If the US stayed strictly neutral who has the best finances to fund WW1.

Which European power had the economic power to fund this war to the end if the USA decided to no help any participant in Europe.
 
Germany would be able to win. They just defeated the Russians and had the extra personnel and financial resources to overcome the Allies
 

Cueg

Banned
It depends on the events that preceded US neutrality. We cant just say neutral US in 1917. A lot has to happen before that in order to make it possible
 
It depends on the events that preceded US neutrality. We cant just say neutral US in 1917. A lot has to happen before that in order to make it possible

In this scenario the U.S. decides it ain't worth it from day 1.
 

Deleted member 1487

Considering how maimed the French were economically by the initial invasion and how reliant all the Entente was but for the Russians on loans and purchases from the US, clearly the Central Powers were more able to prosecute the war on their own internal resources. By taking out loans with 10-50% collateral value requirements they got many times more value out of their finances than they otherwise would have with just a straight cash and carry style program and without that they'd be basically out of money after financing a muted war effort compared OTL by 1916. In some ways that would actually improve their performance by forcing a tactical solution to their problems that they didn't pursue IOTL due to the weight of materials they could throw at the problem, leading them to ignore the lessons of 'lean' periods before they could get shell and artillery production up to requirement levels. The Hurricane Bombardment was a product of British experience early in 1915 when shells were short, forcing them to rely on surprise and abbreviated shock shelling to get success, which they promptly abandoned when they could do Somme level preparatory bombardments. Later in 1917 they remembered what did work earlier and started adopting that methodology when sheer weight of explosives didn't solve the trench problem (at the cost of many lives of men thrown against German defenses).

Still, even with that they still lose due to lack of resources to fight; France lost almost all of her coal and iron, plus a large part of her best farmland and having to conscript her farmers pretty much meant famine without imports.
 
I would say the CP would be better positioned. But again much depends on exactly how the USA is neutral. No intervention but trade? Only trade wih neutrals? How do they react to the British limitation of trade to the neutrals?

If they are totaly neutral and apply that only as much as pre war is allowed to be shiped (somewhat reminicent of what the British applied to the European neutrals) then I could see the Entente loosing. In what timeframe? I am uncertain but it could be, Imo, anything from 1915 when the munition crisis lingers to later when other factors begin to be more important.
 
Weren't the British the worlds largest international investors prior to WW1? I also believe they already pumped a lot of money into funding the other Allies, chiefly France. I would think they could be able to generate a lot more liquidity than Germany or the other Central Powers if they were forced to.
 
Actual literal neutrality and non-interference, no loans or trade with either side (or conversely trying to trade with BOTH sides), seems to me like it would parallel the events leading to the Quasi War with France and the War of 1812 with Britain. There's no way Britain will allow trading with the CP and no way the CP (ie- U-boats) will allow American shipping to Britain and France. U-boats will cause the US to go after German navy; but Britain would probably close the Canadian borders as retaliation for US trading with the CP. Both could be considered acts of war as they'd both hurt the US economy. In 1917 can the US take on both? No way, but everyone loses. Except- Japan. Japan probably gets closer to the US, needs the manufacturing expertise, needs the raw materials, needs the agriculture. Britain can rule the waves in the Atlantic and keep the US from trading with Europe, but can't in the Pacific against a combination US/Japanese trade if they were even willing to try to embargo the US or keep the US from trading with the Japanese, which the Japanese are Entente anyways. WWII in Europe can be butterflied, but this probably enboldens a stronger Japan to go after European colonies with a more friendly non-interfering US willing to maintain trade. Japan gets farther along before attacking the US which has to eventually happen unless Japan allows free and open trade between the US and Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere and possibly some sort of implicit "Line of Tordesillas that keeps US sphere from Japanese sphere, but the Philippines exists and the US either gives it up for peace or the Japanese allows the US to have such a dagger at its heart, neither is going to acceptable. War eventually happens.
 
There are two issues - one is trade, the other finance. In a sense for at least the first couple of years of the war the US was neutral with respect to trade, the realities of the military situation was that except for a couple of voyages of a merchant sub nothing could get to Germany. However the US did not protest too much the RN blockade of Germany which included everything with food, medical supplies, etc not being allowed which was contrary to accepted practice for distant, as opposed to close, blockade. The key deal was finance. rather rapidly a good deal of the Entente purchases from the US from food to ammunition were made with loans made by US financiers to the Entente nations, subsequently backed by the US government after the US entered the war (an expectation of many of the loaners). Some money was loaned to the Central Powers but not so much. The Entente powers would have had a great deal of difficulty paying for the purchases absent the loans, running down gold reserves to next to nothing and probably incurring significant inflation.

So...no loans to either side will hurt the Entente way more than the Central Powers, and if the USA tells the UK and France that if they don't allow at least "humanitarian" trade with CP, no war related material will be sold to them...
 
