WI: Britain and France Don't Declare War On Germany After Poland Invasion

Greenville

Banned
What if in 1939, Britain and France don't allow declare war on Germany following its invasion of Poland and never do afterwards?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Britain and France severely damage their reputations and trustworthiness.

Also, this might bring forward the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union by one year (to June 1940).
 
"We must at last become entirely clear about this: The German people's irreconcilable mortal enemy is and remains France."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Hitler would probably have invaded France in May of 1940 anyway. Hitler clearly believed France would have to be defeated before Germany could attain her destiny. It makes military sense anyway: Germany can't afford a massive war against Russia if there's a chance that France could stab them in the back at any time. And Hitler saw France as ultimately the greater threat and the one that would have to be dealt with soonest. By comparison, he was rather dismissive of the Soviets.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
"We must at last become entirely clear about this: The German people's irreconcilable mortal enemy is and remains France."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Hitler would probably have invaded France in May of 1940 anyway. Hitler clearly believed France would have to be defeated before Germany could attain her destiny. It makes military sense anyway: Germany can't afford a massive war against Russia if there's a chance that France could stab them in the back at any time. And Hitler saw France as ultimately the greater threat and the one that would have to be dealt with soonest. By comparison, he was rather dismissive of the Soviets.
Invading France would risk an eventual Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany, though. Indeed, either Nazi Germany risks a French invasion by attacking the USSR or risks a Soviet invasion by attacking France. Thus, I suspect that Hitler will go for the USSR since that's where the Communist threat is and where the overwhelming majority of his desired Lebensraum is.
 
Why would he? From his point of view the French and British are nothing but cowards he can deal with once the main enemy the Soviet Union has been crushed under foot. After all, if they didn't act despite giving firm commitments to do so if he invaded Poland, they're hardly likely to interfere with him attacking the Soviets, who they hate almost as much as him.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Why would he? From his point of view the French and British are nothing but cowards he can deal with once the main enemy the Soviet Union has been crushed under foot. After all, if they didn't act despite giving firm commitments to do so if he invaded Poland, they're hardly likely to interfere with him attacking the Soviets, who they hate almost as much as him.
Very good point.
 
France would have it coming sooner or later anyhow. The NAZI power-base had just too many WWI generals hungry for glory and spoiling for a rematch. One of them would eventually launch an invasion just to keep all his rivel genera;s from going in first and stealing his thunder.
 
Britain and France severely damage their reputations and trustworthiness.

Also, this might bring forward the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union by one year (to June 1940).

Indeed.

Ironically this would probably lead to the Nazis doing worse than OTL. An amazing 70% of their motorized transport (which they were short enough on in OTL) along with a lot of other equipment was captured material gained during the Battle of France. French industry and national wealth was also very important to the Nazi war effort, and they recruited tons of men into the Waffen SS from France and the Low Countries (20k from France, 50-55k from the Netherlands, and 40k from Belgium). Even without the six-week delay for Barbarossa that had to occur because of overly-heavy autumn rains in 1941 and the Red Army being that much less removed from the Purges they're still worse off than OTL. The Stalin Line also wasn't dismantled yet.

"We must at last become entirely clear about this: The German people's irreconcilable mortal enemy is and remains France."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Hitler would probably have invaded France in May of 1940 anyway. Hitler clearly believed France would have to be defeated before Germany could attain her destiny. It makes military sense anyway: Germany can't afford a massive war against Russia if there's a chance that France could stab them in the back at any time. And Hitler saw France as ultimately the greater threat and the one that would have to be dealt with soonest. By comparison, he was rather dismissive of the Soviets.

At some point he will go to war with them unless someone defeats him before he can, at the very least to get Alsace and Lorraine back. I wonder if he might decide to go after the Soviets first though. If he does, the USSR might end up with a border on the Rhine for the reasons mentioned in the reply to Caliguy.
 
Chamberlain's reputation will be even worse. He only wasn't Hitler's useful idiot and gave him what he wanted, he too betrayed Poles whom he promised to protect. We might see even earlier end of his government.
 
To make this realistic, you have to go back some months before September 1939--to when Chamblerlain gave his guarantees to Poland. Once those were given and once the last-minute attempts at a diplomatic settlement failed, there was really no choice.
 
There's a risk that when the Soviets attack Finland that Britain declares war on them. If that happens Germany is may do the same.
 
Sorry, Britain backs off from defending an ally (Poland), and then it goes to war for a country it has no alliance with?

It depends. If Chamberlain is gone, his government having fallen due to not declaring war to protect Poland, if as OTL, Churchill takes over, he was anti-communist. So if the Soviets still invade Finland as per OTL, then Churchill would be minded to fight the Soviets.
This has other butterflies too. It puts the British in the Baltic, VERY close to Germany. The myth of Hitler the undefeatable hasn't taken root yet, and if the British and Finns are successful in defeating the Soviets, would they attempt a landing in the Baltic states. Would Finland be keen on seeing Estonia liberated, and if that happens, would they go for Latvia and Lithuania too?

By this point, You could see Hitler deciding that actually, with Britain at war with the Soviets, now might be a very good time, after promises for an "independent" Poland after the war, to join with the British and fight the Soviets. Cue an Anglo-Nazi cold war afterwards.
On the surface this is feasible, however I suspect with a little digging, it would soon show to be a bit ASB or at least a bit far fetched.
 
It depends. If Chamberlain is gone, his government having fallen due to not declaring war to protect Poland, if as OTL, Churchill takes over, he was anti-communist.

If Churchill takes over because the previous government fell for not defending Poland, what do you think would the brief be for the new Churchill government? Mind you, the British could find themselves at war with the Soviet Union - it nearly happened in OTL. But that would always be in addition to declaring war to the country (Germany) that attacked the ally (Poland).

The rest sounds rather far-fetched to me.
 
The rest sounds rather far-fetched to me.
I suspected it might to an extent. Depends if Churchill is prepared to accept the fait acompli re Poland and go after his No1 bugbear - communists.
If not, he gets power and Britain declares war against Germany by the following day.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
At some point he will go to war with them unless someone defeats him before he can, at the very least to get Alsace and Lorraine back.

Please keep in mind that Hitler was pragmatic in regards to some territorial claims, though. Indeed, that's why he was willing to sell out the South Tyrol Germans.

Thus, why not do a similar deal with France in regards to the Alsace-Lorraine Germans (many of whom considered themselves to be French, for the record)?

I wonder if he might decide to go after the Soviets first though. If he does, the USSR might end up with a border on the Rhine for the reasons mentioned in the reply to Caliguy.

A Rhine border might be problematic due to logistics, though. After all, there won't be any Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union in this TL.
 
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