Wait; Germany has defeated France but Churchill isn’t already Prime Minister? Those aren’t things that were ever true at the same time. Churchill became PM at the very beginning of the Battle of France. You perhaps recall that Churchill travelled to France in the first week of the invasion and famously asked Gamelin (in French) “Where’s the strategic reserve?” only to be dumbfounded when Gamelin replied “There isn’t one.”
At the point France is defeated, Churchill was already Prime Minister. The possibility of peace was discussed by the war cabinet and rejected. Britain was not going to make peace; at that point Germany didn’t have any realistic chance of convincing Britain to give up.
Yeah, my timeline is a bit off there with respect to the timing of events. Basically, I’m proposing that Churchill doesn’t become PM on May the 10th (the same day the German’s invaded), instead it’s one of the people in Chamberlain’s faction or someone more disposed to a peaceful settlement with Germany. There were several other options besides Churchill after all. Considering how swiftly defeat came on the new PM (basically, by May 20th the Brits were looking at ways to get their troops out of there…and by June 22nd it was all over) it’s not implausible. But, yes, you are right…Churchill was already PM in our timeline by the time France surrendered, and in fact was PM starting on the day Germany invaded. Sorry about that.
I disagree with your second paragraph…I think that there WAS a chance the Brits would have considered peace, especially with the scale of their defeat. And especially had they not managed to get over 300k of their troops out of France at the end there.
While I enjoy these counterfactuals and think they help us understand history, I’m often taken aback by how many people want to devise scenarios where the Nazis win. So I propose a happier scenario. Marinus van der Lubbe sets the Reichstag on fire, with all the top Nazis in the building. Goering, keen show he is still a war hero and leader, says, “follow me, mein Fuehrer!” and heads for an exit. But he gets stuck in the doorway. A cascade of Nazis, including Hitler, pile up and fall over and go up with the building. A sane government is formed, war is averted, Stalin happily drinks himself to death by 1940 and moderates take power, Mussolini is deposed and/or assassinated, Churchill is remembered as an idiot who opposed women’s suffrage, and no one has heard of Charles de Gaulle. Meanwhile, in Japan, someone checks US steel production figures against Japanese steel production and takes the result to the emperor who slaps his head and says, “the army and navy are morons. Let’s call the whole thing off.” Roosevelt, totally unstressed, survives his fourth term, and peace and goodwill on earth reign.
None of these counterfactuals that we propose here and there mean we WANT Nazis to win. You are confusing an intellectual exercise with a desire for that thing to actually happen.
It’d be a happier ending if, with the depression hopefully still over in 1940 and no looming crisis on the horizon, he chose not to seek a third term and stepped down in the tradition of every President going back to Washington (with a few head-scratchers like Grant and Teddy Roosevelt along the way).
Maybe as a bonus, he could be the one to push through the 22nd amendment as written on his way out.
This hypo is trotted about relatively often, but it completely ignores what Nazism was. It was not an isolated thing, or a punctual aberration, a strange madness that would have taken Germany and its Germans circa 1930. Fischer and the historians who followed in his tracks rather persuasively demonstrated that it was merely another shade of a German zeitgeist that had started taking shape sometime in the late 19th century, a feeling of being left behind and robbed of its manifest destiny by England, France and even Spain (although of course by that time the Spanish empire had collapsed). Germany saw itself as evidently better than its neighbours, and with some reasons - they had the best science and education, the better industry, a strong social network… and yet the world had already been conquered by those lesser-than next door while Germany’s “place in the Sun” was, to quote Blackadder, a small sausage factory in Tanganyka. And a half-decent brewery in Tsingtao. Hitler’s regime introduced a racial, genetic component to it as it was very popular in the 30s, but the Germans had long considered themselves to be superior to other European people. This spirit of correcting the obvious mistake of history was what drove the Kaiser to speed up WW1, and it’s in the same spirit of frustrated ambition that they went along with Hitler’s warlike insanity.
Leaving France alone was never ever a possibility. Not trying to push England out of Africa was never a possibility. Not trying to humiliate Russia was never a possibility (hell, Hitler’s propaganda machine even pulled Aleksandr Nevsky out of his medieval mothballs as a national insult to be avenged !). From accepting Hitler’s leadership, Germany was already set on declaring war on the whole of Europe. It was only a question of time and order of invasions.
So, why is it that Germany (Prussia?) didn’t get there just like England, France and Spain? Was it a sense that “the bastards are cockblocking us from imperial greatness because we weren’t unified yet when the empire game started and now it’s all taken?”
OP:
Even if Germany had aimed only for the USSR, it would likely have failed. From what I’ve read and watched about it, Prussia/Germany was in the habit of doing the equivalent of a zerg rush. Planning, preparation, surprise and speed had worked quite well, even back in the days of Frederick the Great. That had allowed Prussia to punch above its weight. Prussia/Germany had quick victories because that’s pretty much the only kind of victory it could have against the great powers. It didn’t have the manpower for a war of attrition or the fuel for an extensive mechanized war.
