DBWI: What if the United States entered World War 1?

This is one of the better threads on the forum so far. I didn't realize there was already a timeline on this.

One that that has struck me about Wilson's intervention in Mexico, is that changing it might be the POD to get the US involved in the war in Europe. The intervention not only got the US too deeply embroiled with the Mexican tar baby to contemplate intervening in Europe as well, but it also demonstrated serious problems with the US army, that Newton Baker convinced Wilson had to be fixed before the US could fight a modern war.

But make a few small changes, maybe have Wilson pursue less ambitious objectives, and now the US is free to enter the European war in 1917. This also may butterfly away Wilson's defeat to Hughes in 1916. And the German diplomatic contacts with Carranza is not taken by US policy makers as a warning to ratchet down the tensions with Germany, but instead is an additional goad for the US to declare war on Germany!
 
Another question, what would have been the role of the USMC in a Great War intervention? Would the Marines have been part of the expeditionary force to France? How big might the Marine Corps have become?

Not much. The US Navy was just starting to expand the Marines from a ship & base guard contingent to a landing force. The defense battalions and landing force rifle regiments that existed 1914 - 1919 were few, small, and set up for littoral operations, not trench warfare. They'd probably be used in some sort of coastal operation.
 
I've never understood the focus of people...

If anything, Magdeburg showed that it would always take continuous external intervention to stop Germany trouncing France. It's one of the great crimes of the 20th century that the British and Italians stopped the Germans from crushing France utterly after the victory there. Millions of dead Flemings cry out for vengeance to this very day, but alas.

But anyway, US intervention wouldn't change anything, just delay it. Maybe Germany loses the Great War, but there's still far too much Germany for France to handle. So I agree with Turtledove there, eventually Germany will come back and smash the French (sure, he takes the literary shortcut of crushing France in a ridiculously short time). After that, the French will revert to their natural militaristic fascist tendencies aimed at controlling Europe, and will need the support fo outside powers to get back on its feet.
 
OOC: Earlier posts have established that ITTL that there was no Pacific War, only a war between Japan and Germany over Indochina which Japan won, and independent Japan-allied Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia rising out of that war. America and Japan ITTL have never come to blows.
OOC: I started this thread, so I think I can dictate what happens ITTL. :cool: In all seriousness though, a pacific war is inevitable ITTL. There's no workaround.
 
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