With no assistance from the US, Britain will be starved into surrender pretty quickly. Britain was a big net importer of food prior to WWII and without the US, it’s the end. Even if Canada and possibly Australia could supply the actual food, neither country could build the ships necessary to transport them. What happens with the Soviet Union after this isn’t going be good for Europe.
I think the food issue was more critical than is being accounted for too.
Sorry I am not going to dig through my old books to give a site.
The Germans kept under estamating the number of planes that england did produce. But the attacks on the British air fields were having an effect on the RAFs ability to respond. The number of hours and days with out rest was begining to have an effect on the pilots. The battle was lost when Germany switched to bombing the cities.
Now take out the suppllies being supplied by the Americans, and most of the convoys were coming from America and there is a small change in numbers all across the board. Remember the story about the want of a nail.
Without the old 4 stack destroyers and in 1941 US Navy Destroyers what would the U boats sinking numbers been. Remember this thrread is what if the US was truly neutral. No lend lease supplies no troups. England could have survived, but not on her terms.
It is questionable with out bommings if Germany or Great Britian would have gotten the A bomb first. And it would not have taken many for each side to end the war.
As the war was fought numbers is what won the war. What was the average age of the British fighting man? I believe the US was around 18 to 19. Look at the sizes of the different armies how much manpower did each have? As the war progressed how many escort ships the RN have escorting convoys VS USN? Carriers. Britian had been at war since 1939 by the time the US became involved.
Do not get me wrong I am not saying that the US saved their asses. Hell the US would have been hard pressed to servive with out Britian. And the RAF to use a quote “Never have so many owed so much to so few” (hope I got that right). The citizens of Britian understand what is owed to them, and I think those in the US who have looked at WWII realise we have a debt to the RAF also.
A few points.
Point one: Correct me if I am wrong, but prior to the crash building program when the US entered in 1942, the UK was still the largest constructor of merchant shipping in the world. And while the commonwealth couldn’t replace US shipbuilding, Canadian merchant construction during WWII was still around 20% of US construction. I have to admit I have absolutely no information on Australian merchant ship construction. But they did put 300+ warships into the water (mostly corvettes and smaller). So they must have had some merchant capacity as well. The British would have had plenty of shipbuilding capability.
Point two: Neutral US ship building would still have been available to the British, just like it had been in WWI. Just because the US is neutral, doesn’t mean a cessation of trade. Without the US government bankrolling it, it would have been much smaller. But the British would have still been able to purchase ships from a neutral US.
Point three: Much of the Allied shipbuilding building went toward the Pacific. And the bulk of the rest went toward offensive actions (North Africa, Italy, Overlord, Anvil and the like). The amount of shipping necessary to sustain Britain in a defensive posture, is vastly less.
Point four: Britain was nowhere near starvation, and throughout 1940 and 1941 increased food stocks in the UK every month.
You don’t need to invade Britain if you crush, bomb and starve it into submission. Even Churchill said that there were a few months during the Battle of the Atlantic were things looked very grim.
And, without American pressure on Germany and aid to the Soviets, the USSR falls. Esp if Japan, now freed of any worries from the USA, helps out Germany by a small invasion force into Soviet Help territory. That alone would have lost the war for the Soviets- the reinforcements form Siberia etc would not have arrived to save Stalingrad.
Every War game and recreation I play or have seen has Germany being able to beat USSR if the Soviets have to go it alone.
Who were they going to borrow from? And who were they going to buy the goods from? If you say the USA, then how would the goods have gotten there?
And, do you have a cite that shows material sales of war materials to Germany after the start of the War? :dubious: How did the goods have get to Germany? There are these things called the Royal Navy and the Atlantic Ocean?
Yes, Britain won the Battle of Britain. However, they would have lost the Battle of the Atlantic without material USA help. That woudl have meant no more raw materials or food.
And, no one here is saying “we saved your asses”. It took *all three *of the Big Three- working together- to win against the Axis.
Note that in 1941, the USA started providing substantial military aid to the British during the Battle of the Atlantic. wiki *“By 1941 the United States was taking an increasing part in the war, despite its nominal neutrality. In April 1941 President Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland. British forces had occupied Iceland when Denmark fell to the Germans in 1940; the US was persuaded to provide forces to relieve British troops on the island. American warships began escorting Allied convoys in the western Atlantic as far as Iceland, and had several hostile encounters with U-boats.”
*
In fact the USA gave Britain even more aid, even earlier *“There was an entirely different program in 1940, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement whereby 50 USN destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. *” That added something like like 1/4 to the available escort destroyers available. That was crucial. And, they cost the British no cash.
Nope. You’re thinking of Cash & Carry (wiki ) “The revision allowed the sale of material to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash. The purpose was to hold neutrality between the United States and European countries, while still giving material aid to Britain (without the need to extend the same such aid to Germany on account of the fact that the Germans had no funds and that British control of the Atlantic sea lanes also prevented them collecting any material).”
Worked until The Allies ran out of cash "Despite its success, this policy soon left European allies (primarily China) short on cash and this forced U.S. leaders to revise the plan. The revised plan was known as the Lend-Lease program, in which the European allies didn’t have to pay cash or arrange transportation any longer.
The Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic in 1943 , with a lot of American aid and direct military support.
Nope. I’m not thinking of Cash and Carry. Tapioca Dextrin was specifically taking about food. And neither food or civilian transportation were barred in any of the neutrality acts. Even at their most draconian none of the neutrality acts prevented the sale of merchant shipping or food, so long as the buying nation was willing to pay for it and pick it up.
Yes, Britain did run out of hard currency in WWII. And yes, the neutrality acts did prevent the US from providing loans to Britain. But in kind trades were permitted and several such deals were in the works. But they were scrapped as unnecessary once Lend Lease came into being. Even a neutral or slightly antagonistic US would still be providing food to Britain. Though the British would be paying for it non-conventional ways. To do otherwise would drive the US into an even deeper recession. As food was one of the chief US exports of the time.
