What if the US never joined World War 1?

[BooNZ]

Germany never launched unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, so ships might not be lost so fast.

The Entente financial crisis was a pre-existing condition and the increases in shipping losses prior to the USW were not sustainable.

That spigot will not be "turned off". The American government was not going to cut off the Entente in 1917, it just would not have happened.

That was not a decision for the American government to make, since the Entente were dealing with independent US business interests. It would be up to those businessmen to decide if advancing risky loans without security or giving away materials for free was good business. The decision the American government had to make is what would be the rationale to essentially abandon neutrality and guarantee the risks of US war profiteers.

 

[Paragon]

Not quite that simple- If you mean to change that 1 thing, and holding all else constant, than yes. However, people are not petri dishes. They react to new information, however imperfectly. Take this example, where the only POD is no USW, so Jan 31, 1917. The UK is running out of gold and dollars. Easiest way to start saving them is by using less in the war (no more/smaller offensives, so no Nivelle offensive, so no French mutinies, Italy is better off, etc) as well as introducing rations in Great Britain a year earlier (voluntary was begun Feb 1917, TTL it is involuntary). The CP are better off in term of casualties, but that POD is after the Hindenburg Program/Turnip Winter so the German home front is under a time restriction. The Entente was working on tanks, so a Cambrai like action will happen by 1918 (if not being the sole offensive in 1917). There are more things which could change, which can tilt the balance in either favor.

So, I guess the question is, do you mean "all else constant" or "if this thing only changes, then what?"

Likewise Russia's Kerensky Offensive is probably avoided. The Milyukov note (April 20th) is after the US declaration of war, for that matter, so Kerensky might not even become the Minister of Defense.

The Entente financial crisis was a pre-existing condition and the increases in shipping losses prior to the USW were not sustainable.
That was not a decision for the American government to make, since the Entente were dealing with independent US business interests. It would be up to those businessmen to decide if advancing risky loans without security or giving away materials for free was good business. The decision the American government had to make is what would be the rationale to essentially abandon neutrality and guarantee the risks of US war profiteers.

It was a US government decision and they had harshly cautioned against un-secured loans. In many ways it was the first test of Wilson's Federal Reserve system.

 

[BooNZ]

It was a US government decision and they had harshly cautioned against un-secured loans. In many ways it was the first test of Wilson's Federal Reserve system.

The caution was merely a firm confirmation of the status quo - the US government essentially made it clear it considered itself to be neutral and did not endorse the Entente funding vehicles. This had the effect of causing US business interests to decide to close the spigot and resulted in the Entente financial crisis. I suspect we are talking about semantics and not disagreeing too much about the broad facts.

 

[History Learner]

Not quite that simple- If you mean to change that 1 thing, and holding all else constant, than yes. However, people are not petri dishes. They react to new information, however imperfectly. Take this example, where the only POD is no USW, so Jan 31, 1917. The UK is running out of gold and dollars. Easiest way to start saving them is by using less in the war (no more/smaller offensives, so no Nivelle offensive, so no French mutinies, Italy is better off, etc) as well as introducing rations in Great Britain a year earlier (voluntary was begun Feb 1917, TTL it is involuntary). The CP are better off in term of casualties, but that POD is after the Hindenburg Program/Turnip Winter so the German home front is under a time restriction. The Entente was working on tanks, so a Cambrai like action will happen by 1918 (if not being the sole offensive in 1917). There are more things which could change, which can tilt the balance in either favor.

So, I guess the question is, do you mean "all else constant" or "if this thing only changes, then what?"

"On 11 December Bérenger reported that France was dependent on its Allies for supplies and transport of oil. Three days later Clemenceau attended a meeting of the Comité Général du Pétrole. The immediate need was for tanker tonnage to bring oil to France; the next day Clemenceau issued a plea to President Wilson for extra tanker tonnage. There was a risk that a 'shortage of gasoline would cause the sudden paralysis of our armies and drive us all into an unacceptable peace.' French stocks of gasoline were currently 28,000 tons, compared with a target minimum of 44,000 and consumption of 30,000 tons per month. Wilson must get the US oil companies to allocate an additional 100,000 tons of tankers to France. These could come from the Pacific and from new construction. Clemenceau's final lines to Wilson were: "There is for the Allies a question of public salvation. If they are determined not to lose the war, the fighting French must, by the hour of supreme Germanic blow, have large supplies of gasoline which is, in the battle of tomorrow, as necessary as blood."

