World War II

[Hand Shandy]

Yes, never mind Neville Chamberlain, who was actually trying to prevent a war...

 

... Winston Churchill, who lived for running wars at a safe distance, was the appeaser with the most blood on his hands of all time perhaps, in terms of turning a blind eye to arguably, in the 1940s, the most prolific mass murderer in history - Stalin).

 

But in the words of Basil Fawlty, our Winny mentioned the war and got away with it alright.

 

And he "worried" about the Iron Curtain later. Much much later in fact, if at all, once it was all too late and he a doddery ineffectual aristocratic foie gras lapper once more.

 

Chamberlain tried to prevent a war and kudos for the effort, but ultimately he failed.

 

Churchill was no saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm unsure what exactly you expected him to do. Up until the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact when the Germans attacked Russian positions in Poland in June '41, Britain was basically the only man standing in Europe and were getting battered into the ground

 

Russia basically presented his only option as an ally given the Americans were holding off and only joined after Pearl Harbour in December.

 

[magicrat]

Yes, never mind Neville Chamberlain, who was actually trying to prevent a war...

 

... Winston Churchill, who lived for running wars at a safe distance, was the appeaser with the most blood on his hands of all time perhaps, in terms of turning a blind eye to arguably, in the 1940s, the most prolific mass murderer in history - Stalin).

 

But in the words of Basil Fawlty, our Winny mentioned the war and got away with it alright.

 

And he "worried" about the Iron Curtain later.  Much much later in fact, if at all, once it was all too late and he a doddery ineffectual aristocratic foie gras lapper once more.

That's nonsense

Not the bit about Chamberlain trying to prevent a war, To be kind to him he was naive 

Churchill saw action  in the Boer war and to be fair he was very hands on in WW2 undertaking some very perilous journeys to meet his allies and support his generals. He was  a Tory and a member of the aristocracy which seems the root of your disdain  

[Lee909]

Skaro said earlier he is a Slav so has every right to despise him. Churchill deal with Stalin about dividing up the power in Europe post war was disgraceful

[SasaS]

You seem to think he had a choice? Britain had its hand full fighting against Greek partisans,engaging Stalin directly was well beyond comtemplating.

[Lee909]

Another interesting character from WW2

 

Robert Blair "Paddy" Mayne

Irish university heavyweight champ

Member of the British Lions

 

Beat the shit out of a few superior officers and sat in a prison cell in Cairo before David Stirling got him off the charges as long as he became second in command of the newly founded SAS. Was screwed out of a VC

[magicrat]

You seem to think he had a choice? Britain had its hand full fighting against Greek partisans,engaging Stalin directly was well beyond comtemplating.

This

Churchills overiding ambition was to protect the Empire , I'm not sure how much say he had in the post war land grab . He was much more bearish where Stalin was concerned than Roosevelt but the Americans called the shots much to his annoyance,

 

I recall discussing Churchill with my Grandad 20 years ago not long before he died . He was never one to talk much about the past but despite being a life long Labour supporter , never voted for him but the had the utmost respect for Churchill and his leadership during the war. Plenty of people willing to slag him off for being a Tory and a drunkard through the prism of history but I prefer to take my Grandads view as someone that knew what he was talking about and lived through those times  

[aws]

The Russians took what they thought they deserved after 20m casualties. They only way to stop them would have been to declare war on them. Which some U.S.militarists wanted but cooler heads prevailed.

 

The Russians did most of the heavy lifting to win the war but it was a very close run thing on the Eastern front and there's little doubt they

would have lost if Churchill had capitulated in 1940 like a lot of Establishment figures wanted him to do.

[SasaS]

Why would they have lost if Britain signed a treaty with Germany in 1940?

[Hand Shandy]

OK, they wouldn't have lost per se given they could have kept on retreating to Kamchatka. However, they would have been saying goodbye to pretty much all of 'European' Russia up to the Urals.

[SasaS]

But then they could have invaded the US from Kamchatka and come back even stronger through Normandy. 

[Lee909]

The Soviets wouldn't have survived a British-German peace treaty. They would have been fucked without lend-lease from the US and the British Navy keeping the baltics open for delivery. The Nazis would have swept the oil fields and they could have starved them out. They nearly did it and without US grain,tanks and Jeeps and with the full power of the Nazi warmachine they would have eventually crumbled. Thats not to take anything away from them as they took the brunt of the war but had the Germans not needed the troops in western Europe,Greece,Malta and at times North Africa they could have survived the winter fighting.

