How Hitler saved Stalin from conquering the Middle East
You have, of course, heard of the theory of chaos: complex systems are extremely dependent on even small changes in the initial conditions, and insignificant variations in the environment at the beginning of the process can lead to unpredictable consequences at the end. Atmosphere, turbulent flows, biological populations, society and its subsystems are all examples of such systems ...
As we noticed the other day, people often feel that story society (humanity), even in such major events as the world war, is the same dynamic chaos as, say, the weather. Remember what the author said the term "butterfly effect"? "The flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil will cause a tornado in the state of Texas." So is it possible to “flap wings” in human history - or is it something else besides dynamic chaos?
So, here are five relatively realistic alternatives for the development of the history of World War II. Judge for yourself whether their effects are similar to the butterfly effect.
1. "First Europe"
Once again: we will talk only about those “alternatives” that were considered as real scenarios of actions by the participants of the Second World War. Therefore, our first story is the “First Europe” scenario. 29 March 1941 at the ABC-1 conference at war England and formally still peaceful US agreed on targets. The priority was recognized "the early defeat of Germany, the main member of the Axis, with the concentration of the main US forces in the Atlantic and Europe." At the same time, the parties agreed that they would only defend themselves against Japan.
The Europe first strategy was wise, since the military industry of Japan was a dwarf and the country had no long-term perspectives in the war with the allies. Germany, on the contrary, had enormous potential and in subsequent years expanded military production many times, and also created a whole series of fundamentally new means of warfare (cruise and ballistic missiles, jet fighters and bombers, anti-tank grenade launchers, IR sights, remote-controlled bombs, self-guided torpedoes etc.). The delay with such an adversary could have ended very badly, and the world was still very lucky that, for unclear reasons, Hitler did not use chemical weapon, at that time, two heads superior to the old from the arsenals of the allies.
Nevertheless, when the war with Japan began, the words “First Europe” remained in the strategy, but for some reason they disappeared from life. In the first six months, the United States sent 300 000 soldiers to the Pacific Theater, and 100 000 to Europe. Even by December, 1943 1 873 people, 000 7 aircraft, 857 combat ships, and 713 1 810 people, 367 8 aircraft and 807 aircraft were set against Japan against Japan. Only before landing in Normandy, two and a half years (!) After the States entered the war against Germany, did more people finally fight on this front of the USA than in the battles with Japan. But it was too late.
In fact, the allied landing came at a time when Germany had already spun the flywheel of military production. And the years 1941-1943 critical for it, when it was sharply inferior even to the USSR in the products of the military-industrial complex, were left behind: the favorable moment for a quick turnaround was missed. A couple of numbers: in 1942, the United States produced 26 tanks, Germany - 6. By 200, the American conveyor generally had to slow down due to the lack of major battles with the Germans: production fell to 1944. German in the same year rose to 20, and previously released American tanks were simply outdated by 357 , and therefore did not participate in the battles (and thank God). The same processes took place in other branches of the armed forces: at the end of 19, the number of military equipment of all types among the Germans was several times higher than in 1944–1944. The Allied landing was late by the time when he could break the back of Germany, and therefore only helped to slowly strangle the enemy. The concentration of large forces in Europe and the Anglo-American landing in 1942 precluded the end of the war in 1943: in the middle of the war, the Germans would have nothing to fight immediately near Stalingrad and Normandy.
Why did the Americans themselves, who worked out “First Europe”, abandon this plan? Lack of strength? Hardly. Already in 1942, the United States called for more people than could be used in all combat operations around the world until the end of the war. Further appeal took place "in emptiness", by inertia. By 1945, 12,2 million people were “slaughtered” as many as only 3 million in Europe, and 4,6 million were outside the US, but not in Europe. "First Europe", you are pleased to see. So, already in 1942 and even later, the USA could send as many soldiers to the Old World as needed.
In Soviet times, the question of why the United States made a strategic mistake of this magnitude was solved simply: the allies are just the dead of Dunhergh. The evaluation of the participant in the events, the American staff officer R. Ingersola, was reproduced: “During the war the British tried to direct our military policy to the path that was desirable for them; it was the anti-Russian way [based on a delay in landing in Europe]. They did not succeed in this ... The war was won as a result of a frontal assault on the European continent ... "So the British distracted the Americans from France in order to let the Russians, Ukrainians and others lose their blood, suffering additional million losses, and then get Europe on a platter .
We will not seriously consider this point of view. The British and Americans equally did not want to see Soviet troops in Western Europe. They rightly suspected that, having once occupied a particular country, a Soviet soldier would never leave it. Things reached the point that in May, Churchill was ready to fight 1945 with the USSR - just to throw him out of Germany and Poland. The battle with the USSR would unambiguously bring to the Anglo-American forces losses many times greater than the evils of the war with Germany. At best, Western countries would have received millions of corpses and Bolshevized continental Europe.
Of course, if Churchill was sure that he could land earlier, in 1942 – 1943, he would have done so. Indeed, in this scenario, the USSR would not have had the opportunity to export German industrial funds to the east, nor would it have access to advanced military technology. The latter, by the way, were also needed by the allies, as well as the USSR, which sharply fell behind the Germans in a multitude of industries.
The real reason for the English opposition to the American landing was fear. In 1940, Hitler did not just destroy France, which was considered to be the strongest military power in the world: he had undermined the faith of the British military in his forces for many years to come.
“Why are we trying to do this?” Seriously asked Winston Churchill at the moment of the extremely depressed mood caused by his preparation for Operation Overlord in February 1944 of the year. The leader of the "British Empire" came to the point that instead ... offered to attack Portugal. How this would help defeat Germany is a mystery, especially since they had no common border. Well, say, this is Churchill, according to the well-known characteristic of his German colleague - “drunken alcoholic”. A man who doesn’t have a chance to drink, probably joked ... Alas, apparently, he liked to drink and joke in a populous company.
