Eurofed
Banned
This is a variant of a TL of mine, springing from the same basic PoD, but with a few key differences that make it go in a wholly different direction.
It also gets inspiration and a lot of ideas from this other masterful TL. Although Onkel Willie’s “Great Mistake” has already developed the scenario much better than I could ever do, I made the TL in order to answer a question in the other thread about how the same PoD (Hitler’s death in the Burgerbraukeller assassination attempt) could lead to an opposite outcome. Instead of narrowly defusing WWII, it makes it worse.
The main differences are that Goering survives the assassination, and the balance of power and influence in the British leadership between the various factions (hawkish/dovish, Germanophobe/Sovietophobe) is somewhat different.
Goering survived the bomb that killed Hitler and Hess on November 8, 1939. He was the designated successor of Hitler, according to a decree signed by the Fuhrer in September 1939. Yet that paper was not enough to prevent a power struggle for succession that took place in the following weeks between Goering, backed by the moderate, Wilhelmine Imperialist faction of the Nazi party, Himmler backed by the SS network and the radical Nazi faction, and the army. Goering realized he needed the backing of the army to win, yet he was strongly disliked by the generals (even if they loathed Himmler and the SS much more). He swallowed pride and offered a power-sharing compromise to the generals, by which they would split the positions of President and Chancellor again, with Goring becoming President and a general Chancellor. Since both factions, despite their personal antipathies, shared similar outlooks and programs on many issues (notably foreign policy), the compromise was accepted by the generals and Reichenau was chosen and appointed as Chancellor. Himmler, seeing his own imminent marginalization, tried a last-ditch coup with the support of the SS. The coup however failed and was subsequently easily quashed by the Heer. Himmler was shot, the SS disbanded, the radical Nazi faction purged (as well as Bormann, which knew too much and no one liked).
The new Goering-Reichenau diarchy had a rather different foreign policy outlook than Hitler. They wholly supported the recovery by Germany of all its irredentist claims, including Danzig and as much as of the pre-1914 territories in Poland as they could afford, but they wanted to end the war with the West with a compromise peace if at all possible. Moreover, they deemed Hitler's planned war with Soviet Russia a dangerous folly. Their attitude about the racist Nazi issues was much more lukewarm than the one of Hitler or Himmler: Goring did not really care about anti-semitism (he told "I decide who is a Jew") and neither him or the generals liked Poles, but they were quite pragmatic about such issues. Although they would prefer an alliance with the western democracies and Italy, they were prepared to work with the Soviets too if need be.
Peace offers by Germany were repeatedly made over Winter 1939-40 to Britain, with Berlin hinting readiness to restore the independence of Poland, provided that its historical territorial claims were satisfied.
This brought about a split in the British Cabinet: the peace faction, headed by PM Chamberlain and Halifax, was interested in opening up peace negotiations, highlighting the novelty represented by the new German leadership and moderate offers; the war faction, headed by Churchill, adamantly opposed compromise, remarking how Goering was still a Nazi and the former right-hand man of Hitler and could not be trusted, just like his mentor. The two factions fought to a standstill, which resulted in a compromise about the opening of half-hearted preliminary negotiations to seek time and explore German intentions but with the instruction to stall, while the war would continue.
In the following weeks and months, such "negotiations" took place, with the Germans bargaining their claims down to the restoration of full political independence of both Poland and Czechia, although they insisted on their territorial claims and for their right to deport the Pole population from pre-1914 ex-German territories (less for racist reasons than in order to prevent the kind of Pole irredentism that had troubled the Second Reich) and keep the pre-invasion legitimate Czech government in charge, which was pro-German. The British remained uncommitted and the talks drag on spinning their wheels.
