Just as an aside, the B-36 was originally conceived as a contingent if England fell.
It wasn’t just a case of isolationism. Obviously WW-I left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. But the United States was not a world power at the start of the war. Almost everything Germany had was better. So not only was the will to fight subdued we didn’t have the tools necessary to compete. In the case of the United States it meant a tremendous retooling of hard assets before we could enter the war directly. With the help of technology from the UK and massive industrial capacity we were able to make that happen.
The US didn’t enter the war until Japan attacked it, and Germany declared war on it. Had these things not happened, there is no reason to think that the US would have entered the war.
As for “taking over the world”, Germany had already gone to war with the Soviet Union, a war which it could not win.
As PM he had influence on defense policy and the choice of senior officers. Note that he got Dowding pushed out after the BoB, an act regarded as great injustice and ingratitude.
The main issue about Churchill is that in 1940 he was not an appeaser, when many others such as Lord Halifax were, and he kept the likes them of them away from positions of authority while sweet-talking the populace to continue the fight. As Little Nemo said, Churchill had a good relationship with FDR, and that saved Britain militarily, although not financially.
On the way, but the really big expansion came in the 19C, with India and Africa. Remember, India was not a British colony until after the Indian mutiny, before that it was the property of “John Company” (the Honourable East India Company).
Had they been able to decapitate the leadership, possibly (apparently Stalin retired to his dacha in the first couple of days, and when the Politburo came to beg him to come back and take charge, his first thought was that they had come to shoot him).
But Napoleon took Moscow, only to be defeated by “General Winter”, just as the Germans suffered. Had the Germans focussed on capturing the resources of the south, who knows?
The materials to the south wouldn’t have helped much either with the USA in the war. Texas alone produced ten times the amount of oil the entire Axis states did, and if you add Russian oil production to the Axis (assuming the Germans “get the resources”), then the advantage drops to a mere 4:1.
I think they would have (and almost certainly should have) shot him, but they didn’t really have any idea what to do either, and things were already on a knife edge.
But had the Germans succeeded in taking Moscow and forcing the Russians to move not only what ever was left of their government but also, and more importantly all of their production east of the Urals, it would have been a critical loss for them, and one they wouldn’t have recovered from. Oh, I have no doubt that they could and would have held out where they were going, but it would have cut them off from the most critical parts of Russia wrt food and industrial production, and set back their own industrial production by years if not longer. They wouldn’t have been able to recover the parts Germany would have annexed, which was the entire western half of Russia.
As for the southern resources, I doubt that they could have held those in the next campaign season, not with the focus on moving everything east of the Ural’s…it was just a matter of time at that point.
People have this idea that the German defeat by the Soviets was inevitable, but that’s because they are looking at Red Army in '44 or '45 when it was an unstoppable juggernaut, with not only the full might of Soviet industry and production but with the US basically supplying them with not only trucks, planes and tanks but raw materials and even food and clothing…really, everything a modern military needs to function. Had Germany taken Moscow and forced the Soviets to move their government and industries, it probably would have also meant that the Siberian reinforcements that were decisive in our actual timeline wouldn’t have been unleashed to drive the Germans back and gain back space for Russia. Instead, they would almost certainly have been used to shore up the new lines and also keep the Soviet government in power, as if the Germans HAD done that you’d have all sorts of groups coming out of the wood work to strike while they thought the Soviets were weak. Hell, it’s possible Japan would have changed their stance if the Germans really did drive the Soviets back that far.
Churchill had jackshit to with RAF defence of Great Britain in the Battle of Britain, all the plans, operations and their execution was done by senior military officers
Agree with XT. The comparisons with 1812 are misplaced. In 1812 the loss of Moscow was a stinging event, but survivable.
In 1941, the place was the hub of Soviet road and rail network. Might well be fatal.
To illustrate look at Zhukov, who spent most of the early months of Barbarossa begging to be permitted to withdraw rather than make hopeless stands defending cities, yet he was determined to hold Moscow, in fact Stalin and STVAKA seemed to have been ready post Kiev to withdraw if necessary.
While it’s true that day to day operations were handled by senior officers, Churchill was responsible for setting up and running the systems that supported them, and for the top-level strategic decisions.
