Double-Edged Sword: The Nazi-Soviet Alliance in World War II

[Baldrick]

So... I suppose this TL requires some introduction. My PoD is very simple- ITTL, Britain and France declare war on the Soviet Union as it invades Poland in 1939. This initially leads to some even darker defeats for the Allies, but it also gives the Nazis an inflated idea of their own strength, and things get better eventually... Please enjoy!


“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Circumstance has a way of forcing people and nations who are ostensibly very different together. Both can have their eye on a prize or share a common enemy, and then decide to collaborate- however unpalatable doing so might be- towards a shared end. There is probably no better example of this than the way that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union collaborated to divide the world between them during the Second World War.

On the surface, it’d be hard to find a more unlikely set of partners than the regimes led by Hitler and Stalin. From his darkest days as a Vienna tramp, the German Fuhrer had made no secret of his loathing for communism, associating it with Judaism to create a sort of mega-evil foe which threatened to destroy his beloved Fatherland. Many of his speeches condemned “Bolshevism”, and in his memoir Mein Kampf, he had written some passages which would’ve been truly chilling to any Russian who looked at them- namely, that “inferior” Slavs should be exterminated en masse and that their country should become colonised by Germans.

Similarly, from the Soviet perspective, Germany was an unlikely ally. World War I had seen Kaiser Wilhelm’s armies ravage the USSR’s Tsarist predecessor, killing almost four million Russians. The 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had seen huge swathes of Russian territory pass into a mercifully brief German occupation. Once the Russian Civil War had been brought to a close, Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik regime had called for the extermination of all class enemies and sought to revive Russian power through communism. Furthermore, neither Hitler or Stalin liked or trusted the other much, with both suspecting that the other’s plans for the future involved betraying him.

Nonetheless, if one looked below the surface, the seeds of a Nazi-Soviet alliance were there. First off, both countries were alienated by the Western Allies who had won the First World War. Despite some stumbling attempts to resurrect the prewar Franco-Russian Alliance, London and Paris both had rather frosty relations with Berlin and Moscow. While their greatest fear was, naturally, that Germany would rearm and cause a second war, no-one (barring the Soviet-sponsored Communist politicians, anyhow) was too keen on the Soviet doctrine of permanent world revolution. Furthermore, throughout Russian history, Great Britain had always been seen as more of a competitor than a friend. The Great Game of the nineteenth century had seen bloody border wars in Afghanistan and Anglo-French participation on the Turkish side in the Crimean War. Despite the setbacks caused by World War I and the subsequent Russian Civil War, many Soviet leaders dreamt of an ice-free port on the Indian Ocean and the wealth of India- things which could only be gained at British expense. Lastly, both Germany and the Soviets detested Poland. The country had been created from land taken from both nations in 1918 and then gone on to give the Soviets a bloody nose in the 1921 Polish-Soviet war. As German general Hans von Seeckt had said in 1922, “Poland’s existence is intolerable and incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany’s life. Poland must go and will go- as a result of her own internal weaknesses and of action by Russia- with our aid… The obliteration of Poland must be one of the fundamental drives of German policy… with the help of Russia.” (1) It is with Poland, then, that our story begins.

***

Years of German aggression had expanded the Treaty of Versailles-defined borders of the Reich to include the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Along with these blatant acts of defiance, Britain and France had also been forced to swallow the rearmament of the German Army as well as the construction of a submarine fleet and air force. Both Britain and France were determined, then, that no more aggression of Hitler’s would be tolerated. Thus, on September 3, 1939, two days after the German Army invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war, commencing the Second World War… not that that did the Poles much good. Their army was thirty divisions strong, by no means tiny, but was spread out inefficiently, attempting to defend all of their borders. This had the effect of stretching the nation’s defences out and making them taut, which in turn meant that once the German panzers achieved a breakthrough, there was little to stop them. Furthermore, the Polish army had been allowed to fall into a state of decay, with equipment from the 1930s and 1920s still very much the norm. The naivete of the Poles was shown when their beloved cavalry clashed with the German PzKw Is and Stukas. Britain and France, fearful of a German attack in the West, did almost nothing to help their beleaguered ally. Unit after unit, the Polish Army was carved up by the Panzers like a knife cutting through butter, unable to do much more than act as a lab rat upon which the Germans tested their blitzkrieg. By the fifteenth of September, Warsaw was surrounded.

