Churchill tells the Soviets where to go

[Snake Featherston]

OK, here's where I call bullshit:

Parsons: And how was the "November Report" a part of that?

George: Well, in the course of their catching all those Soviet rats, the Brits unearthed quite a bit of information about the rats we still had in our house. Specifically, those that riddled the Roosevelt White House and also among the Democrats in Congress. You see, out of necessity, the Brits had developed a very intense understanding of US politics. They learned this in order to not make any misstep in their efforts to get us into the war on their side. So, when they learned how many Soviet spies, Soviet sympathizers, and Soviet dupes were operating amongst the Democrats they realized that if they shared that information with the Roosevelt administration it might get denied and covered up. So, they choose to spread that info around.

Parsons: And that's how Joseph Martin got a hold of it?

George: That caused a real explosion when FDR learned of it. Things got more than a bit hot between Roosevelt and Churchill after that. And it was only after Pearl that the two started talking to each other once again. The Brits got what they wanted though. Martin was smart enough to realize he had a powerful political weapon in his hands. Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl when they did, Martin probably would've used that info to shatter Roosevelt and the Democrats in the 1942 Mid-Term elections. As it was, he used it to wring some huge concessions from FDR and McCormack. It also led to some major house cleaning at the White House. The Soviets lost all their contacts, their spies, and their friends they'd worked so hard to insert in the Roosevelt Administration. The purge within the Democratic Party continued well into mid-42 and even enabled Dies to nail the "fellow travelers" the Soviets had on his committee. Hoover had a field-day with that information and began rolling up one Soviet spy network after another. The FBI was already in the process of that - it's how we got that original information about the Soviet spies in Britain's MI6 after all - but this really helped hone the FBI's efforts.

__________________

1) The USA's not going to accept this from the British of all people. Anglophobia in the 1940s USA had some powerful currencies, particularly among the elite.

2) The US Right will believe that Soviet spies were involved with HUAC when Hell freezes over.

3) This kind of blackmail is the kind of politics designed to cause a permanent rupture between the USA and UK, as this is gangsterism in political form. It's "Give us what we want or we break you" and no self-respecting state will take that from Churchill any more than Hitler.

4) The Commie spies in the USA are going to see a jail cell for the rest of their lives but this doesn't change the first three any at all. It in fact guarantees the USA's going to sit out WWII aside from Japan. Lend-Lease is dead for the British on the part of FDR, who has no interests saving Churchill, when the latter deliberately tried to wreck his Administration. While the USA *will* fight Japan, it will sit out European WWII altogether, leaving the UK with the necessity for an Overlord of its own but without the USA providing it with all the weapons, ships, trucks, and so on that it did.

[Johnrankins]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

But would he engage in a public spectacle of handling this with the USA poised to enter a major war? The sheer degree of Soviet spying on the West arguably would have been dismissed as misinformation were it known and understood in the scale that it existed. The USA never liked the USSR, but FDR would spill American blood to save the British Empire when Hell froze over and not a second before that.

The OP states Hoover has enough info to "roll up one Soviet Ring after another". FDR would NOT be happy about this. Whatever else he was he was NOT a Soviet stooge! He wouldn't be "saving the British Empire" but fighting the Nazis without involving the "Backstabbing Russians".

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Johnrankins

The OP states Hoover has enough info to "roll up one Soviet Ring after another". FDR would NOT be happy about this. Whatever else he was he was NOT a Soviet stooge! He wouldn't be "saving the British Empire" but fighting the Nazis without involving the "Backstabbing Russians".

Sure, but is he going to save a British PM who deliberately (as the Democrats will see it) leaked information designed to implode the FDR Administration? The USA will fight Japan but it will be waging a purely American-Japanese War. The GOP will be doing the Toldyasos but all this does is give the America-Firsters not merely a second win but a steroid injection. You can forget an Anglo-American coalition of any sort ITTL, while the USSR will defeat the Nazis but run out of logistical power at its own 1941 border.

[RCAF Brat]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Except that IOTL the USSR was able to crush with extreme prejudice Nazi military power before Lend-Lease had any major effects whatsoever. Even without it Soviet power is plenty sufficient to clear their own soil of the Nazi rapists and butchers occupying it. The locals here for one thing prefer the devil they knew to the Omnicidal maniacs they did not. In any event the absence of UK Lend-Lease still doesn't change anything, it requires US Lend-Lease not be given. And why precisely does FDR give a rat's ass what Churchill says here? It's not like the USA and UK were working for the same ends in a serious sense past crushing Nazi Germany to start with.

