When the Grande Guerre broke out in late July of 1914, many expected a quick war. However, the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, feared that if Britain entered the war, then it could expand disastrously for Germany, especially for its colonies and international trade. Upon being informed that Britain’s entrance to the war may be predicated on preserving the neutrality of Belgium, the Kaiser counter-ordered the pre-existing plans to invade Belgium to outflank the French army.



This was however, a decision undertaken at the eleventh hour, and Germany’s rigidly prepared mobilization machine could not lightly stop its deployment. Von Moltke the younger tried to convince the Kaiser to continue with the invasion of Belgium, but to no avail. Though the respecting of Belgian neutrality did prevent British intervention in the war, this left the German army terribly disposed to fight either France or Russia. The French army enacted Plan XVII and catch much of the German army out of position and grossly unprepared.



German internal lines of communication became jammed with messages, and the French advance quickly forces a route, killing or capturing hundreds of thousands of German soldiers in one of the most successful large scale military operations in human history. The French advance only runs out of steam once it reaches the Rhine, where the Germans destroy many of the major bridges in a desperate attempt to halt the French tide. While this is successful, German morale and confidence in the war virtually collapses.



The only saving grace for Germany was that the spectacular French successes embolden the Russians to recklessness. Believing Germany was on the verge of collapse, and that the vaunted German military might was nothing more than a myth, the Russians sent their armies on the offensive before mobilization can be completed. While greatly outnumbering the German and Austrian armies in the east, the Russian armies fail to properly coordinate, allowing German generals such as Hindenburg and Ludendorff to defeat each Russian army in detail. The Austrians had a worse time of it, and lose most of Galicia to the Russians, while their attempted invasion of Serbia is completely stonewalled.



With the western front frozen on the Rhine, Germany decides to embark on a Russia First policy, and shifted most of its remaining armies east in 1915. Struggling to recover from their haphazard attacks in 1914, the Russian armies were driven back and suffered a series of setbacks. Russian losses are only exacerbated by the entrance of the Ottoman Empire in the war against Russia, resulting in heavy fighting in the Caucasus. Russian setbacks on all fronts create rising domestic dissent, as more and more of Russia’s governance fell under the influence of Grigori Rasputin, to the chagrin of most Russians.



By 1916, the war was going terribly for Russia, and under the advice of Rasputin, Tsar Nicholas II signed the Treaty of Riga, ceding to Germany the territories of the Baltics, White Ruthenia, and the Ukraine, as well as freeing the Grand Duchy of Finland, and recognizing Ottoman Suzerainty over the Caucasus. This massively unpopular move in Russia triggered the subsequent abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, leaving his underage son Alexei to become the new Tsar, under the now new total influence of Rasputin. Despite numerous attempts on his life, Rasputin has survived them all, almost miraculously. Despite widespread discontent, Russia’s precarious economic situation and the eerie ability of Rasputin to foresee plots against his life and position saw an unsteady status quo settle in for Russia post peace after a period of social unrest and near civil war.



Germany’s good tidings in the east were to be very short lived. Within days of the signing of the Treaty of Riga, French soldiers shockingly tear through Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands after over a year of preparation. Not allowing the key bridges to be destroyed, the rapid French advance allows for them to entirely by-pass the German defenses on the Rhine. With German defenders left at the minimum to support campaigns in the east, little is in the way of the French in their charge for Berlin, which the French were on the verge of capturing by the end of 1916.



Energized by the French breakthrough, as well as Austria’s continued failure to beat Serbia, and the inability of Germany to maintain order in their new eastern territories, Italy, Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria, after months of effort by French diplomats, enter the war within days of each other, promised great rewards by the French. Though this immediately resulted in tensions over overlapping land promises (Bulgaria and Greece in particularly rapidly determined the other was also promised Constantinople), the greatly expanded French alliance held by virtue of momentum against the Central Powers.



Surrounded by enemies, their colonies lost, and their territories dissolving, Germany was left with no choice by to sue for peace, which France accepted only after the Germans agreed to an unconditional surrender. Austria caved subsequently, however the Ottomans attempted to hold out for a negotiated peace, hoping that at the very least the Greeks and Bulgarians would fall out of their alliance. A French fleet breaking through the Dardanelles and shelling Constantinople directly quickly changes the tune of the Ottomans, and they too submit to French demands.



