Oh, I agree. And I just read the article. And it was inspiring, reading of the courage and fighting spirit of our Marines.
As someone noted, this is a travel article, which is the only reason it made it in to the Times at all.
And yes, of course our presence won the war for the allies. They were as exhausted as dirt and our fresh bravery and deep-bench manufacturing was unbeatable.
But as far as my original question goes, my mind is not changed. This is the first place I ever read that the Germans would have won the war without our presence, and this is a travel article and it's going to take more than a travel article to dissuade me from what I've read many other places, that the Germans also were as exhausted as dirt, even more exhausted than the allies, who were already being resupplied by the US.
Anyway, even if the Germans had won WWI (and I never considered that as even a possibility before this article making the claim that it would have happened without us), I have to wonder, so what? How bad would that have been, compared to the rise of Hitler, which was a direct result of the way WWI actually ended.
But imagine if all of those European armies were exhausted, it would have probably resulted in the Bolsheviks sweeping into power all over Europe.