WWI

[Old Tanker]

I just finished ready some WWI books including Martin Gilbert's ' The First World War'.

 

What a f'ing bloody massacre.

 

* Gallapolli... A good operational strategy most poorly executed.

* Verdun.. the ultimate battle of attrition.

* The Somme ... what a bloody waste.

* The Russians ... fought a good war but ran out of gas.. then revolution.

 

The Entente seemed to come up with a viable plan to attack Turkey and Austria but Haig kept promising success soon in N.W. Europe... it seems he kept saying that for 2-3 years.

 

What could of been better planning and naval support at Gallipoli , hold the Germans fight the Austrians and Turks .

 

When all was said and done ........ nothing was settled , we did it all over again for the same reasons 20 years later.

 

In hindsight what coulda - shoulda worked ....... Gallipoli ? Send troops to Russia ?

More action in n.e. Italy ?

 

The Americans were a major factor in boosting the Ententes morale and scared the Germans by fighting better than expected by them.

[Ssnake]

I just finished ready some WWI books including Martin Gilbert's ' The First World War'.

 

What a f'ing bloody massacre.

...

In hindsight what coulda - shoulda worked ... ?

368621[/snapback]

What are the constraints of the discusison?

Assuming that technology would be approximately the same, the fundamental challenge that all armies were facing was that the defensive strength of armies had grown massively, and that command and control of mass battles was essentially nonexistent. The easiest answer to this was a strategy of attrition.

 

To that extent I think that the answer of the high commands on either side was rational, though not creative. Once that the strategy of attrition developed momentum it was hard to find different strategies - not as far as developing ideas and plans was concerned, but to influence the decisionmakers to actually give them a chance to implement them. Looking at Monash and Pershing, the commanders that heavily contributed to the allied victory during 1918, it seems that much of the combat power that their forces developed was the fact that they had the unusual privilege to build up and train a coherent force for some time before actually deploying them to battle.

There was tremendous pressure to send these fresh troops immediately to the front to plug holes and reinforce weak points which would have diluted their power potential if that would have been allowed to happen.

 

One of the few ways to end WWI quicker that I can see is an earlier and more determined decision to place all bets on a new technology that would be disruptive to the stalemate - the tank. But I also think that it was practically impossible to achieve that because it required the tremendous pressure of the stalemate to motivate the decisionmakers to try something new.

There always is an enormous pressure to commit new technologies as quickly as possible to a fight - there are numerous examples: The introduction of poison gas, the delay of the Kursk operation to introduce the Panther, and indeed the introduction of tanks as such. This piecemeal introduction often results in irrelevant tactical victories but forfeits operational surprise.

 

Anyway - having the US earlier in the war could have helped, but it was politically unfeasible. The same goes for the tank. Falling back to the disingenious strategy of attrition was something that promised if not an immediate victory, but at least that it would hurt the enemy just as much as oneself.

Gallipoli, better executed (that is, had anyone bothered to actually reconnoiter the terrain) could have resulted in a fulminant operational success had everything gone as planned. But as always the enemy had a say in it as well, and the botched preparation doomed the whole thing from the start.

 

On the other hand, would the Australian forces have been as magnificent, would have Monash developed into the commander he would be, without the terrible blunder in Gallipoli?

We will never know, but I think that what happened there did shape the personalities of all the people involved there, and Monash would probably still have been a good commander, but maybe not the brilliant one that he became, and chances are that had Gallipoli been less of a disaster he would not have been promoted as far as he did, limiting is influence in 1918.

[superfractal]

I just finished ready some WWI books including Martin Gilbert's ' The First World War'.

 

What a f'ing bloody massacre.

 

* Gallapolli... A good operational strategy most poorly executed.

* Verdun.. the ultimate battle of attrition.

* The Somme ... what a bloody waste.

* The Russians ... fought a good war but ran out of gas.. then revolution.

 

The Entente seemed to come up with a viable plan to attack Turkey and Austria but Haig kept promising success soon in N.W. Europe... it seems he kept saying that for 2-3 years.

 

What could of been better planning and naval support at Gallipoli , hold the Germans fight the Austrians and Turks . 

 

When all was said and done ........ nothing was settled , we did it all over again for the same reasons 20 years later.

 

In hindsight what coulda - shoulda worked ....... Gallipoli ? Send troops to Russia ?

More action in n.e. Italy ?

 

The Americans were a major factor in boosting the Ententes morale and scared the Germans by fighting better than expected by them.

