Thing is thos banks aren't going to go bankrupt, all thos loans are backed from foreign investment in the us, Britain goes bankrupt up Morgan and company take the assets and sell them to recuperate the loss that's the reason unsecured loans where fought tooth and nail in Congress after the us declared war because recuperating that loss would now be on the us tax payer. No banker in there right mind would give loans that can't get payed back (especially if doing so would be legal) including hp Morgan, american banks had zero risk in 1917 from its foreign loans and everybody knew that the us economy was going to take a hit no matter who won the war because the war was already overheating the us economy it gust depends when, as was shown in 1919.
What would a negotiated peace in 1917 look like?
- Thread starter Jiraiyathegallant
- Start date
History Learner
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Thank you, although I was referring to the other book you cited.
Okay, first and foremost, your citation to this point has been about French Gold Reserves in 1916/1917; nothing within that addresses whether or not Britain would still be solvent after April of 1917. Now, with respect to the point at hand, I have by now repeatedly stated that loans up to that date had been backed with collateral, so that in the event of an Entente default such assets would prevent U.S. bankruptcies. No doubt there would be a recession due to the collapse in war time orders, but this too would certainly be less than what occurred IOTL 1919 and something the U.S. had clearly indicated it was willing to absorb.
Finally, as Mikestone8 has repeatedly pointed out, in late 1916 Congress passed legislation specifically giving the President the power to target British commerce and, further, in January of 1917 Wilson and the Federal Reserve were indicating they would not allow unsecured loans to take place. If that was not enough to trigger Britain, what would?
Standard Oil of New Jersey was in the process of the transaction, so it wasn't an idle threat. I think this also explains why Britain acted the way they did towards the United States in late 1916/early 1917: they had no other choice. While Pearson may have had the largest oil concession in Mexico, the U.S. at large, American firms were overall the largest investors/controllers of Mexican oil. Given Section 807 of the 1916 Revenue Act, London knew the United States could really hammer them if they tried to act untoward American interests within Mexico.
Finally, as already hinted at, even if they did import Mexican oil, it would not be enough; Anglo-French-Italian consumption for 1918 was over 9 million tons, almost equal to the entirety of Mexican production. Given the U.S. stake was majority there, it would've been impossible to import enough from Mexico for such to occur.
Even if we assume an insolvent Britain could prevent such, and I doubt it given the U.S. could pressure Mexico into doing such to aid existing Entente collateral to cover their (British) imbalance, Pearson's share of Mexican output is insufficient to cover Entente needs and the Mexicans, nor the United States, have any reason to sell oil without payment from the UK.
As has been pointed out by me and others, the notion the United States had chose a side is without merit; Section 807 and Wilson's/Federal Reserve's movement to cut off unsecured loans preemptively emphatically show such. Likewise, I've yet to see any evidence the Entente had any resources left. One can quibble with Devlin's assessments, but when the man is able to cite British Treasury reports from November of 1916 saying that they would be insolvent after April, it's pretty hard to find a retort of merit.
As for the specific case of France, as brought up you and @NoMommsen, Devlin cites France was spending over £40,000,000 every six months as of November. In effect, if France exhausted every portion of her remaining gold holdings, from November of 1916 onwards, she would run out sometime in the first half of 1918 at the latest. The problem therein, however, is that this would've entailed the collapse in the faith of the Franc and the French economy as a whole, as runs on the banking system had been a very serious problem from 1914. To do this strategy would've entailed public panic and high inflation rates which, as we know from Nazi Germany in WWII, can doom a war economy.
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ferdi254
Banned
And to add one thing: Anybody who claims that the UK would have been able to replace the USA in terms of resources has a very nice question to answer:
If you say even without any imports from the USA the Entente would have been able to continue the war without any serious trouble... when why didn´t the UK government realize already before 1917 that buying staff from the USA is an absolute folly, as the same goods could be had without troubles in shipping, without capacity problems for the potential suppliers and against GBP:/loans or just on demand elsewhere? Why did they continue to buy staff in the USA knowing that they could not do so after April 1917 if they had other means to get it?
If you say even without any imports from the USA the Entente would have been able to continue the war without any serious trouble... when why didn´t the UK government realize already before 1917 that buying staff from the USA is an absolute folly, as the same goods could be had without troubles in shipping, without capacity problems for the potential suppliers and against GBP:/loans or just on demand elsewhere? Why did they continue to buy staff in the USA knowing that they could not do so after April 1917 if they had other means to get it?
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Germany gives up Belgium and gives up the land they occupied in Eastern Europe and pays a financial indemnity to France,Belgium and Russia for damages from the war. The German Monarchy stays on the throne and another war happens in 20-40 years.
in OTL, of course, the war ended with Germany really unhappy, which led to Hitler and WW2. Glancing through this thread, I see a lot of scenarios which seems to end up with 'everyone is unhappy'. That doesn't bode well for future peace...
