WW1: America Stays Neutral

[Flagg]

So I'm wondering, how much longer could the Central Powers have held out (or could they have won) had the US not gone full stupid and joined the allies? Or is this such a "what if" scenario that we can't tell? If it's the latter please lock/ HoS/ or delete at your discretion.

[LaCroix]

You can find a nice timeline at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactiv ... mbed.shtml

By the time the Americans joined, all armies were already having morale problems, and the front was almost static (+/- a few miles) for the last few years.
The capitulation of Russia freed up about a million German soldiers, but the Americans sent about 2.8 million fresh soldiers.
These ~3 million fresh allowed the allies to steamroll the German forces. Without them, I couldn't see the front change too much.

Due to the war exhaustion, I think it would be possible that there would have been peace between the various powers.
(Germany might even be willing to return to a status quo ante, returning all French territory, just to get out of the painful grind, and use their manpower to secure territory seized in Russia, which they originally could not, due to the men needed to hold the western front, and lack of time)

[Iroscato]

So basically, WW2 was America's fault?
As I interpret it, if Germany had managed to consolidate their hold in Russia, they wouldn't have been quite so badly fucked over in the aftermath, with the other side having been fought almost to a standstill, too tired to carry on the war. The following years of civil unrest would never have happened, as there would be no Treaty, and as a result no severe civil unrest in the decade and a half following. Which leads me to believe that the National Socialist party would never have gained as much traction, and so forth.
If I am wrong, please correct me in the bluntest way you can muster.

[Eternal_Freedom]

For America to stay neutral, that essentially means the Germans didn't piss everyone off with unrestricted U Boat warfare in 1915 and 1916 (IIRC the second one). Whilst I am not certain I suspect that would have had a significant effect on things.

If the American's don't send huge bodies of men, would the Allies have been able to rally themselves during the 1918 Spring Offensive? I know the Germans advanced well beyond their supply train, but if the Allies never stopped retreating, would the Germans be able to pause, catch their breath and resume the offensive?

[Thanas]

Well, the problem is which armies morale is going to break first, the french or the germans? I previously though this was pretty much a wash, but after reading a bit more about the morale problem in the french armies in 1917 and 1918 I have to believe the french will break first. Their army was essentially promised to not go on the offensive again in order to control them and Germany had shown itself to be tactically superior throughout the whole war. Apparently there is a serious fraction of historians who believe that with the collapse of Russia and without the need for Germany to rush into a new offensive (due to no USA approaching) I think the French might seek peace in 1918. Without France Britain cannot fight on, her financial resources were pretty stretched thin already. The western powers would most likely agree to a status quo, which would mean that Germany probably goes home as well.

What happens then depends on the state of Austria. Austria Hungary might not survive, too much damage done there already. In that case Hungary would probably become a German satellite, Croatia set free and the rest annexed by Germany (german minorities in Transylvania being a problem). This is were things would become really interesting as Germany tries to both stabilize those territories as well as trying to deal with the east (Baltics probably get annexed or set free as Satellites), Poland might get annexed or become free congress poland and the Ukraine would become a satellite. It is hard to say if Germany would be better off in such a scenario or not. Over the long run probably yes, but over the short one...

Britain most likely would go on as before with nothing changing much. France meanwhile will most certainly become the worlds first fascist power.

If the American's don't send huge bodies of men, would the Allies have been able to rally themselves during the 1918 Spring Offensive? I know the Germans advanced well beyond their supply train, but if the Allies never stopped retreating, would the Germans be able to pause, catch their breath and resume the offensive?

There might not be such a strong Spring offensive in 1918 as that offensive was forced on Germany by the USA entering the war. It might have been instead a much better prepared offensive with rested troops in in the summer or Autumn, which IMO would have collapsed the French.

[Thanas]

I am going to throw up some quotes from the Spiegel article I just posted on the board:

It is tempting to think about what would have happened had US President Woodrow Wilson adhered to his original resolution to keep the United States out of the war. Throughout most of the war, the Germans were tactically superior to their opponents. What they lacked in materiel and manpower they managed to make up through battlefield strategy.

Indeed, in the summer of 1917 France was on the verge of collapse. The number of dead French soldiers had surpassed one million. And while the general staff attempted to distribute the losses throughout the country by constantly rotating its fighting forces -- thus spreading the pain among the individual provinces -- despair had taken hold. While the average German family produced three to four children, the birth rate in France had declined to two children per family. Each loss was even more difficult to handle. Many parents who had had only sons were suddenly childless.

The soldiers themselves were also succumbing to fatalism. After a devastating offensive on the Aisne, in which the French lost 130,000 men within a few days, large parts of the army were refusing to continue fighting. After a flood of court martial proceedings, General Philippe Pétain held out the prospect of no longer engaging in major offensives. But this also limited the effectiveness of his army.

