AHC: Finlandised Poland
- Thread starter Heat
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This probably means that all of Germany (possibly except East Prussia and maybe Danzig) end up under WAllied occupation.
The Soviets would have to move eastwards more slowly than IOTL - maybe the Nazis are more successful in fighting on the eastern front, but only enough to hold back the red tide for a bit longer.
The Soviets probably get a border on the Curzon Line, and an occupation of East Prussia, with Danzig being added to a neutral Poland. If Poland is neutral, then I would suspect that Czechoslovakia is probably also neutral, or partitioned into a communist Slovakia, and neutral/WAllied Czechia.
What happens in the rest of Eastern Europe is anyone's guess. Possibly Albania is occupied by WAllies, and there may be a neutral/partitioned Yugoslavia.
The Soviets would have to move eastwards more slowly than IOTL - maybe the Nazis are more successful in fighting on the eastern front, but only enough to hold back the red tide for a bit longer.
The Soviets probably get a border on the Curzon Line, and an occupation of East Prussia, with Danzig being added to a neutral Poland. If Poland is neutral, then I would suspect that Czechoslovakia is probably also neutral, or partitioned into a communist Slovakia, and neutral/WAllied Czechia.
What happens in the rest of Eastern Europe is anyone's guess. Possibly Albania is occupied by WAllies, and there may be a neutral/partitioned Yugoslavia.
Id
If Soviets for some reason didnt reach Poland I doubt they would be able to occupy Slovakia. OTL took them from en of October to April to get through Slovak mountains.
Unless they did something really outrageous to change things the agreement to divide Germany into three occupation zones had already been arranged prior to the Yalta Conference, the Soviets were just too popular with the Western public, and many in government, to be seen to be double crossed. Even if Poland were to become independent I'd still expect to see the Soviet Zone happen in Eastern Germany, access would either be by shipping across the Baltic or perhaps via rail and air corridor rights similar to Berlin. Poland being 'moved' westwards would also likely still happen if they were Finlandised.
Well, since the POD is September 1, 1939, there's plenty of time until Yalta happens to find a way.
I'd suggest that the most likely would be something where the invasion of the Soviet Union is delayed, or reduced, and the Soviet counteroffensive (a) doesn't lead to the occupation of all of Eastern Europe and (b) the trauma of the Great Patriotic War is considerably lessened such that Moscow does not feel such a strong need for a buffer zone it has absolute control over.
Perhaps instead if France manages to hold out in 1940, the Germans never manage to launch the Eastern Front, and Stalin is forced to temper tanks with diplomacy in his dealings with a Polish government liberated through a defeated Germany signing treaties with the West rather than a Poland where Soviet tanks roll through Warsaw.
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This scenario may lead to a "neutral corridor" - finlandised Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia.
Of course, depending on what happens during *WWII, Yugoslavia may be rather chaotic, with a civil war between fascists/monarchists and a broad republican alliance (including communists), or even (partially) partitioned if they are full-blown members of the Axis. In the latter case, there may be an independent Slovenia and even an independent Croatia.
Of course, depending on what happens during *WWII, Yugoslavia may be rather chaotic, with a civil war between fascists/monarchists and a broad republican alliance (including communists), or even (partially) partitioned if they are full-blown members of the Axis. In the latter case, there may be an independent Slovenia and even an independent Croatia.
The British do better in North Africa so that the Axis are defeated and pushed out of Libya and Tunisia by early 1942 leading to the capture of roughly a division or two of German troops. Sicily is invaded several months later with a small contingent of American troops participating and the Allies avoiding the communications mishaps from our timeline manage to trap several German divisions and keep them from escaping. Hitler being pissed listens to the majority opinion of OKW rather than Kesselring and withdraws from Southern and Central Italy drawing up the defensive lines in the Po Valley, this allows the Allies to avoid slogging up the peninsula.
D-Day occurs in 1943, this gives Hitler enough pause over Operation Citadel so that the Soviet attacks are much harder. Secret negotiations are carried out with Turkey and Bulgaria to quietly open the straits and switch sides respectively in return for the Italian Dodecanese and avoiding a Soviet Invasion. Forces that in our timeline were in Italy are instead sent to Bulgaria where they partner up with the three Bulgarian armies of roughly 100,000 troops each. They proceed to invade and liberate Yugoslavia, northern Greece, and Romania who are quick enough to desert the Axis. Having breached the Carpathian Mountains the main force then pushes north-west towards Berlin via Central Europe. A smaller force branches off attempting to trap the retreating German troops from the Eastern Front but are not strong enough, this end up with Soviet troops going through Poland as in our timeline but a small number of Western Allied troops also being on the ground that are enough to avoid an outright Soviet takeover. Post-war Poland is forced to accept having her borders moved westwards, whilst technically free having Soviet troops sitting in Kaliningrad, Belarus, and Ukraine to their east and in the Soviet occupation zone in East Germany to their west they end up having to walk a tightrope and being effectively Finlandised.
