Victor Davis Hanson - World War II Leadership

last week we went over the the four in total I though we didn't talk about Mussolini just Stalin Hitler Churchill and Roosevelt I thought we could have a review of what at the beginning of World War two up to the critical change in 1942 low July to December primarily because of the radical turnaround in the submarine campaign where the Allies get the upper hand the check of Rommel at El Alamein and the German disaster at Stalingrad okay let's look at this map for a second world war two is it's hard to know when it actually starts in Europe it starts on September 3rd when the Allies declare war on Germany after they've invaded Poland along with Russia two weeks later but the Chinese have been invaded by the Japanese since 1937 in Manchuria since 1931 the Ethiopians have been invaded Abyssinians by Italy since 1936 so there's a lot of wars going on Russia has gone in it will go into Finland and all of these wars today are going to coalesce into this concept of world war 2 is everybody understand that but that's us looking back at that at the time nobody said we're in World War 2 when Germany went into Poland there was a Finnish war there was a Polish war there was a Norwegian war there was a Abyssinian war there was a Manchurian War and they all coalesced by 1941-42 and were seen as a whole we in the United States say World War 2 the British say this Second World War all of that is again in context of the first world war which wasn't known as the first world war whoever thought the Great it was called the Great War which we don't use anymore because it's no longer the great it's the second greatest war great being them a carve term for most casualty so we're going to look at this and in this area and we don't have the Pacific up but 50 to 70 million people are going to be killed from 1939 the official start in Europe to the end in 1945 I say 50 to 70 we don't know really we still don't know the exact amount that will be the greatest man-made disaster in the history of civilization maybe with the exception of what mile did during the cultural revolutions in the 1960s when there may have been 70 million killed for sure so it's going to be a disaster that's no one imagined when the war broke out affects everybody in Europe a hundred million people are going to take part in this war nothing has ever been seen like it before so it's going to affect everybody in the United States for example who's not going and we aren't going to enter until almost halfway through it's going to affect any I'm thinking of my own family that was out in rural California and was minding its own business going broke farming and my mother and her three sisters were growing up on a farm and suddenly the war breaks out five years later she and all of her sisters have gone to Stanford University because the economy has radically changed women are in the workforce men are off at war there's openings in universities my father's flown on a b-29 40 times over Tokyo the person I'm named after Victor Hansen was killed on Okinawa sort of shattered my uncle's family my first cousin Holt Cather was killed in Normandy and that whole family has just turned upside down on this event that when they were in the 30s they thought it was so far away raising prices are going to go from $30 a ton to 250 as my grandfather told me before he died I never made a dime farming except during World War two so it's going to get the United States out of the depression I don't mean the stimulus or just all the borrowing but the the irony that the world is going to be destroyed so to speak in 1946 the United States is going to have this enormous industrial base and be the only industrialized hyper capitalist power that can supply the world for the next ten years with everything from washing machines to cars and pay off that debt so where are we well Hitler starts here invading Poland and just think for a minute how thick and fast events follow he's going to invade Poland and then there's going to be a delectable create a phony war along the border France isn't going to do anything all Britain's going to do is put a third of a quarter to a third of a million troops to help the French they're going to have a numerical superiority on this flank of Germany of about three to one and they're going to do nothing nobody at this time feels that Poland is going to lead to a war that there might be some way to adjudicate things especially because Neville Chamberlain Servat ofthe and I remember within that clique and shouldn't use that derogatory term but there's members within Britain at think that they can still do business with Hitler because after all he's been very he's much more praiseworthy praising the British Empire than Franklin Roosevelt for example or Joseph Stalin he admires the British Empire so invades here nothing happens he's already carved off large parts of Czechoslovakia here East Prussia has now been joined to Germany the Rhineland has been militarized Austria doesn't really exist it's part of the Germany look how enormous that area is Germany had this second largest economy to begin with traditionally in the world after the United States and now people think surely he'll be happy with that no in April of 1940 just six months later he's gone into Denmark I shouldn't say gone into he just burped and swallowed it in three days he's gone into Norway he doesn't have to do anything and Sweden my ancestors are happily selling him iron ore at a discount and providing free transportation in the in the bargain to make money out of it Finland has settled with it will be fighting with the Soviet Union Soviet Union it was kicked out of the League of Nations over it but it will be neutral now I should say the Soviet Union is Pro German I don't mean neutral right before Hitler went into Poland remember he had the non-aggression pact but that's the icing on the cake as early as 1937 they had trade agreements so hit Hitler is being supplied now in critical areas like box.i oil wheat coal iron ore from the Soviet Union there's a series of fistic movements in Romania Bulgaria Yugoslavia Hungary all of this area of Eastern Europe is supplying as well Germany with iron ore dat not a very advantageous rate we all know about mr. Mussolini since the late 20s there's been a mid 20s there's been an Italian expansionary government they've gone all the way over around we can't see it too Somalia Libya in March on March 10th 