Re: Anglo-French war plans in 1940?

"Louis C" <louisc00@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rich Rostrom wrote:

The recent example of Norway showed the
risks of inciting German pre-emption.

If a "rumored Allied move" was enough, then Germany would manufacture
such a rumor itself when it suited it to do so...

Then there was the little matter of the captured German plans showing
that Germany intended to invade Belgium anyway.

I noted that. "Germany needed neither excuse or incentive..."

The only rational arguments for Belgium's policy were:

2. "War is bad, bad, bad so anything, absolutely *anything* is worth
trying if it gives even a *tiny* chance of sitting it out".

That was the answer to the question

"Why should Belgium have not done so?"
(planned its defense in cooperation
with the Allies)

The hope was delusional, but the fear
was real. Such attitudes are not unusual
in history.

For instance, during the outbreak of
the American Civil War, there was a
delay of three months between the
declarations of secession by the Deep
South states and the declarations of
secession by the Upper South states.
There was a "swing block" of opinion
in these states (about a third of
the convention delegates in Virginia,
for instance) who opposed declaring
secession because they hoped the crisis
could be resolved and the Union restored
without fighting. This was a delusion:
the differences between Lincoln and the
Deep South could not be resolved without
surrender by one side.

In 1941, after the news of Pearl Harbor
came in, Macarthur's HQ in the Philippines
ordered the B-17s there to attack Japanese
bases in Formosa - and then cancelled the
attack. It occurred to someone that the
Philippines could in theory be considered
separate from the U.S. and might be treated
as a neutral country. Japan at that moment
hadn't yet attacked the Philippines. This
too was a delusion. But the ugly knowledge
that the forces in the Philippines weren't
ready for war caused some grabbing at straws
of hope that disaster could be avoided.
(The Formosa raid was rescheduled within a
few hours. but before it could go off the
Japanese destroyed most of B-17s in their
first raid.)

Everything else, and certainly all the recent history, pointed the
opposite way. The Belgian government wanted to let the Allies in, or
at least to initiate detailed military contacts with them. Instead,
there were no military contacts beyond some episodic and very vague
talks between military attaches, and some Belgian divisions were still
deployed facing southward as of May 10.


LC
--
| He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less |
| flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante |
| never conceived that such a thing was possible. |
| -- William Goldman, _Heat_ |

.

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