Why are the Americans not giving the Soviets anything ITTL? Well, to start, all those spies they had in the US just got caught out, in a manner damaging to both the Soviets and the Roosevelt administration. And then, well the Americans have their own war to fight, sure one or two of their enemies are also fighting the Soviets, but what of it? Remember, Germany declared war on the US, not the other way around. "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less."

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by RCAF Brat

Why are the Americans not giving the Soviets anything ITTL? Well, to start, all those spies they had in the US just got caught out, in a manner damaging to both the Soviets and the Roosevelt administration. And then, well the Americans have their own war to fight, sure one or two of their enemies are also fighting the Soviets, but what of it? The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.

Well, let me put it this way: the USA isn't going to give any aid to the British ITTL, regardless of what it does with the Soviets. If the OP thinks FDR is remotely interested in saving Churchill after this, he's mistaken. The USA will abruptly terminate Lend-Lease, demand full repayal of the loans, and in general flex its financial muscles as a counteraction to the British. If FDR goes, it'll be America Firsters, the Ford-style Nazi-fetishizers, not the Pro-Allied faction, that take over ITTL. The UK cannot fight WWII without the USA.

[Astrodragon]

If I'm reading thos correctly, its not so much the spying (yes, everyone spies on each other), its the amount and in particular the agents planted in sensitive positions.

There is a BIG difference between an agent trying to sniff out secrets and someone infiltrated into your government to act for the enemy.

[RCAF Brat]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Well, let me put it this way: the USA isn't going to give any aid to the British ITTL, regardless of what it does with the Soviets. If the OP thinks FDR is remotely interested in saving Churchill after this, he's mistaken. The USA will abruptly terminate Lend-Lease, demand full repayal of the loans, and in general flex its financial muscles as a counteraction to the British. If FDR goes, it'll be America Firsters, the Ford-style Nazi-fetishizers, not the Pro-Allied faction, that take over ITTL. The UK cannot fight WWII without the USA.

Remember, Germany declared war on the US two days after Pearl Harbour. Whether they like it or not, the US is still at war with Germany. The US will (perhaps grudgingly, perhaps enthusiastically) help defeat Germany, probably more out of anger that the Nazis backstabbed them than anything.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Astrodragon

If I'm reading thos correctly, its not so much the spying (yes, everyone spies on each other), its the amount and in particular the agents planted in sensitive positions.

There is a BIG difference between an agent trying to sniff out secrets and someone infiltrated into your government to act for the enemy.

Sure, but that's not why the USA's going to counter-gangster the UK here: the UK released this information in a suicidally short-sighted fashion when it's already collapsing in terms of financing WWII without the USA, just in time for the USA and America-Firsters to go apeshit, and rightly so. Any explanation of why the USA remotely is interested in allying with a UK this treacherous better be a damned good one, as otherwise the USA will fight Japan, grind it to bits, and then there's the USA's war. The UK financially collapses while the Nazis and Soviets grind each other into mutual extinction in the East.

[wietze]

the no lendlease essentially is going to make the soviet position implode.

they will have to build their own trucks, capacity they can't use to build armour.
they will also have to build their own trains & train equipment. They may have the capacity to create a permanent stalemate, but no LL means no us trucks & locomotives, something thats really gonna hurt them.

http://www.o5m6.de/Numbers.html and just read the wiki article on it.

the other question is, with the soviets being considered the bigger evil, would the allies be more receptive to a conditional german surrender?

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wietze

the no lendlease essentially is going to make the soviet position implode.

they will have to build their own trucks, capacity they can't use to build armour.
they will also have to build their own trains & train equipment. They may have the capacity to create a permanent stalemate, but no LL means no us trucks & locomotives, something thats really gonna hurt them.

http://www.o5m6.de/Numbers.html and just read the wiki article on it.

the other question is, with the soviets being considered the bigger evil, would the allies be more receptive to a conditional german surrender?

It won't be a stalemate. There won't be a conditional German surrender. The Soviets will collapse the Nazis in a grinding attrition struggle, due to their having the ability as OTL showed to easily collapse Nazi offensive power all by themselves. The Nazis simply put no matter what handwavium is used can't beat the USSR when less than 10% of their army is geared for a modern war and the other 90% is still timewarped in 1918. This, however, is nothing at all like an argument that the USSR can make it past the Bug. The Soviets won't need Lend-Lease until 1943. IOTL they were able to produce enough weaponry to crush entirely the Nazis without the West, ITTL they can still clear their own borders and will clear them for the crude reason that between Hitler and Stalin Soviet citizenry will always prefer the latter for the simple reason that he's not out to kill them all, but will go no further.

