Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Andy_Ross]

delete

 

[Hans]

And Britain and America would have operational Jet Fighters that were better than the Me 262 and better ASW weapons and ships.

Ah but would they? Or would peaceniks, Lindbergh, and others have delayed a full rearmament especially if Hitler had played it cool?

I based that on Hitler convincing everyone that his returning Germany to a resemblance of its pre-WWI level of power was necessary - as that is the way it was or playing the Soviet scare card.
------------------------------

However would Einstein have written his letter? Would the US have spent the money and resources to investigate nuclear weapons? Hmmm

Speculation of course.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Sorry I deleted that post, it wasn't well thought out.

 

[Hans]

Sorry I deleted that post, it wasn't well thought out.

That's okay we were going off topic anyway.

 

[Klimax]

Can you imagine the conflict that would have occurred in 1944? I think the greatest concern would be that the Germans would have had a greatly expanded U boat fleet, more and better magnetic mines, a better armed Italian ally and maybe just maybe have been more along on the nuclear path (if they had realized their initial error and changed the direction of their research).

With or without independent Czechoslovakia at the start of war?

 

[Hans]

With or without independent Czechoslovakia at the start of war?

Lets say a nice Hitler stopped his land grabs after the Sudetenland and didn't grab rump Czechoslovakia since it wasn't filled with Germans. then went into war prep until 1944....I wonder if the economy could have withstood that?

 

[Klimax]

Lets say a nice Hitler stopped his land grabs after the Sudetenland and didn't grab rump Czechoslovakia since it wasn't filled with Germans. then went into war prep until 1944....I wonder if the economy could have withstood that?

For us, not really change from 1939, effective defense no longer possible. On the other hand, Germans wouldn't have Czech factories nor anything else like Czech tanks. I'd say it is lose-lose. We are stripped of our mountains and defenses, yet Germany doesn't gain anything in value. Bit broken scenario, because neither we nor Germans gain anything.

IMO scenario would be more interesting if we were still intact in 1944 war.
Primary fortifications were to be completed in 1942 and full fortification was to be finished in early 50s, while military development and production was in full gear.

 

[Henri McPhee]

What would your solution have been in Europe 1930's?

As I have said before, I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes. Chamberlain was not a pacifist. He was a realist. He did make comments about the "lamentable stupidity" of politicians at the time and he was right.

It looks to me, though you still have to read between the lines to work this out for yourself, that the Chamberlain strategy was to make Britain too strong to be attacked, which it wasn't in1938, particularly by strengthening the air force, and then the army and navy, and then for Russia and Germany to fight it out between themselves which he KNEW was going to happen, even if Stalin was not fully aware of it. I suppose, like Churchill, that Chamberlain would have liked America to have got involved, but that was a few years in coming.

There have been cases in the past where a sort of appeasement, or negotiation, was the right choice. Eden's Suez fiasco military conflict in 1956 resulted directly in the subsequent winds of change. Like Libya, or even Iraq, there was no political foresight of 'then what' which ended in disaster. I suppose the dangerous inaction in Congo and Rwanda was a mistake, but that's partly the fault of the 'keeping it dark' media which means that most Americans don't know where Syria or Crimea is.

In the 1950s there was no military conflict when the Anglo-Persian oil company was nationalised, though the CIA did arrange for a regime change to take place. Even now war could be avoided between Israel and Iran, supported by America, though Netanyahu is determined for a war to happen with the backing of John Bolton.

Finally, there is a quote from the economist Isidore Ostrer which makes sense to me:

Economic conditions create war. The seed of the growth of Hitler was definitely planted in the lunatic currency arrangements fixed after the 1914-18 war.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If Hitler had waited until 44 he would still have been unable to invade the UK.
He would have had a few surface ships and more subs but the RN would have had new ships and AS weapons like forward firing Hedgehog. The RAF would have been bigger and better prepared with Jet fighters.
Radar would have been better, Microwave Radar would be in service aboard Night Fighters, Ships and directing AA batteries.

