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

Discussions on alternate history, including events up to 20 years before today. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
Post Reply
gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

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

#91

Post by gebhk » 01 Apr 2023, 05:44

No one would accept that German allies would continue unoccupied
And yet they did (and Japanese allies too) - so this statement is untrue.

ljadw
Member
Posts: 15583
Joined: 13 Jul 2009, 18:50

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

#92

Post by ljadw » 01 Apr 2023, 09:47

gebhk wrote:
01 Apr 2023, 05:44
No one would accept that German allies would continue unoccupied
And yet they did (and Japanese allies too) - so this statement is untrue.
Romania and Hungary did not continue unoccupied .Italy also was occupied .And there were also Soviet forces in Finland .


User avatar
Loïc
Member
Posts: 1227
Joined: 14 Jun 2003, 04:38
Location: Riom Auvergne & Bourbonnais France
Contact:

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

#93

Post by Loïc » 01 Apr 2023, 13:53

Franquist Spain ally of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy since 1936, the only place where Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy got a perennial definitive lasting victory in Europe, who didn't cease to claim to both godfathers and the rest of world, was the first "at war against Soviet Union since 1936 his deadliest enemy" and by reciprocity Soviet Union considered to be at war against Spain,
also "ennemy of France" who is "the hereditary ennemy with incorrigible Gaullist spirit only interested in munching the armistice where only a german occupation can guarantee to destroy the judeo-masonic influence" not to mention that "Great Britain and United States are our ennemies", promising "one million of spaniards to defend Berlin", I don't know how, collaborating and always sure to see a Nazi Germany victory until 1944-1945 "because an Allied victory would mean his annihilation" etc...

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

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

#94

Post by gebhk » 03 Apr 2023, 13:10

Romania and Hungary did not continue unoccupied
Indeed they were not despite Romania joining the allies at war's end and Hungary, like Italy, attempting to do so and being occupied by Germany.
Italy also was occupied
You obviously use a different definition of occupation than most of the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world would say Italy was not occuppied after WW2.
there were also Soviet forces in Finland .
Indeed a naval base (Porkkalanniemi) was leased and occupied from 44-56. One could almost say on this basis that Cuba is occupied by the US because it leases Guantanamo Bay from the Cuban government. On a more reasonable level - you are yourself demonstrating that allies or those classified as allies of Germany were not necessarily occupied.

Another example, not only was Thailand not occuppied but within less than 2 years the wartime government returned and about a year after that, the wartime leader and, indeed, the main enthusiast of the Thai-Japanese alliance, returned to power and remained the country's, in effect, military dictator for about 9 years. No one batted an eyelid.

On the other hand, Poland, an ally was occupied and occupied longer than Germany (except West Berlin and Saarland), Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary. Iran, a neutral, was occupied by the USSR and Great Britain over a year after the war was over.

The point is that being classified an ally of Germany or, indeed, neutral or ally, did not determine whether a country was occupied or not. I would suggest that whether occupation ensued and, if so, how long it lasted depended far more on whether they were deemed fit for the role that was envisaged for them by the victors than on their role in WW2. Thus you need more justification for your assumption that the US would have occupied Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria than just that they were at some point allies of Germany.
Last edited by gebhk on 03 Apr 2023, 14:53, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
Loïc
Member
Posts: 1227
Joined: 14 Jun 2003, 04:38
Location: Riom Auvergne & Bourbonnais France
Contact:

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

#95

Post by Loïc » 03 Apr 2023, 14:24

ljdaw is right,

there was an anglo-american occupation in Italy until the 15th december 1947
ljdaw wrote:About Italy :it was de facto occupied til the Peace Treaty of Paris in February 1947 .
le armate alleate progedendo nell'occupazione del'Italia del Nord organizzavano le amministrazioni militare delle provincie
(...)
vennero a cadere i controlli degli Alleati e col ritiro delle truppe d'occupazione anglo-americani

