Proposals and War Aims That Didn't Happen Map Thread
- Thread starter Beedok
- Start date
I am curious...did Stalin had ever plans for Italy ? Like its own Italy like they did in Germany?
I don't think so. Italy is pretty far and not so important for Stalin. He knew that he couldn't do with that anything anyway.
What about Italy's Adriatic territories (primarily Istrian Coast and Zara) pre-WW2 ?
I can’t see any logical proposal besides the OTL decision to give them to Yugoslavia.
No not really Italy Switched sides and had become allied power by the end of the war and they had been liberated entirely by the western allies so the Soviets really had no bargaining room when it came to Italy. There was some attempts by Austria to reannex South Tirol but those were unrelated to the Soviets.
before Italy became allied he probably had something in his head, Id be suprised if he ever wrote it down though since by the time any of it could've happened Italy was a member of the allies.
The Greek Plan
Here's a concept from the 1780's, pushed forward by Catherine the Great. This idea concerned the Orthodox Christians under Ottoman rule, and sought to resolve the Eastern Question. The idea, which had already been the works for decades at that point, was to partition the Ottomans' European holdings between Russia and the Hapsburg Empire, along with seizing territory around Black and Caspian Seas for the former, while both would also take bites out of Poland. The islands of Peloponnese, Crete and Cyprus would also be given to the Republic of Venice.
The most interesting goal of this plan was to recreate the Byzantine Empire in what is today Bulgaria, North Macedonia and most of Modern Greece. This Neo-Byzantium would, she hoped, be governed by her grandson Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, which would in turn grant Russia unrestricted access to the Mediterranean. The plan's implementation was largely masterminded by Prince Potemkin, who began pushing for the recreation of a Byzantine identity, including giving Greek names to newly-founded towns in what's today Ukraine, such as Odessa and Kherson. In May 1780, Catherine even arranged a secret meeting with Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II over the idea.
The Austro-Russian Alliance hoped to carry all this out, but with Joseph's death in 1790 and the Treaties of Jassy and Sistova, which barely granted the Austrians anything, the alliance and aspirations of a Neo-Byzantium both crumbled. With a certain revolution in France just a few years later, attentions turned westward anyway.
Well, at least the most Polish and Lithuanian parts remain independent. Otherwise the map is - Hang on, how did bothnlose land in the north to Sweden and regain it in the south? Come to think of it, it is a little fun. Not for the border changes so much as how i suspect the original mapmaker may have used as a source a map that didn’t include the bit of Norway north of the line on the top of the map and just assumed it was Swedish, or changed the proportions of Norway in the south. Ahhh, right. This map was set before the Napoleonic wars. Nice they still labeled Norway separate from Denmark.
First things first. They wouldn’t want to overextend themselves. I read somewhere how Stalin wasn’t the most in favor of putting too much support into the Spanish Republicans, incase it pissed off the West. He allowed weapons to go through, but mostly just to Stalinists, while also basically stealing the entire gold reserves of the country and then overcharging for what had already been given as gifts. Also, the Allies gave the Soviets a far bit of the occupation land in Czechia, Germany, etc due to previous agreements on occupation zones. Unlikely there would ever be an agreement about partitioning Italy into occupation zones, and without it the Soviets would need to withdraw from the land of the West might just keep themselves in Thuringia and other places given to the Russians. The northeast of Italy would not be great for manufacturing, so no point for the Soviets to invade and try to keep the area. It was bad enough that the natural resources of East Germany was apparently mostly coal. No, far better to just do like they did with the west of Germany. Don’t go there, don’t waste money, just have them send half of all reparations straight to the Soviets. Saves time and effort. Not going to lie, it would be interesting to see the Soviets in Triveneto and if they would change the languages there or perhaps focus on the Venetian language rather than the main Italian. I can see them trying to just make all of Italy an aligned state, though not try very hard.