[Julian]

Originally Posted by Johnrankins

It depends on how much worse. If it becomes a choice between Moscow and Siberia, Moscow will win EVERY TIME.

The Soviets were able to commit overwhelming reserves to Moscow while still leaving 600,000 men in Siberia.

[Titus_Pullo]

The view was quite widely held that the West should simply stand back and let the two most evil regimes of the day fight each other to the death. The civilized world would benefit from that greatly. A bit hard on the Russian and German peoples caught up in but then, well, they're the ones who chose the tyrants and their murderous ideology to begin with.
In this ATL, Churchill has an initial motivation and, by the time there's the option to act on it, the UK is in a much better geopolitical position than it was back in 1940. Churchill figures that Britain can manage without the Soviets being on their side. And that while the Nazis are "distracted" exterminating the untermencsh, that Britain - along with the US - can gain the time to build themselves up so as to defeat which ever of the monsters survives.
Churchill was, if anything, rather calculating like that. This ATL is one where the results of his calculations come out a tad differently.

I made mention of the Mediterranian front to note the irony of Churchill's views. The man was a great war leader but his grasp of ground tactics was somewhat... lacking. The lads of the 29th could attest to that.

In OTL, the Soviets remained wary of stripping out their Far East commands lest doing so prove too tempting to the Japanese. In OTL, the Japanese were exceptionally aware of how badly they'd had their heads handed to them by the Soviets and were truly loathe to see a repeat of that humiliation. In OTL, the mineral resources and oil deposits in Siberia were either unknown at that time or years away from being commercial development. Hence there being no strong enticement for the Japanese to strike north again.

In this ATL, the Soviets are much harder pressed. And might therefore have drawn down their strength on the otherwise silent frontier. Spinning this alt, there's a possibility that some Japanese army hothead sees a chance for glory / revenge / an end to boredom whatever, and makes a raid. The Japanese military had a huge insubordination problem with its younger officers constantly challenging their superiors and goading them into ever more aggressive and stupid moves. The West benefited enormously from this as the Japanese constantly attacked before they were ready and or attacked in piecemeal fashion which diluted their strength.

The troops in Manchukuo had a long history of slipping their leash. It's how the Japanese acquired Manchukuo to begin with. It's also how they got pasted at Khalkhyn Gol. So, it's a mixed bag. And thus rife for ALT possibilities. Perhaps the Soviets drawdown their forces along the frontier such that one in ten outposts is but a skeleton force and, as luck would have it, that's the one outpost the hothead strikes. Overjoyed at his success he starts falling on the other outposts and gets lucky enough that his commanders back in Tokyo have to do something about it. Reining him in would be difficult. Backing him to the hilt carries its own risks. You can extrapolate from there.

Even if it doesn't turn into a full-on Japanese offensive and sweeping victory across the steppes, even a single failed raid would inspire the Soviets to retain more troops along that frontier than they otherwise would. This, to the determent of their war with the Fascists.

And speaking of the Fascists, the war aims of the British Empire would remain the same - defeat the enemies of the Crown and secure Britain's national interests. To this end, Churchill would be looking for any way he could to apply Britain's increasing military strength. And that strength would be greater now that none of it was being diverted to help Marshall Stalin.

Where could this pop up? I'm envisioning a secured North Africa so there's neither any Germans left there nor any Italians on the ground either. So, across the lake and onto the Continent! Huzzah! But where? Again, Churchill's "underbelly" bit has to to come into play here. A repeat of what the strategy in OTL came to be? Could the Brits do that themselves? If Germany was "all in" for the war with the Soviets, would Hitler have been stupid enough to declare war on the US? With fortunes looking the worse for the Soviets, could he have persuaded the Japanese to attack the Soviets in exchange for the Nazis declaring war on the US? Failing that, would the undeclared war that Roosevelt had the US waging against the Kriegsmarine goad Germany into that war declaration? Entrap the US into doing it first?

Assuming a nominally neutral USA, what offensives would be possible for the Brits. They'd be enjoying our full and complete logistical support and they'd be our A #1 arms customer for everything from brand new B-17s to M-4s and everything in between.
There's ample possibilities here.

