"An Unnecessary War?" Topic

I am currently reading a book called 'Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War' by Pat Buchanan. It seems this book enjoyed quite a bit of success (16th on the New York Times bestseller list) and though I am finding it interesting and thought-provoking in places, I am struggling to accept Buchanan's views.

In a nutshell, he seems to claim that had Britain not involved itself in what he refers to as 'the German – Polish War' of 1939, there would have been no World War, and (and this bit really surprised me) therefore no holocaust etc.

Now we have all heard the Treaty of Versailles being blamed for creating the conditions that allowed extremism to flourish in the 1930s, but can WW2 really be thought of as an 'Unnecessary War'?

[The phrase is attributed to Churchill himself, but seems to have been made in a very different context: ie. war would have been unnecessary had the Western allies tackled Hitler sooner]

I think he is whistling into the wind on this one. There would have been a war between Germany and the Soviets come what may. What would have happened if Britain and France hadn't declared war on Germany in '39, apart from a massive loss of prestige for both countries for welching on their treaty obligations, who knows. Would Hitler have attacked in the west? He might have been tempted to go for Russia first.

Well yes, if no British and Commonwealth – and later US – involvement, it would have been a European war, not a world one. This seems to have been Hitler's desire anyway: a separate peace with Britain. He *may* even have been content with just wresting Alsace-Lorraine back from France, for a while anyway. Though I doubt it.

But he would have certainly proceeded with his invasion of the USSR, and the holocaust would have happened as well. It started before war with Britain, though it didn't reach full industrial efficiencies until afterwards. It just would not have been stopped before the slaughter was complete.

Basically a 'Fatherland' scenario. Germany rules Europe, Britain has the high seas, at least until the USA challenges that position.

Buchanan may be 'right' in the sense that Britain could have done better out of not going to war with Germany – with 'better' measured in colonies and gold, but it would have condemned Europe to hell.

What is frightening is how close the British cabinet came to negotiating with Hitler after the fall of France, and before Churchill became Prime Minister.

I don't see how Britain staying out of the business in 1939 would have really changed things – as long as France declares war then, you will see the Germans invading France and Benelux in spring 1940. And perhaps Denmark and Norway.

But whether Britain and France declare war on Germany or not, you will still see the following events in 1939-1940:
- Germany conquers western Poland
- Soviet Union conquers eastern Poland
- Soviet Union occupies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
- Soviet Union starts Winter War but fails to conquer most of Finland

And the lack of Soviet success in Winter War was one of the points that inspired Hitler to launch Operation Barbarossa in 1941, due to perceived Soviet weakness. Not to mention his political doctrine.

Plus there is still the possibility that Italians (who had occupied Albania in 1939) would manage to start up some fight in Balkans in 1940, and the Germans would need to roll over to rescue.

There is, of course, a wider debate about avoiding war by not getting involved in disputes between, or in, other countries – and so a fascination with how war becomes inevitable or not. The terms of that debate tend to be loaded against war (which is generally accepted as a bad thing).

Further afield than the European theatre, Japanese militarism and imperial ambition evolve more or less independently of disputes in central Europe …

I doubt England keeping its nose out of the Polish affair would have prevented the Chinese Civil War, the Nomonhan Incident, Shanghai and the various stepping stones to Pearl Harbour.

Tackling Hitler earlier might have prevented Japanese Imperialism from merging with the wars of Nazi expansionism into a World War … but 'moving more swiftly and decisively to military intervention' is generally termed 'war mongering' these days, and isn't thought a profitable or popular topic.

I won't take that thought any further, as it begins to blur the edge between military history and contemporary politics …

Phil

Europe's political and military history has always been underpinned by alliances of various complexities and conveniences that ensured that no single power became too great.

Hi,

I dont know this book, but all wars are ALWAYS Unnecessary! That is very simple…

They are a result of bad politics ad a causal chain of not finding better ways of allocation of resouces….

Here a example of a simple causal chain:
Americain revolution -> french revolution-> coallition wars-> war of german liberation -> italian war of liberation -> austrian italian war -> german war -> franco prussian war-> ww1-> ww2-> cold war -> war on terrorisem-> ?

