WWII - an unnecessary waste and the fault of England?

[K-man]

You can complain about having to pay back a loan, but face the truth, if the US hadn't loaned the UK money and arms, you'd be speaking German right now. About 419 thousand American's died in WW2....only slightly less that the UK's 450k. While others lost more, our own "contribution" on that front was not minor. (link) So, yes you got the **** bombed out of you and we didn't. That's a result of strategic location, not design. If the US had been within range, it would have seen more enemy damage than it did. Contrary to popular belief, the US and Canada -were- attacked directly on several occasions however damage was minimal due to the logistics. Had England fallen, or had Midway or Hawaii been taken, more damaging attacks would most likely have occurred.

I am sure that no-one under-estimates the US contribution to the Allied cause. However as to speaking German. Before the US rode in with the cavalry, Britain and her allies had stopped the German invasion of England, sunk the Bismark and captured a U boat with its enigma machine. Now that might mean that many other countries might be speaking German but not necessarily the Poms.
It's a bit like saying "If it wasn't for the American's we would all be speaking Japanese in Australia." In actual fact the supply lines to Australia were probably too long and exposed. And it was the Australians who, against the odds, stopped the Japanese in PNG on the Kokoda track.
All the allied forces suffered mightily in the war. The figures are available on the following site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
More than straight casualties, look to the percentage of population of the casualties. UK 0.94%, Australia 0.57%, Canada 0.4%, US 0.32%.
Let's not be too precious as to who did what. The important thing is that eventually the world got its act together and we have benefited ever since. Now many of our countries are embroiled in Afghanistan and most people would wish we weren't. History will judge whether the deployment there was right or wrong. The important thing is that despite providing the overwhelming numbers of troops etc, the US is not alone. Australia, UK and other Nato countries are in the s#*t with them. Although this is not particularly up to date it does give an indication of who is doing what. Note that after the US the UK has a large contingent followed by Germany and surprise, surprise ... France. (The US figure is corrected in the body of the article)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/sep/21/afghanistan-troop-numbers-nato-data#data

 

[Tez3]

Sovereign nations aren't the same thing as individuals or even corporations obviously. The consequences for nonperformance on a contract ("treaty") are rather less enforceable even if they are mentioned (doubtful), particularly if it is one between allies. Countries sign treaties all the time that they intend to breach or ignore at first opportunity. I don't think I need to name examples for that surely.

Regardless you are looking for a fairly specific response to your question and you simply won't find it here on MT, as well educated as many of us are, none of us are historians specializing in the historical causes of World War II. We've posted our thoughts as laymen with relatively superficial study of the topic.

A phone call to the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor to the right professor might end in the information you are looking for.

I agree, though even historians tend towards bias in their subjects but certainly haing researched their subject in more detail than we have access to, they have a more in depth knowledge.

The tone of the posts by Bill seem to indicate a wish to have it in black and white that the UK were entirely responsible for starting the Second World War. At the time I imagine people were doing their best to avoid war by doing whatever it took, treaties were signed probably in good faith but certainly I imagine with fervent hopes of not having war. How easy it is in hindsight to see that all hopes were in vain and basically war was inevitable. I do know that in some quarters the late arrival of the Americans in the war causes as much indignation as does the French seemingly surrending does to others, as K Man has pointed out GB had already fought off invasion ( and yes it was the Brits that captured the Enigma machine despite the Hollywood version ), the Battle of Britain remains one of the most stirring and amazing fights for survival ever. When I joined the RAF there were still some ex B of B pilots in senior ranks, what we owe these amazing men is beyond gratitude.

No one when making serious decisions however well they think them out can know of the repercussions that happen because of their actions so many years down the line. The Prussians fought France, France lost and the Prussians took heavy toll on France, they fight again as Germany v France, France (and the Allies) win, France takes heavy toll on the Germans, the Germans start the Second World War etc etc. The carving up of land in the Middle East after the First World World has lead to the problems there today but could the architects of these actions know at the time that nearly a hundred years later these things would happen?

We can see where it's all lead looking back but can we tell now what the decisions our leaders are making now will lead to a hundred years later? World leaders may have an eye on posterity but they must make their decisions on what intelligence, what knowledge and what they have to work with now, it's all anyone can do whether it's the fate of a country or an individual buying a car. You do what you can with what you have. History will tell whether you were right or wrong but you do what you have to anyway. Trying to bend things to make it fit what you want to believe may be satisfying to some but it still won't be the truth.

