posted
I have a question that I'd like to put to the group, specifically those both at home and abroad who criticise the US's late entry into WWII during our many discussions about how much gratitude Europe owes us, (or doesn't) but also any historians, professional or amateur, among us:
What would have happened in Europe HAD the US entered the European war, say, upon the evacuation of Dunkirk, or even the invasion of Poland?
What if Roosevelt and Congress had gone against the wishes of the majority of US voters, and declared war on Germany?
Would the unity have impressed other governments? Would it have saved lives? Would it have ended the aggression sooner?
And while we're on it...
What would have happened if the League of Nations had been more aggressive against Germany's violations of the Versailles treaty in the early German buildup days? What if the US had participated? Led? What if an anti-German "coalition" started preparing for war when the Germans started in with the violations?
I promise not to try to draw any kinds of parallels here. Let your thoughts speak for themselves. I just REALLY want to know what people's opinions on this are. (Alternate History fascinates me.)
I also asked this post on another, factually-oriented board, and I'll post their responses here when I've gotten enough, just for comparison/contrast purposes.
Let's have it.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Without the Eastern Front, the war would have been much harder and we would have probobly ended-up nuking them.
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
Alternate history is always going to be a shot in the wild, but what the hey....I don't want to work on my combinatorics/organic chem assignments yet.
I might note that we can at least agree that the US's late entry in the war was due to self-interest and political realities. As you've pointed out, entering early would probably have not been popular. Where most of us seem to disagree, is how much gratitude Europe owes the US for its involvement. More specifically, when your self-interest parallels the interests of another nation, and you act accordingly, how much do they owe you? Thats a difficult question to answer by any means, but we can at least get an upper bound by the amount of gratitute that would be owed to that theoretical philantropic (sp?) humanitarian non-self interested involvement. I say theoretical, because I usually work by the theory that every action undertaken, has at least some element of self-interest.
Onto the games: 1. What would have happened in Europe HAD the US entered the European war, say, upon the evacuation of Dunkirk, or even the invasion of Poland?
Not much in military terms, in terms of early entry, the US probably would have had a better chance of affecting the course of the Pacific war. An early involvement in the European war probably would be limited to economic support, to both Western Europe and Russia (yes, we did support the Soviets against the Germans in WWII) Hitler would still have overwhelmed France by the time the US got in gear. Ironically, economic support might have accelerated the reversal of fortunes in the war between Germany and Russia. Specifically, the Alies and the Soviets might not have met in Berlin, but maybe somewhere more west....maybe the border of France? Yeah, early involvement in the Pacific might have been a much better idea. Maybe China wouldn't have needed to turn to Communism and guerilla warfare in order to repel the Japanese. (The Nationalists were really quite horrible at it)
2. What if Roosevelt and Congress had gone against the wishes of the majority of US voters, and declared war on Germany?
Not being too familiar with US politics at that time, I'd have to say "no comment."
Number 3 is answered by my answer to Number 1.
4. What would have happened if the League of Nations had been more aggressive against Germany's violations of the Versailles treaty in the early German buildup days? What if the US had participated? Led? What if an anti-German "coalition" started preparing for war when the Germans started in with the violations?
The war might have been delayed, but doing so would only have deepened Germany's general sense of victimhood (for lack of a better word). The roots of the war harken back to how badly and vindictively Germany was treated at the end of the first war. (as you mentioned in the Versailles Treaty) That and the fact that the Nazi's really did seem to help the economy pull out of the Depression...you have to realise that when all is said and done, the Nazi's were still *elected* into power. The majority of the Germans bought into their philosophies. Heck, there were Nazi-like parties in the US and Canada. (albeit to lesser degrees) The war might have been delayed, with improved technology available to both sides such as nucelar weapons and jet airplanes....it could potentially have been a lot worse. Especially since Germany's early successes weren't really due to how prepared they were (or how well France was), but to the new tactics and strategies they were using.
In short, the war might have been delayed, newer technologies would have made the resulting war even more devastating, more lives lost, the Holocaust would still have happened, and the Soviets might have been able to win more decisively. Instead of a Berlin Wall, we might have had a Paris Wall.
Try the Pacific for better results
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, I can see where you're coming with this, but it's definitely a legitimate (and interesting) question.
Politically, I think that an early US entry into the war might have helped overseas -- both in morale for the Allies and as a major worry for the Axis. I have several historical articles which say that Hitler bent over backwards to avoid antagonizing the US in the months before Pearl Harbor -- when FDR had authorized naval escorts for British convoys with orders to shoot on sight, Hitler ordered his U-boat captains to engage US ships only when they were under direct fire, in self-defense. An early US entry (and active engagement in international politics in the 1930's) might have seriously discouraged the Axis aggression.
However, I'm not sure that hindering Axis aggression would have been a good thing. Consider how things might have gone if Hitler had been more cautious, had taken the time to secure his holdings, had used a divide-and-conquer strategy rather than taking on the whole world at once. With a united front against Germany, Hitler may have avoided overextending his forces, and maybe even sued for peace (a false peace most likely) in order to preserve his power base and survive.
