"The Mythology of British Weakness in the Second World War " Topic
7 Posts
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Tango01 | 27 Nov 2017 11:57 a.m. PST |
Old but still interesting…. "I have just finished reviewing a book by Augustine Meaher IV, called The Road to Singapore: the Myth of British Betrayal. It is an excellent analysis of how Australian political, social, industrial, and military elites, spend the entire interwar period failing to prepare Australia for what was to come in the Second World War. Its fundamental premise is that nobody should get away with shortchanging their own defences for 20 years, and then claiming that a resulting crisis is somebody else's fault. Imperial defence, from as early as 1863, was founded on the idea that Britain would coordinate a central response to any threat, but that each Dominion and associated territory was responsible for their own local defences. Throughout the interwar period Australia, like all other Dominions, had been repeatedly told that Imperial defence required adequate local defences to hold off raids until relief could arrive. The defence strategy of the British Empire and Commonwealth was to hold the mobile military forces, such as the main fleets and expeditionary armies (both of which had been voluntarily reduced due to League of Nations and Washington Naval Treaty commitments), at central nodes from which there dispatched to any area under threat. This could take several months. At a minimum this would be six weeks, and as worldwide threats rose when the Second World War commenced, it was raised to six months. Australia never prepared adequate defences to withstand raids for even six weeks. The screams of betrayal from the Australian Labor Party in 1942 were an extremely good cover for their own resistance to all military expenditure for the preceding 20 years. Disarmament, pacifism, and appeasement had been the catch cries of all ALP policy right through the 1930s. Realistically the Curtin government had the choice of coming clean on their betrayal of their own people, or of pretending it was possible to blame somebody else…" Full text here link Amicalement Armand |
gamershs | 27 Nov 2017 8:53 p.m. PST |
The problem is that after WWI everybody cut back on their military expenditures so a cut in expenditures up to 1930 wasn't that bad on an idea. Starting about 1935, with an aggressive Japan, Australia should have started to increase their expenditures. Increasing the territorials and improving a local airforce presence (sample orders from Britain and US at first) and buildup of airfields would have gotten Australia ready. Then large orders starting in 1939 (from US if Britain could not fill them) would have been wise. Oh well, who ever said a politician was WISE. |
Whirlwind | 27 Nov 2017 9:42 p.m. PST |
This was mirrored in the UK too: "The Guilty Men" is hilarious and appalling in equal measure: link |
Tango01 | 28 Nov 2017 11:18 a.m. PST |
Thanks for the link. Amicalement Armand |
Lee494 | 28 Nov 2017 3:01 p.m. PST |
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Bill N | 29 Nov 2017 11:28 a.m. PST |
The reviewer has not done the author any favors. Whether Australia could have done more to prepare themselves for war before it broke out is irrelevant. When the war in Europe broke out Australia like other Dominion nations sent troops to help the imperial war effort instead of keeping them at home. When war broke out with Japan Australian resources that could have been used to fight the Japanese were being employed elsewhere, while the British Imperial resources on hand were not sufficient to meet the Japanese threat. The British government had good reasons for using their resources as they had, but they were gambling with the security of Australia. Even if overall Britain had done the right thing from an imperial perspective, Australia still had reasonable grounds to complain. |
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