Double-Edged Sword: The Nazi-Soviet Alliance in World War II
- Thread starter Baldrick
- Start date
Your probably right and it may have been a TV documentary where I heard about the idea of a German-Soviet-Japanese alliance.
Would make a good TL I think.
Probably UK should be very close of collapse before Mussolini decides take British Mediterranean and North African colonies. In OTL he didn't step to WW2 before France was definitely close of collapsing.
Probably should have invaded Balochistan first. Slightly easier to take and much more important to Soviet interests as a direct access to the Indian Ocean. Rawalpindi is harder to take and less important for soviet interests.
thaddeus
Donor
my speculation is always that the original M-R Pact was flawed in that it dealt away the German trading bloc of Poland-Finland-the Baltics, which had largely replaced Soviet trade during the 1930's. Germany and USSR were in agreement to divide Poland, but the others might have been left out?
The Winter War and Conquest of Denmark and Norway
Baldrick
Banned
Edit: Chapter retconned to include the damage done by Finnish naval guns
At the same time as the Soviets had fought their way, inch by inch, into Pakistan, their relations with Finland had substantially worsened. For a start, many within the Soviet Union regarded Finland- like Poland- as a country with a dubious claim to independence. Finland had been an autonomous province of the Russian Empire before seizing the moment created by the dual revolutions of 1917 to break away and gain independence with German assistance. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Finland’s domestic politics had become progressively more and more anti-Soviet. Furthermore, both Lenin and Stalin had looked with alarm at the nation situated a mere twenty kilometres from Leningrad. On its own, Finland was a relatively placid state and posed little threat to the Soviet Union. However, there were fears in Soviet circles that it might fall under German influence or have German troops stationed on it… fears which the German-Soviet possession of a common enemy could not erase. Why thought Stalin, imagine if a hypothetical German attempt to secure the iron ore of Sweden just so happened to put Army and Luftwaffe units in Finland, which just so happened to put them in range of Leningrad…
Initially, with the goal of not embroiling his country in a war on two fronts, Stalin proposed an exchange of territory. He would be willing to cede some territory in the Lake Onega region to Finland if Helsinki would cede the city of Petasmo and a border strip near Leningrad. (1) The offer was rejected by the Finnish government, which began to prepare for self-defence. On 30 November, 1939, five Russian armies crossed the Finnish border. As on the Pakistani front, the Soviets boasted a considerable numerical advantage- some 450,000 men in comparison to the Finnish 150,000. (2)
Finland was by no means blind to the fact that they were David facing off against Goliath and had over the preceding years constructed a substantial line of fortifications on the Soviet border known as the Mannerheim Line (named in honour of Finnish independence hero Carl Gustav Mannerheim). Into this position, they packed 130,000 of their men, who faced off against a Red Army force almost twice their size. However, much like the defenders of Pakistan, the Finns were quickly able to outfox their nominally stronger foe. White camouflage uniforms and a sniper rifle enabled the defenders to pick off Russians one by one without being seen, and a Molotov cocktail could do a heck of a lot of damage in a densely forested area. Nonetheless, much like the quixotic, hopelessly outnumbered Anglo-Pashtun troops on the Northwest Frontier, the Finns were eventually forced to bow to the weight of numbers, and by 6 December, the Red Army had reached the Mannerheim Line. For the Finns, this was, in fact, something of a blessing in disguise, as once they had their backs to the wall their power only increased. Nimble, agile Finnish forces, availing themselves of ski troops and light artillery, gave Red Army general Semyon Timoshenko many headaches. No one knew how long the Finns could hold out, but they were certainly embarrassing the mighty USSR.
In Berlin, the reaction to the invasion of Finland was not pleasure or even apathy, but fear and anger at Moscow. Hitler and his top commanders recognised what Stalin had not- that by invading Finland, the USSR had brought a new nation into the Western Allied camp right in Germany’s backyard. The idea of Britain or France forming an expeditionary force to fight in Finland and turning that nation into a base for a “Baltic front” was enough to keep Hitler and Admiral Raeder up at night. Given that there was no possibility of a negotiated peace, this meant that Germany had to intervene to resolve the situation quickly. On 3 December, German Ambassador to the Soviet Union Schulenburg had a rather terse conversation with Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet Minister of Defence, to this effect. Voroshilov dutifully reported this to Stalin, who had a long phone call with Hitler later in the day. Stalin stated that while he would welcome naval actions and strategic bombing against the Finns, he didn’t want the Germans placing boots on the ground, for the simple reason that he didn’t trust Hitler to remove them when the fighting was over, and then Finland would become just one more spot where German troops were located rather too close for comfort to the USSR. Additionally, one secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had designated Finland, alongside the Baltic States, to be within the Soviet sphere of influence, and thus in Stalin’s eyes, Germany had no business meddling around there. Nonetheless, Hitler insisted. In a series of terse telephone calls throughout the first week of December, he informed Stalin that “failure to permit Germany to exercise her natural right of influence as regards Finland” would be “viewed most unpleasantly” in Berlin. Eventually, Stalin relented and gave his blessing for a German declaration of war on Finland, although the incident certainly left a bad taste in his mouth and further decreased his trust of Hitler.
