What would Ireland be like if we'd stayed in the Union?

Zebra3

CerebralCortex wrote:

Ireland could have even provided more space for the RAF, and the Royal Navy thus giving more of an advantage to the British over the German force meaning a quicker end to World War 2. What with all the extra men and resources Ireland would have provided it would have to have had made a difference.

Britain had very little to do with the defeat of Germany in WWII.

Britain (through her natural defence barrier-the sea) held out against Germany and nothing more. It was the U.S. and mainly the U.S.S.R. that defeated Germany.

The only benefit I could see from a united Ireland in the union would be a united Irish football team. :cool:

A Dub in Glasgo

murphaph wrote:

and Scotland is doing rather well for itself IMO.

And so they should considering they have been supplying nearly all the natural resources for energy within the UK for decades. Imagine what Scotland would have been like if she was independent?

Are the scots any less scottish inside the Union? I don't think so.

Of course they are, they are British. Scottish is not a recognised nationality.

They have maintained their identity and even americans can recognise that a scot != an englishman.

Quite funny that one. The British Broadcasting Commission is mainly English biased. British Sky Broadcasing is even more English biased. It does not matter if someone in the US knows where Scotland is, the people are still British not Scottish. The Welsh are in an even worse position with respect to the wipe out of their identity outside of Wales.

bonkey

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Of course they are, they are British. Scottish is not a recognised nationality.

So thats why we, and they, refer to them as Scots. Its because they're British!

It all makes sense now.

I'm guessing that you see the people in Northern Ireland as British and not Irish as well, then, yes?

Oh...no...it diesn't....

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Comes down to what you call your own country

I see. So Scottish are British because they call themselves Scottish, but Northern Irish are Irish because they call themselves that.

Perfectly logical and consistent.


Going back to the OP...

I think Dublin might have gotten an Underground like London & Glasgow.

You are either kidding yourself or are unaware of the geological problems with building an underground in Dublin. Consider that both Glasgow and London undergrounds were open before the start of the 1900s.

Dublin had an exceptionally good tram system back then. It had no need of an underground.

Funny how some things don't change.

jc

murphaph

bonkey wrote:

You are either kidding yourself or are unaware of the geological problems with building an underground in Dublin. Consider that both Glasgow and London undergrounds were open before the start of the 1900s.

Eh, parts of the London Underground are still being opened a couple of years ago. There seems to be a belief that Dublin is an impossible place to bore tunnels, but the DPT is all but finished, and of course if it's because you believe the technology of the day was no match for Grainne and Megan, an underground can be built using C&C techniques (most of the NY Subway and lots of Geman U-Bahnen are constructed this way) which is just a matter of excavating topsoil, geology hardly comes into it in that case.

Just look at the infrastructure we do have today. All the railways were built using british money in the main (including the Phoenix Park Tunnel!). We'd have no DART today if they hadn't raised the funds for the Dublin-Kingstown Railway, which when extended to be the DSER had to overcome serious geological problems along it's elevated route by the sea (Brunel had to be called in to tunnel through Bray Head and erect the arches to span the gorges down there (most of these are disused/gone now as the route was realigned further inland later on).

Just because Dublin had one of the finest tram networks in the World, doesn't mean an Underground wouldn't have been built-virtually all cities that have undergrounds today also have or had extensive tram networks, including London & New York. it's because the trams prove or proved innefective in moving people en-masse that they further develop(ed) their transport infrastructure by implementing undergrounds.

I'm not saying for certain that we'd have an Underground, but you can't say for certain that we wouldn't is all I am saying.

murphaph

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

And so they should considering they have been supplying nearly all the natural resources for energy within the UK for decades. Imagine what Scotland would have been like if she was independent?

Nigeria is one of the largest oil exporters in the world. Exporting oil does not imply that a country's people will benefit from it. Some have of course, doesn't Aberdeen have the lowest unemployment figures in the whole UK?

There is of course the flip side-it took massive amounts of money to explore the North Sea oil fields, it's one of the harshest environments in the world (not exactly Texas or Louisianna where it actually bubbled out of the ground!), british money-would Scotland have even been able to afford to develop them independently of oil companies, who aren't exactly renowned for being benevolent towards the indigenous populations from whence they extract the crude?

