A New Balance
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
- Start date
Luke you aren't coming off rude, and I understand where you are coming from, you are Italian and don't want to see Italy do bad in this war. Its like I don't want to see the US to perform badly in any TL that I'm reading. Yet this is the only the first world war in this TL. The second one is going to be a radically different one from OTL.
But back to the point, I decided Italy could take its licks in 1916 and bow out and face the fall out on go on till 1917 which honestly if they did, it would made things worse for Italy, a lot worse. France is having troop issues. The British are overstretched. And you are already seen what happened to Russia. Think about what would happen to Italy even I had decided to fight on?
Oh well, i will be a lying liar if i ever say that i want bad thing happen to Italy and i agree that bow out now it will be the better and most logical move...still the italian leaderships it's between the rock and the hard place; while avoiding the war with the ottoman (and no Adwa) lessened the internal tension, they still exist and are big and losing the war and putting the nation at the tender mercy of Germany and Austria-Hungary will mean instant revolution and everybody will know it. So the incentive to negotiating a peace will hardly be overwhelming whatever will be the military situation
Fair enough. I am not that familiar with the history of Italy pre and during WWI, I'm more of a WWII buff but and even then I have not read nearly enough about Italy in WWII as compared to Germany, Japan and to a lesser extant the allies.
One of Italy's problems in WWII, and even more in WWI is the industrial capacity (and the lack of raw materials). If countries like England, France, and Germany with quite robust industrial sectors had difficulties in producing enough shells and other military equipment, Italy with a much smaller base is going to struggle even more - and did. As has been pointed out, now that the USA has embargoed all nations allied with the UK, Italy has even more problems. To the extent it received any military goods from France and the UK, these countries now have to use all of their production for their own armies as supplies from the USA are gone (and Canadian and other supplies from the Western Hemisphere are going to be markedly reduced thanks to the USN). Italy did receive both raw materials and finished goods from the USA, so that creates another gap. ITTL Italy is, finally, being smart. Continuing to fight is throwing good money after bad on a losing hand. Better a little pain now and a little loss of territory compared to the potential for greater loss. IMHO the only way Italy would stay in ITTL would be if they were convinced that the Entente was going to win big, where they can dictate the peace to the CP and therefore any losses Italy may have had would be reversed.
The way things look here, an Entente victory with a Versailles "Diktat" is simply not in the cards. IMHO the Entente is going to be on the losing side here, there won't be a Diktat from the CP/USA but there will be some significant losses by the Entente, not a white peace/return to status quo antebellum.
The way things look here, an Entente victory with a Versailles "Diktat" is simply not in the cards. IMHO the Entente is going to be on the losing side here, there won't be a Diktat from the CP/USA but there will be some significant losses by the Entente, not a white peace/return to status quo antebellum.
World War One, France
The French by the time the US started its war with the British was in bad shape. It was depended on coal imports from the British as it main coal mine at Bethune was still under its control but unusable as the area had been blasted to hell and back by German artillery. They were also running into equipment issues as they were having to rebuild their industry as well as fight a war. With the US at war, their main source for machine tools when away as the US embargo all of the British allies. The British tried to pick up the slack but they were unable to.
For the French they were between the rock and the hard place. Even more so as the Canadians were screaming bloody murder to get I Canadian Corp back to defend their nation from the Americans. To the French they saw how pointless it would been to send I Canadian Corp back to try and defend Canada as there was no hope of them defeating the Americans unless they had massive help from both the British and themselves. So they cut a deal with the Canadians. They agreed once they defeated Germany they would send three armies to help free Canada from the Americans.
That still left the French with the problem of how to they defeat the Germans? So far everything they had tried had failed and generally led to a massive body count for French Armies with little ground gained to the point advances were measured by meters of land gain not kilometers. They lacked the heavy artillery needed to break German defensive positions before hand and the British simply didn’t have enough heavy artillery to go around for their own army. Even the use of naval artillery wasn’t making up their lack of heavy land base artillery.
In the fall of 1916 was a crisis in Paris following the Italians switching sides in the war. This extended the front to the Franco-Italian frontier with the French being over stretched on troops as it was already. This forced them to withdraw troops from Create to help cover the new front that Italy’s switch was caused. Yet they were at a crossroads. They could ask for peace now or they could fight on and hope for a miracle. Yet the idea that they could ask for terms from the Germans was such an unbearable thought that they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They decided to fight on.
