United States Joining The Central Powers?

It's a common enough theme in many alternate histories, such as TL-191, or a number of different timelines here.

The question is: What would it have taken to cause the United States to join the Central Powers instead of the Entente, and what would the real results of that have been? Would the United States invade Canada, for example?

Is it even realistic for the United States to choose to join the Central Powers during the war, or would we have to take many steps back to a much earlier POD?
 
Different trade links, overt hostility from the UK/France, a far larger navy (the US was dependent on the Royal Navy to help protect its Eastern seaboard well into the 1930s), maybe even different cultural and geographic dispositions of the CP nations.

Even if they were pro-CP for any reason, would they have declared war or just remained neutral, as the odds against them would've been far greater?

1) One would assume Canada would've been more heavily garrisoned and a good number of Canadian troops would remain there. This would have to be pacified and occupied.

2) How could the US get forces and material into the theatres of war? Moving its troops to Europe required the British merchant marine. Its own commerce would be prey to Anglo-French action.

3) How could it move men and material against the enemy or to support its allies? It would have to get through the Baltic, Gib, Suez, against the combined Anglo-French navies to reach them. Even if they just went for Siberia, they'd have to face Japan and Russia.
 
How does the RN stack up against the USN and HSF together? Would the US campaign in Asia? What would Japan do if the US went to war against Britain, being an Entente combattant and all?
 
I don't think that it is too improbable that an anti-British president in 1914 (perhaps of Irish descent?) would have been willing to escort ships taking US food exports to Sweden and The Netherlands (which could be re-exported).

However, that would probably ensure that the USA did not take part in WW1 because Britain would have had to accept it and Germany would not have risked losing its food by annoying the US.

It might have allowed the US to mediate a settlement in 1916, ruining all our alt. history threads about Lenin, Stalin, Hitler etc. and giving a rather boring century!
 
It's a common enough theme in many alternate histories, such as TL-191, or a number of different timelines here.

The question is: What would it have taken to cause the United States to join the Central Powers instead of the Entente, and what would the real results of that have been? Would the United States invade Canada, for example?

Is it even realistic for the United States to choose to join the Central Powers during the war, or would we have to take many steps back to a much earlier POD?

I think you need a POD before 1900. The latest one would be if the dispute over Samoa turned violent.
 

General Zod

Banned
The question is: What would it have taken to cause the United States to join the Central Powers instead of the Entente, and what would the real results of that have been?

I think you need a PoD before 1900, something that would make the American public and the leading elites a lingering hostily to Britain and/or France. Good possibilities include: bungled intervention in the ACW (something that still dooms the Confederacy, of course), French intervention in Mexico escalating in war with the Union, the Venezuela bondary dispute turning violent.

The main results are: the USA swiftly conquer Canada, and the Entente almost certainly loses WWI. The combined action of the US Navy and the HSF can give real troubles to the RN and make the naval blockade of Germany much more porous than OTL. This means Germany is never really starved and can keep pounding the Entente in France after the collapse of Russia till French manpower is exausted. Much more of the British resources are wasted in the (futile, the land advantage of the USA is irresistible) attempt to save Canada, plus the US can send expeditionary corps to strike the British Empire hard in Australia, Malaysia, India. Besides, since the most reasonable PoD assumes an early entry, this quite likely causes Italy to switch sides and enter the war with the CPs as well, as the Entente looks all that much less strong.

Say Russia and France throw the towel sometime in 1916-17.

Would the United States invade Canada, for example?

This is a foregone conclusion. Conquest of Canada was a long-term, widely-popular aspiration in the USA for all of the 19th century, and it did not really being to fade until UK and USA fought WWI together.
 
USA dominant...

Assuming that the Great War starts more or less on schedule, whoever the USA decides to help most likely wins, unless they are in deep trouble already. American industry, even then, simply can't be beat unless you manage to destroy it somehow, or invade and conquer. I can see raids, but even the Royal Navy can't send enough forces over to the USA to engage the USN, if the High Seas Fleet is intact.

Also, the Entente looses American exports...hurts them, but Germany isn't getting any to loose.

