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

So i think i am no expert on ships and blockades but i would think it would take a lot of fuel to keep a blockade going and if you cant pay your largest oil exporter you cant get fuel to keep your blockade up. So they would need to fins new supliers and fast to keep the blockade up and what would hinder germany to strike during that time of weakness
 
So i think i am no expert on ships and blockades but i would think it would take a lot of fuel to keep a blockade going and if you cant pay your largest oil exporter you cant get fuel to keep your blockade up. So they would need to fins new supliers and fast to keep the blockade up and what would hinder germany to strike during that time of weakness

Most of the blockade enforcement was by coal fired Armed Merchant Cruisers.

In fact you have raised the excellent possibility of the HSF sallying in force to try and break the AMCs in the GIUK Gap only for the hitherto restricted to port Grand Fleet to sortie and meet them coming back. The Battle of Iceland might well be remembered as a great disaster in a fair few possible timelines or perhaps as a lucky escape for the Imperial Navy in a few others.
 

Deleted member 1487

Presumably they would spend a period of time trying to gather resources and assess. I don't think they'd just go "WHELP, THAT'S IT. ALL HAIL THE KAISER!" Instead they'd try to get a last ditch effort, I doubt they'd go for an attack right away. Thus they would spend time assessing, have a major attempt if that's their deduction.

I don't expect it to be longer than 6 months to a year before they decide if they need to negotiate or if they can get alternatives.
No one is saying that they'd give up, but that they'd try to negotiate once it was clear that they couldn't win and at best they could maybe launch one offensive on their own before their allies quit.
 
Actually, I wonder if Russia (and by extension Romania) might exit the war sooner without the prospect of American aid.
 
No one is saying that they'd give up, but that they'd try to negotiate once it was clear that they couldn't win and at best they could maybe launch one offensive on their own before their allies quit.

Which is what I meant. I expect it would be a stalemate while the Entente quickly assesses how their time is and if they can spend time trying to get replacements in supply. They would try to launch as good an offensive as they could get, or it would be a disaster like the other hastily made operation's they've witnessed from both sides.
 
German goods are not going to "flood" in to the USA if the blockade goes away. OK maybe cuckoo clocks and teddy bears, but German industrial capacity is busy producing stuff for the war effort and they simply won't be producing goods for export. OTL prior to the US entering the war, German companies were doing business and making money in the US via their US subsidiaries. After the DoW the USA seized these subsidiaries, and very importantly their patents (think Bayer, BASF, etc for valuable patents/processes). No war, this doesn't happen which means the profits from these companies in US dollars continue under German control to make purchases in the USA or elsewhere via dollar transfers. Long term, these subsidiaries do not become American owned and run (at least until WWII comes about if it does). As far as other neutrals, other than the USA, selling to the Entente, sell what? Dutch chocolate and Gouda? Norwegian herring? The reality is the goods and raw materials/semi-finished goods (steel) that the USA is selling to the Entente can't be purchased elsewhere in anywhere near the needed quantity and quality. Furthermore, any neutral who is trying to step in to the vacuum is still going to want to be paid - there is now little collateral to pledge, and it is nice to sell at high prices on credit at high interest rates IF you get paid eventually. If financiers or industries in the USA with deep pockets are not going to sell on credit to the Entente because of the risk, who is going to take that risk.

Without the USA in the war, even though for 1917 and early 1918 its logistical and "potential", folks like Greece who are pro-entente but not in the war are going to be reluctant to throw in completely or lean more Entente as now an Entente victory is looking very iffy. A negotiated peace, OK, but in a post war world where Imperial Germany is intact, and actually larger with eastern conquests at a minimum, and an A-H still around and busy digesting Serbia, being a European neutral who is seen as having been too pro-Entente may not be a good thing.