There are many indications that the French, with no hope for an improvement in the situation, would have been prepared to conclude a separate peace with the German Reich. The collapse of the Entente would have been imminent, as Russia too was on the brink. Although morale was surprisingly high among British soldiers are three years of war and horrendous losses, the United Kingdom would hardly have continued fighting on the Continent without its allies.

It was the United States that turned the tide in World War I. Beginning in the spring of 1918, Germany's adversaries had an almost unlimited supply of well-rested units at their disposal. By August, some 1.3 million men had been shipped from the United States to Europe. "The German army would have persevered longer than the others. On average, its soldiers had been exposed to greater hardships, and they had they become more effective in combat -- but now the troops were running on empty," concludes political scientist Herfried Münkler in his excellent study, "Der Große Krieg" ("The Great War").

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the American's don't send huge bodies of men, would the Allies have been able to rally themselves during the 1918 Spring Offensive? I know the Germans advanced well beyond their supply train, but if the Allies never stopped retreating, would the Germans be able to pause, catch their breath and resume the offensive?

There might not be such a strong Spring offensive in 1918 as that offensive was forced on Germany by the USA entering the war. It might have been instead a much better prepared offensive with rested troops in in the summer or Autumn, which IMO would have collapsed the French.

Good point.

[Simon_Jester]

So I'm wondering, how much longer could the Central Powers have held out (or could they have won) had the US not gone full stupid and joined the allies?

I'm not sure this was actually stupid for the US; letting Europe hammer itself into total exhaustion all across the continent would not necessarily have been in American interests.

You can find a nice timeline at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactiv ... mbed.shtml

By the time the Americans joined, all armies were already having morale problems, and the front was almost static (+/- a few miles) for the last few years.
The capitulation of Russia freed up about a million German soldiers, but the Americans sent about 2.8 million fresh soldiers.
These ~3 million fresh allowed the allies to steamroll the German forces. Without them, I couldn't see the front change too much.

The Germans made a hell of a dent in the lines with the Michael Offensive, but it's not clear to me whether or not they had the wherewithal to repeat the trick.

Due to the war exhaustion, I think it would be possible that there would have been peace between the various powers.
(Germany might even be willing to return to a status quo ante, returning all French territory, just to get out of the painful grind, and use their manpower to secure territory seized in Russia, which they originally could not, due to the men needed to hold the western front, and lack of time)

The biggest problem is that UNLESS France just gives up, by the time the Germans agree to a peace, Western Europe's governments may be irretrievably damaged. Germany would probably have gotten bled even harder and experienced a longer period of deprivation during the war by the time it ended in 1919-20. France was arguably on the edge of total military collapse after the mutinies of 1917. Britain was at least physically capable of going on but was financially a wreck.

Without the knowledge that there were several million more warm bodies at least available to fight the war, I'm not sure how Allied morale would have held up.

So basically, WW2 was America's fault?
As I interpret it, if Germany had managed to consolidate their hold in Russia, they wouldn't have been quite so badly fucked over in the aftermath, with the other side having been fought almost to a standstill, too tired to carry on the war. The following years of civil unrest would never have happened, as there would be no Treaty, and as a result no severe civil unrest in the decade and a half following. Which leads me to believe that the National Socialist party would never have gained as much traction, and so forth.
If I am wrong, please correct me in the bluntest way you can muster.

Germany was suffering major economic damage from the British blockade even without the Americans coming in. And the increased casualty figures (plus Spanish flu ripping everyone to pieces) might well make the social unrest worse in all the combatant nations. I think the results would be impossible to predict- you might get the Second Reich holding on in Germany but fascists popping up in France, you might get socialists overthrowing the government like in Russia (unlikely), you might... honestly, I do not think it can be predicted because we don't know just how long the war would have dragged out.

I think that to really prevent radical violent political movements from becoming a problem for the future of Europe in the '20s and '30s, you'd need to make World War One shorter, not longer. A shorter, less destructive war would be less likely to shred the prewar social order. And while that social order had a lot of built-in injustices and flaws, it at least was sort of capable of preserving a civil order free of violent revolutions and mass political purges.
____________________

Then we have the possibility Thanas raised of a French collapse in 1918. This is very much possible. If it happens, Germany is almost certainly going to take the chance to extract humiliating concessions from France, because they know they have military ascendancy in Europe.

The British might give up promptly... then again, I'm not sure. It occurs to me that they might not, because withdrawing the British Expeditionary Force from Europe would make the war effort more sustainable for them- the strain of constant intense combat on the Western Front was a big part of the problem.

So I guess you have two possibilities. One is "Europe hammers itself even flatter than in real life, creating an even more perfect power vacuum for new ideologies to take over in more places." The other is "Germany emerges as the (pretty much totally exhausted) last man standing on the continent." It's not clear to me that either outcome would be preferable for the US to what actually happened.

[Thanas]

The Germans made a hell of a dent in the lines with the Michael Offensive, but it's not clear to me whether or not they had the wherewithal to repeat the trick.

