Re: Hitler's blame for the Reich's defeat?

"Haydn" <mrbridge1944@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4ab10906$0$1107$4fafbaef@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

No. That is simply incorrect. He had the economy of Western Europe
to build a really large air force and invasion fleet, he had Stalin
shipping in useful supplies and a supply lien open to Japan.

Until Stalin would decide - in case of a prolonged stalemate between
Germany and UK - to stop spending his whole day at the window
and attack Hitler to reap his armistice and peace conference dividends.

Yes, but the historical evidence is Stalin was very compliant with
the economic agreements in 1941, ignoring the many German
failures to live up to their end.

Tolerating the Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights.

Any attack on England, even combined with Mediterranean
options, leaves the majority of the German army unemployed,
so it could be in the east.

I would agree Stalin would be more aggressive as time went on,
but then he was convinced his brilliant strategy of having the
other two political systems weaken each other was working.
Why not wait for a later opportunity? History shows he was
cautious when it came to expansion.

The reality is the supply system would be the thing that breaks first.
Mussolini declared war without recalling his merchant ships, so around
a third of the fleet was trapped outside the Mediterranean.

It was a disastrous loss, sure. (Actually he did recall them. Just a week
or
so before June 10th).

Ah, so I should change this from failed to recall to failed to
effectively recall.

That third of the fleet was actually rather important, much of the rest
of the fleet was committed to standard commerce between Italian
ports, or other Mediterranean ports. Those ships caught overseas
represented a large percentage of the shipping theoretically available
for support of combat operations in the Mediterranean.

However, had Mussolini recalled the ships long
before the declaration of war, that would simply have given the Allies
more
time to complete their preparations for Italy's entry into the war.

Yet France was clearly being defeated, Britain forced back to
Britain itself. Not much chance of any large reinforcements to
the UK Mediterranean forces in the short term, certainly not
within 1 to 2 weeks.

In the April to December 1940 period the UK exported to the
Middle East 587 aircraft, including 176 Hurricanes, 167 Blenheims
and 47 Wellingtons.

Exports to the Mediterranean, which I presume is basically
Gibraltar and Malta totalled 100 aircraft, including 39
Hurricanes, 32 Wellingtons and 10 Blenheims.

Italian aircraft production in 1940 was over 3,000 as far as I
am aware.

As I think everyone agrees with the Italian declaration of war was
more timed to enable Italy to take pieces of France than conforming
to any sort of strategic plan.

The raw materials problems had not been solved for a start.

And even more importantly: since the Fascist government was bargaining for
an armistice, or at least a ceasefire preluding an armistice, to take
place
very soon between Germany and the Western Allies - and that's why Italy
declared war in June 1940, by the way - recalling the large Italian
merchant
fleet from all corners of the world would have disrupted Italian trade for
no gain. Italy went to war expecting peace, which goes a long way to
explain
a number of things that happened with Italy's war.

Agreed on the armistice, in any case there was the fall back, the
UK positions in the Mediterranean were surely so weak they
could be taken if needed.

The weak Italian attacks on Malta played a big part in the UK
decision the place could be held, not abandoned as per the pre
war plans.

(snip) About possible alternative Mediterranean options for the
axis, I note a big thing from the allied point of view was the
Luftwaffe staying to fight and being heavily defeated.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

.

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