He is right about the fact that the Central Powers were fatally spent by summer 1918, though.
Austria-Hungary alone was on the brink of collapse without ever engaging American troops in a large-scale battle, and its collapse would have brought the already weakened Kaiserreich down as well.
People tend to forget Austria-Hungary, myself included. Well, not forget, but kind of ignore them. Which doesn't do justice to anyone.
And yes, Austria-Hungary was done, earlier than summer 1918 in fact. As I said earlier, there is the risk of viewing WW1 in terms of WW2, whixhbis dangerous and wrong. It leads to ignore the Ottoman theatre of war, the fact Austria-Hungary was major power until the end of WW1 and that Italy was on the side of the Entente. And that France was never defeated in that war (man, I hate the memes of French warfare so, so much..., different topic so).
Another fun fact: Spain was one of the big arms and ammunitions suppliers in WW1.
And over 750,000 Germans had starved to death by December 1918 as a result of the British naval blockade.
It's not surprising German troops starving in trenches for four years considered brand new entrants to the war equipped with the newest French-designed and manufactured tanks[1] to be well fed and equipped, though there was nothing spectacular about their combat performance. There's no doubt that weight of American numbers helped accelerate the timescale for winning the war, but it's difficult to imagine anything that has less to do with laissez faire capitalism than the scale of the US draft...
[1]The US decided to produce their own tanks in 1917, but manufacturing issues meant their first arrived two days after the Armistice so they relied on French units
hef19898|2 years ago
inglor_cz|2 years ago
Austria-Hungary alone was on the brink of collapse without ever engaging American troops in a large-scale battle, and its collapse would have brought the already weakened Kaiserreich down as well.
hef19898|2 years ago
And yes, Austria-Hungary was done, earlier than summer 1918 in fact. As I said earlier, there is the risk of viewing WW1 in terms of WW2, whixhbis dangerous and wrong. It leads to ignore the Ottoman theatre of war, the fact Austria-Hungary was major power until the end of WW1 and that Italy was on the side of the Entente. And that France was never defeated in that war (man, I hate the memes of French warfare so, so much..., different topic so).
Another fun fact: Spain was one of the big arms and ammunitions suppliers in WW1.
notahacker|2 years ago
It's not surprising German troops starving in trenches for four years considered brand new entrants to the war equipped with the newest French-designed and manufactured tanks[1] to be well fed and equipped, though there was nothing spectacular about their combat performance. There's no doubt that weight of American numbers helped accelerate the timescale for winning the war, but it's difficult to imagine anything that has less to do with laissez faire capitalism than the scale of the US draft...
[1]The US decided to produce their own tanks in 1917, but manufacturing issues meant their first arrived two days after the Armistice so they relied on French units