US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by wdolson »

Countries start negotiating peace in wartime when the situation looks hopeless. 

The Russians negotiated a peace with Japan in 1905 because most of the entire navy had been sunk.  Both the Pacific and Baltic fleets were mauled by Japan.  Russia had nothing left to fight Japan with.  The political situation in Russia was not good either.  The 1917 revolution was only the outcome of decades of festering resentment against the Czar.

In 1941, when the situation in the USSR looked grim, Stalin didn't quit because he knew that the USSR could survive the winter.  Germany was running out of steam as the weather got colder and the Soviets had evacuated their factories well east of the fighting.  A super human effort had slapped together working factories in record time.  The USSR had many times the manpower of Germany, they were getting some equipment from the UK and US, and their own production of war material was just starting.  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a bit relief to Stalin for two reasons: 1) the US was now fully in the war, and 2) his Far East territory was now safe from Japanese invasion.

The Confederacy surrendered because they had little left to fight with.  The North had ground them down in a war of attrition and occupied much of their territory.

The US pulled out of Vietnam when it finally got through to the politicians that there was no winning the war.  Nixon tried and when it became clear that there was no winning, he started the withdrawl.  The US will likely come to the same point with Iraq.  IMO.

Even if the first few months of WW II had gone much worse for the US than it did, the US would not have gone to the negotiating table.  Pearl Harbor and the pride involved was a factor, but a bigger factor was US production.  Anybody who had any clue about US production capacity knew that the US would be massively out producing Japan by 1943. 

The game also doesn't model the extreme cases very well.  In the real world, invasion of Australia or India would have been impossible for Japan.  The game doesn't represent the small militias all over India that would have been called upon to fight if Japan had managed to get very far into India.  The Japanese would also have to garrison the territory they captured.  Guerilla activity in the Indian countryside would have been prevelent and fierce.  Some Indians were pro-Japanese, but the majority were not.  News of some Japanese attrocities on Indians would have hardened the resolve of the public against Japan.

Australia is a large continent.  Most of the population is on the coasts and it would be easier to control the population centers there, but there is a whole lot of land that would be tough to control.  The Australians are known for creative solutions and had a well educated population.  Probably the best average education of any home land threatened directly by Japan during the war.  They would have had a very tough time taming Australia.

China was much easier to conquer by comparison.  Education levels were poor, leadership was even worse.  The entire country had been in civil war and warlord chaos for quite a few years before the Japanese invaded.  Despite all the weakneses among the Chinese, the Japanese were never able to pacify the country.  They could occupy cities, but had a much tougher time controlling the countryside. 

The education levels in India were not much better than China, but the culture was more unified (the problems between Muslims and Hindus did not come to the surface until after the British left) and they had much better leadership.

If the Japanese had made a maximum effort to capture Hawaii, they may have managed, but they would have had to strip China to the bone and reduced the garrisons in much of their occupied territory to do it.  It would have been a huge struggle.  The US would have put up much more of a fight than in the Philippines.  The US military had a much stronger presence in Hawaii before the war and it's much closer to the US mainland.  Japan would have been fighting at the extreme end of the longest supply line in history up to that point and the US would have been fighting in their backyard.

The US mainland was never really threatened.  If the KB had been *very* bold, they may have raided some west coast cities, but they would have been putting their carriers at extreme risk at over 1000 miles from the nearest base (if they had occupied Hawaii).  Japan also never made use of fleet oilers like the US did.  US doctrine had fully incorporated refueling at sea by the start of the war.  Japan did it some, but it never became common practice.

Japan's navy was built to dominate the western Pacific where bases are plentiful.  The US is on the most easily defended continent on Earth.  The mainland's coasts are a long ways from any potential enemy.  To be able to hit an enemy at extreme distance, the USN had to be built to withstand very long ocean voyages just to get to the enemy.

Short of something fantastic like the Japanese getting nukes and a delivery system in 1940, the US would not have given up.  It was obvious to everyone who understood the US' production ability that victory was a matter if when, not if.  Winston Churchill's words when he first heard about Pearl Harbor were, "so, we have won after all!"  He understood.

