WWI: What if the U.S. stayed neutral?

[Zkribbler]

I was talking with a friend of mine, who is a Brit turned Canadian turned USAian. He opined that, even if the U.S. had never entered WWI, the Brits and French would have defeated Germany...that, by the time of the fall of Czarist Russia, Germany's agriculture had collapsed and its people were starving.

What sayeth thou??

[Proteus_MST]

It were the british tanks that were decisive for the allied victory in the war.

So, if help from the USA wasn´t necessary for developing and manufacturing the tanks, then IMHO the british and french would have won WW1 even without help from the USA.

The german general staff discovered too late how useful tanks were (they were too conservative in their strategical thinking) and therefore less than 20 of our own A7V were produced (not enoughn against gthe several hundreds of allied tanks in the field [although we were able to build a few tank companies around captured british tanks])

[VetLegion]

Germany still loses but peace is not as devastating to her.

[Diadem]

I'm not sure about that VetLegion, if I recall recorrectly then France and to a lesser degree England were the strongest supporters of harsh sanctions against Germany. If America hadn't been there to hold them back a bit, perhaps the sactions would have been even harsher.

If the sactions would have been lighter, than perhaps WOII would not have happened. That's in interesting thought.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I remember reading that at the time the US entered the war, the French military was very close to out and out mutiny. It was the relieving of French soldiers by fresh Americans that may have staved that off.

[lord of the mark]

the French mutiny (more like a strike than a mutiny - no attacks on officers, and, per Keegan, a willingness to fight on defense, but an unwillingness to follow orders to go "over the top" to attack) was in spring of 1917 - the allies adjusted by having UK take over much of the western front, and by encourage Russia to attack. By the time the Yanks arrived, the French had substantially recovered.

IF the Germans had launched a spring 1918 offensive, they would have collapsed yanks or no yanks - the offensive was running out of steam before it encountered large numbers of Yanks.

OTOH if US neutral, Germany probably doesnt launch spring offensive, which was motivated by last chance to win before US comes in in force.

Instead Germans release troops (and horses) back to agriculture, plus exploit Ukraine. The Brits and French cant launch a land attack, but they can keep up the blockade.

Toss up, AFAICT.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark OTOH if US neutral, Germany probably doesnt launch spring offensive, which was motivated by last chance to win before US comes in in force.

Instead Germans release troops (and horses) back to agriculture, plus exploit Ukraine. The Brits and French cant launch a land attack, but they can keep up the blockade.

Toss up, AFAICT.

I agree with you, LoTM. The Germans stay on the defensive in the West and expolit the agricultural bounties of their newly won Eastern territories. I could imagine a peace in 1919 based on status quo ante in the West and Brest-Litovsk in the East.

However, if the Ukraine gave Germany a substantial boost in staying power (as opposed to just enough to prevent starvation), then the Germans may have ended up solidifying their hold over Luxembourg, and in the end may have annexed it outright (along with German speaking Belgium).

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Diadem
I'm not sure about that VetLegion, if I recall recorrectly then France and to a lesser degree England were the strongest supporters of harsh sanctions against Germany. If America hadn't been there to hold them back a bit, perhaps the sactions would have been even harsher.

I don't think that the U.S. restrained the French and British at all. In fact, I think that the American presence falsely strengthened French bargaining power. They could demand things with the American presence that they could not have otherwise demanded. Germany could not have refused the Allies in Versailles, because the U.S. was a fresh and comparably inexhaustible power ready to invade Germany if necessary to secure the terms of the armistice.

If there were no U.S. presence, the Germans could have rejected a harsh armistice and waged a defensive war, hoping to exhaust the French and British while cultivating the newly won Eastern territories.

[Ned]

1) Germany still falls apart at the seams due to revolution at home.

2) If Germany doesn't fall apart, the U-Boat campaign may have caused England to sue for peace. I read this somewhere long ago.

[Dr Strangelove]

The problem with getting adequate food from the conquered areas of east europe wasn't a lack of manpower, it was the disorganization of the economies of these areas and the lack of rail lines going in the right direction to feed Germany. Germany didn't have the spare industrial capacity to solve the economical and transportation problems. There were also numerous guerilla and bandit groups disrupting these areas.

Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman empires were also ready to fall apart. Remeber that by the time that the Germans began thinking of an armistace the Ottoman empire had already surrendered and Austro-Hungary had already effectively fallen apart. German troops assisting the Dual Monarchy found themselves in the same situation that Russian troops loyal the provisional Russian government had found themselves the year before. Their comrades at their flanks and rear vanished and they found themselves utterly helpless.

By 1918 the British had finally adopted an effective convoy system so the U-boat threat was beginning to abate. Furthermore primitive undersea listening devices finally gave the British navy a means to hunt submerged subs.

[Lonestar]

Germany would have won.

Frankly, if Wilson hadn't been a Germanphobe to begin with and had forbidden the sale of all arms and war material from the get-go like a true neutral would have, Britain and France would have collpsed very quickly.

The British and the French screwed up by the numbers throughout the war...even when Germany was on the offensive (with rough manpower parity in the army on the French Front) the Western Allies were losing 5 to every 2 Germans...this was just in the first year of the war when Germany was still driving forward, and hadn't set up a holding pattern.


The Myth of the Great War is an excellant read, showing how France and Britain ****ed up by the numbers and Germany did everything they could have possibly done right...right down to equipment, officer corps, and training. And oh, by the way, Britain and France decided to just ignore the lessons of the Balkans Wars that artillery shells are always going to be expended at a faster rate and didn't even have enough for peacetime practice, much less wartime useage. Plus no one took into account that most of the industrial chemicals that Europe used at that time came from Germany, which is why even when they had the guns they didn't have the ammo.

And the guns they had sucked. The French, by 1914 had one, count 'em, one artillery piece with a recoil mechanism (the 75mm) and it couldn't even be utilized in indirect fire. The Germans knew they wouldn't have the manpower to win a war(early) with France, so they opted for firepower, and introduced the idea of "shock and awe" with portable heavy arty that was accurate, rapid, and could be used in plunging fire. The "indirect" French and British pieces were too heavy to be considered portable, and in the French case, they designs dated back to the 1870s.

This was all in the first year of the war. It got progressive worse for the Allies until the Americans showed up in numbers and the interest rates on Americna loans suddenly dropped like a rock.

[Dis]

I think by this thread we can conclude the U.S. is responsible for ww2.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Dis
I think by this thread we can conclude France is responsible for ww2.

Fixed.

[Ned]

Here is a link to a short history on the sub warfare of WWI. The U-boat was amazingly effective and the thinking at the time was that Britain would have had to quit the war by Nov. 1917 had the US not entered.

http://www.germannotes.com/hist_ww1_uboat.shtml

[Sandman]

Germany would have fought on for longer, but would have collapsed in the end.

Releasing troops for agriculture wouldn't help them very much. They were starving, and there was another winter on the way. The wisdom of pulling troops off the frontline at a time when the Western Allies are gaining a decisive technological advantage is also questionable.