[Tailz]

What do you think were the most important pivotal points in the Second World War?

Points in time in the conflict, where success or failure - had it not happened that way - the whole war would have ended up differently?

Or points in the war which set uncertainly into certainly - one way or the other.

[MB.]

Even though there are at least a dozen live threads around this forum asking the same thing I'll bite this one time.

Points in time in the conflict, where success or failure - had it not happened that way - the whole war would have ended up differently?

You did not specify battles, but are presumably asking about 'decisive events' that occurred in world history between 1935 and 1945 that, although they could easily have produced dramatically divergent outcomes through tiny fluctuations produced the modern world (following the whig theory)?

There are a few items I want to raise, just as primer material before over 9000 users rush in to announce their verdict in the form of Rhineland, Munich, Molotov/Ribbentrop, Barbarossa, Pearl Harbour, Stalingrad, Kursk, Midway, whatever.

#1 the failure of the allies to intervene against the USSR following the invasion of finland. Most people don't know anything about this but clearly it would have changed the entire course of the war

#2 the crushing soviet victory against the japanese & manchurian invasion of mongolia in 1939. forced the japanese to follow through with their war plans in the pacific due to resources they would not be able to acquire from soviet territory

#3 the japanese withdrawal from the london naval conference of 1935. although the reasons this happened are structural and go back before 1935 it must be mentioned because the fate of all the naval powers in the war that followed were basically established when the japanese abrogated the treaty system (this was also the last chance for the civilian government to regain control over the MIC that was running japan)

[Smilin' Dave]

I'll shamelessly rip off MB's approach and suggest two more non-battle critical points:
1. The fairly successful Soviet relocation of industry away from the German advance. Going further back I think it was the second five year plan that emphasised development of natural resources in the Urals zone, groundwork which would later help to fuel Soviet war industry.
2. Lend Lease and its precursors like Destroyers for Bases. Enormously helpful to all recipients, and reflected a change in US stance towards the war.

[Tailz]

I'm leaning towards Hitlers declaration of support for Japan along with his declaration of war upon America. Without such, how would the Americans become involved in Europe without provocation from Germany? Certainly the Japanese had attacked the USA pacific fleet bases, and the British. But Up to that point, the Americans had done their best to stay out of the European war - Hitler gave them an in card to play to get them into the European war in a justifiable way. Had Hitler stayed mum, maybe the Americans would not have become involved in the European war and concentrated on the Pacific and the Japanese.

[Smilin' Dave]

Hmmm... I think finding some kind of provocation, and I think FDR was waiting for one, was inevitable. All it would take would be one US ship skirmishing with (yet another) German U-boat. Or for intel linking the Germans and Japanese together to surface (IIRC a few bits turned up early in the piece). So US involvement in Europe was pretty well assured. What it might change was the Europe First policy, though the fact that a Europe First policy was adopted despite the trigger being Pearl Harbour might suggest that this might not matter either.

[Doug64]

I have to agree with tailz that the turning point of the war was Hitler's declaration of war on the US. This was so counter-intuitive that a number of Germany's highest commanders, when asked about it when they were being interrogated after the war, expressed the belief the we had declared war first. And AFAIK nobody has a hint of evidence as to why Hitler did it, he made the decision privately without asking input from his military leaders.

And I don't think that, absent that declaration of war, FDR would have been able to get us involved in Europe - the wrath of the American people would have been focused like a laser on the Japanese, and any attempt by even as popular a president as FDR to get us involved in Europe would have been met with "we already have one fight, why would we want to force ourselves into someone else's?" Especially considering the common opinion of our involvement in WWI at the time.

[Smilin' Dave]

expressed the belief the we had declared war first.

While the US had not formally declared war by this stage, it was increasingly involved in the Allied war effort, so that might explain their perspective.

And I don't think that, absent that declaration of war, FDR would have been able to get us involved in Europe - the wrath of the American people would have been focused like a laser on the Japanese, and any attempt by even as popular a president as FDR to get us involved in Europe would have been met with "we already have one fight, why would we want to force ourselves into someone else's?" Especially considering the common opinion of our involvement in WWI at the time.

And yet FDR was able to get away with a policy that was not focused on Japan at all, in the form of the Europe First policy. There is much to suggest that the US was moving towards a war in Europe prior to Pearl Harbour.

1940: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dog_memo
January 1941: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80 ... %80%931%29

[Doug64]

While the US had not formally declared war by this stage, it was increasingly involved in the Allied war effort, so that might explain their perspective.