“I’m still worried about the whole operation,” writes the head of the imperial general staff of Britain Alan Brooke 5 June 1944, one day before landing (!). “At best, it will end with results that are very far from what was expected ... At worst, it may turn out to be the most terrible catastrophe of this war.” Yes, yes, despite the overwhelming superiority of the allies literally in everything.
Why? "Four years of war with the Wehrmacht convinced the British commanders that the Allied forces could defeat their main enemy only under absolutely favorable conditions ... No matter where the British or American troops met with the German forces at about equal strength, the Germans gained the upper hand ... For four Churchill received enough reason to doubt the ability of the British troops to successfully compete with the Germans ... There was no reason to say that the American soldier was able to act more effectively than English "... Alexander wrote from Tunisia to Alan Brooke about the Americans:" They simply do not know their job as soldiers, and this applies to everyone, from the highest to the lowest instances, from the general to the private. Perhaps the weakest link in this whole chain is the junior commander, who simply does not command, with the result that their soldiers do not actually fight. ” Such quotes permeate any honest work about the battles of the Western armies with the Wehrmacht.
British historian Max Hastings unpatriotic, but sums up exactly: “Until the very last weeks before Operation Overlord, its outcome remained the subject of sharp disagreements and debate between the military leaders of England and the United States ... If the US Army were not so determined to land in Normandy It is unlikely that such an operation would be undertaken before the 1945 year. ”
Considering that landing in France due to weather conditions before May is impossible, the Allied troops — if the US were not persistent — would have happened just after Germany’s surrender, and this, alas, is not a meaningless Zadornovsky “humor”, but an unattractive reality. Here is an excerpt from the memorandum of the US military school of the end of 1943 of the year: “Obviously, the British, who have consistently opposed the attack across the English Channel, now believe that Operation Overlord is no longer necessary. In their opinion, the ongoing operations in the Mediterranean area, combined with ... the crushing Russian offensive, will be enough to cause the internal collapse of Germany and thus achieve its military defeat without exposing themselves to what they are convinced will almost certainly be " bloodbath "".
The reluctance of the “bloodbath” was so great that under its weight the Allies eventually waited for the release of the Red Army to the Elbe: the hatred of Bolshevism turned out to be weaker than the fear of the Wehrmacht.
Could the Americans force the British to start landing in 1942 and 1943? Obviously could. If they did not allow themselves to be distracted by minor landings in Morocco in 1942, in Italy in 1943, and similar nonsense. But for this they needed greater determination and perseverance. Was it possible like that? Definitely yes, many leaders of the American people showed both of these qualities in abundance. Alas, did not work out.
Nevertheless, such an alternative development of events was quite real and, undoubtedly, would not only save millions of human lives - mostly Russians, Jewish and Polish - but, perhaps, could have avoided such “wonders of the world” as the Berlin Wall or ride Soviet tanks by GDR citizens in 1953, Hungarians in 1956, and Czechs in 1968.
2. Well, the planes ... the planes - then
In addition to launching the “First Europe” scenario, a tremendous help to all United Nations would bring another solution - not to use strategic bombers in Europe. The fact is that the main stratobombers of type B-17, although they were a real miracle of the technology of their era, cost $ 238 329 per piece. More sophisticated B-29s cost $ 639 188, that is, like a hefty 15-tysyachonny steamship of the Liberty type.
You will laugh, but the 3 970 B-29 alone was worth more than all the 2 710 Liberties built for the war. Or as much as 50 000 excellent Mustang fighters, or 50 000 Sherman tanks. The costs of the more numerous B-17 were even higher, but most importantly, they were superfluous. The best results of this type of bomb strikes were recorded in the 1944 year: then 20% of the bombs could be placed in the 300-meter circle. Well, 80% fell generally beyond common sense. More or less, it was only possible to get into the "city" target, with the plants it was much worse ...
Bottom line: at the peak of the bombings, German military production was reduced from them by 17% of the theoretical level it would have reached without such strikes. Physical reduction of military production was achieved only when Soviet and American troops began to seize factories in ground operations ...
But they managed to kill a lot of people. Reliable estimates of the death toll in Germany and Japan - 600 – 800 thousand people. Considering that 2,8 million tons of bombs were spent on this, each dead person demanded many tons of theoretically deadly cargo.
To justify this senseless homicide, it is customary to write that the bombing undermined the fighting spirit of the Axis countries. In Italy - maybe. At the same time, the twelve-year operators of the faustars and the unthinkable, self-destructive resistance of the Japanese until the end of the war cast doubt on this. Oh yeah: they also write that the Germans diverted considerable resources to the fight against bombing: they say that the allies shot down 60 000 planes with crosses. True, the German statistics on the production of aircraft and their losses do not confirm this, to put it mildly, but let's not talk about sad things. Let's just say simpler: those 20 000 multi-engine Leviathans that the Allies lost during the raids cost them like a hundred thousand tanks or a hundred thousand fighters. The Nazis lost much less. In fact, post-war historiography retouches the true causes of this air war.
The fact is that the heads of the United States and British Air Forces were not so stupid as to spend the enormous resources of their countries for such dubious goals as "diverting German resources." They quite seriously believed that civilian Germans were afraid of dying before losing their common sense, and the bombs of their planes were falling at least near the target. The truth - as always, unsightly - “came to light” after the Allies began to seize German factories and “understood” what they could find out even in peacetime, simply by measuring the percentage of bombs falling into a square with a side of 100 meters.
The lines from the reports of the generals-aviators literally shouted: “Overlord” is not needed! British commander aviation in January 1944, he assured the military elite of the Allies that, with continued bombing, Germany could be brought into a "state of desolation in which surrender would become inevitable" by April 1, 1944. In this regard, as you understand, Overlord could not be cooked.
