An incident would not have been needed-Pearl Harbour still would have happened, just without Hitler declaring war on the US. The Battle Of The Atlantic would still have been won by the Allies, it just would have taken longer without the US fully committing to it. US participation would still have increased though, and if Germany did not declare war (which they should not, to make this scenario more likely), the US would have declared war on Germany in 1943. It might have been a different situation with a truce though.
The reason the west went to war with germany is pure BS
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@ABWorsham:
The Allies went to war to defend Poland, only to give Poland away to 50 years of slavery to the Soviet Union.
The sad thing is there was nothing they could do… Churchill tried VERY hard, but the Soviets were keeping what they conquered. There was no way the Western Allies and Commonwealth were going to fight ANOTHER World War just over the issue.
Its terrible ironic isnt it. We went to war in the first place to defend Poland only to abandon after it seemed another war would occur again if the allies tried to take it back.
Personally I think the Americans have never really been happy with the responsibilities that come with being the most powerful nation on earth. Post WW1 had the Americans flexed their diplomatic and economic muscle the world could of been a much more peaceful place throughout the 20th century and we could of had a “Pax Americana” aka a long peroid of relative peace. Britain managed it for nearly a century from a small island in Western Europe with a relatively small population, had the Americans put their heart and soul into making the world a more peaceful place they would of suceeded who would of been able to stop them? The British, French and Soviets already wanted to maintain the status quo so mantaining the peace would of been relatively simple if the Americans with the co-operation Britain and France could of stopped Germany and Japan long before war occured and turned them into the economic superpowers they became post WW2.
I respect the sacrifice of the American people in WW2, but by the same token thats what comes with being top dog you have to protect those not strong enough to protect themselves and help mediate disputes so they dont turn into wars in the first place.
The Americans were conned into nothing, if anything it was reckless and irresponsible not to get involved earlier and make sure a war didnt occur in the first place. Even if the war was inevitability the U.S with the help of the British and French could of crushed the Germans in September 1939. I think it speaks volumes about American politicians that it was the British who stood up and fought against Germany even though it had by far the most to lose and in the end sacrificed its empire at the altar of freedom because the Americans were “busy” from September 1939 to December 1941.
The problem with America is it wants desperately to not be like the British empire unfourtunetly thats more or less the way they should be bar the colonial oppression. They have to realise that you can take the positives of the British empire and leave the negatives and shape the world you want it to, or at least they could of before they made everyone hate them. -
In Europe folks in the know saw what the Germans were. It would be like letting the Klan take over the US and invade Canada.
The Western Europeans had been redrawing their lines in the mud for 1500 years with few major changes. Germany just pushed too far. The poor Brits knew they were stretched financially and needed help fighting a huge war on two fronts. Amazing they did as well as they did.
I am on my cell phone……what do I recall about Churchill the Fins and the Soviets? I do believe pregmatism won out. Hitler was the more immediate threat than Stalin. Great choice to have to make. Probably helped out by it being the second time in thirty years Germany tried to take over the world and the Soviet ppl being less like Klansmen than the average German even though both their rulers were monsters.
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The Americans were conned into nothing, if anything it was reckless and irresponsible not to get involved earlier and make sure a war didnt occur in the first place. Even if the war was inevitability the U.S with the help of the British and French could of crushed the Germans in September 1939. I think it speaks volumes about American politicians that it was the British who stood up and fought against Germany even though it had by far the most to lose and in the end sacrificed its empire at the altar of freedom because the Americans were “busy” from September 1939 to December 1941.
That sure is food for thought.
Finally, the USA had gotten alot out of it as well (German schientists and technology to name something)
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I respect the sacrifice of the American people in WW2, but by the same token thats what comes with being top dog you have to protect those not strong enough to protect themselves and help mediate disputes so they dont turn into wars in the first place.
The Americans were conned into nothing, if anything it was reckless and irresponsible not to get involved earlier and make sure a war didnt occur in the first place. Even if the war was inevitability the U.S with the help of the British and French could of crushed the Germans in September 1939. I think it speaks volumes about American politicians that it was the British who stood up and fought against Germany even though it had by far the most to lose and in the end sacrificed its empire at the altar of freedom because the Americans were “busy” from September 1939 to December 1941.