1940 he invades France and he does in 40 days what his the fathers of the ver mark were not able to do in four years that is they take not just the Alsatian terrain but all of France Belgium and Holland in Luxembourg at this point Algeria Morocco the French colonies fall to a sphere of influence controlled under Vichy and allied with Germany Spain they fought on the top of the fascist forces under Franco and the Spanish Civil War just five years earlier four years earlier Portugal the same Turkey long ally of Germany in World War one neutral but supplying Germany as it can so let's look at the map where is the bright news for Britain by 1941 I haven't quite finished remember without warning Hitler Italy has invaded Greece thinks it's going to be easy but anybody's been on the northern balkans knows that it's not has been repelled Hitler has sent troops in not only to save the Italians in Libya who were fighting not too well against the British but to occupy Greece and he does that no matter weeks the first paratroop drop on Crete very bloody but ultimately successful so now let's look at the map there's a British presence in Cairo and Alexandria Andrea and up to the Libyan border the British have had some success keeping iraq and lebanon sort of autonomous everything else is under the control of hitler this is almost like a nightmarish version of the european union six or seven times over everything that hitler had ever dreamed of he has he's attained in just two years he's starting to ethnically discriminate expunged and ultimately kill the jews he's starting to integrate the economy not very effectively but still he's starting to integrate it in a in a manner that will serve germany and you've got ireland that's probably either at best neutral in a worst pro-german and you've got great britain so in April of 1941 there's nobody else there the United States is still isolationist we haven't been attacked by anybody yet Russia as I said nominally a new tool is actually aiding Hitler and the war is all over with there's no reason for it to continue because there's nobody really to fight them they the only check on German power has been a failed air campaign in the latter part of 1940 and up until spring of 41 against Britain but the odds are not good for the British because the airfields are not in Germany now they're being they're in Holland and France in Belgium and they have a direct route to England and the u-boat campaign is starting to reach a real effective level of cutting off supplies from Britain what has to be done to end the war a couple of things you've got to take Alexandria and cut off the suez canal they're almost there after the Italians are re-energized and Rommel is there and they're pushing the fall - but they're back up to here and all I have to do is cut off that and that essentially ends a third of all the oil imports the Middle East to Britain they've got to do a little bit more on the submarine so campaign so that imports can't come from Canada in the United States and they've got to get Britain to leave the war and leave the war not defeated but leave the war with its empire intact and that's what Hitler is continually giving these very strange speeches that he has no problem no acrimony with the British that he's willing to cut a deal with him he's allowed quarter million British perhaps another hundred thousand French to escape at Dunkirk and all of that sets the stage for the biggest blunder of the entire war which is probably the biggest blunder in the history of military operations the June 22nd three million man invasion of the Soviet Union at that point everything is off the table and why does he go into Russia will help some questions in a minute but as we said last time most likely for a two-part reason one it's it's in accordance with what he said mine Kampf that the Marxist Leninist Jewish Bolshevik presence has to be eradicated we need living space German settlers will turn this into a paradise there will be six lane roads from Germany all the way down over here to the Crimea sort of a utopian fantasies on his part and second he was not able to get Britain to reconcile themselves to an arm assist and he thinks that once he's conquered Russia and done to Russia what he's done to Eastern Europe just the sheer weight of the opposition will be so much that there will be people within the British government that'll see the light and he has some encouragement of that there are members of the royal family in his late as 1939 that had had peace feelers out to the Germans there was a strong conservative shouldn't say conservative reactionary anti-semitic presence in Britain and he thinks he can work with these people and have an enormous so that's the general situation that we're out and before we go on to the two leaders because this class after all is called masters and commanders anybody have a question but this of World War two as we see it this is all going to change now because the unforeseen will happen the United States will get into the war it will have the most effective aid program to Russia Russian industry will be relocated and weather will turn traitor on the the British to Japan will enter the war etc but right now the war for all practical purposes is over and one any questions yes um how independent are the Commonwealth nations of Britain's like decision making very good question because on our map we don't have the Commonwealth nations such as Australia New Zealand and Canada the thing to remember is a couple factors are going on one they don't have a good taste in their mouth after World War one Commonwealth forces in Australia New Zealand Canada etc were put in South Africa who will put on command largely of British officers and we're bled white and there's a lot of resentment against the Empire and that means that especially after Pearl Harbor that New Zealand and Australia who've had two divisions to three divisions fighting the European war announced to the British hey this is another war now we're doing and we want all of our troops out of Libya and we want them back to protect Australia which you know Darwin's going to be bombed French Canada I mean that's a problem because nominally now DC France is on the side of Germany so what are people in French Canada gandu are they going to die for killing people in North Africa that happened to be French speakers so in this particular war most of the Commonwealth is going in India is the real