BEF captured at Dunkirk...

There is not such thing as unfit that would be permitted to join the army in Nazi Germany at Hitler's request. There were 400,000 stationed in Norway by paranoid request to defend the ore trade, and the army was from a totalitarian government that enslaved 12 million aliens for labor purposes and recruitment, so the German army numbered near 9 million with the best being used in teh earlier campaigns.

 

Let me correct your logic, taking Gib would halt armored resupplments to Malta and isolate it from being considered a threat to axis shipment. The Islamic world was largely in favor of the axis and liberation movement from the British. If Egypt were captured why would the British redeploy anywhere close to the Med if Italy would most likely attack Sudan to connect itself with the African horn which? The African route was not entirely used for the Med if you known about the trans African train route that resupplied forces in Alexandria. As fro the Italian navy, tne navy was weakened by British naval operations and would be considered an incendiary threat if the British were transporting supplies and men through armed escorts through the Med. They had no use for submarines and were defensively operational for Italy at best There were very few U-boats operating there as well so the Med was still be a useful destination for the British to send reinforcements and warships with armored escorts, go sea the naval operations against Italy and see what I mean.

 

Persian (Iran) oil was of little import in the global contribution of the petroworld in WW2. And has been proven recently an oil field is a very difficult thing to maintain and exploit during time of war. Especially when it is thousands of miles away from your own home-strength.

Baku I had been sealed by the Soviets when the Nazis threatened to take it, and wasn't back online until 1946. The Germans could have gained nothing in attempting to take the few known and working Persian fields. They too would have been sealed with cement and the pipeline destroyed. The Nazis would have gained nothing.

And what Lend/Lease route? the Persian corridore was only one of three major Soviet aid routes, closing it off would be an inconvenience at best, and impossible for the Germans to hold. The pro-Nazi groups in Persia were small, dis-organized, and literally worthless as allies. They would have soon found that a shared hatred of Jews wouldn't change the fact that they were viewed as Semites by the Nazis, and not part of the Aryan racial ladder. Except as sharing the lower rung with other Semites in Hitler's eye.

The Japanese gained almost nothing when the over-ran the NEI fields (Netherland's East India), they were so well sabotaged that it wasn't until the final part of 1944 that the Japanese even began to approach 100% of the pre-invasion production, and by then they couldn't get the oil home. They had no tanker fleet left.

 

BTW, here is a map of the five L/L routes, three major and two minor.

Goto:

Engines of the Red Army in WW2 - Routes Overview

 

The Persian oil fields did not have to be for immediate use for the Germans if they were never running out of oil to begin with, but collaborating with Iran would further diverge oil resources Britain was buying from.
Britain was trading with Iran and exchanged with for oil and occupied the country to divert any axis collaboration that was surfacing and maintain aid routes to the Soviets. The Shaw was coming closer to Hitler than ever. What they would have gained was feasible air stations in Iran to assault Soviet Caucasus oil fields(soviet union highly depended on on the long run) that would have been destroyed by the Soviets anyway if the Germans would have reached them on ground. A German link with Persia is enough to send supplies of men and war material to help defend them against the Soviet invasion and gain Iranian collaboration. Don't bother using Kazakhstan as an excuse because the oil wells were largely undeveloped under graded at the time and for emergency purposes.

Sealing Baku would have economically hurt the Soviets in exchange from letting their enemy gaining the advantage of their own resources.

Persians were considered Aryan to the Nazi Regime's eyes get the facts.

The Japanese were in very different situation and is incomprehensible to compare them, hence their were lacking efficient oil supplies.

 

Iran was the greatest contributional aid route and not to mention that German U-boats were targeting the North Sea to maintain menial scattered transport instead of concentrated transportation Iran. You should consider the time and distance for transporting aid with these alternative routes if Iran was closed off from Axis flanking from a captured Med.

 

By 1941, Britain and the USSR had joined forces and deposed and exiled the pro-Nazi Shah Reza Pahlavi. The fact that he had turned against the British after 1935, doesn’t alter the fact that he was relatively powerless, even in his own nation.

"Persians were considered Aryan to the Nazi Regime's eyes get the facts."

Hitler’s racial theories weren’t that sophisticated, he equated religion with race and Muslims/Islamic equaled Semite in his mind. No matter what the Persians (Iranians) claimed he would have just "smiled knowingly" and used them if he could have.

As to the oil, read this post of mine in "Sacred Cows and Dead Horses".

Goto:

http://www.ww2f.com/sacred-cows-dead-horses/34038-mid-east-oil.html

Germany was also "oil poor" with the exception a couple of low-production wells in the Hamburg coastal areas, and their synthetic production which was expensive as all get out. All three of the major Axis powers were petroleum poor, and had NO chance of ever becoming oil self-sufficient without conquests, which was a driving force. A hopless quest, but one of their basic needs none the less.

 

Little importance? Do you know what Avgas is and how important it is to an aircraft's performance?
Avgas
The British refinery in Persia was the primary supplier of Avgas to The Soviet VVS & to the RAF Desert Air Force. Without Avgas the advantage the Luftwaffe has in 1941-1942 over Allied air forces would have been much greater. Shipping Avgas from the other major Allied refineries (In Dutch Aruba & the USA) would add several months transit to the already overstreached shipping resources.

The Persian Gulf port transported over 60% of the lend Lease in 1943

The Soviet ships on the Pacific Route (via Vladivostok) was totally at the whim of Japan - not something that I would want to depend on.

The northern route via Murmansk was very dangerous, and was shut down completely for some time in the summer of '42.

 

I'm talking crude here, not refined product. The difference is one can't get either without the first, and capturing the first doesn't guarantee the second.

