Could Germany Have Won WWI in 1918?

Could Germany Have won WWI in 1918?

  • Yes, it still had a chance for victory

    Votes: 44 57.1%
  • No, it was doomed to defeat

    Votes: 33 42.9%

  • Total voters
    77
The 5th Army was disbanded and folded into the 4th army because it had been effectively shattered by the German offensive, so I don't know what you mean by it being in good order. It was the 4th army that was moved up to take over for the 5th army.

4th Army was not reformed until after the 1st Battle for Villers Bretonaux you need to go back and check your facts you are mixing 1st and 2nd battles for Villers Bretonaux the 2nd battle didnt commence until 3 weeks after the 1st.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Rawlinson,_1st_Baron_Rawlinson
 

Deleted member 1487

4th Army was not reformed until after the 1st Battle for Villers Bretonaux you need to go back and check your facts you are mixing 1st and 2nd battles for Villers Bretonaux the 2nd battle didnt commence until 3 weeks after the 1st.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Rawlinson,_1st_Baron_Rawlinson
You are mixing up way I am saying. The 5th army was so badly handled that it was eventually disbanded, it hadn't retreated in good order. That statement had nothing to do with OTL V-B battles. The Aussies that fought in the battle weren't part of 5th army initially they were reinforcements brought in from Belgium. Had the Germans made their major effort against Amiens earlier in March instead of waiting until the end of the month when the Aussies showed up they had the chance to take Amiens, it was their pushing out in useless directions, rather than moving on the decisive objective within reach that cost them the war.
 
You are mixing up way I am saying. The 5th army was so badly handled that it was eventually disbanded, it hadn't retreated in good order. That statement had nothing to do with OTL V-B battles. The Aussies that fought in the battle weren't part of 5th army initially they were reinforcements brought in from Belgium. Had the Germans made their major effort against Amiens earlier in March instead of waiting until the end of the month when the Aussies showed up they had the chance to take Amiens, it was their pushing out in useless directions, rather than moving on the decisive objective within reach that cost them the war.

No I am not your backtracking and trying to hide the glaring error you made.

Gough who commanded the 5th was made the scapegoat for the retreat by Lloyd George who over ruled Haig and had Gough sacked. Taken from wiki the historian Andrew Roberts writes
the offensive saw a great wrong perpetrated on a distinguished (sic) British commander that was not righted for many years. Gough's Fifth Army had been spread thin on a forty-two-mile front lately taken over from the exhausted and demoralised French. The reason why the Germans did not break through to Paris, as by all the laws of strategy they ought to have done, was the heroism of the Fifth Army and its utter refusal to break. They fought a thirty-eight-mile rearguard action, contesting every village, field and, on occasion, yard . . . With no reserves and no strongly defended line to its rear, and with eighty German divisions against fifteen British, the Fifth Army fought the Somme offensive to a standstill on the Ancre, not retreating beyond Villers-Bretonneux...


If you cant even distinguish between 2 different actions fought by two different Armies 3 weeks apart then instead of shouting at everyone to read your favourite book and get the facts right right perhaps you should do some fact checking.
 

Deleted member 1487

No I am not your backtracking and trying to hide the glaring error you made.

Gough who commanded the 5th was made the scapegoat for the retreat by Lloyd George who over ruled Haig and had Gough sacked. Taken from wiki the historian Andrew Roberts writes
the offensive saw a great wrong perpetrated on a distinguished (sic) British commander that was not righted for many years. Gough's Fifth Army had been spread thin on a forty-two-mile front lately taken over from the exhausted and demoralised French. The reason why the Germans did not break through to Paris, as by all the laws of strategy they ought to have done, was the heroism of the Fifth Army and its utter refusal to break. They fought a thirty-eight-mile rearguard action, contesting every village, field and, on occasion, yard . . . With no reserves and no strongly defended line to its rear, and with eighty German divisions against fifteen British, the Fifth Army fought the Somme offensive to a standstill on the Ancre, not retreating beyond Villers-Bretonneux...


If you cant even distinguish between 2 different actions fought by two different Armies 3 weeks apart then instead of shouting at everyone to read your favourite book and get the facts right right perhaps you should do some fact checking.
If 5th army was in such good order, why was it disbanded? Why was Amiens defended by reinforcements brought in from another sector? 5th army still had constituent units in the fight, but as an army it was broken and fighting a series of uncoordinated battles; it is a testament to the will of the men that fought in those weeks that they were able to continue contesting anything in their retreat. Also that quote is really misrespresenting the fact that the 80 German divisions were also fighting the French army to the South and the British 3rd army, plus 5th army was reinforced during the battle, such as by the Aussies.

