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icantfindaname posted:the US should have deposed Hirohito after the war and established a republic, and also starving them out instead of nukes was/should have been a viable option, if only to remove the victim narrative from postwar Japan: discuss Starvation and the Tulip Winter(?) was instrumental in the Inter-War German feeling of victimization.
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Dec 5, 2015 06:16
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Xae posted:Starvation and the Tulip Winter(?) was instrumental in the Inter-War German feeling of victimization. no, the lack of unconditional surrender / lack of understanding by the public that they good and truly lost, was much more important than any particular hardships. this is a myth made to apologize for the nazis icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 06:21
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Xae posted:Starvation and the Tulip Winter(?) Turnip Winter
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Dec 5, 2015 06:27
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icantfindaname posted:no, the lack of unconditional surrender / lack of understanding by the public that they good and truly lost, was much more important than any particular hardships. this is a myth made to apologize for the nazis No, you see, unconditional surrender and fifty years of occupation was more lenient than Versailles because
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Dec 5, 2015 06:57
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icantfindaname posted:the US should have deposed Hirohito after the war and established a republic, and also starving them out instead of nukes was/should have been a viable option, if only to remove the victim narrative from postwar Japan: discuss Is it completely immoral to consider the possible benefits that a practical demonstration of atomic power had on the eventual success of MAD?
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Dec 5, 2015 07:08
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:No, you see, unconditional surrender and fifty years of occupation was more lenient than Versailles because Because the West German economy wasn't gutted by reparations?
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Dec 5, 2015 07:09
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The Kingfish posted:Imperial Japan was brutalizing east Asia throughout the war, I don't remember the actual number killed per month, but it was posted in the Hiroshima thread. This didn't figure into the America's reasoning for dropping the bomb but ought to be considered when considering the morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not quite sure that starvation would have been more humane than a nuke anyway. i'm not saying it would have been The Kingfish posted:Because the West German economy wasn't gutted by reparations? neither was Weimar Germany's. you had hyperinfation early on because of, you know, the attempted Communist revolution and literal mass anarchy, but then things stabilized and the Allies basically waived the debt and Germany only actually paid a fraction of it. more apologia for the Nazis
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Dec 5, 2015 07:17
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:No, you see, unconditional surrender and fifty years of occupation was more lenient than Versailles because Because we invested billions of dollars rebuilding West Germany into a prosperous industrial power rather than stealing its resources and draining away as much cash as we could
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Dec 5, 2015 09:48
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The Kingfish posted:Imperial Japan was brutalizing east Asia throughout the war, I don't remember the actual number killed per month, but it was posted in the Hiroshima thread. This didn't figure into the America's reasoning for dropping the bomb but ought to be considered when considering the morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not quite sure that starvation would have been more humane than a nuke anyway. It did though in a general sense though. A lot of people talk about the specific body counts of a hypothetical invasion or whether one side knew about the atrocities of the other. But in general, the leaders of the world knew that what was unfolding around them was worldwide industrial violence on a historic scale (and shortly following WWI no less). No one had counted up the bodies yet, but no one was under the illusion that Japanese soldiers and Chinese civilians were just getting along fine over there. People know what war is. The bomb was message with that context in mind.
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Dec 5, 2015 15:47
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Rand alPaul posted:From what I've been able to gather from other WWII books, basically the French had really poor leadership, both militarily and politically, and that it relied too heavily upon the Maginot Line. They also split up their superior tanks into infantry support roles instead of massing them like Panzers. That's about it Yep. France between the wars was extremely politically unstable--The World At War (which is still one of the best general-purpose WW2 documentaries, and you should look up a copy) talks about how it was without a government on the day Hitler came to power, and again on the day he marched into Austria. On the military side, you've got all the points down, pretty much. France was strongly focused on the prior war and emphasized that this one must NOT be fought in France proper. Hence the use of the Maginot Line as a "shield" to counterpart the "sword" of the main army, which would advance into Belgium and then Germany. General Gamelin was in charge of the army in this period and, as mentioned, had his headquarters in a remote-rear end chateau which ludicrously did not have any kind of outside electric communication. No phones, no telegraph. Hourly motorcycle messengers were the way communications were upkept from the height of French High Command to its armies. Just completely nuts--even in WW1 that would have barely flown if at all, even considering how static the fronts were there.
