Teddy Roosevelt And World War I: An Alternative History by Jeff Nilsson

[Nick_Crenshaw82]

In the following article

Jeff Nilsson reconsiders the events of the election of 1912 and answers the question "What if the U.S. re-elected Roosevelt?"

I'll be providing some of my oh so very limited thoughts on the matter and would love some other insight into the matter.

It’s impossible to declare precisely what would have happened had Theodore Roosevelt been re-elected in 1912. But throughout his career, he was interested in global politics and spreading American influence. There is no question that, as president in 1913, he would have taken a far different course during World War I than the one taken by Wilson. Here’s how we think it might have happened.
In this alternative history …

How It Might Have Looked: President Roosevelt reviews tanks from 1st Armored “Rough Riders” battalion heading to France.
* America enters World War I two years earlier.
Teddy Roosevelt could never sit by and watch a fight: he either had to break it up or join in. So when the old Rough Rider hears, in 1914, that Germany has marched over neutral Belgium to attack France, he commits our resources, and then our soldiers, to the Allied cause.

I'm not so sure about this. From my, very basic, understanding Roosevelt did support American involvement in the war I don't believe it would have occurred as early as Jeff implies. I believe that he wouldn't go against the will of the people but he may hire someone like George Creel to start a propaganda campaign to change the peoples minds on the subject. This campaign could/would get a boost after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania and a declaration of war at the end of 1915 or 1916 at the latest and full deployment in Europe by 1917. But what the hell do I know.

* World War I ends two years sooner.
It takes almost a year to build the ships, arm the troops, train them, and land them in France. By late 1915, though, the American Expeditionary Force of 10 million soldiers is fighting alongside the French and English armies on the Western Front. Even with the wasteful tactics of the European generals, which sometimes wipe out thousands of soldiers in hours, the Allies put enough pressure on the Germans to crack their defenses. The Kaiser’s army falls back, across France, into Germany, with the Allies in pursuit. As winter begins in 1916, the Germans are asking for peace terms.

Again I can't agree with his timeline and I'm not so sure about his size of the AEF but the rest does seem plausible. Also with a slightly shorter war the European commanders may be ever slightly more open to a new perspective to battle strategy and/or tactics or not who knows.

* Adolf Hitler never comes to power.
The German people see their army in retreat, and the Allied armies occupying their cities. They blame their defeat on the military adventurers who run the Kaiser’s government. When young Adolf Hitler starts proclaiming the invincibility of the German army, and the need to prepare again for war, few Germans are interested. Mostly, they’re relieved when the occupying Allied forces arrest him and keep him in a French prison. Without him, the National Socialist party withers away.

The global peacemaker.

I don't have of an option other than to say that with a shorter war the reparations may not be as bad on as OTL meaning that the Weimar Republic may not be as big a failure if at all. I know very little about all of the factors that led to their failures

* The Communists never gain power in Russia.
Although the Russian army suffers a paralyzing defeat on the Eastern Front, it is mostly intact when the war ends and the troops march home. The German government is too busy saving itself in 1917 to send the exiled Lenin back into Russia. Without their charismatic leader, the Bolsheviks of Moscow make little progress stirring up revolution. Russian veterans happily round up the loudest revolutionaries and ship them off to Siberia. By November, when the Bolsheviks would have seized the government, they have disappeared underground.

I still think the Czar would be over thrown but do believe the Bolsheviks would not take over.

* Europe forms a union.
Since the war ends almost two years earlier, Roosevelt is able to talk the Allies into seeking reasonable reparation costs from the Germans and their allies, the Austrians. Before he dies in office in 1918, he has convinced England, France, and Italy to a continental plan similar to that created for France after Napoleon’s defeat. Having exiled its Kaiser and become a Republic, Germany is invited to rejoin the European nations. For the next 30 years, the Congress of Paris ensures the status quo between nations and suppresses any talk of revolution or nationalism.

I have no option on this because by this point the butterflies have really kicked into gear, but I do like the idea of possibly more successful version of the European Union. This would also lead to no League of Nations, United Nations, Warsaw Pact or NATO.

All these benefits wouldn’t have accrued without some problems. According to one way of looking at history, if Communism didn’t get a strong foothold in Russia, it would have done so in Germany. Japan would still have emerged as a world power and very likely would still have invaded China. If successful, Japan and the US would have very likely found themselves in conflict over control of the Pacific.
Very probably, the atom bomb would have still been developed. Given human nature, it’s very likely one country or another would have had the curiosity to use it. Which country that might have been is anyone’s guess.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

To say nothing of the blithe dismissal of the 'wasteful tactics' of the European generals.

