WI: UK sues for Peace in WWII

Dunning Kruger

England wasnt going to sue for peace, surrender or do anything else as long as they believed the USA had their back. So to get a british surrender you need a true isolationist USA and in particular one that doesnt show favoritism toward the UK in their isolationism. That is a tough TL if the POD doesnt begin before 1915 or 1932 at the latest. Unless you want the Roosevelt died and his successor is an idiot isolationist.

But as long as you are getting "free" American supplies via lend lease and naval support in the Western Atlantic, why surrender?
 

Nietzsche

Banned
ChrisBen said:
Interesting question but everything is depending on WHY the UK asked for negotiations.
It really doesn't have to be every British city pounded to rubble by the invincible Luftwaffe. It might just have to do with economy: Before the war the UK was the world's first service economy with most of their exports coming from "invisible earnings" i.e. brokerage of foreign loans, leverage of currency and all the other magic that the City exels at. Now, in 1940 most of the foreign assets that has been earned by that export has been sold off - in a pure fire sale as there are not that many customers for Argenitinan railway stock, at least not at reasonable prices. And there are very few new syndicated loans coming in to a stock exchange in flames.
Meanwhile the currency reserves are raped by cash and carry sales from US ports and the Exchequer should start asking questions as to whether this war is actually ruining the country. Questions asked with answers (predictably) provided by WSQ along the lines of "shut up and get the materiel."
So, if someone starts contemplating present and future debt and decides that the British Empire can only survive if they a) default massively on their debts some time in the future and that will mainly screw the dominions as the Americans are only delivering for cash or b) come to some sort of an agreement with this peculiar Austrian corporal, I guess you could see some farily serious discussions during the winter of 1940-41.
Perhaps even late 41 but by then the Germans have whipped the Russians (apparently) the Empire (again) in Greece and North Africa and might not be in any form of listening mode anymore.
Anyway, it would be very interesting if someone gamed the consequences of a peace in Europe in 1941 for both the British possessions in Asia and for their balance of payments in 1942.
Click to expand...
I want you to start a thread, because this idea is amazing, and resides entirely on knowledge I don't have. This might be as close as we'll ever get to a Britain Peaces Out scenario.

TO91320 said:
England wasnt going to sue for peace, surrender or do anything else as long as they believed the USA had their back. So to get a british surrender you need a true isolationist USA and in particular one that doesnt show favoritism toward the UK in their isolationism. That is a tough TL if the POD doesnt begin before 1915 or 1932 at the latest. Unless you want the Roosevelt died and his successor is an idiot isolationist.

But as long as you are getting "free" American supplies via lend lease and naval support in the Western Atlantic, why surrender?
Click to expand...
Your points are very much true, but their reasoning is a little muddy. The supplies weren't free, as ChrisBen so wonderfully stated.
 

ChrisBen

Thanks, but the idea is by no means mine. It stems from Cain & Hopkins "British Imperialism 1688-2000" which is (implausably enough) a book on economic history. The point is that the UK did not simply allow their once superb factories to deteriorate before WWI due to an excess of tea or whatever, they simply progressed from processing stuff to buying stuff cheap and processing money. Something they are still good at. Problem is, of course, that the spoils of war goes to the one with the best cannon, not the one with a watertight option on the dividends from the Krupp Werke. Which could make one pause when reflecting on where we are currently sourcing our microprocessors for the GBUs in use by NATO planes, but I digress...
As far as I can see from light reading on WWII economic history, Churchill basically accepted UK bankruptcy as a condition for the lend-lease act and this was strictly enforced by US trade officials during the war and also when planning for the future, cf. for instance Benn "The Battle of Bretton Woods" although I do by no means claim that my reading is either balanced or exhaustive.
Anyway, if Churchill had remained at the Admirality or even been forced out after Norway perhaps someone during the autumn of 1940 might had have reasons for starting to think about whether Britain was buying their survival too dearly.
Re. Churchill, I did have a rough timeline for that once, where the Brits beat the Germans to the Norwegian costal defences by some hours (Plan R4/Wilfred) only to see the entire Norwegian merchant fleet scamper off to neutral harbours. As that would take the fourth largest merchant marine and 18% of the world's tankers out of British reach I guess there would have been questions asked, to say the least.
 
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phx1138

If you want an Armistice, you have two options, neither likely IMO.

One, invade successfully (yeah, fat chance:rolleyes:), which offers opportunities for government in exile. (It will be in Bermuda or the Bahamas, not Canada, & certainly not the U.S.)

Two, bring down Winston's government. This IMO is more credible, & not impossible.

Who successfully challenges Winston? Who becomes PM? How does he persuade Parliament & the public peace is essential? More important, how does he persuade them anything Hitler says can be believed?

How does the U.S. react? Stop the Neutrality Patrol? Stop Lend-Lease?

Is it enough to butterfly Japan's attack on Hawaii?:eek:
 
Clandango

Clandango

Might as well put out that Hitler apparently did not feel their should be war indemnities between the British and Germans and that both should swallow their losses. Given how much the Germans would be able to ransack or course, they could probably make up for their wartime losses with finalizing their removal of the French autonomy or liquidating the Danish and Belgian monarchies.
 

merlin

If Churchill is not PM., perhaps while on one his trips to France is shot down, means an 'understanding' is reached with Germany over their Continental supremacy, while Britain's Empire (admired by Hitler) remains.

If FDR is not US President, UK unlikely to have anything like Lend-Lease, which means Britain likely to go broke in 1941, so even Churchill may agree a 'peace-deal'.

AS per OTL if both Churchill & FDR are in their positions of power.
Churchill doesn't trust Hitler's word - whether spoken or written!
And whilst, some Americans are willing to do business with Germany, FDR like Churchill regards them as a menace to the civilised world.
 

