Which front Germany should focus first on WWI, Western or Eastern one?

Best Strategy for Germany?

  • Offensive on the West first, Defensive on the East

    Votes: 14 15.7%
  • Offensive on the East first, Defensive on the West

    Votes: 75 84.3%

  • Total voters
    89
They had a security guarantee for Belgium, so yes they would enter the war if Germany invades. If Britain doesn't enter, that triggers Italy more likely to attack France and Ottomans don't have to defend against the Brits so able to put even more pressure on Russia.
The UK might use closure of the Bosphorus as an excuse for a DOW if the Ottoman's enter the war.
 
They had a security guarantee for Belgium, so yes they would enter the war if Germany invades. If Britain doesn't enter, that triggers Italy more likely to attack France and Ottomans don't have to defend against the Brits so able to put even more pressure on Russia.

Salandra jumped into the war because he thought it would be over fairly quickly, and he wanted Italy's share of the spoils.

But if Britain stays out, a quick Allied victory is not in the works; and if the Germans face east, a quick Central Powers victory isn't going to happen, either.

So I suspect Salandra holds on and watches. If Britain continues to stay out, he probably waits for signs that the Entente is crumbling, jumping in in hopes of gaining at least Nice and Tunis if nothing else (if Berlin is smart, they're burning the diplomatic wires promising at least that). OTOH, Grey may exercise heavy pressure on Italy to stay neutral.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
That's an interesting question, actually.

Let's work on the assumption that Britain at least reaches at least a detente (if not Chamberlain's sought-after military alliance) sometime in 1901-09 with Germany in this scenario. As such, it almost certainly has no secret military arrangements with France regarding disposition of fleets, or transportation of British Army units to France. This complicates any British entry into the war, but doesn't make it impossible.

I think British entry probably still happens, but may well take a more independent form - deployment of the British Army directly to Belgian Channel ports - and, if they can make it that far, Antwerp. Coordination with the French might be minimal at first.

Whereas avoiding a naval arms race, with all that ensues, improves already very good odds that Britain does not join the Entente in a war where Germany stands on the defense in the West. In fact, the odds are probably just about 100%.
Question--if Germany plays defense in the West while going on the offensive in the East, would it be able to capture all of the French forts near the border and then advance up to Paris and conquer it after it has already defeated Russia?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Even with using the English Channel the German fleet has to travel a lot further to get to the Atlantic and world trade routes. If they have to go around Britain via the North Sea to get to the Atlantic the French heavy ships are much closer to their bases and can get to the battle area for convoy intercept, plus have the Brits reporting to them about German warship movements to know where to go.

Why exactly would Britain report to France about this, though? Due to the Entente Cordiale and subsequent Anglo-French agreements? If so, what about if the EC and everything that came after it is butterflied away in this TL?

It was the German ambassador talking to a major British official, IIRC the head of the foreign office. So complainints about that comment would go right to the guy that made them. The source is here if you want to check it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_naval_arms_race#cite_note-3

OK; understood. :(

Because initially the build up was to defend their coast against a Franco-Russian close blockade/attack on Germany, but as the British became more hostile and were building up their fleet, plus of course made their threats about blockading Germany, the Germans saw them as the primary threat in the later naval laws. I said that the initial build up was against the French and Russians, it was the British then that declared a naval race that the Germans responded to with their building, because under international law only a close blockade of ports was legal, so the Germans assumed if anyone was going to blockade them it would be a close blockade that heavy, short ranged BBs could break with a major fleet action. The German navy was effectively a blockade breaking force by design for use in the North Sea, but they were totally unprepared for a Distant Blockade that Britain could run thanks to controlling access to the North Sea via the English Channel and the routes around Scotland.

Given international law only allowed for a close blockade to be legal, yes. The Germans also had the idea of a 'risk fleet', meaning that in the event of war they'd have a major naval threat to challenge anyone attacking them, which became the 'fleet in being' concept of just having a major fleet would be a deterrent or at least lock down major enemy resources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_von_Tirpitz

So, did the British blockade of Germany in World War I violate international law?

