A few things I'd like to add to this interesting topic. Many of you have
mentioned or touched upon some of these.
The majority here agree that the US was either the winner or the leader of the
winning pack, or at least played the biggest role in ensuring the Allied
victory.
But keep in mind that Europe had been fighting a war on home soil for some time
before the US joined, and apart from Pearl Harbour, their war was off abroad and
not on home soil. Someone mentioned this already, but had the US suffered such
devastation as Europe had, especially on manufacturing level, it's economy would
have been dealt a heavy blow.
It is also said here that without the US intervention, Germany would have
conquered Europe. Germany could not afford in capital and oil a land invasion of
Great Britain. In order for Germany to successfully invade England, it would
first have to conquer the Middle East, including Turkey for them to get their
hands on Iraqi and Iranian oil. English forces were holding their own against
Rommel in the desert and Germany knew that by attacking Turkey would bring the
Arabian Gulf into the war and that would mean a depletion of forces on both the
Eastern (Russian) and Western fronts in order to stem the Arabians. Also,
Ireland was a neutral party during the war but a land invasion of Great Britain
would certainly have brought Ireland into the fight - against Germany! And for
that the Germans needed extra armour and troops.
As for Russia and its impending defeat from the Germans, it certainly wouldn't
have been so easy for the Germans. Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon and
attacked Russia during the winter. The Russians gave the Germans ground, drawing
them deeper away from their supply lines, an old Cossack tactic. The Russians
then placed anti-aircraft guns behind the Germans and shot whatever supply
planes flew over, down. At one stage a plane that got through could only drop
boxes of peas for rations and that was all the Germans had to eat for nearly a
week.
After the end of the European campaign, Russia was more interested in keeping
the West out of Europe than invading Japan, plus it's own economy wasn't really
that strong and perhaps in couldn't afford a large scale offensive against the
Japanese. Stalin actually was obsessed with Hitler and rather gave Germany all
his attention.
Russia wasn't prepared for Germany's intial onslaught, because Hitler had told
Stalin he won't attack him. Hitler lied of course.
To come back to the USA being the saviour and winner; I can't help but think
that they only were so successful because of their allied partners in the war.
As much as Europe and Australia need the US to help end the war successfully for
them, the US also needed them to do it. My reasoning for this is quite simple
â?¦ the US tried to fight Korea and
Viet-Nam alone without the help of allies ... and they lost. That's why the Gulf
War, Afghanistan and Iraqi operations all again included allies, and not the US
alone.
There is another player of course that isn't mentioned - Italy. If Italy had
been a stronger ally to the Germans, North Africa would have fallen, Greece
would have been conquered very quickly and perhaps even Turkey then as well,
which then would have given Hitler all the oil he needed.
Japan attacked the US out of necessity for they too were running low on oil. Had
this not been the case, I'm sure they would most certainly not have wanted to
'wake the sleeping giant' - the wise thing to have done. But a tactical thing to
have done, had Japan all the necessary resources, would be to execute the attack
on Pearl Harbour, and immediately follow that up with a ground assault on
mainland USA, by so crippling the US contribution of supplies to Europe, giving
Germany the chance to boost its defences along the English Channel.
Someone mentioned the thing about the US stepping in to help nations busy with
ethnic cleansing, genocide ... holocaust repeats? But ... what about Zaire
(DRC), Rwanda and Burundi? Perhaps because they don't have oil and gas? So what
about Somalia then, you may ask: An unstable Somalia could upset Ethiopia and
Egypt; and currently Egypt is a strategic platform for the US.
It is good to have someone watching over us, helping a nation under oppression
and a race suffering extermination - but it would also be nice if this help
could have been offered to ALL nations.
Keep in mind Mrchak, it wasn't only the US who were involved in Bosnia and
surrounding states, it was a UN coalition, supported by Italian, Spanish, French
and British forces along with the US.