Citation here. Clemenceau himself said France would collapse without said oil.

 

[Mikestone8]

As Mikestone8 pointed out though, there is a lone exception suggesting the Allies could last until 1918 but it specifically notes they could not win, merely not be defeated i.e. stalemate peace.

Small (or maybe not so small) nitpick.
What Grant and Temperley actually said was that w/o US aid "the Entente could not have been victorious and might have lost."

IOW, absent the US a stalemate was in their view the *best*-case scenario. They also saw outright defeat as at least a distinct possibility.

 

[History Learner]

Small (or maybe not so small) nitpick.
What Grant and Temperley actually said was that w/o US aid "the Entente could not have been victorious and might have lost."

IOW, absent the US a stalemate was in their view the *best*-case scenario. They also saw outright defeat as at least a distinct possibility.

Damn, so, really, no literature exists then to suggest the Entente could win?

 

[Mikestone8]

That true but unrestricted submarine warfare was still a massively risky move

Indeed, but for the politicians concerned, so was *not* adopting it.

The Navy (backed up by the Army leaders) was urging USW as the key to victory. If the government rejected it, and Germany went on to lose the war, they would be made scapegoats for their country's defeat. It would have been "We'd have won for sure if those milksops had listened to us and unleashed the U-boats" - and there would have been no way to disprove such a claim. It would have been the "dolchstoss" plea but with much more credibility.

In this situation, the politicians concerned would have faced political ruin at least, and maybe worse. The murders of Erzberger and Rathenau were course still in the future, but the pols knew their own people well enough to fear the worst. It puts me in mind of that famous 1921 exchange between Lord Birkenhead and Michael Collins. When Birkenhead observed that by signing the Anglo-Irish Treaty "I may have signed my political death warrant", Collins retorted "And I may well have signed my *actual* death warrant." The civilians at Pless may well have been harbouring similar concerns.

 

[Mikestone8]

Damn, so, really, no literature exists then to suggest the Entente could win?

Well, I know of none saying that the Entente *would* win w/o the US. Some histories are non-committal about it, and I have seen some saying the Entente could have carried on to Nov-Dec 1917, but the idea that even w/o the US the Entente was still pretty well assured of *victory* is one I have yet to see anywhere except on this forum and its predecessor shwi. Of course there are still plenty of books I haven't read.

 

[Mikestone8]

Not quite that simple- If you mean to change that 1 thing, and holding all else constant, than yes. However, people are not petri dishes. They react to new information, however imperfectly. Take this example, where the only POD is no USW, so Jan 31, 1917. The UK is running out of gold and dollars. Easiest way to start saving them is by using less in the war (no more/smaller offensives, so no Nivelle offensive, so no French mutinies

But if the Nivelle Offensive lives up to expectations, it is supposed to defeat Germany and end the war - which would make the financial issues moot. So all the more reason to go ahead with it.

As for GB, does "Can the army win the war before the navy loses it?" just become "Can the army win the war before the *bankers* lose it?"

Likewise Russia's Kerensky Offensive is probably avoided.

But if the Germans want a buffer zone between themselves and Russia (as a quid pro quo for pulling out of France and Belgium) that implies keeping all or most of the Russian territory which they currently hold. Would Russia sign up to this w/o at least "giving it one more go" on the battlefield?

 

[Paragon]

Damn, so, really, no literature exists then to suggest the Entente could win?

Not sure if this is rhetorical. But I think the recurrence of this thread topic points to an inevitable truth of counterfactual history. It is art rather than science, and actual historians are not always interested in such questions. Differing standards of evidence and belief about possibility will cause contradictory opinions. And convincing someone on an internet discussion is hard enough when it isn't about modality.

