In the summer of 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and millions of troops beat the Red Army to no avail. By the end of 1941, the Soviet Union had lost two-thirds of its industrial and agricultural output, lost more than 3 million troops, and the capital, Moscow, became an isolated city.
At that time, the Soviet Union seemed to have a hard time withstanding the German offensive, but people of insight in many countries had analyzed the future of the Soviet-German war. At the end of 1941, the Japanese Kwantung Army Staff concluded: "Germany cannot win quickly, and the Soviet-German war will bring down Germany." Sure enough, after the battle until 1943, the Soviet Union began to counterattack Germany, and Germany eventually perished.
Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of its war of aggression and the beginning of its demise, and was well known to Japan, as an Axis power. Japan attacked the United States at the end of 1941, although it initially won with sneak attacks, but when the United States returned, Japan was also beaten continuously until it was destroyed.
Germany invaded the Soviet Union and Japan attacked the United States, which was a turning point in the fascism's decision to perish, and was regarded by many as a "trick" for self-destruction. But assuming that history can repeat itself, so that Germany does not provoke the Soviet Union, and Japan respects the United States, will German and Japanese fascism not perish?
If Germany had not fought the Soviet Union, where would it have been in the direction of its offensive? If Japan does not fight the United States, can the war of aggression against China continue? Was it inevitable that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war?
First, Germany will not fight the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union will not be able to sit still
In 1939, Germany invaded the Danzig region of Poland, and Britain and France declared war on Germany, which was the starting point of World War II. But before the outbreak of the war, Germany's expansion in Europe had been going on for a long time, Czechoslovakia and Austria were victims of Germany's expansion, and Britain and France chose to turn a blind eye.
From the time the Nazis came to power, Germany had only one goal, that is, to conquer Europe and even the whole world and establish a so-called "millennium empire" . Germany basically unified the European continent in 1940, France surrendered after only 40 days of resistance, leaving only Britain to struggle. Germany had planned to land in Britain with the Sea Lion Project, but the plan was temporarily suspended due to the defeat of the Battle of Britain, so Germany turned east to attack the Soviet Union.
Assuming that Germany did not fight the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union remained neutral, Germany had only one choice, that is, to defeat the British Empire until it occupied the LinkedIn Islands, or to get the British government to surrender. Although Britain is isolated on the sea, the British Empire has the most extensive colonies in the world, and the potential for war cannot be underestimated, and this all-out war will be fought for one to two years. Judging by the determination of the British leaders, the British government would not surrender even if it went into exile, and if Germany occupied LinkedIn country, it would have to divide its enormous forces to occupy it.
After occupying LinkedIn, the attitude of the United States and the Soviet Union determined the next step of the war. If the United States and the Soviet Union had watched Britain fall at this time, Germany would have gone south to North Africa with Italy, occupied Libya and Egypt, and then marched into the Middle East to take over important oil producers here. The pro-German Iranian regime would ally with Germany, and the Axis powers would eventually enter Central Asia overlooking India, Britain's most important colony, and the Indian war would determine the fate of Germany and Britain.
If Germany had reached the Middle East, it would have become the most threatening regime in Eurasia, and the Soviet Union, a behemoth, could not stand alone.
Just like the Qin state and the state of Qi in the Warring States period, the Qin state destroyed the 5 kingdoms, the state of Qi did not move, and finally the state of Qin would still destroy him. The Soviet Union did not do anything in World War II, and the next to perish was itself. So the Soviet Union will definitely join the war when Germany expands, only sooner or later, according to the "Great Thunderstorm" plan that later circulated in the Soviet Union, the Soviet army originally planned to go to war with Germany in late 1941 and 1942, keeping the war out.
Even if the Soviet Union did not implement the "Great Thunderstorm" plan, the Soviet army would wait until Germany invaded the Middle East at most, and the Soviet Union and Germany would have to go to war, which was forced by the situation.
Second, the war of aggression against China was like a "bloodletting tank," and the Japanese Government was cornered
After reading Germany, let's review the strategy of Japan, a small power in Asia.
Japan's war of aggression began earlier, but it was also more rigid, and the Japanese used Korea as a springboard to invade China's three eastern provinces first, and then began a full-scale invasion of China in 1937. By the summer and autumn of 1938, japan had reached the limit of its military and financial strength and could no longer fight. Therefore, after the End of the Battle of Wuhan, Japan basically stopped its offensive, and the War of Resistance entered a stage of stalemate.
