Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Philistone
The most likely outcome of World War I sans our misguided participation would have been a stalemate with both sides exhausted from 5 years of trench warfare.

This is an old "America Firster" argument for isolationism.

The reality is that Germany would likely have conquered France and become a hostile superpower equal in size, wealth and technology to the USA.

The original alliance was France-England-Russia versus Germany and Austria.

By 1917, England was close to exhaustion, Russia was having its own internal revolution and German forces were 70 miles from Paris, shelling the city with long-range guns.

If America hadn't reinforced the crumbling British and French lines, Paris could well have been swept by Germany's 1918 spring offensive in April 1918, giving Germany a decisive victory.

Mussolini's Italy was one of the winning parties in World War I.

The idiot who wrote this is complaining that Germany's defeat fueled fascism in Germany - why did Italy's victory fail to stop fascism in Italy?

22 posted on 08/06/2007 1:13:14 PM PDT by wideawake (Why is it that so many self-proclaimed "Constitutionalists" know so little about the Constitution?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: wideawake
The reality is that Germany would likely have conquered France and become a hostile superpower equal in size, wealth and technology to the USA.

I wonder if Germany wouldn't have actually been the ~lone~ superpower. The USA didn't really achieve "superpower" status until after WWII. Had there been no participation in WWI and no WWII there would have been no massive buildup of ships and materiel and men.

It may be imponderable, but there's a real possibility that the big superpowers of the 20th Century would have been Germany and Japan. Not sure how that would have played out.

34 posted on 08/06/2007 1:22:00 PM PDT by Ramius (Personally, I give us... one chance in three. More tea?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies ]

To: wideawake
The idiot who wrote this is complaining that Germany's defeat fueled fascism in Germany - why did Italy's victory fail to stop fascism in Italy?

While Italy was technically a victor, they had enormous losses, over 600,000 in a country of 36M, roughly proportionate to total American dead in the WBTS.

They didn't get nearly as much loot out of the war as they thought they should, so they felt like victims even though they were on the winning side.

51 posted on 08/06/2007 1:49:24 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies ]

To: wideawake

Germany was spent. It would not have been able to conquer France. Germany wasn’t able to make any breakthroughs in the years and years of the war, and the longer the war went on the more depleted they were becoming and then with the Influenza of 1918 it’s doubtful they would have had enough capacity to make an offensive breakthrough and then do something they were never able to do (nor France).. sustain it.


60 posted on 08/06/2007 2:20:03 PM PDT by pacelvi (Islam is the acid that will dissolve the nation-state and led to the total breakdown of civilization)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies ]

To: wideawake
The idiot who wrote this is complaining that Germany’s defeat fueled fascism in Germany - why did Italy’s victory fail to stop fascism in Italy?

The Italians didn’t get everything they were promised for entering the war, such as the Austro-Hungarian province of Dalmatia, which was on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and had belonged to the Republic of Venice. Also they expected to get Albania and parts of the German African and Asian colonies. And they got none of that. So Italy felt shortchanged, hence fascism.

But you’re right, the author is an idiot.

69 posted on 08/06/2007 6:26:35 PM PDT by Cheburashka (It's a _happy_ Russian novel. Everybody still dies, but everybody dies happy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson