Alt-WWII - German-Soviet alliance

Eurofed

Banned
The negotiations took place in latter 1940 - after the Russians had their slice of the pie, which they had clearly been anxious to get without anybody's help. Note that both the annexations of the Baltic states and that of Besserabia - including the cheeky occupations of northern Bukovina and the Kybartai vincinity - took place in June 1940, precisely when Germany was in no position to object. In both cases, the Germans raised only mumbles at pretty clear violations of M-R.

Oh, I see what you are coming from. But since I've long since come to the conclusion (with the help of your arguments, no less ;)) that the Baku-Winter War is the most plausible PoD (apart from throwing Hitler under a bus, of course) to achive a German-Soviet alliance, I assume that alliance negotiations take place in early 1940. By the way, let us give poor Stalin his due: the Baltic states and Bessarabia were in Soviet sphere of influence according ot M-R maps.

Once again, Stalin plays his own game, and the first priority in that game is his buffer from Finland down to Romania and the straits. Iran is a very distant second. He's not going to ally with any German regime for Iran until he's gotten what he wants in Europe - and he clearly didn't trust the Germans to give it to him on trust. He was after all paranoid.

But ITTL Germany doesn't mean to do Barbarossa, so it steers away from Finland and gives a greenlight about the Straits. So what is the problem ?

Humans are not rational, and Herman Goering was a champ at not being rational. Germany's most rational strategy, or anyone's, is indeed to ignore victory sickness, but how often does that happen?

But the alliance with the USSR makes the Mediterranean strategy more obvious.

This is Stalin we're talking about. The man who made a career of backstabbing, who relocated thousands of people to Siberia for living near co-linguists who weren't Soviets, who put everywhere within a certain distance of the borders under what amounted to a military reign, who rounded up and shot much of the USSR's community of expatriate intellectuals. And he just lets people in?

He gets to reciprocate. And he did it, to limited degrees, during WWII. After all, it's just inspection rights of the border areas.

Germany has an interest in a Japanese destruction of the British presence in the Far East, and was quite willing to risk war with America IOTL. The Axis Pact was an effectively anti-American document, and a German blank-chqeque for Japan.

The limited, indirect benefits that OTL Germany got from destruction of the British presence in the Far East may ITTL be effectively replaced by Soviet destruction of the British presence in the Middle East, and its making a strategic threat on India. Only the latter carries no significant risk of American intervention.

I can believe Goering being more cautious (it's hardly an article of faith), but he is not Japanese and he cannot control what Japan does, he can only approve or disapprove.

So does Stalin, short of invading Manchuria. But neither of them is bound to follow Hitler's course and rush to the side of Japan if it does the OTL gambit.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying that given the same basic PoD, TLs do not exist where Japan joins the Quadripartite Axis. They do. It's just that once Germany and Russia make a compact, with Italy as a sidekick, the additional strategic benefits of taking Japan onboard IMO pale in comparison to the drawbacks: much increased risk of war with America, frustration of Soviet expansion in the far East. Japan is only really useful to this Axis in the case that losing Singapore and fearing a two-front invasion of India is what it takes to bring Britain to the peace table, while they remained defiant when they lost Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Sure, it may happen, but how often ?

China is a terribly juicy prize for Russia. The assumption that Russia' interests are Germany's is the very one that I'm criticising.

A Russia that is expanding in China is a satisfied partner that is reaping a big juicy prize and has no reason to make further claims in Europe. That is very, very much in Germany's best interest, and costs it nothing but sending some support if Stalin wants it.

And Russia has another very good place to put that army: on its western frontier, whether it means to betray Germany and go for Ploestia or not. Paranoia, paranoia.

Balanced limitation of forces on that frontier, enforced by border inspection rights. This is pre-nuclear age, it takes months for Germany or Russia to assemble a worthy invasion force, and it is very noticeable.

By the way, ITTL Russia has Iran, on top of its own oil resources, Germany and Italy have Arabia, either side has Iraq. What the heck would Russia need pitiful Ploesti for ?? :confused:
 
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Eurofed

Banned
I do so love the way in which a little bit of hand-waving by the axis results in a magnificently successful Meditteranean strategy which somehow knocks the British Empire out of the war (effectively, anyway).

