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Well, what I do know from this article is that the security precautions for Franz Ferdinand's 1914 Sarajevo visit were extraordinarily lax relative to what they were for his uncle Franz Joseph's 1910 Sarajevo visit: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20028390

The Haber-Bosch process didn't exist yet back in 1904-1905, unfortunately. :( Would Austria-Hungary have been converted into a triple monarchy in this TL? Because the Hungarians would have likely opposed that, as would possibly have the Polonophobic Germans.

FWIW, it appears that this one contemporary book actually did propose something like this: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37408/37408.txt

Cars could replace horses, no?

Synthetic oil wasn't a thing yet?

In regards to strengthening the German Army, trucks would be a REALLY good investment, especially if one still wants to make the Schlieffen Plan work. But even if one doesn't, trucks should still significantly help with logistics, just like they did for the Soviet Union during WWII when they got...

An independent Ukraine will be harder to defend if Poland is Russian. But Yeah, the idea of giving Poland to Austria could work here.

Agreed with all of this and I'd also like to point out that in the East, Germany should aim to expand up to the Daugava-Dnieper Line and then dig in right there.

What about if Britain defects?

I wonder if a part of the reason why Bismarck hesitated to go to war with Russia was the fear of the creation of an independent Poland in the event of a German victory in that war. This Poland wouldn't have taken any German territory, of course, but Bismarck was still notoriously Polonophobic.

In regards to Austria-Hungary, Bismarck should have taken the northern Sudetenland but nothing else. This would have secured a lot of valuable industries for Germany but without incorporating too many Catholics or pissing off Austria too badly. And the northern Sudeten Germans sort of stuck out...

FWIW, I think that Bismarck's greatest mistake was not expanding enough in France in 1871. He should have aimed to expand up to this fortress line (in blue): That would have produced an even more secure southwestern border for Germany and, with hindsight, would have also secured a lot of...

What Germany can't gain in the colonies it can compensate by gaining in Eastern Europe, for which it can of course also use British and Imperial British troops to help accomplish this task. A German-British occupation of Ukraine, anyone? And with Britain on the German side, there is no way in...

The US's WWI leadership would have been in Heaven had it not been for the fact that the US's late entry into WWI ensured that the Bolsheviks would rise to power in Russia (and remain in power there for the next 70+ years) and that the Nazis would rise to power in Germany. But of course, neither...

Yes: John C. G. Rohl's The Kaiser and His Court, page 210. You can find and read this whole book for free online at LibGen. Thanks for your explanation about the blank check letter.

Well, to be honest, I do think that Kaiser Bill deserves some blame for what he said after the war, such as about his desire to gas the Jews in a global pogrom. However, these can be dismissed as the angry rantings of a former monarch who had lost his throne to a revolution. Back when he was in...

That's why I included the word "mostly" in that post of mine. That would have required Germany invading and quickly knocking out France beforehand.

@Skallagrim The interesting thing is that, in real life's WWI, Britain ultimately ended up doing its fair share of bleeding as well. So, in theory, I don't see anything that should foreclose the possibility of Britain sending a BEF and, if necessary, additional troops to Europe in any early 20th...

AFAIK, Hess acted without official authoritarization from Hitler. But Yes, Hitler did want to make peace with Britain (and France).

Then don't start any World Wars, at least not without Britain as an ally or at least as a friendly neutral?