The problem with America is it wants desperately to not be like the British empire unfourtunetly thats more or less the way they should be bar the colonial oppression. They have to realise that you can take the positives of the British empire and leave the negatives and shape the world you want it to, or at least they could of before they made everyone hate them.i just watched an episode of ww2 in color and it said that in july 1940 in a poll, only 8 percent of the american people wanted any part of another bloodbath brought to the world by europeans. have far as americans were concerned, the europeans could go to hell. And thats exactly what i think too. Why should american boys go and die over a power squabble b/w the elites of european nations?
the very fact that the war monger FDR even tried to conjole americans into war to get 200k+ americans men killed is terrible. our nation is founded on being the will of the people, and our elected officials being servamts and subserviant to the people.
the very fact that america had to do everything in its power to antagonize japan into attacking so the europeans could get america into their war is just criminal.
this is irregardless of you moral question of it was “better” that americans should go get killed and kill for a nation that it not their own
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FDR did not make Hitler declare war on the US.
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Don’t bring up Osama/terrorism and current POLITICAL statements. This is only about Germany back in 1939.
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England and France said they would go to war to protect poland from invasion. Then when poland is invaded they say this is the reason for war. so they delcare war on germany.
But what about the soviet union. why in hell didnt they declare war on the soviet union?
You’ve raised an excellent point, and one which I’d like to expand upon. The treaties that Britain and France signed with Poland in 1939 were very specific: Poland would receive protection from a German invasion, but not from a Soviet invasion. Moreover, France promised that if Germany attacked Poland, France would launch a general offensive against Germany within 15 days of general mobilization. That French attack would force Germany to fight a two-front war, and would prevent it from allocating the majority of its military assets to its eastern, Polish front.
On paper, the combined French-Polish forces were at least the equal of the German forces. Together, Poland and France had both more men and more tanks than did Germany. In a long war, the large-scale advantage that British and French industry had over its German counterpart would dictate the outcome of the war; especially when military purchases from the United States were added to the mix. Polish military strategy therefore revolved around a fighting withdrawal during the first few weeks (while France prepared its promised general offensive against Germany), with the thought that lost ground could be regained after Germany was forced to shift its forces west. However, the general offensive France promised never came.
The question we should be asking is, why did the French promise Poland a general offensive when it was clear their military strategy involved simply hiding behind their Maginot Line? While multiple explanations are possible, I personally believe that at least part of the reason for that involved Frances’ centuries-long anti-German foreign policy. At the end of the Thirty Years War, France imposed the disastrous Peace of Westphalia on Germany; and its policy since then had generally been to keep Germany divided and weak. France fostered disagreements between Germany and Poland by giving the latter nation West Prussia after WWI. To worsen the relations between the two nations situation, it made false promises to Poland as a counterweight to Germany’s efforts to reclaim Polish-occupied German territory.
In 1939, the Polish government made France’s promises the centerpiece of their foreign policy. Polish leaders flatly refused to negotiate with Germany, and refused to return any Polish-occupied German territory to German control. This, even though Germany in 1938 had given Poland a portion of Czechoslovakia in an effort to improve relations between the two nations.
Other nations in Eastern Europe had successfully maintained good diplomatic relations with Germany. Poland could have done so as well had it returned West Prussia to Germany, and had it continued to avoid any kind of alliance with the Soviet Union. The Polish leadership’s decision to rely on the promises of France, and to adopt an anti-German foreign policy, cost Poland its existence.
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USA entered at war just because Japan attacked them, pure and simple. And Japan attacked USA because Japan needed the Dutch East Indies resources (for their war against China and because Japan only had oild reserves to some months), and they couldn’t take that for safe with yankees in the rear (Philippines). Then, Hitler was enough stupid to DOW USA, but he didn’t need do so (the treaty with Tokyo was if any Axis power was attacked, but this time the attacker was in fact an Axis power)
I always wondered what if Philippines and the former Spanish colonies in the Pacific were independent or Spanish by that time (Cuban war 1898 not happened or Spain won it - probably due alien tech support or something :mrgreen: ). Probably USA would not enter to WWII, because Japan would ignore any Spanish / independent Philippines fleet or simply stomp them without much effort and USA would not care a bit about Franco’s Pacific holdings … Japan could even try Spain join the Axis and use Philippines as allied base to attack India, DEI and Australia
Any case, USA not entering in the war would probably mean or Axis victory or soviet armies in Paris, Madrid and Beijing … a more difficult Cold War
You seem knowledgeable about WWII; and I’d like to add to your post.
