tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post6564663704830485851..comments2024-02-27T02:19:19.667-08:00Comments on rethinking history: "Britain's War Machine" and recent British portrayals of their own role in World War TwoNigel Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-33383671746678146342013-10-04T01:10:55.505-07:002013-10-04T01:10:55.505-07:00The 115,000 replacements were just those in traini...The 115,000 replacements were just those in training schools. They do not include the formed divisions that had been allocated for transfer to the Far East from either Britain or the Middle East that might have been used in europe instead. <br /><br />Nonetheless I believe that the British hierarchy were rightly worried that too many too valuable men were still being expended as infantry at a time when the Americans, French, Indians etc had millions of spare underemployed unskilled labour still sitting around waiting shipping. <br /><br />Quite seriously Britain had to choose between men in factories or in trenches, whereas there were many millions of men available elsewhere to sit in trenches. 'Scraping the bottom of the barrel' is more about not wanting to drain more resources from industry than not having any men left. (By contrast, Russia was at the point of mass conscripting women for combat roles to keep enough skilled male workers around to make her factories run.)<br /><br />On your second point, Churchill had to keep rethinking what could be arranged due to Roosevelt undermining the previous arrangements (see the 'Percentages' deal Churchill and Stalin initialed over the Balkans early in the war which Roosevelt threw out; the British plans for more intervention in the Balkans which Roosevelt blocked - except for Greece fortunately for them; the early 'arrangements' over post war Poland which Roosevelt undermined; etc.)<br /><br />I do not definitely know if the Russians would have been any easier to deal with if Stalin had dealt just with Churchill rather than being able to play Roosevelt off against Churchill, but I do know that Stalin revelled in the game that resulted.<br /><br />I also suspect that Germany would have surrendered a lot earlier, while the various armies were a lot further from German heartlands, and attempted a much better deal that gave more to the west and less to the east, if not for the words 'unconditional surrender'. (Have a look at how many German generals wanted to move the whole army east and let the Allies advance as fast as possible in the West.) <br /><br />I have no idea how different the world would have looked with Allied troops entering Yugoslavia and invading Trieste or moving into Austria and Czechoslovakia while the Russians were still in Poland, but I do note that the speed of Soviet advance was very very reliant on Allied supplies (particularly American trucks supplied by British ships).Nigel Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-81860612299623025952013-10-02T16:18:34.116-07:002013-10-02T16:18:34.116-07:00Thanks for the reply. I was aware of the shipping ...Thanks for the reply. I was aware of the shipping issues but not of the fact there were half a dozen replacement divisions sitting in England. There were so many "scraping the barrel" comments from WSC, Monty, Brooke at the time ... as you say perhaps there was some "throttling back" going on - after all there were hopes the war would be over by xmas 44 and there were real problems of the economic transition to peacetime to consider.<br /><br />The post war boundaries are interesting. I always thought Churchill believed the Yalta boundaries et al would be a good deal given his assumption that the Red Army would likely push much farther west than it actually did. As it turned out the Western Allies could've had a good deal more of Germany if those deals had not been made and it had just been a race for land grab - Western armies really sprinted west late war. My impression was that Churchill wanted these early deals to lock in certain goals given the apparent roll the Red Army was on, whereas FDR would've been happy to let things play out - he had a habit of not wanting to make up his mind on most issues until the last possible moment.DB23noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-91181938960294766022013-09-26T21:15:09.669-07:002013-09-26T21:15:09.669-07:00Dear DB23
good points. A couple of comments (some...Dear DB23<br /><br />good points. A couple of comments (some just stirring the pot).<br /><br />Recent research has made clear that the British army had 115,000 trained infantry replacements available in the UK at the point when they were reducing units in Europe. Not using them was clearly a combination military/political decision. There are various considerations that might have played a part...<br /><br />1. The (not impossible) hope that Germany was going to collapse before Christmas.<br />2. Conserving manpower for a war that was expected to go another 2 years in Asia.<br />3. Letting other people (Americans and French for instance) take some of the load/casualties for a change.<br />4. Planning to move Britain's effort back from the footslogger focus that had been forced on them in 1940-43 to the 'produce and let others fight' model that had been used more historically.<br />5. British Labour working towards starting postwar reconstruction before war had finished.<br />6. All of the above.<br /><br />On the point of the Empire not providing troops, the British were responsible for moving 80-100,000 American troops per month across the Atlantic in 1944-5, and about the same British troops to India or the Middle East and French troops from North Africa to Italy or France. The fact that they were not moving British Indian or African troops to Europe does not imply that such troops could not be available. More that there was no point raising more troops if you can't ship them to where they are needed. (See the decision to stop expanding the Indian army because there were more troops than could be used.)<br /><br />Could American manpower have been replaced with French, Italian, African, Indian manpower? Perhaps. This goes back to whether the US too might have been more useful as an arsenal of democracy than providing footsloggers. (See point 4 above.)<br /><br />This last also raises the issue of postwar settlement. As a cynical exercise I will suggest that Churchill's deals with Stalin over Eastern European 'zones of influence' would have held better without Roosevelt's interference. (As would Allied intervention in Greece, the Balkans, the Adriatic, Austria, Czechoslovakia... in fact the same might be said about postwar boundaries without Roosevelt, Marshall and Eisenhower stuffing them up?)