This is where history took a turn.

Only days before the invasion of Poland, to the shock of the world, a new German-Soviet alliance, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (named after its signatories, the Soviet and German foreign ministers) had been signed. In it, Germany and the USSR had pledged not to attack each other and to partition Eastern Europe, with eastern Poland and the Baltic states agreed upon as Stalin’s turf. Now, with the Polish capital on the verge of falling, Stalin decided it was high time to cash in on his part of Poland.

This caused considerable consternation in London and Paris. To paraphrase the Polish national anthem, Poland was not yet lost. Despite the hopelessness of their cause, the Poles continued to fight on. Furthermore, the Anglo-French guarantee of Polish independence was not directed only at Germany. World public opinion, Chamberlain and Daladier were sure, would not stand for the Allies standing by and letting the Soviet Union stab Poland in the back. Lastly, the British and French PMs had to look in the mirror and examine their consciences. They had sworn to defend Poland and simply couldn’t abandon her now. Thus, after hours of back-and-forth talks between London and Paris, a telegram reached Sir William Seeds at one-thirty AM Moscow time, on September 17, 1939. The telegram stated that Great Britain and France would “consider any violation of Polish sovereign territory to be a violation of the recent guarantee of Poland by the said nations, a guarantee which current developments have not altered”, and that “HM Government might, in the event of a Soviet attack on Polish territory or Polish troops, be obligated to take similar measures concerning the Soviet Government as they had with Germany.”

A groggy Ambassador Seeds went back to bed, but couldn’t get a wink of sleep, tossing and turning as he thought about what all this might mean….

The next morning, he telephoned his French counterpart, Robert Couldondre, who had received a similar telegram from Paris in the night. The two agreed to present their government’s demands to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov later in the day. After a simple, frugal lunch, the two arranged their meeting by telephone and climbed into their streetcars. The streets of Moscow were eerily quiet, as though people had no idea of what was coming.

When Seeds and Coulondre arrived at Molotov’s ornate office, the Soviet Foreign Minister was very much at his ease and was outwardly extremely polite to the Anglo-French ambassadors. Almost as an old grandfather might, he donned his reading glasses and examined the telegrams with a faint smile. Then, Molotov said that he would have to consult with Stalin, naturally, but that this was frankly none of Britain’s or France’s business, and that since the Western Allied countries were over nine hundred miles away, their threat of declaring war was quite empty. Dejected, the British and French ambassadors returned to their respective offices and began packing their suitcases.

A little after six PM that same day came the news which everyone had been expecting- namely, that the Soviets had crossed the Polish frontier. The telegrams declaring war arrived three days later, and by the twenty-second, both ambassadors were safely back in their home countries. Meanwhile, assailed from both west and east, Poland entered the final stages of collapse. By the end of the month, it was all over. Germany had conquered the lion’s share of the country, and the Soviets had taken a strip of territory in the east, all without the British or French doing much of anything to stop them. World War II was about to enter its next phase, a phase in which the British would pay dearly for their quixotic act of dragging the Soviets into the war…

Comments?

(1): William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, page 458

 

[Baldrick]

Edit: Thanks to Omar04 and Tannenberg for pointing out that Islamabad didn't exist yet. This update has had some minor retcons and so has the next chapter, which should get posted later today.