In the spring of 1917 the French launched another offensive aimed of pushing the front back around Bethune and bring the coal mines back on line. This offensive was led by Robert Nivelle who was still in command of the French 4th Army. He was being supported by the BEF and Canadian I Corp. To put it mildly the offensive was a total disaster. Even with the first use of Goliaths[1] which had bene in work since the year prior the spring 1917 offensive by Nivelle instead of breaking through the German lines broke the French Army. Studies of the French Spring 1917 would all pointed out how Nivelle needlessly wasted the lives of his troops in headlong attacks against entrenched German positions.
By the summer of 1917 the French Army broke. The French 53rd Infantry Division had been removed from the front only a week prior to rest. But the demands of the offensive that was still going and the man eating charges demanded the 53rd to return the front. The men of 53rd who has been on the front since the start of the offensive had other ideas. They simply refuse to return to the front. This quickly spread through out the army as more units were refusing orders to either return the front or go over the top and charge German positions.
As this spread it forced the offensive that Nivelle to be called off. The desertion rate in the French Army when through the roof. Reports of drunk and disorderly soldiers were also on the rise. In short the French Army was combat ineffective by July 1917 with over 60% of the French Army being effective by the mutiny. The French government seeing it had lost its army and the chances of it regaining any form of combat effective being almost nil and strikes breaking out in what remained of its industrial sector the French government finally asked for terms in August 1917.
[1] ITL Tanks
For the French they were between the rock and the hard place. Even more so as the Canadians were screaming bloody murder to get I Canadian Corp back to defend their nation from the Americans. To the French they saw how pointless it would been to send I Canadian Corp back to try and defend Canada as there was no hope of them defeating the Americans unless they had massive help from both the British and themselves. So they cut a deal with the Canadians. They agreed once they defeated Germany they would send three armies to help free Canada from the Americans.
That still left the French with the problem of how to they defeat the Germans? So far everything they had tried had failed and generally led to a massive body count for French Armies with little ground gained to the point advances were measured by meters of land gain not kilometers. They lacked the heavy artillery needed to break German defensive positions before hand and the British simply didn’t have enough heavy artillery to go around for their own army. Even the use of naval artillery wasn’t making up their lack of heavy land base artillery.
In the fall of 1916 was a crisis in Paris following the Italians switching sides in the war. This extended the front to the Franco-Italian frontier with the French being over stretched on troops as it was already. This forced them to withdraw troops from Create to help cover the new front that Italy’s switch was caused. Yet they were at a crossroads. They could ask for peace now or they could fight on and hope for a miracle. Yet the idea that they could ask for terms from the Germans was such an unbearable thought that they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They decided to fight on.
In the spring of 1917 the French launched another offensive aimed of pushing the front back around Bethune and bring the coal mines back on line. This offensive was led by Robert Nivelle who was still in command of the French 4th Army. He was being supported by the BEF and Canadian I Corp. To put it mildly the offensive was a total disaster. Even with the first use of Goliaths[1] which had bene in work since the year prior the spring 1917 offensive by Nivelle instead of breaking through the German lines broke the French Army. Studies of the French Spring 1917 would all pointed out how Nivelle needlessly wasted the lives of his troops in headlong attacks against entrenched German positions.
By the summer of 1917 the French Army broke. The French 53rd Infantry Division had been removed from the front only a week prior to rest. But the demands of the offensive that was still going and the man eating charges demanded the 53rd to return the front. The men of 53rd who has been on the front since the start of the offensive had other ideas. They simply refuse to return to the front. This quickly spread through out the army as more units were refusing orders to either return the front or go over the top and charge German positions.
As this spread it forced the offensive that Nivelle to be called off. The desertion rate in the French Army when through the roof. Reports of drunk and disorderly soldiers were also on the rise. In short the French Army was combat ineffective by July 1917 with over 60% of the French Army being effective by the mutiny. The French government seeing it had lost its army and the chances of it regaining any form of combat effective being almost nil and strikes breaking out in what remained of its industrial sector the French government finally asked for terms in August 1917.
[1] ITL Tanks
So Italy switched sides... So some loss of territories but in exchange they can probably get Malta and some French land since that weakens the two bigger rivals for both us and germany
Well they had mutinies OTL, combine with the US shutting down trade making the leaders more desperate and engaging in riskier and restless attacks...
Yeah I read about the French mutinies in OTL WWI, Smitty just kicked it up several notches.