I'm not sure I buy that. True, we had been fighting something of an undeclared war at sea and a war by proxy through our material support of those fighting Germany, but they had done something similar during the Spanish Civil War. And I'd think the happy hunting that German subs had going after US shipping immediately after Hitler declared war on us would have helped them remember just when that happened.

And yet FDR was able to get away with a policy that was not focused on Japan at all, in the form of the Europe First policy. There is much to suggest that the US was moving towards a war in Europe prior to Pearl Harbour.

1940: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dog_memo
January 1941: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80 ... %80%931%29

All true. But after Hitler chose to declare war on the US it wasn't a matter of whether we'd fight Germany but when, especially with the immediate happy hunting of US shipping that I mentioned. And yes, FDR had been trying to keep things quiet with the Japanese while pushing us into the war in Europe, but he badly failed in both - the Japanese chose to attack us, and the American people had been manifestly unwilling to follow FDR into the war in Europe. Basically, Hitler completely reversed one of the most serious and possibly far reaching foreign policy failures in US history and in the process did the world an immense favor.

[Smilin' Dave]

especially with the immediate happy hunting of US shipping that I mentioned

It's not like US shipping hadn't been sunk by U-boats wihout incident prior to Pearl Harbour, so I don't think that entirely explains it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Robin_M ... _aftermath
It also suggests that it wouldn't have been long before a suitable incident emerged to allow FDR to enter the European theatre. Not only would Hitler have had to not declare war, but the navy would have to kept on a short chain.

the American people had been manifestly unwilling to follow FDR into the war in Europe

Yet without comparable provocation, the US followed FDR not only into a war with the European Axis, but supported a war that disproportionately focused on them. Declarations of war are important, but surely actions are even more important.

[Doug64]

It's not like US shipping hadn't been sunk by U-boats wihout incident prior to Pearl Harbour, so I don't think that entirely explains it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Robin_M ... _aftermath
It also suggests that it wouldn't have been long before a suitable incident emerged to allow FDR to enter the European theatre. Not only would Hitler have had to not declare war, but the navy would have to kept on a short chain.

I would say that the fact that previous provocations didn't lead to war would indicate that the occasional future provocation wouldn't lead to war - both because with the war against Japan there'd have been even less inclination to get dragged into another (remember Lincoln's comment at the time of the Trent affair - "one war at a time"?), and because I think that FDR would have had to fight just to maintain the support he was already providing and probably failed. If Hitler had just used a modicum of common sense, the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been the best thing to happen for Germany since Hitler was stupid enough to order the invasion of Russia.

Yet without comparable provocation, the US followed FDR not only into a war with the European Axis, but supported a war that disproportionately focused on them. Declarations of war are important, but surely actions are even more important.

And in the case of Germany, with no more than a dozen U-boats operating in American waters, it was around 500,000 tons of shipping sunk, over half of it freighters, some of them close enough to shore to be seen by people on the beaches. I'd call that a fairly significant provocation.

Furthermore the American people generally might not have wanted to be dragged into the war but now that they were, we were in it for the long haul, until all members of the Axis alliance were dealt with. Which one we concentrated on first was a matter of operational planning. If FDR and the generals said the Germans were the bigger threat, then I suspect most Americans trusted them to get it right.

[Thunderhawk]

Though not a single point, Mussolini aligning Italy with Germany strikes me as having many far reaching consequences. Had Italy remained traditionally allied with France, or just stayed neutral (akin to Spain), I imagine it would have meant an entirely different kind of war as there would be little and possibly no diversion of Allied and German resources into North Africa and the Balkans (without an alliance with Germany, would Italy invade Greece? and when they lost?). With no obviously hostile Italy, perhaps France would not have defended its southern border as it did, freeing up some of the 150'000 soldiers they had there for service in the North. Though that number is negligible compared to the existing units in the North, it would have eased the command chain without Petain needing to "command" the Southern front at the same time as the Northern front.

During the '30s Italy was portrayed as a power, but without Italy adding prestige and apparent military might, would there be a pact of steel? would Japan have allied with Germany or would Japan have acted independently but kept relations with Germany akin to Franco and this counter factual Mussolini?

[Oxymoron]

Hitler wasnt crushed in the Czech Debacle.

[Tailz]

Hmmm... I think finding some kind of provocation, and I think FDR was waiting for one, was inevitable.