Also, why didn't Germany ever use its Fleet in action outside of Jutland during World War I?
 

Deleted member 1487

Why exactly would Britain report to France about this, though? Due to the Entente Cordiale and subsequent Anglo-French agreements? If so, what about if the EC and everything that came after it is butterflied away in this TL?
Partly due to the Entente, partly to help offset Germany's industrial power relative to their foes. Britain thought France+Russia was weaker than Germany+A-H so would try and offset Germany's power by a defacto blockade. The EC was not an agreement formally, it was an understanding that Britain could walk away from at any time, they chose to keep it going for the war because it fit their perceived interests at the time.

So, did the British blockade of Germany in World War I violate international law?
Kinda, kinda no. Britain didn't do a formal blockade of any shipping to Germany, they enacted a black list and started buying up all the spare world trade that Germany might use, while shutting down their shipping. They skirted the letter of the law by basically saying to any neutral that if you traded with Germany outright you would be blacklisted by the Entente powers from any trade and they were spending freely and with US loans (with collateral), so were the best customers on earth. No one wanted to be black listed in 1914-17, so they played ball and cut all but clandestine trade with Germany except for certain exceptions due to the realities of trade patterns that the British had to agree to (Netherlands needed German coal, the Swedish were stuck in the Baltic and dependent on German trade, while the Swiss facilitated everything and were necessary to everyone even going to far as to provide a means for German steel barons to trade steel to the French for a profit). So Germany was able to spend pretty freely and US businesses were able to transship to Germany a bit under British noses, but only to a limited section of Europe and often in a bidding war with the British. That is why the blockade was set to fall apart in 1917 when the Entente ran out of collateral to buy up US and foreign goods; the blockade, such that it existed, depended on the black list, but that only had power so long as the British were the world's best customer and they would cease to be that without money to spend. US banks weren't going to loan money without collateral, which ran out in late 1916/early 1917. So while the Brits could go to a true naval blockade at a distance, no one, least of all the US, was going to tolerate it and would break such an attempt by force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany#Blockade

Also, why didn't Germany ever use its Fleet in action outside of Jutland during World War I?
They did actually use parts here and there, but the fleet in being only works if you don't lose the fleet and Jutland demonstrated that they weren't able to really fight well enough given the fog of war to really win a major fleet action and have left over power to actually do anything after that. The German admirals lost their nerve. So in 1918 they realized the war was almost lost and proved the major surface fleet was worthless in war, so tried to launch one big suicide mission to justify themselves, but the sailors mutinied, because they weren't about to die for admirals trying to say they did something worthwhile only after the war was lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_warfare_of_World_War_I#North_Sea
 
Also, why didn't Germany ever use its Fleet in action outside of Jutland during World War I?

Assuming you mean more than simply the I and III battle squadrons of the HSF they did use the fleet in WW1. They bombarded the British coast twice in 1914, had 2 battles in the Baltic in 1915, did a sweep through the Skagerrak to check neutral shipping in Dec 1915, bombarded Britain again in Apr 16, went to sea in forces again in Aug and Oct 1916. They then sent 2 of their destroyer flotilla to Flanders and fought 3 big light forces battles in late 16 - early 17 and conducted an invasion of Moon Island etc in the Baltic in late 17 as well as conducting surface attacks on Norwegian convoys twice.

However Ingenohl and Pohl were cautious to the point of defeatism and the German naval command wasn't good enough to be piled up enough to be classed as a pile of shit, so it didn't achieve nearly in proportion to the effort involved building it or the opportunities presented to it.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Partly due to the Entente, partly to help offset Germany's industrial power relative to their foes. Britain thought France+Russia was weaker than Germany+A-H so would try and offset Germany's power by a defacto blockade. The EC was not an agreement formally, it was an understanding that Britain could walk away from at any time, they chose to keep it going for the war because it fit their perceived interests at the time.

