DBWI the Nazis don't attack Ireland

In the wake of the Dunkirk evacuation, and the successful invasion of Norway Germany felt like it was invincible, one idea that got floated was an invasion of ireland. The idea was that all it would take was one quick push towards dublin and the neutral government of Ireland would fall, and be easily replaced by a facist government that would help them bring and end to the decadent british empire and make operation sea lion a success.

The force that was sent out was small, fast, and landed on Irish shores while the british were more concerned about an attack on great britian and then they marched to dublin. The Irish milatary used obsolete equipment, they were not veteran troops, and their training was haphazard at best, but they held firm and dispite some very ugly defeats and massacers.

(See the rape of cork)

The Irish defeated the nazi's and then declared war on germany.

But what if the Nazi's didn't get victory disease? What if they didn't attack neutral Ireland how would this have changed the war?
 

Pangur

Donor
Two things come to mind, the nazi invasion helped bring the US in to the war early and certainly shut old Joe Kennedy up. The other matter is that the RN and US got full access to ports and set up air bases in the south which closing the atlantic to u-boats a lot easier. No invasion would make the former happen later (if at all) and the latter would not have happened IMHO
 
Of all the terrible decisions the Nazis made, the invasion of Ireland is one that stands out because ideology provides no clues for the why of it. There are rumours that the British knew of the invasion and chose not to warn the Irish, the fact that the RN and RAF did absolutely nothing to stop the first wave being cited as proof.

It was about a year before Ireland posted troops overseas, but it out paid to the invasion scare in Britain.

Biggest immediate difference is that Joseph Kennedy would still have advised against helping the allies for the rest of his ambassadorship. His influence was instrumental in providing the material necessary to get Ireland on a war footing, not to mention providing equipment to modernise the Irish military.
 
The Irish milatary used obsolete equipment, they were not veteran troops, and their training was haphazard at best,

OOC: The Defence Forces had a large number of veterans, with many having fought in either the Irish War of Independence for the Irish Civil War.
 
OOC: The Defence Forces had a large number of veterans, with many having fought in either the Irish War of Independence for the Irish Civil War.

OOC: And ww1

IC: It is interesting that O'Duffy knew in advance and had moved his 'blueshirts' to capture key locations and assassinate key political and military leaders such as the then Taoiseach De Valera and it's here where I scoff at the idea that the British gave no warning because nearly all but a handful of the Blueshirt attacks were defeated or beaten off with heavy losses including O'Duffy who was killed in an attack less than an hour later in what can only be described as a well planned attack by Irish troops supported by a troop of armoured cars - this force was led by several Socialist and at least 1 IRA commander who had all fought in Spain and held a particular hatred of the Fascists - and no one at the HQ survived the attack.

Only 2 of the Fascist attacks were successful and both were late additions planned literally days before the German invasion. Which points towards a deep 'penetration' of the Fascist Blueshirts by various intelligence very likely to have been British in origin. And it is obvious from events that the Irish Government was given fairly detailed intel regarding all but those 2 raids (Athlone and Kilkenny - which produced the majority of Republican losses on the first day)
 
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The biggest problem with the invasion of Ireland was the logistics of it, since the German plan was both amazingly innovative and completely insane, and no better demonstration of that was how they thought resistance would be minor enough that they could use submarines to carry the invasion forces, with the infantry packed in like sardines and the vehicles stuffed on those resupply ones.

I don't need to remind people how that went when the Royal Navy found out how things were getting to Ireland in the later part of the invasion and started dropping depth charges...but having German submarine efforts devoted to commerce raiding rather than being used as underwater troop transports that often got everyone onboard killed would be an interesting question. Could they have actually starved Britain out if they didn't waste steel and crew on a failed invasion?

OOC: The idea of Germany invading Ireland when even Sealion would have been insane is...well, insane, but what the hell, let's roll with it and say that they got there using submarines or something :p
 
OOC: the 1980 novel Emerald Decision, by Craig Thomas (written under the name of David Grant) dealt with this subject.
 
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The biggest problem with the invasion of Ireland was the logistics of it, since the German plan was both amazingly innovative and completely insane, and no better demonstration of that was how they thought resistance would be minor enough that they could use submarines to carry the invasion forces, with the infantry packed in like sardines and the vehicles stuffed on those resupply ones.