I have found two texts which are interesting on this front:
1) In an article by Ronald Bruce St. John titled "The Soviet penetration of Libya", he mentions that at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 the Soviets were interested in taking over trusteeship over the region of Tripolitania for ten years, both to help former Italian North Africa "prepare for (...) independence" and to have an outlet on the Mediterreanean Sea. After that proposal was blocked by France and the UK, the Soviets apparently suggested a collective trusteeship over all of Italian North Africa, ultimately also getting shot down.
2) Meanwhile, in an article titled "Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe" by Silvio Pons, he mostly writes about how the Soviets were intently following developments in Italy and were greatly invested in seeing the Italian Communist Party under Palmiro Togliatti, succeed, but that the Soviets never really pushed the Western Allies for greater participation in the post-war order in Italy (though they were displeased initially about essentially just being observers there).
There are notes that in a meeting between Stalin and Togliatti, the two agreed on the importance of "national unity" in Italy to counter explicit British influence, ultimately meaning that anti-fascist, left-wing forces in Italy would ultimately work together with other "post-fascist institutions" to keep Italy stable. However some Soviet diplomats, such as Aleksandr Bogomolov (Moscow's rep to the Advisory Council on Italy and then briefly Soviet ambassador to Rome), and apparently significant sections of Yugoslav communists, tried to get the Italian communists to follow a more insurrectionist approach, similar to what was happening in Greece. This is also mirrored in correspondances ahead of the 1948 election, where Molotov sent a telegram to the Italian communists advising against adopting insurrection as a tactic unless "reactionary forces" launched a direct military attack on the PCI, and that the PCI should not listed to Yugoslav agitations.
Interestingly the text also talks about Trieste, which Togliatti wanted internationalized instead of having it be attached to either Italy or Yugoslavia. Stalin in May 1945 did want the city to go to Yugoslavia and allowed Tito to send troops into the city, but following Western pressure, made Tito withdraw his occuaptional force.
So, ultimately, it seems that there was a lot of realpolitic going on, with the most plausible development being an internationalization of Trieste favoring left-wing forces and a Soviet presence in Libya, but not much else being explicitly on the table.
Operation Washtub was a plan put together by the FBI and the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations to counteract a potential Soviet invasion of Alaska. Beginning in 1950, a number of Operation Gladio-style stay-behind armies and networks of trained resistance fighters were established in Alaska, with the goal of ferrying out potential targets of the Red Army and sabotaging the occupation force. Supply caches were also hidden throughout the Alaskan wilderness, kept off the ground to prevent them being buried in snow.
However, as the Cold War evolved, nuclear proliferation escalated and the odds of a conventional war looked less and less likely, especially in Alaska, the Operation was suspended and eventually shelved in 1959, when Alaska achieved statehood.
This is insane, never heard of this before. DId those stay-behind networks end up being recycled into any other operations as so many of them were?
Though I would ask - what exactly is this map meant to represent?
Interesting I have never heard of this I didn’t know American prepped so much for a Soviet invasion of Alaska.
Mostly me wanting to put a map so it didn't just have plain text ^^;
And not to my knowledge, the operation was terminated and everyone went their own ways. I do know the caches were maintained until 1961. If you wanna know more, here's where I found it:
Gotcha. While, as I said, it is an interesting case, if that map is just a generic "Russia invades Alaska" to go along with the text, then it doesn't really belong in this thread. A map of supply caches, of network nodes, or government projections of Russian invasion of Alaska, these could all fit if they exist (or if you want to knuckle down and do research to make such a map), but otherwise it's not really appropriate.
Last edited:
I have seen some from all different parts of the world appear on this thread but I would say the most common is the Middle East, Europe and some parts of Asia especially India.
I dont know if this would really count, but it does feature a significant territorial change in a sense. 520 nukes.
www.businessinsider.com
The US had a plan in the 1960s to blast an alternative Suez Canal through Israel using 520 nuclear bombs
The plan, drawn up in 1963, would have carved the canal through the Negev desert but did not take into account "political feasibility."
www.businessinsider.com