Japan and Germany invade US through a "neutral" Mexico.

Ok this thread has been discussed before, briefly in a few other threads, but in no way that I can see has it been directly discussed as a single invasion from a single point, so it will be approved.

However, due to it being discussed before it will be held on a short thread.

There are some great posts on this subject at the beginning of this thread.

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/19202-american-invasion-8.html

 

What is your time frame you were looking at all these events happening, just so we can get a clear picture of the world as it unfolds?

DO the Japanese still come into the war in 41? When do the Germans defeat all the European allies?

Canada being part of the first allies was at war with Germany, so by attempting to join the American's this would bring the Yanks into the war, which by your what if, they are trying to avoid. As well as the fact that the Canadians wouldn't give up the fight, especially since it is a good chance a lot of the high ranking British forces ended up there.

How are they granted tourist rights? Being an agressing nation at the time this would doubtfully lead to caution by the Americans.
I also find it hard to believe that the Americans will just sit there and let this happen around them, as well as the fact that for the Germans to use Mexico as a staging point, they would need to either invade or convince them to land, this alone counts as an allied response to the Germans and an act of war against the allies, and the Americans would not just let that happen right on there doorstep, look how they reacted with the Cuba missile crisis when their mainland was in danger.

I find it hard to believe that the Americans would simply just stop military research, yes they may not be as focused as if they were at war, but they would undoubtfully take a great interest into the war, as well as all the new weapons that are popping up around the place. They would know that to become a super power they need to say with the times.

Another problem I see is the logistics behind this German operation. How do they supply there forces and where from? There transport ships would have to dock somewhere in the Caribbean ports since that is where they landed and there is no access to the landing areas anywhere else. This brings them into a bottleneck against the American Navy, although not quite as powerful as historically in 1945 they still would be formidable, and would still be able to out do the Germans.

 

I have a suspicion that a "LOT" of things would have to change for the Mexicans to welcome a German presence with open arms. Remember that it wasn't all that far in their past that Napoleon III had imposed another Austrian on them, and they disliked that pretty much. They also had no use for the Germans under the Kaiser, as shown in their non-consideration of the Zimmermann note in any serious sense.

I don't think they were all that "pro-Japanese" either. I might be wrong, but it seems that I remember the Japanese who settled in Mexico to have found it barely more welcoming that the USA, and America didn't allow them to even apply for citizenship through the naturalization process until post-WW2.

I dunno, just throwing out thoughts without doing too much research here. Could be all wrong.

 

But the Mexican government was pro-Socialist, anti-fascist during this period of time. Not likely to allow "right of passage" whether they say "we won't stay here" or not. The last time the Mexicans and the Japanese had been on "friendly terms" was when Álvaro Obregón was awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum by the Japanese in 1924, but he was out of office shortly thereafter, Japanese were later discriminated against, exiled out of Mexico proper to the Baja Penninsula for the most part, when Obregón was assassinated shortly after he won the 1928 Presidential election.

Now, when Calles took office he was rather pro-Socialist originally, and it was when he turned sort of militarist/fascist that he was exiled by his former colleague Lázaro Cárdenas. If I am not mistaken both the PRN and PRI parties from Calles on were pro-Socialist parties, including all the Presidents; Emilio Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Lázaro Cárdenas and finally Manuel Ávila who served between 1940 and 1946. Mexico wouldn’t be a welcoming haven for Nazis I would think.

Don’t forget that the pro-Socialist government of Mexico under Cárdenas welcomed exiled Leon Trotsky and supported the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. When that ended with the fascist’s win, Cárdenas remained pro-Socialist and gave instructions to his Spanish ambassador and all other envoys in Europe to give safe haven and protection to all exiles from the Spanish Civil war, including the former President of Republican Spain, Dr. Manuel Azaña Díaz. Mexico wouldn’t be a welcoming haven for Nazis under any circumstances, especially as invaders it would seem to me. I also believe that about 15,000 Mexican volunteer soldiers fought the Axis overseas during WW2.

And while we had a sort of "48 states" policy, that isn't exactly right is it? As I recall our claimed "defensive" area extended in a line from the Aluetian Islands, through a line west of Midway, and then looping back into the Panama Canal Zone. Correct me if I am recalling this incorrectly. Wouldn't Mexico fall inside of that "limit"?

 

OK, I see your point. But historically the isolationists weren't all that strong after mid-1940 (France falls), they were noisy, but not too influencial and falling out of favor on both coasts. They were still popular in the intermountain west and the mid-west, but not in other areas. Of course the lack of threat to their own "homes" from coastal invasion had something to do with that position I suppose. Don't forget that Wilke was a former Democrat, and in favor of most if not all of FDR's foreign policies. He disliked some of the New Deal domestic positions, but was no "isolationist". And he would have been the same candidate historically wouldn't he?

