America played the key role in German defeat in World War I

or is it "it is doubtful ..would ever " ??

On food

sparky said:

On food

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History Learner's idea is more in relation to what happens between 1917-1918. In this, I'd think he'd recognize that the Turnip Winter happened... but he's argued that Germany recovered completely by the end of 1917. I'd have my doubts as to how accurate the claim as... For while 1917 to 1918 may not have been as bad as the winter of 1916/1917... a lot of it comes to the fact that Russia pulled out in late 1917 and signed Brest-Litovsk in early 1918. And that treaty included moving Ukrainian grain to Germany. And if the German agricultural industry survived on its own, then Germany would not have needed to strip the Ukraine of its grain crops. In this, I've gotten the sense that he's manipulating the data to suit his argument.

Sam-Nary said:

History Learner's idea is more in relation to what happens between 1917-1918. In this, I'd think he'd recognize that the Turnip Winter happened... but he's argued that Germany recovered completely by the end of 1917. I'd have my doubts as to how accurate the claim as... For while 1917 to 1918 may not have been as bad as the winter of 1916/1917... a lot of it comes to the fact that Russia pulled out in late 1917 and signed Brest-Litovsk in early 1918. And that treaty included moving Ukrainian grain to Germany. And if the German agricultural industry survived on its own, then Germany would not have needed to strip the Ukraine of its grain crops. In this, I've gotten the sense that he's manipulating the data to suit his argument.

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For what it's worth, I really don't think that History Learner is actually arguing in bad faith here. If there is genuinely any data that he misunderstood, he probably did so accidentally.

Futurist said:

For what it's worth, I really don't think that History Learner is actually arguing in bad faith here. If there is genuinely any data that he misunderstood, he probably did so accidentally.

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I'm not sure it's so much about the data as it is about the general context of said data.

Sam-Nary said:

No, the German attack was failing because they were failing on a logistical perspective. In a sense, they defeated themselves.

American units wouldn't reach the front lines until the end of Ludendorff's drive south. By this point the attack on the British had ground to a halt before Amiens with the French and British before them... and Ludendorff's primary objective for the Spring Offensive was to split the French and British apart from each other was still in play... and by this time the Germans had come to think that Amiens would be the point where the Entente line would splinter and leave the British running for their island the French retreating south to secure their flanks. Which meant that Ludendorff had to clear the French reserves from the Amiens sector... and thus the drive south. The drive wasn't intended to take Paris... merely threaten it, for it was expected that Foch would remove his troops from Amiens to protect his capital... which he didn't do.

And again... German logistics hampered them again. They needed to take one, if not two, rail hubs in order to supply a drive on Paris and thus make the attack a credible threat to the city. Without them, the German drive would HAVE to stop short of the city in order to keep themselves supplied. And that's largely what ends up happening. The American Marines at Belleau Wood did not stop an attacking army. They attacked an army that had already stopped because they were outrunning their own supply chain. In this... without the Americans, would the Germans have gotten closer to Paris? Perhaps. Would they have taken it? No. Regardless of what some French soldiers may have thought, the Germans did not have the capacity to do so.

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You are talking about how an offensive was stopped.. Not how a war was won...
Perhaps entente couldhave stopped german spring offensive without us.. But to stop an offensive is not equal to win a war..

pugsville said:

The British deployed more fresh troops to the Front line during the German offensive in 1918 than did the US. IIRC something like 600,000 more british troops deployed versus 70,000 US troops. You might as well same teh Belgain army stopped the German oiffensives as teh amercian. They proportion of actual fighting during the German offesives was very very small.

The German offensives were strategically meaningless. They took unimportant groundm they attacked were teh Entente was weak, the entene were weak they because the ground was unimportant. . It was a colossal strategically failure that broke the German army. Tactically brilant, strategically dumb.

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I dont know how you get the +70k us and +600k uk soldiers but i can see 10+ us divisions on the frontline or reserve dont think you can make that large force from 70k soldiers...

Also please dont forget that to stop a german offensive does not mean winning the war
It only became decisive because us entry meant the end of balance of power between the sides...

pugsville said:

At the End of 1918 teh collapse of Austria Hngary, Bulkgaria, Turkey was unrelantaed to US entry into the war and would have released large amounts of Entente troops.

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Not exactly
In case of these countries the military defeat was largely because soldiers did not want to fight amd dife for a lost war.. As it became clear that the war is lost..

Not to mention italy could only survive 1917 beacuse germans could not afford to waste one more soldier in the italian campaign
Because they had to win before the us arrival...

mofli87 said:

You are talking about how an offensive was stopped.. Not how a war was won...
Perhaps entente couldhave stopped german spring offensive without us.. But to stop an offensive is not equal to win a war..

