In hindsight can it be seen that Britain jumped the gun into Europe in declaring war in 1939-April 1940?

Question

In 1939 Hitler was intent East..not West.Was it possible that if we had not confronted him in September 1939-April 1940 (Phoney War) he would have attacked with a free hand into Russia and won.Thus giving him a lasting victory,peace in Europe and living room he needed.
We should have defended ourselves but not waged war.
We did in fact successfully defend GB
Our Empire would have been strong and Japan would not have seen the chance to attack.
Therefore in hindsight accepted we could have avoided WW2 and legacy we now inhabit.
Its just worth discussing...as it is a different way...War was NOT inevitable...it was waged
The enemy of my enemy is not MY friend in my book.
The double standards as history has been writen by the West since 1945 is obvious to me
1/Nazi Germany-Evil genocidal bastards to be totally wiped out with salivation
2/Mother Russia kindly occupiers.Uncle Joe...ahhh nice old grandfather

Thankyou for some great answers that have put me right on some things

Answer 1

In hindsight you may have a point.We were not fully prepared for war,due to the appeasement policies of Chamberlain's government.

Answer 2

I don't know where you get your history from. The mass of the American people did not regard Uncle Joe as kindly. FDR tried to use his famous charm on Stalin, with no effect whatsoever. Other than that, almost everyone realized that the alliance with Russia was temporary.
Germany declared war on the USA, so we did defend ourselves.
As for the issue of Poland, both Britain and France had signed defense treaties with her, and after the embarassing debacle at Munich both governments realized that appeasement wasn't working.
In WWI the German government had no territorial ambitions in the West, and it would have been better if Germany had won the war. WWII was a different story. You're wrong about Hitler despising the English - he despised the French though, and probably would have kept all the land the German army occupied in the blitzkrieg. WWII was inevitable because Hitler wanted it, and because the Japanese Empire wanted China, which all the European powers (and the USA) agreed could not be allowed.

Answer 3

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was a peace treaty that officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. It was signed exactly 5 years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the start of the war. Although the armistice signed on November 11, 1918 put an end to the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude a peace treaty. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial provisions required Germany to accept full responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231-248, disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Allies. The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1922 and was widely flouted by the mid thirties.

Answer 4

Only if you are either a pro-fascist history revisionist or from another planet.

You want to research your subject better. Hitler needed the resources and raw materials from western Europe to boost his military capabilities in taking on the East.

Why do thing that the first thing appropriated in taking over Holland, Belgium, France was the Armament producing capabilities as well as hugh amounts of foodstuffs.

Japan would still have mounted an offensive in the East because the British and Americans wrongly assumed that an Asiatic country were neither physically or mentally able to formulate a campaign against them.

And, by the time the Japanese version of the "Blitzkrieg" was underway the British would have never had the time to ship out to India the vast amount of military resources that it would require to stop the Japanese.

In regards to the Asian Campaign the British & Americans were caught with their trousers well and truly down around their ankles.While Joe Stalin was later proved to be as big as evil dictator to his own people and post war to the people of the communist block countries at the time he was accepted into the Allied Fold because the Allies needed time to build up men and materials to take on the Nazi War Machine.

Can you imagine how much more Allied effort and how much more supplies and how long the war would have gone on, for the Allies, if after the Russians pushed the Axis out of Soviet territory if they had just sat the rest of the war out on the various Russian borders??

There was a dream post war in various Soviet occupied countries that the Allies would come and Liberate them from the Soviets, but in all practicality that would have just started another massive round of blood letting which the Allies did not have the stomach for and is perfectly rationale with regards the western countries that had been fighting since 1939.

It also must be noted that the American effort and supplies even prior to Pearl Harbor were vital to the fight against the Fascist regimes of Nazi-Germany and Italy.

Answer 5

So you believe Hitler when he said "I have no more territorial ambitions in Europe"? Then why were his reconnaissance aircraft taking photographs of Swansea, in south Wales, years before war was declared (1936, if memory serves)? The fact is, Hitler was evil: I would rather be a member of a country that lost its Empire but maintained its moral honour, than one that kept its Empire but lost its moral honour.
Unfortunately the nation has forsaken this historic standard and descended into the morass of promiscuity and alcohol-and-drug-induced decay: the same sort of thing that destroyed Greece and Rome before us.

Edit: Graham H, we were forced by the US to break our Naval treaty with Japan: however, this was good, as Japan was already bellicose in its attitude toward Korea, China, Siberia and others. They desired an Empire like Britain's or France's, but were far less particular about the fate of the subject nations' populace. Hence the USA's decision to cut their oil quotas.

Answer 6

Unfortunatly, Hitler being the megalomaniac he was, it's unlikely he would have stopped with conquering the east. As far as Japan is concerned, they were our ally in WW1 and then we and the Americans limited their rights to free trade which bought about the attacks on Pearl Harbour and British colonies. So in a way the swcond world war could have been avoided by not crippling Germany under the Versailles Treaty (you can mainly thank the surrender monkeys of France there) and allowing Japan free trade (British and American corpotate greed).

Answer 7

Firstly, England & France obligated themselves to the defence of Poland, should it be attacked.
Secondly, Hitler did have designs on western Europe, fortunately for the world he rushed into the war he had planed 6 years before his generals knew they would be ready. Hitler had learned the lesson of WWI about attempting to fight a 2 front war.

Even if England had not gone to War in September '39, the germans would have still attacked France in 1940, and would have still attempted an invasion of England in '40-'41.
The entire pre-war preparation of the German navy bears this out, building comerce raider & submarines to strangle supplies into Britain, to force then english to surrended from seige, if it couldn't be accomplised from out right conquest.

The concept the Nazis were working under was to create a huge land empire in Asia, with the Imperal Japanese as the Eastern ally. This would have supplied both with more than enough resouces to wage a successful war on the Anglo-American alliance, which at the time dominated the world through controll of the high seas.

Answer 8

We did not Jump the gun at all. we had a treaty with Poland which stated that in the event of poland being invaded by any country, then we would fight to defend the country. When it seemmed that it was probable that Hitler would invade Poland, our Prime Minister at the time(Neville Chamberlain) went to Munich to hold talks with Hitler about his intentions. Hitler said that he would never invade Poland and signed a treaty to this effect. Chamberlain returned to Britain with this document signed by Hitler and his promise not to invade Poland. However, Hitler was playing for time, and did invade Poland. Chamberlain called in the German Ambassador and told him that Hitler has to withdraw his troops from poland within 24 hours and if he refused we would have to declare war on Germany under the conditions of the treaty we had with Poland. No reply was recieved from Hitler in Berlin that he would remove his troops and so we had no option but to go to war against Germany.

Answer 9

WHAT IF what if we had joined with Germany and took out the Russians and the Jews
no Jewish state for the Arabs to have a go at possibly we would still be running the Arab states so no problem with oil and no 9/11 7/7 and also we may not be a multicultural country that we are today just maybe it would have been a better world WHAT IF ?

Answer 10

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Answer 11

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