What would have been the outcome of WWI if......

[Paul C]

America had not joined the fight.

I am interested in the opinions of others about the short and long term results if America had not become involved in WWI. I have my opinion which I will state later, but for now I would like to hear yours.

[paul wood]

I suspect the war would have lasted another year but Austria would have been out of it before then. The allies would have eventually won but at the cost of probably another million allied losses and similar German losses. The American intervention certainly took several months off the war.

Paul

[redeagleorder]

I suspect the war would have lasted another year but Austria would have been out of it before then. The allies would have eventually won but at the cost of probably another million allied losses and similar German losses. The American intervention certainly took several months off the war.

Paul

Agree. America's entry/non-entry would not have deeply affected the British blockade, which was a vital factor in the war.

[Brian Wolfe]

I have held the above opinon for a long time and research supports it. America shortened the War drastically however my opinion in no way deminishes their contributions.

Regards

Brian

[Ulsterman]

Disagree. Without American financial, naval and military support the Allies would have collapsed in late Spring, 1918. Simply put, Germany misused its Michael offensive, but without US support the British and French armies in the field would simply have run out of supplies, cracked and been driven beyond Paris. Germanys' navy had the strength to break the blockade temporarily and in conjunction with an offensive in France could have easily disrupted British communications with northern France.

Austria and Italy were stalemated, but there's no doubt A-H could have outlasted Italy and even sent a corps to northern Turkey/ Greece had it wished.

Thereafter, a depleted, impoverished Europe centered upon Berlin. Probably left wing Socialist governments in Italy, France, Belgium, the UK and Spain by 1930. America retains world economic, cultural and political dominance, albeit indirectly. American wealth grows greater than it did. No League of Nations. No Second World War. No Israel. "Four Worlds" by 1984(Orwellian) : Capitalist US & British Empire/ Continental-based , socialist-statist Europe/ Soviet Empire/ East Asia

Empires begin to fracture in 1960s. France and UK and Spain/Italy retain "liberal" Commonwealths/empires . India independent in 1975. Vietnam still a Department of France in 2014. Same with Algeria.

Japanese retain northern China and take Manchuria and West Russia as client states. Japan becomes major manufacturing power in the 1970s as free trade allows lower Asian labor costs to promote boom.

Economic world stagnation in 1930s-1940s hastened by tariffs. Political crisis in Germany in 1940s as old Kaiserdom/Junkerdom clashes with KPD/SPD. KPD/SPD to power under new Kaiser in mid 1940s. Hard Socialist Germany by 1950. Monarchies in Balkans all constitutional by 1950. Yugoslavia retains integrity as multi-ethnic state.

By 1960 American living standards approximately 100% higher than those of Europe's and 150% higher than Russia. Soviet Union collapses in mid 1950s. Thereafter in orbit of Europe culturally/economically. First man on the moon @ 1970. Arab and Asian rim predominantly Franco-German (Continental) European, not American, in culture. English, French, Chinese and German are dominant world languages in 2010. Beatles still rated best band ever, after ABBA.

World a more peaceful, but much poorer place overall. Most countries in Europe retain aristocracy in some form.

World population hits 8 billion in 2000.

Edited February 27, 2014 by Ulsterman

[Stuka f]

You should write a book about it (not pointing at someone specific!!(lol!))!!

Thise guy did;

http://www.amazon.fr/Et-Hitler-Reich-1000-ans/dp/2919403214

[saxcob]

In this article (in German) Alexander Demandt, a German historian at the Free University of Berlin is asking the very same question. He suggests that there would have been an “exhaustion peace” in 1917:

http://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article12178229/Wenn-die-USA-den-Ersten-Weltkrieg-gemieden-haetten.html

He also refers to Winston Churchill who according to the New York Enquirer has said literally in 1936:

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government - and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

Edited February 27, 2014 by saxcob

[Brian Wolfe]

With all due respect Ulsterman, are we talking about the same war? From what I have read the German fleet had been pretty well defeated at the Battle of Jutland, or at least bottled up.