L'ITALIA IN GUERRA IL SESTO ANNO-1945


il disposto del articolo 73 cioè il ritiro delle forze alleate di occupazione entro 90 giorni dall'entrata in vigore del trattato


il 15 dicembre 1947 l'Italia riconquisto formalmente la sua piana sovranità quando le ultime truppe anglo-americane di occupazione lasciarano il suo territorio

L'ITALIA 1945-1966 LA RICOSTRUZIONE DEL PAESE E LE FORZE ARMATE

ljadw
Member
Posts: 15583
Joined: 13 Jul 2009, 18:50

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

#96

Post by ljadw » 04 Apr 2023, 08:53

gebhk wrote:
03 Apr 2023, 13:10
Romania and Hungary did not continue unoccupied
Indeed they were not despite Romania joining the allies at war's end and Hungary, like Italy, attempting to do so and being occupied by Germany.
Italy also was occupied
You obviously use a different definition of occupation than most of the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world would say Italy was not occuppied after WW2.
there were also Soviet forces in Finland .
Indeed a naval base (Porkkalanniemi) was leased and occupied from 44-56. One could almost say on this basis that Cuba is occupied by the US because it leases Guantanamo Bay from the Cuban government. On a more reasonable level - you are yourself demonstrating that allies or those classified as allies of Germany were not necessarily occupied.

Another example, not only was Thailand not occuppied but within less than 2 years the wartime government returned and about a year after that, the wartime leader and, indeed, the main enthusiast of the Thai-Japanese alliance, returned to power and remained the country's, in effect, military dictator for about 9 years. No one batted an eyelid.

On the other hand, Poland, an ally was occupied and occupied longer than Germany (except West Berlin and Saarland), Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary. Iran, a neutral, was occupied by the USSR and Great Britain over a year after the war was over.

The point is that being classified an ally of Germany or, indeed, neutral or ally, did not determine whether a country was occupied or not. I would suggest that whether occupation ensued and, if so, how long it lasted depended far more on whether they were deemed fit for the role that was envisaged for them by the victors than on their role in WW2. Thus you need more justification for your assumption that the US would have occupied Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria than just that they were at some point allies of Germany.
I am talking about Europe , not about Thailand .There were no US forces in that region .
The point is that if US and USSR did not occupy Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary the heirs of Horthy, Ceaucescu and of the Bulgarian ruler ,would have continued to rule these countries, something which in 1945 no one in the US would accept .
Look at the attempts that were done to eliminate Franquist Spain .
Western Europe and the US were in 1945 dominated by the left and for the left everyone who was not a leftist,was a fascist,or a nazi .The Western occupiers of Italy obliged the Italian government to make laws against a possible return of fascism .Thus they would not let continue in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria regimes that had fought with Hitler .
There was also the danger of a new war between Romania and Hungary and between Hungary and CZ.
And if at the start of the Cold War these countries were still neutral (which could not happen ) ,the Foster doctrine would force them to chose between the West and the USSR .

gebhk
Member
Posts: 2623
Joined: 25 Feb 2013, 21:23

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

#97

Post by gebhk » 04 Apr 2023, 13:15

I am talking about Europe , not about Thailand .There were no US forces in that region .
And I am talking about US and, indeed, the wider Allied policies on the treatment of the Axis states, their allies and collaborators. There were no US forces in the region of Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary either - we are discussing the likely approach of the US had there been. By the same token, there is no reason to suppose that the US could not have provided the forces necessary to occupy Thailand had they felt the need to. Clearly they did not. The point, therefore, is that there was no policy in place that all countries that had been allies or collaborators of the Axis at some point were to be occupied. We cannot, therefore, assume any automatism on this issue. The cases have to be considered on their own merits and retail.
The point is that if US and USSR did not occupy Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary the heirs of Horthy, Ceaucescu and of the Bulgarian ruler ,would have continued to rule these countries,
An unwarranted assumption. In the case of Romania you are clearly getting your conducators mixed up! The communist Comrade Conducator Ceaucescu was not going to come to power until 1965. If you actually mean Conducator Antonescu, then he had been removed from power by the pro-allied opposition led by the King 9 months before the war's end and thre new government and monarchy was recognised by the Allies, with the USSR in the lead!

