# War with Germany inevitable?



## diddyriddick (Sep 11, 2010)

I have a question for the brilliant scholars of the forum.

Assuming that Japan and America maintain normalized relations, was war with Nazi Germany inevitable? It is common knowlege that the Atlantic Fleet and Kriegsmarine were engaged in an undeclared war independent of the Pacific. Would we have seen history repeat itself, but with technology and weaponry 20 years newer?


----------



## BombTaxi (Sep 11, 2010)

A lot of what if's here, but I think Roosevelt would have eventually bought the US into the European war one way or another. As it was, Hitler saved him the trouble by declaring war on the US first. Roosevelt was convinced of the need to deal with Hitler, but there was a great deal of indifference to Europe's plight in the US. Joe Kennedy, for example, advised Churchill to give up, even as the BoB was being won. 

IMHO, had Hitler not declared war on the US, the US would have continued to be a silent partner on the British side, supplying weapons and conducting neutrality patrols. But I do not believe that the US would have declared war on Germany barring a major act of German violence against US forces.


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 15, 2010)

I think sooner or later, war between Germany and the U. S. was unavoidable. Either indirectly through the U.S and Japan declaring war on each other, and then Germany declaring was on the US, or if events had occurred differently, Germany and the U.S. declaring war, and then Japan following suit in support of Germany. How long could the US continue to loose men and ships in the Atlantic due to German subs? And IMO, the U.S. had to support our allies anyway we could, and should have done more earlier in support of Europe. And Germany sure could not afford to let all those supplies continue to flow into England. It was only a matter of time IMHO. I do not think most Americans could afford to sit out much longer and let our allies fall one after another. Hitler would have had a permanent stranglehold on Europe, Asia, and North Africa. German and Japan conquests would have had to affect the long term economics of not just the U.S., but also the entire world.


----------



## Glider (Sep 15, 2010)

I don't think that war between Germany and the USA was inevitable, if and its a big if, Germany had unitlaterally stopped attacking Britain, gone totally defensive and played the PR card.

Public opinion in the USA was more for nutrality in mid 1940. If Germany had stopped all action against Britain then the British could hardly have attacked Germany without reason. Had Britain attacked Germany by air, the only option, public opinion in the USA would have swung behind Germany.


----------



## marshall (Sep 15, 2010)

Glider said:


> If Germany had stopped all action against Britain then the British could hardly have attacked Germany without reason. Had Britain attacked Germany by air, the only option, public opinion in the USA would have swung behind Germany.



Britain had a casus beli with Nazi Germany because of the British - Polish treaty, and Poland was under German occupation.


----------



## Thorlifter (Sep 15, 2010)

Glider said:


> Public opinion in the USA was more for nutrality in mid 1940. If Germany had stopped all action against Britain then the British could hardly have attacked Germany without reason. Had Britain attacked Germany by air, the only option, public opinion in the USA would have swung behind Germany.



I guess it's possible, but I sure have a hard time getting my brain around the U.S. supporting Germany. Hmmmmmmm I gotta give more thought to that one.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 15, 2010)

Thorlifter, there was a tremendous amount of pro-german feeling in the US. Luck Lindy heavily supported the german cause and there were Bundestag culbs everywhere. i would tend to side with glider on this. i don't think we would have ever supported the germans against britian but we certainly could have stayed neutral as long as the german did not provide us with a casus belli


----------



## Glider (Sep 15, 2010)

No one is denying that the UK had good cause for war but they didn't have any way of doing any real harm to Germany, apart from air raids. The key as far as I can see it is for Germany to keep the USA neutral. The UK cannot invade without the help of the USA and it really wouldn't matter to Germany if the US guaranteed the safety of the UK as long as the USA didn't join in the conflict.


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 15, 2010)

The casus belli was kinda where I was going with the OP. It seems to me that we had the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. FDR and the Atlantic Fleet were hell-bent on getting the convoys through. Germany simply couldn't afford to let them get through. My thinking is that eventually and inevitably, there would have been an international incident that wouldn't go away.


----------



## timshatz (Sep 15, 2010)

Can't see the US behind Nazi Germany. Neutrality was the overarching feeling for the US. While there was some Pro-Nazi sentiment, it didn't run very deep. Similar to the Communist groups in the US. There were supporters, and they were legal, but generally regarded as nutjobs. 

I could see the US trying to stay out if for no other reason than the feeling that the last war had been a waste of American lives and once was enough. Besides, the US was doing ok with selling warstuffs to the combatants. Why ruin a good thing?

Roosevelt saw the big picture and understood it was only a matter of time. He slowly prepped the US for the War but most people were against it and sentiment reflected as much (remember the Draft passing the house by only one vote). Not definite but probable.


----------



## BombTaxi (Sep 15, 2010)

I think from 1776 right up to 1945, there was a strong feeling in the US that Europe was a failed society and that the best thing for America was to keep out of European affairs. This fueled public antipathy to American involvement in both 1914-1917 and 1939-41. I think if Hitler had not declared war on the US, American opinion would have favoured a war against Japan separate from the European war against Hitler. Whether this would have been feasible with the Japanese rampaging through European possessions is debatable, but given that the Italians and Japanese did not join Germany in 1939, there was no good reason for Hitler to declare war on the USA in support of Japan, thereby uniting the two wars. So, the conflict was avoidable in the short-to-medium turn, and had Hitler been smart, he would have ordered Doenitz to keep the U-boats away from American forces and avoid provoking the US until he could reach a conclusion in the Russian theatre.


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 15, 2010)

With the neutrality acts of the 30s, Congress set the tone of isolation. Significantly, in the act of 1939, trading with belligerents was allowed-as long as it was cash and carry. In 1940, Congress changed the rules with the "Destroyers-for-bases agreement. Finally, Lend-Lease became a fait accompli as of March 11, 1941. Seems to me that the tone was definitely moving away from isolationism and toward internationalism.

