Shipbucket

On the Subject of the end of WW1; it frustrates me that even after nearly 100 years, the significant contributions of the Australian and Canadian Corps in stopping the Operation Michael Offensive continue to be understated by the majority of commentators and historians. Having done more than a little research into the subject, In my view the American contribution is a significant one, but only a small part of a much bigger allied response to the German offensive. One could argue that their role was relatively minor compared to that of the British Dominion forces in the Somme Sector before Amiens. I suggest anyone who wishes to know more reads up on the role of Australian Corps in their defense of the line of the Somme before the towns of Dernancourt, Hamel and Villers-Bretonneux (as well as efforts further north before Hazebrouk). These last ditch defensive actions, plus their pivotal, spearhead role in the August 8th offensive, it's preliminaries (see the battle of Le Hamel, July 4th, 1918) and the subsequent drive on the Hindenburg line, prove beyond any doubt in my mind that the nearly 500,000 men of the Australian and Canadian Corps deserve far more credit than they get for bringing the war to a victorious conclusion in 1918.

As for the American efforts, I think their greatest achievement was the infusion of fresh manpower to prevent a French collapse in the southern sectors of the line. By 1918 the French Army was a mutinous shambles that had largely lost the will to fight. The infusion of fresh American troops in the early months of 1918 enabled the French to stand in the face of the German offensives of March and April, and to have the manpower and fighting spirit to push back thereafter. General Pershing's contribution was negligible, and the main leadership credit in this area of the Western front must go to Marshal Foch and General Petain.

If there are individual men on which the credit of turning the tide and inspiring victory can be laid, then for me those men are Premier Clemenceau and Marshal Foch (France); Prime Minister Lloyd George (Great Britain), General Sir John Monash (Australia) and General Sir Arthur Currie (Canada).

Perhaps there is some fuel for your AU in these forgotten stories of courage and military achievement tsd715????


Cheers

Edited: 12:29pm AEST, 9th August, 2015

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I'm genuinely sorry that I forgot to mention the Australian contribution to the halting of the spring offensive. I was just addressing the previous comment in which only the Americans were mentioned. I should have included the Australians in my comment. However, I do wish you hadn't just descended into this fury of a comment. I assure you I appreciate the ANZAC's massive role in the war. I'm glad you brought this to my attention, but in the future I'd love it if you would not jump to the conclusion that a user was intentionally insulting your nation (I've been there and loved it).
Again I'm sorry for my omission,
Tsd715

No fury intended tsd715, And I wasn't implying that you'd somehow intentionally omitted anything (I can in hindsight see how you may have thought that). I did wax lyrical there I guess, and for that I apologize. I look forward to seeing how this AU develops

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No problem, I've come of as something unintended before too. However, it's not my AU, I was just contributing to the thread. I'm a self-professed Tuetophile, being from Hamburg originally, but the ANZACs were some of, if not the, bravest troops of the war. I'm also excited to see how this AU turns out. So many possibilies !

It maybe appropriate to go back through OTL and examine all major USA interactions/interventions and alter the outcomes.
For instance the Zimmerman Telegram debacle ...
Perhaps strengthen US German diplomacy say through more supply sub visits of the Deutschland, U151 type.
"American submarine pioneer Simon Lake visited the Deutschland while she was in Baltimore, and made an agreement with representatives of the North German Lloyd line to build cargo submarines in the US."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_su ... eutschland
Perhaps stage a Zeppelin transAtlantic flight instead of bombing London! The Africa flight of LZ 104 was 6800km in 11/17.
Lots of scope for building German/US entente.
All of 1916 history onwards will be different. Less ammunition supply for France during battle of Verdun etc.
The French mutiny of 1917 would have far worse consequences without Petain having US supplies to consider.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Army_Mutinies
and the British mutinies of 1917 may well have also cascaded into a general collapse
http://leftfootforward.org/2014/08/ww1- ... and-riots/
Aussies were involved here because we don't tolerate uppity Poms tellin' us what to do!!!!
"On 28 August 1916, a member of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), Private Alexander Little (10th Battalion; no. 3254), verbally abused a British NCO after water was cut off while he was having a shower.[6] [7] As he was being taken to the punishment compound, Little resisted and was assisted and released by other members of the AIF and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). Four of these men were later identified, court-martialled, convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death, including Little. Three had their sentence commuted. While the military regulations of the AIF prevented the imposition of capital punishment on its personnel, that was not the case for the NZEF. Private Jack Braithwaite, an Australian serving with the NZEF, in the 2nd Battalion of the Otago Regiment, was considered to be a repeat offender — his sentence was confirmed by General Douglas Haig and he was shot by a firing squad on 29 October."
So you could construct an AU around such events.
A 1918 German offensive would have been far more successful, Aussie resistance noted but wasted by British officers, if they were still holding together after the mutinies. An interesting but usually overlooked aspect of the German advance was the looting of cellars and cheese stores and this brought many units to a standstill - Ch 20 'A Victory Party Turns into a Hangover'.
Kiester, Edwin (2007). An Incomplete History of World War I. Murdoch Books. ISBN 1-74045-970-9
Without US supplies such armies as the Australian Corp with our brilliant General Monash would never have come into existence. It was the largest all arms army corps of the entire British armed forces with better aircraft and armour coordination than any one else.
So you've lots of POD to explore adn it should make for an excellent AU, congratulations on undertaking such an adventure!