Increasingly realizing the hopelessness of peace talks with the Entente, Germany was forced to explore the necessity of continuing the war with the West to victory. In order to achieve this, Germany absolutely needed to reinforce the friendly neutrality of the Soviet Union, which protected its back and ensured an all-important plentiful supply of commodities. Much less vital, but still seen as quite important, was the friendly neutrality of Italy, in order to protect the southern flank and strategic access to the Mediterranean. Since the expansionist ambitions of the new German leadership were much more moderate than Hitler’s crazy plans, they were willing to draft a sensible compromise about the reciprocal spheres of influence with their partners. A series of diplomatic talks between Germany, Italy, and Soviet Union ensued. Although none of the three dictatorships really trusted each other to begin with, those talks were gradually able to build upon the previous relationships established with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Pact of Steel to define a rough, but acceptable, definition of spheres of influence, as contingencies might dictate, throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Economic cooperation was enhanced as well and Germany and Italy started an exchange of military liaisons. These liaisons were meant as much as to share experience as to reduce the chance of each partner interfering with each other’s interests, but they were considerably effective at gradually building trust. They were also the seed by which the future Axis large-scale integration and standardization of training and equipment grew.
In due time, during Winter 1939-40, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states and started the Winter War against Finland, while Italy, in an alliance with Hungary and Bulgaria, started the Third Balkan War against Yugoslavia. Although both invasions revealed many flaws in the setup of the Red Army and the Regio Esercito, the quantitative advantage of the Red Army was so huge that a temporary stalemate ensued, but in the long term Finland was doomed to defeat. As for the Balkan war, various factors (long-standing preparation by Italy for a war with Yugoslavia, assistance by Hungary and Bulgaria, mass defection of Slovene and Croat troops) ensured that the Italian army was painfully but gradually able to win acceptable success. In the meanwhile both Stalin and Mussolini scrambled to have structural flaws (and incompetent officials) purged from their respecive armies. Germany kept the no-fighting stalemate on the Western front, while it struggled to build up its army for a general offensive and develop a strategic plan more efficient than the old Schliffen Plan.
As months went by, the strategic stalemate plagued the British and French governments, too. The evidence of the German aggression to Poland spreading into an Eastern European expansionist free-for-all by the dictatorships worried the Anglo-French leaders, as did evidence that increasing economic and military cooperation between the three powers indirectly reinforced Germany’s standing more and more and Soviet supplies essentially nullified traditional Entente strategy of strangling German economy with blockade. Soviet attack to Finland had gathered an enormous amount of sympathy for the Finns, and the voices that clamored to help them and oppose Soviet aggression were almost as strong as the ones that called for decisive action against Germany.
The Entente leaders genuinely meant to split the budding German-Soviet-Italian partnership and pull one or two of the three powers to their side against the other(s). But no real agreement could be reached about the preferable target. The Sovietophobe Chamberlain faction favored détente with Germany and Italy and anti-Soviet containment as much as the Germanophobe Churchill faction favored all-out war to Germany and an alliance of convenience with Russia and Italy, while the French government wavered between the two options but opposed any real concession to Italy, which they distrusted, owing to Italian irredentist ambitions. The internal conflict of the Entente unwittingly came out to the dictatorships as a contradictory maze of diplomatic and strategic signals which depicted the Entente as untrustworthy. Eventually, in Spring 1940, it became evident that Finland was close to military collapse (like Yugoslavia), and that the German-Soviet economic collaboration was essential to the German war effort, which brought the conflict to an apex.
As a strange but surprisingly effective compromise between the Germanophobe and Sovietophobe factions, the idea coalesced that a victorious "economic strike" Entente strategy would be to violate the neutrality of Norway and Sweden (if possible with their assent, if necessary by force), in order to seize control of Swedish iron deposits, and send an expeditionary corps to relieve hard-pressed Finland. The second part of the plan involved a bombing of the Soviet oilfields of Baku. This ambitious plan aimed to deny the German war effort of essential iron and oil supplies, crippling it, and basically cow Stalin into submission with a show of superior force. Such plans had been discussed in the previous months, but now they were finalized and approved. Almost as an afterthought, it was also decided to send Mussolini a “warning” against a possible follow-up aggression to Greece after Yugoslavia by sending RN units to “show the flag” in Greek waters, as well as weapon supplies to Greece.