Neutrality Act of November 4, 1939

BBC - WW2 People's War - Timeline

HyperWar: British War Economy [Chapter IX]


----------



## syscom3 (Sep 15, 2010)

mikewint said:


> .... there was a tremendous amount of pro-german feeling in the US. Luck Lindy heavily supported the german cause and there were Bundestag culbs everywhere. ....



No there wasnt. 

Dont assume that an attitude of neutrality equated to sympathy for nazi germany. Not many US citizens of germanic heritage supported the facists.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 15, 2010)

I have always felt that we were lucky germany was lead by hitler. had he stopped and consolidated europe and left britian alone the US would not have had reason to enter the european war. britian could never have mounted D-day alone. air raids yes but those could have been delt with. the luftwaffe could have conentrated on defense. let britian have all the destroyers they wanted the mainland was secure. the russian front was also secure except der moron furher broke the treaty and attacked.
syscom3, the pro-german feeling were a minority but add that to thoe who did not want any european involvement and it would have been difficult for even FDR to turn that to hostility toward the germans. very very few felt sympathy agreed. as i said the US would never have turned antibritish but unprovoked british attacks on germany would have worked against them. propaganda is a powerful tool. look at american bombings in the mid-east. somehow they all become hospitals and schools and the world see mangled children carried out of the US bombed school or hospital


----------



## michaelmaltby (Sep 15, 2010)

War with Germany was inevitable because - for Hitler - the USA was the single greatest threat to German hegemony and world order. The Soviet Union and the lands east were - in his mind - no different than the western frontier in the USA.

And let's just pause for a second before dismissing Britain and the Commonwealth. There was *NO *USA (as a global economic/industrial force) when Britain defeated Napoleon in 1812. It took GB nearly two decades of uninterrupted war and costly blockade. Yes - the invasion of Russia hastened the defeat but - Britain and the Royal Navy did it most of the heavy lifting by herself. If you want to argue that there would have been no Normandy without the USA - I won't argue the point. But without the USA as a combatant - the German-Euro economic model was weakening with time, not getting stronger. And the Commonwealth was getting stronger in support of Britain with time - not weaker.

Americans like to speak of being the "winning factor" in WWI - well - the Russian Revolution in 1917 was as critical a factor - with the withdrawal of Russian forces in the East. Entry by the USA counter-balanced the German shift west in 1917.

MM


----------



## mikewint (Sep 15, 2010)

1812 saw a far different britian than a hundred years later. in WWII germany made the fatal mistake of attacking russia instead of the middle east where he could have secured oil for the reich and also did not consolidate his european conquests
Nothing whatever against the UK, but the germans returing from the western front in WWI brought influenza with them. recall that little pandemic that killed 17million


----------



## michaelmaltby (Sep 16, 2010)

".... the germans returing from the western front in WWI brought influenza with them."

Interesting. Never heard THAT theory before. I had previously read that the disease was spawned in the massive military tent camps set up by the US Army in 1917 upon entry into the war. Then exported to Europe:

http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=640

And this: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm

"... 1812 saw a far different britian than a hundred years later."

Please elaborate on that point because the Commonwealth of 1939 wasn't that of the Empire in 1812 either.

MM


----------



## buffnut453 (Sep 16, 2010)

To get back to the original question, war between America and Germany was almost certainly inevitable. Think about this in big-picture structural terms - from mid-1940, the only democratic powers of significance were the USA (at that stage officially neutral), the UK and the "white" nations of the British Empire. The USA was effectively surrounded by dictatorships - Japan in the Far East, the Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy in Europe and eastwards (or westwards if you live in Alaska!). Also note that whenever Hitler and Tojo had a choice of escalating conflict or backing down, they consistently chose the former. 

By late 1941, Britain was effectively bankrupt. Massive debts from WWI coupled with the costs of re-arming in the late 1930s and sustaining the fight alone had eradicated Britains financial reserves, hence the Lend-Lease act which only came into effect in 1942. Late 1941/early 1942 was a tipping point when Britain might have been forced out of the war had America not joined the fight - there was simply no way for Britain. There is an argument that the industrial capacity Germany used to build more fighters and defend Europe against British and American bombers might, if applied to the Eastern Front, have resulted in a very different outcome for Germany against Russia. 

Bottom line, America would have had to fight because the Axis powers would not have offered any other alternatives. Perhaps not in 1941, or even 1942 but ultimately she would have fought Germany because Hitler just didn't know when to stop. We can "what if" until the cows come home about how this might have been prosecuted - Germany using countries in South America to launch non-conventional psyops and other attacks, employment of the "Amerika-bomber" etc etc. However, America would have been dragged into some form of conflict with Germany.


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 16, 2010)

Totally agree buffnut.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

buffnut, partial agreement but i do heartly endorse your statement about Hitler. and that echos by first post here. we were very lucky that hitler lead the germans. his early successes embolden him to continue to take unwarranted chances such as attacking british cities rather than airbases and the coastal radar stations and the fatal blunder of attacking russia opening up a two front war. even the US with all its resources could not sustain both fronts and effectively put the pacific on hold to finish germany. i still hold that a more judicious hitler could have avoided war with the US, ignored england, secured the mid-east oil fields and consolidated the conquered european nations. such a germany would have posed a very serious threat to the US so eventual war, possibly


----------



## michaelmaltby (Sep 16, 2010)

Agreed, Buffnut.

