FDR's Tragic Refusal to Deal with the German Resistance and Abandon "Unconditional Surrender"

[OpanaPointer]

General MacArthur said of Roosevelt that he never told the truth if a lie would suffice.

"Would you vote for MacArthur for President?"

"That depends. Who's running for God?"

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Carl and Steve,

You both bring up that logistically there were extra costs for the Allies in campaigning in Italy.

This is undoubtedly true, but it is also true of all Western Allied overseas operations, as the USA was an ocean away from any land campaigns in Europe, as was 90% of the population of the British Empire (and even the remaining 10% was across the Channel). Furthermore, all the logistics considerations that apply to Italy also apply to France as regards feeding civilian populations.

It would appear that the population that suffered most from the Italian Campaign may not have even been in Europe at all, but in Bengal.

With the Bengal famine looming, Churchill had to make a differential decision in allocating merchant shipping as to whether to send Australian wheat to India or to liberated Italy. He chose Italy. The result was at least a million deaths in British India that might have been avoided.

Carl, you post, "Aside from a decline in grain available a surviving uninvaded Fascist Italy would have to contend with a similar or larger amount of air attack & bombing of its industrial plant/transportation, as it did in 1944. How much longer Italy holds up as viable military power is a open question here." Interestingly, in his memoirs Kesselring suggests that in 1945 the Italian Front could have become pretty much self sufficient, suggesting that there was still enough industrial plant in Northern Italy to sustain 20 or more divisions with their basic military needs. (I am not sure how true that was). [viewtopic.php?f=75&t=211567&p=1914414&h ... g#p1914414]

Cheers,

Sid

[DrG]

The primary goal for the Italian armistice was the reopening of the Mediterranean to merchant trade by the Allies. Its closure had caused a loss of 2 million tons of transport capacity, due to the need to circumnavigate Africa, and these tons were recovered only after the occupation of both Sicily and Sardinia, which prevented any mass attack from Axis sea and air forces (of course, submarines were another matter, but a somewhat negligible one by mid-1943).

Of course the Allies could have occupied Sardinia without the need of a campaign in the Italian peninsula, and in my opinion this would have been a more rational strategy (but we are forgetting that this thread is precisely about the role of unconditional surrender in the protraction of WW2, and maybe the fact that a coup was not staged in Germany after the fall of Mussolini and the Italian armistice should deserve more attention), but if we follow the historical events and not the hypothetical ones, any logistical burden caused by the Italian campaign should be weighted in comparison to the gain in available tonnage by the Allies. Plus the role of the Italian merchant marine, which I am unable to quantify because I have no data about the merchant ships that were available to the Kingdom of Italy after 8 Sept. 1943 (I only know that little less than 120,000 tons were recovered from internment in neutral countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland), but was not negligible.

With regards to Sid's notes about the Bengal famine, while interesting I fear they are not correct. Out of 490.8 million dollars of goods provided by the Allies for Italian civilian consumption between July 1943 and April 1946, only 28.4 million arrived in 1943, all from the USA, then 186.3 in 1944, 270.2 in 1945 and 5.9 in 1946. Given that the Bengal famine reached top mortality in the autumn of 1943, I fail to see how a phenomenon which had started months before the Italian campaign and peaked when only a handful of Allied supplies had reached the Italian population could have been caused by these supplies. Moreover, I think it is reasonable to assume that the Allied transports for Italian civilian consumption increased in the second half of 1944, after the occupation of Central Italy and therefore the doubling of Italian population under Allied control, i.e. when the Bengal famine had already finished.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dr.G,

You are right. The argument is that the shipping of wheat from Australia to India was needed for the invasion of Italy, not the wheat itself for feeding the Italian population. Unfortunately, this still leaves the population of Bengal as collateral damage of this differential decision.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sheldrake]

Hi Dr.G,

You are right. The argument is that the shipping of wheat from Australia to India was needed for the invasion of Italy, not the wheat itself for feeding the Italian population. Unfortunately, this still leaves the population of Bengal as collateral damage of this differential decision.

Cheers,

Sid.

The Bengal famine is more complicated than a binary choice for the British government and it was not food for Italy v India.

There is a chapter on this in Lizzie Collingham's - Taste of War WW2 and the battle for food - a excellent read about a fascinating topic.

