On a scale of 1 to 100, how much would you give to WWI and WWII belligerents?

Redbeard

Quibble on a couple of minor points.
a) They had huge potential. It's just that for most of the war this wasn't being used militarily and it was only just starting to come into place by the armistice.

b) Again the ~1.8M troops in France, a lot of whom were still in training I believe were actually less important than the other forces that would be following them in breaking German will and ability to continue.

Given the original conditions, which referred to nations actually military impact I would agree that a lot of people are over-estimating the US in WWI, probably failing to separate that from their much greater involvement in WWII. However if you actually considered potential as well as actual activity they would be substantially far more prominent.

Steve

By late WWII USA probably had something like 50% of the planet's war potential, but I think many have grosly overrated USA in WWI.

For most of the war they had no potenial at all, and when USA weighed in from summer of 1918, there was no chance of the Central powers winning any more, but the 1 million + US Army in France made odds so overwhelming for the Entente, that it made it practically possible to enforce the Versailles Treaty upon Germany (no matter of Wilson's sweet talk). I.e. had USA not taken part in WWI, Germnay would still have lost, but would have had a more fair armistice - i.e. less likelyhood of the nazis and WWII - but you can of course call that some kind of war potential ;)

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Redbeard

Quibble on a couple of minor points.
a) They had huge potential. It's just that for most of the war this wasn't being used militarily and it was only just starting to come into place by the armistice.

b) Again the ~1.8M troops in France, a lot of whom were still in training I believe were actually less important than the other forces that would be following them in breaking German will and ability to continue.

Given the original conditions, which referred to nations actually military impact I would agree that a lot of people are over-estimating the US in WWI, probably failing to separate that from their much greater involvement in WWII. However if you actually considered potential as well as actual activity they would be substantially far more prominent.

Steve

Agreed. It's really tough to assess the US in WWI; they used French weapons, trained with broomsticks, etc.

I think that potentially the USA was the strongest country in the world in WWI; taking the sizes of the population, industrial base, and natural resources. However US involvment in the war was so brief that it is very difficult to say that for sure.

Mike Turcotte
 
Redbeard

Quibble on a couple of minor points.
a) They had huge potential. It's just that for most of the war this wasn't being used militarily and it was only just starting to come into place by the armistice.

b) Again the ~1.8M troops in France, a lot of whom were still in training I believe were actually less important than the other forces that would be following them in breaking German will and ability to continue.

Though as I understand it they took over a lot of quiet sectors in Lorraine, releasing more seasoned troops for the sectors that really mattered. "They also serve - " and all that.

This is the whole problem with trying to "rate" the participants. A major war is just too darned complicated for that to be really possible, except in the crudest way.


Given the original conditions, which referred to nations actually military impact I would agree that a lot of people are over-estimating the US in WWI, probably failing to separate that from their much greater involvement in WWII. However if you actually considered potential as well as actual activity they would be substantially far more prominent.
Steve

And any assessment that confines itself to purely military performance (ie the AEF) is hugely misleading, as it ignores the far more important economic (and naval) role of the US - not to mention its impact on morale, which was getting low by 1917
 

Redbeard

Banned
Agreed. It's really tough to assess the US in WWI; they used French weapons, trained with broomsticks, etc.

I think that potentially the USA was the strongest country in the world in WWI; taking the sizes of the population, industrial base, and natural resources. However US involvment in the war was so brief that it is very difficult to say that for sure.

Mike Turcotte

In the papers we can each day read about how China is growing and will eventually will be the planet's dominating power. IF that happens some day, then we must conclude that China had the potential all the time, also during WWI, it just took some time to develop!

Perhaps we can only conclude, that the strongest power at doomsday had the greatest potential, the rest are just loosers!?

Sure the USA at WWI had the potential that eventually developed during WWII, but it never had a significant influence on WWI, and in that context it ranges at level with potential from China, Brazil, San Marino or whoever will have a future.

BTW Russia had the greatest economic growth rate in the world just before WWI, it had a rapidly growing industry, a huge population and army, martial tradition - and was in foot march distance from central Europe. If that isn't potential I don't know potential!?

That potential was wasted in the extremely bloody battles on the eastern front 1914-17 however and it shows how flimsy a matter potential is. Imagine the WWI US Army taking the beating the French army did in WWI - how much potential would have been left?

In short potential is only interesting if it can be transformed into capacity or effect inside the actual timeframe. USA did that overwhelmingly in WWII but not very much in WWI. IMHO powers like Germany, France, UK, Russia, A-H, Italy and Ottomans each had more potential in WWI than USA, but in WWII USA had more than them all combined.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
I find it interesting that the Netherlands is always almost equally rated to Belgium. I find this interesting because the Netherlands did have a much larger navy than Belgium. They fought rather well both against the nazis as well against the japs. When the Netherlands surrendered the most dense populated part in the west still was not conquered by the nazis, the only reason they gave up after 5 days was the terror bombardment on Rotterdam. The airforce although small did a good job downing quite an amount of aircraft. After the Dutch campaign germanies paratroop capacity was completely gone, and had to be totally rebuilt (they lost like 400 transportplanes, total loss like 500 planes).

Although i discovered this post only late, it might be a suggestion to look at some of the neutrals in WW1 for your scenarios as both the Netherlands and Sweden tended both to be neutral but in favour of Germany.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Are you really suggesting this is all the US did? Really? I know it doesnt fit it into the "evil yankee capitalist rightists let the glorious workers of the Soviet Union do all the hard work whilst they got rich" image that some left wingers seem to have of WW2, but that is completely untrue. Unless of course the 150,000 or so dead Americans in the European theatre were just Canadians pretending to be American

I get the feeling I'm being misread by american nationalists. Look what I was replying to. Add sarcasm. Also, 150,000 dead is tragic, but it's still proportionnally dwarfed by absolutely everyone in Europe - even Albania, a tiny nation of 1,5 million people, lost a quarter of that in partisans killed by Italy/Germany/the fascist government of Italian Albania.
 

Tannhäuser

Banned
We'd need a formula based on population, I think, with modifiers for variable industrial power, scientific ability and finally raw military power.

Yes. Also, shouldn't the values be proportional, in that if you add up the values of one side, and they match the sum of the values of the other side, then they should tie? Considering that WWI was quite up in the air really until the US entered, shouldn't the values of the two sides add up to roughly the same (at least after Russia's is subtracted). Most people seem to be giving Britain the same strength as Germany. If that were true, WWI would have ended a lot earlier. Even more ridiculous is giving Britain the same or close to the same strength as Germany in WWII. There's no way they were comparable (yeah, I know, Sea Lion couldn't have worked, but Germany was still definitely superior). Also in the same vein, I think people are rating the lower-tier powers too highly. 35 for Italy vs. 90 for Germany? Three Italies could not beat Germany. Ten probably couldn't, either. The values people assign should be universally applicable and recombinant (in that they should be able to predict the outcomes of hypothetical wars).

Also, with regards to the US in WWI (and perhaps other countries in other cases), maybe two values should be given: one for the strength it had in the war, and one for the strength it could have had in the war had it really wanted to (for instance, if Germany were to invade the country). Most countries in these lists were mobilizing most or all of their potential for the war effort, but, at least in WWI, the US was really holding back. Furthermore, values should reflect the ability of a country to win a war that went somewhat differently. Just because the US had only half a year to fight doesn't mean it wouldn't have more in an ATL, and that needs to be taken into account.
 
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