I suspect we are talking about semantics and not disagreeing too much about the broad facts.

Indeed.

But if the Germans want a buffer zone between themselves and Russia (as a quid pro quo for pulling out of France and Belgium) that implies keeping all or most of the Russian territory which they currently hold. Would Russia sign up to this w/o at least "giving it one more go" on the battlefield?

Calls for peace after the February Revolution were abundant. So certainly an open question for a timeline writer, but Russia might say good riddance to Poland, at least.

 

[BooNZ]

Honestly I think a moratorium on variations of this topic might be a good idea. Nothing new or useful will come from this discussion.

I think it is what the guys on the IT help desk used to refer it as 'user issues'.

In the recent threads we have had power users who appear not only oblivious to matters relating to the OTL Entente financial crisis, but quite adamant many OTL events and circumstances relating to the OTL Entente financial crisis are extraordinarily unlikely to ever happen and spam 'evidence' to 'prove' such.

Also it's the same people saying slight variations on old arguments. This isn't productive.

It is more a case of new 'vibrant' users spamming new unfathomable arguments, against the same old users, reposting and building on the same old evidence.

 

[Mikestone8]

Calls for peace after the February Revolution were abundant. So certainly an open question for a timeline writer, but Russia might say good riddance to Poland, at least.

Depends what counts as "Poland".

If it's just the "Vistula Governments, ie as far as the Bug and Neimen, then Germany has not only given up all her western conquests but half their eastern ones into the bargain - as well as writing off most of her colonies.

Is any likely German government going to settle for a gain as modest as this? My guess is they'll demand at least something approximating to the current front line - and OTL even the Bolsheviks jibbed at *that*.

 

[Faeelin]

I never really understand the argument here. Why can the British not ration more and sell off their imperial assets, as they did in WW2?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I never really understand the argument here. Why can the British not ration more and sell off their imperial assets, as they did in WW2?

Because they already did that. They had rationing since 1915 and financed their borrowing by using all their assets that anyone wanted as collateral. We've discussed this several times before.

 

[Faeelin]

Because they already did that. They had rationing since 1915 and financed their borrowing by using all their assets that anyone wanted as collateral. We've discussed this several times before.

British rationing or restrictions never approached Germany, which somehow kept fighting for longer.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

British rationing or restrictions never approached Germany, which somehow kept fighting for longer.

Sure, but without US supplies they'd get worse than Germany ever was.
Edit:
Assuming they also tried to maintain some level of military imports.

 

[marathag]

Sure, but without US supplies they'd get worse than Germany ever was.

It's a long stretch from light rationing, of Bread, Meat, Butter, Cheese and Sugar to a Turnip Winter, to even worse than that.

Now in the UK, they used Steam Engines for Farm work, not exactly like in the US where it was nearly all Traction Engines pulling plows, and some gasoline tractors,
over there was a large use of cable draw farming, where the steam engine was stationary and cable and drum setups to move the implements indirectly.

UK had the problem that by 1917, half of them were idle, the Farmers having the skills to run them, enlisted or conscripted. by March, 1917 they were released from frontline combat to return back to far,40,000 by April 1917, along with the Government ordering £3.3M Pounds worth of Tractors from US firms, to reduce the number of horses used on the Farm, up to 6000 US&UK working the fields in 1918

Oats went from 2 million tones to 2.9M, nearly all used for Fodder.
So with no US in the War, the UK had a lot of room to rationalize food production for people, and would not be anywhere near as bad as Germany's Turnip winter

 

[Deleted member 1487]

It's a long stretch from light rationing, of Bread, Meat, Butter, Cheese and Sugar to a Turnip Winter, to even worse than that.

