The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.
 

How did they cope with it?

I don't believe at the airmen level it was seen so much as a "defeat", but more as a change of orders. All attention was next focussed upon Operation Barbarossa, so the significance of what had occurred, ie losing the Battle of Britain, didn't play such a huge part in the eyes of the German fliers that were gearing up for a much larger battle ahead.

That's my take - I could be wrong.

First of many.. Till they got use to it ;)

The simple fact is that up until the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had never faced an adversary that was even mildly prepared to go to war.

The same was true of Barbarossa. The Russians were poorly equipped and trained, had the best of their officer corps murdered by Stalin during the Purges, and had a high command that thought they would not go to war with Germany because of the non-aggression treaty.

Add to that the fact that the Luftwaffe leadership was overly political, and had only a short experience of actually running an air force, coupled with an industrial base that didn't go on a "total war" footing until the war was pretty much lost, and had a raw materials supply chain that was tenuous at best, and failure was pretty much the only outcome.

In spite of the obvious skill of individual pilots, the Luftwaffe, like Germany as a whole, never had a chance in the long run.

Much the same can be said for Japan.

Don't think it was seen as the beginning of the end. Remember the Wehrmacht went to the Balkans and made short work of Greece, Yugoslavia and the British Expeditionary Forces there. And then they even captured Crete ... and then there was, of course, Rommel and his Afrika Korps. ;)

The main result was, however, a beginning crisis of trust between the frontline and the leadership back in Berlin in the person of Göring and his closest cronies. Before the jokes about his considerable girth and his pompous manners were said with some kind of amused goodwill, but now they took on a decidedly acidic tone and grew more cutting than before. Especially among the fighter pilots who felt they'd been hung out to dry and then made scapegoats for the bomber losses (when it was apparent that Göring's own Intelligence section was better suited for writing fairy tales).

Actually the numerical losses were made good, it was just the loss of experienced and pre-war trained pilots and leaders that proved problematic but - in the longer run - not unsolvable..

A lot has been said about the BoB and the effects it had on the Luftwaffe, especially by Galland, but when one looks at the facts as presented by Prien/Rodeike/Stemmer/Beck the situation loses the drama Galland and others have attributed to it. The only two arms that really lost numbers (when one compares 1941 to 1940) were the destroyers and the Stukas. And still both arms would make a considerable contribution to Barbarossa.

Stalingrad and El Alamein, were just lost battles, not more and not less.
El Alamein was the beginning of the End for the Africa Korps, but even without this event, the Allied would have landed in Sicilly sooner or later anyways.
El Alamein was a win for the Brits and polished their self esteem, because they sucked the Months before.
Stalingrad was kind of a german Trauma, because it was the first Major Victory for the Red Army, but the real smell of Defeat came with Operation Bagration. IIRC this was the hugest defeat in German Military History.

my oppinon is GERMANY - ITALY ATTAK BRITTAIN ERROR.... if SPAIN enter in tripartite patc GERMANY JAPAN AND ITALY we winn the war.
immagine spain and italy and germany massive attack to england.


operation barbarossa germany attak northrussia and midlerussia italy attak centerrussia and middlerussia front and japan attak from east front.
RUSSIA loser.
IF ITALY conquerer the caucaso and ejipt after for germany is simple project a strategical attak to RUSSIA but italy loser in libia and south africa the project is failed.

another question Mussolini go order attak england but ITALY use only a little number air force but not NAVAL force because the italian navy not running over GIBRILTAIR if GIBRILTAIR is free much ITALIAN NAVAL FORCE ATTAK BRITTAIN.

Dowding was a smart cookie....he's refusal to let the RAF be drawn up in significant numbers over the channel and even later over land was a significant part of wining the battle. The point of the bombing raids was to entice the RAF up where they could be destroyed in the air. They failed at this and the changes in tactic by Goering made matters much worse....in many was you could argue that the Luftwaffe defeated itself.