My argument is basically this: Hitler (and the other Axis leaders) saw the rest of the world as divided and ripe for conquest, and rushed to seize the opportunity. None of them were prepared for a long-term conflict. If the Axis powers were faced with stronger opposition, they would have made sure that they could weather that opposition -- they could have been even stronger when they really did attack!
Also, I'm not convinced that the US could really have done much more to assist the European powers before it did, considering the effects of the Great Depression. One of the key aspects that many people fail to consider about WWII is the simple logistics involved -- the massive armies everyone loves to talk about needed to be drafted, equipped, and shipped overseas. There needed to be sufficient transport ships to carry them, sufficient freighters to supply them. The main reason why the Normandy invasion wasn't launched a year or two earlier was simply because there weren't enough landing ships and supplies available for such an enormous concentrated force. The US made such a big splash because the American industry had some "advance warning" of a sort -- FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy" strategy allowed time to build up the US industry so they could supply Europe directly before they got involved. That way, the US was ready to launch the invasion of North Africa only six or eight months after Pearl Harbor.
And so, if the United States had declared war along with England and France immediately in September 1939, there would have been very, very little that they could do right away. Rather than six to eight months, it could have taken a year (at least) before they could send troops over in sufficient numbers -- and on the real (past) timetable, Hitler would have already been strolling through Paris before the Americans had a chance to do anything. Or he could have even moved faster, knocking out France right away to secure the western coasts along the Atlantic against Allied invasion.
As I see it, the only way that things could have gone drastically different is if the Senate had ratified the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and joined the League of Nations. The key difference, IMO, between post-WWI and post-WWII is active American involvement in global politics afterwards. If the US were involved with the League of Nations, a more united organization could have discouraged the Fascist governments from taking power (or at least launching international aggression) in the first place. US involvement after the fact (say, 1936 onward) would have done little to change things for the better.
I'm not a believer in the "preferred timeline" concept that is occasionally touted in Trek fandom circles, but in my way of thinking, I don't think WWII turned out that badly, and probably couldn't have been improved very much at all.
(Edit: More added below, nothing above was changed.)
I'm ashamed to say this, but I forgot to talk about the Soviet role. It was their sheer manpower that wore down the Germans on the eastern front, and allowed the western advances to succeed. We already know that Hitler was mad to attack Russia when he did... would he really have been so simply stupid to invade Russia if the US had already been involved in the war at that time? In the real history, Hitler probably chose to attack Russia because he believed his western borders generally secure -- England was a relatively small threat in terms of manpower for a ground invasion, and the rest of Europe had been secured. At that point, the United States was still determined to sit things out, and so there was little threat of invasion from them for at least a year or so. But if the US had been involved in the war from the outset and had already mobilized, Hitler would have been eager to ensure that the nonaggression pact with the Soviets was maintained, to keep a potential enemy off his back. (Assuming a rational approach on Hitler's part, which I know some people would dispute.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
One interesting consequence of even mere "moral" support from the US at the time of the invasion of Poland could have been that Hitler would never have invaded France. Such an attack was a now-on, now-off part of his plans, but not a major and vital part. He felt "forced" to invade Norway mainly because Russia was moving in on the other Nordic-Baltic states and gaining ocean ports and resources. It was more of a coincidence that the final attack there preempted a British-French invasion of Norway - Hitler's main opponent on this theater still was in the east.
Taking of France was something Hitler in his triumphant daze thought he could do while waiting for the real war to start. "Fall Gelb" against France was the war his generals had planned for, out of frustration that the last one had gone so badly, but Hitler did not really share the goals of the generals.
The war Hitler had really been aiming for, the taking of Ukraine and then all of Russia in 1945, could even have proceeded with the west's blessing, had a US intervention stopped Hitler's westernly plans in 1940. Poland could have been considered a lamentable but acceptable loss in creating a unified anticommunist front of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and the US. Even more important to that front would have been the oil-rich Romania, which could have been "peacefully" annexed by Germany easily enough in the process of invading Russia. After that, Germany no longer would have been the second-weakest of internationally ambitious European nations.
After Russia's fall, Hitler could and would have turned against his allies. And probably lost everything, since there is no reason to assume his strategy would have been any more sound after the big victory than before it. To the contrary, in fact.
In case an anti-Soviet coalition indeed was formed, the US would probably have lifted sanctions on Japan, too, to secure its back and to gain a potential ally in creating an eastern front against Russia. Japan's Pacific ambitions could have ended, for the time of the anti-Soviet campaign at least. China's fate would have hinged on whether the European nations wanted to protect their colonial interests by limiting the Japanese or US "anticommunist" action in that region - the US probably wouldn't have pressed the issue, and the role of the eastern front in the anti-Soviet war would have been a diversive one only.
What seems certain is that between 1940 and 1950, a major war would have erupted in any case. Hitler wanted it, although only when he was ready. Mussolini wanted minor wars that would eventually have kindled a major one. Stalin certainly wanted a war in Europe, although definitely not in the 1940s yet. For Japan, war was vital, due to the huge disparity between resources and ambitions.
The US, OTOH, didn't need a war, nor did Britain or France. It seems highly unlikely that they would have started one "out of moral outrage" if they didn't feel directly threatened by Hitler or later on by Stalin. Concentration camps would no doubt have been an "internal affair", at most a slogan for warmongering but unpopular revengist parties in France.
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