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| - This Alternate History is based on the POD that Alfred von Schlieffen, architect of the Schlieffen Plan, does not die in 1913. Instead he lives a few more years, long enough to see the Imperial German Army triumph in the Great War. See also: German Empire (Schlieffen's Plan) File:Logo.png This alternate history related article is a stub. You can help by expanding it. On June 28th, 1914, the great conflict known as the Great War began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Europe than became split between two groups: the Entente Powers: Britain, France and Russia, and the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The Germans under their chief of staff, Alfred von Schlieffen, quickly moved to put into effect the Schlieffen Plan, in which German forces would sweep into Belgium, swing south and seal off Paris from the North, and catching the French on the border in the rear. They planned to end the war in the West in 42 days with a major victory, then move east to fight the Russians, whom they thought would take this long just to mobilize given the size of the country. So, in July, a German Army of hundreds of thousands stormed into Belgium. Within a week all of Belgium had fallen and German troops were rolling, riding and marching into Northern France. Three weeks into the offensive, the Germans had bypassed Paris and were in the flank of the French troops massing near Alsace-Lorraine. Four-fifths of the entire French Army in Europe was now trapped between the massive German Army occupying their homeland and the German homeland itself. Nearly all of them surrendered. With the Germans victorious over so much of the French Army, their was little resistance and Schlieffen's attention was turned from destroying enemy armies to capturing their territory. He did this, and on August 31, a division of German soldiers marched into Toulouse, and two divisions occupied Marseilles. All of France was now under German control, and just two days later France surrendered. The British dropped out, too, fearing a disaster upon meeting the Germans in the field. The Germans now turned east, and Schlieffen feared that his victory over France had taken too long. But it now did not matter, for the Germans could now focus the whole of the German Army to fighting the Russians. The Russian soldiers' morale was poor, and the Czar, seeing that the civil unrest in his own country was now costing him in the war, decided to gamble everything on one great battle. This he would get. The Russians' efforts were in vain. In the Battle of Lodz, the German Army enveloped the Russians, as Schlieffen put into practice his fascination with Hannibal's victory over Rome at Cannae. The Russians sued for peace, and the result was the Treaty of Riga, which gave to Germany most of eastern Europe, including the Baltic provinces, and the west areas of Belorussia and the Ukraine. It was January, 1915, and the Germans, with minimal casualties, had smashed what had been the world's greatest powers. Germany's allies didn't live to see the glory of the victory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up as three minorities with it declared independence. Being a German-speaking state, the Austrians petitioned for union with the German Empire, and in March, 1915, they got it. The rest of the former empire was divided into Hungary and Yugoslavia, both of which became largely dependent on Germany. The Ottoman Empire by this time was neither Ottoman, nor a real empire. It split up into six different countries, which became fairly independent and violent, sparking many wars. No one benefited more from the war then Germany, directly that is. France remained occupied, and the North bank of the Seine was annexed, along with Belgium and Luxembourg. In the East, the Germans annexed all of their new conquests, which it turned into the bread basket of its empire. It was now July, 1915. In one year, the Germans had transformed the map of Europe. France was a German protectorate, and now one of the most violent places on earth, with partisans fighting the German occupiers. France's overseas colonies had all been annexed by Germany and now spoke German as their first language. The Russians had undergone a revolution, and was now the world's first legitimate communist state, the Soviet Union. And where was Germany in all this? The unrest in Germany that had existed before the war had increased tenfold. Hardly a day went by without the Reichswehr firing on an angry mob in some German city protesting the Monarchy. Germany was divided by civil disputes which, in 1917, exploded into the National Socialist Revolution. The Kaiser was dethroned and the military took control. Paul von Hindenburg became chancellor and president, and the civil unrest began to decrease as the protestors of the new government began to disappear... Fear of Communism and the Slavs pushed the new Germany into a surprise attack on the new Soviet Union to "Liberate those of German blood within the Soviet lands." The campaign, reinforced with the new panzer divisions, pushed to Moscow and captured it without a shot fired. The Germans seized all of the Russian lands east of the Urals. It is now 1921, and all is well in Germany... saying anything else will get you killed. All thanks to the fact that Schlieffen lived past 1913.
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