WI Dominion Army in WW1?

Late in 1918 the Canadains force marched into position beside the Australians and both Corp began advancing with amazing results. These 9 divisions engaged 83 German divisions and basically spearheaded the BEF advance in 1918.

2 Corps of 9 divisions is an Army, so WI a Dominion Army was formed? It could be bulked out with South Africans, Kiwis and Newfies.
 
Our all conquering combined Canzac horde seizes control of Europe since the puny eurogirlymen have no chance of stopping us. Then we make everyone eat Vegemite with their Poutine.

Hockey in Winter, Rugby in Summer, no exceptions!

:)

Realistically not much goes differently, None of the Dominions were interested in large permanent armies, so i don't see a combined army lasting. Possibly Westminster gets accelerated a bit, and some moderate combined planning for Commonwealth defense hangs around for a bit?
 

Larrikin

Banned
Late in 1918 the Canadains force marched into position beside the Australians and both Corp began advancing with amazing results. These 9 divisions engaged 83 German divisions and basically spearheaded the BEF advance in 1918.

2 Corps of 9 divisions is an Army, so WI a Dominion Army was formed? It could be bulked out with South Africans, Kiwis and Newfies.

A full Dominions roll out would have consisted of 5 Australian infantry divisions, 4 Canandian inf divs, the New Zealand div, Newfoundland inf brigade, SA inf brigade, Canadian Cavalry brigade, 1/2 Australian light horse regts, the Canandian Machine Gun Corps, various mining, railway, engineering and seige units, plus the Canadian and Australian Flying Corps squadrons.

Putting it together as the 6th (Dominion) Army would have given the Germans kittens. Merely by putting it into the line you would guarantee pulling all the German reserves to that sector of the line. You wouldn't even have had to launch an attack.

Then you hit them at some other point. Either the Germans respond by moving their reserves to that point and getting hammered by the Dominions, or the German reserves stay where they are and risk a break through at the attack site.

The argument would be over who to command it, Currie or Monash, both of whom were at the least very good. Aside from the fact of Currie's seniority is the fact that Monash was also a Jew, and the highest ranked Jew ever in British military service.

Being an Australian I'm slightly biased towards Monash but it would almost have been best to sit the two of them down in a room to decide who got the job themselves.
 
Not going to happen with Sir Robert Borden as Prime Minister of Canada. It was largely due to his incredible political struggle with many UK politicians (excluding LG) that a separate Canadian Corps was formed. Canadian nationhood was forged on Vimy Ridge, and he secured separate seats for the Dominions at Versailles. Whatever his domestic failings (and there were many), Borden brought us onto the international stage during WWI.
 
Actually I disagree. No one denies that the CANZAC units were probably the best quality troops on either side during the war. But this was for one simple reason, they were volunteers and the had higher standards than anyone else. By this point France and Germany was throwing anyone who could walk, talk and stand up into the line and Britain wasn't far away. The CANZAC's never relaxed their standards to the same extent, leaving their units qualitatively superior. But it also meant there was a finite limit on manpower, exacerbated by the small population of the countries involved.
Now the British and French General staff (who decide if a new army gets formed) knew this. So if you have a diminishing, rare, resource (due to recruitment not keeping up with losses) you need to use it in the most efficient way possible. In this case the same way the British used their best units like the Guards Division or how they used units like 6th Airborne in WW2. As shock troops only put into the line when needed.
Now I know this isn't what happened and CANZAC units were put on quiet sectors and that was a waste of their talents.
So if we stop regarding these units as ordinary infantry divisions but shock division we have two option. To distribute them in penny packets, i.e. one or two divisions per Army or exactly as OTL, keep them in separate Corps and move them around as needed, striking a good balance between concentration and the need to be everywhere at once. But by creating a whole Shock Army you would be throwing that away. Either it is, like every other Army, assigned a section of line, a complete waste or its is held back in reserve, weakening the front line. Due to the nature of battles on a broad front when faced with something like the Michael offensive it wouldn't fight as a Army but instead would have its troops detached as OTL to the command of the Army assigned that section of the front. So such a Shock Army wouldn't be a real Army, instead a holding body for the B.E.F. reserves, a needless duplication of resources as the 5th or Reserve Army was perfectly capable of controlling the reserves without the need for an additional Headquarters.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the Fifth Army ended up under the control of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Birdwood an honorary Aussie and former commander of the ANZAC's.
 

Cook

Banned
Not going to happen with Sir Robert Borden as Prime Minister of Canada. It was largely due to his incredible political struggle with many UK politicians (excluding LG) that a separate Canadian Corps was formed. Canadian nationhood was forged on Vimy Ridge, and he secured separate seats for the Dominions at Versailles. Whatever his domestic failings (and there were many), Borden brought us onto the international stage during WWI.

