Wars and ConflictsΜύ permalink
Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Μύ
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Over on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Page "On This Day" is an interestingly subjective statement:
1941: Adolf Hitler commits one of his biggest blunders by needlessly declaring war on the United States.
Μύ
How "needless" was this declaration? Wasn't it simply a declaration of what was already effectively the situation? The USA, thanks to Japan's aggressive Pacific strategy had entered the war. Their lend-lease programme had for a long time been subsidising Allied armaments and military infrastructure. They were using US navy resources to protect merchant navy activity beneficial to the Allies in the Atlantic and elsewhere. They had blocked the foreign assets of every state Germany had invaded, thereby depriving the Reich (in many Germans' eyes) of the resources to run these territories. There was absolutely no possibility now that they could avoid conflict, or that they would support Germany's aims in any way.
Was Hitler not just being pragmatic? And hadn't he a right to be confident at the time, given the course of the war up to that point?Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 2
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
I thought the same when I saw that.
To me, this viewpoint reflects a general tendency to blame Germany's defeat on Hitler's "blunders" - a way of thinking much influenced by the testimony of German generals, who wanted to cover up their own mistakes after the war.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 3
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
I agree that Hitler was "The Great Miscalculator" of WWII whose errors of judgment ranging from allowing the BEF to escape at Dunkirk to overrruling Von Manstein's tactics of "withdraw and counter-attack" in favour of suicidal stands during the Russian campaign were among the Allies' greatest assets. However to describe Hitler's declaration of war on the USA on 11 December 1941 as "needless" displays considerable historical ignorance.
Since the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 the USA had become an important, if not the most important, economic belligerent in the conflict sustaining both Britain and, to some extent, the Soviet Union as active participants in the war. It also turned the North Atlantic into a crucial strategic theatre of operations. Since October and the "Greer" incident FDR had given the US Navy authority to cooperate with the Royal Navy and the RCN in hunting down U-boats (which they were already doing) as well as changing their rules of engagement to sink them on sight.
Doenitz had been pleading with Hitler for the power to sink USN ships at will but Hitler had restrained him for fear of repeating Germany's mistake in WWI when the involvement of US forces probably tipped the balance on the Western Front after Russia had been knocked out of the war.
However, with the attack on Pearl Harbour Hitler thought that the US would focus its war effort on the Pacific and towards Japan and would ignore Europe. A declaration of war would give Doenitz and his U-boats the freedom to break the Atlantic lifeline sustaining Britain whilst the Japanese would ensure that US forces would be preoccupied elsewhere. However this turned out to be one more of Hitler's many miscalculations.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 4
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
This is one of those misconceptions about history. Germany and Italy and Japan were signataries to the Tripartite Pact, agreeing to support each other in the event that another nation threatened one of them or attacked one of them. So the American declaration of war on Japan after Pearl Harbor was enough to force Hitler's hand - he had to declare war on the USA. And even if it wasn't then the first engagement after Pearl Harbor against Japan was enough to invoke the Tripartite Pact.
Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 5
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Not only that, but he actually said that very thing when he declared war on the USA. The full text of his (incredibly tedious) declaration speech is here:
Calling it a blunder, and a needless blunder at that, is very shoddy on the part of whatever Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ researcher chose the wording of the entry, I think.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 6
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Hitler only refers to an agreement concluded after he had decided to declared war on the USA. Article 3 of the Tripartite Act concluded between Germany, Japan and Italy on 27 September 1940 states the following:
"Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict."
However Japan considered, quite rightly, that Germany had attacked the Soviet Union not the other way round and therefore did not feel obliged to support Hitler in his war against the Soviets and adhered to the Non-Aggression Treaty agreed with Stalin and Molotov in April 1941 (It was Stalin who eventually repudiated this and declared war on Japan after the first atomic bomb had been dropped in August 1945).
Mussolini similarly did not feel obliged to join Hitler after Poland was invaded in September 1939 despite his adherence to the so-called "Pact of Steel" signed the previous May and remained a non-belligerent for 9 months.
