What if america joined the central powers

[Airedale260]

I agree that this is indeed the most likely scenario and accurate depiction of OTL events.

Teaboo - LOL! Didn;t know this expression
As to Bermuda - yes, this is the dagger on America's throat.

Eh, not really. Bermuda’s harbor isn’t sheltered from storms and so any sizable force is at significant risk of getting wrecked by Mother Nature. Hence why cutting them off from Halifax is critical: it was the only real port they had (Quebec City wasn’t big enough IIRC, and also way out of position). Plus Bermuda is at greater risk: The USN could stage out of multiple points (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Charleston, Miami, Key West, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), and Panama. The RN technically had facilities in the western Atlantic, but nothing that could support a significantly large force like the fleet at Scapa Flow.

That said it’s very likely Bermuda is demanded by the Americans along with other British and possibly French possessions simply to keep them the hell out of the Americas

And Bermuda can't be held for more than a few months if the HSF keeps the bulk of the Grand Fleet stuck in the UK

Oh no question it’ll fall. The RN had to keep all of its modern ships at Scapa; the North Atlantic likely becomes a no-man’s land because neither side can project sufficient force across it.

Maybe. Depends if "white peace" or "curbstomp".

Hard to say. If it’s just Bizarro Wilson being an ass about war (and it would be weird because IRL Wilson was actually extremely pro-British), and war is declared just for the hell of it, Britain gets a white peace and Wilson is out on his ass in November because the public was largely isolationist (indeed that mentality wouldn’t change until the Korean War broke out).

If, however, the British or the French have done something to massively piss off the Americans, it’s going to be a war to the knife because we Americans go batshit insane when attacked. If the British do that, the U.S. Army is going to swell to an insane size, Canada is going to get wrecked and then eaten, and then we start building our forces to get across. Oh and we throw tons of support behind Irish separatists, who are going to be quite delighted because they couldn’t stand working with the Germans, whereas the Americans are an entirely different ballgame. And that means a massive manpower drain and distraction when Britain cannot afford it.

As for France, they’re fucked, no question. It’s only a question of just how hard they get fucked.

 

[Buba]

the U.S. Army is going to swell to an insane size,

A mob with rifles.
Which is fully adequate to take Canada, I admit.
But artillery and machinegunes? Three-four years from the starting point, if not longer.
Hmm - some ordnance being license made German/Austrian designs, from blueprints brought over by submarine?

 

[Knowledgeispower]

A mob with rifles.
Which is fully adequate to take Canada, I admit.
But artillery and machinegunes? Three-four years from the starting point, if not longer.
Hmm - some ordnance being license made German/Austrian designs, from blueprints brought over by submarine?

Oh the army had some interesting artillery designs in development it could build and moreover as far as machine guns go ever heard of the lewis and maxim guns? Plus good ole John Browning has some interesting stuff in the works

 

[Aaron Fox]

Oh the army had some interesting artillery designs in development it could build and moreover as far as machine guns go ever heard of the lewis and maxim guns? Plus good ole John Browning has some interesting stuff in the works

Yeah, the US Army had to lean on John Browning for a lot of their armaments. Hell, a good portion of the shotguns in the US army arsenal was Browning's creations (Auto 5 anyone?) and the M2 was created because of the Mk1s... and it was automatic (the only thing that the Germans had that was anywhere close to the M2 was the Baker autocannon, which in OTL evolved into the Oerlikon guns of WW2).

 

[Buba]

Oh the army had some interesting artillery designs in development it could build

And the AEF was armed with French made ordnance ...

and moreover as far as machine guns go ever heard of the lewis and maxim guns? Plus good ole John Browning has some interesting stuff in the works

All Maxim's designs were in Europe. Lewis quit the US Army and set up shop in Europe too. Everything has to be set up from scratch. Hopefully Browning would be in the US at that time - he split his time between Colt and FN.

Agreeing on design, debugging, setting up production, debugging, training people to train other people to use them - 2-3 years.

