Did American involvement help end World War I?
Did American involvement contribute to the end of World War One? Did U.S. involvement in any way help lead to the ending of the war?
Answer by Victor
The short answer is No.
As you probably know, no one surrendered in the Great War, and no side claimed victory until the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The fighting stopped under the terms of an Armistice – a ceasefire.
Only in the Versailles Treaty was Germany referred to as “…the main belligerent…” and the initial cause of the outbreak of fighting, because of its invasion of Belgium to get into France. As a consequence of the Treaty, Germany and Austria had serious penalties placed upon them that de-stabilized Austria and caused famine in Germany.
By about February 1917, both the Allies (basically France, Britain, Italy and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria and Turkey) had fought to a standstill. Everyone was exhausted and very few politicians or military leaders believed that a victory was possible for either side. It began to look as if a ceasefire would be agreed, and a treaty devised to return Europe to peaceful co-existence.
Then it went wrong. In January 1917, the German Ambassador in Mexico was ordered to advise the Mexican government to attack the USA whenever Germany asked for it. In return, Germany would support Mexico in its reclaim of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. The instruction was included in what we now call the Zimmermann telegram. Mexico rejected the proposal but not the concept, because it was engaged in a minor civil war of its own at the time. When the telegram became public knowledge in March 1917, American public opinion was outraged. It was a clear breach of the Monroe doctrine of 1823, which said that USA would go to war in Europe only to defend its own territory. The Zimmermann telegram provided exactly such a reason and it was the final straw. American shipping and lives had been lost over the previous 2 years because of unrestricted German submarine attacks in European waters.
USA declared war on Germany on 7 April 1917; but not on Austria or Turkey, by the way.
And so the fighting started all over again, with fairly small numbers of raw recruits from USA, but sufficient hardware to make a proper war. The second outbreak of fighting lasted until November 1918. Those 19 months were unnecessary and cost a further 3.5 million lives. They represented stupidity in German diplomacy and the American tendency to start shooting before considering the longer consequences.
The Americans also took the lead in the Paris conference, acting as “honest brokers” for the French in their claim for massive financial reparations from Germany. Between July 1919 and March 1923, a French army occupied the Rhineland and took away entire factories of equipment and raw material stocks. In some German towns, unemployment was 90 per cent and deaths from starvation exceeded deaths from old age or disease. The situation was just right for the rise of political extremism in the form of communism and Nazism. The latter came to popular power after elections in 1933. Why? Because the Americans’ entry prolonged the war and the French insisted on reparations.
OK?
What do you think? Answer below!
Whilst David Lloyd George was rather dismissive of America’s involvement there can be little doubt that the influx of fresh troops and armaments helped to break the stalemate and added impetus to the 100 Days Offensive helping to tip the odds in favour of the Allies. The reality is more likely that it was rather too little too late to be decicisive.
Eh, not really. Germany was losing the war anyway and the fact of the matter is that the US troops were untrained and so it look a long while till they were ready to fight. Then, when they were supposed to enter into what I think would be their first battle (the Battle of Hamel), their commander and/or the US government said no because it was independence day.
So yeah, Germany was stuffed either way. It wasn’t weight of numbers but change in strategy that won the war for the Triple Entente (look up General Sir John Monash). Thus, America’s involvement was helpful but not entirely necessary.
Of course. The military impact wasn’t huge, but the point was that everybody else was running out of men and money. The fact that the US had plenty of both had an impact on the German mindset far out of proportion to the straightforward military impact.