Split Thread The causes and legality of the declaration of WWII

[Loss Leader]

That wasn't the half of it.

Indeed, as WWI drew nearer, Americans were truly divided over whether to support Germany or France. We had enough wealthy Americans of German descent to sway policy-makers and more than enough regular citizens of German descent to support them. It was only German aggression against American shipping that tipped the scales - Mess with our allies all you want, but absolutely do not mess with our ability to sell our stuff for money.

It was similar in WWII, and many Americans supported both fascism and eugenics. However, we were pretty used to fighting Germany by that point and it came much easier.

By your previous "logic" shouldn't the Germans have left and eliminated the necessity of bombing occupied Belgium?

I think the real kernel of this thread is some fantasy in which Belgium escapes the war unscathed. I think Michel hopes that if England and France had just given Hitler eastern Europe, then he wouldn't have needed Belgium to skirt the Maginot line or as a base to attack the UK. But this is a pure Rule 34 dream.

He would have needed to stop shipping in the North Sea. Belgium is perfect for that. Moreover, control of Belgium and The Netherlands creates a nice, straight border by which to threaten France, should it get out of line. It also opens up short-range air opportunities to bomb ships in the area.

For the same reasons, the allies needed Belgium themselves. It protected France and aided in shipping and air escorts.

There was no way Belgium was going to get out of the 1940s unscathed.

 

[Little 10 Toes]

Yes, I think you can defend that point of view too. Particularly when their military situation got bad, the Germans could have made the wise decision to leave all occupied territories and stop persecuting innocent Jews. This would probably have saved many lives.

You know what definitely would have saved lives? Germany not invading anyone/anywhere and if they never persecuted (aka practice genocide) Jews.

My general point of view in this thread (and possibly in some other threads too) is not to try to praise Hitler, Nazism, or fascists regimes, but instead to try to point out major crimes and errors committed (in my opinion) by Allied powers which are either ignored or minimized. Ignorance of these facts leads straight to American (and Israeli) arrogance and an individual like Donald Trump. So, you will understand that this problem is still very current.

No, that is not the purpose of this thread. Before the split, you tried to compare the bombing of a maternity ward with Jewish persecution. You do realize that Israel was not created until after WW2? Why don't you bring up Soviet atrocities?

 

[dudalb]

THink about this:The only people who benefit from this "Moral Equivilency" Crap are the neo Nazis and other Hitler fanboys.
I think that Michael H has been reading too much "Human Smoke" .Thst is one of the worst books on World War 2 I have read. It was written by a anarchist who thinks that the Allies were just as bad aa the Axis. It's on a par with David Irving in the bad history department.

 

[dudalb]

Indeed, as WWI drew nearer, Americans were truly divided over whether to support Germany or France. We had enough wealthy Americans of German descent to sway policy-makers and more than enough regular citizens of German descent to support them. It was only German aggression against American shipping that tipped the scales - Mess with our allies all you want, but absolutely do not mess with our ability to sell our stuff for money.

It was similar in WWII, and many Americans supported both fascism and eugenics. However, we were pretty used to fighting Germany by that point and it came much easier.





I think the real kernel of this thread is some fantasy in which Belgium escapes the war unscathed. I think Michel hopes that if England and France had just given Hitler eastern Europe, then he wouldn't have needed Belgium to skirt the Maginot line or as a base to attack the UK. But this is a pure Rule 34 dream.

He would have needed to stop shipping in the North Sea. Belgium is perfect for that. Moreover, control of Belgium and The Netherlands creates a nice, straight border by which to threaten France, should it get out of line. It also opens up short-range air opportunities to bomb ships in the area.

For the same reasons, the allies needed Belgium themselves. It protected France and aided in shipping and air escorts.

There was no way Belgium was going to get out of the 1940s unscathed.

As someone said, Belgium's problem was that Germany considered Belgium to be the back door to France , and France considered Belgium to be the backdoor to Germany.
And that, except for the Ardennes region in the south,Belgium does not have much in the way of defensable terrain did not help matters. Belgium never had a chance of pulling of Swiss style neutrality.