It's very simplistic to say oil makes a country rich. Ireland couldn't afford to explore the Corrib gas field just recently, so along come Shell & Statoil and take the lion's share. Same deal would have happened in Scotland. Remember too that much of the North Sea Oil could be claimed by England if the UK did not exist as a Union, because the territorial waters around England contain many of the reserves that make up the North Sea Oil fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_sea_oil

robinph

bonkey wrote:

So thats why we, and they, refer to them as Scots. Its because they're British!

No, you refer to them as Scottish for the same reason as you might refer to somone from Liverpool as a scouser.

Scotland, Wales, NI and England are not countries, they are just regions of the UK that happen to have rugby and soccer teams.

http://geography.about.com/cs/politicalgeog/a/statenation.htm

Examples of entities that are not countries include: Hong Kong, Bermuda, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and most notably the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. (Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England are not countries.)

netwhizkid

I wonder would we still speak English? I am enclined to think would we have maybe achieved full independence, Australia had the choice to vote for this in 1999 (i think) and they turned it down. Wouldn't we surely have been offered the same deal. However I am certain that the country is in a better position today although divided, than it would be if we were under British Rule or had only achieved our independence not so long ago, say maximum 50 yrs. We were also a catalyst and inspiration for African Countries to rebel and achieve their Independence, Would I be wrong to state that had we not rebelled and achieved our Independence that the British Empire would still be fairly well intact, (we were the first to defeat them) Correct me if I'm wrong btw.

robinph

netwhizkid wrote:

I wonder would we still speak English? I am enclined to think would we have maybe achieved full independence, Australia had the choice to vote for this in 1999 (i think) and they turned it down. Wouldn't we surely have been offered the same deal. However I am certain that the country is in a better position today although divided, than it would be if we were under British Rule or had only achieved our independence not so long ago, say maximum 50 yrs. We were also a catalyst and inspiration for African Countries to rebel and achieve their Independence, Would I be wrong to state that had we not rebelled and achieved our Independence that the British Empire would still be fairly well intact, (we were the first to defeat them) Correct me if I'm wrong btw.

I think the reason the British empire collapsed had more to do with Germany than any rebellions by particular countries. The cost of the war and India leaving meant there was not any money left, or desire, to keep the empire running.

county

robinph wrote:

Scotland, Wales, NI and England are not countries, they are just regions of the UK that happen to have rugby and soccer teams.

crazy talk,so england is a region in the UK,NO england is a country within the UK,i will not ask you to prove your point as i would be impossible

robinph

county wrote:

crazy talk,so england is a region in the UK,NO england is a country within the UK,i will not ask you to prove your point as i would be impossible

Well as you clearly didn't look at the link I provided I'm not sure there is much point in giving another one, but anyway.

I cannot see England listed here in a list of the 193 recognised countires of the world:

http://geography.about.com/library/misc/blnationalcapitals.htm

county

netwhizkid wrote:

I wonder would we still speak English? I am enclined to think would we have maybe achieved full independence, Australia had the choice to vote for this in 1999 (i think) and they turned it down. Wouldn't we surely have been offered the same deal. However I am certain that the country is in a better position today although divided, than it would be if we were under British Rule or had only achieved our independence not so long ago, say maximum 50 yrs. We were also a catalyst and inspiration for African Countries to rebel and achieve their Independence, Would I be wrong to state that had we not rebelled and achieved our Independence that the British Empire would still be fairly well intact, (we were the first to defeat them) Correct me if I'm wrong btw.

defeat i think is a bit strong as the brits still have 6 counties on the island,but the empire did go to pot and i feel the irish up raising was the catalyst for this

Cronus333

I'd get to vote Liberal Democrat....

murphaph

Cronus333 wrote:

I'd get to vote Liberal Democrat....

Me too.

As for England not being a country-this technically correct, it isn't. It's like the 6 counties that make up NI aren't real either (apart from in GAA land), they abolished their county councils in 1974 and they have (coincidentally?) 26 local authorities up there now. The michelin maps don't show the 6 counties at all-they show administrative areas like Newry & Mourne, Banbridge etc.