368621[/snapback]

 

 

I am reading through Hew Strachen's "First World War" and have recently read Paddy Griffth's "Battle tactics of the western front".

Hew Strachan's book makes the point, that the armies had to keep trying for a breakthrough.

 

As a bite and hold strategy, could not work on anything other than essential ground(For the defender).

 

And on a number of case's break through's could have been made.

But the Entente armies were held up by a lack of technology especialy in signaling.

 

Gallipoli happend on the 25th of April 1915 so Haig did keep promising success but by april 1917 he had begun to deliver success.

 

The French also became defensive after Joffree was sacked and the french governement collapsed, apparently Haig feared without action the German's would Turn to finish the Russians and Italains off.

 

A week after Arras German Numbers in that sector doubled,i dont know how many troops were redirected there or from where but it could of been significant in that respect. It is claimed between the 9th april and 9th july the geramans lost about 450,000 troops on the western front.

 

The italian army was not in great shape but the British and French armies sent 11 divisions to bolster them as it was.

Im not sure that Italy would have given better chances to breakthrough than the west.

 

The somme was a catalyst for tactical and technical changes, that resulted in the British success of 1917.

Edited September 15, 2006 by superfractal

[KingSargent]

Haig was not a military dictator responsible for all CW actions. He commanded the BEF in France after French was sacked - period. He had nothing to do with Gallipoli, Italy, Russia, or other "alternatives," aside from complaining about stuff and men being diverted from his front, just like all the other theater COs bitched about all the goodies that went to the BEF.

 

I have never seen a detractor of Haig come up with somebody who could have done better. Maybe by 1918 some good men had developed, but Haig was in the upper ranks from 1914. FTM, nobody else of any nation found a solution to the trench deadlock any faster than Haig either.

 

A good part of the problem was communication. No army had the commo to permit a rapid flow of info and orders from the front to HQ. The British Army had probably the best commo in the world by 1918, and even that paled in comparison with what became available in WW2. And in 1918 they had absolutely NO conception of what we take for granted today; we find it hard to conceive of the handicaps they labored under.

 

The Allied generals on the Western Front couldn't pick where or how they fought, especially the British before 1917. Griffith makes a point that the rather primitive efforts undertaken by the expanding but unready BEF in 1915 were politically

inspired to show the Allies that the British were actually going to do their part on the ground. The Somme in 1916 was an effort to relieve pressure on the French and the battlefield was chosen at the junction of the BEF and French armies. In 1917, the "wasteful" offensives were undertaken to distract Germany from the French whose army had mutinied (even if we judge today that it was not serious, it looked serious then) and from the Russians who were collapsing. They were continued after it was obvious they should be shut down because the politicians said the pressure had to be kept on. Then of course after the war all the politicians wrote books castigating the generals for being stupid enough to follow political directions.

 

Changing fronts was no good. What would knocking Turkey out of the war do to Germany? Especially if the troops to defeat and overrun Turkey (a somewhat large place) came from the Western Front which was weakened enough by it for the Germans to knock France out.

 

We can say go after Austria. How? Send armies to Russia? How are armies going to get to Russia when it was difficult to get weapons to Russia? Go into the Balkans and fight through the mountains to get to Austria from the south? Send armies to Italy and climb over the Alps?

 

The Generals were not "fighting in the same old way" for four years. They grasped at any method that showed promise. Loos in 1915 was based on a gas attack FOUR MONTHS after the British first set up a Gas branch. Four months is not much time to work out tactics and doctrine to use an entirely new weapon, but French based an offensive on it.

 

The tactic that eventually worked was improving artillery. Enough artillery led to a small success, but it took other battles to work out just how much was "enough." It finally came down to about 400 pounds of shells per yard of trench attacked. Just making that many shells took years. Just in 1916 the BEF went from using about 105,000 shells per week in January to 2,250,000 in the week before 2 July (figures are approximate from creaky memory). BEF shell usage ran about 3,000,000/week through 1918.

 

The scale of the problem was unprecedented, the size of the armies was unprecedented, it is really not too surprising that it took four years to figure out what to do and to make the tools necessary to do it.

 

The best way to avoid the slaughter of WW1 would have been to smother Wilhelm II at birth.

[hammerlock]

Not all offensives in 1917 were wasteful. With the right tactis and artillery support alot could be done even in 1917. Look at Vimy Ridge, in less than a day the Canadian Corp under Gen Currie took want was thought to be untakeable. With very low loses. Being a Canadian event: I know this is over looked in most history books that aren't canadian, but I can get you a few a good books if you want to read up on what the Canadian Corp did. Look at the last 100 days, it was spearhead in part by the Canadian Corp.

