No doubt the historical conditions of America's economic surge during World War II were singular. WebAnd without U.S. supplies, the Soviet war effort would have been massively diminished. What were the 3 reasons the US entered WW1? He believes that World War One could have been prevented, if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived the assassins bullet. But such aircraft were unable to defeat Great Britain. Germany's defeat came about from a number of much larger factors. The British Arctic PQ-1 convoy had reached Archangelsk on 11 October with twenty Mark II Matilda tanks, followed by PQ-2 on 30 October with seventy-six Mark III Valentine tanks; these ninety-six tanks were rushed by rail to Moscow and used to outfit the 146th Tank Brigade and four independent tank battalions (131, 132, 136, 138 OTB).136 Another major British Lend-Lease convoy, PQ-3, would arrive in Archangelsk on 22 November with 200 more British tanks. JavaScript is disabled. Britain, regardless of their stubborn perseverance, was undermanned and under supplied compared to Germany, as evidenced by quick reversal of the early victories they won in North Africa against Italy, after Rommel landed. Though, it is questionable how much of the soldiers from Germanys privileged classes would be shipped to Eastern Front in that case. British Matilda tanks are loaded onto a ship for transportation to the U.S.S.R. as part of the Lend-Lease program. Which Country Was Instrumental in Winning World War II? - VOA Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.". But as most historians are aware, German defeat in the war would have been far from inevitable had Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refrained from making certain critical mistakes. Responding to President Franklin D. US lost five major wars after 1945 However, the US was unable to get any significant victory in its wars abroad. In regard to combat balance, we see many disasters in Western Front as well. We have seen a hundred times, especially in American cinema, references to how the help of the USA was indispensable for the allied victory in Europe. It was a great symbol of prestige for the resurgent Kriegsmarine, but the money and material could have been utilized in a larger U-Boat force. And not surprisingly, not only the few German forces which took over Italys defense from Italian armies defended all of Italy easily and a lot of lives were lost in hilly Italian countryside, but also even at the end of the war the forces in Italy were not able to move out of soft underbelly of Axis towards French hinterland, leave aside Germany. 3 US as the major part of landings in Northern Africa, Italy and Europeis an important bit. Though after landing and adapting to Western Front warfare after a while US forces were the backbone of the effort in Western Front, by the time they started making advance into Germany the war was more or less considered over by many on both sides. American aid also provided 4.5 million tons of food, 1.5 million blankets, and 15 million pairs of boots. WWII- Whenever driven from Libya in defeat, would Axis forces have always retreated to & occupied Tunisia? This abrupt reversal in policy ended up triggering a world war which would cost over fifty million lives. The Joint Chiefs of Staff anticipated trouble with Churchill. ", In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But for the sake of a full spectrum analysis, lets assume that Lend Lease was tied to US joining the war, and if US did not join, there would be no Lend Lease. He rapidly began to simplify construction procedures for the T-34 and within less than a year the number of man-hours required to produce T-34s was cut in half. [Total: 0 Average: 0] Without the backing of American weaponry, munitions and loans, the Allies would have been forced to abandon their goal of the knockout blow. However non-combat aid like trucks, radios are an important factor. Not enough men. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me.". When World War II started, America was isolationist and the Soviet Union collaborationist. The major effects would have been on the US. The Germans were fantastically luck between 1939 and 42, which by the way is when Lend-Lease to the Soviets actually kicked in, and their defeat earlier is entirely plausible. By the same token, the extraordinary pitch of mobilization achieved by the Soviet Union in 1942 and early 1943 was not sustainable. When we analyze these, a quick conclusion comes as described below: 1 US help in Lend Lease to USSR and Britainwas considerable. Relatives and friends have buried children and others killed in a Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Uman. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? metal splinters inside the tank) when the tank was hit by non-penetrating rounds.137 Although designed as infantry support tanks and employed in that role by the Red Army, the 2-pounder gun did not have an HE round, which reduced the value of the tanks in that role. WW2 However when we look at the sizes of the fronts, we see that even at the end of the war by mobilizing even teenagers, Germany would have still been at half strength compared to Soviets even if they moved all their divisions from Western Front to Eastern Front: The count of aircraft, tanks and especially guns follow a similar pattern, and especially in the case of guns or artillery, the disparage is greater. 4, issues 17-20), Captain America awakens from suspended animation in 1964 to find thatdue to a WebRelatives and friends have buried children and others killed in a Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Uman. There is no plausible reason to believe that Romania wouldn't change sides once Red Army was at its borders. Thus, Hitler could have achieved the last of his territorial objectives without war, with the exception of those pertaining to the Soviet Union. All rights reserved. Their heaviest tank would pass in between a light and medium tank in European front, and even at that they were quite, quite few in number to be a factor. However, even with lack of US presence in the war, Germany would still need to keep some presence in this Atlantic Wall of theirs. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. Historically, Germany already outproduced the USSR in certain areas like locomotives, trucks, and even bombers, with 12,664 produced by Germany in the years 19411943 as compared to 11,359 built by the USSR.170 Without Allied intervention and Lend-Lease, Soviet margins in these areas would most likely have widened, while margins in areas such as tanks would have shrunk significantly. Does Nike Training Club Have Weight Training? The Big Three | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans American air superiority WebIn the summer of 1945, Japans war leaders knew they were not going to win World War II. Though this indeed tied some German forces, the forces were not anything which could be compared to what was being thrown to Eastern Front, with one notable panzer group being stationed ner Pas de Calais (Hitlers folly), and most of the preparation taking the form of elaborate fortifications that were called Atlantic Wall prepared mainly by Rommel. Even with everything noted above, Germany and its European partners could have still won the war were it not for Germany's declaration of war on the United States on December 11, 1941. It was really the only time Nazi Germany had actually declared war on an enemy, and it needed not to have happened. So we have US as a major factor in Western Front. By June 1944, Soviets were already positioning for their drive into Germany, as can be seen from the state of Eastern Front at that date: Just a month after Normandy, Red Army was already pushing into Germany. Germany had the military Japan would have to cross thousands of kilometers of central Asian steppes in which they would be having to face Soviet armored brigades, who would be at home in these unimpeded plain steppes these were what Soviet tanks were designed for anyway. Some of the add-ons on this site are powered by. A Japanese attack on the Soviet Union, on the other hand, would have put Josef Stalin in the very difficult situation of also fighting a two-front war. Which could be easily defended by much fewer divisions than the number of divisions it would need to attack. have But when World War II has considered it is really Germany and Japan against most of the world. Churchill kept working to delay/divert any landing in Western Europe: Roosevelt and Stalin Portrait of a Partnership. Japan was far too behind in war production, technology in respect to other combatants. So, until 1944 summer, Soviets were practically alone in Europe. Instead, the United States became the arsenal of democracy and Germany's defeat was all but assured. Why Dont Americans Remember They are related because both buildups on both sides of the cold war started during WW2 to fight the Axis powers. How America Saved the Day in World War One | Time WebIn 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. This, of course, was the ultimate objective of Chamberlains accommodationist policy of Nazi Germany all along. September 1 marked the eightieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, which cost the lives of an estimated fifty to sixty million people and was the most terrible war in world history. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks. A map of lend-lease shipments from the United States to the U.S.S.R. from 1941-45. Accept British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlains offer of a second Four-Power Conference. Across Northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and into Northern Germany, 21st Army Group advanced on a front about 75 miles wide. They're exposed to a German counter attack eastward from Munich or westward from Budapest, maybe both at the same time. The result would have been an eastern block streching to the atlantic and a much weaker post war US. Allied advance in the West definitely took some heat off of Eastern Front, but as can be understood from the situation by the time of landings, Germans did not fear Western Front as they regarded Eastern Front. Also the liberty ships were built mainly for the US government and weren't in full production until late 42 (after the u-boats had been beaten by bletchly park). There is one World War II historian, John Lukacs, who has said that all three major allies were needed to beat Hitler. The war may have lasted into 1946, but the Soviets would still have captured Berlin and probably would have overrun the rest of Germany, too. On February 24, 1943, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft with serial number 42-32892 rolled out of a factory in Long Beach, California, and was handed over to the U.S. Air Force. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. This series of articles represents an attempt to summarize the top mistakes and omissions that Germany made during the most terrible of all wars in human history. Quora - A place to share knowledge and better understand the world After the defeat of Imperial Russia, which came as the result of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the German Army was able to move vast quantities of men to the western front and launched a final offensive in the spring of 1918. Having to only fight a one-front war against the Soviet Union might have enabled the Poles to hold out for a few months instead of a few weeks against the Soviet onslaught perhaps resulting in a few hundred thousand more Red Army casualties. Instead, Hitler strong-armed Hocha to sign a decree authorizing the entry of German troops into his nation effectively ending Czech independence. Germany built no heavy bombers and lacked any truly effective long range aircraft. WebThe Big Three. History Forum for World History - Historical Events, Historians, Archaeology, Ancient History, Modern History, Human History, History Books, Military History. On May 11, 1947, 27 people were rescued, having spent nearly three weeks in the icebound wreck. Both sides would have complained. 