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It's easy to say that now. Have you lived through unrestricted, total warfare, where one side intends to conquer a continent or the world, invades without pro

by stctw 2y ago

It's easy to say that now. Have you lived through unrestricted, total warfare, where one side intends to conquer a continent or the world, invades without provocation, and won't stop until brought to submission through extreme force? The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. How many of your country's people should you sacrifice to end a war of aggression started by the enemy? Should you not use the means that will preserve as many of your lives as you can? This century has yet to see anything like WW1 and WW2, and those who are alive today are incredibly disconnected from our recent past.

czl 2y ago
> Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. An argument made that WW2 was continuation of WW1 and that WW1 was wanted by British leadership who were locked in an arms race with Germany that they could not sustain much longer and wanted a war with Germany while they were ahead so the assassination that triggered WW1 was the pretext tobstart WW1. If you disagree please try to answer why leaders are regularly assassinated and that does not cause a world war.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Listen, while I broadly agree with your grander point (Britain wanting a war with Germany and taking any excuse given for it) your argument for this is flatly moronic; the assassination of the archduke was not Britain's pretext for entering the war! That was Austria-Hungary's pretext for invading Serbia. Britain's pretext was the German invasion of Belgium. Read a fucking book.
  - robbiep 2y ago
    The chamberlain government would like to disagree with wanting a war with Germany
    - SamBam 2y ago
      WWI, not WWII. But I agree with the larger point that Britain was not looking to start a war, and was absolutely not the cause of the war.
      - czl 2y ago
        Before World War I, Britain observed Germany's rapid rise and perceived it as a threat to its own global dominance. This situation is a classic example of the Thucydides trap, named after the ancient Greek historian who noted that when a rising power threatens to displace an existing great power, war becomes more likely. In this case, Germany's growing industrial and military strength was seen as a direct challenge to Britain's hegemony. Germany, on the other hand, wanted to emerge as a stronger power than Britain while avoiding direct conflict. German leaders pleaded with Britain to remain neutral and not declare war on Germany. However, from the British perspective, war with Germany was deemed necessary to suppress its increasing power and maintain Britain's position on the world stage. British leaders may not have actively sought to start a war, but they believed that confronting Germany was crucial to protect their national interests. See my reply to sibling comment with more details. Today there is a similar situation with China being the rising power and America seeking to suppress it.
  - czl 2y ago
    While Britain's decision to enter World War I was indeed triggered by Germany's invasion of Belgium, it's important to consider the broader context. In the years leading up to the war, Britain had engaged in a naval arms race with Germany, driven by fears of Germany's growing military and economic power. British leaders, including Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, viewed war with Germany as inevitable and believed it was better to fight sooner while Britain still held a naval advantage. Britain's system of alliances, particularly the Entente Cordiale with France and Russia, made it likely that any conflict involving these powers would draw Britain into a larger war. When the July Crisis erupted following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, British leaders did little to prevent the escalation of tensions. Despite last-minute efforts by some, such as German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg's plea for British neutrality, Britain remained committed to its alliances and the belief that war with Germany was necessary. It's worth noting that other European leaders, such as French President Raymond Poincaré and Russian Tsar Nicholas II, also played significant roles in the outbreak of the war. However, Britain's long-standing rivalry with Germany, its naval arms race, and its commitment to alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict all contributed to its readiness to enter the war when the opportunity arose.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      There’s a much simpler theory of the war, which is that it was Germany that was worried about a foreign rival catching up to them—Russia—which is why Germany pushed for the war to start. It’s interesting to see this theory projected onto the British, but there’s a fatal flaw with this projection. The first declaration of war was by Austria-Hungary against Serbia. Britain was not in a position to manipulate the situation as to encourage that; Germany was. And Germany would have known that an Austro-Hungarian war on Serbia would draw in Russia, which is how they get the Russo-German war they actually wanted. How, exactly, mechanistically, does Britain manipulate this crisis into an Anglo-German war? They didn’t make Austria-Hungary declare war. They didn’t even declare