The October Campaign (draft)

[Snaut]

The October Campaign

1. The Point of No Return​

"These two pacts [the nonaggression pacts with Germany and the USSR] are like two chairs. We cannot remain seated upon both of them for long. We must be able to forsee which one we will fall from first, and when." - Joseph Piłsudski, officially Chief Inspector of Poland's Armed Forces and de facto dictator of Poland, to his inner circle, c. 1934

The name of the Lightning War is a simple translation of the German word Blitzkrieg, the popular designation of the method of mobile warfare which the Third Reich unleashed upon Europe in 1939. The fact that the Germans themselves used different designations for their tactics didn't prevent the term from being so widely used that it eventually gave the entire war its name. Alternative names such as the Second World War proved less popular and eventually fell into disuse. By the present day only Soviet historiography insistently differs and calls the fighting of the period the Anti-Fascist War. This naming reflects a genuinely different appraisal of the fighting on the distant fronts and their relation to the main European conflict, but also the audacity with which Moscow rewrites history in the service of its propaganda. In 1939, before the course of the coming war could have been known, Stalin was ready to co-operate with the fascists if only as a temporary measure. It should be noted that a great many of the countries which the Soviet Union plotted or fought against during this period can not properly be considered fascist. Imperial Japan, for instance, while undoubtedly a monstrous and totalitarian regime, was considerably different from Italy and Germany, while the Finnish Republic was a model preliberal democracy. The identification of fascism as the Soviet Union's principal enemy was largely retroactive.

Contemporary accounts often reveal surprise at the way how, like a summer storm forming on a clear day, the Lightning War seemed to descend upon Europe unexpectedly and with little warning. As late as the beginning of 1939 optimists could have still convinced themselves that Europe would remain at peace. They could have (correctly!) pointed out that Hitler had gained so much through diplomacy, and stood to lose so much through war, that military aggression would be irrational. Despite this, as if to demonstrate the folly of attributing one's own motives to bandits, Hitler would plunge Europe into war within a few short months.

But even storms are not quite as unpredictable as many laymen believe. A meteorologist may be incapable of predicting the exact place where lightning may strike but he is able to recognize the danger of a coming storm where a layperson sees only a deceptively clear sky. In his monumental Vienna and Versailles: The Creation and Destruction of Two International Orders (1986) Henry Kissinger sets out to try to provide advice to such political meteorologists in the hope of better preparing them for future crises. From his analysis of the diplomacy of the nineteenth century he concludes that the international system established in the Treaty of Vienna eventually failed because it became too rigid. A decade before 1914 Europe's key players had already arranged themselves in the configuration in which they would go to war. The subsequent decade of arms race and international crises only consolidated the two alliances and exacerbrated the tension to the point where the outbreak of war at first seemed almost to be a relief. Considering the conflict to be the result of the destruction of the international order rather than its cause, Kissinger pays little attention to the war itself and proceeds to analyze the new European system which was established in the Treaty of Versailles to replace its defunct predecessor. In their eagerness to avoid the mistakes of the past the victorious powers constructed a system which went to the other extreme, opposite but no less dangerous. After 1919 Britain, France and the briefly engaged USA would distance themselves from involvement in European affairs and from each other in the hope that the institutional framework of the League of Nations could resolve international conflicts. The manifold flaws in the design of the League's institutions prevented it from fulfilling that purpose to any extent. France did briefly pursue alliances of the traditional type with Poland and Czechoslovakia in the hope that they would serve as an ersatz Russia to replace the monstrosity into which France's old ally had degenerated, but even though the combined potential strength of Poland and Czechoslovakia was such as to make such an alliance potentially viable, France seemingly lost interest within a few years. At the time of Hitler's rise to power the closest thing to an alliance among any two leading European powers was the broad Anglo-French understanding of a certain mutual interest in preserving the status quo in western Europe which was sadly lacking in terms of clear provisions. (Poland and Romania, the two allies that made up the so-called Cordon Sanitaire, are often treated as a fourth bloc if only for the sake of simplicity. In terms of military power they were a distant fourth, and politically they were less cohesive than the previous three. But they were already in a state of alliance, they were relatively favourably disposed to the status quo and to the Western Powers and therefore unenthusiastic at best about the Axis, and their critical geographical location would at least temporarily enhance their importance. They would also go on to follow almost the same path from the interwar period through the Lightning War and on into the times of the Warsaw Pact.) As late as 1939 the pair of Western Powers, Germany and the Soviet Union resembled a strange configuration of three distant magnetic poles, each regarding the other two with considerable dislike and distrust. In their disunity the powers were uncertain of everyone else's intentions and reluctant to act alone, creating the conditions for German resurgence.

The infamous Appeasement of Germany was therefore the logical result of the complacence inherent in the system. Unwilling to oppose Germany even in its still-disarmed state the future Allies would make a virtue out of their indolence by deluding themselves that Hitler was fundamentally a trustworthy partner who would respond to friendly gestures in kind. Being a skilled liar Hitler took care to tell European politicians what they so badly wanted to hear, posing as a politician one could do business with rather than a war lord. He therefore presented his actions within Germany such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland as necessary reactions to provocations such as the alleged encirclement of Germany following the Franco-Soviet negotiations of 1935. Once Hitler went on to claim territory outside Germany's borders he assured the world that he only desired the regions which were mostly inhabited by Germans in the spirit of ethnic self-determination and repairing the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles. This assurance was enough for the governments of the Western Powers to continue with their wishful thinking about Hitler's true nature until Germany had expanded and rearmed to the point of achieving parity with (if not superiority over) themselves. Scarcely any provisions were made for the contingency in which the author of Mein Kampf (published in 1925, long before Hitler even came to power) might decide to carry out the threats he had issued there once given the opportunity to try. This is not to say that everyone was fooled. Politicians such as Churchill would explain the folly of appeasement in their parliaments to no avail. Artists such as Capek who, by presenting his message as the fantastical parable of The War with the Newts (1936) ensured that it would remain as relevant today as at the time of its writing, were no more successful. Despite all those warnings, within a year of the outbreak of the Lightning War the gathering storm remained at the stage in which the imminent change of the weather was discernable to astute observers, but not clear enough to attract the attention of most.

