The Unnecessary War?


Tucker Carlson’s interview (full interview here with timestamps) with Darryl Cooper (aka Martyr Made) caused a stir following the latter’s claim that WW2 well may have been avoidable had different decisions been made by Churchill. In this post, I want to simply address a ‘revisionist’ claim – made by Patrick Buchanan (former political advisor to Nixon and Reagan, opinion writer and author) and others that was echoed by Cooper – that a wider war might have been averted had had Britain not provided Poland the war guarantee in April ’39. In outlining this I’m going to use Buchanan’s argument as he details it in Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War.

To my mind, the debate here is essentially a ‘practical’ rather than an ‘historical’ one. The question isn’t so much about whether this or that happened, or about the plausibility of this or that interpretation regarding a set of facts. Rather, the debate is about whether this or that course of action was more or less desirable or not, could succeed or not, given the set of circumstances. That the decisions made by Chamberlain and then Churchill where animated by practical interests, whether avoiding a repeat of WW1, maintaining the UK’s vital interests on the Continent, and the like (this in many ways explains the furor this generated which I will leave to a future post). To some extent, historical facts can illuminate these questions but they’re not determinative.

Back then to the main thesis. Buchanan argues, straightforwardly, that since the UK had no way of defending the Danzig Corridor, no way of intervening before Germany could invade and defeat Poland, that any war guarantee was not only moot but counterproductive. All that the war guarantee achieves is a state of war between Germany and Britain. Rather, he argues, the more prudent approach for the British was to tell the Germans that any move West into the Low Countries and/ or France would immediately initiate a state of war between them (this is something that Chamberlain could have put to Hitler in Munich). This would have sent a signal to the Poles that they had to deal with the Germans themselves re the Danzig Corridor, and other outstanding issues, and come up with deal acceptable to both. To the Germans, it would reaffirm that Britain held Western Europe to be in their vital national interests and that any move West would initiate a state of war between the two.

This same rationale would also apply with the invasion of Poland. However, the decision to honour or dishonour the war guarantee is complicated because Chamberlain had been humiliated by Munich. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of Britain remain the same as before. Protect the Low Countries and France, and use the USSR acts as a counterweight to Germany in East Europe. Having no capability of saving Poland, the Western Powers could have avoided war by not declaring against Germany and simply providing Poland with whatever assistance was feasible so long as hostilies between the two continued. However, both Britain and France at this stage would have each been required to dishonour their defensive alliances with Poland. What needs must. By the third week of the Polish invasion, the USSR enters the war from the East against Poland. At this stage, the liberation of Poland becomes an even more remote possibility and the substance of the defensive alliances more illusory as both Britain and France decline to declare war on the USSR.

Moving on, nothing changes once Poland has fallen. Italy still remains neutral. Britain and France, though having declared war, are still intact and have not actively engaged the Germans in battle and retain a strong hand. There are still strong reasons to avoid a wider war between the Western Powers and Germany from occurring and even reason to think that negotiations, though likely to be beneficial to both the Germans and the Italians (as broker but also because Italy was ill-prepared for war) would also be beneficial to the Western Powers.

However, with the Fall of France, the hand of the British becomes weaker, that of the Germans stronger. Britain, on its own, had no means of taking the war directly to Germany on the Continent on the ground. Though not inconsiderable, its hand was limited to pressing the Germans by the use of its air and naval power. The only means of defeating Germany at this stage is by bringing either the USA or USSR or both into the war against Germany. Thus, turning, what at first was a local conflict, then a regional conflict, into a world-wide conflict.


Subscribe
Notify of
guest

32 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Roger
Roger
September 18, 2024 9:02 am

In this post, I want to simply address a ‘revisionist’ claim – made by Buchanan…

“Buchanan”?

Who is this Buchanan?

May I suggest the casual reader, even most Cats, won’t know who you’re referring to. Best to introduce him before quoting him…yes?

Buccaneer
Buccaneer
September 18, 2024 9:31 am

In my mind, the perception of the time was that for written and agreed alliances to mean something, they must be honoured. Dishonouring the agreement with Poland would potentially mean every other alliance at the time was weakened which would have left France, Britain and Russia more vulnerable to an aggressive enemy. It’s easy to say in hindsight that there was a better course of action but that ignores that those Alliances were the supposed deterrance to large scale military action. Think of them as the nuclear weapons of their time.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 18, 2024 11:30 am

Americas vital interest was to stop the formation of a new “super trading” block on the continent.

It had partially eviscerated the British Empire during WW1, and WW2 saw that goal completed.

But there is no way they could have let a German superstate form.

(this strips away all the good/evil bit and is a very sweeping and broad generalisation)

Louis Litt
September 18, 2024 10:41 pm

Another peuedo intellectual trying to make a name for themselves. This inaction by Britain could have led to her cousins pushing all the Slav over the Urals.
would this have left France a lone.
For everyone’s sake Churchill did the right thing, there was no other course of action.
The author sounds like a modern hedonist/ leftie, let other counties fight a war and we will give then what they want soo long it’s not me.
we’ll also talk big..

JC
JC
September 19, 2024 7:45 am

And? Is that your way of agreeing trading and supplying war material aren’t that same thing?

JC
JC
September 19, 2024 11:34 am

Okay great, you agree they’re not the same. Why would someone who broke every single agree he made not view arms supply to the Soviets as an act of war?

JC
JC
September 19, 2024 1:39 pm

he didn’t regard the US’s assistance, incl. war materiel, to Britain between ’39 and ’41 as an act of war.

Shipping was attacked from the beginning of the war. Also, a US commercial ship was attacked and sunk in early part of 1941 .

SS Robin Moor was a United States cargo steamship that was built in 1919 and sunk by a German U-boat in May 1941, several months before the US entered World …

Gerard Barry
Gerard Barry
September 20, 2024 6:36 am

No mention of the Japan.

Youngster
Youngster
September 24, 2024 11:51 am

If the West stood up to Hitler when he invaded the Czechs, instead of opening the door in the middle of night, there’s a chance he could have been stopped at that point. The German’s weren’t really in any condition to fight a proper war – Hitler just bluffed his way through. Even when Hitler invaded Poland, Germany was stretched, and one serious strike by England and France could have brought Hitler’s “Special Military Operation” to a speedy conclusion (had they taken the previous few years to properly re-arm).

It’s madness to believe that weakness and constant capitulation is a recipe for enduring peace.

  1. I think the punters are stirring, getting ansty. Normally letting politics of either persuasion slide by as we just get…

  2. Great stuff from the past. Visuals and audio are great. —— F r. David – Words Don’t Come Easy

32
0
Oh, you think that, do you? Care to put it on record?x
()
x