I'm happy to describe England as a 'country' though. It would sound very weird to talk about it in terms of it being a 'region' IMO, just like I still talk about Co. Down and so on.

murphaph

Just realised the insurance on my motorbike would be a damned sight cheaper than it is now.

fly_agaric

murphaph wrote:

I doubt Dublin would have seen a lot of bombing to be honest. We didn't bild ships like Belfast did. Belfast was much more industrialised and would have always been the main target of german bombing IMO.

The welfare state idea is very interesting.

Well ,Hitler did like bombing civilians and Dublin was supposedly the "second city" of the empire at one time, so I'd imagine the Luftewaffe would have given it at least one pasting if we had been fully signed up and contributing to the British war effort.

murphaph

fly_agaric wrote:

Well ,Hitler did like bombing civilians and Dublin was supposedly the "second city" of the empire at one time, so I'd imagine the Luftewaffe would have given it at least one pasting if we had been fully signed up and contributing to the British war effort.

A war effort that, combined with the war efforts of the other allies, saved us all from being in the 3rd Reich today (I'm sure our 'non-aryan' and gay contributors are glad of that, as they'd be gassed).

I'm proud that my grandfather saw fit to cross the border and join up to fight the good fight instead of cowering here and bickering about whose side who was on during the war of independence :rolleyes:

fly_agaric

murphaph wrote:

A war effort that, combined with the war efforts of the other allies, saved us all from being in the 3rd Reich today (I'm sure our 'non-aryan' and gay contributors are glad of that, as they'd be gassed).

I'm proud that my grandfather saw fit to cross the border and join up to fight the good fight instead of cowering here and bickering about whose side who was on during the war of independence :rolleyes:

What did I put in that post that píssed you off so much?
Judging by your highlighting it must have been the reference to a "British" rather than an "allied" war effort? You have read much too much into what I wrote.
I only meant that Ireland would have been part of the UK, contributing to its war effort which was part of the overall allied war effort. I suppose I should have said "UK" instead. :rolleyes:

IMO, if Ireland had still been in the union we, of course, would not have been able to have Dev's neutral on the side of the allies policy -> Dublin would have got bombed at some point just like any other large British (oops UK ) city in range of the Germans, no matter how much or how little of the UK's industrial production was based here. That counts as a consequence of Ireland being in the union.

That would have been a bad thing for the Dubliners involved. I never made any judgement as to whether it would have been worth it or not, or whether Ireland had a moral obligation to join in the war. I never made any negative or positive comments about people, like your grandfather, who did go and join the British army to go fight the Nazis. Their individual actions were never going to get cities in Ireland bombed.

I don't doubt that Dublin would have been rebuilt well, and probably, as you said, we would have a much better transport infrastructure than we have now.

murphaph

fly_agaric wrote:

What did I put in that post that píssed you off so much?

My apologies fly_agaric, I should have stated that I wasn't attacking your post, it just reminded me how a lot of folk (not saying you!) think it's great that we maintained neutrality during the so-called 'emergency'.

fly_agaric

murphaph wrote:

My apologies fly_agaric, I should have stated that I wasn't attacking your post, it just reminded me how a lot of folk (not saying you!) think it's great that we maintained neutrality during the so-called 'emergency'.

Ok - I was probably being too sensitive.
Ireland's neutrality in WW2 was cowardly and self-interested, but it was the smart thing to do in the circumstances. It's not exactly something people can be proud of though.

Blackjack

fly_agaric wrote:

Ok - I was probably being too sensitive.
Ireland's neutrality in WW2 was cowardly and self-interested, but it was the smart thing to do in the circumstances. It's not exactly something people can be proud of though.

What exactly was cowardly about it, might I dare to ask?. Given the circumstances, it was the only course of action. As regards Self Interest, what would you have expected a quite financially strapped country to do?. A Governments job is to serve the best interests of the Citizens it represents - getting Ireland involved in WW2 certainly would not have been in the interest of the Nation or it's Citizens.
There was a lot of Anti-British feeling in the country at the time, and involving ourselves in a War on the same side as the British would have been a very dangerous situation to get into.
Were the Swiss cowardly?. Were the Spanish Cowardly?. Were the Dutch and the Belgians cowardly before being overrun by the Germans?.
Perhaps the US only got brave because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour?.

