Which world war did Germany have a better chance of winning?

[Snake Featherston]

-Is it not possible that, as the Tsar has suffered yet another humiliation due to yet another massive military defeat, that he is overthrown anyway, and Revolution unleashed? (With more possibility of making mischief in Asia, and in the German buffer states now ruled by another foreign monarch.)

And, for reasons of pure curiosity-informationfan, why do you not use capital letters and suchlike?

The Tsar would be overthrown early in 1917. The question is one of how much the Bolsheviks gain in terms of influence, and how dangerous the legacy of German backing of the Bolsheviks is for Russo-German relations. That particular legacy of Hindenburg and Ludendorff means if Bolshevik Russia wins and consolidates itself that Germany has a totalitarian despotism with a strongly militarized nature for a neighbor in the East, if the Bolsheviks lose then the new regime has no reason whatsoever to see the Germans as anything more than a "crush the infamous thing" style bogeyman.

 

[Mikestone8]

Germany cannot unring the bell of backing the Bolsheviks. It created the Bolshevik monster and even if it wins, it cannot contain it. Germany can only depose Bolshevik Russia if it's willing to risk another major war into the interior of Russia right after World War I, of the sort that will collapse morale and cohesion of the German military and bring Germany into a Great October of its own. If somehow the Whites win and impose either a military regime or a revival of the House of Romanov, the Germans are screwed even worse as now Russia's never going to see Germany as anything but a treacherous, vicious enemy which delenda est.

And should Germany really want to get rid of the Bolsheviks?

After all, the optimum result for them is neither a Red nor a White govenment in Russia, but rather for the country to be divided up into several regimes - a Red one, say in central Russia, White ones in southern Russia, Siberia etc - a bit like Chaina and its warlords..

Istr that a truce along those lines was actually proposed sometime in 1919, but the Allies, anticipating (and hoping for) a speedy White victory, did not pursue the idea.

Of course, this approach may require more smarts and subtlety that the leaders of the Second Reich posessed.

 

[Mikestone8]

WWI is the obvious choice.

It all comes down to the USA remain neutral.

If this happens the a settlement will happen most likely at the expense of France belgium and Russia.

Now how do we define neutral?

No loans?
No preferential trade?

There are lots of variables.

Now lets say that with Russia on its knees KWII has any attack of sanity and declares USW dead in march of 1917.
Or even no Zimmermann telegram and no resumption of USW would most likely see the US sit out the war as Wilson didn't have the numbers to force a DoW through Congress.

Of course by 1917 the USA needed an Entente win or the USA's economy would head south very quickly after they lost.

Several US financiers JP Morgan among them had committed vast funds to the entente.
If the entente lost they would have been destroyed.

Then you could get the really wild ones like US invasion of Canada to recover war debt.
Never considered but it could have been contemplated by somebody in congress.

Except that all the loans were secured on Allied (mostly British) investments in North America, which would be beyond the reach even of a victorious Germany. So even if she won, American subscribers (including Morgans) would not have lost their money.

Morgans would have been in trouble had they just blithely kept on lending more money after this collateral ran out (which it pretty much had by the end of 1916) but they were hardly likely to do that for any length of time. They might be pro-British, but first and foremost they were still bankers.

(Apologies to those for whom this is old ground).

There would indeed have been a recession when the Allied purchases ceased, but that would happen anyway when the war ended, regardless of its outcome. In fact it did happen in 1920/21, perfectly timed to give Warren G Harding a boost (not that he really needed it) on his way to the White House. Wilson and the Democrats would probably have been better to have let it happen in 1917.

 

[Mikestone8]

There's a very good book:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economics-World-War-I/dp/0521107253/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

which gives an detailed review of the economies of all the major powers in WW1 and Holland also (they also have a ww2 equivalent).

I got my public library to obtain that book for me and am in process of reading it.

It's rather "heavy" in places but the opening chapter contains an interesting passage.

"While we cannot track the changes for all countries, the figures available suggest further substantial swings which worked primarily to favour Britain and America. - - in wartime the British and American economies expanded by over 10 per cent - - - Russia, however, began to collapse in 1916 and France in 1917; this emphasise the importance of the American entry into the war on the Allied side."

