I have a question about World War II.

A conversation with a relative. | 01/01/04 | Me

[Rollee]

Happy New Year to All FReepers. I have a question: did Winston Churchill start World War II? If so, how did he do it? I ask because of a conversation/argument with a relative. This person stated that Winston Churchill started World War II, and the US had to get involved because of a connection with Pearl Harbor and Japan. I am a bit confused about this. Please clear this up, oh wise FReepers. Thank you in advance.

[Rollee]

I hope this is posted properly. Please make any changes you see fit, Admin. Mod.

[SteveH]

IRC a theory which I believe is related in "The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve," by G. Edward Griffin, holds that FDR and Churchill had become acquainted with each other and participated in similar skulduggery during WWI (arranging the Lusitania disaster). During WWII (so the stories go, again IIRC) FDR and Churchill met on board a destroyer in the mid-Atlantic some time prior to Pearl Harbor. FDR then arranged for Pearl Harbor to be attacked, per "At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor," by Gordon William Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon.

There may be several variations of the story out there. I'm just giving some pointers to some specific examples.

[Mike Darancette]

This person stated that Winston Churchill started World War II, and the US had to get involved because of a connection with Pearl Harbor and Japan.

This person is a moron. Adolf Hitler started WWII.

[ex-snook]

Here's my recollection. Hitler invaded neighbor countries partly to restore Germany prestige after defeat in WW I and its reparations and partly to become a world power, even joining Russia in a non-aggression pact.

Churchill had a pact to defend Poland and when Hitler attacked Poland on one side, Russia attacked Poland from the other. England declared war on Germany.

After the war ended Churchill then proceeded to give Poland over to Russian control. So much for defending Poland.

Can't blame Churchill. WW II started from the ashes of WW I. Hitler grew from these ashes. Part of those ashes was the English desire not to see a competitor on the continent. I think it bothers them again today.

[SamAdams76]

I don't really understand where your relative is coming from because he/she is way off base.

In fact, if people had listened to Winston Churchill during the 1930s, WW2 could have been avoided altogether. During those years, Churchill warned of the dangers of Adolph Hitler while Britain and France worked to appease him. Had Hitler been challenged from the beginning, he would almost certainly have fallen from power as his own generals, also frightened of Hitler's growing power and atrocities, were looking to stage a coup at the first opportunity. But Britain and France continued to hand Hitler victory after bloodless victory in the name of appeasement, strengthening Hitler's position in Germany and weakening those who could have deposed him. They stood aside as Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, occupied Austria and then they (Britain and France) cut a deal to hand Hitler a piece of Czechoslovakia in the pathetic hope that Hitler would be satisfied with that (in less than six months, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist entirely thanks to Hitler's internal machinations and manipulations).

So I don't really understand where your relative is coming from at all. As it was, Churchill, who was made Prime Minister after the Germans invaded Poland, almost singlehandedly saved Britain from Nazi domination. I can't imagine any other Prime Minister having the strength and will to pull Britain together to face down the German war machine virtually all alone. Almost any other man would have negotiated a peace with Hitler, which would have greatly altered the course of history as we know it.

[ex-snook]

And on your point about the USA. Germany had a pact with Japan and when we declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on us first. Those are the visible facts. I don't know about all the intriques but Roosevelt was a master and, no doubt, wanted in.

[Rollee]

Thank you. Your account is what I understood it to be. The relative is my father, who grew up in Ireland. He looks at everything through a very anti-British, anti-Republican and to a certain degree, anti-American lens. We have interesting "conversations", to say the least. I was astounded at this one, and knew I could get the facts through my wise FReeper friends.

It is hard to argue with an 82 year old man, but it doesn't take much to get the fire going. My comment today was that I hated hilary clinton and that I think she is a communist. We ended up with Winston Churchill starting World War II.

I have a theory that the history books in Ireland were written in Mars by anglophobes.

[Rollee]

I always thought it was hitler. My relative has unusual ideas about things. He and I have never agreed on history or politics. It is astounding to me that his version of history is so out there, yet I am told I am wrong.

[Rollee]

I have always been interested in Roosevelt, and will spend time reading about his administration during this year. My in laws think he is a saint for his "new deal". Those policies sound like a raw deal to me. His actions during WWII are fascinating. Thank you very much for your input.

[Old Sarge]

Oh, JEEZ!

First off, how old is your relative?!? A Revisionist History major at Berkeley?

SEP 1939 - Nazi Germany invades Poland, strting WW2. Britain and France declare war days later, fulfilling treaty obligations with Poland.

1940 - US President Roosevelt and British PM Churchill meet on board USS Augusta, signing the accords for the Lend-Lease program, bolstering British war strength.

Here's where I started laughing: the US had to get involved because of a connection with Pearl Harbor and Japan.

Japan ATTACKS Pearl Harbor, and the relative calls it "a connection"?!? BAHAAHAAAAA!!

Also, mention that on 08 DEC 41, GERMANY declared war on the US, because of the Axis Treaty obligations with Japan. A U-boat squadron operates in the south Pacific for, I think, one year, but that's the extent of German aid to their ally.

