On Saturday, June 19, 2021 at 1:11:58 AM UTC-7, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2021 20:55:44 -0500, Rich Rostrom
> <rros...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >Assume that the Allies break ENIGMA sooner and defeat WESERUBUNG in
> >April (it's over by 18 April), and in the next three weeks Belgium and
> >the Netherlands decide to coordinate defense with the Allies. (Persuaded
> >in part by further ENIGMA decrypts which reveal the German attack
> >plans.)
> In OTL Norway is invaded on April 9, 1940. I am highly skeptical
> Hitler would have attempted Weserubung if he thought there was any
> possibility at all he would lose in 9 days. If he thought that then he
> would have taken those troops and put them into the invasion of France
> and the Low Countries making his attack even stronger.
> >What with one thing and another, the Allies halt the German attack by
> >mid-June. Combined with the Norway fiasco, this discredits Hitler. The
> >Schwarz Kapelle overthrow him in July and initiate peace talks.
> I have argued in SHWI and AHWI for years that if France had had 100
> anti-tank guns concentrated on the Meuse around Sedan in May 1940 that
> Guderian wouldn't have gotten across the river much less getting to
> Abbeville or Dunkirk.
>
> Once that happens Hitler probably reverts to something like his
> original attack plan on France involving winning a massive war of
> attrition in a Schlieffen plan type sweep.
>
> I'm skeptical it works and you might well get a military coup but
> that's far beyond my speculative skill. (I do think that if Hitler
> gets into a WW1 type trench system he's risking a coup)
> >Knock-ons:
> >
> >The war crisis is all but ended, and FDR decides not to run for a third
> >term. Who gets the nomination?
> Willkie obviously :) :) :)
>

But I thought that Willkie's chances were boosted by the war?

> Obviously you mean the Democrat nomination and in this case I don't
> see Wallace ever becoming within a heartbeat of the presidency. That
> leaves Barkley almost by default since Garner would be perceived as
> too old while Sam Rayburn would not be seen as old enough yet.
> >Chamberlain, not discredited in Norway, does not resign until after the
> >war is won (when his health fails). Churchill never becomes PM. Britain
> >has an election in late 1940. Would the Conservatives win _again_?
> Uh Chamberlain knew he had cancer by May 1940 - that was the main
> reason he didn't fight harder to keep the prime ministership in 1940.
> One thing I do NOT know is when Chamberlain got his diagnosis though I
> strongly suspect from his actions it was after October 1938 since he
> showed no sign of physical or other weakness at Munich. (I'm not
> saying I support Chamberlain's actions there but they were clearly not
> those of a man who expected to be dead only a little more than two
> years hence)
> >There is a crisis over Poland. Poland is restored in its German-occupied
> >zone; the Allies and Germany then demand that the USSR withdraw from the
> >remainder of Poland. After some haggling, Stalin agrees. The bad showing
> >of the Red Army in Finland worries him. And on the other hand, the
> >Allies don't demand withdrawal from the Baltic states, the Karelian
> >territory seized from Finland, or Bessarabia (seized from Romania).
> >Stalin takes his limited gains and backs out of Poland. He starts
> >looking at the Far East for opportunities. Japan has no friends at all.
> Catch is without a seaport Poland is basically either a German
> satellite or a joint German-Soviet satellite. Even if Germany "only"
> regains her 1914 boundary in the east Poland is not viable
> economically - which was the whole reason for the Danzig corridor in
> the first place. For me this is THE question mark in your scenario.
>

I don't think that the Anglo-French are going to settle for anything less than a restoration of Poland's pre-war borders. Maybe they would also insist on allowing Poland to permanently control Danzig's port facilities.

> Obviously Poland's loss of her eastern territories and gain of German
> territories (as per OTL 1944-45) would never have happened had not
> Stalin had complete control over the postwar Polish regime.
>
> In your scenario Poland has no realistic hope at all of any kind of
> long term independence. And I definitely do not see a latter day Maria
> Walewska having much sway with Hitler!

If Poland gets its pre-war borders restored and has permanent control of Danzig's port facilities, then things should go rather well for Poland, no?

