Poland

Is there any way that we can get a non/anti-communist Poland during the Cold War? The only way that I can think of is that:
a)the Warsaw Uprising succeeds - perhaps because the Home Army delays a bit, get more troops into the uprising and capture Warsaw airport? Enabling the British to land Polish troops. (of course we would have to get permission form Stalin for that, maybe the war isn't going as well for him?).
or/with
b) the Americans take Prague, like Churchill asked them to in OTL. This means a Czechoslovakia on the side of the West (or at least what is now the Czech Republic on the side of the West), which means that the Allies can put real pressure on the Soviets to have a genuine coalition Polish government.

Any thoughts?

You'll have to weaken Stalin's hand, though how you do that is pretty much up to you. If Poland ends up in the western sphere of influence after WWII and it has ANY say in the matter, it will be anticommunist. Too many Poles remember the Red Army unfondly from 1921 and 1939.

carlton_bach said:

You'll have to weaken Stalin's hand, though how you do that is pretty much up to you. If Poland ends up in the western sphere of influence after WWII and it has ANY say in the matter, it will be anticommunist. Too many Poles remember the Red Army unfondly from 1921 and 1939.

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Maybe Allied troops manage to occupy a portion of Poland, in addition to Prague? Perhaps Churchill's cherished Balkan offensive goes ahead instead of landings in the South of France.

If the Brits don't pull out of Norway in 1940, then we might invade Poland over the Baltic instead of France over the Mediterranean. With an American army in Finland they would be out of the war against the Russians, and we would move our landing craft through the giant Russian canal system (which would take small surface craft and submarines from the Black Sea to the White Sea!).
I wonder where we would invade first? Courland or straight into Prussia? Which side of the Vistula? Would Sweden come in? Would Germany be out of iron ore by 1943 if imports stopped in 1940?

wkwillis said:

If the Brits don't pull out of Norway in 1940, then we might invade Poland over the Baltic instead of France over the Mediterranean. With an American army in Finland they would be out of the war against the Russians, and we would move our landing craft through the giant Russian canal system (which would take small surface craft and submarines from the Black Sea to the White Sea!).
I wonder where we would invade first? Courland or straight into Prussia? Which side of the Vistula? Would Sweden come in? Would Germany be out of iron ore by 1943 if imports stopped in 1940?

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Interesting idea

I wonder what the effect of Britain not pulling its troops out of Norway would be ? I suspect France would have had to pull its troops out, as a desperate line of defence. If it didn't, then it wold be a real weird situation in N Norway after the armistice

Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf said:

Interesting idea

I wonder what the effect of Britain not pulling its troops out of Norway would be ? I suspect France would have had to pull its troops out, as a desperate line of defence. If it didn't, then it wold be a real weird situation in N Norway after the armistice

Grey Wolf

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That would be an interesting wargame. Like the ACW if the Mexican revolutionaries had gold from an earlier California gold rush and used the weapons and increased population to boot out first the French, and then attacked the CSA in conjunction with the USA and met at New Orleans. A very different civil war that should be somebody's timeline.

Grey Wolf said:

Interesting idea

I wonder what the effect of Britain not pulling its troops out of Norway would be ? I suspect France would have had to pull its troops out, as a desperate line of defence. If it didn't, then it wold be a real weird situation in N Norway after the armistice

Grey Wolf

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OK, why don't you have de Gaulle leading the French Expeditionary Force to Norway? When ordered to go back to France, he realizes that the Battle of France is already lost and thinks it's better to keep his troops fighting the Germans where they can still make a difference. He gets his ear pulled a couple of times, but when the Armistice comes, he's proved right and launches his famous call.

benedict XVII said:

OK, why don't you have de Gaulle leading the French Expeditionary Force to Norway? When ordered to go back to France, he realizes that the Battle of France is already lost and thinks it's better to keep his troops fighting the Germans where they can still make a difference. He gets his ear pulled a couple of times, but when the Armistice comes, he's proved right and launches his famous call.

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Um, he was an armoured warfare general was he not ? I can't see him being the pick to lead an operation in the fjords...

