There are potentially huge ramifications. First and foremost it can keep the US out of the war if Hitler deliberately pursues such a policy. The "Good Neighbor" policy does not come into effect without British cities being bombed, which means less trade and less opportunities to have a U-Boat act as trigger to war.
So Hitler's Germany launches a unilateral cease-fire with British bombers still striking Germany?
Second, the British will use resources in a strong Mediterranean campaign. The result is better performance in North AFrica and a bigger disaster in Greece. At this point, with butterflies, it is possible the British might seek a peace as they are not personally invested in a war over Poland.
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They had by 9/1/1939 a mutual and binding bi-lateral treaty of defense with Poland. That hadn't changed. Hitler got to where he was with so many diplomatic "successes" (the occupation of the Rhineland, rearmament, the Anschluss, Munich, the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Tri-Partite Pact) by systematically breaking every agreement, promise, or treaty he ever made. After Barbarossa, the well of trust had long since run dry for Hitler.
FDR and Churchill's demand of Hitler to surrender unconditionally was neither an act of American naivete nor a matter of sucking up to Stalin. It was a simple recognition of the fact that Hitler would never make any agreement that he would not betray at a moment's notice whenever it suited him to do so. And Churchill by this time was the LEAST likely Allied leader to cut any deals with Hitler, considering that his warnings about the Nazis heralded all the way back to 1929!
However, considering the war goes on longer, strong British success in Africa may prevent the Axis from bringing over enough supplies due to the loss of ports to ever make it a serious theater.
The only major port the Axis had in North Africa was Tripoli, and as long as Vichy France was neutral Tripoli was very safe. The problem for the Axis was supplying the war in north Africa with only the Italian Merchant Marine with Italy's navy as protection against a gauntlet of RAF aircraft and Royal Navy submarines and light naval vessels attacking the LOCs between Sicily and Libya. Though when under enough Axis air attack on Malta that island's ability to do maritime strike missions was often seriously degraded.
So essentially, we are in agreement. You can't conquer North Africa when everything you're fighting with, has to be funneled through just one port, even a big one. Indeed, even Rommel's famous charge to El Alemain was accomplished mainly due to the brief bonanza he enjoyed after all the supplies he captured when Tobruk fell. Once he reached El Alemain, those supplies had already been used up.
Ironically, it might bring about Vichy in the war stronger against Britain or allow Italian and Germans onto their colonial territories.
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The only way Vichy goes over to the Axis (which is what you are describing) is if the British are foolish enough to launch direct attacks on/invasions of Vichy French colonial territory early in the war using Non-Free French troops. Especially after the RN attack on Oran.
OTL it took a major US Army presence in Torch (and a lot of covert deception, by disguising Tommies as GI's) and a lot of politicking and hitler's rapid invasion of Metropolitan Vichy to prevent any problems in that area.
Senior Vichy OFFICERS might have thought that switching sides could be a good career move, but with all the defections to the Free French already they faced a serious threat of "fragging".
Also, Hitler handing over French North-West Africa to Italy makes for a hugely pissed off Franco. Converging spheres of influence. No Blue Division, no U-Boats out of Spanish ports, strictest neutrality, at best. Portugal-level pro-Allied friendliness at worst.
Barbarossa starts three weeks sooner with a lot more planes.
With the Red Air Force wiped out on the ground on D+1, the extra airc raft won't amount to much.
No Greek campaign? And the weather doesn't change, Russian mud ended very late that year. Overall, you couldn't pick a worse year to invade Russia than 1941. Unless it was 1812.
AGS will surround and destroy much of the Ukrainian Front,
That's showing a lot of respect for the Rumanian Army.
which in result prevents the need to divert forces to Kiev.
Hitler didn't divert forces south and north because he was a military moron. He did it because AGC was hopelessly outrunning it's supply lines. They had the worst LOCs in Barbarossa, since they had to deal with the Pripet Marshes. Hitler chose to take advantage of their circumstances by turning across
active supply lines-working rails and supply convoys-so AGC could be employed flanking out the Soviet Army in front of AGN and AGS.
A lot of Russian soldiers were killed, AND the lines were well straightened out for a more cohesive front. This allowed AGC to then advance on a railhead that had finally been advanced (damn Russian gauge!) far enough for them to move back towards their own army group objectives.
[size=-2]is it getting chilly?[/size]
Now, all of this can work out to be a massive disaster in the East. AGC may take Moscow, or get closer to the gates, or surround the city, but then get surrounded themselves.
If I were Stalin, I'd LET them get that far, just to get AGC completely over-extended. Then unleash the Siberians, and its Stalingrad 0.5
However, as long as the US is out, this whole situation works out as a Nazi wank.
How out is out? [1] I saw a guy do a story in which the war goes on and the USA is "frozen" at military force levels of 1938!
Obviously, Neville Chamberlain was President of the United States.
1] Democratic revolution/Civil war in Japan?
Of course, people will say a situation that would have solely benefitted Germany will result in butterflies that result in Allied victory in 1944. If that be the case, then I posit that a failed Sea Mammal results in German victory in 1943
Those butterflies sure are magical.
There are ASBs
There are Unspeakable Seamammals
there are wanks
Then there is that most odious of forms of noxious scribblings, the fist on the scale. Otherwise known as the contrived nationalist scenario. God I have seen some of the most ridiculous exercises in illogic you can imagine. Right up there with Harry Harrison's nonsense.
Malta would have fallen as well.
What makes that happen with 70-90% of Germany's paratroop force lost over Crete?
US involvement is therefore the key question.
Send that question to Tokyo
If US is not coming in as there is no immediate threat to UK, then LL will not happen, the 'saved' resources from no BoB might just ensure that Moscow can be taken in 1941.
A stronger LW isn't changing the weather, winterizing the Heer, getting the Heer through the Pripet Marshes, changing the Russian rail gauge, making up for a horrendous lack of real roads, or preventing the transfer of the Siberian reserves. Moscow holds both in 1941 and 1942. The latter because they were expecting it and were ready for it.
One thing, though, is to have resources, but getting them across Russia to where they are needed is something else.
Are you referring to Lend-Lease or the German Army and its supply lines? Resources were not a big problem for the USSR. It was military hardware and food.
If we further look at US involvement, it is correct that Churchill regarded the war as won the minute US was in. But is the opposite also true?
Britain's role in WWII was to
survive. America's was to provide the $$$, resources, and manpower to needed to make a serious all out two front war possible, so that the USSR wouldn't be fighting the war all by themselves. Even then, only the Sicily landings caused any real withdrawals at all from Russia until 1944.
The US NOT being in the war only means Germany gets instant sunshine, Tube Alloys style.
EDIT: Ninja'd by
Astrodragon
Would Churchill have regarded the war as lost/a fizzle if US is not in?
Just how/when would Winston Churchill have come to that conclusion? Barbarossa gave him hope, and Pearl Harbor was just 168 days away...Winston isn't throwing in the sponge because he lost in Greece. BTW, if he floods Greece with a lot of troops, Crete isn't falling. Christ, Crete all came down to a single battalion withdrawing from a single hill to change the tide. The Germans had failed in every other objective in that operation.
If nothing is happening in the west for years, the war in the west might turn 'cold' and in 195X we see a proto-EU emerge after all.
Ivan
!?
With Nazi Germany, Fascist italy, Spain, Rumania, and Hungary in it?