Look at how long it took the UK - starting with a more developed armaments industry and a c.500K army (200K Regulars, 200K TF, 150K Indian army) - to raise, equip and field an army of c.80 Infantry Divisions (British, Indian, Dominions). The USA's starting point is much lower. Look at OTL - from early 1917 to late 1918 the USA got a dozen(?) Divisions to the front with - like I've said - French made artillery. So, any sort of insanely large US army (where is it going to fight, BTW?) will take years to raise, equip, train ...
Or look at WWII - again, from a much more developed base, look at what the US capable of shipping overseas.

In an US-Entente war IMO the Navy is much more relevant than a massive Army.

 

[Airedale260]

A mob with rifles.
Which is fully adequate to take Canada, I admit.
But artillery and machinegunes? Three-four years from the starting point, if not longer.
Hmm - some ordnance being license made German/Austrian designs, from blueprints brought over by submarine?

Oh here we go again...the Army did have artillery and machine guns in 1914, so yes they will still have them two years later. Also keep in mind we put several million men under arms and trained in two years so quite frankly I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually trolling or what.

Also, “division” in the U.S. sense at the time isn’t what you think -European divisions were nine battalions while American ones were sixteen, i.e., they were actually about the size of a modern MEF or an understrength corps formation.

The Army is going to get the most attention and rightly so. The Navy will get a huge boost as well, but to say “The Navy is more important” is a fundamental misunderstanding of reality.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Also keep in mind we put several million men under arms and trained in two years so quite frankly I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually trolling or what.

I run into that kind of thinking, that firing a gun is some sort of mystical art akin to the way of the samurai that takes a lifetime to master, all the time and I've never quite understood why. Best I can think is that it's thinking from people who've never fired an actual gun and get their ideas on how combat works from watching gunkata movies or something similar.

The National Guard advertises their training as "2 weekends a month, 2 weeks a year" for good reason and they're perfectly capable of using modern weapons.

 

[Buba]

I'm not talking about rifles. I'm talking artillery. Teaching Private Fumbles to push the round into the breech the sharp-end first - that's a week. Teaching an Officer to interpret data, to replay and issue fire orders, that is half a year at the very least. And those artillery pieces need to be manufactured too.

As to the contemporary National Guard - they are trained to use modern weapons - artillery as well - by people with such knowledge who are already there. 1914/16 NG had miniscule artillery/signals/trains/engineers etc. which need to be expanded to "full Division size" (regardless if serving as overhead to nine or 16 rifle battalions, Divisional level troops are necessary and cannot be pared down a certain level). In 1914 no NG Divisions exist, these need to be formed and trained.

Of course you can chose to ignore how much time it took to raise, train, equip and field the New Armies (the UK having a much broader start-up base to do so), the AEF, or the WWII US Army.

EOT

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'm not talking about rifles. I'm talking artillery. Teaching Private Fumbles to push the round into the breech the sharp-end first - that's a week. Teaching an Officer to interpret data, to replay and issue fire orders, that is half a year at the very least. And those artillery pieces need to be manufactured too.

As to the contemporary National Guard - they are trained to use modern weapons - artillery as well - by people with such knowledge who are already there. 1914/16 NG had miniscule artillery/signals/trains/engineers etc. which need to be expanded to "full Division size" (regardless if serving as overhead to nine or 16 rifle battalions, Divisional level troops are necessary and cannot be pared down a certain level). In 1914 no NG Divisions exist, these need to be formed and trained.

Of course you can chose to ignore how much time it took to raise, train, equip and field the New Armies (the UK having a much broader start-up base to do so), the AEF, or the WWII US Army.

EOT

Well I see the goalposts are moving now from "Artillery and machine gun training takes 3-4 years" to "artillery training takes half a year" so we're making some progress. But wow, the teachers must still be absolute pants in whatever universe you live in, compared to ours. Fort Sill's BOLC Field Artillery training is 18 weeks and 4 days. Do humans in your world live longer than in ours to make up for the fact that they're such slow learners?

