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

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Saras
Molly sighting!

Thanks Saras.

There's only so much nonsense one can read about World War One before one has to post, or suffer a cerebral aneurysm.

I can understand Americans wanting to play up the part their country played militarily (even if they didn't actually see combat in any great numbers until July-August 1918), but the dearth of any significant details of the other protagonists' economies or direct quotes from the leading figures really gave me the pip.

It looks like some people believe the propaganda that the Imperial High Command and the German aristocracy and rightists pumped out about the Dolchstoss...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ned
I'm amazed. LoTM contends that Germany's move to turn its government over to the anti-war socialists in 1918 was to forestall and even worse commie revolution and no one comments? Germany would have collapsed in 1918 under this theory regardless of how its military was doing and regardless of America's entry into the war.

No one seems to address that the German high command had decided to continue the war but was ordered not to by the socialist government who continued to seek peace even after they were given unacceptable terms. But, given the somewhat total collapse of German society (civilian and military) to commies of one flavor or another, it would be hard to imagine how the German army could have continued the war.

What happened to Germany is similar to what happened to the USSR. America applied some pressure in both cases, it is true. But the collapse of both was mainly an internal matter, not a matter of US pressure.

You seem to misunderstand me. Had WW1 gone differently on the field of battle, I think its possible that there would have been no threat of communist revolt, and therefore no need for Ludendorff to turn to the Socialist (AND the Catholic Centre, by the way) Whether the absence of the US from the war would have been enough to change the war situation that drastically, is what the original thread was about, but appears to now be hopelessly intertwined in a discussion of German politics. Regarding the German politics, ONCE the US was in, and German and CP armies were falling back through summer 1918, AND the war appeared hopeless (which by fall of 1918 it certainly was) AND the economic strains kept accumulating, a revolution in the streets certainly was almost impossible to avoid. At that point it was a question of letting the radical socialists/"communists" take it over, or preempt it by appointing loyal Social Democrats and Catholic Center politicians to office. The choice was made to go with the latter.

Whether the allies could have taken down Germany in 1917 - 1918 is in fact one of historys more interesting imponderables. Germanys situation was NOT good, even with no US intervention, for reasons MB has given. OTOH the allies situation, after the departure of Russia from the was not good either. Italy was close to revolution, France had suffered from a serious "army strike" (though it was recovering) and Britain and the dominions were running through manpower. I would suggest that the extreme positions on each of the debated have holes. The best way to address this would be to read further on the details esp of the German economic situation in 1917 -1918.

And I will endeavour, with everyones cooperation, to make this my last comment on this thread. I will not enter a Ned-MB debate. That way madness lies.

[Ned]

Summary, Germany collapsed from a combination of effects: political collapse, US entry and economic decline due to the blockade. Take away any one of these, and Germany could at least fought to a draw. Is this the consensus here?

Molly, are you sure the social democrats were not against the war prior to their taking power in 1918? Their positions in 1914 are largely irrelevant on this issue. Even the social democrats in the US (Democrats) once favored the Iraq war, but have now turned against it.

It seems logical that the German Army turned the government over to the "democratic" socialists after they had themselves decided to end the war in order to forstall the far left from taking power. That is what LotM contends.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


Molly, are you sure the social democrats were not against the war prior to their taking power in 1918? Their positions in 1914 are largely irrelevant on this issue.

I hardly think so. What do you think voting war credits by such a substantial majority indicates ?

And what do you imagine even people such as Karl Liebknecht bowing to party pressure indicates ?


Frankly, instead of recycling self-serving post W.W.1 propaganda by delusionary Rightists and lying militarists, name names- which Social Democrats in the Reichstag were anti-war and formed the government in 1918-1919 ?

The decision of her party was a heavy blow to Rosa Luxemburg, much more so than the shock of the Brussels conference. The attitude of the...German Party executive and the party's Reichstag deputies- whatever the alleged reason might have been- was indicating their consent to the war and their justification of it; they were swinging into line with the Imperialist front.

Rosa Luxemburg regarded it as her immediate task to organise resistance against the war policy of the S.P.D. ....

