I have often seen those who empathize with the plight of Poland criticize the French and British for taking such paltry steps against the Germans in September 1939.
They had a treaty obligation to help Poland. So what did they do? They declared war against the Germans. But then they nary lifted a finger to help the poor Poles in their hour of need.
Now transport forward 9 months. Instead of September 1939, we are in May or June of 1940. Now the French are in their hour of need.
So let's take the hypothetical. The US declares war on Germany. And then what? We lift nary a finger, and the French sink into defeat.
Why? Why no mighty army sent immediately to France? After all, it only takes a week to cross the Atlantic, including port time on both sides.
But in May of 1940 the US had an army that was smaller than Poland's army in 1939. And had less modern equipment. And we all know how well the Poles managed…
The US Army in 1940 had all of nine infantry divisions. Of these, only three were "war ready", with a reasonably full compliment of regular service soldiers. That's three, as in 3, as in ONLY THREE! The other six were at cadre strength (about 3,000 regulars), and needed to be filled out by draft or nationalization of National Guard formations. The US Army also had one (as in 1) cavalry division (notably smaller than an infantry division, at about 4,000 troopers). And one mechanized brigade of about 3,000 troops to match up against the Panzer divsions. Oh, and the US had produced, by that point, about 75 of those war-winning M2 Medium Tanks (to which the French purchasing commission, in their hour of need, had said "Really? Well, eh, thanks, but … no").
The German army at this time had 157 divisions, of which 134 were used in the French campaign.
So the US declares war against Germany and does exactly what?
Oh, and two months later, when the British are in their own hour of need, what will be the American response? Here we are in August or September of 1940, with the US having declared war against the Germans. Yet what more could we have done than what we were already doing? Almost nothing.
Nope, the US was hopelessly unprepared for war on the scale that erupted in Europe in 1939/40. But if we declared war, then at least we could have been blamed for the next 75 years for not having come to France's aid.
(Of course we can be blamed in any scenario. No burden of evidence is required to play the blame game. Just saying that a declaration of war would have made very little difference in what actually happened, other than giving the Germans a free hand to target US shipping at a time when they hadn't yet deployed many U-boats.)
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
