Deterring USW

In WW1 Germany antagonised the US by offering Mexico an alliance and undertook Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. Clearly Germany wasn't overly worried about the US coming in to the war.

How strong would the US military have to be to deter the Germans from this sort of antagonism and could the US reach this level of strength without a drastic change in circumstances?
 
Maybe have a number of disastrous submarine accidents early. Enough of them that submarines look like a dead end technology. No subs , no USW.
 
So nothing the US could do?

When the Zimmerman Telegram was sent the US was at the peak of its pre WW1 readiness with the Punitive Expedition division deep in Mexico and 12 National Guard divisions mobilised along the border. The 1916 National Defense Act was starting to take effect with the US Army going from 6 to 9 artillery regiments including only their 2nd heavy regiment and the New York National Guard also getting the first howitzer regiment in the Guard.

The Americans were finally getting their shit together yet the Germans were still dismissive.
 
So nothing the US could do?

When the Zimmerman Telegram was sent the US was at the peak of its pre WW1 readiness with the Punitive Expedition division deep in Mexico and 12 National Guard divisions mobilised along the border. The 1916 National Defense Act was starting to take effect with the US Army going from 6 to 9 artillery regiments including only their 2nd heavy regiment and the New York National Guard also getting the first howitzer regiment in the Guard.

The Americans were finally getting their shit together yet the Germans were still dismissive.

The problem is that the thinking around the Kaiser would have meant the more that American strength grew the more the Germans would convince themselves the British dare not oppose them at sea because if the Germans inflicted only a few losses then the Americans would invade Canada.
 
The problem is that the thinking around the Kaiser would have meant the more that American strength grew the more the Germans would convince themselves the British dare not oppose them at sea because if the Germans inflicted only a few losses then the Americans would invade Canada.

I don't understand? The Germans think the British were concerned about the security of Canada because of the US increase in strength under 1916 NDA and concurrent mobilisation of the National Guard?

In any event by late 1916 the Kaiser was marginalised in German politics by the silent dictatorship of H & L.
 
I don't understand? The Germans think the British were concerned about the security of Canada because of the US increase in strength under 1916 NDA and concurrent mobilisation of the National Guard?

In any event by late 1916 the Kaiser was marginalised in German politics by the silent dictatorship of H & L.

Sorry when I say around the Kaiser you are right to point out the man himself was marginalised but he was still the fountain head from which the powers of all the ministers and generals derived. Even Hindy and Ludy. Wilhelm was thus present at at least some of the key discussions on the decision to go to unlimited submarine warfare including Pless itself. The problem for the Germans given what I know of these discussions via the work of historians is that every point in the debate was somehow turned into a reason for going ahead. The actual consensus arrived at during the Pless conference of 9th January 1917 was that the Americans would declare war but they would be irrelevant.

It has sometimes been argued that this assumption was based on narrow military logic but my reading of the matter is that various officers and politicians and the Kaiser himself were running on pure optimism by that point. Germany was losing the war, the home front was slowly disintegrating but nevertheless disintegrating and to win Germany needed some kind of dramatic game changer which only the option of the letting the u-boats off the leash seemed to offer. Any action by anyone would have been twisted into an argument for going ahead as no one wanted to be the guy who first admitted they were going to lose, least of all Bethmann Hollweg who represented the only institutional grouping that dared have some misgivings.
 
Hindy and Ludy- I love it!!!:closedtongue:

I agree about the air of unreal optimism, but they were right about the actual battlefield impact of the Americans. It took a almost year after the DoW for 4 US divisions to be assigned a quiet section of the line, 14 months for several divisions to play an important role in a defensive battle and 17 months for them to launch an Army level offensive.

What they were wrong about was USW ending the war before this happened.
 
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