What would happen if Britain was defeated in 1940 ?

Nah - who needs the islands?
Grab those that have oil, ignore the rest, and take India!

This way, you are expanding Westwards across land - the USA will not be too bothered with you.
Hopefully.

 

The Dutch Indies have a lot of oil, along with just about every other vital resource for modern warfare, and some fashionable tradable goods. The area consists of 13,667 islands.

 

There you go - you take them (garrison the main ones, patrol the smaller ones) then turn your attention to the mainland.

 

I am sorry, but I havn't read all the conversation yet.

I think that Hitler would have had his hands full with the brits. It would have been very hard to subdue them. I think if he ever managed it he would have had a few more division for use in russia. If you ask me the real question is what happens if russia falls in 1941. In that case, the germans go for England (if they don't have it yet) then they fortify europe to an extremly strong continent and wait for a US attack. I think Germany would have had to stop fighting for like 20 years to let the population build up, as well as the Kriegsmarines before they could move on to capture any more of the world.

 

I've only just caught up with this thread as well. Some of the above ideas were covered in the novel 'No Surrender'. Set in a hypothetical Europe dominated by Nazi Germany, a sort of Fascist EU. In the book the British had been beaten because the Germans had managed to cut off external supplies from North America and had been starved into submission. There was also a similar theme in a book by Stephen Fry - 'Making History' but this had the unusual premise that somebody meddled with time to ensure that Hitler was never born. Unfortunately this resulted in someone more militarily competent than Hitler taking power and the Germans won.

In reality Hitler admired the British Empire and thought that Britain was Germany's natural Ally (well, up until Churchill took the helm). He completely misjudged British character and resolve and thought that the UK would allow Germany to dominate Europe in exchange for not interfering in the British Empire. Naturally Britain could never allow a hostile power to dominate France and the Low Countries and France, for a naval power this would be economic and military suicide. This is before the small matter of national pride is taken into consideration.

 

Actually Hitler still saw the British as being "Not our natural enemy" right up until the end (The SS were attempting to found SS Gross Britanien from pro-factist British POWs, the leader was hanged as a Traitor), Churchill was just regarded as part of the world-wide Zionist conspiracy... :roll:

Ethinically the British were regarded as good Aryans.

As to whether militarily the British could have mounted any effective resistance without outside assistance, personally I doubt it.

 

I still think thta Hitler would have had trouble keeping the British people in line. I think he would have had to kill or kidnap many an Englishman to settle them down. And I wouldn't use the army to punish them. I would be afraid they would se the allies coming, and turn to fire on the germans.

 

The British would not necessarily have to be invaded or defeated in detail.
They could possible be isolated and contained. It would depend on a number of hypothetical situations, of course.
It would depend to a great deal upon where the US figured in this equation.
Britain did not have the resources to go it alone and the liberation of the European mainland without the US would have been out of the question.
If you take away the 31 Billion (thousand million) dollars in aid that the UK and Commonwealth received as well as the Billions that the Soviets received..well..the hypothetical becomes very grim for the UK.
The Soviets would likely either have been defeated (it was a close thing, as it was) or they would come to some accomodation with Hitler, dividing up the spoils, as it were.
The US would still have defeated Japan. Probably sooner without diverting resources to the European theatre.
My best guess is England isolated and forced to make an accomodation with a Nazi dominated Europe. Russia either defeated or contained and warily eyeing her borders as the uneasy truce with Hitler would not likely endure and The US retreating into a a neutral isolationist stance regarding Europe after defeating Japan.
Not a pretty picture and probably just a temporary situation until the outbreak of WWIII (or 2.5).

 

I dont think a leadership whose policies meant guarenteed starvation for several million Ukranians once the fighting was over in the east would have too many problems in keeping Britain in line.

 

I thing if Britain was defeated in 1940 USA would become Hitler's ally.
The germans would win the war and there will be a New World Order.
(but the USA might get the atomic bomb and the things could get very bad)

 

Now, obviously for the USA there would be little opportunity to fight Hitler had Britian been defeated or forced to sign a treaty, since their base of operations would be lost. But why would the USA choose an alliance with Hitler? The only reason I can think of is that in most of its political games the US has preferred fascism to communism, but a formal military alliance would be stretching the concept. Could you support this view with some arguments, Zum?

