Who started both World Wars?

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Let's hope so. The WWII U-boat campaign offers a couple of good examples of Germany's (more specifically, Hitler's) military stupidity. Diverting U-boats from the Atlantic campaign to the Mediterranean? Stupid.
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He had no choice. He was let down by the Regia Marina, they completely abdicated their presence in the Med to the Royal Navy. U-Boats were the only practical way that the Germans could send any kind of surface vessels to support them having started the war far earlier than the Kreigsmarine building plan expected.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
He had no choice. He was let down by the Regia Marina, they completely abdicated their presence in the Med to the Royal Navy. U-Boats were the only practical way that the Germans could send any kind of surface vessels to support them having started the war far earlier than the Kreigsmarine building plan expected.
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In other words, he was in over his head and had to do stupid things.
 
aggle-rithm said:
NOT invading was a choice.

You could also say, using the same logic, that France and Britain had no other choice than to invade Germany in response to Germany's invasion of Poland. Except that you KNOW they had a choice, because they stupidly DIDN'T invade, when they had a golden opportunity.
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Well, the French did invade, with the Saar offensive. It was arguably halfhearted, but they still hadn't fully mobilised (by any stretch). As for Britain, the BEF hadn't finished getting across the Channel until early-mid October, and that was to the Belgian border (Flanders I think), so you can't really blame them.

As for the Saar offensive, I wish I had the deployment lists I've seen before for this, but the 11 divisions the French managed to muster for it would have found life difficult against the Westwall. Think how much "fun" the US had with it in 1944/45.
 
Britain had no plans to invade Norway. There were plans to mine Norwegian waters to deny them to German ships. It was the Mining flotilla that ran into the German invasion force on it's way to Norway.
 
Tolls said:
Well, the French did invade, with the Saar offensive.
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I meant they didn't invade in any SERIOUS way.

What did they do, get 500 feet into German territory? Almost as embarrassing as Italy's "invasion" of France while Germany was mopping up.

ETA: Actually, I see it was eight kilometers. Still pretty embarrassing, and very, VERY unusual behavior for a country who "started" the war.
 
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Belz... said:
Hey!
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C'est la guerre.
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CptColumbo said:
Maybe the Czechslovakia invasion was their attempt to take the long way around to East Prussia.
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Quotes from Buchanan to summarize what happened with Czechoslovakia:

p.208 - Chamberlain was to be the first British Prime Minister to set foot in Germany for 60 years.

p.210 - Chamberlain was the hero of Munich who had been cheered by throngs of Germans on his trip to Berchtesgaden, Godesberg, and Munich, for the Germans, too, wanted peace and believed http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wwtwopics/1_11chamberlin.jpghe had come to preserve it.

p.211 - 6 months after Munich, the remnant of Czecho-Slovakia... was occupied by Hitler. What persuaded Britain to break up Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler?

p.215 - Neither Chamberlain nor his Cabinet was willing to go to war to deny Sudeten Germans the right to self-determination or keep them under an alien Czech rule.

p.219 - Why did Chamberlain not reject Hitler's demands? Why did Britain not elect to fight, rather than abandon the Czechs... As he had written to his sister, Chamberlain "did not care 2 hoots whether the Sudetens were in the Reich, or out it"... Many British believed justice was on the German side... Under Wilson's principle of self-determination, they should have been left under Vienna.

p.221 - What also made the prospect of a war for Czechoslovakia repellent to Chamberlain was that he believed that, as a people, Czechs were "not out of the top-drawer".

p.223 - Churchill was also wrong in his wild exagerration of the martial spirit and fighting prowess of the Czech army... After Munich, when Britain and France told the Czechs to let the Sudetenland go, the Czechoslovakian army folded without firing a shot. Herr Benes fled.

p.235 - When Hitler said the Sudetenland was his last territorial demand, did Chamberlain think he had given up Danzig and Memel?