Enthusiasts of Lateral Time Speculation are often impressed by the fact that, from a purely material perspective, Germany's warmaking power at this stage was still clearly inferior to the combined forces of the states which Hitler explicitly or implicitly threatened. Had, say, France held up its residual treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia at the time of the Czech Borderlands Crisis in 1938, the still-underarmed Germany would have been clearly outmatched. These two allies together could have prevailed on their own, but had they gone to war they might have well received the support of the increasingly disillusioned Britain, as well as that of Poland which had already suggested the concept of a pre-emptive war against Germany to France in the past. (French support would have also activated the Czechoslovak-Soviet alliance, but its utility in this scenario would have been debatable. The Red Army could only have reached Czechoslovakia by crossing the territory of Poland or Romania, but those countries' justified distrust of the Soviet Union would have made any such movement problematic, and rightly so since the example of the Baltic Republics suggests that the presence of ostensibly fraternal Soviet forces would have likely led to the sovietization of Czechoslovakia). Elements of the German army were so disturbed by this disproportion of forces between Germany and its potential opponents that they contemplated a coup against Hitler, suggesting that an adequate show of determination in 1938 might have potentially ended Hitler's career without the shedding of a drop of blood besides his own and perhaps that of his most loyal Nazis. But Lateral Time Speculation requires not only the readiness to deal with controversy but also the discipline necessary to prevent one's speculations from drifting into the realm of complete fantasy. Resisting Germany at this stage may have been realistic from a material perspective, but it proved psychologically impossible. The French government chose to negotiate instead of maintaining a firm stance, and the French people, their will undermined by the trauma of the years 1914-1918 and the fact that Hitler's demand was entirely justified in the spirit of ethnic self-determination, accepted this course. The negotiations held at Munich resulted in the Franco-British recognition of Hitler's demands - and France in particular was the one country which the prospective anti-German alliance could not have done without. Without the support of the Western Powers the Czechoslovaks had little intention of fighting a hopeless and lonely war merely in order to weaken Germany in preparation for some possible future conflict. Witnessing this show of French duplicity Poland and the Soviet Union, which had not been invited to the Munich Conference at all, unsurprisingly showed little interest in preserving Czechoslovakia. Stalin could scarcely have expected Poland to allow the passage of the Red Army through its territory, and the Polish decision to stand by Czechoslovakia if the West did not would in all likelihood have led to a Nazi-Soviet alliance of convenience against it. Once the results of the Munich Conference became known Poland presented Czechoslovakia with an ultimatum of its own demanding the immedate return of the ethnically Polish region of Zaolzie which Czechoslovakia had seized from it 20 years previously taking advantage of Poland's struggle against the Red Army. Stalin issued complaints but otherwise did nothing. "Peace in our time" seemed to have been preserved.

Nevertheless, each emerging storm must eventually reach the point at which atmospheric moisture forms visible clouds which leave no doubt in anyone's mind that a storm may be coming. Up to this point Hitler had given no definite proof that he had ambitions beyond uniting the German-inhabited regions on the Reich's borders with the Fatherland. But he had now reached the point where no such regions remained besides relatively minor items such as the Free City of Danzig. German power could now only be increased through open imperialism. On March 17, 1939, the Czechoslovak president Emil Hacha was asked to come to Germany immediately and, upon having arrived, was forced to sign an act of complete capitulation and submission. Since the Treaty of Munich had rendered Czechoslovakia unable to pose meaningful resistance, and the Western Powers had not even attempted to make any promises to guarantee it, he complied.

The German occupation of the reminder of Czechoslovakia did not merely provide Germany with that rich country's very considerable resources and armaments for the price of the fuel needed to drive the occupying troops into the country. Equally significantly, that move finally made it clear to all that Hitler could not be trusted and this realization of the approaching storm brought a time of feverish activity. Up to this point many of Europe's powers great and small had remained ambiguous in their choices leaving many possible courses of future events. But this time of uncertainty was coming to an end for the spring of 1939 would be a time of many rapid and critical decisions. Those decisions and their timing would finally lock the disparate pieces of the European puzzle into the arrangement that would determine where the first lightning would strike. And, perhaps no less importantly, when - for the weather in which two armies are to fight, or the state of their deployment at the start of the campaign, are notable factors in the success or failure of any operation. The destruction of Czechoslovakia, left defenseless by the Treaty of Munich, had come so swiftly that the Western Powers found themselves presented with a fait accompli. But they would not tolerate farther German aggression. After years of relative indifference to the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe the two Western Powers now realized just how vital it was. If there was still any hope in preserving peace, it lay in drawing as many of the region's relevant players as possible into their alliance. If presented with the threat of a two-front war against overwhelming odds, the politicians in London and Paris reasoned, Hitler might still refrain from farther expansion.

Despite their inexcusably late start the Western Powers might perhaps have still attained their objective if not for...

(EDIT: I added a few short sentences which seemed to fit in.)

 

[Snaut]

There has been no mention of the exact point of divergence yet. It has taken place several months before the "present" but I will describe it in the next update which will end chapter 1.

 

[Godot]

Interesting. I'll keep an eye on this!

 

[boredviewer1234]

Has Lithuania been been forced by Poland into giving up their claim on Vilnius and by Germany into ceding Klaipėda?

 

[Snaut]

Has Lithuania been been forced by Poland into giving up their claim on Vilnius and by Germany into ceding Klaipėda?

The Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum of 1938 before the PoD but actually I'm not sure if it explicitly involved renouncing the claim and in any case the Lithuanian government does not care much for promises it was forced to make under pressure. The latter is going to happen soon. Annexing Klaipeda is a cheap and risk-free publicity stunt for Hitler as it was in OTL and things have not yet diverged to the point where anyone is willing to stand up for Lithuania on this issue.

 

[boredviewer1234]

The Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum of 1938 before the PoD but actually I'm not sure if it explicitly involved renouncing the claim and in any case the Lithuanian government does not care much for promises it was forced to make under pressure. The latter is going to happen soon. Annexing Klaipeda is a cheap and risk-free publicity stunt for Hitler as it was in OTL and things have not yet diverged to the point where anyone is willing to stand up for Lithuania on this issue.

Ah thank you, Hitler's ''trick'' of through the threat of conflict gaining territories for free and aid in the development of his army for future conflicts was horrifyingly successful for a large period of time diplomatically.

 

[Snaut]

The Point of No Return (continued)​

...the Jerusalem Incident of Febuary 1939. The exact details of the Incident have been most frustrating to historians because the relevant governments have yet to declassify numerous documents concerning the circumstances of that event. Given this paucity of verifiable data the best single source on the Incident itself is probably How I Started The Lightning War (1977), the memoirs of the man best known to the world by his nom-de-plume of Franciszek Dolas. How I Started The Lightning War was met with profound suspicion when first published but in the intervening years a number of claims which could not be verified at the time have since been confirmed to be true. Nor has anyone produced a satisfactory explanation as to why anyone would prepare a Borghesian hoax of this elaboracy for no discernable purpose. It therefore appears safe to assume that How I Started The Lightning War is what it appears to be: an honest memoir.

Prior to the Lightning War Dolas had been involved in Poland's clandestine programme of training Jewish militias for action in palestine. The ultimate objective of that training is clear and arose from the cultural tensions in Poland between the Polish majority and the Jewish minority. The specifics of Poland's history had led to the establishment of a sizable Jewish community in ethnically Polish areas due to a number of cultural and political factors. The Christian taboo against usury which made cultures without it predisposed to occupying the role of a merchant class, and significant cultural differences between the two peoples combined with the isolationist character of traditional Jewish culture largely prevented the assimilation of Jews into the Polish nation. The existence of such a minority might have been uncontroversial if it had been smaller but, since Poland had never expelled Jews from its territory, it had attracted considerable Jewish immigration over the centuries. As of 1939 Jews constituted approximately 10% of Poland's population. The unprecedented social and economic changes of the nineteenth century effectively caused class and national conflict between Poles and Jews to escalate and combine into a single multifaceted dispute. The scope for a mutually satisfactory compromise seemed limited and Polish and Jewish nationalists were often in agreement that mass Jewish emigration to an ethnic homeland of their own could be an ideal scenario. Many Jews were prepared to take an active role as evidenced by the formation of Jewish paramilitaries such as Vladimir Zhabotinsky's Irgun, and the Polish government was prepared to train them so that they that might in time take control of Palestine and make it a Jewish state. Neither Polish nor Jewish nationalists seemed to care much about the opinion of Palestine's Muslim inhabitants.

