What if? DuPont saves the Union: One of my favorite pastimes is reading about historic events that changed the tide of history. In the book The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson, he states that an official of the DuPont company saved the Union during the civil war. At the time, the Union was running out of saltpeter... something that is necessary to make gunpowder. Most of the Unions supply was imported from British India, unlike the Confederacies that had plenty of mines to get their own supply. The DuPont official upon arrival in England secretly bought up all the supply of saltpeter he could find. With only six months of supply left on hand in April 1861, the Union would most likely have lost the war. What if... England had refused to sell to the Union? 8 Weeks: Hitler and his Generals disagreed from the start about what Russias Center of Gravity was. The Generals thought it was Moscow, while Hitler thought it was Ukraine and the Oil fields of the Caucasus. Hitler said it would only take 8 weeks to conquer Russia. After the first few weeks, even Roosevelt and his staff in the United States believed he was right. Hitlers reasoning was based on history. Napoleon had taken Moscow, but the Russians had not given in, and in the end Napoleon had to retreat, with disastrous results for his Empire. Hitler was determined not to repeat that mistake; he was going to head south, take the Ukraine and the Oil fields, and deny the Russians the resources he felt they needed to continue the war. During 1941, the Russian Army lost somewhere around 4,500,000 casualties. Of this, at least 2,400,000 were prisoners of war. Their total losses surpassed the amount of men they had in arms when the invasion began. During the campaign the Germans inflicted casualty ratios on the Russians from 10-1 to 20-1. The Germans captured around half of Russias industry and two fifths of their population. The battle which essentially cost the Germans the war, Stalingrad. Hitler’s ambitious plan to seize the oil-rich Caucasus region of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1942 ground to a halt on the shores of the Volga River at a city named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Had Hitler allowed the 6th Army to withdraw a few months earlier when victory was out of reach, it probably would have staved off Germanys ultimate defeat by months, or even years (giving them time to develop an atomic bomb or other Super Weapon). Instead the 6th Army was captured and a quarter of a million men, some of the most experienced of the German army would be lost. What if, Hitler had let his generals attack as they thought was needed? What if, Hitler... thinking the USA was going to declare war on Germany after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (though the US had no such plans), had not declared war on the USA... giving him more time to battle England without the help from America. What if, the Germans brought along winter gear, instead of thinking Hitler was right... 8 weeks.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 00:18:06 +0000
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