When Should France and England Used a pre-emptive Defense?

[adios]

Chronology of the Holocaust - 1933

January 30 - February1 Hitler becomes Chancellor
February 3 Hitler presents Lebensraum program
February 27-March 5 Reichstag arson leads to state of emergency
March 5 Reichstag elections: Nazis gain 44 percent of vote
March 24 Enabling Act
March 22 Dachau camp established
April 1 Boycott of Jewish businesses
April 7 Civil service "reform"
April 21 Jewish ritual slaughter banned
April 25 School quota system
May 2 Dissolution of German Trade Unions
May 10 Nazis burn thousands of anti-Nazi Jewish-authored and "degenerate" books
July 14 Forced sterilization of German citizens with congenital disabilities
July 14 Germany proclaimed a one-party state
July 14 Denaturalization law
July 20 Nazi government signs Reich Concordat with the Vatican
August 20 American Jewish Congress declares boycott against Nazi Germany
August 25 Ha'avara agreement
September 13 Race theory in German schools
September 17 Reich representation of German Jews established
September 22 Reich Chamber of Culture Law
October 14-19 Germany quits League of Nations and disarmament talks
Chronology of the Holocaust - 1934

January 26 German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact
June 30 "Night of the Long Knives"
July 25 Nazi putsch in Austria fails
August 2 Hindenburg dies
Chronology of the Holocaust - 1935

January 13 Germany reclaims Saar region
February 10 Prohibition of gatherings urging Jews to remain in Germany
March 16 Military conscription in Germany
May 31 German army becomes "all-Aryan"
June 11 "Jews not welcome" signs temporarily removed
June 18 German-British naval agreement concluded
September 15 Nuremberg Laws enacted
October 30 Italy attacks Ethiopia
November 14 Additions to Nuremberg Laws

Chronology of the Holocaust - 1936

March 7 Germans enter Rhineland
March 15 Mass anti-Nazi rally in New York
June 17 Himmler appointed Chief of Police
July 16 Spanish Civil War begins
August 1 Olympic Games begin in Berlin
September 9 Four-Year Plan unveiled
October 9 Political activities of Association of Jewish War Veterans banned
October 25 Rome-Berlin Axis Agreement signed
November 25 Germany and Japan conclude Anti-Comintern Pact
Chronology of the Holocaust - 1937

March 21 Pope issues statement against racism
September 13 Jews can be released from "protective detention" by emigrating
October 21 Himmler: returning Jewish emigrants will be sent to concentration camps
November 5 German army ordered to prepare for war
November 26 Reshuffling of portfolios: Schacht resigns
Chronology of the Holocaust - 1938

March 13 Anschluss: Reich annexes Austria
March 23 Recognition of Jewish organizations revoked
March 28 Hitler incites Sudeten German Party
June 14 Jewish businesses registered as Jewish
June 15 "Operation June" - mass arrests of Jews and banishment to concentration camps
July 6 Anti-Jewish economic strictures
July 6-15 Evian Conference
August 17 Compulsory middle names for Jews
August 26 Jewish Emigration Office opens in Vienna
September 27 Jewish lawyers debarred
September 29 Munich Agreement: England and France accept German annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia
October 5 Passports of German Jews marked with the letter "J"
October 6 Germany annexes Sudetenland
October 28 17,000 Polish-born Jews expelled from Germany to Poland; most interned in Zbaszyn

November 7-10 Grynszpan affair and the Kristallnacht pogrom
November 10 Italy adopts antisemitic racial laws
November 12 Harsh anti-Jewish measures
November 15 Jewish children banned from German schools

__________________________________________________ _____


Clearly Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 violated the Locano treaty and Versailles treaty. In fact Hitler had standing orders for his troops to retreat immediately if any French troops approached the border. You say Saddam isn't as bad as Hitler? That doesn't mean Saddam is a saint either since Human Rights Watch attributes something like 2 million deaths directly to Saddam. I'll concede that Hitler was an order of magnitude higher than Hussein as far as murder goes.

