Realistic Consequence of America not entering the Great War?

67th Tigers

Banned
I'm referring to the Mesopotamian theater, and have been the whole time, in the assumption that one so grandiloquently and magnificently enlightened about British military might was aware of this part of the British plan, which has direct relevance to the fate of the Ottoman Empire.

In message 93 you wrote: "The only way the British could have sustained war into 1919 would have been to dramatically escalate Indian involvement" - in a conversation about the western front.

Since then you've been backpedalling. Are you willing to concede your initial notion was ill judged and incorrect or do we have to keep going?
 
In this scenario, it shouldn't end up that bad for the Entente. At the very least there'd be an independent Hedjaz, I'd wager, but the Ottomans would surely still have territory to Mosul. If they're lucky they might be able to keep Baghdad or Damascus, depending on how things played out.



Where does Ibn Saud fit in?

If Britain is more deeply committed to Hejaz than OTL, that seems liable to push him into the Turkish (hence German) camp, so that when Saudi Arabia emerges it's likely to be hostile.

I don't really see how Britain gets Damascus. Having lost (or at best not clearly won) the Great War, her prestige has taken a big knock. Ireland is certainly in revolt, and India at least restive, esp if the Amritsar Massacre gets butterflied forward a year or two. She'll be struggling to keep the Empire she has, never mind expanding it.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Russians didn't seem to think it was over given they were busy fighting each other and agreed to a peace to buy time for that war first.
The Russian Civil War is irrelevant to Germany, at least until after the Great War is settled. The lands that germany was ceded were not involved in the Civil War until after WW1 was over anyway.

Though as I understand it virtually all of Germany's Cavalry divisions were left in Russia. This may have been a mistake, since though cavalry wasn't a lot of use in trench warfare, once things got mobile it could help turn retreat into rout by capturing fleeing men. If Ludendorff managed to "chop a hole" he needed something that could pass thrugh it at significantly more than walking pace.

I'll have to check Zabecki's work later when I have more time. He covers this in detail; IIRC those cavalry divisions were dismounted, but I might be mistaken. Part of the problem was that the horses were needed to supply infantry divisions, but the lack of mobility was a major problem that Zabecki criticizes Ludendorff for. Still, given how badly the French cavalry fared in operation Michael, its unlikely that the German cavalry would have been able to hold off the Australians at Amiens until the infantry showed up. Still, as it was the Germans should have been able to take Amiens without cavalry anyway, but Ludendorff made some REALLY shitty decisions during Kaiserschlacht that cost Germany the war.
 
In message 93 you wrote: "The only way the British could have sustained war into 1919 would have been to dramatically escalate Indian involvement" - in a conversation about the western front.

Since then you've been backpedalling. Are you willing to concede your initial notion was ill judged and incorrect or do we have to keep going?

Perhaps the problem is the assumption that war equals Western Front. It was called World War I for a reason, and I'm sure one so educated and knowledgeable of British military might is aware that the British were not just fighting on the Western Front. :)
 

Deleted member 1487

Though as I understand it virtually all of Germany's Cavalry divisions were left in Russia. This may have been a mistake, since though cavalry wasn't a lot of use in trench warfare, once things got mobile it could help turn retreat into rout by capturing fleeing men. If Ludendorff managed to "chop a hole" he needed something that could pass thrugh it at significantly more than walking pace.

They were dismounted and immobile in 1918. The German horses were underfed and weak and had a hard time negotiating the fields of battle on the Western Front, which is partly why the Allies also dismounted most their cavalry by this point in the war. I'm not sure that the Germans would have been better off having mounted cavalry, especially when they had no staying power when fighting infantry. It could have had some uses, but overall it was probably better to have those horses for transport, especially given the vast mortality rate among horses in the 1918 offensives.
 
I'll have to check Zabecki's work later when I have more time. He covers this in detail; IIRC those cavalry divisions were dismounted, but I might be mistaken. Part of the problem was that the horses were needed to supply infantry divisions, but the lack of mobility was a major problem that Zabecki criticizes Ludendorff for. Still, given how badly the French cavalry fared in operation Michael, its unlikely that the German cavalry would have been able to hold off the Australians at Amiens until the infantry showed up. Still, as it was the Germans should have been able to take Amiens without cavalry anyway, but Ludendorff made some REALLY shitty decisions during Kaiserschlacht that cost Germany the war.


I didn't envisage them holding off anyone, but rather chivvying along troops that were already running, so that more were captured, while the remainder had to run even faster and further than OTL. And the BEF couldn't fall back much further than OTL without losing Amiens and other crucial points.

Agree entirely about Ludendorff. He was so stressed out in Spring 1918 that I wonder if we can even call him sane. Of course, the US was an important factor there. He was racing against the clock, needing to get a decisive victory before American manpower made his situation hopeless. Without that pressure he may well have a much cooler head.
 

Deleted member 1487

I didn't envisage them holding off anyone, but rather chivvying along troops that were already running, so that more were captured, while the remainder had to run even faster and further than OTL. And the BEF couldn't fall back much further than OTL without losing Amiens and other crucial points.
That might be harder than you think. I've been reading several sources on the fighting during Michael and it seems that the British stood up and fought repeatedly in retreat, rather than just run away. The German infantry had to fight repeated hard battles as they went on and broke their foe again and again. There were some instances of British and French running away south of the Somme though, but that was generally when their ammunition was gone, in the case of the French not having arrived at all, and their artillery already having been overrun. When the artillery survived it held off the Germans with open sights firing and Lewis Guns.
I'm not sure the cavalry would have been able to exploit much before March 26th-28th when the way to Amiens lay open, but Ludendorff sent the 18th army south against the French.

Agree entirely about Ludendorff. He was so stressed out in Spring 1918 that I wonder if we can even call him sane. Of course, the US was an important factor there. He was racing against the clock, needing to get a decisive victory before American manpower made his situation hopeless. Without that pressure he may well have a much cooler head.
My read on Ludendorff was that he was in over his head. He was very emotional, even during Tannenberg having a breakdown, a reaction that was repeated throughout just about every tense moment in the war if Hoffman is to believed. Ludendorff was an over-promoted infantry colonel that made bad decisions when not supported by his ideas man, Max Hoffman. His whole 'chop a hole and the rest will follow, that is the way we did it in Russia' line smacks of amateurishness. Hindenburg was not interested in anything other than the lime-light, while Ludendorff had too much conflicting advice about what to do and had no concepts of his own other than to let tactical success decide the strategy.

Also his insane fixation on winning a complete victory let the opportunity to negotiate a peace slip by repeatedly, even after the US entered the war, because he would not let Belgium be independent after the war, thus losing everything in the end. I doubt a 'clear head', whatever that would have been for Ludendorff, would improve his decision making.
 
Operation Micheal was a last ditch effort by the Germans to knock France out of the war before the American soldiers arrived and bolstered the front lines which would make such an attack impossible. When the attack was over they were completely spent force and the Americans simply meant the Entente had a numerical AND technoligical advantage.

That "completely spent" German force inflicted more than a million additional casualties on the Entente after Operation Michael.

Well before Operation Michael, the Nivelle offensive cost the French about 120,000 casualties to about 40,000 for the Germans. This led directly to the French Army mutinying and command promising no more offensives until the Americans arrive.

Except in TTL, there aren't any Americans coming. If the Entente is going to go on the offense and win, the British are going to have to do it without American or French support. That means in the 100 Days Offensive the British are going to be taking 650,000 million more casualties before they win. The word Pyrrhic comes to mind.
 
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