Which neutral country would have been the most usefull Axis ally?

Which neutral country would have been the most usefull Axis ally?


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HMS Erin

Banned
>nearly 90% of german casualties on the eastern front
>largely inconsequential

you made my day buddy

I'm not saying the Soviets didn't do the heavy lifting in the OTL war, they practically won the war on their own. I'm just saying that nuclear weapons pretty clearly doom Hitler to failure in any war that involves America. Hitler could conquer Russia right up to and including Siberia, but for all the good that would do, it's meaningless when the nukes start falling. Hitler might have wanted to continue the war even in the face of nuclear apocalypse, but that will only spark a coup and unconditional surrender will be achieved shortly after August 1945.

Turkey might on average produce a more successful Axis, but Spain offers the only tiny hope of winning the whole deal. The Nazis will pretty much always loose in all the permutations of alternate WWIIs in which Turkey joins them, while there's one or two scenarios where the entry of Spain leads to Axis victory.
 
1945 nukes alone are not war winners against a power like a theoretical victorious Nazi Germany. You're not going to have a regime that just swept all before it, and directly or indirectly rules everything between Gibraltar and the Urals simply collapse because of a few early nukes.

And the fact is, in 1945 a victorious Germany has all the resources and manpower to churn out planes, AA, etc, while not having to worry about land forces beyond securing their conquests.

A victorious Germany will maintain air supremacy over its airspace for quite a while, until the West's innate technological edge gives them the win, but that's at least 10 years down the road. But in 1945-46, the nukes available will almost certainly not be enough to eliminate German ability to wage war, or to force a capitulation.
 
1945 nukes alone are not war winners against a power like a theoretical victorious Nazi Germany. You're not going to have a regime that just swept all before it, and directly or indirectly rules everything between Gibraltar and the Urals simply collapse because of a few early nukes.

And the fact is, in 1945 a victorious Germany has all the resources and manpower to churn out planes, AA, etc, while not having to worry about land forces beyond securing their conquests.

A victorious Germany will maintain air supremacy over its airspace for quite a while, until the West's innate technological edge gives them the win, but that's at least 10 years down the road. But in 1945-46, the nukes available will almost certainly not be enough to eliminate German ability to wage war, or to force a capitulation.

Not to mention that using them against a Germany that still has a very functional air defense network carries the risk of a nuke-carrying plane getting shot down over German territory. The odds of actually recovering an intact nuke from a wrecked bomber are low, but any risk, however small, that the Germans might get their hands on a nuke is something to take very seriously. Even a damaged nuke could give the Germans a big boost in their own efforts to create one (like letting them know about the huge miscalculations that ruined their program in OTL).
 

Eurofed

Banned
Don't be to hard on them.

I'm as hard on them as the case befits. IMO, much like Showa Japan, interwar Poland is a good case of a megalomanic, bullheaded nationalist ruling elite being too dumb to live and dragging their country in the abyss. While no people certainly ever deserved to be abused by Hitler and Stalin, I shed no tears on the demise of the Second Polish Republic at the hands of a non-democidal German-Russian compact. Like Tojo and co., Pilsudski and his heirs reaped what they sowed. They had been granted a reprieve in 1921, but history rarely grants the same mercy twice. It is a tragedy that Adolf and Iosif were the ones at hand to administer retribution instead of Kaiser Louis Ferdinand and Tsar Michael, or Strasemann and Kerenski.

In hindsight, the defensive strategy was wrong, but trying not to become a puppet of either side wasn't wrong at all.

Well, there was no strict need for a smart Poland to abase themselves all the way to become a puppet in the Manchukuo sense. Both Hitler and Stalin might easily have been interested enough to have Poland as an ally to give it the same junior-partner treatment they gave to Axis Italy or Red China. But yes, to become a client of either in the broadest sense was made necessary by hard geopolitical constraints. And in all likelihood, an Axis Poland or Comintern Poland would have got a better WWII deal than OTL.