World War One, USA
The United States was by the winter of 1916/17 was still gearing up for this war. Yet Canada was already on the ropes. Canada was in no position to fight the US on their own yet the British were in no position to help. Japan had to attack across the vast Pacific and had to take American territory both in the Pacific and China before they could even possibly reach Canada. The Australians had to fight up through the Southwest Pacific before they could reach the US and the bulk of their army was in the Middle East. South Africa was in a position to help as the civil war was still being raged. Canada was on her own.
Yet Canada was not the only problem the United States faced in the winter of 1916/17. They were also facing a fight in the Pacific against the Japanese Empire and Imperial Federation of Australia and New Zealand. And closer to home they were facing the British in the Caribbean. With their pre-war planning they pulled out of their Southwest Pacific and Chinese territories as they knew they couldn’t hold out against a thrust from either the Japanese or Australians as Hawaii sat on the logistical lines needed to keep both of these territories in supply and defend off attackers. The US territories here fell fairly quickly to advancing forces with either light or no resistance.
In the Caribbean the US started to invade British holdings here following their victory at Jamaica Pass. One by one British holds in the Caribbean saw the Union Jack haul down and the Stars and Strips rise up. Some of these invasions were fairly bloodless as the British had yet finished to upgrading their fort systems here. Others were bloodbaths. Notably the invasion of Trinidad in April 1917 was one of the bloodiest battles in this stage in the Battle of the Caribbean.
Out in the Pacific the battle for control of the Sandwich Islands was the focus point of the US. For the US taking Hawaii as they called the islands was a day one priority. If they took it before it was reinforced they could move to strike back and retake their lost territories in the Southwest and Central Pacific and open the door to taking back their Chinese territories. Let it say in British hands the Western Seaboard was at risk of being raided by British or British allies. The US Pacific Fleet sailed with a number of merchant ships carrying the newly formed 1st Marine Division. They landed on the island of Oahu two weeks after the start of the war.
At Peral the main British base on the island there was only a hand full of older cruisers as the British had stripped the best units away to other fronts but now was finding itself in a much wider war with a nation that wasn’t defending its far flung territories like the British had to. These cruisers of the 6th Cruiser Squadron decided to retire and try to link up with the IFANZN which was being moved to Pearl to defend the islands. Oahu fell without much of a fight. Yet a week a later the Battle of Pearl happened. In that battle both sides lost a battlecruiser but the IFANZN was the one that was driven off to retreat.
Canada was dead once spring came. They had been only given very limited reinforcements from the British who were facing greater and greater pressure to hold the line in Europe, the Middle East, North America, and the Pacific. Even more so when Brazil entered the war in May 1917 in a land grab in South America. The Canadian Government surrendered in early June after Quebec City had fallen to the advancing American America Army. Vancouver Island held out till September with Newfoundland holding on till October.
Springtime also brought a wider war as the US declared war against all of the British allies following repeated French and to a lesser degree Russian attacks of American submarines and merchant raiders. Then again it was the merchant war that finally brought the British to heel. The US and German, then once Italy after they switched sides play hell on British shipping. The submarines of each nation proved to be very deadly as the British had no defense against then unless they were on the surface. Even more so as following the Brazilian entry into the war and the United States and Germany dropped cruiser rules for their submarines and when to unrestricted submarine warfare.
On the home front President Roosevelt won reelection in a land slide taking 44 of 49 states of the Union. Only states in the deep south broke for Wilson and what was normally safe states for the Democratic Party. Even through Roosevelt was in striking distance. It was one of the biggest landslides in a presidential election in United States history to date. Yet the nation was still mobilizing for war in a way that had not been seen since the Civil War. Yet by the time they were ready to retake their lost territories in the Pacific and launch a campaign to get a foothold off the coast of Africa on January 19 1918 the British asked for a cease fire.
Yet Canada was not the only problem the United States faced in the winter of 1916/17. They were also facing a fight in the Pacific against the Japanese Empire and Imperial Federation of Australia and New Zealand. And closer to home they were facing the British in the Caribbean. With their pre-war planning they pulled out of their Southwest Pacific and Chinese territories as they knew they couldn’t hold out against a thrust from either the Japanese or Australians as Hawaii sat on the logistical lines needed to keep both of these territories in supply and defend off attackers. The US territories here fell fairly quickly to advancing forces with either light or no resistance.
In the Caribbean the US started to invade British holdings here following their victory at Jamaica Pass. One by one British holds in the Caribbean saw the Union Jack haul down and the Stars and Strips rise up. Some of these invasions were fairly bloodless as the British had yet finished to upgrading their fort systems here. Others were bloodbaths. Notably the invasion of Trinidad in April 1917 was one of the bloodiest battles in this stage in the Battle of the Caribbean.
