World War One (minus Woodrow Wilson)

[Beck Reilly]

I really want to write a timeline starting with Woodrow Wilson's defeat in the election of 1916. The subject has always been one of my favorites. The problem is, I can never determine what the rest of World War One (and the Treaty ending it) would be like with President Charles E. Hughes. Following the treaty ending World War One, I am full of ideas about how history would go.

So, could somebody help me and give my ideas as to how the period between 1916 and 1921 would go, had Charles Evans Hughes been elected President?

 

[Grey Wolf]

This one has always fascinated me, but like you I cannot really figure it out

I think that considering that Wilson was ideologically against the war but still found himself dragged into it, is indicative that whatever Hughes wants to do he will end up having to go down the same path in 1917

The difference will come later. Hughes is not going to make the same moral crusading speeches as Wilson. One of the most important by-products of those speeches were their propaganda value - peace without annexations, without reparations etc

Thus, if events go militarily as in OTL, where you are looking at a major divergence is in October 1918. Will the Germans consider giving in so 'easily' ? Without something like the Fourteen Points to hang their hopes on, is it even worth considering ? Will the German people be that bit more willing to follow their leaders since the Allies are all speaking fire and brimstone and no one is offering them the same kind of hope as Wilson seemed to do ?

And if in military extremis, the Germans decide to open negotiations, who would they address these to and how ? OTL they went through Switzerland to Wilson alone who kept it secret from Britain and France for several weeks whilst he got the Armistice=Surrender terms he wanted. What if, paradoxically, the Germans choose someone like the Vatican, and it becomes known on the streets of Paris that the Germans are offering a ceasefire but now it seems that it is Clemenceau who is stalling ?

Grey Wolf

 

[redi.redion]

ss

The Germans don’t need to open negotiations without US entering ww1 they can win.
Don’t forget that it was the Americans that won ww1.

 

[MrHola]

The Germans don’t need to open negotiations without US entering ww1 they can win.
Don’t forget that it was the Americans that won ww1.

Don't forget the rest of the allies; France, Britain, Belgium, Canada, new Zealand and all the others.

If Hughes wins in 1916, I can see a sooner mobilisation then OTL. Who knows, the war might end a weeks earlier. Since Hughes is more of a realist, a more reasonable Versailles Treaty will follow

 

[A Random Person]

I really want to write a timeline starting with Woodrow Wilson's defeat in the election of 1916. The subject has always been one of my favorites. The problem is, I can never determine what the rest of World War One (and the Treaty ending it) would be like with President Charles E. Hughes. Following the treaty ending World War One, I am full of ideas about how history would go.

So, could somebody help me and give my ideas as to how the period between 1916 and 1921 would go, had Charles Evans Hughes been elected President?

didn't woodrow wilson reduce the opposition to 8 seats, it would be hard to buttefly him away, maybe if, for some reason, he didn't run.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Ok, there will be no League of Nations, otherwise pretty much the same.

 

[catboy637]

Not much would change. U.S. might enter over Luistania earlier, but not much else. No 14 point plan.

 

[bernard patton]

The Germans don’t need to open negotiations without US entering ww1 they can win.
Don’t forget that it was the Americans that won ww1.

So how do they get around the British naval blockade? Or was it actually a secret American blockade?

 

[redi.redion]

sl

At this point the Central powers control a larger part of Russian territory, so after 1919 the blockade won’t be a decisive factor.
On the other hand without the American troops the allies are lost.
The French at this point are out of manpower.
Without the Americans to stop them the German offensive in going to break the allied armies.

 

[RGB]

As usual, the Americans won everything

------

WW1 will end in Entente victory but one less complete than Versailles. To be honest even with the US in the war Versailles wasn't a guaranteed outcome.

As for "supplies not being a problem" because the CP "control large parts of Russia" - sigh. The area was in such disarray it you couldn't gather anything significant from it, and there was intense nationalism, factionalism and such going on.

If anything, I will, in a fit of pique, posit that if the Western Front is stalemated, and the Eastern Front is the mess it is, and the CP are still at war by 1919, (and so there's no intervention in the RCW from any of the Entente powers), there is a decent chance of communist victories right across Europe and maybe ending in Germany proper.

There.

 

[redi.redion]

s

With Russia out of the war Germany is mainly fighting a one front war and on top of that has the most efficient army (for every German casualty=2 French/British casualties), and at this point the allies simply can’t afford the looses any longer.
You have to realize that at this point the French are running out of men to mobilize so they can’t replace their loses any longer.

 

[Cornelius]

With Russia out of the war Germany is mainly fighting a one front war and on top of that has the most efficient army (for every German casualty=2 French/British casualties), and at this point the allies simply can’t afford the looses any longer.
You have to realize that at this point the French are running out of men to mobilize so they can’t replace their loses any longer.

You should remember, though, that the germans were out of manpower too and virtually on the verge of a famine. The last german offensive was considered a last attempte to break the french lines before the arrive of the US troops. Its failure meant defeat for Germany.
As for the war going on for another year or two, as I've seen in other thread, I doubt it. The civilian population and soldiers were completely exhausted. The most probable outcome would have been a serie of communist uprising around Europe.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

What you can't get your heads around is that an American intervention would have happened without Woodrow Wilson too. The US could never accept the unrestricted submarine warfare.