Both sides were at the point of exhaustion and I woud conced that one side would have won over the other but I think it would have led to peace talks by 1919. I'm not basing this on books and other's fine and indisputable research but from conversations with WWI Veterans from both sides. To quote an old Prussian soldier I knew well and hunted with for many years, "We had cabbages and carrots, cabbages and carrots; I got to hate those cabbages and carrots. By the end of the war we would have welcomed either cabbages or carrots but got little to eat". The allies still had resources from her Empires such as Canada and the U.S.A. would have still been what could be construed as war profiteering even if sales of material had to be done on credit. Perhaps if America had not joined the war, (this is where I am obligated to state my "thanks be to God for America"), and German had still lost, the U.S.A would have owned all of Europe through the financial debt owed to them.

I won't get drawn into a long debate on this because I fear it would only make me appear to be anti-American, which is something I am anything but.

Regards

Brian

[Les]

Several things happened in the early part of 1917 that don't get much attention, but put considerable pressure on the US government.

American laws prevented direct US government loans to any of the belligerents, and all trade was supposed to be based on a cash and carry basis. Those same laws did not prevent privately owned American banks from lending cash, and by 1917, JP Morgan, Chase and other banks were heavily invested in the Allied cause. When the British Chancellor of the Exchequer notified his contacts in the US, that if the war continued much longer without US intervention, the Biritish government might default on repaying loans to American banks. That would have resulted in the US economy collapsing, and was something Wilson et al, could not ignore.

Also, about the same time, the French government began floating the idea of a seperate negioated truce with the Germans if the US wasn't in the war by the summer of 1917, and letting the British continue the war on their own. If France pulled out of the war, that raises the question of British troops remaining in France, and if they could have withdrawn under the pressure of German troops focusing entirely on the British rather than French troops.

All of this can be found in archived documents, and isn't made up.

One of the first things the US government did following the April 1917 declaration of war against Germany, was a law passed by the US government to assume all of the private/commercial non-governmental loans to the Allies, and re-imbursement to American banks, etc.

The possibility of these two events taking place aren't usually mentioned as motivating the US government's decision to enter the war, but the possibility of Britain defaulting on American loans, and Britain possibly losing the war without France's (or Russia as events were about to take place), would have seriously hampered Britain's war effort or even loss of the war.

Edited February 27, 2014 by Les

[Brian Wolfe]

I agree that if France had withdrawn from the War the British would have had no choice other than to also withdraw. The line of defense was too long for one of the Allies to hold and the loss of France would have left huge gaps for the Germans to exploit. I think, given time, the colonial forces may have filled the gaps, thinking that the Indian Army had not been used as efficiently as possible. However I doubt there would have been time to re-think the whole thing.

Here the First World War is seen as a British/German thing by many of the public with a few Frenchmen thrown in for good measure. Of course the facts do not support that misconception.

The War was started by Russia declairing war on Austria, then Germany supported Austria, France supported her ally, Russia, and the British threw in with France. It would probably be more accurate to see it as a Russian/Austrian conflict or even a French/German war that drew in the rest of the world.

The one thing we can all agree on is that it was a blood bath. It makes me wonder if the "old Gods" are not still with us and getting their blood sacrifice though the stupidity of mankind rather than from the old religious rituals.

Regards

Brian

[Hoss]

Simple the US should never have got involved in any shape or form, international pacts are the scourge of mankind.

Eric

[Paul C]

IMO without US involvement the war would have ended with a negotiated peace or a German victory. Long term - no Hitler and second world war as we know it. Russia would have been very diminished and the soviets government may have been overthrown. Japan may have risen in the Pacific but they would have had to contend with German as she had colonies in the Pacific and the US had interests as well.

Economically the US would have been a power house and the dominate world power.

[Spasm]

What would have been the outcome of WW1 if America had not joined the fight?

I suppose it's what you deem to mean 'the fight'.

Had the US already joined 'the fight' by choosing to supply materials and loans to the Allies? The Pope had asked her not to supply any of the belligerents and to help stop the war. But the US would not allow all this actual and potential business to go somewhere else, which it would have, probably to Canada, Australia or Argentina. America actually supplied the Germans with materials during the war until it was mostly turned back by the British naval blockade and as American public opinion changed. They were actually accused of 'filling both pockets with both hands' during the early stages of the war. And why not? They were a pacifist economic nation and saw the war as a sharp skirmish 'way over there'.

