Who was the biggest loser in World War II? Most people would say that Germany was divided into two sections, or that Japan was bombed by the atomic bombing. These two countries still have foreign teams stationed to this day, which can be said to be the biggest losers of World War II.
Despite the fact that Berlin is in ruins, our impression of it may be the opposite of what it really is. In this world war, the biggest loser was not Germany, but the British Empire, which was considered the victorious power.
It was former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who brought the British Empire from its former hegemony to its current international disgrace.
Britain was the only "empire on which the sun never sets" in history, and since the 17th century, with the help of the chaotic situation in Europe, it has successfully taken the lead in the period of discovery and the subsequent industrial revolution, becoming one of the world's top industrial powers, and has won many key colonies, with an actual control area of more than 30 million square kilometers, controlling several of the world's busiest shipping routes.
In the 18th century, British maps reached their peak in global dominance. From the 16th century, when Britain defeated the Spanish Armada to the end of World War I, the wisdom and shrewdness of the British elite allowed the prosperity of British maps to last for more than 400 years.
During this time, the British map cemented itself as the world's number one power by defeating opponents such as France and the Mughals.
In 1874, during the Crystal Palace period, Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. His grandfather was John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, the famous British general.
As a descendant of the famous family of the British Positive Blue Flag, Winston Churchill undoubtedly obtained superior conditions at the starting line of life. Although the phenomenon of losing the family is not uncommon in the world, who would have thought that this Winston Churchill from a famous family would be able to squander the accumulation of several generations of the British Empire 70 years later?
Churchill entered the House of Commons at the age of 32 with the help of his family, and at that time he was a war fanatic. At the same time, Hitler was having a hard time under the blow of failing the art exam, which makes people feel that the gap between people is sometimes bigger than the gap between people and dogs. ”
Winston Churchill, a fledgling statesman, had radical political views and did not consider the international situation constructed by 18th-century diplomats to be valuable. He firmly believed that the British Empire, which had ruled the world for four centuries, did not have to compromise on diplomatic and military terms, but only acted firmly.
His words and deeds reflect his convictions.
Churchill led the LinkedIn fleet to the end of the horizon, his radical rhetoric and energy infecting the party in the House of Commons. They are firmly opposed to protectionism and tariff barriers, but this kind of petty fight originally had little impact on the overall situation of the United Kingdom.
However, the drastic changes in the continental landscape have made things difficult to manage.
The Second German Reich emerged from the chaos of German reunification and took advantage of the opportunity of the Second Industrial Revolution to rapidly increase its strength. They succeeded in defeating France as the strongest army in Europe and built up a navy with the goal of seizing more territory for Germany.
Under pressure from the Entente consisting of Britain, France, and Russia, Wilhelm II England had to confront the German threat and announced that as soon as Germany built one dreadnought, Britain would build two.
This behavior increased tensions on the European continent, leading to the formation of a Triple Alliance in Germany to counter British power.
Because of the attack on the death of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, the world situation changed drastically, and the two sides directly began to fight fiercely. At this point, any little bit of force can change the tide of battle.
The United States, on the other hand, declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war and had no possibility of entering the war for the time being. So what other countries in the vicinity of Europe have such strength?
Archduke Ferdinand's eyes were drawn to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, where there was a declining but strategically important state, the Ottoman Empire. That's when our protagonist Winston Churchill came in.
As a young man, Churchill was not a man who could play the offensive of tenderness, and he chose "iron fist diplomacy", a strategy that was fully demonstrated in the "Agincourt Incident".
This incident not only opened the way for Churchill's defeat, but also left him a notorious mark on the diplomatic field.
The battleship Agincourt, the Ottoman Empire's dream of becoming a powerful country, symbolizes that the Ottoman Empire once worked hard to scrape together a huge sum of 3 million pounds to realize the dream of a rich country and a strong army, and purchased the battleship Agincourt, which originally belonged to Brazil, even though it was once canceled by Brazil.
