I would agree that Bulgarian entry would doom the Serbs and also that its likely in this scenario that it could occur in autumn 1914. [Only delay might be if the Austrians are so confident of victory that they decide not to listen to Bulgarians approaches].
The Germans basically led the relationship and got the Bulgarians in. The Austrians had no objection to their entry or territorial demands and wanted them in. It was the Serbs who refused to give up territory and blocked potential Bulgarian entry on their side (IOTL with very different circumstances):
en.wikipedia.org
The tactics are probably more important than the heavy artillery and France isn't in as dire a state as OTL but yes to really make significant progress in the west they would need both and that would take a fair bit of time.
Heavy artillery is what you need to deal with trenches and forts in rough terrain. The French did use different tactics IOTL and were stymied; in fact their elite Chasseurs Alpins get torn up pretty badly in Alsace in the Vosges despite their training and equipment to fight in such a region.
Still, with casualties being pretty intense the tactics will likely get worse for a while as less well trained replacements aren't going to be able to handle sophisticated tactics in trench warfare (hence the horrific French losses of 1915).
You said
Since your talking about Russia I suspect you meant the EP rather than the CP?
Yes you are correct, I mean Entente powers.
That 1st wiki entry seems a bit odd i.e.
Since it says that Envar approached Germany on the 22nd July - presumably about the suggestion of selling the ships to Germany - yet Churchill didn't asked for their seizure until 28th July and the action didn't go ahead until 2nd August. It also suggests that the Turks were already looking for an alliance with Germany even before then. Interesting that the deal mentioned suggested that, although they took their own dubious action in closing the straits to merchant shipping the Turks weren't willing to formally join the war until Bulgaria clearly joined the CP.
It does mention that Britain offered to buy the ships which was an alternative offered to Chile and did actually occur with the 2nd ship, which was completed as HMS Eagle and purchased from Chile after the war. As such it could be that the same dual offer was made to Turkey but that for whatever reason on the purchase one was known/mentioned by the poster.
That's a typo. Enver offered an alliance on the 22nd, but was rebuffed and later on offered the battleships after Britain decided to seize them:
en.wikipedia.org
The
Germanophile Ottoman War Minister
Enver Pasha directly proposed an alliance on 22 July 1914 to the German ambassador in Istanbul,
Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim, but he was rebuffed.
Kaiser Wilhelm II overruled Wangenheim two days later, and an Ottoman draft for an alliance was delivered in Berlin on 28 July—the day World War I began
On 1 August, Enver offered Wangenheim the new battleship
Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel in exchange for German protection. This was likely a clever ploy;
United Kingdom officials, in order to bolster the
Royal Navy to wage war against Germany, had already seized
Sultan Osman-ı Evvel and the battleship
Reşadiye, which were under construction in their shipyards. Wagenheim and the majority of the Ottoman government were unaware of this. Enver probably already knew of the seizure, since actually releasing the battleship to a foreign nation would have caused an uproar from the public and the government. Ambassador Wagenheim signed the treaty the next day, creating the secret
Ottoman–German alliance.
[12]
Yes Enver had proposed the
defensive alliance, per the last quoted article. The one directly above frames it differently and less accurately.
The article you cited also says the Ottomans tried to get a deal with Russia, but were rebuffed and only later closed the straits, which was of course legally dubious.
As said before the payment was besides the point since the Ottomans needed the ships to get close to parity with the Black Seas fleet, which was a serious threat to their coastline if the Russians decided to act on their Constantinople ambitions during the war...which was probably a motivation for closing the straits after Russia refused their alliance offer.
Fully agree that sending the two naval 'brigades' to help defend Antwerp was a pretty stupid waste of trained men the RN would need shortly, even for Churchill.
I disagree given that they kept the Germans locked down besieging Antwerp for along while, while the Belgian army was in part allowed to live to fight another day due to British help. They wouldn't likely have lost as many in the siege if communications had worked better and the brigades moved when ordered to do so:
en.wikipedia.org
Tying down the Germans and saving the Belgian army were very worth it given what would have happened otherwise.
I was aware of an agreement in early 1915 over the future of the straits, by which time Turkey was in the war. Didn't know of any such agreement before then.
True. There wasn't one before 1915 but Russia's ambitions were pretty well precedented and in victory who would have stopped the Russians taking what they wanted?