Since, as in the case of the Soviet Union, Japan had clearly initiated hostilities with the United States not the other way round Hitler was under no treaty obligation to declare war on the USA.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 7
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Yet he used the Tri-Partite agreement as justification:
"Germany and Italy have been finally compelled ... in loyalty to the Tri-Partite Pact, to carry on the struggle against the U.S.A. and England jointly and side by side with Japan for the defense and thus for the maintenance of the liberty and independence of their nations and empires"
and in my view could do little else. Not to do so would have weakened the alliance tremendously, especially given the huge element of appeasement the agreement represented towards Japan after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had caused something of a rift between the two powers.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 8
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
It's true that the Japanese thought that the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 went against the spirit iof the Anti-Comintern Pact they had signed with Hitler in 1936 but then so was the Non-Aggression Pact Japan concluded with Stalin in April 1941, two months before Barbarossa, after a failed assault on Russia in December 1939 (even after this Stalin kept Zhukov and his army stationed in Siberia against a possible assault from the east until it was almost too late before eventually withdrawing them for the defence of Moscow in October 1941).
Despite the fact that Japan was a non-belligerent against the Soviet Union this did not prevent the Anti-Comintern Pact being renewed for another five years in November 1941. Japan neither consulted with or informed Germany of the attack on Pearl Harbour (as neither Hitler had done before the Soviet Union was invaded on 22 June 1941 - although Japanese assistance might have proved more than useful to him in that campaign). The Tripartite Pact only obliged the parties to go to the other's defence "if attacked" which was not the case either in Barbarossa or at Pearl Harbour. Besides, treaties, especially non-aggression pacts, had never been regarded seriously by Hitler in the past.
Hitler calculated that the Japanese could keep the Americans occupied while he defeated the Soviet Union and Doenitz' U-boats could sever the Atlantic lifeline and effectively knock Britain out of the war. His decision to declare war on the USA was understandable in the circumstances but not obligatory although in the event it proved a spectacular miscalculation.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 9
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
His decision to declare war on the USA was understandable in the circumstances but not obligatory although in the event it proved a spectacular miscalculation.
Μύ
Understandable, of course. Obligatory? Maybe not under the terms of the Pact but most certainly in the spirit of it, and most certainly required at the time in a realpolitik sense. To risk alienating Japan as a fellow axis power at that moment would have been folly in the extreme.
It reflected a reality that was already forming (if not already formed), and at a juncture when it still appeared that Germany's military and political strategies were achieving exactly that which they had set out to achieve. His decision was therefore neither spectacular nor even a miscalculation based on the parameters within which his decision was formed.
These parameters proved not to be as long lasting as he had hoped, and their lack of longevity was indeed a direct result of other decisions which WERE gross miscalculations on his part. But they were valid parameters as things stood, and his decision is therefore validated on that score. And, as pointed out by others and yourself above, it was likewise validated by military reasoning that pertained at the time.
If, in hindsight, it proved to be a contributory factor to his defeat, it was not one that could ever have been evident to him or his advisors at the time. Their calculations were sound, and in my opinion, the decision based on those calculations the only logical one open.
In mathematical jargon there was no miscalculation in declaring war on the USA. It was an explicit assumption easily demonstrated to be logical and correct at that point in the theorem. It was the theorem that proved to be wrong.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 10
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
The failure to declare war against the USA would have no more undermined the Axis than Japan's failure to declare war against the Soviet Union in June 1941 had done. Hitler's decision was primarily motivated by the situation in the Atlantic rather than any solidarity with Japan. The reality that Hitler came up against was the agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill made at the Atlantic Conference in August 1941 that should Britain & the USA both become involved a war against both Germany & Japan, resources would be concentrated on defeating Germany first.
Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 11
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Alan - this article 3 of the Tripartite Pact.
Germany, Italy and Japan agree to co-operate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.
You can dress it up any way you like, but when the USA attacked Japanese aircraft bombing Pearl Harbor, or declared war on Japan, or attacked Japanese ships in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor raid, then Germany was committed to war against the USA.
Hitler referred to that article of the Pact in in his speech declaring war.
It's a good example of Occam's Razor.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 12
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
AllanD,
I have been through the Atlantic Conference memos, minutes, declarations, telegrams and just about anything to hand that relates to it and I can't find any such agreement stated, implied, or even suggested as having been made afterwards. At what point did Roosevelt commit the USA to defeating Germany first should his country enter the war?