In hindsight about the catastrophic effects of the Anglo-French “economic strike” strategy, it may seem like the work of abysmal stupidity and incompetence, and a thorough negative judgment is wholly justified. But the decision took root into a mix of causes, ranging from Anglo-French imperial arrogance and overestimation of own military potential (and underestimation of the Axis one) as long-standing dominant great powers, conflicting impulses about choice of the main enemy, fear of another long and exhausting conflict like WWI and search for a “magical”, quick solution in a combination of painless economic warfare and quick traditional British-style peripheral strike. Anyway, the dice were cast.
The same fateful day, as the Finnish (and Yugoslav) fronts were getting close to final collapse, and pleads from help from Helsinki to the Entente were getting desperate, Anglo-French bombers took off from Iraq and crossed into Turkish airspace (with the latter’s permission) to bomb Baku on the Caspian Sea. The bombing however was only partially successful and less so than expected or believed by the attackers. At the same time, an 18.000 strong Franco-British force landed in Narvik. As much as Britain and France enhanced their stature in the international public opinion as the defenders of democracy and freedom against the fascist-communist hordes, the political and strategic effects were disastrous.
Notified about the Baku bombing and Narvik landing, Stalin raged and fumed against the arrogance of the “imperialist” western powers (unleashing a purge on the spot of Soviet citizens suspected of sympathies for the western capitalist democracies), then ordered to send the Anglo-French an harsh ultimatum which asked for plentiful reparations, the withdrawal of Entente forces from Norway, northern Syria, and northern Iraq, as well as the end of Entente "aggression" in Finland and Turkey. When Britain and France ignored the ultimatum (deeming it a bluff, with the Red Army crippled by lack of oil), a Soviet declaration of war immediately followed.
In Germany, Goering and Reichenau were awoken to the news and would have ordered Operation Weserübung to begin immediately. However, they were talked out of it when the Kriegsmarine notified that the RN had deployed in the Skagerrak and a German attempt to land in Norway would most likely become a bloodbath. Norway protested the landing and the violation of its neutral status and national sovreignty, but it failed to display an effective military resistance to the invasion. The pro-British economic and political ties run too deep in the ruling elite, although the violation of neutrality stung. The King, Cabinet, and Parliament reluctantly ordered the army to stand down and accepted Entente military "protection" of Norwegian territory, even if Vidkun Quisling and his Nasjonal Samling harshly denounced the surrender to the French and British aggressors. In Sweden, however, the end of Norwegian neutrality was bitterly resented as a violation of the spirit of the amicable end of the Norway-Sweden union in 1905, which had provided for a demilitarized border.
Germany and the Entente turned to the real prize and goal of the Entente plan, Sweden and its iron mines. The Entente asked Sweden ot open its borders, officially to allow Entente troops to reach and rescue hard-pressed Finland, and offering to collaborate to the defense of Swedish territory. On its part, Berlin offered Sweden its military assistance to protect its borders, remarking that the continuation of the status quo was acceptable to Germany, but Entente military presence in Sweden would not. The Swede were divided, the warring factions of Europe were pushing them to pick a side, which would most likely push the losing side to invasion and turn their country in a battleground (as if Soviet invasion of Finland was not frightening enough). The Swedish parties were divided on the course they suggested, while the army was pro-German. In the end, the King, Cabinet, and Parliament decided to mobilize the Swedish army and assume active defense of the borders in all directions while clinging to neutral status as long as possible. This indirectly favored Germany, as long as the iron trade continued.
