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Causes Of World War II
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gcle2003 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Causes Of World War II
    Posted: 04-Sep-2008 at 18:52
Originally posted by Choranzanus

Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Choranzanus

Out of curiosity...
Anybody read this book?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0853459991/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
A retired professor of computer science, a 'professor of history' at a correspondence school... and Christopher Hitchens? Are you kidding?

 

I take it as "no"....
Why would anyone bother? We've seen all the Quigley nonsense ad nauseam.
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2008 at 19:03
Originally posted by Choranzanus

Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Choranzanus

Originally posted by gcle2003

Somehow I missed this. I accept that the quotes from Mao are new material and therefore not repetitive. However, I think we can safely reagrd Mao as an example of a Communist propagandist. And that Kissinger 'didn't blame Stalin' for the Soviet German alliance is hardly impressive either. I don't suppose he would blame Hitler for it either since, in Kissinger's own words: "He gained himself essential time".
 
No-one says Stalin didn't 'gain time' from the pact, simply that that pact was a far grosser example of appeasement, coupled with cynical pursuit of national objectives, than anything Chamberlain or the French were guilty of.
 

Well, it doesnt really look like that from here.
Try looking at it from Warsaw. Or Riga. Or even Helsinki.

And your point?
I'm sorry, I thought you'd be well enough informed to get the point, so I didn't spell it out. My mistake.
 
The point is that Poland, Latvia, Lithuanis, Estonia, Finland and even Romania were the countries that Stalin and Hitler agreed to carve up between them. There was no way Stalin could have got help with this from France and Britain: that was his price for alliance with Germany.
 
When  you said 'it doesn't really look like that from here' I assumed you meant from the Czech republic. I can see that a Czech's feelings about the whole affair would differ from a Pole's.

Just because Stalin and Hitler were evil doesnt make Chamberlain saint.
Of course not, but that's irrelevant. Whatever Chamberlain was, he would not have agreed to the USSR taking over half Poland and the other territories involved in 1939-40, as the Germans did. The Munich appeasement pales in comparison with that.
 
Granted the outcome post 1945 was terrible for the eastern European countries, but there certainly wasn't anything Chamberlain could do about it. And at least Greece and Austria were saved from the Red Army.


You have to ask yourself a question why Stalin was willing to wage war with allies against Germany and then suddenly changed his mind. Probably he realized that he would bleed and French and Britain would do nothing. In the words of Kissinger "you cant blame him".
Probabyl he realised that France and Britain would do nothing to help him take over the Baltics and parts of Poland, Finland and Rumania, whereas Hitler would co-operate.

 
 
I thought that made my original point crystal clear. Apparently not.


Edited by gcle2003 - 04-Sep-2008 at 19:04
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Choranzanus View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote Choranzanus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2008 at 19:07

Originally posted by 02bburco


3. Britian had a network of spies and would have no full well Hitler was strengthening the armed forces, combined with his bleifs it does take a genuis to figure out his intentions.

How is this not wishful thinking? Britain commited the greatest diplomatic disaster in entire history. If they were so great informed then what the hell they were doing?
Originally posted by 02bburco


Britian feared a revelution in russia for the same reasons it feared the french revelution, it was against the very things the UK study for i.e. ruling classes and class system were still very much in operation at the time, look and the background of the officers of WW2 to see what I mean.

So it is more like they feared revolution in Britain? In Russia any revolution could hardly make it worse.
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gcle2003 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2008 at 19:30
Originally posted by Choranzanus


Originally posted by 02bburco


3. Britian had a network of spies and would have no full well Hitler was strengthening the armed forces, combined with his bleifs it does take a genuis to figure out his intentions.

How is this not wishful thinking? Britain commited the greatest diplomatic disaster in entire history.
How do you get that? Getting into the American Revolution, and letting the Americans get French, Spanish and Dutch allies ranks quite a bit higher.
 
Actually Munich was a diplomatic success, since it staved off war long enough for Britain to get mobilised properly. If Chamberlain had NOT used the time to boost up war production, THAT might have been a disaster. But he did - and even increased taxes specifically to pay for it.
For details read some of the erlier posts in this thread. It would save us all some time and effort answering the same questions all over again.
If they were so great informed then what the hell they were doing?
Originally posted by 02bburco


Britian feared a revelution in russia for the same reasons it feared the french revelution, it was against the very things the UK study for i.e. ruling classes and class system were still very much in operation at the time, look and the background of the officers of WW2 to see what I mean.

