The old Chamberlain debate...again

[Michael Emrys]

I didn't want to sidetrack another thread even further than it has already been sidetracked, so I thought I should start a new one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by noob

So because of Chamberlain's failure to stand up to Hitler we can bomb villages if we think the civilians are making ammo ?

Yep. Because of he'd been on the ball it might not have come to that...one could argue because he wanted to avoid bloodshed he ended up causing much more. Placation is never the answer.

I think it may be a mistake to think that Chamberlain gave the farm away at Munich in the hope that war with Germany could be completely avoided. He might have wished for that, but I think he was enough of a realist to know that it was far from certain. See, the thing is, Germany had managed to steal a march when it came to rearming. As it turned out, not as big a one as was feared and Chamberlain might well have been able to successfully call Hitler's bluff at Munich had he known the true state of affairs.

But he didn't. It looked as though Germany was ready to go to war while the Allies were not. Although the combined industrial capacity of the Allies was much greater than Germany's at the time, it was felt that a year or two of peacetime production would be needed to catch up and then surpass Germany's early lead.

So Munich was to buy time. It didn't buy as much time as was hoped and meanwhile Germany continued to pull ahead in armed force. And when France went down two years later, it took a huge chunk of Allied force with it. The rest is history.

Michael

[sburke]

I didn't want to sidetrack another thread even further than it has already been sidetracked, so I thought I should start a new one.

I think it may be a mistake to think that Chamberlain gave the farm away at Munich in the hope that war with Germany could be completely avoided. He might have wished for that, but I think he was enough of a realist to know that it was far from certain. See, the thing is, Germany had managed to steal a march when it came to rearming. As it turned out, not as big a one as was feared and Chamberlain might well have been able to successfully call Hitler's bluff at Munich had he known the true state of affairs.

But he didn't. It looked as though Germany was ready to go to war while the Allies were not. Although the combined industrial capacity of the Allies was much greater than Germany's at the time, it was felt that a year or two of peacetime production would be needed to catch up and then surpass Germany's early lead.

So Munich was to buy time. It didn't buy as much time as was hoped and meanwhile Germany continued to pull ahead in armed force. And when France went down two years later, it took a huge chunk of Allied force with it. The rest is history.

Michael

So you think it is okay to kill women and children?

Only kidding Michael, I just couldn't resist.

Personally I think it goes back to the question of consequences. All choices have them. Sometimes we feel better thinking that we made a "passive" choice. Somehow we talk ourselves into feeling better about it when in reality all we have done is absolved ourselves of the consequences of those choices because it was passive and somehow we are not responsible then. It takes passive aggressive to a whole new level.

Chamberlain made a decision to not act allowing others to bear the burden of his decision. On the other hand suppose Germany had not defeated the Allies in the battle for France. Assume for the moment that the attack through the Ardennes failed. What would we now say about Munich? That it was the right choice and eventually Germany forced our hand or it was the wrong choice even then?

In hindsight we know he was wrong and that he was talking to an absolute madman. Chamberlain on the other hand was working with a Europe acutely aware of the cost of war not 20 years prior. It was something they felt they needed to avoid at all cost. Hitler was not that far extreme from a lot of the politicial right. Hitler had folks in many countries agreeing with his viewpoint including the US and Britain. Again hindsight offers us more perspective than what was available at the time. Anti semitism isn't new and in fact the allies response to the Jews trying to flee Germany reveals at least partly why we really didn't understand the threat.

What might be more interesting is if we do not then ask if Potsdam wasn't a Munich all over again? Was it okay to leave Eastern Europe to Soviet Russia if we feel Munich was wrong? What is the fundamental difference?

[womble]

Was it okay to leave Eastern Europe to Soviet Russia if we feel Munich was wrong? What is the fundamental difference?

The nukes (and the conventional warfare, including firebombing of civilian population centres - yes, that was conventional at the time, I'd say) it would have taken to drive the Russians back out of Eastern Europe would possibly have killed more people than were killed by the communist regimes post-war. Stalin's bodycount in purges and pogroms did, assuredly, match or exceed Hitler's but a good chunk of that was pre-VE day. That's not to mention that there was no guarantee that Nuking Moscow, Kiev and Stalingrad and Leningrad would've brought the Soviets to the negotiating table, and the consequences of the conflict being prolonged until the Soviets got nukes just doesn't really bear thinking about.

In Munich, things hadn't got started. In 1945, the heavyweights were well into the swing of things.

[sburke]

The nukes (and the conventional warfare, including firebombing of civilian population centres - yes, that was conventional at the time, I'd say) it would have taken to drive the Russians back out of Eastern Europe would possibly have killed more people than were killed by the communist regimes post-war. Stalin's bodycount in purges and pogroms did, assuredly, match or exceed Hitler's but a good chunk of that was pre-VE day. That's not to mention that there was no guarantee that Nuking Moscow, Kiev and Stalingrad and Leningrad would've brought the Soviets to the negotiating table, and the consequences of the conflict being prolonged until the Soviets got nukes just doesn't really bear thinking about.

In Munich, things hadn't got started. In 1945, the heavyweights were well into the swing of things.

True, but supposing the US, Britain and France had taken a harder line and the Soviets had backed down. Supposing we knew in hindsight that that was possible (not saying it was, just trying to create a comparable situation to Munich). Would that not mean Potsdam was a failure and a failure on the same terms as Munich. A failure of nerve to stand up for others at your own risk?

He did not know what Hitler was going to do after Munich so we evaluate Chamberlain based on info we have that he did not. I always felt that history has treated him poorly exactly because we know the result, not based on what he knew at the time or the standards of the world he lived in.

We still had the nukes in August 1945 and Russia did not, what's more they KNEW we had them and we KNEW they did not. There was a brief window there of absolute military superiority that we could potentially have exploited. Instead we acquiesed to an occupation that would last many decades. I don't think it is really all that different than what Chamberlain thought he was doing in Munich and for a lot smaller number of people affected.

[Erwin]

I think the average soldier had had enough and was already unwilling to fight hard at the war's end. Expecting them to start up vs the Soviets after all the propaganda that the Soviets were our beloved Allies would have been unbearable and could arguably have led to rebellions/revolutions.

It took years to convince the western populations that the Soviets were evil and hence the Cold War.

[sburke]

I think the average soldier had had enough and was already unwilling to fight hard at the war's end. Expecting them to start up vs the Soviets after all the propaganda that the Soviets were our beloved Allies would have been unbearable and could arguably have led to rebellions/revolutions.

It took years to convince the western populations that the Soviets were evil and hence the Cold War.

I think the same could be said for Munich. WW1 was still very fresh in everyone's minds. Europe was still suffering the effects of so many young men being lost in a single generation. I am not advocating that a different decsion being made in Potsdam. I am simply pointing out the similarity of the two. Hindsight serves to show that the cost at Munich was world war 2, Potsdam was the cold war. However at the time of the decison the knowledge of where either would leave was unknown and the expectations were similar.

[Sgt Joch]

Of course Munich was a mistake in hindsight, but history is a series of real time events where individuals make decisions under pressure with imperfect information, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. I am pretty sure Hitler regretted "Barbarossa" as well...

No one stood up to Hitler when there was time, not the French, not Roosevelt, not Stalin, why keep blaming poor Neville...

Since then "Munich" has been used to justify the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in 56, U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, etc. I presume those were not mistakes?

[Redwolf]

Sburke makes a very good point.

Chamberlain and Munich. OK, goofed up, got a war.

If the cold war had gotten hot and devastated the planet with nukes would we or our children see the complacency toward eastern europe being forced into the Soviet zone the same way? Wouldn't a fight, no matter how hard, before nukes have been the better alternative?

[Peregrine]

We still had the nukes in August 1945 and Russia did not, what's more they KNEW we had them and we KNEW they did not. There was a brief window there of absolute military superiority that we could potentially have exploited. Instead we acquiesed to an occupation that would last many decades. I don't think it is really all that different than what Chamberlain thought he was doing in Munich and for a lot smaller number of people affected.

Big stretch thinking that the US with the support of allies would be nuking Russia late in 1945 in any situation.

Would the West just have just kept fighting after beating Germany? Taken a month to resupply and refit then started a new war? Or done nothing then wait until a weapon was available for Europe late 45 and threatened and eventually use it through escalation?

The Russians didn't really start reneging on their side of the European carve up until even later.

It took a long time for the US to actively fight for Democracy in Western Europe in the first place. To think they would continue to fight in that period of time for Eastern Europe is not realistic. Russia was an ally.

[Sequoia]

IIRC after the US dropped the two bombs on Japan in August '45 there were no more A-bombs and it would have taken many months to construct some more. Does any one else remember it this way?

[JonS]

IIRC after the US dropped the two bombs on Japan in August '45 there were no more A-bombs and it would have taken many months to construct some more. Does any one else remember it this way?

Yeah, broadly. Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and Trinity) used up all the material to hand. I think they could produced on more in 1945, but then it would have been 6-12 months before the next was ready. After that, though, production would have been reasonably large and sustainable.

Oop, no. I remember wrong. Seven more available by the end of Oct 45, apparently.

[Mord]

Two reasons history slaps Neville upside his head in my opinion. One, because Churchill was running around ringing the Hitler alarm to just about anyone that would listen...and the most important;

"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine…. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time."

