U.S. Non -- Involvement ?

[R011]

Austro-Hungarian casualties - a hundred thousand dead and wounded and twenty-five thousand POWs.  Italy and allies went on to rout them at Vittorio Veneto losing thirty thousand dead and wounded and eight thousand POW compared to eighty thousand dead and wounded and 450 thousand POWs for A-H.

[R011]

After Vittorio Veneto and the Hapsburg collapse, Allied armies would have been free to invade Germany from Austtria and were planning to do so.  No significant number of US troops had been deployed to Italy nor were any on the wa, so even if the Germans could have held in France against the French and Britrish alone, they were still screwed.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Britain had already sent troops and fighter squadrons to Italy to help prop them up IIRC.

[glenn239]

9 hours ago, R011 said:

After Vittorio Veneto and the Hapsburg collapse, Allied armies would have been free to invade Germany from Austtria and were planning to do so.  

I think if Michael takes place on the Piave, the Italian army is dealt a staggering blow exceeding the disaster of Capperetto and the Austrians are secure on this front into 1919, with the Austrian Empire starting to unravel internally all the while.

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Austro-Hungarian casualties - a hundred thousand dead and wounded and twenty-five thousand POWs.  Italy and allies went on to rout them at Vittorio Veneto losing thirty thousand dead and wounded and eight thousand POW compared to eighty thousand dead and wounded and 450 thousand POWs for A-H.

The Austrian Piave offensive was actually quite a remarkable thing.  The Austrians had, literally, zero material advantages.  Not one.  The assault was across a river, the Italians had air control, the Italians had British and French troops in reserve, the Austrians had no Germans.  The Italians had the artillery, ammunition, supply advantages.  The Italians outnumbered their attackers.  The only thing the Austrians had going for them was poor Italian morale - that Italian troops were ready to surrender.

In terms of Vittorio Veneto, the reason why the Italians took 450,000 prisoners is because the Austrian army was told by its leadership that the war was over and to lay down their arms, while the Italian army was told to keep attacking.  

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by glenn239

[Murph]

I think that the AH Emperor Karl was having a hard enough time holding the tottering edifice together, and I do not think the Hungarians were helping at all.  

[seahawk]

1918 is not the critical year, it is 1917. Germany just took Russia out of the war and AH won at Caporetto. In reality this was compensated by the knowledge that the Americans were coming and American supplies were already improving the situation of allied soldiers.

Imagine the same situation, but now the Americans do not come, do not shoulder the financial burden they did and still ask the allies to pay for every peace of supply they are sending.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by seahawk

[RETAC21]

30 minutes ago, seahawk said:

1918 is not the critical year, it is 1917. Germany just took Russia out of the war and AH won at Caporetto. In reality this was compensated by the knowledge that the Americans were coming and American supplies were already improving the situation of allied soldiers.

Imagine the same situation, but now the Americans do not come, do not shoulder the financial burden they did and still ask the allies to pay for every peace of supply they are sending.

 

Again, they did, and it was paid for. In 1917 with all the angst of Caporetto, the French Army mutinies and the submarine offensive, the British still had the oomph to launch Passchendaele and neither the French nor the Italians thought about surrendering.

[glenn239]

5 hours ago, seahawk said:

1918 is not the critical year, it is 1917. Germany just took Russia out of the war and AH won at Caporetto. In reality this was compensated by the knowledge that the Americans were coming and American supplies were already improving the situation of allied soldiers.

Imagine the same situation, but now the Americans do not come, do not shoulder the financial burden they did and still ask the allies to pay for every peace of supply they are sending.

 

Agreed, but the US or no, the Entente supply and economic situation was much better.  The Anglo-French even without the Americans could hold on the defensive perpetually hoping that the blockade would finish the job for them.  (Simply by discontinuing constant offensives, the Entente would not have near the need of US shell production, for example).  The CP, on the other hand, had to arrest the economic decline, in particular, the decline in food production.  

Of the two, it's easier to picture the Entente path to victory, but it does not look like a done deal to me in 1917.  Had the United States shrugged indifferently to unrestricted submarine warfare, the German position gets considerably stronger, and had the German army not undertaken self-defeating offensives in France, launching offensives against Greece and Italy instead, I think 1918 goes much better for the CP.  But no battlefield successes reverse the accelerating economic decline in Germany and Austria.

