It appears from this website http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/dec/decmenu.htm that the US declared war on both Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941, three days after it had declared war against Japan and four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Does that mean that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was the triggering event that the US needed to decide to fight side-by-side with Britain and France against the Axis in Europe? We had been directly supporting Britain for a long time before December 11th so why did the US wait until Pearl Harbor to directly engage in Europe against Germany and her allies? Hadn’t Germany successfully attacked our supply ships in the Atlantic prior to December 11?
There was still a lot of public resistance to getting involved in another European war. Despite FDR’s support of the Britain, he did not have the public opinion behind him to declare war on the Axis earlier.
Oakminster is correct. Hitler had promised the Japanese that if war broke out between Japan and the U.S., he would declare war on the U.S. In a move unusual for him, he honored that promise. Germany declared war on the US on December 11, during the day in Europe; Italy followed suit. The US Congress then declared, unanimously in the Senate and with one dissenting vote in the House, that “a state of war exists” between the US and Germany and Italy.
Thanks… that makes more sense. It’s interesting to speculate what might have happened had the US entered the war in Europe a few years earlier presumably before Germany had such a strong foothold in France.
It’s also interesting (though perhaps unpleasant) to speculate what might have happened if Hitler hadn’t honor his treaty with Japan, and we didn’t get pulled into the war in Europe at all (or perhaps not until after we had taken care of the Pacific front).
It is true that Germany and Italy declared war on us after we declared war on Japan.
I think that our escalating “conflicts” with Germany in 1941 have been overlooked in this regard. By the autumn of 1941 we were convoying British merchants from US ports all the way past the Greenland Gap and Iceland. German submarines sank two US destroyers during this: Greer(?) and Reuben James.
In addition, we were supplying both UK and USSR with war material. Hitler might have been ready to declare war anyway, and the Japanese attack just pushed him over the edge.
Strategically, the Japanese attack was terrible for Germany. The attack made it clear to the USSR that the Japanese would not attack USSR in the east, allowing Stalin to move troops to the German front. This may have tilted the balance just at the time that the Germans were reaching Moscow.
I have read a lot of old newspapers from that time and it is pretty clear that Americans were very much anti-war. They did not want to get involved with Europe (or as the papers put it we go over there in 1918 and straighten things out only to have them mess it up again.). Even after the fall of France the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times ran editorials saying that it was bad but it happened to France in the late 1800s and nothing big came out of it, so France will make out OK.
But there was real rage and blood thirst for revenge in ever paper after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe the Americans would’ve been more than quite happy to concentrate all their efforts in the Pacifc and “to hell with Europe.”
Unlike World War I which was viewed in the US as a “German” thing, most Americans saw World War II as something started by Hitler, and that would explain the lack of anti-German in WWII that was very obvious in WWI.
Hitler was under the impression that if he helped Japan defeat the United States, then Japan would assist in his fight with Russia. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. Had the Japanese even been in a position to help, it’s doubtful that they would have obliged, given that Russian had defeated them once already.
Technically, Germany was under no obligation to assist Japan with the United States under the Tripartite Pact due to the fact that Japan was clearly the aggressor - a point which was not lost on Hitler. However, given his troubles with Russia, he declared war in hopes of a little quid pro quo.
So, did FDR spin the conflict toward Germany by implying, suggesting, or outright saying that Germany (or Hitler himself) was connected to the attack on Pearl Harbor? I’m thinking something along the lines of Saddam Hussein’s being involved with the Sept 11 attacks, even though he clearly was in no way connected.
I’m not asking for another Bush bashing. I’m just saying… Could it be that FDR did something similar to what Bush has done?
The Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Basically, a border war between the Soviets and the Japanese in 1938-39. I believe (but will gladly stand corrected) that this was the first major loss suffered by the Japanese in the WWII era. The Soviet victory earned Georgy Zhukov a “Hero of the Soviet Union” award, and led to a non-aggression treaty between the Japanese and the Russians. That treaty lasted until August of 1945, 3 months after Germany fell; the exact amount of time Stalin told his allies that he would need to prepare for operations against the Japanese. The Russians declared war on the Japanese as the second A-bomb fell at Nagasaki. They were screwed from all angles.
The U.S. was almost completely unprepared for war because the sentiment of the public, whose memories of the horrors and futility of WWI was still fresh in their minds, was against getting involved in another foreign war. Republican isolationists would have blocked any attempt to build up the army. Putting industry on a war footing was impossible during peacetime.
So it took the U.S. almost a full year after Pearl Harbor to join in a major campaign - Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa in November 1942 - even though the war in Europe allowed Roosevelt to do some maneuvering toward war over the previous two years. (True the Battle of Midway took place in June 1942, but a naval battle is quite different logistically than a land invasion.)
Trying to enter the war after the invasion of Poland in September of 1939 would have been impossible. It would have taken more than a year to build up to strength. And that would have been too late. Germany started its invasion of the countries to its west in May of 1940. The U.S. couldn’t have gotten there in time to help.
And if the U.S. had entered the war earlier, the invasion of France would likely also have taken place earlier to head us off.
It’s doubtful that an invasion of the continent could have been successful without the two-and-a-half years of incredible wartime weapon production and the weakening of the German army by its losses in Russia. But there would have been incredible pressure to launch an invasion earlier if the U.S. had entered the war earlier. And Hitler might not have made the fatal mistake of invading Russia if the U.S. was threatening on his western front. Remember, the USSR won WWII in Europe. If they had remained neutral toward Germany or even joined them as they did in Poland, the balance of power would have been on their side and no invasion might have had a chance of success.
You could argue, therefore, that the outcome of the U.S. entering the war in 1939 would have meant a loss for the Allies.
I think there may be a nuance here that you’ve omitted. AFAIK, the agreement between Japan and Germany was that if Japan was attacked* by the US, then he would declare war on the US. Strictly speaking, then, the attack on Pearl Harbour did not satisfy this condition, nor did the US declaration of war against Japan.
*The wording may have been “was invaded”, I’m not certain
Karl Gauss is correct in stating that the Tripartite Pact did not require Germany to declare war unless Japan by attacked. But Hilter sure sounded like he was the happiest man in Europe for the excuse.