Absent US supplies/money the Entente cannot do a major offensives after summer 1917 and the French mutinies, and absent the US troops (service and combat) they don't have the ability to do major offensives in secondary theaters like the Balkans or Italy. No USA, if anything, means Russia is for sure out as per OTL if not earlier - Kerensky may not be able to try to keep in. In any case the Russians are out. Italy, assuming Caporetto, may decide to exit if they get a fair offer (status quo antebellum or relatively minor adjustments). If Italy and Russia are out, the situation for A-H is markedly improved.

As far as postwar, IMHO there is not going to be a lot of dictating going on on either side. Yes, IMHO, the Entente is weaker but the CP have probably lost the Ottomans and are not going to be strong enough to force much. Facts on the ground are going to be important. In the east, Germany and A-H have what they have and the UK & France are not going to be able to call for a redo on B-L or whatever treaty got the Russians out. If Italy bailed, the same applies. On the other side, Germany and A-H are not going to be able to put the Ottoman Humpty-Dumpty back together. Geography and military reality means Germany loses most of her colonies, to the extent that von Lettow-Vorbeck has done as well or better they might keep something in Africa. The only way France gets Alsace-Lorraine back is if they dictate to Germany, and that is not happening. To the extent the borders change in Western Europe, Germany gains although not every bot they currently occupy. I expect, in this situation, that any cease fire while negotiations go on will include a German demand for things like food and medical supplies to be allowed in through a blockade.

IMHO absent America in the war, the Entente simply does not have the manpower and materiel to defeat the CP (at least Germany and A-H) on the Western Front. They can stand on the strategic defensive (+/- some tactical offensives) for some time, but internal morale and politics well decay. The CP sees victory in the east, probably in the south (Italy) and losing the Ottomans is not going to be an impact internally. Conditions will improve with food etc coming from the east, and the victories will life CP morale.
 
Have to agree with @sloreck

Pretty much what I was getting at, except I think the Entente wouldn't see the writing on the wall right away. I have a feeling they'd try holding on a bit longer, only realising the dire situation when Italy starts negotiating seperately and they still don't have a plan they actually have hopes for.

Then they work on negotiations. I just don't see them instantly giving in upon things turning against them for mostly the first time, and it doesn't look as doom and gloom at first.
 
Because they had eaten the seed corn and slaughtered the meat animals in the East, it would take many years even without a civil war (which of course made it all much worse OTL) to recover from that.

The other big issue is the great transport requirements of overland travel and the road and rail capacity just was not there for what Germany needed. They could take the stuff of the peasants but getting it to the Fatherland was whole magnitude more difficult.

Do you have a source for this statement? I would like to check it please.

Michael
 
One wonders why no one told the German High command how easy victory was if they didn't give that command to submarines.

Until reading this thread I never knew how one decision literally cost Germany the entire war.

Edit : so to answer the op how quick is the collapse of Italy, France and the UK?

A month after the OTL decision to start usw?
Two months?

After Germany marches into Paris what peace do they demand
Because this was spacivicly keep hidden from everybody, hell the treasury books used for this don't stop being state secrets until the middle of the cold war and don't become anything like a wide speed belief until long after ww1 ended, hell the earliest I have been able to find about this is 'War is a racket' and no mader how good of a book it is ,it's still basicly gust a big conspiracy theory book.
 
Do you have a source for this statement? I would like to check it please.

Michael

Which bit the food situation or the transport situation?

For the transport situation you might want to look at any work detailing the resources actually realised from the Central Powers controlled zone in Russia.

"The official history of the war claims that 52 000 tons of grain and feed, 34 000 tons of sugar, 45 million eggs, 39 000 cattle, 53 000 horses and 48 000 hogs and sheep were removed from former Russian territories by October 1918"

The First World War, Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Holger H. Herwig page 386

The same page notes that the AH controlled zone realised only 1/10th of the expected exports of grain in the same period. I will look through some of my texts looking at things from the Russian side but the amount of animals and other foods recorded as being expropriated by the Germans alone were far greater than the numbers above. I'll try and see if I had a source with a good estimate of Russian agricultural resources before that stage of the war.
 
