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Oxford Comma posted:If Hitler's assassination attempt had succeeded, would the new leaders of Germany sued for peace to keep the Russians out of Germany? Not a separate peace, mind you. But saying, "We will surrender provided only Americans/British occupy our country?" The coup attempted called for attempting to make a conditional peace with the allies to keep the soviets out. The UK and US weren't going to accept anything other than unconditional surrender and the day they turn down the new German government's offer is when whatever nazis are left attempt a counter coup. If the July 20th plot was successful their best chance would have been to redeploy all troops from the west to east, hopefully causing the allies to march all the way to the current frontline of the Östfront. At this point Stalin is in the middle of inflicting three quarters of million killed, wounded and captured on the Wehrmacht and nothing is going to stop him or the red army from taking Berlin. If a collapse in the west had been engineered, Eisenhower probably would have done the same thing he did in April 1945, march to the already decided occupation line and wait for the soviets, maybe grabbing Austria and the Czech Republic.
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Jul 1, 2013 05:36
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Veins McGee posted:Yalta happened in February '45, the attempt happened in July '44. Apologies, it's late here. I think it's safe to say that not would stop a pissed-off Stalin and a pissed-off Red Army from exacting some form of vengeance on Germany, so what would the plotters expect the Western Allies to do, help them hold off the Soviets? I really don't see alliances and enmities changing that quickly, Western hated of communism notwithstanding.
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Jul 1, 2013 05:47
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Duckboat posted:Apologies, it's late here. Oh, no. I don't think anything insane like that would happen. I imagine the occupation would have gone down more or less the same as it did historically.
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Jul 1, 2013 05:51
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While I totally agree with everyone that results wouldn't have actually have changed if it had succeeded, I think we can all understand them at least giving it the old college try. I mean, they all knew they were totally hosed, so trying to appeal to getting not quite as hosed probably seemed like the best bet even if it was a total hail mary.
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Jul 1, 2013 06:13
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Duckboat posted:Apologies, it's late here.
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Jul 1, 2013 06:56
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SeanBeansShako posted:I always feel sorry for the poor buggers they sent into the breaches of those forts, damaged or not they were incredibly well designed death traps. To tie in with the whole Cromwell/New Model Army/Ireland thing earlier, they didn't have it all their own way. Indeed thats usually part of the reason for the harshness of the British soldiers, that Ireland was so notoriously difficult to campaign in. New Model Army regiments drew lots to see who was sent to Ireland, thats how unpopular it was. During the Tudor re-conquest of the previous century, a common saying in the Irish Sea ports was "Better to hang in England, than die like a dog in Ireland" (or something like that, I've no books to hand). Another nod to previous topics is maille use in Ireland. Alot of the light cavalry operating in Ireland was still using maille in the early 17th century, while troops arriving from Britain were known to ditch their army issue breastplates while in-country. Of course those same native cavalry weren't using stirrups either, which is something I'd like to know more about, info on that is hard to come by.
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Jul 1, 2013 08:14
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So basically even if Germany had let the US and Britian occupy it, the Allies still would've let Russia have a portion, correct? What would Stalin have done if the Allies said, "The war is over. No German lands for you!"
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Jul 1, 2013 16:37
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Oxford Comma posted:So basically even if Germany had let the US and Britian occupy it, the Allies still would've let Russia have a portion, correct? What would Stalin have done if the Allies said, "The war is over. No German lands for you!" Ah this old chestnut. Comes up a lot in this thread too.
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Jul 1, 2013 16:40
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Oxford Comma posted:So basically even if Germany had let the US and Britian occupy it, the Allies still would've let Russia have a portion, correct? What would Stalin have done if the Allies said, "The war is over. No German lands for you!" They would have never said that because they wanted the soviet union to declare war on Japan so as to lessen their own causalities from mopping up. Keep in mind it wasn't until June or July that we knew the bomb even worked and everyone was sure operation downfall was going to have to happen.