While you are right of course to ascribe Hitler's chief motivation in declaring war on the USA to military considerations relating to Britain's defeat, you are being a little remiss in discounting therefore as irrelevant the diplomatic and military relationship that then pertained between Germany and Japan and its importance to the events as they unfolded in the autumn and winter of 1941. And you are being completely remiss in excluding from your calculations the military implications as understood at the time relating to a possible Japan/USSR theatre of war being opened following a declaration of war by Japan against that state, just as the same considerations were also assessed by Hitler and his staff in relation to the USA being officially treated as a belligerent.
Therefore your first statement - in essence a comparison of effect between Japan's stance rooted in sensible military logic and a hypothetical stance on the part of Germany which defies logic - is a little egregious. The failure by Germany to declare war on the USA would have had very serious repercussions with regard both to the country's obligations to Japan under the Tri-Partite agreement and to Japan's war effort in terms of strategy, a strategy designed to achieve an aim that suited Hitler as much as Konoe and company.
As I said, I look forward to seeing your source for the long-term tactical aim of defeating Nazism as a priority over Japan decided in August 1941, a point in time when the USA was at war with neither party and Roosevelt was at pains to point out to Churchill that while he could "make war" he could not "declare war". At that time, as Roosevelt himself told the British PM, congressional permission to give Churchill what he wanted could take three months or more, if it even could be achieved at all. Beyond delivering assurances that he would try nevertheless, I don't believe any strategy in prosecuting the war was agreed in outline, let alone in detail, in Newfoundland.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 13
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Why did Japan not declare war on the Soviet Union then when the Russians attacked the German planes that began bombing them on 22 June 1941 in accordance with the Tripartite Pact? Most of his speech which, as you have said, is self-justifying and tedious is taken up with an account of the Russian campaign, personal attacks on Roosevelt and complaints about the US seizure of German assets. Nowhere does he say that Germany was morally, let alone, legally obliged to declare war on the USA.
Even he only speaks of a common war against the "USA and England" [sic] by the three Axis Powers. Germany never declared war against China, against whom Japan had been waging total war since 1937 and if he was hoping that this display of fraternal solidarity might provoke Japan into declaring war on the Soviet Union he was to be seriously disappointed.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 14
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
Hitler was aware that no declaration of war against the USSR would be made by Japan. Communications between Hitler and Hiroshi Oshima throughout 1941 discussed this very topic at length and the latter was adamant that it would not happen.
Which of course means that everyone, including the guys at the Atlantic Conference, knew this too, since Oshima's correspondence - almost all of it - was being intercepted by allied intelligence.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 15
Posted by schuhbox4 (U10370736) on Tuesday, 11th December 2007
I've just read a book, Fateful Choices by Ian Kershaw, that discusses this decision and others. My first reaction was that this situation didn't really warrant a chapter in the book and Kershaw failed to convince me I was wrong. As I wrote on another post, I think the fact that FDR so readily agreed to the "Germany First" strategy while fighting a holding action against Japan says a great deal about American priorities. Perhaps Hitler's declaration hastened America's entrance into the war against Germany, but I think it was really a fait accompli or inevitable.
Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 16
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007
I stand corrected - slightly. According to Louis Morton's "Strategy and Command: Turning the Tide 1941-1943" the chiefs of staff had, in May 1941, decided not to wait any more for a definitive answer from Roosevelt regarding which of their suggested scenarios (Rainbow 1 to 5) would be used on which to base USA's war strategy. In June 1941 they presented Roosevelt with a revised strategy called ABC1 (Rainbow 5) which in effect committed US military resources to a European conflict on the understanding that Japan could be contained in the Far East without full committment. ABC1 had been formulated with British input so would have been well understood by all concerned in Newfoundland.
The only snag is that Roosevelt, even during his meetings with Churchill, was privately expressing concern over the logic of the strategy given the intelligence which was building concerning the likelihood of a non-envisaged Rainbow scenario - a Japanese offensive against the USA. If he hid these concerns from Churchill and the British delegates during the Atlantic Conference and talked up a "Germany First" policy then he was being amazingly two-faced. Also, given that ABC1 did not explicitly declare that the German part of the axis must be eliminated first, merely that it merited high level committment, promising his country's resources in that manner would have been a a very foolhardy thing to do with some of the formulators of that strategy sitting around the table.
