Stalingrad or North Africa?

No, they were not. There is a huge difference between reasonable direct confontations stemming from legitimate need and foolish ventures. The following concepts were legitimate and reasonable :

 

-Early acknowledgement that continous campaigns on the peripheries would not decisively defeat the Germans rather, a direct confrontation was needed in France.

-Seriously exploring a 1943 D-Day. The strategically, the luftwaffe was already breaking in 1943. Total air dominace was not an absolute necessity for the invasion and there was no Atlantic wall.

-Raising and using more British combat infantry divisions. Britain relied very heavily on a few proven U.K formations and on Dominion / Colonial troops

-Not cutting desperatly needed aid convoys to Russia following a few hundred deaths. At the time, British convoy defences were constantly improving.

-Transfering real naval power to Indian Ocean / Pacific in early 1944 and actually using it against Japan.

 

All of these concepts were reasonable, realistic and legitimate. They also all involved direct confrontations against vialbe opponents and more casualties. After WWI deaths, however, British society was no longer capable of the same level of enthusiasm for warfare.  I dont blame them.

 

 

 

Originally posted by Peteratwar The enthusiasm (if anyone is so silly as to have it for warfare)

Sure, no one has enthusiasm for war. Some societies, at some times, however, were capable of making a very high level of commitment towards a war (WWI Britain). After WWI, British society was not capable of doing this (WWII Britain).

 

 

 

About the best units of the wehrmacht. The germans always had the best heer units in the east even after Normandy. It was the SS which is arguably better equipped and manned than the heer that took the largest share of the fighting in Normandy and after. Also in general, the wehrmacht had their best units (both SS and Heer) in the east untill Jan 44 when the SS and some Heer divisions were moved to France and Italy. However to indicate how bad the fighting was, the 1st SS was totally distroyed three times and all were in the 8 month period they spent in France. When the SS divisions were moved east again in Feb. 45, the 1st SS already was a skeleton formation having mo more than 1500 men and almost no tanks (it was a panzer SS division) so were all other SS units.

 

This doesn't mean that the east was easy, a German division was lost every week on average from 41 to Jan 45 there and many divisons were recreated 3 or 4 times over the period of fighting.

 

As for the 2nd front, one major reason why the Brits didn't open one in 42 and 43 is simply the memories of Dunkirk. There was little proof that the French would rise and overthrow the Vichy regime in France. In fact every thing indicated the opposite (most French generals who fought the Germans in 40 were within the Vichy government). The Operation at dieppe failed to make the french rise against the Germans and the operation was met cooly by the French people and the people of occupied europe. With NA near being secured at the time of Dieppe (before the reverse) and because of the reason above it was wiser for the Brits to carry on the war in NA where the Italians showed more opposition to the Nazis and rarely fought seriously than taking the war into europe and suffer a worse disaster.

 

Al-Jassas

 

Along with Peteratwar, I would disagree here.  As noted above, Britain needed coalition partners for any successful Continental strategy.  In WW I, Britain had three major ones - France, Russia and Italy.  In 1940 - 41, she had zero.  Yet, she kept on fighting and holding her own, and survived the Blitz, something not experienced before.

 

In addition, the first war was basically European in scope.  Yes, the Middle East was an important theater, but France was paramount - across the Channel.  In WW II, the war effort was more truly world wide.  Europe; the Middle East; major operations in east Africa; The Indian Ocean; the far East; Burma-India and the Pacific.  This is not to mention the Atlantic and Arctic theaters.

 

In further addition , the war lasted 50% longer than the first one.  That in itself resulted in more financial outlay and drain on resources than in 1914 - 1918.  Britain dealt with it.  She emerged from the war virtually bankrupt (I know gcle disagrees here), but she dealt with it.

 

In one of those Cold War spy movies, I remember a British agent who would have been the right age for WW II saying something like "We were tested as no generation before us had been, and we were not found wanting."  I have to agree with that.  There is no question of Britain's commitment in WW II.

 

   

 

 

 

Had you really read the entire post, you may have been able to get the point.

 

 

 

 

It's WWI that is called "The Great War" in Britain, not WWII; it says it all.

 

I wouldn't argue that by intensity it surpassed British military effort in some aspect during 1914-1918. However, during WWII it was only 10 months in 1944-45 of very intensive fighting, while in 1014-1918 it was the full four years of very intensive bloody fighting.

 

And it was the Somme that brough the single heaviest day of casualties in British military history not something else.