My player wanted a alternate ww1 setting. Got me thinking about the Christmas Truce...

My player wanted a alternate ww1 setting. Got me thinking about the Christmas Truce. And what if that was how the war ended. As in afterwords soldiers on both sides refused to fight. That is only one Front, so how would the change the war and the world at large? Could this be made into a fun game and story? Any ideas or thoughts?

>soldiers on this scale refusing to fight.

Sorry but officers and command would put the first dissenters in line just like they did in real life.

>soldiers on both sides refused to fight

The ringleaders are shot and everyone goes back to work.

What if that backfired? It is just an idea for the story.

Given that the muh xmas truce was limited to brits and even then only happened on certain parts of the front; the best/worst case scenario would be probably be a mutiny among the BEF that lets krauts focus on French forces while Brits are busy with liquidating the filthy pacifists among their ranks. Depending on how you want to proceed this could lead to parts of the BEF to frag their officers and defect on the German side and thus making the war even more of a glorious clusterfuck than it already was.

So essentially the fire rises?

Mass dissent on both sides would halt the war. Possibly lead to coups and civil war. British expeditionary force is stranded in france. France goes communist maybe depending on the time and hand wavium.

The whole navy thing would be interesting to see. Americas reaction would be cool to see too.

Basically. Both sides have their soldiers turn their guns on their leaders. Or Everyone just sits down and refuses to comply. Which ever makes a better story.

That kind of mass desertion would stop more than the war. You'd be dealing with widespread revolution and break down of society.

Assuming this only occurs on the Western Front, Russia could perhaps capitalise on the collapsing Germany and forestall, or even completely avoid revolution herself.

America has no war to intervene in but Western Europe being engulfed by revolution would be damn sight more worrying than Russia, as well as being much easier to intervene in, so you could see American "peacekeeping" forces landing in continental Europe not to fight the Germans but to fight the revolutionaries.

This actually happened in some parts of the war, and it didn't result how you suggested.

Over time in the trenches, sometimes the two sides would slowly stop firing at eachother, basically coming to a silent ceasefire. Neither side would shoot the other, and they'd simply stay in the trenches holding their ground.

Naturally, officers and command don't like this, but rather than shooting the 'ringleaders' (of which there were none), they simply had whichever company was on the line shuffled around with a different one. This meant that whenever such a ceasefire was reached, it was quickly broken up by throwing them against a different set of enemy soldiers.


To answer OP's question though, this sort of thing would have to happen on a grand and united scale. You'd need to have newspapers reporting to the populace that the armies are disobeying orders and moving for peace, along with public support of that fact.

Since WWI was basically a big shitfest over nobility, the attempts to counteract this by higher-ups might just be met with revolution and coup attempts. With all these armies around geared for war, it would not be hard for them to simply march home, take over the government, and declare the war over so they can move on with their lives.

The potential effects on Europe are hard to say, as WWI did sort of end most of the monarchies in europe anyway. Without the harsh penalties from the treaty of versaille and with a more neutral end to the war, you'd probably get less national resentment from germany, meaning WWII never kicks off, at least not at the same scale.

The war ending early also means America might not get involved as much, meaning US isolationism may stay more in place.

The hardest thing to gauge is what would happen to each country's coup attempt, and the potential fallout after. What happens if one coup succeeds and another fails, leaving one of the monarchies still in power and still out for war?

>soldiers refusing to fight and rising against their hierarchy
February revolution across europa ? Civil war between united nationalists and the second international ?
And don't forget about the spanish flu.

>And don't forget about the spanish flu.
This!
What if the flu struck earlier in the war? Entire stretches of trenchlands full of sick soldiers that have to be evacuated to teh nearest field hospital while new recruits get shuffled into their place - and contract the flu in the process. The war is gummed up by both sides full of mucus. What happens next? Would the new plague stop the war?

Hell, what if it wasn't Spanish Flu, but a variant of Black Death that got dug up from the ground during artillery fire?

>The war ending early also means America might not get involved as much, meaning US isolationism may stay more in place.

They probably would intervene as said - to stop the wave of revolutions.

Bubonic plague would be easier to contain than the influenza. Unless it is pneunomic plague but then you're just trading one type of airborne virus for another.

Well, flu is more contagious than plague is I think.

Flu (influenza) is a virus. Plague is a bacteria (yersinia pestis).

Mass desertions while the industrial output remains at war levels would probably mean that small professional armies would get a kickstart earlier in history, and the beginnings of automation and heavy defensive lines like the maginot line, that can hold a sector with minimal crews.
Besides, historically, colonial troops were often used to quell civil unrest. France was particularly fond of it. No strings with the local populace.


>civil war on the whole continent
>US expeditionary force
Aw yisss
Japan would probably intervene too, in small numbers.

Concerning automation

Isn't this what happened during Vietnam War? A combination of soldier fatigue and homeland protests forcing government to call the soldiers off?

Either way, it sounds like an interesting setting (and setting inspiration for more fantasy-ish stuff). Massive wave of revolutions in Europe, utter clusterfuck in Russia (Russian Civil War would grow vastly more fun as there would be more governments in europe supporting both sides), America just sitting across the ocean in silent horror (actually, wasn't a sizeable part of america supportive of communism back then? this could spark another civil war in America, too).

So, the WWII would probably still happen, but for other reasons and with different alliances.

