Resolved: The US Contribution to WWI was critical, even though late

Great Debates
1

This thread Resolved: Germany was the aggressor against France in WWI
was highly educational for me, in spite of it eventually being closed, so I’m inspired to start my own.

It’ll start with a fairly strong claim, but I’m open to being sharply corrected

The US Contribution to WWI was critical to Allied Success

Yes, I’m an American, and have been fed rah, rah stories of US contributions to all sorts of wars (no war is worth much discussion in school until the US is involved!), but I’m used to hearing that the US was late to WWI and then acted like they won it. I agree the US was late, but I think the US contribution was vital to the success of the Entente powers, and that the US could have tipped the balance either way based on its actions.

Factors leading me to this belief:

  1. Both the Central Powers and the Entente were extremely eager to keep the US happy even as they fought each other tooth and nail, for much of the war. Germany hobbled its submarine forces when the US took offense and attempted to sabotage US munitions factories and foment war with Mexico, while Britain produced propaganda aimed at the US.

  2. The US entered the war when both sides were near exhaustion - and new fresh troops and manufacturing capabilities unhampered by years of war (and loss of manpower) was going to be a decisive advantage for whichever side got it.

  3. Post-war reports from belligerents on both sides indicated that American troops were formidable:

French interrogations of German prisoners:

"The troops recently arrived in Alsace were strongly impressed by the good showing of the Americans under fire.

They mention occurrences in a battle in which they took part, where groups of American soldiers were killed to the last man, rather than surrender. Most of the men are still completely dumbfounded. They declare that all is lost."

(French G.Q.G., Belfort report, August 10, 1918)

Jean de Pierrefeu, a French staff officer who worked at Pétain’s headquarters wrote this about American troops:

Amidst enthusiastic civilians, they passed in interminable columns, tightly packed in trucks, feet in the air, in extraordinary positions, some perched on the tops, nearly all bare-headed and unbuttoned, singing their national songs at the top of their voices. The spectacle of this magnificent youth from across the sea, these youngsters of twenty years with smooth faces, radiating strength and health in their new uniforms, had an immense effect. They offered a striking contrast with our regiments in soiled uniforms, worn by the years of war, with our emaciated soldiers and their somber eyes who were nothing more than bundles of nerves held together by a heroic, sacrificial will. "

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I think that’s pretty reasonable. Put another way: in the very, very weakest framing, where the United States and their Teufel Hunden were actually just incompetent cannon fodder with an unlimited supply of beans, American entry into the war ensured that it would drag on and forced the Central Powers into a desperate gamble to end everything in 1918, which they could not actually afford. But, as it happens, they were also not just incompetent cannon fodder.

It’s worth noting that Germany was aware of how isolated they were; electing to start a war of aggression cost them the support of Italy and Romania, and the best Berlin and Vienna could hope for was neutrality—which Italy committed to very early on, complicating Admiral Souchon’s efforts to deliver his ships to the Ottoman Empire. This isolation put them in a delicate spot for much of the conflict.

Germany was absolutely hype about going to war with France and Russia, and was willing to sacrifice Belgium and Luxembourg to that end. But this had limits. Notably, they took the Netherlands, potential third victim, off the board, as a transparent bid to keep a maritime supply line open in the inevitable event of blockade.

They did not, it seems, realize that Britain’s naval superiority was so overwhelming that they could just force an inspection regime on the Dutch, and then put themselves in a fork when the enticing prospect of unrestricted submarine warfare would also mean torpedoing Dutch merchant ships calling on the ports of the Entente and her allies.

This was essentially the same choice they faced with the United States, and we can see how that turned out. Desperation forced their hand—which was not a very good hand to start with, but even so I think it’s reasonable to say that the US entry into the war was meaningful. Even “decisive,” though I’m sure there are arguments to be made that the Central Powers were cooked no matter what.

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The US entry certainly tipped the balance, but on its own I wouldn’t call it decisive.

US manufacturing capacity in WW1 was relatively very bad compared to the British and French. Rather than being the arsenal of democracy it was WW2, it had to rely on getting its equipment from those ‘exhausted’ manufacturing capabilities of the European allies.

Artillery of World War I - United States

The United States lacked industry that could build artillery and was only able to do so in collaboration with European manufacturers. With the outbreak of the war in 1914, this collaboration came to an end as European manufacturers focused on equipping their home countries. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, it was clear that its artillery would not be sufficient, so the United States mostly used French and British artillery.

For example, the standard US divisional artillery piece prior to entry was the woefully inadequate 3-inch M1902 field gun but

During World War I, the Army primarily used the French 75 mm 1897 gun instead of the M1902s, which were mostly kept in the United States for training. Although this weapon appears in World War I-era tables of organization and equipment,[4] very few of the M1902s were used in combat in Europe. They were gradually phased out of active service in the 1920s.

The French 75s being issued to the troops upon their arrival in Europe.

