New Additions to the Allies and Axis

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You want a better example? Norway.
Hard to invade. Troops there can't be easily recalled. Little value.
Population as of 1944 was 11% Wermacht!


With reasonably good reason. Churchill wanted to invade it despite that, fortunately CIGS Brooke was good at talking him out of such ventures.

Same for most of the wasteful German deployments, if they left anywhere vulnerable there is a reasonable chance the allies would attack at some point.
 
the best addition to the Axis would be Finland, not sure what scenario would make them join (?) maybe German support during the Winter War or maybe Finns decide Leningrad needs to be taken to insure their security.

lackluster rebellion in Iraq but that would have been a great country to have in Axis, Berlin to Baghdad railroad, could envision Rommel fighting there not N.Africa. might inspire Egyptians to try and kick the Brits out.
 
the best addition to the Axis would be Finland, not sure what scenario would make them join (?) maybe German support during the Winter War or maybe Finns decide Leningrad needs to be taken to insure their security.

Given as Finnish participation in the war against the USSR was IOTL grounded on realism - Finnish resources only really warranted the kind of advance and occupation that was achieved IOTL, and the Finnish political and military leadership were careful not to burn all the bridges to the Allies to prepare for the possible eventuality of Germany not winning, I'd say the only way to get Finland to "fully commit" to Barbarossa and German (as opposed to Finnish) war aims (as is often asked on this forum) would be to have such people leading Finland that are for one reason or another ready to throw all caution and sanity out of the window in 1940.

One way to achieve this might be to kill off Mannerheim and some of the leading non-pro-German and non-radical politicians, like Ryti or Paasikivi, in the 30s (maybe it is a lucky Soviet bombing during the Winter War) and tweak the timeline so that the people that rise to positions of leadership are Germanophiles and Greater Finland enthusiasts to boot. Rash personalities would help, too.

This is a very tenuous way to do it, though. For a better effect we could pull off changes in the interwar, even from 1918, that would make Finland a Fascist or at least right wing authoritarian state. Such a Finland, if it survives the Winter War (which I doubt), would be much more amenable to go to greater lengths to support the Nazis come 1941 than the stolid bourgeois republic the nation had IOTL become by the late 30s. But then of course we would have to worry about the butterflies the political changes in Finland would have caused earlier, locally and abroad.

Anyway, we wouldn't want to count on a Fascist/authoritarian Finland being a lot more useful ally to Germany in comparison to OTL Finland. Given how politically divided such a Finland would be, the leading right wing elites would have to keep down the left heavy-handedly and internal problems would take away resources this Finland could wield in *WWII - it is a possibility this Finland might even field a smaller military and one with parts more likely to disobey orders or to mutiny than the OTL Finnish armed forces.
 
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You want a better example? Norway.
Hard to invade. Troops there can't be easily recalled. Little value.
Population as of 1944 was 11% Wermacht!

AFAIK you will get that proportion of German troops vs. Norwegians only at the very end of 1944 - prior to the end of October 1944, at least, up to half of the German numbers up north were in Finland until the withdrawal operations called Birke and Nordlicht.

Saying that Norway has little value requires one to disregard the fact that the German 20th Mountain Army (213 000 men) was holding 700 km of front against the Soviets, propping up Finland in the war and for example defending the vital nickel mines in Petsamo that by 1942 provided the majority of the nickel used by the German war machine. This would have been impossible without German troops controlling Norway - abandoning Norway would essentially mean abandoning the Finnish front and Finland, along with control of the northern Baltic Sea, too.

German_withdrawal_from_finland_summer_1944.jpg
 
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