The pacifism stance narrowly re-elected Wilson in 1916. The US had already seen the brutality by the Germans in Belgium and France, the burning of Louvain, the execution of the nurse Edith Cavell, they had seen the Lusitania and the Arabic sank. The German promises to not sink ships without warnings broken again with the Anaconda and the Sussex. The delay tactics by the Germans gave them enough time to build the great fleets of submarines they thought they needed to strangle the Allies led to more and more merchant ships being sunk without warning. Then the Zimmermann telegram that tried to keep the American troops on the Mexican border. How could the US stay out? Not now.

Then there's the actual fighting and the physical defeat of Germany. In the 9 months after America's declaration of war on Germany she has battle ready 175,000 troops in the lines. In the same period from 1914 at the start of the war Britain had 660,000 troops in the line. A lot easier to get British troops across the Channel rather than from all over America and across the Atlantic. By the end of the war the US had 1,500,000 troops in France.

Although Ludendorff and Hindenburg have a few conflicting 'memories' after the end of the war. Particularly the 'stab in the back' theories that both dreamt up at hearings and in memoirs. Ludendorff's 'Black day for the German army' at Amiens in August led him to conclude on the 8th that the war had to be ended. He ordered the German army to hold their positions so that negotiations would be more favourable. The army continued to fall back under pressure. On 29th September Ludendorff advises the Kaiser to seek armistice. On 3rd October Hindenburg does the same.

The German Spring and Summer offensives had failed. Helped in part by American troops it is true. The Germans were bled white, the offensives were their last chance of winning. In mid 1918 the flu epidemic was causing more casualties than combat, the majority of the 300,000 troop replacements were from students and older men, civilians were starving, more POWs were taken in 1918 than in any other period of the war. The German Nation was finished. The surrender came while the majority of the front line was still in foreign counties. Bulgaria surrendered in September, Turkey and Austria-Hungary has surrendered in early November. The Navy, sat idle for most of the war due to the blockade, mutinied rather than engage in the proposed suicide attack ordered in October. The sailor's morale had been low since the first uprising in August 1917.

Without doubt the American troops aided the Allies victories in stopping the German's offensives in 1918. But without them the Allies would have prevailed. It was the British and French attacks that broke the already broken German army. The blockade did for Germany, something they tried (with submarines) but failed to achieve on the Allies.

And once Alvin York sorted it all out on 8th October it was just an easy mop up operation after that.

So the answer is that the Germans would have lost in either scenario. They lost when their plan to knock France out of the war and then take on the Russians failed because they annoyed the British by beating up the Belgians.

[IrishGunner]

As suggested, it depends upon what you mean by the "fight." If you mean combat units in Europe, then the outcome would have been exactly the same - maybe a few more months - but exactly the same, if US troops hadn't "joined the fight." Germany was becoming exhausted and the spring offensive still would have went the same way. The German commanders would have still advised the Kaiser to seek an armistice. Versailles would have still gone the way it did, but maybe without Wilson's 14 Points.

On the other hand, if you mean what if the US had exercised strict and pure neutrality (and given up war profits) as the US Secretary of State argued, then the Allies would have most likely sought a negotiated peace in 1916. We would have started the road to the European Union a lot earlier; French efforts to keep Germany in check economically - Britain still a member, but opting out of certain things. And there would not have been a Russian revolution. Austria-Hungary would have imploded and Wilson's 14 Points, particularly creating the new eastern Europe states (eg Poland) might have still gotten some air time.

[dond]

Had the US not sent troops then Ludendorff would not have squandered the troops released from the eastern front in the Kaiserschacht. Germany could have stayed behind the Hindenburg Line and bled the Allies into exhaustion and a negotiated peace. The Ukraine would have become Germany's bread basket which would have negated the British Embargo.

Ultimately it was Ludendorff's throw of the dice (Kaiserschlacht) that hastened the end of the war.

[Hoss]

The US forces didn't do much regarding the counter kaiserschlacht as for material the artillery rounds were frankly junk, if you could ask grunts.

It pissed me off Wilson got so involved it was nothing to do with him his fourteen points was purely political for the USA's own postwar gains. If the war had finished late 1915 America would have welcomed Germany with open arms. What was going to happen in Russia was long overdue and the west east Europe boarders would have looked different today. Austria would have crushed all the slav states no doubt about it.

Germany and England together would have dominated world affairs and controlled western Europe, France was always a carbuncle on our foot they can never make their minds what type of government they want.

Overhaul I think it would have been a better Europe Germans are wonderful people beautiful country.

