Some games just don't work out the way you imagined.  I replaced the original German leader early on, based on the map posted on the game site.  I quickly found out that the map was wrong, and the position that had attracted me wasn't there.

My story of the rest of the game dovetails with my failure to convince first Russia and then France - both seemingly new to PBEM Diplomacy - that they were going to be stabbed by Austria and Italy.  A/I won those diplomatic battles, and eventually won the game.  Russia and particularly France showed good game traits at different times, but were undone, in my opinion, by simple lack of game experience.  Russia didn't see that turning against me left him far more exposed than if he had gone against Russia.  And I had no idea why he chose to put his last center under the protection of Austria's ally instead of England, who actually needed him.  Italy knocked him off a turn or two later.

At this point it was clear to me that Austria and Italy, both strong veteran players, were joined at the hip and would be tough to stop.  I made a couple of efforts to win over their French ally, but he broke each of our agreements.  Afterward he told me that he was focused on taking back Belgium, which my predecessor had apparently taken from him.  He also felt he had no reason to switch sides, which was reasonable enough.  There was little that England and I could do to check the AFI triple alliance.  Eventually the hopelessness of our situation became obvious enough that I asked France why his alliance didn't propose a three-way draw.  He said they had no clear answer.

The answer was obvious to me: they were going to stab him as soon as it was safe to do so.  France chose to hope for the best, which is a common enough mistake, and especially for an inexperienced player.  It's hard to reverse direction without a smoking gun - even if the gun is aimed in your general direction.  As soon as their advance reached a point from which a stab made victory certain, Italy stabbed him.  France then joined England and me,  Catching A/I off-guard a couple of times gave us a few extra years and a glimmer of hope. just not enough.

This game was frustrating in many ways, but also educational.  In reviewing why I failed to win over either Russia or France when it would have made a difference, I re-tuned my diplomatic antenna for future games.  And by being forced to play a losing, defensive game for several months, I had to learn to take pleasure in successful tactics, even as the odds against their really paying off grew progressively worse.  In the end, I think I came out of it a better Diplomacy player.  And I actually had fun doing it.

Jorge