 

[Knowledgeispower]

I will note the main reason why the AEF used French artillery and machine guns in otl was mainly logistics since using American guns would have required every round and spare part to be shipped across the Atlantic. Even then there were plans to switch over to American made equipment for the 1919 offensives as by that point the American shipbuilding spam would have provided the needed shipping tonnage but the war ended first. Well that and a lot of the production capacity of the 1917 American Arms industry was kinda fulfilling foreign orders

 

[Airedale260]

I will note the main reason why the AEF used French artillery and machine guns in otl was mainly logistics since using American guns would have required every round and spare part to be shipped across the Atlantic. Even then there were plans to switch over to American made equipment for the 1919 offensives as by that point the American shipbuilding spam would have provided the needed shipping tonnage but the war ended first. Well that and a lot of the production capacity of the 1917 American Arms industry was kinda fulfilling foreign orders

Right. And it's not like the U.S. Army and Marine Corps were ust sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, either: Regular and National Guard troops were involved in the Pancho Villa expedition, plus the various other shenanigans going on (Veracruz, Haiti, the Philippines, etc).

The only limiting factor to their operations is raw size. They can't go play "Conquer Canada" right off the bat, but they can still strongpoint major logistics centers to prevent Canada from getting any ideas and cause various headaches for the Canadians in the meantime like fucking with rail lines and bridges and burning crops.

It'll probably take them about 18 months to get fully up to speed so actually invading Canada might not happen simply because there is a *very* good chance it's over before then because Britain and France know they're completely screwed vs a hostile U.S., and the British at least can get out mostly intact (they may lose Western Canada and Bermuda). France may try to fight on alone but without British (and indirect American) support vs Germany, they're fucked. Russia will undergo a revolution regardless, but the war might be over by then.

So France loses *even more* of its territory to Germany and winds up being the major fascist power when Round 2 begins...

 

[stevep]

Actually it was the war stalling out that resulted in Hindenburg and Ludendorff coming to power. If the U.S. actually enters the war on the side of the Central Powers, it likely means that they don’t get the opportunity, since the British likely peace out ASAP or else lose Canada (which means France is fucked), or they hang in but have to give up because once Russia falls (and it will), all Germany has to do is hold its position until the U.S. Army arrives in force.



Oh, nobody is landing troops in sufficient numbers on the CONUS unless they have a staging base to do it. My point was saying the kind of power it would take to actually pull it off.

As far as the U.S. goes, they cannot do it by themselves, no, but if they have a sufficiently large staging base to deploy troops from such as, oh, I don’t know, Germany, they absolutely can. And if they’re fighting against the British, the U.S. is going to speed up naval construction because unlike Germany, the British can threaten the CONUS because Canada can be used as a staging base.

The moment the U.S. enters the war with the CP, the British will peace out. The Entente succeeded because they had access to U.S. production and a more or less unlimited line of credit until 1917 (at which point they would have been cut off if the U.S. entered the war).

Beyond that, I’d suggest checking out the 10+ threads on UK vs USA on this (there’s also a “RN+MN vs USN” thread that didn’t get cataloged but is also basically the same). They all come to the same conclusion (except for a pair of Teaboos who can’t accept that the RN and Britain can ever be defeated): namely, that the U.S. would be the ultimate “winner” (insofar as any peace is going to involve them getting part if not all of Canada and probably Bermuda and other territory in the Caribbean).

The problem is its unclear why the US is going to war with the EPs? If its some made expansionist kick then peacing out isn't an option for the UK. Neither is letting Germany dictate a peace in the west similar to what they did to the Russian in 1918. That would be an even bigger threat to Britain's existence as an independent state.

Actually, if somehow the US declares war in 1916 without any great preparations and then somehow Britain and France come to terms with Germany I would back the allies to defeat the US. They have large military establishments with millions of experienced men and the shipping and bases to move them across the Atlantic. The US has a powerful but limited navy - a number of strong but slow BBs but very little in the way of scouts so other than attacking a vital convoy they would have great difficulty with finding let alone forcing to battle an EP naval force. Also their army is tiny and they can't rely on the allies to supply much of their heavy equipment. The issues for them would be food and possibly oil.