This is an era when the USA was simply too big to deal with, unless there was no significant other enemy involved. (In 1907, the latest prewar year I have data for, the US was producing about 15% more iron that Germany and Britian COMBINED!)
 

General Zod

Banned
I can see raids, but even the Royal Navy can't send enough forces over to the USA to engage the USN, if the High Seas Fleet is intact.

Heh, forget raids, ITTL the RN would have enough headaches keeping the USN and the HSF separate, b/c united they have the potential to land terrible blows to British commerce. Not to mention the fact they most likely would have to concede the Mediterranean to the A-H/Italian/Ottoman combination.
 

Typo

Banned
You need something to screw up Anglo-American relations early, and have some sort of sore that continuously keep things bad.

So let's have the British come on the side of the CSA during the civil war, but not in that major of a way, maybe a naval battle or two. The USA ends the war on the status quo with the UK, but wins the war against the CSA in say late 1866.

Then maybe get some sort of row between the two nations over Alaska, maybe the US still gets it, but there is far more tension over the boundary with Canada.

Then maybe have something with Latin America and the Monroe doctrine (Venezvala?) with British incursions.

keep up the tension, maybe have a naval war between the two in the 1880s-1900 (maybe something related to an analogue of S/A war where US takes on another weaker great power?) where the UK comes in against the US. The US gets a bloody nose, maybe downright loses, and a feeling of national humuliation (nothing lost that would actually affect the US's power) present. The US, seeking allies, increasingly starts to look towards newly unified Germany.....

Then when(if) an analogue of the Great War occurs, maybe the US joins in when the British does.

Diplomatic relations tend to be a generational thing, you need to make every generation from your POD have something against the British.
 
UK and France tying themselves to the Confederate States would not only put the USA in alliance with Germany for political reasons, but would also remove much of the heavily English South, increasing the representation of Germans in the United States and strengthening cultural ties to the Fatherland.

In that regard, a surviving Confederate States of America would pretty much suck the UK down the toilet.

As for later PoDs, perhaps one route to success would be an Anglo-German-American alliance, as the USA and UK would become very friendly by the turn of the century. This would emerge from changing alliance structures in Europe, and it would probably mean you'd have a German/Austria/UK/USA vs. France/Italy/Russia.

I see Italy as acting against Austria as a given, as Italy wanted territory and Austria certainly wasn't going to concede it. France against Germany is a given, and Germany and Austria have a lot of ties themselves. The rest of Europe could probably change alliances and political structures as needed.
 

General Zod

Banned
I see Italy as acting against Austria as a given, as Italy wanted territory and Austria certainly wasn't going to concede it. France against Germany is a given, and Germany and Austria have a lot of ties themselves. The rest of Europe could probably change alliances and political structures as needed.

Italy did not have nowhere the psychotic fixation on Trento and Trieste that France had on A-L. They did have T-T as their most important claim, very true, but they had rather important ones against France, too, nor they were so mad against A-H as to pick the clearly weaker side in the alliance game, just to be the opposite side of A-H. The formation of the Triple Alliance itself proves it. If it looks like they can get a better alliance or a better bargain elsewhere, Italy will act against France and not A-H. Also the ties between Italy and the USA, and Italian mindfulness of American might, would be significant by the Edwardian age, due to immigration, so the likelihood that Italy would pick the opposite side of USA and Germany is not that strong, T-T or no T-T.
 
A less major POD

Suppose that there are a few ugly incidents in the VERY early 1900's...Monroe doctrine issues and the like. So, the USA is not exactly friendly with Great Britian, and war plans exist, though there isn't a blatant UNfriendliness, either.

1914: The war breaks out; Germany loudly proclaims its respect for neutral rights under The Hague 1907. Britian interdicts shipments to neutral nations, as historical. Protests are futile, and things get worse from there.

Note: Historicaly, one of the best ways to get the US into a war is to mess with its ships, or be believed to have done so:

Barbary wars
Quasi-war with France
War of 1812
Spanish-American war
World War I
World War II

(Sure, messing with ships is FAR fom the only reason for some of these...but it's involved)
 

Raymann

Banned
How about a little bit later later POD?