In 1940, Germany produced 10,000 military aircraft, and Britain produced 15,000. The U.S. sent large numbers of aircraft and aircraft engines to Britain. Together, British and American military planners had agreed that in several years’ time, the U.S. would produce over 70,000 military aircraft per year; with half that production being sent to Britain for use against Germany. In addition to all those U.S.-produced military aircraft, Germany also had to worry about the large quantities of other Lend-Lease aid the U.S. provided Britain and, later, the Soviet Union.
As you correctly pointed out, Germany was under no treaty obligation to declare war on the United States. But Hitler reasoned that the most threatening aspect of the U.S.–its industrial might–was being turned against Germany anyway. A declaration of war would allow him to wage a full-scale submarine war against American shipping at a time when the U.S. Navy was occupied in the Pacific. Germany would sink the ships carrying tanks and artillery before they reached the Soviet Union.
Hitler’s long-range plan for the war was to achieve a large-scale victory over the Soviet Union in 1942. Access to Soviet manpower, industrial capacity, and raw materials would allow Germany to keep pace with Britain and the U.S. in the air war. Victory over the Soviet Union would also go a long way towards securing Germany from land invasion, by eliminating its eastern front. While the German Army won a number of victories in the summer of 1942, and gained access to important food supplies and raw materials, the full-scale victory for which Hitler had hoped did not occur. The problem was the sheer size of the Red Army (which outnumbered its German counterpart nearly 4:1 in the fall of '41), and the fact that the Soviets outproduced Germany by 3:1 or more in most major land categories during 1942. Germany had largely solved the latter problem by 1944, but by then it was too late.
Shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the U.S. imposed an oil embargo on Japan. Allegedly this was in response to Japan’s aggression in China. However, that latest round of aggression had begun in 1937; so the American response seemed a bit slow in the coming. That oil embargo, in combination with the U.S.'s plans to double the strength of its Pacific fleet and move that fleet’s center of operations from California to Hawaii, served to turn Japan’s focus away from potential conflicts with the Soviet Union. While Japan lacked the logistical capacity to be an immediate threat to conquer a large percentage of the Soviet Union’s population or industrial capacity; it could have taken Vladivostock; and generally denied the Soviets access to the Pacific. The desire to take pressure off the Soviets was one of several factors which led FDR to seek a war with Japan.
Prior to the war, the U.S. had cracked the code Japanese diplomatic code. As such, the U.S. government knew more about the goings-on in Tokyo than did the Japanese ambassador to the U.S.! Specifically, FDR’s administration knew, in November of 1941, that if the U.S. asked for moderate concessions to have the oil embargo lifted, Japan would accept them. But if the U.S. asked for something far-reaching, Japan would go to war within a matter of weeks. Knowing this, FDR’s administration asked for very, very significant concessions from Japan indeed.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Stalin shipped 100 divisions west–away from his eastern front and toward the German front. He knew that Japan would be too occupied with its war against the U.S. to launch a very powerful attack from Manchuria; so those 100 divisions were no longer needed in the east. Those 100 divisions arrived in the dead of winter, and had a devastating effect on Germany’s war effort. Germany had initially used only 100 divisions to invade the Soviet Union; so for the Soviets to have 100 extra divisions at such a key time proved critical.