I totally agree with this and the description "cronies". I think if the smart men like Galland, Molders and General Kamhuber would have bean left alone to do their jobs and listened to things would have been much tougher for the allies in the air wars.

The British overestimated the strength of the Luftwaffe and its ability to replace losses and geared up accordingly.

The Germans underestimated the strength of Fighter Command, its defensive command and control systems, and Britain's ability to replace both aircraft and pilots.

The Luftwaffe's mass raids were partly designed to draw up the RAF in large numbers to be shot down.

Keith Park's insistence on sending up small numbers of fighters in relays prevented this happening. It's perhaps as well that Leigh-Mallory and Bader with their so called 'Big Wing' didn't get their way until after the Battle.

All of the factors leading to the outcome of the Battle would fill a book, in fact several as people keep writing them with a 'new' perspective.

As to 'how did they cope?' - they turned to night raids in smaller numbers, whilst they rebuilt their numerical strength in preparation for Barbarossa the following summer.

But as has already been said, a great deal of the skill and experience base was never regained and suffered greater attrition as the war continued.

It's my opinion that the biggest factor in the outcome of the Battle was the existence of a stretch of water called the 'English Channel'. Were it not for this, Blitzkrieg would have overrun Britain just as it had the largest military power in Europe, which at the time was France.;)

I love this classic old excuse for the germans, because the Brits were just such utter crap otherwise eh?, the channel failed to stop us coming back over.

Hehehehe

It's not even worth my time to type an appropriate reply to this nationalistic BS of a post. :roll:

1. I fail to see where it's nationalistic

2. how is downplaying the efforts made by the British and making geographical excuses for their sucess not nationalistic for the germans part

3. men died on both sides fighting for their lives, they probably wouldn't appreciate any excuses being made

It was never about winning or losing individual battles or about skill or courage. The axis lost due to a lack of resources. Germany went into Russia and particularly North Africa to secure oil supplies. When they failed they had no chance even without the overwhelming output of equipment from America. The same with Japan. The Americans had more fuel in a fuel dump on one island in the Pacific than the entire fuel available to Japan. This was a large part of the rational behind Kamikazi tactics. They literally could not keep flying missions and it was a last desperate attempt to inflict maximum damage on the advancing enemy.

There was a good documentary on the Battle of Britain done by the BBC a little while back. The premise of that was that Germany failed in its objectives due to tactics and logistics. The Germans over engineered thier aircraft and simply could not keep up with the numbers of the more basic British offerings. The British had a good system of pilot rotation whereas the Germans were soon suffering from fatigue. Also the British had a good system of radar that was used to good effect. On top of all that was Goerings monumental blunder of switching from military to civillian targets. Finally the Germans ran out of time and missed the chance of mounting an invasion before Winter set in and so continuing that particular battle became pointless.

It neither stopped the Brits from making a bit hastened return from the continent - sans all heavy weapons, tanks, guns or even mortars of course. Now, crossing the channel in barges in a way like this may be sufficient if you will be greeted with a hot cup of tea, but mounting invasion is a bit different and harder.

The German armed forces simply did not had the means to make an invasion it 1940, and they knew it very well. Nobody in Germany foresaw a war with England, nor did they made any serious preparation to be capable of large scale amphibian operations. So no, in 1940, a seaborne invasion was not going to happen. Just think a bit about that the Western Allies needed to prepeare for four years to be able to mount one.

Again, given that we had our cowardly english asses chased across the channel and we left all our toys behind, sounds like we had nothing left but tea to offer, so why let a little puddle prevent the opportunity for a delicious hot beverage.

yes it took a bit of time to prepare for the Normandy landings, after all we had all that time to drink tea and do bugger all else, not like we were fighting anywhere else in the world now is it....oh wait..

blue italy red germany yellow spain 3 color for a project a massive attak to brittain but this project failure.
Attachment 7167

Nice to have such old people here , who did the fighting :D

Fair point, it's easy to get carried away with feelings of national involvement.