Now as to the charge that I'm changing the subject or misconstruing battles, you're just straw manning. Show me the quote from what I said that proves that I'm confusing the two battles. The action at V-B in April was at the end of the offensive when the city of Amiens was defended; had the Germans prior to March 31st made a decisive effort to take Amiens, which was in their power, rather than pushing to the south and north, they could have taken Amiens. Instead they dithered and the Aussies got in place to fight the decisive action at V-B on April 4th. The Germans started pushing in the area on March 30th, but then stopped for 5 days, and only renewed as the Aussie 15th Brigade arrived and counterattacked their last push of the general Michael offensive.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
To what extent could the German territorial expansion in Eastern Europe negate the impact of the British naval blockade?
 

Deleted member 1487

To what extent could the German territorial expansion in Eastern Europe negate the impact of the British naval blockade?
Not much really other than fielding the 1 million men that were there. The Ukrainian grain was pretty much just being used to feed CP troops in the East, barely any was going back home. The thing about food though was the food crisis of 1916-17 was caused by Ludendorff and his mismanagement of the economy through spending a bunch of precious resources on expanding production capacity, despite not having the raw materials to actually use those expanded industries. He also attempted to militarize labor and pissed off the Unions, who started striking. All that waste and labor unrest caused the coal and transportation crises, which turned into a food crisis in the Turnip Winter of 1916-17. So as the economy rebalanced after that disaster food getting to the working public was actually increasing in 1918 despite the blockade getting tighter. In a lot of ways the Eastern Occupations were a net drain of critical transportation resources, but they effectively took 1 million mouths off the books in terms of finding a way to feed them, so there was that. In the end though the best way to negate the British blockade was to conquer France and pillage their resources in 1918. That would leave France very hungry, but would feed Germany very well. As hostilities then wound down food production would go up without the need to keep millions of men in the field fight, some could be demobilized along with horses and rail transport plus of course nitrate production to grow food.

Of course having a lot of French PoWs and civilians now not engaged in fighting would provide a major agricultural resource for the CPs. Plus the productive lands of the North of France could be returned to farming, which would really help both the Germans and French.
 
Wiking,

Can you recommend an English-language book on L's battles with the unions, and the resulting labor unrest, transportation crisis, etc?

My general reference works allude to the problems, but do not go into detail.
 
Not even a Hairs Breadth. Operation Michael took a lot of land but missed all of its targets Amiens wasnt even the main target of the operation which was to split the British from the French and trap them against the Flanders coast. Have a look at the map and tell me how that was a hairsbreadth from acheiving that.

1024px-Western_front_1918_german.jpg
Weren't they much closer to Amiens, but Brits counterattacked? Then again taking Amiens wasn't the goal, even though it should have been.
 

Deleted member 1487

Wiking,

Can you recommend an English-language book on L's battles with the unions, and the resulting labor unrest, transportation crisis, etc?

My general reference works allude to the problems, but do not go into detail.
Gerald Feldman "Arms, Industry, and Labor in Germany 1914-1918" is the best source I've found, but I haven't really looked into German sources. Feldman though is a great author on the German economy during this period, he did the best work in English on the German inflation issue post-war too. Still I get the feeling that in terms of the Hindenburg Program and it's issues the best sources are probably in German.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
So basically you are saying you have no examples of the kind that would result in the British surrender.

Good to know.

So the problem for Germany is that even with an advance massively larger than any she actually proved capable of in World War 1 especially not in the face of the ever stronger land forces she was confronted by in 1918 the Reich and her allies would still remain under blockade.

You have to occupy London for the UK to surrender. Occupying London would be in almost no realistic WW1 ATL's. If the UK loses WW1, it will almost always be a negotiated peace.
 
You have to occupy London for the UK to surrender. Occupying London would be in almost no realistic WW1 ATL's. If the UK loses WW1, it will almost always be a negotiated peace.

The point is to get the kind of dictated surrender Germany finally submitted to her land and naval forces were in chaos and largely unresponsive to orders, she had lost all of her allies and she was under a punishing blockade...even then the Germans considered saying no.

Considering that you need to isolate France in much the same way and both Britain and the USA are rather tougher nuts to crack than Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans I would suggest that 1918 is too late for a reversal of fortunes for the Kaiserreich.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The point is to get the kind of dictated surrender Germany finally submitted to her land and naval forces were in chaos and largely unresponsive to orders, she had lost all of her allies and she was under a punishing blockade...even then the Germans considered saying no.

Considering that you need to isolate France in much the same way and both Britain and the USA are rather tougher nuts to crack than Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans I would suggest that 1918 is too late for a reversal of fortunes for the Kaiserreich.

You missed the point I was making. In almost all possible non-ASB ATL for WW1, the UK will not surrender.
 
You missed the point I was making. In almost all possible non-ASB ATL for WW1, the UK will not surrender.

Well I was not sure that was the point you were making but I was covering the other bases and continuing on with my basic premise throughout this thread.

However I do agree with you in this regard.
 
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