Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Henri McPhee]

there was also the very real chance that Hitler could have been overthrown in a coup if Britain and France had stood with Czechoslovakia.

That's cloud cuckoo land, in my opinion. I agree that there were several plots against Hitler during the war. Most of the perpetrators died horrible deaths. Admiral Canaris and Colonel Oster provided high grade military intelligence to the British, but even they died in concentration camps at the end of the war. I reckon Admiral Canaris provided the FBI in America with information about German agents in America. He was in charge of the German agents. The FBI have to be told these things. They are incapable of detecting it themselves.

 

[fagin]

Who ever said Churchill was a strategic or military genius?

He did have a useful turn of phrase though.

 

[jimbob]

That's cloud cuckoo land, in my opinion. I agree that there were several plots against Hitler during the war. Most of the perpetrators died horrible deaths. Admiral Canaris and Colonel Oster provided high grade military intelligence to the British, but even they died in concentration camps at the end of the war. I reckon Admiral Canaris provided the FBI in America with information about German agents in America. He was in charge of the German agents. The FBI have to be told these things. They are incapable of detecting it themselves.

Yes but you also think that Germany had the ability to launch devastating bombing raids on the UK in 1938.

Hitler was consolidating his power, and he needed the captured economies to prevent the German economy from collapsing due to his mismanagement.

 

[fagin]

.....

I reckon

....

And who could ever argue with what you reckon?

 

[jimbob]

Who ever said Churchill was a strategic or military genius?

He did have a useful turn of phrase though.

I reckon that Tolls and dudalb did in this thread

Re: Churchill's strategic genius:

"The soft underbelly of Europe"

That is a man who hasn't really looked at a map.

Yeah, all those mountains in the Balkans and Italy should have told him something.
As one Historian, commenting at the WW2 Italian campaign, which Churchill basically forced on a skeptical FDR (there was a strong feeling in the US military to stop after Sicily) said that the Soft Underbelly turned out to be a Tough Old Gut.

Well the quote supports that contention about as much as many of Henri's quotes support his contentions.

Although I will agree that Germany was in slightly more of a position to devastatingly bomb the UK in 1938 than Chamberlain ever was to warn the Russians about Barbarossa

 

[HansMustermann]

Personally, I think Chamberlain knew full well that Stalin was in for an invasion by Germany, even if Stalin thought Britain would be defeated.

Dunno about Chamberlain specifically, but in fact, yes, a lot of the goodwill Hitler had from a lot of politicians in Western Europe was BECAUSE he was doing all the sabre rattling in the USSR's direction. The USSR was none too popular in the west, and all the attacking their neighbours they did after the revolution also didn't help endear them to anyone.

Mind you, it doesn't make Munich a good deal, but yes, the prospect of Germany fighting the USSR and leaving everyone else out of it wasn't an unpopular proposition in the 30's.

 

[Garrison]

Personally, I think Chamberlain knew full well that Stalin was in for an invasion by Germany, even if Stalin thought Britain would be defeated.

You mean Chamberlain had read Mein Kampf? You do understand that Hitler's ambitions towards Russia and his hatred of the Communists was no secret right?

Also Stalin did not think Britain would be defeated, he was expecting a rerun of 1914-18, a long drawn out campaign in the West that would give Stalin plenty of time to rearm and then roll over the exhausted survivors. Things didn't quite work out that way. Had war come in 1938 it's possible there wouldn't have been a division of Germany and perhaps no Cold War, so Munich may have had costs that were paid for decades.

Cut the rest of your waffle since Churchill wasn't in office in 1938 and his conduct of the war under the far worse conditions Chamberlain bequeathed him by his failure at Munich is irrelevant to the discussion of appeasement.

 

[Craig B]

It's not as simple as that. What is a fact is that Stalin signed a pact with Hitler in 1939 whereby he could have a land grab of Eastern Poland. He didn't seem all that interested in helping out the Czechs, even in 1938:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592299908406124?src=recsys

What your source in fact states is entirely in agreement with what other people are saying, and in disagreement with your own POV:

Was Stalin willing to assist the Prague government unilaterally, that is, without France? I present decisive evidence that the answer is no.​

ETA Sorry ddt got that one ahead of me, in #954.

 

[Henri McPhee]

And who could ever argue with what you reckon?

It's no good being a curmudgeonly and sour schoolboy about this.

A cross -Channel operation in 1942 was dead off, as the Americans wanted at the time. The British shipping and American shipping and landing craft were simply not there, as General Alan Brooke said at the time. I agree there is a military argument that it could perhaps have been tried in 1943, after Tunis, but the plans were not in place, and the Luftwaffe was still operational. There was nearly a year of hard fighting after D-day in 1944.

The British General Alexander had a plan to reach Vienna across Italy. Whatever the Americans say, Sicily knocked Italy out of the war, which was useful, and resulted in a dangerous dispersal for Hitler of some of his best troops and military equipment to Italy. My own father, and his artillery regiment, were moved from Italy to Southern France for the relatively easy landing in Southern France.