[Consort]

The absence of preemption and the presence of appeasement caused WWII.

[Rollee]

Hi, Old Sarge. The relative is my 82 year old dad. I didn't want to say who it was in my post because I wanted people to be comfortable with their replies. I appreciate yours. I don't understand why he thinks the way he does but he was brought up in Ireland and they are kind of lefty over there. It's hard for me to understand the thinking, I'm groping for answers.

It's difficult for me to have a conversation about politics and now, history, with him because he does not tolerate disagreement of his version of "history". I feel very disrespectful every time I open my mouth.

Once again, wise FReepers have helped me deal with a disagreeable, astounding conversation.

[Rollee]

The absence of preemption and the presence of appeasement caused WWII.

That's what the dems wanted us to do this time around. All I can say is THANK GOD for a president with a spine.

[squidly]

Churchill fought (often in vain) against Chamberlain throughout the thirties in an effort to strengthen the British military, but he certainly did not start the war. He just happened to see it coming, where many did not, and desired that Britain be more prepared for it.

[Jeff Chandler]

Not directly. You see, WWII was really an outgrowth of WWI, which began when the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was shot by Winston Churchill as the Archduke's carriage was passing by the Grassy Knoll in downtown Sarajevo.

[metalboy]

Appeasement started WW2.

[SteveH]

The relative is my father, who grew up in Ireland.

The Lusitania sank off of Ireland.

Another book for bedtime reading is "Lusitania," by Colin Simpson.

BTW, the last time I checked (a year or so ago) the government had placed strict restrictions on diving around the wreck.

Also, I am told that every knoll in Ireland is in fact "grassy."

;-)

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Ireland. That's the key.

There are many Irish--like my Grandmother--to whom the British are devils, and Churchill Satan himself.

It is derived from Winston's ugliest moment: he created a terrorist force--the Black & Tans--who carried out "counterinsurgency strikes" against helpless civilians in Ireland to counter Irish independenist insurgency strikes against British government officials in Ireland in 1918-1922. He hired the scum of the British Army from the trenches to go back to their chosen profession, and they were Hell on poor innocent people.

A lot of people have stupid grievances against ol' Winston, like the British labor movement, who chant the word "Tonypandy" to themselves as if Churchill had wiped the town out, instead of restored order to rioters there (as he did in 1910).

But not the Irish. That was one of his major "Duh" moments and the B&T's raped and murdered hundreds of people before they were withdrawn. I'm a big fan of Winston, but he did a few things that were monstrous. And the B&T's top the list.

That probably explains yer father's hatred of the man.

[Johnny Gage]

A ping to the resident war scholars

: )

[SAMWolf]

If he means Churchill "started" WWII by stopping the appeasement of Hitler by getting England to declare war on Germany after Hitler invaded Poland then yes Churchill "started" WWII. HE could have let Hitler and Russia overrun Poland and done nothing, then the war would have been a local conflict.

SamAdams76 and ex-snook have it right. WWII was a continuation of WWI. Read "The Origins of the Second World War" by A J P Taylor for a pretty good study of the causes. It's not a very long book and the author makes some interesting points.

Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War written between 1957-61 proved to be vastly controversial. It challenged the then accepted view that Hitler had been an uniquely evil plotter of war by presenting a view of Hitler as an opportunist, who had enjoyed much popular support in Germany and Austria. Hitler's pushed for various reforms of diverse aspects of the peace settlement to the First World War hoping to secure concessions that would be satisfactory to Germanic sentiment.

When he came to power, Hitler inherited vast potential. By the twentieth century Germany's large population and industrial might gave the country a natural pre-eminence in west-central Europe, and the Versailles settlement of 1919 was an artificial absurdity that was bound to unravel. This unraveling could have been done rationally, as in the early stages of British and French appeasement over the Rhineland, Germany's anschluss with Austria, and so on; but after Munich, in 1938, it was increasingly bungled. Having appeased Berlin over more-contestable territorial issues, the British changed their stance and decided to fight over Danzig and the Polish Corridor, where the German case for revision was stronger. The result, Taylor maintained, was a war in Europe that nobody wanted and that personally dismayed Hitler. World War II was simply an accident: Hitler never imagined that the democracies would actually go to war over Poland, especially because London and Paris could do almost nothing to defend the Poles. Great Britain and France had in the past vacillated between policies of appeasement and resistance.

Taylor's own statements such as "in principle and doctrine, Hitler was no more wicked and unscrupulous than many a contemporary statesman" outraged very many people who thought of the racial imperialism, and of the death camps, that had been evident in the Second World War as being monstrously evil.
Taylor does however say of Hitler that "in wicked acts he outdid them all."

Fellow historian Hugh Trevor-Roper--Taylor's antagonist in the fierce debates over Hitler that roiled the intellectual world after Origins was published--once remarked, "The sad fact is that Taylor is really too independent to have any support from any Establishment." Taylor managed to annoy just about everybody in the British historical profession, and his interpretive daring, while sometimes strikingly original, often seemed willfully perverse to his peers and colleagues.

Taylor's initially 'outrageous' revisionism was increasingly, but not fully, accepted by British historians and by a majority amongst the rising generation of German historians.