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dwg -> RE: War Plan Red (3/11/2011 3:42:04 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish
Absolutely was never and is never going to happen.
As unlikely as the US going to war with its ally Italy in 1919 you might say. And yet Woodrow Wilson, at the Paris Peace Conference, personally ordered the Arizona, serving as his escort, to sail from France to Smyrna in Turkey to prevent the Italians occupying it and eject them by force if need be, an occupation which had been agreed in the 1917 Anglo-Franco-Italian agreement of St-Jean-de-Maurienne, formalising the promise in the 1915 Treaty of London that Italy would receive a share of the spoils from the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. Ultimately the other allies had Greece occupy Smyrna to preempt the Italians there, leading to massacres of the Turkish population and ultimately the fall of the moderate Italian government of Orlando and the rise of the Fascists under Mussolini. Result!
Turning back to War Plan Red, there were a considerable number of virulent Anglophobes in the higher ranks of the USN right through into WWII if not later, most notably the WWI CNO William Shepherd Benson and the WWII CNO Ernest King. "We would as soon fight the British as the Germans." Benson, 1917. "Four Great Powers have arisen in the world to compete with Great Britain...Each one of those powers in succession have been defeated... A fifth commercial power, the greatest one yet, is now arising to challenge at least for commercial equality with Great Britain. Historical precedent warns us to watch closely the moves we make or permit to be made." USN Planning Section Memorandum, 1919. Equally the UK was formally allied with Japan, which the US already regarded as its clear rival for dominance of the Pacific and War Plan Orange assumed the chance of the UK being drawn into the conflict on the side of Japan. Activation of War Plan Red was never likely, but it was certainly possible.
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