hey guys i'm back from my break so please read the pinned comment there are a few patreon questions today most of which are related to the battle of the atlantic or similar the first question was asked by mason who says how important do you think the battle of the atlantic really was to allied victory there's two aspects to this question first what would have happened if they had lost the battle of the atlantic and second how much did victory contribute to the ultimate collapse of germany so let's start with the first aspect at the beginning
of the war british farmers could only feed britain for 120 days of the year that's roughly 33 percent of the needed calories they ended up increasing food production by expanding the amount of farmland with the number of days they could feed britain increasing to 160 which is roughly 44 but ultimately britain was heavily dependent on imports of food britain's war effort was entirely dependent on the continued arrival of imports for all of its oil most raw materials for industry and more than half its food in calories and if we look at the map by the
end of 1940 europe was under axis domination so the only way for britain to get food was via the atlantic if they didn't secure the atlantic she would starve which would probably force her to seek peace the most important suppliers to britain were the united states and the british commonwealth countries especially canada australia and new zealand for more details on this i would recommend the book the taste of war by lizzie collingham which is a fantastic read and talks about the food situation for all the major powers in the second world war she also talks
about the battle of the atlantic in there as well so it's definitely worth it however collingum argues that the battle of the atlantic wasn't the main issue in supplying britain in fact the food crisis and the shipping crisis began in 1939 before the u-boat campaign had even really begun the battle was not only about german submarines ominous menace though they were more decisive in the struggle to supply britain with all its wartime needs was the lack of shipping it was this combined with the mismanagement at the ports a creaking internal british rail network and the
u-boats which led to a drastic fall in total imports arriving in britain from 68 million tons before the war to 26 million tons in 1941. richard ovary says the same thing in his book imports dropped to one-third of their pre-war level although he attributes this purely to the u-boats calling him does not the battle of the atlantic was also waged between the allies themselves in a struggle over shipping allocations the british food supply was heavily dependent on the diplomatic skills of the men of the british food mission in washington who worked hard to persuade the
americans and britain's other allies that british food requests were reasonable and that they should take priority over competing raw material and military requirements the success of the british food mission meant that although the battle of the atlantic hampered the allies ability to conduct military operations at no point in the war did it threaten the british people with hunger let alone starvation yes the central planners were a success i mean imports dropped from 68 million tons before the war to 26 million tons by 1941 mainly because the central bladders messed up but that was a success
calling them goes on to explain that because britain was now importing everything into her western ports mainly the bristol channel the mersey channel and the firth of clyde these ports didn't have the capacity to actually take the ships she says that there was a lack of storage space so goods piled up on the quays there was a lack of equipment and the dock workers were also complaining about poor working conditions so she says that the unnecessarily long ship turnaround in british ports reduced imports by 10 percent and she goes on and on the railways in
britain are designed to go north to south not west to east so many of the flower mills in the east ran out of materials the government then failed to realize that the major issue was the distribution issue and this by the way was all in 1939 before the u-boats had really got going the worst time for britain in terms of food was in late 1940 and 1941 this was during the first happy time for the german u-boats so the u-boats certainly contributed to the problem but again calling him concludes that the u-boat threat was to
get much worse but the cut in the meat ration in early 1941 was the only time during the entire war that the ministry of food was unable to provide the amount of food which it guaranteed the population through the ration it was the government's failure to plan for a sudden an acute shortage of shipping combined with the problems that surrounded the organization of the port and transport and finally the demands of the military campaign which posed the greatest threat to civilian food supplies in the second winter of the war so in the early part of
the war it wasn't just the u-boats that were the issue it was the misorganization brought about by the british government that caused many of the problems and shortages and this helps explain what's happened in india during world war ii which is a topic for another day but one i do intend to come back to of course the battle of the atlantic remained an issue for the rest of the war richard ovary says that the situation was so bad in january 1943 thanks to all the sinkings that the royal navy was down to just two months
supply of oil so clearly the battle of the atlantic was having an impact even if there were resource allocation and distribution issues however when you actually look at the numbers it's difficult to say that the u-boats were the main issue between may 1942 and may 1943 105 out of 174 convoys sailed across the atlantic without interference from submarines out of the 69 cited by the wolf packs 23 escaped without attack and 30 suffered only minor losses only the remaining 10 percent was severely depleted that's right just 16 convoys out of 174 were badly mauled by
