What if some bleeping Nazi had shot my Pa?

How far do we go in N. Korea if the Chinese hadn't intervened? As in do we conquer the entire country or just quick strike and take the capital and force a political capitulation. Would this have led to a unified Korea?

CanyonAg77 said:

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What would have happened in Korea if we stopped at the 38th after throwing the Norks back over the border?

Lots of lives saved, no Chinese intervention, at least at that time. Who knows what would happen later.

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Sorry, I see how I worded that weird now.

I meant, how far do we as a nation go in regards to how we deal with N. Korea if the Chinese hadn't entered the war and pushed us back out? We had Pyongyang captured and the Nork forces more or less routed. Victory is all but assured but for the Chinese. So if they didn't enter the war, do we straight conquer NK and occupy for years? Do we push for unification? How would it play out? The reason I ask is just the continued contention to this day with the Norks. Is China the only reason why there still is a North Korea today?

I think that once we crossed the 38th, Chinese intervention was inevitable. That's why I wonder if it had been different had we not

Yeah I agree with that. By the time we got to Chosin there were multiple divisions of Chinese regulars already in NK

expresswrittenconsent said:

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I didnt exaggerate my numbers. I posted facts. Then you came back with emotions (not facts) about how your crackpot theory still made sense despite there being 20 mil deaths from ww1 total while you claimed there were "hundreds of millions" meaning you thought there were 200million ot 300 million or 500 million deaths. So maybe you weren't off by a factor of 10. Maybe you were off by a factor of 15 or 25.

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Wtf? Reading comprehension fail. Logic fail. Manners fail. Math fail. Debate fail.

What are you even here for? Rude illogical bull**** that avoids the point is no way to behave here.

My posts are on mobile - can't go real long. But bottom line you can't view ww1 in a vacuum, but even if you treat ww2 as a separate event, ww1 triggered something in the range of over 100 million 'unnatural' European deaths in less than 20 years. The total Western European population in the world in 1913 was slightly greater than it is today iirc, roughly 500 million people.

Triggered communism/fascism/socialism/military industrial total war complex/huge explosion of government in the us, total turmoil in third world, etc.

And I don't view ww1 and 2 as separate events at all. 4 year world war, 20 year deep breath, 7 years of continued world war.

Stasco said:

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Going a little further on the what-if-the-Confederates-won theme, when would slavery have finally ended in North America?

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Yes it would have.

Don't underestimate the growing resentment of colonial occupied countries. The late 1800s was the beginning of the fall of the British Empire but WW1 weakened Britain's hold on the world and then the end of WW2 saw the meteoric rise in independence away from Britain. Even if the world wars had gone "smoother", global British control was waning.

dcbowers said:

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What if Sam Houston and the Texians had gotten decimated by Santa Anna at San Jacinto?

We'd all be speaking Comanche for one.

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FIFY. Santa Anna was extended and exposed. If we didn't win in San Jacinto, and he slaughtered the civilians leaving in the runaway scrape, the 3rd infantry regiment in Louisiana was already having a hard time keeping deserters from joining the Texian army already and may have acted to protect "Americans". If nothing happened, and the Centralists succeed in wiping out Texian resistance, Texas would be a wasteland when they left, filled with marauding Comanches doing what they pleased. Americans would come squat on claims in east Texas (like they had already), and maybe eventually you would see that Texas would be part of the US, but the more modest Mexican version of it being bounded by the Nueces instead of the Rio Grande.

what if Lincoln had given McDowell the extra time to properly train his troops and Bull Run was a few months later and the Union troops did not falter before Jackson? They push on to Richmond, capture the government and the war is over. McDowell almost pulled that off anyway.

Another example of Lincoln's incompetence as a war leader.

I'm curious as to what other examples of his incompetence there are? He was re-elected in the middle of the ACW so enough people thought he was doing a good enough job. And 1st Bull Run was going to be a cluster **** whenever it was fought IMO. It took awhile for both sides to get their stuff together.