D-Day occurs in 1943, this gives Hitler enough pause over Operation Citadel so that the Soviet attacks are much harder. Secret negotiations are carried out with Turkey and Bulgaria to quietly open the straits and switch sides respectively in return for the Italian Dodecanese and avoiding a Soviet Invasion. Forces that in our timeline were in Italy are instead sent to Bulgaria where they partner up with the three Bulgarian armies of roughly 100,000 troops each. They proceed to invade and liberate Yugoslavia, northern Greece, and Romania who are quick enough to desert the Axis. Having breached the Carpathian Mountains the main force then pushes north-west towards Berlin via Central Europe. A smaller force branches off attempting to trap the retreating German troops from the Eastern Front but are not strong enough, this end up with Soviet troops going through Poland as in our timeline but a small number of Western Allied troops also being on the ground that are enough to avoid an outright Soviet takeover. Post-war Poland is forced to accept having her borders moved westwards, whilst technically free having Soviet troops sitting in Kaliningrad, Belarus, and Ukraine to their east and in the Soviet occupation zone in East Germany to their west they end up having to walk a tightrope and being effectively Finlandised.
He says post-war Poland would still be moved westwards in his scenario, so presumably yes.
Personally I wonder whether, with a weaker Soviet position, Poland would have a chance of retaining Lviv.
RyanF
Banned
I took "Poland is forced to accept having her borders moved westwards" to mean accepting the Curzon Line as the Eastern border with the Soviet Union.
I could possibly see the Soviets keeping East Germany's eastern border the same (excepting East Prussia of course) for no reason other than why should they give additional land to a neutral Poland rather than keep it under an occupied/puppet East Germany.
An Oklahoman
Banned
Potentially have the Germans sack Moscow and have the Soviets continue the struggle from beyond the Urals. Thus the Allies procede to liberate Poland from Nazism (and also liberate evertything to the West and South). THe Soviets or some Russian successor state pushes back the Germans to the pre-Barbarossa borders. Poland, as a nation on the border of the Soviet Union opts to be neutral rather than offend her larger neighbors.
Or the Soviets are more accepting of the Eastern Europeans having real control over most of their internal affairs - for example, if Stalin dies in the early post-war period and his successors maintain Stalin's early support for democracy in the Eastern block since to shift to a more dictatorial stance as they did OTL would be to publicly break from Stalin's vision... And by the time de-Stalinization occurs in the early 50s, the precedent has already been set and Poland and the rest of the Eastern block are merrily electing and dismissing governments, all of whom toe a careful pro-Soviet line internationally.
fasquardon
fasquardon
Poland's shift to dictatorship was very much underway by 1946, and the Polish Communists simply couldn't go as far as they did without Stalin's backing. If we take Stalin dying earlier as the POD, you need him to be replaced by someone willing to limit or withdraw support for the PPR.
To Breach Carpathian mountains would be really pain in the ass though. I guess if Romania switch sides, as OTL Slovakia would go but still despite uprising OTL Germans managed to hold in Slovak Carpathians for some 6-7 months!
Hmmmm. In reading about the 1947 elections, I think you are correct. It seems that the Communists felt they needed to fabricate a big win in order to win the support of the WAllies for admitting Poland into the UN...
So even if the rest of Eastern Europe had relative freedom internally, Poland might look much like OTL anyway. Kinda sad, really.
fasquardon
Basically, you need to force the PPR to accept democracy (and considering how far to the left the country had shifted during the war, they'd probably be a major force anyway) and that will only happen if Moscow isn't helping them establish a dictatorship. 'Continuing Stalin's original policies' won't cut it when Stalin was complicit in what happened in the first place.
I did think that Stalin had basically thought, until around 1947, that the cachet of being liberators would give the Communist parties in the East enough popularity to win in open contests (which would be useful for selling the whole turkey to the WAllies).
fasquardon
I think that PPR would be at best 3rd force in country politics (after SL and SN), but more likely 5th only (after PPS and SP too). After all, SL, SP and obviously PPS, were strongly on the left by that time. Even SN was supporting nationalisation of heavy industry post-war.
From how "elections" immediately post WW2 went in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland - I doubt Stalin cared at all about how the Communists were percevied by the populace; terror was seen to be more useful argument. Besides, quoting Stalin: "It doesn't matter who votes on whom, but who counts the votes".
In short, prerequisite to finlandising Poland is a lack of Soviet army and NKVD inside Poland, and strong and unbowed non-communist army/militia/security forces to keep communists from taking power by force.