I don't need to remind people how that went when the Royal Navy found out how things were getting to Ireland in the later part of the invasion and started dropping depth charges...but having German submarine efforts devoted to commerce raiding rather than being used as underwater troop transports that often got everyone onboard killed would be an interesting question. Could they have actually starved Britain out if they didn't waste steel and crew on a failed invasion?

OOC: The idea of Germany invading Ireland when even Sealion would have been insane is...well, insane, but what the hell, let's roll with it and say that they got there using submarines or something :p

People forget that the invasion force was tiny, around 6,000 people if that, they only did as well as they did because Ireland wasn't on a war footing, as it was they marched in expecting an easy victory, then threw a fit and comitted attrocities in Cork when the Irish resisted....badly.

(See the cork Massacer)

Once the Irish got their act together, that invasion force was doomed, all it did in the end was enrage the Irish, make germany even more unpopular and create yet another enemy. That said how do you think the post war situation would shake out with out Irish involvement in world war 2?
 
That said how do you think the post war situation would shake out with out Irish involvement in world war 2?
Well, you probably wouldn't have seen Ireland and Britain set their differences aside and create the European Steel and Coal organization, and might've had a messier post war period between the two islands - from what I know, there was a lot of trouble brewing over the status of Ulster, but the moment British and Irish troops started fighting together it all melted away. Nowadays we might not all be best friends and they certainly won't be joining the Union again, but there's definitely a lot of mutual respect there that wasn't there before, and who knows how the islands might get along without the shared experience of being back-to-back and staring down an occupied continent?

And it goes without saying that the sight of Protestants and Catholics fighting side by side to repel the German invasion helped a lot in resolving that issue as well, especially when you have photographs of German engineers placing satchel charges to demolish whole neighborhoods for better defensive terrain whilst waiting for reinforcements that were getting blown out of the water by Royal Navy depth charges. The Irish were a real helping hand in helping to establish the French Resistance as well, as you had all those former IRA people who went and joined the army and helped the French establish their guerilla war, so I doubt we would have seen that attempt on Hitler with the bomb in the hotel either, though that might been a blessing in disguise, as the reprisal for the attempt was nothing other than a massacre.

OOC: The ESC of this timeline is pretty much the same as it is in our timeline and would be the birthplace of their own European Union, with the only real difference being that it got off the ground as a three way deal between Ireland, Britain and France to share resources for reconstruction in the post war and to help get one another on track, created between the three as a result of shared experiences in the war. Consider it a little butterfly :p
 
I believe there is a theory that Churchill ordered the RN to allow the Germans to land. Partly it was because he was afraid that excessive British involvement would cause Irish nationalists to sympathise with the Nazis, who were trying to portray themselves as friends of Irish liberation come to overthrow the treasonous pro-Treaty government, and that it was best for the Irish to defeat them on their own terms. There was also the need to give the Germans a solid defeat on land. If true then it was a very successful propaganda coup even if it was a dick move. Of course a lot of the document that are required for us to know the truth of the matter are still classified, or in some cases have "gone missing", so we may never know the truth of the matter.
 
OOC: its too late in the thread now, but the only way I can see making this work is that the British actually throw in the towel at Dunkirk, and because victory disease the Nazis decide to invade Ireland. Even then you have the problem that the Irish government at the time was somewhat pro-Axis.
 
OOC: One Axis member did invade neutral countries pretty much for the hell of it. That was Italy. An Italian invasion of Ireland would be a more fun thread and actually more plausible. German and Japanese grand strategy was pretty insane, and they did attack lots of places, but there was always some logic in terms of grabbing resources and/ or key transportation networks.
 
OOC: One Axis member did invade neutral countries pretty much for the hell of it. That was Italy. An Italian invasion of Ireland would be a more fun thread and actually more plausible. German and Japanese grand strategy was pretty insane, and they did attack lots of places, but there was always some logic in terms of grabbing resources and/ or key transportation networks.

OOC: Given the shared strong Catholicism of Italy and Ireland perhaps the Italians get the idea that sending a force to "liberate" Ireland (with coerced blessing of the Pope) will cause mass Catholic uprisings to join the invasion force and jointly take over the country, in much the same way the Spanish Armada factored in a supposed Catholic uprising by English Catholics against Elizabeth. And once this fails to materialise they wind up trapped in the middle of Ireland by a sea of armed and enraged Irish resistance
 
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