WI: Germany and Italy Don't Declare War on the United States

It'll take more than a destroyer. Either a US convoy gets attacked by a wolf-pack in the Atlantic with serious losses, or a convoy heading for the Philippines meets some Japanese forces. If the example of the Atlantic is anything to go on, both sides will shoot first and ask questions later.
 

jahenders

Banned
I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that we're GOING to go to war with Germany reasonably soon anyway. There will be some provocation or we'll just keep getting more involved with England.

That being said, if Germany and Italy didn't declare war, it would delay our actions in Europe a while. It would be much harder for FDR to justify war with Germany and Italy after Pearl. Therefore, FDR would be forced to focus more on Japan at least for a while.

What if after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany refused to declare war on the United States in 1941?
 

Deleted member 1487

If Germany waits then it foregoes Drumbeat, which means the Allies retain 3.1 million tons of shipping, which is a huge boon to their war effort over OTL.
 
NOT declaring war only makes sense (relatively speaking) in the context of some change of strategy.

most plausibly a Med First strategy to capture Gibraltar with Spain joining Axis or some type of treaty with Vichy regime.
 
I know a while back I posted something about Germany staying out by realizing that it's just not gonna be able to starve Britain out and pulling back the U-Boats. Calbear's response (that I wholeheartedly agree with) was that it just requires too much foresight and, well, sense, from the Reich's leadership. So the US eventually's gonna get pulled into the ETO.
 
Oh it doesn't require too much foresight, just a double-check of Japan's own commitments, which didn't include The Soviet Union.
 
What if after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany refused to declare war on the United States in 1941?

It will only *very* slightly delay a state of formal war between Germany and the United States. As I have said before, FDR will have very little difficulty getting a declaration of war against Germany through Congress. (Gallup poll from December 10, 1941: "Should President Roosevelt have asked Congress to declare war on Germany, as well as on Japan?": yes — 90%, no — 7%.") https://www.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showpost.php?p=11038505&postcount=4

Nor is it true, as some have argued, that public opinion would force FDR to adopt a "Japan first" strategy. FDR had already decided a "Germany first" strategy before Peal Harbor, and American public opinion would not be any less anti-German than in OTL. Most Americans thought that Japan could not have attacked Pearl Harbor without German encouragement, and that therefore the US was already at war with a combined Japanese-German enemy, with the question of who declared war first a mere technicality. For evidence that after Pearl Harbor and before the German and American declarations of war, even the formerly isolationist Midwest thought that the US was facing a *combined* German-Japanese enemy, see my post at https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=9802357&postcount=43

What I think people who attach much importance to Germany's declaring war neglect is the overwhelming evidence that Pearl Harbor had changed popular attitudes toward *Germany*, not just toward Japan.
 
The longer delay on war between US and Germany the bigger the butterflies on war against Japan come. I doubt few weeks would change history, but if it was months the few ships from Atlantic and some resources from army will come to play on this side of the globe.

It would be easy e.g. to see more P-40s shipped to action especially when Wasp and Ranger might be available for ferry duty and the army would definately want to take a heavier role here.

Also more transport capacity and divisions available would make it possible to establish and reinforce bases beyond OTL (Solomons, Attu&Kiska, New Guinea).
 
It'll take more than a destroyer. Either a US convoy gets attacked by a wolf-pack in the Atlantic with serious losses, or a convoy heading for the Philippines meets some Japanese forces. If the example of the Atlantic is anything to go on, both sides will shoot first and ask questions later.

Um, America is ALREADY at war with Japan here. Having a dozen of your battleships sunk in a sneak attack while at peace tends to do that.
 
I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that we're GOING to go to war with Germany reasonably soon anyway. There will be some provocation or we'll just keep getting more involved with England.

That being said, if Germany and Italy didn't declare war, it would delay our actions in Europe a while. It would be much harder for FDR to justify war with Germany and Italy after Pearl. Therefore, FDR would be forced to focus more on Japan at least for a while.

Not a lot changes in Europe until war does become official. A few US combat formations, air and ground were sent to the UK, or the ME, but the bulk sent in the winter or spring of 1942 was material already scheduled for the use of the Commonwealth. Some of the material sent was for the use of Army Support Services, that or something similar could have been slipped over with war anticipated, and what was to become the build up in the UK already in planning before 7 Dec. Whatever happens a huge quantity of war material will be shipped to the Commonwealth, and most will be the same as what was shipped OTL.

If Germany waits then it foregoes Drumbeat, which means the Allies retain 3.1 million tons of shipping, which is a huge boon to their war effort over OTL.

The Nuetrality extended into the mid Atlantic gap that was so important in later 1942 - early 43. With the Western and Northern approaches already unsafe for the German submarines. Doneitz will have to come up with another gambit for the long ranges subs. Maybe they will be deployed to the sliver of mid Atlantic gap, maybe they will continue to the South Atlantic, but they will be somewhere. How that goes for either side is a interesting question.
 
What I think people who attach much importance to Germany's declaring war neglect is the overwhelming evidence that Pearl Harbor had changed popular attitudes toward *Germany*, not just toward Japan.

I think what it changed was popular attitudes about being at war. The great majority of Americans had already recognized Germany as an enemy. Before Pearl Harbor, the plurality position of Americans was to support the Allies and hope that the Axis would be defeated without the U.S. having to fight. Pearl Harbor voided that position. And as you noted, the Axis powers were conflated into a single enemy force.
 
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