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Dec 5, 2015 17:39
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icantfindaname posted:the US should have deposed Hirohito after the war and established a republic, and also starving them out instead of nukes was/should have been a viable option, if only to remove the victim narrative from postwar Japan: discuss The real issue was allowing the nationalists to jump right back into power as soon as the occupation ended, in the form of the Liberal Democratic Party. The Tennôsei is a major symbol for the Japanese right, but marginalizing them would have been equally useful. The Kingfish posted:Imperial Japan was brutalizing east Asia throughout the war, I don't remember the actual number killed per month, but it was posted in the Hiroshima thread. This didn't figure into the America's reasoning for dropping the bomb but ought to be considered when considering the morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not quite sure that starvation would have been more humane than a nuke anyway. MAD didn't "succeed", because it was an ad hoc notion to justify the nuclear arms race, and one that was essentially guaranteed to fail, whether through belief in defense systems overtaking belief in the bomber/missile always getting through, or through misinterpreted signals, or through technological failure. We're extremely lucky that no nuclear war was ever launched.
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Dec 5, 2015 17:53
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Redeye Flight posted:General Gamelin was in charge of the army in this period and, as mentioned, had his headquarters in a remote-rear end chateau which ludicrously did not have any kind of outside electric communication. No phones, no telegraph. Hourly motorcycle messengers were the way communications were upkept from the height of French High Command to its armies. Just completely nuts--even in WW1 that would have barely flown if at all, even considering how static the fronts were there. I'm not well-read on France's part of the war at all, so I'm asking, ...who gave this twerp command?
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Dec 5, 2015 17:55
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Wild Horses posted:I'm not well-read on France's part of the war at all, so I'm asking, It's a complex question. The three key figures in the Fall of France are Gamelin, Weygand, and Petain. All three were accoladed generals from the First World War--Gamelin was known in World War I as an exceptional tactician and also one of the few generals who didn't throw away men's lives for miniscule or no gain, Weygand was a key figure in the victory at Second Marne, and Petain was EXTREMELY critical in the victory at the notorious Battle of Verdun. However, politics also comes into play. Both the left and the right of France at the time were calling for regime change, either to better respond to Germany's fascism (the communists and the Popular Front) or to emulate it (the fascists, of course). Gamelin was an extremely staunch defender of republicanism, which was viewed by the French PM, Daladier, as crucial--since if the military had gone to either side it could have been the death of the Republic without a fight. So his appointment was partly prestige/reputation and partly political, and no-one noticed what a shitshow it was making the military into until it was too late. It's also important to remember that all these people are VERY old at this point--while they had been more dynamic in WWI Gamelin was 68 and Weygand was 73 in 1940. So they become more cautious with age, which hurts. Badly.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:03
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Hm, I might take to reading about that period then. I really liked reading Shattered Sword because of the in-depth look at the incompetence of the IJN. And the French had an (almost) even bigger melt-down it seems 
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Dec 5, 2015 18:09
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cheerfullydrab posted:Herein we talk about World War 2, an event many people believe was the hinge between the world of today and the world of yesterday. Are you handwaving Pearl Harbor away? As for the second question, probably yes, but with a shitload more bodies, which is a staggering thing to say considering what the Great Patriotic War was already like. cheerfullydrab posted:B:) Was America's dropping of the A-bomb necessary to win the war? Strictly speaking, it isn't necessary but I would argue that, compared to the absolute horror show that Operation Downfall would have been for both Allied troops and Japanese civilians, it was the least bloody way for the Americans to win. Really though, it's the combination of the A-Bomb and the Soviet invasion of the Sakhilin Islands that does it. Hell, even then junior officers of the IJA try a coup to prevent the surrender broadcast. cheerfullydrab posted:C:) Was the war in Northern Africa instrumental in defeating the Third Reich? How about Italy? It's a sideshow, but still a useful one. An Allied loss leads to the loss of the Suez Canal and the effective closure of the Med, which would make life hell for the Brits trying to supply anything in the Japanese theatre. cheerfullydrab posted:D:) Could the Japanese imaginary scenario for the summer of '42, their conceptions of the fleet actions around the Battle of Midway, have resulted in a sea battle that would have demoralized the USA into a negotiated settlement? Nope. American shipbuilding was insane. Even if Midway goes Japan's way, it's still only a matter of time before American industrial input overwhelms the IJN. I mean, holy hell, ye put out 141 carriers in five years. Admittedly a lot of them are CVEs, but still, 141 CARRIERS. cheerfullydrab posted:All of these are just extremely general prompts, do not let them stop you from debating which tank was best. Sherman all day every day. Quinntan fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 22:14
