I would also add in the effect of the Mosquito intruder sorties on the German night fighter force, and improved tactics/electronic countermeasures. France had IMHO fairly limited effects on the early warning network, simply because the RAF flew further north.
What do you mean with “B”? The RAF and USAAF were both involved in the “Transportation” plan smashing French rail and transport infrastructure prior to D-Day. How did the Invasion of France save anything for the RAF? Air power was used (reluctantly) to virtually paralyze the German logistical networks into France and was probably the most directly effective application of air power by the Western Allies in the entire war…
The British were losing 90+ heavies on their worst nights in `44, it wasn’t 'til the defence network was disrupted by loss of early warning/radar/control sites & etc, post invasion, that losses became bearable…
They could hack down 60+ heavies over Germany in daylight, but could not stand their own losses to the escort…
It didn’t matter in the end. The Allies could make good their losses, the Luftwaffe could not despite Goering’s best efforts and Speer’s so-called “Armaments’ Miracle”. In the end, the Luftwaffe still relied heavily on obsolete designs such as the Me109, a dated airframe increasingly burdened with heavier guns and outclassed by virtually any of the Allied fighters by 1944 - of course, with the best Jadgwaffe pilots dying and being replaced with ill-trained green crews, it probably didn’t matter all that much…
To sum up the answer to the question, “Could Germany have won the war?” The answer is:
NO
Who did?
No-one in Europe, 'cept maybe Stalin,
& what was it he said… something like ‘1 death may be a tragedy ,but a million deaths is just a statistic’…
The Marshall Plan gave Germany a stunning post war recovery and wealth which endured until West Germany foolishly re-unified with East Germany.
Meanwhile, Britain, which didn’t start the war; which fought it alone for the first couple of crucial years which held the Nazis at bay while the US sat on its hands; and which paid heavily for it until not so many years ago in discharging its debts, largely to the USA, got sweet FA economically and actually ended up on its economic knees for many years after the war it won.
Germany was the ultimate winner in long term economic terms, being given post-war assistance by the Allies to haul it out of its wartime devastation to avoid a re-run of the aftermath of WW1.
The price the average German paid for the consequences of the war initiated by the Nazis was undoubtedly too high, but so was that paid by the average Briton in the few decades after the war where generally they were worse off than the Germans.
Similar result in Japan.
Debatable whether “The Mouse That Roared” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7L7WLFBYR4 was fiction or a prescient documentary, which included the line “There isn’t a more profitable undertaking for any country than to declare war on the United States and to be defeated.”
And Afghanistan isn’t any ****ing different!
RS, I hate to tell you this, but BY FAR the biggest expenditure of Marshall Plan aid following WW2 was to the United Kingdom. Please consult Wikipedia and you will see a chart that shows expenditures by country - nearly 2-1/2 times the amount that Germany received. The first 2 on the list are the UK (#1) and France (#2). It is a common mis-conception that England got squat. It ain’t true, my friend. Not even close.
I’m befuddled as to why Sweden got even one thin dime in Marshall Plan aid since a) it wasn’t a belligerent, b) it suffered no war damage, c) it spent the war trading with the enemy and d) it was in no danger of a communist take-over. Interestingly, Spain received nothing, yet Portugal, a fascist dictatorship under Salazar, did.
Except, of course, the V2 didn’t have the range to hit anything past Britain…
There was a longer ranged version planned, but that was way beyond the technology available to Von Braun et al. Bit of a case of not knowing what they didn’t know…
& Britain alone?
Hardly, as a quick check of the nationalities of the RAF fighter pilots in the B.o.B. will show…
& Fort Knox was chocka with the Empire’s gold when ‘cash & carry’ was the deal…
On the question of whether Germany could have won the war - little though I approve of the “what if” approach to history, there is a valid question of what might have happened had the Germans taken Moscow and/or Leningrad in 1941, or secured the southern Soviet oilfields in 1942. The latter question is, perhaps, the less interesting, notwithstanding the fact that capture of these facilities in 1941 or 1942 seems to have been one of the underlying lazy assumptions upon which German hopes of victory over the Soviet Union were based. It is hard to see how even total success in Army Group South’s 1942 Summer campaign, in terms of securing the oilfields, could have been secured in the face of the hugh Red Army “overhang” that would have threatened the Germans’ new northern flank.