If it does knock Britain out of the war, which is rather likely if America does not make a timely intervention, it happens out of political factors, you know, losing France, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East persuades the British public that they can't win this war. Regardless of what "nevah surrendah" Britwank cheerleaders may claim, it is a high-probability event. Strictly speaking, nothing short of successful blockade or invasion of the Home Islands would force Britain out of the war (I'll believe the "we shall keep fighting from Canada" propaganda when I see a successful Operation Werwolf). Although losing India on top of the rest (say to a successful INA) would almost surely collapse British morale.

First, we have Italy (who is more than a little jealous of their self-certified perogatives in the Med) humbly abasing themselves before the magnificence that is Germany.

Mussolini was an opportunist. If he thinks this shall reap him his Second Roman Empire, well, he has done worse things than exploiting German power to aggrandize himself in a mutually-beneficial operation.

Now lets take Malta. Yes, this could be done. It will need basically all the Axis paratroops

Better to use them here than at Crete (which won't be necessary ITTL, since Metaxas is no idiot and Italian invasion of Greece is butterflied out).

Now with Malta in your hands, convoys to NA do become easier. Ah...and this gets you precisely nowhere, because the limiting factor wasnt the damage done to the convoys, it was the logistical infrastructure in Tunisia. Never mind, you can use Malta to attack, cant you..er, no, actually you cant, its too far away. Never mind, it has a very pretty harbour.

You meant Libya. Actually opening up Tunisian ports too to Axis traffic would help significantly. And it shall happen, since Petain is no idiot and shall fall upon himself to appease this Axis. So shall Franco, by the way.

So basically you are back to OTL in NA. Now IF (and its a very big if) you can drug Mussolini and the Italian general staff into letting the Germans control and run everything (and supply more of the army as a percentage), you may do better.

No BoB and no Barbarossa, remember ? There is no other place where the Wehrmacht may be used to hit the British, short of opening up the Turkish front one way or another.

You still have the teensy weensie little issue of getting past Alamein, but eventually you can do this. Great, you are now (eventualy) in Egypt. have fun with the fly ridden place. Meanwhile the British army has retreated either up the Nile or across the desert (or both), destroying communications behind them. Never mind, this will give your railway corps some practice for a considerable time. Good luck in chasing them -the Empire is huge, they always have another port or railhead to fall back on.

Need I remember that the Soviets are on the other side, pounding the mighty British Empire in Iran and Iraq, that Petain in all likelihood is opening up Syria and Lebanon to Axis forces, and that Turkey is going to be opened up to Axis forces one way or another ? The much-vaunted strategic depth is suddenly no more that much so. Oh, sure the British may retreat in the depths of subsaharian Africa, but it won't win them anything.

You can now face the interesting prospect of getting to all that oil thats over the horizon. A shame there arent roads or railways, but its only a matter of time. And you can keep your industry busy working out how to build and repair the rather totally destroyed facilities that are all the British will leave behind.

Because there can never be such a thing like a successful Axis amphibious operation to seize some facilities before they are destroyed, even after Britain loses Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria and is forced to retreat the fleet from the Mediterranean, right ? Now, remind me which Axis member had good amphibious forces ? Something with a boot shape...

Roads, railways, port facilities, and oil pipelines can be repaired or built. This Axis has time, it's not like Britain is going to be able and make a successful counter-attack in this century.

Ah, you say, but having lost the Med the evil British are now helpless! Well, actually, no. No in the slightest. The Prewar strategy was, if Italy joined the war, to treat the Med as a lost cause and just let it go. A contested Med means convoys via the cape anyway, so suez is useless, and there is basically nothing in teh area worth keeping. If you can somehow persuade Franco not to be the smart and cunning guy he was, he may let you take Gibralter.

Precisely because Franco is a cunning guy, he shall throw borders open to Axis forces. He knows that Britain has no hope of defeating this Axis and he wants to reap a place at the victors' table.