Eric

[IrishGunner]

Wilson got so involved it was nothing to do with him his fourteen points was purely political for the USA's own postwar gains.

Eric

This is a misguided statement. Have you read the Fourteen Points? The first 5 points are general, but most of them do with gains for other nations...not the US.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

Exactly how does #6 benefit the US? Looks like a better deal for Russia in my view.

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another.

I'm guessing the Belgians felt they benefited here more than the US.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

Purely in the political self-interest of the US? Wasn't that a French war aim? Hmmm...

Points 9-13 dealing with Italy, Austria-Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Poland (and I know for certain the Poles view this as a huge gain for them) were directed at the benefit of those nations and not the political gain of the US.

Point 14 - the League of Nations - Wilson's #1 personal goal. Failed. Because the US Senate did not ratify and join the League. So, tell me how that benefited Wilson politically or the US specifically...

[Paul C]

This has turned into a great discussion. It seems to center on if Germany could have prevailed if the US had not sent troops to Europe. I think there is general agreement on post-war Europe if there was a negotiated peace or a German victory.

I think one aspect not addressed is the moral support that US troops brought to England and France. Was the "moral support" what aided France to stop the German spring 1918 offensive?

[Hoss]

Well thats alright for you Paul Rick wants me on the stand is he a defence lawyer?

Rick

Start with the mid no wait late 19th century its easier then get back.

Eric

Edited March 5, 2014 by Hoss

[redeagleorder]

Haven't popped into this thread for the last few days, some very good points being made.

The Ukraine would have become Germany's bread basket which would have negated the British Embargo.

Not necessarily. It would have taken at least one or two years to implement cost effective and country-wide farming measures. And by that time Communist Russia might have been knocking on the door.

But the blockade did not only concern food. It also concerned vital war materials that were not available in Europe, such as rubber and oil (the supply of which from the Middle East was being cut off by the British, thus leaving Germany with very few alternatives). No country is completely self-sustainable, and Germany was no exception.

[dond]

True but Imperial Germany was in possession of some prime real estate an they would have farmed/mined/exploited it to the maximum.

The problem with "what if" scenarios is that you have to start from the point of "what if" and play both sides all over again.

[Hoss]

Haven't popped into this thread for the last few days, some very good points being made.

Not necessarily. It would have taken at least one or two years to implement cost effective and country-wide farming measures. And by that time Communist Russia might have been knocking on the door.

But the blockade did not only concern food. It also concerned vital war materials that were not available in Europe, such as rubber and oil (the supply of which from the Middle East was being cut off by the British, thus leaving Germany with very few alternatives). No country is completely self-sustainable, and Germany was no exception.

Couple of good points but for example there really wasn't going to be an oil shortage until much later in the War the main purpose of blockages etc is to cut off essentials imo at the time oil not being one of them but a big player W2, this is rather long winded but worth studying imo it shows a part of the inter-political wrangling long before the first shot was even fired 1914 and a 'hurry up get it done' scenario shortly after the Armistice was signed ie the taking of Mosal. people may ask what has this to do with the initial post but its important I think to try understand the big players who push the buttons and a secret slicing of the pie before the war was even three months old..........

>During World War I (1914-18), strategists for all the major powers increasingly perceived oil as a key military asset, due to the adoption of oil-powered naval ships, new horseless army vehicles such as trucks and tanks, and even military airplanes. Use of oil during the war increased so rapidly that a severe shortage developed in 1917-18.

The strategists also understood that oil would assume a rapidly-growing importance in the civilian economy, making it a vital element in national and imperial economic strength and a source of untold wealth to those who controlled it. Already in the United States, John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, was the world's richest person.

The British government, ruling over the largest colonial empire, already controlled newly-discovered oil in Persia (now Iran) through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Since Britain lacked oil in the home islands, British strategists wanted still more reserves to assure the future needs of their empire. An area of the Ottoman Empire called Mesopotamia (now Iraq), shared the same geology as neighboring Persia, so it appeared especially promising.

Just before war broke out in 1914, British and German companies had negotiated joint participation in the newly-founded Turkish Petroleum Company that held prospecting rights in Mesopotamia. The war ended the Anglo-German oil partnership and it exposed the territories of the German-allied Ottoman Empire to direct British attack.

