Soviets conquer Poland, 1920
- Thread starter Tocomocho
- Start date
@Homer: I've no doubt the Europeans would be up for starting a war to drive the Soviets out of Germany, I just think it's doubtful that they'd be willing to follow through. One in four French males had died or lost an entire limb between 1914 and 1920. That's does not mean one in four soldiers, but includes infants and septagenarians.
You're right of course about the relative ease of the march, but even in the best case scenario destruction of the Soviet Union is a tall order. And why keep going if the enemy is willing to sign a Brest-Litovsk to be left alone? I think the USSR in this TL would be hard-pressed to do worse than it did in ours.
@VoCSe: Well, I feel like an idiot. I did know that, just had a little aneurysm there.
You're right of course about the relative ease of the march, but even in the best case scenario destruction of the Soviet Union is a tall order. And why keep going if the enemy is willing to sign a Brest-Litovsk to be left alone? I think the USSR in this TL would be hard-pressed to do worse than it did in ours.
@VoCSe: Well, I feel like an idiot. I did know that, just had a little aneurysm there.
Well, every country would face millions of soldiers coming back from the war - but there would be no work for them. In Germany, for example, these soldiers formed Freikorps that included thousands of men - volunteers! The same could work in other countries. These Freikorps actually fought against Communists OTL, just get them some more support and add some more from the West and it would be enough. After all, WWI produced thousands of former officers and soldiers that never learned something else then war. I could imagine that many of those would participate in this new war against the Reds.
As is stated above, the new countries in Eastern europe would not be so war-tired. Thus Poles, Ukrainians, Baltics, Finnish, Czechoslovaks and Romanians would be eager to fight for their new freedom.
In the East, Japanese troops occupied large parts of Siberia OTL. ITTL, the West would even encourage them to do more. And they would not be tired of the war.
And then, you'd have the Whites in Russia who would fight alongside the West against the Reds.
I could imagine that even America could join a common effort of the free countries - or new free countries - to eradicate the Red Menace. After all, this would really be a new crusade of the Western democracies - now joined by the new democracies in central and eastern Europe.
So basically I don't believe that such a war would affect everybodies life as much as WWI did. Probably German Freikorps would play a major role, then the eastern europeans themselves, other Freikorps from all around the world, and some regular French and British troops maybe occupying St Petersburg or Archangelsk.
The Germans would benefit enourmously from such an alliance. This could end in new terms of Versailles to keep the Germans fighting. So they could be more then willing to send their troops to the east. If you combine the whole of Europe PLUS Russian supporters, this would be quite an easy march for any single country. The Germans had 3 million soldiers in Barbarossa, when they faced better troops. 3 million out of Western Europe is not that much!
You might be underestimating war-weariness a tad, Homer. While there were many volunteers in the Freikorps, there were probably just as many Spartacists who melted into the working classes when the 1919 uprising was crushed. If there was renewed fighting and these Freikorps were sent to the front, who would be left behind to crush the workers? It would be utter chaos, with rival militias and all that malarkey.
This is something I concluded: the Russian October Revolution was only possible because Russia was still fighting the war when the liberals held power. While in Germany in 1919 the soldiers were all back home ready and willing to crush the Communists, in Russia in 1917 all the soldiers were at the front suffering severe morale problems. If Germany had continued to fight the war after the Weimar Republic came to power, then the Petrograd uprising would have undoubtedly repeated itself in Moscow. This is what makes the October Revolution such an unmistakebly aberrant event, since city-based uprisings rarely last long against the might of the military. All the other major Communist revolutions of the 20th century were rural in support.
In launching a great war less than two years after settling the greatest war in human history, you successfully turn the exception into the norm. Everyone was exhausted after 4 years of unremitting torture, buried under war debts, putting down nationalist revolts in places that had gone untended during the years of struggle, dealing with millions upon millions of walking wounded and emphatically without American support (the US senate had recently rejected the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson's support was on the ropes. If he ever brought up the possibility of intervening such a possibility would be quickly quashed). France and Britain in particular were utterly shattered, as they didn't consider war to be a cathartic experience like many Germans did. And if by this stage the Germans had staged a huge revolt to bring about an end to fighting, imagine how the French and British felt. And of course the Italians are still peeved about not getting their just rewards, so joining in the other great powers in a crusade may just get the two-fingered salute from the population.