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Ursa MAior »

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

I'd like to see a computer wargame that depicts all the posters on this thread. Call it "War of the Uninformed Political Sh1theads" (WUPS for short).

Wazzup pas? You suddenly have found your nationatlist self? People are asking questions, cuz they are interested even if from the ebony tower it seems they speak nonsenses.

As of negotiated peace it was no way possible after PH. If the declaration of war had arrived in time is another issue.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by spence »

The ultra-nationalistic drivel that passed for socio-political thinking in Germany and Japan convinced most of the rest of the population of the planet that even submitting as a slave would not secure even the most basic of considerations from those governments and people (the Axis). Both Germany and Japan quickly disabused anyone who thought otherwise by their behavior in other people's countries.

ESSENTIALLY 'THE BREAK EVEN POINT" AS YOU CALL IT, FOR THE PEOPLES WHO WERE FIGHTING THE AXIS; WAS PERCEIVED BY THEM, AT THE TIME; AS THE COMPLETE AND UTTER DESTRUCTION OF AT LEAST THE GERMAN AND JAPANESE GOVERNMENTS; IF NOT THEIR COUNTRIES. The Seperate Peace Scenarios existed in reality only in the fanatical minds of the leaders of the Axis.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by wdolson »

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

I'd like to see a computer wargame that depicts all the posters on this thread. Call it "War of the Uninformed Political Sh1theads" (WUPS for short).

Obviously it appears you have a difference of opinion with one or more people in this thread. I don't think that is grounds to start name calling.

If you feel we are uninformed, please enlighten us with your opinions on the matter. I won't be offended if you tell me my ideas are off base and give reasons why. Heck, I might learn something new.

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by AU Tiger_MatrixForum »

ORIGINAL: Rafael Warsaw

There were an establishment in Czar/Comunist Russia there was one in Washington in 1940. ACW? Pres. Lincoln was always worried about elections. Whole pennsylvannia campaigne was all about incoming election. He was lucky, They have won at Gettyssburg (thanks to incoming elections? Union commanders have seen a wall behind them built by Washington ie: a line in the sand?)

That doesn't make a lick of sense. The elections occurred 17 months AFTER Gettysburg. The whole Pennsylvania campaign was solely because Bobby Lee was there.

And in a later post you talked about desertions at the Potomac river as the army crossed. Actually in '63 the troops were in excellent morale and looking forward to campaigning in a country rich in forage. The desertions you are probably referring to was in '62 when the Army of Northern Virginia crossed into Maryland. A number of units had signed up to defend Southern soil and had moral problems with carrying a war of aggression into a foreign land.
A number of them refused to step across the river.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Ursa MAior »

ORIGINAL: AU Tiger

ORIGINAL: Rafael Warsaw

There were an establishment in Czar/Comunist Russia there was one in Washington in 1940. ACW? Pres. Lincoln was always worried about elections. Whole pennsylvannia campaigne was all about incoming election. He was lucky, They have won at Gettyssburg (thanks to incoming elections? Union commanders have seen a wall behind them built by Washington ie: a line in the sand?)

That doesn't make a lick of sense. The elections occurred 17 months AFTER Gettysburg. The whole Pennsylvania campaign was solely because Bobby Lee was there.

And in a later post you talked about desertions at the Potomac river as the army crossed. Actually in '63 the troops were in excellent morale and looking forward to campaigning in a country rich in forage. The desertions you are probably referring to was in '62 when the Army of Northern Virginia crossed into Maryland. A number of units had signed up to defend Southern soil and had moral problems with carrying a war of aggression into a foreign land.
A number of them refused to step across the river.

Yes I think there is a difference between a civil war and one waged against an aggressive enemy. There were similar issues in the hungarian 1848-49 uprising when a number of honved officers have refused to enter austrian soil saying they swore to protect their land not to invade others (even if militarily speaking that was the ONLY way to win that war).
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by AU Tiger_MatrixForum »

Raphael:

Not trying to be offensive here but you are reminding me a little of some liberal arts students on campus the other day. They had set up a little table near the engineering building and were passing out literature and lecturing everyone on "Green Power." Some engineering students (I was one) talked with them for a little bit. They had no idea about the realities of what they were lecturing us about.

