiming you are saving the German people. Throw the hungarians under the bus.

Oh and get someone to shoot Lenin and Trotsky in case something unexpected and you lose the war so you can invade Russia in 1941 but no gommunism there.

>Not partitioning it like this

I'm going to give that a big thumbs up.

Accept a stalemate on the western front and simply dig in after the slowing of the initial offensive (it produced very useable results, despite being an abject failure at its overarching goal), buttfuck Russia in the same manner, promise britain no annexation of Belgium, go easy on the Russians when they inevitably crumble, negotiate a peace that, while not leading to total dominance by germany of europe, does lead to it getting some expansion of its borders in the east, maybe luxembourg for its troubles, and independent friendly batlic states carved from the russians.
The first step to winning a war is choosing realistic goals.

>don't invade through belgium
it was pretty much the only way to have a go at france, even invading luxembourg alone would not have given the germans a wide enough front to maneuver, especially given french fortification and force concentration on the german border. The best the germans could hope for without invading belgium is a stalemate at their border, rather than with some really juicy french regions.

Focus solely on Russia
Don't touch France or the UK, fortify
Establish puppet states like Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Baltics.

>starve France with the blockade while Germany enjoys trade with Britain and the USA
Was the German navy better than France's at the dawn of WWI?

It was, but that's hardly relevant, insofar as france has a shit ton more coastline than germany did. One could at most bottle them into the Mediterranean, but that would leave their trade east, as well as through africa pretty much intact. A blockade of france would be a str8 up pipe dream.

I apologize for being such an autist , then i surrender and divide my pathetic country between France and Poland

Since I have the benefit of historical hindsight to know just how much warfare is slanted in favor of the defender at this time and how huge a role International Relations and public opinion and propaganda will play in the modern age.
>Don't attack France.
>Don't invade the Low Countries
Boom now Britain doesn't enter the war against you. (at least at the beginning under those pretenses)
>Schlieffen Plan would never have worked, it was executed nearly as well as could be executed in actual history.
>Let France go on the offensive.
>fortify along the French border mirroring Maginot
>Attack Russia and knock it out fast because their far inferior tactics are their own worst enemy and the German Army can destroy them.
>Get favorable treaty with Russia
>Wait for France to tire out, never letting them keep any land they break into in Germany.
>Make endless propaganda about how cruel the French are to attack Germany even after Russia, their ally, has long since left the war.
>Use the German Navy to blockade France in the traditional way. No U-boat warfare.
>Wait the French to exhaust themselves.
>Maybe flip Italy to open a front for Italian/Austro-Hungarian armies to attack.

>declare war on Russia
>declare war on France
>invade France
>invade Belgium
>invade Netherlands
>invade Russia
>blame slavs for making you do this
retardedwojack.jpg

>1914
shits already fucked, so i go absolute madman mode and try to avoid a western trench as long as possible

>Use the German Navy to blockade France in the traditional way
there is now way the German could have blockaded all of France

>tsarist Russia in 1914
>conquering their way across Central Europe

Invade Sweden

That sounds good in theory but things didn't work that way in 1914. After Russia started mobilizing a Europe-wide prisoner's dilemma took place of everyone trying to mobilize faster than the other. A threat is nothing without mobilization, and the only viable form of German mobilization (they couldn't just attack Russia because France would jump in) was the Schlieffen plan - a plan where mobilization IS war, not just a preparation for war.

Couldn't they have been very successful in raiding cmmerce with surface vessels though? It worked to an extend in ww2 with a tiny navy against britain, so with the navy of 1914 couln't they be very successful?

they would have to blockade the Channel, the bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean. The German navy would be spread too thin if they did

>train ticket to Moscow
???

Well I'm not talking about a permanent blockade, but commerce raiding, like Emden did for example or the twins in ww2.

Revolution happened without Lenin.

>decisive battle/breakthrough meme
go back to 1917

>1917

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg

>destroys your army

except france would've struck whilst germany was occupied in the east which is why they wanted to whack france so this wouldn't happen

of course they failed to do that

they would have to sunk a shitload of ships to be effective. IIRC the unrestricted submarine warfare did affect the British commerce but not to the point of them having to surrender or sue for peace

You're implying it would all be as bad as the war in France as it happened in 1914.