Some of Lincoln's failings as a commander-in-chief:

Made some abysmal appointments starting with Secretary of War Simon Cameron and including Don Buell, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside and Joe Hooker and then replaced some of them too quickly.
Tended to make many of his military decisions with a political component to it.
Appointed too many political generals, then gave them responsibilities beyond their capability.
Had no idea what was going on with the relief of Ft. Sumter and Pickens and gave conflicting orders to these two separate relief expeditions
Tended to react instead of plan for the conquest of the south.
Did not communicate or demand that generals communicate well enough with him to understand what their intentions were (think McClellan)
Did not force Henry Halleck to be a true general in chief versus just an administrative G-i-C.
Did not force McDowell to move quicker to help take Richmond during the Peninsular Campaign; then became too concerned about the safety of DC and held too many forces back to protect the capital.
Early on, tended to not trust his commanders

Once Lincoln had Grant who he finally trusted, two years into the war, he dropped some of these bad traits and turned over much of the war management to Grant. Even then, he vetoed many of Grant's ideas such as landing an army in North Carolina to work its way north to Richmond at the beginning of the Overland Campaign.

BQ78 said:

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Some of Lincoln's failings as a commander-in-chief:

Made some abysmal appointments starting with Secretary of War Simon Cameron and including Don Buell, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside and Joe Hooker and then replaced some of them too quickly.
Tended to make many of his military decisions with a political component to it.
Appointed too many political generals, then gave them responsibilities beyond their capability.
Had no idea what was going on with the relief of Ft. Sumter and Pickens and gave conflicting orders to these two separate relief expeditions
Tended to react instead of plan for the conquest of the south.
Did not communicate or demand that generals communicate well enough with him to understand what their intentions were (think McClellan)
Did not force Henry Halleck to be a true general in chief versus just an administrative G-i-C.
Did not force McDowell to move quicker to help take Richmond during the Peninsular Campaign; then became too concerned about the safety of DC and held too many forces back to protect the capital.
Early on, tended to not trust his commanders

Once Lincoln had Grant who he finally trusted, two years into the war, he dropped some of these bad traits and turned over much of the war management to Grant. Even then, he vetoed many of Grant's ideas such as landing an army in North Carolina to work its way north to Richmond at the beginning of the Overland Campaign.

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The Army of Northern Virginia held sway in a lot of his failings. His army was not operating in a vacuum.

He had to deal with a depleted officer corps. Not saying all of the good ones went south but enough that his political appointees had some impact on the outcomes of the early battles. And he did pull the plug too early on some of them. The good officers (appointee, volunteer or regular) eventually rose to the forefront. It was that way on both sides.

Defense of Washington was also paramount in every campaign in Northern Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania for the duration of the war. Made no difference who the commander of the army was.

he ordered Sherman to remove George Thomas right before the Battle of Nashville and Sherman refused. Grant advised against doing so but Lincoln ordered him to get on a train and go relieve him. By the time Grant could do so Thomas had destroyed Hood's army. He was maybe the best general in either army but he was from Virginia and so..........

Meade held a council of war to decide whether the army was fit to pursue Lee after Gettysburg and it was nearly unanimous that they were in no shape to do so. So Meade did not. Lincoln threw a hissy fit and put Grant over Meade. Thanks for nothing, George.

The war lasted several years longer than necessary because of Lincoln's blunders.

As for not having enough capable officers, keep in mind that most of the southern west pointers stayed in the US Army.

Lincoln did a great job getting the northern route of the railroad to the Pacific built for his clients the railroads

Getting shot was a good move reputation wise and it obviated the necessity of dealing with the southerners after the war. Of course if he had survived it would have been all kumbaya, with the southerners recognizing the errors of their ways and welcoming the freedmen with open arms and 40 acres and a mule and a nice new plow. With not a bank left in the south, their currency worthless and a tariff on imports that made it impossible for them to tap into their former markets in the same degree, all would have been perfect.

huisachel said:

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he ordered Sherman to remove George Thomas right before the Battle of Nashville and Sherman refused. Grant advised against doing so but Lincoln ordered him to get on a train and go relieve him. By the time Grant could do so Thomas had destroyed Hood's army. He was maybe the best general in either army but he was from Virginia and so..........

