[Misc] What was Britain’s single greatest achievement of the 20th century?

[Weststander]

Thank God we have the EU to avoid further wars in Europe...……… Oh!

Shame it didn’t stay as an economic union. I voted Remain mainly for economic reasons, but countless million others got sick of the way the entity evolved with wider and wider powers held by the Commission.

Remain would’ve won by a landslide in different circumstances.

 

[Weststander]

That's debatable. Germany was being pushed back by the Soviet Union before D-Day, although the Americans certainly speeded up things.



And that's very questionable. The US entered the war after Pearl Harbor, sooner or later they'd have turned their attention to Japan's allies in Europe.

I do agree though that if the Germans had won the BoB then Churchill could have been kicked out but that's by no means certain. I said that the victory there wasn't to be sniffed at as a morale booster but I doubt whether it was militarily significant

It’s more complicated than that.

Long before the USSR started its long march towards Berlin, it was receiving huge sums of money from the USA ($154b in today’s terms) from Lend-Lease, plus vital supplies and military components from the USA and UK.

It really was a joint effort from all Allies very early on.

 

[Fungus]

On a current thread I was surprised to read this:
Welcome as it undoubtedly was to the majority of the population, I can think of several other things. I'll start in the pre-world war era and propose that the greatest achievement was the maintenance of the British Empire, which ruled a quarter of the World using a tiny fraction of that population.

Losing it from a position of strength was quite an achievement.

 

[portlock seagull]

Surviving in 1940 - hard to see how D-Day could've been launched from New York

 

[portlock seagull]

Losing it from a position of strength was quite an achievement.

All empires fall eventually, the democratic ones especially.

 

[Weststander]

Losing it from a position of strength was quite an achievement.

Independence was granted mostly pain free and early on.

In contrast France and Belgium fought every step of the way, committing widespread atrocities all the way up to the 60’s. In Algeria for example in the 60’s, leaders of organisations seeking independence were taking up in aeroplanes thousands of feet over the Med and pushed out without parachutes.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Wrong thread whoops

 

[Nottseagull]

This is a bit off the topic but would it have been any different? Hitler would still have had a great deal of difficulty in mounting an invasion as the RN was still very strong. Even if they had invaded, the logistics of supplying the occupying army would have been tricky.

I'm not denying the Battle of Britain was a heroic event and certainly hampered the German war effort but beyond being a morale booster (which is not to be sniffed at) was it really that significant?

I don't mind it going off-topic because it's getting more interesting. You question whether Germany could have successfully invaded us across just 21 miles with total command of the air, yet the American/British Empire forces achieved it with neither of these huge advantages. As for food supplies, they would have had first call on ours. Do you know if we had arranged to cease the convoys from North America in such an event? Either way, the dreadful loss of merchant navy personnel would have been ended at a stroke.
If this occupation had happened, I think American and Canadian troops would also have been saved by never being sent to Europe, but that the USA would have done to Germany what they did to Japan in 1945.

 

[Gwylan]

I don't mind it going off-topic because it's getting more interesting. You question whether Germany could have successfully invaded us across just 21 miles with total command of the air, yet the American/British Empire forces achieved it with neither of these huge advantages..

I'm not a military historian so I stand to be corrected but D-Day worked for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Germans had fortified the wrong place, they weren't expecting a Norman invasion and were caught on the hop. Second, the RN was much stronger than the German one (I also believe the landing barges weren't as good). Thirdly, the Allies were landing in a terrain where the native inhabitants would be friendly to them (a lot of French took part, either as part of the landing force or in the Resistance), the Germans wouldn't be and finally, the Germans were fighting on two fronts - we wouldn't have been.

I do know that several experts did look at the possibility of a German invasion and nearly all said that it would have been very difficult to succeed,