"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." Winston Churchill..
Posted on 08/14/2009 6:32:58 PM PDT by pissant
On Sunday, September 3, 1939 - 70 years ago next month - Britain declared war on Germany in fulfilment of its pledge to aid Poland, invaded by the Nazis. 'I know now that it will come to me to deal with Mr Hitler,' Winston Churchill told a cousin a few days earlier. He perceived his own hour of destiny at hand.
That same afternoon, he was summoned to Downing Street by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. For most of the decade Churchill had been a scourge of the Tory government. From 'the wilderness' of the Commons back benches, he denounced the folly of appeasing the dictators.
Only amid the crisis of war did his party overcome its bitter resentment to offer him office. He became once more First Lord of the Admiralty, the post he had occupied through the first year of World War I.
The early months of the greatest struggle in human history became known as the 'phoney war'. It seemed to many British people ridiculous and humiliating that though the country had committed itself to fight Hitler, it lacked the means to do so.
Poland was crushed in three weeks, without a French or British finger being lifted to save it. The two allies feared even to bomb Germany, lest they provoke devastating reprisals from the Luftwaffe.
On the Franco-German border, 94 French and nine British divisions confronted Hitler's army. But in neither Paris nor London was there the slightest will to launch an attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Even if Germany had prevailed over Europe, Russia would’ve taken down the quickly disintigrating Third Reich. The real divergence point would’ve been if we weren’t secretly supplying weapons and such to the Allies, which lead to Pearl Harbor, which lead to us developing the atomic bomb first. If Germany had developed it first, God only knows. Let’s face it, World War II spurred us to the golden era of America. I just think it had ALOT more to do with Eisenhower and Co. than it did with Churchill.
And he was a chief architect of the British socialized insurance. I think we can find better heroes.
Yep if the Luftwaffe could have mounted any kind of attacks on the beaches it would have been a slaughter
You are reading the wrong books.
The United States won the Second World War.
Britain and Her Empire made sure there was a war left to win.
The war would have gone very differently if the United States hadn't become a combatant - but if the United Kingdom and the British Empire hadn't held out until the end of 1941...
And that was where Churchill stood above all other leaders of his day.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."
If DDAY hadn’t of been a success and the V2 sites put out of commission England would have been toast
Imagine what it would have been if the V2s could have been dropped on the port cities where the invasion was being prepared
There was NO defense against them
Indeed. If the German leadership wasn’t completely disjointed (not to mention Hitler being out of his mind and drugged up by then) their superior military hardware would’ve been damn near unstoppable. It is still incredible to me that we defeated them, which says a TON about the greatest generation.
I like Winston Churchill.
That said I have always thought it odd they criticize us for ‘coming late’ yet saving their butts. I guess there will always be a tinge of resentment for the First American Revolution.
(PS in the second one, the UK has nothing to do with it.)
"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." Winston Churchill..
He stood up to totalitarians when no one else would just like today.
He fought Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. I would say the true measure of a man is not only by the company he keeps but also the enemies he chooses to defy.
By that standard Churchill is the greatest of men.
Now we have a president who embraces dictators and curses Churchill.
We should never forget that.
But without Churchill, Britain would have become one among many client states of Nazi Germany. History from 1940 onward would have been completely different; we would have fought the Japanese, but I doubt we would have fought in Europe.
Churchill was undoubtedly one of the key figures of history.
He would have, but over the protests of the generals in Africa, he kept sucking troops out from under them for other no-hope campaigns. The military was pretty bitter about it. Had they knocked Rommel out then, there would have been no need for the Americans to go in there. At least it gave them some experience, especially at Kasserine Pass, which prepared them for the Italian campaign.
and Hitler decided NOT to invade Russia? Russia was where Hitler lost WW2.
Agree there. The two greatest blunders of his were invading Russia and declaring war on America. Roosevelt wanted to get us into the European war so bad he was drooling. I suspect he fell to his knees in thanks when Hitler did that when he didn't have to, otherwise the pressure would have been on to take out the Japs first. (From what I read, Hitler was probably sucking up to Japan in hopes they'd attack the Russians.)
Lots of "What ifs?", and as you say, 20-20 is extremely acute looking in the rear mirror. Plenty of screw-ups on both sides (Don't get me started about MacArthur in the Philippines.) but Churchill overrode good counsel time and again.
>Yup, Gallipoli, an unmitigated disaster!
>The sea at your immediate rear,
Churchill’s plan was for a Naval only attack and even this was bungled by the military which seemed unable to plan and execute anything competently. WWI has many shocking examples of British military incometence.
1. HMS Centurion was only a year old. 26,000 tons 10 13.5" guns 21 knots. Needless to say it was kept in home waters to face the German battleship squadrons.
2, The RN cruisers on the South American Station were themselves "slow, antiquated", with no hope of matching the more modern German Cruisers they were facing.
3. It was Admiral Craddock's own decision to not take the old battleship HMS Canopus to support his cruisers that ensured their defeat.
2, The RN cruisers on the South American Station were themselves "slow, antiquated", with no hope of matching the more modern German Cruisers they were facing.
Two were antiquated, one having two 9" guns and the rest 6 inchers against the German's 4.2", plus they were all rated at 23-25 knots, the Canopus at 14 and the armed liner at 14 which was what slowed them down. They held their own against the German cruisers but got pounded by the German armored cruisers' 16 8 inchers.
3. It was Admiral Craddock's own decision to not take the old battleship HMS Canopus to support his cruisers that ensured their defeat.
Wiki says she hadn't arrived before the battle took place, but I thought she was there - just too slow to keep up. It was there that Churchill called her "a veritable citadel" for the cruisers to rally around. The two older cruisers' crews were new recruits and/or raw home guard types, which didn't help when facing the crack German Asiatic Fleet crews.
Lots of blame to go around, and it seems we didn't learn either - sending up our antiquated four-pipers and one modern heavy cruiser against the Japs steamrolling their way down through Java.
Discounting the armed liner HMS Ortanto, HMS Glascow was a protected cruiser, her only armour being a waterline deck keeping machinery and magazines safe, everything above the waterline was unarmoured. Such ships might stand up to a single hit but were not expected to slug it out, their job being to show the flag and impress the natives on foreign stations or to scout for more battle capable ships.
Basicalkly it came down to the Armoured Cruisers, HMS Good Hope was antiquated with only two heavy guns; HMS Monmouth was a relic of the not very well thought out idea of the "not quite first rate" smaller cheaper armoured cruiser with only 6" guns and a 4" armoured belt.
With no hope of matching the German ships, Cradock should have attempted to track and shepherd them onto the guns of the battleship. It's what Churchill and the Admiralty expected him to do, and how Admiral Fraser sank a later Scharnhorst off North Cape 30 years later.
Instead Cradock tried a Hail Mary.
I don’t think the whole of Europe under Soviet domination would have been much of an improvement.
IMO there were valid reasons for attacking via Sicily, Italy and the Med.
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