MM


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 16, 2010)

I just do not believe the U.S. could sit out and let the whole of Europe suffer under German rule. I do not believe that Hitler would have stopped, weather he invaded England or not, no matter if he was successful or not, it was only matter of time before he would go on the offensive again and expand his empire even more. Hitler was too power hungry to stop trying to conquer any and all countries he could. Also, peace between England and Germany would have never happened IMO. Hitler could not afford to give England any period of time to rearm or time to rebuild and fortify her armed forces. I do not believe the economies of the world could have survived with Germany controlling almost the entire European continent and possibly large portions of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Just the economic factors alone would have made war inevitable. Germany could have put a stranglehold on the free worlds economies. Also, Japan was not likely to stop it's conquests, and as war between Japan and the U.S. was unavoidable IMO, war between the U.S. and Japan would have brought Germany into the fray. Japan's expansion in the Pacific involved England and the US, and so too it would have brought Germany in no matter what.


----------



## timshatz (Sep 16, 2010)

michaelmaltby said:


> ".... the germans returing from the western front in WWI brought influenza with them."
> 
> Interesting. Never heard THAT theory before. I had previously read that the disease was spawned in the massive military tent camps set up by the US Army in 1917 upon entry into the war. Then exported to Europe:
> 
> ...



Actually, recent work to trace the source of the disease goes back to a British Camp in Ettaples in France, 1916/1917. It was called "PLU" or "PRU" and was an unknown disease. But that is as far as it has gotten so far. Probably goes back farther but nobody has caught thread beyond that. 

But considering the Trenches with Millions of men in horrible septic conditions, in close contact with Swine and Fowl, it is a pretty good bet that the disease started somewhere in the trenches around the second winter of the war with a chicken or pig getting a human flu strain at the same time it had an animal flu strain. The two combined and out comes the start of the disease. Mutated plenty of times and eventually becomes the influenza of 1918.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

timshatz, excellent post, i had never heard or read that, i will definitely look into that aspect of it. influenze is invariably asian in origin as it is today. so my knowledge of this is that the germans in russia had initially contracted the disease and brought it into europe as they returned from the western front and from there to the allied forces


----------



## buffnut453 (Sep 16, 2010)

Messy1 said:


> I just do not believe the U.S. could sit out and let the whole of Europe suffer under German rule. I do not believe that Hitler would have stopped, weather he invaded England or not, no matter if he was successful or not, it was only matter of time before he would go on the offensive again and expand his empire even more. Hitler was too power hungry to stop trying to conquer any and all countries he could. Also, peace between England and Germany would have never happened IMO. Hitler could not afford to give England any period of time to rearm or time to rebuild and fortify her armed forces. I do not believe the economies of the world could have survived with Germany controlling almost the entire European continent and possibly large portions of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Just the economic factors alone would have made war inevitable. Germany could have put a stranglehold on the free worlds economies. Also, Japan was not likely to stop it's conquests, and as war between Japan and the U.S. was unavoidable IMO, war between the U.S. and Japan would have brought Germany into the fray. Japan's expansion in the Pacific involved England and the US, and so too it would have brought Germany in no matter what.



Messy,

"Peace" between Britain and Germany would ultimately have looked a lot like the Vichy regime in France - at best a pliable puppet regime, at worst a fascist-leaning dictatorship. Whether Germany would have invaded Britain is largely irrelevant. If Britain sued for "peace" then there would be no need for invasion. The US could sit out and let the whole of Europe suffer. What Roosevelt was not willing to do was risk being the only democratic power on the face of the planet which inevitably would have resulted in America fighting a 2-front war under conditions optimised for the Axis powers.

Cheers,
Mark


----------



## michaelmaltby (Sep 16, 2010)

Thanks Timshatz.

MM


----------



## timshatz (Sep 16, 2010)

My pleasure guys. Studied the 1918 Influenza as something of a hobby for a bit (maybe I should think about modeling instead- less gruesome) and found out it was mislabled (Spanish Influenza), mistracked (US Midwest wave was a late wave) and pretty much unknown (although I think they've indentified it as being one of the Avian tyes).

The pandemic strains come mostly from the Orient today because of the proximity of Humans to Livestock such as Pigs or Chickens. It can happen anywhere, but the math is on the side of it happening in the orient simply because the population density of all concerned is so high. It has happened at least 2x in the last 10 years that led to outbreaks. But both were contained (usually by killing all potential carrier livestock in the area and quaranteening the individuals who had it).

The WHO pretty much sits in the Orient looking for something to pop again because it is only a matter of time before it does. But there are a ton of variables that have to kick in for a virus to become a pandemic. Odds are against the disease being anything more than the usual flu that we get every year.


----------



## stona (Sep 16, 2010)

mikewint said:


> ignored england, secured the mid-east oil fields and consolidated the conquered european nations. such a germany would have posed a very serious threat to the US so eventual war, possibly



He couldn't "consolidate the conqurered European nations" and ignore England. One of those nations was Poland whose very existence was guaranteed by Britain (and France) by treaty. The British,after all the appeasement, quite rightly felt themselves obligated by this treaty.Britain declared war on Germany,whatever Germany tried to do after that a state of war existed between the two nations.
How was Hitler supposed to capture his oil supplies in the Middle East? That's where his armies were heading,through the Caucasus,when the Soviets stopped them. He couldn't go via North Africa as his army was defeated by the British there at El Alamein.He couldn't make an assault through the Mediterranean as this was under British control,though disputed. The Germans failed even to subdue the island of Malta,let alone land in the Middle East.
There seems to be a perception that Britain and her allies were in some way being passive after the fall of France.
Infact they were winning crucial battles,in the skies over southern England,in the Mediterranean and North Africa and in the Atlantic.
Even on D-Day more British and Commonwealth (mainly Canadian) troops landed than did troops from the USA. Do not imagine that I'm demeaning the effort or heroism of those americans, quite the reverse I have nothing but the greatest admiration for those young men fighting thousands of miles from home.I'm sure that view is shared by any sensible British person.The invasion would not have happened without them.I just want to put things in perspective.
Cheers
Steve


----------



## tail end charlie (Sep 16, 2010)

stona said:


> He couldn't "consolidate the conqurered European nations" and ignore England. One of those nations was Poland whose very existence was guaranteed by Britain (and France) by treaty. The British,after all the appeasement, quite rightly felt themselves obligated by this treaty.Britain declared war on Germany,whatever Germany tried to do after that a state of war existed between the two nations.
> How was Hitler supposed to capture his oil supplies in the Middle East? That's where his armies were heading,through the Caucasus,when the Soviets stopped them. He couldn't go via North Africa as his army was defeated by the British there at El Alamein.He couldn't make an assault through the Mediterranean as this was under British control,though disputed. The Germans failed even to subdue the island of Malta,let alone land in the Middle East.