This will be fun for the troops involved..and, admittedly, a morale hit to the British. But you are still a LONG way from India or South Africa, the only real prizes control of NA and the Med allow you to go for. getting to either of them should prove interesting, to say the least. The only reason the British fought in the Med was pressure from Churchill, and the finding out just how pathetic the Italian navy actually was.

How much the British morale can stand when they lose everything between Dover and Karachi and, logistical difficulties or not, the Axis may now make a credible strategic threat on India ? What evidence we have that the British public wants to continue a hopeless war against a united Eurasia and risk losing India on top of everything else ? If America joins the war before the British morale collapses sure, but otherwise ?
 
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It's just that once Germany and Russia make a compact, with Italy as a sidekick, the additional strategic benefits of taking Japan onboard IMO pale in comparison to the drawbacks: much increased risk of war with America, frustration of Soviet expansion in the far East. Japan is only really useful to this Axis in the case that losing Singapore and fearing a two-front invasion of India is what it takes to bring Britain to the peace table, while they remained defiant when they lost Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Sure, it may happen, but how often ?

A Russia that is expanding in China is a satisfied partner that is reaping a big juicy prize and has no reason to make further claims in Europe. That is very, very much in Germany's best interest, and costs it nothing but sending some support if Stalin wants it.


Stalin wasn´t too enthusiastic about a communist China, in 1946 even threatened to take military action against the Chinese communists if they started war. An alliance with Japan to parition China would allow better control of a Chinese communist state and perhapse even a nationalist remnant. Keeping Japan from involving the US into the war would also be a powerfull motivator. Hovewer, he would have little hesitation in starting a war with japan to avoid US involvement, should diplomacy fail.

Another point would be domination of eastern India and submarine campaign in the Indian ocean(it would be hard for the SU to establish a "neutral zone" there). Not necessarly by a land invasion but join naval invasion from the gulf covered by fighters and bombers in south-east Iran. Your scenario make it possible for axis fleets to combine for just such an invasion.

One possible problem in your TL is Goering having the authority and the insight to carry out the defeat of France.
A variant I have considered is Goering seizing the power without too much fuss, Himmler doesn´t attempt to launch a coup and support Goering (he never fancied himself as another führer and would not want ruling keep him away from the SS and the projects he had for it). The allies invades Norway in spring 1940 and Sweden in late summer, a campaign where they are defeated by the Reich with some Soviet assistance in the course of autumn.
There is no move against France and the allies invades the Rhineland in summer 1941, Goering face two coups, one from the military and the other from the NSDAP. Military conspiracy is even weaker than historical valkyrie plan and face an even more epic failure than IOTL.
Heydrich (or Borman) takes power, even if not complete power. He begin a full military alliance with the Soviet-Union and under his watch, better counter-offensive plans are made.
The allies crosses the Rhine, annexes Belgium and establish a friendly regime in Holland but in spring-summer 1942 they face a major counter-offensive and a much better German strategy.
By the end of the year, the axis crosses the Rhine, liberates the Rhineland. Holland and Belgium follows, in spring or early summer 43 the last allied stance on the continent is smashed near the Franco-Belgian border. Some factions of the french military sue for peace, others want to continue the war, resulting in a short civil war.
Since Roosevelt lost the election in 1940, the US remain temporarly isolationist, the UK takes over northern africa (including Lybia when the Italians declares war) bu the axis invades turkey from the balkans and the caucase. From turkey, axis forces moves into the rest of the colonial middle-east. When the allies are defeated in Egypt, the Japanese decides to move against allied south-east asia and Stalin consider having a portion of India.
Eventually, the ressources of the axis put together allow much better supply lines and the axis moves through Lybia, then Tunisia. Malta invasion is supported by both naval artillery and heavy bombers. Franco joins the war, allied attack against the canaris islands is defeated and North Africa soon is under axis control.
With the UK defence of India is stretched between axis Iran and the Japanese at Myanamar, Stalin begin an offensive from the north and makes a few promises to Afghanistan.
Heydrich begin the establishement of the european strategic bombing force.
In early 1945, a non-isolationist US president takes power, begin to push his country toward war but it won´t avoid an already morally bankrupt UK from facing even more defeats. The axis countries agrees to a join nuclear reseach and intercontinental bomber/rocket program after Stalin´s spies notice the US have started its own nuclear project. The axis state of Wallonia, lead by Leon Degrelle, claimes the Congo and is backed by the Reich and the Soviet-Union.
 
