You can't take his wings. After all he just executed an order, you can't punish him for that.
I would have done the sortie too - but, unfortunately, miss all the bullets....

How exactly was the war with Japan our fault (I assume you mean the US when you say "our") again? We refused to supply them for their conquest (rape) of China. So thats grounds for a war? And yes the European conflict was relative. Japan would never have dared attack the allies and the US without them also being in a war with Germany. Then again they didn't actually know for sure that attack the US would bring them into war with Germany. It was Hitler that declared war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor.

He meant the annexation of the Sudentenland that was allowed under appeasement. Czechoslovakia was certainly broken up.

He meant if a combined French and English force had attacked immediately after Germany's invasion of Poland in september 1939, instead of waiting for Germany to invade the low countries in spring 1940. Germany only left a very small force guarding their western border during the Polish invasion. There's considerable historical debate on whether or not the western allies could have defeated Germany right then. IMO, yes they could have had they been preparing for an offense beginning in 1938. Instead they still thought of a war with Germany in the trench warfare style of WW1.

Thats very much a matter for debate on whether the Soviets would have invaded Germany eventually or not. Its not at all clear what Stalins eventual plans were. It is however very certain that the Soviets were completely unprepared for war in Summer 1941.

What did the US expect Nippon to do after they cut off their oil supply?
Wasn't your business anyway.
Oil is always a good reason to start a war.
What was Gulf War two and three about?


That's because it always was German soil before, therefore I would call it just a reintegration.

They should have listened to Churchill, huh? :mrgreen:


It's very clear what Stalin wanted. What happened after WW2?

I think a combined French and British offensive early in the war was not really feasible. Let's face it, the French military leadership was somewhere between incompetent and..well...worse than useless. Britain was not on enough of a war footing to wage offensive operations, they just had not prepared themselves for the coming storm adequately. The US would have been no help as we were sitting nice and snug across the vastness of the Atlantic.

The people and leadership of what eventually became known as the "Allies" were divided. A very few wanted war. A segment thought war was inevitable. About half wanted to do anything possible to avoid war including ignoring what Hitler was up to in Europe. To the latter group, the "crimes" Hitler was committing against other countries was not reason enough to shed blood.

The populaces did not unite until war came to their doorsteps.

There is a rumor that Roosevelt saw the need to get involved in the war and allowed Pearl Harbor to happen. This rumor is circumstantially validated by the fortuitous absence of US carriers when the attack occurred. Most of us don't think that is true, but it does show that some leaders (and people) saw the war as inevitable and that it was better to go sooner than later (we were already woefully late). What it took for many nations to get involved was a direct threat to their own country.

Splitter

It's somewhat ironic the depths to which the reputation of France as a martial nation plunged after WWII. France had good commanders but the smug politics of the interwar army meant they couldn't rise to prominence.

Giraud, Bilotte, Juin, Weygand and de Lattre de Tassigny were hardly to be taken lightly, and the performance of the different units varied from pityful to outstanding. After the slaughter of WWI, french people ceased to feel their generals cared about them at all. Having allowed this feeling develop and let the army decline from a broad-based institution representing the nation to an organisation dominated by a narrowly-based reactionary clique, a small number of interwar figures must shoulder the blame for what was an inevitable collapse. Gamelin etc. tore the emotional heart from the French military.

Setting aside "cheese-eating" etc. insults for the pathetic slurs they are, it's worth noting that every US officer that went to France in 1917-18 would have spoken excellent French. Jomini was the dominant figure in 19th Century military thought and the West Point curriculum was modeled on that of St Cyr.

The psychotic, utterly amoral French nobility of the ancièn régime only ever had one virtue: their suicidal courage in battle. They were legendary for centuries even if their countrymen didn't feel so enthusiastic about them.

Broad prejudices go in cycles. At a time when martial virtues were taken to signify moral elevation, the Irish Jacobite emigreés of the 18th Century were granted preference as loyal and brave. There were dozens of them: FM Peter Lacy (Russia), his son FM Franz Moritz (Francis Maurice) Lacy (Austria), FM Von Browne (Austria), Prince Nugent (Austria), a huge number of lesser generals, and Ambrosio (Ambrose) O'Higgins. A century later, their descendants were seen as debased, self-indulgent, stupid and untrustworthy, and were as welcome as plague rats and subject to extreme forms of racism.

The ancient German inferiority complex regarding the French prior to 1870 was no more justified than the sense of moral supremacy they felt afterwards.

One of the outstanding characteristics of German military tradition in fact was the ability to withdraw without disintegrating. A commander lacking confidence tells his men to hold on to the last man. Retreat, however, is an order like any other. Good armies retreat when circumstances demand it and attack when the moment if opportune.

Schoerner's Army Group Centre in Bohemia was still fighting on despite the surrender - and still killing - until 11th May.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Sch%C3%B6rner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Offensive

Never heard of it - but Prussian allegiance is legendary, and that means to the last man.
Got any links?


Actually it's "frog-eating". :mrgreen:



sidenote:


http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/9129/frencharmy.jpg

Ok, what's your point? :confused:

We were talking about retreating troops in this thread.

And FYI: That was the newly formed Heeresgruppe-Mitte(25th January 1945), after the original Gruppe A was defeated at the Eastfront.

Never only use Wiki as your only source, that is of course, unless you speak several languages and can cross-check.

I did not want to get bogged down in details but from your reply you force me to. Thanks to lobosrul for giving Swiss some more details about what I meant :)

France could have easily stopped the reoccupation of the Rhineland by advancing to the border or maybe 50 miles into German territory. The French Army was capable of this. At this point in time, the German General staff would have overthrown Hitler and this would have taken care of the Hitler problem. Please notice when the British Expeditionary Force landed in France.

Please research your history of Austria and the relatively new nation of Germany. Better yet, tell an Austrian that he is actually German and see the reaction. There are German speaking areas of Switzerland also...aren't there:)
Also Mussolini was against this and stopped the Germans from doing this sooner than '38.

Please research the steps taken to breakup Czechoslovakia and how at any point the Allies could have mobilized and stopped this from happening.

I have read all the new information about Stalin invading the Reich but I am not too sure if I believe it. It could have been a feint to keep Hitler in check?! Or Soviet propaganda to explain their terrible showing in 1941 and save Stalin's face!

After the invasion of Poland the Allies did not take any serious ground action against Germany. The Western border was open to an attack by the French Army. Even a WW1 type Army using WW1 tactics!

We cut off the Japanese oil supply because of the invasion of China. Maybe a bit naive but this is how Americans think and still think today. We found ourselves in many situations like this in our history.

You really need to get your facts straight about the size of the combined Allied Armies in 1939 and the size of Germany's. In 1939 Germany was not in a war footing either...this only started in 1943-44. I personally think that the French would have done a lot better in offense than they did in defence!