Depends on a lot of factors. IMO without the help from the USA coming the French would collapse right then and there. The Government had already begun preparations to abandon the capital to Bordeaux. If Paris would have been taken or even besieged I don't see how French morale could hold up.

The biggest problem is that UNLESS France just gives up, by the time the Germans agree to a peace, Western Europe's governments may be irretrievably damaged. Germany would probably have gotten bled even harder and experienced a longer period of deprivation during the war by the time it ended in 1919-20. France was arguably on the edge of total military collapse after the mutinies of 1917. Britain was at least physically capable of going on but was financially a wreck.

I don't think the war would have gone on longer than 1918. Both sides have ample reason to seek peace by then - the Germans for the reasons of the blockade and the french for all the aforementioned things.

Germany was suffering major economic damage from the British blockade even without the Americans coming in. And the increased casualty figures (plus Spanish flu ripping everyone to pieces) might well make the social unrest worse in all the combatant nations. I think the results would be impossible to predict- you might get the Second Reich holding on in Germany but fascists popping up in France, you might get socialists overthrowing the government like in Russia (unlikely), you might... honestly, I do not think it can be predicted because we don't know just how long the war would have dragged out.

Victory cures everything. Notice how easily french morale was restored once the USA arrived on force and Michel failed?

I think that to really prevent radical violent political movements from becoming a problem for the future of Europe in the '20s and '30s, you'd need to make World War One shorter, not longer. A shorter, less destructive war would be less likely to shred the prewar social order. And while that social order had a lot of built-in injustices and flaws, it at least was sort of capable of preserving a civil order free of violent revolutions and mass political purges.

I disagree. The revolution was already starting in Russia and had already succeeded at this point. Meanwhile, the main point of the social problems were actually the short, quick victory in WWI and the truce it allowed the victors to impose. If all sides are exhausted there would be less harsh of a truce.

Then we have the possibility Thanas raised of a French collapse in 1918. This is very much possible. If it happens, Germany is almost certainly going to take the chance to extract humiliating concessions from France, because they know they have military ascendancy in Europe.

Why? The most German plans went for was to annex Luxembourg and the German-speaking parts of Belgium. If there is no US help forthcoming I think Germany will immediately offer in 1918 what they did after Verdun - the status quo for the west. If France had collapsed by then Germany will take Luxembourg and the aforementioned parts of Belgium. Maybe Germany will take the rest of the department of Moselle (see this map to know what I mean). But what else are they going to do? Take the french colonies? No, Germany already lost too much money on their own colonies. Take the outdated french fleet? No. Demand money? Probably.

But also keep in mind that it depends on what faction manages to take over. For example, if Hoffman's voice is heard more in the Generalstab, then Germany will most likely try to achieve a Bismarckian peace treaty and only try to take German-speaking territories as Hoffman believed oppressing other ethnic minorities was a waste of resources.

So I guess you have two possibilities. One is "Europe hammers itself even flatter than in real life, creating an even more perfect power vacuum for new ideologies to take over in more places." The other is "Germany emerges as the (pretty much totally exhausted) last man standing on the continent." It's not clear to me that either outcome would be preferable for the US to what actually happened.

Given how Versailles created Hitler I am not sure there is a less preferable outcome than that. Heck, even a total fascist dictatorship in France would not create as much havoc as Germany did simply because it would not be able to conquer its neighbours.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the French did collapse in this new 1918, I wonder what terms the British would demand in exchange for them to withdraw peacefully. Or whether they might decide to withdraw from the continent entirely and simply continue their blockade that was rather successful. They'd have to expand to blockading the major French ports as well though.

[Thanas]

If the French did collapse in this new 1918, I wonder what terms the British would demand in exchange for them to withdraw peacefully. Or whether they might decide to withdraw from the continent entirely and simply continue their blockade that was rather successful. They'd have to expand to blockading the major French ports as well though.

If the French collapse, the British will be lucky to manage to extract the majority of their heavy war material. Maybe they can do a Dunkirk style evacuation of the men but I doubt it - for one, the rail network will not cooperate as it is French. In any case, I think the loss of the front will be a crippling blow to the army which is probably finished as a fighting force. The blow to morale will be harder.

The blockade is a heavy point but I am not sure it will be enough to break German morale in such a case. Probably not considering that resources start to flow into the Reich from the east and west.

I think at that point what do you do to sell the war to the public, especially if the forces took heavy casualties in the collapse? Try and push into Turkey? And what do you do if the U-boats start getting more and more effective? I think the British will settle for a status quo. Maybe Germany throws in some or all of the colonies.

But what conditions does England want anyway? The removal of the HSF? That won't happen.

[Simon_Jester]

I disagree. The revolution was already starting in Russia and had already succeeded at this point. Meanwhile, the main point of the social problems were actually the short, quick victory in WWI and the truce it allowed the victors to impose. If all sides are exhausted there would be less harsh of a truce.