'Under The Banner of Revolt', pp. 205 & 207, 'Rosa Luxemburg' by P. Frolich

By 1917, even mutinous sailors in Kiel seemed to be 'against the war', as were Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary, and many more ordinary citizens, as indicated by this letter to Stresemann from Albert Ballin, a Hamburg shipbuilder:

...we were waiting for a miracle and it has occurred: I mean the (Russian) Revolution. But the miracle is two-edged: though it enormously facilitates our military operations, it also stimulates the movement of the masses against the war.

He was quite right- undergoing the second of two hunger winters, German steel workers went on strike in January 1918, first in Berlin then across Germany.

Ludendorff had to declare a state of siege, placing factories under military command and incorporating workers into the army and making mass arrests.

[Ned]

Molly, it seems you actually agree with the major point made by LoTM that there was a revolution in Germany that was barely suppressed by marshall law and by turning the government over to the social democrats. The only point you dispute is whether the SPD was anti-war at that point and essentially surrendered Germany to unfavorable terms rather than continuing the fight a bit longer to get back to Wilson's original "points." You paint a very clear picture of the effectiveness of the Brit blockade. You must acknowledge the tremendous influence of the commie revolution in Russia on events in Germany in 1918. The combination clearly had an effect on the homeland regardless of the American presence at the front.

Now let me ask you this, since they (the SPD*) abolished the monarchy to forestall a commie takeover, wouldn't you agree that they also accepted the Allied terms instead of continuing the war at the request of the high command for the same reason?

* "Following the outbreak of the German Revolution, Prince Max resigned on November 9, and handed his office over to Ebert. Though the Kaiser was declared to have abdicated, Ebert favoured retaining the monarchy under a different ruler. On the same day, however, Scheidemann proclaimed the German Republic, in response to the unrest in Berlin and in order to counter a declaration of the "Socialist Republic" by Karl Liebknecht later that day. This proclamation ended the German Monarchy and an entirely Socialist provisional government took power under Ebert's leadership."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Molly, it seems you actually agree with the major point made by LoTM that there was a revolution in Germany that was barely suppressed by marshall law and by turning the government over to the social democrats.

The S.D.P. in conjunction with what was left of the army acted to prevent a Bolshevik/Spartacist style revolution in all of Germany, although there was a Bavarian revolution producing the Munich Soviet Republic.

Ludendorff had already early on in 1918 concluded that only a constitutional state could make peace on the basis of Wilson's 14 points, and that is why Prince Max of Baden was named Chancellor by the Kaiser, to bring democratization from the top.

Come the abdication of the Kaiser on November 9th 1918, Max names as his successor Ebert (Max of Baden had been worried about having to see through Germany's capitulation so soon after having been made Chancellor- like Ludendorff, he off-loaded his responsibility on to civilians).

Since Brest-Litovsk and the Spring offensives on the Western Front had not brought the final victory that the military and the Rightists had expected, they began to concoct the myth of the Dolchstoss- actually aided inadvertently by Ebert, who said on December 11th to troops returning to Berlin:

I salute you, who return unvanquished from the field of battle.

Only Lettow von Vorbeck in Africa was truly undefeated.

Karl Helfferich was of this opinion:

Who is the cause of our ruin ? I will tell you, it is Erzberger, whose name will forever be linked with the misery and shame of Germany.

Erzberger was a Catholic Swabian Centralist, and ex- Imperial finance minister.

Helferrich, in search of scapegoats, also blamed the German signatories of the Versailles Treaty who he believed had betrayed the army and the Imperial High Command (although Erzberger's signature does not appear on the Treaty of Versailles).

The peace treaty had been preceded by talks between the military and Erzberger and Stresemann (a National Liberal).


Thomas Mann described the newly elected deputies to the Reichstag (from the S.D.P., D.D.P. and the Catholic centrist party) as 'bourgeois windbags' and wanted a German revolt (even if it were Communist in style) against the Reichstag and the Allies. Mann was a conservative Nationalist at the time...

