depending on how you look at it, it was.

the only two countries to come out of WWI stronger were the United States and Japan. I'd like to see this article, because I'm going to guess the author wasn't referring to actual US military involvement.

Most of the powers in WWI got their funding through the opening of lines of credit with Wall Street and other major American banking sectors. It was during WWI that the center of global commerce changed from London to New York. In this sense, the United States won the first world war quite big. The United States knew this too. One of the reasons why Wilson wanted to keep citizens out of the war was because the United States was reaping BIG on war profiteering and involving the US militarily would severely dampen those war profits. Unfortunately, those big gains would end up backfiring after as all the major European powers would take out so much that they'd have no way of paying it back. This was one of the contributing factors for The Great Depression, since the point at which the Allies were supposed to pay back all their war debts was around 1930.

Japan meanwhile gained HUGE tracts of territory when they got involved because Russia was slowly falling apart. This was the perfect opportunity for Japan to finish its original job back in 1906, and Lenin, trying to keep Russia from descending into anarchy after the revolution, had no choice but to capitulate.

now if the article claims it's a US victory because of their involvement militarily then yes, that's just insensitive and extremely arrogant.

The United States is the only nation that truly 'won' in world war 1. In fact, unlike all the other nations, the United States was better off after the war then before it started.


Edit: as hagas said, japan also benefitted, but not to the extent of the United States

That's exactly what they were referring to. I'll try to dig it out when I'm less tired (and irritable), but it went some way towards bigging up the Germans' tactics and equipment and then stated that the war was won "because of America", admittedly in part because its troops weren't knackered by years of attrition, but the overall vibe seemed to be just because America is awesome and it won WWI. And, sadly, many of the people who commented seemed to concur.

From an economic viewpoint I'd agree that the US was the victor in WWI and especially WWII, but it does seem to be an exercise in hubris to claim that the wars were won militarily purely because of US awesomeness, which was the WP article's angle in the former instance.

I love all the WW1 centenary stuff in video games right now.

To be fair, without U.S military involvement, both World War 1 and 2 could/would have ended very differently. But to say we were the sole reason both wars were won is wrong, it was a joint effort through and through that won the wars.

The United States' main contribution to both wars was money and resources. We definitely got involved militarily in WWII (obviously) and did provide significant manpower with it, but in the end, the Russians are the true "victors" of WWII having spilled the most blood and lost the most.

But the Russians in WWII, the British and French in WWI would have had virtually no way of taking on the axis powers and central powers were it not for US manufacturing. At the start of WWII entire companies of the Russian army were sent in wholly unarmed and instructed to take the rifle of the next guy to get gunned down. After the invasion of France by the Nazis, Britain lost a huge number of their guns because they were forced to leave them behind during the retreat.

But you forget, that the United States was one of the sole reasons that Japan surrendered in World War 2, officially ending the war. The Nazis were not the only threat in World War 2. But it seems we may be getting off topic so I suggest we move back to battlefield discussions.

I saw a documentary where they asked who won the war? If you were talking about who sacrificed the most to get the job done then Russia won it by a mile. If you're talking about who walked away with the spoils of it then it was the USA. Also in an instant we went from being like the 27th most powerful nation to THE most powerful nation with the dropping of the bombs on japan.

I certainly wouldn't say Russia won WWI in any shape, form, or fashion. They threw away all those lives and didn't even see the war through. Of course, it's hard to fight a war when your government is undergoing a revolution.

I think the point is that without any one of the key players, the outcome could have been very different, or at least more protracted. But it becomes irksome when one country says it was more important than the others, which sadly seems to happen often. I suspect all have done it at one time or another, but it's never a particularly appealing trait.

Why they'd think that I have no idea. The charge of the light brigade was 60 years earlier, and the Russian artillerymen clearly had no qualms about gunning down 600 cavalrymen...

And 500 years earlier at Agincourt where peasant longbowmen destroyed the French cavalry advance...

They were not concerned with japan. They only wanted the Nazi's because they were betrayed by them. If Russia hadn't beat them all the back to their capital the war would have continued for years.... if America didn't nuke them too that is.

Ooooh, you are talking about WWII. I thought we were talking about WWI.

Lol sorry bout that. Kinda switched gears without really clarifying it.


Yeah Russia wasn't really a big part in ww1

lol ok gotcha!

oh very much. I definitely agree that any war effort in modern history is the product of multiple nations working together. I only said what I said to counteract the "anti-America" sentiment that couold've started cropping up. As a person who quite enjoy history I will be the first to admit that the United States does not have a glittering history, but I refuse to deniy the conftribution that the US has made to global politics and peace.

Were zeppelins even really a thing (ww1) or are we talking about observation balloons here..... And nothing real glamous just some poor sap with a spyglass and maybe a radio hanging in a basket tethered in place (pretty sure every country used em)..... on a good day with some ground crew around to keep the planes away maybe on a real good day biplanes of your own around

Man I just do not know where I fall here I really like history (as a hobby so call me out professor's hehe I am not super brainy)... Happen to NOT be a hippy (shut up battle blood mage if you even are still around) and am one of them US fellows. Honestly though boy our history of indecisiveness, foot dragging, politicking, and well misdirection (Lusitania Maybe heh) I wonder why we actually have allies sometimes...... well money helps but.... Then again I am glad to be here near every day, and am old enough to get mad at flags left out in all kinds of weather getting ripped up...... Looking right at you local crappy dine in food chain with the big ones you never take down....... Mutter....

Boy they thought WW1 was the war to end em, guess were still on the bad end of the learning curve.

They used Zeps a little bit, iirc. Supposedly you could shoot them and unless it was big holes it could retain its gas. They were pretty dangerous to be in though as they could easily explode (see Hindenburg), so biplanes were favored. Fun Fact: The US used Zeps to hunt for UBoats in WW2.

Yeah I don't really buy that either. Wasn't it supposedly carrying ammunition or something military related to England?

Something to that effect yes,( I think indeed it was sadly laden with bullets but people should decide on there own).... What is a fact is the germans actually (look it up) had a page in the New york post ( I believe) saying as much with there intentions to well stop this before she set sail. (the brits of the time had mined there (german) supply ports and they thought it might help them win if they could sink enough turnabout being fair play maybe or not as seen by the public)

Heh

(the balloons were filled with a flamable gas as helium was really hard to come by which made them tinder box's,I think the french came up with the first incendary rounds just for this purpose but again 2-caps is not to be trusted)

Edit - looked it up they put they (germany) placed the warning add in 50 us papers, and yes i seems to be common knowledge now that it was carring ammo....... 2-caps has well just always liked subs and u-boats since seeing Das boot......So a long time ago ate anything about them up.

Honestly, I've always thought America's reasons for involvement in WW1 was a bit murky at best. As for Zeppelins, I think they were filled with Hydrogen since Helium wasn't plentiful then?

Yes, the process for obtaining helium was more costly at that time. So hydrogen was cheaper.


At least that's my understanding.


Edit


The best answer seems to corilate with my answer and goes more into depth.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090805203116AAeKAC1

It should be noted that the USSR shifted it's entire industrial base hundreds of kilometres and pumped everything it had into producing the materiel it needed to to bring the German army to a grinding halt before becoming the first nation to drive 'em back.

Japan was in the process of negotiating terms of surrender... to the USSR, because they'd been steamrolling their way down the continent and it was only a matter of (short) time before they reached the home islands. So saying "the United States was one of the sole reasons" does not give an accurate impression of the reality.

That's mainly because the 26 countries that were ahead of us either: 1.) expended their manpower to supply the war effort for several years before the U.S. committed to it, 2.) expended their industrial effort towards the war effort (in the case of Russia, they moved it and loss quite a bit before they did as well as in the process). and lastly 3.) their industrial and manpower base was bombed to **** during the war.


The U.S. was one of the, if not the only, country where the war did not affect their native soil where their manpower lived and their industrial capacity existed (with the exception of Pearl Harbor, which was primarily a naval base).


It's not all centered around the fact we came out victorious and learned how to be an industrial empire, but more so everyone else was burned to the ground and it took years, and in some cases decades, for them to get back to where they were. For the world to move forward, they needed the U.S. to take that spot. The victory for the U.S. was two-fold...we (the Allies) won the war, the and U.S. benefited that we were the most ready and able after the war to maintain our economy and industrial output. We truly made the best stuff, simply because we were the only ones making stuff.

Yeah, that last bit is an interesting observation. A lot of the US stuff was being made to e.g. British specifications but our own manufacturing was experiencing a slight embuggerence at the time. I think a case in point is the proximity fuze used in AA shells, which was a really neat design but which GB simply lacked the capacity to manufacture since it was rather preoccupied. Still, it was fairly usefully preoccupied, when even piano makers were making bits for war effort, the resulting Mosquito fighter-bomber being perhaps the best of its class. But there simply wasn't enough factories and people to manufacture everything that needed to be manufactured.

Where the US excelled was mass production, such as with the Sherman tank, and they produced about eleventy billion of them. The Sherman is much maligned and was actually a really pretty good general purpose tank: the main drawback was the lack of firepower, although with a 17 pounder stuffed into its turret it was actually teh pwn, even where the likes of German Tigers were concerned (that said, the Tiger had a ludicrous reputation that wasn't entirely deserved, and it was as bad during WWII as it is from the 21st century really devoted fan perspective).

Edit: and talking of firepower, I'm rather falling into the same old trap of assuming tank-on-tank warfare, which was relatively uncommon: the Sherman was really about infantry support, and its standard gun was more than adequate when it came to lobbing about high-explosive shells, which is mostly what it was expected to do. And actually the 17 pdr svcked at that to begin with, at least until the penny dropped and they realised it didn't need to fire HE at mega velocity.

This thread went from talking about a game to a history lesson. Thanks Bethesda Forum!