Suppose the German armed forces of WW1 (at their peak strength) were transported to Sept 1, 1939.
How would they do as compared to the German Armed forces at the beginning of WW2?
Some things to consider in the WW1 German’s favor
The Germans in WW1 had a sizable navy much bigger than the WW2 one
The German Army of WW1 once fully mobilized had significantly more soldiers than the German Army at the start of WW2.
In favor of the WW2 Germans
They had greater mobility and also had tanks (WW1 Germans had none)
The WW2 Germans had a much better air force but of course the WW1 Germans had the Red Baron
How would the WW1 Germans fare ?
Would they be able to overcome the 20 year lead in technology the Allies have?
It would be a disaster for Germany. They probably could throw enough men at Poland to win that, but it would not be the same one-month rollover. The lack of modern aircraft and tanks would be showstoppers. The invasion would have been the reverse of actual history, with the Polish forces enjoying an advantage in the air. The lack of communications by the German army would have made it that much harder to press their advantages.
However, they had a lot of men so they could have waged war in the early Russian style throwing lot of soldiers at the line so it’s possible they could take Poland.
However, France would be a different kettle of fish.
One of the interesting items I noticed is that virtually all the German military leaders of WW1 (Moltke, Falkenberg, Hindenberg Ludendorff, Bismarck, Scheer, Hipper) were dead BEFORE the start of WW2
Even the Kaiser Wilhelm died in the beginning of WW2.
Even though these 2 wars were separated by only 20 years, they were lead by totally different people.
The only prominent person I can think of in a leadership position in both WW1 and WW2 was Winston Churchill.
That being said, many of the WW2 leaders were involved in WW1 but in much of a junior role.
Pretty much the entire expensive German Navy was at the bottom of the Scapa Flow after 1919, but I doubt that would have made a real difference in 1939.
One area I can think of where the WWI Germans at top strength could have done real damage at the start of WWII is in U-boats.
The peak U-boat fleet in WWI was around 140 subs, compared to 26 ocean-going subs at the beginning of WWII. Conceivably if the entire WWI fleet went after commercial shipping right away using night surface attacks, the Happy Time would have been even happier, but still well short of what would have been needed to force British surrender (Donitz estimated during WWII that he needed a 300-sub fleet to accomplish this).
I’m not so sure, while ASW technology increased rapidly during the war, the inter-war years saw game changers, so that even in 1939 tech like active sonar, radar, and long range ASW aircraft were in place. I suspect losses in the ww1 u-boat fleet would be staggering.
Wasn’t radar only effective against subs in WWII much later than 1939? And the Brits had a major shortage of aircraft to go against U-boats early on, which is part of the reason the Germans had so much success in the first few years of the war.
Surprisingly, U-boats in the fleet early in WWII weren’t that technically advanced over their late WWI counterparts, so the WWI boats would have scored successes (elsewhere, other sub fleets made use of these boats early in WWII, so they must have had something going for them.
In his excellent podcast hardcore history: Blueprint for Armageddon Dan Carlin claims that the German army in 1914 may have been the finest the world has ever known, correcting for technological change, of course. He claims that Germany’s WWII army was an unsuccessful attempt to recreate the army of 1914.
That said, the introduction of tanks and effective ground attack airplanes and the improvements in training and incremental improvements in everything else means that they wouldn’t have a chance.
Right, what the Brits expected to be a huge difference between WWI and WWII ASW as of 1939 was ASDIC (as they called active sonar). Radar existed but not sets which could practically detect surfaced subs. That was indeed later, more like 1943 before lots of escorts had centimeter band radar sets really effective against the night surface tactics of U-boats. Likewise a/c which did a lot more than just look for submarines with eyeballs were a mainly post 1939 thing, and ones which could operate in mid-Atlantic from Britain/Iceland were introduced later on (and adequate numbers awaited US Lend Lease bomber production to get up to speed in 1942-3, the B-24 in particular)
Sonar did make a serious difference. But your original point is still good I think because both sides at the start of WWII’s Battle of the Atlantic had a big numbers deficit relative to 1918, of submarines and escorts (patrol planes also) respectively, which both set about in a race to remedy. If the Germans could have started with the numbers of the 1918 U-boat fleet, I agree they’d have been ahead of their actual 1939 position despite the qualitative advances in their 1939 subs. The designs of some subs in other navies built in the 1920’s which served in WWII owed a lot to post WWI German prizes (US, Japanese), and while in general that generation of subs were less effective and more vulnerable in WWII than 1930’s subs, which had advanced in all countries past the German 1918 state of the art, they weren’t entirely ineffective. And if the Germans had had the same number of combat experienced sub commanders as 1918, that would have been a significant factor also.
Without the fall of France, any advantage the Germans would have had with an increased number of subs wouldn’t have been as threatening, and without tanks, modern aircraft and communications, the WWI era army isn’t going to succeed against the French.
France’s uninspired military of the late 30s was counting on WWI tactics by the Germans. Give the French WWI Germans to fight against, but with the French having their tanks and aircraft, it’s going to be quite difficult for the Nazis.
I don’t think there was any implication by me or Jackmanni that a German advantage via the numbers of 1918 v 1939 subs would have necessarily offset other disadvantages. Just as he said, that’s one area where the pure numbers advantage of 1918 was probably enough to offset the qualitative advantage of 1939 technology.
In considering the 1940 invasion of France there would be no such quantitative advantage to offset the qualitative deficit, or not much. The March 1918 German offensive in France had a total strength of around 3.5 mil men (though with 1mil+ still in the east), only slightly larger than the manpower of the all out German effort of May 1940. And an air force of any size with 1918 planes was nearly worthless in 1939.
No one has said that. However, any advantages which having a greater number of subs would be offset because France would not fall. Hence, Britain would not be in the same precarious position of standing alone against Nazi Germany, and the lifeline would only be from the Continent, rather than across the ocean.
Definitely concede that radar was probably not effective against u-boats in '39.
However I agree with TokyoBayer that the WWI German army cannot take France, and without France the German Navy has no direct access to the Atlantic, thus all sorties have to go out via the Channel or the North Sea, Britain’s backyard.
Between naval assets and the fact that at the start of hostilities in 1939’ Britain had ~40 Short Sunderlands in service, which were easily able to patrol the entirety of the North Sea, I would question how many subs Germany could even get out into the Atlantic.