The same applied to tanks, they used a mixture of French and British tanks. America had no tank design of its own, nor the manufacturing capability to produce more than a trickle of a variant of the French FT domestically before the war ended, none of which ever saw combat.

Approximately 64 of the M1917 were built before the end of World War I and 10 were sent to Europe, but too late to be used in combat.

All the tanks used by the US Army in WWI were supplied to it by the British and the French.

Even small arms relied upon foreign sources, with a mishmash of US, British, French and other designs in US service.

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I definitely do know enough to have a strong opinion on this although I think Germany alteady had pretty grim prospects before the US came in.

I’m fairly confident this is not true however:

To my knowledge everyone had felt the effects but Germany was in an extremely dire situation with the blockade whereas while depleted the UK and France could likely have continued a war of attrition for much longer.

Germany paused their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare after the Lusatania because they thought it wasn’t worth the risk of bringing the US in, but by the end they felt they had no choice. Maybe they were wrong but they were definitely mmuch closer to exhaustion than the allies. This is again something I dont know super well but I think Germany’s failed attempt to get Mexico to ally with them and attack the US was partly based on thinking that the US were going to join anyway after they brought unrestricted submarine warfare back. This they probably were wrong about and it was the same logic that got them i to the mess in the first place.

Also Germany had their own mini version of the Russian revolution heavily motivated by civillian war weariness. I think this was after the US entered but I think it points to the fact that Germany couldn’t keep up the war of attrition as long as the allies.

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off-topic post that started the hijack hidden by What_Exit

There are parallels to the importance of U.S. and other Allied aid to the Soviet Union in WWII.

The Russians would’ve overcome Nazi Germany without it, but it would’ve taken considerably longer and at greater sacrifice.

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Not at all. The US military, due to its historical situation as a very small professional army that grows dramatically in wartime, has long had an element of quick and hard learning early on in wars until they figure out how to fight in that particular war. Most of what we saw in WWI was one of two things- either the small number of pros fighting like fresh, highly trained professionals (Belleau Wood & Cantigny stand out), or largely conscript forces learning how to fight, like in the Argonne Forest fighting in September/October 1918.

This pattern was similar to the Civil War and WW2.

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I agree with the OP. If not for the US entry, the war would have been a stalemate.

Both Stalin and Khrushchev stated the USSR would have lost without US aid.

The Lusitania was a victory for British propaganda, and there are some indications Churchill, et all, either let it get torpedoed or were at least hoping for it. In any case, the Lusitania was a legit target- it was listed in Janes as a Armed Merchant Cruiser (the gun mounts were there, but no guns had been mounted, and it’s sister ship was a troop transport, not to mention it was carrying contraband war material).

But the Zimmerman telegram was pure German idiocy.

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Summary

Taking something Stalin said during a toast at the '43 Tehran Conference as the final word is a dubious conclusion, even if he was sincere and not just spouting puffery to please Allied leaders (note that later conclusions by postwar Russian historians overwhelmingly discounted the critical nature of U.S. help, though cold war animosity undoubtedly had a role there). Despite whatever book you might have read, there’s considerable disagreement among historians as to how critical U.S. aid was in preventing a Soviet collapse.

Given the Soviets’ huge manpower reserves and their having moved heavy industry east out of reach of the Germans, it would have been extremely hard for Germany to have followed up its early victories and defeated the Soviet Union, and impossible to have maintained a successful occupation.

While U.S./Allied support was especially important early in the war, much of it including heavy equipment did not arrive until after Stalingrad and Kursk, at which point the German high-water mark was past (supply tonnage figures show the majority of aid was supplied in 1944-45).

It remains a reasonable conclusion that while the Soviets would have faced a longer and more bitter struggle without U.S. assistance and deaths would have been far greater, the U.S.S.R. ultimately would have been victorious.

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Well, WW2 seems a bit of a side issue here.

Although the entry of the US into the Great War is an interesting issue, I am not going to speculate any further here. I will repeat that I agree with the OP. leave everyone with this fascinating wiki article-

and leave you all to debate amoungst eash other.

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Moderating:

Keep this to WW1 please, not WW2 stuff.

Once again, responding to a post in a thread is not staying on topic if it is off-topic.

@DrDeth no more missteps, stay out of this thread and I suggest you avoid WW1 threads.

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Thank you for the link. The quote most relevant to your claim is this one:

This theory [that Churchill deliberately put the Lusitania at risk] is generally rejected by mainstream historians, who characterise the sinking as mainly a combination of British mistakes and misfortune,[9] with claims to the contrary characterized by implausible theories, lack of evidence, and in some cases fabricated sources.

12

Thanks to all for your detailed answers.

I particularly appreciated this:

which suggests I was projecting WWII realities back to WWI

and this:

which reminded me of the difference between US army practices as opposed to European ones.

I think Germany was meddling with Mexican politics quite early on, before they could reasonably anticipate US entry into the war, under the (correct) assumption that if the US joined any side, it would be the Entente, so a little precautionary meddling is good, even if the worry is remote. I’ll check some sources, though.