How long could WW1 have lasted if the US never entered?

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I have a hazy recollection of reading in a British newspaper that TE Lawrence's Arab protégé, Emir Faisal, was in correspondence with Constantinople almost to the end of the war, keeping the door open for reverting to the Ottoman side in the event of CP victory.

Has anyone else heard of this?
Yes, but I thought it had ended by 1917.
 
What I mean is that even in the face of reduced Entente pressure there is going to be serious contraction of the Ottoman Empire's borders from a strictly military sense as long as the war is being fought. The internal pressures inside the Ottoman Empire were every bit as bad, if not worse, than those in A-H which most folks feel was doomed to fragmentation. The "cost" to the UK in supporting the Arab Revolt was pretty minimal, and probably going to be unaffected by the lack of US loans and entry in to the war. I will give you that Constantinople does not fall, never predicted it would, and that the postwar boundaries of "Turkey" may be more expansive than OTL. Even a relatively white peace between Germany/A-H and the UK/France does not prevent the forces that bring Ataturk to power from happening, although it may not be Kemal (butterflies flapping) who takes over. It was not for nothing the Ottoman Empire was known as the sick man of Europe...
 
What I mean is that even in the face of reduced Entente pressure there is going to be serious contraction of the Ottoman Empire's borders from a strictly military sense as long as the war is being fought.

Yeah, you basically need a total Central Powers victory - and you need it early - to avoid serious Ottoman territorial contraction.

In this scenario, even the most optimistic takes for the CP don't have an overwhelming victory for Germany. Remember: the Brits had already taken Baghdad and Jerusalem in 1917. Arabia was gone.

German leverage in any reasonable non-surrender peace negotiations will be mostly focused on preserving the gains of Brest-Litovsk (or whatever takes its place in this ATL). They'll have hard time getting their colonies back, let alone forcing Britain to let the Turk back into Arabia.

The Ottomans might well be able to hold on to northern Mesopotamia (Mosul Vilayet) and Syria, and get some concessions in the Caucasus, but otherwise...
 
What I mean is that even in the face of reduced Entente pressure there is going to be serious contraction of the Ottoman Empire's borders from a strictly military sense as long as the war is being fought. The internal pressures inside the Ottoman Empire were every bit as bad, if not worse, than those in A-H which most folks feel was doomed to fragmentation. The "cost" to the UK in supporting the Arab Revolt was pretty minimal, and probably going to be unaffected by the lack of US loans and entry in to the war. I will give you that Constantinople does not fall, never predicted it would, and that the postwar boundaries of "Turkey" may be more expansive than OTL. Even a relatively white peace between Germany/A-H and the UK/France does not prevent the forces that bring Ataturk to power from happening, although it may not be Kemal (butterflies flapping) who takes over. It was not for nothing the Ottoman Empire was known as the sick man of Europe...


I see - not disintegration, merely a change of government.

And afaics the new government would have no real choice but to continue the war. To do otherwise would risk an Entente/CP deal at their expense, with the Germans getting a slice of Turkey in return for writing off her lost colonies. Austria-Hungary was in asimilar pickle. As Lidell Hart put it, the lesser CPs would need to be Houdinis to separate from Germanay while she was still fighting effectively. They could do so only when she was too heavily pressed to do anything about it, IOW when the Entente already had it in the bag, and splitting up just meant hanging separately instead of together. In short, Germany's allies could only desert her once it had ceased to much matter what they did.
 
No. It was economic. The Entente economies depending on US food, oil, steel, and gun cotton, which was only available if they paid in dollars, which was gone by April 1917. Without that France is totally unable to import and the UK is basically down to very limited hand to mouth purchasing, which sustains them on the defensive, but no offensive levels of purchasing. US unsecured loans in 1917 after their entry kept the Entente fighting and Russia in the war until they collapsed. This is all covered very well by Hew Strachan's "Financing of the First World War". Among other books.

Summer of ‘17 is definitely the cut off.
 