The Moscow/Leningrad question is more interesting. Comparison with Napoleon’s capture of Moscow in 1812 is, I believe, facile. The Russia of 1812 was, to all intents and purpuses, roadless, and the pace of war, by 1941 standards, very slow. Also, The Tsarist Russian Empire was well established, and ruled over a small élite in strong control of a huge, virtually uneducated population of agriculturalists. By 1941, the Soviet transport network was far from wonderful, but one major feature was the establishment of Moscow as a major road and railway hub that allowed reinforcements and supplies to be distributed along the full length of the Soviet western front, and in from the east by way of the Siberian railway. Also, the Russian population had changed, as had its relationship with the regime. The Bolshevik regime was quite new - it had only properly secured itself in power about 18 years previously. In that 18 years, it had performed actions that had alienated large elements of the population. In addition, the social processes that had helped the Bolsheviks to power in the first place - industrialisation, and the consequent need for an urban population at least partly educated to the needs of a modern economy (albeit an education highly tainted by propaganda) - had put in place a much larger cadre of people who might have been a lot less tolerant of serious and obvious national failure than had the kulaks and peasants of the age of Tsar Alexei.
There is a case for saying that the capture of Moscow would have resulted in a strategic situation in which the Soviets would have been forced into a general retreat along most of their front. Even the capture of Leningrad, consolidated by the Germans to the east of the city, would have exposed Moscow to a severe threat in the Summer of 1942, possibly leading to a reorientation of the German campaign in that year leading to the capture of Moscow, with similar result. Further, consideration should be given to the possibility at least that such a development could have triggered the political collapse of Stalin’s regime. I am reluctant to speculate beyond this point - but it might suggest the possibility that the Hitler/Himmler dream of securing “living space” in the expanses of the old Russian Empire might have moved a lot closer to reality, had German strategy been more focused and Moscow been captured. Just a thought.
Oh well, that’s enough idle speculation for today … Best regards, JR.
Even in summer 1940, the British didn’t exactly think they were alone (cartoon is from July 1940)
Yes - and the Empire and Dominions did rally more or less loyally to the “Mother Country”. The problem was to co-ordinating this effort of the “red” portion of the world’s map to the defence of GB. Doubtful, ultimately, whether it would have been sufficient in itself. Best regards, JR.
Perhaps, but a lot of that 500 million diverted fighting troops and resources from the wars against Germany and Japan, primarily in India and among Indian forces concerned with Indian independence.
When my parents lived in India for 5 years, I visited the Bombay Gymkhana where my parents were members (and where father indulged his tennis mania). On the wall in the men’s locker room were plaques each representing a Spitfire that had been bought and paid for by the members for the defence of Great Britain. Very impressive.
To which one could add the thousands of Indian troops under the Japanese who had the option of changing sides, and didn’t. And often suffered immensely for it, as did other POWs of the Japanese.
But on the other hand there were the likes of Chandra Bose and Mohan Singh and their followers who fought with the Japanese against the Allies.
Maybe, but the contribution of the Indian Army to the war was massively in excess of the resources expending in garrisoning India. Bose et al were very much exceptions rather than the rule.
True, JAW; however, when it became apparent that the English would soon be broke, FDR passed Lend Lease - difficult under the circumstances and heavily opposed by Isolationists - and the $31.5B or so that it represented was a gift and was never repaid. So much for “lease”. On the other hand, leasing a fighter or bomber that was subsequently shot down wasn’t exactly a business proposition to begin with. Still, in my view, it was money well-spent…
Yes, a good U.S. business plan to take off at the knees & in one fell swoop…
… replacing centuries of British globalisation/hegemony… also…
Setting Europe back decades & cementing the ‘Military & Industrial Complex’ for the cold-war anti-commie squeeze…
I wonder if your observation would be slightly less acerbic if it had been the other way around. The British had had their way for so long that it’s only natural that they might think it would continue forever. The arc of history was irrevocably moving away with Indian and Pakistani independence inevitable. Churchill declared that he didn’t become PM to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire, but the sad fact was that there was nothing he could do to halt it. Setting Europe back ‘decades’? Perhaps you think that Europe would have “advanced” under the gentle tutelage of die Herren Hitler, Goering and Himmler? Maybe I just can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.
What, I wonder, would have happened if the evil Americans hadn’t given England all that money - for free - to get all those worthless American arms and inedible American food? I guess we’ll never know because we did give it… you’re welcome!
& the items so freely given to the U.S.?
War[& peace]winners such as radar, sonar, proximity fuzes, nuclear science, gas turbines, Penicillin, Ultra decrypts & etc?