Which country contributed most to the Allied Victory?

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#61

I know about Londonerry. For those who don’t http://www.michiganwarstudiesreview.com/2006/downloads/20060402.pdf I don’t know that he was truly a Nazi sympathizer in the full sense. I think he represents a very large slice of the pre-war British aristocracy and capitalists who were terrified of communism after the Russian revolution in 1917 and the rise of industrial agitation among the working classes, which flowed from Marxist ideas that threatened the existing class order and the privileged classes. Events such as the General Strike of 1926 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgeneral.htm caused alarm among those classes as they were inspired by the communists, and the Comintern, http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch13.htm The fear of communism made anti-communist regimes like Hitler’s seem very attractive to the privileged classes to preserve their positions. Each nation had these people, Ford being the prime American example.

I have a vague recollection that the Nazis had identified, or had possibly even made provisional arrangements with, some English leaders as members of a Vichy style British government.

There were also the separate pro-Nazi fascist movements in various countries, including Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in England http://www.oswaldmosley.com/buf/buf.html and the American Bund in America, which was much more pro-German and more of a concern because of the large number of German-born and German descent people in America. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005684

Back to this thread topic, I’ve often wondered what happened to these people and their sympathisers during the war, and whether any of them were able to influence Allied efforts adversely. I know what happened to one of them. He became Lord Haw Haw and definitely tried to have an adverse effect on the Allied war effort, with little or no effect. He was hanged by the Allies after the war. http://www.heretical.com/British/joyce.html

Well OK they were not the weak , but weaker then the Germans - is so better

Not so weak. Rommel and the Germans and Italians beseiged Tobruk but never took it while the Australians held it from April to August 1941. Rommel needed the port desperately to continue his campaign, but he couldn’t defeat the Australians. Sorry. Couldn’t resist that bit of national pride. :slight_smile:

If USA had a little sympaties for European colonies but this is not stop them to fight for the British and France coloniesin 1944-45 ?

The colonial issue was more important in the Pacific than Europe. The Americans, notably Admiral King who was hostile to the British as a colonial power, were generally very much opposed to any operations that they saw as helping Britain regain its colonies without any other strategic benefit. They expressed this view among themselves in relation to various proposals, such as Churchill’s obsession with invading Sumatra rather than the Philippines which the Americans saw as an attempt to get a launching point for regaining Malaya. There was pretty much continual American suspicion about British motives to regain its colonies. It had a significant effect on whether or not some proposed operations were carried out.

Not a short post, but shorter. Happy now? :slight_smile:

#62

Not so sure about that - one of the reasons Stalin did so well at Yalta was that Roosevelt was willing to give him just about anything he wanted in return for help from Stalin to break up the British Empire. Since this was in the interests of the USSR anyway, the net result of Yalta was rather beneficial for the Russians…

#63

I didn’t know that.

Could you expand on it?

#64

Agree. The main reason of pro-nazy feelings in Europe was the bolshevick revolutions (and atrosities above native russian population). There were a lot of people in the world (both Europe and America ) who cosidered the Hitler as “brilliant” guys agains threat of Bolshevism.This was the reason of power anti-semitism in the Europe till the WW2.

I have a vague recollection that the Nazis had identified, or had possibly even made provisional arrangements with, some English leaders as members of a Vichy style British government.

There were also the separate pro-Nazi fascist movements in various countries, including Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in England http://www.oswaldmosley.com/buf/buf.html and the American Bund in America, which was much more pro-German and more of a concern because of the large number of German-born and German descent people in America. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005684

Yea this heeds a separate thread.

Back to this thread topic, I’ve often wondered what happened to these people and their sympathisers during the war, and whether any of them were able to influence Allied efforts adversely. I know what happened to one of them. He became Lord Haw Haw and definitely tried to have an adverse effect on the Allied war effort, with little or no effect. He was hanged by the Allies after the war. http://www.heretical.com/British/joyce.html

Oh thanks for the links i have never hear about lord haw-haw befor :wink:

Not so weak. Rommel and the Germans and Italians beseiged Tobruk but never took it while the Australians held it from April to August 1941. Rommel needed the port desperately to continue his campaign, but he couldn’t defeat the Australians. Sorry. Couldn’t resist that bit of national pride.