And so, in the beginning of 1939, a few such Jewish trainees would arrive in Palestine on an early reconaissance operation for which Dolas was partially responsible. While the operation in question was not of particularly high profile, a small mistake made by one of the trainees at a particularly unfortunate moment contributed to the detection of his operation by British intelligence. Since this discovery occurred at the time as a few almost certainly unrelated violent incidents, it received rather more attention than it might otherwise have merited. The public revelation of Polish involvement in Palestine caused a violent reaction in Britain. Poland's reputation in London had not been fabulous to begin with and its annexation of the Zaolzie region led to speculations that it had already entered into some kind of secret pact with Germany. The fact that it was now involved in anti-British violence seemed to confirm these suspicions. Like all political scandals it would be forgotten by most of the public in time, allowing politicians to return to the sensitive subject matter at a more opportune moment. But time was the one commodity which European politicians did not have much of in the uneasy spring of 1939. The incident most inconveniently came to light right at the point where the British cabinet was considering the offer of an alliance to Poland. Indeed it has been suggested that the Incident had been purposely engineered by Germany in order to drive a wedge between Poland and Britain at a particularly sensitive time. But this hypothesis does not appear probable. Had this been planned, records would surely have emerged over the course of half a century. Hitler himself, it seems, was fully confident that Poland would be easily drawn into Germany's orbit, and therefore seems to have lacked a motive for ordering such a thing to be attempted. For what it is worth Dolas directly addresses the question and strenususly denies any knowledge that his group's detection was anything other than accidental.

Regardless of everyone's intentions the Incident had derailed the diplomatic efforts to draw the Western Powers and the Cordon Sanitaire closer together. Upon realizing this Dolas would come to blame himself for authorizing the operation at such a sensitive moment. Had he not authorized it, he claims, there would have been no obstacle to the formation of the Anglo-Polish alliance which would have deterred Hitler from going to war and preserved the peace in Europe. Some Irgun members imprisoned in Palestine would meanwhile blame themselves, for their own cause had been no less damaged. In the aftermath of the crisis Britain would become increasingly hostile to the idea of Jewish presence in Palestine, ultimately abandoning the concept of overseeing the establishment of a Jewish state there. Jewish nationalists worldwide considered this deprivation of what had at the time seemed to be the best prospect of establishing a nation-state as their own as a disaster and even as an existential threat to their people's existence. Some of the Irgun members detained at the time recall being reduced to futile prayer for the survival of the Jewish people, only to conclude that their pleas must have been left unheard. But perhaps the blame for this particular mistake lies with the higher levels of the Polish government who should have realized the potential risk they were taking.

Stalin would therefore feign friendly neutrality towards Hitler, an attitude which the Western Powers were no longer willing to display. He also had another trick up his sleeve: the ability to offer great resources which the German war machine badly needed and which the Western Powers were hardly willing to provide. It is not clear if Hitler had already made his mind up as to whether he should begin with striking west or east, but he must certainly have found this a tempting offer. If it were accepted, Stalin seems to have believed, Germany would become embroiled in a protracted struggle against the Western Powers, leaving both sides unable to prevent the Soviet Union from gradually absorbing the neighbouring states. This being accomplished it could presumably have offered the embattled Western Powers help against Germany, opening up the possibility of a vast expansion of Soviet influence and power. If the war-weary Western Powers would have been able to subsequently resist the potential of a Soviet empire stretching from Vladivostok to Berlin seems entirely unclear. But, being a master gambler, Hitler did not hurry to bring those negotiations to any sort of conclusion - successful or otherwise - if the opportunity to add a strong card to his hand suddenly presented itself.

It was in this tense situation that the Third Reich would make its last peaceful annexations. The first of these would be the relatively small region of Klaipeda which had belonged to Germany and was now a part of Lithuania. Hitler's final prewar acquisition would be smaller still - but despite its size, it would have very considerable implications.

It had hardly escaped Hitler's attention that the consequences of the Jerusalem Incident had temporarily poisoned relations between Poland and the Western Powers. Its neutrality had been so useful in shielding the rearming Germany from the USSR that he had refrained from making any substantial demands towards it, but that early phase of Hitler's plans was now all but completed. If he were to continue to tolerate Poland's existence, it would soon start having to make itself useful in other ways. He considered Poland to be a useful springboard and source of cannon fodder for his planned invasion of the Soviet Union - if only it would agree to take part in an uncertain and immensely costly war despite being perfectly satisfied with the status quo. In fact he had already sent various emissaries to sound Poland out on the issue over the previous months. He had so far been ignored, and been prepared to wait - but no longer. Soon after the destruction of Czechoslovakia Hitler presented his newest terms to Poland in a much more forceful manner. If farther coexistence were to be possible, Poland would need to recognize the German annexation of the Free City of Danzig, allow the construction of an exterritorial road and railway across its territory linking the Prussian exclave with the rest of Germany, discarding the moribund but legally still operative defensive pact with France and - most importantly - joining the newly-formed Axis Pact. In return Germany would offer "protection" against Soviet aggression and a 25-year non-aggression pact, which must have sounded most convincing indeed after the breaking of the promises to Czechoslovakia.

The unofficial triumvirate of President Mościcki, Marshal Rydz-Śmigły and Foreign Minister Beck, which effectively governed Poland at the time, was not quite unprepared for such demands. It was, in fact, somewhat inclined to resist. There had been, among other things, the hope that the Western Powers would not tolerate Germany destroying yet another country. But under the present conditions London and Paris seemed unable to contemplate such an action. After a prologned debate the triumvirate decided that perhaps some concessions were the lesser evil after all and decided to negotiate instead of ignoring the demands or rejecting them outright. Partial compliance instead of total submission was something relatively new to Hitler, but he appears to have been convinced that, like everyone else so far, Poland would eventually become fully compliant to his will. The end result of those negotiations was of course the Treaty of Budapest. The public part of the treaty seemed innocent enough: in exchange for the recognition of the annexation of Danzig, and certain concessions concerning traffic between Prussia and the rest of Germany, Berlin would guarantee Poland's borders and the non-aggression pact between the two countries would be prolonged until 1964. But, without the prospects of help from abroad, Poland was induced to agree to the introduction of secret items to the treaty as well. It is one of history's ironies that the West's suspicion about the existence of secret agreements between Poland and Germany would prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, bringing about a treaty containing secret provisions of that exact sort. The secret clause of the treaty demanded that Poland would "consult" its foreign policy with Germany and, critically, should Germany come into conflict with France, Poland would regard the treaty of nonaggression with Germany as posessing higher priority than the Franco-Polish alliance.

Even the public part of the treaty was expected to be controversial both in Berlin and in Warsaw. Before the ink on the draft of the treaty could dry it was already being questioned among the leaderships of both countries to the extent that such questioning was permitted. While Hitler had nevertheless obtained additional land for Germany, he was still questioned for not demanding additional areas which Germany had ceded in 1919 and probably issued private assurances that, in the long run, this situation was just as temporary as the annexation of the Czechoslovak Borderlands. Nor was the idea of any concessions popular in Poland. In a futile attempt to remove at least some of the odium of signing such a treaty from themselves the Triumvirate reached out to Władysław Studnicki, one of the only true germanophiles in Poland of any significance, to take as much of the blame as possible. Studnicki appears to have been conscious of the reason why he was suddenly pulled out of relative obscurity, regarding this as the lesser evil, agreed to take partial responsibility for the negotiations. This convoluted circus fooled nobody and the signing of the treaty would trigger mass protests in Poland which were, on occasion, violently suppressed. This was satisfactory to Germany, at least for the time being. On April 19th 1939 Ribbentrop and Beck, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland, met in Budapest to sign the eponymous treaty. After doing so they shook hands but, had only diplomatic protocol permitted such a thing, they would both have had their fingers crossed.

