TheVilla Aston
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Comments by "TheVilla Aston" (@thevillaaston7811) on "Why The North African Campaign Was So Crucial For Hitler | Hitler's Soft Underbelly | Timeline" video.
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@troyturner6083
'you have a nonsence argument. The way to finish Germany was to steam roll Germany and thats what happened. Fighting in the med only helped British interests. Thats why the major powers didnt do it'
The way to finish Germany was stop its ability to concentrate is forces agaist a single allied invasion. As happened with the campaign in Italy, which tied down 50 German divisions. Divisions that would otherwise have been facing allied forces in France.
As it was, the land campaign in North West had a modest margain of allied superiority in troops. What would have happened if those 50 German divisions in Italy and the Balkans had been pitted against operation Overlord? Think it through next time.
Further, by not getting into the Balkans, the Western allies fought the war in the west, exactly as Stalin wanted it fought, leaving Russia clear to take over in the Balkans. Stalin could see the greenhorn Roosevelt coming. He could hear him as well, word is he had a squeaky wheel on his wheelchair.
Still, not all Americans were as dumb as Roosevelt:
'A campaign that might have changed the whole history of relations between the Western world and the Soviet Union was permitted to fade away, not into nothing, but into much less than it could have been. …not alone in my opinion, but in the opinion of a number of experts who were close to the problem, the weakening of the campaign in Italy in order to invade Southern France, instead of pushing on into the Balkans, was one of the outstanding political mistakes of the war. …
Stalin knew what he wanted in a political as well as a military way; and the thing he most wanted was to keep us out of the Balkans. … It is easy to see therefore, why Stalin favoured ANVIL at Teheran…but I could never see why as conditions changed, the United States and Britain failed to sit down and take at the overall picture. …There was no question that the Balkans were strongly in the British minds, but…the American top level planners were not interested. …I later came to understand, in Austria, the tremendous advantages that we had lost by our failure to press on into the Balkans. …Had we been there before the Red Army, not only would the collapse of Germany have come sooner, but the influence of Soviet Russia would have been drastically reduced.'
US General Mark Clark. His words.
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Krackerman
Britain out of the war in 1940 tied down a million German troops, two thirds of the German air force, forced the Germans into their submarine building programme, stopped the Germans from being able to trade outside of mainland Europe, and by intervening in the Balkans, helped to cause a fatal five week delay to the start of Barbarossa. The Royal Navy dealt with the German, Italian, and French fleets, and it accounted for three quarters of the 785 German and Italian submarines destroyed during the war.
The RAF destroyed German superiority in the air war with victory in the Battle of Britain. Never again would Germany be as strong in real terms in relation to its tasks and its enemies as it had been in the early summer of 1940. From then on its personnel and equipment decreased in quality and numbers.. Germany attacked Russia in 1941 with just 2,400 aircraft, and from 1940 until 1944 , its only new major combat aircraft was the fw-190. Half of the German fighter aces fro the entire war fought in the Battle of Britain.
Bletchley Park took on initial work by Polish codebreakers and created the most comprehensive codebreaking operation in history.
doverton sturdee has noted the key details about D-Day and Normandy. I would merely add that Britain also supplied almost all of intelligence, support for behind the lines operations, the all important weather information, and two artificial harbours.
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WITH PREJUDICE
The War Memoirs of Marshall of the Royal Air Force
Lord Tedder G.C.B.
CASSELL & COMPANY 1966
P 395
'To General Marshall the continuation of warfare in the Mediterranean was a sign of British Lukewarmness towards the full-scale assault on the Reich through France, which alone could secure the defeat of the main enemy. In Alan Brooke’s eyes the continued lack of American reinforcements to Europe and the preoccupation with Admiral King’s operations in the Pacific, signified America’s lack of perception.’
‘At this distance of time, there can be no possible doubt that Brooke was right. Not only did we have no hope in 1943 of sufficient picked and trained troops, with a vast armada of shipping and landing craft for a cross-Channel invasion; even more important, we should not possess until the end of the year the air strength which, wisely used in advance of an assault on France, would ensure its success. It seemed clear to me that our right policy was to clear North Africa first, to take Sicily as a springboard for operations in Italy, the weak spot of the Axis, and to cause in the coming months the maximum devastation of German productive capacity.’
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