Between the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and World War I, there was essentially no fighting between the European Great Powers. Russia fought Turkey in 1877-78, and Japan in 1904. The US fought the Spanish/American War in 1898. England and France fought numerous small wars against various African tribes and small states. There were several wars in the Balkans. European Great Powers didn't fight each other for 43 years. Then they made up for it by the incredibly destructive and futile bloodletting of World War I.

I got to thinking: What if there had been a major war between European Great Powers sometime in those 43 years? Would it have warned politicians and diplomats about the technology changes that played such a great role in making World War I so destructive? Would those lessons have been ignored like the lessons that could have come from the Russo-Japanese war? Would the intermediate war have been so destructive that it simply moved up the time-table of Europe's self-destruction?

I chose the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 as the spark for this intermediate war. Russia beat the Turks badly in that war, and came close to sparking war with both Austria/Hungary and England at various stages during and immediately after the conflict.

What actually happened: To oversimplify, after some highly publicized and probably exaggerated claims of Turkish massacres of Christian Bulgarians, the Russians made a secret alliance with Austria/Hungary where the Austrians would be given Bosnia/Herzegovina in exchange for staying out of any Russo-Turkish war. With the Austrians neutralized, the Russians went to war with Turkey. In an eleven-month war, the Russians defeated the Turks and pushed within sight of the Turkish capital at Constantinople. They then decided that since they had done all of the heavy lifting, they would decide how the booty was divided up. They ignored their secret treaty with Austria and set up a series of pro-Russian quasi-independent states in the Balkans, including a very large Bulgaria. The Turks had no alternative but to sign a treaty agreeing to that arrangement.

Both the English and the Austrians were very threatened by what amounted to Russian control over most of the Balkans. England had long feared that Russia would eventually get control of the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Those fears seemed close to coming true. Austria had long vied with Russia over control of the Balkans. If the settlement stood, the rivalry was over, and Russian had won.

In our time-line, Germany's Bismarck came to the rescue. He convened a European conference that pared Russia's gains back down to a level acceptable to the other powers, and gave Austria control of Bosnia/Herzegovina. It was an exercise in raw power, as the other Great Powers united to strip Russia of a substantial part of its gains.

What might have happened? This was a tense situation, with proud countries seeing vital interests at stake. Given the right spark, war could easily have resulted. Let's say that the Russians and Bulgarians miscalculate and decide that they can get away with all of their hard-won booty. Austria/Hungary tries diplomacy, then issues an ultimatum in the summer of 1878. The Russians and Austrians mobilize, and the Austrians declare war on Russia. English public opinion is initially divided between Russophobes who see the Russians as a threat to the British Empire and a strong contingent who see Russia's freeing of Christians from the Turkish yoke as a good thing. England officially stays out of the war, but leans heavily toward Austria/Hungary with financial support and arms sales.

The war drags on for a year or two. Russia has a manpower advantage and its army is more cohesive. On the other hand, the Austrians are better armed and with quiet English support that edge grows. The Austrians have more modern artillery and more machine guns. That's enough to let them push the Russians back in the Balkans. The Austrians also push north into the Russian-ruled part of Poland and the Russian-ruled part of the Ukraine.

In spite of the initial victories, Austria has a fundamental weakness. It is a jumble of often hostile ethnic groups in an age of nationalism. As the war drags on, the ethnic conflicts weaken the Austrian war effort. Also, as it pushes into the Balkans, Austria faces more and more hostility from the various ethnic groups of the area. That translates into guerrilla warfare against supply lines, and increasingly open revolts on the part of Serbs and other nationalities behind Austrian lines. By the summer of 1881, the war is stalemated on the Balkan front.

The Austrians continue to make gains in Poland. Polish nationalists help in that fight, based on an ambiguous and half-hearted promise of Polish independence. The Austrians want Polish nationalist help, but they have a substantial Polish minority of their own so they aren't overly eager to go too far in encouraging Polish independence.