I agree.

Simply put, no way. Not only did Germany have no chance of winning WW2, but a German-Soviet alliance STILL had no chance of winning WW2. The ONLY way for that outcome to to completely erase American involvement in the war. I don't see how that's even remotely likely.

Agreed. USA = unbeatble in WWII.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Stalin wasn´t too enthusiastic about a communist China, in 1946 even threatened to take military action against the Chinese communists if they started war.

Understood and true. OTOH, this stance could be easily different ITTL for a variety of reasons (e.g. he feels stronger without Barbarossa damage or the threat of American nukes, he gets a stronger grip on the CCP).

An alliance with Japan to parition China would allow better control of a Chinese communist state and perhapse even a nationalist remnant.

Theoretically, yes. Not sure how such a partition could be accomplished in practice, since all the schemes I can think of would leave the juicy bits in Japanese hands (Xinjiang is already a Soviet puppet).

Keeping Japan from involving the US into the war would also be a powerfull motivator. Hovewer, he would have little hesitation in starting a war with japan to avoid US involvement, should diplomacy fail.

True, but this also works as motivation to start the war with Japan in the first place.

Another point would be domination of eastern India and submarine campaign in the Indian ocean(it would be hard for the SU to establish a "neutral zone" there). Not necessarly by a land invasion but join naval invasion from the gulf covered by fighters and bombers in south-east Iran. Your scenario make it possible for axis fleets to combine for just such an invasion.

This is the first really good reason for this Axis to pursue an alliance with Japan that I heard of, since a credible threat to India may knock Britain out of the conflict, much more so than losing Singapore.

One possible problem in your TL is Goering having the authority and the insight to carry out the defeat of France.

For what I know, awareness that the original Halder plan was a lukewarm rehash of Schliffen with poor chances of success was not Hitler's alone. Such awareness was shared among the most insightful parts of the German High Command. Moreover, the alliance with the Soviet Union would push Germany to delay the Western offensive, as they reassess the strategic situation. The more Germany waits, the more the unsatisfactory nature of the Halder Plan shall be evident and drive the search for an alternative. A large number of butterflies may bring Manstein's plan to the attention of Goering and the High Command and cause its adoption.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
Agreed. USA = unbeatble in WWII.

Note to self: add a secondary PoD which makes Einstein suffer a lethal accident in early 1939. The letter to Roosevelt is never sent, and without Einstein's enormous prestige, atomic scientists experience much greater difficulties getting the ear of the Administration, delaying the Manhattan Project by 3-4 years.

Einstein spent the last two decades of his life increasingly isolated from mainstream physics in a wild goose chase trying to disprove quantum physics and to develop a unified field theory that was impossible to achieve with period knowledge. Last known notable contribution is the EPR paradox of 1935, so the butterflies on scientific development ought to be neglegible.
 
Now you're on the right track. Get rid of the American atomic bomb, and a Germany+anyone (or even +everyone) alliance has a chance.
 
Oh, I see what you are coming from. But since I've long since come to the conclusion (with the help of your arguments, no less ;)) that the Baku-Winter War is the most plausible PoD (apart from throwing Hitler under a bus, of course) to achive a German-Soviet alliance, I assume that alliance negotiations take place in early 1940.

The Winter War result is a co-belligerancy which leaves a whole run of issues unresolved between Russia and Germany (firstly, the Baltics; also Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania...) besides making Stalin even more paranoid, if such a thing were possible, and calling into question whether making the capitalists fight amongst themselves is working. This, of course, is why Stalin wanted no such war and hence backed down in Finland. If it was forced on him, there's no reason to assume he'd prosecute it with much enthusiasm. His army was an even bigger mess (though a smaller force), his buffer incomplete, and he had the concern of British-guaranteed Romania down near Odessa, rather than a German-controlled Romania on the right side of the Dniestr. "Stalin a German ally" (a possible result of putting Hitler under the proverbial bus) and "Stalin a German co-belligerant" are both possible, but they're different.