The truth is that the world isn't perfect not even great in some cases but at the moment it's probably the best it's ever been, long ways to go but working together rather than apart has got to be cause for some hope.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/781858.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/733383.stm

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The tone of the posts by Bill seem to indicate a wish to have it in black and white that the UK were entirely responsible for starting the Second World War. At the time I imagine people were doing their best to avoid war by doing whatever it took, treaties were signed probably in good faith but certainly I imagine with fervent hopes of not having war. How easy it is in hindsight to see that all hopes were in vain and basically war was inevitable.

Actually, I was quite sincere in opening the discussion by saying I do not know if the basic accusation by Lew Rockwell is correct or not. I still do not, hence my questions. I accept the recommendations by others that perhaps I'm not going to find the answer I seek here, fair enough. I'm not looking for black-and-white blame, I'm just looking for an answer to some basic questions.

Yes, I understand that Great Britain wanted to avoid war, and was even willing to do things it might otherwise not in order to avoid it. But I'm trying to get at what the root cause of a specific set of actions was, and I'm not getting any traction. It's not that I only want a certain answer, I just want an answer that has internal logic. Stating that politicians lie and everybody knows it isn't an explanation, it's an excuse. Yes, they lie, of course they lie, but why did they tell that specific lie? What was Poland to Great Britain and France, and why the very specific promises (so many divisions in thus and so days, etc) and then the declaration of war, and then the (apparent) betrayal of Poland?

These are questions that I feel are a pivot point. Understanding the reasoning at the time might do a great deal to help me understand what the overall strategy was for Great Britain.

I'm not pointing fingers at Great Britain or attempting to paint it in a bad light. Nations do what they do in the interests of themselves and their citizens. Is it possible that the UK had a strategy in mind when they failed to engage Germany early (the "Phoney War") to ensure that the USA would be required to enter the war? Were they waiting for Roosevelt to convince the American people to abandon their isolationist beliefs? Was it something else, like believing that a serious and successful attack on Germany would cement German-USSR alliances? Obviously it's a chess match, but people then knew the answers to these questions, and I would think they were written down somewhere.

I will have to do more research, and now that I'm intrigued, I will. I hope it does not lead me to conclude that the UK intended for a European war to become another world war, so that they would have the USA fighting on their side.

Some of the comments Lew Rockwell made do have some resonance to me. I see many good reasons for the US to have joined the fight against the Germans, but I'm not sure that we were 'fighting for Democracy' or even in self-defense. The Germans were not going to be in a position to invade the USA, even if they won all of Europe and split it up with the USSR. I could understand fighting to stop genocide of the Jews, that's a noble goal, but it doesn't really appear that this was one of the main causes of our entry into the war, historically. And we (the USA) have notably chosen not to intervene in other genocides since then, eh?

It would interesting to come to the conclusion that WWII was in fact not necessary from the USA's point of view, or that the UK actually intended from the start to draw the USA into it in order to ensure her own defense. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'll certainly be doing more research into it. It's not personal and it's not anti-UK. My family line is Welsh on one side, English and German on the other, and although both sides landed in America well before the Civil War, I still know from whence I came.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The reason for the Study is much more this, than the political debate it usually has. Yes, there are few here who might be professional historians, but much of what fills in these blanks is available to us, with a little digging, and all of us have different knowledge bases to share. I'd much rather see some spirited discussion like this, than yet another round of POTUS Smacking....or any more memorial threads to soldiers or leos... So while asking some questions elsewhere is good, I like to see the discussion here. It brings balance to the force without killing 2,000 Jedi.

 

[Tez3]

America entering the war had nothing to do with saving Jews from the Holocaust, that started in the 1930s and America refused to help Jews looking to escape from Germany, they wouldn't allow Jews to enter their country, actually turning them away.

Bill it sounds still though that you have made your mind up, you are looking for the answers you want...that it wasn't necessary for America to enter the war.
I think America would have had a hard time all the same if they hadn't entered the war, with Germany running Europe, being in a pact with both the Russians and the Japanese it would have been hard being so isolated in the world.
America did well financially out of the war, it restored the economy after the recession so Americans have hardly cause to complain about the benefits of entering the war for them. It's far outweighed any drawbacks.

There may be answers somewhere but not here, dancingalone was right, you have to look to academia for it and they may be just opinions. We can tell you how the war has affected us, our families and our countries and how speculation doesn't do any good rather the opposite in fact.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

America could have avoided a war with Germany. All it had to do was actually remain neutral by not selling arms to either side, not giving support to either side, and most importantly not shooting at either side or provoking them.

If Germany had completed it's heavy water experiments and loaded them into V3 rockets, parts of the English countryside would not be as lovely today as I hear they are. The non-entry of the Americans into the war would have given Germany and Italy a good chance to stabilize control over Europe and N. Africa. It would have potentially allowed for a stronger entrenchment by those forces, and allowed Germany to fight a single front war against Russia...though victory in that scenario is still debatable. England could have been put under a strong blockade and forced to surrender or been nuked into oblivion.

