Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

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The US were much less a factor in WW1 than WW2. If anything, the US entry forced the Entente's hands to start the planned 1919 offensive early in 1918 and ending the war. The USA did not contribute a large amlint of troops, relative to the armies already deployed, nor did they contribute significant amounts of gear. Lend-Lease was a WW2 thing, in WW1 the majority of US tanks for example were actually French.

The US were a economic power prior to WW1, they only became a true super power during WW2, in particular after Pearl Habour. The full mobilization of society, industry and science made sure of this. This, and the fact the US won the Pacific.

I know it is a popular view of WW1, that it was only the US entry that won it for the Entente. Simply not true, WW1 is not WW2. And even WW2 was not won by the US alone.

Finally, the US war economy of WW2 was decidedly not free, is was a complete structured war eceonomy with production goals set by the government. The implementation of those goals was capitalistic, but not free.

Britain would have lost WW1 and WW2 without massive US support. The WW1 Germans were not amazed by British soldiers' supplies and health. They were amazed by the US soldiers' supplies and health.

> Finally, the US war economy of WW2 was decidedly not free

FDR mobilized existing free market businesses to convert to war production. It was not a collective, nor was it forced labor. For example, Ford switched from producing cars to producing tanks and airplanes. After the war, Ford switched back to making cars. Ford was paid to do this by the government.

FDR's State of the Union Address of 1945 proposed switching the economy to forced labor. Apparently, he was an admirer of Stalin. Fortunately, he was not able to make that happen.

This is basically all wrong, except the Ford switching to planes and tanks bit.

And you are aware, that France was a major biligerent in WW1, stopped Germany at Verdun and held more than half the Western Front, sucessfully after the race to the sea ended, together with Britain, for years before the US showed up?

Or that the Ententene, without significant US participation, won the strategic victory that defeated Germany during the Kaiserschlacht, the last German offensive in the West? This victory allowed Franch and Britain to start the 1919 offensive already in 1918, the one that ended with German surrender. In fact, they started early, in part, to avoid the impression that it was the US who "won" WW1. Little did they know how WW2 would play out and influence puplic opinion.

Also, being impressed by something doesn't mean being defeated by it... I know the meme, and that is all it is, a meme. And a lazy one at that.

During WW2, economies in the UK, the US and the USSR had a lot in common. Mainly them being not free to choose what they produced. The degrees of freedom regarding how it was produced differed, but that is not what defines an economy as free or not. And please tell me you don't think the USSR functioned without money? People were paid to produce stuff, they didn't have the likes of Ford getting rich building war material so.

Edit: I forgot one theatre in WW1, the Ottoman Empire. Arguably at least as important for Britain than the Western Front, and there the US didn't participate at all. And still Britain won.

This is not to downplay the role the US played in WW2, far from it. Projecting this role to WW1 is just plain wrong so, and only feeds into a whole bunch of wrong preconceptions about WW1. I partialy blame Cold War propaganda for this, that downplayed the Soviet role in WW2, for obvious reasons, and over played the US one. Regarding WW2, this narrative is finally changing, for WW1 not so much. And I don't like factually wrong narratives for historical events.

Edit 2: Just read the first half of FDRs 1945 State of the Union during my lunch break. Not sure how you can consider a national service obligation, in parallel to the normal recruiting of workers, to be equal to forced labour...

You really should look up what real forced labour looked, and looks, like.

Also, the same guy, FDR, who called for "forced labour" and was a "friend of Stalin" was in charge of the war economy. And yet, you claim the war economy led by him was a free market. One of those things is not true, I'd say.

You can choose to remember the past any way you wish. Don’t be surprised when people start ignoring you because of your warped view on the world.

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

Not sure if you are talking to me or not, but I couldn't agree more.

> Just read the first half of FDRs 1945 State of the Union during my lunch break. Not sure how you can consider a national service obligation, in parallel to the normal recruiting of workers, to be equal to forced labour...

Forced labor is exactly what it is. "You go work at this job we assigned you or you go to prison" is forced labor.

> "friend of Stalin"

I didn't write that. It's your strawman.

> being impressed by something doesn't mean being defeated by it

They knew the war was over when they encountered the well-fed, tall, and well-supplied US soldiers.

> that France was a major biligerent in WW1

Yup. I also know that France was bled white at Verdun. The slaughter was so bad that the average height of French soldiers in WW2 was an inch and a half shorter than in WW1.

It is not unreasonable to say that France lost WW1.

You said "admirer of Stalin". And France won WW1, no doubt about that. Saying France lost, well, do you also think the US won in Vietnam?

German soldiers knew the war was over when the Kaiserschlacht failed, before the US showed up. Heck, even before that. Leadership did, too. There were mutinies before 1918, on both sides. The German Navy sailors caused a revolution, without ever seeing a single American. And the likes of Luddendorff and Hindenburg wanted to save face, and waited until a new civil government negotiated the Armistice, so they could later claim Germany was undefeated in the field. Please tell, you din't believe that crappy piece of propaganda...

And no, a national servide mandate, or whatever FDR propsed (a speach is hardly well defuned policy, is it?) is not forced labour... Forced labour is what what the Nazis did for example, with POWs and camp inmates. Also, forced labour is unpaid, not sure where you assume FDR didn't want to pay peoole. After all, the US would never do that, free market and all that, right?

The loss of people has no impact on the height of future generations... Where do you gt that idea from? And while Verdun was a brutal battle, in which Germany had equal losses, it was not the main source of cassualties on the Western Front for either side. Same for the Battle of the Somme.

Seriously, France lost WW1? Small soldiers in the next war are caused by cassualties in previous one? It took well equipped and well fed Americans for German soldiera to realizebit was over?

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