The radar network, the operations centres, the communications system, the technical experts, the factories producing aircraft and parts, the manpower, the materials, the fuel reserves and transportation - a lot of that was set up and kept running by Churchill and the people he personally appointed.
Yes, absolutely.
The spirit of the people had been pretty much broken, and Chamberlain was planning to save Britain by dealing with Germany. Without the leadership change to Churchill, this would likely have proceeded, resulting in a sort of balkanized England, and a German Europe.
After he took leadership, Churchill’s speeches were needed to stiffen the resolve of the people. In effect, Churchill caused the Battle of Britain, because now the country was again willing to fight.
The speeches were delivered in parliament, which in those days was neither recorded nor broadcast. (The recordings we hear today were made as part of an oral history project after the war was over.) People knew about the speeches either by reading transcripts in the parliamentary reports published in the newspaper, or by hearing (brief) extracts quoted by newsreaders in news programmes on the radio. The speeches themselves did not have a significant public impact, simply because the public never heard them.
Their purpose was not to appeal to the public, but to shore up support in parliament for Churchill and his policy. It would be hard to disentangle that impact from the impact of other steps taken by Churchill and others to consolidate parliamentary support, but the general assessment of historians is that the speeches were signficant. Churchill’s main initial challenge was that he himself was not popular or trusted, either in the Conservative parliamentary party or in parliament at large. There was already an appetite to prosecute the war rather than seek peace - Chamberlain had to resign precisely because parliament had lost confidence in his ability to prosecute the war - and Churchill was known to be strongly in favour of prosecuting the war, but the question was whether he had the leadership qualities needed to do this successfully. (He was seen as a persistent maverick, and his record in leadership roles in the Great War was, um, not one to inspire confidence.) The speeches helped to build confidence among MPs that, yes, he did.
two things, firstly I don’t know why you directed this at my comment regarding Churchill’s problematic views. It seems to have zero connection to my comment.
Secondly. On his ascension to the PM position he also became the UK’s first Minister of Defence and was central to strategy and tactical detail from the off, including the battle of Britain. I’m not sure it would be possible to hold that position and have nothing to do with the outcome.
To be fair, the few weeks between his coming into office and the start of the Battle of Britain weren’t enough for the home defence command and control system to have been set up by him, or not to have been set up without him. Much or most of that work was done before the war. (And though this is hardly complete or conclusive, the film The Lion Has Wings, a propaganda effort released in November 1939, shows the now familiar control room and gallery controlling the early bombing raid on the Kiel Canal).
If anyone has an interest in the actual numbers of the BoB I’d highly recommed Stephen Bungay’s “The most dangerous enemy”.
It gives a blow by blow account of the systems, processes, raids, planes, pilots etc. and clearly sets out how close (or not) Britain came to disaster.
The upshot being that, in comparison to the Germans, we didn’t really come close to running out of planes or pilots. We actually ended up out-producing the Germans in both. Not that resources weren’t tight of course but the ability to defend airspace was never actually in doubt (though the even more pressing problems being faced by the Luftwaffe weren’t apparent to the RAF at the time)
Two critical factors were that the Germans were fighting over enemy territory and a pilot/plane didn’t need to be killed/destroyed in order to be taken out of action completely.
Also, a much overlooked factor was the excellent process in place for repairing and recommissioning planes and getting them back into service.
AK84 is correct in that Churchill had little to do with the Battle of Britain in regards to strategy- the glory belongs to Dowding and Park. Chruchill wanted to fritter away the fighter resources by sending them to France when the battle was lost and Dowding refused, stating they were needed for the defence of the UK. Churchill had his revenge.
Churchill was an inveterate meddler- look at the generals cycled through the Desert and saw himself as a military genius when he had very little experience and was continually looking for soft underbellies and refusing to recognise the importance of protecting convoys to the UK by the provision of long range aircraft. Everything went to bomber command as that was “offensive”.
Where Churchill did pave the way to victory was by keeping dialogue open with Roosevelt and securing American assistance (far beyond what could be expected from a neutral country).
One other mention is made of Churchill’s speeches. These were made to the House of Commons and weren’t broadcast. The speech that old movies love about fighting them on the beaches was spoken by an actor named Norman Shelley well known then for playing Larry the Lamb in the Childrens Hour. Churchill made few public addresses to the nation.