I think Germany going for unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915 should bring some pros as well as cons.
Allenby says
I think this event is apart of the American war entry event chain. Your probably right, the player should be given the choice where possible - however, someone taking control of Germany will, with the benefit of knowing what would happen by continuing a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, choose not to pursue it on nearly all occasions. There's always time to improve the events though.
I would disagree. If the year were 1917 a human Germany player would NOT go for unrestricted submarine warfare. However in 1915 the conditions were different. I'd like to quote from "More What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been", edited by Robert Cowley, published in 2002 by Pan Books. The essay within is entitled "The Great War torpedoed" written by Robert O'Connell, pages 202-205:
...the exchange rate was 29.67 merchant ships, or 69,015 tonnes sunk per U boat lost. This amounted to a very substantial advantage, which allowed the German Navy to build up U boats quite rapidly until their total in August 1916 stood at 111 with an average of 68 submarines available for the 19 months beginning in February 1915 - probably enough to do the job. But they were not allowed to and this was a matter of politics.
...[The Lusitania sinking] led directly to the suspension of the [unrestricted submarine warfare] program in September 1915. Most historians have judged the Germans prudent ....Yet the state of the US as a potential belligerent in the summer of 1915 argues strenously in the opposite direction....The army was tiny and ill equipped, the navy focused on relatively useless dreadnoughts, realistic battle plans were lacking, and the arms industry was incapable of producing modern heavy weapons. All of this could be righted, but it would have been time consuming. Even with the benefit of a gradual but significant Preparedness campaign, it required more than a year after the US's declaration of war in April 1917 before American troops began making a significant difference on the Western front. In 1915 it would have taken considerably longer. So Wilson's threat was without real substance......
So, as the basis of our counterfactual analysis, Bethmann-Hollweg will be removed from the scene on 10 May 1915...[unrestricted sub warfare goes on] Success follows in its wake. Backed by unwavering support, monthly scores could be expected to have accelerated from 127,000 tonnes (actual figure) to around 250,000 tonnes in August (183,000 actual). At this point the total of boats stabilised at around 58 until the first part of 1916, so it makes sense to keep the scores steady at a quarter million tonne per month for the remainder of 1915. Since the next eight months roughly doubled the flotilla to 111, a steady increase in kills up to 555,000 tonnes seems reasonable. If these figures seem high, it should be remembered that actual U boat sinkings peaked in April 1917 at 860,000 tonnesm achieved with a flotilla of 156 submarines. The net result from this 19 month campaign would have been roughly 5.3 Million tonnes sunk.
Yet based on the actual facts, the British reaction can be projected to have been fatally sluggish. The admiralty had only a vague idea of the shipping situation, since it failed to keep the necessary statistics. Hence it remained blissfully unaware of both the precipitous drop in replacement merchant ship construction during the 1915-16 period and the submarine induced congestion in ports, which was estimated to have reduced the annual carrying capacity of the ships affected by as much as 20%....The added pressure of a truly unrestricted submarine campaign might have added to an intuitive sense of a brewing crisis; but without access to the necessary figures, the admiralty would have had little way of understanding how truly desperate their situation was becoming. To further compound matters, British naval authorities could be depended on to have refused to take the critical steps necessary to save themselves, the introduction of merchant convoys. Prior to the Battle of Jutland on the last day of May 1916, the combat readiness of the battleships of the Grand Fleet at Scapa was universally considered vital. Therefore any request to detach even some of its 70 to 80 destroyers for convoy escort duty would have been summarily rejected. Even after the disastrous month of April 1917, the admiralty only relectantly acceded to convoys on the insistence of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. So the noose would have been tightened silently and rapidly around the condemned, with little prospect of the rope being broke.
May I add that Lloyd George would only become PM in 1916, so imagine if Asquith was in power and the German sub campaign was in full swing? Clearly had the campaign continued in 1915, it could have brought a swift enough victory as the USA would not have enough time to prepare for war.
The French wanted a war of aggression. Remember Plan 17?? The drive into Alsace Lorraine which failed miserably? "On 14 August, in the opening salvo of Plan 17, the French had crossed into Lorraine, one of the provinecs lost to Germany in 1871. Bands struck up the
Marseillaise as the troops in the lead tore down the striped posts that marked the boundary." [same source as below, page 273] However sentiment in Britain was anti German, not French, so if Belgium were invaded Britain should remain neutral. This is very ahistorical but Britain knew the main threat was Germany, not France. What you could do is have the Americans VERY pissed off if the Frenchies invade Belgium. Give them negative war entry.
Another crucial point. WHEN Britain entered the war was important. Once again another quote (this time shorter) from "What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been." published in 2000 by Berkley books, the essay is "The What Ifs of 1914" by Robert Cowley. Page 266-9:
In a letter Asquith wrote that night (Friday 24 July 1914), he spoke of a coming "Armageddon" on the continent. "Happily", he added, "there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators.".....Even as late as Friday 31 July, as Austria, Russia, Turkey and France mobilised, Asquith was still planning to make a speech at Chester on the next morning, after which he would catch a train to spend the rest of the weekend with his friend Lord Sheffield. Recapitulating the chronology of those next days, you can almost believe, if only for a moment, that Britain will not burge from the sidelines. The 947,000 young men from the Great Britain and its Empire will not die....The war will be confined to the continent...the US too will stay out...The empire will not need the US. Its strength undepleted by a war in which it played little part, it will remain the dominant presence on the globe far beyond 1945, a date that will have no special meaning in history. What would have happened if there had been wholesale resignations and the Asquith government had fallen? Even if had had been replaced by a Coalition government that favoured war, a delay of a week or more would have changed everything. There would have been no rearguard actions at Mons or Le Cateau, where the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were blooded in the first encounters with a continental enemy since the Crimean war. And Britain might have hesitated to send the 80,000 men and 30,000 horses of its tiny army, concentrating instead on closing the sea approaches to Germany. If, on the other hand, new elections were called, the decision to go to war would have been put off until the fall. How could there have been a declaration of war before a general election? Also, as it became obvious that the German wheel was not immediately menacing the channel ports, the demand for action might have been defused.......
This could have bought Germany the time it needed to finish the French once and for all. Remember the altered Schlieffen plan did not call for such a wide arc on the right wing, so the channel ports would not be priorities, as was Schlieffen's original intention.
So the British enter the war if Belgium or France is invaded. What if Germany adheres to Moltke the Elder's plan, and defend on the western front? In that case, FRANCE would be the aggressor, and Germany is only attacking in the East. If France invades Germany, what would the British do? My guess is they would be very turned off the war, give them minus war entry or something. But what if the Germans rout the Russians, then in a massive counterattack drive into the heart of France? Would the British suddenly say "tut tut we cant allow the Germans to do this" or would they say "those Frogs asked for it, they shouldnt have invaded Germany in the first place!" as was the case in the Franco Prussian war, where France made the declaration of war after the Ems telegram and NOT Prussia.....
This seems to be a good tactic for a German player - dont mess with France or Belgium.....
One last suggestion for the time being. Tanks. The British should get an event allowing them to invest in tanks (at a huge cost). In our timeline, Germany actually produced 20 tanks in 1918 but that was too late. Perhaps give Germany a choice whether to focus on tanks earlier on? Germany knew about the tank, but never really thought it was going to be useful.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/tanks.htm
Tank Production 1916-18
Year UK France Germany Italy USA
1916 150 - - - -
1917 1,277 800 - - -
1918 1,391 4,000 20 6 84
