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  1. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    I would argue that that is less important than the Austrians' problems but the replacement of Cadorna and Conrad's involvement means the Italian Front is slightly sui generis. But the collapse of other fronts can be assigned to structural factors.

  2. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    But why did Second Piave go catastrophically wrong for the Austrians? Partly it was Conrad being typically useless but it was also because the attacking Austrians were underfed and underresourced.

  3. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    You're putting the cart before the horse, there is a reason that the Central Powers suffered a string of catastrophic defeats in the last few months of the war and it wasn't the Entente suddenly becoming massively more competent or the CP becoming useless. The Hundred Days wouldn't have been...

  4. Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

    I was more thinking Hashemite monarchy with a Sabri enjoying a Bishops Avenue house and an unlimited account at Harrods.

  5. Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

    Pushing Sabri to burn the fields as a final act of spite would be disastrous but switching horses while giving Sabri a clear, safe and extremely profitable exit route could work very well

  6. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    True. There are lots of plausible paths to a CP victory, either short war military options or long war paths where Germany understands that food is its Achilles Heel and focuses on solving that from August 1914 by prioritising nitrogen fertilisers over shells at home and focusing on conquering...

  7. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    America didn't contribute meaningfully to the defeat of Germany in the first world war because Germany was defeated by hunger induced revolution not crushed on the battlefield (though that was happening). To make an WW2 analogy the Hundred Days offensive was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria...

  8. Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

    I didn't read anything in the update saying that, King Hussein emphasising less mercenary reasons for the intervention is natural and the geography of the region means any intervention by the Jordanians is going to reach the Holy Cities first.

  9. Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

    Why would the Americans who are currently supporting the Jordanians or the British who will probably switch to supporting them cut off support in order to preserve Sabri. He initially seemed like a good bet to resolve the chaos but with an old and valued ally in play he's not needed anymore?

  10. Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

    Considering the very strong ties between Jordan and Great Britain I would not be surprised to see the British at least totally drop Sabri in favour of the Hashemites especially as uniting all of the ex-Saudi lands with Jordan shuts out Saddam.

  11. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    I wouldn't quite say that. With the decisions the Germans had made in how to run their war economy and the nature of the Russian collapse the hard deadline of Christmas 1918 was programmed in by Christmas 1917, better military decisions and results in 1918 can't generate the millions of tons of...

  12. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    The Entente being cut off by America=CP Victory is as you say massively simplistic and factually unsound. An Entente that is solely dependent on their own (larger) resources takes them to where the CP has been since September 1914 but with larger pre war economies.

  13. Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.

    You could sell tickets to watch the Saviour of Franceᵀᴹ find out about that.

  14. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    No Hindenburg is probably a net economic boon but German management of their food supply was pretty poor right from the start, see the Schweinemord fiasco. But making Germany do a better job of fighting a long war isn't the right way because for Germany to win a long war they need to roll a ten...

  15. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    Sorry, I missed this. If Romania stays out initially the CP are better off, it's one less front to fight on so in 1916 the CP are definitely disadvantaged. From the Fall of Bucharest to the Armistice in November 1917 it's probably a net, the CP have the oil fields and some agricultural areas but...

  16. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    @RedSword12 is correct about the Entente not knowing how badly things were going inside the Central Powers but also if the French and British had just sat on the defensive in the west the Germans might have been able to conquer Ukraine much sooner and taking Ukraine in say 1916 would have solved...

  17. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    The Allied blockade, the Central Power bloc has a whole had a calorie deficit of over 30% against peacetime demand and probably 10-15% against starvation* and shortages of pretty much every industrial input apart from coal. Winning battles doesn't matter if your family at home is starving to...

  18. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    August 1918 is a good deadline. People are far too prone to looking at this as a military problem for Germany that can be solved by military means, which on one level is fair enough, that's how Hindenburg and the Kaiser thought but then again they lost. Somewhere between August and November 1918...

  19. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    I think Niall Ferguson and others overemphasise the international and battlefield situation for the collapse of the German Army in the West in comparison to the home front. By autumn 1918 Germany was starving and by October 1918 the German Army knew about it, soldiers will fight on in seemingly...

  20. Is a successful 1918 Spring Offensive possible?

    No, WW1 logistics means the idea of splitting the British and French armies and driving to the coast is impossible. Even if it were possible it would not win Germany the war, the home front situation is too bad and US reinforcements coming in through the French Atlantic ports means even if the...
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