Resurecting a zombie here but one of the main possible changing points of WW2 would have ben during the Phoney War (I guess overseeing that obvious one can be attributed to serious historical navel gazing).
Simply, while Germany invades Poland, the combined French-British force invades Germany. This is actually one of the few real loose points in alternate WW2 scenarios. It of course requires a severe change in strategy for the Allies, but even with failing generals, a determined political leadership could have steered the French-British army into attacking instead of waiting to be attacked. As this is the only way in fact France could have had a chance of beating Germany, it is also the only true reason one could have to chastise the French for their part in WW2.
At least numerically speaking, the odds were not totally stacked against the Allies, and victory was possible. Think of the millions of lives saved there.
Instead of launching Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Hitler decides to invade the Middle East. So he sends 50 army divisions to North Africa, and also captures the island of Cyprus. Flying from bases in Cyprus, Luftwaffe bombers devastate the RN base at Alexandria. Meanwhile Rommel marches in to Cairo, and inavdes Palestine. In his march across the desert, Free French forces in Syria are overwhelmed, and Rommel captures the oilfields of Iraq and Iran.
Deprived of gasoline, the UK sues for peace.
Meanwhile, Japan launches “North Wind Rain”-Japanese armies pour into Siberia. Vladivostok and Khabarovsk are swiftly taken, and Stalin sues for peace.
Stalin is now scared of a German offensive-he approaches Hitler with a deal-which is rejected…
Exactly - Hitler vowed never to launch another airborne atack again after Crete, and Crete worked (barely) because of the surprise aspect. Trying it on Cyprus would have been a bloodbath.
The Italian Navy was a strong force in the eastern Med-they had 4 battleships (modern) that could make 34 knots. Plus, land based Luftwaffe planes made the eastern Med pretty dangerous for the RN-ask the late Earl Mountbatten-he was sunk in the Med.
Here’s the plan:
Rommel attacks Egypt with his vastly sugmented forces, while Luftwaffe planes pound Alexandria and Cyprus. Amphibious landings take place on the north coast of the island-and Cyprus is much larger than Crete-the British defenders cannot be everywhere. The Germans capture and airstrip, which allows gliders to land.
The British position on Cyprus is now untenable.
Meantime, Rommel’s panzers smash into cairo, and the Egyptian Governemnet signs an alliance with Germany.
The way to Iraq and Iran is now open!
Here’s a small alteration with major consequences, courtesy of the anthology What If?:
What If – Chamberlain had supported his Czech allies in 1938, and dared Hitler to attack the Sudetenland?
As I understand it, that region held the bulk of the Czech arms industry. The invasion would have trashed the factories, and Germany would (1) not be able to re-arm from Czechoslovakia and (2) have used up a substantial amount of military resources on the invasion.
The HMS Illustrious was only badly damaged, serving out the rest of the war and being scappped in 1954.
And, they Italians did not have any modern battleships- what they had (due to the complete and utter incompetance of the Italian Navy, other than the Submarines) was a number of large floating piles of scrap metal with targets painted on.
In fact the HMS Illustrious launched the famous attack at Taranto, where **21 BIPLANES **sunk one of those battleships and badly damaged two others.
Yes,on paper, the Vittorio Veneto class looked pretty good.
Their war record was less than stellar, and they suffered badly from bad leadership and inferiour AA armament.
Historian John Keegan called the failure of the German atomic program “the crowning mercy of the Second World War.”
Keegan addresses that too. Von Braun had plans on the drawing board for a giant two-stage rocket for which the V-2 would be the second stage. This rocket was intended to reach New York City. Yes, it would have been too weak for an early atomic warhead…for the moment. But atomic science and rocketry both made incredible progress in those early days, and the ICBM lay in the near future.
I don’t doubt that. But Germany was only going to be able to have very few bombs because of raw materials and the time taken to produce. Given the utter unreliability of the missiles, I don’t see an A Bomb being risked on one. For the Germans, the only use for it I see until MUCH later is a ground based explosion after abandoning Warsaw to the Red Army.