Fighting is vicious and produces enormous numbers of casualties. At the same time, the casualties aren't on the scale of World War I or II. Think of it as maybe midway between the American Civil War and World War I in terms of firepower and resultant casualties. The trench warfare of our time-line's 1914 happens some places where maneuver is difficult or impossible, but machine guns are fewer and less sophisticated. Mobile artillery is not as heavy or as mobile. The fronts are longer in proportion to the size of the armies. Still, casualties are high and territorial gains are slow.

While the Russians suffer far more casualties than the Austrians, the Austrians are less capable of sustaining those casualties. Austrian morale drops, especially on the Balkan front as the war goes into its third year. The French have begun quietly backing Russia financially and with arms shipments, partly out of reflexive Anglophobia and partly in the hope that if Russia wins it will upset the balance of power in Eastern Europe and force Germany in to war with Russia. The French are still smarting from their defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and would like to see Germany weakened enough to give France a chance in a rematch.

In November of 1881, the Russians launch a series of offensives on the Balkan front that destroy all of the Austrian gains and push the Austrian army back in disarray. At that point the Austrian empire starts coming apart. The Hungarians quietly offer the Russians a separate peace. Italy sees an opportunity and joins the war in the spring of 1882, trying to grab Austrian-run territories in northern Italy.

At that point, England have no choice but to intervene. They need an intact Austria/Hungary to counterbalance Russia. Germany also needs that. The Germans begin large-scale financial support for Austria. The British and Germans quickly impose a settlement between Italy and Austria that gives the Italians most of what they want, but by no means all. The Italians also get an English promise that they'll be given control of Albania after the war. That's really more generous than the English have to be. Italy is extremely vulnerable to the English fleet. The English have long wanted to settle the issues between Italy and Austria once and for all though, getting Austria entirely out of Italy. This is a good time to do that.

The English issue an ultimatum to Russia. The Russians don't really want to take on a second Great Power, especially not England, but efforts to rally Russians behind the war have given the war a life of its own. The huge casualty lists and the massive propaganda effort to keep the Russian people behind the war make backing down from the Russian gains very difficult. England is forced to go to join the war.

The English intervention and the abrupt exit of Italy change the balance in the war once again. A Royal Navy blockade cuts the Russians off from most outside sources of guns and ammunition. France is in no position to take on the Royal Navy, so the French quietly decide to cut their losses. The Russian navy is quickly sunk or bottled up.

The Russian economy is by no means self-sufficient in manufactured goods, and it begins sputtering. At the same time, England is not a great land power. It can blockade Russia, and bombard Russians coastal cities, but it can't hope to win a land war with Russia. The English army does go ashore in the Crimea and along other stretches of the Black Sea coast, more as a way of forcing the Russians to disperse their fighting power than as a serious threat. The main British land effort is in the Balkans, and British casualties quickly mount there.

The war drags on through 1882 and into 1883. Neither side really wants it to continue, but neither side can figure out quite how to end it. The Turks jump back into the war in 1883, hoping to get back some of the lost territories. By spring of 1883, Russian popular enthusiasm for the war has disappeared. In July of 1883, the two sides are ready to reach an agreement. Russia gets a lot of what it wants in the Balkans, but the Austrians do get portions of Bosnia/Herzegovina. They also get to put an Austrian prince on the throne of a theoretically independent rump Poland that includes roughly one-third of pre-war Russian Poland, and add some chunks of the pre-war Russian Ukraine to the Austrian empire.

The bills for the war come due all through Europe. Both the English and French are financially drained for the time being, as is Germany to a lesser extent. Both the Russians and the Austrians have paid a huge cost in money and blood. Both empires are going to have are hard time holding together, much less threatening anybody for the immediate future.

The war has pushed the advances of sciences related to war a bit faster than they advanced in our time-line. Machines guns and rapid-fire rifles have become more common and effective in European armies. Armored trains have become a part of European battles. The war has even pushed such unlikely fields as bicycle technology, as practical bikes are invented and become part of tactical mobility.

And then what? Are the lessons of this war sharp enough to keep World War I from happening? The European rush for Africa has been postponed a few years. Will it still happen in essentially the same form? Germany, France, and the United States are relatively untouched by the war, though both Germany and France bear some financial burden from it. Do they become stronger relative to the other powers than they were in our time-line? What do you think?