 

[bernard patton]

Even at the Somme the British to German casualty ratio was 1.4:1, so I don't know where you got 2:1 from.
As the position stands from early 1918, both German and Britain and France have around 3 million men each on the western front. Germany's army is exausted and starving. The German people are exausted and starving. It's allies are packing in the fight. Russian territory in the east is not going to counter the effects of the Blockade.

 

[Tom_B]

President Hughes

President Hughes would've entered the war at about the same time as Wilson did. The most important difference is that Leonard Wood a Republican favorite and not Pershing will lead the American expedition. This is almost certain to generate a Wood presidency post war unless a compelling argument can be made that he proves incompetent.

Hughes at Versailles: he is not as naive as Wilson. There could be some modest tweaks to the clauses.

Some people afflicted with the dread disease of TRolatry see Teddy coming in and running everything. This is extreme but I can see TR playing a limited role in the Administration. Hydrochloric Acid over in the Senate would have a complex relationship with Hughes whom he would suspect of having a streak of quasiWilsonian internationalism.

The most marked difference between Hughes and Wilson are actually domestic. Hughes will undo some of Wilson's racism eg. reintegrating civil service. It is not clear if he would institute a lasting Prohibition and if he did beer might be exempted.

 

[Weaver]

In truth, the US armies in Europe in 1918 contributed little strategically, but lots in terms of promise.

After Amiens and the "Black Day" of the Heer on 8 August 1918, Ludendorff's nerve broke, and once the genie of peace was out of the bottle the morale of the Heer in the field could not be sustained.

It was largely the Dominion troops, Canadians and ANZACs that finally broke the Heer in a series of brilliant offensives that rolled right over the Hindenberg Line and would have invaded Reich territory proper given no armistice. No offence to the Brits and French, but they were bled out by this stage.

Had there been no potential US army ready to take the offensive in 1919, maybe Ludendorff's nerve might have held, maybe the Heer would have held the Allies after the failure of their Spring Offensive?

One thing for sure I cannot visualise Europe-wide Communist uprisings succeeding, perhaps most likely is a peace of mutual exhaustion in late 18, early 19, based on ante-bellum frontiers in the West.

Brest Litovsk would have stood, and I can see the Reich being the long-term victor given such a result.

 

[Blue Max]

First of all, the math question:

1 - Woodrow Wilson = About 20.

Wilson, despite all of the hype, all of the propaganda he receives, was one of the most thuggish, most despicable presidents the US has ever had. The man was militantly racist--segregated the US Armed forces. He launched the Palmer Raids, which wound up locking up a bunch of innocent people, he created the Espionage Act, which led to more innocent people getting arrested. He launched endless interventions around Latin America--hence why his successors launched the "Good Neighbor Policy", because "Asshole Neighbor" was the previous policy.

Then Wilson, in a fit of brilliance, decides to make the Treaty of Versallies as partisan issue--by entirely freezing out the Republican party out of negotiations. Henry Cabot Lodge gets villified as the bad guy--but who's the real bad guy?

Wilson, frankly, sucked worse than G.W Bush by a very, very strong margin. He is, frankly, the most overrated president in Modern History. I still don't understand why people like him so much--for the Treaty of Versailles his country didn't even sign because he played politics with it? For the concept of self-determination he turned a complete blind eye to for non-white people--if not outright lying through his teeth all the way through.

We speak of Wilson moderating Clemenceau's desire to rip Germany apart--but any US President would have done this. I award this thread 100 Awesome points for getting rid of this guy.

 

[Jord839]

There's a good TL about Charles Hughes being elected because of an earlier version of the Lusitania. You can find it in the links section over at the althist wikia, it's called Mr. Hughes goes to war. Basically, Hughes stalls on going into the war for a bit after his declaration because he feels the army needs to be better trained. He has Teddy as his minister of war and because it was only a german submarine he only declares war on germany, not the other central powers. From there, things get very complicated but it eventually results in the Hapsburg king of Austria-Hungary also becoming Kaiser of Germany and cutting loose large portions of the old empire. The central powers do not win, but Hughes and the British essentially force the french to back down on the most outrageous reparitions/annexations(though there still are some). I hope I explained that decently.

 

[redi.redion]

ss

It was the Americans that won ww1 and broke the Germans not the Canadians or Australians, all the fighting powers at this time were bleed to death and the allies more than the Germans (the German army had better training, technique and more firepower) but the advantage for the Germans at this time was that they were mainly fighting a one front war.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

It was the Americans that won ww1 and broke the Germans not the Canadians or Australians, all the fighting powers at this time were bleed to death and the allies more than the Germans (the German army had better training, technique and more firepower) but the advantage for the Germans at this time was that they were mainly fighting a one front war.

With a totally broken economy, blockaded by Britain. The only way Germany could win was by crushing the Britsh economy before the German economy totally collapsed, and even with the submarine warfare that was a long shot.