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USA entered at war just because Japan attacked them, pure and simple. And Japan attacked USA because Japan needed the Dutch East Indies resources (for their war against China and because Japan only had oild reserves to some months), and they couldn’t take that for safe with yankees in the rear (Philippines). Then, Hitler was enough stupid to DOW USA, but he didn’t need do so (the treaty with Tokyo was if any Axis power was attacked, but this time the attacker was in fact an Axis power)
I always wondered what if Philippines and the former Spanish colonies in the Pacific were independent or Spanish by that time (Cuban war 1898 not happened or Spain won it - probably due alien tech support or something :mrgreen: ). Probably USA would not enter to WWII, because Japan would ignore any Spanish / independent Philippines fleet or simply stomp them without much effort and USA would not care a bit about Franco’s Pacific holdings … Japan could even try Spain join the Axis and use Philippines as allied base to attack India, DEI and Australia
Any case, USA not entering in the war would probably mean or Axis victory or soviet armies in Paris, Madrid and Beijing … a more difficult Cold War
You seem knowledgeable about WWII; and I’d like to add to your post.
In 1940, Germany produced 10,000 military aircraft, and Britain produced 15,000. The U.S. sent large numbers of aircraft and aircraft engines to Britain. Together, British and American military planners had agreed that in several years’ time, the U.S. would produce over 70,000 military aircraft per year; with half that production being sent to Britain for use against Germany. In addition to all those U.S.-produced military aircraft, Germany also had to worry about the large quantities of other Lend-Lease aid the U.S. provided Britain and, later, the Soviet Union.
As you correctly pointed out, Germany was under no treaty obligation to declare war on the United States. But Hitler reasoned that the most threatening aspect of the U.S.–its industrial might–was being turned against Germany anyway. A declaration of war would allow him to wage a full-scale submarine war against American shipping at a time when the U.S. Navy was occupied in the Pacific. Germany would sink the ships carrying tanks and artillery before they reached the Soviet Union.
Hitler’s long-range plan for the war was to achieve a large-scale victory over the Soviet Union in 1942. Access to Soviet manpower, industrial capacity, and raw materials would allow Germany to keep pace with Britain and the U.S. in the air war. Victory over the Soviet Union would also go a long way towards securing Germany from land invasion, by eliminating its eastern front. While the German Army won a number of victories in the summer of 1942, and gained access to important food supplies and raw materials, the full-scale victory for which Hitler had hoped did not occur. The problem was the sheer size of the Red Army (which outnumbered its German counterpart nearly 4:1 in the fall of '41), and the fact that the Soviets outproduced Germany by 3:1 or more in most major land categories during 1942. Germany had largely solved the latter problem by 1944, but by then it was too late.
Shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the U.S. imposed an oil embargo on Japan. Allegedly this was in response to Japan’s aggression in China. However, that latest round of aggression had begun in 1937; so the American response seemed a bit slow in the coming. That oil embargo, in combination with the U.S.'s plans to double the strength of its Pacific fleet and move that fleet’s center of operations from California to Hawaii, served to turn Japan’s focus away from potential conflicts with the Soviet Union. While Japan lacked the logistical capacity to be an immediate threat to conquer a large percentage of the Soviet Union’s population or industrial capacity; it could have taken Vladivostock; and generally denied the Soviets access to the Pacific. The desire to take pressure off the Soviets was one of several factors which led FDR to seek a war with Japan.
Prior to the war, the U.S. had cracked the code Japanese diplomatic code. As such, the U.S. government knew more about the goings-on in Tokyo than did the Japanese ambassador to the U.S.! Specifically, FDR’s administration knew, in November of 1941, that if the U.S. asked for moderate concessions to have the oil embargo lifted, Japan would accept them. But if the U.S. asked for something far-reaching, Japan would go to war within a matter of weeks. Knowing this, FDR’s administration asked for very, very significant concessions from Japan indeed.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Stalin shipped 100 divisions west–away from his eastern front and toward the German front. He knew that Japan would be too occupied with its war against the U.S. to launch a very powerful attack from Manchuria; so those 100 divisions were no longer needed in the east. Those 100 divisions arrived in the dead of winter, and had a devastating effect on Germany’s war effort. Germany had initially used only 100 divisions to invade the Soviet Union; so for the Soviets to have 100 extra divisions at such a key time proved critical.