 

[HansMustermann]

The only black sheep that even comes close was The Soviet Union, which had actually sought to join the Axis in sharing the spoils of war. You can easily blame The Allies for opportunisticly becoming allies with the Soviet Union, even-though many continued to view them as a threat. Notably FDR treated the Soviets, and Stalin specifically, very naively.

I keep hearing this idea that the USA and UK are somehow to blame for allying with the USSR, but... seriously... Was there even a choice, though, once Germany declared war on the USSR _AND_ USA in relatively short succession, while being at war with the UK? At that point they were DE FACTO all at war with the same country. Exactly what did a formal alliance bring to the table that wasn't already the case?

The general idea of an alliance is that you agree to all participate in the same wars. If it's a defensive alliance, like that between Germany and Japan, it's limited to defensive wars. (Which is why Japan had no obligation to join in the attack on the USSR, and Germany had no actual obligation to declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor. But Adolf fancied yet another enemy anyway.) It may or may not be further limited to being against one or more countries. (As was for example the case with the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was a defence pact against specifically the USSR.)

But at the end of the day, if one of your members is at war with country X, and all other conditions apply, all the alliance says is that you'll join their war against country X.

But in the case of the Allies, they were ALREADY de facto all at war against Germany. Whether or not they liked each other, or fancied warring against each other's enemies, that was already the case. An alliance didn't bring any obligation for the USA or UK to do anything that wasn't already the case.

In fact, the only country that accepted any extra obligations was the USSR, which agreed to join the war in the Pacific after it's done with the fighting in Europe. (And later accepted requests like stopping at an arbitrary latitude, which is why Korea is divided into two.) That's it.

You may or may not send military and economic aid to an ally, but that's a completely different decision than having an alliance.

And even that, honestly, seems to me like not the worst idea, once you are fighting the same enemy anyway. If nothing else, from a pragmatic point of view, better a million of their men die in the war than a million of yours. So giving them the weapons to do so isn't the worst idea.

TL/DR version: so what would have been the alternative, anyway? That the USA just capitulates when Germany declared war? Because that would have been the only way to avoid being de facto allies with the UK and USSR.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I keep hearing this idea that the USA and UK are somehow to blame for allying with the USSR, but... seriously... Was there even a choice,

Of course there was a choice. We chose 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' because it seemed to be the better choice.

TL/DR version: so what would have been the alternative, anyway? That the USA just capitulates when Germany declared war? Because that would have been the only way to avoid being de facto allies with the UK and USSR.

There were many options. We could have responded by simply defending ourselves - or sue for peace with Japan, declare war on the USSR (but not attack immediately) and hope Germany backed off (which they probably would). Japan would take over the whole of Asia, Germany would soften up Russia for us, and many American lives would be saved (to bad about everyone else).

Imagine how different it would be with no communist Russia, China, Korea or Vietnam to contend with. By staying out of the war we could build up our military strength and hopefully still develop the bomb. Then we take out a much weakened Germany and/or Russia with a few nukes.

 

[catsmate]

As someone said, Belgium's problem was that Germany considered Belgium to be the back door to France , and France considered Belgium to be the backdoor to Germany.

Frankly, Belgium is an unnatural, artificial country; chunks of France and teh Netherlands squished together. Time to abolish it.

 

[Arcade22]

TL/DR version: so what would have been the alternative, anyway? That the USA just capitulates when Germany declared war? Because that would have been the only way to avoid being de facto allies with the UK and USSR.

I don't think you can seriously criticize the Allies for allying with and supporting the Soviet Union. I do believe that they went far beyond what was required in terms of necessity, especially in terms of how naively the US treated the Soviets.

The sudden u-turn in relations with the Soviet Union was not as great as compared with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but it's often forgotten that the Allies (meaning Britain and France at this point) had actually effectively treated the Soviet Union as hostile and a enemy after they signed said pact.

Notably in France the French Communist Party was banned and members risked being arrested as agents of a foreign power as their party was in practice controlled by Moscow. All Comintern parties, which in practice meant nearly all significant Communist parties around the world, were ordered to advocate publicly against any and all hostile acts against Nazi-Germany.