Would a Germany which avoids expanding its navy as much be perceived as being as threatening to Britain, though? If not, could Britain avoid engaging in such behavior against Germany in such a scenario?

Kinda, kinda no. Britain didn't do a formal blockade of any shipping to Germany, they enacted a black list and started buying up all the spare world trade that Germany might use, while shutting down their shipping. They skirted the letter of the law by basically saying to any neutral that if you traded with Germany outright you would be blacklisted by the Entente powers from any trade and they were spending freely and with US loans (with collateral), so were the best customers on earth. No one wanted to be black listed in 1914-17, so they played ball and cut all but clandestine trade with Germany except for certain exceptions due to the realities of trade patterns that the British had to agree to (Netherlands needed German coal, the Swedish were stuck in the Baltic and dependent on German trade, while the Swiss facilitated everything and were necessary to everyone even going to far as to provide a means for German steel barons to trade steel to the French for a profit). So Germany was able to spend pretty freely and US businesses were able to transship to Germany a bit under British noses, but only to a limited section of Europe and often in a bidding war with the British. That is why the blockade was set to fall apart in 1917 when the Entente ran out of collateral to buy up US and foreign goods; the blockade, such that it existed, depended on the black list, but that only had power so long as the British were the world's best customer and they would cease to be that without money to spend. US banks weren't going to loan money without collateral, which ran out in late 1916/early 1917. So while the Brits could go to a true naval blockade at a distance, no one, least of all the US, was going to tolerate it and would break such an attempt by force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany#Blockade

Thanks for this information! :)

Also, though, does this mean that Germany would have won World War I in the West in either 1917 or 1918 had the U.S. not entered World War I in early 1917?

They did actually use parts here and there, but the fleet in being only works if you don't lose the fleet and Jutland demonstrated that they weren't able to really fight well enough given the fog of war to really win a major fleet action and have left over power to actually do anything after that. The German admirals lost their nerve. So in 1918 they realized the war was almost lost and proved the major surface fleet was worthless in war, so tried to launch one big suicide mission to justify themselves, but the sailors mutinied, because they weren't about to die for admirals trying to say they did something worthwhile only after the war was lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_warfare_of_World_War_I#North_Sea

OK; understood.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but German right-wingers should have really blamed these Admirals rather than socialists, Communists, and Jews for the 1918-1919 German Revolution; after all, I myself likewise wouldn't want to die in a hopeless military action!
 

Deleted member 1487

Would a Germany which avoids expanding its navy as much be perceived as being as threatening to Britain, though? If not, could Britain avoid engaging in such behavior against Germany in such a scenario?
Yes, because an expanding German navy at all was going to be seized on by the British navy as a threat, so that they could scare the public into financing their own reconstruction of the fleet on the Dreadnought standard. The Germans would have to rebuild their fleet anyway because of that (like everyone else) so it gave the Brits the perfect propaganda to do so. Like the non-existent 'bomber gap' during the Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906)#Significance
Her construction sparked off a naval arms race, and soon all major fleets were adding Dreadnought-like ships.[2]

Thanks for this information! :)

Also, though, does this mean that Germany would have won World War I in the West in either 1917 or 1918 had the U.S. not entered World War I in early 1917?
Yes, every time that comes up myself and several other posters provide sources and argue strenuously that that would have been the case. USW was the worst policy choice the Germans made in WW1 because of this. US entry unleashed a flood of cash to the Entente that they lacked for the early part of the war, which would not have been available had the US stayed out. Wilson was pretty pissed at the Entente too due to them rejecting his offer to negotiate in late 1916, but the Germans accepted.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/financing-the-first-world-war-9780199257270?cc=us&lang=en&