Hm. This seems a bit uncertain to me. Are social problems caused by harsh truces, or by the dislocation of fighting a war that tears up the social fabric? Russia wasn't actually losing the war when the Czar was overthrown, not in the sense of being in imminent danger of conquest. They didn't sign a surrender document until Brest-Litovsk, long after the social upheavals had begun. But the army was demoralized, and the people were demoralized and struggling to survive, and the scope of the war effort was large relative to the weak Russian economy. Therefore, the existing government was doomed, and even the provisional government that replaced it was arguably doomed from the outset.

Why? The most German plans went for was to annex Luxembourg and the German-speaking parts of Belgium. If there is no US help forthcoming I think Germany will immediately offer in 1918 what they did after Verdun - the status quo for the west. If France had collapsed by then Germany will take Luxembourg and the aforementioned parts of Belgium. Maybe Germany will take the rest of the department of Moselle (see this map to know what I mean). But what else are they going to do? Take the french colonies? No, Germany already lost too much money on their own colonies. Take the outdated french fleet? No. Demand money? Probably.

I think the combination of money and annexations from Belgium would be sufficient to leave the French quite vindictive and disrupted. Historically the Third Republic pretty much held things together... but historically they won the war. Here, they're a government associated with total failure, having mismanaged the war effort from start to finish. The communists would be looking where to sink the knife in, the fascists likewise.

So I guess you have two possibilities. One is "Europe hammers itself even flatter than in real life, creating an even more perfect power vacuum for new ideologies to take over in more places." The other is "Germany emerges as the (pretty much totally exhausted) last man standing on the continent." It's not clear to me that either outcome would be preferable for the US to what actually happened.

Given how Versailles created Hitler I am not sure there is a less preferable outcome than that.

To me, it's not a foregone conclusion that we would have avoided Hitler, or a Hitler-like figure causing comparable amounts of chaos and bloodshed, from a totally exhausted Europe in which ALL the major nations were battered as badly as historical postwar Germany.

Alternatively, we could have seen the Second Reich calling the shots throughout continental Europe, and from the point of view of US interests and strategy it isn't clear whether that would have been desirable either. Better than having Hitler happen in absolute terms; Wilhelm III is an improvement over Hitler, obviously. But if you have to restrict yourself to information at least conceivably available to a WWI decision-maker at the time, it is far from obvious that Hitler would result from Germany being defeated and NOT from all powers hammering each other into exhaustion.

Heck, even a total fascist dictatorship in France would not create as much havoc as Germany did simply because it would not be able to conquer its neighbours.

If things are as deterministic as you... sort of imply, then yes. My point is more that it would be very hard to accurately predict which nations would or would not experience social upheaval and/or revolutions as a result of an equally protracted but different version of World War One. We might expect one thing to happen, and yet see another.

So while we can debate the topic intelligently, I think it's taking one's conclusions too far to say that the US was 'stupid' to join the war, or to say that the outcome would have necessarily been better had the US simply stayed out and let Germany and the western Allies hammer each other for another 6-12 months.

[Thanas]

Hm. This seems a bit uncertain to me. Are social problems caused by harsh truces, or by the dislocation of fighting a war that tears up the social fabric? Russia wasn't actually losing the war when the Czar was overthrown, not in the sense of being in imminent danger of conquest. They didn't sign a surrender document until Brest-Litovsk, long after the social upheavals had begun. But the army was demoralized, and the people were demoralized and struggling to survive, and the scope of the war effort was large relative to the weak Russian economy. Therefore, the existing government was doomed, and even the provisional government that replaced it was arguably doomed from the outset.

Sure, but the Russians were finished anyway.

I think the combination of money and annexations from Belgium would be sufficient to leave the French quite vindictive and disrupted. Historically the Third Republic pretty much held things together... but historically they won the war. Here, they're a government associated with total failure, having mismanaged the war effort from start to finish. The communists would be looking where to sink the knife in, the fascists likewise.

Oh, of course. I fully expect France to go fascist, like I said.

To me, it's not a foregone conclusion that we would have avoided Hitler, or a Hitler-like figure causing comparable amounts of chaos and bloodshed, from a totally exhausted Europe in which ALL the major nations were battered as badly as historical postwar Germany.

Here is the thing though - there are only two nations in Europe capable of causing widespread chaos and havoc. One was Britain, the other Germany. A fascist leader in any of the other countries will not be able to do as much simple for lack of means. A fascist outcome in any Western European nation is preferred to either Britain or Germany going fascist because while a Mussolini might do unpleasant stuff in his own country he cannot spread his power into other countries.

Second, you assume all the major nations will be battered as Germany. That does not follow. Germany will be much better off. Britain will be the same. The ones who are screwed are Russia and France. Any such event would cause the same damage to Russia as in OTL and France would not have suffered any more damage than it did in OTL anyway given the countryside where the fighting happened was wrecked anyway.