Both of these what-ifs ignore the mindset of western Europe in the 1930s. It’s difficult to express just how traumatic World War One had been, and how bitter anti-war sentiment in Britain and France were. For those who remember the Vietnam era, it would be as if the US government had tried to reinstate the draft and send troops to back the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in 1978. War as an instrument of national policy was discredited; the very concept of choosing to initiate armed hostilities was political suicide, until Germany’s military agression and the repugnance with which it’s doctrines were held by many in the West finally overcame the naysayers.
Almost everyone expected a repeat of the trench-stalemate of WW1; given that the Germans had the Seigfried Line, it’s own counterpart to the Maginot Line, many in the west expected that making the first move would be throwing their troops into the meat grinder. In 1939 there was the further complication that the timing of the German attack gave Germany just enough time to crush Poland while leaving the west facing the prospect of trying to launch an offensive during the onset of winter.
If Hitler had adopted a Mediterranean strategy early in the war he could have pulled it off. If Germany had put more pressure on Spain, they could have forced Spain to agree to a German attack on Gibraltar. And the Italians held East Africa early in the war. With some reinforcements there, the Germans could have taken Aden. After that, there’d be no Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Egypt, Greece, and Turkey would have all seen the writing on the wall and fallen into line with the Axis. And the Axis would have been able to bring troops in the reinforce anti-British factiosn in the Middle East. When Germany decided it was time to invade the Soviet Union, they’d have had an entire new front in the Caucasuses - the Soviet oil fields would have fallen in the opening month of the war.
Maybe Rommel would have still led an Afrika Corps. Only in this case, he’d have been starting from East Africa. He could have advanced down through Kenya and retaken Germany’s old African colonies and then kept on going. His ultimate prize would have been Capetown not Cairo.
Nope. Adm Canaris, the head of the Abwere, a anti-Hitler conspirator and a freind of Franco, had told Franco not to trust Hitler or let him in. Spain was protected by some nice mountain ranges and a decent army.
It is true that Germany could have sent more stuff to North Africa, more support for Rommel, and it was a near thing anyway.
Driving Panzers down the lenght of Africa, with the Royal Navy hammering at them and the longest supply line in the world, would have been impossible.
France, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland - other countries with mountain ranges and big armies. Spain couldn’t have kept the Germans out if they had really wanted to come in.
And I’ll agree that supply would have been an issue moving troops through Africa. But the Royal Navy? They could only project their power a few miles inland - a whale can’t kill an elephant anymore than an elephant can kill a whale.
The RN had a pretty powerful force in the Med, especially in submarines. As it was they hurt the Germans pretty bad in trying to supply NA. I agree with the over all premise though…if Germany had concentrated on Africa and the oil fields in the ME they would have been a lot more successful than their disastrous invasion of Russia. I don’t know how that would have played out in the medium or long terms, as giving Russia time to reorganize after the various purges in the 30’s might have given them the chance to turn the tables and invade Germany instead of the other way around (though Germany would have had half of Poland as a buffer I guess), but in the short term concentrating on finishing off the Brits, consolidating what they already had taken and expanding into Africa and the ME would have been more beneficial, at least on the surface.
Germany was streched thin, and there’s no continous range between Germany & France. Norway was mostly invaded by sea. Poland has flat land on that border. True, if Hitler has REALLY wanted Spain, he coudl have taken it but the cost would be horrible. And, his allies would have been rather disheartened.
I’ll just add that the logistical capability of the Italian merchant marine was meager at best-and that was before Malta-based planes and subs sunk a bunch of their ships. People who put forth these kinds of what-ifs really need to grasp just how vital logistics were to any significant military endeavor-it was the (literal) tail which wags the army dog. Note Hitler and Co. often gave logistical issues short shrift in favor of such optimistic scenarios.
That said, a significant North African push could have succeeded, but it would have had to have been planned for several years before the war started, and not improvised on the go by Rommel, whose presence there was more an afterthought of Hitler’s than anything else, whose attention was almost wholly focused on Russia. Start with beefing up the Italian transport fleet, take Malta ASAP-and that’s just for starters. But remember that the Torch clock is ticking all the while-once that happens Rommel’s rear has a nice red bullseye painted on it and what he’s done in the Middle East isn’t going to matter much longer.
