What would the British have done? American neutrality

Hello all,

I'm conducting some research for a paper and am having a bit of trouble forming my conclusion and also narrowing down source material (of the primary or secondary variety). My research question is: what plans did the British have for the war if the United States remained neutral?

Obviously a major British goal was to get the United States involved; but with American public opinion strongly pro-neutral prior to Pearl Harbor, there had to be some doubt about if, or at the very least, when the United States would enter. With such doubt looming, I would expect some British grand strategy plans to have existed which did not include the help of the United States. However, I'm having some trouble tracking this kind of information down. Michael Howard's "British Case" chapter in "Politics and Strategy in the Second World War" has been somewhat helpful, as has Alan Wilt's "War from the Top", but neither have addressed this question definitively. Have any authors written specifically on this topic? Does anyone know from their research or experience about this research question?

I'd very much like to hear anyone's opinion on this and would so greatly appreciate any guidance or suggestions.

 

What exactly do you mean by "neutral"? While there had been no official declaration of war FDR's "shoot on sight" order was just about as close to it as you can come without actually doing it.

Characterizing American public opinion as strongly pro neutral just prior to PH is questionable as well. Looking at the Gallop Polls from that period while the US public wasn't thrilled with the idea of going to war I suspect the majority would have supported a declaration of war any time after October of 41 and possibly earlier. Remember in reading the polls you have to look closely at exactly what questions were asked. The phrasing of them can and does impact the responses so you have to take that into account when trying to answer questions that are close but not quite the same as those that were asked.

The Gallup Polls for the period are on line and some of the locations are free while others charge. Hyperwar is a good place to start as they have a lot of primary sources. This includes some if not all the Gallup Polls as well as diplomatic communications and prewar code intercepts.

 

Actually, even after PH, when FDR prepared to go before Congress and ask for a Declaration of War against Japan (a sure thing), he debated on if to ask for one against Germany also. He was personally convinced that it would not be approved, that the public would not support being dragged into another European war. Fortunately, Hitler made the question moot by declaring war on us.

 

Was he convinced it would not be approved or that he wouldn't get the support he wanted. I was under the impression, not sure where I got it, that he wanted to make sure that when we went to war it would be with the overwhelming support of both the people and congress. The fact that the military was asking for another few (preferably 6) months may have had some impact as well.

 

To go back to the original question...

Right up front there's the problem of North Africa. Without TORCH would we have simply been looking and another in the long series of back and forth struggles across North Africa? I don't think so - El Alamein totalled the DAk enough for them to recoil right back through Libya to Tripoli and eventually beyond this time. Monty ended El Alamein and went onto the pursuit VASTLY stronger than Rommel...and certainly far better prepared this time for the long trek along the coast to the west.

In Europe...well, the word-we-can't-use-these-days in the woodpile.....which is why we've come up with "the elephant in the room"....is of course CHURCHILL - and what hairbrained ideas HE might have come up with and driven through. Thankfully Brookie got in the way of or otherwise stonewalled on most of the worst. Winston for example repeatedly asked about re-entering Norway; as early as July 1940 he was asking what planning had been carried out for that...!

But the main strategic option in Europe is SLEDGEHAMMER - a largescale landing in Brittany/Biscay that would bring enough of the Wehrmacht close at hand to battle, beat them - and THEN permit the British to cut off the Breton peninsula for a winter and build up enough there for a breakout. Again, as early as the summer of 1940 this was being planned for tentatively....but compared to OVERLORD the forces the British estimated they might need were woefully small IIRC. Also....in the years prior to the huge buildup of and investment in free French forces that almost paralysed the immediate German reaction to OVERLORD....would the Germans have been able to shift enough forces quickly enough to the West to counter the landing(s)?

Against this you have to set how really undefended most of the French Coast was at this stage of the war, long before Festung Europa and the Atlantic Wall. A few lines of barbed wire, the occasional MG post, gun batteries covering large ports and harbours only, a few minefields at likely beaches.....defences were SO thin that the commandos were able to come and go relatively freely on intelligence-gathering POW snatches - and talking of POWs, down in Biscay it was for a couple of years possible to get quite large parties of evaders/escapers down to the beaches and off by submarine!

