How long could WW1 have lasted if the US never entered?

[Deleted member 1487]

Well I would remind you, that you have a history of saying things like in spite of rather than because of the available evidence.

I mean just looking through a text I do have close to hand Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War (and he is another one trying to prove that statistically the Germans won World War 1) and he notes that Britain remained a net creditor at the end of the war.

"In March 1919 Britain's external debts, primarily to the USA, totalled £1,365 millions; but she was owed £1,841 millions by her Allies and the Dominions and Colonies, leaving a net balance of half a billion." Page 328.

The idea you put forward is the British had cashed in all of their overseas resources which is not actually true but again it might be worth drilling down into this in more detail.

How is that contradictory to what I said? The debts were owed by colonies, which were in Sterling, a worthless currency to the US, who legally required payment in dollars. Same goes with their allies, the Italians, French, and Russians, who were all borrowing from the US via the British, who had the best finances at the start of the war and therefore got the best rates for borrowing. They didn't have assets of their own that the US would take by 1917. All that debt was worthless during the war to US banks. None of it was in hard currency like gold, which the Entente had to transfer to the US to get loans for dollars. When the Brits and French tried to float unsecured short term treasury bills to US banks to cover their inability to offer any other collateral US banks refused to buy based on Wilson's refusal to guarantee to any US bank that they would secure them if the Entente defaulted for any reason. That tanked the value of the Pound. If you really want I can scan several pages of text for you to see yourself, but it will clog up the thread.

 

[TRH]

How is that contradictory to what I said? The debts were owed by colonies, which were in Sterling, a worthless currency to the US, who legally required payment in dollars. Same goes with their allies, the Italians, French, and Russians, who were all borrowing from the US via the British, who had the best finances at the start of the war and therefore got the best rates for borrowing. They didn't have assets of their own that the US would take by 1917. All that debt was worthless during the war to US banks. None of it was in hard currency like gold, which the Entente had to transfer to the US to get loans for dollars. When the Brits and French tried to float unsecured short term treasury bills to US banks to cover their inability to offer any other collateral US banks refused to buy based on Wilson's refusal to guarantee to any US bank that they would secure them if the Entente defaulted for any reason. That tanked the value of the Pound. If you really want I can scan several pages of text for you to see yourself, but it will clog up the thread.

He'll keep on saying that you're making this all up until you do, so you might as well start scanning.

 

[RodentRevolution]

How is that contradictory to what I said? The debts were owed by colonies, which were in Sterling, a worthless currency to the US, who legally required payment in dollars. Same goes with their allies, the Italians, French, and Russians, who were all borrowing from the US via the British, who had the best finances at the start of the war and therefore got the best rates for borrowing. They didn't have assets of their own that the US would take by 1917. All that debt was worthless during the war to US banks. None of it was in hard currency like gold, which the Entente had to transfer to the US to get loans for dollars. When the Brits and French tried to float unsecured short term treasury bills to US banks to cover their inability to offer any other collateral US banks refused to buy based on Wilson's refusal to guarantee to any US bank that they would secure them if the Entente defaulted for any reason. That tanked the value of the Pound. If you really want I can scan several pages of text for you to see yourself, but it will clog up the thread.

The British were actually raising dollars in London as well as America at this time as we have discussed elsewhere and your argument is that the British cannot afford to trade with anybody which is not true. Nor is the case that there were no Empire imports to the US.

But go ahead and show where you believe other authors support your contention and the evidence they use to do so.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

 

[RodentRevolution]

From Our Trade in the Great War available via JSTOR

"Our imports from the Allies usually rather more than half the exportations and increasing. In 1914 they showed a slight diminution and a greater one in 1915, and thought they increased in 1916 they were not a forth as great as exportations and were only larger because of the inflation of prices, as has been shown. We sent Allies great increases in goods in 1915 and 1916 but did not receive more than usual from them. They paid us with gold and returned US securities."

Page 478

So again a period document noting imports from the Entente. It seems it was only the difference or balance of trade that required paying for with credit or gold.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

From Our Trade in the Great War available via JSTOR

"Our imports from the Allies usually rather more than half the exportations and increasing. In 1914 they showed a slight diminution and a greater one in 1915, and thought they increased in 1916 they were not a forth as great as exportations and were only larger because of the inflation of prices, as has been shown. We sent Allies great increases in goods in 1915 and 1916 but did not receive more than usual from them. They paid us with gold and returned US securities."