Think about it?

PS: i far as i know were no intentions to attack one western country in 1939 ( not GB,not, France and not BeNeLux, not Danmark ect…). That is the reason for the phoney war in 1940 as all the plans have to be developed.

What is the significance of whether or not his plans were to attack Western countries? Are they in some way 'better' or more worthy of defending than other countries?

Britain and France going to war over the invasion of Poland seems to me to have been the 'right' thing to do. I see nothing to change that view yet?
Practically, they didn't manage to 'save' Poland from extremist rule in the end, but no one knew how things would pan out and at least they tried and surely that was still the right thing to do?

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not the alternative (sitting back and watching as Nazi Germany grew, expanded, conquered her neighbours and committed genocide) would have been better, even if it had 'only' impacted the eastern half of Europe?

Would have made no difference. Hitler WAS going to attack France eventually, one way or the other. If the UK stayed out of that battle too then Hitler would have attacked and most likely beaten Russia, then, being Hitler, Britain would have been next.

Rudi the German,

Agree that war is a bad thing. But I can't agree that they are never necessary. Basically you are saying that, in a personal sense, I should not fight with someone who is attacking me because he wants my money but should look for other ways to allocate those resources?

I believe there are evil people in this world, and sometimes they get hold of governments and cause them to do horrible, evil things. We should work our hardest to avoid it, but sometimes there is the answer.

In part I agree with Rudi that there is no such thing as a "good" war, but sometimes there are wars that have to be fought. It takes two to negotiate and both sides have to be prepared to give and take, other wise it isn't a negotiation it's a set of demands.

I see the First World War as far more of an uneccessary war than the Second. All parties could have negociated prior to 1914 but didn't. I once heard it described as a war that was just too much like hard work to prevent. The Second was much more a war that was forced on the Western Alliance by a refusal to accept the agreed codes of conduct in international relations by a belligerant and dictatorial Germany and Italy. Please note that I don't mean the people but the dictatorships and political machines running those countries at those times.

Would Britain have been better off in the long term by sitting on the sidelines? To be honest I doubt it. Would we have been allowed free trade with a Nazi dominated Europe, probably not. Would UK home grown Facism have been supported by Nazi Germany, almost certainly. Would the Axis have seen Britain as a threat to be neutralised? Again almost certainly. I believe that we would have been at war by no later than 1950 possibly without a friendly US to support the Commonwealth. Germany would have been in a much stronger position in relation to the UK than it was in 1939. Europe would already have been a charnal house of forced deportations to death and labour camps with personal freedom and democracy a fading dream.

Perhaps I think these things because my parent's generation lived, worked and fought through that war. Perhaps I hold to the view that a representative democracy is better system of goverment than a centralised facist state because the world I grew up in also believed in these things and had fought hard in the defence of those concepts. As long as Hitler was unwilling to turn away from his ambitions of obtaining land in the east at the expense of those who already lived there what other option but force or acquesance did Britain have?

Buchanan is guilty of exactly the same mistakes as the French and British leaders of the late 1930': he doesn't take Hitler's rhetoric seriously. Hitler told the world EXACTLY what he planned to do and then, much to everyone's surprise, he went and did it! England staying out of it in 1939 would have changed nothing except destroy their last shred of credibility with the rest of Europe. Poland still falls, Denmark and Norway still fall. Belgium, Holland and France still fall. And if England is STILL staying out at that point then Russia falls and the Germans win.

Sounds like Buchanan's work ought to be titled "The Unnecessary Book".

I am a little unsure how he arrived at the conclusion there would be no Holocaust either.

The extermination of Slavic and Jewish untermensch started as the Einsatzgruppen followed the German Army into Poland. As Himmler said 'It is imperative that the Great German Nation considers the elimination of all Polish people as its chief task'.

To be fair, I haven't finished reading it, but the basis of his argument seems to be summed up by this statement early in the book:

'had Britain not given a war guarantee to Poland in March 1939, then declared war on September 3, bringing in South Africa, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States, a German-Polish war might never have become a six-year world war in which fifty million would perish'.