 

The major issue was Hitler being so determined to take Leningrad and Stalingrad instead of the oil fields. More German troops would have made the supply lines easier to upkeep and no need for limited supplies going to various regions

[SasaS]

Wasn't Stalingrad on the way to the oil fields?

[Lee909]

Yes but Without other theatres of war the need for oil was less and it was Hitler that wanted the city because of its name. No western front and the siege could have run longer with fresh troops brought in

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Hoped we'd get beat.

So did Kirkbyred.

[SasaS]

There was no western front during Stalingrad.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Chamberlain tried to prevent a war and kudos for the effort, but ultimately he failed. Churchill was no saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm unsure what exactly you expected him to do. Up until the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact when the Germans attacked Russian positions in Poland in June '41, Britain was basically the only man standing in Europe and were getting battered into the ground Russia basically presented his only option as an ally given the Americans were holding off and only joined after Pearl Harbour in December.

I can't remember who said it, but I've heard that Chamberlain was aware that Britain would have had its arse handed to it if we'd gone to war in 1938; that he never really trusted Hitler to keep his word, but he used the Munich Treaty to delay the kick-off until we could get tooled up.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Did you just do an image search on "Nazi tit inspection"?

 

I bet it doesn't even stand out as unusual on your browser history.

[Lee909]

There was no western front during Stalingrad.

No there wasnt but they had to have troops there too stop a allied invasion. Also they needed troops to secure/keep control of North Africa,Greece,Malta,Crete

So while there was no fighting on the western front the threat of invasion held up troops and there was a huge southern front to deal with. The the battle at sea that allowed the Soviets deliveries of grain and war materials. So again no threat of a western front, the southern front secured if the British surrendered(including vast oil fields) and the Kriegsmarina having control of the med and baltic seas and the Soviet Union is cut off from aid and starved into submission

[AngryOfTuebrook]

This should be required listening while reading this thread.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd8iAe4WhMM

[KopOut]

The tragedy of ww2 is that Germany couldn't win; were never going to win.

A deluded drug addict Hitler embarked on a global suicide mission deluded in thinking he could win.

The result of this delusion was global genocide that set the world's economic progress back indefinately.

[Lee909]

They could have won easily,at least in the short term if Britain had surrendered and the US stayed isolated. The one thing the war didnt do was set the world back economically,war industries revived the US after the wall street crash.After that the German scientist and engineers were the masterminds in the space race. It may not have been rosey everywhere ut the US gained everything from the war

[ZonkoVille77]

Lord Flashheart, on 21 Dec 2015 - 08:21 AM, said:

 

They could have won easily,at least in the short term if Britain had surrendered and the US stayed isolated. The one thing the war didnt do was set the world back economically,war industries revived the US after the wall street crash.After that the German scientist and engineers were the masterminds in the space race. It may not have been rosey everywhere ut the US gained everything from the war

Very true, the U.S. gained a heck of a lot from WWII.

The world was in a mess and they had the resources and wealth to take advantage of it.

Technology always advances due to wars, and perhaps we may not even have the 'Internet' were it not for war or at least the threat of war.

[Hand Shandy]

The tragedy of ww2 is that Germany couldn't win; were never going to win.

A deluded drug addict Hitler embarked on a global suicide mission deluded in thinking he could win.

The result of this delusion was global genocide that set the world's economic progress back indefinately.

Wrong. Hitler made some catastrophically stupid decisions which cost them the war.

 

If he'd stuck to the non-aggression pact with Stalin, Russia would quite happily have stayed out of it and taken the gains they were given. Germany would only have had to concentrate on Britain, and would either have succeeded in invading or simply starved us into surrender through a naval blockade.

 

The decision to attack Russia was galactically stupid.

 

[M_B]

The decision to attack Russia was galactically stupid.

 

It was his entire raison d'etre.

[SasaS]

Wrong. Hitler made some catastrophically stupid decisions which cost them the war. If he'd stuck to the non-aggression pact with Stalin, Russia would quite happily have stayed out of it and taken the gains they were given. Germany would only have had to concentrate on Britain, and would either have succeeded in invading or simply starved us into surrender through a naval blockade. The decision to attack Russia was galactically stupid.

Your copy of Mein Kampf must have had pages missing. See commnet above.