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Historical what-if: the Yalta Conference

Nerys Ghemor

Nerys Ghemor

Vice Admiral
Admiral
I've been studying European history lately, since I managed to miss that class in high school thanks to having to move around so much, and a what-if question popped into my mind that I was wondering if anyone else had considered.

At the Yalta Conference between the US, UK, and USSR, Winston Churchill broke his word to the invaded states of Eastern Europe and gave them over to Stalin, choosing to honor an agreement between Stalin and Hitler, rather than the prior commitments he had given to Poland and the other nations of Eastern Europe.

Those nations, of course, ended up subject to Soviet oppression. Germany wound up partitioned and the city of Berlin in particular as well.

What if Churchill and Roosevelt had stood up to Stalin? What would the possible consequences of that have been, had they decided to honor their promises to their allies, rather than a pact between Hitler and Stalin that you'd think would've been nullified by Soviet-German fighting?



More about Yalta:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal
 
With Eastern Europe and Germany being full of Soviet forces?

Not like Churchill or Roosevelt had a choice. The Soviets took ages to mobilize but once they got ready they were the main force leading to Germany's defeat.
 
Had FDR and Churchill "stood up" to Stalin, he would have called their bluff and conquered the rest of Europe.

Brilliant strategery.
 
Even if FDR and Churchill had stood up to Stalin he wouldn't have budged. The Kremlin was going to do what it was going to do. The Red Army had shed oceans of blood throwing Hitler's forces out of their own country as well as Eastern Europe and he wasn't about to just cave, withdraw back to Soviet national borders and let that be that. He viewed Eastern Europe as well as the Soviet-occupied portion of Germany(the future GDR) as hard fought trophies of war and wasn't going to listen to London or Washington.
 
cooleddie74 said:
The Red Army had shed oceans of blood throwing Hitler's forces out of their own country as well as Eastern Europe and he wasn't about to just cave, withdraw back to Soviet national borders and let that be that.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's true. And controlling Eastern Europe was a good way for him to make sure he had a buffer between the USSR and potentially dangerous Western Europe (or Germany ofc).
 
Robert Conroy wrote an interesting book on this premise called 1945: Red Inferno. In reaction to Stalin putting communist governments in Poland, Romania and Hungary in violation of Yalta, Truman sends US troops to capture Berlin. Stalin, considering this a betrayal, coupled with having a spy in the Manhattan project, decides to attack instantly knowing he'll never have the advantage he does now. An interesting situation ensues with a fight between the Soviets and Western allies, with Imperial Japan and parts of Nazi Germany still being a going concern.

I will say that if there was going to be a war fought between the Soviets and the Western allies, this was the ideal time from a hindsight perspective. The West was fully mobilized, Soviet manpower was at it's lowest point after four years of war and the US had nuclear parity with no one else being close at the time.
 
Assuming Stalin wouldn't give up the eastern Europe countries occupied by his military(it seems a pretty safe assumption) it becomes a question of whether or not the West would be willing to jump into another war, possibly even more destructive than WWII proper. Patton and a few others advocated that course of action believing that the power of the West's economy and military were mobilized and they would never get a better opportunity.

In terms of numbers(very rough) of men under arms of the major players,

USSR 30 million

Versus,

USA 16 million
UK 6 million
Canada 1.5 million
Free French 1.5 million

Wild cards,

Germany 19 million
Japan 10 million
Italy 3 million

The Red Army would have a numbers advantage, but not an insurmountable one. The real question is whether or not the US would use their nuclear advantage.
 
Caliburn24 said:
Assuming Stalin wouldn't give up the eastern Europe countries occupied by his military(it seems a pretty safe assumption) it becomes a question of whether or not the West would be willing to jump into another war, possibly even more destructive than WWII proper. Patton and a few others advocated that course of action believing that the power of the West's economy and military were mobilized and they would never get a better opportunity.

In terms of numbers(very rough) of men under arms of the major players,

USSR 30 million

Versus,

USA 16 million
UK 6 million
Canada 1.5 million
Free French 1.5 million

Wild cards,

Germany 19 million
Japan 10 million
Italy 3 million

The Red Army would have a numbers advantage, but not an insurmountable one. The real question is whether or not the US would use their nuclear advantage.
Click to expand...

Those numbers are a bit scewed. The western Allies had two major theaters to split their forces among. To say nothing of maintaining supply lines than circle the globe and maintaining Britain's colonial empire. Whereas the Soviets could concentrate since they wouldn't be at war with Japan in this scenario. In the European theater the Soviets had a 4:1 advantage in numbers and 2:1 advantage in armor at the time of the German surrender. Only in air power would the allies have the major advantage.

Japan is still at war with the western allies. If hostilities broke out between the Soviets and the West, more than likely you'd see a de jure alliance between Japan and the Soviets. This is not unprecidented given their previous non-aggression pact. Germany is beaten and given anti Nazi sentiment, the west wouldn't support former German units remobilizing. The new Italian government had a token army, much akin to Free France's and wouldn't be a major factor at all outside of Italy.
 