Donations and usury from the upper and lower classes of the Ottoman Empire finally took possession of the multi-turret relict in 1912.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, British Admiral Winston Churchill made a shocking decision. He ordered the Ottoman Empire's full purchase of the battleship Agincourt directly into the Royal Navy's combat sequence, and the only excuse he gave was that he feared that the Ottoman Empire would fall to the Central Powers.
This absurd decision caused an uproar throughout the Ottoman Empire, who were outraged by the actions of the British. At the same time, Germany took the opportunity to supply the Ottoman Empire with a battleship and a cruiser in an attempt to create problems for the British.
Although Churchill's decision led to tensions between Britain and the Ottoman Empire, it also revealed Britain's blindness and selfishness in the early days of the war. The incident had a negative impact on Britain's reputation and raised doubts about Britain's motives in other countries.
The firing ideas of the dreadnought era were preserved on German battleships. The dislike of the British Empire by the two warships prompted the Ottoman Empire to join the Central Powers and declare war on Britain.
This move directly blocked the Bosbrus Strait and the Dardanelles, the most important passages to the sea of the Tsarist Russian Empire, cut off half of the external material supply of Tsarist Russia, and dealt a heavy blow to Tsarist Russia's war strength.
Churchill was once the "initiator" of the map, but for the "small country of Ottoman", he dared to provoke the British Empire, and even put forward a crazy plan to exterminate the Ottoman Empire at the Entente Committee.
However, the Entente Committee categorically rejected Churchill's plan, leaving him alone in the wind.
In 1915, exhausted, Tsarist Russia proposed to the Entente Committee to attack the Ottoman Empire and open the Mediterranean route. The Entente Committee agreed with the proposal, but there was controversy over the location of the attack.
Churchill, the British Secretary of the Admiralty, directly bypassed the British Parliament and the Entente Committee and organized the army to launch the Battle of the Dardanelles against the Ottoman Empire.
Churchill chose to land on the Garibaldi Peninsula at the Battle of the Dardanelles, a battle that resulted in a mistake in military planning that led to the British army.11650,000 were killed and 260,000 wounded.
After this humiliating defeat, Churchill was deposed in November of that year. However, Churchill's strong family background did not discourage him, and in the years after the war, he once again marched into Downing Street.
Churchill was elected Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy by virtue of his family background and connections. It can be seen that a strong background can indeed bring advantages. Immediately after coming to power, Churchill pointed the finger at the nascent Soviet Union and devoted himself to pursuing a strategy of armed intervention in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union.
Churchill and his wife, Clementine, brought new wounds and heavy costs to the British Empire, which had just ended the war. At this time, the United States on the other side of the sea took the opportunity to become the largest creditor country in the European world war, and jumped into a good life of making easy money.
Churchill tried to restore the gold standard, but the long-term turmoil in the British economy made it untenable, and eventually switched to a credit money system. However, in 1924, Churchill was elected Chancellor of the Exchequer, reverting to the gold standard, which had been abolished for many years.
However, due to the over-issuance of paper money, ** has shrunk severely, resulting in a large inflow of new product producing countries such as the United States and Japan.
It was only when the Great Crisis of Capitalism of 1929 really swept Britain that Churchill realised the weak impact of the gold standard on the British market. However, Britain** did not listen to Churchill's objections and forcibly decoupled the pound exchange rate from ** in 1931.
However, it was too late, and the United States, through this move by the United Kingdom, succeeded in accumulating about 40% of the world's ** reserves, transferring the world's financial center from London to Wall Street in New York.
Faced with such a situation, Winston Churchill angrily decided not to work on Wall Street and return to his mansion to become a writer. However, will history allow such a top loser to live at home?
Churchill's heart was full of war desires, and he failed to resist the landing **, and hastily launched the Norwegian campaign. The battle allowed the Germans to complete their score, and in less than 40 days France surrendered, leaving Britain to retreat from Dunkirk in a hurry.