Which suggests he feels that, had Britain not gone and stuck its nose in, the German invasion of Poland would have been a limited / not terribly serious event (maybe just grabbing the 'ethnically German' parts or something?) and the world would then have carried on as before?
This strikes me as highly unlikely for a whole raft of reasons – the most fundamental of which is pointed out by Martin Rapier above.

I have heard many people say that, for the British, the First World War was 'not worth fighting', and that if the British had not upset the balance, it would have ended in the 'normal' minor revision of European borders or whatever. Buchanan seems to be suggesting he feels similarly about the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

If it was just a case of fighting over oft fought over territories and re-drawing national boundaries he could be right. However, the institutionalised and industrialised extermination of the conquered peoples makes his comments at best naive, at worse down right offensive.

Yes, there might not have been a war in 1939, instead the Germans would have attacked France right on their original schedule in 1945-ish and actually be ready for the war…. There was no chance of lasting general European peace with a Nazi government in power in Germany.

As for the Holocaust, why *wouldn't* there be one? Anti-Jew/Slavic/Gypsy/whatever operations were already well entrenched in Nazi policy.

Generally Pat's take is that no nation should ever intervene in anyone else's business ever under any circumstances what so ever, a fine theory but not so fine in practice.

-Will

It seems tolerably clear that Buchanan is presenting an interpretation of history with a substantial dose of conterfactual supposition in order to promote a political belief of his.

As a case for non-intervention, it's feeble stuff, given that earlier and more decisive intervention by the Western allies could well have nipped the Hitler nonsense in the bud. Whether this would have done anything to fix the long-standing tradition of central European anti-semitism is another question.

All the best,

John.

> then declared war on September 3, bringing in South Africa, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States

If he really did list the US up there then I need to find what he is smoking. The idea the US would declare war against Germany before Pearl Harbor is laughable at best (since we didn't even declare war on them till after Germany declared war on us even after Pearl Harbor)

As for the Holocaust, why *wouldn't* there be one? Anti-Jew/Slavic/Gypsy/whatever operations were already well entrenched in Nazi policy.

Just google Madagasca and Sibirian plan and the cooperation of some zionists with the nazis. Basically that leads to the Intentionalism debate.

A better case might have been that going to war in 1938 would have prevented most of the carnage – the Germans were much, much less prepared and if they had had to retreat back from Czechoslovakia with their tails tucked in the Nazi leadership would – if they had managed to stay in charge – have been much less likely to invade elsewhere

Had the Brits stayed out, the French might have had a second thought and done the same – the Germans don't invade Norway because there is no threat to their resource flow – in which case Hitler breaths a sigh of relief, goes on with his plans and pitches into the Soviet Union – where, a year earlier and without any assistance from the West, he has a reasonable chance of winning – and, to further the sentiment expressed above, darkness falls over Europe; the Germans take a generation or so to absorb their conquests and really make Europe a living Hell – well, it is just too horrible to contemplate

Dynaman8789

It was a direct quote from the book.

A little learning is a dangerous thing. Strikes me this chap has a pet theory he wants to advance and has cherry picked research to back it up…

I think any fair analysis of WW2 concludes that war on a large scale was inevitable.

France was going to have to finish WW1. Nazism and Communism couldn't coexist peacefully for long. Germany was unsustainable economically without war and conquest.

Abandonning Poland in 1939 (rather than in 1945) perhaps saves Britain from involvement but either way they lose the Empire since the US had it as a war aim to dismantle it.

BTW – I don't think there was any stopping Hitler in 1935/1938 or 1939. Nobody was ready for war and while that goes for Germany too it may have been possible to delay Hitler by some kind of show of force there was no turning back.

Churchill IMO made only one key decision in WW2 that was not open to severe criticism – NOT TO GIVE IN/COMPROMISE with Hitler in 1940. It made no sense at the time and ultimately destroyed everything he treasured in Britain. Pretty much everyone else in government was against it and I'm sure the general public would have welcomed a truce at any price.

However many other things he did wrong or mucked up in the war or before/after that one decision more than makes up for it all.

