America enters the War, the controversy

Please stick to the topic of WW1. Several posts will be moved to a new WW2 related discussion here: http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=3320

Also, New Connaught Ranger and Imperialist, avoid getting into personal remarks about eachother.

Neutral countries are allowed trade with beligerant countries. The problem for Germany in WW1 was that it was unable to trade with the US, due to the Entente naval blockade.

The fact that there was more simpathy in the US for the British is no secret, nor should it be a crime. After all, there was much support for France in Romania as well, during the neutrality period.

It's not a crime.
But where you see mere sympathy, I see more, at least a pattern. At least in the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

And exactly what does the above picture have to do with the First World War? I don't see either Wilson or Lloyd George in it.
Rich

Maybe, Imperialist want to underline a continuity...

Iama

How could germans invade USA? USA had her fleet, and was a large and powerfull one. But, for doing that invasion germans need to confont UK and France fleets.

Iama

And some claimed to have seen UFOs.

Do you have to turn any discussion on historical into one on present-day politics?

History is past politics and past politics are the roots of present day politics. You cannot discuss history in a vacuum. I dont see how I turned the discussion into a present day politics one though. Just because I mentioned that at the start of the 21st century and the 1st war of the century the US and UK are close allies as they were during the wars of the 20th?
And I dont understand why you try to mock this as a conspiracy theory.

take care

during WW1 the US fleet was neither that large nor that powerful and without combat experience.
the US-fleet became powerful before and during WW2.

during WW1 the US fleet was neither that large nor that powerful and without combat experience.
the US-fleet became powerful before and during WW2.

American combat experiance before WW1 was in the badlands, with minor Indian wars, and the Spanish.Mexican War when the Americans were fighting in Cuba.

The American fleet at this time (WW1) was spread out all over the Globe, particularly in the South China Seas, and the Phillipines, of course there was a small US based fleet for service in home waters. But one has to remember just how large a coastline the USA has.

With regards a military invasion it would never have been a mass invasion of the USA by the Germans, but the intention would have been to aid the Mexican Government, who by aggitation, would look for getting the states of Texas, Louisiana, etc. back, After all if they (Germany) had have won the War in Europe they would have had troops & supplies to spare to train the Mexican Army.

Kevin in Deva.

Point 1;

Well thats 1,710 ships* confiscated in 1916 alone, where were the British storing all these ships, with so many on hand, she would not need to ask the USA for ships, and would not have had to introduce the British people to Food Rationing.

Also shipping if and when captured in 1916 would not have helped anybody in 1919. Most civilian deaths immediately after the war were caused by the infamous Spanish Influenza Virus, which killed countless milions of people the world over.

* please feel free to check my math, as, with my spelling its not so hot

Point 2; How were the Americans "Made to charge" this implies they had to be forced to attack and move forward, in reality many American officers had difficulty in controling how fast the men were moving forward they (like the British & French in 1914) were eager to get to grips with the enemy.

Also with regards the mouths of large caliber guns, these were situated well behind enemy lines and not in the front line, Artillery work by lobbing shells from a great distance, with shells fited with time fuses, rarely if ever where large caliber guns any use for close-quarter ground fighting (grape and canister shot) long being changed for the afore-mentioned air-burst shells with timed fuses.)

Nobody in the right mind would expect a charge against a machine-gun position to work, thats why the use of flanking attacks were very carefully rehearsed before the actual battlei n the rear staging areas, and also at this stage of WW1 the Allies could place more artillery along the front with more supplies than the Germans.

Point 3; Initial Disasters? disaster implies very serious casualties or a total failure to exploit the situation, the Americans had very acceptable casualty rates

in 1914 the USN had:

Dreadnoughts 10, which, despite the all-centerline turret design, were quite slow.
Pre-dreadnoughts 23
Armored cruisers 12
Protected cruisers 24
light cruisers 3
destroyers/TB 50
subs 27.
no battlecruisers

the fastest AC could make 22 knots which means they were an easy prey for battlecruisers.
the PC-s were obsolete even by 1914 (also in the 18-22 knots range).
one has to notice the almost complete lack of modern cruisers (only 3).
this is a fleet build for defence purposes and was not in a condition (neither equipment nor experiencewise) to challenge the HSF without british aid.
the wartime additions wouldn't change the balance much.
that being said, even in a lone Germany vs. USA scenario, the HSF did not have the transport capacity to mount an amphibious landing on the US coast, neither to sustain a reasonable amount of landed troops there. nor would they have enough ships to secure trans-atlantic supply runs.
a german invasion under the given circumstances would be as unrealistic as a US invasion of Germany in a Germany vs. US scenario. Germany could only fight a proxy war by supplying the mexican army.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on June 08, 2006 03:29 pm

Point 1;

Well thats 1,710 ships* confiscated in 1916 alone, where were the British storing all these ships, with so many on hand, she would not need to ask the USA for ships, and would not have had to introduce the British people to Food Rationing.