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.
It kinda both political and economic. The war would have lasted another year or so until someone gives up or alliances breaks down. It has happened before. I would say that the US entry was what help lead to the end of the war but if Germany stayed away from getting Mexico involved in the war then the United States would have stayed neutral no matter what.

That's a big what if timeline that was avoided.

As for money, I would say if the US didn't Com to the war at 1917 then Europe would have been in ruined due to this. It takes a lot of money and resources to start getting ready for war but f over time it become a pain to keep it up. Someone would have caved in. Whoever would caved in first would help lead to the end of WWI.
 

Zen9

Banned
As far as the UK goes it has a history of long grinding wars against continental powers. Think of it as a function of naval based war and ultimately of the Alfredian state. Logistics is king so ultimately an infantry based outlook.

While as far as I can tell the likes of Germany looked for quick shock wars. A difference that could be summarised as infantry verse cavalry.

I really don't think that the US flipping to pull the plug on the Entente is a sane long-term decision. Too much will destabilise from this and leave the sort of distrust and suspicion if not outright resentment between the US and UK that only spell trouble for both of them.
Wilson's legacy is hardly a glowing one in harsh light of day. Though I understand the idealism if not the hypocrisy of it.
Imposing sone kind of reverse Versailles (spelling check) is only bound to foster Fascism in the UK and France over perceived humiliation by the US and Germany.

WWII might happen but with very different behaviour by familier states.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
My best guess would be that Italy goes for a separate peace after Caporetto. If they get a status quo ante offer they will take it. Russia might then decide to cut its losses and accepts something along the lines that Poland is gone.

Then it is F,GB against G, AH and the Ottomans.

And France without US imports and the GB in heavy food rationing.

Even if they continue a 1918 German offensive with 1.000k troops more would break the lines of the Entente.

If you wonder where so many troops come from? The 99 divisions that were historically in Russia in 1918, the AH and German troops from the Italian front plus the lower losses 17/18 due to less artillery ammunition produced by F and GB and the avoided losses in Italy and Russia 17/18.

Of course assuming Germany goes for good peace contracts.

My understanding is that in 1918 the Central Powers retained 1 million troops in the East, primarily to ensure the Ukraine & others supplied the foodstuffs required. In this they failed: imports from the Ukraine were way below what was hoped for. I don't see a driver for this to change. meaning the Germans don't have additional manpower for the Western Front, and the food shortage continues.
 
Which bit the food situation or the transport situation?

For the transport situation you might want to look at any work detailing the resources actually realised from the Central Powers controlled zone in Russia.

"The official history of the war claims that 52 000 tons of grain and feed, 34 000 tons of sugar, 45 million eggs, 39 000 cattle, 53 000 horses and 48 000 hogs and sheep were removed from former Russian territories by October 1918"

The First World War, Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Holger H. Herwig page 386

The same page notes that the AH controlled zone realised only 1/10th of the expected exports of grain in the same period. I will look through some of my texts looking at things from the Russian side but the amount of animals and other foods recorded as being expropriated by the Germans alone were far greater than the numbers above. I'll try and see if I had a source with a good estimate of Russian agricultural resources before that stage of the war.


I have Herwigs WW1. Let me know if you find anything else with more detail on the food situation in the Ukraine I would be grateful. Always looking for more.

Michael
 
I have Herwigs WW1. Let me know if you find anything else with more detail on the food situation in the Ukraine I would be grateful. Always looking for more.

Michael

I'll have a good scour...though looking at those figures I feel I should point out there are roughly 57 million hungry mouths to feed. So from the figures above we would find roughly a day's extra ration of bread and one egg per adult German (none left over for children under 15) over six months. I believe you can understand why a lot of folks are sceptical of the occupied territories ability to lift morale and reduce actual malnutrition in Germany. Others though I am left wondering if they have even attempted the maths?
 