In short: strategic bombing is the most fantastic mistake in assessing the technical capabilities of aviation throughout its history. And this is undoubtedly one of the biggest victories of Hitler in his entire career, and one to which he did not put any effort. Such furious resources were spent on the senseless destruction of German cities that really important goals like synthetic fuel factories stubbornly did not attack the pseudo-aviators until May 1944, when the insistent demands of land commanders to paralyze German technicians still forced the Flyers to take up the matter.
3. Than Victory is better than Liberty
In 1918, the little-known submariner Carl Dönitz invented something later called the "wolf pack tactics." This allowed the submarines to win the night victories over the convoys, even when they were defended by warships. If the Germans had used this technique in 1916 – 1917, the First World War could have ended completely differently, because there was nothing to fight with this tactic until the invention of decent radar. Having missed the first chance due to his youth, the second Dönitz did not miss. In World War II, he successfully launched a massive hunt for Allied transports in the Atlantic. Bottom line: 3 500 merchant ships went to the bottom along with millions of tons of cargo such as tanks, ammunition, airplanes, and more.
It is difficult to estimate how far this victory of the United Nations has been. Trying to protect their ships, the Allies increased the number of escort ships, then invented UHF radar and gradually mastered the enemy at sea. But the losses in tonnage were so great that we had to start producing mass ersatz ships “Liberty”, clumsy vessels like “military consumer goods”, with a total tonnage of 38,5 million tons. Traditionally, the release “Liberty” is considered a major success: the allied industry is literally “ showered caps "German submariners.
The reality is a bit sadder. The main instrument of the German war with the convoys were the submarines of the seventh series. Like all suitable for such actions of the submarines of that era, they had the maximum speed in 16 – 17 nodes. Since the "Liberty" gave out miserable 11,0 – 11,5 (consumer goods!), The Germans could catch up with convoys at night, enter them from the nose and flanks, attacking in groups. Even with a speed equal to that of transports, such a tactic would be unrealistic. The obvious conclusion was clear: the speed of merchant ships must be raised. And in February, 1944, Americans are upgrading the project "Liberty" to "Victory" - a new class with a speed of 15 – 17 nodes; some of the ships even guessed to equip with diesel engines (just 43 years, after the construction of the ship "Vandal"). These vessels, at first glance, adequately crowned the technical development of the Allied transports. They could walk alone, and not wait for convoys, moving one and a half times faster, transporting one and a half times more cargo per year, and most importantly, they practically did not suffer losses from submarines, because only two of the half-thousand "Victors" were sunk by Dönitz's subordinates.
Alas, in fact it was one more progress. Back in World War I, faced with attacks by Kaiser submarines, the American Emergency Fleet Corporation approved the draft of the Hog Islander - equipped with steam turbines of the same capacity as the Liberty built in a quarter of a century. Only here their displacement was 40% lower, making the speed equal to 15 nodes - like the steam Victory 1944 built of the year! Because of this speed, they could carry as much per unit of time as the later Liberty, and the speed equal to the best German submarines of the First World War allowed them to act outside the convoys, but ... the war ended earlier. Results: when World War II began, no one remembered the Hog Islander experience, and the Victory concept painfully “gave birth” to three whole years, having completed the series by the time when the Germans had no strength left for large-scale operations of submarines in the Atlantic.
It is not difficult to imagine a different story: the responsible development engineer decided to manufacture Liberty from the very beginning with 16–20 knots of progress, since technically this is a fairly average level for those years. After that, they could walk across the ocean (except for the port areas, in any case protected fleet) unaccompanied, like the Queen Mary liner, which transported 1,5 million people during the war years without clashes with submarines. And the “Battle for the Atlantic” would be much less intense: German submarines simply could not track the enemy’s merchant ships sailing alone, and if they found it would be difficult to overtake them for a night attack.
4. About Hitler's innate adventurism
When the Germans in the 1940 year retained the Vichy collaborationist state on part of French territory, they had already created a plan for its occupation if the Vichyists suddenly decided to join England. The plan was gathering dust on the shelf until November 1942, when the Americans landed in Morocco. And here Hitler asked himself: what would I have done in their place? The answer given by the former corporal to the Kaiser army was quite obvious: he would have landed troops not in god-forgotten Morocco, but in southern France, in Corsica and near Marseille, where the German troops are hundreds of kilometers away. Given the superiority of the allies in material resources, already felt by the fall of 1942, they would obviously have created a major springboard in France before the Germans could reach the landing area. It was then that the “Plan Anton” was implemented: insignificant German forces in southern France, together with low-performing Italian units, occupied Vichists who did not make a single shot.
Another thing is interesting: why did the Allies do not do what Hitler thought was reasonable? The Italian fleet or dive bombers in the vicinity of the landing site were absent (and in any case were too weak). After landing in France, sending reinforcements to North Africa to the troops of Rommel no longer made sense, which would have given the allies control of this part of the world. The few comments of Western historians on this subject sound like this: Hitler, with his characteristic adventurism, would have done so if he were Churchill's place.
And would have won a major victory, we add. Adventurism can only be called an attempt with unsuitable means like Churchill's "ideas" to conquer Germany, disembarking for this in Portugal. Given that the Germans did not have troops to defeat the Allies, and the United States at that time had the total number of amphibious ships that was used in Operation Overlord, all the means available to the Anglo-American forces were quite suitable for such an attempt.
And surely the spontaneous version that came to Hitler’s head was more reasonable than the “non-avantyuristic” landings in Italy, which led to two years of stupid military campaign, which not only did not end with the defeat of the German troops, but also noticeably reduced the load on the Axis fuel reserves. In 1941 – 1943, Italy consumed a significant portion of the liquid fuel that Germany had to give it. The landing of the Allies and the expulsion of Mussolini sharply reduced such costs, in fact, having played more into the hands of the Germans by additional delaying the invasion of France.
5. Could France force the USSR to fight for the Germans?
All the above "alternatives", as we see, describe the story that has already happened, only in terms like "faster", "not so stupid" and "less bloody". Could it be that everything would have turned out to be fundamentally different - and the world around us would have changed beyond recognition?
