Even with millions of American troops in Europe?
Yes, because the Anglo-French were at their breaking point and to end German resistance would require casualties beyond what I think the American public would be willing to take. To get an idea of what I mean, here is an excerpt from Paddy Griffiths's
The Great War on the Western Front: A Short History (Pg. 128):
However, what Pershing overlooked was that ever since 1871 Metz had been fortified to at least the same standard that the French had applied to Verdun during the same period. To attack Metz in 1919 would have been equivalent to selecting the very strongest point in the enemy line on which to beat one's head.
By the time Verdun had occurred, the French had the benefit of nearly two years of trench warfare and still managed to take 300-500k casualties; the American experience to this point only consisted of a few months of action primarily in the relatively fluid environment of the Hundred Days. This is a recipe for disaster once they butt up against such stout defenses, one which will have major political consequences.
As far as the Anglo-French go,
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World, by Margaret MacMillan:
Pg 158:
Among the Allied leaders only General Pershing, the top American military commander, thought the Allies should press on, beyond the Rhine if necessary. The French did not want anymore of their men to die. Their chief general, Marshal Foch, who was also the supreme Allied commander, warned that they ran the risk of stiff resistance and heavy losses. The British wanted to make peace before the Americans became too strong. And Smuts spoke for many in Europe when he warned gloomily that "the grim spectre of Bolshevist anarchy was stalking the front."
Expanding on that Smuts quote, is important to note that there
had been large mutinies among the Australians back in September and
that there was reoccurring unrest and mutiny in the Royal Navy throughout 1919.
With regards to German morale, John Keegan in his book
The First World War (Pg 421) states that:
The army at the front, after its brief morale collapse in late September, when troops returning from the trenches had taunted those going up with cries of "strike breakers", had indeed recovered something of its old spirit and was contesting the advance of the Allies towards the German frontier. In Flanders, where water obstacles were plentiful, the French were held up, to Foch's irritation, for some time.
He later states that (Pg 423):
by the first week of November, therefore, the German Empire stood alone as a combatant among the war's Central Powers. Under pressure from the French, British, Americans and Belgians, the army's resistance stiffened as it feel back across the battlefields of 1914 towards Belgium and the German frontier. There was hard fighting at the rivers and canals, casualties rose-among the penultimate fatalities was the British poet, Wilfred Owen, killed at the crossing of the River Sambre on 4 November-and the war, to the Allied soldiers battling at the front, seemed to threaten to prolong.
Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 by Alexander Watson notes on pg. 210 that Crown Prince Rupprecht (Commander of the 7th Army) and
Generaloberst Karl von Einem (Commander of the 3rd Army and former Prussian War Minister) both do not mention desertion as becoming an issue until October. He further states that there is no evidence for mass numbers of deserters until the last three or four weeks of the war, at which time the
OHL had to reinforce the military police with five squadrons of cavalry. Even still, Watson decisively refutes the notion that there was a million deserters by the time of the Armistice and further notes that little desertion was occurring by the combat units at the front who were resisting quite strongly as Keegan wrote. Going into 1919, the Germans had managed to crush their own Bolshevists by June. In February, the Freikorps had managed to likewise defeat the Poles and reclaim Poznan until Entente pressure forced them to pull out once more. Likewise, a force of about 50,000 under General von der Goltz had managed to occupy the Baltic states and eject the Red Army; Entente pressure on Berlin forced them to return large numbers of von der Goltz's troops, while British supplies and naval gunfire support allowed the Balts to kick the reduced force out soon after. I think all of this, quite clearly, shows the Germans were more than able to fight it out morale wise.