You make some excellent points. The U.S profitted enormously from the lend lease and arms sales to the Soviets and British, the U.S government definetly did what was best economically for the United States setting it up in the position of unchallenged economic super power even until the present day. The U.S wanted war with Japan in 1941 because it knew it could win had the Japanese had their oil and continued tearing through China eventually it would have the resources, man power and industrial capacity to challenge even the United States. The United States involvement in both the causes of the war (i.e Oil embargo on Japan) and its actual part in the war were both really preemptive strikes on empires that could no longer be controlled so that they could not one day challenge the economic and military might of the United States. Really the first shot of WW2 was the oil embargo on Japan, you take that out of the equation the hardline Japanese Generals never would of gained the support of the public and the majority of the leaders of the armed forces to go to war with the U.S in the first place. So really like you say Kurt they were just setting them up so the U.S armed forces could knock them down.
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yeah… Roosevelt made the SA invasion map because the NEW DEAL was not working, that way when PH came, which he knew about, that he could lure us into ww2. so we sent millions of southern men to DIE for a socalist failure……sounds familiar ie: vietnam.
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On paper, the combined French-Polish forces were at least the equal of the German forces. Together, Poland and France had both more men and more tanks than did Germany.
In fact, bigger than German army.
In September 1939
French forces = 23 infantry divisions (51 in reserved)
French motorised division = 7Poland = 30 Infantry divisions (9 in reserved)
Poland cavalry brigade = 11
Note: Tanks were distributed in battalion of 8 tanks.
There was at least 2 battalion per brigade.
Same thing for over 18 infantry division.
Polish had approximately 1000 vehicles armored of any kind. (Most were UK and France vehicles) - Renault & Vickers-Germany = 39 (53 in reserved)
german Tank divisions = 6
German Motorised divisions = 4 (4 light motorised) -
The question we should be asking is, why did the French promise Poland a general offensive when it was clear their military strategy involved simply hiding behind their Maginot Line? While multiple explanations are possible, I personally believe that at least part of the reason for that involved Frances’ centuries-long anti-German foreign policy. At the end of the Thirty Years War, France imposed the disastrous Peace of Westphalia on Germany; and its policy since then had generally been to keep Germany divided and weak. France fostered disagreements between Germany and Poland by giving the latter nation West Prussia after WWI. To worsen the relations between the two nations situation, it made false promises to Poland as a counterweight to Germany’s efforts to reclaim Polish-occupied German territory.
In May, 1939, Gamelin undertook with general Kasprycki (Minister of the military affairs of Poland) on 3 protocols.
If Germany attacks Poland:- France will begin an air action.
- 3 days after the general mobilization, France will start an offensive with limited objectives.
- As soon as the German effort will sink in Poland, France will start an offensive action main part of his forces.
Gamelin make this promises without to consult French goverment!
The French government knew very well that they were not ready to make war. They tried to make the peace with Hiltler but after the Anschluss, Czechoslovakia, Rhineland and numerous peace meetings.
The English and French goverment faced the evidence that Hitler wanted to make war.
War was inevitable. The big mistake of the French and English goverment was to overestimate the German strengths in September, 1939.centuries-long anti-German foreign policy
It was the same case for German:
Hitler Mein Kamp text:
France is a deadly enemy! The merciless enemy of the German people!- This comment reflect most of the German thought.
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uk has always been a civilized country but never a peace loving one. they only cared about themselves and raped and robbed everyone they could get away with. look at what they done to ireland and scotland and all the wars with france and america and india and china. now i still like the brits, their history , culture and music. but they went to war to keep their empire plain and simple, it wasnt cause hitler was evil(they didnt fight the evil stalin cause he wasnt messing with their empire). its basically why they went to war in the 1st world war, to keep a monopoly on the shipping lanes.
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_But what about the soviet union. why in hell didnt they declare war on the soviet union? _
When USSR entered in Poland on September 17th. The Germans were already massed near Warsaw and had begun the encirclement of the city!
French and English representatives were not crazy!
Declare the war to Stalin would have been a political suicide! -
Other nations in Eastern Europe had successfully maintained good diplomatic relations with Germany.
Yes with a rifle on the head!Many people believe that the diplomatic relations between Germany and Eastern Europe countries were good!
It’is false. The Rumanian and Hungarian peoples for example did not agree with the position of their government.
The Hungarians and Rumanians goverment didn’t want to undergo the same fate as Poland.
It was a economical relation not an ideology relation.