You say something like that and have things go the way they did...LOL you kinda deserve to get stuck with the stigma. I don't buy that Ol' Neville was planning an elaborate chess move...my opinion is he was a weary man who believed words and paper would purchase peace...willfully naive. When you place him side by side with Churchill he looks like an ostrich with his head in the sand.

Though, I will hand it to Emrys, that is a good argument.

Mord.

[Andrew H.]

Yeah, broadly. Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and Trinity) used up all the material to hand. I think they could produced on more in 1945, but then it would have been 6-12 months before the next was ready. After that, though, production would have been reasonably large and sustainable.

Oop, no. I remember wrong. Seven more available by the end of Oct 45, apparently.

While the atomic bombs certainly brought an end to the war against the Japanese, it's important to keep in mind that the Japanese were basically already militarily defeated by the time the bombs were dropped; they just hadn't admitted it to themselves yet.

I don't think that atomic bombs would have had the same war-winning effect against the victorious USSR as they did against the Japanese. For one thing, there is the problem of delivering the bombs - japan was virtually denuded of aircraft, but the USSR had tens of thousands of aircraft (I'm not sure how many, but they produced 40,000 in 1944 alone). I'm not sure you could get any bombers from the UK all the way to Moscow or Leningrad at all - but certainly you wouldn't want to risk your rare atomic bombs on that chance until you have much better odds of getting there alive. And trying to bomb factories in the Urals would be even more difficult. Meanwhile, the Red Army is sitting right across from you in Germany.

Second, the USSR lost more than 600,000 people in the siege of Leningrad. Not that they want to get nuked - but the 60-80,000 people an early bomb could kill under ideal circumstances wasn't the worst thing that they'd seen. (And note that the Japanese were basically strolling about when the bombs were dropped; used to 1,000 bomber raids they didn't really pay attention to a lone bomber overhead. I wonder about the effectiveness of these bombs against people in bomb shelters in stone cities.)

[JonS]

While the atomic bombs certainly brought an end to the war against the Japanese

Aaaakshullly ... there's a fairly strong case that it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria that tipped the Japanese hierarchy over the edge and caused the surrender. The nukes provided some additional impetus, but don't seem to have been decisive. Apart from anything else, the B-29 firebombing raids had already been more destructive. There's relatively little evidence that the US nuclear bombings directly drove the surrender, apart from coincidental timing.

For one thing, there is the problem of delivering the bombs - japan was virtually denuded of aircraft, but the USSR had tens of thousands of aircraft (I'm not sure how many, but they produced 40,000 in 1944 alone).

I'm no expert on the VVS, but my understanding is that they were brilliant down low, but most hopeless at the altitudes that the British and US heavies were capable of operating at. They'd also never really had to implement and operate the kind of in-depth, layered air defence system that would have been required. I should think that once any in-bound bombers got past the eastern border of what became East Germany, they'd be flying free.

[sburke]

I wasn't really trying to spur a discussion of whether we could have fought a war with the Soviet Union or not. It was more to pose a counterpoint to Munich where the decisions while similar are not viewed in the same vein.

However having already headed down that road - we'd have to assume a couple items that weigh heavily against the Soviet Union.

1- Lend lease stopped immediately with the termination of hostilities. No more trains, engines, wheat etc etc The USSR would have to fight with it's own resources which while many were also geared a certain way based on what it had been acquiring from the US.

From wikipedia:

Much of the aid can be better understood when considering the economic distortions caused by the war. Most belligerent powers cut back severely on production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. This inevitably produced shortages of related products needed by the military or as part of the military-industrial complex.

The USSR was highly dependent on rail transportation, but the war practically shut down rail equipment production: only about 92 locomotives were produced. 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railcars were supplied under Lend-Lease. Likewise, the Soviet air force received 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[16]

Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks. Indeed by 1945 nearly two-thirds of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3/4 ton and Studebaker 2½ ton, were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminium, canned rations, and clothing were also critical.

2- The oil fields that Germany tried and failed to reach would likely have had different problems from allied aircraft operating from Iran. Without fuel, the Soviet tank park sitting in East Germany would have faced a serious dilemma. While the allies had all paid a price for victory, the US economic engine was untouched. The USSR on the other hand was functioning on a level that was not sustainable on it's own resources.

If war is essentially a matter of logistics, then the Western allies were heavily favored. The USSR had no Navy to threaten us with, the ability to counter the US and British air forces on multiple fronts is doubtful. Think for a moment what the US naval forces could have done to Soviet Logistics from the Baltic with the size of our carrier fleet. Just the threat would force dispersion of Soviet aircraft defenses, which in turn would leave Soviet ground forces in Germany vulnerable to ground attack.

