US Neutral in WWI: Effects on American Culture

Lets say the Zimmermann Telegram never comes to light or Germany denies its real and the U.S. stays out of World War I. How would this impact American culture and politics for the future, namely the roaring 20s?
 
Lets say the Zimmermann Telegram never comes to light or Germany denies its real and the U.S. stays out of World War I. How would this impact American culture and politics for the future, namely the roaring 20s?


1) Germany wins the Great War with a POD that far late in the war. Britain and France losing the war means Wall Street is going to be very unhappy considering the amount of loans those two took out.
2) You won't see the same sort of surge in Germanophobia (Sauerkraut as liberty cabbage, people kicking weiner dogs, shutting down german schools, etc) that we saw OTL
3) More men will be wearing suspenders and have facial hair. WWI led to more men wearing belts (uniform reasons) and shaving their mustaches and beards (in order to fit in gas masks)
4) I've seen folks on this forum say that without US entry into WWI the socialist movement will be stronger. The issue is that the Russian Revolution is going to result in a red scare and the government going after socialists, just to less of a degree than OTL. Likewise, without US entry into the war we won't be seeing tax rates shoot up to fund the war. The highest individual tax rates went from 15% in 1916 to 77% in 1918. This proceeded to drop back to 25% in 1925, ergo the country never fully went back to the pre-war amount. Likewise, corporate tax rates shot up ten points and then never went back down. I can see socialists in the US being a bigger part of the progressive movement, but only relative to how small they were after Wilson was done with them.
5) 1920 will be a GOP win, albeit a smaller one. The Irish and German vote won't be as uniformly anti-democratic, but the end of the war and Wall Street not being able to collect on British and French debts is going to have negative economic repercussions. It won't be a return to normalcy campaign, but the GOP will probably win fairly handily.


I wonder if the US would intervene in the Russian Revolution if it isn't involved in Europe. Likewise, I wonder if Wilson will try to insert the US into the peace negotiations in Europe as a kind of fair broker.
 
A slower assimilation of the 'Germans' in the US. Abandonment of the German language in schools and business accelerated 1915> Other aspects of German culture in the US would remain German in appearance longer. ie: The Bier Garten vs the Saloon or Bar model for selling alcoholic beverages.

A bit more overt acceptance of German language literature, & German models for judging efficiency, business practice, & entertaiment styles. All that was modified, relabeled, disguised, repackaged, or abandoned during the two anti German waves of sentiment originating the Great War.

On a minor note, since this probably butterflies away the nazis, the Swatstika remains a common but little noticed decorative and quasi religious symbol.
 
... I wonder if the US would intervene in the Russian Revolution if it isn't involved in Europe. Likewise, I wonder if Wilson will try to insert the US into the peace negotiations in Europe as a kind of fair broker.

The US expeditionary capability was so weak pre 1918 that such intervention is near undoable, certainly of poor practically. The US was hard pressed to keep a few battalions of Marines in China & Latin America. organizing brigades for far away Europe on a peace time budget sounds like a non starter.
 
I wonder if the US would intervene in the Russian Revolution if it isn't involved in Europe. Likewise, I wonder if Wilson will try to insert the US into the peace negotiations in Europe as a kind of fair broker.

Britain and Germany are going to need somebody to help mediate the final settlement, so I don't see why the US woulden't at least get an advisory seat (At minimum, they would be able to argue they need to be present to insure things are set up so war debts can be serviced properly). Though, the US sending its boys to Russia seems right out. If they aren't in the War, there's no war supplies that need securing nor systems set up for dispatchiing and supplying a large force "Over there". Congress will never sign off on raising troops to do this.
 
The US expeditionary capability was so weak pre 1918 that such intervention is near undoable, certainly of poor practically. The US was hard pressed to keep a few battalions of Marines in China & Latin America. organizing brigades for far away Europe on a peace time budget sounds like a non starter.

I wonder if this will be advantageous to the US in the long-run. American businesses might get more access to the Soviet Union.



I wonder if there will be a backlash against Wilson in 1920 against his invading the various Caribbean nations. It could be a more toned down return to normalcy type of thing.
 
