Why is America's role in WWI do underrated...

>AMERICA ONLY JOINED THE WAR 18 MONTHS BEFORE IT ENDED!! THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!
Corrections: The Americans joined the war and it ended 18 months later.

>Without them the allies would have lost.
>people actually believe this

More importantly, England started taking the war seriously in 1917 and that was when those new tactics became feasible.

If the US didn't intervene then England would just send more shells and end the war.

America sped up the victory, without them the war would have probably continued for a year max and it would have still had the same outcome.

The Royal Navy blockade couldn't be broken and the Germans were starving. The winter would have basically destroyed them from within.

France, Italy and Britain could afford to drag the war on for years.

If you're going to fight a war of attrition, don't have less troops and supplies than your fucking enemy.

To be fair, the original German plan was to force the French to surrender after only a few weeks of fighting so they could pivot to the Eastern Front and focus on fighting Russia. They never wanted to fight a war of attrition, and were probably acutely aware that they couldn't win a long, drawn-out war in the West.

True. The moment they clashed with French/British troops and started digging trenches the war was basically over for them to be honest.

This guys got it.

>Italians
>winning against Germans
kek

I have to admit I would have loved to see this happen

>the french and english had worked out the tactics of coordinating short violent artillery barrages with tank supported infantry attacks, this was shown in the summer offensive where they punched out all the territory the germans had taken in the spring before proceeding to punch in the the hindenburg line across a significant portion of its length.
This is historically inaccurate.
It was a tactical stalemate. It was a strategic (i.e. Royal Navy blockade) victory.

Without America both sides would have agreed to a peace agreement

The terms of the peace agreement would have been much less harsh on Germany but they still would have had to concede defeat

>Why is America's role in WWI do underrated? Without America bringing in two million men the allies shouldn't have had enough men to take part in the final offensive.

They would have, as they could have brought reserves from their holdings all over. Much more slowly than a dedicated stream of manpower from the US.

>Without them the allies would have lost.

No.

>This is historically inaccurate.
u wot
the allies literally broke the german lines at will late in the war
it was not a tactical stalemate if you keep breaking the enemy lines and they keep surrendering

>France on the verge of mass mutiny
ebin meme

The last time Germans got sent to fight Italy it wasn't even close like 3 divisions crushed them in the 12th battle of the Isonzo. Their military tactics were more outdated than the Russians and were shit troops. If Germany could have prevented the US from coming in it could have knocked out Italy in a month.

>the allies literally broke the german lines at will late in the war
It was a staged, strategic withdrawal to more easily defended, fixed positions.

i'm sort of confused here

are you talking about the german retreat to the hindeburg line which was necessitated by allied successes and the untenable position on the frontline

or are you talking about the breaking of the hindeburg line which was broken in a manner of days

Nah dude, we just dealt arms.
We saw Euros doing Euro things on a massive scale so we decided to just sit over here and quite literally watch the world burn.

Not underrrated by Americans at least

>tactics of coordinating short violent artillery barrages with tank supported infantry
tactics
WW1 was a War of` ATTRITION, not battle tactics.
The front lines did not move until the entire supply apparatus of the country was drained to exhaustion.

This
Germany lost when the French stopped them at the First Marne

Late war that was not the case. Allied French and German lead offensives were highly tactical. Lightning barrages mechanized units on allied side and storm troopers with intermixed mass gas on the german side. Both had mastered the creeping barrage and infiltration atics were becoming extremely useful.

That fuck didn't put enough troops in the belgium offensive.

>muhhh schlieffen plan
>reeee

>Both had mastered the creeping barrage and infiltration atics were becoming extremely useful.
They ran out of dumb asses willing to trade their lives for a couple of feet of foreign dirt.

The creeping barrage was a meme

But the Spring Offensive only happened because the Americans were in their way; Ludendorff felt the need for a final knock out punch to win the war before several million fresh troops showed up to support the Entente.

With no American intervention (or delayed American intervention), it's quite possible that the Germans would have been content to take a more defensive posture. Send some of the men from the eastern front to the west, but send others to beef up the Austrians, or their Allies in the Balkans. Try to use the gains in the east to create something approaching a stable civilian food supply.

