WI the west liberates Prague in 1945?

raharris1973

We had an initial discussion here but did not get into knock-on
effects outside Czechoslovakia.


http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/browse_thread/thre...


The PoD is a western decision to try to drive into Czechoslavakia as
much as possible in spring 45. They're seeking some degree of concrete influence
in east-central Europe, as they've gotten a little upset with some
Soviet actions in Poland and Romania in February and March, and some
manuevers towards Turkey in March. (If we consider it too much of a
stretch for the Americans to be thinking in such competitive terms vis-
a-vis the Soviets, we could say the American and Commonwealth beaches
are switched on D-Day, and its the British who man the central vector
towards saxony, northern Bavaria and Bohemia). While plunging east
into Bohemia is a less bold way of curtailing Soviet influence than
pshing for Berlin, it should be a bit less costly.


For alot of reasons, this is unlikely to actually earn the west much
influence. Liberation from the west may not wipe away disgust at the
west over Munich. Plus, Munich entirely aside, based on the post-WWI
experience, the Czechs will likely believe that the western allies
will leave and demobilize soon, and the Soviets are the essential ally
against a resurgent Germany. There's not much anticommunism in
Czecoslovakia either. Plus, even if the Czechs were less amenable to
the Soviets, the Soviets could choose to leverage their significant
presence in Slovakia, and probably Moravia, for concessions on Czech
internal and external policies.


But, what might the knock-ons be of this somewhat forward western
policy?


Would the Soviets retaliate, and how? By speeding up satellitization
in east-central Europe? By giving the west more trouble over Berlin
(excludingtem?) or Trieste, by refusing to ask the Greek communists
(or Italian or French communists) for restraint, by being more defiant
on issues related to turkey or Iran. Or, if the west is making faits
accompli in CCentral Europe, might the Soviets do something similar
when they get involved in the Pacific War, for example moving to
occupy Seoul or Inchon or Beijing in advance of the Americans?
 

Zajir

I think that Czechoslovakia will be broken in a Slovak communist state and a Czech capitalist state.
 

bouscher

Um well, I think that if the allies had a deeper foothold in mid-Europe, then perhaps Germany would have remained entirely within allied hands, meaning that the allies would have much influence in the region during the cold war to come.
 

oudi14

bouscher said:
Um well, I think that if the allies had a deeper foothold in mid-Europe, then perhaps Germany would have remained entirely within allied hands, meaning that the allies would have much influence in the region during the cold war to come.
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But the 'Big 4' had already agreed on how to divide up Germany into occupation zones. For instance, the Americans captured Leipzig, but soon handed it over to the Red Army.
I have always been annoyed at Ike's unvillingness to capture more territory when he had the chance to do it. At that time, he must have been incredibly naive about how terribly evil Stalin really was. [as was FDR to some extent-Yalta proved that] I'm sure Ike must have regretted not pushing further East where he could have.
 

Firestorm

oudi14 said:
But the 'Big 4' had already agreed on how to divide up Germany into occupation zones. For instance, the Americans captured Leipzig, but soon handed it over to the Red Army.
I have always been annoyed at Ike's unvillingness to capture more territory when he had the chance to do it. At that time, he must have been incredibly naive about how terribly evil Stalin really was. [as was FDR to some extent-Yalta proved that] I'm sure Ike must have regretted not pushing further East where he could have.
Click to expand...
This is partially true, but one must also wonder if he was trying to keep relations as cordial as possible to make sure that Patton or De Gaul didn't get a chance to start a war with the Soviets.
 

Rockingham

Banned
oudi14 said:
But the 'Big 4' had already agreed on how to divide up Germany into occupation zones. For instance, the Americans captured Leipzig, but soon handed it over to the Red Army.
I have always been annoyed at Ike's unvillingness to capture more territory when he had the chance to do it. At that time, he must have been incredibly naive about how terribly evil Stalin really was. [as was FDR to some extent-Yalta proved that] I'm sure Ike must have regretted not pushing further East where he could have.
Click to expand...

Hmmm....not necessarily. Perhaps allowing the Soviets more of Europe, including East Germany was actually a strategic move on Washington's part. The allies had already let the Germans of easily once, and we all know what happened after that. The allies perhaps saw Stalin as the lesser of two evils, the other being a unified and revanchist Germany.

Additionaly, allowing the Soviets to advance further caused the main European powers- Britain, France, W. Germany and Italy- to feel more threatened then if they'd been stopped at the post-1945 East German borders, thus pushing Capitalist Europe further into the US's orbit, at the expense of East Germany, Czechia and Austria falling to the Soviets.
 

PMN1

oudi14 said:
But the 'Big 4' had already agreed on how to divide up Germany into occupation zones. For instance, the Americans captured Leipzig, but soon handed it over to the Red Army.
I have always been annoyed at Ike's unvillingness to capture more territory when he had the chance to do it. At that time, he must have been incredibly naive about how terribly evil Stalin really was. [as was FDR to some extent-Yalta proved that] I'm sure Ike must have regretted not pushing further East where he could have.
Click to expand...