The point I am trying to make is this. From your studies, from the current state of international events, and the "Peace at any Price" movement in the States apparently you have developed an opinion about the American psyche that has no relation whatsoever with the American people following December 7th, 1941. Apparently these things are cyclical because there was a very similar PaaP movement in the Northern states during the War of Northern Aggression much like the one today in this country. I guess I am trying to say is the only way the American people would have submitted to a negotiated peace would have been at bayonet point. Any politician that tried to do so would likely have found himself dangling from a sour apple tree.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by pasternakski »

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Obviously it appears you have a difference of opinion with one or more people in this thread.
Bill, that's not it. In case it slipped past anyone, this forum is for discussion of matter relevant to the Matrix/2by3 game WitP.

I have no interest in adding to, or disputing, this unconscionable drivel, offensive as it is in many respects, particularly due to its undisciplined, informationless blathering.

It just needs to crawl back under its rock where it so obviously belongs. I am surprised that the moderators have not long since locked this thing.

I am further surprised to see the screen names of several people whose decorum and discussion I respect and enjoy allowing themselves to be sucked into this nonsense.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by CobraAus »

nasty politics Aus 1942 and still talked about today
this was to be Aus' answer to an invasion of Aus by Japan - thank God it did not happen

there is a lot more about this subject on the net just Google

The Brisbane Line


Percy Spender was Menzies' foreign minister, but, Neale Towart asks, was he also prepared to serve as Prime Minister in a Japanese controlled Australia?

**********

The Japanese military machine and the Australian ruling class, in another episode showing how the ruling elites will defend their privileges against any threat to the social order, planned for a Vichy administration in Australia.

Drew Cottle has given us the most detailed outline to date of all that is known of "The Brisbane Line" the plan of the Australian Gentry to do a deal with the Japanese during World War II and let them have the continent north from Brisbane. Rupert Lockwood, crusading journalist won lasting notoriety because of the Petrov Royal Commission and his alleged authorship of "Document J". That document is central to Cottle's researches and provides many clues to the truth of the Vichy administration plan.

Cottle explains that his fascination for the subject was stirred by his fathers anger every Friday night when he saw Charles Cousens appeared on Channel 7 to read the news, saying "Japanese agent" and "one of the Brisbane Line traitors". He could never understand this and in the frigid atmosphere of cold war Australia, where political debate was so constrained, the topic never got an airing elsewhere.

AT the time (1942) when the Japanese were advancing rapidly south an invasion did seem a real possibility. Eddie Ward was the first to accuse Menzies and his ilk of betrayal and being prepared to do a deal. There was a Royal Commission at the time but it was never transcribed. Max Julius communist lawyer and close associate of Fred Paterson the only Communist ever elected to a parliament in Australia, produced a pamphlet, "The Truth About The Brisbane Line" in 1942. The cover cartoon is a major indictment of all Menzies actions in his political history, with a reminder to readers of Pig iron Bob, his praise for Hitler, his support of the Munich Agreement, his non-intervention in the Spanish, his resignation of his military commission in 1914 and a quote that would do John Howard proud, "The Government of which I had the honour to be the leader has no apology to make to history: (22-6-1943, Hansard)

Cottle's book is the best guide yet to the lie in that statement.

The passions of the time are set out by Fred Paterson in his introduction to max Julius' pamphlet.

"No question has aroused such bitter feelings as the Brisbane Line Plan. The people of Queensland have every right to feel bitter. For the Brisbaner Line Plan involved giving up the greater part of Queensland, the Northern territory and North West Australia to the Japnese invaders without serius resistance.

To illustrate the outlook of the Tory defence experts I cannot do better than to quote the words of General Squires (Chief of the General Staff at the time), who, at an inquiry on defence matters, said-

"I am informed that there are only a few unimportant villages north of Brisbane".