If anything – WW2 was the one and only 100% necessary war. Not every battle and campaign was necessary (the whole Italian front was a collosal blunder and waste of life and resources) but Hitler's Germany had to be stopped as did Imperial Japan.

Tragically – and this really spits on the graves of those who gave their lives in WW2 – the legacy of the 'good war' has since been misused to justify numerous other wars by the US and to a lesser degree the UK.

Lets consider this scenario inteded by the nazis:

Germany splits poland with russia and the western powers sit a watch and there is no world war. The nazis declare that all points of the treaty of versailles are reversed and the staus ante bellum is again created plus the anschluss of austria. This means that there is no reason or argument ot mobilze or declare war to anyone.

This would stay like it for some years untill Russia might attack germany. Nazi Germany would have surly on the losing side of a russian attack into poland prussia and the western powers might have helped them after they are close to a collape inorder to keep the fighting grounds in germany.

This was a thinkable scenario at thie time.

Greetings

As long as war is justifiable it is possible. So we are a long way from a world without war…. Lets dream of world peace in our lifetime.

Thought I recognised the name link

"Germany splits poland with russia and the western powers sit a watch and there is no world war. "

Except that the Nazis also want to restore the lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine and the Tφnningen (southern Denmark), lost in 1919. Given Hitler's personal war experience from 1914-18, some sort of vengeance against France was inevitable.

(And yes, I agree with everybody else that the Holocaust was inevitable, also, as soon as the Germans invaded Poland and suddenly found themselves ruling over a new 2.5 million of the very people they allegedly wanted to be rid of. )

"I dont know this book, but all wars are ALWAYS Unnecessary! That is very simple…"

They are not unnecessary, they are usually inevitable. Or at least only as preventable as hurricanes.

There are lots of good wars.

Not only is fighting a fundamental element of humanity it is a fundamental element of life as it has evolved on this planet.

Rudi the german

While I accept that the pre-war Polish regime was far from a pleasant one (Churchill described Poland as the 'Hyena of Europe' after they snatched a portion of the dismembered Czechoslovakia, for example), surely you cannot be suggesting that the Polish people – and especially the large Jewish population of that nation – would have been well treated in the scenario you offer?

By querying whether 'war is justifiable', I also think you are confusing the issue of who started the war – Britain and France certainly declared war on Germany, but Germany was the nation that started the war by invading Poland. That act of blatant aggression is surely the bit that Buchanan et al should be trying to justify, not the fact that the Western Allies did the honourable thing.

Pictors Studio

I think you make an excellent point. Those who say that 'wars should NEVER be fought' tend to mistake where the responsibility for some wars lies.

I have heard many scream that the late Mrs Thatcher shouldn't have gone to war over the Falklands – but they never seem to question whether Argentina perhaps shouldn't have invaded them in the first place.
Similarly, many protested about the US and the UK 'starting' the Gulf War in 1991, but they never seemed to question the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait which REALLY started it all.
Going back in time, the Matabele War of 1893 – the war was forced* on the settlers of Mashonaland because of unending murderous Matabele raids… and yet, it is the way that the settlers RESPONDED that always attracts the criticism, NOT the way the Matabele were behaving and which provoked that response.

* the alternative was to pack up and leave, I suppose – but why should the violent antics of the Matabele have been rewarded?

One might ask what white people were doing in Africa in the first place, though.

I have read the book and disagree with most of it. The mistake that posters are making here is the assumption that the War Buchanan is writing about is WW2. Buchanan's opinion is that both WW1 and WW2 constitutes the second Thirty Years war and are in fact the same war.

His main premise is that if Britain had not declared War in 1914 Germany would have won thus changing history so that there would have been no Lenin or Hitler. He carries the same "logic" into WW2 where the guarantee of Poland by the allies resulted in a much longer war He blames Churchill as being the leading proponent for war in both 1914 and 1939.

He argues that Britain should have made an agreement with Germany that they could have Eastern Europe as long as they stayed out of Western Europe Britain would have had time to fully rearm and not fighting WW2 meant that they could have kept the empire.

