What if FDR listened to General Marshall?

[Truth Bleeds]

@ Dachspmg

I dare say Monty was a better Brit than Churchill but there were a great many others whom are candidates. Just in the 20th century alone I can think of many famous names that appear in every school textbooks:

1. Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin and winner of Nobel prize for medicine.
2. Ernest Rutherford, for chemistry of radioactive substances and winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry.
3. Max Born, for quantum mechanics and winner of Nobel prize for physics.
4. Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, and T.S. Eliot, all winners of the Nobel prize for literature.
5. Even Margaret Thatcher, Iron Lady, three time PM who brought 18% inflation under control, cut taxes, won the Falklands war, and created much prosperity in south England.

All of these people had great positive influences within and without the UK. Nuclear medicine owes a debt to Rutherford. Optical drives and hard drives owe a debt to Born. The others' influences are obvious.

Churchill did win a Nobel prize for literature though that doesn't compensate for the impression I have of him using British and American resources for a personal quest for glory. The world seemed to have conspired against him: Rome was denied to him because US general Mark Clark got there first; Messina and Palermo were denied to him because Patton got there first; Paris was denied to him because it was in 3rd Army's zone; and finally Berlin was denied to him because the Soviets got there first.

 

[Truth Bleeds]

@ AxiomUK

"Jets and the vengence weapons were operationally and strategically irrelevant. There weren't enough of either to make a significant difference."


True, but they did inflict heavy casualties and terror that would not have existed a year before.

 

[privatehudson]

Well its been an awfully long time since I read anything about the run up to the Gallipoli campaign but from what I remember it basically consisted of Kitchener preventing the deployment of adequate troops to assist the naval operations. Hardly something that Churchill had a great deal of influence over. Nor was he to blame for the way so many ships were lost. He may have ordered the attack but you can hardly blame him for the failure of De Robeck to appreciate the danger of the mines, nor the latter's tendency to always withdraw in the same way (making it easy to lay mines in their path). He wasn't responsible for De Robeck's reluctance to continue the attacks after those losses either since they were hardly crippling to the fleet. You call it disastorous but all that was lost was 6 old and expendable battleships. Was he even to blame for the caution and incompetence of the army commanders upon landing?

Galipolli wasn't the best plans in the world but Churchill's ability to effect many of the decisions that caused it to fail was limited. He takes responsibilty since he was its architect but that doesn't mean it was a ridiculous notion to begin with. There's a difference between being made a scapegoat and actually being to blame.

Death Camps:

I'd have to disagree that the Holocaust victims were central to the war effort. What labour was used in "important" projects such as the terror weapons was usually protected to some degree and kept alive since it made more sense to keep a skilled workforce than having to keep training people all the time in the skills necessary. The influence of the Concentration camps on the war effort doesn't strike me as being that big but feel free to cite sources to contradict this

Assuming for a moment that the invasion of Europe came early (and didn't fai which imo it stood a reasonable chance of doing) then it wouldn't have proved as difficult as you suggest to step up the programme. After all around 800,000 (and possibly more) of the victims died at Treblinka with virtually none of them being worked to death. The processes used at Treblinka were hardly complicated either so could be replicated elsewhere. Treblinka was open for barely over a year. Yes it would have taken a massive effort to process such a rate but the Nazi state seemed quite willing to make that effort regardless of the effect on the war effort.

 

[Dachs]

I dare say Monty was a better Brit than Churchill but there were a great many others whom are candidates.

I'm not saying that Churchill was the Best Brit Ever, but that Monty was significantly worse. He was just out of his depth fighting in World War II, and had he and O'Connor, for example, had their positions switched, Britain would never had had North Africa still in 1942.

Just in the 20th century alone I can think of many famous names that appear in every school textbooks:

1. Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin and winner of Nobel prize for medicine.
2. Ernest Rutherford, for chemistry of radioactive substances and winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry.
3. Max Born, for quantum mechanics and winner of Nobel prize for physics.
4. Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, and T.S. Eliot, all winners of the Nobel prize for literature.
5. Even Margaret Thatcher, Iron Lady, three time PM who brought 18% inflation under control, cut taxes, won the Falklands war, and created much prosperity in south England.