Meade held a council of war to decide whether the army was fit to pursue Lee after Gettysburg and it was nearly unanimous that they were in no shape to do so. So Meade did not. Lincoln threw a hissy fit and put Grant over Meade. Thanks for nothing, George.

The war lasted several years longer than necessary because of Lincoln's blunders.

As for not having enough capable officers, keep in mind that most of the southern west pointers stayed in the US Army.

Lincoln did a great job getting the northern route of the railroad to the Pacific built for his clients the railroads

Getting shot was a good move reputation wise and it obviated the necessity of dealing with the southerners after the war. Of course if he had survived it would have been all kumbaya, with the southerners recognizing the errors of their ways and welcoming the freedmen with open arms and 40 acres and a mule and a nice new plow. With not a bank left in the south, their currency worthless and a tariff on imports that made it impossible for them to tap into their former markets in the same degree, all would have been perfect.

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Huisache,

Can you point me into the direction of material I can look at for this? I'd like to create some sort of lesson for my students analyzing Lincoln's leadership during the war, if possible. I teach G/T students and I think they'll eat this up. Maybe a comparative study between him and Jeff Davis. I'm open to ideas as well for anything similar to this.

Accounts of the Nashville campaign usually discuss Lincoln's attempts to remove Thomas, same as to Gettysburg. My argument re Bull Run and McDowell is speculative but most accounts say the Union appeared on the verge of a win until Jackson did his magic. And Lincoln, by all accounts ordered McDowell to attack when the general did not believe his army was trained.

Any general history of the conflict will contain the seeds for these arguments

Any life of Lincoln will point out that his principal clients were railroads. Some will mention that he owned lots in Council Bluffs, which is where the transcontinental railroad kicked off. He was a great man and great orator but was a political war president

How were WWI and The Spanish Influenza related?

Quote:

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The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces' campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons.

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The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919

And BTW, "Spanish Flu" is a misnomer based on wartime censorship by the Allied and Central Powers nations ...

Quote:

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As the pandemic reached epic proportions in the fall of 1918, it became commonly known as the "Spanish Flu" or the "Spanish Lady" in the United States and Europe. Many assumed this was because the sickness had originated on the Iberian Peninsula, but the nickname was actually the result of a widespread misunderstanding. Spain was one of only a few major European countries to remain neutral during World War I. Unlike in the Allied and Central Powers nations, where wartime censors suppressed news of the flu to avoid affecting morale, the Spanish media was free to report on it in gory detail. News of the sickness first made headlines in Madrid in late-May 1918, and coverage only increased after the Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with a nasty case a week later. Since nations undergoing a media blackout could only read in depth accounts from Spanish news sources, they naturally assumed that the country was the pandemic's ground zero. The Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus had spread to them from France, so they took to calling it the "French Flu."

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https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu

huisachel said:

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Accounts of the Nashville campaign usually discuss Lincoln's attempts to remove Thomas, same as to Gettysburg. My argument re Bull Run and McDowell is speculative but most accounts say the Union appeared on the verge of a win until Jackson did his magic. And Lincoln, by all accounts ordered McDowell to attack when the general did not believe his army was trained.

Any general history of the conflict will contain the seeds for these arguments

Any life of Lincoln will point out that his principal clients were railroads. Some will mention that he owned lots in Council Bluffs, which is where the transcontinental railroad kicked off. He was a great man and great orator but was a political war president

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Thanks, I appreciate it.

Was thinking more about this thread. Why Hitler doesn't cross the Maginot Line? France and England didn't have any notion in attacking. So what if Hitler parked some troops there to counter then focus all,his attention eastward. Then he wouldn't have wasted all the energy and man power with Atlantic wall.

I think there wouldn't be a Europe first attitude in the US if Hitler didn't occupy Western Europe.

Then would Hitler had enough to beat the Soviets?

Germany never declares.

US puts 100% of the machine into Japan, defeating them before the bomb is ready. Somewhere along the lines, we enter the European theater and use the bomb on Germany.

Would we have used it in Europe?