OK; understood.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but German right-wingers should have really blamed these Admirals rather than socialists, Communists, and Jews for the 1918-1919 German Revolution; after all, I myself likewise wouldn't want to die in a hopeless military action!
Of course as well as the German army generals like Ludendorff and Hindenburg for calling for USW, going for total victory instead of negotiating, and then fucking up the final campaign, which was actually very winnable. But remember the stabbed in the back myth was invented by Ludendorff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth#Origins
The official birth of the term "stab-in-the-back" itself possibly can be dated to the autumn of 1919, when Ludendorff was dining with the head of the British Military Mission in Berlin, British general Sir Neill Malcolm. Malcolm asked Ludendorff why it was that he thought Germany lost the war. Ludendorff replied with his list of excuses, including that the home front failed the army.

Malcolm asked him: "Do you mean, General, that you were stabbed in the back?" Ludendorff's eyes lit up and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone. "Stabbed in the back?" he repeated. "Yes, that's it, exactly, we were stabbed in the back". And thus was born a legend which has never entirely perished.[6]

The phrase was to Ludendorff's liking, and he let it be known among the general staff that this was the "official" version, and so it was disseminated throughout German society. This was picked up by right-wing political factions and used as a form of attack against the SPD-led early Weimar government, which had come to power in the German Revolution of November 1918.

The reviews in the German press that grossly misrepresented general Frederick Barton Maurice's book, The Last Four Months, also contributed to the creation of this myth. "Ludendorff made use of the reviews to convince Hindenburg."[7]

In a hearing before the Committee on Inquiry of the National Assembly on November 18, 1919, a year after the war's end, Hindenburg declared, "As an English general has very truly said, the German Army was 'stabbed in the back'."[7]

In 1919, Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund leader Alfred Roth, writing under the pseudonym Otto Arnim, published the book The Jew in the Army which he said was based on evidence gathered during his participation on the Judenzählung, a military census which had in fact shown that German Jews had served in the front lines proportionately to their numbers. Roth's work claimed that most Jews involved in the war were only taking part as profiteers and spies, while he also blamed Jewish officers for fostering a defeatist mentality which impacted negatively on their soldiers. As such, the book offered one of the earliest published versions of the stab-in-the-back legend.[8]

Of course Ludendorff was behind the effort to blame the Jews for Germany's failures even during the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenzählung

Really the right wing in Germany hated communism and Jews and conflated the two (because Jews were generally pretty poor rather than rich, as many Jewish eastern european immigrants came to Germany looking for work and got caught up in crime, prostitution, and socialist politics because left politics was the one area that offered them a better life and actually accepted them), while the SPD challenged Ludendorff and Hindenburg, plus the German elites and industrialists. Ludendorff actually touched off massive strikes in 1917-18 by trying to force a law to militarize labor so unions could be broken and strikers or people trying to change jobs to get better pay could be punished by military justice, which did hurt the German war effort and started the major Left peace effort. The Left rightly saw the war as unwinnable and negotiations as the only way out, but the Right needed a victory to stabilize their place in society, as well as take heat off them for starting the war. So the right wing, as they often do in national politics, makes shit up to slander their political opponents and deflect all blame from them on to 'defeatists' and other social scapegoats. The German right, pretty much fixated on military stuff for their definition of masculinity and identity (a fatal flaw of German culture at the time stemming from German history and their foundation), couldn't really denounce militarism and the problems in German society caused by it, so had to find someone to blame their loss on that didn't include their own failures at the front and the stabbed in the back myth enabled them to avoid cognitive dissonance and accept that war is a bad idea, militarism a failure and cause of their nation's problems post-war, and most importantly made their political opponents the reason they really lost. Plus it kept Germans from lynching Ludendorff for his losing the war.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Yes, because an expanding German navy at all was going to be seized on by the British navy as a threat, so that they could scare the public into financing their own reconstruction of the fleet on the Dreadnought standard. The Germans would have to rebuild their fleet anyway because of that (like everyone else) so it gave the Brits the perfect propaganda to do so. Like the non-existent 'bomber gap' during the Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906)#Significance

OK; understood. However, in hindsight, the Germans should have also tried making their navy long-range, correct?

