11 Intriguing Ways World War I Could Have Turned Out Differently

The First World War may have have featured static battlefields and attritional strategies, but that doesn't mean the course of events from 1914 to 1918 couldn't have unfolded differently. Here are 11 events that could have changed the outcome of the Great War.

Top image: A French solider is shot during the Battle of Verdun, 1916 (Alamy).

Listed in roughly chronological order.

1. No Russian Mobilization in 1914

Russian troops prepare for war. The Great War/BBC

Had it not been for the Russian mobilization of July 1914, the Great War might not have ever happened. By rushing to the defense of its Slavic ally, Serbia, Russia set German plans into motion. Earlier, Germany had issued a "blank cheque" to Austria-Hungary, promising to come to its aid should Russia interfere with its efforts to tame Serbia. But after relations between Russia and Germany soured, and as Russian troops scrambled along the Austrian border, Germany believed it had no choice to but to roll out its Schlieffen Plan — a strategy wherein France, an ally of Russia, was to be defeated prior to launching an all-out assault on Russia; the idea was to prevent a war on two fronts, which is precisely what ended up happening anyway.

Russia mobilized for several reasons. It was looking to re-assert itself after an embarrassing defeat to Japan in 1905. It was also the era of pan-Slavism, in which dreams of independent slavic states fueled aggressive foreign policies. But from a purely strategic perspective, there was no critical reason for Russia to come to Serbia's defense. The Tsar's actions turned a regional Balkan conflict into a global conflagration. But perhaps intentionally, it thwarted the plans of Austria-Hungary to expand its aging Empire into a tripartite state — the never-achieved Austro-Hungarian-Balkan League.

Mais