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Could Ireland have made any noticeable impact in the Second World War

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    #152
    KingBrian2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,363 ✭✭✭KingBrian2


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    I'm not seeing that "strong argument" myself.

    The main difference between Ireland and other neutral European states was that Ireland was a (semi-detached) member of the Commonwealth, and the British had a kind of assumption that when push came to shove Commonwealth countries should and would rally round the flag. That assumption was shared in various degrees in most of the Commonwealth dominions, but hardly at all in Ireland. I think Churchill's hissy-fit over the treaty ports was animated partly by his empire-loyalty assumptions, but even at the time they were not very realistic assumptions, and from today's perspective they would be indefensible.

    Client states and occupied states aside, I think after 1942 only two countries became belligerents on the Allied side - Brazil and Mexico, but that was under considerable pressure from the Americans and after the Axis had targetted the merchant shipping of both countries. It had nothing to do with any dawning realization of how unpleasant the Nazis were.

    (I should qualify that by saying that in the dying months of the war a bunch of nations declared for the Allies, though they mostly made no actual military contribution. They did so in order to get a seat at the table in post-war conferences.)

    That whole war era was a time full of opportunistic manoeuvres, discharging responsibilities and wreckless disregard for human life. the Latin American countries only sided with the US and Britain at the last chance in order to be on the winners side, Switzerland had a flood of refugees on its borders and let many return to the concentration camps while Dev was perfectly willing to let Europeans continue to kill one another without offering to take in a lot more Jewish migrants.
    It was a horrible time when the major powers ignored all other nations most of whom opposed the war and had interest in domestic matters. Indeed the staunchly anti German Poles and French ended up fighting in the war because of the duplicitous Soviet Union.


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    #153
    indioblack
    Registered Users Posts: 1,942 ✭✭✭indioblack


    Schadenfreudia wrote: »
    'Twas a bit like quantum physics - weird results that would have you scratching yer head :D


    It's a way of baffling the Irish!
    A pretty dopey part of my post - not well thought out - so, apologies all round and I hope I may dazzle you in the future with my insightful logic!


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    #154
    indioblack
    Registered Users Posts: 1,942 ✭✭✭indioblack


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Actually, no.

    The British/French reason for going to war in 1939 was to defend Poland, with whom they had formed a defensive alliance. Their war objectives did not include regime change in Germany; if Germany had been willing to withdraw from Poland and abandon further territorial ambitions outside Germany, the war could certainly have been ended without the Nazis being removed from power, and they would still have had a free hand to govern Germany itself however they wished.

    The objective of "unconditional surrender", with the implication that regime change in Germany was a Allied objective, wasn't adopted until January 1943.



    Good reply - maybe I'm looking at it with that dreaded hindsight again.


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