The Entente was pushed into a dilemma, admitting that the main real objective of the Narwik expedition was a filure, or invade a neutral democracy. Sweden was reluctant to committ and stop iron trade to Germany on its own, nor the Entente trusted the Swede with compliance. Many in the British Cabinet, including the PM, were reluctant to add the invasion of a peaceful democracy to the Entente's growing tally of aggressions, but Churchill had been increasingly wrestling de facto control of the UK Cabinet and the Entente war councils from an increasingly ill, vacillating, and disllusioned Chamberlain. He seemed to be the only one with decisive leadership and ready solutions for everything (no matter how questionable they were) and he swayed his reluctant colleagues with the argument that history justifies the victors and everything was admissable to defeat the Nazis and the Communists (since the Soviet DoW has come in, he had started matching his anti-Nazi firebrand rethoric with his old dusted-off hardcore anti-Communism). Invasion of Sweden was decided. However, the Entente attack infuriated the Swedish public opinion and the Swedish army put on a surprisingly stiff and effective resistance, delaying the Franco-British advance. After a heated debate, the Riksdag voted to accept Germany's renewed offers of alliance and military protection, and so did Denmark. German troops started pouring in Denmark and Sweden, and after some weeks of fighting, the front stabilized close to the Norwegian-Swedish border. The goals of the Narwik expedition had not been attained, the iron mines and Finland were now beyond the Entente's reach, even if the Allies kept Norway as a meager consolation prize. Worse, Sweden had been forced into alliance with Germany, and its considerable resource and military assets were now secured for Berlin. But poor as the outcome of the Northern expedition was, its strategic effects were dwarfed by what was happening elsewhere.
In the following days and weeks the international landscape realigned: Goering and Stalin, in a parallel way, realized that the Entente was apparently serious about fighting to the death to preserve the international status quo, and concluded that upgrading the M-R Pact to a German-Soviet strategic alliance may be necessary to avoid defeat and humiliation. Mussolini had a similar epiphany as well, especially after reading intelligence reports about British messing with the neutrality of Greece, which he deemed to belong in the Italian sphere of influence. He did not dare military action against the Allies yet, with most of the Italian military deployed in the Balkans (even if victory was in sight) so, according to his opportunistic self, he cast his anti-communist prejudices aside and decided to explore the possibility of expanding the Pact of Steel to Stalin.
A extensive round of high-level diplomatic-military German-Soviet talks, later joined by the Italians, took place. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Pact of Steel were merged into a military alliance (the Tripartite Pact or Berlin-Rome-Moscow Axis). Germany and the Soviet Union, already at war with the western democracies, made their alliance public. Italy signed it as well, but kept its adhesion secret with the assent of its allies, until it could complete operations in the Balkans and redeploy the bulk of its military against the Anglo-French. A rough but effective division of Eurasia in three spheres of influence was agreed upon in a secret protocol, as well as a broad grand strategy scheme for simultaneous offensives in Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (as Ciano remarked in his Diaries, “Today we carved out the Old World like a pig”). In order to build up mutual trust among the three paranoid dictatorships, the German-Italian liaison officer exchange program was expanded to the USSR, also to include inspection rights of border territories and the inclusion of allied expeditionary corps in the respective operation theaters. As much as those measures irked the pride and suspiciousness of the leaders, they were seen as a necessary precaution to avoid violations of the respective spheres of influence, or, worse, surprise backstab attacks. Economic cooperation was also enhanced to signify the beginning of extensive integration of resources, know-how, and industrial potential.
Incredible as it might seem only a few years before, or in different circumstances, owing to well-meaning but inexcusable strategic and political blunders on the part of France and Britain, and the timely rise of a new German leadership, the unholy alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Soviet Russia had formed and was rapidly consolidating into full-blown military and economic collaboration between the three dictatorships. Soviet manpower and resources combined with German expertise and technology and Italian ingenuity and resourcefulness complemented each other excellently and would prove an unstoppable combination as the world would soon find out. Far from saving the world from the onslaught of dictatorship, the assassination of Hitler and the Anglo-French crusade for democracy, freedom, and international law had only merged its conflicting faces into a terrifying coalescing gestalt.