[IrishHand]

When Should France and England Used a pre-emptive Defense?

Never. A "pre-emptive defense" has to be based on the idea that you're going to be attacked. Nazi Germany never expressed any intention in expanding to the west - their ambitions lay (in order) in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia (including the Baltic states).

Now, if you're asking when France and England should have gone to war to stop Hitler's expansionist tendencies as a general matter, that's a separate question. Also, I have no idea why you'd list a long chronology of Nazi Germany, relate it to the Holocaust, and then talk about "a pre-emptive defense" since (a) Holocaust wasn't a military matter, and (b) Holocaust (at least as it's used to refer to the attempted genocide of the Jews) didn't begin until after France and England declared war on Germany.

[nicky g]

"Human Rights Watch attributes something like 2 million deaths directly to Saddam"

Have you a link for this? Saddam is a monster but I really don't think this is right, even if all the casualties from all the wars he's been involved with were attributed directly to him, which would be ridiculous.

[KDF]

uhhh...France and England were eventually attacked!! Come to think of it, the USA’s homeland was never attacked by Germany. We probably should have stayed out of it instead of preemptively attacking at Normandy, and wait for the V2 rockets or A-bombs to fall in New York…right? Absurd!

The magnitude of Iraq's current power is greatly diminished because of the first gulf war. The current military action is a result of violations of the cease fire agreement of that war as well as many UN resolutions. Allowing Iraq to expand its power by us doing nothing, will lead to an incredibly more dangerous and deadly crisis in the future. If people can't see that, then I feel very sorry indeed. I am very glad that our leaders are not slow-playing their set of aces, and simply hoping that Saddam doesn’t catch his runner-runner flush. I’m very surprised so many poker players don’t understand the futility and consequences of passiveness vs. selective and necessary aggression on a global scale. The fundamentals are the same, except people’s lives are at stake and not just poker-chips.

[Clarkmeister]

"Come to think of it, the USA’s homeland was never attacked by Germany. We probably should have stayed out of it instead of preemptively attacking at Normandy, and wait for the V2 rockets or A-bombs to fall in New York…right? Absurd!"

Actually, Germany had already declared war on us. Therefore your comparison to Normady is totally invalid.

[adios]

I'll try to dig one up for you.

[IrishHand]

As Clark noted re. one of them, your examples are atrocious.

uhhh...France and England were eventually attacked!!
They were attacked because they declared war on Germany a couple of days after Germany invaded Poland. Germany would otherwise have had no interest in attacking either France or England - their long-term ambitions were to the East. It's not a "pre-emptive" attack when the other side has already declared war on you.

Come to think of it, the USA’s homeland was never attacked by Germany.
Shortly after the Japanese declared war on the US, the Germans and Italians did likewise. It is altogether likely that had Germany not done so, the US would have continued neglecting the European theater of WWII in favor of their immediate problems in the Pacific. Again, it's not a "pre-emptive" attack when the other side has already declared war on you.

Allowing Iraq to expand its power by us doing nothing
(a) How exactly was Iraq expanding its power when they don't even have freedom of action within their own country??
(b) How exactly were we doing nothing when - for the past DECADE - we have occupied a substantial chunk of Iraqi airspace, when we have launched air strikes from that airspace against military, communications and infrastructure targets, and we've been a hearty supporter of crippling sanctions?

The problem with your poker analogy is that Iraq was never playing poker with us. The only reason we're in the game is because we stepped to the table with a gun, sat down and ordered them to start dealing. Not a heck of a lot of poker strategy when the other side both doesn't want to play and is unable to do so regardless.

[Cyrus]

Others in this thread have rebutted your argument most convincingly : Hitler attacked Poland ("pre-emptively" by the way, in order to "defend against Polish provocations and aggression") and, then, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

But up until that moment, the democratic western powers had allowed fascism to grow and Nazi Germany to gobble up Sudetenland and Austria. Hmm. Some people think that "pre-emptive strike" should have been used, as it has been during the Israeli-Arab war in 1967 or the current invasion of Iraq.

