Trapped Fox, a WW2 TL
- Thread starter CrimsonCosmonaut
- Start date
- Status
Stalin tended to go after his generals for (perceived) disloyalty rather than (perceived) incometence. Look what happened to Vorishilov after the Winter War. Speaking of, does that even happen here?
POD is after the war ended ( War is Nov 39 - March 1940 , POD is May 1940 ).
For Germans certainly. Come 1941, and Entente is going to go on the offensive, and then the Germans will really start hurting. Nice and slow, grinding offensives, two most mechanised forces in the world, supported by largest tank fleets in the world, with enough artillery to really ruin the Germans frontline. Do not forget that France is in the game, with its industries, ports and railroads intact, allowing the Allied forces an immense amount of logistical support and mobility, with enough financial support to pay for it all, and industry that has just begun to mobilize for the war ahead.
Once the frontlines settle, even then the Germans are going to bleed, death of a thousand cuts style. Artillery and aircraft are going to continue low level activity, which means that even when bringing up supplies for the frontline, the Germans are going to take casualties, and large ones at that, since they lack things (in large enough numbers) like Bren/Universal and UE Renault tracked carriers, which at least provide some basic protection and mobility. In thr Blunted Sickle threads it was mentioned that in WW1 Germans lost roughly 4k people a week just bringing up supplies and the like to the frontlines, and here situation is even worse, as the artillery has advanced substantially since then, Entante has a definite advantage in number of artillery pieces, and noe you have to add aircraft in the equation, of which Entante has more of as well.
Idea that Germans are going to last until 1943, let alone 1944 in this scenario is laughable at best, even with Soviet help. Not to mention that Allies are so wary of taking casualties, especially French, that they will stack the deck in their favour as much as possible, which will further tip the odds against the Germans. We are talking possibility of reaching Late War British Tank-Infantry ratios, with at least several Entante Armies being mostly motorized/mechanised, with infantry divisions having more tanks then the Panzer divisions have. Hell, average French Infantry division likely has more motor vehicles in service then its German Counterpart, most of which are still using horses.
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John Fredrick Parker
Donor
It's only a question of when the Allies can get a Counter-Offensive really going, after which the war is over within one year, tops; I'd estimate TTL's conflict ends 1941.
Hitler tended to fire his Generals for failure and disagreement early war - not shoot them.
Just saying like.
Just saying like.
Interesting. I wonder if Italy choosing ‘not to play’ becomes a major regional force in the Balkans region and post war becomes a Ally of convenience in any future Cold War against the Soviets?
Frankly, this has nothing to do with the real Hitler. It is worth noting that no German general EVER was murdered for their battlefield performance in WW2. They might be fired, sure, but not murdered. Further, keep in mind that the original German plan before the last minute change to OTL's sickle-cut was Schlieffen plan: 1940 edition, and even when the change to the sickle-cut plan was made, the Germans didn't think it would be as successful as it was. The Germans were, in fact, expecting a much longer and bloodier campaign. The reverses you've shown would not, I think, have really phased Hitler or his generals. Though certainly, they are no longer looking at their ideal case.
fasquardon
BaronVonDouchebag
Banned
If western Europe turns into a meat grinder like World War I, I wonder if the United States would stay out of it after Pearl Harbor, if the Germans show enough sense not to declare war.
