I know this question has probably been asked an innumerous amount of times on this site but it seems to be the most popular POD for a Central Powers victory in WW1 or a stalemate. What if the United States didn't join WW1 on the side of the Entente? How could this be avoided? Was American involvement inevitable? And even if America doesn't join the war, do the Central Powers even have a chance at victory? What would that victory look like?
WI: US doesn't enter WW1?
- Thread starter Bomster
- Start date
Best way to avoid it (or at least delay it is to have a staunch isolationist as POTUS. Bryan is the obvious one but Champ Clark would do. Not sure about Vice President Marshall. He supported war when it came, but that could just have been loyalty to the Administration.
They certainly have a chance - the battles of March-April 1918 were a close-run thing even OTL, and with US economic support seriously reduced the Entente would be weaker
As Grant and Temperley (historians who were contemporary with the events) put it, w/o the US the Entente "could not have won and might have lost."
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If you avoid the loans and sale of resources and weapons on credit to the Entente, there is less pressure for America to join the war.
Without credit going to the Entente, the war might have ended much earlier.
Might nix the communists in Russia.
Possible white peace.
Ottoman empire survives and no Sykes-Picot divide of the middle east.
Might still be a war of independence in Ireland
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America goes cash and carry in ww1.
Now the entente has to pay for their imports in hard currency and without credit, they start to run out of hard currency by 1915 at the latest 1916 to pay for imported materials needed for the war.
Without the need to recover wartime debts America is under less pressure to make sure the entente wins so the loans can be repaid.
Germany might get a win against France and Russia but has no way of invading the UK who could continue a blockade.
Wartime shortage in the UK could lead to civil unrest along with a rebellion in Ireland could lead to the UK doing a deal with the central powers or a white peace could happen when the British and French see the realise America is not going to help.
Germans might be smuggling arms to Ireland.
A shorter war might mean ottoman empire surviving and no communist in Russia as Lenin never is sent by the Germans to Russia and an early peace deal allows Russia to stop the revolution.
Spanish flu might not happen or spread much more slowly.
Europe is still in bad shape after all the spending by both sides after the war and in its possible Germany will lose much of their overseas colonies.
Without the communist in the Soviets union, the Ukraine could remain a major exporter of grain affecting the price of grain worldwide and reducing the need to plant more wheat in the US and reduce the effect of the dust bowl due to lower wheat prices.
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Fair warning, it's a hot mess and there was plenty of debate over what non-intervention means, but at over 30 pages there has to be good some information in here
Could The Entente Win Without America?
it's often floated as a POD for a central power victory that the us doesn't enter after brest-livtosk. I've used it in some AHCs a few times. But i want to know, should wilson remain isolationist, could the british, french, and Italian forces win the great war? What would this alternative treaty...
www.alternatehistory.com
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If the entente loses they may not be able to repay the war debt and may default.
All of which is totally academic, as virtually no one in Spring 1917was *expecting* a CP victory - not even the Germans themselves,, hence their gamble on USW and the ZT - they were getting desperate.
The Fed didn't advise against unsecured loans because they feared a German victory. They considered such loans unsafe because they could too easily be defaulted on even if the Entente *won* = and they were absolutely right.
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I think the most likely outcome would have been a truce with the parties falling back to their 1914 borders,
The Murmansk rail opening in 1917 with the ability to bring in direct supplies of equipment to Russia was a worry issue along with the bad hunger winter of 16-17. It still was a crappy long shot gamble to do unrestricted submarine warfare, the leadership sort of fudged the numbers to make it look more feasible than it was. Some other leadership could do the restricted submarine campaign with liberties taken in the med and places where Americans less likely to be found. But yes desperation was looming.
They could have avoided US involvement, but by the time the US entered the war OTL Germany's economy was collapsing so it was already doomed even if the US didn't enter the war then. If there are other changes earlier, then yes Germany could have kept the US out of the war and won, but if the only change until April 1917 is the US staying neutral then it would still lose.
Depends what butterfly effects there are on the 1918 offensives. With no AEF looming on the horizon, Ludendorff will not be "racing against the clock" and may think these out more carefully. But I agree it isn't guaranteed.
ferdi254
Banned
AJE maybe you can tell me that if your statement should be true why did the French and UK leaders did think otherwise? They were very clear in often cited open sources that without further deliveries from the USA they would be forced to make an unfavorable peace with Germany in 1917.
And that would have been the case. No financial backing from the USA means 50% less food to the UK, 30% less steel to UK and France (70 to Italy), 70 percent less oil and 85 percent less avgas. Plus a lot of other items.
And no there was no other available source for all that.
Good luck continuing a war without all that.
Anybody telling the entry of the USA (and without it there would have been no more financial backing) was not the last hope of the Entente is saying: „I know better than the OTL leaders“
And even if that was true it would not help.
And that would have been the case. No financial backing from the USA means 50% less food to the UK, 30% less steel to UK and France (70 to Italy), 70 percent less oil and 85 percent less avgas. Plus a lot of other items.
And no there was no other available source for all that.
Good luck continuing a war without all that.
Anybody telling the entry of the USA (and without it there would have been no more financial backing) was not the last hope of the Entente is saying: „I know better than the OTL leaders“
And even if that was true it would not help.
By 1917 the Hindenburg Program had been implemented and mismanaged Germany's resource/food situation to ensure hunger winters and collapse. They made economic mistakes earlier, but IMO the Hindenburg Program was what finally destroyed Germany's economy and food supply and made a CP victory impossible. Germany's defeat was already certain when the US entered the war.
That's the one!
It got a little brutal... I tried to throw in the towel about mid-way through but kept getting sucked back in for some reason
others had greater fortitude than I did and fought it out to the bitter end!