Not really when it was US supplies that were feeding Britain. Run out of the money to pay for said food guess what happens.

https://everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk/2015/01/food/

In 1914, Britain relied heavily on food from abroad – 80% of wheat, 40% of meat and almost all sugar was imported – but the government was reluctant to get involved in such matters, feeling that it was best that the market should be left to operate free of state restrictions. Other than the setting up of two commissions, one on wheat and the other on sugar, laissez-faire worked for the first two years of the war, but by the summer of 1916 food problems were becoming sufficiently pressing to require greater intervention. The public’s main concern was prices and the Board of Trade’s figures show a 61% increase in food prices between July 1914 and July 1916.[iii]

Many believed that the call for national sacrifice had not been heeded by all and there were some who were making money from the war. The exploiters of workers – in both factories and trenches – were despised and Trades Union newspapers labelled the profiteer as ‘The Vampire on the Back of Tommy’ and the ‘Brit-Hun’. Shortages, high prices and inequalities of food distribution became a real concern for many in Britain during 1916. Poor harvests meant that even staples like potatoes were in short supply and, as they were the only vegetable that many of the urbanised poor ever ate, there were outbreaks of scurvy in Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow. [iv] Finally, in December of that year the government responded to complaints and concerns by appointing Lord Devonport as Food Controller.

I was a bit off to say earlier that rationing was in effect in 1915 when only wheat and sugar were being regulated.

Now in the UK, they used Steam Engines for Farm work, not exactly like in the US where it was nearly all Traction Engines pulling plows, and some gasoline tractors,
over there was a large use of cable draw farming, where the steam engine was stationary and cable and drum setups to move the implements indirectly.

UK had the problem that by 1917, half of them were idle, the Farmers having the skills to run them, enlisted or conscripted. by March, 1917 they were released from frontline combat to return back to far,40,000 by April 1917, along with the Government ordering £3.3M Pounds worth of Tractors from US firms, to reduce the number of horses used on the Farm, up to 6000 US&UK working the fields in 1918

Oats went from 2 million tones to 2.9M, nearly all used for Fodder.
So with no US in the War, the UK had a lot of room to rationalize food production for people, and would not be anywhere near as bad as Germany's Turnip winter

First of all you ignored some very important caveats in the above:

Farming and the First World War | World War One | The Great War WWI

Farming and the First World War (WW1/ WWI/ The Great War) watch the videos, infographic and read the NFU report on World War One The Few That Fed The Many

www.nfuonline.com

.

In 1917, the Government bought 400 British Saunderson Tractors and a further $3.2million was invested in US models such as the Fordson.

By 1918, there were 6,000 tractors in operation in Britain. The 'Ploughing Up' campaign of 1917 saw an extra 2.5 million acres of land used for growing cereals.

By the end of the war, an extra 915,000 tonnes of oats, 1.7million tonnes of potatoes and 830,000 tonnes of wheat were grown. And thanks to the work of British farmers and growers, the country avoided being starved into submission.

That was only possible due to US entry and subsequent funding of the continued imports. So citing OTL 1917-18 after US entry is not really applicable.

The OTL 1917 solutions, financed by US entry and US government secured war loans, worked to help out given the increased losses to Uboats, which never achieved remotely close to the total succession of imports from abroad. Food could probably be prioritized over everything with remaining foreign exchange, but would mean a virtual end to military imports other than fuel to run the navy. Strict rationing would still have to happen though, which would be a major morale hit given the state of the strategic situation. At that point the war is lost, so why waste more time and lives to drag out an unwinnable conflict with increasing public dissatisfaction over the situation?

 

[GrahamB]

the UK had a lot of room to rationalize food production for people

That's an excellent point. The success of the War Ag in the Second World War might be easy to overlook but was absolutely critical to Britain's success on the home front, to the point where post-war a sizable chunk of the population voted Labour so they could keep it going since it was working so well. There wasn't an equivalent in the First World War but a drying up of American imports from lack of trade funding might spur on its development.
Having said that it's easily argued Britain's successes in Home Front organization in the Second World War were lessons learned from the failures in the First. Even if a War Ag was established TTL it may be too little too late to secure a win, but I think it would stave off the total collapse I keep seeing fronted in this thread.

I'll stick with my 'war ends in an unhappy stalemate' scenario until someone can convince me otherwise.

 

[marathag]

increasing public dissatisfaction over the situation?

like the Germans at home eating bread that was mostly sawdust along with Turnip soup caused their war effor to collapse in February 1917?