USA doesn't join WW1 but Germany still loses?
- Thread starter Vanguard45
- Start date
Garrison
Donor
There are reserves the Entente could draw up on as has been mentioned and strategic options, a more rapid move towards a firepower rather than manpower led strategic focus. In other words emphasizing the use of combined arms with the infantry moving in to hold ground rather using them to make the breakthrough. Notably the Germans stuck with infantry leading the way, exemplified by the 'stormtrooper ' tactics that were so costly in the Spring offensive. Later in the year improved Entente artillery tactics meant that German doctrine that called for rapid counterattacks to retake lost ground began to break down as the counter attack formations suffered heavy losses trying to advance. Overall n 1918 the Entente an compensate for the absence of the AEF, 1919 would be a different matter, but the OP implies Germany is defeated in 1918.
It was eroded at the start in that German behaviour in Belgium and later on the High Seas made it inconceivable that America would ever join the *CP*. But that was borderline ASB in any case.
What it *didn't* do was generate support for going to war *against* Germany. Even the Lusitania and Black Tom didn't do that. [1]
As the late King Charles I might have put it, sympathy and willingness to go to war are "clean different things". Most Americans sympathised with the Boers in 1899-1902, but never thought of going to war with Britain. And in 1939/40 they sympathised with the Finns, but never considered war with the SU. FTM they'd been in sympathy with the Chinese since at least 1937, but still didn't go to war with Japan until directly attacked.
It was the same in 1914-17. Most Americans would have preferred (and certainly expected) an Entente victory, but that wasn't at all the same thing as wanting to fight. It took USW to change that mood, and even then it was far from unanimous. A more isolationist POTUS could probably still have resisted the calls for war.
[1]True, it was at first far from clear that Black Tom was sabotage rather than an accident but this had been equally true 18 years before, when USS Maine blew up. In 1898, however, the people were firmly anti-Spanish and ready to support war, so they cheered for it without bothering to check the evidence. So war came. Had they felt the same way in 1916 they would have assumed German guilt just as they had Spanish. They didn't because they weren't looking for a fight - indeed pro-Entente feeling was markedly *less* than a year before - until Germany forced the issue.
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Aphrodite
Banned
Or didn't care. Many Americans had fled Europe to avoid doing their army time, a fourth of Americans were African American and cared not about this white man's fight. The Civil War had been fought just fifty years ago- many remembered it or at least their parents had. The Southerners grew up with the destruction all around them.
14 Senators and 56 Representatives refused to vote for the war.
Only 80% of men were physically fit for the draft:
12% didn't register
13% either didn't report or deserted before finishing basic training.
That's an effective 30% refusal rate.
It's easy to get an America willing to accept USW
BTW, USW isn't that great of a stretch of international law. If you deem the German blockade "effective" then Germany would have been within her rights to sink blockade runners on sight and without warning
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Not really. If you have no alternative buyers for the goods, then do you shut down the factory, or be flexible on payment terms?
If your buyer offers a price premium for deferred payment, or payment in £, then you negotiate.
Riain
Banned
How does Germany take that step?
IOTL they didn't make good use of their surface fleet, but they could have used destroyers and maybe a light cruiser from Flanders to raid the through-channel shipping.
In addition in December 1915 they sent a sqn of cruisers on a sweep through the Kattegat-Scakkgerak, stopping and checking on merchant ships manifests and the like for contraband etc. This is something they should have done more of.
Introducing 'stand up fight' and 'administrative' aspects to the blockade might have taken some focus off the 'underhanded' USW aspect and made it less offensive. Would that have made it 'effective' for international law?
Garrison
Donor
Only if you assume the US government was looking for a way to give Germany the benefit of the doubt. if you look at the different scale of US diplomatic reactions to British actions versus German ones that doesn't seem likely.
Aphrodite
Banned
@Riain
Correct. If the Americans were looking for a way out, they just declare the German blockade effective.
I remember @BlondieBC had a lot on the German U-boat campaign. He estimated the Germans needed about 300 U-boats.
The German effort suffered because they couldn't use a combined arms approach. Convoys are effective against U-boats.
Against large surface cruisers, the lightly armed convoys would have been death traps.
Germany could also have used Armed Merchant Ships combined with torpedo boats/destroyers- like the wolf packs of WWII. The Russians had experimented with the idea before the Japanese War. It's pretty obvious.
Destroyers hunt by speed, uboats by stealth. Many merchant ships could outrun a uboat, none could outrun a destroyer.
Germany suffered from a lack of bases and access to the open seas. France didn't which is why a commerce war against France filled the Admiralty with dread.
If Germany can knockout France, all her problems are solved. That takes a victory at the Marne
Edited to add;. It's lawful to sink any ship sailing in an armed convoy
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There are two ways for the Allies to win.