Morton's book contains many verbatim extracts from meeting minutes and correspondence exchanges from before, during and after the conference, and none suggest that Roosevelt did in fact do anything of the sort. In one meeting he even insisted on having written in to the record that US war strategy must be contingent on events in both hemispheres (east and west) and that threats to US trade must be considered a primary factor in deciding US strategy, regardless of what was happening in Europe (he obviously still found the possibility of an overt Japanese attack remote, but envisaged the possibility of the US being forced to declare war on them instead - as envisaged in Rainbow 1 and 3).
What is strange however is that Morton himself, in his "Strategy and Command: The Road to Victory, 1943-1945" says at one point that Truman had always been sceptical about Roosevelt's early committment to "Germany First" as the only US strategy worth pursuing.
So now I'm confused. When was the "Germany First" strategy officially adopted by the USA, and where is the documentary evidence of this?Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 17
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007
In fact, the "Europe First" strategy predates the Atlantic Conference and its genesis can be found in the so-called "Plan Dog" paper on war strategy presented to FDR just after he had been reelected for a third term by his Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark, on 12 November 1940 which led to the so-called ABC-1 plan agreed by a meeting of the combined chiefs of staff of the US, Britain and Canada in Washington in February 1941 under which the first priority was given to
assembling an invasion force in Britain whilst the Japanese would be contained in the Pacific for as long as the war in Europe lasted.
The major military decision taken at Placentia Bay was Churchill's offer that any US declaration of war on Japan would be automatically met with one by Britain, whatever the circumstances, although in the event Japanese attacks on Hong Kong and Malaya simultaneous with Pearl Harbour made this offer redundant and Britain actually declared war on Japan a few hours ahead of the United States.
The Atlantic Charter referred to the "final destruction of Nazi tyranny" but in many ways the most important document to come out of their meeting was Churchill's and Rooosevelt's joint telegram to Stalin in which they stated:
"We realise how vitally important to the defeat of Hitlerism is the brave and steadfast resistance of the Soviet Union, and we feel therefore that we must not in any circumstance fail to act quickly and immediately in this matter of planning the programme for the future allocation of our joint resources"
This marks the beginning of the "Grand Alliance", to use Churchill's copy of the phrase from his ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, but the use of the phrase "joint resources" implies that Roosevelt regarded the United States as a belligerent in the war against Germany, if currently a non-combative one.
However you are right in that the actual decision to give priority to the war against Germany rather than Japan was not formally taken until the Arcadia Conference in Washington immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbour when a paper presented by the Combined Chiefs of Staff entitled "Grand Strategy" And known to historians as "WWI" which stated that Germany was
"the prime enemy and her defeat is the key to victory"
and then
"the defeat of Japan must follow"
therefore
"it should be a cardinal principle...that only the minimum of force necessary for the safeguarding of vital interests in other theatres should be diverted from operations against Germany."
However these statements occur in the introduction and had been commonly accepted assumptions by both sides since the earlier meeting of the Chiefs of Staff in February 1941, 10 months earlier, and were the source of little discussion at either the military or political level. Roosevelt was careful not to commit himself explicitly to them until the USA became a belligerent and until he was able to gauge public opinion.
In doing my research for this response I discovered that you had a very distinguished supporter for your view that Hitler had no option but to declare war on the USA. In a letter written to George VI the day after Pearl Harbour stating that he intended to visit Roosevelt as soon as practicable Churchill added the following postscript:
"I am expecting Germany and Italy will both declare war on the United States, as they have bound themselves by treaty to do. I shall defer proposing my visit to the President until this situation is more clear."
However I still think you, and he, are mistaken.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 18
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007
Churchill was a politician, not a lawyer. Only a stickler for the niceties of contracts would have supposed the Tri-Partite agreement somehow excused Hitler of the responsibility for making the decision that he and his staff made. In the real world, and in times of war, such niceties mean absolutely nothing and other imperatives decide what is and what is not considered an obligation.