Later generations generally believed that "Japan invaded China to destroy China", in fact, the Japanese government did not plan so at the beginning, China is too big, Japan does not have the national strength to rule such a vast land. The Japanese had planned to end the "China Incident" in three months, and the "end" here meant forcing China to obey. Japan will have to surrender chiang kai-shek's government within half a year at the latest, let China recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo, and cede parts of north and east China to Japan, spit out China's domestic economic interests, and let Japan continue to develop.
According to the plan of Ishihara Guan'er, the Japanese "Showa First Soldier": Japan would borrow the resources of Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, and China, raise millions of male soldiers, and then turn around and fight with the United States, gain the dominance of the entire Pacific, and establish a "thousand-year empire" like Germany.
What Japan did not expect was that the annexation of Korea and the three eastern provinces was quite smooth, and in the process of entering China's Guannei, Japan was stuck by the Chinese military and civilians.
The anti-Japanese salvation movement of the Chinese people was vigorous, and the 40 million people of the whole country fought against the enemy, leaving the Japanese aggressors in a deep quagmire. As a "poor and egg imperialist" country, Japan's national strength is not enough to support thousands of kilometers of front, the Japanese invaders have had a supply problem as early as 1938, the Hubei front in the east has been cut off from food many times, soldiers are hungry, relying on their feet to march in the fierce summer, miserable, many Japanese soldiers finally chose to commit suicide.
After 1939, because of the vigorous development of the anti-Japanese resistance behind enemy lines, Japan already felt that its national strength was insufficient, the military ratio of industry was too heavy, and there was an extreme shortage of oil and steel. The Japanese government has been talking with the Chiang government and the terms of the negotiations have become more and more lenient, and even as long as Chiang recognizes the puppet state of Manchukuo, the Japanese army is willing to accept the indemnity and completely withdraw from China.
However, Chiang Kai-shek wanted Japan to get out of China unconditionally, and did not recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo, and the Sino-Japanese peace talks were frozen many times.
Faced with the stalemate on the Battlefield in China, Japan's finances entered a chronic death, the conspiracy to "feed the war with war" failed, and the Japanese Empire may have gone bankrupt around 1941. Therefore, if Japan does not go south to Southeast Asia and confront the United States, it will only accept defeat, spit out all of China's territory, and return to the pre-1937 state.
In 1941, Japan sent 500,000 troops south to Southeast Asia to grab oil, rubber, ore, and rice, and the United States could not ignore it. Even if the United States really resists not doing anything, Japan will still go south to Australia and east into the Pacific Islands, which is equivalent to hitting the Americans in front of the eyes, the United States has a large number of interests in the western Pacific, the US government wants to "isolate" again, and the domestic capital giants will not agree.
"There will be a war between Japan and the United States," which was something that Japan and the United States knew at that time, and it was also a fate that Japan could not avoid.
No matter what history assumes, anti-human fascism will eventually perish
World War II was by far the largest war of humanity, and the entire Eurasian continent, with the exception of the Americas, was reduced to a battlefield. Because Japan and Germany were headed for world domination, they had intended to advance from East to West from Eurasia and finally to the Middle East and Siberia. The Japanese and German fascists want to put their nation above all mankind, and all the countries on the earth are their enemies, and no one is immune.
The United States and the Soviet Union, the world's top two powers at the time, had a delicate attitude toward war. Both the United States and the Soviet Union fought fiercely with Japan and Germany, and even signed the "Non-Aggression Pact," but when the Axis powers became strong to a certain extent and began to erode the interests of the two powers, the United States and the Soviet Union could not sit idly by.
No matter what history assumes, if Germany and Japan do not take the initiative to challenge the United States and the Soviet Union, the United States and the Soviet Union will also participate in the war. The world before World War II was still in the aftermath of the Age of Great Navigation, and countries with big fists could dominate and become world empires, and the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, and the British Empire were all born in this way. Such ideas hypnotized Germany, Japan, and Italy, and also brought ruin to mankind.
World War II was fought in the dark, and finally a "Yalta system" was played, allowing many countries to jointly govern the world and form a pattern of the modern world. Looking at the situation of World War II today, the Axis attack on the Soviet Union and the United States seems to be a "faint move", but in fact, there is a certain inevitability behind it, no matter how the battle is fought, the fascist regime will be destroyed.
Text/Shogakuno
Resources:
1. "The Formation of Germany's Expansion Strategy before World War II", Zou Ziping
2. "On the Reasons for the Formation of Japan's Southward Expansion Strategy in World War II", Gao Xuejun