Looking back do you think we should have agreed terms with hitler

Lets be honest great britain is a sh1t hole and going downhill fast i fear for the kids aged between 1 and 5 i really do

No, they'd have sent the sort of pr*cks who write for the Guardian to an island and made sure the BBC wasn't filled with hand wringing lefties who have used it for decades as their own propaganda channel.

So Britain lost the war because it did not secure Poland the freedom it went to war to protect?

Fred. I don't understand your post. However Britain and France went to war against Hitler because he invaded Poland. France and Poland had a 'mutual defence' agreement so that if either was invaded by Germany, then the other would Attack Germany...effectively creating a war on two fronts. We were allied to France.
Hitler hoped they were bluffing (because nobody wanted a war), but they were not bluffing. And so began Britain's involvement in what became known as WW2.

CH 19 on freeview. ^^

Guys, DON'T feed the troll.

naydam

Fred's point is both simple and accurate. Britain and France guaranteed the Poles that they would fight to maintain Polish sovereignty. We failed. The Poles lost their sovereignty to both the Germans and Russians and, at the end of the war with Germany, refused to honour the agreement with respect to Russia. I think it is well documented that Churchill did seek to push the Americans on the issue but even so fail is what we did. In fact so grievous was our kow towing to the Russkies that we didn't allow the Poles to take part in the post victory parades despite them fighting valiantly on our side throughout the war because it may offend the Soviets.

Dr Atkins

I guess there are a lot of what if's but assuming Hitler stayed in power in Germany throughout that period then the most likely event would have been that war would still have happened with us being belated entrants in one shape or another.

The crucial question would have been whether Pearl Harbour would still have happened? Had it done so then there is a possibility that our strategic interests would have been enhanced by the war because I predict a series of events would have unfolded something like this:

War breaks out between France and Germany as a result of Germany invading Poland. Once again France makes the fatal error of not hitting Hitler with everything it has in its own lightning strike whilst his main army is quelling the Poles. Hitler deals with the Poles and proceeds as he did in the real war to the west. France falls. Instead of the Battle Of Britain which caused what many see as the fatal delay he is able to instigate Operation Barbarossa much earlier and marches deeper and more quickly into Russia. Moscow falls as does much of Western Russia. Stalin has retreated well beyond the Urals and instead of harassing German lines hundreds of miles to the west he does it hundreds of miles to the east.

Because he hasn't needed to commit as many troops to the west he isn't yet losing but Hitler reaches a point where he isn't winning. Stalemate. Stalin is more patient and in some senses stable than Hitler. Eventually the same outcome. Hitler, like Napoleon before him has to accept that you cannot create safe supply lines deep enough into Russia to win. The question is can he reach another agreement with Stalin having already betrayed him once?

If he can he must go west again? Likely destination London.

If Pearl Harbour happens then ultimately things are likely to play out very similarly with one caveat. Who gets the bomb quicker Germany or America? Is there a likely scenario because Hitler hasn't exhausted his country fighting on two fronts whereby his scientists beat the Americans to the bomb? If so who is safe? There are no four world powers. Just one.

If Mussolini hadn't invaded and got bogged down in the Balkans, Barbarossa would have taken place 6 weeks earlier and the Russians would have been defeated.

You're wrong to say it was because of a French-Polish pact and we backed up France, the UK also had an agreement to defend Poland in its own right.

You may be confusing things with WW1, which was different, in that case we also had said we'd defend neutral Belgium, so by Germany going through Belgium that act pulled us in. If in WW1 Germany had been smarter and avoided Belgium and just attacked France, then it might have been more interesting as we had no formal agreement, though some verbal discussion. But I digress..

Its amazing how often this forum comes back to WW2. We had no option to drive Russia out of Poland, Churchill was f*cked off about it but it wasn't possible. Unless perhaps we threatened them with nukes but the US wasn't going to do that. He at least felt he'd freed Europe and Stalin wasn't as bad as Hitler, it was best we could do.

Right click on it then  save it to your docs or pics. Then i will tell ye what to do about here.

I was referring to their previous agreement in my hypothetical mighty:

The question is can he reach another agreement with Stalin having already betrayed him once?

In my view it doesn't matter when you start Barbarossa. You cannot defeat Russia with conventional forces if their policy is based on ceding and harrassing. They would have retreated all the way to Siberia scorching earth and stretching the German lines if that is what it took. Stalin had existing plans for retreat beyond the Urals should Moscow fall.

Exactly. The Japanese made their beds and chose to lie on it. Their fighting within the islands would have been like nothing seen previously and they had refused to surrender. I wouldn't have committed to allow another single one of my own troops under those circumstances. They got what was coming to them. Very sad for their civilians but America didn't start it with Japan and we didn't start it Hitler.

dr atkins

I think you are forgetting something. Like Stalin and Mao, Hitler was a cold calculating lying murdering son of a biitch. An agreement with him wouldn't have been worth a squirt of pi55 as his old mate Uncle Joe found out.

Just because you think things are bad now doesn't mean there wasn't infinite scope for things being a whole lot worse under that maniac.

That was for JC not you EO

Thanks mighty. I was just about to have an attack of the vapours.

EO