Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Just my little attempt to show that no matter how bad WW2 was, it could quite easily have been worse.

What Really Happened: Between the fall of Poland and the battle of Norway, the western allies did nothing at all, even when Finland was attacked. Some of the allies, mainly Churchill, came up with dumb and suicidal schemes to attack Russia or to involve Turkey or Italy in the war. Perhaps fortunately, none of these bright ideas came to anything.

What might have happened: Given a little more political will or public outrage when Finland was attacked, it should have been possible to arrange some limited allied support for Finland. Lets say a couple of British divisions with light weapons and supplies, along with some modern planes and bombers.

Norway is a problem here. In OTL, they were scared of both the Russians and Germans, and therefore tried to stay neutral. Here, they are unlikely to allow the allies to just ship supplies across Norway, but if it happens at the far north of Norway, there is very little they could do about it. Submarines and ‘neutral’ ships could also be used to transport supplies though the Baltic, at least until the Germans rebuilt their air force after Poland.

Lets assume that the allied force, which is tiny compared to either the Finnish or Russian force, arrives in Finland and deploys to fight in one of the later battles of the Mannerhiem line. They manage to hold back a section of the Russian line and drive Stalin to apoplexy.

I could envisage hundreds of things that could go wrong here, but I’m going to assume that the allied force is in perfect working order.

This won’t change any of the realities of the conflict. Stalin might decide to overrun all of Finland instead of just occupying bits of it, but that does not matter for this essay. What does matter is that Stalin is now mad at the western allies and is prepared to fight as an active ally of Hitler and Mussolini, at least for a while.

His declaration of war causes panic in London. The Chamberlain government is shaken, but most of the possible replacements for the PM, Churchill and Halifax, are tainted themselves by the disaster. Britain has few men, they cannot afford to throw away hundreds of infantry for nothing.

Britain, in desperation, pull out most of the BEF from France aside from a few divisions and all of the tanks and ships most of them to Iran and Iraq, while meanwhile increasing the defences of India, as intelligence reports a build-up of soviet forces in the Caucasus region. Stalin is determined to punish Britain.

Hitler is not overjoyed by all that’s happened, but is able to see the advantages of a massive distraction for the British and the soviet forces deep in the Middle East instead of the polish border. Not that he has any planes to double-cross his allies, of course! He manages to get Italian co-operation on a joint mass attack on the French and British empires and promises Italy vast new territories in exchange for co-operation.

Therefore, when the German’s attack France, Italy stabs into Egypt and the Russians stab into Iran. The Italians do badly at first, even with the reduced British forces, but the British forces are reduced to deal with the crises in Iran and therefore are unable to think of a counter-attack. Iran is a worse case. The incompetent (and favourite of Stalin) Russian general called Tshuoski (I know that’s spelt wrong and I don’t have the reference available at the moment) who commanded the front during the first days of Barbarossa is in command. He’s incompetent, but the soviet tanks are better than the British ones and they smash though British lines. Unluckily for the soviets, they get victory disease from this and the tanks outrun their infantry and then run out of fuel. British aircraft manage to inflict some damage and run rampant until the Red Air Force catches up. Stalin, furious, sacks the incompetent and puts Zhukov in charge.

France goes better for the allies in some respects and worse in others. The French have not pushed into Belgium and have held back their tanks to attempt to cut off the spearheads. The bad news is that the French are not quite up to the standards required to do that. The French are battered worse than in OTL in some ways and large French forces are defeated or forced to surrender.

The good news is that the British don’t have to do a Dunkirk at Dunkirk. The bad news is that they might have to do one in Iran or Iraq as Soviet tanks and raiding parties run rampant over the Middle East. The soviets are busy building the logistics needed to finish the British position off and are trying to keep the British off balance. A pro-German coup in Iraq really does not help that. The Red Air Force is able to supply the rebels to some extent, although that’s limited, and they do do bombing raids on British positions.

Bad news (or more bad news) is in store for the allies. On the 3^rd of July, France is forced to surrender to the Germans. All war material is to be handed over aside from token forces and this is too much for even Petain to stomach. He gathers everything he can and sets sail with the French fleet to North Africa. Hitler occupies all of France and gives Italy a few scraps.

There is some good news for the allies (and God knows they deserve it) as the French remainder in North Africa is still in the fight and able to assist in the Middle East and the western desert. By the end of July, Italy’s empire in Africa is destroyed and some of the pressure on the allied forces is removed. The Italian fleet is damaged in a daring carrier borne raid on Tranto.