Much the same was the case in Bulgaria, which had an 8-month-old pro-allied government led by Kimon Gieorgiev in place at war's end. Horthy was a prisoner of the Germans since October 1944 with his government deposed and replaced by German puppets who would not have survived in power for five minutes without German bayonets to keep them in place, even if the Soviets had not occupied Hungary.

In short, the heirs of the 'Bulgarian ruler' (by which I presume you mean the pro-axis Georgi Kyoseivanov, Bogdan Filov, Dobri Bozhilov, and Ivan Bagryanov), Horthy or 'Ceaucescu' (by which I presume you mean Conducator Antonescu) would not have continued whether the relevant copntries had been occupied or not, as they had already been discontinued well before the war ended.

In any event, in respect of individuals as well as countries as a whole, there was no automatism either. Marshal Mannerheim remained president of Finland; Marshal Badoglio remained prime minister of Italy, Aung San became, in effect, Prime Minister of Burma; Phibun became Prime Minister and, in effect, dictator of Thailand within 3 years of war's end. The point is that, in this case again, the pro- or anti-German or Japanese stance of these individuals was of little consequence as Germany and Japan were no longer players. What was important was whether they were considered suitable to play a positive role in the new reality. In short, anti-communist credentials were rapidly becoming far more important to the US than anti-German or anti-Japanese ones. Communist credentials were paramount for the Soviets from the outset.

This, of course, applied to neutrals and allies just the same - Sosnkowski did not become president of Poland, Benes did not stay President for long etc.

There is little, therefore, to suggest that the 1945 governments of Romania and Bulgaria, or for that matter the return of Horthy (in practice probably academic given the Marshal's age), was something which in 1945 no one in the US would accept - it is perhaps worth mentioning in this context that after his release from captivity in 1945, Horthy lived for four years on the support of two US ambassadors and the Pope! Subsequently, until his death, his upkeep was organised by the US ambassador John Montgomery. Thus, again, if we are to be serious about this issue, the cases have to be considered on their merits and retail.

And that is before we come to the wholly irrational assumption that without an allied occupation, the wartime pro-Axis government would not change. Clearly, in the cases of Romania, Bulgaria and Thailand, that is exactly what happened.

ljadw
Member
Posts: 15583
Joined: 13 Jul 2009, 18:50

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

#98

Post by ljadw » 04 Apr 2023, 16:28

Mannerheim remained president,but his predecessor Rity was put in prison at the order of the winners .And Finland was purged .
Horthy was removed not in October 1944 but in March 1944 and there is no proof that without the German help, Szalasi would have been eliminated by the Hungarian people .
I did not say that no one in the West would accept the return of Horthy and Antonescu, but that no one would accept the continuation of their regimes by their heirs .No one is saying today that he was a fascist or nazi ,although his reburial in Hungary in 1993 was attacked by Hungarian leftwingers .But the point is that in 1945 all right wing regimes in Europe were attacked by the dominant left wingers and that a continuation of the Horthy regime was out of the question .
In Italy Austria,Belgium, France Communists and Socialists dominated the coalition governments of which they were a part .In all these countries,everyone who was not a member of a left resistance group was considered as fascist, nazi .For Socialists and Communists there was o difference between Horthy and Szalasi .
Was it different in the US ?
The FDR administration and the media, both infiltrated and dominated by crypto-communists and liberals (the differences between both were in a lot of cases only semantics ) started a witch hunting on all who opposed them and on all who were hostile to communism .
Even in 20018 (January 25 ) Reuters called Horthy a Nazi ally .
In ''Hungary in the Cold War 1945-1956:between US and Soviet Union '' one can read the following :
''After WW2 US believed that it could retain Soviet-US cooperation on a liberal basis and preserve a politically pluralistic,economic open Eastern Europe at the same time .''
You will observe the word liberal which is only an other word for Marxist ,you will observe also the suicidal attempt from the DC interventionists to remake Eastern Europe in an European US .
Everyone knows that there was and still is no place in Eastern Europe for a politically pluralistic and economic society .
Eastern Europe had to chose between a society as that of Horthy or that of Stalin .
As the US considered Hungary before the war as crypto-fascist ,it would prefer a communist Eastern Europe than an Ancien Regime Europe .
And if there was no communist Europe ,US would install a US liberal Eastern Europe .
The liberals in DC would never admit the restoration of the Eastern Europe Ancien Regime .

