Originally posted by speiderman
And just because we took awhile to enter the war it doesn't mean we did not favor a side. We had close ties with the British during most of the war.
Erm...unless America had a crystal ball which told them that Hitler is going to raise into power few years from then, and that Japan will sign a treaty with Germany and that they will be allies in the war, i dont see how Manchuria incident had anything to do with Americna involvement into WWII
Revise your history - Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931.
I was reading this article regarding Great Britain, and Hitler and of course the Balkans:
"During the spring of 1940 Hitler was greatly concerned over the possibility of British intervention in the Balkans. Had not Britain and France tried to establish a solid political and military front in the Balkans by concluding a series of agreements with Turkey, by trying to draw Yugoslavia into their orbit, and by consolidating their position in the Aegean? Germany s first countermeasures came in May and June 1940, when Romania was induced to repudiate the Anglo-French territorial guarantee after it had been pressured into signing a pact which stipulated that the Romanians would step up their oil production and would make maximum deliveries to the Axis Powers. British personnel supervising the operation of the oil fields were dismissed during the month of July. After the Vienna Award of August 194O, Romania intended to break off diplomatic relations with Britain, but after consultation with Berlin this action was postponed because of the potential danger of British air attacks on the oil fields.
When Greece was attacked by Italy on 28 October 1940, it did not request any assistance from Great Britain, for fear of giving Hitler an excuse for German intervention. Nevertheless, the British occupied Crete and Limnos three days later, thereby improving their strategic position in the eastern Mediterranean. By 4 November British air force units began to arrive in southern Greece. Since Hitler believed that these moves brought the Romanian oil fields within British bombing range, he decided to transfer additional antiaircraft, fighter, and fighter-bomber units to Romania to protect the German oil resources.
When the German threat began to take mole definite shape during the winter of 1940-41, the Greek Government decided to accept the British offer to send air force Units to northern Greece to strengthen the defense of Salonika. Early in March 1941, the British sent an expeditionary corps of some 53,000 troops into Greece in an attempt to support their allies against the impending German invasion.
However, before Germany could think of starting military operations in the Balkans, it had to secure its lines of communication. For this purpose it had to obtain firm political control over Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, and to wrest some important concessions and assurances from Turkey and Yugoslavia."