question is whether it's going to survive as part of the British Empire it's going to be a Pacific contribution for the Commonwealth the great exception to that rule is Canada can has got the third largest Navy it has about 150 to 200 thousand soldiers and they fight very well they participate they don't complain they don't demand an independent militaries command they're very compliant they're bitter to this day because they're not given recognition for which they deserve Canada is essential to the British war effort especially in terms of trade natural resources that's a good question any other question okay just a couple of remarks on Stalin and Hitler it's very funny is they're very alike and that their totalitarians Hitler's about 50 when the war breaks out Stalin's 61 they've had a similar career I think you read in the warlords that Stalin admires Hitler for the liquidation of his enemies they both tend to admire people like Mussolini and they both have a very cynical view of one another they both think that ultimately there's going to be a war between them and one of the other will start it but for now they see that there's advantages in having peace now what do we mean by that Russia has fought an inconclusive slightly positive in its results war with Japan in 1939 but it does not want troops on its Western it doesn't want all of its troops here facing Germany and then having to fight Japan so after the Japanese war the non-aggression pact seems like a gift from heaven that he will just as Hitler is willing to trade a turn I should say on his axis partner Japan Russia will take advantage of it he can be it can move some troops over of Japan Japan is not going to be outdone remember among thieves there's no honor so Japan in turn will have a non-aggression pact in in April 1941 with Russia and that will allow Russia to take its troops back again and notice the timing it couldn't have come as a worse time to Hitler and it's indicative that these axis Mussolini Hitler Tojo and to a lesser extent Stalin don't trust any of any one of the other and they are not at all integrated as we'll see it's a case with England the United States so in Germany's way of thinking everything has turned out well the German people didn't sign up for all this they signed up because they bought the propaganda that they had never lost World War one they had surrendered 70 miles here into Belgium and parts of France they were stabbed in the back by communists and Jews are so Hitler and the fascist and Nazi Party told them and they were treated very poorly at Versailles it's a very bad idea to be harsh in Word and then soft indeed and that's what the Perseid treaty did it humiliated the Germans without affecting their ability to come back or to make war they were not occupied as will happen in World War two so the German people are delighted about Poland whom they thought grew at their expense after World War one they have no problem with Denmark because it was easy they have a little bit of problem with Norway these are nor similar Nordic Aryan peoples they're scared stiff of a war in France because of what happened in World War one four years 70 miles so when Hitler starts talking about going into France they think oh no another four years two million dead World War one on the German side and then in 40 days when he absorbs France they're just delighted and they think that because the war is either won or lost in France as it had been a World War one that's it's over now and now there's no problem with Russia because Russia is a partner with Germany so to speak and if there was going to be a partner just as Russia fell in two years in France ll4 fourth if they do have to fight it France under that paradigm forty days so therefore the next time Russia will fall in 1012 days by that two to one or three to one rate time ratio they have Italy is it as a stalwart ally and they're just tickled paint that everything has worked out perfectly they're little worried and angry that the british keep persisting but then their imperialist there's been a very effective propaganda campaign by gurbles these that we are socialists that were workers and were not capitalists it's not quite like communism but it's very effective and just suggesting that the British are holding out because they've always been greedy and they like to have an empire Russia is delighted with this turn of events Stalin who still resents the Western democracies participation in trying to choke off the Bolshevik Revolution in 1920 had wanted Germany after the non-aggression pact of August 1939 they had wanted them to turn their attention to France and Holland and Belgium and Britain and in his fantasies these Bush huazi capitalist societies would just tear each other apart the only thing they're mad about as I said when we were reading the warlords is what the war only lasted 40 days they didn't do enough damage or kill enough people as far as Stalin is concerned this is this is wonderful at this point Stalin hates Britain and America much more than he does Germany so from 1939 September 3rd until December 8th and actually 10th in the case of Europe Britain is all alone it doesn't think it can win the war its whole strategy is to hold out until two things happen the United States can be brought in and inevitably these two people Stalin and Hitler will turn on themselves Churchill's convinced of that but they have to have to last why doesn't he make peace because Churchill has not just a practical idea that it would mean the end of Britain as he knew it knows that he's an idealist too and he believes it for all the Jews and for all the people in Europe who believed in constitutional government for all the people who are being murdered every day that Britain alone the BBC British intelligence British propaganda British food is the only beacon of hope now we're going to talk about the allies and in this class on masters and commanders we're going to see why it is that britain in the united states worked so well together hitler doesn't think that we're going to get along too well because he'd seen World War One and how difficult the French and the British and the Americans were taken as a given you would all think that it would be a natural relationship because America was a colony of Britain were both english-speaking countries we fought together in World War one in fact how they were able to coordinate their efforts and how they survived as friends