Edited September 16, 2006 by hammerlock

[JWB]

The problems of WW1 weren't strategic they were tactical. Haig had the artillery pound for days across a wide section of enemy trench line eliminating any surprise. The infantry would be sent in shoulder to shoulder wave style carrying way too much kit. It probably would have been more effective to concentrate the artillery against a much smaller section for a massive concentrated barrage lasting a few hours. The infantry would carry just basic weapons and could infiltrate at night. The BEF would have suffered just as many casualties as what actually happened but at least they would have been able to close against the Germans and equalized the slaughter.

Edited September 16, 2006 by JWB

[KingSargent]

The problems of WW1 weren't strategic they were tactical. Haig had the artillery pound for days across a wide section of enemy trench line eliminating any surprise. The infantry would be sent in shoulder to shoulder wave style carrying way too much kit.

368763[/snapback]

This is one of those "things everybody knows" that just aren't so. The 'shoulder to shoulder" thing happened on July 1, 1916, but even on the evil "First Day on the Somme" there were units who infiltrated No Man's Land at night to be closer to the German trenches. The BEF tactics sure improved when a similar assault succeeded handily on July 14.

 

By 1917 the BEF had a decent platoon-level doctrine worked out that worked better than the German Stosstruppen attacks in 1918. The artillery had improved immensely from 1916 to 1917. But it all took time, especially to get shells that worked. The fact that the BEF went from six divisions to sixty in eighteen months meant that lots of weapons had to made to get everyone just the basics, much less start increasing the number of MGs per bn for example.

 

There was no "open war" for four years because there were no flanks, at least on the Western Front. There could be no maneuver battle, at least until someone broke through with a frontal attack. But even so by the Hundred Days in 1918 the Allies had returned as much mobility to the battlefield as was seen for about 95% of WW2. Really, if you leave out a few riotous mechanized rampages, WW2 was pretty static most of the time.

 

The problem was that the defenses at the Somme and Passchendaele were really very tough. The Stosstruppen of 1918 probably wouldn't have done any better than the Allies did against the same defenses, while the 1918 Allies would have waltzed through the weak strung-out defenses of the British 5th Army in 1918, probably a lot better than the Germans did.

[Richard Lindquist]

The strategy of WWI from the allied side was roughly this:

 

1. The Germans had invaded and occupied the northeast corner of France.

 

2. The primary (and virtually only) strategic interest for the French was getting the Germans out.

 

3. The French pressured the Brits to get mopre and more troops to France and to take over a larger and larger sector of line to permit the French to concentrate for an offensive to push the Germans back.

 

4. The Frnech were trying to get the Russians, Italians, Romanians, and Serbs to attack as often as possible to take German troops away from the Western Front to facilitate French offensives.

 

5. Everything the French did was to increase pressure on the Germans in France.

[superfractal]

The strategy of WWI from the allied side was roughly this:

 

1.  The Germans had invaded and occupied the northeast corner of France.

 

2.  The primary (and virtually only) strategic interest for the French was getting the Germans out.

 

3.  The French pressured the Brits to get mopre and more troops to France and to take over a larger and larger sector of line to permit the French to concentrate for an offensive to push the Germans back.

 

4.  The Frnech were trying to get the Russians, Italians, Romanians, and Serbs to attack as often as possible to take German troops away from the Western Front to facilitate French offensives.

 

5.  Everything the French did was to increase pressure on the Germans in France.

368804[/snapback]

 

They are all true, The french and British even came to the point of launching there offensive's together to mutualy support each other.

The Germans themselve's saw the westorn front as the primary front and a deal of there actions were based on drawing entente powers from the western front.

[Old Tanker]

I seem to think the Brits were to noble . Always sacrificing thousands to take the pressure off someone else. Backed by Haig's ongoing optimism that going on the offensive in NW Europe was the best way.

 

Other plans such Gallipoli , forcing the Dardanelles which would relieve pressure on Russia , bring the war to the Danube basin and put an army of 1,500,000 CW and Entente troops in Austria's backyard was a viable plan.

Too bad the co-ordination wasn't there.

[Anthony EJW]

I seem to think the Brits were to noble . Always sacrificing thousands to take the pressure off someone else. Backed by Haig's ongoing optimism that going on the offensive in NW Europe was the best way.