Alternatively, we could have seen the Second Reich calling the shots throughout continental Europe, and from the point of view of US interests and strategy it isn't clear whether that would have been desirable either.

Why not? In fact, if you are talking in absolute terms Britain was a much worse partner than Germany. Germany had no territorial disputes or conflicting zones of influence with the US, Britain did. Germany had no navy capable of reaching the US, Britain did. Germany had no interest in the pacific or caribbean, Britain did. Let us not forget that US war planners wargamed against Britain and the US fleet was built to compete with Britain.

My point is more that it would be very hard to accurately predict which nations would or would not experience social upheaval and/or revolutions as a result of an equally protracted but different version of World War One. We might expect one thing to happen, and yet see another.

Sure but I fail to see how we cannot extrapolate from what happened in OTL. I mean, the revolt in Germany started from the sailors being sent on a suicide mission. The troops in the field did not mutiny. Thus, as the homefront will be much less stressed in this scenario - and the food shortages being far less severe due to men being able to be sent back from the eastern front to work the harvest - and no victorious country experiencing a lot of upheaval....

So while we can debate the topic intelligently, I think it's taking one's conclusions too far to say that the US was 'stupid' to join the war, or to say that the outcome would have necessarily been better had the US simply stayed out and let Germany and the western Allies hammer each other for another 6-12 months.

Well, speaking in purely strategic terms, I think you make the mistakes of viewing nations which had been competitors for over 100 years as natural allies (US and Britain). Joining the war in Europe or even starting to favor one side over the other makes little sense to me.

[Zinegata]

Another thing to remember is that the AEF absorbed 300,000 casualties in the final year of the war, which would have otherwise been borne by the British and French armies. I don't think either would have been able to take these losses without suffering a material (if not morale) collapse.

[Sea Skimmer]

The AEF, even before the 100 days offensive, completely cancelled out British and French losses in the 1918 spring offensive, while Germany suffered over a million casualties in the process and could not replace this manpower. The American's didn't just take losses that would otherwise be French ect, they greatly increased the density of Allied forces on the western front, and that inherently reduced allied losses, in particularly by allowing for rapid large counterattacks against the German penetrations before they could be defensively consolidated. However American forces were not much involved with actually stopping those penetrations, and considering the German logistical problems it seems unlikely that they'd actually overrun Paris in the process, unless allied moral failed completely. Also its much less likely that they would mount such a big offensive, and if they did it would be just as convoluted as the original plan, trying to destroy the British with multiple widely spaced attacks (the dumb is strong) and this is bound to fail again.

No doubt exists that the entry of american forces into the war sapped German moral, and that this effect became massive once the Spring offensive had clearly not just failed, but was being driven back to its starting point. In the end even Ludendorff broke personally, his words are on record even if he dodged around it in his book. That shouldn't happen.

I wouldn't be super confident that the French and British will just collapse without American forces even if the war drags on. The Germans had almost no manpower in the pipeline for 1919, about 300,000 children, while both allies had large numbers of African troops they could call upon, which France rapidly was IRL, sufficient at least to plug defensive gaps, and a half million men could be pulled out of Salonika if need be, or might do as they did in real life, breakout and suddenly force Germany to divert large forces to its southern flank. Bulgaria and the Ottomans and the Austrians were all in incredibly bad shape in 1918, worse by far then any of the other main combattants. But this certainly wont win the war either.

Since Germany held large areas of highly valuable French territory she simply had the better position to negotiate from whatever happens. Most of the French iron ore supply and her best industrial region were in German hands almost the entire war. To get those back the French are going to have to trade away at least a few colonies and a free hand to the Germans in the east. Belgium is a German rump state, most likely with her coastline annexed directly into the German Imperial Lands. I know at times the Germans intended to take the whole country, others it would be forced into a customs Union with Antwerp and the coast annexed directly.

A more open question is the grand German designs against the British, propaganda posts were being put up claiming some rather extreme things, which the British simply would never agree too without an invasion of England. If the Germans really press home on stuff like taking over Suez and the Red Sea Coastline the British really will just blockade all of Europe until the bloody end of time if need be. It wouldn't cost that much at all compared to fighting the land war. They will not trade the fate of the Empire for peace when they remain utterly supreme at sea. Indeed some of the things the Germans wanted from France, such as Dakar, may well find themselves occupied by the British before the Imperial Fleet can show up to take possession.

So maybe we can get Jutland Mark 2 in 1930 with eighty five dreadnoughts per side, the aft end of the lines coming into action hours after the van opens fire, and more ships sunk in collisions then by enemy fire.

[LaCroix]

Let's go ahead with the thought experiment that Britain does not yield, and starts blockading all of Europe (which it pretty much would have to in order to blockade Germany) - wouldn't that cause the other nations to (tentatively) ally in order to get the "Island bullies" to back off?