[Astrodragon]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Sure, but that's not why the USA's going to counter-gangster the UK here: the UK released this information in a suicidally short-sighted fashion when it's already collapsing in terms of financing WWII without the USA, just in time for the USA and America-Firsters to go apeshit, and rightly so. Any explanation of why the USA remotely is interested in allying with a UK this treacherous better be a damned good one, as otherwise the USA will fight Japan, grind it to bits, and then there's the USA's war. The UK financially collapses while the Nazis and Soviets grind each other into mutual extinction in the East.

The UK is in no danger of any 'financial collapse' without L-L (which didnt start to arrive in any quantity until 1942).
They simply have to slow down somewhat as imports come in from everywhere apart from the USA. The rest of the world happily accepts sterling at this point in time (apart from Canada which treated Britain rather more like an ally than the USA did...)

And I think your idea that the USA will suddenly abandon the UK unlikely, they are acting in their own interests here, not out of any particular altruism.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Astrodragon

The UK is in no danger of any 'financial collapse' without L-L (which didnt start to arrive in any quantity until 1942).
They simply have to slow down somewhat as imports come in from everywhere apart from the USA. The rest of the world happily accepts sterling at this point in time (apart from Canada which treated Britain rather more like an ally than the USA did...)

And I think your idea that the USA will suddenly abandon the UK unlikely, they are acting in their own interests here, not out of any particular altruism.

There is no US interest in backing a society whose response to Lend-Lease which is all that's keeping them afloat financially at this point (there is a reason that this became LEND LEASE instead of Cash and Carry, namely that the British lost the ability to pay for the equipment they had given to them for the USA) is to deliberately seek to undermine the Roosevelt Administration. Perfidious Albion bit the hand that fed it in this case and the USA should react to this like it does to a mad dog: back away and leave it to its fate.

The decision to shift to Lend-Lease was not popular at all in the USA, and all this does is tilt domestic politics decisively in favor of Ford and the US pro-German faction, because after all what's the difference between bloody Germany and treacherous Britain at this point?

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

The view was quite widely held that the West should simply stand back and let the two most evil regimes of the day fight each other to the death. The civilized world would benefit from that greatly. A bit hard on the Russian and German peoples caught up in but then, well, they're the ones who chose the tyrants and their murderous ideology to begin with.

There's no clear argument at all that the Russian people chose the Bolsheviks unless we're saying coup d'etats against the truly popular movements are now "choosing" something. Nor is it particularly clear how Europe as a whole benefits from a mutual Soviet-Nazi collapse that produces complete chaos west of the Rhine.

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

In this ATL, Churchill has an initial motivation and, by the time there's the option to act on it, the UK is in a much better geopolitical position than it was back in 1940. Churchill figures that Britain can manage without the Soviets being on their side. And that while the Nazis are "distracted" exterminating the untermencsh, that Britain - along with the US - can gain the time to build themselves up so as to defeat which ever of the monsters survives.
Churchill was, if anything, rather calculating like that. This ATL is one where the results of his calculations come out a tad differently.

In this case it's not calculation, it's suicide by RPG in the mouth. The UK cannot wage WWII without dependence on US aid, especially by 1941 where it lost all ability to pay for its war and to sustain itself financially, the reason that the terminology changed to Lend-Lease as opposed to Cash and Carry. So Churchill's reaction to this is to ensure documents jerry-rigged (pun intended) to ruin FDR are released in just such a fashion *despite* FDR doing all that he can to aid to aid Churchill. So the USSR is certainly screwed, and the Allied coalition of OTL does not exist. The USA crushes Japan and decides to stay out of Europe where it has no Allies and lets the USSR tear Germany to shreds.

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

In OTL, the Soviets remained wary of stripping out their Far East commands lest doing so prove too tempting to the Japanese. In OTL, the Japanese were exceptionally aware of how badly they'd had their heads handed to them by the Soviets and were truly loathe to see a repeat of that humiliation. In OTL, the mineral resources and oil deposits in Siberia were either unknown at that time or years away from being commercial development. Hence there being no strong enticement for the Japanese to strike north again.

In this ATL, the Soviets are much harder pressed. And might therefore have drawn down their strength on the otherwise silent frontier. Spinning this alt, there's a possibility that some Japanese army hothead sees a chance for glory / revenge / an end to boredom whatever, and makes a raid. The Japanese military had a huge insubordination problem with its younger officers constantly challenging their superiors and goading them into ever more aggressive and stupid moves. The West benefited enormously from this as the Japanese constantly attacked before they were ready and or attacked in piecemeal fashion which diluted their strength.