 

Other plans such Gallipoli , forcing the Dardanelles which would relieve pressure on Russia , bring the war to the Danube basin and put an army of 1,500,000 CW and Entente  troops in Austria's backyard was a viable plan.

Too bad the co-ordination wasn't there.

368859[/snapback]

 

Going on the offensive in NW Europe was the only way. This was the only theatre where the Western Allies could field and supply the massive field forces neccessary to defeat the German army- and it was the German army that held the central powers together. Periphery campaigns to "knock away the props" that supported Germany where based on the false premise that it was Germany's allies that were supporting her- infact, it was the other way around. Once the German army finally broke its back during the 1918 fighting all her allies, who by this point were almost totally dependent on Germany, crumbled.

[Guest bojan]

...Other plans such Gallipoli , forcing the Dardanelles which would relieve pressure on Russia , bring the war to the Danube basin and put an army of 1,500,000 CW and Entente  troops in Austria's backyard was a viable plan.

 

That could have been done easier by transfering troups to Serbia and suplying them (that is a bit tricky but could be probably done) after Serbia beat Austian offensive...

[Yama]

I have never seen a detractor of Haig come up with somebody who could have done better. Maybe by 1918 some good men had developed, but Haig was in the upper ranks from 1914. FTM, nobody else of any nation found a solution to the trench deadlock any faster than Haig either.

368735[/snapback]

 

Plumer has often been suggested, and he seems to be regarded as quite capable by his contemporaries. Though, I'm unsure if he was a real prospect for C-in-C at the time.

 

I don't think there is any question that most of WW1 generals performed pretty poorly, interesting question is why it was so? Were they more cowardly or stupid than generals of the preceding and following wars? Very unlikely.

 

Changing fronts was no good. What would knocking Turkey out of the war do to Germany? Especially if the troops to defeat and overrun Turkey (a somewhat large place) came from the Western Front which was weakened enough by it for the Germans to knock France out.

368735[/snapback]

 

Actually, I think knocking out Turkey might have been quite positive. It would have opened a shorter and more convenient route to ship supplies and arms for Russia, which they were critically short of.

 

The scale of the problem was unprecedented, the size of the armies was unprecedented, it is really not too surprising that it took four years to figure out what to do and to make the tools necessary to do it.

368735[/snapback]

 

I agree, this is an overlooked aspect. Imagine if current US army should be expanded to 10 million man force in matter of year or two, whilst at the same time fighting a war against other major power. Think it would go very smoothly?

Edited September 16, 2006 by Yama

[Brummbaer]

Regarding Italian front another topic was discussed here on TN

http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?showtopic=16656&hl=

According to some books i read, starting the war with a surprise attack through alpine valleys in Trentino had some good chances of success for Italy, as they were barely defended. A good premise for threateming directly the austrian territory, which the austrian army couldn't afford to ignore. If this would had been enough to change things on other fronts is hard to tell, but sure we'd have saved lots of troubles later.

[superfractal]

Secondly as early as 3 months into the war, it was recognised by Swinton that there was a need to develop some kind of machine to break up the increasing deadlock arising from fortified positions. The RNAS already partly had the answer with 6 pounder guns mounted on armoured trucks. The problem was the Army didnt want any new machinery to get itself out of the hole it was in. The  Army's technical development team was specifically told NOT to develop anything unless it was specifically requested by BEF HQ!

369119[/snapback]

 

Read Paddy Griffith's book "Battle tactics of the western front", The Development of equipment was not based on that idea for much of the war.

Infact most developments in equipment were made by private inventors, and were then investigated by an offical design board. They were quite conservative in there choice's but they did filter out alot of bad equipment and chose alot of the good equipment like the stoke's mortar for example.

[superfractal]

I don't think there is any question that most of WW1 generals performed pretty poorly, interesting question is why it was so? Were they more cowardly or stupid than generals of the preceding and following wars? Very unlikely.

 

I agree, this is an overlooked aspect. Imagine if current US army should be expanded to 10 million man force in matter of year or two, whilst at the same time fighting a war against other major power.  Think it would go very smoothly?

369009[/snapback]

 

I think you just answered your own question!

 

It was not just the exspansion in size of the armies but as has already been pointed out in this thread, the exspansion of heavy equipment on a scale never seen before.

 

Britain, France and Germany were all producing artillery in the region fo 10k guns a year each (Britain concentrated on heavy guns). And produced shells at rate's of several million a month each!

 

From 1916 Britain was producing 10k lewis guns a year, im sure germany and france's machine gun production would have been in thousand's too.

