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Date Posted: 11:56:59 11/02/05 Wed
Author: Sunshine
Subject: Re: nice post
In reply to: manwitch 's message, "nice post" on 06:01:41 11/02/05 Wed

I think I have previously noted in this discussion that the only way for the Confederacy to win was via a political settlement and that the only way they were going to achieve a political settlement was by compromising the North’s will to fight. This was not at all an unreasonable attitude; the war was not terribly popular in many cities in the north (see riots in New York) and the draft was extremely unpopular. At some point, the North might have just said “Let them go, we don’t need them anyway” (which is ironically the position I now take with respect to the south). If Lincoln were to lose the 1864 election to a Democrat, there was a very real chance that a negotiated settlement would result. The South had no designs on the North, they just wanted to go their own separate ways with their own distinct institutions. All of this was recognized by Lincoln et all and the political ramifications of individual battles was a very real concern. Lee knew that the South could not afford a war of attrition; Grant forced him into that very type of war.

I see the same issues with the Germans in WW II. No one but a fool gets in a war of attrition with a enemy that has superior resources (Soviet Union and US). The Germans only hope, once they decided that their ideology required an invasion of the Soviet Union, was a lightening fast blow that completely crippled the Russians. How close they came is a matter that can be debated. The long range plan of Stalin was to continue to move eastward, factories and all, harassing the German supply lines, until the whole German logistical infrastructure collapsed. Given the ideology of Hitler, a negotiated settlement seems hardly possible. To Hitler, this was a crusade, not a war. He could conceive of a negotiated settlement with the British or the Americans but never with the Soviets. It is my opinion that without the Soviets, the Allies would have never won the war.

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