Does the Entente win if the USA doesn't enter WW1?

Who wins the war?


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What exactly does "mutual exhaustion" mean?

If hostilities cease with a cease-fire "in place" along the existing line of trenches, that's a win for the CP, since the Entente will come to the peace table with no bargaining chips except some worthless German colonies and two corners of the OE.

You forget the blockade. It may not be fatal to Germany, but it is crippling and certainly prevents any profitable gains from the war being realised by eliminating access to overseas markets.

If there's a ceasefire - formal or not - then the blockade remains. This is a problem for Germany, because, by definition, there's no fighting during a ceasefire but the blockade remains. So a ceasefire and prolonged, tortuous negotiations that go nowhere favours the Entente over Germany, because Germany has no ability during the ceasefire to damage the Entente. (Unless of course Germany has basically won in the field and is able to almost dictate peace with the immediate lifting of the blockade being a condition of talks, but this is precluded by the classification of a peace of exhaustion.)

Personally I find the concept of a peace of exhaustion to be unlikely, at least in the short term. While both sides can conserve strength by sitting on the defensive, if they both do this then there is less urgency to actually end the war, and both sides have so much invested in the war that agreeing terms would appear to be very difficult without strong internal pressure to do so, a la Russia and its revolutions.
 
You forget the blockade. It may not be fatal to Germany, but it is crippling and certainly prevents any profitable gains from the war being realised by eliminating access to overseas markets.

If there's a ceasefire - formal or not - then the blockade remains. This is a problem for Germany, because, by definition, there's no fighting during a ceasefire but the blockade remains. So a ceasefire and prolonged, tortuous negotiations that go nowhere favours the Entente over Germany, because Germany has no ability during the ceasefire to damage the Entente. (Unless of course Germany has basically won in the field and is able to almost dictate peace with the immediate lifting of the blockade being a condition of talks, but this is precluded by the classification of a peace of exhaustion.).
lifting the blockade would likely be a ceasefire condition. continuation of the blockade is a continuation of part of the hostilities, and thus contradictory to a ceasefire
 
Well I have submitted documentation in support of my contentions...

And going by @BooNZ's parsing of the dates, you apparently misinterpreted it. You've also offered Robert Lansing's assessment of the situation, but he wasn't Wilson, and so he didn't get the final say on the matter either. Neither, for that matter, did Wilson, since the investors themselves would decide whether or not to lend. What you'd need would be to offer evidence that unsecured loans would have ensued once the Entente exhausted their securities without the intervening detail of American intervention in their favor. Bankers certainly won't do it just because manufacturers want them to, but would want to see their investments repaid. And since they wouldn't get all of their money back in the short term, they'd want some long-term assurances that they could get their money back. And there's simply no such certainty to be had in a situation where the balance of the war is still in question.

You forget the blockade. It may not be fatal to Germany, but it is crippling and certainly prevents any profitable gains from the war being realised by eliminating access to overseas markets.

If there's a ceasefire - formal or not - then the blockade remains. This is a problem for Germany, because, by definition, there's no fighting during a ceasefire but the blockade remains. So a ceasefire and prolonged, tortuous negotiations that go nowhere favours the Entente over Germany, because Germany has no ability during the ceasefire to damage the Entente. (Unless of course Germany has basically won in the field and is able to almost dictate peace with the immediate lifting of the blockade being a condition of talks, but this is precluded by the classification of a peace of exhaustion.)

I think a normal armistice would have the opening of the blockade lines as a precondition while terms are negotiated. That didn't happen in OTL, to be sure, but, well, that was kind of a hint of the Carthaginian peace to come. In a situation where the sides are more even, you might see a deal whereby the Germans retreat some distance in exchange for a temporary cessation of the blockade, but otherwise, no armistice.

Personally I find the concept of a peace of exhaustion to be unlikely, at least in the short term. While both sides can conserve strength by sitting on the defensive, if they both do this then there is less urgency to actually end the war, and both sides have so much invested in the war that agreeing terms would appear to be very difficult without strong internal pressure to do so, a la Russia and its revolutions.

Which is why I think French pressure might be the key to forcing a settlement. They'll want their country back sooner or later, and if the army can't do it, then they should step aside and give the diplomats a chance.
 
lifting the blockade would likely be a ceasefire condition. continuation of the blockade is a continuation of part of the hostilities, and thus contradictory to a ceasefire

The problem is that it can only become a condition if the CP thinks they can win a battlefield victory while the Entente do not need to look to a battlefield victory to ultimately win.
 