 

Before WW1 it is rare to see defensive line's as deep or as long, which is important as pre ww1 doctrine was largely based on flanking manouvre's and they could not be acheived for much of ww1.

 

New tactics and strategy had to be made from scratch with only a small amount of relevant experience to go on, of course this could have happend quicker but no organisation has ever been flawless in any war.

[Richard Lindquist]

One of the biggest problems on the Western Front was the high troop density (much higher than in WWII in France). The high troop density permitted a continuous solid line with significant reserves. The only way to create a flank was with a penetration. Unfortunately, the movement of reserves over untouched ground to face a penetration was much easier than the movement of reserves over chewed up ground to reinforce a penetration.

[swerve]

Regarding Italian front another topic was discussed here on TN

http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?showtopic=16656&hl=

According to some books i read, starting the war with a surprise attack through alpine valleys in Trentino had some good chances of success for Italy, as they were barely defended. A good premise for threateming directly the austrian territory, which the austrian army couldn't afford to ignore. If this would had been enough to change things on other fronts is hard to tell, but sure we'd have saved lots of troubles later.

 

The defences must have been beefed up pretty damn quick, then. There was a lot of fighting over the passes & along the ridges, & some of the border towns were pretty well wrecked. I've seen remnants of some of the fortifications, & old photos on walls showing scenes of devastation. Been skiing there a few times.

 

And where would they go once they'd captured Trentino? It's a bit of a dead end. You reach the main line of the Alps, & fighting over that would have been hard, damned hard. Not many passes, & them easily defended.

[Redbeard]

I can't help wondering if a WWII like mediterranean strategy woulld have help. In this context I mean knoclking out Germany's allies one by one:

 

I realise that not much couild have been spared on the front in France, but perhaps focussing all offensive efforts outside France to one place could have helped. But still, downgrading ambitions level of the West Front offensives from "Breakthrough next time" to "keep 'em occupied" ought to make it possible to free resources from the west front.

 

Some planning at Gallipoli would indeed have increased the chance of the Entente gaining control over the entrance to/from the Black Sea and thus also access to supplying Russia. I'm not sure it would have knocked out the Ottomans (the would rather be really pissed), but if Russia can be kept in the war that really doesn't matter. Imagine the 1916 offensives carried out with troops actually armed! An open Bosperus and intact russia would probably also keep Romania in the war on the Entente side.

 

The border between Italy and Austria is not entirely mountain peaks and the Austrians during most of the war were outnumbered on this (and other) fronts. Perhaps an Entente Expeditionary Corps could have broken through. The Habsburgs collapsing would have forced the Germans to divert many troops from the west front.

 

Germany succeeded in knocking out the biggest Entente power - Russia, but obviously too late to change the war's outcome. With 20/20 hindsight nothing would be lost by deploying the idle troops from the East front in Italy instead. If Italy is knocked out in spring 1918 it would theoretically free up a lot of Austro-Hungarian Divisions (some of them actually very good) for the west front later.

 

Probably it would be too late however, Germany was seriously weakened by the the blockade and by the summer of 1918 the US troops were beginning to show up in serious numbers.

 

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard

[superfractal]

Probably it would be too late however, Germany was seriously weakened by the the blockade and by the summer of 1918 the US troops were beginning to show up in serious numbers.

 

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard

369228[/snapback]

 

Luddendorh launched his march attacks on the basis, that by the time the American army was operating. At a reasonable level the Germans would already have been defeated, they like Pershing himself thought it would be well into 1919 before the US army would have a significant effect.

 

Whether or not it was due to the blockade is a question within itself but by 1918 germany was producing only 1/2 of the ammunition and 1/3 of the guns it had managed to in (on average) 1917.

[Brummbaer]

The defences must have been beefed up pretty damn quick, then. There was a lot of fighting over the passes & along the ridges, & some of the border towns were pretty well wrecked. I've seen remnants of some of the fortifications, & old photos on walls showing scenes of devastation. Been skiing there a few times.

 

And where would they go once they'd captured Trentino? It's a bit of a dead end. You reach the main line of the Alps, & fighting over that would have been hard, damned hard. Not many passes, & them easily defended.

369217[/snapback]

It wasn't exactly so. in the first days after declaration of war alpine valleys were defended only by a few poorly armed territorial batallions (Landesschutzen), and forts were had also little garrison. The chance to break the weak resistance and enter Adige valley was there to be taken but left slip away. Also heavy artillery was ready on this front only at beginning of July: quite embarassing for someone entering war on their choice. Also other passes offered good chances, but describing them would mean go into much detail. I don't say that it would have been a pleasure walk, but sure a chance worth taking.