The entry of the Soviet Union into the war forced British strategists to confront something about which they had been having nightmares for over a century- an imminent Russian threat to India. On the surface, there was still mountainous Afghanistan dividing the two, but it was clear that one side would have to violate Afghan neutrality at some point. The British army in India was small but skilled and consisted of a mix of white and native soldiers. It had last seen action in a border skirmish twenty years ago, and as such wasn’t considered prime material. Nonetheless, its strategic focus had been on repelling the Russian bear, and that was what it was situated to do. At the start of the war, only one brigade was in position on the Northwest Frontier of present-day Pakistan (referred to ITTL by its colonial name of Sindh Punjab), but by the end of September, that number had swelled to four. These were all volunteer units with little military skill, but they knew the area well and it was hoped that they’d put up such a strong defence in the mountains that the heartland of India would have time to prepare its defences. Meanwhile, a further six brigades- the Fifth through Tenth (1)- were stationed in India proper. Naturally, these forces would swell throughout the conflict, but it was essential that they do so rapidly. The notion of sending South African, Australian, or New Zealander units to India was discussed, but in the autumn of 1939, nothing came of the proposal.

As the British nervously analysed their strength in India, the Soviets made plans to strike. The Central Asian Front (renamed from Central Asian Military District on September 20) consisted of the Fourth Cavalry Corps and 27th Mechanised Corps and was under the overall command of General Iosif Apanasenko. Given that Central Asia was extremely remote and mountainous, with little in the way of railroads to connect it to the rest of the USSR. Nonetheless, Apanasenko would do what he could. There was also a diplomatic aspect which, while not in the general’s hands, would prove immensely useful to him. On October 13, 1939, Molotov flew to Kabul to meet with Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah. While the king was personally inclined towards neutrality, he was also aware that with the Red Army massing on his country’s border, being too pushy about neutrality could lead to… unpleasant consequences. Thus, it was agreed that while Afghanistan would not actually declare war on the British, it would permit free passage through its territory for the Red Army. Stalin was not too pleased to hear this but recognised that there was nothing his country could gain from invading and making an enemy of Afghanistan. Thus, on October 15, orders were sent to Apanasenko to enter Afghanistan and make for the border with British India, codenamed Operation Ulyanov.

The main objective of Operation Ulyanov was to capture Rawalpindi. To this end, the 18th, 20th, and 21st Mountain Cavalry Divisions advanced through the Swat gap into Sindh Punjab through the night of October 19-20, capturing the village of Tarnab without a shot being fired. As the three divisions expanded the Soviet bridgehead, the other half of the Central Asian Front came through the mountains, with local Pashtun people being “persuaded” to guide the Red Army through the high mountains with their trucks full of troops. Meanwhile, the four brigades of the British army on the Northwest Frontier held their positions in Rawalpindi, fortifying the town and waiting for reinforcements and supplies to arrive. Thus, the handful of British troops (mostly Pashtun militia) in Peshawar were overwhelmed, and after a brief fight surrendered on the twenty-third.

The road to Islamabad resembled the following: some nine kilometres to the southeast of Peshawar, the Swat and Indus rivers met, creating a forty-kilometre strip of land which was divided not by mountains but by the far more surmountable river. From there, a narrow valley led to the prize: the great city of the Northwest Frontier, Rawalpindi. Casualties from the first phase of Ulyanov had been quite light, with only a hundred killed and wounded total. The next step, meanwhile, was to capture the town of Mardan, which if not neutralised could pose a flanking threat. Again, the brief Mardan campaign demonstrated the British strategy of trading space for time, as over the next three days the Soviets encountered minimal resistance. By November 1, then, a small but significant chunk of Pakistan had been bitten off by the Soviets. Peshawar, Nowshera, and Mardi were all gone.

Here, the Red Army paused to regroup. Although the British were offering negligible resistance at this stage, the terrain was already playing merry hell with the Soviet supply columns. Given that as many men as possible needed to be at the front, it fell more often than not to hired Afghani guides to get men and equipment through the treacherous journey to the front. Over the first two weeks of November, the 27th and 55th Rifle Division arrived from eastern Poland and Moscow respectively, having walked all the way from Kabul, given that there was no rail capacity to get them any further. Meanwhile, the British had received the recently mobilised Australian Sixth Brigade (2). Granted, they were still at a major disadvantage numerically but had the advantage of falling back towards their supply centres.

The second stage of Operation Ulyanov commenced on November 7, with the Red Army striking at two points separated by twenty-five kilometres: the small towns of Garhi Matani and Hassan Pur. As before, the villages were very lightly defended, and both fell by the end of the day. The Soviet intention rapidly became clear as, over the next two days, their forces inched closer and closer, closing the remainder of the territory behind them in a sack which was quickly tied up. The airbase at Minhas fell on the eleventh, which meant that for the first time, Red Air Force bombers and fighters could actually take off from somewhere decent. All of this was all very well and good, but there was just one small problem… no substantial British units had yet been encountered.

In Moscow, Stalin was quite pleased with the way things were going thus far, but also rather insistent that a more substantial triumph be gained. To this end, he ordered General Apanasenko to advance more quickly and capture Rawalpindi within two weeks. When given a direct order like that from Joseph Stalin, failing to come through could be… disadvantageous for one’s health, and Apanasenko was not blind to that fact. Thus, he ordered his forces to move more rapidly, and within three days found himself at the gates of Rawalpindi.

By this point, it was November 15, and it had been almost a month since the Red Army entered British territory. The five regular brigades in Rawalpindi had been augmented by several hundred Pashtun militiamen, many of whom were afraid of the state atheist Soviets stamping out Islam in the area. As Islamabad was screened from the north by mountains, the only angle of approach the Soviets could take was from the west, and it was in that direction that the city’s defences were oriented. The Battle of Rawalpindi was fought several miles to the west, as the Red Army burst through one rather ad hoc belt of defences after another. By the end of the day, the five British brigades had clearly lost, and with them, any and all hope that northern Sindh Punjab could hold out. Even as the hammer and sickle were hoisted over Rawalpindi, British forces were in full retreat to the south.

However, the Battle of Rawalpindi revealed several flaws in Soviet tactics. For a start, the day had been won by means of mass, inefficient, human wave attacks. Too much strain had been placed on the foot soldiers and cavalry, while the armour had been broken up and used as mere infantry support, in contrast to the German methods used in Poland. The Great Purge of 1937 had sapped the Red Army of much of its tactical skill and killed off many good commanders, and now the USSR had to pay the price. Although outnumbered heavily, it was clear that the British would be able to put up a real fight in India…

Comments?

1. OTL, many of these units were sent to North Africa. ITTL, this doesn’t happen, as they’re needed at home
2. ITTL, the Australians mobilise somewhat faster, as their troops are needed in India

 

[Baldrick]

Thanks very much to all who commented- you've given me some ideas as to how I can take the TL forward. If any of you disagree with my military actions here, please say so and I'll retcon if need be!

The cold mountain winter brought a temporary halt to both sides. The Soviets needed to ship in reinforcements from the Motherland as well as to garrison their new Pashtun subjects efficiently. Throughout the last month and a half of 1939, Red Army engineers were hard at work constructing a rail line to connect Kabul with Rawalpindi. The task was hard owing both to the terrain and lack of resources, which ironically enough had to be brought in by rail to Kabul and could go no further. However, the one silver lining in the project was that it provided good employment for the locals, and in the postwar years would benefit Afghanistan and British Sindh Punjab considerably. Of course, this being the Soviet Union, darker events were also occurring- the NKVD was having a field day rounding up prominent leaders in Rawalpindi and giving them a 7-mm present or free package holiday in Siberia. Events similar to the Katyn massacre occurred, with Islamic religious leaders a particular target. Rationing and requisitioning, those twin burdens of having an occupying army on one’s land, were imposed. Few Soviet soldiers spoke Urdu, and Afghan interpreters- whom themselves had a less than secure grasp of the tongue- were essential to the occupiers. The Sixth Rifle Corps was transferred from its position in Poland, bringing the total Soviet strength in Sindh Punjab to slightly over 100,000. Meanwhile, a new kind of Indian unit was raised- the Imperial Guard. This system consisted of those 16-18 and 35-60 years of age, who would be trained to resist the incoming Soviets should they be called up. At present, the British administration in India lacked the resources to establish a large number of organised brigades, but there was hope that that would change at some point. The decision to establish an Imperial Guard was, however, taken with a degree of caution by the British. Chamberlain was concerned that teaching Indians how to fight in defence of their homeland would fan the flames of Indian nationalism to such an extent that the people could one day turn violently against the British. However, given a choice between that possibility and losing India to the Soviets within a few months, arming the people was the lesser of two evils. Additionally, several French units of varying size arrived from Indochina. From the British perspective, the territorial losses of 1939 had been more or less anticipated. However, going into 1940, territory could no longer be viewed as expendable, as the Red Army would soon leave the relatively desolate mountains of Sindh Punjab behind and enter the heartland of India.

