ALTERNATIVE HISTORY
OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
Part I. For the last time Great Britain planned to attack the USSR
on the 12th of June 1941
In the beginning of the 1940, Great Britain and France, being
at war with Germany, nevertheless prepared an intervention into the
USSR. Whole number of circumstances prevented their plans from coming
to life. Though it makes it even more interesting
to imagine, what could have the Second World War turned out
to be like, if the Anglo-French imperialists have actually
managed to carry their intention to attack the USSR
to life.
The first plan of the war against the USSR: attack
in the North
In the beginning of the 1940, Great Britain and France, being
at war with Germany, nevertheless prepared an intervention into the
USSR. Whole number of circumstances prevented their plans from coming
to life. Though it makes it even more interesting
to imagine, what could have the Second World War turned out
to be like, if the Anglo-French imperialists have actually
managed to carry their intention to attack the USSR
to life.
Alternative historical scenarios allow us to understand the specific
decisions that various politicians have made in the real history better.
Any head of state, while making a decision, approximate, in one
way or another, the possible future in case of both fulfilling
the appointed decision and its cancellation. Today’s reconstruction of the
virtual past leads us to the better understanding of the
historical persons’ motivation and lets us estimate how justified had
their decisions been. Long story short, alternative historical scenarios give
the opportunity to estimate the lost prospects or, on the
contrary, dangers for the state that were avoided (in our case we’re
talking of the second variant). The question — whether the world
would have turned to worse or to better —
if at some given moment the course of history was
different — is not vain at all. Its solution is vitally
important for giving the appraisal estimates to the events of the
past.
As far back as in September of 1938 Winston Churchill, then
First Lord of Admiralty (naval minister) of Great Britain, put the
question of mining the Norwegian coastal waters in order to bar
Germany from exporting the iron ore via the Norwegian seaport Narwik
to the agenda of Her Majesty’s Cabinet. In December of 1939
Churchill unambiguously supported the idea of preventive occupation
of Norway. The USSR was fighting the war against Finland at the time
and the plans of English presence in the North of Europe started
to acquire the shape of the clearly anti-Soviet kind. In the
same report dated the 16th of December, 1939 Churchill unequivocally
pointed out the probability of starting the warfare against the Soviet
Union: "Transfer of the iron ore from Luleo (Baltic Sea) has already
stopped because of the ice and we can’t let the Soviet icebreakers
to crush it in case if they try".
Soviet-Finnish war was dragging on — which was unexpected not only for the
Soviet leadership but for the Western powers as well. In December
of 1939 leaders of the latter ones started to discuss the
opportunity to render the military aid to the Finns and seize the
moment to start the extensive warfare against the Soviet Union. The
situation, according to Churchill’s words, allowed the Western powers
"to kill two birds with one stone": to interrupt the German supply
of the iron ore from Scandinavia and start the intervention into Russia.
On the 15th of January, 1940 French Commander in Chief Gamelin
reported to the Prime-Minister Daladier about the plan of landing the
allied contingent at the north of Finland and Norway, at the
Petsamo area (today’s Pechengsky District of Murmansk Oblast,
Russia) — in Kirkenes. Gamelin plotted not only rendering the
military aid to the Finns. He also planned the military occupation
of the neutral Norwegian and Swedish territories.
On the 27th of January, 1940 Allied Supreme Military Council
in Paris made a decision to send two British divisions and
French unit — which strength was to be defined later —
to the Polar Region. As Churchill witnessed, "Council decided that
it was very important to rescue Finland, that without the
reinforcement of 30 to 40 thousand of trained soldiers
it wouldn’t be able to last longer than until spring, that the
current stream of diverse volunteers was not enough and that Finland’s
fall would be a serious defeat for the Allies". Along with that,
despite the desire to forcefully occupy part of the Norwegian and
Swedish territories, Western leaders considered the opportunity to involve
the armed forces of these countries to the anti-Soviet intervention
to be possible — they were, thus, to allegedly "show their
gratitude" to England and France for "saving" from the threat
of German and Soviet invasions.
Simultaneously with the planning of the USSR invasion from the northern
direction, leaders of Great Britain and France were making
up a plot of the USSR attack from the south. At that,
they’ve considered this direction to be even more prospective than
the northern one. On the 19th of January, 1940 French government
charged Gamelin with preparing the plan of "direct invasion
to Caucasus" (during its development, the Balkan direction was also taken
into consideration). Having reported about the "Southern Plan" —
as it was officially dubbed at the French General Staff —
General Gamelin has marked out its pros: "General theater of war would
expand dramatically. Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece and Turkey would give us
a reinforcement of 100 divisions. At the same time Sweden
and Norway would hardly be able to give more than
10 divisions".
