WI: WWI Lend Lease?

[Corbell Mark IV]

THere has been a lot of discussion on Lend Lease recently.

I started wondering if a similar program could have been done during WWI and if such an effort could have kept Czarist Russian in the war, and if so what the results would have been.

Could it have been done economically, militarily and politically? Who would have done it?

What would have been best for them to send?

Could it help the Russians enough to keep them in the war and to prevent the fall of the Czarist system?

And of course to prevent the rise of the Communist?

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

No one else finds this concept interesting?

 

[Just Leo]

Russia wasn't broke. They were corrupt and incompetent. Lend Lease does nothing to fix it.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

I doubt Wilson would go for it with Russia.

He was an enemy of absolutism and imperialism, both main staples of the czarist regime, plus as said before, it most like would be lost to corruption and gross mismanagement any how.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

I have heard that famine contributed to the fall of the Czars. If that is true, food shippments alone could have made a tremendous contribution.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

Russia wasn't broke. They were corrupt and incompetent. Lend Lease does nothing to fix it.

Corrupt and incompetent with full bellies and more/better weapons does better than corrupt and incompetent without.

DOesn't it?

 

[Mirage]

Didn't the russians receive weapons/supplies from the Entente at least to a certain degree? IRRC the western intervention into the russian civil war was in part to secure these weapons/supplies from falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Supplying Russia in WW1 was very tough and Western Allied shipments were prioritized over Russia. Understand the US too was not as industrialized in terms of weaponry as it would be in WW2, the US mainly supplied resources and some non-weapon gear. When the US army got to Europe in 1917-18 it was mainly supplied by the French and British, rather than its own industry; in WW2 the US had a lot more military-industrial complex due to the industry it built up during WW1 and in the 1920s (namely the auto and aviation industry). Without WW1 and the post-war boom (that led to the Great Depression) the US would have been relatively unable to compete in terms of military industry outside of naval matters. WW1 and its aftermath created the conditions to make the US capable of doing LL in WW2.

In WW1 it simply could not meet the needs of the Soviets, it was better off supplying the French and British with raw materials and other industrial support so that they could use their industry to supply the Soviets.

Didn't the russians receive weapons/supplies from the Entente at least to a certain degree? IRRC the western intervention into the russian civil war was in part to secure these weapons/supplies from falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

Absolutely, the French and British sent a lot of supplies and weapons to the Russians.

 

[jmc247]

After a few U.S. LL ships get sunk America enters the war by 1915.

The Central Powers are utterly screwed. The Turks probably lose Istanbul which becomes Constantinople again. Germany is forced to suffer a worse ToV with more significant annexations.

Poland doesn't exist, bigger areas of Eastern Germany get annexed into the Russian Empire.

 

[Just Leo]

Corrupt and incompetent with full bellies and more/better weapons does better than corrupt and incompetent without.

DOesn't it?

If it were to occur, the corrupt and incompetent would be in charge of the "free food" and who was to get it, as per Ukraine 1930s, the time when pets disappeared. The United States did lend and sell to Czarist Russia, but didn't attempt to collect from the Soviets. Sorta like lend-lease, without the intent.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Forget the corruption, though it was an added complication, my understanding of the issue is the Russians simply did not have good enough rail links to the ports that could be reached by their allies during World War 1.

It really is no good sending them more because even if they were going to steal it the corrupt officials and noblemen would need to somehow get to the docks where all the supplies would be piling up due to the rail and road transport bottlenecks.

The reason supplies could be gotten to the Soviets in 1941-45 was simply they had the infrastructure to receive it even with the normal percentage stolen in transit.