Yes, I know the value of high quality avgas, and that the Soviets receiced a great deal of their's from the allies. That doesn't negate the fact that it (Persian oil) was of "little import" to the British, the Americans, or the Commonwealth until it was refined. And the Germans had no chance of capturing the refineries intact, and lossing them wouldn't cripple the British.

The fact that the RAF used it in their North African operations is true, but in reality if it was lost it would have been a less than catastrophic event. Inconvenient, yes. War changing? No.

As to the amount of goods shipped through the Persian route;

Goto:

http://www.o5m6.de/Routes.html

And take a close look at the totals, the route was important, but it's loss wouldn't have been war-changing. Another route might just as easily been opened, say through Indian territory toward the Caspian and then north into the USSR.

 

And even if they did how would they get the oil to Germany?

 

1)There was no way the Germans could reach Persia (the distance from Tripoli to Teheran is some 2000 miles)
2)There was no way that the Germans could transport the oil to Germany
3)Launching air raids from Persia(!) would mean less aircraft available on the eastern front .
4)How could those aircrafts reach air ports in Persia? How could the ammunitions,the supply personnel be transported ?

 

Since it was Hitler's racial theory which drove the Nazi definition, one should count his, not your vision of whom he considered "Aryan". And where they fit in Europe, not the mid-east.

By the time Hitler began to "research" race theories, large groups of people who happened to speak the same language (more or less), who had a common history and/or religion (more or less), and had developed certain modes of thought and social behavior were seen as the same "race."

It was estimated that only 7% of Europe was populated by non-Aryan language/race groups such as Ural-Altaic (Hungarians, Turks, etc.), Semitic (Jews, Arabs, Persian, etc.), and other "darker-skinned" types who, for the most part, had followed the "Aryans" into Europe.

It was propounded that "three great racial groups" accounted for 93% of the total population of Europe.

First were the Nordic or Germanic races which for the most part consisted of the Germans, English, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, some Swiss and "probably" the Albanians and the "hopelessly mixed" Greeks.

Second was the "Latin race" which included the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

And third, the "Slavic races" consisting mainly of the Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Bulgarians, and Poles.

At the very bottom of the "race ladder" were the Semites, and since the Islamic religion as well as Judism were the prevalent faiths of these people, they were "out" of the loop. It didn't matter that the original "Aryan" may be an old Sanskrit root word which meant "high birth", or "ruler class" to Hitler, they were NO longer part of the Aryan group since they had (for the most part) adopted the Muslim faith.

This "racial theory" of Hitler’s closely followed the format put forward by H.G. Wells in his book: The Outline of History, a well thumbed copy of which Hitler kept on his night stand. Wells' work wasn't all in the Sci-Fi realm remember, he was first an historian of global acclaim, Wells also subscribed to the theory of human eugenics.

How are those for "facts"?

 

1) The distance would be irrelevant considering Islamic collaboration movement within the Middle eastern governments. Another reason is if the axis established a secured Mediterranean lake the British presence would evacuate to protect is shine jewel India as a formidable importance than a hostile the Middle east. The evacuation of the outnumbered would have followed anyway becasue the British were outflanked and numbered. Iran was beginning to open its arms to the Nazis and would maintain closer tides.

2) The Germans had plentiful supplies from the Romanian fields for the time being and Iran's oil was undesired for now.

3) The Persian air routes would be directed against the USSR not Persia.

4) The same way how they were transported to the Iraq-Anglo war.

 

1)the distance would be irrelevant ???
2)if Iranian oil was undesired,what was the utility to go to Iran ?
3)??
4)because a few aircraft did reach Bagdad,you think it would be possible for the Luftwaffe to go to Teheran with hundreds of bombers ?And the ground personnel,the A-A units,the spare parts ?And what about the RAF(of course neglectable ?)

 

I am not sure what Persia has to do with the BEF or any events leading up to or after the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Could we get back to the Dunkirk topic please.

 

Getting back on task here, ahemmm...it seems to me that even if the BEF is captured, it doesn't make all that much difference for the invasion of Britain.

The Brits had plenty of troops left, and they still had the channel. During the Blitz, the Germans actually achieved local-tactical air superiority over the invasion beaches. In all probability, they could have done the same after the BEF was captured.

However, Hitler along with Goring--probably more Hitler than Goring--wanted strategic air superiority over Britain, just like they had over Poland and France. THAT probably wasn't going to happen, BEF or no BEF incarceration, due to flawed tactics.

The variable is that the BEF may have been used as some sort of bargaining tool. I mean, I don't know. Does Hitler dangle 300,000 Brits in front of Churchills' face and say, "We get England or else?" What kind of sympathetic public suppoprt does that bring about?

On the other hand, Churchill was so committed to resisting Hitler no matter what, he may have just said, "Sod off!!." If that happens, the capture of the BEF becomes a moot point. A feather in the Wehrmachts' cap to be sure, but with no real consequence.

Realistically in my opinion, I don't think the capture of the BEF changes much, unless it is used as a bargaining chip and public outcry demands acceptance. But that's a whole new ballgame. And so it goes!! ---Hetzer--

 

Why do you say this??

 

Because it was historically the smallest force, not the largest which Great Britian had at its disposal at the time.

 

Huh?
In July 1940 the British only had about a dozen regular divisions, + 18 or so weaker territorial divisions, which were poorly equipped & trained.

There were 338,000 troops evacuated from Dunkirk, of the British evacuated from France it's at least 10 divisions, and these evacuees formed over 75% of the British regular army available at the time.
The chances of success for Sealion increase dramatically without the BEF evacuation from Dunkirk.

 

1) there were NO 338OOO evacuated at Dunkirk;9 divisions,without heavy arms.
2)The chances of success for Sealion had nothing to do with the possibility of the evacuation of the BEF