I've worked up a late Great War backstory for some AU work. Don't know yet if it will see the light of day or not.
There were more troops locked in the East than is supposed with the Bolshevik's on the move during 1918.

My AU revolves around this, and supposes had more been released Operation Michael may have succeeded. If it had and managed to cut a swath to the Channel near Dunkirk say, would the trapped BEF be withdrawn or fight on? With cross channel supplies behind the Dover barrages and sea supremancy and lack of serious aerial threats over the channel, I would say yes. However morale wise and if unrestricted submarine warfare was biting, the public may have been willing to talk and the French Army would likely crumble.
However, if in your scenario submarines has not happened to that extent then a fully fed and powerful Britain master of all the seas is going to give you a hard time. They have no reason to stop fighting unless they can be checked on the battlefield and with thousands of tanks and aircraft churning out of the factories its a juggernaut to stop.

Saying all this, let's just see some cool looking ships!

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Yeah, what I'm going to do is what Hood said, and just draw ships. I won't go into massive detail like others have. I just want to draw fictional ships of the Imperial German Navy post war.

Hood, with the restricted submarine warfare, I'm going with Britain still suffered from the U-boat attacks silighty less from what they were in real life. I know it's implausible though.

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Interesting premise. But it creates some interesting questions.
First of all, as already hinted by Hood, lack of unrestricted submarine warfare means that Great Britain is suffering from much less strain created by activities of German subs (which, despite some common misconceptions, were actually much more likely to cut-off British supplies from aborad in WW1 than in WW2) and has therefore significantly more resources to spend on other areas than ASW.
Another thing, but interesting mostly for me because of my nationality and rather academic from the POV of the warship-centered AU, is the issue of the Kingdom of Poland. The Act of 5th November of German and Austrian emperors promised the creation of the Kingdom of Poland (controlled by the Central Powers) and while it has very little immediate results, eventually it led to the creation of some Polish national institutions, including the Regency Council and the token armed forces (rather awkwardly - from the today's perspective - named in German language as Polnische Wehrmacht). So it is somewhat interesting to me personally, what is the situation of Poland in this scenario?

Also, regarding one of the issues raised by Seeker36340 - if the Great War ends in a draw (meaning: no humiliating degfeat for the Germany nor the Versailles Treaty as in the OTL), and German Empire survives, then it's rather unlikely that nazi party as it really was, under Hitler's leadership, would ever be created (not mentioning it's leadership being hanged in 1923).

*Plus there's always the question of whether a Soviet Union would even be "allowed" to rise if it got too uppity (a question I came across on an Imperial AU site).

*The question of a Washington Naval Treaty - what are the results for Germany? My private AU has them ending up as a "raider/carrier" High Seas Fleet with 1927 and 1932 battleship tonnage (70,000 tons total) used to build 17,500-ton (sic) diesel raiders along the lines of Syzmo's Moltke class versus battleships. The aircraft carrier is the new capital ship, with the supporting elements (except the U-Boats) designed to support carriers

*PS: I just can't get over the image of the List regiment rounding up Hitler....

The main problem is that would GB be willing to sign up to any treaty that allows Germany to have raiders ? (or at least in any number that threaten the only possible opponent)

With Germany building raiders the RN will insist they can match them, the RN will be stuck having to build fast anti raider to match them, the problem is they will also need battleships as well (to match other nations) and the anti raider will count in any tonnage/numbers limit (but will not be able to do both jobs as you probably cant build a fast protected BB 16" on 35,000t, you can only get fast or 16" guns)

The simple way out is that RN gets more (numbers) ships or larger (faster) ships but that might not be acceptable to the others

So what would you end up with ?