@Mikestone8 : Even while the CP, specifically Germany, is doing better on the Western Front due to no US loans/troops, and A-H is probably doing better vis a vis Italy (who may or may not drop out), this will neither free up CP troops and supplies to help the Ottomans nor will it substantially take troops and materiel away from the campaigns against the Ottomans which after Jerusalem and Baghdad have fallen are not large consumers of both of these. A negotiated peace in the west along the lines of Germany keeping Brest-Litovsk, A-H keeps some or all the gains in the Balkans and the UK and France horse trade as hard as possible to minimize German gains in Belgium/France (new borders) using colonies they have snagged etc has one glaring doughnut hole - the Ottomans. I very much doubt that Germany would make a significant trade of something it wants in Europe so the Ottomans get Syria or Southern "Iraq" back. To the extent A-H has gotten gains in the Balkans, I doubt they would trade any of those to have the Entente give back territory they occupy from the Ottomans at the end of the war.

IMHO unless the CP has an overwhelming military victory and a Diktat peace like was imposed on them at Versailles, the Ottomans are going to lose most of what they lost OTL although there won't be the punitive aspects such as the cession of territory to Greece and Italy imposed by the Treaty of Sevres. IMHO the only question in the CP favorable white peace scenario is how much does the Ottoman Empire lose compared to OTL, and what happens with the internal issues.
 
IMHO unless the CP has an overwhelming military victory and a Diktat peace like was imposed on them at Versailles, the Ottomans are going to lose most of what they lost OTL although there won't be the punitive aspects such as the cession of territory to Greece and Italy imposed by the Treaty of Sevres. IMHO the only question in the CP favorable white peace scenario is how much does the Ottoman Empire lose compared to OTL, and what happens with the internal issues.

IOW they could lose Syria - a possibility which I already conceded.

What I don't see is a situation where they abandon the other CPs while the latter are still fighting. Anatolia is mountain country and to my eyes looks eminently defensible, esp if there is even minimal German aid.
 
A-H collapsed not because of defeat on the battlefield per se, in 1918 their actual "front lines" were better than in 1914, and nobody was even threatening to invade A-H core territories. They threw in the sponge because internal problems meant they could no longer sustain a fight. I mean the Italians were never going to make it over the Alps, the Russians were out and getting involved in their own civil war. IMHO it would be internal issues rather than Entente troops in Anatolia, like OTL, that would force the Ottomans out. Now with no USA and an overall better CP position this might not happen before a negotiated settlement of the war but the Ottoman position in negotiating an end to their war will very much depend on how much Germany is willing to put on the table on their behalf to get back anything they have lost, and that won't be much.
 
A-H collapsed not because of defeat on the battlefield per se, in 1918 their actual "front lines" were better than in 1914,

Except that the collapse of the Balkan front had left their entire southern border wide open to attack - and they had no way to man a front of that length. Their military position was hopeless, and their troops, knowing this, had no further reason to put their lives on the line. So naturally people began to leave the sinking ship. Yet even so they only quit eight days before Germany did.
 
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a) Germany declines on declaring unrestricted submarine warfare.
b) Entente runs out of money in April 1917.
c) Kerensky Russia and France forced to ask for an armistice. Britain still wants to continue, but lets their Allies seek armistice terms that don't hurt Britain's strategic position badly.

(armistice terms for France, Germany occupies: Verdun, Toul, Belfort fortresses. France returns all POWs, Germany returns non officer French POWs. Germany allowed economic+diplomatic transit rights on French rail and shipping, France transfers rail rolling stock to Germany.
(armistice terms for Russia, Russia evacuates Turkey+Persia+the bits of Austrian Galacia she holds, Russia returns all Central Powers POWs, Central Powers returns non officer POWs, Germany to receive shipments of grain, oil and cotton from Russians via certain to be repaired rail "ports"). Germany allowed economic+diplomatic transit rights on Russian rail and shipping.

Belgian, Italian, Serbian and Romanian armistices happen shortly after.

Final peace to happen after Britain makes peace.

Britain and Germany remain at war with out any active military fronts except in the Ottoman empire and at sea.

In 1919 with the just completed Baghdad railway through the Tarsus mountains, Germany plans a major offensive to retake Baghdad, Basra, Mecca and the Suez Canal, includes Afghanistan in a war to set India aflame with German support. This small scale war lasts for 10 years.