Likewise I am not discounting the assistance the US provided in the Atlantic. But even without US help the British could have kept the lanes sufficiently open so as to provide the basic caloric needs of their population.
I think if you re-fight the war on the Eastern Front 10 times, the Germans win 4 or 5 times. It was close. The Soviets were a steamrolling juggernaut by the end of the war, but they never become that if they don’t make it through 1942, and they don’t have the logistical support needed to supply their massive horde moving westward without Lend Lease.
Let’s assume a peace treaty between the Soviets and Germany that gives Germany control up to the Dnieper River. That leaves the British, Canadians, Poles, and French partisans to try and eject Germany from western Europe without American armored forces. I don’t see it happening
There is one World War II historian, John Lukacs, who has said that all three major allies were needed to beat Hitler. If either America, Great Britain or the Soviet Union were neutral, the Allies would not have won.
No help at all from the US at any time is my premise. In short, Roosevelt is defeated in 1936 by President Alf Landon.
Without the US supply efforts to Britain with lend/lease, etc., the U-boat wolf packs effectively cut-off the UK and the UK must sue for peace regardless of invasion. Even with the help of the US, the UK was down to 30 days supply of critical war materials such as oil. The air Battle of Britain need never take place. Even without suing for peace, without the US destroyers supplied by lend/lease, the Battle of the Atlantic is won by 1940 because the U-boats are being built faster than the UK can sink them, and the UK is entirely cut off and a non-combatant.
Without the UK, the Nazis do not wait too long in 1941 for Operation Barbarossa to start and start it on time and get in another six weeks of rolling over the unprepared Soviets, capturing all the key railway centers that they fell just a day or two short of with the late start actual Operation Barbarossa. And, by the way, the Luftwaffe has not been cut to hell by the UK with its radar and Hellfires and Spitfires. The USSR is subject to complete air supremacy. Stalin is killed by one of his generals and the Soviets retreat 1,000 miles east and try to sue for peace.
Hitler turns to Africa invades Gibraltar from Morocco.
Hitler develops rockets and the bomb first. President Landon keeps diplomatic relations throughout.
Without US supply, the Allies lose. Without Soviet manpower, the Allies lose. Without Gibraltar the Allies lose. Without Enigma, the Allies probably lose. Without the proximity fuse (radar in a artillery shell) the Allies probably lose.
Without UK, US, and USSR, Sauron wins. The Last Alliance is successful.
Meanwhile, the German A-bomb effort was a joke. Heisenberg was the only major scientist to stay in Germany, and it’s possible that he was actually sabotaging the project from within (at least, so he claimed, and in any event they were going down a completely wrong path). If the US had stayed neutral, maybe all the scientists who fled the Nazis would have ended up in Britain instead of the US, and built a bomb there, but in any event, they certainly wouldn’t have stayed in Germany.
I think that it’s quite plausible that Germany might conquer all of western Europe, but that England alone might have held out long enough on their island to build nukes, and then to end the war by bombing Germany. The only way a war was going to be won across the Channel were with overwhelmingly massive numbers (like we provided) or with nukes, and Germany had neither.
Whether Heisenberg was sabotaging the project or not, Germany was a long way off from having a bomb by all mainstream accounts because it devoted almost no resources to the project. The US devoted an enormous amount of resources to the bomb project. The scale of what the US did is to this day mind-boggling. The Germans had very few facilities allotted to it by comparison.
This is a fascinating thread. Good work, everyone.
Chronos: Presumably, Britain could sue for peace with a nuke, but they couldn’t boot Hitler out of France, right?
Could posters state their scenario explicitly, as LSLGuy and others did?
Germany could probably have had an atom bomb if they hadn’t sent all of their Jewish physicists running to the US and Britain.
No Jooz = no A-bomb.
The list of scientists on the Manhattan Project reads like a Tel Aviv phonebook.
Yes, they had the Romanian oil fields, but they were constantly attacked and insufficient towards the end to where Germany was developing and using synthetic fuels. Without the Caucasus oil, there’s no way for a poorly supplied Soviet infantry to win with no planes or tanks for support. As in WWI, many lacked rifles until they picked one off a dead comrade.
As for Britain, the Luftwaffe might have won, but it depends on who they fought. Surprisingly, they might have won the Battle of Britain if they took on the Royal Navy. The RN might have defeated the Kreigsmarine, but lacked to a large degree to fight aircraft. Most of the guns couldn’t shoot in that direction. So, if the RN was taken out, it would have had the effect Japan was seeking at Pearl Harbor. As long as the RN was at sea, Churchill supposedly willing to fight by moving to Canada to continue the fight if the island fell.
This really is not a GQ, of course.
I’m of the opinion the Allies could not have won. Russia’s industrial capacity may simply not have been capable of supplying the troops it needed to win against Hitler without U.S. aid (and some British as well), which was incredibly massive. And it wans’t just end-products: there were oodles and oodles of strategic stockpiles, machinery, and technical assistance. All of this massively contributed to the Red Army war effort.
Could this have been successful without any American aid? I’m very dubious. The USSR victory was a much closer thing in history than commonly portrayed. With the ability to send almost its entire military against Russia (little need to guard Africa or France or Italy) and them having far worse shortages… I just don’t think so.
It scares me to think of just how slim the fight against Hitler was won. The Japanese were weaksauce by comparison, since they could never bring their full armed might against anyone except China (there just wasn’t room on island bases or the transport capacity).
Without American participation, would there still have been an invasion of Italy? If not, that would mean something like 16 more divisions for the Germans to deploy on the Eastern Front, right?