To sum it up.. Germany bit off more than it could chew way before it went to war with the UK.. With regards to the defeat of Germany.. It was never a question of 'if' just a question of 'when'

After Dunkirk you didn't had more left but tea to offer!!
Otherwise why should Churchill Lend & Lease some 50 war weary US Destroyers?
Ah yes because you ran out even on tea. :rolleyes:
And your British Army sucked on every major Battle until the USA showed up at the ETO, the same is for the PTO!
But that's maybe because they didn't had allways Canadians and Australians on their side, they know how to fight!

Ah OK, so you Germans just sacrificed a few LW pilots to us Brits for a bit of sport just to make us feel better.....I see, I guess it was the same in North Africa too, us poor Brits spent the whole time moaning about how the Germans kept taking all the best spots on the beach with their towels, so you graciously retreated and left us to it.....thanks, I suppose the comando raids we made in Norway were just a clear illustration of how cowardly the Brits could be, war weary US destroyers......way I see it they weren't seeing much war at the time so somebody may as well have been using them.

DISCLAIMER.....for the next pedant that wants to point out my use of the words us/we, may I please remind you I made no suggestion I was out there fighting the war myself.

Apart for the fact that this whole thread is in the wrong room and a mere silly provocation, I would like to stress out that no matter what people here say, most reliable historians (even RAF ones) say that the Battle of Britain wasn't won or lost by either side, at least not until the end of the conflict.

The German command suspended Operation Sea Lion in view of Barbarossa, so that they could concentrate more resources on the huge Russian front.

The United Kingdom opposed a strong defence to the German attacks, but the attrition of the Battle of Britain was surely doing more damage to Great Britain than to Germany, let's not forget that whilst Great Britain had most of their resources involved in the Battle of Britain, Germany had its forces scattered all over Europe.

Without going into the battle of what ifs, we can surely say that Great Britain got back into the war only after the Americans flooded their territory with troops, vehicles and aeroplanes. Great Britain alone would have NEVER been able to go anywhere beyond the Channel, hadn't the Americans joined in the war effort.

yes just consideration AMERICAN HELP BRITTAIN if american not help BRITTAIN after BRITTAIN not have any canche of attak germany or italy.

deleted, not worth the bother on such a type of person.

Yes i love you too.

So Germany invading the rest of europe was not an act of war? I see......... so the treaty of Versaile which was drawn up after the Germans last act of aggression and subsequent defeat was just 'unfair'?, like nobody had the right to stand in their way while they did whatever they wanted, arrogant ***t's

guys, there is no need to get aggressive on each other over a matter that was resolved 65 years ago.

Truth is that ignorants will be ignorants, living in England has taught me that Britons are probably one of the most stubborn populations on this planet (if not the Solar System), which is both a good and a bad thing.

Some Britons can't be objective: characters like Dowding, Harris and above all Montgomery (a pompous imbecile, nothing more nothing less) embody a military ineptitude that, again hadn't the Americans joined, would have been fatal to them. They even took the mick on their allies, but then again some justify it by saying it's the awkward British way of showing gratitude, go figure..

+1

Bongo, the Treaty of Versailles is considered THE long term cause of WW2, the impositions were just ridiculous (mostly imposed by France) and meant to humiliate a country with a glorious heritage. Try and imagine the same thing applied to Great Britain, how well you reckon things would have gone?

Oh they bit allright! And got thier teeth knocked out for it! ;)

They just failed to see alot of things

Montogomery I'll let you have, the rest of your statement is pure BS and you have learned nothing from us.

Considered by whom? the Germans.......

Glorious heritage.......like what was so glorious about it we should have bowed down before the almighty Germans, delusions of grandeur? almost believing they are a master race or something.....oh wait...

Dowding almost cost you the Battle of Britain, Harris wasted aircrews and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives with his ridiculous bombing campaign, which is regarded as a war crime and not essential to the war in the ETO.

I have learned a lot from you, I still regard your country as one of the best in the world, but people here can go to both extremes in terms of behaviour.

Waiiiit bit here. Back in 1939, didn't the UK back then look like this?

http://www.defenceimagedatabase.mod....ire_map_lg.jpg

I will be the first to admit that I personally am very glad that the BE entered and fought this war to its end, but nothing of that fondness has anything to do with common english arguments about how it all started, the fingerpointing about baddies and egocentric breast polishing.
And do not even let me come to "agression" in WW1. In this regard the UK started histories first full blown propaganda campain against another country and that has influence to this very day.

Some of the tones in this thread, however, are uncalled for. The war ended over 60 years ago and enough blood was shed for generations. Nobody posting in this thread attacked or defended anything in WW2 or can claim for himself the deeds of his/her countrymen present or past, positive or negative, so I suggest getting the stick out from where no light goes. All for an open debate about this era in history but folks should leave those nationalistic butthurt signs at home.

You Sir are an asshole! Not more and not less!!

No, by British and German historians alike. It's not stuff I'm making up, it's all in boring history books man.

Let's not take this to a silly level: the German empire had a long, glorious heritage, and the German pride was a transversal feeling that put together the peasant with the noble. The humiliation and the impossible economic demands of Versailles were a provocative humiliation.

from Wikipedia

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war (along with Austria and Hungary, according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Trianon) and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay heavy reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6.6 billion) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US $442 billion and UK £217 billion in 2011, a sum that many economists at the time, notably John Maynard Keynes, deemed to be excessive and counterproductive and would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay.[2][3] The final payments ended up being made on October 4, 2010,[4] the 20th anniversary of German reunification, and some 92 years after the end of the war for which they were exacted.[5] The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1932 and was widely flouted by the mid-1930s.[6]

So what?.........

Woah there Bongo mate, you took my statement entirely out of context.

There's no-one more emphatic than I in affirming that we bloody won the Battle no matter what any of the latter day excuse mongers drone on about.

I wasn't making any excuses for anyone, but it is my opinion that but for the Channel and the existence of the Royal Navy, Germany's land and airforces combined would've stuffed us. Until such time as the empire, the dominions and the U.S. came to our aid.

But I repeat, we did win and won hands down.;)

mea culpa, i was overwhelmed by my feelings.

Gosh! This thread has gone down the drain faster than even I had imagined. Aparently some people still fight WW2 or feel the need to ... *shakes head*

it's a delusional idea man, it's propaganda for little people, history tells otherwise.

Oh well in that case I'm awfully sorry, god forbid that a little patience might have seen a political and peacefull coclusion to this, from this moment on I shal endeavour to murder any Pole, Jew, Human of questionable genetics/ethicity to make amends for the serious wrongdoing we caused the Germans.

All of which had no reason for the UK to enter the war.

Hindsight != political reality in 1939.

you're looking at the effect, not the cause.

Had the Germans not been humiliated like they were after WW1, their morale wouldn't have been so down (let's not forget that in the 20s German industry was back with its pre-war glory), their economy wouldn't have been crippled, so they wouldn't have needed a political and military revenge, so Hitler would have kept on being a $hit painter and get banged in jail again and again instead of doing what he did.

The French really wanted to use all of Germany's resources for the next 80 years (!!!) to live off their WW1 victory, now if that's not an all French provocation I dunno how to call it..

Europe is bound together for the better! Germans are fine, as are Italians, Brits, Russians, the whole lot. Sad to see some of the comments TBH.

I agree, but one should add, for the sake of the propper spirit of this debate...this post serves to give an understanding, not to give apologies for what happend in WW2 on the german side.

Well we all know what happens when we forget history.....

I agree. You know, I keep on giving things for granted but I'm often proven wrong, some people still shut their ears and go LALALALALALALALA!!! when you try to talk objectively and with hindsight about WW1 and WW2.