So it is more like they feared revolution in Britain? In Russia any revolution could hardly make it worse.
That's silly. Or at least a misreading. People in Britain didn't fear another revoluition in the USSR, they feared the consequences of the 1917 one. I would have thought that was obvious: after all even you seem to have realised that he wasn't referring to another French revolution.


Edited by gcle2003 - 04-Sep-2008 at 19:31
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Choranzanus View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote Choranzanus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2008 at 22:05
Originally posted by gcle2003

How do you get that? Getting into the American Revolution, and letting the Americans get French, Spanish and Dutch allies ranks quite a bit higher.
 
Actually Munich was a diplomatic success, since it staved off war long enough for Britain to get mobilised properly. If Chamberlain had NOT used the time to boost up war production, THAT might have been a disaster. But he did - and even increased taxes specifically to pay for it.
For details read some of the erlier posts in this thread. It would save us all some time and effort answering the same questions all over again.

And now we are finally getting into the crux of the matter: The Munich Agreement.
And not too surprisingly what you say about it is simply not true. You apparently miss so basic a fact that when you prepare to "mobilise properly" your opponent is not sitting around doing nothing. I guess Germans got delayed by seizing all that military hardware, or perhaps mobilising troops from Sudetenland?

It is sheer idiocy to think that Britain gained anything from Munich agreement. Yes, "sheer idiocy", I said it.
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Sep-2008 at 11:12
It's true that Germany could continue arming after Munich. However, the big difference between the two countries in 1937-8 was that the Germans were far in advance and Britain was barely ready. Yet by 1939 Britain had almost equalled Germany in aircraft production, for instance, and by 1940 was already producing 50% more than Germany.
 
In the aftermath of Munich Britain laid down 5 new battleships, 5 aircraft carriers and 23 cruisers along with smaller ships. That helped guarantee British superiority at sea when the war finally broke out, but ships take time to build. (Before Munish Germany's Scharnhorst class battleships and the Deutschland 'pocket' battleships had already been launched, and Bismark wasn't far behind.)
 
In 1937 Chamberlain boosted taxes on corporations to pay for rearmament and introduced the 'rationalisation' programme under which the government bought up old factories and razed them to enable building new ones.
 
As a result, as wikipedia has it:
By 1938, Britain was in the best position for rearmament, and thanks to this policy Britain had the most efficient factories in the world with the newest technology. This meant that Britain was able to produce the best weaponry quickly, and they had the best technology available.
 
So the groundwork had ben laid by Munich but there was still much to do. Democracies sadly move slowly, whereas dictatorships move fast.
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Posts: 56 		  Quote warwolf1969 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2009 at 23:14
WW2 was basically the continuation of WW1.  The end of WW1 did nothing to sort out the tensions involved.  They just simmered under the surface.  If it hadn't been Hitler it would have been another leader, maybe french or british.  The war would have happened, and quiet probably at roughly the same time period.
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Posts: 362 		  Quote Sun Tzu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2009 at 03:40
There is no doubt about WWII being a continuation of WWI, although I have to disagree about Britain and France being the aggressors. Of course I wasn't around back then so maybe I'm wrong, but none of the of the old world powers (Britain and France) would want a war as they were still recovering from WWI. WWI in my opinion was caused by almost everyone because at the turn of the century there a newly reformed Germany wanting to flex its muscles. An Imperialistic Britain and France wanting to expand and a young and rising world power the U.S.. WWI left Europe devastated it ravaged France especailly because the main theater of war was situated there (Western Front).

France was still very weak and all countries were suffering from depression, Germany however was almost unscathed but yet they were defeated. Their defeat left many Germans confused and angry and all that confusion and anger needed was a man that could uses all that anger to his will.

So the main cause of WWII was WWI but not just the war, but the way the Allied powers treated Germany and all the demands they exacted on them.
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All warfare is based on deception - Sun Tzu
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Posts: 2888 		  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jun-2009 at 12:42
Originally posted by Sun Tzu

There is no doubt about WWII being a continuation of WWI, although I have to disagree about Britain and France being the aggressors. Of course I wasn't around back then so maybe I'm wrong, but none of the of the old world powers (Britain and France) would want a war as they were still recovering from WWI. WWI in my opinion was caused by almost everyone because at the turn of the century there a newly reformed Germany wanting to flex its muscles. An Imperialistic Britain and France wanting to expand and a young and rising world power the U.S.. WWI left Europe devastated it ravaged France especailly because the main theater of war was situated there (Western Front).
 
I agree with you that Germany would most likely start the war, but I think the reasons are different -- Germany needed access to resources for developing her economy. Something that GB, France ans Soviet Union had.
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