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Assume that the history of Japan up to mid-1941 had gone as it actually did. That is, they had already invaded China, and the U.S. had already put its embargo of raw materials on Japan, thus leading the Japanese leadership to prepare to conquer other places to obtain the needed materials. However, let's say they conclude beforehand that there is no way that Japan can defeat the United States. Therefore, they diverge from actual history by deciding that under no circumstances will they attack anything American unless in self defense.
Thus, on December 7th, Japan launches its war of conquest in the Southwest Pacific. British and Dutch territories are attacked and fall. But Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, and anything else American are completely left alone. American merchant ships are allowed to continue sailing the Pacific without interference. America's naval forces and army bases are left untouched.
How does the war go from here? Does America come to the aid of its European allies and fight on behalf of their conquered territories, or do our isolationist tendencies continue to hold sway? Do we provide material support to China, but don't get militarily involved? Does Japan manage to keep its conquered territories, take their resources for themselves, and decide that they've satisfied their war aims and stop further fighting? Does the Japanese Empire (excuse me, the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere") become a long-term reality, like the British Empire was?
In other words, how would the Pacific War gone if America had not been attacked first?
Thank you for such an interesting question...
Considering the original question....
The Pacific War as per your scenario may have delayed America's involvement for a time, but I would consider that with the leaders of the Allies to talk about combining resources and perhaps at this time, or shortly afterwards directly requesting American military support/ involvement.
How this impacts on Europe is another thing....and this has been debated (interestingly) at length.
Whether or not the USA would have joined the Allies in military combat or not, the Nazi war effort was struggling. Many of the Nazi party remained loyal to the cause and would have continued had the party not fallen. This is evidenced at the amount of suicides that took place at the realisation that the party was falling. This can also be evidenced by the careful watching of video footage of Nazi's talking, even many years later, of the regime, and the holocaust. There are some that will verbally not admit, or say they recognise they have done anything/ believe anything inhumane. And with careful watching and listening to body language and tones of voice, it is evident that they have little, or no remorse as to how they were planning on achieving their goals.
Hitler's health was also suffering towards the end of the war. It is no secret that he suffered from syphilis when he was younger and other tests suggest that he was not cured of this disease. Syphilis (depending upon the stage) may have crossed over to his neurological centre and may have caused erratic psychological behaviours.
There are other suggestions about Hitlers health, but the more mind altering drugs he used to (apparently) take on a regular basis include methamphetamines, cocaine, barbiturates and opiates; all of which can be mind altering. This may account for some speculation that he suffered from schizophrenia due to his erratic behaviour and hallucinations. There is much discussion around him having a personality disorder.
I've not been able to find out why, but he is said to have reportedly suffered with regular headaches. We may never know what the cause to these headaches are - it could be purely down to stress, opiate and other drug use/ withdrawal (if he doesn't have enough one day), blood pressure, brain tumour (which may affect his decision making/ behaviour dependent upon where it is sited), or could be as simple as he's downright frustrated he's not winning the war as soon as he thought he would, or he's dehydrated and just needs to drink more. (An especially crucial element when he then goes to live in the bunker).
I strongly believe that attacking Russia by foot, in winter was one of his largest military campaign errors. Had the above scenario of America not joining WWII at any point taken place, then Russia may have come down heavily on Hitler.
I feel compelled to mention, that the day after the Nazi troops left Prague, Czech Republic (then to become Czechoslovakia), that the Russian army moved in. Prague, and other cities on that Eastern side were then led into a life of communism. Unfortunately, not all countries feel like they 'won' the war. I understand someone may come back at this comment, that the Czech people had welcomed Hitler, however, the decision was made in good faith that Hitler would look after people there. This was a year before the official WWII started.
I do not believe that we would all be non-English speaking had the Nazi party won the war. Czechoslovakia is evidence of that. They continue to speak Czech, and up until this year (I think), they have kept their own currency. Do you consider that Hitler may micro-manage more than Stalin and expect to change languages/ currency/ everything?
Eisenhower to Montgomery after WW2 on US writers distorting history:
"I am truly sorry that people like yourself, Alex, Tedder, Bradley, Cunningham and so on, cannot, because of holding official positions, undertake now to write the true story about an unparalleled experience in international co-operation and understanding. The fact is that the tremendous accomplishment of the Allied force is, through its handling by narrow-minded people, being made to look small and insignificant; great concessions on the part of two governments in order to establish field unity are lost sight of in the anxiety to put over some pettifogging little idea held in the mind of a writer."
