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By 1944 (for Overlord) the BE used the last units it had in reserve. After that, it struggled to find replacements.
Some people seem to think that, as the BE was very large and very populated (600 million at the wars outbreak, iirc), it could muster large parts of its population, just as the SU or Nazi Germany did (thus getting an army larger than the german or even the soviet one). Well, that was NOT the case.
The USA didnt simply make a "major contribution" since 1944. The US was the MAIN participant since 1944 in the NorthWest Europe and Pacific theatres (in the Pacific since 1941).
On any case, the main enemy of Nazi Germany during WW II was, by far, the SU. Approximately 3 out of every 4 soldiers, AFVs, planes and resources were sent to fight to the Eastern front (and that since 1944. Before that year Nazi Germany and most Axis countries were sending almost all of it resources to be killed/destroyed in the East front)
Manpower may be one key issue and something the British themselves had a problem with, but economy is another, and one that Germany clearly had the disadvantage. For manpower, what mattered more was whether the men you can muster can be brought in from places that doesn't need much defending. For Germany defeating the Soviet Union does not ensure such a scenario; even in France the situation changed when Hitler had to occupy the rest of France after their relative compliance with the Allies in Operation Torch.
Speaking of which, Torch occurred in 1942, and involved American formations. I don't know what you consider as "major contribution", but I'd say it would include actual forces in numbers with Eisenhower as chief, plus naval elements to disembark Rangers in ports as pretty major, especially if you don't leave out the economic support the United States gave to the British. They weren't tag-alongs of the British effort in North Africa.
Hitler simply did not have the manpower nor the economy needed to fight multiple enemies at once. While the Soviet Union was obviously the clearer threat, the distribution of armed forces throughout Europe made sure that the Allies can easily strike elsewhere and implicate Axis strategic control. After Torch North Africa was lost and therefore the whole of the Mediterranean is vulnerable to Allied actions, even if the Luftwaffe forces there were reinforced by sacrificing strength from France or even Russia, it would not be enough to deter Allied operations against Germany. When you control the seas you can strike at any coastline, and it wasn't like they can quickly expand the Atlantic Wall to include places like Italy or Greece.
I know that large number of military forces should be available to control the occupied landmass but it is not something different the germans did irl BUT with the big, big, big "bonus" of not having the Red Army in front of you (as in my scenario Barbarossa is a success and the SU surrenders. And, I should add, the nazis get a good chunk of Soviet Europe. And probably trade deals with the remaining SU to get resources it cant get any other way).
That is IMO quite an understatement, even if your scenario occurs where, surprisingly, the many more men the Soviet Union could muster were too afraid to raise arms against the Germans after defeat. Political capitulation and conquest, as IRL happened in conquered parts of Eastern Europe, does not necessitate an end to hostilities nor assuming control of the social order. Even post-war Europe and Japan had troops occupying the land for some time to ensure compliance and political stability, to achieve the sort of scenario you are looking for, it would have to have the same reaction as France did when Germany took over, which was formal surrender. We talking Stalin or other leaders signing a form of submission consigning control and authority over Russia, or Germany just plowing through everything?
With the SU defeated, the Wehrmatch would have lots of "spare units" to control the recently annexed areas AND fortify the Atlantic Wall. I dont see enlarging the Afrikakorps as a big option because the italian capacity to supply the forces already present was low.
Factors in having spare troops after a hypothetical victory depends a lot on factors outside of achieving victory, such as whether in the course of the conflict Germany continued to suffer blunders that cost lives and materiel. Of all powers involved Germany was the least precarious in manpower strength, hardly surprising then that they supplemented with troops from other aligned countries, which raises the question of political loyalties and quality. There were ant-partisan forces raised through locals (like RONA) but these would still require the presence of German troops to ensure that these formations don't simply replace the partisans they fight- end of the day, German troops need to remain in the East, both to settle and to occupy but to also remain as a permanent pacifying force to ensure the former. Like the Japanese in Asia, the forces Germany had at reliable disposable was simply not enough and frankly was a dream of Hitler's that was unrealistic to achieve in the short-term.
That the german population didnt starve as it happened during WW I is a fact. And that considering that Germany was equally blockaded and, on top of that, being subjected to bombing. A part of it was due to starving other populations (The East ones. Nazis took the food from those areas to Germany, and let them starve), and a part was due to increases in agricultural yield. A SU defeat would have made it easier for the nazis to exploit the newly conquered territories.