Have you read his book about WW1 btw ?

Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf said:

Um, he was an armoured warfare general was he not ? I can't see him being the pick to lead an operation in the fjords...

Have you read his book about WW1 btw ?

Grey Wolf

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Right, he was only a colonel when the war started actually, and was made a general ad interim only on May 24. Maybe Béthouart, who had misgivings about leaving Norway, refuses to leave when ordered to, and plays his own de Gaulle after all.

No, I haven't read de Gaulle's book on WWI, but read his War Memoirs during my holiday. He was an amazingly perspicacious man.

Maybe allied troops march to the Vistula, and that becomes the border between Communist and Capitalist, with Czechia also capitalisty, and a Communist Slovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Could this bring Austria into NATO as well? Where will the western Allies then put the postwar German border? I would assume that everything on the Soviet side of the Vistula is annexed to the U.S.S.R. itself.

Map

I have map of posible Europe if central and east Europe woulnd't have been under soviet ocupation (area of influence)

Map is in Polish

follow_by_white_rabbit said:

I have map of posible Europe if central and east Europe woulnd't have been under soviet ocupation (area of influence)

Map is in Polish

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How would Poland get the East German Territories? If Poland was freed by the West, I think they'd be just as likely to use the pre-WW2 borders, defiantely giving Gdansk and maybe giving East Prussia to Poland...

What if something happened to where Stalin realized the cost of having a Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe? Perhaps he decides to allow eastern Europe to become capitalist democracies, in exchange for Western aid in rebuilding the USSR? Stalin requests that Soviet troops be allowed to be stationed in Poland and Romania, and have access to Polish roads to send troops to Germany.

Map

It could be possible when West Aliants get to Poland before Red Army and in Therean (Yalata, Pochtdam) Stalin hadn't troops in central Europe. But west aliants wanted Germany to be as weak as posible. And afther 1945 in Poland and Lithuania there was unity referendum to create federal state (only way to save thoes countrys from internal wars of nationals minoritys).

Sorry for necroposting:

I believe the only way to get Stalin to agree to Poland being in the Western sphere of influence would be making its borders OTL post-WWII. He would have never agreed to "Western Belarus" and "Western Ukraine" being "occupied" by the Polish (which was his stance on mid-wars Poland IOTL), especially if Poland was in the Western sphere of influence.

Also, Poland in the West means there is no RFN/NRD split in Germany.

follow the white rabbit -> its highly unlikely that Poland would receive eastern german territories. In OTL it required massive deportations of both german population living there and polish population from east; western allies are unlikely to do so. I guess that even divided germany (maybe into prussia and germany) wold be more propable. Also Lithuanians will not agree to federation with Poland; while I think it would be quite beneficiary for both nations, polish-lithuanian relations were really strained after WWI, even more so after Vilnus issue, and remained such later; only way it could work is as a close alliance against Soviets (with baltic states) - but this would require no guarantees from west for minor countries.

a)the Warsaw Uprising succeeds - perhaps because the Home Army delays a bit, get more troops into the uprising and capture Warsaw airport? Enabling the British to land Polish troops. (of course we would have to get permission form Stalin for that, maybe the war isn't going as well for him?).
or/with

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Success of Warsaw Uprising is impossible without Soviet assistance. Even with capturing airport, Polish airborne brigade cannot deploy in Warsaw (it had large glider contingents - Poland is too far for a glider operation) nor can it be supplied effectively. Even if uprising achieves larger initial success (nad preparations are not as absurdly retarded as in OTL), then germans will take it seriously and send some better troops against it (large part of forces engaged against Warsaw were poor quality troops which were simply useless elsewhere). And Soviets can still eliminate Home Army leadership afterwards; though without destruction of Warsaw there may be anti-soviet uprising in 50s.

I guess that the only way for Poland not to fall under communist rule would be for soviets to fare much worse against germans, with 1945 front still on soviet soil (maybe german victory at Kursk, failed Bagration) and thus it being liberated by western allies, though I have no idea what would happen at eastern front after Berlin being captured and germany overrun.