LaCroix wrote: Would it be possible to negotiate peace after Dünkirk? Or were the british that sure that they could fight back? At this time, the Americans and Russians were well out of the picture, not interfering at all. The Russians were still some kind of Axis allies because of the 'joint operations' in the east, as far as I remember. Would it be possible that Britain would have accepted a peace with new border lines at the current front lines? Or left France fight alone?
Not with Churchill as leader. He was determined to fight it out and that was probably his greatest contribution to WW2. He made absolutely sure that Britain was going to stay in the war until the bitter end and that everybody knew that was the case. So, with Churchill in power, suing for peace was probably the only way Germany could have achieved a 1940 peace settlement with the UK, and the terms Churchill would have demanded would have been very close to unconditional surrender. I suspect a united Germany would have been a casualty at that point (purely personal opinion).
Suppose Churchill wasn't the leader? Now we get into complex territory (this is an area I studied very hard for TBO). The usual way of dividing British political opinion at that time was Conservative vs Labour but that really doesn't convey just how fractured the British body politic was. In fact, both the Conservative and Labour parties were badly split and the two portions of the parties were barely on speaking terms. Their relative strength waxed and waned according to political developments. In effect there were five parties in the House of Commons (including the Liberals). Basically we can summarize them as:
Conservative-Hawk. This group was the driving force behind prosecuting the war to the utmost and doing whatever it took to defeat Germany. Obviously, their champion was Churchill. This strand of the party was in eclipse throughout the 1930s, rose to prominence in period mid-1939-May 1940, slumped somewhat during May-June 1940 and then had a massive resurgence that saw them become totally dominant for the rest of the war.
Conservative-Dove. This group was receptive to a peace deal with Germany as long as an acceptable deal could be worked out. Their champion was Lord Halifax. This group was dominant throughout the 1930s, went into eclipse during the early months of the war, saw a brief resurgence in mid-1940 then pretty much collapsed completely. The Conservative-Dove faction was actually an uneasy alliance between three sub-groups. These were one group that believed Britain needed more time to arm and equip for a war with Germany and saw any deal as buying time to that end (Chamberlain fitted this group). The second believed that the primary enemy wasn't Nazi Germany at all but the Soviet Union and that a strong Germany was necessary to defend Europe against the Soviet Menace (tm). Thus a peace agreement would aid the common defense against the Soviet Union. This view was championed by something called "The Cliveden Set" that was a far-right political grouping that was very influential in the late 1930s. The third can be described as the Empire Loyalists who believed that the war with Germany would be long and brutal and it would destroy the British Empire. Since British and Empire interests took precedence over European interests, Britain should stay out (or get out) of the war. Their primary champion was (wait for it) one Churchill, Winston Spencer. Churchill's political genius was to detach the Empire Loyalists from the Conservative Dove faction and ally them with the Conservative-Hawk faction.
Labour-Hawk This is a bad term but we'll use it for want of a better and to give symetry with the Conservative Party. This was the mainstream Labour Party who were instinctively anti-war (believing, quite correctly, that it was their members who would do teh bulk of the fighting and dying) but also saw the nazi Party as being fundamentally anti-people and believed it should be eliminated. Their champion was Attlee. Their dominance of the Labour Party was slowly and steadily growing.
Labour-Dove Again,a very bad term used for want of a better. This was the far left faction of the Labour Party that took its orders from Moscow. They were quite powerful in the mid-1930s but had been declining slowly as the news about teh show trials and so on became clearer. That news tended to shave away the less-dedicated members and the ones that were left were hard-core. Their champion was one Stalin, Josef (nota joke, that faction sang the party song exactly as commanded. Philby, Burgess, Maclain, Cairncross, Blunt etc all came from the same general background although their overt political stances differed). Since Russia was a German ally at this time, that was the way their votes went and they could be counted on to stand in favor of a peace deal. Their position in the Labour Party was slowly weakening. Allied to this group were the pacifists, mostly Labour who were against any war, regardless of motivation or cause.
See what I mean about a witches brew of opinions? These groups weren't static, but they give a framework.
The key date here in June 17th, 1940. This is when something incredible and quite unprecedented happened. Bjorn Prytz was the Swedish minister in London in 1940. On 17 June 1940, the day France fell, RA Butler met Prytz and asked him back to the Foreign Office. There, he gave Prytz the text of a telegram authored by Halifax in which Halifax stated that officially British policy was for fighting on but that no opportunity should be missed of compromise if reasonable conditions could be agreed, and no diehards would be allowed to stand in the way'. During their talk, Halifax personally added that `common sense and not bravado would dictate the British government's policy'. Prytz was asked to send that evening to Sweden's foreign minister that evening with a request that a German reply be received by noon the next day. The text of that telegram remains in Swedish archives to this day. (Much the most detailed account of the Butler-Prytz interview is to be found in a 1986 article in the Swedish historical journal Scandia by Mr Thomas Munch-Petersen, senior lecturer in Scandinavian history at University College, London.)