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While a lot of people deride the Maginot Line, it actually worked for it's intended purpose, which was to force the Germans to attack through the Low Countries. And that campaign was a lot closer than a lot of people think-- if the Germans hadn't had a little luck, they would have gotten bogged down.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:19
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-Troika- posted:While a lot of people deride the Maginot Line, it actually worked for it's intended purpose, which was to force the Germans to attack through the Low Countries. And that campaign was a lot closer than a lot of people think-- if the Germans hadn't had a little luck, they would have gotten bogged down. Again, I'll just repeat the question from the previous page, what's a good book that covers specifics of the run up to the war for France and the actual campaign? Like many of you, I've read a lot on the war, both at the macro and micro level, but France is always just glossed over. I'd love a detailed book that focuses on the years ~1936-1940.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:46
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SpitztheGreat posted:Again, I'll just repeat the question from the previous page, what's a good book that covers specifics of the run up to the war for France and the actual campaign? Like many of you, I've read a lot on the war, both at the macro and micro level, but France is always just glossed over. I'd love a detailed book that focuses on the years ~1936-1940.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:00
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third republic france is cool and gets poo poo on unfairly a lot by people supporting that bonapartist tyrant de gaulle
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Dec 6, 2015 00:05
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SpitztheGreat posted:Again, I'll just repeat the question from the previous page, what's a good book that covers specifics of the run up to the war for France and the actual campaign? Like many of you, I've read a lot on the war, both at the macro and micro level, but France is always just glossed over. I'd love a detailed book that focuses on the years ~1936-1940. The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy 1934–1938, The Politics of Depression France 1932–1936, both by Julian T. Jackson, and To Lose A Battle: France 1940, by Alistair Horne, if you've not read it yet.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:14
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Thanks for the recommendations. To Lose a Battle: France 1940, and the trilogy that it's a part of, sounds very interesting.
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Dec 6, 2015 01:25
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icantfindaname posted:third republic france is cool and gets poo poo on unfairly a lot by people supporting that bonapartist tyrant de gaulle De Gaulle trolled the gently caress out of the US and UK and thats a good thing
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Dec 6, 2015 01:45
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icantfindaname posted:i'm not saying it would have been They also got hit really bad by the crash because much of the German economy at the time was fuelled by American investment and loans which had allowed the German economy to recover fairly rapidly after the war, especially as what Germany actually did pay in reparations was covered by cheap American loans (roaring twenties and all that). American businessmen who were interested in investing in the German economy were among those most interested in waiving the reparations Germany paid, especially as Britain and France used those payments to pay back on the massive debts to the US that they had worked up during the war. The argument went that America was essentially paying itself. The Weimar Republic's government in recovering was tying itself economically to the United States and this brought quite alot of criticism from people like the Nazis and their sympathizers and those likeminded, who saw this as undignified and essentially as Germany giving up its economic independence and ending up, in their view, a mere satelite of the United States. Mixed into this was also a general distaste for international financial capitalism (which had deep roots in Germany, not owing much to socialism but more to traditionalism and the values of the Prussian aristocracy) and an emphasis on reviving the agricultural economy and protecting small business owners which resonated with both the conservative aristocrats and lower middle class small business owners of Germany.
