The Madness of Saint Woodrow: Or, What If the United States Had Stayed out of the Great War?

Library of Law and Liberty ^ | 10-04-2017 | Walter A. McDougall

[Cannonball Bill]

fascinating to think about if we had stayed out of the war what would have happened. For some who think that providence drives history you could say WWI led to WWII which lead to the creation of Israel...but I’m just saying’...

[DiogenesLamp]

Assuming there would still have been a USSR. Germany helped get Lenin into Russia to foment revolution, it likely would not have been necessary without the US entry into the war.

My recollection is that I looked that up, and they sent Lenin into Russia a long time before we got involved, so I suspect that would have happened regardless of what America did.

[Wuli]

What if - is nearly always a waste of time in my book.

1. The what if did not happen, ending with the actual history of the events.

2. What might have been i a form of speculation. and in no way can be certain of exactly how each of the variables would have gone, because to go one way or the other always depends on more factors than the speculators either entertain or know for certain how they would go.

These topics are good for writing historical fiction, and not a whole lot else.

[Peter ODonnell]

There is of course no way to predict the alternate future but let’s speculate ...

By not entering the war, Germany might have held on to the balance of power although they were already losing ground by 1916. A later armistice more favorable to Germany might have been reached in 1919 or 1920. Germany and the Ottoman Empire might not have lost their colonies.

A more prosperous and less indignant Germany would not have produced a Hitler nor turned to him had he come along. Thus one could imagine that Germany would slowly transition to full multi-party democracy status in the 1920s. The main opposition would be communist.

The Soviet Union would have not been invaded, as there would be no obvious reason for Germany and the Soviet Union to fight a war, absent Hitler’s racial doctrines.

Therefore the USSR would have stayed more prosperous than it became but perhaps less militaristic. There might well be a communist Soviet Union today (some would argue there is anyway).

America would have taken longer to become the dominant world power. Advances in nuclear technology might not have been urgently required and they might never have happened. We might now live in a world without nuclear weapons. But what that means about the increased chance of conventional war is unclear.

The future of Islam (after 1920) would have been considerably different. No Ataturk secular revolution might have meant that Muslims generally would find their social and political realms to be satisfactory and thus the late 20th century radicalization of Islam might never have taken place. Also, with no holocaust, there probably would not have been creation of Israel. That also would argue for a less unstable Muslim crescent.

The British empire might have evolved into a commonwealth without as much of an independence movement. Not weakened by a second world war, Britain and France might have maintained control of their colonies through a much less volatile period than the 1960s turned out to be.

From this decision, which in global terms was not as large as it would appear to Americans, huge changes may have spread out through the fabric of time since 1920.

We might not even have an internet, I might be writing this as a letter to the editor and if you didn’t like it, you might phone me. And I might hang up when I didn’t recognize your voice. :)

[Pelham]

We have the magnificent US Capitol building because of the vision and diligence of one US Senator, Jefferson Davis:

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/septemberoctober/feature/the-other-jefferson-davis

[DiogenesLamp]

Correct. They were hoping for a somewhat larger-scale version of what they got after the Russo-Japanese War. But the difference was, the US is not Czarist Russia.

I think the Socialist/Communist agitators in this nation also misunderstand the difference between the American mindset and that of the Europeans.

I think they are making a mistake when they think the techniques that worked to bring Socialism/Communism to the Russians and Europeans will work on Americans. We are more independent minded and ornery.

We haven't played Cowboys and Communists yet. :)

[sparklite2]

Didn’t do much for the Poles and Jews in the death camps, though, did it?

[Dr. Ursus]

Didn’t he steal his wife’s bloomers and try to escape?

[freefdny]

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/concept_of_mitteleuropa
Maybe a kinder gentler Mitteleuropa would have evolved. Then again if Schikelgruber maybe had a beer, a girlfriend, or a Wiener schnitzel as a young man the world may have been a better place.

[RedStateRocker]

I just want us to play Cowboys and Muslims

[x]

Americans weren't going to wage a limited war.

We were too religious.

If we were going to fight it had to be for a higher cause.

At the same time, we weren't going to stay involved in Europe's quarrels after the war.

Where that left us, I don't know, but there are some parallels between America a century ago and America a decade ago.

Getting involved in a war overseas and then expecting everything would magically work out so that we could up and leave.

P.S. At this point, I'm tired of hearing about Versailles.

Germany, whatever caused the first war, the second was all you guys.

[Albion Wilde]

bump

[Pelham]

He was wearing a shawl to keep warm when he was captured. Davis had contracted malaria as a young soldier and his health was poor afterwards.

[crazy scenario]

" Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.

Neutrality IS NOT, selling/sending war materials to France & England but preventing Germany from stopping that trade!!!

As far as autocratic governments are concerned British soldiers couldn't vote for their representatives but German soldiers could.

Wilson was a lib BSer.

[Defiant]

Lenin was sent across Germany by train in 1917, the same year we entered. The Russian revolution was not communist initially. Lenin worked to subvert the revolution, and it helped that the new government promised to stay in the war. Had the Germans not sent him back to Russia, the communists could never have taken over.

[schurmann]

Americans are misinformed.

Our nation was founded as a trading nation, not a backwoods colony of isolationist navel-gazers transfixed by religious delusions of moral superiority, whiling away the idle hours toying with wispy fantasies about transforming the world by morally spotless personal example.

Forum members who haven’t, need to read _The Father of Us All_ by Victor Davis Hanson.

Aggressors are not stopped by the sort of self-regarding, self-congratulatory moralizing prissiness that so many Americans cherish, as the key element of their national character.

They are stopped by resolute toughness, by refusal to back down, refusal to give in to bluster and threats.

