The Big Mistakes of World War II (2023)

One of the most important things Churchill said during the war was when, in 1941, he sent a memorandum to Charles Portal, Chief of Air Staff, who had asked for 4,000 heavy bombers so that the RAF could win the war alone. Churchill replied, close enough: "I am sorry to have unreserved faith in any means of winning war... All things are always in motion at the same time." I first read this quote while working on my book Bomber Command in 1978 and thought at the time that it was a very, very important statement about what wars are all about.

One of the most common mistakes some readers and many Hollywood producers and World War II historians make is looking for unique reasons why things happened the way they did. All sorts of things played a role, and if we are to understand war we need to look at the whole spectrum, whether it be the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the Red Army on the Eastern Front or the incredible contribution of American industry. .

Although Harry Hinsley was an excellent historian, I'm sure he exaggerated when he said that the Bletchley Park codebreakers shortened the war by as much as four years. You just can't say something like that. You can argue that they made a wonderful contribution, but you can't oversimplify things. Likewise, we can say with certainty that it is much more difficult to imagine what the war would have been like if the Japanese had not attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor, but again, this cannot be overestimated. It cannot be said that Great Britain would have lost the war if not for Pearl Harbor.

We all like quick fixes to things. We would like to think that, for example, the Allied landings in Sicily would not have worked if Operation Mincemeat had not dumped a body on the coast of Spain to fool the Germans. Ground beef helped a little, but probably only contributed 3 to 4 percent to successful landing. But of course Hollywood and the tabloids would have loved that stunt, that big romantic story that would have changed the course of things.

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In the end, it's important to understand that almost all major events have multiple causes and multiple consequences, so it's very childish to look for single causes to explain why things happened the way they did.

Sir Max Hastings is the author ofAll Hell Unleashed: The World at War 1939-1945(Harper Press, 2011)

Tempo, role James Holland

There is a general belief that Germany was a heavily mechanized force in the war, but this was simply not the case. It was one of the countries with the least automotive development: in 1939, Germany had 48 people per motor vehicle, compared to four people in the United States.

Yes, they had highways, but for a highly mechanized army you need an advanced automobile industry: factories, skilled labor and enough people who know how to drive. Without them, the mechanization the Germans envisioned and needed was little more than a fantasy. In fact, the last newly commissioned German troop transport came in 1941 and was a horse-drawn carriage with pneumatic tires. I drop my case.

The Germans were a little proud of having captured large numbers of enemy vehicles and invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, using everything from Citroen vans to Morris commercials. All was well until they started to break down and the troops found they didn't have the spare parts or knowledge to fix them. More than half of the vehicles lost by the Germans in the war were due to mechanical failures.

So where does this misconception come from? First, the incredible Blitzkrieg of 1940, conducted with a dazzling combination of air and ground forces. Of the 135 divisions used, only 16 were mechanized; the rest depended on feet and horses. As brilliant as the Blitzkrieg was, the notable French failures exaggerated German genius.

The second factor is the Nazi propaganda that misled most of the world at the start of the war. The Nazis invested heavily in radio and film, making sure all footage showed columns of tanks, trucks and Stuka bombing. Even Hitler began to believe in his own German military genius.

Not only were the Germans poorly equipped, but the equipment they had was often hopelessly over-engineered. German inefficiency rather than efficiency characterized much of the way Germany waged war, from the gas-guzzling three-speed Tiger tank to the simple gas mask cartridge.

James Holland is the author ofDam Breakers: The Race to Break the Dams, 1943(Corgi, 2013)

Times, roll Antony Beevor

Hindsight is a bane of history and this is an excellent example of that. It is assumed that, due to overwhelming Allied air and material superiority in June 1944, the invasion across the English Channel was doomed to success. But this is totally wrong. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the people back then and understand why they were worried. Eisenhower prepared a statement in advance, which he put in his wallet, in which he took full responsibility for the failure of D-Day, and only after the critical moment did he hand it over to his naval assistant. D-Day was well thought out and prepared for, but it remains one of the most ambitious operations in history. It was a massive invasion across a large body of water, and they had no idea how far the subs had made it into the channel.
The Germans did not count on a change in the climate at the time. This meant that no Kriegsmarine patrols had been sent to the channel. It also meant that Rommel had gone home to visit his wife and that several generals were in Rennes on a mapping exercise. The weather forecast wasn't right, however, and Eisenhower made the bold decision to forge ahead. Had he waited a few weeks, however, the landing craft would have arrived in the midst of one of the worst storms the English Channel has seen in over 40 years. You can imagine what the effect would have been.
the alliesto beThey have enormous air superiority, but that doesn't mean the Germans can't defend themselves. In fact, the Luftwaffe played very little part in D-Day, as the bombing failed to suppress coastal batteries and coastal defenses. For this reason, especially on Omaha Beach, the German defenses were left more or less intact. One thing that helped the Allies tremendously was the deception of Operation Fortress, which had the German 15th Army pinned down in the Pas de Calais at this critical time. If these armored divisions had advanced more quickly into Normandy, the Allies might have been repulsed.
All of this further emphasizes that those who argue that D-Day could have been released in 1943 are dead wrong. It was not until the end of that year that the submarine threat was more or less contained and, more importantly, the Luftwaffe had still not been mortally wounded. From that perspective, a 1943 invasion didn't stand a chance.