On Christmas Day 1939, Secretary of War Lord Leslie Hore-Belisha arrived in Calcutta to discuss the situation with General Sir Robert Cassels, Commander-in-Chief of all British forces in India and thus Apanasenko’s main enemy. The decision was taken to concentrate the limited defences around two points: Karachi and New Delhi. If the historical actions of Tsarist Russia were any guide, then the Soviets would seek to retain the city as their long-coveted warm water port once the fighting was over, and thus denying them Karachi at any cost was essential. Furthermore, although New Delhi was over six hundred kilometres away from the front lines, it was one of the largest cities in India, and its fall would have tremendous implications. As the colonial capital, it housed a large number of offices and bureaucrats who couldn’t be replaced easily or necessarily evacuated in a proper and timely fashion once the Red Army showed up. Furthermore, if the city’s large native population realised that the British couldn’t defend them, well, that would set a bad propaganda precedent and would no doubt inspire numerous mutinies.

Additionally, Lord Hore-Belisha agreed to send more equipment and supplies to General Sir Cassels, so that more units could be raised to combat the Soviets. While the need to protect the Mediterranean and Africa against possible Italian aggression meant that many units would be unavailable, he did promise to reinforce India with whatever was available. There was also the issue of the garrisons in Hong Kong, Singapore, and North Borneo. If these areas were to be stripped of their garrisons, then the defences of India would be given a substantial boost. However, in light of Japan’s history of aggressive actions disturbingly nearby, leaving the valuable British Far East undefended didn’t seem like the wisest course of action, to say the least. Additionally, the issue of increased conscription of the native population was discussed. While it was inevitable that there would have to be at least local conscription in areas close to the front, the fear that mass conscription would create social unrest, plus the relative lack of supplies for trebling the size of the British forces in India, meant that mass conscription was impossible. However, several old Indian formations which had fought in the First World War were reactivated, including the Bannu and Kohat Brigades, both of which were stationed in Karachi.

From the Soviet perspective, the efforts of 1939 had been good and all, but more would be needed in the coming year. Stalin was determined that India had to be conquered fairly quickly, otherwise the British would be able to mobilise more and more of the colony’s massive population to use against the Soviets. Thus, on December 10, he summoned Apanasenko back to Moscow for a tete-a-tete. The Soviet general was presented with a set of plans and orders for his campaign the next year, and given little say in how they should be executed. Stalin called for an offensive to capture Faisalabad and Multan and ordered that Karachi be taken by the start of March. Given the sluggish pace of the Soviet advance thus far, it was a rather tall order, and Apanasenko knew as much. Nonetheless, he was also aware that his command and life hung in the balance and spent the last weeks of 1939 holed up in his office at the Red Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, deducing a plan for his campaign. Operation Medved would involve all the forces the Soviets had put into their 1939 campaign, less two brigades which were to be kept behind for garrison purposes. However, Apanasenko’s task was made considerably easier by the arrival of the 25th Rifle Division and 15th Motorised Division, both of which had arrived from Ukraine. The plan was to advance down the right bank of the Indus River on an axis of advance towards Multan with the cavalry, motorised and armoured forces, while the remainder of the infantry launched diversionary assaults towards Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Lahore.