Thus, we were talking about knocking together the extensive anti-Soviet
coalition of the regional states headed by England and France and
about massive military invasion into the USSR from the Caucasian and Balkan
directions. At that, great Western powers were going to shed just the
blood of their satellites (100 divisions!) that were to play the
part of the cannon fodder. England and France conceived their
participation in the war mostly as the air forces operations.
On the 2nd of March 1940 French Prime Minister Daladier — due
to his own initiative — made a decision to expand the scale
of the French military aid to Finns. 50 thousand of French
servicemen and 100 bombers were designed to be sent to Finland.
And all of that was happening at the time when the Wehrmacht was
finishing its preparations for the strike against the West — documents
of the supreme German command seized by the Allies on the 10th
of January, 1940 gave unequivocal evidences of that. Churchill has
reservedly described the new French plans of the military aid
to Finns in the following way: "that was much more than the common
sense would have allowed — taking the documents that were seized from the
German major in Belgium and the ceaseless intelligence reports of the
constant reinforcements of German forces at the Western front into
consideration." But the French government, being blinded by the
anti-Soviet fury, was unwilling to see the sword of Damocles
threatening it from the Rein river.
But as far back as on the 12th of March, 1940 Finland
admitted its defeat and strived to sign the peace treaty with the
USSR — at the comparatively honorable conditions, at that.
Pretext for anti-Soviet intervention in the North vanished. Though, the
rotating flywheel of the aggressive preparations has already become
unstoppable. Troops that were intended to help Finns were sent for the
preventive occupation of Norway in the beginning of April.
By a mere coincidence German invasion into Norway passed ahead the
invasion of the Western powers there by a single day!
The second plan of war against the USSR: strike
at the oil fields
In the meanwhile, leaders of England and France have paid special
attention to the preparation of the attack against the USSR
in the South. On the 22nd of March, 1940 General Gamelin has
sent a special note to the new Prime Minister Reynaud (Daladier
cabinet resigned due to the Finnish defeat) where he laid the stress
on the fact that the optimum way out of the arisen situation would
be the air bombing of Baku in order to blow the local oil
fields, where — according to the document — 75% of the
Soviet oil was produced. "Baku bombing would put the Soviets into the critical
situation, as long as Moscow requires every single drop of oil
that is produced today in order to provide the fuel for the
Soviet motorized units and the agricultural equipment", — denoted French
Commander in Chief. In the end of the document
he emphasized the opportunity to add the political rather than just
a military sense to this operation, having caused the riots among the
Caucasian nations.
On the 4th-5th of April, 1940 at the sitting of the English
and French military command representatives committee — that was created
in order to coordinate the efforts for preparation and conducting
of the invasion to the USSR — the floor recognized that
it would be desirable to bomb not only the Baku oil fields but
also the oil refining plants in Batumi and the Poti seaport, which was
used for the oil export. Shared command of the allied expeditionary troops
at the Southern theater of war was entrusted to General Weygand
who headed the French troops in Syria — "mandated territory"
of France. General Mitchell, head of the British Air Forces
at the Middle East, received the directions from London, ascribing him
to prepare the bombings of Baku and Batumi. During the conversation
with the French ambassador, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs assured
him that government and President of Turkey would hardly put any obstacles
on the way of using both air space of Turkey and the airfields
at the Turkish territory in order to conduct the air strikes
at the cities of the Soviet Transcaucasia.
On the 17th of April, 1940 General Weygand reported to French
government and Commander in Chief: "Preparation for the bombings
of Caucasian oil fields made such progress that we may calculate the
precise time required to conduct this operation". Weygand offered
to set the date for carrying out the air strikes against the USSR for the
end of June-beginning of July, 1940. French general command agreed
to Weygand’s reasoning and approved the carrying out of the Soviet
cities’ bombings plan for the end of June, 1940. In reality,
by that time Weygand was withdrawn from the Middle East to allegedly
save France from the invasion of the Hitler’s troops, though
it turned out that he was just called to sign the capitulation
act to Germany on behalf of France.
The third plan of the war against the USSR: ten days
before 22nd of June
But even after the surrender of France, part of the British ruling
circles still continued to mature the plans of the attack against the
USSR. In May-June, 1941 England managed to consolidate its positions
at the Middle East. During the warfare against France — its former
ally — Englishmen consolidated their grip over Syria and Lebanon.
As a result of intervention, Iraqi government — that
attempted to behave itself independently from England — was
overthrown and the military bases of British air forces were reestablished
at the north of Iraq once again. English historian J. Butler
wrote that "in the end of May, 1941 a specific opinion emerged
in London — the one expressing the idea that having created the
threat to the Caucasian oil, it would be possible to exert
the pressure against Russia in the most suitable way...On the 12th
of June Heads of Staff Committee decided to assume the measures
that would allow to conduct the strikes against the oil refining plants
in Baku using the average bombers from Mosul in Iraqi Kurdistan
without any delays". It was just 10 days to the Hitler’s
offensive against the USSR...
By Yaroslav Butakov
To be continued
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