The most crucial battle of world war 2?

Question

Which of the following do you think was the most crucial battle?
ie, if the Allies would have lost then they would have lost the war. Sorry, but i'm only concentrating on war against Germany and its European allies and not Japan.

Battle of Britain
Battle of the Atlantic
Defence of Moscow 1941-1942
Stalingrad
El Alamein
Kursk

I didn't consider D-day, and battle of the bulge, because i thought Germany was already well on the way to defeat at that time.

Answer 1

Without a doubt, the Battle of Stalingrad. The destruction of the 6th Army under Von Paulus set in motion a sequence of events from which the Germans never recovered. The Wehrmacht lost between 700,000 and 850,000 men at Stalingrad, roughly a quarter of their entire strength on the Eastern Front. Even more significant was the blow to German morale, both in the field and at home. The once invincible Army Group South was effectively destroyed, causing a complete realignment of German forces in Russia. Divisions that were being utilized in other theaters now had to be shifted southward to stop the impending Soviet advance. After this defeat, the Germans never really regained the offensive in Russia. The Battle of Kursk, while noteworthy, only hastened an outcome that was pretty much inevitable after Stalingrad.

Answer 2

When I pulled up this question, I didn't intend to answer because 19 people already had. But then I scanned what they wrote, and couldn't believe my eyes. NOBODY had the right answer.

Hands down, STALINGRAD was the most crucial battle of the war.

That was the turning point of the war. That's where the Germans were stopped. After Stalingrad, the Germans were on the defensive, and in the end, they were defeated more by the Russians than by the Western Allies. Arguably, WWII was decided at Stalingrad. Consider: If Stalingrad had fallen, then the Soviets are defeated, and Germany may well have won the war. That's why it was so important.

Think about how many troops were committed to the eastern and western fronts by the Germans. Look at the casualties in the east and in the west. By all measures, Stalingrad was most important.

After Stalingrad, the Red Army took the offensive, and a very strong offensive it was -- much more powerful than the American and British drive through France.

Several others have written about the Battle of Britain. Indeed, that was important -- mainly because Britain later became the staging area for the Normandy invasion. But even if the Luftwaffe had complete control of the skies over England, Hitler still did not have a cross-channel invasion fleet.

The Battle of the Atlantic was also very important, for keeping the trans-Atlantic supply line open, and it, too, facilitated the American entry into the war.

But none of these come close in importance to Stalingrad because if Stalingrad falls, Russia falls, and arguably, Germany wins the war. Conversely, after Stalingrad, it was the Red Army, more so than the Americans and Brits, that defeated Germany.

Answer 3

The battle that changed the course of the war was Stalingrad, definitely. But, if you mean what of those battles, if lost by the allies would have had the greatest impact, then my answer is Battle of Britain. With the British knocked out, America wouldn't have entered the war, and Germany would be free to concentrate all its firepower on the eastern front, against USSR, and totally safe from air raids over their industries and communications and safe form the constant menace of invasion by the Allies on the European mainland. It would be now a war between a European dominant Germany and USSR. Could then the Soviets resist the German invasion and counterattack?? That's a tough question. Probably this war in the eastern- and therefore ONLY front- would have lasted much more, and in the end it might have finished in a kind of truce, much alike the Korean War, but with Germany holding a great deal of western USSR.

Answer 4

Extremely hacked off. Computer went into a loop when I had virtually finished a long and exhaustive answer to this question - however.

Battle of Britain - no. The reason Germany did not invade Britain was that they neither had the materiel resources, nor the man power, to achieve a victory. One merely has to look at the men and materiels the Allies had to commit to D-Day to realise this, and D-Day and the subsequent Normandy Campaign was a very close run thing. If Hitler had released the Panzer Divisions available to fight closer to the landing beaches things could have been very different. The main factor, other than materiel and troops, which prevented the Germans from invading was the Royal Navy. Without control of the North Sea and Channel any invasion was inconceivable.

El Alamein and the entire North African Campaign was a side show. The Germans didn't even want to be there and only became involved to help Mussolini to save face.

The War on the Eastern Front was crucial to the Allies ultimate success, in that it acted as a drain on German resources and tied up millions of Axis troops who could have been deployed in other theatres, however it is debatable if any of the Battles/Actions listed would have been successful, or even taken place, had it not been for the materiel aid the Russians received via the Artic Convoys, which gave the Russians the breathing space and support required to enable them to move their munitions and armaments production further East, out of range of the Luftwaffe and German intelligence gathering activities.