Page 478

So again a period document noting imports from the Entente. It seems it was only the difference or balance of trade that required paying for with credit or gold.

How funny that your chart and quote stop in 1916 and does nothing to contradict Strachan's analysis of the situation in 1917.

 

[RodentRevolution]

How funny that your chart and quote stop in 1916 and does nothing to contradict Strachan's analysis of the situation in 1917.

Because I am trying to seek out accessible documents?

But I would note the pages you have cited above do not suggest a collapse of Entente supply, indeed the phrase used is a winding down of Entente orders. This can be found on page 971, it was also as per Strachan a minority view on the board that was able to prevail only because an opposed member was ill. Again though I do not feel my recollection of Strachan is faulty as it does not back your contention. The Entente would in the fairly extreme scenario you have committed to need to cut back, this would not be comfortable and might of course hold out a possibility of dire consequences in the future but do not appear on the face of it to preclude the probability of an Entente victory on terms.

 

[Mikestone8]

It doesn't matter if the allies won the Balkan front if the lose the western front. The most strategically important front of the war was France.

Indeed, virtually the only important one.

Germany's allies folded in 1918 because Germany was now so hard-pressed on the Western front that she could no longer spare the forces to prop them up [1]. If under less pressure, she would have done so, as she had done on previous occasions.

[1] And in the case of Austria-Hungary, because Germany's request for an armistice amounted to a confession that the war was lost, so why fight on?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Because I am trying to seek out accessible documents?

But I would note the pages you have cited above do not suggest a collapse of Entente supply, indeed the phrase used is a winding down of Entente orders. This can be found on page 971, it was also as per Strachan a minority view on the board that was able to prevail only because an opposed member was ill. Again though I do not feel my recollection of Strachan is faulty as it does not back your contention. The Entente would in the fairly extreme scenario you have committed to need to cut back, this would not be comfortable and might of course hold out a possibility of dire consequences in the future but do not appear on the face of it to preclude the probability of an Entente victory on terms.

From the 2nd image:

What terms could Britain get in your opinion at this point? They were already talking about completely ending Italy and Russia's orders to the US, which would have knocked Russia out of the war as well as Italy. France was refusing to pay the British for their orders, so they too would be running out of imports from the US.

 

[RodentRevolution]

From the 2nd image:
View attachment 470632

What terms could Britain get in your opinion at this point? They were already talking about completely ending Italy and Russia's orders to the US, which would have knocked Russia out of the war as well as Italy. France was refusing to pay the British for their orders, so they too would be running out of imports from the US.

Probably fairly sound ones

I should note I turned up what proportion (admittedly in terms of value, other measures are also valid) of British imports were from the USA and the figure for 1918 was 39.2%

Per Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War 1914-18

Now it should be noted that the value figure hides the exact nature of supplies and some items are of course more of a bottleneck than others but...since the value of British exports to the US covered of the 15.9% US imports in 1917 and 5% in 1918 you are looking at perhaps a 37.2% reduction overall.

Now admittedly some items (explosives, oil) came rather more overwhelmingly from the US than any other source so you are probably right not to assume with a 37.24% value reduction the Brits will be 62.5% fine. However you may begin to see why I have been so sceptical of total Entente collapse.

While it would be hard to guess at particular terms likely a German retreat to something more like its 1914 borders and certainly from Belgium would be on the cards. Items like seizing the High Seas Fleet given the Entente would be hurting themselves at this point would require extremely ballsy negotiators and I would not tend to anticipate such. An awful lot would depend on the exact state of the German field armies, 1918 saw them simply collapse which of course magnified the demands the Allies (Entente plus USA) could make, here the Germans are not without a reasonable chance of a somewhat strong bargaining position of their own. There may even be territorial adjustments in Germany's favour in the east.

However given A-H was going down and sooner rather than later and given that to beat rather than simply hold off the Entente the Germans would need to undertake a successful offensive into France while the Entente at this stage just need to hang on I don't see Germany winning a major victory as the most likely or even the second most likely outcome. I do see Germany likely getting terms much closer to something out of one of the 18th Century Wars which often came to a close because of mutual economic exhaustion however.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Probably fairly sound ones

I should note I turned up what proportion (admittedly in terms of value, other measures are also valid) of British imports were from the USA and the figure for 1918 was 39.2%

Per Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War 1914-18

Now it should be noted that the value figure hides the exact nature of supplies and some items are of course more of a bottleneck than others but...since the value of British exports to the US covered of the 15.9% US imports in 1917 and 5% in 1918 you are looking at perhaps a 37.2% reduction overall.

