Who Is More to Blame for the British Policy Appeasement to Nazi Germany & the Lack of Prepardedness to Re-Arm, Neville Chamberlain or Stanley Baldwin?
36-40, FVIP
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LeopoldBloom · M
Chamberlain gets a bad rap. There was no way Britain was prepared to fight Germany in 1938.
beckyromero · 36-40, FVIP
@LeopoldBloom
I have to strongly disagree. Time was not an ally of the British or French. The gap favoring Germany grew as time passed. It only changed after the U.S. entry into the war.
But wIth Germany having to invade Czechoslovakia, this would have given the Poles time to fully mobilize and the invasion of Poland would have been delayed.
Germany had neither the aircraft nor the tanks needed to rout the French in 1938 as they did in 1940. Rearmament had built the army up to just 48 divisions by 1938, only 3 of which were panzers with another 4 that were motorized infantry. Nor was the quality or training up to its late 1939 standards.
The Kreigsmarine was in no way ready for war in 1938, either. Neither the battlecruiser Scharnhorst or Gneisenau was completed, nor were any of the heavy cruisers. The German navy had only the three "pocket" battleships, seven destroyers and a mere 7 U-boats. The Italians were even more vulnerable.
While the RAF had no modern fighter aircraft in production, the Luftwaffe had a mere 500 Messerschmitt Bf 109s with inexperienced pilots they were having high accident rates. They would have suffered high losses in a Czechoslovakia campaign, and the Luftwaffe wouldn't even be a major factor in a campaign against France, much less against Britain.
With Germany facing defeat and the Nazi regime in peril, the Japanese would have been facing nearly the entire strength of the Royal Navy and the U.S. and French fleets should it have still chosen to go to war against the Allies.
Nationalist China might then have become the biggest recipient, as the western Allies might then have seen China as a strong bulwark against communist expansion by the U.S.S.R.
Chamberlain gets a bad rap. There was no way Britain was prepared to fight Germany in 1938.
I have to strongly disagree. Time was not an ally of the British or French. The gap favoring Germany grew as time passed. It only changed after the U.S. entry into the war.
But wIth Germany having to invade Czechoslovakia, this would have given the Poles time to fully mobilize and the invasion of Poland would have been delayed.
Germany had neither the aircraft nor the tanks needed to rout the French in 1938 as they did in 1940. Rearmament had built the army up to just 48 divisions by 1938, only 3 of which were panzers with another 4 that were motorized infantry. Nor was the quality or training up to its late 1939 standards.
The Kreigsmarine was in no way ready for war in 1938, either. Neither the battlecruiser Scharnhorst or Gneisenau was completed, nor were any of the heavy cruisers. The German navy had only the three "pocket" battleships, seven destroyers and a mere 7 U-boats. The Italians were even more vulnerable.
While the RAF had no modern fighter aircraft in production, the Luftwaffe had a mere 500 Messerschmitt Bf 109s with inexperienced pilots they were having high accident rates. They would have suffered high losses in a Czechoslovakia campaign, and the Luftwaffe wouldn't even be a major factor in a campaign against France, much less against Britain.
With Germany facing defeat and the Nazi regime in peril, the Japanese would have been facing nearly the entire strength of the Royal Navy and the U.S. and French fleets should it have still chosen to go to war against the Allies.
Nationalist China might then have become the biggest recipient, as the western Allies might then have seen China as a strong bulwark against communist expansion by the U.S.S.R.