Alternate History
The enemy was close, but the General showed no fear as he inspected the gun emplacements. It was his nature to lead from the front. The General walked from nest to nest, happily chatting with his men but rarely smiling. Easy words and a warm hand on a shoulder got the message across: We will beat back the invaders. The General suspected, but could not reveal, that the British were preparing to withdraw from Gallipoli just as soon as the weather worsened enough to hide their movements. “We have won,” the General thought to himself. Just then, a random artillery shell exploded fifteen feet behind the line. General Mustafa Kemal, the Savior of Gallipoli, was dead.
In the world we know, Mustafa lived on to far greater glories than his victory at Gallipoli. Let me set the stage for you.
The Ottoman Empire’s surrender in 1918 was a pitiable event. The House of Osman’s fabled armies had lost everything almost everything to the Entente forces. Yet the Western Powers planned even more humilations. All of Thrace, bar Istanbul, was deeded to Greece. Armenia was to get almost all of northeastern Anatolia. Russia was moving to occupy the Straits, with Anglo-French concordance. Except for a rump state based around Ankara, the rest of Turkey was to be divvied up between Britain, France, and Italy.
Almost as soon as the Ottoman government signed the surrender instrument in Istanbul, it was repudiated by Mustafa Kemal in Ankara, where he’d established a new, republican government. Unlike the old regime, Mustafa’s government lasted long after the ink was dry on the Treaty of S
So if Georgia is kept out of Lenin’s grip, I’m surprised your alternate history doesn’t consider a Soviet Union without Stalin.
By the time of the Treaty of S
Ah, but let a shell kill Mustafa Kemal in the early stages of Gallipoli. Without his role, could the Ottoman army have held? If not…
- Allies break through the Dardanelles in 1915, knock Turkey out of the war.
- Allies are able to move supplies and troops to Russia and Rumania, forestall military collapse on the Eastern Front, economic collapse of Russia, and Russian Revolution (at least Bolshevik phase).
- Forced to shift forces to Russian Fronts, Germany is unable to mount offensives on Italian or Western Fronts.
- French army casualties 1915-16 likely to be much lower.
- Fair probability of Austrian collapse in 1916.
- British army being able to launch equivalent of the Autumn 1918 offensive one or two years earlier.
- If in conjunction with less mauled French being able to advance, potential breakthrough to Rhine and undeniable defeat of German army in the field.
- France and Britain have less need to conciliate President Wilson re. peace settlement.
- Germany in no position to launch war later after being weakened by peace settlement, and constrained by stringer neighbours.
etc. etc.
Article and responses highlight the problems associated with alternate “what if” history.
The variables are limitless.
“The variables are limitless.”
That’s what makes it fun.
And a Russia with some success does not fall prey to a rabble rouser named Lenin. . .
Yup. Imagine the 20th century with a moderatly conservative monarchical , prosperous bourgueois Russian Empire. (Not necessarily peaceful, but not communists.)
And where ever so Catholic Austro Hungary spends of a lot of it’s energy beating up on Serb terrorists using Bosniak Muslim security forces.
And where probably Germany remains a consitututional monarchy. After all, little Willy would be protected by his Russian. Austrian and English cousins.
Where stalin and Lenin and Co. are marginal notes as “executed by Imperial Secret Service” in detail histories of the failed coup that was bloodily supressed.
This is like History Channel Truth or Dare.
“I dare you to theorize a post-colonial American monarchy. Go!”
In which case, the Battle of Stalingrad might have gone the other way
America’s involvement in WW2 didn’t automattically win it for the Allies. Before Stalingrad, the Allies were losing on nearly ALL fronts. Had the Germans prevailed there, that would have costs us a huge amount of material AND freed German forces to fight us elsewhere. Our industrial capacity gave us a great advantage, but we still had to be able to bring it to bear. Losing at Stalingrad could have cost us the ability to do that before the war was lost.
Gotta disagree with you there, TallDave. (boy, do we get around!)
The Soviets most certainly did have an air force, and it was 90% Soviet-made. Ever hear of the MiG-3, Yak-9, or the Il-2?
True, true, they used P-39s and P-40s; certainly they liked the Airacobras better than most American pilots, but the Soviets tended to focus more on ground support (tactical) air than strategic air forces. If you want to get picky, I suppose you could say the Soviets didn’t have a “real” air force because they didn’t have strategic elements. You might upset some of the mud-movers, though. {snark}
That said, I’ll agree that US entry into the war sealed things. I’m sure that you’ve read Churchill’s reaction upon hearing the news.
I don’t think John Farren has it right, though; the Turks were being “advised” by the Germans during the battle (hence had alternate capable leadership available), and the Brits had managed to lose the campaign the first day or two, while they sat there and jerked around, instead of moving inland agressively.
All in all, a nice little post by Stephen about what one good man can do.
“I’m sure that you’ve read Churchill’s reaction upon hearing the news.
”
I never pass up a chance to quote this.
Moe Lane
Actually the Soviets would’ve had a rough day if the U.S. hadn’t come in. I’m not saying the Nazis take them by any means, but ol’ Uncle Joe probably seeks a significant separate peace.