By the way, let us give poor Stalin his due: the Baltic states and Bessarabia were in Soviet sphere of influence according ot M-R maps.

But Kybartai was not, and Stalin was eventually obliged to shell out some cash to compensate for grabbing it; and nothing clear had been said about Bukovina. When the Soviets entered the region, Ribbentrop objected that the whole point of the pact was to restore the old empires of the differant countries, and Bukovina had been Austrian, hence German. Molotov said "Schmeh".

But ITTL Germany doesn't mean to do Barbarossa, so it steers away from Finland and gives a greenlight about the Straits. So what is the problem ?

I think that a Germany with no intention of invading Russia could have got Russia into the Axis in 1940 (I don't think it would have lasted), but before Stalin had his buffer, he wouldn't be brought in by German diplomacy. Bringing him in by Entente attack, as I said, is a quite separate issue; and the thread does say "alliance". :p

But the alliance with the USSR makes the Mediterranean strategy more obvious.

Why? The USSR can't or won't help anybody to invade Britain/break her morale/starve her into submission/whatever, nor to seize Malta and Egypt. Even assuming Russia was a proper ally, the Red Army of mid-'40 has little military relevance. This was the force that had to its credit the Winter War and the "liberation march", in which largely immobile Polish home-guard held the Soviets up for far too long thanks to organisation and doctrinal chaos. It's also far away.

So the choice of whether or not to launch air attack on Britain is effectively unchanged. Now, it was always a bad choice, but they made it, thanks to the drastically different understanding of the circumstances people had a time. They didn't have the luxury of wargaming anything; they knew that Britain was in a bad way and the Germans had beaten all comers. They Germans also, ahem, knew that the RAF was considerably smaller than it was and that we would probably make peace after a good stiff bombing.

He gets to reciprocate. And he did it, to limited degrees, during WWII. After all, it's just inspection rights of the border areas.

Anything sufficient to limit his actual capacity to scheme and betray is too much. A surprise military attack on the capitalist powers was always suicide; a surprise military attack on Germany was considered seriously. (I will have none of "Suvorov's" nonsense, but Zhukov made plans, though they were never approved and probably intended as signals rather than real strategies; and I have to wonder exactly what Stalin intended to do with that giant war machine and inter-imperialist war by 1942). If a treaty would remove Stalin's ability to do what he wants, why should he sign it? After all, he has no reason to believe Germany can attack him. His delusions about two-front warfare have no reason to have changed.

The limited, indirect benefits that OTL Germany got from destruction of the British presence in the Far East may ITTL be effectively replaced by Soviet destruction of the British presence in the Middle East, and its making a strategic threat on India. Only the latter carries no significant risk of American intervention.

By the "middle East" we mean Persia, and by "strategic threat" we mean they can hold one not huge force in place on the NWF. Feel free to elaborate on Britain's situation in your early-entry hypothetical, but assuming a late-1940 mega-axis, the situation is that we're eventually chased out of Iran and maybe into Iraq (do remember that the Soviets were not world beaters at this point), losing us some oil; and we have to keep an observation force on the NWF, losing us some Indian troops.

The oil can come from America and the DEI. The troops are a problem but even if their loss somehow, and I don't consider it likely, is enough to get us out of Malta and Egypt and hence the whole ME and Med... what then? The convoys can just round the Cape, same as they already did.

Britain is not compelled to surrender, the Russians are still there. From Germany's perspective, a Japanese attack on the southern resource area denies Britain the DEI and its oil along with other natural resources and puts a real threat on India, and all without German exertion.

So does Stalin, short of invading Manchuria. But neither of them is bound to follow Hitler's course and rush to the side of Japan if it does the OTL gambit.

