Chugalug (#10508) has set a hare-and-a-half running here ! I stand in awe of the geopolitcal flights of fancy already mooted, and really cannot add anything useful to the pot.
But it is true that there was a strong undercurrent of "treating with the enemy" in the air during the run-up to, and in the early years of the war. Von Ribbentrop was (according to the popular Press) lionised by London society hostesses (contrary to Wiki's general opinion of him), Edward VII and some members of the aristocracy were known to have been sympathetic to the German cause; and the Chamberlain/Halifax Government would almost certainly have capitulated after what Chugalug called the "Dunkirk Miracle" * but for the intervention of Winston Churchill - for whom the Free World should be eternally grateful.
...damning letters from Germany immediately after the war, which have been secured at Windsor Castle ever since...
A fire at Windsor Castle sounds like a good idea ?
.... now I come to think of it ....
* (It is my belief - shared by many at the time - that Hitler allowed the 300,000 to escape [ordering Guderian to halt his tanks to enable them to do so], reasoning that we had no option then but to sue for peace on any terms, and meanwhile he couldn't be bothered to have to house and feed such a large number of prisoners).
A curious sideline: it was suggested that the RAF would never bomb Hanover - because George VI was of the line of Hanoverian Kings ! (in fact, we bombed the place flat, like everywhere else).
My "What If ?"s are on a much smaller scale. What if the Japanese 28th Army Commander in Arakan had set his Oscars on our "boxes" of VVs, which were daily unearthing his defensive bunkers in his '43/'44 retreat ? We wouldn't have stood a chance (all the Hurricane pilots who'd done "fighter affiliation" training exercises with us told us so). ..... bye-bye Danny and "Stew" !
Why didn't he - it was such an obvious thing to do ! But he didn't. .... What if Truman had said "No" to the Hiroshima Bomb ? .... You can go on for ever.
Danny.
PS: Quite off-Thread - but if you're one of the few who've never seen BBC1's "Peter Kay's Car Share", do so on iPlayer ASAP !