Anyone of political intelligence who has read the history of the 1920's to 1945 and thought about the choices available will be forced to conclude that FDR saved western civilization from several different disastrous outcomes. History is not determinate. Time and chance happen to all. March 1933 was an absolute American disaster. Hoover had shown no ability to lead and had he been reelected there is little reason to believe that there could be any recovery. Actually, presidential powers were so weak that there was little he could do except lead cheers, and the people were unwilling to put up with his gloom. Roosevelt had little knowledge of what could be done, there were no conventional economists with good advice, and about one-third of the labor force were unemployed, millions of homeowners and were in default, and public and private charity were exhausted.
(At the time, my father, employed by the State of Georgia, had been working without pay for several months -- the State was too broke to pay. There were no other jobs, so he kept teaching at Georgia Tech. The head of the department had saved some money and was a bachelor, so he gave food to the poorest members of the department. We had taken in a homeless starving 14 year girl and a war disabled great uncle. The landlord didn't kick us out because there was no one who could pay him rent. When I read the actual social conditions of the time, I conclude that without the New Deal, we would probably have faced social revolution. The Army was so small that it could not have prevented a revolution. There was no money to pay the National Guard.
I do not know what kind of revolution it would have been. I suspect it would have been led by disgruntled veterans. There were a few thousands communists who might have provided some leadership. (They led a number of strikes later).
The important change of the New Deal was not the substance except for Emergency Relief which probably kept millions alive in 1933 and provided a respite for the 100 days of reform legislation. WPA which was a work-relief systen (not a dole) helped may people survive, but the balance of the 1930's did not show major economic improvements.
Roosevelt's major mistake, in my opinion, was his inability to establish a corporate state on the model of Italy and Germany. Anyone who looked at world politics in 1933 should have foreseen a new great world war. Japan's Manchurian invasion, Germany's rearmament. and the Soviet Union's military resurgence were ample warning. The American pacifist and isolationist Congress (which reflected public opinion) made it impossible for the US to rearm or to exercise a positive role in international affairs.
Roosevelt and Ed Vinson managed to get a few ships built, but the Washington naval treaty had forced the US to junk most of the greatr fleet that Wilson had laid down in 1916, and the London Naval Limitations agreement made it impossible for the US and UK to build first class battleships. (The Japanese and Germans laid down illegally large Yamato, Musashi, Bismarck, and Tirpitz.) This guaranteed that when war came, the US and UK would be thoroughly outgunned even if their fleets had not been wrecked at the beginning of the war.
It is easy to criticize the incompetence of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy as of 1939, but they had been starved for money, equipment, and experience. We lacked a decent tank (Christie had sold the designs for T-34 to the Russians.) We lacked a competitive fighter plane. Vast amounts had been spent on the B-17 which was virtually useless and intended for a faulty mission. (When it was used for high-level "precision" strategic bombing in 1943 it suffered 20 per cent casualties per raid and achieved nothing).
Roosevelt can certainly be faulted for his aggressive policies in 1941. Although he must have known the terrible condition of the fleet and the army, he could not have known how incompetent and emotionally unprepared the high command was. Putting the US fleet into Pearl Harbor was he felt a necessary provocation to the Japanese. American war plans provided that the US Fleet would sale west and engage the Japanese Fleet to relieve the Philippines. The Philippine army would fall back to Bataan, and await the outcome of the fleet engagement. MacArthur had 135,000 troups and a sizeable air force, but the AF was caught on the ground and destroyed, and the army was improvidently squandered in a late and unplanned attempt to stop the Japanese at Linguayan Gulf.
The Bataan army, ill-supplied (half-rations from day 1) and ill-commanded (MacArthur visited it at most one time) was destroyed by malaria. Of course, there was no possibility of relief, because the fleet had been destroyed at its moorings in Pearl Harbor.
In mid-1941, Roosevelt (who had let the trade and friendship treaty with Japan lapse)in response to Japanese movements into Indochina and continuation of the China war cut off supplies of arms, scrap metal (necessary for steel), and petroleum to Japan. Japan's assets were frozen, and the Dutch were made to require cash payment for oil from NEI. These were intended to show the Japanese how hopeless their situation was. The year before the Kwantung Army had been smashed battle with Russia (J had no tanks worth shooting) and caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Japan either had to pull in its horns and give up its dream of Asian-Pacific hegemony, or undertake an incredibly hazardous attack to the south for oil. To protect its flank, a surprise attack on the US Fleet was required. Yamamoto thought that if the attack succeeded, Japan would have six months to establish a defensive perimeter, and perhaps a year before American industrial might (which he understood) could produce a new fleet and begin to turn the tables.
Roosevelt and his advisers knew how dangerous and provocative the Pacific policy was, but could not allow the Japanese tp complete there movement to the South. At any time, the feeble resistance of China could collapse (especially if all outside supply were cut off) and Japan would be able to deploy millions of troops to its perimeter. The Soviet Army was no longer a threat with the German attack, and USSR movements of most of its Siberian and FE armies to the west.
Meanwhile in late 1941, the struggle to keep UK in the war required the US to provide protection for convoys to mid Atlantic, occupy Iceland (replacing the English), and provide lendlease for UK and then USSR. Roosevelt knew that keeping first UK and then USSR in the war was essential. Germany was no immediate threat to the US, but if UK or USSR were neutralized or defeated, it would only be a matter of time until Hitler would be able to over power the United States.
There were no unengaged countries that mattered.
The political and military misjudgments of Hitler are critical and unexpected. Up to the day he attacked USSR, Hitler was receiving vital war materials in huge and agreed upon amounts from USSR. Hitler could have stockpiled much of what he needed, but he was afraid of USSR's rearmament even though utterly contemptuous of their present military power.
His attempt to build Europe into an arsenal and fortress were far from successful. But there was almost no resistance from the occupied countries and it seems likely that he could have increased his military power immensely without much trouble.
The British were a minor nuisance -- their terror bombing was irrelevant, and actually may have helped improve production in Germany, even as late as 1943.
His most glaring misjudgment was his failure to "liberate" marginal areas of the USSR. Finland, the Baltic States, and East Europe provided many divisions to Hitler. It seems likely that Ukraine could have been turned into an ally, had Hitler merely shot the commissars and encouraged peasants and workers to lynch the other communists. Here Hitler's racism may well have defeated him.
Hitler's greatest miscalculation was to let American aggression in the Atlantic drive him declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt must have been delighted (as was Churchill "So we had won after all!" he later wrote) that he was not left with a war with Japan (which he didn't want) without a war with German (which he believed was ultimately necessary. I suspect he would have been unable to convince the American people of the need to make war on Germany while Japan was undefeated. One war at a time has always been a good policy.
(Next -- how Roosevelt beat the Nazis using Russian and British troops.) |