The news of the Treaty of Budapest swept across the world like the cool wind before the storm. Under different circumstances it might have seemed a relief as it ostensibly resolved the long-standing enimity of Poland and Germany without critically compromising the interests of either and reflected the ethnic realities of the situation. After the lesson of Munich the powers which had regarded that treaty in similar terms now saw Budapest as an unmitigated disaster. The acquisition of the territory of Danzig may not have, in itself, meanignfully enhanced the Reich's power, The borders of Poland may have remained as they had been and it may have remained independent even if it was forced to admit constraints on its freedom of action. But just as the annexation of the Czech Borderlands had turned out to be the prelude towards the conquest of the entire Czechoslovak state, so it was feared that this "neutralization" of Poland was in fact the first step towards the incorporation of the Cordon Sanitaire into the Axis. It was not just the Polish Triumvirate, their country having being forced into unilateral concessions and their aspirations to raise it to the status of an influential power now compromised, who felt this way. The leaders of the Western Powers, having failed at drawing both the Cordon Sanitaire and the Soviet Union into their encircling alliance, were resigning themselves to that which now seemed inevitable sooner or later. Romania, while not directly involved, naturally observed the situation with concern. Stalin would warn his comrades that the Treaty had put the cause of Revolution in a greater peril than at any point in the past twenty years. It seemed to be no longer a question of if war would break out, but merely where, and even that question was resolving itself as Europe's players came to arrange themselves in formation. Would Hitler continue to pressure the Cordon Sanitaire into submission in preparation for war against his Soviet archenemy? Would he use its neutrality to turn westwards so as to be able to set out for the final showdown in the east with his opposite flank secured? Or might the fighting perhaps break out in some other, entirely unexpected place?

The answer would soon be revealed.

 

[Snaut]

And here's a map to help make sense of the situation. Not quite as nice as I would have liked but really nice maps take an eternity to make. I'll probably do at least one or two eventually but the timeline must do without them for now.

 

[CountofDooku]

Without Romanian Oil the Axis will not look very good for very long I assume?

 

[Snaut]

Without Romanian Oil the Axis will not look very good for very long I assume?

The issue will become very relevant in a few chapters but a full answer would be rather spoilery at this point.

 

[CountofDooku]

The issue will become very relevant in a few chapters but a full answer would be rather spoilery at this point.

Very nice looking forward to it, unless Romania tries to sell to all sides, but with the British and French they should have options that would not use said oil to attack them later on, so that would be the wiser option.

 

[Snaut]

2. "Ah, merde, nous y voila encore"​

"This is not a peace. This is an armstice of twenty years." - French marshal Ferdinand Foch on the Treaty of Versailles, 1919

Neither of of the armies which went to war in 1939 was truly prepared for it. This was not an accident. If Germany were to conquer a continent which was potentially so much more powerful than itself, quickly rearming and striking before the other states could react accordingly was arguably the only strategy which had any chance of succeeding. For six years Hitler had managed to convince the Western Powers of his peaceful intentions and during that time the military strength of the rearming Reich grew relative to theirs. But while some deceptions can be maintained indefinitely, concealing an attempt at world domination is not one of them, and by the summer of 1939 all of Europe had come to realize the threat posed by the Reich. The entire continent was now intensely arming itself and, if it were to be allowed to continue unmolested, Germany's military strength would now begin to decrease relative to its potential targets. Moreover, the speed of Germany's rearmament had caused such strain to the country's economy that by 1939 it was no longer able to continue on its course without a steady stream of free money and resources - which could only be obtained through plunder. Hitler's deceit and the West's self-deception had opened a window of opportunity for the Third Reich to prepare for war, but that window was now opened as wide as it would ever be and was beginning to close. And so the Fuhrer decided that Europe's time for preparation was up.

Strange though it may seem, despite having spent six years overseeing one of the most intense periods of military buildup in history, the spring of 1939 found Hitler still trying to decide what his first target should be. Conquering the Soviet Union, or at least large parts of it, had always been Hitler's top priority, but Hitler does not seem to have ever had any clear master plan for his aggressions. He must have recognized that the fluid state of European diplomacy made opportunism the best strategy and that following a clear schedule would deprive his Reich of opportunities. But in 1939 the political ambiguities were resolving themselves and the German army was as powerful in relation to its potential enemies as it was ever going to be. The time for the final choice had at last arrived.

In April 1939 the Fuhrer finally made his decision that, even if colonizing eastern Europe was to be the main goal, it would be necessary to start by defeating the Western Powers. The reasons why he decided to do this instead of continuing to pressure Poland and Romania into the Axis and going on to invade the Soviet Union remain unclear. It is thought that the Western Powers' attempts at forming an alliance with his main target as well as some of his intended subordinates that convinced him of the necessity of firmly securing his western flank before striking eastwards. It should be noted that this is not the same as saying that Hitler would have left the West alone if not for specific actions which he found provocative. To suppose that resembles the same kind of wishful thinking which drove appeasement in the first place. Hitler was out to dominate Europe if not the world and, having achieved victory over the Soviet Union, he would not have tolerated the continued independence of the Western Powers. Their farther inactivity could have delayed war, but not prevented it. It is also worth noting that blaming the West for provoking Hitler carries with it the implicit assumption that he was somehow ignorant of the provocativeness of his own previous actions. To suggest that Hitler was somehow oblivious to the notion that the world would object to his aggression is a bold claim indeed. An alternative explanation is that, having neutralized Poland and having become the target of (feigned) Soviet friendliness, Hitler may have decided that he now had a great opportunity to strike westwards without having to worry about his eastern flank. It may be that the Fuhrer decided that defeating the Western Powers had suddenly become a more attractive option than bypassing them. When one has objectives as grandiose as Hitler's, working towards them requires such extensive preparations that it becomes difficult to distinguish between true goals and actions which were merely a means to an end.

The German High Command was understandably concerned upon receiving Hitler's orders to prepare an invasion of France that very summer. The hastily prepared plan was felt to be uncomfortably reminescent of the failed plans of 1914 and it has been said that nobody was truly satisfied with it. Perhaps Hitler's generals might have devised a better plan if they had been given more time, or if some other event had somehow forced them to abandon their original ideas and start over from scratch. But Hitler was too impatient and too persuasive. The plans were therefore drawn up and approved, and the invasion of Western Europe was schedule for August 27, 1939.

The Soviet Union's friendly neutrality towards Germany during that time may seem to have been one of the most perplexing aspects of the complex European situation which existed in 1939. The Third Reich and the Soviet Union desired both world domination and the extirpation of the other's ideology. It is hard to imagine any two states whose final objectives could have been more incompatible. But, counter-intuitive as it may seem, their immediate goals were actually closely aligned. Neither of them could hope to establish world domination without first destroying the vestiges of the international order established at Versailles, and Hitler and Stalin needed each other to do so. To use modern terms, both Hitler and Stalin regarded the other as a useful idiot and believed himself to be the Pact's main beneficiary. To Hitler the pact provided assurance of a steady stream of resources and peace in the east which would allow him to focus his entire attention on Western Europe. If Hitler were to win, Stalin would have found himself in the awkward position of having helped Hitler defeat his last possible anti-Fascist allies in Europe. It seems unlikely that this thought occurred to the Soviet dictator. Stalin seems to have seen the Pact as a perfect means of goading Hitler into a slow, bloody war against the Western Powers. As London and Paris had already reached out to Stalin in peacetime, it may have seemed reasonable to assume that they would be doubly pleased with his assistance if directly attacked by Hitler. Stalin may have therefore thought that they would welcome him into the anti-German crusade, at the end of which Stalin's archenemy would have been defeated, and France would have remained the last significant power standing in the way of total Soviet domination of continental Europe. When viewed in this light the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact makes perfect sense.