A World War
August 6, 1940
Vatutin almost spat out his coffee upon reading the reports. Germany affirmed it’s pro-Romanian stance. “You can’t be serious.” He said out loud to no one. Ever since the catastrophic German failure on the west, things had went back and forth, mostly between the British and Germans while the front settled along the Meuse. However he remembered the day Molotov had debriefed the Soviet high command about the situation that the true reality of the situation had been revealed. Since then, the Vozhd had become incredibly ambitious, and gave permission to press for the total submition of the Romanian kleptocracy to the proletariat. Coupled with a massive army, prepared to break the back of any Romanian resistance, Stalin made it clear to him and all commanders there would not be another Finnish repeat. The fall of the Balts had suggested the Germans would not intervene against Bolshevik expansion, and now that Germany had announced it’s intentions to support the Romanian cause, the king refused the Soviet demand for abdication. Vatutin knew the Red Army was in no position to easily defeat the fascists to the west, but neither were the Germans. Vatutin looked up to see his office door open, and out stood Rokossovsky, with a half smile on his face. Rokossovsky took off and hung up his coat; then sat down on a chair opposite of Vatutin’s desk. Rokossovsky then plainly said “News from the Vozhd, you’re going to Galicia. Looks like someone is being promoted to the new First Ukrainian Front.” Vatutin grinned. “And I’m assuming you’ve been demoted to messenger boy now, couldn’t the Vozhd send someone else or, I don’t know, call?” Rokossovsky laughed “No, and for your information I’ve been moved to second Belarusian. I came here to talk to a friend. And the Vozhd must see you as a friend, given the promotion.” Vatutin coldly responded “Or an enemy.” Rokossovsky’s smile disappeared. “The Vozhd needs people he can trust, good people he can trust. This is it. This is the war we've been waiting for, this is what our revolution was founded on. Russia’s counting on you, and obviously Stalin has enough faith in you to place you in defense of the Rodina. Unless of course you want to be defending unimportant steppes in Mongolia during the most important conflict in the history of the USSR” Vatutin smiled “I heard Vladivostok is nice this time of year. I’ll tell the Vozhd I accept the position. Now, why are you here.” Rokossovsky grinned and pulled under his coat a large dark brown box, and Vatutin could easily smell the tobacco. When lighting the fine crafted cigar, Vatutin only hoped the coming blockade wouldn’t disrupt the shipments of these.
Vatutin almost spat out his coffee upon reading the reports. Germany affirmed it’s pro-Romanian stance. “You can’t be serious.” He said out loud to no one. Ever since the catastrophic German failure on the west, things had went back and forth, mostly between the British and Germans while the front settled along the Meuse. However he remembered the day Molotov had debriefed the Soviet high command about the situation that the true reality of the situation had been revealed. Since then, the Vozhd had become incredibly ambitious, and gave permission to press for the total submition of the Romanian kleptocracy to the proletariat. Coupled with a massive army, prepared to break the back of any Romanian resistance, Stalin made it clear to him and all commanders there would not be another Finnish repeat. The fall of the Balts had suggested the Germans would not intervene against Bolshevik expansion, and now that Germany had announced it’s intentions to support the Romanian cause, the king refused the Soviet demand for abdication. Vatutin knew the Red Army was in no position to easily defeat the fascists to the west, but neither were the Germans. Vatutin looked up to see his office door open, and out stood Rokossovsky, with a half smile on his face. Rokossovsky took off and hung up his coat; then sat down on a chair opposite of Vatutin’s desk. Rokossovsky then plainly said “News from the Vozhd, you’re going to Galicia. Looks like someone is being promoted to the new First Ukrainian Front.” Vatutin grinned. “And I’m assuming you’ve been demoted to messenger boy now, couldn’t the Vozhd send someone else or, I don’t know, call?” Rokossovsky laughed “No, and for your information I’ve been moved to second Belarusian. I came here to talk to a friend. And the Vozhd must see you as a friend, given the promotion.” Vatutin coldly responded “Or an enemy.” Rokossovsky’s smile disappeared. “The Vozhd needs people he can trust, good people he can trust. This is it. This is the war we've been waiting for, this is what our revolution was founded on. Russia’s counting on you, and obviously Stalin has enough faith in you to place you in defense of the Rodina. Unless of course you want to be defending unimportant steppes in Mongolia during the most important conflict in the history of the USSR” Vatutin smiled “I heard Vladivostok is nice this time of year. I’ll tell the Vozhd I accept the position. Now, why are you here.” Rokossovsky grinned and pulled under his coat a large dark brown box, and Vatutin could easily smell the tobacco. When lighting the fine crafted cigar, Vatutin only hoped the coming blockade wouldn’t disrupt the shipments of these.
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Soviet-Axis War
Author’s note: I want to try a new format, in order to cover more per post, more of the format as a historian of the already resolved conflict rather than the view of each of the individual figures in the conflict. I’ll launch a poll and see what you guys think!
Also, I edited Manstein’s plot, he’ll see action on the East, but don’t worry, Manstein will still face the bullet, whether from the barrel of German or Soviet gun remains to be seen, however.
