> > Uniquely, no. It's a lot easier there though. It's the
> > biggest problem our
> > company has, waiting for people outside to make decisions, while we
> > generally are making decisions extremely fast.
>
> Uniquely hospitable = easier in the US than anywhere else, Charlie :-)
Sorry, I read it as unique = very difficult elsewhere, which it isn't, it's
just not in-yer-face. :o) British understatement, I guess. :o)
>
> > > The American army after the First World War was
> > > essentially a shattered wreck with officers on the verge of
> poverty
> > > commanding men with little equipment and less training.
> >
> > That I didn't know. Recommend me a book on the period?
>
> I mainly got a picture by reading biographies of Marshall, etc. Umm,
> the two best Eisenhower biographies are by Stephen Ambrose and David
> Eisenhower - both are excellent, although both are obviously somewhat
> biased as well. Both, btw, absolutely demolish the pernicious fiction
> that Eisenhower did little or nothing while he was President -
Never believed that.
<snip (but read)>
> DB and I share our admiration for
> Marshall as one of the most extraordinary men of the century.
I agree.
> > > That this
> > > institution produced Marshall, Macarthur, Eisenhower, Patton, and
> > > Bradley, among others, is nothing short of a miracle.
> >
> > Or maybe that adversity was the reason that they flourished? Must
> remember
> > to read more about the interwar period.
> >
> > Charlie
>
> Maybe, but if I had to pick a single reason, it's because Marshall in
> particular, and, to a lesser extent Macarthur as well, had a
> phenomenal eye for talent and was able to spot promising officers and
> convince them to stay in the Army. Any system can work if you've got
> a George Marshall running it - but without that particular bit of good
> luck, one wonders what would have happened.
How's this for a possibility?
The US wouldn't have entered the European theatre, and consequently,
Hitler's war would have remained on 1-and-a-bit fronts, not 2 full fronts. I
still don't think he'd have held the Sovs, the Nazis were way stretched. The
war would have ended, 2 or 3 years later than it did. Britain would have
held out (we achieved air superiority in 1941 when we won the Battle Of
Britain, and the Nazis never came close to changing that...), and sued for
peace in 1945-6, The Nazis would have retreated into Western Europe, what
was the iron curtain would have been Axis, in fact Western Europe would be.
Nazi Europe might well remain to this day.
As for the Pacific, the Japanese empire would probably control all of the
Pacific islands. Possibly Australia too. Definitely the parts of China that
it did.
Just idle speculation, anyone want to have a go at writing a better
alternate history?
Charlie