The Pact would be a blow to the Western Powers as the news of a Soviet-German nonaggression pact dashed their hopes of drawing the Soviet Union into the renewed Entente which they had still hoped to build. The news of the extensive German-Soviet trade agreements were no less concerning. They also correctly suspected the existence of some kind of secret protocol to the treaty dividing up the world and perhaps even mandating co-operation against them. Britain's traditional fear of a Russian push towards the Mediterranean and Indian oceans re-emerged. Politicians in London would have been relieved to learn that while such a secret protocol indeed existed, it only concerned Europe, assigning Poland, Romania and Lithuania to the German sphere of influence and Latvia, Estonia and Finland to the Soviet sphere. Hitler had indeed suggested joint action against the Western Powers, offering the Middle East and India to the Soviets. But, for the reasons explained above, Stalin was noncommittal on the issue.

Since neither of the Western Powers was actually expected to perform any provocative actions, Hitler entrusted his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels with the task of inventing some sort of casus belli for the planned invasion. It would necessarily be a poor excuse, but even a poor one is more useful then none at all. As long as any alibi is provided, even one which falls apart under the briefest inspection, there will always be someone too busy to question it, or eager enough to believe it that they will ignore its shortcomings. Goebbels' poison continues to have its effects today and the lie that the Saarland Incident was genuine still continues to be peddled in certain circles. It is not only neo-nazis, eager to endorse any claim that might whitewash their idols, who repeat it. Various detractors of France, not sympathizing with fascism but merely eager to repeat anything that portrays France in a bad light, are also guilty of keeping the lie alive. The so-called "incident" was a false-flag attack which Germany staged near one of its border posts near Saarbruck. The "incident" occurred late at night on August 25, 1939 and was instantly declared to be an act of war. The German invasion of Western Europe began on August 26, 1939 at 5 A.M.

The first days of the Lightning War were an impressive display of the power of the Blitzkrieg. Large portions of the Belgian and Dutch armies were quickly encircled and destroyed in the first days of war by fast and skillful armored pushes. The German airforce would also perform impressively, bombing a series of targets in the Low Countries and parts of Britain and France, and supporting the ground forces in their attacks. By the last day of August German artillery was shelling Brussels and half of the Netherlands had been occupied, the surviving remnants of the Dutch Army now in full retreat to their Water Line and into Fortress Holland. But the momemtum of the initial attack would not last. The French High Command had been somewhat surprised by the war since their plan of relieving the Low Countries was still being refined, but they had a good general idea of what they wanted to do. And, by great good fortune, that proved to be the correct response. The most powerful French units were deployed into Belgium with the intent of stopping the German attack east of Brussels and preserving communications with the Netherlands. This plan of course failed. The new German tactics proved themselves to be highly effective and even the highly mechanized French units would often become encircled and cut off. But despite its disproportionate losses the French Army ultimately did manage to slow the Blitzkrieg down to a near halt. Belgium and the mouths of the Rhine would fall on September 3, but those would be the last major successes of the initial German assult. The Blitzkrieg would be stopped in its tracks when the attempts to encircle French forces west of Brussels failed disastrously. In hindsight it seems clear that the German advance on such a narrow front, right in the face of the French army, was likely to fail. The elegant encirclements which had worked against the weaker Belgian and Dutch armies on a wider front were no longer possible against the advancing mass of French armor in the relatively narrow area between Brussels and Antwerp. A quick encirclement of a targetted unit is possible if the encircling force manages to find a way around its positions. But in the early days of September 1939 the German armored spearheads simply did not have the space to maneouver around their targets without approaching well-equipped enemy units which would engage them, sometimes causing delays and sometimes even halting them in their tracks. Realizing the seriousness of the situation Hitler allowed himself to be persuaded to halt the operations in Belgium. But this was not an admission of defeat, but rather a feint. For the German High Command had developed a new idea which would take the enemy by surprise.

Operation Sickle was one of those desperate throws of the dice which come to be regarded as genius or madness depending on their success or failure. Conventional military wisdom had held that the terrain of the Ardennes area in southern Belgium was so uneven and poorly built up that no major invasion could pass that way. But with the Allied lines in northern Belgium holding firmly, and the Maginot Line in the south precluding attacks from that direction, the Ardennes were the last staging ground for any possible attempt to surround the French Armies and avoid what was threatening to turn into a protracted war of attrition. The attack launched out of the Ardennes on September 12 was meant to wheel around at least part - if not all - of the French forces in Belgium, cut them off from their supplies, and thus force them to surrender. Things went well at first and the elation in Berlin was matched by the state of near panic in Paris. It seems quite possible that if this had been the initial plan of the German general staff it might have won them the war. But, as it was, too many German armies had been lost or tied down in northern Belgium, and regrouping French forces managed to halt the decimated German spearheads. The German commanders now found themselves in a large and vulnerable salient which was beginning to come under attack along its entire length. For a time it seemed that it was now the French who were in a position to suddenly eliminate such a large portion of the German military as to permanently cripple it. But the somewhat antiquated French communication and their slowness to adapt to the realities of mobile mechanized warfare prevented them from seizing this opportunity. The German forces would skillfully evacuate the more vulnerable northwestern part of the area they had occupied and competently defend the rest without disastrous losses. Nevertheless, Operation Sickle had failed.

Infuriated at this failure and disappointed with his generals Hitler ordered a return to the original concept of the invasion which, he now insisted, should never have been abandoned in the first place. The retention of part of the German gains in the south meant that a large salient in the front now existed to the south of Belgium faced by German forces on three sides. Hitler ordered its elimination. Some terrain was gained once again, and once again French losses would exceed German ones. And, once again, the French line held long enough for the offensive to lose its momentum. Farther to the north an attempt to at least eliminate Fortress Holland and finish the conquest of the Netherlands also failed. The Dutch armies, now supported by parts of the British Expeditionary Force, held the Water Line.

Germany's last hope for a rapid victory against the Allies had vanished and the spectre of an exhausting trench war seemed to be raising its head once again.

 

[Magnificate]

the memoirs of the man best known to the world by his nom-de-plume of Franciszek Dolas

Of course.

Still, I wonder whether this incident would be enough to torpedo the alliance. Was it the British public or the politicians who cared more? At this point the politicians must have known they weren't yet ready for war and without Poland what's their idea on how to delay the war until France and Britain are ready to fight or until German economy eats itself from the inside?

 

[marcinL]

Looks like a good time for some Dolchstoss is approaching

 

[Starinski]

Subscribed. Keep up the good work

 

[Snaut]

Looks like a good time for some Dolchstoss is approaching

Indeed...

Of course.

I was wondering if anybody would notice

Still, I wonder whether this incident would be enough to torpedo the alliance. Was it the British public or the politicians who cared more? At this point the politicians must have known they weren't yet ready for war and without Poland what's their idea on how to delay the war until France and Britain are ready to fight or until German economy eats itself from the inside?