Just as the Western front line had begun to solidify, the East had erupted into warfare. The German high command, recognizing they didn’t have the resources to defeat both the west and East at the same time, hoped to force a knockout blow on Russia and sue for peace, offering Bessarabia to the Soviets. However Stalin had other intentions. Although neither Stalin nor Hitler really wanted war with one another, at least not until later, the Soviets were dead set on securing all of Romania to the USSR. As part of Russia’s hopes of expanding his influence in the Balkans by partitioning Romania between him and Hungary, and later securing Bulgarian influence, which would deny Germany a southern ally and turn the German war economy completely under the thumb of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Germany could not afford to have the oil fields damaged, nor allow continued Russian buildup after their disaster in France. Ribbentrop offered to give all of Moldova and Bessarabia to Russia, even Memel to the new Lithuanian SSR. However Molotov, and later Stalin, only took this as a sign of German weakness, and believed the Germans would not resist the Russian invasion of Romania. Germany could not allow it’s oil to be hampered, and the country was pushed to the brink when Miklós Horthy accepted Molotov’s alliance offer, as Horthy saw the Germans as a sinking ship, and hoped to be on Moscow’s good side long enough for the west to win, where he would gleefully enter the protection of the French, who would once again be the hegemon of Europe. Hitler feared a total loss of political alliance, as both Franco and Mussolini refused alliance offers. When Ribbentrop reported the situation to Hitler, the Fuhrer ordered a rapid mobilization of the Wehrmacht to the east to prepare a first strike...
On the 10th of August, Soviet forces assaulted the Romanians. The Romanian army had mobilized with the delayed Soviet intervention, and King Carol would affirm his anti-Bolshevik stance with a declaration of war on the Soviet Union. Although the Romanians had prepared defenses along river positions, general of the Romanian Front Georgy Zhukov has no intentions of backing down. Launch in coordinated air-artillery attacks on specific divisions, and focusing on central weak points and driving their largest attacks there, Zhukov was able to make a successful breach in the Romanian line along the Dniester River, around Tiraspol. Romanian armies launched repeated counterattacks, but after three days, the Russians had managed to cross over 4 divisions, and Russian air supremacy in the flat Bessarabia plains were much more suited to the conventional warfare being waged by the Romanians then the asymmetric Finnish line faced by the same soldiers only eight months ago.
Romanian forced entrenched on the plains before Chisinau (20th August, 1940)
View attachment 516271
The Russian breakthrough soon extended as the bridgeheads widened, and soon the Soviets has 16 divisions deep into Moldova, threatening to encircle the city. Romanian defenders fought fiercely, dealing significant casualties to Soviet soldiers, but soviet technological, tactical and strategic superiority, learned after their bloody mistakes in Finland prevailed, the unbreakable T-34 quickly becoming the bane of the Romanian army, fighting with outdated Renaults received before the war, and the Red Air Force pounding their crumbling positions. The Romanian situation was deeply escalating, and it was only the intervention of Germany that prevented the fall of Chisinau, allowing Romanian forces respite.
Under equipped, rushed and panicked, the Germans launched a series of offensives across the front with varying degrees of success. All across the Soviet-German border, conflict erupted. While many historians, even today, see this as yet another bout of Hitler’s insanity, modern information gives us a number of reasons why the Reich launched such a dastardly plan. The Soviet Union’s advance has transcended into a severe threat to Germany’s economic and political influence in the region. Romania was a country guaranteed under German influence, and was the primary oil source for the war machine of the Reich. The loss of Romania, and the British blockade would mean the Germans would be completely at the economic mercy of the USSR. Not that they weren’t already, 1.6 million tons of all-important grain, 0.9 million tons of oil, along with hundreds of thousands of tons worth of resources such as rubber, manganese, platinum, and other resources necessary for the Reich war effort.However with the recent German losses, successful British and French negotiations, through concessions of their own technology, causing the Soviets to begin to slow down on deliverances of resources, often arriving late, or with a much lower stock than expected. The truth was, those resources were going to the Allies, and it was showing. Increases in French tank production, armed with Kursk Steel, fueled by Baku oil and covered by Karelian aluminum planes. The scale of the Soviet aid to the west soon couldn’t be ignored by the Germans, who saw their own aid being reduced to compensate for Soviet aid to the Allies. The French themselves were welcome to publicly allow Soviet aid to their country, in an effort to appease the French left after the arrest of multiple leaders of the French Communist party on dubious grounds. The Germans were infuriated by this, and Hitler already had the ire of many of the German people for letting Bolshevik expansion move pretty much unopposed. When Hitler learned of Horthy meeting with Stalin to discuss possible geopolitical agreements in the Balkans, and renewed socialist activity in Bulgaria, Hitler envisioned a situation where the war would allow his entire southern flank to fall to the Reds, and for the Reich economic situation to be caught between an increasingly apathetic Russia and the choking British blockade. Germany was seen as weak, unable to protect Finland, the Balts, openly cooperating with the Reds, even failing to defeat Norway, after the failure to capture Narvik and the surrender of nearly an entire division, the rest fleeing to Sweden before being interned and, in order to avoid either side’s flak, decides to just keep the German prisoners for the rest of the war. Not that Germany was in a position to resist, the Norwegians and Brits were cleaning up Narvik and preparing to retake Trondheim. And so, Hitler believed, that a quick knockout blow against the USSR would shatter it, establish Germany’s dominant economic/political position in Europe, and allow him to turn his entire force against the western allies while at the same time executing out his fanatical ideas of Lebensraum.