Paterson went on the lay the blame on the United Australia party (Lyons and Menzies) and the Country Party for the defeatist program.

His final sentence unfortunately was proved wrong as Menzies and co quickly regained office after the war and the cold war kept them there for 23 years. Howard's regime is a resumption of the duplicity of this class of people and we should take to heart Paterson's summing up:

"No Australian could tolerate for one moment that our country's future should be entrusted to those who were responsible for this shocking strategy."

Cottle's main interest is not the military strategy of the Brisbane Line, although he does consider Macarthur's reaction to it and how he (Macarthur) saw it is a way on ensuring his heroic status as military saviour

Julius says in his pamphlet that the Brisbane Line Plan first existed in documentary form from 1942 when it was presented to, and rejected by, the Curtin government. The idea of the Brisbane Line, as a military strategy seems to go back to Lord Kitchener's visit to Australia in 1909-10 and his military plan occasioned by the fear of Japanese attack at that time. The British were concerned at the Japanese rivalry then.

Cottle is a Marxist historian so his concern is in the class origins of the Brisbane Line idea. The notion has been easily dismissed by the ruling class since the defeat of the Japanese as it was no longer an issue, but the willingness of the ruling elites to come to an arrangement should not be overlooked. Cottle points out that sections of society in France and Norway fro example, quickly and enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis. The Philippine elite did the same with the Japanese.

Being of a different generation to Cottle, my first knowledge of the Brisbane Line stem from a review by Humphrey McQueen of Xavier Herbert's Poor Fellow My Country. McQueen notes Herbert's acceptance of the government plan to withdraw south of Brisbane for military purposes but Herbert does not take the extra step of seeing more sinister political forces behind this idea. As McQueen put is "the local bourgeoisie, which had been so stuck on the British, found little trouble shifting to the yanks. Doubtless they would have come to an arrangement with the Japanese in 1942, if the need had arisen." McQueen did not delve any further into the story. With the release of the Petrov case document sin the mid 1980s and discussions with the previously largely unheard of Ken Cook an "unofficial" intelligence operative, Drew Cottle founds his book on the hypothesis McQueen sketches out.

Cottle begins with an account of why appeasement was so appealing to the ruling classes in the wake of the slaughter of World War I. The rise of a newly educated and active working class, and the Bolshevik revolution led to a sense of unease amongst some and the results were the formation of the Old Guard and the New Guard, and various other manifestations of fascism that were thought necessary to safeguard the social order. Andrew Moore has perhaps looked into these movements more than most, and Jack Lang, himself violently opposed to communism, was the target of their concern, particularly after his Transport Administration legislation, when many garage owners around Sydney flocked to the New Guard. John Howard's father was a garage owner in the main stronghold of the New Guard, but no record exists of his membership.

These movements, and the Australia First movement (most notable for its inclusion of P.R. Stephensen and bankrolled by J Miles, a businessmen and both of whom were associated with Xavier Herbert, and whom he depicts telling in Poor Fellow My Country), were of interest to the Japanese, who throughout the thirties were keen to forge links with Australian business. The Japanese were large buyers of Australian wool, iron ore and other raw materials. So the Japanese were already important to the Australian economy. Also Japanese intelligence officials were active in Australia from 1931 to 1941, and were crucial in developing plans for the invasion, which were eventually abandoned in 1942-43. The Japan-Australia Society was formed in 1929 and officially disbanded in March 1941. The records left to us are scanty. Also the consulate before its closure destroyed many documents compiled by Japanese foreign and intelligence officials in Sydney in 1941.

Cottle goes on to look at the class membership of the society and the Australia First movement. He also devotes a chapter to the "white Japanese" those military and political figures who were sympathetic to the Japanese, and "whose importance to the potential Japanese invasion and occupation of Australia may never be known but for which there is tantalising evidence." Percy Spender, later foreign minister under Menzies is a key figure here.