No; but Russia has rather a lot to gain, or so Stalin might think, by hostility to Japan, whereas Germany seems to have little to lose by support. And neither are they bound to have the same response. In any case, the Far East is something of a secondary question.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying that given the same basic PoD, TLs do not exist where Japan joins the Quadripartite Axis. They do. It's just that once Germany and Russia make a compact, with Italy as a sidekick, the additional strategic benefits of taking Japan onboard IMO pale in comparison to the drawbacks: much increased risk of war with America, frustration of Soviet expansion in the far East. Japan is only really useful to this Axis in the case that losing Singapore and fearing a two-front invasion of India is what it takes to bring Britain to the peace table, while they remained defiant when they lost Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Sure, it may happen, but how often ?

I actually agree that it's not really a sound assumption that this one more loss must necessarily force Britain (or whatever enemy it is, at any time) to give in, but it's one everybody has to make in wartime. The reality is that a nation in total war will, with rare exceptions, not keep trying to win no matter how implausible this is; and by a related principle, a victorious power unable to make the opponent give in by any previous means has got to keep trying.

Russian ambitions in the Far East were never burning. The Red Army beat Japan handily and then just left them alone until 1945 - obviously Stalin wanted his cards on the European table, and that hasn't really changed. After all, for paranoiacs, threats trump, feed, and justify ambitions and not the reverse, and so Stalin's fear of invasion from the west focuses his intentions on Europe.

I'm not saying an Anglo-Japanese alliance is impossible, either, so that one's an agree-to-disagree.

A Russia that is expanding in China is a satisfied partner that is reaping a big juicy prize and has no reason to make further claims in Europe. That is very, very much in Germany's best interest, and costs it nothing but sending some support if Stalin wants it.

Yes, it's better for Germany than for Russia; I only questioned whether it's better for Germany than an all-out, undistracted Japanese attack on Britain would be. But I do still question whether it's a good idea for the Russians. As has been pointed out, Stalin didn't want to sing "The East is Red", he wanted to keep his options open; and the Soviet-supported GMD hadn't collapsed just yet.

Balanced limitation of forces on that frontier, enforced by border inspection rights. This is pre-nuclear age, it takes months for Germany or Russia to assemble a worthy invasion force, and it is very noticeable.

That expects Germany and Russia to trust one another approximately half as far as they could throw one another, and I for one don't. Such terms weren't part of the OTL discussions to bring the USSR to the Axis, not in my knowledge.

But say they're in effect. Remember when the supplies due to Germany under the pact "went missing" just after the fall of France? Once Stalin is free from real military commitment against Britain, why not just violate the alliance seem as he several times diced with the pact. What can the Germans do about it, short of invade?

By the way, ITTL Russia has Iran, on top of its own oil resources, Germany and Italy have Arabia, either side has Iraq. What the heck would Russia need pitiful Ploesti for ?? :confused:

It's a matter of Germany's supply, not Russia's. Germany having Arabia is both a stretch in real terms and a logistical head-ache - oil in Romania is a bird in your hand, oil in Arabia two in the bush. If Russia has Iran, then whoever's getting the oil from Iraq gets it at Russian suffrance.

So if the Soviets attack Romania from two sides and nab Ploesti, Germany has some oil issues.
 
It's a matter of Germany's supply, not Russia's. Germany having Arabia is both a stretch in real terms and a logistical head-ache - oil in Romania is a bird in your hand, oil in Arabia two in the bush. If Russia has Iran, then whoever's getting the oil from Iraq gets it at Russian suffrance.

So if the Soviets attack Romania from two sides and nab Ploesti, Germany has some oil issues.

Not to mention there was practically no oil production in Arabia in WWII, and fixing/expanding what there was after the British get done demolishing it will take years. It's not two in the bush, it's simply irrelevant.
 
Note to self: add a secondary PoD which makes Einstein suffer a lethal accident in early 1939. The letter to Roosevelt is never sent, and without Einstein's enormous prestige, atomic scientists experience much greater difficulties getting the ear of the Administration, delaying the Manhattan Project by 3-4 years.