And so, on the 22nd of August, German forces crossed the border. A half baked attempt at achieving the same victory against the Russians as they did in the last war, Hitler was determined to see Russia collapse, just as they had done in the last war. He had even been told tales by Himmler and others about the massive underground white resistance, and that the German invasion would spark a white counterrevolution against the USSR.
Germans approaching from the east during the fateful battle of Klaipeda (27th August, 1940)
The Germans saw most success on the Lithuanian front, guarded by Kliment Voroshilov. Russian mobilization along the front had begun at about the same time as the Germans, although the Germans were able to cobble up an offensive force beforehand. The German army group North under Ferdinand Schörner crashed into Voroshilov’s line, breaking through in a number of areas. Within three days, Schörner had successfully made a 60 kilometer gap in the line, and army group center under Erich von Manstein had successfully performed guarding action against Rokossovky’s counterattacks to stop Schörner’s advance. Manstein demonstrated key cautiousness, a surprise from his aggressive and ambitious moves during the western campaign, acting as a vanguard for Army Group North’s offensive, rather than pushing towards Bialystok and driving into Belarus. Although this move did save Army group North from the same grizzly fate that Army Group A in France had seen, it bought valuable time for Rokossovky to receive crucial reinforcements, it would cripple short term hopes of overrunning Bialystok. Back north, Schörner managed to successfully reach the Gulf of Riga in an impressive two weeks, emulating the success the west never saw. Voroshilov ordered consistent counterattacks, directing his forces towards Klaipeda to take the port, and the Germans responded in kind with a brutal counterattack. The battle raged for 4 days before Voroshilov was forced into a brutal retreat out of fear of encirclement. Voroshilov would later say that he was ordered to attack Klaipeda, rather than attempting to stop the German advance towards the Sea of Riga, and that Stalin ordered his attack. Regardless, the Germans reached Riga Sea, however were unable to take the city of Riga. The Germans swept the Courland peninsula, encircling nearly 70,000 Soviet soldiers around the city of Liepaja. Voroshilov would be removed of command of the Baltic Front, replaced by Simyon Timoshenko, however Voroshilov would retain commander of the defense at Liepaja. This would actually prove to be an effective choice as Voroshilov was able to really shine at a smaller operational scale, being able to command closer to his soldiers. Further south, German forces crossed from Lublin and pushed into Galicia, where Russian armies under Nikolai Vatutin met a German armored spearhead outside Lvov, however Vatutin had no intention of holding right along the border. On the partial decision of Stalin (Modern historians often debate this choice, as Vatutin accused Stalin of ordering the attack, but when the offensive succeeded both men claimed the attack, and when it failed both men blamed each other on the offensive) Vatutin made a large counterattack, and overran the city of Presmzyl, where the line stagnated. Both Vatutin and Stalin wishes to hold a position in southern Poland as a springboard for a push towards Lublin, however the Hungarian declaration of war on the Soviet Union unhinged their position. Eventually, Hungarian and German forces were able to check the Soviets and drive them back into Galicia, where defensive lines were constructed around river lines near Lwów.
