WI: Briatin and USA swapped in WW1

What if the USA had joined the Entente at the beginning of the war whilst the British Empire remained neutral at the beginning but eventually joined one of the sides towards the end of the war?
 
“If I had been President,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote to the British ambassador to the United States, Cecil Spring-Rice, on October 3, 1914, “I should have acted on the thirtieth or thirty-first of July, as head of a signatory power of the Hague treaties, calling attention to the guaranty of Belgium’s neutrality and saying that I accepted the treaties as imposing a serious obligation which I expected not only the United States but all other neutral nations to join in enforcing.” Simeon Strunsky, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Prelude to 1914,”​

I guess the US would be mopping up Germany's Pacific Colonies rather than Japan.

Perhaps the British Army is stuck in Ireland and can't be shipped to the continent. As late as August 3 Austro-Hungary's Chief of the General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf cited a report from the military attaché in London to argue “that there is no desire [in England] for war for the time being, taking into account the Ulster crisis and the civil war.” The next day, England declared war on Germany and, eight days later, on Austria-Hungary.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
“If I had been President,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote to the British ambassador to the United States, Cecil Spring-Rice, on October 3, 1914, “I should have acted on the thirtieth or thirty-first of July, as head of a signatory power of the Hague treaties, calling attention to the guaranty of Belgium’s neutrality and saying that I accepted the treaties as imposing a serious obligation which I expected not only the United States but all other neutral nations to join in enforcing.” Simeon Strunsky, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Prelude to 1914,”
Well, I don't think that a war would have even broken out in the West if such things ever happened, unless the German leaders go completely brainless.

On the flip side, the Congress might attempt to impeach him.
 
The US was a military pygmy in 1914 with 3 infantry and 1 cavalry division in CONUS and a couple of independent brigades in the likes of Hawaii, Alaska and Philippines. Even these units weren't well prepared as the US only had 6 artillery regiments and the units were a 'peace' strength of 65-72 men per company rather than 150 and no reserves liable to be called up to bring them to war strength. The National Guard was even worse, although there were 12 divisions the states tended to under-fund less useful (to them) artillery at the expense of infantry and cavalry, and in addition these troops were woefully under-trained in 1914. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in 1914 Secretary of War Stimson advised in his annual report that it would take at least 6 and more likely 12 months for the US Army to be ready for a modern, high-intensity war and from my reading on this interesting period I have no reason to doubt his judgement.

This means that there would be no US forces to fight analogous battles to the BEF, which itself grew from 4 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions in August to 9 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions in October, as the US cannot possibly match this feat. Maybe this means France loses the war in the opening phases, but at very least does worse than OTL.

In naval terms things are a bit better, the USN has about 10 dreadnought battleships in 1914 but the fleet was woefully unbalanced with only 10 cruisers and 55 destroyers built since the Spanish-American war. A balanced fleet should be able to to be sent to France within weeks of war breaking out, but IOTL when the USN went to Britain in 1917 their shooting wasn't up to scratch and I'd say that in 1914 the situation would be worse in that regard.
 
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