is beyond me to this day given the obstacles that they had to overcome and at the heart of this relationship is a two or three or four factors it will make it very difficult for them to communicate well the first is the memory of World War one we in America in 1941 have a very different idea of the First World War than did the British remember the British are right next to it if you're in Britain you can take a boat in the morning and visit the battlefield you're Douglas Haig and you can go back and talk with Lloyd George in the afternoon Britain will lose nine hundred and seventy thousand dead and another million and a half casualties and we'll get nowhere from 1914 to may June of 1918 it won't really move it's the death camps of the First World War so to speak so they have a very very bitter memory of France will lose almost two million Germany itself will lose about two and a half million in the British mind when this war starts out there's one thing you don't want to do and that is have a million or two million people fighting the German army there's never been anything like it the German army whether it's the franco-prussian war World War one is the most murderous effective competent infantry ports in the world and anytime the French army or the British Army tries to fight it alone it will lose so when Churchill who was First Lord of the Admiralty World War one and who himself was a battalion commander in 1916 1917 in his way of thinking when we fight this war we are not going to put a million men right here and as a corollary of that remember when he declared war Chamberlain's government declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939 they did put men into Belgium and northern France the British did and they didn't do anything until the actual invasion of France on May 10th and then they were trapped at Dunkirk a hundred thousand of them were wounded or captured are missing and the bulk of them survived but in the bridge way of thinking the last thing we want to do is either get everybody killed as in World War one fighting these highly effective German stormtroopers or - we want another Dunkirk whether an ally lures us in and then abandons us and now remember one thing because this issue is going to be very important by the second front Britain because it's been at war longer the United States when the war breaks out has a lot more soldiers on their arms and we do so in their way of thinking that's going to mean us but these are just larger factors that we're going to get to when we get to the issues a second is that the geography and strength there's going to be a very different relationship over 1941 - 45 when the war breaks out Britain is mobilized it's been a war it knows a lot about how to fight Germans it's fought them in 1940 it's been bombing them and the Americans don't know anything they think that they can send bombers over and daylight these wonderful b-17 fort flying fortresses ik and shoot down you know any 109 s it will in broad daylight they think that the American Stuart tank or the lead tank is wonderful it's us we're very exuberant we're excited we want to go in there and win and the British have more experience and they have a bigger munitions industry and then world war 1 is important to world war 1 we had no tanks British supplied them we had no real effective planes that British supplied them so the war starts out with Churchill going to America as a senior advisor and were the junior partner but as this thing starts to gear up there's a real question the United States whether we're going to fight this war as we do crew later later did Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or we're really going to mobilize you could have fought World War 2 with 4 million men under arms and let Russia and Britain fight or do you want to be the primary arsenal of democracy so to speak and we decide that we're going to go for lack of a better word whole halt so we're going to gear up and put 14 million men under arms we're going to be the biggest producer of ships of planes of tanks artillery platforms and as this really starts to become evident in 1943-44 the United States is going to be the senior partner so in this relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt Roosevelt's going to absorb Churchill's criticisms but by 1943 we're going to hear again and again whether it's Marshall to allen broker Roosevelt the Churchill wait wait wait wait were the guys were the commanders now were the ones that are putting most of the men on the field most of the supplies and we're going to make the decision not just you and later it's going to be we're going to make the decision and not you at all along with World War two then that gives very different views of how this war should be fought the third thing is and by the way Britain is more exposed we have two oceans so when we make a decision that seems reckless there's not going to be immediate consequences to us in New York or San Francisco if we make a decision about bombing or the use of fighter arrack aircraft or going across the channel and that proves to be stupid or disastrous there can be immediate consequences if we say we don't really think there's going to be a v1 or v2 program and if there is we don't really want to waste resources bomb they're not going to send 2v2 into San Francisco or Indianapolis they will into London so in the British Way of thinking the Americans always tell us what to do they didn't know anything about World War one they're not ready to fight this war and the consequences are mostly borne by us that there's a mistake but there's another issue to this relationship and that is America's coming out of the largest social political transformation its history after the Great Depression in 1929 and the failure of the Hoover administration to correct that economic downturn I remember Hoover is not some reactionary lazy Fair capitalist as he somewhat somehow portrayed he's tried stimulus he's tried deficit spending he's tried balancing stright everything it didn't work Roosevelt comes in with an idea that the war the Depression was caused by a concentration of wealth he's going to change a tax code he's going to absorb private industry he's going to create jobs he's going to borrow money he's going to have deficit spending he's been inflate the currency he's going to get America back to work and by 1938 in America's unemployment rate still 19% this country is very unsure of