Which isn't exactly unfair, obviously, but raises the question of what these US generals would accomplish. All of them would have to be over promoted to supervise this ten million man army, none of them would have any of the combat experience of the Entente powers and none of them would have trained on or be familiar with the battlefields.

I mean, that's a very minor point, but the phrase annoyed me.

 

[Nick_Crenshaw82]

Put simply, the suggestion of an AEF of "ten million soldiers" fighting on the Western Front by late 1915 is laughable.

In 1914, the US had a standing army of 200,000. That, therefore, implies recruiting, equipping, training, and moving 9.8 million troops in a year.

By contrast, during WW2, it took until 1944 for the US to get that many people into the military, around half of whom were engaged in rear echelon jobs in the USA and not part of any "expeditionary force". OTL, in WWI, most of the US Army heavy equipment came from Britain and France. The US didn't have the industrial capacity then to meet the demands of the expansion that did happen.

"It takes almost a year to arm the troops and train them." FFS, the training depots need to be built, trainers need to be found (rough rule of thumb is that 1 person can train 5 at a time; that means that 200,000 - making the assumption that every man-jack in the US Army is doing nothing but training - can train around 1 million. That means that ten cycles are needed in "almost a year", roughly 1 month per cycle. That is, as I need not point out, utter gibberish).

Then there's the issue of dumping 10 million men in the Western Front. Let's wave a magic wand, and say these men, with 1 month training, are actually superbly trained (because of American exceptionalism) and fully-equipped (because who needs to worry about production on this scale). We'll also ignore the problems of feeding them and supplying them - we'll simply say food and bullets and medicine and so on magically appear next to the soldier. We'll also say that all the waste products of the soldiers magically disappear as well (you try operating with large numbers of troops without taking account of the need for waste disposal). We'll ignore all these issues, and say that American ingenuity overcomes all of these issues.

Where the fuck do these ten million go? It's not like troop density was an issue during the war. The Western Front was 440 miles from Switzerland to the sea, and the active area was around 100 miles long. 10 million troops (we'll assume the French and British and Belgians and others simply go on leave to Paris while the Americans squeeze in) over 100 miles is around 100,000 troops per mile, or roughly 50 troops per yard of front. Assume that the line is packed shoulder to shoulder with American troops, and let's further assume that half of them are in Paris. That means that the American troops are in 25 lines, each line 100 miles long, and each soldier standing in a yard of space.

It's gibberish. You don't need to bother with the rest of it. If the author can't see that this is gibberish, then there's no point continuing.

I completely agree that these numbers are highly unrealistic and and what we need to do is fix them. One idea that I had was that Roosevelt prepares to build up the military (army & navy) to "protect American interests" which would hopefully double or triple the number of troops we have if/when we enter the war in 1915. Also after we do enter the war that Roosevelt a and whom ever he assigns as the AEF commander are more open to learning from the British and French officers and soldiers while simultaneously using invalidated British and French officers and sergeants to train more officers and sergeants of our own, similar to the von Steuben method.

To say nothing of the blithe dismissal of the 'wasteful tactics' of the European generals.

Which isn't exactly unfair, obviously, but raises the question of what these US generals would accomplish. All of them would have to be over promoted to supervise this ten million man army, none of them would have any of the combat experience of the Entente powers and none of them would have trained on or be familiar with the battlefields.

I mean, that's a very minor point, but the phrase annoyed me.

If we compare to OTL, the AEF refused point blank to learn from the French and British in 1917, and started with the tactics of 1914. They learned the hard way. I see no reason why these American generals would fare any differently.

I guess it depends on who Roosevelt puts in charge of the AEF ITTL. McPherson over at AH.com had suggested the following:

It is interesting to note that of the three choices TR would have; Funston, Pershing and Wood, I would suggest TR would have used all three. Wood as an administrator was almost without peer. Funston as a trainer and mobilizer (San Francisco Earthquake) was the right kind of ruthless, and Pershing, for all of his operational art incompetence, was the right kind of son of a bitch to fight on the western front.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Thought occurs: if America is going to turn up early, and everyone knows that in X amount of time a load of fresh new troops and resources are coming from the populous industrial power, WW1 as we know it is already not happening. The Entente know that time is on their side; the Germans know everything's going to get much worse from Month X if they aren't in a good position or have almost won. The same battles and strategies won't be happening,

 

[Geordie]

10 million soldiers in an AEF to the Western Front?

There wouldn't be room to swing a cat.

 

[Juan Vogel]

10 million soldiers in an AEF to the Western Front?

There wouldn't be room to swing a cat.

Just so long as it is an American cat

 

[Redolegna]

10 million soldiers in an AEF to the Western Front?

There wouldn't be room to swing a cat.

Good. No swinging cats, ever. Cruelty, that is.