preview

The Inevitability of Allied Victory in Europe During World War Two

Better Essays

To consider the inevitability of allied victory in Europe during World War Two requires a more in depth analysis of Germany’s position rather than just looking at the pure ability for the allies to produce war materials and incalculable streams of soldiers. Ultimately ‘quantity of men and arms tells us little about quality’. Obviously Allied victory was final and decisive but this essay will argue that even though this war was won on economic power it did not mean that victory for the nations that were to be industrial superpowers was inevitable. However Allied victory eventually did become inevitable after certain turning points in the war, this essay will demonstrate how the two most important turning points, the Battle for Stalingrad …show more content…

However this does not necessarily mean that defeat was an inevitable outcome. Hitler’s predictions of the German economic standing globally before the war would likely have given him a false illusion of Germans economic might. The statistics gathered caused him not to assess the USA or Russia as the potential superpowers or industrial giants they were to become, and rightly so. In 1936 America’s army was 110,000 men strong, its military spending was 1% of its annual budget and it had no independent air force and an unarmed navy The prediction was made that either country would not be able to mobilise an effective industry compared to Germany’s inside a four year time limit So is it reasonable to say that even economically Germany was facing a potential victory even though so many say this war was won by economics and economics alone? Not only did Germany have an impressive production capability already but it was sitting very close to potentially enormous deposits of resources, most notably the oil in The caucuses south of Rostov and Stalingrad. In 1941 German production of crude oil was 33.4 million tons compared to Russia’s 110 million tons. Now at this stage in the war the USA was still not involved so German commitments even though on two fronts were only faced with a large pressure from Russia on the Eastern front. Certainly if Germany had taken the caucuses and their invaluable oil Russia would have been crippled

Get Access