It might have, but there is both no evidence showing the Nazis were any good in organizing conquered territory as colonies, if anything there is evidence that they were pretty bad at it. It takes time to rebuild conquered lands and given the ideologies behind Generalplan Ost, would have required a constant presence and activity of German military and police forces. We're talking cowing the Slavs and displacing the Jews and killing suspected peoples of conspiring against their order. Given the landmass, the numbers and the logistics required in re-organizing the land to such a scale, and the inexperience of both the Nazi leadership and the manpower needed, what happened was a shambles of disorganized behaviour. Jews were being shuffled between administrations because no one knew how to deal with them and no one wanted to be responsible for the job. Nobody knew how to actually implement the ideological goals of the Nazis because, frankly, no one ever thought deep enough to consider how colonizing such a large part of the world and displacing the peoples already living there could be achieved. Urban areas may be easier to round up people and shove away, but the countryside is a different matter. In order to exploit conquered territories you need the people to do so in place of the people you got rid of, and Germany didn't have millions of free men and women ready to just move into new homes and start making tanks or farming the land. The deal Esienhower had with the Vichy government in North Africa was however rather risky, because public opinion considered them, with some reason, to be aligned towards the Nazis and willing to turn coat as fast as they did when the Allies landed in North Africa.
Corrected action is the most sincere form of apology.
By 1944 (for Overlord) the BE used the last units it had in reserve. After that, it struggled to find replacements.
Some people seem to think that, as the BE was very large and very populated (600 million at the wars outbreak, iirc), it could muster large parts of its population, just as the SU or Nazi Germany did (thus getting an army larger than the german or even the soviet one). Well, that was NOT the case.
The USA didnt simply make a "major contribution" since 1944. The US was the MAIN participant since 1944 in the NorthWest Europe and Pacific theatres (in the Pacific since 1941).
On any case, the main enemy of Nazi Germany during WW II was, by far, the SU. Approximately 3 out of every 4 soldiers, AFVs, planes and resources were sent to fight to the Eastern front (and that since 1944. Before that year Nazi Germany and most Axis countries were sending almost all of it resources to be killed/destroyed in the East front)
Not quite right...
First, the single reason why there was not massive drafts or recruiting increases across much of the Empire was racial. Although, the Indian Army still had significant numbers of formations that weren't deployed to either Europe or the Far East.
My comment regarding the US was that it didn't make a major impact until 1944, I didn't even mention the period after mid-1944.
However, in context of this topic, the Germans/Axis were already moving backwards by mid-1944, and in fact were moving backwards by November 1942, following El Alemein...which was before Torch, meaning it was before US troops faced the Wermacht.
By the time of D-Day, the Soviet Union had the Germans on the run, Rome fell, and Brit and US strategic air forces had the technology to seriously rip Germany apart, which was shown with the strategic air campaigns after they were released from invastion duties in late 1944.
The facts are that the Germans had no defined measure of what would constitute defeat of the Soviet Union, what it would take to cause the Soviets to stop waging war; consequently, when the Soviets didn't, the Germans paid the price. The only thing that the invasion of Europe by the Brits and US did was to limit the extent of the Soviet victory...a fact which is born out by the US decision not to take Berlin, and to have Eisenhower declare it to be no longer a valid military target, despite every other participant in the war seeing it as pretty much the only military target.
Comments
Manpower may be one key issue and something the British themselves had a problem with, but economy is another, and one that Germany clearly had the disadvantage. For manpower, what mattered more was whether the men you can muster can be brought in from places that doesn't need much defending. For Germany defeating the Soviet Union does not ensure such a scenario; even in France the situation changed when Hitler had to occupy the rest of France after their relative compliance with the Allies in Operation Torch.
Speaking of which, Torch occurred in 1942, and involved American formations. I don't know what you consider as "major contribution", but I'd say it would include actual forces in numbers with Eisenhower as chief, plus naval elements to disembark Rangers in ports as pretty major, especially if you don't leave out the economic support the United States gave to the British. They weren't tag-alongs of the British effort in North Africa.