Zebra3

murphaph wrote:

A war effort that, combined with the war efforts of the other allies, saved us all from being in the 3rd Reich today (I'm sure our 'non-aryan' and gay contributors are glad of that, as they'd be gassed).

I'm proud that my grandfather saw fit to cross the border and join up to fight the good fight instead of cowering here and bickering about whose side who was on during the war of independence :rolleyes:

Well, I'm sure all the Catholics in NI were glad that people helped reinforce the discrimination against them by fighting for Britain, as no doubt were all those Kenyans that the British rounded up and murdered in concentration camps in the 50's. :rolleyes:

RedPlanet

I think some of these posters should rather be kissing the hand of those godless communists of the Soviet Union because they are the ones that spared the West from the Nazi jackboot.
Those Brits were useless and would have been crushed entirely if it wasn't for Stalin and fighting of Russian conscripts.

murphaph

RedPlanet wrote:

I think some of these posters should rather be kissing the hand of those godless communists of the Soviet Union because they are the ones that spared the West from the Nazi jackboot.
Those Brits were useless and would have been crushed entirely if it wasn't for Stalin and fighting of Russian conscripts.

What a stupid post. Of course the Soviet Union was vital in securing victory over Nazism (as well as the US, Canada, India, Australia, NZ etc.) but to say the 'brits were useless' is nonsense. Remember please that Briatain's military was tiny compared to Nazi Germany which had effectively been preparing to overrun Europe for 7 or 8 years before invading Poland. Despite this, and of course sue in no small part to the fact that Britain is an island-she was effectively the only country fighting the war for over 2 years!! The Battle of Britain was clearly a decisive win (actually most people believe Britain didn't lose and Germany didn't win, so more of a draw) for Britain, as the island provided the vital base for the US military machine to stage D-Day from. If Britain had been defeated by the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, she would have been at Hitler's mercy and they could have been invaded (operation sea lion) and with no land base to launch a western front from, Hitle would have only been fighting on one front-and we all know how close the germans came to Moscow and defeating the Soviet Union. If they'd only been fighting on one front it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Nazi Germany would have destroyed the Soviet Union.

Take a trip to a graveyard in Northern France, look at a few headstones of 16 and 17 year old british soldiers who helped save you from oppression and then come back and tell me they were useless. :rolleyes: They played a vital role in WWII, as did all the allies.

Snickers Man

murphaph wrote:

What a stupid post.

It's not a stupid post at all. It's particularly apposite, in fact.

The main conflict in World War II was that between Germany and the Soviet Union.The Eastern Front was where the overwhelming majority of German troops were deployed, that was where they suffered their heaviest losses and that was where they fought the longest--from 1941 until VE day.
It was Soviet Communism that did most in terms of effort by their people, and casualties both inflicted and suffered, to defeat Nazism. The facts are irrefutable.

murphaph wrote:

Remember please that Briatain's military was tiny compared to Nazi Germany which had effectively been preparing to overrun Europe for 7 or 8 years before invading Poland.

I'm sorry. That is just complete unadulterated BULL****. Germany didn't have an army of any size until 1934. (ie five years before it invaded Poland) It was forbidden from having an air force and navy and severe restrictions were imposed on the equipment its Army could have by the Versailles settlement. In 1934 Hitler managed to turn the diplomatic tables on the British and French and say to them, either you cut the sizes of your armies, which were huge compared to Germany's at the time, or we (Germany) will re-arm. Which it did.

Britain at the time had an empire on which the sun never sat. It had a huge navy and could call on standing armies from its colonies and dominions. Like India for example Not to mention Australia and other 'white' colonies like Canada, South Africa and NEw Zealand.

The fact that Germany destroyed the British and French armies in just over a month in 1940 said much more about German tactics and leadership than about the relative sizes of the armies. Germany had only been able to build its one up almost from scratch in five years.

murphaph wrote:

Despite this, and of course sue in no small part to the fact that Britain is an island-she was effectively the only country fighting the war for over 2 years!!

