What if US General John Pershing got his way and the Allies pushed into Germany instead of accepting a ceasefire? At this time Germany was collapsing from within both militarily and economically. So there's little doubt that the Allies would win this new offensive by 1919. What would be the consequences of a total, decisive Allied victory? Would this prevent the "stabbed in the back" myth that helped bring Hitler to power? Would an Allied Occupation in 1919 result in a more stable post-war Germany?
WI: The Allies Advance into Germany in 1918
- Thread starter Amadeus
- Start date
Um, maybe?
The basic problem was that the USA, France, Italy and Britain were AINO - Allies in name only. Different interests, principles, outlooks, objectives. It's possible that the occupation of Germany would have led to a permanent US occupation of Germany a la WW2, in which case the prognosis for Europe was much better. Keep the Yanks in, and a Hitler can't rise.
The basic problem was that the USA, France, Italy and Britain were AINO - Allies in name only. Different interests, principles, outlooks, objectives. It's possible that the occupation of Germany would have led to a permanent US occupation of Germany a la WW2, in which case the prognosis for Europe was much better. Keep the Yanks in, and a Hitler can't rise.
History Learner
Banned
One of the great ironies of the Great War is that Ludendorff helped establish the "Stab in the Back" when it was his mental breakdown at the end of September that triggered the collapse in the first place.
German resistance was actually strengthening in the final weeks of the war and their material situation was excellent. Given the coming onset of winter and increasingly strong German defenses using Belgian Canals and the heavily fortified Alsace-Lorraine region, they were on the verge of outright halting the Allied push for winter when the Armistice came. Given the Spanish Flu, the Allies could not restart active campaigning until May or possibly June, by which point it'll come down almost solely to the Americans to break the Germans, which I don't see happening.
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I believe John Keegan wrote that if Ludendorff had kept his nerve and ordered a fighting retreat to the Hindenburg Line after the Spring Offensive stalled, the Germans would have been able to mount a very effective defense. Instead he refused to cede ground gained even though it was not easily defensible and would require substantial time and resources to build fortifications.
To do what when they got into Germany? Just hold a victory parade in Berlin and then pull back to the Rhine? There's no way they'll keep enough men in uniform to occupy the whole country.
Probably little change in the long run.
I think you guys are forgetting something that was happening on the German home front. The embers of a socialist revolution were starting to burn just before the armistice in November 1918. Sailors were mutinying at Kiel. If the war goes on any longer, the socialists' hold on the German home front will strengthen and probably result in a uprising on the home-front, which will cause the German front lines to collapse. If the Allies decide to occupy Germany, they're going to have to deal with said uprising, which will continue to tie up Allied manpower for months or years.
Cook
Banned
Had the allied rejected the German appeal for an armistice, then history would have condemned the men concerned for their bloodlust; needlessly prolonging a war that had already gone on far too long and consumed far too many lives.
It needs to be pointed out that the allied armies, of which the Americans were the junior partner, did continue pushing into Germany. The terms of the Armistice gave the Germans just 14 days to fully evacuate all of occupied Belgium and Luxemburg, and the (until then German) territory of Alsace-Lorraine - that's not the pace of an orderly withdrawal, that is a mad scramble involving all-day marches and the abandoning of all heavy equipment. Following the evacuation of these territories, the German armed forces had just 16 more days to fully evacuate the Rhineland to a distance of 30 km east of the principal crossing points on the Rhine. And while they were doing this, the Allied armies were advancing right behind them; any German troops that didn't make the deadline would be prisoners of war. The rest of the terms of the armistice were unequivocally punitive and unambiguous that the Germany was defeated.
The "stabbed in the back" myth would come about regardless, just with slight changes to the details of the myth; the point of the myth in its historical format is that the German army was not defeated and could continue fighting, but was betrayed by Jews, Communists and Socialists who undermined the war effort and called for the armistice. If the fighting had continued, all that changes in the myth is that the Jews, Communists and Socialists betrayed and undermined the war effort at home, depriving the fighting men of the arms with which they would otherwise have thrown the allied armies back.