Your info corresponds with mine, as far as I can see, though I notice you place much more weight on the strategic plans drawn up prior to the Atlantic Conference than the historians who I read have. Rainbow 5, which was essentially the forerunner to ABC1, had been in existence since the mid 30s. When it was updated to reflect real events after the war's outbreak it was still, despite whatever level of agreement the joint chiefs of staff may have reached, one option of several - albeit the recommended option. And, as your quotations indicate, ABC1 never went so far as to preclude other options. Indeed the flexibility incorporated into it with regard to what the term "contained" might mean in the Far East was specifically included to accommodate Roosevelt's reasonable reluctance to place all his strategic eggs in one basket.
Arcadia occurred at a time when Roosevelt's main concern - the requirement to bring congress onside - had been all but resolved for him courtesy of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. But - and the meeting memos and minutes seem to support this - the occurrence of a scenario that had not been envisaged militarily (even if it had been predicted by intelligence services) meant that December 1941 was the worst possible time for the USA to decide what resources could be committed and where. The assumption of "containment", in other words, now needed something more by way of assessment. Roosevelt was sure to point this out to the ally delegates, whatever they themselves might have been agreeing between themselves regarding the sequence of events that must follow.
Having said that, I have in the last day or so found several websites where the bald statement is made that the USA, by the time of the Arcadia Conference, had "legally" signed up to a "Germany First" policy, and that Churchill was outraged on arriving in Washington to discover that the country (along with Admiral King, C in C of the navy)was now poised to wage all out war against Japan. Yet I still cannot find anything by way of documentary or documented evidence for this committment. We all know that he got largely what he wanted, and the US did indeed commit the bulk of its army and airforce to European operations and the bulk of its navy to the Pacific theatre, but just how much that strategy was the result of a binding agreement is something I cannot seem to find out.
You apparently have, and I would love to know what your sources are.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 19
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007
I think the paper entitled "Grand Strategy" but also known subsequently as "WW1" which was produced by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Arcadia Conference in December 1941 and from which I quoted in my previous message is about as substantive as you can get, although as I said it was not so much an agreement as a reflection of existing assumptions held in common since before US entry into the war.
From what we know of Anglo-American strategic planning during WWII it was not so much based on written agreements as the emergence of a broad consensus during discussions at both the political and military level but bearing in mind two facts, one the unequal nature of the partnership (in 1941 this favoured the British but from 1943 onwards the scales rapidly tipped towards the Americans) and the other factor which was the ghost at the banquet in the form of the Red Army which was holding down 129 German divisions - over 3 times as many as the Western Allies would face after the D-Day landings.
As far as the war against Japan is concerned it is relegated to the last paragraph in "WW1", a document heavily influenced by George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, the objective was defined as being
"to hold Hawaii and Alaska; Singapore, the East Indies Barrier and the Philippines; Rangoon and the route to China; the Maritime Provinces of Siberia" (it was assumed that the Soviet Union would swiftly become a co-belligerent against Japan as well as Germany by virtue of a Japanese attack)
However "the minimum forces required" (not the use of the word "minimum") was left, enigmatically,
"to be a matter of mutual discussion"
At the time of the Arcadia Conference there was considerable doubt over the military role the US would play in the war. Before the war it had had a standing army smaller than that of Sweden, no Atlantic-based fleet until 1940 and its greatest asset, its Pacific Fleet, seemed to have received an irreparable blow at Pearl Harbour of which the damage was still being assessed. The only operational standing army the US did have under General Wainwright in the Philippines was isolated and abandoned to a three and a half years' cruel captivity for fear of further damage being done to the Pacific Fleet. There was to be no equivalent of a "Dunkirk miracle" for Wainwright's forces. Had the US intended to concentrate its resources on fighting the Japanese an attempt at least would have been made to rescue some element of US forces in the Philippines to serve as the nucleus of a new Pacific force.
Churchill had no doubt about the economic power that US entry into the war added. On the night of Pearl Harbour he recalled a remark made to him by Sir Edward Grey, the Liberal Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of WWI, before WWI when he compared the USA to
"a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate."
However Churchill did have doubts about how swiftly the US could mobilise its military strength and whether there was an appetite for war amongst the American people. Immediately after the Atlantic Conference polls showed, although there was a majority for economic and military aid to Britain, China and Russia, 74% were against direct involvement of the US in the war, a decline of only 1% from before the Conference. The US Army had fought separately in WWI and had suffered heavy losses by refusing to benefit from their allies' dearly-bought experiences (the US suffered greater losses in WWI than in the whole of the Vietnam War).