During the North Africa campaign both sides accused the other of poisoning water wells with oil which they may have done, but some of it was natuarl oil.....apparently no one thought there might be oil or gas there. Algeria and Lybia both have fairly large oil and gas fields now. Oil discovered in Saudi Arabia was in Dammam near Bahrain hardly practical to transport from there to Germany.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Timshatz, found my source, Andrew Price-Smith in Contagion and Chaos using Austrian sources has tracked the disease to Austria in the spring of 1917. conditions in the german trenches exacerbated the contagion i.e. close contact, poor food, poor hygiene and mild cases stayed on duty while the very ill were loaded on crowded trains to be transported to crowded hospitals. Thus there was a higher morbidity and morbidity on the german side of the conflict. Most sources agree that the disease originated in asia for the reasons you stated. the tern Spanish Flu was due to Spain being neutral with no war-time censorship thus the 8 million fatalities (British Medical Journal 7/13/1918 ) were reported uncensored. 
in the US first cases were in the spring of 1918 at Ft. Riley Kansas and other Military Bases where returning veterans infected new troops. by sept 1918 Boston was another hot spot due to returning troops spreading the virus which had undergone its second mutation


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 16, 2010)

timshatz said:


> Actually, recent work to trace the source of the disease goes back to a British Camp in Ettaples in France, 1916/1917. It was called "PLU" or "PRU" and was an unknown disease. But that is as far as it has gotten so far. Probably goes back farther but nobody has caught thread beyond that.
> 
> But considering the Trenches with Millions of men in horrible septic conditions, in close contact with Swine and Fowl, it is a pretty good bet that the disease started somewhere in the trenches around the second winter of the war with a chicken or pig getting a human flu strain at the same time it had an animal flu strain. The two combined and out comes the start of the disease. Mutated plenty of times and eventually becomes the influenza of 1918.



The truth is that we don't know where the virus startd, and probably never will. Though John Barry in *The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History *argues that it started in an army camp in the US before they ever left the States. I believe it was Fort Riley Kansas, but I would have to check that.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Diddy, please read my previous post, the ft. riley cases were in the spring of 1918. there were cases of it in austria in 1917. the 1917 cases were of a milder less lethal form. the second 1918 wave had mutated and grown more lethal in the trenches. returning veterans carried the virus into the US


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Stona, to answer your questions recall the Afrika Korps. originally sent merely as a blocking force to rescue 6 Italian divisions, Rommel's 3 german divisions, outnumbered and under-supplied, pushed the British from Tripoli to within a few hundred miles of the suez canal almost ejecting them from africa. during this 2yr period 3 german divisions and 6 italian divisions tied up 20 british division or 1/2 of british forces.
had hitler turned from russia and used the same resources in africa the british would have been ejected as they were at Dunkirk
as i stated in an earlier post, the british, inspite of their treaty could have done nothing for the polish. they tried and were ejected at Dunkirk which would have been a total disaster had hitler not held the panzers back. believing goering he sent in the lutwaffe. the british lost only equipment the panzer forces would have taken the men and britian would have lost an entire army


----------



## timshatz (Sep 16, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Diddy, please read my previous post, the ft. riley cases were in the spring of 1918. there were cases of it in austria in 1917. the 1917 cases were of a milder less lethal form. the second 1918 wave had mutated and grown more lethal in the trenches. returning veterans carried the virus into the US



The bug, such as it was, faced no real barrier in the trenches. While it was impossible for an individual to cross the No Man's Land, it was easy for a bug to do so. Most likely through POWs and the like. Once it got going in either sides trenches, it was pretty much off the the races. 

The bug went through a number of mutations before it ended. Each mutation usually has about 10 lives (switch from host to host to host). In other words, it can go through ten hosts before it peters out (even bugs run out of steam). But in the process of jumping from hosts to hosts, it mutates so it becomes a little less or a little more deadly (and each mutation has ten lives BUT an individual who has had an earlier variation is less likely to be affected by it, the earlier version extends some immunity). The 1918 flue had only about a 5% mortality rate (as apposed to bugs like the black death which made it into the 30-40% range overall) and was not as brutal as other bugs. But it was the first modern Pandemic and with out a doubt, the best covered and documented. There were numerous Yellow Fever and Cholera epidemics (there is a Cholera epidemic running rampant in Africa right now) but the 1918 Influenza was the first one that happened in the modern, industrial period. 

Where it came from is a matter of speculation. In France, in the period of 1914-1918, you had a huge number of people from places that had never been to the West before. And they came in groups. They brought with them all sorts of social practices, cultural differences and, unfortunately, bugs. Normally, a ship traveling from a foriegn land would take on a number of passengers and any one of them could have the a local bug. But given the length of time of the travel and the number of people leaving or getting on, the odds of a bug surviving the trip were low. It would die out on board, one way or another. But a troopship that made no stops and had a thousand or two hosts on it, could bring the bug all the way to France in a virulent form. Once it go to France, it could find a whole new population of individuals without resistance to it. That is why I think the first or second winter of the war established the basic form of this bug. But it took years to grow in strength and population to be the killer it was in 1918.

