January 1915.
The Great War is now in full swing, and almost every nation in Europe has been dragged into it. Now, the Greeks and the Romanians are about to enter the conflict. The Romanian offensive into Transylvania, combined with the disastrous fall Austro-Hungarian offensive of 1914 and the encircled Przemysl fortress, are threatening to unhinge the Dual Monarchy and knock Austria-Hungary out of the war. The Central Powers, especially Germany, send reinforcements to the beleaguered Galician and the Carpathian Front, while Bulgaria launches its own attack on Romania's southern border with the help of Ottoman troops.
In East Prussia, a big battle looms as the forces of General Paul von Hindenburg approach Konigsberg to relieve the siege and push the Russians back out of the ancestral Teutonic Knights territories. Just south of them, Germano-Russians will soon clash in Poland (East of Warsaw), and the Germans will employ a terrible weapon for the first time in the war.
In Italy, things are stalemated, as they are in France, with stabilized frontlines. Neither side is capable of launching a major offensive or breaking the trench line defenses of the other. First, because it is the middle of winter, but more because the Franco-British are exhausted and demoralized and need time to rebuild their forces. Meanwhile, the Germans don't have a choice but to send a lot of troops to save the Austro-Hungarians and East Prussia.
At sea, the German High Sea Fleet is poised to make a splash as it is now in the French Atlantic ports, while the epic saga between Admiral Maximilian von Spee of the German Pacific Squadron and legendary Japanese Tōgō Heihachirō of the Imperial Navy battle fleet continues.
In between, Zeppelins airships begin their bombing of London, the Austro-Hungarian Fleet attempts a sortie out of the Adriatic, and the Greek navy tries to escape from the clutches of the newly constituted British East Mediterranean Squadron.
This is the story of the Great War that might have been.
