Greatest Military Power In The Past Millennium - Great Britain

[Char_Azn]

You're just regurgitating what you want to write without reading what I wrote. I did say that it was Britain and France who turned down Hitler, forcing Hitler's westward campaigns. Funny, how can someone agree with me and say that I'm wrong the other way around? Simple. Never read. Never listen. Just regurgitating assuming others are in disagreement.

Maybe it's my fault for not being specific

Let me rephrase the reply and be more specific as well as how I interpreted your post. It should have looked more like below

I agree with you on this point. Hitler didn't want to fight Britain. He didn't even demand surrender. He didn't even want his troops stay in Holland and France for long.

Your point was that he didn't want to stay there for long which isn't really the case and my point is that he never wanted to fight the West in the first place

He never even thought of fighting the Western nations. The idea was to go East wards which he did by first "taking back" what used to belong to Germany and the Austrian Hungarian Empire. The Western nations, namely Britain and France were the one who declared war on him not the other way round refer to quote below.

Mein Kampf has also been studied as a work on political theory. For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world's twin evils: Communism and Judaism. The new territory that Germany needed to obtain would properly nurture the "historic destiny" of the German people; this goal, which Hitler referred to as Lebensraum (living space), explains why Hitler aggressively expanded Germany Eastward, specifically the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, before he launched his attack against Russia. In Mein Kampf Hitler openly states that the future of Germany "has to lie in the acquisition of land in the East at the expense of Russia".[7] Hitler's invasion of France was not motivated by that part of his ideology, as he had previously claimed that Lebensraum should be found eastward, but as a retaliation and strategic occupation after the war declaration against Nazi Germany by the Allies (including Great Britain and France). The invasions of Denmark and Norway were similarly not motivated by ideology, but by a strategic need to fortify all coastlines in Europe in preparation for the Allied invasion of Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf

All he wanted from Britain was to acknowlege German legitimacy over central and eastern European territories. He didn't even intend to conquer Russia. That was also just an attempt at battering and cowering into aquiescience and agreement. Hitler, being the racist he was, hated the Russians far more anyway. He called the British cousins. Well, Anglo-Saxons are half-Germans, Saxony is in Germany wherefrom half of the English race originated.

When Churchill turned his offer down, he had no choice between cease and desist or try to invade Britain. His early success with Scandinavia, Benelux and France made him bolder in belief that he could succeed. Churchill knew that too, and prepared the entire Britain air, land and sea to ward it off.


The failure in Battle of Britain left Hitler with no choice between cease and desist or try to invade Russia to pre-empt a backdoor opening on the eastern front. Yes, the fighting there were more furious and deadly, and the death toll certainly much more horrendous on both sides.

How I saw this was that your point here is that Hitler never wanted to fight Russian but failing to beat UK he made the choice to "pre-empt" Russians instead which as I pointed out is not the case. The pretext of the war was to eventually conquer Russia

I think you are greatly mistaken about Hitler's intentions. He didn't fight Russia to "pre-empt" them. One of his biggest reason for beginning the war in the first place was to take Russia. Refer to his book Mein Kampf

As early as 1925, Hitler suggested in Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") that he would invade the Soviet Union, asserting that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials) and that these should be sought in the east. Nazi racial ideology cast the Soviet Union as populated by "Untermenschen" ethnic Slavs ruled by their "Jewish Bolshevik" masters.[24][25] Mein Kampf said Germany's destiny was to turn "to the East" as it did "six hundred years ago" and "the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a State."[26] Thereafter, Hitler spoke of an inescapable battle against "pan-Slav ideals", in which victory would lead to "permanent mastery of the world", though he said they would "walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us."[27] Accordingly, it was Nazi stated policy to kill, deport, or enslave the Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples (see New Order).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

 

[Ramseth]

Your point was that he didn't want to stay there for long which isn't really the case and my point is that he never wanted to fight the West in the first place





How I saw this was that your point here is that Hitler never wanted to fight Russian but failing to beat UK he made the choice to "pre-empt" Russians instead.

Thanks for the clarification. Whether he wanted to attack or station for long in western Europe, I agree, that he actually didn't want to attack in the first place. But after being forced into attacking, he had to defeat Britain, which he couldn't. Hope we're in agreement on that.

The big Russian thorn was longstanding in the equation anyway. Hiter did sign an accord with Stalin prior to attacking western Europe and Britain. It was to hold the eastern front because he knew Britain wouldn't yield and judged that it should be settled first since Britain is smaller than Russia.

Success or failure against Britain, Hitler would sooner or later tear up the accord and invade Russia anyway. Stalin wasn't stupid too. He was hoping for a mass attrition between Germany and Britain. Hitler decided to cut loss at Britain and turned around toward Russia. Stalin was caught by surprise in the early days and hence the massive losses and death toll.

 

[Sideswipe]

bro, your map not entirely correct. In the late 1943 to 1944 Ichigo Campaign, the main objective of the Imperial Japanese High Command was to capture the American B29 bases in southern china, ie Guilin etc etc, capture Changsha and finally have an overland route from manchuria to the singapore via the indochina as the japanese merchant fleet were being sunk in an rapid rate.
While they fulfil their objectives, the loss of Saipan by 1944 only made the US General Staff to transfer the B29s from china to Saipan why they continue to bombing Japan Home Islands. But IJA do captured the lands to control the overland route to Southern Resource Area. At the same time, IJA realised they not process enough manpower to ensure security of the land they had capture. So surely and slowly, IJA withdrew from the southern china as the war progress.

think that is a 1938-1939 map.

would like to see a map showing the extent of Japanese control in China after Ichigo Campaign, that should be Japan largest control over the most territories in China for the war.

Japan conquered fully, big part or small portion of 16 out of 23 Chinese provinces by early 1945.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

In context of world war scale, yea, just a small defeat, but an embarrassing one nonetheless. US and Britain were the only two true world war warriors. They were fighting practically everywhere, unlike Germany, Russia, Japan and China fighting within defined regions. France had enough spread of colonies then to be fighting "everywhere" but it suffered an early defeat at homeground to Germany. That's a big defeat!

Comeon lah US where got world warrior? They were not interested in the war at all.


As for the UK well they had colonies everywhere so they were obviously defending them that's why they were fighting everywhere.

 

[Agoraphobic]

I think that no country has won more international wars over the past millennium than Great Britain. There was the loss of the US in the 1776 Independence War with France aiding the colonies........

YESSSH!

And that dominance (influence if one prefers) carries on.....

Who gave the rules to Soccer? Badminton? Golf? Tennis?

And the rest of the world's nations have come to play by their rules!

It will be the greatest of Human achievements when we stop shooting arrows (and bullets) at each other and replace those projectiles with polymeric balls.

Match-fixing? Oh shit, that clearly shows our species is really fucked up.

Cheers!

 

[vamjok]

The common feature in most Singapore wartime stories was lack of food. The Japanese had control over land supplies with Malaya and the shipping lanes. Singapore could either surrender or be starved to death.

you sure a not, jap that time was in a much more difficult position in terms of ration and ammunitions. i remember reading this in my sec 2 history textbook. even the jap general openly admit if the war just drag 1 more week and goes into the street, he would be force to surrender