Yes, every time that comes up myself and several other posters provide sources and argue strenuously that that would have been the case. USW was the worst policy choice the Germans made in WW1 because of this. US entry unleashed a flood of cash to the Entente that they lacked for the early part of the war, which would not have been available had the US stayed out. Wilson was pretty pissed at the Entente too due to them rejecting his offer to negotiate in late 1916, but the Germans accepted.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/financing-the-first-world-war-9780199257270?cc=us&lang=en&

OK; also, in addition to that book, are there any other books and/or articles about this that I should take a look at?

Also, there was absolutely no realistic way for Wilson to either declare war or to (somehow) finance the Entente/Allies starting from 1917 onward without a prior German resumption of USW, correct?

Of course as well as the German army generals like Ludendorff and Hindenburg for calling for USW,

OK.

going for total victory instead of negotiating,

Agreed; however, when do you personally think the best time for Germany to negotiate was?

and then fucking up the final campaign, which was actually very winnable.

Can you please elaborate on this part?

But remember the stabbed in the back myth was invented by Ludendorff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth#Origins

Of course Ludendorff was behind the effort to blame the Jews for Germany's failures even during the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenzählung

Understood and completely agreed. :(

Really the right wing in Germany hated communism and Jews and conflated the two (because Jews were generally pretty poor rather than rich, as many Jewish eastern european immigrants came to Germany looking for work and got caught up in crime, prostitution, and socialist politics because left politics was the one area that offered them a better life and actually accepted them), while the SPD challenged Ludendorff and Hindenburg, plus the German elites and industrialists. Ludendorff actually touched off massive strikes in 1917-18 by trying to force a law to militarize labor so unions could be broken and strikers or people trying to change jobs to get better pay could be punished by military justice, which did hurt the German war effort and started the major Left peace effort.

OK; understood.

The Left rightly saw the war as unwinnable and negotiations as the only way out, but the Right needed a victory to stabilize their place in society, as well as take heat off them for starting the war.

Out of curiosity--what kind of peace did the German left actually want? One which is genuinely based on national self-determination and with no indemnities?

So the right wing, as they often do in national politics, makes shit up to slander their political opponents and deflect all blame from them on to 'defeatists' and other social scapegoats. The German right, pretty much fixated on military stuff for their definition of masculinity and identity (a fatal flaw of German culture at the time stemming from German history and their foundation), couldn't really denounce militarism and the problems in German society caused by it, so had to find someone to blame their loss on that didn't include their own failures at the front and the stabbed in the back myth enabled them to avoid cognitive dissonance and accept that war is a bad idea, militarism a failure and cause of their nation's problems post-war, and most importantly made their political opponents the reason they really lost. Plus it kept Germans from lynching Ludendorff for his losing the war.

OK; understood. Also, that actually makes complete and perfect sense. Of course, unfortunately for Germany, many people actually ended up believing in the stab-in-the-back myth--with one of those people coming to power in Germany later on and trying his "utmost best" to ensure that there won't be a new stab-in-the-back this time around, thus resulting in this:

5503949_orig.jpg


--and, slightly later, this:

Berlin+in+1945.jpg


Also, though, one final point--I would like to point out that proto-Nazi ideas (equating Jews with socialism, wanting Lebensraum, et cetera) actually existed in Germany even before the start of World War I; indeed, Heinrich Class's 1912 book If I Were the Kaiser appears to be an excellent example of pre-World War I proto-Nazi German literature:

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/523_Shades of the Future_104.pdf
 

Deleted member 1487

OK; understood. However, in hindsight, the Germans should have also tried making their navy long-range, correct?
That is debateable.

OK; also, in addition to that book, are there any other books and/or articles about this that I should take a look at?