Other writers have mentioned Ken Sato on the Japanese in Australia as the key source of evidence for the plans of the Japanese to invade. Many have thought that there were no such plans. Sato claimed that the Japanese had plans to move a large land attack between Townsville and Brisbane with Brisbane being the first objective, with Sydney to follow. The fall of Sydney and a move sought would lead to surrender. Sato named many Australians whom he knew (according to journalist Denis Warner) to be sympathetic to the plan and who would help make up a "Vichy" type administration.

Ken Cook, the unofficial intelligence operative is the real find of Cottle, and the person who seems to have been targeted by ASIO in the late 1960s up until the 1980s after he decided to write down what he had been doing in the 1930s and 1940s. He suffered a fire that destroyed his records and later a hit and run accident that almost killed him.

Rupert Lockwood and Document J, released in 1984 with the Petrov Archive, were vilified by the Royal Commission, and the Sydney Morning Herald, always reliable for the ruling class when the chips are down, backed up the Royal Commission with its editorial at the time of declassification. Cottle does a careful reading of Lockwood's What Is Document J and shows that much of what he wrote (of course unsupported by documents because they are hardly likely to be the kind of things those written about want recorded) is a reasonable account of what was going on up to 1942. He finds this from his talks with Ken Cook and his look at the connections and activities of such figures as Percy Spender, pretender to Menzies leadership but an outsider to the Melbourne Club. The reaction of his son, John Spender, former federal MP himself to the release of the Petrov Archive showed the sensitivity that still runs through the ruling classes on this cloudy part of out history.

We need to thank Cottle for remembering his father's anger and Humphrey McQueen for triggering Cottle's desire to find out what lay behind the Brisbane Line. As Cottle puts it, his "examination of the clues and starting points offered by Document J and other archival sources has suggested the Brisbane Line as a Vichy illusion of the Japan-minded n Australia. The treachery was never truly lost."

Drew Cottle. The Brisbane Line: A Reappraisal. Leicestershire; Upfront Books 2002.

Labor Council got a copy through amazon.co.uk as the book is printed on demand. The service is pretty fast. It shows the state of Australian publishing that Cottle could not get this work published in Australia.

Max Julius. The Truth About the Brisbane Line. Issued by the Qld State Committee. Communist Party of Australia, July 1943.

Humphrey McQueen. Poor Fellow My Country [review]. first published in Arena, no. 40, 1976. Republished in his Gallipoli to Petrov: arguments with Australian History


also follow this link - interesting reading

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by herwin »

It depends on whether the Germany First crowd could have kept King from sending troops and ships to the Pacific. (King was aggressive and liked taking calculated risks.) If the Japanese had not hit Pearl, it is likely that we would have settled for a stalemate in the Pacific until we finished off Germany. Hitting Pearl probably delayed by two years the date when the Navy had to start delivering victories on a regular basis. So play the game this way: if Japan *never* attacks Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, or the continental US, the US has to impose a close blockade on Japan by 1 January 1944 to win. If the US holds a major base in the Philippines or Taiwan at that point, it's a draw. Otherwise it's a Japanese win. If Japan has lost a major base in the Carolines or thereabouts, it's a marginal victory. If Japan still holds its internal perimeter, it's a regular victory. If Japan holds its external perimeter, it's a decisive victory. If the Allies have a close blockade on Japan, it's a marginal Allied victory. If there is a secure Allied bridgehead on the Japanese home islands, it's a regular victory. If one of the Japanese islands is held by the Allies, it's a decisive Allied victory.

BTW, this is what the USN thought pre-war.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by herwin »

ORIGINAL: Rafael Warsaw

Was a Confederate states a developed democracy with vote rights given to basicly everybody? Sure not. North was closer.

You know, theres always an establishment of some kind (we can call it a political system if we like). An internal threat to those ppl (political system of the country) positions - 1905 movement/so called 1905 revolution - forced Russia to seek for a peace with Japan to ease an internal situation. Trust me - They are at least that proud as americans are. INMHO - much more.

36 years later comunist establishment was threatened only by germans but by no means by internal affairs - so they fought to the death even with whole country burned to the ground and with uncounted millions of deaths.