Notably in the US the CPUSA maintained a daily public protest outside the White House demanding that the US stay outside of the war and not help the "imperialist warmongers" in Britain. This immediately ceased after the Soviet Union was unexpectedly attacked and suddenly peace became the last thing on these peoples mind, and getting the US into the war was imperative. After the war these communists suddenly rediscovered pacifism when armed conflict with the Soviet Union became a real possibility.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, yes, they treated them as an enemy before, but again: now all 3 countries were de facto at war with the same Axis powers. I mean, not just Germany was now at war with all 3, but even the other Axis-aligned minor countries had gone and declared war on the USA too. The same day Germany declared war on the USA, 11 December 1941, its ambassadors also instructed Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia to declare war on the USA too. Italy declared war on the USA on the same day.

So formalizing the alliance made what difference? Exactly which powers would the USA be dragged into war into, as a result of the alliance, that they weren't already at war with? What other powers were they promising to wage war on, in defense of the USSR?

Meanwhile in the Pacific, the USA had been attacked at Pearl Harbor, and just a couple of days later, Britain was attacked too (see, Force Z). So they weren't exactly going to be dragged into extra wars on account of Britain either. They were already fighting the same guys.

Yes, communists bad, CPUSA boo, appeasement boo, etc, but what exactly would be the difference if the USA didn't join the alliance?

 

[Loss Leader]

Meanwhile in the Pacific, the USA had been attacked at Pearl Harbor, and just a couple of days later, Britain was attacked too (see, Force Z). So they weren't exactly going to be dragged into extra wars on account of Britain either. They were already fighting the same guys.

The US had been at various low and higher levels of war with Japan since at least the 1920s. Pearl Harbor was a daring attack on an unprepared target, but Japanese hostilities did not suddenly begin on that date.

As far as suing for peace with Japan and ceding most of Asia to them (with the hope of softening up the USSR), that's full-on bonkers. Japanese racism did not extend to other asian nationalities, they hated white people at least as much. Moreover, the sheer, uncountable tonnage of resources available to Japan on the Asian continent would have made them a crushingly oppressive trade partner. And all of this, we might add, would have been borne on the backs of literal Chinese, Korean, and Indonesian slaves.

I'm not saying WWII was the absolute best way history could have played out, but I don't see an obviously better one.

 

[HansMustermann]

The US had been at various low and higher levels of war with Japan since at least the 1920s. Pearl Harbor was a daring attack on an unprepared target, but Japanese hostilities did not suddenly begin on that date.

I would disagree. The US had gradually turned unfriendly and then hostile towards Japan, but it hadn't been actually at war.

It may seem like semantics, but it's important because it affects what obligations an alliance with the UK and USSR might force upon you. Because it's this alliance that some people feel a need to criticize. IF the US had been just at the level of embargoing Japan, then joining an alliance with the UK could have forced it into straight-up declaring war on Japan after 10 December. But since the USA was already at war with Japan, that's a non-factor.

Basically that's all I'm trying to say: once you're ALREADY de facto at war with the same people, you're already de facto helping each other win the war against the same people. Formalizing an alliance against the common enemies doesn't really change all that much.

As you say, rolling over and capitulating just in some hope to soften the USSR (and presumably the UK, if we're talking capitulating to Japan) would have been nuts. I mean, it's straight up going against one's own national self-interest to spite some other power.

And really that's the only alternative to ending up fighting the enemies of the USSR (and/or UK) once you're de facto already fighting them.

 

[Pacal]

I don't think you can seriously criticize the Allies for allying with and supporting the Soviet Union. I do believe that they went far beyond what was required in terms of necessity, especially in terms of how naively the US treated the Soviets.

The sudden u-turn in relations with the Soviet Union was not as great as compared with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but it's often forgotten that the Allies (meaning Britain and France at this point) had actually effectively treated the Soviet Union as hostile and a enemy after they signed said pact.

Notably in France the French Communist Party was banned and members risked being arrested as agents of a foreign power as their party was in practice controlled by Moscow. All Comintern parties, which in practice meant nearly all significant Communist parties around the world, were ordered to advocate publicly against any and all hostile acts against Nazi-Germany.