As for US interests in oil in Eastern Europe and Persia, it is mentioned that
through OPEC they'll be able to purchase the oil; well not if you have US
companies doing the drilling and processing. I'm in the oil industry in Western
Africa and here I see it clearly - US and European companies pay rental of a
block to a country in order to drill and process oil and gas - the host nation,
if you will, don't see those deposits, merely the rental money for the block
under exploration. There are pipelines running from the coast of Angola, Gabon
and Nigeria to pump stations in the Atlantic, where tankers then transport the
oil to the US and Europe. Equatorial Guinea is wholly explored by Exxon Mobil,
and American oil company. The people of EG don't see the oil neither the money
that is produced and generated from their resource and land. Don't blame the US
for that, blame the EG government - a democratic, yet corrupt
government.
Russia did most of the work in Europe. The allies (including the USA) helped,
but most of the heavy fighting was conducted by the Russians. In Asia, the
victory was due to the war efforts of China and the USA.
Quote: It is good to have someone
watching over us, helping a nation under oppression and a race suffering
extermination - but it would also be nice if this help could have been offered
to ALL nations.
It would be ideal if the US could help every nation. Unfortunately, that's not
really possible. ::shrugs::
And despite being human nature, I also think everyone technically loses in war.
But the Allies won if you want an answer.
Let me put it in the easy way; the allies won. That includes the USSR and the
US.
And the ones who says that America did the largest part in the work can drop
dead.
I've read a fair amount of history, actually. That history, which goes into
greater depth than a mere timeline, knocks your assertion that the U.S. did
"a small amount of the allies" flat on its face. The many of American
troops that fought in both the European and Pacific Theaters could be said to
have made a bit more than a small contribution, wouldn't you say?
Why is this conversation revolving around denigrating someone's contribution to
Allied victory, be it American, Soviet, British or whoever else?
I've read a fair amount of history, actually. That history, which goes into
greater depth than a mere timeline, knocks your assertion that the U.S. did
"a small amount of the allies" flat on its face. The many of American
troops that fought in both the European and Pacific Theaters could be said to
have made a bit more than a small contribution, wouldn't you say?
Why is this conversation revolving around denigrating someone's contribution to
Allied victory, be it American, Soviet, British or whoever
else?
it seems that way when some1 says "this particular country won the
war"
this being "the US won the won" Yes they did play a key role in many
important endevers
but saying that they were not souly responsible for the allies victory
every country had an important decisive part to play so no sole country can say
the allies won cause of us
Quote by jaam0927
uuuhhhh..... The Allies: USA, England, Russia....
but personally I think USA did more things... the war was going kind of wrong
for the Allies untill USA support them....
Without support from the US Russia wouldn't have been able to arm their forces
that quickly and England wouldn't have withstood the German forces much
longer.
lol... How much have helped USA to Russia? Russia destroyed the fascists with
the Soviet weapons.
-
Quote:
...Russia got the shit kicked out of it until it joined the Allies, and you guys
did suffer the most casualties...
Thanks!
yea the Russian suffered more losses.... and with the French already defeated
the British were the only ones left, but when the US enter the war Germany
concentrated most of its troops in the fronts were US and Britain where, which
gave the Russian time to come back in its feet.... so Us help Russia by giving
them time......
Quote by jaam0927
uuuhhhh..... The Allies: USA, England, Russia....
but personally I think USA did more things... the war was going kind of wrong
for the Allies untill USA support them....
Without support from the US Russia wouldn't have been able to arm their forces
that quickly and England wouldn't have withstood the German forces much
longer.
lol... How much have helped USA to Russia? Russia destroyed the fascists with
the Soviet weapons.
-
Quote:
...Russia got the shit kicked out of it until it joined the Allies, and you guys
did suffer the most casualties...
Thanks!
yea the Russian suffered more losses.... and with the French already defeated
the British were the only ones left, but when the US enter the war Germany
concentrated most of its troops in the fronts were US and Britain where, which
gave the Russian time to come back in its feet.... so Us help Russia by giving
them time......