Both the public and plenty of politicians interpreted the incident as definite proof that Poland and Germany are conspiring to overthrow the British Empire. Not all, but enough to make Chamberlain put the idea off until later. Did Britain have a plan B at that point? Not really. In mid-1939 the governments of the OTL Allies are much more afraid than at the same time in OTL. Hitler on the other hand is feeling more optimistic. This lasts until mid September. In late September he is slowly reconciling himself to the idea that Paris will only fall sometime in April or May of 1940 and that the losses on the western front will prove so high that the invasion of the USSR will have to wait until 1941.

 

[Snaut]

Oh dear, the board says that this thread is more than 10 months old and I had to click the box saying that I am aware that farther posts may be considered spam. A nice indirect way of saying get off your ass and finish your timeline. Okay you impertinent machine, here's the next part.

3. The End of the Beginning​

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." - Winston Churchill, British First Lord of the Admirality, on the relative stabilization of the frontline in Belgium and eastern France in September 1939

By late September 1939 it was becoming clear that Germany's second attempt to take western Europe by storm had failed just like the last. Since events seemed so reminescent of those a quarter of a century previously it is unsurprising that Europe's politicians and public opinions experienced a feeling of deja vu and were often inclined to expect a second protracted trench war much like the last. But while the opening campaign of this new war seemed so much like the last, the prolific use of tanks and airplanes nonwithstanding, the similarities between the two conflicts would begin and end there.

Upon realizing the failure of the Blitzkrieg Hitler's first instinct was to call upon his fellow Fascist Mussolini. But if he seriously expected Italy to join the war, he was duly disappointed. The Duce did agree to provide certain military supplies, but reminded the Fuhrer that he had previously let him know that he did not feel that Italy would be ready for a full-scale war before 1942 or thereabouts. It may be that Mussolini may have opportunistically joined if Germany had seemed to be on the verge of winning, for Fascists tend to side with the winners and even glorify them, this being arguably a core tenet of that quasi-Darwinian ideology. But in September 1939 Hitler was most definitely not a winner. If Mussolini considered any aggression at this point, it was against Yugoslavia. But, if anything, Mussolini's nonspecific yet threatening remarks would only serve to consolidate Yugoslav unity, perhaps even more so than the decision to finally grant the Croats autonomous status in 1939. Italy had fought throughout most of the last European war, but this would not be repeated.

More significantly, in September 1939 Germany did not have an eastern front. For the time being this of course suited Hitler. This time the east was not the source of millions of invading troops, but of the valuable supplies provided under the provisions of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Together with Germany's continued ties with Italy, this meant that the Allies at this point had no hope of imposing a blockade on German trade as they had in the last war, since Germany could purchase vast quantities of goods overland from the presently neutral states. German propaganda exploited this to the fullest which probably made the difference as far as keeping the German public's morale up was concerned.

But the fragile peace which Germany had built in the east could never have lasted. Indeed it had never even been planned to. When building that improvised network of treaties Hitler only wanted them to serve for the few weeks needed to subdue France - assuming, of course, that his strike against France and the Low Countries would succeed. And as soon as it began to fail, the ramshackle edifice of the Budapest and Ribbentrop-Molotov Pacts began to unravel.

The Western Allies' first instinct was to once again try to rebuild the prewar entente with Moscow. They were of course rebuffed, as Stalin had his own ideas on how to reorder Europe, and these certainly did not involve helping anyone restore anything resembling the status quo. But the second Allied effort at recruiting an ally, despite seeming less hopeful at first, was more successful.

Despite the conflicts on the governmental level, British and French intelligence remained on speaking terms with its Polish counterpart. Some co-operation had already taken place regarding attempts to penetrate the secrets of the German Enigma coding machines. Indeed the XYZ nomenclature (X representing France, Y representing Britain and Z representing Poland) used during those discussions would eventually be adopted for the purpose of the three states' trilateral collaboration in general. Now that Germany's strength had been demonstrated as insufficient, the Western Allies hoped that Poland might be persuaded to join. This proved easier than expected since Poland had only signed the Treaty of Budapest out of fear of isolation, but considered its implied subordination to Germany a vital threat to its soverignity, a issue whose redress was of paramount importance. It was soon established that Poland was in principle ready and willing to open up a second front against Germany by early October, a movement that could be timed to co-incide with a major Allied counteroffensive on the western front in the hope of relieving Fortress Holland, or rather the pressure upon it, before that annoying thorn in the German flank could be eliminated.

It was noted that the entry of Poland into the war would not just force Germany to split its army, but would also deprive it of Soviet resources, potentially greatly shortening the war, even if the Allies did not fully realize just how poorly supplied Germany was compared to the situation 25 years previously. This had a definite impact on the various Allied deliberations concerning war aims. It was realized that the peace might be a negotiated one, and the postwar terms needed to be considered with respect to Germany's ability to resist. At this point the reduction of Germany to its 1938 or even 1930 borders was taken for granted, but the expectation of the imminent entry of a new Ally into the war deeply influenced the discussions on the fate of those territories which had been part of Germany before that time. With a decisive victory now potentially in sight within a reasonable timeframe, the Allies' appetites grew. After the fiasco of the previous concept of ensuring its security by demilitarizing the Rhineland but otherwise allowing it to remain part of Germany, the French were particularly inclined to avoid the repeat of what they saw as a critical mistake. From late September 1939 onwards the French, Belgians and Dutch took the partition of the Rhineland between them, with the lion's share of the province going to France, as the default postwar scenario.

Poland for its part was primarly interested in Danzig and Prussia, if only to gain a strategic advantage, and secondly in the reminder of Upper Silesia which had remained with Germany following the 1921 plebiscite. The Western Allies remained skeptical about promising Poland the entire package at the outset, and preferred to leave the secret treaty between themselves and Poland ambiguous, but the Poles at least partially resolved this ambiguity with their trump card in the form of information regarding their progress in deciphering the workings of the German Enigma coding system. Still anticipating a relatively long war, the Allies did not concede to the entire set of Poland's demands, but quietly accepted the fact that the border corrections in East Prussia referred to in the treaty would by default involve the annexation of Konigsberg by Poland. That this had been the prevailing view at the time is all but proved by Churchill's remark that "never in the history of mankind has such a great city been traded for such a small box of wires".

The ultimate fate of Prussia would, of course, only be resolved after a number of profound changes to the European situation. Various alternative proposals concerning the province's fate would soon emerge and gain traction, especially in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's shift from pro-German neutrality to a more active stance. So it was that the Lithuanian concept of annexing the city of Konigsberg for itself, perhaps in return for dropping the anachronistic and rather theoretical claim on the Polish city of Wilno, gained increasing traction. It is also at about this time that the concept of establishing a Jewish state in Prussia first arose. Britain having allegedly already committed itself to establishing a new Jewish homeland following the increasingly bad prospects of the Palestine project, the interest of various other states to find someplace to which they might allow their own Jewish populations to emigrate, and the alleged influence of American Jewish financial circles, approached by British diplomats expecting a long and expensive war and therefore doubly prepared to offer concessions at somebody else's expense, have all been cited as anything between decisive to irrelevant by various sources.

But those controversies still lay in the future. For now, it seemed, the picture was relatively clear. Poland would quietly begin its preparations to open up an eastern front, and while Romania did not clearly announce intentions to join, it was found that in return for appropriate Allied guarantees it might be willing to cease selling its own oil supplies to Germany and possibly even to obstruct the passage of Soviet goods bound for Berlin, effectively coming close to approximating a full blockade upon Germany. The spectre of a second bloody trench war seemed to be receding.