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance ww1 - the British had mastered combined arms warfare and the Allies would have won but been willing to cut a less one-sided deal to bring it to an end. What would have happened if the Allies lost ww1? What would have happened if the United States didnt enter WWII? The United States is a country of machines. We'd really have had to fight them on the beaches & landing grounds, and the western front would have had to have been opened from Ireland. Khalkin Gol suggests us they wouldnt be able to. "In a hypothetical battle one-on-one between the U.S.S.R and Germany, without the help of Lend-Lease and without the diversion of significant forces of the Luftwaffe and the German Navy and the diversion of more than one-quarter of its land forces in the fight against Britain and the United States, Stalin could hardly have beaten Hitler," Sokolov wrote in an essay for RFE/RL's Russian Service. World War II The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. However the steam roller would still have been there and would still have rolled over Berlin though possibly 3-6 months later (don't over estimate the effect of moterised transport in russia, both the red army and the wermacht advanced troops on foot and used horse drawn transport in large quantities as it was, the Russians would have coped) Normandy and the Bocage around it could be considered bloody battles, with Allies moving inch by inch. Spam saved the Soviet Union? The reason why Churchill was doing this, is because he wanted USSR to be destroyed by Germany, or at least let them bleed each other out, as the common advocacy was in early years of war among British and US industrialists or Anglo-centrists. World War II I think the USSR could have beat Germany even without american aid, aldo I wouldn't be surprised if one of the three mayor Soviet cities on the frontline had fallen, probably Stalingrad. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel The Germans were not equipped or experienced in conducting a sea-borne invasion, and even if the RAF had been neutralised their high command was scared stiff of the overwhelming naval advantage that the Royal Navy had in home waters. All the while Indian colonial troops in India are still there, and many Chinese factions now encouraged with lessened Japanese forces in China. Much contention. There was another sad example of not learning from history. Would the Allies have won ww2 without I already posted a similar thread about US involvement in WWI. Various French Kings conducted some raids, the Spanish planned to use its Armada, the Dutch managed to at least burn some English warships in the Thames but even Napoleon never dared mount what would have been a futile invasion. The exhausted Allies would have had to negotiate some kind of settlement with Central Power forces occupying almost all of what is now Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic republics in the east; most of Romania and Yugoslavia in Southern Europe, as well as a bit of Italy; and almost all of Belgium and most of northeast, 5 Reasons the United States Entered World War One. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. W. Without the need to fight in the Atlantic; to transport large amounts of troops, equipment, and supplies across the entire continent; and the necessity to defend against Allied bombing, Germany could have massively reduced its U-boat, locomotive, and anti-aircraft gun and ammunition production and converted at least part of these capacities into the production of more aircraft and equipment for land warfare. In other words, Lend-Lease was stabilizing. By the onset of the great depression, Americans no longer cared to talk or think about the great war; even veterans felt that way. Most visibly, the United States provided the Soviet Union with more than 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors and construction vehicles, and 13,000 battle tanks. But it would It may not display this or other websites correctly. How behind Japan was in regard to war production and technology, we see in 1939 in Khalkin Gol, where Zhukov had devastated a sizable Japanese army during the course of ~4 months. They did not have the important critical resources, minerals needed for war production, hampering their already technologically backward equipment. They wanted to make sure Roosevelt didnt accept Churchills arguments to delay Overlord, the code name for the cross-channel attack, particularly now, when he was on his way to meet Stalin, to whom he had been promising a second front, as the Russians referred to it, for well over a year. Britain still would have prevailed. WebFor the Allies in World War Two, the defeat of Germany was their priority. This isnt to say the U.S. won the war on its own. WebBy the time the allies were pushing through Europe, the US had collected many victories in the pacific, the arena of carriers and planes. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. The allies won WW2 and the allies won the cold war. Without Lend-Lease it would have been nearer. The loss of the Ukraine and other occupied areas. Today to win a war even against a regional power there is a process that often involves "coalition" building. Although World War I began in 1914, the United States did not join the war until 1917. One look at the map of southern Europe easily tells even people with non-military education that there is nothing soft about that location at all Italy is hilly, rough terrain, and where Italy connects to Europe is even worse impassable Alps totally clog the north, and beyond Alps there are many more difficult obstacles like Black Forest, or Yugoslavian hilly countryside. By D-Day, Germany had only 600 fighters left, essentially nothing. Fact: Adolf Hitler Could Have Won World War II This gave Poland the footing it needed to refuse all of Hitlers subsequent attempts to negotiate the return of this Polish occupied German city. But right before the Normandy landings, this region (France, Atlantic Wall) was still considered a holiday region by German army, and sons, relatives of notables, party figures were sent there rather than Eastern Front as one old BBC documentary so bluntly put it. That proved to be fairly well matched against Russia, France, and Great Britain at least in the early stages of the war. My object was to cheer up Harry and give him my ideas as to how he was to hold the president in line if he couldI have no doubt of the British people doing it. The outcome could have been quite different. Of course, we are not taking tactical considerations into account.