the u-boats and only another 30 suffered minor losses so really the amount of convoys actually suffering losses was relatively small and yet it was during this time that the royal navy almost ran out of oil that suggests that it wasn't the u-boats that were causing all the problems instead it was the lack of shipping and the misoganization of the whole logistical effort that was heavily impacting britain's ability to supply itself therefore it's difficult to conclude that the germans ever came close to winning the battle of the atlantic now obviously in a hypothetical alternate reality where
the allies lost the battle of the atlantic britain would have starved and in such a scenario that probably would have forced the british isles to surrender or seek peace which as you can imagine would have made things difficult going forward but here's the problem the germans also had a food crisis during the war i've been over this in several videos so go see them if you want to learn more the german and axis food crisis would have been a big deal had the british isles surrendered alone without the rest of the empire why because the
british isles were heavily dependent on food imports therefore the british isles couldn't have surrendered because axis europe were already struggling to feed themselves let alone feed britain as well so wouldn't have been able to send food to britain therefore the most likely outcome would have been for the british to negotiate peace with germany or suffer a horrendous famine either self-imposed by continuing the war or by the germans had they taken over and looking at a map if the british isles were forced to surrender to germany or peace out this would have been a disaster for
the allied war effort the usa couldn't have used britain as an airstrip nor as a naval base d-day couldn't have happened unless they conducted d-day on britain first operation torch could still have happened and they could have struck into southern europe but a northern attack would have been difficult therefore while the soviets may still have won the war they would have had to make an even more significant contribution since the western allies wouldn't have been distracting the luftwaffe or bombing german industries and cities or tying up as many german divisions in the west even if
the u-boats didn't put enough pressure on britain to surrender but did put enough pressure on them so that all available shipping was sending food this would have made it impossible to conduct a d-day-style landing it may also have reduced britain's capacity to wage the air and naval wars or produce equipment or ship enough troops and tanks to north africa or elsewhere so in that sense the battle of the atlantic was vitally important for the war efforts and affected not only germany's ability to feed and oil herself but also allow the western allies to hit the
germans via air and relieve pressure on the soviet union by tying up german divisions construction units and logistical personnel in france and this is just the first aspect of this what would have happened if britain had lost the battle in the atlantic the second aspect is how much did victory contribute to the ultimate collapse of germany let's tackle that now germany suffered from a food crisis and oil crisis in the second world war one of the major reasons for this was her inability to import food or oil from the rest of the world thanks largely
to their own self-imposed ortarki but also because of the british blockade because of the british germany was forced to go east to get the food and oil she needed something that hitler had foreseen back in mein kampf and his second book but the lack of oil resulted in her not being able to supply her troops preventing her from winning that war before the soviets got their act together if you imagine operation barbarossa bought with the germans using a load of trucks to supply their troops not just trains you can imagine how much further they could
have gone inside the soviet union they nearly reached moscow in 1941 and they just barely got to stalingrad in 1942 well they could have gone further had they had the logistics to do it and they would have had the logistics if they could have imported oil from places like america or venezuela and they may have been able to do that had the battle of the atlantic being lost and or the west had peaced out now i'm not saying that the battle of the atlantic was the most decisive factor nor am i saying that it was
the only factor i'm also not saying that the war was won in the west or that what happened in the east wasn't important because clearly what happened in the east was vitally important and i'm also not saying that the soviet union would have been conquered if britain peaced out because the battle atlantic had been lost maybe the soviet union would still have won but the soviet people would have had to make an even bigger sacrifice than they already did do and they probably would have lost more territory and more people and the war probably would
have gone on longer had the battle of the atlantic not been won a lot of my viewers are very russia focused and that's understandable but some of them are so focused on the soviet union's contribution to the war that they dismiss absolutely everything else as a sideshow they ignore what happened in the west they ignore north africa they ignore len least and i i don't think they should the soviet union may have made the main contribution to the land war but the west won the air war and the naval war and contributed significantly to the
land war as well so if you're one of these viewers who believe that everything that the soviet union did was glorious and think that the west can just be ignored that would be the same as me ignoring everything that the soviet union did and just focusing on what happened in the west clearly that will be wrong well so is the idea of squarely focusing on what happened on the axis soviet front and not realizing that the allies did things too anyway that was the answer to the first question but this now ties into the second
question which is by frank he says high tick after watching your recent sweden video and further understanding the germans need to occupy norway i got to thinking knowing that norway's proximity to momansk a vital port for the soviet lenders lifeline and the war in the east being a major challenge to germany why did the germans not move their u-boats closer to there and base them in narvik then try to choke off that lifeline instead of keeping the u-boats further out in the atlantic it would seem to be that england in june 1941 didn't pose as