Meanwhile, what would the Entente be able to do? True, the French army wasn't really on the brink of collapse, but they were no longer capable of offensive action. Pétain promised no more offensives until the arrival of tanks AND Americans. That sense of inevitable victory once the Yankees showed up is partially to thank for the mutinies not getting worse.

And the British? Sure, they were in a pretty good place, but how long is the public going to support a war where one Ally has already collapsed, one is unwilling to attack, and a third is tragically Italian?

If Germany offered some sort of truce, selling out the Ottomans in exchange for it's eastern European gains, the war may have petered out. The Americans didn't stop the Entente losing, but they did guarantee the W.

this honestly upsets me

Here's how many troops the British and French Empires used in total for the war (around 8 millions each)

And here's the total population they had
390 millions people in the British Empire
They could easily have done without US troops

American Industry really did help, though. The real moment the war was won was Vittorio Veneto. Germany realised they could not win while propping up Austria

no it wasnt, the german army collapsed in the face of repeated oddensives breaking the hindenburg line at will.

it wasnt exactly staged, they fought a series of battles falling back on the hindenburg line coming off the worse at each enounter, then had their shit truly pushed in when the allies attacked the hindenburg line (the last and strongest line before the fighting started being in germany) the allied attack broke the line.

any tactic that allows you to radically alter the rate of exchange in a war of attrition is important, hell any change that allows you to alter the rate of exchange is significant.

if I have 100'000 men and the other guys has the same i want to make sure that each one of mine can account for more than one of his, tactical changes like tanks and short artillery barrages or stormtroopers do have this effect.

Why didn't British just conscript Indians?

with no american intervention the allies wait and attack in the spring of 1919, they knew they could win, they knew that their offensive techniques could overcome the germans defensive techniques

We did, I think we sent 250,000 to the Western Front and half a million or so to the Middle Eastern front

They did use many of them
Basically every medics in the British army were Indian

Those are just professionals not conscripts, if Britain conscripted India they could have just spammed no mans land with millions of Indians and Germany would have been fucked.

But waiting until 1919, a full year, also gives the Germans plenty of opportunity to rest, refit, and unfuck their logistics. It gives them time to dig in even more so, and it means they haven't thrown away all their best trained, best equipped, and best motivated troops during operation Michael.

It also gives them a year to negotiate a half decent peace. And it gives an extra year of butterflies flapping their wings in ways we can't guess at. I've never denied that the Entente would ultimately win, if they put their back into it. My question is, would they bother?

>France on the verge of mass mutiny
Pétain pretty much fixed everything in the summer of 1917.

>American Industry really did help, though
No it did not. When the american entered the war, they had no military industry and bought artillery and other weapons from the french.

>if Britain conscripted India they could have just spammed no mans land with millions of Indians and Germany would have been fucked.

i'm not sure you understand how military logistics work

I am not sure you understand how using millions of indians as cannon fodder work

First, bringing million of guy from india to France is harder than you think, then remember they were from a colonial nation, arming them in mass is at best risky.

They managed to Bring hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to fight I am sure they manage it in India given they had four years.

It's overrated actually.
In the end of the war, Germans were starved, their reserves depleted and they simply couldn't supply their war machinery anymore.
While on the other hand, British and French could do that.
Germans would have lost with or without American influence.

you seem to be unaware of the absolutely shambolic state of Germany in 1918
if the Americans were not on their way, and the Germans waited, they would have starved and lost anyway
if the Americans were not coming, I dare say the French leadership would not have counted on their coming
besides, the French did mount offensives even after the mutinies
so
>what would the Entente be able to do?
grow in strength, tap into colonial/commonwealth reserves, keep strangling Germany even further while building up with their superior economies and industries

Actually the role of USA in WW1 is highly underlined, at least in my history books.

>WW1 was a War of` ATTRITION
The only battles that could be properly described as primarily attritional were Verdun and maybe the Italian campaigns. As in, the express purpose was to kill as many enemy as possible rather than gain an objective.