war alongside the French. And they certainly didn’t make Germany invade France by way of Belgium in order to give Britain a pretext. It sounds to me like Germany wanted war with Russia and was confident they could also afford war with France (having kicked their asses in 1870 already) but would have really preferred to keep Britain out of it. If there is a criticism one can levy against the British, it might be that they simply weren’t forceful enough in making that consequence clear to the Germans ahead of time. The “alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict” were in fact a consciously designed system of balances of power meant to deter exactly that type of large scale war, in the tradition that was established 99 years previously in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s easy to dismiss that system because it failed catastrophically in 1914, but the fact that it had mostly worked since 1815 was unprecedented in European history. The 99 years between the Napoleonic and First World Wars were the most peaceful 99 years of European history since at least the Roman Empire; check back in 2044 to see if we can break that record.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  Britain was absolutely not prepared for war at the start of WWII. If they had lost the Battle of Britain it is unlikely they would have survived a land invasion.
  - czl 2y ago
    WWI, not WWII. Look again at my words and at the other replies.
xcv123 2y ago
Japan was already trying to negotiate conditional surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The US demanded unconditional surrender, and they nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians to force that demand. The bombing of Dresden is arguably a war crime by todays standards. It was unnecessary. Remember that we were allied with the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin was the "good guy" on our side). After WW2 he was given half of Europe as a reward, forcing that half of Europe to become communist, and the Soviets got to write the history books about Germany and WW2. Not the most transparent and unbiased source of information. The Soviets and other allied soldiers (the good guys) also had a free-for-all with the German ladies after winning the war. "The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Japan should have unconditionally surrendered in March, half a year before the nukes, when the US military burned most of Tokyo to the ground in less than two hours. And yes. Stalin was a bad guy and it's a pity the war didn't end with the demise of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This is also irrelevant to the matter of strategic bombings perpetrated by America and Britain.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - xcv123 2y ago
    General George S. Patton: "We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually." https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&dq=patton+bastards+%22wrong+enemy%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22wrong+enemy%22 https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&d...
    - 2y ago
pdonis 2y ago
> one side intends to conquer a continent or the world, invades without provocation, and won't stop until brought to submission through extreme force? The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. "The Allies" included the Soviet Union, which did initiate war--against Finland, against Poland, against Japan (this in the 1930s, before historians say WW II started)--and wanted even more war, hoping that all of the capitalist countries would destroy each other and leave the USSR to take over. And as others have pointed out, the USSR ended up in control of Eastern Europe, which was supposed to be liberated from tyranny--that was the original reason for Britain and France declaring war on Germany when Poland was invaded--so WW II actually failed at its primary objective. Even if you make the argument that Allied firebombing raids were a justified war measure, that argument only works if the war succeeds at its objective. If it fails, that argument falls to the ground.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Well said. It is indeed very weird to claim that UK and France have won in WWII, when they had initially declared war in order to fulfil they alliance obligations toward Poland and Czechoslovakia, but the result of WWII was that both Poland and Czechoslovakia have lost large parts of their territories (like also others of the former allies of UK and France that happened to be neighbors of the Soviet Union). UK did not won anything in WWII. They have just preserved their integrity like someone whose home was under attack by a gang of robbers and murderers, but they got rid of the attackers by paying another gang of robbers and murderers to do most of the work, and the payment was done not with their own money, but with money stolen from other assault victims (i.e. by giving to Stalin the Eastern Europe, which was not the property of Churchill, for him to have any right to give). Poland was much luckier than all the other neighbors of the Soviet Union, because much of its territorial loss has been compensated with territories taken from Germany. Therefore, when one compares pre-WWII with post-WWII Europe maps, at the first glance Poland does not seem to have changed much in size. However, after a more thorough look, it becomes obvious that Poland has moved on the map from east to west.