Can't really see a desire for large scale partition without the pretty much total collapse of the empire that occurred OTL. After all the existence of the huge oil supplies wasn't known at the time and there was little else of economic value in the region. Especially for a Liberal government which opposed further territorial gains. Spheres of influence possibly and for historical/political reasons the French had an interest in the Lebanon/Syrian coastal region but otherwise I'm not aware of it being of much interest to either.
Iraq wasn't invaded for nothing and the 'Holy Land' was of course coveted by European powers for religious reasons. Why would Britain and France even want any of that territory after WW1 if it weren't valuable?
en.wikipedia.org
Oil was known to be in the region (especially around Kirkuk in Northern Iraq) and everyone wanted to control it, though the region was basically unexplored by modern oil techniques. That was after all the driver of the Berlin-Baghdad Rail Road.
en.wikipedia.org
Syria and the Middle East had been coveted by France since Napoleon, but Britain took Egypt first in the late 19th century:
J. P. Spagnolo, French Influence in Syria Prior to World War I: The Functional Weakness of Imperialism, Middle East Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter, 1969), pp. 45-62
www.jstor.org
Britain and France intervened to suppress a revolt in Egypt in 1888 IIRC - actually checking the details the French ships left prior to the actual fighting breaking out. They restored the formal rule of the Khedive under Ottoman overlordship and as I mentioned before Egypt continued to pay tribute to Constantinople until the Ottomans joined the CPs in 1914, as Britain did for the control of Cyprus.
Who controlled the Suez Canal?
en.wikipedia.org
Local unrest caused the British to invade in 1882 and take full control, although nominally Egypt remained part of the
Ottoman Empire. The British representative from 1883 to 1907 was
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, who reorganized and modernized the government and suppressed rebellions and corruption, thereby facilitating increased traffic on the canal.
[73]
The
Convention of Constantinople in 1888 declared the canal a neutral zone under the protection of the British, who had occupied Egypt and Sudan at the request of
Khedive Tewfiq to suppress the
Urabi Revolt against his rule. The revolt went on from 1879 to 1882. The British defended the strategically important passage against a major
Ottoman attack in 1915, during the
First World War.
[79]
So the Ottomans, technically in charge of Egypt, had to attack a British controlled canal in 1915...
I take a very dim view of A-H policy - Vienna is IMO very likely to reject Bulgarian aid. Why? Because Bulgaria would make territorial demands which - if granted - would make it stronger, something which A-H perceives not to be in its interest.
No "powerful slavic state" in the Balkans was Vienna's condition for allowing the 1877 Russo-Turkish war (Russia pissed over its promise with San Stefano). I'm not sure if this stance had been abandoned by 1914 ...
IOTL it was the Germans and Austrians who courted the Bulgarians to enter the war, the Bulgarians didn't offer to join. In fact they offered Bulgaria the territory it wanted from Serbia, since it didn't matter to either who controlled it, since the Austrians had no intention of annexing Serbia (more rebellious Slavs they didn't want). In fact an allied Bulgaria, which gave the CPs direct RR access to the Ottomans, was a huge boon to their war effort and kept Romania neutral despite it's OTL leanings toward the Entente in 1915. Of course ITTL the Romanians might have joined in if they thought Russia weak and the Bulgarians already onside with the CPs. They wanted Bessarabia.
The Austrians were willing to accept an enhanced Bulgaria because they'd basically be permanently allied and all the other boons above (including Ottoman entry, since the Ottomans made their entry conditional on Bulgarian entry into the war).
Also I'm not certain if - or to what extent - Bulgaria was war-capable in the 2nd half of 1914. It had been in two wars - one lost - inside the previous two years. Lots of wastage and loss of war material (remember that carts, wagons, horses/oxen, harnesses, boots etc. all matter very much). Still, several hundred thousand men with rifles backed up with a a few hundrerd artillery pieces (which would had been sucked up and spat out in the West or East) might had counted for something against 1914 Serbia fighting on two fronts.
They entered several months later in 1915. Given that the Serbs were already fully tied down and the Ottomans allied to them already they'd just have to face a much weaker foe in Serbia. It would be a cheap quick war for them just like in 1915. Serbia was out of artillery ammo as of October and waiting for some to come in November (IOTL), while the entire army was required to check the A-Hs, who took Belgrade in November despite facing the entire Serbian army.
en.wikipedia.org