IMHO, critics justly accuse Buchanan of totally ignoring the effect German rule would have had on Eastern Europe and that the holocaust would have been probably much worse. His theory is most beneficial for Britain and by extension America while totally ignoring the morality of stopping both German militarism and Naziism.

link

The US certainly could have sat it out.

I'm glad we didn't, though.
-Kle.

It seems tolerably clear that Buchanan is presenting an interpretation of history with a substantial dose of conterfactual supposition in order to promote a political belief of his.

Well said, and it should surprise no one.

Doug

Hitler always intended to attack Britain, just to not have to fight the UK in 1939.

Plan "Z", the programme of expansion undertaken by the German navy, was to give the Kreigsmarine a fleet capable of engaging the Royal Navy in the North Sea. Raeder had asked Hitler if he would be given time to build all these new ships, and Hitler assured him there would be no war with Britain until 1945.

As for it only being a German-Polish war if Britain had kept out, in Mein Kamph Hitler doesn't mince his words, he says straight that the Reich would need "living space" and this could only be found in what was then the Soviet Union.

As to the idea that if Britain had stayed out, Hitler would have been happy to "liberate" the German areas of Poland; well that was what happened to Czechoslovakia – with British connivence (to our eternal shame) – so that one worked then…

So I really can't see how Buchanan can come to the conclussions as stated by the original poster.

Excellent thread by the way! :-)

Which suggests he feels that, had Britain not gone and stuck its nose in, the German invasion of Poland would have been a limited / not terribly serious event (maybe just grabbing the 'ethnically German' parts or something?) and the world would then have carried on as before?
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I suspect Mr Buchanans views are those of someone with right wing views that basically whether intended or not seem to seek to excuse the actions of Germany in two world wars. (I only broke into that house because society made me poor and forced me to take drugs) If his name and been Hirschfeld and he was living in 1939 Poland I doubt as pointed out above that he would have been quite so sanguine about matters.

The following link may shed some light on this debate. Remember it was Churchill and not Buchanan who called WWII the "Unnecessary War"
link
Rod Robertson.

"I suspect Mr Buchanans views are those of someone with right wing views that basically whether intended or not seem to seek to excuse the actions of Germany in two world wars."

Maybe GNREP8, or maybe he's just out to peddle this claptrap to make a quick buck?

To ignore Imperial and nazi Germany would be a complete reversal of centuries of British policy that no European power should ever become dominant or hegemonic on the mainland. For a long time this meant France, but after the unification Germany was the more serious threat.

Even if nazi Germany triumphed over the USSR while France and Britain looked the other way, there is still the risk of a conflict occurring as soon as the Axis or the Allies stood their ground and found cause to declare war for trespassing on their interests.

If not Germany, then Italy's Mediterranean ambitions would have gotten it into conflict with Britain sooner or later. And who is to say Hitler wouldn't try to even the score with France after he trampled the USSR, especially if French politics continued to swing wildly between left and right. Northern and Eastern France is a tempting target, the Germans might feel up to the task of taking hold of the major French industrial area to permanently weaken it.

All this would leave Britain very vulnerable to a concerted attack by Germany, Italy and Japan on multiple fronts.

Lots going on in this thread.

1. You folks don't seem to think much of the Russians. I am not convinced that Germany alone would have been able to conquer AND control the east. Certainly it would take years and required the bulk of the German military…and yest that is without lend lease. Any separate peace concluded would not have lasted with such diametrically opposed ideologies.

It is quite possible that the nazi and soviet regimes could have neutralized one another.

Propping up one evil regime while fighting another seems foolish. The standard British doctrine of maintaining balance in Europe went seriously wrong when Germany was leveled and the Soviets held half the continent.

2. Still don't see how any of that would have prevented the H-cost.

3. And to a point I agree with Rudi the German. It takes at least one side to start a war. If the aggressor backs down then there is no war. At its most basic level, that is people needing resources to support their society, it is possible to compromise to a point. If either side does not accept the compromise warfare ensues, That is not the same as saying that "if I am attacked, I should not defend myself".

4. A Royal Navy that hadn't been worn down to a nub by a European war would have made Japanese imperial ambitions a much bigger risk to pursue, requiring not one, but two Pearl Harbor-esque victories before Japan could have its six month conquest spree.

