Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

ddt said:
What invasion? You still haven't spelled out how that worked.
1) From which ports? The nearest German port would be Emden and that's 437km (236nm) by sea to Britain.
2) With what barges? IRL, the Germans requisitioned some 2,000 barges from the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France and adjusted them for their intended goal in Sealion.

And oh, the last successful hostile invasion of England/Britain was in 1066.
Dauphin Louis' invasion of 1210 (?) was successful but he had the support of many of the barons. William of Orange's invasion of 1688 had the support of Parliament. The 1667 Raid on Chatham was successful but not an invasion, only a raid to destroy the fleet and the docks. All other invasion attempts, like the one of Napoleon in Wales, were all nipped in the bud.


Britain didn't need anyone to protect them from invasion; the Germans simply couldn't pull it off.


The conclusion of the blogger stands in stark contrast to your picture of Chamberlain:
Click to expand...

Another quote from that same blogger:

In The Blue Pencil, I tried desperately not to take sides in this great debate and also endeavoured to write the novel without hindsight (with just one exception). I painted a picture of Chamberlain as a caring and energetic Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer who recognised the need to drastically improve Britain’s heath services, housing and schools and preferred to spend money on that rather than war. Ultimately I came down on the side of the anti-appeasers and believed we should have stood up to Hitler at Munich.
 
lobosrul5 said:
Another quote from that same blogger:

In The Blue Pencil, I tried desperately not to take sides in this great debate and also endeavoured to write the novel without hindsight (with just one exception). I painted a picture of Chamberlain as a caring and energetic Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer who recognised the need to drastically improve Britain’s heath services, housing and schools and preferred to spend money on that rather than war. Ultimately I came down on the side of the anti-appeasers and believed we should have stood up to Hitler at Munich.
Click to expand...

I really wonder if Henri reads any of the material he quotes, time and again its either irrelevant, like the He177 bomber wiki, or flatly contradicts his claims, like the above.

ETA: and of course we don't know if the academic who apparently defended Chamberlain in that debate, and lost, meant a word of it or if he was just playing devil's advocate.
 
Last edited:
Garrison said:
I really wonder if Henri reads any of the material he quotes, time and again its either irrelevant, like the He177 bomber wiki, or flatly contradicts his claims, like the above.

ETA: and of course we don't know if the academic who apparently defended Chamberlain in that debate, and lost, meant a word of it or if he was just playing devil's advocate.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but it seems that debate was about appeasement without the benefit of hindsight. I'm not totally clear, but Henri seems to be arguing that even with hindsight, Munich was the correct decision. Which is what's really just :jaw-dropp

ETA: I'm considering buying that guys book, its $4.61 on Google Play.
 
Last edited:
ddt said:
And oh, the last successful hostile invasion of England/Britain was in 1066.
Dauphin Louis' invasion of 1210 (?) was successful but he had the support of many of the barons. William of Orange's invasion of 1688 had the support of Parliament. The 1667 Raid on Chatham was successful but not an invasion, only a raid to destroy the fleet and the docks. All other invasion attempts, like the one of Napoleon in Wales, were all nipped in the bud.
Click to expand...

Well that does require some qualification.

In late 1326 Isabella, wife of Edward II, aided by her lover Roger Mortimer invaded England from France and overthrew Edward II. They forced him to abdicate and then murdered him.

In 1399 Henry IV invaded England and deposed and later murdered Richard II.

In 1470 Warwick invaded England and overthrew Edward IV, replacing him with the formerly deposed Henry VI.

In 1471 Edward IV invaded England and killed Warwick and overthrew and then murdered Henry VI.

In 1485 Henry VII invaded England and overthrew and killed Richard III.
 
There is an intelligent posting on another forum about all this 1938 business which makes sense to me at:

https://www.quora.com/What-if-Hitler-opened-the-war-as-early-as-1938

What if Hitler opened the war as early as 1938?

10 Answers

Christopher Torres, Bit of a history aficionado. It's my hobby since childhood
Answered Mar 13, 2017 · Author has 83 answers and 130.3k answer views

Let’s see… Munich, 1938. Appeasement fails and the conference breaks down. Hitler returns to Berlin and orders to go ahead with Fall Grün, the plans to invade Czechoslovakia. What would happen next?
My guess is that everyone would be caught with their pants down. The Germans would have the advantage, but they wouldn’t have the full power of their mechanized army or the Panzer forces, so their invasion on Czechoslovakia would be a half-powered Blitzkrieg.