The operation commenced on January 5, 1940, with the Red Air Force’s Ilyushin DB-3 bombers taking off from the captured airbases in Rawalpindi and pounding British targets within a roughly 1250-kilometre radius (1) as Red Army artillery opened up on British positions. The Soviets climbed out of their mountain trenches and began the advance. Once again, the Red Army’s crushing numerical superiority meant that the Russians were able to achieve all of their objectives… with one exception. At the mountain town of Kalabagh, which fell under the scope of the 53rd Tank Division, wily British defenders planted dynamite charges in the narrow gorge through which the Soviet tanks had to pass. Three massive, clunky T-35 tanks were lost in this manner, and the division commander very nearly lost his job. The area through which the Soviet armoured, motorised, and cavalry column had to pass had some extremely difficult terrain, as the Indus River divides the land and tall mountains cut it even further, forcing the Soviets to take circuitous, zigzag routes through the terrain over the next week of fighting. Although traditional British defences were, as ever, rather thinly spread out, local snipers were able to give the Soviets hell, shooting at men as their lorries rolled slowly past and killing horses from under Red Army cavalrymen, before unobtrusively dropping back into terrain which they knew like the back of their hand. The number of small tributaries of the Indus which the Soviets had to cross using a limited supply of pontoons- as the bridges set up by the locals weren’t designed to accommodate anything nearly as heavy as a lorry full of soldiers, to say nothing of a tank- slowed the advance down considerably, and it was not until the ninth that the Red Army reached the small town of Wandha Kajjar.

Here at Wandha Kajjar, a prime example of the inefficient manner in which the Soviets were to conduct the war was demonstrated. (2) The orders given to Apanasenko by Stalin called for the Red Army to cross the Indus River and make for Karachi, a distance of over nine hundred kilometres as the crow flies. Given the torturously slow way in which the small tributaries had been crossed, Apanasenko was loath to manoeuvre his whole force across almost four kilometres of river. Doing so could take days and would give the British ample time to spring upon his force and catch it in a position of considerable weakness. Instead, as Apanasenko told his political commissar in Rawalpindi on the evening of January 11, he wanted to turn his army to the south and advance on a southwestern axis in between two mountain ranges past Paniala, and to move from there. The political commissar contacted Stalin about this change of plans, who reacted characteristically- he screamed at the commissar over the phone and threatened to have both Apanasenko and him “replaced” if the offensive did not go the way he had ordered. Thus, shortly after dawn on January 12, the Red Army began to cross the Indus River.
British intelligence was not blind to what was going on and had deduced that the Red Army was planning to cross the Indus (3). Accordingly, shortly before dawn on the 11th, two squadrons of Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers pounded Apanasenko’s men and tanks as they slowly crossed the river, wreaking havoc. There were no Red Air Force units in the sky to intercept the bombers, and as such, the only limiting factor for the British was their lack of bombs. Soviet casualties numbered approximately 200 killed or injured and fifteen tanks destroyed, most of them while trapped in the middle of the river on pontoon bridges. For Soviet soldiers, few of who had ever been under aerial bombardment before and who had seen little of the British during the whole campaign, the experience was terrifying.

Despite their heavy losses, the Soviets were able to limp into the town of Mianwali by sunset, severely behind schedule. When news reached Apanasenko, he got into a furious row with the Red Air Force commander accompanying his men into Sindh Punjab and demanded to know why his troops had had no air cover. The latter man replied that it wasn’t his fault that Apanasenko’s men hadn’t brought anti-aircraft weapons along with them (most of the Central Asian Front’s AA guns were located in the cities to dissuade British bombers), and also pointed to the need for fighters to protect the occupied cities. Stalin, meanwhile, heard the news from the political commissar at eight AM Moscow time, and immediately telephoned Apanasenko to congratulate him on following a “politically sound strategy.” This left the Soviet commander not knowing whether to laugh or cry, given that his political reliability- always a key trait in Stalin’s lieutenants- had just increased immensely, but at the cost of seriously weakening his new campaign. Such was emblematic of the sloppy state of the post-purge Soviet Union army, a prime example of how politics and military tactics dictated thousands of miles away shouldn’t mix.

