In OTL, one of the biggest things that made the USA join the Allies in WW1 was Germany's policy of attacking neutral shipping. What if Germany, early in the war, doesn't adopt this policy, but the UK does? This probably needs to go a bit more further back to work, such as increased animosity between the USA/UK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What could lead to the UK adopting such a policy, and what are it's effects?
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
- Thread starter Tetsu
- Start date
David S Poepoe
Banned
Britain really doesn't have to adopt unrestricted submarine warfare, and in one case it certainly wouldn't. With it being so dependent upon shipping food stuffs in I doubt the British Admiralty will show a spotlight upon Britain's achilles heel so quickly. Also the blockade is good enough.
As David says you need to find a rationale for Britain to adopt this policy. The only rationale would have to have as its base the German freedom to continue to trade on the high seas. This can only occur if the British fleet is either destroyed or not sufficient for the job of Blockade. As far as I can see the only potential causes of this would be 1) a catastrophic defeat for the Royal Navy which nevertheless doesn't knock Britain out of the war, or 2) a German conquest of sufficient coastline that the RN cannot keep trade bottled up.
Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf
I think you need POD before 1870. SOmething like "Germany decides to have really, really great or at least modern fleet".
British just didn't need submarine war, as long as they have superiority in "normal" fleet.
Even if they decided to adopt policy of USW, I think they would have lots of objectives against idea of attacking ships of potential ally - so we need hostile, or at least pro-german attitude of US.
Too implausible, as for me.
British just didn't need submarine war, as long as they have superiority in "normal" fleet.
Even if they decided to adopt policy of USW, I think they would have lots of objectives against idea of attacking ships of potential ally - so we need hostile, or at least pro-german attitude of US.
Too implausible, as for me.
This one, I'm afraid, is a non-starter. For a pre 1870 change in military spending you'd need a completely different German foreign policy and a total rethink of her defence strategy. No Bismarck. Besides, once Britain saw a German naval build up it would become more actively involved on mainland Europe.
As I said - its implausible, that was just a wild guess "We-have-beaten-France-we-can't-beat-Russia-we-should-do-something-with-perfidious-Albion Policy".
The only serious POD that I can think of is remaining of Hansean tradition - but its 16th century, at least.
The only serious POD that I can think of is remaining of Hansean tradition - but its 16th century, at least.