Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-10975360-20131208111308/@comment-3398633-20131209194029

Imp, there are a number of issues with that statement. The Russian could try all they want, but the Germans would get Moscow the same way they got Minsk, Kiev, Odessa, Smolensk, and Lviv. The Germans failed at Stalingrad because their supply lines collapsed. That was not the case with Moscow. The Russians were brave, but not all Russians were soldiers, and at some point, the huge population losses would drag more men out of factories and farms, and there'd be nothing but women left to fight, and when they are dragged out of the factories and farms, there'd be nothing left but children. The Germans still had about the same number of men as the Russians, they just didn't have them all at one area. The other have of the German military was along the Atlantic Wall, which absorbed millions of troops to prevent an American invasion, that Hitler thought would happen, even though the American public did not want a war. So in theory, if Hitler's America paranoia hadn't been so strong, he could have directed those forces to fight in Russia, denying Stalin any numerical advantage he had. Instead of three million Germans soldiers and one million Axis soldiers (which were there as collaborators, not unwillingly), Hitler could have had six million German soldiers plus the Axis forces, giving him seven million to Stalin's three million.

On Britain, Germany would have won there in the fact that the British had to get their troops from India as you stated. However, there were only two ways that could work. The first being moving through the Suez Canal into the hostile, Italian-controlled Mediterranean Sea. Plus, Vichy France had ships there to, and could support any attempts to prevent the British from passing through the straits. The second would be the much longer and deadly passing around South Africa and into the U-boat infested Atlantic Ocean, in which hundreds of ships were being destroyed. In reality, the British could only get Dominion troops as far as Egypt, and if that fell, the British Isles would have been isolated. Rommel was just outside of Alexandria during the war, and the only reason he failed to capture it was because the German supply lines, as before, were too long and too fragile. Once again, Hitler insisted on providing supplies to the forces in France instead of in Russia and North Africa, which cost him dearly. The British were going to lose, as they needed supplies and resources that couldn't be produced on the islands, and the fact that German did have the means to land on the isles. Hitler needed to skies cleared before he could land, and the troops were already mobilized for the invasion, as were the ships. The Luftwaffe's failure resulted in a botched invasion attempt, and Hitler turned his attentions elsewhere.

As for India, the Indians could fight as much as they wanted too, but in the end, they too would have been defeated by Rommel if his supply lines were strong, and the Japanese hadn't attacked the United States. Japan had hundreds of thousands of troops invading India, meaning the British would have been forced to choose between saving themselves or their most productive and vaulable colony. If they picked Britain over India, then no doubt the Indians would have been outraged, and their attempts to become independent would have become violent as a result of being sidelined by the British authorities. This would have been egged on by Azad Hind, which aligned itself with the Japanese, who had promised to grant India independence from the British in exchange for an alliance with the Axis Powers. And the Burma Campaign that the Japanese launched was going well up until the involvement of the United States. The US trusted the Japanese as was shown just before the attack on Pearl Habour. So the US wouldn't have involved itself in the Pacific War. Thus, Japan would have kept the Indians pre-occupied with fighting in their homeland instead of waste resources fighting overseas. So Britian would have lost it territories in Africa without the Indian troops thanks to Japan, and it would have fallen itself without American aid.

In the end, Russia and Britain capitalized on mistakes on the Germans' part, but if certain factors had gone another way, then they would have been defeated soundly. Britain was demoralized, and was relying on the support of others to survive. Russia was simply absorbing the invasion, but it could only do so until a point. Stalin knew Moscow would fall, and had plans to move himself and his staff beyond the Urals, where he planned to hold out until a treaty could be signed with the Germans. The Germans for their part were already trying to reach out for a peace with Britain after the failure to invade it, but the British refused, holding out on the hopes the Americans would get involved, which if Hitler hadn't declared war on the US, would not have happened since most of the American population didn't want to fight. Japan's actions would serve to play the Americans into the war as Roosevelt was actively looking for a reasont o fight Germany and Japan. No Pearl Harbour would have delayed his ability to do that, and Hitler's foolishness would not have been needed to go to war against Germany. With the Russians depopulated and demoralized, and with the British Isles under his foot, Hitler would have been free to do whatever he pleased after that, since resistances never lasted long under Nazi governments (the Norwegians had the longest open resistance of the entire conflict, lasting for about two weeks).