Antony Beevor is the author ofThe Second World War(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2012)

Times, says Joe Maiolo

I cannot construct a scenario in which the Axis could have won the Second World War. In fact, the "Axis" itself is a misnomer because it contained a failed Italian fascist state that had become auxiliary to the German and Japanese fighting their own war and uninterested in coordinating a grand strategy. So we're really talking about Germany, and Germany just didn't have the industrial depth to fight a protracted war against the coalition that was likely to go against it.
Those who think that Germany could have been successful often argue about how it invented blitzkrieg, had better tanks and planes, and had better ideas about warfare. Even if all of that were true, these are short-term operational benefits, not strategic benefits. True, Germany won an easy victory over France, but this did not change the overall picture.
There is a myth that Germany was on the verge of defeating the Soviet Union, but any attempt to tighten the war in the East is implausible. In major weapons systems such as tanks, artillery, and general munitions, the Soviets outnumbered Germany during the war, despite huge losses in the early stages. German generals knew that if the Soviet Union could not be defeated quickly, it could not be defeated at all, and even in the third week of August 1941, General Halder wrote: "Oh, oh, they are yet to come. " .”
War is not just about battles. Both world wars were decided by the balance between industrial resources and manpower; therefore, victory went to the Entente powers in 1918 and to the Allies in 1945. Debates about World War II should focus not on how the Allies managed to win, but on how they managed to win so quickly.

Joe Maiolo is the author ofCry Havoc: The Arms Race and World War II, 1931-1941(John Murray, 2010)

Tempo, role Juliet Gardiner

When we look to the home front during World War II, we often do so with the realization that shared experiences and the need to present a united front against Hitler trumped class differences and that the war was indeed a tremendous one. egalitarianism. .
While I am not suggesting that Britain was bitterly divided during the Second World War, tensions persisted and class antagonisms did not disappear as propaganda would have us believe. wealth remained uneven; there was the legacy of high unemployment in the prewar years; and industrial relations in certain key industries were dire.
One of the most popular stories is that Londoners, rich and poor, flocked to London Underground stations, forgetting class distinctions under the threat of air raids. Is not true. Only around 70,000 people sought refuge on the London Underground network during the blitz, and these were generally working-class people who did not have the same protections as the wealthy.
Docks were attacked, as were factories, often surrounded by workers' living quarters, which suffered devastating 'collateral damage' from air strikes. The East End of London was under constant attack, as were Merseyside, Glasgow, Hull, Belfast, Bristol, Plymouth and elsewhere. Of course, wealthy areas were bombed too, but if you had the money and resources, you were more likely to get your children to safety and stay with friends or family back home or abroad. Rationing, supposedly the great equalizer, ensured everyone a fair basic supply, but here, too, the richest managed to avoid it. Those who had the means could buy expensive, non-rationed groceries or eat in fancy restaurants. Some workers could not buy all the rations they were entitled to under the program.
Crime also increased during the war and it is fair to say that although the volunteer guards of the ARP and other civil defense services showed incredible courage, not all of them united in an air attack: bombed houses were often looted. while cheating, cheating and falsifying ration books were rampant.
I am not suggesting that there was a revolutionary spirit among the working classes of Britain. It was more of an irritating spirit, a feeling that not everyone always did the same thing. Labor strikes in the engineering and coal mining industries were particularly common, and many retained the feeling that Britain was an unequal society.
However, the British government was aware that the war could be lost both on the home front and on the battlefield, and that morale would be a crucial component of victory. The narrative had to be that everyone was united in their struggles, sacrifices and sufferings: that Britain was a nation united in its efforts to defeat Germany, which it obviously was.

Juliet Gardiner is the author ofWar period: Great Britain 1939-1945(headline, 2004) andThe Blitz: The British Are Under Attack(Harper Press, 2010)

Wrong, says Roger Moorhouse

One of the most common and misleading misconceptions I encounter when reading about World War II is the constant use of the word "Russia" to describe the Soviet Union. The two were never the same. Originally made up of four separate republics, the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, with Russia making up the majority, but dissolving into 15 post-Soviet states in 1991.
Misunderstanding is more than just pedantry. Referring to the Soviet Union as Russia is misleading and effectively eliminates the two Soviet republics that fought the hardest on the Eastern Front in World War II: Ukraine and Belarus. About 25 percent of Belarus's population died in World War II, yet many historians still speak of Russia in this conflict as if Ukraine and Belarus did not exist.
The error is also not modern. Even Churchill was wrong. In his famous October 1, 1939 speech, he declared: "I cannot predict what Russia will do to you. It is an enigma wrapped in a mystery within an enigma." However, Churchill was growing up in the era of Imperial Russia, so he would have become accustomed to calling that entity Russia. Today's historians have no such excuse.