 

[erwinl]

As I have said before, I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes. Chamberlain was not a pacifist. He was a realist. He did make comments about the "lamentable stupidity" of politicians at the time and he was right.

It looks to me, though you still have to read between the lines to work this out for yourself, that the Chamberlain strategy was to make Britain too strong to be attacked, which it wasn't in1938, particularly by strengthening the air force, and then the army and navy, and then for Russia and Germany to fight it out between themselves which he KNEW was going to happen, even if Stalin was not fully aware of it. I suppose, like Churchill, that Chamberlain would have liked America to have got involved, but that was a few years in coming.

There have been cases in the past where a sort of appeasement, or negotiation, was the right choice. Eden's Suez fiasco military conflict in 1956 resulted directly in the subsequent winds of change. Like Libya, or even Iraq, there was no political foresight of 'then what' which ended in disaster. I suppose the dangerous inaction in Congo and Rwanda was a mistake, but that's partly the fault of the 'keeping it dark' media which means that most Americans don't know where Syria or Crimea is.

In the 1950s there was no military conflict when the Anglo-Persian oil company was nationalised, though the CIA did arrange for a regime change to take place. Even now war could be avoided between Israel and Iran, supported by America, though Netanyahu is determined for a war to happen with the backing of John Bolton.

Finally, there is a quote from the economist Isidore Ostrer which makes sense to me:

Why not stop the nazis when they didn't have an army yet?
Why wait till they are so much stronger?

Edit:
In other words.
Why wait till the moment of stopping the nazis will cost millions upon millions of lives, in stead of maybe only a few hundred?

 

[Henri McPhee]

Why not stop the nazis when they didn't have an army yet?
Why wait till they are so much stronger?

Edit:
In other words.
Why wait till the moment of stopping the nazis will cost millions upon millions of lives, in stead of maybe only a few hundred?

I just think that's ignoring public opinion in Britain and France and Germany at the time. It's a bit like the reverses the Red Army had in Finland at first because the Russian troops had no idea what they were fighting for. I suppose you could argue the British army should have sent a few troops to the Rhineland in about 1936, to so -call deter the Germans, but personally I would not have liked to have been one of those troops.

The Czech situation in 1938 was complicated and Hitler arranged for the pro-Nazi governments of Slovakia and Poland to put military and political pressure on the Czechs.

 

[SpitfireIX]

There is some background to this matter of the Rhineland at this forum:

https://erenow.com/ww/churchill-hitler-and-the-unnecessary-war/7.php

<snip>

In 1937, three years after the Night of the Long Knives murders of Roehm and his SA henchmen, two years after the Nuremberg Laws had been imposed on the Jews, one year after Hitler had marched into the Rhineland, Churchill published Great Contemporaries. He included in it his 1935 essay “Hitler and His Choice.” In this profile, Churchill expresses his “admiration for the courage, the perseverance, and the vital force which enabled [Hitler] to challenge, defy, conciliate, or overcome, all the authorities or resistances which barred his path.”

“Those who have met Herr Hitler face to face,” wrote Churchill, “have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a disarming smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism.”33 Hitler and his Nazis had surely shown “their patriotic ardor and love of country.”

From an article by Richard M. Langworth in Finest Hour No. 156:

. . . when Churchill was preparing his Hitler essay for Great Contemporaries, he characteristically submitted it to the Foreign Office, which asked that he tone it down. Preferring that he not publish it at all, they were somewhat mollified by the result. Nonetheless, the belief has persisted that Churchill wrote approvingly of Hitler, in either his book or his article—or in other writings for the British press.

“Government by Dictators”

On 10 October 1937, six days after publication of Great Contemporaries, Churchill published an article, “This Age of Government by Great Dictators,” his seventh installment in the series “Great Events of Our Time” for News of the World. . . His Hitler paragraphs in this piece are mainly—but not wholly—from his Great Contemporaries text.

In his opening about Hitler, Churchill retained the language from his 1935 Strand article which he had combed out of Great Contemporaries, speaking of Hitler’s “guilt of blood” and “wicked” methods. He then inserts two sentences from the Strand which are omitted from his book. . . .

