The Revisionist Attitude Towards The Pacific Theater

Wholly defensive? Well what about Orde Wingate and the Chindits?

I just thought of them with the flying donkey topic.

It isn't so much that it is a revisionist attitude to the Pacific and far eastern theatres, its just what they were at the time. Britains 14th were called the forgotten army, they came well down the line when it came to getting men and equipment. Likewise earlier Churchills far eastern "fortress" was starved of anything worthwhile for its defence.

What must be remembered is that the allies adopted a Germany first approach, they knew that Europe was the more important as it posed more of a threat while Japan simply because of the scale of the oceans and the vast tracts of inhospitable terrain meant that their potential expansion and devolpment would be more limited and harder to maintain.

So in short since the politicians and military at the time decided that the European theatre was more important it cannot be revisionism to say the european theatre was more important....In fact elevating the far eastern theatre over the European would be revisionism.

[tater]

I think the real point of the OP was more that at the sharp-end, the guys in the PTO had it every bit as hard, or sometimes harder than in the ETO. In addition, they were not fighting for a sideshow, or "nothing" but a significant theater of operations, with importance.

I think that is certainly true on both counts.

That is was secondary is simple fact, and that the ETO was judged to be less certain is also a fact. That those tasked with the PTO as primary responsibility—the USN under King—thought the PTO was not really in doubt as an issue in the longer term is also uncontroversial, and "simple fact." They thought so, and hence agreed with "Europe first."

It's important to remember that the UK was already on the ropes, and the invasion of the CCCP had the germans literally in the suburbs of Moscow at the time of PH (though on the 6th a major counter-offensive was taking place there).

Had Germany secured Soviet oil, she would have been far more of a threat than she was without it (make no mistake, WW2 was almost entirely about oil for Germany and Japan when it comes down to it (slightly more secondary for Germany, but they required Soviet oil since their efforts to get Turkey to join (path to middle east) kept failing).

Want to know my idea for the most plausible axis win scenario—assuming a total "do over?"

Germans secure Turkey as an ally. Invade Poland along with their co-belligerent pals the Soviets (people forget the CCCP was 100% in the wrong in ww2). UK/France declare war, BoF happens as it did. UK isolated, germany keeps US out of war, and goes for the middle east as primary object with the aid of Turkey. Japan attacks only the UK in the PTO, and unlike themselves is nice to those they "liberate." Their focus is India. Link with Axis in middle east.

PS—someone needs to go to ebay and buy that book!

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

Germans secure Turkey as an ally. Invade Poland along with their co-belligerent pals the Soviets (people forget the CCCP was 100% in the wrong in ww2).

I don't know how far that would go. I think describing the Soviets as belligerent and '100%' wrong isn't totally accurate - Stalin was opportunist and, within the limits of his paranoia, pragmatic. For all the supposed 'friendship' with the Germans, there was a lot of dancing around in the middle of '39 where he probably would have preferred to have taken a stand on the other side, taking the German threat very seriously (and probably more so than the West, at least in '39) - just that he unrealistically expected the French and British to look the other way as far as the Baltic and Poland went. Here of course Hitler was the more natural choice to look the other way, but I think that 'friendship' was absolutely doomed to turn into open conflict on the catastrophic scale it ultimately ended up taking - the only question was when and who would start it. What would happen then is not a foregone conclusion, but the fact that this would absorb at least the German's focus for some time is a given. I don't think there was any way of avoiding a war on the Eastern Front, and whose favour a delay of a few months in its start would be is really anyone's guess...

As for Japan, I think it would've taken a real feat of pragmatism for them to give their Pacific strategy achievable goals. Their leaders were not really known for that. And for that matter, neither was Hitler. I think both the ETO and PTO have one thing in common - the axis side overplayed their hand.

[tater]

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

[Oberon]

Survival. Hitler and Stalin were already in bed with each other in the eyes of the West, declaring war on the USSR as well as Nazi Germany would just tuck the quilt over them and give them a teddy bear.
Such differing ideologies would not stay friendly forever, and I'd wager that the west knew that sooner or later there would be a falling out between them.

