Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

[Peter89]

Sorry, Peter, I'm somewhat childlike because of stroke damage.

No worries, princess.

I wasn't specifically addressing you.

[ljadw]

Just to keep the seriousness of this forum: when left alone directly after the war, both Romania and Hungary chose moderate right wing - peasant or agrarian - parties.

Hungary (1945): Zoltán Tildy 57.03%
Romania (1946): Petru Groza 69.77%

There was and is a place in Eastern Europe for politically and economically pluralistic societies. In fact, that is the natural state of affairs. The only difference between Central Europe and Western Europe is that nationalism (including xenophobia) is much deeply ingrained into the eastern societies, because the very existence of these nations and states was the result of a battle against their neighbours and their similar nationalist attitudes, and a freedom fight against imperial oppressors. Thus, democratic institutions are run with nationalist values.

The party of Tildy was a left wing group that before the end of the war worked together with the Soviets in the part of Hungary that was occupied by them .
The clement treatment of Tildy by the Soviets after the revolt of 1956 (Tildy was a member of the government of Imre Nagy ) is a proof that he was not a moderate but a left winger .
Groza worked together with the communists,forced the king to abdicate and was PM and president of communist Romania .He was not a moderate but a cryptocommunist .
Romania and Hungary were ancien regime monarchies and not only the communists but also the liberals in the US and Western Europe would not accept the continuation of these regimes .
Benesj said that the Western countries would become after the war more socialist (socialist = marxist ) and that the USSR would become more Western .Such attitude was shared by most liberals in Western Europe and the US .
And, the very existence of the West European nations and states also was a result of a battle against their neighbours and their similar nationalist attitudes and a freedom fight against imperial oppressors .
The Soviets were the masters of Eastern Europe already in 1945.

[gebhk]

Interestingly, as I recall, in his book 'I saw Poland Betrayed: an American ambassador reports to the American People,' Arthur Bliss Lane claimed that he was told that while there were no objective reasons why the Soviet Union could not be forced to accept a better deal for Poland, this was not going to be done for reasons of domestic US politics. As I recall he either was not told or chose to not share what these reasons were.

[ljadw]

Interestingly, as I recall, in his book 'I saw Poland Betrayed: an American ambassador reports to the American People,' Arthur Bliss Lane claimed that he was told that while there were no objective reasons why the Soviet Union could not be forced to accept a better deal for Poland, this was not going to be done for reasons of domestic US politics. As I recall he either was not told or chose to not share what these reasons were.

Thjere were only 2 possibilities
a Poland remained a Soviet satellite
b US (Britain was irrelevant ) forced the Soviets to give up Poland and thus also the part of Germany they had conquered . We know that the Soviets would refuse ,and we know that the public opinion in the US would not support a war against the USSR in 1945,or even later . The media told the American people that Uncle Joe was a nice guy ,thus the American people would not support a US DOW on the USSR .Besides, as there was no chance that the US could defeat the Soviets in a conventional war,the only possibility was to nuke Moscow and to hope that this would be sufficient .

[wm]

Interestingly, as I recall, in his book 'I saw Poland Betrayed: an American ambassador reports to the American People,' Arthur Bliss Lane claimed that he was told that while there were no objective reasons why the Soviet Union could not be forced to accept a better deal for Poland, this was not going to be done for reasons of domestic US politics. As I recall he either was not told or chose to not share what these reasons were.

Please see this:

William Bullitt for Life Magazine, August 1948

[ljadw]

The same Bullitt who said in 1948 a lot of bad things about FDR and Stalin, accepted in 1933 to become US first ambassador to the SU .
And we know the reason of his hostility to FDR:the reason was that FDR had fired him , not once, but several times .

[ljadw]

There is also no proof for what Bullitt claimed that FDR had said to him .We have only Bullit's word ,a man who before the war admired the USSR and defended appeasement of Germany and who said 3 years after the war that in 1945 he proposed a strong anti-Soviet policy but that the naive FDR refused .
FDR was not naive:naive people do not become POTUS .FDR was also an admirer of Marxism ,his administration was infiltrated by liberal Marxists and FDR knew very well that the average American was not interested in Eastern Europe,as long as Stalin did not do things openly .It was the same for Hitler before the war .
Americans and British were searching for opportunities to not see what happened . FDR knew what happened, but as long this did not cost him votes, he did not care .