Roger Moorhouse is a British historian and author ofberlin at war(Bodley Head, 2010)

Wrong, says Norman Stone

One of the most interesting things about Britain during the Second World War is the idea that the wartime economy was extremely efficient and should therefore serve as a model for what followed after the war ended. There was a general air of "friendship" of unions and governments working together, although in some ways the country was less efficient than it had been in the First World War.
The reality was that there were far, far more labor problems during World War II than people usually realize. For example, there were more workers' strikes in 1942 than in 1917. Part of this problem occurred in the mines, which I think can be seen as a reaction to the recruitment of young people to work there. Judging by their pre-war experiences, at this point in history British miners had become quite bloodthirsty. Ernest Bevin, who turned out to be a trade unionist (and a very good one at that), had a sense of what was going on. , and knew how to deal with the "savages" of the unions. As a result, the unions were tasked with a whole new set of things in hopes of persuading them to become more involved in the war effort.
To some extent this was the case, as evidenced by the huge flow of labor into the aircraft factories, particularly the large number of women who worked there. In general, working-class wages and living standards rose, but taxes also caused the rest of the country to fall to a similar level, as AJP Taylor put it, "skilled craftsman."
After the war there was a kind of quiet triumphalism: almost a sense that we had beaten the Germans as a national sport and that the 'Man in Whitehall' had done so by introducing rationing. This, in turn, led to the consideration that a similar type of government control with compulsory planning would be an opportunity for the future.

Norman Stone is the author ofWorld War II: A Brief History(Allen Lane, 2013)

Wrong, says Laurence Rees

Winston Churchill is known for opposing the appeasement of dictators, saying, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile in the hope that it will be the last to eat him." of the Nazi regime, I would argue that he consciously appeased another dictator: Joseph Stalin.
The German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which stipulated a 10-year non-aggression period between the two countries, also provided for an agreement between Stalin and Hitler that meant that the former could essentially take over half of Poland. The Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939, just over two weeks after the Nazis, and the two nations formed an alliance in all but name.
But it was only after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, when Stalin became Britain's ally against Nazi Germany, that Churchill's staunch anti-pacification beliefs were challenged and, indeed, reversed. In December 1941, at a meeting with the British Foreign Secretary in Moscow, Stalin made it clear that he had no intention of relinquishing his claim to eastern Poland after the war was over. Horrified to hear this, Churchill wrote in a confidential memorandum that Stalin had only acquired this territory "by acts of aggression in disgraceful collusion with Hitler" and that the British government must adhere to "the principles of liberty and democracy". . .
But less than two years later, at the Tehran Conference in late 1943, Churchill reversed his policy and resolved to placate Stalin. He agreed that the Soviet dictator could keep eastern Poland and suggested moving the borders from Poland to Germany to compensate the Poles. Poland, said Churchill, would move westwards, as "soldiers two paces closer".
Churchill proposed one of the biggest demographic changes in European history without the people involved, the Poles, even being present at the meeting. And all to appease Stalin, one of the worst criminals of the century. Churchill clearly felt compelled by political necessity to placate Stalin. About 27 million Soviet citizens would die during the conflict and Stalin was about to occupy Poland with his Red Army. All of this is true. But it is also true that the notion that Churchill "never" appeased dictators is one of the great war myths.
And if you look at the map of Europe today, Poland's borders are essentially those that Churchill agreed with Stalin to allow the Soviet dictator to keep the country he first conquered "by acts of aggression in nefarious collusion with Hitler". ".

Laurence Rees is an acclaimed historian and filmmaker. His latest BBC TV series and book areAdolf Hitler's Dark Charisma(Ebury Press, 2012)

Wrong, says Andrew Roberts

The idea that Britain was alone in World War II in 1940 is wrong. It is essential to highlight the contributions and losses suffered by other countries that were part of the British Empire. While the terms "Great Britain" and "British Empire" have been used interchangeably to mean the same thing, in hindsight they obviously have very different connotations.
As David Dilks reports in his excellent bookChurchill and Company: Allies and Rivals in War and Peace(IB Taurus, 2012) the total population of the dominions of the British Empire at the time of the conflict was just over 30 million people: 7 million in Australia, for example, 11.5 million in Canada and 1.5 million in New Zealand . However, the contribution of each of these nations was enormous: Canada's armed forces numbered around 10,000 men in 1939, while by 1945 over 1 million men had served. India's contribution, as Dilks points out, was more or less in line with that of the rest of the overseas empire and the Commonwealth together.

Given that King George VI's Indian army remains the largest volunteer force in human history, we clearly have to abandon the concept of Britain in 1940.
Andrew Roberts is the author ofThe Storm of War: A New History of World War II(Penguin, 2010)