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But in many ways... what stopped the Spring Offensive is what won the war for the Entente. The Germans made strategic and tactical errors that often over-estimated how fast the German army could move and keep going, underestimated their enemy's ability to even fight, and often struggled with logistical issues, meaning that the German army might struggle at times, regardless of how good they were. And this happened all through the war. It was not something that just magically appeared in 1918.

Once the Schlieffen Plan was defeated in 1914 with the Entente victory on the Marne, the Germans were immediately put in a position where they were fighting a war on two fronts, against all the world, cut off from trade with anyone neutral in the war... aside from Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. In this, they were facing a tacking clock as to when their manpower or their industry to supply the army would run out. And the Entente never really had this problem, as Germany was never able to blockade Britain and France. Now, one could argue that a lot of their finances were helped along by the US, and that made their job of holding on easier, but by the winter of 1916-1917, the clock that had begun ticking in 1914 was beginning to reach a point where Germany would be looking at running out of men or material.

Hence why they began to more heavily centralize government control over the economy, to ensure that everything that could go to the army DID go to the army, and why the Germans turned to such drastic and desperate tactics of resuming unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, trying to get Mexico to declare war on America, and sending Lenin to Russia to get Russia out of the war. These were desperation moves in which Germany hoped the war would end quickly as a result... and avoid that proverbial doomsday clock that they knew was ticking away. And parts of it worked and parts of it didn't work. They got Russia out of the war, yes, but the convoy system once put in place beat the U-boat offensive, and Mexico didn't declare war on America, thus when America declared war on Germany, the Entente powers got a major morale lift that they would have support.

This then set about a whole new round of gambling on the part of the Germans. The Germans put their focus into the Spring Offensive on the Western Front, in the hopes that one last gargantuan effort would win the war outright, as France and Britain would cave, and without the British and French... the Americans would have no real reason to fight. Thus once that battle was defeated, largely by Germany's own logistical system... the clock to defeat was ticking again. As the Entente lines had been pushed back, but had not strengthened the German position enough. Thus when the French and British attacked before Amiens in 1918, the German lines broke... and soon leading to a massive offensive in which all the Entente Armies made gains that in 1915-1916 they could only dream of. The Americans had some of the hardest fighting in the Meuse Argonne area, given its proximity to German supply lines, but that didn't change the large scale position the Germans were in.

Without the US military... the Germans would have likely still been blockaded and running short of men and material by 1918. As such, even if the Germans reach a point where they can stabilize their lines again in the short term... they wouldn't be gaining new resources or new troops. The French and British advance might have been slower than it was in history... but they would still have the access to trade and support that Germany lost in 1914. And when the war ended... it was for that reason that the Germans called it quits. They simply couldn't keep going any further. And this would be true regardless of whether or not the AEF came across the Atlantic. The only thing that might change the argument would be on what would have happened if the US didn't support Britain and France in the economic/financial sense, but that's ultimately something separate from the battles themselves.

By 1917 the blockade had been extended to rationing of the neutrals to avoid re-export of food
Sweden Switzerland and Holland were put on notice than things could get even worst if they did not restrict their trade to Germany to the strick minimum
the port of Sete in the Mediterranean was the only one allowed for Switzerland use

The French government was headed by the fire breathing Clemenceau whose domestic and foreign policy was simple
"My foreign policy and my domestic policy are all one.
Internal policy , I wage war ...foreign policy ,I still wage war ,Russia betray us , I continue the war , unfortunate Romania is forced to capitulate , I continue the war
and I will continue it down to the last quarter of an hour "
he insisted that the disgraced Magin , the maddly agressive General with a sulfurous reputation be brought back from retirement and gave him an army corps
he led his troops in a vicious counter-attack , without any artillery preparation which totally surprised and crushed the last gasp of of the second battle of the Marne

of Clemenceau, Lundendorf commented "we have nobody like him "

the whole series of spring offensives was a total waste ,
no major objectives were taken ,the logistic broke down after a dozen miles as usual the wastage of men and material was irreplaceable
the German doctrine of using the cream of the Army as Storm-troop meant that the units were left empty of the fighting spark which make the difference
leading to the inevitable conclusion among the remainder that surrender was the most reasonable option
the French and British held that unit cohesion required a mix of troops for the best to stiffen the rest

then the British and French , with American assistance unleashed their one hundred days offensive ,

that was a rolling thunder of coordinated attacks using planes artillery tanks and infantry moving in concert
this had been demonstrated by the Canadian Curry and the Australian Monash
it was unrelenting , the american were advancing for the first time as an army and had some trouble with the staff work but performed well on the whole

Pershing ( rightly ) had adamantly refused to send US troops to the front under allies command ,
he wanted his AEF to fight as one under American command ,
the first battle was on May 28th at Cantigny , a small division sized affairs with French tanks support which was very successful
after repeated request , Pershing reluctantly send the marines at Belleau Wood , it was most useful but hardly a war winning move

mofli87 said:

I dont know how you get the +70k us and +600k uk soldiers but i can see 10+ us divisions on the frontline or reserve dont think you can make that large force from 70k soldiers...