Now admittedly some items (explosives, oil) came rather more overwhelmingly from the US than any other source so you are probably right not to assume 37.24% reduction the Brits will be 62.5% fine. However you may begin to see why I have been so sceptical of total Entente collapse.

While it would be hard to guess at particular terms likely a German retreat to something more like its 1914 borders and certainly from Belgium would be on the cards. Items like seizing the High Seas Fleet given the Entente would be hurting themselves at this point would require extremely ballsy negotiators and I would not tend to anticipate such. An awful lot would depend on the exact state of the German field armies, 1918 saw them simply collapse which of course magnified the demands the Allies (Entente plus USA) could make, here the Germans are not without a reasonable chance of a somewhat strong bargaining position of their own. There may even be territorial adjustments in Germany's favour in the east.

However given A-H was going down and sooner rather than later and given that to beat rather than simply hold off the Entente the Germans would need to undertake a successful offensive into France while the Entente at this stage just need to hang on I don't see Germany winning a major victory as the most likely or even the second most likely outcome. I do see Germany likely getting terms much closer to something out of one of the 18th Century Wars which often came to a close because of mutual economic exhaustion however.

Given that the British fleet was dependent on oil and the Entente armies on explosives and the CPs sat on French territory, with Russia and Italy about to be knocked out of the war due to the end of imports from the US, I'm not sure what you think the Entente is going to be able to get out of a peace deal. Germany sat on Entente core territory everywhere and but for a limited slice of Lorraine the Entente nowhere on CP territory. Britain certainly cannot continue to wage war on even terms without US supplies, nor could they without Russia or Italy; A-H isn't going to be dropping out of the war when Italy and Russia quit due to the end of imports in 1917. So what do you think the Entente can actually get in Europe for trading say colonies? IOTL in France Clemenceau only got in power due to US entry, if the US was out, imports down, Russia and Italy out then a peace activist is getting in power and Britain is utterly defeated because their last ally is going to be looking to cut a deal ASAP. Not really a great condition to make peace under.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Given that the British fleet was dependent on oil and the Entente armies on explosives and the CPs sat on French territory, with Russia and Italy about to be knocked out of the war due to the end of imports from the US, I'm not sure what you think the Entente is going to be able to get out of a peace deal. Germany sat on Entente core territory everywhere and but for a limited slice of Lorraine the Entente nowhere on CP territory. Britain certainly cannot continue to wage war on even terms without US supplies, nor could they without Russia or Italy; A-H isn't going to be dropping out of the war when Italy and Russia quit due to the end of imports in 1917. So what do you think the Entente can actually get in Europe for trading say colonies? IOTL in France Clemenceau only got in power due to US entry, if the US was out, imports down, Russia and Italy out then a peace activist is getting in power and Britain is utterly defeated because their last ally is going to be looking to cut a deal ASAP. Not really a great condition to make peace under.

The British, as have been noted, are slowly strangling the German economy and again for the other allies, you find that they had more sources of supply than just the US alone. Meanwhile Germany far from being an autarky had been cannibalising the Dual-Monarchy since 1915.

Things are about to give in the CP and this was seen coming for a long time in advance hence OTLs decision to unlimited submarine warfare. Now your counter-argument is the German high command were all idiots. However they could assess the level of Entente dependency on US supplies and also the it has to be said the cost benefit trade off of the US cutting Entente credit to the US. It might be that their assessment differed from say Strachan's not because they were idiots but because they knew a lot better the task they were about and thus the need to gamble if they wanted to win.

 

[DougM]

I don’t think anyone said the US was the only supplier of anyone. But just because Britain is importing from more then the US does not mean that they had better financial positions in these other countries then they did the US by the time the US entered the war.

If Britain was basically out of cash and extremely low on untapped collateral in the US it is reasonable that they don’t have huge amounts available elsewhere. I mean they had been at war for years and presumably using what they had available.

As for Britain being a creditor not a debtor, that does not mean they have anything left they can use it just means that a lot of folks owe them. You can still go bankrupt with folks owing you if they don’t pay you when you need the money. I worked for a company that owed me back pay far in excess of my cell phone bill but AT&T didn’t care when it came time to pay them. Sothe tw have little to do with each other

 

[RodentRevolution]

I don’t think anyone said the US was the only supplier of anyone. But just because Britain is importing from more then the US does not mean that they had better financial positions in these other countries then they did the US by the time the US entered the war.

