Hindsight 202: USA if the British had gone belly up in 1941

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by redwolf:

2) If Britain went out of the war Germany would probably not have been required to invade Greece and Yugoslavia. Norway would not have to be occupied the way it was, along with Denmark. I think that frees a lot more resources than just the DAK.

I thought the assumption was that Britain would come to terms after the defeat of France. That would put it after the invasions of Denmark and Norway.

I agree about Greece and Yugoslavia...maybe. That issue is complicated by Mussolini's actions. He invaded Greece without informing Hitler ahead of time. Presumably he gets bogged down as historically and the question then is whether Hitler bails him out. Without Britain in the war, there is less reason for Germany to get involved and Hitler might have been willing to simply let Mussolini stew in his own juice.

Without Britain in the war, there are no invasions of British Somalia or Egypt, so does Italy make a grab for Tunisia? Quite possible and hard to say how that would have gone, but likely another Greece, except that in the first instance Italy would have been more likely to use diplomatic pressure to wring concessions from Vichy.

Michael

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

2) If Britain went out of the war Germany would probably not have been required to invade Greece and Yugoslavia. Norway would not have to be occupied the way it was, along with Denmark. I think that frees a lot more resources than just the DAK.

I thought the assumption was that Britain would come to terms after the defeat of France. That would put it after the invasions of Denmark and Norway.

</font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by redwolf:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

2) If Britain went out of the war Germany would probably not have been required to invade Greece and Yugoslavia. Norway would not have to be occupied the way it was, along with Denmark. I think that frees a lot more resources than just the DAK.

I thought the assumption was that Britain would come to terms after the defeat of France. That would put it after the invasions of Denmark and Norway.

</font>

[Demonize666]

Originally posted by Midnight Warrior:

1.

2. Probably.

Hitlers stated reason for attacking Russia was that he thought that this would be a back door way ofbeating the British in that he thought that it was insane for the British to continue the war alone against german and thus they must be puting their hope that the Soviet Union would eventually join the allied side. Hitler thought that a quick defeat of Russia would demoralize Britain and cause them to throw in the towel.

Im suprised the real reason why germany attacked russia is not known

In short, it was a pre-emptive strike

"operation thunder" as it translates from russian tongue, was a planned attack by stalin to begin an aggressive, all out war to conquer germany. this was planned to begin in july, Which was literally two weeks after hitler launched "operation barbarossa" (after hitler found out what stalin was upto)

There is a lengthy document about somewhere on the web that collates all the facts (i used to have it, but seemed to have deleted it by accident!)

Simply put, stalin helped hitler rise to power in germany through various ways (while germany was restricted by the versaille treaty, etc)

His plan was to create a war in europe, have germany conquer it all, and then "liberate" all of europe (including britain) under the soviet flag (thereby extending communism)

During the early war years & pre war years, russia was developing weopons to be used in this "european theatre", things like the BTseries, "fast" tanks that reach high speeds, these tanks had very narrow tracks that were detachable to leave road wheels to be used on roads for even higher speeds (being able to perform fast, deep penetrative maneuvres). these were produced in large qauntities in anticipation of this war, which was to be fought on the good roads of western europe (as there use on the mired mud tracks of russia at the time wasn't of much use if the war was to be fought in russia!(which they didnt plan for(which is why russia got completely decimated at the start of barbarossa: they werent prepared at all for it, but thats another story))

Other things were the massive build-up of russian forces on the german territory borders after poland capitulated ( and right upto barbarossa ),

Something like 300plus divisions, all trained in the art of offense, stalin wouldnt have them trained in defense at all, thinking that defensive training wasnt nesassary (this was all-out offense the war he had in mind), which was another reason the russians lost so much after hitler attacked first.

Another thing of note was that that practicly all of hitlers oil supply was in the ploesti region (which was a mere 100 miles from the russian border, were masses of divisions were waiting to pounce!), if this was captured (as was planned in operation thunder) hitler armies would have been paralysed, allowing russia an even greater advantage (which was one of the main reasons why operation barbarossa occured)

So, with germany & hitler defeated in an all-out offense by stalin, off he would go to "liberate" france, & all the other countries hitler conquered, more than likely go on to invade itlay, BRITAIN! (battle of britain re-written!!)

Perhaps then on to the usa & ultimate domination & success of communism.

