A different Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

What would be the effects of the original territorial divisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact being agreed to between Nazi Germany and the USSR? A map for reference:

750px-Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg.png


What effects would this have had on the war? If the Germans still have their massive early successes against Poland, relations between the Germans and the USSR could get very tense as the Germans will not want to abandon all their newly-won lands.

Assuming that there are minimal effects until Barbarossa, what effects does the starting point in Lithuania have on the campaign?
 
As best I recall, it boils down to the Germans trading their sphere of influence in Lithuania for a hunk of central Poland that they occupied and didn't want to give up.

The original division would have probably been better for the Germans in most respects. Assuming that they occupied Lithuania when the Soviets occupied Estonia and Latvia, they end up considerably closer to Leningrad as a starting point, and actually somewhat closer to Moscow if I'm looking at the map correctly (it has been a long couple of days, so I may not be).

The revisions in Poland would be a two-edged sword from a German viewpoint. The downsides:

1) They would be quite a bit further away from vital areas of the Soviet Union on the central front, which means yet more logistically difficult ground to cover to get to the important areas of the Soviet Union.
2) They would have access to less Polish manpower and agricultural produce.
3) I believe that historically the division gave Germany about a third of the oil production in Eastern Poland. Presumably that would go away.

The only upside to the territorial losses in central Poland would be that the Soviets would probably move considerable forces in to defend the new territory (as they did historically with the part of Poland they grabbed), and those forces would have a horrible time defending themselves or getting out of the area.

The Soviets didn't have time to build up a logistics structure good enough to support their armies in the central part of the front, where they were mainly in annexed Polish territory. That led to horrendous problems, with their armies there incapable of being supplied sufficiently in wartime, impossible to extract in a hurry, as well as too few airbases for their planes, which main the aircraft horribly vulnerable even without a Germany surprise attack.

You'll notice that the areas where the Soviet front line was deep in annexed Polish territory were the areas where the initial Soviet disasters were at their worst. Those disasters would have probably been somewhat worse if they had been defending even further forward, with further to retreat before they got to a transport network that could support them more adequately.

Would that have trumped the greater distances the Germans had to go to get anywhere vital? I'm agnostic on that. I suspect it would be pretty much a wash or the Germans would have been slightly behind schedule on the central front, with Germany doing considerably better in the North, possibly slicing through to Leningrad before the Soviets got their defenses organized. I'm not entirely sure that would have been a good thing for the Germans, but I'm pretty sure they would have at least gotten to the outskirts of Leningrad quicker.
 
DaleCoz, I think you're generally right but underestimate the importance of Leningrad.

1. It is a major port. That means it can be a logistic base to supply troops by sea across the Baltic (fairly safe from allied naval interdiction), instead of overland.
2. Its fall allows a direct link-up with the Finns. Finnish troops that were tied down facing Leningrad could instead cut off Murmansk, increasing the problems on the northern route between the western allies and the USSR.
3. It is a manufacturing center. There was a tank factory in Leningrad, which for a time had as its last step in building a tank: 'Load the main gun.' :)
4. Morale. This is another Soviet city lost, and one named for Lenin at that.

I think the original treaty terms would have greatly benefited Germany, though they would not be enough by themselves to win Germany the war on the Eastern Front.
 
By the way, if you're going to revisit the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why not have the Germans be a little more hard-nosed in the bargaining:

1) Demanding more of central Poland and especially the Galatia oilfields. The Germans desperately needed that oil.
2) Putting the Baltic division at Lithuania to the Germans, Estonia to the Soviets and Latvia neutral.
3) Clarify that Romania is off-limits for Soviet annexations.

Would the Soviets have gone for that? I don't know. Probably. The important thing from their point of view was that the Germans end up fighting the Western Allies rather than the Soviets. They figured they could let the two sides bleed themselves out like they had in World War I, and then take pretty much what they wanted when the two sides were exhausted. Territorial acquisitions were nice, but the exact dimensions of those acquisitions were not as important as the fact that their enemies would be fighting one another. They could pick up the territory later, when an intact and much built-up Soviet Army decided it was time to enter the war.

That, by the way, is a scenario that should probably be examined. If the French had somehow held off the initial German attack it is possible that the war would have gone to stalemate like the western front did in World War I, and the two sides would have butted heads for a couple of years before one side (probably the Allies due to their access to raw materials and US manufacturing) gained a decisive edge.
 
And then the Soviets step in as Germany is collapsing, take over the Latvia, Lithuania, Besarabia and everything East of the Curzon line in Poland, and set up some type of sympathetic/communist state in the rest of Poland - all without any serious fighting. Hard to believe that the Western powers would be interested in a serious war to reverse that after several years fighting the Germans especially as it really was basically just Russia reverting to its 1914 boundaries.

Very neat trick for Stalin to have carried out.
 
Post war would have been interesting as well - an economically strong US with a growing military but more isolationist than OTL, US and France financially exhausted but thinking pretty well of themselves in military terms, Germany?? how does it fit in, Soviets much better off economically and by far the strongest military in Eastern Europe but still with lots of kinks in the Red Army that WWII sorted out in OTL.

And what would have happened with Japan in all of this?
 
By the way, if you're going to revisit the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why not have the Germans be a little more hard-nosed in the bargaining:

1) Demanding more of central Poland and especially the Galatia oilfields. The Germans desperately needed that oil.
2) Putting the Baltic division at Lithuania to the Germans, Estonia to the Soviets and Latvia neutral.
3) Clarify that Romania is off-limits for Soviet annexations.

Would the Soviets have gone for that? I don't know. Probably. The important thing from their point of view was that the Germans end up fighting the Western Allies rather than the Soviets. They figured they could let the two sides bleed themselves out like they had in World War I, and then take pretty much what they wanted when the two sides were exhausted. Territorial acquisitions were nice, but the exact dimensions of those acquisitions were not as important as the fact that their enemies would be fighting one another. They could pick up the territory later, when an intact and much built-up Soviet Army decided it was time to enter the war.

That, by the way, is a scenario that should probably be examined. If the French had somehow held off the initial German attack it is possible that the war would have gone to stalemate like the western front did in World War I, and the two sides would have butted heads for a couple of years before one side (probably the Allies due to their access to raw materials and US manufacturing) gained a decisive edge.

This sounds good. I think another possibility is that the Germans demand a renegotiation of the pact as soon as Poland surrenders, and German troops are occupying much of Poland. If the Germans are occupying much of Poland, then they can force Stalin to acknowledge this, or face war. After that, it becomes very unpredictable. I don't think Stalin will want war, especially with the seemingly invincible Germans army, but he will definitely be more suspicious of the Germans and their motives going forward. If Germany still manages their OTL beatdown of France, then Stalin could very well start believing any reports of a planned German attack of the USSR. That could make a Barbarossa much more difficult for the Germans.

Another possibility is that the Soviets have to intervene in Poland from the start to occupy all of their part of Poland as the Germans do, because Stalin doesn't trust the Germans to evacuate the parts of the Soviet zone that they occupy. This could technically mean that the Western Allies would be forced to declare war on the Soviets, which could have bad effects.
 
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