Test post.

WORLD WAR II – 1940 TO 1951
See audio transcript below

In certain circles there is a long-held conspiracy theory that proposes the allied powers (i.e., America, Britain and France), prior to WWII, purposefully and deliberately, tried to orchestrate a war between Adolf Hitlers National Socialist Republic of Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The hope was they would both destroy, or at the very least debilitate, each other and thereby diminish their ability to challenge the Anglo-French and American domination of world trade.

Whether this is true or not is open to conjecture but Stalin empathically believed it to be so and it was one of the reasons why he chose to, enthusiastically, engage in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.

So, in this ATL, I have supposed that such plan really did exist and was known in Whitehall circles as Operation Wheedle (in Washington it was known as Operation Soft Soap and in Paris – Amadouer) and this is the main thrust behind the alternative timeline thread entitled – WW2 1940 TO 1951.

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Also, in this ATL, I suggest two events could have happened that would give greater credence to this theory.

The first is the British Empire and France do NOT declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland in 1939.

This should come as no great surprise as Poland was hardly a bastion of democracy in Eastern Europe (it was ruled by a military council and banned all Jews from universities) and Neville Chamberlain must have been painfully aware that there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop the German invasion.

In this TL by NOT declaring war, London and Paris would have at least afforded themselves the time to prepare a joint Anglo-French Defence Force in case a victorious Germany should turn on France in the 1940’s after destroying the Soviet Union (it was always assumed Germany would follow up the attack of Poland with an invasion of the USSR and win the war within 3 months).

The second event that happens in this ATL is the Poles put up a far better fight against the Wehrmacht and as a result, the Soviet Red Army pushes its forces all the way up to the banks of the Vistula River and into central Poland

This would inevitably have been the final straw for Hitler and seeing the Soviets effectively put, more or less, 2/3^rd of Poland under Communist control, the Fuhrer declares war on the Soviet Union believing the British and French will inevitably support him. Double agents in the payroll of the Anglo-French encourage Hitler to go further and he launches a full-scale invasion of the Soviet heartland

The German Foreign Minister, Joachim Von Ribbentrop then persuades Scandinavia to join Die Achsenmächte; Finland enthusiastically, Sweden out of expediency, Denmark and Norway reluctantly!

Hungary also joins Die Achsenmächte but incurs the wrath of Hitler by invading Romania over Transylvania because he was hoping to coerce the Romanians into joining Die Achsenmächte

Fascist Italy, desperate to avoid war (Mussolini did not want a war with the British Empire or France under any circumstances) breaks off its alliance with Hitler and forms a separate defence league – Et Latine Axe Lentis (‘LXL’ or Latin Axis League) with Spain and Portugal.

The British and French governments are overjoyed as this results in a much longer and costlier war between the Axis Alliance and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics resulting in the destruction of both states at no cost to themselves (other than the shameful betrayals of both Poland and Czechoslovakia)

With British connivance, the French now start fortifying their border with Germany in case Hitler should suddenly turn on them and are aided and abetted by the British and Canadians but the Anglo-French have misjudged the public mood and many left-wing leaning parties are sympathetic towards the Polish, Czech, Slovak and Soviet causes.

Free from fear of invasion from the west, Hitler starts courting the Netherlands as he wants them to also join the Achsenmachte which does nothing to calm the public disdain in Paris and London.

After news starts filtering through of mass slaughters in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, Chamberlains government in the UK and Daladier’s in France still refuse to condemn Hitler but eventually French socialists force a bill through the senate and Daladier’s government collapses. The call to stop Nazi aggression now becomes a torrent

As a result, in May 1940, Hitler commits his greatest and most costly error!

Believing the only way to quickly neutralise any move by France is to knock out the Maginot Line, Hitler commits Germany to invading neutral Netherlands and Belgium in order to achieve his infamous Sickle Cut manoeuvre

On May 10, 1940, despite being locked in a full-scale war with the Soviet Union, Germany launches Case Yellow; the invasion of the Lowlands

As the Belgian government had been desperate to retain their neutrality, they had refused the British permission to fortify Oostende and Zeebrugge and this leads to their downfall.

Chamberlains’ government is forced to resign and he is replaced by Edward Lindley-Wood i.e., Lord Halifax, who maintains Britain’s best chance is to sign an armistice with Hitler but only on the condition the Fuhrer agrees to withdraw his forces from the Netherlands and Belgium. Hitler refuses point blank and Halifax is quickly overruled by his cabinet! The House of Commons are summoned and the demands for war now reaches a crescendo!

Just as Britain is locked in a political stalemate, the German forces cross the Dyle river into France itself and a certain Charles de Gaulle, the then Colonel of Le 4e Division Cuirassee (4^th DCR), heroically leads an attack on the Germans at Montcornett.