That’s right about national pride.
But do you agree the Australian’s hard fight had no influence to the Hitler’s agreesions plans in other Europe?

The colonial issue was more important in the Pacific than Europe. The Americans, notably Admiral King who was hostile to the British as a colonial power, were generally very much opposed to any operations that they saw as helping Britain regain its colonies without any other strategic benefit. They expressed this view among themselves in relation to various proposals, such as Churchill’s obsession with invading Sumatra rather than the Philippines which the Americans saw as an attempt to get a launching point for regaining Malaya. There was pretty much continual American suspicion about British motives to regain its colonies. It had a significant effect on whether or not some proposed operations were carried out.

Well i agree if the Britain is ally the USA their colonies didn’t worry the Americans. But if the ( as we suggested) the Britain could shoose the “another side” and prefered to be the Axis ally, the USA simply couldn’t ignored the British colonies becouse the strategic reasons.

Not a short post, but shorter. Happy now?

Yea so much better :smiley:

Cheers.

#65

Nobody had tell about British Impire in Yalta pdf :wink:
The main point of Roosevelt was to get the guaranties to join the USSR in war agains Japane. Therefore he was willing to give the Stalin “anything he wanted”.( more exactly he supported Stalin in so called “after-war Polish question”) This is true, the Yalta conference was a succesfull for USSR.
But just don’t tell that the USSR&USA was guilt in the collapse of British Impire.
The Britains themself were guilt firstly due to its colonian politic.

Cheers.

#66

Agree. But we could equally say that Barbarossa had no influence on the Mediterranean / North Africa / Middle East.

Australia never fought on land in Europe in WWII, at least not as national units, apart from Greece where it helped cause Hitler to delay Barbarossa.

I think the basic problem with this thread is the notion that any nation contributed the ‘most’ to the Allied victory.

Beneath that is the problem that nobody has defined what ‘victory’ means. Defeat of Italy? Germany? Japan? Two or three of them? If we take it to mean defeat of all three, which I do, we have the problem that there were really at least three separate wars going on. One against Germany, and to a lesser extent the Italians. Another against Japan after Pearl Harbor, which I’ll call the Pacific war although it extended to Burma and the Indian Ocean. And the Japanese war in China, which started well before either of the others and is usually forgotten, and never really resulted in defeat of the Japanese except to the extent that they surrendered because America won. If anything, the Japanese were winning in China towards the end of the war.

I can ‘prove’ that the Allied contribution to the Pacific War didn’t matter in the whole context of WWII. America, which was increasingly the main combatant on land from 1943 and the main naval and air combatant throughout, never devoted more than 15% of its effort to the Pacific War. Looking at that figure makes the Pacific war just an unimportant sideshow. Nobody who fought there, on either side, would agree.

It follows that America devoted 85% of its effort to Germany. That’s got to put it close to equalling or being a bigger ‘contribution’ than the USSR to victory against Germany. But anyone looking at the relative casualty figures and deployment of forces has to conclude that the USSR was much, much more heavily involved than the USA.

As 32Bravo pointed out much earlier, the topic is essentially meaningless. It cannot produce any firm conclusion.

That doesn’t mean the discussion it provoked isn’t worth having, but not as an attempt to answer the thread question.

#67

Oh i didn’t new that only 15% of USA power were used in the Pacific :wink: This is new for me.
Well 85 % agains Germany - this is why we could consider Germany as the main davils engine of Axis power.

I have to agree with you this question on the top of thread is not that question which has a sence. But i find our discussion as interesting without relation to the question of topic.

Cheers.

#68

Hello guys!

Please read it before writing more posts.

I have been partisipating as well as observing others in this thread. As the one who started the thread I would like to tell you something.

Firstly, I hate you all because you make me think!

Secondly, I beg you (read insist) that you discuss the topic of this thread on my terms. I want to explain why. It is not because I want things to be my way, but only to bring order to the discussion. We all come from different countries with different social and cultural background. I sence we all (me too) try to shape the way this discussion goes. We have to find a common ground. Lets do it on the terms stated in my opening post. This way we, at least, whould have reffernce direction for discussion.