Since Germany and Russia rose to be great powers, the PLC became unviable, the attempt to resurrect it madness, only way for an independent Polish nation to survive was either a) to limit themselves to sensible geopolitical boundaries (1807 borders to the west, 1947 borders to the east), good neighbor policy to Germany and Russia, and hope they remain friendly for all time or b) restrict your ambitions to one neighbor only, be a close ally of the other, and hope it is always the strongest side.

After all, it was not the Poles that screwed up the war plan: Despite equipment deficits, despite fighting on two fronts, despite lack of help from its allies, Poland managed to resist almost as long as France did in 1940.

The war plan was megalomanic rubbish to begin with, the same way of the foreign policy it was based upon: apart from the fact that the French, regardless of what they put on paper, had shown no willingness whatsoever to leave the protection of the Maginot Line and gamble an strategic offensive for a decade, to succeed it required the Entente to win so total and so quick a victory as to cause a surrender of Germany or march all the way to Berlin while Poland still resisted, and the USSR never intervening in the meanwhile, or the Entente winning all the way to Smolensk too.
 
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1945 nukes alone are not war winners against a power like a theoretical victorious Nazi Germany. You're not going to have a regime that just swept all before it, and directly or indirectly rules everything between Gibraltar and the Urals simply collapse because of a few early nukes.

And the fact is, in 1945 a victorious Germany has all the resources and manpower to churn out planes, AA, etc, while not having to worry about land forces beyond securing their conquests.

A victorious Germany will maintain air supremacy over its airspace for quite a while, until the West's innate technological edge gives them the win, but that's at least 10 years down the road. But in 1945-46, the nukes available will almost certainly not be enough to eliminate German ability to wage war, or to force a capitulation.

It should also be noted that nuke is not the same as nuke:
Some Cold War nukes had 1000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.

There were severall conventional bombings during WWII, that were more destructive and killed more people than the Hiroshima bomb.
(They involved hundreds of planes of course, but their bombs didn't cost 500.000.000 a piece)

I seriously doubt that dropping even 20 nuclear bombs on Germany would have decided the war, especially given the fact that German cities were constructed much more massive than Japanes ones (this really matters with 40s nukes.)
 
I'd actually say Mexico.

Why? It'd serve as the ultimate distraction for the U.S., so then Allied hopes in the Pacific are in the hands of the Chinese, British, and Australians. Now, they could hold their own on land, but the real problem is with Japan's navy. By the time the U.S. of A is done teaching Mexico why America won the first time, it will already be too late. Plus, Nazis in Mexico would be pretty hard to find, and the land would be even harder to hold down. What's more, a U.S. attack on Mexico might, MIGHT prompt aggression by Central and South American powers at that time.

Then again, I'm just speculating here.

Mexico likely accelerates US entry as an ally. So on the whole, its a really, really bad ally for the Nazis.
 
Spain, definitely. The thread really comes down to Spain vs. Turkey. Hitler's only chance for winning the war is decisively defeating the Western Allies, and preventing the United States from entering the war. The most plausible way of achieving this is forcing the British to the peace table after defeating them in the Mediterranean. If Spain enters the war, that ensures the neutralization of Gibraltar which gives the Axis a sliver of a hope of beating the British badly enough in the Mediterranean to force Britain out of the war and discount the possibility of American intervention.

The entry of Turkey doesn't do that. It may improve the situation in Russia somewhat, but that does not offer an answer to an atomic bomb. Beating Britain indirectly beats the U.S.A. Beating the U.S.S.R. does nothing to the U.S.A. because the U.S.A. will still likely be dragged into the war by their ally Britain. Hitler might have well crushed the Soviets and won the kind of victory the Nazis imagined when they first started out, but if the U.S.A. enters the war, there is the practically unstoppable threat of the atomic bomb.

Exactly what I was thinking.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Well, there was no strict need for a smart Poland to abase themselves all the way to become a puppet in the Manchukuo sense. Both Hitler and Stalin might easily have been interested enough to have Poland as an ally to give it the same junior-partner treatment they gave to Axis Italy or Red China. But yes, to become a client of either in the broadest sense was made necessary by hard geopolitical constraints. And in all likelihood, an Axis Poland or Comintern Poland would have got a better WWII deal than OTL.