It seems there was such a moment ... After the USSR attacked Finland in 1939, many Western countries began to consider our country as the aggressor of the level of Hitler's Germany, but not so strong and dangerous. Among other things, in the three months that did not break the insignificant 3-million Finland, which greatly lowered the prestige of the second-rate Red Army, already considered abroad,. As a result, a very unpleasant situation has arisen: despite the fact that France was at war with Hitler, she considered herself burdensome ... in parallel to attack the USSR.
5 February 1940 The Supreme Council of the Allies decided to send 135 000 soldiers to Finland through Norway, but while the allies were “dividing”, the unexpected happened: the USSR stopped the war with Finland, satisfied with taking only a small part of its territory. However, if we recall the scale of the penetration of the Soviet special services into the Western military departments of that time, then the unexpected softness of Stalin can hardly be attributed only to his invisible world of humanity. Then, Hitler, alarmed by the fights of the Allies around the Norwegian ports, for some reason attacked Norway, as if having excluded the possibility of a collision between the Allies and Soviet Russia ...
But, as you understand, the French are brave people, and the difficulties have not stopped them. Having lost the opportunity to strike in Europe, they quickly - by the end of March - made plans to attack the USSR ... from the south. Hit bombers from French Syria around Baku and paralyze oil production in the USSR, and then ... and then we'll see. Such is the level of military planning.
One bad luck: the British doubted. “March 28 England and France again discussed their military strategy and ... on the issue of the bombing of Baku, the views of the parties differed. If France insisted on speeding up this action, then England took a more evasive position, fearing the Soviet-German alliance ... As a result, it was decided to continue preparations for an airstrike on the Caucasus so that "the operation could be carried out without delay, if the corresponding decision is made "". It was also supposed to work out the issue of attracting Iran and Turkey to the attack - in both cases with a negative result, since both the Persians and the Turks reasonably believed that England and France were far away, and the USSR was close. But April 5 MI-6, almost without a fight, conducted aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus: its reconnaissance aircraft flew so high that all the 34 anti-aircraft missiles fired below exploded.
No matter how ridiculous, but in March, 1940 reached a war game in the Soviet headquarters, where the option of attacking the Turkish-Iranian-Anglo-French coalition in the Middle East was considered. In the Transcaucasian Military District, even the editorial boards of the relevant propaganda newspapers, including the English-language ones, have started working. Some planes were caught up there for a thousand, and the bomber units were allowed to draw up plans for strikes against Alexandria, the Suez Canal, Istanbul, Ankara, British Iraq, Haifa. Everything went to war - especially insane against the background of the existence of such a deadly threat to the USSR and its allies, like Nazi Germany.
At the end of April - beginning of May, as if not noticing the German invasion of Norway, the French podzuzhali British soon begin, declaring the readiness of the Syrian airfields to strike at the USSR by the 15 May 1940 year. Fortunately, 10 in May, Hitler launched a lightning operation that ended with the Third Republic being decommissioned from the modern ship, and we never found out whether the descendants of the Gauls were going to attack our country alone, without British support, or it was a bluff.
From that moment, the immediate threat moved away: although the Germans had a lot of fun publishing the trophy plans of the Anglo-French strikes against the USSR, Soviet intelligence even knew about everything, why it wasn’t possible to drive an additional wedge between our country and Britain.
Of course, you say that French military planning was unrealistic. True: the French, like almost the entire world at that time, considered their army as the strongest on the planet, and the USSR as a weak and pitiful state, a kind of eccentric regional power. Only on this basis could an unrealistic plan of war be born by a smaller part of the forces with us, and a larger one with the Nazis. And the plans of air strikes themselves are puzzling: a couple of hundred bombers and the entire 910 tons of bombs ... The Germans, we recall, did not help even the fact that they dropped us a thousand times more.
Nevertheless, it is widely known that Hitler repeatedly doubted the possibility and success of the Norwegian operation of April 1940, and his generals strongly did not believe in the “Fuhrer genius” and did not want to carry out the “unusual operation” conceived by him and Manstein in France. On this basis, the attack on the Gauls was repeatedly postponed by them since the fall of 1939. And, strictly speaking, it could be postponed a couple more times - especially since the generals successfully referred to the lag behind the Anglo-French forces in tanks, especially cannon ones, and decent artillery. Suppose for a moment that the corporal would go on about their commanders and would not do anything for another three months. France and England could - from a great mind - start a war with the USSR, hoping thereby to cut off Soviet deliveries of raw materials to Germany and establish a complete blockade of the latter. What then?
At first glance, this is the end of the story that we know, and the beginning of something completely different. After the Anglo-French attack, the USSR would undoubtedly occupy the Middle East, perhaps British India and Egypt, and God knows what else. If Hitler went to the recognition of these territories for the USSR, our country would de facto be in a state of union with a completely alien to all human Nazi Germany. And it would be very difficult for her to get out of this union.
The only hope for a “normal” development of events can only be that Hitler would have gathered his courage, would have attacked the superior Anglo-French forces and captured France, forcing England Churchill to go closer to the USSR at any cost. Stalin, on the one hand, who feared Germany, and on the other - who did not consider the deserts of the Middle East as too great a value, could also try to “make peace”, although it is not entirely clear how much Hitler would have arranged this scenario. On another scenario - when Winston Churchill would not go to peace negotiations with the USSR - to be honest, I don’t even want to think.
Damn, perhaps, the butterfly effect is still possible - even in the history of human societies? ..
As we noticed the other day, people often feel that story society (humanity), even in such major events as the world war, is the same dynamic chaos as, say, the weather. Remember what the author said the term "butterfly effect"? "The flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil will cause a tornado in the state of Texas." So is it possible to “flap wings” in human history - or is it something else besides dynamic chaos?