It is on this mystery of the future that history will pronounce Hitler either a monster or a hero. It is this which will determine whether he will rank in Valhalla with Pericles, with Augustus and with Washington, or welter in the inferno of human scorn with Attila and Tamerlane.[citations omitted]​

 

[Garrison]

As I have said before, I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes.

How do you square that statement with this one?

It's just that a leopard cannot change its spots. The Germans are either at your feet or at your throat.

I just think that's ignoring public opinion in Britain and France and Germany at the time

So rather than preparing for the war you claim Chamberlain knew was coming he instead just pandered to public opinion? And again whether or not the British public wanted war they certainly expected it. Chamberlain could simply have stood by the French and claimed what was actually true, that Hitler's demands were unreasonable and would not stop with the Sudentenland.

It's a bit like the reverses the Red Army had in Finland at first because the Russian troops had no idea what they were fighting for.

Errant nonsense, the reasons for the Red Army's poor performance in the Winter War are well documented, so again all you are revealing here is your basic ignorance of the topic.

I suppose you could argue the British army should have sent a few troops to the Rhineland in about 1936, to so -call deter the Germans, but personally I would not have liked to have been one of those troops.

So lucky then that no one has advocated that here. Don't you get tired building all those straw men to fight?

The Czech situation in 1938 was complicated

Yes it is, shame you refuse to do any of the research required to understand it instead of trawling the web for unsourced quotes that happen to agree with your fact free beliefs.

and Hitler arranged for the pro-Nazi governments of Slovakia and Poland to put military and political pressure on the Czechs.

Quite a feat as there was no Slovakian government in 1938...

 

[SpitfireIX]

As I have said before, I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes.

So you would have guaranteed Poland in 1939, and then declared war after that country was invaded?

Chamberlain was not a pacifist. He was a realist.

As I said before when you made this claim, Chamberlain was an appeaser who made a disastrous mistake in gauging Hitler's intentions in 1938. Further, you have repeatedly stated that Chamberlain knew war was inevitable, but you have utterly failed to provide any real evidence of this, and you have also failed to explain how his actions in 1938 square with it.

He did make comments about the "lamentable stupidity" of politicians at the time and he was right.

And appeasing Hitler at Munich was a tremendous example of "lamentable stupidity."

It looks to me, though you still have to read between the lines to work this out for yourself, that the Chamberlain strategy was to make Britain too strong to be attacked, which it wasn't in1938 . . .

I renew one of the many questions that you've repeatedly ignored. Britain wasn't too strong to be attacked in September 1938, but it was too strong to be attacked in September 1939?

. . . particularly by strengthening the air force, and then the army and navy . . .

No. Until after Hitler occupied Bohemia and Moravia, the only part of the British armed forces that Chamberlain showed any interest in strengthening was Fighter Command, partly to fend off German bombers, but also because fighters were relatively cheap. In fact, Chamberlain intentionally neglected the Army because he didn't want to commit any troops to aid France. Additionally, he really strengthened the RN by ceding the Treaty Ports back to Ireland in 1938, didn't he?

I'll have much more on Chamberlain's rearmament policies in a later post; I hope it will be sometime this week.

. . . and then for Russia and Germany to fight it out between themselves which he KNEW was going to happen, even if Stalin was not fully aware of it.

If this is true, then why did Chamberlain declare war over Poland in 1939?

I suppose, like Churchill, that Chamberlain would have liked America to have got involved, but that was a few years in coming.

Exactly what would there [eta: have] been for America to have gotten involved in if Britain and France hadn't declared war on Germany in 1939?

<snip of irrelevant views about various post-war events>

Finally, there is a quote from the economist Isidore Ostrer which makes sense to me:

Economic conditions create war. The seed of the growth of Hitler was definitely planted in the lunatic currency arrangements fixed after the 1914-18 war.

This greatly oversimplifies the issues involved.

 

[Garrison]

This greatly oversimplifies the issues involved.

Which is an improvement over the usual irrelevant or actually contradicting his claims. Of course having read 'Wages of Destruction' it's clear the 'lunatic' economic arrangements were those of Nazi Germany.