Thus, at eleven PM on 5 December, 1939, the German heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper, Lutzow, and Blucher accompanied by the light cruisers Koln, Konigsberg, and Emden arrived at Helsinki harbour and began to viciously bombard the unprepared city. The small Finnish naval contingent in the harbour was outgunned and was soon en route to the bottom. However, the numerous Finnish coastal-defence guns in Helsinki harbour fought back, and the Koln was sent to the bottom, with the Emden substantially damaged. Furthermore, the Finns had mined the harbour to prevent just such a raid from occuring, and the Blucher and Admiral Hipper both struck multiple mines. While the Blucher survived (but would need months in drydock afterwards), the Admiral Hipper was not so fortunate, and after numerous attempts to save her had failed, she was lost at approximately 12:15 AM on 6 December. One hundred and seventy Finnish civilians were killed in the attack, which lasted some two hours. At the same time, German submarines were on the prowl in the northern Baltic, searching for Finnish merchantmen. However, owing to fears that they might accidentally sink ships carrying Swedish iron ore to Germany- which was the Reich’s eau de vie- or Soviet ships, these submarines were under orders to be cautious and only fire on targets which they knew for a fact to be Finnish. Thus, many enterprising Finnish sea captains were able to protect themselves by flying Swedish colours.
Meanwhile, at a series of conferences held in Berlin, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German general staff, debated what to do next in Scandinavia. Virtually no-one had any desire to attempt an amphibious assault across well over five hundred kilometres of the quasi-frozen Baltic Sea, and there was no way that Stalin would permit the transfer of German troops through his territory. Hacking its way through the Baltic States to get to Finland didn’t seem like the greatest idea in the world to OKW, either. Plus, as Stalin had said himself, Finland lay in the Soviet sphere of influence and was none of Germany’s business. Thus, with Hitler’s blessing, it was decided to do no more than blockade Finland’s ports and give Moscow some verbal and diplomatic support.
However, Germany faced other threats in Scandinavia. As mentioned above, this region was essential for the Reich because it housed the Swedish iron ore works which powered the German economy. It was common knowledge that the Allies were assembling an expeditionary force in Scotland to send to the beleaguered Finns. Along with the other top brass in OKW, Hitler was able to put two and two together and deduced that if this expeditionary force was able to reach northern Finland, it would find the time and resources to occupy the iron ore facilities just a hop, skip, and a jump away, thus crippling the German economy. The Allies weren’t the only threat faced by the Germans, either, as if the Soviets were to steamroll across the Swedish border and find themselves in possession of the oilfields, that would be just as bad. Something drastic would have to be done and done fast, were this catastrophe to be avoided…
The solution reached by the Germans was to divert the centre of Allied attention elsewhere. It was decided to mount an immediate invasion of Norway to “safeguard her neutrality” on the rather specious grounds that the British and French were about to violate Norwegian sovereignty to send their armies into Finland. In reality, they would have to brush aside Oslo’s protests to reach Finland, but that paled besides, er, wiping Norway off the map the way Hitler aimed to do. Only in the strange world of Nazi propaganda could something like this fly.
From a military perspective, the decision to invade Norway and Denmark was a rather ad hoc one which would have to be executed on a quick timetable. A new formation, the 21st Army Corps, was formed under General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, and it consisted of the 63rd, 163rd, 181st, 196th, and 214th Infantry Divisions, along with the Third Mountain Division. The code name for this was to be Operation Weserubung. Personally, many in Germany were unsure about the wisdom of attacking Norway, fearing that they could be drawn into a protracted Scandanavian quagmire. Additionally, there was the fear that the operation, having been planned so quickly, might contain some structural weakness which would doom the whole undertaking. Nonetheless, once an idea entered Adolf Hitler’s head, it never left, and he set the date of 1 January 1940, as the day for the invasion to commence.
In the small hours of 1 January, German aircraft thundered over Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, and Copenhagen. Out of these aircraft dropped not bombs but Fallschirmjager, German paratroopers. These troops had the objective of capturing the cities over which they were dropped by catching them off guard and overwhelming the garrisons. However, the Fallschirmjager, who had had relatively little time to practice their art on such a massive scale (3), achieved lacklustre results. Despite fighting with great bravery, the paratroopers were (except in Copenhagen) surrounded and eliminated by Norwegian troops over the course of the day. Elsewhere, however, the Germans achieved greater successes. At the cost of the cruiser Blucher, the Germans were able to take Oslo by amphibious assault on the first day of the war. The postwar consensus has been that the paratroopers had diverted enough Norwegian attention that the amphibious troops were able to take the Norwegian capital.
In Britain and France, the reaction to the German invasion was chaotic. With the British squaring off against Apanasenko in Pakistan and the Anglo-French still having to prepare for the defence of France herself (to say nothing of the expenditure of men to Finland to fight the USSR), it was clear that there were not enough Allied troops to send to Norway, despite that government’s pleas for help. (4) The Norwegian ambassador to London, Erik Colban, famously got into a blazing row with Lord Hore-Belisha when the latter interrupted his New Year’s Day luncheon to inform him that no British or French aid would be dispatched to his country for at least a month. Fatally, Colban then telephoned the Norwegian government, which had fled to the town of Elverum, with this information.