It also gets inspiration and a lot of ideas from this other masterful TL. Although Onkel Willie’s “Great Mistake” has already developed the scenario much better than I could ever do, I made the TL in order to answer a question in the other thread about how the same PoD (Hitler’s death in the Burgerbraukeller assassination attempt) could lead to an opposite outcome. Instead of narrowly defusing WWII, it makes it worse.
The main differences are that Goering survives the assassination, and the balance of power and influence in the British leadership between the various factions (hawkish/dovish, Germanophobe/Sovietophobe) is somewhat different.
Goering survived the bomb that killed Hitler and Hess on November 8, 1939. He was the designated successor of Hitler, according to a decree signed by the Fuhrer in September 1939. Yet that paper was not enough to prevent a power struggle for succession that took place in the following weeks between Goering, backed by the moderate, Wilhelmine Imperialist faction of the Nazi party, Himmler backed by the SS network and the radical Nazi faction, and the army. Goering realized he needed the backing of the army to win, yet he was strongly disliked by the generals (even if they loathed Himmler and the SS much more). He swallowed pride and offered a power-sharing compromise to the generals, by which they would split the positions of President and Chancellor again, with Goring becoming President and a general Chancellor. Since both factions, despite their personal antipathies, shared similar outlooks and programs on many issues (notably foreign policy), the compromise was accepted by the generals and Reichenau was chosen and appointed as Chancellor. Himmler, seeing his own imminent marginalization, tried a last-ditch coup with the support of the SS. The coup however failed and was subsequently easily quashed by the Heer. Himmler was shot, the SS disbanded, the radical Nazi faction purged (as well as Bormann, which knew too much and no one liked).
The new Goering-Reichenau diarchy had a rather different foreign policy outlook than Hitler. They wholly supported the recovery by Germany of all its irredentist claims, including Danzig and as much as of the pre-1914 territories in Poland as they could afford, but they wanted to end the war with the West with a compromise peace if at all possible. Moreover, they deemed Hitler's planned war with Soviet Russia a dangerous folly. Their attitude about the racist Nazi issues was much more lukewarm than the one of Hitler or Himmler: Goring did not really care about anti-semitism (he told "I decide who is a Jew") and neither him or the generals liked Poles, but they were quite pragmatic about such issues. Although they would prefer an alliance with the western democracies and Italy, they were prepared to work with the Soviets too if need be.
Peace offers by Germany were repeatedly made over Winter 1939-40 to Britain, with Berlin hinting readiness to restore the independence of Poland, provided that its historical territorial claims were satisfied.
This brought about a split in the British Cabinet: the peace faction, headed by PM Chamberlain and Halifax, was interested in opening up peace negotiations, highlighting the novelty represented by the new German leadership and moderate offers; the war faction, headed by Churchill, adamantly opposed compromise, remarking how Goering was still a Nazi and the former right-hand man of Hitler and could not be trusted, just like his mentor. The two factions fought to a standstill, which resulted in a compromise about the opening of half-hearted preliminary negotiations to seek time and explore German intentions but with the instruction to stall, while the war would continue.
In the following weeks and months, such "negotiations" took place, with the Germans bargaining their claims down to the restoration of full political independence of both Poland and Czechia, although they insisted on their territorial claims and for their right to deport the Pole population from pre-1914 ex-German territories (less for racist reasons than in order to prevent the kind of Pole irredentism that had troubled the Second Reich) and keep the pre-invasion legitimate Czech government in charge, which was pro-German. The British remained uncommitted and the talks drag on spinning their wheels.