Youre joking right....the biggest shame I feel is that Britain didn't decare war after the invasion of Poland....those poor people deserved better from the rest of the world.

declare war with what exactly? 5 Hurricanes and 10 Fairey Battles?

Great Britain had no interest in another war, you actually had a lot of the Nazis coming around to make friends and create a new alliance (and some of you were also falling for it..). Fortunately you didn't, but things could have taken a really awkward direction..

The propper spirit of this debate was about the German defeat in the battle of britain, but it has been invaded by a load of Germans going LALALALALALA! we never did anything wrong, we werent beaten it was just a fleshwound!

Here we go again eh Stern?

History does not tell otherwise, and propaganda works both ways.

1) Hitler did not wish for war with Britain

2) He thought he could bring us to the negotiating table by threat of or actual invasion and establishment of air superioity.

3) Goering said the RAF would last 'two weeks'.

Hitler got what he didn't want, i.e. war with Britain

He didn't force us to the negotiating table or succeed in invading or establishing air superiority.

RAF fighter command had more pilots and aircraft at the end of the Battle than the start, which is more than can be said for the Luftwaffe.

Hitler for once, didn't get what he wanted, which was a 'Free hand in Europe', and suffered the first real setback he'd encountered since coming to power.

I fail to see which part of 'winning' you don't understand.

Britain declared war on September 3rd 1939, so what the hell are you talking about?

Yes fair enough, I meant our half hearted attempt at helping, the declaration was there of course.

Apart from the pointless arguing over what happened 70 years ago the most distressing thing about this thread is the tone - some people are approaching a conflict in which millions died with the same attitude they bring to supporting their football team - "we would have won the game too if our star striker hadn't been ruled out with injury".

Some people have a lot of growing up to do.

Sad.

Se we were an underdog!.....we still are, has the German phyce no concept of fighting back against a bigger aggressor? the Brits have nothing to feel ashamed of in that respect.

Look, if you don't want people to spoil your breast polishing, you may want to consider not posting in an international forum. Chances are that ppl have different opinions.

You may want to extend that argument to....well, what about a quarter of the world?
You are aware your are constantly shooting your own food with this argument? Why won't try something like "whatever the reasons, in hindsight it was the right thing to do"?
Lots of people would agree with this, even on the other side of the argument. But insisting on post war findings being the reason for pre war descisions serves nobody with a real interest to understand what was happening back then.

You can make all the belittleing posts you like, what the hell is breast polishing anyway? just look at your own post and tell me you dont have an issue because 'I' have a differrent oppinion to you....but you won't find me trying to make little petty comment on your character.

yes, someday you'll open a history book that is not together with the Sun and you might realise that you're talking nonsense..

Hitler didn't want to wage war against Britain mainly cos he didn't need it (as much as this is a beautiful country, it didn't have any strategic or resource value whatsoever, at least back in the late 30s), he regarded it as a possible European ally against the "Bolshevik threat".
that was Plan B. Plan A was what I mentioned above.
Goering dressed up like a Nazi Elton John and had his same competence in terms of air warfare. The truth is that the Luftwaffe was a potent machine throughout the Battle, and had they stuck to the original plans of crippling airfields and factories, you would have had no air superiority over your own country.

He was arrogant and obviously 2 weeks was a ridiculous statement to make his boss happy, and as you know, his boss was a fan of ridiculous statements right until the end, when he was moving imaginary battalions on the map.
Hitler was extremely short tempered, had he arranged things better, making sure that a suitable invasion flottilla was ready, he would have steamrolled his way all the way up North.. Let's not forget how much they advanced in Russia and how close they got to Moscow, do you really think that, had they really wanted to invade Britain, the Channel or the Royal Navy would have stopped them?
yes, simply cos you were of no interest and had no resources that he could be interested in, and his military command realised that it would have been too much logistical effort to conquer such an irrelevant country, because, let's face it, they kicked you out of the European mainland and spared a slaughter of British troops in Dunkirk.

Hitler simply said "enough of this, it's taking too long, we'll get back to them once we're done with Russia". Big mistake, cos in the meantime the Americans joined the party.. but hey, had they kept a better relationship with their Allies, they would have known better..

If the Americans didn't join in, you would have been sad spectators of the horror going through Europe. You wouldn't surely have been able to invade the European mainland by yourselves.

yes, cos they were moved to other fronts. Also, shall we comment on the preparation and skills of your poorly trained pilots back then? Some of those poor guys were sent up with less than 25 hours on the Spitfire and Hurricane.
Great Britain was no mainland Europe, he had no interest in invading you, his idea of Seeloewe was just a childish tantrum, and for that tantrum thousands of people died.

The Battle of Britain was a draw. Nobody ever won it.

no, that's true, you only have to feel ashamed for the bomber offensive perpetrated by Harris. That's your only flaw in an otherwise spotless conduct.

Uh and Market-Garden.

Breast polishing? Should be pretty self explainatory. Making your armor shine that much that it blinds you.

I have zero intention of belittleing you, i just have a problem with mixing national pathos with fact finding.

Spot on.

But...but I'm not wearing armour.....I don't understand......oh I get it youre saying I'm a jumped up little nationalist prick etc....no thats not belittleing at all.

Oh so we need to feel ashamed of a couple of mistakes while Germany is completely absolved because it happened so long ago and nobody really got hurt.....well nobody important anyway eh?

All of that great rambling post simply agrees with what I said, apart from you considering the Battle a 'Draw'.

And I don't read The Sun.:-P

No we don't, any more than the Americans should be ashamed of Bomber campaigns in both Europe and the Pacific.

And it wasn't perpetrated by Harris.

Harris never did anything that wasn't sanctioned by the war cabinet, headed by Churchill.

Harris has been made a scapegoat for far too long.

haven't said that Germany shouldn't feel ashamed, they still do and pay for it (I had a German girlfriend in 2007, she was 27 and a part of the taxes she paid went on the reimbursement for the war..).

Your "couple of mistakes", as you called them, cost 600.000 civilian lives and 55.000 RAF airmen.

Didn't hear much mourning from the British side on this though.

You are placing words into my mouth. Don't blame me for you to read what you want to read. My apologies if I came over as overly sarcastic, but it's not as if you made yourself easy to ignore.

Wow, what a thread, such passion and personal feelings, I can't condone the wording in some posts, but I can understand it.

The thread went far off topic from the original "how did they cope with it".

Let's see if I can input my 2cents for what it's worth.

Germany did not start WW1, due to the events in Sarajevo and subsequent actions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the at the time existing treaties Germany was drawn into the war, the powder keg that Europe was at the time simply exploded.
Post war humiliation of Germany cetainly didn't help crate a stable political landscape. (Never completely humiliate an enemy after defeating him, since he may later become your ally, Sun Tzu, The Art of War, freely quoted).

The Luftwafffe had an internally torn and inept leadership that failed to see pretty much everything, especially in terms of tactics and strategy.

The Luftwaffe was not designed to deal with the task at hand, it was very much a branch of the armed forces that was at it's best fighting in concert with ground forces.

Luftwaffe pilots were at a distinct phsicological disadvantage, you constantly have to watch your fuel guage over England, it may seem minor but it's certainly not (Kanal Krankheit).

The Luftwaffe leadership completely underestimated the strength of the RAF and Britain's production rate for new airplanes.

Radar in concert with the right strategy of not going for an all out battle with the Luftwaffe was a huge advantage for Britain.

BUT the most understated and yet maybe the most important thing in the battle was the organisation of fighter command, and it's network of civilian spotters all throughout England. This network of spotters, all equiped with a telehone line (state of the art technology at the time), no matter where, was the world's first intranet and was virtually indestructible. The MarkI Eyeball was the true enabler for fighter command and the RAF to fight so effectively and successfully.