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Is that meant to be an oblique reference to the meme that America "initiated war" with Japan by choosing not to literally fuel Japans imperial ambitions? This reddit take is the most moronic of them all (and if this is what you're talking about, you got the decade wrong.) Japan was not entitled to foreign oil, nor the foreign land they intended to take by force using that oil, and America choosing not to give it to them was not a declaration of war. The war between Japan and half the world was started by Japan's own ambition. If you wanted to make the case that America started it you would have to go back to the 1850s when America rudely introduced them to modern gunboat diplomacy. But for that argument you would need to read a damn book instead of parroting any fool opinion you learned on Reddit.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
> where one side intends to conquer a continent or the world I believe this view indicates you may have drunk a bit too much of the kool aid. Germany had zero ability to hold all of Europe longer term, let alone the entire world. This is a comic book tier view. Any end to the war would have had concessions and land transfers but there is no precedent to suggest that even France would have remained under Germany longer term if the Germans had won. Western Poland and bits of other nations, sure, but that is hardly an entire continent or world. The notion that they were a serious threat to occupy the US is hilarious and goes to show how effective the fear mongering propaganda was and continues to be to this day. > The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war England and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Arguably the whole thing could have been avoided if England and France hadn’t backed Poland, which would have likely caused Poland to negotiate on the original land bridge problem rather than dig their heels in. It’s eerily parallel to the situation with Ukraine today, in fact.
- robbiep 2y ago
  Are you advocating for a view of history that paints Germany as a victim?
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    Definitely not. Just one that depicts actual humans and not comic book villains.
- wewtyflakes 2y ago
  > Western Poland and bits of other nations, sure You say that as if it is meaningless. How about just not invading your neighbors?
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    “The entire world” down to “half of Poland” may be the theoretically largest goalpost move possible (on Earth, anyway).
incompatible 2y ago
WW2 became a world war when Britain and France declared war on Germany. Of course, they could have stood back and let the Nazi's carry out their plan of annexing Eastern Europe, but they drew the line at Poland.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  Does anyone seriously think that the Nazis would have stopped at Eastern Europe?
  - incompatible 2y ago
    It's what Hitler was saying he wanted, Lebensraum for a new German empire by conquering the "inferior" people of Eastern Europe. Western Europe probably didn't expect to be invaded, and who knows what kind of alternative history would have taken place if Britain and France hadn't got involved. Perhaps the Nazi's would never have been satisfied unless they were at war somewhere, or perhaps they would have had their hands full in the east. Nato countries today probably assume that Russia invading Ukraine isn't a prelude for Russia attacking Nato countries.
- philwelch 2y ago
  No, that’s when WW2 became a pan-European war. It became a world war when Japan attacked the British and Americans, thus combining the Anglo-German and Sino-Japanese wars into a single conflict.
  - me_me_me 2y ago
    Calling it a single conflict is bit of hair splitting, japan had almost nothing to do with germany, especially after war started. Those were 2 separate conflicts happening at the same time.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      Part of what combined the two conflicts, aside from Allied questions about resource allocations and priorities, was the supply lines of the British Empire. There was a continuous series of supply lines running all the way from England to Burma, through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal and down through South Asia. The Suez Canal (under threat from the Italians and Germans) was part of the exact same supply line as the Burma Road (under threat from the Japanese).
Aeolun 2y ago
We will never know, but I think it’s arguable that most of the terror campaigns by the allies came at the tail end of the war and were of questionable military effectiveness.
meigwilym 2y ago
The firebombing of Dresden needlessly killed thousands of civilians, and arguably did nothing for the war effort. With the posisble exception of bolstering the resolve of front line German soldiers. Had the axis powers won the war I'm certain it would have been classified as a war crime and Bomber Harris would have been the first against the wall.
- arrowsmith 2y ago
  Lol, what did the Axis powers care about "war crimes"? If they'd won they'd have had every Allied leader up against the wall on day one of the occupation, even if we hadn't killed a single "innocent" civilian. Why would they have needed a pretext? Both sides were not the same.
amanaplanacanal 2y ago
I understand what you are saying, but how does killing innocent civilians that have no say in the running of the war help?