 

In regards to North Africa Monty appears to me to have been taking care not to out run his supply lines and/and or run the risk of a serious reversal. Even without Torch I suspect he would have taken his time doing it but ended up destroy the DAK without excessive British losses.

Some of the impacts depend on how this plays out before the America gets into the war as well. For instance if it's clear that America isn't going to join anytime soon do the British still go after the French Fleet? If not would Algeria and Tunis be tempted to go Free French once the DAK is defeated?

 

How about an invasion from the south through Iraq? The British and Commonwealth forces then become the left wing of the Soviet advance.
Or they could attack further west, say Turkey into Bulgaria. Then they'd be a huge pincer with the Soviets able to concentrate on a narrower front further north instead of spread out across the broad front they had to cover. The Germans are now fighting a two front war. Moreover, an advance from the south cuts off the oil the Germans needed.

The other thing that would have really hit the Germans hard (and not taken much force) would be to simply declare war on their proxy ally, Sweden. Bomb the Swedish merchant fleet into oblivion and the Germans suddenly have no steel or a host of other strategic materials that Sweden supplied them. You don't even have to occupy the country, just destroy their industry and fleet - always threatening to invade so the Germans have to send badly needed troops there.

 

LWD....certainly Monty seems to have taken his time to build up a HUGE transport pool and a huge great pile of logistics ready for the offensive. I do personally believe it was THIS that carried him on right through to Tripoli....far more than the Americans landing in Rommel's rear distracting German efforts as such.

As for the French fleet in 1940 - this had nothing so much to do with chaning American neutrality per se....more with proving that Churchill and the British were serious about taking the hard decisions when it came to staying in the war The first big arms shipments and the Destroyers for Bases deal came through right after Mers-el-Kebir Going after the fleet of a previously-allied new neutral was about ensuring the "arsenal of democracy" gave the British the tools to survive 1940. It didn't matter right at that point that America was neutral - what WAS important was that the arms and munitions started flowing properly

 

The British didn't have the MT or armour for a wide-front sort of armoured offensive like that; that was the big advantage of the Western Desert - it was ALL crammed in between the sea to the north and the Qattara Depression in the south 40-50 miles' width of a front ONLY.

How is the RAF supposed to reach Sweden? Even mid-war it was still having to reduce bombloads significantly to reach Berlin and get back again.

 

With reduced loads. The Russians had subs in the Baltic as well, but couldn't sink Swedish ships because of the faux neutrality. And I suspect the Royal Navy could slip submarines in as well. Remember, it isn't important to reduce Sweden to rubble, only to cut off the shipping.

I think by 43 or 44 they could have put on quite a show. They'd still have American industrial support, which could have just easily been marshalled in the ME instead of Great Britain. On D-Day, almost half of the troops were British or Commonwealth - that changed as more American divisions came in, but still they were able to muster something like 40 infantry divisions, and another dozen armored divisions. That's quite a force and with the Soviets on the right flank, the Germans would have been in real trouble. Keep in mind that attacking from the south cuts off German oil, and beating up Sweden cuts off many other strategic materials, particularly steel.

We're in a "what if" situation - if the US doesn't come in, an invasion in western Europe can't be pulled off, but an invasion from the south links up with the Soviets and makes it possible.

 

Which brings us back to exactly what is meant by "neutrality". Are we talking true neutrality or is it just meant that America is not officially at war?

 

The U.S. "neutrality" as of the summer of 1940 was a different animal from that of 1941. FDR faced the decision....heavily pressured by Joe Kennedy and other isolationists...that Britain was a dead duck, had fought the war up to then with one hand tied behind its back, and anything sent to the UK - even on a cash-up-front "cash and carry" basis, would be lost. Winston had a few short weeks to convince him that the UK was willing to do whatever it took to survive - and Mers-el-Kebir was exactly the sort of demonstration neded...AND just in time.

