what were some alternatives to ending WW I.?

Question

The war lasted four years and some say that it could have ended sooner. Prior to the Treaty of Versailles what were other alternatives?

Answer 1

Well, truth to be told, there were no alternatives as we now know how all the people felt and would decide. But... if they'd felt a little differently, and you were there to argue various options and be listened to?

Before America joined the war, the armies from both sides in the West had been almost fought out. A large part of the French army actually mutineed and had to be put down by the rest. The French hanged around a hundred men but quietly pretended the rest had just been sheep following leaders. However, the French army never undertook another offensive operation during the rest of the war. They were probably one big disaster away from utter destruction as an army. The British weren't in much better shape. The Germans placed a great deal of hope in the troops returning from the (victorious) Russian front, but stupidly fed them into the morass in the West. Smarter uses would have been to take over the war Austria-Hungary was fighting with Italy and punch through into southern France collapsing the trench front running 500 miles from the Atlantic to Switzerland. Probably. Certainly it would have raised morale in the nation and maybe even in the trenches. The Allies had a similar chance in that their soldiers in the trenches might have welcomed a chance to move fronts to a non-trench environment in Austria-Hungary and they could have (the worst generals having died or been cashiered) offered better generalship to the Italian army fighting the Austria-Hungarians (the Italian army was beating them back, but stupid generalship was squandering almost every opportunity). Either side's such effort on the Eastern front might have won the war as the troops not being in the trenches likely would not have mattered much given how strong the trench system was and how demoralized both sides were.

So if you could have argued for a major country to sue for peace, and weren't shut down by the government involved (shot), you might have succeeded and the spectre of dominos falling might have led to that side seeking peace. It's hard to imagine, in the circumstances, having the other side refuse peace negotiations once one side has dropped the unconditional surrender demand.

Aternatively, if you could have put your arguments successfully to the leadership to make a real push in the East (requiring they overcome fear of disaster in the West and take enough troops out of the trenches AND, for the Allies, that they persuade the Italians they needed French/British help and leadership), that might have changed the end of the war dramatically, leading to a battlefield victory for one side without American aid.

Technology was making great changes to warfare during WWI. If you could have successfully argued for tank technology to be advanced hugely or even as just machine gun platforms leading the charge and relied on battlefield artillery to fight off opposing artillery assaults on the tanks (instead of all the efforts spent on loading cannon into them so they could defend themselves), you might have given one side an advantage in piercing the trenches. Instead of getting bogged down after 10-15 miles of advancing, they might have been able to go 10-20 miles fast enough to break the lines and not simply end up moving the lines and then being hammered back by attack on three sides. If you could have pushed air advances early enough, there might have been aircraft available to make combined arms tactics a reality. Considering that even at the end of the war rifles with huge bullets could still pierce tank armor, I do not mean aircraft hammering away at troops in the field, but certainly true bombing missions against battlefield control centers would have been possible as well as missions against concentrated artillery and movement resources like train stations and bridges behind the lines further reducing the other side's ability to respond to and contain any trench break-outs. Any of these might have seriously helped one side and led to a battlefield victory without American aid.

If you could have split American opinion, perhaps by focusing on keeping Italy out of the war or getting them on the German side, with the immigrants from Germany and Italy both feeling nostalgic about the "home country" and the other huge group, the Irish, still hating Britain, you might have kept the leaders (Wilson for instance) unwilling to risk moving toward helping the Allies. If you had slowed the process of gradually moving toward helping the Allies enough, America might not have entered the war for another year or two, by which time the armies in Europe might have all mutineed successfully. Or their mothers at home (their fathers and sons having already joined them in battlefield cemetaries). This could have led to an exhausted peace.

The last ending could have led Europe to reject war like they largely did after WWII due to no one at all having any illusions about how the last war had resolved itself. Actually winning, as the Allies did after America joined in, might well have been counter-productive in this sense as it gave them the feeling that sacrifice enough and long enough and you win and the other side the feeling that they'd've won if only facing their traditional foes and could do it in the future if they did it fast enough to finish before America overcame its lethargy.

Any battlefield victory without American help, either side, would have led to that side's citizens thinking sacrifice enough and... with the added factor of actually being in possession of land and property that could have been carried off (consider Alsace and Lorainne if you don't think land can be "carried off). Not only might areas have been taken away, but some of them that were completely German, say, might have been emptied, their peoples simply forced out at gunpoint and left to wander the night. Think of how thinking could have run with actions like that. WWII might have been a far more vicious thing with non-combatants in France, say, being gunned down on sight. Much like it was in the USSR, then in Germany as the bell's hammer swung back.

But always remember, those people did not choose any of these things, although I'm sure they thought of them all, and did choose as they did. So there really weren't any possible alternatives since the people then would not have/did not choose them.

Answer 2

Death or being conquered.