An alternate history in which the Ottoman Empire survives...well, as far as is plausible:
August 1914: Recognizing the vital need to supply Russia, Winston Churchill allows the two Turkish battleships being constructed in England to sail to Istanbul, along with an embassy urging neutrality and promising territorial security to the Porte.
After the debacles at the frontiers and Tannenberg, all possibility of campaigns elsewhere are shelved. The Ottoman Empire, recognizing that it is between a rock and a hard place, declares neutrality.
Summer 1915: Italy enters the war on the Allied side, fighting a bloody stalemate in the Alps but tying up most of the Austrian troops not routed at Lemberg the previous fall. Although a German offensive throws the Russians out of Galicia, Austria is badly weakened.
Summer 1916: The main strength of the Germans withdrawn to fight the Battle of the Somme, the Russians roar back into Austrian-controlled territory, convincing Rumania to join them. The Central Powers bribe Bulgaria with Macedonia to join the war, and Rumania is caught between German and Bulgarian forces, surrendering before winter.
Desperate to rescue their Italian and Rumanian allies, the British and French offer Macedonia to Greece and all of Bulgaria to Turkey to open a southern front, sending 150,000 troops under Sir Ian Hamilton to Thrace to spearhead the force. Bulgaria, forces out of position, falters in February 1917.
Spring 1917: Germany, desperate to knock out Russia in order to reinforce the Southern Front, sends Lenin on a sealed train from Switzerland to Finland, where he begins organizing the Tsar's overthrow.
Summer 1917: The Russian Revolution frees up hundreds of thousands of German troops, who make their way south on the ruined Balkan railways to meet the advancing Allies. Large reinforcements, however, have allowed the Allies to overrun Bulgaria and, aided by the Royal Navy, threaten Rumania. Bucharest becomes known as the German Verdun as Ludendorff throws in everything he has to keep control of the Rumanian oil. By September, however, he admits defeat, with the Allies approaching Belgrade. British Marines land at Trieste, capturing it in conjunction with a naval bombarment.
On the Western Front, there is deadlock, as both sides are aware that that is the front on which ultimate victory will be decided.
October 1917: German sailors strike rather than sail out to meet the British fleet. As the Bolsheviks take over the new Soviet state, Prince Max of Baden moves to forestall a similar revolution in Germany. Rallying the Social Democrats and other moderate forces, he forces the Kaiser to depose Hindenburg and Ludendorff and request an armistice from the Allies.
With the specter of Bolshevism hanging over their heads, and facing war exhaustion plus the dangers of American entry into the war, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the Turkish general who came to power during the war, Mustafa Kemal, decide to take the victory they have rather than fight on to the bitter end.
Germany ends the war occupying northeast France, Belgium, the western Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, and Central Europe north of the Danube, except for Wallachia.
November 1918: The Peace of Versailles is concluded, staisyfing most parties except the people on the ground. Unenumbered by considerations of self-determination, the negotiators assign Dalmatia and Croatia to Italy, as well as the Alto Adige and Trieste, Macedonia to Greece, Bosnia as compensation to defeated Serbia, and Bulgaria to Turkey, which also recieves the Protectorates of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania. Czechoslovakia becomes an independent nation. Austria is detached from Hungary and attached to Germany, which in turn gives up its Western conquests plus all of Poland except Upper Posnania. Poland is reconstituted as the Eastern barrier to Russian ambition, consisting of Warsaw, Galicia, Lower Posnania, Lithuania, and Western Ukraine. Germany retains Latvia as a protectorate, while England takes Estonia. Germany is stripped of its Pacific territories, these being divided between France and Japan, but it retains its African empire. Germany is also forced to pay substantial but not crippling reparations to France and Belgium, and surrender half its High Seas Fleet to England for a nominal payment. The German people are extremely bitter after making peace with so much and retaining so little, but the thoroughly ineffectual Navy had few adherents and the addition of Austria made Max's boast that "We emerged from this war stronger than we began it" more than partly true.
In the intervening year, the war against the Bolsheviks had been prosecuted more or less desultorily. Turkey, badly in need of internal reform, had all it could do to hold onto its gains, while England had only the energy to keep a small force in Estonia and reinforce Finland. France was completely exhausted, and Germany sick of war. Only the small English/German forces in the Baltic, and an English/Turkish force in the Black Sea, were able to support the White generals (who were as suspicious of their Western benefactors as they were of the Reds). By 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled all of what was left of Russia.
America had threatened mobilization in early 1917 after the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, but the war had ended before anything substantial could be done. With the establishment of peace, the USA went back to sleep, as it were, hailing Woodrow Wilson as the President who had truly kept them out of war.
1920-23: The "Red Years" in Europe, as first Poland, then Hungary, then the Turkish Protectorates succumbed to Communist governments, but were all restored through economics and armed force.