itself but it has made a decision because of the carrot the charismatic approaches of Franklin Roosevelt the sincerity the wonderful rhetoric that's going to stick with Roosevelt he's going to be elected for the third time in 1940 but he's a man of the left Churchill is a 19th century relic this is a man who fought various times in the Sudan for Empire in India for Empire in South Africa for Empire he's been to Cuba he's written about Empire he's a direct descendent the Duke of Marlborough he's wealthy he's educated he was a military officer he's been First Lord of the Admiralty twice there's no person on either side of the war no leader not Hitler not Stella not Mussolini who is better educated more versed in military affairs more experienced more knowledgeable in Winston Churchill the problem and the American Way of thinking is he's a right-wing reactionary apologist for the British Empire so just think for a minute it would be as if George Bush was a lot more far-right than he is and Tony Blair was a lot more far left than he was and they were supposed to work together in Iraq as it was Bush was a conservative and Blair was a liberal it would be as if we find ourselves in a war with Obama very very hard left in a European Nationalist Party person almost with a Eurocentric view that will be very hard for those two people to work and how is that going to translate out it's going to mean that every time Churchill suggests something to Roosevelt people like Harry Hopkins or Harold is always going to be suspicious and say they you know he's just trying to promote a hyper capitalist imperialist point of view and every time somebody's going to suggest something to Churchill he's going to say these are very naive Americans who really do believe that you know socialism is going to solve all our problems and then they have a very so World War one and the geography relative strength their own politics are going to affect this relationship also this idea of Russia now remember that when they start bombing Britain right after the fall of France you're a British subject and you look up in their Heinkel bombers and there's cyka dive bombers and junker the whole bit is going to kill 40,000 keep on the Blitz and the papers are starting to see that in 1940 let's say in August these guys are laughing about it and they have direct rail links into the Ruhr all the way into Eastern even to Western Germany and the materials of the German of air marque are coming from Russia in some part this is part of Stalin's sort of plan that they're going to destroy each other the British are going to have a very distrustful view of Russia because Russia wanted them to be destroyed Russia was an active participant in some sense with the German effort to bomb them to smithereens and the more imperialists Churchill thinks he is the more anti-bolshevik you if you read the British communicative the War Office they know all about the show trials they know about the execution of somewhere between six hundred thousands dissidents military officers intellectuals in Russia they know about the great famine the late 20s under Stalin they know that 20 million people so for them it's a real question whether you want to give a lot of aid to Russia because it's nominally useful but ultimately there's not a lot of difference between Hitler and Stalin so you can see what this is going to do in this relationship this is the world war two version of let Iran kill Iraq off and vice versa in the 1980s and the American point of view America on the other hand there are a lot of people we don't want to get near that topic on a class on war about McCarthyism communism whether Alger Hiss was a commies let just be said there are a number of naive Americans involved in this transformation of American society who look on the Soviet Union has sort of an unhappy or unfortunate excess not necessarily evil not killing more people than Hitler did but sort of socialism gone too far but it could come back it had the right idea but it's a natural part if you look at Howard Zinn's history World War two the chapter on World War two is called a People's War very favorable to the Soviet Union and that will affect this relationship before we go on to how these differences in culture history are going to affect the actual mechanics of the war policy anybody have any questions at this point none okay so the war breaks out in your Churchill and Roosevelt and you want to know how to beat Hitler and beat Mussolini and beat Tojo the Japanese co-prosperity sphere and what we actually did is not the way it necessarily had to happen we could have tried to invade Amsterdam we could have tried to invade Norway we could have landed troops in Portugal we could have gone from the Suez and had an American fleet and gone into Greece or Laros or roads or we could have had the Pacific Fleet or something go into the Persian Gulf and come in here and try to help Russia we did actually when the annexation of Iran but there are a lot of different strategies nobody says we have to have 14 million men mobilized nobody says we have to have these enormous transformations in American society we were very effective in World War one but we didn't quite do what we did in World War two so these are going to be decisions that are made at the highest levels of the American government and the British government on how they can best fight the first big issue is Europe first and as I said all of these differences that are fundamental and existential are going to play out here why should Europe be first for the United States we were not attacked by Germany we were attacked by the Japanese on December 7th the Japanese are close to the Pacific coast they're all in the waters of Hawaii they've attacked American held soil they've taken over or they're trying to take over the Philippines they're going to tak Wake Island they've taken over the Marianas they're encroaching on American spheres of influence America will never be attacked by Germany in the sense of a German bomber or shell Japanese will even shell the coast in one case they'll send balloons with bombs on it so in America's way of thinking Japan is the problem is it somewhat of a racial element the Japanese look different than we do a lot and there's not a lot of Japanese in the United States except in the West Coast there's a lot of Germans at places like Michigan here so and there's a lot of people in the 1930s amid the depression who's