I agree, but finding a grave enough provocation that would get the backing for the president to declare war considering the deep seated isolationist movement and views held in the USA at that time? I suspect such provocation to permit the US president to declare war on Germany unilaterally would have had to have been equivalent of a German Pearl Harbour event. I don't see the Germans having the intention or capability to cause that kind of destruction to America when they have the British and Russians on their doorstep, while the Americans are so far away comparatively.

All it would take would be one US ship skirmishing with (yet another) German U-boat.

I disagree, there had already been American ships skirmishing with U-Boats since US destroyers were escorting convoys part way if I remember right. While if I am not mistaken, there was a sinking of an American cruse ship - I could be wrong on that, but I do seem to remember something about an American ship being torpedoed with some kind of mistaken identity apology from the German ambassador.

Or for intel linking the Germans and Japanese together to surface (IIRC a few bits turned up early in the piece).

Was it not already known they were axis pact members? With the Japanese delegations meeting in Germany with all the public press propaghanda?

So US involvement in Europe was pretty well assured. What it might change was the Europe First policy, though the fact that a Europe First policy was adopted despite the trigger being Pearl Harbour might suggest that this might not matter either.

I agree, the Germany First policy would have taken a back seat or become a Japan first policy. I think a Germany First policy came about because of the UK's need to knock Germany out first in order to secure the UK's survival, and thus the UK's added military support, which would have been tenuous had the USA went to attack Japan first - as the UK would be concentrating on defeating Germany first since Germany threatened the home islands of the UK. Japan would always be a secondary concern for the UK until the home islands were no longer under threat directly by German air and rocket attack or indirectly by u-boats or surface raiders preying on shipping to the British isles. So in order to have that added military strength in the Pacific, the US had to help the UK become secure enough as to be able to release it from the concern of having the Wehrmacht on its doorstep.

[MB.]

You guys are thinking of the combatants as individual nations rather than as competing alliances. The United States and the UK secretly agreed to the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 establishing joint war goals and becoming the basis for what in January 1942 became the United Nations alliance.

At the subsequent meeting of the Inter-Allied Council in St. James' Palace in London on September 24, 1941, the governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and representatives of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in the Atlantic Charter

I suspect such provocation to permit the US president to declare war on Germany unilaterally would have had to have been equivalent of a German Pearl Harbour event.

I don't see this being the case... The notion of the feuding world orders was well understood by the Alliance, the Axis powers being regularly subject to immense discussion and pillory specifically in America, prior to December 7 1941. I do not mean to diminish the significance of the anti-war, isolationist, or pro-nazi anti-communist element in America specifically that opposed involvement in the war. However, these people were not running the government and were not involved in the multinational anti-Axis alliance. The attack on pearl Harbor accelerated an inevitable process of organization by the allies for a post-war world free from tyrannical fascism.

[Ombrageux]

1940: The Fall of France is the single most important necessary and sufficient factor in Hitler's domination of Europe. Prior to that, he is a central European thug who has picked on small or poor countries. He could still be plausibly contained by combination of European powers. After the fall of France, the latter is "KO" or collaborationist, the Brits become useless in terms of offense (a "glorious retreat" like Dunkirk passes for victory), so it becomes what must be a 1 to 1 battle with the Soviet Union (the most inhuman parts of the war, both in nature and magnitude, overwhelmingly were part of the Nazi-Soviet War). 1940 made WW2 necessarily an extremely brutal war, a world war, and not even merely a European war any more.

1940: The Battle of Britain is important for the survival of a democratic "airstrip" for the United States of America to use later in 1944. Extremely significant to the survival of democracy in Europe (same for D-Day), somewhat less important in terms of ultimately defeating Hitler. (No doubt Hitler would have had an easier time in Russia if he had first vassalized England, but it is not clear how much easier.)

1941-2: The failure of Operation Barbarossa is the genuinely critical factor in preventing a durable Hitlerite Empire and its ultimate destruction. Here I don't think we can single out one event, but the failure to reach Moscow in 1941 and the the victory at Stalingrad are the most important. These are overwhelmingly more important than any Western action at this time. Soviet historians, typically propagandists, nonetheless had a field day denouncing Anglo-Western propaganda which attempted to put Stalingrad and Midway on par with El Alamein in importance.