There were an establishment in Czar/Comunist Russia there was one in Washington in 1940. ACW? Pres. Lincoln was always worried about elections. Whole pennsylvannia campaigne was all about incoming election. He was lucky, They have won at Gettyssburg (thanks to incoming elections? Union commanders have seen a wall behind them built by Washington ie: a line in the sand?)



Theoretically, but it was run as a military dictatorship.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by treespider »

I might refer everyone to "A long day's journey into war" by Stanley Weintraub...my writing in parens

"In the Senate the count was 82 to 0. Gerald Nye himself voted for war. Some isolationists could not return in time to cast ballots, but none would have voted nay. Some would call for prosecuting those culpable at Pearl Harbor, but the culprits intended were the politicians and military bureaucrats in Washington, not the bunglars in the field"

" It was difficult to keep anything secret in Washington. (Talking about the damage inflicted at PH) America First also had the facts, leaked by Senator Nye and others on the 9th after Secretary (of the Navy) Knox and Admiral Stark had conficentially revealed them in closed meeting of the Naval Affairs Committee. Ruth Sarles of the Washington office of America First reported to Robert K. Wood that one senator remarked as he left the secret session, "We would be lucky if we kept Hawaii." Eight battleships had been sunk or crippled, she reported; "half our effectives are wiped out." The government, she guessed, "will sit on the lid as long as possible." In one of the earliest conspiracy allegations, isolationist Senator Guy Gillette claimed to her that he had seen documents that established American advance knowledge of "the plan of attack." Most modern bombing planes and "all but seven percent of our ammunition," she was also told, had been shipped to hated England, leaving the US with only the resources for three weeks fighting. Still, there was no way to frighten or goad America First stalwarts into keeping the faith. Their cause was lost and the movement would self destruct. Ruth Sarles would need another job."


After December 7, 1941 the isolationist movement in the US was dead.

Part of the problem with the original posters questions lies in what the game allows for vs. history. The game looks solely at War in the Pacific and not at World War II in total. Remember were only seeing 30% of American output in the game.  If you want to what-if this then what if the Germans had not declared war on the US and what if the United States had decided to turn 70% of it muscle towrds Japan...but that is for another thread...

Back to the original post... Even if Hawaii were taken and India invaded and the early American Carriers were sunk ...Nothing has been accomplished that would have diminished the Americans capablity to wage war. Before December 7th 1941 the US had already laid down 6 Essex Class carriers and 2 Independence class Light Carriers and these were being constructed on the East coast of the United States - untouchable by the Japanese. 

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by treespider »

ORIGINAL: hueglin

Food for thought.

1814 - British forces march on Washington. At a brief battle on the road, known as the Battle of Bladensburg; the British forces defeat the American forces, who withdraw in disarray, thus opening the road to Washington. The British burn the White House and the Capitol, but the rest of Washington is saved by a strong rain storm. The British, under orders not to hold any territory, withdrew.
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One might expect that having the capital burned would result in a determination to fight to the end, but this war ended in a negotiated peace.

Apples and Oranges...

from Wiki...."The war had become a stalemate. Neither side had been successful in invasions designed to gain bargaining chips. (The U.S. never wanted to annex Canada, only to seize lands for bargaining over other issues.) The prewar issues of trade restraints and impressment were so closely tied to the war against Napoleon (now in exile) that they no longer mattered and were not mentioned. The Indian menace had been destroyed, ending a major cause of the war. Public opinion strongly desired peace and there was no reason to continue the war."

In World War II (and to this day for some in this country) the cassus belli never went away...talk to some elderly folks and they still have it out for the "Japs"

Also when compared to World War II the United States was a different nation - The United States in 1812 had only been a nation for all of 25-27 years... In addition the United States at this time was far from the industrial nation that it would become 50 years later. ... In addition the "heartland" of the modern US was still "Indian country at this time. The developed areas were all coastal cities and towns...
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Ian R »

Australia's foreign policy up to 1941 was wedded to the UK.  Australia never actually declared war in 1939 (or 41) - In 1939 PM Menzies solemnly announced that GB had declared war and we, therefore, were also at war.
 
He was voted out in August 41 and after a couple of months with Fadden ( a conservative) in the post, Curtin became prime minister. Curtin was labour party, a democratic socialist one with strong Irish Catholic roots. As a result much less wedded to the British Empire, but there was no chance of withdrawing from the war. Once the Pacific war started Curtin was more than willing to align us more closely with the US than the UK, for obvious reasons. Curtin insisted that the AIF be returned from the Middle East, a decision which proved crucial in the battles at Milne bay and on the Kokoda trail, Buna, Gona and Sanananda.
 
Curtin chose to take his military advice from Macarthur instead of Blamey, and after the desperate battles of the second half of 1942, when Australian (mostly) and US troops turned the IJA around in PNG, had no difficulty with the Australian Army moving into a supporting role as US troop numbers built up in SWPAC area.
 
If the US fights on, then so does Oz. If the US negotiated with the IJE, then so, by default, would we.
 
A purely military appreciation, emphasising logistic support is as follows.
 
As to an IJA invasion in 1942/3, the IJA would have found themselves facing a force the size of the CW 8th Army, including in that situation upwards of three fully mobilised armoured divisions and three AIF infantry divisions, perhaps one or two US motorised infantry divisions depending on when it happens, maybe more, PLUS the Militia forces - the equivalent of 5-7 further infantry divisions (but with a fair bit of MT). While these would have been "green", they did have the advantage of a lot of 40-45 year old officers and senior NCOs who were still fit and had the precious commodity of combat experience, in some cases about 3 years of it, who were well versed in the application of individual initiative in light infantry tactics.
 
Australian industry in 1942 was capable of producing sufficient quantities of rifles, MGs, and other infantry weapons, ammunition (in particular at a factory decentralised into the central west of NSW, way way south aand a mountain range away from the coast) and AC-1 Sentinel tanks, which whilst they were not much of a match for the European machines of the time would have dealt with the IJA's light tanks and tankettes. Again depending on timing of the imposition of any blockade, there may also have been some hundreds of Matildas, Stuarts, ad M-3 mediums available. Not sure about large calibre field artillery, but there were a lot of WW1 vintage 18lbers available (3.3 inch, 84 mm, range 10400 yards). Not sure about WW1 vintage 4.5 inch (114 mm) howitzers. The short 25lb gun was first produced in Australia (as a pack version of the famous gun howitzer for jungle use) in 1943; so availability in numbers again depends on timing and how well emergency measures worked in practice. So the artillery was comparable or better than the IJA's usual 75mm. Aircraft production was underway, as all WITPers know, but without US airpower the IJA would likely have air superiority. The only natural resource which would be problematical is oil, but such domestic production as there is was deep down in the South east where 90% of the population and industry are.  And we have plenty of horses and lots of grass.
 
The IJN may have been able to land troops in the north, but would need to strip other areas to find sufficient troops, and further overstretch their transport capacity. Note that landing in Darwin is not much good,  you go a few miles south and there is nothing there except cattle stations the size of Belgium. Its a dead end in trying to move North to South ( no railway link), and landing on the west coast is not going to be much good either. So they would have to land on the east coast where the bulk of the population is, and move south down it, but even though there is a narrow coastal plain much of the way, there are also a lot of very rugged going. So my assessment is that you would need about 20 IJA divisions (pulled from China or Manchuria), more artillery than they usually had, and tanks, a least a few regiments, to press forward, which is probably more than the IJN could supply. Which IIRC, was the IJN's message to the IJA when some planning on the subject was done in 1942, or maybe the message went the other way.
 
So we could keep the troops fighting, would burn everything when we retreated, blow up every bridge, smash the railway infastructure down the coast (where the IJA would get the locos and rolling stock to use it even if they repaired it is a significant question), evacuate the civilians, and leave cut off troops to fade into the hill country to wage guerilla war ( a battalion in the hills in Timor occupied the attention of an entire IJA division for about a year and then withdrew by sea) and make the IJA garrison everything.
 