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Jul 1, 2013 16:44
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Raskolnikov38 posted:They would have never said that because they wanted the soviet union to declare war on Japan so as to lessen their own causalities from mopping up. Keep in mind it wasn't until June or July that we knew the bomb even worked and everyone was sure operation downfall was going to have to happen. Another very important reason that the Western Allies would not have agreed is they didn't recognize any real distinction between Hitler and the Prussian officer corps. The officers who were conspiring to assassinate Hitler, smash the Nazi power structure, and sue for peace saw themselves as a separate faction, obviously, but on the other side in London and Washington the perspective was very different. In part because a lot of the personalities had been around for WWI as well, and had seen (in their opinion) Germany initiate the two bloodiest conflicts in world history in the space of just 25 years, they felt that Germany as it was then constituted had to be completely destroyed. Militarism was a German curse that endangered the entire world and had to be completely stamped out for the good of humanity. This was the reasoning behind the Morgenthau Plan to break up Germany and dismantle its industry, leaving a couple of harmless agrarian countries. The plan was eventually abandoned but only after it had gotten to the point of being official policy, basically signed off on by both the US and UK governments, and elements of it were actually put into effect during the early part of the occupation (pretty much until they decided they wanted West Germany as a bulwark). The determination was very much to radically alter Germany--as they had failed to do after WWI--to avoid another war. Churchill wasn't as hot for this as FDR, most likely because he was already preparing in case of war with the USSR, but he wasn't in a position to oppose Roosevelt. At any rate, in London and Washington Hitler was not seen as a problem separable from German militarism, rather as a manifestation of a societal illness that sprang from the Prussian officer corps. That is, the July Plotters did not realize it, but the Western Allies had targeted them for extinction just as they had Hitler and the Nazis.
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Jul 1, 2013 18:40
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^^^^^ That's the best explanation I've read on the matter. Thank you.
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Jul 1, 2013 19:35
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And the Soviets just wanted them all wiped off the face of the Earth.
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Jul 1, 2013 20:09
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The Morgenthau Plan is one of history's great big what-ifs for me. I really wonder how much more different things would have turned out if the Allies went through with it, and/or if they also did it to Japan.
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Jul 1, 2013 23:46
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I assume they'd stop the policy as soon as the first hundred thousand started to die off. From what i've read those policies were pretty much sentencing entire urban areas to starvation. Maybe in an alternative universe Italians and French racists are pissed off at the illegal Germans who come to their countries to steal their jobs and live in trucks.
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Jul 2, 2013 00:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:The Morgenthau Plan is one of history's great big what-ifs for me. I really wonder how much more different things would have turned out if the Allies went through with it, and/or if they also did it to Japan. They came pretty close to doing that to Japan, IIRC a lot of machinery was dumped into Tokyo Bay. Then people started thinking about this "North Korea" thing and put a stop to it.
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Jul 2, 2013 00:26
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Did the Russians have anything similar to the Morganthau plan laid out? I know they demanded and received extensive reparations and dismantled tons of East German industry to ship east, but East Germany remained industrially powerful so were they also trying to buff up a bulwark there against the west?
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Jul 2, 2013 02:45
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khwarezm posted:Did the Russians have anything similar to the Morganthau plan laid out?
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Jul 2, 2013 08:27
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I wonder why the Soviets were unable to liberate the rest of Europe from the Capitalists after the fall of the Third Reich. Were Nato forces too strong, Soviet war weariness and losses to great, or was Stalin afraid of the atom bomb? They did commit manpower and equipment to proxy wars, to the Communists in China, to North Korea and to Vietnam. But Soviet Russia never entered a full-scale war again. I wonder what conditions and influences caused such a situation. Amyclas fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 12:17
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Amyclas posted:I wonder why the Soviets were unable to liberate the rest of Europe from the Capitalists after the fall of the Third Reich. One of the major reasons is that "the rest of Europe" didn't actually want to be "liberated" by the Soviets. Nor did many of the Eastern European states desire that sort of "liberation" after the Nazis were defeated. Ask the Poles.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:20
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Amyclas posted:I wonder why the Soviets were unable to liberate the rest of Europe from the Capitalists after the fall of the Third Reich. Were Nato forces too strong, Soviet war weariness and losses to great, or was Stalin afraid of the atom bomb? Nuclear weapons.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:28
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:One of the major reasons is that "the rest of Europe" didn't actually want to be "liberated" by the Soviets. Nor did many of the Eastern European states desire that sort of "liberation" after the Nazis were defeated. Ask the Poles. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungrary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria didn't ask for liberation either, What I mean to ask is what happened to Soviet expansionism and militarism after the war. During World War II they annexed the baltic states, part of Finland, all of Ukraine, and some other splinter Russian states. After the war they actively sought to expand their sphere of influence by supporting overseas revolutions, but they never fully committed their military again.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:35
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Amyclas posted:I wonder why the Soviets were unable to liberate the rest of Europe from the Capitalists after the fall of the Third Reich. Were Nato forces too strong, Soviet war weariness and losses to great, or was Stalin afraid of the atom bomb? The Soviets had zero interest in liberating the rest of Europe, that's why. International communism had been abandoned with the rise of Stalin, and Soviet cold war strategy was in general defensive. (But not precluding 'the best defense is a good offense' sort of defensive.) This is not surprising, given the trauma of a war where they lost over 13% of their total population. The US experience of WWII was mostly rewarding and pleasant, but the Soviet experience was a tragedy of epic proportions that built a deep psychological desire never to see such a war again, and certainly never to have something that has a chance of seeing enemy soldiers on Russian soil. Eastern Europe was kept because it allowed the existence of a buffer to protect from NATO attack. Fighting Western Europe would be a war that they can not be confident of winning, and that even if they did win, would result in thinning out their forces. Assistance of the communists in China built a buffer state to the SE, as did involvement in Korea. US cold war strategists talked of the idea of the Domino theory, but the Soviets had a corresponding fear of 'encirclement'.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:38
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They went into Afghanistan pretty hard.