The French peace would be a harsh one, a new order for all of Europe. The whole left bank of the Rhine would be incorporated into France, Slesvig-Holstein returned to Denmark, parts of eastern Germany broken off to join Poland, and Germany divided into the Commonwealth of Westphalia, the Bavarian Republic, and the Prusso-Brandenburg Union. Austria-Hungary ceded Istria and Tyrol to Italy, Part of Bosnia to Serbia, the remainder of Bosnia folded into Dalmatia under Croatia, Transylvania and assorted territories to Romania, Galicia granted to Poland, and Czechoslovakia freed as an independent nation. Austria and Hungary were also separated and the Habsburgs removed from the thrones of each, republics put in their place. Germany’s creations in the east were kept, barring the United Baltic Duchy, but the German monarchs removed and republics put in their place.



The Ottomans fared little better. Their Arabian lands were put under a number of French administrations, and lands in Anatolia occupied by Greece, Italy, and France, while Bulgaria annexed up to the city of Constantinople. With Bulgaria and Greece each unwilling to let the other have the city, France instead decided to administrate the city itself, as a semi-autonomous mandate. The Ottoman puppets in the Caucasus were allowed, under French oversight, to organize themselves as a federal republic, as well as annexing a number of Armenian majority lands from the Ottomans. What was now left of the Ottoman Empire was a shadow of its former self in Anatolia.



[WIP] Meanwhile to the Grande Guerre, Britain fell into civil war over the question of Irish Home Rule. The Liberals and Irish faced off against the Unionists and Conservatives, with Labour initially opposing the war while tacitly supporting the liberals, before growing irritated with the war, mobilizing workers from Wales and Scotland, as well as common farmers across the island and beating both sides on Britain. The Labour revolt likely would have failed had the majority of both the Conservative and Liberal Armies decided to mutiny and join the anti-war Labour coalition. The Irish meanwhile prevail on their island, and an uneasy peace settles between them and the new Republic of Britain.



The British Civil War has disastrous implications for their colonies. While most of the Dominions support the Liberal government, South Africa instead backed the Conservatives. Across the empire, the most loyal Britons return to the home islands to fight for King and Country, leaving British interests weakly guarded. German soldiers in East Africa under Lettow-Vorbeck take advantage of weak British hold in Africa to hide and conduct their campaigns beyond the reach of the French. The French response would be to ignore British colonial claims and march into the territories anyways.



The greatest drop in Franco-British relations occurred not long into 1915 though, when King George V, though initially supportive of the Liberal government, changed his allegiance after reports of mass murder by Irishmen on Ulster loyalists came in, and the Liberal government refused to respond, instead trying to bury the reports. The defection of King George V triggered a crisis for the Liberal government, leaving them with a question of leadership and legitimacy. Rather than declare a republic, which was what French diplomats urged, instead the liberals fell back on tradition, to minimize monarchist defections from the King’s action, and instead invited a Jacobite pretender, John Montagu Douglas Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch. This irritated the French, since they felt that Stuart claims on France were insulting, who instead decided to support the Conservatives wholeheartedly. The various meddling of foreign powers, and perception of their civil war as another front to the Franco-German war, gave rise to Labour’s rapidly expanding, and ultimately victorious, third way.



Canada suffered perhaps the most of Britain’s Dominions, with it having sent many soldiers to support the Liberal government, and even enacted conscription after news of a Labour uprising reached them. These policies were not popular in much of Canada however, especially Quebec. French Canadians rioted with such fervor, and clashed so openly with what was present of the Canadian army that martial law was declared. With its northern neighbor in a state of near chaos, and Britain on the verge of falling to Socialism, American President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the American army to cross the border and restore order to Canada. After initial success, welcomed by many Canadians as a relief, this good will rapidly evaporated as it became clear that American soldiers were not leaving from Canada in the wake of the collapse of the British Empire.



The most important event in post-war Europe would be the Spartacist revolt in Germany. Furious at the division of Germany and the capitalist order, German nationalists and communists rose in rebellion across Germany in 1918, intent on forging a new Socialist Germany. While successful in much of Germany, responses by France in its allies would secure order in Westphalia and Bavaria, Brandenburg-Prussia was another matter. With Poland distracted by a border conflict with Ukraine, it could not contributed greatly to the war effort, allowing the Spartacists to entrance themselves in eastern Germany. Meanwhile, East Prussia had escaped the revolt entirely, but instead it attracted the efforts of German monarchists, who declared the restoration of the Kingdom of Prussia. Quickly securing local support, the Kingdom of Prussia would soon support a restoration of German monarchs to Finland and the Baltic states, while France was distracted in Germany, and fears of Russian invasion gripped these countries.



Ultimately France would fail to fully defeat the Spartacists, as its home front grew ever more wary of maintaining French rule everywhere, resulting in an uneasy peace between the German Workers Republic and the Third French Republic.