Lets say the Zimmermann Telegram never comes to light or Germany denies its real and the U.S. stays out of World War I. How would this impact American culture and politics for the future, namely the roaring 20s?

Unlimited submarine warfare (which included killing Americans on American ships, something that had only very rarely happened from 1914 to early 1917) would have been sufficient to lead to US involvement even without the Zimmerman telegram. Indeed, one reason why the telegram was sent in the first place was precisely because US entry into the War was anticipated.i
 
I wonder if this will be advantageous to the US in the long-run. American businesses might get more access to the Soviet Union.

Hard to say. There was some access after 1919. The Koch family made a fair bit of money engineering Soviet oil facilities in the 1920s.

[/quote]I wonder if there will be a backlash against Wilson in 1920 against his invading the various Caribbean nations. It could be a more toned down return to normalcy type of thing.[/QUOTE]

That went far back into the 19th Century. Wilson was just following a long tradition of prosecuting Banana Wars. Post Wilson the assorted Republican administrations continued the effort of 'Making Latin America safe for United Fruit'* It was dialed back some in the Depression, but intervention returned big time with WWII.

* US Marine slogan of the early 20th Century.
 
If the Germans take Moscow, then the Soviet capital will be in Kazan or Samara.

Again, though - that assumes that there would be a Russian SFSR > Soviet Union, which may or may not happen. It could also be equally possible that the 1917 Revolutions could very well end up being a Eurasian equivalent of the Mexican Revolution, in which case no Soviet Union for you if the Bolsheviks get crushed à la the Villistas and Zapatistas in Mexico. Rather, it would be a Menshevik or Menshevik+SR Russia (as our Constitutionalist equivalent), and from the few examples we do have of Mensheviks in the saddle of power (i.e. Georgia) the Russian Democratic Federative Republic will be fine.
 

Driftless

Donor
I'm no cultural expert, but does that partially/largely derail the transplant of Jazz to places outside the US? Does it impact the nature of US literature with no "Lost Generation"
 
Unlimited submarine warfare (which included killing Americans on American ships, something that had only very rarely happened from 1914 to early 1917) would have been sufficient to lead to US involvement even without the Zimmerman telegram. Indeed, one reason why the telegram was sent in the first place was precisely because US entry into the War was anticipated.i
I doubt that, it was the combination of both that pushed the us into the war and even then most of the us wasn't exactly exited about it.
 
I doubt that, it was the combination of both that pushed the us into the war and even then most of the us wasn't exactly exited about it.

The reason that Wilson refrained from asking for war in February 1917 is that he hoped the Germans, despite their announcement of unlimited submarine warfare, might refrain from an "overt act" to bring America into the war. (Two American merchant ships were sunk by U-boats in Feburary, but both were given warnings and no lives were lost.) When on March 18, three American merchant ships were sunk with loss of life, that made war inevitable as was widely recognized at the time: https://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19170319.2.2 These and subsequent sinkings and loss of lives were much more immediately in the public mind than the telegram (whose revelation was after all some weeks in the past by the time of the declaration of war). Once armed neutrality (which Wilson had decided on after the revelation of the telegram) had failed, Wilson was certain to have asked for war. Perhaps he would not have gotten it by quite the overwhelming margins of OTL--82 to 6 in the Senate and 373-50 in the House--but he would have gotten it. (It should be noted that 34 of the 50 negative votes were from midwestern states with large German-American populations.)

Germany was well aware that unlimited submarine warfare was very likely to bring America into the war--and indeed without that likelihood there was no point to sending the telegram in the first place. (After all, it only spoke of Mexico going to war with the US if the US entered the World War.) She simply thought she could deliver a knockout blow before the US participation would amount to very much in military terms.

The US no doubt had a choice. It could have acquiesced in German unrestricted submarine warfare as the small neutral states of Europe had done. A President Bryan or a President La Follette (but certainlly not a president Hughes) would have followed such a course. (And in that event the US would have had nothing to fear from the Zimmerman telegram even in the very unlikely event Mexico accepted it, since the telegram was expressly conditioned on the US going to war.) But there was never any likelihood that President Wilson would do so.