............Except- Japan. Japan probably gets closer to the US, needs the manufacturing expertise, needs the raw materials, needs the agriculture. Britain can rule the waves in the Atlantic and keep the US from trading with Europe, but can't in the Pacific against a combination US/Japanese trade if they were even willing to try to embargo the US or keep the US from trading with the Japanese, which the Japanese are Entente anyways. WWII in Europe can be butterflied, but this probably enboldens a stronger Japan to go after European colonies with a more friendly non-interfering US willing to maintain trade. Japan gets farther along before attacking the US which has to eventually happen unless Japan allows free and open trade between the US and Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere and possibly some sort of implicit "Line of Tordesillas that keeps US sphere from Japanese sphere, but the Philippines exists and the US either gives it up for peace or the Japanese allows the US to have such a dagger at its heart, neither is going to acceptable. War eventually happens.
Isn't japan already in the war on the entente side? And if it is why does it need a 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' when it has unlimited access to the GB/FR empires. (+ informal sterling area etc)
 

LordKalvert

Banned
How does the US violate its neutrality in WWI?

They were willing to sell to all buyers- its just that the Germans couldn't get to the US to buy

As for the loans- nothing in international law prohibited a neutral from loaning money to a belligerent. It was a common practice of the time
 
Isn't japan already in the war on the entente side? And if it is why does it need a 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' when it has unlimited access to the GB/FR empires. (+ informal sterling area etc)

Japan joined the Entente relatively late. Japan will join the Entente just to take Germany's Pacific colonies regardless of what the US does, it's almost impossible to butterfly it away. That answers your first question.

Your second question about the co-prosperity sphere. For the exact same reasons it developed the co-prosperity sphere in OTL. I don't understand the question as it isn't asking a difference with the ATL, it's asking a question regarding OTL real history. I think you may have gotten confused in that I drew out the conclusion of what happens from 1914 out to about 1940. So the co-prosperity sphere talk was not about WWI, it was relatively the same period as OTL, in the interwar period. A US non-interference with WWI will have very little butterflies on Japan's history, regardless of what some people on this site like to think about any POD results in wiping out every single human who has been born after it and starting from scratch.
 

Deleted member 1487

Japan joined the Entente relatively late. Japan will join the Entente just to take Germany's Pacific colonies regardless of what the US does, it's almost impossible to butterfly it away. That answers your first question.

Your second question about the co-prosperity sphere. For the exact same reasons it developed the co-prosperity sphere in OTL. I don't understand the question as it isn't asking a difference with the ATL, it's asking a question regarding OTL real history. I think you may have gotten confused in that I drew out the conclusion of what happens from 1914 out to about 1940. So the co-prosperity sphere talk was not about WWI, it was relatively the same period as OTL, in the interwar period. A US non-interference with WWI will have very little butterflies on Japan's history, regardless of what some people on this site like to think about any POD results in wiping out every single human who has been born after it and starting from scratch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_during_World_War_I
Neither Britain nor Japan were part of the Entente; Britain was a friendly power before the war. Japan was Britain's ally since 1912 and hopped into the war in the first week. There is no way it would try its own thing in 1914 because it was too weak to challenge European or American naval power. By 1941 it thought thanks to its ally Germany and its ongoing war it was strong enough to try something like having a Pacific empire, but that was decades later.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
So...no loans to either side will hurt the Entente way more than the Central Powers, and if the USA tells the UK and France that if they don't allow at least "humanitarian" trade with CP, no war related material will be sold to them...

But this isn't neutrality, its a benevolent position towards the CP. Loans were routinely made to combatants- Japan borrows from the US and GB, Germany,France and Austria loan money to Russia during the Manchurian War for example

Direct loans from a Government might be an issue but these are just private loans by private individuals. The US never told Germany that she couldn't borrow or buy in the US The Germans simply couldn't get the goods to Germany.
 
Your second question about the co-prosperity sphere. For the exact same reasons it developed the co-prosperity sphere in OTL. I don't understand the question as it isn't asking a difference with the ATL, it's asking a question regarding OTL real history. I think you may have gotten confused in that I drew out the conclusion of what happens from 1914 out to about 1940. So the co-prosperity sphere talk was not about WWI, it was relatively the same period as OTL, in the interwar period. A US non-interference with WWI will have very little butterflies on Japan's history, regardless of what some people on this site like to think about any POD results in wiping out every single human who has been born after it and starting from scratch.

My point was just that Japan will almost certainly join WWI early on, after that any lesser GB-USA relations only helps Anglo-Japanese relations think WNT negotiations and end of AJA, if they stay allies then Japan is free from any trade sanctions and can buy from GB (+ probably France) any commodities it wants and sell stuff for the European war?
 
My point was just that Japan will almost certainly join WWI early on, after that any lesser GB-USA relations only helps Anglo-Japanese relations think WNT negotiations and end of AJA, if they stay allies then Japan is free from any trade sanctions and can buy from GB (+ probably France) any commodities it wants and sell stuff for the European war?