In fact, It was thus necessary in their interest to remain friend with Nazi. -
“The problem was the sheer size of the Red Army (which outnumbered its German counterpart nearly 4:1 in the fall of '41)”
Actually by the fall of 41, thanks to the massive encirclements and complete destruction of many soviet armies, the german forces actually outnumbered the soviets for a time.
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In May, 1939, Gamelin undertook with general Kasprycki (Minister of the military affairs of Poland) on 3 protocols.
If Germany attacks Poland:- France will begin an air action.
- 3 days after the general mobilization, France will start an offensive with limited objectives.
- As soon as the German effort will sink in Poland, France will start an offensive action main part of his forces.
Gamelin make this promises without to consult French goverment!
It is true the agreement was initially negotiated between Gamelin and his Polish counterpart. But that agreement was later ratified by both governments.
The idea that Gamelin came up with those promises on his own seems a little far-fetched. Daladier served as the Minister of Defense under France’s Popular Front government. One would expect someone with that background to be particularly aware of the doings of France’s military.
Anything relating to France’s foreign policy (especially with respect to Germany) was of first importance to him. Gamelin was left in his position and was given overall command of France’s defense in 1940. It is not normal for generals to make foreign policy or diplomatic promises on their own. When they do, they are typically relieved of command–which Gamelin was not. The idea that Gamelin was solely responsible for the promises France had made to Poland smells a lot like something put forward by Daladier or his supporters, after the fact, to explain why France had not honored its promise to Poland of an invasion of Germany.
The French government knew very well that they were not ready to make war. They tried to make the peace with Hiltler but after the Anschluss, Czechoslovakia, Rhineland and numerous peace meetings.
The English and French goverment faced the evidence that Hitler wanted to make war.
War was inevitable. The big mistake of the French and English goverment was to overestimate the German strengths in September, 1939.It is a common misperception that Daladier was personally interested in negotiating peace with Hitler. He was not; and only attended the Munich Conference in 1938 because Chamberlain pressured him into doing so. In 1938, Daladier told the British, “Today, it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow, it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has obtained the oil and wheat it needs, she will turn on the West.”
Daladier’s words were a clear case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hitler had nothing to gain by a war against Britain and France. Realizing this, he offered Britain and France a peace treaty after the fall of Poland. Both nations refused. After France fell, Hitler began looking into the possibility of a peace treaty with Britain. He was rebuffed. As a result, he found himself in exactly the kind of war Germany did not need: a long, grinding war in which Great Britain could take full advantage of its significant industrial potential, the resources of its colonies, and the aircraft manufacturing capacity of the United States.
Daladier was correct to note that Germany lacked wheat and oil. Hitler hoped to find both things in the East. His long-range goal was a successful war against the Soviet Union. The oil of Caucasus and the wheat of the Ukraine would considerably strengthen Germany; victory over the Soviet Union would secure Germany’s eastern front and would free the world from communism, and the Soviet Union had plenty of space in which Germans could settle.
However, Hitler faced opposition to this planned war from various democracies. In 1935, France and Czechoslovakia each signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union. From 1938 - the spring of 1941, Hitler’s policy towards the nations of Eastern Europe was to annex whichever nations had adopted anti-German or pro-Soviet foreign policies (such as Czechoslovakia) while leaving alone those nations which did not have anti-German foreign policies. This policy was intended to prepare the groundwork for his invasion of the Soviet Union.
Like other French leaders from 1918 - 1940, Daladier believed in keeping Germany as weak as possible. Neither French leaders nor the leaders of other Western democracies had any kind of clear plan for a counterweight to Soviet expansionism. Hitler very much wanted to be that counterweight, but at every turn France’s actions served to turn his attention westward. After WWI, France gave large slices of German territory to Czechoslovakia and Poland–thereby creating a serious source of tension between those two nations and Germany. Then in 1939, France exacerbated that tension by promising the Polish that France would launch a full invasion of Germany if Germany attacked Poland. That promise was the foundation for Poland’s (deeply misguided) foreign policy in 1939.
Perhaps Hitler would have failed to win his war against the Soviet Union even without the efforts of France, Britain, and the United States to undercut Germany and support the Soviets. But there is no obvious reason why the Western democracies should have sided with the Soviet Union instead of with Germany in the war between those two nations. Hitler had wanted an alliance with Britain; and had hoped the United States would remain neutral and isolationist.