Pearl Harbour put his fears at rest and delivered a united people into the war effort. What propelled him across the Atlantic immediately after Pearl Harbour was not the fear that US resources might be channelled into the Pacific War rather than the one in Europe which had been largely been settled well before the US had been drawn into hostilities although obviously the US Navy would bear the main burden of the war against Japan (other than the Chinese of course) and King would seek to repair the depredations wrought on 7 December but that the US would seek an early invasion of Nazi-occupied Western Europe by the most direct route across the English Channel.
Tension always existed (at least until 1944) between Churchill's conception of how the war should be fought and that of the US Chiefs of Staff (which meant primarily Marshall to whom Roosevelt usually deferred in purely military matters). At this stage Churchill thought in terms of a war of attrition against Hitler along the lines of the Napoleonic Wars with the Western Allies nibbling away at the edges of the Nazi Empire but focussing on maintaining Stalin as a co-belligerent.
On the other hand, the Americans, having gotten into the war against their will wanted to get the whole business over with as quickly as possible but to Churchill a premature invasion of Western Europe risked repeating the charnel-house of the Western Front in WWI. In the end the issue was settled by the success of US military mobilisation and force majeure on the American side but Churchill's greatest achievement was that of an allied integrated command, unlike WWI.
The Americans always considered Europe the more important strategically and Germany the greater threat. Germany had industrialised in the 1880s at around the same time as the USA had done. Europe was the biggest market for American products and the biggest outlet for its investments.
Asia was still backward and the Pacific and Asian war seemed more about a clash of empires (including the US if you count the Philippines as a US colony) whilst there seemed no doubt that the European war touched issues of national sovereignty and popular self-determination.
What is most remarkable is that the "Europe First" strategy was never questioned by the US public, even by Roosevelt's previously isolationist Republican opponents in the same way that the allocation of resources between Iraq and Afghanistan is debated today.
Roosevelt had already done a remarkable job (most notably in his "Arsenal of Democracy" radio broadcast in December 1940) in associating the Axis Powers as part and parcel of the same phenomenon with the defeat of one inevitably entailing the defeat of all. However any remaining doubts as to which presented the greater threat was swiftly put at rest by the German High Command. Doenitz, finally freed from his shackles by Hitler's declaration of war, ordered "Operation Drum Beat" an all-out attack by his U-boat wolf packs on inter-coastal shipping along the US East Coast.
Ignoring British advice to mount a convoy system within a matter of a few weeks a greater tonnage of shipping (mainly merchant vessels) were lost than at Pearl Harbour. U-boats were seen surfacing off Long Island. Whilst the Japanese attack on distant Hawaii (then not a constitutional part of the US) aroused moral outrage the threat posed by Nazi Germany was palpable as never before.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 20
Posted by wollemi (U2318584) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
#16
.... that Truman had always been sceptical about Roosevelt's early committment to 'Germany First' as the only US strategy worth pursuingΜύ
An understandable scepticism. There would be those in the Asian region would agree!
There are 4 cautions about the early adoption the Germany First strategy in January 1942
1. Japan's perception of the US as a weak opponent. To Japan the way was now open to rapidly invade the region with impunity
2. The strategy involved offensive defence manoeuvres with limited resources. In January 1942 there was no anticipation that the Philippines would fall nor Singapore nor the Dutch East Indies. That put significant defences out of action before the strategy was up and running
3. Japan's rapid conquest of the region provided them with a valuable resource in slave labour, Plus some collaboration
4. The region may well have been 'backward' compared to Europe, however it was not backward in supplying troops to the allied war effort in the European War., Indians Australians and NZers in particular. The Indian Army alone was vast. It's a contentious issue to expect young men, who had volunteered, to be fighting in a far off foreign war if there are insufficient resources to defend their homeland from a regional enemy,
In January 1942 the Japanese were underestimated. The premature adoption of the strategy meant that the allies in the Pacific went through a period of 'catch up' over the next yearLink to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 21
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
Allan D, we appear to be reading the same material and drawing two conclusions from it. But I see that you now acknowledge that the strategy of defeating Nazism first was one that circumstances could well have altered (as the ABC1 strategy allowed).