It’s quite unlikely that Germany would have knocked the USSR out in a quick victory. It’s too vast. Taking Moscow wouldn’t have resulted in a quick decisive victory for Hitler anymore than it did for Napoleon. Germany didn’t have the strategic fuel reserves and didn’t do the operational logistics of fuel resupply well enough to do blitzkrieg at a fast enough pace to give it a quick decisive victory over the USSR. The lack of fuel caused German advances to do stop-and-go which deprived them of the speed they needed to do blitzkrieg well enough to get a quick victory. You need good fuel supply to put that blitz in your blitzkrieg. Then it shifted to a war of attrition which the USSR was going to win. Russians weren’t going to give up like they did in WWI because in WWI, surrender meant a lower likelihood of death. In WWII, surrender pretty much meant death.
Pretty much, yeah. By the time Western Europe was getting in on the colony game, Germany was still very much reeling from the Thirty Year War and its aftermath - which, admittedly, the other Euro powers were all to eager to participate in so long as it wasn’t their backcountry that got trampled into a giant field of mud.
So from what I understand (although bear in mind, I’m really no specialist on either that period or Germany specifically) the Germans felt “cheated” in the sense that its competitors “took advantage” of its time of relative weakness to snatch up all of the good foreign lands and/or resource contracts. They tried to get a toehold into the whole “raping China senseless” game but, again, were late to that party and didn’t have local strongpoints from which to exert influence so their gains were paltry. Which obviously was yet more unfairness.
(oh, of course there also was this inconvenient accident of geography, namely that Germany doesn’t border the Atlantic. Meaning any oversea expansion effort was always contingent on the tacit approval of more westerly powers, England especially since it always had the bestest navy. And England was Protestant back when Germany was still Catholic so no go there. By the time Protestant Prussia got around to knocking the remains of the HRE about, the game had changed yet again and nobody really gave a hoot about religion any more - it was now a game of proto-nations and Germany was a different one, so no go on the boats !
Always a day late and a dollar short, was Germany…)
If you don’t like his running for a third term on principle, you’re not alone - that is why the 22nd Amendment exists. But you can’t say he set a bad precedent, because of course the 22nd Amendment was passed so it cannot happen again.
Was there an alternative to FDR in 1940 who would clearly have done a better job managing the war?
I’m pretty sure the post was meant specifically to add to the scenario where the Nazis, Mussolini and Stalin never make it to ‘41, Japan doesn’t go to war etc. I.e, no war. All rose petals and moonbeams.
Hitler was eastward focused. He wanted the Slavs in Poland and Russia to be replaced by German farmers and colonists. He did not expect France and England to actually stick by their defensive pact with Poland. He later clearly thought or hoped some sort of arrangement with England could be had. While there were plans to regain and possibly expand Germany’s former colonies in “Mittelafrika” , they were way down the priority list.
Says who ? Says you ?
France and England declared war on Germany in september 1939. Neither did anything whatsofuckingever until Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands etc… in may 1940 besides creating focus groups and harbouring refugees - what we know in France as “the strange war” because neither we nor the UK did anything besides declaring or reinforcing mutual defence pledges and pacts.
Had Germany focused strictly east and never threatened their actual possessions, neither France nor the UK would have done a goddamned thing ; much like we’re not doing a goddamned thing for Ukraine now. Because we ain’t give a shit, and in the event that we do give a shit, we don’t give that much of a shit to really commit to anything substantial. If anything, we French were more interested in seizing this wartime opportunity to arrest Communists (who wanted France to commit to attacking Germany in earnest, as opposed to WW1 when they were getting arrested for opposing the war…)
The idea that Germany simply had to attack because “the Allies !!!” is ridiculous almost on its face.
Yes, this. Kropotkin laid out a scenario in which WWII was a non-starter as cooler heads prevailed in Europe and Asia, so in that hypothetical there doesn’t seem to be any extraordinary circumstance justifying a third term beyond just “screw it, why not?” I do believe that it was “fair enough” of FDR to run for additional terms on a “don’t change horses in midstream” platform (that and, with the benefit of hindsight, he had a pretty good vision for a cooperative victory that would ultimately be justified by history), but make no mistake: breaking that informal precedent, which dates back to the foundation itself, was a threat to the American democratic tradition.
Although FDR did well enough and had the decency to die before he risked wearing out his welcome leading a postwar government, I’m very glad that his unprecedented stint in office provided the impetus to pass a constitutional term limit for the presidency. As to why I think that was/is an especially good thing, beyond just general principal, I’ll leave it at that, lest I invite moderator action.
ETA:
I don’t see where you two are disagreeing with each other, re: Hitler’s prospects with the west. Though I do suspect the French and UK would have done… something. Eventually, if left to their own devices.