Simreeve

If Churchill gets killed then his llkeliest successor would be Eden (not Halifax, despite various AH authors making him PM: In fact IOTL Halifax himself acknowledged that he wouldn't be able to do the job, because by that date the PM really had to be in the Commons rather than the Lords...) who shared his views about Hitler.
 
WILDGEESE

WILDGEESE

In response to your article i think you're putting to much faith in the failure of the R.A.F in the Battle of Britain. Even if the R.A.F lost, the Germans would still find invading the UK a very hard ask.

The trouble is most people think that an operation like Sealion would look like D-Day. The fact was that the Germans only had 8 Frigates and Destroyers after their fleet was decimated by the R.N in the Norway campaign and had no Amphibious Assault vessels and had to resort to mass produced barges towed by steamers and tugs.

With a minimum of around 80 Destroyers in home port and waters in the UK plus a further number at sea on convoy duty which could be back home in a few days, it would've been suicide for the German Kriegsmarine to attempt this.

Indeed the Kriegsmarine's head commander Raeder lamented that the Luftwaffe's main attacks were against the R.A.F instead of the R.N ports and ships.

It's a good bet that if the Germans did try to invade the UK, the losses inflicted to the Kriegsmarine and German Army, even if they tried it in the dark could have been such that after the war it might have been classed as a war crime.
 

zoomar

The "armistice" initially offered By Hitler in 1940 was about as favorable as Britain could have expected, and the Churchill government flat out refused. Given that reaction, it is probably unlikely that, even if the BEF had been completely destroyed (killed or captured), A Churchill government would have taken a significantly different tack.

However, there is perhaps a 50-50% chance that such a defeat would have forced the resignation of Churchill's government. In such a situation, in order to save the Empire, it is not that much of a stretch to see a subsequent government accept terms to end the war in the west - since there were those who would have done this.

This, however, is not a "surrender" or "suing for peace", any more than temporary British acceptance of Napoleon's military and diplomatic victories in the Napoleonic Wars ended Britain's long-term goal to end Napoleon's dominance in Europe. Also, given Hitler's own duplicity, few Britons would believe this actually ended Hitler's threat to Britain itself.

The UK would continue to seek (and largely obtain) whatever US assistance it needed to rebuild and resupply its military. Both the UK and US would probably continue to provide materiel assistance to the USSR, if not directly through a formal alliance. Because Britian was still powerful and unvanquished, I suspect quite a large German force would remain tied down in western Europe - and also in occupation duty in north and west france.

Assuming Japan still attacks the US, it is interesting how Hitler would react. It's hard to image he would declare war on the US, but he was stupid to do that OTL.

My gut feelin is that Hitler would stll end up losing WW2.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

International Court of Justice
UK vs Herr Hitler
The UK sues Mr Hitler for peace, war being against international law. Asking not only for a return to peace, but recompensory and punitive damages.
 

katchen

Banned
I can easily think of one outcome in November 1940 that would lead the British to sue for peace with Hitler. Roosevelt loses the 1940 Election to Wendell Wilkie.
Wilkie might not be an isolationist, but he was nowhere near the friend to Churchill or the UK that Roosevelt was. Wilkie could represent much more onerous terms for the US to help the UK and for the US to behave in a much more self-interested manner as opposed to behaving according to Wilsonian morality as Roosevelt and Churchill did. In short, Wilkie might think more like Theodore Roosevelt, fighting as an American rather than an ally. And that might dismay a number of people in the UK, key people who would carry the day for the peace Herr Hitler was offering rather than for fighting on.
And lets face it, the Republican Party in the US represented the elements of the American business community such as Prescott Bush and Allan Dulles who favored accomodation and doing business with Nazi Germany rather than war with Nazi Germany. The election of a Republican candidate would thus be very dismaying to many in Churchill's coaliton--probably enough to cause Mr. Churchill to lose a vote of confidence on a war that would likely cost the UK it's empire.
The most immediate results of this peace agreement are going to be felt in the Middle East. The Palestinian Jewish Yishuv will revolt IMMEDIATELY against British occupation forces in Palestine as soon as they get reliable word of British capitulation--with the help of Free French forces in Syria who have been smuggling arms to the Haganah all along. For them, it's now War to the Knife,:( and a matter of neutralizing the British forces, the Arab Legion of Transjordan and then seizing the Sinai and using the Suez Canal as a defense line at least until the Soviet Army can reinforce them from the Caucasus within a few months over difficult, but not impossible logistics. The size of the units involved is relatively small and the stakes involved for the Russians to hold Rommel at Suez rather than at either Kirkuk or Yerevan are well worth the military effort involved in getting to Suez, Haifa, Beirut and Latakia even with Moscow threatened, but the lines against Moscow starting to hold.
For all his much vaunted caution, this is Stalin's big chance to permanently break free of Anglo-and now Anglo-American containment lines barring the USSR from the Mediteranen and Indian Oceans in a way that will make it impossible for the US and UK to demand a return to the status quo ante. Iraq is now in a power vacuum. As is Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf Sheikhdoms, Yemen, Abbysinia and even British India. All are now guarded by small numbers of now belligerent British troops.:)
And the US is still in the process of sorting out it's policy toward it's erstwhile closest ally. Does the incoming Republican Administration follow suit with Great Britain and align with Hitler's "new order" against "godless Communism:?" :confused:
Or follow a more Rooseveltian policy of fighting on with the USSR against fascism; a policy which will now involve the truly distasteful task of moving to pull the British dominions away from the mother country, and in the case of Canada and the West Indies, perhaps even annexing them and the other European colonies in the Western Hemisphere the response to such a security threat that the Monroe Doctrine demands. If the US is to construe fascism as a security threat at all. :eek:
 
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