<br /><br />Could American munitions equipping French/Italian/Indian/African troops have provided adequate manpower to invade France? Probably. Would the Germans have been more willing to surrender to the Allies while concentrating on holding the Soviets back if some idiot (Roosevelt) wasn't talking about 'unconditional surrender'? Definitely. Would the eventual boundaries have possibly been more favourable to the west than less? Well that's a fun question isn't it?Nigel Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-73289515401164792292013-09-26T20:49:50.960-07:002013-09-26T20:49:50.960-07:00On problems of production versus efficiency, I hav...On problems of production versus efficiency, I have long noted that the US production figures include tens of thousands of obsolete aircraft, many of which appear to have never been uncrated, or even to have left the warehouses.<br /><br />This could be an issue similar to the British responding to the invasion threat by putting off the introduction of the 6pdr for over a year to concentrate on more 2pdr's. (Or even worse, abandoning new designs like the Westland Whirlwind - Britain's version of the P38 Lightning - which had similar initial problems and slow development needs which it unfortunately did not get).<br /><br />The US initial rush to production not only meant producing thousands of items that were effectively not worth shipping overseas when better stuff was available for the limited shipping space available by the time they were ready, but also a tendency to keep producing out of date equipment when it clearly needed replacing by something better earlier. The Sherman tank for instance.<br /><br />Britain reduced its tank development because Sherman's were so easily available, and regretted it. The Centurion and Pershing should have been ready to be used post D-Day, not Cromwell's and Shermans (even compromise versions with 17pdr's squeezed in).<br /><br />But note that he USSR was apparently better at upgrading its production lines as it went than either the British or Americans.Nigel Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-60272117310750564712013-09-24T04:05:42.047-07:002013-09-24T04:05:42.047-07:00Hi Nigel
Thanks for your response. I certainly w...Hi Nigel<br /><br />Thanks for your response. I certainly wouldn't deny that there was a considerable waste of effort involved in British war production, but it seems relatively less than in the US, USSR, Germany and Japan. BWM makes it clear that the British approach to aircraft production (improvements incorporated on the production line) was a better approach than that used by the US: (improvements incorporated after the aircraft were built).<br /><br />It's often claimed that the US had something like 40% of world manufacturing output while Britain only had about 10%, yet Britain produced roughly 50% of the US's output despite labouring under a number of disadvantages that America didn't have. I've concluded that the GDP/GNP figures are questionable, because it seems to me that they are not calculated on the same basis (apples and oranges in Internet speak!).<br /><br />On the topic of the Bomber Offensive, I agree that it became a bit of an end in itself. I feel a smaller and more efficient force could have done the same damage to the German economy at lower cost (ie fewer Lancasters and more Mosquitoes - including Mosquito intruders) but possibly this is with the benefit of hindsight.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-47641856556332273762013-09-22T06:30:57.915-07:002013-09-22T06:30:57.915-07:00I've read BWM too - good corrective to the dec...I've read BWM too - good corrective to the declinist school.<br /><br />I think folks tend to seize on certain aspects of British war economy/production/strategy and (usually wrongly) equate them with weakness.<br /><br />- lend lease did not mean Britain was completely bankrupt and would have gone under w/o it, it meant that Britain had a dollar shortage and this was a way to keep dollar denominated goods flowing<br /><br />- sterling balances as you say were basically running a tab, mostly for the Indian Army, which would've been cheap at twice the price<br /><br />- lack of "balanced" production did not mean that Britain could not have built x instead of y - this was result of pooling resources and allocating resources. Made all the sense in the world for UK cruiser tank production to taper and adopt the Sherman; to let USA build most bigger landing craft; UK certainly could have built a balanced force across all areas if it had to, but it didn't, so it could specialize, a "comparative advantage" approach to pooled production.<br /><br />The one area where there is an argument for "weakness" I think is in terms of manpower in NW Europe post D-Day. At the decisive campaign, the British 2nd Army started contracting almost immediately, as replacements were so lacking that brigades had to be broken up to bring others up to strength. Here's where the 500 million Empire didn't help much - there were no Indian or African or ANZAC troops in NW Europe to help keep up with the growing American army, and as Churchill said, the growing disparity between US and Commonwealth boots on the ground gave him less and less of a say with FDR & Stalin. Here's a case where the relatively small imperial base, worn out after 5+ years of war, did display "weakness", but but perhaps only relative to its huge continental power allies.<br /><br />To go a bit further, this is why I'd worry about a scenario where the UK and USSR win the war sans America, as you've discussed previously. I'd be afraid that this would mean the Red Army liberating all of Europe (perhaps save France and Italy) and thus a far bleaker post war. I'm just afraid the British Army on its own could not have done enough in W Europe to see a result where Western Europe plus W Germany are guaranteed in the western orbit as historical - I see a race for territory that the Red Army dominates.DB23noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-33233172378124653332013-09-21T21:08:44.459-07:002013-09-21T21:08:44.459-07:00Dear Anonymous Sept 21, thanks for the comment.
...Dear Anonymous Sept 21, thanks for the comment. <br /><br />Efficiency for a given number of workers certainly. I suppose it is another question whether what they were producing was really important? <br /><br />There are still many who would argue that the immense resources thrown into the bombing campaign could have been better used elsewhere.<br /><br />Then too there is the problem that the casualties of the bombing campaign were the best and brightest young men who were subsequently not available for post war rebuilding... possibly having a greater effect on long term decline of living standards thatn having put similar resources into getting 'poor bloody infantry' killed instead?Nigel Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-44701294552328001382013-09-21T06:15:52.847-07:002013-09-21T06:15:52.847-07:00I found BWM a useful corrective to the myth that B...I found BWM a useful corrective to the myth that British industry during WWII consisted of little old men tapping away at pieces of metal in their garden sheds, while the US were the only nation to use mass-production methods. In reality it seems that British industry was more efficient that that of the US across the board, despite being bombed, blockaded and cut off from its markets in Europe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com