However I find both of the assumptions above extremely unlikely.

 

[Airedale260]

The problem is its unclear why the US is going to war with the EPs? If its some made expansionist kick then peacing out isn't an option for the UK. Neither is letting Germany dictate a peace in the west similar to what they did to the Russian in 1918. That would be an even bigger threat to Britain's existence as an independent state.

Actually, if somehow the US declares war in 1916 without any great preparations and then somehow Britain and France come to terms with Germany I would back the allies to defeat the US. They have large military establishments with millions of experienced men and the shipping and bases to move them across the Atlantic. The US has a powerful but limited navy - a number of strong but slow BBs but very little in the way of scouts so other than attacking a vital convoy they would have great difficulty with finding let alone forcing to battle an EP naval force. Also their army is tiny and they can't rely on the allies to supply much of their heavy equipment. The issues for them would be food and possibly oil.

However I find both of the assumptions above extremely unlikely.

Oh it's a totally absurd scenario where the OP *really* needs to clarify why the fuck this is happening and what the lead-up is. @Cherico would you mind clarifying on the background? Is this a sudden personality shift/does the U.S. suddenly become overtly imperialist for the fun of it, or do the British or French do something to massively piss the Americans off?



As to the RN vs USN, yes I agree that if the USN goes toe to toe with the RN one-on-one, they'd lose. The thing is, the USN knows that too, which is why they won't do it.

What they *will* do is launch a raid and blow the crap out of Halifax and render its port unusable. That means the British now have no staging base to land troops while the Americans keep the USN parked behind coastal defenses until they can build enough ships to outmatch the British. And they can do this, because the shipyards in question are well outside British bombardment ranges, unless, of course, the British decide to try and force through them ala the Dardanelles, in which case they'll get blown to hell.

Nor can the British just blockade the U.S. into submission, because the U.S. is 1) not dependent upon imports and 2) is just too fucking big and too fucking far even for the RN. Without Halifax, they have precisely *zero* bases where they can park their smaller ships (which they need for blockade duty because you can't just launch a blockade with only capital ships), and while their capital ships technically have the range, if anything goes wrong and breaks, it's a *very* long trip back to England.

The French are a non-factor, because any peace with Germany is going to be devastating to them, very much a reverse Versailles. If it's a peace that means status quo ante, the Germans won't go for it. Which means Britain's nightmare of a continental hegemon has now come true.

And now their only options are "be relegated to second place forever" or, depending on the cause for war, suck it up and cozy up to the United States.

 

[Cherico]

Oh it's a totally absurd scenario where the OP *really* needs to clarify why the fuck this is happening and what the lead-up is. @Cherico would you mind clarifying on the background? Is this a sudden personality shift/does the U.S. suddenly become overtly imperialist for the fun of it, or do the British or French do something to massively piss the Americans off?



As to the RN vs USN, yes I agree that if the USN goes toe to toe with the RN one-on-one, they'd lose. The thing is, the USN knows that too, which is why they won't do it.

What they *will* do is launch a raid and blow the crap out of Halifax and render its port unusable. That means the British now have no staging base to land troops while the Americans keep the USN parked behind coastal defenses until they can build enough ships to outmatch the British. And they can do this, because the shipyards in question are well outside British bombardment ranges, unless, of course, the British decide to try and force through them ala the Dardanelles, in which case they'll get blown to hell.

Nor can the British just blockade the U.S. into submission, because the U.S. is 1) not dependent upon imports and 2) is just too fucking big and too fucking far even for the RN. Without Halifax, they have precisely *zero* bases where they can park their smaller ships (which they need for blockade duty because you can't just launch a blockade with only capital ships), and while their capital ships technically have the range, if anything goes wrong and breaks, it's a *very* long trip back to England.

The French are a non-factor, because any peace with Germany is going to be devastating to them, very much a reverse Versailles. If it's a peace that means status quo ante, the Germans won't go for it. Which means Britain's nightmare of a continental hegemon has now come true.

