Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Knowledgia"
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@joshuamorrison8332 Please don't get so tediously aggressive. Didn't you write :-
'Chamberlain's desire for peace, while much derided in the history books, probably saved countless lives at Dunkirk,' Or have you forgotten? I didn't say you said Chamberlain played an active role. I simply said that he was irrelevant.
There is no doubt at all about the Halt Order. It may be read in the War Diary of Army Group A, which was captured in 1945 and is readily available. Indeed, Hitler could have over-ridden it, but because of a number of factors, he chose to let it stand. These factors included :-
1). The need to service & repair the armour to prepare it for stage 2.
2). Hitler's knowledge from his time there in WW1 that the area was poor tank country.
3). The imminent arrival of the German infantry divisions, more suited to the task.
4). His (erroneous) assumption that an army backed against the sea was trapped.
But, most of all, Goering's assurance to him, the day before the order was given, that the destruction of the surrounded allied forces was 'a special job for the Luftwaffe.'
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'As for the British, they let France pay the price for the land war without giving it much support.' Much as the French let, or would have let, the British pay the price for the sea war without giving it much support. That was the accepted trade-off between the two allies.
Mr. Phillips rather exposes the weakness of his argument when he compares the number of divisions in the BEF in 1940 with those of 1918. When the BEF went to France in 1914, it consisted of only six infantry divisions and one cavalry division. In WW2 the forces sent by the British were gradually to be increased by conscription, and by the arrival of additional divisions from Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand, as had happened in WW1. Allied strategy assumed a defensive posture at the beginning, which would become more offensive as these extra resources arrived. Obviously, because of the 1940 collapse, this was never possible.
I am surprised Mr. Phillips is unaware of this. Assuming, of course, that he is actually unaware, rather than simply avoiding the fact.
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@annoyingbstard9407 No. I don't 'imagine they designed them the day before they came into mass production?' The first design for what became the V1 was sketched out by Lusser & Gosslau on 27 February, 1942. The technology for what became the V2 had only been available from late 1941. Hitler, by the way, dismissed the concept as 'an artillery shell with a longer range and much higher cost,' at the time.
Certainly, a number of theoretical ideas, leading in some cases to tests of prototypes existed before those dates, but nothing in the way of government sponsorship or finance was provided.
Jet engines were not part of the 'wonder weapon' concept. More than one nation had been working on them, as a normal line of aircraft engine development. Similarly, several nations were working on nuclear weapons, Britain especially being well in advance of Germany. The German programme was, by the way, hamstrung by the involvement of anti-semitic prejudice, which led to a bias against theoretical physics, especially quantum mechanics.
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Hitler, since coming to power, had reoccupied the Rhineland and incorporated Austria into Germany. He then, without declaring war on anyone, invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Belgium. Of course Britain & France declared war, in accordance with their agreements with Poland. This was, some would say belatedly, a line in the sand, and Hitler ignored it.
By 1940, the world was quite clear how seriously Hitler took peace treaties. France was in the process of finding out.
As to Britain being humiliated, hardly. The RN was more or less untouched, and had just organised the evacuation of over 300,000 allied troops from Dunkirk. Hitler, by the way, did not 'allow' the British to escape. Von Rundstedt stopped the armour in order to prepare it for the second stage of the invasion of France.
Finally, if you see Germany as a military super power, compare the size of what, after Norway, was left of the tiny Kriegsmarine with the resources available to the Royal Navy, and then try to explain precisely how any sort of invasion was even remotely conceivable. If the Germans did not want war, they made a rather poor effort of showing it, don't you think?
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Utter nonsense. There were, I believe, four companies of Indians with the BEF, in charge of mule transport units. None saw combat because they were not combat units, and almost all were successfully evacuated.
If you want to write about the important role of Indian troops in North Africa, Italy, and Burma, then fair enough, but posting the kind of stupid comment you have done here simply exposes you, and their memory, to ridicule.
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@joonamikkonen_ Sorry, but it is simple statement of fact :-
United Kingdom :- Population in 1941:- 48,216,000. Military deaths by 1945, 383,700 = 0.795%
United States :- Population in 1941 :- 133,417,000. Military deaths by 1945, 407,300 = 0.305%
France :- Population in 1941 :- 40,400,000. Military deaths by 1945, 210,000 = 0.519%
Incidentally, my post referred to statistics which may be confirmed on any site. Where in it did I suggest that the French were 'incompetent?' The only comment so far attacking any particular nation has been yours.
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@joonamikkonen_ If you include French colonies, then the total population increases to 111,524, 472, as of 1939. The figures I quoted earlier of french military deaths, included French colonial soldiers. If you choose to base the % on the French empire as a whole, then the figure becomes 0.188%
Poland, by the way : Population 34,849,000, Deaths 240,000 = 0.688%
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