The Czechs would possibly be able to fight back and hold their ground with their border fortifications and Skoda tanks, and maybe they would not be overrun as quickly as Poland in 1939. But eventually they would be defeated anyway. And also Hungary and Poland, of all countries, could possibly stab them in the back to take over some territories (Slovakia and Tesin district).
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Henri McPhee said:
There is an intelligent posting on another forum about all this 1938 business which makes sense to me at:

https://www.quora.com/What-if-Hitler-opened-the-war-as-early-as-1938
Click to expand...

Yeah some intelligent posts there:

For example, Andrey Yanovski,

He’d be beaten by Poland. Maybe even the Czechs, if the Czechs decided to fight. Whrmacht had 51 divisions in the autumn of 1938 and Panzerwaffe as well as Luftwaffe were still in infancy, Czechoslovakia had ~35–40 divisions and already had Skoda tanks that later Germans would use, Poland was not weaker than France at least. France, which was basically stagnant since WW I had the same army as in 1940, while Wehrmacht has almost doubled its numbers and increased the number of panzers and airplanes very significantly. I’d say that German fighting power doubled or tripled within the span of 1938–1940 as the nazi regime was actively mobilizing the country for war.

Some ignoramuses too:

Todd Bartholomew, BA History, Kennesaw State University (2008)

Short answer: the war would be over a year earlier. You pretty much leave it to us to sort out how he’d start the war, but let’s say he sticks to the game plan with the Molotov-Ribbontrop Treaty and invades Poland in 1938 instead. The British and French would be even less prepared for war. Hitler would overrun Denmark and Norway in 1939 and then press on for the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Yeah I'm sure Germany and the USSR would stick to a treaty that they hadn't even started discussions on until summer '39.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There is an interesting article about the Battle of Britain in 1940 from a German point of view at:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/06/hitler-invasion-of-britain

I still think it was pretty close, and it would have been a damn close run thing in 1938 with Gloster Gladiators.
Click to expand...

Yeah if Germany had magically defeated France under the Schlieffen plan with no Czech tanks, then OK maybe the air battle would've been close in '38.

zEmWp.gif
 
ddt said:
Neither can they be classified as unequivocally "hostile" as all of those pretenders to the crown had substantial support within England.
Click to expand...

Pure semantic nit-picking. Each one was a successful invasion, with large numbers of foreign troops that violently overthrew established governments. That is a hostile invasion by any definition; the fact that each invasion had, supposedly, substantial local support doesn't make it any less a hostile invasion. All it means is that the hostile invasion had local support.
 
lobosrul5 said:
Yeah I'm sure Germany and the USSR would stick to a treaty that they hadn't even started discussions on until summer '39.
Click to expand...

There really is no point clicking Henri's links, they either contradict his claims or are nothing but irrelevant drivel.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There is an interesting article about the Battle of Britain in 1940 from a German point of view at:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/06/hitler-invasion-of-britain

I still think it was pretty close, and it would have been a damn close run thing in 1938 with Gloster Gladiators.
Click to expand...

A BoB analogue is impossible in 1938. The Germans do not have the means to put fighters over Britain and their bombers chugging their way across the North Sea would be easy meat for the Gladiators. Your refusal to deal with facts is getting ridiculous.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There is an intelligent posting on another forum about all this 1938 business which makes sense to me at:

https://www.quora.com/What-if-Hitler-opened-the-war-as-early-as-1938
Click to expand...

If Poland would be that idiotic ,then they would give Soviet army very good path to Czechoslovakia... (And like Germans, they would have to contend with border fortifications or badly passable mountain range Tatry)

Also I doubt Hungary had necessary strength to successfully invade South Slovakia. (They had only small windows of opportunity to rearm by the time of Munich after disbanding of Little Entente and several assassinations)
 
Garrison said:
A BoB analogue is impossible in 1938. The Germans do not have the means to put fighters over Britain and their bombers chugging their way across the North Sea would be easy meat for the Gladiators. Your refusal to deal with facts is getting ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Only getting?
 
Henri McPhee said:
Chamberlain gave Poland a guarantee when the Germans marched in to Prague and broke the Munich agreement, which I think was about March 1939. That's not appeasement.
Click to expand...


As I mentioned, this is irrelevant, and does not change the fact that Chamberlain unquestionably pursued a policy of appeasement prior to 1939.

Henri McPhee said:
General Alan Brooke was not an armchair strategist, or armchair admiral, like the posters on this forum, and he was definitely expecting a German invasion any day now in September 1940.
Click to expand...


First, Brooke was commander of the Home Army at that time; his job was to expect a German invasion, no matter how remote a possibility that was. Second, Brooke was worried about an invasion launched from French ports along the English Channel primarily using commandeered Allied river barges and tugs, and a parachute assault launched from French airfields. None of these were available to the Germans in 1938, and it is exceedingly unlikely that they would have been in 1939 or later, had Britain and France not appeased Hitler at Munich.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom