Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/10/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc James Small writes in part: > > None of that matters, I guess, at this remove. Still, if the British, > Canadian, or Australian members of this List believe that the First or > Second World Wars could have been won without the US contribution, > you are quite possibly wrong. (World War I without the US would have led > o a stalemate in 1919, despite the huge improvements in the British > Army which made it the finest in the world by the later part of 1918. > World > War II without the US would have led to a Nazi Europe, a free UK, but a UK > divested of Burma, Malaya, Saawak, and Bruei.) > I agree that US intervention in the First World War in late 1917 was a difference maker as far as that war not ending in stalemate or defeat for the Allied powers. As to WWII: The US without question defeated Japan. US involvement, in Europe after Germany declared war on the US in December 1941, made very little difference to the ultimate outcome. Germany was completely incapable of holding back, never mind defeating, the massive Soviet armies which were well on their way to Berlin prior to the Allied invasion of France in mid 1944. The Marshall Plan was of course indispensable to Europe's recovery after WWII and to the restoration of a viable market for US goods. Regards, Greg