Deleted member 1487

But are evidence for, you on the other hand do not even deign to submit evidence. It is extremely rare in history unlike in mathematics that there is any final proof but evidence is always valuable.
Already repeatedly cited the sources you don't like, Hew Strachan's "Financing the First World War" and "To Arms", plus Devlin's "Too Proud To Fight" about the Wilson Administration. You can also check out the arguments about unrestricted submarine warfare in the excellent "The First World War: an Agrarian Interpretation".
 
The problem is that it can only become a condition if the CP thinks they can win a battlefield victory while the Entente do not need to look to a battlefield victory to ultimately win.

Can you name a single war between great powers that ended solely because of blockade without commensurate land victories? Because I'm trying, and I've got nothing. I think you also need to provide an Entente source asserting that such a victory was possible, because otherwise we would probably expect them to continue trying to win the war the conventional way, which precludes sitting still. I'm not sure I buy the peace of exhaustion idea simply for the reason that both sides would keep going for the win until their militaries crumbled.
 
And going by @BooNZ's parsing of the dates, you apparently misinterpreted it. You've also offered Robert Lansing's assessment of the situation, but he wasn't Wilson, and so he didn't get the final say on the matter either. Neither, for that matter, did Wilson, since the investors themselves would decide whether or not to lend. What you'd need would be to offer evidence that unsecured loans would have ensued once the Entente exhausted their securities without the intervening detail of American intervention in their favor. Bankers certainly won't do it just because manufacturers want them to, but would want to see their investments repaid. And since they wouldn't get all of their money back in the short term, they'd want some long-term assurances that they could get their money back. And there's simply no such certainty to be had in a situation where the balance of the war is still in question.

BooNZ offered an opinion without supporting documentation I merely added further supporting documentation to my interpretation no one has presented documentation supporting a contrary opinion but instead you seem to argue that I must further investigate and document the activities of individual investors when in fact there is no direct evidence that they would have ceased purchasing Entente bonds. I could point out that there were concerns among the Entente officials over the matter but events moved so fast in their favour as to render the question rather moot, even so I note you do not even seem to have tried looking for the correspondence or other documents relating to such concerns.

Now when enter a document into the record it should be noted that my interpretation of said document is not necessarily the only one but so far I am the only one trying to at least find evidence for my opinion while facing the argument that other opinions outweigh mine...because that poster said so.

As I have said before evidence is always useful even if, perhaps more so, it were evidence in favour of another interpretation than mine.
 
Can you name a single war between great powers that ended solely because of blockade without commensurate land victories? Because I'm trying, and I've got nothing. I think you also need to provide an Entente source asserting that such a victory was possible, because otherwise we would probably expect them to continue trying to win the war the conventional way, which precludes sitting still. I'm not sure I buy the peace of exhaustion idea simply for the reason that both sides would keep going for the win until their militaries crumbled.

The First World War ended with a whimper not a bang precisely because the Entente had the blockade in place. Germany could not stand on the defensive, the Entente might well waste time and blood trying to win by military offensive but even should they be stalemated the blockade continues to bite.
 
Already repeatedly cited the sources you don't like, Hew Strachan's "Financing the First World War" and "To Arms", plus Devlin's "Too Proud To Fight" about the Wilson Administration. You can also check out the arguments about unrestricted submarine warfare in the excellent "The First World War: an Agrarian Interpretation".

In the bibliography's of the texts you mention should be some (at least) primary source documents, often such documents have usable links that are only an internet search away.
 
BooNZ offered an opinion without supporting documentation I merely added further supporting documentation to my interpretation no one has presented documentation supporting a contrary opinion but instead you seem to argue that I must further investigate and document the activities of individual investors when in fact there is no direct evidence that they would have ceased purchasing Entente bonds. I could point out that there were concerns among the Entente officials over the matter but events moved so fast in their favour as to render the question rather moot, even so I note you do not even seem to have tried looking for the correspondence or other documents relating to such concerns.

I'll grant that the evidence I'm asking for may be hard to come by given how quickly the situation was overtaken by events, but that's kind of the problem; we never saw the Entente hit the credit crunch they were headed for, so there's a lot of interpretation involved in figuring out what would happen. Presenting documents by itself isn't good enough when your interpretations fly in the face of basic financial logic. Now, there might be some potential evidence that could mitigate this, like overwhelming confidence in America that the Entente had the war in the bag, which I think they did believe in March 1917 IOTL, but that opinion would need to survive the Kerensky Offensive, Nivelle, Caporetto, Russia's leaving the war, and other such problems. Without steady victories, unsecured credit seems less likely. Do I lack documentation? Perhaps. But logic has to count for something in an interpretation game.

Now when enter a document into the record it should be noted that my interpretation of said document is not necessarily the only one but so far I am the only one trying to at least find evidence for my opinion while facing the argument that other opinions outweigh mine...because that poster said so.

As I have said before evidence is always useful even if, perhaps more so, it were evidence in favour of another interpretation than mine.

