Owing to the impossibility of Germany decisively defeating either Britain or Russia, America can take its sweet time.
Or it can decide not to DOW Germany at all.
Because it took time to build the necessary public support, but clearly FDR was behind the Allied cause and wanted a war.
He certainly desired to help the Allies, but I'm not sure he'd have needed some more time to DOW Germany. In OTL he was given a fabulous "Get out of Isolation" card by Hitler. In an ATL he might not be given that much help.
No, because it is in no Briton's interest to surrender to a blood thirsty madman who has established European hegemony, which would thus allow him to build a naval force and threaten Britain (WW1 showed that we were willing to go pretty far to stop this happening, and the pre-war Kaiserreich wasn't even ruled by a bloodthirsty madman (Kaiser Wilhelm was only mad, and also questionably in charge), all while winning the war is still perfectly possible.
I doubt any nation actually thought it was in its best interest to live under the Nazi boot. At some point, circumstances have forced them to. And really, Kaiser Willy was a swell guy !
Which is why they weren't in government.
Halifax was. Britain's Foreign Minister until May, 1940, he actually enjoyed the support of the Conservatives as well as the trust of many in Labour. And many British Conservatives, IIRC, still trusted Chamberlain more than they did Churchill.
Had Halifax not decided to step aside (or had he been convinced to assume the responsibility of forming the new Cabinet), who knows what might have happened ?
As for circumstances putting him here, I'd say there's no need to invent new ones. The disaster in Norway, the loss of the British Expeditionary Corps on the Continent along with every ally the UK had, the fears about German landings... We were lucky that in OTL it didn't break the British camel, but my opinion is that it
could have, ushering in a very different WW2 in Europe.
If Churchill bungled the war too badly, or was perceived to have, another pro-war politician would have taken over. As I said before, Clem was basically running the country's civil war effort anyway.
Would have ? Why not COULD have ? What would make the idea of Britain seeking peace such an impossibility that you absolutely reject it ?
So he was a good politician. A good iplomat. But not a good military strategist. One who was lucky in his choice of consultants for the first part of the war, in fact. And if he was such a great reader of character, why did he think we'd surrendah?
Because 1) every man can make huge mistakes, and 2) after 1940 Hitler was drunk with success. As for his "choice of consultants" for the first part of the war, more often than not Hitler ran against the advice of his advisers, particularly his generals, so I think we can credit him with some skill here.
I don't see what circumstances have actually been changed to warrant this assesment.
What, that Germany could have managed Occupied Europe better ? I think they had the skills for that. When I see what Speer managed to do with a bombed economy, I cannot help but wonder what he could have done earlier.
Thank God for American shipyeards, then! The fact is, Britain endured the hardship. FDR loaned the destroyers. Britain did not seek a negotiated peace. And while you might be right about subs (I'm not a sub-buff), I do feel obliged to point to WW1. Sub warfare is a surefire way to bring in America, Pearl or no Pearl, and the Germany's had it. Also, during WW1 I believe our food situation was worse. We hung in.
Sure, submarine warfare is bound to push America closer to war - eventually. Britain endured 2 full years of submarine warfare and America was still not declaring war.
And yes, you hung in. I'm just wondering, had Rader listened more to Doenitz, delaying surface ships to produce more submarines, how dire would Britain's situation have been ? And how tenable ? Doenitz at the outbreak of WW2 had nowhere near the number of submarines he wanted for his anti-shipping operations. Had Hitler told Raeder that battleships were not a priority, but submarines were, then I think a lot could have happened in those two years of sub warfare.
Allow me to doubt that for this reason Halifax would become PM/surrendah. One might as well ask "What if Landon had won in '36?" It's a silly question, since America elected FDR, and Britain needed a man who wouldn't surrendah (IIRC, recent scholarship suggests Halifax was less spineless than made our).
Landon for what I could read would have been a mirror image of FDR on the Republican side, for he too believed in Interventionnism.
And I would not equate Halifax with spinelessness, nor would I say surrender is akin to it.
I'm going to argue that Stalin was... at least the more sensible man, as he had no genocida intentions against any particular people under his rule, whereas you're going to need to shake up Nazi leadership to "use the Ukranians."
Indeed. But Hitler himself regretted that Germany didn't use Baltic, Ukrainian and Arab nationalism, so it's not as if he wouldn't have touched that idea with a ten-foot pole.
Also, the Abwehr had Ukrainian contacts since the late 1930s, and they too deplored that these were not put to a better use.
In any case, the anti-Soviet Ukrainian partisans were pretty much entirely in the right bank. I highly doubt whether the Nazis could in fact have "used Ukraine" any more than they "used Croatia".
How come ? Germany did use Croats as troops, along with a smattering of other "national contingents".
Yeah, I corrected that.
You still haven't explained what happened to Britain, therefore no NEI or ME oil, I'm afraid.
Something on the lines of "with the BEF decimated in France and Britain driven away from the Continent, with Norway lost and Egypt threatened, Britain seeks peace on honorable terms that Hitler is bound to give even if he wants to renege on them at some later time". Italy's colonial ambitions can be satisfied with large pieces of the French Empire, and Germany does not occupy Britain.
I'm not saying it's a given. Far from it, I'd say there's an 80% chance that Britain refuses or finds it just cannot accept. I'm just saying, the other 20% cannot be written away.
Actually, I believe someone wrote timeline ine which, after the initial advance to just short of Moscow, the Germans switch to the defensive and repel the Soviets in a bloody meatgrinder battle. The next spring, Hitler's overconfidence leads him to overextend in the Caucasus and at a city of the Volga the Germans are lured into a trap and destroyed. The Soviets launch a formidable winter offensive and when a German attempt to encircle a salient fails in a massive tank battle, its all over bar two bloody years of shouting as, with increasing speed, the Soviets plow on to Berlin. It was very convincing. He presented a wealth of evidence to support his idea.
The author's name was "God", I believe, and his title was "OTL".
No ! You don't say ! Boy oh boy, that does sound like a neat timeline. But correct me if I wrong, I thought I was on ALTERNATE History.com, where we discussed might-have-beens.
If you believe History cannot happen any differently than it did because hey, there's lot of evidence to support OTL and precious little to support ATL, this will be I suppose a very short discussion. Sorry to have bothered you.
The military balance looked more favourable before June 1941, but eventually he would have to fight both the USSR and America.
Based on the hypothesis he fights both, yes. But hey, I know, that's not history-proven.
I don't find a defensive Hitler implausible, I find hid defence prevailing implausible.
Don't bother about implausibility. God wrote the History book, let's not stray away from the Scriptures.