Increasingly realizing the hopelessness of peace talks with the Entente, Germany was forced to explore the necessity of continuing the war with the West to victory. In order to achieve this, Germany absolutely needed to reinforce the friendly neutrality of the Soviet Union, which protected its back and ensured an all-important plentiful supply of commodities. Much less vital, but still seen as quite important, was the friendly neutrality of Italy, in order to protect the southern flank and strategic access to the Mediterranean. Since the expansionist ambitions of the new German leadership were much more moderate than Hitler’s crazy plans, they were willing to draft a sensible compromise about the reciprocal spheres of influence with their partners. A series of diplomatic talks between Germany, Italy, and Soviet Union ensued. Although none of the three dictatorships really trusted each other to begin with, those talks were gradually able to build upon the previous relationships established with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Pact of Steel to define a rough, but acceptable, definition of spheres of influence, as contingencies might dictate, throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Economic cooperation was enhanced as well and Germany and Italy started an exchange of military liaisons. These liaisons were meant as much as to share experience as to reduce the chance of each partner interfering with each other’s interests, but they were considerably effective at gradually building trust. They were also the seed by which the future Axis large-scale integration and standardization of training and equipment grew.
In due time, during Winter 1939-40, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states and started the Winter War against Finland, while Italy, in an alliance with Hungary and Bulgaria, started the Third Balkan War against Yugoslavia. Although both invasions revealed many flaws in the setup of the Red Army and the Regio Esercito, the quantitative advantage of the Red Army was so huge that a temporary stalemate ensued, but in the long term Finland was doomed to defeat. As for the Balkan war, various factors (long-standing preparation by Italy for a war with Yugoslavia, assistance by Hungary and Bulgaria, mass defection of Slovene and Croat troops) ensured that the Italian army was painfully but gradually able to win acceptable success. In the meanwhile both Stalin and Mussolini scrambled to have structural flaws (and incompetent officials) purged from their respecive armies. Germany kept the no-fighting stalemate on the Western front, while it struggled to build up its army for a general offensive and develop a strategic plan more efficient than the old Schliffen Plan.
As months went by, the strategic stalemate plagued the British and French governments, too. The evidence of the German aggression to Poland spreading into an Eastern European expansionist free-for-all by the dictatorships worried the Anglo-French leaders, as did evidence that increasing economic and military cooperation between the three powers indirectly reinforced Germany’s standing more and more and Soviet supplies essentially nullified traditional Entente strategy of strangling German economy with blockade. Soviet attack to Finland had gathered an enormous amount of sympathy for the Finns, and the voices that clamored to help them and oppose Soviet aggression were almost as strong as the ones that called for decisive action against Germany.
The Entente leaders genuinely meant to split the budding German-Soviet-Italian partnership and pull one or two of the three powers to their side against the other(s). But no real agreement could be reached about the preferable target. The Sovietophobe Chamberlain faction favored détente with Germany and Italy and anti-Soviet containment as much as the Germanophobe Churchill faction favored all-out war to Germany and an alliance of convenience with Russia and Italy, while the French government wavered between the two options but opposed any real concession to Italy, which they distrusted, owing to Italian irredentist ambitions. The internal conflict of the Entente unwittingly came out to the dictatorships as a contradictory maze of diplomatic and strategic signals which depicted the Entente as untrustworthy. Eventually, in Spring 1940, it became evident that Finland was close to military collapse (like Yugoslavia), and that the German-Soviet economic collaboration was essential to the German war effort, which brought the conflict to an apex.
As a strange but surprisingly effective compromise between the Germanophobe and Sovietophobe factions, the idea coalesced that a victorious "economic strike" Entente strategy would be to violate the neutrality of Norway and Sweden (if possible with their assent, if necessary by force), in order to seize control of Swedish iron deposits, and send an expeditionary corps to relieve hard-pressed Finland. The second part of the plan involved a bombing of the Soviet oilfields of Baku. This ambitious plan aimed to deny the German war effort of essential iron and oil supplies, crippling it, and basically cow Stalin into submission with a show of superior force. Such plans had been discussed in the previous months, but now they were finalized and approved. Almost as an afterthought, it was also decided to send Mussolini a “warning” against a possible follow-up aggression to Greece after Yugoslavia by sending RN units to “show the flag” in Greek waters, as well as weapon supplies to Greece.