I mean, I could even see the US siding with Germany against Britain, as Britain would deny them trade with whole Europe, which I doubt they would tolerate. Could this lead to a clash between the combined US Navy & HSF and the RN? (After all, I think the US would have loved to break British rule of the seas, and the HSF would be perfect to make up the numerical difference.) The americans had 10 dreadnoughts, and about two dozen pre-dreadnoughts - how would they fare in combat with british ships? Well enough to make a diffrence in Jutland Mark2 with an american fleet intervening as an additional western battleline? (I doubt there could be any scenario where US & German fleet could join up before action, the RN would not allow it.)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Let's go ahead with the thought experiment that Britain does not yield, and starts blockading all of Europe (which it pretty much would have to in order to blockade Germany) - wouldn't that cause the other nations to (tentatively) ally in order to get the "Island bullies" to back off?

I mean, I could even see the US siding with Germany against Britain, as Britain would deny them trade with whole Europe, which I doubt they would tolerate. Could this lead to a clash between the combined US Navy & HSF and the RN? (After all, I think the US would have loved to break British rule of the seas, and the HSF would be perfect to make up the numerical difference.) The americans had 10 dreadnoughts, and about two dozen pre-dreadnoughts - how would they fare in combat with british ships? Well enough to make a diffrence in Jutland Mark2 with an american fleet intervening as an additional western battleline? (I doubt there could be any scenario where US & German fleet could join up before action, the RN would not allow it.)

If the US did indeed have 10 dreadnoughts, then if they combined with the High Seas Fleet they would have 26 dreadnoughts total, plus about thirty pre-dreadnoughts. The British Grand Fleet at Jutland would still outnumber them by 2 dreadnoughts, and they had 5 or 6 more building in 1916. Plus AFAIK nothing the Germans or the US had would match the Queen Elizabeth class ships.

So, in 1916, two years before this putative US/German/UK Jutland Mk II, the RN still has the numbers advantage. By 1918/1919 it would only be worse; the RN would have finished installing improved range finders and gun directors and they would have finished their post-Jutland anti-flash/anti-magazine-exploding precautions.

The one other thing that comes to mind is that by the time this hpothetical battle ensues, it would be Beatty in command of the Grand Fleet, not Jellicoe. Which may result in him being a lot more willing to seek a close engagement than Jellicoe had been (that's no slight against Jellicoe BTW, his reasoning for his actions is sound).

[quote="Thanas"
I think at that point what do you do to sell the war to the public, especially if the forces took heavy casualties in the collapse? Try and push into Turkey? And what do you do if the U-boats start getting more and more effective? I think the British will settle for a status quo. Maybe Germany throws in some or all of the colonies.

But what conditions does England want anyway? The removal of the HSF? That won't happen.[/quote]

Well given that the British pretext for entering the war was protecting Belgium, I think that would be a condition. That way it would allow Britain to spin it to the population that they'd "won." After all, they went in to save Belgium, and they've done it.

[Sea Skimmer]

The US isn't going to stop the British, because the US isn't going to want the Germans to own things like the Suez canal or Daka either that would allow the Germans to project Hun power globally. In fact that kind of stuff is one of the reasons why Wilson ended up so gung-ho to get America in the war in the first place, and had been a constant fear in America for several decades. Not without some reason either after the Germans made motions to takeover Spanish possessions in 1898.

Also the US and German fleets joining is implausible for multiple reasons, please stop thinking that way unless you really think the German fleet would go on an epic death ride to try to reach New York Harbor. The British have a vast advantage of location, and the US has far better strategies to pursue then a giant gamble.

[Tribble]

I assume that in this scenario the U-boats were not used to sink civilian vessels such as the Lusitania? I'm pretty sure that even if the Americans for some strange reason decided to stay out of the fighting, they wouldn't be very pleased with Germany if it resorted to unrestricted submarine warfare. I highly doubt the US would ever get into a naval alliance with Germany if that were the case. It's more likely that if the US still refused to fight despite the unrestricted warfare they would end up sending Britain material support and helping them hunt down U-boats.

[Irbis]

Well, the problem is which armies morale is going to break first, the french or the germans? I previously though this was pretty much a wash, but after reading a bit more about the morale problem in the french armies in 1917 and 1918 I have to believe the french will break first.

Well, in real life it was German army that broke first, in particular, its least damaged part (Hochseeflotte). Do you have any big reason why you think this time it will be different?

This is were things would become really interesting as Germany tries to both stabilize those territories as well as trying to deal with the east (Baltics probably get annexed or set free as Satellites), Poland might get annexed or become free congress poland and the Ukraine would become a satellite.

Poland had big problems with even tiny part of Ukraine annexed after WW I as buffer zone. I don't know, country with twice the manpower of Poland trying to hold 15x larger problematic area wouldn't have easier time. On the contrary.