(By the way, there was one other factor in the US entering the War which was totally non-dependent on the telegram--the February Revolution n Russia had removed the Entente regime US public opinion would be most reluctant to see as an ally...)
 
Feelings of American superiority might be quite strong: “we were smart enough to stay out of that stupid war, unlike the foolish Europeans.”
 
Absent US entry in WWI the German influence in the USA becomes more or less permanently established - you have churches with German liturgy, schools that are dual language German-English etc persisting as well as more acceptance of Turnerverein, beer gardens, etc. Up until WWI German culture etc was well accepted, and German was probably the most common modern foreign language taught in US schools. Absent an entente victory, no USSR as the Germans will ensure Belarus, Ukraine, and Baltics stay free of the USSR and Finland will break loose as well. while the Germans were happy to send Lenin back to discommode the Tsar, they won't want a communist government next door.

Without the communist USSR, any Red Scare (if there is one) will be much smaller. One reason US socialists were squashed in the early 20s was many were of German origin and had a lot of German-American support. No war also means Eugene Debs does not go to prison, basically on a trumped up antiwar charge.IMHO the socialists will persist with local successes and some Congressmen, and may grow.

Up until WWI a lot of scientists/engineers/physicians did training (post doc) in Germany. Instead of pretty much ending this will continue. Because of this IMHO German will still be offered in a lot of HS or sooner, and be quite popular in college. Also, will probably see more exchange with US military (esp army & aviation) going to Germany.
 
What would this mean for American foreign policy in the years going forward? Considering the Naval Act of 1916, would the U.S. get in an arms race with Germany, Japan, and perhaps Britain? I'm assuming Britain still destroys the High Seas Fleet and gets a white peace with Germany.
 
shaving their mustaches and beards (in order to fit in gas masks)
These guys didn't get the memo
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781af89f8fb01ac9443d956d9566a55d--military-uniforms-wwi.jpg


1915-THUMB.jpg

Some say was more for lice, but not many went for the Bald look.
 
Absent US entry in WWI the German influence in the USA becomes more or less permanently established - you have churches with German liturgy, schools that are dual language German-English etc persisting as well as more acceptance of Turnerverein, beer gardens, etc. Up until WWI German culture etc was well accepted, and German was probably the most common modern foreign language taught in US schools. Absent an entente victory, no USSR as the Germans will ensure Belarus, Ukraine, and Baltics stay free of the USSR and Finland will break loose as well. while the Germans were happy to send Lenin back to discommode the Tsar, they won't want a communist government next door.

Without the communist USSR, any Red Scare (if there is one) will be much smaller. One reason US socialists were squashed in the early 20s was many were of German origin and had a lot of German-American support. No war also means Eugene Debs does not go to prison, basically on a trumped up antiwar charge.IMHO the socialists will persist with local successes and some Congressmen, and may grow.

The issue is, I'm not sure the Germans can stop some kind of left-wing government from taking over Russia east of the Petrograd-Smolensk-Azov line. The whites were incredibly divided, so odds are it'd either be a Bolshevik Russia or a Menshevik+SR Russia. But by Brest-Litovsk the Bolsheviks controlled the bulk of European Russia (where the industry, population, and agriculture was) so I have a hard time seeing them being driven from power. After four years of war and a whole swath of territory to occupy, I'm not sure the German population would be willing to go along with an adventure into the Russian heartland.

Plus, it's not like its really next door. Smolensk is 900 miles from Berlin and 550 miles from Konigsberg.

I can see the Socialist Party in the United States being larger due to no German crackdown, but I can't see it being much larger than a small local and congressional presence.

Now, some kind of broad left-progressive bloc of the Socialist Party, Progressive Party (Wisconsin and California), Farmer-Labor Party (Minnesota), Nonpartisan League (North Dakota), etc would be a different matter. Maybe La Follette's Progressive Party will have staying power if a bigger Socialist Party is part of its formation.



It'd be pretty ironic if in the TTL USA there's a bigger Socialist/Progressive faction but the US government is much smaller compared to OTL due to no expansion of government caused by WWI.
 
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