i don’t see why the UK would ever accept a unipolar europe while the royal navy & empire were still intact.
The empire was falling apart in real time as colonial revolts popped off around the globe. Ending the European conflict so they could get a lid back on the rest of the empire would have been a better long term strategy than slugging it out with Berlin for another half-decade.
the germans had no way to threaten the island besides bomber sorties and that campaign was a resounding failure
Yemen shut down the entire Red Sea with a few rocket bombs. The Germans could have choked off the UK financially if they’d been more patient and less eager to score smashing blitzkrieg victories in every campaign. At some point, the UK needs steel and fuel, and has relatively limited ways to get it without passing through territory the Germans could threaten.
By the end of the war, England was in a state of near-starvation. There’s a great YouTube video of a woman who tries to make meals with English foodstock from the year 1946 to 19…90, one day for each year? The first couple meals are bleak and everyone leaves the table still hungry.
Britain’s Empire was meaningless without a europe to sell the goods and resources to, the losses of all UK financiers’ investments on the continent, and the reestablishment of trade on unequal terms is simply so counter to the UK ruling class interests & pride it’d take a comprehensive and devastating defeat. which it’s doubtful german trade interdiction had any chance of actually forcing, and in any case they didn’t have enough time for. Germans, not the UK who were the ones actually under a blockade, which is why they made the M-R pact and rushed Soviet natural resources in Barbarossa
By the end of the war everyone was starving. the UK was actually way better off compared to any participants besides americans (the whole continent)
Britain’s Empire was meaningless without a europe to sell the goods and resources to, the losses of all UK financiers’ investments on the continent, and the reestablishment of trade on unequal terms is simply so counter to the UK ruling class interests & pride it’d take a comprehensive and devastating defeat.
I mean, what’s the alternative? If the US hadn’t charged in to save them, they’d have shriveled up and died on their island while Germany took over what parts of the British and French empires could not successfully rebel. Their merchant navy couldn’t ply a sea dotted with German submarines and their military couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Germans, not the UK who were the ones actually under a blockade, which is why they made the M-R pact and rushed Soviet natural resources in Barbarossa
The Germans could have far more easily and cheaply traded Russia for raw materials. Even had they successfully made it to Moscow, they’d be fighting insurrections across an entire continent. And it isn’t like they were short on natural resources. They had all of France and Central Europe and were functionally in control of North Africa before the Americans showed up. But they were in plunder mode rather than doing economic development, so Russia just looked like a giant loot crate rather than a bear trap.
By the end of the war everyone was starving.
All the more reason to take your winnings and get off the table back in '41. Maybe consider doing another mindless intercontinental slaughter in another five or six years, when you’ve replenished your reserves.
the UK was actually way better off compared to any participants besides americans
The UK hadn’t been ground under like Poland or France. And it hadn’t half-exhausted itself in a war time economy like Germany or Russia. But it wasn’t in a good position after Sealion. They were just in a proven unassailable position. That got them back to where they started in 1347. But without American aid (which wasn’t a complete given in the midst of a recessionary relapse under FDR), it wasn’t a winning position without access to oil and steel from the colonies.
Between German land-conquest and rebellions in Africa and India and Japan gobbling up territory in the South Pacific, what did the UK have to rebuild with?
Absent America and pissing off the Russians, the Germans had time on their side and the British didn’t.
your argument is predicated on two things that did not happen, and did not show any sign of happening.
a) a u-boat blockade of the UK preventing them from getting resources from their colonies. this did not materialize in 1940 or 1941, why it must’ve in 42 or later is a mystery to me
b) some huge colonial uprising against british rule that could also cut them off from resources. in actuality there was what, Iraq, who got curbstomped? there wasn’t as universal opposition to the war from communist/socialist groups because of anti-fascism, and some liberal independence parties wanted to leverage support for the war for independence afterward.
further, a completely twisted vision of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact where the Germans could afford to keep it going in perpetuity, when it was only going to go as long as Soviet leadership felt they needed for a full mobilization and rearmament, to then turn on the nazis. a delayed Barbarossa meant a stronger Red Army.
The UK hadn’t been ground under like Poland or France. And it hadn’t half-exhausted itself in a war time economy like Germany or Russia. But it wasn’t in a good position after Sealion. They were just in a proven unassailable position. That got them back to where they started in 1347. But without American aid (which wasn’t a complete given in the midst of a recessionary relapse under FDR), it wasn’t a winning position without access to oil and steel from the colonies
the UK was mobilized, several major industrial centres in the south were damaged, their shipping industry was damaged. i don’t know what kind of point this is that somehow the UK having higher standards of living post-war, but also not as much of an economic disruption, means something was wrong with their capacity to prosecute the war? no idea what you’re saying about sealion either
