More to the point, by 1918, the UK’s credit was gone-they could only pay for imports by selling gold reserves. Ditto for france. It might have been better for all of the warring parties to have exhausted themselves, without the USA entering the war at all. Germany then would have tasted total defeat, and the nonsense peddled by the Nazis (the “backstab”) would never have been bought by the german public. as it was, germany retreated with its homeland intact. There was no damage to the heartland. This was NOT the case for France.
Please indicate which of the u-boats listed on the linked page were built in Connecticut.
Sea Boats U-1 through U-29 were all built between 1906 and 1 August, 1914 in either Kiel or Danzig. Boats U-30 through U-44 appear to have been built in the same yards being commissioned between 1 August, 1914 and 7 May, 1915.
Coastal boats UB-1 through UB-17 were all built between October, 1914 and 7 May, 1915 in either Kiel or Bremen.
If the Germans ordered a boat from Electric after August, 1914, it was not because they had no experience or capacity to build it.
7 May, 1915 was when the Lusitania was sunk–after which I suspect that it would have been pretty much impossible for a U.S. company to supply Germany with submarines.
I would not be surprised to discover that the Electric Boat Company supplied Germany with a submarine (or more) after the launching of the Holland and before 1906. However, a claim that U.S.-built U-boats were employed by Germany against Allied shipping seems to be a bit unlikely. (Even their own early boats, U-1 through U-4, built prior to 1910, had been relegated to training duties prior to the outbreak of WWI.)
I’m far from an expert on this topic, but I recall having read that Germany, at the beginning of the war was ordering boats from EB. Give me a little time to do some research on the topic, and if wrong, I will gladly retract.
This doesn’t change the overall point of my post, however, that the arms industry in the U.S. was large and well developed long before the the beginning of WWI.
After a little reading, I see I was confused. It was actually England that I was thinking of, not Germany, I apologize to all for the mistake. The story I was thinking of remains an interesting one. Link
Days of bombardment did little to “soften up” the enemy, who huddled underground waiting for it to end so they could pop up and man their machine guns. It often did less to clear No-Man’s Land of obstructions than to churn it into an impassable swamp. Vimy was won not by the week-long bombardment but by improvements in training and in the coordination of rolling barrages and advancing troops, who would arrive before the Germans had fully recovered. Some generals finally realized that soldiers had brains and both could and needed to be trained in platoon-level tactics so they could work without the direct control generals had expected to wield since before Alexander, but which was nearly impossible once an attack had begun. And the lack of cavalry in later stages of the war actually became a liability in that breakthroughs could not be quickly and fully exploited, so stalemate and a war of attrition were still in force to the end.
All of that and more was available all along. All it took was some “thinking outside the box.”
Yes. Dramatic improvements in artillery tactics and accuracy made a creeping barrage possible. I understand such was not possible in 1916 (when the British Army started to take on responsibility for more of the offensives). At that time, a creeping barrage would have dropped largely onto the attacking troops. The tactic you said was continued was the over-the-top method of marching towards enemy troops, not the multiple week bombardments. Had that been the issue, I might have agreed. The structure of the British Army also did not lend itself to such tactics as you mention. Unlike the Continental powers, Britain, without conscription, did not have a large pool of well trained NCOs to draw on. Instead it had a small pool of incredibly well trained regulars, many of whom died in the early part of the war. It also was relient on junior officers, who suffered the greatest casualty rates. The army of 1916 was Kitchener’s Army of volunteers, many of whom were rushed to the front with less than desired training because of the need to fill gaps in the line left by the French. Similarly British offensives were often fought at times and in areas which were not the first choice of the General Staff because of the need to relieve pressure on other Allies.
Not really - the training improved through the war, in particular as the British sector of the line stabilized and the threat of German breakthrough/French collapse diminished, and artillery in particular improved in its accuracy and tactics, allowing the creeping barrage. It’s also the case, I believe, that without the set piece battles of 1915-17, the German strength would have been so much higher that all the new tactics in the world would have been in vain. For all the criticism of Allied artillery that you see, the big guns were responsible for 2/3 of the casualties of the war, an absolute minimum of twice those caused by machine guns. That was how the war was won, and the only way it could be won. Bleed Germany until she was unable to resist further. And the Somme played a major part in that.
Attrition does not have to mean human wave attacks. The British could have bided their time in thier own trenches. The blockade was effective and could have been more so. Aircraft and armored vehicles held promise and could have been more effective earlier if resources had been devoted to them.
Its the easiest thing in the world for me to sit in my chair a hundred years after the fact and discuss the stupidity of men who died a long time ago, but the fact remains; they had options and they choose human wave attacks. It was dumb.