We can butterfly away the WNT negotions as they won't occur in this ATL. While Wilson OTL fought against a lot of the Japanese demands after WWI, it was thanks to American interference (and lack of interest in any territory) that Japan was given German territory north of the Equator with Australia/Britain south. We may see Britain and France turn on Japan in ATL victory just as they turned on the Arabs Sykes-Picot agreement. Japan's biggest fear was the US entry and seizure of German colonies in the Pacific, in this ATL if they see the US won't ever join and is doing strict neutrality, they won't have that fear. In OTL they spun the war as not "helping a European war" but instead a Pan-Asian "kick out White imperialists" and claimed Germany was the root of all evil in Asia (smart propaganda and the beginning of a Co-prosperity sphere line of thought). ATL this will be taken further and attempts to distance from the Entente will be greater.

In an ATL in which the US does not enter WWI one must assume that Europe, no matter who is victorious, is seen as collectively weaker and more vulnerable than in OTL. Japan seized on that in OTL, they will do even more so in an ATL. The Americans are an obvious place to appease while plotting for a bigger future, as they did to the British in OTL 1910s and 20s. Japan will not be so close to a British/French alliance in this ATL.
 
Germany would be able to win. They just defeated the Russians and had the extra personnel and financial resources to overcome the Allies

The real issue is whether the lack of American reinforcements causes Allied morale to drop during the Kaiserschlacht. If it does, Germany can get a win as the Allies sue for peace during a panic.

However, it must be pointed out that it's mainly an issue of morale at this point. The US troops weren't really needed to prevent the Germans from taking Paris, but knowing the Yanks were coming did much to bolster morale. Furthermore, for all the success of the Spring Offensive IOTL, it failed to achieve any strategic result. Once the Germans knew they had not won the war with a sudden blow, German morale began to collapse.

If Allied morale doesn't collapse, Germany loses the war. There is a reason Germany sued for peace in Autumn 1918 even though the Allies had not entered Germany. It was because the home front had collapse and the German army in a mutinous mood.

You are completely wrong that Germany had the financial resources to overcome the Allies. Its economy was beginning to collapse in 1918 because of the blockade, lack of food, and improper financial management.

Germany and the Central Powers were approaching famine in 1918. There had been food riots as early as 1915.

Industrial strikes were rising.

The German mark had already experienced severe inflation by 1918 although the extent was hidden because the government had stopped publishing various economic data. However, everyone knew they were paying for more for food in 1918 than 1914.

German soldiers had been in so much austerity than during their Spring Offensive, they would stop advancing in order to ransack Allied supply depots for basic necessities. The Germans were using crepe paper instead of bandages for wounds at that point. That is how bad shortages were.

Probably, the best case scenario for the Germans is that Allies are mutually exhausted and agree to a negotiated peace - which is the most likely scenario anyway.
 
The real issue is whether the lack of American reinforcements causes Allied morale to drop during the Kaiserschlacht. If it does, Germany can get a win as the Allies sue for peace during a panic.

However, it must be pointed out that it's mainly an issue of morale at this point. The US troops weren't really needed to prevent the Germans from taking Paris, but knowing the Yanks were coming did much to bolster morale.

It wasn't so much American troops as American money - $7.5 billion in unsecured loans, and all the war material these bought. Given how nip and tuck the 1918 offensives were, esp the first two in the British sector, that could well have been enough to turn the trick.


If Allied morale doesn't collapse, Germany loses the war. There is a reason Germany sued for peace in Autumn 1918 even though the Allies had not entered Germany. It was because the home front had collapse and the German army in a mutinous mood.
Only after it was defeated in the field.

There's an interesting graph in Watson's Ring of Steel which starkly illustrates this. From Spring 1917 through Spring/Summer 1918, save for a brief surge during Third Ypres, only modest numbers of Germans were taken prisoner. Then. from July 1918 onward, the numbers soared, with tens of thousands surrendering every week. Indeed, more than half of all German prisoners captured in WW1 were taken in its last four months. IOW, so long as Germans still saw the war as winnable, by and large they didn't surrender. They only began to do so when they saw their position as hopeless, and their priority changed from winning the war to surviving it. The poor rations and other miseries weren't enough to bring this about. It required outright military defeat.

Had the March-April offensives done a bit better, and the BEF's position begun to look hopeless, there's no particular reason to expect British troops to behave differently. As it was, numbers taken prisoner were high.
 
Well the moral isue is valid. But more in the sense that the USA entry gave hope to the Entente to be able to beat Germany. See the French mutinies that were in part quelled because the USA were in and French leaders could promise no new offensives until they, the USA, would share the burden.

That is not to say, that the material implications were not there. They too played a role. And an important one.

But Imo without the USA entry France may have become the "next weak link" after Russia opted out. As they had relativly minor offensive success in their handling of the war. And so the moral was shaky and the material situation may be worse then OTL.
 
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