Common therories suggest that the RAF was close to being on it's knees when the attacks were shifted from airfields and military installations to bombing cities, new research suggests that the RAF in fact never came close to being on it's knees (History Channel, Battlefield Detectives, Battle of Britain), huge losses, yes, RAF veteran pilots didn't even bother to learn the names of the replacement pilots when they just arrived, but never close to defeat.

While this list is certainly not complete, in conclusion the BoB was a decisive victory for Britain, I am not sure which german officer said it (going to have to research), but when asked when he thought Germany had lost WW2, he answered "with the Battle of Britain" and I completely agree.

Where have I given the impression it wasn't the right thing to do, a quarter of the world? they had no obligation to join the fight, they made their own decisions, it's not like we could hold the canadians , aussies, kiwis and south africans to ransom over it, no we did the right thing ok, and the Americans only joined in......well lets just say it wasn't because we made them do it eh!

And how did it come that aussies, kiwis, indians, south africans had to make that choice in the first place?

The UK conquored all of the world and from my POV, if you want to blame Germany for conquoring all of Europe you have to stop being a British Citizen, or at least argueing from that basis on, and become a human being just like everyboy else. Only from that perspective is fingerpointing justified.

If I seem a little heated in this topic perhaps we need to look at this lovely man's post, he practically pissed on the grave of every fallen British serviceperson......forgive me if it seems unreasonable to get 'miffed' by this, and he had the balls to say I'm an asshole.......

it was a draw. The Battle of Britain was about air superiority over the Channel. You didn't gain air superiority over the Channel area even after the Battle of Britain was over, did you? You had to wait for the Americans to show up in order to achieve that.

Just kidding about the Sun mate ;)

Agreed, that was uncalled for as well.

Sometimes I just love Americans. Cheers Ned.;)

Wasn't it Paulus at Stalingrad?

at no point has this topic been about past British conquests, and as it happens for the large part I don't agree with the way some of these countries were colonised, I will never sanction murdering native populations, but the fact is that for the most part the colonies were relatively at ease with being so, they were given infrastructure and genrally benefited from what the British empire gave them,and for the ones that remain colonies I don't believe we were ever in a position to maintain them as such,it's their choice, I somehow don't think most of europe was that happy being conquered by the Germans, they might have liked it more if they were built some nice new railways, schools, hospitals etc.......I don't know, just because you want to make a little ethnic house cleaning and the world turn against you....how unfair.

Well i have to correct my self, your British Army performed well against the Italians in the MTO, at least until Rommel showed up there.

I'm sorry but that's wrong. It's now a fact that Germany can be considered the main culript of WW1. The Sarajevo killing was only a short term cause, look up for the Schliffen Plan, it was discovered only after the war by some brave German historians and it was the smoking gun, the evidence that the Germans had in mind a European continent invasion and they pushed themselves as much as thinking of a new order for African countries as well.

Nope, it was about air superiority over Southern England and the Channel in preparation for the threatened invasion. Britain certainly did achieve air superiority over Southern England, the Channel was kind of like the net in a tennis match.;)

And I wasn't there personally, not having been born until 22 years afterwards.

True to a point, but not giving the whole picture. The first country to start mobilisation was Russia. Everything else went on automatic from that point on.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/willynicky.htm

These letters between the Tsar and the Kaiser should be of particlular interest in this regard.

Were still paying taxes for our cost in the war, at least germany has paid off it's debt (I heard a while back)

forgive us if we haven't made enough programmes that highlight the awfull nature of the 'firebombing' raids, and I guess at the time we were busy digging our own dead out of our own bombed cities....sorry.

Market Garden?....so it's ok for the Germans to use bad planning blah blah blah as an excuse for the 'defeat' in the BOB, and somehow we need to feel ashamed of our Paras for putting up a pretty damned good fight against overwhelming odds?

Oh....and how did that go in the end?.......

You know, it seriously does hurt to see these guys fighting with each other here. You know where the expression "anglo-saxon" comes from and why England is named England?