Also, there was absolutely no realistic way for Wilson to either declare war or to (somehow) finance the Entente/Allies starting from 1917 onward without a prior German resumption of USW, correct?
There are probably a bunch, I'm not doing a search right now, try googling.
Wilson did not want to declare war, he was forced into it by the USW resumption and Zimmerman Telegram in 1917. In fact he was pissed at the Entetne for refusing to accept his offer to mediate, so he was totally done helping them with anything. Without USW the US public and Wilson had no interest in fighting Germany or paying for the Entente war. They were happy to loan money if there was collateral, but that was all gone and Wilson had the Fed issue a statement that the US government would not secure any loans for the Brits, so any loaned money was at the risk of default. That killed loan offers to Britain until the US entered the war and organized unsecured loans to Britain.


Agreed; however, when do you personally think the best time for Germany to negotiate was?
For Germany given Ludendorff during the height of the Operation Michael's success in March 1918 and that would require confirming Germany's willingness to have an independent Belgium to placate Britain (not that that was anything Ludendorff would accept). Prior Germany actually did repeatedly try and negotiate, but the Entente refused. Germany tried to negotiate with Russia in 1915 and were rebuffed, while in 1916 they accepted Wilson's offer to mediate and presented terms, though very extreme, as a starting point. The Entente refused to even talk.

Can you please elaborate on this part?
Just read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/German-1918-...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219499286&sr=1-2
Zabecki explains it in detail.

Out of curiosity--what kind of peace did the German left actually want? One which is genuinely based on national self-determination and with no indemnities?
Depends on how far left you want to go, some wanted a peace without annexations, some wanted a negotiated peace.

Also, though, one final point--I would like to point out that proto-Nazi ideas (equating Jews with socialism, wanting Lebensraum, et cetera) actually existed in Germany even before the start of World War I; indeed, Heinrich Class's 1912 book If I Were the Kaiser appears to be an excellent example of pre-World War I proto-Nazi German literature:

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/523_Shades of the Future_104.pdf
Yeah racism and crazy shit existed in Germany pre-WW1, but it was much more marginal until the insanity of war and defeat drove the right wing truly insane and really gave them PTSD. Racism and conspiracy theories then gave them a mental salve to deal with reality. A bunch of angry PTSDed veterans looking for excuses after defeat and a nation that just experienced a communist revolution and civil war was not in the best state to objectively and rationally consider what just happened.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
That is debateable.

Can you please elaborate on this?

There are probably a bunch, I'm not doing a search right now, try googling.
Wilson did not want to declare war, he was forced into it by the USW resumption and Zimmerman Telegram in 1917. In fact he was pissed at the Entetne for refusing to accept his offer to mediate, so he was totally done helping them with anything. Without USW the US public and Wilson had no interest in fighting Germany or paying for the Entente war. They were happy to loan money if there was collateral, but that was all gone and Wilson had the Fed issue a statement that the US government would not secure any loans for the Brits, so any loaned money was at the risk of default. That killed loan offers to Britain until the US entered the war and organized unsecured loans to Britain.

OK; understood.

Also, though, had he won in 1916, would Charles Evans Hughes have had the same attitude that Wilson would have had in regards to this without the Zimmerman Telegram and USW?

For Germany given Ludendorff during the height of the Operation Michael's success in March 1918 and that would require confirming Germany's willingness to have an independent Belgium to placate Britain (not that that was anything Ludendorff would accept). Prior Germany actually did repeatedly try and negotiate, but the Entente refused. Germany tried to negotiate with Russia in 1915 and were rebuffed, while in 1916 they accepted Wilson's offer to mediate and presented terms, though very extreme, as a starting point. The Entente refused to even talk.

Out of curiosity--would the Entente/Allies have actually been willing to agree to a negotiated peace in March 1918?


OK; will do! :)

Depends on how far left you want to go, some wanted a peace without annexations, some wanted a negotiated peace.

A pro-Germany negotiated peace?

