What If America Had NEVER Joined WW2?

What if America had never joined World War Two? In January 1940, Franklin Roosevelt signed a contract to write for Collier's magazine once he had left the White House. His plan was to retire to Hyde Park and write. He never wrote a single article under that contract: that summer he ran for a third term instead. In this video he keeps it. Robert Taft, the senator from Ohio who wanted to help Britain with loans but never with soldiers, becomes president in January 1941, and America stays behind the line its own Army planners drew on May 22, 1940. So who wins the war? Does Moscow still hold? Where does Japan turn when American oil never stops flowing? Can Turkey, Abadan and the Suez Canal hold without American tanks? And can Britain survive alone when the whole Luftwaffe finally turns west? In this animated alternate history we keep score with one pencil line around the Americas. Our one rule: we change one decision. Everything after it comes from the real armies, plans and ambitions of the people making it, and nobody gets a weapon they didn't really have. Where we have to choose, we say so. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 The Articles Roosevelt Never Wrote 2:35 The Senator From Ohio 4:47 Stripped to the Bone 7:27 Moscow Holds 10:14 The Oil Keeps Flowing 12:21 Japan Turns North 14:27 The Wells Full of Concrete 16:19 Between the Urals and Lake Baikal 18:53 Chungking Falls 20:20 The Road Through Turkey 22:36 Abadan and the Canal 24:45 We Shall Fight on the Beaches 29:27 The World America Watched If you were President Taft in the summer of 1941, would you cut off Japan's oil and risk a war, or keep it flowing and keep the peace? Leave your answer in the comments. 📄 The documents Roosevelt's Collier's contract (January 1940) · the War Plans Division recommendation of May 22, 1940, and Rainbow 4 · Stark's Plan Dog memo (November 12, 1940) · Churchill's letter of December 8, 1940 · Taft's radio speech, February 1941 · the Halder war journal · Directives No. 16, 21, 32 and 41 · the Ott telegrams from Tokyo · Order No. 227 · Paulus at Nuremberg · Saracoglu to the American ambassador, July 1942 (FRUS) · Churchill's speech of June 4, 1940 · the Tehran minutes, 1943. 📚 Historians and sources Matloff and Snell (1953), H. Duncan Hall (1955), Basil Collier (1957), I. S. O. Playfair, Mark Harrison, David Glantz, Joel Hayward, Alvin Coox, the Japanese Monographs, David Reynolds and Nikolai Voznesensky. The branch is ours; every number, plan and quote it is built on is from the record. Branchline History takes one real decision, changes it, and follows it all the way to the end. Subscribe so you don't miss the next branch. #alternatehistory #ww2 #history