Tater, your victory plans make sense but where do you factor the Soviet Union into it...I'm not so sure that Stalin would be willing to let the Nazis expand infinitely, although the longer he waited before striking the Germans the more powerful the Germans would have become.
I'd also wager eventual US involvement, bear in mind that by 1941 US destroyers are actively hunting uboats outside of US territorial waters. The lend-lease act of March '41 gave Roosevelt the ability to throw as much material at Britain as he could get away with and only the uboats could stop them. Bear in mind that although the uboat war was still tough for the UK, it was swinging slightly against Germany up until the US entered the war officially and the second Happy Times came about before the US got around to listening to British advice on how to run a convoy system. So, perhaps if US involvement came later in the war because Japan was focusing on the UK and Germany was in the Middle East instead of in the Soviet Union, it perhaps could have swung the Uboat war a bit more in the allies favour as the shipping lane opportunities dried up. It would, of course, also prolong the war, so you have a greater chance of equipment like the Type XXI and Me-262 making it into greater production...but I do ponder how much of an effect they would have had.
The long and the short of it though, it all boils down to the Soviet Union. Once they are fully mobilised, Germany needs to be as ready as it can be to fight off the hordes and then push back to Moscow. However, the Soviets have the advantage of being able to set the timetable of the war if they attacked first.

Long post...and completely off the original topic so I shall draw it to a close here...but I do enjoy alternate history and exploring different outcomes.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

I'd actually dug deep into that question - wrote a paper about it based on diplomatic documents from that period. The short answer is that the Soviets were actually the ones who requested a exactly that kind of arrangement (i.e. protection pact with Britain/France/Poland) to be made back during March '39. Part of this arrangement required Soviet troops to be stationed on Polish territory as defensive deterrent. While that seems like a cynical grab in some regard (it partially probably was), I read a series of letters sent by the British military attaches in Moscow, who assessed the Soviet military capabilities and stated in no uncertain terms that strategically and tactically, it would make no sense for the Soviets to arrange for any kind of mutual defense unless Poland agreed to basing Soviet forces on their own territory. Seeing how the only way from Germany to the USSR was via Poland, what did Soviets have to gain in peacetime by signing up against Germany? And trying to re-base and establish defensive positions in Poland while Germany was invading would've been potentially disastrous. Stalin did not want to risk massive military losses, or a war with Germany to defend a country that refused to allow Soviets to reinforce their defense in the first place.

It's easy to see why Poland didn't exactly fancy Soviet troops on its territory, but (and this is right from British assessments in '39, not my own) there really was no way around it. The French and the British had signed a binding protection pact with Poland, so there was legal basis for them to act when Germany moved. The Soviets had no legal basis to do so. It would've been basically unconstitutional, not to mention (from their view) strategically unwise, for them to take action against Germany at that point

So, since the Soviets' first objective at the time was not to compromise their own strategic position and risk war that would risk Soviet territory being under attack, they behaved totally as they should have in that scenario. It would take Poland's agreement to Soviet conditions for mutual defense, and this agreement never happened. You don't defend someone who refuses your conditions and also openly does not like you (rightly or wrongly) - simple as that.

NB - none of this excuses Soviet actions after the German invasion of Poland of course. That was rightly criminal.

[tater]

Interesting, my area of interest is the PTO, so this is cool.

So to be clear, did the Poles, or did they not invite Soviet troops into Poland? IMO, there is a word for uninvited troops in one's country, it's called "invasion."

Understanding WHY they did so doesn't excuse it since it involved attacking another country.

From wiki:

In early 1939, the Soviet Union entered into negotiations with the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Romania to establish an alliance against Nazi Germany. The negotiations failed when the Soviet Union insisted that Poland and Romania give Soviet troops transit rights through their territory as part of a collective security agreement.[7] The failure of those negotiations led the Soviet Union to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August; this was a non-aggression pact containing a secret protocol dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[8] One week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited French and British support and relief they were expecting. The Soviet Red Army invaded the Kresy, in accordance with the secret protocol, on 17 September.[9][Note 5] The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the Nazi German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.[12][13][14][15] Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded that the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.[1]

Seems pretty indefensible to me.