WW ii Lasted from 1939 to 1945. The US joined in on December 11, 1941, after Pearl Harbor.
This is not quite right since US ships were transporting arms & ammunition across the North Atlantic to England and Russia; and German U-Boats were having a chicken shoot taking down convoys
England went bankrupt in 1940. The United States then paid for the rest of WW2. The specific date on which this probably occurred was 23 December 1940 when a US warship carried off £50 million worth of gold from Cape Town. A slight delay was then provided by pressuring the governments in exile into "loaning" their gold stockpiles to England (although England knew this could never be repaid). A Belgian "loan" of £60 million was crucial to avoid open default before the US Congress passed the Lend Lease Act on 1 March 1941.
So 12 months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor US taxpayers were paying for Englishmen to kill Germans. That is, the US was not simply acting as a source for a few extra rifles and shells, the US was paying all of the expenses necessary for England to fight the war while the Battle of Britain was still going on. England clearly continued to pay something towards the cost of the war, since they continued to collect taxes in England, but the vast bulk of payments for war materiel was covered by the US.
Only because Roosevelt and Morgenthau, the Secretary of the Treasury and a bitter enemy of Germany, were personally interested in keeping WW2 going at a time when there was no legitimate hope of English victory was the money made available.
Because the American public would never have agreed to fund an ongoing war by a foreign country at a time when the US was a neutral, the US Government lied about English finances and talked in terms of loans and bartering. The general impression being that England was paying 90% or more of its needs and the US was simply filling a few gaps while England completed mobilization or something.
If Roosevelt had not won re-election in November, 1940, England would have asked Germany for terms to end the war in the West by January 1941 because there was simply no money left in England to pay for a continuation of the fighting.
There was serious discussion in the English cabinet throughout the Summer of 1940 of the need to end the war because of the impending bankruptcy. By 22 August, 1940, the decision was made to continue placing orders with the United States although there was no hope of ever paying for the materiel. The logic at the time was that England should run up as large a debt as possible and then argue that the only way for the Americans to ever see any repayment was to fund a continuation of England's war.
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=27548
While there's no need to discuss the sacrifices made in WWII - two questions come to mind. One, where did the Nazis get the money to fund the war? Two, the Japanese to build their fleet?
Then again, the point in this thread is, after WWII, not only UK but also Russia, China, Europe and most other parts of the world, were nearly bankrupted. US economy alone was functional
The popular view is that the world economy suddenly collapsed and the world became poorer - in terms of money, materials and men - except for the US economy that was left standing It's not that simple.
US demanded that the English then demonstrate that they were scraping the bottom of their barrels by selling an English-owned business in the US.
As an example, on 10 March 1941 Morgenthau delivered an ultimatum: an important English company had to be sold within the next week. The English then announced the sale of "American Viscose Corporation, a subsidiary of Courtaulds, the largest remaining English holding in the US. Sold at short notice to Americans, the company brought less than half of its assessed value.
As an example, on 10 March 1941 Morgenthau delivered an ultimatum: an important English company had to be sold within the next week. The English then announced the sale of "American Viscose Corporation, a subsidiary of Courtaulds, the largest remaining English holding in the US. Sold at short notice to Americans, the company brought less than half of its assessed value.
In my understanding, what if there was no WWII? Britain would have continued to own major corporations in the US. The Depression of the 1930s may have extended into the 40s. The Colonies, including India may have taken a longer period before they gained their respective independences.
