TL with no Battle of Britain

POD: The Germans smash the resistance in the Dunkirk pocket not allowing the withdrawal of the BEF.

POD: After beating France, Germany declares a unilateral cease-fire, thus effectively ending the war in the West.

POD: he Germans break the alliance with Italy, not getting involved in North Africa e not intervening in the Balkans except for thus countries with borders to SU, specially Romania because of its oil fields.

Direct consequences: Much more manpower and materials available to Operation Barbarossa, specially the airplanes and pilots not lost in OTL Battle of Britain.

How do you think the British will act? And what of the Italians? Will they seek to establish an alliance with Portugal and Spain, fellow fascist states, and try to form a latin block to create another power centre in Europe?
 
Not sure what the italians would do.But even with the loss of the bef i doubt that would be enough for churchill to consider throwing in the towel.
More than likely his response would be to the effect that "Hitler has offered us a ceasefire well we don`t recognize his ceasefire."With the loss of the BEF they obviously wouldn`t be able to take the war to germany on land but the RAF would still have been more than capable of conducting night time bombing raids on germany.declared ceasefire or not Germany would be forced to have some sort of response to the raids.If british play their cards right and continue raids on german cities an enraged hitler orders the raf threat eliminated and in effect forces the germans to fight the battle of britain.
 
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CalBear

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Churchill has God alone knows how manyBritish POWs in NAZI hands. He will not roll over in that case. You are talking the British EMPIRE here, the whole "sun never sets" deal.

If you want to get the War in the West settles you would be better served to let the BEF get evacuated, hell, give them boats. There are a series of key events you need to make disappear for this to work.

1. DO NOT start the U-Boat campaign against civilain shipping. Realistically there was no way to get the UK to go quietly once the Athenia is sunk on September 4, 1939, followed the next day by another British vessel. Sinking of civilian vessels will also make eventual U.S. involvement inevitable. This goes double for the commerce raiders like Graf Spee.

2. Mass bombing of Rotterdam. This was the attack that allowed the RAF to take off the gloves and go after cities.

3. NEVER drop a bomb on Great Britain. Once you cross the divide and kill British civilians (or even troops) on home soil you are screwed.

4. Make public, iron-clad guarantees regarding the rest of the Empire and British allies in the areas that just don't matter (Greece & Crete come to mind). Mussolini is a bloody fool when it comes to military matters, if he sscrews up, LET HIM.

5. Leave the Neutrals alone (at this point this means Norway). Don't violate the Western Hemisphere 300 mile neutral zone. This part should be easy if you have # 1 in place.

6. Do whatever you can to make the Reich look less evil. Keep allowing the Jews to leave (There is Zero Chance that Hitler will let the Jews be, they are the cornerstone of his obsessions). Help them, get them passage paid by the Reich to any state that will accept them. If you can't get them moved, at least get them isolated in an area that isn't a killing ground. Feed them, etc. This will be part of your campaign to make the Britsh public think about the need to keep fighting once the French surrender.

If you can pull off ALL of these, and doing so is difficult, especially since the RAF will be attacking your forces from the UK and the RN will be hunting whatever shipping Germany has at sea, you have at least a chance to get the UK to accept the status quo.

How good the chance is depends on how successful you are in you campaign with the British public. If the people decide you are worth fighting you're done. The good news, either way, is that none of the steps outlined above actually change the war's outcome against the Reich in the long run.

Bombing England created Bomber Harris and, once the U.S. entered the war, the 8th Air Force, resulting in the destruction of every city in Germany.

The Med campaigns were a waste of time, material, and huge numbers of troops for no gain at all.

The U-boat campaign & the Blitz, while spectacular in their destruction, did not knock the British out of the war, never even came reasonably close.

Appearing to be such evil bastards gave FDR the traction he needed to get Lend-Lease, followed by "Armed Neutrality" in place.

One thing is pretty much a given though; if the steps above DON'T happen no unilateral cease-fire has a prayer.
 
The British will offer peace terms. Only, those terms won't be acceptable to Hitler; at the very least they will include reestablishing Czechoslovakia and Poland, which he can't afford if he has to go ahead with the reason why he is at war, Lebensraum in the East.