Talking about an Army here; that’s at least two Corps.

Presumably a Canadian Corps, a combined Australian and New Zealand Corps, plus maybe an American Corps.

Imagine what Monash or Currie could have done with that, with the armour, artillery and air support they were both great at co-ordinating.
 
Our divs were short on men but resisted moves to consolidate into 4 divisions, so while we had 5 divs to Canada's 4 I think they had more men and almost certainly more artillery, Currie was a virtual Bruchmuller.

One big issue I can forsee is that the basic unit of the BEF was the division, Corps and higher were geographical commands and divisions were allocated and removed as the situation demanded, I read one extreme example (hazy on exact details now) where a BEF corps had command of 50 divisions in a month. The Cdn and Aus corps were the only permament Corps in the BEF, and if formed into an Army would be the only fixed unit army in the BEF.
 
A Dominion Army would have been a complete contradiction of British Doctrine, which was to assigns Army's to task (i.e. a section of line) and weaken or reinforce as necessary. By creating a rigid Dominion Army you are significantly weakening the tactical and strategic flexibility of the overall force. All in all, a bad idea.
 
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That was entirely due to the inevitable results of putting fresh, elite troops into the line against an exhausted, depleted, overstretched enemy.
Combining the Dominion units into a Shock Army would have weakened the front until they were committed into an offensive, then they would have taken massive casualties and cause a gigantic political shit-storm because no Brits are dying.
 
Not wanting to irk CANZAC :)D) pride but I am afraid that the UK-1914 idea of "Dominion" was not so much different from "colony"
There is a famous Punch cartoon of two englismen looking to a canadian soldier and wondering what C.A.N.A.D.A. stands for
 
malinutile is correct: the UK handled foreign relations for the Dominions until post-WWI. For a long time the political foreign policy crowd was divided between nationalists (later pro-US) and pro-Imperial/Commonwealth (Tories until 1967). Not coincidental that most of the first wave of Canadian enlistees were toff immigrants from Britain. ;)
 
Both Canada and Australia pushed to have their troops concentrated into Corps, much delayed in Australia's case, and both argued their case postwar, so there is a distinct national identity even if not well defined.

As I've said, the Canadians moved beside the Australians and both corps moved forward. All that is needed is to give command of these 2 corps to one man and add the Kiwis, South Africans and Newfies and wella you have an ad hoc Dominion Army.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Actually I disagree. No one denies that the CANZAC units were probably the best quality troops on either side during the war. But this was for one simple reason, they were volunteers and the had higher standards than anyone else. By this point France and Germany was throwing anyone who could walk, talk and stand up into the line and Britain wasn't far away. The CANZAC's never relaxed their standards to the same extent, leaving their units qualitatively superior. But it also meant there was a finite limit on manpower, exacerbated by the small population of the countries involved.
Now the British and French General staff (who decide if a new army gets formed) knew this. So if you have a diminishing, rare, resource (due to recruitment not keeping up with losses) you need to use it in the most efficient way possible. In this case the same way the British used their best units like the Guards Division or how they used units like 6th Airborne in WW2. As shock troops only put into the line when needed.
Now I know this isn't what happened and CANZAC units were put on quiet sectors and that was a waste of their talents.
So if we stop regarding these units as ordinary infantry divisions but shock division we have two option. To distribute them in penny packets, i.e. one or two divisions per Army or exactly as OTL, keep them in separate Corps and move them around as needed, striking a good balance between concentration and the need to be everywhere at once. But by creating a whole Shock Army you would be throwing that away. Either it is, like every other Army, assigned a section of line, a complete waste or its is held back in reserve, weakening the front line. Due to the nature of battles on a broad front when faced with something like the Michael offensive it wouldn't fight as a Army but instead would have its troops detached as OTL to the command of the Army assigned that section of the front. So such a Shock Army wouldn't be a real Army, instead a holding body for the B.E.F. reserves, a needless duplication of resources as the 5th or Reserve Army was perfectly capable of controlling the reserves without the need for an additional Headquarters.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the Fifth Army ended up under the control of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Birdwood an honorary Aussie and former commander of the ANZAC's.

The time to create it would have been late July 1918, when the Canadians came in alongside the Australians in the greatest secrecy to carry out the attack at Amiens, Germany's Black Day.

By creating a shock Army at this point, using the Dominion divisions and brigades, would have forced the Germans to respond to their every move. Just by putting them behind a certain section of the line would mean the Germans have to put their reserves opposite them. Whether they attack then, or act as a diversion for an attack away from them, they are forcing the Germans to jump to Haig's tune as far as positioning their reserves.

As for them being out of the line, divisions were pulled in and out all the time, for rest, rehearsals, etc, etc. Being able to do this so that the Dominion Army went in and out, and moved around wouldn't have been too much of a problem.
 
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