galteeman

why did it take the western allies so long to mount the d-day operation and end the war?
the americans were proposing d-day in 1942 and 1943 but the british came up with varying bogus excuses to stop it going ahead. instead pushing for operations in north africa which couldn't possibly win the war.
the real british agenda was to protect and even expand their empire by fighting in africa and also to slyly let the germans and russians slaughter each other.
this flies in the face of the popular notion of the british saving the world. if the americans had got their way the war would have been over much sooner and eastern europe would have been saved from stalin. churchills imperialism caused the deaths of millions more people and the spread of the iron curtain over the east.
any thoughts?

Komrade

OR there would've been an EXTREMELY bloody attempt to invade France in 1942 or 1943 which would've met with strong Atlantic Wall defenses, larger numbers of well-trained professional German troops (Russian front not quite draining yet, No Italian or other front drawing attention), and a full strength Luftwaffe providing air cover for the defenders and shooting the hell out of invading forces. Oh, and the Battle of the Atlantic hadn't QUITE been finalized yet so how would we have gotten sufficient troops, and supplies across the Atlantic much less the Channel?

Instead, Operation Torch and the invasion of Tunisia eliminated the Afrikakorps (how many thousands were captured that were needed elsewhere?) Opened a second front in Italy pinning down some troops there, although granted the operations were rather bloody for the few gains made. Stalingrad, Kursk, and the steady Soviet push East drained more and more German soldiers towards that front leaving poorly trained and unreliable Polish and Russian PoW's in their place. Plus, that marvelous little operation by the Allied Air Forces that all but completely destroyed the Luftwaffe. And by that point the Battle of the Atlantic had reached the point where U-boat men waved goodbye and knew they weren't coming back. In THESE conditions the invasion of June 6, 1944 were launched.

galteeman

stronger in 1942 than 1944?

they got them across 1000 miles of open sea to land in northwest africa without any trouble.

hitler got a years deferment of the second front at a cost of 125000 troops what a bargain. hitler relieved and surprised at torch and the removal of the threat to france moved 27 fresh divisions from europe to the russian front. so that torch far from providing relief actually increased the pressure on the russians. torch was an operation to defend and expand the british empire and dupe the americans into doing it under the guise of helping the russians by opening a 2nd front.

Toltec

The Desert war was hardly a conspiracy, it was a mistake. Churchill halting the advance on Tunisia against the advice of his generals, to fight in greece.

North africa was vital, not fighting there would have lost the Suez canal and endagered the oil, all allied ships and tanks used. The US had no difficulty in seeing the wisdom of needing to secure Africa.

The Americans wanted to go route one across the Channel to the Rhine. this is what Napoleon would have done and the tradition of the US military at that time was to do what they perceive Napoleon would have done.

Britain wanted to invade France both from the north and south, invade Italy and the Balkans simultanious. Franco-Prussian military tradition was to use fast tactical maneuver. British tradition was to use even faster strategic maneuver (by the navy). Britain had a lot of experience and the capacity to do this.

Instead we got a compramise between the two strategies, Italy and Northern France.

Many theorist believe that had the British strategy been used it would have stretched the German army so far and allowed so many more allied troops to the front it would have hastened the war.

avon

Galteeman,

I have to agree with Komrade on almost all of what he's just said here. I would add that the Americans were pushing to launch a direct assault on the German army in France from the time they entered the war. Roosevelt was firmly agreed with the policy of Germany first rather than the pacific first (unsurprisingly strong in the Navy). Britain on the other hand could not face the German's on the continent. Their strategy, which had successfully seen them through the first two and a half years of the war, was to encircle the European mainland and drive Germany into economic strangulation (hopefully forcing a coup) and then negotiating an end to the war that way. So long as the Americans were still building their European armies, British strategy held sway. By late 1943, with the predominance of the American military, Churchill's strategy had to be revised.

So what we actually have is not Britain attempting to protect every piece of her already weakening empire, but two divergent perceptions of how the war should (and indeed could) be fought to a conclusion.