Britain most likely would go on as before with nothing changing much.

Would they? Or would we get repeat of Napoleonic Wars?

It might have been instead a much better prepared offensive with rested troops in in the summer or Autumn, which IMO would have collapsed the French.

The problem is, by summer Allies would have massed around 3.000 tanks to meet the offensive, along with first proper CAS aircraft. Would Germany with its double digit tank production and collapsing airplane factories be able to do anything about that?

Meanwhile, 1919 British war plan intended to throw forward 6.000 allied tanks, and by then you have Soviet offensive with 800.000 troops met not by determined central European states, but by whatever skeleton force Germany has there after scraping the bottom of the bucket for a year trying to plug the gaps in Western and Southern fronts.

Depends on a lot of factors. IMO without the help from the USA coming the French would collapse right then and there. The Government had already begun preparations to abandon the capital to Bordeaux. If Paris would have been taken or even besieged I don't see how French morale could hold up.

You're postulating Germans win 2nd Marne after additional several months of time for French to prepare, even when in real life they lost it with minimal US involvement. Why would they be more successful if all the break does is giving allied side more material to halt the offensive?

I don't think the war would have gone on longer than 1918. Both sides have ample reason to seek peace by then - the Germans for the reasons of the blockade and the french for all the aforementioned things.

Actually, in real life, peace was possible by then, but German high staff (which effectively hijacked state control) did huge blunder - very harsh terms given first to Romania, then to Russia galvanized allied will to resist, and it didn't even paid off (in terms of suppies conquered territory gave Germany).

Victory cures everything. Notice how easily french morale was restored once the USA arrived on force and Michel failed?

And loss digs under your morale. In 1918, regardless of what Germans did, south flank of their front is on the verge of collapse. Allies can cancel loss of USA by void sapping any remaining German reserves, especially if they delay Western offensive.

Why? The most German plans went for was to annex Luxembourg and the German-speaking parts of Belgium. If there is no US help forthcoming I think Germany will immediately offer in 1918 what they did after Verdun - the status quo for the west.

Didn't by then German officers demanded destruction of France? Even if not, their ability to negotiate anything was critically compromised after Brest-Litovsk.

If the French collapse, the British will be lucky to manage to extract the majority of their heavy war material. Maybe they can do a Dunkirk style evacuation of the men but I doubt it - for one, the rail network will not cooperate as it is French.

Why not? They cooperated in 1940. Would really French train operators refuse to help ally? Most of BEF is near ports and has its own, independent transport lines (Army Service Corps trains), anyway.

The blockade is a heavy point but I am not sure it will be enough to break German morale in such a case. Probably not considering that resources start to flow into the Reich from the east and west.

What resources? Let's see, west, if France is so pounded flat it had surrendered, it has little left, especially seeing 1/3 of it was already destroyed. UK will blockade them too. East? Allies are about to take Balkans, A-H is on the verge of collapsing, Ukraine in real life shipped Germans tiny amounts of resources (and ironically, most were taken over by A-H not Germany, due to better rail connection). Soviets are about to either to press attack or start wave of insurgency, made worse by nationalist movements, not very eager to trade Russia for Germany either. If UK pulls from France, alliance with Soviets and BEF landing in Murmansk to be shipped to Baltic front is very likely, too.

[Bedlam]

If the war had stretched on any longer what effect do you think the 1918 - 1920 Flu Pandemic would have had? I would assume it would have decimated the tightly packed armies living in poor conditions.

Or if the war had carried on do you think the pandemic wouldn't have occurred?

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the war had stretched on any longer what effect do you think the 1918 - 1920 Flu Pandemic would have had? I would assume it would have decimated the tightly packed armies living in poor conditions.

Or if the war had carried on do you think the pandemic wouldn't have occurred?

Weren't the first cases of that actually found in Kansas? If the yanks never cross the Atlantic to help, it might not have spread so far so quickly.

[Sea Skimmer]

Thousands of people per week crossed the Atlantic by liner even at the height of the U-boat campaign. It will spread easily enough. In real life the flu threat did actually slow down the US deployments, as at certain times all trooper runs were stopped because of how bad it spread on the ships. While the first confirmed cases were in Kansas, evidence exists that it was active earlier in Asia, and may have actually spread east to the US, then further east to Europe.

The Flu did end up hitting the French and British first, and then spread to the Germans, and appeared to hit the Germans harder. Theories exist on that, one is simply that the Germans state of near starvation made them more vulnerable, another is that the strain had mutated, it seems to have mutated multiple times, and actually became more lethal, but not enough that it blew back even worse onto the allies. The war continuing in any case will make the flu worse from poor living conditions, but then it might also cause it to mutate into a less harmful form faster. Its impossible to know.