Wrong again!!!
France surrenders June 25th 1940
Operation Barbarossa (ie Soviet Union brought into the war) June 22nd 1941. That's less than one year.

murphaph wrote:

with no land base to launch a western front from, Hitle would have only been fighting on one front-and we all know how close the germans came to Moscow and defeating the Soviet Union. If they'd only been fighting on one front it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Nazi Germany would have destroyed the Soviet Union.

Er, they were only fighting on one front for much of that time.

The Germans got to the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941. Their army on the Soviet border in June that year was more than 3million men. The only other 'front' on which they were fighting at that year was North Africa, and there they had only sent two divisions (a few thousand men) to help the Italians.

And that was the only land 'front' on which the British were fighting at all. Japan wasn't in the war. There were naval escorts in the North Atlantic and the air force was busy bombing German civilians, but the British land army wasn't really involved anywhere outside of North Africa.

Following their defeat in France in 1940, the British and German armies rarely came into contact again until the invasion of Italy in 1943. There was a brief campaign in Greece and Crete when the British sent a small force to help the Greeks who had kicked the crap out of the invading Italians but were finding it tougher to expel their German allies.

Then in North Africa it took the might of the British empire three years to defeat an Italian army that it persistently ridiculed for being poorly motivated, poorly led and under equipped. The war in the desert was essentially a fight between the British and their Empire allies and the Italians, not the Germans - apart from the Afrika Korps which made up a minority of the Axis forces there.

murphaph wrote:

Take a trip to a graveyard in Northern France, look at a few headstones of 16 and 17 year old british soldiers who helped save you from oppression and then come back and tell me they were useless. :rolleyes: They played a vital role in WWII, as did all the allies.

Take a trip to one of the massive communal graveyards in Luxembourg or Belgium of German kids who were sent in to fight the British and Americans in the last year of the war when the country had been bled white. That's where you'll find all the 16 and 17 year olds. The British and Americans by and large tended to be a little older.

Oh, and my grandfather fought and died in the British Army in World War II as well. Gives you an interesting perspective, doesn't it?

Snickers Man

I'm sorry. That last post was so off topic.

What would have happened if we'd stayed in the Union?

Well, we'd have been partitioned anyway. The Home Rule Bill passed in 1914 promised a separate settlement for Ulster which was delivered in the Govenrment of Ireland Act which was passed in the middle of the War of Independence and set up Stormont.

The enthusiasm among the Irish people as a whole for the War was already greatly diminished even before 1916. The British had originally set a target of raising three divisions from Ireland when the war broke out. They got two fairly quickly. The UVF in Ulster basically changed its name to the 36th Ulster Division and the Redmond-recruited army from down south became the 10th Irish division whcih got packed off to Gallipoli.

Recruits for the third division became harder and harder to get especially when it became clear that there was one rule for 'small nations' that were threatened by Germany and another for those that were ruled by Britain.

The national/sectarian divide would have been a huge issue, both north and south. In much the same way that the Hindu/Muslim divide became a huge issue in partitioned India. Fear and loathing would have been endemic.

As for infastructural investment. Whoever said that we would have more railways down south has clearly forgotten that several railways linking Belfast with the Western part of Northern ireland were closed in the 1950s and 1960s.

We might have had more generous welfare but would we have had the same investment in education and been able to choose the industries to attract and specialise in that we did? I suspect not.

The Church, on the contrary, might have been a more popular institution and seen as an insitution that expressed the separate identity of the Irish nation. It would not have had the same influence over government perhaps, but its influence over the population might havebeen even greater.

We would probably have been invaded by Germany in WWII as the soft underbelly of Britain. Doubtless we could have helped in the Battle of the ATlantic, as the extra couple of hundred miles would have been crucial in providing more air cover against submarines in the Atlantic Gap -- that area of the mid Atlantic whcih was out of range of bombers from Canada on one side and Britain on the other.

But Germany could well have landed, fomented rebellion among sections of the Irish population --as it tried to do anyway--but would probably have had more success given that national sentiment would still have been strong without independence to encourage a neutral line .

In other words, world war II could have been really nasty for us. And a lot of our ancestors would have been Nazi fellow travellers. If not fellow ideologues. Lots of honourable people served with the Nazis in WWII. The Finns in particular. And with good reason.