In hindsight about the catastrophic effects of the Anglo-French “economic strike” strategy, it may seem like the work of abysmal stupidity and incompetence, and a thorough negative judgment is wholly justified. But the decision took root into a mix of causes, ranging from Anglo-French imperial arrogance and overestimation of own military potential (and underestimation of the Axis one) as long-standing dominant great powers, conflicting impulses about choice of the main enemy, fear of another long and exhausting conflict like WWI and search for a “magical”, quick solution in a combination of painless economic warfare and quick traditional British-style peripheral strike. Anyway, the dice were cast.
The same fateful day, as the Finnish (and Yugoslav) fronts were getting close to final collapse, and pleads from help from Helsinki to the Entente were getting desperate, Anglo-French bombers took off from Iraq and crossed into Turkish airspace (with the latter’s permission) to bomb Baku on the Caspian Sea. The bombing however was only partially successful and less so than expected or believed by the attackers. At the same time, an 18.000 strong Franco-British force landed in Narvik. As much as Britain and France enhanced their stature in the international public opinion as the defenders of democracy and freedom against the fascist-communist hordes, the political and strategic effects were disastrous.
Notified about the Baku bombing and Narvik landing, Stalin raged and fumed against the arrogance of the “imperialist” western powers (unleashing a purge on the spot of Soviet citizens suspected of sympathies for the western capitalist democracies), then ordered to send the Anglo-French an harsh ultimatum which asked for plentiful reparations, the withdrawal of Entente forces from Norway, northern Syria, and northern Iraq, as well as the end of Entente "aggression" in Finland and Turkey. When Britain and France ignored the ultimatum (deeming it a bluff, with the Red Army crippled by lack of oil), a Soviet declaration of war immediately followed.
In Germany, Goering and Reichenau were awoken to the news and would have ordered Operation Weserübung to begin immediately. However, they were talked out of it when the Kriegsmarine notified that the RN had deployed in the Skagerrak and a German attempt to land in Norway would most likely become a bloodbath. Norway protested the landing and the violation of its neutral status and national sovreignty, but it failed to display an effective military resistance to the invasion. The pro-British economic and political ties run too deep in the ruling elite, although the violation of neutrality stung. The King, Cabinet, and Parliament reluctantly ordered the army to stand down and accepted Entente military "protection" of Norwegian territory, even if Vidkun Quisling and his Nasjonal Samling harshly denounced the surrender to the French and British aggressors. In Sweden, however, the end of Norwegian neutrality was bitterly resented as a violation of the spirit of the amicable end of the Norway-Sweden union in 1905, which had provided for a demilitarized border.
Germany and the Entente turned to the real prize and goal of the Entente plan, Sweden and its iron mines. The Entente asked Sweden ot open its borders, officially to allow Entente troops to reach and rescue hard-pressed Finland, and offering to collaborate to the defense of Swedish territory. On its part, Berlin offered Sweden its military assistance to protect its borders, remarking that the continuation of the status quo was acceptable to Germany, but Entente military presence in Sweden would not. The Swede were divided, the warring factions of Europe were pushing them to pick a side, which would most likely push the losing side to invasion and turn their country in a battleground (as if Soviet invasion of Finland was not frightening enough). The Swedish parties were divided on the course they suggested, while the army was pro-German. In the end, the King, Cabinet, and Parliament decided to mobilize the Swedish army and assume active defense of the borders in all directions while clinging to neutral status as long as possible. This indirectly favored Germany, as long as the iron trade continued.