Yeah racism and crazy shit existed in Germany pre-WW1, but it was much more marginal until the insanity of war and defeat drove the right wing truly insane and really gave them PTSD. Racism and conspiracy theories then gave them a mental salve to deal with reality. A bunch of angry PTSDed veterans looking for excuses after defeat and a nation that just experienced a communist revolution and civil war was not in the best state to objectively and rationally consider what just happened.

OK; understood. Also, this certainly helps explain why exactly many top Nazis (for those born before 1900)--specifically Hitler, Rohm, Goering, Hess, et cetera--were German World War I veterans.
 

Deleted member 1487

Can you please elaborate on this?
Different people have different opinions about what an optimal naval strategy would have been. I'm not naval expert so won't really layout the theories.

OK; understood.

Also, though, had he won in 1916, would Charles Evans Hughes have had the same attitude that Wilson would have had in regards to this without the Zimmerman Telegram and USW?
No, Hughes wanted war. Wilson was the peace candidate and ran on the idea of 'he kept us out of the war'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1916
But in spite of their sympathy with the Allied forces, most American voters wanted to avoid involvement in the war and preferred to continue a policy of neutrality. Wilson's campaign used the popular slogan "He kept us out of war" to appeal to those voters who wanted to avoid a war in Europe or with Mexico. The progressive Hughes criticized Wilson for not taking the "necessary preparations" to face a conflict, which only served to strengthen Wilson's image as an anti-war candidate.

Out of curiosity--would the Entente/Allies have actually been willing to agree to a negotiated peace in March 1918?
If the right terms were offered right when they were panicking about the Germans winning everything.

A pro-Germany negotiated peace?
More like, let's see what we can get, but be willing to give up stuff for peace.

OK; understood. Also, this certainly helps explain why exactly many top Nazis (for those born before 1900)--specifically Hitler, Rohm, Goering, Hess, et cetera--were German World War I veterans.
Most German men had military experience if they were of that generation and had some trauma from the war and the peace. There was also a younger cohort that had just missed the war and wanted to prove that they were tough enough. Plus a lot of veterans organizations were filled with guys that were bitter about the peace and the defeat, feeling that their sacrifice and those of their dead or maimed friends was wasted, and spent their post-war years stewing and drinking. I do remember reading something in college about German society in the interwar years and a statement from a woman saying that she wished for another war, so that German men could finally get over the defeat and feel they reclaimed their manhood. That is why in WW2 the Allies were really thinking they had to go all the way rather than negotiating a peace that gave the Germans anything, because they needed to know they were truly, fully beaten and there would not be a 3rd war.
 

BooNZ

Banned
How can we blame Austrian industrial troubles on Russia? They didn't occupy Budapest or Prague.
According to Herwig in the opening months of the war A-H lost 27K square miles or arable land, seven million farmers were financially ruined, millions of agrarian labourers made beggars and hundreds of thousands of cattle slaughtered. Like other belligerents, A-H mobilized a high proportion of its industrial workforce, but A-H suffered disproportional losses in the opening months of the war, especially among its educated officer classes. It would be fair to say A-H economy never recovered from those initial setbacks.

On balance the loss of territory and industrial potential may not have been as great as northern France, but A-H did not have open access to international trade and deep pockets to make good those initial economic losses. A-H had to carry the fight on three separate fronts for the majority of the war, with variable support. France had to fight on a single front and could lean increasingly on the British for support as the war progressed.
 
France lost its northeastern industrial heartland! Austria-Hungary lost some Polish farmers.

Actually, more Ukrainian than Polish.

But I think BooNZ's point stands.

I think the bigger hit to the Austro-Hungarians is that the 1914 battles gutted its trained army core, a core it struggled to replace. But I don't think the economic hit should be underestimated. (Also: Galicia was the Central Powers' only significant domestic source of petroleum, and most of the fields were in the fought over eastern parts of the region.) As BooNZ says, the Austrians didn't have access to British or American financing or resources to make good the losses. Germany was already very hard pressed.
 
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