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IronDuke_slith -> (7/28/2002 5:09:22 PM)
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I still say the most "pivotal" event of the whole of the war in Europe from start to close was Hitler electing to discontinue thrashing the Royal Airforce's airfileds and the beginning of his petulant attacks on British cities.
The RAF didn't collapse, and Germany's illusions of Sealion were made categorically toast, and he was turned away to other matters. I myself think the entire war would have gone done a myriad number of very unique paths, if the RAF had been driven from the skies.
Complete mastery of the air will render even the great Royal Navy worthless. If you disagree I say the words Taranto, Crete, Malta, Pearl Harbour, Midway, Coral Sea, where airpower handed the navy its head on a platter.
No navy, no problem. Hitler without an RAF to consider could have sat back while Goering convinced the Royal Navy to retreat from Southern England.
I am not saying the Germans were prepared or even equipped to take out all of England, but British stubborness makes a lousy defense against bullets.
The British would have sued for peace the same way the Japanese were forced to accept defeat (and personally I think the Japanese were a great deal more fanatical than the British). [/B][/QUOTE]
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I agree the errant bomber was a stroke of luck and saved the RAF when the fighting switched to the cities. However, I don't think Hitler was ever really interested in us in the UK. If we had made peace after the fall of France, he would have offered terms far more favourable to us than our military position at that time probably deserved. I doubt whether Hitler would ever have launched Sealion. Bearing in mind the Germans created dozens of new formations and fielded 3.5 million men in Barbarossa, battle of britain or no battle of britain, the Germans would surely have won at some stage. I just think they lacked the policitical will to fight us, turning their attention to the east since they considered us finished and Sealion a pointless risk. The Royal Navy would have suffered terribly, but nightime raids into the invasion areas by the home fleet, would have decimated the German landing and supply effort.
It's also been suggested that one (of several) of the reasons he struck east was to remove the last hope for the UK, who would have felt conflict between the USSR and Germany inevitable. Remove the Soviets and Britain would have had no potential allies left on the european mainland
Malta was pivotal for the mediterranean but no further, I'm not sure Rommel driving through the middle east into Southern Russia was ever really on.
This (very interesting) thread's main problem is cause and effect. A crucial late start in Russia is caused by problems in the Balkans, but are the Balkans pivotal, or is the pivot the Italian failure in Greece that made German intervention necessary?
Or, is the pivotal battle the breakthrough at Sedan? Surely the point Hitler became confident that his troops were capable of anything. Or the winter war when Hitler saw the Red Army humbled by the Finns and decided Russia would be easy meat?
However, I can't resist a suggeston, so I would go with those suggesting the Battle of Moscow. German strategic aims in each successive year of the war in the east narrowed. Year one: attack all along the front. year two: strike in the south. Year three: pinch out the salient at Kursk. I don't think the USSR would have survived the loss of Moscow. Since the Germans never threatened to take it after December 41, then that would be my pivotal battle. Having lost it, the German army was condemned to bleed to death on the Steppe.
Everything else was salt in the wound, although Overlord and the Bulge were pivotal battles in wetsern european history, because defeat in either for the allies would have seen a very different post war europe.
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