The supply of materiels carried by the Artic Convoys to the Russians was made possible by the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. Although many of the war materiels were manufactured in the UK, raw materiels and escort destroyers, enabling the Atlantic convoy system to be successful, were made available to the UK by the US of A and Canada. I therefore contend that without victory in The Battle of the Atlantic, all other theatres of war in Europe would have proved academic. Simplistic though this arguement is, and I agree there are many other inter-related and influencing factors, I believe it does have more than a germ of truth in it.

Answer 5

Wow - tough question.

All of those that you list were crucial in their own way as turning points in the war, but I would have to vote for the Battle of Britain for the following reasons,

1. The USA had not yet entered the war and, had the battle been lost, would have been unlikely to come to the aid of the Allies and would have probably fought in the Pacific arena only.

2. If the Battle of Britain had been lost, then Hitler would have invaded Britain and the entire course of European history would have changed.

3. If Britain had been occupied there would have been no territory close enough to Europe for the Allies to use as a springboard to reinvade the continent and push back the Germans.

4. Even if a suitable territory had been found from where to launch the counter-offensive, it would have been enormously difficult to maintain the air support and supply chains necessary to keep the front moving forward.

5. Britain was a strategically crucial territory for the Allies and the loss of Britain would probably have meant the loss of the war to Germany. With the Western front secure following an invasion of Britain, Hitler could have turned his full resources back to the Eastern front and continued to push into Russia, and down to the Middle East to consolidate control of the oil resources.

Answer 6

I don't think any of the battles you listed would have determined the outcome of the war in Germany's favor in the same way that the Battle of Midway in June of 1942, a mere six months after Pearl Harbor, permanently turned the tide of the Pacific War against Japan when they lost in a single battle six of the eight carriers that launched the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Naval Command concluded that it would take until 1946 to replace them.

The one battle of the European Theater that might have turned the tide in Germany's favor at least temporarily, under circumstances where the added time could have made them much more diifficult to defeat because of their progress in the development of jet fighter aircraft (particularly the Messerschmitt Me 262) and a nuclear bomb, was the Battle of the Bulge, where Germany counterattacked through the Ardennes, at Christmas 1944, and came very close to breaking through to its objective of Antwerp.

Answer 7

I fully agree -- by D-Day Germany was well on the way to defeat, which made the Battle of the Bulge exactly what it turned into -- a last-ditch effort by Hitler to maybe pull a rabbit out of the hat.

I would link as the most important battles the Battle of Britain (air war) and the Battle of the Atlantic (unrestricted sub warfare) for this reason -- if Germany had won these battles, or even one of them, England would probably have fallen. This would have freed up more resources for the fight against the Soviets and they would have tumbled. It would have made it harder for us to invade Fortress Europe and Germany may well have won.

Don't you just love historical 'what ifs?' I know I do.

Answer 8

I agree with the respondents who support the Battle of Britain and Stalingrad- both equally important because they prevented Hitler gaining a straanglehold.
However, I would throw another variable into the equation and nominate the battle for Caen. Shortly after D-day the germans massed armour, artillery and infantry in the city and stalled the Allied advance. The fighting both in and around Caen was both bitter and costly for both sides with the Allies finally by-passing the City and forcing defeat. Caen is quite rightly referred to as "The Anvil of Victory".

Answer 9

*not* the Battle of Britain. Even if Germany had wiped out Britain's airpower, it still would need to move its forces across the Channel and sustain a fighting army over there. The Royal Navy was far from defeated too at the time.

Answer 10

The real question, between the lines, is more involved than it seems but I think, if you approach it on the idea that it would be the battle that stopped the outward expansion in each theatre.

But that's where the easy part stops. Now, considering that both Germany and Japan were expanding outward in all directions, you'd have to list what stopped each IN EACH DIRECTION. Think of each as an expanding circle.

Easy to say that Midway stopped Japan from overrunning Hawaii, etc, etc, but what turned the tide on Japan's western side (China, Mongolia)? Mostly, Japan couldn't stretch out any further and maintain supply lines is what stopped them to the south. But Leyte Gulf and the invasion turned the tide on that side.

Following the same logic, the air Battle of Britain stopped Germany from expanding any further west, Stalingrad deflated their eastern expansion and El Alemain stopped them in Africa. But what stopped / pushed them out of Greece and stopped / pushed them out of Scandinavia?