Despite India’s strategic importance, the Indian government made lamentably little effort to maintain economic stability within the colony, particularly in comparison to the work of the Middle East Supply Centre, which exercised far less power...

The government of India, which was composed of Indian politicians as well as British officials under the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, showed a complacency towards the problem of wartime food supplies that was both irresponsible and callous...

When Burmese rice imports dried up most provinces reacted with what Justice H. L. Braund, Regional Food Controller for the Eastern Areas, later termed ‘insane provincial protectionism’. The British governor of Madras banned rice exports from the province and other provinces followed suit. The machinery of trade in food was strangled; in particular, flows of food from surplus to deficit areas within the country came to a halt. Throughout 1942 the government of India did not have a clear picture of the food situation and it was in any case reluctant to act decisively. The government lacked the self-confidence to impose its will on the Indian upper classes. Cautious of provoking political dissent, the government shied away from imposing heavy taxation, price ceilings and consumption restrictions on India’s business and industrial classes, on whose collaboration it depended for the expansion of Indian industry and manufacturing, which were making a significant contribution to the war effort.....

Rationing would have entitled the worst hit to at least a minimum of food. But Justice H. L. Braund unwisely advised the government that rationing could not be practically implemented...

The Quit India Movement, which began in August 1942, distracted British administrators from the growing seriousness of the problem....
Many officials adopted an unsympathetic attitude towards Indian complaints of food shortages and blamed the problem on Congress politicians who producers and merchants to withdraw their support from the government by closing their shops...

...the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, asked for 200,000 tons of grain to be diverted to India by April 1943, and 400,000 tons thereafter. But the shipping crisis was at its height and with the failure of the United States to meet its meat import quotas, as well as Operation Torch in North Africa, Britain was struggling to maintain civilian food supplies. If Britain were to meet India’s request, shipping and supplies would have to be withdrawn from either British soldiers fighting the Germans or British civilians making do on corned beef. The immediate response to Linlithgow’s request came from Lord Cherwell, scientific adviser to the British government and a friend of Churchill. He replied (incorrectly) that ‘India’s yearly production of seventy million tons of cereals made it self-sufficient in grains’. He could not see how ‘India’s larger populace would derive … comfort from aid that disproportionately deprived the British people of ten times the sustenance’.

The War Cabinet as a whole was hostile towards India and its demands, but Churchill in particular despised Indians and their independence movement. Ill, and irritable, Churchill was not inclined to be generous with India at Britain’s expense. He is said to have claimed that Indians had brought these problems on themselves by breeding like rabbits and must pay the price of their own improvidence....

...Wavell repeatedly telegrammed London pleading for food for India. Churchill peevishly replied that if food was so scarce in India why had Gandhi not yet died?

Churchill was not alone in his refusal to prioritize India’s food needs. A committee to look into the question of food supplies for India decided that the risk of civilian hunger in India was a lesser evil than jeopardizing British civilian food supplies or military supplies for the Indian army. In November 1943 the committee even turned down a Canadian offer of 100,000 tons of wheat for India for lack of shipping and the British government prevented the Indian legislative assembly from applying to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) for food aid....

Most economic and historical examinations of the causes of the Bengal famine take the view that there was plenty of food in Bengal safely stashed away in the village stores of landlords and traders, all of whom were waiting for inflation to push prices higher. ... However.... There may have been as little as half the usual amount of rice available in the Bengal food system. This would provide an alternative explanation as to why landlords and farmers with rice stores were in no hurry to release them, as they knew that there was a real and frightening shortage of rice in Bengal...

Even the Punjab, which had plenty of food, showed no empathy with the plight of the Bengalis and concentrated on protecting the profits of Punjabi farmers. In June 1943, when the famine was at its height, the Revenue Minister of Punjab, Sir Chhotu Ram, instructed his farmers not to sell their grain to the government under a certain price....

Collingham, Lizzie. The Taste of War (Kindle Locations 2910-2914). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

[LineDoggie]

The White Rose (IIRC) at least made an attempt, yes?