There is a bit of waffle about this matter in that Russian Outlook book by Lieutenant Sir Giffard Martel published in 1947:

What would have happened if we had accepted the American plan of concentrating all our efforts on the cross-Channel operations at a much earlier date? Could we have launched these operations in 1943? We were still very short of landing craft, but we would have been better off if all supplies had been concentrated for this purpose. Our air superiority was already very marked, but we did not have the overwhelming superiority that we eventually possessed in 1944. The American troops were not all fully trained, but they were not far behind. in this respect. But even with all these points of view it would have been a difficult operation to launch the crossing in 1943.

 

[Dave Rogers]

A cross -Channel operation in 1942 was dead off, as the Americans wanted at the time. The British shipping and American shipping and landing craft were simply not there, as General Alan Brooke said at the time.

And yet Germany could have done essentially the same thing with strings of barges in 1938? I think not.

Dave

 

[Rincewind]

And yet Germany could have done essentially the same thing with strings of barges in 1938? I think not.

Dave

But we should say thank you to Henri for providing data that helps prove him wrong, though?

 

[lobosrul5]

It's no good being a curmudgeonly and sour schoolboy about this.

A cross -Channel operation in 1942 was dead off, as the Americans wanted at the time. The British shipping and American shipping and landing craft were simply not there, as General Alan Brooke said at the time. I agree there is a military argument that it could perhaps have been tried in 1943, after Tunis, but the plans were not in place, and the Luftwaffe was still operational. There was nearly a year of hard fighting after D-day in 1944.

The British General Alexander had a plan to reach Vienna across Italy. Whatever the Americans say, Sicily knocked Italy out of the war, which was useful, and resulted in a dangerous dispersal for Hitler of some of his best troops and military equipment to Italy. My own father, and his artillery regiment, were moved from Italy to Southern France for the relatively easy landing in Southern France.

There is a bit of waffle about this matter in that Russian Outlook book by Lieutenant Sir Giffard Martel published in 1947:

The Allies should've skipped an invasion of mainland Italy altogether. D-day should've happened around the first of May '44 with a near simultaneous invasion of Northern and Southern France (operation Dragoon). That's with 20/20 hindsight of course. Wow I agree with you about something, maybe.

 

[Henri McPhee]

And yet Germany could have done essentially the same thing with strings of barges in 1938? I think not.

Dave

There were deficiencies in the British armed forces, and air defence capability, in 1938. It would have been unsound to go to war in 1938, whatever Churchill might have said about the matter later on. Why didn't the Danes and the Netherlands and France and Poland put up a strong fight then, when weak little Germany was at their throat, and Rotterdam and Warsaw were bombed?

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline, and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational. It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches. General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

 

[Dave Rogers]

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline, and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational.

First of all Germany would have to invade and conquer France with its 36 infantry divisions, a well-armed Czechoslovakia in its rear, and possibly the USSR to contend with. Then it would have to magically find a way to stop destroyers from operating in the Channel, something it couldn't do with complete air supremacy around Crete in 1941, but three years earlier. Fail to do the first and the barges simply won't get there; fail to do the second, as the Lutwaffe actually did three years later, and the troops committed to the operation suffer 100% casualties without getting anywhere near being able to fire a shot.

It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches.

That's because they wouldn't have been coming over the beaches; they'd have neede a trans-dimensional portal or the ferrying services of alien space bats. Germany invading Britain in 1938 is the purest fantasy, and Germany defeating Britain in a week even more so.

Dave

 

[lobosrul5]

There were deficiencies in the British armed forces, and air defence capability, in 1938. It would have been unsound to go to war in 1938, whatever Churchill might have said about the matter later on. Why didn't the Danes and the Netherlands and France and Poland put up a strong fight then, when weak little Germany was at their throat, and Rotterdam and Warsaw were bombed?

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline, and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational. It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches. General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

Poland in particular absolutely did put up a strong fight. I'm not sure how you can count 200,000 military killed and wounded in a few weeks to not be putting up a strong fight. I mean until the Soviets invaded from the east then it was pretty well pointless.

 

[jimbob]

There were deficiencies in the British armed forces, and air defence capability, in 1938. It would have been unsound to go to war in 1938, whatever Churchill might have said about the matter later on. Why didn't the Danes and the Netherlands and France and Poland put up a strong fight then, when weak little Germany was at their throat, and Rotterdam and Warsaw were bombed?

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline, and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational. It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches. General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

Again, you seem to be listing the Allies difficulties under far more favourable conditions as reasons why Germany could have achieved something under adverse conditions.

How were the German troops going to cross the channel North Sea* without being wiped out by the RN?

Assuming that the RN, for "sporting" reasons decided not to intervene until after the troops had landed, how were the German troops without artillery, transport, or tanks going to get very far?

Assuming that both these problems are magically waved away, how were the Germans going to be kept supplied?