And now their only options are "be relegated to second place forever" or, depending on the cause for war, suck it up and cozy up to the United States.

The back ground is that the british and french royally screw up. Essentally fog of war situation leads to fuck up and huge public outrage and a series of further diplomatic errors screw up any chance of it not going to war.

 

[Airedale260]

The back ground is that the british and french royally screw up. Essentally fog of war situation leads to fuck up and huge public outrage and a series of further diplomatic errors screw up any chance of it not going to war.

OK. I meant more specifically does the U.S. start launching a build up prior to this as things escalate but I can work with this.

Bottom line is if it’s due to mass public outrage in the U.S., the Entente is fucked sixteen ways to Sunday. France can’t do shit against the U.S. because their navy is a fucking joke and they’re focused on Germany.

Plus we’d only started making the big loans to the Entente in 1916 anyway, so it’s likely those are curtailed if they don’t remain outright prohibited (it wasn’t until October 1915 that Wilson allowed loans to be made to belligerents). Prior to that we were very much a destination for investments from abroad (particularly Britain) ...investments which are now going to be seized.

Oh, and once we start fucking with Canadian farms (again, cavalry raids are a real bitch), that means Britain is going to be facing serious food shortages, because guess where most of their wheat comes from? And that’s even before we cut the transport links between western and eastern Canada (again, no actual invasion needed unless we have a force ready to go by the time war is declared).

Basically, the best possible outcome is that Britain offers part of western Canada to link Alaska to the CONUS, along with Bermuda and territory in the Caribbean, while France is screwed in the peace with Germany. Worst possible outcome is that all of Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Britain’s possessions in the Western Hemisphere go to the U.S. (excepting the Falklands, which they are forced to hand over to Argentina); France loses all of its holdings in the Pacific Rim and the Western Hemisphere to the U.S.; Germany takes France’s colonies in North Africa and probably shuffles things around with Britain to make things line up better.

Japan is a question mark because they were allied to the British and seized German territory, but neither the U.S. nor the Germans are really going to want to fight them; Germany because they can’t and the U.S. because if things are going to shit between Britain and the U.S., Japan is going to make damned sure they aren’t caught in the middle (Japan in this time frame was actually quite reasonable). Germany might get angry about the Japanese stealing their stuff, but the U.S. is going to tell them to just let it go.

Austria-Hungary eats Serbia and possibly Montenegro, probably part of Italy including Venice as a giant “fuck you.” The Ottomans won’t get divided up but at this point they’re one violent sneeze from collapsing thanks to the Kafes system.

Russia likely undergoes its own revolution, but if the war is over by the time it erupts it probably doesn’t go Communist. Alternatively, relations between Russia and the U.S. were actually pretty decent, so they might ask for the U.S. to broker a peace. Worst case they don’t, but the Romanovs aren’t massacred by the Bolsheviks and instead wind up in exile somewhere.

There is a significant likelihood of a second war down the line, but with France as the aggressor (possibly backed by Spain and Italy). No idea where Britain falls in that scenario but assuming they haven’t already lost it in a revolt, they’re probably too busy trying to keep India under control.

 

[stevep]

Guys

I suggest you look at Giant with Feet of Clay. Its a fascinating 1 hour+ - if you ignore the 1st 5 minutes of intros - on what problems the US had in fielding an army in WWI. It also explains why US divisions were much larger that European ones, and its not a strength.

As I've said before, if for whatever reason the US decides to go to war with the EPs and they can't get a peace with either the US or the central powers quickly then they lose. There is likely to be a 2nd conflict, if the German empire survives its bloated excess, but it would be between the US and Germany and its allies. France with the sort of draconian terms that the Germans wanted to apply simply won't be a major power and depending on the circumstances Britain would be struggling to maintain any independence so you can forget any repatriations from either power.