Peace happens in 1929.
 
To the guy who said that the US could join the Central Powers, here's what would happen: the Franco-British fleet would meet the American's somewhere, annihilate it a la
Trafalgar,
and potentially burn New York in revenge. In response, the Americans would maul Canada, potentially temporarily annexing it, but once the war in Europe is finished the Entente will turn, land at some point on the East Coast, capture and burn Washington for the second time and end the war with significant (but not total) gains for the Americans in Canada.
Wait, what?!?!?! After being severely bled by the Central Powers, needing the RN to keep the High Seas Fleet in check, an economy nearing collapse, and soldiers bordering on mutiny, the Entente is SOMEHOW going to defeat the US fleet, pull off an amphibious landing across the Atlantic, and BURN DC?!?!? You realize we're talking about the 20th, not the 19th, century? If the US joins the Central Powers, the UK is going to find itself blockaded, the economies of the Entente are going to fall by 1918 (with the US seizing assets), and the UK may be forced to pull forces back from the continent to protect against a potential US invasion which would cause another drop in morale for the French and possibly another mutiny, this time larger over feeling abandoned allowing the Germans to finally win the Western Front.
 
a) Germany declines on declaring unrestricted submarine warfare.
b) Entente runs out of money in April 1917.
c) Kerensky Russia and France forced to ask for an armistice. Britain still wants to continue, but lets their Allies seek armistice terms that don't hurt Britain's strategic position badly.

(armistice terms for France, Germany occupies: Verdun, Toul, Belfort fortresses. France returns all POWs, Germany returns non officer French POWs. Germany allowed economic+diplomatic transit rights on French rail and shipping, France transfers rail rolling stock to Germany.
(armistice terms for Russia, Russia evacuates Turkey+Persia+the bits of Austrian Galacia she holds, Russia returns all Central Powers POWs, Central Powers returns non officer POWs, Germany to receive shipments of grain, oil and cotton from Russians via certain to be repaired rail "ports"). Germany allowed economic+diplomatic transit rights on Russian rail and shipping.

Belgian, Italian, Serbian and Romanian armistices happen shortly after.

Final peace to happen after Britain makes peace.

Britain and Germany remain at war with out any active military fronts except in the Ottoman empire and at sea.

In 1919 with the just completed Baghdad railway through the Tarsus mountains, Germany plans a major offensive to retake Baghdad, Basra, Mecca and the Suez Canal, includes Afghanistan in a war to set India aflame with German support. This small scale war lasts for 10 years.

Peace happens in 1929.

France holds on for somewhat longer (albeit after basically suspending offensive operations) and I wonder how long Britain sustains a secondary theater war in the Fertile Crescent after having basically run out of money, but otherwise, this isn't implausible. The British economy would be a wreck.

Tricky part would be how evacuation of the BEF proceeds.
 
France holds on for somewhat longer (albeit after basically suspending offensive operations) and I wonder how long Britain sustains a secondary theater war in the Fertile Crescent after having basically run out of money, but otherwise, this isn't implausible. The British economy would be a wreck.

Tricky part would be how evacuation of the BEF proceeds.

A German armistice with France might allow the British two weeks to get out, The British could insist on it to allow France to make an armistice. Kind of like WW2 the soldiers would get out without a whole lot of equipment.

As far as down-scaling the war to a long sustainable pace much depends on how peace unfolds in 1917, the Allies might ask through a neutral power for a peace conference, without admitting their weaknesses. Much depends on how much sanity German leadership shows and accepts reasonable terms for an armistice or peace.

I think 1917 Germany can be sane, without unrestricted submarine warfare, and without knowledge of allied financial difficulties, the German position appears difficult, after all the Murmansk railway is finally apparently opening up Russia to supplies, Baghdad has fallen, Turnip winter just happened.

Britain is the tricky one, she doesn't want the Germans to have her colonies back (future submarine bases for the next war) or a dominant Germany that has resource to spare for fleet building. And the Germans can't get at her.

So a Germany/Ottomans-Britain war could be likely, as the Mideast is the only avenue to anything important to Britain to force her to make peace.
 
