Quote Originally Posted by Cheesepuff View Post
You make a lot of interesting points. This will require several re-readings for anything resembling clarity.

The 1943 famine.
Lack of shipping (thanks to u-boat attacks), higher demand for war related goods drove people to the cities (better pay), drove up food prices, drove people off the farms and into cities and military service.
Not exactly concentration camps and gas chambers, but do colonial polices have some blame here... sure.

Libya's GDP was about a fifth of the Union of South Africa at the time, and less than half of Egypt's GDP.
But you make a fair point.

I find two fateful decision in WW2 vexing.
Why did Churchill not accept Hitler's offer of peace, with the promise that the British Empire would remain?
- Could the British Empire have expanded to "other European" colonies?
- Japan would challenge but would have their hands full with the US they just bombed.

Why did Hitler declare war on the US in 1941?
- Hitler didn't want the US in the war.
- Japan didn't let him know this was going to happen.
- There was no reason to think the US would have gone to war with Germany without Hitler's declaration.
- Hitler's above offer, would have more traction once the US was focused on Japan.

Were there, and are there sinister forces with big money and undue influence. Yep.
Hitler declared war on the US because he was allied with Japan. Once they attacked he had no choice. Britain did not offer a peace pact because hitler was a pathological liar. And the British empire was in steep decline at the time of ww2. They would never have been able to expand. They no longer had that power when ww2 broke out.