The troops in Manchukuo had a long history of slipping their leash. It's how the Japanese acquired Manchukuo to begin with. It's also how they got pasted at Khalkhyn Gol. So, it's a mixed bag. And thus rife for ALT possibilities. Perhaps the Soviets drawdown their forces along the frontier such that one in ten outposts is but a skeleton force and, as luck would have it, that's the one outpost the hothead strikes. Overjoyed at his success he starts falling on the other outposts and gets lucky enough that his commanders back in Tokyo have to do something about it. Reining him in would be difficult. Backing him to the hilt carries its own risks. You can extrapolate from there.

Even if it doesn't turn into a full-on Japanese offensive and sweeping victory across the steppes, even a single failed raid would inspire the Soviets to retain more troops along that frontier than they otherwise would. This, to the determent of their war with the Fascists.

And speaking of the Fascists, the war aims of the British Empire would remain the same - defeat the enemies of the Crown and secure Britain's national interests. To this end, Churchill would be looking for any way he could to apply Britain's increasing military strength. And that strength would be greater now that none of it was being diverted to help Marshall Stalin.

Where could this pop up? I'm envisioning a secured North Africa so there's neither any Germans left there nor any Italians on the ground either. So, across the lake and onto the Continent! Huzzah! But where? Again, Churchill's "underbelly" bit has to to come into play here. A repeat of what the strategy in OTL came to be? Could the Brits do that themselves? If Germany was "all in" for the war with the Soviets, would Hitler have been stupid enough to declare war on the US? With fortunes looking the worse for the Soviets, could he have persuaded the Japanese to attack the Soviets in exchange for the Nazis declaring war on the US? Failing that, would the undeclared war that Roosevelt had the US waging against the Kriegsmarine goad Germany into that war declaration? Entrap the US into doing it first?

Assuming a nominally neutral USA, what offensives would be possible for the Brits. They'd be enjoying our full and complete logistical support and they'd be our A #1 arms customer for everything from brand new B-17s to M-4s and everything in between.
There's ample possibilities here.

Soviet aid was primarily USA, not UK. The UK's aid was symbolic gestures, there was no meaningful impact on Soviet warfighting capability in any way, shape, or form. In this case just like OTL the Soviets are more than able to tear the German invasion to bits and ensure Hitler's wet dream of killing off the population of European Russia never happens. They won't overrun Europe, the Wehrmacht will shatter in the attrition fighting that follows, the SS and Nazis are discredited, and with the ensuing German Civil War Europe is chaos west of the Rhine while the USA, having found no states in Europe that make even a pretense at fair treatment pulls itself back in its shell and shouts "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to Europe.

Congratulations, you came up with a dystopia. There is, I repeat, no reason whatsoever, in any sense, in any pretense, in any shape, form, or fashion for the United States to be involved in war with the Germans or doing anything with the British. What possibly does the USA have to gain when the only British gratitude for Lend-Lease was to put a torpedo in the USA's brisket at just the worst possible time for it to do so?

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

The POD here occurred a full year before Barbarossa kicked off. In this ATL, Churchill learned not just of the fact that the Soviets had deeply penetrated Britain's government, and its various intelligence services, but that the Soviets were actively operating with the Nazis to help them better kill Britons. As this was at the height - or rather, the depth - of the Blitz, this didn't sit too terribly well with Churchill.

You mean Churchill found out the same kind of things the British knew IOTL, like the Soviets letting the Nazis use their ports for refuge during the M-R Pact period? And he waits a full year to release this just when the British really, really need Lend-Lease? Meaning that the US public will see this as Mr. Gallipoli throwing a bitch-fit about British decline in addition to a spying scandal that dooms FDR? After FDR spends all that time aiding Churchill? Well, one thing's for sure: Lord North will have good company for most Dumbass PM ever.

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

And in this ATL he had a full year to "get his Irish up" about it. Thus, he performed a different calculus when it came to the Nazi vs. Soviet equation. Thus, Churchill not only didn't view the Soviets as a worthwhile ally against the Germans but was hostile to the situation the Soviets found themselves in.
Part of that calculus is realizing that the Soviet Union was just as great a threat to the Kingdom as were the Nazis. Better then, to let the two evil empires bash each other's heads in and thus then allow the UK forces to come in later and put down which ever mortally weakened force was still standing. Or so goes the rationale.

So in other words Churchill does the exact opposite of his historical pattern with regard to the USSR, including the period when Chamberlain wanted to bomb Baku and Churchill was saying "This is a very bad idea?" Whose personality was transplanted into his body here, Ungern-Sternberg's?