I'm glad we were independent in 1939. And thanks to the Soviet Union and its 20 million war dead for saving us from Nazism.

Sand

I think Ireland wouldnt have had a period as bad as the 80s if it was part of the UK, but it wouldnt have a period as dynamic as we have now either because we wouldnt have our own tax regime most likely. On the other hand our infrastructure would be miles better. Politics might be slightly less obviously "the boys" scratching each others back, but at the same time wed have a stronger trade union movement ( SF and the civil war fallout seriously set back union power for a few decades). Id have to endure the knowledge that Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams actually came from my country - though chances are they might have mellowed out. Most of the Irish football team would at actually be born in the same country.

Culturally we wouldnt be too different. The hey day of the GAA and Gaelic Leaguers etc was under British rule, but when you think about it, our independance has given us the self confidence not to view supporting an English football team as a crime against God and the Saints of 1916. Without that independance, we mightnt have that confidence and might be learning Irish just to prove how different we were.

I think some of these posters should rather be kissing the hand of those godless communists of the Soviet Union because they are the ones that spared the West from the Nazi jackboot.
Those Brits were useless and would have been crushed entirely if it wasn't for Stalin and fighting of Russian conscripts.

The Communists and the Nazis were just two sides of the same coin. Ask people in the Baltics if they feel they should be kissing the hands of the Soviets in gratitude. Id advise you to give yourself a running start first.

Well, I'm sure all the Catholics in NI were glad that people helped reinforce the discrimination against them by fighting for Britain, as no doubt were all those Kenyans that the British rounded up and murdered in concentration camps in the 50's.

Irishmen in British service fighting against the Wermacht did a far greater service for Ireland and its people - and people generally - than any Provo ever did by murdering children.

Snickers Man

Snickers Man wrote:

I'm glad we were independent in 1939

So am I. And even more importantly, I'm glad we have always been such a very long way away from the Russians.

fly_agaric

Blackjack wrote:

What exactly was cowardly about it, might I dare to ask?.

Perhaps "cowardly" was a bit strong. I suppose it comes from the way I would view WW2 (with the benefit of hindsight) as a real fight against evil. Staying out was in our own best interest - and nations generally act in their own interest. I already said it was the smart move, and you gave a few good reasons for that in your post.

Blackjack wrote:

Were the Swiss cowardly?

The Swiss acted in their own "interest" also.

Blackjack wrote:

Were the Spanish Cowardly?

If anything, they would have been on Hitler's side if they had joined the war.
Fascist dictators of a feather flock together and all.

Blackjack wrote:

Were the Dutch and the Belgians cowardly before being overrun by the Germans?

No, IMO. I could be wrong, but I don't think the full truth of how evil Nazi Germany was had been appreciated at that point in the war.

Blackjack wrote:

Perhaps the US only got brave because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour?.

AFAICR, Allenbrooke (the British Empire's top soldier during the war) wrote alot in his diaries about how hard it was at times to get the Americans to pay attention to the European theatre. They were much more interested in teaching the Japanese a lesson. Can we stop this now. I don't want to be responsible for making a clone of that big offtopic thread in After Hours!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=310799

murphaph

Snickers Man wrote:

I'm sorry. [that germany was preparing to overrun Europe for 7 or 8 years before invading Poland] is just complete unadulterated BULL****. Germany didn't have an army of any size until 1934. (ie five years before it invaded Poland) It was forbidden from having an air force and navy and severe restrictions were imposed on the equipment its Army could have by the Versailles settlement. In 1934 Hitler managed to turn the diplomatic tables on the British and French and say to them, either you cut the sizes of your armies, which were huge compared to Germany's at the time, or we (Germany) will re-arm. Which it did.

Come off it, everyone knows that Germany was developing weaponry in secret long before 1934 (starting tank development as early as 1920), indeed with the cooperation of the USSR where tanks were built and tested for Germany in great secrecy as it broke the treaty of Versailles! From here .

Snickers Man wrote:

Britain at the time had an empire on which the sun never sat. It had a huge navy and could call on standing armies from its colonies and dominions. Like India for example Not to mention Australia and other 'white' colonies like Canada, South Africa and NEw Zealand.