much of an immediate threat so just looking at the map what frank is suggesting is that rather than focusing on the atlantic the u-boats should have moved to norway and interdicted the arctic convoys going to the port of mamansk this would have stopped british lend lease since american lena lease hadn't started yet and yes the british didn't call it len lee's but you get what i mean and since british supplies would be cut the soviets would have been in a worse position thus maybe losing moscow or whatever yeah we can argue about whether british supplies
or tanks made a major contribution to the battle of moscow or not the radios certainly made a contribution to the soviet war effort but the point is that the soviets would have suffered even more had the germans stop the arctic convoys so the question is why didn't they do that well for starters this isn't hearts of iron 4 it's not a computer game you can't just click a mouse and send the u-boats to norway and just have everything magically work in the book hitler's naval bases by showell he says that it took roughly 10 men
on land to support one sailor at sea you need supply lines railways roads all the ships to hall supplies accommodation for the men weapons equipment stores administration departments for things like food fuel furniture books and other odds and ends repair facilities construction facilities dental facilities the list goes on and you can't just have your u-boats sat unguarded in an open port because of the threat of enemy aircraft or of enemy special forces teams appearing and destroying the boats so you have to construct dedicated u-boat bases with concrete above them to protect them from the bombs
and then have guards around the place and artillery to prevent enemy vessels from blasting them many harbours were too small and the standard of harbour installations was often far below the standard expected in germany even large ports such as trondheim in norway did not meet the german safety standards and considerable remedial work had to be put in hand so why didn't they just send their u-boats to narvik probably because narvik wasn't capable of housing many if any u-boats in fact in charles book he shows a picture of a sunken ship in the quay of narvik
saying that this was a logistical nightmare because some harbors were so jammed up with sunken wrecks that careful planning was necessary to accommodate any ships coming in with vital supplies and you might say well why didn't the germans just build some yubo bases in norway and the answer to that is they did at substantial cost charles says that the german construction of ports in norway between may and october 1940 required 30 000 tons of explosives used on more than 100 000 occasions to clear obstructions in the new harbours they used 9 000 tons of cement
45 000 tons of gravel and similar materials 642 tons of iron and 23 000 tons of timber and all this built was 300 meters of piers in less than 30 locations a bunch of new huts and buildings 23 wells 50 kilometers of water pipelines 100 kilometers of electric cables and 40 kilometers of new roads built plus another 30 kilometers of old roads improved and that's it basically you can't just harbor a fleet of u-boats in a random place you have to build extra bases to accommodate them and building extra bases requires a lot of manpower
resources and time it is also a logistical nightmare especially when trying to construct u-boat ports in remote places like northern norway plus frank is specifically asking why the germans didn't send the u-boats to norway in june 1941 when the british didn't pose an immediate threat and here frank's got his eyes on the soviet union and is thinking that the germans may as well do as much damage to the soviet union as possible so hitting mamansk makes sense right the problem is that frank's forgotten what the germans were thinking in june 1941 in june 1941 the
germans thought that the soviet union would be done and dusted within three months or so they believed that this campaign would be over by christmas a campaign against russia would be child's play if we start in may 1941 we would have five months to finish the job i am convinced that our attack will sweep over them like a hailstorm and there's also the famous quote from hitler where he boasted we only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down full disclosure i think this quote is from albert spears
book which i have but i haven't had time to read it yet so i'm having to pull this reference from some random website if anyone knows where and when hitler said this and if you have a reference for it let me know anyway here's the deal if you believe that the soviet union would be crushed in a few months time why would you care about some british convoys going to mamansk knowing that the soviet union would collapse and that britain would fight on would you seriously consider spending a ton of resources building u-boat harbors in
norway or would you send those resources to france to put more effort into the battle of the atlantic which you know will take longer given the time it takes to construct naval bases it makes more sense to concentrate your long-term efforts on britain and the united states and that's exactly what hitler and the germans did and that then leads us to the third question asked by jeff baker one of if not the longest standing patrons i've got i've said in the past that i need to reply to jeff while this is the jeff i was
referring to and yes i absolutely need to reply to you jeff it's been well over a year or more since my last reply so sorry about that anyway jeff actually asked two questions the second i'll come back to in a future video in the first one he said lewis two questions based on your knowledge of hitler's doctrine what would have been the fate of france if the germans had won the war acknowledging that this is very theoretical but if the soviets british and the us had said enough will agree to peace is there anything in