"Entirely aside from the damage to British-American friendly relationship that hundreds of loyal officers labored so hard to advance, I have the personal fear that writers of the kind we are now talking about will succeed in damaging warm friendships that I have formed with men for whom I will always have the highest regard and admiration. The whole thing makes me a trifle ill. Incidentally, one of the defenses made by one of these authors when I taxed him for bad judgement and inaccuracy, was to pull out a bunch of clippings taken from the British papers about the time of the Bulge battle. He said: ‘British writers did not hesitate to criticize you bitterly and unjustly. Why should we be so shy and retiring?’ My answer of course was that those reporters wrote during the heat of action and were motivated to some extent by fear. Moreover, in later writings they did their utmost to correct what they themselves must have felt to have been hasty judgement. This was an entirely different thing from writing deliberately and from the attitude of ‘pure history,’ which these books are certainly not."
The allied cooperation was a massive success overall. The US had a tank that was no match for German tanks, so the British said we have a better gun than the Germans so we will put it on the tank. The Americans thought they had a dud plane in the Corsair, the British took it and made it work, the British and US cooperated in the Mustang making the plane an exceptional long range escort fighter. The US said we are short of carriers, so the British lent them one for Pacific duty. The US said do not make transport or carrier planes, we make some decent planes, so use ours, concentrate on making bombers and other planes. The British said do not try and invent radars, etc, we have done that, use our technology - Tizzard. Monty is made commander of two US armies in the Bulge, so puts British troops in the depleted ranks of the US armies which are in turn commanded by British, etc, etc. Full cooperation.
After WW2 US jingoistic writers started a, we did more, gave more, won more, etc, deriding the professional British contribution. Much was not true and.or vastly exaggerated, as Eisenhower rightly points out. He makes the point that the British cannot counter as many of the leading men are still in sensitive positions. He wrote, "The whole thing makes me a trifle ill".
Churchill, of course, had time & leisure & inclination (he started out as a soldier, but it was journalism that paid his bills, as I recall) to write & write & write (UK MPs weren't paid much - if @ all? up until 1911; & so were either independently wealthy, or had some other profession to bring in some income). Plus he had special access to UK WWII documents - he wrangled a deal allowing him to consult (copy? quote? paraphrase?) official dispatches, summaries, histories, etc. Thus his encyclopedic output on WWII - I believe he had a staff, as well. He had a nice turn of phrase - & branched out from writing columns & memoirs & histories. He worked @ his craft - he had a lot of expenses to cover.
A possible fly in the ointment - from a UK POV - is that his mother was a buccaneer - she was from the states.
The only battles of the second Sino Japanese war that I know are the Marco Polo Bridge incident and Ichi-Go something?. I imagine if you ask even one of the more well read Americans,Australians,Britins, or New Zealanders that there understanding will be about the same.
Some reasons as to why the Chineses' effort has been ignored.
The majority of authors who write books regarding world war 2 with the Japanese are written by authors from the Anglosphere (I'm guessing).
As soon as Pearl Harbor was bombed the Americans replaced the Chinese as the main enemy of the Japanese and events out in the Pacific Ocean became more important than those on the Asian mainland.
The status of the English language which more common outside the Anglosphere than Chinese is outside of China. If Chinese becomes the new English we might begin to hear more about the Chinese's effort to fight the Japanese.
Me being a Sinophile I remember and have lots of respect for the effort of the Chinese.
I feel like there is a tendency for European folks to minimize and forget about the sino japanese war and pacific theater. It wasn't an easy task fighting a determined and tough enemy and having to deal with the nasty conditions during those island hopping campaigns. If you had to abandon ship you faced the risk of facing sharks and being captured and taken pow. There are a lot of folks who forget that the Americans fought a two front war at the same time on a large scale.
As mentioned the Americans fought a two front war on a large scale. To a lesser extent Britain and some of the dominions such as Australia and NZ fought on two fronts.
Then there were some allied nations that just fought on one front. The Chinese for example were a main player in the war with the Japanese yet (as far as I know) didn't do anything in the European theater.
A front? Is that ground only? or air and sea and ground?
The only two countries to fight the Japanese continually on the ground from Dec 1941 onwards were China and Britain. The USA fought the Japanese at sea immediately, then later in small scale island hopping in ground troops. Later then fighting the Japanese in the air. In 1942 the USA fought Germany from the air, then in 1943 on the ground in North Africa, then into Europe.
The British fought the Axis from the air and sea from 1939, and from 1940 in the desert on the ground, and then into Europe. They fought the Japanese continually on the ground from Dec 1941, and sporadically at sea, until full on air, sea and ground.
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lol
Well, there's Winston