The accompanying stistical table shows Britain's real GDP dropping off somewhat in the early years of the war, in 1914 to 92.3% of its 1913 level, recovering slightly in 1915 to 94.9%. Thereafter, however, it moved well ahead of 1913, reaching 114.8% in 1918. Russia held up at about 95% of the 1913 level during 1914/15, but then flagged, dropping by about one-sixth in 1916, to 79.8%, and about the same in 1917, to 67.7% - nearly a third down from the prewar level.

The Central Powers got off to a bad start. Germany fell to 85% in 1914 and 81% in 1915, and thereafter "flatlined" at about that level for the rest of the war. A/H, unsurprisingly, did even worse, 83.5% in 1914, 77.4% in 1915, and thereafter continuing to slip (albeit more slowly) to 73.3% in 1918 - not quite as bad as Russia but bad enough to foreshadow disaster all the same.

The really startling figure, though, is for France. Despite the differences between them, her trend is remarkably similar to Russia's, except a year "behind". As of 1916, she's holding up at 95.6% of her 1913 GDP, but in 1917 she tumbles to 81% and in 1918 to 63.9% (!!). This rather suggests that in the latter year she was pretty much on life support, depending on Anglo-American subsidies to stay in the war. [1]

All in all, this sounds reasonably compatible with what I've been getting from other sources, namely that Britain could keep her own war effort going even without the US, but that this wouldn't be enough. By 1917, she effectively had no allies left in Europe - they were all pensioners, and a drying up of US loans would make it increasingly difficult to keep up the pension payments. Without the US, the latter half of 1917 finds Britain fighting Germany virtually single-handed.


[1]The relevant section is online at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/papers/ww1toronto2.pdf
Got to Table 4 for the GDP figures

 

[philjd]

First apologies for the seeming 'necro', but it's been a while since I indulged in the forum

Mikestone8 - it's a good book, doens't give all the answers by any means but certaibly worth reading to put everything into perspective.

And yes, the French were not doing well, but likewise the Austrians and Turks are dying on their feet also, doesn't mean that it would be a 'fair' swap for the Entente though if all 3 went pop.

 

[vesica]

I think this goes without saying, WWI, IF Germany doesn't provoke the US entering the war.

The war would have gone just as we expected up to the opening of Ludendorff's spring offensives. Without US forces now bolstering the flagging French and British troops German forces are able to better hammer home their own advantage. Germany would have just injected an addition 100 Divisions (I think those were the numbers) into the Western Front with the 150 Divisions they already had on the Western Front). The German Army just received a massive amount of reinforcements while Britain and France can't get reinforcements at all, this the final hammer comes down. By this point I honestly believe the French would have collapsed under the pressure and surrendered. Its likely Britain could have escaped the same fate and gotten a negotiated settlement out of Germany keeping their Empire and everything else intact. France likely would have had to give up the last piece of Alsace-Lorraine they were holding onto, possibly a few of their African colonies. Belgium would have stayed occupied and likely ended up annexed by Germany and its African colonies also annexed by Germany.

Beyond that, I don't want to speculate in fear of having people swarm me

 

[Mikestone8]

First apologies for the seeming 'necro', but it's been a while since I indulged in the forum

Mikestone8 - it's a good book, doens't give all the answers by any means but certaibly worth reading to put everything into perspective.

And yes, the French were not doing well, but likewise the Austrians and Turks are dying on their feet also, doesn't mean that it would be a 'fair' swap for the Entente though if all 3 went pop.

The crucial difference is that Austria and Turkey won't collapse as long as Germany can spare forces to prop them up. Despite endless talk of her being "at the end of her tether" Austria didn't fold until a week before Germany did, and Turkey only two weeks before.

It's a different proposition for Britain and France. France has been taking a far bigger share of the Allied load than Austria of the CP one. If Britain is strugglling to maintain her own war effort, I don't see how she can "carry" France without economic backup from the US.

 

[BlondieBC]

I think this goes without saying, WWI, IF Germany doesn't provoke the US entering the war.

