I think that overall, as stated upthread, his strategic goal was to build a coalition to defeat Hitler, with the chief ally being the United States.
But equally important was his sort of belligerent, stubborn and irascible nature that he displayed to great effect on the British home front early in the war. At no point did he ever convey anything but an unshakeable belief that the only course of action was that the British would fight like hell and eventually win, and I think that’s something that’s of understated importance. If you’re trying to get people together behind a common goal, the leaders have to act like they are also totally committed to that goal, and Churchill accomplished that magnificently.
Now he wasn’t perfect at all, but he was the right man at the right time in 1940-1941 Britain. Anyone less belligerent, stubborn and irascible might not have portrayed the level of commitment, determination and fighting spirit that he did, and Britain might have chosen not to fight- after all, the French had just been soundly beaten, the Army had just escaped by the skin of its teeth from Dunkirk, and the Luftwaffe was bombing British cities in preparation for what many believed to be an amphibious invasion of Britain. I’m sure things looked very dire to your average Briton then, but then you had the primary political leader of the country doing his thing and while acknowledging that things were dire, absolutely not acknowledging that there was any other course of action besides fighting and winning.
That’s his greatest contribution, I suspect- after the US was in the war, I think that his role became less singularly important- it was more coalition building/maintenance, and less crisis leadership.
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Like AK84 alludes to above, even if Germany and GB had made peace in 1940 they would have soon been at war over North Africa. The Italians would have still been fighting the British there, the British would still have won, and the Germans would have been forced to intervene.
Also lets say the Germans really did push the Russians hard and took Moscow in 41 or 42. As they pushed further east and south in Asia they would have run afoul of GB like if they tried to attack the middle eastern oilfields.
Finally even though German had taken countries like France and Belgium, they still had to control those countries. Resistance movements were popping up all over Europe and I feel the British would have supported those.
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I think his points are highly speculative and based on a logic chain that I don’t find particularly compelling. The Brits had tried to avoid direct high level conflict since WWI, as we can see from Chamberlain, and I think that this mentality still had solid backing despite Chamberlain being out. If someone who thought along similar lines got the PM spot instead of Churchill it might have been quite a while before the Brits butted heads again with the Germans. Really, it might have only needed to be a year or so, with Germany able to focus a lot more on it’s invasion of Russia, especially wrt air power. That would have been a huge amount of combat losses the Germany WOULDN’T have taken in the BoB, which would have translated into a lot more capable Luftwaffe. In addition, you would have less manpower and other resources directed to western Europe and available for that invasion.
As it was, it was a pretty near run thing. Even tipping the scales only a bit would have almost certainly, at a minimum, split Russia and forced the Russian leadership to have to relocate to beyond the Ural’s.
Trying to avoid conflict and trying to ensure there is no dominant power on the continent are not mutually exclusive. Pre June 1940 the British were in an alliance with the French, for this exact reason, to maintain the balance of power.
For some reason XT seems to think that in case of a ceasefire, the British would have accepted the status quo in the continent for good. That is against precedent and indeed policy. The British absolutely would have gotten involved again and soon. They would have tried to prop up both Eastern Europe and the USSR when the Germans inevitably hit.
War with Italy would have begun like it did historically and would have likely gotten the German sucked in.
And even with the Battle of Britain, it’s not like the effects of it hurt the Luftwaffe in anyway. Until the strategic bombing got underway in ‘42, not like the Brits did anything substantial in hurting Germany.
Without Churchill, does the UK continue to maintain a naval blockade against Germany? And without Churchill, does the Dunkirk evacuation happen as successfully?
No blockade means the US can make money selling to Germany throughout 1940 and '41. A Germany dependent on US trade does not then declare war on the US in December 1941. Further, a supplied Germany probably does a lot better against the USSR. I don’t think they knock out Moscow in '41, but I think the 1942 offensives have a much better chance of succeeding. Also, does the US supply the USSR through Lend-Lease, sans a declaration of war by Germany? I don’t think Bagration et al are nearly as successful without American trucks, gasoline, phone lines, and all of the other materiel shipped to the USSR.
I’ve said here before that a failed Dunkirk evacuation, IMHO, means the UK calls it a day against Germany and asks for an armistice. Losing the BEF entirely would have been a ~300,000 man defeat. Few countries could take that shock and want to keep fighting.
Germany, if they have a brain in their head—which is debatable, given their clumsy diplomacy—points out to the UK all of the nascent anti-colonial movements in the UK colonies and says ‘Your chances of beating these is a whole lot higher if you call off this silly war with us.’ Ironically, given Churchill’s feelings on imperialism, this might have been a reasonable tack to take in negotiating with him.