*Maybe I'll assume that France didn't resist any better in 1938, despite Germany being weaker and Czechoslovakia meaning that Germany would have had a war on two fronts from the start.

 

[Border Reiver]

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline, and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational. It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches. General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

Henri,

Barring a defeated France, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1938, any German invasion fleet would need to come from German ports. There is simply no way that any landing barges would have made it to the UK. The only landing of German troops in such a scenario would be the ones landed from British warships after they were recovered from the North Sea.

The idea that in 1938 that a para-landing in the UK was feasible is even more farfetched than the idea of the UK being bombed into submission in less than a week. In 1938 the Fallschrimjager Korps consisted of a single battalion until October 1938 when it was expanded to a division. While landing a single battalion of paratroops in London might cause a temporary shock - said battalion would quickly be defeated, rounded up and made guests of His Majesty at a resort camp in some desolate Scottish moor for the duration.

 

[Garrison]

There were deficiencies in the British armed forces, and air defence capability, in 1938. It would have been unsound to go to war in 1938.

And again you ignore the far graver weaknesses in the German military.

whatever Churchill might have said about the matter later on.

Has anyone offered up Churchill's opinion as a reason to criticize Munich? You have been given ample explanations as to why the Germans benefited more from Munich than the British. Please drop this strawman and address them.

Why didn't the Danes and the Netherlands and France and Poland put up a strong fight then, when weak little Germany was at their throat, and Rotterdam and Warsaw were bombed?

Because they were attacked by a Germany given an entire extra year to prepare for war? A Germany reinforced by the M-R Pact and commandeered

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline,

Utter rubbish, it was the RN that was the major impediment to a landing, and the British coastal defences were adequate to deal with whatever half-drowned remnant came ashore. One reason the Germans needed that Atlantic Wall was because of the sheer mass of naval firepower the Allies could bring to bear.

And the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational. It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches.

Again Churchill has nothing to do with the subject under discussion. The rest of this is nonsense, the Germans couldn't invade in 1940 and they couldn't in 1938, not least because they wouldn't have had any bases on the French coast in 1938. Please try and deal in facts and not in wild fantasy.

General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

Henri, the subject of this thread is appeasement and more specifically at the moment the Munich agreement of 1938. Churchill did not return to a ministerial post until 1939 and did not become Prime Minister until 1940. We get you don't like Churchill, but he has zero to do with the subject.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As mentioned earlier in the thread.
in the early 70s Sandhurst got together the remaining German and British commanders and officers connected with Sealion and the defence of britain.
They enacted a Wargame to see what would have happened.
The Germans were given local air superiority over the Channel and the Royal Nave wasn't allowed to intervene for until 24 hours after the first landings.
The Germans still lost. Troops got ashore but never made it more than a couple of miles inland and were then forced back to the beach.
They never got any supplies or re-enforcement because when the RN did arrive the barge strings were destroyed in the Channel and by the beaches.
The Luftwaffe could only maintain air superiority for a couple of days before attrition caused by losses, fatigue and aircraft serviceability gave air superiority back to the RAF.

 

[SpitfireIX]

There were deficiencies in the British armed forces, and air defence capability, in 1938. It would have been unsound to go to war in 1938, whatever Churchill might have said about the matter later on.

You keep parroting this claim, but provide no supporting evidence. I renew one of the many questions you've failed to answer: How was the Gladiator, with its 60 mph speed advantage over a loaded He 111, inadequate to intercept unescorted German bombing raids? Further, as I keep pointing out, and you keep ignoring, Chamberlain mostly neglected the Army during the late 1930s. It was only after Hitler occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia that Chamberlain decided it might be a good idea to augment British ground forces.

Why didn't the Danes and the Netherlands and France and Poland put up a strong fight then, when weak little Germany was at their throat, and Rotterdam and Warsaw were bombed?

Granting, arguendo as usual, that none of these countries "put up a strong fight," what part of "between Munich and the invasion of Poland, the German Army added about 60 infantry divisions, and six panzer divisions" was unclear?

A string of barges could be dangerous if there was no German type Atlantic wall on the British coastline . . .

Dangerous to the passengers, you mean. And I renew another question: From what port (or ports) was this hypothetical invasion force going to embark?

. . . and the RAF Gloster Gladiators were not operational.

I renew yet a third question: How were the Gladiators going to be rendered non-operational?

It would have been a shock to the system to find German troops landing at Bexhill on Sea, and in the London parks, and Churchill would have been quickly fleeing to America rather than fighting them on the beaches.

So you're saying that Britain would have surrendered as soon as any German troops landed in England. That's simply wishful thinking on your part. Further, you can't have paratroopers (of which the Germans had at most two regiments available in 1938) landing in London unless you explain how the Gladiators would have been made non-operational.

General Alan Brooke often flatly disagreed with Churchill.

Red herring. This has nothing to do with Chamberlain's decision to appease Hitler in 1938.