The war would have gone just as we expected up to the opening of Ludendorff's spring offensives.

No, No. Definitely not. Now what you are trying to do is ok for analysis part, but there are HUGE butterflies to deal with, including:

1) Without the hope provided by the USA entering the war, the Whites may make peace. If they don't, it is unlikely that Lenin will follow the same negotiating strategy of trying to wait it out. Most likely the peace treaty is signed months earlier, and I would not rule out a date as early May 1917 for Russia, depending on the German terms. If I had to pick a date, I would be on November 1917.

2) Without the USA entering the war, the blockade on German is not as tight. The USA was diplomatically fighting against it, the USA ships helped enforce it, and the UK is running low on money for things like fuel for their ships, see below.

3) The UK runs out of things to secure loans with in the USA, so about a 20-25% reduction in UK imports which means shortages. We could write a dozen TL on how this plays out, but some likely side effects are

A) Lower morale in UK and France because of a lot less food and consumer goods. A lot depend on exactly how the handle the rationing, and the exact dynamics of the U-boat war using cruiser rules or whatever your TL would have.
B) A lot lower casualties for the Germans. Artillery does 75% of the killing, and with 25% fewer shells, it is around 18% few KIA, WIA for Germany.
C) With the shells and other war supplies, the Entente will cancel offensives. Again, we can write of few TL on how this unfolds, but I would bet on cancelling the attack into the Holy Land and Mesopotamia.
D) Then there are lot of secondary effects that one has to look at.
​

4) Will the French units even attack in 1917 without hope of the USA saving France? You have to determine how the French mutiny ends. It is likely to be in a way that is even worse for France than OTL.

Without US forces now bolstering the flagging French and British troops German forces are able to better hammer home their own advantage. Germany would have just injected an addition 100 Divisions (I think those were the numbers) into the Western Front with the 150 Divisions they already had on the Western Front). The German Army just received a massive amount of reinforcements while Britain and France can't get reinforcements at all, this the final hammer comes down. By this point I honestly believe the French would have collapsed under the pressure and surrendered. Its likely Britain could have escaped the same fate and gotten a negotiated settlement out of Germany keeping their Empire and everything else intact. France likely would have had to give up the last piece of Alsace-Lorraine they were holding onto, possibly a few of their African colonies. Belgium would have stayed occupied and likely ended up annexed by Germany and its African colonies also annexed by Germany.

Beyond that, I don't want to speculate in fear of having people swarm me

Yes, Germany has many extra units, but 100 is too many. Even if all the units from the east are freed up, and they will not be, where does the ammo come for the 100 divisions to use come from. Also, many of these units are made up of older men, who are poorly suited to attacking. Fifty year old men don't walk as far as 20 year old men each day.

And the French and UK can get reinforcement to France. They can stop attacking into the Holy land, probably corp plus. They can pull out of Greece. They can pull units out of East Africa. The UK keep a ridiculous number of units in England, they can pull several hundred thousand out of the British Isles, not there is a risk of revolt, but they have options. Now no where near as many units as the Germans, but they can get units.

Now to what I agree with you. If you get to 1918 in a similar situation like ours, with extra units for Germany, and no USA savior, the Germans would launch a big offensive, and it would work better than OTL. I think France is more likely to negotiate than surrender, but I can't rule out a collapse. Germany is in horrible shape. A-H may be near civil war, and Germany would want a peace deal to preserve the gains in the east. The UK would get a negotiated settlement or could even chose to fight on if France surrenders.

How the settlement is handled is often debated on this forum, but I don't see Belgium being annexed. The Germans will either give the British a face saving solution or actually allow a free Belgium. The Return of the German African Colonies and the Belgium Congo in exchange for an independent, neutral Belgians will look good to the Germans. France will likely try to trade either conquered German colonies or French Colonies for the return of French lands. The Kaiser will be tempted to keep the French industrial heartland, but it is unclear if he would actually do it.

 

[masteroftheveiledthreat]

wwl, Germany was known to have behaved much worse and been more dangerous under Hitler