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And it's worth pointing out yet again but Germany was unambiguously defeated in the field. While the allied armies would have needed a strategic pause at roughly the time of the armistice in order to reknit their supply chains the German army could only delay rather than stop the allies so reaching the Rhine won't be very bloody.
Deleted member 94680
I doubt you’d get Americans to occupy Germany post-WWI* unless the increased causalties generate some kind of desire for “justice for the doughboys”.
A sailors’ revolt would have to spread to cause any kind of serious difficulty for the Germans. After all, it was the Freikorps that stopped the socialist revolutions in Germany and they were Heer almost to a man.
A sailors’ revolt (post October Revolution) didn’t derail the USSR, did it?
History Learner
Banned
Keegan's work on the subject is excellent.
It should also be noted the Sailor's Revolt didn't begin until they were ordered on a suicide run after it had become clear the conflict was about to end; it wasn't an explicitly Socialist affair until later, and several of the original elements actually helped put down said Red elements. It also wasn't even a Sailors Revolt, really, as it was mainly confined to the main battleline of the HSF. The Destroyer crews and U-Boat men all stayed largely loyal, with the U-Boat crews forming ad hoc rifle units to fight the revolt while instances of Destroyers training their torpedoes on Battleships were documented.
History Learner
Banned
To further explain my points out:
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World, Pg 159:
Previously on Pg 158:
Expanding on that Smuts quote, is important to note that there was reoccurring unrest and mutiny in the Royal Navy throughout 1919 and mutinies had begun to breakout among the Entente forces by September of 1918. While the Americans were indeed landing more and more forces each day, these men were green troops who were about to, due to Anglo-French weakness, be sent into the meat grinder that was coming. To quote from Paddy Griffiths's The Great War on the Western Front: A Short History (Pg. 128):
Essentially, the AEF was looking at a bloodbath going into 1919 and I seriously doubt American morale could withstand such; their rapid drawdown of forces by early 1919 and the following rejection of the Treaty of Versailles shows where the political headwinds were already in favor of, and 500,000 dead Doughboys would certainly amplify such.
With regards to German morale, John Keegan in his book The First World War (Pg 421) states that:
He later states that (Pg 423):
Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 by Alexander Watson notes on pg. 210 that Crown Prince Rupprecht (Commander of the 7th Army) and Generaloberst Karl von Einem (Commander of the 3rd Army and former Prussian War Minister) both do not mention desertion as becoming an issue until October. He further states that there is no evidence for mass numbers of deserters until the last three or four weeks of the war, at which time the OHL had to reinforce the military police with five squadrons of cavalry. Even still, Watson decisively refutes the notion that there was a million deserters by the time of the Armistice and further notes that little desertion was occurring by the combat units at the front who were resisting quite strongly as Keegan wrote. Going into 1919, the Germans had managed to crush their own Bolshevists by June. In February, the Freikorps had managed to likewise defeat the Poles and reclaim Poznan until Entente pressure forced them to pull out once more. Likewise, a force of about 50,000 under General von der Goltz had managed to occupy the Baltic states and eject the Red Army; Entente pressure on Berlin forced them to return large numbers of von der Goltz's troops, while British supplies and naval gunfire support allowed the Balts to kick the reduced force out soon after. I think all of this, quite clearly, shows the Germans were more than able to fight it out morale wise.
Food situation was also improving over the course of 1918, and average calories in rations actually increased. Further relief was expected going into 1919, as Ukraine had finally been secured in the Summer of 1918 and it could be reasonably expected that food would begin to arrive from there sometime in 1919; I've seen April as a likely projected date. On this note, further, the armistice actually made the food situation worse as the Germans were required to surrender vast amounts of food stored within military depots and the entry of the British into the Baltic led to the closure of the Baltic ports and their fishing fleets. It's often forgotten, but the Blockade was continued into March of 1919 fully and into a restricted mode all the way into July.
The German Offensives of 1918 by David T. Zabecki also states that existing stocks of ammunition were more than sufficient to meet continued needs, artillery production actually had to be decreased due to overproduction, and small arm production was likewise sufficient over the course of 1918. Expected manpower intakes were to be between 600,000 to 700,000 men in the fall, and he does state this is might not be enough to meet expected demands but the defensive nature the Germans were adopting would probably offset this. Should the need arise, however, the Germans could begin extending war work to women which could free up over a million German men for service; many were ex-veterans who had been sent home as a result of the Hindenburg Program. On the whole, I'd also rate the German material position as conducive to fighting it out as well.
