Capbeetle61
Banned
Oh, and one more thing, have the Fascist March on Rome in Italy fail and Mussolini flee into exile abroad in its aftermath.
Even if Germany by some miracle took France in 1918 they still have the British empire in the war and now have even more people to feed.
Otl, the US entry made the provisional goverment think they would win.The February Revolution in Russia was not an inevitability by any means in 1917. Imperial Russia, or its successor state the Russian Provisional Government, could potentially have survived in order to continue the war as part of the Entente even in the event of the US not joining the war on the side of the Allies. Again, the Russian Revolutions could possibly have started earlier, so the domestic situation in Russia could really have gone either way during this touch-and-go times.
What happens when the locals don't cooperate, occupy all of Germany, rather than just the Rhineland? That wasn't going well for the FrenchThe reparations can always be divided up between the pre-1871 independent "German" states.
Without the US troops, which began conducting Corps and Army level engagements from mid 1918, the Entente without Russia will lack the strength to defeat the CP, I'm afraind I find the scenario implausible, but that's just me, if anyone else thinks it's plausible have at it!
In some ways (mostly because of how the logistics work and what America actually made) for example most of the artillery was made in Britain, more then half of the explosives used in those shells were made in America. I would like to be more clear but this is message forum and not a thesis paper, its hard to disentangle everything at the best of times and I would prefer not to clutter this forum with hundreds of pages of trade data inorder to find out what was holy British made, what was made in America but moved to the UK for full asmbaly and what was gust strate up continued production and sent to the UK despite ultimately ending up in American unites because of production contracts made before April 1917.That would be the American forces that, in OTL, were largely equipped and supplied by Britain and France.
Without the US troops, which began conducting Corps and Army level engagements from mid 1918, the Entente without Russia will lack the strength to defeat the CP, I'm afraind I find the scenario implausible, but that's just me, if anyone else thinks it's plausible have at it!
n contrast the Liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George withheld 400,000 men from conservative favorite general Hauge in early 1918
I do like how we're so far off topic that not one of the past ten responses really even engages with the premise of the initial post. But that's unfortunately normal for WW1 threads.
It is a shame.
It's kinda hard to discuss the results of a no-US Entente victory, w/o first deciding what *kind* of victory we are talking about. A win where the Entente barely staggers past the winning post, forcing Jerry out of France and Belgium and making him write off his lost colonies, in return for leaving him a free hand in the East, is very different which produces an OTL-type knock-out and a [eace similar to Versailles, and the results will differ enormously.
Germany starves
Well, the Russian leadership seemed oblivious to the last. I daresay the tables of the ruling classes were better stocked than those of the workers. Might have a different story if they spoke to the Socialists.Isn't this being overblown a bit?
Ludendorff never mentions it as a justification for his 1918 offensive, though it would have been a perfect alibi. And Prince Max, even writing about Oct 1918, just mentions in passing that life was very hard in the poorer parts of Berlin. His main worries were American manpower, tanks and the imminent loss of Rumanian oil due to the collapse of the Balkan front - all purely military considerations.
If Germany was on the brink of keeling over from starvation, her leadership, military and civilian, reactionary and liberal, seem to have been remarkably oblivious to the fact
Isn't this being overblown a bit?
Ludendorff never mentions it as a justification for his 1918 offensive, though it would have been a perfect alibi. And Prince Max, even writing about Oct 1918, just mentions in passing that life was very hard in the poorer parts of Berlin. His main worries were American manpower, tanks and the imminent loss of Rumanian oil due to the collapse of the Balkan front - all purely military considerations.
If Germany was on the brink of keeling over from starvation, her leadership, military and civilian, reactionary and liberal, seem to have been remarkably oblivious to the fact
So I think it is time for the OP to clear things up a bit.
One thing here though. Germany ITTL would be in a very different situation and the Entente as well. So using the OTL situation to claim that Germany was toast is simply ignoring the POD.
If it was clear that US manpower was not going to arrive (for whatever reason) then I believe the solution would be two-fold, and were recognized at the time by the British - and both were things the French were already doing albeit slightly differently. But it was lessons shared between allies that led to these discussions.
The first being the use of colonial manpower - be it Indian or African. In the case of the latter, even by OTL's 1916 the War Office was pressuring for the greater use of African manpower in 'non-combat roles' but the Colonial Office demurred. By the end of 1916 and into 1917 there were different calls to raise a large field force from African manpower (mostly West African) to free up British forces in other theaters than France.