The government in Britain falls, to be replaced by a labour government. They rapidly receive demands from Stalin and Mussolini that they need to comply with before a peace settlement can be reached. They include all of India, the Middle East and other bits, such as Malta. Before the British government can decide, however, the Japanese decide they want a piece of the British cake and begin seizing British territories in the Far East. Hong Kong, Ceylon, and the East Indies fall very quickly, as does Singapore and Dutch and French territories.

Enraged at the Japanese seizing territory he meant to press for, Stalin orders Zhukov to attack. Zhukov has two choices; he can attack into Iraq and Saudi Arabia, or take the rest of Iran and then into India. Stalin orders India and therefore Zhukov attacks in that direction. The British do better than in OTL against the Arfika Korps, but the overwhelming weight of soviet tanks tips the balance. Iran falls and a large part of India rises in revolt. The Japanese add to the chaos by bombing British targets in India and launching raids on British installations. The result is inevitable; a large part of the north of India (Pakistan, lower Afghanistan) falls to the soviets. The Japanese fund, arm and convince a number of Indian princes to attack the British and declare independence. After two hundred years, the British Empire in India is over.

The British use their navy to pull forces out of Iran and ship them to Egypt. This reserve is used to make the last counter-attack of the war. The Atlee government knows that the war has to end soon. When the dust settles, Zhukov has managed to seize Iraq and most of Saudi Arabia. The Soviets take the chance to gain revenge on Islam and raze Mecca to the ground.

The peace deal of 1942 is grim. The British lose the Middle East and India, as well as the small islands in the pacific and the places in China. The USSR and Japan divide those spoils up between them. Italy gains Malta and retake Libya, Spain gains Gibraltar, having declared war just before British sued for peace.

Hitler recognises the French position in Africa and places no restrictions on emigration from occupied France. The French lose their pacific territories to Japan and Syria falls to the Soviets. Iceland and Greenland become German territories when Denmark is forced to join the Reich. They are assured of good treatment.

The British are forced by treaty not to increase their army beyond 100’000 men and 1’000 tanks, not to build any new ships without German permission and not to deploy any new aircraft designs. They must also recognise the independence of South Africa and return the German colonies captured in the First World War. Both Britain and France are forced to trade with Germany in favourable German terms and support Germany when Hitler orders them to. World War Two is over.

America began a massive build-up of ships and a huge army to combat the ‘allied’ powers. German, Soviet and Vichy French manipulations in the Caribbean cause the region to be far more unruly than in OTL.

China is largely overrun by 1943 by the Japanese. The fall of India and Hong Kong cut their supply lines and even FDR can’t get a declaration of war on those grounds.

In 1943 there came the great battle between Hitler and Stalin for dominance on the Eurasian Landmass, but that’s another story.

Could this really have happened? Tough one that, there are four really big problems, the allies interfering in Finland, remaining at war with Germany in that case, Japan becoming involved and the Soviets effectiveness against the British in Iran. Lets handle them on at a time.

In 1939, the allies came up with hundreds of schemes to assist Finland, some practical, and some complete nonsense. Many of them involved forcing their way thorough Norway and Sweden, or vaguely worded comments on how they were sure that the two nations would be pushed by ‘moral right’ to allow the allies transit. The force I placed in Finland is perhaps the best the allies could do, which is effectively bugger-all. It would have been kinder, in some respects, to have done nothing to aid the Finns at all. Many of those plans, and their chances of success, are described in The Winter War (William R. Trotter).

I did wonder if, under such conditions, Germany would remain at war with Britain, however, in such conditions, it does take two to make a peace, and Germany had sound reasons for wanting to knock France out of the conflict, as once the back was secured, he could turn his attention to Stalin. The USSR can keep Britain distracted while France is smashed, then Britain will either make peace or be trapped on their island.

Would Japan have become involved? I’ve been studying the Japanese navy recently and it appears that the Japanese were very interested in joining the war once Hitler launched Operation Sealion, therefore picking up the jewels in the crown while Hitler fought the hard war. Here, I suspect that the temptation to become involved would have been irresistible.

How good would the soviets have been against the British army, which, in ATL, is far more powerful than any forces that were available for use in OTL. The Red Army was very much a mixed bag at that time; some units were very good, while others were useless. The USSR had, however, picked up experience in Finland at operations such as air-supply, artilitary tactics and supply. As Trotter points out, if the Russian competence had matched the Russian planning, the Finns would have been steamrolled. Soviet tanks would have been much better than most of the British, which would have allowed most of them to recover from mistakes, while the soviets had plenty of trucks, although of a crude manufacture.

So, in trying to do good, they lost the war.

Total War: 1940