[Von Bock]

Let's talk about borders again here, because that's what this thread is about. Poland lost 201.015 square kilometers in the east, and had to be compensated. They got 114.267 km² in return and there was only one country they could get it from: Germany. Although the Allies opposed the annexation of Stettin, there was little they could do about it.

The only scenario that prevents the Ostgebiete from falling into Polish/Soviet hands is a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia. You usually don't have to give away areas that you have conquered yourself and it is almost certain that the Wallies would not have allowed the expulsions of Germans if they had controlled these areas. Without expulsions: Not a chance of annexation.

But a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia was off the table in February 1945. The Soviets were already close to Berlin, while the Allies had not even crossed the Rhine. I opened a topic about this myself last year. If Market Garden had succeeded, it is not impossible that we would have gotten a totally different Yalta Conference without Germany conceeding as much territory as they did in OTL.

viewtopic.php?p=2437584

[Huszar666]

Let's talk about borders again here, because that's what this thread is about. Poland lost 201.015 square kilometers in the east, and had to be compensated. They got 114.267 km² in return and there was only one country they could get it from: Germany. Although the Allies opposed the annexation of Stettin, there was little they could do about it.

The only scenario that prevents the Ostgebiete from falling into Polish/Soviet hands is a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia. You usually don't have to give away areas that you have conquered yourself and it is almost certain that the Wallies would not have allowed the expulsions of Germans if they had controlled these areas. Without expulsions: Not a chance of annexation.

But a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia was off the table in February 1945. The Soviets were already close to Berlin, while the Allies had not even crossed the Rhine. I opened a topic about this myself last year. If Market Garden had succeeded, it is not impossible that we would have gotten a totally different Yalta Conference without Germany conceeding as much territory as they did in OTL.

Let's talk about borders.
There was enough condescending nazi-talk about what those Eastern European Untermenschen should and would do.

You are right, without the Western Allies reaching the pre-1939 borders of Central Europe before the soviets, there isn't any chance to get a better deal. Market Garden isn't enough, the change has to happen already in 1943, for example, an Allied invasion of the Balkans, just like Churchill was pushing for. Probably cut Lend-Lease back significantly.
You can't argue or make deals with reds. It never worked and will never work. Any deal for them is just temporary, and they will try to get even more. As soon as they have something, they will never part with it, except if you force them to do it.
As in the current case, the soviets already were in Poland, CSR, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, and unless you force them out, they will stay. Same for Yugoslavia, the only difference was, that the local reds did the liberating mostly themselves, and didn't ask for soviet help. On the other hand, see Greece. The local reds thought, they could do the liberating themselves, and do it like Tito did. It didn't work out, because a, the soviets weren't there and b, the UK was. Another example is Persia. The soviets were there, and wanted to stay there, but were forced out by the UK and the US.

[Princess Perfume]

What if the Soviets wanted to stay or at least keep meddling in Persia?

[gebhk]

You can't argue or make deals with reds.

It's not that they are red that is the issue. The point is that you are dealing with a regime that is fundamentally doctrinaire in its approach - in other words, it believes the 'project' (whatever it is) justifies all means. You could no more make deals with the Nazis (or, indeed, certain pseudo-democrats of today with similar territorial ambitions), than you could the 'Reds'.

The cynic in me says that if it comes down to it, you would have trouble making honest deals, when the essential interests of any state, regardless of 'colour' are involved. I am sure the USA would be and was entirely prepared to make honest deals about the borders of Poland - it made little or no difference to them, whatever the outcome was. I suspect the tenor would be entirely different if the proposal on the table was a better deal for Poland at the price of, say, a chunk of Alaska or one of the Hawaii'an islands or even Cuba.

What if the Soviets wanted to stay or at least keep meddling in Persia?