thought you know Charles Lindbergh father Coughlin Germany was just trying to find an ideology it's not really Nazism it's not that bad they were just trying to mobilize the people build autobahns create dams industrial sectors give people apartment buildings national healthcare this is what he was really about he gave people back their pride we feel guilty about Versailles the United the League of Nations was never a good idea so there's a lot of remember this is not the war people don't really know it's only been about five months fighting in Russia so people really don't know the full horrors of Germany so an American way of thinking there are a lot of people who'd think gee whiz let's give aid and let's step up the aid for Russia privately we like Russia to fight Hitler and get rid of both of them but let's give aid to Russia through Iran and let's help the British give aid to the Arctic sea and let's really help Britain while we turn our attention militarily to the Pacific closed and crushed Japan we have a very soft spot in our hearts for China which has been occupied 1931 let's free two Chinese and then once we solve that problem we can turn our attention to Hitler if he's even there he may be finished off by the Bolsheviks he may be bombed by the British but let's not fight a two-front war there's a great myth about World War two that Hitler lost because he fought a two-front war we fight a two-front war remember when this war from 1939 to 1941 it was a brilliantly diabolical one front war this the molotov-ribbentrop agreement is designed to have a one front war and it works and then people say well why he started a second war up front in 1941 the second flaw because there was no war going on he'd won it Britain was being bombed Britain had no ability to land troops so Hitler had a one front war a different one from war we we think we're so smart we ended up with a two-front war and people are saying let's not do this so there are elements within the American government and military who are trying to say especially Ernie King Chief of Naval Operations let's not fight and get sucked into the British war we have our own war fortunately for the Europe first strategy Roosevelt sees that Hitler is has the greater strength the greater resources perhaps even the greater evil and he has to be dealt with first and that will free up the United States Russia may fall if we have a Pacific first strategy and the you know Hitler's like a snake the more animals he swallows he needs time to digest it but then it gets stronger and bigger so you don't really have a lot of time but this issue is going to be very important because Britain will be pushing for a first front war first front war because it's almost ready to be obliterated it has interests in the Pacific but even as much as it wants to hold India and Singapore and all of those jewels of the Empire it's willing not to put them second in comparison with the British homeland that's going to be a issue all of 1942 to what degree do we put resources and how is it going to be solved it's going to be solved in a very brilliant way that may have been inadvertent the Americans are going to learn a couple of things given the vast 3,000 mile expanse of the United States and given the fact that most of the industry in the United States is bilateral in the sense that the Great Lakes region and the East Coast naturally can can turn its attention to Europe why the Pacific great centers of Commerce and Seattle and Oakland in San Francisco and Los Angeles San Diego can turn to the Pacific so yes we have a two-front war but one way of looking at it is there's two united states each one is fighting their own war it's more likely that a lot of if you grew up in California it's not certain but it'd be very likely you would fight in the Pacific more likely doesn't mean it always is true if you're in a factory it's very likely you'll be making produce it will largely be used for the Pacific so that's one way that we we solve that dilemma that the country is so big and vast and the industrial centers are on the coast and the population bases even the 40s tend to be on the coast that we can divert Western resources the second is the nature of the theaters think about it for a minute the Japanese Empire spread all over the Pacific so if George Marshall wants to make eight million people and make an 8 million man army three four hundred divisions and combat divisions tanks artillery the whole thing how are you going to use them in the Pacific you've got to transport them all around so that effort to create this monstrous army is going to be designed to function on the European continent not on a little island like Eva Jima or taro or even in the Philippines or Okinawa those will be mostly amphibious operations and you can create a force for that there will be army divisions in the Pacific but it's largely going to be the 1st Marine Division the 6th Marine Division the 2nd Marine Division and the Pacific Fleet the Pacific fleets battleships will finally get up to about 50 it'll get 78 carriers heavy and medium but they're mostly going to be in the Pacific there's going to be a few battleships but there's no German Navy and there's going to be artillery support in Italy there's going to be artillery support you need at d-day you're going to meet destroyers to guard the convoys that are providing key supplies to Britain but the Navy is going to have to be in the wide open theatres in the Pacific why because the second-largest Navy in the world after the United States will not be Britain very quickly it'll be Japanese so in the American Way of thinking they handle they finesse that problem by saying okay we're going to say it's European first but we're going to have the west coast be assured all those politicians governor Warren out there they're going to know that most a lot of their resources are going to go to what's next to them and more importantly we're going to spend put the Navy in the Marines in the Pacific largely in the army and the heavy bombing campaigns at least in the beginning the liberator and these 17 campaigns they're going to be in Europe and North Africa that's a brilliant way of solving the British are delighted because they have interest in the Pacific and they have the existential question of protecting the homeland the third great issue is after the war and I want to put a Dasher we talked about this last time and that's the Empire in the American