After reading a rather implausible TL on the Alternate History Wiki ( http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Atlantic_Iron_Curtain ) I wrote this essay. I hope it brings some light on the scenario.
An Essay on the Atlantic Iron Curtain and why it makes no sense
The struggle which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics went through during the Second World War (Or as the former Soviet republics refer to it the Great Patriotic War) is unparallel in human history. Never before had a country been so catastrophically hammered in the field of warfare and it is generally accepted as the deadliest conflict in history. From the day of the German invasion on June 22nd, 1941 to the final bitter capture of Berlin and Prague in May 1945 it is estimated that well over a third of the overall WW2 causalties stemmed from the Eastern Front. According to a summary, presented by Lieutenant General Roman Rudenko at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, the property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679 billion rubles. The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens dead during the Siege of Leningrad. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 40,000 miles of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries. Seven million horses, and 17 million sheep and goats were also slaughtered or driven off. Wild fauna were also affected. Wolves and foxes fleeing westward from the killing zone, as the Russian army advanced 1943-45, were responsible for a rabies epidemic which spread slowly westwards, reaching the coast of the English Channel by 1968. It is likely that historians will never calculate the exact number of total casualties but on both sides at least over 30 million people died due to the war.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Soviet Union was the largest contributor to the Allied victory in World War Two. Whilst we can not forget the massive contributions made by American, British, Fench, Canadian, Australian, Chinese and other forces the Soviet Union was the power which truly broke the back of the Third Reich, the most powerful Axis member by far. We also can't forget the various atrocities commited by the Soviet Union, whether the mass rapes at the end of the war in Europe or Government ordered ones such as the massacre of Polish officers and other various itellectuals. However the point still stands, without Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union it's hard to see how the Churchill government could hold on to power for much longer or how the United States of America with all it's industrial potential could enter the conflict.
Many historians and othe rintellectuals in both east and west criticise the normal western outlook that Anglo-American forces won the war single-handedly. They argue that for every 10 German who died in the entire conflict, 9 of them died on the eastern front and that whilst the Allies could not have won the war without the Soviets, the Soviets could have won the war without the allies. This idea of no western front has been covered in several alternate history Timelines. The result is usually always the same: either Germany crushes the Soviet Union and forces a harsh peace on them which grants them their wartime goal of lebensraum or 'living space' or the Soviet Union rolls over the Thrid Reich much like in our time except with no second front they also 'liberate' Western Europe, the Balkans, Scandanavia and usually Francoist Spain as well. This results in the Soviet Union and the nations brutal dictator Joseph Stalin becoming undisputed ruler of Europe.
However there are several points which make both of these scenarios implausible. The implausibility of the Nazi victory scenario has already been discussed in great length but there seems to be less discussion of why an Atlantic Iron Curtain is so implausible. Too start off we need to look at how the second front is removed in the first place. The idea of any successful Nazi invasion of Britain is absurd. Not only did they fail to establish air supremacy over the south of England in the past but the Kreigsmarine was woefully inferior to it's British counterpart making supply essentially impossible after any landing. This essentially means that Germany would need to make other efforts with which to knock Britain out of the war. It is more likely that this could happen , a mixture of military success in the mediterranean and U-Boat blockade might have been able to bring Britain to it's knees however this peace would not have been anywhere near unconditional. The best Germany could hope for would be essentially a white peace with Britain perhaps handing over and/or demilitarising a few of it's overseas territories and recognising the Nazi puppet regimes in Europe. This would leave Britain completely open to defending itself in the future and then some. Of course some writers have this happen and yet still have the Soviets drive into France and further. With Berlin taken by the Soviets and with the Red Army advancing on the Rhine the British would not occupy France and the low countires to be greeted with open arms by the German ex-occupiers. It is hard to see why Britain would refrain from doing this, especially with presumably worse relations with the Soviet Union. It is also likely that a more vigorous Submarine warfare campaign may have drawn America into the fight even without Hitlers idiotic declaration of war.
In many of these Soviet victory timelines where there is no second front the Soviet reaction to a British peace rarely differs from our own time. Whilst Stalin was paranoid at the best of times he was no fool. If Britain where to make peace Stalin would quickly become aware that he was Hitlers next target and that there was nothing now stopping the German dicatator from fufilling his ideological aim of crushing the Bolshevik menace. The Red Army would have been much less likely to ignore the German build up on the Polish border and thus it is likely they would have avoided many of their early catastrophic defeats. If the German army saw a mobilised Red Army in mid 1941 would they have attacked? Probably. However in the time and resources it would take to first make peace with Britain it is very likely that they would have had to postpone Barbarossa till 1942. If they were now facing a much better Red Army which was still waiting for their attack. In this situatio Hitler might have been reluctant to still go ahead with th operation and instead perhaps wait for a better oppurtunity to attack in the long term. Whether or not this would have come is arguable but Hitler was not always blinded by ideology especially in the first years oif the war. Realism may have prevailed. Whether or not a Soviet invasion would have come instead is debatable but with the fully powered Germany Army in Poland waiitng to attack or defend should the order it's likely Stalin would also have to face facts and be forced to wait for a better oppurtunity to come.
If Barbarossa where to take place on a similar timescale though with the same stupid mistakes on the Soviets part, would the Red Army have reached the Channel? Almost certainly not. Without a significant source of lend lease aid coming from Britain and America it's hard to see how the Red Army vould have gone so far. They would have been able to repulse the Germans from their territory and might have been able to reach Berlin but the continous strain of warfare would lead to a much slower conflict which would probably result in some sort of deal with Hitler. Of course this scenario is unlikely for the reasons mentioned above
Hence, with the effort it would take to remove the second front it's questionable whether or not Germany would invaded the Soviet Union. And had such an inasion occure the Red Army might reach the Rhine or the Seine but never the Bay of Biscay or the Channel.