Yeah right, like the t-34 would be built by americans. Sorry there mates, but
they would have solved it anyhow. A little more people would maybe have died
while starving and they would not have as nice jeeps as otherwise but what
change would that do? The american tanks provided sucked!
And the germans where so few, and Russia so big. I believe that the USSR
produced twice as many tanks as Germany at some point, and I also believe that
Germany had 75% of its armed forces on the eastern front.
That is where the action was. With operations like Barbarossa, Operation Blue in
1942, The Stalingrad Kettle.
And by the way, the soviet forces where devided when the germans invaded. And it
takes a little while to transport armies on the transibirian railway all the way
from the far eastern Russia.
The Allies Defeated the Axis (Germans, Jappanesse, Italy) Allies included the
U.S.A, England, and Russian. The U.S. and The Russians attacked the German
Captal. United States went east and Russia west. The allies crushed the captal
fast because the allies were on both sides so no matter what they would get
trough. (the basic way of saying who won)
In many ways, it appears that the US won the war. A good thing to point out
though, is the aftermath of the war. Look at the top 3 greatest economies in the
world. !st is the US. No surprise the winners get the spot. But 2nd and 3rd
place are Germany and Japan. The supposed losers. My point is that though the
allies won, the aid the axis powers received after losing enabled to win over
the others in the long run economically.
I would say The US and the Soviets, they were quite capable of taking on Germany
and Japan.
The United Kingdom was pretty much toasted halfway the war.
But dont forget Finland, their airforce was capable of fighting off the russians
with only their outdated Fokker D21s.
Finland might be a little state, and that is most propably why this act goes
unnoticed.
When you look at the 10 years after the war, it is mostly Germany that
influenced the 2 superpowers. You could say that Germany won scientifically. The
allies profited greatly from nazi reasearch.
Examples are the MIG 15, the F86 Sabre, their missile projects, the axial
jetengine, the TU-95 Bear, the B2 spirit and many more examples can be found.
no one wins....so why fight?...it's because we(humans) want more than we
have?..or it's because we want to protect the things that we have?....the
war..something sick..inhuman..and nasty...but if we don'tlike this wars..why we
people don't stop it?!...know why...it's because no one really cares about
it...never a soldier refuse fighting...never a country will realy refuse
war...never a WAR will refuse DEATH......
lets see you fight for 3 years against the combined might of Europe and Russia,
only to turn around and fight a fresh opponent. America would have quite happily
sat out the war in favor of keeping its economy stable, but the Japanese got
greedy and screwed up the Axis plans. which worked out pretty good because
otherwise we would have ended up with a dictatorship.... hmm it seems America
somehow absorbed the Axis ideas when they ended it. funny about that. (thank
goodness that austrlia's government is only america's lapdog, and the people
don't like to follow their culture.)
I think the Russians did, because they got the most out of this war.
(when they were the FIRST to came to berlin, the USA and Great Britain gave
Russia more territory then they agread on when they made the
alliance-USA/RUSSIA/GREAT BRITAIN).
and the russian economy and the technology just exploded during the war.
First, thank you Cybo for what you wrote.
Then , I have to say that I agree with freezingsaphire, tidus and others. Did
any country won the war? Countries can loose a war, but can they win one? I
don't think so.
The Allies, of course... but to say the USA did everything or most of the work
is quite... it's a combined effort and not an easy one to know even if we know
what everyone have done, if some actions were really more important that
another. Who knows if a single heroic act has devasted another side's mood
?
So some said that at least in the european part, the USA weren't the ones that
put an end to this war but they help a lot to accelerate it.
Personnaly, I was more impressed by the British attitude. By example, the mother
queen refused to quit London with her daugthers even if it was
bombarded.
I was also intrigued by the role of what is said to be the "first
computer", the Colossus computer (made by british, built to decode the
crypted nazi communication... even if luck played a big part to make it
useful).