Early, sometime before the July Kerensky offensive, better before April 1918 Nivelle offensive, the Allies decide to forgo offensives on all fronts, except Ottoman front to close the ring around Germany and enforce the blockade, no matter how long it takes, Soviet revolution butterflied away. Germany runs out of strategic supplies by 1919 and is forced into an armistice. This would not be a OTL armistice, but a lighter version, France regaining A-L, but no bridgeheads over the Rhine, Germany surrenders submarines and strategic bombers, and > 150 mm artillery, per armistice in exchange for food, but no other military restrictions.
Soviet revolution occurs as OTL, Germans launch west front offensives similar to OTL, Allies hold on, maybe even Japanese contribute a corps somewhere, war goes on into in 1919, German allies collapse, as Allies focus on a peripheral campaign. Similar to above if there is no revolution in Germany, the Germans can get better armistice terms then OTL.
As far as a final peace, as long as Germany gives up A-L to France, and gives up her colonies, everything else if up for negotiation. Its really Great Britain that makes the rules in this TL then.
Early, sometime before the July Kerensky offensive, better before April 1918 Nivelle offensive, the Allies decide to forgo offensives on all fronts, except Ottoman front to close the ring around Germany and enforce the blockade, no matter how long it takes, Soviet revolution butterflied away. Germany runs out of strategic supplies by 1919 and is forced into an armistice. This would not be a OTL armistice, but a lighter version, France regaining A-L, but no bridgeheads over the Rhine, Germany surrenders submarines and strategic bombers, and > 150 mm artillery, per armistice in exchange for food, but no other military restrictions.
Soviet revolution occurs as OTL, Germans launch west front offensives similar to OTL, Allies hold on, maybe even Japanese contribute a corps somewhere, war goes on into in 1919, German allies collapse, as Allies focus on a peripheral campaign. Similar to above if there is no revolution in Germany, the Germans can get better armistice terms then OTL.
As far as a final peace, as long as Germany gives up A-L to France, and gives up her colonies, everything else if up for negotiation. Its really Great Britain that makes the rules in this TL then.
Riain
Banned
Germany really needed the other pillar of Mahan's Sea Power: geography.
Their hold on Flanders provided a glimpse of the possible, but winning the Race to the Sea was about all they could do in reality to change their naval geography.
Okay fair, I just find it fun to try to expand the war to see what other countries to get involved. I think beyond a pure manpower level the inclusion of more nations to draw from also results in a morale boost for the Entente. But I'll refrain asking "but what if Spain joined?" and etc.
Garrison
Donor
Nothing wrong with doing so at all, just shows that the Entente can make find ways to fill the hole left by the AEF, either by redirecting the available troops, changing strategy, or tapping into other nations for soldiers. The truth is the AEF's contribution in 1918 was useful but not critical, If the Entente break the Hindenburg Line in September 1918 the Germans have little choice but to acknowledge they've lost the war.
What would be the Entente answer to stormtroopers, btw. Greater investment in tanks?
kham_coc
Banned
Except they can't. Because the Germans will attack somewhere, almost certainly Russia, who will demand counteroffensives.
Aphrodite
Banned
Germany is hamstrung by geography. The Kaiser's real problem is the insane Austrian foreign policy.
Italy played a crucial role in Moltke's war plans, yet no effort was made to get them on board first.
Austria never even tried to buy them off, something that should have been done after they got the blank check.
There were plenty of times that Austria could have bought off the Russians. FJ would make wild demands.
Austria was just as abusive towards their Romanian allies.
1914 is a massive Germanowank and they still lose. There are some victory scenarios but they are very few after Italy intervenes.
As toUSW, if Wilson wanted to accept it, the country would let him
Riain
Banned
This is why WW1 Germany is AH gold to me. Change the decisions of a handful of people and you get massive changes overall.
Lucius Verus
Banned
Defense in depth and reserves; there's only so far men and horses can go before exhaustion and hunger just like IOTL. If they have enough intel and surprise is lost then artillery storms for the highly trained and vulnerable storm troopers. On the receiving side its amazing that after 3 years of failure with static line defense that some generals kept insisting on concentrating manpower in one thin line (or sometimes they just lacked the men.)
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Riain
Banned
You think? German leadership made some pretty bad decisions when alternatives were there.
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Do you have any examples of this? Only as far as I can tell, it was pretty much universal that the front trench of a line was more of a trip wire than a fixed wall defence.
Brett Devereaux goes into the trench system in some detail (here and here),
(Courtesy Brett Devereaux. Aerial view of trench system).
In essence, most attacks in the First World War succeeded in taking the initial front-line objectives. Where they failed was in being able to push on and in being able to hold them.