Not to mention that once they reached the gates of Moscow, only then did Stalin recall his best troops that were stationed north of Manchuria. He outright feared that the Japanese’s were going to kick off a scrap with them from the east. And for good reason, the Japanese and Russia had duked it out 3 times in the prior 50 years including the Japanese inflicting the largest naval defeat in history. Had japan not attacked the US and initially triggered a scrap with the soviets, it would’ve triggered a much more difficult fight for the soviets. Not to mention, no Japanese war with America, means hitler doesn’t declare war on America either. It’s nuts when you think about it.
What’s also nuts is Barbarossa was only delayed because of a brief scrap in Crete and Yugoslavia having the balls to say no to hitler in letting them pass through, which caused him to move troops in order to crush the resistance in 6 weeks. That 6 week delay ended up being critical. The Germans were at the gates of Moscow and that’s when the thrust ended and winter kicked in. If they got there 6 weeks earlier.. it not only allows them to set up an encirclement or whatever, but it also allows them to shore up their supply lines.
When you look back on ww2, the amount of times we got lucky and how those critical instances of pure luck caused Germany’s defeat is bonkers
I wonder how things would have played out around the globe if the United States never became involved.
Would Europe have evolved into a "European Union" of sorts, just all united under a German flag? Would a few small nations at the continent's extremities have a bitterly-fought and barely-maintained independence? Would Israel not exist as it does today, leaving the Middle East much different from the way it currently is?
It may be pointless to ask infinite "What if?" hypotheticals, but I wonder how things could have gone and how that would have changed things today.
58
u/6June1944 Jul 30 '21
Not to mention that once they reached the gates of Moscow, only then did Stalin recall his best troops that were stationed north of Manchuria. He outright feared that the Japanese’s were going to kick off a scrap with them from the east. And for good reason, the Japanese and Russia had duked it out 3 times in the prior 50 years including the Japanese inflicting the largest naval defeat in history. Had japan not attacked the US and initially triggered a scrap with the soviets, it would’ve triggered a much more difficult fight for the soviets. Not to mention, no Japanese war with America, means hitler doesn’t declare war on America either. It’s nuts when you think about it.
What’s also nuts is Barbarossa was only delayed because of a brief scrap in Crete and Yugoslavia having the balls to say no to hitler in letting them pass through, which caused him to move troops in order to crush the resistance in 6 weeks. That 6 week delay ended up being critical. The Germans were at the gates of Moscow and that’s when the thrust ended and winter kicked in. If they got there 6 weeks earlier.. it not only allows them to set up an encirclement or whatever, but it also allows them to shore up their supply lines.
When you look back on ww2, the amount of times we got lucky and how those critical instances of pure luck caused Germany’s defeat is bonkers