So, here are five relatively realistic alternatives for the development of the history of World War II. Judge for yourself whether their effects are similar to the butterfly effect.
1. "First Europe"
Once again: we will talk only about those “alternatives” that were considered as real scenarios of actions by the participants of the Second World War. Therefore, our first story is the “First Europe” scenario. 29 March 1941 at the ABC-1 conference at war England and formally still peaceful US agreed on targets. The priority was recognized "the early defeat of Germany, the main member of the Axis, with the concentration of the main US forces in the Atlantic and Europe." At the same time, the parties agreed that they would only defend themselves against Japan.
In Western historiography, it is often accepted to pretend that the “First Europe” strategy was nevertheless executed. Well, then for their first offensive operation in the Second World War, the United States chose a very successful part of the European climate zone. (Photo by US Navy.)
The Europe first strategy was wise, since the military industry of Japan was a dwarf and the country had no long-term perspectives in the war with the allies. Germany, on the contrary, had enormous potential and in subsequent years expanded military production many times, and also created a whole series of fundamentally new means of warfare (cruise and ballistic missiles, jet fighters and bombers, anti-tank grenade launchers, IR sights, remote-controlled bombs, self-guided torpedoes etc.). The delay with such an adversary could have ended very badly, and the world was still very lucky that, for unclear reasons, Hitler did not use chemical weapon, at that time, two heads superior to the old from the arsenals of the allies.
Nevertheless, when the war with Japan began, the words “First Europe” remained in the strategy, but for some reason they disappeared from life. In the first six months, the United States sent 300 000 soldiers to the Pacific Theater, and 100 000 to Europe. Even by December, 1943 1 873 people, 000 7 aircraft, 857 combat ships, and 713 1 810 people, 367 8 aircraft and 807 aircraft were set against Japan against Japan. Only before landing in Normandy, two and a half years (!) After the States entered the war against Germany, did more people finally fight on this front of the USA than in the battles with Japan. But it was too late.
In fact, the allied landing came at a time when Germany had already spun the flywheel of military production. And the years 1941-1943 critical for it, when it was sharply inferior even to the USSR in the products of the military-industrial complex, were left behind: the favorable moment for a quick turnaround was missed. A couple of numbers: in 1942, the United States produced 26 tanks, Germany - 6. By 200, the American conveyor generally had to slow down due to the lack of major battles with the Germans: production fell to 1944. German in the same year rose to 20, and previously released American tanks were simply outdated by 357 , and therefore did not participate in the battles (and thank God). The same processes took place in other branches of the armed forces: at the end of 19, the number of military equipment of all types among the Germans was several times higher than in 1944–1944. The Allied landing was late by the time when he could break the back of Germany, and therefore only helped to slowly strangle the enemy. The concentration of large forces in Europe and the Anglo-American landing in 1942 precluded the end of the war in 1943: in the middle of the war, the Germans would have nothing to fight immediately near Stalingrad and Normandy.
Why did the Americans themselves, who worked out “First Europe”, abandon this plan? Lack of strength? Hardly. Already in 1942, the United States called for more people than could be used in all combat operations around the world until the end of the war. Further appeal took place "in emptiness", by inertia. By 1945, 12,2 million people were “slaughtered” as many as only 3 million in Europe, and 4,6 million were outside the US, but not in Europe. "First Europe", you are pleased to see. So, already in 1942 and even later, the USA could send as many soldiers to the Old World as needed.
In Soviet times, the question of why the United States made a strategic mistake of this magnitude was solved simply: the allies are just the dead of Dunhergh. The evaluation of the participant in the events, the American staff officer R. Ingersola, was reproduced: “During the war the British tried to direct our military policy to the path that was desirable for them; it was the anti-Russian way [based on a delay in landing in Europe]. They did not succeed in this ... The war was won as a result of a frontal assault on the European continent ... "So the British distracted the Americans from France in order to let the Russians, Ukrainians and others lose their blood, suffering additional million losses, and then get Europe on a platter .
We will not seriously consider this point of view. The British and Americans equally did not want to see Soviet troops in Western Europe. They rightly suspected that, having once occupied a particular country, a Soviet soldier would never leave it. Things reached the point that in May, Churchill was ready to fight 1945 with the USSR - just to throw him out of Germany and Poland. The battle with the USSR would unambiguously bring to the Anglo-American forces losses many times greater than the evils of the war with Germany. At best, Western countries would have received millions of corpses and Bolshevized continental Europe.
Of course, if Churchill was sure that he could land earlier, in 1942 – 1943, he would have done so. Indeed, in this scenario, the USSR would not have had the opportunity to export German industrial funds to the east, nor would it have access to advanced military technology. The latter, by the way, were also needed by the allies, as well as the USSR, which sharply fell behind the Germans in a multitude of industries.
The real reason for the English opposition to the American landing was fear. In 1940, Hitler did not just destroy France, which was considered to be the strongest military power in the world: he had undermined the faith of the British military in his forces for many years to come.
“Why are we trying to do this?” Seriously asked Winston Churchill at the moment of the extremely depressed mood caused by his preparation for Operation Overlord in February 1944 of the year. The leader of the "British Empire" came to the point that instead ... offered to attack Portugal. How this would help defeat Germany is a mystery, especially since they had no common border. Well, say, this is Churchill, according to the well-known characteristic of his German colleague - “drunken alcoholic”. A man who doesn’t have a chance to drink, probably joked ... Alas, apparently, he liked to drink and joke in a populous company.
“I’m still worried about the whole operation,” writes the head of the imperial general staff of Britain Alan Brooke 5 June 1944, one day before landing (!). “At best, it will end with results that are very far from what was expected ... At worst, it may turn out to be the most terrible catastrophe of this war.” Yes, yes, despite the overwhelming superiority of the allies literally in everything.
