WI: Churchill and FDR put their foot down at Yalta

might Stalin decide that Belarus and Ukraine as independent puppet states might be better for Russia? They had membership at the UN in our timeline IIRC, or would he just bite the bullet and keep them as direct parts of the USSR?

Doubtful, Ukraine is too vital to Soviet agriculture and industry to let it go and with all the blood and treasure spent in the Great Patriotic War I don't see Stalin letting Belarus go. I also don't see it in Stalin's character to let any of the Union republics walk away; this was the same guy who cut a deal with Hitler so he could snatch up the Baltic States and have a go with Finland.

If you get a scenario where the Allies are close or at the OTL post-war USSR border I think the Cold War is going to be a lot less hot. Russia would probably retreat behind her massive borders, consolidate her position, and work on propping what few puppet states they are able to snatch up in the dying days of the Reich. Ironically enough by being forced to focus on the home front and not getting involved in propping up the Warsaw Pact that could prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union completely.
 
If the Allies reduce lend-lease in the wake of a failed Yalta, and it comes down to a "lines where we end up" situation, you may see almost all of Germany occupied by the west, likewise the Czech half of Czechoslovakia & most of Austria. Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia & most if not all of Hungary end up as OTL as well as Poland. You might see Czechoslovakia split, with Slovakia being held by the communists, Czech areas by OTL government - IMHO this depends on how much of Czechoslovakia each party has - or possibly an agreed neutralization (like Austria OTL) & both parties withdraw forces quickly.

Realistically the USSR will over-run Poland no matter how much better the W. Allies do (absent an ASB German collapse right after Normandy where its a rush to the east). The US, UK & Empire, France are not going to fight Stalin over the future of Poland certainly before Japan surrenders, and after Japan gives up the USA for sure is way too busy wanting demobilization to fight over Poland.

With no demarcation agreement at Yalta, the USA might plan differently for the Pacific- the USA could have occupied more of Korea in 8/1945, and could have easily occupied the Kuriles. Manchuria and Sakhalin will go to the USSR no matter what.
 
If the Allies reduce lend-lease in the wake of a failed Yalta, and it comes down to a "lines where we end up" situation, you may see almost all of Germany occupied by the west, likewise the Czech half of Czechoslovakia & most of Austria. Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia & most if not all of Hungary end up as OTL as well as Poland. You might see Czechoslovakia split, with Slovakia being held by the communists, Czech areas by OTL government - IMHO this depends on how much of Czechoslovakia each party has - or possibly an agreed neutralization (like Austria OTL) & both parties withdraw forces quickly.
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Aye... cut back on Lend-Lease material & Oil and Gas to the Soviet Union on the premise that they are needed to rebuild Allied Forces in Europe and the Pacific to bring them up to highest combat efficiency....
 
If you want a Poland free from Soviet occupation, you have to start with a POD much earlier than Yalta. A much more successfull Barbarossa and maybe an invasion of France in 1943 for example.
 
One thought I have, which may be (and likely is) incorrect, is that if the Allies are becoming hostile towards the USSR in a situation such as this, they may 'suggest' to German forces still fighting them that they move eastward to fight/stall a Soviet advance.
 
So, if Yalta ends in a mess, and the WAllies end up with roughly modern Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic, what happens then?

IOTL, the rough lines at Yalta and the subsequent UN Treaty were the main things keeping the peace before the first Soviet nuclear test. If Yalta fails, I doubt a UN would be formed that in any way resembles the OTL security council. Plus, you've got a Stalin that feels like he's been cheated out of land by the Anglo-Americans. That sounds like a recipe for a Soviet invasion of western-occupied Germany in the 1946-7 timeframe...
 
So, if Yalta ends in a mess, and the WAllies end up with roughly modern Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic, what happens then?

IOTL, the rough lines at Yalta and the subsequent UN Treaty were the main things keeping the peace before the first Soviet nuclear test. If Yalta fails, I doubt a UN would be formed that in any way resembles the OTL security council. Plus, you've got a Stalin that feels like he's been cheated out of land by the Anglo-Americans. That sounds like a recipe for a Soviet invasion of western-occupied Germany in the 1946-7 timeframe...

Which would quite probably fail.

Unless of course bomber command and Manhattan project are somehow crushed and hundreds of soviet spies in the foreign office and other civillian areas somehow have influence on military affairs.;)
 
Which would quite probably fail.

Unless of course bomber command and Manhattan project are somehow crushed and hundreds of soviet spies in the foreign office and other civillian areas somehow have influence on military affairs.;)

So, if Yalta ends in a mess, and the WAllies end up with roughly modern Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic, what happens then?

IOTL, the rough lines at Yalta and the subsequent UN Treaty were the main things keeping the peace before the first Soviet nuclear test. If Yalta fails, I doubt a UN would be formed that in any way resembles the OTL security council. Plus, you've got a Stalin that feels like he's been cheated out of land by the Anglo-Americans. That sounds like a recipe for a Soviet invasion of western-occupied Germany in the 1946-7 timeframe...

That's pretty much the scenario that Devolved's Happy and Glorious TL has ended up with. The winter of 1946/47 was probably the most severe of the 20th Century and the Soviets have attacked right into it. :eek:
 
Theodore's Panay War has the US at war with Japan in 1937, and finishes with the WAllies on the Danube in 1943.

April [1943]

1st: Finland signs an armistice with the Soviet Union.

2nd: British forces capture Kolberg.

3rd: Patton’s Third Army liberates Lodz.

7th: Having completed the occupation of Hungary and the liberation of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Allied troops invade Rumania.

9th: German occupation forces surrender Warsaw to General Patton.

10th: A bloody coup in Bucharest removes the Antonescu regime.

British and American troops land in Norway, accepting the pre-arranged surrender of the German occupation forces there, including the light cruiser Köln.

11th: The new government in Rumania surrenders unconditionally to the Allies. Most Germans in Rumania follow suit.
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14th: Army Group South begins withdrawing from the Ukraine toward Romania, hoping to surrender to the Western Allies.

15th: German occupation forces in Albania and Greece surrender unconditionally to the Allies.
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16th: British forces capture Danzig and halt, East Prussia having been designated the Soviet occupation zone - even if the Soviets are not there yet.

20th: Two squadrons of Allied bombers, one of RAF Lancasters and one of USAAF Superfortresses, take off from their bases in England. They are armed with a new weapon: a 12,000-lb earth-penetrating bomb called Tallboy.

Over Berlin, the bombers drop two dozen Tallboys, one at a time, on their target: the bunker complex behind the Reich Chancellery in which Hitler and the Nazi inner circle are hiding. The “earthquake bombs” live up to their advertised accuracy and power. The bunker complex is completely destroyed. Hitler, Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels, Bormann, and all the rest are killed.

It is Hitler’s 54th birthday.

23rd: Patton’s Third Army reaches Grodno on the Niemen and continues toward Vilna, slowed only by mass German surrenders as Army Group North escapes the Soviets.

25th: American troops reach the mouth of the Danube at the Black Sea.

27th: General Alfred Jodl, who has taken over the government of the Third Reich by virtue of being the senior surviving Nazi in Berlin, signs the unconditional surrender of Germany.

The surrender does not immediately end the fighting. Army Group Center holds out near the Pripyet Marshes for another three days before giving up. Army Group North and a stream of refugees continue to flood through the Allied lines, as do the remnants of Army Group South. But by the end of May it is all over as Soviet forces clear out the last German holdouts in the Ukraine and occupy the Baltic states, East Prussia, and parts of Rumania.
 
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