Out in the Pacific the battle for control of the Sandwich Islands was the focus point of the US. For the US taking Hawaii as they called the islands was a day one priority. If they took it before it was reinforced they could move to strike back and retake their lost territories in the Southwest and Central Pacific and open the door to taking back their Chinese territories. Let it say in British hands the Western Seaboard was at risk of being raided by British or British allies. The US Pacific Fleet sailed with a number of merchant ships carrying the newly formed 1st Marine Division. They landed on the island of Oahu two weeks after the start of the war.
At Peral the main British base on the island there was only a hand full of older cruisers as the British had stripped the best units away to other fronts but now was finding itself in a much wider war with a nation that wasn’t defending its far flung territories like the British had to. These cruisers of the 6th Cruiser Squadron decided to retire and try to link up with the IFANZN which was being moved to Pearl to defend the islands. Oahu fell without much of a fight. Yet a week a later the Battle of Pearl happened. In that battle both sides lost a battlecruiser but the IFANZN was the one that was driven off to retreat.
Canada was dead once spring came. They had been only given very limited reinforcements from the British who were facing greater and greater pressure to hold the line in Europe, the Middle East, North America, and the Pacific. Even more so when Brazil entered the war in May 1917 in a land grab in South America. The Canadian Government surrendered in early June after Quebec City had fallen to the advancing American America Army. Vancouver Island held out till September with Newfoundland holding on till October.
Springtime also brought a wider war as the US declared war against all of the British allies following repeated French and to a lesser degree Russian attacks of American submarines and merchant raiders. Then again it was the merchant war that finally brought the British to heel. The US and German, then once Italy after they switched sides play hell on British shipping. The submarines of each nation proved to be very deadly as the British had no defense against then unless they were on the surface. Even more so as following the Brazilian entry into the war and the United States and Germany dropped cruiser rules for their submarines and when to unrestricted submarine warfare.
On the home front President Roosevelt won reelection in a land slide taking 44 of 49 states of the Union. Only states in the deep south broke for Wilson and what was normally safe states for the Democratic Party. Even through Roosevelt was in striking distance. It was one of the biggest landslides in a presidential election in United States history to date. Yet the nation was still mobilizing for war in a way that had not been seen since the Civil War. Yet by the time they were ready to retake their lost territories in the Pacific and launch a campaign to get a foothold off the coast of Africa on January 19 1918 the British asked for a cease fire.
'MERICA!
Anyway lack of a standing land force really hurt the US early, fortunate they only had to face a Canada with its best troops away and depleted garrisons. Still I think this will cause them to keep a larger standing force more so since the British should be spoiling for revenge. At the very least the US would want their territories returned and taking the Sandwich Islands and parts of a Canada (such as Victoria) and a strip to give a land route to Alaska (plus close off the pacific coast to the British). Bermuda would be another location they would want to control. Newfoundland as well to control the Atlantic Coast.
Naval wise I can see more ships being built intended for longer ranges.
Anyway lack of a standing land force really hurt the US early, fortunate they only had to face a Canada with its best troops away and depleted garrisons. Still I think this will cause them to keep a larger standing force more so since the British should be spoiling for revenge. At the very least the US would want their territories returned and taking the Sandwich Islands and parts of a Canada (such as Victoria) and a strip to give a land route to Alaska (plus close off the pacific coast to the British). Bermuda would be another location they would want to control. Newfoundland as well to control the Atlantic Coast.
Naval wise I can see more ships being built intended for longer ranges.
I'm pretty sure that the Canadian government would tell the US that it won't accept any territorial losses.
Yeah that will go over well at peace talks. The US has all of Canada occupied along with Newfoundland, the British Carribean, and Hawaii. The British and friends hold only American SW and Central Pacific Islands and China. And it was the British who asked for a cease fire. Yeah that will last all of 60 seconds before the US tells the Canadians that they can't demand shit.
Canada lost and lost bad, their entire alliance is on the losing side of the war and the US will want to reduce the land based threat. Germany won't mind at all either a chance to weaken the British and get the US on their side.
Canada might not be able to demand anything, but that doesn't mean that they can't keep saying no to the US' demands.
Then we get something either like TL-191 or a harsher occupation. The Anglo-American bad blood is enough of a possibility here for events like that.
Canada in WWI is a quasi-independent nation from the way I read it. The British have final say as a DOW against London is still out standing. Canada gave a good fight everything out standing, but it trying a tactic like which as far as I know has never been done before could back fire badly and frankly I don't see it working.