Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yodanole]

Japan's conflict with the US was about Japan's concerns that the US was stifling Japan's access to petroleum products. The European Theater was of little direct interest to the Japanese.

[rollo]

Very true! the Japanese were not at all interested in the european conflict.

Well they were interested in what would happen to the U.S.S.R.

Oil indeed was a root cause but it was the invasion of the south Pacific/Australia that was on the Japanese minds. the thought that when they got around to attacking Australia that the U.S. fleet would attack their flank. They wanted and needed the resources of New guinea and Australlia.

No way Britain can stay out of the european conflict.

[Steelrails]

[Smithington]

[cabeza]

All well and great, but what if Germany had destroyed the USSR, as they looked like they might have done in the first 12 weeks of Op. Barbarossa?
Then they had access to all those resources.
Too many unknowables to just say "Britain could have stayed out of it and everything would have been fine".

[young_clinton]

[bucheon bum]

[Steelrails]

[repeatpete]

I'll hold back on my horror at seeing Pat Buchanon being taken seriously as a historian, however, can some of you keep in mind that 'England' did not declare war on Germany.
You can say 'Britain,' you can say 'the UK' or even 'Great Britain.' But there was no country called 'England.'
Scottish independence may well come about but this constant 'England' shortchanges those Scots, Welsh and Irish who also fought so that many of you could be free to wallow in historical revisionism.
Furthermore the irony that many of us teach English and not German appears to have passed unnoticed.

[aq8knyus]

If it wasn't for a plane crash the Germans would have invaded the west in much the same way that they invaded in 1914. Whilst no one can say what would have happened, the devastating German victory of 1940 would not have happened in the same way.

Britain had at various times the ability to surrender, appease further or tacitly support. To our eternal credit, all were rejected.

Without Britain there would be no US led second front, no blockade and no reason to go headlong for Stalingrad and the oil fields in the Caucuses.

Also whatever the outcome Britain was always going to fade in relation to their continental sized rivals. We are a little island that through science, efficiency and a remarkably competent military had a brief moment in the sun. It was never going to last.

The war did indeed hasten considerably the end of British Imperialism, but better a quick death than a slow one, just look at the French. It was bad enough with Malaya, Suez, Mau Mau, Aden, Palestine Mandate to name but a few.

[Kuros]

Right.

British sacrifices in WWII cast their imperial denouement in a noble and fine light. The British were essential to the victory over Nazi Germany. The Soviets could not have managed it alone, Russian Winters be damned (after all, even Napoleon had to face the British). Britain kept Europe free for over a century.

[dairyairy]

Some of you don't seem to realize that Poland was also invaded by the USSR, and that Stalin's signing of the nonaggression pact in 1939 was what cleared the way for Germany to attack Poland.

[Privateer]

[catman]

I do believe that the Western Allies made the right decision to confront Hitler when they did. Who knows how much worse the Holocaust would have been if Fascism has succeeded in taking over all of Europe.
His views of the Slavs being subhuman would have lead to greater slaughter as well.



However, WWI is the war we definitely should have stayed out of. Not only was it an incestuous war mainly fuelled by blind nationalism but it lead to the fall of the Czar in Russia (along with the rise of Stalin) but also to the rise of Hitler himself. The treaty of Versailles should take the bulk of the blame.

[Privateer]