Hitler attacking first didnt spoil his plans entirley though (for he did occupy every country from berlin eastwards after the war & "communize it", iron curtain, etc. Plus its one of the main reaosn D-Day/ the normandy landings was done asap (to prevent as many countries as possible falling into russian hands) & restore democracy

Strange how one event can have such a vast outcome in the future of humanity, if "operation thunder" had succeeded, there would be no United nations, all europe would have been occuppied, the US wouldn't have profited from the war & become a superpower, either itself conquered, or at the very least, isolated.

The world would be VERY different today indeed if this had happened

(Even though hitler was Immensly evil, he did save the world from the other "evil" in the east)

Sends a chill down my spine that story does

(and one of the reasons why i always play axis in CMBB, heh!)

Ps, ill see if i can get the document and post it here if i ever find it

[Redwolf]

Except even all the German officers who wrote about Barbarossa after the war said the Red Army wasn't in any state to do offensive operations that year.

Can we stay serious here?

[dalem]

Originally posted by Demonize666:

Ps, ill see if i can get the document and post it here if i ever find it

Please read Glantz' "Stumbling Colossus" instead. It puts a nice stake through the heart of that idea.

-dale

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Demonize666:

Im suprised the real reason why germany attacked russia is not known

In short, it was a pre-emptive strike

Tosh. One of the things that get trotted out time and again by apologists trying to get the blame shifted from Adolf. If you want to know the reasons, you look at Vol. IV of the 'Germany and the 2nd World War' by the MGFA (Office of Military History of the Bundeswehr), which has a good treatment of this topic. That is to all intents and purposes the official German history of the war.

Alternatively, do a search on the CMBB forum where this has been discussed.

Any bets how long it will take until Schoerner turns up?

[Dan Robertson]

Many posters appear to have interpreted the question as what would happen if Hitler had conquered the UK.

For reasons of logistics the German were at no point capable of invading the UK, and as time moved on the chances reduced. Since the UK and Germanys economic capabilities were not that much different the Germans would never have been able to produce enough equipment to achieve superiority over the UK, especially since in all things naval (bar subs) they were vastly inferior.

We therefore have to look at the possibility of an arranged peace. Churchill was not universally popular and many people believed that the war on the continent need not be spread to the UK.

So what would the terms of the UK-German armistice be? To be acceptable the settlement would have to be something along the lines of a mutual acceptance of the status quo.

I doubt that any conditions of security could really be imposed. The chances of the UK allowing the Germans to garrison forces there are minimal. Even if such a deal were struck the government would be out in a day and the people of the UK would be ready to fight.

The population were against the war because they thought that we were getting bombed because we were interfereing in a war on the continent.

People would be willing to give up the war if it results in someone else being conquered, but not if it results in they themselves being conquered.

Any deal has to allow the UK to retire gracefully or it would have to opposite effect and harden the UK populace against Germany as the bombing eventually did.

Also Hitler never had any territorial ambitions to take the UK, in fact he modelled his future empire on the British Empire and under the racial policies of the Nazis the Anglo-Saxon people of the UK would probably have been considered Aryans. In fact Hitler never actually wanted conflict with the UK and invaded Poland on the belief that France and the UK wouldn't declare war on him.

The greatest concession that Germany might be able to demand is that the UK does not import weapons from US and they may demand the right to inspect vessels from America. They would also probably demand that the UK does not itself export weapons to fight the Germans by proxy.

Thus the UK would still continue to build weapons should they need to fight the Germans again. The population will probably not be willing the put as much money aside to build weapons but this will be counter balanced by the fact that there will be no losses from enemy action in this time.

Thus Hitler will not be able to leave Western Europe completely undefended. However he will still gain a benefit in the numbers of men he can field against Russia, he will also have a much greater number of aircraft (1600 or so more).

However the main advantage will be a loss of Lend Lease. The Russians will not receive any equipment from the Western Allies. Without the UK to provide a link between the US and the USSR I doubt that US equipment would be shipped to the USSR and I believe that the Germans could successfully demand that the UK provide no lend lease to the USSR either.

Since Hitler declared war on the US because they were an ally of the UK. With the UK out of the war he probably wouldn't declare war on the US after the Japanese strike the US at Pearl Harbour.

The additional manpower and the lack of Lend Lease in my opinion would have cause the Germans to win the battle in the East. As it was they came quite close to achieving this. These additional factors would swing it Germanys way.