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

In terms of manpower,the United Kingdom was superior to Nazi Germany. Superior in terms of industrial base. Superior in terms of resource access. Their militaries were essentially equivalent in terms of fighting capacity. The Brits were better at defense. Applying the advantages that Britain had in the long run meant defeat for the Nazis even if they knocked the Soviets out of the war first. The Brits simply had too many more men, too much bigger and economy, and too superior access to resources.

Yes, the Nazi's situation would be improved upon their securing the western portion of Russia and exploiting what they could from it. This primarily being the breadbasket of the Ukraine. There'd be more mineral wealth, yes, beyond that? The Heer would've had to have gotten up to, over, and through the Urals to get at the Soviet industrial capacity. And I rather doubt the Soviets would've left any of that intact for the Germans to have made any use of. Same same with the oilfields in the Caucuses. Squeezed between the Nazis coming in from one side and the Brits the other, those wells, their pumping stations, their pipelines, and their refineries all would've been blown. After that, both the Soviets and the Brits would be doing everything in their power to ensure the Germans gained nothing from those fields.

I'm also not sure that this would've knocked the Soviets out of the war enough so as to free the Heer to fully turn on the Brits in the West. And a UK backed by the US industrial might - with none of that might being diverted to help the Soviets - would be in a much better position to go after the Germans across the breadth of the Mediterranian. North Africa, in this scenario, would've already fallen the the Desert Army's lightning advances since it would've been strengthened by the weaponry not diverted to the USSR and faced a weaker opponent as the Germans would've concentrated on Russia and left the Italians to fend for themselves in that mess.

Or perhaps, instead of sending Rommel on a fool's errand to bail out the Italians, they'd sent someone who could actually understand the intent of his orders. Originally, the Afrika Corps was deployed with the intent of staving off the complete collapse of Italy's hold of North Africa. Rommel turned that into a license for a pell mell rush to the Suez. That forced some massive diversion of resources away from the Soviet campaign and it suffered as a result. Have Rommel seeking his glory in a panzer in the Ukraine and not in one in Tunisia, and the Axis might well have remained on the defensive in the desert.

On paper only. In practice the UK was incapable of running WWII on its own, it needed the USA to give it weaponry free of charge, knowing it was wracking up a massive, unsustainable debt doing this, which is one reason British generals and public opinion tended to be as vindictive and spiteful to the USA as they were. In this case with US public opinion very much *against* involvement in Europe, the release of this firebomb is going to bugger any US-UK alliance with a lightsaber and thus the Allied coalition is stillborn. The USA will be withdrawing from European WWII, letting the Soviets crush Hitler, and then when the USSR has kept the Germans from winning any strategic victory sitting back and letting the British reap the crop of idiotic damn fool fuckwittery they sowed.

The British were not superior to the Germans in a battlefield sense. If they were, then the entire gallery of British clusterfucks at the hands of the Nazis, most egregiously Crete, where the British if they were a fraction of what you're saying they were should have won the first victory for Allied arms against the real enemy and bungled it so abysmally it would not be believed as a novel. The two armies were not comparable. British technology was arguably superior in a qualitative sense, but this didn't matter when every time before El Alamein, which was guaranteed to work well for the Allies regardless of what happened when Monty attacked, the British failed utterly and completely against Nazi German, whose army was 90% stuck in WWI.

Sure, both the USA and USSR failed badly in their first battles, too, but the discussion here is about a deranged PM deciding to sabotage the Allied coalition before it could ever begin.

[Titus_Pullo]

The Brits "returning the favor" was intended as keeping the US from supplying the Soviets. The US aid to the USSR was pretty massive, totaling somewheres between 1/6th to 1/3rd of the overall war materials the USSR used in the war - thousands of tanks, many thousands of truck, almost all the railway engines made during the war, all the high octane gas used by their air force, vast quantities of ammunition, at least a quarter of the Red Air Force's total strength, and the bulk of the food Russia lived on during the war.
Deny that to the Soviets and it will not ensure their defeat but it will make it much harder - much harder - for the Soviets to turn back the Nazis. And that would serve to bleed out both the Nazis and the Soviets.
The theory being that by the time the Soviets do, finally, go on the offensive, the US & UK will have their forces up and on the continent. A lot then would depend on when that took place. If the lack of US supplies sets the Soviets back by a year whilst either speeding up our efforts or seeing them run on the same timeline but doing so in a much better supplied fashion, then we'd most likely be meeting the Red Army somewhere out in Poland.
As to the Brits rolling on the Caucus oil fields. What would you have done in that situation? Let the Nazis take the fields?

