Timeline of Incompetent Leadership Contest in WW II

Churchill was a lone voice in the desert, clamoring for enforcing Versailles and for military spending as soon as Hitler and Stalin started spending very heavily in armament. He was ridiculed for insisting so much for so long on these points. Only when Hitler invaded Poland, did everybody realize how right he had been all along and did Chamberlain put him back in charge of the navy. As you can see in my timeline, I regard Churchill as a terrible strategist, but one must recognize his foresight and tenacity in this regard.

The figures for military spending show a ridiculous 812.8 million pounds in the 4 critical years from 1936 to 1939, which is why the huge empire was poorly defended and America had to bail Britain out with 31,000 million dollars worth of equipment, fuel, raw materials, etc,, payable in 60 years at low interest. Plus the 11,600 million given to the USSR and the huge sums spent in equipment used by the US fighting Germany and Japan, all of which benefitted Britain enormously and free of charge.
Instead of employing the inexpensive labor in India and using its resources to produce armament, greatly contributing to the production in the UK, the British empire sank in deep depression.
It is interesting that in great part Britain was saved by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine used in the Hurricane, Spitfire, Lancaster, Mosquito, etc, and this engine owes its existence in great measure to an aristocratic, patriotic lady who gathered funds to sponsor its development for a plane that won the Schneider cup. So much for military spending.
 
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'24-29 was the Roaring 20s, the world was in an economic boom & there really wasn't any threat on the horizon. It was only after the economic collapse of '29-30 that totalitarian govts came into power & the threat of War emerged as a real possibility.
While the world was in an economic boom,Britain was not :
British GDP(in millions of £)
1920:5.975
1921:4.900
1922:4.460
1923:4.250
1924:4.360
1925:4.500
1926:4.360
1927:4.600
1928:4.600
1929:4.700
The 1929 GDP was only 78 % of the 1920 GDP,it would last till 1939,till the GDP was on the level of 1920
 
Hi MontyB,
It's more "He who has the strongest friends can afford to F up without limit and win". Nobody made more major blunders than Stalin in history, yet he was the main winner. Britain at least paid its debt, Stalin laughed it off. Churchill was close to Stalin but made mistakes mainly during the world wars, Stalin for decades.
 
Yes, Churchill and Stalin were extremely lucky that Hitler allowed the Dunkirk evacuation, wasted his planes pointlessly in the BoB, invaded neutral and useless Greece and Yugoslavia, instead of Egypt and invaluable Persia and that he invaded the USSR and saw to it that the invasion failed by ignoring the plan, that Roosevelt came up with the Lend-lease plan even before the US were at war, that the US could produce incredible amounts of food, fuel, ships, planes, tanks, explosives, steel, aluminum, etc, and that Japan forced the US into the war, instead of simply attacking Britain and capturing South Africa, Ceylon, the oil fields and refinery in Persia close to the Persian Gulf, Madagascar, etc, and excluding the British from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
 
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During the Battle of Norway the carrier Glorious and its two escorting destroyers were sunk by the cannon of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
The carrier had detected the German ships and sent a destoyer to investigate but did not send torpedo and dive bombers to attack them or increase speed or take evasive action to avoid the shells.
The Captain had requested permission to detach from the fleet and proceed alone to Scapa flow in order to submit the flight commander to a court marshal for refusing to attack ground targets in Norway and surprisingly permission was granted.
The carrier did not only have its complement of pilots but was also evacuating Gladiator and hurricane pilots from Norway. There were only 35 survivors picked up by a Norwegian ship. The British learnt about the sinking from the German radio.
 
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