So the British will continue fighting. In the air, they will be less effective for a while, because, without the Blitz over London, they'll probably try with targeted night bombing (with the lamentable OTL results). This still means German civilian casualties as the bombs land all over the place instead of on the targeted factory, so it is highly unlikely Germany won't retaliate, breaking its unilateral ceasefire and throwing the whole idea away.
The British will also continue fighting the Italians. Without German involvement, they'll be besieging Tripoli in 1940, but they will probably fail there both due to logististics and due to the diversion of British forces to Greece.

Which brings us to the Italians. They'll be successful in holding Tripoli, but get a drubbing in Albania. The British won't be able to throw them into the Adriatic Sea, again due to logistics, but they'll be fought to a bloody stalemate. At this point, without German support and with the British bombing Southern Italy, it is possible that Mussolini backs out, if the British are generous enough to allow him a status quo.

This will leave the British victorious in the Med and camped in Greece. Considerable pressure is automatically applied on Bulgaria, Turkey and Yugoslavia. If Germany has not meddled with the Balkans, Yugoslavia has a pro-British government, it won't be threatened by Italy any more, but it will still be seriously afraid of Germany. Turkey will probably be able to remain neutral.
But Bulgaria? I don't remember when it declared war on Britain in OTL. If at this point it has already done that, then British bombers can start raiding Ploesti as soon as Romania joins in Barbarossa.

In the North, the British may make more raids against the Germans in Norway, with the troops they have spared in Africa. This will divert even more German garrisons than in OTL.

But OTOH, yes, the Germans have all the Luftwaffe they had in July 1940 (fighter units will be needed to defend the Romanian flank, but they can afford those), plus a couple of armored divisions, a paratroop division, a couple of elite mountain divisions, and several infantry divisions more to commit to Barbarossa. This won't make a difference, alone, I'm afraid, unless the Germans also decide that with this additional reserve pool they can reduce the August 1941 pause and push ahead onto Moscow that year. If they do, well, they have a sporting chance of making a real difference.
 

hammo1j

Donor
The BoB was a waste for Germany. No Seabourne invasion is possible without overwhelming superiority LS & S either way.

The best strategy for AH to persue would not be Unilateral cease fire which Churchill would not accept. Instead offer a bi-lateral cease fire with the territorial status quo maintained and return of prisoners. He should attempt to break the UK by siege using U boats and long range aircraft to concentrate on Britain's oil supply.

Piling on the misery with an end in sight might make Churchill's position untenable. Remember in the OTL it was by no means certain the UK was going to fight on. Hopefully this can be achieved by fall 1941 allowing Barbarossa to go from about a 25% chance of success to about 40%.
 
The BoB was a waste for Germany. No Seabourne invasion is possible without overwhelming superiority LS & S either way.

The best strategy for AH to persue would not be Unilateral cease fire which Churchill would not accept. Instead offer a bi-lateral cease fire with the territorial status quo maintained and return of prisoners.

What status quo? That's the point.

Hitler would surely be ready to offer the status quo of July 1940. This would leave German bombers in France and the Netherlands, German fighters, coastal guns and fast attack craft on the Pas de Calais, German subs up in Norway and on the French Atlantic coast, and German troops in Britain's ally, Poland.

Possibly an ATL Halifax government might accept the loss of Poland. But I very much doubt even that government would consider all the other conditions above as not detrimental to Britain's interests and security, not to mention its position in Europe.

Britain might very well offer Germany a status quo deal – meaning the August 1939 status quo. If not the restoration of Czechoslovakia. Which would make all the German efforts from that point to 1940 meaningless, so it wouldn't be accepted by Hitler.


He should attempt to break the UK by siege using U boats and long range aircraft to concentrate on Britain's oil supply.

Piling on the misery with an end in sight might make Churchill's position untenable. Remember in the OTL it was by no means certain the UK was going to fight on.

...depending on who you asked, then, or ask, today.

Hopefully this can be achieved by fall 1941 allowing Barbarossa to go from about a 25% chance of success to about 40%.

No. Such a strategy would take years, no less.
 
Churchill has God alone knows how manyBritish POWs in NAZI hands. He will not roll over in that case. You are talking the British EMPIRE here, the whole "sun never sets" deal.

would it be enough for no confidence vote and it's success?
 
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