Also shipping if and when captured in 1916 would not have helped anybody in 1919. Most civilian deaths immediately after the war were caused by the infamous Spanish Influenza Virus, which killed countless milions of people the world over.

* please feel free to check my math, as, with my spelling its not so hot

Point 2; How were the Americans "Made to charge" this implies they had to be forced to attack and move forward, in reality many American officers had difficulty in controling how fast the men were moving forward they (like the British & French in 1914) were eager to get to grips with the enemy.

Also with regards the mouths of large caliber guns, these were situated well behind enemy lines and not in the front line, Artillery work by lobbing shells from a great distance, with shells fited with time fuses, rarely if ever where large caliber guns any use for close-quarter ground fighting (grape and canister shot) long being changed for the afore-mentioned air-burst shells with timed fuses.)

Nobody in the right mind would expect a charge against a machine-gun position to work, thats why the use of flanking attacks were very carefully rehearsed before the actual battlei n the rear staging areas, and also at this stage of WW1 the Allies could place more artillery along the front with more supplies than the Germans.

Point 3; Initial Disasters? disaster implies very serious casualties or a total failure to exploit the situation, the Americans had very acceptable casualty rates

1) I said they were confiscating thecargo, not the actual ship!
Normally, any ship suspected of heading to Germany would be diverted from it's course, escorted to a friendly harbour, made to unload and then let go if it belonged to a neutral country, or confiscated if she belonged to the Central powers.
And the numbers I posted do not include those who died in the Influenza pandemic, just those who reportedly died because of malnutrition.

2) Indeed, I should probably have said "led to" instead of "made", but the result was the same. The Americans failed to capitalize on the knowledge gained by the British and French in three years of trench warfare, and commited the same foolish mistakes the other allies had commited in 1914-15.

The "charging into the mouths of guns" was a figure of speech, and a consacrated one for that. Of course any heavy artillery would have been located kilometers behind the main front, but that doesn't matter, since all those guns are allready zeroed in on the "killing field" in front of the German trenches, and a devastating barrage could be launched with a momen't notice. And for the record, when most if not all of the no man's land is covered by enemy machineguns, there is no flanking attack possible. Also, the only "rehearsed" action I am aware of to have taken place during WW1 is the Canadian attack on the Vimy Ridge, that was planned one year in advance, the troops were trained using both scale and real size models and when they went into action it proved to be a stellar sucess. However, HQ deemed the training process as too long and difficult for the actual gains, so any further operation of the kind was scrapped and the idea put on hold.
Even at the start of the next war the Allies were slow to grasp on the idea of "train hard, fight easy", since, unlike the Germans, who mounted some very well coreographed and rehearsed operations, like the siezing of the Belgian fortress "Eben Emael", the first such actions were the clandestine raids mounted by the special branches of the military, like the SAS in North Africa or the SOE in occupied Europe. Even the costly disaster at Dieppe was based on poor intelligence and was insuficiently rehearsed, despite the fact the planning phase had been quite long. Of course, afterwards they started to learn from their mistakes, and the rest, is, as they say, history.

3) Depending on your point of view, the use of the word "Disaster" does not necesarily mean great loss of life, just a general failure to achieve the mission's goals. For example, one might exclaim "what a disaster" after their favourite footbal (soccer for those of you speaking American) team has been defeated, but that does not automatically imply any lives were lost in the process.
However, because of their inexperience, the American commanders did fail to exploit any favourable situations, and this alone might clasify as a "disaster" for the goals set have not been achieved.

Later edit: Dead-Cat, I agree to your analysis regarding the fighting capabilities of both the US and German Navies. Neither would have hand any chance to mount a direct amphibious assault on the other, and I belive that in WW1 even a Cross-Channel action would have proved a lot more costly in terms of human lives and more prone to failure. The airdrop part of the invasion would have been impossible as would have been massed bombings of the beaches before the landing.
The germans would have been well fortified, and, in the absence of fighter bombers to strafe the ammunition convoys in the back of the lines, well supplied with arms and ammunition. A good indication of what to expect in such an action was the Gallipoli campaign, where, despite their numerical superiority and technological advantage (After the first failed attempts at the ANZAC beaches, another, better rehearsed landing was mounted at Suvla Bay, and this had the advantage of troop carrying "beetles", the ancestor of the famous "Higgins" LCA's of WW2, yet it developed into the same bloody stalemate found on the Western Front) the British, Australian and New Zealand troops were beaten back by a Turkish force of inferior strenght and with a lot less heavy weapons. (on "Q" beach, the advance of British troops was halted by just 2 Maxim machineguns placed in strategic positions, while the landing troops carried with them at least 5)
That's why I support the theory a German-Mexican alliance was in fact just a decoy for the Americans, who would have felt their border threatened and invaded Mexico before sending their troops over the Atlantic, thus buying the Germans precious time to break the stalemate on the Western Front...or, at least, that was the theory...

