How May Dominoes Have To Fall?

Nearly all the threads about, what if the Axis did this, that or the other and, what if X-Country joined the Axis come to the conclusion that the war may last a few months longer and be even bloodier, but Hitler still shoots himself in his bunker and Mussolini is still hanged from a lamppost.

If the Axis was going to win it had to be by a combination of several changes from OTL.

In the case of X-Country, how many countries have to join the Axis to ensure an European Axis victory and which ones? The British Empire, Soviet Union and United States are not allowed.

Changes to the economies and armed forces of the additional Axis members are not allowed, unless it is a by-product of making the countries pro-Axis and/or anti-British enough to enter the war on the Axis side.

Victory means Germany and Italy keep more territory than they did in before Germany invaded Poland in a negotiated peace with the UK, USA and USSR.

My personal opinion is that this will only work if the UK and/or Soviet Union are forced to surrender by the end of 1941. This is because after that the Allied material superiority is too great.
 
Nope.
Given that those three countries could outproduce the rest of Europe combined by quite a severe degree this limitation has sort of shot the scenario in the foot.
Yep.

My personal opinion is that this will only work if the UK and/or Soviet Union are forced to surrender by the end of 1941. This is because after that the Allied material superiority is too great.
Germany didn't have the ability force either to surrender. Nor does adding any constellation of countries around the world help.

If some political black swan event caused the UK or USSR to accept a temporary truce (as in @Fletch 's Halifax TL), it would not be because of extra countries or extra German power, it would be political events internal to the UK or USSR. Moreover, any such truce would (again, as in the TL) surely be temporary.
 
Given that those three countries could outproduce the rest of Europe combined by quite a severe degree this limitation has sort of shot the scenario in the foot.
That's why I wrote that it would only work if it led to defeat of the Soviet Union and/or the UK by the end of 1941. That is BEFORE the USA entered the war.
 
That's why I wrote that it would only work if it led to defeat of the Soviet Union and/or the UK by the end of 1941. That is BEFORE the USA entered the war.

And because Germany couldn't do that it means that said limitation basically can't work at all.
 
What if France was the extra Axis member?

Although this wouldn't tip the production scales towards Europe against the USSR could this butterfly away the Second World War?

POD is far stronger far-right after the 6 February riots in France and an even weaker Popular Front parliament in 1936 with allegations of electoral fraud. Mini-civil war ends up with a right-wing strong man in charge who intervenes against the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War alongside Germany and Italy. Britain is sidelined and a "Molotov-Ribbentrop" style deal is signed with France before the invasion of Poland.

Faced with intervention against the whole of Europe the UK backs down over Poland and doesn't really see the need to intervene in Russia when the Germans and their allies (including the French) invade in 1940. Without any lend-lease and suffering from even worse impacts from the purging of the army and poor equipment, USSR collapses in 1941 and signs a separate peace.

Simplistic, possibly. More ASB than OTL - not sure.
 
And because Germany couldn't do that it means that said limitation basically can't work at all.
It might if Germany had more help. E.g. the Turkey joins the Axis thread. Even if the Turkish Army didn't actually try to invade the USSR, the Russians would have to station more troops there in case it did. For all I know Stalin had lots of troops in reserve in 1941 and it would have made no difference. OTOH if he didn't have the troops to spare it might have.

If there hadn't been the pro-Allied coup in Yugoslavia it wouldn't have been invaded by the Axis. The significance here is that the German Army divisions tied down on occupation duties IOTL are available for use elsewhere. It might only be a handful of divisions, but if concentrated and deployed in the right place at the right time... Furthermore AFAIK the partisans stopped the Germans getting any raw materials out of Yugoslavia after the invasion.

The two together are better for the Axis than either separately. E.g. the Soviet 1941 counter-offensive. What if the Russians committed fewer divisions because they were needed to guard the border with Turkey and the Germans had about half a dozen extra infantry divisions in reserve? I'll probably be told that the Soviet numerical superiority was too great for the counteroffensive to fail. But what if it meant that the Germans still held Rostov in the summer of 1942, captured Sevastopol sooner and/or the Soviet Army suffered even heavier casualties? The Germans would have suffered heavier casualties too, but AFAIK the German Army killed more Soviet soldiers than vice versa.
 
What if France was the extra Axis member?

Although this wouldn't tip the production scales towards Europe against the USSR could this butterfly away the Second World War?

POD is far stronger far-right after the 6 February riots in France and an even weaker Popular Front parliament in 1936 with allegations of electoral fraud. Mini-civil war ends up with a right-wing strong man in charge who intervenes against the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War alongside Germany and Italy. Britain is sidelined and a "Molotov-Ribbentrop" style deal is signed with France before the invasion of Poland.