While Apanasenko’s armour, cavalry, and motorised infantry had slowly advanced, the remainder of the Central Asian Front- the bulk of the 58th Rifle Corps, 25th Rifle Division, 15th Motorised Division, and the Sixth Rifle Corps (some 67,000 men) were advancing southeastward, starting on January 5. Given that they were walking instead of riding, their pace was somewhat slower, yet they still enjoyed a crushing numerical advantage over the British. Talagang and Chakwal fell on January 8 and 10, respectively, after the local Imperial Guardsmen were wiped out. However, the British were, as usual, trading space for time, and had decided upon a final defensive line past which the Soviets must not be allowed to pass.

If one looks at a map of northern Pakistan, running through the towns of Kallar Kahar, Pail, and Katas, one can see a line of mountains- by no means an uncommon sight. Just to the east of these mountains runs the Jhelum River. As General Cassels looked at his map with his subordinates, his pen ran along a line based around these two landforms. It was imperative that the Soviets not be allowed to advance past that line, and he issued orders to that effect. As such, all bridges over the Jhelum River in the sector were destroyed, and mines were laid in the mountains. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Brigades were transferred to the Jhelum sector, and in combination with the Imperial Guardsmen, the British strength in the sector swelled to some 20,000- which still gave the Soviets a 3:1 numerical advantage. Trenches were dug in the Jhelum-New Mirpur City area, and the defenders prepared to give Apanasenko everything they had. The relatively slow Soviet advance, hampered as always by the long supply lines, finally arrived at Jhelum on January 17, the same day that the town of Mangla fell. Here, the clumsiness of the Soviet advance proved itself once more. Orders were given by officers from Rawalpindi by telephone, which might often be out of date by the time they arrived. More often than not, in the absence of clear-cut orders, Soviet commanders (fearful of crossing their superiors and suffering consequences) simply threw their men forward in human wave attacks. The result was what postwar historians would call the “Miracle of Jhelum''. Despite the long odds and being viciously outnumbered, Jhelum held. Meanwhile, several kilometres to the north, the Soviet attempt to capture New Mirpur City (which began on the 17th) moved very slowly. The fall of the town of Khaliqabad on the 20th left New Mirpur City cut off from the rest of the British, and it would manage to hold out for a further ten days, tying down several thousand Soviet troops.

Meanwhile, the Soviet attempts to capture Jhelum were succeeding in the same way every Soviet success in the war thus far had been attained- through sheer weight of numbers. Although the Soviets enjoyed massive numerical superiority, their tactical clumsiness meant that by the time Jhelum was declared secure on the 19th, they were in no state to continue the offensive southeastward and the British could focus on strengthening their defences on the southeastern bank of the Jhelum River. The fighting in this theatre now cooled down as both sides licked their wounds.

From the Soviet perspective, Operation Medved had been a failure. Karachi was still a very long way away from the Red Army’s tentacles, and the people of India had yet to be incited into revolt. Following this failure, Apanasenko was recalled to Moscow, where he was informed that his “political reliability was being called into question”, and that only “his previous demonstrations of loyalty to the military line of the Centre” were saving him- ie, he was on very thin ice, and had he not crossed the Indus River as dictated by Stalin, he would be in prison by now. Nonetheless, the first few months of the Indian campaign were proof that the Soviet combination of politics and military tactics was not a good one.

Next update will be Finland!
Comments?

(1) These planes have a roughly 3800-km range, of which half is 1900km. The need to fly high in the mountains substantially decreases their effective operational range
(2) ITTL, without Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets will take far longer to reorganise their army from the sloppy state the Great Purge has left it in.
(3) Even this early in the war, there are a few Pashtuns who, operating by the maxim “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t”, are willing to act as spies in the occupied areas.

 

[Baldrick]

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…

1. These negotiations are OTL, but here the Soviets have an extra incentive to maintain peace
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

 

[Baldrick]

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?

1. 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.