This post has been edited by Wings_of_wrath on June 09, 2006 08:38 am

Hallo Wings of Wrath
thank you for your kind response to my posts

1.

I am not sure about the British confiscating all cargo's from Neutral ships to arrest and escort all those ships in a month and bring them to Great Britain would take up a hugh amount of time and resorces of the Navy, and leave a lot of them as sitting ducks fro the U.boats.

Of course there was malnutrition, not only in Germany, but as well as Belgium, France, Russia and many other countries because of all civilians being deprived of a healthy diet, but in the case of Germany this cannot be blamed on the British or Americans, Germany was the instigator of the War in Western Europe not the Allies, when Germany occupied Belgium, and murdered unarmed civilians men, women and children on the excuse they were responsible for killing German soldier (a citizen has the right to fight & resist the invader attempting to occupy there country.) and not all reports of this happening were "Propagands"
One has to remember here that in the history of Europe Belgian has to be the most fought over and blood soaked teritory, and most of the campaigns there had nothing to do with the people living there, it was a convieniant flat area for mass battles even prior to WW1.

2.

Behind the lines training was very common place in WW1, with regards the methods of approaching the enemy positions, securing the positions and even more so practised was the method of trench raids at night, (even though this practise was done in daylight, as it was to accustom the men involved to know their position in the raiding party. Equipment checks to tie down or remove any object of kit that might rattle or make a noise.

Before trench raids were carried out the terrain was scouted and routes and "fall back positions" planned and in some cases "lying up positions" if the enemy response to the infiltration was intense, were used to wait out any artillery bombardments.

From my personal experience in the army you are taught and rehearse over and over again a basic theme, which can be adapted with minor variations as the officers and section commanders see fit. No plan last beyond the first few minutes of contact with the enemy.

Of course the large scale rehearsal for attacking "Vimy Ridge" was not the normal way all attacks were planned or rehersed, far to many troops were employed in "defensive attitude" and to remove these troops for training would weaken the Integrity front-line.

3.

At Gallipoli the debacle was entirely the fault of the planners, and Winston Churchill as Sea Lord has to bear the blame, the campaign was planned in London, there were no up to date maps of the peninsular, heavily mined seas, danger of torpedoes from submarines, bad navigation by the navy towing troops in lighters and the troops were landed in all the the wrong places, in all areas the enemy overlooked the beaches, this being a great advantage to enemy troops defending their home-land* as they tend to fight more vigorously, and were thought to be of poor quality and the greatest disadvantage virtually no fresh water, along with the heat, sickness, long supply-lines to Egypt, poor medical facilities, it was a DISASTER for the Allies.
The campaign cannot so easily described here in this post in great detail but there are many websites out there that go into great detail on the Gallipoli failure.

* the Turkish campaign out of their homeland into Azerbaidian area I believe, proved as equally disaterous for the poorly equiped Turkish soldiers where many were to die from the cold, inadequate food and clothing. As well as poor leadership by their own officers.

OFF TOPIC With regards the use of word like "Disaster" & "Football" or the calling so called athletes "Heroes" it has taken away from the original context of the word, even TV newscasters have been heard to describe road accident victims as "wounded" instead of the more correct phrase injured. END OF OFF TOPIC

And as I was told by the Administrator to stop straying off the path of this topic into WW2, maybe we should confine ourselves to WW1 specifics.

It might interest you to know that men from my home town of Castlebar, and the County of Mayo, where I was raised in Ireland, died in Gallipoli, as well as other theatres of WW1 and some of the ships-stokers on the Lusitania, were from County Mayo as well.

wishing you a pleasent weekend

Kevin in Deva.

This post has been edited by New Connaught Ranger on June 09, 2006 10:20 am

that is very debatable. while i agree that Britain is the least to blame, the other participants actively pursued the path to war.

until 1945 (i think) it was perfectly legal to execute a franctireur. not the entire village that harboured him of course but the "right to hide behind civilian clothes" is a post WW2 "archivement".

Yes, but the civilians in Germany, Austria Hungary and Russia were worse off compared with those in France and Britain, due to geographical position and lack of capabilities to put an end to the blockades.