[Thanas]

If the US did indeed have 10 dreadnoughts, then if they combined with the High Seas Fleet they would have 26 dreadnoughts total, plus about thirty pre-dreadnoughts. The British Grand Fleet at Jutland would still outnumber them by 2 dreadnoughts, and they had 5 or 6 more building in 1916. Plus AFAIK nothing the Germans or the US had would match the Queen Elizabeth class ships.

The Bayern compares quite well plus there is the L20 class which might or might not have been built....But the HSF is not going to join up with the US fleet.

Well, the problem is which armies morale is going to break first, the french or the germans? I previously though this was pretty much a wash, but after reading a bit more about the morale problem in the french armies in 1917 and 1918 I have to believe the french will break first.

Well, in real life it was German army that broke first, in particular, its least damaged part (Hochseeflotte). Do you have any big reason why you think this time it will be different?

Because this time the soldiers will not be told that they will go on a suicide mission where the motto will be victory or death?

Poland had big problems with even tiny part of Ukraine annexed after WW I as buffer zone. I don't know, country with twice the manpower of Poland trying to hold 15x larger problematic area wouldn't have easier time. On the contrary.

Yes, which is why I have said they would become satellites and not annexed.

Would they? Or would we get repeat of Napoleonic Wars?

The only reason Britain survived that was India. For obvious reasons, the situation will not be the same.

The problem is, by summer Allies would have massed around 3.000 tanks to meet the offensive, along with first proper CAS aircraft. Would Germany with its double digit tank production and collapsing airplane factories be able to do anything about that?

Sure, they got plenty of cannons. Tanks are not the end all and the CAS capabilites are laughable. These are not Stukas.

Meanwhile, 1919 British war plan intended to throw forward 6.000 allied tanks, and by then you have Soviet offensive with 800.000 troops met not by determined central European states, but by whatever skeleton force Germany has there after scraping the bottom of the bucket for a year trying to plug the gaps in Western and Southern fronts.

The Soviets would not be going on an offensive, especially not with the white problem not over.

You're postulating Germans win 2nd Marne after additional several months of time for French to prepare, even when in real life they lost it with minimal US involvement. Why would they be more successful if all the break does is giving allied side more material to halt the offensive?

The same reason the leading authority on the war thinks it would happen - declining morale, no shape to counterattack and a general sense of being unable to complete any objectives.

Actually, in real life, peace was possible by then, but German high staff (which effectively hijacked state control) did huge blunder - very harsh terms given first to Romania, then to Russia galvanized allied will to resist, and it didn't even paid off (in terms of suppies conquered territory gave Germany).

What are your sources for the effect it had on French morale? Were the french suddenly attacking? No. After the Nivelle offensive the French army was pretty much finished as an offensive force.

And loss digs under your morale. In 1918, regardless of what Germans did, south flank of their front is on the verge of collapse. Allies can cancel loss of USA by void sapping any remaining German reserves, especially if they delay Western offensive.

That front only collapsed after the victory of the allies in France, which should be enough to tell you that it won't be decisive on its own.

Didn't by then German officers demanded destruction of France? Even if not, their ability to negotiate anything was critically compromised after Brest-Litovsk.

You really think Brest-Litovsk was supposed to be a permanent treaty? No way. And German officers demanding the destruction of France are to be taken as serious as the French soldiers demanding the destruction of Germany. Both loudmouths matter little.

Why not? They cooperated in 1940. Would really French train operators refuse to help ally? Most of BEF is near ports and has its own, independent transport lines (Army Service Corps trains), anyway.

right and they can suddenly move their heavy guns and ship them with ease because.....?

What resources? Let's see, west, if France is so pounded flat it had surrendered, it has little left, especially seeing 1/3 of it was already destroyed. UK will blockade them too. East? Allies are about to take Balkans, A-H is on the verge of collapsing, Ukraine in real life shipped Germans tiny amounts of resources (and ironically, most were taken over by A-H not Germany, due to better rail connection). Soviets are about to either to press attack or start wave of insurgency, made worse by nationalist movements, not very eager to trade Russia for Germany either. If UK pulls from France, alliance with Soviets and BEF landing in Murmansk to be shipped to Baltic front is very likely, too.

The soviet army showed itself incapable of beating the Poles even after the white threat had been all but eliminated, so I don't favor their chances against the German army. Allies cannot take the Balkans if France collapses. The food situation will be greatly helped with available harvest workers.

[Sea Skimmer]

The L20 is a joke compared to the projects the British came up with post Jutland, probably because the Germans didn't get shocked into a rethink on everything and instead simply focused on scaling up Baden to 42cm guns in a very lengthy and uninspiring series of studies, starting with six gun ships because the size escalation was so radical. They where meanwhile also trying to design versions of Courageous and Glorious.... with 17cm secondary batteries too. Because totally...

In any case under war conditions it would be three or four years to complete anything new, by which time the British would also have an entirely new generation of ships out, on top of the already massive advantage they'd built up. Germany physically needed more building ways to catch up to the British. The war is rather unlikely to last long enough for any of this to matter.