> >What does Japan do now? Especially if Britain, the US, and the
> >Netherlands embargo oil? If Japan attacks Britain, even if the US
> >remains neutral, it's one on one (with Japan already bogged down in
> >China) and the USSR looming ominously.
> Japan declares victory in China and withdraws 20-50 miles and no more.
>
> I have no idea how you might un-rape Nanking or undo the damage in
> Peking. Whether the Japanese economy can survive this scenario is the
> $64000 question.
> >Even if Japan attacks, it is unlikely to inflict a humiliating defeat on
> >Britain or France, which OTL undermined their dominance of their
> >colonial subjects.
> The occupation of French Indochina was pretty much a done deal from
> the time Japan told the French what the new order in that part of the
> world meant. If France had not "fallen" Japan would not dare disturb
> the 1938-39 status quo in Indochina.
> >There will be no interruption of Dutch colonial rule in the East Indies.
> >
> >Nor of French rule in Indochina.
> If Germany attacks in the west and the Netherlands remains occupied
> (I'm thinking of something like a front line from Antwerp to Sedan)
> then a Japanese attack on the DEI is possible though Japan is
> completely FUBARred if Germany subsequently makes peace with Britain
> and France.
>
> My question to you is what do you think is happening with Italy in
> this scenario? If (as I think) the answer is nothing then they
> continue to hold Libya and Ethiopia - given that in OTL at no point
> did Britain ever attempt to prevent Italian sea access to Ethiopia
> until they were at war with Italy.
> >The USSR may be stronger than OTL, avoiding the enormous demographic
> >losses and material devastation of OTL. Of course it has none of the
> >credit by fighting on the Allied side, and retains the discredit of
> >its quasi-alliance with Nazi Germany.
> Not necessarily ACTUALLY but definitely in prestige since with no
> Winter War disaster they're considered much stronger.

The Winter War occurred before the Fall of France.

> I would say they
> still take the Baltic states pretty much as per OTL. After all in this
> timeline if they are seriously worried about Germany (and Stalin
> should be) it would be catastrophic for Germany to get Lithuania and
> Latvia even if they don't take Estonia.

If the Soviets get the Baltic states, then subsequently withdrawing from eastern Poland might be difficult for the Soviets.

> >Italy (which has a colonial empire) has been neutral and is untouched.
> >Abyssinia, Libya, and the Dodecanese remain Italian possessions, and
> >Italy remains in occupation of Albania.
> >
> >India... there will be no Bengal Famine, and less hostility between the
> >INC and the British; the Moslem League less influential. Partition may
> >be avoided.
> Definitely in your scenario there would be no fighting vs the Japanese
> which means no broadcasts into India by Subhas Chandra Bose. (I'm
> pretty sure in a no-war scenario the Japanese wouldn't allow him
> anywhere near a microphone) As such he never returns to India and dies
> in obscurity in exile.
>
> I would be interested in your opinion on the fate of the Grand Mufti
> of Jerusalem and what that might mean postwar with respect to
> Arab-Israeli relations (or whether in this scenario there is an Israel
> to have relations with!)
> >The French Third Republic continues. De Gaulle never comes to power.
> >(Even if he is the hero general of the war, which he might be, he's very
> >unlikely to transition to a political role like OTL head of Free
> >France.)
> Well no - why would there be an end to the Third Republic in 1940
> without a French defeat? It certainly survived the 1917 French mutiny.
> >Unless there is a Pacific War against Japan, the US remains... not so
> >much isolationist, as isolated. There will be no mass US Army, raised by
> >conscription, and US forces will not be deployed around the world. The
> >US will not be a founding member of the United Nations with a permanent
> >seat on the Security Council; it will remain a non-member of the League
> >of Nations.
> If your scenario continues it would not be unlikely that Canada could
> have a larger army than the United States by the end of 1940. Which
> probably means economic crisis for Canada in 1941 if there is little
> active fighting between Britain and Germany. (Canada never fought in
> North Africa though she definitely did in Italy and in your scenario
> there's no North African front)
> >The League of Nations will stagger onward, preserved from complete
> >irrelevance by the issues raised regarding the "mandatory" territories,
> >especially Palestine.
> Would the League have any relevance at all by the end of 1940 in this
> scenario? Given the level of credibility it had in September 1939 I am
> massively skeptical.
>

Britain and France can try restoring credibility to the League after the end of the war in this TL.

> About the only thing you can be sure of is that in a scenario like
> this Kaiser William II dies on schedule in Holland though his sons
> probably DON'T enlist in the German military. (I could be mistaken but
> I don't think they enlisted before 22/6/1941)

Kaiser Wilhelm II's eldest grandson died in combat in May 1940, I believe.

By the way, what do you think happens to the Zionist movement in this TL? Even if "only" 10-30% of Poland's Jewish population actually wants to emigrate, that's still 300,000 to 1 million Polish Jews! And this is not to mention the Jews in other European countries who would likewise want to emigrate--albeit with Soviet Jews not being able to emigrate for a while. Still, even from the Polish Jews alone, the Zionist movement could get a GIANT boost in this TL!