by stctw 2y ago

czl 2y ago

> Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. An argument made that WW2 was continuation of WW1 and that WW1 was wanted by British leadership who were locked in an arms race with Germany that they could not sustain much longer and wanted a war with Germany while they were ahead so the assassination that triggered WW1 was the pretext tobstart WW1. If you disagree please try to answer why leaders are regularly assassinated and that does not cause a world war.

lupusreal 2y ago
Listen, while I broadly agree with your grander point (Britain wanting a war with Germany and taking any excuse given for it) your argument for this is flatly moronic; the assassination of the archduke was not Britain's pretext for entering the war! That was Austria-Hungary's pretext for invading Serbia. Britain's pretext was the German invasion of Belgium. Read a fucking book.
- robbiep 2y ago
  The chamberlain government would like to disagree with wanting a war with Germany
  - SamBam 2y ago
    WWI, not WWII. But I agree with the larger point that Britain was not looking to start a war, and was absolutely not the cause of the war.
    - czl 2y ago
      Before World War I, Britain observed Germany's rapid rise and perceived it as a threat to its own global dominance. This situation is a classic example of the Thucydides trap, named after the ancient Greek historian who noted that when a rising power threatens to displace an existing great power, war becomes more likely. In this case, Germany's growing industrial and military strength was seen as a direct challenge to Britain's hegemony. Germany, on the other hand, wanted to emerge as a stronger power than Britain while avoiding direct conflict. German leaders pleaded with Britain to remain neutral and not declare war on Germany. However, from the British perspective, war with Germany was deemed necessary to suppress its increasing power and maintain Britain's position on the world stage. British leaders may not have actively sought to start a war, but they believed that confronting Germany was crucial to protect their national interests. See my reply to sibling comment with more details. Today there is a similar situation with China being the rising power and America seeking to suppress it.
- czl 2y ago
  While Britain's decision to enter World War I was indeed triggered by Germany's invasion of Belgium, it's important to consider the broader context. In the years leading up to the war, Britain had engaged in a naval arms race with Germany, driven by fears of Germany's growing military and economic power. British leaders, including Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, viewed war with Germany as inevitable and believed it was better to fight sooner while Britain still held a naval advantage. Britain's system of alliances, particularly the Entente Cordiale with France and Russia, made it likely that any conflict involving these powers would draw Britain into a larger war. When the July Crisis erupted following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, British leaders did little to prevent the escalation of tensions. Despite last-minute efforts by some, such as German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg's plea for British neutrality, Britain remained committed to its alliances and the belief that war with Germany was necessary. It's worth noting that other European leaders, such as French President Raymond Poincaré and Russian Tsar Nicholas II, also played significant roles in the outbreak of the war. However, Britain's long-standing rivalry with Germany, its naval arms race, and its commitment to alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict all contributed to its readiness to enter the war when the opportunity arose.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    There’s a much simpler theory of the war, which is that it was Germany that was worried about a foreign rival catching up to them—Russia—which is why Germany pushed for the war to start. It’s interesting to see this theory projected onto the British, but there’s a fatal flaw with this projection. The first declaration of war was by Austria-Hungary against Serbia. Britain was not in a position to manipulate the situation as to encourage that; Germany was. And Germany would have known that an Austro-Hungarian war on Serbia would draw in Russia, which is how they get the Russo-German war they actually wanted. How, exactly, mechanistically, does Britain manipulate this crisis into an Anglo-German war? They didn’t make Austria-Hungary declare war. They didn’t even declare war alongside the French. And they certainly didn’t make Germany invade France by way of Belgium in order to give Britain a pretext. It sounds to me like Germany wanted war with Russia and was confident they could also afford war with France (having kicked their asses in 1870 already) but would have really preferred to keep Britain out of it. If there is a criticism one can levy against the British, it might be that they simply weren’t forceful enough in making that consequence clear to the Germans ahead of time. The “alliances that would likely trigger a larger conflict” were in fact a consciously designed system of balances of power meant to deter exactly that type of large scale war, in the tradition that was established 99 years previously in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s easy to dismiss that system because it failed catastrophically in 1914, but the fact that it had mostly worked since 1815 was unprecedented in European history. The 99 years between the Napoleonic and First World Wars were the most peaceful 99 years of European history since at least the Roman Empire; check back in 2044 to see if we can break that record.
mr_toad 2y ago
Britain was absolutely not prepared for war at the start of WWII. If they had lost the Battle of Britain it is unlikely they would have survived a land invasion.
- czl 2y ago
  WWI, not WWII. Look again at my words and at the other replies.