We’re disagreeing in the sense that he’s arguing that, while Hitler was focused east and did not have any ambitions wrt. France and the UK; the fact is that he did, in fact, attack France and the UK directly. And since neither of us believe it had anything to do with Poland, or the Sudetenland, or Czechoslovakia or anything like that, weeeeell… what the fuck, then ?
My position is that attacking France & the UK was an implicit goal of Nazism in and of itself - and not just as a “revenge” for the Versailles treaty either. That wound was much older and more festering than that. I’m not sure what Isosleepy’s position is, really ; but his post seems to imply that eventually they would have become a thorn in Germany’s side - which I disagree with.
I can almost even prove it, with an open question to the board’s British (and French, but that’s just me and **clairobscur **I think) members : would you agree to get conscripted, or for your children to be conscripted to enter a war with Russia wrt:Ukraine ? Would you agree to be conscripted, or see your children get conscripted, to enter war with Turkey and save the Kurds from dead certain (hah.) genocide ?
Yeah, me neither.
We don’t give a *real *shit. But we do deplore, in no uncertain terms !
I’m not sure I get your point. Are you saying that, eventually, Germany would have gone after France and the Brits? That’s true enough, at least wrt France I suspect, though Hitler clearly did NOT want to go to war with the western powers at the time he was forced too. He didn’t think that France and Britain would actually pull the trigger on a war for Poland, even though they said they would, since they had said similar things in the past and backed down. I think Hitlers goal was always Russia and expanding the German empire eastward, snatching up eastern Europe and Russia and then down into the Middle East. He would have been fine if France and Britain sat on the sidelines and did nothing. If you are saying that this was never in the cards, realistically, and France and the Brits were always going to step in at some point, then I agree with you…that was always going to happen at some point. If it wasn’t Poland it would have been something else. France especially couldn’t afford a strong and expanding Germany and the Brits wouldn’t want the Germans expanding into areas that would be able to touch upon their own empire.
I’m saying going after France and the Brits was **always **part of the plan - not a sidegoal or consequence of nor hindrance to the “main” plan. Crushing those arrogant upstarts was part and parcel with affirming the immanent, intrinsic, self-demonstrating greatness of Germany. It’s all but spelled out in Hitler’s speeches as early as 1937, and although I haven’t yet read Mein Kampf I’m relatively convinced you’d find clues in there as well. Because Hitler wasn’t a gamechanging superevil aberration, just a product of his time and place, and an expression of nationwide trends.
ETA:
But that’s what they did. There were some minor skirmishes, but those never encroached upon Germany’s borders proper and in any event the French & British governments both squashed them unequivocally.
Depends on what you are asserting wrt the timing of the plan. Hitler definitely wasn’t ready to fight France or Britain at this point, and the German High Command was REALLY against it. The only reason that changed is Hitler miscalculated. If you are saying that, perhaps after German conquered Russia or some large part of it, was expanding into the Middle East and such, that THEN he would turn back to France (this assumes of course that France and the Brits do nothing this whole time) then…schmaybe? Hitler’s actual goal, which he spells out in multiple writings and discussions was to go after Russia after Eastern Europe. He might have had speeches about France to the crowds, but at least as far as I recall there wasn’t anything concrete wrt planning or anything else to fight the French. It’s why, initially, they dusted off the old Schlieffen Plan when it became clear the French and Brits were serious about going to war. It was only when that became clearly untenable that they hit on the Ardennes and driving panzer spearheads behind the dug in French and British forces.
Hitler was definitely not some sort of super genius strategic planner…he was, frankly, an idiot who got lucky. But I’ve not seen any actual evidence that, prior to the allies drawing and sticking to their guns about Poland that he planned any sort of action against France or the Brits on any sort of near or even medium term time frame.
ETA:
Yes, but they were building up forces and logistics. He couldn’t just ignore them at that point, so they (the Germans) threw the dice in desperation before the French and British could strike first instead. He didn’t (couldn’t really) know they planned to fight totally defensively, he had to assume at some point they would go on the offensive. And, frankly, he was right…eventually they would have, once they had everything in place.
And I’d have agreed with German High Command. Fall Gelb was a colossally retarded plan on the merits. It just, y’know, happened to succeed, in spite of itself.
No, man. I’m saying Hitler attacked France half-cocked (or sixth-cocked) in may 1939 because Hitler wanted to attack France, period. He wasn’t pushed to it, forced to it by any coalition or plot or even aggressive move by the Allies’ militaries - French & British diplomats were still seeking ass-covering ways out of any actual action the week before the invasion. The absolute vote gainer in either country was still “anyone who keeps us out of any actual war”. There was no *practical *reason for Fall Gelb. Except for, y’know, Nazism.
Yeah, no. I call bullshit on that. I don’t really know for Britain, but where France is concerned that really was not the case. There was no increase in troop numbers or readiness, no threatening moves, no ultimatums, no provocation, no nothing.