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> Are you really suggesting that Churchill was the singular character who determined the outcome of the war, There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is

> Are you really suggesting that Churchill was the singular character who determined the outcome of the war, There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is correct. Churchill was the only one talking about the danger of Hitler since 1935 and the need to re-arm. Everyone else was in the appeasement camp. No one wanted war and they did everything they could to avoid it before Churchill was PM and then continued after he was PM. The alternative to Churchill taking over from Chamberlain was Halifax who had huge support in parliament, and was who everyone wanted, but who was an appeaser, and whilst in Churchill's cabinet pushed for peace talks even after being wrong for the past 5 years on Hitler. It's not a large jump to say that if Halifax was PM, after the fall of France he would have pushed for peace which Hitler would have welcomed because his ideological nemesis lay with the Bolsheviks in the east. If Hitler had a treaty with the UK he could have committed all forces to the East and defeated Russia. Europe - game, set, match. If you study the events of the time, it does start to seem that he was a singular force. > If we could redo the war a million times and change tactics/leaders each time, the Axis powers would lose close to a million times The mistake here is that its not about redoing the war...its that the war between the UK and Germany would have ceased very prematurely without Churchill.

valarauko 6y ago
Yes, the war between the UK & Germany would have gone differently without Churchill. It's quite a leap to go from there to state that Fascist Europe would have stood till today. If Halifax were PM & there was a peace treaty with Germany, who's to say Halifax would still be PM the next year and the treaty upheld by the next guy? Perhaps the situation would have thrown up a Black Swan PM? Even if Germany could overrun Russia - could they hold it for very long? Even without Russia, they were stretched thin, and wouldn't have been able to hold their continental wide Reich filled with hostile natives for very long. Thing is, we don't know. While Churchill was important for how the war does progress, it's a mistake to suppose that Churchill is necessary & sufficient in every iteration to determine the course of the war. If not Churchill, somebody else would have come along. Besides, it was only a matter of time before the Americans would have been drawn into the war, something the Japanese ensured. Even if the specifics of Pearl Harbor hadn't happened, America was bound to get involved, sooner or later. Perhaps it would have taken another year, but America had continental scale resources and population to tap into.
- robin21 6y ago
  So the question is: "if we removed Churchill from the equation...what would the effect be on human suffering". I think what you might be missing is that things could have gone a whole lot better if Churchill became PM even earlier in 1935 - perhaps leading to no war at all. In hindsight, Churchill greatly reduced the risk from when he became PM when he did. The Halifax scenario would have allowed Germany to grow even stronger, and ended up with a lot more people killed in camps, etc. That is, more suffering. So maybe another way to look at this "Great Man" reading of history is from a risk/probability perspective. If you replayed history again - from a risk perspective - would you want to remove or keep? For me it seems pretty clear in we consider the probability and volume of human suffering. > It's quite a leap to go from there to state that Fascist Europe would have stood till today. Indeed, but I would argue the authoritarian nature of the Nazi party machinery (e.g. the SS) with a disregard for humanity (e.g. the holocaust) would have allowed them to enforce quite an unshakeable control over the region. When you don't have to worry the people you conquer being fed, and have no qualms with mass extermination - its hard to see how rebellions would be possible when you are restricted from any kind of military force - and there is no other country to help supply the equipment. Look at China and Russia - unable to shake authoritarianism as much as they would like to even to this day. Yes, slightly different because they are not occupied nations I guess. But also look at Vichy France - this situation could have lasted for a long, long time.
  - valarauko 6y ago
    >So the question is: "if we removed Churchill from the equation...what would the effect be on human suffering". That was not the question: what we had was a statement that Churchill turned the war, and that without him we would have Fascist Europe standing till today - or more pointedly, as you said in another thread, all of Europe would be speaking German. So not native Fascist dictators propped up in each occupied country, but rather a pan-European Reich. Your claim is that the one thing that prevented this from being our reality today was a single man, and that man was Churchill. I'm suggesting that no single person, even Hitler, determined the outcome of the war once set in motion. Even Hitler did not create out of whole cloth the German resentment that led to the war. He tapped into it, weaving together different aspects of public anger for his own benefit. If not Hitler, somebody else would have, and German aggression would have happened sooner or later. His tactics (ie, the SS) might have aided his speed, but it wouldn't change the inevitable outcome, which are determined more by logistics. Hitler could divert grain away from undesired natives who are just extra mouths to feed towards the frontline and influence the tide of war, but then that's exactly what Churchill did as well with the Bengal famine. If we're talking about reduction of human suffering, then perhaps it's instructive to consider the harm that Churchill directly created in the Empire. His policies impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of people driven to the edge of destitution as a direct result of British exploitation. He may not have created the Bengal Famine, but he took a bad situation and made it infinitely much worse. Yes, I'm aware of the explanations Churchill apologists like to offer, which is a whole lot of BS. They blame the Japanese, but ignore that British policies in India had turned a net surplus producer of food grains into an importer. British India imported rice from Burma during times of shortfall, a situation created in the first place by British policies of forcing the planting of cash crops for export. A small relevant example: prior to British occupation, rice was grown all along the Gangetic plain as a winter crop, with the river deltas producing as much as three crops in a year. The British built canals to divert water away, and turned the Gangetic plains towards growing cash crops, like indigo. For anybody unfamiliar, the indigo plant is quite toxic, and poisons the land and water table for other crops. In addition, vast tracts of land were turned towards cotton farming, since Indian linen was the currency the East India Company used for international trade. When the British Crown took direct control of India, even the weaving of cotton was disallowed, diverting raw cotton to British mills. Prior to British occupation, India produced over 25% of the world's GDP, and devastating famine wasn't really a thing. British policies in India and the rest of the Empire had put hundreds of millions of people on a knife's edge of basic survival, and Churchill's policies had the ability to push millions of people one way or the other. The Bengal famine is just one example where a single choice, whatever their justification, took the life of 3 million people directly under his care that he considered "beastly with a ghastly religion". Any other PM in his position would accrue similar blame, but Churchill is not exempt because of that when the discussion is about human suffering.