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

The Brits "returning the favor" was intended as keeping the US from supplying the Soviets. The US aid to the USSR was pretty massive, totaling somewheres between 1/6th to 1/3rd of the overall war materials the USSR used in the war - thousands of tanks, many thousands of truck, almost all the railway engines made during the war, all the high octane gas used by their air force, vast quantities of ammunition, at least a quarter of the Red Air Force's total strength, and the bulk of the food Russia lived on during the war.
Deny that to the Soviets and it will not ensure their defeat but it will make it much harder - much harder - for the Soviets to turn back the Nazis. And that would serve to bleed out both the Nazis and the Soviets.
The theory being that by the time the Soviets do, finally, go on the offensive, the US & UK will have their forces up and on the continent. A lot then would depend on when that took place. If the lack of US supplies sets the Soviets back by a year whilst either speeding up our efforts or seeing them run on the same timeline but doing so in a much better supplied fashion, then we'd most likely be meeting the Red Army somewhere out in Poland.
As to the Brits rolling on the Caucus oil fields. What would you have done in that situation? Let the Nazis take the fields?

Sure, but you've said the British cutting off *their* aid to the USSR would have some fantastic impact. This was not and never was the case. The UK's aid was purely symbolic. Again, this is all true.....for the last three years of the war. For the first two and a half of the Soviet-Axis War the USSR ground up and spat out the Nazis before Lend-Lease was a factor at all, and both the UK and USA told the USSR as much.

And I repeat again, you have the UK stab Roosevelt in the back when he's defying US public opinion to aid them, there is no Anglo-American alliance. Churchill will be the last PM of a UK that's any kind of a credible power at all, and postwar UK will be a sixth-rate power at best. The Soviets turned back the Nazis without our help. What they could not do without our help is conquer all of Central Europe and the Balkans. The USA has zero, I repeat, zero reason to shed one drop of US blood for Churchill here, and zero, I repeat, zero dollars will be spent to save the sorry asses of the British high command here. Sorry, you've not simply screwed the Soviets, you've screwed everything except arguably India here.

And again, given the complete inability of superior British forces in quantity of troops and quality of equipment to fight the Nazis, as opposed to the blithering idiots of the Italian high command, I remain decidedly skeptical that the UK will ever launch an Overlord.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

In this case, Churchill has become convinced that the Soviets are a greater evil than the Nazis and that it serves the interests of the Crown to let the Nazis and the Soviets bleed each other out. Thus, no aid to from the UK to the USSR. And the Brits work extra hard to ensure there's no aid from the US to the USSR either.
As for the ripple effects, think on this a tad. In OTL, the Germans knew the Soviets "had backup" and paced their attacks accordingly. In this ATL, the Soviets stand alone. Thus there's more reason for the Germans to go all in and knock the Soviets out sooner than later.

So many hugely dumb things in history have been done, I think this is ok. Now you might avoid some flak by changing the UK believing the Soviets were giving daily intel to the Germans. I am unaware of this happening IOTL, and it seems to go against Stalin's intention. He wanted a long war where the UK/France fought Germany to weakness.

Also, all that war aid the UK sent to Russia now remains in British hands and they certainly would've put it to use. How about a couple of extra squadrons of Spitfires to the Far East? Or those extra Valentines to Auchinleck.

The British aid was not a war winner in and of itself. Originally, its biggest effect was on Russian morale. The Soviet industrial capacity and manpower base was still there. And much of it had already been moved off to the Urals even before the war's start. America's aid only started coming in to Russia in late spring of '42.

There will be no lend lease. It will be all the British Empire domestically produced aid to the USSR less the missing American aid. I think this will be a net loss to the UK, have you look up the figures?

So, what I'm seeing is a stronger UK and a weaker USSR - but not a mortally weaker USSR. At least not so initially. I'm also seeing a harder German push into Russia. That, as of necessity, means less force to go 'round elsewhere in the Reich - i.e. North Africa. Perhaps Erwin never gets any desert sand dermabrasion treatments but, instead, gets sent to swelter in the steppes. Thus the Brits have more forces on hand to reallocate there along the Soviet border on the contingency that the Soviets can't contain Fall Blau.

Oh, and they'd also have had at least some extra force in place out there in Singapore to "greet" the Japanese. Not much, but, considering how close a run thing it actually turned out to be... AND all that US aid which would've gone on its scenic rail journey across Siberia is instead now in arsenals in the US and UK. That too would make quite the difference.

You chose a huge POD with immediate butterflies. You have to start dealing with them on day 1.