Once it transfered into a swine or avian host (which are the two animals most suceptable to Human diseases alongside some rodents) it would mix genes with a swine or avian host. Then, it goes back to the question of mutation.

It could've happened in the German trenches, but if I had to bet, I would go with the Allied trenches just because it had so many different options. The vast majority of the troops in the German trenches came from countries/states within 300 miles of each other. The bugs they carried had a history in each trooper. But the Allied trenches were full of Africans, Asians, Indians, Canadians, South Africans, ect. That is a helluva mix. Math works better for that bunch.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Tim, excellent post, in fact it is the very facts of trench and miltary warfare that act to increase lethality. mildly sick soldiers stay on duty the seriously ill were loaded on train and sent to even more crowded hospitals. in a civilian environment it is reversed, seriously ill people stay home while the mildly ill go to work
I do take exception to your next to last paragraph, it is an avian virus that transfers to a swine host and then to humans. thus influenza is asian where fowl, pigs, and humans live in the same house. the original 1918 virus has been cultured from the tissues of pandemic victims and its genetic markers are being sequenced. my money is on asia


----------



## timshatz (Sep 16, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Tim, excellent post, in fact it is the very facts of trench and miltary warfare that act to increase lethality. mildly sick soldiers stay on duty the seriously ill were loaded on train and sent to even more crowded hospitals. in a civilian environment it is reversed, seriously ill people stay home while the mildly ill go to work
> I do take exception to your next to last paragraph, it is an avian virus that transfers to a swine host and then to humans. thus influenza is asian where fowl, pigs, and humans like in the same house where these viruses originate. the original 1918 virus has been cultured from the tissues of pandemic victims and its genetic markers are being sequenced. my money is on asia



Could be Asian, good bet lacking any other argument. No way or knowing. Bugs move around a lot in geographic terms and while the math (there's that math again) says that the more hosts, the better the odds, a definite call is almost impossible. However, as noted earlier, WHO seems to think Asia is the cradle of the next Pandemic. I guess they didn't get the idea from throwing darts at a map. 

As for where it came from in regards to animal host, I think both Avian and Swine can produce a flu that affects Humans. I am less sure of transfers between animal hosts. Bugs are fickle in which host they will reside in, humans being just one more. Most disease don't jump species. Example, feline distemper will not affect a human but will kill a housecat. Others do. But, to my understanding, Swine and Fowl can both give Humans a bug.


----------



## stona (Sep 16, 2010)

Yes, but ultimately as in every theatre,the Germans fell short. There are many what ifs but the facts are the Germans never did reach the Suez canal or the resources of the Middle East,nor could they hold on to the Caucasus,never pushing further through what are now ex-Soviet states,into Iraq/Syria.
Whatever happened in 1940/41 the Afrika Korps was defeated by the British and her Commonwealth allies in 1942 barely ten months after Pearl Harbour and the entry of the U.S into the war.
The Germans never really had a plan to deal with Britain,they had defeated what was considered the pre eminent military power (France) in short order. The BoB and then the Blitz was an effort to force a settlement on Britain,I've never met a serious historian who believes that the Wermacht had the means,ability or will to mount an amphibious invasion of the British Isles in 1940.
The closest run thing (to paraphrase Wellington) was the battle of the Atlantic. Germany very nearly succeeded in defeating the Royal navy with her U-Boat war. Ultimately,again, she failed.
The British certainly couldn't help the Poles militarily.Britain was a naval power and traditionally did not maintain a large standing army in Europe. My grand father,a professional soldier, was dragged back from India as tension mounted.He was also evacuated from Dunkirk. What they did was issue an ultimatum demanding that Germany withdraw from Poland. When she didn't and the ultimatum expired a state of war automatically existed between Britain and Germany.That's what we did for Poland.
Cheers
Steve


----------



## stona (Sep 16, 2010)

I think modern epidemiologists believe that "Spanish" flue originated in a British depot at Etaples. Livestock including both fowl and pigs were kept in close proximity and the virus made the trans species jumps that everybody was getting worried about recently.
An avian flue virus passed to the pigs and then to people.
Steve


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 16, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Diddy, please read my previous post, the ft. riley cases were in the spring of 1918. there were cases of it in austria in 1917. the 1917 cases were of a milder less lethal form. the second 1918 wave had mutated and grown more lethal in the trenches. returning veterans carried the virus into the US



I'll have to find my copy of Barry, but I'm pretty sure that he places the first cases stateside in 1917. I'll repost when I've found it.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Stona, agreed, and no reflection on british forces and yes, this is all "what if" speculation but considering what the afrika Korps did with what they had, can there be any doubt that if Operation Barbarossa had been aimed at africia the british would have been ejected.
that the germans felt that they had to deal with Britain was a hitler phobia. his failure to unleash the panzers against Dunkirk was more of his phobic response to the british. with the continent secured the british could have sat on their island. what could they have mounted against the germans? air raids are about it.
as i said originally we are lucky a moron was the german leader


----------



## timshatz (Sep 16, 2010)

stona said:


> An avian flue virus passed to the pigs and then to people.
> Steve



Stona and Mike, looks like you're onto something. And, as if that isn't enough, the Spanish Flu might've come directly from Birds as well. Here's a cutout from Wiki:

"Pandemic flu viruses have some avian flu virus genes and usually some human flu virus genes. Both the H2N2 and H3N2 pandemic strains contained genes from avian influenza viruses. The new subtypes arose in pigs coinfected with avian and human viruses and were soon transferred to humans. Swine were considered the original "intermediate host" for influenza, because they supported reassortment of divergent subtypes. However, other hosts appear capable of similar coinfection (e.g., many poultry species), and direct transmission of avian viruses to humans is possible.[10] The Spanish flu virus strain may have been transmitted directly from birds to humans."