Edited December 13, 2022 by glenn239

[seahawk]

12 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Again, they did, and it was paid for. In 1917 with all the angst of Caporetto, the French Army mutinies and the submarine offensive, the British still had the oomph to launch Passchendaele and neither the French nor the Italians thought about surrendering.

No, they no longer paid for everything as a lot of material was sent in preparation for the US troops, but that material was useful and used the day it arrived. Let me quote from "American Munitions 1917-1918":

The consolidation locomotive weighs 166,400 potmds, and is about
the heaviest that can be used in France. It has one pair of engine
truck wheels and four pairs of drivers. The engine is just as large as
it is possible to use within the French tunnel and platform clearances.
The type sent to France was, however, not nearly so large nor so heavy
as the general run of freight engines used here.
The order for 150 engines was placed with the Baldwin concern on
July 19, 1917, and the first locomotive of this order was ready for
shipment on August 10, 1917, just 20 working days elapsing between
the date of the placing of the order and the day when the first engine
was completed and all set up ready for shipment.

The same is true for the improvement of harbours that the US already started in France shortly after they entered the war and long before any meaningful numbers of combat troops reached France. It goes on with things like canned tomatoes that were shipped in preparation for the US troops but instantly benefited the supply situation of Allied troops. One must not underestimate the effect this flow of supply had, especially if you consider that the French and Italian army were having problems with morale and supply,

That does not mean that I believe the Entente could have won, but we could have seen a different peace. If things work well for Germany it could have been less severe, if things go bad, it would have been a lot worse than the historic outcome. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by seahawk

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

No, they no longer paid for everything as a lot of material was sent in preparation for the US troops, but that material was useful and used the day it arrived. Let me quote from "American Munitions 1917-1918":

The consolidation locomotive weighs 166,400 potmds, and is about
the heaviest that can be used in France. It has one pair of engine
truck wheels and four pairs of drivers. The engine is just as large as
it is possible to use within the French tunnel and platform clearances.
The type sent to France was, however, not nearly so large nor so heavy
as the general run of freight engines used here.
The order for 150 engines was placed with the Baldwin concern on
July 19, 1917, and the first locomotive of this order was ready for
shipment on August 10, 1917, just 20 working days elapsing between
the date of the placing of the order and the day when the first engine
was completed and all set up ready for shipment.

The same is true for the improvement of harbours that the US already started in France shortly after they entered the war and long before any meaningful numbers of combat troops reached France. It goes on with things like canned tomatoes that were shipped in preparation for the US troops but instantly benefited the supply situation of Allied troops. One must not underestimate the effect this flow of supply had, especially if you consider that the French and Italian army were having problems with morale and supply,

That does not mean that I believe the Entente could have won, but we could have seen a different peace. If things work well for Germany it could have been less severe, if things go bad, it would have been a lot worse than the historic outcome. 

Forgive me for pointing out, if the French really needed locomotives, there was ready capacity to provide them in the US and the UK, all they had to do is pay for them. If you are ultimately getting the Germans to pay for them, there is no reason not to stick them on tick.

Britain was buying ammunition from America at least since 1915. There was no obligation on the Americans to be in the war just to supply ammunition and rolling stock.

 

[seahawk]

But with the entry into the war, the US provided additional supplies paid by the US.

[glenn239]

9 hours ago, seahawk said:

But with the entry into the war, the US provided additional supplies paid by the US.

One of the big contributions of the Americans was in new shipping, 3 million tons before the end of the war.  Given that the Germans only sank 2.6 million tons in 1918, it was the case that by mid-1918 the U-boat crisis had been overcome with more ships entering service than being knocked out of it.  If that does not happen, then even in 1918 with the convoy system the British still don't have control of the situation.

Edited December 14, 2022 by glenn239

[glenn239]

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Forgive me for pointing out, if the French really needed locomotives, there was ready capacity to provide them in the US and the UK, all they had to do is pay for them. If you are ultimately getting the Germans to pay for them, there is no reason not to stick them on tick.

Britain was buying ammunition from America at least since 1915. There was no obligation on the Americans to be in the war just to supply ammunition and rolling stock.