The news that Norway was isolated spread like wildfire, and soon found itself in the hands of Norwegian fascist leader Vidkun Quisling, a man whose name would become a synonym for treason for decades to come. At 7:30 PM Oslo time, with the Oslo radio station (centre for most broadcasting in southern Norway) under German control, and escorted by Wehrmacht men, Quisling broadcast to the country, declaring that the Allies were in no position to help and that he was forming a government to end the fighting. He specifically stated that the Allies would not be landing men in Norway, and exhorted his people “not to fight in a doomed war for the interests of London and Paris, but to collaborate and cooperate with our fellow Nordic countrymen to enable us to spend the war in peace.” Such a ludicrous argument failed to strain Quisling’s silver tongue, and his countrymen despised him for it. However, it was clear that he had something of a point. Norway was isolated and cut off, and peace- albeit peace on German terms- was possible. Quisling’s position was further strengthened two and a half hours later when he repeated his earlier message and called for the arrest of several prominent Norwegian politicians whom he claimed were “collaborating with Britain and France to sabotage our national interests”, ever so conveniently ignoring the fact that, well, Germany was militarily occupying the country even as he spoke. With this second broadcast, Hitler gave orders to issue recognition to Quisling’s puppet regime in Norway, and once his broadcast was finished, Quisling gave orders to several beleaguered Norwegian garrisons to surrender, orders given in his self-appointed capacity as Norweigan PM. Few obeyed him, seeing him (correctly) was a simple stooge of the Nazis who was opposed to liberty, freedom, and everything else which Norway stood for.
Despite Quisling’s rejection of Norwegian values, he had his German allies at his back, who blitzed and bombed their way northwards at an alarming rate. The Norwegian government set up shop in the far northern town of Narvik but failed to stem the tide of the Wehrmacht. By the end of February, the Norwegian situation was truly perilous, with the capital-in-exile falling on 28 February. (5) With that, Norway surrendered, with Quisling gaining control over the country as a puppet for the German occupation. The inability of the Western Allies to save three Scandanavian nations from the Axis was a major diplomatic embarrassment for London and Paris and prompted the fall of French PM Edouard Daladier, who was replaced with Paul Reynard. Furthermore, Germany’s supplies of Swedish iron ore were now secure from Allied attack and would remain so for the foreseeable future.
At the same time as the Germans had been pounding Norway into submission, the Finns had finally surrendered, with Timoshenko finally cracking the Mannerheim Line on 11 February. Thus, with the Red Army about to burst into their heartland, the Finnish government signed an armistice, ceding a substantial border strip around Leningrad (including the city of Vipuri), as well as the Petasmo region, which contained substantial nickel deposits. One reason for Stalin’s not wanting to wipe Finland off the map (as he could in all probability have done) was the fact that, with the Germans now stationed in Norway, having a buffer state in his sphere of influence might not be the worst thing in the world….
For Adolf Hitler, the whole Scandanavian conquest had proven several things. For a start, the Anglo-French inability to act had only confirmed him in his belief that neither country had the mettle to truly wage war, and that he would be able to extract whatever peace terms he wanted from them once they had been defeated. Furthermore, Stalin’s inability to achieve a quick victory in Finland, plus his slow progress in Pakistan, did little for Hitler’s opinion of his eastern “ally”. All of these factors were very much in the Fuhrer’s mind as he turned west, preparing to deliver a killing blow to France, and avenge the hated Versailles Treaty…
At the same time as the Soviets had fought their way, inch by inch, into Pakistan, their relations with Finland had substantially worsened. For a start, many within the Soviet Union regarded Finland- like Poland- as a country with a dubious claim to independence. Finland had been an autonomous province of the Russian Empire before seizing the moment created by the dual revolutions of 1917 to break away and gain independence with German assistance. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Finland’s domestic politics had become progressively more and more anti-Soviet. Furthermore, both Lenin and Stalin had looked with alarm at the nation situated a mere twenty kilometres from Leningrad. On its own, Finland was a relatively placid state and posed little threat to the Soviet Union. However, there were fears in Soviet circles that it might fall under German influence or have German troops stationed on it… fears which the German-Soviet possession of a common enemy could not erase. Why thought Stalin, imagine if a hypothetical German attempt to secure the iron ore of Sweden just so happened to put Army and Luftwaffe units in Finland, which just so happened to put them in range of Leningrad…
Initially, with the goal of not embroiling his country in a war on two fronts, Stalin proposed an exchange of territory. He would be willing to cede some territory in the Lake Onega region to Finland if Helsinki would cede the city of Petasmo and a border strip near Leningrad. (1) The offer was rejected by the Finnish government, which began to prepare for self-defence. On 30 November, 1939, five Russian armies crossed the Finnish border. As on the Pakistani front, the Soviets boasted a considerable numerical advantage- some 450,000 men in comparison to the Finnish 150,000. (2)
Finland was by no means blind to the fact that they were David facing off against Goliath and had over the preceding years constructed a substantial line of fortifications on the Soviet border known as the Mannerheim Line (named in honour of Finnish independence hero Carl Gustav Mannerheim). Into this position, they packed 130,000 of their men, who faced off against a Red Army force almost twice their size. However, much like the defenders of Pakistan, the Finns were quickly able to outfox their nominally stronger foe. White camouflage uniforms and a sniper rifle enabled the defenders to pick off Russians one by one without being seen, and a Molotov cocktail could do a heck of a lot of damage in a densely forested area. Nonetheless, much like the quixotic, hopelessly outnumbered Anglo-Pashtun troops on the Northwest Frontier, the Finns were eventually forced to bow to the weight of numbers, and by 6 December, the Red Army had reached the Mannerheim Line. For the Finns, this was, in fact, something of a blessing in disguise, as once they had their backs to the wall their power only increased. Nimble, agile Finnish forces, availing themselves of ski troops and light artillery, gave Red Army general Semyon Timoshenko many headaches. No one knew how long the Finns could hold out, but they were certainly embarrassing the mighty USSR.