August 1914: Recognizing the vital need to supply Russia, Winston Churchill allows the two Turkish battleships being constructed in England to sail to Istanbul, along with an embassy urging neutrality and promising territorial security to the Porte.
After the debacles at the frontiers and Tannenberg, all possibility of campaigns elsewhere are shelved. The Ottoman Empire, recognizing that it is between a rock and a hard place, declares neutrality.
Summer 1915: Italy enters the war on the Allied side, fighting a bloody stalemate in the Alps but tying up most of the Austrian troops not routed at Lemberg the previous fall. Although a German offensive throws the Russians out of Galicia, Austria is badly weakened.
Summer 1916: The main strength of the Germans withdrawn to fight the Battle of the Somme, the Russians roar back into Austrian-controlled territory, convincing Rumania to join them. The Central Powers bribe Bulgaria with Macedonia to join the war, and Rumania is caught between German and Bulgarian forces, surrendering before winter.
Desperate to rescue their Italian and Rumanian allies, the British and French offer Macedonia to Greece and all of Bulgaria to Turkey to open a southern front, sending 150,000 troops under Sir Ian Hamilton to Thrace to spearhead the force. Bulgaria, forces out of position, falters in February 1917.
Spring 1917: Germany, desperate to knock out Russia in order to reinforce the Southern Front, sends Lenin on a sealed train from Switzerland to Finland, where he begins organizing the Tsar's overthrow.
Summer 1917: The Russian Revolution frees up hundreds of thousands of German troops, who make their way south on the ruined Balkan railways to meet the advancing Allies. Large reinforcements, however, have allowed the Allies to overrun Bulgaria and, aided by the Royal Navy, threaten Rumania. Bucharest becomes known as the German Verdun as Ludendorff throws in everything he has to keep control of the Rumanian oil. By September, however, he admits defeat, with the Allies approaching Belgrade. British Marines land at Trieste, capturing it in conjunction with a naval bombarment.
On the Western Front, there is deadlock, as both sides are aware that that is the front on which ultimate victory will be decided.
October 1917: German sailors strike rather than sail out to meet the British fleet. As the Bolsheviks take over the new Soviet state, Prince Max of Baden moves to forestall a similar revolution in Germany. Rallying the Social Democrats and other moderate forces, he forces the Kaiser to depose Hindenburg and Ludendorff and request an armistice from the Allies.
With the specter of Bolshevism hanging over their heads, and facing war exhaustion plus the dangers of American entry into the war, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the Turkish general who came to power during the war, Mustafa Kemal, decide to take the victory they have rather than fight on to the bitter end.
Germany ends the war occupying northeast France, Belgium, the western Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, and Central Europe north of the Danube, except for Wallachia.
November 1918: The Peace of Versailles is concluded, staisyfing most parties except the people on the ground. Unenumbered by considerations of self-determination, the negotiators assign Dalmatia and Croatia to Italy, as well as the Alto Adige and Trieste, Macedonia to Greece, Bosnia as compensation to defeated Serbia, and Bulgaria to Turkey, which also recieves the Protectorates of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania. Czechoslovakia becomes an independent nation. Austria is detached from Hungary and attached to Germany, which in turn gives up its Western conquests plus all of Poland except Upper Posnania. Poland is reconstituted as the Eastern barrier to Russian ambition, consisting of Warsaw, Galicia, Lower Posnania, Lithuania, and Western Ukraine. Germany retains Latvia as a protectorate, while England takes Estonia. Germany is stripped of its Pacific territories, these being divided between France and Japan, but it retains its African empire. Germany is also forced to pay substantial but not crippling reparations to France and Belgium, and surrender half its High Seas Fleet to England for a nominal payment. The German people are extremely bitter after making peace with so much and retaining so little, but the thoroughly ineffectual Navy had few adherents and the addition of Austria made Max's boast that "We emerged from this war stronger than we began it" more than partly true.
In the intervening year, the war against the Bolsheviks had been prosecuted more or less desultorily. Turkey, badly in need of internal reform, had all it could do to hold onto its gains, while England had only the energy to keep a small force in Estonia and reinforce Finland. France was completely exhausted, and Germany sick of war. Only the small English/German forces in the Baltic, and an English/Turkish force in the Black Sea, were able to support the White generals (who were as suspicious of their Western benefactors as they were of the Reds). By 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled all of what was left of Russia.
America had threatened mobilization in early 1917 after the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, but the war had ended before anything substantial could be done. With the establishment of peace, the USA went back to sleep, as it were, hailing Woodrow Wilson as the President who had truly kept them out of war.
1920-23: The "Red Years" in Europe, as first Poland, then Hungary, then the Turkish Protectorates succumbed to Communist governments, but were all restored through economics and armed force.