Venocara

Banned
Here's my take on things:

If the US don't enter the war in April 1917... nothing much changes until the end of the war.

The Austrians still win Caporetto but lose First Monte Grappa and so can't act on it. They'll still lose Vittorio Veneto.

The Russians will still leave the war and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk will be as OTL.

The Germans' Spring Offensive will still fail (as it will probably be limited in scope due to the lack of the American threat).

The Ottoman front will be exactly as OTL, but the Turks may get more than OTL in the subsequent War of Turkish Independence.

However, after this the peace will come. TTL's Treaty of Versailles will see status quo ante bellum but the German's Eastern gains will be recognised and Italy will get what it did in OTL. Austria-Hungary will likely fall into civil war soon after soon.

P.S. 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.
 
The Austrians still win Caporetto but lose First Monte Grappa and so can't act on it. They'll still lose Vittorio Veneto.

Why would there be a Vittorio Veneto? OTL the Italians only launched it when the Dual Monarchy was clearly falling apart and was in a hopeless military position due to exposure of their long southern border by the collapse of the Macedonian Front. If Germany hasn't knocked herself out by her series of failed offensives, she will be perfectly capable of sending troops to stabilise that front, so the whole situation never arises. If he Italians do attempt it, Germany sends troops there to stem the tide.

The Germans' Spring Offensive will still fail (as it will probably be limited in scope due to the lack of the American threat).

If it is only a limited offensive, it may hot bear any resemblance to OTLs. Frex, they might go for a attack towards Belfort, ejecting the French from the little bit of Alsace that they captured in 1914. This would be a propaganda coup - "All the soil of the Fatherland has now been liberated" - and probably a blow to French morale out of proportion to its military importance, but wouldn't saddle the Germans with those awkward salients which proved so vulnerable in July-August. That in turn means that they save the hundreds of guns that they lost to the Allied counter-attacks, so are in that much better position to see off any Entente offensive.
 
Absent the USA in the war, with masses of US troops flooding in to France, would there even be a Macedonian Front or if there was one, how active would it be. You can't pull troops and resources away from the Western Front to go anywhere else unless you have somebody/something to fill the gaps. US combat forces even by November, 1918, were more often in quiet sectors training for trench warfare than in more active sectors. However every mile of "quiet" front occupied by US forces meant that many front line troops, as well as much of their support that could be rested, used elsewhere, and so forth. Similarly troops/assets replaced in French ports by US service troops could be moved to Salonika or elsewhere to perform those same vital functions. No US service, troops, no available French/British equivalents. If you thin out quiet fronts too much, they soon become active (the Germans are not idiots), if you reduce support troops in France, absent replacement support/supply is hampered.

It seems that evidence is that the Spring Offensives of 1918 were largely prompted by the German conclusion that they had to end things before the literally millions of fresh US forces were ready to go. No USA in the war means the main driver for that offensive is not there. Limited offensives, perhaps, but the bet everything on one roll of the dice, nope. The Germans will know about the French mutinies in summer, 1917, and without "the Americans are coming, stand fast" I expect they will be worse. Limited offensives to deal with salients, or seize specific areas likely, combined with straightening the lines and building up defenses to bleed the Entente even more.

The Entente here has severe financial issues (no unsecured US loans) and manpower issues as well as morale problems especially in the French Army. Because of the situation on the all important Western Front, and the collapse of Russia, while they can defend against any major German offensives (like OTL) they really can't do much offensively leaving Germany in control of key areas of France. As long as Germany and A-H are defensively oriented on the Italian Front, they bleed Italy and lose little, and can take advantage of weakness to be offensive at the right time. Italy is shaky. Germany is gaining resources from the conquered east/Brest-Litovsk gains, the issue is how much that helps on the home front. A-H is shaky but if they are defending against Italy, have no active Eastern Front, and Macedonia is absent or much reduced for reasons described, I expect they can last a good bit longer than OTL.