As war continued, oil seemed ever more important and shortages ever more menacing to the imperial planners. Sir Maurice Hankey, powerful Secretary of the British War Cabinet, wrote to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour during the war's final stage, to argue that oil had become absolutely vital to Britain and that oil resources in Mesopotamia would be crucial in the future. "Control of these oil supplies becomes a first-class war aim" Hankey said enthusiastically, as British troops closed in on Baghdad. (1)

Unfortunately for the British, they had ceded much of the oil-producing area in northern Iraq to their French ally in the secret Sykes-Picot Accord of early 1916, carving up the soon-to-be defeated Ottoman Empire. British diplomacy and military plans changed course to recoup what had already been given away. In August 1918, Balfour told assembled Prime Ministers of the British Dominions that Britain must be the "guiding spirit" in Mesopotamia, so as to provide a key resource that the British Empire lacked. "I do not care under what system we keep the oil," he said. "But I am quite clear it is all-important for us that this oil should be available." To this end, British forces raced to capture the key northern city of Mosul several days after the armistice was signed. Britain thus outmaneuvered the French, establishing a military fait accompli in the oil zone of Northern Mesopotamia.

The French were furious. France, too, lacked oil fields in its home terriorites, and its politicians and imperial strategists saw Mesopotamia as a key resource for France's future industrial and military might. In the months after the armistice, nothing caused greater friction between the two allies than the oil question. During the Versailles Peace Conference, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his French counterpart Georges Clemenceau nearly came to blows over Mesopotamian (Iraqi) oil, according to eyewitness accounts. US President Wooddrow Wilson apparently intervened and only barely restrained them. Finally, in the secret San Remo Agreement of 1920, the two rivals agreed to give Britain political control over all Mespoltamia, in return for France taking over the German quarter share in the Turkish Petroleum Company. All this before a drop of oil had been discovered in the disputed territory!

The French government was not satisfied with its secondary role in world oil, fearing the might of the big British and US companies. In an effort to strengthen and "liberate" France, the government in Paris set up the Compagnie Francaise des Pétroles in 1924 to take up the French share in Mesopotamia – now a British colony(2) renamed Iraq . Further French legislation in 1928 referred to the company as an instrument to curtail "the Anglo Saxon oil trusts" and to develop Mesopotamian oil as a strategic resource of the French empire.

The uneasy settlement between the British and the French did not end the great power dispute over Iraq's oil, however. The United States government and US oil companies were furious at the Anglo-French agreement, which left nothing for them! Before the end of 1920, following the companies' strategic prompting, the US press began to denounce the Anglo-French accord as "old-fashioned imperialism." In Washington, some talked of sanctions and other measures against these ungrateful recent allies. Relations between Washington and London cooled swiftly and a young State Department legal advisor named Allen Dulles(3) drew up a memorandum insisting that the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) concession agreement with the dismembered Ottoman Empire was now legally invalid and would no longer be recognized by the United States.

Soon London bowed to this transatlantic pressure and signaled that it was ready for a deal that would give the US a "fair" share. In response, Washington told its major oil companies that they should act as a consortium in future negotiations. Walter Teagle, Chairman of Jersey Standard (later Exxon), the biggest US company, took the lead role as negotiator for the consortium. Thus began lengthy secret talks in London. No oil had yet been found, but prospects had brightened.

In October 1927, the British exploration team under D'Arcy hit a gusher, proving oil reserves in large quantities near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. In July 1928, the quarreling parties finally reached a famous accord, known as the "Red Line Agreement," which brought the US consortium into the picture with just under a quarter of the shares and an agreement to jointly develop fields in many other Middle East countries falling within the red line marked on the map by the negotiators.

Throughout this phase, as in all later phases of Iraq's oil history, major international powers combined national military force, government pressure and private corporate might to win and hold concessions for Iraq's oil. The defeated and dismembered Ottoman Empire and its defeated ally Germany lost all oil rights they might otherwise have claimed. At the same time, the three victors of the war – Britain, France and the United States – shared out Iraqi oil among themselves on a basis of relative power. The dominant colonial power, Britain, came out with nearly a half share, while the two lesser powers on the regional stage – the US and France – each won close to a quarter share.

D'Arcy, who discovered Iraq's oil, died a poor man, while Calouste Gulbenkian, the crafty businessman who had put together the company, managed to extract a five percent personal share, making him one of the world's richest men.(4) The people of Iraq were not consulted, nor did they derive any benefit from these arrangements.<

Regards

Eric