Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars
- Thread starter RamscoopRaider
- Start date
I believe you meant to say, "Realizing that any chance of getting the majority of his fleet home was lost"?
Ouch, that was a hell of a naval battle. Throw in the losses of a couple of QEs in 1916 the RN battleline is going to be feeling the sting of these battles for decades to come. That makes me wondering what the naval treaties are going to look like ITL.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Yes and no. Yes it was inaugurated on that day, but then 1905 happened and they had to build a new segment to replace the segment lost in the treaty of Portsmouth, and that did not finish until 1916, because one of the bridge sections was lost to a German raider
Yes I did
Part 2-33 European Wars
RamscoopRaider
Donor
…On May 9th the Italians resumed the offensive. The floods had mostly ended and they were ready to cross the Tagliamento. As usual parties of boatmen and Arditi infiltrated under the cover of a firewall and gas attack. Lodgments were made and pontoon bridges were thrown up. Unlike previous assaults there was not even an attempt at a major counterattack. Small local forces attempted attacks, but nothing larger than a battalion did so. The Austrian Army had been shattered in the previous offensive and its remnants could not effectively resist.
The front collapsed within 24 hours, with 20,000 prisoners taken and the Italians securing no less than six beachheads over the river. The only real hope the Austrians had to break the Italian offensive was the mountains surrounding the Venetian plain. Therefore the Austrians ordered a retreat while they tried some to establish some semblance of a defensive line on the alpine foothills. Italian pursuit was vigorous, but limited by the exhaustion of their air and motorized units, that had still not made good the losses from the earlier campaign. Despite that another 100,000 prisoners were taken before the Austrians reached the foothills on the 16th.
However that front was only one of their worries, Italian forces out of Albania had already liberated Montenegro on the 30th and captured Ragusa on the 8th. There were no forces available to stop them from heading inland to take Sarajevo where this all started or even to press on into Serbia and liberate that country. However given the relative distances involved and the infrastructure of the areas in question this front was of lesser importance, it could not threaten Austria. It could threaten Hungary, but already high command and the Kaiser were concerned about the loyalty of the Hungarians, and the logistics of attacking Hungary through Albania were difficult.
In any case the Italians had no interest in moving inland, they wanted to capture territory that was promised to them, not territory that would belong to Yugoslavia. Hence, they moved on to take Spoleto on the 13th, and Zara on the 18th, with naval elements moving to secure the islands behind them. Sarajevo was captured on the 19th as much for reasons of personal glory on the part of several mid-ranking officers than any real strategy.
In the north however the situation had turned critical. The Italians continued their pursuit even as the Austrians reached the foothills, with the ramshackle defense line that had been established not even being noticed by the advancing Italians. By the 18th it was clear that even the forces in the Alps were beginning to buckle, and the invasion of Austria proper was only days away.
Help was requested from Germany; however the Germans were in poor shape themselves. The Germans offered the transfer of the remaining Austrian forces on the Western front, however a half dozen heavily understrength divisions were not enough to turn the tide, even if they could be delivered quickly, which was no sure thing. There were German reserves in Bavaria that could potentially be enough to stop the Italians in concert with the Austrian troops from the Western front. However the Germans made it clear that one or the other would happen, but not both.
Without a promise of German help there would be no halting the Italian momentum. Things would only get worse from a perspective of their negotiating strength. Therefore on May 20th the Kaiser sent a request for an armistice to the Italians.
The Italians took almost 72 hours to respond to this message. Partially this was due to the internal political matters, but mostly in order to organize the occupation of the city of Trieste and the islands of Veglia, Cherso and Arbe by naval forces. On May 23rd the guns fell silent between Austria and Italy. Germany now stood alone.
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
Short but the end is nigh
The front collapsed within 24 hours, with 20,000 prisoners taken and the Italians securing no less than six beachheads over the river. The only real hope the Austrians had to break the Italian offensive was the mountains surrounding the Venetian plain. Therefore the Austrians ordered a retreat while they tried some to establish some semblance of a defensive line on the alpine foothills. Italian pursuit was vigorous, but limited by the exhaustion of their air and motorized units, that had still not made good the losses from the earlier campaign. Despite that another 100,000 prisoners were taken before the Austrians reached the foothills on the 16th.
However that front was only one of their worries, Italian forces out of Albania had already liberated Montenegro on the 30th and captured Ragusa on the 8th. There were no forces available to stop them from heading inland to take Sarajevo where this all started or even to press on into Serbia and liberate that country. However given the relative distances involved and the infrastructure of the areas in question this front was of lesser importance, it could not threaten Austria. It could threaten Hungary, but already high command and the Kaiser were concerned about the loyalty of the Hungarians, and the logistics of attacking Hungary through Albania were difficult.
