Would the world be a better place if Germany had won WWI?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman
Had the US not entered the war, the Western Allies would still have won. The final German offensives were thrown back before large numbers of American troops arrived.

And weakened Germany to the point where the allied pushback would have been successful without American troops.

OTOH, if no US intervention, does Germany even try the Spring offensive? They knew that was a desperate throw, and they tried it precisely because they knew the US was coming. Without that urgency, the best strategy for Germany after Brest Litovsk is probably to hold in the west, release enough troops to restore agriculture and avoid starvation, and exploit the new empire in the east.

[Cort Haus]

According to the book '1918', the US did make a difference. They introduced the novel concept of tactics to the allied effort, rather than just throwing troops into machine gun fire.

I think that book also noted that the German advances in 1918 ultimately demoralized their own troops, as captured allied positions revealed far better supplies and equipment than they themselves had by that point. 'How can we win when they still have all this?' was the feeling, IIRC.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark OTOH, if no US intervention, does Germany even try the Spring offensive?

That's a very pertinent question, IMO. Though the U.S. didn't put significant numbers of boots on the ground until 1918, the U.S. had declared war in April 1917. The knowledge that the U.S. was changed everyone's perception of the war. The Germans had to try anything that they could to win quickly, while the Allies had were given a morale boost. As it was, the French army suffered widespread mutinies in the summer of 1917. How much worse would they have been had the French leadership not been able to ease their anger with promises that the Americans were coming?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
According to the book '1918', the US did make a difference. They introduced the novel concept of tactics to the allied effort, rather than just throwing troops into machine gun fire.
.

Its a silly book then. The allies had spent a lot of time trying to figure out the most important tactic, how to coordinate a moving artillery barrage with an infantry assault. I dont know that the Americans came up with anything different. The problem wasnt really solved till portable radios made coordination easier (and of course the tank introduced its own solution - but the US wasnt much better with tanks in '18 than the other allies were, that I know)

[Arrian]

According to the book '1918', the US did make a difference. They introduced the novel concept of tactics to the allied effort, rather than just throwing troops into machine gun fire.

Really? I thought that's precisely what we did (throw troops into machine gun fire).

-Arrian

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by reds4ever
From what I've read there was never the infrastructure in France for Germany to get enough troops, material etc. to the front in time to defeat France before Russia mobilized. The "plan" was flawed from the start.

The plan called for several hundred thousand more troops than Germany actually had. The German High Command further changed the plan to weaken the right flank which was supposed to sweep towards Paris. With the forces they had at the start of the war, distributed the way they were, they could not have taken Paris. I worked on a project where we simulated what would have happened if they had stuck to the plan instead of wheeled south east to chase the French 5th army. In that version, German forces get crushed even worse at the Marne.

[Colon™]

It's a bit silly to imply the US invented tactics.

[Sandman]

Let's not forget that Germany's allies - Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottomans - were in an even worse state than Germany.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Colon™
It's a bit silly to imply the US invented tactics.

Thats just cause we didnt build a lot of Alpine troops. Instead we went on and researched amphib warfare, and got the feared US Marines. When youre a demo, with massive resources, and lots of universities, you invent anything you want.

[Ecthy]

The US managed to lose 100k men in less than a year. Tactics?

[Victor Galis]

I propose a more radical alternative:

What if the Allied commanders had been competent at the start of the war . If the French had realized the main thrust of the Germans was comming through Belgium and moved to counter it sooner, linking up with Belgian forces, before the latter were completely destroyed and holding a line somewhere in the middle of Belgium.

In the east, this would mean the Russians not losing at Tannenberg, and keeping pressure on the Germans because of superior numbers, without any total victory.

Now, suppose that the Germans were met by stalemates on both fronts, but the Austrians were collapsing before a Russian advance (as happened early). Now suppose, the Germans saw the writing on the wall and sought a separate peace with the allies where they didn't have to give up anything in exchange for abandoning Austria to its doom. (Assume some months of stalemate with leaders actually caring about the scale of the carnage... radical, huh? )

The problem is the Romanian nationalist in me refuses to contemplate any alternative where Greater Romania doesn't emerge as a result of the war.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Wycoff
How much worse would they have been had the French leadership not been able to ease their anger with promises that the Americans were coming?

IIRC, the mutinies were mostly adressed by giving the troops better living conditions. And by some morale-uplifting tours by the generals.

The coming of the Americans probably played a role, but so did the arrival of the tanks (which would have still been there even without the Yanks).

IMO, without the Yanks, the war would have ended in a stalemate only slightly advantageous for the western allies, with the declining morale forcing the war to end.

I don't think WW2 would have happened under similar circumstances, because Germany wouldn't have been humiliated.

[Victor Galis]

Yeah, I think the ideal outcome would have been a stalemate, utter collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, and a realization by all sides that there's no such thing as a quick war and that it's too painful among the major powers.

[Cort Haus]

I'll have to find that damned book and the specific battle (and it wasn't a trench slugathon but the taking of a village, I think).

I'm not saying that the US researched up the tech tree to 'Tactics' before anyone else, nor am I saying that the US didn't suffer mass casualties but I think the book was arguing that the typical senior British Army Officer was not, shall we say, the sharpest tool in the box, and that the US army was able to inject some dynamic thinking in specific circumstances.

Anyway, it's unusual to be able to get so many people from 'over there' insisting that the Brits had nothing to learn from their cousins.

[Lancer]

I'd say we researched up the tree to 'Let the euros kill each other off by the millions THEN come in'.