Even in OTL, GHQ wrote in 1918 "[akin to French practices] provide contingents of black troops for incorporation in the British divisions" - however the Colonial Office squashed the idea outright. However after the War Cabinet rejected the idea, the War Office continued to press for the idea and was supported by the Army Council. If the wider situation was dire enough I believe the Colonial Office would bow to pressure over greater use of African sourced manpower, even in France. Which could free up manpower for the Western Front in preparation for the proposed 1919 offensives.
Most of that is sourced from the article: The Idea of a British Imperial African Army, David Killingray, The Journal of African History, Vol 20, No. 3 (1979).
In addition to this, the British were also increasingly coming to the same French conclusions - that the traditional emphasis on manpower was not going to be successful in the largely defensive and rebuild plans for 1918 and the planned offensives in 1919.
" It appears that two basic alternatives emerged, which might be termed the mechanical means of warfare, versus the traditional means of warfare. On the one hand the mechanical supporters advocated the use of "new" technology (particularly tanks and planes, but also innovations such as mobile trench mortars, gas and smoke) which would be more efficient and would replace man- power; meanwhile, the other school of thought stressed the use of man- power (infantry) in the traditional manner and advocated using more of the "traditional" technology (such as rifles, machine guns, and artillery), yet it saw the "new" technology as an auxiliary tool.
The underlying causes of this debate were the recommendations of Cabinet and Supreme War Council committees in late 1917 and in January and February 1918 to deny manpower to the Western Front, and the order- ing of priorities so that shipbuilding, planes, tanks, and food production came ahead of men for France."
If we extrapolate this out, then the it could be argued that the mechanical school gains influence and supremacy earlier.
"Then, on 13 March 1918, the Supreme War Council at Versailles, under the signature of Rawlinson, produced a memo entitled "Notes on Economy of Manpower by Mechanical Means." This expected that the Allies would be on the defensive in 1918 and so advocated a series of very large raids, utilizing plenty of tanks and low flying aircraft, which would clear the way for the
infantry, and thus economize on manpower. This saving of manpower would be even greater because ground was not to be held; rather, the raiders would withdraw to their original lines. Apart from the withdrawal suggestion, this mechanical scenario was evidently the basis for Rawlinson's future attacks at Hamel in July and at Amiens in August."
Most of that is sourced from the article: The Evolution of British Strategy and Tactics on the Western Front in 1918: GHQ, Manpower, and Technology, Tim Travers, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1990)
I'm sorry but this sentence here already is suspect. If such a massive change occures at such a critical time, then it will change the situation for all parties. It has to as in OTL Germany certainly had to change its actions to account for this.The point is that Germany wouldn't be in a different situation.
And here is my problem, the industrial advantage, and the growth of the British economy in OTL, are often cited. And while true, my problem is that it needed feeding with recources and those may not come in at the rate of OTL. That will have reprecussions going forward. So how much can the Entente compensate if the USA, the biggest and, very important, nearest supplier falters? What would be the impact of having to find new sources rapidly that are there, able and willing to step in.But they still have a large industrial advantage, still have a deeper manpower pool, still have access to 4/5ths of the worlds resources.
I agree 1st Ypres was probably the last point where Germany could have forced a decision in the West and a short victorious war (shades of 1870) which is what Germany needed was possible.Official rations were down to 1,000 calories in 1917 and even that was overly optimistic as in some areas there wasn't enough food to even meet that level of provision. Furthermore somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000 Germans died of starvation or starvation induced diseases. The situation in Vienna was even worse. As I said the only way for Germany to win the war is either to capture/gain access to the Ukraine with it's infrastructure INTACT or a battlefield victory. My personal opinion is that post 1914 a battlefield victory in the West is impossible and while taking Ukraine and Romina with their infrastructure in sufficiently good condition that massive food exports into Central Europe is possible it needs to be done quickly. The issue is the same process of behind the lines infrastructure collapse in Russia that led to the February 1917 Revolution also stymied the German attempts to exploit their new conquests. If you butterfly the Russian infrastructure collapse so it's intact for the Germans to take over, you probably butterfly the Germans beating the Russians.
Thanks for the compressive reply.
I wonder did the Spanish flu do more damage to the German side or the entente?