I never understood the reasons I saw for why the US was bombed by Japan, yet fought a delaying action for years while focusing on Europe. Perhaps it's time to do some more spelunking in dusty archives.

 

[dancingalone]

Note that after the US the UK has a large contingent followed by Germany and surprise, surprise ... France. (The US figure is corrected in the body of the article)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/sep/21/afghanistan-troop-numbers-nato-data#data

Kman, I agree with the overall sentiment of your post. I just wanted however to note that the troop ratios from the Europeans are right in line with the size of each country's military. The French do have the largest military in Europe right after the UK and Germany. They're actually quite close to the Germans if you look at # of active soldiers on the rolls, and I believe they have the second strongest air force after the UK.

It shouldn't be a surprise that France has a good contingent in Afghanistan. It would be more surprising if they didn't as a leading NATO power.

If we looked at Afghanistan deployments compared to military size/funding, I believe the Poles would show admirably well.

 

[dancingalone]

I never understood the reasons I saw for why the US was bombed by Japan, yet fought a delaying action for years while focusing on Europe. Perhaps it's time to do some more spelunking in dusty archives.

I understood it took some time to build up a navy capable of winning in the Pacific, particularly after the Pearl Harbor attack.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

America entering the war had nothing to do with saving Jews from the Holocaust, that started in the 1930s and America refused to help Jews looking to escape from Germany, they wouldn't allow Jews to enter their country, actually turning them away.

Bill it sounds still though that you have made your mind up, you are looking for the answers you want...that it wasn't necessary for America to enter the war.
I think America would have had a hard time all the same if they hadn't entered the war, with Germany running Europe, being in a pact with both the Russians and the Japanese it would have been hard being so isolated in the world.
America did well financially out of the war, it restored the economy after the recession so Americans have hardly cause to complain about the benefits of entering the war for them. It's far outweighed any drawbacks.

There may be answers somewhere but not here, dancingalone was right, you have to look to academia for it and they may be just opinions. We can tell you how the war has affected us, our families and our countries and how speculation doesn't do any good rather the opposite in fact.

I could be wrong, but I think you just told me to shut up, because you don't want to hear it, and to go away and look elsewhere, because speculating about causes upsets you. Got it. Here endeth my participation in this discussion.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I understood it took some time to build up a navy capable of winning in the Pacific, particularly after the Pearl Harbor attack.

That's what I heard too. But I've always wondered why the (new) carriers were out of harms way and the (old) battleships all neatly in port. Kinda like putting your new car in the garage while the old one you park under a tree hoping to collect the insurance when a branch falls.....

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bill, I don't care if you piss off Tez. Or me. Or half the board, as long as it's within the rules.
So shut up on the shutting up already. Lest I be forced to install the poking addon so I can poke you.

 

[Tez3]

I could be wrong, but I think you just told me to shut up, because you don't want to hear it, and to go away and look elsewhere, because speculating about causes upsets you. Got it. Here endeth my participation in this discussion.

You are so far wrong you aren't even on the same page!

I'm not upset in the least, well not about this at any rate. Exasperated and frustrated because you seem to think we have answers we are hiding from you, we can't tell you anymore than we have, we aren't experts on the Second World War, you've been told that. All you are doing is speculating aloud when you should be researching, go find out what the experts say. We know the facts, this treaty was signed, that agreement made but we can't tell you the frames of minds of the people making those decisions, not won't...can't! I don't know what was in Chamberlain's mind when he signed the pact to defend Poland and then couldn't/wouldn't carry it out. it's a huge subject that would have to be carefully looked into and I can't do it, I have ironing and the house to tidy among other things. in other words I have a life and researching something in depth I'm not that into is something I don't have time for. You are asking for more than we can give, it's not that it's upsetting, it's that we really, really can't tell you what you want to know.

 

[Sukerkin]

This item seems like it would cover the ground you're interested in, Bill. It might also give some pointers as to where to dig further. The downside is that you'll have to pay to get at it .

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4210519

I also found some hints that European History Quarterly has some articles relevant to the topic but again it'll cost money to get at them.

This might reward a detailed read:

http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-927385-5.pdf

It does not directly address the point under question but will give some valuable insight into the background conditions in which decisions were made.

 

[K-man]

Kman, I agree with the overall sentiment of your post. I just wanted however to note that the troop ratios from the Europeans are right in line with the size of each country's military. The French do have the largest military in Europe right after the UK and Germany. They're actually quite close to the Germans if you look at # of active soldiers on the rolls, and I believe they have the second strongest air force after the UK.

It shouldn't be a surprise that France has a good contingent in Afghanistan. It would be more surprising if they didn't as a leading NATO power.