In Berlin, the reaction to the invasion of Finland was not pleasure or even apathy, but fear and anger at Moscow. Hitler and his top commanders recognised what Stalin had not- that by invading Finland, the USSR had brought a new nation into the Western Allied camp right in Germany’s backyard. The idea of Britain or France forming an expeditionary force to fight in Finland and turning that nation into a base for a “Baltic front” was enough to keep Hitler and Admiral Raeder up at night. Given that there was no possibility of a negotiated peace, this meant that Germany had to intervene to resolve the situation quickly. On 3 December, German Ambassador to the Soviet Union Schulenburg had a rather terse conversation with Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet Minister of Defence, to this effect. Voroshilov dutifully reported this to Stalin, who had a long phone call with Hitler later in the day. Stalin stated that while he would welcome naval actions and strategic bombing against the Finns, he didn’t want the Germans placing boots on the ground, for the simple reason that he didn’t trust Hitler to remove them when the fighting was over, and then Finland would become just one more spot where German troops were located rather too close for comfort to the USSR. Additionally, one secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had designated Finland, alongside the Baltic States, to be within the Soviet sphere of influence, and thus in Stalin’s eyes, Germany had no business meddling around there. Nonetheless, Hitler insisted. In a series of terse telephone calls throughout the first week of December, he informed Stalin that “failure to permit Germany to exercise her natural right of influence as regards Finland” would be “viewed most unpleasantly” in Berlin. Eventually, Stalin relented and gave his blessing for a German declaration of war on Finland, although the incident certainly left a bad taste in his mouth and further decreased his trust of Hitler.
Thus, at eleven PM on 5 December, 1939, the German heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper, Lutzow, and Blucher accompanied by the light cruisers Koln, Konigsberg, and Emden arrived at Helsinki harbour and began to viciously bombard the unprepared city. The small Finnish naval contingent in the harbour was outgunned and was soon en route to the bottom. However, the numerous Finnish coastal-defence guns in Helsinki harbour fought back, and the Koln was sent to the bottom, with the Emden substantially damaged. Furthermore, the Finns had mined the harbour to prevent just such a raid from occuring, and the Blucher and Admiral Hipper both struck multiple mines. While the Blucher survived (but would need months in drydock afterwards), the Admiral Hipper was not so fortunate, and after numerous attempts to save her had failed, she was lost at approximately 12:15 AM on 6 December. One hundred and seventy Finnish civilians were killed in the attack, which lasted some two hours. At the same time, German submarines were on the prowl in the northern Baltic, searching for Finnish merchantmen. However, owing to fears that they might accidentally sink ships carrying Swedish iron ore to Germany- which was the Reich’s eau de vie- or Soviet ships, these submarines were under orders to be cautious and only fire on targets which they knew for a fact to be Finnish. Thus, many enterprising Finnish sea captains were able to protect themselves by flying Swedish colours.
Meanwhile, at a series of conferences held in Berlin, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German general staff, debated what to do next in Scandinavia. Virtually no-one had any desire to attempt an amphibious assault across well over five hundred kilometres of the quasi-frozen Baltic Sea, and there was no way that Stalin would permit the transfer of German troops through his territory. Hacking its way through the Baltic States to get to Finland didn’t seem like the greatest idea in the world to OKW, either. Plus, as Stalin had said himself, Finland lay in the Soviet sphere of influence and was none of Germany’s business. Thus, with Hitler’s blessing, it was decided to do no more than blockade Finland’s ports and give Moscow some verbal and diplomatic support.
However, Germany faced other threats in Scandinavia. As mentioned above, this region was essential for the Reich because it housed the Swedish iron ore works which powered the German economy. It was common knowledge that the Allies were assembling an expeditionary force in Scotland to send to the beleaguered Finns. Along with the other top brass in OKW, Hitler was able to put two and two together and deduced that if this expeditionary force was able to reach northern Finland, it would find the time and resources to occupy the iron ore facilities just a hop, skip, and a jump away, thus crippling the German economy. The Allies weren’t the only threat faced by the Germans, either, as if the Soviets were to steamroll across the Swedish border and find themselves in possession of the oilfields, that would be just as bad. Something drastic would have to be done and done fast, were this catastrophe to be avoided…
The solution reached by the Germans was to divert the centre of Allied attention elsewhere. It was decided to mount an immediate invasion of Norway to “safeguard her neutrality” on the rather specious grounds that the British and French were about to violate Norwegian sovereignty to send their armies into Finland. In reality, they would have to brush aside Oslo’s protests to reach Finland, but that paled besides, er, wiping Norway off the map the way Hitler aimed to do. Only in the strange world of Nazi propaganda could something like this fly.
From a military perspective, the decision to invade Norway and Denmark was a rather ad hoc one which would have to be executed on a quick timetable. A new formation, the 21st Army Corps, was formed under General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, and it consisted of the 63rd, 163rd, 181st, 196th, and 214th Infantry Divisions, along with the Third Mountain Division. The code name for this was to be Operation Weserubung. Personally, many in Germany were unsure about the wisdom of attacking Norway, fearing that they could be drawn into a protracted Scandanavian quagmire. Additionally, there was the fear that the operation, having been planned so quickly, might contain some structural weakness which would doom the whole undertaking. Nonetheless, once an idea entered Adolf Hitler’s head, it never left, and he set the date of 1 January 1940, as the day for the invasion to commence.