Here's waht Rosa Luxemburg thought of Philipp Schiedemann:

Yet another illusion was that from which the members of the Ebert-Scheidemann government suffered when they believed that with the aid of the soldiers returned from the front they would be able to hold down the workers and to curb all manifestations of the socialist class struggle. Such were the multifarious illusions which explain recent occurrences. One and all, they have now been dissipated. It has been plainly proved that the union between Haase and Ebert-Scheidemann under the banner of "socialism" serves merely as a fig-leaf for the decent veiling of a counter-revolutionary policy.

'The Spartacus Programme', Rosa Luxemburg


Here's what the Kaiser had to say, somewhat earlier:

"Prince Max's government is trying to throw me out!"

I wonder why....


Schiedemann's announcement was this, by the way:

"Workers and Soldiers! This cursed war is at an end! Most of the garrisons have joined us! The people have won all along the line. Long live the new! Long live the great German Republic!"

Not exactly 'abolishing the monarchy' as proclaiming a new Republic, which are two different things.

The Kaiser had in fact (at Prince Max's urging) already abdicated as German Emperor.

...wouldn't you agree that the S.P.D. also accepted the Allied terms instead of continuing the war at the request of the high command for the same reason?

They accepted the terms because there was no other option- a starving populace, groups of deserters having to be controlled by troops from the East, a mutinous Navy refusing to put to sea, and the Imperial High Command and Kaiser deserting their positions of responsibility.

With whom and what do you suggest the S.P.D./Reichstag should have carried on the fight ?

Turnips, Ludendorff, Hindenburg and the Kaiser's model yacht ?

[Dr Strangelove]

I ran across a timeline of events in 1918. Evidently the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk didn't come into effect until the end of spring. German troops didn't enter the Ukraine until summer. What they found was a province in complete disarray being fought over by several revolutionary groups. The result was that German troops continued to be tied down in the east and the bonanza of the Ukraine proved a liability, with widespread population and economic displacement the breadbasket of Russia could barely feed itself that year.
In September a combined force of French, British, Greek, Serbian and Italian troops, a total of 20 divisions marched north from Salonika. German troops had been removed months earlier to feed the western spring offensive and to stabilize the Italian front. Bulgaria fell rapidly, and by late October virtually all of Serbia had been liberated. Meanwhile revolutionary governments arose in Slovakia, the Czeck provinces and Galicia. Austro-Hungarian troops deserted en masse. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Austria declared itself a republic and a socialist group seized control of Hungary. A new Sultan took the throne of the Ottoman Empire, an Empire which had by then lost all of its foreign provinces. In rapid succession Bulgaria, the Ottoman empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empires left the conflict. Germany had no troops to stabilize these fronts because as of 1917 it had already started dipping into underaged conscripts.
On the Allied side the United States, though it put 4.5 million men into uniform by 1919, had only managed to get 1 million across the Atlantic by November 1918 and fewer than half of those saw active combat before Armistace Day. The Allied Powers summoned some 42 million men to arms between 1914 and 1920, the US force was less than 10% of that.

[Ned]

Dr. S, it does look like the US presence had very little to do with the German collapse. That would have happened regardless.

[Zkribbler]

If the Brits didn't collapse first back in 1917

[Ned]

Z, but that was because of America's financial and naval support, not because of its ground troops in France.

But just imagine the outcome if America had cut England off from any aid whatsoever in 1917? No money. No weapons. No destroyers.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Ned
Z, but that was because of America's financial and naval support, not because of its ground troops in France.

But just imagine the outcome if America had cut England off from any aid whatsoever in 1917? No money. No weapons. No destroyers.

You would have taken alot longer to become a superpower

[Ned]

Stingman, you think beating Germany had something to do with the US becoming a superpower? That had nothing to do with it. Our power is based on our economy.

[TheStinger]

Nedman

And your economy received a massive boost from having billions of sterling assets converted into dollars and from selling (quite legitamately) loads of supplies to the British

[Ned]

Ah, the beauties of international trade. Yeah, in a way, we might have discovered just how much better we could do with "liberal" economics.

But the Republicans later raised tarriffs and shut down international trade, thus causing an economic collapse known as the great depression. We didn't get out of THAT one until WWII.

Seems to be a pattern.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Stingman, you think beating Germany had something to do with the US becoming a superpower? That had nothing to do with it. Our power is based on our economy.

Guess which belligerent made money out of WWI.

And in which markets....