[Pete Hill]

Hi Jenny,
very interesting point! Having read neil's comments, I tend to agree to a point as there must have been times such as during the height of the bad weather at Third Ypres or towards the end of the battle of the Somme when it would have been impossible not to get some degree of Trench foot. However there were times when conditions were more mild when there were units that still had large numbers of Trench foot cases. In this latter case, I agree with Graves that it was a reflection on poor morale rather than on the conditions.
Regarding the connections between morale and body, I have never studied psychology. But I do believe that our behaviour and our body's functions can change when exposed to degrees of trauma and severe stress. One example is during the latter stages of the siege of the German sixth army at Stalingrad during the winter of 1942/43. I have read a number of accounts that describe large numbers of Germans exhibiting severe lethargy. One could argue that it was solely the effects of cold and malnutrition but from what I have read, the men's mental state had a lot to do with it as well. They had lost all hope of victory or rescue and many of them were reduced to extreme in-activity and apathy. I had read where men would not even bother to light a fire even when there was fuel available, would toss their weapons away, would not care that the man they were lying next to was dead or dying, not even bother to write final letters to loved ones. Their trauma and despair reduced them to a blank, lethargic numbness.
To Taz,
Cool! I love What If....questions. (I am a big fan of 'alternative history' authors like Harry Turtledove). Regarding your question which is a very good one, I would say that I doubt if the war would have progressed beyond 1919. It is impossible to predict of course but the German army was, by November 1918, a shadow of its former self. True, many of the fragments that remained were in good condition and were still highly motivated and disciplined but even they could not have maintained a hold on the front. Not when the flow of Allied supplies and resources was being maintained and those of the Germans were dwindling rapidly. And I doubt if the German civilian population could have endured another year of privation and un-rest.
Another point is the Influenza epidemic of 1919. With the war still progressing at the same time, thus impeding efforts to contain the spread of the disease, I fear the death-toll would have been even worse than it was. It could have even spread to the trenches and influenza in 1919 could have been to the British army in France what cholera was to its army in the Crimea in 1854.
There would have been still considerable fighting to be endured. I believe the British and French armies would have kept going but with increasing war-weariness and maybe an increasing tendency to be a little slower and more 'plodding' in their advances. They would have also become bottom-heavy with younger raw replacements as the more experienced men were made casualties or sent home afflicted with battle fatigue. The armies would have relied more heavily on firepower and the growing RFC would have played a bigger role in ground-attack.
Many of the RFC's Sopwith Camel squadrons would have been re-equipped with Snipes or Dolphins whilst more Fokker DVIII monoplanes would have been encountered over the front. The Handley-Page 0400 would have got to play a bigger role also.
The American army would have had to shoulder an increasingly heavier burden of the fighting to take some of the load off the exhausted British and French units. Consequently, US casualties would have been higher. It would have been interesting to see if the larger death-toll would have impacted on the US home-front's morale and attitudes as the US entry into the war was opposed by many Americans at the start. However, the US army would have emerged from the war with more battle-experience and greater tactical knowledge & skills which would have perhaps impacted on the army's development in the decades before WW2.
The Australian divisions would have continued to shrink. With two referendums on conscription in Australia ending in favour of the 'No' vote, the supply of replacements, already reduced to a trickle by late 1918, would have dried up even further in 1919. And the veterans, as fine and highly motivated soldiers they were, would have been increasingly war-weary and perhaps not a little bitter and resentful at the thought of many thousands of young fit men back home being allowed to stay in civilian clothes. There could have been some serious morale and discipline problems and it is likely that some battalions would have been disbanded so the men could replace the gaps in other units.
And what if men like Adolf Hitler, Harry Truman, Anthony Eden and George S Patton didn't survive because they fell in the fighting in 1919?
Its like wondering if the Second World war had dragged on into 1946 because the Allies decided to stage a conventional invasion of Japan instead of using the A-bombs. A completely devastated Japan, perhaps a Soviet invasion and part of Japan ending up like East Germany, a Japanese economy that took longer to recover and develop, a higher US casualty list, a Britain even more finiancially bankrupt that it already was, fewer Allied POW survivors, the list goes on. Its like dropping a pebble onto the surface of a pond and watching the ripples multiply.
Regards Pete