xcv123 2y ago

Japan was already trying to negotiate conditional surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The US demanded unconditional surrender, and they nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians to force that demand. The bombing of Dresden is arguably a war crime by todays standards. It was unnecessary. Remember that we were allied with the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin was the "good guy" on our side). After WW2 he was given half of Europe as a reward, forcing that half of Europe to become communist, and the Soviets got to write the history books about Germany and WW2. Not the most transparent and unbiased source of information. The Soviets and other allied soldiers (the good guys) also had a free-for-all with the German ladies after winning the war. "The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...

lupusreal 2y ago
Japan should have unconditionally surrendered in March, half a year before the nukes, when the US military burned most of Tokyo to the ground in less than two hours. And yes. Stalin was a bad guy and it's a pity the war didn't end with the demise of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This is also irrelevant to the matter of strategic bombings perpetrated by America and Britain.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xcv123 2y ago
  General George S. Patton: "We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually." https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&dq=patton+bastards+%22wrong+enemy%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22wrong+enemy%22 https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&id=32DxAAAAMAAJ&d...
  - 2y ago

pdonis 2y ago

> one side intends to conquer a continent or the world, invades without provocation, and won't stop until brought to submission through extreme force? The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. "The Allies" included the Soviet Union, which did initiate war--against Finland, against Poland, against Japan (this in the 1930s, before historians say WW II started)--and wanted even more war, hoping that all of the capitalist countries would destroy each other and leave the USSR to take over. And as others have pointed out, the USSR ended up in control of Eastern Europe, which was supposed to be liberated from tyranny--that was the original reason for Britain and France declaring war on Germany when Poland was invaded--so WW II actually failed at its primary objective. Even if you make the argument that Allied firebombing raids were a justified war measure, that argument only works if the war succeeds at its objective. If it fails, that argument falls to the ground.

adrian_b 2y ago
Well said. It is indeed very weird to claim that UK and France have won in WWII, when they had initially declared war in order to fulfil they alliance obligations toward Poland and Czechoslovakia, but the result of WWII was that both Poland and Czechoslovakia have lost large parts of their territories (like also others of the former allies of UK and France that happened to be neighbors of the Soviet Union). UK did not won anything in WWII. They have just preserved their integrity like someone whose home was under attack by a gang of robbers and murderers, but they got rid of the attackers by paying another gang of robbers and murderers to do most of the work, and the payment was done not with their own money, but with money stolen from other assault victims (i.e. by giving to Stalin the Eastern Europe, which was not the property of Churchill, for him to have any right to give). Poland was much luckier than all the other neighbors of the Soviet Union, because much of its territorial loss has been compensated with territories taken from Germany. Therefore, when one compares pre-WWII with post-WWII Europe maps, at the first glance Poland does not seem to have changed much in size. However, after a more thorough look, it becomes obvious that Poland has moved on the map from east to west.
lupusreal 2y ago
Is that meant to be an oblique reference to the meme that America "initiated war" with Japan by choosing not to literally fuel Japans imperial ambitions? This reddit take is the most moronic of them all (and if this is what you're talking about, you got the decade wrong.) Japan was not entitled to foreign oil, nor the foreign land they intended to take by force using that oil, and America choosing not to give it to them was not a declaration of war. The war between Japan and half the world was started by Japan's own ambition. If you wanted to make the case that America started it you would have to go back to the 1850s when America rudely introduced them to modern gunboat diplomacy. But for that argument you would need to read a damn book instead of parroting any fool opinion you learned on Reddit.

pfannkuchen 2y ago

> where one side intends to conquer a continent or the world I believe this view indicates you may have drunk a bit too much of the kool aid. Germany had zero ability to hold all of Europe longer term, let alone the entire world. This is a comic book tier view. Any end to the war would have had concessions and land transfers but there is no precedent to suggest that even France would have remained under Germany longer term if the Germans had won. Western Poland and bits of other nations, sure, but that is hardly an entire continent or world. The notion that they were a serious threat to occupy the US is hilarious and goes to show how effective the fear mongering propaganda was and continues to be to this day. > The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war England and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Arguably the whole thing could have been avoided if England and France hadn’t backed Poland, which would have likely caused Poland to negotiate on the original land bridge problem rather than dig their heels in. It’s eerily parallel to the situation with Ukraine today, in fact.

robbiep 2y ago
Are you advocating for a view of history that paints Germany as a victim?
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Definitely not. Just one that depicts actual humans and not comic book villains.
wewtyflakes 2y ago
> Western Poland and bits of other nations, sure You say that as if it is meaningless. How about just not invading your neighbors?
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  “The entire world” down to “half of Poland” may be the theoretically largest goalpost move possible (on Earth, anyway).

incompatible 2y ago

WW2 became a world war when Britain and France declared war on Germany. Of course, they could have stood back and let the Nazi's carry out their plan of annexing Eastern Europe, but they drew the line at Poland.

mr_toad 2y ago
Does anyone seriously think that the Nazis would have stopped at Eastern Europe?
- incompatible 2y ago
  It's what Hitler was saying he wanted, Lebensraum for a new German empire by conquering the "inferior" people of Eastern Europe. Western Europe probably didn't expect to be invaded, and who knows what kind of alternative history would have taken place if Britain and France hadn't got involved. Perhaps the Nazi's would never have been satisfied unless they were at war somewhere, or perhaps they would have had their hands full in the east. Nato countries today probably assume that Russia invading Ukraine isn't a prelude for Russia attacking Nato countries.
philwelch 2y ago
No, that’s when WW2 became a pan-European war. It became a world war when Japan attacked the British and Americans, thus combining the Anglo-German and Sino-Japanese wars into a single conflict.
- me_me_me 2y ago
  Calling it a single conflict is bit of hair splitting, japan had almost nothing to do with germany, especially after war started. Those were 2 separate conflicts happening at the same time.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    Part of what combined the two conflicts, aside from Allied questions about resource allocations and priorities, was the supply lines of the British Empire. There was a continuous series of supply lines running all the way from England to Burma, through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal and down through South Asia. The Suez Canal (under threat from the Italians and Germans) was part of the exact same supply line as the Burma Road (under threat from the Japanese).

Aeolun 2y ago

We will never know, but I think it’s arguable that most of the terror campaigns by the allies came at the tail end of the war and were of questionable military effectiveness.

meigwilym 2y ago

The firebombing of Dresden needlessly killed thousands of civilians, and arguably did nothing for the war effort. With the posisble exception of bolstering the resolve of front line German soldiers. Had the axis powers won the war I'm certain it would have been classified as a war crime and Bomber Harris would have been the first against the wall.

arrowsmith 2y ago
Lol, what did the Axis powers care about "war crimes"? If they'd won they'd have had every Allied leader up against the wall on day one of the occupation, even if we hadn't killed a single "innocent" civilian. Why would they have needed a pretext? Both sides were not the same.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago

I understand what you are saying, but how does killing innocent civilians that have no say in the running of the war help?