An Essay on the Atlantic Iron Curtain and why it makes no sense
The struggle which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics went through during the Second World War (Or as the former Soviet republics refer to it the Great Patriotic War) is unparallel in human history. Never before had a country been so catastrophically hammered in the field of warfare and it is generally accepted as the deadliest conflict in history. From the day of the German invasion on June 22nd, 1941 to the final bitter capture of Berlin and Prague in May 1945 it is estimated that well over a third of the overall WW2 causalties stemmed from the Eastern Front. According to a summary, presented by Lieutenant General Roman Rudenko at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, the property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679 billion rubles. The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens dead during the Siege of Leningrad. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 40,000 miles of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries. Seven million horses, and 17 million sheep and goats were also slaughtered or driven off. Wild fauna were also affected. Wolves and foxes fleeing westward from the killing zone, as the Russian army advanced 1943-45, were responsible for a rabies epidemic which spread slowly westwards, reaching the coast of the English Channel by 1968. It is likely that historians will never calculate the exact number of total casualties but on both sides at least over 30 million people died due to the war.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Soviet Union was the largest contributor to the Allied victory in World War Two. Whilst we can not forget the massive contributions made by American, British, Fench, Canadian, Australian, Chinese and other forces the Soviet Union was the power which truly broke the back of the Third Reich, the most powerful Axis member by far. We also can't forget the various atrocities commited by the Soviet Union, whether the mass rapes at the end of the war in Europe or Government ordered ones such as the massacre of Polish officers and other various itellectuals. However the point still stands, without Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union it's hard to see how the Churchill government could hold on to power for much longer or how the United States of America with all it's industrial potential could enter the conflict.
Many historians and othe rintellectuals in both east and west criticise the normal western outlook that Anglo-American forces won the war single-handedly. They argue that for every 10 German who died in the entire conflict, 9 of them died on the eastern front and that whilst the Allies could not have won the war without the Soviets, the Soviets could have won the war without the allies. This idea of no western front has been covered in several alternate history Timelines. The result is usually always the same: either Germany crushes the Soviet Union and forces a harsh peace on them which grants them their wartime goal of lebensraum or 'living space' or the Soviet Union rolls over the Thrid Reich much like in our time except with no second front they also 'liberate' Western Europe, the Balkans, Scandanavia and usually Francoist Spain as well. This results in the Soviet Union and the nations brutal dictator Joseph Stalin becoming undisputed ruler of Europe.
However there are several points which make both of these scenarios implausible. The implausibility of the Nazi victory scenario has already been discussed in great length but there seems to be less discussion of why an Atlantic Iron Curtain is so implausible. Too start off we need to look at how the second front is removed in the first place. The idea of any successful Nazi invasion of Britain is absurd. Not only did they fail to establish air supremacy over the south of England in the past but the Kreigsmarine was woefully inferior to it's British counterpart making supply essentially impossible after any landing. This essentially means that Germany would need to make other efforts with which to knock Britain out of the war. It is more likely that this could happen , a mixture of military success in the mediterranean and U-Boat blockade might have been able to bring Britain to it's knees however this peace would not have been anywhere near unconditional. The best Germany could hope for would be essentially a white peace with Britain perhaps handing over and/or demilitarising a few of it's overseas territories and recognising the Nazi puppet regimes in Europe. This would leave Britain completely open to defending itself in the future and then some. Of course some writers have this happen and yet still have the Soviets drive into France and further. With Berlin taken by the Soviets and with the Red Army advancing on the Rhine the British would not occupy France and the low countires to be greeted with open arms by the German ex-occupiers. It is hard to see why Britain would refrain from doing this, especially with presumably worse relations with the Soviet Union. It is also likely that a more vigorous Submarine warfare campaign may have drawn America into the fight even without Hitlers idiotic declaration of war.
In many of these Soviet victory timelines where there is no second front the Soviet reaction to a British peace rarely differs from our own time. Whilst Stalin was paranoid at the best of times he was no fool. If Britain where to make peace Stalin would quickly become aware that he was Hitlers next target and that there was nothing now stopping the German dicatator from fufilling his ideological aim of crushing the Bolshevik menace. The Red Army would have been much less likely to ignore the German build up on the Polish border and thus it is likely they would have avoided many of their early catastrophic defeats. If the German army saw a mobilised Red Army in mid 1941 would they have attacked? Probably. However in the time and resources it would take to first make peace with Britain it is very likely that they would have had to postpone Barbarossa till 1942. If they were now facing a much better Red Army which was still waiting for their attack. In this situatio Hitler might have been reluctant to still go ahead with th operation and instead perhaps wait for a better oppurtunity to attack in the long term. Whether or not this would have come is arguable but Hitler was not always blinded by ideology especially in the first years oif the war. Realism may have prevailed. Whether or not a Soviet invasion would have come instead is debatable but with the fully powered Germany Army in Poland waiitng to attack or defend should the order it's likely Stalin would also have to face facts and be forced to wait for a better oppurtunity to come.
If Barbarossa where to take place on a similar timescale though with the same stupid mistakes on the Soviets part, would the Red Army have reached the Channel? Almost certainly not. Without a significant source of lend lease aid coming from Britain and America it's hard to see how the Red Army vould have gone so far. They would have been able to repulse the Germans from their territory and might have been able to reach Berlin but the continous strain of warfare would lead to a much slower conflict which would probably result in some sort of deal with Hitler. Of course this scenario is unlikely for the reasons mentioned above
Hence, with the effort it would take to remove the second front it's questionable whether or not Germany would invaded the Soviet Union. And had such an inasion occure the Red Army might reach the Rhine or the Seine but never the Bay of Biscay or the Channel.