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Dec 6, 2015 02:07
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Effectronica posted:Question D) is based on false premises, since it assumes a coherent Japanese strategy at the point of Midway, which didn't exist, and hadn't existed since Pearl Harbor was approved. I thought the strategy was lure the Americans away with a fake attack on the Aleutians, take Midway while they were distracted, then gently caress up the Americans when they immediately tried to steam to Midway's aid. Which is definitely A plan, not necessarily a good one.
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Dec 6, 2015 10:41
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SpitztheGreat posted:This! Years ago I was home from college during winter break and caught a show on the History Channel about the invasion of France (back when the History Channel was all Hitler-all the time) and was blown away at how good the episode was. It went into meticulous detail in regards to how the Germans advanced and the French attempts to counter. It was much more of a battle than the history books lead you to believe. Like Rand alPaul said, all we ever hear about the invasion is about how bad the French were and how the British escaped at Dunkirk. I chalk it up to the victors not wanting to discuss an embarrassment more than they have to. But I'm pretty sure that, in the summer of 1940, the world was pretty stunned by the collapse of France and it would be interesting to get a more detailed overview of what happened. Could be this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw1v8-itmWQ The World at War is probably the best WW2 documentary series ever, narrated by Sir Lawrence Olivier and featuring interviews with top people from both sides.
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Dec 6, 2015 14:49
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cheerfullydrab posted:I thought the strategy was lure the Americans away with a fake attack on the Aleutians, take Midway while they were distracted, then gently caress up the Americans when they immediately tried to steam to Midway's aid. Which is definitely A plan, not necessarily a good one. That's not a strategy. That's a set of operational goals. It's also not really correct. The Japanese planned to invade and hold the Aleutians and Midway. But there was no overall strategic goal, because the three targets of the operation have no coherent reason to all be targeted. Drawing out the U.S. Pacific Fleet and destroying it would be in line with the prewar plan, of causing enough damage to American fighting power to make a negotiated peace acceptable. Seizing Midway and the Aleutians, however, only made sense in light of a strategy aimed at forcing an American concession outright through seizure of territory, entirely opposite to the prewar strategy. A third nascent strategy lay behind the Battle of the Coral Sea, based around preventing the Americans from attacking in the Pacific by cutting off their supply lines to Australia and New Zealand, which occupied Shokaku and Zuikaku. Leaving aside the practical problems with these strategies, fighting a war according to three different approaches guarantees an enervating dispersal of strength. Of course, the practical problems with all of these are many. This lack of strategic coherence is entirely understandable given that Admiral Yamamoto and the Naval General Staff were largely at cross-purposes and the Navy and Army refused to coordinate with one another at all.
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Dec 6, 2015 15:57
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My favorite alternate history scenario of this period is a continuation and expansion of the Shanghai Ghetto with a subsequent refusal for repatriation of said jewish refugees. The Japanese created a colony of jews because they believed the propaganda that they had an almost magical ability to enrich their masters. They also believed in the infiltration propaganda, so they figured they could harness the force without being corrupted by jews by creating a little ghetto town of jewish immigrants from poland/germany. An influx of people who just had all of their property stripped from them was not a financially successful proposal nor did it produce magical jewish wealth, so they curtailed the project... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Ghetto Follow that with the draining of the mediterranean sea that the Germans were (not really) planning...