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The map is nice, but it doesn't help with this topic since pugsville talks about troops deployed to the frontline during the German offensive, not about the total including reserves, which would include all troops that were present already before the offensive.

Pershing might have said he would not send American troops to fight under other countries, but if you look at the map, you will see American Divisions spread from one end to the other. Keep in mind most French and UK units shown are Corps, the Americans show divisions. American divisions are twice the strength of a French Division, so some compared them to mini-Corps.

The British had just seen several divisions destroyed by a German offense (a whole Army worth!). The rest of the British Armies could have soaked up 700,000 replacements. Lloyd George was keeping replacements home because he thought Haig would only get them killed off in another offense. Notice there are no British Corps right behind the front lines?

Pruitt

Pruitt said:

Pershing might have said he would not send American troops to fight under other countries, but if you look at the map, you will see American Divisions spread from one end to the other. Keep in mind most French and UK units shown are Corps, the Americans show divisions. American divisions are twice the strength of a French Division, so some compared them to mini-Corps.

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US divsion still had the same amount of Artillery, they only double the number of poorly trained, inexperienced, poorly led riflemen. Despite their nominal manpower they were not worth any mope than an French of British division.

Pruitt said:

The British had just seen several divisions destroyed by a German offense (a whole Army worth!). The rest of the British Armies could have soaked up 700,000 replacements. Lloyd George was keeping replacements home because he thought Haig would only get them killed off in another offense. Notice there are no British Corps right behind the front lines?

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The Spring offensives broke the German army. There was some hard fighting and British did suffer,

chefren said:

The map is nice, but it doesn't help with this topic since pugsville talks about troops deployed to the frontline during the German offensive, not about the total including reserves, which would include all troops that were present already before the offensive.

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German offensive ended in end of july.
So the map is valid..

While the AEf was 31% of the Ration strength of the Allied forces in France at the armistice, they held 22% of the frontline, 14% of the artillery, 13% of the aircraft.

In terms of force multipliers and equipment the AEF was well behind the French and British (who had supplied teh artillery, aircraft and tanks)

source :The War With Germany : statistical summery" Leonard P Ayres (cheif of the statistical branch of the general staff) page 149

20% of the total Entente shipping in dec 1919 (page 147)
10% of the Allied Artillery (page 142)

mofli87 said:

German offensive ended in end of july.
So the map is valid..

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Where does it say when the troops were deployed? Because that was what pugsvilles post you quoted made a statement about.

pugsville said:

While the AEf was 31% of the Ration strength of the Allied forces in France at the armistice, they held 22% of the frontline, 14% of the artillery, 13% of the aircraft.

In terms of force multipliers and equipment the AEF was well behind the French and British (who had supplied teh artillery, aircraft and tanks)

source :The War With Germany : statistical summery" Leonard P Ayres (cheif of the statistical branch of the general staff) page 149

20% of the total Entente shipping in dec 1919 (page 147)
10% of the Allied Artillery (page 142)

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This datas confirm the topic title actually..
The topic is not about who had the biggest army in 1918

That's sounds good but not quit true...
1.if it is true what you re saying than why were the germans in enemy soil in 1918 not the entente
2. I never heard about the entente never had man power issues in ww1. (i thought france was bleeded out in 1918)
3. The fail of spring offensive was only fail because everybody knew that germany will be defeated in case the would not win before us soldiers arrive to the front.
4.the fact how much casualities the germans inflicted on entente in the 100days offensive (mor than a million soldiers) shows that they werent beaten with the stop of the spring offensive.
5.)also you forgot that only the entry of usa prevented the germans to exploit their victory on the east (which would have resulted the fail of the entente blockade)

mofli87 said:

The fail of spring offensive was only fail because everybody knew that germany will be defeated in case the would not win before us soldiers arrive to the front

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Maybe I have problems with my English, but sorry, that doesn't make any sense.

mofli87 said:

That's sounds good but not quit true...

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Not sure who you're replying to...

mofli87 said:

1.if it is true what you re saying than why were the germans in enemy soil in 1918 not the entente

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Largely because of how far they got into France in 1914 before the Western Front stabilized. And when they pulled back from the Marne in 1914, they moved to areas that they could better support at the time and would be difficult for any attacking force to move onto. As such, the battles of 1915, 1916, and 1917 were all attritional battles deep within French territory. The French and British often gained ground, but not enough to truly break the German lines and force them to retreat at the time. They occasionally made minor breakthroughs in small sections of the line, such as the last French counter-attacks at Verdun in 1916 or the initial gains at Cambrai in 1917, but these were all largely localized actions and didn't go down to the rest of the Western Front.