The Hungarian coup came as a surprise to many, much like all things with the Axis, a botched, rapid response to Horthy’s initial pro-Soviet stance, even formulating an initial alliance with Russia to conquer Transylvania. Stalin has even promised that Hungary could regain land from Germany and even influence over Slovakia, while Horthy offered to form a dual government and a republic with Soviet protection. This was a tantalizing offer, and although Horthy understood the Soviets couldn’t be trusted for the long term, he hoped to play both sides off, and made sure official agreements would only be enacted against Romania if German intervention was not a factor. When this turned out not to be the case, Horthy promised pro-Soviet neutrality, even offering Soviet airbases. The first Soviet bombing raid on Vienna with a Hungarian airfield enraged Hitler, and, had come into contact with the virulent Arrow Cross, who saw Horthy’s decisions as a betrayal of the Hungarian state, and quickly began organizing a coup, with German support. The coup itself was botched, Horthy successfully fled and the army hadn’t sided with the Arrow Cross until after Horthy had fled to Yugoslavia. However after the purging of multiple Horthyists and German troops crossing the border after resistance was too much for the Arrow Cross to handle, the coup was complete. In order to secure Arrow Cross alliegiance, a multitude of concessions had to be made. Romania was arm twisted into promising Hungarian land, however King Carol refused to cede any land until after peace had been achieved, and that Burgenland would be ceded to Hungary, although Hitler said any border changes would only occur by majority vote, and the rushed vote ruled enormously in favor of Germany, sparking anger over the legitimacy of the referendum. The Arrow across quickly learned that neither Germany nor Hungary had the strength to press any claims, and the cessation of all economic ties to both the west and the Soviets left them completely at the will of the Reich.
Also, I edited Manstein’s plot, he’ll see action on the East, but don’t worry, Manstein will still face the bullet, whether from the barrel of German or Soviet gun remains to be seen, however.
Just as the Western front line had begun to solidify, the East had erupted into warfare. The German high command, recognizing they didn’t have the resources to defeat both the west and East at the same time, hoped to force a knockout blow on Russia and sue for peace, offering Bessarabia to the Soviets. However Stalin had other intentions. Although neither Stalin nor Hitler really wanted war with one another, at least not until later, the Soviets were dead set on securing all of Romania to the USSR. As part of Russia’s hopes of expanding his influence in the Balkans by partitioning Romania between him and Hungary, and later securing Bulgarian influence, which would deny Germany a southern ally and turn the German war economy completely under the thumb of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Germany could not afford to have the oil fields damaged, nor allow continued Russian buildup after their disaster in France. Ribbentrop offered to give all of Moldova and Bessarabia to Russia, even Memel to the new Lithuanian SSR. However Molotov, and later Stalin, only took this as a sign of German weakness, and believed the Germans would not resist the Russian invasion of Romania. Germany could not allow it’s oil to be hampered, and the country was pushed to the brink when Miklós Horthy accepted Molotov’s alliance offer, as Horthy saw the Germans as a sinking ship, and hoped to be on Moscow’s good side long enough for the west to win, where he would gleefully enter the protection of the French, who would once again be the hegemon of Europe. Hitler feared a total loss of political alliance, as both Franco and Mussolini refused alliance offers. When Ribbentrop reported the situation to Hitler, the Fuhrer ordered a rapid mobilization of the Wehrmacht to the east to prepare a first strike...
On the 10th of August, Soviet forces assaulted the Romanians. The Romanian army had mobilized with the delayed Soviet intervention, and King Carol would affirm his anti-Bolshevik stance with a declaration of war on the Soviet Union. Although the Romanians had prepared defenses along river positions, general of the Romanian Front Georgy Zhukov has no intentions of backing down. Launch in coordinated air-artillery attacks on specific divisions, and focusing on central weak points and driving their largest attacks there, Zhukov was able to make a successful breach in the Romanian line along the Dniester River, around Tiraspol. Romanian armies launched repeated counterattacks, but after three days, the Russians had managed to cross over 4 divisions, and Russian air supremacy in the flat Bessarabia plains were much more suited to the conventional warfare being waged by the Romanians then the asymmetric Finnish line faced by the same soldiers only eight months ago.