 

OK, who are you proposing then? Not Lindbergh, he wasn't a viable candidate. Not Landon, he agreed with FDR just like Wilke, Wilke only ran because the TVA cost him so much money (look up his income pre-TVA). Not Wheeler from Montana, he was too radical for most of America. I cannot for the life of me figure out who would fill the bill as a candidate in this case.

 

With the Axis in military and economic control of 5 Continents, including Sth America through Germany's relationship with Argentina, they have American foreign trade by the gonads.

If not initially Mexico, then from further south and country by country, via Argentina.

The only savior for the Americans is the US and Royal (& Canadian) Navies.

Would the US isolationists wake up in time?


John.

 

I can't think of a single well-known isolationist figure in 1940 who had the credentials to become a viable presidential candidate.

In fact, isolationism was a spent force by mid-1940. When France fell, Congress was only too happy to pass the radical rearmament legislation that Roosevelt proposed. The isolationists were against foreign involvement in treaties and wars, but there were not against defending the US and they could see that Europe under Hitler's control represented a serious threat to the security of the US. They were not pacifists who opposed all wars and all military spending.

I can no more see the isolationists sitting by while Germany overran Europe, and Japan ran amok in the Pacific, than I can see Roosevelt giving up his crusade against the Axis. The isolationists in 1940, were just as concerned over the rise of militarism and authoritarianism as was Roosevelt; moreover the isolationists were just as convinced that the US would eventually have to use military force against the Axis.

Given those conditions, it's just not logical to think that the US, under an isolationist president, would sit idly by and let Germany and Japan consolidate the gains of their aggressive wars and establish themselves in South American much less Mexico. It's instructive to note that, even when isolationism was at it's peak, in the late 1930's, that public opinion was against Japanese aggression in Asia and that a majority of Americans saw Nazism as a distinct threat to the US. The isolationists weren't stupid like the pacifists; they just didn't want to get dragged into someone else's war. But they knew danger when they saw it and they knew it was better to fight with allies than to wait until it was just you and the enemy.

 

Actually, I was quite interested in this period when I was in college, and read intensively about the "America Firsters", and the quite complex interactions of the various political factions in Congress, so unless these documents have been turned up as a result of fairly recent scholarship, they won't be new to me. In any case, speeches are nice to read, but it's actions that really count.

As I mentioned, there were two significant factions that tended to inhibit Roosevelt's foreign policy in the 1930's, the pacifists, and the isolationists. Of the two, the isolationists were by far the stronger of the two, however, neither faction was ever strong enough, by itself, to elect a presidential candidate, or block a major government military program without allying with other factions. Moreover, the aims of the two factions were not completely convergent. The isolationists were not against spending money for the defense of the US; they simply did not want to commit to any treaties, agreements, or associations which might pull the US into a war which did not involve vital US interests. The pacifists were against military spending of any kind, on the theory that being armed encouraged participating in war, and they opposed war for any reason whatsoever. The pacifists never had strong support and were really a more or less fringe group whose only real impact was when allied with the isolationists or some other large faction.

Let's look at the record on military/naval spending in the 1930's as this is really the crux of the argument; whether the US would be ready to oppose the Axis.

The US had signed the Washington Naval Treaty which limited the size, by tonnage, of the major navies of the world. In 1933, the US Navy comprised 372 ships, displacing 1,038,660 tons...150,000 tons short of the treaty limitations. Because of Roosevelt's, and Congress's, concern over the Far East situation, the Vinson-Trammell Act was passed in March, 1934, allowing the USN to gradually build up to the WNT limits. Roosevelt signed the Vinson-Trammel Act, which established the strength of the Navy and authorized the construction of vessels and aircraft to replace units as they became overage. The Vinson-Trammell Act provided for the replacement of obsolete vessels by new construction and a gradual increase of ships. Vinson-Trammell Act authorized, though it did not fund, Navy construction to Treaty strength. Initial funding for the Vinson-Trammell Navy Act was provided by the Emergency Appropriations Act of 1934.

Vinson-Trammell authorized the construction of 65 destroyers, 30 submarines, one aircraft carrier, and 1184 naval airplanes, to be started over the next three years and completed by 1942. The act included the provision that alternate ships be built in navy yards, and it mandated that government arsenals provide the necessary ordnance. The bill also approved building the six cruisers still remaining from the 1929 program: four for 1935 and two for 1936.

In 1936, Congress authorized the construction of six new cruisers and two large aircraft carriers, the USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise. Combined with the already outstanding aircraft requirements, the new fleet requirements stood at 273 new aircraft, all of which were automatically approved under the Vinson-Trammell Navy Act. The flexibility provided by the Vinson-Trammell Navy Act proved extremely valuable during the fleet’s expansion program. The Bureau of Aeronautics estimated that by 1940, it would require some 2,000 aircraft to outfit the growing fleet, including those required for the new vessels planned under the current expansion program.The Congressional Appropriation Act for 1937 provided preliminary plans for two new battleships, and work on them began the following year.