Notably in the US the CPUSA maintained a daily public protest outside the White House demanding that the US stay outside of the war and not help the "imperialist warmongers" in Britain. This immediately ceased after the Soviet Union was unexpectedly attacked and suddenly peace became the last thing on these peoples mind, and getting the US into the war was imperative. After the war these communists suddenly rediscovered pacifism when armed conflict with the Soviet Union became a real possibility.

After World War II it became a standard trope that the USA and Britain had been naive in their dealings with the Soviet Union. This later morphed into the notion that somehow Britain and USA had "lost" in some fashion and the cunning Stalin had deceived them. Also born was the notion that Roosevelt had "given" Stalin Eastern Europe at Yalta.

This narrative served a important purpose in partisan politics after the war but it is rather simplistic. It is rather interesting to note that Stalin was absolutely convinced that Britain and the USA were out to trick and deceive him and he did not perceive the Western allies has naive at all. In fact quite the opposite.

As for being naive both the USA and Britain decided to keep the entire atomic bomb project a secret from Stalin until shortly before the bomb was dropped and even so communicated it in a very vague way. Of course Stalin did know via his spy network but the attempt to keep it secret helped convince him that the West had plans. In fact so paranoid were Stalin and Beria that they often thought that the secrets they were getting from the West was planted false information.

Further there is the percentages of influence deal that Churchill and Stalin worked out for the Balkans, which doesn't indicate naivity but cold-blooded realpolitik. And has for Roosevelt his plan for the post war world was for more or less US domination; the dismantling of the British Empire and Russia being a junior partner to the USA. Stalin saw this and wasn't playing. Both the USA and Russia were engaged in cold-blooded power politics. And of course Roosevelt did not 'give" Eastern Europe to Stalin; the Red army did that. It is of interest that Stalin actually did break much of the Yalta agreement and in fact had he fulfilled it Eastern Europe would have much better off. But by then Stalin was absolutely paranoid about USA and British plans and was convinced he had been naive.

None of this even remotely justifies Stalin's brutal behavior in Eastern Europe in the slightest. But the idea the Western allies were naive and deceived by the Soviets is more than a bit much. Roosevelt thought he could make the Soviet Union a junior partner in planetary management. Stalin wasn't playing and thought it was a cunning scheme to trick him. Of course during the war all sorts of pro-Soviet nonsense was published in Britain and the USA to serve the war effort. Rather typical to snuff out criticism of an ally in war time.

As for supporting the Soviets more than necessary. Well since more than 80% of German troops who died during the war were killed fighting the Soviets, (Along with over 500,000 men of Germany's allies.) I rather doubt at the time anyone thought to much assistance was given to the Soviet Union. After all if the Soviet had collapsed I don't think the USA and Britain would have liked fighting Germany alone. It certainly would have made fighting Germany vastly more difficult. Further both Britain and the US were concerned about the Soviets making a separate peace with Germany.

The feel I get from reading both American and British internal documents is a lot of cynicism and realpolitik in terms of dealing with the Soviets. And from the Soviets paranoia and fear. As the war was grinding to an end both sides distrust of each other was mounting, even before Roosevelt's death. One can easily see that any sort of working post war arrangement with a leader like Stalin was extremely unlikely. However it wasn't due to naivety but due to a misreading of Stalin. (I.e., not seeing that Stalin would be paranoid about the West and further that he not want to be a junior partner.)

Concerning the behavior of Communist parties in the West. Their brazen subservience to the most holy and divine Stalin would be funny if the consequences hadn't been so appalling. Some people just want to submit and turn their brains off.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

A peace deal between Germany and the Allies in 1943 (for example) would have solved the problems of the unfortunate Poles, because they would have recovered their own country.

Complete nonsense. The Germans were already digging up Jewish bodies from mass graves in Treblinka II in 1942 (approx 800,000) and burning them in a failed attempt to hide the evidence of genocide in Poland. Hitler simply had no intention of handing back Poland and face conviction for genocide.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

So formalizing the alliance made what difference? Exactly which powers would the USA be dragged into war into, as a result of the alliance, that they weren't already at war with? What other powers were they promising to wage war on, in defense of the USSR?