The Entente was pushed into a dilemma, admitting that the main real objective of the Narwik expedition was a filure, or invade a neutral democracy. Sweden was reluctant to committ and stop iron trade to Germany on its own, nor the Entente trusted the Swede with compliance. Many in the British Cabinet, including the PM, were reluctant to add the invasion of a peaceful democracy to the Entente's growing tally of aggressions, but Churchill had been increasingly wrestling de facto control of the UK Cabinet and the Entente war councils from an increasingly ill, vacillating, and disllusioned Chamberlain. He seemed to be the only one with decisive leadership and ready solutions for everything (no matter how questionable they were) and he swayed his reluctant colleagues with the argument that history justifies the victors and everything was admissable to defeat the Nazis and the Communists (since the Soviet DoW has come in, he had started matching his anti-Nazi firebrand rethoric with his old dusted-off hardcore anti-Communism). Invasion of Sweden was decided. However, the Entente attack infuriated the Swedish public opinion and the Swedish army put on a surprisingly stiff and effective resistance, delaying the Franco-British advance. After a heated debate, the Riksdag voted to accept Germany's renewed offers of alliance and military protection, and so did Denmark. German troops started pouring in Denmark and Sweden, and after some weeks of fighting, the front stabilized close to the Norwegian-Swedish border. The goals of the Narwik expedition had not been attained, the iron mines and Finland were now beyond the Entente's reach, even if the Allies kept Norway as a meager consolation prize. Worse, Sweden had been forced into alliance with Germany, and its considerable resource and military assets were now secured for Berlin. But poor as the outcome of the Northern expedition was, its strategic effects were dwarfed by what was happening elsewhere.
In the following days and weeks the international landscape realigned: Goering and Stalin, in a parallel way, realized that the Entente was apparently serious about fighting to the death to preserve the international status quo, and concluded that upgrading the M-R Pact to a German-Soviet strategic alliance may be necessary to avoid defeat and humiliation. Mussolini had a similar epiphany as well, especially after reading intelligence reports about British messing with the neutrality of Greece, which he deemed to belong in the Italian sphere of influence. He did not dare military action against the Allies yet, with most of the Italian military deployed in the Balkans (even if victory was in sight) so, according to his opportunistic self, he cast his anti-communist prejudices aside and decided to explore the possibility of expanding the Pact of Steel to Stalin.
A extensive round of high-level diplomatic-military German-Soviet talks, later joined by the Italians, took place. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Pact of Steel were merged into a military alliance (the Tripartite Pact or Berlin-Rome-Moscow Axis). Germany and the Soviet Union, already at war with the western democracies, made their alliance public. Italy signed it as well, but kept its adhesion secret with the assent of its allies, until it could complete operations in the Balkans and redeploy the bulk of its military against the Anglo-French. A rough but effective division of Eurasia in three spheres of influence was agreed upon in a secret protocol, as well as a broad grand strategy scheme for simultaneous offensives in Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (as Ciano remarked in his Diaries, “Today we carved out the Old World like a pig”). In order to build up mutual trust among the three paranoid dictatorships, the German-Italian liaison officer exchange program was expanded to the USSR, also to include inspection rights of border territories and the inclusion of allied expeditionary corps in the respective operation theaters. As much as those measures irked the pride and suspiciousness of the leaders, they were seen as a necessary precaution to avoid violations of the respective spheres of influence, or, worse, surprise backstab attacks. Economic cooperation was also enhanced to signify the beginning of extensive integration of resources, know-how, and industrial potential.
Incredible as it might seem only a few years before, or in different circumstances, owing to well-meaning but inexcusable strategic and political blunders on the part of France and Britain, and the timely rise of a new German leadership, the unholy alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Soviet Russia had formed and was rapidly consolidating into full-blown military and economic collaboration between the three dictatorships. Soviet manpower and resources combined with German expertise and technology and Italian ingenuity and resourcefulness complemented each other excellently and would prove an unstoppable combination as the world would soon find out. Far from saving the world from the onslaught of dictatorship, the assassination of Hitler and the Anglo-French crusade for democracy, freedom, and international law had only merged its conflicting faces into a terrifying coalescing gestalt.
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. I dont think Sweden would budge to invation threaths, but could perhaps choose to ally Germany as an defence against the Entente???