At 02:10 AM 5/29/01 +0300, you wrote:
> > > 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
Harry Turtledove, perhaps?
-- Ronn! :)