But economically speaking, it's true that it's the USA that have won the more
from this war, they ended up having 70 % of the gold, the industry wasn't
destroyed, the country wasn't damaged (if we except Pearl Harbor)...
In Yalta, Europe was divided.
The West Side won freedom, development, France, GB won but also... Germany!
They fell because of Hitler, but thanx to the France, England, USA they regained
what they lost... but the East Germany was the price.
Central and Eastern Europe, exluding Russia, LOST.
4 example, my homeland, Poland lost 50 years... v__v
Now, Ukraine gained freedom, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, are in the EU... it's
time for Belarus to leave the Russian influence area....When that time comes, it
will be the ultimate WON of the Allies.
A few things I'd like to add to this interesting topic. Many of you have mentioned or touched upon some of these.
The majority here agree that the US was either the winner or the leader of the winning pack, or at least played the biggest role in ensuring the Allied victory.
But keep in mind that Europe had been fighting a war on home soil for some time before the US joined, and apart from Pearl Harbour, their war was off abroad and not on home soil. Someone mentioned this already, but had the US suffered such devastation as Europe had, especially on manufacturing level, it's economy would have been dealt a heavy blow.
It is also said here that without the US intervention, Germany would have conquered Europe. Germany could not afford in capital and oil a land invasion of Great Britain. In order for Germany to successfully invade England, it would first have to conquer the Middle East, including Turkey for them to get their hands on Iraqi and Iranian oil. English forces were holding their own against Rommel in the desert and Germany knew that by attacking Turkey would bring the Arabian Gulf into the war and that would mean a depletion of forces on both the Eastern (Russian) and Western fronts in order to stem the Arabians. Also, Ireland was a neutral party during the war but a land invasion of Great Britain would certainly have brought Ireland into the fight - against Germany! And for that the Germans needed extra armour and troops.
As for Russia and its impending defeat from the Germans, it certainly wouldn't have been so easy for the Germans. Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon and attacked Russia during the winter. The Russians gave the Germans ground, drawing them deeper away from their supply lines, an old Cossack tactic. The Russians then placed anti-aircraft guns behind the Germans and shot whatever supply planes flew over, down. At one stage a plane that got through could only drop boxes of peas for rations and that was all the Germans had to eat for nearly a week.
After the end of the European campaign, Russia was more interested in keeping the West out of Europe than invading Japan, plus it's own economy wasn't really that strong and perhaps in couldn't afford a large scale offensive against the Japanese. Stalin actually was obsessed with Hitler and rather gave Germany all his attention.
Russia wasn't prepared for Germany's intial onslaught, because Hitler had told Stalin he won't attack him. Hitler lied of course.
To come back to the USA being the saviour and winner; I can't help but think that they only were so successful because of their allied partners in the war. As much as Europe and Australia need the US to help end the war successfully for them, the US also needed them to do it. My reasoning for this is quite simple â?¦ the US tried to fight Korea and Viet-Nam alone without the help of allies ... and they lost. That's why the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraqi operations all again included allies, and not the US alone.
There is another player of course that isn't mentioned - Italy. If Italy had been a stronger ally to the Germans, North Africa would have fallen, Greece would have been conquered very quickly and perhaps even Turkey then as well, which then would have given Hitler all the oil he needed.
Japan attacked the US out of necessity for they too were running low on oil. Had this not been the case, I'm sure they would most certainly not have wanted to 'wake the sleeping giant' - the wise thing to have done. But a tactical thing to have done, had Japan all the necessary resources, would be to execute the attack on Pearl Harbour, and immediately follow that up with a ground assault on mainland USA, by so crippling the US contribution of supplies to Europe, giving Germany the chance to boost its defences along the English Channel.