I think it a bit strong to blame Churchill's imperialism for the deaths of millions and the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. I'm no fan of the man myself but I think he did as much as was within his power to fight the war within surprisingly traditional strategical and conceptual frameworks. If his imperialism interfered unnecessarily at any point then it was probably his attempt to tie Stalin down to his percentages deal in late 1944. Having said that, this is open to many differing interpretations as well.

galteeman

ok toltec
the us commanders were almost universally against going to north africa. why did they do it then? because fdr over ruled them because if there was no operation in 1942 it would be impossible to resist calls for forces to go to the pacific theatre, wrecking the germany first concept which he was pushing. also he had elections coming and needed something going on against germany for public opinion purposes at home.
as for the importance of the middle east oil that was a red herring. by now all the oil required for the allies was being easily supplied by american oil fields. in fact by the end of the war the allies used 7 billion barrells out of which 6 billion were supplied by the usa fields. why did they go to north africa then? to defend the british empire period.

britain did everything they could to avoid invading france. in the end they had to bow to american pressure.

galteeman

this strategy would never win the war only get some sort of settlement. winning the war demanded a much bigger sacrifice which the british were not prepared to make.
churchills strategy was to try and get through the war #1 priority as little loss to britain and of british lives as possible. also to defend the empire and keep it safe as #2 priority. we know he had no love for the soviets so it was perfectly logical that he would do nothing to help them if he could get away with it and was happy to see them and the germans slaughtering each other. a perfectly good strategy from a british point of view and exactly what he was put in charge to do. not much good to the people on continental europe or to the russian people though. the americans were highly suspicious of the motives of the british throughout and had to constantly push for focusing on the real objective of defeating the germans.
i guess my point is that the hidden agenda was to place a higher priority on defending the empire than on making sacrifices to win the war.

Chookie

True, but the resources to do this were not available. Just think about the Dieppe fiasco. This was in actuality a practice run for D-day. Great result they got there....

Analysis of the intelligence gained from Dieppe however, provided information which was invaluable in the run-up to the actual invasion.

avon

Indeed, I guess that is your point. I don't agree though. As you stated at the start of your post, #1 priority was to get through the war with as little loss to Britain and the British people as possible. Defending the empire was part of the duty that any British PM had but given the circumstances of 1939-45 (initially with the threat from the Axis and then from economic strain), Churchill's imperialism (which is undeniable) was not his primary concern.

Where you state that the British tactics were not going to win the war only 'get some sort of settlement', I think your right, but, I would suggest that 'winning' is a relative term in so much as compared with dire strait the British were in in 1939/40. In other words, getting a settled end to the war might be viewed as a perfectly satisfactory conclusion, ie a win of sorts. This idea only became compromised and then forgotten once the American became the dominant partner with their notions of 'unconditional surrender'.

Something else that we need to remember here is that defending the empire, whilst being a duty, was also an economic necessity. Given the British tactic of economic strangulation of Nazi Germany, the British were only too well aware that her economic strength came from the Empire. Given that the lines of supply from the Empire were entire reliant on naval security, the economic ability of Britain to actually remain in the war depended very much (though not entirely) on securing the colonies and dominions. The Churchill Government actually did quite a good job of this.

Toltec

If the strategy was what you said had even the slightest senblence of truth, the sensible thing would have been to make peace with Hitler after the Fall of France, when Britain faced not only the Nazis but their Soviet allies too.



Britain should have made bigger sacrifices is a old whinge. It follows on from Britain should have gone to war in 38 and not appeaesed Hitler. The problem is why Britain? why shouldn't other countries have gone to war in 38, why not criticise other countries for not being willing to sacrifice themselves. In WWII Britain along with the Commonwealth, the Soviets and the US all did quite a bit and in at least two of the cases it was not forced upon them out of necessity. Perhaps you could justify the lack of sacrifice by other countries for me.