Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
Dave, do you think if Roosevelt was as aggressive as Bush, Hitler would have second thoughts? Or a different plan? Not have attacked the eastern front until England had been invaded?
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Sorry Bruce, I just realised that I did not really answer your question. I just repeated much of what I had already written. Yes, I think if Roosevelt had matched Germany's military build-up, and actually sent troops to England and France (and equipment, of course), then the course of history would have been quite different. in 1939 Hitler was around 50, and feeling the pressure of time. He brought forward his war plans several years (originally planned to start in 45). Of course, we would have had a stalemate for a while, and Hitler would have had more time to develop better and stronger weapons, thus making Germany an even more formidable opponent. So, would that have actually worked against us (the free world)? Probably. Russia and Germany may have maintained their anti-aggression pact, though that is difficult to imagine, given their mutual dislike and distrust of one another, but with US forces in Europe, who knows, Hitler may have held off invading Russia. We are lucky that he did invade. Imagine what the effort would have been like, if there was no Eastern front. Normandy could not have happened the way it did.
History is full of "what ifs". We will never know how events might have unfolded if the US had entered the conflict earlier.