Einstein spent the last two decades of his life increasingly isolated from mainstream physics in a wild goose chase trying to disprove quantum physics and to develop a unified field theory that was impossible to achieve with period knowledge. Last known notable contribution is the EPR paradox of 1935, so the butterflies on scientific development ought to be neglegible.

Alternatively to lethal accident, he might become convinced that an atomic bomb is impossible and that even if it wasn´t, a nazi project would make the mistake of using quantum physics and thus fail.
In April 39, he writes a letter to Roosevelt asking him not to waste valuable efforts on such a crackpot idea.
 
Re: Einstein and the atomic bomb, I think that there's some doubt if his letter was as decisive as commonly believed. By 1940 or so, there was a pretty widespread belief throughout the physics community that a fission-based weapon was at least a distinct possibility, so the Roosevelt administration would probably be hearing about it from a variety of sources, including his own science advisors. The lack of Einstein's prestige might delay things for a little while, but I don't think that it would delay things too much.
 
Hitler faked an alliance with Stalin under the guise that they were both socialists in a way.
Japan's eyes where on China, Indo China, Australia, the Pacific trade routes and big swaths of the Eastern part of the Soviet Union.
Hitler in reality saw (or at least claimed in propaganda) the USSR as a Jewish dominated country. Stalin had created a plan to send most Jews to the Birobijan area. If Hitler wasn't a tad more devious then Stalin and had adopted the Birobijan plan, he could have had the USSR as an ally rather then Japan.
Japan might have allied itself with Great Britain, especially if the US continued to stay out of the war.
GB would be able to send troops from India and Australia to attack the USSR, and troop from home and Canada to attack Germany.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Japan might have allied itself with Great Britain, especially if the US continued to stay out of the war.

Of course, myself fancy to argue this is a natural strategic consequence of a German-Soviet alliance. :cool:

GB would be able to send troops from India and Australia to attack the USSR, and troop from home and Canada to attack Germany.

For the pitiful little that it would avail. ITTL, Churchill and Tojo can fight a stopgap rearguard struggle and capitalize on their naval superiority to protect their home isles from invasion, but anywhere in mainland Eurasia it is going to be the mother of all screwings for them, and it only gets worse with time. They have to beg on their knees that FDR may persuade America that a Nazi-Communist Eurasia is scary enough to sacrifice millions of American boys in the uphill struggle to undo it, or if Hitler is alive, that he tires out of postponing lebensraum indefinitely, quick enough. Otherwise, Indians may eventually tire out of wasting bucketfuls of blood to shore uo the doomed empire of their colonial overlords, and the British shall eventually but surely tire out of getting bombed, blockaded, bled out white in an utterly hopeless war.
 
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In regard to the overall scenario, I would tend to agree with Eurofed, the Red, and others that Britain would be in deep trouble against a German-Soviet alliance. In fact, I've read at least one book by a British historian arguing that Hitler could have driven the British out of all of North Africa and most of the Middle East, with the support of Italian, Vichy French, and regional anti-British forces in Iraq and Iran, if he hadn't been so obsessed with invading the Soviet Union. That's with the Soviet Union as a relatively benevolent neutral - with the Soviets as actual allies, things would be a lot worse for the British, even if the Soviet military had a lot of weaknesses and was not yet the juggernaut that it would become by late WWII in OTL. My guess is that the British would end up holding their colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps the southern Arabian peninsula, and at least southern India. If Japan joins the Axis, they would lose southeast Asia and maybe southern India as well. Obviously, the USA would have to enter the war on the side of Britain for the Allies to have any chance of victory, and even then it's problematic. Japan would be a major plus as well, but the USA is the key. The USA plus Britain and Commonwealth plus possibly Japan would have a bigger industrial base, would probably dominate the seas in spite of a German Uboat threat, and would almost certainly be ahead in the nuclear race, but the super-Axis would have more land and population, much more powerful land forces, and would be ahead in some key military technologies like armor and later rocketry.

