Explain to me how the UK won the Second World War? Didn’t it go to war to supposedly defend Poland’s (and other countries’) right to independence? Now what was it that Poland got from Yalta and Potsdam?
Also, explain how losing your empire and economy whilst your old enemies (Germany and Japan) went on to have strong economies means winning a war.
I’d actually put the UK firmly in the “Lost the War” basket.
Won the war, lost the peace. I believe it’s called a Phyrric victory.
Taffy: Even that’s a little generous since it was the Soviets and the Yanks who knocked the stuffing out of the Axis war machines, but yeah, highly Phyrric. To add insult to injury, the Yanks later sold them out over Suez.
Well, AFAIK the Brits had their highly significant contributions to the Allies winning WW2 - even though Britain arguably was close to complete defeat at least once, and surely could not have won the war on it’s own…
Example: As far as I feel the intelligence data and code breaking efforts in Bletchley Park (think of Lorenz/Enigma - great contributions also through the Poles by the way, and even the French!) made a huge difference in rendering the German U-Boats, and thus the blockade of England, ineffective. And only with this the US material could easily reach Europe, and thus the US could aid the Soviets in winning the war. Also allegedly D-Day preparations relied heavily on those efforts.
I don’t think that without British contributions the US could have had so much influence on the war as they undoubtedly had. And the Soviets on their own… could have worked, but maybe not.
So the British Army may not have exactly won the war, but the Brits did - partly. In my opinion 
Anyway I am happy the Allies won, and the most significant contribution to this victory probably was by the Germans 
Why does THIS generation of Brits still wax indignant about Suez? Is this some kind of time warp? Not sure how the US did a sellout. It was not consulted about the move. The Soviets threatened a nuclear response. Seems as if there were other matters at hand and it is awfully strange that the cowboy Brits are resentful of their more nuanced American partners. 
Anyhow, I can understand how the empire generation was resentful about losing the empire but it was inevitable. America did not really hasten that. Otherwise, France would still be in Vietnam and Algeria, no?
As to Suez, I could understand at the time but not now why Brits might be resentful if they lacked a nuanced world view. Given our strong alliance over the years, however, why is it that Suez keeps getting bandied about?
Of course Britain, as part of the Allies, won the war. Now if you count that at one stage it was pretty much the only country fighting Germany in Europe…and the US didn’t look like it was going to enter a damaging war against Germany especially with no allies in Europe…you can see that the government did a good job holding things together for long enough. The Western and Southern front stopped Germany from throwing all its resources at Soviets, also prevented them using Atlantic supply routes. US might have come into it anyway but whats to say by that time Germany had the A-bomb…stalemate.
Standing alone in Europe in 1940-41, repelling a pre-invasion and suffering 43,000 civilian casualties in the Blitz, King and Queen staying in London to look the east end in the eye, not to mention the very British Dunkirk spirit, - we Brits see the war as an example (in the broad picture) of moral simplicity. In the grand scheme of things, we were in the right, we were the good guys. And the good guys won.
Of course there are plenty of incidents where our conduct was not morally simple, or even right, but in the grand scheme WWII allows us to feel good about ourselves - particularly since we paid such a high price compared with America, which made a lot of money. Not many wars have that kind of moral simplicity and there are plenty of examples when the British don’t have much right to feel good about themselves.
It’s easy to identify critical points - the Battle of Britain, Bletchley Park, Enigma and the Battle of the Atlantic, American entry, Soviet entry, Stalingrad, North Africa, D-Day etc. The fact is, the World War was a sum of an awful lot of parts and we should never forget any of them.
We may have lost an empire, but we gained a health service, welfare state and for a time, a more equal society.
UK won. That’s why my grandma married one of their soldiers and then moved to Worcester, Midlands.
You know her, she was sticking the labels to the Lea&Perrins Worcester sauce.
And this is not pronounced Worchester, but Wooster*.
Now you know.
As with many wars, it’s the economic struggle that produces the real winner. The US bankrolled both the Brits, and the Russ.
The Allies won the war.
It’s in the history books.
If it’s his story, then it must be true.
Explain to me how the UK won the Second World War? Didn’t it go to war to supposedly defend Poland’s (and other countries’) right to independence? Now what was it that Poland got from Yalta and Potsdam?
Also, explain how losing your empire and economy whilst your old enemies (Germany and Japan) went on to have strong economies means winning a war.
I’d actually put the UK firmly in the “Lost the War” basket.[/quote]
Get TO it! PUBLISH! 
fruitloop: If it were about moral simplicity, then why did Churchill hand over half of Europe to Stalin (easily Hitler’s equal in the bad guy stakes) at Yalta and Potsdam?
Not much choice about that did he?
Headhoncho is right. There was no stomach for carrying on the war to free Eastern Europe in the West and how else was Eastern Europe to be freed? The UK was on the winning side. It “won” the war. It “lost” an empire but that would have happened anyway so? what is the point of all of this?
I’m talking about the Boys’ Own, WWI comics perception of WWII. What we’d like to believe. Why do the British still go on about the war 60 years later - because it makes us feel good, whatever the harsh realities were.
No doubt Stalin had tens of millions of blood on his hands. He was bad. But he wasn’t the same as Hitler (and that’s not intended to make excuses for him - just saying he wasn’t the same).
Stalin was just as bad as Hitler. Churchill and Roosevelt cannot be compared with this lot. Stalin gets some credit for having defeated Hitler but then Hitler would have had he defeated Stalin.
And the winner is:
Some estimates for Stalin are as high as 50 or 60 million.
If you hold Hitler responsible for WWII, that’s 50 million.
Switzerland won the war.
Seriously.