[William_H_Dougherty]

1941-2: The failure of Operation Barbarossa is the genuinely critical factor in preventing a durable Hitlerite Empire and its ultimate destruction. Here I don't think we can single out one event, but the failure to reach Moscow in 1941 and the the victory at Stalingrad are the most important. These are overwhelmingly more important than any Western action at this time. Soviet historians, typically propagandists, nonetheless had a field day denouncing Anglo-Western propaganda which attempted to put Stalingrad and Midway on par with El Alamein in importance.

Battle of Moscow and the events leading up to it: that is wisdom and I'm in 100% agreement, at least as far as "battles" are concerned. Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kursk, Operation Bagration, the Normandy Campaign, these are all significant events but the defeat of Germany was considered likely after 1941. It was not "likely" on June 21st, 1941, quite the opposite to most observers.

Other non-battle "turning points" could perhaps be:

#1. The failure of the Rest of the Entente to support Italy during Hitler's 1934 attempt to Annex Austria (and more importantly their legal obligation towards Austria itself). This single-handedly pushed Italy out of the Entente and made a rapproachment with Germany all but inevitable. It also completely changed the power structure of Central Europe. The so-called Little Entente became fairly meaningless and countries like Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia began looking to Germany instead of Italy for guarantees.

#2. The failure of the League of Nations to impose meaningful sanctions on Italy over the war in Ethiopia in 1935/36. The LoN was considered useless after this.

#3. The 1938 Munich Agreement and the failure of the Entente to intervene when Czechoslovakia when was completely occupied and "liberated" in 1939. The worth of the "guarantees" of the Entente were extremely suspect after this, although admittedly Hitler's word was now meaningless too.

Seriously, I could go on and on. Churchill was right, the tragedy of WW2 is enhanced when one realizes how preventable it was. The Entente seemed to go out of their way to put themselves, an initially better armed and better allied bloc, into an isolated position whereby an initially poorly armed and unallied Germany could defeat them.

- WHD

[Tailz]

You guys are thinking of the combatants as individual nations rather than as competing alliances. The United States and the UK secretly agreed to the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 establishing joint war goals and becoming the basis for what in January 1942 became the United Nations alliance.

Indeed they were competing alliances, but also, competing members within the alliances. There have been a few documentarys released that cover the aspect of competeing alliance members. Such as Allies at War - which focused on the rivalies of the Allied Leaders. While another documentary covered the thieft of intelegence (and material) between the Allied parties, while political manoeuvring was underway to see who had the stronger hand in the post war world.

It can hardly be said that Stalin was a team player, while the British and Americans were busy stealing German technolidgy out from under the noses of each other or removing the hardware before handing over an area to the Soviets, who then themselves scoured the area clean of anything that was not nailed down.

Nor should we forget American badgering on the dismantling of the Colonial British Empire (in partial return for Lend Lease).

I don't see this being the case... The notion of the feuding world orders was well understood by the Alliance, the Axis powers being regularly subject to immense discussion and pillory specifically in America, prior to December 7 1941. I do not mean to diminish the significance of the anti-war, isolationist, or pro-nazi anti-communist element in America specifically that opposed involvement in the war. However, these people were not running the government and were not involved in the multinational anti-Axis alliance. The attack on pearl Harbor accelerated an inevitable process of organisation by the allies for a post-war world free from tyrannical fascism.

I agree, but rather I agree in the terms that America would have fond one way or another to get into the European war - but rather the declaration of war by Germany got them into the European war far easier and earlier than had Roosevelt had to win support from the American government for American intervention in the European war without provocation by Germany when it was Japan in the Pacific that was raising hell. Especially considering American business thought the Deutschmark was just as good as Pounds Sterling.

[Xotica]

I would venture that there were four critical strategic/tactical points. All occurred on the Eastern front.

1) The failure of Hitler and his military leaders to foresee a long struggle in the East.

2) The failure to anticipate and overcome unprecedented logistical challenges.

3) Hitler's decision to divert Panzer armies from the Central theater to the Southern theater.

4) Hitler's insistence that Paulus et.al. remain in-place despite the clear threat of envelopment.

[Ombrageux]

There were two critical turning points insofar as the victory and defeat of Nazi Germany was concerned:
1) The stunning defeat of the Western Allies in France in 1940. This transformed Germany from being merely a European great power to the undisputed master of the continent, requiring a coalition of the world (and notably non-European powers) to defeat.
2) Any number of events in the Eastern Front.

[stalker]

Stalingrad, by far.