You should note two things:

1) Both Axis Italy and Red China had a common ideological basis with their respective counterpart that Poland didn't have, and

2) despite that, Axis Italy DID end up becoming a puppet in the Manchukuo sense, and Red China could well have become one if it hadn't been for its size.

Since Germany and Russia rose to be great powers, the PLC became unviable, the attempt to resurrect it madness, only way for an independent Polish nation to survive was either a) to limit themselves to sensible geopolitical boundaries (1807 borders to the west, 1947 borders to the east), good neighbor policy to Germany and Russia, and hope they remain friendly for all time or b) restrict your ambitions to one neighbor only, be a close ally of the other, and hope it is always the strongest side.

I don't think ANY boundaries and ANY good neighbor policy short of an explicit alliance would have prevented the attack on Poland, since they would still have been in the way of any Germans marching eastward and (if applicable) any Sowjets marching westwards.

So they did choose their ally: Use France and Britain to crush Germany and have only one neighbour to wory abour. They bet all their money on the reliability of the western allies - wich turned out to be a bad call in hindsight. But their OTL coice would have been a smart one if France and Britain had kept their promises.

The war plan was megalomanic rubbish to begin with, the same way of the foreign policy it was based upon: apart from the fact that the French, regardless of what they put on paper, had shown no willingness whatsoever to leave the protection of the Maginot Line and gamble an strategic offensive for a decade, to succeed it required the Entente to win so total and so quick a victory as to cause a surrender of Germany or march all the way to Berlin while Poland still resisted, and the USSR never intervening in the meanwhile, or the Entente winning all the way to Smolensk too.

Regarding the willingness to leave the protection of the Maginot Line - see above.

Regarding the Sowjets - unlike Hitler, Stalin did care not to risk a war with France and Britain.

And the Germans would have been REALLY in trouble if Britain and France had called their bluff in the west. The German attack would IMMEDIATLY have lost its pace due the troops rushing to the west, and the psycological impact on the German morale would have been HUGE. So Poland would have been able to resist A LOT longer than IOTL.

So the plan may have had it's risks - as any plan has - but IMHO it was far from unreasonable to consider it the smallest of all evils.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Interesting if very used question, I'll give some of my musings on this.

From the list you posted, it is easy to scrap roughly half of them immediately.

As you said "Early 1940" I'm assuming 01011940 as the accetable earliest date of entry?

At that point Weserbung is in the future, not the present or the past. Same goes for Fall of France.

Starting from that, there are several alternatives.

Swedish entry into the axis before Weserubung would most likely result in a Axis allied Scandinavia. Mostly since Norway and Denmark would not be able to resist the Axis alone, and would most likely all join together. Geo-politics and all that.

Failing to join after Sweden would only result in massive war gains by the swedes and puppet norways and danish states overseen by a Swedish Axis force, most likely.

That would have serious butterflies all across the field later on, potentially game-changing when it comes to Barbarossa.

---

The second interesting possibility that your setting provides for, is the inclusion of either Nat Spain or Swiss into the Axis camp during the early stages or the height of the French campaign.

Imagine Nat Spain joining the axis at about when Paris falls. In that mess they would probably get the N-W Africa and potentially save a portion or the entire France navy. Probably not ofc but it is possible.

The other alternative would be push through both the lowcountries as well as through the Swiss and Italian mountainsides, wouldnt matter much but might save the axis enough time to go for dunkirk? Who knows, but if they do manage to significantly hinder BEF extraction from dunkirk, they might have massive butterflies in the mid-east later on. Potentially not enough for a game changer but definently interesting.

Later entry would def be Turkey after Fall of France, supported by a two prong assault into the Middle East. Most likely the Soviets would not respond to this by invading Turkey in 1940, simply because they werent ready for a war at that point, Turkey or no Turkey. They would give passage rights, intel, and preferrential trades to the allies for sure but an all out invasion of Turkey when your army is entirely unready and the Axis just managed to kick benelux, UK and France out of the continent entirely would be absolute suicide and not what Stalin had in mind, far as I know.