If we looked at Afghanistan deployments compared to military size/funding, I believe the Poles would show admirably well.

It wasn't that I was saying France in particular was over-represented. It was a tongue in cheek dig at the comments reflecting anti-French sentiment earlier in the thread.
In Australia in the 50's, when I was in primary school, our History was pretty much British History. We were still celebrating 'Empire' day despite the fact that the Empire had been succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations years before. France, to me growing up, was the old enemy, the cause of wars for centuries, Waterloo, Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of the Nile, North America etc. So I had to hide my smile behind my hand when I read Bob's posts. However, the time I have spent in France, little though it is, has been most enjoyable.

 

[Deaf Smith]

America could have avoided a war with Germany. All it had to do was actually remain neutral by not selling arms to either side, not giving support to either side, and most importantly not shooting at either side or provoking them.

Bob, Germany declared war on the U.S., not the other way around. After Pearl Harbor, Hiter declared war first. So we could not avoid the war with Germany, neutral or not. Once Japan, a part of the Axis, attacked us, Germany had to follow sute.

If Germany had completed it's heavy water experiments and loaded them into V3 rockets, parts of the English countryside would not be as lovely today as I hear they are. The non-entry of the Americans into the war would have given Germany and Italy a good chance to stabilize control over Europe and N. Africa. It would have potentially allowed for a stronger entrenchment by those forces, and allowed Germany to fight a single front war against Russia...though victory in that scenario is still debatable. England could have been put under a strong blockade and forced to surrender or been nuked into oblivion.

Bob, the Germans did have a reactor... or at least the theoretical idea of one. Even if their heavy water experiments had been timely they were off on the math. I mean SERIOUSLY off on their math!

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/germany/nuke.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed074p204

The Farm Hall transcripts clearly establish that

(a) the Germans on August 6, 1945 did not believe that the Allies had exploded an atomic bomb over Hiroshima that day;

(b) they never succeeded in constructing a self-sustaining nuclear reactor;

(c) they were confused about the differences between an atomic bomb and a reactor;

(d) they did not know how to correctly calculate the critical mass of a bomb;

(e) they thought that "plutonium" was probably element 91. The Farm Hall transcripts contradict the self-serving and sensationalist writings about German efforts that have appeared during the past fifty years.

I never understood the reasons I saw for why the US was bombed by Japan, yet fought a delaying action for years while focusing on Europe. Perhaps it's time to do some more spelunking in dusty archives.

We thought, with guidance from Albert Einstein and others (Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, alerting him to the possibility that Nazi Germany might be developing an atomic bomb) that Germany was the most dangerous of the Axis powers, and thus the one to knock out first.

Plus Germany had far better army and airforce than Japan (Italy ranked way way below the major powers.)

So it was Germany first.

Deaf

 

[Tez3]

http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-927385-5.pdf

It does not directly address the point under question but will give some valuable insight into the background conditions in which decisions were made.

thank you, Harold Nicholson is actually a favourite of mine.

For non Brits bear in mind in the first sentence when it says 'liberal' this means a British/European liberal not what Americans mean by liberal. Misunderstanding this may colour the reading of this very interesting document.

 

[K-man]

Question: Why did Great Britain agree to Germany's demands on the Sudetenland and then sign a mutual aid pact with Poland? I sort of understand the concept of 'appeasement' as it is called now, and I'm not going along and saying Chamberlain was all the bad things they call him now; at the time he was hailed by the world as a peace-keeper and he may well have been. But what was the deal with Poland? As the article I linked to points out, it pretty much guaranteed that the UK would end up in warfare against Germany. What was the reason for that very fateful decision?

I don't know if Bill is still reading this thread but here is an attempt to answer his question.
It was not Britain that agreed to Germany's demands for territorial sovereignty etc. It was the League of Nations that was formed after WW1. Germany had been excluded from the league for starting WW1 and Russia was denied entry for going communist and knocking off the Tsar. The two major nations were England and France. Unfortunately they were both still on their knees from the physical and financial destruction of the war and neither had any desire to get into another war. Poland was a member of the League and the other countries had a pact to support each other against invasion by another country. Because of this lack of will to fight, Germany was able to take advantage by 'negotiation' to take over the Sudeten territories. Poland was next and it wasn't that Poland had any more significance than the fact that Poland was a league member.
Now The League of Nations was a great idea but it lacked resources. Whose idea was it? Actually Woodrow Wilson. The irony .. the USA refused to join the League. So was it, as Pat Buchanan claims, the fault of Britain? Or, should the US take some responsibility for allowing the organisation it set up, to ensure peace in Europe, to fail?
The blame game can go any direction!
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/leagueofnations.htm