Again, I don’t find your line here to be that compelling. Britain wanted to dominate the continent (or prevent the Germans or anyone else from doing so), so they would just go to war with Germany again, despite being in even a worse military position because…European domination? Especially since it’s pretty obvious that Germany WANTED a cease fire with Britain, and would have been focused on Russia, not North Africa. They were focused on North Africa in our world partly to get the Italians feet out of the fire, but mostly because the British were there, and they wanted to break up communications routes to the British far east part of the empire. Take away a Britain at war with Germany, and most of the reasons for Germany to push the British back into even contemplating a war evaporate. Even the Italian stuff could be dealt with, as Germany was pretty obviously the senior partner, even at this stage. Italy was going to do what Germany wanted them to do.
As for the last paragraph, I get a rough number of German combat air losses between May of 1940 and June of 1941 of around 2000-3000 air craft. This doesn’t even get into the expenditure of resources. And we haven’t started talking about North Africa. Take all of that away, or even most of it and you are talking about significant resources that could have been focused on Russia instead, to give the Germans a heavier punch. Even if the Brits just held off their war until Russia was invaded it would be significant, and I have serious doubts that, with a British/German cease fire, that the Brits would have gone back to war with Germany just because Germany invade Russia.
The Germans suffered 75,000 losses of aircraft in WW2, of which nearly 50,000 were total losses.
2000/3000 aircraft? The Russians might not even notice. Plus, I doubt a few additional wings of aircraft are going to make any difference on the Eastern front.
As for N Africa, the Italians regularly did things the Germans would rather they did not in our world. The tensions between the Brits and the Italians predate the war and the Italo-German alliance. They aren’t going away and will likely lead to war shortly. Historically, the Brits beat tye Italians with troops already in Egypt and the Middle East, the first large scale reinforcement from the UK and India didn’t arrive until mid 41, after Rommel had already been sent there.
N Africa was important to the Germans not because of the fact it could cut the British off from the Shorter route to the Far East, that was done in ‘39 when the decision was made to cease merchant traffic through the canal, but because a loss of N Africa would expose all of Southern Europe to British air and naval assets.
And if not North Africa, there were plenty of other crises which could re-precipitate war. The Balkans, Turkey, and Russia. Even if the British did not declare war after Barbarossa, they would certainly support the Soviets, which would absolutely antagonise the Germans and might get Hitler to declare his armistice at an end.
Or will Hitler show Job like patience and Solomonesque wisdom in all the several crises with Britain which will come?
As far as trade, while I suspect civilian trade with the US will resume, the British in even the worst realistic ceasefire situation will never countenance military supplies going to Germany.
Sorry, but this is just ridiculous. We are talking about 1941, not 1945. It would have made a HUGE difference in the early stages of the war. They definitely would have noticed, as in the early stages the Luftwaffe crushed the Russians early on…and this was WITH those losses and diversion of resources to fight the British.
With a peace treaty in hand, I seriously doubt the Italians would buck the Germans on keeping the Brits out of the war at this point just to fuck around in North Africa. The Italians alone weren’t going to push into Egypt, and really that would have been the only thing that, after suffering the defeat they did on the continent and going for peace would bring the Brits back into the war.
Well, that’s your whole premise. I’m unconvinced, but YMMV. I seriously doubt the Brits would have gone back to war so soon without an immediate and existential threat to their empire, which, presumably, the Germans wouldn’t have given them…at least not until after they had secured the victory they were actually looking for the whole time in Russia. But even if we posit that, having stayed out of the fighting for over a year, giving the Germans breathing space to prepare for their Russian adventure without having to fight the Brits that whole time, the Brits got back in, I’d say that it STILL would have been a decisive respite for the Germans.
And, getting back to the OP, it could have happened, had Churchill not been PM. There was still an appeasement faction in Parliament, as well as factions that just didn’t think the British could or should continue to fight the Germans, instead needing to focus on the empire and holding it together.
He wouldn’t have to. He WANTED peace with the British and breathing space to go after Russia. It was his plan all along. He only needed to go along with the Brits for a few years at most. He also thought the British were Germany’s natural allies, and that they shouldn’t be fighting. He needs neither ‘Job like patience’ nor ‘Solomonesque wisdom’ to see that German gains a lot more by not fighting the Brits than by fighting them, especially at this stage. It’s why they were asking for peace and even offering pretty good terms.
If the US hadn’t have been dragged into the European conflict what reason would there have been for the US to have wanted to get involved with a war against Japan?
Churchill certainly had a lot of faults and flaws. This is an understatement. But there seems to be a belief by some that if someone is bad on one point, that means he or she couldn’t possibly make a positive contribution or needs to be undercut and marginalized. Hell, for all I hate the man, and for all his much more odious faults and flaws, Stalin helped ‘win WWII’ as well.