Why? "Four years of war with the Wehrmacht convinced the British commanders that the Allied forces could defeat their main enemy only under absolutely favorable conditions ... No matter where the British or American troops met with the German forces at about equal strength, the Germans gained the upper hand ... For four Churchill received enough reason to doubt the ability of the British troops to successfully compete with the Germans ... There was no reason to say that the American soldier was able to act more effectively than English "... Alexander wrote from Tunisia to Alan Brooke about the Americans:" They simply do not know their job as soldiers, and this applies to everyone, from the highest to the lowest instances, from the general to the private. Perhaps the weakest link in this whole chain is the junior commander, who simply does not command, with the result that their soldiers do not actually fight. ” Such quotes permeate any honest work about the battles of the Western armies with the Wehrmacht.
British historian Max Hastings unpatriotic, but sums up exactly: “Until the very last weeks before Operation Overlord, its outcome remained the subject of sharp disagreements and debate between the military leaders of England and the United States ... If the US Army were not so determined to land in Normandy It is unlikely that such an operation would be undertaken before the 1945 year. ”
Considering that landing in France due to weather conditions before May is impossible, the Allied troops — if the US were not persistent — would have happened just after Germany’s surrender, and this, alas, is not a meaningless Zadornovsky “humor”, but an unattractive reality. Here is an excerpt from the memorandum of the US military school of the end of 1943 of the year: “Obviously, the British, who have consistently opposed the attack across the English Channel, now believe that Operation Overlord is no longer necessary. In their opinion, the ongoing operations in the Mediterranean area, combined with ... the crushing Russian offensive, will be enough to cause the internal collapse of Germany and thus achieve its military defeat without exposing themselves to what they are convinced will almost certainly be " bloodbath "".
The reluctance of the “bloodbath” was so great that under its weight the Allies eventually waited for the release of the Red Army to the Elbe: the hatred of Bolshevism turned out to be weaker than the fear of the Wehrmacht.
Could the Americans force the British to start landing in 1942 and 1943? Obviously could. If they did not allow themselves to be distracted by minor landings in Morocco in 1942, in Italy in 1943, and similar nonsense. But for this they needed greater determination and perseverance. Was it possible like that? Definitely yes, many leaders of the American people showed both of these qualities in abundance. Alas, did not work out.
Nevertheless, such an alternative development of events was quite real and, undoubtedly, would not only save millions of human lives - mostly Russians, Jewish and Polish - but, perhaps, could have avoided such “wonders of the world” as the Berlin Wall or ride Soviet tanks by GDR citizens in 1953, Hungarians in 1956, and Czechs in 1968.
2. Well, the planes ... the planes - then
In addition to launching the “First Europe” scenario, a tremendous help to all United Nations would bring another solution - not to use strategic bombers in Europe. The fact is that the main stratobombers of type B-17, although they were a real miracle of the technology of their era, cost $ 238 329 per piece. More sophisticated B-29s cost $ 639 188, that is, like a hefty 15-tysyachonny steamship of the Liberty type.
The B-29, the best strategic bomber of its time, like its predecessors, was used by people who believed in fiction of the Shpanov's First Strike level or the Dominion in the Air by J. Douai. The war, as we know, turned out to be quite different. (Photo by USAF.)
You will laugh, but the 3 970 B-29 alone was worth more than all the 2 710 Liberties built for the war. Or as much as 50 000 excellent Mustang fighters, or 50 000 Sherman tanks. The costs of the more numerous B-17 were even higher, but most importantly, they were superfluous. The best results of this type of bomb strikes were recorded in the 1944 year: then 20% of the bombs could be placed in the 300-meter circle. Well, 80% fell generally beyond common sense. More or less, it was only possible to get into the "city" target, with the plants it was much worse ...
Bottom line: at the peak of the bombings, German military production was reduced from them by 17% of the theoretical level it would have reached without such strikes. Physical reduction of military production was achieved only when Soviet and American troops began to seize factories in ground operations ...
But they managed to kill a lot of people. Reliable estimates of the death toll in Germany and Japan - 600 – 800 thousand people. Considering that 2,8 million tons of bombs were spent on this, each dead person demanded many tons of theoretically deadly cargo.
To justify this senseless homicide, it is customary to write that the bombing undermined the fighting spirit of the Axis countries. In Italy - maybe. At the same time, the twelve-year operators of the faustars and the unthinkable, self-destructive resistance of the Japanese until the end of the war cast doubt on this. Oh yeah: they also write that the Germans diverted considerable resources to the fight against bombing: they say that the allies shot down 60 000 planes with crosses. True, the German statistics on the production of aircraft and their losses do not confirm this, to put it mildly, but let's not talk about sad things. Let's just say simpler: those 20 000 multi-engine Leviathans that the Allies lost during the raids cost them like a hundred thousand tanks or a hundred thousand fighters. The Nazis lost much less. In fact, post-war historiography retouches the true causes of this air war.
The fact is that the heads of the United States and British Air Forces were not so stupid as to spend the enormous resources of their countries for such dubious goals as "diverting German resources." They quite seriously believed that civilian Germans were afraid of dying before losing their common sense, and the bombs of their planes were falling at least near the target. The truth - as always, unsightly - “came to light” after the Allies began to seize German factories and “understood” what they could find out even in peacetime, simply by measuring the percentage of bombs falling into a square with a side of 100 meters.
The lines from the reports of the generals-aviators literally shouted: “Overlord” is not needed! British commander aviation in January 1944, he assured the military elite of the Allies that, with continued bombing, Germany could be brought into a "state of desolation in which surrender would become inevitable" by April 1, 1944. In this regard, as you understand, Overlord could not be cooked.
In short: strategic bombing is the most fantastic mistake in assessing the technical capabilities of aviation throughout its history. And this is undoubtedly one of the biggest victories of Hitler in his entire career, and one to which he did not put any effort. Such furious resources were spent on the senseless destruction of German cities that really important goals like synthetic fuel factories stubbornly did not attack the pseudo-aviators until May 1944, when the insistent demands of land commanders to paralyze German technicians still forced the Flyers to take up the matter.