Someone mentioned the thing about the US stepping in to help nations busy with ethnic cleansing, genocide ... holocaust repeats? But ... what about Zaire (DRC), Rwanda and Burundi? Perhaps because they don't have oil and gas? So what about Somalia then, you may ask: An unstable Somalia could upset Ethiopia and Egypt; and currently Egypt is a strategic platform for the US.
It is good to have someone watching over us, helping a nation under oppression and a race suffering extermination - but it would also be nice if this help could have been offered to ALL nations.
Keep in mind Mrchak, it wasn't only the US who were involved in Bosnia and surrounding states, it was a UN coalition, supported by Italian, Spanish, French and British forces along with the US.
As for US interests in oil in Eastern Europe and Persia, it is mentioned that through OPEC they'll be able to purchase the oil; well not if you have US companies doing the drilling and processing. I'm in the oil industry in Western Africa and here I see it clearly - US and European companies pay rental of a block to a country in order to drill and process oil and gas - the host nation, if you will, don't see those deposits, merely the rental money for the block under exploration. There are pipelines running from the coast of Angola, Gabon and Nigeria to pump stations in the Atlantic, where tankers then transport the oil to the US and Europe. Equatorial Guinea is wholly explored by Exxon Mobil, and American oil company. The people of EG don't see the oil neither the money that is produced and generated from their resource and land. Don't blame the US for that, blame the EG government - a democratic, yet corrupt government.
Russia did most of the work in Europe. The allies (including the USA) helped, but most of the heavy fighting was conducted by the Russians. In Asia, the victory was due to the war efforts of China and the USA.
Well.. uh... technically, there wasn't just one winner. Different sides.
It would be ideal if the US could help every nation. Unfortunately, that's not really possible. ::shrugs::
And despite being human nature, I also think everyone technically loses in war. But the Allies won if you want an answer.
fellas.....fear have won the war.cmon,just imagine an atom is above your head, i would give up rather than vaporized.
Let me put it in the easy way; the allies won. That includes the USSR and the US.
And the ones who says that America did the largest part in the work can drop dead.
Read some history and you'll find that the US did a small amount of work compaired to the rest of the allies
britain and russia did the most to win the war
to many opinions here are baist and patriotic
I've read a fair amount of history, actually. That history, which goes into greater depth than a mere timeline, knocks your assertion that the U.S. did "a small amount of the allies" flat on its face. The many of American troops that fought in both the European and Pacific Theaters could be said to have made a bit more than a small contribution, wouldn't you say?
Why is this conversation revolving around denigrating someone's contribution to Allied victory, be it American, Soviet, British or whoever else?
it seems that way when some1 says "this particular country won the war"
this being "the US won the won" Yes they did play a key role in many important endevers
but saying that they were not souly responsible for the allies victory
every country had an important decisive part to play so no sole country can say the allies won cause of us
yea the Russian suffered more losses.... and with the French already defeated the British were the only ones left, but when the US enter the war Germany concentrated most of its troops in the fronts were US and Britain where, which gave the Russian time to come back in its feet.... so Us help Russia by giving them time......
Yeah right, like the t-34 would be built by americans. Sorry there mates, but they would have solved it anyhow. A little more people would maybe have died while starving and they would not have as nice jeeps as otherwise but what change would that do? The american tanks provided sucked!
And the germans where so few, and Russia so big. I believe that the USSR produced twice as many tanks as Germany at some point, and I also believe that Germany had 75% of its armed forces on the eastern front.
That is where the action was. With operations like Barbarossa, Operation Blue in 1942, The Stalingrad Kettle.
And by the way, the soviet forces where devided when the germans invaded. And it takes a little while to transport armies on the transibirian railway all the way from the far eastern Russia.