valarauko 6y ago

Yes, the war between the UK & Germany would have gone differently without Churchill. It's quite a leap to go from there to state that Fascist Europe would have stood till today. If Halifax were PM & there was a peace treaty with Germany, who's to say Halifax would still be PM the next year and the treaty upheld by the next guy? Perhaps the situation would have thrown up a Black Swan PM? Even if Germany could overrun Russia - could they hold it for very long? Even without Russia, they were stretched thin, and wouldn't have been able to hold their continental wide Reich filled with hostile natives for very long. Thing is, we don't know. While Churchill was important for how the war does progress, it's a mistake to suppose that Churchill is necessary & sufficient in every iteration to determine the course of the war. If not Churchill, somebody else would have come along. Besides, it was only a matter of time before the Americans would have been drawn into the war, something the Japanese ensured. Even if the specifics of Pearl Harbor hadn't happened, America was bound to get involved, sooner or later. Perhaps it would have taken another year, but America had continental scale resources and population to tap into.

robin21 6y ago
So the question is: "if we removed Churchill from the equation...what would the effect be on human suffering". I think what you might be missing is that things could have gone a whole lot better if Churchill became PM even earlier in 1935 - perhaps leading to no war at all. In hindsight, Churchill greatly reduced the risk from when he became PM when he did. The Halifax scenario would have allowed Germany to grow even stronger, and ended up with a lot more people killed in camps, etc. That is, more suffering. So maybe another way to look at this "Great Man" reading of history is from a risk/probability perspective. If you replayed history again - from a risk perspective - would you want to remove or keep? For me it seems pretty clear in we consider the probability and volume of human suffering. > It's quite a leap to go from there to state that Fascist Europe would have stood till today. Indeed, but I would argue the authoritarian nature of the Nazi party machinery (e.g. the SS) with a disregard for humanity (e.g. the holocaust) would have allowed them to enforce quite an unshakeable control over the region. When you don't have to worry the people you conquer being fed, and have no qualms with mass extermination - its hard to see how rebellions would be possible when you are restricted from any kind of military force - and there is no other country to help supply the equipment. Look at China and Russia - unable to shake authoritarianism as much as they would like to even to this day. Yes, slightly different because they are not occupied nations I guess. But also look at Vichy France - this situation could have lasted for a long, long time.
- valarauko 6y ago
  >So the question is: "if we removed Churchill from the equation...what would the effect be on human suffering". That was not the question: what we had was a statement that Churchill turned the war, and that without him we would have Fascist Europe standing till today - or more pointedly, as you said in another thread, all of Europe would be speaking German. So not native Fascist dictators propped up in each occupied country, but rather a pan-European Reich. Your claim is that the one thing that prevented this from being our reality today was a single man, and that man was Churchill. I'm suggesting that no single person, even Hitler, determined the outcome of the war once set in motion. Even Hitler did not create out of whole cloth the German resentment that led to the war. He tapped into it, weaving together different aspects of public anger for his own benefit. If not Hitler, somebody else would have, and German aggression would have happened sooner or later. His tactics (ie, the SS) might have aided his speed, but it wouldn't change the inevitable outcome, which are determined more by logistics. Hitler could divert grain away from undesired natives who are just extra mouths to feed towards the frontline and influence the tide of war, but then that's exactly what Churchill did as well with the Bengal famine. If we're talking about reduction of human suffering, then perhaps it's instructive to consider the harm that Churchill directly created in the Empire. His policies impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of people driven to the edge of destitution as a direct result of British exploitation. He may not have created the Bengal Famine, but he took a bad situation and made it infinitely much worse. Yes, I'm aware of the explanations Churchill apologists like to offer, which is a whole lot of BS. They blame the Japanese, but ignore that British policies in India had turned a net surplus producer of food grains into an importer. British India imported rice from Burma during times of shortfall, a situation created in the first place by British policies of forcing the planting of cash crops for export. A small relevant example: prior to British occupation, rice was grown all along the Gangetic plain as a winter crop, with the river deltas producing as much as three crops in a year. The British built canals to divert water away, and turned the Gangetic plains towards growing cash crops, like indigo. For anybody unfamiliar, the indigo plant is quite toxic, and poisons the land and water table for other crops. In addition, vast tracts of land were turned towards cotton farming, since Indian linen was the currency the East India Company used for international trade. When the British Crown took direct control of India, even the weaving of cotton was disallowed, diverting raw cotton to British mills. Prior to British occupation, India produced over 25% of the world's GDP, and devastating famine wasn't really a thing. British policies in India and the rest of the Empire had put hundreds of millions of people on a knife's edge of basic survival, and Churchill's policies had the ability to push millions of people one way or the other. The Bengal famine is just one example where a single choice, whatever their justification, took the life of 3 million people directly under his care that he considered "beastly with a ghastly religion". Any other PM in his position would accrue similar blame, but Churchill is not exempt because of that when the discussion is about human suffering.