The reference to the last line in the above paragraph is linked in below:

Influenza Book | Avian Influenza

While it says there was an Avian flu that migrated to Humans, called "Lombardian Disease" (identified in the late 1800s) because it centered in the Po Valley, it was not a pathogen to it's Avian host (wild water fowl) but affected humans (think about that the next time you have Fois Gras). 

All that being said, I kinda doubt the Lombardian Disease was THE variation of the Spanish Flu we've been posting about and am more inclined to go with Mike's perspective of it being something that came from the Orient. For no better reason than the odds of it happening are highest in that realm and the large number of Oriental based troops that were running around France in 1914-1918.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

Diddy, please post what you find. you might also check Andrew Price-Smiths book Contagion and Chaos MIT press
i believe you'll find the Ft. Riley cases were in the spring of 1918 with cases appearing in Boston in Sept of the same year brought by returning troops. 1918 was the second wave of contagion


----------



## The Basket (Sep 16, 2010)

I agree that fate may have been different.

But the u boat war would certainly have eventually sank enough American ships or killed enough American citizens to make USA enter war.

Hitler was well aware that America had been providing war material and foodstuffs for years to the UK. Without this aid...the UK would instantly have to sue for peace.

The fact that Hitler did not enough to stop America been his enemy was clear proof of his own meglomania and over inflated ego.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 16, 2010)

[QUOTE=.

But the u boat war would certainly have eventually sank enough American ships or killed enough American citizens to make USA enter war.

again an example of hitler's phobic reaction to the british. the U-boats could have been placed under strict orders to not target american shipping. again it would have taken someone with a lot steader hand than the emotional hitler. the german had by-passed the maginot line why not treat the british islands the same way


----------



## Njaco (Sep 16, 2010)

I believe that the Bird Flu (H1N1) thats been around the past few years is a mutation of that 1918 flu.


----------



## The Basket (Sep 17, 2010)

It is almost impossible to not attack certain ships during u boat war.
Most attacks were at night and at distance...hanging around to see what's what is the best way to get killed.

The U boat war would simply have to be cancelled or.only attack unescorted non convoy ships to follow strict rules.

As in ww1...the u boat campaign was strict in early days but the rules got looser as war progressed.

Kinda like you can't make omlette without breaking eggs.


----------



## stona (Sep 17, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Stona, agreed, and no reflection on british forces and yes, this is all "what if" speculation but considering what the afrika Korps did with what they had, can there be any doubt that if Operation Barbarossa had been aimed at africia the british would have been ejected.
> that the germans felt that they had to deal with Britain was a hitler phobia. his failure to unleash the panzers against Dunkirk was more of his phobic response to the british. with the continent secured the british could have sat on their island. what could they have mounted against the germans? air raids are about it.
> as i said originally we are lucky a moron was the german leader



Absolutely,I agree. Barbarossa was of course always the intention of nazi Germany. Nazi ideology always maintained that their living room was to the East. The entire early war in the west,leading up to Dunkirk, was merely an effort to clear the decks for this. Hitler believed he'd done it. 
I think his military leadership were all too aware of the danger of leaving the British problem unresolved,commiting themselves to a war on two fronts,but the campaign in the East was driven by political expediency not military necessity.
Air raids were about all the allies in the West could mount against Germany right up until Overlord, much to the frustration of our Soviet allies.
The turning point in the war came ,I'd say, around the winter of 1942,the time of the battle of Stalingrad and had little to do with anything any of us were doing on the Western front.
I was told repeatedly,by young naval cadets, on a visit many years ago to what was then still the Soviet Union that they had won the second world war alone,they honestly believed this.Like any myth it has a footing in fact. None of them had heard of the vast amount of material shipped at considerable cost to their ports from the factories of the western world. Many assumed that Britain,as an evil imperial power,was on the side of the nazis!
Cheers
Steve


----------



## Freebird (Sep 17, 2010)

Messy1 said:


> How long could the US continue to loose men and ships in the Atlantic due to German subs?



What ships were being lost exactly? How many US ships were lost in 1941?
There were only a few US ships lost in 1941 (before pearl), and it could easily have been blamed on churchill British "Black Ops".  Shipping losses weren't really on the radar in 1941, the prevailing public attitude was to stay out of a European war.

U.S. Merchant Ships Sunk or Damaged in World War II









Messy1 said:


> And IMO, the U.S. had to support our allies anyway we could, and should have done more earlier in support of Europe.



What Allies?  While Roosevelt was cozy with the British, the US public was by no means all sympathetic with the "British" cause. Remember, in 1941, 3 of the top 5 minority groups among the voting public were German, Irish Italian - most of whom were less than sympathetic to the British.



diddyriddick said:


> The casus belli was kinda where I was going with the OP. It seems to me that we had the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. FDR and the Atlantic Fleet were hell-bent on getting the convoys through.



Uh, not exactly. The fleet USN had major misgivings about committing ships to the Atlantic instead of facing Japan in the Pacific. Adm. King had no liking for the British either.



BombTaxi said:


> I think from 1776 right up to 1945, there was a strong feeling in the US that Europe was a failed society and that the best thing for America was to keep out of European affairs. This fueled public antipathy to American involvement in both 1914-1917 and 1939-41. I think if Hitler had not declared war on the US, American opinion would have favoured a war against Japan separate from the European war against Hitler.



Dead right.

Whether this would have been feasible with the Japanese rampaging through European possessions is debatable, but given that the Italians and Japanese did not join Germany in 1939, there was no good reason for Hitler to declare war on the USA in support of Japan, thereby uniting the two wars. So, the conflict was avoidable in the short-to-medium turn, and had Hitler been smart, he would have ordered Doenitz to keep the U-boats away from American forces and avoid provoking the US until he could reach a conclusion in the Russian theatre. [/QUOTE]

Correct, except that the British Dutch may not have been involved against Japan in the Pacific without the American quid pro quo.