Your having documents doesn't help one bit in defending your interpretations of said documents. And if your interpretations are faulty, then so are your conclusions.

The First World War ended with a whimper not a bang precisely because the Entente had the blockade in place. Germany could not stand on the defensive, the Entente might well waste time and blood trying to win by military offensive but even should they be stalemated the blockade continues to bite.

And that was without land victories? Because I could have sworn these were things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vittorio_Veneto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dobro_Pole

Like I said: rare, if not nonexistent. It's not like plenty of wars haven't been influenced by blockade, but land victories generally follow. You asserted here:

The problem is that it can only become a condition if the CP thinks they can win a battlefield victory while the Entente do not need to look to a battlefield victory to ultimately win.

that those are somehow not necessary, but that's never been how it works in practice.
 

Deleted member 1487

In the bibliography's of the texts you mention should be some (at least) primary source documents, often such documents are only an internet search away.
I'm not at home for one thing to be able to check them out and the primary documents often don't tell you what you need to know in context, which is what history writers tend to do: research documents for years and put them in their right context. You have just taken a random document in isolation and made sweeping claims from it that aren't actually supported by it.
 
I'm not at home for one thing to be able to check them out and the primary documents often don't tell you what you need to know in context, which is what history writers tend to do: research documents for years and put them in their right context. You have just taken a random document in isolation and made sweeping claims from it that aren't actually supported by it.

No for example in the case of the my claim as to the viewpoint of the US Administration regarding loans I found two documents that not only reflect the words and language I use but show between the continuance of that train of thought....further but I made a point of reminding people that they could look at Bryan's remarks on the subject which represent a countervailing viewpoint. Now I would argue that the viewpoint expressed by Lansing not merely gained but held the ascendency, however perhaps you would like to look at the Fed Note of November to see to what extent the views of William Jennings Bryan were reflected among the broader establishment or perhaps whether they reflect a new trend?
 
I'm not at home for one thing to be able to check them out and the primary documents often don't tell you what you need to know in context, which is what history writers tend to do: research documents for years and put them in their right context. You have just taken a random document in isolation and made sweeping claims from it that aren't actually supported by it.

Then why the rush to post why not wait until you have something concrete?

I have presented two documents that both accord with my interpretation of the prevailing US position, Lansing formal submission of the State Department opinion to President Wilson and Fed Bulletin of April 1917, further I drew people's attention to the fact that William Jennings Bryan countervailing viewpoint was also accessible via the same link as Lansing's letter. It is not as accessible as other versions but here is the Federal Reserve Bulletin of November 1916 and you can decide for yourself whether it supports Bryan's view marking a temporary re-ascendency of that position or something new?

Evidence is out there and is far more useful to all of us. Oh and the board ate this post once already.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
If WW1 played out the same until US entry, except the Zimmerman Telegram is never sent and the Americans stay out of the war, who would end up winning in the end?
The Entente still wins if the U.S. continues giving loans to it and if they have the will to fight until the bitter end; the reason for this is that Germany will starve and collapse before the Entente does due to the British blockade of Germany.

However, this would be more of a victory "by default" than an actual military victory.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
No, because they ended the Hindenburg Program. German food problems in the winter of 1916-17 were mostly self inflicted, as Ludendorff tried to build up production and used up resources for factories that were unable to produce anything because of the limited German resources. By diverting labor and rail assets, plus burning a bunch of resources making new factories Lundendorff created the Coal Crisis, as coal output dropped as all of the above was diverted from coal mining. That in turn created the Transportation Crisis, which mean there wasn't enough trains and coal to get food from the countryside to the cities. That in turn created the Turnip Winter. As they stopped the self destructive industrial expansions scheme coal production went up, there were enough trains available, and people got their rations back up to pre-Hindenburg Program levels. This despite the fact that US entry into the war created a drop in imports from neighboring neutrals, as the US government was able to bring it's considerable economic influence to bare to leverage neutrals and stop their own companies from trading with Germany via said neutrals (wasn't entirely successful, Switzerland, Sweden, and the Dutch were too dependent on German trade to stop and the Allies made allowances for that).
Question--was this drop in food imports from neighboring neutrals what caused Germany to starve in late 1918 and early 1919?
 

Deleted member 1487

Question--was this drop in food imports from neighboring neutrals what caused Germany to starve in late 1918 and early 1919?
That, the Allies occupying Germany and pillaging farms as the first part of reparations and to feed themselves, and the maintenance of the blockade. All of the above made the starvation the worst AFTER the cease fire
 
If the entente keeps up their blockade during a ceasefire Germany is well within its rights to reciprocate with uboats. I would suggest that any ceasefire or armistice put forward by a losing entente would include both blockades stopping.
 
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