Faced with intervention against the whole of Europe the UK backs down over Poland and doesn't really see the need to intervene in Russia when the Germans and their allies (including the French) invade in 1940. Without any lend-lease and suffering from even worse impacts from the purging of the army and poor equipment, USSR collapses in 1941 and signs a separate peace.

Simplistic, possibly. More ASB than OTL - not sure.
That's interesting, but I was thinking of a POD in the summer of 1940, with more countries thinking the war was nearly over and deciding to join what they thought would be the winning side for a share of the spoils, like Italy did. I thought of calling the thread, "How many countries could have jumped on the band wagon?" I settled on, "How Many Dominoes Have To Fall?" because I thought there might be a domino effect.

Having said that, were there any other European countries that could have been taken over by their far-right before 1939? Inspired by the recent, The Netherlands joins the Central Powers thread, what were the chances of a far-right party coming to power there?

With the June 1940 POD I think the largest possible Axis is the OTL members plus Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia plus France changing sides in June 1940 as Italy did later in the war IOTL.

Further afield I also thought of Argentina misreading the situation in the summer of 1940 and nationalising British assets and invading the Falkland Islands. At that time Argentina had a strong navy consisting of 2 dreadnoughts dating from just before World War One, 3 modern cruisers and about a dozen modern destroyers. Plus what if the Graff Spee had gone to Buenos Aries and been interned instead of what happened IOTL?
 
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I think for Germany, the UK is the key. If Germany is not at war with the UK it means no - problems in N. Africa, Yugoslavia, BoB etc.
How, maybe - no Abdication - Britain concentrates on the Empire rather than worry about what happens on the continent - with communism seen as the greater threat India etc; June 1940 - no evacuation of BEF, Churchill gets shot down over France - in the governmental confusion peace feelers are made and accepted.
France, or at least Laval - while accepting that Germany has an anti-French agenda, seeks to establish France as Germany's number two over Italy and the UK.

When Turkey is informed of Russia's demands by Germany - it seeks protection/assistance of Germany - but this is not made public.
 
I think for Germany, the UK is the key. If Germany is not at war with the UK it means no - problems in N. Africa, Yugoslavia, BoB etc.
How, maybe - no Abdication - Britain concentrates on the Empire rather than worry about what happens on the continent - with communism seen as the greater threat India etc; June 1940 - no evacuation of BEF, Churchill gets shot down over France - in the governmental confusion peace feelers are made and accepted.
France, or at least Laval - while accepting that Germany has an anti-French agenda, seeks to establish France as Germany's number two over Italy and the UK.

When Turkey is informed of Russia's demands by Germany - it seeks protection/assistance of Germany - but this is not made public.
Interesting, but again I want the POD to be the Battle of France and possibly more specifically less of the BEF getting away and/or the Royal Navy suffering heavier losses in the evacuation. This makes it look more likely that the British will be forced into making a negotiated peace with Hitler so more countries copy Mussolini. I also thought that the bandwagon/domino effect would develop a momentum, that is the bigger the bandwagon the more countries jump onto it.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If the supposition is that the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States are at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the chances of Axis victory are extremely thin. The Axis had a better than even chance to defeat Britain out of the war before it choose to invade the Soviet Union. It had about a fifty-fifty shot of winning against the British and the Soviets. But once the United States is in, I would say that the chances of an Axis victory drop to between 5% and 10%.

So, what dominoes need to fall?

I suppose that if better operational execution and maybe an earlier launch date results in the Germans capturing Moscow in October of 1941, crippling Soviet transportation and communication and rendering them pretty much incapable of launching an effective counter offensive, AND if U-boats in the Atlantic can increase their success rate by 30% or so, AND if Malta is captured, making it easier to supply Axis forces in North Africa, AND if the American aircraft carriers in the Pacific are all sunk at the Battle of Midway (or a similar engagement), AND if the Germans somehow figure out that their Enigma machines are compromised...
 
If the supposition is that the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States are at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the chances of Axis victory are extremely thin. The Axis had a better than even chance to defeat Britain out of the war before it choose to invade the Soviet Union. It had about a fifty-fifty shot of winning against the British and the Soviets. But once the United States is in, I would say that the chances of an Axis victory drop to between 5% and 10%.

So, what dominoes need to fall?

