Could the Western Allies Win Without the USSR?

Yeah Sloniksp, and if I'm not wrong, Stalin sent to the Nazis a proposal to sign the Geneva convention, which they ignored. Another factor is the war in the East was fought with massive armies over a longer front and consequentely longer time. The Soviets had much more ground to cover and resistance to face until Berlin than the Western Allies. And lastly, the Soviets (mainly by Stalin's purges) were not totally prepared for the war. It's interesting that some people who say the Soviets were ready to invade Germany in 1941, frequentely attack the Soviet performance in the wartime. As we can see, this don't have sense, they were really not prepared.

 

An army that has suceeded to occupy some territory has obligation to introduce law and order at the conquered territories. Instead, German army started executing their primary task: extermination. Red Army had no realistic chances to stop murderers acting far behind the front line.

 

Yes.

However, I think the use of "Russian" was more related to the wartime, since the territories of the Russian Empire were not much different from the Soviet Union (even so, there were differences certainly).

 

I disagree. For one thing the rulership of the USSR hardly reflected that of the Russian Empire. Indeed Stalin was from Georgia was he not? Furhtermore it became for the Soviets in a very real sense a "peoples war" and inspite of their long inclusion in the Russian Empire such areas as the Ukraine still had their own identity much less the relativly new acquisitions. Indeed take a look at:
https://qed.princeton.edu/getfile.p...Expansion_of_the_Russian_Empire_1795-1914.jpg
for the Russian expansion in the century or so prior to WWI. The Soviets expanded even further prior to 1941. I stand by my position that to refer to the USSR as Russia is a slight to many of the people who lived there and who fought the Nazis.

 

Something to be remembered here is that Hitler and many of his fellow Germans of the moment still referred to those persons in the new USSR as the "Russians" since that is who they had fought in WW1. Just a thought.

 

I have intentionally used the word Russian instead of »Soviet« which is for me too amorph, or should I say awkward. The word Russian had an adequate speciffic weight to express exactly what I wanted to say: »Russians have pulverized the Nazis!« That's exactly what I wanted to say in response to a certain post. Russians destroying Nazis is the most dreadful dream for certain class of people.

In reality many other nations have joined forces together to defeat Nazis as the common enemy, not just Soviets: Yankees, Dixies, Welsh, English, Scots, Ukrainians, Poles, South Africans, Canadians, Shiks ... Variety of victor nations doesn't diminish the Russian, or if you wish Soviet Victory. Quite in contrary participation of the wide international community increases its weight because that prooves that the defeat of Nazism was widely accepted objective.

For me, this also answers the initial question of this thread: Russians could have won the war against Nazis but the contribution of many other brothers in arms just increases the signifficance of that Great Victory. The victory over Nazis was a victory of each and every human being on the Planet Earth.

 

This was not the initial question of this thread. Your conclusion is also highly suspect.

 

This is simple: either you are wrong or I am wrong. I see no other option.

 

The original query was "could the western allies win without the USSR", not could the USSR eventually beat the Nazis. That isn't the problem here, I personally believe the Nazis were done as soon as they attacked the USSR, and they really had no choice but to do so. Could the western allies win without the USSR? Perhaps, but it would take longer and the original target of the atomics would have remained Nazi Germany, and perhaps stretched into the 1945 atomic window and then it is "game over".

 

lwd, what makes you belive the Soviet Union COULD not have won alone?

 

I believe we are sort of going off the rails here in a way, the Soviet Union was supplying the Nazi war machine with many needed alloy metals as well as tons of crude oil and grain. That said it should be remembered that one of the ways their economy survived and even expanded was because of the practice of charging the nations you occupied a sum of money to pay for your troops being stationed there. Weird huh.

By mid-1943 or so France was supplying both money, goods and workers for the Reich, and were the driving force behind Germany continuing to survive and grow. So that said, I finally have figured out an answer for your query “von noobie”, the Nazis charged the nations they occupied a “fee” for being occupied. Only Denmark didn’t pay the Third Reich any occupation fees in money, they instead supplied farm and sea products at cheap exchange rates. The Dutch paid, the Norwegians paid, the Belgians paid, and even the Czechs paid.