Total newb here, but aren't Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans dying slowly regardless of what anyone does? So sure, maybe the buildup leading up to the offensives in the Balkan front in 1918 is harder, but unless the Italians quit and the Balkan theater in 1918 is a total failure for the Allies Austria-Hungary explodes, effectively bringing Germany down with it. I find the prospect of Germany sauntering on while having to deal with the smoldering remains of Austria-Hungary somewhat unrealistic.

Of course if Italy quits then maybe the Balkan offensive is impossible to begin with, but would they really quit?
 
Total newb here, but aren't Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans dying slowly regardless of what anyone does? So sure, maybe the buildup leading up to the offensives in the Balkan front in 1918 is harder, but unless the Italians quit and the Balkan theater in 1918 is a total failure for the Allies Austria-Hungary explodes, effectively bringing Germany down with it. I find the prospect of Germany sauntering on while having to deal with the smoldering remains of Austria-Hungary somewhat unrealistic.

Of course if Italy quits then maybe the Balkan offensive is impossible to begin with, but would they really quit?

Well, reading the 18 pages of this thread is admittedly a big ask, but that's been discussed multiple times already. Without the US, the Italians and Russians are in much worse shape, so most of the OTL pressure on Austria-Hungary would be mitigated. And without that, internal tensions would be far more manageable. The Ottomans are a more difficult question, but they're also unlikely to surrender, and even if they did, they could be amputated without too much consequence for Germany.
 
Well, reading the 18 pages of this thread is admittedly a big ask, but that's been discussed multiple times already.

I think I got to page 10 or so before I got curious about this and posted my question. Doesn't the OTL pressures even without US-entry force some sort of concession on self-governance to the various nationalities between 1917-18? If so then any reasonable quantity of Allied troops appearing on the Hungarian border is game over for A-H since Hungary then decides it's time to quit the Monarchy, and the rest follows from there. This is entirely speculation though, so probably not the most valid point.
 
I think I got to page 10 or so before I got curious about this and posted my question. Doesn't the OTL pressures even without US-entry force some sort of concession on self-governance to the various nationalities between 1917-18? If so then any reasonable quantity of Allied troops appearing on the Hungarian border is game over for A-H since Hungary then decides it's time to quit the Monarchy, and the rest follows from there. This is entirely speculation though, so probably not the most valid point.


Of course the only way for Entente troops to get anywhere near he Hungarian border is if the Balkan front has collapsed. If the Germans can reinforce that, the Austrian show will stay on the road, however creakily.
 
Of course the only way for Entente troops to get anywhere near he Hungarian border is if the Balkan front has collapsed. If the Germans can reinforce that, the Austrian show will stay on the road, however creakily.

And it would be self-destructive for the Hungarians to sabotage the CP war effort when the Entente lay claim to large chunks of their Kingdom.
 
I have a hazy recollection of reading in a British newspaper that TE Lawrence's Arab protégé, Emir Faisal, was in correspondence with Constantinople almost to the end of the war, keeping the door open for reverting to the Ottoman side in the event of CP victory.

Has anyone else heard of this?

Wow, really? So the Arabs just expected the Ottomans to forgive them for trying to revolt against their rule in exchange for betraying the British?
 
And it would be self-destructive for the Hungarians to sabotage the CP war effort when the Entente lay claim to large chunks of their Kingdom.

Exactly - and they did so only when the Monarchy's position had become patently hopeless in purely military terms.

This is the key to victory/defeat. One side or the other (or at least its soldiers) have to become convinced that they can never win, and that any future deaths will be essentially for nothing. The French were in danger of this in May 1917, and it did happen to the CPs after July-Aug 1918.

On threads like this I sometimes get the impression (apologies if I misunderstand anyone) that the battlefield victory somehow wasn't essential - ie that the Entente could have stayed on the defensive and waited patiently for the other side to collapse due to the blockade or internal troubles of some kind. Needless to say it could never have worked. With the CPs sitting on Entente territory everywhere in Europe, such inaction would have been seen as a confession of defeat, and morale would have evaporated.
 
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