In the small hours of 1 January, German aircraft thundered over Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, and Copenhagen. Out of these aircraft dropped not bombs but Fallschirmjager, German paratroopers. These troops had the objective of capturing the cities over which they were dropped by catching them off guard and overwhelming the garrisons. However, the Fallschirmjager, who had had relatively little time to practice their art on such a massive scale (3), achieved lacklustre results. Despite fighting with great bravery, the paratroopers were (except in Copenhagen) surrounded and eliminated by Norwegian troops over the course of the day. Elsewhere, however, the Germans achieved greater successes. At the cost of the cruiser Blucher, the Germans were able to take Oslo by amphibious assault on the first day of the war. The postwar consensus has been that the paratroopers had diverted enough Norwegian attention that the amphibious troops were able to take the Norwegian capital.
In Britain and France, the reaction to the German invasion was chaotic. With the British squaring off against Apanasenko in Pakistan and the Anglo-French still having to prepare for the defence of France herself (to say nothing of the expenditure of men to Finland to fight the USSR), it was clear that there were not enough Allied troops to send to Norway, despite that government’s pleas for help. (4) The Norwegian ambassador to London, Erik Colban, famously got into a blazing row with Lord Hore-Belisha when the latter interrupted his New Year’s Day luncheon to inform him that no British or French aid would be dispatched to his country for at least a month. Fatally, Colban then telephoned the Norwegian government, which had fled to the town of Elverum, with this information.
The news that Norway was isolated spread like wildfire, and soon found itself in the hands of Norwegian fascist leader Vidkun Quisling, a man whose name would become a synonym for treason for decades to come. At 7:30 PM Oslo time, with the Oslo radio station (centre for most broadcasting in southern Norway) under German control, and escorted by Wehrmacht men, Quisling broadcast to the country, declaring that the Allies were in no position to help and that he was forming a government to end the fighting. He specifically stated that the Allies would not be landing men in Norway, and exhorted his people “not to fight in a doomed war for the interests of London and Paris, but to collaborate and cooperate with our fellow Nordic countrymen to enable us to spend the war in peace.” Such a ludicrous argument failed to strain Quisling’s silver tongue, and his countrymen despised him for it. However, it was clear that he had something of a point. Norway was isolated and cut off, and peace- albeit peace on German terms- was possible. Quisling’s position was further strengthened two and a half hours later when he repeated his earlier message and called for the arrest of several prominent Norwegian politicians whom he claimed were “collaborating with Britain and France to sabotage our national interests”, ever so conveniently ignoring the fact that, well, Germany was militarily occupying the country even as he spoke. With this second broadcast, Hitler gave orders to issue recognition to Quisling’s puppet regime in Norway, and once his broadcast was finished, Quisling gave orders to several beleaguered Norwegian garrisons to surrender, orders given in his self-appointed capacity as Norweigan PM. Few obeyed him, seeing him (correctly) was a simple stooge of the Nazis who was opposed to liberty, freedom, and everything else which Norway stood for.
Despite Quisling’s rejection of Norwegian values, he had his German allies at his back, who blitzed and bombed their way northwards at an alarming rate. The Norwegian government set up shop in the far northern town of Narvik but failed to stem the tide of the Wehrmacht. By the end of February, the Norwegian situation was truly perilous, with the capital-in-exile falling on 28 February. (5) With that, Norway surrendered, with Quisling gaining control over the country as a puppet for the German occupation. The inability of the Western Allies to save three Scandanavian nations from the Axis was a major diplomatic embarrassment for London and Paris and prompted the fall of French PM Edouard Daladier, who was replaced with Paul Reynard. Furthermore, Germany’s supplies of Swedish iron ore were now secure from Allied attack and would remain so for the foreseeable future.
At the same time as the Germans had been pounding Norway into submission, the Finns had finally surrendered, with Timoshenko finally cracking the Mannerheim Line on 11 February. Thus, with the Red Army about to burst into their heartland, the Finnish government signed an armistice, ceding a substantial border strip around Leningrad (including the city of Vipuri), as well as the Petasmo region, which contained substantial nickel deposits. One reason for Stalin’s not wanting to wipe Finland off the map (as he could in all probability have done) was the fact that, with the Germans now stationed in Norway, having a buffer state in his sphere of influence might not be the worst thing in the world….
For Adolf Hitler, the whole Scandanavian conquest had proven several things. For a start, the Anglo-French inability to act had only confirmed him in his belief that neither country had the mettle to truly wage war, and that he would be able to extract whatever peace terms he wanted from them once they had been defeated. Furthermore, Stalin’s inability to achieve a quick victory in Finland, plus his slow progress in Pakistan, did little for Hitler’s opinion of his eastern “ally”. All of these factors were very much in the Fuhrer’s mind as he turned west, preparing to deliver a killing blow to France, and avenge the hated Versailles Treaty…
- These negotiations are OTL, but here the Soviets have an extra incentive to maintain peace
- I’ve heard varying numbers as to Soviet troop strength in the Winter War, so I’m using a relatively low number on the assumption that the war in Pakistan has reduced the number of forces at the USSR’s disposal
- ITTL, with Weserubung occurring on much shorter notice, the Germans are less well versed in paratrooper tactics. Thus, the paratrooper landings in Scandinavia resemble a scaled-down version of the OTL attack on Crete.
- Given that OTL’s Anglo-French plans for sending help to Finland weren’t ready before the end of January (with no enemy action in Norway unlike TTL), here the Allies are too overwhelmed to do much in Scandinavia.
- Without any Allied land or naval intervention, Norway falls quicker. However, the Kriegsmarine's ITTL losses in the Finnish blockade somewhat mirror their OTL losses in Norway, so they're more or less in the same situation going into the summer as regards naval strength.
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I wonder if Stalin will attempt to retake the Alyaskan SSR. It could be used as a springboard to invade Canada.
No. Stalin wasn't idiot. Last thing what Stalin wants is USA entering to WW2 as enemy.