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World, Pg 159:
Previously on Pg 158:
Expanding on that Smuts quote, is important to note that there was reoccurring unrest and mutiny in the Royal Navy throughout 1919 and mutinies had begun to breakout among the Entente forces by September of 1918. While the Americans were indeed landing more and more forces each day, these men were green troops who were about to, due to Anglo-French weakness, be sent into the meat grinder that was coming. To quote from Paddy Griffiths's The Great War on the Western Front: A Short History (Pg. 128):
Essentially, the AEF was looking at a bloodbath going into 1919 and I seriously doubt American morale could withstand such; their rapid drawdown of forces by early 1919 and the following rejection of the Treaty of Versailles shows where the political headwinds were already in favor of, and 500,000 dead Doughboys would certainly amplify such.
With regards to German morale, John Keegan in his book The First World War (Pg 421) states that:
He later states that (Pg 423):
Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 by Alexander Watson notes on pg. 210 that Crown Prince Rupprecht (Commander of the 7th Army) and Generaloberst Karl von Einem (Commander of the 3rd Army and former Prussian War Minister) both do not mention desertion as becoming an issue until October. He further states that there is no evidence for mass numbers of deserters until the last three or four weeks of the war, at which time the OHL had to reinforce the military police with five squadrons of cavalry. Even still, Watson decisively refutes the notion that there was a million deserters by the time of the Armistice and further notes that little desertion was occurring by the combat units at the front who were resisting quite strongly as Keegan wrote. Going into 1919, the Germans had managed to crush their own Bolshevists by June. In February, the Freikorps had managed to likewise defeat the Poles and reclaim Poznan until Entente pressure forced them to pull out once more. Likewise, a force of about 50,000 under General von der Goltz had managed to occupy the Baltic states and eject the Red Army; Entente pressure on Berlin forced them to return large numbers of von der Goltz's troops, while British supplies and naval gunfire support allowed the Balts to kick the reduced force out soon after. I think all of this, quite clearly, shows the Germans were more than able to fight it out morale wise.
Food situation was also improving over the course of 1918, and average calories in rations actually increased. Further relief was expected going into 1919, as Ukraine had finally been secured in the Summer of 1918 and it could be reasonably expected that food would begin to arrive from there sometime in 1919; I've seen April as a likely projected date. On this note, further, the armistice actually made the food situation worse as the Germans were required to surrender vast amounts of food stored within military depots and the entry of the British into the Baltic led to the closure of the Baltic ports and their fishing fleets. It's often forgotten, but the Blockade was continued into March of 1919 fully and into a restricted mode all the way into July.
The German Offensives of 1918 by David T. Zabecki also states that existing stocks of ammunition were more than sufficient to meet continued needs, artillery production actually had to be decreased due to overproduction, and small arm production was likewise sufficient over the course of 1918. Expected manpower intakes were to be between 600,000 to 700,000 men in the fall, and he does state this is might not be enough to meet expected demands but the defensive nature the Germans were adopting would probably offset this. Should the need arise, however, the Germans could begin extending war work to women which could free up over a million German men for service; many were ex-veterans who had been sent home as a result of the Hindenburg Program. On the whole, I'd also rate the German material position as conducive to fighting it out as well.
If they get themselves into a good enough position (read: the potential for a few hundred thousand deaths), the less fervent Allies - Britain and America - might be interested in a more equal armistice. Versailles was by no means "victor's justice" - that myth is dead, and damn well should be - but it was definitely carried out as a victory. If the Germans have a means and a motive to keep the meat grinder running, then they might well be able to negotiate the peace rather than suffer it.
France would be upset, to say the least, but they can't go it alone. And from an Anglo perspective, soft German power in the East is a hell of a lot better than hard Soviet power. In a timeline like this I wouldn't be surprised if the loony bins of the next war were France and Russia rather than Germany and Italy.
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