no unrestricted german submarine warfare

Let us see if we can get any participation on another social history question. The most 'radical' period of US history was the period from the US Civil War to WWI. Populists, Progressives, Socialist, the IWW - then as it built to a climax it all came apart in war frenzy and the postWar Red scare.

Now let us presume that the Germans were a little brighter than in OTL.
Instead of trying to start a US - Mexican war (Zimmerman telegram) let us
presume that they leaked during the campaign the truth that the House of
Morgan had leant billions to London that the Brits looked unable to pay back. That if the Allies defaulted they'd take Wall Street and many major companies (DuPont for example) with them. That the Brits had bought both major parties and were going to send American boys to bail out Wall Street's loans with Main Street's blood.

The Germans instead promise no submarine warfare of any sort and that if
victorious they will give all European colonies in the New World to the US. Bryan breaks with the Democrats, LaFollitte with the Republicans. both campaign for Debs who wins in 1916 by sweeping the industrial North, Mountain west and Pacific Coast with pluralities in a 3 way race, sweeping the House but only as a coalition. The Populist (Bryan) - Progressive(LaFollitte) - Socialist coalition takes the Senate in 1918. They are the dominant force in an America where the money power was destroyed by its war policy. They will dominate US politics until their alliance shatters in the runup to WWII - NaziSov Pact, Fall of France, etc.

What changes in a sociopolitical and cultural sense

Oh my God, stop creating new threads. What is this? Number Eight?

I haven't done a spamfest in a while so stop bitching

Straha and Melvin... the mad bombers of AH.net! It's gotten so you have to bump your thread every 2 hours just to keep it on the first page.

Straha said:

Now let us presume that the Germans were a little brighter than in OTL.
Instead of trying to start a US - Mexican war (Zimmerman telegram)

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The Zimmerman Note was a CONDITIONAL offer of alliance, the condition being if the USA was at war with Germany. Obviously Allied propaganda obscured this bit and made it seem offensive in nature

let us presume that they leaked during the campaign the truth that the House of
Morgan had leant billions to London that the Brits looked unable to pay back. That if the Allies defaulted they'd take Wall Street and many major companies (DuPont for example) with them. That the Brits had bought both major parties and were going to send American boys to bail out Wall Street's loans with Main Street's blood.

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The idea on repayments was to squeeze a defeated Germany and to make them pay - in a weird way this eventually happened in OTL under the Dawes Plan when the US leant Germany the money to pay Britain and France who used the money to pay off their loans to the USA !

The Germans instead promise no submarine warfare of any sort

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You aren't talking of some reasonable politicians here, you are talking of Ludendorff ! The nearest you get to a reasonable politician is Bethman-Hollweg, and OTL events showed how little authority he had remaining when he attempted to defy the Supreme Command over this very issue. They eventually manoevred him out of power and installed the non-entity Michaelis in his place


Grey Wolf

Diamond said:

Straha and Melvin... the mad bombers of AH.net! It's gotten so you have to bump your thread every 2 hours just to keep it on the first page.

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Don't forget tom.

Real reasons for the war

Prior to the US declaration of war on Germany, more Americans had been killed by the Mexicans than by the Germans. Remember Pancho Villa?

Yeah, I s'pose that without unrestricted German submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram, the US would've been less inclined to join the war on the Allies' side had American lives and property not been threatened. However, what about the German espionage and sabotage campaign conducted within the US, such as the 1916 explosion at the Black Tom Island munitions works, and the activities of German agents within German-American communities ? If the Germans had continued to undertake such sabotage activities on the basis that American industries were helping the Allied war effort, would there still have been enough anti-German sentiment whipped up to compel Wilson to declare war ?

It doesn't need all the baggage mentioned, merely the decision not to use unrestricted submarine warfare would have kept America out. Wilson was reelected on a peace platform. The effect? Britain would not be on the vrege of starvation in 1917 but neither would there have been fresh American troops at the Argonne. Debbs in any case was not an imperialist so America wouldn't be backing Germany either. Possibly the 1918 German offensive would have breached the allied lines and Germany would gain an Armistice of relatively favourable terms and would agree with withdraw fgrom Belgium so there would be no humiliation of Versailles and no Hitler. The main stumbling block would have been Alsace Lorraine and the French but in 1917 the French Army had been weakened by mutinies

redi.redion said:

I think US would have gone to war anyways.

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A very finely crafted argument to resurrect a long deceased thread. It is Pulitzer Prize material.