The-Necromancer on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/the-necromancer/art/Luft-Schlachtschiff-425520419The-Necromancer

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Luft Schlachtschiff

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German Imperial Navy "aerial battleship" (British "aerodreadnought") LS-40, manufactured by Kaiserliche Luftschiff Dienst circa 1919.

Armed with six 10.5 cm SK L/40 naval guns and ten MG 08 machine guns, the giant airships can bring a fair amount of punishment to their British counterparts. Due to several years worth of development, the German ships are also considered more advanced than their British rivals in aerodynamics and climb rate. Powered by ten Maybach HSlu 179 kW engines and helped held aloft by four Maybach C-X 134 kW engines, the 750 foot behemoths lumber along the North Sea on patrol for Royal Flying Corps bombers and aerodreadnoughts. Much to the chagrin of the Hochseeflotte itself, more ship to ship action has been had in the skies over the Channel and North Sea than upon them during the course of the Great War. Incendiary ammunition from fighter planes and opposing airships has lead to monstrous casualties on both sides, although successive bombing campaigns on either side have committed combatants to continue production of military airships to try and counter the other.

Eventually, the Great War came to a halt in 1921, seven years after it's instigation by Austria-Hungary in response to the assassination of the Emperor Franz Josef while on a tour of Bosnia-Herzegovina in June of 1914. The aged emperor reluctantly went to visit his province after his nephew, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, fell severely ill with typhoid fever. With the new emperor still incapacitated and with support of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia.

The outcome of the war was less severe, although equally dismal, as the real conflict of 1914-18. Germany was blamed for the majority of the conflict, and suffered some territorial losses. However, with limited American involvement due to public pressure on President Wilson to live up to his campaign slogan of "He kept us out of the war!". While America continued it's unofficial support of the Entente powers, France was all but spent by late 1919. In 1918, through German machinations, the Bolsheviks seized power from the Romanovs in Russia, shortly bringing a close to the Eastern Front by mid-1919. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire teetered against British and Italian forces, forcing German divisions south instead of West. By late 1920, with uncertainty over possible American entry into the war, the Central Powers began probing for peace. Troubled by the turmoil of the Russian Civil War, Germany was especially keen on finding a quick end to the Great War to deal with rumblings along her eastern frontiers. Austria-Hungary was seeing the collapse of order in the Balkans, as little Serbia had not been entirely stamped out, and the Turkish Ottomans were for the fifth time preparing to evacuate Constantinople due to British-Arab armies pushing up through Anatolia. For the British Empire, the burden of propping up the French while fighting the Germans, Austrians, and Turks was proving itself nearly as exhausting a task as that of Germany's propping up of her allies.

Unceremoniously, in a conference in neutral Switzerland (followed by a symbolic signing of the Treaty at Versailles's famed Hall of Mirrors), the Great War was drawn to a close in September of 1921, with the German Empire losing all it's colonies between Britain and France, along with Alsace-Lorraine to France. Kaiser Wilhelm II retained his throne, but at the cost of absolute monarchy in Germany. Prussian prestige and power never fully recovered. Kaiser Franz Ferdinand soon found himself following suit, as well as granting independence to the Balkans and even greater self-rule to Hungary. The Ottoman dynasty found itself in collapse, and through the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the old empire quickly dissolved itself into an independent Turkish Republic. The vast remains of the Ottoman Empire were largely picked over by the British, although fierce Arab resistance to British rule caused many problems throughout the 1920s all to similar to British troubles with the Irish. Due to widespread dissatisfaction, France was briefly embroiled in revolt in 1922-23, leading to an ousting of the government and the declaration of the First Socialist Republic, quickly aligning itself with the fledgling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

For nearly two decades until the coming of the Second Great War in 1941, politicians, philosophers, artists, and veterans all never really could figure out what all the slaughter had been for in the first place.

(The-Necromancer hadn't intended to give a small history along with this depiction of a German airship, but he couldn't resist. For more on The-Necromancer's Alternate History, please reference fav.me/d6u9y5n ...)
Image size
6000x3604px 5.88 MB
Make
Canon
Model
MP240 series
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Comments2
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wraithsith's avatar
Yeah I could see that happening- though I think germany might have been a little more successful if the United States didn’t get involved than what you depicted in that they might have kept their all their territories, I think that you are probably closer than alot of other alternate history scenarios- undoubtedly the collapse of the eastern front would have made the allied powers come up with new ways to keep the pressure outside of the western front( though judging by how mountain warfare went between Italy & Austria-Hungary, I think a relatively cheap amount of german mountain defenses would have made a southern front practically impossible- its more likely for there to have been more distractions elsewhere) - but I think that only germany and Britain would have been able to live through this alternate history in one piece.