We didn't have to be at war with any of them. Hitler admired the US. If we had just kept out of his way there would have been no problem (for us. Too bad about Great Britain etc.). The same could have applied to Britain too (except they thought war was inevitable).

Meanwhile in the Pacific, the USA had been attacked at Pearl Harbor,

Another huge mistake on both sides, but mostly the US for not taking Japan seriously. And what were we doing in Asia anyway?

Japan knew they had lost the war as soon as they attacked Pearl Harbor. They had a tiger by the tail. If we had come to an agreement afterwards there is a chance they could have gotten away with it. But of course there was no way we would let them. When someone punches you in the nose you don't shake hands and say let's be friends (even if that is the best response).

Yes, communists bad, CPUSA boo, appeasement boo, etc, but what exactly would be the difference if the USA didn't join the alliance?

As you say we were in two de facto wars anyway, and after Pearl Harbor there was no way we could avoid making it official - because we wanted it. We could deal with Russia later. Communism boo hiss yes, but not Russia as such. It was the political ideology we were afraid of, which we didn't have to worry about in wartime.

rolling over and capitulating just in some hope to soften the USSR (and presumably the UK, if we're talking capitulating to Japan) would have been nuts. I mean, it's straight up going against one's own national self-interest to spite some other power.

A peace settlement is not necessarily capitulation. In this case it would be giving them a chance to get out alive, since there was no way we could lose in an all-out war - and they knew it.

Still nuts of course, but if the only metric is numbers (deaths, territory, surviving enemies etc.) you could argue the US might have been better off staying out of WWII. That's why I say it was a choice. But like all choices, in the end there isn't one. We make the 'choices' that we must according to our nature. On 7th December 1941 our choices suddenly focused on what was almost certain to happen anyway eventually, even though at any time we could have chosen differently.

 

[Michel H]

Complete nonsense. The Germans were already digging up Jewish bodies from mass graves in Treblinka II in 1942 (approx 800,000) and burning them in a failed attempt to hide the evidence of genocide in Poland. Hitler simply had no intention of handing back Poland and face conviction for genocide.

Do you think that those who bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Hamburg ever faced convictions for genocide (or mass murder)?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Do you think that those who bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Hamburg ever faced convictions for genocide (or mass murder)?

The bombing campaigns were overt and no one denied they happened. In contrast the Nazis covertly mass murdered Jews in Treblinka II and tried to hide the evidence........but you're OK with that sort of deception, right?

 

[dudalb]

Complete nonsense. The Germans were already digging up Jewish bodies from mass graves in Treblinka II in 1942 (approx 800,000) and burning them in a failed attempt to hide the evidence of genocide in Poland. Hitler simply had no intention of handing back Poland and face conviction for genocide.

Michael H shows that he knowes bupkis about what Germany End Aims in WW2 were.
See "General Plan East" for what exactly Hitler and Himmler had in mind for Poland......

 

[dudalb]

Stop the Moral Equvilency crap already, Michale. Nobody here is buying it..except for our resident Hitler Huggers.
It is sort of amuisng to see Michael keep digging himself in deeper and deeper with each post, though.

 

[dudalb]

Frankly, Belgium is an unnatural, artificial country; chunks of France and teh Netherlands squished together. Time to abolish it.

That is pretty extreme.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

… Another huge mistake on both sides, but mostly the US for not taking Japan seriously. And what were we doing in Asia anyway?

Spanish-American war had left the US in control of the Philippines.

An interesting alt-hist idea I heard recently asked what might have happened if Spain had not divided their forces to try to defend both Cuba and the Philippines from the US. The suggestion was that if they had recognised they couldn't hold Cuba and had moved their navy to defend the Philippines, they could have held it. (Looking back from our perspective one tends to think of the US navy as a giant industrial machine stamping out Iowa battleships and Essex carriers, but at the start of the 20th century it just didn't have that long-range reach.)

Imagine the difference that would have made a few decades later in US attitudes to Japanese expansion in Asia. Japan might very well have been able to invade the Spanish colony of the Philippines without feeling any need to strike at the US Pacific fleet first.