After Jutland "proved" that the surface fleet could not defeat the Grand Fleet and break out, Scheer agreed that the U-boat was the better strategic weapon, the OHL convinced itself that Britain would collapse and everyone wanted a quicker blow given the increasing prospect that the USA was slipping towards joining the Entente. I think it was the gamble, enough ships sunk fast enough to impact the logistics to open the way to a victory on land to break the stalemate and defeat the French to get to dictate peace. That is why I prefer to mix in a little better showing at Jutland, let another BC or two get sunk, or better have the U-boat screen succeed, that defers the USW decision or blunts it. Like the blockade, the U-boat campaign was slow to matter under prize rules, it was friction rather than blow, and get fanciful, add in blocade running submarines earlier, we might get Germany better understanding the USA positions, have more to lose in USW or shift to longer ranged open ocean tactics that stretch the RN and perform well enough under prize-rules. USW was just a quick-fix, propelled by the mounting frustration, it could be delayed again, if so we let American anger over British violations of its Neutrality overtake outrage at U-boat warfare.
Deleted member 94680
Are all of those tonnage figures for just British merchant vessels sunk? Or do they include merchantmen from other nations? I’m only asking as it has been pointed out (several times) that U-boats sank more than Britain was building per month over a set of months, etc. Surely this is only the war-winner that people claiming it to be if it’s only British vessels sunk? A significant amount of, say, Brazilian tonnes sunk (which OTL happened) would mean less British tonnes which then new British builds could potentially outpace?
Deleted member 94680
So, born of desperation when original plans failed to achieve their objectives?
So, an attempt to speed up the effects of the U-boat campaign?
Just so I’m right in my thinking, we are all actually referring to “cruiser rules” when we say “prize rules” aren’t we? I wrote prize rules by accident (when that refers to the cost value of the captured vessel being divided by the attacking ship’s crew, etc and clearly not applicable) when I meant cruiser rules (where the U-boat had to surface and attack via it’s deck gun after allowing the crew to board life boats first).
In practice cruiser rules were abandoned by the U-boats from 1915 onwards when Q ships began to appear.
Yes, that is why I think in some mix one must add a POD that gives the U-boats other missions/successes, such as effectively screening the Grand Fleet battle line from the BC Force. I treated the terms as the same, U-boats cannot leverage stealth to sink a merchant. And I agree, the Q-ship was an absolute breach and forced the U-boat to act as it ultimately did. An interesting POD might be to have some evidence of this, or the fact that merchants, including passenger ships carried munitions or British ships flew American flags, to break relations with the USA over British duplicity, underhandedness and depravity in violating American neutrality.
Deleted member 94680
I take it the PoD would involve the “false flag” element rather than the carriage of munitions, which happened OTL?
Yet as late as Dec 1916 only a inority of ships sunk were torpedoes without warning. See
.http://www.naval-history.net/WW1LossesBrMS1914-16.htm
Could we have just a better uboat campaign against trade. i.e. sink more ships so the submarine campaign actually works without having to take the risky decision of OTL totally unrestricted USW getting the USA involved. A couple of options.
1) Restrict the 1915 unrestricted area to the Channel, (east of Cherbourg), North Sea, and the eastern med (east of Sicily), (prize rules elsewhere). These are obviously war areas, with supplies being shipped to the war fronts. The Germans could get away with taking liberties is these areas. OTL the Lusitania was on the way to Liverpool, sunk of of Ireland, Arabic was sunk off of Ireland outbound, these kind of incidents would be avoided. Keep this "unrestricted" campaign in place 1915-1918.
2) Instead of Scheer getting mad about the previous unrestricted campaign(s) being called off and keeping the submarines tied with the fleet in 1916 (for Jutland and all), keep the submarines following the prize rules for the entire 1916 period, so a prize rules campaign might sink enough ships to work over the long haul.
Take your pick. My understanding is that Lusitania carried gun cotton and small arms munitions in her holds, one of many theories to explain her violent demise. Even if false, let the accusation float. All is fair in the propaganda war.
Sounds good to me. I was following the usually wobbly path Germany took, on-again-off-again, but if we blunt the influence of OHL I think USW gets sidelined, your nuances only compel it to either not be an option or persuade OHL to not demand it, I take either rationale to get the better result.
History Learner
Banned
More a lack of information; had they known of the financial situation or how effective their non-USW campaign was, they likely wouldn't have resorted to such.
Deleted member 94680
A non USW campaign wouldn’t force Britain out of the war. It would have to be USW or else the numbers would be nowhere near high enough.