One might ask what white people were doing in Africa in the first place, though.

Living there? Or is that continent an exclusive club?

The German people were in no mood to fight another war after the horrors of the first one. This all changed when the western allies threw Czechoslovakia under the bus and gave Nasty Adolf a bloodless victory. Few people realize that many of the mighty panzers that overran Poland, France and the Low Countries were Czech or Czech made, as was a fair proportion of the small arms and artillery.

It's also not widely known that the German army was under orders to pull back from it's reoccupation of the Rhineland if the French army showed any sign of opposition.

Just google Madagasca and Sibirian plan and the cooperation of some zionists with the nazis. Basically that leads to the Intentionalism debate.

Germany splits poland with russia and the western powers sit a watch and there is no world war.
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Its interesting that 2 posters who appear to be German seem to be advancing arguments that I think most of us would have a rather different pov on. The whole Madagascar thing was a bit of Himmlerian whimsy that some have tried to use to show that had the naughty West not forced war on Nazi Germany, then it would have been feasible for all the Jews to have lived in some East African idyll (albeit one they would have not been allowed to leave) and that therefore in some way we should credit the Nazis with good intentions. That some people involved in Zionism were involved in discussions on it, shouldn't really be allowed as a excuse for anyone to believe that it was ever truly viable. 'Intentionalism' btw is a view of the Holocaust that says that it was always Hitler's intention to destroy European Jewry – its counterpoint is 'Structuralism' which perhaps is what the post was alluding to, which says that 'the Nazis aimed to expel all of the Jews from Europe, but only after the failure of these schemes did they resort to genocide' – with as said failure being laid at the door of the West by some – kind of like 'your unreasonable resistance to me robbing you of your watch has now forced me to kill you to avoid leaving a witness – this is your fault'.

I'd have to disagree with Rudi that war is always unnecessary, anymore than saying having a police force is unnecessary is a statement I'd agree with – yes in an ideal world we'd have neither but when a nation or an individual attacks then its too glib to say that its down to a failure of politics etc/we're all at fault (which seems to in effect go some way to exculpating the aggressor).

I suspect those rescued from Belsen or elsewhere would also have tend to disagree that the war was unnecessary – rather like pacifism it may be alright for the individual but at a certain point it becomes moral cowardice. If you absolutely refuse to go to war – as war is worse than anything, then you give carte blanche to tyrannical regimes to do anything they like to their own people (or to bits of other countries that suffer a border re-alignment) covered by a tissue of national sovereignty that means mass murder is OK as long as its your own citizens.

As said I'd also disagree that if we'd only left them alone then at least at that time there would have been no wider war – the 'Hitler had no real plans to attack the West' line again seems to me to be something trotted out sometimes by those with a certain political view – usually followed by 'Hitler respected the Anglo-Saxons, you would have been treated as honorary Aryans' – as if that is meant to make us feel honoured that butchers would be kind to us.

There have of course always been people who believed and perhaps still believe that 'Hitler only wanted peace…' ( and I think most of us know the punch line- though it only works in English of course!)

M C LeSingeDew
Propping up one evil regime while fighting another seems foolish. The standard British doctrine of maintaining balance in Europe went seriously wrong when Germany was leveled and the Soviets held half the continent.
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I'd have to disagree with your first comment. At the time do you seriously think that the West could have done anything different – this is not a Syria situation of 2 factions fighting neither of whom we much like – since the UK and US were at war with Germany too they couldn't afford another collapse on the eastern front like that which happened in 1917 and released 100,000s of German troops to be shifted to the west.
Also unlike in the US,you also have to bear in mind the growing strength of the Labour Party and socialism in the UK – so as much as some right wingers might have wanted to pal up with the Germans in their nice uniforms to fight the Red menace in 1945, in a country where many people were Labour supporters (as evidenced by the defeat of Churchill – I appreciate that in a US political context talking about Socialism being a significant political force is like us in the UK trying to understand the power of communism in French and Italian politics), then such would have been unthinkable to the average Tommy or his family at home – certainly in Wales where my family is from, they had seen years of propaganda campaigns re 'our gallant Soviet allies' (maybe there were not such campaigns in the US) so turning round to fight them would have not been on.