So, pre Weser i'd say Sweden, simply because it in the Axis would save a whole lot of trouble for the Axis.

During FoF I'd say Spain, shortly after i'd still say Spain. But later in the summer or fall of 1940, it shifts to Turkey all the way until 1942 when it probably shifts to Argentina or Mexico, simply becasue it would at least divert some allied units away from Germany or Japan.
 
The entry of Turkey doesn't do that. It may improve the situation in Russia somewhat, but that does not offer an answer to an atomic bomb. Beating Britain indirectly beats the U.S.A. Beating the U.S.S.R. does nothing to the U.S.A. because the U.S.A. will still likely be dragged into the war by their ally Britain. Hitler might have well crushed the Soviets and won the kind of victory the Nazis imagined when they first started out, but if the U.S.A. enters the war, there is the practically unstoppable threat of the atomic bomb.

If Germany defeats the soviets, then there is also the threat of a German atomic bomb because they no doubt will find out what stalin knew about Tube Alloys and later the manhattan project and they will know it is feasible after all. No doubt they will start developing their own bomb very soon then.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I'd actually say Mexico.

Why? It'd serve as the ultimate distraction for the U.S., so then Allied hopes in the Pacific are in the hands of the Chinese, British, and Australians. Now, they could hold their own on land, but the real problem is with Japan's navy. By the time the U.S. of A is done teaching Mexico why America won the first time, it will already be too late. Plus, Nazis in Mexico would be pretty hard to find, and the land would be even harder to hold down. What's more, a U.S. attack on Mexico might, MIGHT prompt aggression by Central and South American powers at that time.

Then again, I'm just speculating here.

This might actually hurt the Axis. A hostile Mexico would make the USA absolutely paranoid, and might move us to a full war footing as soon as Mexico is allied to the Axis. So say Mexico signs a "secret" treaty with Germany in mid-1939, then the USA buildup could start a year earlier, and an even larger appropriation bill could leave congress. I could see FDR asking for X divisions, and congress say, no, take 2X.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I went with Brazil. In 1940, the British are stretched thin. Any troops/ships to deal with Brazil have to be pulled from somewhere else. Brazil could also threaten shipping in the Atlantic by sub, plane or surface ship. Even just refitted merchant ships with guns would cause the British major convoy headaches. It also seems like a lot of the meat that fed the British came from Argentina, and it would be hard to get past Brazil.

To me, Spain only makes sense if Hitler did not invade the USSR and went for a UK/Southern Strategy first.

Turkey is hard to call. It makes sense if the Turks can drive to the oil fields in the summer of 1942. If Baku falls and it is harder to get lend/lease through Persia, the USSR is in a world of hurt.
 
Long time ago, I would have said Turkey, but the Turkish Army would have been crushed by the Red Army or the Allies in Syria and Lebanon. Or at least not so early.

I'm more in favor of Spain: the army is experienced and it opens the way to Gibraltar, and taking Gibraltar would close the way to Mediterranean Sea, isolating the troops in Africa and securing Italy.
The thing is, the British were already supplying their forces in Africa and the Middle East the long way: through the Cape of Good Hope and around to the Suez (safer than going through Gibraltar, you see). Taking Gibraltar will be a tremendous morale boost/demoralizer, but it doesn't affect the supply situation in the Med.

Moreover, Spain is more useful neutral as a conduit for neutral trade/shipping (same as the Netherlands in World War One). It's actual contributions as a wartime ally are fairly slim.

And after saying that, my vote goes to Turkey or Sweden.
 
turkey

okay, the germans have to use the option wisely, but before barbarossa, they could hammer britain (and france) through syria and iraq, possibily threatening the suez canal

after barbarosa, the bigest gain would be not a second front against the soviets trough the caucasus, but with the italian navy, they could have made a real axis pond out of the black sea

that would be troublesome for the soviets in 41 or 42 (and gainful for the axis - supply transportation, invasions behind the lines along the shorelines, etc)
 
I have to say that Turkey would be the most useful, but other than the Swiss, they are also the one relevant neutral least likely to join.
 
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