All of these people had great positive influences within and without the UK. Nuclear medicine owes a debt to Rutherford. Optical drives and hard drives owe a debt to Born. The others' influences are obvious.

Churchill did win a Nobel prize for literature though that doesn't compensate for the impression I have of him using British and American resources for a personal quest for glory. The world seemed to have conspired against him: Rome was denied to him because US general Mark Clark got there first; Messina and Palermo were denied to him because Patton got there first; Paris was denied to him because it was in 3rd Army's zone; and finally Berlin was denied to him because the Soviets got there first.

You forgot Tim Berners-Lee, without whom we wouldn't even be speaking.

Again, I'm not saying that Churchill was Best Ever, and I agree with all of those except maybe Kipling (honestly, who wants to be remembered for "White Man's Burden"?). I'm simply protesting your belief that Monty was better than Churchill.

 

[AxiomUk]

@ AxiomUK

"Jets and the vengence weapons were operationally and strategically irrelevant. There weren't enough of either to make a significant difference."


True, but they did inflict heavy casualties and terror that would not have existed a year before.

You quoted the wrong person there

Anyway, on the subject of other possible nominees, we could bring up tons of names. For example, David Lloyd George for maintaining a representative multi-party government during the First World War. Clement Attlee for having the first significant post-war Labour government which attempted to implement the very early NHS. Assuming we're staying in the past few centuries, there are numerous people.
I think part of the reason that Churchill was voted as such is the recency principle - Everyone knows his name and how he was PM of the UK during the Second World War. Everyone alive has relatives who can tell you of the effects of the war. Notably, he was willing to head a nation so soon after a war. Of course he had his downsides, but then so did other famous people. I too would disagree with the nomination of Churchill as the best the UK could offer, mainly as I would not look around the Second World War times to find examples of the capability of the UK.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Given what a muddle operation Torch proved, having two extra major amphibious landings to put into practice and so have a proper test wasn't a bad thing prior to the big one.

Love how this point I made was completely ignored...if you are putting an emphasis upon the words of General Marshall then consider that he said the landings in North Africa would go down as an example at West Point of how not to do an amphibious landing.

The idea of landing in Western Europe with absolutely zero experience of putting such an operation into effect when Germany had plenty to deploy in response to such a landing, not tied down in the East, Balkans and Italy as they were in 1944 was rash and would probably have led to a major reversal.

 

[Case]

4. Most generals and world leaders alike wanted Marshall to lead the European theatre but FDR found him too valuable an administrator to take that role.

What's your source for the claim that "Most generals and world leaders alike wanted Marshall to lead the European theatre"?

the British forced the Germans with callous disregard for British casualties, driving tanks through mine fields and pre-sighted enemy artillery fire, for example, all to make a deadline.

What's your source for the claim that El Alemain was fought "with callous disregard for British casualties"? After sustaining heavy casulties in the first days of the battle Montgomery greatly slowed down the battle so he could impliment new tactics which aimed to reduce casualties. Great efforts were placed into clearing minefields and there's no way to avoid pre-sighted artillery when attacking a prepared position.

Most of the Jews were killed in 1944. The Holocaust was greatly accelerated after the July 20, 1944 failed assassination attempt.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust the industrialised mass slaughter of the Jews began in 1942 and continued until late 1944 when the death camps were closed as the Soviet armies entered Poland.

4. The invasion of Italy gave Germany time to recover from Operation Citadel in the East (July 5 - 13 1943, Italian Invasion July 9, 1943 - May 2, 1945).

Actually, quite the opposite was the case. In order to counter the landings in Italy the Germans withdrew battered formations from Kursk and put them on trains for Italy where they were battered even more when they arrived several weeks later (too late to be of much use). The withdrawal of these formations helped make the major Soviet counter offensive of late 1943 so successful.

5. The Italian Invasion itself cost the Allies dearly. It took the Allies 4 separate attempts to take Monte Cassino, with very heavy casualties. Casualties for the rest of the campaign were also very high.