Weakness, dithering and accommodation in the face of threats and aggression do not make wars less violent or deadly. Rather, they make it all worse, handing the aggressor early victories, merely increasing his hunger for more. And more. And they render any final success that much harder to attain, because time and ground are lost and must be regained before any resolution. The lives lost, though, can never be restored.

The plain fact is, if we are mean, tough, nasty, and violent enough beforehand, we might cause the enemy to back down. If not, we must be grim beyond all measure, in the prosecution of the conflict. And after, we must trumpet our determination to all who have ears - to leave no doubt in their minds that we will do it again if we have to, or worse. This grates on the moral sensitivities of Americans, but it is the way the world is.

By 1914, Britain and France were America’s chief trading partners. Germany was not; its trade was burgeoning, but it was fomenting trade as a political policy, not as a by-product of any organic economic activity. Germans were on the edge of a tantrum, irate in their demands to be taken seriously on the world stage. Puerile.

The presence of so many immigrants of German descent should not have been treated as a political problem pushing us toward neutrality, but as a security challenge. German migrants came to these shores to leave the troubles of Europe behind, they say; but when der Vaterland muscled in to play international power politics from 1890 onward, they complained? The record is quite clear that Imperial Germany actively challenged US sovereignty and engaged in machinations to subvert and dismantle America, offering incentives to other countries to help. Demands - a century later - that we should have stayed neutral in the face of that merely sound dopey.

Delayed intervention helped nothing, and it courted disaster.

Without a tiresome tour through what ought to be obvious, the leadup to WWII was a replay, though by then the hints should have be easier to catch. Risk of failure became far more grave while the public drew back from intervention. And as a side note, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, not the other way around.

Americans may pat themselves on the back by insisting they have no interest in war. But by so thinking, they blind themselves to the central truth, that war will not repay the favor, but will take an interest in them nevertheless.

Walter A McDougall, Niall Ferguson, the essay authors in _Virtual History_, and the editors of libertylawsite.org inhabit a fantasy world. Forum members who find their take on “counter-factual history” appealing ought study up. They should not dawdle either; they have a very long way to go, to shed erroneous notions and then catch up with the real world.

[DiogenesLamp]

Lenin was sent across Germany by train in 1917, the same year we entered. The Russian revolution was not communist initially. Lenin worked to subvert the revolution, and it helped that the new government promised to stay in the war. Had the Germans not sent him back to Russia, the communists could never have taken over.

Lenin got back to Russia on April 16, 1917. Congress voted to enter the war on April 6, 1917. The plan to send Lenin back was originally formulated by Lenin himself, and it is safe to say it was already in the works before Congress voted to enter the war.

Yes, Lenin turned the revolution communist, but it seems like he was going to be sent back to do that regardless of what the US did.

[BroJoeK]

schurmann: "Americans are misinformed....
Forum members who haven’t, need to read _The Father of Us All_ by Victor Davis Hanson...
Walter A McDougall, Niall Ferguson, the essay authors in _Virtual History_, and the editors of libertylawsite.org inhabit a fantasy world.
Forum members who find their take on “counter-factual history” appealing ought study up...."

Some excellent points by several posters.
Let me add some that are often forgotten or ignored:

1. Despite German denials, German historical research shows that the First World War was not started by the Brits, the French or even the Russians.
   Rather, it was pushed by the German High Command on the Austrians, to invade Serbia creating conditions to unleash the German Schlieffen Plan.
   So the 1919 Versailles War Guilt clause was factual, not just "victor's justice".

2. The March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia added huge new territories ("lebensraum") to the German, Austrian & Turkish empires, nearly doubling the first two and adding about 20% to the last, all ceded by Russia.
   

3. Without Americans in France in 1918, the subsequent release of a million German troops from the Eastern Front to the Western, could have overwhelmed French & British resistance ending the war with substantial German victory.

4. German First World War victory would have kept the Kaiser, the Austrian Emperor and the Ottoman Sultan with greatly enhanced power & prestige, and left the French Third Republic, British & Italian parliamentary/constitutional monarchies utterly defeated & disgraced.

5. By 1918 the US was hugely invested in French & British victory and their defeat would have defaulted their debts plunging the US into a Great Depression in 1919, instead of 1929.
   So there would be no prosperous "roaring '20s" to remember as "the good old days".

6. The result would be the rise of fascists like Benito Mussolini not only in Italy but also in defeated France, Britain and the US.
   How would such fascists have differed from, say, Churchill or FDR?
   Well, for one, they may not have waited for Germans to start WWII, and for another, with vastly expanded German, Austrian & Ottoman Empires, the Axis would be undefeatable by any combination of Allies.

7. In short, today the world would speak German over English and Empires with emperors would replace all but the heartiest of republics.
   The American president would be, effectively, an emperor and some may say, "so... what's the difference"?
   It's arguable & murky, but I'd draw your attention to the great 1960s era political switcheroo, when traditional Republicans (i.e., blacks) became Democrats en mass, and visa versa.
   With no victorious Soviet Union, no Cold War and no Korea or Vietnam, would such a realignment still be inevitable?
   Might not American social policies (i.e., Jim Crow laws) of the 1920s & 1930 continued up until today?

[DiogenesLamp]

Without Americans in France in 1918, the subsequent release of a million German troops from the Eastern Front to the Western, could have overwhelmed French & British resistance ending the war with substantial German victory.

Just what I said. No World War II. No Holocaust. No Atomic Bomb and nuclear proliferation. Likely no Mao. Maybe no Holodomor.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Just what I said. No World War II. No Holocaust. No Atomic Bomb and nuclear proliferation. Likely no Mao. Maybe no Holodomor. "

Jawohl, mein Herr, aber mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut und ich bin auch ganze jahr alt fur mehr zu lernen! Englisch ist sehr bessere.