----------



## Freebird (Sep 17, 2010)

michaelmaltby said:


> War with Germany was inevitable because - for Hitler - the USA was the single greatest threat to German hegemony and world order. The Soviet Union and the lands east were - in his mind - no different than the western frontier in the USA.



Huh? No not even close. Russian Bolshevism was the #1 threat, and the British blockade was #2. The US didn't really enter into his plans. (a major mistake obviously) Hitler didn't think much of the US (a "mongrel" nation) and had Japan not pulled the US into the war the level of US production would have been much less.




buffnut453 said:


> By late 1941, Britain was effectively bankrupt. Massive debts from WWI coupled with the costs of re-arming in the late 1930s and sustaining the fight alone had eradicated Britains financial reserves, hence the Lend-Lease act which only came into effect in 1942. Late 1941/early 1942 was a tipping point when Britain might have been forced out of the war had America not joined the fight - there was simply no way for Britain. There is an argument that the industrial capacity Germany used to build more fighters and defend Europe against British and American bombers might, if applied to the Eastern Front, have resulted in a very different outcome for Germany against Russia.



Actually Britain was not in that bad a position in Dec of 1941, it was probably the high water mark of the first 3 years of the war. They weren't going to go bankrupt. The US had already committed to Lend Lease, The British had pushed back Rommel, the Axis had been pushed back from Moscow, and Hitler had no hope of invading the UK. Had the US not entered the _European_ war it wouldn't have really subtracted anything critical from the first 10 - 12 months of the war, and the Commonwealth would certainly been in a far stronger position, if they didn't send 8 - 10 divisions to the far east, and require huge amounts of air, naval shipping assets to be put against Japan.



> Bottom line, America would have had to fight because the Axis powers would not have offered any other alternatives. Perhaps not in 1941, or even 1942 but ultimately she would have fought Germany because Hitler just didn't know when to stop. We can "what if" until the cows come home about how this might have been prosecuted - Germany using countries in South America to launch non-conventional psyops and other attacks, employment of the "Amerika-bomber" etc etc. However, America would have been dragged into some form of conflict with Germany.



Perhaps not in 1942 though. Germany might have tried to conquer all of Europe before the US had the chance to ramp up production. 



Messy1 said:


> I just do not believe the U.S. could sit out and let the whole of Europe suffer under German rule.



Why not? They didn't enter the war when Poland was attacked, or France conquered, or the soviets attacked. Why not let the Euopeans sort out their own affairs, and keep the US out of the horrors of war?
Remember there were apologists like Charles Lindbergh Joe Kennedy advocating against getting involved. Besides, why should the US help Britain, since it was a lost cause anyways since it was obvious


http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1013 said:


> "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken."


 




> Also, Japan was not likely to stop it's conquests, and as war between Japan and the U.S. was unavoidable IMO, war between the U.S. and Japan would have brought Germany into the fray. Japan's expansion in the Pacific involved England and the US, and so too it would have brought Germany in no matter what.



Why would war with Japan bring the US into conflict with Germany?
Lots of folks in the US would have preferred the US to concentrate on Japan and leave the European war alone.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

stona said:


> Absolutely,I agree. Barbarossa was of course always the intention of nazi Germany. Nazi ideology always maintained that their living room was to the East. The entire early war in the west,leading up to Dunkirk, was merely an effort to clear the decks for this. Hitler believed he'd done it.
> I think his military leadership were all too aware of the danger of leaving the British problem unresolved,commiting themselves to a war on two fronts,but the campaign in the East was driven by political expediency not military necessity.
> Air raids were about all the allies in the West could mount against Germany right up until Overlord, much to the frustration of our Soviet allies.



You make my point for me. Wars are indeed often fought for political reasons and not what would be the best tactical plan. (i spent 6 years in just such a war). the outnumbered and undersupplied german divisions were winning in the mid-east and europe was conquered but not subdued. political considerations and ideology should have taken second place to the tactical considerations. it was time to consolidate regroup and resupply a mechanized force needs petroleum and it was there in the mid east for the taking had Rommel been supported.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

Freebird, triple excellent I could not agree more.


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 17, 2010)

I just feel war with Germany was inevitable. I do see in the first post of this thread I did forget the part about normal relations with Japan, but that is the biggest "what if" of this whole discussion. I just feel once the Tripartite Pact was signed, war with Germany was unavoidable.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

Messy1, agreed as long as we define "inevitable" which is why i have said many times "thank god for Hitler, the moron." the war was sooner rather than later when we would have had to face a stronger more prepared germany


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 17, 2010)

But giving this some more thought, if relations with Japan had not gone bad, then perhaps the Tripartite Pact would not have come about. I just think that if all of Europe (with or without England) was under German rule, sooner or later, war between the US and Germany was unavoidable.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

Messy1 agreed please read my previous post. war with Japan was a certainty once FDR cut off their oil supplies


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 17, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Diddy, please post what you find. you might also check Andrew Price-Smiths book Contagion and Chaos MIT press
> i believe you'll find the Ft. Riley cases were in the spring of 1918 with cases appearing in Boston in Sept of the same year brought by returning troops. 1918 was the second wave of contagion



Actually, according to Barry, Ft. Riley was the second stage with Haskell county (300 miles west of Camp Funston/Ft. Riley) being the epicenter. Barry points out that there were documented cases in Haskell county in January of 1918. Additionally, Haskell Co. being small, and medical facilities being limited, it is certainly possible that there were unidentified cases in late 1917. 