If Britain was basically out of cash and extremely low on untapped collateral in the US it is reasonable that they don’t have huge amounts available elsewhere. I mean they had been at war for years and presumably using what they had available.

As for Britain being a creditor not a debtor, that does not mean they have anything left they can use it just means that a lot of folks owe them. You can still go bankrupt with folks owing you if they don’t pay you when you need the money. I worked for a company that owed me back pay far in excess of my cell phone bill but AT&T didn’t care when it came time to pay them. Sothe tw have little to do with each other

The UK and France are not going to be in a better financial position without the US becoming involved. In OTL it needs to be recognised the US Government directly extended loans that covered a lot of bills a lot more cheaply than normal commercial borrowing ever could have. The issue is whether or not the Entente powers would truly have collapsed had the US withheld credit. There are also additional issues such America's economic rivalry with Germany, there is a reason why George Dewey reckoned on a war with Germany as far back as 1900 and even ignoring that whether the US would have risked the immediate and likely longer term economic hit of cutting off credit to the Entente.

However even ignoring the later two points it is possible to be aware of the importance of the US contribution to the Entente war effort and argue, with merit I might add, that the Entente could have endured with a reduced level of US support. Mind you that assumes the US chooses to withhold credit not significantly earlier than late 1916.

 

[cjc]

The UK and France are not going to be in a better financial position without the US becoming involved. In OTL it needs to be recognised the US Government directly extended loans that covered a lot of bills a lot more cheaply than normal commercial borrowing ever could have. The issue is whether or not the Entente powers would truly have collapsed had the US withheld credit. There are also additional issues such America's economic rivalry with Germany, there is a reason why George Dewey reckoned on a war with Germany as far back as 1900 and even ignoring that whether the US would have risked the immediate and likely longer term economic hit of cutting off credit to the Entente.

However even ignoring the later two points it is possible to be aware of the importance of the US contribution to the Entente war effort and argue, with merit I might add, that the Entente could have endured with a reduced level of US support. Mind you that assumes the US chooses to withhold credit not significantly earlier than late 1916.

Well I'm going to have to side whith @wiking here sence he has actually provided a ton of sources and helpfuly explained them, wheal the other side as unfortunately done neither, (except one example but it wasn't very cappeling to me) so until some one can actually poveid evidence to the contrary I'm going to support his side in this argument, which frankly lines up whith everything I have read about this issue.

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

Some questions.

1: With no American money, promise of victory, or boost in morale, can Italy survive Caporetto?

2: How is Greece effected by America staying out of it? Did America influence Greek decision making at all?

3: With no American help, how tight is the blockade compared to the OTL? If Italy also drops out, how effective is the blockade?

 

[miketr]

USA in 1918 supplied about 20% of small arms, munitions, etc. Also lots of steel and other raw materials to allow France & UK to produce artillery. Net we are talking at least a 20% drop in combat power of entente 1917 on; I think its more like 30%+. Without USA central powers are going to outproduce entente in artillery and machine guns in 1918.

As to central powers surviving winter of 1918/1919 keep in mind the hunger blockade was kept up until final peace was signed. Germany had to withdraw not only from Ukraine, Poland and Romania all areas that produced food for central powers.


1918 would have been ugly for France and UK.

Michael

 

[RMcD94]

One wonders why no one told the German High command how easy victory was if they didn't give that command to submarines.

Until reading this thread I never knew how one decision literally cost Germany the entire war.

Edit : so to answer the op how quick is the collapse of Italy, France and the UK?

A month after the OTL decision to start usw?
Two months?

After Germany marches into Paris what peace do they demand

 

[Zen9]

Moving the goalposts. Besides, money, arguably more money, can be made by trading with a hungry (in every sense of the word) Germany.

Not without getting past the British and French, the act of which is explicitly hostile.

 

[Zen9]

So what is being said here is. ..?

That the US would stop all loans to the Entente by 1917, cutting Entente supply by upto 30%. Forced to scale back, Italy and Russia would unable to sustain any war effort?

Crucially this would not impact Entente-US relations at all.
In fact magically the British and French would suddenly allow US shipping to the CP, along with new US loans to the CP?

While the CP would continue at the extreme rates of production?
AH would not fall apart?
And Germany would not suffer severe food shortages and not canabalise it's infrastructure to sustain the rates of production of arms and ammo?

Apparently the Western European Empires would suddenly collapse without US support.
Collapse causing global chaos and the US would be completely unaffected by this or the effective declaration of war on the Entente?

Have I read this right?