The French paid Berlin the most, both in total money and in a share of French Gross Domestic Product. It started at about 20% in 1940 when they signed the armistice, and rose to 50% by 1944 when the occupation forces were driven out. The sum is staggering, especially when you factor in that France couldn’t deal with anybody else, and Germany set the exchange rate at 20 Francs per Reichmark, which was completely bogus since that doubled (at least) the value of the RM compared to the Swiss exchange rates of the moment.

Here is a link to a PDF called; HOW OCCUPIED FRANCE FINANCED ITS OWN EXPLOITATION IN WORLD WAR II

Goto:

http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2007/0105_1015_1004.pdf

 

I knew they were taking funds from them never knew though it was to such an extent, Thanks for the link ill be sure to read up on it.

Personally this thread has gone a fair way off the rails, Far too many variables to keep it on track. So to finish this off, I believe Germany could have won however not with Hitler and Mussolini in charge. The forces Germany fielded against the USSR could have allowed them to win or hold out on other fronts, At least long enough until the US public grew war weary which from what I understand they were beginning to by 1945, The cost and deaths were not liked in the US.. the US compared the the European nations and a few abroad were not willing to stomach the loss of so many of there troops.

And if it came down to the Bomb, Well it's either who ever has it first or who ever fields more of them, And with the Allies having really only a small Island for there base of Operations it could come down to Germany winning.

 

It depends of course a lot on how you define win. If you want to go into it in detail probably best to do it in another thread. However based on what happened historically I strongly suspect that had the Nazis and the Soviets gone out it starting in 1941 without the western powers in the war neither regime would have been around by 1950.

 

Sort of the nature of such broad sweeping questoins.

That's a pretty major change though isn't it? Will the Nazi regime long survive the loss of Hitler? Remember he deliberately set up opposing forces with in the German government and military.

In this case it's not at all clear that allied losses are anywhere near what they were historically. Certainly with the Normandy invasion not in the cards in 44 and very likely the invasion of Italy postponed as well that's going to cut them considerably. Likewise the bomber offensive isn't under as much pressure to succeed because Stalin isn't putting pressure on the western allies to relieve the pressure on the USSR.

Given that there is little to change the development of the bomb I see no reason that both powers aren't on pretty much the historical time lines. That means Germany isn't scheduled to get the bomb until sometime around 1950 and by 1946 the US is producing them on a regular basis.

Certainly by sometime in 45 the allies will have more than "a small island". Of course Great Britain isn't a "small island" in the first place. I would expect the allies to hold North Africa by 1944 in any case and to take most of the major islands in the Med held by the Axis if not that year by early 45. By mid 45 Japan can be left to "wither on the vine" and a lot of naval assets transfered to the Atlantic. This should make it possible for instance to take Norway away from Germany and as a consequence cut her supply of iron from the Scandanavian countries as well as provide more bases for bomber including ones carrying atomic devices to strike the German homeland. I suspect the war might last into 1946 but finish up some time that year.

 

I tend to believe that in the absence of an eastern front against the Soviets, the only way the Western Allies could have defeated Germany is with The Bomb. But as long as we're playing "what if"...... since we already took away the Eastern Front, we could likewise take away the Pacific Theater and then perhaps the Allies could have done it without going nuclear. Maybe.

 

Simple but easy. In 1940 if the Allied could have continued the war for more than one or two months the Germans would have run out of ammo. End of Hitler. He did not have the capacity to go on for a long war.

 

It's a long time since anyone posted to this thread. . . .. .but all the posts overlook a basic factor. Time.

US and for that matter Soviet production and manpower made the outcome of the war inevitable.

However, both countries, like Germany, were late in moving to a total war economy. Whereas the UK had fully moved to a war economy by 1941 Germany, the USA and the USSR had barely started. During 1941 the UK was supplying both the USA and the USSR. British tanks and aircraft were an important element in the Battle of Moscow.

