I can't recommend enough the "guns of august" book as so many of those linked chain of events could have been broken.

July 1914 by Sean McMeekin is a very thorough examination of the political and diplomatic maneuverings and blunderings that went on between the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the start of the shooting. It's amazing what a clusterf*** that whole thing was.

I'm pretty sure I posted a similar "what if" in this thread a while back: what if the Germans had stood on the strategic defensive in the West against France, and instead turned their primary focus on the Russians?

The results of the Battle of the Frontiers - where the French army was bloodily repulsed attempting to attack into Alsace-Lorraine while the German right wing marched through Belgium - show that the Germans could hold off the French with only a small portion of their army. And the Battle of Tannenberg show what the Germans could do to the Russians with another secondary effort. So how badly could the Germans have thrashed the Russians if they had made that their main effort in 1914?

Meanwhile engaging in focused diplomatic efforts pointing out that Germany is only fighting Russia because Russia attacked Austria-Hungary, with whom Germany had a defense treaty. Russia had no treaty obligation to defend Serbia, which means Russia was the aggressor.* The focus of this being to keep England out of the war entirely, and hopefully convince France that it's not worth the cost of bashing their heads against the German defenses.

*It's worth noting that Russia made no move to help Serbia when Serbia got involved in a war with Turkey a few years prior. Russia mainly saw the spat between Austria-Hungary and Serbia as an opportunity to grab the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia.

What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife had survived the assassination attempt in Sarajevo?

More of a broad stroke, but always wondered what the European Theater would look like if the US took a "Pacific first" instead of "Europe first" approach to the war, since it was Japan that actually attacked us.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

---

What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife had survived the assassination attempt in Sarajevo?

---

Germany was going to war one way or another.

Even more Russians would have died

HillCountry15 said:

---

More of a broad stroke, but always wondered what the European Theater would look like if the US took a "Pacific first" instead of "Europe first" approach to the war, since it was Japan that actually attacked us.

---

We didn't have the Navy or resources in 42 for a sustained campaign against the Japanese that would have been much larger than what we did. So if we largely ignored Europe, I don't think you see the end of the Pacific War that much quicker given the geography and you strongly risk blowing up problems in Europe if the Soviets decide to sue for a separate armistice.

The Pacific was initially only receiving 15% of the supplies for the war effort. While both the Army and Navy agreed that Germany must be defeated first Admiral King argued for increasing resources for the Pacific to 25-30% when talking with the British. General Marshall also echoed this with increasing it to 30%. But with the low allocation we had to take a defensive position in the Pacific. The Army agreed to Europe first with the understanding that we would attack Germany soon. General Marshall wanted to build up forces for the invasion of Germany at the earliest possible moment. But this did not happen as the British kept delaying it. If we had doubled the resources to 30% or at least to 50% you most certainly speed up the war in the Pacific and may still be able to invade Europe in 1944. If the invasion is delayed another year maybe we use the bomb on Germany instead.

After the Romans lost 60,000 in a day at the battle of Cannae, it was a mess and Hannibal marched up and down Italy looking for a way to finish them off in battle in the 2nd Punic war. What if…he had succeeded, before being recalled to Carthage, and actually took Rome?



He lacked the logistics most would agree to pull off such a siege but it's still an interesting question.

I suppose this is mentioned up thread but what if the Germans hadn't blown it at Stalingrad?



Of course, not necessarily a pleasant scenario, thank goodness Paulus was…who he was.

It probably depends on what is meant by the Germans 'winning' at Stalingrad. Taking the city, probably on the march, without that long, grinding battle? Or the failure of Operation Uranus, and 6th Army not being trapped in the city?

In any case, Army Group A is still highly unlikely to make it across the Caucasus mountains to take Baku and the oil fields there, which was the real objective of the German summer 1942 offensive. That means they would still be badly overextended and vulnerable to a Red Army counteroffensive.

So, the Red Army's winter 42/43 offensive probably would have retaken much less territory, but it would just be a delay in Germany's eventual defeat. Possibly even enough that the Western Allies take Berlin.

I think the Battle of France still goes much the same as it does in actual history. Germany may have more troops available for the Ardennes offensive, but they'd still be in trouble with fuel and transport, with Operation Point Blank having ground the Luftwaffe into near impotence and Germany's fuel production and internal transport system being pounded by British and American bombers.

One of the things that I think is underappreciated about the Anglo-American bomber offensive is the amount of resources Germany devoted to trying to stop it. By the spring of 1943, roughly 70 percent of the Luftwaffe's strength was facing west, with most of that devoted to stopping the bombers. Then there's this, from Richard Overy's Why the Allies Won :

Quote:

---

By 1944 one-third of all German artillery production consisted of anti-aircraft guns; the anti-aircraft effort absorbed 20 percent of all ammunition produced, one-third of the output of the optical industry, and between half and two-thirds of the production of radar and signals equipment. . . by 1944, an estimated two million Germans were engaged in anti-aircraft defense. (pg 131)

---

In the first five months of 1944, roughly 2300 of the approximately 2500 fighter pilots that the Luftwaffe had available in January had been killed or otherwise put out of action, mostly in air battles over Germany.

One interesting possibility is that a German victory at Stalingrad, whatever it looked like, might have extended the war enough for the first A-bomb to be dropped on Berlin, not Hiroshima. Would that have made any difference in persuading Japan to surrender?

Great points, certainly can't reach any conclusions there. Hitler really was so stupid as a commander that even without Paulus' surrender he probably would have ordered some other military idiocy somehow, imho.

Long form discussion as to 'what if' WW1 could have been avoided.

What if Hannibal was able to conquer the city of Rome.