When it comes to meddling, they did their bit along with everyone else - all that meddling being a significant factor in the unhappy and medieaval state of that Country now - all the sadder as through most of history it was a leading light in the progress of humanity. However we have a separate thread for that (105 years of Western blunders in the MI - albeit I would suggest, QED, it wasn't just the Westerners who were blundering about). The question what the Anglo-Americans would have done had the Soviets decided to stay in 'their' part of Iran is an interesting one. Subsequent events show the Western Allies were (or at least rapidly became) very sensitive to any hint of Soviet influence in that country.

As an aside, the 1941 invasion of Iran episode illustrates my point above, how honesty in dealing often goes out of the window, when essential interests are threatened regardless of regime, rather well. Oddly, this episode in WW2 history seems to be conveniently bypassed in British consciousness. Funny that.

[ljadw]

Let's talk about borders again here, because that's what this thread is about. Poland lost 201.015 square kilometers in the east, and had to be compensated. They got 114.267 km² in return and there was only one country they could get it from: Germany. Although the Allies opposed the annexation of Stettin, there was little they could do about it.

The only scenario that prevents the Ostgebiete from falling into Polish/Soviet hands is a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia. You usually don't have to give away areas that you have conquered yourself and it is almost certain that the Wallies would not have allowed the expulsions of Germans if they had controlled these areas. Without expulsions: Not a chance of annexation.

But a scenario where the Wallies are the first in Pommeria and Silezia was off the table in February 1945. The Soviets were already close to Berlin, while the Allies had not even crossed the Rhine. I opened a topic about this myself last year. If Market Garden had succeeded, it is not impossible that we would have gotten a totally different Yalta Conference without Germany conceeding as much territory as they did in OTL.

Let's talk about borders.
There was enough condescending nazi-talk about what those Eastern European Untermenschen should and would do.

You are right, without the Western Allies reaching the pre-1939 borders of Central Europe before the soviets, there isn't any chance to get a better deal. Market Garden isn't enough, the change has to happen already in 1943, for example, an Allied invasion of the Balkans, just like Churchill was pushing for. Probably cut Lend-Lease back significantly.
You can't argue or make deals with reds. It never worked and will never work. Any deal for them is just temporary, and they will try to get even more. As soon as they have something, they will never part with it, except if you force them to do it.
As in the current case, the soviets already were in Poland, CSR, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, and unless you force them out, they will stay. Same for Yugoslavia, the only difference was, that the local reds did the liberating mostly themselves, and didn't ask for soviet help. On the other hand, see Greece. The local reds thought, they could do the liberating themselves, and do it like Tito did. It didn't work out, because a, the soviets weren't there and b, the UK was. Another example is Persia. The soviets were there, and wanted to stay there, but were forced out by the UK and the US.

It is not so that the Wallies would not have accepted the expulsion of Germans : the Oder-Neisse border was proposed by Churchill, not by Stalin ,and the Germans living east of this border were expelled by the Poles, a small group in the East of East-Prussia was expelled by the Soviets .
The Balkan Front was a failure in WW1 and already in 1941 :British forces were expelled from Greece .
Yes :you can argue and make deals with Reds : ALL US presidents since 1917 made deals with the Soviets and with China, including Reagan. Dulles also made deals with the Soviets :example :Austria in 1955.
About Hungary,Romania and Bulgaria :these were allies of Hitler and no one had any mercy when they were occupied by the Soviets ,besides it was better for the west that they were occupied by the Soviets :where would the West ( =the US ) get the manpower and money for the occupation of an additional 30 million people ?
To cut LL would be very stupid :the result could be countless more allied losses .
About Market Garden : the decisions about the Germmans living east of the Oder-Neisse and in Sudetenland were already taken before the start of MG .

[Princess Perfume]

About Hitler and the Med - he had an operation planned for the invasion of Malta - what if that manages to succeed?

And as the second POD he follows up taking Malta by going for Cyprus?

[ljadw]

About Malta :
1 The convoy losses of the Axis had no decisive importance on the outcome of the war in NA
2 Only half of these losses were caused by aircraft/submarines operating from Malta .
About Cyprus
There was no reason for Germany to take Cyprus
The airborne losses suffered at Crete made a conquest of Cyprus impossible .

[gebhk]

besides it was better for the west that they were occupied by the Soviets

I see you are intent on selling that red herring again Good luck