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Neil, Alex, Pete- As an intellectual exercise, what would have happened in WWI if the US had remained neutral? There was adequate reason to remain so with a large German population and large numbers of Irish who hated the English with a passion. The War of 1812 was still remembered and was not much more distant than WWI is today. There was a large affinity for the French, but that could have been ignored. Manpower was being drained rapidly on the Continent and, as already mentioned, Australian, and likely other Commonwealth nations, recruitment had fallen off as the casualty rates and horrors of trench warfare became known. French and English draftee numbers were falling off as only those who came of age had not already been inducted.
Most of the gasoline and a large amount of raw materials was supplied by America. If not for the British naval blockade, America could have gotten rich supplying both sides by remaining neutral. As it was the war was the beginning of the end of Great Britain as a world power because nearly a whole generation of poets, engineers, philosophers, leaders, inventors and workers were lost in the trenches or elsewhere. WWII would finish the job.
Would the war have carried on until 1919 or 1920 without the influx of men and material beginning in 1917? No statistically significant number of Americans really fought until Spring/Summer 1918, but the flow of raw materials, gasoline and other products surged in 1917. So what do you think? How much longer would the war have lasted?
Taz
Terry Phillips
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