Yeah, the numbers would not be good for the Western allies, but keep in mind that the Wehrmacht held for years against Soviet attacks of sometimes ten times their number in tanks and men. Without the benefit of air superiority, and having many of their most elite units sent off to other regions. As well as having an inflexible commander in chief who screwed over hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers with ridiculous orders. The Western allies, with far more resources than Germany ever had, more capable leadership, and air and sea dominance(hmm, amphibious landing in northern Russia?)would have done even better.

Also, it isn't a given that Japan would still be fighting or that Germany would be completely demilitarized. FDR and Churchill attacking the USSR before Japan surrenders seems like a big assumption. Many of the Allied generals had a great deal of respect for their Wehrmacht counterparts, and once Hitler's cronies had been imprisoned or executed it seems likely that at least part of the Wehrmacht would fight on under Allied auspices particularly if it were a desperate hard fought struggle as it likely would be. Anti-Nazi sentiment became entrenched after decades of war movies, war trials, the full revelation of the Holocaust, but during the war there was a certain mutual respect(Churchill's admiration of Rommel for example) that would have allowed British and American forces to fight alongside German units without too many qualms.

Its all just speculation of course, and there are a lot of specific details that need to be ironed to really argue one way or another on this scenario. When exactly it kicks off(whether or not Japan is still a player changes things dramatically), who is the aggressor, stuff like that.
 
I remember an alternate history novel from about a decade ago that was about a successful Operation Valkyrie and the Wehrmacht eventually surrendering to Allied forces, then joining the Allies in a war against the Soviets and some holdover Nazi loyalists. I don't know if it was any good or not, but the concept was interesting.
 
Then, of course, there's always the alternate history of the war presented in "Storm Front, Parts I and II (ENT)." But I don't think many of us really want to go there.

Space Nazis might Godwin the entire discussion. :)
 
At Yalta, Stalin agreed to move troops east and end occupation of some places. In other places that they were given an occupation zone (Austria), they withdrew fairly quickly after. Yalta was not an agreement where the Soviet Union was given territory, it was an agreement where Stalin gave up things he didn't have to and agreed to support the US against Japan (let's not forget that this was still a major issue and some historians still think that it was the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo that caused Japan to surrender).

So I'm not sure what "standing up to Stalin" would have accomplished.
 
I don't think the Soviet Union would ever have occupied France. Even without the D-Day invasion, there's absolutely not benefit. They would occupy all of Germany and probably Austria. Their influence on Yugoslavia would have been more direct, but, in spite of what people think, Stalin wasn't bent on world conquest. He was a brutal, paranoid dictator, yes. He wasn't shy about using his military to interfere with other nations when in his interest. But it wasn't in his interest to conquer all of Europe.

What would have happened if Roosevelt had put his foot down and demanded that Soviet troops leave Poland? My guess is Stalin would have said no, war would have been a bloody stalemate, and we would be in the same position. It would also have been political suicide in the west, but Churchill was going to get kicked out soon after anyway. I suppose it's possible that Dewey actually would have defeated Truman, though. My view is the result would have been similar to the last day on the Western front in WWI, where British and American soldiers got thousands of casualties even though they knew they could have waited until 11:00 and achieved the same result.
 
Caliburn24 said:
Yeah, the numbers would not be good for the Western allies, but keep in mind that the Wehrmacht held for years against Soviet attacks of sometimes ten times their number in tanks and men. Without the benefit of air superiority, and having many of their most elite units sent off to other regions. As well as having an inflexible commander in chief who screwed over hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers with ridiculous orders. The Western allies, with far more resources than Germany ever had, more capable leadership, and air and sea dominance(hmm, amphibious landing in northern Russia?)would have done even better.

Also, it isn't a given that Japan would still be fighting or that Germany would be completely demilitarized. FDR and Churchill attacking the USSR before Japan surrenders seems like a big assumption. Many of the Allied generals had a great deal of respect for their Wehrmacht counterparts, and once Hitler's cronies had been imprisoned or executed it seems likely that at least part of the Wehrmacht would fight on under Allied auspices particularly if it were a desperate hard fought struggle as it likely would be. Anti-Nazi sentiment became entrenched after decades of war movies, war trials, the full revelation of the Holocaust, but during the war there was a certain mutual respect(Churchill's admiration of Rommel for example) that would have allowed British and American forces to fight alongside German units without too many qualms.

Its all just speculation of course, and there are a lot of specific details that need to be ironed to really argue one way or another on this scenario. When exactly it kicks off(whether or not Japan is still a player changes things dramatically), who is the aggressor, stuff like that.
Click to expand...

An amphibious landing in northern Russia would be next to impossible to execute. Any attack against the Soviets would have to be a frontal assault through masses of battle-hardened veteran troops. The very last thing FDR or Churchill would have wanted (or been able to justify to the home front) would have been another war before the last one was even finished.

Also, since there was still Japan to finish off, they wouldn't have been able to attack anyway for quite a while. At the time, the expectation was that the Allies would have to invade Japan and foce a surrender. The planning called for a landing outside Tokyo in 1946, which means that given the extent of that fighting and then re-re-deployment back to Europe means that they couldn't realistically have jumped off against the Soviets until early 1947 at the absolute earliest, which means the Soviets would have had nearly two years to get ready for them. Not a good prescription for ultimate success and a major bloodbath at best.

Realistically, FDR and Churchill didn't "give" Eastern Europe to Stalin, Stalin already had it.
 
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