That is why in my opening post I stated 3 criterias, which were formulated in such a way that a person from any country could find them objective. They are only about number or something measurable. From the beggining I expected you to present new criterias if you have any, on top of the 3 I made. That was the whole point! We make together list of point and then check the best country for each of the categories.

Please seiz discussing different specific fights. We have to think global in this thread otherwise there will be no result.

And to conclude an important remark: You are wrong if you think that the question in the name of this thread can not be answered. It can be, just NOT the way you think! The answer is not a name of one country. The answer is a list of factors for which a most contributing coutry found.
If you think about it for a second, you will realise that it make sence. Because this way we can include a divercity of factors.
I came up with 3. Give us more and we can discuss.

#69

That can’t be done if we impose limiting criteria which will produce an artificial result.

Your criteria were

  1. Life losses.
  2. German divisions on the Russian front.
  3. German soldiers killed on the Russian front.

Your second and third criteria cannot produce any result other than that the USSR made the greatest contribution, because they exclude everything every other nation did, and confine the debate not only to the war in Europe but to the Eastern front. It also ignores Allied naval and air activities worldwide, to which the USSR contributed little, and the industrial contribution of various nations, in which the US contribution was immense. It also ignores the effort involved in the US, and to a lesser extent Britain, fighting all over the globe and the huge line of communication and war production issues involved, while the USSR fought essentially a land war in a comparatively limited area with much shorter lines of communication and its war production in its rear on land. There are also other issues which the USSR didn’t have to deal with, such as large amphibious landings thousands of miles from home. If we ignore all these aspects, as we have to with your criteria, any result will be misleading.

Introducing our own limiting criteria doesn’t help, because by slightly altering your second and third criteria it turns out that Brazil contributed most to Allied victory.

  1. Brazilian divisions on the Italian front. (1)
  2. Brazilian soldiers killed on the Italian front. (About 450)

Either the topic is “Which country contributed most to the Allied victory”, which requires all relevant factors to be considered without any limitation, or it should be retitled to reflect the limited nature of the question.

#70

Not greatly unfortunately - it’s based on the archetypal “something I read somewhere” but I can’t remember where. However, it does seem to fit in with both US and Soviet policy of the time. US realations with the UK immediately postwar were rather strained at best.

The Empire was doomed, no doubt about that (and no alas, either). However, the speed at which it was dismantled - in large part due to US prodding and Soviet military pressure during the cold war - was a tragedy. The history of Africa since the fall of the British and French Empires has been one of One Man - One Vote - Once due to our abject failure to plant the roots of democracy and good governance. This combined with the failed education system in these countries is holding them back in a morass of poverty and corruption. Some parts of the far east like Malaysia and Singapore did better, while others such as Burma are also basket cases. India did the best of all, having a halfway decent civil service and a large number of educated people. Even then, it suffered partition and multiple wars coupled with failed economic policies for a couple of generations. While India should really have been given independence 20 years before it was, with much of the rest of the Empire the time should have been taken to create countries that would survive as independent states without becoming basket cases.

#71

Thanks anyway. I know what you mean about “I read it somewhere”. Various odd facts stick in my mind but if I’m challenged I couldn’t find the source in a fit. I may know what the book I read it in was about and the library I got it from and can even visualise the cover, but I can’t remember the title or the author. The odder the fact the more it is likely to stick in my mind, and the less likely it is be repeated in most references.

#72

Well Rising Sun i’m agree about naval but i’m not sure the air contribution of USSR was a little. At least in the fight in German front the USSR contribution was roughly equal the allies. ( but i don’t know the correct figures).
BTW i think we could learn much interesting (ragarding the question of the thread) about contribution of each nation if we detailed study the war budget of Germany - what part of it was going to NAVAl , What part to AirForces and what part to the Infantry and tanks.
I think this is quite importaint information but i could not to find the relialible datas.
Do you know about this?

Cheers.

#73

Not good to insist, old chap. :cool:

I think we have a communicatin problem here. It is not only based on language differences, but also cultural differences.

When the “Hearts of Oak, Men o’ War” were roving the seas and building Britannia’s Empire, it suffered much the same problems. However, the solution was at hand. Wherever the Brits went, they introduced cricket!