 

[Snaut]

Europe of the future, as envisioned by most Allied politicians at the beginning of October 1939. It was assumed that Lithuania would sooner or later join the war as an ally, helping to finish off the beleaguered and isolated German forces in East Prussia in return for the Memel area which it had been forced to hand over to Germany several months previously and more besides.

 

[Snaut]

4. War Plan Z​

"No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one" - Dwight Eisenhower, American military commander and advisor to the Republic of China during the Great Asian War

Like most other war plans put into action by the various participants of the Lightning War, Poland's Plan Z (short for "Zachód" or "West) was largely improvised on the fly in reaction to political developments proceeding at a rate which leaders across Europe had failed to anticipate. Throughout its existence the Second Republic of Poland had mainly focused upon preparing for a possible war with the Soviet Union which it regarded as its most serious threat. Awareness of Berlin's irredentism existed, of course, but being demilitarized and flanked from the west by the allied France, Germany was not seen as an existential threat until the final period before the Lighting War. Few specific plans for the case of a war with Germany were therefore made, and less still put on paper, a fact largely attributed to Marshal Rydz-Śmigły's habit of, a relic of his conspiratorial youth.

In the Marshal's defense the political and military situation in 1930s Europe was so volatile that any intricate plan would have been likely to prove unsuited for the circumstances. The geography of the Polish-German borderland was constant, but the rate of rearmament and the effects of the ongoing campaign upon the western front meant that a war launched in October, 1939, would be of a completely different nature than if it had broken out just a few weeks earlier.

The full strength of the German army was numerically and technically superior to the Polish, especially in terms of combat vehicles of all kinds. The onslaught of the full strength of such an army would be a force which Poland could scarcely hope to defeat. The best that could be done in such a war would have been a gradual withdrawal from the borderlands to the center of the country. For such a war to end in victory, a French offensive against Germany would have been more or less obligatory. In such a scenario the Polish Army would be able to tie down much of the German army, forcing it to meet the powerful French assult with only part of its strength. Victory alone was scarcely a realistic option.

But in September 1939 the majority of Germany's strength was deployed in the west against the armies of Britain and France. Critically, this included the majority of Germany's military vehicles. Parts of the German airforce would be relatively easy to redeploy eastwards, but the tanks and armored cars that could be conveniently sent east were relatively obsolete and few in number. Their use would be farther limited by Germany's declining stocks of fuel, bombs and other ammunition, those having been accumulated with a relatively short conflict in mind, and farther limited by the loss of Soviet imports which Poland's entry into the war would necessarily entail. Another difficulty would be posed by the autumn rains and short days of October. This stripped-down version of the German force on the western front simply could not fight a mechanized war without receiving such reinforcements from the Western Front as to render it critically vulnerable to an Allied counterattack, something that would be effectively fatal to the German war effort.

The fighting on the eastern front would therefore have a completely different character than that in the west, as if the two campaigns were parts of two separate wars, separated not just in space, but also in time. It would mainly consist of infantry, cavalry and artillery combat with major tank operations being the exception rather than the norm. The German airforce was qualitatively superior and, despite the limits of fuel and ammunition, tended to achieve superiority in individual sections of the frontline if that was desired, but failed to achieve superiority in the entire eastern theatre of operations. Meanwhile the Polish infantry was superior in numbers and training to the second- and third-rate German troops which they tended to encounter. The relatively de-echanized character of the eastern front would also allow the Poles to make more effective use of their large and well-trained cavalry forces. That branch of the military was, in general, trending towards obsolescence and replacement by mechanized forces, and the October Campaign would be the last major european conflict in which cavalry would play such a significant role. But this knowledge would have been of little consolation to the Germans.

Under such conditions the Polish military could afford to adopt an offensive stance. In the end it was divided into no fewer than six army groups plus an additional reserve one, a major departure from the common practise according to which commanders typically divided the forces under their direct command into fewer groupings, but one which proved at least somewhat successful when combined with initial strategic surprise. The primary axis of advance was to the northwest, into Pomerania and East Brandenburg, with the intent of reaching the lower Oder. A secondary advance was meant to defeat or at least neutralize the German armies in Prussia. Even if they did manage to withdraw to the northern part of the region, it was expected that they would be too distant and isolated from the frontline in the west to have any chance of making a major difference. The forces the southern section of the front were intended rather as screening forces to protect the southern flank of the offensive movements, and - if all went well - would then proceed to march into Silesia, thus establishing a stable frontline based on the River Oder along nearly its entire length. Of course things would not go that well. The initial offensives would gain some ground, they would of course fail to meet those objectives in full before their advance could be halted by the admirably skillful German response. From that point onwards the war would cease to proceed according to any side's initial plans and its farther course would depend entirely upon decisions made in response to the changing situation.

The appraisal of Plan Z is a matter of much controversy, not least because its mastermind was a major figure in the leadership of the authoritarian Sanacja regime which governed Poland for three decades. During that period the "official" line stated that the plan was both brilliantly conceived and an unambiguous success. That the line of the Oder was never reached, and that the German armies in Prussia would withdraw but stubbornly hold out in their Festung Preussen in the northern part of the province for quite a while, would be explained in terms of the full objectives being rather a threat to Berlin, one intended to force Hitler to redeploy forces from the west as part of a closely co-ordinated Allied strategy. If the drive to the west succeeded, the Polish Armies would have established themselves on a decent natural defensive line dangerously close to Berlin, forcing Hitler to chose between tolerating the presence of enemy forces so close to his capital, and redeploying farther forces from the precious industrial regions near the western front. This, therefore, was why Germany of necessity deployed considerable forces in the early phase of the offensive in order to halt it. The promulgation of contrary opinions was discouraged or, at times, explicitly censored.

This was of course met with a strong reaction during the so-called Millenial Period which followed the Sanacja's fall from power in 1961. The historiography of the following decade was, perhaps unsurprisingly, highly critical of Plan Z, sometimes going so far as to describe it as fundamentally misguided and saved from utter failure only by blind luck. The separation of the army into so many different units, for example, would often be described as a predetermined decision. It is perhaps thanks to such far-reaching claims that the 70s and 80s saw the adoption of a more nuanced appraisal of the quality of War Plan Z.

 

[Snaut]

[Divergent Reality Exploration (Autonomous Mode) ERROR: internal error. Transcription disrupted.]
[Refocusing in Heuristical Mode...]

Chapter V: Drive to the West

"I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever in her ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to. And I distrust her motives, which seem to me to have little connection with our ideas of liberty, and to be concerned only with getting everyone else by the ears." - Neville Chamberlain, wartime Prime Minister of Brtiain, in early 1939

If the outcome of the Second Polish-Soviet War (as the conflict is commonly but improperly called, ignoring the existence of Poland's allies and the fact that the Revolutionary Russian state only named itself the Soviet Union only formally came into existence after the "First" Polish-Soviet War had ended) had depended only upon the size of the conflicting forces, it would have indeed been the easy Soviet victory which Stalin had expected. On paper the vast forces of the Red Army outnumbered the Poles and Romanians by nearly 3:1 in terms of infantry and artillery and more than that in terms of military vehicles.