In any case the Italians had no interest in moving inland, they wanted to capture territory that was promised to them, not territory that would belong to Yugoslavia. Hence, they moved on to take Spoleto on the 13th, and Zara on the 18th, with naval elements moving to secure the islands behind them. Sarajevo was captured on the 19th as much for reasons of personal glory on the part of several mid-ranking officers than any real strategy.
In the north however the situation had turned critical. The Italians continued their pursuit even as the Austrians reached the foothills, with the ramshackle defense line that had been established not even being noticed by the advancing Italians. By the 18th it was clear that even the forces in the Alps were beginning to buckle, and the invasion of Austria proper was only days away.
Help was requested from Germany; however the Germans were in poor shape themselves. The Germans offered the transfer of the remaining Austrian forces on the Western front, however a half dozen heavily understrength divisions were not enough to turn the tide, even if they could be delivered quickly, which was no sure thing. There were German reserves in Bavaria that could potentially be enough to stop the Italians in concert with the Austrian troops from the Western front. However the Germans made it clear that one or the other would happen, but not both.
Without a promise of German help there would be no halting the Italian momentum. Things would only get worse from a perspective of their negotiating strength. Therefore on May 20th the Kaiser sent a request for an armistice to the Italians.
The Italians took almost 72 hours to respond to this message. Partially this was due to the internal political matters, but mostly in order to organize the occupation of the city of Trieste and the islands of Veglia, Cherso and Arbe by naval forces. On May 23rd the guns fell silent between Austria and Italy. Germany now stood alone.
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
Short but the end is nigh
Germany is so up the creek now. I wonder if Italy will be allowed to keep all those gains and promised lands.
Depends on how much Wilson gets to play the National Self Determination card, and how much the other allies let him ride that train. That is one of the reasons Italy didn't get everything it wanted, because for some reason the allies decided to give Yugoslavia everything it ever wanted, and stiff Italy
Wilson isn't POTUS anymore. He had a serious stroke and now Marshal is POTUS. Marshal is still using the 14 points but I got a feeling he isn't going to be as rigid as Wilson was.
Oh right. Right. I remember saying "couldn't have happened to a nicer guy" and everything 🤣
:Gibbs slaps self:
I binge read this, a great timeline. I do have a question though. From the start Wilson is incompetent and villainized, blamed for some upcoming horrible loses for Americans. But I’m not seeing them. The war is over. Americans didn’t lose too many men, a couple hundred thousand is nothing. I thought we’d be talking a million at least or Entente using them as meat shields which would merit such views. But American loses are light, they built a neat reputation for themselves, the European powers are in even greater debt than they were historically and even more crippled, all of it leaving Americans to sweep in and take 20th century for themselves.
One of the main drivers if the AEF’s poor performance IOTL was the inability of Pershing and the other West Pointers to reconceptualize their ideas about operational and tactical art in light of developments not just since the beginning if the war in Europe but since the end of the US Civil War. Pershing went into 1918 with the same ideas about the infantry attack that Joffre had in 1914.
Much depend on what Germany does, as a German resistance mean that Italy is a much more important part of the alliance as they can divert troops towards north France and being used as a springboard for an attack in Bavaria...and this mean having a bigger clout than OTL; still compared to OTL, well Serbia it's in a worse position (the longer occupation will have put in a much worse state and frankly the civilian and economic loss will be staggering) and the Italians have already occupied the entire zone promised to them on their own and frankly they can brag to have beaten A-H more or less alone (yeah a 'little' exageration...but it's not that the italians are the only guilty part for that).
Montenegro seem that will not become part of Jugoslavia as ITTL are italian troops that liberated the country and i doubt that the referendum for an union with Serbia/Jugoslavia will go as OTL
I'm honestly wondering how WW2 is gonna go. Like the only way I can see it happening and lasting long enough to be anywhere as bad as OTL is if Germany falls to Communism and you get a German-Soviet alliance.
Yep, the demographic for the entire continent will be a lot screwed up
They are incredibly severe for an isolated country that's in the war for 'moral superiority' reason and it's on the verge to receive a nasty shock about how the world really go and even if the European are more indebted with them they were in a worse economic position than OTL and there is always the old saying: if you own 1000 dollars to the bank you have a problem but if own 1 billion to the bank, it's the bank that's have a problem.
Der Tod just doesn't have quite the same ring though it would be pretty bad ass to see a bunch of naval ships letting looses their horns and salvos from their guns while charging ahead!
I would disagree that a couple of hundred thousand is nothing. They only had about 115K deaths in OTL and that was enough to scar the American psyche into long term isolationism, what does double or even triple that do, especially since we dont have a final death toll yet?
Those deaths didn't scar the US back into isolationism, that was the country "returning to normalcy".
Ah nothing like a Warren G Harding reference lol, I wonder how many US citizens even know he was President? I seriously almost wrote Kenny G, wonder if his soothing adult contemporary sounds would have soothed the wounds of war? 😂