Significantly, the strain that Barry cited was H1N1 (Swine) flu. I found Price-Smith's book on-line, but maddeningly, it is truncated in places. But as I understand it, Contagion and Chaos proposes a European epicenter of H5N1 (Avian) variety. The possible implications of a recombinant "super flu" are interesting, to say the least.

"If the virus did not originate in Haskell, there is no good explanation for how it arrived there. There were no other known outbreaks anywhere in the United States from which someone could have carried the disease to Haskell, and no suggestions of influenza outbreaks in either newspapers or reflected in vital statistics anywhere else in the region. And unlike the 1916 outbreak in France, one can trace with perfect definiteness the route of the virus from Haskell to the outside world."

Thanks for the heads-up on Price-Smith. I'm gonna have to pick up a copy.

The site of origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic and its public health implications


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 17, 2010)

freebird said:


> Uh, not exactly. The fleet USN had major misgivings about committing ships to the Atlantic instead of facing Japan in the Pacific. Adm. King had no liking for the British either.



You are absolutely right that the Kimmel in Pearl Harbor was against equipping the Atlantic Fleet at the expense of Cincpac. But Kimmel wasn't responsible for national policy. Roosevelt definitely had no reservations about "Europe first." Betty Stark would certainly have gone along.

As to King, I don't have any hard data at hand to say one way or the other. While I know he was stridently pro-Pacific as Cominch/CNO, I'd be really surprised if he had that view as Cinc of the Atlantic Fleet. At that time, the Pacific wasn't his worry-the Atlantic was.


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 17, 2010)

Messy1 said:


> I just feel war with Germany was inevitable. I do see in the first post of this thread I did forget the *part about normal relations with Japan, but that is the biggest "what if" of this whole discussion*. I just feel once the Tripartite Pact was signed, war with Germany was unavoidable.



It is the biggest "what-if", but it is the fundamental question of my OP.

Fellas....Because of my poor choice of words, we are getting a little off-topic here. For the purpose of this thread Japan doesn't exist. There is no eastern front. And forget the Tripartite pact.

Was war between an isolationist America and a progressively more capable Germany inevitable based solely on the increased friction between the two countries. It doesn't matter who drew first blood-it is sufficient to note that they had fired on each other. Would public sentiment have turned away from the isolationists and toward the internationalists because of the undeclared war in the Atlantic? Would a hypothetical Lusitania II have changed the political landscape toward intervention?


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 17, 2010)

With this thread in mind, I've been snooping on Time's website archives. In reading the stories from 1941, I am struck by how interventionist the tone of the American Press was. I would have expected much more of an isolationist stance.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

diddyriddick said:


> It is the biggest "what-if", but it is the fundamental question of my OP.
> It doesn't matter who drew first blood-it is sufficient to note that they had fired on each other.



Diddy, that changes everything. anyone who fires on the US we fire back. i.e. Pearl harbor


----------



## parsifal (Sep 17, 2010)

Sorry guys, have not read all of the thread, so my apologies if i am not relevant.

My opnion is that it was never a certainty that the US would enter the war, until Pearl harbour. Moreover, the gradual change in public opnion was no accident. America did not "drift" towards supporting the british, they were steered to that point, principally by Roosevelt and his administration, and carefully supported by Churchill. Getting the US into the war on the side of the allies was Churchills number one foreign policy objewctive after the fall offrance. Everything he said and did was aimed , very carefully at bringing the US and its public opinion ever closer to the british star. 

Hitler, on the other hand, could care less about US public opinion, and paid virtually no attention to it. Its not that he actively sought war with the US, its just that he didnt do much to avoid it. And the perception of the US, at least in the German leaderships eyes, was that it was a weak and decadent society, preoccupied with the luxuries of life, and not able to bring itself to serious warlike endeavours. It was a nation well adapted to building automobiles and toasters, but incapable of building wqarships and combat aircraft.

How wrong the Germans got that part of the equation


----------



## diddyriddick (Sep 17, 2010)

mikewint said:


> Diddy, that changes everything. anyone who fires on the US we fire back. i.e. Pearl harbor



But it needn't have been the Germans firing first, Mike. You sink my destroyer....I sink your U-boat in response. Was a war of escalation in the offing?


----------



## Messy1 (Sep 17, 2010)

I just believe this would be a escalating situation with no peaceful end to the situation. I do not see Germany allowing merchant shipping to flow into England, and I do not see the U.S. ceasing shipping supplies into England. Germany cannot allow those supplies to reach England. I see it going along the same turn of events as WW1. Sooner or later, there is going to be a event that breaks the camels back so to speak.


----------



## mikewint (Sep 17, 2010)

diddyriddick said:


> Was a war of escalation in the offing?



Diddy, in my opinion, in the scenario you propose, probably yes. that is the casus belli hitler needed to avoid. my point in the earlier threads was that germany need to keep the US out of the war until it was more prepared to deal with us. let england have all the supplies it wants, thet're still effectively impotent. If England attacks, they become the aggressor. use that to strengthen pro-german feeling in the US. support Rommel and secure the mid-east oil fields. pacify continental europe and rebuild and resupply the Wehrmacht, develop better aircraft and tanks, complete the V-2 program. do anything and everything to buy time and avoid a two front war.


----------



## pbfoot (Sep 17, 2010)

Messy1 said:


> I just believe this would be a escalating situation with no peaceful end to the situation. I do not see Germany allowing merchant shipping to flow into England, and I do not see the U.S. ceasing shipping supplies into England. Germany cannot allow those supplies to reach England. I see it going along the same turn of events as WW1. Sooner or later, there is going to be a event that breaks the camels back so to speak.



I don't think much shipping was going direct from US to the UK , I could be very mistaken but believe most was shipped from Halifax . As a point of interest most of the aircraft sold to the UK were landed on airstrips that crossed the US /Canadian border . They were left there by the US crews and dragged across (stolen) the border ,


----------