Once they captured Moscow the Germans would be in a very advantageous position to win the in East since the Soviets were very centralised and many of the countries key transport and communications links ran through Moscow.

After the capture of Moscow the USSR would still be very powerful but they would cease to be a fully functional state and the Germans could defeat what remained individually. However occupying and pacifying the USSR would take the Germans years. Personally I think this would ware out Germany.

In the mean time the war in the Pacific would go off pretty similarly the Japanese always want a piece of the Americans and British. The Japanese would probably lose even sooner because the entire British and American effort will be concentrated on them.

What happens next depends on one thing, nuclear weapons:

We can safely say that the Germans are unlikely to create nuclear weapons first. Post war secret recordings of the top German scientists (records of private conversations between then record secretly) showed that they didn't have a clue how to actually make a nuclear device, and previous to the Americans detonating one they didn't believe it was possible. Their idea of a device was to drop a nuclear reactor that was going critical.

Thus we can assume that the US will be first to develop and atom bomb and will probably use it on Japan. However what happens next will depend on whether or not the Germans can recreate the atom bomb like the Soviets did.

Should they be able to create the atom bomb then what we will see is a similar situation to the cold war with the US/UK verses the German controlled Europe. Both sides armed with atom bombs so they cannot directly fight each other so they fight each other by proxy until the Nazi controlled area fragments under civil war due to the corrupt and oppressive regime of the Nazis. This would certainly happen with the death of Hitler, who wasn't a young man so would almost certainly be dead by ~1960. Provided MI6 didn't do it first

In the event of the Nazis not managing to build an atom bomb we then arise the situation in 1946/7 where we have a UK and US fully tooled up for war with nuclear weapons. What is more the brutality of the Nazi regime will almost certainly leak out and details of the holocaust would probably be enough to rouse the US/UK into action.

A small number of nuclear weapons are dropped on Germany (either that or what is described below simply happens with the threat of nuclear weapons). The upper echelons of the Nazis go into crisis with the groups that think they can get away with what they have done trying to oust the hard core Nazis who know that they cannot make a deal for their own personal survival. In the ensuing civil war the armies of the allies storm through into Germany as the German army has been spread all over the empire and is still engaged in the vastness of Russia.

Personally I think it unlikely that the Germans would develop nuclear weapons in time. The Soviets were able to develop nuclear weapons in such a short time not lease because they had capable spies in the US/UK. However with the capture of the USSR these spies will be lost, since most spies at that time were Socialist sympathisers. German spying efforts were by comparison clumsy, with the majority (sometimes it is claimed all) of Germany spies actually sending their reports back from strangways prison.

In conclusion we can see that even a relatively small decision between two nations could have had massive impacts. Possibly no cold war, possibly an entirely different (later) ending for the British Empire. Possibly a free Europe or one that could live 20 years or more under Nazi rule. Who really knows?

Interestingly while writing this I did come about thinking that the entire idea of WWII 1939-1945 is really based on the British perspective. Really we have a German war of conquest from 1938 onwards and a Japanese war of conquest from 1935. It is British involvement in both that linked the two together and actually created the concept that it was a global war.

[ November 02, 2003, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: Dan Robertson ]

[JonnyBlademan]

If I missed their being mentioned in this thread then beat me like I know you will. But, "Inside the Third Reich, by: Albert Speer" and "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by: William L. Shirer" covers all three questions and many of the hows and whys of what did and didn't happen. As far as the Japanese and Americans fighting each other, unless the U.S. would have ended the embargo that we had placed on Japan after it's invasion of China, a conflict was inevitable. :cool:

[dalem]

Originally posted by Dan Robertson:

Interestingly while writing this I did come about thinking that the entire idea of WWII 1939-1945 is really based on the British perspective. Really we have a German war of conquest from 1938 onwards and a Japanese war of conquest from 1935. It is British involvement in both that linked the two together and actually created the concept that it was a global war.

What about the fact that the Japanese and Germans were Axis partners?

-dale

[Dan Robertson]

Originally posted by dalem:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dan Robertson:

Interestingly while writing this I did come about thinking that the entire idea of WWII 1939-1945 is really based on the British perspective. Really we have a German war of conquest from 1938 onwards and a Japanese war of conquest from 1935. It is British involvement in both that linked the two together and actually created the concept that it was a global war.

What about the fact that the Japanese and Germans were Axis partners?

-dale </font>