I looked into that, that pincer op was canceled regardless of the situation in the Balkans, IIRC before the operation was planned due to concerns about being able to cross the Dniester, which led to the delayed 11th army operation and Romanian army mobilization.

Yes, I'm aware of the concern of crossing the Pruth river. As was Creveld, which however indicates that that was a convenient excuse for cancelling the operation in the immediate aftermath of Lustre.
Whether Creveld is correct or not is debatable - but I thought it worth mentioning that he actually does claim that the Balkan campaign had a significant effect on the execution of Barbarossa - although not on the timing of the attack (which he says couldnt start before the start of June).
 
I looked into that, that pincer op was canceled regardless of the situation in the Balkans, IIRC before the operation was planned due to concerns about being able to cross the Dniester

I got a little curious about this today. Which sources do you base this information on?
 
Thanks for the reference. Unfortunately, it didn't provide the answers I was looking for.

What I find interesting is that Creveld indicates that the decision was due to the expanded mission of Marita (as a result of Lustre).
Germany and the Second World War Volume IV writes that the decision was due to not trusting the minor Axis allies.
And the US Army Monograph you refer to writes that the decision was due to the concerns regarding the river crossings.

Looking at Halder's diary entry for the 17th March 1941 with regard to the 5.5 hour Fuhrer conference that evening, he makes (among others) the following points:
a) Marita's mission will be expanded.
"Conclusion: The forces allocated for MARITA must be written off from buildup for BARBAROSSA"
b) "As far as actual fighting troops are concerned, we can depend only on German forces" (and not the minor Axis allies)
c) The Pruth and Dniestr are formidable defensive lines. And attacking everywhere is a mistake.
d) And concludes that the thrust from Romania is off

So, it seems that the three sources above picked its reasoning from this conference (and maybe even used Halder's diary as the source for that).

It seems likely that all three factors played a role in the decision. I could envision the discussion went something like this:
1) We can't rely on the forces of 12th Army
2) And we can't replace them by expanding the role of the minor Axis allies
3) And weakening the AGS's northern thrust to provide the forces for the southern thrust would be a mistake, as that would mean two "weak" pincers
4) And the river crossings are a big challenge
Conclusion: the Romania thrust is off.

That is, the expanded Marita was the catalyst for the decision.
 

Deleted member 1487

Thanks for the reference. Unfortunately, it didn't provide the answers I was looking for.

What I find interesting is that Creveld indicates that the decision was due to the expanded mission of Marita (as a result of Lustre).
Germany and the Second World War Volume IV writes that the decision was due to not trusting the minor Axis allies.
And the US Army Monograph you refer to writes that the decision was due to the concerns regarding the river crossings.

Looking at Halder's diary entry for the 17th March 1941 with regard to the 5.5 hour Fuhrer conference that evening, he makes (among others) the following points:
a) Marita's mission will be expanded.
"Conclusion: The forces allocated for MARITA must be written off from buildup for BARBAROSSA"
b) "As far as actual fighting troops are concerned, we can depend only on German forces" (and not the minor Axis allies)
c) The Pruth and Dniestr are formidable defensive lines. And attacking everywhere is a mistake.
d) And concludes that the thrust from Romania is off

So, it seems that the three sources above picked its reasoning from this conference (and maybe even used Halder's diary as the source for that).

It seems likely that all three factors played a role in the decision. I could envision the discussion went something like this:
1) We can't rely on the forces of 12th Army
2) And we can't replace them by expanding the role of the minor Axis allies
3) And weakening the AGS's northern thrust to provide the forces for the southern thrust would be a mistake, as that would mean two "weak" pincers
4) And the river crossings are a big challenge
Conclusion: the Romania thrust is off.

That is, the expanded Marita was the catalyst for the decision.
What was the original Marita plan that you think would be in effect ITTL?
 
Quoted from Directive 20:
"My intention is therefore...On the arrival of favourable weather-probably in March-to move this force across Bulgaria to occupy the north coast of the Aegean and, should this be necessary, the entire mainland of Greece ('Operation Marita')."

Quoted from Creveld:
"Although ‘directive No. 20’ had mentioned the possibility that operation ‘Marita’ would be extended to include more Greek territory than just the Aegean Coast, all preparations had hitherto been made on the assumption that this would not be the case. Thus, the OKH plan of 14 February allocated only one week to the entire operation, and as late as 8 March Warlimont complained that it was not clear how far the occupation was to be extended. In view of the British landings in Greece the question became even more urgent, and on 17 March it was answered in a drastic manner by Hitler; the operation, he ordered, was to be continued until the British were driven from the entire Greek mainland, including the Peloponnese."