We need to look at history with a clear view, seeing the people involved for what they were wrt their myriad flaws and horrible behavior. But we ALSO need to be able to see what they actually accomplished. It’s hard to believe that anyone thinks Churchill didn’t help win the war. Was he the only factor? Not even close. But his contribution was as great as any other individual, and greater than most. I’d say it ranks far past our own President, despite how instrumental the US was to winning.
Um…because they attacked us? Is this a trick question? The reason the US got involved in the war with Japan is because the Japanese attacked us…on their own, without consulting with Germany. They did this for a variety of reasons, but mainly because the US was in their way wrt their expansion into the South Pacific (and all that juicy, relatively unguarded colonial territory from the European powers who were either defeated or heavily engaged at home) as well as the oil blockade the US imposed on Japan. None of this had anything to do with the US or Europe or Germany.
I do see one possible permutation though wrt the British having peace with Germany during the 40-41 period. It should have freed up more fleet for the Brits to deploy to the region, and might have given the Japanese pause, at least when going after British territory in the region. That might have caused the Japanese to also rethink going to war with the US at that time…though maybe not. Basically, with the British more free to shore up their overseas empire and territory, the Japanese might have been more circumspect in their plans wrt getting into a major war with the US and a non-distracted Royal Navy. Maybe focusing, as Germany wanted, on Russia in the east, or maybe re-focusing on China and South East Asia.
Churchill is criticized for speaking highly of Stalin at some point. Stalin had one of Churchill’s speeches reprinted in Pravda. Did Churchill recognize that Stalin was evil, and merely wanted to keep his ally in a good humor?
Well this is what I was angling at. The US had never shown much interest in getting involved in overseas conflicts so would the Japanese have attacked? Maybe it’s obvious and it would have still happened - I’m just curious as to what people think.
But even before that, he’s supposed to have said, “if Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”
Well, there are a few factors in this. One, we did in fact have an embargo on Japan for oil, which was hurting them a lot. That was certainly a big factor in why Japan did what they did. Others were the the US was preventing Japan from further pursuits of their imperial goals in the south Pacific. Another factor was the weakened European colonial powers, and especially their lack of focus on the region (them being busy fighting and in many cases losing back in Europe). All of this pretty much made it inevitable that Japan would try and take the US out of the picture for as long as they could. Japans strategy was to hit the US so hard and knock them out for long enough that they could swoop in and basically grab most or all of the European colonial territory, fortifying it and basically handing the US a fait accompli. They were even ready, even eager to pay the US reparations or whatever it took to appease the US after the fact. So, carrot and stick.
But if you shift some of those factors, it’s quite possible that Japan doesn’t attack the US and shifts it’s focus to something else. If the British were not fighting a war back in the home islands, if they had the resources to spare to send more reinforcements, especially of their fleet, it might have given the Japanese pause, especially when coupled with the US Pacific fleet which was a serious threat.
“Of course, on occasion, Churchill said such things. He also expressed quite opposite ideas, as in the quotes noted above… abject ignorance that governs knee-jerk disparagement of respected figures of the past is very routine nowadays.”
But I would say the issue of Churchill and racism is a hijack.
Hitler would have made Mussolini stop. The peace woudl have included Italy.
The resistance would have been minor without british and American support. They would n’t have had the experts, the planning, the bombs, etc. This is made clear in that book I cited above.
As XT has already explained, Japan had been determined to take control of Asia for a decade. It had been at war in China for years. They needed the raw materials to continue fighting and the US was in its way. Only total capitulation would have satisfied them.
The U.S. was not dragged into the European conflict. It remained isolationist up through Dec. 6, 1941: the draft was retained by one vote in the House on August 18! Roosevelt was doing everything he could to support England but received tremendous opposition.
The biggest “if” of the war was whether the U.S. would go to war with Germany. There was no impetus for that with the entire country hysterical about Pearl Harbor. But Hitler declared war on December 11. That and only that got us into the European war in 1941. If Hitler had stayed quiet - not his style, to be sure - Roosevelt would have had a long battle with Congress and our war effort would have been greatly delayed.
Hitler’s attack on Russia and his declaring war were his two greatest blunders and both happened within a few months in 1941 when he was at the peak of his hubris. Had neither happened, Europe would be German today.
Churchhill was responsible in part for the transfer of the magnetron to US research labs. He sidestepped a lot of red tape with the Tizzard Mission and engaged philanthropists like Alfred Loomis directly for support. The contribution of airborne radar was significant in the fight against u boats.
That aside look at when he became Prime Minister. April 10 1940. He was told they could not successfully retrieve their Army from France so he came up with a civilian boat rescue and retrieved them from Dunkirk. That was April 26. It was launched 15 days after his appointment.