Interesting discussion about various hypothetical Singapore scenarios. Here are a few additional thoughts.
If I’ve followed the thread correctly, the starting assumption is that Britain, under someone other than Churchill, reaches some sort settlement with Germany after the conquest of France, and is then free to carry on with its imperial business-as-usual. I’m a bit sceptical that Britain could have gotten than good a deal from Hitler (presumably a deal basically saying “Let me have uncontested control of continental Europe and I’ll let you keep Great Britain for yourselves and let you keep uncontested control of non-European waters”), but let’s assume for the moment that such a deal has been worked out. The next assumption, again if I’m following the thread correctly, is that Britain, now secure at home, sends massive naval and army and air force reinforcements to Singapore, and that these reinforcements end up derailing Japan’s plans to conquer Malaya. On the surface this seems plausible, but I think there are a few potential flaws with this scenario.
First: Britain’s imperial power was ultimately founded on the (historically) overwheming power of its navy, not of its army. I’m not saying Britain didn’t have a good army; it did. But I’m pointing out that Britain, relative to continental powers like France and Germany and Russia, operated on the basis of having a small but highly skilled professional army rather than having a much larger conscript army of uneven quality, and that this comparatively small army used the mobility conferred upon it by the Royal Navy as a force multiplier. So when we talk about Britain sending a large army force to Singapore, we have to keep in mind that Britain didn’t actually have that large an army in a quantitative sense, even if qualitatively it was a good one. And also remember that by 1940 Britain’s historically preeminent weapon, the Royal Navy, wasn’t as preeminent as Britain liked to think: between the huge econonic hit that Britain took during WWI and the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the R.N. had suffered much from the effects of budgetery austerity. (For example: as an economy measure, Britain at one point – I think it was around 1930 – started operating on a so-called “ten-year rule” which assumed that a war would not break out for another ten years and thus that it was safe to limit military spending in the current fiscal year. The problem is that, as each year passed, the 10-year assumption simply got renewed rather than having one year subtracted from the original figure.)
Second: Although it’s an obvious point of geography, it’s easy to overlook one of the key reasons why Japan was able to “run wild” and overwhelm the Dutch, the British and the Americans in the areas it conquered in just six months from December 1941 to May 1942: because Japan had the advantage of fighting what was essentially a local campaign, whereas the Dutch and the British were operating on the other side of the planet from their own home turf and the Americans, though somewhat better off, were still about 6,000 miles away. By the end of WWII, the Americans had built up the equipment and the skills to sustain massive naval forces across that much distance, but at the beginning of the war even the Americans didn’t have either of those elements in place…and the British certainly didn’t.
Third: Let’s not forget the “Would you turn you back on this man?” argument. Let’s assume that Britain and Hitler had reached a deal in the summer or fall of 1940, presumably because Britain had concluded that Hitler was unbeatable in continental Europe and because Hitler had concluded that Britain was un-invadable in the short or medium term due to the combined obstacles of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. Would any sensible British Prime Minister have concluded from this deal that “it’s now safe to send a large portion of the British Army and the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force to the other side of the planet,” given Hitler’s abysmal track record with regard to compliance with non-aggression treaties?