The Allies Defeated the Axis (Germans, Jappanesse, Italy) Allies included the U.S.A, England, and Russian. The U.S. and The Russians attacked the German Captal. United States went east and Russia west. The allies crushed the captal fast because the allies were on both sides so no matter what they would get trough. (the basic way of saying who won)
In many ways, it appears that the US won the war. A good thing to point out though, is the aftermath of the war. Look at the top 3 greatest economies in the world. !st is the US. No surprise the winners get the spot. But 2nd and 3rd place are Germany and Japan. The supposed losers. My point is that though the allies won, the aid the axis powers received after losing enabled to win over the others in the long run economically.
I would say The US and the Soviets, they were quite capable of taking on Germany and Japan.
The United Kingdom was pretty much toasted halfway the war.
But dont forget Finland, their airforce was capable of fighting off the russians with only their outdated Fokker D21s.
Finland might be a little state, and that is most propably why this act goes unnoticed.
When you look at the 10 years after the war, it is mostly Germany that influenced the 2 superpowers. You could say that Germany won scientifically. The allies profited greatly from nazi reasearch.
Examples are the MIG 15, the F86 Sabre, their missile projects, the axial jetengine, the TU-95 Bear, the B2 spirit and many more examples can be found.
Well, in my opinion, no one wins in a war, everyone loses.
I agree with freezingsaphire. I think there's a quote by Einstein says that no one ever really wins the war.
no one wins....so why fight?...it's because we(humans) want more than we have?..or it's because we want to protect the things that we have?....the war..something sick..inhuman..and nasty...but if we don'tlike this wars..why we people don't stop it?!...know why...it's because no one really cares about it...never a soldier refuse fighting...never a country will realy refuse war...never a WAR will refuse DEATH......
lets see you fight for 3 years against the combined might of Europe and Russia, only to turn around and fight a fresh opponent. America would have quite happily sat out the war in favor of keeping its economy stable, but the Japanese got greedy and screwed up the Axis plans. which worked out pretty good because otherwise we would have ended up with a dictatorship.... hmm it seems America somehow absorbed the Axis ideas when they ended it. funny about that. (thank goodness that austrlia's government is only america's lapdog, and the people don't like to follow their culture.)
I think the Russians did, because they got the most out of this war.
(when they were the FIRST to came to berlin, the USA and Great Britain gave Russia more territory then they agread on when they made the alliance-USA/RUSSIA/GREAT BRITAIN).
and the russian economy and the technology just exploded during the war.
Well , in the as I always say, with the war there are no winners nor of overcome, there are only loosers not ?
((this sentence is from a phylosophe , but i forget the name ) ))
First, thank you Cybo for what you wrote.
Then , I have to say that I agree with freezingsaphire, tidus and others. Did any country won the war? Countries can loose a war, but can they win one? I don't think so.
The Allies, of course... but to say the USA did everything or most of the work is quite... it's a combined effort and not an easy one to know even if we know what everyone have done, if some actions were really more important that another. Who knows if a single heroic act has devasted another side's mood ?
So some said that at least in the european part, the USA weren't the ones that put an end to this war but they help a lot to accelerate it.
Personnaly, I was more impressed by the British attitude. By example, the mother queen refused to quit London with her daugthers even if it was bombarded.
I was also intrigued by the role of what is said to be the "first computer", the Colossus computer (made by british, built to decode the crypted nazi communication... even if luck played a big part to make it useful).
But economically speaking, it's true that it's the USA that have won the more from this war, they ended up having 70 % of the gold, the industry wasn't destroyed, the country wasn't damaged (if we except Pearl Harbor)...
yeah, its the allies that won. thye all helped fight, and they all won.
The Big ones won.
The small nations lost.
In Yalta, Europe was divided.
The West Side won freedom, development, France, GB won but also... Germany!
They fell because of Hitler, but thanx to the France, England, USA they regained what they lost... but the East Germany was the price.
Central and Eastern Europe, exluding Russia, LOST.
4 example, my homeland, Poland lost 50 years... v__v
Now, Ukraine gained freedom, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, are in the EU... it's time for Belarus to leave the Russian influence area....When that time comes, it will be the ultimate WON of the Allies.