alternatehistory.com

According to Max Hastings:

"
Within days of Germany's surrender, Churchill had astounded his chiefs of staff by inquiring whether Anglo-American forces might launch an offensive to drive back the Soviets. He requested the military planners to consider means to 'impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire' to secure 'a square deal for Poland'.


The beaten Germans would be mobilised on the West's side. There was even a target date for such an assault - July 1, 1945.

At the Potsdam conference in July 1945, Churchill's inside knowledge that the Americans had just completed the first successful atomic bomb test emboldened the PM in his crusade to bring Stalin to heel. Pushing his chin out and scowling, he told Sir Alan: 'We can tell them that if they insist on doing this or that, well we can just blot out Moscow, then Stalingrad, then Kiev and so on.

Needless to say, given the acute sensitivity of their draft proposal for what was termed Operation Unthinkable, security was at a premium. Needless to say, too, Stalin learned very quickly what was going on in the British camp.

One of the many spies he had in Whitehall swiftly conveyed to Moscow tidings of an instruction that had gone out from London to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the senior British commander in Germany, urging him to stockpile captured German weapons for possible future use.

The planners estimated that 47 Allied divisions would be needed for an offensive, 14 of them tank divisions. A further 40 divisions would have to be kept in reserve for defensive or occupation tasks. Against this, the report said, the Russians could muster twice as many men and tanks.

On the question of re-arming and putting the defeated German army back in the field, the planners were concerned that veterans who had already fought in the bitter battles on the Eastern Front might be reluctant to repeat the experience"



Let us leave the actual carrying out of Unthinkable alone. After all, it was rather unthinkable.

The What If's it could be interesting to go into are:

1) Stalin was not particular fond of Germans in 1945. Insofar as he had all the knowledge about Unthinkable through his spies, could he have driving an even harder bargain to gain buffer space (territory): Denmark straits, Norway, the whole of Germany?

2) If the Germans had been told to get on with Barbarossa V2.0 would they finally have revolted? WI they did?

3) WI the German army (unthinkable really) had been happy with a re-arming and crusade again? What was left really?

4) WI the arming and the focus had been on USSR according to the planners. Japan?

5) WI Unthinkable had become known in 1945? Would Europe have been ready for another war?

6) Which government would have supported this crusade. Suddenly it is a crusade, not a war, against the "evil" communists. Who in France and Italy would have supported this? And if they did, would we have seen a revolution in France and Italy based on a communist take-over.

7) WI it became known and Stalin playes victim? Getting all communists to defend him agaisnt this crusade? Will Italy and France then become communist countries based on this incident alone?

Not going into a launch of Unthinkable, but the political ramifications of having it to leak out in a greater way in 1945 are a bit interesting.

Ivan















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