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

 

I think that the US with Roosevelt at the helm would have gone and liberated Europe before Germany could rebuild its population and push on, or defend itslefr and the rest of Europe.FDR would have set us in.

 

I think that's wishful thinking.

Firstly there was a great deal of international admiration for the achievements of the Nazis, they had apparently turned the nation's economy round after the Great Depression, they had defeated the two (Supposedly) most powerful armies in the Western World (France and Britain), righted the injustices of Versaille and were practically knocking on the door of Moscow by the time of Pearl Harbour.

As Roel indicated, Facism was largely seen as the prfereable option to Communism and let's face it the Soviet/Western Alliance was only ever really a marriage of convenience along the lines of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" (Roel should get that one).

As much as Roosevelt was dragging the US out of its isolationist shell, it still needed Pearl Harbour to give the US the final push into war, and even then it is worth pointing out that war was first declared on the US rather than the other wasy round.

I think that if Britain sued for peace with Germany or capitulated, Roosevelt would have his work cut out convincing the American public to involve themselves in a European war that everyone would consider was all over bar the final defeat of the Soviets, and in any case was not directly their problem anyway.

I'm not knocking the US, I simply think that lacking a European Ally the Americans would be hard pushed militarily and politically to justify entering into a war that would be difficult to carry out.

More likely is that Germany and the US would reach an informal agreement not to interfere in each other's respective theatres.

Regarding British resistance to an occupying power, don't take the French Resistance as an indication of what a British Resistance would have been like, firstly the French Resistance had widespread Communist backing, and were also trained and supplied with arms and equipment by Western intelligence from just over the channel.

With the British, (Bear in mind that the Germans would almost certainly disarm the Army all except a token force), there would be no convenient training camps a short hop over the Channel and no midnight drops of weapons and ammunition by Lysander. I think any Resistance would quite quickly run out of steam.

 

[/quote]

Agreed.
Guerilla style warfare is highly unlikely in a western nation.
The huge resistants/guerilla movements as in the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia are not imagineable in a western european state.
When western nations go to war, they led their respective armies fight that war.
The country whose army is beaten generally accepts this and concludes peace or seeks an agreement with the victorious power, in order to protect it's civilian population and infrastructure.

Had Britain been occupied by Germany in WW2, it wouldn't have cost the germans high number of troops to control the country, just as it didn't take them many troops to control french résistance.

 

Agreed.
Guerilla style warfare is highly unlikely in a western nation.
The huge resistants/guerilla movements as in the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia are not imagineable in a western european state.
When western nations go to war, they led their respective armies fight that war.
The country whose army is beaten generally accepts this and concludes peace or seeks an agreement with the victorious power, in order to protect it's civilian population and infrastructure.

Had Britain been occupied by Germany in WW2, it wouldn't have cost the germans high number of troops to control the country, just as it didn't take them many troops to control french résistance.[/quote]

Also the European resistances movements had supplies from Britain (wether they were American or not), to drop supplies into occupied
Britain could not have been on the same scale.

 

Also the European resistances movements had supplies from Britain (wether they were American or not), to drop supplies into occupied
Britain could not have been on the same scale.

Which is essentially what I already said:

"...and no midnight drops of weapons and ammunition by Lysander"

 

No Allied operation in the western European theatre, be it secret or open warfare, is possible without the supply and support base of Britain. This is why the survival of Britain was vital to the eventual German defeat. Had Britain instead been defeated in 1940, I doubt any initiative at all would have come from overseas, be it in favour or against Hitler, since there was simply nothing the Americans could do.

 

havent you taken into to factor that the battle of the beachhead, the germans could land easily yeh but what about the RN cutting off their supplies from europe

 

Maybe, maybe not. The idea of hypothetical situations is to consider what if's, even if improbable. So long as not impossible.
I can think of some alternatives to Britain as a launching point for an invasion of Europe.
Africa...Sicily...The middle East..India...?
With control of the seas (and/or the skies) the whole world is open.

 

Had Russia and Britain fallen (Wich they didnt !), it would have been impossible for the U.S. to win a war against Germany if they tried !

KBO