Suppose Britain and France decide to wimp their way out of honoring their treaty with Poland. What happens next?

Im not sure that Hitler would have invaded the West. The East was his primary goal.

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

Interesting question. If England and France had wimped out and not stuck with their promise to help Poland by decalring war on Germany, they would have played into Hitlers hands and given him time to further strengthen his troops, and to rest those involved in Poland.

However I still think he would have invaded the Low Countries and France eventually. Hitler still wanted to avenge Germany's humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. Part of his thinking was that he wanted Germany to be great again, and this basically meant that, France, at least, had to be beaten and humiliated as Germany was. I believe that Hitler, like a lot of the older German Army officers, felt that they had been betrayed by the German Government at the end of WW1, and this needed to be set right.

Remember, he didn't attack the Russians until after he had beaten the West. If I remember rightly, Hitler and the General Staff had already gone over plans for invading westward.

Any delay in England and France declaring war would have allowed more time for re-organising troop movements, and further call ups into the German Army.

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When you march into France, let the last man on the right brush the channel with his sleeve
- Count Alfred von Schlieffen

Well, I believe that the probably most accurate picture we may get is this: Poland is defeated as historic. Germany would have no reason to attack westwards, northwards or southwards, because England and France are still at peace. And now for the time being there would be no reason for them to suddenly declare war. Germany would be foolish to tempt them again.

So when would Germany attack the Soviet Union? Summer 1941? It would be possible to attack perhaps a month earlier this time, and with considerably larger force. Also more production could go into ground vehicles making for easy replacement of lost tanks in Barbarossa.

OTOH, if Germany left it at that with conquests and DIDN'T attack anybody, what would happen??

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

I would agree with Andreas. Hitler's eyes were directed to the east. Great Britain and France would have justified Hitler's views on them being spineless. He would have had carte blanc towards the east because there were no other countries that had any pacts with Britain or France. Now, Russia would be motivated to sign an agreement with the west more so but would Stalin really believe the west would come to his aid? The other question would be what kind of blunder would Italy get into? Would Italy somehow bring Britain or France into the war with it's imperial aspirations?

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Italy was in the business of getting Germany into trouble.

Had Germany hit the USSR without taking the west, is it conceivable that Britain and France would want to attack Germany at the outset of Barbarossa? That would really screw over Germany.

And what about Japan? Would they still have done Pearl Harbor the same way if at all?

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

But even if Japan had attacked Pearl, would there have been a need for Germany to declare war on America.

The real problem would have been Italy. If i had been in Hitlers shoes, and the war progresed as the topic suggests, i would have told Mussolini that if he attack Britain in Eygpt, he was on is own.

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'England confides that every man will do his duty' Nelson
'I'm a Norfolk man, and glory in being so' Nelson

Proud to be a GRUNT

There was never any need for Germany to declare war on the US. I am sure that even if Germany and Britain were not at war, Mussolini would have invaded Egypt anyway thinking that Britain would not have the interest of fighting as long as Italy had Germany's suppport.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

He would have attacked even without a declaration of war of France and Britain.

Because with 150 divisions in your back, you would be playing a very dangerous game.

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If Britain and France still kept up a strongly anti-Soviet stance after Poland and Finland had been invaded, then Hitler would have been persuaded that he could attack the USSR without interference from the West - and he may have been right.

How many French or British people would have wanted to fight for the perfidious Communists, who had only recently signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded Poland and Finland, and after the West having abandoned Czechoslovakia and Poland, which were relatively pro-Western? Not many.

Hitler believed that the Soviet Union could be defeated quickly. He rated the Soviet Army below that of France in early 1940, after their dismal performance against Finland.

So I think that as long as Britain and France remained anti-Soviet, Hitler would have been inclined to attack Russia first. He may even have been tempted to launch Barbarossa in 1940!

As for Italy, in 1940 Mussolini refused to get involved in the war until France was nearly on her knees, because Italy wasn't ready for war. The Italian rearmament program was scheduled for completion in 1943.

So the chances of him risking a war against Britain and France alone are non-existent. Together, in 1940, the Allies outweighed Italy six to one in capital ships, and ten to one in tanks. Fighting alone would be suicidal for Italy.

Mussolini would never, ever declare war on the Western Powers unless Germany did so first. And I don't think he would be stupid enough to risk attacking Yugoslavia or Greece without German support.

[ 07. November 2002, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: vonManstein39 ]

Sniper is very right in here. As Albert said, you just cannot try to get adventures in the East with 150 Allied divisions in the West. Hitler, as the good strategist he was before 1941 saw this clearly. That Germany could not do its plans with France and Britain strongly deployed in the continent. Even if Great Britain and France would not have declared war in 1939, Hitler would have invaded France in 1940 anyway. He could have waited until Germany would have been stronger. But Great Britain and France would have become stronger too. And then, the inevitable fight would have come and then you have again a 2nd trench warfare with a defeated Germany after a decade of bloody fighting... Hitler was obviously and very wisely going to take advantage on Germany's military superiority in 1939 and 1940. In 1941 it would have been too late. And History showed that the Wehrmacht, even if stronger and bigger in 1941 had already lost its advantages...
And many of you are also right, Italy would have started the problems anyway...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun