# An armed population deterring invasion **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796 "2014-02-20T15:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/21 "2014-02-20T21:27:49Z")
It is also, IMHO, very farfetched, even absurd, to posit an American political situation so deteriorated, and a military so disconnected from the civilian population, that the U.S. military would ever be fighting the citizenry on a large scale. As to the Nazis not invading Switzerland, we’ve discussed that before: [Who did the Swiss really want to win World War 2? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=662000) (and see the links to even more such threads in my post 30). ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/22 "2014-02-20T22:01:06Z")
In World War II, Montenegro was never really subdued by the invaders. Italy and then Germany both claimed to occupy Montenegro, but there was continuous bloodshed, the Germans took very high casualties on the ground, chose not to sustain it, and withdrew nearly a year before the general armistice ended WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/23 "2014-02-20T22:05:03Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Wiki says this is bogus, but he did say _“To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House.”_; he goes on to state the difficulty of this, possibly thinking of the theme in spirit. Yamamoto did say this, however his meaning is often misunderstood. The comment was played up by US wartime propaganda as him threatening to do this when his meaning was actually the opposite; he was realistic about Japan’s chances in the war, meaning he knew Japan was going to lose. Marching on Washington and dictating terms from the White House was something clearly beyond Japan’s capabilities, even landing on the continental US was far beyond Japan’s abilities. What he was saying was that certain victory by Japan in the coming war was impossible. It had nothing to do with an armed population deterring invasion; it was a simple matter of the relative military and industrial strengths of Japan and the US. Japan lacked the logistical means to support a landing on the US west coast, much less a drive across the entire continent. Japan barely had enough merchant shipping to keep its economy going and support the moves it historically made to seize sources of oil, rubber and other raw materials it had been cut off from as a result of the US embargo. Japan arming the populace with spears and awls wasn’t being done with the intention of deterring a US invasion either; it was being done with the intention of committing national suicide before accepting defeat. From February 1944 until the end of the war, the propaganda slogan endlessly drummed at the population of Japan was _ichioku gyokusai_, 100 million die together (lit. 100 million shattered jewels). ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/24 "2014-02-20T22:18:55Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In World War II, Montenegro was never really subdued by the invaders. Italy and then Germany both claimed to occupy Montenegro, but there was continuous bloodshed, the Germans took very high casualties on the ground, chose not to sustain it, and withdrew nearly a year before the general armistice ended WWII. Montenegro _was_ occupied by Italy and Germany during WW2. There was a great deal of partisan warfare there as there was throughout all of Yugoslavia during the Italian and German occupation. Germany didn’t choose not to sustain it, nor did they leave a year before WW2 ended (with an [unconditional surrender](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender) by Germany on May 7, 1945, not a general armistice). Germany only left Montenegro on December 15, 1944, and not due to the cost of occupation. They left because the Soviet Union was overrunning Yugoslavia in December 1944, see map [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1943-08_to_1944-12.png). ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/25 "2014-02-20T22:34:11Z")
What about Mexico refusing to join with the Germans in WWI? As I understand it, one of the reasons that they declined Zimmermann’s proposal was the unappealing idea of trying to conquer a rugged land wherein the current occupants a) didn’t want to become Mexican citizens and b) were heavily armed for a civilian population. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/26 "2014-02-20T22:52:18Z")
Far more importantly, they knew that their much larger neighbor to the north, having taken a lot of their land in a previous war, would not be at all averse to taking even more if they tried to take any back by force of arms. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/27 "2014-02-20T23:05:36Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > I don’t believe an armed populace ever deterred an army. The two examples in the OP are both wrong. The quote by Yamamoto is bogus from the start. The Nazis didn’t attack Switzerland but it was the mountains (and the money) that prevented it, not the armed populace. The Swiss contingency plans at the time were to abandon all the low lands and retreat into the mountains. In other words even the Swiss didn’t think they could defeat the Nazis unless it was in the mountains. I know, but those were the only examples I could come up with (the misattributed Yamamoto quote particularly) which if real would be what I was thinking of; i.e. a military leadership deciding against a course of action because the enemy civilians would give them too much trouble. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796/28 "2014-02-20T23:09:59Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > What about Mexico refusing to join with the Germans in WWI? As I understand it, one of the reasons that they declined Zimmermann’s proposal was the unappealing idea of trying to conquer a rugged land wherein the current occupants a) didn’t want to become Mexican citizens and b) were heavily armed for a civilian population. Actually, thanks to the residual effects of the Comanche-Mexico Wars from 1821 until 1870, the border areas with the US were lightly populated until well into the 20th century. Tijuana and Juarez City weren’t the metropolises that they are now until the early 1970s. Mexico couldn’t have invaded the US, even if it had the military might to do so, as its population centers were hundreds of miles from the border. Reference: > **[Comanche–Mexico Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche%E2%80%93Mexico_Wars)** > > The Comanche–Mexico Wars was the Mexican theater of the Comanche Wars, a series of conflicts from 1821 to 1870. The Comanche and their Kiowa and Kiowa Apache allies carried out large-scale raids hundreds of miles deep into Mexico. The raids were stimulated by the desire of Comanches to accumulate wealth through plunder, principally horses, mules, and Mexican captives for ransom or slaves who became integrated into the tribe. The raids escalated proportionally to Mexico's inability to defend it Th... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-armed-population-deterring-invasion/681796.md?page=1)