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Dec 6, 2015 16:47
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I'd repeat: if you're interested in WW2, and whether you know virtually nothing about it or have extensive knowledge, I'd locate and watch The World At War--there's a copy or two on Youtube, for instance. Made in 1972, it's widely regarded as one of if not the best documentary series on the war, particularly because of its incredibly extensive series of original interviews with surviving figures.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:49
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bitterandtwisted posted:Could be this? It is, I watched it last night, it goes over stuff like the French commander being in his chateau (which looks like a loving baller castle) with no communication links to the outside world. They talk a lot about defeatism in France, amongst citizens, government and in the military. They said, interestingly, that large numbers of French soldiers soldiers, without orders, threw down their guns and surrendered en masse to German troops. This was in the Low Countries I believe. e: Can anyone recommend some intro-level stuff about the inter-war years? Its a big subject I know, but very important. Bonus points for stuff outside western Europe, USSR and China in particular. Count Roland fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 23:36
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cheerfullydrab posted:I thought the strategy was lure the Americans away with a fake attack on the Aleutians, take Midway while they were distracted, then gently caress up the Americans when they immediately tried to steam to Midway's aid. Which is definitely A plan, not necessarily a good one. They were two separate offensives, not part of a trap. The USN was actually quite eager to engage the Japanese Carriers.
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Dec 7, 2015 01:08
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Martin Random posted:My favorite alternate history scenario of this period is a continuation and expansion of the Shanghai Ghetto with a subsequent refusal for repatriation of said jewish refugees. The Japanese created a colony of jews because they believed the propaganda that they had an almost magical ability to enrich their masters. They also believed in the infiltration propaganda, so they figured they could harness the force without being corrupted by jews by creating a little ghetto town of jewish immigrants from poland/germany. This is one of my favorite things to read about. When people who didn't grow up with the weird irrational European animus against Jews were exposed to the propaganda of money-loving Jews with an almost-magical ability to create wealth and control societies with it, they immediately did the logical thing: "let's get these guys to work for us!"
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Dec 7, 2015 01:43
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bitterandtwisted posted:Could be this? No, that is not it. It's been years since I've watched The World at War, but I knew it wasn't the episode you linked. The show that I was referencing was actually more in depth than the episode of of The World at War. It has been years though since I've seen it, so I can't be more specific than that. Thanks for linking it though, I rewatched the episode and it was very good.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:45
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Count Roland posted:It is, I watched it last night, it goes over stuff like the French commander being in his chateau (which looks like a loving baller castle) with no communication links to the outside world. They talk a lot about defeatism in France, amongst citizens, government and in the military. They said, interestingly, that large numbers of French soldiers soldiers, without orders, threw down their guns and surrendered en masse to German troops. This was in the Low Countries I believe. It's not really intro level, but The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze is a book covering the rise and fall of the German economy before the rise of the Nazis and during their time in power. It does a really great job of explaining the economic pressures that led to the Nazis coming to power and how the Nazi economic programs were unsustainable in the long run - essentially, Germany had to launch the war in 1939 otherwise there would be no more money for rearmament and the rest of Europe would have caught up to them. As for France it's hard to overstate how much WWI just broke France mentally and spiritually. There are stories of British generals finding French generals just in hysterics at the thought of German soldiers, this time under a worse government than before, on French soil for the second time in 20 years, and basically having to try to tell them to get a hold of themselves.
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Dec 7, 2015 17:21
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MikeCrotch posted:As for France it's hard to overstate how much WWI just broke France mentally and spiritually. There are stories of British generals finding French generals just in hysterics at the thought of German soldiers, this time under a worse government than before, on French soil for the second time in 20 years, and basically having to try to tell them to get a hold of themselves. The weakest part of the French Army was its High Command and its methodology. Its rather sadly ironic too considering the French pioneered mobile warfare but never bothered to follow through on their advances and regressed backwards tactics wise.
