I need evidence that Germany could still win in March 1918

[Buffnut453]

5 hours ago, Muerrisch said:

I believe "history" is not a written account or accounts, but "what actually happened".

 

Regarding computer simulations they need to include such minutiae as, for example, the state of Napoleon's insides at Waterloo, Haig's when 1 Corps was separated from 2 Corps after Mons, and Bomber Harris's long-term dyspepsia during the bombing campaign 1944/45. 

 

The problem is we seldom know "what actually happened".  For example, an individual soldier is reported missing in action and is never seen again, nor is his body recovered.  Given knowledge of his unit and the date he went missing, we can posit the general conditions and events related to his death but we cannot say definitively what happened.  Are such hypotheses about the missing not history?  

 

The quality of computer simulations is limited by their fidelity.  Rather than programming an upset tummy, a more generic variable, such as a factor which diminishes a senior leader's decision-making ability, can be readily introduced into the programming.  However, one needs to be careful because, inevitably, such factors are subjective.  As I tried to make clear, the process can be made workable within a reasonable degree of fidelity.  However, it does take a lot of work and a clear set of rules for the program to follow (e.g. employing a sound doctrinal basis for force structures, schemes of manoeuvre, logistic requirements etc).

Edited 16 June , 2020 by Buffnut453

[Muerrisch]

46 minutes ago, ilkley remembers said:

 

But in that case doesn't history become almost the equivalent of a medieval chronicle bereft of exposition and interpretation simply recording events chronologically like some list of geological  periods?

 

 

Surely it possible to posit  arguments without recourse to what sounds like an extraordinarily mechanistic approach?

 

No: "what actually happened" is every jot and tittle, every snot and spittle, every order at every level, every shot aimed, every missed message, every gallantry, every cowardice, every change of the weather .................

The Mediaeval Chronicle might say that Germany started the war  and, after more than four bitter years fighting, and civil populations near starving, Germany was defeated by the Allies.

[Keith_history_buff]

  

On 16/06/2020 at 10:52, Keith_history_buff said:

I had interpreted this thread as having a veiled agenda with a nationalistic agenda, to "prove" that the AEF intervention turned imminent defeat into an allied victory in 1918. I was unconvinced, and remain unconvinced, based on the various comments on this thread.

 

I have become aware of the following, by dint of a review in "Stand To!" No 119, October 2020. 

 

Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I 
ISBN 978-0-4650-9391-5 
 

Geoffrey Wawro's book appears to have been first published in 2018

 

It looks like this would fit with your agenda, unlike the opinions of many who commented on this thread.

 

[Keith_history_buff]

Quote

My view? Edward Lengel's "To Conquer Hell" published by Holt in 2008, Mitchell Yockelson's "Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British command 1918" and Barbeau & Henri's "Unknown Soldiers: African Americans in WW1" published by Decapo N.Y. 1996.... are more valuable works.

[Book reviewed by] Dick Green
"Stand To!" No 119, October 2020. 

Other books are available, and I see that a promo piece by Wawro did at the time that his book came out did feature on the fourth page of this thread. 

[Justin Moretti]

If Germany was going to salvage a victory at all, it was going to be by doing what it did, when it did, and panicking Petain the Pessimist into falling back on Paris and allowing a separation of the armies.

It was then or never. 

 

 

If Haig's problem was that his plans were strategically sound but tactically deficient, then Ludendorff was the other way around. He had an instrument of war which was initially unstoppable, but allowed himself to become distracted on the grand-strategic level while it still retained its effectiveness. 

 

Someone else asked the valid question: what if the people in charge of the Franco-British alliance in 1940 had been Haigs, Fochs, Joffres and Clemenceaus instead of what we got?

 

As for the Americans - I will never take El Kaiser seriously again, and if Germany had NOT attacked the way it did but remained on the defensive, one has to wonder what would have happened if Plumer had been able to continue the inexorable advance of his mincing machine in better weather. What if the men and the material with which Britain won its hundred days victories had not been replacement for losses but supplementary to what was already there? We know he had his golden moments of good weather at Third Ypres when everything went right; imagine Germany having to face that up and down the front, over and over again.

 

[phil andrade]

Justin,

 

Those three bite and hold attacks in Third Ypres - Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde - have been extolled as local successes that shook the German High Command and even, in the last instance, gained a “ Black Day “ sobriquet from Ludendorff.

 

There are other episodes that need to be cited : Currie’s very effective action at Lens ( Hill 70), and, even more significant, Petain the Pessimist’s brilliant offensive at Malmaison. There had also been sharp punishment administered to the Germans by the French attacks in the Mort Homme sector at Verdun earlier in the summer ; and then, of course, there was Cambrai.

 

These battles demonstrated Entente tactical proficiency and also weighed heavily against the Germans in attritional terms.

 

As you say, much more of this was bound to become a nightmare for the Germans , and justified Ludendorff’s famous comment ...our men thought with horror of fresh defensive battles.

 

There is a big BUT, here, though.

 

The big picture was decidedly different when we consider the German triumphs at Riga and Caporetto .  This was strategic stuff, and , even on the more local level, the counter attack at Cambrai gave a nasty reminder of what the Germans were capable of doing.

 

Russia and Romania effectively demolished, Italy teetering....not to be underestimated if we seek evidence that Germany was in with a decent chance.

 

Phil