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

[Ned]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Geez, guys, Wilson wasnt a Germanophobe. TR had been pushing for intervention on the allied side for a long time. Wilson had been opposed to that, and kept the US neutral. The Germans finally made it impossible to keep that up, and the March rev in Russia took away one of the moral arguements against supporting the allies.

And Wilson wasnt for ending imperialism everywhere immediately, like lots of folks then he felt that peoples in africa and asia werent ready for independence.

He certainly had it in for the German government:

"Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its people, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.

We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval.

It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rules and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic Governments of the world.

We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the Unites States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are not other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck.

We are, let me say again, the sincerer friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us - however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship - exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible.

We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test.

They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.

But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts - for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/usawardeclaration.htm

[lord of the mark]

yeah, when we friggin declared war.

Have we ever DOWED someone while saying how delightful their govt was?

You some kinda commie traitor?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Germany had the second biggest economy in the world, and, incidently, the number one chemical industry. They had the vast majority of the war material and cash they needed, and the British blockade was a joke.

Britain had a more developed finance system than Germany, and financed the war with taxation, loans and sale of assets. Germany printed money.

[Lonestar]

Germany also didn't have to burn cash paying for chemicals and material needed from outside sources, either.

[Ned]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
yeah, when we friggin declared war.

Have we ever DOWED someone while saying how delightful their govt was?

You some kinda commie traitor?

I think Wilson was biased against Germany because of its government. The Germans thought so too, as they turned the government over to the Reichstag in 1918 in order to get a peace deal with Wilson.

[Ned]

nm

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Germany also didn't have to burn cash paying for chemicals and material needed from outside sources, either.

That's nice. Regardless, by the end of 1917, their economy had shrunk to 57% of its 1913 size.

[Lonestar]

Britain and France were also the biggest Debtor Nations in the world and, despite outnumbering the Germans a wide margin on the Western Front, were still handling the war so ineptly that the Germany had no trouble moving half a million men away from the Western Front to crush Romania, without any material effect on the war effort there.

[Sandman]

They didn't move half a million men from the Western front to crush Romania. Most of the troops for that campaign were supplied by Bulgaria and the Ottomans, even if the German units did most of the legwork.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ned
B, but the German U-boat campaign was just as effective against Britain.

As Strangelove has noted, had the US not came in when it did, Britain may have collapsed a lot sooner than the Germans did.

American financial support for the allies was largely fueled by ulterior motives. Forcing the allies to sell their interests in the American stock markets was highly profitable. Selling goods to them at inflated war prices was quite profitable too. I'm certain that if the US had declared a trade embargo against both parties the US would have experienced an economic depression.

[GePap]

I think people forget that the US joined the war in April 1917, NOT 1918. Even if American forces did not make any significant impact militarily until late 1918, knowing that American forces would have an impact, or knowing that American financing was a possibility or likelyhood certainly affected the military, financial, and more importantly political situation on the ground.

Had the US not joined, I would say that the war would have had to end in a stalemate or a light German victory, assuming of course the collapse of Russia and the Germans gaining the agricultural production of the Ukraine.

Tanks in WW1 were still too technically backwards for them to be a real breaktrough weapon. The German innovations in infantry tactics and how to support them with artillery was certainly more important in terms of breaking the stalemate, as the huge and innitially crushing German spring offensive of 1918 shows.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


American financial support for the allies was largely fueled by ulterior motives. Forcing the allies to sell their interests in the American stock markets was highly profitable. Selling goods to them at inflated war prices was quite profitable too. I'm certain that if the US had declared a trade embargo against both parties the US would have experienced an economic depression.

Trade embargo or just arms embargo?

Stock sales highly profitably? Why? Were the stocks undervalued?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ned


Trade embargo or just arms embargo?

Stock sales highly profitably? Why? Were the stocks undervalued?

No, but it was a forced sale. Large numbers of stock issues went up for sale dropping the prices. American financiers got good quality stocks at fire sale prices, then once the selling was over the prices rebounded, and "foreign interests" no longer owned generous slices of the top American companies.

[Ned]

I was thinking of making a crude joke about Wilson, but if this is the kind of ally he was to the Brits and French, then I'd hate to have an enemy.

[Ecthy]

The really interesting question is not "what would have happened had the US not joined" because they obviously joined out of well understood interests. What makes up for a more profound thinking game is "what would have had to happen so the US wouldn't join the war?" I think it's relatively obviousy there's almost no alternative. Maybe a much stronger UK or France.