And as Halder concluded in hid diary entry, this had the result that:
"The forces allocated for MARITA must be written off from buildup for BARBAROSSA"
 

Deleted member 1487

Quoted from Directive 20:
"My intention is therefore...On the arrival of favourable weather-probably in March-to move this force across Bulgaria to occupy the north coast of the Aegean and, should this be necessary, the entire mainland of Greece ('Operation Marita')."

Quoted from Creveld:
"Although ‘directive No. 20’ had mentioned the possibility that operation ‘Marita’ would be extended to include more Greek territory than just the Aegean Coast, all preparations had hitherto been made on the assumption that this would not be the case. Thus, the OKH plan of 14 February allocated only one week to the entire operation, and as late as 8 March Warlimont complained that it was not clear how far the occupation was to be extended. In view of the British landings in Greece the question became even more urgent, and on 17 March it was answered in a drastic manner by Hitler; the operation, he ordered, was to be continued until the British were driven from the entire Greek mainland, including the Peloponnese."

And as Halder concluded in hid diary entry, this had the result that:
"The forces allocated for MARITA must be written off from buildup for BARBAROSSA"
Well...the Brits are still in Crete as of March. Why wouldn't Hitler demand that forces be pushed as far into Greece as possible to evict them? That gets us back to OTL Marita.
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1417347
That's different than the forces talked about in OP.
 
He might demand that. Then again, he might not.
As mentioned above - the OKH plan of mid-February did not envision going that far.

That the change came right after Lustre indicates that Lustre might have had something to do about it.
 

Deleted member 1487

He might demand that. Then again, he might not.
As mentioned above - the OKH plan of mid-February did not envision going that far.

That the change came right after Lustre indicates that Lustre might have had something to do about it.
Without a doubt Lustre forced Hitler's hand. However given his decision making process IOTL Crete has to be taken to secure the Balkan flank. Churchill wasn't wrong about the importance of the region in the war and Hitler understood that too, which is why letting the Brits have air and naval bases within range of Turkey and Romanian oil was unacceptable. Just because he didn't make a full decision prior to Lustre doesn't mean that once in Greece that he could half-ass the invasion, especially as Churchill would evacuate Greek troops to Crete and launch resistance from there. I cannot see how Hitler could not go all the way once they set one toe in Greece.
 
It seems as if we're discussing two things here now.

1) Whether the expanded goals of Marita was the catalyst for cancelling the planned thrust out of Romania.
2) And whether an expanded Marita always would be the end result of any Greek attack.

With regard to the second point, I'm not familiar enough with the Greek thinking at the time to make any qualified judgement on what would happen if Churchill refused to send any reinforcements in response to the German move into Bulgaria. Are you certain they would fight, and even continue the fight from Crete and elsewhere?

For the Germans, its a tough decision since they're balancing two desirable outcomes against each other - a stronger AGS attack vs clearing the southern flank (which is probably why it took them so long to make the decision).
I'm favouring the opinion that the closer they come to Barbarossa, the harder it would get to make any major changes to the plan.
And so - while they reached the decision they did in mid-March, it would probably be much harder to reach the same decision in say mid-April. And Lustre did force the German hand in March.
 
I'm not familiar enough with the Greek thinking at the time

I've read that the Greeks were fearful of half measures. They wanted either a force that was too small to provoke the Germans or a force big enough to effectively fight them which must be rapidly deployed. However I don't know the timeline of these decisions because the actual Commonwealth force looks exactly like what the Greeks didn't want, so maybe events changed their thinking.
 
Would the Yugoslav coup go off if no Commonwealth troops are present in Greece! If not the Germans should have an earlier jump off date for Barbarossa.
The problem is that if Yugoslavia is not an enemy they cannot use their territory to invade Greece (there was such a provision in the treaty Yugoslavia signed) so the German army will have to advance from Bulgaria into the teeth of the Greek defense, plus it would make it more difficult to cut of the Greek army in Albania. So taking over Greece might actually take longer in this timeline.

Of course the coup was likely organized by British secret services, so it might happen anyway.
 
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