the documentation doctrine that says at the end of hostilities a reduced french state would be granted independence or it would become living space like russia or would it become a facile state well in mein kampf and his second book hitler made it clear that his policy was to go east not west or south therefore we national socialists have purposely drawn a line through the line of conduct followed by pre-war germany in foreign policy we put an end to the perpetual germanic march towards the south and west of europe and turn our eyes towards the lands
of the east we finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-war times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future so in terms of doctrine there was nothing specifically about the fate of france after the war but there are a couple of clues hitler says in his second book that if they didn't go east and instead focused on peacefully exporting and trading with other nations which goes into the whole shrinking markets concept i outlined in the hitler socialism video then this would require a large fleet and many naval bases
around the world imperial colonialism that he says would conflict with britain's aims and thus would result in war anyway this whole political goal for the future is a utopia unless england is seen as defeated beforehand it establishes anew all the causes which in 1914 resulted in the world war any attempt by germany to renew her past along this way must end with england's mortal enmity alongside which france may be reckoned as a most certain partner from the outset this shows a couple of things one that hitler had no desire to go west or into france
two that he wanted to avoid conflict with britain and three that if he had a large fleet then peace with britain could not happen because the british would see that as a threat and thus keep fighting this means that hitler was fully aware of the fact that so long as germany had command of the french coast peace with britain wasn't possible and this links in with britain's traditional european strategy where britain doesn't want a united europe because it threatens her sovereignty as mentioned in that previous video so here's the deal hitler had to beat the
british because otherwise they'd keep fighting due to the fact that germany had the french coast so hitler knows that the only way to get peace with britain is to either beat her completely or give up the french territories that they had taken and this is confirmed by what title says in its memoirs keital says that the british wouldn't accept peace in 1940 unless all the territory they had taken so far was given up otherwise there would have been only one other solution open to us to have sued for peace with britain at any price and
to have relinquished all the fruits of our victories to date but i will never believe that britain would ever have let us out of the trap in which she and her american ally now had us and confident as she rightly was of moscow's intentions note kaitlyn believed that america was britain's ally in 1940 before the invasion of the soviet union or at least that's what he claimed after the war some food for thought in theory then hitler wouldn't have been able to annex france if he wanted peace with britain but there might have been an
exception hitler does state in his second book that he wants to restore the 1914 borders of germany which would include al sass lorraine now according to the holy scripture wikipedia alsace lorraine wasn't formally annexed in the second world war but hitler did prepare legislation to annex it in the event of total victory the original source that wikipedia is referencing is in french so i can't verify what it says but if it's true that suggests that he only wanted alsace lorraine which would be in alignment with what he wrote in mein kampf and his second book
alsace lorraine is also not a coastal province and germany had held it between 1871 and 1914 so the british would probably concede its annexation if it meant peace of course we know from britain's traditional strategy that they also couldn't accept peace if germany had conquered the soviet union or most of the rest of europe and that would apply even if france regained her territories so peace would have been unlikely anyway unless germany went back to her 1939 or 1914 borders we also have to take the united states into consideration and this goes back to the
previous questions what was the purpose of the germans occupying the french coast it was to fight the battle of the atlantic and there's no way that germany could relinquish the french coast without the united states peacing out two because otherwise germany would have no way to fight the united states so even in the event that britain wanted peace with germany it wouldn't happen without the united states making peace too if germany's still at war with the united states germany couldn't give up the french coast therefore britain wouldn't be able to negotiate a peace that they'd
be willing to accept this is probably why they weren't able to negotiate peace with britain in 1940 or 1941 and we've got to remember that hitler predicted way before the war a major conflict with the united states in the future in the future only the state which has understood how to raise the value of its falcon and to bring it to the most expedient state form for this through its inner life as well as through its foreign policy will be able to face up to north america so it might be the case that hitler wouldn't
have given up the french coast before the defeat of the united states and this is why the idea that hitler went east to force britain to peace out falls flat on its face no britain wouldn't have accepted peace with germany while germany was holding france and germany was holding france because hitler expected a war with the united states and she needed the french ports in order to fight that war it also means that even if germany won the war against both the soviet union and britain she wouldn't relinquish france until the united states was either
defeated or forced to accept peace and there you go there is another question related to unrestricted submarine warfare by my patreon pavel which i will answer in its own video coming soon i think it deserves its own video because that's a big topic so if you're not subscribed to the channel you may want to do so to be notified when that goes out and if you're wondering why both hitler and churchill believe that scandinavia was a decisive front check out my video on that thanks for watching bye for now