Morally questionable yes esp in hindsight – foolish in the throes of war – no.

Living there? Or is that continent an exclusive club?

I wouldn't say the intentions of whites in Africa during the colonial period was quite so innocent as simply living there or that the continent was there for whites to take whatever they wanted.

I'm glad you can make blanket assessments of what "white people" were doing on both an individual and continental-wide scale.

Then again, the Horn was almost entirely uninhabited when Europeans arrived. And the Bantu were just as much interlopers in a region that had only been visited by nomadic Hottentots otherwise.

So I guess humans – "white" and "black" and whatever – have a tendency to move around. Crazy stuff, that.

I don't see how Britain staying out of the business in 1939 would have really changed things – as long as France declares war then …

Well, that's just the point: if Britain hadn't insisted, France would not have declared war for the sake of a Poland that refused to negotiate about the Gdansk corridor. And, while supporting Poland might (emphasis "might") have been the moral thing to do, France and Britain did not have the capability to save Poland from a German attack, and Hitler knew it. Even when the war was "won" Poland was no better off, having exchanged German Nazi masters for Russian Communist ones.

I have read the book, and it makes some very good points. But to fully understand them you have to read the book itself. But basically the fault was the Versailles Treaty and the excuses/motivation it gave Hitler and company and the moral dilemma it put the Allies in.

You have to consider the source. I have not read the book but I think I know the man. Buchanan and his ilk are apologist for the NAZIS. If they can't prove there wasn't a holocaust then let's blame it on the British. Yes, the British caused the holocaust by declaring war on Germany.

He argues that Britain should have made an agreement with Germany that they could have Eastern Europe as long as they stayed out of Western Europe Britain would have had time to fully rearm and not fighting WW2 meant that they could have kept the empire.

If the NAZIS were in power then just what do you think they would be doing in their new Eastern European Empire? They would have systematically killed every Jew in Eastern Europe and their would be no one to stop them. The Holocaust would have continued.

The European Empires where doomed anyway. It was just a matter of time. I am not so sure Britain would re-arm. This agreement would have given Britain an excuse not to re-arm.

While Hitler is the main person responsible for the war. The person who also bears some of the responsibility is Chamberlain. Just as the German military was poised to kill Hitler and his henchman as he attacks Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain gets in the way and Hitler gets all he wants without an invasion. Then Hitler still invades the rest of the country.

IMHO Germany still invades the West to secure his flanks and then goes after the Soviets. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and if Hitler is in charge, he foolishly declares war on the U.S. just like he did. If Japan invades British Colonies in Asia as they did then Britain enters the war. The war progressives as it did with few changes.

How would Buchanan's scenario affected the race for the atomic bomb? Would Germany still purse it? Would Britain have started its own project as they did, then joined up with the American Manhattan Project? Would all of this result in Germany developing a bomb ten years later? What if?