By 1941 however, there had been "accidental" US naval and merchant vessel losses to u-boats, the U.S. early in the year took over command of and the majority of the defence of "invaded" Iceland, and there had several times been suggestions (from both sides of the debate) that the U.S take over the defence of Ireland/Northern Ireland. And AT LAST real Lend Lease had arrived.

I've also read it said that the British and Commonwealth forces going on the offensive in North Africa was a major influence on FDR too; it showed that the British idea of going to war with Germany and the Axis wasn't just about sitting there and waiting for the Germans to come at them - which was, essentially, the Chamberlain Era British and French plan in 1939/40 for the years from the start of the war to the spring of 1942!!!

 

Hey all, thanks so much for all the awesome replies so far! On the issue of the U.S. neutrality, the paper is very British-focused - with the emphasis on their grand strategy plans prior to U.S. entry. I know there are certainly many debates regarding how neutral the U.S. really was and whether or not the entry into the war was guaranteed - and when - regardless of Pearl Harbor. However, this isn't necessarily a major focus in my paper.

From what I can tell, it doesn't seem that British military leaders were privy to any type of sure-fire "guarantee" that the United States would join. Even if they hedged their bets that the U.S. would join, it seems to have been even less clear about when that would happen, but again, that's not really what the paper is about. I'm very much trying to avoid the "what if" viewpoint in the paper and instead trying more to get into the minds of British military and political leadership prior to U.S. entry into the war. Something like "on December 6th 1941, what did various British military leaders have planned for 1942 and beyond?" I have read that all of the Japanese preparations in November-December 1941 gave away that something was coming, so December 6th isn't the best example - but I think you get my point.

Even if the neutrality wasn't as strong as some have reported, the British would have needed quite the crystal ball to know that from December 1941-on the United States would be at war. There must have been military strategies that included operations (for a second front, for instance) that didn't rely upon the assumption that the United States would join the war in 41 or 42 or any time for that matter.

What were those plans? Is my question. (Along with who has written about them, if possible)

What I'm looking for didn't have to be an "official" consensus British war strategy. Any suggested plans from various military and political leaders are perfectly acceptable also - as long as they were hatched before December 7th, and as long as they didn't include an assumption that the U.S. would be involved militarily.



phylo_roadking was really onto it with his earliest post regarding Churchill's hopes to re-enter Norway and Operation Sledgehammer, along with the state of the French coast in the earlier years of the war. All great stuff that I'm excited to look further into (any source suggestions?). I'm curious though, upon some superficial researching into Sledgehammer it seems to have been mostly post-U.S. entry creation, especially tied to the ARCADIA conference. Was there some earlier form of the plan which didn't rely upon United States involvement? If so, do you know where I can learn more? That would be exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.

 

Jimbo, I might be wrong, but the first bits of planning for a European break-in were under the ROUNDUP operational name, morphing into SLEDGEHAMMER with the arrival of the U.S. Work began on it tentatively in the summer of 1940! Postan's British War Production (available to read on Hyperwar?) discusses the various plans to "grow" the British Army into the force needed for such a break-in....woefully inadequate compared to the reality of 1944-45 even though they were.

 

'Their Finest Hour' Vol 2 of Winston Churchill's 'The Second World War'. It includes original material such as letters, memos, orders etc. This volume deals with the situation before the USA entered the war. Decent price in Amazon Kindle edition.

 

I notice there is a section on British plans prior to the US involvement in this:
http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-WD-Strategic1/index.html
It's available elsewhere but hyperwar has it hyper linked.
There's a US document about titled "Pre-war Plans and procedures" that also has a small section that addresses the British. It's available on the web as well.

 

I'm assuming you've already been there, Jimbo, but it would likely be well worth a comb of Alanbrooke to gain certain hints at early strategic intentions or possibilities. Considerations, passing thoughts and personalities throughout. Though it confirms in two of his annotations the constant hope that the US would engage, along with something of the seriousness, and even despair, in the situation as it stood when he took over as CIGS:

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