As for the battle being a decisive victory for Britain, even just looking at the numbers confirms it, google it and find the losses for each side, but beyond that, the Luftwaffe did not acomplish it's set goal (not due to it's pilots), while the RAF did.

And for anyone who underestimates the fighting ability of british soldiers all I have to say, from everything I know, I would never ever want to meet british soldiers in combat. I've met british troops,combat troops, in peace, as an ally, and they are dead serious professionals who know exactely what they are doing.

this thread would of been much more interesting and polite without Kongo-otto.

guess he's just a kid.

You didn't gain air superiority over Southern England and the Channel after the Battle of Britain, you kept on receiving raids and German planes were still flying over your territory regularly until late 1941, air superiority over Great Britiain and Northern Europe was achieved only when the Americans got there.

..says the one that called someone else a pr**k.. :rolleyes:

We should try and keep this conversation factual, with no national bias, but I understand it's not easy.

The USA had to show up and help you.

The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war where it might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the east. The First World War later became such a war with both a Western Front and an Eastern Front. The plan took advantage of expected differences in the three countries' speed in preparing for war. In short, it was the German plan to avoid a two-front war by concentrating their troops in the west, quickly defeating the French and then, if necessary, rushing those troops by rail to the east to face the Russians before they had time to mobilize fully. The Schlieffen Plan was created by Count Alfred von Schlieffen and modified by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger after Schlieffen's retirement. It was Moltke who actually put the plan into action, despite initial reservations about it.[citation needed] In modified form, it was executed to near victory in the first month of World War I; however, the modifications to the original plan, a French counterattack on the outskirts of Paris (the Battle of the Marne), and surprisingly speedy Russian offensives, ended the German offensive and resulted in years of trench warfare. The plan has been the subject of intense debate among historians and military scholars ever since. Schlieffen's last words were "remember to keep the right flank strong".


Taken from wikipedea, not the all knowing source many claim it to be, but it gives you a good idea.

I certainly do. In fact when my sister asked me why I studied German at school rather than French, I said it was because I identified more readily with my Anglo-Saxon genes than my Norman ones.;)

It's also one of the reasons Hitler didn't want to go to war against Britain.

No offence to any of our French members intended, before anyone severs my jugular!:grin:

Not at el Alamein they didn't

Yes but the Schlieffen Plan was flawed anyways and it brought the Britons in to the war.

that's not what I meant Bongo, I meant that there isn't much relevance given to the criminal act of firebombing civilian targets as it should, it's not about taxes or BBC programmes.

You're doing it again Bongo, putting words in other people's mouths. Market-Garden was something to be ashamed of (under a military point of view) not because of the brave work done by your fantastic Paras, but because of that idiot that goes by the name of Montgomery, who even after the war never admitted his plan was too much of a stretch, done on poor intelligence and an unnecessary sacrifice of brave, good soldiers.

Ah really and were came your Supplies from? like the tanks and the fuel and the ammo. Without the US Supplies and the later Invasion from the US troops in Morocco, you would have lost.

in fairness, i edited that very quickly, but not quick enough:rolleyes:

teehehe ;)

What can I say......as far as I know it's our taxes paying to make amends for dresden and the likes, you seem to be misled over any non aknowledgement of the said raids by the British, we are fully aware of it and I don't think anybody deep down is proud of it, I'm afraid I'm at a loss why you brought market garden up at all in that case, even good commanders have made mistakes but I have already agreed with you Montgomery was a useless bellend.

guys, it is a fact that Great Britain alone wouldn't have gone far, you needed to outsource from the Commonwealth and the USA to carry on fighting on so many fronts, let's never forget this.

ETO: American and Commonwealth support

MTO: same as above

PTO: Commonwealth support (in fact you left most of this to the Aussies)

As to the Bomber command raids, i don't think anyone now would say it was a good thing, but we are judging from todays standpoint and with hindsight, both of which were absent in the 40's.