[Collingwood]

Aaaakshullly ... there's a fairly strong case that it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria that tipped the Japanese hierarchy over the edge and caused the surrender. The nukes provided some additional impetus, but don't seem to have been decisive.

Stalin and Molotov both knew Japan was practically defeated already and drew the conclusion that the two A-Bombs were a direct message to the USSR.

[sburke]

Stalin and Molotov both knew Japan was practically defeated already and drew the conclusion that the two A-Bombs were a direct message to the USSR.

If that is actually true (I don't know one way or the other, it is certainly possible) then that takes us right back to Potsdam. If we were so clearly recognizing the Soviets as an antagonist that we would drop the bomb on another country as a message to them, certainly Potsdam has to be seen as somewhat of a failure at establishing a post war order.

On the other hand if we did drop the bomb on Japan just as a warning to Russia - that would certainly go onto the books as a particularly heinous and calculated war crime. I personally doubt that was the case. It may have been an unintended side effect, but there would have been no reason to have dropped a second. I am still of the opinion that the total cultural disconnect between America and Japan had a lot to do with the brutality of that conflict and the mis communications that lead to even more tragic consequences.

[Peregrine]

Stalin and Molotov both knew Japan was practically defeated already and drew the conclusion that the two A-Bombs were a direct message to the USSR.

Stalin would definitely have been paranoid enough to think that whether it was true or not.

[JonS]

Stalin would definitely have been paranoid enough to think that whether it was true or not.

Yeah, that's my take too. Making a point to the Russians may have played some part in the US decision making process, but I doubt it was a factor of any significance. In particular, I doubt it had any bearing at all on the go/no-go decision.

[Collingwood]

... certainly Potsdam has to be seen as somewhat of a failure at establishing a post war order.

On the other hand if we did drop the bomb on Japan just as a warning to Russia - that would certainly go onto the books as a particularly heinous and calculated war crime.

Absolutely Potsdam was a failure from a Western point of view, and -

Stalin would definitely have been paranoid enough to think that whether it was true or not.

Agreed. To be clear, I'm saying this is the conclusion drawn by Stalin and Molotov (Molotov on hearing of the A-Bombs said "They're raising the price" in respect to the states they annexed).

But I don't think the US was aware of just how totally paranoid things were in the USSR. Stalin and the politburo were constantly jumping at their own shadows, let alone foreign ones. I too doubt that it would have been a case of "lets nuke two japanese cities to send a message to Stalin".

[LongLeftFlank]

(relocated this post from a different thread as seems more relevant here)

The use of the atomic bomb was controversial within the upper stratum of US policymaking that knew of its existence -- and such objections as existed were moral ones; there was really no military argument to make. Sending a single A-bomber was infinitely more economical and safer (for US personnel) than sending a thousand with incendiaries.

There was at least one guy (name escapes me) in the State Department who advocated for a "demonstration" strike in a visible location offshore before using the thing for real. But Truman decided to go live, on the advice of his commanders, who did not believe such a demo would make any impression on the fanatical Japanese leadership and would merely waste time.

Various other motivations have been ascribed to the decisionmakers' haste, mainly in hindsight (e.g. they were afraid the Russians would occupy all of Korea and Northern China). But I never personally bought those arguments.

On no particular documentary evidence, I suspect that in spite of quiet Japanese overtures offering to discuss a not-quite-unconditional-cessation-of-war, some US leaders thought that a people whose mothers threw their babies off cliffs rather than surrender (that got a LOT of press back home) were so far gone from "human" that they might not quit even if all their major cities were laid in ashes. So why not "get on with it" (and not "waste" the very limited stockpile of Bombs)? before they "dispersed" their remaining warmaking potential in some (undefined) manner or perhaps devised some kind of improved antibomber/antiship weapon (again undefined, but the Kamikaze had also come as a nasty shock in 1944, so nothing was put past them) that would further protract the war. Again, concerns only disprovable in hindsight but keeping people awake at night then.

[Erwin]

We have to put ourselves in the minds of a people (Allies) who were tired of fighting and taking horrific casualties. All we knew is that the Japs were fanatics who would fight to the last man, woman and child (they'd already seen what that meant in Europe, and the Japs were even more fanatic).

The Jap faction that wanted peace was not ascendant until AFTER the Atomic bombs were dropped, at which point the Emperor stepped in to override his military fanatic Supreme HQ types.

[C'Rogers]

Sgt. Joch:

history is a series of real time events

I'm sorry, but history is WeGo only. People sit around planning for an extreme amount of time, decide to implement a strategy, then they lose total control and can only watch helplessly as everything goes to hell in a shockingly short period.

[Vanir Ausf B]

^^^

+1 Lol!

[Chek]

Yep C'Rogers is onto something,once those bullets and bombs start flying we are now in a world of pure chaos and anything can happen.