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(Historical note – this really did happen! De Gaulle was successful and caused a momentary pause in the German advance. De Gaulle’s success at Montcornett made the French erroneously believe they could still repel the advancing Germans. As a result, De Gaulle retreated to St. Valery in the vain belief the British would fortify the town and from there they would launch a counter offensive against the Germans

However, his unilateral decision had a devastating effect on the British as, without French support, they were forced to fall back on their base at Dunkirk after feeling the full force of the Wehrmacht at Abbeville.

The new British Prime Minister – Winston Churchill – believing the French plan was hopelessly naïve made the decision to evacuate the BEF back to Britain. The French violently disagreed and De Gaulle never forgave Winston for it.

Churchill did NOT consult De Gaulle (in the same way de Gaulle had not consulted him about the fall back to St. Valery) and as a result it cemented a rift between the two men that lasted way beyond either of their respective lifetimes. It was not until 1973 when the United Kingdom decided to join the European Economic Community (now European Union) that both countries finally conceded that the Anglo-French defence policies against Nazi Germany had been a dreadful mistake

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Back in this ATL, the Anglo-French and Canadian force capitalises on De Gaulle’s victory and are able to cut off key members of the Wehrmacht at Abbeville. The 1^st Armoured Division of the Polish Army, fighting with the Canadians, are equally heroic.

The Luftwaffe then start bombing Paris in a bid to distract the allies! The City of Lights is heavily bombed and holds out for 90 days but in the end, it is abandoned and the French relocate their capital to Rennes which the allies quickly fortify.

In this ATL, the Germans fail to capture Normandy and the Brittany coastal ports so have far fewer bases to operate their U-boat fleet from and the battle of the Atlantic is a relatively low-key affair.

From their bases in Normandy, the Anglo-French and Canadian forces are able to launch a massive counter-offensive against the invading Germans.

However, in Hitler’s twisted, diabolical mind nothing changes! His first priority is still the war with the hated Bolsheviks!

French socialists, operating inside Russia, are able to convince Stalin that the best idea would be to align the Soviet Union with the Anglo-French.

Stalin is, at first, sceptical because he believes it is a filthy capitalist plot but eventually the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, begins to see how this will eventually play to his advantage

When Germany’s Asian allies – the Japanese, attack the Russians in Manchuria, the full scale of Hitler’s dastardly plan is laid bare and, reluctantly, Stalin agrees to support an Anglo-French counter attack

As the French gear up for a full-scale war, the 26-year-old Belgian born great grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte; Louis Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie Bonaparte (DOB January 23, 1914) becomes the head – Major-General – of the French Foreign Legion based in Corsica and is proclaimed Grande Marshal des Forces Françaises replacing the aging Petain who is now out of favour because he supports rapprochement with Hitler and secretly hopes the Nazi’s destroys the Soviets.

Fearful the ‘LXL’ (or Latin Axis League) will end up supporting Hitler, Louis-Napoleon (as he is more commonly known) harasses the Italians in the Mediterranean and North Africa, helping reinforce the British in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine whilst continually hampering Turkish and German efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean region (it is assumed Hitler will coerce Turkiye into joining the Achsenmächte.)

Louis-Napoleon and his Legionnaires manage to take Tripolitania (OTL Libya) from the Italians and, with the British help, secures the Mediterranean. He personally leads his men into battle and becomes the face of French heroism. With British support, Napoleon also launches an attack on Pas-De-Calais and Belgium.

1942 – Motivated by the near destruction of Paris and the German retaliation against French civilians in Picardy and Alsace-Lorraine, the French army storms into Germany hell bent on revenge.

The French army, along with their Anglo-Canadian allies’, march across the Moselle and annexe the Saar and Rhineland which they merge with Luxembourg and Wallonia to create a new state that they call RHENANIE. Together they jointly march on the Ruhr and North West Germany!

In September 1942, two divisions of a joint Anglo-Canadian and Anglo-Polish force storm the beaches of the Dutch coast whilst simultaneously parachuting more than 3000 men into the Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Wolfheze and Driel townships of the Dutch Gelderland.

It turns out to be the largest single parachute drop in history and is backed up by a substantial glider force that is able to land food, ammunition and other equipment to the Royal Dutch Liberation Force ‘RDLF’ who now rally to their cause.

The brainchild of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, the force, along with the French in the Pay-De-Calais and Artois region, effectively trap the 9^th & 10^th SS Panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht in Oostende and Zeebrugge where they fight out a bloody battle that lasts for 9 days but results in the complete destruction of the German army in the Lowlands.

The British 1^st Parachute regiment captures the key bridges over the Nederrijn and are able to circumnavigate the Siegfried line, advancing as they do with the French into the Rhineland, North-Rhine-Westphalia, Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein regions of Germany.

