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

Entente propaganda efforts in the USA were very good, German efforts were terrible which certainly caused some swing in US public opinion. Absent the Zimmerman Telegram, a direct threat to the USA, and the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare, the USA was not going to jump in to the war because they saw an Entente victory as more favorable than a CP one. Given we can agree, I think, that absent the USA coming in you won't get a Diktat peace from either side, but a peace that, at least in the west, is more or less status quo antebellum, is that really worse for the USA than what happened.

As far as how much comes to the CP from the occupied east, it is a net gain for them, and as well not having active fighting along that front means expenditures of men and materiel there is markedly reduced. Just looking at food, yes the same number of soldiers have to fed, whether they are in the east or west (assume the numbers don't decrease overall) however loss and wastage is reduced, this is always worse in an area of active combat. Will active resistance really be that bad for the Germans? Hard to say.

As far as Macedonia goes, yes the "front" was there. However since the Entente can no longer put anything like the resources in to that front they did OTL, given the terrain and other factors this front will probably be relatively inactive and much less of a bleeding sore for the CP.

Both sides are going to reach a state of exhaustion, and I don't think either side will "win" at least in the west. I don't think the Entente will be able to enforce a reversal of B-L like they did OTL, and I don't think the CP will be able to keep much if any of what they occupy in the west. What happens in the Balkans is murkier (depends on who has the weaker position when they sit down at the table). The Ottomans are toast no matter what absent a CP "win". A-H after the war is a real question, however they won't be cut up by the victors.
 
If Italy and Russia were both to drop out of the war, the British blockade of Germany becomes essentially unsustainable after 1917. Britain and France, with Italy's help, can bottle A-H up in the Adriatic and Germany in the North Sea as links in a military chain. Without essentially half their allies, Britain and France are besieging three sides of a castle. Russia and Italy may hate the Germans and Austrians but they are broke and desperate and Germany and Austria's supply situation can only improve.
 
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

There is this odd assertion in this discussion that the British Empire was out of economic assets in 1917, which doesn't square with their fate postwar, and compares weirdly to their status in 1940 (when the Empire was actually broke). As you note, the grim fate that waits the Western powers is... that they might get as hungry as Germany.
 
There is this odd assertion in this discussion that the British Empire was out of economic assets in 1917, which doesn't square with their fate postwar, and compares weirdly to their status in 1940 (when the Empire was actually broke). As you note, the grim fate that waits the Western powers is... that they might get as hungry as Germany.
Unlike in the early 40s there's no USSR that Germany is about to invade to fight for Britain and no Japanese attack will bring the USA into the war (well... Japan at this time is in the British camp, so this scenario would be really bad).
 

Deleted member 1487

There is this odd assertion in this discussion that the British Empire was out of economic assets in 1917, which doesn't square with their fate postwar, and compares weirdly to their status in 1940 (when the Empire was actually broke). As you note, the grim fate that waits the Western powers is... that they might get as hungry as Germany.
No one said the Empire was out of economic resources, instead that largely it was simply too far to be a source for Britain for the war in Europe. There is a reason they spent themselves to the point of nearly having to leave the gold standard and experience brutal inflation of the pound to source from the US. The distances to the economic resources of the empire mean that the shipping situation becomes unsustainable and means the end of the convoy system, which in turn makes non-USW viable and even more deadly than before (as each ship is more valuable due to the extra distances it has to travel and time it would take to get the resources it hauls, while wear and tear on ships and crew is doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling depending on the extra distance they need to travel, which reduces turn around time).

That's just the British empire, which of the Entente is the best provisioned of them. France doesn't have the colonial resources of Britain, nor the financial ones, while domestically they really don't have anywhere near the iron and coal to run a peace time economy, let alone a wartime one given that their key deposits are on the German side of the line. Russia by 1917 is already on the path to exit and would be even quicker to do so without foreign imports. Italy is even worse off and will probably be the first to do when their war economy implodes given their lack of empire and domestic raw materials. So while Britain could muddle on defensively, her allies are unable to run their war economies and politically are already teetering on the edge of exiting the war as of Spring 1917. What's Britain going to do fighting alone against the CPs with no land fronts?
 
Unlike in the early 40s there's no USSR that Germany is about to invade to fight for Britain and no Japanese attack will bring the USA into the war (well... Japan at this time is in the British camp, so this scenario would be really bad).

Creatively missing the point. The argument made by a lot of posters and Maynard Keynes at the time was that Britain was flat broke and had not more than however long it would take people to forget he had declared this before the next time he declared there was only this length of time's worth of gold in the bank. The problem is that this does not square with known outcomes OTL.
 
The UK required massive loans from the USA to finance the Entente (both itself and France and Italy for starts). Initially purchases were made for cash, and then loans using hard collateral. Only after the USA entered the war were unsecured loans made (actually secured by the US government). Sure there was gold in the vaults of the Bank of England, but remember the UK was on the gold standard so each sterling certificate represented a chunk of that gold. Was the government to use the physical gold for purchases, that would automatically devalue the pound.
 

Deleted member 1487

Why is Italy dropping out again? Did this ever come close to happening?
Yes. They very nearly quit the war IOTL with the US in during Caporetto. That's with the financial problems solved; IOTL as of March 1917 the Brits were preparing to cancel all Italy war orders (the Brits handled foreign purchasing because they got the best rates for the alliance), without which Italy could not continue to fight. So assuming they even stay in until late 1917 ITTL they will definitely leave after being defeated.
 

Venocara

Banned
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.

German troops were heavily involved in Caporetto and First Monte Grappa. At that latter battle, Italian troops were outnumbered 120-51 and yet they still won and stabilised that front. The same thing would definitely happen.


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.