Finland might take its avenge if Allies begin win Axis.
So did all the Finnish coastal guns just disappear before the German fleet arrived or were they all just disabled by Soviet bombers? That being something that wasn't achieved by the Soviets OTL when they bombed Mäkiluoto fortress in the Karelian Isthmus during the Winter War. Finnish Navy might have been small, but the Finnish coastal artillery was nothing to laugh at. The defences around Helsinki were heavy, with calibers ranging from 75mm to 305mm.
If the Germans would've tried bombarding Helsinki, they would've lost ships, even if the Soviet Air Force would have joined in with their attacks on the Finnish fortifications.
A quick check later, it appears that Finland had:
- 20x 254mm guns around Helsinki, nearly the entire inventroy of that gun model.
- 4x 305mm, one twin turret in Kuivasaari and another twin turret further west in Porkkala.
These guns, plus some smaller caliber guns were protecting Helsinki in 1939.
A very good point. In the early WWII era, there were very few coastal areas in the world that were better protected by heavy and super-heavy coastal guns than the area just outside Helsinki. If the Finnish coastal artillery around Helsinki is manned and operational ITTL as much as IOTL, it looks like it would outgun the three Admiral Hipper Class ships mentioned in the post. The coastal fortifications would also be better protected than the German attackers. The more modern 8-inch guns on the heavy cruisers do at best outrange the 10-inch Durlachers (33,5 km vs 27,5 km), but to get in range to bombard Helsinki proper, the Germans would have to enter the range of the Finnish coastal guns anyway. The 12-inch Obukhovs of course have a better range than the German guns have, so they could hit the attackers with some shells even before the Germans can counter them.
The only realistic outcome here is the Germans getting a bloody nose, and retreating with at least some of the cruisers damaged, and possibly more than one of them heavily damaged or lost. Compatively speaking, the Finnish coastal artillery would shrug off the damage received, though Helsinki itself might suffer some damages if fire has been concentrated at the city itself.
And this is all assuming that the Finns have not managed to mine the coastal waters and fairways on the Gulf of Finland, as well. If the Finnish Navy has built any mine barrages, as per OTL, the Germans might lose an expensive heavy cruiser or two even to a simple and cheap contact mine here, never mind the big coastal guns of Kuivasaari, etc.
Simply put, a sea-borne attack directly against Helsinki is a stupid and potentially very costly idea. Better to wait for the Red Army to break through the Finnish defences in Karelia and eventually march to the capital when the Finnish Army collapses.
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I would also recommend changing the references to British Army. Whilst there were British troops in India. The majority of forces were part of the Indian Army. Similarly India was not legally a Colony, but rather an Empire with the Queen as Empress, the term Colonial Guard would empathetically not be used. Additionally the term Pakistan would not be widely used in 1940, but rather the provincal names Sind Punjab etcetera.
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he might if things start going badly for the germans. His best bet in the short term is do nothing....
BUT he has invaded India, despite being at the end of his supply chain. Britain can raise a huge Army in India if need be. Rather than incentivise peace talks with Russia there will be more likely a rapid series of talks with the INC to secure Indian committment to a full on campaign.
The Conquest of Sind Punjab
Baldrick
Banned
With the Winter War over, Stalin could commit himself more fully to the war in Sind Punjab. In March of 1940, he ordered substantial amounts of troops pulled from the north and transported southeastward. The entire Eighth Army was sent to the Sind Punjab front, swelling the size of the Soviet forces by over 100,000. However, transporting the army there was a logistical nightmare, and it placed great strain on the Soviet rail system- to say nothing of the primitive logistics in Afghanistan and occupied Sind Punjab. Additionally, Stalin took this time to reshuffle his command deck. General Apanasenko was sacked as commander of the Central Asian Front, although he was given command of the 27th Mechanised Corps. The new Eighth Army remained under the control of its Winter War-era commander, General Grigori Shtern. However, the new commander of the Central Asian Front was a little-known commander who had previously made a good name for himself in the armoured battles against the Japanese- Georgi Zhukov.
Zhukov saw that Apanasenko’s greatest error had been to attack on too broad a front. With British strength only increasing (1), it was clear that the Soviets needed to pick a target and commit to it, attacking on a narrow front to maximise their power. Zhukov selected the port city of Karachi as his target for the spring offensive, as it would finally fulfil the long Russian dream of a warm-water port. His plans for an offensive into Balochistan were given a boost when, in a typically byzantine move, several NKVD “advisers” supposedly en route to the front stopped over in Kabul and just so happened to “convince” Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah to formally declare war on the Allies. The Afghan army was small, consisting of only eleven divisions of dubious quality, but by joining the war, Afghanistan had extended the front to almost 2300 kilometres in length. Afghanistan’s military commanders flew to Rawalpindi on 9 March to meet Zhukov. It was agreed that owing to the immense logistical difficulties which would stem from moving large Red Army forces into western Afghanistan from their current positions, the Red Army would make its main thrust from its present position near Layyah. However, the Eighth Army, which at the time of the conference was spread out in rail yards all over Kazakhstan, would be sent to the Balochistan theatre, thus bringing the combined Axis strength in the theatre to almost 200,000.
The Afghan decision to join the Axis had forced the British into a real dilemma. On the one hand, it was plain that the threat to Sind Punjab had increased considerably, and they would soon be locked in combat with the Afghans. However, there was also the fact that the Red Army was still perilously close to entering India proper, and was only four hundred kilometres away from New Delhi. The Allies had approximately 120,000 men in total, meaning that they were outnumbered almost 2:1 by the Axis. Committing forces into piecemeal defences in southern Sind Punjab would accomplish nothing except to throw away Allied lives and give the natives the impression that the Allies didn’t care about them.