This turns out to be the last straw for the disgruntled officer corps of the Wehrmacht and in the November of that same year Hitler is assassinated in a Valkyrie style coup which triggers fighting among forces loyal to Himmler and those loyal to Erwin Rommel who negotiates with the allies as he tries to focus on the Soviets.

An Anglo-Dutch force occupy the North Rhine Westphalia, Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein regions of Germany and collectively renames them Der Deutsche Bund i.e., THE GERMAN FEDERATION ‘DB’, and establish a capital in the small Westphalian town of Bonn.

However, for both the British and French, to say nothing of the Canadians and Poles, the cost in military lives is exceptionally high leaving many to doubt exactly how far they can successfully penetrate into Germany.

The Hesse region also comes under allied control but here duties and responsibilities are equally split between France and Britain and the region is renamed UNION EUROPA with its capital in Frankfurt

At this point an armistice is signed with the allies but the rest of Germany (Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt plus all of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Hrodna, Brest and Minsk regions of Belarus along with the Volyn, Rivne, Khmelnitsky, Ternopol, L’viv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zakarpatttia regions of Ukraine), elects to keep fighting in the form of THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Die Nationalsozialistische Republik Deutschland ‘DNR’.

Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria both secede from the rest of Germany and join Austria, the old Czechoslovakian republic, Hungary (including Transylvania), Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia to form THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF MIDDLE EUROPE AKA Die Bundesrepublik Mitteleuropa ‘BRM’ (colloquially MITROPA) and they too immediately sign an armistice with the Anglo-French.

The DNR, now in danger of being swamped by the ‘Eurasian hordes’ of the Soviet Union, creates a border state consisting of the Russian oblast of Pskov, the Belarusian regions of Vitebsk, Mahilyov and Homyel plus the Ukrainian regions of Zhytomyr, Vinnitsa, Kiev, Cherkasy, Kirovograd, Mykolaiv, Odessa and Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, which they call THE RUTHENIAN MARCHE.

The rest of the Ukraine i.e., the Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Zaporizhian, Donetsk and Luhansk regions are directly absorbed into the Soviet Union

After stiff and determined resistance of the Soviet advance by the Wehrmacht, the Red army suddenly swings south towards the Balkans, taking the Wallachia region of Romania, southern Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece (apart from the Aegean islands and the Peloponnese) to create THE SLAVO-HELLENIC SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC with only Montenegro resisting the Bolshevik onslaught!

As a precaution the new FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF MITTELEUROPA ‘BRM’ creates the border state of THE BANAT OF TIMISOARA consisting of the Romanian region of Moldova, Transylvania, Vojvodina and Kosovo regions in the hope they can create a border between themselves and the Red army.

The Soviet invasion of Greece sees the beleaguered Greek monarchy, and government, retreat to the Ionian Isles, Peloponnese, Crete, Karpathos and Rhodes, where the British help them form THE ANGLO-MEDITERRANEAN PROTECTORATE

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In this ATL, the Americans choose not join in the European theatre of war for three reasons: –

1. It is incredibly unpopular back in the states and the far-right leaning Charles Lindbergh makes life very uncomfortable for the incumbent President Franklin D Roosevelt
2. The American navy fails to locate the Imperial Japanese navy near Midway atoll who, under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, opt NOT to attack the Americans (after the battle of the Coral Sea) and are therefore able to keep their forces intact.
3. The plot to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto in 1943 fails, leaving the Japanese with a highly competent commander and tactical genius.

Also, without the advanced cooperation of the British, the Americans are forced to eventually abandon the unproductive Manhattan project and concentrate purely on ending the war in the Pacific via saturation bombing and a seaborne invasion of the Japanese home islands (which they eventually do in 1946).

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The armistice in the west turns into a full agreement which is concluded and ratified at the Treaty of Brussels in 1944.

The agreement sees Mussolini exiled to Elba (appropriately!) where he later dies of a heart attack (some say murdered by the French) and Italy (apart from the Trentino, Veneto and Friuli regions which have joined MITROPA) reconstituted as THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF ITALY Repubblica Federale Italiana ‘RFI’ (later Sicily and Sardinia breakaway to form their own quasi-independent state)

The treaty also permits Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, the Lebanon and Syria to be directly integrated into the French metropole with voting rights and universal citizenship being implemented but the British ensure Egypt (plus Cyrenaica), Palestine, the Jordan and Saudi Arabia are unified as THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC (al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) while the Mesopotamian Valley (OTL Iraq) is jointly administered by the British, French and Arabs

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1945 to 1950 – The new President of France is Louis-Napoleon, who rules the Fifth Republic in an authoritarian fashion with martial law imposed on the people due to the fragile state of the French economy after the devastation and horrors of the war.

However, once France’s economy begins recovering, Napoleon permits some liberalisation of governmental structures and permits the return of civilian control of the country

(Question – Without the devastating losses incurred during WWII what becomes of Britain’s Empire?