AHC: United Kingdom and France vs. Three Great Powers

Douglas

With a POD no earlier than 1900, is it possible for Great Britain and France to become embroiled in a conflict with a minimum of three Great Powers? Smaller nations may be involved on the side of the Double Entente or on that of their opponents, but absolutely no other Great Powers. The Great Powers for this challenge will be assumed to be the following:

Austria-Hungary
Germany
Italy
Japan
Ottoman Empire
Russia

Two more stipulations: none of the other three powers can have previously been bludgeoned into joining (i.e., no Vichy-equivalents), and the challenge must be met by August 1914.

Note: the United States is not included on the list because it would be impossible.
 

imperialaquila

Possibly a Germany-Russia-Italy alliance? Then the Austrians would probably join the Double Entente, so that might not fulfill all of your rules.
 

Keb

imperialaquila said:
Possibly a Germany-Russia-Italy alliance? Then the Austrians would probably join the Double Entente, so that might not fulfill all of your rules.
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It would be hard to fulfill that rule anyway, since Japan is among the Great Powers and there's little chance of dissuading them from getting involved if a general European war breaks out.

After all, Germany has all those near-defenceless colonies out in the Pacific.

Hmm, maybe if Russia was on the German side, Japan might decide to sit it out. Without active theaters, Russia could concentrate all their forces on Japan and with the trans-Siberian finished they wouldn't be hamstrung like in 1905. Of course, this assumes the Japanese leadership is rational, something that the early 20th century was decidedly lacking in.

Germany-Russia-Austria would work best and be strong enough to dissuade others from joining in. Though, really, Austria is on the list mainly because they were going to follow Germany no matter what.

Of course, keeping that alliance working with so many competing interests would be tough. Maybe keep the pro-Austrian Obrenovic family in Serbia and have Russia find another agent in the Balkans?

Italy and the Ottomans are the easiest to keep out. While the Ottomans would side against Russia, they aren't stupid enough to get involved in a hopeless struggle, particularly against a Russia that isn't being distracted by two other Great Powers. Italy will look to it's own interests and a Germany seeing inevitable victory on the horizon probably won't bother to sit on the Austrians to make them offer the Italians a bribe.
 

Alexius

Russia could possibly be kept out of things by a successful 1905 revolution, or one which results in it breaking up.
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
Its difficult because it is assuming that Japan will either not join in any major war, which seems unlikely unless they get their ass whipped by Russia in 1904, or that Japan will join in against both Britain and France, which I can't really see has any likelihood at this time

If Russia stomps Japan, and stomps them hard enough that Japan either ceases to be a Great Power, or is unable to join in any war in the intermediate future, then you might get something...

Maybe a combination of Makaroff lives, with the Tsar-Kaiser agreement standing, or being resurrected? The problem of course is the Franco-Russian alliance, and it seems highly unlikely that we can manufacture a way to break it

BUT that is making us run short of great powers to play with and we would end up with Britain and France facing Germany with a neutral Russia, which seems pretty impossible in the time period...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

wolf_brother

Banned
Perhaps the Entente-Japanese War could be axillary to the main Great War? After all, the Entente vs the Three Emperors would be wholly seen as another great European power struggle. While the Japanese war would be an entire colonial affair from the view of the Entente and the world - merely Japan doing what Japan has done in the past, and snatching up far flung and poorly defended European colonies while the major powers are distracted.
 

stevep

Douglas

Very difficult because with the alliances in place, most especially the Franco-Russian one it's hard to see Russia not being involved on the French side. Possibly as someone suggested if it took place at the same time as a Russian revolution paralyses them. Ditto in terms of keeping other nations out.

The only way I can see is that 1904-05 sees a slightly longer conflict and deeper Russian defeat. This leaves a worse revolution and Russia totally divided while an exhausted Japan is licking it's substantial wounds and securing any gains. Then for some reason the Triple Alliance and the two western powers had a conflict. At this point the Ottomans might seek to keep a low profile or possibly since Russia isn't involved in the major conflict their less interested in intervention. [Also the pro-German faction would probably be less established at this point so more willing to keep out of the mayhem].

The problem with this is involving both Britain and Italy on opposite sides. This early in the Entente Cordial Britain is unlikely to get involved in a Franco-German war unless it feels it's interests very strongly threatened. Possibly some hot-head in Germany decides now's the time to take out an isolated France while Russia is weakened and Britain still only loosely establishing links with France. Especially if this involved an attack through Belgium. However, while Austria might feel inclined to follow the German led I think it more likely that Italy would sit it out initially, quoting the defensive nature of the alliance, as it did OTL.

Conversely you might have some rash behaviour by France triggering a war and Italy feeling committed to its allies. However such a trigger is far more likely to prompt Britain to sit the conflict out.

If such a war occurred somehow in ~1906 it could be very tight. Germany wouldn't have the heavy artillery to easily destroy the Belgium forts and France isn't committed to Plan XVII so the attack into France would be a lot costlier for the Germans. Britain has less time to absorb the lessons of the Boer War but also has a lot of very recent veterans from it and British naval superiority would be markedly greater, especially with Dreadnought coming up and this would greatly limit what Italy could do. Also we have the old question of nitrates.

As such while the edge would be with the Central powers it could go either way with a bit of luck and skill or simply end up with mutual exhaustion. Not sure how many troops Austria would be willing and able to send to France so there could be relatively little for them to do with no eastern front.

Steve

Douglas said:
With a POD no earlier than 1900, is it possible for Great Britain and France to become embroiled in a conflict with a minimum of three Great Powers? Smaller nations may be involved on the side of the Double Entente or on that of their opponents, but absolutely no other Great Powers. The Great Powers for this challenge will be assumed to be the following:

Austria-Hungary
Germany
Italy
Japan
Ottoman Empire
Russia

Two more stipulations: none of the other three powers can have previously been bludgeoned into joining (i.e., no Vichy-equivalents), and the challenge must be met by August 1914.

Note: the United States is not included on the list because it would be impossible.
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