Hitler simply did not have the manpower nor the economy needed to fight multiple enemies at once. While the Soviet Union was obviously the clearer threat, the distribution of armed forces throughout Europe made sure that the Allies can easily strike elsewhere and implicate Axis strategic control. After Torch North Africa was lost and therefore the whole of the Mediterranean is vulnerable to Allied actions, even if the Luftwaffe forces there were reinforced by sacrificing strength from France or even Russia, it would not be enough to deter Allied operations against Germany. When you control the seas you can strike at any coastline, and it wasn't like they can quickly expand the Atlantic Wall to include places like Italy or Greece.
That is IMO quite an understatement, even if your scenario occurs where, surprisingly, the many more men the Soviet Union could muster were too afraid to raise arms against the Germans after defeat. Political capitulation and conquest, as IRL happened in conquered parts of Eastern Europe, does not necessitate an end to hostilities nor assuming control of the social order. Even post-war Europe and Japan had troops occupying the land for some time to ensure compliance and political stability, to achieve the sort of scenario you are looking for, it would have to have the same reaction as France did when Germany took over, which was formal surrender. We talking Stalin or other leaders signing a form of submission consigning control and authority over Russia, or Germany just plowing through everything?
Factors in having spare troops after a hypothetical victory depends a lot on factors outside of achieving victory, such as whether in the course of the conflict Germany continued to suffer blunders that cost lives and materiel. Of all powers involved Germany was the least precarious in manpower strength, hardly surprising then that they supplemented with troops from other aligned countries, which raises the question of political loyalties and quality. There were ant-partisan forces raised through locals (like RONA) but these would still require the presence of German troops to ensure that these formations don't simply replace the partisans they fight- end of the day, German troops need to remain in the East, both to settle and to occupy but to also remain as a permanent pacifying force to ensure the former. Like the Japanese in Asia, the forces Germany had at reliable disposable was simply not enough and frankly was a dream of Hitler's that was unrealistic to achieve in the short-term.
It might have, but there is both no evidence showing the Nazis were any good in organizing conquered territory as colonies, if anything there is evidence that they were pretty bad at it. It takes time to rebuild conquered lands and given the ideologies behind Generalplan Ost, would have required a constant presence and activity of German military and police forces. We're talking cowing the Slavs and displacing the Jews and killing suspected peoples of conspiring against their order. Given the landmass, the numbers and the logistics required in re-organizing the land to such a scale, and the inexperience of both the Nazi leadership and the manpower needed, what happened was a shambles of disorganized behaviour. Jews were being shuffled between administrations because no one knew how to deal with them and no one wanted to be responsible for the job. Nobody knew how to actually implement the ideological goals of the Nazis because, frankly, no one ever thought deep enough to consider how colonizing such a large part of the world and displacing the peoples already living there could be achieved. Urban areas may be easier to round up people and shove away, but the countryside is a different matter. In order to exploit conquered territories you need the people to do so in place of the people you got rid of, and Germany didn't have millions of free men and women ready to just move into new homes and start making tanks or farming the land. The deal Esienhower had with the Vichy government in North Africa was however rather risky, because public opinion considered them, with some reason, to be aligned towards the Nazis and willing to turn coat as fast as they did when the Allies landed in North Africa.
Corrected action is the most sincere form of apology.
- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeNot quite right...
First, the single reason why there was not massive drafts or recruiting increases across much of the Empire was racial. Although, the Indian Army still had significant numbers of formations that weren't deployed to either Europe or the Far East.
My comment regarding the US was that it didn't make a major impact until 1944, I didn't even mention the period after mid-1944.
However, in context of this topic, the Germans/Axis were already moving backwards by mid-1944, and in fact were moving backwards by November 1942, following El Alemein...which was before Torch, meaning it was before US troops faced the Wermacht.
By the time of D-Day, the Soviet Union had the Germans on the run, Rome fell, and Brit and US strategic air forces had the technology to seriously rip Germany apart, which was shown with the strategic air campaigns after they were released from invastion duties in late 1944.
The facts are that the Germans had no defined measure of what would constitute defeat of the Soviet Union, what it would take to cause the Soviets to stop waging war; consequently, when the Soviets didn't, the Germans paid the price. The only thing that the invasion of Europe by the Brits and US did was to limit the extent of the Soviet victory...a fact which is born out by the US decision not to take Berlin, and to have Eisenhower declare it to be no longer a valid military target, despite every other participant in the war seeing it as pretty much the only military target.
- Report
0 · Disagree Agree