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Dec 7, 2015 17:29
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Effectronica posted:The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy 1934–1938, The Politics of Depression France 1932–1936, both by Julian T. Jackson, and To Lose A Battle: France 1940, by Alistair Horne, if you've not read it yet. Just about anything Horne wrote is worth reading; he's a engaging writer from a period where too many in the field were mired in the depths of new social history theory-wanking (not that that wasn't also needed, just that it makes for appallingly turgid writing). I'll add Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat; Bloc was a Great War veteran who got called up again in 1939, experiencing the various disasters of the Battle of France first-hand and writing about them all prior to getting clipped by the Gestapo for Resistance activities in 1944. Redeye Flight posted:It's a complex question. The three key figures in the Fall of France are Gamelin, Weygand, and Petain. All three were accoladed generals from the First World War--Gamelin was known in World War I as an exceptional tactician and also one of the few generals who didn't throw away men's lives for miniscule or no gain, Weygand was a key figure in the victory at Second Marne, and Petain was EXTREMELY critical in the victory at the notorious Battle of Verdun. I'll add to this since you talked mainly about Gamelin, there is also a the significant problem of Petain. A traditional conservative, Petain like many on the French right was contemptuous of his country's native fascists, viewing them rightly as knuckle-dragging goons unworthy of the glories of France, but viewed the left as the real existential threat (chiefly as he lumped them all in with the Bolsheviks). As such, and as with many on the French right whether fascist or old conservative (of whatever flavor) viewed defeat by Germany when it came as a chance at national rebirth and resurrection of old, imagined values which had been tossed aside in (variously) 1918, or 1848, or 1831, or even 1789 if we include the monarchists. As such, it's hardly surprising that Petain wasn't exactly champing at the bit to fight the Bosche to the death once more when at the 11th hour the Third Republic called him back from Spain (where unsurprisingly he'd gotten on swimmingly with Franco, another old conservative who was willing to stomach fascism as an alternative to anything left of center).
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Dec 7, 2015 22:41
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Between Hitler, Stalin, Japan's Unit 731 and treatment of China, and UK's treatment of India (and others), which were the most despicable countries overall? Churchill's body count from starving South Asia alone is mind-numbing.
ufarn fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 23:04
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ufarn posted:Between Hitler, Stalin, Japan's Unit 731 and treatment of China, and UK's treatment of India (and others), which were the most despicable countries overall? Churchill's body count from starving South Asia alone is mind-numbing. Have to say Unit 731.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:14
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ufarn posted:Between Hitler, Stalin, Japan's Unit 731 and treatment of China, and UK's treatment of India (and others), which were the most despicable countries overall? Churchill's body count from starving South Asia alone is mind-numbing. Hard to say. Every major power committed major crimes against humanity. They're not all equally, obviously. Japan and Germany launched aggressive wars, so they're going to bear the moral responsibility associated with not only their own actions but part of the actions of those they fought against. They also stand head and shoulders above the Allies in terms of scale and intent too. Anyone that familiar with Italian war crimes? It's probably not for lack of trying - and likely due to incompetence - that the Italians don't really have any war crimes to my knowledge that compare to Germany or Japan.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:19
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KaptainKrunk posted:Hard to say. Every major power committed major crimes against humanity. They're not all equally, obviously. Japan and Germany launched aggressive wars, so they're going to bear the moral responsibility associated with not only their own actions but part of the actions of those they fought against. They also stand head and shoulders above the Allies in terms of scale and intent too. Italy had a few concentration camps in Africa.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:20
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ufarn posted:Between Hitler, Stalin, Japan's Unit 731 and treatment of China, and UK's treatment of India (and others), which were the most despicable countries overall? Churchill's body count from starving South Asia alone is mind-numbing. Please do not put the Bengalese famine caused by incompetence that the british (incompetently) tried to battle on the same list as the loving holocaust and holodomor
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Dec 7, 2015 23:25
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