What happened next was that on June 18th, Halifax organized a Cabinet meeting to discuss a mass of mind-numbing administrivia. Churchill, who hated such things, took one horrified look at it and decided to go to Oxford where he would (inter alia) write a speech. Halifax, meantime, made certain that the meeting was loaded with his supporters from the Conservative-Dove faction (who, as a result of the critical situation in France and the defeat in Norway, were at a peak in their strength). Unfortunately for him, three things happened. One was that the Germans didn't reply, the second was that MI6 had intercepted the Halifax-Butler telegram and passed the message to Alexander Cadogan, the Cabinet Secretary. That led to the third thing, Cadogan took one look at the telegram, what was scheduled in the Cabinet Room and realized what the game was. He tipped off Churchill who game straight back, appeared in the Cabinet Room and that nixed everything. Shortly afterwards, Churchill seriously considered having Butler and Halifax arrested but was persuaded not to do so on grounds of national unity. Both men's political career ended though; Halifax was sent to Washington instead of jail (arguably no real difference there), Butler was sidelined and teh telegram used to end his efforts at recoveing his career (which, by the way, solves a minor mystery. When Butler ran for the Party leadership in 1956, he was described as a "sad-faced defeatist", a description that made no sense at all at the time. However, with knowledge of the Halifax-Butler telegram, it makes a lot of sense and was a political club of unparallelled power.
So, to eliminate Churchill from power, we have to make two changes. One is to assume the Germans do respond to the Halifax-Butler Telegram offering "reasonable terms" and get teh reply to Halifax by Noon on the 18th. The second is that Alexander Cadogan is either taken out of play or doesn't get the message. Then, Halifax (chairing the Cabinet Meeting in Churchill's absence) moves for acceptance of the German terms, then goes to the leadership of teh Conservative Party (that leadership was almost exactly divided between hawk and Dove factions), waves the accepted peace deal, says that it amounts to a rejection of Churchill's policy and moves that Churchill be removed from the leadership of teh Conservative Party. In those days, the Conservative Leader was not elected, he was appointed by that leading group and served at their pleasure, They could remove him any time they wanted. So, Halifax might have had his way, he became the new party leader and that automatically made him teh new Prime Minister. That's not a probable course of events, its just the least unlikely way of getting Britain out of the war in 1940.
The collapse of the Conservative-Dove faction followed very quickly indeed. I think (peronal opinion again) that the Halifax-Butler telegram was party responsible for that combined with the British victory in the Battle of Britain. I personally believe that it was Britain hanging on in 1940 that was one of the three great factors (arguably the most important) that resulted in the shape of the Allied victory in WW2 (the second in importance being the Russian destruction of the German Army and the third being the American mobilization of their industry for war. In that order.) So, what would have happened if Britain had dropped out in 1940?
In the US, there were two competing concepts of war against Germany (by the way, both parties were determined that there would be a war with Germany; Low satirized the election as "Republicans say kick Hitler's ass, Democrats say bash his head in"). Anyway, one concept was based around no foreign bases, the other around foreign bases. In May/June 1940, the belief was Britain would collapse, so the preferred plan emerged as AWPD-1 that envisaged destroying Germany by air attacks mounted from the USA using the B-36. (It was AWPD-1 that set out the attack described in TBO; the TBO bombing is exactly that (down to the target list and air group organization) described in AWPD-1). By the September/October it was apparent that Britain was not going to fold, meaning taht foreign bases would be available. So, AWPD-1 got replaced by AWPD-42 that was based around the B-29 bombing from foreign bases. AWPD-42 was the official warplan that the U.S. used in WW2 and it was fulfilled to the letter - the structure and strength of the USAAF in 1945 was exactly that projected by AWPD-42.
So, if Britain does collapse in 1940, AWPD-1 becomes the official warplan, it will be fulfilled and we see B-36s operating out of US bases. With the Manhattan District Engineering Project (aka The Manhattan District) in play as well, it takes no imagination to realize what those B-36s will be delivering.
By the way, on the subject of using nukes against Germany. Of course we would have done, in fact nobody ever even considered the possibility of not using them against Germany if the damned place was still standing.. Up to August 1944, all allied nuclear planning was quite specific that Germany was the primary target for the nuclear striking force. FYI, the plan was to base the B-29s in Aldergrove, Northern Ireland, run them up to high altitude and take them across to their target at high speed and maximum altitude. That would have made them almost impossible to intercept (or so it was hoped). Now, by October 1944, Japan was the primary target for the nuclear striking force. So, the change in emphasis from Germany to Japan came sometime bewteen August and October 1944. I have never found any documentation of that decision (cue Ryan who will now turn up with a big grin on his face and the document in his hand
) but the timeframe is real. By the way, guess when Dresden was restored to the allied target list. To me, that spells the first nuclear target in Germany was indeed Dresden.
So, to me, the chain of events is pretty clear. A British collapse in 1940 means AWPD-1 gets accepted which sees the B-36 replacing the B-29 and used for a nuclear attack on Germany as per AWPD-1. Whether that would have been the massive hammer-blow described in TBO (probably Saint Curtis's preferred option since he was a vociferous advocate of massive crushing blows) or a series of smaller blows using the devices as they became available (Probably Groves preferred option) we don't and never will know. Japan isn't a good guide since the strategic situation was so different. But Germany getting nuked is inevitable if the war goes on long enough. The country ought to be very grateful to Churchill for keeping teh UK in the war.