The purpose of Verdun was to capture Verdun and open a road to Paris
But it miserably failed and the German general in charge made up excuses

Paris was never the goal hell later in the war they walked right past it. Paris was meaningless.

>amerifats being effective and valuable in war
sorry never happened. now watch some more fantasy movies.

How is it underrated?
We were merchants and just helped at the very last second.
T. American

>Paris was meaningless.
You know that the economic and politic capital of france, also it's a huge moral boost.

>Paris was never the goal hell later in the war
It was
Taking Paris = defeating France = killing the Entente

>hell later in the war they walked right past it.
What are you talking about, fucking retard?

Americentrism gets worse by the year.

Because they entered the war at the very end. Sure their entrance helped tip the balance but they fought very little.

We didn't enter at the war, it ended because we entered it. Stay weak, Europe

Paris was a meme city and was evacuated when the Germans were within 80 miles of the city. If the Germans weren't going full retard because of the Americans coming they would have never even attempted for it because it was pointless. You are never going to beat France by taking 1 city or Germany would have focused on it harder already. Every fight had been a mass offensive or a battle to force a fight and later in the war just to hold onto gains.

>Paris was a meme city and was evacuated when the Germans were within 80 miles of the city
Paris was never evacuated, retard

>If the Germans weren't going full retard because of the Americans coming they would have never even attempted for it because it was pointless
Their main attempt to take it was in 1914, when no Americans were in sight

>You are never going to beat France by taking 1 city or Germany would have focused on it harder already
It was the entire German plan in the West until the French stopped their offensive at the First Marne

Are you trolling or what?

American battlefield contributions were not significant but their strategic presence certainly was. The entry of another large nation with fresh economic and manpower resources destroyed any hope Germany had of winning an attrition war and forced them to spend the last of their strength on a doomed, last-ditch offensive.

Would the Entente have won without US assistance? Probably, they were in a better condition to endure a war of attrition but you can never discount the possibility of some unexpected occurrence somewhere in the world that could have led to a different outcome. It's all pointless speculation in the end.

To say that without America the Allies would have lost, or that the Americans won the war is silly, but they certainly did make a decisive contribution to the resolution of the conflict.

Because it doesn't fit the nationalistic narrative of the unimportant European shitholes that would have been torn a new one by Germany if it weren't for American aid.

American role in ww1 is something You would never expect.

Lets fast forward to WW2 and maginot line.

In ww1 the biggest threat to Political gain was the hesitant nature of the human when it came to a forced charge against the enemy lines.

If You where in the place of any of those people. At that time, You would not be willing to invade the enemy lines

this is the truth, Fuck the Mainstream media, Fuck the 1%.

On a side note, if I was a french soldier in WW1 and I was told my attack is going to kill the top 1%, I would charge and nothing else.

America always wins

>Taking Paris = defeating France = killing the Entente
this seems to be pulled straight out of your ass, seeing the government and military leadership had on many times confirmed their resolve to fight even should paris be threatened or taken later in the war

>this entire post
wtf

>we wuz winrars an shiet

You are wrong. The spring offensive was the end of Germany they never stood a chance. And the counter offensive in the 100 days would have worked without the Americans.

We were more relevant than Brits

>america spammed boyscouts for the final offensive

we won the war n sheeeit

>meaningless numbers devoid of any situational context

i guess you'll agree the PLA is better and more relevant than the US army then

Why are we still posting in this thread?
We have already gone over that America's role was minimal other than selling supplies to both sides, the more to Britain and France with the blockades and all. Provided troops, most of which didn't fight well and weren't ready, there were a few units that did well but not many. The best you could say about most of them is that they could street fight.
T. American

Is this a BF1 reference?

It was the final offensive because America was there. If it depended on britcucks and frogs the offensive would fail miserably and the war would drag on a bit more, until Germany's victory.

No. Germany was totally exhausted and had lost all offensive capacity after the failure of the Spring offensive, which was their last gasp. The British blockade was killing them. Without the Americans, the Allies would have won in spring 1919.