The Entente didn't get that breakthrough until the 100 Days Offensive in 1918 when the German army finally began to break under the strain of four years of attritional warfare and after having spent a good portion of the troops freed up from Russia in the Spring Offensive. And in this, the German Army, particularly against the British, French, and Belgians in the northern sections of the line was in full on retreat to try and shore up the holes that had opened along the lines. This issues became worse as the Americans and French began to reach the area near Sedan where the bulk of German supplies coming into the southern section of the lines came into play. This accelerated the German retreat and they knew that if they kept fighting... it would not be long before someone entered German soil, and Foch, Pershing, and Petain were all floating plans around in that regard in 1918. In this, the German high command called it quits before the war could touch their soil... they recognized they'd lost, but wished to spare Germany the damage that had been done to France through four years of artillery exchanges...

And even if they did fight on, the Central Powers position was not great. The British were advancing into Ottoman held Syria in 1918, the Italians were pushing the Austrians into what had been Austrian territory in 1915, effectively erasing the gains made at Caporetto, with French and even some American support. And the armies of France, Serbia, Greece, and Britain were advancing into Bulgaria and Serbia from the Salonika Front at the same time... and Romania was looking at potentially rejoining the war on the Entente's side... again. Thus as Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria collapsed, the Germans faced a major issue, in that if they kept fighting... even if they somehow held on the border in the west, they would have to move troops to block attacks into Germany from the south and southeast, on a long line and largely without allies. And given their situation by 1918... Germany knew it couldn't win. They might manage a stalemate for a little while in one area, but eventually the armies of the Entente would enter German territory. Thus coming back to the point of calling it quits before that happened.

mofli87 said:

2. I never heard about the entente never had man power issues in ww1. (i thought france was bleeded out in 1918)

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Everyone was bleed out by 1918, but that also included Germany. France on the Western Front had suffered heavy losses, but most of the deaths were actually in the first two years of the war. And while the Battle of Verdun was a fierce and bloody fight, it wasn't the bloodiest battle of the war, not even for France, and given its length, there are countless battles in French history that had a higher loss per day than Verdun. The thing that marks the French losses in total at Verdun as high as they were was that unlike earlier battles... Verdun lasted nearly the entire year of 1916... 300 days. But even there, while total German casualties were lower than total French casualties, the exchange rate was practically 1:1, which wasn't a good situation for the Germans in the long term, given the number of enemies they were fighting at the time.

And much of this situation really didn't change that much by 1918. Sure Russia had left the war... but Germany had also lost men at Passchendaele… and the withdrawal from Russia did not suddenly mean that EVERY German soldier would come to the Western Front.

mofli87 said:

3. The fail of spring offensive was only fail because everybody knew that germany will be defeated in case the would not win before us soldiers arrive to the front.

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The Spring Offensive was launched with the idea of splitting the French and British lines apart before America could come in, yes... But it failed due to Germany's logistical issues, Ludendorff's poor strategic planning, and ultimately by the fact that the Entente didn't just collapse under one hard blow as Ludendorff expected, forcing him to go further and making his already poor logistical situation worse. This then left many of its lines exposed and with the best troops used up in the offensive.

mofli87 said:

4.the fact how much casualities the germans inflicted on entente in the 100days offensive (mor than a million soldiers) shows that they werent beaten with the stop of the spring offensive.

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They hadn't reached the point of surrender, true, but given that the 100 Days Offensive finally saw the Western Front break open in a way that hadn't been seen since 1914, and in the Entente's favor... that would be a sign that the German military position was being effected by the lack of logistical support from behind them... that they years of war was beginning to truly show through. And while yes, the Entente took heavy losses in the 100 Days Offensive... a lot of that should be noted that with the trench system finally broken, you had armies moving in the open and thus not sheltering in trenches. In that sense, trenches saved lives as they gave people place to take cover. Once the system broke, that cover was lost.

mofli87 said:

5.)also you forgot that only the entry of usa prevented the germans to exploit their victory on the east (which would have resulted the fail of the entente blockade)

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In what way? The US military really didn't engage the Germans in any real way until the Spring Offensive was starting to run out of steam and was collapsing under its own weight. They might have gained more ground if the Americans weren't there, but their own supply chain would have broken the offensive short of their primary objective, the removal of France and Britain from the war...

And had America not entered, the Germans might not have even attacked, they might not have felt so desperate... but then at the same time, it should be noted that the blockade would have continued and that the Germans would be able to move everyone from the East to the West, as they had troops there to make sure Germany got grain from the Ukraine and were also assisting the White Army against the Bolsheviks. So it really isn't as though Russia falling out the war was fully the sort of "game changer" that it would appear to be on the surface.