Way of thinking one of the great evils in the American liberal conscious of 1930s 40s is early 40s is a British Empire especially because we did not want to be part of it we rebuild and we look at the United States and we say see what can happen when you're free of Britain we're not very magnanimous and we don't really appreciate raysh institutions British culture British lineage it makes America so unique everybody you know from John Locke to Edmund Burke but nevertheless there's a resentment of the British Empire there's a lot of continental immigrants in the United States specially german-speaking families that don't like the British Empire and how that works and as men of the left the Roosevelt administration is very suspicion is how does that work out well it reflects all of these issues that we talked about World War One and the left-right dichotomy and especially Russia so there's going to be a another great debate and that is I'm skipping ahead a little bit because I want to get to the second front in a minute what do you do with the British Empire and how do you right when we know that everything from the Dutch East Indies to Burma to India are all there to protect British oil British natural resources rubber and especially the crown jewel in India and you are you really going to tell an American that he died in Burma trying to preserve India for the British or he died in Indochina so he's going to fight for the French Empire No so what happens is in a very brilliant move and you remember the letter that Andrew Roberts quotes when Roosevelt sort of divides up the sphere of influence the Americans are going to say you know what we're going to go as Americans we always like to find the enemy and mobilize and destroy him and get home so we're going to target our efforts on the Japanese mainland we're not going to go up to Burma we're not going to we'll help you with a Burma Road Burma airlift accept accepted but we're not going to operate in that part of the Pacific we're going to try to island hop and we especially want because of our historic ties the Philippines or restore the Philippines but we're going to outsource that part of the Pacific to you and your imperial interest and we're going to build aircraft carriers in a long-range bomber which will eventually be the b-29 and we're going to destroy the Japanese mainland and the British are delighted at it because if Americans want to cut off the head of the octopus the tentacles in Burma that threaten India will fall to us so that issue is an issue about the British Empire but as it works out in the Pacific there's an easy solution just as there is among us whether we should have in Europe or Japan first policy in Europe it's a problem and I'm kind of conflating this Russia here post-war here Stalin here but and now we get to the second front all of these issues are involved and that is okay so we've got some kind of agreement that will fight in Europe that the Americans will fight a full-blown fully mobilized two front war that nominally at least they'll concentrate on your but there will be large elements of their amphibious forces Marines Navy that will deal with Japan and that we have a way or an accord or protocol with dealing Japan that will not infringe on the British Empire and yet not think not to give the appearance that the Americans are fighting for colonialism but we're fighting against the people who attacked us on Pearl Harbor but we still have this other problem the British do not want a second front as we said that seems to be the theme of the entire Andrew Roberts masters and commanders and be frank also the warlords that one issue they don't want a second front and we talked about because of vert Passchendaele the Battle of Somme later 1940 dunker that's one issue they're going to have to at least until 1942 1943 they would have to put the bulk of the troops but there's another issue and this is what I want to get at beast I mean Hitler I mean Churchill can say all he wants that I'll help the devil if it's to be defeat Hitler I'll help I'll help Stalin if I have to but deep down the British rightly so deeply resent what Stalin did to them in 1939 1940 1941 so Stalin is very rude to say the British ambassador ambassador crit and then suddenly he's attacked on June 22nd and he says now I want to be your friend and as we said when we discussed Stalin earlier the modus operandi of the Stalin mind is that whatever I have done to other people I'm convinced they're going to do to me so just as I signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler trying to thwart him to destroy England I know that they'll do the same thing with him to destroy me so Stalin is going to call for a second front immediately and the Americans a having a very different view as I said earlier world war 1 one year 117 thousand dead same thing will happen in World War two there are really Americans who believe hey John Pershing got a million men on the continent from April 1917 to October 1918 one million Americans went over to Britain we lost zero in transit they provided the big push they didn't get involved in Verdun or passionnel they won the war so these people Marshall after all had been on the chief of staff at Pershing they said that themselves can happen again within one year we'll have this enormous army we'll send them over there they'll probably be in the same battlefields they were more World War one the only difference this time is we're not going to have an armistice we're going to occupy a humiliating transfer memory and the British are saying all you're going to I couldn't say saying they're saying it in private communications all you guys are going to do is get us all killed by these horrific German divisions and all you're going to do is be help is to help Stalin because he's the one that wants it in stallin wanted to destroy us so just hold on a minute and let's get some experience and so from 1941 in December all the way into 44 in June there's kind of this kabuki dance between George Marshall and Alan Brooke and Churchill and Roosevelt and the Americans bring in the British and say okay we're ready to land in France and the brief said we are too and they say give us a date and they say yeah and then they say how about 42 and if you insist and the briefs go home and say I think we've got him stalled another year they come in 42 and they say okay we want to go in 43 in the British yeah that's a great idea and so