What better way to communicate? It doesn’t matter that we are hopeless at it. Now, when we communicate with our cousins overseas, we use cricket metaphors and we’re all “batting from the same wicket” no misunderstanding whatsoever!

#74

I guess i know the problem mate.
I think we could to learn the true if compare the all of the materal and mens loses of Axis in the WW2,right?
But here is one problem appears - how we could compare for instance the every 10 tanks divisions which were crushed in the East front and every 100 U-boats which were sinked by allies? Do you know the universal mean for this ?
One way is juct compare the perished peoples ( 10 division is about 10 000 but 100 U-boats is just 6 -8 000 mens of crew) But this is wrong way becouse the production of 100 U-boats could be more expensive than 10 tank division.
There is also another way ( which i read in one of inner american forum) the calculate the all material loses of Germany: price of more then 730 U-boats+ Naval+ Airforces + Loses of inductry of Germany from firebombing + Lend lise to the USSR= astronomic figure which “proves” the Allies absorb much more materials loses than the East front.
This is the wrong way also becouse this way just ignored the “price of life” the german and soviet soldiers who perished in the Eastern front.
So honestly speaking i don’t know the answer.

Cheers.

#75

Rather! Old chap! Those Boche didn’t play such games. Too serious. No outlet for repressed desires, and such. Causes wars, you know?

Still, batting on a bit of a sticky wicket 1939-41, what!

Also, no decent boarding schools in Germany. I remember an ex-Colditz old buffer being asked if it frightened him. Reply something like, with pride. “Not at all. There was nothing the Germans could do to me that worried me. I’d been to a British boarding school.”

Also the same attitude displayed by another old buffer during IRA bombings in the ?1970’s. I saw the newsreel of him covered in dust and, I think, slightly injured, outside his damaged club, saying something like, in disgust that such a minor event had caused his pleasure to be shut off: “My God! The buggers have shut the bar!”

P.S. As for being hopeless at it, some of us remember Jardine and the Bodyline Series. Not that we’re still bitter about it 75 years later. :slight_smile:

#76

Agreed. Nobody does. There is no definite answer. All we can do is point to important events and aspects and try to balance them against other ones. It’s still interesting to compare, even if there cannot be a definite answer.

A nice short post, huh? :slight_smile:

(I do my shortest posts when I’m not trying to explore historical events and their consequences. :slight_smile: )

#77

Yes that’s nice post.
IMO don’t need to explore historical events on the public if you could just express you finishing oppinion by the two phrases :wink:

Cheers

#78

But then they’re just assertions, not arguments.

A nice short post is:

America contributed most to victory.

It takes a bit more to say why. Roughly tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of the books already written on related topics.

Similarly, a nice short reply is:

No, it didn’t.

Again, it takes a bit more to say why. Probably an equivalent number of books.

We’re not doing too badly keeping it down even to the length of my posts, even my longer ones. :slight_smile:

#79

Hi,

This looks to me like conversation between a deaf and a blind!

I do not want to comment on all the things you said before, because this whould drag us even further away from the subject.

Lets revise the criteria list:

[INDENT][ol]
[li]Total number of Victims of the war for given country, #.
[/li][li]Proportion of the victims to total population for a given country, %.
[/li][li]Percentage of the destroyed Axis land forces, i.e. tanks, cars ect. %
[/li][li]Percentage of the destroyed Axis airforce per front, %.
[/li][li]Percentage of the destroyed Axis sea fleet per front, %.
[/li][li]Share of the material help received from other Allies in relation to GNP for given country, %.
[/li][/ol][/INDENT]

Can we agree on the values for this criteria? You are very welcome to propose other measurable criterias your self.

After that we talk about Intangible impact of the coutries.

Please keep you answers short. I am not being bossy. Just try to coordinate in the thread I opened. Thank you for understanding.

#80

My criteria are comparative measurable factors for all Allies, and their demonstrable effects upon ultimate victory which means the defeat of Japan.

As for being short enough, if anyone can comprehensively and definitively answer the thread topic within the permitted length of one post (I think it might be 10,000 words) please do.