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Just a question here, could the Americans have invaded Canada in 1918?

PainRack wrote:Just a question here, could the Americans have invaded Canada in 1918?

Unlikely, even assuming they mass a sufficiently large force of men, they simply lack the tactics and equipment to overcome a defensive line manned by veterans and/or those trained by them.

1918 saw the debut of the 'All Arms Battle' by the British, the tactics that stopped the German advance (among other things) and the same tactics that smashed the German Army subsequently. Against such tactics simply having 'more' men and guns doesn't work, the Germans still had local superiority in men and guns when the All Arms Battle tactics began to blow the heart out the stormtrooper units.

Since the American troops historically, despite fighting alongside the British and French troops, initially refused to listen to tactical advice and suffered for it, it is almost certain that with little to no experience of modern warfare, American officers will order a classical attack more akin to 1914-15 (which OTL they did in 1918 for their units), only to run into the 1918 British defensive pattern and be rather badly shot to bits. Bear in mind there will be little in the way of decent air cover or armoured support for the American troops.

Given the All Arms Battle encompasses offensive and defensive tactics, its perfectly possible for Canadian troops to secure the needed smaller bits of the northern US to safeguard railway lines and secure better defence lines and such. Without a couple of years to work things out for themselves and possibly longer to technologically match their opponents, the US isn't going to be making any breakthroughs in the face of opposition any time soon.

The main difference is that the US/Canada front is much broader, allowing for flanking movements not possible on the western front. However, the British and Canadian monopoly on armour on that particular battlefield, especially light tanks, will mean they hold the cards for that kind of fight.

An Ancient wrote:
Since the American troops historically, despite fighting alongside the British and French troops, initially refused to listen to tactical advice and suffered for it, it is almost certain that with little to no experience of modern warfare, American officers will order a classical attack more akin to 1914-15 (which OTL they did in 1918 for their units), only to run into the 1918 British defensive pattern and be rather badly shot to bits. Bear in mind there will be little in the way of decent air cover or armoured support for the American troops.

Sounds like some sour grapes that the Americans decided to get most of their training from the French rather than the British. Mosier's Myth of the Great War remarks how by and large the British(not including Commonwealth forces) performed poorly compared to the French, which is why the Americans took a lot of education from them instead of our cousins.

Factoid 1:
The majority of Empire Troops are in Europe.

Factoid 2:
If the Empire wants to reinforce Canada, it's going to have to cross a U-Boat infested atlantic, plus also deal with the U.S. Navy (and maybe even the Hochsseeflotte early on).

EDIT: Yes, I know the U-Boat was largely defeated by 1918; but if you want to convey a large amount of troops and their ammunition/equipment across the atlantic, that will tie up a huge amount of warships -- the US Navy actually did do a lot of the convoy duties for sending the AEF to France in OTL. Without the USN, this means the RN is going to have to take away ships from other stations to do the convoying.

Additionally, unlike the German High Seas Fleet; the US Navy can't be easily bottled up -- so you will have to send some fairly heavy units with your convoys for protection against a USN raiding force -- all this will affect the balance of power viz the GF and HSF.

Factoid 3:
For the US to invade Canada, all we have to do is mass our troops and send them north across our boarder.

It won't be a easy conquest, due to Artillery/Machine Guns (whether in 1914 or 1918); but Canada pretty much has no depth -- the US can simply seize all the major cities of Canada in it's early offensives, and leave the backwoods of Canada to the remnants of Empire Forces.

Lonestar wrote: Sounds like some sour grapes that the Americans decided to get most of their training from the French rather than the British. Mosier's Myth of the Great War remarks how by and large the British(not including Commonwealth forces) performed poorly compared to the French, which is why the Americans took a lot of education from them instead of our cousins.

That is simply factually incorrect, the British troops in early 1918 performed 'poorly' compared to the French troops in that they lost more ground, but thats because pretty much the entire German offensive was aimed at them, not the French, where 5th Army (the weakest British army in the field) and the French lines met, and the French had to fight the edges of the German advance, they fell back just as badly. The British also did not have the near-mutiny problems the French did. Once the German offensive was blunted the British troops far out-performed the French in attacking and taking back the lost ground, so Mosier's assertions, if they are what you claim, are simply wrong. Moreover, the fact that you make a distinction between British and Commonwealth units betrays a fundemental failure of research by the author as to the actual performance of the various units and their condition and status upon the eve of their taking a given action.

The Americans were initially placed alongside both British and French units, and that their officers at first refused to listen to either of the experienced armies at first and suffered for it is simply a matter of historical record. There are many first hand accounts and historian's evaluations attesting to this. The Germans likewise commented on the fact that the initial American offensives were very much in the old school and the German troops found them easy pickings. American troops did later have success, but even then it was at comparitively high cost and was accomplished with the backing of massed Allied artillery from both the French and British armies (depending on exactly which offensive you consider).
[QUOTE="MKSheppard]
Factoid 3:
For the US to invade Canada, all we have to do is mass our troops and send them north across our boarder.

It won't be a easy conquest, due to Artillery/Machine Guns (whether in 1914 or 1918); but Canada pretty much has no depth -- the US can simply seize all the major cities of Canada in it's early offensives, and leave the backwoods of Canada to the remnants of Empire Forces.[/quote]

Problem: Canada doesn't need that much depth, the cream of the experienced German stormtrooper units, with experienced German artillery and other support behind them, were pretty much stopped dead in their tracks once the All Arms Battle began to be deployed properly, massing troops and sending them north into the face of such a prepared defence is simply suicide, a defensive battle fought by Canadian troops with even a dozen miles between the US start point and the city outskirts can quite comfortably absorb and destroy the typical American 1918 offensive without much trouble.

Lonestar wrote: Mosier's Myth of the Great War remarks how by and large the British(not including Commonwealth forces) performed poorly compared to the French, which is why the Americans took a lot of education from them instead of our cousins.

I wouldn't place any great trust in Mosier's books. He has a tendancy to start with a thesis, cherry-pick his data to confirm it and then stretch his hypothesis way beyond breaking point. Myth of the Great War is a very good example of this; the first few chapters are excellent but it quickly goes into a steep decline. Nobody reputable takes his 1917 and 1918 sections seriously. Much the same applies to his books on WW2.

An Ancient wrote: Problem: Canada doesn't need that much depth, the cream of the experienced German stormtrooper units, with experienced German artillery and other support behind them, were pretty much stopped dead in their tracks once the All Arms Battle began to be deployed properly, massing troops and sending them north into the face of such a prepared defence is simply suicide, a defensive battle fought by Canadian troops with even a dozen miles between the US start point and the city outskirts can quite comfortably absorb and destroy the typical American 1918 offensive without much trouble.

And thus is exactly the problem, the British stopped the Germans dead with absurdly massed forces while holding a continuous coast to Swiss line they had worked on for years. How many troops does Canada need to hold a line that dense against the US? Rather more I am sure, and then are available trained in Canada after four years of war. Of course I doubt the training camp cadres that would be available to fight would have ever even heard of the latest British defensive doctrines anyway. The British Army wasn’t even able to train units already in Europe to fully implement the ideas.

A typical WW1 division held only about 6-8km of front, and if you can to hold more then Haxilfax and St. Johns then a line over a thousand kilometers line is required. Where does Canada get 100 something divisions to hold that? That isn't considering reserves either. If they don’t, then the line will just eventually be outflanked if not entirely isolated no matter how strong any one section might be. They can’t just pull hoards troops out of the western front either, least that front collapse and loose the war much quicker then loosing Canada would.

Sea Skimmer wrote: And thus is exactly the problem, the British stopped the Germans dead with absurdly massed forces while holding a continuous coast to Swiss line they had worked on for years. How many troops does Canada need to hold a line that dense against the US? Rather more I am sure, and then are available trained in Canada after four years of war. Of course I doubt the training camp cadres that would be available to fight would have ever even heard of the latest British defensive doctrines anyway. The British Army wasn’t even able to train units already in Europe to fully implement the ideas.

A typical WW1 division held only about 6-8km of front, and if you can to hold more then Haxilfax and St. Johns then a line over a thousand kilometers line is required. Where does Canada get 100 something divisions to hold that? That isn't considering reserves either. If they don’t, then the line will just eventually be outflanked if not entirely isolated no matter how strong any one section might be. They can’t just pull hoards troops out of the western front either, least that front collapse and loose the war much quicker then loosing Canada would.

Canadian forces would include Canadian troops that have been out on the front and are back for reforming/rest, the training for the All Arms Battle was actually ready at the start of 1918, the German offensive put the implementation of it back several months since it requires (defensively) a certain system of defences to be set up, which was not done before the Germans started their attacks, and once the attack commenced everything was moving back in disarray so no-one could get the offensive or defensive side going for a while.

If the US gets into the war, the Canadians, with no previous border defences to stick to and no constant mass shelling to disrupt their work, can have defensive lines covering the cities and perhaps the best passages between the great lakes ready well in time.

It's very true that they cannot hold a continuous line, but the All Arms Battle doesn't require such, any attack against it will need stupidly overwhelming force to even stand a chance of worrying it given the likely offensive tactics the Americans will use. And not even the US Army can sustain that level of losses for long.

Whilst its true that outflanking could be tried, initially its almost certain a direct thrust for the cities would be attempted, the sheer scale of losses that would be incurred, plus the effect on morale and likely the destruction in fighting terms of many of the better trained American units would stall any efforts to do anything for a while.

If/when the outflanking attacks are tried, the immediate Canadian defensive line will likely be preplanned as a curve so local flanking won't work, which means strategic flanking through 'unguarded' territory.

The problems here are thus:
1) Logistics, this huge American Army has literally been generated from nothing in a year or two, they simply don't have the logisitics train to support multiple long range operations, and even if they did, they'd be very vulnerable to having those lines cut by roving Canadian units, or land or in the air.
2) Firepower, as both offensives, German and Allied, in 1918 showed, unless you plan your advance inn huge detail and/or limit yourself to a set, steady, rate, you outrun your artillery and field guns very quickly. At that point a tiny number of men with machine guns and mortars can inflict vast casualties on advancing unsupported infantry. Throw in light and heavy tanks and entire brigades can be stopped by a half dozen vehicles. The American's don't have tanks, the Canadians do, along with armoured cars, these units supported by comparitively tiny detachments of mobile mortar and machine gun crews can inflict horrendous casualties on American forces advancing beyond the cover of whatever artillery they can come up with. If they hold their advance to the speed of such, plus digging in and prep time, then All Arms-trained Canadian units will be able to intercept and block them. Couple that with light tank units and air superiority, and even a slower, steady American advance could be stopped and itself flanked by smaller but more mobile defensive units, which would be able to remove the artillery support, leaving a reduced infantry force to make a fighting retreat.

The simple problem is that tactically and technologically the Americans are outmatched, to a degree that, coupled with the defenders natural advantage over the attacker, means that any offensive in 1918 is almost certainly going to be a failure, albeit Fate allowing some local successes as it always does. Even the German Army, after years of conflict, had no tactical answer to the All Arms tactics even after the British offensive moved into something more akin to a mobile war. That is not to dimiss the morale, supply and other issues the German Army faced, but simply to highlight the relevant point as to how hard the tactics were to counter at the time.

Against the forces that could realistically be fielded in Canada's defence in 1918, I honestly don't think a hastily constituted American Army, with inferior tactics and in many cases weapons, would make much significant progress, regardless of numbers (within the realms of reason). America desperately needs to catch up in both tactics and technology, and both of these can only really be accomplished with time, late 1919 to early 1920 at best to have captured, developed or otherwise come up with things like aircraft and tanks even vaguely on a par and have built enough, trained people on them and gotten them to the front line in numbers enough to make a difference. Tactics are somewhat harder to determine, but it would depend on how the 1918 campaign was fought, a series of heavy skirmishes would serve them best, allowing them to experience and learn from Canadian tactics without risking to many losses. Losses will be heavy and defeat will affect morale, but nowhere near the scale of a full offensive being turned.

The issue at the point however, is whether the will to fight is still there, given Germany will be long gone, and if these improvements are enough, since by then because of Germany going down other Allied troops will be making their appearance, and Allied tech and tactics will not have stood still either.

The linchpin of this however, is assuming the Canadians have generals willing and able to make use of the tactics, tech and mobility they have at their disposal. In a WW1 setting this is not a safe thing to assume as a blanket cover, but given the Canadians record in WW1 its probably safe to say they will be competantly commanded.


One issue I notice hasn't been addressed, Japan is a British ally, with the talk of the USN battleline and such, what account has been taken of the fact that Japanese naval and land forces will almost certainly be making a line straight for American Pacific holdings such as the Phillipines? The USN would be forced to split its forces in response.

An Ancient wrote: Canadian forces would include Canadian troops that have been out on the front and are back for reforming/rest,

Yeah, I really doubt the Canadian Army was shipping more then wounded men back to Canada in 1918 when moving men on troop transports meant heavy losses from the Spanish Flu. But thanks for indicating that you have no clue what manpower would be available.

the training for the All Arms Battle was actually ready at the start of 1918, the German offensive put the implementation of it back several months since it requires (defensively) a certain system of defences to be set up, which was not done before the Germans started their attacks, and once the attack commenced everything was moving back in disarray so no-one could get the offensive or defensive side going for a while.

Yeah and one of the main reasons why implementation was not completed, its not like they had to dig an entirely new trench system to add strong points, was lack of dissemination of information. The British Armies didn’t just fail to dig the required trenches in the southern sector of the front, they didn’t deploy in depth at all because they hadn’t been told that’d be the better idea.

If the US gets into the war, the Canadians, with no previous border defences to stick to and no constant mass shelling to disrupt their work, can have defensive lines covering the cities and perhaps the best passages between the great lakes ready well in time.

Yeah, so they’ll be stuck in less then optimal positions, and WW1 being WW1, the Canadians are not like to be able to push out the lines.

It's very true that they cannot hold a continuous line, but the All Arms Battle doesn't require such, any attack against it will need stupidly overwhelming force to even stand a chance of worrying it given the likely offensive tactics the Americans will use. And not even the US Army can sustain that level of losses for long.

That doesn’t work if the gap between strongpoint becomes multiple kilometers. You cannot form an effective static defense without closely spaced positions. Canada needs dozens of divisions to even begin to accomplish anything except the defense of small points.

Whilst its true that outflanking could be tried, initially its almost certain a direct thrust for the cities would be attempted, the sheer scale of losses that would be incurred, plus the effect on morale and likely the destruction in fighting terms of many of the better trained American units would stall any efforts to do anything for a while.

Just like the absurdly massive French and British German losses stopped the race to the sea short of the channel because no one felt like fighting anymore and it was too much trouble to walk around the enemy line? Your conclusions are as absurdly optimistic as ever.

If/when the outflanking attacks are tried, the immediate Canadian defensive line will likely be preplanned as a curve so local flanking won't work, which means strategic flanking through 'unguarded' territory.

Or just punch through the paper thin line of detached strongpoint you think will repel any attack even though you have no idea how many men are even available for over 1000km of front.

The problems here are thus:
1) Logistics, this huge American Army has literally been generated from nothing in a year or two, they simply don't have the logisitics train to support multiple long range operations, and even if they did, they'd be very vulnerable to having those lines cut by roving Canadian units, or land or in the air.

The US Army was able to move three million men into Europe and put over a million men into action 3,000 miles overseas during WW1. Logistics to go two hundred or so miles around an enemy are easily within reason.

Firepower, as both offensives, German and Allied, in 1918 showed, unless you plan your advance inn huge detail and/or limit yourself to a set, steady, rate, you outrun your artillery and field guns very quickly.

But that was against an enemy who had vast resources available, and a very dense railroad network that extended back in depth to move them around. Neither is true of Canada, especially not in 1918. The Germans kept back whole divisions and corps as counter attack forces, while Canada is unlikely to have the troops to even man the frontline. They’ll be stuck defending pockets, and pockets will die sooner or later as the US can start mining the St. Laurence seaway as soon as it captures some of the bank, besides sending its own submarines out.

At that point a tiny number of men with machine guns and mortars can inflict vast casualties on advancing unsupported infantry. Throw in light and heavy tanks and entire brigades can be stopped by a half dozen vehicles. The American's don't have tanks, the Canadians do, along with armoured cars, these units supported by comparitively tiny detachments of mobile mortar and machine gun crews can inflict horrendous casualties on American forces advancing beyond the cover of whatever artillery they can come up with.

Yeah, lots of tanks are in Canada in 1918 I’m sure. Along with 60 trained divisions just ready to leap out an preemptively invade America and destroy all its railroads. Of course any similar American effort is inherently doomed to fail.

If they hold their advance to the speed of such, plus digging in and prep time, then All Arms-trained Canadian units will be able to intercept and block them. Couple that with light tank units and air superiority, and even a slower, steady American advance could be stopped and itself flanked by smaller but more mobile defensive units, which would be able to remove the artillery support, leaving a reduced infantry force to make a fighting retreat.

I see, so Canada shall hold a 1000km line with armor, and defeat a superior force through counter attacks using its wounded men sent back to Canada. Yeah sure. I’m sure that every asset will be stripped out of the western front too, even though British and French forces are low on manpower and don’t have a flood of Americans to make up the difference too.

You strip enough out of Europe to try to save Canada and it wont even begin to matter, because France will collapse.

The simple problem is that tactically and technologically the Americans are outmatched, to a degree that, coupled with the defenders natural advantage over the attacker, means that any offensive in 1918 is almost certainly going to be a failure, albeit Fate allowing some local successes as it always does.

The defender has an advantage when he is in a stable position. He does not have any great advantage when his static positions can be encircled. Until you demonstrate that Canada has anything like the manpower needed to hold its boarder and a operationally relevant line you’ve got nothing. All the tactics in the world don’t fucking matter when you simply cannot oppose all your enemies attacks.

Even the German Army, after years of conflict, had no tactical answer to the All Arms tactics even after the British offensive moved into something more akin to a mobile war. That is not to dimiss the morale, supply and other issues the German Army faced, but simply to highlight the relevant point as to how hard the tactics were to counter at the time.

The major issue would be that the Germans lost almost 700,000 men in the Spring Offensive, while allied losses were completely equalized by deployment of American troops. Of course the Germans had no counter they would have folded under much lesser attacks.

Against the forces that could realistically be fielded in Canada's defence in 1918, I honestly don't think a hastily constituted American Army, with inferior tactics and in many cases weapons, would make much significant progress, regardless of numbers (within the realms of reason).

That is exactly the issue. How many men. We know America could throw together over a million men and at least give them rifles, and its armament position is vastly improved because it can now seize all the armaments being made for export already. In real life those orders had to keep going to Britain and France, and new production lines created for US Army needs. I do not believe that Canada has anything like them manpower needed for a continuous line or more then small pockets around its biggest cites. It certainly doesn’t make sense for Canada to have had any major formations kept at home, and it was already extensively, if maybe not very heavily mobilized.

Those city pockets will end up isolated, and while they may take some time to fall the starvation of the civilian populations is going to be a major issue. The rest of the country is just going to fall until only Halifax and St. Johns are left, as they can both be reliably supply by sea.

One issue I notice hasn't been addressed, Japan is a British ally, with the talk of the USN battleline and such, what account has been taken of the fact that Japanese naval and land forces will almost certainly be making a line straight for American Pacific holdings such as the Phillipines? The USN would be forced to split its forces in response.

The US would just abandon the Philippines and Guam. They have no real value aside from propaganda. The failure to fortify Guam made the Manila defenses irrelevant, as shown in 1941. No one is going to be stupid enough to send the US fleet off to defend a colony when its own coast is threatened.

Sea Skimmer wrote: That is exactly the issue. How many men. We know America could throw together over a million men and at least give them rifles, and its armament position is vastly improved because it can now seize all the armaments being made for export already. In real life those orders had to keep going to Britain and France, and new production lines created for US Army needs. I do not believe that Canada has anything like them manpower needed for a continuous line or more then small pockets around its biggest cites. It certainly doesn’t make sense for Canada to have had any major formations kept at home, and it was already extensively, if maybe not very heavily mobilized.

Incidentally as far as rifles go, there is an additional source as historically the Russian Government ordered 1.5 million of its current model Mosin-Nagant Rifles from Remington Arms, and 1.8 million from New England Westinghouse, and hundreds of thousands were still undelivered as of the Russian Revolution. Historically the US government bought these to save the companies from financial ruin, but the were merely used to arm the British and US expeditionary forces sent to Siberia to support the White Russian and 50,000 were used to arm the Czechoslovak Legions with the remainder used in a training role for US troops. Since it was in fact a reasonably decent rifle, I would expect them to be fully employed by US troops in a combat role in this scenario.

Peak strength of the CEF was 388,038 all ranks in July 1918. There were also 60,000 militia and 3,000 Permanent Force in Canada... At most. The Prime Minister had ignored the standarding army and its mobilization plans and appealed to volunteers leading to the CEF, and probably a lot of the militia volunteered for it. At that time the Canadians were maintaining forces sufficient for 5 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry brigade, the Canadian Railway Troops, and the Canadian Forrestry Corps, specialist units for railway operation and timber cutting respectively as well as a few specialist units for the interventions in Russia. Only four of the divisions saw action however because the level of mobilization was so high relative to the population that the British did not believe a fifth division could be kept at full strength.

An Ancient wrote:

PainRack wrote:Just a question here, could the Americans have invaded Canada in 1918?

Unlikely, even assuming they mass a sufficiently large force of men, they simply lack the tactics and equipment to overcome a defensive line manned by veterans and/or those trained by them.

It is absurd to claim that Canada could have survived a war agaisnt the US around 1918. The US population was 12 times the Canadian at the time, and their industrial resources were around 15 times bigger as well (source: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/indrevtabs1.html). Canada had a large border, with means that the US numerical inferiority will be magnified.

Even if the US didn't have a large military at the start of the war, they would have won with time, gaining experience. Since the US had 4 million men under arms at the end of WW1, they could steamroll over Canada after they transported their troops back to home.

To claim that the US couldn't conquer Canada is like claiming that Germany couldn't conquer Denmark.

That's funny, since the US tried to conquer Canada twice and lost very badly both times.

Elfdart wrote:That's funny, since the US tried to conquer Canada twice and lost very badly both times.

The last time was in 1812, when England had a larger population and New England refused to provide militia for the offensive. They thought the war was retarded and wanted to go back to trading with England.

The United States a century later was slightly stronger.

Iosef Cross wrote:
To claim that the US couldn't conquer Canada is like claiming that Germany couldn't conquer Denmark.

Which happened in 1848 - 1851; the German coalition couldn't even wrest away a province. Situational context is far more important than such ridiculous reductions to generalization, to be blunt.

Well... yes situational context is everything, but in this case I'd expect that context would be on the side of the big batallions.

I doubt that Canada could fend off the US indefinitely, not in the industrial era. Back in the age of musketry, logistics prevented the US from bringing its overwhelming advantage of size to bear. By WWI, this was no longer true. The US was in a position to build enough ships to make supplying a large European force in North America very difficult, and to push against the border with more men and munitions than the Canadians could realistically mobilize to fight back with.

Look at what happened to countries like Serbia and Romania during World War One. They were gobbled up in short order because they didn't have the manpower or territorial depth to stop an offensive by one of the great powers. Advantage of the defensive or not, it's nearly impossible to stop an enemy and keep him stopped at that kind of odds.

Now, the Canadians might, for all I know, stop the initial US invasion and turn the war into a slow, grinding bloodbath. I don't feel qualified to say whether or not that would happen. But if they did, it would have more to do with the US attacking before its forces were fully mobilized, and less to do with the US lacking the assets to win the war in the long run.