The Brisbane line was not such a dumb idea. Professionals talk about logistics, etc.
 
While you could say that if the IJE was able to devote all or most of its resources to an invasion of Australia they would win out after a few years, that is not a real world scenario.
 
And while the 20 IJA divisions are bogged down down here, the smart strategy for the US would be to make sure enough stuff was sent here to keep those 20 divisions occupied  - and cause the IJN to have to devote more resources to supplying them - while they assembled the historical fleet of Essexes, Clevelands, Fletchers et al, and ploughed a path straight through the Marshalls, Marianas, and Carolines back to the Philippines.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Feinder »

I think if you (not addressing anyone) want to believe that the US ever considered quitting WW2 during "the dark days of 1942", you have but find any sort of documentation by either the Chiefs of Staff or the Cabinet/Congress that brings up discussion of throwing in the towel.

Most documentation from WW2 is freely availabele thru the internet and is but a Google away.

Consider on the other hand that, even DURING those "dark days of 1942", during the collapse of Malaya, SRA, New Britian, New Guinea, and the Pacific islands, the Joint Chiefs were already planning the invasion/liberation of the Philipines/Rabaul/Marshalls, despite their actual lack of materiale to do so.

I agree with whomever said it earlier in this thread that, the idea of war-weary US that would simply give in after a beating and allow the Axis powers to retain their conquests, were merely the delusional fantasies of the Axis Leaders.

Again, if you think the US ever considered just quitting, find the documentation to support it.

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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by herwin »

I'm not sure how that differs from what I wrote.

All I'm pointing out is that the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was probably good for two years support, after which the administration would have been in a similar position vis-a-vis Japan to where it would have been at the start if Japan had declared war in a more civilised fashion. Eliminate the threat to Hawaii, Alaska, etc., and the Allied leadership would not have had quite as much support for going after Japan.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by treespider »

I suppose I could accept an argument that ...

if the Germans had subdued the Soviet Union in 1941/early 1942 and...
if the Japanese had destroyed the American carrier fleet at Pearl Harbor and...
if the Japanese conquered Hawaii and...
if the Japanese had disabled the Panama Canal and...
if the Japanese had conquered relevant parts of Alaska and...
if the Japanese had subdued India and...
if the Germans had subdued England...

then maybe the US would have negotiated a peace...

However there are a lot of if's for that to happen.

The problem with any sort of discussion about the Pacific War is that you cannot take it out of the context of the Global World War...
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Mike Scholl »

Or to put it more simply..., "If the Sun had started rising in the West..."
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by Vetamur »

I will give it a shot..
 
Here is where I think the US would have NOT sued for terms but called a ceasefire..
 
IF.. 1) its carriers had been at PH or been hunted down and sunk fairly soon after..
 
IF  2) the British had made a peace in February/March 42 as apparently had been briefly discussed
 
IF 3) Japan when "liberating" its conquered areas had in fact actually "liberated" them. If Japan had walked into all those territories with a plan to make them equals or near equals in a true "Asia for Asians" scheme.. so that if the US had invaded, local populations from Papua New Guinea to the Phillipines also fought against them..
 
then..maybe just maybe the US might have seen the situation as sort of a fait acompli and found a way to work out a ceasefire.
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RE: US Internal lpolitics and Public reaction

Post by moses »

Ignoring all the emotional considerations I think the unconditional surrender demand was more a result of the momentum of raising such large military forces.

By the time the war was viewed as clearly lost by the axis powers the allied war machine was just reaching its full potential and could completely dominate the axis. Since these allied forces were created at great expence and could not be maintained in peacetime there was great incentive to use them to decisively defeat all opposition prior to demobalization.

So the Japanese had little negotiating leverage in 1944/45.

The only hope would seem to be for Japan to win a decisive victory early. Say they win Midway big and then realize that they are going to lose the war!!! So they offer peace on very reasonable terms giving back most conquered territory. Of course not much chance of that as imagine the "victory disaese" after them wining a Midway.

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