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From: Bill <blackuse...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Subject: Re: AHC - 1880s Bulgarian crisis leads to WWI
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 19:51:53 +0000
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On Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:54:00 -0700, Anthony Buckland
<anthonybucklandnos...@telus.net> wrote:

>On 02/11/2012 5:28 AM, Rob wrote:
>> The Bulgarian crisis provided one of the tensest moments in late 19th
>> century European diplomacy. According to multiple diplomatic histories
>> it created a crisis atmosphere in Vienna and berlin was similar to
>> 1914 and featured advocacy of preventive war on russia and possibly
>> France.
>>
>> However what would the plausible pathway from the Balkan crisis to a
>> general war be? In 1914 it was a case of Austria pushes Serbia, Russia
>> pushes Austria, germany pushes russia, France and Belgium and then
>> Britain pushes Germany.
>>
>> However the Bulgarian crisis was most directly between russia and its
>> erstwhile ally Bulgaria. So how would this come to implicate two
>> competing great power coalitions?
>>
>
>Without the machine guns, artillery, and other weapons
>and tactics of WWI OTL, how different would the nature
>of the conflict have been?  For instance, the Maxim
>machine gun was just being invented at the beginning of
>the Crisis.

With the exception of the Maxim gun,  what is both significant and
missing?

Artillery is firing shrapnel shells from breech loading guns using
both an interrupted screw and an obdurated breech.  Not much change
there...

There are significant machine guns around,  designs by both Gardner
and Nordenfeldt were around and in operational use along with the
inevitable Gattling gun.  These were usually used for slaughtering
people armed with pointed sticks who had the rather quaint idea that
their lands were actually theirs, but I imagine they'd be equally
effective at slaughtering European soldiers if required...

Aircraft aren't significant at that time and the Whitehead torpedo is
fully operational.

Destructor is 1886 and Turbina 1887,  so no 'torpedo boat destroyers',
but no effective submarines either, unless you count the rather odd
Nordenfeldt boats.

So you're actually going to get some large fleet actions involving
'pre Dreadnoughts'.  Any number of naval reputations are going to go
up in smoke, along with several thousand men...

What else changes?

Well, the British are in red coats and black trousers until 1897,  the
Germans in blue with dark trousers (and a different colour for the
officers) until 1905,  the French,  well,  don't change until much
later.. 

The cavalry looks like a rather up-market circus...

The whole thing will look remarkably like the Crimean War,  but with
extra slaughter and less facial hair...






I suppose the really big question is "Will the Germans develop 'Hutier
tactics' before the Allies get their armoured tractors running?".