Instead of being demoted during the war, Churchill was promoted to Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence, and his path to power was unimpeded. Over the next five years, however, he transformed Britain from a first-class world power into a periphery island nation.
In the face of Germany, which swept through Western Europe, Britain took the initiative to throw an olive branch, hoping to reach an armistice. The British knew that they had the most powerful naval force in the world, and the German fleet wanted to land on British soil, and it was simply unable to guarantee logistical supplies.
Therefore, an armistice agreement is beneficial to both sides. Britain temporarily abandoned European affairs and turned to an alliance with the United States and the Soviet Union, so that it could better protect its legacy in the event of war.
Churchill's meeting with Roosevelt was a turning point for Britain at the time. In the face of the insecure Soviet Union and the United States, which sought world hegemony, the existence of Nazi Germany was undoubtedly a destabilizing factor.
As a result, Churchill decided to mobilize the forces of the whole country and wage a hard-fought war of attrition against Germany, which had great industrial power. However, Britain, as an island nation, soon faced the problem of insufficient resources in the confrontation with Germany, and to make matters worse, Germany's submarine forces constantly attacked British shipping, causing even greater distress to Britain.
In order to counter the threat of German submarines, Churchill did not hesitate to fly to the United States in person, just in exchange for 50 destroyers and supplies that could only escort ships, he decided to hand over eight Atlantic islands to the United States with a stroke of his pen.
Under the intense pressure of German submarine rescue ships, English air battles, and the North African campaign, Britain's finances were gradually stretched thin. In order to gain more support from the overseas territories for the war, Britain**, with Churchill's tacit consent, promised to give many benefits to the Commonwealth dependencies and colonies, in exchange for independence.
Although the road was bumpy, after five years of hard fighting, the anti-fascist coalition to which Britain was a member finally won World War II.
The victor of World War II, Britain paid a heavy price on the battlefield, 250,000 soldiers died bravely, and the lives of 160,000 civilians were forever fixed on that familiar land.
In addition, almost all of Britain's domestic wealth has been wiped out,** foreign exchange and strategic reserves have been burned to the ground, and the external debt is as high as 2.4 billion pounds. Britain, once known as the hegemon of the seas, has only a quarter of its total tonnage.
Faced with such a tragic reality, the British really couldn't laugh. Inflation is rampant, and economic development has come to a standstill and collapsed. In Britain in 1945, the most urgent need was to restore economic production and get the country back on its feet.
Although Churchill's strategy brought short-lived glory to British cities, Roosevelt in the United States and Stalin in the Soviet Union saw through the weakness of this old capitalist world, and after the war they joined forces to attack the traditional colonies of Britain and France, leading to the independence of these regions or countries, ending colonial rule.
India and Egypt, which celebrated their first anniversary of independence in 1948, were once indispensable countries in the Commonwealth system. Their independence put an end to the glory of the British Empire, reducing it to an island nation on the edge of Europe.
However, none of this had anything to do with Churchill, who left England after losing to the British Labour Party in 1951.
I fought to defend the people, not expecting that they might remove me from power. In fact, those who know him know that this is not the case. Rather than Churchill, who liked to give speeches in a hand-built luxury convertible, Attlee, the low-key and humble Labour leader who drove his dilapidated car through the ruined cities to conduct investigations, was more admired.
Although Churchill was known as a loser in Britain, he was a hero in the eyes of third world countries. His existence has enabled many third world countries to step onto the stage of history and become independent countries.
Therefore, Churchill's contribution is also worthy of recognition.
Despite being a brilliant wartime leader, Churchill put an end to the last glory of the British Empire in just two terms. If he had been able to consider the overall situation more calmly, and choose peace and neutrality to avoid invasion of his homeland, then the rich resources possessed by the British Empire might have been better protected in later years, and perhaps even the last glory of the Commonwealth system.