War declared on Germany and the USSR-1939

With no hope of America entering the war against Germany, England would have accepted just about anything that left the Empire intact and gave them a figleaf to cover their pride. And America will not get in the way of the great crusade against Communism; I know Wallace and the other fellow travelers would not like that, but they could not stop it.


Well, US involvement is still very possible, as long as the japanese decide to act just like OTL hitler is still quite likely to do the stupid thing and declare war on the US, which effectively forces their hand no matter how much they dislike what the allies have done up until then. The US isn't just going to do nothing after hitler declared war on them, Europe might not get a heavy focus like OTL, but the US will enter the war in europe on the side of the Allies, however they may pull what the USSR did in OTL and only declare war on the european axis and leave Russia out of it, I dunno how that would work though.
 
With no hope of America entering the war against Germany, England would have accepted just about anything that left the Empire intact and gave them a figleaf to cover their pride.

Fine. England can surrender. Sassenachs! We'll carry on.

(It's Britain, thanks. Although IIRC, the joke that in the event of negotiated peace, Scotland would continue the war was made at the the time. :D)

Anyway, this is untrue. Remember, when the Germans invaded Russia, we actually expected the Red Army to last six weeks. We weren't riding our hopes on the Big Us, we were just hanging on in the absense of any political palatable alternatives.

As I've pointed out many terms, Britain effectively sacrificed any hope of great power status or retaining the Empire towards the victory, by pulling the financial rug out from under ourselves, entrusting our war production to America, making promises to India, and expending every ounce of our energy and resources. The only thing we had to showfor this was a defeated Axis (and to clarify, it was absolutely worth it). If Britain had already, without fully acknowledging it, given everything away to stop the Germans, why would we suddenly be willing to sign a peace giving the German's the domination of Europe we've been trying to prevent any power from attaining for centuries in order to retain things that we were willing to give away?

The plans for continuing the war after Great Britain were pursued with real seriousness by the government. Eden interviewed the army leadership on how many he could realistically evacuate from Liverpool. We had arrangements, IIRC, for pulling the RAF back to airfields in Ireland, and diplomats were probing the Americans about how they'd relate to a government-in-exile in Canada.

I know people like to live out the fantasies of the arch-appeasers in the interests of their Axis-wanks, but Britain, cliche though it is, actually is rather averse to surrendering.

And America will not get in the way of the great crusade against Communism; I know Wallace and the other fellow travelers would not like that, but they could not stop it.

You seem to be missing that this scenario does not create war between Germany and Russia. It creates war between the Entente and Germany and the Entente and Russia (to call the Soviets an "Axis power" in these circumstances would be pushing it). For the Germans to do what you want them to do, that is, make a peace with the Entente and invade the USSR to "crush communism" and starve millions of people to death, the Entente first have to accept German overtures. France won't, I'll wager. Any British government to concede defeat before fighting the war would face opposition from Labour, from Churchill's boys, from the king, from the proverbial taxi-driver...

As no "anti-communist crusade" in alliance with the Nazis exists (if anything, Churchillian rhetoric will create an anti-totalitarian crusade), your argument that America won't oppose it is utter nonsense.
 
To me, this POD has started to look like a non-starter. It is not just more Finnish martial prowess it needs (and we already had that to spare, thank you) but several other things too.

It is clear Finland was not going to ask Allied help if the intervention means going against Norway and, especially, Sweden. The Swedish government was making it clear they would fight the Allies, at least when the Finns asked their view. This was, IMHO, the thing that stopped the plan IOTL. The other thing is timing: the Finnish government would have to be reckless beyond redemption to carry on fighting when it knew any troops the Allies could spare would, in the end, be too little and too late to save the country if the main front was breached. In most cases, Finland would sue for peace before any reasonable number of Allied troops has arrived into the country.

And Stalin would go for peace too, because he really did not want to fight the Allies in late 1939-early 1940. Not over Finland. Finland is near, it is peripheral and isolated: it is there to be grabbed when the opportunity presents itself. Why fight the Allies over it when you can come back later to finish the job, say, at a time in the near future when the war in the West really kicks into gear.

Then why not have the POD be a more interventionist Swedish government? One that is willing to come to the aid of the Finns and accept allied help?
 
But the Allies were motivated by more than a simple desire to help the Finns. They also wanted to use the dispatch of an expeditionary force to Finland as a cover to seize the Swedish iron ore mines from which Germany got about half its iron (or at least capture the Norweigan ports that allowed the Germans access to the iron when the northern Baltic was frozen during the winter). Had they done so, the German war industry would have been dealt a crippling blow. So they might have gone ahead even without a direct Finnish request,

I know. But the Finnish request of help seemed to be, IOTL, a required condition for making a move. It would have lend the operation some legitimacy, even if it meant going to war against Norway and Sweden. Without the Finnish request, the Allies would be making a naked resource grab against two neutrals. Not a smart move considering the general attitude of neutrals, especially the US.

if the Finns were still fighting the Russians, they certainly wouldn't have said no to a few tens of thousands of Allied soldiers and war material.

That depends on the situation at the front. If the Finnish govt. thinks the front will hold well into spring and the USSR shows no interest in peace, they might accept help. But if the army is exhausted, (logistics-wise) the Allied help seems unlikely to help AND Stalin, spooked by Allied moves into Scandinavia is offering a bearable peace, things might still work out (for Finland) pretty much like IOTL. Finland was fighting for the preservation of independence, not because of a "victory or death"- orthodoxy. If Stalin offers a way out, even if means only a year's respite, the Finnish govt. would grab it.

Timmy811 said:
Then why not have the POD be a more interventionist Swedish government? One that is willing to come to the aid of the Finns and accept allied help?

That would help, certainly. Now lets have a POD that puts an interventionist government in charge of Sweden by 1939. Considering how strong the Swedish tradition of neutrality was at the time, I would be very interested if someone in the know could come up with a plausible way to have Sweden declare war against the USSR when the Finnish government asks for help.
 
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