What if Japan somehow declared war 1 or 2 hours before the actual attack on Pearl Harbor?
What was the last point in time that the Roosevelt administration would have accepted something other than unconditional Japanese surrender?
- Thread starter Qaa
- Start date
Memoriam Damnatio
Banned
Never, even before Pearl Harbor the US had been pushing for an unconditional withdrawal from china. It was the subsequent oil embargo that forced japan to take the southern expansion path. To avert this would require a drastic change in US policy. Maybe no voice from the gutters and an isolationist Garner presidency? But US interest in china meant they would never really accept Japanese conquest.
Lets deal with this once an for all. If Japan declares war a few minutes ir even an hour or two before the attack on P.H. little to nothing will change from the perspective of the average US Citizen.
The truth is in 1941 it takes more then an hour or two to go from peace to war so effectively you are still pulling off a sneak attack on PH itself.
Now you want to declair war and several days latter attack that is a different matter.
We also have to look at when the attack took place. It was on a Sunday in the run up to Christmas. Lets not underestimate how significant Sundays were back in 1941. Pretty much the entire country was shut down on Sundays. the vast majority of stores were closed. Most states didnt allow the sale of Alcohol etc. Sunday was a day of Rest and Religion. Even the people that didnt go to church stayed at home or did family functions.. Now add in that this was in the lead up to Christmas itself (less then 3 weeks before) and the significance of it being a Sunday goes up even more. Short of attacking on Christmas. they could not have found a day better designed to piss off the average Joe.
Then we get to the shear amount of damage and death they caused. This alone would have been viewed as unforgivable. Ask the folks in London what they think about the Blitz? It was after the war was declared. It was a war GB declared first, they usualky had some warning about the incoming raid…. Yet i dont think that the Folks in London in 1939-41 are going to just say live and let live and lets forgive and forget…
If i warn you i am going yo break into your house and steel you valuables and trash your house are you going to be less upset because I called you while you were away on vacation to inform you before i broke in? I doubt it.
So even with a DOW before t he attack itself the US is not going to be willing to negotiate. The US viewed itself as being unjustly attacked. Eliminating the surprise will have a rather minimum effect on the outrage the “unjust“ attack generated.
The truth is in 1941 it takes more then an hour or two to go from peace to war so effectively you are still pulling off a sneak attack on PH itself.
Now you want to declair war and several days latter attack that is a different matter.
We also have to look at when the attack took place. It was on a Sunday in the run up to Christmas. Lets not underestimate how significant Sundays were back in 1941. Pretty much the entire country was shut down on Sundays. the vast majority of stores were closed. Most states didnt allow the sale of Alcohol etc. Sunday was a day of Rest and Religion. Even the people that didnt go to church stayed at home or did family functions.. Now add in that this was in the lead up to Christmas itself (less then 3 weeks before) and the significance of it being a Sunday goes up even more. Short of attacking on Christmas. they could not have found a day better designed to piss off the average Joe.
Then we get to the shear amount of damage and death they caused. This alone would have been viewed as unforgivable. Ask the folks in London what they think about the Blitz? It was after the war was declared. It was a war GB declared first, they usualky had some warning about the incoming raid…. Yet i dont think that the Folks in London in 1939-41 are going to just say live and let live and lets forgive and forget…
If i warn you i am going yo break into your house and steel you valuables and trash your house are you going to be less upset because I called you while you were away on vacation to inform you before i broke in? I doubt it.
So even with a DOW before t he attack itself the US is not going to be willing to negotiate. The US viewed itself as being unjustly attacked. Eliminating the surprise will have a rather minimum effect on the outrage the “unjust“ attack generated.
The problem that the Japanese embassy in Washington had was that the appointment to deliver the DOW was set for the same time as the attack but when they got the DOW it took them so long to translate it that they were very late for the appointment.
Would nothing have changed if the war declaration arrived on time on Cordell Hull's desk?
And arguably that didn't completely happen OTL either as continued Japanese revisionism and excuses continue to this day.
(It's taken me almost two months to get through three subtitled episodes of "Deep Blue Fleet" anime due to how much my blood pressure spikes on each episode)
Masochistic idea of seeing 'all sides' of an issue or just plain masochism
I saw the bits and pieces of "Imperial Japan versus Nazi Germany" and was curious what it was all about. Little did I know but now that I've started...That was pretty much the 'plan' or close to it with the DoW being put before Hull AS the attack was taking place. This was actually a common 'strategy' for Japan having been used in the Russo-Japanese war, WWI and in China so there's no real plausible reason to do so with the US.
Part of the "BP spike inducing" background of "Deep Blue Fleet" is the "Clean Navy" myth with the "bad guys" in Japan being the Army who did all the 'bad' things in the Pacific War including delaying the original DoW. So the "background" has he Navy backed government actually doing all this to REALLY "free" Asia from the other powers and even has "Peace Police" to police rowdy Japanese Citizens (mostly Army of course) who mistreat or attack foreign citizens in conquered territory.
So in the first episode the "Navy" gives the US about a weeks warning before attacking and STILL manage to wipe out PH. (But the fleets at sea and is defeated in a later battle just before the Japanese Navy storms ashore in Oahu with "6,000" men and takes the island with "little resistance") Of course this is followed up by the "Deep Blue Fleet" of I600 submarines (and some I400's tossed in) then attack and destroy the Panama Canal by the "brilliant" strategy of flying all the way across Panama to attack from the ATLANTIC side because the Americans would never expect that!
I do have to say that it should be considered that the entire books and anime series is set in an alternate Earth since with the Panama Canal out the US then gathers a new "fleet" at Dutch Harbor Alaska which would seem to indicate that in this world the North West Passage exists and is operationally usable...
The oil embargo was the last straw, (and as I understand it a bit of a mistake) but it was pretty much inevitable since Japan was not going to quit China unless forced to do so.
In essence Japan's "war aims" were never realistic from the start, they literally depended on the enemy just giving up and then they never considered retreat or surrender so...
Randy
Off-topic, but... could you recommend a good bio of the man? He's a person I keep meaning to read more about.
That document wasn't a declaration of war, just a statement that further negotiations seemed unlikely to be successful.
If Pearl wasn't enough then the Baatan Death March is certainly enough to seal the deal.
This was my first thought as well.
It's true that the Japanese ultimately agreed to unconditional surrender, but the the Potsdam Declaration was purposefully vague so as to give the Japanese leadership the necessary tools to sell peace to the military and general populace. The US was well aware through deciphered diplomatic intercepts that even the most peace-minded leaders in Japan considered the elimination of the imperial house to be unacceptable as it would likely trigger a military coup or widespread civil unrest. So when it gets down to it, the US deliberately accommodated Japan's primary condition when negotiating peace.