In 1941 the UK was producing more fighter aircraft than the USA and Germany combined. Most of US military production during the 1941 - 1942 period was for British orders. The British also had to equip the USAAF 15th and 8th Air Force with modern fighter aircraft. The USAAF history clearly states that all US types were obselete in 1941 - 1942. The UK would have to take up the slack.

The UK's dominant role in WWII was because in the early phase, from 1940 - 1943, it was dominant in the air and at sea.

It takes years to develop production capacity and to design new weapons. It can't be just pulled out like rabbit out of the magicians hat.

Also take into account that the British controlled something 75% of the worlds merchant shipping and 90% of the troopship lift. In early 1942 Hawii was rapidly reinforced using the British troopship lift.

Looking at the UK's resource base in terms of what was available in the UK is misleading. Because of its naval dominance, both military and civil Britain had access to all the worlds resources and could move whatever it wanted wherever it wanted. This was decisive.

Britian strategy from the outset of WWII was dominate the air - sea dimension as it simply did not have the manpower to fight a large scale European war.

Germany's attack on Russia was largely driven by the need to acquire the necessary resources to fight a war of attrition with a power that effectively had access to unlimited resources.

Once Russia and the USA were involved the UK's manpower problem was solved - but it would take time for US and Soviet resources to be fully developed.

 

Actually Germany was much more along the way to a war economy than people think (see Wages of Destruction). The USSR on the other hand probably had their economy more on a wartime footing than anyone else.

What was the UK supplying to the US in 41 as far as war materials go? It was rather the other way around for most things wasn't it?
Please tell me how many modern fighters the British equipped the US with in 41. I'd be surprised if it's more than a two digit number.

As for USAAF fighters being obsolete, I don't know what "history" you are talking about but it is wrong at least for the ones in production.

The RN certainly dominated the Kriegsmarine for pretty much the entire war. The same can't be said of the IJN. Not sure I'd say the RAF was dominant in the air in 40 or 41 either.

Please list source for your claims on the percentages of merchant and troop ships controlled by the British and the number of British troop ships employed in reinforcing Hawaii. Indeed one source I found lists the British Empire as controlling 31.5% of the tonnage cargo ship wise in 1939 even adding in the fleets of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and France doesn't get them up to 60%.

 

The Soviets had 20,000 tanks of a lousy nature before the war that they lost, out of that 96,000. The US made 88,000 just during the war, not counting the thousands upon thousands of other vehicles, trucks, half-tracks, Tank Destroyers, self-propelled guns, etc.

 

Yeah, everybody has read Tooze, but not the Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, the Economic Blockade, The British War Economy or Grand Strategy.

Was the UK suppling the US in 1941? Was the USA at war?

I suggest you go read the USAAF official history on the establishment of the 8th Air Force in the UK to get a feeling for the miliatry relationship between the UK and US in 1942.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/I/AAF-I-17.html

The illusion of the US 'rescuing' the UK is an popular illusion in the US mind not reflected in the US official miliatry histories. . . . .


It will be readily apparent that in August 1942, while great progress had been made over the preceding six months toward the establishment


of a well-rounded American air organization in England, the Eighth Air Force remained heavily dependent upon the RAF. For some time yet, much of the heavy repair work on its engines, airframes, and propellers would be done by RAF No. 24 Maintenance Unit and by British workmen at Burtonwood, and all of the salvage work, of importance at a time when planes and spare parts were scarce, by RAF No. 43 Group.186 When because of the shortage of shipping and other difficulties AAF units arrived without their organic equipment and supplies, the RAF furnished hundreds of items--ammunition, bombs, vehicles, tools, spares, flying clothing ñ to supply the deficiencies. Again, when for the purpose at hand certain items of British equipment, for example, pyrotechnics, synthetic training devices, dinghies, and certain items of radio and electrical equipment, were found to be superior to that of the Americans, the British made their procurement possible. When unanticipated requirements for new equipment and new types of supplies arose from operational needs, the British provided them or assisted in securing their manufacture in the United Kingdom.187 In addition, the RAF continued to provide training as required for aircrews, ground crews, technicians, and other specialists