The solution which General Cassels came up with exploited the terrain of India as much as was possible. Heading southwest from Bahawalpur is an S-shaped strip of relatively fertile terrain sandwiched between the mountains of Sind Punjab and the arid lowlands of Rajasthan. This corridor would naturally be Zhukov’s main axis of advance, as it would be the easiest to manoeuvre forces and maintain supply links through. Thus, Cassels directed Indian infantry divisions 3-9 to man this gap, with special focus on holding a Multan-Bahawalpur line. Even if the Soviets broke through, the British strength on the flanks would present a danger.
After the requisite period of planning, Operation Krasnyi commenced on 30 March with terrific Soviet artillery and air bombardments of the British positions in Bilawal Pur and Kot Sultan. The defenders had expected the Red Army to come as before, in mass human wave charges, and were not all prepared to deal with the heavy armour being thrown at them. Within three days, the “left” wing of the Soviet offensive (commanded by Apanasenko and having started from Layyah) had reached the Rajasthan plateau, thus leaving Multan and its small garrison isolated and cut off. Indeed, the need to reduce Multan would leave the “right” wing of the Soviet advance hampered for many days, before finally surrendering on 8 April.
Meanwhile, the Afghan-Soviet advance into Balochistan was meeting with more success. Although their tactics were less advanced than those of Zhukov, the Afghans knew this terrain like the back of their hand, having fought countless wars against the British over the centuries. Encircling Quetta (which was to be besieged by the Red Army), the Axis forces advanced rapidly through the mountains, efficiently sweeping away poorly-trained, outnumbered British troops. On 11 April, the Afghan-Soviets reached the sea at Pasni, and from there began to sweep east. All of this inflicted heavy losses on the Afghans (who were qualitatively no better soldiers than their British foes), but manpower dictated that Balochistan would fall.
As Balochistan’s defences were penetrated, the British were slowly retreating from Zhukov’s armoured juggernaut. They fought in much the same way as the Finns had in the Winter War- clinging onto defensive lines and attempting to outsmart their foe. However, the seasoned veteran Zhukov was not a commander who could be easily outsmarted, and he demonstrated considerably more tactical agility than Timoshenko had in Finland, despite the narrow corridor in which he was forced to work. As city after city- Rasim Yar Khan, Khairpur, and Nawabshah- fell to the Soviets, the British and Pashtuns fought like tigers, causing heavy casualties to the Soviets which Zhukov was all too happy to accept, knowing that he was but one part of the advance and that even in the unlikely event of his being stopped, the advance would continue. The British achieved a temporary respite on 18 April, as Zhukov ran into the Hyderabad-Mirpur Khas line, which had been extremely heavily fortified. While the Soviet weight of numbers was eventually able to crack the line open, doing so took a good two weeks, and it would not be until 16 May that Zhukov’s tanks reached the sea- by which point, the Eighth Army and Afghans were already locked in combat for Karachi. Thus, on 23 May, 1940, after two centuries of striving, Russia gained its warm-water port.
In Britain, the loss of Karachi had several major impacts. First off, it spelt the end of Neville Chamberlain’s tenure as PM. Chamberlain (who was already looking like a fool owing to the dismal Allied performance in the West) fell from office and was replaced by Winston Churchill. Churchill’s first act was to sack Sir Robert Cassels and replace him with General Hastings Ismay. This was a bit unfair, given Cassels’ lack of men and supplies when compared to the Red Army, but Churchill would not listen to those who told him so. Many postwar historians would quibble over to what extent it is fair to blame Cassels for the losses to Apanasenko and Zhukov, but in 1940 no-one had any idea how to rectify the situation…
For Stalin, the successful conquest of Sind Punjab had created something of a problem. While Red Army troops would naturally remain in the area and trace their supply lines through it, it was unclear what the correct political future for the territory was. Annexing it into the USSR wasn’t feasible, given that it lacked a common frontier. Instead, Stalin decided to partition the territory. A slice of the northwest- including the towns of Quetta and Peshawar- went to Afghanistan as a token of gratitude, while on 1 July, the People’s Republic of Punjab was founded, with communist leader Sajjad Zaheer in power. Naturally, Zaheer was an absolute stooge of the Soviets, but a dangerous precedent had been set… that the Soviets were willing to work towards the liberation of the Indian subcontinent…
Next update will be the Battle of France, then Italian foreign policy, then the Indian Revolution of summer 1940! Stay tuned!
Comments?
Zhukov saw that Apanasenko’s greatest error had been to attack on too broad a front. With British strength only increasing (1), it was clear that the Soviets needed to pick a target and commit to it, attacking on a narrow front to maximise their power. Zhukov selected the port city of Karachi as his target for the spring offensive, as it would finally fulfil the long Russian dream of a warm-water port. His plans for an offensive into Balochistan were given a boost when, in a typically byzantine move, several NKVD “advisers” supposedly en route to the front stopped over in Kabul and just so happened to “convince” Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah to formally declare war on the Allies. The Afghan army was small, consisting of only eleven divisions of dubious quality, but by joining the war, Afghanistan had extended the front to almost 2300 kilometres in length. Afghanistan’s military commanders flew to Rawalpindi on 9 March to meet Zhukov. It was agreed that owing to the immense logistical difficulties which would stem from moving large Red Army forces into western Afghanistan from their current positions, the Red Army would make its main thrust from its present position near Layyah. However, the Eighth Army, which at the time of the conference was spread out in rail yards all over Kazakhstan, would be sent to the Balochistan theatre, thus bringing the combined Axis strength in the theatre to almost 200,000.