Didn't a rebellion in the kriegsmarine at the end of ww1 trigger the fall of the german empire?
Wary soldiers and populations, ethnic troubles (like the irish war), ideological revolutions (socialists, communists and anarchists trying to overthrow the powers in place, not to mention more traditional political formations ilke the royalists or the ultranationalists).

>Due to the enormous losses and lack of morale on the front, all major offensives have been halted. There are rumors of an armistice getting near. Your regiment is called back hometo maintain public order as it seems the civilians are getting jittery as well. When the train finally arrive you're greeted by a battle between communists and anarchist militants equipped with rifles. You can se several fires inthe distance, and the police is nowhere to be seen.
Then you put them in the middle of a civil war and political imbroglio like no one has seen before, with ten colors of revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, and war profiteers and plain bandits.

If you want totake things more slowly, make them arrive at camp, with the rumor mill on high speed, and a few days later they wake up and realise all the officers have deserted and no one knows what's going on.

>Then you put them in the middle of a civil war and political imbroglio like no one has seen before, with ten colors of revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, and war profiteers and plain bandits.

I'm currently writing a novel about that but set in the UK circa 2024

Whay if due to the xmas peace the troops start revolutions that lead to a more unified Europe? SPARKING off the whole European Union thing due to the peeps who are now in charge having more common ground and a predisposition to unite to avoid further war? A WW1 era EU would be impressive

French Troops actually refused to go over the top and only to fight defensively in early 1917 - apparently shooting entire mutinous brigades presents logistical issues in a war of attrition.

Japan was on the side of the allies during ww1. Helped the british take over the german run port of Tsingtao.

>helped the british

More like the British helped the Japanese.

Japan has a history of being pretty worthless ally desu. So far only US has gotten anything useful out of them and even then it has been pretty marginal at best.

Having an unsinkable aircraft carrier and staging area is pretty useful, desu

>The German garrison was able to field only a single Taube aircraft during the siege, flown by Lieutenant Gunther Plüschow. (A second Taube piloted by Lt. Friedrich Müllerskowsky crashed early in the campaign). The Taube was used primarily for frequent reconnaissance flights, but Plüschow made several nuisance attacks on the vessels of the blockading squadron, dropping jury-rigged munitions and other ordnance on them. He also claimed the downing of a Japanese Farman MF.7 with his pistol, the first aerial victory in aviation history.

>The Allies took formal possession of the colony on 16 November 1914.

>Japanese casualties numbered 236 killed and 1,282 wounded; the British had 12 killed and 53 wounded. The German defenders lost 199 dead and 504 wounded.[14]

>As the German garrison was able to hold out for nearly two months despite a total Anglo-Japanese blockade with sustained artillery bombardment and being outnumbered 6 to 1, the defeat nevertheless served as a morale booster. The German defenders watched the Japanese as they marched into Tsingtao, but turned their backs on the British when they entered into town.[15] The German dead were buried at Tsingtao, while the remainder were transported to prisoner of war camps in Japan. The 4700 German prisoners were treated well and with respect in Japan,[16] such as in Bandō prisoner-of-war camp. The German troops were interned in Japan until the formal signature of the Versailles peace treaty in 1919, but due to technical questions the troops were not repatriated before 1920. 170 prisoners chose to remain in Japan after the end of the war.

In a final first for the siege of Tsingtao, the german POWs were sent to the town of Naruto in tokushima province, forever enshrining the link between weeaboos and Naruto.

More like useless brits.

I know. I based their involvement on the allied intervention in the russian civil war immediately after ww1. Also the fact that japan exported some gear to the western front to help the entente powers.
>see the rise of bolsheviks in russia
>all counterpowers in the west are also fighting bolshevik dissidents.
>send some troops to help the conservative factions win and prevent other countries to ally with russia.
>be allies of circumstances with american piggus, again

>america is your main supplier of scrap metal and oil
>you just have to go and piss the ever living fuck out of them even before that whole lets attack them before declaring the war bit
>because nothing bad is gonna happen when a third rate power pisses of an emerging superpower

Honestly what yanks did to the Japan was extremely gentle when you consider what kind of cunts Imperial Japanese were.

Refusal to fight in the West following the 1914 Christmas Truces ends with negotiated cease-fire with the western powers. This does not end the conflict with the Ottomans, whom are still reeling from Russian and British pressure, nor does it set the stage for a peace settlement with Russia, whom the Germans are throwing out of Eastern Prussia.

To save face and keep at least some of the promises to their Russian allies, the French and British double down on the Ottomans, and despite an agreed 'truce line' across western europe, skirmishes and battles with German supported Turks continues.

Likely with the manpower freed up, Germany bulwarks the Austrians sooner and throws the Russians out of Prussia. Likely Russia and the Western allies negotiate a settlement that summer to return to status quo, likely with a division of Serbia to placate the Austrian/Germans and concessions from the Ottomans to placate the Russians/Western Europeans.

Thus 'status quo' is maintained and the war ends after a year. All governments play up the 'civilized' end of negotiation and blow the trumpets of victory while cracking down hard on unrest.

Now we just need to make one thread on Veeky Forums to have a canvas of events and historical characters for the campaign, and one on /pol/ to have in-universe conspiracies and propaganda.

Meanwhile, ww1 pics.