The British just sitting in their trenches would have the problem of not only not encouraging the Germans (who were, of course, at this time occupying Allied territory) to attack. Also it would have had the disadvantage of allowing the collapse of the Alliance, as it ignores that many British offensives were launched to relieve the pressure on our allies.
I’m not saying the tactics were perfect, just that many of the alternatives put forward during the war (Churchill, Lloyd George), immediately after (Lidell Hart, for example) and now, simply were not practical given the strategic situation and state of the British and Allied armies. Lots and lots and lots of Germans had to die to win the war. Unfortunately, given the massive imbalance at the time between offensive and defensive technology, that means lots and lots and lots of Allied troops had to die too. Quite possibly (or even probably) the whole damn thing wasn’t worth it. But generals don’t decide whether to fight wars, politicians do.
Of course, had the Allies been armed with more machine guns–in 1914 they had maybe two while the Germans had six per battalion and theirs were used more effectively–they could’ve held back German offenses, but in April, 1915, Haig said, “The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient.” Haig was incapable of “thinking outside the box;” in truth he was the box and thousands of men died because of his hidebound ways.
Slight hijack here - I seem to recall reading that the Germans, during the opening phases of the war, while things were still very mobile were running beyond the ability of their supply train to keep up.
Does anyone know whether that’s true? And if so, did any of the Allies recognize that?
Haig was a long way from perfect, though I don’t think he was anywhere near as bad as often portrayed. He was, of course, not Commander-in-Chief of the BEF until December 1915, and to be honest I don’t know at what level the allocation of machineguns per batallion was decided.
And OtakuLoki, I’ve heard that before, generally as part of an overall analysis of why not only was defense stronger than offense because of weaponry, but also because a successful attack led to supplies being required to be brought up over land that had been fought over, whereas defenders were falling back towards their supply dumps.
Hold the phone here: WHAT?!?!?
I really don’t think so. The Germans were giving ground after American involvement, but slowly and grudgingly. They could eventually have been pushed back, but only at great cost. Without fresh American soldiers (or some other source), the odds that Britain and France might have done this are pretty low.
Now, in fact, it might well have walled off any possibility of a fascist dictatorship like the Nazis. But it’s really hard to say what would have happened. Could the monarchy be saved at that point, with something they can claim as victory? Who knows. Most likely, Germany would have faced even less defeat than it actually did, historically. You said it yourself: France and England were close to economic collapse.
The Russians were not in the picture at this point in time. The Soviets would nto take power for several more years and might never had done so if Germany had not bene in chaos (the Germans certainly would not have wanted a Red enemy on the border). Aside from which, Germany controlled much of what became the original Soviet Union and would have had extra manpower to do with it.
March 1917, Tsar abdicates.
April 6, 1917, US declares war on Germany
November 1917, Bolschevik takeover
March 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
May 1918, US strength in Europe reaches 1 million men
1917-1922, Russian Civil War, including British, US and French military involvement
Had the US not entered the war, and the war in the west continued longer, my point was that Russia would have been in a better position to attempt to earlier get the territory it lost via Brest-Litovsk (which made Versailles look like an act of charity to the defeated) back through military action. Had the Great War dragged on longer, I think it likely that even without US troops, Germany would once again have been facing a two front war.
I don’t think you’re grasping the meaning of my statement. At the beginning of WW-II the United States was not a world power. We did not have the capacity to protect our territory and project a large force overseas. GB had a fraction of the coastline to protect in comparison to the US and only one ocean/battlefield.
Projecting power is ultimately a logistics fight. While battleships are the focus of naval history it is the supply ship that that supports the engines of war. We did not have the means to project our assets over great distances on 2 oceans.
They were in the defensive in the Pacific theater, too. India was also threatened.
Yes, but they were augmented by British commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand who joined early in the war and later by Canadian forces transferring over to the Pacific arena.
I thought they had some serious losses there, including a big assed cruiser.
The Hood went down 10 minutes after engaging the Prinz Eugen and the Bismark (only 3 survivors). While it was a flagship of the British Navy it was a flawed design they attempted to fix during construction.
The Prince of Wales and Repulse were lost to the Japanese.
The US had either the most powerful Navy in the world, or the second most powerful. How is that not “a World Power”? We also had a huge merchant marine, and plenty of suport ships.
As to GB having “one one coast”:
“The Naval treaty had a profound effect on the Japanese, many of whom saw the 5:5:3 ratio of ships as another way of being snubbed by the West (in fact, the Japanese, having a one-ocean navy, had a far greater concentration of force than the two-ocean United States Navy or the three-ocean Royal Navy).”
The USN had more or less as many fleet aircraft carriers at the start of WWII as any other nation.
The USA had the largest GNP, and the largest industrial base. In no way shape or form could the USA not be considered a “world power” at the start of WWII.
I grasp the meaning, but the statement is false. Not even debatable.