War is a choice. Sometimes that choice is made easier, especially when the alternative to war is capitulation to an invading enemy. Sometimes the choice is difficult because other options may be possible. Could the British and the French have avoided World War II? Let me first say that what follows is not an attempt to relieve Germany for its role and responsibility in WWI or WWII. It is an argument that France's and Britain's governments' choices also played a big role in the descent to war.
Given France's hatred of Germany and its determination to destroy it as a military threat after WWI, I don't think that France could have avoided another war. But France's mistrust and vehemence towards German was a choice and had the French leadership made different choices things might have been better. France wanted Germany dismembered at best, or de-industrialized and on its knees at a minimum. To them the only tolerable Germany was either no Germany at all or a crippled Germany. This crippling led to the collapse of the German economy and political stability and ultimately to the radicalization (both left and right) of its people. Had France and the Allies concentrated on punishing the Kaiser, the Junkers and the industrialists who had caused WWI and had it been more open to developing a Germany body-politic which was more prosperous, peaceful and non-aggressive World War Two might have been avoided.
Both the British and the French were so preoccupied with maintaining their imperial dominance and in Britain's case its naval superiority, that they blinded themselves to the consequences of their treatment of Germany both before and after WWI. Before WWI the interference with Germany's economy as a means to hinder German prosperity and naval builds and later outright sabotage of the economy gave the Kaiser's bellicose and aggressive designs some veneer of legitimacy in the eyes of the German body-politic. Threatening Germany's lines of supply and communication/ commerce with its nascent empire gave even more credence to the Kaiser's belligerence and the Junkers' and industrialists' rapacious appetite for arms production and militarism. Imperial competition was a choice and Britain's and France's choice to deny Germany the opportunity to grow as an imperial power fueled German aggression and nationalism. Given the brutality of the Germans to the people of their colonies, I find it distasteful to defend German Imperialism but the Belgians, the French, and the British all behaved badly during this imperial age.
After WWI the blockading and starving of the German population into submission after the armistice, forcing Germany to accede to a punitive Versailles Treaty, destroying the German merchant-marine, funding and supporting the heinous behaviour of the Freikorps and rabid, anti-communist thugs who later become Nazis and finally forcing Germany to pay crippling reparations for a war they did not even start in the first place, set the stage for the rise of National Socialism's ideological and electoral success. More wisdom and less irrational "Germanophobia" would have probably left Europe a more prosperous and peaceful place after WWI. President Wilson's "Just Peace" coupled with firm but fair consequences for Germany's role in WWI might have defused the European powder-keg and saved the world a great deal of misery and suffering. Targeting the leaders who brought Germany into the war on the Austrian coat-tails and avoiding the heavy-handed treatment of the whole population might have been more prudent.
Having created the conditions whereby Germany became radicalized and was once again leaning towards militarism and aggressive expansionism, Britain and France made a new choice favouring paralysis and inaction and failed to act quickly and decisively against Nazi Germany in the period from 1933-1939. Following brutal political and economic repression with craven and self-serving appeasement set the stage for World War II in Europe. In my opinion European leaders should have foreseen the consequences of this change of policy. Starving a dog and then petting it should lead sensible people to the conclusion that someone is going to get bit. Having allowed the situation to deteriorate so badly in Germany that so many Germans embraced National Socialism, Britain and France had a responsibility to themselves, to Europe and even to Germany to stop Nazism in its tracks. But instead, by their inaction, they allowed it to grow and flourish. Whether they toyed with the idea of using Nazi Germany as a bulwark against Soviet Russian communism or whether they were simply cowardly can be debated. But they made a choice not to intervene economically, politically and militarily and to allow the unholy trinity of Nazism, nationalism and militarism to enthrall and seduce Germany just as imperialism, nationalism and militarism had done sixty-five years earlier.
Given the above, in my mind the choices made by Britain and France led as much to WWII as those made by German leaders. The choices made led to the war and with different choices maybe WWII could have been avoided. So perhaps in the sense that Churchill meant it in "The Gathering Storm", WWII was an Unnecessary War.
Rod Robertson

ah that Pat Buchanan! I note that he was removed by MSNBC re a column he wrote when he used used the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland to argue that Britain should not have declared war on Germany – so obviously a long term bugbear of his – you'd think being RC, he'd have supported his co-religionists in Poland – as said if he is was Rumsfeld etc I'd suspect that his views would be different at least on that subject. Buchanan's comments re a Supreme Court nomination that in effect there were too many Jews on the Supreme Court in comparison to their % in the population, also give away his views – does he similarly argue against nominations of white elderly men.

Having allowed the situation to deteriorate so badly in Germany that so many Germans embraced National Socialism, Britain and France had a responsibility to themselves, to Europe and even to Germany to stop Nazism in its tracks.
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not sure that it was as simple as that (how outraged would the Germans have been by earlier intervention in their affairs along with all their resentment already re Versailles) and also we need to avoid absolving people in Germany who chose a vile ideology – a fair number of Germans knew it was wrong and paid the price for their conscience(one of the slave labourers on Jersey where i am going next week was a pre-war German policeman who helped opponents of the regime escape and was sacked and imprisoned in a camp for it)