3. Than Victory is better than Liberty
In 1918, the little-known submariner Carl Dönitz invented something later called the "wolf pack tactics." This allowed the submarines to win the night victories over the convoys, even when they were defended by warships. If the Germans had used this technique in 1916 – 1917, the First World War could have ended completely differently, because there was nothing to fight with this tactic until the invention of decent radar. Having missed the first chance due to his youth, the second Dönitz did not miss. In World War II, he successfully launched a massive hunt for Allied transports in the Atlantic. Bottom line: 3 500 merchant ships went to the bottom along with millions of tons of cargo such as tanks, ammunition, airplanes, and more.
The speed of the Hog Islander was equal to the steam "Victory", which appeared on 26 years after it. “Liberty” on this background looks like a dinosaur at all ... (Photo by US Navy.)
It is difficult to estimate how far this victory of the United Nations has been. Trying to protect their ships, the Allies increased the number of escort ships, then invented UHF radar and gradually mastered the enemy at sea. But the losses in tonnage were so great that we had to start producing mass ersatz ships “Liberty”, clumsy vessels like “military consumer goods”, with a total tonnage of 38,5 million tons. Traditionally, the release “Liberty” is considered a major success: the allied industry is literally “ showered caps "German submariners.
The reality is a bit sadder. The main instrument of the German war with the convoys were the submarines of the seventh series. Like all suitable for such actions of the submarines of that era, they had the maximum speed in 16 – 17 nodes. Since the "Liberty" gave out miserable 11,0 – 11,5 (consumer goods!), The Germans could catch up with convoys at night, enter them from the nose and flanks, attacking in groups. Even with a speed equal to that of transports, such a tactic would be unrealistic. The obvious conclusion was clear: the speed of merchant ships must be raised. And in February, 1944, Americans are upgrading the project "Liberty" to "Victory" - a new class with a speed of 15 – 17 nodes; some of the ships even guessed to equip with diesel engines (just 43 years, after the construction of the ship "Vandal"). These vessels, at first glance, adequately crowned the technical development of the Allied transports. They could walk alone, and not wait for convoys, moving one and a half times faster, transporting one and a half times more cargo per year, and most importantly, they practically did not suffer losses from submarines, because only two of the half-thousand "Victors" were sunk by Dönitz's subordinates.
Alas, in fact it was one more progress. Back in World War I, faced with attacks by Kaiser submarines, the American Emergency Fleet Corporation approved the draft of the Hog Islander - equipped with steam turbines of the same capacity as the Liberty built in a quarter of a century. Only here their displacement was 40% lower, making the speed equal to 15 nodes - like the steam Victory 1944 built of the year! Because of this speed, they could carry as much per unit of time as the later Liberty, and the speed equal to the best German submarines of the First World War allowed them to act outside the convoys, but ... the war ended earlier. Results: when World War II began, no one remembered the Hog Islander experience, and the Victory concept painfully “gave birth” to three whole years, having completed the series by the time when the Germans had no strength left for large-scale operations of submarines in the Atlantic.
It is not difficult to imagine a different story: the responsible development engineer decided to manufacture Liberty from the very beginning with 16–20 knots of progress, since technically this is a fairly average level for those years. After that, they could walk across the ocean (except for the port areas, in any case protected fleet) unaccompanied, like the Queen Mary liner, which transported 1,5 million people during the war years without clashes with submarines. And the “Battle for the Atlantic” would be much less intense: German submarines simply could not track the enemy’s merchant ships sailing alone, and if they found it would be difficult to overtake them for a night attack.
4. About Hitler's innate adventurism
When the Germans in the 1940 year retained the Vichy collaborationist state on part of French territory, they had already created a plan for its occupation if the Vichyists suddenly decided to join England. The plan was gathering dust on the shelf until November 1942, when the Americans landed in Morocco. And here Hitler asked himself: what would I have done in their place? The answer given by the former corporal to the Kaiser army was quite obvious: he would have landed troops not in god-forgotten Morocco, but in southern France, in Corsica and near Marseille, where the German troops are hundreds of kilometers away. Given the superiority of the allies in material resources, already felt by the fall of 1942, they would obviously have created a major springboard in France before the Germans could reach the landing area. It was then that the “Plan Anton” was implemented: insignificant German forces in southern France, together with low-performing Italian units, occupied Vichists who did not make a single shot.
After landing in southern France in November 1942, the allies would not only get a foothold in Europe, but would also seize many serviceable French ships, eventually sunk in Toulon. (Ill. Wikimedia Commons.)
Another thing is interesting: why did the Allies do not do what Hitler thought was reasonable? The Italian fleet or dive bombers in the vicinity of the landing site were absent (and in any case were too weak). After landing in France, sending reinforcements to North Africa to the troops of Rommel no longer made sense, which would have given the allies control of this part of the world. The few comments of Western historians on this subject sound like this: Hitler, with his characteristic adventurism, would have done so if he were Churchill's place.
And would have won a major victory, we add. Adventurism can only be called an attempt with unsuitable means like Churchill's "ideas" to conquer Germany, disembarking for this in Portugal. Given that the Germans did not have troops to defeat the Allies, and the United States at that time had the total number of amphibious ships that was used in Operation Overlord, all the means available to the Anglo-American forces were quite suitable for such an attempt.
And surely the spontaneous version that came to Hitler’s head was more reasonable than the “non-avantyuristic” landings in Italy, which led to two years of stupid military campaign, which not only did not end with the defeat of the German troops, but also noticeably reduced the load on the Axis fuel reserves. In 1941 – 1943, Italy consumed a significant portion of the liquid fuel that Germany had to give it. The landing of the Allies and the expulsion of Mussolini sharply reduced such costs, in fact, having played more into the hands of the Germans by additional delaying the invasion of France.