Low Level individuals make no tangible difference. You need commanders who have the power and resources to overthrow Hitler. he and his minions were not simply going to resign and hand themselves to the Allies for trial

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Sheldrake,

You post, "The Bengal famine is more complicated than a binary choice for the British government and it was not food for Italy v India." Of course it was. I was referring only to one aspect of it regarding a possible connection with Italy, which was subject to the unconditional surrender demand of the thread title and where the subject of the burden to the Allies of feeding Italy was raised.

There are other threads on AHF dealing with the Bengal Famine.

Cheers,

Sid.

[OpanaPointer]

The White Rose (IIRC) at least made an attempt, yes?

Low Level individuals make no tangible difference.

And they won't if they never try.

[DrG]

Just a note: I found very informative, about the matter of Bengal famine in the context of Allied shipping shortages, chapter XVI of the book "Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War" by C.B.A. Behrens, published by the HMSO in 1955.

[mikegriffith1]

It's worth mentioning that both Eisenhower and Marshall opposed unconditional surrender, and both tried to talk FDR out of it, but he would not listen.

[LineDoggie]

The White Rose (IIRC) at least made an attempt, yes?

Low Level individuals make no tangible difference.

And they won't if they never try.

And they wont if it only takes a platoon to round them up

[Sheldrake]

Until I recently read Thomas Fleming's book The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II, I was not aware of the size and strength of the German resistance and of their attempts to get FDR to abandon his unconditional surrender stance. Nor was I aware that so many high-ranking American and British officials viewed the unconditional surrender policy as a deadly, senseless mistake that would cost tens of thousands of Allied soldiers' lives.

FDR was a devious and politician. So were the other allied war leaders. Stalin was the deeply devious leader of a country Churchill described as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Unconditional surrender was a clear message that the western allies were fully committed to war to the end of Nazi Germany. It simplified diplomacy.

Any negotiations by the western allies with individual axis powers would put a strain on the far from easy relationship with the USSR

There was a risk that Stalin and Hitler might agree an armistice. There were no electorates to satisfy. What if Hitler agreed to an armistice somewhere between the 1943 front line and the 1941 borders? It might have been a temporary truce, but it would leave the Western Allies facing the Germans on their own for a few years.

Negotiations by the western Allies with Axis states posed a risk for Stalin. Communist totalitarian USSR was a natural enemy of the capitalist, democratic west and the Atlantic Charter was a rallying call against its ethos. The Germans had hopes, to the end of the war, that the Western allies would eventually see sense and join them in a crusade against communism. To a certain extent they were right - its just they weren't going to turn on the USSR until after the war.

Suppose the German resistance overthrew Hitler and sues for peace in the west, restoring the states of Western Europe or even Poland. Where would this leave Stalin?

Negotiations with Italy were not just a matter for the western allies. Italy had taken part on Op Barbarossa and an army in Russia in July 1943. Stalin could reasonably demand representation in any negotiated Italian surrender and impose his own conditions.

Unconditional surrender removed uncertainty from the inter allied relations.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

According to Third Axis, Fourth Ally, in early 1943, in the wake of Stalingrad, the Italians were suggesting to the Germans a separate peace with the Russians. By contrast, the Romanians were suggesting a separate peace with the Western Allies. Ciano certainly wanted a way out of the war and got dismissed when the Germans intercepted his communications with the USA.

I think Sheldrake may be right. The Unconditional Surrender demand simplified matters and helped reassure all the Allies that none of them was going to be left out on a limb to face the Axis alone.

Cheers,

Sid

[OpanaPointer]

The White Rose (IIRC) at least made an attempt, yes?

Low Level individuals make no tangible difference.

And they won't if they never try.

And they wont if it only takes a platoon to round them up

You make it sound like any/all resistance was utterly incompetent. Dismissiveness is not a good debating tool.

[LineDoggie]

The White Rose (IIRC) at least made an attempt, yes?

Low Level individuals make no tangible difference.

And they won't if they never try.

And they wont if it only takes a platoon to round them up

You make it sound like any/all resistance was utterly incompetent. Dismissiveness is not a good debating tool.

Well let's see since they were all caught and most executed YES they were incompetent.

they held no power since they were so low level and therefore unable to influence those who held power.

So YES they were incompetent

To replace a hitler you need ruthless people who command ruthless people because a Hitler and goering are not likely to walk away from power and simply wander into the nearest allied lines to stand trial

And since you need high level commanders to set up a coup