 

Once the Russians were out of the war, the need for the Entente to undertake coordinated constant offensives in the West was gone.  Overall, I think the Entente could have stopped purchasing supplies from the US in 1917 and still have been fine on the Western Front.  The Anglo-French path to victory was to let the blockade degrade the Germany economy, and this could be done one the defensive, (as was attempted in 1939-1940).  The German path to victory could also occur on the defensive, but the CP needed to arrest the decline in their economies, which would mean mass demobilizations and far more nitrates and resources devoted to food production in 1918 than was the case in 1916 and 1917.

Overall I think the Entente is favored because the Germans had to alter course to succeed, but the Entente just had to have things continue as they were already going.  With, of course, the U-boats still the joker in the deck.

Edited December 14, 2022 by glenn239

[RETAC21]

9 hours ago, seahawk said:

But with the entry into the war, the US provided additional supplies paid by the US.

And the French and British provided materiel to the US, so the point stands, if that materiel wasn't provided it would be available to the French and British.

[seahawk]

Different materials though.

[Murph]

8 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

And the French and British provided materiel to the US, so the point stands, if that materiel wasn't provided it would be available to the French and British.

That is a very valid, if overlooked point.  The US was a net consumer of military equipment from the Allies.  

[R011]

1918 wasn't 1943.  The US MIC was just starting to tool up.  For instance, most of the four piper destroyers were commissioned too late to be useful during the war and the pre-war USN was in poor shape with regards to ocean escorts.  Those ships were much more useful in the next war than in the one for which they were built.  1919 would have been the year when US made tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and BARs would have been making a difference along with a couple of million trained and equipped troops on the Western Front.  With the collapse of its allies, without significant American input, and the RN blockade, Germany was quite screwed even if all the Allies did on the Western Front was not collapse.

[Argus]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

One of the big contributions of the Americans was in new shipping, 3 million tons before the end of the war.  Given that the Germans only sank 2.6 million tons in 1918, it was the case that by mid-1918 the U-boat crisis had been overcome with more ships entering service than being knocked out of it.  If that does not happen, then even in 1918 with the convoy system the British still don't have control of the situation.

We did shipping and logistics what last week or the week before? 

Yes the US built a lot of shipping, they were building a lot of shipping to Anglo-French orders before they entered the war, and continued to build a lot for Uncle Sam afterwards.  In terms of ships that got launched before the Armistice they were mostly the same actual ships, America just took over the existing orders, and for good reason.

This was not 1941-2, and in many ways 1941-2 largely happened because of the appalling mess of this first try in 1917-18. Existing merchant shipbuilding capacity in the US was fully engaged., This included all the low hanging fruit in terms of expansion, as say with rifles, the other powers had already been there with open chequebooks. So there was not much more capacity for quick expansion in terms of either labour or materials, and no new technology to shift the paradigm. Uncle Sugar threw greenbacks at the problem and generated a massive program to expand shipbuilding beyond the existing base and to diversify around production bottlenecks, that all produced very little of any use to anyone. Much of this additional construction was built in wood and  concrete, and it was mostly utter garbage. Which was fortunate as there were no crews for them anyway, that was another crash program.  The most use to come of it all was a small cluster of islands in Chesapeake Bay. 

At the same time as all this, the US did inject a massive new load into the system with the AEF moving to Europe. So yes the US did produce a lot of merchant ships, but it did not produce an increase in net ton/miles available to the allied transport pool, rather the reverse. As with many other areas, America's entry represented a gain in manpower but came at a cost to the allies in materiel to support them - a deal they were more than happy with and glad to take.   

Edited December 15, 2022 by Argus

[Argus]

I just checked, we did all this back on page 2
Pardon the ego

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Shipping - no, in WWI America's war effort was a net consumer of shipping ton-miles not a contributor. Her merchant yards were already at capacity to UK/French orders, so declaring war just changed the flag those ships sailed under, while the AEF naturally added a massive new load to the system. So the AEF, along with the bulk of its logistics was carried in UK tonnage.  Yes the US launched a MASSIVE merchant ship building program when they entered WWI, but as with so many of her efforts, the war ended before it could kick in - and it still would have taken years to compensate for her added demand.  
US adding to Entente moral - agreed, this was a great boost. 
Trucks - As with ships, the US industry was already at capacity to export orders. If anything raising and fielding the AEF reduced the truck supply until new capacity came on line in mid 1918.