Well, briefly, the western powers were prudent and correct in going the extra mile to appease the Nazi beast. Nobody was in a position to predict the eventual extent of the Nazis' crimes, not even as late as 1938. And there was no chance of the western powers amassing the military stength and preparing their peoples to launch a successful attack on Germany, especially without having being provoked! The diplomats and the policitians knew that very well. The balance of power foced them to go the extra mile, in Munich. (That and the need to compensate Germany for the wrongs she suffered at the end of WWI.)

See? This is what balance of power does. It moderates things and forces the parties to compromise. The politicians preferred to sacrifice one or two "small countries" in order to try and save the lives of tens of millions of people. This did not prove to be crucial to the outcome of the war, eventually. The West did not lose anything grand in strategic or military value because the Nazis occupied Austria or Sudetenland. When the time came and the diplomatic options were truly exhausted, the conditions and the people were ready for war and war was declared.

[adios]

I now realize you have a great future as a comedian or you'er trolling or both.

"Well, briefly, the western powers were prudent and correct in going the extra mile to appease the Nazi beast."

Tens of millions died at their hands is that better off?

"Nobody was in a position to predict the eventual extent of the Nazis' crimes, not even as late as 1938."

Read the laundry list of atrocities leading up to 1938 and read Mein Kampf. He not only spelled it out he acted on what he said he'd do.

"And there was no chance of the western powers amassing the military stength and preparing their peoples to launch a successful attack on Germany, especially without having being provoked!"

This supports appeasement?

"The diplomats and the policitians knew that very well. The balance of power foced them to go the extra mile, in Munich. (That and the need to compensate Germany for the wrongs she suffered at the end of WWI.)"

Except there was no balance of power until the late 1930's. Hitler had standing orders to vacate the Rhineland if the French approached the border because he was bluffing.

"See?"

Yeah I see what you're about.

"This is what balance of power does. It moderates things and forces the parties to compromise."

World War II in Europe is one of your shining examples of compromise?

"The politicians preferred to sacrifice one or two "small countries" in order to try and save the lives of tens of millions of people."

Oh really? What a success!!!!!!

"'The West did not lose anything grand in strategic or military value because the Nazis occupied Austria or Sudetenland. When the time came and the diplomatic options were truly exhausted, the conditions and the people were ready for war and war was declared. "

If that's an example of great compromise and appeasement I'll pass. I can't take your posts seriously so in the future I'll refrain from reading and answering them.

[Cyrus]

I did not defend Hitler. I did not defend a policy of appeasement against Hitler or people like Hitler. I did not underplay the horrors of World War II. And I am not a pacifist nor have I supported pacifism in any of my posts. I may be stating the obvious but your attempts to distort what I write are baffling. I thought you were a better debater than this, truly.

My point is all about the diplomatic extra mile and the bad press it's getting from the White House. Bush wanted to attack Iraq and that's the end of all arguments in favor of diplomacy. I tried to elaborate on the intricacies and the difficulties of trying to resolve something, anything peacefully and through the convoluted channels of diplomacy, especially when one or more sides are poised or eager for war. The western European powers, who had tens of millions of dead in World War I, tried their honest best to avoid another all-out war with Germany. In the process they made tremendous compromises, both in military and territorial terms. Yes, they did! In retrospect you can call them pacifists or stupid or whatever you want or suggest that they should have marshalled their people fifteen years after World War I to attack Germany in 1933... This is your privilege, in hindsight. All I have to go by is the historical record. And the record shows that the western democracies acted nobly and they also acted prudently, in a manner that did not eventually impede the defeat of Nazism.

Perhaps you would be interested in reading up about the balance of power in Europe in the 1930s. I would humbly suggest it.