Reading about the allied predicament in 1917-1918 it becomes clear that allied victory was hardly assured before the US entered. The Russians were knocked out of the war, Italy was losing to Germany and Austro Hungary, U-boats were causing havoc, and a 1917 allied offensive was disastrous, leading to widespread mutiny of French troops, a severe lack of manpower, and the Germans were reinforcing and preparing for a massive counterattack in 1918. American involvement was crucial in all of these crises to an extent I never really considered. Thinking about it now, I would even consider US involvement in WWI in Europe more decisive than WWII. Any thoughts?

I really wish we had different names for these wars. While they are inexorably linked, calling one World War I and another World War II makes it seem like the first was just a set-up to the last.

Rather, the First World War is probably more important. Without it, obviously, we wouldn't have had the same sort of war we did between 1939 and 1945. We may not have had as bad of a depression as we did, since a fair amount of that had to do with the lingering effects of the war, particularly German reparations. We may have still had communist revolutions, but we wouldn't have had the Soviet Union. This war killed a classically liberal world order, while the next one just embalmed it.


To answer the question then, it has to be the intervention in WWI. Since without WWI ending as it did, WWII would not have began and gone on as it did. Germany really had a shot at winning during the Spring Offensive. The addition of American men and promise of thousands more prevented that.

I was les to believe the Spring Offensives were almost an act of desperation against inevitable defeat when Erica got across the Atlantic in force. If you're going to grin up the Spring Offensives, you might want to consider he possibility thy wouldn't have happenned without American involvement.

In short, I would say WW1. I went through a similar phase, Santa, where as I learned more and more about the two wars I found out that we were much more important in the first one than the second.

Bloody phone keyboard...
*led
*America
*bring
*they
Should have proofread

You really can't read about the First World War without sinking into depression over how things might have been. The countries were all just a few years away from conventional MAD where the armies would not dare try to fight each other. If only the chauffeur made a few different turns in Sarajevo, or the diplomats had been able to diffuse the crisis like they had diffused so many of the few preceding years, Europe could at least have had a cold peace.

Imagine a world that did not have millions of men die in the mud for nothing, then millions more die in the next war and beyond due to poisonous ideologies that the aftermath of World War I spawned. The world order which preceded the war likely could not have endured indefinitely, but I really cannot imagine a worse way for it all to have been destroyed.

"If you're going to grin up the Spring Offensives, you might want to consider he possibility thy wouldn't have happenned without American involvement."

Sure it's possible. But Germany still desperately wanted to win the war, and the withdrawal of Russia meant it could shift forces West to do so. This was the last chance for Germany to win, but it was a real chance. If you ask me, without the pressure of imminent American involvement in huge numbers it would still have happened, but probably be called the Summer Offensive instead.

Gold-

I wouldn't say more important, I said decisive for a reason. I think the US had more of a leadership role in WWII, at least on the Western Front and at Sea and for that I think the US was more important. But decisive to the outcome is different.

I think that question resolves around Russia in WWII. Would the Russians have turned the tide and won without US support or the threat of an allied invasion with US support? If the answer is yes, US involvement might have been important, but not decisive.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I understand what you're trying to say Santa. I was just being sloppy with wording

This is even a question? WWI. General Pershing didn't give a damn about American casualties, but the two sides had basically bled themselves dry before the arrival of seemingly endless numbers of US troops.

US contribution to WWII was pretty negligible. The Pacific theater was a sideshow, and the British Indian army had thrown back the Japanese from any further expansion anyway.

"Would the Russians have turned the tide and won without US support or the threat of an allied invasion with US support? "

US "support" was irrelevant to Russians turning back the Germans. And if anything all Roosevelt and Churchill did was stall a second front so that Russia would suffer more. If WWI, US troops went straight to the heart of the fighting as soon as they were mobilized. In WWII, they fought in the periphery until the last possible moment.

Had the US not been pushing from the Western front it's possible that Russia and Germany could have stopped the fighting on their own before the Russians reached Berlin, similar to what happened on the Eastern front in WW1.

And Putin, I'm not sure I understand how you can call the Pacific theater a sideshow. Maybe the British had prevented further Japanese expansion into India, but there's no way that they were pushing the Japanese out of China. What would the Pacific look like now if the US hadn't been involved there?

" I'm not sure I understand how you can call the Pacific theater a sideshow."

It was a battle over who controlled some Pacific colonies in SE Asia. Compared to the massive battles in Europe for the control of a continent, it was a sideshow. The battles of Stalingrad and Moscow dwarfed anything going on in the Pacific by many times.

"Maybe the British had prevented further Japanese expansion into India, but there's no way that they were pushing the Japanese out of China."

The Japanese had been in China since the 1890s.

"What would the Pacific look like now if the US hadn't been involved there?"

Free of European colonies. All the US did was restore European colonialism in the Pacific.

I should also add for the OP, that America's 14 was instrumental to getting Germany to agree to an armistice. Too bad for the latter they were never really implemented.

Capitalism & Fascism - 2 peas in the same pod
Hitler gave Ford Germany's Highest award for supporting Hitler from 1924 to 1944
2 of hitlers best friends were Rockefeller and Prescott Bush who Financed Hitlers Rise to Chancellor thus causing WW2
Hitler had no problem with American Industries as None of Americas Companies were Nationalised
after all Ford Chrysler Built all of Hitlers Trucks whilst GM'S German factory Built Hitlers Tanks.
and Standard Oil was supplying the NAZIS with Fuel and Oil up to 1944 as was SKF supplying all of NAZI Germany's Ball bearings until 1945.

