AHC: Have the United States be on the losing side of WW1
- Thread starter Bomster
- Start date
Have the 1918 Spring Offensive be more successful before too many American troops can pour into France?
FillyofDelphi
Banned
You really hit the basic idea on the head here; the only way to really make this work is a "Too late" scenario where the US enters the War without enough time to bring her weight to bare
I wonder how that would effect American-German relations after the war...
Perhaps the Americans try to help the British in knocking out the Ottomans in the Middle East.
Northern France (including Paris) falls in 1914 (triangularization occurred) with the French government fleeing south. 1915 sees the Germans focusing in the east as well as at sea. Russia is pummeled to submission by 1916 but unrestricted submarine strikes draws the US in. The Germans crush what remains of allied forces in France by the beginning of 1917. The US has nowhere to successfully land, likely suffering a single attempted amphibious landing. Public opinion causes a draw down (the war is lost, why bleed for the losers).
Maybe USA-Britain-France-Austria-Ottomans vs. Germany-Russia-Italy (if that could actually happen, maybe over Germany backing Serbia or something)
Germany I think in the grand scheme of things would let the US off the hook in a peace agreement. After all, they wanted to trade, and the Mexico stuff probably was never all that serious. I think Germany probably demands control over some contested Pacific Islands and maybe some kind of Panama Canal access or share of control.
The US probably becomes more isolationist and Anglophobic after WW1 than in OTL.
But how to bring this about? Well, you have to have France collapse in the 1918 offensive.
The US probably becomes more isolationist and Anglophobic after WW1 than in OTL.
But how to bring this about? Well, you have to have France collapse in the 1918 offensive.
How could the Germans succeed at the 1918 Offensive? Especially with Americans coming in?
And how Germany cede anything what it hasn't anymore? Hardly UK/NZ just give GS to USA voluntarely. And not sure if USA even cares about the islands.
Only way with any 1900 POD is that USA arrive to Europe too late. Probably peace terms would are very simple:
1. USA leaves Europe to Germany.
2. Germany stops all attacks against US ships.
3. Germany recognise Western Hemisphere being under influence of USA.
I suppose it'd have to be a direct drive for the Channel Ports rather than an attempt to sunder the British from the French. If they are somehow able to stack up all of that Eastern front strength coming in and do so in the Ypres region, with holding diversionary assaults up and down the line that cause the Allies to make a big mistake and commit reserves to be thrown into the centre, before launching a shock assault near the coast and start rolling up the BEF and taking their ports, they could get the momentum to keep it going to the point where the BEF folds in on itself and the Germans hit open country somewhere in between Boulogne and Normandy, then the entire Allied defense becomes compromised, with Belgium basically knocked out of the war and the BEF being flanked.
Operation Michael needed Amiens to be taken for it to work. A modified Michael in which the attack comes in two major waves, the first being the OTL attack (with the exception of the Flanders Offensive) that drove the BEF and French a good chunk of miles, but the second, and real, attack, coming in Flanders using the bulk of the reinforcements from the East that overruns the Channel Ports and does so after the Allied reserves are committed to stopping the breakthrough at Amiens and Chateau Theirry. If this happens, the Americans can have little impact as numerically and logistically, they were not ready to fight the core of the German Army in April 1918 yet.
The Americans, keep in mind, were much better at fighting in their own units than being used as stopgap replacements for exhausted Allied forces, and their impact would be minimal if the offensive really gets rolling with momentum in early April.
I know this all sounds incredibly implausible, though. It would require the Allied Command to be blind to the Germans building up so much strength in the Flanders region, and would require the German offensives in the centre to be just as successful initially even if the Stormtroopers and manpower goes more to the North.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The US has no beed with the Sultanate. No administration is going to want to explain to the voters why they'd be sending American boys to die in Anatolia... because they wouldent have an answer
History Learner
Banned
German Spring Offensive take Amiens and Hazebrouck, forcing the BEF to destroy 90% of its equipment and withdraw from the continent. The French, with their flank now open, are forced to abandon Northern France and fall back on Paris to restore a cohesive line. Even worse, the loss of the Bethune has removed the main source of coal to Paris, which constituted 70% of French war production; IOTL German shelling was sufficient to cause disruptions, so outright taking the mines/cutting the railways will lead to major ramifications quickly. With a situation of the Brits out for a year and the French alone with an inability to sustain their forces materially, defeat is inevitable. If by some impossible miracle they do hold long enough for American units to start arriving, they'll be poorly equipped as the AEF was rather dependent on French weapons and wouldn't be able to make up for the lack of the Commonwealth until 1919.
In short, regardless of whether the U.S. signs a Treaty, they'll still be de facto on the losing side.
In short, regardless of whether the U.S. signs a Treaty, they'll still be de facto on the losing side.
What kind of effect would de facto losing a war have on the American consciousness? Animosity towards Germany? Super-isolationism? Would the Germans, now a world power, try to limit the influence of their biggest rival other than Britain (if Britain doesn’t fall to revolution following a disasterous German offensive)?
History Learner
Banned
German influence will probably confined to Afro-Eurasia, given the specifics of this victory. As for effects on the United States, I find it much harder to estimate; IOTL by the 1930s large majorities of Americans were saying entry into the Great War was a mistake and a general desire to avoid future foreign events. Here, however, American forces haven't got in the mud yet and a semi-hostile Germany will remain into what was IOTL the Interwar era.
mspence
Banned
It might make the US more aggressive in foreign policy, at least within our own hemisphere, while more isolationist overseas at the same time.