Rommel appears to be in Africa before you POD. You have to explain why he was moved back to Russia. Big butterflies like this need to be explain.

The UK is better in the east seems very unlikely, and you will need to explain it more. FDR has been greatly angered. The USA has probably cut the UK off on aid. This means not help with the U-boat war, which either means the U-boats are more effective, or you have to pull UK forces out of the Pacific/Med to make up for the lost units, assuming these forces exist. So it is more likely the UK is weaker in Asia, not stronger. With a massive POD during a war, nothing looks the same 6 months down the road.

You also need to deal with US/Japan diplomatic work, at least at a high level. I am not sure with the USA/UK split, the USA v. Japan war happens. If the Dutch East Indies feel unprotected, the probably just sell the oil to Japan, and the Japanese have a lot more options.

So, come the summer of '42, the Soviets have held on but at a much more grievous cost. Which considering how grievous the cost was in OTL is saying quite a bit. By that time however, the harder push by the Germans is paying off. The Red Army hasn't been able to stem its losses fast enough to allow the replacement pipeline to fill up enough. And they've been falling back and falling back. Moscow held in this ATL as British materials were not much, if any, factor in that fighting. The next several months though is where their want shows up ever more vividly. Same same with the US aid. Hence the British recognition of the Baku fields priority.

I don't think the Red Army would've been able to face down the Wehrmacht coming in from the north and the British coming up from the south. And after having slogged through all the depth of prepared defenses the Red Army had set up to stop them, the Germans would then have to deal with the Brits who would be otherwise fresh in their condition not having had to do such slogging.

Unless there is a lot of missing aid to the USSR before March 42, the war will be much the same here. You seem to be putting the butterflies in the wrong location. Too big, too fast in USSR. Not enough on the UK. Now this may change over time, but I don't see the logic of where you are going.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

In terms of manpower,the United Kingdom was superior to Nazi Germany. Superior in terms of industrial base. Superior in terms of resource access. Their militaries were essentially equivalent in terms of fighting capacity. The Brits were better at defense. Applying the advantages that Britain had in the long run meant defeat for the Nazis even if they knocked the Soviets out of the war first. The Brits simply had too many more men, too much bigger and economy, and too superior access to resources.

By this time. India was hard for the UK to control. There will be no conscription in India with concession to the INC, which will basically be full independence, now. And even counting India, the figures I have seen say the UK has a smaller industrial base than Nazi Germany plus Allies plus conquered parts of Russia. The UK is in a world of hurt in your TL, unless the Soviets win. And if the Soviets win, the UK will have to live with a communist continental Europe.

I'm also not sure that this would've knocked the Soviets out of the war enough so as to free the Heer to fully turn on the Brits in the West. And a UK backed by the US industrial might

Food would be what could knock the USSR out of the war. This is the resource to track in greater German success TL.

And the UK would not have US industrial might.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Titus_Pullo

What might happen is that the battlefields of the Caucuses would be the only place in Europe where each side could get at each other on the ground. And both would be at the extremes of their supply lines. The Germans might have numerical advantage in total force but they'd have to put up with the Soviet's battling them to try and regain the rest of their country. And the Brits wouldn't have such problems.

You are messing up the logistics here. If the Germans hold all the Black Sea Coast, they simply bring over the supplies by ship. It will be the easiest logistics of the Germans near Baku. The USSR will be unable to get supplies there. The British will probably not be able to support a full army over the Persian transportation network. To write a good TL, you can't guess on logistics, you have to do the work. Major battles can only be fought where logistics permit the battles.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Except that IOTL the USSR was able to crush with extreme prejudice Nazi military power before Lend-Lease had any major effects whatsoever. Even without it Soviet power is plenty sufficient to clear their own soil of the Nazi rapists and butchers occupying it. The locals here for one thing prefer the devil they knew to the Omnicidal maniacs they did not. In any event the absence of UK Lend-Lease still doesn't change anything, it requires US Lend-Lease not be given. And why precisely does FDR give a rat's ass what Churchill says here? It's not like the USA and UK were working for the same ends in a serious sense past crushing Nazi Germany to start with.

Agreed on this point. The Russians were able to stop the Germans in the winter of 1941 with minimum USA/UK aid. It will happen much the same way in this ATL. In 1942, the Germany was weaker than in 1941. In 1941, they launched an attack along the entire front, in 1942, along a part of the front. The USSR blunted the attack using huge numbers of infantry. Now how well the USSR can counter attack in winter 42/43 is more of a question.