Romanian forced entrenched on the plains before Chisinau (20th August, 1940)
View attachment 516271
The Russian breakthrough soon extended as the bridgeheads widened, and soon the Soviets has 16 divisions deep into Moldova, threatening to encircle the city. Romanian defenders fought fiercely, dealing significant casualties to Soviet soldiers, but soviet technological, tactical and strategic superiority, learned after their bloody mistakes in Finland prevailed, the unbreakable T-34 quickly becoming the bane of the Romanian army, fighting with outdated Renaults received before the war, and the Red Air Force pounding their crumbling positions. The Romanian situation was deeply escalating, and it was only the intervention of Germany that prevented the fall of Chisinau, allowing Romanian forces respite.
Under equipped, rushed and panicked, the Germans launched a series of offensives across the front with varying degrees of success. All across the Soviet-German border, conflict erupted. While many historians, even today, see this as yet another bout of Hitler’s insanity, modern information gives us a number of reasons why the Reich launched such a dastardly plan. The Soviet Union’s advance has transcended into a severe threat to Germany’s economic and political influence in the region. Romania was a country guaranteed under German influence, and was the primary oil source for the war machine of the Reich. The loss of Romania, and the British blockade would mean the Germans would be completely at the economic mercy of the USSR. Not that they weren’t already, 1.6 million tons of all-important grain, 0.9 million tons of oil, along with hundreds of thousands of tons worth of resources such as rubber, manganese, platinum, and other resources necessary for the Reich war effort.However with the recent German losses, successful British and French negotiations, through concessions of their own technology, causing the Soviets to begin to slow down on deliverances of resources, often arriving late, or with a much lower stock than expected. The truth was, those resources were going to the Allies, and it was showing. Increases in French tank production, armed with Kursk Steel, fueled by Baku oil and covered by Karelian aluminum planes. The scale of the Soviet aid to the west soon couldn’t be ignored by the Germans, who saw their own aid being reduced to compensate for Soviet aid to the Allies. The French themselves were welcome to publicly allow Soviet aid to their country, in an effort to appease the French left after the arrest of multiple leaders of the French Communist party on dubious grounds. The Germans were infuriated by this, and Hitler already had the ire of many of the German people for letting Bolshevik expansion move pretty much unopposed. When Hitler learned of Horthy meeting with Stalin to discuss possible geopolitical agreements in the Balkans, and renewed socialist activity in Bulgaria, Hitler envisioned a situation where the war would allow his entire southern flank to fall to the Reds, and for the Reich economic situation to be caught between an increasingly apathetic Russia and the choking British blockade. Germany was seen as weak, unable to protect Finland, the Balts, openly cooperating with the Reds, even failing to defeat Norway, after the failure to capture Narvik and the surrender of nearly an entire division, the rest fleeing to Sweden before being interned and, in order to avoid either side’s flak, decides to just keep the German prisoners for the rest of the war. Not that Germany was in a position to resist, the Norwegians and Brits were cleaning up Narvik and preparing to retake Trondheim. And so, Hitler believed, that a quick knockout blow against the USSR would shatter it, establish Germany’s dominant economic/political position in Europe, and allow him to turn his entire force against the western allies while at the same time executing out his fanatical ideas of Lebensraum.
And so, on the 22nd of August, German forces crossed the border. A half baked attempt at achieving the same victory against the Russians as they did in the last war, Hitler was determined to see Russia collapse, just as they had done in the last war. He had even been told tales by Himmler and others about the massive underground white resistance, and that the German invasion would spark a white counterrevolution against the USSR.