The Japanese, as wollemi states, had been grossly underestimated and had they been so bold as to launch a more concerted attack on American territory (Hawaii and Alaska being theoretically reachable) it would have been interesting to see what way Marshall's mind might have been made up for him.
But they didn't. And he didn't. And the USA leaders prosecuted the war in a manner that made it look like they had indeed meant all along to do it just in that way - after all, what was the advantage to be gained in making it known that they envisaged dropping any perceived joint undertakings with their British allies should the situation warrant it? None, I would wager. But that is not the same thing as ascribing the stature of legally binding agreement to what could well have proven to be an empty promise if things had panned out differently.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 22
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 13th December 2007
I think the history of WWII shows that the US (with some assistance from Britain, China, Australia & New Zealand) were able to defeat, or at least push back (as the Japanese High Command were prepared to commit national suicide rather than surrender) Japan with one metaphorical hand tied behind their back whilst the defeat of Germany required the total mobilisation of resources, human and material, of all three major Allies.
The book I would recommend is "The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in Peace and War" by Robin Edmonds which was first published in 1991 with a Penguin edition published in 1992. Regarding Hitler's "needless" decision Edmonds says this:
"...what would have happened if Hitler had not taken, or had simply postponed, his second, extraordinary decision in December 1941 - to declare war on the United States? His agreement with Japan did not oblige him to do this. His instructions to the German Navy to avoid any confrontation with the United states had, up to that point, been categorical. For four days, between the attack on Pearl Harbour and the vitriolic speech in which Hitler announced to the Reichstag the German declaration of war on 11 December the world once again "held its breath". What it was that prompted him to embark on - as he called it in an extraordinary phrase -"a historical revision on a unique scale...imposed on us by the Creator" will always remain a matter for debate, as will the related question: without Hitler's declaration of war, what would Roosevelt have done, as the President and Commander-in-Chief of a country at war with Japan, but not with Germany? What is beyond question is that on 11 December 1941 the unity of the Alliance between the Big Three was sealed."Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 23
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 15th December 2007
I think the timing is the crucial factor.
From the point of view of the USA: When the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, the expansion of the US Navy was already well underway, thanks to the 'Two Ocean Navy Act'. This called for 18 new carriers, 7 battleships, 27 cruisers, 115 destroyers. At the time of Pearl Harbor, five new larger aircraft carries were being built. However, while the keel of the first new carrier, USS Essex, had been laid down in April 1941, she was not commissioned until December 1942. Building a fleet takes a lot of time. Until the new ships could be launched and commissioned, it made sense that the US would restrict itself to a holding action in the Pacific, allowing time to work to its advantage.
From the perspective of Hitler: In December 1941 the USA still only had a small army, an overstretched Navy, and an air force with very few modern aircraft. Waiting for the USA to build up its forces and declared war at a time that suited it, did not make that much sense. German U-boot commanders knew that the US was already de facto at war with them, and they were eager to have a formal declaration of war that would allow them to fight back and wreak havoc among the helpless shipping off the east coast. If war with the USA was only a matter of time, it was better to have the war at a time when the USA was still unprepared for it.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
-
Message 24
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 15th December 2007
The "Two-Ocean" Navy Act signed by Roosevelt on 19 July 1940 was essentially to give the USN a presence in the Atlantic as the US had possessed a powerful Pacific Fleet for almost a century. Until then America had effectively relied on the British Navy for security on its eastern seaboard as Roosevelt pointed out in his "Arsenal of Democracy" radio broadcast on 28 December 1940.
At their meeting at Hyde Park during George VI's State Visit in July 1939 where the genesis of what became the "destroyers-for-bases deal was first discussed Roosevelt urged Mackenzie King to place all Canadian naval resources in the Atlantic in the event of war and told him that the US Navy would look after Canada's Pacific interests.
As for your last paragraph I completely agree and while the declaration of war was not a legal necessity it could be seen as militarily justifiable although ultimately it of course proved disastrous.Link to this forum: Needless blunder? Germany declares war on USA
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Μύto take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iD
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ links
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.