As I also said however if the western response is to come to terms with Germany, probably having to throw Russia and Belgium under the bus, which would free up say the bulk of the British army and 40% of the French army then the US would have a serious problem. Which would be a lot worse if the US has been carrying out terror raids ravaging civilians lands and possessions as Airedale260 has suggested. Even say 50% of the British army and 20% of the French, which is well over a million men, all veteran and well equipped, its going to be more than the US can face for probably a year at least, if their given that long. Not to mention if Japan also throws its weight into the ring given its concerns about US expansion. - Its a long shot that they could get such a quick peace with Germany but not as long as something prompting the US suddenly to attack the US.

Steve

 

[Aaron Fox]

@Airedale260, the reason for Japan being reasonable during this time period is that the Old Men faction was the dominant force within Japanese politics. What would become the Imperial faction (different from the original Imperial faction who wanted foreign influence to be rid of from Japan, these guys would become the chucklefucks we all know and 'love' today) got a major boost to their prestige by being on the winning side of WW1. In this instance, however, WW1 would not end with Japan being on the winning team.

 

[stevep]

@Airedale260, the reason for Japan being reasonable during this time period is that the Old Men faction was the dominant force within Japanese politics. What would become the Imperial faction (different from the original Imperial faction who wanted foreign influence to be rid of from Japan, these guys would become the chucklefucks we all know and 'love' today) got a major boost to their prestige by being on the winning side of WW1. In this instance, however, WW1 would not end with Japan being on the winning team.

That is one factor. Another is that the Japanese felt deserted by the western powers because of:
a) The US insisted on an unfavourable ratio in the WNT and the ending of the defensive alliance with the UK and the UK accepted this
b) Both powers, albeit for understandable at the time reasons [racism in the US and its black minority and Britain's role as the ruler of a massive overwhelmingly non-European empire] rejected a Japanese proposal for a declaration of racial equality in the LoN.

Also there was continued racism limiting migration to places like the US, Canada and Australia and then the considerable damage done to the Japanese economy by the great depression.

A more moderate element were still in charge in Japan at this time although its position was mixed. There were some talking of a liberation of Asia from western rule and aiding China gaining independence, along with other seeking to dominant it, hence the 21 demands made on China, as well as others that still wanted to be accepted as equals to the western powers but to follow basically the same political path.

What Japan would do in the event of a EP v US would would depend on their commitment to the alliance with the UK and whether they thought the alliance would have a chance of winning. The former, along with their interests in reducing the perceived threat from the US and this being a decent chance of reducing it, are likely to drive them supporting the EPs whereas if they think its an automatic lost cause it might well prompt them to stand aside.

Steve

 

[WolfBear]

Well ignoring how this would even happen the Central Powers win no question the moral blow alone would be devastating on the Entente alone. Canada now is at war and has a majority of its troops in europe and while the American Army is small they have large reserves to draw feds troops from.

The Royal Navy is in severe trouble as they cant face the Americans in the open without leaving themselves wide open for the Germans and while the Japanese can help they are far from the beast that had the range to attack Hawaii in 1941.

All in all American entry would guarantee a Entente defeat.

Yep, this and also the US would very likely be able to at least annex Canada and perhaps even Australia and New Zealand. Then the entire non-British white Anglosphere will be united under American rule, completing the US's Manifest Destiny in a glorious way. The US and Germany could subsequently keep their close alliance in the post-WWI years, with an arrangement similar to NATO, but with a more dominant Germany in this TL relative to real life. And Germanic supremacy would become a total meme in this TL, with Brits strongly regretting that they didn't join the Germanic side in WWI!

 

[ATP]

Yep, this and also the US would very likely be able to at least annex Canada and perhaps even Australia and New Zealand. Then the entire non-British white Anglosphere will be united under American rule, completing the US's Manifest Destiny in a glorious way. The US and Germany could subsequently keep their close alliance in the post-WWI years, with an arrangement similar to NATO, but with a more dominant Germany in this TL relative to real life. And Germanic supremacy would become a total meme in this TL, with Brits strongly regretting that they didn't join the Germanic side in WWI!

Yet Berlin would still want MOAR,as always.And,as a result,start WW2 and lost it,just like in OTL.
Their problem was not that they were imperialists,but that they always wonted more.When other imperia knew where to stop.