 

[Henri McPhee]

How do you square that statement with this one

So rather than preparing for the war you claim Chamberlain knew was coming he instead just pandered to public opinion? And again whether or not the British public wanted war they certainly expected it. Chamberlain could simply have stood by the French and claimed what was actually true, that Hitler's demands were unreasonable and would not stop with the Sudentenland

Quite a feat as there was no Slovakian government in 1938...

I don't think you fully appreciate the practical difficulties. There was no way the British navy could have helped the Czechs, and the British army and air force would not have been much help. The Czechs were not politically unified.
Slovakia was practically full-blooded Nazi by 1938. I suppose Churchill could have spoken a lot of hot air and empty waffle about it, and set up a British government in exile in Canada. There was military weakness in France. The Poles and Hungarians were also far from helpful to the Czechs.

There is some background waffle to the matter at this website:

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005688

Slovakia became an independent state under the leadership of a Catholic priest, Jozef Tiso, whose followers established a fascist, authoritarian, one-party dictatorship, strongly influenced by the separatist Catholic clerical hierarchy in internal policy and closely allied with Nazi Germany. The ruling party was the Slovak People's Party. The Tiso regime remained in power until April 1945.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I don't think you fully appreciate the practical difficulties. There was no way the British navy could have helped the Czechs, and the British army and air force would not have been much help.

How did this not apply to Poland in 1939?

The Czechs were not politically unified.

Presumably you mean "Czechoslovakia was not politically unified." Although this is true to an extent, the Czechs had taken measures to reduce the potential damage that disaffected minorities could cause to Czechoslovakia's war effort. This is explained in the paper you linked earlier, but apparently didn't bother to read carefully.

Slovakia was practically full-blooded Nazi by 1938.

No. Andrej Hlinka^WP, leader of the Slovak nationalists until his death in August 1938, was opposed to the Nazis. And the Czechs considered the Slovaks to be Czechoslovakia's most reliable minority, which is also explained in the aforementioned paper.

I suppose Churchill could have spoken a lot of hot air and empty waffle about it, and set up a British government in exile in Canada.

Apart from that fact that, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseam, Churchill was a backbencher in 1938, you still need to explain, in detail and with no handwaving, how Germany was going to conquer France and Britain in 1939.

There was military weakness in France.

You keep parroting this claim, while ignoring the fact that there was also tremendous military, economic, political, and diplomatic weakness in Germany in 1938, much of which was significantly improved by the Munich agreement.

The Poles and Hungarians were also far from helpful to the Czechs.

And the Soviets were far from helpful to the Poles in 1939.

There is some background waffle to the matter at this website:

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005688

Tiso called for loyalty to Czechoslovakia and national unity at Hlinka's funeral, a month before the Sudeten crisis. It was only after Chamberlain sold the country down the river that Tiso decided to declare autonomy unilaterally, and only accepted status as a German protectorate when Hungary appeared likely to forcibly annex all of Slovakia.

Most of the above is beside the point, however, because, as has been explained to you repeatedly, and you have repeatedly ignored, the idea wasn't that Czechoslovakia could necessarily have been saved from being conquered by Germany. The idea is that Czechoslovakia needed to fight, rather than just surrender to Germany, and that 1938 was a much better time for the Allies to start the war than 1939.

 

[Garrison]

I don't think you fully appreciate the practical difficulties.

And I'm perfectly certain you don't so forgive if I place little value on your opinion of my knowledge.

There was no way the British navy could have helped the Czechs, and the British army and air force would not have been much help. The Czechs were not politically unified.

More irrelevance.

Slovakia was practically full-blooded Nazi by 1938.

Prove it.

I suppose Churchill could have spoken a lot of hot air and empty waffle about it, and set up a British government in exile in Canada.

Irrelevant and nonsensical.

There was military weakness in France.

You get that simply repeating this same tired line is convincing no one right? The facts are that the French army was far stronger than the German one in 1938.

The Poles and Hungarians were also far from helpful to the Czechs.