But pushing onto Paris in those conditions to end the war would be too big of an ask. That’s why the war would still end around when it did in OTL (possibly even slightly earlier) but with much better terms for the Germans. The Austrians will still collapse.
 
German troops were heavily involved in Caporetto and First Monte Grappa. At that latter battle, Italian troops were outnumbered 120-51 and yet they still won and stabilised that front. The same thing would definitely happen.

With what munitions? I believe everyone's agreed that at a minimum, there'd be a significant reduction in explosives without American imports, and if the Entente needs to ration their shells, then fronts like Italy and Macedonia will almost certainly feel them more acutely than the French. Artillery caused 3/4ths of casualties in WW1 from what I remember, so losing two-fifths of your shells, which was the American share RodentRevolution cited earlier, would leave your army inflicting only 70 percent as many casualties as it used to. Also, you're extrapolating offensive success from one defensive victory. I think the issue with that is self-explanatory.
 

Venocara

Banned
With what munitions? I believe everyone's agreed that at a minimum, there'd be a significant reduction in explosives without American imports, and if the Entente needs to ration their shells, then fronts like Italy and Macedonia will almost certainly feel them more acutely than the French. Artillery caused 3/4ths of casualties in WW1 from what I remember, so losing two-fifths of your shells, which was the American share RodentRevolution cited earlier, would leave your army inflicting only 70 percent as many casualties as it used to. Also, you're extrapolating offensive success from one defensive victory. I think the issue with that is self-explanatory.

Most of the casualties at Vittorio Veneto were captures anyway, only 30,000 out of 528,000 were kills. Therefore, they still could have pulled out a decisive victory, if not as decisive as it was OTL.
 
German troops were heavily involved in Caporetto and First Monte Grappa. At that latter battle, Italian troops were outnumbered 120-51 and yet they still won and stabilised that front. The same thing would definitely happen.

Stabilise the front sure. That is not at all the same thing as knocking Austria out.

But pushing onto Paris in those conditions to end the war would be too big of an ask. That’s why the war would still end around when it did in OTL (possibly even slightly earlier) but with much better terms for the Germans. The Austrians will still collapse.

Not as long as Germany is in a position to prop them (and the Bulgarians) up.

All the Central Powers were defeated in France and Belgium, when Germany became so hard-pressed there that she was unable to send forces to aid the others . Had she been less hard-pressed she would have been able to do this, and so keep them in the war. The Entente might overrun an Austrian (or Turkish) province or two, but there was no way any of the CPs could be knocked out unless/until Germany herself was on the ropes.

There was much fantasising in Entente circles about "knocking away the props", but this was based on a false premise. It was in fact Germany who propped her allies up, not vice versa. If/when she collapsed, they would of course go down with her - but only then. There was no way they could be detached from Germany while she was still holding her own.
 
Most of the casualties at Vittorio Veneto were captures anyway, only 30,000 out of 528,000 were kills. Therefore, they still could have pulled out a decisive victory, if not as decisive as it was OTL.

Captures generally come after an army gives up a battle as lost. Why would the KuK be nearly so pessimistic without the context of a failed Spring Offensive, and against a worse-supplied enemy? Actually, that's the one word that sums up what's off about your argument, context. You assume Vittorio Veneto was the default of what must have come of an Italian offensive in 1918, and ignore all the external factors that brought about that victory besides improvements in Italian leadership.
 
I was going through JSTOR last night and found a useful article, ‘Soviet Agricultural Policies in the Ukraine and the 1921-1922 Famine’. It has details on the state of the Ukraine going back to pre-war. The key take away for me was that the Soviets and Germans got roughly the same percentage output of agricultural products out of the Ukraine; 6% of expected. The key reason given was that the Germans and Soviets had annoyed the Ukrainian farmers through confiscation of grain. The farmers hide their produce, under planted, left it to rot, etc. The Germans got roughly 65,000 tons of Grain out of the Ukraine in 1918. It appears that until the Soviets ran the Ukraine into the ground in 1922 there was enough grain held back to plant next years crop; if at reduced size. Marked drop of in yields which was fairly normal in Central and Eastern Europe during the war and right after it.

Its an interesting question what the yield out of the Ukraine would have been with another year under German / Hapsburg control. Over time Poland got better, not pre-war but better. I would like to think same would have happened in Ukraine. Also German occupation force was 16 divisions for Ukraine split into 6 Army Corps.

Michael
 
With what munitions? I believe everyone's agreed that at a minimum, there'd be a significant reduction in explosives without American imports, and if the Entente needs to ration their shells, then fronts like Italy and Macedonia will almost certainly feel them more acutely than the French. Artillery caused 3/4ths of casualties in WW1 from what I remember, so losing two-fifths of your shells, which was the American share RodentRevolution cited earlier, would leave your army inflicting only 70 percent as many casualties as it used to. Also, you're extrapolating offensive success from one defensive victory. I think the issue with that is self-explanatory.

You do realise that turn around time for shipping across the Atlantic was 105 days? Then there are further slow downs in the chain and yes not the entire supply of Entente munitions came from the USA but even the stuff that did took rather more than six months to reach the front. The slow down in Entente purchases is not happening much before May even in the posited worst case scenario.
 
You do realise that turn around time for shipping across the Atlantic was 105 days? Then there are further slow downs in the chain and yes not the entire supply of Entente munitions came from the USA but even the stuff that did took rather more than six months to reach the front. The slow down in Entente purchases is not happening much before May even in the posited worst case scenario.

Plenty of time to affect a battle in late October 1918, then.
 
You mean the stuff that arrives for the battle has still been purchased on time in this scenario.

Minus whatever gets earmarked for France instead in light of the broader supply situation. The poster I was addressing apparently believes the Italians could still have won decisively even without artillery. Maybe without guns in general, who knows.
 
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