p.245 - So matters stood in March 1939, when the rump state of Czechoslovakia suddenly began to collapse and fall apart, as Hitler had warned Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden it would.

p.246 - On March 14, Slovakia declared independence. "Ruthenia quickly followed and this action dissolved what was left of the Czech state."

p.248 - On March 15, Hitler entered Prague... Thus the Munich agreement, altarpiece of Chamberlain's career, pillar of hist European policy, lay in ruin. "It was the final shipwrreck of my mission to Berlin," wrote Henderson. "Hitler had crossed the Rubivon."

p.249 - Historians mark Hitler's march into Prague as the crossroads where he started down the path of conquest by imposing German rule on a non-Germanic people... Here is Taylor's take, half a century ago:...
Bohemia had always been a part of the Holy Roman Empire; it had been part of the German Confederation between 1815 and 1866; then it had been linked to German Austria until 1918. Independence, not subordination, was the novelty in Czech history...
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p.251 - Whatever triggered the crisis or motivated Hitler, it was a blunder of historic magnitude and utterly unnecessary. Having lost the Sudetenland, and now facing a hostile breakaway Slovakia to the east and Germans to the north, west and south, Prague was already a vasal state. Why send in an army and humiliate a British prime minister who had shown himself willing to accomodate Hitler's demands for the return of German territories and peoples, if Hitler would only proceed peacefully For little gain, Hitler had burned his bridges to the political leaders of a British Empire he had sought to befriend and who were prepared to work with him for redress of grievances from Versailles. Hitler now had the Skoda arms works. But he had also made a bitter enemy of Great Britain.
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I agree with Buchanan that the invasion of Prague was a big mistake that cost him credibility in his relations with other European powers.
 
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And Bohemia had a long history of problems with German Domination.
I get the impression the Nein 11 feels that Germans have a natural right to rule over "inferior" Europeans races.
 
dudalb said:
And Bohemia had a long history of problems with German Domination.
I get the impression the Nein 11 feels that Germans have a natural right to rule over "inferior" Europeans races.
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You could probably drop the word "Europeans" from that last sentence.


Not just becuase it was an unnecessary pluralization. :)
 
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dudalb said:
And Bohemia had a long history of problems with German Domination.
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I have no problem whatsoever with an independent Czech and a Slovak republic. In fact I favour a federal Europe with highly independent historical entities like the Czech and a Slovak republic, Flanders, Bavaria, Saxony, Brandenburg, Baden-Wuertemberg, Toscany, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Wallonia, Portugal, Andalusia, etc. in total maybe 40-60 of this ancient historic units. And a a la carte European cooperation. As a rule, the smaller a political unit, the more conservative it will become (example: Switzerland). Compare (neo-)Bolshevik entities like the USSR, Red China, USA, and what have you. All egalitarian and all hell-bent on ruling ze wurld.

I get the impression the Nein 11 feels that Germans have a natural right to rule over "inferior" Europeans races.
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Dudalb (according to his own admission a low-paid grey bureaucrat, in other words: Soviet material) cannot let go of his deepest instinct, namely to attempt to smear an opponent at the first opportunity. For your information, I am a big fan of former Czech PM Vaclav Klaus, who was very instrumental in putting breaks on overenthusiastic attempt of Eurocrats to increase their power unhindered. The latest recent scam was a proposition of the Eurocrats to impose direct European tax. The proposal was laughed away by most member states, as it should.
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
He had no choice. He was let down by the Regia Marina, they completely abdicated their presence in the Med to the Royal Navy. U-Boats were the only practical way that the Germans could send any kind of surface vessels to support them having started the war far earlier than the Kreigsmarine building plan expected.
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And what did such U-boat contribution really amount to? Not much. Plus every U-boat sent to the Med was a U-boat permanently lost to the more important Atlantic struggle. (Though given the degree to which the U.S. churned out Liberty ship during the war, the chances of the U-boats successfully shutting down the Atlantic by sinking enough Alied shipping seems remote.)
 
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