5. Could France force the USSR to fight for the Germans?
All the above "alternatives", as we see, describe the story that has already happened, only in terms like "faster", "not so stupid" and "less bloody". Could it be that everything would have turned out to be fundamentally different - and the world around us would have changed beyond recognition?
It seems there was such a moment ... After the USSR attacked Finland in 1939, many Western countries began to consider our country as the aggressor of the level of Hitler's Germany, but not so strong and dangerous. Among other things, in the three months that did not break the insignificant 3-million Finland, which greatly lowered the prestige of the second-rate Red Army, already considered abroad,. As a result, a very unpleasant situation has arisen: despite the fact that France was at war with Hitler, she considered herself burdensome ... in parallel to attack the USSR.
On the 1939 caricature of the year, there is only one exaggeration: the characters depicted did not embrace at all with each other. But the Soviet aggression in Finland and the Anglo-French plans for the spring of 1940, could make this sad picture extremely real.
5 February 1940 The Supreme Council of the Allies decided to send 135 000 soldiers to Finland through Norway, but while the allies were “dividing”, the unexpected happened: the USSR stopped the war with Finland, satisfied with taking only a small part of its territory. However, if we recall the scale of the penetration of the Soviet special services into the Western military departments of that time, then the unexpected softness of Stalin can hardly be attributed only to his invisible world of humanity. Then, Hitler, alarmed by the fights of the Allies around the Norwegian ports, for some reason attacked Norway, as if having excluded the possibility of a collision between the Allies and Soviet Russia ...
But, as you understand, the French are brave people, and the difficulties have not stopped them. Having lost the opportunity to strike in Europe, they quickly - by the end of March - made plans to attack the USSR ... from the south. Hit bombers from French Syria around Baku and paralyze oil production in the USSR, and then ... and then we'll see. Such is the level of military planning.
One bad luck: the British doubted. “March 28 England and France again discussed their military strategy and ... on the issue of the bombing of Baku, the views of the parties differed. If France insisted on speeding up this action, then England took a more evasive position, fearing the Soviet-German alliance ... As a result, it was decided to continue preparations for an airstrike on the Caucasus so that "the operation could be carried out without delay, if the corresponding decision is made "". It was also supposed to work out the issue of attracting Iran and Turkey to the attack - in both cases with a negative result, since both the Persians and the Turks reasonably believed that England and France were far away, and the USSR was close. But April 5 MI-6, almost without a fight, conducted aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus: its reconnaissance aircraft flew so high that all the 34 anti-aircraft missiles fired below exploded.
No matter how ridiculous, but in March, 1940 reached a war game in the Soviet headquarters, where the option of attacking the Turkish-Iranian-Anglo-French coalition in the Middle East was considered. In the Transcaucasian Military District, even the editorial boards of the relevant propaganda newspapers, including the English-language ones, have started working. Some planes were caught up there for a thousand, and the bomber units were allowed to draw up plans for strikes against Alexandria, the Suez Canal, Istanbul, Ankara, British Iraq, Haifa. Everything went to war - especially insane against the background of the existence of such a deadly threat to the USSR and its allies, like Nazi Germany.
At the end of April - beginning of May, as if not noticing the German invasion of Norway, the French podzuzhali British soon begin, declaring the readiness of the Syrian airfields to strike at the USSR by the 15 May 1940 year. Fortunately, 10 in May, Hitler launched a lightning operation that ended with the Third Republic being decommissioned from the modern ship, and we never found out whether the descendants of the Gauls were going to attack our country alone, without British support, or it was a bluff.
From that moment, the immediate threat moved away: although the Germans had a lot of fun publishing the trophy plans of the Anglo-French strikes against the USSR, Soviet intelligence even knew about everything, why it wasn’t possible to drive an additional wedge between our country and Britain.
Of course, you say that French military planning was unrealistic. True: the French, like almost the entire world at that time, considered their army as the strongest on the planet, and the USSR as a weak and pitiful state, a kind of eccentric regional power. Only on this basis could an unrealistic plan of war be born by a smaller part of the forces with us, and a larger one with the Nazis. And the plans of air strikes themselves are puzzling: a couple of hundred bombers and the entire 910 tons of bombs ... The Germans, we recall, did not help even the fact that they dropped us a thousand times more.
Nevertheless, it is widely known that Hitler repeatedly doubted the possibility and success of the Norwegian operation of April 1940, and his generals strongly did not believe in the “Fuhrer genius” and did not want to carry out the “unusual operation” conceived by him and Manstein in France. On this basis, the attack on the Gauls was repeatedly postponed by them since the fall of 1939. And, strictly speaking, it could be postponed a couple more times - especially since the generals successfully referred to the lag behind the Anglo-French forces in tanks, especially cannon ones, and decent artillery. Suppose for a moment that the corporal would go on about their commanders and would not do anything for another three months. France and England could - from a great mind - start a war with the USSR, hoping thereby to cut off Soviet deliveries of raw materials to Germany and establish a complete blockade of the latter. What then?
At first glance, this is the end of the story that we know, and the beginning of something completely different. After the Anglo-French attack, the USSR would undoubtedly occupy the Middle East, perhaps British India and Egypt, and God knows what else. If Hitler went to the recognition of these territories for the USSR, our country would de facto be in a state of union with a completely alien to all human Nazi Germany. And it would be very difficult for her to get out of this union.
The only hope for a “normal” development of events can only be that Hitler would have gathered his courage, would have attacked the superior Anglo-French forces and captured France, forcing England Churchill to go closer to the USSR at any cost. Stalin, on the one hand, who feared Germany, and on the other - who did not consider the deserts of the Middle East as too great a value, could also try to “make peace”, although it is not entirely clear how much Hitler would have arranged this scenario. On another scenario - when Winston Churchill would not go to peace negotiations with the USSR - to be honest, I don’t even want to think.
Damn, perhaps, the butterfly effect is still possible - even in the history of human societies? ..
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