1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
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1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
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Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#2This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material.
Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would have been a deep rooted sense of mistrust (which has existed for centuries).
Another aspect is military doctrine; France had a decidedly defensive doctrine at the time, based of the perceived success of WW1 (the victor always fighting the previous war and all that). The UK military was also very much geared for holding onto an empire and not necessarily fighting large scale military operations across Europe. A decisive military strike was just not in the nature of the nations at the time, they lacked the necessary aggressiveness and sense of purpose to carry it out.
All up the French and British were a little too risk adverse, rightly so I suppose because they had a lot to lose. Unfortunately taking no action was a decision as well and one that would cost them in the long run far more dearly than they might have imagined at the time.
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#3This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would ha…
I don’t think the author is trying to make the point that the UK and France were right or wrong to pursue appeasement. Rather he is trying to debunk a very specific argument that they went with that strategy in order to buy themselves time to mobilize. In fact, they were not significantly more prepared for war in 1939 than in 1938 and ended up on worse footing, according to his argument.
So I think your point stands, but we can also question when someone justifies the appeasement strategy by saying that UK/France needed more time to mobilize. In fact, they were probably more taking a gamble to see how things would play out.
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#4This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would ha…
> These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material.
That's the same point the author is making: If the decision was made based on logistics the war would have to have started in 1938. So the decision was made on something else and only rationalized later with the "time to prepare" argument.
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#5This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would ha…
> Geopolitically Germany had the advantage ?
What do you mean by this? Why “ Geopolitically”?
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#6If you like military history (and this style of writing) I highly recommend 100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times To Present. It gives an overview of 100 engagements that changed the world: the strengths of each army, the expected outcome, and usually some "twist" that turned the tables.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/100-Decisive-Battles-Ancient-Present/...
It looks like there's a PDF here, but you'll be waiting 2min: http://rogers.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_73281...
Here's the list of battles:
- https://i.imgur.com/izTpwpG.png
- https://i.imgur.com/sdUljXu.png
Here's the list in text form, sorted by year, for blind users: https://gist.github.com/shawwn/099cadef6d0e2600172cd0d202b16...
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#7This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would ha…
> These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. That's the same point the author is making: If the decision was made based on logistics the war would have to have started in 1938. So the decision was made on something else and only rationalized later with the "time to prepare" argument.
Yes, I was being a little unfair to the author.
Though I'm actually not convince there is any prevaling narrative that the goal of appeasement was rearmament, most narratives are that it was born from a policy of pacifism with a desire for geniunely avoiding a conflict that some in the UK felt could not be sustained.
Churchill was very much a Hawk all through the 1930s and was pretty much ignored, Chamberlain was Dove through and through not playing some game buying time for a decisive strike.
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#8This takes a too limited a view of the situation. These decisions were likely made on far more more factors than one of purely material. Geopolitically Germany had the the advantage of singular national focus, it had no allies to coordinate with either strategically or tactically (at this stage). The UK and France were two very separate and independent states, who were not necessarily strongly aligned, there would ha…
> Geopolitically Germany had the advantage ? What do you mean by this? Why “ Geopolitically”?
UK was unlikely to take on Germany alone, it couldn't mount a unilateral invasion of Germany imo.
Therefore the UK needed to coordinate with a foreign power (France) both strategically and operationally. There are some examples in the battle for France where comms and coordination between UK and France General Staff was pretty woeful.
Germany made one agreement with USSR to divide Poland and then basically shipped it's Army around mainland Europe stomping everyone west of Poland.
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#9I recommend reading George Orwell's collected letters and essays from this period of time, to get a feel for what it was like living through it without the benefit of hindsight.
(this is up to 1940)
https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Essays-Journalism-Letters-G...
There are other volumes, such as this covering 1940-43:
https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Essays-Journalism-Letters-G...
Re: 1938 vs. 1940 (2018)
#10Or maybe the plan was to have Germany attack the Soviet Union from the beginning. They could have easily defeated Germany prior to the war, had they tried.