The Afghan decision to join the Axis had forced the British into a real dilemma. On the one hand, it was plain that the threat to Sind Punjab had increased considerably, and they would soon be locked in combat with the Afghans. However, there was also the fact that the Red Army was still perilously close to entering India proper, and was only four hundred kilometres away from New Delhi. The Allies had approximately 120,000 men in total, meaning that they were outnumbered almost 2:1 by the Axis. Committing forces into piecemeal defences in southern Sind Punjab would accomplish nothing except to throw away Allied lives and give the natives the impression that the Allies didn’t care about them.
The solution which General Cassels came up with exploited the terrain of India as much as was possible. Heading southwest from Bahawalpur is an S-shaped strip of relatively fertile terrain sandwiched between the mountains of Sind Punjab and the arid lowlands of Rajasthan. This corridor would naturally be Zhukov’s main axis of advance, as it would be the easiest to manoeuvre forces and maintain supply links through. Thus, Cassels directed Indian infantry divisions 3-9 to man this gap, with special focus on holding a Multan-Bahawalpur line. Even if the Soviets broke through, the British strength on the flanks would present a danger.
After the requisite period of planning, Operation Krasnyi commenced on 30 March with terrific Soviet artillery and air bombardments of the British positions in Bilawal Pur and Kot Sultan. The defenders had expected the Red Army to come as before, in mass human wave charges, and were not all prepared to deal with the heavy armour being thrown at them. Within three days, the “left” wing of the Soviet offensive (commanded by Apanasenko and having started from Layyah) had reached the Rajasthan plateau, thus leaving Multan and its small garrison isolated and cut off. Indeed, the need to reduce Multan would leave the “right” wing of the Soviet advance hampered for many days, before finally surrendering on 8 April.
Meanwhile, the Afghan-Soviet advance into Balochistan was meeting with more success. Although their tactics were less advanced than those of Zhukov, the Afghans knew this terrain like the back of their hand, having fought countless wars against the British over the centuries. Encircling Quetta (which was to be besieged by the Red Army), the Axis forces advanced rapidly through the mountains, efficiently sweeping away poorly-trained, outnumbered British troops. On 11 April, the Afghan-Soviets reached the sea at Pasni, and from there began to sweep east. All of this inflicted heavy losses on the Afghans (who were qualitatively no better soldiers than their British foes), but manpower dictated that Balochistan would fall.
As Balochistan’s defences were penetrated, the British were slowly retreating from Zhukov’s armoured juggernaut. They fought in much the same way as the Finns had in the Winter War- clinging onto defensive lines and attempting to outsmart their foe. However, the seasoned veteran Zhukov was not a commander who could be easily outsmarted, and he demonstrated considerably more tactical agility than Timoshenko had in Finland, despite the narrow corridor in which he was forced to work. As city after city- Rasim Yar Khan, Khairpur, and Nawabshah- fell to the Soviets, the British and Pashtuns fought like tigers, causing heavy casualties to the Soviets which Zhukov was all too happy to accept, knowing that he was but one part of the advance and that even in the unlikely event of his being stopped, the advance would continue. The British achieved a temporary respite on 18 April, as Zhukov ran into the Hyderabad-Mirpur Khas line, which had been extremely heavily fortified. While the Soviet weight of numbers was eventually able to crack the line open, doing so took a good two weeks, and it would not be until 16 May that Zhukov’s tanks reached the sea- by which point, the Eighth Army and Afghans were already locked in combat for Karachi. Thus, on 23 May, 1940, after two centuries of striving, Russia gained its warm-water port.
In Britain, the loss of Karachi had several major impacts. First off, it spelt the end of Neville Chamberlain’s tenure as PM. Chamberlain (who was already looking like a fool owing to the dismal Allied performance in the West) fell from office and was replaced by Winston Churchill. Churchill’s first act was to sack Sir Robert Cassels and replace him with General Hastings Ismay. This was a bit unfair, given Cassels’ lack of men and supplies when compared to the Red Army, but Churchill would not listen to those who told him so. Many postwar historians would quibble over to what extent it is fair to blame Cassels for the losses to Apanasenko and Zhukov, but in 1940 no-one had any idea how to rectify the situation…
For Stalin, the successful conquest of Sind Punjab had created something of a problem. While Red Army troops would naturally remain in the area and trace their supply lines through it, it was unclear what the correct political future for the territory was. Annexing it into the USSR wasn’t feasible, given that it lacked a common frontier. Instead, Stalin decided to partition the territory. A slice of the northwest- including the towns of Quetta and Peshawar- went to Afghanistan as a token of gratitude, while on 1 July, the People’s Republic of Punjab was founded, with communist leader Sajjad Zaheer in power. Naturally, Zaheer was an absolute stooge of the Soviets, but a dangerous precedent had been set… that the Soviets were willing to work towards the liberation of the Indian subcontinent…
Next update will be the Battle of France, then Italian foreign policy, then the Indian Revolution of summer 1940! Stay tuned!
Comments?
- ITTL, Indian mobilisation is much faster than OTL, and by the spring of 1940, approximately 120,000 Indians are fighting under the Union Jack. I will be referencing some divisions which had not been formed until later in OTL. Here, Indian infantry divisions 1-9 have already been formed and are remaining in India. There are also some ANZAC and French units fighting in India ITTL.