I have just got through watching this series and one of the comments made in it has made me think, the statement was "If Britain had lost the North African campaign then the war would have been unwinnable".

I have always believed that North Africa was a bit of a side show so I would be interested to hear what others think of this statement because I am not sure I agree with it.

If we had lost North Africa then the we would have not only lost the Suez Canal but whole of the Med;, along with all the oil fields. It would of course been a huge set back but it would not have been the end of the world or the end of the war as we were still quite strong in other parts of Africa. There again this is all just a personal opinion

I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.

it would probably depend on when the victory was won. my initial thought that any time at the end of '41 would have secured the Germans some significant advantages, but ultimately to win the war it would have been required before the attack on Pearl Harbour. my reasoning is this; the Japanese attacked America because its source of oil had been cut off by the Allied embargo. but if the Germans had conquered North Africa and defeated the main British effort, then it was poised to seize the oil fields of the Arabian peninsular. it is likely that the arabs, already significantly pro- German (or at least anti- British), would have aided in this effort. this would provide Japan with all the oil it could possibly want; in such a situation it is unlikely that Britain would have added to its woes by attacking Japanese merchantmen transporting the oil home. without the attack on Pearl Harbour then Hitler would not have declared war on America, essentially removing the British as a factor in future operations for some years. Without a build up of forces to counter the Western allies this would free more men for Russia.
but ultimately it would have placed German forces on the doorstep of the Caucusus, the Soviet's own supply of oil. would the Soviet attack against Kharkov have been launched with German forces in the middle east and a hostile Japan at its back? if this attack had not gone ahead then the German offensive into the Caucusus could have been launched sooner with the added advantage of a German army striking from the south, directly into the target area. if this was the case, then the German push into the area from Russia could have been lighter, thus enabling the forces that pushed towards Stalingrad to be strengthened and perhaps removing the need to use the satellite troops on the flanks of the battle. since it is regularly argued that German troops would not have broken like the Rumanians, Hungarians and Italians, what would this have meant for the subsequent siege? would a strengthened German drive have even allowed a siege? without oil or a strong position to launch an attack to recover those fields how would the Soviets have fared then? a direct route from Stalingrad north takes an attacker well behind Moscow.
and without an American war, might the Japanese have been emboldened at this juncture to consider an attack on Russia? without a Pearl Harbour could Roosevelt have brought America into the war on the basis of this, or even if the Japanese simply chose to attack the British and Dutch possessions in South East Asia? Perhaps without a Phillipines campaign the Japanese might have struck more strongly into India?
its a tempting scenario to contemplate.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.

But I believe it is - Hitler's ridiculous decision to attack Russia when he did must have been the greatest contribution therefore - by your own measure; (which I do not necessarily agree with anyway.)

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.

Of course it is open to debate.

The biggest contributor to the Allied victory was Germany itself. By opening up so many fronts, overextending themselves, not securing enough areas with the resources needed to replenish their war machine they handed the Allies the victory!

This is not open to debate... or is it?

Let me just say that Hitler had very little choice when it came to the decision to attack Russia. Whether you believe Suvorov or not, most historians now believe that Stalin would have attacked Hitler at some point. It can be argued that Hitler chose the best possible time to launch, in 1941 when the Red Army, according to David Glantz, was in the middle of a vast reorganisation and rebuilding programme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov

Hitler and Germany found themselves in a position where the war ran away from them. I don't believe they had too much control over the events that unfolded from a strategic viewpoint. Operationally was a different matter of course.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov

Hitler and Germany found themselves in a position where the war ran away from them. I don't believe they had too much control over the events that unfolded from a strategic viewpoint. Operationally was a different matter of course.

That sounds like game over to me - before the intervention of the Red Army. That doesn't quite match your undebatable statement.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.

It does make some fairly optimistic scenarios for the Germans, primarily that had Cairo fell the British and Commonwealth would have simply packed up and left the Middle East thus enabling Germany to attack Russia on two fronts through the Caucus's and via the west.

Either way you read it, Herr Hitler was the victim of the circumstances that he created. His need for oil led to the march to the Caucasus & all that followed. Don't forget that Richard Sorge's info that the Japanese would not be pursuing further expansion into Russian territory enabled the Russians to shift a huge amount of forces to their FEBA with Germany.

Coming back to the original question; I think that WWII would have gone on longer but the end result would've been the same.

The allies would not have had the benefit of lessons learnt from seabourne landings, but therre is no way that Africa would have ended up in the German camp, it is simply to vast and disparate a continent to pacify - in fact I believe that it would have sucked up a huge amount of the Nazi war effort, just to chase the resources they wanted. Then there would be the resupply route, which was a constant problem to the Kriegsmarine, due to RN interdiction!