Again irrelevant.

There is some background waffle to the matter at this website:

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005688

Which was after Munich. Are you incapable of providing relevant, factual evidence that actually supports your claims?

 

[Henri McPhee]

You get that simply repeating this same tired line is convincing no one right? The facts are that the French army was far stronger than the German one in 1938.

There needs to be comprehensive vision, and not lack of vision about all this. You could argue that the French army was stronger than the German army in 1940, but actual events proved otherwise. From what I know about France at that time there was political chaos and the French High Command was in a bad state. It's possible that the French would have fought with the Czechs if Britain had declared war in 1938, but in my opinion Germany would have won. You need to have strategic ability about all this.

There seems to be some sensible waffle about all this at this website:

http://docs.exdat.com/docs/index-79936.html?page=2

The majority of Cabinet, however, sided with Halifax and Chamberlain. They judged that there was little that Great Britain or France could do to save Czechoslovakia. Moreover, they concluded that it was still too early to challenge Hitler militarily because the RAF and British air defenses were not yet ready to withstand an assault by German bombers. They judged, however, that the situation would improve within two years, when “the Royal Air Force would at any rate be armed with up-to-date aeroplanes and the anti-aircraft defences with modern weapons.”

 

[Border Reiver]

There needs to be comprehensive vision, and not lack of vision about all this. You could argue that the French army was stronger than the German army in 1940, but actual events proved otherwise. From what I know about France at that time there was political chaos and the French High Command was in a bad state. It's possible that the French would have fought with the Czechs if Britain had declared war in 1938, but in my opinion Germany would have won. You need to have strategic ability about all this.

You have demonstrated no particular strategic ability. You've demonstrated on multiple occasions that you are incapable of understanding some fairly basic strategic concepts, so allow me to restate them once again:

1. Great Britain was in no danger of German invasion in 1938 (or in 1940/41 for that matter);
1.a. The Germans lacked the sealift capability to move the necessary men, equipment or supplies to support an invasion;
1.b. The RN was easily capable of stopping any attempts to do so;
1.c. The airborne capability of the Luftwaffe in 1938 amounted to less than 2 battalions of light infantry;

2. The German military of 1938 was not superior to the combined forces of Great Britain, France and Czechoslovakia;
2.a. The overall numbers gave the Germans a 3-1 advantage in men over the Czechoslovaks, however the Germans were on the offensive and a 3-1 ratio of forces is considered to be barely adequate in that case;
2.b. The Germans were deficient in field and heavy artillery compared to the Czechs;
2.c. The German tanks were mostly technically inferior to the Czech t35 and t38 tanks;
2.d. The German military had a real readiness issue - over half the panzer fleet and air fleets were not capable of sustained operations due to lack of spare parts and fuel;
2.e. The German numerical advantage over the Czechoslovakians disappears if they need to divert forces to protect the Franco-German border, or to the defence of the German ports;
2.f. German fighter aircraft were comparable in quality and performance to Allied equivalents. German strategic bombers were grossly inferior to British models. German strategic bombers were not capable of anything stronger than pinprick attacks against British targets in 1938 without airfields closer to the UK - use of them against French targets is unimpaired, but the use of them against Czech targets would be counter productive as doing so would destroy the factories the Germans needed;

3. The German economy was not in a state to support anything other than a short campaign;
3.a. The large numbers of men diverted to the military rather than industry meant that there were large deficits in various areas of the economy, the Allied economies were not in such a state;
3.b. German was an importer of strategic resources necessary to prosecute a sustained war - food, fuel, iron, key metals, rubber, etc. France and Great Britain were not;

4. The German High Command was prepared to launch a coup against Hitler if France and Great Britain sided with Czechoslovakia
4.a. Political will in Great Britain and France for war was not high in 1938 - an information campaign in both nations would be needed to dispel the myths of the super-efficient German military and to demonstrate that a stand now will save much blood and treasure later;
4.b. The German High command felt they could not win a war against Czechoslovakia, France and Great Britain; and

5. All of this hasn't even touched on the Czechoslovakian pact with the USSR.