Why would it fail? Because American boyscouts weren't there to surrender?

you do realize that the WW1 BIA was in shambles because they were geared up to ensure that it was not rebelling against the english ALA 1857. Nearly all the command staff was anglo in origin and troops often had to work under commanders that had never commanded colonial soldiers before. They gave a good account of themselves because they were professional soldiers, but once the junior officers started dropping out, their effectiveness dropped.

The brits reorganized the BIA after WW1 and actually began recruiting indians as commissioned officers in the army. Several officers that would go up against each other in the indo pakistani wars were trained together in england.

>until Germany's victory.
ayayayayayyyy

Germany had already lost the war when the Schlieffen Plan failed

you had more numbers than the british, although it should be pointed out that the british also had troops deployed in italy, the balklans and the middle east as well as the 1.8 million on the western front so their total contribution exceeded the US numbers in numerical terms.

however sheer numbers dont tell the entire story, what your image leaves out is the section below strength which lists each sides losses, the germans side is helpfully divided by which nation inflicted what losses, and while america contributed the second highest component in terms of numbers they did the third highest total in terms of damage to the germans.

the 'scores' are as follows, the belgians took 14500 prisoners and 414 guns captured taking 4th place in the table, the americans in third took 44142 prisoners and 1481 guns, the french take second with 139000 prisoners and 1880 guns and the british take first with 188700 prisoners and 2840 guns.

so its hard to argue with the conclusion that militarily speaking the american forces were less effective than the british or french and that their contribution to the final offensive was in fact dwarfed by the british and the french despite both nations having already fought constantly for 4 years.

>If it depended on britcucks and frogs the offensive would fail miserably
the final offensive did depend largely on the british and french, it was a complete success, it shattered the hindenburg line and brought about a complete collapse of the german army

without them we would've had an ending to the war which didn't include humilating germany and giving rise to the second world war... europe would've helped the Czars defeat the communists a lot earlier because of the sustaining of monarchies, the european empires would not have fallen and we wouldn't have had a second world war... ggnorethxtoamericunts

your grammar gave me trenchfoot.

But the Germans failed to take Paris before the Americans really got involved. They just didn't have the supply lines to do it.

To be fair, if Germany had negotiated a better peace deal, then we wouldn't have gotten the Nazis and WW2.

So yeah. We fucked that one up.

the treaty of versailles is the fault of Germany for not standing their ground and for the allies for being cunts.

its everyones fault

>the treaty of versailles is the fault of Germany for not standing their ground
how could they when their army couldnt stand another offensive, their navy mutinied rather than fight and they were going to start seeing actual famine if they went through one more winter under blockade.

> and for the allies for being cunts.
the germans had just deliberately encouraged the worst war in history (up until that point) and had planed to annex huge parts of france, of course the allies were punitive with hindsight they should have either been more punitive to ensure germany never rose again, or substantially more lenient to ensure germany didnt rise again with a grudge

You are ignoring the elephant in the Room.

A strong Imperial Germany would have contained the Soviets.

Without either Imperial Germany or Nazi Germany, the Soviets would have walked over whatever was left of Germany at the time and possibly over France.

They merely ended the war sooner for the Allies. It's not like the US saved Europe. In fact Wilson's presence fucked up the peace negotiations. So fuck you USA.

wasnt so much ignoring, as it was completely irrelevant to the point at hand, that the treaty of versailles wasnt harsher than reasonable under the circumstances, and that the germans had little choice but to accept terms.

however

>A strong Imperial Germany would have contained the Soviets.
you werent getting a strong imperial germany after the first world war no matter what the terms were, part of the reason for the german collapse was the german revolution, the government that negotiated the treaty was not the imperial government but the first democratic one

We are talking about the scenario where the Germans get a favorable peace deal before the German revolution.

Either way, a weakened Germany would have steamrolled by the Soviets.

the german revolution began before the armistice, let alone the treaty negotiations, it began on the 29th of october 1918.

the germans couldnt get a favourable peace deal before they were willing to come to the peace table, they werent willing to do that until the government and army (essentially the same thing) collapsed