The pictures you saw were most probably since later in the war, when the front was static and both sides exchanged artillery barrages: Cortina, Moena and other today fluorishing towns were then close behind the front.

Taking Trentino would have represented half of the reasons for us entering war (i.e. taking the last pieces of Italy still in austrian possession) and a great morale boost; furthermore the resulting front would have been sensibly shortened, permitting to save troops needed elsewhere and deleting that dangerous bulge from which the austrians moved their 1916 Strafeexpedition.

And it's not totally true that Trentino and Alto-Adige (South Tyrol) is a dead end: austrians'd have been compelled to commit more forces to this sector to defend Innsbruck and Lienz. But i don't want to push the "what-if" too far.

 

But the most incredible thing is that it was common sense then that to advance in a valley you had to take the surrounding tops for possession of which huge efforts and sacrifices were made. I read a lot of memoirs of soldiers on both sides saying that, had the enemy got the idea to breakthough in the valley, they couldn't have done much but watching them from above... I've seen too some battlefields in Dolomiti and really couldn't get the sense of those fightings.

[Brummbaer]

Luddendorh launched his march attacks on the basis, that by the time the American army was operating. At a reasonable level the Germans would already have been defeated, they like Pershing himself thought it would be well into 1919 before the US army would have a significant effect.

 

Whether or not it was due to the blockade is a question within itself but by 1918 germany was producing only 1/2 of the ammunition and 1/3 of the guns it had managed to in (on average) 1917.

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I admit i never fully understood the effects of blockade on Germany. What supplies coming from over-the-sea was Germany dependent on? I take it that iron and coal shouldn't have been a problem, neither oil at that time. Food? I read that german people was starving by 1918, why wasn't food production in Germany adequate for self-susteinance?

[superfractal]

I admit i never fully understood the effects of blockade on Germany. What supplies coming from over-the-sea was Germany dependent on? I take it that iron and coal shouldn't have been a problem, neither oil at that time. Food? I read that german people was starving by 1918, why wasn't food production in Germany adequate for self-susteinance?

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I only have Hew strachen's "The first world war" to go on for now.

 

But yes food was a problem but it was actualy worse in 1919 than in 1918, but having said that a german officer inspecting british supplies captured during the 1918 offensive's as "A land of milk and honey".

The German army also got somewhat of a priority on food, Germany relied on food imports for about 25% of food wheras britain 60%.

Although alot of food became ersatz food, substitue like potato bread and in many case's had poor nutritional value. And in some case's food price's doubled or even tripled.

 

I guess it could ber because britain was already importing alot of food, wheras germany would have to import to replace crops lost due to the workers being conscripted. But couldnt due to the blockade, total cultivation fell by about 15%.

The British official history attributes about 772,736 deaths to the blockade.

 

The blockade did not seriously effect raw materials, but may have had knock on effects on the factory workers skill through ill health. Especialy as they may have been unskilled replacement workers in the first place.

Edited September 17, 2006 by superfractal

[ink]

To build further on Bojan's point, had the western powers acted sooner to help Serbia defend herself there might have been a chance to grab a foothold in the balkans and threaten Austro-Hungary from the south. Please note; Hungary is as flat as a snooker table and, it seems to me, there would have been less of a chance of a France style stalemate. Also, from this position the Allies might have been able to inspire the national minorities of Austro-Hungary (the Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats and Poles) to revolt or to refuse to fight.

 

Actually, if I'm honest with myself, this seems like a pretty unrealistic scenario. It would be too much to expect such decisive and direct action from England and France so early on - at a time when nobody had any idea what a European war would even look like, and much less if it would last past Christmas.

[swerve]

It wasn't exactly so. in the first days after declaration of war alpine valleys were defended only by a few poorly armed territorial batallions (Landesschutzen), and forts were had also little garrison.

 

I see. Sounds as if the Italian politicians & military high command hadn't really thought things through, & made any of the necessary preparations. But you should take into account the likelihood of that alerting the Austrians, & causing them to reinforce the border.

 

I take your point about removing the bulge in the line. Even if the Austrians had managed to reinforce the north & hold the area south of the Brenner, where at least the locals would have fought for them willingly (unlike in the Italian-speaking south), capturing Trentino would, as you say, have had its own benefits.