With Romania/Finland et al I'm not even sure they'd be terribly enthusiastic about joining in the crusade. They'd join more out of terror than enthusiasm, more likely. Out of all the potential candidates for allies in the crusade I can only envisage the Japanese greeting it with triumphalism. And the track record of nations 'picking up support on the march', if you look back at history, is a tad sketchy at best. The Poles may join in, but I'm not too sure about Ukrainians greeting Romanian conquerers with garlands of flowers. These people have been pawns of greater powers for longer than they can remember, and quite frankly not having a Polish state causes the western powers fewer headaches. The relationship with the 'liberated peoples' is bound to sour eventually.
Remember, although the bourgeois elite of the west was terrified of the reds, to large masses of the population the Russian Bolsheviks were heroes. The 'red tide' of 1919 is testament to that. If the Russians publicly state that they'd rather have a peaceful settlement then the workers of the west are going to be very ambivalent about their nation's war effort. What able-bodied people there are left are being dispatched to the front, leaving behind a rabble of malcontents to shore up industry. It's a recipe for revolt if ever I saw one. This 'great alliance of democracy' is good propaganda, but hardly feasible.
And, raising the question asked in an earlier post, what about the United States? With Europe descending into chaos and America staying neutral, will there be a new influx of refugees? And how does this effect the roaring twenties?
This is something I concluded: the Russian October Revolution was only possible because Russia was still fighting the war when the liberals held power. While in Germany in 1919 the soldiers were all back home ready and willing to crush the Communists, in Russia in 1917 all the soldiers were at the front suffering severe morale problems. If Germany had continued to fight the war after the Weimar Republic came to power, then the Petrograd uprising would have undoubtedly repeated itself in Moscow. This is what makes the October Revolution such an unmistakebly aberrant event, since city-based uprisings rarely last long against the might of the military. All the other major Communist revolutions of the 20th century were rural in support.
In launching a great war less than two years after settling the greatest war in human history, you successfully turn the exception into the norm. Everyone was exhausted after 4 years of unremitting torture, buried under war debts, putting down nationalist revolts in places that had gone untended during the years of struggle, dealing with millions upon millions of walking wounded and emphatically without American support (the US senate had recently rejected the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson's support was on the ropes. If he ever brought up the possibility of intervening such a possibility would be quickly quashed). France and Britain in particular were utterly shattered, as they didn't consider war to be a cathartic experience like many Germans did. And if by this stage the Germans had staged a huge revolt to bring about an end to fighting, imagine how the French and British felt. And of course the Italians are still peeved about not getting their just rewards, so joining in the other great powers in a crusade may just get the two-fingered salute from the population.
With Romania/Finland et al I'm not even sure they'd be terribly enthusiastic about joining in the crusade. They'd join more out of terror than enthusiasm, more likely. Out of all the potential candidates for allies in the crusade I can only envisage the Japanese greeting it with triumphalism. And the track record of nations 'picking up support on the march', if you look back at history, is a tad sketchy at best. The Poles may join in, but I'm not too sure about Ukrainians greeting Romanian conquerers with garlands of flowers. These people have been pawns of greater powers for longer than they can remember, and quite frankly not having a Polish state causes the western powers fewer headaches. The relationship with the 'liberated peoples' is bound to sour eventually.
Remember, although the bourgeois elite of the west was terrified of the reds, to large masses of the population the Russian Bolsheviks were heroes. The 'red tide' of 1919 is testament to that. If the Russians publicly state that they'd rather have a peaceful settlement then the workers of the west are going to be very ambivalent about their nation's war effort. What able-bodied people there are left are being dispatched to the front, leaving behind a rabble of malcontents to shore up industry. It's a recipe for revolt if ever I saw one. This 'great alliance of democracy' is good propaganda, but hardly feasible.
And, raising the question asked in an earlier post, what about the United States? With Europe descending into chaos and America staying neutral, will there be a new influx of refugees? And how does this effect the roaring twenties?