Why expend men gaining territory your political masters have decided to hand over?
 

oudi14

PMN1 said:
Why expend men gaining territory your political masters have decided to hand over?
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I should have been more specific. I meant Czechoslovakia, not Germany. Though it may sound a bit harsh now, the Germans didn't really deserve any consideration with regards to who their conquerors were. The Czechs did. They had done nothing wrong; they had already been screwed by the west once, and all things possible should have been done to spare them being occupied by the Red Army with all their brutish ways. Not all the countrycould have been saved, and an allied occupation might well have wound up with an 'East' and a 'West' Czechoslovakia, but the country wound up doing this anyway in the '90s. If the ill effects of the Soviet alliance were not obvious to the Czechs in the beginning, they sure became apparent in 1968.
 

Gladi

Derek Jackson said:
Actually Stalin and Churchill had agreed that Czechoslovkia would be in the Soviet sphere of influence in the fall of 1944.
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...

...

They did? Really?

And here I was thinking that they agreed to divide Czechoslovakia between themselves and that the country only reunited finaly in 1991..
 

Valamyr

Banned
Gladi said:
...

...

They did? Really?

And here I was thinking that they agreed to divide Czechoslovakia between themselves and that the country only reunited finaly in 1991..
Click to expand...

No... Czechoslovakia was firmly soviet, and it was by agreement between east and west, until the velvet revolution in 1989... and of course, the country broke up within a couple years after that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia

Perhaps you misread the name of the country, and believed we were talking about Germany?
 

zeitenschmiede

note: a divided czechoslovakia after '45 would never unite in '91...the czechs and the slovaks tend to dislike each other. the whole state was just an artificial creation of Versailles 1919.
 

Gladi

zeitenschmiede said:
note: a divided czechoslovakia after '45 would never unite in '91...the czechs and the slovaks tend to dislike each other. the whole state was just an artificial creation of Versailles 1919.
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Ah...

Multiple declarations during war.
Stefanik as one othe founding fathers of Czechoslovakia.
Slovak national uprising during war with aim of recration of Czechoslovakia.
Dismemberment of Czechoslovakia NOT being a campaign issue in 1992 elections.
Hundreds of thousands Slovaks living in Czechia.
Slovak parliament having to pass law limiting number of tv programme in Czech. (it was cheaper for TV companies to buy dubbed track from Czechs than dubbing it themselves).
Czech loan-words as part of teenage speak.
Czech domestic news taking good chunk of news coverage, every bloody day (really what is up with that?)

...

If UK ever breaks apart, will there be people to who will claim Uk to be artificial dynastical state?
 

Valdemar II

Banned
zeitenschmiede said:
note: a divided czechoslovakia after '45 would never unite in '91...the czechs and the slovaks tend to dislike each other. the whole state was just an artificial creation of Versailles 1919.
Click to expand...

Dislike is such a strong word, I find thats it is more that they have little in common with each others to truly wanting to live in the same state.
 

raharris1973

consequences for early Cold War?

Oudi 14 and Emperor of rockingham - good points in particular.

It would have been easier to argue for going out on a limb for the czechs more than for the Germans, both for moral reasons [though let's not kid ourselves, German civilians did not deserve what happened to them either. collective just retribution is an oxymoron] and for strategic reasons, ie keeping the Germans divided enough that they would be dependent on the west.

...but. Valamyr I believe says there was prior agreement about handing Prague to the Soviets. I've heard others say no.

In any case, would the allied dash into Bohemia cause Stalin to change any of his policies. There's lots he could have done if he wanted to, a) prevent the creation of West Berlin, seriously back the Greek communists, b) foment strikes, etc in the west, c) Delay participation in the Pacific war or do so less cooperatively, ie by making more power plays in Manchuria or trying to grab all Korea.

Would he do any of that stuff out of pique with the west.

But, there's a 64 million krona question. Would Czechoslovakia have gone communist anyway, due to domestic communist appeal, eventual US demobilization, Soviet leverage, and perceived need across the Czech perspective for a tight relationship with the USSR to guard against Germany?
 

Gladi

raharris1973 said:
But, there's a 64 million krona question. Would Czechoslovakia have gone communist anyway, due to domestic communist appeal, eventual US demobilization, Soviet leverage, and perceived need across the Czech perspective for a tight relationship with the USSR to guard against Germany?
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If you get one more pro-western minister then no. OTL several of ministers resigned trying to force a fall of goverment, alas Jan Masaryk minister of foreign affairs and Ludvik Svoboda minister of defense and former commander of Czechoslovak Army in Russia did not support them. One more resignation and the president would have to remove goverment.
 
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