Invading France wasn't going to be a walk in the park, especially as the Allies lacked the naval forces and total air superiority which played such a critical role in the 1944 campaign. Given that the Germans were relatively stronger than the Allies in 1943 than they were in 1944 there's a very real chance that the Germans could have bottled up the Allied invasion force in 1943.

As you can see, General Marshall was overshadowed by Churchill.

Actually, you didn't demonstrate that at all. You just claimed that Marshall prefered one strategy which Churchill prefered another. FDR was no idiot and was capable of making his own decisions.

The chance of a successful cross-channel invasion in 1943 seemed certain. Afterall, the Allies succeeded in taking Sicily easily (July 10, 1943), landed on the Italian mainland at Reggio di Calabria (Sept 3) and at Salerno (Sept 9).

The Allies had a lot of trouble taking Sicily, despite it being defended by a relatively small force, and were almost driven into the sea at Salerno. The fact that the Germans were able to execute such effective defensive operations at the extreame end of Italy strongly suggests that they would have been extreamly formidable in France in 1943.

A cross-channel D-Day July 1943 would at least be as successful as the Anzio landing, namely, just holding on to the beachhead.

...and why is that a good thing? The only thing the expeditionary force which landed at Galipoli in 1915 achieved was that it held onto its beachhead, and yet you (rightly) criticise Churchill for his role in ordering such a half-baked offensive.

Furthermore, the Anzio landing managed to put ashore 34,000 troops out of 40,000 that was scheduled on the day of the invasion. This despite the entrenched Germans.

What "entrenched Germans"? Anzio was almost undefended and the Allies only suffered a handful of casualties on the day of the landing.

On D-Day June 6, the Allies scheduled some 240,000 troops and supplies to put on shore in all five beaches, Juno, Sword, Gold, Omaha, Utah, achieving 70-80% of scheduled. If Anzio succeeded in holding the beach with 34,000 troops, certainly a cross-channel D-Day in July 1943 would have succeeded in holding with 240,000 troops and in expanding the beachhead.

The only reason the Allies were able to land so many soldiers on 6 June 1944 was that they'd had the time to build the necessary ships to carry these soldiers and their equipment. The shipping available in mid-1943 was not capable of carrying anywhere this number of soldiers into a well defended area (which Sicily was not, which allowed the use of ships which weren't suited to operating off North West Europe).

 

[Marla_Singer]

As many have already said, landing in Normandy in 1943 would have lead to a much more difficult campaign on the Western Front. A failure was simply out of the question for the simple reason that it would have directly lead to give the whole Europe to Stalin. Even a slow down would have been totally disastrous. What hasn't be said by the way is also that the military strength of the UK and the US were far superior in 1944 than in 1943. Personally, I don't sincerly believe that even without Churchill, Roosevelt would have by himself taken the huge risk to land in Europe in 1943.

As for Churchill himself, you shouldn't judge him strictly regarding war operational commands, but also according to his political impact. You must realize that in 1939, Britain was even weaker military speaking than was France. What has saved Britain from an early nazi invasion is before everything the English Channel.

Britain in 1939 was no less pacifist than was France. While French people were still traumatized by the devastations of WW1, British people were convinced they got far too much involved during the same conflict and were certainly not ready to start this another time. The great strength of Churchill is that he succeeded to unite the people behind him. He has been able to build an impressive national war machine in a record time.

Furthermore, Churchill's part in the post-ww2 diplomatic period has been even more important (to me). He has tamed down the US ambitions to redraw the Europe map and has also strongly limited the US temptation to reduce Western European countries to vassal states (especially France, that the US wanted to consider strictly in the axis side).

Without Churchill, US plans on Western Europe could have been devastating. The US were already printing "French dollars" in Washington. Cordell Hull pressured Roosevelt to give Alsace-Lorraine back to Germany because of pseudo-ethnical considerations on the territory which were completely neglecting the truth and the History of that region. Generally speaking, in taming down the US, Churchill succeeded to massively generate a far more peaceful and stabilized Western Europe in the post-war climate, something which strongly benefitted to Britain, and actually, even to the US themselves.