It has been suggested that the planners of Operation Mars had, in effect, made the same mistake as its German counterpart. This misconception is the result of insufficient understanding of the evolution of the Soviet military doctrine. A cursory examination of the Soviet concept of Deep Operations, a variant of which would later be used in Manchuria, has led many historians to assume that, just like German tactics, Soviet tactics also focused on rapid, co-ordinated movements of armored divisions. This line of reasoning suggests that the Soviets had made the mistake of assuming that what is a viable tactic in a localized section of the front can be scaled up to the level of a strategy driving an entire theatre-wide offensive. (Proponents of the bold claim that the armored forces can advance for hundreds of kilometres along a front hundreds of kilometres wide within a matter of weeks often point to the Manchurian offensive of 1943 as "proof" of their claims. This, however, ignores the fact that the Japanese armies stationed in Manchuria in 1943 were severely underarmed and undersupplied after years of attrition and sanctions, and cannot be regarded as a peer opponent to the Red Army of the time. Never in history has any army executed such an operation against a peer opponent.) Mars was, in theory, a logistically viable operation.

Nor were the broad assumptions of Operation Mars fatally flawed from a strategic perspective. The triple division of the advancing fronts is considered entirely rational. The existence of the Pripet Marshes, Poland's only real natural defense in the east, all but necessitated the separation of the forces operating in the north into their own Front. The decision to split the forces in the south in two due to their different objectives was also entirely logical. The Southern Front was therefore tasked with breaching the Dniester and occupying Moldavia while the first task of the Central Front was to advance into Bukovina to separate the Polish and Romanian armies from each other. If those initial objectives were met, as should have in theory happened relatively soon, their movements would farther diverge, thus justifying their separation. It may be argued that Stalin should have forseen that trouble might arise from entrusting the Northern Front to Budionny, a man who Stalin must had known was valuable rather due to his evident loyalty than to his skill in commanding modern armies. But with such reserves as the Red Army had at his disposal, Stalin's decision to value loyalty over skill must have seemed safer than it would prove to be.

And now that the remaining Great Powers of Europe were fully committed to the fighting in Belgium, the Netherlands and northeastern France, he did not need to worry about significant forces coming to his enemies' aid.

Despite these advantages, Stalin did in fact hesitate for a time, if not for the reasons one might have expected. Available records suggest that he spent the first days of September 1939 satisfied that the anticipated war between the capitalist powers had broken out far from his doorstep, but still uncertain how best to profit from the freedom of action which the full commitment of Britain, France and Germany to the Lightning War entailed. His first concern was the skirmishes with Japanese forces which were currently taking place upon the Manchurian border. These he had already decided to deal with forcefully, having correctly guessed that the Red Army was able to present a sufficient show of strength to make the Japanese withdraw for the time being.

The idea that unexpected developments elsewhere might restore Japan's confidence does not appear to have entered Stalin's calculations. But in defense of the Soviet dicator (or rather his strategic judgment, for the man himself and the objectives for the sake of which he employed that judgment cannot be defended) this was perhaps not an obvious oversight. Or perhaps it was just a risk Stalin was willing to take in order to advance communism in Europe.

There were two paths available. The first, safer one, was to begin to pick off the Baltic States, one by one. The agreement with Germany had assigned most of them to his sphere of influence, so no German support to them would be forthcoming. It is unclear just how much Stalin knew of Poland's own estimation of the situation. The imposition of the Treaty of Budapest, which Poland regarded as an outrage and as a serious long-term threat, was a move of sufficient magnitude that Poland may have, by default, already have been considered to be drawn into the conflict between Germany and the Allies, even if its drift towards open war with Germany was only beginning. Without even Poland's strength available to contest their fate, the Baltic States may have lost their hard-won independence and instead spent most of the twentieth century relegated to the status of impoverished and almost irrelevant Soviet republics. It may therefore be argued that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia could never have survived if Poland had not managed to partially separate itself from the drama unfolding in Western Europe. Moreover, Stalin may have also been unwilling to directly involve himself in the Lightning War - and an open attack on a belligerent state would have been nothing short of such invovlement, thus making it even easier to target the Baltics.

The more risky option was potentially much more rewarding. The agreement with Germany had assigned Poland to the German sphere of influence but, if Germany were to find itself unable to provide significant assistance in a timely manner, the Soviets could consider violating the treaty with relative impunity. The neutral Romania could have been considered likely to fulfil its treaty obligations to its Polish ally despite the consequences of the unfolding coup, but the Romanian Army was not as strong as that of Germany, and was viewed in Moscow with a somewhat undeserved disdain. In short, with the remaining Great Powers of Europe in no position to send significant help, and its local ally's abilities limited by its size, Poland was about as vulnerable as Stalin could ever have expected it to be.

Stalin's true oversight, of course, lay elsewhere. The extensive purges to which he had subjected the Red Army's officer corps were more or less over by 1939. Stalin probably had some awareness that the consequences of the purges would prevent the Red Army from performing optimally for some time. But if he did, events would of course prove that he vastly underestimated the extent to which his own actions had weakened his Red Army. The nature of his mistake would be all but confirmed by his initial reactions to the disappointing news from the front which poured in during the early days of the war. The disbelieving Stalin's first instinct was of course to expect treason and disinformation, and the orders to recall certain officers and to continue certain actions despite their failure could have only compounded the disorder of the first days of the Red Army's westward offensive. It seems that it was only Budionny's confirmation of the withdrawals to defensive positions near Minsk that caused Stalin to fully understand the situation.

Of course merely approaching an enemy city is not the same as capturing it. The unwieldy Red Army's reserves were large enough to prevent the enemy from pushing it out of the triangle of territory between the western border of the Soviet Union, the Berezina and the Pripet Marshes. And in due time the quality in quantity which Stalin allegedly attributed to the Red Army, and the transfer of Budionny to a safer posting, would allow the Northern Front to rally and go back on the offensive.

But the real harm of the Minsk fiasco would stem from the fact that it tangibly demonstrated the poor quality of Soviet command. It demonstrated that a medium-sized state could concieveably hold the Red Army off more or less on its own - for a time at least. It would certainly contribute to some of the Japanese leadership's conclusion that their own defeat at Khalkin Gol had been the result of an unfavorable accident, or individual incompetence, rather than a true indicator of the Red Army's strength, and them to call for new attempts to probe at the borders of Siberia and Mongolia, giving Stalin yet another headache. And, in the later phase of the war, it would of course encourage the western powers to push for what would amount to a return to the status quo, something they might not have wished to do if turning the tide of the war had seemed harder than it did.

But in mid-September the Soviet dictator remained blissfully unaware of his Red Army's true state. As far as he was concerned the long-awaited day in which he could resume what had been started twenty years before had arrived. On September 17, 1939, Stalin formally signed the order to prepare the execution of Operation Mars.

[Divergent Reality Exploration (Autonomous Mode) ERROR: discrepancies within transcribed content have exceeded critical threshold. Aborting.]
[Initiating automatic diagnosis...]
[Diagnosis: Error in step "Heuristical Refocus". Accidental fixation upon analogous content in secondary divergent reality with indistinguishable point of divergence occurred.]
[Refocusing on primary divergent timeline in Precise Mode...]

(My original plan was to actually go ahead with this, and I had even posted a variant of the scenario in the map thread as part of my brainstorming. That was in January 2022. The next month it turned out that a timeline in which a medium-sized state resists an attack by the allegedly invincible Russian bear with some success suddenly became a much less original idea than before. So I decided to go ahead with the implied scenario. But I couldn't quite let go of the original idea, so I borrowed a little concept from a relatively obscure story to help me justify inserting at least a TL;DR of it before returning to the main timeline.)