>muh zimmerman

he fell for the jewish tricks

Implying Eastern front battles have the same tactical circumstances or are in any way similar to Western front battles
topkek

German WW1 ships don't have the same operational range that the WW2 ships had. The transition of coal to oil as the primary fuel source drastically increased the ability to operate for long distances.

Even if the Germans can break or slip the British blockade, they can't just cruise in the Atlantic for months if they don't get stopped by something the way WW2 U-boats and surface raiders did. They'll need to stop for coal, and frequently. And pretty much every port that they could theoretically do so is in the hands of the British or one of their allies.

in what way are they not?

>inb4 subhuman slavs

Have Willy and Nicky play a gentleman's game of their choosing(I'd go with backgamon to solidify their relations with their Eastern European subjects) to decide the names and the borders of the nations that will have to be created as buffers between Germany and Russia. Intern all Habsburgs in the Museum of Natural History. Grab the top 500 Hungarians and have them all raped by rabid chimps. Annex Austria and Bohemia. Build a giant warship named "Fuck Britain" that you parade around on the anniversary of the Battle of Isandlwana. Throw the T*rks under a bus and let Grease claim Constaninople and whatever else they want, then send them an exorbitant bill that they will never ever be able to pay. Close the Munich Art School. Get the previously mentioned 500 rabid chimps and have them rape Lenin and Trotski in turns. Give France those shithole African colonies you don't use anyway but on the condition that you get a constant supply of rabid chimps as a deterent for unforeseen issues.

Europe is saved

Kek what the fuck is this

Please do some research on WWI. Battles on the eastern front were worlds apart from the west. Maneuverability and cavalry were actually a thing, trenches were relatively temporary and impromptu, actual army blocks still existed, the entire concept of multi-layer trench systems with timed artillery, bunkers, etc. was foreign - imagine the first battle of the Marne except the armies always had more space to move around, never leading to the static lines that formed after the race to the sea. Also implying that fighting the French is the same as fighting the disorganized, boots-dragging, rifle-sharing mob waves of Russians.
The entire war people like Ludendorff were dreaming for the breakthrough battle, and time and time again they were proven it couldn't be done under the circumstances and geography of the Western front (see: 1918 German Spring offensive)

it was like that in 1914 on the western front too before germans were defeated at marne and it turned into trench warfare

>tell AH to fuck off
>make a deal with russia to split AH
>proceed to suck Britain's dick so hard it comes off
>for a triple emperor alliance

>Throw Austria under the bus and stay out of it.
There goes your only ally

>If I absolutely have to enter the war, because the Frogs and Russians decide they're gonna invade anyways. I'd fortify and turn my western border into Japanese nightmare mode and send every last available soldier against Russia to try and knock them off early.

If you wait this long, it will already be too late, as the Russians border you all the way from at least Czechia to east Prussia

>stalemate at their border, rather than with some really juicy french regions.
I think a stalemate in the west for the gains of Brest-Litovsk would be worth it

I would simply not go to war at all. The glory of Germany is not worth killing hundreds of thousands, even millions of young men for.

To calm down the situation after the assasination of Ferdinand, I would:
>Not mobilize my army
>Start a confrence to discuss the situation
>Tell AH that Germany will not support it in a possible war.

If this dosent work, and Russia starts stomping AH either way, then Im fkd.

Dig in trenches on the French border and don't invade Belgium. This would prevent much of the blockading that occurred and not drawn Britain into the war. Focus on knocking Serbia out of the war and then launch the armies into Poland and the Baltic states faster than Russia can mobilize. Also, even if Italy attacks, we see how well they handled (ie bungled) things irl so no worries there.

Abroad, I would have pulled the armies/militias in the colonies back ti the regional capitals and tried my best to ensure that colonies were neutral (I don't invade if you don't invade stuff).

Then win the war.

Don't go through Belgium.