The BEF was tiny and poorly equipped and trained in comparison to the Wehrmacht! The size of the british empire is pretty irrelevant as there were a lot of parts of it where nobody would be willing to fight for Britain in a European war and even more of the empire where nobody even lived (Canada, Australia etc. are mostly empty!). Britain was simplt unprepared for war while germany had been studiously preparing for it for many years.

Snickers Man wrote:

The fact that Germany destroyed the British and French armies in just over a month in 1940 said much more about German tactics and leadership than about the relative sizes of the armies. Germany had only been able to build its one up almost from scratch in five years.

But their weaponry and future tactics had been developed in secret since the early 20's by chaps like Guderian. It's ridiculous to believe that Germany was obeying the Treaty of Versailles all along. See the link I posted above about secret german tank development or google it, the Germans were simply not obeying the treaty from almost the day they signed it!

Snickers Man wrote:

Wrong again!!!
France surrenders June 25th 1940
Operation Barbarossa (ie Soviet Union brought into the war) June 22nd 1941. That's less than one year.

I stand corrected. You are right, Britain and France (who surrendered after 9 odd months) were the only countries who fought the germans (in any real sense) for almost 2 years.

Snickers Man wrote:

Er, they were only fighting on one front for much of that time.

But if Britain had been defeated then D-Day would not have been possible as there would have been nowhere to stage the invasion from. It depended heavily on the short distance between Britain and mainland Europe to maintain the element of surprise. This would not have been possible if the invasionary force had to sail for days on end from North Africa etc. as Axis reconnaissance aircraft would have spotted them in plenty of time to mobilise land defences. It wasn't called fortress Europe because it was easy to invade!

Snickers Man wrote:

Then in North Africa it took the might of the British empire three years to defeat an Italian army that it persistently ridiculed for being poorly motivated, poorly led and under equipped. The war in the desert was essentially a fight between the British and their Empire allies and the Italians, not the Germans - apart from the Afrika Korps which made up a minority of the Axis forces there.

From wiki

On September 13th, Italian forces stationed in Libya launched a small invasion into British-held Egypt and set up defensive forts at Sidi Barrani.

British forces, though greatly outnumbered, 500,000 to 35,000 (of whom half were non-combatants), launched the counter-attack Operation Compass. It was more successful than planned and resulted in massive amounts of Italian prisoners and the advance of the Allied forces up to El Agheila. This stunning defeat of Italian forces did not go unnoticed and soon the Deutsches Afrikakorps, commanded by Erwin Rommel, were sent in to reinforce them.

Snickers Man wrote:

Take a trip to one of the massive communal graveyards in Luxembourg or Belgium of German kids who were sent in to fight the British and Americans in the last year of the war when the country had been bled white. That's where you'll find all the 16 and 17 year olds. The British and Americans by and large tended to be a little older.

True, but 16 and 17 year olds did sign up for the Allies, so your point is moot.

Snickers Man wrote:

Oh, and my grandfather fought and died in the British Army in World War II as well. Gives you an interesting perspective, doesn't it?

It gives me your perspective, which is as valid as anyone's I suppose.

All in all I am trying to convey the fact that if Britain had been defeated early in the war, as nearly happened, then Germany would have had little trouble defeating Soviet Russia, remembering that a cold winter and the meddling of Hitler helped save them from Nazism (though uncle joe was arguably worse than uncle Adolf!). The OP claimed the 'brits were useless' during WWII and this is simply not true.

Blackjack

fly_agaric wrote:

Perhaps "cowardly" was a bit strong. I suppose it comes from the way I would view WW2 (with the benefit of hindsight) as a real fight against evil. Staying out was in our own best interest - and nations generally act in their own interest. I already said it was the smart move, and you gave a few good reasons for that in your post.

Can we stop this now. I don't want to be responsible for making a clone of that big offtopic thread in After Hours!

Fine by me - it just pisses me off when people take a revisionist view of History to lambast an entire Nation for not involving itself in conflict for exceptionally good reason. Hind sight is 20:20 and we have to take into account what was known and felt at the time, not what we now know with the hindsight.