[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Raellus

ASPQRZ, you are clearly widely and well-read. I respect that. I too have a fairly respectable library of WWII scholarship. I have a degree in history and have taught it for nearly a decade now.

Double Major, Ancient/Medieval/Modern. 37 years teaching it. FWIW.

Originally Posted by Raellus

I've read some of the books and authors that you mentioned*. I will look into the ones that I have not. AFAIK, none of the works we have common experience with assert that the UK/Commonwealth didn't need U.S. assistance or speculate that they could defeated all of the Axis Powers without it.

Of course they don't. For the obvious reason, as I noted, that they are historians writing history, not alternate history. Indeed, when historians write alternate history it is (in my experience) almost universally awful.

However, they also deal in facts ... and, as I could point out (and as you undoubtedly understand), interpretation of facts changes over time, especially as new research brings new facts to light, or shines a different light on things that 'everyone knows' ... responsibility for WW1, for example. When I started Uni, pretty much entirely Germany's fault with a tinge of automaticity (train timetables) ... these days? Everyone's fault, with a rising tide of 'blame the idiot pollies who didn't grasp the seriousness of a potential war' ... which is, of course, grossly simplifying things to give a generalised trend.

The facts have, by and large, not changed ... and relatively few new facts have come to light, but reinterpretation of existing facts has brought forward several generations of revisionism.

ISTR some historian (forget who) making the lucid observation that the definitive histories of WW1/WW2 wouldn't (indeed, couldn't) be written for at least a couple of centuries ... and we can see the process occurring as I type this, almost.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Apparently, we are drawing different conclusions from much the same information. Fair play there. I am just not seeing direct academic support- raw data, analysis, or synthesis- that supports your interpretations. I see a lot of picking and choosing of evidence to support your position. However, in my professional opinion, the preponderance of the evidence does not. In other words, I think that you are missing the forest for the trees.

And in my professional opinion you are ignoring clear evidence as well, evidence which makes it clear that Germany, as a continental power, did not have the wherewithal to take on a naval power given that she had a clear inferiority in overall economic capacity ... in exactly the same way that Napoleonic France was unable to overcome Britain.

And, of course, you seem to be ignoring, or not grasping, that I have repeatedly pointed out it would not have been an easy Commonwealth victory ... but a slow, grinding, attritional one (at least until the Atomic Bombs start dropping from the Lancaster follow-ons in the early to mid-50's), and that the world resulting would be a very different one to the one that actually occurred.

I also feel that you are cherry picking your objections ... indeed, creating them where they simply cannot stand, as in the matter of Japan in the Far East, ignoring the reality that if they attacked the Commonwealth and her allies they had to attack the US. I am not aware of any mainstream historian who supports that line of thought ... unless they're conspiracy theorists.

Originally Posted by Raellus

But, at this point, I think that we are both beating a horse that is well and truly dead. I don't think either of us are prepared to change our respective points of view on the matter either. I am fine with agreeing to disagree.

Indeed, as I said to someone earlier on ... or should have if I didn't ... YMMV.

Originally Posted by Raellus

That said, I'm interested in reading your response to my counterarguments to your allegations that GB had a track record of spanking larger continental powers (you implied that they did so on their own) and then quickly and easily paying off the financial burdens incurred during those wars. I cited two widely known examples refuting those assertions. I also mentioned GB's economic struggles during and after WWII- a historical reality despite substantial American material and financial aid, both during and after the war. Neither precedence nor the events of WWII support your argument that GB and the Commonwealth were ever in a position, militarily or financially, to defeat the Axis on their own.

And I provided a source that shows your argument to be wrong, or at the very least not entirely supportable ...

And your reading of the 7 Years War and its outcome is ... unusual ... as pretty much every historian I have read on the subject makes the point that it led to British pre-eminence and France being reduced to a second rate power (or, really, finally recognised as such) ...

For example, British defence spending as a percentage of government revenue averaged ~70% or so (min. 62%, max. 89%) during the entirety of the 18th Century, while France managed only a max. of 41% ... reflecting, of course, the capital intensive nature of naval warfare ... and, yes, the Brits eventually lost the American colonies. So what?

They won the 7 Years War. They defeated Napoleon. They gained effective control of more territory than they lost in both conflicts. And they paid down the debt incurred in fighting those wars effectively ... as, as I indicated, any study of the National Debt plainly shows. They emerged as the pre-eminent world and european power and retained that status right through to WW1 (though, yes, WW1 showed that things had been changing ...). Aka, they 'won' despite the short term costs ... hell, despite even the medium term costs!

As far as a non-US WW2 goes, could the Commonwealth have won? Obviously, based on economics, the answer is yes. As I have repeatedly pointed out, and which you still don't seem to have fully understood, such a victory would have been neither fast nor cheap. Would it have caused economic stresses that could have had similar consequences to the American Revolution ... hell yes. Would that change the fact that the Commonwealth could/would have defeated Germany (aka 'won the war') ... IMO, no.

This is obviously where our main point of difference is.

Phil