In sum, the question becomes a morale/political one. Which side sees collapse staring it in the face with political unrest. The CP have victories and basically a one front war now, food/supplies are probably getting better. The Entente has almost all of Belgium occupied, key parts of France occupied and stalemate in front of it with increasing financial pinch and no cavalry riding over the hill for succor. The collapse of the Ottomans, assuming it happens more or less as OTL, the occupation of German colonies are nice, but really not the sort of wins that will re-energize the populace. If the Germans are smart about it, they can start with a less than maximalist bargaining position, and settle for the east and perhaps minor gains in the west, and try and split the UK and France - after all, if Belgium is mostly restored, the UK keeps captured German colonies, they get out not so badly and Britain is not going to see German forces coming ashore... Of course if the Germans are stupid and make the sorts of demands they would in a Diktat, the war drags on longer.
 
While the US participation in combat was relatively short, and they had much to learn about combat, we shouldn't forget the huge psychological boost their arrival gave to the Allies. Recently I was reading "Testament of Youth", written by English nurse Vera Brittain. She describes her first sight of the Americans:


“Only a day or two afterwards I was leaving quarters to go back to my ward, when I had to wait to let a large contingent of troops march past me along the main road that ran through our camp. They were swinging rapidly towards Camiers, and though the sight of soldiers marching was too familiar to arouse curiosity, an unusual quality of bold vigour in their swift stride caused me to stare at them with puzzled interest.

They looked larger than ordinary men; their tall, straight figures were in vivid contrast to the under-sized armies of pale recruits to which we had grown accustomed. At first I thought their spruce, clean uniforms were those of officers, yet obviously they could not be officers, for there were too many of them; they seemed, as it were, Tommies in heaven. Had yet another regiment been conjured from our depleted Dominions? I wondered, watching them move with such rhythm, such dignity, such serene consciousness of self-respect. But I knew the colonial troops so well, and these were different; they were assured where the Australians were aggressive, self-possessed where the New Zealanders were turbulent.

Then I heard an excited exclamation from a group of Sisters behind me.

‘Look! Look! Here are the Americans.!’

I pressed forward with the others to watch the United States physically entering the war, so God-like, so magnificent, so splendidly unimpaired in comparison with the tired, nerve-racked men of the British Army. So these were our deliverers at last, marching up the road to Camiers in the spring sunshine! There seemed to be hundreds of them, and in the fearless swagger of their proud strength they looked a formidable bulwark against the peril looming from Amiens.

…An uncontrollable emotion seized me – as such emotions often seized us in those days of insufficient sleep; my eyeballs pricked, my throat ached, and a mist swam over the confident Americans going to the front. The coming of relief made me realise all at once how long and how intolerable had been the tension, and with the knowledge that we were not, after all, defeated, I found myself beginning to cry.”
 

One egg per person, once in 180 days....will win the war for Germany...got it.

Out of interest while looking rooting around various texts on the relevant portions of Russian history I stopped and looked up the population of Ukraine in the relevant period. Going into the occupation the estimate is for around 30-31million folk, even after the Civil War there were still 27.4 million and yet look at the figures for agricultural produce the Germans realised during the period local resistance was low. In OTL resource yields from the Ukraine did not improve over time but declined as more of the local population joined in active resistance to the predatory efforts of the occupiers.

Then there is this argument about the Macedonian Front which if it were a discussion of how active it was might come across as honest but since the Allies reinforced that front prior to US entry into the War contrary what the about post appears trying to argue and the Serbs and Montenegrins had been there from the literal start of the war seems off.

Long and the short of it that the Entente will be worse of for resources for offensive operation but the Central Powers are still cannibalising themselves in order to hold the line. While we have not even addressed the factor of how long Entente gold supplies would hold and it is assumed that America would cut its own nose off to benefit Germany's face.

It is a questionable contention
 
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