The problem with the Entente being nastier is that that could lessen American interest (economic and diplomatic) in them. That could lead to less support and break the OP. At least in the diplomatic sense and until the Entente runs out of money and colateral.
Keeping the US out of WW1 militarily
- Thread starter Alexander the Average
- Start date
If there's no Zimmermann Telegram then the United States don't enter the war. Given US politics, however, anything more than the loans they gave the Entente and trading with them is highly unlikely unless the CPs play the idiot ball in some other way.
That's not as easy for the simple reason the Entente was not fighting on ennemy territory.
Germany was fighting on Belgium and French soil, therefore some trouble was bound to happen away from the frontline cause such is war.
I don't know how much is propaganda and how much is real though (raping of nuns, eating of children...]
Those were largely myth, though I suppose it's conceivable that some individual nun might have got raped at some time. It certainly wasn't a regular thing.
That said, the truth was bad enough, at Louvain and elsewhere some horrible things were done. However, the Russian invasion of East Prussia (and of Galicia the next month) wasn't very pretty either - just less written about.
Though this is not impossible.
I get the impression that by 1917 the Germans had developed a strong personal animus against President Wilson, seeing him as a busybody who lectured them on how that could or couldn't make war, while blithely selling arms to their enemies. Viz that angry marginal note by the Kaiser when someone suggested leaving American ships alone.
Also, some at least of them thought that he was bluffing. When Zimmerman said goodbye to Ambassador and Mrs Gerard, he consoled them with the assurance that Wilson would never fight. And Ludendorff responded to a worried subordinate with the opinion that Wilson was all mouth, and would talk endlessly but never act.
Hughes, by contrast, was an unknown quantity, and the Germans might have trodden more warily with him. Had Wilson died as the election returns were coming in, that might also have been true with regard to President Marshall.
Part of the problem for the Germans was the British, quite sensibly, severing the Trans-Atlantic cables that ran from Germany to the US making it possible for the British and French to control what information got out fastest to the Americas. You need to get around this comms blockade to help the Germans out morally as even if they do fight squeaky clean they still have a far more limited means for getting their side of the story to the US public.
Perhaps the German high command simply didn't understand Wilson's mentality (who can blame them, the whole American Exceptionalism thing is still pretty hard to understand for europeans). They thought in the mindset of 19th century imperialistic Europe where a.) everyone picked sides and competed and b.) economic and financial support was always tied directly to the government.
In contrast, Wilson saw the US as outside any form of 19th century competition. The loands that flowed to the entente came from private backers and were not part of a concerted effort by the US government to back up the Entente. But if you told the German high command that, they probably wouldn't have believed you. They weren't exactly the most open minded people, after all.
What are you talking about? Wilson was the proponent of "peace without victory" and actively stopped further loans going out to the Entente. He wanted the war to be over without victory of either side so Europe would learn to leave it's barbaric ways (in his view) behind. Until the Zimmerman telegram, the last thing he wanted was American intervention. Arguably, he still didn't want american intervention afterwards, which is one of the reasons why the peace failed to hold.
moving away from the politics of it all.. what if, right out of the gate at the start of the war, the allies manage to really cream the German navy and find some way to sink a lot of submarines (I have no idea what's possible with the tech around at that time)... if there's no real danger at sea, then the excuses for the US going to war go down a lot...
Cryhavoc101
Donor
I think the only way you can butterfly US Military intervention in WW1 is to have a greater Entente series of Victory's by 1916
So perhaps some or all of the following:
Verdun is more successful for the French and less so for the Germans meaning that the Somme offensive does not have to be conducted before the British Army is ready or a more limited offensive is undertaken later.
The CP take greater losses vs the Russians / the Russians are more successful and Romania does not get involved.
Russia does not fall to revolution or does so later
The Gallipoli campaign works or forces the Turks to the Negotiating table by 1916 effectively removing them from the CPs
The Entente focus more on the main Western Front Theatre i.e. does not have .5 million men in the Balkans doing sweet FA
The Grand fleet and the HSF clash at 17:30 on the 31st May and sunset proves to be too far away for the majority of the HSF to escape......
You get the picture
So perhaps some or all of the following:
Verdun is more successful for the French and less so for the Germans meaning that the Somme offensive does not have to be conducted before the British Army is ready or a more limited offensive is undertaken later.
The CP take greater losses vs the Russians / the Russians are more successful and Romania does not get involved.
Russia does not fall to revolution or does so later
The Gallipoli campaign works or forces the Turks to the Negotiating table by 1916 effectively removing them from the CPs
The Entente focus more on the main Western Front Theatre i.e. does not have .5 million men in the Balkans doing sweet FA
The Grand fleet and the HSF clash at 17:30 on the 31st May and sunset proves to be too far away for the majority of the HSF to escape......
You get the picture
Not really. Greater Entente success makes the Germans more likely to gamble on unrestricted sub warfare, not less.
I'd have thought the best way was to have the Russian Revolution a few months earlier, so that USW seems less needful, and no USW means no US intervention.
Trouble is that any "terms" they were offered would be way too severe to be accepted short of a total collapse - which at that point is highly unlikely.
THE turn of 1916/1917 was - militarily speaking - the high tide of the CPs - throwing the towel when you just showed that the Hochseeflotte can meat the RN and actually come out ahead in terms of sunk tonnage (Jutland), weather the best the Entente can bring against you (Somme) and at the same time knock out Romania on the Eastern Front. Inconceivable!
THE best you can expect is that after the Somme the Germans really believe that "winning" (on the Western Front) is near impossible. Add an earlier death of Franz Joseph with Karl being like OTL - he thinks only peace can save the Empire. So (before Romania declares war and is beaten easily) the CPs make a "reasonable" peace offer the Entente is inclined to consider - add US being middleman (economic interest - Entente slowly runs out of money/collateral, but the CPs still have gold to buy ...)
That's more or less what they did believe until the Russian Revolution shifted the goalposts. That's why they gambled on USW.
However, that's just the point. Such a belief won't make them "throw in the towel" but the precise opposite. They'll look for a way (eg USW) to break the deadlock in their favour.
Trouble is that even the most "moderate" German offer will be unacceptable to the Entente. As of late 1916 the CP has all the chips, since they stand on enemy soil almost everywhere. As Field Marshall Robertson put it, Britain would face "going into a peace conference with Togoland as our only bargaining counter".
And since the populations on both sides had been "psyched up" to believe that the survival of civilisation was on the line, any deal acceptable to the other side would be interpreted as defeat, and bring down the government that accepted it.
Preferring England to Germany is not at all the same thing as being willing to go to war for her. It took USW to do that.
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One of the reasons why Ireland OTL went after some of its citizens who volunteered in other countries despite the ban was that having a government claim neutrality but do nothing (or in your example, tacitly approve) of a large number of their citizens serving in foreign armies will simply give an excuse to be treated as a beligerent.
Lip service can only go so far which is why when government do this sort of things, you usualy end up with what amount to mercenaries being hired via "private contractors" by another government after their discharged. Even then, you're usualy talking about smallish unit (relatively speaking) who are largely in charge of training or support.