# The Western Allies Did Not Win WWII **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-western-allies-did-not-win-wwii/237237 "2004-03-30T03:32:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-western-allies-did-not-win-wwii/237237/21 "2004-03-30T19:16:51Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Personally I think its a way to re-revise history. For the longest time the US maintained that IT (and England) had pretty much saved the day nearly single handedly. The USSR was looked on here and in Western Europe as the enemy during the cold war so its contributions were down played. Now it has swung completely the other way. A lot of folks in Europe (not counting England of course) now take it as practically gospel that Russia could have single handedly taken the Germans no sweat and that the other allies were just kind of along for the ride now. This is pure anacdote btw, but I have many friends in various parts of Europe and in the UK and this SEEMS to me to be a real attitude. Course my dozen or so friends don’t constitute a large percentage so I could be way off base here. 🙂 The idea that the Western Allies waited until the USSR had effectively defeated Germany before walking over Western Europe was a actually the party line and pop history taught in the USSR and the nations on the other side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. I wouldn’t say that the contributions of the USSR were down played in serious history during the Cold War, but they certainly were minimized in pop high school history if what I was taught in high school is any measure. It consisted largely of mentioning the German invasion, Stalingrad, and the end of the war, while spending a great deal of time on what the Western Allies were doing. Normandy alone received more attention than the entire Eastern Front. ---
**Author:** ![Tokyo\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@Tokyo\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tokyo_Mann)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-western-allies-did-not-win-wwii/237237/22 "2004-03-31T01:03:30Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > If there had _never_ been a sustained Western front, basically Hitler never tries to invade Britain and the Western Allies simply say, “sorry” to the occupied nations of Western Europe. . . > Furthermore if the rest of the Western Allies hadn’t gotten involved there is a good chance they just simply would not have helped the Soviets vs. Germany. Without Britain herself at threat and with no prospect of warfare against Germany it is hard to say who Britain/the United States would choose to support, Fascists or Communists? Britain was _already_ involved before the attempted invasion. Poland was the line in the sand which Britain and France determined that Germany had to be stopped. I can’t imagine any case where Britain would have _quit_ its war against Germany, especially once France was invaded. That would have been suicidal. Germany was clearly the threat to Britain, and there is no basis to the speculation that Britain would support the fascists against the communists. > [@](#): > > Without the United States Japan would be lord of the Pacific in short order. Indochina and China would be Japanese vassals with ease. In this case scenario Japan has nothing to fear from the United States. However this ignores the factor that it was the Japanese generals spoiling for the fight, which let to the threat to US interests. While the US would not have gone to war as soon as they did without Pearl Harbor, what reason would they have for giving up the embargo on oil and scrap metal, the reason behind the Japanese military’s attack on the States and Britain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-western-allies-did-not-win-wwii/237237.md?page=1)