Testing Times (fdr and Churchill During Wwii)

Testing Times

During WWII, Hitler tried to overtake Europe. The Allies tried to stop him but were being beaten down. Once Nazi Germany had over taken France it was after England. England was having the mess beaten out of them now that the Germans could focus all its military might on harming England; Germans tried to "bring England down to its knees" (Wallace 307). The Germans were attacking densely populated English cities with heavy aerial siege and bombing them with thousands of planes at a time during the night. The British had tried very hard to stop the Germans at all cost. Royal Air Force did succeed in interceding and slowing down Hitler's plans. He had intended to invade England in an operation called Operation Sea Lion, knowing that it was not prepared or strong enough to resist.

Though Hitler's invasion had been delayed, the English were still in terribly grave danger. He would still try to come and take over England at all cost. The British Royal Air Force and army were terrible outnumbered to the Nazi air force and army. At one point when the British air force tried to oppose the Germans all of the British planes had taken to flight. The Brits "had left most of its artillery and tanks behind...when they had been chased out of the continent" (Wallace 307) so they were lacking in weapons. In addition their navy's ships were being preyed upon by Nazi planes and submarines. England was running low on reserves, which was surviving a long war would need, from constant attack and were running out of time. Winston Churchill, the prime minister knew that if Germany gained access to the sea it could slowly strangle the Brits into capitulation from exhaustion of resources; they couldn't hold out much longer against the brutal attacks. America was now the last hope to save England from their fate.

Across the Pacific Ocean to the West, Americans were struggling with how to deal with the war. Surrounded by two great oceans gave Americans a false sense of security and at the time many Americans were isolationists, which had always been very strong and powerful force; even George Washington himself had encouraged the nation to be isolationist. They believed the war had nothing to do with them and many were greatly opposed interfering in this "foreign skirmish." Many of the common isolationists' outlooks had derived from a bitter past experience in WWI.

In this war "50,000 Americans soldiers lost their lives" in another European battle and later the Americans watched in horror as at the Treaty of Versailles as Europeans executed their revenge on each other (Wallace 311). Additionally many of the European Allies had failed to pay the debts that they owed to the United States. Seeing this Americans believed entering into "WWI had been a mistake" and that Europeans were not allies so the only country Americans should fight for is America (Wallace 311). Consequently as the war came upon Europe again in WWII Americans passionately opposed any interference into the war for fear they might have another WWI scenario.

President Roosevelt on the other hand believed at isolationism was delusional and unrealistic and that it could never work. Even so, he often complied with the wishes of the isolationists just to please them. In 1932 he gave up supporting the League of Nations and three years later reluctantly signed the Neutrality Act that Congress passed (Wallace 311). The goal that the isolationists in Congress had when they had passed this was to keep the U.S. out of war, or what they believed were "European affairs." However this strategy would not work and gave the mad man Hitler more time for him and his