Germans approaching from the east during the fateful battle of Klaipeda (27th August, 1940)
The Germans saw most success on the Lithuanian front, guarded by Kliment Voroshilov. Russian mobilization along the front had begun at about the same time as the Germans, although the Germans were able to cobble up an offensive force beforehand. The German army group North under Ferdinand Schörner crashed into Voroshilov’s line, breaking through in a number of areas. Within three days, Schörner had successfully made a 60 kilometer gap in the line, and army group center under Erich von Manstein had successfully performed guarding action against Rokossovky’s counterattacks to stop Schörner’s advance. Manstein demonstrated key cautiousness, a surprise from his aggressive and ambitious moves during the western campaign, acting as a vanguard for Army Group North’s offensive, rather than pushing towards Bialystok and driving into Belarus. Although this move did save Army group North from the same grizzly fate that Army Group A in France had seen, it bought valuable time for Rokossovky to receive crucial reinforcements, it would cripple short term hopes of overrunning Bialystok. Back north, Schörner managed to successfully reach the Gulf of Riga in an impressive two weeks, emulating the success the west never saw. Voroshilov ordered consistent counterattacks, directing his forces towards Klaipeda to take the port, and the Germans responded in kind with a brutal counterattack. The battle raged for 4 days before Voroshilov was forced into a brutal retreat out of fear of encirclement. Voroshilov would later say that he was ordered to attack Klaipeda, rather than attempting to stop the German advance towards the Sea of Riga, and that Stalin ordered his attack. Regardless, the Germans reached Riga Sea, however were unable to take the city of Riga. The Germans swept the Courland peninsula, encircling nearly 70,000 Soviet soldiers around the city of Liepaja. Voroshilov would be removed of command of the Baltic Front, replaced by Simyon Timoshenko, however Voroshilov would retain commander of the defense at Liepaja. This would actually prove to be an effective choice as Voroshilov was able to really shine at a smaller operational scale, being able to command closer to his soldiers. Further south, German forces crossed from Lublin and pushed into Galicia, where Russian armies under Nikolai Vatutin met a German armored spearhead outside Lvov, however Vatutin had no intention of holding right along the border. On the partial decision of Stalin (Modern historians often debate this choice, as Vatutin accused Stalin of ordering the attack, but when the offensive succeeded both men claimed the attack, and when it failed both men blamed each other on the offensive) Vatutin made a large counterattack, and overran the city of Presmzyl, where the line stagnated. Both Vatutin and Stalin wishes to hold a position in southern Poland as a springboard for a push towards Lublin, however the Hungarian declaration of war on the Soviet Union unhinged their position. Eventually, Hungarian and German forces were able to check the Soviets and drive them back into Galicia, where defensive lines were constructed around river lines near Lwów.
The Hungarian coup came as a surprise to many, much like all things with the Axis, a botched, rapid response to Horthy’s initial pro-Soviet stance, even formulating an initial alliance with Russia to conquer Transylvania. Stalin has even promised that Hungary could regain land from Germany and even influence over Slovakia, while Horthy offered to form a dual government and a republic with Soviet protection. This was a tantalizing offer, and although Horthy understood the Soviets couldn’t be trusted for the long term, he hoped to play both sides off, and made sure official agreements would only be enacted against Romania if German intervention was not a factor. When this turned out not to be the case, Horthy promised pro-Soviet neutrality, even offering Soviet airbases. The first Soviet bombing raid on Vienna with a Hungarian airfield enraged Hitler, and, had come into contact with the virulent Arrow Cross, who saw Horthy’s decisions as a betrayal of the Hungarian state, and quickly began organizing a coup, with German support. The coup itself was botched, Horthy successfully fled and the army hadn’t sided with the Arrow Cross until after Horthy had fled to Yugoslavia. However after the purging of multiple Horthyists and German troops crossing the border after resistance was too much for the Arrow Cross to handle, the coup was complete. In order to secure Arrow Cross alliegiance, a multitude of concessions had to be made. Romania was arm twisted into promising Hungarian land, however King Carol refused to cede any land until after peace had been achieved, and that Burgenland would be ceded to Hungary, although Hitler said any border changes would only occur by majority vote, and the rushed vote ruled enormously in favor of Germany, sparking anger over the legitimacy of the referendum. The Arrow across quickly learned that neither Germany nor Hungary had the strength to press any claims, and the cessation of all economic ties to both the west and the Soviets left them completely at the will of the Reich.
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Most likely, and early T-34s would face significant problems (the coming autumn rains won’t help) but it’s one of the more dangerous weapons in the current Soviet arsenal, although if it doesn’t perform well enough and the Soviet design programs don’t refine it’s development, it might never become the famed war vehicle it was IRL
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
What does the French government look like at this point? (e.g. Is Reynaud still PM? Is Daladier still serving at Defence?) And is it possible Léon Blum could be brought back into government (as a minister) in the short term?
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