French foreign policy ultimately succeeded in its goal of a weak Germany. In 1945, Germany was prostrate. Its women and children were raped and murdered in what historian Antony Beevor described as “the worst mass rape in human history.” The horror and brutality of Soviet communism had spread west into the heart of Europe. At that point, only the United States had the military strength to prevent the Red Army from overrunning the rest of Germany, conquering France, and reaching the Atlantic.
Unexpectedly, the U.S. did, in fact, provide a deterrent to Soviet expansionism. I use the word “unexpectedly” because as of 1940, the American political spectrum was divided into conservative Republican isolationists and pro-communist interventionists such as FDR. Few politicians from either political party had advocated interventionism against communism. But in 1948, a new breed of American politicians got elected to Congress–politicians who believed in the idea of interventionism against communism. That fortuitous development was one of two factors which saved France from the consequences of having successfully destroyed what (up to that point) had been the sole deterrent to Soviet expansionism: the armed might of Germany.
The other development which may have saved France from the consequences of its own foreign policy was the death of Stalin in the early '50s. In the late '40s and early '50s, the Soviets had much stronger conventional forces in Europe than did the Western democracies. Truman recognized this, and knew that if the Soviets invaded, the Americans would be pushed west. He planned to use tactical nuclear strikes on the invading Soviet forces–a plan which did not please the Germans; among whom those nuclear bombs would fall! However, the United States did not have very many nuclear bombs, and Stalin was confident of his nation’s ability to shoot down nuclear bombers. (As an aside, Germany would have been the U.S.'s main ally in such a war; because France was too pro-communist to be relied upon.)
Those who believe Stalin had been planning WWIII state that he allowed the Korean War to be launched as a test of American military readiness. This was a test the U.S. failed to pass–which made Stalin confident in his preparations to move forward with a larger European conflict. However, Stalin died (or was murdered) before having the opportunity to launch this war. His successors proved more cautious.
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I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?
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I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?
The russkies did polish communists a favor
they didn’t do Poland a favor
they slaughtered thousands of Polish officers and stood by while the krauts killed off all the commie opposition -
I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?
If the British and French had of taken the threat of Nazi Germany seriously they would of gone on the offensive from the beginning instead of sitting behind the maginot line and letting the naval blockade of Germany does it work for the second time. In reality both the British and French knew that it would be a very bloody affair fighting all the way to Berlin, so they wrongly assumed that the Nazi regime would either fall apart either from internal problems or the long term implications of a naval blockade.
What they didnt realise is that in late 1939 Germany wasnt actually anywhere near as strong as it looked to most observers and its quick victories were not acheived by mass of numbers or technological prowess but mostly by superior tactics and leadership. Had there been that sort of leadership, tactical skill and the political will to use it within the ranks of the British and French the war could of been fought to at worst a stalemate by which time the German people would not be keen to repeat the starvation of large numbers of populace like during WW1. The only thing that kept Hitler in power aside from his uncanny luck was the fact that the early military victorys over Poland, France and the Low Countries were so easily achieved which made him seem like an almost godly figure to the German people who suffered so much at the hands of the French.
As far as Russia doing Poland a favor it did no such thing in my opinion, during the Warsaw uprising for instance the Soviets did nothing to assist the Polish resistance fighters so they knew they would have less strong opposition to the Soviet regime post war. The Soviets acted in their own self interest, liberating Poland was just part of the plan because it was on the way to Berlin. Also Poland ended up with a totalatarian regime similar to what the Nazi’s would of instituted post war anyway. So the Russians didnt do the Poles any favors but by the same token either did the Allies, we let them help us fight the Nazi’s and they fought with great courage and made many sacrifices only to be told they now have to live under the Soviet regime.
The jews you mentioned as being saved by the Soviets at least an equal number of Poles who opposed the Soviets were executed/imprisoned when the Soviets took power (mostly due to the fact nearly 90% of Polish Jews were already dead), when you add to that the number of Poles who died in the Warsaw uprising because the Soviets chose not to intervene its all suddenly not so rosy.
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