The Red Air Force was good at what it was designed for–ground support. Keep the fight 10,000 feet and under, life is good. Go above 10k, life gets relatively ugly.
Actually, I really like the Rev’s AH idea… what if Germany had won WWI in the first few months?
Thanks, Moe. I’d never read that before.
I need to redouble my diligence in reminding myself to remind myself to get some Churchill in my library.
If Germany had won WWI in the first few months, then 25 years later, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and John von Neumann would have been working for the other side. No thanks.
Imperial Germany wins WWI in short order:
Not necessarily resulting in Nuclear bomb in Germany… no huge high stakes arms race, the pre WWI conventions of warfare aren’t corroded away by the massive casualties of a war that doesn’t happen, the thought of a bomb that can annihilate an entire city is recoiled from as barbarous.
On the other hand probably not much inthe way of decolonization either, both the British Empire and the German Empire (With various Ex-French additions), not to mention the French and Americans, aren’t bled dry by two WW’s… Various fuzzy wuzzies get killed for disputing who owns their land.
THe US isn’t drawn in WWI either, hence a lessor military build up, and there isn’t any power vacuum for it to step into, hence a more multi-polar world.
Britain exports lots more people (who don’t die inthe trenches, who reproduce and are very patriotic) to it’s dominions who, not suffering casualties for the mother country that is so far way, are less prone to going their own way. The British Empire competes with Imperial Germany and the USA and Russia in a more economic way – than military.
The pre WWI fairly free trade consensus continues not demolished by WWI and post war depressions. Everyone gets a lot richer.
Also the Russian Empire gets kicked by the Germans and told to behave…but don;t have a long painful war that may result in their revolution. Russian becomes a lot more wealthy and gets busy developing it’s backyard.
Lenin dies in Switzerland, ignored. That brave corporal Adolf, becomes a functionary with the state railroads, marries and dies of apoplexy because a train is late. Austro-Hungary continues to shamble along.
A non commie revoltion in China?
Eventually Europeans find another reason to beat on one another. They always do.
There was a short story “American Mandate” about a U.S mandate of Anatolia that may be interesting.
“I suppose you could say the Soviets didn’t have a “real” air force because they didn’t have strategic elements.”
Then you can say the same about the Luftwaffe… they had no ‘strategic bombers’ either. Nothing at all with the reach or striking power to be considered a ‘strategic’ airplane… unless you count the proposed Amerika bomber, which never got off the drawing board.
And yes, the Soviet Air Force wasn’t much above 10K feet… but, then, their real targets were at, oh, roughly, zero feet. The Luftwaffe HAD to come down to fight.
Change one simple event and imagine the resulting 20th Century: Gavrilo Princip misses Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The resulting ripples erase practically every war fought subsequent to his death. Maybe the Falklands War still occurs. Maybe.
Actually, the Amerika bomber reached hardware, but there were only 3 made. One of them crossed the Atlantic and returned unrefueled, in testing. It looked like a B29 with a B25 twin tail.
There was also the He177 Greif, which was intended to be a strategic bomber, and built in respectable numbers, but had serious design flaws and was operationally hazardous to its crew (they tended to spontaneously explode the fuel in the wing tanks).
Another ‘what-if’ scenario: What if Stalin hadn’t purged the Red Army in the late 1930′s? The top of the Soviet officer corps were veterans of the Russian Civil War and arguably knew as much about mobile war as any military in Europe. Russian military hardware was probably at least as good as the German stuff at that stage.
What if Stalin hadn’t ‘trusted’ Hitler and permitted a competently-led Red Army to respond immediately to the invasion rather than issuing orders not to shoot back until he was sure? What if the Red Air Force hadn’t been destroyed on the ground?
The Russians could have been in Berlin by late 1942…..
Re: US effect on the German-Russian fight:
Besides Lend-Lease, remember the first “second front”: The US/UK strategic bombing offensive drew a large number of fighters back to defend the German heartland. If these had been committed to the Eastern front instead, its likely the Russians would not have achieved air superiority, or would have done so much later. And if so, a year or so’s delay in doing so would have allowed Germany’s lead in jet technology to weigh in. And you CANNOT win a large armored/mechanized campaign with the other side having air supremecy.
Without America, the Red Army would have been unable to sustain it’s offensives. It was Ford trucks that carried the fuel and supplies for those effective Soviet tanks. Without them, Soviet counteroffensives would have bogged down after a few dozen miles. It would have taken them a decade to get to Berlin, if ever. Plus, many other critical war supplies were coming from the US. In the Sixties, Marshall Zhukov talked about this. If I recall correctly, the Soviets would have been unable to even produce a fraction of the explosives necessary for war without the US.
There’s also the impact of Patton’s Third Army. His dash to the German border in just a few weeks caused the Germans to make massive withdrawals of ground forces to the new Western Front to face the onrushing Patton — the one General the Germans feared. It was at this point that the Soviets finally began to make the real big gains as the Wehrmacht became massively outnumbered in the East.