I suppose that if better operational execution and maybe an earlier launch date results in the Germans capturing Moscow in October of 1941, crippling Soviet transportation and communication and rendering them pretty much incapable of launching an effective counter offensive, AND if U-boats in the Atlantic can increase their success rate by 30% or so, AND if Malta is captured, making it easier to supply Axis forces in North Africa, AND if the American aircraft carriers in the Pacific are all sunk at the Battle of Midway (or a similar engagement), AND if the Germans somehow figure out that their Enigma machines are compromised...
I think the Luftwaffe shot itself in the foot by not having an effective air launched torpedo until 1942. It they had acquired one in time for the invasion of Norway its likely that they would have sunk or damaged more of the Home Fleet. It would have made the evacuations from France harder. The Luftwaffe might have put some torpedoes into Illustrious off Malta and Formidable off Crete in 1941. It doesn't win the war for the Axis on its own, but combined with enough minor changes (e.g. the Germans starting World War II with submarine torpedoes that work and more magnetic mines) that might achieve the 30% increase in merchant shipping losses and the capture of Malta.
 
I want the POD to be the Battle of France and possibly more specifically less of the BEF getting away and/or the Royal Navy suffering heavier losses in the evacuation. This makes it look more likely that the British will be forced into making a negotiated peace with Hitler so more countries copy Mussolini. I also thought that the bandwagon/domino effect would develop a momentum, that is the bigger the bandwagon the more countries jump onto it.

if that has to be POD, possible Japan decides forcing Great Britain to terms keeps U.S. on sidelines? declares war in Sept. 1940. the Vichy French regime signs some type of accord in 1941, seen as co-belligerent, if still technically neutral.
 
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if that has to be POD, possible Japan decides forcing Great Britain to terms keeps U.S. on sidelines? declares war in Sept. 1940. the Vichy French regime signs some type of accord in 1941, seen as co-belligerent, if still technically neutral.
Do you mean, Japan forces GB to terms and keeps US on the side lines by declaring war on the UK in September 1940? Yes, Japan can enter the war between June 1940 and its OTL entry.

E.g. it can occupy the British and Dutch East Indies any time after June 1940. However, if it did I think the USA would declare war on Japan. Also as the Philippines are in the way Japan probably takes them too and there might be an earlier Pearl Harbour to boot. OTOH the relative states of preparedness in the second half of 1940 might be even more in Japan's favour than 18 months later. Plus the USA might not be able to advance its OTL mobilisation by up to 18 months because it was undergoing a partial mobilisation from June 1940, e.g. the Two Ocean Navy and Lend Lease.

Vichy France in a parallel war with the British Empire or a full ally of the Axis after June 1940 is also allowed. This might be fasible because of Mers-El-Kebir, Operation Catapult, Syria, the failed attack on Dakar and the British attack on Madagascar in May 1942. Also IOTL the vast majority of French troops evacuated in the Battle of France asked to be repatriated to France. And a few thousand of the tens of thousands captured in Syria joined the Free French and the rest asked to be repatriated to France. But the Germans would have to offer the Vichy French more favourable terms at the Armistice or relax them later on.
 
Re Turkey joining the Axis and Yugoslavia remaining in the Axis (i.e. the coup that precipitated the Axis invasion). According to a source I have the deployment of the 205 divisions of the German Army in June 1941 was as follows:

38 West
12 Norway
1 Denmark
7 Balkans
2 Libya
145 Eastern Front

ITTL there were no German troops in the Balkans because no garrison was required for Yugoslavia and the Italians provided the garrison for Greece.

Therefore the 7 divisions released from there could be used for the Levant Corps and the Iraq Corps.

Or they could be sent to the Eastern Front. Spread among the whole front they would not make much difference, but if concentrated in the right place could they have made the difference at Leningrad or enabled the Germans to hold Rostov until the summer of 1942?

The transport situation might make it impossible to use them at the front anyway. In that case they might be useful clearing the rear areas of partisans or if held in reserve they might help stem the Soviet counter-offensive.
 
if that has to be POD, possible Japan decides forcing Great Britain to terms keeps U.S. on sidelines? declares war in Sept. 1940. the Vichy French regime signs some type of accord in 1941, seen as co-belligerent, if still technically neutral.

Do you mean, Japan forces GB to terms and keeps US on the side lines by declaring war on the UK in September 1940? Yes, Japan can enter the war between June 1940 and its OTL entry.

E.g. it can occupy the British and Dutch East Indies any time after June 1940. However, if it did I think the USA would declare war on Japan.

was thinking of Japanese bolstering Italian East Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Campaign_(World_War_II)

Vichy France in a parallel war with the British Empire or a full ally of the Axis after June 1940 is also allowed.

the Vichy regime priority to keep their fleet might still have allowed Germans to gain their auxiliary cruisers, which would have doubled their raider force http://www.navypedia.org/ships/france/fr_co_amc.htm

and more importantly access to bases (even on clandestine basis)
 
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