[ifwinterco]

What the guy below said - the UK would have become more like switzerland, much richer, not had a lot of its historic architecture destroyed and two generations of young men slaughtered.

I think it's actually really difficult to make the case for entering either war

[plomme]

What makes you think that the UK would fare like Switzerland and not like Norway, who also tried staying neutral?

What makes you think a Europe with, for example, Nazi Germany as hegemon would be safer for the UK, or that the UK would have a choice in fighting or not?

My point is that projecting some future based on choices not taken is purely historical fiction and there is no reason to believe anything would go the way you or I think it would have gone had UK done this or that. There are far too many variables to consider, and it is impossible to experiment. I think you can make the case the other way just as well that politics of appeasement in the time leading up to WW2 led to the war being even more devastating.

EDIT: Here's some actual plans that the Nazis had for Switzerland btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenbaum

[ifwinterco]

So you're right that we don't know for sure what would have happened in the counterfactual.

Hitler was very willing to cut a deal with Britain in 1939 and in fact supposedly was extremely upset when Britain declared war (as he should have been, it was a bad scenario for him as well).

Now could he have been trusted? Perhaps not, but bear in mind the UK in 1939 still had the world's most powerful navy and as an island would have been very difficult to invade.

I would argue that the British elite's obsession with playing Risk and thinking they have a divine right to decide the political makeup of continental europe was and is pure hubris, narcissism and stupidity.

Leave it up to france, germany and russia to sort out who runs the north european plain, that's none of our business

[bratwurst3000]

this is so wrong. Hitler wanted switzerland and they had allready the operation "tannenbaum" rdy but mussolini failed hard and the eastern front didnt go as expexted. That Hitler did exclude anyone because of "neutrality" is utter bs