If India is invaded, I wonder what the position of the Indian National Congress and other anti-colonial groups would be. Would the British seek to rally Indian support for the war by promising independence as soon as the Axis invasion(s) are defeated - or even granting immediate independence? Would they do the same in other colonies? They might be in a considerably stronger position if they could get India and other colonies in the war as totally willing allies rather than reluctant colonies. It sounds like a really long shot, but if the British are desperate, you never know. Even in OTL they were willing to grant Indian independence two years after WWII ended in victory. If a Labour-led coalition came to power ...

I think that the USA would get involved by early 1942 at the latest, even without a Pearl-Harbor type event. With a super-Axis that combines Nazis, Fascists, and Communists, both sides of the political spectrum in the USA will see the super-Axis as a natural enemy. The declaration of war won't be the almost-unanimous one that it was in OTL, but it will come and have the support of the large majority of the population.

This war could end up being even bloodier than WWII, because the two sides would be pretty evenly matched with the USA-UK-Commonwealth-probably Japan vs. Germany-USSR-Italy, and some minor powers on both sides.
 
I think that the USA would get involved by early 1942 at the latest, even without a Pearl-Harbor type event.

Im not convinced. A Nazi Germany that is smart enough NOT to attack the USSR but turns it into an ally instead will go well out of its way to prevent the USA from joining. Or at least they will try like hell not to give the USA an excuse to get involved.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Im not convinced. A Nazi Germany that is smart enough NOT to attack the USSR but turns it into an ally instead will go well out of its way to prevent the USA from joining. Or at least they will try like hell not to give the USA an excuse to get involved.

This is quite true, and the USSR would do likewise, Which it means that America would have no casus belli, it has to make a conscious decision to pick a fight with the Nazi-Soviet colossus just for the sake of undoing its domination of Eurasia. Such an hegemony spanning from Portugal to China is a credible potential threat to American interests, but the USA have the alternative route of grooming the New World, Britain, Japan, the Commonwealth, and with some luck, India as a worthy rival bloc without joining a conflict that promises to be very bloody, very expensive, and doomed to a stalemate without nuclear supremacy. Convince Britain and Japan to make peace and set down to integrate "Oceania". Of course, in such a world, preventing fascist-communist infiltration of Latin America becomes a survival task, but otherwise, America could choose to intervene or to set up "Fortress Oceania".

It is true that supports from both wings of the political spectrum makes a substantial dent into isolationism, but it could go both ways. America could very easily take so much to make up its mind about intervention that Britain collapses. It is an utterly hopeless task for the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and Imperial Japan may have its usual cultural kinks about accepting defeat, but Britain is a democracy in a desperate situation which grows worse every day. Without America, the Anglo-Japanese won't have any air or ASW parity, L-L or no L-L, and eventually continental Europe plus Russia shall outbuild them even in the surface naval field, even it shall take years. A Sealion shall eventually become feasible, even if submarine blockade may get them first.
 

Eurofed

Banned
If India is invaded, I wonder what the position of the Indian National Congress and other anti-colonial groups would be. Would the British seek to rally Indian support for the war by promising independence as soon as the Axis invasion(s) are defeated - or even granting immediate independence? Would they do the same in other colonies? They might be in a considerably stronger position if they could get India and other colonies in the war as totally willing allies rather than reluctant colonies. It sounds like a really long shot, but if the British are desperate, you never know. Even in OTL they were willing to grant Indian independence two years after WWII ended in victory. If a Labour-led coalition came to power ...

Always remind that there is an obvious alternative route to Indian independence. The pro-Axis Azad Hind movement and its Indian National Army. Its leader Chandra Bose was eager to accept help by any perspective enemy of Britain, be it Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Japan, or any combination thereof. IOTL all Axis powers gave some support to pro-Axis Indian nationalists. With such a powerful Axis at the borders of India, many Indians could tire out of spilling their blood to defend the doomed British Empire, and instead listening to the Azad Hind that preaches of kicking out the British with Axis support and setting up an independent India as an Axis ally. It could go both ways. The grip of pro-Western moderates like the INC on the Indian nationalist movement was not unshakable.
 
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