Lets say Spain declares war on the US first in March of 1898 (it was clear by the end of February that the US was going to attack). The was before the Teller amendment was passed so there is no US guarantee of Cuban independence. During the war, Hearst and Pulitzer decry atrocities committed by Cuban loyalists and contend that Cuba isn’t ready for self rule. They also make up stories (or rather inflame small ones) that show how many Cubans want to join the US.

In any event, Cuba is annexed after the war. Britain protests and the US considers them hypocrites for what they and their allies are trying to do in China. The Triple Alliance sees and opportunity and fans the flames. The press flames the flames and tariffs are raised. The British realize that the US has been building a huge fleet and starts to get worried. Although it dosen’t change the outcome, the US takes the German side during the Moroccan Crisis. Germany courts the US even more as an ally and buys significantly more goods from the US then OTL.

The US blames Russia for escalating the war and thus the Entente in general. America continues to trade with both the US and Germany but her ships are constantly stopped by the Royal Navy evoking the War of 1812. The US starts a draft and mobilizes but does not declare war. The UK sends some troops, mostly Indian but not enough. In 1916 Wilson’s pro-British views and very public split with William Jennings Bryan over them cause him to lose California and hence the election to Charles Evans Hughes. By early 1917 the US is fed up losing ships to the British and declare war.

Canada actually takes a bridgehead near Detroit for about a week. The US is able to deflect the Royal Navy for several weeks and eventually loses a major battle but the deed has already been done, most major Canadian cities fall after a month and Canada sues for a separate peace. The High Seas Fleet on the other hand took the opportunity to sortie and are able to actually resupply from the Western side of the Atlantic with soon becomes a war zone. The combined Central Powers fleet threatens Britain itself so the Royal Navy pulls out of the Western Atlantic. Jamaica, Guyana, and all Entente possessions in between fall to the US. The UK also pulls troops from France to reinforce its defenses at home.

Russia still falls and Brest-Litovsk was signed. In 1918, with the lack of British troops and the Australian divisions that in the OTL were crucial to staying the German spring offensive, Paris falls and France sues for peace.
In the peace that follows, Germany carves out it’s Empire in Eastern Europe and gets back its Pacific colonies it lost to Japan and the Commonwealth. It also gains the Belgium Congo and French colonies in the Congo region along Luxemburg and chucks of metropolitan France itself. The UK loses Egypt to independence and the Suez canal to German administration. It also loses all Caribbean positions to the US and the Falkland islands to Argentina. The US swallows Canada whole and also gets much of French North Africa, mostly in the West which is divided up with Liberia (which eventually goes into Commonwealth status like Puerto Rico. Hughes wasn’t a rabid racists like Wilson).

Finally I doubt the Germans would allow the Communists to take power in Russia, in fact I think they would make sure the whites win and in return get significant concessions from Russia. They won’t be able to hold Russia down for long but by then the Germans would have intergraded the European economy.
 
Would the U.S. really swallow Canada like that though? I could see it if there was a history of animosity, but I thought that by the end of the 19th century the U.S. and Canada had more or less the relationship they do today.
 

General Zod

Banned
Would the U.S. really swallow Canada like that though? I could see it if there was a history of animosity, but I thought that by the end of the 19th century the U.S. and Canada had more or less the relationship they do today.

Not really. In the 19th Century US collective political mind, there was not so much any real animosity toward Canada, rather a deep-rooted feeling of expansionistic "Manifest Destiny" irredentism, by which Canada obviously belonged in the USA to complete the accomplishments of the American Revolution, the stuffy British unjustly kept Canadian brethren by claiming their rightful place in the Great Experiment, and if Canadians themselves sometimes seemed less than enthused at union with the US, it was because they had been come to identify with their oppressors and they would quickly come to their senses after they would be liberated by the glorious US troops.

It was a sentiment that did not really begin to fade from the mainstream public until the USA had fought a couple wars together with the British Empire. and the idea of a US-UK war became unthinkable (but plans for it existed as late the 1930s).
 
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The main thing would be that Wilson would never have joined the Central Powers. He was to pro British. Also the Germans could not have done the whole Belgium thing. If Belgium had surrendered then maybe. But the British and or French would have to do something really terrible in order for public opinion to sway in favor of the Central powers.
 
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