So many errors, and so little relevance.

Invictus: I agree, it is depressing to think of the First World War. But remember that the destruction of the old Concert of Europe (by no means a paridise) gave rise to the most elightened chapter of human history. Out of the ashes of the War arose the League of Nations, the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labor Organization.

"I agree, it is" should have a semicolon, not a comma.

"Free of European colonies. All the US did was restore European colonialism in the Pacific."

I think the bigger question is would it be full of Japanese colonies instead? Besides the American navy, nobody could come close to touching Japan's fleet. Great Britain had a hard enough time as it was over in the Atlantic. Japan would have had full control over sea and air (imagine the thousands of pilots who wouldn't have been shot down by Americans), which is a huge advantage.

More likely that they'd install governments similar to Phibunsongkhram in Thailand. Aside from territories they already held before the war, Japan opted to foster nationalism and prepare Asian territories for independence. Even in Indonesia, Japan backed Sukarno.

The Pacific theatre also had Australia and whilst not a massive offensive force, was certainly never going to be able to be invaded and held by the Japs. and it was Australia who stopped the Japanese in New Guinea.

I find the attitude and ignorance of most Americans to be rather more than slightly annoying. This saviour of the West crap makes me vomit.

"More likely that they'd install governments similar to Phibunsongkhram"
Thailand was a unique case for the Japanese. Look at the occupations of China and Korea, they were just as bloody and ruthless as the war in Europe. China lost what? Almost 20 million people? The Imperial army was a brutal occupying force, and they certainly weren't looking to hand out freedom all over the Pacific.

America was instrumental in the Pacific theater, and definitely participated in the Atlantic one as well, though not exactly decisively. It's not exactly like the Germans were going to win after Barbarossa, since Russian mass-production was too effective. There were a lot of Russian tanks. We saw them twice here in Prague, actually.

In the Pacific theater, America was a competitor to Japan, and was instrumental in the victory. Australia's contribution to both theaters is commendable, and remarkable, but they didn't have the massive fleets and carriers that finished the Japanese.

American involvement in WWI is more decisive SIMPLY because the manner in which it became involved made WWI end the way it did, which made WWII play out the way it did. We need not get into Putin33's disgusting lies that the battles in the West were irrelevant.

By the end of the war both sides were exhausted. Both were on the brink of revolution. The one last German gamble likely would have succeeded were it not for the addition of American men and (just as importantly) the boost to morale that the idea of fresh reinforcements gave the armies in the field.

The Japanese would have kept going where ever they could in the Pacific until they ran out of options. They dug in with a base in the Aleutians, tried to fire bomb the Pacific Northwest in mainland US, and were pushing towards Australia. While the Pacific islands weren't high in economic resources like China, they provided the bases for the next push outward. Without the US going after the islands and Japanese fleets, they would have kept increasing.

Wusti - I'm not sure where you got the idea that Japan was never going to invade Australia. Ever hear of the Battle of Coral Sea?

Moreover, Australian forces in New Guinea would be fucked if their supply lines were cut

Actually, GF, Japan took the invasion of Australia off the table a few months before the Battle of Coral Sea. Because of the difficulties encountered in taking and holding Manchuria, the Japanese knew they would need to conquer the entire Australian continent, which was untenable given the limits of Japanese supply shipping and the manpower required, instead of securing small areas in the north of Australia. Their plan was originally cutting off American supply lines to Australia by taking Fiji and Samoa but that was abandoned after Coral Sea. Japanese attacks on Sydney, Darwin and Port Moresby, among other locations, were meant as a preventive measure to keep Allied air strikes from taking off from those locations.

Well look at that, you learn something new every day

Lets not forget what happened to Germany's main capitals, Keiser Wilhelm the second had abdicated and there were riots throughout Germany.
if I were any judge, I'd say that WW1 was lost due to Germany's increased inflationary cycles and worker strikes. But then again the Schlielphhien Plan was unaffected due to the soldiers refusal to retreat.
ergo, Germany's loss was the Germans fault

That's full of errors in a very beautiful kind of way, Kargo013.


This whole Japan semi-tangent is exactly the sort of thing that bugs me about world war discussions. They tend to focus on the Second, with the First being resigned to a prologue. If anything WWI is the more consequential one, with WWII more of a ratification of the new sort of world the Great War created.

I agree with Invictus' most recent post.

As an aside, has anyone seen "The Lost Battalion"? Probably the best WWI movie ever made when it comes to showing Americans in action. Most WWI films focus on one of the other major powers, usually the Commonwealth (Beneath Hill 60, War Horse, and Forbidden Ground) or Germany (All Quiet on the Western Front)

And I also agree with the assertion that Germany's Spring Offensive of 1918 would have been successful, possibly even decisive, if not for American intervention. To suggest that shiploads of angry 18 to 25 year old Americans filling the Entente trenches wasn't a factor in Germany's eventual submission is disingenuous.

Sorry for writing three posts in a row, but does anyone know of any primary sources with respect to the psychological effect on the German Army that America's entry into the war had?