what's behind the American idea got to save Russia it's going to kill two out of three Germans if they lose a war then we'll that will suffer the kind of losses they do it's the moral thing to do we did it in World War one you listen to this grant taught us that the strategy of the American military is Klaus wit sein you find the enemy target him and you destroy him and that means land right here at Calais and go right into the Ruhr and destroy german Commerce the war is over and the British are saying no and fibia s-- capability 10 to 15 American combat divisions you'll be slaughtered we couldn't do it with 300,000 at Dunkirk you're eventually going to have to do if you're going to have a million men you need a million men you don't have air superiority you have not crippled German industry the bombing campaign is very problematic the German army is even though it's 1942 the high-water mark of the Russian campaign is not failing at Moscow with being very successful down here and there all the way remember to the Volga and out to Stalingrad all the way to here and the British are saying let's think about this second thing the new dealers are not that suspicious of state and Post socialism and they think as we I think some of you brought up that quote were stolen Roosevelt says my attitude was stolen as I just give him everything and don't ask for anything in return and I ameliorate his behavior and that's not the British idea they understand that the Home Office is saturated with spies that the Soviet Union's methodology of conducting war is analogous to Hitler and so the way that they get around this remember there's going to be the theme here is that there's these irreconcilable differences that Hitler thinks will tear apart the alliance as I said they're here and yet it doesn't they work perfectly well that's because they're able because of the personalities of Roosevelt the master politician and Churchill brilliant strategist educated erudite guys they're able to have these solutions as we just talked about Europe first Pacific Theatre and the solution they get is rather than just going through them googler and getting the death to death 50-50 chance of winning or losing let's soften Germany up and how are we going to soften Germany out we're going to do it in six or seven ways first of all got to destroy the u-boat fleet why because the British tell us we are sending Lynn very critical supplies to Stalin north of Norway down here the Arctic Circle into the White Sea to Archangel and they're losing 25% of them as they get off the coast of Norway where there's a lot of u-boat in so let's get American destroyers American long-range bombers British destroyers and let's make sure that we don't lose any more on the convoy system and the the highest level will be up in 1942 and the British say we're not going to be able to stock pie operation bolero remember to make Britain and American supply depot we're not going to be will have enough resource so let's do that first so America engages in a massive C building and this is a great strife if King does not want to commit Pacific naval resources here but he loses that battle finally belatedly but finally the second thing to the British convinced us hey you guys you built the world's best bomber the b-17 you've had it since 1937 you not us you call it the Flying Fortress let's use air power on day one of this war we were flying in with Halifax's and we've got a big Lancaster bomber in the works and we will we will bomb Germany and that will be a second front by the way they're going to lose 65,000 Brits and 25,000 Americans so it's going to be a bloody battle and once again this is very important I think you should make a note of it in this relationship because you can see what a second land front would have been like in 42 and 43 had the British allowed us to do it George Marshall Andros what want to do you can see that through the air campaign because we go over there confident swaggering and say we have a b-17 we have a b24 that were it's going to come out there precision we have something called the Norden bombsight that you don't have you have a cruise of three we have cruise of nine ten we fly in formation they're absolutely a fortress and the British say don't don't tell us that we've been losing 10 to 15 percent of our crews as a bomb because what the Germans do is you leave England they pick you up on radar and they have 20 to 30 bases here and here and they just pass you off from 109 squadron to 109 and it's good at plane as a Spitfire and the new focke-wulf 190 is better and they're excellent pilots and they'll shoot you down like you will not believe and we're doing this at night and we're doing it in singular formation we don't come announce where we're going if you think you're going to stack up a hundred two hundred bombers and it's going to be in broad daylight and then you're going to be up at 20,000 feet and drop individual bombs it's a it's a prescription for suicide and it is and we don't know anything what we're doing in 42 and 43 it's a testament as people like the 8th Air Force they don't give up but in typical American ingenuity and know-how and learning from air a group of brilliant people Jimmy Doolittle helped Arnold Curtis LeMay they look at the situation they say this is winnable if we start acting smart we develop a fighter that can escort us over to Germany first the p-47 then the p-51 if we develop drop tanks so that they have a long operational capability over enemy territory especially as we take back France we have home soil so we're not bailing out all the time among enemy soil and there's not enemy of fighter bases all along our route especially as we give up the idea that we're going to bomb so high and maybe we'll have to heaven forbid use incident dairies like the British but finally it starts to pay real dividends and mid to late 1944 but you can see that American attitude what it would have done with a second front it would have been a disaster the other thing

Channel: Anang

Views: 456,593

Rating: 4.6632066 out of 5

Keywords: World, War, II, Leadership, conservative, britain, hitler, okinawa, china, empire, stalin, roosevelt, invasion, battle, Czechoslovakia, rhineland, austria, europe, america, asia, poland

Id: w_jZVCk50Cw

Length: 60min 6sec (3606 seconds)

Published: Sun May 06 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/HugoDaBoi]

I'll just leave this here so I can visit this later