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Jul 2, 2013 15:02
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coolatronic posted:They went into Afghanistan pretty hard. Actually, why were the Soviets in Afghanistan anyways?
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Jul 2, 2013 16:40
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Oxford Comma posted:Actually, why were the Soviets in Afghanistan anyways? Nobody can resist losing a good war in Afganistan.
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Jul 2, 2013 16:44
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Oxford Comma posted:Actually, why were the Soviets in Afghanistan anyways? Someone once told me that the Soviet Army was worried that its troops lacked combat experience, so it was a way to season them, but that always seemed to me like a dumbass reason to get involved in a huge rear end war.
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Jul 2, 2013 16:55
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Oxford Comma posted:Actually, why were the Soviets in Afghanistan anyways? My understanding was that their puppet state in Afghanistan was about to go under, and they jumped right into the situation without deciding if it was actually worth saving or not.
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Jul 2, 2013 17:43
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Wikipedia is p. good with its war coverage.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:15
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Fangz posted:International communism had been abandoned with the rise of Stalin, and Soviet cold war strategy was in general defensive. This isn't true. I know its an appealing narrative but the Soviets were just as aggressive as the Americans in spreading their political world view.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:39
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Afghanistan is kinda complicated. The soviets weren't too thrilled about intervention, but they had a nominally pro-Soviet puppet state about to collapse to a revolution, right on the border of the Soviet Union. They weren't too thrilled about having a fundamentalist Islamist government in Iran either, for that matter.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:08
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Veins McGee posted:This isn't true. I know its an appealing narrative but the Soviets were just as aggressive as the Americans in spreading their political world view. Neither the US nor the Soviets were particularly aggressive (militarily, anyway). But for postwar Stalin's regime, the cautious posture of the USSR is well documented: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lashmar.htm Fangz fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 19:09
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Veins McGee posted:This isn't true. I know its an appealing narrative but the Soviets were just as aggressive as the Americans in spreading their political world view. That's different from war strategy, though.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:10
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I really don't think the Soviets expected the level of support the Afghans would get from the US, either. They made some decent gains until they started losing a fuckton of helicopters and planes to Stingers.
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Jul 2, 2013 22:32
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I thought Afghanistan was part of a long-term strategy to get it, and then later Pakistan or Iran into the Soviet sphere of influence, especially to get access to a port on the Indian Ocean. EDIT: Did the Americans send, or were planning to send, Lend-Lease to the Soviets prior to getting involved in WW2? gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 3, 2013 03:06
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Yes, before October of 1941 it wasn't true lend lease as the soviets had to pay in gold for anything we sent them. After October first we had a lend lease arrangement with them that lasted until the very day Japan signed the surrender. That last bit actually pissed off the soviets as they expected to receive it for a while longer instead of us ordering freighters then currently heading for the USSR to turn around.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:14
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Fangz posted:Neither the US nor the Soviets were particularly aggressive (militarily, anyway). But for postwar Stalin's regime, the cautious posture of the USSR is well documented: Berlin Air Lift? Korea? Hungarian Revolution? Vietnam(either iteration)? Czechoslovakia? Rhodesian Bush War? Angola? Mozambique? Afghanistan? Not that the West had clean hands throughout this period but come the gently caress on.
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Jul 3, 2013 05:39
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Can anyone recommend something on the last days of the soviet union?
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Jul 3, 2013 06:37
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Was the soviet union aware of how much a large role pakistan played in in propping up the muhajeeden? Did the USSR ever consider retaliating by arming rebel factions in Pakistan or some other sufficently unstable american client with Strela's and what-not?
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Jul 3, 2013 06:58
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Yes, before October of 1941 it wasn't true lend lease as the soviets had to pay in gold for anything we sent them. After October first we had a lend lease arrangement with them that lasted until the very day Japan signed the surrender. Were the Americans expecting a future conflict with the communists before the war? Wasn't the communist ideology seen as a bad thing by many of the allied states?
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Jul 3, 2013 08:11
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The soviets launched a few cross border raids and bombed a few camps in Pakistan. Tribal areas mostly.
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Jul 3, 2013 08:14
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