In 1938 Congress passed President Roosevelt’s Naval Expansion Act. This act called for across-the-board increases of 20 percent in the Navy’s fleet strength. The aircraft inventory was likewise authorized to grow to a strength of not less than 3,000 planes by 1945. Of course, all these new planes would require pilots and basing facilities, both of which were authorized in this important act. By this time, it had become clear to leadership in the Navy and in Congress that it was useless to attempt to expand naval aviation operations without a corresponding expansion of the infrastructure that was necessary to support them. On 20 May, 1938, Chairman Carl Vinson (D. Ga.) of the House Naval Committee, apparently with administration support, advocated an immediate appropriation for 12 ships, a dirigible and a "mosquito fleet" authorized by the billion-dollar Naval Expansion Act. The vessels include two light cruisers and a 20,000-ton aircraft carrier. The other nine were auxiliary ships, the category in which the Navy was most deficient. Two light cruisers mounting six-inch guns, $44,000,000; a large seaplane tender, $12,000,000; two small seaplane tenders, $3,000,000; a mine layer, $5,000,000; a mine sweeper, $1,500,000; two oil tankers, $15,000,000; two fleet tugs, $4,000,000; an aircraft carrier, $22,000,000; a 3,000-cubic foot rigid airship, $3,000,000 and an indefinite number of speedy, experimental torpedo boats, $4,500,000. The aircraft carrier, the seventh modern ship of its type in the fleet or under construction, could not be laid down before 1939. However, money appropriated before Congress adjourned in 1938, would allow the Navy to perfect specifications and order materials.


Between June, 1940, and April, 1941, there were no fewer than five Naval Expansion Acts passed in Congress, (three of them during the presidential campaign of 1940). These acts were prompted by concern over the German success in Europe, and the aggressive Japanese moves in the Pacific, as well as, the Japanese decision to throw in their lot with the Axis powers. These five acts, cumulatively, were to result in a Navy which was more powerful than all the other navies of the world combined. As early as 19 July, 1940, President Roosevelt signed the second Naval Expansion Act, authorizing the construction of certain naval vessels and aircraft. The Two-Ocean Naval Expansion Act meant 7 new battle ships, 18 carriers, 29 cruisers, 115 destroyers and 42 submarines to add to the fleet.


Between 1938 and 1941, Roosevelt experienced no significant opposition to a rapid and, ultimately massive, expansion of the Navy plus a corresponding increase in the US Army and Army Air Force budgets. In the same period, the Burke-Wadsworth Act, establishing a system of involuntary conscription, established the United State's first peacetime draft (the WW I draft act was passed after the entry of the US into the war). The Burke-Wadsworth Act required only 12 months of service by the draftee. In 1941, Roosevelt requested that Congress extend the term of service to two years, this legislation passed, but only by one vote, because it applied to men already drafted, and that was held by many people, not least of all, the draftees themselves, to be an unfair ex post facto law.


The only conclusion I can reach from the foregoing is that, while isolationists did wield power in Congress and did influence public opinion, they were not powerful enough to either adversely affect military preparations for the coming war (nor did they wish to), nor elect a presidential candidate who would sit idly by while the Axis powers overran Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.



Of course, such a scenario is within the real of possibility, but given the actual political situation in the US, not within the realm of plausibility.

 

No one is going to believe a single promise given by the major axis powers past 1939. Anyone can see that conceding a beachhead and entry to the Germans and Japanese is going to totally cripple Mexican defensive plans, invite immediate war with the US, and in the long term reduce Mexico to at best a subservient state. Going by your wording above, given the Axis' long history of false flag incidents (Manchuria, Poland, .....) people can see the inevitable consequence of the 'if we don't get any problems' clause. It's a surrender to the mercy of the Germans and Japanese, in everything but name.

....

Herr President, I have a great deal for you! All you need to do is to throw away your excellent natural defenses and allow a few million german and japanese soldiers who are often slightly ideologically opposed to your existence (many newly returned from genociding eastern europe) to have the run of your country, especially around your capital. Naturally we'll require use of airbases here. Oh and of course the Americans are going to raze your country to the ground in retaliation (or even as a pre-emptive strike!) if this invasion goes badly for us! In return, we PROMISE not to do anything, unless the famously rational Herr Furher decides that you've provoked us somehow, in which case we'll march on your capital and kill you all, as agreed. And if all goes to plan you may enjoy having a paranoid and expansionist northern neighbour filled with millions of troops across a long undefensive border. Just sign under the dotted line here.


The Finnish ended up going to war with the USSR over such a rejected proposal, and the USSR were at least offering the Finnish territory for what they wanted. The Polish opposed such a deal with the USSR even when the possibility of a German invasion was raised.