Princess Perfume
Member
Posts: 240
Joined: 27 Mar 2014, 11:11
Location: BBC Television Centre, London, England

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

#99

Post by Princess Perfume » 04 Apr 2023, 17:59

sometimes i kind of wonder how worse off propaganda-wise to the world press and radio that the Soviet and Bulgarian communsts would have been had Simeon II being a lovely and beautiful child Tsarina/Empress of the country in 1944-45? Or if you want to go for an ASB timeline to play out these results, Simeon II is physically (but not mentally) transformed into the said female child equivalent, right after he succeeds to the Tsardom in 1944.

KDF33
Member
Posts: 1282
Joined: 17 Nov 2012, 02:16

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

#100

Post by KDF33 » 05 Apr 2023, 04:09

Sludge Factory wrote:
18 Apr 2022, 06:27
(If I were Truman, I would have DoW'd the USSR to prevent the borders from being redrawn)
How would such an action in any way have improved the lot of the people of Central Europe?

KDF33
Member
Posts: 1282
Joined: 17 Nov 2012, 02:16

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

#101

Post by KDF33 » 05 Apr 2023, 04:11

Princess Perfume wrote:
04 Apr 2023, 17:59
Or if you want to go for an ASB timeline to play out these results, Simeon II is physically (but not mentally) transformed into the said female child equivalent, right after he succeeds to the Tsardom in 1944.
Why would "mentally" being a young girl have been any worse than "mentally" being a young boy?

Princess Perfume
Member
Posts: 240
Joined: 27 Mar 2014, 11:11
Location: BBC Television Centre, London, England

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

#102

Post by Princess Perfume » 05 Apr 2023, 04:37

KDF33 wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 04:11
Princess Perfume wrote:
04 Apr 2023, 17:59
Or if you want to go for an ASB timeline to play out these results, Simeon II is physically (but not mentally) transformed into the said female child equivalent, right after he succeeds to the Tsardom in 1944.
Why would "mentally" being a young girl have been any worse than "mentally" being a young boy?
no no I'm just saying the memories etc. would stay the same but it would be a magical physical transformation. Sorry i
im a fan of the old Enid Blyton fair folk stories - Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair etc -

KDF33
Member
Posts: 1282
Joined: 17 Nov 2012, 02:16

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

#103

Post by KDF33 » 05 Apr 2023, 05:59

Princess Perfume wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 04:37
no no I'm just saying the memories etc. would stay the same but it would be a magical physical transformation. Sorry i
im a fan of the old Enid Blyton fair folk stories - Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair etc -
Oh I understand - my bad.

Peter89
Member
Posts: 2369
Joined: 28 Aug 2018, 06:52
Location: Europe

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

#104

Post by Peter89 » 05 Apr 2023, 08:17

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.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."

Princess Perfume
Member
Posts: 240
Joined: 27 Mar 2014, 11:11
Location: BBC Television Centre, London, England

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

#105

Post by Princess Perfume » 05 Apr 2023, 08:44

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

Post Reply

Return to “What if”