Everyone's troops were tired in 1918. But none of the Armies on either side of the Western Front were so far gone they would not have kept going for another year or maybe more - if their parent societies could sustain them. The UK and France with access to the world could keep going. But Germany was not going to last another 12 months of blockade Brest-Litovsk or not. If Tooze & Co has it right the Germany Army was stabbed in the back. By their own General's criminal mis-management of every economy they came anywhere near, starting with their own. I would suggest the two sides could have sat in their trenches and exchanged nothing but angry words from mid 1917 onwards and war still would have been over by 1920 with starvation in Berlin and Vienna. 

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WWI isn't WWII.

Raising the AEF absorbed American industrial output, it reduced the amount available for export. Further more the French and British provided massive amounts of equipment to  fill out AEF units with things America wasn't able to supply in quantity, like artillery, machineguns and tanks.  If America had not raised the AEF, then the French and British Armies in Europe would have had as much materiel, if not more, than they had historically.   <edit> if the war had gone on into 1919 and 1920, then yes American industry would expanded to meet demand and unleashed a flood of materiel, but that was not 1917-18. 

The French had their crisis in 1917. But as you point out, the Germany Army was long way from Germany. Nobody in France really liked that, they may have had mixed feelings about taking the bits Occupied back, but there wasn't much question about letting the Kaiser have any more. Without the promise of the AEF I don't doubt the French would have been more conservative in their offensives. But that's a long way from quitting, and the French did only need to hold on to win.  

Germany on the other hand could not hold on forever.  I think it's rather telling that the Spring offensives of 1918 were driven by concern for the Americans coming in, rather than the looming economic collapse at home. But that collapse was coming and it was not conditional on the US doing anything it wasn't doing in 1915 or 16.  Rather it was all down to a lack of Junkers in the Prussian Army - the German General Staff did not know sh1t about farming, rural economics and prudent housekeeping.  The Ukraine is a breadbasket! Yeah, sure in peacetime, but in 1917/18 its a peasant farming economy with no fighting-age males left in it and precious few draft animals. The woman and old folks can feed themselves and maybe produce a small surplus, but... funny Germany made the same mistake in WWII too. 

 

If the US stays out and the Italy gets knocked out the war, then yes things change, but I doubt the end result does.  

[seahawk]

One needs to take a close look at the kind of supplies.

- Weapons: The Allies had enough and the US needed weapons

- Ammunition: about the same

The big difference was food. By 1917 France, Italy and the UK had already rationed their civilian population, yet the food supply was acceptable for the UK or lacking for France / Italy. The US sold a lot stuff but never so much that the civilians in the US were affected. With the entry into the war, the US started food rationing. And if you look at the food, it was not the raw tonnage that made a big difference but the type of food. The US was able to secure local supply for some items like (vinegar, macaroni, beans, candy, hard bread, fresh potatoes among others. But the US added tomatoes, canned fruits and vegetables and later dried fruits to the available supplies of the Allied armies. Especially the canned tomatoes significantly improved the food situation for the Allied nations, as the acidic fruit is well suited to be canned and still keeps a good amount of vitamins. It also can be used with many other components to create meals.

The entry of the US into the war also meant that US money was used to built new factories for canned and dried food and those increased the total volume available to the allies by a large amount.

Especially for the Italians the situation was bad in 1917. In "Italian Soldiers in WWI and the Emergence of a National Culinary Identity" you can read that by 1917 a lot of the foot supplies was looted from the civilians, as the food provided by the army was neither good nor enough. The Italians had to commit quite some manpower to "organize" food. This improved when US supplies arrived.

[Stuart Galbraith]

23 hours ago, seahawk said:

But with the entry into the war, the US provided additional supplies paid by the US.

But ultimately so what, if they were lending us the money to buy shells and equipment anyway?

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

13 hours ago, Murph said:

That is a very valid, if overlooked point.  The US was a net consumer of military equipment from the Allies.  

You were, in fairness, tooling up to build components for the Liberty tank, which would have been a major shot in the arm in 1919. But of course, the war ended and it ever reached the battlefield.

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Stuart Galbraith

[Rick]

Was the U.S. Liberty engine a good one for the time period? My understanding is that it powered airplanes and some tanks.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well Fletcher says in the above video it was not great. But as later variants seem to have powered a later generation of British tanks, from Crusader through to Centaur (admittedly without exceptional levels of reliablity) then it can be certainly said to have had growth potential if nothing else. Its not till Rolls Royce turned the Merlin into a tank engine that we got anything better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_L-12

 

 

[JWB]